Kathy Rose-Mockry, director of the Emily Taylor Center, opens Tuesday evening's Title IX talk. This talk was an installment in the center's Jana Mackey Distinguished Lecture Series. Subscribe to our podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or anywhere you get podcasts. Columnist Alex Cateforis revisits the recent visit of writer Walter Mosley to campus, and explains that though the reconciliation between the era of Trump and political optimism seems impossible, local and state initiatives keep hope alive. Contributed by Dan Weber, President of the Association of Mature American Citizens Progressives have gotten cocky in recent months and are letting it all hang out, not so much of the good but a lot of the bad and the ugly. Want proof? The states of New York and Virginia recently cast a bright light on their obscene views on life that progressives there have. New York managed to enact the countrys first Birth Day Abortion bill and Virginias Governor Ralph Northam got a little too graphic about his take on efforts in his state to legalize extreme third-trimester abortions. Northam riled the country and the mainstream members of his Democratic Party when he graphically described what many interpreted as the proposed legalization of infanticide in new abortion legislation. The bill, which has been tabled in the Virginia House of Delegates, would allow abortions to take place right up until the natural birth of a fetus. A broad-based backlash ensued when Northam described for reporters how a born alive abortion might proceed. If a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen. The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that's what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother. The Democratic Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, meanwhile, defiantly basked in that states socialist limelight as he signed a new law ironically labeled the Reproductive Health Act. This ill-conceived decree is not about health; its about death. Cuomo, who calls himself a Catholic, incurred the wrath of Timothy Cardinal Dolan, the Archbishop of New York, who described the law as a ghoulish radical abortion-expansion law. Dolan called the new law an insult, pointing out that it allows for an abortion right up to the moment of birth; drops all charges against an abortionist who allows an aborted baby, who somehow survives the scissors, scalpel, saline and dismemberment, to die before his eyes; mandates that, to make an abortion more convenient and easy, a physician need not perform it; and might even be used to suppress the conscience rights of health care professionals not to assist in the grisly procedures. The insanity of it all is alarming. The new generations, the Millennials and the younger Generation Z, as they are called, seem to choose extreme positions on social issues, including abortion. And, they applaud such laws that help them thumb their noses at mainstream Americans. Are these youngsters, who were lucky enough not to have been aborted before or at birth, adopting a cavalier view of life, in general? Will they be in the forefront of a movement to allow what is called Organ Donor Euthanasia [ODE]? Wesley J. Smith is an author and a senior fellow at the Discovery Institutes Center on Human Exceptionalism. He recently published an article in the National Review about the notion of legalized killing for the purpose of collecting organs to meet a demand for transplants. Lest you think ODE is the stuff of science fiction, Smith notes that: The worlds most respected bioethicists have published serious articles in influential medical journals urging that doctors be allowed to harvest cognitively disabled patients while they are alive. Smith concluded his report with the chilling hope that the public never be ready to accept doctors taking a living patient who may not even be physically ill into a surgical suite, anesthetizing him, and then harvesting his beating heart. If newborn babies can be murdered at birth, what chance will old folks have in their twilight years. None of the developments Ive described bodes well for future senior citizens. But, perhaps there is a glimmer of hope that our lawmakers can come to their senses, at least some of them. Senator Ben Sasse [R-NE], for example, who tried to introduce a bill to protect babies born alive after an abortion attempt. Despite the fact that the measure was co-sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Democrats managed to block it. But, the message came through loud and clear: pro-abortionists face a ferocious opposition among lawmakers and voters. Especially, if they engage in efforts to lift all restrictions on procedures to kill fetuses and live babies. Meanwhile, the right to life movement appears to be getting a boost in spite of progressive attempts to make murder legal. In fact, we are encouraged by the hundreds of thousands of pro-life young men and women who participated in this years Right to Life March in Washington. And, we were proud to sponsor attendance by the University of Idaho branch of Students for Life, a national organization that that boasts 1,200 branches at colleges and universities across the nation. These members of the new generations and the perseverance of lawmakers like Ben Sasse give us hope for the future. NOW AVAILABLE All indoor training? We've got a plan for that. Find training plans created by our IRONMAN U Certified Coaches that keep you on track. Find Your Plan The Apple Watch is a successful device for the company behind it, due in part for its significant health-related features. The latest iteration of the smartwatch, the Apple Watch Series 4, for instance, added an ECG app to keep even better tabs on heart conditions. And Apple as a whole sees the health field, and the impact the company can have on it and its users, as one of the most important contributions it will have on the worlds population. So a new report from CNBC detailing a new hire to focus on womens health shouldnt be too surprising. According to the report, Apple recently hired obstetrician Dr. Christine Curry in a focused effort on womens health: Apple has hired dozens of doctors to work across a variety of projects, including its so-called AC Wellness clinics for Apple employees and its health-tracking Apple Watch. Curry has a particular interest in womens health, but shell be working on various issues across the health teams, one of the people said. At the time of publication, however, Dr. Curry has yet to update her connected LinkedIn profile to reflect any sort of change in career. In the past, Dr. Curry has been the go-to doctor for pregnant women, especially those inflicted by the Zika virus in Southern Florida. This sounds like a huge hire for Apple if it is indeed true. Apple continues to make big strides in the health-related field, so this is obviously a major focal point for the company. Will it work out? It seems to be so far. [via CNBC Recently it was reported that some of the most popular iOS apps out there use a secret screen recording feature for analytics. In those cases, the fact that those apps are able to record screen taps, swipes, and even record the whole screen while the app is being used goes unnoticed by the user. Thats because the developer of the screen recording feature doesnt force its employees to inform anyone that they use the feature. And the apps themselves dont directly divulge that the screen recording feature is baked in, even if it is just for analytics. Now, as reported by TechCrunch, Apple has told app developers that they have two options: Either remove the screen recording code altogether or properly disclose its built into the app iOS users are using. An Apple spokesperson weighed in on the subject: Protecting user privacy is paramount in the Apple ecosystem. Our App Store Review Guidelines require that apps request explicit user consent and provide a clear visual indication when recording, logging, or otherwise making a record of user activity. We have notified the developers that are in violation of these strict privacy terms and guidelines, and will take immediate action if necessary. Some of those apps in question include Hollister, Expedia, Hotels.com, and many others. Glassbox is the analytics tool that works cross-platform that the app developers are integrating into the apps in question. And it isnt a secret that Apple goes out of its way to forbid this sort of thing from happening, so app developers have been trying to skate under the radar here while implementing the feature. Whats worse is that not only are these apps skirting the App Store rules, but they are knowingly duping the customer, too. Of course, one cant happen without the other, so here we are. Still, its good that Apple was quick to respond on this one, just as it was when it was discovered that Facebook was ignoring the App Store rules to collect user data. Google, of course, was discovered to be doing the same thing. Did you stop using these apps for now? [via TechCrunch Opinion Policies Editorials are longer opinion pieces that are written by a group of community members recruited across campus who address relevant issues on a local, national and international level. Editorials are research-based. The purpose of the Editorial Board is to promote discussion concerning relevant issues in the community while advising on possible solutions. Topics are chosen via relevancy and interests of the members, which are then discussed by the Editorial Board in order to reach a general consensus concerning the topic or issue. Feedback policy If you have a grievance concerning the content or argument of the Editorial Board, please contact either Opinion Editor Peyton Hamel (peyton.hamel@iowastatedaily.com) or the Editorial Board as a whole (editorialboard@iowastatedaily.com). Those wanting to respond to editorials can also submit a letter to the editor through the Iowa State Daily website or by emailing the letter to Opinion Editor Peyton Hamel (peyton.hamel@iowastatedaily.com) or Editor-in-Chief Sage Smith (sage.smith@iowastatedaily.com). Column Policy Columns are hyper-specific to opinion and are written by only columnists employed by the Iowa State Daily. Columnists are unique because they have a specific writing day and only publish on those writing days. Each column undergoes a thorough editing process ensuring the integrity of the writer, and their claim is maintained while remaining research-based and respectful. Columns may be submitted from community members. These are labelled as Guest Columns. These contain similar research-based content and need to be at least 400 words in length. The following requirements should be met: first and last name, email and relation or position to Iowa State. Emails must be tied to the submitted guest column or it will not be accepted or published. Pseudonyms are prohibited and the writer will be banned from submissions. Read our full Opinion Policies here. Updated on 10/7/2020 Jeffrey Hall, associate professor of communication studies at the University of Kansas, introduces the five styles of flirting to an audience Thursday at the Memorial Union. "When we don't know what to do we call on scripts," Hall said to illustrate the potential reason why so many young adults use the traditional approach when flirting. Items of clothing from the Business Attire Pop-Up Shop on Sept. 12, 2018. The event was created out of concerns students had about not having funding for business outfits to wear to interviews, business fairs and internships. George Akumes feud with Sanuel Ortom can best be described as a case of political god fatherism gone bad. Akume, who was the immediate past governor of Benue state hand picked Ortom as his successor until the duo fell out and have been at each others neck ever since. Akume who is now in the senate fired the first shot when he revealed during a presidential campaign rally for Muhammadu Buhari in Benue on Wednesday, February 6. He said Today, there is one governor in the north-central Nigeria, (a perceived jab at Ortom) who is richer than Buhari and has more money than Buhari in just three-and-a-half years of being a governor. However, Ortom while replying him yesterday said Akume stole N2bn when he was leaving the Government house in 2007 and have not been arrested and prosecuted just because he is a member of the rulling All Progressive Congress(APC). Former presidential candidate of the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria, ACPN, Dr Obiageli Ezekwesili may be having the most unpleasant of times at the moment and a lot on her plate to deal with. The former minister of education had withdrawn from the 2019 presidential race, a little while ago because according to her, her partys values were no longer in line with her core values and wouldnt want to compromise her integrity just so she could run for presidency. While the drama continues after her withdrawal from the presidential race, with the ACPN threatening to drag her to court, if she doesnt return their campaign funds then another problem pops up. Ezekwesili, had with the help of other people convened a Red Card Movement, RCM, with the mission to send the two major parties, All Progressives Congress, APC and Peoples Democratic Party, PDP out of the political space for good before she ever joined the presidential race. However, in a shocking statement by the co-chair, Dr.Tony Akabuno, it said the RCM has decided to support Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, presidential and vice presidential candidate of the PDP a very sharp deviation from its vision and purpose. Reacting via Twitter on Friday, Ezekwesili says the co-chair speaks for himself and not the entire movement and accused him of stealing the twitter handle of the movement. She wrote: The world should ask this fellow which other Co-Conveners from the 10 are with them on this perfidious and ignoble agenda? @RedCardMng has not and shall never endorse APCPDP. The world should ask this fellow why he stole the Twitter Handle of @RedCardMng ? The Red Card Movement (RCM) has thrown Nigerians into deep shock after it announced that it has distanced itself from one of its co conveners, Oby Ezekwesili and declared support for Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party,PDP. The RCM was set up by Oby Ezekwesili and some other Nigerians to give a red card to the Siamese twin parties, APC and PDP That have continued to recycle themselves in power. So, the shock when they announced their support for one of the parties, for which they were established to oust out, couldnt be quantified. In a statement by the co-chair, Dr.Tony Akabuno, it said the decision was borne out of the need to help rescue Nigeria and believe this can be possible with Atiku/Obi and PDP. See full statement We have come today to tell the world and our members, that the state champions, the co-chair (Dr.Tony Akabuno) and other co-conveners have dissociated from Oby Ezekwesili and today declares support for the Atiku/Obi presidency. This decision is being made today, because we need to help rescue Nigeria. We are not members of PDP, but this is about Nigeria First. We are also by this statement, directing our hundreds of thousands of members to take action and begin to canvas for votes for Atiku/Obi ticket under PDP. The main work starts now, because we shall keep canvassing until the campaign stops. Our strategy will add over 20 million votes to Atiku/Obi ticket. We know what to do, after this media briefing. It will be our joy, if all other parties currently not in CUPP can join hands with Atiku/Obi to dislodge Buhari. Let us avert any vote splitting. Our mandate is BUHARI MUST GO! This is not negotiable. Signed: Dr. Tony Akabuno Co-chair of RCM Egyptian politician Mohamed Abul-Enein has called for the establishing of an international institute to spread religious tolerance, and for global reform of religious discourse to foster tolerance and religious fraternity. Speaking at the UAEs Global Conference of Human Fraternity this week, he said that religious discourse should be reformed worldwide, and that parliaments and the UN should enact legislation under the umbrella of Islams Al-Azhar and the Vatican to criminalise defaming religions. He also called for the establishment of an international institute which joins all religions together to reform misconceptions and spread tolerance between religions. The MP, who is alsothe Euro-Mediterranean Parliament's honorary speaker, said that the visit made by Pope Francis to Egypt in April 2017 delivered a strong message of tolerance and harmony between religions. He highlighted that Egypts President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi was the first to call for the renewal of religious discourse. The Global Conference of Human Fraternity took place in Abu Dhabi, with the participation of Al-Azhars head Ahmed El-Tayyeb and Pope Francis. The conference resulted in the Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together, signed by both men, which pledges fraternity between their respective institutions and joint work to fight extremism. Short link: Vanguard PEOPLES Democratic Party, PDP, House of Representatives candidate for Warri North Federal Constituency, Delta State, Chief Thomas Ereyitomi and Chairman, Warri North Local Government Area, Mr Aduge Okorodudu, have called on Deltans to guarantee fairness in 2019 by re-electing Governor Ifeanyi Okowa. Thisday The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), has arrested a suspected drug trafficker in an alleged bid to smuggle out 77 wraps of Cocaine, weighing one kilogram. The Sun Less than a week when retired military generals pledged to support President Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressive Congress (APC), on his re-election bid; ahead of the presidential elections slated for February 16, the Social Democratic Party (SDP), has adopted him as its consensus candidate Daily Times For failing to appear before a Federal High Court, Ikoyi, Lagos on Thursday, a former Minister of State for Defence, Senator Musiliu Obanikoro, was threatened by Justice Mojisola Olatoregun, to order his arrest and send him to jail. Guardian Standard-bearer of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Delta State, Great Ogboru, yesterday urged the electorate to hold him accountable if he fails to deliver as governor. Leadership Ahead of the February 16 and March 2, elections wife of the gubernatorial candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Gombe State, Hajiya Maryam Bayero Nafada on Thursday commence tour to the 11 local government areas in the state to solicit support for the PD Daily Trust The Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN) has asked its former Presidential candidate for this years election and former Minister of Education, Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili, to return of all monies generated during her short stint with the party, or face court action. The Nation A 23-year-old unemployed man, John Chimobi, who allegedly trespassed into a mechanic workshop and vandalised three cars at gunpoint, yesterday appeared at an Ikeja Magistrates Court. Tribune The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has announced the suspension of its three-month-old strike from midnight of Friday, February 8, after meeting with Federal Government, its President, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, has said. Popular musician and record label owner turned politician, Olubankole Wellington, simply known and addressed as Bank W is the latest celebrity to have weighed in on the now trending Lekki rape case. The culprits, Razaq Oluwaseun Oke and Don-Chima George are accused of raping and filming a 23 years old lady. The news making the round is that the police have released the accused and have also deleted the video evidence. Lagos Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Dolapo Badmus, however released a statement today debunking such and affirmed that the culprits are still in detention. Banky W, while taking to his twitter handle has charged to authorities to be diligent in the pursuit of justice for this case. He submitted by saying We are watching. His reaction: A Supreme Court has ruled against an Appeal Court judgement, which said the ruling All Progressives Congress can field candidates(National Assembly and governorship) in Rivers State in the forthcoming elections. The Friday decision by the supreme court, noted that the appeal court didnt invoke relevant sections of the law in nullifying the Federal High Court which had barred APC from fielding candidates in Rivers state. The basis upon which the appeal court arrived at its decision was also questioned by the supreme court, and why it set aside the high courts decision that APC shouldnt participate in the 2019 elections in the state. The presidential candidate of the Alliance for Democracy (AD), Prince Eniola Ojajuni had stepped down from the race and declared support for the presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC), Omoyele Sowore. This was made known by Ojajuni in a press statement signed by him and his campaign team in Lagos on Thursday, according to Sahara Reporters. He stated that Sowore remains the best man for the job, judging by the candidates who are currently in the race and as such was ready to work with Sowore to take Nigeria to its promised land. Read statement below I stepped down because we want to create alternatives for PDP and APC and also to encourage other political parties to join Omoyele Sowore, because he has what it takes to take Nigeria to glory and move the country forward, so as to bring the dignity of the country back, Ojajuni said. The party leaders are aware and they are fully in support of my decision. Alliance for Democracy (AD) is a well structured party; 85 per cent are with me and they are ready to back me up,2 he added. According to him, is only motive for adopting Sowore is because Nigeria needs a candidate with integrity and credibility that would serve the interest of Nigerians. Im not one of those youth that will support a party because of money. If I want money, I would have supported either APC or PDP. I cant support those two parties because they are the ones that have looted the whole economy. It is only in Nigeria a 40-year-old man will still be living in his fathers house and lots of graduates are roaming the streets without jobs. The same set of leaders that have been ruling us for the past 60 years are still the ones ruling. How can someone who is 85 years old want to determine my life at 40? We are not desperate for money, position or power. We are just desperate to take Nigerians from poverty and to take this country back from the looters who have plundered the economy to dryness. I believe in the integrity of Omoyele Sowore and that the youth can do it. Im assuring the party of over four million votes across the country. I now use this medium to urge every youth to come out on February 16 to support Omoyele Sowore, because I really believe in him and the party. By Adam Garrie February 07, 2019 " Information Clearing House " - During Sundays Super Bowl, American and many international viewers witnessed the debut of an advertisement for the Washington Post. The Tom Hanks narrated advertisement spoke of the ideal values of honest journalism, before paying tribute to journalists who had lost their lives in recent years, including the Saudi born Jamal Khashoggi who had worked for the Washington Post prior to his murder inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. But when it comes to journalists being harmed inside the consulates or embassies of foreign nations, there is one incredibly brave journalist, publisher and peace activist who continues to rot inside the tiny chambers of Ecuadors Embassy in London. Julian Assange founded Wikileaks in late 2006 in order to expose the war criminality and other misdeeds of the powers that be. Among his most important and one of his first major breakthroughs was his publication of US Army whistle-blower Chelsea Mannings leaks regarding the extent of the atrocities committed by US and allied forces in Iraq. Since then, Wikielaks has exposed the grim realities of the Guantanamo Bay concentration camp, campaign fraud in the United States, intelligence agencies spying on innocent civilians and even fellow world leaders, geo-economic corruption and illegal political meddling by the US into the affairs of sovereign nations. Crucially, not a single item that Julian Assange has published has ever been challenged on a factual basis. This is something that is unheard of in journalism and is a record of which Assange can be proud. And yet instead of being granted a Nobel Peace Prize for opening the eyes of the world to the criminality that occurs under the fog of war, instead of being granted major journalistic awards for his commitment to holding authority to account, Assange instead languishes in a small room with no access to the outdoors. Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter Assange is a prisoner of conscious whose only option is to trade his present prison cell for an even less humane one and almost certainly execution shortly thereafter. It must never be forgotten that Hillary Clinton once remarked that Assanges execution should be conducted with a military grade drone. Imagine if a Saudi politician said this about a dissident journalist? The Washington Post might actually feign shock in such an instance, but this was not the case when a major US politician said so about Julian Assange. Julian Assange is beyond a shadow of a doubt, not just the greatest journalistic figure of this age, but of all time. No one has shown an ability to better harness cutting edge technology to tell world changing truths that would have been far more easily suppressed in a previous epoch. But because Assanges publications could not be suppressed, instead the powers that be decided to suppress, repress and oppress the man. For nearly a year, Assange has been cut off from his single lifeline to the outside world the internet, as Ecuadors President Lenin Moreno has conspired to stab Assange in the back rather than pursue the humanitarian cause of his predecessor, former President Rafael Correa, a man who is now himself persona non grata in Ecuador due to Morenos decision to abrogate the policies of his predecessor. Assange has not been exposed to the light of day for nearly seven years. Over the last year in particular, doctors who have visited Assange offered reports detailing his severe degradation in both physical and mental health. Whilst the Washington Posts advertisement convoyed some pleasant ideals, those who have followed the last three years in US politics are aware that the open feud between Donald Trump and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos was self-evidently one of the main motivators for the Washington Post to purchase some of the worlds most expensive air time during the Super Bowl. In reality, the Washington Posts advertisement was little more than the worlds most expensive attempt to troll Donald Trump. Clearly it worked as Donald Trump Jr. offered Bezos the response he apparently sought to provoke. You know how MSM journalists could avoid having to spend millions on a #superbowl comercial to gain some undeserved credibility? How about report the news and not their leftist BS for a change. Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) February 4, 2019 But while US television screens and computer screens are being dominated by a family feud between two ultra-wealthy Americans, Julian Assange is being left alone both physically and metaphorically. The Washington Posts slogan is democracy dies in darkness. And yet, a man called Julian Assange tried to democratically empower men and women throughout the world with knowledge and as a result Julian Assange is literally dying in darkness. Adam Garrie is Director at Eurasia future and co-host of The History Boys with George Galloway. This article was originally published by " Eurasia Future " - Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here ==See Also== Note To ICH Community We ask that you assist us in dissemination of the article published by ICH to your social media accounts and post links to the article from other websites. Thank you for your support. Peace and joy By Finian Cunningham February 07, 2019 " Information Clearing House " - President Trump plugged his troop pullout from Syria in the State of the Union address, but he didnt sound convincing. Meanwhile, the Pentagon and Congress are intensifying the pushback for US military to remain in the region. Trump cheers troop pullout... Pentagon says pull the other one In his annual set-piece speech before lawmakers, Donald Trump continued to portray the defeat of the Islamic State terror group in Syria as a uniquely American achievement; just like he sought moments earlier in his opening remarks to triumphantly recount the Second World War as another great liberation by US military. It seemed more a triumph of PR over substance and historical facts. On Syria, he said it was time to give our brave warriors a warm welcome home. This was a follow-up vow to Trumps surprise announcement on December 19 when he then ordered the withdrawal of some 2,000 US troops stationed in Syria. However, his Syrian plan sounds suspiciously hollow and non-committal. It was notable that Trump did not give any details or timeframe for the purported drawdown of American forces from Syria. The matter was only briefly touched on in his address, which seems rather strange given that the defeat of ISIS is supposed to be a historic victory for his presidency. Elsewhere, US officials are reported as confirming that the pullout from Syria is underway. But there seems to be little evidence on the ground for the evacuation actually taking place. Indeed, Turkish media are reporting a build-up of US equipment in northeast Syria from across the border in Iraq. Though, that recent contingency could be part of an effort to ensure an eventual safe withdrawal of American personnel from Syria. Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter For his part, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan this week expressed growing impatience with the lack of movement by US forces from Syria, an arrangement which he had reportedly worked out with Trump in December before the latters pullout announcement was made. Russias President Vladimir Putin has previously cast doubts about the much-vaunted American withdrawal plan from Syria. On Trumps pullout announcement in December, Putin indicated he wasnt convinced the plan touted by Trump meant a straightforward removal of US military from the region; a region where tens of thousands of American forces have been present for decades, strewn across several countries, with giant air and naval bases in Kuwait, Iraq, Qatar, and Bahrain. Ahead of Trumps address to the nation, the Pentagon and lawmakers within the presidents Republican party appeared to intensify efforts to ensure American military forces remain in Syria. Only hours before Trumps speech Tuesday, General Joseph Votel, the top military commander for US forces in the Middle East, told the Senate Armed Forces Committee that ISIS presents an enduring terror threat in Syria and Iraq. He warned, we have to keep the pressure on this network. The general was thus raining on the Commander-in-Chiefs rhetorical victory parade. Also on Tuesday, the Republican-controlled Senate voted by a wide margin for legislation that will block any abrupt withdrawal of US troops from Syria or Afghanistan. Again, the ongoing security risk of terrorism was cited. The bill is sure to get approval when it goes next to the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives, partly out of a reflexive desire to snub anything initiated by Trump. This week also saw a Pentagon internal watchdog report on operations in Syria and Iraq which very much talked up the threat of a resurgence by ISIS following any US troop withdrawal. The report acknowledged Trumps pullout plan but the brief acknowledgment in the introductory remarks seemed to be lip service. The main thrust of the Pentagon document was a warning of resurgence by ISIS within six to twelve months without sustained counter-terrorism by American forces. It also cited objectives, other than defeating terrorists, for US troops remaining in Syria, including, the removal of weapons of mass destruction [WMD] and countering Iranian-backed forces. The WMD reference is no doubt to alleged chemical weapons which the US has blamed Syrian government forces for using. Given credible claims this week that US-backed White Helmets terror-affiliated agents have been transporting dangerous chemicals near Khan Shaykhun in Idlib Province, it can be assumed that the WMD pretext for US forces remaining in Syria will be long-lasting. The vague reference to countering Iranian-backed forces is also another blank check for the Pentagon to find excuses for maintaining a presence in Syria. In any case, even Trumps personal view of a military pullout from Syria is not the genuine homecoming of American forces one might presume. Last weekend, the president revealed in a CBS interview that many of the troop numbers purportedly coming out of Syria will be redeployed to American bases in Iraq. He alluded to the huge base at Ayn al Asad in Western Iraq, where he made an unannounced visit in December. We spent a fortune on this incredible base [in Iraq], we might as well keep it, said Trump. He added that US forces in Iraq were perfectly situated to keep a watch on Iran and the entire region for American interests. In addition, the US military would be staying to protect Israel. Trumps comments caused a furore in Iraq. Iraqi President Barham Salih said it was unacceptable for his country to be used to keep a watch on Iran. Other Iraqi lawmakers denounced Trumps violation of their sovereignty by unilaterally making plans that exceed the bilateral arrangement with Washington, which is officially for the specific purpose of fighting terrorism. There are an estimated 5,000 US troops in Iraq, as well as large numbers of private security contractors. Trump is letting the cat out of the bag. The forces he is apparently planning to pull out of Syria and Afghanistan are not intended to come home. The move is not an overall reduction of the American military in the region. It is more an entrenchment of military power primarily on Iraqi territory. No doubt such a move appeals to Trumps instincts as a businessman for cost-cutting and rationalizing. How could we expect it any other way? The permanent military-industrial-congressional complex is too embedded in Americas political economy for any consideration of winding down overseas operations. The apparent drawdown of US soldiers in one country or another provides a bit of good news in the mainstream media of a victory homecoming. But the reality is that the same numbers, or more, will be redeployed elsewhere, in this case, Iraq. Or perhaps Venezuela. Commander-in-Chief Trump may indulge in a rhetorical ticker-tape welcome for our brave warriors. The reality is, however, that the Pentagon and bipartisan War Party in Washington are doubling down to make sure there is always a rationale for massive military expenditure and deployment in the Middle East. American imperialist ambitions, especially in the oil-rich Middle East, are not responsive to a presidents orders. They are a systematic imperative for sustaining US corporate capitalism. For these reasons, American forces are not leaving the Middle East in a supposed end to endless wars. US power is addicted to endless wars. Finian Cunningham has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages. He is a Masters graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in newspaper journalism. He is also a musician and songwriter. For nearly 20 years, he worked as an editor and writer in major news media organisations, including The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent. This article was originally published by " RT " - Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here ==See Also== Note To ICH Community We ask that you assist us in dissemination of the article published by ICH to your social media accounts and post links to the article from other websites. Thank you for your support. Peace and joy By Bill Van Auken February 07, 2019 " Information Clearing House " - US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued an ultimatum to the Venezuelan government of President Nicolas Maduro on Wednesday, demanding that it throw open its borders to a US-orchestrated scheme to deliver humanitarian aid. Washingtons aim is either to provoke a fissure within the countrys armed forces or set the stage for a US-led military intervention. The Venezuelan people desperately need humanitarian aid, Pompeo tweeted. The US & other countries are trying to help, but #Venezuelas military under Maduros orders is blocking aid with trucks and shipping tankers. The Maduro regime must LET THE AID REACH THE STARVING PEOPLE. The sudden concern for the starving people of Venezuela comes from a US government that has systematically worked to strangle the Venezuelan economy, imposing a financial blockade in August 2017 and an oil embargo last week. The embargo aims to block all sales to and from the state-owned energy company PDVSA, threatening the country with the loss of its main source of foreign exchange and its ability to import food and medicine. Washingtons intention is unmistakable. It seeks to starve the Venezuelan population into submission, render the country ungovernable and carry through a regime-change operation to install a right-wing puppet government. To that end, the US government sponsored a political coup launched on January 23 with Juan Guaidos self-swearing in as interim president, a stunt worked out in advance with the Trump administration. Washington immediately recognized Guaido, an operative of the extreme right, US-funded Voluntad Popular (Popular Will) party, who had been suddenly elevated to the presidency of the opposition-controlled National Assembly on the eve of the coup. The Trump administration at the same time declared the Maduro government illegitimate. The right-wing governments of Latin America, along with Canada and the major European powers, have followed suit in what amounts to a criminal and predatory scramble for control over Venezuelas oil reserves, the largest of any country on the planet. Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter Guaido and the Venezuelan right, working in close collaboration with the CIA and the State Department, have launched a noisy public campaign over the aid promised by Washington ($20 million), Canada (US$40 million) and the European Union (US$5 million), demanding the opening of a humanitarian corridor and declaring that supplies are on the verge of arriving in the Colombian border city of Cucuta and must be brought into Venezuela under the right-wing oppositions control, without hindrance. The main target of this propaganda campaign is the Venezuelan military, which constitutes a key pillar of the Maduro government and has thus far failed to desert it. The Twitter account of the National Assembly led by Guaido has kept as its lead message: Now is the time, soldier of the fatherland! Are you going to deny humanitarian aid to your mother? Guaido, meanwhile, tweeted on Wednesday that in the coming hours, we will give the scope and possibilities of the humanitarian aid, to the National Armed Forces I say: let this aid in because it is for your families too. The Venezuelan militarys reaction to this campaign has been to block the major bridge linking Cucuta in Colombia with Urena in Venezuela, parking a tanker truck and two large containers across the bridges three lanes. The pretense that truckloads of food and medicine brought to the Colombian-Venezuelan border will reverse the profound economic and social crisis prevailing in Venezuela is absurd. The aid, whenever it may arrive, is a classic Trojan Horse, directed not at alleviating the suffering of the Venezuelan people but at provoking either a military coup or an armed confrontation. Both the Red Cross and Caritas, the Catholic Church-affiliated aid group, have refused to participate in any operation involving the US humanitarian corridor, citing their principles of neutrality and independence. The foreign ministers of both Colombia and Brazil, the two countries that border Venezuela where the US has proposed to open up its humanitarian corridors, were in Washington Tuesday for discussions with Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton. The latter appeared at a press conference last week carrying a notepad with the words 5,000 troops to Colombia written on it. Undoubtedly, the preferred US option is to provoke a social, economic and political crisis in Venezuela of such magnitude that the military changes sides, overthrowing Maduro and lining up behind a US puppet regime. Failing to achieve this outcome, however, as Trump has repeatedly stated, the option of a US military intervention remains on the table. The US president reiterated his recognition of the legitimate government of Guaido in his State of the Union address Tuesday, to applause from both Republicans and Democrats, whose principal leaders have endorsed the US coup attempt. The American corporate media, meanwhile, has fallen into line behind Washingtons regime-change operation in the same manner as it did in advance of the US wars in Iraq, Libya and elsewhere. On cue from the State Department, the White House and the CIA, it is broadcasting reports on hunger in Venezuela and casting Maduro as a villain for failing to throw his borders open to the US aid. Maduro, who heads a bourgeois government that defends private property and the interests of both domestic and foreign finance capital, has appealed to the Pope to mediate between his government and the US-backed right-wing opposition. It has welcomed the intervention of a contact group organized by Uruguay and Mexico, with the participation of Bolivia, Ecuador, Costa Rica and eight members of the European Union (Spain, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden and the UK), which is convening in Montevideo today to seek a peaceful way out of the crisis. For its part, however, the right-wing opposition led by Guaido, acting on orders from Washington, has rejected any dialogue or negotiated settlement, demanding unconditional regime-change and counting on US military might to achieve it. Underlying this intransigence is the determination of US imperialism to assert its hegemony over the most oil-rich country in the world and to roll back the influence of China and Russia, which both have extensive economic and military ties with Caracas. The threat of Venezuela becoming a flashpoint for a major confrontation between the worlds principal nuclear-armed powers is real and growing. The New York Times published an editorial Wednesday generally supporting the overthrow of the Maduro government, but expressing the nervousness that exists within sections of the US ruling establishment over the extremely bellicose policy being pursued against Venezuela. In part because of the Trump administrations all-in support for regime-change, the crisis has become a dangerous global power struggle, the Times warned. Thats the last thing Venezuelans need. Citing the ties between Caracas and Moscow and Beijing, the Times states, It is very much in American and Western interests to free Venezuela from such unholy alliances through negotiations between supporters of Mr. Guaido and Mr. Maduro. And should such negotiations not be forthcoming? Clearly, there is ample reason for concern within ruling layers over another US war for regime-change, given the abject and bloody failure of previous such military adventures in Iraq and Libya to achieve any tangible gains for US imperialist interests. But in the end, the American ruling class as a whole is embarked on a course in Venezuela that can only produce a bloodbath and the imposition of the kind of dictatorship that was brought to power by the CIA and the Pentagon in Chile, Argentina and elsewhere in Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s, combined with the threat of a far wider war. The working class in the United States, Europe and internationally must reject the humanitarian and democratic pretensions of both Washington and the European powers with contempt and unite with the working class of Venezuela and Latin America as a whole in a struggle against imperialist intervention and capitalism. This article was originally published by " WSWS " - Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here ==See Also== Note To ICH Community We ask that you assist us in dissemination of the article published by ICH to your social media accounts and post links to the article from other websites. Thank you for your support. Peace and joy February 07, 2019 " Information Clearing House " - A Reuters news article on 1 February said that the US, Canada and several Latin American governments claim Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro stole his second-term election in May 2018. They have therefore recognized an opposition legislator Juan Guaido as Venezuelas interim president. Wait a second. Do they say Maduro stole the election from Guaido? That wouldnt make sense. Because Guaido didnt even run in the 2018 presidential election. Henri Falcon was the opposition politician who finished a very distant second in that election, over four million votes (47%) behind Maduro. Nobody has shown or even attempted to show that any votes, never mind millions of votes, were stolen from Falcon. In Venezuelas electoral system, a very small amount of ballot stuffing is detectable in any contested election. Thats why, in 2012, Jimmy Carter said the electoral system was the best in the world. That soundness of the electoral system helps to explain the vitriol Falcon received from other Maduro opponents over his decision to run in the election. US officials threatened Falcon with sanctions if he ran. During the campaign, one of Falcons top advisors became exasperated enough to publicly ask the opposition party Voluntad Popular (Guaidos party) to stop spreading lies that a secret pact existed between Maduro and Falcon. Falcon is a very well known politician who actually ran Of course, ballot stuffing aside, an election can be grossly unfair in other ways. Much was made about two prominent opposition candidates who were disqualified from running: Leopoldo Lopez and Henrique Capriles. So was Falcon an obscure politician (like Guaido was before Trump anointed him as Venezuelas president) who was allowed to run only because he would be easy to beat? Not according to Venezuelan pollster Datanalisis. Thats the opposition-aligned pollster the international media has cited the most for nearly two decades. A few months before the election, Datanalisis claimed Falcon, a former two-term governor of the Lara state (2008-2017), was basically in a statistical tie with Lopez for top stop in popularity among opposition leaders. Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter Guaido was not even mentioned by the pollster Its worth recalling that, in Brazil, the election of fascist Jair Bolsonaro was recognized by the governments that now refuse to recognize Maduro, even though former Brazilian president Lula da Silva (who would have had a superb chance to win) was disqualified and imprisoned based on extremely dubious corruption allegations. Moreover, unlike Capriles and Lopez, da Silva was not involved with several US-backed efforts to violently overthrow the government. Falcons problem was on his own side Was Falcon denied access to media coverage during the election? No. He and his economic advisor, Francisco Rodriguez, travelled all over the country and appeared on Venezuelas top private TV networks, where they lashed out at Maduro. In fact, Falcon launched his campaign with a 35-minute speech on Venezuelan state TV, in which he skewered Maduro as the hunger candidate who had turned the people into impoverished slaves. After Falcon lost, he then insisted on a new vote despite having passionately urged people to vote because he had obtained electoral guarantees. The election was moved back by a month as demanded. His allegation was that the government had bribed voters at puntos rojos (tents set up near electoral centers which are used for exit polling). But there are a few gaping holes in that story. First, votes are secret in Venezuela, so offers of a chance at a prize or other inducements at these puntos rojos can, at best, increase turnout, but not the governments share of the vote. Second, there were four different groups of observers who monitored the election, and they concluded it was clean. Their reports are here, here, here and here. Third, economic sanctions and threats by the US government were a massive attempt to sway the electorate to send the message that voting for Maduro will bring intensified economic sanctions (which, in addition to being illegal, were already killing people). Also, US interference in Venezuelas election certainly makes a joke of alleged Russian collusionwith Trump in the 2016 presidential election that has received so much frenzied media attention. A laughable constitutional argument So why wasnt Falcon recognized by Trump? Whats the argument for Trump anointing Guaido? The US recognizes the 2015 national assembly election won by the opposition as it would definitely have recognized the 2018 presidential election had Falcon won. And part of article 233 of the Venezuelan constitution says that if the president abandons his post, the president of the national assembly takes over until new elections are held. Guaido was very recently named the national assembly president. Clearly, Maduro did not abandon the presidency by soundly beating Henri Falcon in a clean election that was marred, if anything, by murderous US interference. Its also clear that Trump (and his Iraq-style coalition of the willing to oust Maduro) is not Venezuelas Supreme Court. This article was originally published by " Venezuel Analysis " - Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here ==See Also== Venezuelan Opposition Begins to Fissure as US Military Threats Mount Note To ICH Community We ask that you assist us in dissemination of the article published by ICH to your social media accounts and post links to the article from other websites. Thank you for your support. Peace and joy By Thomas L. Knapp February 07, 2019 " Information Clearing House " - On January 28, home invaders murdered 58-year-old Rhogena Nicholas and 59-year-old Dennis Tuttle of Houston, Texas. Nicholas and Tuttle wounded five of the (numerous) armed burglars before being slain. Thats not how the news accounts put it, of course. Typical headline (from the Houston Chronicle): 4 HPD officers shot in southeast Houston narcotics operation, a fifth injured. A number of claims relating to the fateful no-knock raid remain in dispute, not least whether or not Nicholas and Tuttle were, as the search warrant leading to the raid alleged, selling heroin from their home (their neighbors characterized them as quiet people who didnt have lots of company, and scoffed at the notion that they might be drug dealers). Setting aside those disputes, lets give the benefit of doubt to Houston police chief Art Acevedo on two things. Acevedo says that his officers announced themselves as Houston police officers while simultaneously breaching the front door. And Acevedo admits that immediately upon breaching the front door, one of the officers shot and killed the residents dog. Ask yourself this: If armed men break down your front door and shoot your dog, are you going to notice (if you can even hear) the invaders saying police, police? Are you going to just automatically believe the claim even if you do hear and notice it? Or are you going to act to defend yourself? It was only after the officers violent entry and after one officer killed their dog that Tuttle shot and wounded the dog-killer and Nicholas attempted to disarm him. Both paid with their lives for their forlorn resistance to a gang of armed invaders. Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter Naturally, Acevedo blames the victims and the availability of guns with which mere civilians might conceivably defend their homes and their lives from violent intruders. No, the cops didnt find any heroin on the premises, although they did claim to have found marijuana and a white powder that Acevedo thought might be cocaine or fentanyl. No, neither Nicholas nor Tuttle had criminal pasts which might have justified a John Dillinger style takedown. Tuttle had no criminal record at all. Nicholas had a single (dismissed) bad check charge on hers. The Houston PD brought guns, battering rams, and overwhelming force to what they didnt even expect to be a knife fight. It was supposed to just be a quick episode of law enforcement theater, a show of force to show the mere mundanes whos in charge. That it went terribly wrong isnt on the victims. Its on Acevedo and company, and on Gordon G. Marcum II, the judge who signed a warrant specifying that police were hereby authorized to dispense with the usual requirement that you knock and announce your purpose before entering the residence. Acevedo, Marcum, and the officers at the sharp end of the stick will never be charged with armed criminal action and conspiracy to commit same. But they should be. And we need a much higher bar for no-knock warrants, if theyre to be allowed at all. Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism ( www.thegarrisoncenter.org ). He lives and works in north central Florida. Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here ==See Also== Note To ICH Community We ask that you assist us in dissemination of the article published by ICH to your social media accounts and post links to the article from other websites. Thank you for your support. Peace and joy Venezuela - U.S. Aid Gambit Fails - War Plans Lack Support By Moon Of Alabama February 07, 2019 " Information Clearing House " - A day after the U.S. coup attempt in Venezuela the U.S. game plan was already quite obvious: The opposition in Venezuela will probably use access to that 'frozen' money to buy weapons and to create an army of mercenaries to fight a 'civil' war against the government and its followers. Like in Syria U.S. special forces or some CIA 'contractors' will be eager to help. The supply line for such a war would most likely run through Colombia. If, like 2011 in Syria, a war on the ground is planned it will likely begin in the cities near that border. bigger The U.S. is using the pretext of 'delivering humanitarian aid' from Columbia to Venezuela to undermine the government and to establish a supply line for further operations. It is another attempt to pull the military onto the coup plotter's side: [I]f the trucks do get across, the opposition can present itself as an answer to Venezuelas chronic suffering, while Mr. Maduro will appear to have lost control of the countrys borders. That could accelerate defections from the ruling party and the military. Dimitris Pantoulas, a political scientist in Caracas, called the oppositions aid delivery plan a high-stakes gamble. ... This is 99 percent about the military and one percent about the humanitarian aspects, he said. The opposition is testing the militarys loyalty, raising their cost of supporting Maduro. Are they with Maduro, or no? Will they reject the aid? If the answer is no, then Maduros hours are numbered. A New York Times op-ed by a right-wing former foreign minister of Mexico, Jorge G. Castaneda, details the escalation potential: According to Mr. Guaido and other sources, $20 million in American medicines and food will be unloaded this week just outside Venezuelan territory in Cucuta, Colombia; Brazil, and on a Caribbean island either Aruba or Curacao near the Venezuelan coast. Venezuelan military officials and troops in exile will then move these supplies into Venezuela, where if all goes well, army troops still loyal to Mr. Maduro will not stop their passage nor fire upon them. If they do, the Brazilian and Colombian governments may be willing to back the anti-Maduro soldiers. The threat of a firefight with their neighbors might just be the incentive the Venezuelan military need to jettison Mr. Maduro, making the reality of combat unnecessary. Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter This escalation strategy is unlikely to work unless some additional provocation is involved. The Venezuelan government blocked the border bridge between Cucuta in Colombia and San Cristobal in Venezuela. Its military stands ready to stop any violation of the country's border. The U.S. responded to the blocking of the road with a sanctimonious tweet: Secretary Pompeo @SecPompeo - 16:55 utc - 6 Feb 2019 The Venezuelan people desperately need humanitarian aid. The U.S. & other countries are trying to help, but #Venezuelas military under Maduro's orders is blocking aid with trucks and shipping tankers. The Maduro regime must LET THE AID REACH THE STARVING PEOPLE. #EstamosUnidosVE The U.S. government, which actively helps to starve the people of Yemen into submission, is concerned about Venezuela where so far no one has died of starvation? The lady ain't gonna believe that. The Venezuelan military has shown no sign of interest to change its loyalty. The fake aid will be rejected. The government of Venezuela does not reject aid that comes without political interference. Last year it accepted modest UN aid which consisted mostly of medical supplies from which Venezuela had been cut off due to U.S. sanctions. The UN claimed that around 12 percent of Venezuelans are undernourished. But such claims have been made for years while reports from Venezuela (vid) confirmed only some scarcity of specific products. There is no famine in Venezuela that would require immediate intervention. The International Red Cross, the Catholic church's aid organization Caritas and the United Nations rejected U.S. requests to help deliver the currently planned 'aid' because it is so obviously politicized: "Humanitarian action needs to be independent of political, military or other objectives," UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters in New York on Wednesday. ... "What is important is that humanitarian aid be depoliticised and that the needs of the people should lead in terms of when and how humanitarian aid is used," Dujarric added. Rejecting aid out of political reasons is not unusual. When the hurricane Katrina in 2005 caused huge damage along the U.S. gulf coast, a number of countries offered humanitarian and technical aid. U.S. President Bush accepted help from some countries, but rejected aid from other ones: An offer of aid from the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, which included two mobile hospital units, 120 rescue and first aid experts and 50 tonnes of food, has been rejected, according to the civil rights leader, Jesse Jackson. Mr Jackson said the offer from the Venezuelan leader, whom he recently met, included 10 water purification plants, 18 power generation plants and 20 tonnes of bottled water. The U.S. intent to establish a 'humanitarian aid' supply line into Venezuela has a secondary purpose. Such aid is the ideal cover for weapon supplies. In the 1980s designated 'humanitarian aid' flights for Nicaragua were filled with weapons. The orders for those flights were given by Elliot Abrams who is now Trump's special envoy for Venezuela. While the trucks from Colombia are blocked at the border other 'humanitarian aid' from the United States reached the country. Officials in Venezuela have accused the US of sending a cache of high-powered rifles and ammunition on a commercial cargo flight from Miami so they would get into the hands of President Nicolas Maduro's opponents. Members with the Venezuelan National Guard [GNB] and the National Integrated Service of Customs and Tax Administration [SENIAT] made the shocking discovery just two days after the plane arrived at Arturo Michelena International Airport in Valencia. Inspectors found 19 rifles, 118 magazines and 90 wireless radios while investigating the flight which they said arrived Sunday afternoon. Monday's bust also netted four rifle stands, three rifle scopes and six iPhones. The pictures show sufficient equipment for an infantry squad. Fifteen AR-15 assault rifles (5.56), one squad automatic weapon (7.62) with a drum magazine, and a Colt 7.62 sniper gun as well as accessory equipment. What is missing is the ammunition. Where one such weapon transport is caught multiple are likely to go through. But to run a war against the government pure weapon supplies are not enough. The U.S. will have to establish a continuous supply line for heavy and bulky ammunition. That is where 'humanitarian aid' convoys come in. Unless a large part of the Venezuelan military changes sides, any attempt to overthrow the Venezuelan government by force is likely doomed to fail. The U.S. could use its full military might to destroy the Venezuelan army. But the U.S. Senate is already quarreling about the potential use of U.S. forces in Venezuela. The Democrats strongly reject that. A Senate resolution to back Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido, once expected to get unanimous support, has been torpedoed by a disagreement over the use of military force, according to aides and senators working on the issue. ... I think its important for the Senate to express itself on democracy in Venezuela, supporting interim President Guaido and supporting humanitarian assistance. But I also think it should be very clear in fact that support stops short of any type of military intervention, [Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J.] told NBC News. It is unlikely that Trump would order a military intervention without bipartisan support. The a clandestine insertion of a mercenary 'guerrilla' force into Venezuela is surely possible. Minor supply lines can be established by secret means. But, as the war on Syria demonstrates, such plans can not be successful unless the people welcome the anti-government force. Under the current government most people in Venezuela are still better off than under the pre-Chavez governments. This lecture and this thread explain the economic history of Venezuela and the enormous progress that was made under Chavez and Maduro. The people will not forget that even when the economic situation will become more difficult. They know who is pulling the strings behind the Random Guy Guaido who now claims the presidency. They know well that these rich people are unlikely to better their plight. U.S. politicians are making the same mistakes with regards to Venezuela as they made with the regime change wars on Iraq and Syria. They believes that all people are as corrupt and nihilistic as they are. They believe that others will not fight for their own believes and their own style of life. They will again be proven wrong. This article was originally published by " Moon Of Alabama " - Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here ==See Also== Note To ICH Community We ask that you assist us in dissemination of the article published by ICH to your social media accounts and post links to the article from other websites. Thank you for your support. Peace and joy The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House. Marine chronometers survive to remind us of a time when travelling was a genuine adventure and never something that is done for pleasure. It is in this difficult context that the watchmaking industry learned to travel and understand the needs of those who were away from home for many months. Later came the question that seemed simple: What time is it here? It was the start of a long road towards global time. Although the origin of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) dates back to 1675, we had to wait another 200 years for GMT to become the standard time in Great Britain. Thanks to whom? To trains and the dawn of mass transit. Trains revolutionised the notion of timekeeping more than any other means of transport. First they made travelling more affordable. Then they created new needs, like the need to know what time the train arrives. The answer to this simple question is much more complicated than it seems. Because it depends on the time of departure (and therefore the place), the speed, local time etc. This problem, which we have all had to solve at school, is one of the fundamentals of travel time. The British were the first to have a unified time from 1880. But across the Atlantic, with the conquest of the West, the problem of time zones became critical. Contrary to what many people believe, the adventure of transcontinental trains in North America started in the West, and specifically in the town of Sacramento. The idea was to disenclave the emerging California and to move East. The gigantic project took more than six years and linked Sacramento with Omaha, thus opening up the possibility of crossing the US safely in just over a week. While travellers in Great Britain had the same time throughout the country, crossing the USA added a new problem. What time was it in Boston, Omaha or Sacramento? And how could these three times be coordinated, connected or measured? This question, asked in 1863, received an operational answer in 1883, when the USA was divided into five time zones. At the same time, the question also became global and aimed to incorporate all times across the world using the same rule. First of all, a reference time was needed so that the differences from it could be measured. Achieving this involved a number of political debates (between British GMT and Paris mean time), endless discussions on the intervals (one hour or a half hour), the boundaries and geopolitical changes. But in the end, between the start of the 20th century and the 1930s the world started to talk the same time language, over 250 years after the Royal Observatory was built in Greenwich. But the story doesnt end there. First, one small object changed the way we communicated. It was the telephone. Invented in 1876, it became international in 1927 with the first call between New York and London. In 1931 it was possible to call countries in the Pacific from the USA. And what was the first question asked in these calls? What time is it where you are?. That was it! Time became tangible and time zones were now visible without moving from where you were. The third stage in the adventure of time zones involved the air. The increasing importance of aeroplanes as a means of transporting passengers sped everything up. It was only after the second world war that travel started to become more democratic. Bigger, faster and more reliable aircraft were capable of crossing the oceans, hopping across borders and changing time even quicker than with the train. Not only did people travel faster, they travelled further. The time difference the result of the combination with a change in time zone and the speed at which this change happens was born. But it wasnt just that. New requirements emerged, like the need to change the time quickly on ones watch, or to see departure and arrival times at the same time. Rolex invented the first genuine travel watch with the GMT Master. This watch, launched in 1954, allowed its wearer to read two time zones simultaneously. It was the result of a cooperation between Rolex and Pan Am (for its pilots) and was above all a professional instrument. But it didnt remain so for long and quickly found a home on the wrists of the first global citizens. Then, we just needed to wait for progress to continue. Bigger planes (the 747 was launched in 1969), widespread use of the telephone, the appearance of television and the increase in world trade. Planes filled up, prices dropped. The civilisation of leisure was born. Cinema and television allowed people to see the world. Now they just had to discover it. Today, our trusty old time zones are still there. GMT watches are everywhere, the iPhone indicates the time everywhere and at all times. Since 1954, watchmakers have never stopped thinking about how to make world time more visible, easier to read and more accessible. The World Time complication was invented by Emmanuel Cottier in 1894 and its first commercial implementation came in the Vacheron Constantin 3372. Then there was the first wristwatch to feature the function, the Patek Philippe Worldtimer 515HU. Today, GMT watches are everywhere. Some brands try different approaches and want to push the limits of world time measurement. Carl F. Bucherer is one of them. And its TravelTec is worth the trip Why Carl F. Bucherer? What is the coolest journey you can make? Time travel! If you like cinema and you are very attentive, you might have noticed that Cable the best enemy or the worst friend of Deadpool is capable of travelling through time thanks to a Carl F. Bucherer watch! If you need to hide a list of secret agents and get it across the Berlin Wall a few days before it falls, then a Carl F. Bucherer once again does the job (Atomic Blonde). And guess which watch you need to wear to strike at a megalodon in a lost corner of the ocean? Yet again a Carl F. Bucherer (The Meg Li BingBing wears a ScubaTec). And I wont even mention John Wick or Fast & Furious. But Carl F. Bucherer isnt a Hollywood brand! It was born in Lucerne in 1888 on the initiative of Carl Friedrich Bucherer. Today, 130 years later, it remains an independent and something that is rare enough that it is worth noting family-owned brand. The brands creations alternate between neo-vintage (the Adamavi on a mesh bracelet), classic (the beautiful Manero Flyback and Manero Peripheral) and avant-garde (the TravelTec and the ScubaTec). For a number of years the brand has had a more aggressive marketing and business strategy and has been more and more visible. It has a number of arguments to seduce genuine watch lovers and is worth taking a closer look at. I have to admit that, for a long time, Carl F. Bucherer was not one of the brands on my bucket list. I had a passive interest in some of their watches, but none of them appealed to me enough to try them on or buy them. But only fools never change their mind and it was a TravelTec that I saw on the wrist of a passenger on a flight to Kuala Lumpur that made me change mine. The TravelTec is a travellers watch on steroids (the watch, not the traveller!) and cannot leave you indifferent once you understand it. The Carl F. Bucherer Patravi TravelTec Black: Travel Freak! Not one, not two but three time zones! And a chronograph, too. All in a matt black case with seductive round lines and a diameter of almost 47mm. The Patravi TravelTec catches your eye because of its look, but impresses you because of its technical prowess. If you are looking for a simple watch that is easy to wear or discreet, move on. The Patravi TravelTec Black is made to be noticed. Its its thickness that impresses as much as its diameter. At almost 16mm, it is competing in the heavyweight category. Patravi TravelTec Black Carl F. Bucherer Its case is solid, black and fitted with two crowns and two chronograph pushers. The latter are rectangular, solid and perfectly integrated into the case. A crown at 10 oclock is used to set the third time zone. Everything else is done using the time-setting crown. The dial is worthy of an Airbus A380 cockpit. It is complex, but in a good way. Once you have actually understood it, its quite easy to read. Close-up of the dial Carl F. Bucherer There are two graduated bezels with a 24-hour scale, three chronograph counters, a date, a GMT hand and three hands for the hours, minutes and seconds. Its easier to discover the watch IRL (In Real Life). Just remember that the two bezels can be used to read two different time zones. The third is local time. The Carl F. Bucherer Patravi TravelTec is driven by a movement based on an ETA 2894 but considerably modified by the THA (Techniques Horlogeres Appliquees) workshops that have been part of the company since 2007. The fact that this movement, launched in 2005, has been around for 13 years is testament to its solidity and performance. Case back view Carl F. Bucherer The movement is not visible through the case back but you can see it through a small window on the side of the case at 9 oclock, which is a choice that is as original as it is attractive. You can see the movement working from an angle that is not usually on offer. The Carl F. Bucherer Patravi TravelTec comes with a choice of black rubber strap or stainless-steel bracelet. I would advise against the steel bracelet because it weighs down a watch that is already quite chunky. The rubber strap is by far the best option and underscores the watchs sporty character. This Patravi TravelTec is a sniper that has its target in its sights. It doesnt do things by halves. You either like it or you dont, and thats it. And thats why it deserves your attention. What does the devils advocate think? Too big, too complicated, too heavy, too much of everything? We could criticise a lot of things about this Carl F. Bucherer TravelTec. But it is solid enough and sure enough of itself not to be bothered too much. The Carl F. Bucherer Patravi is uncomprising and the devils advocate will just have to accept that! Nevertheless, a case in titanium or ceramic wouldnt hurt, neither would a strap in canvas or sail canvas, which would have accentuated the tool watch aspect. A slightly smaller logo on the dial would have free up some more space, too. The three chronograph counters could have been finished in a more discreet way to show off the multi-GMT function better. The main criticism but its a classic one for any travel watch is the inability to deal with some time zones where the difference is only 30 minutes. This is one of the last frontiers for watch brands to cross. And I would like the Carl F. Bucherer teams to find a solution that is as bold as the rest of the TravelTec! Its over to you... How to wear the Carl F. Bucherer Patravi TravelTec in travel mode? So its time to fly off to discover the world, or at least three of its time zones. If you happen to be at Tom Bradley terminal in Los Angeles and you are about to board a 15-hour flight, its better to be comfortable and well equipped. So no shirt, but a T-shirt and it must be long-sleeved. The air conditioning in a Boeing 787 can have you holed up in bed without warning. My favourite is the Uniqlo in Supima Cotton, in white or grey. Another vital accessory: a lightweight multipurpose scarf. I love the ones from Zadig et Voltaire and I never travel without a Delta camo or a navy-blue Skull. If you are hoping to get some sleep you need to think above all about comfort and movement: so you either need denim with a high percentage of elastane (my favourites are Levis 501 stretch or Jacob Cohen in light fabric) or high-quality jogging pants (Brunello Cucinelli or Ralph Lauren Purple Label, both in anthracite, which is the easiest colour to match). There is nothing better than a pair of Zegna Imperia sneakers for your feet. They look like normal sneakers (with laces) but they are in fact slip-ons, which is very practical when you keep having to take them off and put them back on again. For the compulsory blazer, try a Traveler model from Boss, Loro Piana or a 10-pocket by Zegna. Choose a crease-resistant and lightweight fabric (ideally with a mix of silk). To carry all your other belongings, a Rimowa suitcase in black aluminium would match your Patravi TravelTec perfectly. Another interesting option could be the Louis Vuitton Horizon 55 in black leather with a red handle. There you go. The plane has just taken off. Sit back and relax. On the screen, Cable is about to head off in search of his past, with his steampunk-style Carl F. Bucherer on his wrist. What time is it? Here or there? Tulsi Gabbard Is Driving The MSM Bat Shit Crazy By Caitlin Johnstone February 07, 2019 " Information Clearing House " - When Tulsi Gabbard announced her plans to run in the 2020 presidential election, I predicted that it would disrupt war propaganda narratives and force a much-needed conversation about US interventionism, but I didnt realize that it would happen so quickly, so ubiquitously, and so explosively. Gabbard officially began her campaign for president a mere three days ago, and already shes become the front line upon which the debate about US warmongering is happening. Even if you oppose Gabbards run for the presidency, this should be self-evident to you by now. This dynamic became more apparent than ever today in Gabbards appearance on MSNBCs Morning Joe, hosted by spouses Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski. It should here be noted since were talking about war propaganda that in 2009 Scarborough turned down an easy run for the US Senate because he decided that he could have more influence on public policy as the host of Morning Joe than he could as one of 100 US senators, which tells you everything you need to know about why I focus more on US mass media propaganda than I do on US politics. It should also be noted that Brzezinski is the daughter of the late Carter administration cold warrior Zbigniew Brzezinski, whose influential ideas about US world domination, arming extremist factions to advance US interests, and hawkish agendas against Russia continue to infect US foreign policy to this day. Mika is part of a political dynasty, with both brothers being US political insiders as well. So if youve ever wondered how outlets like MSNBC keep everyone on message and fully in alignment with the US war machines agendas, theres a good insight into how. Combine that with the way they stock their punditry lineup with US intelligence community insiders and fire any pundit who refuses to toe the military-industrial complex line, and its not hard to see how theyve developed such a tight echo chamber of hostility toward any resistance to US interventionism. Which explains what were about to discuss next. Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter The journalist interrogating Tulsi seems to believe that US forces in Syria are fighting Assad. Tulsi corrects her, says those troops were deployed there to fight ISIS. These people dont even know whats happening in the places they want the US to occupy pic.twitter.com/YWIbSVqePA Rania Khalek (@RaniaKhalek) February 6, 2019 Morning Joes pile-on against Gabbard began when the subject of Syria came up, and panelist Kasie Hunt instantly began losing her shit. Do you think Assad is our enemy? Hunt interrupted during Gabbards response to a question about her meeting with Syrias president in 2017, her voice and face both strained with emotion. Assad is not the enemy of the United States because Syria does not pose a direct threat to the United States, Gabbard replied. What do you say to Democratic voters who watched you go over there, and what do you say to military members who have been deployed repeatedly in Syria pushing back against Assad? Hunt replied, somehow believing that US soldiers are in Syria fighting against the Syrian government, which would probably come as a shock to the troops whove been told that they are there to defeat ISIS. Journalist Rania Khalek summed up this insanity perfectly, tweeting, The journalist interrogating Tulsi seems to believe that US forces in Syria are fighting Assad. Tulsi corrects her, says those troops were deployed there to fight ISIS. These people dont even know whats happening in the places they want the US to occupy. This is such an embarrassing look at the state of corporate American regime media, tweeted journalist Max Blumenthal. @kasie doesnt know the most basic facts about Syria and along with the smug co-hosts, doesnt care to learn. This is such an embarrassing look at the state of corporate American regime media. @kasie doesnt know the most basic facts about Syria and along with the smug co-hosts, doesnt care to learn. https://t.co/dEfJbVEcaD Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) February 6, 2019 And it didnt get any better from there. After Gabbard took some time to explain to a professional cable news reporter the basic fundamentals of the US militarys official involvement in Syria, Scarborough interjected to ask if Assad isnt an enemy, would Gabbard at least concede that he is an adversary of the United States. Whatever the fuck that means. What Assad is is the leader of a sovereign nation which has nothing to do with the United States and isnt taking anything from or harming the United States in any way. Scarborough and Gabbard went back and forth about this stupid, nonsensical question before Brzezinski interjected to ask So what would you say he is to the United States? If you cannot say that hes an adversary or an enemy, what is Assad to the U.S.? What is the word? You can describe it however you want to describe it, Gabbard responded, explaining that whether a nation is adversarial or not comes down to whether or not they are working against US interests. Are Assads interests aligned with ours? asked Hunt. What are Assads interests? Gabbard countered. Assad seems interested primarily in the slaughter of his own people, Hunt replied with a straight face. Survival, Scarborough interjected, trying to save his colleague some embarrassment with a less insane response to the question of Assads interests. Other bat shit crazy questions Gabbard was asked during her appearance include the following: You know there are people who will watch this have heard your previous comments who will wonder, whats going on here? Why you met with Assad, why it looks like you were very cozy with Assad and why youve sort of taken his side in this argument. What would you say to that? Do you think that Assad is a good person? Your hometown paper said that you should focus on your job and talked about your presidential campaign being in disarray. How would you respond to your hometown paper? Any idea why David Duke came out and supported you? There have been reports that that Russian apparatus that interfered in 2016 is potentially trying to help your campaign. Why do you think that is? Have you met with any Russians over the past several years? Here is @NBCNews excellent reporting on the Russian machine that now appears to be boosting Tulsi Gabbard https://t.co/QuJRuEQHOm Kasie Hunt (@kasie) February 6, 2019 Gabbard shoved back against the various accusations of alignment with Trump, Putin and Assad, asserting correctly that those lines are only being used to smear anyone who voices an objection to endless war and insane nuclear escalations. She pushed back particularly hard on Kasie Hunts reference to the obscene NBC smear piece which cited the discredited narrative control firm New Knowledge to paint Gabbard as a favorite of the Kremlin, claiming that the article has been thoroughly debunked (and it has). After the show, still unable to contain herself, Hunt jumped onto Twitter to share the discredited NBC smear piece, writing, Here is @NBCNews excellent reporting on the Russian machine that now appears to be boosting Tulsi Gabbard. Hunt then followed up with a link to an RT article which she captioned with an outright lie: Here is the debunking of the NBC News report from RT, the Russian state media. You tell me which you think is more credible. I say that Hunt is lying because the RT article that she shared to falsely claim that the only objection to NBCs smear piece came from Russia explicitly names an Intercept article by American journalist Glenn Greenwald, upon which the RT article is based and which does indeed thoroughly discredit the NBC smear piece. If Hunt had read the article that she shared, she necessarily would have known that, so she was either lying about the nature of the article she shared or lying about knowing what was in it. MSNBC defended @nbcnews fraudulent "report" which was based on a "discredited cyber security firm recently kicked off Facebook for unethical MEDDLING of a state election. Shameful "journalism." https://t.co/YjGSKKE6oR Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard) February 7, 2019 So that was nuts. We can expect to see a whole, whole lot more of this as the plutocratic media works overtime to undermine Gabbards message in order to keep her from disrupting establishment war narratives, and Im pleased as punch to see Gabbard firing back and calling them out for the sleazy war propagandists that they are. Her presidential campaign is shaking the foundations of the establishment narrative control matrix more than anything else thats going on right now, so it looks like writing about these embarrassing mass media debacles shes been provoking may be a big part of my job in the coming months. Military interventionism is by far the most depraved and destructive aspect of the US-centralized power establishment, and it is also the most lucrative and strategically crucial, which is why so much energy is poured into ensuring that the American people dont use the power of their numbers to force that interventionism to end. Anyone who throws a monkey wrench in the works of this propaganda machine is going to be subjected to a tremendous amount of smears, and Im glad to see Gabbard fighting back against those smears. From personal experience I know that smear campaigns must be fought against ferociously, because the only alternative is to allow your detractors to control the narrative about you, which as far as your message goes is the same as allowing them to control you. Its not fun, its not clean, but its necessary. The narrative control war keeps getting hotter and hotter, ladies and gentlemen. Buckle up. Caitlin's articles are entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking her on Facebook, following her antics on Twitter, checking out her podcast, throwing some money into her hat on Patreon or Paypal, or buying her book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers. https://caitlinjohnstone.com Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here ==See Also== A roundtable of MSNBC idiots came for Tulsi Gabbard today Note To ICH Community We ask that you assist us in dissemination of the article published by ICH to your social media accounts and post links to the article from other websites. Thank you for your support. Peace and joy This attempted ousting of the elected president, Nicolas Maduro, has been a long time in the planning. We were informed just this weekend that Venezuela has been refused access to its gold reserves lodged in the Bank of England, and that conflict over this has been going on for months. This is just one aspect of the way international financial pressure has been exerted. The US has already imposed sanctions and the Venezuelan economy is in a terrible state, not least because of the fall in oil prices internationally. Food shortages, economic crisis, corruption and the governments clear unpopularity have all helped fuel opposition, which is nothing new in Venezuela. The former president, Hugo Chavez, whose programme of popular reform was welcomed by many of Venezuelas poor but hated by the rich and the oligarchs, was under constant attack from the right internationally and from the US in particular. The attempted military coup against him in 2002 was defeated by popular left mobilisation. Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter This long term right wing opposition was strengthened by the death of Chavez and the growing economic problems. Elections last May were boycotted by the opposition who now have the nerve to turn round and declare them illegitimate. The British government is demanding new elections, or the immediate replacement of Maduro. Hypocrisy is the word that springs to mind here. The international community says little about the recent, widely regarded as corrupt, elections in Bangladesh, or the imprisonment of elected members of the Catalan government by the Spanish state. There are no sanctions applied, no special resolutions and sessions at the UN. Yet Venezuela is seen as a special case. Similarly, dictatorships and tyrannies are supported if they're allies of the UK - look at Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Indeed they are rewarded with trade deals and arms sales. Closer to home, some might argue that Theresa Mays government has lost legitimacy given its record defeat over Brexit two weeks ago. Should we declare Jeremy Corbyn the real leader of the UK? Does Macrons brutal repression of the Gilets Jaunes movement in France justify outside intervention? The US and Trump have no right to interfere in the government of a sovereign state, and no one should see this as anything but a very dangerous development. None of this means support for the politics of Maduro - there is much with which socialists would not agree, including the corruption and government-imposed hardship. The country is not socialist - most industry is privately owned and the capitalists and their allies have been content to preside over poverty and misery for generations. They hated Chavez for his attempts to change that. But what we are seeing is a 21st century form of coup, with which the history of Latin America is so riddled. The constitutional coup has been tried before - most recently in Brazil where the fascist Bolsonaros victory followed the removal of elected president Dilma Rousseff and the imprisonment of Lula, the Workers Party candidate. We should be aware that those backing intervention will plead for peace, but are all too willing to support or turn a blind eye to violence. The likelihood of civil war is high, with terrible consequences for the Venezuelan people. Outside intervention will be no help to the Venezuelan people. We know historically this alliance of the indigenous right in Latin America plus Washington has been disastrous for democracy. Trump has put in charge of this work a man who supported the Contras in Nicaragua, and who denied the reality of the death squads in El Salvador. If the coup is successful it will be a huge setback, a victory for the right in the US and for western imperialism. The left should stand firmly against it. Unfortunately, too many of the US left think their main point of differentiation is with Maduro. In fact, it should be with their own ruling class whose record in Latin America is bloody and brutal - and shows no sign of changing. This article was originally published by " Stop The War " - February 07, 2019 " Information Clearing House " - Keeping track of the Trump administrations foreign policy is like trying to track a cat on a hot tin roof: Were pulling out of Syria (not right away). Were leaving Afghanistan (sometime in the future). Mexico is going to pay for a wall (no, it isnt). Saudi Arabia, Russia, the European Union, China, Turkey, North Koreaone day, friends, another day, foes. Even with a scorecard, its hard to tell whos on first. Except for Iran, where a policy of studied hostility has been consistent from the beginning. Late last year, National Security Advisor John Bolton pressed the Pentagon to produce options for attacking Iran, and he has long advocated for military strikes and regime change in Teheran. And now, because of a recent internal policy review on the effect of US sanctions, Washington may be is drifting closer to war. According to On Thin Ice, a report by the International Crisis Group (ICG), the Trump administration has concluded that its maximum pressure campaign of sanctions has largely failed to meet any of the White Houses goals of forcing Iran to re-negotiate the 2015 nuclear agreement or alter its policies in the Middle East. While the sanctions have damaged Irans economy, the Iranians have proved to be far more nimble in dodging them than Washington allowed for. And because the sanctions were unilaterally imposed, there are countries willing to look for ways to avoid them. If you look at the range of ultimate objectives of the administration, from encouraging protests that pose an existential threat to the system, to change of behavior, to coming back to the negotiating table, none of that is happening, Ali Vaez of the ICGs Iran Project, told Laura Rozen of Al-Monitor. Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter That should hardly come as a shock. Sanctions rarely achieve their goals and virtually never when they are imposed by one country, even one as powerful as the US. More than 50 years of sanctions aimed at Cuba failed to bring about regime change, and those currently aimed at Russia have had little effect beyond increasing tensions in Europe. This time around, the US is pretty much alone. While the Trump administration is preparing to withdraw from the 2015 nuclear agreementthe Joint Comprehensive Plan of Actionthe European Union (EU) is lobbying Iran to stay in the pact. Russia, China, Turkey and India have also made it clear that they will not abide by the US trade sanctions, and the EU is setting up a plan to avoid using dollars. But the failure of the White Houses sanctions creates its own dangers because this is not an American administration that easily accepts defeat. On top of that, there is a window of opportunity for striking Iran that will close in a year, making an attack more complicated. The nuclear agreement imposed an arms embargo on Iran, but if Teheran stays in the agreement, that embargo will lift in 2020, allowing the Iranians to buy weapons on the international market. Beefing up Irans arms arsenal would not do much to dissuade the US, but it might give pause to Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates (UAE), two of Teherans most implacable enemies. It is not clear who would be part of a coalition attack on Iran. Saudi Arabia and the UAE would almost certainly be involved, but that pair hardly has the Iranians quaking in their boots. The rag-tag Houthi army has fought the two Gulf monarchies to a standstill in Yemen, in spite of not having any anti-aircraft to challenge the Saudi air war. Iran is a different matter. Its Russian built S-300 anti-aircraft system might not discomfort the US and the Israelis, but Saudi and UAE pilots could be at serious risk. Once the embargo is lifted, Iran could augment its S-300 with planes and other anti-aircraft systems that might make an air war like the one the Gulf monarchs are waging in Yemen very expensive. Of course, if the US and/or Israel join in, Iran will be hard pressed. But as belligerent as Bolton and the Israeli government are toward Iran, would they initiate or join a war? Such a war would be unpopular in the US. Some 63 percent of Americans oppose withdrawing from the nuclear agreement and by a margin of more than two to one, oppose a war with Iran. While 53 percent oppose such a war37 percent strongly soonly 23 percent would support a war with Iran. And, of those, only 9 percent strongly support such a war. The year 2020 is also the next round of US elections where control of the Senate and the White House will be in play. While wars tend to rally people to the flag, the polls suggest a war with Iran is not likely to do that. The US would be virtually alone internationally, and Saudi Arabia is hardly on the list of most Americans favorite allies. And it is not even a certain that Israel would join in, although Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calls Iran an existential threat. Polls show that the Israeli public is hardly enthusiastic about a war with Iran, particularly if the US is not involved. The Israeli military is more than willing to take on Iranian forces in Syria, but a long-distance air war would get complicated. Iraq and Lebanon would try to block Israel from using their airspace to attack Iran, as would Turkey. The first two countries might not be able to do much to stop the Israelis, but flying over a hostile country is always tricky, particularly if you have to do it for an extended period of time. And anyone who thinks the Iranians are going to toss in the towel is delusional. Of course Israel has other ways to strike Iran, including cruise missiles deployed on submarines and surface craft. But you cant win a war with cruise missiles, you just blow a lot of things up. There are deep fissures among the Gulf monarchs. Qatar has already said that it will have nothing to do with an attack on Iran, and Oman is neutral. Kuwait has signed a military cooperation agreement with Turkey because the former is more worried about Saudi Arabia than it is Iran, and with good reason. A meeting last September of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Emir Sabah Al-Sabah of Kuwait to discuss problems between the two countries apparently went badly. The two countries are in a dispute over who should exploit their common oil fields at Khafji and Wafra, and the Saudis unilaterally stopped production. The Kuwaitis say they lost $18 billion revenues and want compensation. The bad blood between the two countries goes back to the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, when Saudi Arabia refused to accept the borders that the British drew for Kuwait and instead declared war. In 1922 the border was re-drawn with two-thirds of Kuwaits territory going to Saudi Arabia. Lebanese legal scholar, Ali Mourad, told Al-Monitor that Kuwait has tightened its ties to Turkey because they are truly afraid of a Saudi invasion, especially given the blank check Trump has issued to Prince Salman. Whether Kuwaits embrace of Turkey will serve as a check on the Saudis is uncertain. Prince Salman has made several ill-considered moves in the region, from trying to overthrow the government of Lebanon, blockading Qatar, to starting a war with Yemen. Turkey and Saudi Arabia are currently at odds over the latters support for the Muslim Brotherhood, probably the only thing that the Saudi princes hate more than Iran. Wouldor couldAnkara really defend Kuwait from a Saudi attack? Turkey is currently bogged down in Northern Syria, at war with its own Kurdish population, and facing what looks like a punishing recession. Its army is the second largest in NATO, and generally well armed, but it has been partly hollowed out by purges following the 2015 coup attempt. So is US National Security Advisor Bolton just blowing smoke when he talks about regime change in Iran? Possibly, but it is a good idea to take the neo-conservatives at their word. The US will try to get Iran to withdraw from the nuclear pact by aggressively tightening the sanctions. If Teheran takes the bait, Washington will claim the legal right to attack Iran. Bolton and the people around him engineered the catastrophes in Afghanistan and Iraq (the Obama administration gets the blame for Libya and Yemen), and knocking out Iran has been their long time goal. If they pull it off, the US will ignite yet another forever war. Conn M. Hallinan Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here ==See Also== Take John Bolton to The Hague!': Peace Activists Protest Outside National Security Advisor's Home Note To ICH Community We ask that you assist us in dissemination of the article published by ICH to your social media accounts and post links to the article from other websites. Thank you for your support. Peace and joy Index-Journal Careers PART-TIME POSITION available in our packaging area. Job responsibilities include putting inserts into the newspaper. Must have a positive attitude and be a team player. Applicants must be able to: lift up to 20-lbs; stand for long periods of time; be available to work Sunday thru Friday, late evening to early morning hours; pass drug screen. Since 1963, The Independent has helped create a great community! Since our founding in September of 1963, The Independent has been dedicated to giving Livermore, Pleasanton, Dublin, and Sunol readers the news they need to be in-the-know about what's going on in the Tri-Valley region. the all-woman quartet Lez Zeppelin, who have gained critical acclaim as one of the most exciting live acts around, becoming the first female rock act to pay homage to Led Zeppelin. One-man-band Jack Waldheim will warm up the crowd in The Garage at 6:30 p.m. The show begins at 7:30 p.m. $25. Police Chief Richard Tarsa tells the board that he was happy to bring on reserve Officers Danielle Cartier and Nicholas Sorrell. Adams Police Force Brings on New Reserves ADAMS, Mass. The Selectmen on Wednesday ratified the hiring of two reserve police officers to add to the growing department. Police Chief Richard Tarsa told the board that he was happy to bring on reserve Officers Danielle Cartier and Nicholas Sorrell. "As chief, this is one of the best parts of the job: When I can welcome new employees," Tarsa said. "It is always good to find people with enthusiasm who want to come forward and join the ranks." The town has had a hard time in recent years attracting and retaining officers because of limitations set by Civil Service. In 2017, the town dissolved its agreement with Civil Service and since then has regularly brought on new officers and reserve officers. Tarsa said both Cartier and Sorrell are graduates of the reserve/intermittent academy and come from solid backgrounds that will aid them in law enforcement. "We found in their interviews that their answers were very, very good. Both presented an eagerness and enthusiasm," Tarsa said. "They are both community-policing orientated and want to be active in the community." Before the unanimous vote, Chairman John Duval welcomed the two to the community. "You both have chosen Adams and that impresses me and makes me feel good about this community that we have individuals like yourselves," Duval said. "We are very fortunate to have both of you." Tarsa said because the town clerk was not present they would have to swear in the officers later this week. "The sooner we can get them on board the sooner we can get them into a position," he said. In other business, the Selectmen ratified the hiring of Tim Cota as the operations supervisor within the Department of Public Works. "He has worked very hard over the past year and he has really focused on creating a team with the DPW employees," interim Town Administrator Donna Cesan said. "He has been involved in every aspect of the job ... I have been impressed." In the absence of a DPW director, Cota has been the defacto director while the town continues its search. Duval said he was impressed with how Cota handled the fall flooding. "Tim has stepped up and has taken on a lot of those responsibilities," he said. "I am very proud of him with how he has stepped up to this leadership role." "In our opinion, it would be very productive if we actively move towards the conclusion of agreements on free trade areas," Russian First Deputy Industry and Trade Minister Sergei Tsyb was quoted as saying by TASS news agency. The Russia-led EAEU is a single market, which groups Russia with four other countries of the former Soviet Union: Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. A free trade agreement between the EAEU and Vietnam was signed in 2015 and took effect in 2016. A free trade agreement between Russia and Serbia applies to a limited number of products, but Russian President Vladimir Putin said last month he hoped that a new EAEU-Serbia free trade agreement could be signed this year. Russia has long nurtured plans of signing free trade agreements with various countries, which would allow Russian enterprises access to new markets. The EAEU said in October 2017 that intensive work was under way to conclude free trade agreements with seven more countries, including Egypt, India, Iran, Israel and Singapore. The EAEU and Iran signed an interim agreement leading to the creation of an FTA last year, with a full-fledged agreement expected within three years. Los criticos del plan para hacer que Bitcoin sea moneda de curso legal en El Salvador dicen que la extrema volatilidad de la criptomoneda podria traer devastacion a uno de los paises mas pobres del hemisferio. FACT CHECK See inaccurate information in this story? Tell us here. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 * The President of the United States Donald Trump is expected to visit Britain in December for a NATO summit, over a year after his first trip to the country was widely protested. * The Prime Minister of Italy Giuseppe Conte Wednesday paid an official visit to Iraq and held meetings with top Iraqi officials, state-run al-Iraqiya TV reported. The two sides are confident that the two countries have an opportunity to develop the relations. * Russia will increase the range of missiles being developed and create ground-based launchers for its Kalibr long-range missiles and long-range hypersonic missiles, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Tuesday. * US President Donald Trump on February 6 said that the US-led coalition against the Islamic State (IS) would soon regain control of all of the land previously held by the group, and defended his earlier decision to withdraw US troops from Syria. * Russia is not going to deploy its missiles in Belarus, Russian ambassador to Belarus Mikhail Babich told journalists on February 6. * The Permanent Representatives of 29 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member states in a meeting on February 6 at the alliance's headquarters in Brussels signed the protocol on Macedonia's accession in the presence of Macedonian foreign minister. * The German government has submitted a strategy paper to NATO in which Germany promises to increase its military spending to 1.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2024, German media reported on February 6. * Ukraine has withdrawn from the coordinating bodies of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) due to its tensions with Russia, local media reported on February 6, citing Ukraine's Ambassador to Belarus Igor Kizim. * Iraq's President Barham Salih on February 6 said that Iraq is keen to establish effective relations with Italy and the European Union. * The first direct flights between Israel and Japan are scheduled to operate from September, Israel's foreign ministry announced Wednesday. A regular flight line between the two countries is expected to open later. * Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on February 6 called for a Middle East free of nuclear weapons, Press TV reported. * The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) announced on February 6 receiving an installment of US$2 billion from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as the fifth tranche of a US$12-billion loan to support Egypt's economic reform program. * The Israeli army fired artillery shells at a Hamas post in the Gaza Strip on February 6 night after a rocket fired from the besieged enclave hit southern Israel. * About 15 people were killed and several others injured on February 6 in Bole-Bakundu, a locality in Southwest, one of the two troubled English-speaking regions of Cameroon, local sources said. * Libya's eastern-based army on February 6 demanded the state-owned National Oil Corporation (NOC) to lift the force majeure on Sharara oil field, a few hours after the army took over the field. While most media attention seems to focus on the number of black males killed by police, new research published in the journal Social Science & Medicine indicates that among men of color, Hispanic males were two times more likely to have a fatal interaction with the police in neighborhoods that have a high percentage of Hispanic residents - and police agencies with more Hispanic officers were associated with higher odds of Hispanic fatalities. The results suggest that even the most diverse police forces are not exempt from the need for reforms within their ranks, according to Chris St. Vil, an assistant professor in the University at Buffalo School of Social Work and co-author of the study led by Odis Johnson Jr., an associate professor in the departments of Sociology and Education and a faculty scholar at the Institute of Public Health at the Washington University in St. Louis. "We should be taking a closer look at specific neighborhood mechanisms and police agency characteristics in order to better understand this crisis," says St. Vil, an expert in trauma, violence and victimization. "There are nuances and idiosyncrasies we need to take into consideration that may vary from community to community, police agency to police agency and district to district. "We can't just assume it's only black males at risk." Those mechanisms include unemployment rates, high school dropout statistics, education levels and population, according to St. Vil. "Crime rates alone don't explain this problem," he says. "We must include these other factors and how they contribute to social disorganization and possibly more aggressive tactics by police." The novel research is the first to merge a crowd-sourcing data set with a nationally representative sample of law enforcement agencies contained in the Bureau of Justice Statistics Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS). Part of the challenge for researchers examining fatal interactions with police (FIP) is the absence of reliable data from which to begin their studies, explains St. Vil. "The motivation behind this research was based on the fact that data collected by federal agencies is not comprehensive," says St. Vil. "Reiterating a statement by former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder back in 2015, the federal government lacks the ability to comprehensively track the number of incidents of either uses of force directed at police officers or uses of force by police and that obtaining better data on police shootings would represent a common-sense step to address serious concerns about the need to safeguard civil liberties." Until federal agencies begin to collect and record accurate data, St. Vil says researchers will not have the information necessary to draw conclusions that inform a national dialogue about the depth of the problem. "We have accurate data on how many members of an endangered species die each year, but we don't have fully sanctioned federal statistics that can be used with confidence on fatal interactions with police," says St. Vil. "Some are saying fatal interactions with police are not a problem; others are saying it is a problem. "Accurate data can provide a better picture, and the answer can go either way, implicating or vindicating the police." For the current study, the researchers used two publically accessible databases: fatalencounters.org (FE) and killedbypolice.net. They merged these sources with the data provided by nearly 2,800 police agencies in the LEMAS survey to explore how FIP from May 1, 2013, to Jan 1, 2015, vary across racial and ethnic groups and the role played by neighborhood and agency characteristics. Although St. Vil says the study avoids problems that result in the kind of underreporting that characterize federal surveys the research is not without its limitations. "We acknowledge the issues that might call crowd sourcing into question, but we wouldn't have to use that data set if the feds were doing their job," he says. @ 2021 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Sacramento emcee Chuuwee dusts off his title as "Hip Hops Savior" for a new old school homage with Turkish producer Farazi on the new single "iLL". No given release date or details are behind the track other than that a collaborative album is in the works entitled "Low Level iNTELLIGENCE". Pasvik Nature Reserve is an example of such protected areas. It is located in the extreme northwest of Russia, in the Pechenga district of the Murmansk region. Russia and certain Scandinavian countries have already implemented a number of projects across their joint border areas aimed at developing tourism infrastructure with joint management of specially-protected natural areas. The reserve is located in the Paz River valley, on the left bank of the river. The mouth of the river is in Lake Inari, Finland; it flows into Russian territory and then into the Barents Sea in Norway. Its midstream is a Russian-Norwegian border. As a result, Pasvik Reserve is shared between the territories of two countries. This natural pearl has become not just a subject of care for ecologists from Norway and Russia but also the sticking point causing a lot of discussions and arguments recently. Transboundary air pollution and its sources have become the central topics of arguments. These issues were raised multiple times by Ola Elvestuen, the Norwegian Minister of the Environment, together with the representatives of ecological organizations, Russian authorities and Russian media. Its fair to note that sulfur dioxide emissions were caused by metallurgical production in three Russian citiesMonchegorsk, Zapolyarny and Nickelin the past century. However, today the situation is totally different. The emissions of sulfur dioxide can be noticed in just one city (Nickel), and since the beginning of production there, it has decreased by more than half. According to the companys representatives, once the technological modernization is over, the emissions will be decreased by 50% more. Two others have stopped their destructive environmental influence completely. On 25th of January, 2019, the residents of Northern Norway were warned to stay indoors after authorities detected a smog of dangerous pollutants emanating from a nickel smelting and refining works in neighboring Russia. The Norwegian Institute for Air Research, or NILU, accused Russia of air pollution from a nickel smelting and refining works. But air samples taken by the Russian Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing (Rospotrebnadzor) refuted the information of NILU. The sulfur dioxide level was within the acceptable limits. Despite the results of evaluation expertise, the incident provoked angry headlines in the Norwegian media. Russian media responded with accusations against the Norwegian side, saying that the toxic torpedoes were exploded nearby the Russian waters. Russian television announced this news in regards to the Helge Ingstad vessel in Hjeltefjorden, which sunk more than 2000 km away from the Russian border. An ecological workshop was organised on February 5th, 2019 in Svanvik, Norway. It was dedicated to the impact of emissions from metallurgical production of Russian Nickel on Pasviks ecosystem. The use of accusations and claims of ecologists substituted for dialogue and logical thinking. Instead of a two-way healthy discussion on the topic, they tried to defend their version of the truth. Ironically, no representatives of Pasvik or Nornickel had a chance to express their point of view because they were not invited to participate. Deputy Governor of the Murmansk region Yevgeny Nikora commented, As far as we are aware, there will be an event in Norway in the beginning of February. It will be dedicated to the ecological situation on the bordering territories. Unfortunately, the representatives of regional and municipal authorities of the Murmansk region are not invited, despite their willingness to take part. Russia seems to demonstrate an open-door policy and willingness to join the discussion and contribute. For instance, Alexander Nikitin, the head of the Russian Department of International Ecological Organization Bellona has acknowledged the intentions of Nornickel to reach world-class environmental standards and solve environmental problems through cooperation with international public organizations. So now the question is can it be called a dialogue? Nobody questions the value of cross-border cooperation related to environmental protection. Yet, cooperation is impossible without an open two-way dialogue between two parties. At the same time, people often try to substitute dialogue with an obvious monologue, consisting solely of claims and accusations. Instead of an open discussion of the current issues, they tend to ignore them and keep on insisting on their truth. What will take over in this battlecooperation, common sense or individual ambitions armed with biased information? Paul Kostner In international relations, multilateralism is understood as an alliance of many countries pursuing a common goal, or as global governance, as opposed to bilateralism which always upholds the supremacy of powers and is the seed of international conflict. This is a form of extensive cooperation between many international relations subjects, mainly nations, based on the core values of equal, voluntary, mutually beneficial, and committed to common purposes. Multilateralism, therefore, brings great benefits to all parties, contributing to building a world of peace, stability and prosperity. Through many stages of ups and downs, it can be said that multilateralism now faces unprecedented serious challenges and threats due to what happened in 2018. So what causes the weakened multilateral spirit in international relations? At the global level, the world is witnessing structural changes. Nearly three decades have passed since the end of the Cold War and the transitional period seems to be set to terminate with the battle between powers. The fall of the former Soviet Union and the end of the bipolar order left a power vacuum in world politics. During the first ten years after the Cold War, the United States was almost a lone superpower, storming the international political arena. But, the unipolar situation did not last long as the competition and opposition forces against the US emerged. To combat terrorism, a kind of compulsory cooperation has formed between the US and most countries on a global scale. This gathering of forces is reminiscent of the temporary cooperation between countries in the anti-fascism allies in the Second World War. The rise of export-oriented emerging economies owing to the trend of globalisation, typically China, India, South Africa, and Brazil, has also resulted in fierce competition between the US and the emerging powers, contributing to making the world situation extremely complex, unstable and unpredictable. The power competition is accompanied by an increase in security threats, from traditional issues such as border, territorial and sea disputes, and the arms race to non-traditional issues such as epidemics, smuggling, and climate change. These challenges have forced the powers to adjust their strategies and gather forces depending on their interests, capabilities and the moment. On the regional level, after 60 years of existence and development, the European Union (EU) the model of the most successful regional organisation since the Second World War is now facing unprecedented challenges that threaten the existence of the union. The ambition to expand the EU and NATO to the east, to the countries of the post-Soviet space and the former Warsaw Pact states, is part of the reason for the EUs uneven development and its unnecessary escalation of tensions with Russia. The culmination of the conflict is the merging of the Crimean Peninsula into Russian territory, accompanied by a three-year Ukrainian crisis still with no way out. In addition, the Eurozone crisis and the immigration wave from the Middle East and Africa into Europe have also caused severe divisions inside the EU and led to the advent of Brexit as the United Kingdom has decided to leave the common home and end the marriage after more than four decades. From a national perspective, typically the United States, within less than two years, since taking over the hot seat at the White House with the slogan America First, President Donald Trump has made decisions that have surprised the international community, disappointing its veteran allies and hurting rivals. Notably, the 45th President of the US signed a decree to withdraw Washington from a series of multilateral agreements, mechanisms and organisations that the US and other countries have worked hard on negotiations, such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), the Paris Agreement on climate change, the Global Compact for Migration, and the historic nuclear deal that the P5+1 powers signed with Iran. The US attitude and actions have been criticised as the most pronounced manifestation of protectionism and unilateralism, countering the trend of international cooperation and weakening multilateral organisations and mechanisms. So what should be done by the world in the current context, as the crisis of trust increases and multilateralism is threatened on a global scale? The world has become more connected, but societies are getting more and more divided. The direct consequence is that in relations between countries, cooperation becomes more fragile and more difficult. The belief in the global governance system has been doubted and eroded. International organisations and the largest multilateral organisation on the planet, the United Nations (UN), do not seem to fulfill their goals. The antagonism between multilateral and unilateral trends has become more serious, as the US president upholds national interests and opposes globalisation, while the majority of world leaders support the pursuit of the multilateral approach to solving global problems. This situation raises the question of whether the institutions and conceptions of the 20th century have become obsolete or not? Facing these challenges, the UN and many countries have issued urgent calls for fostering solidarity, strengthening cooperation and reviving the multilateral spirit. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has urged the international community to rebuild their broken faith, through accelerating multilateral projects. European leaders insist that the multilateral approach needs to be maintained and is the unique way to shape the future of the world and to prevent war from breaking out globally. ASEAN, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank (WB), and the worlds leading developed and emerging economies (G20) all support and emphasise the importance of the trends of multilateralism and trade liberalisation, as well as warning of the danger of protectionism. The UN has affirmed that multilateral cooperation is the only answer. Multilateralism still faces challenges, but global values through multilateral mechanisms are still respected throughout the world. With a network of partners across the globe, the UN continues to be expected and entrusted with the mission of taking the lead in promoting connectivity, strengthening trust and promoting multilateralism in global cooperation. (Business Korea) Hedge funds, which were once considered an investment vehicle only for well-heeled investors, have become a popular investment tool among ordinary Korean investors 10 years after the introduction. In particular, hedge funds, which are relatively insensitive to stock prices, have been gaining popularity after Black October last year. Asset management companies also tend to form hedge fund teams and strengthen their competence in the sector. To read this article: A grant check presentation at Kids Advocacy Place in Kerrville included, front row from left, Capt. Carol Twiss, Sheriff's Office; Brent Ives, HCCC executive director; Karen Rusk and Linda Moran, Mary Kay representatives; Kerrville Police Officers Greg Longenbaugh and Phil Engstrom; second row, Claudia Richner; Christine Durham, HCCC board president; Melissa Zirkel; Kim Olden; County Court at Law Judge Susan Harris; and Mayor Bill Blackburn; back row, Donna Spencer; Lisa Stancil; Brittany Pierce; Alma Hanauer; and Jason Davis, juvenile probation officer. Hastings, NE (68901) Today Sunny to partly cloudy. A stray severe thunderstorm is possible. High 96F. Winds S at 10 to 20 mph.. Tonight Scattered thunderstorms during the evening. Cloudy skies after midnight. A few storms may be severe. Low 72F. Winds SSE at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 50%. MEMBERS OF the Louisiana Industrial Hemp Alliance (LIHA) held their inaugural meeting at the Southern University Agricultural Land-Grant Campus on Jan. 14. Seated from left are: Curtis L. Willis, Ph.D.; Joyce James and Bobby R. Phills, Ph.D., Chancellor-Dean of the SU Land-Grant Campus. Standing, from left are Joe Lavigne; Arthur Walker, LIHA Chair; Odis Hill, SU Ag Center Assistant Area Agent; Winston L. Brumfield; Versa O. Clark; Andra Johnson, Ph.D., SU Ag Center Vice Chancellor for Research and C. Reuben Walker, Ph.D., SU Land-Grant Campus Associate Vice Chancellor for Auxiliary and External Engagement. (Photo by DAndre Lee, SU Ag Center) News Updates Would you like to receive an email newsletter alerting you to the top news stories and sports stories from The Ouachita Citizen, The Franklin Sun and the Concordia Sentinel each week? Sign up today! Nguyen Huy Thang, Chairman of Truong Sa Club in Germany: The country always opens arms to welcome overseas compatriots back home This is the first time I have attended the Homeland Spring Programme, after 31 years living far away from the country. What perhaps every overseas compatriot feels when they arrive in Hanoi these days is that the homeland always opens its arms to welcome overseas back home. All the activities of the programme, such as paying tribute to President Ho Chi Minh at his mausoleum, burning incense to commemorate fallen soldiers who bravely sacrificed for the independence and freedom of the Fatherland, visiting Thang Long Imperial Citadel, setting up a Neu pole for the New Year and the releasing carp ritual, make us feel warm. The country is changing every day, especially in Hanoi with multiple modern infrastructure and new and spacious urban areas. OVs returning home also feel extremely excited, as they always remember and head towards the homeland. I have returned to Vietnam many times to visit the old battlefields and find my comrades and also visited Truong Sa (Spratly) archipelago once. For me, Truong Sa is not only a sacred outpost of the Fatherland, but also a place to meet and harmonise all the nation, where all Vietnamese hearts are always heading to. In our group, there were many expatriates who were on the other side of the battle line, but when we returned from Truong Sa, everyone thought it was a part of the nation and we all want to contribute our efforts to protect the nations sacred territory and waters. Doan Van Vien, member of the Standing Committee of the Vietnamese Association in Angola, member of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Central Committee: Sharing and listening to the wishes of expatriates Compared to my previous visits returning to Vietnam, this time I feel more clearly the cheerful and happy atmosphere of the people both at home and abroad. Vietnam has undergone a lot of changes, including the work related to OVs. Since the State promulgated policies and resolutions on OVs, especially when the State Committee for OVs Affairs was established, I felt very clearly that the Party and State were always interested in overseas compatriots, wishing to listen to their thoughts and aspirations and supporting OVs to integrate more deeply with the world, but without forgetting the homeland. I am also very happy as this time I heard directly from the leaders of the Party and State sharing their opinions and listening to the feelings and aspirations of OVs from many other countries. The Vietnamese community in Angola has the largest number of OVs in African countries. OVs in Angola are always united and think of the country. Africa is a place with great potential for Vietnamese people to explore and invest in. Besides, with the increasingly favourable policies from the Party and State, OVs now have more conditions to be able to return to their homeland to invest and contribute to poverty reduction and national development. Nguyen Thi Dinh, Vice Chairwoman of the Vietnam Business Association in Bulgaria: Hoping to have more opportunities to make contributions to the homeland Full of honour and emotions are not only my own feelings, but also a great number of OVs from all over the world to attend the Homeland Spring Programme 2019. This is also the occasion for us to return home to visit families and relatives. I am very impressed by the great achievements our country has achieved in the past year, both in socio-economic and cultural aspects. Vietnam grows day by day, even every hour, everything is getting more and more beautiful. Supporting policies for OVs also receives a high consensus, which is beneficial for OV communities all over the world. It further motivates the OV community to turn towards the homeland and continue to contribute to the development of the nation. On the occasion of the Lunar New Year 2019, I hope the country will develop further. I myself as well as the OV community all over the world always want to have many opportunities to return to the homeland and join hands to contribute to the country's prosperity. Hanh Le, an OV in the US: Because I am Vietnamese I feel very happy, as it is the first time I have returned to Vietnam to attend the Homeland Spring Programme 2019. I am also happy that this time I have the opportunity to meet Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc. At the meeting with expatriates, PM Phuc listened to and expressed his enthusiasm for the comments of OVs. I myself am preparing to invest in Vietnam. With the project of building a smart city complex, we want to bring our gray matter to coordinate with the resources available in Vietnam, thus contributing to raising the country's position. We also hope to create more job opportunities for local people. Many people asked me why I came back to Vietnam to invest, I often answered, I came back because I am Vietnamese. That's what makes me so proud. Another reason is that Vietnam is developing, and the Vietnamese people are very diligent and intelligent. The Party and States policies create better conditions for OVs to return to invest in their homeland, contributing to enriching the country. Your best post-partying bet is Beneluxs French frytopped Mitraillette sandwich. Photo: Liz Clayman In sandwiches, we as a species have achieved perfection. Stuff whatever you want sweet or savory between two hunks of bread and youre on your way to complete bliss. Zhuzhed up or pared down, you cant go wrong with a sandwich. In other words, we never tire of them and Grub is always on the lookout for the next it sandwich. Whether its a rustic new take on the classic English muffin breakfast sandwich or a beast of a sandwich laden with beef tenderloin and fried oysters, here are the nine new sandwiches worth checking out right now. The Mitraillette Where: Benelux How Much: $16 Imagine if poutine had a baby with a ham and cheese baguette: This open-faced sandwich is topped with roasted ham; gruyere-laden mornay sauce; and French fries sprinkled with fresh chives. If this sounds like the kind of meal thats housed by drunk college kids during a semester in Europe, youd be right, but thats also sort of the point. Eat like a New Jerseyan right in New York. Photo: Daniel Krieger Breakfast Sandwich Pork Roll Where: Popina How Much: $15 Chef Chris McDades brunch menu is brand-new, but it already does lots of things right. Take, for example, this spin on a classic Jersey breakfast sandwich, featuring a toasted English muffin spread with Dukes mayo and stacked with a slab of seared pork roll, American cheese, a fried egg, and a guindilla pepper-celery relish thats both spicy and tangy. Viva o Portugal! Photo: Melissa Hom The Prego Sandwich Where: Saint Julivert Fisherie How Much: $19 (or $26 with oysters) Yes, $20 bucks is on the higher end of the sandwich-price spectrum, but not every sandwich comes from one of the best restaurants of 2018. For their Prego sandwich, a play on the garlicky Portuguese sandwich of the same name, Alex Raij and Eder Montero top buttery brioche bread with juicy beef tenderloin and spicy mustard, which sounds satisfying enough. And this is important: pay the extra $7 it costs to add a heap of fried oysters to the whole thing. You can never have enough chicken sandwiches. Photo: Liz Clayman Fried Chicken Sandwich Where: Empellon al Pastor at Pod 39 How Much: $7 At his newest restaurant, Alex Stupak has added a fried chicken sandwich to the menu featuring a tender chicken breast with a subtle, golden crust sitting on toum, a Lebanese garlic sauce, and a bed of thinly sliced cucumbers. And the result is satisfying sandwich that wont leave you in a coma as soon as you finish it. In this veggie burger, chickpeas are the new black beans. Photo: Melissa Hom Veggie Burger Where: Hall How Much: $8 The citys newest veggie burger arrives courtesy of Japanese-American restaurant Hall, which opened last month in Flatiron. For his take, Chef Hiroki Odo creates a patty using chickpeas, quinoa, lotus root, seven-grain rice, onion, carrots, and edamame and serves it with white mushrooms, cashews, and white-curry sauce. Photo: Melissa Hom The Croque MekSieur Where: Mekelburgs Domino How Much: $15 For their not-so-subtle take on the French-born croque monsieur, this Clinton Hill beer shop-grocery-restaurant stuffs two slices of She Wolf sourdough with porchetta and gruyere, creating a more advanced take on the grilled ham and cheese of your youth. Thats drizzled with bechamel sauce and topped with a crunchy pork cracklin cracker and grated nutmeg. Simple and elegant. Photo: Courtesy of Reynard Egg Sandwich Where: Reynard How Much: $13 With the recent departure of Christina Lecki, new executive chef Charlene Santiago has officially begun applying her own style to the Wythe Hotels in-house restaurant. Among the changes is a new egg sandwich that sounds simple enough sausage, cheddar, hot sauce, English muffin until you read the fine print: the English muffin and sausage are house made, the latter with beef and pork seasoned with nutmeg and black and green peppercorns; the eggs are so softly scrambled as to be downright fluffy; and that hot sauce features a fermented red-Holland chili base thatll wake you right up. Eat one of Buffalos most popular sandwiches here in the city. Photo: Courtesy of Interboro Brewery Beef on Weck Where: Interboro Spirits and Ale How Much: $13 Turns out Buffalos other claim to food-related fame besides wings is the beef on weck, which you can grab now at this East Williamsburg bar and brewery. The sandwich features thinly sliced beef on a kosher salt- and caraway seed-topped kummelweck roll. Horseradish punches the whole thing up while a small bowl of au jus will cover all your dipping needs. The next step in the evolution of the bagel with lox. Photo: Melissa Hom High Street Leo Where: High Street On Hudson How Much: $18 Few restaurants take the sandwich game as seriously as this Philly import, which just so happens to make one of the finest egg sandwiches in the city. Recently, the West Village spot introduced the High Street Leo, their take on bagel and lox. Except instead of a bagel the restaurant uses a soft onion bialy with a schmear of scallion and chive cream cheese underneath a layer of lox and folded eggs. (TNS) Franklin County Commissioners are expected to vote today on an agreement with CenturyLink to provide hardware/software upgrades to improve the county's 911 system.The $543,924.26 upgrade is a federal requirement under the National 911 Program.Created by Congress in 2004 as the 911 Implementation and Coordination Office, the National 911 Program is under the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration at the U.S. Department of Transportation and is a joint program with the National Telecommunication and Information Administration in the Department of Commerce.The program works with states, technology providers, public safety officials and 911 professionals to ensure a smooth transition to an updated 911 system that takes advantage of new communications technologies.The 911 system was created in the U.S. in 1968 to provide a universal, easy-to-remember number for people to reach police, fire or emergency medical assistance from any phone in any location, without having to look up specific phone numbers.Because most 911 systems were originally built using analog rather than digital technologies, public safety answering points across the country need to be upgraded to a digital or Internet Protocol-based 911 system, commonly referred to as Next Generation 911.NG911 will allow voice, photos, videos and text messages to flow seamlessly from the public to the 911 network."Texts will come in more like a text message," explained John Thierwechter, director of the county Department of Emergency Services. Previously, he said, text messages to 911 would appear as a TTY message coming from those with hearing impairments. "This is much improved," he said.NG911 will also improve PSAP ability to help manage call overload, natural disasters, and transferring of 911 calls and proper jurisdictional responses based on location tracking."We can be advising incoming units about what we are seeing, whether it be flames or an active shooter," Thierwechter told commissioners. And both citizens and dispatchers will be able to send photos and live video. " It's a much enhanced way of providing situation awareness."Years ago in Franklin County, 911 calls were routed to the small communities served, such as Washington Township or Mont Alto.Today, Franklin County Emergency Services Department dispatches all emergency units county-wide with the exception of the Pennsylvania State Police.Last year, the county's 911 center handled more than 80,000 calls, with about two-thirds of them coming from wireless phones.The CenturyLink agreement provides for the purchase and installation of hardware/software upgrades. Partial funding is anticipated from Act 12 911 tax surcharge.The board of commissioners meets at 9:30 a.m. today in the Commissioners' Office, 340 N. Second St., Chambersburg. Google Collaboration Details (TNS) Many murals are pretty straightforward. But Abstracted Motion in downtown Raleigh has the potential to leap from the wall.Painted by Raleigh artist Taylor White , the 40-by-60-foot mural has been on a north-facing wall of the Alfred Williams Building since the fall. Viewed with the naked eye, it shows five figures in shades of purple and blue, hitting an array of poses.But when its viewed with an accompanying Android mobile-phone app, Abstracted Motion is almost a different piece of work altogether with extra layers, nooks and crannies. Its one of the worlds first augmented reality murals.The Abstracted Motion app from the Google Play store recently went live. When viewers download it and point it toward the mural, it comes alive as a three-dimensional image you can film, alter or edit in your phone.It will be what people do with this thing, said Samuel Payne, of Google, the San Francisco-based creative lead for the project, this fall. The application records video and sees photos as you see it. So some individual who finds the right lighting could do some really cool things with an interesting sky in the background.While the address of Abstracted Motion is 410. S. Salisbury St., known as the Alfred Williams building, it can be seen on West Davie Street at the corner of Gale Street. The mural is sponsored by Google to mark Raleigh as a Fiber City. Google contacted the Raleigh Murals Project to connect with an artist and seek an appropriate wall for a canvas.Previously, White has painted works adorning local businesse s, including Raleigh Raw and Whiskey Kitchen. For models on this project, White worked with local dancers from Durhams Living Arts Collective , photographing them in various poses.Because Whites painting had to mesh with Googles AR programming just so, this was the most difficult and complicated mural she has ever done. Getting the app synced with the visuals also took longer than anticipated.There are so many precise details, sizes and angles that needed to be exactly right, she said this fall. The poses also had to be as varied as possible, to have points for the computer map to pick up. So I had to design a striking stand-alone image, do justice to what is probably the best wall in town. But I also had to make the design so it would be read by the AR technology. That added another layer to the design process.Virtual reality, which generally involves being put into a digital space that doesnt actually exist, has been getting all the headlines lately. But augmented reality, which projects digital aspects into the real world, might actually have more practical applications.Augmented reality is useful or beautiful virtual elements that blend with the real world through lenses, said Payne this fall. You could have signs pointing you in the right direction, or restaurant reviews that pop up when youre walking down the street, or cartoon characters come to life. Or in this case, this magical art created by Taylor.Abstracted Motion involved a lot of cooperation between White, project producer Raleigh Murals Project and Google, thanks to the engineering aspect. It had to look good while conforming to exacting technical specifications, White said.Whats so exciting is that both sides of the table were pushed in a way theyre usually not, said Alan Mitchell, product marketing manager for Google in Raleigh. Getting the AR piece right so that it fits the artwork, thats never been done before. Both sides, art and technical, had to be put in kind of an uncomfortable zone to make it happen.Google has commissioned murals in other Fiber cities and has plans in the works for Cary, Durham and Chapel Hill. But the one in downtown Raleigh will be its only augmented-reality one for the foreseeable future, because it requires so much work and logistics.Blending technology is really hard to do, said Payne. Our eyes are geared up to see discrepancies. And the engineering process was very different. Usually with engineering, youre just trying to make something work. But this was blending how it happens with the users experience and the artists true intentions.It was designed to be a landmark, too.There are a lot of trendy cities with an iconic mural everyone knows, said Mitchell. This one is an opportunity to create an epic image that everyone will know about and come to visit. Abstracted Motion is at 410 S. Salisbury St. in downtown Raleigh. It faces West Davie Street to the north, between Gale Street to the west and South Salisbury Street to the east.To download the app for Android, search for Abstracted Motion in the Google Play store. An iPhone version is not available. At the event funded by Orhan Holding and co-sponsored by the International Federation of Photographic Art (FIAP), Vinh alone brought home five prizes, including the FIAPs Best Author and the Orhan Holding special awards in the experimental category. Three other photos taken by him were also awarded in the monochrome category. A traditional family in photography Dang Quang Vinh, born in 1968 in Bac Lieu, was presented the Excellence FIAP honourable title by FIAP and the special photographer title of Vietnam. He also won remarkable achievements such as Medal for Vietnam 2015 literary and artistic career, FIP Gold (India), PCA Gold (contest by the three countries of Serbia, Romania and Macedonia), GAP Gold (Greece), RPS Silver (the UK), FIAP Silver (Malaysia), PSA Gold (USA) and Golds at SIHIPC, ICPC and PHOTOVIVO (Singapore). In the two generations in his family, up to six members are well-known Vietnamese photographers and four of them have been granted the honourable title Artist FIAP (AFIAP). Since his teenage years, Vinh was introduced to photography by his father, so at the age of 15, he was already quite skilled. Vinh's father gave him a photo art book from the 1970s. It is his favourite photography book that he still preserves. However, in terms of career orientation, the photographer affirmed that, in his family, no one orients anyone and the children grow up and follow their predecessors in photo profession. They discovered the career by themselves, then went to every corner to capture the most beautiful and idyllic moments of life. In 2013, in a series of activities to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Vietnam's Traditional Photography - Cinema Day, held in Bac Lieu province, the family of photographer Dang Quang Vinh was awarded a certificate of merit for their constant career dedication, recognised by multiple domestic and international awards, contributing to promoting the image of the country and people of Vietnam to the world through photography. The Bac Lieu honour is a meaningful reward for their contributions. For years, the members of Dang Quang's photography family gathered in a photo shop named Hoa Phuong in Bac Lieu. After his father - photographer Dang Quang Sanh and his uncle Dang Quang Thanh died, Dang Quang Vinh and his two brothers continued their passion for photography. Photography needs souls beauty The special thing about Dang Quang Vinh's awards at the 14th Orhan Holding competition is that the winning works were mainly on the sea and islands. Sharing about this, Vinh said, the competition has four themes and suggestions towards the environment and he decided to choose the subject of the sea. He explained: I lived 8 km away from the sea and I experienced taking pictures of this subject for many years. Moreover, regarding the sea, the visual language is easy to understand, from the hard life, the smallness of the people before the immense sea, but the highest is still the spirit of courage and enthusiasm to work and keeping a close attachment to the sea." Vinh said that photography is the art of light that the senior photographers have learned and constantly made creative works. Today, progressive science and technology has help young people quickly access new knowledge and makes it good for Vietnam to have young photographers winning international prizes. That is a good sign but we can't be too optimistic. Specifically, in the technological age, many young people are too "technological" and forget that behind each photo is the beauty of emotions, the beauty of the soul. Many people think that just having an expensive camera and with digital proficiency, they can make a good work without being aware that, in order to capture special moments, the photographer must be passionate and sacrifice for the job. When my father was still in his 70s, he always accompanied his family members or friends who love photography to make photos and exchange about their life and career, said Vinh. In his memory, the image of his father always lingered with valuable lessons about the profession. To get quality photos, the photographer must stay up late and get up early and always be in a state of ready-to-go. For them, it is joy, love and their life. Each one has a distinct style and feeling but the work of the six artists of Dang Quang's family all reveal their rustic, gentle lifestyle and thinking, that can be easily identified through the soft and peaceful features. (TNS) Hoosier lawmakers are considering tax incentives to facilitate the possible growth of the Digital Crossroads of America Data Center on Hammond's lakeshore, and to lure more data centers to Indiana.On Tuesday, the House Ways and Means Committee began evaluating House Bill 1405, co-sponsored by state Rep. Ed Soliday, R-Valparaiso, as a means to ensure the Hammond data center, a $40 million, 105,000-square-foot project at the site of the former State Line Generating Plant, grows to its potential of a $200 million campus with 400,000 square feet of lake-cooled data storage."This bill is very key to making our state competitive in an emerging arena," said Soliday, who is joined on the legislation by state Reps. Carolyn Jackson, D-Hammond, and Jim Pressel, R-Rolling Prairie.Under the plan, data center equipment, such as computer servers, routers, wiring, software and other components, along with electricity, would be exempt from business personal property tax as well as the state's 7 percent sales tax, provided that a Lake County data center developer invests up to $100 million in their project within five years.Similar incentives would be available for a $75 million data center investment in a county with between 30,000 and 50,000 residents, and for $50 million invested in a data center in a county with fewer than 30,000 people.The proposal as currently written eliminates the sales tax exemption after seven years, which would make it impossible to grow beyond the initial facility, said the developers of the Hammond data center, Tom Dakich and Peter Feldman."Pete and I are committed to building the first 100,000 square feet, the first $50 million," Dakich said. "We're not going to get very much bigger, unless you guys help us."But if we can get this done the way we think we can get it done, we're going spend $800,000 a week [for five years] on just this simple project in Lake County, Indiana, in order to build this data center."Feldman, who has developed data centers in New York City and elsewhere, encouraged lawmakers to consider at least a 20-year sales tax exemption to persuade major tech companies to put a piece of their data operations in Northwest Indiana."It's the incentives that make it," Feldman said. "It's the incentives that bring large multinationals and publicly traded companies to the state."The nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency estimates that the proposed incentives could reduce state sales tax revenue by $3.5 million to $7 million a year.However, data center supporters, including Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr., said Indiana will make up some or all of that money on the back end through sales and employment growth at data center suppliers, which would not be tax-exempt, and other "ripple effect" developments."We took this data center from Chicago, and we want to do it again," McDermott said. "This legislation gives Indiana a vital tool in our fight to bring data and technology to our state."The project also is supported by the Northwest Indiana Forum, the Indiana Economic Development Association and the Indiana State Building and Construction Trades Council, among others.State Rep. Todd Huston, R-Fishers, the committee co-chairman, said the panel must decide how much tax revenue Indiana is willing to give up to further the data center industry in the state before voting on the proposal in coming weeks. Cybersecurity Tops Everyones Priority List Provide Adequate Funding Fill the Talent Gap State and Local Leaders Have a Duty to Protect Digital Government As new governors, legislators, and local leaders take office in 2019 (and incumbent administrations return with renewed focus), cybersecurity should be a top priority because state and local governments face increasing cyberthreats. 2018 put state and local governments on notice, from the crippling ransomware attacks on Colorados Department of Transportation, the city of Atlanta, and Baltimores 911 and 311 systems, to the massive San Diego Unified School District data breach. These cyberattacks should raise concerns around the importance of state and local governments portfolios of valuable citizen data and the critical infrastructure they manage and protect.Technology and data are transforming how state and local governments make decisions and deliver services. Citizen expectations for smart, online government services have powered a digital revolution in statehouses and city halls. Smart IoT-enabled public infrastructure will help governments provide unprecedented services, public safety, and economic opportunity. But a 21st-century government infrastructure must be protected with equally modern cybersecurity defenses, just like a thriving downtown requires expertly trained and well-funded police and fire departments. Its time for state and local leaders to rally support around a well-resourced cybersecurity strategy.This is hardly breaking news to government IT staff. State and local government IT leaders have been the loudest proponents of cybersecurity prioritization, where it has routinely ranked No. 1 on surveys of government CIOs. The National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) outlined its top 10 policy and technology priorities for 2019 , and security and risk management topped the list. Likewise, e.Republics* 2018 Digital Cities Survey of city government IT leaders once again returned cybersecurity as the No. 1 priority. And in their survey of county government IT priorities? Cybersecurity ranked No. 1 for the fifth year in a row.The good news is that the hard work to bring state and local government cybersecurity practices up to speed is underway. The National Governors Association has an ongoing initiative to prioritize cybersecurity, resulting in best practices and information sharing. Similarly, the National Conference of State Legislatures has a task force on cybersecurity ready to educate incoming elected officials. Many state and local governments have made progress, hiring chief information security officers (CISOs), enacting risk-based, data-driven cybersecurity practices, and investing in best-of-breed technology.The bad news is that while many leaders have stepped up on the issue of cybersecurity, the threats and risks to government have only increased, outpacing progress and funding. Incoming leaders must establish a strategic, long-term plan to make cybersecurity a core competency within their governments.According to a recent study of top IT security officers in 50 states, nearly half of states dont have a separate cybersecurity budget and of those that do, more than a third have seen static or even reduced budgets over time. Its clear that state and local government IT leaders often lack the funding to truly bolster their security posture.In the bi-annual NASCIO/Deloitte cybersecurity survey , a lack of budget has been the No. 1 issue of state government CISOs every year since the survey began in 2010. According to the 2018 survey, the majority of states spend 1 to 2 percent of their IT budgets on cybersecurity, while a look at federal agencies saw cybersecurity receiving between 5 and 25 percent of overall IT spend. A 2017 Forrester report on U.S. private-sector cybersecurity budgets found a benchmark of 28 percent of overall IT spend.These budget comparisons back up what state and local IT leaders have been red flagging for the better part of the last decade: cybersecurity is detrimentally underfunded at the state and local level. Its time to provide them with the funding they need to do their jobs.A related challenge is filling cybersecurity staff positions. This problem isnt unique to government. If you were to ask 100 CISOs across every sector, from anywhere in the world, they would list acute problems finding and keeping cybersecurity talent as a top concern. A report from Cybersecurity Ventures estimates the global cybersecurity labor shortage will hit 3.5 million unfilled jobs by 2021.What can governors and mayors do? First, as previously mentioned, properly fund your cybersecurity efforts. Theres no question that youre going to need to pay more for cybersecurity talent in the short term, or youll risk losing prospects or current employees. Underfunded cybersecurity budgets lead to non-competitive salaries in a hot market for talent.Next, figure out a long-term talent pipeline that will not only serve your governments needs, but the many businesses, academic institutions, and nonprofits in your region that are also hungry to fill these roles. Answers need not look the same everywhere, but encourage your CIOs and CISOs to identify potential talent pipelines and then use your abilities as governor, as mayor, as county supervisor, to make your state, city and region a hive of cybersecurity talent.In Georgia, outgoing Gov. Nathan Deal, Augusta Mayor Hardie Davis Jr., and local academic institutions championed efforts to create the Georgia Cyber Center, which will serve as the epicenter of Georgias efforts to become a leader in cybersecurity technologies and train the next generation of professionals through education and real-world practice. In California, the annual Mayors Cyber Cup competition inspires high school students to consider pursuing careers in cybersecurity. Looking inward for talent, the federal government has recently announced a program aimed at reskilling current federal government employees with cybersecurity skills that qualify them for entry-level cybersecurity roles. Private-sector partners are also stepping up to provide innovative training programs, including courses for veterans.State and local leaders have big jobs to do and long priority lists for 2019. However, the duty to protect citizens and critical infrastructure has always fallen heavily on the backs of state and local leaders that duty to protect has shifted quickly towards the digital environment and leaders must respond by making cybersecurity a top priority. Adequate budgets and fostering a long-term pool of cybersecurity talent should be the focus for 2019.Government Technology's (TNS) West Lake Hills is exploring ways to improve wireless connectivity throughout the city after complaints of "dead zones" have been reported by residents and police officers, officials said.AT&T has begun to install new technology called small cell nodes that helps boost capacity and expands range in places around Austin and in Rollingwood. During a meeting Jan. 23, an AT&T spokesman gave suggestions to the city council on ways to improve reception in West Lake Hills. The suggestions are preliminary, so a cost to the city has not been determined.Mayor Linda Anthony said low and sometimes no connectivity has been a problem, and that the biggest issue is public safety."Its a public safety issue not only for our residents but for our police officers," Anthony said. "We've gone to a great deal of trouble and expense to bring our police force into the 21st century with best-available technology, and there are places in the city where they can't use it because they're in a dead zone."Wayne and Kelli Stickle, residents who live on Yaupon Valley Road, said they often experience dropped calls or dead zones, which affect their daily routines. Both work from home and have said they sometimes have to work from Starbucks or other places that offer Wi-Fi. The Stickles also pointed out that when that happens, there is no way to make calls, including to 911.Anthony said it is another sign of changing times."More and more people are dropping landlines and work from home," Anthony said. "We're getting more smartphones and technology. Water District 10 is installing new smart meters. So all around us we see the need for more connectivity."According to AT&T officials, a small cell node includes a small radio transmitter and an antenna. It helps provide wireless connection to small, very focused areas and can be affixed to utility poles and street lights.In preliminary research, AT&T is recommending at most 15 small cell nodes throughout the city. The company is recommending starting with six and then installing more as needed. AT&T officials said the idea is to install the devices in the areas where customers experience the most dropped calls, such as along Redbud Trail near Old Hedgestone Street.Representatives plan to do a survey of all infrastructure, including light poles and street lights, to find the best places to install the nodes so that they do not affect the aesthetic view of the road or area. (TNS) Flagler County will pay more than $15,000 to settle a lawsuit alleging that its website violates the Americans with Disabilities Act because it is inaccessible to people who are visually impaired.Specifically, the lawsuit states that much of the content of the site is provided in portable document format, or PDF, which does not interface with screen-reader software.The suit was filed in October by Daytona Beach resident Joel Price. It claims Flagler County "is blatantly discriminating by its failure to provide accessible electronic documents for blind and visually impaired citizens" and that its failure to provide access "goes beyond gross negligence."Price is legally blind. The lawsuit states that he is a visitor to Flagler County and that he "has concrete plans to read and comprehend (on a weekly basis)" the county's electronic documents.According to the complaint, Price visited flaglercounty.org in March, intending to learn about the quality of life and governmental functioning in Flagler County but met with what the suit terms a "virtual barrier."In May, he wrote to the county requesting that electronic documents be provided in a format accessible to the blind and visually impaired. The complaint states that the county didn't respond.In June, Price tried again, but found the documents remained inaccessible to him.As a result, the lawsuit claims that Price "has suffered injuries and shame, humiliation, isolation, segregation, experienced emotional suffering, pain and anguish."The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court by Price's attorneys, Scott R. Dinin and Juan Courtney Cunningham of Miami. It seeks an update to all electronic documents to remove barriers to the visually impaired and asks the court to award damages and "reasonable litigation expenses and attorneys' fees."The Flagler County Commission on Monday approved a settlement payment of $15,700. Of that, Price would receive $1,200 and his attorneys would be paid $14,500, according to county officials.In addition, the county will make all new PDF content accessible to the visually impaired who use screen-reader software, though content published online within the next year would be exempt.The county also wouldn't have to make documents accessible where it would be "technically infeasible or unreasonably costly" to do so. Ironically, that might have included Price's initial claim, which Jarrod Shupe, the county's innovation technology director, told the commission comes to the county in a non-readable format.To comply, the county will hire staff members to perform the additional work and retain a consultant to annually evaluate the site's accessibility. County officials were unable to estimate the cost of these changes."I would like to point out to the public that this is needed," said Commissioner Greg Hansen. "We have to comply with the ADA. But in fact, this is a scam that is being done throughout the state."The lawsuit is one of several recently filed against local governments in Florida. Price is listed as the plaintiff in some of them. He has filed suit against Brevard, Hendry, Manatee counties, represented in each by Dinin."The problem here is that the United States Congress has not acted to clarify the ADA act in this case," Hansen said. "They could stop this. Our Congress could stop this if they would just clarify the rules, and they haven't done that yet."County Attorney Al Hadeed said the U.S. Department of Justice is the rule-making agency for the ADA . He said it had drafted regulations identifying standards for local government but then withdrew them and has no plans to take them up again.Shupe said he had recently returned from a conference at which about 75 percent of local government IT directors from across the state had seen a lawsuit like the one filed against Flagler County.Commissioner David Sullivan said the county does whatever it can to aid disabled people."It's just that this can be done in a reasonable way without everybody suing everybody else," he said, "and that's why it would be nice if the Justice Department, as Mr. Hadeed pointed out, would come forward with a set of rules that apply throughout the country." (TNS) - Overhauling an ambulance system that's been chronically understaffed even as demand for the service has soared could cost Volusia County more than $5 million and may even require a property tax increase.County officials unveiled a plan this week to enhance the EVAC system with seven more ambulances and 28 emergency medical technicians and paramedics, plus new technology and nurse triage positions to field non-emergency calls. To help pay for it, the county may need to boost property taxes by an average of $5.25 per household, enough to generate $2.1 million toward the bill."There is a price tag. ... We are being asked to upgrade a lot of things," County Manager George Recktenwald said at Tuesday's County Council meeting. "At the end of the day, we are going to have to make some decisions budgetarily."The system drew heavy fire last year. Believing Volusia ambulances weren't responding fast enough to calls, Port Orange voted last year to buy its own and hire four people to staff it at an annual cost of $425,000. Councilwoman Heather Post has given several examples at council meetings and on her Facebook page of occasions when wait times or transport times exceeded 30 minutes.The criticism prompted Recktenwald and other top managers to hold a series of meetings with EMS personnel to pore over data and assess needs. The recommendations that resulted from those meetings were part of a lengthy staff presentation at Tuesday's meetings. Among the takeaways:The county has typically been short eight or nine paramedics since taking over EVAC in 2011, said Public Protection Director Joe Pozzo, who has issued an edict requiring all full-time positions be filled by Feb. 15.County ambulances spend a lot of time when they are unable to respond to emergency calls because they occupied transferring patients between hospitals. Such calls happen on average 14 times a day and typically take up to two hours. County staff recommends adding two ambulances and eight paramedics to focus on this function.The county's system is bogged down by 911 calls for non-emergency situations. To combat this, staff recommended putting a nurse in the county's communications center to triage calls and seek other alternatives to ensure that the emergency system is reserved for true emergencies.In addition to those issues, a News-Journal analysis published Sunday found that the ambulance system is also hindered by bed delays at over-crowded emergency rooms. The number of times ambulances had to wait outside a hospital for more than 30 minutes increased 72 percent over a six-year period, costing the system an average of five and a half hours per day.Council members commended staff on the presentation as they now set about the task of determining the best course of action before the next budget is adopted in September. The county has recommended rolling out the changes in phases over the next three years, with four ambulances added this year; two more next year along with the triage program, and a seventh new ambulance in 2021."What I want is the outcomes for the residents," said County Chair Ed Kelley, adding that he'd like to see the nurse triage rolled out this year. "I think if money wasn't an issue, we'd say do it all yesterday. But we have to face the realities and make the decision. ... It's incumbent upon us to provide the level of service that we know and feel our residents deserve."Councilman Ben Johnson agreed."This is about saving lives," said the former sheriff. "We have to step up to the plate. We have to do that even if we have to cut (money) from somewhere else in the future in order to do it."Said Billie Wheeler: "This is our number one priority: our citizens' safety. It is time to move forward."Post said the county should have made improving its EMS system a priority before taking on other initiatives like a years-long goal to get debt-free in its general fund."The work that has been done over the past several months on this has been amazing," she said. "But the point is that there have been deficiencies that have gone on for several years that have been brought to our attention. This is what's in front of us. It's our responsibility to provide adequate public safety service to the citizens of Volusia County. Obviously, I'm mindful of the price tag, but also I'm a little irritated for council to go-to-zero budget when there are critical needs not being addressed. I don't find that acceptable either."Councilwoman Deb Denys shared a story of a bad experience she had in January when her husband thought he was having a heart attack. After an EMS crew arrived in New Smyrna Beach with no response time problems, Denys requested a transport to Halifax Hospital in Daytona Beach. She was told that EMS crews weren't allowed to transfer patients to hospitals outside a 12-mile radius.Even after telling the paramedic team that she was a councilwoman, her request was denied and Denys wound up having to drive her husband to Halifax Health without an ambulance. Later, the county's medical director Peter Springer called and apologized, telling Denys that the county is supposed to send patients to whichever hospital they prefer."If I can't navigate the system on a transport issue, how are our senior citizens or a young mother with a child (going to) know what their rights are?" she said, asking the county to do better at ensuring the right information gets to patients."A million dollars isn't going to fix that," she added.2019 The News-Journal, Daytona Beach, Fla.Visit The News-Journal, Daytona Beach, Fla. at www.news-journalonline.comDistributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Baton Rouge, La., Launches New Open Checkbook Twilio.org Announces $1.4 Million in Grants for Nonprofits Using Tech to Strengthen Communities NYC Launches The Grid Network Aimed at Growing Urban Tech Ecosystem Deloitte, Georgetown University Collaborate on CDO Playbook for Local Gov Arc GIS App Uses Data to Create Artsy Sketches of Cities New York City has released its Mayors Office of Data Analytics 2018 Year in Review and Look Ahead , which essentially serves as a state-of-data work in NYC.As the citys chief analytics officer, Kelly Jin, noted in the medium post announcing the report, it highlights key projects from 2018 and opportunities on the horizon in 2019. Jin, who started with the city roughly four months ago, goes on to note that a big part of her early work has been dedicated to both hearing and understanding what New Yorkers want from data analytics efforts in the city.Other accomplishments noted include helping enrollment specialists for the citys new Universal Pre-K program prioritize outreach efforts, assisting city leadership with assigning resources during a Legionnaires disease outbreak in the Bronx, and determining where city inspectors should look first within a concentrated campaign to find bad landlords.Perhaps most importantly, though, Jin notes that in December, New York Citys office of data analytics was written permanently into the citys charter, which all but guarantees its work will evolve and grow long term, continuing long into the future. The city notes that doing so marked the first time a major American city has codified this sort of analytics work.New York City, given its size and prominence, is a leader when it comes to the direction of city government in the country. Previous efforts that range from data storytelling to use of certain algorithms have long been emulated by smaller jurisdictions. In other words, it wouldnt be a surprise if this move to codify the work there, is emulated elsewhere soon.Baton Rouge, La., launched a new open checkbook platform that allows residents and other visitors access to spending data for municipal departments and services.Dubbed Open Checkbook BR , the platform launched last year, marking the citys final open data release for 2018. In a press release accompanying the launch, city officials noted that Open Checkbook BR allows users to easily understand all levels of City-Parish departmental spending down to the check level in a manner that is consistent with open data standards used across the nation and around the world. Essentially, residents of the city can now do things like see where a department is spending its budget, down to individual transactions.These types of financial transparency initiatives are increasingly popular in local governments looking to bolster their open data work. They hold additional appeal for municipalities hoping to foster increased trust in government through embracing such thorough financial transparency. Another notable point about Open Checkbook BR is that the information within is updated every night with any new transactions, which might range from new checks cut by the city to wire transfers to card payments made to municipal vendors.On top of Open Checkbook BR, the city has a full open data portal, dubbed Open Data BR, which provides additional access to data sets related to public safety as well as to more niche areas such as animal control, public salary info and even 311 requests. In a broader sense, this all speaks to the accelerating pace at which mid-sized cities across the country are embracing deep open data work. Twilio.org , which is home to a cloud-based messaging platform, expanded its grant-making to now include up to $1.4 million to support nonprofit organizations using tech to strengthen their communities. Twilio made the announcement this week, noting that it had awarded the money to 15 nonprofits, marking its all-time largest round of grants. Twilio made the grants through its Twilio.org Impact Fund, which in the past has doled out upward of $3 million to similar organizations that have fostering social impact as part of their core mission. The organizations that have received these grants are quite varied.Benefits Data Trust, for example, works to create better access to essential benefits and services, and it plans to use the grant money to expand its SMS engagement in a way that serves more and features increased efficiency.DoSomething, meanwhile, is another recipient, and that group is billed as the largest tech organization working to get young people engaged with social impact campaigns. DoSomething previously received a grant from Twilio in order to help get out the vote among underrepresented organizations in the 2018 midterm elections. This time around, DoSomething is planning to use the grant money to build participation in their DoSomething Clubs, which is a new program spread across high school and college campuses all over the country.In announcing the expanded grant round, Twilio noted that all recipients are working to use tech and innovation to foster better connections in communities. This sort of social engagement is not unprecedented for Twilio, which also started Voices for Democracy , a nonpartisan initiative aimed at improving those engagements between constituents and the individuals or groups who represent them in the political process.New York City has launched The Grid, which sounds like a big budget sci-fi film but is actually a membership-based network for the urban tech community in Americas largest city.The Grid is the result of a collaboration between the New York City Economic Development Corporation and CIV:LAB , which is a nonprofit organization that actively works to foster better connections between urban technology leaders. The Grid is essentially a clear manifestation of CIV:LABs mission, intended as it is for connecting tech groups, academic institutions and municipal tech leaders. The ultimate goal, of course, is to promote collaborations as well as to share information and resources.The Grid made its debut to the world this week with a launch event at the New York Academy of Sciences, during which organizers announced more than 70 member organizations from all throughout New York that would be participating. All of the groups went through an application and screening process as well.The Grids launch fits into the ongoing UrbanTech NYC program, which has previously worked to help create other innovation efforts in the city. Along with the network, the groups are also debuting The Grid Academy, which will be an academic group that helps to foster research and development partnerships between academia and the private sector.The Grids first meeting is currently slated for Feb. 19 at Samsung NEXTs New York HQ. Those interested in applying for membership can do so via this UrbanTech NYC website . Applications are now being reviewed on a rolling basis.Noting that as we discussed above in the Baton Rouge note more local governments are making data publicly available, the private company Deloitte and the Georgetown University Beeck Center have now launched a CDO Playbook , with CDO standing for chief data officer.The playbook is aimed squarely at CDOs involved with local government, and it features seven articles intended to help officials improve both the social impact and the service delivery of their open data work. Some of the topics explored by the CDO Playbook include overcoming common obstacles related to data-sharing, making the best possible use of data storytelling work and deploying public data in a way that serves the public good.In addition to the seven chapters that are currently available within the playbook, Deloitte notes in a press release that in the future more chapters will be added, with forthcoming topics such as data ethics, data lakes and how to best craft an effective open data strategy.This effort is tied to Deloittes Center for Government Insights, which conducts researched that helps government solve complex problems. Georgetowns Beeck Center for Social Impact and Innovation hosted a series of meetings that brought together leaders from both the public and private sector, some of which were actual chief data officers.Finally, heres an interesting use of mapping technology: a platform that allows users to sketch cities with ArcGIS API for JavaScript.Its pretty artsy tech work, one that looks more at home in a video about computer animation than as an open platform anyone can just use. There are currently five cities mapped with the application: San Francisco, Paris, Berlin, Washington, D.C., and New York Citys Manhattan borough. Users can toggle between chalk and pencil renderings, moving through the cities and checking out various views.The only major warning is that playing with this thing, which is powered by Esri, is a bit addictive. Esri has a nifty little how-to about the platform as well. Plagiarism can cause challenges in all sectors of society, including government organizations. To combat plagiarism in government documents such as grants, reports, reviews and legal documents, government organizations will find iThenticate to be an effective yet easy-to-use tool in their arsenal. Description GIS 08 February, 2019: A regional Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) pertaining to the importation and storage of natural gas will be signed next month between the countries of the Indian Ocean. This announcement was made yesterday by the Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Energy and Public Utilities, Mr Ivan Collendavelloo, at the inauguration of a Photovoltaic solar plant in Solitude. The Southern African Development Community, he recalled, is developing a Master Plan for natural gas in the region. The Deputy Prime Minister also pointed out that most of the countries in the region are dependent on charcoal, which he qualified as an economic tragedy. Furthermore, he indicated that countries of the region have around 600 000 billion of m3 of natural gas adding that these reserves are sufficient to eliminate charcoal. As regards the Photovoltaic solar plant in Solitude, Mr Collendavelloo underlined that the project is being carried out on the lands of 26 planters. Voltas Yellow Ltd is renting 20 hectares of land on which 60 000 photovoltaic panels have been installed and the project has necessitated an investment of 20 million euros (Rs 800 million), he stated. At present, six solar farms are operational in Mauritius and four additional ones will be constructed in the months to come, he indicated. Speaking about the renewable energy policy of Government, the Deputy Prime Minister emphasised that several initiatives, fiscal measures and strategic decisions have been put in place so as to promote clean energy. These include: training of engineers in renewable energy; streamlining of authorisations for renewable energy projects which were cumbersome; and more competitive calls for tenders. Mr Collendavelloo said that several renewable energy projects are being implemented across Mauritius such as the Small-Scale Distributed Generation Net-Metering Scheme, the Medium Scale Distributed Generation Project, and the Home Solar Project. Lauding the Home Solar Project, the Deputy Prime Minister explained that it is a significant one since it aims at helping low-income communities to be energy sufficient, save energy costs and protect the environment. The Central Electricity Board (CEB) will pay for the installation of the photovoltaic panels on the rooftops of those 10 000 households which have been identified, he added. Moreover, he highlighted that a sum of Rs 350 million (USD 10 million) has been granted as a loan from the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development and the International Renewable Energy Agency for the implementation of this project. According to Mr Collendavelloo , the project will bring 10 megawatts of new renewable energy capacity into the grid, resulting in savings of over USD 35 million in fossil fuel imports over the project lifetime and improvements in the energy security of Mauritius. People in low income communities will also benefit from significant electricity bill savings, he added. The solar power plant of Solitude The production capacity of the solar plant is around 16,34 MW and will be able to produce electricity for 6 000 households. The project will also enable 28 000 tons of CO 2 to be saved per year. The electricity produced will be directed to the sub-station in Riche Terre to supply the region and the economic zone of Jin Fei. The solar power plant of Solitude feeds into the CEBs national electricity grid, replacing the country's energy mix (mainly coal/oil) with clean, renewable energy. This project is part of Governments vision which aims at reaching 35% of renewable energy in Mauritius by 2025. Description GIS - 08 February, 2019: The Cambridge Higher School Certificate (HSC) 2018 results were proclaimed this morning and the names of 45 laureates were announced. The Prime Minister, Minister of Home Affairs, External Communications and National Development Unit, Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Mr Pravind Kumar Jugnauth, signed the official documents at the New Treasury Building in Port Louis in presence of the Minister of Education and Human Resources, Tertiary Education and Scientific Research, Mrs Leela Devi Dookun -Luchoomun. In his address, the Prime Minister lauded the achievement of the laureates and acknowledged their efforts, sacrifice and hard work which he attributed to the support of their families and their respective academic institutions. He observed that each and every student should be given the opportunity to have access to tertiary education and recalled the historical measure he announced in his New Year message, namely free access to tertiary education in all public institutions as from this year. Speaking about the opportunities to create more employability for the youth in the various economic sectors, Mr Jugnauth emphasised the need to ease accessibility in both academic and vocational institutions. He further underlined the requisite for Mauritius to embrace modernity with the latest technology and keep pace with the digital evolution in the wake of the upcoming challenges facing the world of work where focus is laid on block chain technology and artificial intelligence. The Prime Minister appealed to students to avail of the facilities of free access to tertiary education and reiterated that tertiary education should be accessible to all children from every segment of the social ladder. For her part, Minister Dookun -Luchoomun, commended the laureates for their accomplishment based on their efforts and perseverance as well as the students who have succeeded their HSC 2018 examinations with flying colours. She also conveyed her best wishes to students who will embark on the journey of tertiary education. HSC 2018 Results A total of 9408 candidates sat for the 2018 HSC examinations that is, 9 102 for Mauritius and 306 for Rodrigues, with 2 013 students competing for the State Scholarships. The pass rate for 2018 for the Republic of Mauritius totals to 74.9% as compared to 74.37% in 2017. The number of laureates by school is as follows: Royal College Port Louis 9; Queen Elizabeth College 7; Royal College Curepipe 7; Dr Maurice Cure State College 6; Droopnath Ramphul State College 4; Mahatma Gandhi Institute Moka 2; College Du Saint Esprit 1; Rajcoomar Gujadhur State Secondary School 1; Sookdeo Bissondoyal State College 1; John Kennedy College 1; G.M.B Atchia State College 1; Piton State College 1; Rodrigues College 3; and Marechal College 1. Government offers 69 scholarships each year based on the HSC examinations. A scholarship is also offered by the Mauritius Commercial Bank (MCB) under the MCB Foundation Scholarship. Forty-five scholarships are offered purely on the basis of performance and merit. Twenty-four additional scholarships are allocated on academic, merit and social criteria basis. The list will be proclaimed after a selection exercise by the Ministry of Education and Human Resources, Tertiary Education and Scientific Research and the Ministry of Social Security. Moreover, the Ministry of Education and Human Resources, Tertiary Education and Scientific Research will launch a call for applications in the coming days for those eligible for the 24 scholarships. Description GIS 08 February, 2019: Mauritius will be showcased as a model cyber resilience country in East Africa as regards the sharing of experience and best practices with other regions where the Cyber 4 Dev project is being implemented, namely Ghana, Rwanda, Botswana and Sri Lanka, stated the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Regional Integration and International Trade, Mr Seetanah Lutchmeenaraidoo, at the opening of a one-day cybersecurity seminar held yesterday at Le Labourdonnais Waterfront Hotel, in Port Louis. The Minister of Technology, Communication and Innovation, Mr Yogida Sawmynaden, and the Ambassador and Head of Delegation of the European Union (EU) to Mauritius, Mrs Marjaana Sall, and other personalities were also present. In his address, Minister Lutchmeenaraidoo highlighted that cyberattacks are a growing phenomenon, especially where people depend increasingly on online systems to access a wide range of services, an example being bank accounts which are at high risk of being cyberattacked. People, he pointed out, are living in a digital world where they falsely believe that they are secure and expect institutions as well as the Government to protect their assets and vital infrastructure. There is no way to achieve safety and security against cybercrimes except by being proactive and alert, stressed the Foreign Affairs Minister . He recalled that Mauritius, representing East Africa, has been included in the Cyber 4 Dev Project following a proposal made by Estonia during the project mandatory phase in March 2018. For his part, Minister Sawmynaden stated that the EU-funded Cyber 4 Dev project aims at increasing the security and resilience of critical information infrastructure and networks by supporting the critical services of participant countries while ensuring compliance with human rights and the rule of law through the adoption and implementation of a comprehensive set of policy, organisational and technical measures. The Minister underscored that with regards to the extra-territorial and multilateral nature of the project as well as the technical capacities needed to ensure proper local implementation and monitoring, it was proposed that a EU Cyber 4 Dev-Mauritius Technical Working Group be set up and operate under the joint chairmanship of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Regional Integration and International Trade, and the Ministry of Technology, Communication and Innovation. Ambassador Sall pointed out that the increasing reliance on IT systems to provide a flow of information enabling fast delivery of services across national and international territories has already transformed our societies. Most of the efforts that have been made to secure the IT sector have so far underestimated the risks and challenges associated with this process, she added. Medical staff give Spring Festival decorations to patients and their family members at the Jiangxi Provincial People's Hospital in Nanchang, capital of east China's Jiangxi Province, Jan. 31, 2019. Patients and their family members were provided with Spring Festival decorations and music performance by medical staff and volunteers at the Jiangxi Provincial People's Hospital as a way to greet the upcoming Spring Festival, which falls on Feb. 5 this year. (Xinhua/Peng Zhaozhi) 4 1 [ Editor: WPY ] SPEED READ: Two dozen states hold more than $75 million in stock in private prison companies, according to the American Federation of Teachers. The labor union is calling on pension funds to divest from private prisons. Our high incarceration rate disproportionately affects people of color, and our schools and our members see the negative effects of that disproportion every day," says AFT President Randi Weingarten. Divestment, though, is controversial. Critics say its too often politically motivated and not based on sound investment strategy. In other public finance news this week: Pre-K Investment (Slowly) Growing Puerto Rico Making Progress in Bankruptcy Some of the nations largest public pensions top a list of two dozen funds invested in private prison operators, a new report from the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) has found.The California Public Employees' Retirement System, the New York State Teachers' Retirement System and the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System lead the list of pensions holding shares in the two largest private prison companies, CoreCivic and GEO Group. In total, AFT President Randi Weingarten says 24 funds across 20 states hold more than $75 million in stock in the two prison companies.These companies, AFT alleges, profit by paying workers less and providing lower quality services than public institutions. The more incarceration you have, the more money these companies make, Weingarten says. Our high incarceration rate disproportionately affects people of color, and our schools and our members see the negative effects of that disproportion every day.Therefore, AFT argues, investing in private prisons poses not only moral risks, but also public relation and political risks that make their viability as a long-term investment questionable. AFT points to the hundreds of lawsuits filed against private prison operators over the years, including more than 140 alone against Correct Care Solutions. Another company, Corizon Health, has paid out millions of dollars in settlements, including a record $8.3 million settlement in 2015 for a detainee who died after not receiving a required intake assessment.Its a familiar argument : Environmental activists use it to urge divestment in coal, and anti-gun activists use it to urge divestment from gun manufacturers. Divestment, though, is controversial. Critics say its too often politically motivated and not based on sound investment strategy.Responding to AFTs report, the Institute for Pension Fund Integrity notes that all companies are vulnerable to lawsuits, the impact of new and changing state and federal laws, and the political environment in which they operate. How the companies react to and perform against these challenges, it said in a statement towill be reflected in their market performance, which should be a primary consideration when evaluating investment options."The federation has so far been successful at urging a few public pensions, including the New Jersey Pension Fund, the Chicago Teachers fund and the California State Teachers Retirement System, to dump their direct holdings in private prisons.In response, private prison companies have called divestment efforts a deliberate mischaracterization of their role as a service provider. They ignore the fact that our company plays absolutely no role in passing, setting or advocating for or against criminal justice or immigration laws and policies, GEO Group spokesman Pablo E. Paez recently said . (A 2011 Justice Policy Institute report, however, found prison corporations do use lobbyists, campaign contributions and relationships with policymakers to further their own business agenda.)The report, released Tuesday, is part of AFTs Ranking Asset Managers series which singles out money managers that AFT believes act in the counter interests to public pensions.Short of divestment, AFT urges pension funds to engage with CoreCivic and the GEO Group to demand that they adopt policies to ensure just and humane treatment of detainees and proper oversight. The federation also encourages funds invested in private equity companies that own for-profit prisons ask what steps those companies are taking to address any investment risks associated with the prisons.States collectively put $256 million more into pre-Kindergarten programs last year, a 3.4 percent increase over the 2017 fiscal year, the Education Commission of the States reported this week. Still, thats the smallest one-year increase since 2012, the year the commission began producing its pre-K report.While theres a growing body of research supporting the idea that pre-K schooling gives kids an educational head start, most programs are funded through appropriation. That, the commission warns, means pre-K programs are often subject to discretionary budget decisions and economic cycles. Meanwhile, four states -- Idaho, New Hampshire, South Dakota and Wyoming -- still dont provide any state funding for pre-K.Puerto Rico won a judges approval to restructure $17 billion in sales tax-backed debt this week, a major step toward financial solvency more than three years after it began defaulting on its debt payments. It also marks the second such deal reached between the government and its creditors. In November, it won approval on about $4 billion in debt related to its Government Development Bank.The U.S. territory first defaulted in August 2015, but it took nearly two years to win federal protection to restructure its debt. The island has about $120 billion in debt, including its retiree liabilities. This weeks deal on its sales tax-backed bonds will cut out $17.5 billion in debt payments over nearly 40 years, saving the island an average of $456 million annually. A Florida politician has resigned after being accused of groping a former city manager and licking his face.Nancy Oakley, a Madeira Beach City Commissioner, handed in her notice Tuesday, a week after the state ethics panel voted unanimously to to find her guilty of sexual harassment.According to the ethics committee, Oakley had been drinking at an all-day fishing tournament in November 2012 when she showed up to an outdoor City Commission meeting. When the deputy city clerk, Cheryl McGrady, attempted to gavel the meeting to begin, Oakley refused, and instead began publicly accusing McGrady of having an affair with then-City Manager Shane Crawford, her boss."You need to get that f--king b---h out of here," former Mayor Travis Palladeno allegedly heard Oakley say.The meeting eventually was able to get underway, with planning and zoning director Lynn Rosetti stepping up to fill in for McGrady.When the commission ended for the night, Oakley allegedly walked over to Crawford, "licked...up the side of his neck and face" and grabbed his crotch and buttocks in front of multiple witnesses, according to the ethics committee's report.Oakley also allegedly trued to punch McGrady.Two other men, public works director David Marsicano and Thomas Verdensky, the president of the Old Salt Foundation also accused Oakley of licking them.Crawford said he initially didn't report Oakley out of fear of losing his job, but said he decided to file a formal complaint when she ran for reelection again in 2017.She won, and just a few months later joined forces with newly elected Mayor Maggi Black and Commissioner John Douthirt to suspend Crawford.He accused her of retaliating, and resigned instead of being fired."That whole group knew the ethics complaint was pending," Crawford said in May, according to the Miami Herald. "I was wronged and I am not going to sit back and take it any longer."Oakley continued insisting her innocence, but handed in her notice anyway. Her term was scheduled to end next month, and she had not filed to run for another term. Ralph Northam might just hang on to his job.Left for dead a week ago after his disastrous handling of his history with blackface, the Democratic Virginia governor is quietly plotting a survival strategy. Hes conferring with sympathetic Republican lawmakers and has hired a crisis manager whos decamped to Richmond from Washington.And as the state capitol descended into pandemonium this week after two other statewide Democrats faced their own scandals episodes that could, ironically, help Northams chances of remaining in office the governor sought counsel from pastors and worked to persuade his top staff not to bail.Northams work to salvage his political career represents a remarkable and quite possibly uncharted attempt at survival for an embattled politician. It reflects how President Donald Trumps election after the "Access Hollywood" tape has changed the calculus for other lawmakers staring down the political abyss in 2019.While national and state Democrats swiftly called for Northam's resignation, half a dozen people in the state told POLITICO that the governor has no plans to leave with three years left in his term. The U.S. Supreme Court has stopped a law that threatened to shutter Louisiana abortion clinics from taking effect this week, but the fight over whether abortion providers should be required to have admitting privileges at local hospitals is likely far from over.In a brief late-night message Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the admitting privileges law be put on hold pending a "timely filing" of a petition for the high court to act on the law itself. It would immediately expire if that doesn't happen. If a timely petition is filed, then the stay remains in effect until the high court rules on the law.The emergency stay was issued on a 5-4 vote, with Chief Justice John Roberts voting with the more liberal wing of the court -- Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the newest member of the court who faced a rocky confirmation after President Donald Trump nominated him to replace the retiring Anthony Kennedy, wrote a dissent to the ruling that was more than 10 times longer than the majority remarks.In it, he argued doctors would have a 45-day period to attempt to obtain admitting privileges, as required by the law, and if unsuccessful the court could revisit the issue."If the doctors, after good-faith efforts during the 45-day period, cannot obtain admitting privileges, then the Fifth Circuit's factual predictions, which were made in the context of a pre-enforcement facial challenge, could turn out to be inaccurate as applied," Kavanaugh wrote.Only one of the state's three abortion clinics currently would meet the admitting privileges requirement, and critics of the 2014 law argued that it would shutter the other two, effectively crippling access to abortions for thousands of Louisiana women.Supporters, largely those who generally oppose abortion, argued that it was intended to make abortion safer for women."Abortion has known medical risks, and the women of this state who are often coerced into abortion deserve to have the same standard of care required for other surgical procedures," state Rep. Katrina Jackson, a Monroe Democrat who authored the legislation, said in a statement.Act 620 is being challenged in court by a pair of Louisiana doctors, backed by the Center for Reproductive Rights, who say it's too onerous.Because the emergency hold was reviewed by the full court, it is widely being viewed as the first major test of how President Donald Trump's appointees to the U.S. Supreme Court could ultimately impact abortion laws across the country. Justice Neil Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, both Trump appointees, were not on the bench when a similar law in Texas was ruled unconstitutional nearly three years ago.Both voted against the petition for an emergency stay.The Texas law that, like Louisiana's, sought to require admitting privileges, was rejected on a 5-3 Supreme Court vote in 2016.Attorney General Jeff Landry, a Republican, has been fighting for the law to take effect. He vowed to continue after the stay was granted Thursday night."In 2014, our duly elected legislators almost unanimously passed Act 620 to require doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals," he said in a statement. "Unfortunately, the Supreme Court today put enforcement of this pro-woman law on hold for the time being. We will not waver in defense of our state's pro-woman and pro-life laws; and we will continue to do all that we legally can to protect Louisiana women and the unborn."The crux of the argument against the law has been that it's modeled after the Texas law that the high court already struck down. But the 5th Circuit majority that agreed to uphold Act 620, ruled that "unlike in Texas, (Louisiana's law) does not impose a substantial burden on a large fraction of women" and would affect, at most, 30 percent of Louisiana women.Louisiana, which tends to be among states with the toughest restrictions on abortion access, has three remaining abortion clinics -- one each in Baton Rouge, New Orleans and Shreveport. There were five when Act 620 passed the Louisiana Legislature in 2014."The Supreme Court has stepped in under the wire to protect the rights of Louisiana women," said Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights. "The three clinics left in Louisiana can stay open while we ask the Supreme Court to hear our case. This should be an easy case--all that's needed is a straightforward application of the court's own precedent." Los Angeles City Council President Herb Wesson, who called on the city to investigate the scope of vermin and pest control issues in City Hall, where employees have found rat droppings and dead rats in the ceiling. Wesson says he has fleas in his office carpet. Your digital subscription allows you to view any content, comment on any issue and submit your own news to our newsroom. Digital subscriptions do not include home delivery of the Tracy Press. To receive the paper at home, sign up for Premium Membership. CINCINNATI, Feb. 08, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Ohio National Financial Services today announced a 6 percent increase in 2018 core earnings and released positive 2018 financial results as it closes out a five-year strategy. The company also grew total revenue (excluding realized gains and losses) by 9 percent and increased sales in core product lines. As a mutual company, no matter the economic and external environment, we remain strategically focused on serving our policyholders first. We're embarking on a more focused strategy building on our historic strengths of life and disability income (DI) insurance where we can deliver the greatest long-term value. We are also growing our Latin American operations, taking advantage of opportunities in these underpenetrated life insurance markets," reported Gary T. Doc Huffman, chairman and chief executive officer, at todays Board of Directors meeting. I'm particularly proud of the way our team identified opportunities and successfully transitioned to a new strategy all while maintaining our long-standing financial strength. We continue to expand our network of financial professionals by fostering valued relationships and offering the products and features that meet the changing needs of our customers, said Barbara A. Turner, CRCP, president and chief operating officer, elected November 2018. Ohio National finished the year with growth in its core network of financial professionals while also reaching record sales in DI insurance products; exceeding first full-year sales goals by more than 30 percent of its new indexed universal life (IUL) product; and paying dividends to eligible policyholders for the 95th consecutive year. Our Latin America business continues to see year-over-year sales growth and we entered into the Peruvian individual life insurance market as the only U.S. company with a presence there. With a 110-year history providing life insurance products and one of the leading DI product portfolios in the industry, we remain committed to our Mission: to make a difference in your life by helping you achieve financial security and independence today and for generations to come, Turner continued. Our financial results remain strong and we have put a talented team and a strategy in place to continue to provide the quality products and service our customers need. The company highlighted the following from its 2018 results: Core earnings increased 6 percent to $192.7 million. Total GAAP revenue (excluding realized gains and losses) increased 9 percent to $2.4 billion. GAAP equity (excluding mark-to-market) grew to $2.4 billion, an increase of 3 percent. Equity (including mark-to-market) was down slightly to $2.5 billion. First full-year sales goals for the IUL product were exceeded by more than 30 percent. DI insurance sales increased 6 percent over 2017 and more than tripled over a five-year period. Ohio Nationals Latin America life sales were strong at $37.3 million, an increase over last year. 2018 was a solid year for growing the traditional distribution* footprint with the addition of 1,477 new agents in our PGA and career organizations. The career channel finished the year with record sales and career agencies. Recurring individual life insurance premium grew by 9.7 percent. The five-year compound annual growth rate was 10.3 percent. Ohio National paid dividends to participating whole life policyholders. A total of $100.6 million was paid or credited to participating policyholders. This is the highest level in the 95 consecutive-year history of paying dividends. The O.N. Equity Sales Co., the companys retail broker/dealer subsidiary, saw gross broker/dealer concessions at $54.7 million, up 14 percent over 2017. In 2018, Ohio National announced its strategic plan to exclusively focus on life and DI insurance businesses to drive long-term growth. The company no longer issues annuities or offers new retirement plans, however, it continues to service and support these policyholders. The annuity portfolio remains an important business for the company, accounting for $23 billion in assets under management. 2018 Community impact In 2018, Ohio National announced its continued funding of Habitat for Humanity of Greater Cincinnati for a total donation of $520,000 through 2021 and completed the building of its 20th home. Additionally, The Ohio National Foundation donated more than $1.8 million to more than 100 nonprofit organizations in the Greater Cincinnati area, including the United Way of Greater Cincinnati, ArtsWave, American Heart Association of Greater Cincinnati, Cincinnati Childrens and many others. 2018 Ratings Ohio National earned high marks for financial security and claims-paying ability from independent rating analysts: A.M. Best: A+ (Superior) For strong operating performance, favorable business profile and appropriate enterprise risk management, second-highest on a 16-part scale Moodys: A2 Reflects a prudent investment portfolio and minimal exposure to higher risk asset classes, an aligned variable cost distribution and consistent growth in life insurance sales, sixth-highest on a 21-point scale Standard & Poors: A Reflects very strong capital and earnings, sixth-highest on a 21-part scale OHIO NATIONAL MUTUAL HOLDINGS, INC. Affiliated companies: Ohio National Financial Services, Inc. The Ohio National Life Insurance Company Ohio National Life Assurance Corporation (Consolidated) Summary Results as of December 31, 2018 12/18 12/17 % change Core Earnings (millions) $192.7 $181.5 6% Total Revenue (billions) (excluding realized gains and losses) $2.4 $2.2 9% Total GAAP Equity** (billions) (excluding mark-to-market) $2.4 $2.3 3% Total GAAP Equity (billions) (including mark-to-market) $2.5 $2.6 (4%) Total Assets Under Management (billions) $39.3 $42.0 (6%) Total Life Insurance New Premium *** (millions) $164.4 $180.6 (9%) Disability Income Insurance New Premium (millions) $6.3 $6.0 6% International Life Sales (millions) $37.3 $36.9 1% About Ohio National Since 1909, Ohio National has been committed to helping individuals, families and businesses protect what matters most. Through our network of financial professionals across 49 states (all except New York), the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico and through affiliated operations in South America, we provide the insurance products that help our policyholders achieve financial security and independence. As of December 31, 2018, its affiliated companies have $39.3 billion total assets under management. Products are issued by The Ohio National Life Insurance Company and Ohio National Life Assurance Corporation. Please visit ohionational.com for more information and for the latest company updates, connect with Ohio National on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. *Ohio National's traditional sales channel includes both personal producing general agents and career agency organizations. ** Total equity remains at its highest levels in company history since reporting on a GAAP basis in 1997. *** Total life insurance new premium includes international life sales. The financial data presented above is derived from results on the basis of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), except life insurance new premium, disability income insurance premium and international life sales. All financial information in this news release is considered unaudited because the final audit process is not yet complete. Ohio National has received high marks for financial strength and claims paying ability from major rating agencies; however, such ratings do not refer to the performance of our variable accounts nor imply approval of our variable contracts or their portfolios. All ratings information is according to reports published on: www.standardandpoors.com, www.ambest.com/ratings and www.moodys.com/insurance. Ratings are accurate as of 12/31/18. For the most current ratings, see www.ohionational.com. Dividend scales are subject to change at the discretion of the Board of Directors. Contact: Lisa Doxsee, APR 513.794.6418 office 513.218.5519 mobile Susan McDonald, ALMI 513.794.6325 office 513.633.1277 mobile People visit the Anji Branch of Zhejiang Museum of Natural History in Anji County, east China's Zhejiang Province, Jan. 31, 2019. The museum attracts lots of visitors during the winter vacation. (Xinhua/Xu Yu) 12 1 [ Editor: WPY ] posteriori/iStock(NEW YORK) -- Infertility coverage is the in-demand benefit of the moment for women and more companies are stepping up to offer to help pay for treatments like in-vitro fertilization (IVF). Over 400 U.S. companies offer benefits for fertility treatments, according to data collected by Fertility IQ, a fertility information website. Starbucks offers one of the best company benefits, with part-time employees receiving infertility coverage after just one month on the job. Companies including Bank of America, Tesla and Spotify offer unlimited IVF coverage to their workers. Even with some employers adding infertility benefits, the majority of IVF patients treated last year paid for all or some of their treatment out-of-pocket, according to Fertility IQ. A single round of in-vitro fertilization can cost upwards of $20,000 and often requires more than one try. More than seven million women in the U.S. have used infertility services, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Haley Burns, 29, began to research companies that offered IVF when she realized she would need the treatment. After doing research, she discovered that the health care company she worked for offered a good fertility plan. It's obviously a company that cares about their employees, Burns told Good Morning America. Finding out that my company and what they offered was so much better than their competitors out there made a difference and made me stay with the company. More than 70 percent of Fertility IQ survey respondents said their company did not do a good job of making employees aware of fertility benefits, while a majority reported a "greater sense of loyalty and commitment" to employers who offer benefits. Employees unsure of their benefits can turn to their human resources representative for help or do their own research, whether by talking to colleagues, reading the fine print in paperwork or going online. Fertility-focused organizations have also begun to offer tips for employees who want to ask their employers for IVF benefits. ABC News chief business correspondent Rebecca Jarvis is pregnant with her first child thanks to the help of infertility treatments, she said on "GMA." She shared these four tips to help women try to lower the cost of infertility treatments. 1. Call your insurance provider: [Call] whatever insurance youre getting through your company and ask them what fertility benefits they offer. Typically its the insurance providers themselves that can explain which benefits youre eligible for. Also, ask insurance provider about different plans sometimes its different coverage depending on which plan youre on and it might make sense to switch. 2. Look at your partner's insurance: In some cases thats going to be a bigger benefit than the one youre getting from your company. 3. Negotiate: "When youre going out and talking to these various fertility providers, negotiate. Caution against just making choice on cheapest option. If theyre not the strongest provider, you could be setting yourself up for multiple rounds of treatment which becomes more expensive. [And] look at the [fertility] drug prices because different pharmacies offer different drug prices and they can get upwards of thousands of dollars." 4. Find grants and scholarships: "There are a number of organizations that offer grants and scholarships." The Kevin J. Lederer Life Foundation in Chicago, for example, offers grants to cover the medical costs of IVF treatments. Other resources include the Kyle Busch Foundation, the Baby Quest Foundation and the Cade Foundation. Copyright 2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved Murillo was a huge contributor to the Rams' victories in the CIF-SS Division 3 semifinals and championship game with his glove and his arm. : , , - , , , , . . , , , , . , , , . , . , , , . , . . , 18 24 . , , , . , , . . . , , , . . , ? *** , , - , . . , , . , , . , , , 1 . , . . . , . , . , . , - . . . . . , , , , , . , . , , -. , , , , , *** ? : , , . , , , , . , 21 , - . . . , . . . , . , 18 . , . . , . , . . . . Too Good To Go, a Copenhagen, Denmark-based provider of a food waste app, raised 6m in funding. Backers included Preben Damgaard, Mike Lee, and Jesper Lindhardt. The company, which has raised 18m to date, intends to use the funds to continue to expand its reach. Led by CEO Mette Lykke, TGTG provides a mobile app that connects users with surplus food from restaurants, cafes, supermarkets, bakeries etc., that otherwise would have to be thrown out. Users can download the app (available on iOS and Android), find a restaurant near them, order food at massively reduced prices and head to the restaurant to collect it about 30 minutes before closing time. Started in Denmark in November 2015, the company has since expanded to 9 further countries. FinSMEs 08/02/2019 OneStream Software LLC, a Rochester, MI-based provider of cloud or on-premise Corporate Performance Management (CPM) solutions for mid-sized to large enterprises, entered into an agreement to receive a significant investment from KKR. The deal, funded through a combination of KKRs private equity and growth equity funds, was OneStreams first from an external investor, after achieving nearly 500% growth over the last three years while maintaining strong profitability. The investment brought the companys valuation to over $1.0 billion. The company intends to use the funds to accelerate investments in sales, marketing, product development and customer success. Led by CEO Tom Shea, OneStream provides a platform designed to address the complex requirements of corporate finance, local finance and diverse operational business units in a single application. such as UPS, Sagent Pharmaceuticals, Post Holdings, Inc., Fruit of the Loom, The Carlyle Group, Melrose PLC and many others use OneStream to streamline multiple financial processes, including financial and operational planning, close and consolidation, compliance and regulatory reporting, and financial and business analytics. The software is architected to support large-scale cloud deployments and can extend to address new functional requirements and digital transformation. The company is now expanding rapidly across new geographies, industries, and government agencies that are looking to modernize their finance functions and systems. Upon closing of the transaction, General (Ret.) David H. Petraeus, Member, KKR, and Chairman of the KKR Global Institute; Dave Welsh, Member, KKR, and Head of TMT Growth Equity at KKR; and Jim Miele, Principal, KKR, will join OneStreams board of directors. FinSMEs 08/02/2019 HiberCell, a New York City-based biotechnology company developing therapeutics focused on preventing cancer relapse and metastasis, raised $60.75m in Series A funding. The round was led by Arch Venture Partners, with participation from Hillhouse Capital, 6 Dimensions Capital, Celgene Corporation, the NYC Life Sciences Fund and undisclosed institutional investors, family offices and private individuals. HiberCell is a biotechnology company exclusively focused on developing therapeutics that target dormant disseminated tumor cells (DTCs) from solid and liquid cancers. The team consists of cancer scientists, venture capitalists and drug developers who are leaders within their respective fields. At launch, Alan Rigby, Ph.D., will lead the company as president and chief scientific officer. Ari Nowacek, Ph.D., M.D., principal at ARCH Venture Partners, will serve as vice president of operations and business development, and Mark Mulvihill, Ph.D., will serve as vice president of chemistry and drug discovery. The Board of Directors includes: Steven Gillis, Ph.D., chairman of the board at HiberCell, managing director at ARCH Venture Partners Alan Rigby, Ph.D., president and chief scientific officer at HiberCell Ari Nowacek, M.D., Ph.D., principal at ARCH Venture Partners & vice president, operations and business development at HiberCell Kevin Heyeck, Ph.D., venture partner at 6 Dimensions Capital Michael Yi, Ph.D., partner at Hillhouse Capital The Scientific Advisory Board includes: Julio Aguirre-Ghiso, Ph.D., director of Solid Tumor and Metastasis Research, director of Head and Neck Cancer Basic Research, co-leader of the Cancer Mechanisms Program and professor of Oncological Sciences, Otolaryngology, and Medicine (Hematology and Medical Oncology) at The Tisch Cancer Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine Christoph Klein, M.D., Ph.D., head of the Department of Experimental Medicine and Therapy Research at the University of Regensburg, head of Personalized Tumor Therapy, a division of Fraunhofer Institute for Toxicology and Experimental Medicine (ITEM) Ruggero De Maria, M.D., professor and director of the Institute of General Pathology at the Catholic University of Rome, president of the Italian Institute for Genomic Medicine in Turin, Italy and president of the Italian Alliance Against Cancer network. FinSMEs 07/02/2019 DataSine, a London, UK-based AI startup which combines expertise in psychology and machine learning to allow businesses to personalize their communications at scale, raised $5.2m in Series A funding. The round was led by Pentech and Propel Venture Partner, with participation from C.Entrepreneurs/Cathay Innovation, Twin Ventures and Sistema_VC. Led by founder and CEO Igor Volzhanin, CTO Chris Loy and Chief Scientist James Gin, DataSine provides Pomegranate, an AI-powered campaign platform that tailors content to personality. Pomegranate allows businesses to tailor content to resonate with their audience, from the segment level down to the individual customer. It applies machine learning to behavioural data that companies already collect to build customer profiles, and provides an AI-powered content editing platform to guide marketers in tailoring a range of content elements, including words and images. The platform already integrates with HubSpot and MailChimp, with the company looking to launch further integrations throughout the year. Launched in 2015, DataSine has worked with companies from across Europe, including BNP Paribas and Tinkoff bank. Now, it is entering the SME market through the launch of Pomegranate in March. FinSMEs 07/02/2019 Stockholm, Sweden-based private equity firm Altor has closed its fifth fund, Altor Fund V, at 2.5 billion. The investor base consists mainly of university endowments from the US, charitable foundations, insurance companies and pension funds. Nordic and DACH investors represent 32% of total commitments, with remaining capital being committed by investors mainly from the US, elsewhere in Europe and Middle East. The fund will invest in and develop midmarket companies in the Nordic region and will also focus on opportunities in the German speakingregion (DACH). As with prior funds, the new vehicle will have a 15-year investment term. Investments will generally be made in private companies with revenues typically in the range of 50m to 500m. The new fund has, as with its predecessors, a flexible investment mandate, which allows for minority investments in publicly traded companies and distressed debt. Altor Fund V is managed by Altor Fund Manager an authorized manager under the Alternative Investment Funds Act, regulated by the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority. Monument Group, one of the industrys leading placement agents, has advised Altor in raising the fund. Since inception, the family of Altor funds has raised some 8.3 billion in total commitments. The funds have invested in excess of 4.2 billion in roughly 60 companies. The investments have been made in medium sized, predominantly Nordic, companies with the aim to create value through growth initiatives and operational improvements. Among current and past investments are Byggmax, Carnegie Investment Bank, Dustin, Helly Hansen, Lindorff and SATS ELIXIA. FinSMEs 08/02/2019 Rosenberg, TX (77471) Today Scattered thunderstorms, especially during the afternoon hours. High 93F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 40%.. Tonight Clear to partly cloudy. Low 77F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph. (Opinion). In Democracy, the forthcoming choices for EU's Top Jobs, as the New EU Parliament's President, new EU Commission's President (+ probably EU Council's President, EU Foreign Minister, etc) should be made according to EU Citizens' Votes in June 7, 2009 European Elections, and main EU Governments' strategic policies. At the heart of the biggest EU Countries, in France and Germany, EU Citizens clearly voted for a renovated, non-technocratic but Political Europe based on Values, declared explicitly incompatible with Turkey's controversial EU bid. This main choice was also supported in several other small or medium EU Countries, such as Austria (cf. promise of a Referendum), Spain (cf. EPP program's reservations vis a vis Enlargment), etc., while EPP Parties won also in Poland, Hungary, Cyprus, etc. In other Countries, whenever Governing coalitions didn't make these choices or eluded them, continuing to let a Turkish lobby push for its entry into the EU, they paid a high price, and risked to damage Europe, by obliging EU Citizens to massively vote for euro-Sceptics whenever they were the only ones to offer a possibility to promise real change and oppose Turkey's demand to enter into the EU : It's for this obvious reason that British UKIP (IndDem) succeeded now (after many statements against Turkey's EU bid) to become Great Britain's 2nd Party, unexpectedly growing bigger even than the Governing Labour Party, as well as the Liberal party ! Facts prove that it's not an isolated phenomenon : A similar development occured in the Netherlands, where Geert Wilders "Party for Freedom" (PVV) became also the 2nd biggest in the country, (after EPP), boosting the chances of a politician who had withdrawn in 2004 from an older party "because he didn't agree with their position on Turkey". And in several other EU Member Countries, even previously small parties which now focused on a struggle against Turkey's controversial demand to enter in the EU, won much more or even doubled the number of their MEPs (fex. Bulgaria, Hungary, Greece, etc). On the contrary, whenever Socialist and oher parties were explicitly or implicitly for Turkey's controversial EU bid, they obviously lost Citizens' votes and fell down to an unprecedented low. In consequence, EU Citizens clearly revealed their main political choices, in one way or another : They voted to change for less Bureaucracy, but more Politics and Values in a Europe really open to EU Citizens, but without Turkey's controversial EU bid. Recent political developments are obviously different from the old political landscape which existed in the Past of 1999-2004, when Socialists based on Turkish 1% vote governed undisputed not only in Germany, but also in the UK, Greece and elsewhere, France followed old policies decided when it had been divided by "cohabitation", before the 3 "NO" to EU Referenda since May 2005, before Merkel, before Sarkozy, etc.... before the surprises of 7 June 2009 new EU Elections. If the current candidates to the Top EU jobs promise and guarantee to respect People's democratic choices, OK. Otherwise, Europe must find new candidates, really motivated and able to implement these democratic choices of the People. The beginning of crucial, final Decisions are scheduled for the 1st EU Parliament's plenary session in Strasbourg, in the middle of July, and they could be completed towards the October session, when Lisbon Treaty's fate will have been fixed. See relevant Facts also at : http://www.eurofora.net/newsflashes/news/2009electionsandturkey.html http://www.eurofora.net/newsflashes/news/daulelections.html http://www.eurofora.net/brief/brief/euroelectionresult.html *** Birthdays Richard Heller of Portsmouth will mark his 90th birthday on Aug. 19. His family is planning a card shower in his honor. Cards will reach him if sent to PO Box 92, Portsmouth IA 51565. His family Would Warthogs gut tourism? Free Access It was no surprise that members of the Potter County Tourist and Recreation Work Group took a dim view of the proposed A-10 Warthog training flights swooping across the county.... Potter County targeted for ATV trails Free Access Much of the region is bracing for the ATV season that traditionally kicks into gear on Memorial Day weekend and continues until late September. Those dates coincide with the opening... Tractor Supply plan revealed Free Access Details on the plan to bring a Tractor Supply chain store to Coudersport were revealed last week. Blueprints were reviewed by both the Coudersport Borough Planning Commission and the Potter... Rural Renaissance underway here Free Access Americans are itching to get away after being cooped up for a year or more. Some 72 percent are planning summer trips, up 37 percent from a year ago. State... By US News , Feb . 06, 2019 MASSACHUSETTS SEN. Elizabeth Warren listed her race as "American Indian" on a registration card for the State Bar of Texas, The Washington Post reported Tuesday. The Post obtained the card as part of an open records request, marking a previously unreported example of the Democrat identifying as Native American. Warren apologized on Tuesday for previously calling herself Native American an apology that follows Warren's private attempt to make amends to the chief of the Cherokee Nation last week, according to the Post. Read More: Join us - become an Elderado today at: LarryElder.com Follow Larry Elder on Follow Larry Elder on Twitter "Like" Larry Elder on Facebook Germany has announced a far-reaching restriction on Facebook's over its data collection practices about users without their consent across its own platforms, like Instagram and WhatsApp, and related third-party sites. The ruling came after an investigation for three years, and it restricts the social media giant from collecting the data even from external websites which has a button for Facebook like. "In future, Facebook will no longer be allowed to force its users to agree to the practically unrestricted collection and assigning of non-Facebook data to their Facebook accounts," Federal Cartel Office chief Andreas Mundt said in the landmark order on Thursday. Facebook has one month time to appeal against the ruling, and as per the sources the company has vowed to challenge the decision, saying "it had been unfairly singled out and accusing German officials of 'underestimating' the competition they faced." The country's anti-trust regulator said that the terms and conditions of Facebook have forced users to accept its policy of collecting the data from multiple websites. The ruling allows Facebook to collect data from its owned services like WhatsApp and Instagram, but users will have to give their consent. If users do not agree to the terms and conditions, then the data 'must remain with the respective service and cannot be processed in combination with Facebook data,' they said. 'The previous practice of combining all data in a Facebook user account, practically without any restriction, will now be subject to the voluntary consent given by the users,' says Mundt. However, Facebook has slammed the ruling, saying "We face fierce competition in Germany, yet the [regulator] finds it irrelevant that our apps compete directly with YouTube, Snapchat, Twitter and others. 'As part of complying with the GDPR, we revamped the information we provide people about their privacy and the controls they have over their information. 'Using information across services helps to make them better and protect peoples safety. Elk Grove, CA (95624) Today A mainly sunny sky. High 88F. Winds WSW at 10 to 20 mph.. Tonight Clear skies. Low around 55F. Winds SSW at 10 to 20 mph. 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Jeffrey Williams, Naval Submarine Base New London (SUBASE) Emergency Management Officer (EMO), manages the Emergency Operation Center (EOC) located in Building 86. As EMO, Williams is responsible for assessing emergency program strategies and developing emergency preparedness procedures based on those strategies. Take Five - This is your final free article during this 30 day period. Stay in touch with all of the news. Sign up today for complete digital access to The Daily News-Record. In what was, so far, the best baseball game of the week, the Jaguars pulled their 33rd win out of the fire and salvaged a gem of a start from their star pitcher. Iran Unveils New Ballistic Missile at Underground Facility (Source: Deutsche Welle German Radio; issued Feb 08, 2019) Underground Ballistic Missile Factory revealed by Iran, showing assembly of "Dezful" ballistic missiles pic.twitter.com/4pAlD0zxcy Tal Inbar (@inbarspace) February 7, 2019 Unveiling the new missile appears to be a direct challenge to Western criticism of Iran's ballistic missile program. Iran says its ballistic missiles are a defense deterrent that are not negotiable.Iran's Revolutionary Guard unveiled on Thursday a new surface-to-surface ballistic missile with a range of 1,000 kilometers (621 miles), according to the elite force's Sepah News.The move was the latest show of military strength and defiance amid heightened tension with US and European demands for Iran halt missile development and tests.The surface-to-surface missile was unveiled by Guard Commander Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari and aerospace commander Brigadier General Amirali Hajizadeh.The new missile, called Dezful, is an upgrade with twice the "destructive power" of the older Zolfaghar model that had a range of 700 kilometers, Hajizadeh said.Fars News released a video of the two commanders examining them at an "underground" ballistic missile production facility."Displaying this missile production facility deep underground is an answer to Westerners ... who think they can stop us from reaching our goals through sanctions and threats," Jafari was reported as saying."Europeans talk of limiting our defensive capability while they have the audacity [to allow] their offensive power be used to attack innocent people all over the world," he added.On Wednesday, Hajizadeh told a forum in Tehran that Iran's "missile power is not negotiable.""This deterrence power has been created for the country and we do not hold talks about it with anyone at all," he said.The comments appeared directed at the European Union, which earlier in the week called on Iran to stop its ballistic missile activity in a statement that also expressed concern over its intervention in regional conflicts.The European statement came days after Iran on Saturday revealed that it had successfully tested a new cruise missile named Hoveizeh with a range of 1,350 kilometers.European powers remains committed to a 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, but are under pressure from Washington to cut economic and political ties following the Trump administration's decision to pull out of the nuclear deal and reimpose sanctions despite Tehran's compliance. Among the reasons the Trump administration cited in exiting the nuclear accord was Iran's ballistic missile program.Hardline clerics and the Revolutionary Guards opposed the nuclear deal reached by moderate President Hassan Rouhani.The Iran nuclear deal did not address the country's ballistic missile program.A separate UN Security Council Resolution 2231 used weak language that "called upon" Iran not to undertake ballistic missile activity "designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons."Iran argues that its ballistic missile capability is defensive and not "designed" to carry nuclear weapons, which it does not have and has been confirmed to not be pursuing.Iran says it has limited its missiles to a range of up to 2,000 kilometers, which puts Israel, Gulf Arab states and US military bases in the region within reach. In October, the Revolutionary Guard fired the Zolfaghar from western Iran to hit jihadists in Syria.-ends- Yes. I will do my part to conserve household energy usage, even if I'm uncomfortable in my home. No. It is too hot to conserve household energy usage. I already conserve, even before ERCOT requested it. Maybe, depending on the reason ERCOT provides and whether or not I am home during that time. Vote View Results Neel Bhatt, a UW assistant professor of otolaryngology, specializes in treating patients with voice problems. Through his work, he began to realize people did not like the sound of their own voices. With the transition to school over Zoom, many students can relate to the discomfort of hearin Lubbock, TX (79409) Today Plenty of sunshine. Very hot. High 102F. Winds S at 15 to 25 mph.. Tonight Partly cloudy skies. Gusty winds during the evening. Low 74F. Winds S at 20 to 30 mph. Netflix acquired rights to the award-winning documentary "Knock Down the House," about the election campaigns of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and three other women from the Democratic Party, reportedly paying the most ever for such a film. The picture won the Festival Favorite Award at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year. Ocasio-Cortez was the only winner among the four underdog candidates portrayed in the film. The vote by the committee didn't issue a subpoena but allowed Nadler to do so if Whitaker was uncooperative. Nadler said he hoped not to have to use the subpoena, but "a series of troubling events over the past few months suggest that we should be prepared." Nadler said that as late as last week the committee had received reports that some at the department were counseling Whitaker not to appear. (CNN) A Colombian former veterinary student was sentenced to six years in prison by a United States federal court Thursday for smuggling liquid heroin in puppies. Between September 2004 and January 2005, Andres Lopez Elorez, now 39, surgically implanted bags of liquid heroin into nine puppies he secretly raised for importation into the US on behalf of a drug-trafficking organization. On New Year's Day in 2005, police raided the farm in the Colombian city of Medellin where the dogs were raised and found 17 bags of liquid heroin. Ten of these were removed from puppies, three of which later died after contracting a virus due to the surgery. Elorez went on the run and remained a fugitive until he was arrested in Spain in 2015. Last May, he was extradited to the United States, where he pleaded guilty to the charges. "I did this even though I knew I was doing wrong and I was committing a crime," Elorez said during a plea hearing, according to CNN affiliate WABC. Elorez will be extradited back to Colombia once he is released from jail. "Every dog has its day, and with today's sentence Elorez has been held responsible," US attorney Richard Donoghue said during the sentencing in Brooklyn, New York. This story was first posted on CNN.com, "Jail for Colombian vet who implanted liquid heroin in puppies" Billy Mitchell said, I will try and launch airplanes off a ship and go bomb other things, Becker said. H.G. Wells and others were talking about that, but it took someone like Billy Mitchell to try it. It was the thing that won World War II. (CNN) You've cat to be kitten me right meow. Fluffy the cat was literally dethawed after she was found buried in snow, her fur matted in ice. The very lucky cat is now back home. Her owners discovered her buried in the snow near their Kalispell, Montana, home on January 31. They rushed her to the Animal Clinic of Kalispell just in time. "She was essentially frozen," said Andrea Dutter, executive director, told CNN. The northern Montana town was experiencing, well, winter. It was snowy and below freezing when Fluffy was discovered frozen. When she got to the clinic, her temperature was below 90F, said Dr. Jevon Clark. So low the staff couldn't even measure it on their thermometer. A normal temperature for a cat is around 100-102F. She was so cold the staff struggled to get an IV in her right away. "They used a few different methods to raise her body temperature: warm water, hair dryers, heated towels that were rotated out," Dutter said. "And finally, we put her in heated kennel." Fluffy spent one night in the ER before returning home with her owners. The 3-year-old cat was mostly an outdoor cat that the owners "acquired" when they moved into their new home. Because the owners weren't home at the time, they aren't positive how Fluffy got stuck in the snow. The clinic said there were some signs of injury and they believe she couldn't get to her "warm spot." She has eight lives left, but Fluffy will be staying inside these days. Fur real. This story was first published on cnn.com, "A frozen feline is thawed out after she was found in a snowbank. (She's OK because cats have 9 lives)" Two days of heavy snowfall have blocked roads and cut electricity supplies to many areas of Kashmir (DM). SRINAGAR AFP Feb8, 2019 - Rescuers battled Friday to reach the site of an avalanche that buried 10 people in Indian-administered Kashmir following two days of heavy snowfall across the region, police said. The avalanche hit a fire emergency facility late Thursday in the Banihal area of the Kashmir valley. Six police, two prisoners and two other personnel had taken refuge there during a storm. We have not been able to rescue anyone so far because of the bad weather and the heavy accumulation of snow, Kashmir inspector general of police Swayam Prakash Pani told AFP. Another man died on Thursday when his home was buried under an avalanche in the southern Kukarnag area. Authorities have also started rationing petrol and diesel as supplies in the Kashmir valley are running low. Bad weather has disrupted essential supplies for two weeks. President Maithripala Sirisena today said now there are so many people to claim credit for the arrest of notorious drug dealer and underworld leader Madush in Dubai. He also said he read in a newspaper report which quoted a a minister saying they had laid the trap for his arrest for the past few years. He made these remarks addressing a gathering after opening a regional office of the Sri Lanka Institute for vocational guidance in Polonnaruwa. The vocational guidance Institute under the theme Smart Sri Lanka - Future of Youths, was initiated to groom people with vocational skills as a solution for the unemployment problem in Sri Lanka through a methodical system of technology in collaboration with all job training centres. Speaking further President remarked We must be content with what we have done rather than claiming credit for others' achievements. We see in the media today so many claimants for the success of nabbing the drug dealer who is also an underworld leader." (K.G. Karunarathna) The Sri Lanka Institute of Marketing (SLIM) will hold its first Experience Sharing Forum for the year 2019 at Marino Beach Hotel on February 11 at 6.30 pm. The forum is also billed as Networking Night for SLIM membership. The event will include cocktails and an evening of fellowship for marketers. Ms. Kasthuri Wilson, Managing Director of Hemas Pharmaceuticals and Hemas Logistics and Maritime Sector of Hemas Holdings PLC will deliver the keynote address on the theme Engaging Teams Together in Tough Times. As the national body for Marketing, SLIM introduced the Experience Sharing Forum (ESF) to offer an opportunity for professional Marketers to learn from the experiences of veterans in the field. Open exclusively to SLIM members, the ESF is an event organised thrice every year. The event always features high-profile speakerswho share their corporate experiences with the SLIM membership. Pradeep Edward, the President of SLIM and the CEO of Lanka Hospitals Diagnostics said: It is indeed a pleasure to invite a celebrated corporate head to share her experiences with SLIM members. I am certain that this forum will be a great opportunity for all of us to learn about managing and engaging teams in times of crisis. Please contact Chamil 0703 774 585 for reservations Mr. Saman Herath, the Managing Director of Siyapatha Finance PLC, addressing the gathering. Siyapatha Finance PLC celebrated the dawn of 2019 with the opening of a brand new branch in Piliyandala.This marks the 31st branch in the leading financial organizations island-wide network. The new branch is located at No. 88 along the Moratuwa road in Piliyandala. Dr.Dilanjan Soysa, the Non-Executive Director of Siyapatha Finance, attended the opening ceremony as the chief guest along with Mr. Saman Herath, the Managing Director of Siyapatha Finance PLC,and other senior members of the organization as well as distinguished invitees. As one of the more populated suburbs of the Colombo district, Piliyandala is an ideal location for a Siyapatha Finance branch as the organization aims to extend its services to as many Sri Lankans as possible. Opening a new branch in Piliyandala is a crucial move in our expansion strategy, as Piliyandala is fast-developing suburb with a large population. Thanks to the new branch we are in a position to increase our reach, and to serve a larger number of present and future customers.Being a subsidiary of the Sampath Bank Group we are a stable organization, having adopted the best practices of our parent company. Our customers canrest assured that we have their best interests at heart and that we work hard to deliver a high standard of service at all times, said Mr. Saman Herath, the Managing Director of Siyapatha Finance. The Siyapatha Finance branch in Piliyandala is fully equipped to manage all the services offered by the company, including Fixed Deposits, Leasing, Hire Purchase, Business Loans, Personal Loans, Business Loans, Housing Loans, Gold Loans and Factoring. Siyapatha Finance Trust Assured. Dr. Dilanjan Soysa, a member of the Board of Directors of Siyapatha Finance PLC, Mr. Saman Herath, the Managing Director of Siyapatha Finance PLC and Mr. Chamil Fernando, the Branch Manager of the Pilyandala Branch officially open the new branch. The brand new Siyapatha Finance Branch in Piliyandala The Securities and Exchange Commission of Sri Lanka (SEC) yesterday said they charged one Vidanalage Juvenal Aruna Melan Soysa at the Fort Magistrates Court on January 25, 2019 for not appearing before the SEC when he was summoned to record a statement in connection to certain transactions that has occurred in his CDS Account. SEC said Soysa was evading the SEC without providing his statement, which compelled the SEC to file action against him in the Fort Magistrates Court. When Soysa still failed to appear in response to the summons issued by the Magistrate, the SEC was successful in obtaining a warrant from the Court which compelled him to produce himself before the Court. Sudharshana De Silva, Deputy Solicitor General of the Attorney Generals Department had appeared on behalf of the SEC in this matter. This allowed the SEC to obtain a statement from Soysa, and he had willfully agreed that he would cooperate with the SEC in future. Soysa is required to appear before the Magistrate again in May in this regard. The SEC said they consider non-appearance when summoned by the regulator as a serious offence and thus is in the process of filing charges against several other individuals pertaining to the said offence. The SEC is empowered under section 46A(1) of the SEC Act to summon and call upon any person to appear before the SEC to give evidence or to produce any books or documents in his or her possession or control for the purposes of any investigation or inquiry of the SEC. Accordingly, any failure to appear before the SEC when required to do so, or refusal to answer any question put to a person by the SEC or to produce any book or document in that persons possession or control when required to do so, or knowingly giving any false answer to any question put to a person by the SEC is an offence in terms of section 46A(4) of the SEC Act punishable after summary trial before a Magistrate to a term of imprisonment of either description not exceeding five years or to a fine not exceeding Rs.1 million or both. Opposition Leader Mahinda Rajapaksa yesterday urged the government to resolve the pension anomalies of police officers. Raising a question under Standing Order 27(2), he said retired police officers who had done a great service during the war in addition to the security forces had been struggling to make ends meet because of the anomalies and said Cabinet approval has been given to a circular which was issued in 2012. Those officers who have been forced to retire due to injuries they had suffered have not been paid," Mr. Rajapaksa said. He said some had not been given promotions, creating more anomalies. Promotions have not been granted despite the decision made one and a half years ago. He said there was no programme to settle unpaid allowances for retired policemen and for the payment of pensions to dependents of deceased policemen. State Minister of Defence, Ruwan Wijewardene in his response said the Cabinet had given approval to two papers in 2016 and 2017. He said there have been 785 officers who had been forced to retire because of their injuries and 677 police officers who have been assigned to engage in less strenuous work. Some 340 out of 677 who were put on light work would be eligible for two increments and to a promotion. He said arrangements had been made to grant the stipulated concessions and that arrangements were being made to pay pensions to more than 1,000 officers who have completed little less than ten years of service while a fresh Cabinet paper would be submitted to give more concessions. Those who have died in action or were disabled before reaching the age of 55 will also be given concessions soon. Submission of a cabinet paper in this regard is considered, the state minister said. (Yohan Perera and Ajith Siriwardana) Internal and Home Affairs State Minister J.C. Alawathuwala said yesterday no diplomatic passport was found in possession of any of those arrested in Dubai recently as reported in the media. He told parliament that according to the information in possession of the Immigration and Emigration Controller no diplomatic or official passport was found among the suspects arrested in Dubai. The state minister said this in response to a question asked by joint opposition MP Udhaya Gammanpila as to was the diplomatic passport holder arrested in Dubai as reported in Khaleej Times. Mr. Alawathuwala said this was a mud-slinging campaign by the opposition. (Ajith Siriwardana and Yohan Perera) (CNN) The government of embattled Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has blocked a bridge on the Colombia-Venezuela border amid rising tensions over opposition plans to bring humanitarian aid into the crisis-stricken country. Venezuela's opposition leader and self-declared President, Juan Guaido, last week named the Colombian border town of Cucuta as one of three collection points for the delivery of international aid. His move ramped up tensions with Maduro's government even as many in Venezuela remain in desperate need of food and medical supplies. Maduro has rejected the international aid, saying, "We are not beggars." Colombian officials and a CNN photojournalist at the scene confirmed the presence of the blockade, which would effectively prevent humanitarian aid from reaching Venezuela via this route. Images show an orange oil tanker and two large blue containers positioned midway across the three-lane Tienditas Bridge, which connects Cucuta with San Antonio city in Tachira State in western Venezuela. Juan Caicedo, a spokesperson from Migration Colombia, Colombia's Ministry of Immigration and Immigration Control, said the Venezuelan military put the blockade into place Tuesday afternoon, adding that there are cameras monitoring activity on the bridge. It's possible the Venezuelan government fears aid crossing the border could be used as cover for an invasion to depose Maduro. Guaido called again Wednesday on the conscience of Venezuela's military -- which has so far been loyal to the government -- to permit aid into the country from Colombia, which is run by a right-wing government critical of Maduro. "Brother, let the aid in. Do not stop it," he said, appealing to members of the country's armed forces while speaking at a meeting with farmers in Caracas. "The end of the usurpation will be the end of hunger," he added, as he called for Venezuelans to reject the Maduro government. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also urged Venezuela to open the bridge, tweeting that "the Maduro regime must let the aid reach the starving people." Appeal for loyalty Maduro has faced intense pressure since Guaido declared himself acting president on January 23, invoking a constitutional rule to open a rare challenge to Maduro's presidency. Guaido, a previously largely unknown opposition leader, has been recognized by Australia, Canada, a group of major European nations, a number of Latin American countries and the United States, which have upped sanctions on the country. Venezuela's Foreign Ministry has denounced any international support for Guaido, suggesting that European governments were acting as part of a US-led effort to topple Maduro, who has showed no signs of relinquishing power. Maduro on Wednesday hit back at a tweet by US national security adviser John Bolton that said "any Venezuelan senior military officer that stands for democracy and recognizes the constitutional government of President Juan Guaido" would not face US sanctions. Speaking during military exercises, Maduro called for the Venezuelan military to remain loyal and ordered the armed forces to defend Venezulean territory. "Is John Bolton Venezuela's military chief? Listen well John Bolton, here is the response of the armed forces to your so-called coup-makers. Let's say our slogan loudly, "Loyal Always, Traitors Never" so it can be heard in Washington," he said. Maduro also welcomed a meeting of the International Contact Group on Venezuela that will take place Thursday in the Uruguayan capital, Montevideo, saying: "We are ready and prepared to participate in a process of sovereign, constitutional dialogue." The contact group includes Bolivia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and co-host Uruguay. International aid pledges Guaido identified the three collection points for international humanitarian aid as the Brazil-Venezuela border, an as-of-yet unidentified Caribbean island, and Cucuta. However, it remains unclear if aid will be allowed in by any of these routes. On Monday, Canada hosted a meeting of the Lima Group regional bloc to discuss how the international community can further help the people of Venezuela, including through immediate humanitarian assistance. Opening a session in Ottawa, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a contribution of 53 million Canadian dollars ($40.4 million) in aid to Venezuela. German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas also said Germany had earmarked 5 million ($5.72 million) worth of assistance for Venezuela. Later on Monday, Guaido said Germany had pledged 6 million ($6.86 million.) USAID has begun packaging pallets of foodstuffs after Bolton's announcement last week that it would send humanitarian aid. Guaido called the situation "an emergency ... a crisis," on Monday and said humanitarian aid would begin to flow into Venezuela in the coming days, defying Maduro's repeated refusal of assistance in the face of food and medicine shortages. He outlined the move as part of a plan to push the military into cooperating with the opposition. This story was first published on CNN.com, "Tensions rise as Venezuela blocks Colombia border bridge in aid standoff." Finance and Mass Media Minister Mangala Samaraweera this week announced that a separate marine division will be set up at Sri Lanka Customs (SLC) to tackle narcotics entering Sri Lanka. We agreed to setup a separate marine division at Sri Lanka Customs upon the request of SLC Director General, P.S.M. Charles, he said. Samaraweera pointed out that SLC has only seized 5 percent of the narcotics of the overall narcotics seized, while majority of the drugs were captured by the police and armed forces. He opined that the SLC should have been able to capture more of these narcotics entering Sri Lanka to prevent the country becoming narcotics hub. Hence, he said that the ministry decided to equip SLC with necessary facilities and resources to prevent narcotics entering the island nation. Country HR Director for Microsoft Singapore & SEANM HyeJin Kwon delivering her keynote on Microsofts HR Transformation Microsoft recently co-hosted a forum on Deliver[ing] Digital Transformation to HR alongside partners, MiHCM (formerly, Microimage HCM) and Tech One Sanje at the Hilton, Colombo where over 150 participantscomposed of CXOs, HR professionals, and senior technology practitioners from roughly 100 companieslistened to global leaders who understand the impact of technology on the workforce and workplace. The forum addressed a wide range of topics, including integrated digital transformation strategies for HR, the workplace culture, emerging technologies, and the power of data, with speakers from Microsoft, MiHCM, Tech One Global, Dialog Axiata, NDB Bank and Senok Trade Combine. Their discussion with the audience showcased how HR professionals were contributing to businesses at a more strategic level with modernized HR solutions leveraging AI and cloud services. Country Manager for Microsoft Sri Lanka and Maldives, Hasitha Abeywardena, led the session by emphasizing the importance of digital transformation. In todays mobile-first, cloud-driven world, technology and your businesss ability to embrace digital transformation will make a big difference in how competitive you are. Thats why we are not the same company we were five years ago. HR will need to partner with business leaders on how they undertake digital transformation in the organization. The panelists (L to R): Sandra De Zoysa, Group Chief Customer Officer, Dialog Axiata; Rohan Manasseh, Senior HR Manager, NDB Bank; Mikhail Selvenayagam, Group Director, Senok Trade Combine ;HyeJin Kwon, Country HR Director, Microsoft Singapore & SEANM; Wasantha Weerakoone, COO, Tech One Global; Harsha Purasinghe, CEO/ Director, MiHCM At Microsoft, we are building a modern workplace; empowering everyone in an organization to be more creative and collaborative using tools like Microsoft 365 and MyAnalytics, said HyeJin Kwon, Country HR Director, Microsoft Singapore & SEANM. HR will need to ensure the organizational culture complements the digital transformation agenda. A culture change doesn't happen overnight. It requires conviction and clear direction. It takes time and a concerted effort from everyone. MiHCM CEO and Director Harsha Purasinghe said, The emergence of digital natives and exceptionally tech-savvy employees are driving companies around the world to reinvent the wheel on HR. Today we serve more than 200 companies across 15 international markets through our cloud-based solution, MiHCM Cloud. We have the means to deliver one holistic digital experience through a continuously updated web, mobile application that features talent management tools, conversational chatbots, and intuitive analytics. Thanks to MiHCM Cloud, 80% of our HR process has been digitized, said Wasantha Weerakoone, COO, Tech One Global. As a document management company, we have digitized five billion pages as a resultthat's 100 kilometers of paper stacked up. We can now focus our attention on document verification through blockchain based-tokens and dynamic redaction of information to help with GDPR compliance. A panel discussion later demonstrated how company leaders were implementing their own digital HR transformation agendas leveraging MiHCM Cloud. The forums extensive panel line-up included: HyeJin Kwon, Country HR Director, Microsoft Singapore & SEANM, Rohan Manasseh, Senior HR Manager, NDB Bank; Sandra De Zoysa, Group Chief Customer Officer, Dialog Axiata; Wasantha Weerakoone, COO, Tech One Global and Mikhail Selvenayagam, Group Director, Senok Trade Combine. Members of the audience were then invited to a user experience demo where representatives of the Microsoft Partner Network (MPN) were harnessing every bit of newer technology to empower HR professionals. COLOMBO AFP Feb 8, 2019- The Maldives government is seeking international help to find millions of dollars allegedly siphoned off by former president Abdulla Yameen who faces embezzlement and money laundering charges, officials said Friday. Maldivian diplomats said authorities in the Indian Ocean archipelago were in talks with foreign experts as part of a police investigation against the leader who lost power last September. Police have now completed their investigations. The Prosecutor General can now formally charge the former president, Aslam Shakir, spokesman for the Maldives embassy in Colombo, told AFP. He said police investigations had found evidence linking Yameen and his justice minister Azima Shakoor to the theft of state funds and money laundering. In December, courts in the tourist paradise froze some $6.5 million in accounts allegedly linked to Yameen who suffered a shock defeat to Mohamed Ibrahim Solih in elections in September. Shakir said millions of dollars could be stashed abroad and talks were underway with foreign entities to repatriate any cash found. He did not name the countries involved. The SLTPB and SLTDA Chairman Kishu Gomes speaking at the event in the presence of Minister of Tourism Development, Wildlife and Christian Religious Affairs John Amaratunga (extreme left), Pro AM Serendib Event Director and Director Rajan Thananayagam and Pro Am Serendib Director Yasas Hewage Pic by Kushaan Pathiraja Global promotion campaign likely to have soft launch at ITB Berlin Gomes says public sector procurement, valuation processes and decision making meets the highest standards of private sector By Nishel Fernando The newly appointed Chairman of the Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau (SLTPB) and Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA), Kishu Gomes yesterday promised to bring in a minimum of three million tourists to the island this year, capitalising on his over three decade experience at United States-based multinational corporations. Participating in his first major event, the announcement of the second edition of So Sri Lanka Ironman 70.3 Triathlon in Colombo, he said I am very excited about the opportunity being presented, and I promise you that I will use all the experience gained over the past three decades to do what is right to promote Sri Lanka tourism. We achieved 2.3 million tourist arrivals last year. The goal for this year is to exceed three million, which is roughly little more than a 20 percent growth, and I am very confident that is doable. The three million arrivals is the bare minimum that we will chase as two teams (SLTPB and SLTDA). Gomes told Mirror Business that SLTPB is likely to have a soft launch of the long-delayed Global Tourism Promotion Campaign at the worlds largest tourism trade fair, ITB Berlin this March to get the best possible visibility for So Sri Lanka brand and the campaign. The three-year campaign which received SLTPB board approval recently will focus on promoting Sri Lanka tourism in 8 key source markets of Sri Lanka tourism with an estimated budget of Rs. 3 billion. Gomes placed his full confidence on plans and processes of SLTDA and SLTPB to achieve these targets this year. He praised the public procurement process, valuation process and decision making mechanism, noting that the public sector is on par with the best of private corporates in these segments. The process that the bureau has in place in order to value the events and how the valuations are done as well the procurement process they follow which bases on how the decisions are made, are as good as the best in the private sector. A lot of people tend to think that private sector is the thing and the public sector should follow the private sector. Here is an example how the public sector meets the best of standards of private sector. I am not saying it because I am now attached to the public sector. I am saying it based on what I have experienced during the past two days, he explained. Gomes said that his marketing background in particular will help achieve the objective of Sri Lanka Tourism. I have a marketing background; my DNA is marketing and brand communication as you all know. We have good plans in place to showcase what we got as a nation, he emphasised. Gomes asserted that he will focus more on the non-conventional sectors such as sport tourism to achieve tourism numbers that are targeted for the year. A 34-year-old Indian was arrested by Police Narcotics Bureau (PNB) officials at the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) this morning, attempting to smuggle in 1 kg of cocaine valued at Rs.15 million, PNB Director SSP TCA Danapala said. He said the officials of the Customs Narcotic Division arrested the suspect when he arrived from Mumbai. The cocaine was found concealed in the false bottom of his luggage, the PNB Director said. (Darshana Sanjeewa) Pix by T.K.G. Kapila Weft knit fabric maker, Teejay Lanka PLC reported higher rupee profits for the quarter ended December 31, 2018 (3Q19), partly stemming from the rupee depreciation against the US dollar, but the bottom line in dollar termsthe groups functional currency stayed put compared to the same quarter in the previous year. Teejay Lanka, a unit of Brandix, reported earnings of 78 cents a share or Rs.550.9 million for the three months compared to 70 cents a share or Rs.493.5 million reported for the same period last year. This was an increase of 12 percent. The top-line rose by 28 percent year-on-year (YoY) to Rs. 8.5 billion as the group utilized improved capacity, mainly in its Indian operations where capacity utilization was at the optimal level. Meanwhile, the company was also managed to improve its gross margins despite challenges in raw material prices and utility price increases. Despite challenges in raw material prices and utility increases, the group enjoyed a gross profit growth of 20 percent recording Rs.1.0 billion compared to Rs.869 million in the previous year in quarter 3. The margin for the 3rd quarter has improved to 12.3 percent compared to the 11.2 percent on a quarter-on-quarter basis as a result of better loading and improved mix with both US and EU business units, Teejay Lanka Chairman Bill Lam said in an earnings release. Over many quarters, the companys margins and profits were impacted by the rising cotton yarn prices the key raw material used in weft knit fabric making and the heightened competition too had a bearing on the performance. Despite the growth in the earnings in rupee terms groups reporting currency the earnings in dollar terms its functional currency the currency in which the company conducts its business, showed no growth. The after-tax profit in dollar terms for the quarter was flat at US $ 3.3 million on revenue of US $ 49.5 million, up 13 percent YoY. Sri Lankan rupee depreciated by a record 19 percent against the US dollar in 2018, requiring more units of rupees to buy a dollar unit. Meanwhile, for the nine months ended December 31, 2018, Teejay Lanka group reported earnings of Rs.1.79 a share or Rs.1.26 billion, recording an increase of 16 percent YoY. The revenues rose 26 percent YoY to Rs.22.9 billion. In dollar terms, the groups earnings rose 8 percent YoY to US $ 7.7 million. Revenues in dollar terms rose by 18 percent YoY to US $ 141.9 million. The group foresees certain challenges in the ensuing period from the revenue mix and raw material price volatility continuing. The company is also concerned about the rising utility costs. As at December 31, 2018, Brandix Lanka Limited held 33.08 percent stake in Teejay Lanka while Pacific Textured Jersey Holdings Limited held 27.91 percent stake. Today we will take a look at how to deal with acute burn injuries. For this purpose we produce excerpts of a discussion on the subject we had with Dr. Shashanka Rathnayake, Consultant Plastic and Reconstruction Surgeon Teaching Hospital, Kandy. QAre burns common in Sri Lanka? Burns could happen due to several reasons. With regard to adults and children accidental burns are common. Burn accidents could happen due to hot water, other hot liquid burns like hot oil, hot curries, gas cooker flame and injuries caused through the kerosene oil lamp. There can be burns due to coming in contact with hot surfaces like the hot cloth iron appliances in the kitchen or at the work place. We also see injuries due to chemical burns and also burns caused by electricity. Due to the developments in the country and the supply of electricity to the rural areas the number of accidental kerosene oil lamp burns is reducing. We do see self inflicted kerosene oil burns unfortunately. Some of these burns are very severe and such patients are beyond being treated using plastic surgery. QWhat is the cause for self inflicted burns? This is exclusively common in the Asian culture. I believe this is a learned behaviour and the movies and tele dramas probably are responsible at least indirectly. Suicidal burns aimed at teaching a lesson to powerful authorities are popular in our culture and such incidents sometimes receive much publicity. In this background, most married women in Sri Lanka are unemployed and have to depend on the husband for everything. In the usual scenario a woman with two children is struggling to live with a man who is deviating from the expected level. The man is very powerful and the woman is helpless due to being unemployed. Then there would be serious unsuccessful attempts to control the husband and ultimately the woman resorts to threaten the husband with an attempt to commit suicide. Most often women pour kerosene oil on their upper bodies and they do not understand the end result. This might settle if the husband is a sensible person. Unfortunately, the husband never believes or cannot understand the real agony the woman faces and tries to win the situation by trying to suppress her. This drama could result in a severe burn incident which is life threatening and challenging to salvage. QWhat are common first aid measures? It is very important to know what should and should not be done. Our advice on the burn injury is to pour water over the affected area for 20 to 30 minutes. The best guide would be to pour water till the pain disappears. When this is done for chemical burns the clothes should be removed before irrigating with water. Whatever said and done in our culture people do various things as first aids and we do not recommend any of them. Nothing can be superior to water. There could be myths which discourage the use of water. Such myths must be dispelled. There could be myths on magic material like Aloe Vera, egg white or yolk, tooth paste, Ayurvedic oils as first aid measures. The use of all this should be discouraged because there is no scientific basis behind these types of treatments. The first aid should be focused on removing the heat and that can be effectively done only with water. Please understand Aloe Vera and Ayuvedic oils may be effective in burn wound healing, but should not be used as a first aid. It is understandable when a electrolocuted person is removed from the place before pouring water because the man who is trying to salvage the patient may get the electric shock otherwise. We do ont usually practice daily dressings which is really painful for the patients. Instead we use special dressings which can be kept for about five days. This gives the burnt patient a big relief from the pain caused by the dressings. Giving the patient daily baths is an outdated practice QWhat must be done after administering first aid? This depends on the extent of the burn and the areas of involvement. Usually the minor burns could be handled by the local doctors or the local hospital. However, if the burn area is exceeding more than 10 to 15% , it should be managed by a plastic surgeon. Then the burns in the face, neck, hands, over the joints, in the genital area, buttocks etc should be seen by a plastic surgeon at least after sometime in the clinic. I think people should be wise to seek appropriate treatment as many things have advanced and burns should not be managed in a traditional way. QDo you practice ideal burn management in Sri Lanka? Obviously not. But we as plastic surgeons manage burns which surprises overseas visitors who have enough resources. We have changed many aspects of burn care. This is experienced by the patients visiting the Teaching Hospital, Kandy. In order to practice ideal burn care the Government will have to spend a lot of money in establishing a burns unit. Unfortunately, our country does not have a fully equipped burns unit and we cannot salvage patients when the burn percentage exceed 50% - 60% which is sad. Many important people have died of salvageable burns due to lack of facilities. I think it is time to think about these things and plan the way forward. QWhat are the changes made in the burns management in Sri Lanka? I used to see open burn wounds when I assumed duty at the Teaching Hospital, Kandy at the beginning of last year. The burnt patient was covered with a mosquito net and it is the most unpleasant sight one would get in a surgical ward. We have changed that practice and the burn wounds get appropriate treatment with proper dressings. We do not usually practice daily dressings which is really painful for the patients. Instead we use special dressings which can be kept for about five days. This gives the burnt patient a big relief from the pain caused by the dressings. Giving the patient daily baths is an outdated practice. QAre special dressings expensive? This is a good question. I will explain this with a simple example. Lets assume a child getting a hot water burn and for the special dressing the parents have to spend Rs 5,000. Apparently it is too much and should not be practiced. However, that dressing will be done only once and will peal off when the wound heals. The child does not suffer burn pains and would sport a nice smile. The alternative way of managing such an injury is using daily dressings. With such a method the child will suffer daily torture for about two weeks. There is a high chance that the burn wound will get infected and need further surgery; prolonging the patients hospital stay. If the wound is managed in the hospital then loss of parents working hours and lack of attention to other kids have to be taken into account. In addition, if the child has to be brought to the out patient department for wound dressings, the time spent and the cost for transport like for the taxi has to be counted. Obviously, it is more profitable to opt for the expensive dressing .Therefore, we need to think differently and talk about cost effectiveness rather than the cost alone and it is time for this attitude change. QWhat are the other strategies you are applying to create a better outcome? We offer various strategies like early skin grafting and scar therapy to achieve a better outcome in terms of acute burn care. The skin grafting techniques are better known to plastic surgeons and usually do not cause problems after surgery. I see complications of skin grafts which were done inappropriately and without proper knowledge about it. It is sometimes disheartening that we cannot offer many things to those patients as the limited resources of the skin have been utilized inappropriately. We cannot discuss all these in a single article . We will discuss the appropriate burn wound care and scar management in subsequent articles. The Police had found live bullets and several military equipments including army uniforms when they carried out a search operation in the house of Anushka Kavishal alias Janga, an accomplice of underworld drug kingpin Makandure Madush in Talalla, today. Police said Janga was arrested in Dubai along with Makandure Madush on Tuesday (05). During the search operation, the Police had found nine army uniforms, two army helmets, 32 T56 live bullets, 11 training bullets, 37 empty cartridges, five SIM cards, a laptop and several other equipments. Accordingly, the uncle of Janga had been arrested on the suspicion of possessing those equipment. Janga has been a wanted criminal in murder cases and robberies. Meanwhile, Police said they could not find any suspicious objects when they searched the house of Makandure Madush in Makandura. (Krishan Jeewaka Jayaruk) The winners of RB Global Challenge 2018 - L to R: Mr. Madusha de Silva, Ms. Virgin Fernando , Mr. Umendra Abeynayeke The University of Sri Jayewardenepura (USJP) celebrated the diamond jubilee since its establishment as the Vidyodya University in 1959, though it harbours a much longer history dating back to 1873 when the erudite monk, Ven. Hikkaduwe Sri Sumangala Thera, established the Vidyodaya Pirivena. Marking this milestone, the university together with its Innovation, Invention and Venture Creation Council (IIVCC), celebrated the institutions fruitful results and decorative awards. The university celebrates the research, breakthrough discoveries and inventions produced by the institution with the purpose of highlighting timely social necessities. The IIVCC promotes these novelties integrating them with educational, socio-cultural, environmental and economic needs and challenges of the 21st century. We have surpassed expectations and established our own research laboratories. Even universities like Oxford and Cambridge have collaborated with us on new research, Vice Chancellor Prof. Sampath Amaratunge said. The IIVCC, while producing social solutions to relevant issues, also produces young entrepreneurs and patent holders, creating employment opportunities for the masses. Once dubbed as the university of the penniless, we have always borne the responsibility of social welfare. Accordingly, we have made it a point to develop our medical, engineering and technology faculties along with our already prospering arts faculty. As a result, we have produced an array of new creations, said IIVCC Co-Chairperson Prof. Shirantha Heenkenda. As evidence to the social crises the universitys research addresses, the scientists at USJPs Centre for Dengue Research presented their groundbreaking findings. A team of scientists set out to find why only 10% of Dengue patients suffer from severe haemorrhagic fever. They were able to discover that the anti-bodily response to the Dengue NS1 protein was quite different within the 90% of mild cases as compared to the 10%. Having constructed the necessary assays to measure such antibodies, the team was able to aid the development of Dengue vaccination through their work. Their research, conducted wholly within the university, was published in the globally-renowned scientific journal Nature Communications. Cancers are grave crises in Sri Lanka and colorectal cancer alone is the fourth most common. Taking this into account, Dr. Bawantha Gamage, senior lecturer of the USJP Medical Sciences Department of Surgery, spearheaded the modified Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (mERAS) protocol to enable faster recovery for patients with colorectal cancer in the country. Replacing traditional methods, this system is able to discharge patients following 4 to 5 days of treatment. Currently, colorectal cancer patients experience the fruits of our research. Since 2014, we have treated over 100 patients successfully. Our next step is to globalise this initiative, said Dr. Gamage, whose teams efforts made history and won the title Best Surgical Team of the Year 2018 at the BMJ South Asia awards ceremony. Furthermore, numerous success stories from among the students at USJP were declared. Dulan Dias who won the Gold Award for the Tertiary Student Project at APICTA 2018 was able to bring glory to both his university and country. His invention, Komposer - Automated Musical Note Generation based on Lyrics with Recurrent Neural Networks employed artificial intelligence to confer human creativity to a machine. His programme designs suitable melodies for input lyrics. He credits the university for pushing his project to reach international heights. Yet another student achievement esteemed by the university was the victory at RB Global Challenge 2018 by three USJP management undergraduates. (Ms) Virgin Fernando, Madusha de Silva and Umendra Abeynayeke introduced a special mobile vaporizer against mosquitoes carrying the Dengue virus. They reined number one from among 19 participant countries representing 80% of the world population. Not only was it the first time a Sri Lankan team won this competition, but also the first time it participated. The three victors were invited to participate in the One Young World 2019 youth summit held in London. The myriad of fruits borne by IIVCC predominantly tackle socio-economic issues within the nation. Prof. Pradeep Jayweera presented the discovery of a low-cost Li-ion/S rechargeable battery for energy storage devices using Ilmenite -- utilising Ilmenite resources of Pulmudai ensuring cost relieving local manufacture. The discussed venture received world recognition at the 2018 Lithium Conference held in Australia. Exploring the objective of alleviating poverty through science, Prof. Nilwala Kottegoda introduced the universitys successful attempt to produce a novel type of fertilizer using nanotechnology. When we mix fertilizers like Urea and Phosphate in soil, only 30% go towards reaping fruit while the remainder is released to the environment, she said. Their cheap and efficient alternative has shown a yield improvement of up to 15% and a 25-50% reduction in the fertilizer usage. The endeavour received the national award for the best innovation with commercial potential in 2011, won the approval of four patents and nominated Prof. Kottegoda as one of the worlds top nine inventive women scientists by the World Intellectual Property Organisation in 2018. From digestives which eradicate micro-sleep a leading cause of road accidents to bacteria based non-toxic dyes promoting the local textile industry the university has published its countless discoveries and innovations in their website. The engineering and technology faculties were our latest additions. We have integrated 60 postgraduates from around the world to these faculties during the past two years. My vision is to attach 40 more this year, Vice Chancellor Prof. Sampath Amaratunge announced when talking about the way forward. Believing that the youth possesses the answers to solve the worlds problems, Prof. Amaratunge elaborated on the institutions efforts to nurture its students both physically and mentally. Concluding on a note of ambitious hope, the USJP commemorated over a century of growth with the promise of continuing this stride and guiding the curious mind to better the world of tomorrow. Vice Chancellor Prof. Sampath Amaratunge elaborating on the universitys growth in recent past Prof. Neelika Malavige, Professor in Dept. of Microiology, Faculty of Medical Sciences, presenting the award-winning research on Dengue Prof. Upul Marapana, Dept. of Food Science and Technology, Faculty of Applied Sciences, presenting research on non-toxic dyes Prof. M.M Pathmalal, Dept. of Zoology, USJP, speaking on eradicating micro-sleep through their innovations Pics by Damith Wickramasinghe By Shabiya Ali Ahlam Sri Lanka requires an immediate appointment of a tax ombudsman, asserted a leading lawyer in the country, as the need for such a post is felt now than ever before due to the changes in the income tax regime and the implementation of the Revenue Administration Management Information System (RAMIS). The need for a tax ombudsman was stressed in order to prevent tax payers running from pillar to post to iron out and clarify issues, said Presidents Counsel Dr. Kanaganayagam Kanag-Isvaran delivering the annual oration on taxation at the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka (CA Sri Lanka) this week. I believe the time is opportune to address the concerns of the tax payers by appointing a tax ombudsman along the lines of the South African experience to achieve a balance that will enhance the degree of equity and fairness in the tax administration, he said. We should not be wanting the phenomenon of the Parisian yellow vests with our proposed carbon tax, he added. Sri Lanka saw the introduction of the concept of tax ombudsman in November 2004, in the national budget. While the administrative framework and operational guidelines with regard to the tax ombudsman mandated to a period of two years, no successor was appointed following the completion of the tenure of the first tax ombudsman. Former High Court Judge Maxwell Paranagama was appointed as the first and the only holder of the office. The Budget 2017 too proposed the establishment of a tax ombudsman by an Act of Parliament to resolve grievances of taxpayers. Dr. Kanag-Isvaran noted that one of the concerns expressed to be addressed is the absence of proper mechanisms to articulate and lobby the interests and concerns of the body of tax payers in general and of tax reform, in particular with the tax policy makers and the government on an ongoing basis. The Sri Lankan tax regime has provided safeguards to preserve the rights of the tax payers by way of administrative review by the Commissioner General of Inland Revenue (CGIR) under the New Inland Revenue Act. However, this process is limited in scope to the interpretation and construction and application of the relevant tax statutes, he stressed. According to Dr. Kanag-Isvaran, at present, a tax payer who desires a clarification on a matter relating to the interpretation of tax statutes may also resort to private and public rulings referred to in Chapter IX of the Inland Revenue Act. However, this too is strictly in relation to interpretation, construction, and application of the technical aspects of the tax statutes. It is outside the statutory scheme that an institution such as the ombudsman would address grievances. (CNN) Tensions in the fraught relationship between Washington and Berlin are spiking again, as Trump administration officials rail against Germany for deporting a terrorist to Turkey instead of extraditing him to the US following a 2015 indictment. The dispute over Adem Yilmaz, a German-Turkish citizen, led to a tense meeting at the State Department Wednesday, where Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan called in German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas and Emily Haber, the German ambassador to the US, to air American concerns about the decision to send Yilmaz to Turkey after his 11-year prison sentence was over. US officials say they were caught "completely by surprise" and expressed frustration about Yilmaz's deportation. They say they're concerned that the Germans are not being proper custodians of the extradition treaty between the two countries and worry that could affect US chances of extraditing two Iranians currently held in German jails. Harsh words German diplomats say they wanted a different outcome, but extended delays on the US side led to Yilmaz's transfer to Turkey. They say Washington never provided the assurances needed to comply with German legal restrictions and point to their country's separation of powers. "We did exchange views," one German official said, referring to the meeting between Sullivan, Maas and Haber. "We explained that the Federal Government cannot influence a court decision. In the end, a security decision had to be made. Most likely, the court would have freed the person yesterday due to the fact that the US has not provided the documents the court had asked for about nine months ago." Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker said the US was "gravely disappointed by Germany's decision" not to extradite Yilmaz for his "complicity in the murder of two American servicemen." He charged that German officials "ignored our pending request to seek judicial reconsideration or review of a German court's recent decision to change the terms of our extradition treaty with Germany." Whitaker continued in unusually harsh language that Germany "has refused to take any responsibility for failing to extradite him to the United States, has flouted their treaty obligations and has undermined the rule of law." Not the "happiest meeting ever" German officials, speaking to CNN, pushed back against the US charges. "We don't like the outcome either, but it's up to the court to decide," a second German official said. "It's very unfortunate. It's not the choice we would have made, but we have to follow the rule of law." As tensions build, the two sides seem to be talking past each other. A US official said it is "false" that the Department of Justice did not respond to German inquiries about the extradition request, pointing to three letters from the DOJ to Germany judicial officials. The second German official said the US answers didn't meet the German court's requests: "The court asked for information from the US that apparently the US didn't give," the official said. The first German official said, "it is not like anyone in Germany wanted to decide against the US." Wednesday's tense US-German discussions, which included Assistant Secretary for European Affairs Wess Mitchell, "probably wasn't the happiest meeting ever," the second German official allowed. Indeed, in certain US quarters, anger is percolating. The Germans "screwed us," said one State Department official who added that Yilmaz was sent back to Turkey without the US being given advance notice. The man at the center of the dispute, Yilmaz, had been part of a three-man squad trained by an Al Qaeda linked terror group. They were caught plotting massive bomb attacks against targets that reportedly included Ramstein Air Base, a major US and NATO installation, and Frankfurt airport, one of Europe's busiest transportation hubs. Yilmaz was arrested in 2007 and sentenced to 11 years in jail in Germany. The US Treasury Department said that if the bombings had been carried out, casualties would have far exceeded the 2004 train bombings in Madrid that killed more than 190 people and injured close to 2,000. In a 2015 indictment unsealed on Tuesday, the US charged Yilmaz with participating in attacks against US troops along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, with providing material support to terrorists and with advising a suicide bomber who killed two US servicemen and injured at least 11 others in Afghanistan in 2008. The dispute over Yilmaz is the latest point of friction in a bilateral relationship that has frayed badly under President Donald Trump. The US President has criticized German Chancellor Angela Merkel's openness to refugees, decried Germany's trade surplus with the US, particularly its auto exports, and blasted Berlin's pursuit of an oil pipeline with Russia. Germany, meanwhile, has bristled at Trump's criticism of NATO and Merkel, at his trade policies, his abrogation of the Iran nuclear deal and Paris climate agreement, and his ambassador to Germany's open support for Merkel's opponents. The failure to deliver Yilmaz looks set to deepen those tensions. The project was a priority of US Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, who tweeted Tuesday that "we are gravely disappointed by Germany's decision to deport a dangerous terrorist to Turkey, despite a pending request to extradite him to the US." "Yilmaz is responsible for the deaths of US troops," Grenell continued. "The decision violates the terms & spirit of our Extradition Treaty." The US requested Yilmaz's extradition in 2016, but the German court sought more information. It wanted assurances that Yilmaz would only be charged by the US for the crimes listed in the extradition request. German law also forbids extraditing somebody for a crime they have already served a sentence for, the second German official said. As Yilmaz's October 2018 release approached, the German courts still had not received the information they needed, the Germans say. As the release date passed, the Germans continued to detain Yilmaz using the US extradition request as justification and to press the US for the information. 'He is dangerous' "But at a certain point, the court stopped the process" because it no longer had the authority to hold him, the second German official said. "You can't just keep in him prison." At that point, "local authorities moved to deport him. The alternative, at that point, was that this guy would be freed in October and no one wanted that as he is dangerous." This official added that "deportation is decided on the state level and the federal government can't interfere in those decisions." The first German official said, "in our case it was basically the security question: do we want an Islamist to be freed from prison because the process for extradition has been stopped? That was the danger in the past couple of days." Yilmaz was stripped of his German citizenship before being shipped back to Turkey on Tuesday morning. Department of Justice officials say the US is now likely to press Turkey for extradition. The second German official, describing the diplomatic fracas as "very unfortunate," said that Berlin would be "looking at whether we could have done something different. Was a mistake made. But," the official added, "it's not that simple." This story was first published on CNN.com, "US-German tensions spike over terror suspect dispute." 99 cent introductory offer Includes everything we offer online for 24-7 news. This option allows you to read unlimited stories at ctnewsonline.com, and access our e-Edition (digital replicate of the daily newspaper). $7.99 per month after the introductory offer. This service comes with a complimentary CT Select Card allowing for local discounts. Rates are subject to change. While one out of every 25 white students received at least one suspension in 2017-18, the numbers increased significantly for non-white students: One out of every seven black students received at least one suspension during that school year, while one out of every 10 Hispanic students experienced the same sanction. (CNN) Two boys in their early teens swing sledgehammers, knocking down what remains of a wall. Another is hauling pieces of woods across the rubble-strewn dirt in front of the house, or what was the house of Qais Diab Al-Sharina. One week ago, Al-Sharina and his children returned to their former home in the town of Hajin, on the Euphrates River in eastern Syria. A coalition of US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), Kurdish soldiers and Arab tribesmen liberated Hajin from the so-called Islamic State in December. In the process, nearly every building in Hajin's centre was damaged or destroyed. "Life was hard under ISIS," said Al-Sharina, a man in his forties. "But it's still hard, harder still with this destruction." The back wall of his house has been completely demolished, and the front pocked with bullets. Every window in the house has been blown out. Before ISIS came, Al-Sharina made a living trading livestock in this verdant and remote corner of Syria. He and his family fled soon after ISIS charged into town in 2014. What followed were years of moving from one camp for the displaced to another, from one relative's house to another. His children haven't been to school in seven years, he told me. Now they are helping him clear away the rubble and repair damage to make the family home habitable again. It won't be easy. "There's no food here, there's no water. Nothing," he shrugs. His seven-year old son, Mohammed, is too young to help, and amuses himself by pushing a spare car tire around the yard. Syria's nightmare is a year older than him. He has known nothing else. Wastelands after the war against ISIS As the war against ISIS wanes, civilians returning to their homes in Iraq and Syria are discovering wastelands where towns once stood urban moonscapes of twisted metal, shattered concrete, unexploded bombs and mines. Hajin's main roundabout has become a deep pit where a coalition bomb exploded. Just up the road, the town's only hospital is empty, a bullet- and shell-pocked skeleton. There is no electricity, no running water, no schools and no public services. Yet people are returning. Trucks piled high with household goods from mattresses to treadmills are driving into town, after showing identification at a checkpoint manned by coalition soldiers. ISIS may have been driven out a month ago, but the threat of sleeper cells is very real. Zahra returned to Hajin two days ago, after moving from camp to camp. She has already set up a table by the road where she sells candy, Kleenex and cigarettes. Seated on a chunk of concrete, she looks around at the ruins that were Hajin. "Only stones are left," she says. A rubble-strewn last stretch to victory Impatience seems to mark the last battles in the coalition's fight against ISIS. If victory means destroying the towns and villages that ISIS once controlled, so be it, suggests the bomb-cratered road between Hajin and the frontlines. The final line between territory controlled by the SDF and ISIS is an earthen berm on the outskirts of Baghouz Al-Fawqani, the only town still under ISIS control in the area. Occasional cracks of gunfire echo across the no-man's land, while barely visible coalition warplanes roar overhead. While we were there, a mortar round crashed into the ground just a few hundred steps away. Through binoculars, it's easy to see men on motorcycles driving on the perimeter of the occupied town, as well as the occasional truck. What looks like a field full of tents, with wood fires burning, is also plainly visible. SDF officers estimate around 2,000 people are still inside Baghouz Al-Fawqani, a number that includes around 500 ISIS fighters. The remainder is thought to be the families of ISIS members and a handful of the town's original inhabitants. The SDF faces a particular challenge now: As ISIS has shrunk from its once-vast realm stretching from the outskirts of Baghdad to western Syria, some of the group's most dedicated and fanatical followers have ended up concentrated here. "Here we are facing their most ruthless fighters," says Adnan Afrin, commander of SDF forces at the front. "There are Iraqis, Europeans and others from around the world, and they still have the will to fight." He denies rumors that negotiations are underway to evacuate ISIS fighters and their families to Idlib Province in western Syria, the last part of the country occupied by anti-regime forces. "Our goal is to completely destroy the ISIS terrorist organization," he says. In a speech at the State Department on Wednesday, Donald Trump predicted that the coalition would soon liberate "100% of the caliphate" established by ISIS in Syria and Iraq, as early as next week. The US President added that he wants "to wait for the official word" to announce victory. But Commander Adnan is under no illusion that victory in the current battle will mean a total victory over the extremist group. "ISIS isn't finished yet," he told me. "It's still in this area. It's still fighting. It still has sleeper cells in the areas we've liberated." If the SDF can retake Baghouz Al-Fawqani, the eond of an important battle against ISIS will be in sight. But the war is far from over. This story was first published on CNN.com, "As ISIS shrinks, Syrians return home and discover a wasteland." Far too many victims in the state of Connecticut are not getting justice in our system because we have a statute of limitations that is one of the shortest in the country of just five years, Flexer told reporters at the state Capitol Friday. Victims of people like Larry Nassar and Bill Cosby if those crimes happened here in Connecticut would not be able to get justice in our state because our laws are so backwards and antiquated. Upon the [first] indication days ago that there may be trouble with Amazons proposed deal with [New York], we mobilized our new Partnership to Advance the Connecticut of Tomorrow and more specifically, [Connecticut Economic Resource Center] co-chairs Indra Nooyi and Jim Smith, to construct a path forward, Gov. Ned Lamont wrote in a tweet Friday afternoon. The state has already made an outreach to Amazon through its in-state representation, and we are looking forward to expanding the dialogue. The Nipmuck Trail runs along the eastern boundary of the property, but visitors can take the trail for several miles north and south along the Fenton River. The river is quite beautiful with its clear-running water and sandy bottom. The banks are lined with huge hemlocks that provide shade and great fishing spots. Sights to see include the Gurleyville Grist Mill. For the really ambitious, hikers can follow the trail south to see the ghostly iron bridges. How could my mother possibly have given me that first pill? Her answer is simple: I was falling apart and she was more afraid of what Id do to myself than of what the Oxy would do to me. She stands by her reasoning, and everything she and my father didnt yet understand. My dad, again and again, cites the pharma sales reps spiel: They lied to us. They both say theyd have done things differently if theyd only known. As a 21st century society, we do nothing to prevent this practice. In November, a federal judge in Detroit struck down a nationwide ban [Nov. 20, courant.com, Federal judge finds female genital mutilation law unconstitutional]. It is clear each state must strengthen its own laws. The challenge is that there are not enough states willing to outlaw this practice. The serious patient abuse that occurred at Whiting is something that virtually everyone agrees is something that should never have happened. Yet it did. Figuring out why it happened will be the subject of court hearings and processes that have yet to fully play out. But exploring the conditions that led to the creation of a culture in which an event like this was almost inevitable will require difficult conversations and thoughtful exploration. In his statement to state police after Paula Kalosky's body was found, a copy of which is in Carbo's possession, Robert Kalosky said he didn't hear any gunshots that morning. He told police he left the house and went to withdraw money from an ATM and to get gas. After coming home and starting breakfast, he went to check on his wife and found her dead with his gun next to her. Laura Heisler, the actress playing Hartman (the character is actually billed simply as Writer) makes the role charming and upbeat; her opening monologue plays almost like a stand-up set. Indeed, seasoned Yalies and townies in the audience on opening night reacted to local references in the play, such as an offhand comment about lawyer Hugh Keefe, with knowing chuckles, as it they were jokes from a comedian. Former New Haven Mayor John DeStefano makes a brisk one-line cameo (played by the same burly Ian Bedford who embodies Frank Ricci) and brings down the house. The banks whose loan clients might have been injured made it clear in statements that they had no direct involvement in the data breach because they neither own nor service the mortgages. Nonetheless, a Citibank spokesman said it is "working to identify potentially affected customers" and has "instituted a forensic investigation." A spokeswoman for Wells Fargo told me, "We have no indication that any Wells systems or service providers were compromised," and the bank views the "security of our customers' personal information" as "our priority." Industry experts were aghast at the breach. Paul Benda, senior vice president for risk and cybersecurity at the American Bankers Association, said "banks have strict data security protocols in place ... and protect their [own] data well." So, too, should companies that acquire mortgages originated by banks and resold in the secondary market. "If you receive this loan data, well gosh darn it you need to protect it," Benda added. I tend to take a lot of photos of people in the act of doing something as part of their vocation, and New York City is a great place to do that, said Suponski of his photo of a pretzel vendor serving a customer. As a photographer, you can blend into the crowd, plant yourself, observe, and let the scene come to you. In this case, it was right at the holidays and I was outside Grand Central Station on the corner of 42nd Street and Lexington. It was after sunset and I hung out for a while, waiting to capture the steam and smoke as it billowed up while he served. It was kind of a lucky shot, but when you think about it, not really. (CNN) Thousands of flamingo chicks have been airlifted from their dried-out habitat in northern South Africa in a desperate attempt to save them. Around 2,000 Lesser Flamingo juveniles were rescued from the Kamfers Dam near Kimberley at the end of January, after their parents abandoned them following a significant drop in the dam's water levels brought on by drought conditions in the northern Cape. The Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (SANCCOB), one of the organizations caring for the chicks, has been canvassing for donations of food and cash, and volunteers to hand-feed the stricken birds. Katta Ludynia, the research manager at SANCCOB, said that around 550 birds were transported to the foundation's Cape Town facility by car and by plane. "These chicks arrived in a very bad condition since a lot of them were dehydrated, they were tiny -- some of them were just coming out of their eggs -- so we had a little bit of a problem with infections. "By now they're all stabilized, they get medical treatment, they get regular feeds" of egg yolks, baby formula, prawns and fish. In between feeds, Ludyina says, they're also fed electrolyte fluids to aid their rehydration. "These chicks will be with SANCCOB for probably another three to four months, until they're ready to be released back into the wild," she said, adding that she was not sure if they would be returned to their birthplace or released elsewhere. "Whether they will be released back in Kimberly or ... in the Western Cape still has to be decided." A growing number of the chicks in SANCCOB's care are gaining strength and video posted to its social media pages shows chicks walking and preening in the sunshine at its Table View facility, after spending time under incubation heat lamps to aid their development. Important habitat The naturally formed Kamfers Dam sits at the intersection of three biomes -- the Kalahari Savanna, Grassland and Nama Karoo, according to conservation organization Birdlife South Africa. Manmade activity has changed it from a ephemeral to perennial pan -- meaning that storm runoff and sewage from the nearby city of Kimberly, to the south, has turned it into a permanent ecosystem, with the phosphates from the sewage encouraging reed and sedge growth around the dam's shores. Until the waters began to recede, the dam was "a reliable refuge for waterbirds in a semi-arid area where wetlands are scarce," the conservation organization explains. At least 63 waterbird species have been recorded at the site, "regularly (holding) more than 20,000 birds," with a record 85,000 individuals counted in 2006 -- the vast majority of which are Lesser Flamingos. Avoiding 'Day Zero' -- for now South Africa, including the southern city of Cape Town, has been struggling with extreme water shortages in recent years, with the southern hemisphere summer of 2018 particularly dry. For months, the city of four million people faced the doomsday scenario of "Day Zero" -- the day the taps run dry. Cape Town pushed their countdown clock to 2019, but avoiding Day Zero is still dependent on the rain -- something entirely out of anyone's control. While Cape Town is the first major city to face such a water crisis, it is unlikely to be the last. "The situation in Cape Town is almost a foretaste of what is likely to come in cities worldwide," Jasper Knight, a geographer and climate expert at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, told CNN last year. Drought crises in California, Brazil and Spain all suggest a future where water will be scarce. As urban populations increase, water resources are becoming strained. This story was first published on CNN.com, "Thousands of flamingo chicks rescued from dried-out South African dam." She gave a brief history of women in the military, beginning in 1917, and information about the Hello Girls. It was a group of more than 220 American women who served as long distance switchboard operators for the U.S. Army Signal Corps. It wasnt until 1979 that they received their veteran status. A year prior, Vasquez-Hellner began her journey in the military. Officers saw Dowdells car and followed it, more officers converged on the area and at Chapman Street, at least four police cars tried to block it in. Videotape shows police cars hitting Dowdells Toyota at low speed, and a chaotic scene as police poured out of their cars and tried to surround the vehicle. The Toyota rumbled up a snow-covered embankment and then down a sidewalk as several police officers jumped out of the way and opened fire. More than two dozen business owners, managers and others attended a presentation by the New Haven Manufacturers Association Thursday night in Woodbridge for a crash course from a Capitol lobbyist on the complicated legislative process. They also got tips on how to press their case on issues such as workforce development, economic policy and technology. Police obtained a warrant for Morales arrest and distributed a picture of him, but they have not been able to find him. He is described as a light-skinned Hispanic male, about 5-foot-6 with brown hair and brown eyes, police said. He is known to frequent New Britain and Hartford. Questo comunicato e stato pubblicato piu di 1 anno fa. Le informazioni su questa pagina potrebbero non essere attendibili. A newly born baby, all of a sudden finds himself in a completely new environment after the labor and immediately faces different external factors. In this insecure and extremely important period, child development requires careful medical monitoring. Doctors pay special attention to the issues of nursing premature babies, creating all necessary conditions for the preservation of their life and health. With this purpose, ISIDA clinic regularly acquires modern medical equipment for neonatology department and takes care of improving the qualifications of our specialists. Therefore, at the end of last year, Kluban Olesya Anatolyevna, ISIDA clinic neonatologist, undertook an internship at neonatology department at polish clinic - Szpital Kliniczny im. Ksieznej Anny Maz. This is one of the oldest and most famous clinics in Poland, where about 3,000 - 3,500 children are born every year. Each place in the neonatal intensive care department is equipped with an incubator, respiratory equipment, racks with lineomatics, tracking equipment. During the year, 2025 children undergo therapeutic hypothermia; the clinic practices the appliance of high-frequency ventilation treatment in very premature babies. The neonatal pathology department consists of two boxes and two nursing posts with tracking monitors for each child. The second stage of nursing premature babies takes place in this department. During the internship, Polish doctors talked about their ways of organizing parenteral nutrition for premature babies, sharing their experience on using painkilling sedatives during procedures, on mechanical ventilation, intubation, therapeutic hypothermia, anxiety and fever. The issues of applying phototherapy, vaccination of healthy children and many other disputable questions in the field of neonatology were also discussed, shared her impressions on the internship Olesya Kluban. Kluban Olesya Anatolyevna - a neonatologist of the highest qualification category, specializes in the observation and treatment of children in need of primary resuscitation and intensive care, in nursing deeply premature babies with the use of invasive and non-invasive mechanical ventilation, as well as in ultrasound diagnosis. A member of the Association of Neonatologists of Ukraine, Dr. Kluban has 22 years of professional experience, and has worked at ISIDA clinic since 2004. The doctor takes part in the annual congresses of perinatologists and the Association of Neonatologists of Ukraine, regularly attends specialized conferences. Every 5 years Olesya Kluban undergoes advanced training courses in the specialty "Neonatology" on the basis of NMAPE P.L. Shupika and certification for primary neonatal resuscitation. Contact us! Phone: +380 (44) 455 88 14; (044) 490-95-24 Viber: +380 (67) 333 88 14 Skype: ISIDA International Address: 65, Vatslava Gavela Blvd, Kyiv, Ukraine https://isida-ivf.com Questo comunicato e stato pubblicato piu di 1 anno fa. Le informazioni su questa pagina potrebbero non essere attendibili. February 08, 2019: This report studies the Payroll Software market size by players, regions, product types and end industries, history data 2013-2017 and forecast data 2018-2025; This report also studies the global market competition landscape, market drivers and trends, opportunities and challenges, risks and entry barriers, sales channels, distributors and Porter's Five Forces Analysis. In 2017, the global Payroll Software market size was xx million US$ and it is expected to reach xx million US$ by the end of 2025, with a CAGR of xx% between 2018 and 2025. This report focuses on the global top players, covered SAP Oracle (NetSuite) Automatic Data Processing,Inc. Download sample Copy of This Report at: https://www.radiantinsights.com/research/global-payroll-software-market/request-sample Pachex Microsoft Intuit Sage Workday IBM Corporation Infor Kronos Yonyou Epicor Unit4 Xero Browse Full Report With TOC @ https://www.radiantinsights.com/research/global-payroll-software-market Market segment by Regions/Countries, this report covers North America Europe China Rest of Asia Pacific Central & South America Middle East & Africa Market segment by Type, the product can be split into Type I Type II Market segment by Application, the market can be split into Large Enterprise SME The study objectives of this report are: To study and forecast the market size of Payroll Software in global market. To analyze the global key players, SWOT analysis, value and global market share for top players. To define, describe and forecast the market by type, end use and region. To analyze and compare the market status and forecast among global major regions. To analyze the global key regions market potential and advantage, opportunity and challenge, restraints and risks. To identify significant trends and factors driving or inhibiting the market growth. To analyze the opportunities in the market for stakeholders by identifying the high growth segments. To strategically analyze each submarket with respect to individual growth trend and their contribution to the market To analyze competitive developments such as expansions, agreements, new product launches, and acquisitions in the market. To strategically profile the key players and comprehensively analyze their growth strategies. In this study, the years considered to estimate the market size of Payroll Software are as follows: History Year: 2013-2017 Base Year: 2017 Estimated Year: 2018 Forecast Year 2018 to 2025 About Radiant Insights Radiant Insights is a platform for companies looking to meet their market research and business intelligence requirements. We assist and facilitate organizations and individuals procure market research reports, helping them in the decision making process. We have a comprehensive collection of reports, covering over 40 key industries and a host of micro markets. In addition to over extensive database of reports, our experienced research coordinators also offer a host of ancillary services such as, research partnerships/ tie-ups and customized research solutions. For More Information, Visit Radiant Insights Contact: Michelle Thoras Corporate Sales Specialist, USA Radiant Insights, Inc Phone: 1-415-349-0054 Toll Free: 1-888-202-9519 Email: sales@radiantinsights.com Blog URL: http://ictmarketforecasts.wordpress.com the complete review - fiction Allmen and the Pink Diamond by Martin Suter general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author German title: Allmen und der rosa Diamant Translated by Steph Morris - Return to top of the page - Our Assessment: B : pure froth, but good fun See our review for fuller assessment. From the Reviews : "Martin Suter reussit le parfait dosage entre roman a enigme vintage et polar contemporain. (...) Le romancier suisse nous divertit fort, avec ce roman rose et noir qui stigmatise la finance folle." - Ph.C., Les Echos "So liegt auch der Reiz von Suters neuem, heute erscheinendem Werk weniger in der Handlung (...) als in der Ausschmuckung jener Welten, durch die Suter seinen Helden mit Einstecktuch und Schrankkoffer flanieren lasst (.....) (W)er einen Nachfahren von Ian Flemings Bond mit mehr Niveau als Action sucht, ist mit Suters Allmen allemal gut bedient." - Felicitas von Lovenberg, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung "(S)o-so (.....) Still, some fans of light crime novels will be satisfied." - Publishers Weekly "Menschen, die Krimis der aktuellen Schnittfolge (rasend) und zeitgenossischen Blutmenge (rauschend) gewohnt sind, mussen -- kurz bevor sie einschlafen -- geradezu erschrecken ob der Langsamkeit, mit der Johann Friedrich von Allmen ermittelt und Martin Suter erzahlt. Allmen und der rosa Diamant ist die Wiederbelebung des Kriminalromans der Grand-Turismo-Zeit. (...) So kommt noch ein bisschen Moral und Aktualitat in die G'schicht" - Elmar Krekeler, Die Welt Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review 's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure. - Return to top of the page - The complete review 's Review : Allmen and the Pink Diamond sees the return of Johann Friedrich von Allmen, still living off the success of the case he solved in Allmen and the Dragonflies. He parlayed that into a small-scale detective agency, 'Allmen International Inquiries' (their slogan: "The art of tracing art"), which seems to have puttered along well enough but hasn't exactly been a roaring success. Now, however, there's a great opportunity: Allmen is hired by a man named Montgomery -- himself an intermediary for an unnamed client -- to assist in the search for a missing 'pink diamond', apparently worth tens of millions. Specifically, they've identified a suspect, a Russian IT specialist named Artyom Sokolov, and they want Allmen to find him; they would also prefer not to involve the authorities. The potential payout -- the finder's fee -- here is enormous. Indeed, Carlos Santiago -- the illegal immigrant who is Allmen's (silent) partner (and, essentially, butler) -- thinks they shouldn't accept the job: "Everything about it is too big", he warns. Of course, since the supremely confident Allmen has already spent a fair portion of the advance, there's not really much question of turning back ..... Allmen sets off on the trail of Sokolov, sniffing around in the obvious places -- where he worked and lived, for example -- but he and Carlos find at each of the first stops that whoever they ask about the mystery man isn't all that surprised by the questions, telling them: "You aren't the only one who wants to know". Allmen and Carlos seem to be a step or two behind an Englishman, and an American, or a pair of each. Eventually, however, Allmen leapfrogs the others who are on Sokolov's trail and is the first to find him -- at a five-star hotel on the Baltic coast. Allmen books himself a room as well, and quickly makes the acquaintance of Sokolov -- though it's only so long before other interested parties, whose touch isn't anywhere near as light as Allmen's is -- find their way here as well. It takes a while, but Carlos finally realizes: "the pink diamond is not what we think it is". It is, however, of about the expected size -- i.e. small and very easily concealed -- and, as it turns out, even more valuable (to certain parties) than they had been led to believe. Unsurprisingly, however, Allmen and Carlos would indeed appear to be out of their league in the handling of the mystery-object, especially given the resources others are willing and able to expend in getting their hands on it. Nevertheless, Allmen and Carlos have a trick or two up their sleeves too, and if they don't quite end up with the hoped for riches, they manage to cleverly see to it that the company coffers are nicely filled up, enough to tide them over for quite a while. The mystery in Allmen and the Pink Diamond may be high stakes, but Suter is satisfied with proceeding at a low-intensity trot, the chapters short -- some only a single page long -- and quick. If there has to be a murder -- there does -- it's decorously handled well off-scene, and what more direct confrontations there are are handled quickly (if not entirely painlessly). The pleasure of the Allmen-mysteries comes in the attitude -- Allmen's -- and Suter has good fun with that. Allmen lives in rather humble circumstances, but that's because he can't help but live, whenever possible, beyond his means. Allmen is a man of supreme comfort, used to the better -- indeed, the very best -- things in life and always looking to be able to enjoy them yet again, even if and when (often) he can't afford them. He is also, admirably, anything but cheap, always tipping generously and, for example, splurging for the best champagne at a somewhat tatty nightclub (with the mournful name: 'Lonely Nights') where he's looking for information. He gets away with a lot by confidently (and very naturally) always assuming the air of absolute entitlement of the ultra-rich (and old, old money at that) -- such as when checking in at the five-star hotel before his client has transferred the funds that would allow him to actually pay for a room; asked for his credit card information, his retort is: "Credit card ?" Allmen asked in amazement. "I have never owned a credit card and will never own such a thing." He displayed his most charming of smiles. "But I take it you also accept real money ?" - M.A.Orthofer, 8 February 2019 - Return to top of the page - : - Return to top of the page - About the Author : Swiss author Martin Suter was born in 1948. - Return to top of the page - (CNN) Europe has told British Prime Minister Theresa May, again, that it will not reopen talks on the Brexit agreement as she arrived in Brussels to persuade EU leaders to agree to key changes as demanded by the UK Parliament. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said Thursday the EU could only "add wording" to the Political Declaration about what they aim for in their future relationship. May's meeting with EU leaders takes place amid a frosty atmosphere after European Council President Donald Tusk tweeted there was a "special place in Hell" for people who "promoted Brexit" without a plan to execute it. His words rattled politicians in the UK and drew sift condemnation from Brexiteers. The Prime Minister is due to meet Tusk later on Thursday. British lawmakers voted last month to send May back to Brussels to renegotiate the terms of the Brexit deal, specifically over concerns regarding the Irish backstop. The backstop -- an insurance policy designed to avoid a hard border between Northern Ireland, which remains part of the UK, and the Republic of Ireland, an EU member -- has been a particularly thorny issue in May's deal, with British politicians firm that they will not back her deal without changes. In a joint statement, May and Juncker described their meeting as "robust but constructive" and said they'd agreed that the UK and EU "should hold talks as to whether a way through can be found that would gain the broadest possible support in the UK Parliament and respect the guidelines agreed by the European Council." As she arrived to meet Juncker, May was met by an anti-Brexit protester who jumped in front of her car while holding a poster that read "Don't Crash Out!" The man was swiftly intercepted by security. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking for May to find a deal before Britain's departure from the EU in 50 days. The country remains on a knife-edge over Brexit, with Westminster standing strong on the backstop and the EU emphatically ruling out a new, renegotiated deal. The chances, as each day rolls on, point more and more towards the UK crashing out of the bloc without a deal -- which could have catastrophic effects on food and medicine supply, businesses and travel. This story was first published on CNN.com, "EU says no, again, to renegotiating Brexit deal as May arrives in Brussels." What's Included With a Digital Only subscription, you'll receive unlimited access to our website and e-edition. Our digital products are available 24/7 and are accessible anywhere, anytime. If you have any questions or need further assistance, please call our customer service team at 319-352-3334 or email legals@waverlynewspapers.com. What's Included With a Digital Only subscription, you'll receive unlimited access to our website and e-edition. Our digital products are available 24/7 and are accessible anywhere, anytime. If you have any questions or need further assistance, please call our customer service team at 319-283-2144 or email circ@oelweindailyregister.com. Hand Held Extinguishers Market: Business Overview and Future Scope 2025- UTC, Tyco Fire Protection, BAVARIA, Minimax https://www.qyresearchgroups.com/request-sample/1134426 https://www.qyresearchgroups.com/check-discount/1134426 https://www.qyresearchgroups.com/send-an-enquiry/1134426 The analysis presents a comprehensive evaluation of this global Hand Held Extinguishers market allowing technologies, key trends and market drivers, challenges, and standardization, regulatory arena, installation units, and operator case studies, Hand Held Extinguishers opportunities, future road map, value series, eco-system player profiles and strategies. The Hand Held Extinguishers report introduces predictions for important decisions from 2019 to 2025.The Hand Held Extinguishers Market report provides key driving factors which can be used to cultivate the business enterprise Globally. Hand Held Extinguishers Market report employs the sophisticated technological systems demands which can be harmonious on the specific market by each parameter are strictly cited in this report.Get PDF Sample of the Report at:Top Business Players in Global Hand Held Extinguishers Market: UTC Tyco Fire Protection BAVARIA Minimax Amerex Buckeye Fire Tianguang Protec Fire Detection plc ANAF S.p.A Sureland Gielle Group Ogniochron Britannia Fire Presto Feuerschutz Jockel GmbH GTS Lichfield Fire & Safety Equipment DESAUTEL MB BRKBased on Types: Dry Chemical Type Foam Type Carbon Dioxide TypeBased on Applications: Commercial Residential IndustrialLeading Regions included in the Report:North America, Asia-Pacific, Europe, Central & South America, Middle East & AfricaAvail Exclusive Discount On This Report:Global Hand Held Extinguishers Market Development Factors:The reach of this Hand Held Extinguishers market report covers information concerning the significant factors impacting the growth such as drivers, restraints, challenges, and opportunities. A comprehensive Hand Held Extinguishers analysis of the key industry participants is achieved to supply insights in their enterprise review, merchandise, key strategies like product launches, partnerships, and threats, and also recent advancements related to the Hand Held Extinguishers market.Which would be the Hand Held Extinguishers market factors which can be clarified from this document? Key Strategic Developments:- The analysis also comprises the key tactical Hand Held Extinguishers market developments of this current market, including R&D, new product launching, arrangements, collaborations and partnerships, joint ventures, along with also Hand Held Extinguishers regional rise of the top competitors operating from the market to get a regional and global scale. Key Market Characteristics:- The Hand Held Extinguishers analysis assessed key economy features, for sales, price and capacity, capacity utilization rate, gross profits profit, production, production pace, ingestion, import/export, supply/demand, cost and global Hand Held Extinguishers market share, CAGR, along with gross margin. Additionally, the analysis provides extensive Hand Held Extinguishers analysis of the key market tendencies and their trends, together with applicable market sections and sub-segments. Analytical Tools: The International Hand Held Extinguishers Market report involves the accurately examined and examined data of the key industry players along with their range on the market by way of numerous analytic tools. The analytical tools like Porter's five forces analysis, Hand Held Extinguishers SWOT analysis, feasibility analysis, and investment yield analysis of the key players operating in the industry.Want to Know More? Consult our Business Professional at:About Us:QY Research Groups is a company that simplifies how analysts and decision makers get industry data for their business. Our unique colossal technology has been developed to offer refined search capabilities designed to exploit the long tail of free market research whilst eliminating irrelevant results. QY Research Groups is the collection of market intelligence products and services on the Web. We offer reports and update our collection daily to provide you with instant online access to the world's most complete and current database of expert insights on Global industries, companies, products, and trendCustomization of this Report: This Hand Held Extinguishers report could be customized to the customer's requirements. Please contact our sales professional (sales@qyresearchgroups.com), who'll ensure you obtain the report which works for your needs. Industrial Den Ox Systems and Services Market | key player - CECO Environmental Corp., Babcock & Wilcox Enterprises, Inc., GE Power, Yara International ASA, Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems Ltd. mrrse https://www.mrrse.com/sample/17608 https://www.mrrse.com/industrial-denox-systems-services-market https://www.mrrse.com/enquiry/17608 https://www.mrrse.com/ Looking at the current market trends as well as the promising demand status of the Industrial Den Ox Systems and Services Market it can be projected that the future years will bring out positive outcomes. This research report added by MRRSE on its online portal delivers clear insight about the changing tendencies across the global market. Readers can gather prime facets connected to the target market which includes product, end-use and application; assisting them to draw conclusions out of this intelligent research report.Request Free sample report@This report analyzes and forecasts the industrial DeNOx systems & services market at the global and regional levels. The market has been forecast based on revenue (US$ Mn) from 2018 to 2026. The study includes drivers and restraints of the global market. It also covers the expected impact of these drivers and restraints on the demand for industrial DeNOx systems and services during the forecast period. The report also highlights opportunities in the industrial DeNOx systems & services market at the global level.The report comprises detailed value chain analysis, which provides a comprehensive view of the global industrial DeNOx systems & services market. Porters Five Forces model has also been included to help understand the competitive landscape of the market. The study encompasses market attractiveness analysis, wherein service type, type and application segments have been benchmarked based on their market size, growth rate, and general attractiveness.The study provides a decisive view of the global industrial DeNOx systems & services market by segmenting it in terms of service type, type, and application. Segments have been analyzed based on the present and future trends. Regional segmentation includes the current and projected demand for industrial DeNOx systems and services in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa. The report also covers the demand for industrial DeNOx systems and services in individual service type, type, and application segments across all regions. Key players operating in the industrial DeNOx systems & services market are CECO Environmental Corp., Babcock & Wilcox Enterprises, Inc., GE Power, Yara International ASA, Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems, Ltd., Ducon Environmental Systems, Hitachi Zosen Inova AG, ANDRITZ Group, Babcock Noell GmbH, and Tri-Mer Corporation. Among these, CECO Environmental Corp., Babcock & Wilcox Enterprises, Inc., and Yara International ASA have been profiled in terms of attributes such as company overview, financial overview, business strategies, and recent developments.Browse Complete Report with TOC @The report provides the size of the industrial DeNOx systems & services market for 2017 and forecast for the next nine years. The market size has been provided in terms of revenue. Market numbers have been estimated based on service type, type, and application of industrial DeNOx systems and services. Market size and forecast for each service type, type, and application segment have been provided for the global and regional markets.In-depth interviews and discussions with several key market participants and opinion leaders have been conducted to compile the research report. Primary research represents a bulk of research efforts, supplemented by extensive secondary research. Annual reports, press releases, and relevant documents of key players operating in various end-use industries have been reviewed for competition analysis and market understanding. Secondary research also includes recent trends, technical writing, Internet sources, and statistical data from government websites, trade associations, and agencies. This has proved to be the most reliable, effective, and successful approach for obtaining precise market data, capturing market participants insights, and recognizing business opportunities.Global Industrial DeNOx Systems & Services Market, by Service TypeNew InstallationAftermarket ServiceGlobal Industrial DeNOx Systems & Services Market, by TypeSelective Catalytic ReductionSelective Non-catalytic ReductionGlobal Industrial DeNOx Systems & Services Market, by ApplicationPower PlantsGas TurbinesWaste Incineration PlantsFCC Units in RefineriesSteel MillsCalcination PlantsNitric Acid PlantsCement PlantsOthersGlobal Industrial DeNOx Systems & Services Market, by RegionNorth AmericaU.S.CanadaEuropeGermanyU.K.FranceItalyRussia & CISRest of EuropeAsia PacificChinaJapanIndiaASEANRest of Asia PacificLatin AmericaBrazilMexicoRest of Latin AmericaMiddle East & AfricaSouth AfricaGCCRest of Middle East & AfricaKey TakeawaysExtensive analysis of the industrial DeNOx systems & services market trends and shares from 2017 to 2026 to identify growth opportunities and analyze market developmentsA list of key developments made by major players in the industrial DeNOx systems & services marketA list of key factors useful for building a roadmap of upcoming growth opportunities for the industrial DeNOx systems & services market at the global, regional, and country levelsInsights into growth opportunities for various stakeholders in the value chain and a detailed competition landscape of major players to help understand the market competition levelPorters five forces that highlight the potency of buyers and suppliers and enable stakeholders to make profit-oriented business decisionsEnquire about this Report @About Market Research Reports Search Engine (MRRSE)Market Research Reports Search Engine (MRRSE) is an industry-leading database of Market Research Reports. MRRSE is driven by a stellar team of research experts and advisors trained to offer objective advice. Our sophisticated search algorithm returns results based on the report title, geographical region, publisher, or other keywords.MRRSE partners exclusively with leading global publishers to provide clients single-point access to top-of-the-line market research. MRRSEs repository is updated every day to keep its clients ahead of the next new trend in market research, be it competitive intelligence, product or service trends or strategic consulting.Contact UsState Tower90, State StreetSuite 700Albany, NY - 12207United States Telephone: +1-518-730-0559Email: sales@mrrse.comWebsite: Global Prostate Cancer Therapeutics Market Global Prostate Cancer Therapeutics Market https://www.maximizemarketresearch.com/market-report/global-prostate-cancer-therapeutics-market/25682/ https://www.maximizemarketresearch.com Global Prostate Cancer Therapeutics Market Industry Analysis and Forecast (2018-2026) By Product Type, End User, and Region.Global Prostate Cancer Therapeutics Market was valued at US$ 9.21 Bn in 2017 and is expected to reach US$ 16.21 Bn by 2026, at a CAGR of 7.33 % during a forecast period.The objective of the report is to present a comprehensive assessment of the market and contains thoughtful insights, facts, historical data, industry-validated market data and projections with a suitable set of assumptions and methodology. The report also helps in understanding prostate cancer therapeutics market dynamics, structure by identifying and analyzing the market segments and project the global market size. Further, report also focuses on competitive analysis of key players by product, price, financial position, product portfolio, growth strategies, and regional presence. The report also provides PEST analysis, PORTERs analysis, SWOT analysis to address question of shareholders to prioritizing the efforts and investment in near future to emerging segment in prostate cancer therapeutics market.The prostate is an exocrine gland found in men, placed within the groin space just under the bladder and before of the body part. In prostate cancer, cells inside the gland mutate change into cancer cells. Additional, these affected cells begin killing the opposite healthy gland cells, and might unfold to the opposite body parts. Prostate cancer is that the second leading reason for new cancer cases in men globally and therefore the sixth leading cause for cancerous death in men.Innovations within the development of recent drugs and therapies, sizable amount of recent drugs stepping into the market with FDA approval, high growth in hormone-refractory glandular cancer medicine market, and rise in base of aging population are key driving factors for the expansion of this market. Additionally, rise in prevalence of glandular cancer, dynamic fashion habits of populations, increased patients attention awareness, and increasing demand for non-invasive therapies are expected to push the market growth in the forecast period. Alongside these driving factors, the marketplace for prostate cancer is facing some challenges like time overwhelming regulative compliance and high price of prostate drugs. However, the marketplace for prostate cancer is probably going to rise in the forecast period because of the large number of current innovations for the treatment of prostate cancer.Based on Product Type, Hormone therapy, among product type segments in the prostate cancer therapeutics is highly attractive and is likely to stay this way in the forecast period and is expected to remain dominant throughout the forecast timeframe. Hormonal therapy is also called as androgen deprivation therapy (ADT). The hormone therapy helps to reduce the level of androgens that are male hormones which fuel the growth of cancer. Suppressing the hormone level, the drugs help to decrease the growth of cancer of prostate. The immunotherapy drugs for prostate cancer are projected to register the highest CAGR globally.In terms of end-user, they are segregated as hospital pharmacy, retail pharmacy, and online pharmacy. The hospital pharmacy accounted for the largest share in the global prostate cancer therapeutics market in 2017. The growing number of the patient pool for medical care in hospitals is the leading factor contributing towards the high share of segment in the global market.Geographically, North America holds major share in the prostate cancer therapeutics market due to high number of prostate cancer patients whereas APAC and South America are likely to be grow moderately in the prostate cancer therapeutics market due to rising awareness about the disease. Europe is expected to grow at significant rates owing to increase in prevalence rates and developed healthcare infrastructure facilities.The Scope of Global Prostate Cancer Therapeutics Market:Global Prostate Cancer Therapeutics Market, by Product Type: Hormonal Therapyo Luteinizing Hormone-releasing Hormone (LHRH) Analogso Luteinizing Hormone-releasing Hormone (LHRH) Antagonistso Anti-androgens Chemotherapyo Jevtanao Mitoxantroneo Taxotereo Estramustineo Others Targeted Therapy ImmunotherapyGlobal Prostate Cancer Therapeutics Market, by End User: Hospital Pharmacy Retail Pharmacy Online PharmacyGlobal Prostate Cancer Therapeutics Market, by Region: North America Europe Middle East & Africa Asia Pacific South AmericaKey Players Operating In Global Prostate Cancer Therapeutics Market: Bristol-Myers Squibb Company EUSA Pharma,Inc. OSI Retail Pharmacy, Inc. Paladin Labs Inc. Amgen Inc. Cell Genesys Inc. Spectrum Retail Pharmacy, Inc. Indevus Retail Pharmacy Inc. Medimmune Dendreon Corporation Genentech Inc. Abbott Laboratories GlaxoSmithKline Plc Pfizer Inc. Immunomedics, Inc. Progenics Retail Pharmacy, Inc. Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited Sanofi-Aventis SA F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. Novartis AG ALZA Corporation AstraZeneca PLCMaximize Market Research provides B2B and B2C research on 20,000 high growth emerging opportunities & technologies as well as threats to the companies across the Healthcare, Pharmaceuticals, Electronics & Communications, Internet of Things, Food and Beverages, Aerospace and Defense and other manufacturing sectors.For More Information Visit hereReport Published byMAXIMIZE MARKET RESEARCHOmkar Heights,Sinhagad Road,Manik Baug, Vadgaon Bk,Pune, Maharashtra 411051, India.+91 96071 95908sales@maximizemarketresearch.com European In Vitro Diagnostic Market - Latest Trends, Forecast, Opportunity and Growth Analysis https://www.stratviewresearch.com/toc/447/in-vitro-diagnostic-market-in-europe.html https://www.stratviewresearch.com/Request-Sample/447/in-vitro-diagnostic-market-in-europe.html https://www.stratviewresearch.com/market/report/Healthcare-and-Life-Sciences.html Stratview Research announces the launch of a new research report on the European In Vitro Diagnostic Market - By Products & Services (Reagents & Kits, Equipment, New Technology/Connect Laboratories (AI in lab), Data Management Services, Laboratory Support Services); By Technology (Immunohistochemistry, Clinical Chemistry, Molecular Diagnostics, Urinalysis, Hematology, Microbiology, POCT, Coagulation and Others); By Therapeutic Application (Infectious Diseases, Life Style Diseases (Diabetes, Obesity, etc), Oncology, Cardiology, Nephrology, Autoimmune Disorder and Drug Testing); By End User (Hospital Laboratories / ICU/ Care Units, Hospitals Patient Bedside (POCT), Advanced Clinical Laboratories (Referred by physicians), Self-Tests / Walk ins, Research and Academic Laboratories, Home users/ Aged Care/ Long Term Care/Hospice/ Community Care) and By Region (European Region, Germany, France, The United Kingdom.This report, from Stratview Research, studies the European in vitro diagnostics market over the trend period of 2014 to 2017 and forecast period of 2018 to 2025. The report provides detailed insights into the market dynamics to enable informed business decision making and growth strategy formulation based on the opportunities present in the market.European In Vitro Diagnostics Market (Major Focus on Germany, France and The United Kingdom)It should not come as a surprise that while the markets in Britain may face some fluctuations due to Brexit, major players in Britain are hopeful that with the new dynamics, newer opportunities will knock the doors of UKs IVD market. Germany shall remain the market leader followed by France at No. 2 position, followed by Italy. Among the smaller nations, Poland, Czech Republic, Romania, Ireland and United Kingdom will show more growth than the remaining European nations. The report explores the opportunities and gaps in the top two IVD market of Europe as well as the most watched IVD market in 2018-2019, i.e., the UK.Click here to request the detailed TOC of the report:-ORRequest a sample here:-On one hand the report deals with the Typology of out-of-pocket payments per country which varies in European member states which leads to varied payments by patients in different countries (impacts the cost of IVD tests) and on the other hand, it also looks at the attractive segments where IVD companies may come across decision makers and focus their marketing strategies accordingly. Infectious diseases, oncology, life style diseases shall remain the top three attractive segments in Europe.Europe accounts for 23.4% of global cancer cases and 20.3% of cancer deaths, although it has only 9 per cent of the global population. Europe is characterized by striking geographical differences in cancer occurrence. There were an estimated 3.5 million new cancer cases and 1.9 million cancer deaths in Europe in 2012. Cancers of the female breast, colo-rectum, prostate and lung constitute over half of the overall incidences, while lung and colorectal cancer rank as the most common causes of cancer death. It widely varies from country to country.In men, prostate cancer is the most frequent form of cancer incidence in most Northern, Western and Southern European countries, while lung cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer in Central and Eastern Europe. Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death among men in almost all European countries, while breast cancer dominates as the most frequent in women. Lung cancer is also a leading cause of cancer death in certain European countries among women, overtaking breast cancer.While breast cancer incidence rates continued to increase in most European countries, mortality rates decreased, as a result of earlier diagnosis and improved therapies. IVD market is attractive and prominent among the oncologists. Besides, therapy area, the report highlights the attractiveness in products and services, end user markets.The study looks at the major import and export IVD markets in Europe and analyses the trends from 2014 till date. It also provides country wise data i.e. Import and export destinations in Germany, France and UK from 2014, while giving insights on changing dynamics between new emerging markets for IVD companies. The report highlights the teething issues of new investors in markets such as Germany, UK and France and guide them through the dos and donts in the market.Report FeaturesThis report provides market intelligence in the most comprehensive way. The report structure has been kept such that it offers maximum business value. It provides critical insights into the market dynamics and will enable strategic decision making for the existing market players as well as those willing to enter the market. The following are the key features of the report: Market structure: Overview, industry life cycle analysis, disease patterns and demand for IVD Market environment analysis: Growth drivers and constraints, Uncertainty Matrix, IVD life cycle analysis, etc. Market trend and forecast analysis Market segment trend and forecast Competitive landscape and dynamics: Market share, Domestic versus Global IVD Regulations Attractive market segments and associated growth opportunities Import Export Trade Analysis (2014 Present) Strategic growth opportunities for the existing and new players Gaps in the regions and opportunities for the providers How To Invest? How to plan investment in the new market? What are to do list in each market? If the buyers country has trade agreements with the destination IVD market?The Burning Questions This Report Will Answer:1. Which are the major import and export hubs for IVD players in Europe? Is it all across major markets or does it differ in Germany and France?2. Who are the domestic players in the country level IVD market? Which sectors they are dominant and/or where are they absent?3. Which disease pattern will drive the future of IVD market in Europe? Especially in Germany, France and UK?4. Will Brexit impact the IVD players? What are the regulatory changes that are expected in 2019 and 2022?European In Vitro Diagnostics Market - SegmentationBy Products & Services Reagents & Kits Equipment New Technology/Connect Laboratories (AI in lab) Data Management Services Laboratory Support ServicesBy Technology Immunohistochemistry Clinical Chemistry Molecular Diagnostics Urinalysis Hematology Microbiology POCT Coagulation OthersBy Therapy Area Infectious Diseases Life Style Diseases (Diabetes, Obesity, etc) Oncology Cardiology Nephrology Autoimmune Disorder & Drug TestingBy End User Hospital Laboratories / ICU/ Care Units Hospitals Patient Bedside (POCT) Advanced Clinical Laboratories (Referred by physicians) Self-Tests / Walk ins Research and Academic Laboratories Home users/ Aged Care/ Long Term Care/Hospice/ Community CareBy Region European Region (EU as single market) Germany (As Country Market) France (As Country Market) The United Kingdom (As Country Market)(Extra Coverage Eastern Europe, Romania, Switzerland, Austria, Poland, The Netherlands, Sweden, Spain, Ireland for market share and import and export data)Stratview Research has several high value market reports in the healthcare & life science industry. Please refer to the following link to browse through our reports:Stratview Research is a global market intelligence firm offering a wide range of services including syndicated market reports, consulting, sourcing intelligence, and customer research. We are a trusted brand in the research industry with capability of commissioning complex projects within a short span of time with high level of accuracy.Stratview Research400 Renaissance Center,Suite 2600,Detroit, Michigan, MI 48243United States of AmericaPhone No. +1-313-307-4176sales@stratviewresearch.com Juvenile Macular Degeneration Market 2023 Top Key Players are Acucela Inc., Alkeus Pharmaceuticals Inc., Astellas Pharma Inc., ProQR Therapeutics NV, Sanofi Juvenile Macular Degeneration Market https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/4935 https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/juvenile-macular-degeneration-market-4935 Market HighlightsEye care has become one of the important aspects of medicine due to the continuous development of new therapies and availability of technologically advanced devices for eye care. Furthermore, the prevalence of eye disease is found to be increasing for all ages. Macular degeneration diseases such as Best disease and Stargardt disease are found to be highly prevalent among the children. Market players are now focusing on the development of novel therapies such as stem cell therapy to reduce the supply-demand gap in the market. Eye care supplement act as a protective measure whose demand is found to be increasing in the developing countries across the globe. Additionally, increasing demand for early diagnosis and treatment is boosting the market growth.Global Juvenile Macular Degeneration (Stargardt Disease) market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 7.2% during the forecast period 2017-2023.Key PlayersSome of key the players in the market are Acucela Inc. (U.S.), Alkeus Pharmaceuticals Inc. (U.S.), Astellas Pharma Inc. (Japan), ProQR Therapeutics NV (Netherland), Sanofi (France), Bayer HealthCare (Germany), F. Hoffmann-La Roche (Switzerland), Copernicus Therapeutics Inc. (U.S.), Grupo Ferrer Internacional SA (U.S.), Iris Pharma (U.S.), Nemus Bioscience Inc (U.S.), Ophthotech Corp (U.S.), Iconic Therapeutics (U.S.), Adverum Biotechnologies (U.S.), PanOptica (U.S.), RXi Pharmaceuticals (U.S.), Neurotech Pharmaceuticals (U.S.)Get Sample Copy @SegmentationThe global juvenile macular degeneration (Stargardt Disease) market is segmented on the basis of diagnosis, devices and end users.On the basis of diagnosis, the market is segmented into Fluroscein Angiography (FA), Fundus Autofluorescence (FAF), Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT), and Electroretinography (ERG).On the basis of devices, the market is segmented into magnifying spectacles, magnifiers, reading telescope.On the basis of end users, the market is segmented into hospitals & eye clinics, and research & academic institutes.Regional AnalysisThe global juvenile macular degeneration market consists of four major regions: the Americas, Europe, Asia Pacific, and the Middle East and Africa.America holds the largest market share in the juvenile macular degeneration market owing to increasing prevalence of eye diseases in the U.S. and Canada. Demand for eye care supplements, availability of specialty services further fuels the growth of the market. According to World Health Organization (WHO), in 2014, worldwide 285 million people were visually impaired in which 246 have low vision and 39 million are completely blind. Moreover, the North America region accounted for USD 163.23 Million in 2016.The European juvenile macular degeneration market accounted for 32.7% market share in 2016. In Europe, Germany, the U.K, and France are the largest contributors to the market owing to the availability of funds for research, and extensive research and development activities in ophthalmology. The development of novel therapies and other treatment options for juvenile macular degeneration also fuel the growth of the market.In Asia Pacific, India, and China are the fastest developing regions in the market owing to an overall demand for early diagnostic and treatment services and increasing expenditure on primary care services across Asia Pacific. Rising awareness about degeneration among the children and available treatment options also influence the growth of the market. The growth of the market is also influenced by improvement in the delivery of care in the number of healthcare institutes such as hospitals, specialty clinics, diagnostic center, and others.The Middle East & Africa exhibit steady but positive growth owing to low technology penetration in developing regions of Africa, and increasing demand for diagnostics services in developing regions. In the Middle East, the United Arab Emirates accounts for the largest market share for macular degeneration.Browse Full Report @About US:Market Research Future (MRFR), enable customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.Contact Us:Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, IndiaPhone: +1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com Rare Inflammatory Disease Treatment Market Comprehensive Analysis 2017-2026 | Key Players are Pfizer, Inc., Allergan Plc, Valeant, Johnson & Johnson, Questcor Pharmaceuticals, Inc. https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-6428 https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/customization-available/rep-gb-6428 http://www.marketresearchblog.org/ https://www.fmiblog.com/ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/ With mounting instances of genetic diseases, demand for therapeutic measures have witnessed a hike, as no effective procedures exist that provide effective treatment of genetic or rare inflammatory diseases. Chromosomal changes primarily influence prevalence of these diseases. In a bid to curtail the disease prevalence, several pharmaceutical industries have been taking efforts to make advancements in relevant drugs as well as therapeutic methods. For example, new treatment options are being developed by researchers for geriatric and pediatric patients suffering from Stills disease, which is a rare disease linked with the inflammation of joints.Doctors are stepping up their efforts by creating awareness among the patients with regard to benefits of anti-inflammatory drugs, which have been deemed effective in the prevention and control of rare inflammatory diseases. Currently, there is rapid increase in the demand for authorized effective treatments of the rare inflammatory diseases. The OOPD (Office of Orphan Products Development) has been offering incentives to drug companies, supporting the development of treatment methods for these diseases. National Institutes of Health (NIH) are providing immense support for improving patients health, by focusing mainly on the development of new treatment methods. Collaborative projects are being initiated by NIH in order to examine the common causes and effects of related diseases.Request to View Sample of Research Report @Significant findings from report show that the global market for rare inflammatory disease treatment will increase at an assessed 4.4% CAGR during the forecast period, 2017-2026. The report also anticipates that by 2026-end, rare inflammatory disease treatment worth nearly US$ 15,960.8Mn will be witnessed across the globe.Increasing Inflammatory & Autoimmune Diseases to Create Opportunities for New TherapiesSeveral group of scientists have associated cytokine IL-23 with treatment of inflammatory and autoimmune diseases, which in turn is creating new ways of development for therapies. Researchers have identified a fundamental molecular mechanism essential to inflammatory and autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis. The action of pro-inflammatory cytokine IL-23, depends on the organizational stimulation of its receptor, namely IL-23R.Moreover, the occurrence of inflammatory and autoimmune diseases is increasing on a rapid pace. Globally, an approximate number of 125 million populace are affected by psoriasis and around 100 million by rheumatoid arthritis annually. The presence of inflammatory bowel infections such as ulcerative colitis and Crohns disease is increasing at an alarming rate in formerly unaffected fragments of the world.Request customized copy of report @Key Takeaways from Rare Inflammatory Disease Treatment Market Report for Estimated Period, 2017-2026In terms of revenue, North America will remain the largest market for rare inflammatory disease treatment market, closely followed by Europe. Nearly half value share of the market is held by rare inflammatory disease treatment sales in North America and Europe collectively. APEJ will also bolt onto a largest market revenue share, by registering a relatively faster expansion than Europe in the market through 2026.On the basis of indication, ulcerative colitis are likely to remain considerably larger than that of the other segments.The lions share in the global market for rare inflammatory disease treatment is contributed by biologics segment.Oral care & Hospital Pharmacies will observe fastest growth during the forecast period.Key market players outlined by the report is inclusive of Pfizer, Inc., Allergan Plc, Valeant, Johnson & Johnson, Questcor Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Novartis AG, Abbvie, Abbott Laboratories, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, and Swedish Orphan Biovitrum AB.About UsFuture Market Insights is the premier provider of market intelligence and consulting services, serving clients in over 150 countries. FMI is headquartered in London, the global financial capital, and has delivery centers in the U.S. and India.FMIs research and consulting services help businesses around the globe navigate the challenges in a rapidly evolving marketplace with confidence and clarity. Our customized and syndicated market research reports deliver actionable insights that drive sustainable growth. We continuously track emerging trends and events in a broad range of end industries to ensure our clients prepare for the evolving needs of their consumers.Contact UsU.S. Office616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comBlog:FMI Blog:Web: On-site Preventive Care Market Comprehensive Study 2017 to 2027 | Premise Health, OnSite Care, Inc., PrevMED, RepuCare https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-5518 https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/customization-available/rep-gb-5518 http://www.marketresearchblog.org/ https://www.fmiblog.com/ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/ Future Market Insights has published a new report titled On-site Preventive Care Market: Global Industry Analysis (2012-2016) and Opportunity Assessment (2017-2027). The report states that the standards set in the workplace for the safety of workers and the need to adhere to workplace norms have triggered the demand for on-site preventive care. Moreover, the increasing incidences of workplace illness has also made it an obligation for employers to follow employee safety codes and adopt on-site preventive care. As a result, the global on-site preventive care market is expected to witness a CAGR of 7.1% from 2017 to 2027. The market was worth around US$ 16,135 Mn in 2017 and is likely to touch a valuation of US$ 32,063 Mn approximately by the end of 2027.On-site clinics enable employees to receive the required essential care at the time of emergency without having to leave the workplace. The clinicians in these clinics also aid employees in searching for a primary care physician who they can consult with on a regular basis. As a Future Market Insights analyst quotes, Changes in lifestyle among the working class have incessantly impelled employers to establish certain behavioural standards within the workplace. This is one of the core factors responsible for the growing adoption of on-site preventive care in several organisations across the globe.Request to View Sample of Research Report @Burgeoning Penetration of Workplace Wellness Programmes to Bode Well for the MarketIn the recent past, workplace wellness programmes have earned the merit of being one of the most adopted healthcare services in the world. It has been further expected that its adoption will increase in the coming years owing to the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. This act is expected to promote an increase in the employee-based coverage of workplace wellness and also promote these programmes through several provisions. Moreover, the growing incidences of chronic diseases among the working population have also become a matter of concern and this has compelled employers across the globe to adopt as well as promote workplace wellness programmes.Furthermore, employers who have adopted on-site preventive care services have reported enhanced performance ranging from heightened morale and cost savings to productivity. The death of time, access, and cost along with misunderstanding of the benefits of prescribed wellness programmes result in the underutilisation of primary care services. As a result, employees flood emergency rooms, missing out on critical preventive care measures and also leave chronic conditions go unmanaged. In this regard, on-site clinics provide employees with the necessary support without having to leave their work and plus the clinicians also work together with the patients in a cohesive environment to address their various health related issues.North America and Western Europe to Compete Neck and NeckIn 2017, North America held a share of 37.0% in the global on-site preventive care market closely trailed by Western Europe. The dominance of North America can be attributed to the several policies implemented by the U.S. government pertaining to employee safety and the adoption of certain employee codes of safety. The U.S. is also an extremely mature market owing to the high adoption of workplace wellness programmes.Request customized copy of report @Companies to Innovate Services in the Global MarketIn order to stay ahead of the competition, several companies operating in the global market are focussing on innovating their existing services and integrating new services. Some of the leading companies in the market are Premise Health, OnSite Care, Inc., PrevMED, RepuCare, Healthcare Solutions Centers, LLC, McCormack & Kale Motiva Health & Chiropractic, Inc., Marino Wellness, Kinema Fitness, and TotalWellness.About UsFuture Market Insights is the premier provider of market intelligence and consulting services, serving clients in over 150 countries. FMI is headquartered in London, the global financial capital, and has delivery centers in the U.S. and India.FMIs research and consulting services help businesses around the globe navigate the challenges in a rapidly evolving marketplace with confidence and clarity. Our customized and syndicated market research reports deliver actionable insights that drive sustainable growth. We continuously track emerging trends and events in a broad range of end industries to ensure our clients prepare for the evolving needs of their consumers.Contact UsU.S. Office616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comBlog:FMI Blog:Web: Global Anaplasmosis Treatment Market 2023 Insight by Top Companies as Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, Merck Sharp & Dohme, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Company, Glaxosmithkline Inc., Aventis Pharma,Pfizer Inc. https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/5351 https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/anaplasmosis-treatment-market-5351 Market Research Future (MRFR) has unfolded in its latest Industry report that the Global Anaplasmosis Treatment Market will witness demand escalation leading to maximization of profits by 2023.Anaplasmosis Treatment Market - HighlightsAnaplasmosis is a zoonotic disease affecting dogs, cats, livestock, wildlife, and human. It is highly unlikely that a person will contract anaplasmosis from pets directly, but pets could bring ticks with the infection into home, posing a risk to the family.If a pet is diagnosed with anaplasmosis, precautionary measures to reduce the risk of infection. The disease is known as human granulocytic anaplasmosis (HGA) in people, canine granulocytic anaplasmosis in dogs, equine granulocytic anaplasmosis in horses, and tick-borne fever in ruminants.Favorable government policies for research and the presence of a large number of players in the global anaplasmosis treatment market are the key factors driving the growth of the market during the forecast period.GET PREMIUM SAMPLE COPY @Leading Key PlayersSome of key the players in the global anaplasmosis treatment market are Wyeth Pharmaceuticals (U.S.), Merck Sharp & Dohme (France), Boehringer Ingelheim (France), Bristol-Myers Squibb and Company (U.S.), Glaxosmithkline Inc. (U.S.) Aventis Pharma (Canada), Mylan Pharmaceuticals (U.S.), Pfizer Inc. (U.S.), Teva Pharmaceuticals (Israel), Shire (U.S.), Procter & Gamble, (U.S.), Duramed Pharmaceuticals (U.S.), Takeda Pharmaceuticals (Japan), Ciba Vision (Germany) and Novopharm (Canada).Anaplasmosis Treatment Market - SegmentationThe anaplasmosis treatment market is segmented on the basis of species, diagnosis, application, treatment, and end-users.On the basis of the species, the market is segmented into Deer tick (Ixodes scapularis), western black-legged tick (Ixodes pacificus), Anaplasmosis phagocytophilum or A. platysOn the basis of the diagnosis, the market is segmented into enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), indirect fluorescent antibody (IFA), and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testsOn the basis of the application, the market is segmented into humans, pets, livestock, wildlife, and othersOn the basis of the treatment, the market is segmented into antibiotics, vaccines, and others. The antibiotics can be further classified as doxycycline, tetracyclines, chlortetracycline, oxytetracycline, rolitetracycline, minocycline and others.On the basis of the end-user, the market is segmented into hospitals & diagnostic centers, academic institutes, pharmaceutical & biotechnology companies and others.OBTAIN PREMIUM RESEARCH REPORT DETAILS @Detailed Regional AnalysisGlobal anaplasmosis treatment consists of regions namely the Americas, Europe, Asia Pacific, and the Middle East and Africa.The America is dominating the global anaplasmosis treatment market owing to the high prevalence rate of this disease in the eastern regions.European holds the second largest share of the global anaplasmosis treatment market owing to the increasing research and development in biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, especially for study of diagnostic testing.Asia Pacific is expected to be the fastest growing region and is anticipated to compete with the American market during the forecasted period 2017-2023.Anaplasmosis remains an uncontrolled problem in regions of high endemicity such as the Mediterranean, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and parts of Asia.The presence of anaplasmosis in India was first established early in the previous century and since then has been reported from almost all states. Furthermore, tick diseases are the most common bacterial laboratory acquired infection worldwide.About US:Market Research Future (MRFR), enable customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.Office No. 528, Amanora ChambersPune - 411028Maharashtra, India Ascites Market 2019 Worldwide Players as Sequana Medical, BD, PharmaCyte Biotech Inc., BioVie, Fresenius SE & Co. KGaA, GI Supply, etc | Forecast to 2023 Ascites Market https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/1909 https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/ascites-market-1909 As per the report published by Market Research Future (MRFR), the Global Ascites market will surpass a valuation of 3710.4 Mn by the year 2023, reflecting an above-average CAGR of 4%.Ascites Market -OverviewGlobal Ascites Market is expected to thrive at a CAGR of 4% during the forecast period 2017 to 2023. Additionally, the markets valuation has been estimated to reach USD 3710.4 Mn by the end of 2023. Ascites is an abnormal condition of the accumulation of fluid in the abdominal cavity which may contribute to the development of ovarian cancer in females. The awareness campaigns held by government and private organizations have led to the generation of demand for advanced treatments. This, in turn, is responsible for the growth of the market and is likely to follow a similar trend in the foreseeable future.A variety of health disorders contribute towards the development of ascites such as liver cirrhosis, kidney failure, heart failure, cancers, and infection in the pancreas. Among these, liver cirrhosis is the most common cause of ascites. The changing food and drinking pattern of the global population is responsible for the large-scale prevalence of the disease. The growth in the consumption of alcohol and fatty food is projected to augment the ascites market in the forthcoming years.Request Sample Copy atDevelopments in the treatment of ascites are the need of the hour in the healthcare sector which is presumed to catapult the market on an upward trajectory. On the flip side, complications associated with the treatment is poised to hinder the growth of the ascites market over the assessment period.Competitive Dashboard:Some of the key players operating in the global ascites market are Sequana Medical, BD, PharmaCyte Biotech Inc., BioVie, Fresenius SE & Co. KGaA, GI Supply, and Medtronic plc.Industry News:In January 2019, Precision Therapeutics, a global healthcare services provider, has announced a joint venture with Helomics, a leader in functional precision medicine, and GLG Pharma, a biotechnology company, for the development of personalized medicines and testing for ovarian and breast cancer patients with ascites fluid.In January 2019, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, an American pharmaceutical company, has received approval by the European Commission for Opdivo (nivolumab) plus low-dose Yervoy (ipilimumab) for the treatment of renal cell carcinoma (RCC). However, it includes the risk of serious adverse effects such as ascites, pyrexia, back pain, etc.Market Segmentation:On the basis of type, the global ascites market has been segmented into transudative ascites, and exudate ascites.On the basis of diagnosis, the ascites market has been segmented into ultrasound, CT scan, laparoscopy, angiography, and others.On the basis of treatment, the global ascites market has been segmented into surgeries and others. The surgeries segment has been further sub-segmented into liver transplantation, peritoneovenous shunting, transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt (TIPS), and other surgeries.On the basis of end-users, the ascites market has been segmented into hospital and clinics, diagnostic centers, ambulatory surgical centers, and others.Regional Insights:By region, the global ascites market has been segmented into Americas, Europe, Asia Pacific, and the Middle East & Africa. Americas has witnessed a drastic increase in the number of deaths caused due to liver cirrhosis between 2000 to 2015. The numbers are expected to further increase over the next couple of years, which is anticipated to demand developments in the ascites market. The market dynamics highlighted in the report suggests that the region is presumed to retain a dominant position through the forecast period. Furthermore, it has also been estimated that the regional ascites market is likely to touch USD 1,292.2 Mn mark by 2023.Asia Pacific is projected to accrue substantial revenue over the assessment period. The region encompasses the most populated countries in the world China and India. The huge population base of the region is contributing to the growth of the ascites market. In addition, the developed healthcare sectors in vital country-level markets such as Australia, China, South Korea, etc. have adopted advanced measures for treatment and diagnosis. This, in turn, is forecasted to attract a massive patient pool from all across the world, thus, augmenting the ascites market.Browse Complete 85 Pages Premium Research Report Enabled with 30+ Respective Tables and Figures atAbout Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.ContactMarket Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com Server Monitoring Solutions Market Competitive Landscape and Key Players Strategies 2017-2025 https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/sample/sample/7603 https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/sample/toc/7603 https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/checkout?rep_id=7603&licType=S http://www.marketresearchreports.biz/ "The Latest Research Report Server Monitoring Solutions Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast 2017 - 2025 provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"Server monitoring is a procedure to monitor server's system properties such as memory, I/O, CPU usage, consumption, network, and disk usage and other processes. Server monitoring supports in understanding server's organization resource practice which is better way for providing and planning for storage capacity to improve the customer experience. Server monitoring guarantees that server machine is ready to hold or process multiple requests. Easy to implement, remote monitoring, automated maintenance schedule, process mining and root cause analysis are some of the major features offered by server monitoring solutions. Server monitoring procedure includes analyzing and reviewing a server for accessibility, performance, operations, security and other operations associated procedures. The server monitoring solution ensures that the problem is mitigated within a short time span and performance expectations are met as they are becoming apparent, they have the ability to hamper the server administration activities. The server monitoring solutions help the organizations with efficient services, application availability and streamlined procedures. In addition to this, the server monitoring solutions easily detect, network rules & downtime failures along with the factors due to which services, processes, servers, and batch jobs get failed. Such advantages are anticipated to increase the demand for server monitoring solutions across the world during the forecast period.Get Sample Copy of this report @There are various factors driving the server monitoring solutions market, as the organizations around the world are growing rapidly and with it server utilization is also increasing. Organizations are facing difficulties in maintaining the server track record which includes valuable data and installed applications. This factor is expected to drive the growth of server monitoring solutions market. Other factors which are accelerating the demand for server monitoring solutions market such as high usage of laptops, computers and smartphones. Furthermore, the emerging Internet penetration in economies such as Brazil and India has already created huge demand of web servers which supports the growth of server monitoring solutions market. Also, the demand from developers to create applications for mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones supports the evolution of server monitoring solutions market. Growing demand of cloud based applications and expansion in Internet of Things (IoT) applications are expected to create huge growth opportunities for server monitoring solutions market. However, compatibility and integration issues with storage, processor devices servers are anticipated to restrain the growth of server monitoring solutions market during the forecast period.The server monitoring solutions market can be segmented by type, components, deployment, applications, and geography. By component, the server monitoring solutions market has been segmented into hardware and software. On the basis of type, the server monitoring solutions market is segmented into database server, application server, file server, print server, communications server and domain server. Based on the applications, the server monitoring solutions market has been segmented into IT & communications, healthcare, military and aerospace, industries, automotive and transportation and others.Geographically, server monitoring solutions market is segmented into Europe, North America, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa and South America. Europe is expected to experience high growth region, due to high adoption of advanced technologies. North America and Asia Pacific are also anticipated high growth rate during the forecasted period.Request For TOC Report @The major players of server monitoring solutions market include AppPerfect Corp, SolarWinds Worldwide, LLC, Softerra, Ltd., Microsoft (U.S), BMC Software, Inc (U.S), Agama Technologies (Sweden), AdRem Software(New York), Monitis.com (U.S), Anturis Inc.(California), Cisco Systems, Inc (U.S), IBM (International Business Machine) (U.S), CoScale.com (Belgium), Dell Corporation(U.S), Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LLC(U.S), Nagios Enterprises, LLC(Minnesota), CodeLathe LLC(u.S), Aprelium (North Africa), Datadog (Massachusetts), and Oracle Corporation(U.S), however other prominent and big players are also planning to enter into the server monitoring solutions market.MRR.BIZ has been compiled in-depth market research data in the report after exhaustive primary and secondary research. Our team of able, experienced in-house analysts has collated the information through personal interviews and study of industry databases, journals, and reputable paid sources.The report provides the following information:Tailwinds and headwinds molding the markets trajectoryMarket segments based on products, technology, and applicationsProspects of each segmentOverall current and possible future size of the marketGrowth pace of the marketCompetitive landscape and key players strategiesThe main aim of the report is to:Enable key stakeholders in the market bet right on itUnderstand the opportunities and pitfalls awaiting themAssess the overall growth scope in the near termStrategize effectively with respect to production and distributionMRR.BIZ is a leading provider of strategic market research. Our vast repository consists research reports, data books, company profiles, and regional market data sheets. We regularly update the data and analysis of a wide-ranging products and services around the world. As readers, you will have access to the latest information on almost 300 industries and their sub-segments. Both large Fortune 500 companies and SMEs have found those useful. This is because we customize our offerings keeping in mind the specific requirements of our clients.Request To PRE BOOK This Premium Report From Here @About usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.ContactMr. NachiketState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz Branded Generics Market 2026 | Abbott Laboratories, Pfizer Inc., Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., Novartis AG, Mylan N.V., Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc., https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/sample/110114772/Branded-Generics-Market https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/discount/110114772/Branded-Generics-Market https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/rd/110114772/Branded-Generics-Market https://www.researchreportinsights.com/ Branded generics are pharmaceutical drug molecules that are bioequivalent to original products. However, they are marketed under a companys brand to differentiate itself from the generic products. Branded generics or generics require low research or development costs compared to the branded prescription products. Companies, which operate in branded generic business invest majorly in marketing the product and to create the brand awareness. Companies are seeing growing opportunity in the branded generics market owing to the higher deemed in the emerging countries. The global branded generics market has been segmented on the basis of therapeutic application, drug class, formulation type, distribution channels, and region.The global branded generics market has been estimated to be valued at US$ 193.3 Bn in 2015, and is expected to expand at a 7.3% CAGR over the forecast period (2026).Market DynamicsGrowth of the global branded generics market is mainly driven by increasing affordability of branded generics owing to fierce competition, favourable demographics across the regions, and companies differential pricing for these products in accordance with geographic needs. These are expected to drive the market over forecasted period.Request For Report Sample:Other prominent factors driving growth of the market are adoption of branded generics by large scale pharmacy chains in European countries, integrated supply chain, growing captive sales force and conducive regulatory environment in developing countries.However, price pressure from payers such as government and insurance agencies, misuse of Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies (REMS), pay for delays, and commoditization of generics are the factors suggestive of barriers to growth of global branded generics market.Large players in this market are employing strategies like Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A) and maintaining distribution agreements with strong local players in various regions to consolidate their market position.Market Segmentation by Therapeutic ApplicationBased on therapeutic application, the market has been segmented into oncology, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, neurology, gastrointestinal diseases, dermatology diseases, analgesic and anti-inflammatory, and others. In terms of value, others segment is estimated to account for more than 41% market share in global branded generics market, by 2026 end.Market Segmentation by Drug ClassAccording to drug class, the market has been segmented into alkylating agents, antimetabolites, hormones, anti-hypertensive, lipid lowering drugs, anti-depressants, anti-psychotics, anti-epileptics and others. Others drug class segment accounted for highest market share of 79.5% in 2015 and is expected to gain moderate market share over the forecast period to reach at the value US$ 330.6 Bn by 2026. Increasing demand for drugs is mainly attributed to the favourable market dynamics for branded generics across the developing countries or regions coupled with rising competition among existing players.Market Segmentation by Formulation TypeAccording to formulation type, the market has been segmented into orals, parenteral, topicals and others. Oral formulation type segment accounted for highest market share of 58.0% in 2015 and is expected to gain moderate market share over the forecast period to reach the value of US$ 241.3 Bn by 2026. Increasing demand for oral pharmaceutical formulations can be mainly attributed to the availability, affordability, and accessibility to these formulations.Request For Reprot discount:Market Segmentation By Distribution ChannelsOn the basis of distribution channels, the market has been segmented into hospital pharmacies, retail pharmacies, online pharmacies, and drug stores. Retail pharmacies followed by hospital pharmacies are the most preferred medium of distribution of branded generics across the regions. However, increasing consumer preference for online sales channel which provides mail order requests, are expected to impart significant competition to these traditional channels in some of the regions such as North America and Western Europe.Key RegionsThe global branded generics market has been segmented into seven major regions: North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia Pacific Excluding Japan (APEJ), Japan and the Middle East & Africa (MEA). In terms of value, the APEJ market has been estimated to dominate the global branded generics market in 2016, and is expected to expand at a CAGR of 10.0% over the forecast period. APEJ, MEA, and Latin America are expected to be the fastest growing markets among regional markets. APEJ market is expected to witness highest CAGR of 10.0% over the forecast period. In APEJ, cardiovascular diseases therapeutic application sub-segment is expected to grow at faster rate to reach the value US$ 21.1 Bn by 2026 end. Market in Japan is expected to exhibit healthy CAGR owing to growing acceptance of generics in the region.Key PlayersSome of the key players in the global branded generics market include Abbott Laboratories, Pfizer Inc., Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., Novartis AG, Mylan N.V., Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc., Aspen Pharmacare Holding Ltd., Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.Report Analysis:Research Report Insights (RRI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver a host of services including custom research reports, syndicated research reports, and consulting services which are personalized in nature. RRI delivers a complete packaged solution to clients; this combines current market intelligence, technology inputs, statistical anecdotes, valuable growth insights, 360-degree view of the competitive framework, and anticipated market trendsResearch Report Insights (RRI42 Joseph StreetPort carling P0B 1J0Muskoka, Ontario1Phone - +1-631-721-4201Website:Email: sales@researchreportinsights.com Television Broadcasting Services Market Analysis with Industry Key Players - A&E Television Networks, LLC, AT & T, Inc., British Broadcasting Corporation, CANAL MRRSE https://www.mrrse.com/sample/16384 https://www.mrrse.com/television-broadcasting-market https://www.mrrse.com/enquiry/16384 Looking at the current market trends as well as the promising demand status of the Global Television Broadcasting Services Market market, it can be projected that the future years will bring out positive outcomes. This research report added by MRRSE on its online portal delivers clear insight about the changing tendencies across the global market. Readers can gather prime facets connected to the target market which includes product, end-use and application; assisting them to draw conclusions out of this intelligent research report.Get Report Sample Copy @Growing digitalization (digital migration) and consumption of digital content has changed the medium and mode of these being consumed and/or delivered to customers. Amidst this space, across the television industry, there has been swift shift in the demand and supply trend. These changes are driven by both push from regulatory changes and technology augmented cost effective solutions and services. This report by Transparency Market Research provides insights to how the ecosystem has evolved over the forecast period spanning a term of ten years, viz. from 2016-2026. Right from providing analysis of changing capital investment patterns by telcosto providing demand oriented consumption patterns of TV broadcasting services, the report ensures that a holistic approach for market analysis is adhered to, enabling stakeholders to make informed strategic decisions. The demand estimates of the television broadcasting services market has been broadly analyzed by segmenting it on the basis of platform, which includes the following segments - Digital Terrestrial Broadcast, Satellite Broadcast, Cable Television Broadcasting Services, Internet Protocol Television (IPTV), and Over-the-top Television (OTT). Based on the service provided, the market has been analyzed for two major categories Public broadcasters and commercial/private broadcasters. Typical examples of commercial broadcasters include companies such as American Broadcasting Company, CBS Interactive, and Comcast Corporation (NBC).Further, based on different revenue models for availing these services, the report includes analysis of the following different models: advertisement and subscription based. Of these, subscription based revenue model has been further analyzed for two pricing approaches pay-per-view and on-demand. While the pay-per-view model closely resembles packaged services predominantly followed for conventional services such as cable, satellite, and terrestrial broadcasting services, the on-demand model comprises advanced (next-gen) services such as IPTV and OTT.The above detailed analysis of market size estimates has been provided for the following geographic segments: North America, Europe, Asia Pacific (APAC), Middle East &Africa (MEA), and South America. Across each of these regions, top-line market estimates for the U.S., Canada, U.K, Germany, France, Russia, China, India, Japan, Australia, GCC, South Africa, and Brazil hasbeen included within the research scope.To further support market analysis and help build deep understanding of growth dynamics, the report provides the following analyses Impact of Multi-channel Network over Television Broadcasting Services, Analysis of Linear Television Consumption, Industry Infrastructure Spend Analysis (US$ Bn), Porters Five Forces Analysis, Television Broadcasting Services Ecosystem Analysis, Market Attractiveness Analysis, and Competition Matrix providing matrix of competitive positioning of key players as per select parameters. Analysis of industry infrastructure spend has been detailed out on the basis of the following components - third party broadcast products & services vendor spend and in-house spend. Third party spend covers Traditional broadcast products & services and digital ecosystem category, IT commercial off-the-shelf (COTs)vendors & cloud-service providers. This spend analysis has been provided in terms of % share for years 2012, 2017, and 2026. Overall growth trends of industry spend has been included for the period 2012-2017 as historic trend analysis and 2017-2026 as forecast.Outlook Complete Research Report with TOC @The market sizing methodology adopted involved a multi-pronged approach, ultimately resulting in data being triangulated from all models/approaches. Primary focus has been on analyzing information as retrieved through the primary approach which required interaction with industry experts. These included professionals across companies involved at various stages of the ecosystem/supply chain. Data heads such as subscriber base, capital expenditure trends, technology hurdles and outlook, technology adoption and penetration trends were some of the key parameters modelled based on inputs received. These were simultaneously also verified against information collected through different secondary sources. Major sources include company annual reports, analyst briefings, technology white papers, industry magazines/publications, expert blogs, and paid secondary databases. Apart from data aggregated from these models, the process also involved analysis against available in- house repository and expert panel opinion.The analysis included in the report has been developed based on a study of key performance parameters of companies active across the ecosystem, with TV broadcast service providers making up the majority of the list. Some of the players/companies which were subsequently profiled and included in the final report draft include A&E Television Networks, LLC, AT & T, Inc., British Broadcasting Corporation, CANAL+ GROUP, CBS Interactive, Channel Four Television Corporation, CenturyLink, Inc., 21st Century Fox, Comcast Corporation, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Heartland Media, LLC, RTL Group, Time Warner, Inc., Tivo Corporation, and Viacom International, Inc.The television broadcasting markethas been segmented as below:Market Segmentation: GlobalTelevision Broadcasting ServicesMarketBy Delivery PlatformDigital Terrestrial BroadcastSatellite BroadcastCable Television Broadcasting ServicesInternet Protocol Television (IPTV)Over-the-top Television (OTT)By Broadcaster TypePublicCommercialBy Revenue ModelSubscriptionPay-per ViewOn-demandAdvertisementDigital Interactive BroadcastingIn addition, the report provides analysis of the television broadcasting market with respect to the following geographic segments:North AmericaThe U.S.CanadaRest of North AmericaEuropeThe U.K.GermanyFranceRussiaRest of EuropeAsia Pacific (APAC)ChinaIndiaJapanAustraliaRest of Asia PacificMiddle East &Africa (MEA)GCCSouth AfricaRest of MEASouth AmericaBrazilRest of South AmericaEnquire Now for Assistance @About Market Research Reports Search Engine (MRRSE)Market Research Reports Search Engine (MRRSE) is an industry-leading database of IT Research Reports. MRRSE is driven by a stellar team of research experts and advisors trained to offer objective advice. Our sophisticated search algorithm returns results based on the report title, geographical region, publisher, or other keywords.MRRSE partners exclusively with leading global publishers to provide clients single-point access to top-of-the-line market research. MRRSEs repository is updated every day to keep its clients ahead of the next new trend in market research, be it competitive intelligence, product or service trends or strategic consulting.Contact UsState Tower90, State StreetSuite 700Albany, NY 12207(United State)United States Telephone: +1-518-730-0559(Toll-Free)Email: sales@mrrse.com Medical Superabsorbent Polymers Market: Emphasis on Sustainability to Create New Avenues for Manufacturers XploreMR https://www.xploremr.com/connectus/sample/1227 https://www.xploremr.com/connectus/check-discount/1227 https://www.xploremr.com/cart/reports/buynow/1227 http://xploremr.com XploreMR delivers in-depth global market analysis and forecast in a new report titled "Medical Superabsorbent Polymers Market Forecast, Trend Analysis & Competition Tracking - Global Market insights 2018 to 2027"On account of their ability to retain enormous amount of water or any aqueous solution, superabsorbent polymers have sought increased penetration in the medical industry. Absorbing high amounts of liquids and exudates, medical superabsorbent polymers prevent infections, and enable faster healing of injuries. These polymers, in the form of non-woven and woven fabrics, are also being used for manufacturing various surgical and medical equipment such as surgical drapes, wound dressings, sponges, and medical gauzes.Market Researchs recently published report renders valuable insights and accurate forecasts on the medical superabsorbent polymers market for the period of forecast, 2018 to 2028. Key parameters such as impact of current and future growth determinants & deterrents, expected developments & regulatory scenario, demand statistics, and raw material procurement & supply are elucidated and analyzed. Influence of these parameters on the medical superabsorbent polymers markets growth has been quantified for deriving a market growth rate estimate.Get Sample Copy of this report @Medical Superabsorbent polymers Market Taxonomy & Segmentation AnalysisThis report also offers a scrutinized study on the market for medical superabsorbent polymers in terms of a segmentation analysis. The market has been divided into five key segments, namely, product type, end-user, application, technology, and region. These segments have been analyzed in detail, engulfing market forecasts and estimates at a country and regional level.The segmentation analysis offered can be useful for the report readers in understanding probable opportunities and potential markets for the target product medical superabsorbent polymers. A taxonomy table incorporated in the report illustrates all the market segments in a systematic manner as depicted below.Competitive Landscape Assessment on Medical superabsorbent polymers MarketIn its concluding chapter, the report quantifies revenues share of prominent companies in the medical superabsorbent polymers market, and offers an in-depth overview of the markets competitive scenario. A detailed description has been delivered on all the market players profiled in the report, which includes intelligence in terms of their company overview, key financials, product overview, past as well as latest developments.First Time Buyer, Get Discount on this report @A SWOT analysis on each market player profiled has been incorporated in the report, along with information on their new product developments, and market expansion strategies such as collaborations and partnerships. The scope of the report is offer its readers with authentic information and insights on the medical superabsorbent polymers market, to enable them in making better future decisions for growth of the businesses.Robust Research Methodology to Provide Authentic Market IntelligenceA tested & proven research approach is employed by analysts at Market Research for evaluating key industry dynamics and offering precise and authentic market intelligence. A blend of primary & secondary research has been implemented for offering estimates and forecasts on the medical superabsorbent polymers market.Secondary research forms initial phase of our research, wherein the analysts conduct extensive information mining by referring to up-to-date and verified data resources that include technical journals, regulatory and government published material, and independent studies, which forms the basis of the market estimates.Buy Now Full Report @XploreMR is one of the worlds leading resellers of high-quality market research reports. We feature in-depth reports from some of the worlds most reputed market research companies and international organizations. We serve across a broad spectrum from Fortune 500 to small and medium businesses. Our clients trust us for our unwavering focus onquality and affordability. We believe high price should not be a bottleneck for organizations looking to gain access to quality information.XploreMR111 North Market Street, Suite 300,San Jose, CA 95113, United StatesTel: +1-669-284-0108Email:sales@xploremr.comWebsite: Prunus Africana Market Projected to Experience Major Revenue Boost during the Period between 2018-2028 https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=S&rep_id=2076 https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=T&rep_id=2076 https://www.factmr.com/report/2076/prunus-africana-market https://www.factmr.com/ https://factmrblog.com/ http://theguardiantribune.com Global Prunus Africana Market OverviewPrunus Africana, also known as African cherry has been used in the medicinal treatment for benign prostatic hyperplasia (prostate cancer) and other disorders for many decades. Prunus Africana trees are only found in some of the African countries and use as a solid, semi-solid and power form. Bark extraction from the Prunus Africana has found its application in numerous industries such as food & beverages, pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, cosmetics, construction and mining industry among other industries. The demand for the bark of Prunus Africana is increasing across the region, as well as globe, resulting in increased production of Prunus Africana in key producing countries. Low cost of these products with several health benefits is also the key factor attracting the potential importing countries towards the use of Prunus Africana. Due to the fragmented nature of the market, rising demand for these products has created a significant opportunity for the new entrants into the market. Many key countries are consuming Prunus Africana in large quantity as these type of plants have the potential to save the world from deadly diseases.Global Prunus Africana Market ScenarioThe global market for Prunus Africana is expected to grow at a moderate CAGR during the forecast period. The Prunus Africana market is anticipated to create a significant opportunity for extract producers to gain a high momentum in the global market. Prunus Africana market across the globe has witnessed an amplified demand from the European and North American countries, which is expected to show the same trend during the forecast period. The Prunus Africana market has a widespread but fragmented demand in the Africa region. Trade in these products in Europe, North America and the Asia Pacific region is expanding at a steady growth rate. Europe is estimated to lead the global Prunus Africana market in terms of consumption followed by North America and the Asia Pacific during the forecast period.Click here to subscribe Sample @Global Prunus Africana Market DynamicsOne of the key growth factors, which are driving the growth of the global Prunus Africana market in the food industry during the forecast period is increasing demand for Prunus Africana owing to the growing number of a patient pool for some severe disorder primarily prostate cancer. Alternate factors behind the growth of the market includes its use in numerous end-use industries, low cost, increasing international trade and environment-friendly nature among the other factors. Thereby, these factors are creating a significant market opportunity for local, as well as global, manufacturers/producers who are extracting bark from the Prunus Africana. To gain a high-profit margin in global Prunus Africana market during the forecast period, key vendors are strategically planning on signing an agreement with local distributors to increase their customer base across the globe.However, a limited number of producers and various legislature regulations in the global Prunus Africana market, which is likely to hamper the growth of the market during the forecast period. Moreover, its presence only limited to the Africa region is also the other factor, which is restraining its expansion globally.Global Prunus Africana Market SegmentationThe Prunus Africana market can be segmented on the basis of form, source and end-use industry. On the basis of form, Prunus Africana market can be categorized into solid, semi-solid and powder form. On the basis of source, the Prunus Africana market can be segmented into organic and conventional. On the basis of end-use industry, the Prunus Africana market can be classified into food & beverages, pharmaceutical, mining, construction, nutraceutical, cosmetics and other end-use industries. Geographically, the global Prunus Africana market can be segmented into seven regions, namely North America, Latin America, Europe, CIS & Russia, Japan, the Asia Pacific excluding Japan, and Middle East & Africa.Request/View TOC@Global Prunus Africana Market Key PlayersEurope and North America have a large presence of key vendors for the extraction in the global Prunus Africana market who are continuously working on introducing anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory products in the global market. Some of the key market participants in the global Prunus Africana market are Groupe Fournier; Parchem fine & specialty chemicals; Indena Spa; Laboratoires Debat; Madaus GmbH; and other prominent players in Prunus Africana market.This analytical research study imparts an all-inclusive assessment on the market, while propounding historical intelligence, actionable insights, and industry-validated & statistically-upheld market forecast. Verified and suitable set of assumptions and methodology has been leveraged for developing this comprehensive study. Information and analysis on key market segments incorporated in the report has been delivered in weighted chapters. A thorough analysis has been offered by the report onMarket DynamicsMarket SizeMarket SegmentsDemand & Supply TrendsCurrent Issues and ChallengesCompanies and Competitor LandscapeValue ChainTechnologyRegional Segments Analyzed IncludeNorth America (U.S., Canada)Latin America (Mexico. Brazil)Western Europe (Germany, Italy, France, U.K, Spain)Eastern Europe (Poland, Russia)Asia Pacific (China, India, ASEAN, Australia & New Zealand)JapanMiddle East and Africa (GCC, S. Africa, N. Africa)Compilation of authentic and first-hand intelligence, insights offered in the report are based on quantitative and qualitative assessment by leading industry experts, and inputs from opinion leaders & industry participants around the value chain. Growth determinants, macroeconomic indicators, and parent market trends have been scrutinized and delivered, coupled with the market attractiveness for each market segment encompassed. Qualitative impact of growth influencers on the market segments across regions has also been mapped by the report.Highlights from the ReportElaborated scenario of the parent marketTransformations in the market dynamicsDetailed segmentation of the target marketHistorical, current and forecast market size based on value and volumeLatest industry developments and trendsCompetition landscapeStrategies adopted by the market players and product developments madePotential and niche segments, along with their regional analysisUnbiased analysis on performance of the marketUp-to-date and must-have intelligence for the market players to enhance and sustain their competitivenessGrow Your Business From Expert Advice:NOTE - All statements of fact, opinion, or analysis expressed in reports are those of the respective analysts. They do not necessarily reflect formal positions or views of Fact.MRAbout USFact.MR is a fast-growing market research firm that offers the most comprehensive suite of syndicated and customized market research reports. We believe transformative intelligence can educate and inspire businesses to make smarter decisions. We know the limitations of the one-size-fits-all approach; thats why we publish multi-industry global, regional, and country-specific research reports.Contact UsRohit BhiseyFact.MR11140 Rockville PikeSuite 400Rockville, MD 20852United StatesEmail: sales@factmr.comWeb:Blog:Read Industry News at - Artificial Intelligence In Healthcare Market: Improves Significant Growth Revenue For The Healthcare Environment During 2018-2028 https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/sample/sample/13950 https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/sample/toc/13950 https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/checkout?rep_id=13950&licType=S http://www.marketresearchreports.biz/ MarketResearchReports.Biz is providing you Retail Market Research report of "Artificial Intelligence In Healthcare Market: Global Industry Analysis 2013-2017 and Opportunity Assessment 2018-2028".Artificial intelligence can be defined as the use of technology to perform tasks using different algorithms, decision-making capabilities and deliver solutions. Artificial intelligence in healthcare and medicine would induce the tremendous change in the current healthcare system. Artificial intelligence in healthcare would organize the patient data, treatment plans and would strengthen providers and payers by providing them the necessary information.Get Sample Copy Of This Report @Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare Market: SegmentationArtificial intelligence in healthcare market would provide various applications to the industry, and by different application areas, we can segment the market into the following:Data ManagementAnalytics and ResearchClinical Decision SupportPatient Health ManagementPrecision MedicineRevenue-Cycle ManagementDrug DevelopmentArtificial Intelligence in healthcare market can also be segmented by end users which are as follows:PayerInsurance CompaniesGovernmentOthersProviderHospitalsClinicsIt is anticipated that the growth in artificial intelligence in healthcare market would be tremendous over the years due to the introduction of big data into healthcare. By deployment we can segment the artificial intelligence in healthcare market into the following:Cloud-basedOn-PremiseArtificial Intelligence in Healthcare Market: DynamicsArtificial intelligence in the healthcare market is primarily driven by a few key factors such as evidence-based healthcare decisions and clinical outcomes by introducing artificial intelligence in healthcare, analytics based on the vast amount of healthcare data, and improved healthcare setting. In addition to this artificial intelligence in healthcare market also observes significant growth due to its functionality in revenue cycle management for the healthcare environment. Artificial intelligence in healthcare market gains a great drive from applications such as claims management for insurance companies by detecting the number of fraudulent claims. Artificial intelligence in healthcare market will also strengthen the healthcare market by significant cost reductions.Artificial intelligence in the healthcare market, however, require tools which can analyze unstructured data as most of the healthcare data is in the form of physician notes, and prescription reports which limit access to artificial intelligence in the healthcare market. Artificial intelligence in the healthcare market is also associated with a high cost for deployment and lack of skilled workforce which restraints the artificial intelligence in healthcare market growth over the period.Request For TOC @Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare Market: Region-wise OutlookBased on geography, the Artificial intelligence in healthcare market can be segmented into five major regions: North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America and Middle East & Africa. At present, North America holds a leading position in the Artificial intelligence in healthcare market followed by Europe. The major driving factors which have driven the growth of the Artificial intelligence in the healthcare market in this region is support from the government, and increase the number of operational setups by various companies. Following North America, European countries are also anticipated to show steady growth in the Artificial intelligence in the healthcare market. In the next few years, Asia-Pacific would show remarkable growth in the Artificial intelligence in healthcare market as it is developing at a very rapid pace and has shown the emergence of many regional players.Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare Market: Key PlayersIn the past decade, the artificial intelligence in the healthcare market has witnessed a massive influx of players. Some of the major players operating in the artificial intelligence in healthcare market are IBM Corporation, Oracle Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, iCarbonX, Welltok, Butterfly Network, Apixio, Pathway Genomics, and many others. Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare Market has a presence of many regional players which have a huge market share in emerging countries.The research report presents a comprehensive assessment of the market and contains thoughtful insights, facts, historical data, and statistically supported and industry-validated market data. It also contains projections using a suitable set of assumptions and methodologies. The research report provides analysis and information according to categories such as market segments, geographies, type of product and applications.The report covers exhaust analysis on:Market SegmentsMarket DynamicsMarket SizeSupply & DemandCurrent Trends/Issues/ChallengesCompetition & Companies involvedTechnologyValue ChainThe regional analysis includes:North America (U.S., Canada)Latin America (Mexico. Brazil)Western Europe (Germany, Italy, France, U.K, Spain)Eastern Europe (Poland, Russia)Asia-Pacific (China, India, ASEAN, Australia & New Zealand)JapanThe Middle East and Africa (GCC Countries, S. Africa, Northern Africa)MRR.BIZ has been compiled in-depth market research data in the report after exhaustive primary and secondary research. Our team of able, experienced in-house analysts has collated the information through personal interviews and study of industry databases, journals, and reputable paid sources.The report provides the following information:Tailwinds and headwinds molding the markets trajectoryMarket segments based on products, technology, and applicationsProspects of each segmentOverall current and possible future size of the marketGrowth pace of the marketCompetitive landscape and key players strategiesThe main aim of the report is to:Enable key stakeholders in the market bet right on itUnderstand the opportunities and pitfalls awaiting themAssess the overall growth scope in the near termStrategize effectively with respect to production and distributionMRR.BIZ is a leading provider of strategic market research. Our vast repository consists research reports, data books, company profiles, and regional market data sheets. We regularly update the data and analysis of a wide-ranging products and services around the world. As readers, you will have access to the latest information on almost 300 industries and their sub-segments. Both large Fortune 500 companies and SMEs have found those useful. This is because we customize our offerings keeping in mind the specific requirements of our clients.Pre Book Report @About UsMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.Contact UsMr. NachiketState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz Mobile VAS Market 2019: Top Key Players are America Movil, AT&T, Sangoma Technologies, BlackBerry, CanvasM Technology, InMobi, One97 Communications, OnMobile Global Ltd, Astute Systems etc. Mobile VAS Market https://www.researchreportsworld.com/enquiry/request-sample/13799028 https://www.researchreportsworld.com/enquiry/pre-order-enquiry/13799028 https://www.researchreportsworld.com/purchase/13799028 Mobile VAS Market 2019 Report analyses the industry status, size, share, trends, growth opportunity, competition landscape and forecast to 2025. This report also provides data on patterns, improvements, target business sectors, limits and advancements. Furthermore, this research report categorizes the market by companies, region, type and end-use industry.Get Sample Copy of this Report@ -Global Mobile VAS market 2019 research provides a basic overview of the industry including definitions, classifications, applications and industry chain structure. The Global Mobile VAS market analysis is provided for the international markets including development trends, competitive landscape analysis, and key regions development status. Development policies and plans are discussed as well as manufacturing processes and cost structures are also analysed. This report also states import/export consumption, supply and demand Figures, cost, price, revenue and gross margins.Mobile VAS Market research report spread across 106 pages with top key manufacturers and list of tables and figures.Inquire more or share questions if any before the purchase on this report @ -Global Mobile VAS market competition by TOP MANUFACTURERS, with production, price, revenue (value) and each manufacturer including America Movil AT&T Sangoma Technologies BlackBerry CanvasM Technology InMobi One97 Communications This report studies the top producers and consumers, focuses on product capacity, production, value, consumption, market share and growth opportunity in these key regions, covering North America Europe China Japan Southeast Asia IndiaGlobal Mobile VAS Market providing information such as company profiles, product picture and specification, capacity, production, price, cost, revenue and contact information. Upstream raw materials and equipment and downstream demand analysis is also carried out. The Global Mobile VAS market development trends and marketing channels are analysed. Finally, the feasibility of new investment projects is assessed and overall research conclusions offered.With tables and figures helping analyse worldwide Global Mobile VAS market, this research provides key statistics on the state of the industry and is a valuable source of guidance and direction for companies and individuals interested in the market.Order a copy of Global Mobile VAS Market Report 2019 @ -Market segment by Type, the product can be split into SMS MMS Mobile Money Mobile Infotainment OthersMarket segment by Application, split into Personal Use Commercial UseThe study objectives of this report are: To analyse global Mobile VAS status, future forecast, growth opportunity, key market and key players. To present the Mobile VAS development in United States, Europe and China. To strategically profile the key players and comprehensively analyse their development plan and strategies. To define, describe and forecast the market by product type, market and key regions.There are 14 Chapters to deeply display the global Mobile VAS marketChapter 1: To describe Mobile VAS Market Overview, Introduction, product scope, market opportunities, Application.Chapter 2: To analyse the Top Manufacturers of Mobile VAS, with sales, capacity, production, revenue, and price of Mobile VAS, in 2014 and 2019.Chapter 3: Mobile VAS, to display the competitive situation among the top manufacturers with capacity, production, share by region, sales, revenue, gross margin and market share in 2014 and 2019.Chapter 4: To show the global market by regions, supply, consumption, with sales, export-import, revenue and market share of Mobile VAS, for each region, from 2014 Mobile VAS to 2019.Chapter 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 To analyse the market by countries, by type, by application and by manufacturers, with sales, analysis by application, revenue and market share by key countries in these regions.Chapter 10 and 11 To show the market by type and application, with sales market share and growth rate by type, strategy analysis and factor analysis from 2014 Mobile VAS to 2019.Chapter 12 Mobile VAS market forecast, by regions, type, with sales and revenue, growth rate, price Forecast from 2019 to 2025 Mobile VAS.Chapter 13: Connected Mobile VAS.Chapter 14: To describe Mobile VAS sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data source.About Us:Research Reports World is the credible source for gaining the market reports that will provide you with the lead your business needs. At Research Reports World, our objective is providing a platform for many top-notch market research firms worldwide to publish their research reports, as well as helping the decision makers in finding most suitable market research solutions under one roof. Our aim is to provide the best solution that matches the exact customer requirements. This drives us to provide you with custom or syndicated research reports.Contact Us:Name: Mr. Ajay MoreEmail: sales@researchreportsworld.comOrganization: Research Reports WorldPhone: +1 408 520 9750/+44 203 239 8187 IoT Connected Machines Market Overview On Future Threats 2025 | General Electric Company, Cisco Systems, Inc. https://www.tmrresearch.com/sample/sample?flag=B&rep_id=2789 https://www.tmrresearch.com/sample/sample?flag=T&rep_id=2789 https://www.tmrresearch.com/iot-connected-machines-market Global IoT Connected Machines Market: SnapshotIf there is one technology that has been spreading like wildfire throughout the globe, it is the Internet of Things concept. A large number of appliances are already being utilized in connection with the Internet and its related scenarios. Thus, such a wide network of applications working on IoT has given rise to the IoT connected machines market. And contrary to earlier beliefs, this market is there to stay, and is expected to mushroom rampantly in the near future.There are several kinds of IoT connected devices used all over the globe such as GPS units, smart cameras, motion detecting cameras, wearables like smart watches and fitness trackers, smart locks, and many more. Apart from these, even vehicles, industrial machinery, entertainment appliances, and domestic appliances are being operated on IoT. With every passing year, extensive development is anticipated to occur in all these areas, thereby strengthening the markets position around the globe.Request Sample Copy of the Report @The devices are connected to an IoT hub or a server, which can collect data from the former. Such hubs or servers basically are mobile apps, application on computers, and other similar programs, designed to collect the data. Apart from this, the hub can also be used to enable exchange of data between two or more IoT devices, thus giving rise to a smooth and highly sophisticated experience. The hubs and servers can also analyze the data received, thereby ensuring that the performance is improved with each receiving cycle.One of the prime advantages of using IoT connected devices involves creating enhanced machine-to-machine communication (M2M). This promises existence of innovative and disruptive business models that will open up new growth opportunities for companies and individuals alike. They say that the Internet of Things itself is only an intermediate stage; in the future, data, people, machines and processes could all be linked through another virtual conceptualization called the Internet of Everything.Global IoT Connected Machines Market: OverviewThe global IoT connected machines market is envisaged to be advantaged by the growing applications of intelligent broader embedded systems engaged for enabling effective communication and marketing of businesses using connected devices. IoT connected machines find a major application in real-time data tracking which could strengthen process optimization through flexibility, scalability, adaptability, traceability, and transparency. Industry players are prognosticated to cash in on the ability of IoT connected machines to promote real-time response and control over complicated automated processes.Global IoT Connected Machines Market: Key TrendsThe demand for IoT connected machines is anticipated to be propelled by the prominent factor of manufacturers increasingly focusing on their supply chain network to be equipped with close convergence for making end-to-end visibility and collaboration a reality. The market could experience a high positive impact due to the emergence of big data as connectivity between machines sees an incredible increase in demand. This is predicted to take shape on the back of real-time data communication presenting itself as the need of the hour. Furthermore, a greater emphasis is laid on secured backend and production floor operations.Request TOC of the Report @However, there could be some challenges stunting the growth of players operating in the world IoT connected machines market. These could include open network security and privacy of data communication using IoT connected devices. Nonetheless, new avenues of growth are expected to open up in the near future with the rising popularity of promising networks built by IoT connected machines ecosystem. Another factor that could augment the demand in the market is the introduction of groundbreaking and innovative business models requiring IoT connected machines to improve productivity and lower costGlobal IoT Connected Machines Market: Market PotentialABB and HPE have recently announced their partnership at the global level for offering industry-based clients with powerful solutions generating actionable insights from the continually rising, expansive amounts of data produced by businesses. The goal of this strategic partnership is said to improve the flexibility and efficiency of their business operations and give them a competitive edge over their challengers. Currently, ABB claims to accommodate an installed base of 70 million connected devices.Global IoT Connected Machines Market: Regional OutlookAs per the analysis of the report, the international IoT connected machines market could see a classification into South America, North America, the Middle East and Africa, Europe, and Asia Pacific. According to experienced researchers, North America could secure a leading position in the market because of the growing prominence of IoT and rising application of connected devices. The growth of the regional market could be supported by the early adoption of latest technologies and aggressive digitalization practiced in several industry verticals. Commercial users in Asia Pacific, on the other hand, are foretold to surge the demand for IoT connected machines while adopting leading-edge technologies owing to strong initiatives introduced to improve IT infrastructure.Read Comprehensive Overview of Report @Global IoT Connected Machines Market: Competitive LandscapeThe worldwide IoT connected machines market is projected to witness the presence of leading players such as Dell Inc., AT&T Inc., General Electric Company, Cisco Systems, Inc., and Robert Bosch GmbH. Market players could take to the adoption of common business strategies, viz. acquisitions, new product launches, and cutting-edge developments, to push up their growth in the market. Most of these players are involved in providing novel IoT solutions, services, and platforms to commercial clients across the globe.About TMR ResearchTMR Research is a premier provider of customized market research and consulting services to business entities keen on succeeding in todays supercharged economic climate. Armed with an experienced, dedicated, and dynamic team of analysts, we are redefining the way our clients conduct business by providing them with authoritative and trusted research studies in tune with the latest methodologies and market trends.Contact:TMR Research,3739 Balboa St # 1097,San Francisco, CA 94121United StatesTel: +1-415-520-1050Email: sales@tmrresearch.com Alaskan Salmon Market Expected to Secure Notable Revenue Share during 2018-2028 https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=S&rep_id=2079 https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=T&rep_id=2079 https://www.factmr.com/report/2079/alaskan-salmon-market https://www.factmr.com/ https://factmrblog.com/ http://theguardiantribune.com Global Alaskan Salmon Market OverviewCommercial fishing is one of the major industries contributing to the economy of Alaska. Natives of Alaska have been harvesting salmons and various other fishes for centuries. Salmon are ray-finned fish in the family of salmonidae. The term salmon comes from Latin word salmo, emerged from salire, meaning "to leap". Alaskan salmon are highly preferred around the world owing to its better taste and high nutritional values. Alaskan salmon is exported to more than 120 countries worldwide. A positive outlook can be witnessed for Alaskan salmon market in the upcoming years.Global Alaskan Salmon Market DynamicsFast-paced consumer lifestyle is generating needs for more convenience at cooking, which is prompting the rise in demand for frozen Alaskan salmons across the globe. Meanwhile, consumers are also becoming more critical about their health and food consumption habits. To address the consumer needs for healthy and convenient cooking methods, manufacturers are introducing frozen Alaskan salmon. Frozen ready meals promise the enhanced quality of the food, more nutrition, and better flavor, color and taste. Alaskan salmon are rich in omega-3s. According to the test conducted by USDA Nutrient Data Laboratory, wild sockeye salmon flesh contains more than 1.2 grams of EPA and DHA per 98 gm of serving exceeding the recommended value of 650 to 1000 mg of daily intake by 20%. Significant amount of EPA, DHA (and many other essential fatty acids) is present in each serving of Alaskan salmon and hence, attracting consumers around the world for its high nutritional values. Packaging plays a vital role in the Alaskan salmon fish industry, as it adds value to the product quality and its appearance.Implementing appropriate packaging solutions for Alaskan salmon fish can help in improving the shelf life of the Alaskan salmon fish, which further accelerates demand for Alaskan salmon fish. Robust growth for Alaskan salmon can be witnessed in the upcoming years but some factors might hamper the overall growth of the Alaskan salmon market. Alaskan salmon fish is exposed to the sun for extended period of time or in transport under unsuitable refrigeration, which increases the possibility of developing toxins. Concentrating on the nutritive values of a spoiled Alaskan salmon fish is certainly of no use.Click here to subscribe Sample @Dangerous pollutants lurking inside the fish muscle tissue proves as a threat to humans. Intake of these pollutants is likely to affect with the ability of human body to get away from harmful toxins. Consumption of contaminated fish reduces the effectiveness of the critical defense system in the human body. Also harsh environment, high winds, freezing water, seasonal darkness and high fatality rate are major challenges for fisherman which might, in turn, impede the overall growth of Alaskan salmon market.Global Alaskan Salmon Market SegmentationGlobal Alaskan salmon can be segmented on the basis of species, nature and sales channels. On the basis of species Alaskan salmon can be further segmented as King (Chinook) Alaskan Salmon, Sockeye (red) Alaskan salmon, Coho (silver) Alaskan salmon, Chum (Keta) Alaskan salmon, Pink (humpy) Alaskan salmon. Pink (humpy) Alaskan salmon leads in terms of market share followed by sockeye and keta Alaskan fish. On the basis of nature Alaskan salmon can be further segmented as Wild and farmed. Wild Alaskan salmon is mostly preferred due to less fat content compared to farmed fish. Also farmed fished are often exposed to many toxins, chemicals, and antibiotics affecting its overall demand. On the basis of sales channel, Alaskan salmon market can be further segmented as grocery store, hypermarkets & supermarkets, and online channels. Grocery store leads in terms of market share for global Alaskan salmon market whereas online channels is forecasted to register highest growth.Request/View TOC@Global Alaskan Salmon Regional Outlook and Competition TrackingHigh demand for Alaskan salmon can be witnessed in the countries like U.S., Japan, Canada, Russia, and China. The U.S. market mainly preferred processed Alaskan salmon. U.S. export fresh salmon to China where it is processed and sent back to the U.S. Europe to hold significant share in the Alaskan salmon market. Developing countries of Asia Pacific to register high growth in the global Alaskan salmon market during the forecast period. Leading processors and manufacturers of Alaskan salmon market are Pure Alaska Salmon Co LLC, Wild Alaska Salmon & Seafood Company., Alaskan Salmon Company, The Wild Salmon Co, Wild Alaskan, Inc. and other global and local players.This analytical research study imparts an all-inclusive assessment on the market, while propounding historical intelligence, actionable insights, and industry-validated & statistically-upheld market forecast. Verified and suitable set of assumptions and methodology has been leveraged for developing this comprehensive study. Information and analysis on key market segments incorporated in the report has been delivered in weighted chapters. A thorough analysis has been offered by the report onMarket DynamicsMarket SizeMarket SegmentsDemand & Supply TrendsCurrent Issues and ChallengesCompanies and Competitor LandscapeValue ChainTechnologyRegional Segments Analyzed IncludeNorth America (U.S., Canada)Latin America (Mexico. Brazil)Western Europe (Germany, Italy, France, U.K, Spain)Eastern Europe (Poland, Russia)Asia Pacific (China, India, ASEAN, Australia & New Zealand)JapanMiddle East and Africa (GCC, S. Africa, N. Africa)Compilation of authentic and first-hand intelligence, insights offered in the report are based on quantitative and qualitative assessment by leading industry experts, and inputs from opinion leaders & industry participants around the value chain. Growth determinants, macroeconomic indicators, and parent market trends have been scrutinized and delivered, coupled with the market attractiveness for each market segment encompassed. Qualitative impact of growth influencers on the market segments across regions has also been mapped by the report.Highlights from the ReportElaborated scenario of the parent marketTransformations in the market dynamicsDetailed segmentation of the target marketHistorical, current and forecast market size based on value and volumeLatest industry developments and trendsCompetition landscapeStrategies adopted by the market players and product developments madePotential and niche segments, along with their regional analysisUnbiased analysis on performance of the marketUp-to-date and must-have intelligence for the market players to enhance and sustain their competitivenessGrow Your Business From Expert Advice:NOTE - All statements of fact, opinion, or analysis expressed in reports are those of the respective analysts. They do not necessarily reflect formal positions or views of Fact.MRAbout USFact.MR is a fast-growing market research firm that offers the most comprehensive suite of syndicated and customized market research reports. We believe transformative intelligence can educate and inspire businesses to make smarter decisions. We know the limitations of the one-size-fits-all approach; thats why we publish multi-industry global, regional, and country-specific research reports.Contact UsRohit BhiseyFact.MR11140 Rockville PikeSuite 400Rockville, MD 20852United StatesEmail: sales@factmr.comWeb:Blog:Read Industry News at - Global Daytime Running Lamp Industry Market Analysis & Forecast 2018-2023 https://www.marketdensity.com/contact?ref=Sample&reportid=5061 https://www.marketdensity.com/global-daytime-running-lamp-industry-market-analysis-forecast-2018-2023 https://www.marketdensity.com Global Daytime Running Lamp Industry Market report gives openings, hazard, and main thrust which demonstrates current and future economic situation as for locales and makers. Global Daytime Running Lamp Industry Market offers progressive corporate choices by giving expansive understandings of the market and point by point investigation of market portions.Get sample copy of report:Table of ContentsChapter 1 Daytime Running Lamp Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Daytime Running Lamp1.2 Daytime Running Lamp Market Segmentation by Type1.2.1 Global Production Market Share of Daytime Running Lamp by Type1.2.1 Type 11.2.2 Type 21.2.3 Type 31.3 Daytime Running Lamp Market Segmentation by Application1.3.1 Daytime Running Lamp Consumption Market Share by Application1.3.2 Application 11.3.3 Application 21.3.4 Application 31.4 Daytime Running Lamp Market Segmentation by Regions1.4.1 North America1.4.2 China1.4.3 Europe1.4.4 Southeast Asia1.4.5 Japan1.4.6 India1.5 Global Market Size (Value) of Daytime Running Lamp1.5.1 Global Product Sales and Growth Rate1.5.2 Global Product Revenue and Growth RateChapter 2 Global Economic Impact on Daytime Running Lamp Industry2.1 Global Macroeconomic Environment Analysis2.1.1 Global Macroeconomic Analysis2.1.2 Global Macroeconomic Environment Development Trend2.2 Global Macroeconomic Environment Analysis by RegionsChapter 3 Global Daytime Running Lamp Market Competition by Manufacturers3.1 Global Daytime Running Lamp Production and Share by Manufacturers3.2 Global Daytime Running Lamp Revenue and Share by Manufacturers3.3 Global Daytime Running Lamp Average Price by Manufacturers3.4 Manufacturers Daytime Running Lamp Manufacturing Base Distribution, Production Area and Product Type3.5 Daytime Running Lamp Market Competitive Situation and Trends3.5.1 Daytime Running Lamp Market Concentration Rate3.5.2 Daytime Running Lamp Market Share of Top 3 and Top 5 Manufacturers3.5.3 Mergers & Acquisitions, ExpansionChapter 4 Global Daytime Running Lamp Production, Revenue (Value) by Region4.1 Global Daytime Running Lamp Production by Region4.2 Global Daytime Running Lamp Production Market Share by Region4.3 Global Daytime Running Lamp Revenue (Value) and Market Share by Region4.4 Global Daytime Running Lamp Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin4.5 North America Daytime Running Lamp Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin4.5.1 North America Daytime Running Lamp Production and Market Share by Manufacturers4.5.2 North America Daytime Running Lamp Production and Market Share by Type4.5.3 North America Daytime Running Lamp Production and Market Share by Application4.6 Europe Daytime Running Lamp Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin4.6.1 Europe Daytime Running Lamp Production and Market Share by Manufacturers4.6.2 Europe Daytime Running Lamp Production and Market Share by Type4.6.3 Europe Daytime Running Lamp Production and Market Share by Application4.7 China Daytime Running Lamp Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin4.7.1 China Daytime Running Lamp Production and Market Share by Manufacturers4.7.2 China Daytime Running Lamp Production and Market Share by Type4.7.3 China Daytime Running Lamp Production and Market Share by Application4.8 Japan Daytime Running Lamp Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin4.8.1 Japan Daytime Running Lamp Production and Market Share by Manufacturers4.8.2 Japan Daytime Running Lamp Production and Market Share by Type4.8.3 Japan Daytime Running Lamp Production and Market Share by Application4.9 Southeast Asia Daytime Running Lamp Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin4.9.1 Southeast Asia Daytime Running Lamp Production and Market Share by Manufacturers4.9.2 Southeast Asia Daytime Running Lamp Production and Market Share by Type4.9.3 Southeast Asia Daytime Running Lamp Production and Market Share by Application4.10 India Daytime Running Lamp Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin4.10.1 India Daytime Running Lamp Production and Market Share by Manufacturers4.10.2 India Daytime Running Lamp Production and Market Share by Type4.10.3 India Daytime Running Lamp Production and Market Share by ApplicationChapter 5 Global Daytime Running Lamp Supply (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by Regions5.1 Global Daytime Running Lamp Consumption by Regions5.2 North America Daytime Running Lamp Production, Consumption, Export, Import by Regions5.3 Europe Daytime Running Lamp Production, Consumption, Export, Import by Regions5.4 China Daytime Running Lamp Production, Consumption, Export, Import by Regions5.5 Japan Daytime Running Lamp Production, Consumption, Export, Import by Regions5.6 Southeast Asia Daytime Running Lamp Production, Consumption, Export, Import by Regions5.7 India Daytime Running Lamp Production, Consumption, Export, Import by RegionsChapter 6 Global Daytime Running Lamp Production, Revenue (Value), Price Trend by Type6.1 Global Daytime Running Lamp Production and Market Share by Type6.2 Global Daytime Running Lamp Revenue and Market Share by Type6.3 Global Daytime Running Lamp Price by Type6.4 Global Daytime Running Lamp Production Growth by TypeChapter 7 Global Daytime Running Lamp Market Analysis by Application7.1 Global Daytime Running Lamp Consumption and Market Share by Application7.2 Global Daytime Running Lamp Revenue and Market Share by Type7.3 Global Daytime Running Lamp Consumption Growth Rate by Application7.4 Market Drivers and Opportunities7.4.1 Potential Applications7.4.2 Emerging Markets/CountriesChapter 8 Global Daytime Running Lamp Manufacturers Analysis8.1 company 18.1.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors8.1.2 Product Type, Application and Specification8.1.3 Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin8.1.4 Business Overview8.2 company 28.2.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors8.2.2 Product Type, Application and Specification8.2.3 Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin8.2.4 Business Overview8.3 company 38.3.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors8.3.2 Product Type, Application and Specification8.3.3 Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin8.3.4 Business Overview8.4 company 48.4.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors8.4.2 Product Type, Application and Specification8.4.3 Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin8.4.4 Business Overview8.5 company 58.5.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors8.5.2 Product Type, Application and Specification8.5.3 Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin8.5.4 Business Overview8.6 company 68.6.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors8.6.2 Product Type, Application and Specification8.6.3 Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin8.6.4 Business Overview8.7 company 78.7.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors8.7.2 Product Type, Application and Specification8.7.3 Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin8.7.4 Business Overview8.8 company 88.8.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors8.8.2 Product Type, Application and Specification8.8.3 Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin8.8.4 Business Overview8.9 company 98.9.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors8.9.2 Product Type, Application and Specification8.9.3 Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin8.9.4 Business OverviewChapter 9 Daytime Running Lamp Manufacturing Cost Analysis9.1 Daytime Running Lamp Key Raw Materials Analysis9.1.1 Key Raw Materials9.1.2 Price Trend of Key Raw Materials9.1.3 Key Suppliers of Raw Materials9.1.4 Market Concentration Rate of Raw Materials9.2 Proportion of Manufacturing Cost Structure9.2.1 Raw Materials9.2.2 Labor Cost9.2.3 Manufacturing Expenses9.3 Manufacturing Process Analysis of Daytime Running LampChapter 10 Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream Buyers10.1 Daytime Running Lamp Industrial Chain Analysis10.2 Upstream Raw Materials Sourcing10.3 Raw Materials Sources of Daytime Running Lamp Major Manufacturers10.4 Downstream BuyersChapter 11 Marketing Strategy Analysis, Distributors/Traders11.1 Marketing Channel11.1.1 Direct Marketing11.1.2 Indirect Marketing11.1.3 Marketing Channel Development Trend11.2 Market Positioning11.2.1 Pricing Strategy11.2.2 Brand Strategy11.2.3 Target Client11.3 Distributors/Traders ListChapter 12 Market Effect Factors Analysis12.1 Technology Progress/Risk12.1.1 Substitutes Threat12.1.2 Technology Progress in Related Industry12.2 Consumer Needs/Customer Preference Change12.3 Economic/Political Environmental ChangeChapter 13 Global Daytime Running Lamp Market Forecast13.1 Global Daytime Running Lamp Production, Revenue Forecast13.2 Global Daytime Running Lamp Production, Consumption Forecast by Regions13.3 Global Daytime Running Lamp Production Forecast by Type13.4 Global Daytime Running Lamp Consumption Forecast by Application13.5 Daytime Running Lamp Price ForecastChapter 14 AppendixBy this report online:About Market Density:Market Density is your one stop market research and industry analysis reports' library providing business data and intelligence information on thousands of micro markets with global as well as regional coverage.Market Density offers premium progressive statistical surveying, market research reports, analysis & forecast data for industries and governments around the globe.Market Density understands how essential statistical surveying information is for your organization or association. Therefore, we have associated with the top publishers and research firms all specialized in specific domains, ensuring you will receive the most reliable and up to date research data available.Contact Us:Email: Support@marketdensity.comWebsite:Phone: +1 669 264 16564340 Stevens Creek Blvd,Suite # 172,San Jose, CA 95129 Timing Device Market Revenue Analysis By Major Players Texas Instruments, Cypress Semiconductor Corporation, Murata, Rakon, Knowles Corporation, IDT - Integrated Device Technology, Inc. Timing Device Market https://www.gminsights.com/request-toc/upcoming/1622 https://www.gminsights.com/roc/1622 https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/timing-device-market https://www.marketwatch.com/press-release/global-magnetic-sensor-market-trends-shares-regional-outlook-and-forecasts-to-2024-2019-02-06 The Timing Device Market in Asia Pacific is anticipated to grow at a fast pace during the forecast timeframe owing to increase in developments in consumer electronics, automotive, and manufacturing sectors. Several countries including India, China, and Taiwan offer products such as micromechanical systems (MEMS) oscillators, and quartz crystal at affordable prices. Moreover, several medium and small-scale electronic equipment manufacturers in the region are integrating timing systems with their products.Increasing adoption of advanced automotive electronics and growing demand for mobile gadgets are expected to drive the timing device market growth. The adoption of smart grid technology will increase owing to the growing use of time-sensitive smart meters for grid frequency management. Constant technological optimization and demand for Integrated Circuits (ICs) are rising. This is expected to fuel timing device market growth, particularly in the semiconductor clocks segment.Request for an in-depth table of contents for this report @The growing use of these devices in automotive electronics is expected to drive the timing device market over the forecast period. These are used in car navigation systems, in-vehicle audiovisual equipment, safety control systems, and driving control systems. These are also used in cloud big data applications owing to their capability to interface with commonly used storage ICs, better timing, and improved system optimization. Most of these devices are temperature-sensitive and hard to design.Based on the product type, timing device market is classified as oscillators, clock generators, resonators, jitter attenuators, and clock buffers. The oscillators are classified as crystal oscillators and MEMS oscillators. Oscillators are anticipated to be the fastest growing segment owing to the growing use by the automotive and consumer electronics segment. The growth in wearable and portable electronics segment is expected to drive oscillator demand. MEMS oscillators combine low power consumption with accurate frequency production and are increasingly gaining popularity. MEMS technology helps in energy saving and miniaturization of electronics accompanied with delivering high accuracy and stability. The timing device market is expected to gain momentum due to the increasing adoption of MEMS technology.Request for customization @Based on end-use, the timing device market is segmented into computing tools, consumer electronics, automotive sector, telecommunications, and industrial sector. The consumer electronics segment is expected to hold majority market share during the forecast period owing to the rising adoption of sophisticated gadgets. The demand from automotive sector is expected to grow fast owing to the increasing automation and increasing demand for Automotive Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS).Timing devices are used in industrial equipment including endoscopes and ultrasound equipment and security systems such as CCTV & IPCAM, CNC machine controls, programmable logic controllers, smart energy meters, machine vision equipment, and home automation. These are used in communication infrastructure including home routers & gateways, broadband CPE, LTE base stations, GPON & EPON, and VoIP phones.Browse Complete Report Summary @Some of the key timing device market players include Seiko Epson Corporation, IQD Frequency Products Ltd., Nihon Dempa Kogyo Co., Ltd., Microchip Technology, Inc., TXC Corporation, Texas Instruments, Kyocera Corporation, Cypress Semiconductor Corporation, Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd., Asahi Kasei Corporation, Rakon Ltd., Knowles Corporation, and Integrated Device Technology, Inc.Browse Related Report: - Global Magnetic Sensor Market: Trends, Shares, Regional Outlook and Forecasts to 2024About Global Market Insights:Global Market Insights, Inc., headquartered in Delaware, U.S., is a global market research and consulting service provider; offering syndicated and custom research reports along with growth consulting services. Our business intelligence and industry research reports offer clients with penetrative insights and actionable market data specially designed and presented to aid strategic decision making. These exhaustive reports are designed via a proprietary research methodology and are available for key industries such as chemicals, advanced materials, technology, renewable energy and biotechnology.Contact Us:Arun HegdeCorporate Sales, USAGlobal Market Insights, Inc.Phone: 1-302-846-7766Toll Free: 1-888-689-0688Email: sales@gminsights.com Augmented Reality Market in North America to grow at 67.5% CAGR by 2024: Facebook, HTC, Intel, AccuVein, Affectiva, APX Labs, Google and Microsoft Corporation Augmented Reality Market https://www.graphicalresearch.com/request/1004/sample https://www.graphicalresearch.com/request/1004/inquiry-before-buying https://www.graphicalresearch.com/industry-insights/1004/north-america-AR-augmented-reality-market https://www.graphicalresearch.com/ North America Augmented Reality Market size is set to surpass USD 19 billion by 2024. Emerging applications of AR devices in the retail sector are growing at a rapid pace in North America AR market. The applications of this technology in the sector are attracting the customers and providing them with information about the products & services of the company. Several retail companies have installed these devices in their stores, providing visual merchandising of these products. For instance, Charlotte Tilbury has installed magic mirror AR technology. It has partnered with Holition, a software provider to install such mirrors.The research report North America Augmented Reality Market analysis based on Component, Application, Industry Analysis Report, Regional Outlook, Application Potential, Price Trends, Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2017 2024 by Graphical Research.Request for a sample of this research report -Head-Mounted Displays (HMD) are experiencing a high growth in the North America AR market. The growing demand for this technology in the defense sector is encouraging the manufacturers in the region to provide HMDs, which will serve the purpose of simulation-based training. This technology can be used to provide training to the soldiers to survive critical conditions in different situations, places, and environments, and to develop their skills and provide them real-life experiences of war conditions. In 2019, the U.S. Army is planning to test the AR system HUD 3.0, which will provide the information about the location of enemies and their units. They are developing a system, which will be helmet-mounted to project all the information at the sight of the soldier.The applications of the technology in the healthcare sector are providing advanced techniques to analyze and test the disease of a patient. These devices are used for describing the symptoms by the patients, finding the veins & organs, and providing them proper medications depending on the type of the disease that has affected them. Several major players in the North America AR market are offering technologies, which will support the healthcare applications. For instance, Medsights Tech is working on creating a software, which will test the feasibility of the AR technology in creating 3D reconstruction images of tumors.Make an inquiry for purchasing this report @The key players operating in the North America AR market include Facebook, HTC, Intel, AccuVein, Inc., Affectiva, Inc., APX Labs, Google, Inc., and Microsoft Corporation. These players in the North America AR market are targeting the healthcare sector wherein a high demand for these devices can be witnessed for the treatment of several diseases. In February 2018, Intel Corporation developed AR smart glasses, which project the information directly to the retina of the observer.Segments We Cover:North America Augmented Reality Market Statistics, By ComponentHardwareSoftwareNorth America Augmented Reality Market Trends, By ApplicationMedicalAutomotiveAerospace & defenseGamingRetailIndustrialThe above information is provided for the following countries:U.S.CanadaBrowse key industry insights from this 2018 report North America Augmented Reality Market in detail along with the table of contents at:About Graphical Research:Graphical Research is a business research firm that provides industry insights, market forecast and strategic inputs through granular research reports and advisory services. We publish targeted research reports with an aim to address varied customer needs, from market penetration and entry strategies to portfolio management and strategic outlook. We understand that business requirements are unique: our syndicate reports are designed to ensure relevance for industry participants across the value chain. We also provide custom reports that are tailored to the exact needs of the customer, with dedicated analyst support across the purchase lifecycle.Contact Us:Parikhit B.Corporate sales,Graphical ResearchEmail: sales@graphicalresearh.comWeb: Dental 3D Printing Market to 2027 - Leading Players 3D Systems, Asiga, DWS, ENVISIONTEC, Formlabs, Renishaw, Roland DG Corporation, SLM Solutions Group, Stratasys, Rapid Shape Dental 3D Printing Market http://bit.ly/2Ty3qdX http://bit.ly/2TE0YT4 http://bit.ly/2TEBzsu The report provides a detailed overview of the industry including both qualitative and quantitative information. It provides overview and forecast of the global dental 3D printing market based on of product & services, technology, material, application, and end user. It also provides market size and forecast till 2027 for overall market with respect to five major regions, namely; North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific (APAC), Middle East and Africa (MEA) and South & Central America. The dental 3D printing market by each region is later sub-segmented by respective countries and segments. The report covers analysis and forecast of 13 counties globally along with current trend and opportunities prevailing in the region.The report also includes the profiles of key dental 3D printing manufacturing companies along with their SWOT analysis and market strategies. In addition, the report focuses on leading industry players with information such as company profiles, components and services offered, financial information of last 3 years, key development in past five years.The key players influencing the market are:1. 3D Systems, Inc.2. Asiga3. DWS4. ENVISIONTEC, INC.5. Formlabs, Inc.6. Renishaw plc.7. Roland DG Corporation8. SLM Solutions Group AG9. Stratasys Ltd.10. Rapid Shape GmbHGet sample PDF copy at:The "Global Dental 3D printing Market Analysis to 2027" is a specialized and in-depth study of the medical device industry with a focus on the global market trend. The report aims to provide an overview of global market with detailed market segmentation by product & services, technology, material, application, and end user, and geography. The global dental 3D printing market is expected to witness high growth during the forecast period. The report provides key statistics on the market status of the leading market players and offers key trends and opportunities in the market.Dental 3D printing allows a dentist to manufacture customized designs for various categories of products3D dental printing involves the combination of various techniques such as, CAD/CAM, oral scanning, designing, and 3D printing. Dental products such as, dental crowns, bridges, and different types of orthodontic appliances are manufactured with the help of 3D printing technology.Rising demand for cosmetic dentistry along with the rising prevalence of dental diseases is anticipated to drive the growth of dental 3D printing market during the forecast period. Increasing popularity of CAD/CAM technology is expected to offer significant growth opportunities in the market in the coming years.The global dental 3D printing market is segmented on the basis of product & services, technology, material, application, and end user. On the basis of product & services, the market is segmented as, equipment and services. Based on technology, the dental 3D printing market is categorized as, VAT photopolymerisation, selective laser sintering, polyjet technology, fused deposition modeling, and other technologies. On the basis of material, the market is segmented as, plastics, metals and other materials. The market based on application is segmented as, prosthodontics, implantology and endodontics. Based on end user, the dental 3D printing market is categorized as, dental hospitals & clinics, dental laboratories and dental academic & research institutes.North America is expected to contribute to the largest share in the dental 3D printing market in the coming years, owing to technological advancement and increasing demand of cosmetic dental surgery in the region. Asia Pacific is expected to witness significant growth during the forecast period, due to rising popularity of digital dentistry as well as increasing disposable income in developing countries.The report analyzes factors affecting dental 3D printing market from both demand and supply side and further evaluates market dynamics effecting the market during the forecast period i.e., drivers, restraints, opportunities, and future trend. The report also provides exhaustive PEST analysis for all five regions namely; North America, Europe, APAC, MEA and South & Central America after evaluating political, economic, social and technological factors effecting the dental 3D printing market in these regions.Ask for Discount at:DENTAL 3D PRINTING MARKET LANDSCAPE3.1. MARKET OVERVIEW3.2. MARKET SEGMENTATION3.2.1. Dental 3D Printing Market - By Product & Services3.2.2. Dental 3D Printing Market - By Technology3.2.3. Dental 3D Printing Market - By Material3.2.4. Dental 3D Printing Market - By Application3.2.5. Dental 3D Printing Market - By End User3.2.6. Dental 3D Printing Market - By Region3.2.6.1. By Country3.3. PEST ANALYSIS3.3.1. North America - PEST Analysis3.3.2. Europe - PEST Analysis3.3.3. Asia Pacific - PEST Analysis3.3.4. Middle East and Africa - PEST Analysis3.3.5. South and Central America- PEST Analysis4. DENTAL 3D PRINTING MARKET - KEY INDUSTRY DYNAMICS4.1. KEY MARKET DRIVERS4.2. KEY MARKET RESTRAINTS4.3. KEY MARKET OPPORTUNITIES4.4. FUTURE TRENDS4.5. IMPACT ANALYSIS5. DENTAL 3D PRINTING MARKET - GLOBAL ANALYSIS5.1. GLOBAL DENTAL 3D PRINTING MARKET OVERVIEW5.2. GLOBAL DENTAL 3D PRINTING MARKET REVENUE FORECASTS AND ANALYSIS (US$ MN)5.3. PERFORMANCE OF KEY PLAYERS5.4. EXPERT OPINIONSBuy Now at:About Us:The Insight Partners is a one stop industry research provider of actionable intelligence. We help our clients in getting solutions to their research requirements through our syndicated and consulting research services. We are a specialist in Technology, Healthcare, Manufacturing, Automotive and Defense.Contact Us:Call: +1-646-491-9876Email: sales@theinsightpartners.com MicroRNA Research Tools, Diagnostics and Therapeutics Market to 2016-2021 | Thermo Fisher Scientific, Agilent Technologies, Qiagen N.V., Illumina Inc., F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, and Bio-Rad Laboratories Inc https://www.researchmoz.us/enquiry.php?type=S&repid=1377231 https://www.researchmoz.us/microrna-research-tools-diagnostics-and-therapeutics-global-markets-report.html/toc http://bit.ly/1TBmnVG https://marketsizeinfo.blogspot.in/ Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "MicroRNA Research Tools, Diagnostics and Therapeutics: Global Markets" to its huge collection of research reports.Report HighlightsThe global market for microRNA tools reached $756.5 million and $829.8 million in 2015 and 2016, respectively. This market is estimated to reach nearly $1.4 billion in 2021 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.5% for 2016-2021.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @Report Includes:An overview of the global market for microRNA diagnostics and therapeutics, with an analysis of the commercial potential of this research fieldAnalyses of global market trends, with data from 2014, 2015, and 2016, and projections of compound annual growth rates (CAGRs) through 2021Examination of the extensive portfolio of miRNA pathway drug candidates, some already in Phase II clinical trials, showing promising clinical data in different areas of medicine, such as cancer, hepatitis infections, and cardiovascular diseasesA focus on recent drug candidates, products, deals between different pharmaceutical companies, major participants, and new trends and developmentsIdentification of the main markets for RNA therapeuticsReport ScopeThis report focuses on the global market of miRNA tools and provides an updated review including its applications in various arenas of diagnostics and therapeutics. The report deals with miRNA tools covering technologies used in the biomedical industry. These products are miRNA microarray, quantitative reverse transcription-PCR, next-generation sequencing, fluorescent in situ hybridization, isolation, purification, detection tools and other tools like inhibitors, probes and vectors.The report also covers miRNA tools by end user and applications. The end users for miRNA tools are categorized as research, diagnostics, therapeutics, and service sectors. The report covers market application areas, such as cancer diseases, cardiovascular diseases, immunological diseases, neurological diseases, metabolic disorders and others (virology, endocrinology, plant science and genetic disease fields).The scope of the study is global. BCC Research analyzes each market and its application, new products and advancements, market projections and market shares. The geographical regions covered in the report are the United States, Europe and emerging markets. The emerging market covers countries such as India, China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada among others.Get Complete TOC With Tables and Figures @Also included in the report are relevant patent analysis, new products and developments and comprehensive profiles of companies that lead the industry. Notable players in this category are Thermo Fisher Scientific, Agilent Technologies, Qiagen N.V., Illumina Inc., F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, and Bio-Rad Laboratories Inc.About ResearchMozResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis. We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports. We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets. Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.For More Information Kindly Contact:ResearchMozMr. Nachiket Ghumare,Tel: +1-518-621-2074USA-Canada Toll Free: 866-997-4948Email: sales@researchmoz.usFollow us on LinkedIn @Follow me on @ Refractories Market to 2017 - 2026 | Vesuvius plc, RHI Magnesita, Krosaki Harima Corporation, Chosun Refractories ENG Co., Ltd., Calderys Refractories Limited, Compagnie de Saint-Gobain S.A https://www.researchmoz.us/enquiry.php?type=S&repid=1834336 https://www.researchmoz.us/global-market-study-on-refractories-asia-pacific-to-lead-the-global-market-in-terms-of-revenue-during-2017-2026-report.html/toc http://bit.ly/1TBmnVG https://marketsizeinfo.blogspot.in/ Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Global Market Study on Refractories: Asia Pacific to Lead the Global Market in Terms of Revenue during 2017 - 2026" to its huge collection of research reports.Persistence Market Research (PMR) analyzes the global refractories market for the period 2017 to 2026, and offers insights on the key factors that are likely to influence the market during the assessment period. The report makes a historic assessment of the market for the period 2012-2016, with forecast and projections offered for the period 2017-2026.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @Thorough primary and secondary research has been carried out to analyze the global refractories market for the assessment period. To offer readers detailed insights, the report offers impact analysis of the key factors that are likely to influence the market during the assessment period. These factors include steel production, cement production, non-ferrous production, and glass production. The supply chain in the global refractories market has been discussed with raw material suppliers, refractory production, distributors/suppliers, and end-users. Pricing analysis has also been offered in the report to offer readers information on the factors that are influencing this aspect.The report also enlists the key distributors in the global refractories market according to their base. The different refractory material properties and application are also offered in the report. Material analysis has been carried out for silica, fireclay, high alumina, magnesite, dolomite, chromite, carborundum, and zirconia. To give readers insights on the market, refractory end use vertical application and replacement rate is also offered in the report.The report offers forecast in terms of optimistic scenario, likely scenario, and conservative scenario. These three different scenarios help the readers in discerning the three different possibilities of market growth during the assessment period. The forecast on the refractories market is provided both in terms of value and volume.In a bid to give detailed information and insights to readers, the report offers segment-wise analysis. The report has segmented the market on the basis of form type, material type, and end-users. On the basis of form type, the report has segmented the market on the basis of bricks, monolithic, and others. These three form types are analyzed across the regions North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa (MEA), and Latin America. On the basis of material type, the key segments include clay and non-clay. The key end use segments of the report include steel, cement, glass, energy & chemicals, and non-ferrous metals.The report also profiles key companies operating in the global refractory market. In the competitive landscape section of the report, a detailed company share analysis, along with company and product overview is offered to the readers. The competitive section of the report gives readers a thorough analysis on notable players operating in the global refractories market. The concluding sections of the report give readers information on the research methodology employed to arrive at figures and statistics.Get Complete TOC With Tables and Figures @Highlights of Research StudyIn-depth and comprehensive analysis of refractories marketSegment-wise analysis and forecastInsightful competitive landscape and analysisCritical information on the key drivers, restraints, opportunities, and trends impacting the marketAbout ResearchMozResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis. We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports. We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets. Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.For More Information Kindly Contact:ResearchMozMr. Nachiket Ghumare,Tel: +1-518-621-2074USA-Canada Toll Free: 866-997-4948Email: sales@researchmoz.usFollow us on LinkedIn @Follow me on @ (CNN) A 20-year-old Chinese student was sentenced to a year in federal prison after he pleaded guilty to illegally taking pictures at a restricted U.S. Navy base in Florida. A federal judge gave Zhao Qianli the maximum sentence after his guilty plea on Tuesday of one count of photographing defense installations. Zhao's attorney, Hongwei Shang, declined comment to CNN when reached by phone Wednesday evening. According to court documents, Zhao entered the Joint Interagency Task Force South military property, located on Naval Air Station Key West, on September 26 without permission "by circumnavigating the installation's primary fence line, and entering the military property from the beach." "The primary installation fence line contained multiple signs that stated the Farm area was a 'RESTRICTED AREA' and the 'KEEP OUT'." Zhao was in the United States to study musicology as part of a summer exchange program from North University of China, according to CNN affiliate WFOR. This story was first published on CNN.com, "Chinese student sentenced to a year in prison for taking photos of naval base." Delhi: Police officer shot at by two unknown assailants New Delhi pti-PTI New Delhi, Feb 8: An officer of the Delhi Police was shot at allegedly by two men on their bike near Vijay Ghat in Delhi, police said on Friday. Assistant Sub Inspector Bedi Ram (50), who is posted at Nizamuddin police station, was heading home after his duty on Thursday night when he was attacked by the men, who were yet to identified. On his way home, when Bedi Ram reached the underpass behind Vijay Ghat, two men who were apparently chasing him stopped his vehicle and shot at him. He was shot at in the left side of his lower abdomen. Soon, the two men fled from the spot, Harendra Kumar Singh, Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (north) said. The officer was rushed to AIIMS Trauma Centre where he is undergoing treatment. He was operated and is now said to be out of danger, Singh said. [Madhya Pradesh: BJP leader shot dead in Mandsaur] Whether the officer was robbed of his valuables will be clear only after he gives a statement to police, he added. A case has been registered at Kotwali police station and the matter is being probed, the officer said. Prima facie it appears to be a case of robbery. [Bihar: RJD leader Raghuvar Rai shot dead by unknown assailants] However, police are probing all angles since they suspect it be a case of personal enmity or rivalry, he said. The area where the incident took place is secluded, not frequented by many and no footage of the incident has been found from CCTV cameras installed in the area, he added. PTI Official: Red Cross ready to speak with IS to get aid in remote areas Red Cross calls for total ban on nuclear weapons International pti-PTI Geneva, Feb 8: The Red Cross called on Friday for a total ban on nuclear weapons, warning of the growing risk that such arms could again be used with devastating effect. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) launched a global campaign to raise awareness about the rising nuclear threat facing the world. In a joint statement, they said some nuclear-armed states were straying from their "long-standing nuclear disarmament obligations" and were "upgrading their arsenals, developing new kinds of nuclear weapons and making them easier to use." The notonukes.org campaign comes after the United States and Russia ripped up a key arms control treaty, with US President Donald Trump announcing last week that Washington was beginning a process to withdraw from the Cold War-era agreement in six months. Russian President Vladimir Putin quickly followed suit, saying Moscow was leaving the treaty and would begin work on new types of weapons not permitted under the 1987 deal. "Seventy-four years after nuclear weapons obliterated the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the risk that nuclear weapons will again be used is growing," the Red Cross organisations warned. The notonukes.org campaign was launched with a video depicting two friends on a beach discussing whether they would want to live or die if a nuclear bomb were to explode. One said he would want to live, because life is full of so many beautiful things, like spending time with his family, feeling the sun on his face and falling in love. The other said he would prefer to die, because after the bomb, none of those things would be possible. The video ends with a call to action: "Let's decide the future of nuclear weapons before they decide ours". [North Korea hiding nuclear weapons, says confidential UN report] The Red Cross said the campaign aimed to shine a light on the "catastrophic humanitarian consequences of a nuclear war". It also aims to encourage people to lobby their governments to sign and ratify the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which has so far been signed by 70 nations and ratified by 21. "Any risk of nuclear weapons use is unacceptable," ICRC President Peter Maurer said in the statement, stressing that the TPNW "represents a beacon of hope and an essential measure to reduce the risk of a nuclear catastrophe." "At this moment of growing international tension, I call on everyone to act with urgency and determination to bring the era of nuclear weapons to an end," he said. PTI Pak gets a new NSA: He is Imran Khans special assistant on national security Once Kashmir issue is resolved, no need for nuclear arsenal says Imran Khan Imran Khan vows to depoliticise Pakistan's bureaucracy International pti-PTI Islamabad, Feb 8: Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on Friday said his government was committed to depoliticising and insulating the country's bureaucracy from "all kinds of political pressures". His statement came days after the Supreme Court, in a rare rebuke to Pakistan's powerful military, prohibited them from engaging in political activities. Chairing a meeting of Task Force on Civil Service Reforms here, Khan said he regretted that bureaucracy was heavily politicised during the past ten years which resulted in its inefficiency and created fear amongst the bureaucrats. Khan said the government is firmly committed to undertaking structural reforms of bureaucracy to make it efficient and responsive to the need of the hour. "Bureaucracy will be depoliticised and insulated from all kinds of political pressures," he said. "During the 60s and 70s, Pakistan's civil service was one of the best in the region and countries from the region would come to us and learn from us," Khan was quoted as saying by Geo News. "Unfortunately political interference has destroyed the civil service," the prime minister said. He said accountability and merit were the only way the system can be made better and it is the government's mission to depoliticise the bureaucracy. [Pakistan lost in Kargil but PM Imran Khan 'wins' over Cargill] "No system can sustain or deliver if accountability and merit are missing. We need to restructure and reform our bureaucracy to make it progressive and innovative," he said. "We are committed to protecting the integrity and security of tenure of bureaucrats so that they could devote their energies towards translating political vision into reality. We have to attract the best minds to serve the country," Khan said. [Pakistan: Surface-to-surface ballistic missile 'Nasr' test fired successfully] Delivering a landmark verdict on the 2017 Faizabad sit-in by the hardline Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) and other smaller groups, a two-member Supreme Court bench on Wednesday directed all government agencies and departments, including those run by the army like spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to operate within the limits defined by the law. The bench ordered that members of the Armed Forces were prohibited from engaging in any kind of political activity, which includes supporting a party, faction or individual. Media reports last year suggested that Prime Minister Khan was quietly backed by the country's powerful military in the 2018 general election. PTI Google honors German chemist Friedlieb Ferdinand Runge with a doodle International oi-Deepika S Today's Google Doodle honoured German analytical chemist Friedlieb Ferdinand Runge on his 225th birth anniversary. Runge is best remembered for identifying caffeine, the psychoactive drug present in coffee beans. The doodle is paying tribute to the scientist in a unique way by showcasing the chemistry formula of caffeine. The son of a Lutheran pastor, he expressed interest in chemistry from an early age and began conducting experiments as a teenager. During one such experiment, Runge accidentally splashed a drop of belladonna extract in his eye, taking note of its pupil-dilating effects. Ten years later, while studying under renown chemist and inventor Johann Wolfgang Dobereiner at the University of Jena, Runge was asked to reproduce belladonna's effects s part of a demonstration for one of Dobereiner's friends: the writer and polymath Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Impressed by the 25-year-old chemist, Goethe handed Runge a bag of rare coffee beans and suggested he analyze their chemical makeup. Shortly thereafter, Runge isolated the active ingredient we know today as caffeine!, writes Google. After earning his doctorate from the University of Berlin, Runge went on to teach at the University of Breslau until 1831 when he left academia to take a position at a chemical company. During this time, he invented the first coal tar dye and a related process for dyeing clothes. His contributions to the world also include: being one of the first scientists to isolate quinine (a drug used to treat malaria), considered an originator of paper chromatography (an early technique for separating chemical substances), and even devising a method for extracting sugar from beet juice. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Friday, February 8, 2019, 1:43 [IST] Covid-19 origin: China's 'bat woman' denies Wuhan lab leak theory, claims no one got sick at her institute India, China should consider buffer zones on LAC, hotline: Retired Chinese military official Waited for a year on Galwan but no clarity: Sonia Gandhi Shenzhou-12: China all set to launch manned mission with three astronauts for its space station President Xi speaks to Chinese astronauts in space station; says mission an important 'milestone' China accused of forcing Muslims eat pork, drink alcohol during Lunar NY fest International oi-Shubham Ghosh Beijing, Feb 8: China's handling of its minority Uyghurs has always been controversial and if the latest reports are to go by, the authorities in the country's northwestern Xinjiang region have made some Muslims to drink alcohol and eat pork during the Lunar New Year celebrations. As per a report in Radio Free Asia, residents of the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture in the Xingjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) alleged that the officials had invited them to celebratory dinners on the occasion of Lunar New Year where pork was served. They were also allegedly threatened to be sent to "re-education" camp if they refused to take part in the dinner event. Pork and alcohol are forbidden in Islam. Australian Parliament computer system hacked; Chinese hand suspected Pictures that reached RFA also showed an official from the city of Yining in the prefecture distributing raw pork among the Muslim households on the eve of the Year of the Pig in the name of helping the poor. RFA was also told that the practice of making the Muslims eat pork has started last year. The Muslims are not known to take part in the Spring Festival and observe occasions like Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha. The Spring Festival is seen as one observed by the Han Chinese, the majority Chinese population who practises Buddhism. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Friday, February 8, 2019, 18:02 [IST] Unfazed Aus PM stays firm on ban on flights from India, says it is working COVID-19 travel ban on Australians returning from India not to be extended beyond May 15: Morrison Australia's borders to remain closed indefinitely to prevent the spread of COVID-19 Our citizen in arbitrary detention in China says Australia Australian Parliament computer system hacked; Chinese hand suspected International oi-Shubham Ghosh Canberra, Feb 8: The computer network of the Australian Parliament faced a cyber breach on Friday, February 8, and the country's security agencies were probing whether China is behind the incident. Australia's ABC News said the hacking is likely the result of an attack by a foreign government. The federal parliament's presiding officials said in a statement that the authorities were yet to find any evidence of data having been stolen. The hackers were also referred to as "sophisticated". Facebook hacked: 29 million users may have been affected "We have no evidence that this is an attempt to influence the outcome of parliamentary processes or to disrupt or influence electoral or political processes," the Parliament's presiding officers said in a statement. Computer passwords were resent as a precaution as investigation continued. "Accurate attribution of a cyber incident takes time and investigations are being undertaken in conjunction with the relevant security agencies," the statement further added. The ABC News also quoted Nigel Phair, a cyber security expert from the University of Canberra, as underlying the seriousness of the breach. "If you look at what goes on in Parliament House, you've got politicians, you've got staffers, you've got government departments that are moving in and out of the organisation and a lot of that is through electronic means," Phair, an adjunct professor, was quoted as saying by the news outlet. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said no federal government departments or agencies were targeted in the hacking though he refused to give details. UIDAI rubbishes reports claiming that Aadhaar software has been hacked Report of China spying on Australian businesses Last November, Chinese experts living in Australia said recent report about China's state security police hacking and spying on Australian businesses were "credible". According to an investigation conducted by Fairfax Media/Nine News, Australian Signals Directorate, a partner in the Five Eyes intelligence grouping, detected China's ministry of state security overseeing a "massive hacking operation" of large Australian businesses with the code name "Operation Cloud Hopper", Radio Free Asia reported. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Friday, February 8, 2019, 17:41 [IST] After US froze, Australia is burning: A threatening contrast International oi-Shubham Ghosh Washington/Canberra, Feb 8: It's a complete contrast in two halves of the globe. Just after vast stretches of North America, including the Midwest region of the US froze to death, thanks to the phenomenon of polar vertex, Australia found itself burning up, so much so, that even fruits were getting cooked up on tree. The burning temperature gives rise to a concern that the heat emanated is trapped by carbon-di-oxide produced by fossil fuels and that could lead to more heat waves if the matter is not addressed urgently. Teaching civic sense! Woman throws cigarette butt out of car, man puts it back in More heat means the ice caps will melt and that could lead to the rise in sea water causing mayhem to human civilisation. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Maryland, USA, the warming climate will lead to more severe snowstorms and it also cited the Third National Climate Assessment's study to say that cold season storms in the Northern Hemisphere have become more intense since 1950, a Forbes article said. According to the agency, greenhouse gases emanating from burning of fossil fuels have made the Earth warmer by 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit over the last five decades but the Arctic region has heated up twice as faster, causing the ice caps to melt. No worthy human found; Australia daily names horse as 'Australian of the year' As far as Australia's warm temperature is concerned, the scientists are worried that the ocean's surface around the continent is getting hotter at a rate that is similar to the rise in air temperature and that can lead to more powerful tropical storms, leaving adverse effect not only on human settlements but also on marine life. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Friday, February 8, 2019, 13:16 [IST] Valentine week 2019: Most anticipated time in year for lovers; Valentine's day top quotes India oi-Vikas SV New Delhi, Feb 9: Valentine week is one of the popular and anticipated time of the year, where lovers express their feelings and affection towards their loved ones. The week preceding Valentine's day was celebrated as Valentine Week. Especially popular with the youth, a great deal of enthusiasm can be seen in the college campuses in particular, with couples planning days in advance about how to celebrate the Valentine week which leads to Valentine's Day on February 14. However, the festivities begin a week in advance with Rose Day on February 7. Valentine's Week - which also includes Propose Day, Chocolate Day, Teddy Day, Promise Day, Kiss Day, and Hug Day - ends with Valentine's Day on February 14. couples across the world are excited to celebrate Valentine's Day, which is undoubtedly the most romantic time of the year. Valentine's Week 2019 Days Rose Day - February 7, 2019 - Thursday Propose Day - February 8, 2019 - Friday Chocolate Day - February 9, 2019 - Saturday Teddy Day - February 10, 2019 - Sunday Promise Day - February 11, 2019 - Monday Hug Day - February 12, 2019 - Tuesday Kiss Day - February 13, 2019 - Wednesday Valentine's Day - February 14, 2019 - Thursday Valentine's Week/ Valentine's Day Quotes: Every time I see you, I could feel a little flame in my heart lighting up. And that's because I truly love you. Love is like the wind, you can't see it but you can feel it. Each time you love, love as deeply as if it were forever. I love you. Today. Right now. Just as you are. And I know, with time we will change. We will evolve. We will grow. And I hope we do all of it together. If I could reach up and hold a star for every time you've made me smile, the entire evening sky would be in the palm of my hand. Lovers don't finally meet somewhere. They're in each other all along. Valentine's day history: The Legend of ST. Valentine The history of Valentine's Day-and the story of its patron saint-is shrouded in mystery. We do know that February has long been celebrated as a month of romance, and that St. Valentine's Day, as we know it today, contains vestiges of both Christian and ancient Roman tradition. But who was Saint Valentine, and how did he become associated with this ancient rite? The Catholic Church recognizes at least three different saints named Valentine or Valentinus, all of whom were martyred. [Why Pakistan University will be observing Sisters' Day on Valentine's Day] One legend contends that Valentine was a priest who served during the third century in Rome. When Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families, he outlawed marriage for young men. Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. When Valentine's actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death. Other stories suggest that Valentine may have been killed for attempting to help Christians escape harsh Roman prisons, where they were often beaten and tortured. According to one legend, an imprisoned Valentine actually sent the first "valentine" greeting himself after he fell in love with a young girl-possibly his jailor's daughter-who visited him during his confinement. Before his death, it is alleged that he wrote her a letter signed "From your Valentine," an expression that is still in use today. Although the truth behind the Valentine legends is murky, the stories all emphasize his appeal as a sympathetic, heroic and-most importantly-romantic figure. By the Middle Ages, perhaps thanks to this reputation, Valentine would become one of the most popular saints in England and France. (Source - http://www.history.com) For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, February 9, 2019, 2:23 [IST] How the Indian Army is helping in the fight against COVID-19 Technology, artificial based solutions: How Indian Army is countering Pakistans fake narrative India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, Feb 08: The Indian Army has flagged the rise in social media accounts being set up by Pakistan to lure the youth from Kashmir into terrorism. The General Officer Commanding in chief of the Northern Command, Lt General Ranbir Singh said that Pakistan is trying to alter the public opinion in Kashmir to disrupt peace and stability. The Army has expressed concern, but has put in place a mechanism to fight back to ensure that the narrative does not swing the other way. The Army says that the fight against terrorism has entered into an important phase and it has developed an effective counter terrorism mechanism. The Army now uses artificial based solutions and technology to counter the message, so that it does not fall prey to the designs of the Pakistan Army, Lt. General Singh said. He also added that in the coming year there would be peace and prosperity in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. He said options for another "surgical strike" on terrorist bases are open. Induction of new snipers along LoC commences "Surgical strikes were a tactical operation to give a strategic message that Indian Army has the capability to do acts which are unpredictable. We were successful in conveying that message," he added. Recently there was welcome news from the state, when Baramulla was declared terrorist free. Last month three terrorists were killed in Baramulla following which the district became terrorist free. Director General of Police, Dilbag Singh while complimenting the police said that he expected further consolidation of peace building efforts together by the police and public. 'Flu is not a decease,' says Yogi Adityanath amid Swine flu claims nine lives in Uttar Pradesh Swine flu: 15 deaths in Punjab, eight in Haryana this year India pti-PTI Chandigarh, Feb 8: Swine flu has claimed 15 lives in Punjab and eight in neighbouring Haryana this year, officials said on Friday. More than 270 patients were found affected by the flu in Punjab this year, said Dr Gagandeep Singh Grover, the state nodal officer for swine flu. "Fifteen people have died due to H1N1 infection from January 1 until Thursday," Grover said. He said 15 others swine flu patients from across Punjab have died, but due to other ailments. Amid the mounting cases of the H1N1 infections in the state, the Punjab government has set up isolation wards at three government medical colleges, 22 district hospitals and 41 sub-divisional hospitals. It has also announced free treatment for all suspected and confirmed cases. Health minister Brahm Mohindra, who had recently held a high-level meeting with the senior officers of the health department to review the state's preparedness, has been constantly monitoring the situation. Grover said awareness drives are being carried out and health officials are visiting various schools to educate students. In neighbouring Haryana, eight persons have succumbed to swine flu so far this season. "All the patients died in private hospitals," Haryana Health Minister Anil Vij said Friday. [Rajasthan: Death toll due to swine flu reaches 48] Seasonal Influenza (H1N1) is a self-limiting viral, air-borne disease spread from person-to-person, through large droplets generated through coughing and sneezing, indirect contact by touching a contaminated object or surface (fomite transmission like telephone, cell phones, computers, door handles, door bells, pens, toys etc) and close contact (including hand shaking, hugging, kissing), the advisory said. [Rajasthan accounts for 60 per cent of swine flu cases in country] The symptoms are fever, cough, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, difficulty in breathing. Other symptoms may include body ache, headache, fatigue, chills, diarrhoea and vomiting and blood-stained sputum. PTI DPB Raids carried out at properties linked to former CBI chief Nageshwar Rao India oi-Vikas SV New Delhi, Feb 8: Raids were carried out on Friday in Kolkata at properties reportedly linked to former interim CBI director M Nageshwar Rao. Kolkata police conducted raids at two different locations, reported ANI. One of the locations is allegedly Nageshwar Rao's wife's company Angelina Mercantile Pvt Ltd at Salt Lake. While initial reports stated that AMPL was owned by Rao's wife Mannem Sandhya, the CBI officer in a statement issued a denial. In a statement earlier, he had also explained the financial transactions, a News 18 report said. Saying that the firm was not related to his family members, Rao stated he had already clarified regarding this issue through a signed press statement on October 30, 2018. "Further, complete details of all property of my family and mine have already been submitted in my annual property return submitted to the government," he added. IPS officer M Nageshwar Rao was appointed as the interim director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in October last year after then CBI chief Alok Verma and his deputy -- special director Rakesh Asthana -- were sent on leave following a feud between them [SC seeks personal appearance of former interim CBI director M Nageswara Rao] Nageshwar Rao is an Indian Police Services (IPS) officer of the 1986 batch from the Odisha cadre. The Supreme Court on Thursday (Feb 7) severely reprimanded former CBI interim director M Nageshwar Rao and asked him to appear before it in connection with the transfer of former Joint Director A K Sharma, who was probing the Muzaffarpur shelter home abuse case. Supreme Court says that former CBI interim director M Nageswara Rao has prima facie committed contempt of court by transferring CBI officer AK Sharma, who was probing Muzaffarpur shelter home rape case, without taking court's consent. Rafale: Report claims MoD protested against PMO undermining negotiations India oi-Oneindia Staff By Anuj Cariappa New Delhi, Feb 08: Amidst the negotiations over the Rafale deal between India and France, the Defence Ministry had raised strong objections to parallel negotiations, a report in the The Hindu has claimed. Citing a Defence Ministry note dated November 24 2015, the report also stated that it was clear that such parallel discussions by the PMO had weakened the negotiating position of the Ministry of Defence and the Indian Negotiating Team. This was brought to the attention of then Defence Minister, Manohar Parrikar, the report also added. Congress President @RahulGandhi had a simple question for you in Parliament Modiji, you chickened out and didnt answer, did the defence ministry oppose your Rafale deal? Looks like we have the answer now...https://t.co/B8gj9PJNQe#PakdaGayaModi Congress (@INCIndia) February 8, 2019 [Disputes relating to Rafale jets to be sorted by high level group] The report while citing official documents stated that the Defence Ministry had protested that the position taken by the PMO was contradictory to the stand taken by the MoD and the negotiating team. The then defence secretary, G Mohan Kumar made this official notation in his own hand in which it was stated, "RM may pl. see. It is desirable that such discussions be avoided by PMO as it undermines our negotiating position seriously," the report also said. [Congress does not want our Air Force to be strong: PM Modi on Rafale] The Hindu report also makes note of the submissions that the government had made to the Supreme Court in October 2018. The government had said that the negotiations over the Rafale Deal were conducted by a seven member team headed by the Deputy Chief of Air Staff. There was no mention of any role for the PMO in these negotiations. Rafale: PMO above MOD, it cant be called a parallel negotiation says Air Marshal Pandey India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, Feb 08: There is a raging debate on the Rafale Deal yet again. This time it is about a report that stated that the Defence Ministry had raised strong objections to the parallel negations by the Prime Minister's Office relating to the deal. Citing a Defence Ministry note dated November 24 2017, the report also stated that it was clear that such parallel discussions by the PMO had weakened the negotiating position of the Ministry of Defence and the Indian Negotiating Team. This was brought to the attention of then Defence Minister, Manohar Parrikar, the report also added. Air Marshal (Retd), B K Pandey feels that the debate is a misleading one. He tells OneIndia that where is the question of a parallel debate. The PMO is above the Defence Ministry and hence one cannot call it a parallel negotiation, he says. A parallel negotiation is when there are two organisations at the same level. The Defence Ministry has to follow suit of what the PMO does, he also adds. Rafale: Politics aside, SC has protected national security, Air Marshal B K Pandey The Prime Minister is the head of the country and if he is leading an effort, the MoD has to support the same. There is a certain hierarchy in governance and in this entire issue I dont see any parallel, he further adds. If an effort by the PMO is being questioned, then I see it as indiscipline on part of the bureaucracy, B K Pandey further states. Amidst the negotiations over the Rafale deal between India and France, the Defence Ministry had raised strong objections to parallel negotiations, a report in the The Hindu has claimed. The report while citing official documents stated that the Defence Ministry had protested that the position taken by the PMO was contradictory to the stand taken by the MoD and the negotiating team. The then defence secretary, G Mohan Kumar made this official notation in his own hand in which it was stated, "RM may pl. see. It is desirable that such discussions be avoided by PMO as it undermines our negotiating position seriously," the report also said. The Hindu report also makes note of the submissions that the government had made to the Supreme Court in October 2018. The government had said that the negotiations over the Rafale Deal were conducted by a seven member team headed by the Deputy Chief of Air Staff. There was no mention of any role for the PMO in these negotiations. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Friday, February 8, 2019, 15:27 [IST] Rafale deal: Defence Ministrys dissent note had nothing to do with pricing, clarifies ex-secy India oi-Deepika S New Delhi, Feb 08: Soon after Congress President Rahul Gandhi claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi ran parallel negotiations with French govt in the Rafale deal, a former defence secretary clarified saying that whatever has been brought out in the media report on Rafale deal by the Hindu has nothing to do with pricing of the deal. ''It (the dissent note from MoD on Rafale negotiations) had nothing to do with price. It was about sovereign guarantees and general terms and conditions,'' G Mohan Kumar, Defence Secretary at the time of Rafale negotiations was quoted as saying by ANI. The clarification from the senior Defence Ministry official came following the reports which said that the (MoD) expressed its strong reservations to the "parallel negotiations" conducted by the PMO with France on the multi-billion dollar Rafale fighet jet deal. Met Manohar Parrikar, but didn't discuss Rafale: Rahul Gandhi while addressing media The Hindu, in its report, claimed the Defence Ministry had expressed strong reservations to the "parallel negotiations" conducted by the Prime Minister's Office with France on the multi-billion dollar deal. According to the report by N. Ram, at the height of the negotiations over the controversial 7.87 billion Rafale deal between India and France, the Defence Ministry raised strong objections to "parallel negotiations" conducted by the PMO with the French side. Stating that it was clear that such parallel discussions by the PMO had "weakened the negotiating position of MoD and Indian Negotiating Team," a Defence Ministry note dated November 24, 2015 brought this to the attention of the then Defence Minister, Manohar Parrikar. Rafale: Report claims MoD protested against PMO undermining negotiations Referring to a media report, Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Friday said that the Supreme Court's judgment on Rafale is now under question as "Defence Ministry itself says that PM Modi was conducting parallel negotiations with France". Defence Ministry's letter proves that what Former French President Hollande said was true, he added. Punjab Cong infighting: Amarinder Singh in Delhi for another round of talks with AICC panel Punjab: Amarinder Singh govt announces 6% DA for its employees, pensioners India oi-Vikas SV Chandigarh, Feb 8: In what can possibly bring a smile of the face of the state government employees, the Punjab government Friday announced a 6 per cent dearness allowance (DA) for its employees and pensioners, with effect from February 1. The decision, which will benefit nearly 3.25 lakh employees and three lakh pensioners, was announced by Chief Minister Amarinder Singh during the cabinet meeting after informal discussions on the issue, an official statement said. The decision would entail an additional annual financial liability of Rs 720 crore for the state exchequer. [Pak shares Kartarpur draft pact, calls India "urgently" to finalise deal] Amarinder, who presided over the cabinet meeting, reiterated his government's firm commitment to ensure welfare of the employees and pensioners despite financial constraints. OneIndia News with PTI inputs For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Friday, February 8, 2019, 19:15 [IST] Can men get arrested for sporting long hair: Apparently in Pakistan YES! To stay in Grey List or downgrade to Black List: Key FATF decision on Pak this week Pakistan mobilising Kashmiri youth into terror through social media warns Army India oi-Oneindia Staff By Anuj Cariappa New Delhi, Feb 08: The General Officer Commanding-in-Chief (GoC) of the Northern Command, Lt Gen Ranbir Singh, has warned that the Pakistani army has been using social media to mobilise support among the youth of Jammu and Kashmir to stir them towards terrorism. He also said that terrorist infrastructure continues to remain intact in PoK and Pakistan. He said Pakistan is trying to develop narratives to alter public opinion in Kashmir to disrupt peace and stability. Induction of new snipers along LoC commences "It is a matter of concern for us. We are seized of this concern." He said the Pakistani army has been exploiting social media platforms to influence the youth of the Valley to join terrorism. "Radicalisation is not only a concern in India but a global concern," Lt Gen Singh told reporters. However, he added, the Indian Army has developed effective counter-terrorism capabilities and the fight against terrorism has now entered "an important phase". "We are using technology and artificial-based solutions to counter the message, so that youth do not fall prey to the designs of the Pakistan army," he said. "I am hopeful that in the coming year, we will be able to see peace, prosperity and development in the state," he said. Replying to a question on America's proposed pullout of troops from Afghanistan, the officer said the Indian Army and all agencies are keeping a close watch on the developments. "We are prepared for any contingency," he said, referring to possible infiltration by Afghan-based terrorists into Jammu and Kashmir. He said options for another "surgical strike" on terrorist bases are open. "Surgical strikes were a tactical operation to give a strategic message that Indian Army has the capability to do acts which are unpredictable. We were successful in conveying that message," he added. 10 policemen trapped as avalanche strikes J&K's Kulgam district On the investigation into sepoy Aurangzeb's killing in south Kashmir last year, he said, "We got information that one or two jawans intentionally or unknowingly passed information about his movement." "Perhaps the terrorists picked up the news and took benefit of it," he said, adding a probe is going on. Aurangzeb was abducted by terrorists from Pulwama. His bullet-riddled body was found on June 14 in Srinagar on the eve of Eid-ul-Fitr. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Friday, February 8, 2019, 10:38 [IST] Sitharaman counters Rahul's Rafale charges in LS, says 'it is like flogging a dead horse' India oi-Madhuri Adnal New Delhi, Feb 08: Nirmala Sitharaman, Defence Minister on Friday issued statement in Lok Sabha to counter Rahul Gandhi's Rafale charges, and accused 'The Hindu' of biased reporting, saying it should have published Parrikar's response as well. [PM Modi directly involved in scam, says Rahul Gandhi while addressing media on Rafale] Speakig in the Lok Sabha, Sitharaman said,'' If the newspaper wanted to bring out the truth, they would have approached the defence ministry and done a thorough check. They would also have approached the then Raksha Mantri (Parrikar) for his views on it. The said paper has gone ahead and published a report without any facts to back it. They are flogging a dead horse. Every question on Rafale has been answered thoroughly and transparently... not just here in the House, but also in court.'' ANI accesses the then Defence Minister Manohar Parrikars reply to MoD dissent note on #Rafale negotiations. "Defence Secretary (G Mohan) may resolve the matter in consultation with Principal Secretary to PM" pic.twitter.com/yXGQJNiDvB ANI (@ANI) February 8, 2019 ''Then Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar ji replied to that MoD note that remain calm, nothing to worry, everything is going alright. Now, what do you call the NAC led by Sonia Gandhi's interference in earlier PMO? What was that?,'' she further said. ''Congress trying to provoke the army and air force against the government. It is not only unfortunate but dangerous too,'' said Defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman. "One newspaper has published this report...ethics of journalism demands that there should be a response from the then Defence Minister," Sitharaman said while addressing media outside parliament. [Rafale: Report claims MoD protested against PMO undermining negotiations] Meanwhile, the Opposition is voicing against Rahul Gandhi's recent allegation in the Rafale deal row that defence ministry had objected to the Prime Minister's Office "undermining" the Rafale fighter jet deal with France. Addressing the House, Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge said, "We demand a joint parliamentary committee, everything will be revealed then, we don't want any explanation now, have heard many explanations, from PM also." Earlier on Friday, launching a fresh attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Rafale, Congress President Rahul Gandhi accused the prime minister of running "parallel negotiations" with the French side. "For more than a year, we've been saying that PM is directly involved in Rafale scam. Today it is clear that PM himself had been carrying out a parallel negotiation with the French," Mr Gandhi said at a press briefing in New Delhi. The Opposition has repeatedly targeted the Centre over the deal, alleging bloated prices for the fighter jets and corruption over the involvement of Reliance Defence in the deal, overlooking Hindustan Aeronautics Limited. Looking for COVID hospital bed in Noida? This official website provides real-time update NHRC notice to UP govt over Metro Hospital fire India oi-Vikas SV New Delhi, Feb 8: The NHRC or National Human Rights Commission has sent a notice to the Uttar Pradesh government over the fire at Metro Hospital and Heart Institute in Noida's Sector-12 which had broken out on February 7. No casualty was reported in the incident but several people had to be rescued. Over 60 people were inside the hospital when the incident occurred. Metro Hospital and Heart Institute was reportedly functioning without a fire licence. The officials said that their licence had expired nearly five months ago. "The hospital's licence was up for renewal from past four to five months. We did not accept their request as we gave them several suggestions as per laid down rules and asked them to implement the same," a fire department official had said. The official, as per a PTI report, said that the Noida fire department will take the necessary action against the hospital management for their "failure" in getting their licence renewed from the authorities. [Massive fire breaks out at Metro Hospital in Noida, doused now; No casualties] In December 2017, a similar incident took place at the Metro Hospital and Cancer Institute in east Delhi's Preet Vihar area. The hospital had two buildings and one of them did not have a fire No Objection Certificate (NOC). Later, the hospital demolished the two buildings and built a single structure which also did not have the NOC. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Friday, February 8, 2019, 19:34 [IST] RSS marking houses of donors for Ram Temple, just as Nazis, claims Kumaraswamy Kumaraswamy releases audio to expose BJP's 'Operation Kamala' India oi-Chennabasaveshwar P Bengaluru, Feb 8: Karnataka CM HD Kumaraswamy in an emergency press conference hours before the Budget 2019 released an audio recording to expose BJP's 'Operation Kamala'. At the outset, CM in a scathing attack against Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged Opposition parties to expose the Prime Minister's duplicity in Parliament. He said, "On one side Narendra Modi is preaching to the country and politicians, on the other side, he is encouraging his friends to demolish democracy through black money. I will expose this now, I have the proof to back my charge." Karnataka Budget 2019 LIVE Updates: Kumaraswamy releases audio evidence to expose 'Operation Kamala' "He (PM) is systemically demolishing this country's democracy, misleading the people, I request all the opposition parties to rise. They must expose the truth of the Prime Minister in the parliament, " said Kumaraswamy hours before the Budget Session. Highlight of the press meet: Kumaraswamy released an audio clip of a conversation allegedly between BJP State Chief BS Yeddyurappa and JDS MLA Naganagowda Kandkur's son Sharanagowda where Yeddyurappa made an offer of cash and ministerial post for his father. Correction: Karnataka CM HD Kumaraswamy releases audio clip of a conversation allegedly between BJP State Chief BS Yeddyurappa and JDS MLA Naganagowda Kandkur's son Sharana where Yeddyurappa made offer Rs 25 cr and ministerial post for his father (original tweet will be deleted) https://t.co/XSluLNQ7Hy ANI (@ANI) February 8, 2019 How the Indian Army is helping in the fight against COVID-19 Induction of new snipers along LoC commences India oi-Oneindia Staff By Anuj Cariappa Udhampur, Feb 08: The Indian Army has started the induction of new sniper rifles along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir, a top army officer said. Under the General Officer Commander-in-Chief of Northern Command's special financial power, the Army floated tenders for procurement of 5,719 sniper rifles from global vendors in January. Jaish chief Azhar's second nephew killed in Valley was deputy chief of sniper squad "We have been able to commence the induction of the new sniper rifles (along LoC with Pakistan) and some more are still in the pipeline", General Officer Commanding in Chief (GoC-in-C), Lt Gen Ranbir Singh told PTI in reply to a question. He was asked when the Army will be inducting 5,719 sniper rifles from global vendors to replace Soviet-era Dragonov SVD as global tenders have already been floated. The Army commander said some of these equipments have been received and some are likely to come in next some time. Lt Gen Singh said that upgradation of weaponry is an ongoing exercise. "Other equipments which enhances our counter terrorism capability is also being inducted. The capability building is in the pipeline", he said. As per the reports, soldiers guarding the LoC are being armed with deadly new sniper rifles, including an anti-material rifle that can go through concrete and metal objects, such as vehicles. The guns being given to the soldiers are the .338 Lapua Magnum Scorpio TGT by Beretta, and the .50 Calibre M95 by Barrett. These snipers will replace the ageing Russian Dragunov, the mainstay of Indian soldiers. Army chief General Bipin Rawat had said last month that "the Northern Command of the Indian Army taking care of the borders with Pakistan and some parts of Line of Actual Control is soon going to be equipped with the new sniper rifles from this month." ISI stole US sniper guns and handed it over to Jaish in Kashmir The US-made Barrett M95 is an anti-material rifle which has a whopping range of 1,800 metres. The other gun that will be available to the troops along the LoC is the Victrix Armaments .338 Lapua Magnum Scorpio TGT, owned by Italian firm Beretta.The Scorpio TGT uses the .338 Lapua Magnum (8.6 70mm or 8.58 70mm), a rimless, bottlenecked, centre-fire rifle cartridge, reports added. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Friday, February 8, 2019, 8:15 [IST] UP cop play good Samaritan, jumps into canal to save drowning man; Video goes viral Unlock Uttar Pradesh: Malls and restaurants to reopen from today; What is open, what is not? Name, patronage of PM Modi enough to win UP polls says aide Hooch Tragedy: 26 people dead in Saharanpur, Kushinagar after consuming spurious liquor India oi-Madhuri Adnal New Delhi, Feb 08: As many as 26 people died after consuming spurious liquor in Uttar Pradesh's Saharanpur and Kushinaga district, while many were taken ill and are undergoing treatment at various hospitals. [Now UP clears special cess on liquor to fund cow protection] Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath ordered a probe into the spurious liquor case which has accounted for the lives of over twenty people in the state. The death toll over consuming spurious liquor in Saharanpur and Kushinagar district rose to twenty six with two more deaths on Friday, prompting authorities to take stringent action against ten officials. The Uttar Pradesh government has announced a compensation of ten lakhs to the family members of those who lost their lives. [Mumbai dance bars to reopen but showering of money not allowed] Following the incident, Kushinagar authorities on Thursday suspended the excise inspector, two head constables and two constables of the department. Besides, disctrict's Superintendent of Police had sent four cops including SHO Tarya Sujan police station to police line. Meanwhile, in the neighbouring state of Uttarakhand, 12 people were killed and at least eight were stated to be critical after they consumed homemade illicit liquor in Haridwar district. According to an official of the excise department, the illicit liquor was consumed during a funeral procession in a village some 80 kilometres from here on Thursday night. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Friday, February 8, 2019, 13:51 [IST] Days of Chinese walk-ins set to get over, with Indian Army upping the ante High alert in Valley ahead of Afzal Guru death anniversary India oi-Vicky Nanjappa Srinagar, Feb 08: There has a been a high alert declared in Jammu and Kashmir ahead of the death anniversaries of Maqbool Butt and Afzal Guru. Intelligence reports state that several elements would try and create trouble ahead of the death anniversaries of Guru and Butt, which fall on February 9 and 11 respectively. Both separatists and terror groups would look to create trouble, the IB note states. Meanwhile the Hurriyat has called for a complete shut down of the Valley on February 9 and 11. A statement read, " the struggle and sacrifices rendered by the great leader of Kashmiri freedom struggle Muhammad Maqbool Butt and son of Kashmir Muhammad Afzal Guru are glorious chapter of our resistance history. Indian not only hanged these Kashmiris at gallows but also has kept their mortal remains under its custody till now. The struggle, passion for freedom and sacrifices of these great Kashmiris will always remain a beacon light for Kashmiri Nation." Why the ghost of Afzal Guru is set to return to the Valley Further a demand to return the mortal remains of Afzal Guru and Butt would be made. The Hurriyat says that the mortal remains be returned to their mother land for proper burial. A memorandum to this effect would also be sent to the UN. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Friday, February 8, 2019, 17:24 [IST] First time a CM sat on Dharna to protect looters, says PM Modi; Mamata hits back India oi-Deepika S Kolkata, Feb 08: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday launched a scathing attack on Mamata Banerjee saying the West Bengal government welcomes infiltrators but stops BJP leaders. PM Modi attacked Banerjee for her sit-in protest and said it was the first time that a chief minister had sit on Dharna to protect those who had looted lakhs of people. The attack came three days after Banerjee called off her sit-in protest against "politically motivated" attempts by the CBI to question Kolkata police chief Rajeev Kumar in the Saradha chit fund scam case. Chhattisgarh: PM slams Congress government for blocking central schemes In an attack at Mamata Banerjee's TMC-led govt in West Bengal, PM Modi said, "In West Bengal, in the name of mother, soil and people (Ma, Maati and Manush), those who gave you the power to rule, the responsibility to ensure freedom from the Communist power, the TMC instead made the same violence the 'political culture' here." He added that the situation today is that though West Bengal's Chief Minister is Didi, but someone else's Dadagiri runs around here , whereas TMC's 'Jagai madhai' are running the administration. Hailing the BJP rule at the Centre, he claimed that the NDA government's development plans are intentional and policy is made in accordance to that which is why we have re-opened tea estates and opened the bank accounts of those working in these estates. He also spoke about the pension scheme for the tea estate workers. PM Modi announced that workers employed in tea plantation fields will now be entitled to a pension. This scheme would benefit over 40 crore workers in the unorganized sector. Hitting back at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said that the BJP has its own band party to beat its drums, but there is no bride or groom. All of this is election stunts. Mamata Banerjee has refuted PM Modi's claim that the work behind the Circuit house and the Highway in Jalpaiguri were done by the Modi government at the centre. She has said that it was the state government's implementation, Bengal's manpower and the Calcutta High Court's supervision that led to the success of the two projects. "Modi came only for show-off and nothing else," she added. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Friday, February 8, 2019, 18:07 [IST] Terror in Islamabad: A top secret mission, all for the nation, all for the truth Face of current terrorism in Kashmir actually portents Pakistan's defeat India oi-Hardeep Singh Bedi New Delhi, Feb 8: Indian Defence experts are of the view that the current face of terrorism in Kashmir Valley is actually Pakistan's defeat as it is not able to send fully trained hardcore terrorists into Kashmir Valley due the heightened security scenario in the state. The experts expressed these views while commenting on Northern Command Army Commander Lt Gen Ranbir Singh's statements about the state of terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir. Addressing a press conference at Northern Command's investiture ceremony at Udhampur on Thursday, Lt Gen Ranbir Singh said that 16 camps of terrorists are active in Pak Occupied Kashmir (PoK) and 350-400 terrorists are currently active in Kashmir. Noted defence and security analyst Colonel (retd.) Jaibans Singh is of the opinion that the so called terrorists active in Kashmir are actually not terrorists but are 'Facebook terrorists'. "Most of the terrorists operational in the Valley are of local variety. I would really not call them terrorists, as they are neither, trained, nor ideologically motivated. Half of them don't have adequate weapons. This is actually a very vicious propaganda campaign adopted by the forces across the borders, which is misleading these people (current Kashmiri terrorists) into a path where their death is assured," Col (retd.) Jaibans told One India. He added: "Those 400 odd terrorists over there are not even worth 20 fully trained Pakistani terrorists. I would say that the current breed of terrorists in Kashmir is actually 'photo opportunity' or 'Facebook terrorists'. They are not terrorists, or fidayeen in the right form. They are pushed into terrorism without proper training and ideological conditioning. Once they are in, there is no other option left for them apart from to be killed sooner or later. It is actually a mindless loss of life which means nothing." Maybe this is the reason that there are instances wherein wailing Kashmiri mothers have released videos in order to appeal their sons to shun militancy and come back home. Col (retd.) Jaiabans aslo maintained that the basic aim of Pakistani propaganda is that the Kashmiri terrorists should advertise themselves on social media, later get killed by the security forces so that pro-terrorist lobby can show the world that a whole lot of Kashmiri youth are sacrificing their lives for Azadi movement in the Valley. [No respite, Pakistan continues to support terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir] "They (Pakistan and pro-terrorist lobby) don't care about this fact that these people (Kashmiri youth) will lose life as they are just cannon fodder for them," said Col (retd.) Jaibans. Another defence expert, Brigadier (retd.) S.K. Chatterji also told One India that the present lot of Kashmiri terrorists has not gone through the proper cycle initially designed by Pakistan for abetting terrorism in Kashmir Valley. He said that because of the heightened security situation in the Kashmir Valley, Pakistan was under considerable pressure to somehow keep the terrorism alive so it encouraged the recruitment of local youth without actually preparing them for the challenges ahead. "Initially, the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) would first recruit local Kashmiri youth; send them to PoK, give them terror training over there and then send them back to Kashmir Valley. The current breed of Kashmiri terrorists has not gone through this cycle," said Brigadier (retd.) Chatterji. [Pakistan mobilising Kashmiri youth into terror through social media warns Army] The Pakistani army has been using social media to mobilise support among the youth of Jammu and Kashmir to stir them towards militancy. Northern Command Army Commander Lt. Gen Ranbir Singh also told reporters on Thursday that the Pakistani army has been exploiting social media platforms to influence the youth of the Valley to join militancy. A senior Army official told PTI on Monday that 191 local Kashmiris have joined militancy in 2018, which is 65 more than 2017. The defence experts' views that Pakistan is using radicalized Kashmiri youth as cannon fodder get authentication from the fact that security forces gunned down 257 militants in 2018, which is highest than the number of 2010 when 232 terrorists were killed. Though the army is using technology and artificial-based solutions to counter the Pakistan's social media propaganda, but it's high time that policy makers, strategists and civil society of Kashmir must sensitise Kashmiri youth about the evil strategy of Pakistan. Col (retd.) Jaibans Singh also elaborated Northern Command Army Commander's statement about terrorist training camps in PoK. He said that by giving the number of terrorist camps in PoK the Northern Command Army Commander was hinting that Pakistan has not relented on its policy of attempting to infiltrate terrorists into India. "The 16 camps are a very temporary short of figure because the camps over there are not permanent. They keep on shifting from one place to the other according to the possibility of infiltration." "One should also keep a fact in mind that the terrorists in these camps are the ones who are ready for infiltration. A far larger number is sitting somewhere in other training camps in PoK, Gilgit-Baltistan and Pakistan. So, actually the number of terrorists that Pakistan wants to infiltrate into India goes into thousands," said Col (retd.) Jaibans. It's notable that Indian Army has developed effective counter terrorism capabilities and its collective efforts along with Central Armed Paramilitary Forces and Jammu and Kashmir Police have yielded notable success in Jammu and Kashmir. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Friday, February 8, 2019, 20:24 [IST] February 8, 2019 You can now help revive the Saturn V. The U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama has launched a public effort to return its one-of-a-kind standing replica of the Saturn V moon rocket to its like-new condition in time for the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing this summer. The real Saturn V, which was developed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, launched the mission that landed Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon in July 1969. "This Huntsville-made rocket launched Apollo 11, achieving the seemingly impossible and putting man on the moon. It inspired an entire generation to look toward the stars and imagine," said Deborah Barnhart, chief executive officer of the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, in a video statement. "Now with the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing fast approaching, we are asking for your help to ensure the Saturn V replica is as vibrant as the dream that inspired it," added Homer Hickam, the chairman of the U.S. Space & Rocket Center's governing commission and author of the 1998 memoir, "Rocket Boys." The 10-week "Revive the Saturn V" campaign seeks to raise $1.3 million to clean, reseal and paint the 363-foot-tall (110 meter) rocket replica that has stood at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center since 1999. Erected for the first moon landing's 30th anniversary, the Saturn V replica has been exposed to 20 years of weathering and outdoor conditions, leaving it with peeling and missing paint, dirt and damage. The campaign is also underwriting preventive maintenance to protect the Saturn V replica for the decades to come. "You can help with a donation to help us preserve the legacy and the achievement that this rocket symbolizes. Any amount is appreciated and will go toward this $1.3 million project," said Barnhart. NASA launched 13 Saturn V rockets between 1967 and 1973, including nine that flew astronauts to the moon and one that deployed the United States' first space station, Skylab. Half a century later, the Saturn V remains the tallest, heaviest and most powerful rocket ever successfully launched. Three Saturn V rockets survive today as artifacts, including one displayed inside the Davidson Center for Space Exploration at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center. The historic hardware though, is all exhibited horizontally, on its side. The replica is the only vertical display of the Saturn V in the world. "Over the years, the Saturn V rocket has remained a symbol of human ingenuity," said Hickam. "The U.S. Space & Rocket Center's Saturn V replica stands as a symbol of what can be done when people set aside their differences to prove the impossible is possible." As part of the campaign, the rocket center will also be inviting the public to share their photos and stories about the Saturn V replica and even help out by applying the final touches to the project. A subset of the fundraising effort, dubbed "A Brush with Greatness," will provide donors who give $1,000 the opportunity to help paint the lower section of the Saturn V replica when the work reaches that point in the spring. A 300-ton crane, provided by Birmingham Steel Erectors and cleared by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), will support the skilled contractors who will prime and paint the upper sections of the sky-scraping rocket. Workers have already scaled the Saturn V to begin power washing its black and white surface. The U.S. Space & Rocket Center, which serves as the official visitor center for the Marshall Space Flight Center and is home to U.S. Space Camp, receives no funding from NASA or the federal government. While the center is a commission of Alabama, its state funding only covers three percent of its expenses. For projects like the Revive the Saturn V campaign, the center relies on donations. The U.S. Space & Rocket Center, along with the City of Huntsville, is planning an Apollo 11 50th anniversary celebration that will include a Guinness World Records attempt at the most simultaneous rocket launches and an Apollo homecoming dinner. The replica Saturn V will stand at the center of these activities, hence the desire to have it looking its best. The Revive the Saturn V campaign also falls under the center's on-going Rocket Protector campaign, which is repairing and restoring the other historic missiles and launch vehicles that are displayed near the Saturn V replica in the center's rocket and shuttle parks. "Become a part of history and help inspire future generations as mankind dreams once more to go back to the moon and on to Mars," said Barnhart. Deaths due to illicit liquor in Uttarakhand: 3 cops suspended India oi-Vikas SV Dehradun, Feb 8: Three police personnel, including the in-charge of Jhabrera police station, have been suspended in connection with the deaths of at least twenty-three people after allegedly consuming spurious liquor at a village in Haridwar district. The administration has order a magisterial probe into the incident. A number of people took ill on Thursday evening after consuming hooch served at the Terahvi (post death ceremony) of a person at Balupur village in Jhabrera area near Roorkee in Haridwar district, ADG (law and order) Ashok Kumar said. Fourteen out of the 23 persons killed in the incident were from Balupur village and neighbouring areas in Haridwar district whereas the remaining died after returning to their homes in Saharanpur district of Uttar Pradesh after the ceremony, he said. Nine persons have died in Saharanpur and four others are serious, Saharanpur SSP Dinesh Kumar said. Four persons are also battling for life at a hospital in Roorkee, ADG Kumar said. People who had consumed spurious liquor at the feast fell ill last night itself but began to die today morning, he said, adding 30-32 people are said to have consumed spurious liquor at the feast. [Hooch Tragedy: 26 people dead in Saharanpur, Kushinagar after consuming spurious liquor] A magisterial probe has been ordered into the incident and 13 excise department personnel have been placed under suspension in connection with the hooch tragedy, Haridwar District Magistrate Deepak Rawat said. [7 dead, 20 hospitalised after consuming illicit liquor in West Bengal's Nrisinghapur] Meanwhile, Uttarakhand DGP Anil Raturi said four police department personnel have also been suspended in connection with the incident including SHO Jhabrera Pradeep Mishra. Taking cognisance of the incident, Uttarakhand Principal Secretary Anand Bardhan has ordered a special drive to identify and penalise people engaged in illicit liquor trade across the state. OneIndia News with PTI inputs For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Friday, February 8, 2019, 23:20 [IST] Chhattisgarh: PM slams Congress government for blocking central schemes India oi-Madhuri Adnal Raigarh, Feb 08: Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed a rally in Chhattisgarh on Friday and will address another rally in West Bengal later during the day. This is the prime minister's first rally in Chhattisgarh after the BJP suffered a massive loss in the state assembly elections in December last year. Narendra Modi's Chhattisgarh rally took place in Kodatarai village of Raigarh, while his third rally in Bengal will be held in Churabhandar of Jalpaiguri district's Maynaguri block at around 3:30 pm. Union Minister of state for Steel Vishnudeo Sai and other senior BJP leaders are present. BJP workers and people from Raigarh and neighbouring district are attending the meeting. Addressing a rally in Chhattisgarh's Raigarh, Modi said that the people of the state must think about the first two decisions taken by the Congress government. "The first thing they did was to remove Chhattisgarh from Aayushman Bharat and second decision was to not let the CBI enter the state, Why? What are you afraid of?" he said. PM said that when new Congress government was formed in Chhattisgarh, 'we also congratulated them that maybe they will implement some new approach for the development of the state. But what they have only done is try to stop the ongoing schemes." Earlier PM reached state capital Raipur where he was welcomed by state cabinet minister Dr Shiv Kumar Deharia. Later he flew to Raigarh by a helicopter. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Friday, February 8, 2019, 12:44 [IST] Ten-year-old tiger dies in Ranchi zoo after fever, samples sent for testing after Covid ruled out Chennai comes up with restaurant with robot waiters India oi-Shubham Ghosh Chennai, Feb 8: Recently, Chennai came in the headlines over application of several highly qualified candidates for sweepers' jobs. Now, it has made news again and this time, it is over a restaurant in the city that has deployed robots as waiters that also interact with the customers in English as well as Tamil. According to reports, seven colour-coordinated robots work in the restaurant located in Mugilivakkam-Porur. They welcome the customers and bring them food. There is also a female robot at the reception to help the visitors about their queries and sitting arrangements. The robots, that cost Rs 35 lakh, are operated by hotel staff members who also remain in contact with the manufacturers of the metallic waiters to address emergencies. Dancing robot in Russia to display country's technological progress turns out to be a man Hotel sources said that they have three branches across India and they have made the idea of robot restaurants in the country successful for the first time. Each table at the eatery has a tablet through which the customers select the dishes they want to eat. The order is received in the kitchen and after the food is prepared, the robots carry them to the right table, thanks to the programming they have. (With ANI inputs) For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Friday, February 8, 2019, 10:31 [IST] BPSC Prelims Result 2018 to be out in second week of February India oi-Madhuri Adnal New Delhi, Feb 06: Bihar Public Service Commission, BPSC is expected to release 64th Civil Service Prelims result in the second week of February 2019. The result will also be available on its official website. BPSC had already released the Bihar Civil PCS Prelims Answer Key on 27 December 2018 on the official website. So, 64th bpsc prelims result expected date is tentatively between 04 February and 9 February 2019. [BPSC Assistant Engineer 2018 results declared , check cut-off and other details here] How to check BPSC 64th Civil Services Prelims 2018: Visit the official website of BPSC - www.bpsc.bih.nic . . On Home Page you will get the 64th BPSC Prelims Result in latest updates date wise. A new page will open showing list of events. Enter the credentials and click on submit. Candidates can download and take a printout of the result for future reference. [BPSC Assistant Preliminary Competitive Exam Date: Check here] BPSC Civil Service 2018 examination will fill up the 1465 posts in Bihar Administrative Service and Bihar Police Service as well. The official notification for the examination was released on August 03, 2018. Candidates can check the official site of BPSC for more details. BJP pulls up Sadhvi Prachi for anti-Muslim remark, says she can't behave like a VHP worker anymore Muzaffarnagar riots: Seven get life term for killing two youths that led to 2013 violence India oi-Deepika S New Delhi, Feb 08: Six years after the Muzaffarnagar riots, a local court on Friday awarded life imprisonment to all seven people for killing two Hindu youths in Kawal village. The incident is believed to have triggered the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots that left 63 people dead and displaced over 40,000. According to the First Information Report (FIR), the two youths of Kawal village under Jansath police station area were battered to death by five of the men. Muzaffarnagar: Seven held guilty for twin murders that led to 2013 riots The two other accused, Afzal and Iqbal, however, were summoned by the court later under provisions of Section 319 of the Criminal Procedure Code when the evidence of their complicity in the killings emerged during the trial. The court convicted the seven after examining 10 prosecution witnesses and six in their defence. Human appetite pushing big animals at risk of extinction Feature oi-Deepika S New Delhi, Feb 08: Earth is home to millions of species. Just one dominates it. Humans have explored and left footprint on nearly every corner of the globe. As our population and needs grow, we are leaving less and less room for wildlife. In a stratling revealation, a new study has found that Humans' meat-eating habits may be pushing at least 150 species of the planet's largest animals towards the threat of extinction. In new research published in the journal Conservation Letters, scientists surveyed the populations of nearly 300 species of megafauna around the world, and saw some troubling trends emerge. According to the authors, at least 200 species (70 percent) of the world's largest animals are seeing their populations dwindle, and more than 150 face the risk of outright extinction. The species at risk range from lions, elephants, giraffes, rhinos, whales, sharks, sea turtles, alligators and flightless birds like the ostrich as well. Dakshayani, Asia's oldest captive elephant dies at 88 The primary reason humans kill large reptiles is for their eggs, the data show. Other leading reasons humans are killing these animals is for medicinal use, for their fur and fins, and unintentionally (such as sharks getting caught in fishing nets). "Direct harvest for human consumption of meat or body parts is the biggest danger to nearly all of the large species with threat data available," said William Ripple, a professor at the Oregon State University in the US. "Thus, minimising the direct killing of these vertebrate animals is an important conservation tactic that might save many of these iconic species as well as all of the contributions they make to their ecosystems," said Ripple. Researchers were part of an international collaboration that built a list of megafauna based on body size and taxonomy - qualifying for the list were species unusually large in comparison to other species in the same class. The mass thresholds the researchers decided on were 100 kg for mammals, ray-finned fish and cartilaginous fish and 40 kg for amphibians, birds and reptiles since species within these classes are generally smaller. "Those new thresholds extended the number and diversity of species included as megafauna, allowing for a broader analysis of the status and ecological effects of the world's largest vertebrate animals," Ripple said. Over the past 500 years, as humans' ability to kill wildlife at a safe distance has become highly refined, two per cent of megafauna species have gone extinct. For all sizes of vertebrates, the figure is 0.8 per cent. "Our results suggest we're in the process of eating megafauna to extinction," Ripple said. "Through the consumption of various body parts, users of Asian traditional medicine also exert heavy tolls on the largest species," he said. "In the future, 70 per cent will experience further population declines and 60 per cent of the species could become extinct or very rare," he added. Nine megafauna species have either gone extinct overall, or gone extinct in all wild habitats, in the past 250 years, including two species of giant tortoise, one of which disappeared in 2012, and two species of deer. "In addition to intentional harvesting, a lot of land animals get accidentally caught in snares and traps, and the same is true of gillnets, trawls and longlines in aquatic systems," Ripple said. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Friday, February 8, 2019, 10:59 [IST] Ralston firefighter Brian Saathoff, who died suddenly of an unknown medical condition, had registered as an organ and tissue donor. The Trump administration joined those countries in recognizing Guaido and has since taken powerful steps to strip the Maduro government of resources, including $7 billion in Venezuelan state assets in the United States and up to $11 billion in annual oil revenues a sum that covers more than 90 percent of what the country spends on imports. It has supported Guaidos call for the armed forces to switch sides. Its a high-risk strategy that could fail if the generals fail to respond and if Maduro hunkers down with the support of Cuba, Russia, China and the handful of other governments that still support him. Thats why the administration should work closely with the Lima Group and avoid separating itself from the regional consensus. Trump and several top aides stray from that consensus when they suggest that U.S. military intervention remains an option, as the president put it in an interview that aired Sunday. Not only has that course been rejected by the Lima Group, but also it is unrealistic; talk of it only alienates Latin Americans who otherwise support Maduros ouster. Similarly, U.S. rhetoric tends to focus on urging action by the Venezuelan military, while the Lima Group and European nations stress the need for a peaceful transition and new democratic elections. The latter is a better focus. Joe Ricketts genuine, honest I have accompanied Joe Ricketts to Africa, helping with his educational effort for schools there, including Muslim schools. We had many heartfelt discussions there. I always found him to be genuine, honest and direct. His views and values were not racist or bigoted. I believe his desire was and is to truly help people. Ron Chvala, Omaha Racial hatred has to stop Let me say this about a piano. It has black keys and white keys, and when both are working and playing together, we create very beautiful music. No person on this Earth had the choice of where they were born, what color their skin may be, what country they were born in or what sex they were born as. All this hate about how some people may be if they are different from us has to stop. We are making fools out of each other, and the whole world is watching. Do unto others as you would have them to do you. Make friends, help people and be polite. Just as most of our parents taught us. Jesse Salazar, Waterloo Every White House in the modern era has sought to be prepared in case a vacancy arises on the Supreme Court. President Donald Trumps legal advisers dont know much more than anyone else about the likelihood of a vacancy this year, but they are making contingency plans. Those plans center on the possibility that Ruth Bader Ginsburg, at 85 the oldest justice, will leave the court. At the moment, there appear to be seven leading contenders, who can be loosely grouped into a first and second tier based on how much attention they are getting. Trump has released a public list of his potential Supreme Court nominees, the most recent version of which came out in November 2017. All seven candidates are drawn from that list. The four candidates under most serious consideration are all appeals-courts judges who were placed on the bench by Trump. Amy Coney Barretts confirmation to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals became a national news story in September 2017 when Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California and a few other critics made an issue of the nominees religious views. In large part because of that experience, Barrett has become a favorite of social conservatives. She was considered for the Supreme Court nomination that ultimately went to Brett Kavanaugh. To his credit, President Donald Trump has stood strong for homegrown biofuels, saying he would protect the corn-based ethanol and biofuels that power our country. Unfortunately, the previous administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency decided to go his own way, disregard the presidents policy directives and make decisions that hit ethanol and farmers hard. Under Scott Pruitts leadership, the EPA allowed oil refiners to skirt the Renewable Fuel Standard, which ensures a market for non-petroleum fuels. The agency abused so-called hardship waivers intended for small refineries by granting 48 such waivers to wealthy oil conglomerates including Exxon Mobil, a company valued at $20 billion. Combined, the waivers destroyed demand for over 2 billion gallons of ethanol gallons of demand that may never be restored. Fortunately, the EPA is under new leadership, but it remains to be seen whether acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler can act quickly enough to repair the damage. For example, the president has pledged to lift outdated regulations that restrict sales of E15 during the summer driving season. Despite the partial government shutdown, the new EPA chief promised that a new E15 rule would be in place before restrictions kick in on June 1. But time is running out, and any bureaucratic delays could pull the rug out from underneath Nebraskas farm economy. Two apparent cases of cold exposure sent people to the hospital Thursday night. A 14-year-old was taken to Childrens Hospital & Medical Center in serious condition about 7:30 p.m., according to an emergency dispatcher. The child was found outside Burke High School at 12200 Burke St. Monique Farmer, a spokeswoman for Omaha Public Schools, said officials are working to figure out if the child was a Burke student. "There were no school activities happening at the school during that time yesterday evening," she wrote in an email. About 9:30 p.m., a man found at 44th and California Streets was taken to the Nebraska Medical Center in critical condition, according to an emergency dispatcher. The temperature Thursday evening in Omaha was in the single digits, and the wind chill was about minus 15 degrees. No further details were available. Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. LB 153, he said, would replace a clunky and inadequate tax break that is now provided to military veterans in Nebraska. The current law, passed in 2014, applies only to those who retired in 2012 or later, and requires retirees to chose one of two options. There are about 14,000 veterans in the state, and the current law provides about $390,000 a year in income tax breaks. By contrast, LB 153 would provide a 50 percent reduction in the taxable portion of a veterans pension, amounting to an estimated $13 million in tax breaks a year. Both the governor and State Sen. Tom Brewer of Gordon, a decorated military veteran who introduced the bill, said that LB 153 was really a workforce development proposal. They said it would keep highly trained veterans in Nebraska after retirement, filling vacant jobs here and bringing many benefits in terms of paying other taxes and contributing to their communities. They not only have earned and deserved special treatment, it is a benefit to Nebraska, said Brewer. Ricketts said that three of his best managers when he worked at the family business, TD Ameritrade, were retired military veterans. Some veterans, he said, retire as early as age 38, then enter second careers in the state they choose to locate. In addition, it would prohibit anyone from advertising or charging for conversion therapy services, whether to youths or adults. She said the therapy is ineffective and harmful. It is opposed by almost all medical and mental health organizations, including the American Psychiatric Association, American Psychological Association and American Counseling Association. Being LGBT is not an abnormality. It is not something to be fixed, Hunt said. This is based on pseudoscientific beliefs, it is based on prejudice. But Brady Cone, who grew up in Nebraska, said that, through counseling, he was able to change his identity and his attractions. He said there are thousands of others like him, whose stories he said threaten the agenda of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. I now live a life that the LGBT community says is impossible, he said. Im happily married to a wonderful woman. My life is full of peace and joy. Like other opponents, Cone said the government should not prevent people from getting the help they want. The World-Heralds statehouse reporters round up news highlights from the Legislature and state government into the Capitol Digest a daily briefing for the political newshound with a busy schedule. Ending slavery. Nebraska lawmakers voted without dissent Thursday to advance a constitutional amendment that would ban all slavery in the state. Legislative Resolution 1CA must clear two more rounds of consideration to appear on the 2020 ballot for a decision by voters. State Sen. Justin Wayne of Omaha, who introduced the measure, said it would remove an exception to the states prohibition on slavery. The exception, which dates to 1875, allows involuntary servitude as punishment for a crime. Wayne said the exception supported a post-Civil War practice known as convict leasing, in which prisoners were leased out to provide labor for farms, roads and other projects. Wayne said Nebraska was one of few states outside of the South to allow the practice. Leased convicts were used during construction of the states second Capitol building in the 1880s. By 1908, he said 82 percent of state prisoners were put to work as leased convicts. The practice continued off and on until 1940. The Nebraska State Board of Education weighed in against a legislative bill that would require public schools to administer the same civics test that immigrants take for citizenship. Board members voted 8-0 Thursday to oppose LB 399, though Board President John Witzel said their position could change if the bill is amended. Parts of the bill that rewrite the states Americanism statute are acceptable, he said. Weve all heard that theres too many tests, and this may be just another test, Witzel said. Our standards cover everything that is in that test. LB 399 specifies testing students with questions from the civics portion of the naturalization exam of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The naturalization test would not be an official state assessment, like the annual math, science and English language arts tests that public school students take each spring. A students score would be reported to parents. Schools would have to administer the test by eighth grade and again by 11th grade. State health officials have shut down an in-home day care in Omaha, and its operator has been charged with a felony after a child was injured. The Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services issued an emergency order that bars Catarina Lopez from caring for any children other than her own. A 16-month-old girl who attended the day care suffered an acutely fractured and dislocated left arm, according to an arrest affidavit. Lopez, who operated the day care at 3931 U St., has been charged with committing intentional child abuse, a felony. During an interview with authorities, Lopez made admissions that she had caused the injury to the child when she forcefully pulled the child by her left arm up from the floor, according to the affidavit. Lopez said the child cried and she had to calm her by giving her a bottle. Doctors also found signs of multiple fractures to the girls shoulders, arms and wrists in various stages of healing, the affidavit says. Lopez was arrested after a call from Childrens Hospital on Jan. 21. The girls mother told doctors that she noticed her daughters injury the day before when her daughter came home from the day care. However, prosecutors say that order was faulty because Zastera didnt hold an evidentiary hearing on the purported new evidence entitling Harris to a new trial. Harris had pointed to a police report that wasnt turned over and to an inmates account that an accomplice had recanted his testimony against Harris and had confessed to the killing. (Such recantations arent rare, especially when they come from informants who subsequently become concerned about their safety in prison.) Two questions the high court may be asked: Was the judges order for a new trial faulty? And if it was, should Harris speedy-trial clock have started ticking? Court officials: No court administrator assigned Harris case to a different judge after Zastera retired. Logistics may have had something to do with that. The states high court had reassigned the Douglas County case to a Sarpy County judge after all of Douglas Countys judges recused themselves. They stepped aside because one of their colleagues, Leigh Ann Retelsdorf, was the original prosecutor on the case. When Zastera readied for retirement, Douglas County court administrators say it doesnt appear he or his staff alerted them that they needed a new judge for the case, perhaps assuming the case immediately would be assigned to Zasteras successor. It wasnt. Authorities have arrested a 40-year-old man who walked away from his Lincoln work release program two weeks ago. The U.S. marshals took Anthony Gafford into custody Thursday night in Las Vegas. Authorities had received information from the U.S. Marshals Metro Fugitive Task Force in Lincoln that he could be in the Las Vegas area and living on the streets, according to a press release. On Jan. 26, Gafford walked away from his work release program at the Community Corrections Center in Lincoln, one of the least restrictive centers in the Nebraska prison system. He left at 6 a.m. for work and didnt return for the day, officials said. Gafford was 19 when he was convicted of second-degree murder in the death of Jacque Holbert. He was sentenced to 30 to 50 years in prison and was due to be released Dec. 11, 2022, according to state prison records. He shot Jacque Holbert, 16, on Sept. 15, 1997, as their vehicles passed each other. Holberts grown son, 21-year-old Jacque S. Jack Holbert IV, was shot and killed on Jan. 20 while sleeping in a home near 38th and Burdette Streets. Two St. Paul, Nebraska, residents who are father and daughter have waived their preliminary hearings on incest charges. Travis Fieldgrove, 39, waived his hearing Jan. 31. Samantha Kershner, 21, waived her hearing on Tuesday. Those hearings had been scheduled for Friday. Fieldgrove will be arraigned at 9 a.m. Feb. 19 in Hall County District Court. Kershners arraignment will be at 9 a.m. March 5. Judge Alfred Corey set Fieldgroves bail at $100,000. Judge Arthur Wetzel set Kershners bail at $5,000. It was originally $20,000. Grand Island police said they believe that the pair began an intimate relationship in September, despite evidence that Fieldgrove is Kershners father. LINCOLN Jeremy Jorgenson, a former attorney for convicted murderer Anthony Garcia, has been disbarred by the Nebraska Supreme Court. The court ruled Friday that Jorgenson continued to represent at least three clients after he had been suspended from practicing law and failed to inform the clients of his suspension and help them find a new attorney. He also continued to represent himself as a lawyer in emails, the court said, and failed to cooperate with court investigators. In one instance, he notified a client via text message that he was suspended and couldnt serve as his lawyer on the morning that the client was to be sentenced for a crime in Merrick County. Since becoming an attorney in 2008, Jorgenson, 44, has been disciplined by the court on three previous occasions: in 2012 for a problem related to contingent fees, in 2017 for failing to keep up with continuing education requirements and in 2018 for skipping oral arguments in a federal case. Jorgenson, according to the Supreme Courts ruling, said his life fell into disarray both personally and professionally after he was retained to help defend Garcia, a former Creighton University medical student. Children of same-sex couples perform better in school than kids raised by a mom and a dad, according to new research from several European economists. The researchers found that children raised by same-sex couples had higher test scores in elementary and secondary school and were about 7 percent more likely to graduate from high school than children raised by different-sex couples. The study by economists Deni Mazrekaj, Kristof de Witte and Sofie Cabus of Belgian university KU Leuven used government data tracking all children born in the Netherlands since 1995. The Netherlands was the first country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage in 2001 and has generally been one of the most supportive nations for same-sex couples. "The results indicate that children from same-sex couples outperform children from different-sex couples on standardized test scores at the end of primary education by 0.18 standard deviations," the researchers wrote in their paper. "Our results suggest that children from same-sex couples are 6.7 percent more likely to graduate than children from different-sex couples." On his drive home, Block hit a bump in the road. It sent the car into a ditch, where it rolled several times. The roof of the car caved in. Block had broken his neck. When he woke up from a coma, he was paralyzed from the neck down. After about a month, he regained feeling in his right foot. He could wiggle his toes. Feeling started to creep up his body, leaving him with a painful pins-and-needles sensation as it returned. He worked his way up to using wheelchairs and then standing on his own. By the time Block was discharged, he was able to walk out wearing a brace on his leg, supported by his parents and a cane. Twenty years after his injury, Block was able to walk unaided. He held a job selling medical supplies in Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota. In 2009, he was preparing for a work trip to Omaha. He was shuffling boxes around the garage and loading the car when he tripped. His head hit the car. He felt a shock, kind of a zinger, go through his body. When things didnt get better, Block drove himself to the emergency room. Doctors told him that he had a spinal cord injury. "This is incredibly complex. This is not something that can be litigated on Twitter," she said, adding that "one of the things I'm concerned in all the rhetoric is that we're missing compassion and empathy for that patient and what she's going through." Who is obtaining later abortions? There isn't a lot of research on the subject, but the best information we have comes from a study from the University of California at San Francisco. It found women who got later abortions were similar in "race, ethnicity, number of live births or abortions, mental or physical health history or substance use" to women who got an abortion in the first trimester. They were mostly unmarried, and many were already mothers. What percentage of women getting later abortions are doing it to protect their own health or life or because of a fetal abnormality? A Congressional Research Service report published in April 2018 quoted Diana Greene Foster, the lead investigator on the study above and a professor at UCSF's Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health as saying "[t]here aren't good data on how often later abortions are for medical reasons." Hospital hallways usually are quiet, still places in the middle of the night. But about 2:30 a.m. Friday, more than 100 people family members, friends, firefighters from four area communities and medical staff lined a hallway at Creighton University Medical Center-Bergan Mercy to pay tribute to Ralston firefighter Brian Saathoff. Saathoff, 39, who died suddenly of an unknown medical condition, had registered as an organ and tissue donor. Honor walks are typically conducted by hospital staff to recognize donors as they are taken to the operating room to save lives through donation. Saathoff came from a line of firefighters. He began his career as a volunteer firefighter after high school and served with two other volunteer departments before joining the Ralston Volunteer Fire Department more than a decade ago. So paying tribute to him with an honor walk was particularly fitting, said Paula Wallace, family support coordinator at Live On Nebraska, the organ recovery organization serving Nebraska and Iowas Pottawattamie County. Ralston Fire Chief Kevin Eischeid said Saathoff was the type of person who brings others together. Clay Phillips, director of student ministry at OBU Dr. Chuck Lawless Lawless, Phillips to Speak During Focus Week Feb. 11-15 February 7, 2019 OBU will welcome Dr. Chuck Lawless to campus for its annual Focus Week event Feb. 11-15. Lawless will speak during chapel services Feb. 11 and 13 at 10 a.m. in Raley Chapels Potter Auditorium. Clay Phillips, director of student ministry at OBU, will deliver the Focus Week chapel message Feb. 15, also at 10 a.m. in Raley Chapel. Focus Week emphasizes discipleship and encourages students to focus on their lives in Christ. Lawless currently serves as professor of evangelism and missions, dean of doctoral studies, and vice president for spiritual formation and ministry centers at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He also serves as team leader for theological education strategists for the International Mission Board. He previously served as vice president for global theological advance for the IMB. Prior to that, he was dean of the Billy Graham School of Missions and Evangelism at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, where he also served as vice president for academic programming and the director of professional doctoral studies. He earned a Bachelor of Science from Cumberland College and both an M.Div. and Ph.D. from Southern Seminary. He is the author of eight works, including Membership Matters and Spiritual Warfare, and has contributed numerous articles to denominational periodicals. Phillips joined the staff at OBU in March 2017. He is a 2011 OBU alumnus and earned a Master of Divinity in expository preaching from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He has also completed work toward a Ph.D. in preaching from Southeastern. An Offaly farmer has expressed sadness after his prize-winning and record-breaking hen passed away in recent days. Banagher's John Dolan made headlines last year when he told RTE News that his hen, Marmalade, is a record-breaker and that she should be recognised by the Guinness Book of Records. The half-bred Red Mottled hen had hatched an astonishing 107 chickens in two years and John Dolan, who runs a small farm near Banagher, put the success down to a combination of breeding, hen whispering and porridge. In her four and a half years, Marmalade delivered over 180 chickens. John told RTE News that a hen like her "will not be seen again" in the world. John succeeded and Marmalade is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for her incredible breeding feat. The hen was a fan of the black stuff from time to time and even led the Banagher St. Patrick's Day parade in 2018. The prized hen had survived a crash on the way to the Tullamore St. Patrick's Day parade in 2017, but sad news came this week when John confirmed Marmalade died in his daugther's arms. John said he didn't have the heart to bury his family's beloved pet on his farm and instead plans to have her stuffed and displayed in a glass case. Wade Prospere Havas Formula has hired Wade Prospere as vice president, digital. Prospere joins Havas Formula from creative agency Social Chain, where he was head of media. At Social Chain, he led the development of cross-platform digital and go-to-market strategies and was responsible for audience growth, e-commerce and monetization strategy. Previously, he held roles at Spot, a travel and discovery app based in San Francisco, and entrepreneurship consultancy Endeavor, located in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Prior to Endeavor, Prospere was a financial analyst at Merrill Lynch. Located in Havas Formulas New York office, he will work with the leadership team to grow the agencys social and digital offering, aligning it with the firms PR services. Victoria Child Crosby Marketing Communications has hired Victoria Child as a senior vice president, senior strategist. Child joins Crosby from United Way Worldwide, where she was a vice president, strategy. She previously spent eight years at Abt Associates as a senior strategy and communications lead, overseeing branding and internal communications initiatives, as well as public health behavior-change campaigns for Global USAID contracts. Child has also served as a vice president, account director at Wunderman. In her new position, she will lead strategic communications planning engagements for clients including Military OneSource, the Department of Defenses flagship digital services platform that supports service members and their families across the globe. Kate Barrette RooneyPartners has promoted Kate Barrette and Bob Cavosi to managing director. Barrette has been with RooneyPartners since 2013. Before joining the firm, she was a senior vice president at boutique PR firm Ben-Abraham Associates. She was previously a journalist at The Globe and Mail in Toronto. At RooneyPartners, she works with clients in such sectors as asset management, financial advisory, biotech and healthcare. Cavosi joined RooneyPartners in 2015. He previously served as senior vp, financial services at IMRE and senior vp, corporate practice at Ogilvy Public Relations. He specialized in media relations and content strategy and development, as well as managing work for several of the firms clients. RooneyPartners has also promoted Ahmet Reisli to senior associate. Jeff Bezos American Media Inc., parent company of the National Enquirer, today said it would probe the claim of Jeff Bezos, Amazon chief and Washingon Post owner, that the tabloid threatened to publish intimate pictures of him and girlfriend Lauren Sanchez unless he dropped an investigation into how NE acquired the photos. Bezos made his allegations in a Feb. 7 post on Medium, the online publishing platform. AMI released this statement: "American Media believes fervently that it acted lawfully in the reporting of the story of Mr. Bezos. Further, at the time of the recent allegations made by Mr. Bezos, it was in good faith negotiations to resolve all matters with him. "Nonetheless, in light of the nature of the allegations published by Mr. Bezos, the Board has convened and determined that it should promptly and thoroughly investigate the claims. "Upon completion of that investigation, the Board will take whatever appropriate action is necessary." For years now, publishers have weighed paywalls and digital subscriptions as a solution to make up for dwindling ad revenues. As it turns out, providing unique local content that creates regular reading habits that subscribers are willing to pay for might be the key in making those reader-based revenue models a success, according to a recent data analysis conducted by Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. The study was part of the Medill Local News Initiative, a project led by a team of digital and business strategy experts aimed at helping the local news industry overcome its current financial woes. Medill's analysis of reader data from the Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle and Indianapolis Star showed a direct correlation between regular habit and subscriber retention. Analyzing the subscriber data of three large-city news sites, Medill looked at the various behaviors that might make readers willing to pay for the news. It discovered that the frequency of consuming local news is the single biggest indicator insofar as whether someone will keep paying for a subscription, regardless of how many stories those subscribers read in a single visit or how thoroughly they read them. Medill partnered with three news organizations: The Chicago Tribune, The Indianapolis Star and The San Francisco Chronicle. Data scientists at Northwestern's Spiegel Research Center then analyzed 13 terabytes of anonymous reader data provided by these news organizations and measured what news consumption habits correlated with what subscriber retention habits. The study revealed a strong correlation between regular habit and reader retention. That is, the more frequently a reader visited the papers website, the less likely that customer was to cancel their digital subscription. The study also discovered that subscribers who read more than the average amount of stories per visit and those who spend more time reading them were no more likely to keep their subscriptions than those who merely skimmed. In some cases, according to the study, high reading rates and high reading time were actually associated with those who cancelled their subscriptions. The reasons for this apparent correlation, according to the study, are not yet clear. The report comes as the New York Times announced better-then-expected fourth-quarter and full-year 2018 results, which included $709 million in revenue from 265,000 new digital subscribers last year. Research for the Medill Local News Initiative study was conducted in the fall of 2018. According to the studys authors, a follow-up study is now being planned to analyze subscriber behavior data at small and mid-sized news outlets throughout the Midwest, in an attempt to see whether Medills initial findings can be applied broadly. Latest News Broker group urges compliance-weary advisers to look for support I hear a lot of advisers feeling nervous about how its all going to go Government announces criteria for $1 billion house development funding Minister clarifies why government did not give councils money directly Real estate company Harcourts New Zealand has appointed Bryan Thomson as its new managing director. Thomson rejoins Harcourts business in the country, which he previously led for more than 23 years as chief executive officer, before he became a shareholder and director of the group. He brings significant governance experience to the role as board chair of Property Page (NZ) Ltd, and as a director of real estate.co.nz and the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand. We are delighted Bryan has agreed to return to lead our New Zealand business, Harcourts International managing director Mike Green said. Bryan brings to this position an innate ability to draw exceptional performance from individuals and teams and has a proven track record of success across all sectors of the real estate industry, both nationally and internationally. I am excited to return to Harcourts and to have the opportunity to combine the experience I have gained over a long career in this industry with the talented and committed people who make up this iconic New Zealand company, Thomson added. Bryan is set to acquire a shareholding in Harcourts and will commence his new role in early April. How has the American civil rights movementand King's legacy in particularinfluenced your work? My world view has totally been shaped by the civil rights movement and the legacies of Dr. King and other African American leaders. I arrived in Washington D.C. from Mali (West Africa) and France, in 1973, in the middle of the civil rights and feminist movements in the streets, in churches, and on university campuses. I went to rallies by Reverend Jessie Jackson, Kwame Toure, and Kathleen Cleaver, and read books by Angela Davis, June Jordan, Toni Cade Bambara, Jayne Cortez, and Amiri Baraka, most of whom became friends and confidants, later on. I brought many of them to NYU and still teach and write about them. I have no doubt that I owe them everything, including what you might call my successful career at NYU. I remain a die-hard optimist who believes in the legacy of the civil rights movement, in spite of the current backlash and pushbacks against it. In fact, I see the retreats from human rights in America, today, as an indication that we have come closer to the top of the mountain, which threatens racial supremacists and ethnic absolutists alike. The presidency of Obama was symbolic; Obama was not an exceptional and unique black man, but rather a product of what the civil rights movement is capable of producing. Now we can seriously dream of a woman president, a gay president, a lesbian president, a president from all colors and hues of America. While the pain caused by the resurgence of the ugly head of hatred and racial privilege is real and painful on a daily basis, our gains are irreversible. And our struggles for justice, excellence in education, and the tolerance of our differences are the winning ones. You established the Africana Studies Program at NYU in 1992. How has the field grown and changed since then? What has been the greatest impact of NYU's program? Most African American Studies (also known as Black Studies or African Studies) programs were opened in the late 1960s to mid 1970s. NYU's Africana Studies program was inaugurated almost 20 years later. But, with the support of then President L. Jay Oliva and his administration, we were quickly able to build a national powerhouse in African American, Caribbean, and African Studies. Before the end of the 20th century, our names had appeared in the education section of the New York Times and the Chronical of Higher Education, as one of the six premier places (including Harvard and the Univeristy of Wisconsin) to study the field. Some of the former students of Africana Studies at NYU have gone on to leadership positions and professorships at the Social Science Resource Council, Yale, and NYU, to name only a few. This year's MLK Week theme is "What's Left of the Dream?" How would you answer that question? MLK said no to injustice, greed and oppression; he said yes to freedom, love, and peace. As a result, he has contributed to making the world better for all of us. What remains, for us, is a recognition of our differencesdifferences not to be transcended for a "color blind" society, and also not to be seen as oppositional, or as barriers between people, but rather differences as life-giving essences and energies. Connecting our differences, as in a quiltwithout preconceptions of superiority and inferiority, and without fixing identitiesis essential to the survival of the planet. Our diversity is our beauty, and no one should be made to feel bad because of their difference. What advice would you give students looking to do humanitarian work? I will tell students not to surround their suffering and loneliness within walls and think that they are unique; to share their their intuitions and lived experiences with others; and to build solidarities across race, gender and sexuality. As the great Martiniquan poet-philosopher Edouard Glissant used to say, we should all learn to tremble with the trembling of others around us. College is an an exemplary place to learn, not only from professors but also from other students from diverse backgrounds. NYU and Greenwich Village are great incubators of talents. I have learned a lot just from hanging out at Washington Square Village, and I hope that students do too. He told us that he wanted corners that played with a dog mentality. He just want dogs out there on the island," junior Alexander Smith said of his new position coach. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, February 8) Authorities on Friday recovered the bodies of two Indian nationals four days after a plane crash in Bataan. The charred bodies of instructor Navern Nagaraja and student pilot Kuldeep Singh were found near Sitio Kinahigan, Barangay Tala in Orani town at around 8 a.m. and was airlifted at noon, authorities said. Their two-seater Cessna C152 training aircraft exploded after crashing into a tree last Monday, police said. The Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) said the victims left the airport in Plaridel, Bulacan at 7:20 a.m., landed at Subic Airport at 7:51 a.m. and was expected to be back in Plaridel by 8:14 a.m. on Monday. When they did not return, CAAP said authorities immediately conducted search and rescue operations. A joint task force composed of police, military and other officials on Friday "penetrated the crash site and reportedly found the two victims burned beyond recognition." The cadavers were airlifted by a Philippine Air force Sokol helicopter. Representatives from the Indian Embassy are in Bataan to coordinate the repatriation. Authorities are now investigating the possible cause of the crash. Another reason is there is simply so much wealth now to argue over, said Amanda K. DiChello, a trusts and estates lawyer at Cozen OConnors private client services practice. The Neumann case is not an outlier, she said. It doesnt matter the amount of wealth, she said. There are plenty of cases where people will fight over $500,000 or $300,000. But whats good for young lawyers building a career is not good for families that want harmony or at least want to avoid squandering millions on legal bills. Avoiding costly and destructive family squabbles is both straightforward and incredibly complex. Family members must be willing to put in effort that may be unpleasant and difficult. Step one is to talk through the plan. Thats easier said than done. There is no magic solution to address a conflict, said Blanche Lark Christerson, managing director at Deutsche Bank Wealth Management. Underneath it all is the simmering resentment that Mom always liked you better. Maybe that is true. But its advisable to talk someone out of this example. Ms. Christerson, who has three decades of experience advising wealthy families, said she had counseled parents who divided their estate unequally to discuss the reasons and the ramifications. Often these talks are not about dividing the money as much as they are about defining a familys values and addressing existing conflicts. Understanding that allows parents to put a plan in place, along the lines of governance principles that companies use. TEHRAN When Iran uses the slogan Death to America, the countrys supreme leader said on Friday, it is specifically wishing death on President Trump and two of his senior officials. Death to America means death to Trump and John Bolton and Pompeo, the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said, referring to John R. Bolton, the presidents national security adviser, and Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state. It means death to American leaders, who happen to be these people at this time, he added. Ayatollah Khamenei has reflected on the phrase repeatedly as Iran prepares to commemorate the 40th anniversary of its Islamic revolution, and engages in an increasingly bitter standoff with the Trump administration. The United States has withdrawn from a nuclear accord with Iran, reimposed economic sanctions on the country, and stepped up measures designed to pressure and perhaps to change its leadership. Death to America would remain part of Irans official discourse, Ayatollah Khameneis website, Khamenei.ir, quoted him as saying on Monday, until the United States changed its evil and mean ways. The death toll rose to at least 15 in the collapse of an eight-story apartment building in Istanbul, Turkish officials said on Friday, but a 16-year-old boy was pulled from the rubble, still alive after almost two days buried under the debris. The updated death toll was confirmed by Turkeys health minister, Fahrettin Koca. The interior minister, Suleyman Soylu, told a news conference near the scene, in the Kartal district on the Asian side of the Bosporus, that another 14 people were being treated in hospitals. Still, French journalists and their supporters saw the move as new proof of the adversarial stance toward the media of Mr. Macron, who recently faced pushback after deciding to move the press room outside of the Elysee Palace, the seat of the presidency. Journalists at dozens of publications issued a statement this week expressing solidarity with our colleagues at Mediapart. The National Union of Journalists referring to the attempted raid and to laws passed this year on the protection of trade secrets and on so-called fake news described it as worrying that journalists duty to inform can be flouted in this way, in France, in 2019. The episode was the latest of many tied to Mr. Benalla, who was fired last summer as a security aide to Mr. Macron after it was revealed he had hit a protester at a May 1 demonstration. Once billed the most serious threat to Mr. Macron, the Benalla affair died down and was eclipsed in Frances news cycle by the Yellow Vest economic protests against the president until a steady stream of news reports in recent weeks raised questions about how the Elysee had handled the earlier case, and whether Mr. Benalla had used his ties to the presidency to obtain business contracts. In the audio recordings, which date to July and which Mediapart published last week as part of a wider investigation, Mr. Benalla can be heard discussing the case against him with Vincent Crase, who had also worked on security for the Elysee and for Mr. Macrons party, and who is being investigated over accusations similar to those against Mr. Benalla. [Sign up for the Canada Letter newsletter for more Canadian coverage.] Mr. McArthurs string of murders has prompted an inquiry by a retired judge into how the Toronto police handle missing persons cases and whether their investigations are influenced by the sexuality or race of those who have vanished. In November 2012, the Toronto police began an investigation into the disappearances of three men who, it eventually emerged, were murdered by Mr. McArthur. But the inquiry was shut down after 18 months. Mr. McArthur, who was convicted of assaulting a man with a pipe in 2003, was arrested in 2016. A man said that Mr. McArthur had tried to choke him in the back of his van but that he escaped. The police, at that time, accepted Mr. McArthurs story that they were engaging in consensual sex. A Toronto police officer is facing disciplinary charges over his involvement in that arrest and release. Two pieces of evidence finally connected Mr. McArthur to the killings when the police renewed their investigation in August 2017. Andrew Kinsman, his final victim, had written Bruce in a calendar on the date of his disappearance. The police then found surveillance video of someone who appeared to be Mr. Kinsman getting into a red Dodge minivan that day. The video did not capture the minivans license plate. But once the police identified it as a 2004 model, a search of Ontarios license records showed that there were only five such red vans registered to men named Bruce. Mr. McArthur was the only one who had been in contact with the force. Alexandre Bissonnette, a 29-year-old former politics student fixated on President Trump, the far right and Muslims, was sentenced on Friday to life in prison without the possibility of parole for 40 years for shooting six people dead in an attack on a mosque in Quebec City in January 2017. During the attack, Mr. Bissonette shot several worshipers in the head. Nineteen people were injured, including one who was paralyzed for life. Under Canadian law, Mr. Bissonnette could have gone to prison for 150 years or 25 years for each of the six deaths. While underscoring the brutality of the attack, Justice Francois Huot of Quebec Superior Court suggested that such a harsh sentence would be excessive by denying the defendant the hope of ever leaving prison. But Muslim leaders, including the mosques president, Mohamed Labidi, said they were deeply disappointed by Justice Huots sentence, saying it did not do justice to a horrific crime. Left undecided were the order in which those points were to be executed and the definitions of terms like peace regime and complete denuclearization. After the meeting in Singapore, Mr. Trump declared the question of denuclearization largely solved, but the two sides have since been at loggerheads. Effectively, the countries are locked in the same stalemate they have been in for years. Washington wants North Korea to end its nuclear weapons program. But for the North, those weapons are the only leverage it has to get what it really wants a formal end to the Korean War and diplomatic recognition from the United States. The North said as recently as December that it would not dismantle its weapons program until the United States diminished its military capacity in the vicinity of the Korean Peninsula. Where will the talks take place? Mr. Trump announced on Friday that the talks would be held in Hanoi, Vietnams capital. Vietnam is a powerful symbolic choice. Like North Korea, Vietnam and the United States had fraught relations for decades after a deadly war. More recently, the countries have normalized relations. Vietnam, like North Korea, is a communist country. Through capitalist reforms it has emerged from international isolation to become one of the worlds fastest-growing economies. It is a model Mr. Trump hopes will inspire North Korea. Danang, a port city where American soldiers once relaxed on a stretch of sand then known as China Beach, had also been floated as a potential site for the talks. But the North Koreans were reported to prefer Hanoi. When will the talks occur? Though a second round of talks had been rumored for months, it was not until Tuesday during Mr. Trumps State of the Union address that a date was confirmed. The talks will be held on Feb. 27 and 28, the president said. Mr. Trump was last in Vietnam in November 2017 to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit meeting. BANGKOK The sister of Thailands king was nominated on Friday as a candidate for prime minister, but by days end, the political foray was rebuked by the monarch as inappropriate behavior that violated the nations constitutional monarchy, apparently ending her candidacy. In a kingdom where the royal family is considered above the volcanic eruptions of Thai politics, the prospect of the kings sister running for office, followed by the public airing of a disagreement between the royal siblings, upended the political landscape. Ubolratana Rajakanya Sirivadhana Varnavadi, 67, the elder sister of King Maha Vajiralongkorn Bodindradebayavarangkun, was nominated by a party associated with the Shinawatra political family, which includes two fugitive former prime ministers who have been accused of subverting the power of Thailands royal institutions. Calling Ms. Ubolratana an educated and skilled person who was the most suitable choice, Preechapol Pongpanich, the leader of the Thai Raksa Chart Party, announced her candidacy on Friday but cautioned that the choice still had to be accepted by Thailands election commission. Mr. Bio directed state hospitals to care for victims of rape and sexual abuse free of charge. Outrage has mounted in recent weeks over the brutal rape last year of the 5-year-old girl. The case was never prosecuted, drawing attention to the lingering sense of impunity around sexual violence. The girl was paralyzed from the waist down after her spine was crushed when she was raped, Reuters reported, and her 28-year-old uncle was suspected of the assault. Civil society groups have called on the government to act in the wake of reports that cases of sexual and gender-based violence have increased by nearly 10 percent each year since 2015. In 2017, more than 12,000 such cases were reported, according to police data. Many cases are never reported, making the actual figure much higher, activists said. The presidents wife, Fatima Bio, has also been an active campaigner to stop the violence. Almost half of Sierra Leones women face sexual or physical violence during their lifetime, and 90 percent of women aged 15 to 49 have been victims of genital cutting, according to United Nations data. Sexual violence against women and girls was widespread during the countrys decade-long civil war, which ended in 2002. Victims testified during international trials about the brutality of rebels, who used mutilation and rape against the civilian population. One of the hallmarks of the conflict were bush wives women and girls forced into sexual slavery by rebels. Termen extins: CJI anunta un concurs de grant pentru selectarea unei echipe care va crea un instrument sau instrumente ce vor fi utilizate la lectiile de Educatie pentru media For more than half of our lives, though, we have stayed together. We went to graduate school in the United States, and traveled all over the world. Eventually, we even had children. Our daughter was born in Taiwan, where Gil was completing his Ph.D. research while I was teaching English and writing freelance. Our son was born two years later in the United States, where Gil got a job as a professor. If in all the years weve been together, I havent seriously considered separating, its because even at times when things between us seemed wrong, I couldnt bear the thought that in ending our relationship, I would lose Gil. Of the two of us, Im the more capricious. Im a flirt, easily distracted by a meaningful glance or the touch of a good-looking man. Gil prefers to spend his mental energy on academic problems rather than frivolous romantic fantasies. Ive often developed crushes, which Gil tends to take in stride because he mostly just finds them pointless. When I confessed to an infatuation with someone I didnt seriously want to be with, his response sobered me up: Then why are you wasting your time? he asked. He really doesnt understand the appeal of romance. Im a sentimental romantic at heart, but because of him Ive learned to appreciate that there are many other pursuits raising children, caring for the world, writing, travel, adventure that are more rewarding than romance. As exciting and intoxicating romance is, it doesnt need to dictate our lives. But there are times especially after I have watched certain romantic movies when I panic and think my life is all wrong because our last candlelight dinner consisted of cold leftovers during an electrical blackout, and nowadays, when Gil and I are awake in bed, its most likely that we are reading. When I look at ourselves through a romantic lens, I see a pathetically passionless couple, held together by habit and inertia, and I start fantasizing about eloping with a more ardent lover. Of course, after more than 25 years in a relationship, the fire of passion has dimmed to a glow of familiarity, and now that we have children our interactions are often limited to the coordination of schedules and squabbles about the fair distribution of responsibilities. We can fight in shorthand because were so well acquainted with each others grievances that we dont need to go through the whole argument anymore. But when, during my moments of marital doubt, I look at other men as potential lovers, I realize there arent many with whom, after 25 years, Id still get along as well as with Gil. Maybe its just because weve grown intertwined, like two trees that need each other for support. A Florida state attorney said on Friday that he would seek the death penalty against the man charged in the fatal shooting last month of five women at a SunTrust bank branch in Sebring, Fla. On Jan. 23, the suspect, Zephen A. Xaver, 21, burst into the branch on U.S. Route 27 in Sebring, according to an affidavit released last month. He then made the five women inside the bank lay facedown on the floor, and he fatally shot each one, the affidavit states. A sixth person, a bank employee, had been in a break room and escaped through a back door when he heard the shots at around 12:30 p.m., the police said at the time. Mr. Xaver was arrested at the bank after the shooting and was charged with five counts of first-degree premeditated murder. In an initial court appearance just after his arrest, he was ordered to be held without bond at the Highlands County Jail in Sebring, a city of about 10,000 people about 80 miles south of Orlando. Peter Mills, an assistant public defender assigned to Mr. Xavers case, declined to comment on the indictment when reached on Friday. It was a racial assault so vicious that it became one of the early chords of the civil rights movement, and led to the desegregation of the military. Sgt. Isaac Woodard Jr., 26, was a decorated African-American veteran. He had just been honorably discharged from the United States Army in 1946 and was headed home to Winnsboro, S.C. Still in uniform, Mr. Woodard, was forcibly removed from the bus, brutally beaten and jailed by the white police chief in the town of Batesburg. But in the small town where Mr. Woodard was beaten so severely that he lost his sight, the crime went unpunished and largely faded from memory. Almost three generations later, a black Army veteran in Georgia and a white federal judge in South Carolina separately stumbled upon Mr. Woodards story and vowed to honor his memory. On Saturday afternoon, town and civic leaders and groups of veterans will walk the two blocks from the bus stop to the jail where Mr. Woodard was taken to honor his memory and acknowledge the cruelty that was done to him. Part of the trickle of small towns throughout the country confronting their violent, racist histories, the town of 5,000 now called Batesburg-Leesville will unveil a historic marker downtown as a permanent reminder of the racial injustice that happened there. Updated Feb. 11 The scandals that have enveloped Virginias top three officials roiled the state capital for a second week. There was an apology, a reversal and an admission about blackface. A sexual assault allegation was made, and an emphatic denial was made in response. Then came another admission about blackface. And another sexual assault accusation. This month, the clouds began to gather over Gov. Ralph Northam, 59, a physician and Army veteran who was elected in 2017 and won the widest victory for a Democratic candidate for governor in the state in decades. Now, a storm of scandals has engulfed him, Lt. Gov. Justin E. Fairfax and Attorney General Mark R. Herring, all Democrats, as well as Thomas K. Norment Jr., the Republican majority leader in the Virginia Senate. The blackface revelations revived painful memories of Virginias disturbing history on race: centuries of slavery, decades of segregation and racial inequalities that still persist. The state was roiled in 2017 when a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville erupted into deadly violence. And the sexual assault allegations came on the heels of the #MeToo movement led by survivors of assault and harassment. A second woman came forward Friday with claims that she had been sexually assaulted by Lt. Gov. Justin E. Fairfax of Virginia, intensifying the weeklong political crisis in the state and leading top fellow Democrats to call for Mr. Fairfax to resign. The woman, Meredith Watson, accused Mr. Fairfax of raping her in 2000 while they were students at Duke University, saying in a statement that his actions were premeditated and aggressive and demanding that he step down immediately. Ms. Watson spoke out two days after Vanessa C. Tyson, a political science professor from California, said she was assaulted by Mr. Fairfax during the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. By Friday night, Mr. Fairfax was facing a wave of calls for his resignation. Democrats in the Virginia House and Senate urged him to step down, saying he could no longer fulfill his duties to the commonwealth, as did the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, a powerful bloc within the General Assembly. Patrick Hope, a Democrat in the Virginia House, said he would introduce articles of impeachment on Monday if the lieutenant governor had not resigned. Nadler says Whitakers behavior falls well short of the mark Mr. Nadler, the committee chairman, opened the hearing with sharp criticisms of Mr. Whitakers conduct while the acting attorney general. In particular he took Mr. Whitaker to task for refusing to recuse himself from overseeing the Russia investigation even after career ethics officials recommended that he do so a decision that Mr. Nadler said fell well short of the mark. Its one of many actions that Mr. Nadler said raised important questions about why President Trump chose Mr. Whitaker to run the department: Why did the president get rid of Mr. Sessions? Why did Mr. Whitaker choose to oversee an investigation that could harm Mr. Trump? And what does Mr. Trump hope to get from Mr. Whitakers leadership? Collins accuses Democrats of political theater before putting on his own opening show Mr. Collins, the ranking Republican on the committee, angrily attacked Democrats in his opening statement, saying that they were interested in carrying out a character assassination of Mr. Whitaker and damaging Mr. Trump, not carrying out oversight of the Department of Justice. Mr. Collins noted that Mr. Nadler had promised not to issue a subpoena to Mr. Whitaker on Friday, saying Democrats had played a hide and seek game in securing permission on Thursday to subpoena Mr. Whitaker. And, noting that Mr. Barr would probably be attorney general by the end of next week, he said Democrats were just interested in having a show for partisan purposes. After accusing Mr. Nadler of wasting time, Mr. Collins ended his fiery opening remarks by calling for the committee to adjourn. Mr. Nadler objected, but the request forced a committee vote to keep the hearing going before Mr. Whitaker was even sworn in. Welcome to the Hill. Now about those documents. Democrats antagonizing of Mr. Whitaker began before he was even in the hearing room on Friday. Four Democratic committee chairmen, including Mr. Nadler of the Judiciary Committee, released a letter they sent Mr. Whitaker on Thursday raising new questions about his work for a Florida company, World Patent Marketing, which is accused of defrauding customers. Mr. Whitaker, they said, had ignored their earlier requests for information. And new information obtained by the House indicated that Mr. Whitaker had not returned funds he had been paid by the company, which the chairmen said it had requested be returned to pay victims of the fraud. To date, you have failed to respond to that letter or provide a single document that we requested, they wrote. Since that time, we have obtained new documents showing that you failed to return thousands of dollars that were supposed to be distributed to the victims of World Patent Marketing alleged fraud, despite your involvement with Mr. Cooper in handling complaints from individuals of the companys actions. And when Mr. Nadler began questioning Mr. Whitaker, the acting attorney general refused to provide details about when and how many times he had been briefed about the Russia investigation, which is led by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III. Then, when Mr. Nadler asked Mr. Whitaker if he had ever been asked to approve any request for action to be taken by Mr. Mueller, Mr. Whitaker audaciously replied: Mr. Chairman, I see that your five minutes is up. The room broke into laughter as Mr. Nadler looked up in apparent disbelief at the breach of decorum, but then grinned himself and let it slide, noting that he did not enforce the five-minute rule during Mr. Whitakers opening statement. Mr. Nadler then directed Mr. Whitaker to answer the question, please. Mr. Whitakers retorts to lawmakers soon irked Democrats. Mr. Attorney General, we are not joking here, said Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, Democrat of Texas, during one exchange. And your humor is not acceptable. But as a matter of substance, the takeaway was that Mr. Whitaker testified under oath that he had never used his position to provide inside information about the Russia inquiry to Mr. Trump or his proxies, nor had he taken any step to impede Mr. Muellers work both fears that Democrats have repeatedly expressed since Mr. Trump installed him as acting head of the department. I want to be very specific about this, Mr. Chairman, because I think it will allay a lot of fears that have existed among this committee, among the legislative branch, largely, and maybe amongst some American people, Mr. Whitaker said. We have followed the special counsels regulations to a T. Theres been no event, no decision that has required me to take any action, and Ive not interfered in any way with the special counsels investigation. Mr. Whitaker pointedly declined at multiple points, though, to defend Mr. Mueller and his investigation from accusations by Mr. Trump or others that he was conducting a witch hunt. Beyond that, negotiators remain far apart on the number of beds for families detained at the border with Mexico. There currently are enough funds allocated for 40,520 detention beds, under the control of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Democrats asked to limit the number of beds to 35,520 for the remainder of the fiscal year, and to increase funds for alternatives to the practice of family detention. Republicans want substantially more beds. Disputes like that were part of why Democratic aides on Friday played down the likelihood of a quick deal. The Democrats last official offer on funding for barriers was a little more than $500 million although privately they acknowledge they are likely to go higher. Regardless of where the talks land, the funding under discussion is another significant compromise for Mr. Trump as he struggles to fulfill his campaign promise that he would build a wall at the southwestern border. In December, he publicly dismissed a proposal for $2.5 billion as insufficient, undercutting Vice President Mike Pence, who had floated the prospect by Democrats. Mr. Leahy, a member of the bipartisan House-Senate committee negotiating the deal, declined to elaborate on any details, citing the need to keep the continuing talks private. He said that he, along with staff and other members of the 17-member committee, planned to stay in Washington this weekend to negotiate the final details and prepare to sign off on it on Monday. Because of procedural rules in the House, it is seen as the last possible day for lawmakers to unveil a deal that would prevent a government shutdown before the Feb. 15 deadline. Over the past several days, negotiators have begun discussing the potential placement of new barriers some of it likely to be bollard fencing, made of sturdy, steel slats in specific locations on the border that have seen significant increases in illegal crossings, according to two Republican aides. The walls we saw were really heavy fences, said Representative Kay Granger of Texas, the ranking Republican on the House Appropriations Committee, describing a trip to the border she took this week. She told reporters that after speaking with Border Patrol agents, she would support bollard fencing on sections of the border. WASHINGTON At Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.s confirmation hearings 14 years ago, the first dozen questions were about whether he would respect the Supreme Courts abortion precedents. He was still answering those questions Thursday night. In a surprise move, the chief justice joined the Supreme Courts liberal wing in a 5-to-4 decision blocking a Louisiana law that could have severely restricted abortion in the state. Although he offered no reason for his vote, there is little doubt that he wanted to avoid sending the message that the court was ready to discard a 2016 decision, a precedent, in which it struck down a similar Texas law. But the courts order was just three sentences long, and the stay it imposed was temporary. The case is likely to reach the court on its merits next term. And when that happens, it is hardly certain that Chief Justice Roberts will vote to strike down the Louisiana law. The seeming inconsistency is the result of competing impulses. Chief Justice Roberts is a product of the conservative legal movement, and his general approach is to lean right. But he is also an institutionalist and a guardian of his courts legitimacy, meaning he wants to make modest and deliberate moves. A crowded field of candidates for New York City public advocate launched an array of attacks and counter-attacks during the first official debate on Wednesday, some of which were true and some of which were misleading. To hold the candidates accountable, we fact-checked some of the claims several of them targeting New York City Councilman Jumaane Williams and former Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, two of the frontrunners in the race. Heres what we found. Claim: Jumaane Williams has been opposed to marriage equality. Debate response: Williams did not directly respond to nor deny this assertion, which came from Assemblyman Michael Blake. Williams answer focused on another part of Blakes question regarding his stance on abortion. Fact check: When Williams ran for council speaker in 2013, his personal belief that marriage should be between a man and a woman was among the socially conservative positions he held at the time. I personally believe the definition of marriage is between a male and a female, but that has nothing to do with my belief that government has to recognize everybody's relationships as equal, Williams told Politico in 2013. In October 2017, when running for the same position, he expressed an evolution on this stance on abortion and gay marriage in a letter to his City Council colleagues. Let me be as clear as I can. I support marriage equality for our brothers and sisters in the LGBTQIA communities. I support a womans right to have access to a safe, legal abortion, Williams said in the letter. Williams abstained in 2014 from a vote on a bill that would allow New Yorks transgender residents to change the sex listed on their birth certificate. However, this doesnt directly relate to the issue of whether Williams supports same-sex marriage. Williams has since apologized for declining to vote, citing his lack of due diligence on the substance of the bill at the time. Claim: Jumaane Williams has opposed a womans right to choose. Debate response: Williams said he never voted against a womans right to abortion. I can say fervently that I have been consistent, not only in supporting a womans right to access safe and legal abortion, but fighting for it, Williams said during the debate in response to a question from former City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito. Any time this has come up in the City Council, Ive always stood with women. Responding to a similar question from Assemblyman Michael Blake, Williams said, The fact of the matter is that I was not opposed to a womans right to access safe and legal abortions, and no where can (anyone) point to where it says that I was. Williams camp circulated a fact-sheet following the debate detailing the councilmans record on women and gender, including his efforts to fight gender-based discrimination in the workplace and domestic violence. The sheet also cites his 100 percent Planned Parenthood of New York City Action Fund rating. Fact check: Despite Williams consistent advocacy for women's issues, in the past he has declined to unequivocally state his support for abortion rights. In 2013, Williams told Politico, You have to check off a box of pro-choice and you have to check off a box of pro-life and I don't know that I'm comfortable in any of those boxes. I am personally not in favor of abortion. Williams expressed a different view in 2017, in the same letter to his colleagues about his evolution on same-sex marriage. Let me be as clear as I can, he wrote. I support marriage equality for our brothers and sisters in the LGBTQIA communities. I support a womans right to have access to a safe, legal abortion. Claim: Jumaane Williams campaign has been a sanctuary for men who are predators. Debate response: Williams didnt directly respond to this accusation from Mark-Viverito during the debate. Instead, he spoke about his long-time support of womens rights. (His fact-sheet concerning his record on women and gender is, presumably, a response to this as well.) Fact check: Mark-Viveritos statement refers to three cases of alleged misconduct related to men who have worked on, or publicly endorsed, Williams campaign. Tatek Ewart, treasurer for Williams 2009 and 2013 City Council campaigns, was fined $5,000 and targeted for firing by the Department of Education for allegations that he sent inappropriate poems to a high school student, according to the Daily News. Ewart said he never told Williams about the fine. However, he reportedly stayed on Williams staff for several months after it was reported by at least three news outlets. Williams removed state Sen. Kevin Parker, who represents a Brooklyn district, from his campaign co-chair after he tweeted Kill yourself! at a female Senate staffer. Parker has faced assault charges and other accusations of violence prior to this incident. In 2009, he was found guilty of a misdemeanor after damaging the camera of a newspaper photographer. The controversial senator remains on Williams list of endorsements on his campaign website. Bronx Councilman Andy King faced an ethics inquiry in 2017 after a female staffer accused him of making inappropriate comments to her. In 2015, a former City Council staffer accused King of sexual harassment and retaliation, claiming she was fired after she rebuffed his advances. King was found to have broken the councils anti-harassment rules. King is also listed on Williams page of endorsements on his campaign website, but has never worked on the campaign in an official capacity. Claim: NYCHA is a creature of the state. Debate response: Former Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito suggested that the state Legislature has more of a say over the troubled New York City Housing Authority than the New York City Council, which she led for four years. She argued that Assemblyman Michael Blake should do something since the state has authority over NYCHA. Both the MTA and NYCHA are creatures of the state and I have not seen leadership from those state legislators on this platform, she said. In a comment directed at Blake, she added, What has the state done? You have authority over NYCHA. What have you done? You dont have anything. Fact check: The state has been historically left out of NYCHA conversations, including the agreement reached on Jan. 31 between the federal government and the city intended to correct years of NYCHA mismanagement. Though some elected officials have been calling for the state to take more responsibility, its the mayor who appoints the boards seven members. Former City Councilman Ken Fisher, now an attorney at Cozen OConnor, said Mark-Viverito is correct from a legal point of view, but not from a practical one. From another perspective, the federal government plays more of a role than the city or the state. Its he who has the gold who makes the rule, Fisher said. In this case its HUD and Congress, not the City Council or the state Legislature. Claim: Jumaane Williams takes real estate money. Debate response: Candidate Nomiki Konst took aim at City Councilman Jumaane Williams, asserting that he was being hypocritical on housing issues. Weve had an entire City Council here, including Councilman Williams here who says hes a tenants rights activist who took thousands of dollars from the biggest pay-to-play real estate developer, the Ratner family after pledging not to and has still not given it back. Whos continuing to take real estate money in this race after pledging not to. Williams replied: Every single person on this stage has received money from someone associated with real estate. Thats just the truth. Konst shot back: Thats not true, not at all. Fact check it. Fact check: Williams agreed last year to a New York Communities for Change pledge not to take money from real estate PACs, principals or landlords, while also promising to return $35,000 in illegal corporate campaign contributions he'd taken. But his publicly available campaign filings through late October showed that he had not actually returned $15,000 of the over-the-limit contributions. Last fall, Williams also accepted donations from well-connected real estate giant Forest City Ratner and two family members of Bruce Ratner. A press release on his website posted late last month states that he did return more than $2,250 in contributions to real estate interests that violated NYCC's pledge. According to the New York City Campaign Finance Board, Williams has accepted contributions from a number of individuals who work in real estate throughout the election cycle for public advocate - though these donations are different from the major New York City-based developers targeted in the pledge. At the same time, Konsts insistence that she has never accepted any real estate money is technically untrue, according to New York City Campaign Finance Board records that show that Konst has accepted money from individuals who work in the real estate industry. Claim: Melissa Mark-Viverito cut funding to the Center for Puerto Rican Studies. Debate response: New York City Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez noted that former Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viveritos last budget as speaker cut funding to the City University of New Yorks Center for Puerto Rican Studies, known as Centro. Mark-Viverito said it was about more equitable distribution of funds, and the decrease to Centro allowed the City Council to better fund institutes for Mexican and Haitian studies. Fact check: Centro had received nearly $1 million in city funds from the fiscal year 2015, 2016 and 2017 budgets. But as the New York Post first reported, Centro received just $500,000 the year after its director Edwin Melendez refused to support controversial Mark-Viverito ally Oscar Lopez Rivera being honored in the annual Puerto Rican Day Parade. Mark-Viverito, who was born and raised in Puerto Rico, has responded before that any personal disagreements with Melendez had nothing to do with the decrease in funding. But she left out the fact that, unlike Centro, CUNYs Dominican Studies Institute didnt see its budget cut in 2018. Claim: The entrance exam for the citys elite high schools favors wealthy families. Debate response: Mayor Bill de Blasio has called for eliminating the Specialized High School Admissions Test, which is used to determine which students get attend one of the citys elite public high schools. Nomiki Konst said she is opposed to the exam, known as the SHSAT. Theres been a lot of research on who does well on these tests, and the truth is this is a socioeconomic problem. Families who have more resources usually, unfortunately, do better on these tests, because it requires a tremendous amount of preparation, Konst said, adding: It favors families who have means. Yet a debate moderator said, I think that thats not technically true. Fact check: The Konst campaign defended the candidates assertion, saying that she stands firmly behind her statement at last night's debate that financial resources and parent's wealth is a strong factor in determining how students perform on standardized tests. It is true that research has found a correlation between SAT scores and family income a point that has been made more broadly by education advocates like Diane Ravitch, who wrote in 2016 that standardized tests are best at measuring family income. Well-off students usually score in the top half of results; students from poor homes usually score in the bottom. A recent New York Times analysis of the city's elite high schools found that middle schools with the highest numbers of offers are mostly in some of New Yorks wealthiest neighborhoods, like the Upper West Side in Manhattan and Park Slope in Brooklyn. And the New York City Department of Education noted that the percentage of students in poverty at the specialized high schools is lower than the percentage of students in poverty citywide. However, there appears to be no definitive evidence that students from wealthier families do better on the SHSAT, if only for the fact that such numbers have not been calculated. I question the assertion about the test results reflecting a socioeconomic problem given the results of the test, Larry Cary, the board president of the Brooklyn Tech Alumni Foundation and a vocal defender of the SHSAT exam, said in an email. I dont believe we have information about the poverty level of applicants and who scores high enough to get an offer, but we do have data about the poverty levels of students who accept the offer of admission. While the poverty rate of the students attending the specialized schools is lower than the overall poverty rate of NYC the fact remains that 50 percent of the students qualify for free and subsidized lunch, which is substantial and belies the notion that rich kids get in and poor kids do not. Claim: Melissa Mark-Viverito wanted Amazon to come to New York City. Debate response: A debate moderator noted that then-Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito signed onto a letter in the fall of 2017 urging Amazon to site a second headquarters in New York City. Like several other candidates in the debate, Mark-Viverito blasted Amazons secret negotiations, efforts by Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio to avoid the standard land use review process and the multibillion-dollar subsidies offered to the company but she went a step further in saying that she doesnt think Amazon should be here. So why did she sign the letter if she doesnt actually want Amazon to come? The letter is because it would have gone through public review and the local communities and the local council member and the local elected would have had an opportunity to weigh in, Mark-Viverito said. We could have had public hearings, we could have exposed everything regarding Amazon, the people could have made the decision, and the local council member, who we know is opposed to the project as it stands, would have probably gone against it. Fact check: In the now-infamous letter to Amazon Chairman and CEO Jeff Bezos, Mark-Viverito joined a large contingent of New York City elected officials who wrote, We, as a united body of elected officials, urge Amazon to make New York City the home of its second corporate headquarters. Mark-Viveritos stance is inconsistent, meaning she either has changed her mind or she is contradicting herself. ATLANTA Nina Yeboah was a freshman at Georgia State University in 2004 when she heard about the pair of white fraternity brothers who had shown up at a Straight Outta Compton party in blackface. Fifteen years later, she said, it still feels traumatic to talk about what would become a moment of embarrassment and pain on the Atlanta campus. As a student of color, said Ms. Yeboah, now a writer, it kind of wakes you up to what racism is like in the community that youre in. It has been a week of waking up. What first appeared as a grotesque act of racist clowning on the part of Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia turned out not to be an aberration at his medical school in the early 1980s. A confession from Mark Herring, the states attorney general, revealed that blackface was common at other Virginia schools at the time as well. [Read more about how Mr. Northam could hold onto his office despite the scandals.] The news of other blackface episodes an ever-growing tally including yet more Virginia politicians as well as Florida officeholders led a rush to old yearbooks by reporters and others across social media. In Indiana, a law signed in 2016 by Mike Pence, then the governor, aims to ban discrimination against a fetus on things like race, sex, and disability. Though it has passed on the case before, the Supreme Court could take it up as soon as next week, and argue it next term. We are hoping to challenge Roe from this angle, the angle of discrimination, said Sue Liebel, the state director for the Susan B. Anthony List. It has never been tried before. Even if the first primary challenge does not come from Indiana, the nationwide momentum is really good news for the anti-abortion movement, she said. It probably will not be one case that will topple Roe all at once, Ms. Liebel said. It will probably be multiple pieces that will take chunks out of Roe. In Ohio, the state legislature is prepared to approve a bill this session that would ban abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected, which could be as early as six weeks into a pregnancy. Anti-abortion activist groups like Right to Life Ohio championed the bill, while abortion rights advocates have pointed out that many women and girls are not even aware that they may be pregnant that early. The legislation was initially approved by the legislature last year, but was vetoed by John Kasich, then the governor. But his successor, Mike DeWine, who like Mr. Kasich is a Republican, has said that he intends to sign the legislation. We were very hesitant on the heartbeat bill because we knew we had a hostile Supreme Court, Mike Gonidakis, the president of Right to Life Ohio, said about the court before the elevation of Justices Brett M. Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch by President Trump. The time is ripe to have the discussion now because of the current Supreme Court. We now see a pathway forward. Just three decades ago, craft distilleries were illegal on Tasmania, the remote and strikingly gorgeous island state to the south of the Australian mainland. But today, in trendy bars in the sleepy Tasmanian capital of Hobart, as well as in Melbourne and Sydney, there are entire pages on menus devoted to Tasmanian gins. On the shelf at Society Salamanca, a lively gin-focused cocktail bar near the harbor in Hobart, for example, there are now more than 40 Tasmanian gins from 26 distilleries, with more on the way. Tasmanian gin is on the rise thanks to the overturning of an archaic law banning small-scale distilling in Australia, intended to discourage backyard moonshiners and make the industry easier to control. An aspiring Tasmanian distiller challenged the federal statute in 1989, paving the way for a boom first in craft Tasmanian whiskies, and more recently, gins. Most of the gins distilled by young, small-batch entrepreneurs have popped up in the last five years. Almost every month now, you hear of a new gin in Tasmania, said Louise Radman, a self-taught gin distiller, who along with her husband, Nav Singh, started their own label, Sud Polaire, in Hobart two years ago. Its quite a young community here; its very collaborative, she said. All the other bars are really excited when you release something new or different. Lecavalier Marie-Eve Lecavalier, 30, Paris Marie-Eve Lecavalier learned to sew at age 5, with help from her grandmother. She started her career as a research assistant for Ying Gao, a professor at the Universite du Quebec a Montreal and a Montreal-based fashion designer, and went on to hold an internship at Alexander Wang, earn her masters in fashion design at the Geneva University of Art and Design and later intern at Raf Simons. Since then, she has worked in the industry as a freelancer and quietly launched her own line, Lecavalier, two years ago. Ive always wanted to start my brand, but the most important thing for me was actually just to do what I love, she says. I was aware that fashion is a really elite industry, its quite hard to make it when you are independent. Lecavalier says that its important that her pieces have quality craftsmanship. Last year, she won the prestigious Chloe Prize at the Festival dHyeres for her spring 2019 collection, which helped her brand take off. For her upcoming collection, she was inspired by her teenage years in the suburbs of her hometown, Montreal. Melancholia, emo and the skate subculture of the 2000s are reinterpreted through prints, colors and designs, she says. It recollects how I started to modify all of my clothes, and how I first got in touch with the idea of style and fashion. For thousands of years, penguins have darted through the waters of the southern oceans, chasing fish and surfacing to nest on islands and landmasses sprinkled from the Galapagos to the Antarctic. Today there are around 20 penguin species, ranging from the playful Adelie to the stately Emperor. But there once were other penguins, including a previously unknown subspecies of dwarf yellow-eyed penguin in New Zealand. You wont be seeing it any time soon. Its extinct, apparently wiped out by humans hundreds of years ago. We suspect that these Megadyptes penguins were on their way to becoming a full new species, said Theresa Cole, a graduate student at University of Otago in New Zealand and co-author of a paper about this bird and another newly discovered extinct subspecies of crested penguin. But they just didnt get a chance, because people ate them. In Australia in recent decades, the bilby, the bettong, or rat kangaroo, the brush-tailed possum and other medium-sized mammals all disappeared from the Western Desert. It was a mystery: Typically bigger animals vanish first often only after people show up. But ask the people who lived in this desert for 48,000 years what happened and many will tell you: They left. A lot of Martu people say that if theres no people out in the country, then all the animals become absent. When the people and animals are absent, then the country becomes sick or unwell. Theres no balance there, said Curtis Taylor, a filmmaker and young leader of the Martu community. With all the damage done to the planets environment in recent centuries, its easy for some to think of humans as the planets great destroyers. But in a study published Friday in Human Ecology, scientists critique this notion of a human-free wilderness. By examining how an Aboriginal Australian community have shaped their land through traditional hunting, they present an example where its not all bad to have humans around. What, then, might flip Mr. Trumps removal from impossible to inevitable? The most likely possibility is also the most obvious: the collapse of his support among center-right Republicans who so far have wavered but not completely turned against him. Whether this happens depends on future events, the most ominous of which would be the discovery of clear criminality by the president or those closest to him (including family members). Another inflection point might be an economic recession. A third might be Mr. Trumps mismanagement of a crisis. A fourth would be the continued deterioration of the presidents behavior. (By most accounts the president feels less constrained than ever.) And yet another might be the prospect that he will lead his party to comprehensive defeat in 2020, especially if he is weakened by a primary challenge. We would be surprised if one or more of these developments did not occur, and a combination is easily within the bounds of probability. Watergate showed how a presidents standing can cave in. Congressional Republicans supported and protected President Richard Nixon until the Watergate tapes provided irrefutable evidence of his wrongdoing. Then they withdrew their support and he resigned to avoid impeachment and conviction. There may be no single smoking-gun tape in Mr. Trumps case, but the sheer weight of financial and ethical wrongdoing could become too much, even for many Republicans. And todays Republican politicians, while more partisan than in Nixons day, remain acutely sensitive to public opinion. If some combination of criminality, incompetence or crisis moves the center-right against the president, his end could come quickly. If that happens, Mr. Trump might step down to avoid impeachment, particularly if he were promised clemency for himself and his family. Short of outright resignation or removal, he could suffer enough defections so that he might announce he will not seek re-election. That would be a half-measure, but one that would allow the post-Trump conversation to begin. The Johnson-Nixon era provides precedents for all of these scenarios. We understand the argument that the best result would be for voters, rather than the Republican Party, to do the job of removing Mr. Trump. But we believe this argument neglects an important reason that Mr. Trumps removal by his party would be at least as healthy, democratically speaking: It would reinvigorate the idea that political parties exist not just as vehicles for politicians but also as protectors of vital democratic norms. The most troubling and from our point of view the most disappointing development of the Trump era is not the presidents own election and subsequent behavior; it is the institutional corruption, weakness and self-betrayal of the Republican Party. The party has abandoned its core commitments to constitutional norms, to conservative principles and even to basic decency. It has allowed itself to be hijacked by a reality television star who is a pathological liar, emotionally unsteady and accountable only to himself. And Republicans have embraced presidential conduct that, had it been engaged in by a Democrat, they would have denounced as corrupt, incompetent and even treasonous. We disagree with those who think that Mr. Trumps removal by his own party would weaken democratic accountability; if anything, the opposite is true. The United States has only two major political parties, and it needs both to be healthy, rational and small-d democratic. They are our systems most durable and accountable political institutions and they comprise its first and most important line of defense against political demagogues and conscience-free charlatans. By reasserting its institutional prerogatives by setting limits to the depredations and recklessness it will accept the Republican Party would be acting to deter hijackers in the future. In doing so, it would defend our democracy, not weaken it. Whats unsettling is that the far-lefts hostility is now being mainstreamed by the not-so-far left. Anti-Zionism that is, rejection not just of this or that Israeli policy, but also of the idea of a Jewish state itself is becoming a respectable position among people who would never support the elimination of any other country in any other circumstance. And it is churning up a new wave of nakedly anti-Jewish bigotry in its wake, as when three women holding rainbow flags embossed with a Star of David at the 2017 Chicago Dyke March were ejected on grounds that the star was a trigger. How did this happen? The progressive answer is straightforward: Israel and its supporters, they say, did this to themselves. More than a half-century of occupation of Palestinian territories is a massive injustice that fair-minded people can no longer ignore, especially given Americas financial support for Israel. Continued settlement expansion in the West Bank proves Israel has no interest in making peace on equitable terms. And endless occupation makes Israels vaunted democracy less about Jewish self-determination than it is about ethnic subjugation. Theres more to the indictment, but thats the nub of it. It would be damning if it were true, or even half-true. Its not. A few facts ought at least to stir the thinking of those who subscribe to the progressive narrative. Israel's enemies were committed to its destruction long before it occupied a single inch of Gaza or the West Bank. In proportion to its size, Israel has voluntarily relinquished more territory taken in war than any state in the world. Israeli prime ministers offered a Palestinian state in 2000 and 2008; they were refused both times. The government of Ariel Sharon removed every Israeli settlement and soldier from the Gaza Strip in 2005. The result of Israels withdrawal allowed Hamas to seize power two years later and spark three wars, causing ordinary Israelis to think twice about the wisdom of duplicating the experience in the West Bank. Nearly 1,300 Israeli civilians have been killed in Palestinian terrorist attacks in this century: Thats the proportional equivalent of about 16 Sept. 11s in the United States. Also: If the Jewish state is really so villainous, why doesnt it behave more like Syrias Bashar al-Assad or Russias Vladimir Putin both of whom, curiously, continue to have prominent sympathizers and apologists on the anti-Israel left? None of this is to embrace the Likud narrative of the conflict, or support the policies of Benjamin Netanyahu, or reject the idea of Palestinian statehood, or suggest that Israel is above criticism and reproach. For the record, I support a two-state solution, just as I supported Israels withdrawal from the Gaza Strip when I was the editor of The Jerusalem Post. What it is to say is that the Israel-Palestinian conflict is far more complicated than the black-and-white picture drawn by Israels progressive critics. But the deeper flaw in progressive thinking on Israel the flaw that has resulted in this efflorescence of bigotry isnt that it rests on a faulty factual foundation. Its that its core intellectual assumptions are wrong and rotten. To the Editor: Re In 5-to-4 Decision, Justices Halt Law Curbing Abortion (front page, Feb. 8): Its hard to believe that the liberal wing of the Supreme Court now depends upon Chief Justice John Roberts as the swing vote on controversial social issues. Not sure how long that will last, but his vote on blocking the Louisiana abortion restrictions from going into effect was courageous given the unanimity on the conservative side. It does seem inevitable that Roe v. Wade will be tested head on in the near future, so liberal-minded citizens need to keep their proverbial fingers crossed that Chief Justice Roberts maintains his independent thinking and is not a rote conservative like the others. Peter C. Alkalay Scarsdale, N.Y. To the Editor: Re Trumps Assault on Abortion Rights, by Andrew M. Cuomo (Op-Ed, Feb. 7): Like Governor Cuomo, I am a practicing Catholic who believes that a country founded on the principle of religious freedom does not have the moral authority to undermine Roe v. Wade and the subsequent decisions of the Supreme Court, which has already established parameters to protect the unborn after viability. Any further restrictions would impose an undue burden on a womans right to choose. While the Catholic Church, along with some other religions, may argue that all abortions are murder, there are many Americans who do not share this belief. If the Supreme Court with its two new conservative justices should overturn Roe, it would be the equivalent of establishing a state religion, the very thing our founding fathers wanted to avoid. The Saudi heir and his friends in the White House evidently calculated that the outcry over the barbarous murder of Jamal Khashoggi would die out over time, and that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman would be free to continue on his autocratic way, repressing critics and dissidents with impunity. They were wrong. More than four months have passed since Mr. Khashoggi was savagely throttled and dismembered in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul and then discarded, but the bald lies told by the Saudi government to protect the prince including the attempt to pin the murder on 11 anonymous Saudis, of whom five are said to face execution and the cynical argument by President Trump that Saudi largesse is more important than justice, have only intensified demands for a full reckoning. The latest have come from American intelligence agencies, a United Nations investigator and a coalition of nongovernmental organizations, sources that in their diversity and breadth should serve notice on Prince Mohammed that all his oil wealth and powerful friends will not wash away the blood of the slain journalist. A report in The Times on Thursday said the National Security Agency and other American spy agencies have uncovered an intercepted conversation in which Prince Mohammed tells a top aide more than a year before Mr. Khashoggis murder that if the self-exiled journalist cannot be enticed back to Saudi Arabia, he should be brought back by force. And if that didnt work, the prince is heard to say, he would go after Mr. Khashoggi with a bullet. Mega Power Star Ram Charan's mass entertainer Vinaya Vidheya Rama directed by Boyapati Srinu gave a huge shock not only to mega fans and masses but also to mega family. The film which came after Ram Charan's Rangasthalam, tarnished his image and status completely. The filmmakers were forced to delete few scenes with defied logic. Even as many dissected what went wrong and why Boyapati caned such scenes and how Ram Charan and Mega Star Chiranjeevi gave green signal for such scenes, Ram Charan stunned all by writing an apology letter. This instead of cooling the tempers increased the fire as he did not mention Boyapati's name, which many feel that he is furious with him. Advertisement Rumors spread that Ram Charan and DVV Danayya decided to part with Rs 5crs of their remuneration each to compensate for the losses but Boyapati refused to do so. The letter came as a shock to Boyapati who is completely upset. Now inside talk is Danayya and Boyapati many times during the film shoot opposed many illogical scenes but Boyapati refused to heed to their suggestions. They even questioned Boyapati the need for the action scene in Azerbaijan but Boyapati was hell bent on shooting the action episode. What made them even more furious was Boyapati did not even re consider his decision after watching the final copy and so now Cherry and Danayya decided to ditch Boyapati finally. But now the news is about something bigger. By using a digital platform to bring his side of the story directly to the masses, Mr. Bezos has done something both admirable and also a little scary. Most revealing and I say this about a story that is lousy with revelations is that it is perhaps the best illustration of the in-your-face aggressiveness that has made him the richest man in the world and arguably the most important tech visionary since Steve Jobs. I am not sure even Mr. Jobs, the pugnacious Apple founder and chief executive who mastered the media, would have tried to pull off what Mr. Bezos has done. [Kara Swisher answered your questions on Twitter.] It was unclear how The National Enquirer got hold of this trove of obviously confidential material, but it did. So Mr. Bezos who is a person of means, to use Howard Schultzs favored term decided to use his considerable assets to find out. And why not? The digital invasion is troubling enough personally, but a high-profile businessman like Mr. Bezos has a lot of critical company secrets he needs kept that way. While what happened to him could have been as simple as someone snapping a photo of a text or photo and passing it along, it might have been much worse. The Washington Post, owned by Mr. Bezos, is reporting that his investigators think he could have been hacked by a government agency, which would be extremely troubling. But whether he was hacked, or there was a broader security breach, in this leaky internet age, its pretty much a requirement that Mr. Bezos figure out how he was compromised. As Mr. Bezos investigation continued, The Post and others floated theories that American Media had gone after Mr. Bezos for political reasons, perhaps because President Trump considers him an enemy for the work his newspaper does. On Medium, Mr. Bezos included emails from an American Media lawyer demanding that he issue a statement saying he had no basis for suggesting that A.M.I.s coverage was politically motivated or face the photos going public. If the emails are authentic, that looks pretty suspect. That new language is on full display in his prizewinning book, No Friend but the Mountains a work that encompasses, among other things, a novel, a poem, a testimony, a psychoanalytic tract and a political pamphlet. He wrote the book entirely via WhatsApp in messages sent to his translator and friend based in Sydney and Cairo, Omid Tofighian. The book is so unusual that Mr. Tofighian says it is a non-genre, and the author and translator have agreed on the umbrella term horrific surrealism to cover it. The award, which Mr. Tofighian accepted on Mr. Boochanis behalf, is a piece of that horrific surrealism. The Victorian state government is giving him this award, and the prize money, Mr. Tofighian told me, and at the same time, the federal government wont allow him into the country and is basically torturing him. Keeping him in prison indefinitely. The paradoxes are almost incomprehensible. Mr. Boochani says he has a paradoxical feeling about the prize. I really dont know what to say, he texted me. I certainly did not write this book just to win an award. My main aim has always been for the people in Australia and around the world to understand deeply how this system has tortured innocent people on Manus and Nauru in a systematic way for almost six years. I hope this award will bring more attention to our situation and create change and end this barbaric policy. Mr. Tofighian believes the implications are deeper than policy. What Behrouz wants to challenge with his book and I think hes achieving that is the ideology that drives all perceptions of refugees on all sides of politics, that these people are needy, passive and only looking for a helping hand, he said. He thinks the problem I have faced in all of my work and all of my resistance is people only see me as a refugee. Not as a thinker, not as a knowledge producer, not as a creative. And I think the book and the reward have really disrupted that. The policies they are challenging are not easily shifted. Among the Australian political class, there is a bipartisan, almost talismanic belief that governmental authority comes from a strong maritime border. The prime minister, Scott Morrison, invokes his time as minister for immigration as his chief qualification for office. This display is quite literal: On his desk is a model of a refugee boat with the legend I Stopped These written across it. Because members of the center-left Australian Labor Party support these measures as well their moral qualms may keep them up at night, but in the morning they do the same thing Australian writers, artists and intellectuals have formed some of the most vociferous opposition to the nations architecture of offshore immigration detention. Nehanda Abiodun, a radical black nationalist who was charged in the deadly botched robbery of a Brinks armored truck in 1981 and then spent decades as a fugitive in Cuba, a hero to would-be revolutionaries and a criminal to many others, died on Jan. 30 at her home in Havana. She was 68. Her death was confirmed by Henry Louis Taylor Jr., a historian who has interviewed Ms. Abiodun for a biography of her he is writing with Linda McGlynn, a social worker and senior research fellow at the University at Buffalo, where Professor Taylor also teaches urban planning. Self-described revolutionaries belonging to the Weather Underground and the Black Liberation Army committed a rash of domestic bombings and hijackings in the 1960s and 70s in what they called resistance to the United States government. Ms. Abiodun (pronounced ah-BEE-oh-dun) was suspected of conspiring with members of both groups. The radicals were charged with attacks against government targets and with helping another revolutionary, Assata Shakur (who was known as Joanne Chesimard before choosing an African name), escape in 1979 from a prison in New Jersey. Ms. Shakur had been convicted in the killing of a New Jersey state trooper in a shootout in 1973. The groups supported their activities with armed robberies. [What you need to know to start the day: Get New York Today in your inbox.] Five years ago, Norman Seabrook was one of the most politically powerful figures in New York City, the longtime leader of the 20,000-member union representing correction officers. For two decades, he had the ear of mayors, governors and lawmakers from City Hall to Albany to Washington. He was an unapologetic champion for his members and exerted extraordinary control over the citys Correction Department, shaping policy and even influencing key management appointments in the citys jails. But on Friday, Mr. Seabrook stood before a federal judge in Manhattan and was sentenced to 58 months in prison, the final chapter in a remarkable fall from grace that began when federal prosecutors started asking questions about his handling of the unions funds. Mr. Seabrook, 58, was convicted in August in a corruption trial. The evidence showed that he had steered $20 million from the union, the Correction Officers Benevolent Association, into a risky hedge fund, in exchange for a promised kickback worth more than $100,000. Can anything go right with the L train? It was going to be shut down for repairs. Then it wasnt, but the alternative repair plan is expected to cause extreme crowding on a line already famed for packed platforms. Then came the smell of burning oil. For most of the week, noxious odors on the L have made passengers and transit workers feel ill. It started on Tuesday. After people complained about the smell of gas, service was suspended for hours. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority said the problem was caused by diesel fuel leaking from a tank under a defunct gas station, The Daily News reported. By Wednesday, transit workers were wearing masks. On Thursday, my colleague Nate Schweber went to investigate. Seeing any of these products outside the shop, youd never know Etna made them. Mr. Galuppo did not use a signature or identify his clients, a tradition Ms. Galuppo continued in conversation. Some customers wanted to prevent the competition from learning about their suppliers. Others, especially the big architects You would know their names, Ms. Galuppo said might have suggested they made products in-house that actually came from Etna. As a result, the business was more influential than widely known. Consider the tattoo industry. Michelle Myles, the co-owner of Daredevil Tattoo and its Tattoo Museum, along with employees at Fineline Tattoo and Fun City Tattoo, two of the oldest parlors in New York, all said that the citys largest supplier of tattoo equipment was Unimax Supply Company, and that they had never heard of Etna Tool & Die. But Wes Wood, 77, the founder and owner of Unimax, said that as his business grew, he started to get 90 percent of his equipment from Etna all of the tubes, frames, grips, springs, and needle bars that make up a tattoo machine, the remains of which still litter 42-44 Bond. By the 1980s and 90s, industry was vanishing from NoHo. The neighborhood became associated instead with artists and punks, represented most famously by CBGB. Tattooing remained illegal until 1997, but that did not scare away Etna, which adapted to the times. At one point, Mr. Wood said, every tattoo parlor in New York was using gear made by Etna. [Update: Amazon said it was canceling plans to build a corporate campus in New York City.] Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Friday ratcheted up the pressure on political opponents of a deal to bring Amazon to New York City, warning that they would face the wrath of voters if the company pulled out and took with it tens of thousands of jobs. While some local opposition was to be expected, Mr. Cuomo said, the projects political opponents were being unreasonable. Ive never seen a more absurd situation, the governor said at an unrelated event on Long Island. Mr. Cuomos comments came as tensions over the deal for Amazon to build a vast corporate campus in Queens have been simmering for days, with company executives chafing at what appeared to be new roadblocks to the move. The selection of a vocal Amazon opponent to a crucial state board with potential veto power over the deal riled those inside Amazon and inside of the governors mansion according to two people with knowledge of the discussions. Executives have grown increasingly frustrated that the company is not being welcomed in New York as it has been in Virginia and Nashville, two other places where Amazon is adding corporate offices. You wont find many people in Hollywood who say theyre happy that Daniel Day-Lewis declined to do their project, but that happened with Philadelphia, the Oscar-winning AIDS drama that 25 years ago led to one of the most memorable acceptance speeches in academy history. We were making a really serious drama, and Daniel brings that kind of weight, the films screenwriter, Ron Nyswaner, recalled in a recent phone interview. But the esteemed British actor turned down the role of Andrew Beckett, a stricken gay lawyer who sues his firm for firing him, in the director Jonathan Demmes drama. Then Tom Hanks presented himself, Nyswaner continued, and it was Jonathans genius to see that Tom would bring that lighter touch and that invitation for the audience to come along for the ride. That they did. The movie grossed more than $200 million worldwide, and Hanks, who won best actor at the 1994 Academy Awards (the first of his two Oscars), tearfully thanked his wife, Rita Wilson and his co-workers on Philadelphia. Then he shined a spotlight on two private citizens. LONDON Albert Finney, the British stage and film actor who defined an eras rage and frustration in dramas of blue-collar realism and social revolt and went on to find stardom in Hollywood, died on Thursday in London. He was 82. His death, at the Royal Marsden Hospital, was confirmed by Jon Oakley, a partner at Simkins, a law firm that represents the Finney family. The cause was a chest infection, he said. Mr. Finney became one of his generations finest and most honored actors over six decades. A frequent nominee for an Oscar and Britains equivalent of one, the Bafta, he was a star as comfortable in movies like Tom Jones, Murder on the Orient Express, Under the Volcano and Erin Brockovich as he was on the classical British stage. He first came to wide attention alongside contemporaries like Alan Bates and Tom Courtenay, actors collectively known as angry young men counterparts to the playwrights and novelists who shared that sobriquet. Together they helped turn Britains gaze inward, toward gritty industrial landscapes, where a generation of disaffected youth railed against the class system and the claustrophobic trap it laid for workers locked in dead-end jobs. At War is a newsletter about the experiences and costs of war. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox every Friday. I have two Moleskine notebooks, from each of my deployments to Afghanistan the first in 2008 and the second in 2009 and 2010. For each entry, youll find the date, a few events, maybe a map or a list of acronyms. In the back I wrote the names of our platoon dogs, the books I read and the things I was going to buy when/if I got home. Below are entries from three days that happened almost exactly nine years ago, during the 72 hours before Operation Moshtarak, the helicopter assault on the town of Marjah in Helmand Province. I was a 22-year-old rifleman with First Battalion, Sixth Marines. It was the first big mission of President Obamas 30,000-troop surge. All of my friends were still alive Back then we felt as if what came next would decide the end of the war, that Marjah was the Talibans last hold in a country that desperately wanted them gone. We were young and wrong. Kriti Sanon stole the hearts of all with her hot looks romancing Super Star Mahesh Babu in 1-Nenokkadine and she went on to romance Naga Chaitanya in her second film Dochay. She later flew to Bollywood and after sharing screen presence with Bollywood Badhsah Shah Rukh Khan in Dilwale, she is now busy with numerous crazy projects like Luka Chuppi, Kalank, Arjun Patiala, Housefull 3 and Panipat. Despite her busy schedule, Kriti is hogging the limelight for her relationship with Sushant Singh Rajput whom she romanced in Raabta. With rumors about her live in relationship spreading like wildfire, Kriti decided to put an end saying she likes Sushant Singh Rajput but is against live in relation. Advertisement On the rumors she added, "Maine bhi bahot kuch padha hai, it's like a daily soap," She went on to reveal, "I don't judge people who are in live-in relationships, but the kind of family I come from, it's not morally acceptable. So I wouldn't opt for it. At the same time, I've told my parents that I would also never agree to an arranged marriage. It's very important for me to know the person I'm going to spend the rest of my life with." The following report compiles all significant security incidents confirmed by New York Times reporters throughout Afghanistan from the past seven days. It is necessarily incomplete as many local officials refuse to confirm casualty information. The report includes government claims of insurgent casualty figures, but in most cases these cannot be independently verified by The Times. Similarly, the reports do not include Taliban claims for their attacks on the government unless they can be verified. Both sides routinely inflate casualty totals for their opponents. At least 85 pro-government forces and three civilians were killed in Afghanistan during the past week a spike in casualties among pro-government security forces compared to last week. The deadliest attack took place in Kunduz, where at least 30 Afghan security force members were killed in Taliban attacks on four security outposts in the Telawka area of Kunduz City, the provincial capital. [Read the Afghan War Casualty Report from previous weeks.] Feb. 6 Zabul Province: seven soldiers killed The Taliban overran military outposts in Arghandab District, killing seven soldiers and seizing all of the weapons and equipment. Local officials claimed that the Taliban also suffered casualties, but they did not provide exact figures. Feb. 5 Nangarhar Province: one militia member killed One pro-government militia member was killed and two others were wounded when a magnetic bomb attached to their vehicle exploded in the center of Shinwar District. Is your definition of a normal family two married parents and their biological children living together under one roof? If not, what do you think a family is or can be? Who is your family? What do you think holds a family together? Is it biological relationships? Love and support? Sharing the same home? In Whats a Normal Family, Anyway? Claire Haug writes: Its a typical Thursday night and my family is gathered in the kitchen of my childhood home. Theres me, freshly returned from college, helping my mom set the table; my half brother, also home on break, debating our father about politics; and my half siblings mother chiding my half sister for Snapchatting with her high school friends. If it took you a minute to process the relationships I just described, dont worry you are far from the only one. Ill give my best simplified description of our family: my mother, my half siblings mother and our father were friends living in the Bay Area in the 90s. At the time, both women were in their 30s and wanted to have children but neither had a long-term partner. My father, a gay man and also partnerless, agreed to be their donor and, if things worked out, involved in their childrens lives. My brother was born in March 1997, followed by me in October of the same year, and my half sister came along three years later. As a child I got strange looks when I told people that my brother was seven months older than me. But I just thought of us as a family that happened to live in three separate households. Even growing up in Berkeley, Calif., which is generally known for being culturally diverse and politically progressive, my family structure has struck people as unconventional. Ive had trouble explaining it to just about everyone, including friends Ive known for years and financial aid administrators. It seems hard for people to get that you can have a family with parents who were never married, and that some women might choose to conceive and raise a child without a husband. But unconventional families like mine are becoming increasingly common: the number of two-parent households has been in steady decline since the 1960s, dropping from 87 percent of households in 1960 to 69 percent in 2014, according to the Pew Research Center. The report notes that the declining share of children living in what is often deemed a traditional family has been largely supplanted by the rising shares of children living with single or cohabiting parents. She continues: Family should be, above all else, about love I hope we can all agree on that. Perhaps its time for us to prioritize finding love through community and friendships in the same way many of us prioritize finding romantic love. Maybe one day that will be conventional. Students, read the entire article, then tell us: What does family mean to you? Do you count only those bound to you by blood or legal ties, or do friends or other kinds of communities also fill some of the traditional role of family for you? Who is your family, however you define that word? What role does your family play in your life in general? Ms. Haug writes: But can anyone really say their experience of family was perfect? My parents have shown me that friendships can be just as important as romantic relationships, and that its possible to live a fulfilling life without defining your life by a single long-term relationship. How could that be bad? Do you agree? Do you think friendships can be just as important as romantic relationships? Should having a single long-term relationship be the universal goal for living a fulfilling life? Does society need a more expansive definition of family, in your opinion? Why or why not? The phrase cocktail safety may sound like an oxymoron, or the punch line of a barroom joke. After all, were talking about alcohol, and a brandy Alexander is hardly as harmless as a smoothie. But as modern bartenders dig into their cocktail chemistry sets for new techniques and arcane ingredients, Camper English, a drinks writer in San Francisco, decided it was time to create a website to head off potential disaster: CocktailSafe.org. Bartenders today are obsessed with experimentation, which I think is for the best, Mr. English said. But its often confusing as to what is safe and what is legal to use in beverages. There are a surprising number of cocktail components and procedures to be worried about. The websites index lists more than 60, including fat-washing, in which a spirit is mixed with the oils of a solid, such as bacon or nuts, then frozen; the fat separates and is scraped away, leaving its flavor behind. Botulism is a concern, Mr. English said. What do you get? In this latest round of 20 Under $20, I picked up a beautiful sparkling wine from the Savoie region of France, a gorgeous Barbera dAlba, an exceptional semillon from the Margaret River in Western Australia, five excellent American bottles, a lovely fino sherry and three very different rieslings, each superb. Many of the people who object to my suggested price range have found cheaper wines that they like. These are generally bottles produced in the millions, like La Vieille Ferme, a straightforward, unpretentious blend available in red, white or rose from the southern Rhone Valley that costs less than $8 a bottle and can be found just about anywhere. Dont get me wrong, La Vieille Ferme and wines like it are fine. You cannot do much better for the price, and you can do a lot worse. But these are not transporting wines. You are not likely to wonder where they come from, where those flavors have been all your life or what sort of people made that wine. As for those French people, forgive me for dispelling the myth that the French are all in on some colossal joke about the money other people spend on wine. Visit any French supermarket and you will find a universe of wretched bottles for around 5 euros each, and plenty of French consumers who are happy to buy them. The fact is that most French people, like most Americans, do not want to spend much on wine and are happy with what they drink, even if critics do not think much of these bottles. But a smaller group of consumers wants something more, and these avid wine lovers are willing to spend a little extra. Want climate news in your inbox? Sign up here for Climate Fwd:, our email newsletter. WASHINGTON Even though talk of a Green New Deal is getting louder in Congress, the odds of major federal climate legislation passing in the next two years remain extremely low. Its a different story at the state level, however: The midterm elections in the fall brought in a new wave of governors who are now setting climate goals for their states and laying out more ambitious plans to cut emissions and expand low-carbon energy. In the past month, newly elected Democratic governors in Michigan, Illinois and New Mexico have joined the United States Climate Alliance, a group of 19 states and Puerto Rico that has vowed to uphold the Paris climate agreement despite President Trumps disavowal of the accord. With the new additions, the alliance now covers one-third of Americas greenhouse gas emissions and nearly half its population. It essentially says to the world that Michigan is going to live up to the promise that we, as a country, made at one point to address climate change, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan said when she announced that her state would join the alliance and establish a new office of climate and energy. PRAGUE In an attempt to push back against attempts to limit its reach in Europe, the Chinese technology giant Huawei threatened legal action against the Czech Republic if its cybersecurity agency did not rescind its warning about the risk the company poses to the nations critical infrastructure. As nations across Europe take the first steps to reconfigure the systems that control the internet, Huaweis threat was the latest salvo in the escalating war over who will control the hardware that will underpin the new 5G, or fifth-generation, networks. For more than a year, the United States has been engaged in a global campaign aimed at limiting the reach of Chinese telecommunication firms, contending that they pose a threat to security. While American officials have not offered specific details to support their concerns, they have pointed to Chinas National Intelligence Law, passed in 2017. They say the law requires Chinese companies to support, provide assistance to and cooperate in Beijings national intelligence work, wherever they operate. Mr. Sanders would also eliminate dynasty trusts, which allow families to shelter colossal holdings from taxes as they pass from one generation to the next. His office estimated that the bill would raise at least $315 billion over 10 years. Aside from his policy particulars, Mr. Sanders has been explicit in his broader aims to restrain a homegrown aristocracy that inherits entrenched power and money. In announcing his tax proposal, he quoted Teddy Roosevelts warning about the dangers of a small class of enormously wealthy individuals whose chief object is to hold and increase their power, and underscored the moral and political imperative to put some limits on dynastic wealth. It is a very dangerous and unjust situation where so few have so much and so many have so little, Mr. Sanders said in an interview. When 46 percent of all new income goes to the top 1 percent, who believes that that is right or that that is good for the economy? Ms. Warren and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez have expressed similar sentiments. Warning of a poisoned democracy, Ms. Warren said government had become a tool for the wealthy and well-connected. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez told an interviewer. I do think that a system that allows billionaires to exist when there are parts of Alabama where people are still getting ringworm because they dont have access to public health is wrong. What more moderate candidates are proposing If such comments inspire supporters, they also reveal potential divisions among the rising crop of Democrats. The left-leaning Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, Ms. Warren and Mr. Sanders are all viewed as less business-friendly than Ms. Gillibrand, Mr. Booker and Ms. Harris, who have not made taxes on the rich a centerpiece of their public pitches. In that sense the latter trio is following the example set by Hillary Clinton in the 2016 campaign and President Barack Obama before her, with comparatively establishment-minded thinking on progressive taxation. Ms. Harris, for example, was asked at a Drake University town hall in Des Moines about the morality of multibillionaires in a society with so many poverty-stricken children; she responded by calling for more taxes on the top 1 percent. Yet the California Democrats language, approach and proposals have a distinctly different tone than, say, that of Mr. Sanders, and she has not focused her campaign so far on attacking the wealthy or warning about an oligarchy. Her tax bill offers credits up to $6,000 for families earning less than $100,000 a year, without providing many details of who would make up the difference. Good Friday. Want this by email? Sign up here. Bezos lays bare his National Enquirer fight Jeff Bezos last night accused The National Enquirer of extortion and blackmail with a very public account of a conspiracy theory involving the White House, an affair and at least one below the belt selfie. Context: In December, the tabloid published an expose of Mr. Bezoss affair with a TV personality, Lauren Sanchez, minutes after the Amazon chief announced that he was separating from his wife. The Enquirer published what it said were text messages between Mr. Bezos and Ms. Sanchez. The political angle: Speculation ensued that the report had arisen out of the closeness of The Enquirers chief, David Pecker, to the White House. Mr. Trumps former lawyer, Michael Cohen, has admitted asking the publisher to pay $150,000 to a former Playboy model, Karen McDougal, to protect Mr. Trumps election prospects, after she claimed to have had an affair with Mr. Trump. And Mr. Trump apparently has a distaste for reporting on him by the WaPo, which Mr. Bezos owns. The alleged blackmail: This week, according to emails published by Mr. Bezos, a lawyer for The Enquirers parent company, American Media Inc., proposed withholding compromising photographs. In exchange, the billionaire would publicly deny that The Enquirers coverage was politically motivated. Youre the worlds richest man, you are making public allegations of blackmail and extortion and mentioning photos of your semi-erect manhood. You can probably use any language you choose. But complexifier? Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, threw that multisyllabic hand grenade into his 2,100 word-blog post as he described his accusations against American Media Inc., the publisher of The National Enquirer. Heres a piece of context: My ownership of the Washington Post is a complexifier for me. Its unavoidable that certain powerful people who experience Washington Post news coverage will wrongly conclude I am their enemy. Its a term that threw some readers for a loop. ATLANTA Theres a lot that is not for sale at For Keeps, a little bookstore with brick walls on Auburn Avenue, which for decades had been the center of commerce, culture and spirit for this city people call Black Mecca . That copy of Jet magazine from 1964, the one with Alan Alda and Diana Sands on the cover, illustrating an article about interracial romances in the theater? Not for sale. The book of Swahili names for your baby, or that copy of The African Communist? Nope. But you are welcome to spend all day here reading, if you like. Thats the point. The reason Im not selling them is because I want people to have as many interactions with them as they can, said Rosa Duffy, 28, a visual artist with deep Atlanta roots who opened the bookstore in November. There is plenty to buy, of course. Her shelves hold used black-lit classics from authors like Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou and Ralph Ellison. If theyre well worn, thats all the better. Posted Friday, February 8, 2019 9:56 am Washington state lawmakers got another pay raise, which will boost their salary about 17 percent (more than $8,000 a year) over the next two years from the current $48,731 a year to $56,881. Do they deserve the higher pay? Perhaps. How many voters are getting a 17 percent raise over the next two years? Very, very few. Unfortunately, it's really not the public's business what lawmakers and other state officials are paid since voters in 1986 took politics -- and essentially themselves -- our of the process. Voters approved a change to the state constitution that established the Washington Citizens' Commission on Salaries for Elected Officials. As a result, the Commission has no public oversight over its decisions. Voters made a dumb decision 30 years ago and it haunts us today. Certainly something needs to be done. Ultimately, we believe the power to set salaries should be with the Legislature. The Legislature should set the salaries for its members' next term in office as well as those of other elected officials. In order to receive that salary, they and the other officials must face the voters. And if the voters are not happy with the pay for their elected officials, they can vote the lawmakers who established the salaries out of office. The threat of a voter backlash would likely be enough to bring thoughtful debate to the process. It's a check on the salary scale getting out of control. As it is now, the salaries have been on a sharp trajectory upward following the Great Recession. In its latest round of salary increases, the 17-member Commission included an annual cost-of-living adjustments for all those positions of 2 percent in 2019 and another 2 percent in 2020. The Commission's members are chosen randomly in a drawing in which one voter from each of the 10 congressional districts is picked. The remaining seven members are selected from representatives of labor, higher education, business, personnel management and attorneys by the speaker of the House and the Senate president. The Commission holds the sole authority to set pay and it can't reduce elected officials' salaries. All statewide elected officials as well as judges got pay hikes too. For example, Gov. Jay Inslee, Attorney General Bob Ferguson and Treasurer Duane Davidson will get $1,500 raises in 2019 and another $1,500 in 2020, The Seattle Times reported. This means the governor's will be $187,353 by 2020, attorney general $172,259 and treasurer $153,615. Now, to be fair, these salaries don't seem outrageously high for the responsibility of the office. Again, the new salaries might be appropriate but it just feels wrong that they are set without public oversight. The Commission system should go away. Theater: Jake Gyllenhaal at the Public Through March 31, publictheater.org. Jake Gyllenhaal was already a movie star in 2012, when he first set foot on a New York stage, playing a neer-do-well in Nick Paynes If There Is I Havent Found It Yet. In 2015, when Gyllenhaal made his Broadway debut, it was as a bumbling lover in Paynes brainy-romantic Constellations. A Life is their latest collaboration, with Gyllenhaal as a man whose heart is too mired in mourning to love the way he needs it to. A monologue, its part of a double bill directed by Carrie Cracknell, in previews for an opening on Thursday, Feb. 14, at the Public Theater in Manhattan. The other half of the program is Sea Wall, written by the Tony Award winner Simon Stephens and starring Tom Sturridge Gyllenhaals co-star in the new Netflix movie Velvet Buzzsaw and a veteran of Stephenss savage Punk Rock. Stephens here is far more tender, yet no less aware of mortality: Even in a sun-dappled life will come a moment when the ground falls abruptly away. LAURA COLLINS-HUGHES Whats it like for you and Stephen to work together again after True Blood? We love working together. Its our happy place. Thats how we met, how we found love. Theres a shorthand and a trust thing thats just hard to replicate with other people. Join Times theater reporter Michael Paulson in conversation with Lin-Manuel Miranda, catch a performance from Shakespeare in the Park and more as we explore signs of hope in a changed city. For a year, the Offstage series has followed theater through a shutdown. Now were looking at its rebound. How was it being directed by him in The Parting Glass? I had a very small role in as far as screen time. I was predominately producing, and a large amount of my job was putting out the fires before he had to know about them so that he could focus on steering the ship. It was Toronto in the middle of winter and at the time, I want to say Ed Asner who has an enormous role in the film and is mentally sharper than a razor blade and amazing was 87. And it sounds horrible, but also kind of funny: Every day wed get to the end of the day and go, Oh my God, were so relieved were not the ones who killed Ed Asner. Like, he didnt slip on black ice today. Literally. No one blinks in Flack when it becomes obvious that Robyn has sex with men and women. But in 2010, it was big news when you announced that youre bisexual. Thoughts? That was already in the script so I cant take any credit for being like, Oh hey, lets wave some rainbow flags. And I guess if youre open and upfront and refuse to buy into the narrative where its actually a big deal or even, frankly, interesting, it normalizes things. Im not stupid but I dont on any emotional level understand why other peoples sexuality is anybodys business, other than the person that theyre in a relationship with. And I think the more vocal people are about it, the more this becomes a really mundane sort of footnote in their bio as opposed to the only thing that people want to talk about. You are playing the adult Joanie in the upcoming final season of Showtimes The Affair, one of my favorite shows. Can you spoil it for me? Im sorry but Ive spent so many years with projects and series where plot is king and spoilers are executable offenses. So good luck. [Laughs] Instead of watching the State of the Union address on Tuesday, I heard Messiaens Quartet for the End of Time in the crypt of a church. As part of the Crypt Sessions series at the Church of the Intercession in Harlem, the piece got a mystical and moving performance from a makeshift group: Yoonah Kim, clarinet; Orion Weiss, piano; Stefan Jackiw, violin; and Jay Campbell, cello. They played with the synchronicity of a seasoned ensemble, nailing exposed and dangerous passages like the octave runs in the Interlude and Tangle of Rainbows. In the extreme intimacy of the crypt, you could hear the click-clack of the clarinets keys, and the airy sounds of bows on strings. Up close, the quartet seemed to deal only in disorienting extremes, like the alternating alarms and chirps, both chilling and playful, in Abyss of the Birds, a lengthy solo played with inexhaustible virtuosity by Ms. Kim. And proximity lifted Praise to the Eternity of Jesus, a duet for cello and piano (heard here in a luxury-casting album from 2017), to the sublime. JOSHUA BARONE And on the secrecy point, theres more to say. It came up again when we were on the panel, when an audience member asked how it affects Australian politics and news media. There are a lot of answers to that question but the one I emphasized involved the dearth of independent data. You can watch the Twitter livestream here to see exactly what I said, but heres a slightly fuller explanation with a couple of the examples I had in mind. Exhibit A: Immigration and Egalitarianism Australia is in the midst of a heated debate about how much immigration is too much, but theres a lot we dont know (beyond anecdotal cases) about who gets in or turned down and how that might be changing. The Department of Home Affairs did not publicly release last years annual immigration report so we can all see how the system works. Rather, a few months ago, just a piece of it leaked to The Australian noting a migration decrease, in line with The Australians conservative politics. Our requests for the raw data and full report have been repeatedly denied. More broadly, when it comes to research around race and discrimination, Australia has fewer trustworthy statistical sources than it needs, whether its about achievement in schools, health care, or other sectors that might help the country see how its multiculturalism plays out in public institutions. Academics tell me the data collection either isnt there, hampering in-depth analysis, or its in bits and pieces. SYDNEY, Australia The Australian Parliament said on Friday that hackers had tried to break into its computer network, which includes lawmakers email archives, but that so far there were no indications that data had been stolen. Following a security incident on the parliamentary computing network, a number of measures have been implemented to protect the network and its users, Parliaments presiding officers, Tony Smith and Scott Ryan, said in a joint statement. All users have been required to change their passwords. This has occurred overnight and this morning. There is no evidence that any data has been accessed or taken at this time, however this will remain subject to ongoing investigation, the statement read. Australian news outlets reported that security agencies were investigating the possibility that a foreign government was behind the attack, possibly Chinas. WASHINGTON The Army has issued a new reprimand to the leader of the Green Beret team that was ambushed in 2017 in Niger. Capt. Michael Perozeni was cited in a letter dated Jan. 16 for not performing proper pre-mission training before the mission that led to the ambush, according to military officials. The reprimand, issued by Lt. Gen. Francis M. Beaudette, the head of the Armys Special Operations Command, will go into Captain Perozenis local personnel file, meaning it should not follow him throughout his military career. Four American soldiers and five Nigerien troops were killed in the Oct. 4, 2017, ambush while searching for a militant linked to the Islamic State. Some of the governors allies have argued that if Mr. Northam can weather the short-term frenzy, the bully pulpit of public office may offer him his surest path to redemption, and to making amends with constituents who feel betrayed. Indeed, some of the Democrats who demanded his resignation have already begun curbing the efforts to force him out, and the governor has been meeting with some of his critics. I dont think that he would have invited us if he was not remorseful, said Dr. Charles Steele Jr., the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, who had previously called for Mr. Northams resignation but met with the governor on Wednesday at the Executive Mansion. Dr. Steele, whose organizations first president was the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., said he and the governor discussed reconciliation, and not the politics of a resignation. But Mr. Northam has not had to look far into history for precedents of governors hunkering down in office despite scandals. Robert Bentley of Alabama managed to last more than a year after he was accused of sexual misconduct. In Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, who was accused of trying to trade away a Senate seat, clung to office until he was impeached and removed by the Legislature. Eric Greitens of Missouri resigned, but only after a rocky four-and-a-half months that included a felony indictment. One of Mr. Northams predecessors in Virginia, Robert F. McDonnell, endured some calls for his resignation and finished his term under a legal cloud. (He was later found guilty of conspiracy, bribery and extortion, but the United States Supreme Court overturned his convictions.) And Mark Sanford of South Carolina acknowledged an extramarital affair in 2009 but stayed through the end of his term in 2011, and was later elected to Congress. If you really go back and look at it in an even-keeled way, Sanford benefited from staying in office, said Mr. Bauer, who stood to succeed Mr. Sanford. Had Sanford just resigned, it would have been great for Andre, but he would have left on a low point. He stayed in office and reinvented himself with the time he had left. History will judge him on his whole period, and not just leaving office. The officials said Mr. Rays imam could visit him shortly before the execution and observe it from a viewing room. But they would not allow the imam into the execution chamber. The chaplain was allowed to be present, the officials went on, because he was an employee of the prison system who was a member of the execution team and was familiar with the technicalities of the execution protocol, having attended almost every execution in the state since 1997. The chaplain kneels and prays with inmates who seek pastoral care, the officials said. After considering Mr. Rays request, prison officials agreed to exclude the chaplain. But they said allowing the imam to be present raised unacceptable safety concerns. A unanimous three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta, stayed the execution, saying Mr. Ray had presented a powerful Establishment Clause claim. We are exceedingly loath to substitute our judgment on prison procedures for the determination of those officials charged with the formidable task of running a prison, let alone administering the death penalty in a controlled and secured manner, Judge Stanley Marcus wrote. Nevertheless, in the face of this limited record, it looks substantially likely to us that Alabama has run afoul of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The appeals court put Mr. Rays appeal on a fast track, with briefing to have been completed in a little more than a month. On Wednesday, lawyers for Alabama filed an emergency application asking the Supreme Court to vacate the stay of execution in the case, Dunn v. Ray, No. 18A815. The state should be allowed, they wrote, to proceed with the serious and solemn responsibility of conducting executions in an orderly and secure fashion. In response, lawyers for Mr. Ray urged the justices to allow the litigation to move forward in the appeals court. Mr. Ray does not dispute that the state has an interest in enforcing its judgments, they wrote. But it does not have an interest in doing so unconstitutionally. In her dissent on Thursday, Justice Kagan wrote that the majority had acted with unseemly haste. Ray has put forward a powerful claim that his religious rights will be violated at the moment the state puts him to death, she wrote. The 11th Circuit wanted to hear that claim in full. Instead, this court short-circuits that ordinary process and itself rejects the claim with little briefing and no argument just so the state can meet its preferred execution date. During the first two years of the Trump administration, when Democrats were in the minority, they bristled when officials like Mr. Sessions refused to answer their questions about communications with the president on the grounds that Mr. Trump might, in the future, want to invoke executive privilege over them even though Mr. Trump never actually did so. Executive privilege is a power that presidents have claimed under the Constitution to prevent Congress from gaining access to internal executive branch information, like confidential communications between the president and his advisers. But such information is not legally shielded from Congress by default; rather, the president is supposed to choose whether to invoke executive privilege in any particular instance at the cost of accepting any political fire for keeping that information secret. With Democrats now in control of the House, Mr. Nadler is trying to avoid such stonewalling. On Jan. 22, Mr. Nadler sent Mr. Whitaker a letter outlining questions that Democrats might ask him about his conversations with Mr. Trump and asked him to consult the White House ahead of time about whether Mr. Trump would invoke the privilege over them. Absent such an invocation, Mr. Nadler wrote that the committee would otherwise expect answers at the hearing. If a witness refuses to answer a question during a congressional hearing without a legal right to do so, the House can vote to hold him in contempt. Congress can then ask the Justice Department to prosecute him or file a lawsuit asking a judge to order the witness to provide the information, raising the further possibility of being imprisoned for contempt of court. But a valid assertion of executive privilege would provide a lawful basis for declining to answer. In 2012, Eric H. Holder Jr. was the first attorney general to be held in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a subpoena for information. Justice Department officials then declined to prosecute Mr. Holder, saying they had the discretion to not prosecute an executive branch official who claims executive privilege. But the Justice Department has long considered a subpoena to be a necessary precursor to Congress holding an executive branch official in contempt. Its letter to Mr. Nadler demanding that he agree not to issue the subpoena during the hearing, therefore, amounted to a demand that he not initiate contempt proceedings against Mr. Whitaker during the hearing and instead commit to negotiating over any disputed information afterward, once any questions have actually been asked. We cannot understand this measure other than as an attempt to circumvent the constitutionally required accommodation process and thereby to transform the hearing into a public spectacle, the departments letter said. You see Mr. Manafort changing his story so as not to implicate others, Mr. Andres told the judge. Mr. Weissmann said that in several instances, Mr. Manafort went out of his way to withhold evidence that could have been used against Mr. Kilimnik. Mr. Manaforts lawyers have argued that Mr. Manafort never deliberately lied, but only inadvertently misstated certain facts. In at least one case, Judge Jackson seemed sympathetic to that argument. She pointed out that Mr. Manafort had corrected himself in the very same session, asking, Why would this be something that we would characterize as the crime of making an intentionally false statement? But the judge seemed to consider other statements by Mr. Manafort to be more seriously misleading. And the prosecutors argued that Mr. Manaforts misstatements were not minor at all, but had bearing on continuing criminal investigations. They said that Mr. Manafort had tried to obfuscate the truth about his use of $125,000 from a pro-Trump political action committee to pay his legal bills. At the time, he was facing criminal investigations that ultimately led to his conviction for 10 felonies, including tax fraud, bank fraud and conspiracy. Mr. Weissmann described that arrangement as to put it charitably, a scheme, and that Mr. Manafort lied to hide knowledge of it. He stressed that information about that element of the case, apparently involving suspected kickbacks from the political action committee, was being kept secret a hint that a criminal inquiry is continuing. The prosecutors also suggested that they are continuing to look into Mr. Manaforts dealings with Mr. Kilimnik. Mr. Manafort and Mr. Kilimnik maintained ties both during the five months that Mr. Manafort worked for Mr. Trumps campaign and after Mr. Manafort was fired as campaign chairman in August 2016, prosecutors said. The special counsels office is claiming that Mr. Manafort lied about the number of times that he and Mr. Kilimnik discussed a plan that apparently would have eased American-led sanctions against Russia in exchange for certain concessions that Russia would make regarding Ukraine. Russias invasion of Ukraine provoked the imposition of sanctions that the Kremlin wants lifted. Posted Friday, February 8, 2019 9:48 am RICHLAND A young man recalled Thursday the day in high school when he was questioned by a Richland detective. The detective asked the teen if he'd ever agreed to being photographed naked. The officer then showed him the photos taken by Zayne K. Barbre. "When I saw what he had done, I felt shattered," the now college-aged victim said Thursday in U.S. District Court in Richland. At the time, the teen vomited in the police station's parking lot before getting in his car. At home he showered still in his clothes, crawled into bed without changing and cried for hours. He felt broken, filthy, violated, defiled and wanted to die. Thursday, almost two years since learning he was the victim of child pornography, the man asked a federal judge to show Barbre, 29, no mercy and send him away for 28 years. "I don't want him to hurt people like he hurt me. I don't want him to hurt me like he hurt the other victims," he said. "It's important to me that he serves a long sentence so that I have the peace of mind there are bars and armed guards between him and the world." The victim isn't named under a Tri-City Herald policy not to identify sexual assault victims. Meth exchanged for sex He was one of four teenage boys, ages 14-17, whom Barbre gave methamphetamine in exchange for sex. Barbre recorded both the drug use and the sex acts, and shared the videos with other men. The allegations go back to late 2014. It all unraveled in early 2017 when another teen reported the sexual abuse to a counselor. That teen later revealed that Barbre also had been prostituting him, by setting up sexual encounters with strangers and giving drugs to the boy before and after the meet-ups. Barbre would drive him there and wait outside to collect the money. Police got copies of Barbre's Facebook account to show his conversations with the teen. Then they searched his Richland home and confirmed a report that Barbre was harboring a young runaway. Guilty pleas for child porn Barbre pleaded guilty last fall to distributing child pornography and four counts of producing child porn. Two more charges for attempted enticement of a minor and possession of child porn were dismissed as part of the plea deal. Now that the federal case is wrapped up, Barbre is expected to return to Benton County Superior Court to plead guilty to promoting commercial sex abuse of a minor and two counts each of third-degree child rape and distribution of meth to a person under age 18 with sexual motivation. The recommended 23-year sentence on the state case will be served at the same time that he's doing the 28 years ordered Thursday by federal Judge Sal Mendoza Jr. Plea deal reduces life sentence Barbre was facing life in prison, but Assistant U.S. Attorney David M. Herzog worked out a deal so the victims didn't have to testify at a trial about the trauma. The victim who spoke Thursday said he now understands why minors cannot consent to sex and wishes he had known what a healthy relationship was like so he could have avoided Barbre. The young man, who was 15 when he met Barbre, said for a long time he blamed himself. He was confused and foolish, and believes Barbre was "taking advantage of those juvenile characteristics." He still has trust issues with new partners and worries they will think he is damaged, but has found solidarity with other sex crime victims. Attorney Nicholas W. Marchi said his clients admits what he did was wrong and accepts responsibility with his guilty plea. "He is a man who made a mistake, which was a criminal one," said Marchi. He also noted in sentencing documents that the family believes Barbre was born with fetal alcohol syndrome, and that he himself may have been a victim of sexual abuse as a child. Barbre told the judge he had nothing to add. 'Acts that a monster would do' Judge Mendoza said that while Barbre was sexually victimizing minors, he enticed them with drugs, friendships, caring and ultimately deceit. "You then produced and distributed child pornography depicting sexual acts you committed against the four minors," he said. There aren't very many crimes on the books "that are worse than what you did," he said. "I can probably count them in one hand." The victims' pain and Barbre's attempted destruction of their lives comes through in the victims' letters to the court, said Mendoza. "What you did here are acts that a monster would do," he said. "But you have a life to live after this. Prove to yourself that you are not that monster that handcuffed these children, because they were children and you violated them." ___ Theres a lot of talk that the new Supreme Court, one with two Trump justices on it, might overturn Roe v. Wade. So the court cant just wake up one morning and say, were overruling Roe v. Wade. I think supporters of abortion rights are right to be nervous, but theyre maybe not exactly right about how to be nervous, what to be nervous about. Its a shorthand, sure, to say Roe v. Wade can be overruled, but thats not the only, or even the most likely, outcome. Let me take you through the possible scenarios. Lets call the first category the nuclear options. These are the most extreme and, therefore, least likely scenarios. The first one would flip Roe on its head. Roe says theres a constitutional right to abortion. The court could say the Constitution prohibits abortion in the interest of protecting fetal life. That would suggest that fetal life is like any other life, so that taking it away would be murder. So if the court were to go in that very unlikely direction, abortion would be outlawed across the nation, and women could not get abortions in the United States legally. A second nuclear option would be for the court to do away with the right to privacy established in a case called Griswold in 1965. The individual is entitled to some private sector. That right to privacy is the foundation for Roe v. Wade. If the right to privacy goes, it would do away with the basis for Roe v. Wade and, therefore, Roe v. Wade itself and flip the issue back to the states and allow states to regulate abortion as they wish. The right to privacy has been, and could be, the foundation of many rights, so I dont think its likely the court will go after the right to privacy. A second possibility, and the one everyones talking about, is the court could overrule Roe v. Wade. Protesters: Ho, ho, Roe v. Wade has got to go. Hey, hey, ho, ho. So in a post-Roe world, you still have a right to privacy. But that right to privacy does not include a constitutional right to abortion. States would be free to do what they wanted. And some advocacy groups say perhaps 22 states could make abortion illegal entirely. Thats probably not going to happen anytime soon. Protesters: Hey, hey, Roe v. Wade is here to stay. Chief Justice John Roberts is an incrementalist. He takes things step by step, and I dont think his first impulse is going to be, lets overrule Roe v. Wade when there are other ways to get from here to most of the way there. The last scenario, and the most likely one, is for the court to chip away at Roe v. Wade. The court has already upheld some restrictions on abortion. The 5 to 4 majority upheld a ban on performing abortions in public facilities. The U.S. Supreme Court today upheld the nationwide ban on partial-birth abortion. Medication abortion is now effectively blocked in Arkansas. Much more severe restrictions on abortion rights are a perfectly imaginable scenario when we have a new Supreme Court. Heres how that could happen. States cannot impose an undue burden on womens right to abortion. Thats a fairly malleable standard, and it wouldnt be hard for the Supreme Court to keep it in place, but interpret it slightly differently and say states can impose such restrictions. A couple of years ago, the court heard a case from Texas. And had the court sustained the Texas law, the number of clinics in Texas would have dropped from about 40 to about 10. And that could rapidly diminish the ability of women to get abortions because the nearest abortion clinic, at a minimum, could be hundreds of miles away. Its a little hard to answer exactly what life will look like in a given state because well have a patchwork of laws. But whats for sure is that women in red states, and particularly poor women in red states, will have a much harder time getting abortions as each successive abortion restriction is sustained by a court that now has a solidly conservative majority. Now, almost every force is against us, changing for the better. We hit town on a Monday or Tuesday afternoon. We vote at 6:30. And one of the first things were doing is checking to see about getting a plane back to the District. And so the members dont get the closeness, and we dont get the trust. Money, of course, has become enormously influential, and its given people a terrible outlook on the Congress. And then we have all these the media encourages fights. And people think that were sent down here to fight, whereas in point of fact, were really sent down here to look to the public good and compromise the great issues that we have. We dont do that. So of the 11 presidents, what strikes you about the current president? Theyre all different. Nixon was, as Churchill used to say about Oliver Cromwell, a great bad man. Eisenhower was chairman of the corporate board. Kennedy, we never had Kennedy long enough. He was only here 1,000 days. If Johnson hadnt made his mistake in Vietnam, he would have gone down as a very great president. Ford, Ford was very much underrated. Carter, he could see every damn tree in the woods, but he couldnt see the forest. Reagan, I think rather much overrated by the right, and probably a guy who would not get along with the Republicans of this day. Bush, the first, a very decent guy, and a better president than his reputation. If Clinton hadnt had one single problem that destroyed him, or very nearly did, he would have gone down as a very good president. Next Bush, I was always very fond of him personally, but I thought he was a terrible president. Obama, hes trying. Hes a good president, but hes probably got the smallest Rolodex of anybody whoever hit this town. And is there anything with hindsight being 20/20, you would go back and change? I can only think of one vote that I think was a mistake, and that was when I voted for the Gulf of Tonkin. And thats the only vote that really comes to my mind as being something Id like to change. You never tried to become speaker. You never ran for Senate. Ive given some thought to running for the Senate always came to the conclusion its not for me. I never wanted to be president. You are never a human being after that. Youre never an ordinary person again. And I do intend at one point or another to go back to being an ordinary person. Congress in effect placed tax return information in a locked safe in 1976, but it preserved one key for purposes of disclosing such information to the public, said George K. Yin, a University of Virginia tax law professor. It gave that key to the tax committees. The law therefore should be interpreted to enable the tax committees to use the key in appropriate and necessary circumstances. Only one of the panelists, Ken Kies, a former Ways and Means aide and veteran Republican tax lobbyist, disagreed. The committees chairman, Representative Richard E. Neal of Massachusetts, is working closely with the Houses general counsel, Doug Letter, to build a legal rationale that could withstand a court challenge. Mr. Neal, who prides himself more on his bipartisan policymaking skills than hard-nosed partisan oversight, is reluctant to move too quickly and risk making a mistake that could be exploited in court, people familiar with his thinking said. Though it focused almost exclusively on invoking existing authorities, for instance, Thursdays subcommittee hearing was technically a legislative session concentrated on a portion of Democrats broad election reform bill that would require all presidents and vice presidents to disclose their tax returns going forward. But pressure from Mr. Neals left flank is growing. Three liberal groups Tax March, Stand Up America and Indivisible recently wrote a letter urging the chairman to stop slow-walking and even attached another form letter, addressed to the Treasury secretary and the Internal Revenue Service commissioner, for Mr. Neal to sign formally requesting the returns. Liberal lawmakers, too, are growing impatient. Mr. Neal has not indicated when he plans to make a formal request under the law, how he would review what he got or if his committee or others will convene additional hearings first. Nor has he said whether he will request tax information on the Trump Organization or just the presidents personal returns. As written, the law does not give the Trump administration clear grounds to deny a request from Mr. Neal. It says only that the Treasury secretary shall furnish the information upon request. The care facility in Arizona where an incapacitated woman was raped and later gave birth will soon be closed, the nursing homes operator announced on Thursday. In a statement, the operator, Hacienda HealthCare, said it was working to determine exactly how it would move its patients from the Phoenix facility elsewhere and did not specify a location. It pledged to do everything in our power to ensure that the transition would be smooth. A spokesman for the company said 37 patients would be affected. The Hacienda Healthcare board of directors, after a great deal of careful consideration, has come to understand that it is simply not sustainable to continue to operate our Intermediate Care Facility for the Intellectually Disabled, the companys statement said, adding that the board had voted on Feb. 1 to close the nursing center. State agencies were notified of the board vote the same day. Some state officials, though, reacted Thursday with surprise. They said that when they met with Hacienda officials on Monday, the company acknowledged the boards vote, but did not provide notice to terminate its contract or provide a transition plan as required by its contract with the state. As recently as Thursday, state officials added, discussions about how to maintain patient care at the center were continuing. [Our media columnist examined the unlikely power of The National Enquirer in December.] Mr. Trump and Mr. Pecker were longtime friends but the relationship between the two was said to be frayed in recent months, when American Medias leadership entered into a deal with federal prosecutors looking into the companys role in the hush payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign. Mr. Pecker and his associates had helped orchestrate the deals involving two women who alleged past affairs with Mr. Trump in catch and kill deals: the former Playboy model Karen McDougal and the porn star Stormy Daniels. After The Enquirer made his private life public, giving Twitter wags and late-night hosts the chance to weigh in on his high-flown texting style, Mr. Bezos sprang into action, starting his own investigation of the tabloids motives and how it had come to possess his texts to Ms. Sanchez. The Amazon founder, who at last count was worth $136 billion, suggested that he would spare no expense in taking the fight to the tabloid publisher. Leading the investigation was Gavin de Becker, Mr. Bezos longtime security chief, whom Mr. Bezos said he had instructed to proceed with whatever budget he needed to pursue the facts in this matter. It was a bold move for someone who has often tried to evade the spotlight, even amid the frequent insults hurled his way by Mr. Trump, who has labeled the newspaper that Mr. Bezos purchased in 2013 as The Amazon Post and recently called him Jeff Bozo in a tweet. [Mr. de Becker has advised celebrities on threats for decades.] Mr. de Becker confirmed to The Daily Beast on Jan. 31 that he was leading the investigation into the matter of how the Enquirer had obtained the text messages. Not long afterward, The Post prepared an article exploring competing theories about the motivation behind the publication of the tawdry tale. American Media made the next move, offering Mr. Bezos an offer that it wrongly assumed he could not refuse. And if he did say no? A future issue of The Enquirer would make him very unhappy, with the selfies and more of the steamy texts it had apparently obtained. Of course I dont want personal photos published, but I also wont participate in their well-known practice of blackmail, political favors, political attacks and corruption, Mr. Bezos wrote. I prefer to stand up, roll this log over and see what crawls out. The changes will take some time to put in place, he added. Daniel J. Reidenberg, the executive director of the suicide prevention group Save.org, said that he helped advise Facebooks decision over the past week or so and that he applauded the company for taking the problem seriously. Mr. Reidenberg said that because the company was now making a nuanced distinction between graphic and nongraphic content, there would need to be plenty of moderation around what sort of image crosses the line. Because the topic is so sensitive, artificial intelligence probably will not suffice, Mr. Reidenberg said. You might have someone who has 150 scars that are healed up it still gets to be pretty graphic, he said in an interview. This is all going to take humans. In Instagrams statement, Mr. Mosseri said the site would continue to consult experts on other strategies for minimizing the potentially harmful effects of such content, including the use of a sensitivity screen that would blur nongraphic images related to self-harm. He said Instagram was also exploring ways to direct users who are searching for and posting about self-harm to organizations that can provide help. This is not the first time Facebook has had to grapple with how to handle threats of suicide on its site. In early 2017, several people live-streamed their suicides on Facebook, prompting the social network to ramp up its suicide prevention program. More recently, Facebook has utilized algorithms and user reports to flag possible suicide threats to local police agencies. April C. Foreman, a psychologist and a member of the American Association of Suicidologys board, said in an interview that there was not a large body of research indicating that barring graphic images of self-harm would be effective in alleviating suicide risk. What Americans who support socialism actually want is what the rest of the world calls social democracy: A market economy, but with extreme hardship limited by a strong social safety net and extreme inequality limited by progressive taxation. They want us to look like Denmark or Norway, not Venezuela. And in case you havent been there, the Nordic countries are not, in fact, hellholes. They have somewhat lower G.D.P. per capita than we do, but thats largely because they take more vacations. Compared with America, they have higher life expectancy, much less poverty and significantly higher overall life satisfaction. Oh, and they have high levels of entrepreneurship because people are more willing to take the risk of starting a business when they know that they wont lose their health care or plunge into abject poverty if they fail. Trumps economists clearly had a hard time fitting the reality of Nordic societies into their anti-socialist manifesto. In some places they say that the Nordics arent really socialist; in others they try desperately to show that despite appearances, Danes and Swedes are suffering for example, its expensive for them to operate a pickup truck. I am not making this up. What about the slippery slope from liberalism to totalitarianism? Theres absolutely no evidence that it exists. Medicare didnt destroy freedom. Stalinist Russia and Maoist China didnt evolve out of social democracies. Venezuela was a corrupt petrostate long before Hugo Chavez came along. If theres a road to serfdom, I cant think of any nation that took it. So scaremongering over socialism is both silly and dishonest. But will it be politically effective? Probably not. After all, voters overwhelmingly support most of the policies proposed by American socialists, including higher taxes on the wealthy and making Medicare available to everyone (although they dont support plans that would force people to give up private insurance a warning to Democrats not to make single-payer purity a litmus test). On the other hand, we should never discount the power of dishonesty. Right-wing media will portray whomever the Democrats nominate for president as the second coming of Leon Trotsky, and millions of people will believe them. Lets just hope that the rest of the media report the clean little secret of American socialism, which is that it isnt radical at all. The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. Wed like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And heres our email: letters@nytimes.com. Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. It was hard to see the headlines proclaiming that the north magnetic pole is speeding toward Russia and not feel a pang of anxiety. Vladimir Putin annexing the North Pole? Climate change threatening more global chaos? Malevolent cosmic rays about to burst through Earths magnetic shield? The stories under the headlines proved less alarming. The sudden (in cosmic terms) lurch of the north magnetic pole turned out to be a phenomenon for which humans bore no responsibility and for which responsible institutions and monitors (well, when the United States government was not shut down) had effective solutions. The magnetic pole is the spot a compass points to as north; it is distinct from the geographic North Pole, which is where all the lines of longitude meet at the top of the world (and where Santa Claus maintains his workshop). For now, it is situated four degrees south of the geographic North Pole. The Earths magnetic poles, it seems, have always been on the move, and have even swapped places several times over the eons. The reason is that the molten iron deep inside our planet sloshes around, shifting the magnetic field with it. And since compasses point to the north magnetic pole wherever it happens to be at any given time, the United States and Britain collaborate in issuing an updated World Magnetic Model every five years to make sure everyones on the same map. Dear Correspondent, Thank you so much for emailing us at Pantheon Communications Advisors. Unfortunately, I will be away from the office and on vacation until Feb. 16. I will be completely unplugged with no Wi-Fi. I look forward to responding to you when I return. Obviously, this away message does not apply if you are more important than I am. If you are richer, more powerful or more famous than I am, you will receive my actual email response shortly after you receive this away message. As you know, away messages are the most dishonest form of modern communications. When we say we are away on vacation, we actually mean we are on vacation from people who need us more than we need them. If you are the sort of person I normally suck up to, you should know that my sucking up takes no breaks. For you, I am totally plugged in. If you are a global celebrity or anybody who has won a lip sync battle on late-night TV, my reply to you will come within five minutes. If you are the guy I shouldnt have dumped in high school, the response will come within two minutes. If you are a program officer at a foundation that gives out large cash prizes for socially progressive work nobody has ever heard of, you will probably receive my response before you have even finished typing. Thanks so much for reaching out. Get together soon? Sincerely yours, Nancy Networker Dear Valued Customer, JERUSALEM Yechiel Eckstein, an Israeli-American rabbi whose organization has raised more than $1.5 billion for Israel by promoting closer ties with evangelical Christians abroad, died on Wednesday at his home in Jerusalem. He was 67. His death was announced by the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, the philanthropic organization he founded, which grew to become one of Israels largest nonprofit organizations. No cause was given. A Zionist and social activist, Rabbi Eckstein was often described as a bridge builder, an epithet that became the title of an authorized biography published in 2015. He also caused concern among Jews who were wary of the motives of evangelicals, the main source of the contributions. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel paid tribute to Rabbi Eckstein after his death, saying he had worked tirelessly to benefit the citizens of Israel and to strengthen the bond between Christian communities and the State of Israel. Posted Thursday, February 7, 2019 8:32 pm The Twin Transit Advisory Board accepted the resignation of General Manager Derrick Wojcik-Damers on Thursday night following nearly three hours of closed-door deliberation by the board earlier that morning. Board members voted unanimously to accept his letter of resignation and to approve a separation agreement negotiated earlier Thursday. Wojcik-Damers, who was not at either meeting Thursday, is set to receive six months of severance pay, six months of health insurance coverage and $5,000 in moving expenses should he leave the state. Wojcik-Damers exact compensation was not immediately known, but The Chronicle reported an offer by Twin Transit of at least $101,000 in December 2017. In exchange, Wojcik-Damers signed away his right to pursue legal action against Twin Transit and those associated with the agency for any reasons associated with his employment and separation from Twin Transit. Per the document, he has one week to nullify his signing of the separation agreement. I have truly enjoyed my time here as your General Manager and wish you and the organization nothing but the best as you embark on a new chapter at Twin Transit, Wojcik-Damers wrote in his letter of resignation. Wojcik-Damers, a native of Lewis County, came to Twin Transit after more than a decade spent working for transit agencies in Colorado. Board Chair Bobby Jackson accepted responsibility on behalf of himself and the other two board members Centralia City Councilor Rebecca Staebler and Chehalis City Councilor Chad Taylor for the trio not having done more to set Wojcik-Damers up for success in his first stint as a general manager. When Wojcik-Damers took the helm of Twin Transit on Jan. 8, 2018, Lewis County was about to begin the process of putting a measure on the ballot that fall to expand the Lewis Public Transit Benefit Area and was in the midst of applying for grants to fund construction of a transit hub in downtown Centralia. Before calling for the vote Thursday on the resignation, Jackson, a Lewis County Commissioner, spoke highly of Wojcik-Damers and said the board saddled him with unfair expectations for his first year on the job. I think its important to note that Derrick Wojcik-Damers is as fine an individual as Ive ever met, Jackson said. I enjoyed working with him in the year I was able to work with him. I wish that the situation had been such that he could have come in his first year and used that time getting to know the drivers, understanding that system and working to establish those relationships. ...Hindsight is always 20-20 and I just wanted to be able to share with the community and the drivers that we are really sorry this has worked out the way it has, and we wish Derrick nothing but the absolute best, because he is a quality individual. Taylor echoed Jacksons sentiments of no ill will toward Wojcik-Damers and said he agreed the board did not do enough to help him acclimate to his new role. Taylor committed to making himself more available to whomever the board hires as its next general manager. This is the first type of board Ive been on where you have its kind of a different role than being on a city council, Taylor said. Its more of a hands-on role and you need more leadership, like a county commissioner would be giving to his staff, and I definitely wasnt used to that. Wojcik-Damers officially held the job for a day less than one full year. He had been under investigation since Jan. 14 for complaints made against him by Twin Transit employees. He also faced scrutiny for the agencys role in a failed transit expansion ballot measure, ballooning costs for a proposed transit center and a long list of personal finance-related legal issues in two states, including a felony theft conviction in 1996 in Lewis County under a name he previously used, Derrick Perona. Jackson said Thursday night that Katherine Weber of Seattle law firm Inslee Best had briefed the board on the preliminary findings of her investigation into the employee complaints. Reading from a prepared statement, Jackson said Weber had found no evidence of unlawful behavior by Wojcik-Damers and that she would file a full report in the coming weeks. There appeared to be, however, an escalating pattern of mistrust and miscommunication from the general manager and (Operations Manager Aaron Rollins) and (Maintenance Manager Steve Wark), which then impacted the staff as a whole, Jackson said. ...Considering this information as well as other factors that have come to light more recently, the board has determined it is in the best interest of Twin Transit, including its employees and partners, to accept the resignation of Mr. Wojcik-Damers, effective immediately. The board wants to clearly state this decision is not based on any real or perceived misconduct on the part of Mr. Wojcik-Damers, but rather on the necessity of ensuring the work of Twin Transit proceeds in the best manner possible. Rollins and Wark submitted complaint letters to the advisory board last month accusing Wojcik-Damers of possessing an erratic management style that included going against company policy and not communicating effectively with subordinates. Debbie Lytle, a non-voting member of the advisory board and one of 16 employees to sign a letter of no confidence in Wojcik-Damers, choked up when addressing those in attendance Thursday night. Twin Transit is a family, not just a place to go to work, Lytle said. Ive been there 20 years and never been through something like this before. I will tell you, it was very hard at times, but I wanted you guys to hear our voices, because you are the ones we have to protect us. I want you guys to know, youre who we have to go to when we say we need help. Jackson had been filling in for Wojcik-Damers when it came to some tasks such as signing paychecks. He will continue to do so until the board appoints an interim general manager. He and Human Resources Manager Melissa Shoemaker will escort Wojcik-Damers on Saturday to clean out his office. The Prothman Company, a search firm with which Twin Transit contracted with during the process that led to Wojcik-Damers being hired, told Jackson they were willing to help find an interim manager. It is not clear whether Twin Transit will pay Prothman for that service, should it take the firm up on its offer. Taylor said he would take it upon himself to research additional search firms for consideration by the board. All three board members agreed that while they do not intend to rush the hiring process, time is of the essence given the number of in-progress projects the agency has to contend with in the near future. Jackson said the plan is for no major changes or purchases to take place until a permanent manager has been hired. The goal is for us to keep the buses rolling until we can at least get an interim person in there, Jackson said. ... This is all new to us, as well. Were trying to step into this thing respectfully, thoughtfully, and with a great sense of trepidation. [What you need to know to start the day: Get New York Today in your inbox.] President Trump this week added another wrinkle to his long complicated relationship with his home state, when he encouraged residents of upstate New York who are unhappy with the regions economy to go to another state. Mr. Trumps comments, which came during an interview with reporters at the White House on Wednesday, were his latest critical remarks of the region, which has lost thousands of residents in recent years amid a sluggish economy. If New York isnt going to treat them better, I would recommend they go to another state where they can get a great job, Mr. Trump said, according to The Buffalo News. Mr. Trump, who lived in New York City for most of his life, has routinely put down upstate New York despite finding widespread support there. In the 2016 election, he flipped 14 upstate counties that Barack Obama won in 2012. Yet during the campaign, he singled out the area as a ghost town, and in 2017 suggested to The Wall Street Journal that residents leave the region. Its O.K., dont worry about your house, he said. [What you need to know to start the day: Get New York Today in your inbox.] Fourteen years ago, the police in Colombia stormed a makeshift veterinary clinic at a farm in Medellin, seizing 17 bags of liquid heroin and rescuing a pack of purebred puppies who were in the process of being stuffed with the drug. On Thursday, in Federal District Court in Brooklyn, Andres Lopez Elorez, a Colombian national with veterinary training, was sentenced to six years in prison for conspiracy to import the heroin, stitched into the puppies stomachs. The case was another reminder of the lengths drug traffickers will go to in order to transport the illicit product across borders. Although this is not the first case of a trafficker using puppies as drug mules, it seemed fitting that two floors above the courtroom where Mr. Elorez was sentenced, jurors were deliberating the fate of Joaquin Guzman Loera, the Mexican drug kingpin known as El Chapo, who has gained notoriety for his novel smuggling techniques. Testimony from Mr. Guzmans trial has detailed his systems of transporting drugs on sea vessels, in the bedding of trucks and even hidden in cans of chili peppers. Jill Abramson, the former executive editor of The New York Times, responded on Thursday to accusations that her latest book, Merchants of Truth, contains passages that were plagiarized or not properly attributed to the original source material. I was up all night going through my book because I take these claims of plagiarism so seriously, she said in a statement issued by the books publisher, Simon & Schuster. I tried above all to accurately and properly give attribution to the many hundreds of sources that were part of my research. She added: The notes dont match up with the right pages in a few cases and this was unintentional and will be promptly corrected. The language is too close in some cases and should have been cited as quotations in the text. This, too, will be fixed. A Simon & Schuster spokesman said the company would work with Ms. Abramson to make corrections and clarify the sourcing in future print editions and in the e-book. Jeff Bezos, the chief executive of Amazon and the richest man in the world, published an extraordinarily personal blog post on Thursday that accused the owner of The National Enquirer of trying to blackmail him in order to stop an investigation into how the tabloid had obtained private messages and pictures sent between him and the woman he was seeing. In the post, Mr. Bezos said The National Enquirers parent company, American Media Inc., was threatening to publish explicit pictures of him and the woman, Lauren Sanchez. He also named the chairman of A.M.I., David Pecker. The following are excerpts from the blog post. What does The Enquirer claim to have? Mr. Bezos published an email he said was from Dylan Howard, the chief content officer of A.M.I. Mr. Howard provided details about the pictures the company claimed to have. The list begins with a below the belt selfie and describes nine other images, including: A full-length body selfie of Mr. Bezos wearing just a pair of tight black boxer-briefs or trunks, with his phone in his left hand while wearing his wedding ring. A selfie of Mr. Bezos fully clothed. A full-length scantily clad body shot with short trunks. What does The Enquirer want? Mr. Bezos published an email he said was from Jon P. Fine, a lawyer for A.M.I., that included a list of demands. Some of those included: 1. A full and complete mutual release of all claims that American Media, on the one hand, and Jeff Bezos and Gavin de Becker (the Bezos Parties), on the other, may have against each other. 2. A public, mutually-agreed upon acknowledgment from the Bezos Parties, released through a mutually-agreeable news outlet, affirming that they have no knowledge or basis for suggesting that AMs coverage was politically motivated or influenced by political forces, and an agreement that they will cease referring to such a possibility. Is this politically motivated? Mr. Bezos alludes to another potential motivation for A.M.I.s blackmail threat: He owns The Washington Post. The paper has investigated A.M.I.; reports on President Trump, a longtime friend of Mr. Pecker; and employed Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi columnist killed by operatives from Saudi Arabia, where A.M.I. does lucrative business. The Post has reported extensively on Mr. Khashoggis killing. Pacific Gas and Electric, the troubled California utility, said on Wednesday that it would cut off power during dry and windy weather more frequently, trim more trees along its power lines and spend as much as $2.3 billion to reduce the risk of wildfires. Yet despite all of that, PG&E said, preventing wildfires outright is likely impossible. The company and other California utilities, whose equipment has been blamed for starting fires that have destroyed thousands of homes and killed dozens of people, detailed those plans in filings with state regulators in advance of the 2019 wildfire season, which starts in June. It was the first time the utilities had made such filings, which were required by a state law passed last year. PG&E submitted its plan a week after the company filed for bankruptcy protection in the face of tens of billions of dollars in liability from two years of deadly wildfires. The utility, the states largest, has blamed development in remote areas and climate change as major contributors to the severity of wildfires in its 70,000-square-mile service area. But the companys critics assert that it has not done enough to reduce the fire risk posed by its power lines, conductors and other equipment. The California Public Utilities Commission will review the plans after holding hearings and soliciting public comments. Six utilities submitted reports, but experts say the commission will spend the most time on PG&Es plan given the companys financial problems and its size: The utility serves 16 million people in central and Northern California, or about 40 percent of the states population. Abbas, repeating the "time is brain" concept, detailed advances on the horizon, including a robotic helmet placed on the patient in the ambulance that sends critical data to the hospital team so it can be ready when the patient arrives. A special visor also can be used to detect swelling in the brain and allow for a network mobile CAT scan to be done while a patient is en route to the hospital. Using artificial intelligence, scan results are ready in just six minutes and sent to the waiting hospital team. For many years, we were eight to 10 years behind cardiology, says Dr. Demetrius Lopes, neuroendovascular surgeon at Community Hospital. Now weve caught up, and we are interacting with each other. They found, he says, that as instances of heart disease went down, occurrence of strokes increased. Working in collaboration with cardiologists was meant to be, says Lopes, who treated former Chicago White Sox pitcher Danny Farquhar after he suffered a brain hemorrhage from a ruptured aneurysm in April 2018. Workshops planned Franciscan Health Fitness Centers and the National Exercise Trainers Association are sponsoring a workshop on group exercise certification from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Feb. 9 at Franciscan Health Fitness Centers, 221 U.S. 41, Suite A. The second workshop is 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Feb. 10 on senior fitness specialty certification. To register, visit www.netafit.org or call 800-237-6242. Soup social PORTER Discovery Trackers 4-H Club and their families will host an all-you-can-eat soup social from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. Feb. 10 at the Discovery Charter School gymnasium at 800 Canonie Drive. Ticket donation price is suggested at $10/adult, $5 for kids 12 and under, and kids first grade or younger are free. More than 10 varieties of soup are served and diners will decide the winner of the soup contest. This year the social takes on a 'Tale of Despereaux' theme which encourages children to have hope and be brave to make changes in their world. Balloon swords for knights and paper crowns for princesses will be given to children attending the event as well as a Soup Recipe game for the little ones and readings from the Tale of Despereaux at the story nook. Free frog monitoring workshops EAST CHICAGO Hours before Friday's filing deadline, former state Rep. John Aguilera announced a run for East Chicago mayor against incumbent Anthony Copeland. Aguilera, who served from 1994 to 2000 as a county councilman and the following six years as a state legislator representing East Chicago, is one of the few Latinos ever to hold office at the Statehouse. According to available records online, Aguilera and Copeland are, so far, the only two candidates to file for the race. As a four-term state representative, Aguilera worked on the General Assembly's Ways and Means, Local Government, and Transportation committees, according to a news release. He also served two terms as a Lake County councilman, including two years as council president. He also served seven years in the U.S. military. According to a news release, Aguilera said he "wants to use this experience to ensure our city government has diverse representation that invests in people before profits." The release said he wants to "restore the checks and balances system of our city government and remind citizens of East Chicago that theyre the most important resource of the state." INDIANAPOLIS Legislation providing the town of Griffith an extra year to exit Calumet Township, by joining either North or St. John townships, is headed to the full House. On Thursday, the House Ways and Means Committee made no changes prior to approving House Bill 1177, which now could be voted on by the House as soon as Feb. 14 to advance the proposal to the Senate. The House's budget-writing committee was required to review the measure due to non-Griffith township finance matters that also are included in the proposal, sponsored by state Rep. Cindy Ziemke, R-Batesville. Under the plan, which previously was endorsed by the House Government and Regulatory Reform Committee, Griffith would have two years, until November 2020, to transfer townships, instead of the one-year requirement in current law. Griffith citizens last year voted to secede from Calumet Township, due in part to the township's highest-in-the-state poor relief property tax rate; the revenue from which mostly is paid by, but not spent on, Griffith residents. However, the statute authorizing the secession process also could force Griffith to remain in Calumet Township if it is unsuccessful at joining a neighboring township. CROWN POINT Crown Point Clerk-treasurer Kristie Dressel is throwing her hat in the ring to be the citys next mayor. Two days after announcing plans to withdraw her re-election bid for clerk-treasurer on the Republican ticket, Dressel told The Times Thursday she plans on running against incumbent Mayor David Uran, a Democrat. I have sat for three years as treasurer and watched uncontrollable spending, Dressel said, claiming the city has experienced drastic changes in attorney fees, credit rating and high debt levels. We have over 14 bonds outstanding for millions of dollars. Taxpayers will be responsible to pay those over the next 10 years. In response to Dressel's claims, Uran said, "As a city we have to invest in ourselves," adding the net worth of the community has continued to increase during his three terms as mayor. "It's difficult to worry about what some of your candidates will say. I am focusing on what is more important, which is the quality of life of Crown Point residents,"Uran said. "At the end of the day, voters will decide the fate and direction they want to the city to go. Hopefully they make the right decision." HAMMOND Dealing with towing companies wasn't one of his priorities when Troy Williams became Portage's police chief in 2012, Williams told jurors Thursday morning. Williams said dealing with tow companies was "no big deal," so he left it to others in his administration. Williams testified Thursday morning in Portage Mayor James Snyder's public corruption trial. Snyder is facing two bribery counts and one tax obstruction charge. The trial is in its 14th day. Snyder has been charged with accepting a $12,000 bribe from John Cortina for placing Cortina and his towing partner, Samson Towing, on the city's list. Samson was placed on the list less than a month after Waffco was removed. Cortina had partnered with Ambassador prior to Samson. Cortina, Snyder's former co-defendant, pleaded guilty last month to paying Snyder the bribe. Williams said he believed Waffco Towing had a storage yard in the city, on Old Porter Road, when he first became chief. It wasn't until January 2016, when a fellow city employee was arrested for drunken driving and Snyder and former Director of Administration Joe Calhoun went to retrieve that employee's car, that he learned Waffco had closed that lot. Police were continuing to follow up on leads in the case, Martin said. The men allegedly targeted Hawkins because Hawkins was selling large amounts of marijuana, according to court records. Galloway, Rogers and the three men broke into a home in the 4400 block of Madison Street in Gary where Hawkins was staying, records say. A friend of Hawkins and a fellow marijuana dealer, who was inside, heard the intruders and fired gunshots in their direction. The intruders retreated to a car parked nearby and waited until Hawkins arrived at the house in a red SUV, records say. Hawkins, Ortiz and two other friends fled the Madison Street address in the SUV and drove to what they thought would be the safety of a relative's home at the Park West Apartments near Ridge Road and Arbogast Street in Griffith, police said. Galloway's group pursued and caught up with Hawkins' group in the parking lot outside the apartment building. The unidentified men drew guns and surrounded Hawkins' car, records say. Hawkins was driving away from the ambush when one of the men, yet to be identified, fired a gunshot that fatally wounded Ortiz. "Some people need to get caught quickly," he said. "However, with that in mind, if you're pursuing someone for a forcible felony and it's 2:30 in the afternoon in a school zone back off." Officers must consider weather conditions, road conditions, traffic conditions, driver skill and the number of people likely to be in the area, he said. "You take all of that into account, and then you make your decision," he said. McDevitt said he hates to see innocent people get hurt, and he hates it more to see police get hurt. "We're better than that as a profession, or at least we should be," he said. Kellogg said the Hammond Police Department has a restrictive pursuit policy. Officers and their supervisors take all factors into account and terminate when it's no longer safe to pursue, he said. "We're very well trained on when the situation is too dangerous to continue," he said. 'Always a difficult situation' While the Porter County Sheriff's Department has a policy in place on police chases, each incident is unique and requires on-the-spot decision-making, Porter County Sheriff Dave Reynolds said. VALPARAISO A 37-year-old Hebron man, who was caught on video attempting to rob the local Aldi store when other customers intervened, was sentenced Friday to 12 years behind bars during a hearing that gave a glimpse into the life of an addict. Thomas Powell told the court he began using drugs at the age of 11 and then as a result of the people hanging around his home at the time, tried heroin when he was 14. His experimentation with heroin grew into a daily habit by the time he was 16. "It seems to make all my problems go away," he said. Yet once hooked, the feeling of wholeness began turning to nausea, diarrhea and other physical pain if he went 12 hours without the drug, Powell said. "I always seemed to find my way to get more even if it's just a tiny amount," he said. By the age of 22, friends around him began to overdose and die, which caused enough trauma for Powell to seek help. He began taking Suboxone as a heroin replacement. "It worked for a time being," he said. CROWN POINT An East Chicago man was placed on probation Wednesday after sentencing for a shooting that wounded a 21-year-old man in Hammond in 2016. Brian M. Franciski, 24, pleaded guilty last month to a reduced charge of felony criminal recklessness and misdemeanor carrying a firearm without a license. He initially had been facing two felony counts of attempted murder and misdemeanor carrying a firearm without a license. Lake Criminal Court Judge Clarence Murray sentenced Franciski to three years in prison on the criminal recklessness charge and 358 days in jail on the firearm charge, but suspended both and placed Franciski on probation. The victim was transported to Franciscan Health Hammond hospital and then to a Chicago hospital, where he was treated for a significant loss of blood, a probable cause affidavit states. Franciski also agreed to forfeit the handgun seized by police to the Lake County Sheriff's Department for destruction. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Sign up for our Crime & Courts newsletter Get the latest in local public safety news with this weekly email. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. CROWN POINT A judge reduced bond Thursday for a woman accused of kicking a toddler during an attack last month on her sister's former girlfriend in Merrillville. Donisha Bowers, 23, of Gary, and her sister Man-nisha Bowers, 20, of Valparaiso, are accused of breaking into a Merrillville home Jan. 12, attacking two women and kicking an 18-month-old boy. Man-nisha Bowers also threatened to kill one of the women while holding a knife, court records say. The Bowers sisters were charged Jan. 14 with burglary, criminal confinement, two counts of battery, pointing a firearm and criminal mischief. Lake Criminal Court Judge Diane Boswell on Thursday reduced Donisha Bowers' bond from $150,000 surety to $50,000 surety or $5,000 cash. Boswell granted the same reduction for Man-nisha Bowers during a court hearing Wednesday. April L. Kuchta, 24, a victim in the alleged attack Jan. 12, was charged Jan. 28 with several battery counts alleging she pepper-sprayed Man-nisha Bowers on Jan. 6 as Bowers slept in a bed at a hotel room rented by a woman who has dated both Man-nisha Bowers and Kuchta. CROWN POINT An attorney for a Gary man charged with beating his roommate to death said she plans to request an independent evaluation for him because of his history of mental illness. Craig Withrow, 28, was charged with murder on allegations he beat his roommate David Carte to death Jan. 26 inside their apartment at an assisted living facility in the 4900 block of Melton Road in Gary's Miller section. Withrow's attorney, Jamise Perkins, told Lake Criminal Court Judge Diane Boswell during a hearing Friday that Withrow has been pursuing mental health treatment since age 18. "He clearly has a number of mental health issues," Perkins said. Withrow, who had no shirt on and was covered in blood when police arrived at his apartment building, told a detective he argued with Carte and became angry when Carte called him a profane name, court records say. Withrow claimed Carte swung on him, and he struck Carte numerous times in the face and hit Carte's head on the floor, bed and table leg, records state. Winners at this year's Oscars will need to be quick, both in their walks to the stage and their acceptance speeches. Producers told nominees for the 91st annual Academy Awards that they will have 90 seconds from the time their name is called until when their speech will need to be a concluded. The sprint is needed to keep the Feb. 24 ceremony to three hours, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President John Bailey told this year's class of nominees Monday at a private, untelevised luncheon to honor them. "It means you can hit the parties by 8:15," Oscars producer Glenn Weiss reminded the dozens of hopefuls in the ballroom of the Beverly Hilton, the same room where the Golden Globe Awards are held. Weiss and his co-producer Donna Gigliotti showed the room their ideal acceptance speech Steven Soderbergh accepting the best director award for "Traffic" and promising to offer individual thanks in private, not public and implored nominees to speak from the heart and not a sheet of paper. "The thing is, run," said director Brad Bird, who has learned from experience. "Then keep your speeches short and simple as possible ... and then you get out alive." Steel imports fell by 27.2 percent month-over-month in November, the most recent month for which data was available. The American Iron and Steel Institute reported the United States imported 2.3 million tons of steel that month, including 1.9 million tons of finished steel products that would require no further processing in the United States, down 4.1 percent as compared to October. With the Section 232 tariffs of 25 percent on foreign-made steel in place, steel imports totaled 31.8 million tons through the first 11 months of last year, down 10.8 percent as compared to the same period the previous year. Imports of finished steel products fell 13.2 percent year-over-year to 24 million tons during the first 11 months of 2018. Finished steel products grabbed 23 percent of the market share over that period, including 21 percent in November 2018, according to the American Iron and Steel Institute. South Korea, Japan, Germany, Turkey and Taiwan were the biggest offshore suppliers of steel to the United States through the first 11 months of last year, according to the AISI. In November, imports rose 6 percent from South Korea, 10 percent from Germany, 5 percent from Vietnam, 8 percent from Japan, and 40 percent from Taiwan. In November, imports of heavy structural shapes rose by 67 percent, wire rods by 57 percent, and mechanical tubing by 12 percent. For the year, imports of hot-rolled sheets were up by 22 percent and plates in coil by 16 percent. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 The business news you need With a weekly newsletter looking back at local history. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. During the last round of contract negotiations in 2015, workers at the BP Whiting Refinery went on strike for more than three months, huddling around burn barrels outside the gates in the often bitter cold off Lake Michigan, to secure a new deal that satisfied their safety concerns. This time around, collective bargaining went much smoother. A majority of United Steelworkers union-represented oil workers at the refinery on the Lake Michigan lakeshore in Whiting voted to ratify a new contract that reportedly includes a boost in pay over three years. The ratification vote at USW Local 7-1 in Whiting took place on Tuesday and Wednesday. "Local 7-1 workers at the BP Whiting refinery overwhelmingly ratified their contract, and the Local 7-1 BP Whiting plant guards also overwhelmingly ratified their contract," USW spokeswoman Lynne Hancock said. "The local agreement contains the national pattern and addresses issues pertaining to the site." The new contract includes 3.5 percent raises this year and next, and a 4 percent raise in 2021. About 10,000 gallons of ammonia liquor was spilled at the ArcelorMittal Burns Harbor steel mill during a fire and brief power outage Tuesday. ArcelorMittal contained the spill and has been working to clean it up. "Ammonia liquor is a liquid waste byproduct from the ammonia scrubbing operations associated with coke production," Indiana Department of Environmental Management Public Information Officer Barry Sneed said. "ArcelorMittal explained that the release resulted from the high voltage power interruption that caused a backup in the production line and an overflow of ammonia liquor onto the ground." The Indiana Department of Environmental Management's Emergency Response Program visited the mill to oversee the company's response to the spill. "The waste ammonia liquor was contained on-site, and spill cleanup was in progress," Sneed said. "On Feb. 7, ArcelorMittal advised that spill cleanup is ongoing, with two environmental response companies vacuuming up the liquid and placing it in four on-site frac tanks. They plan to work through the night. IDEM will continue to monitor the cleanup." Marino de Medici is a Winchester resident and formerly the dean of foreign correspondents in the United States. The Indiana Election Commission says House Speaker Brian Bosma did not violate state laws when he used campaign funds to investigate a former intern who alleged they had a sexual encounter in the early 1990s. The commission comprised of two Republicans and two Democrats ruled unanimously at its Jan. 31 meeting that Indiana law permits candidates to use their campaign contributions to fend off attacks that can affect their political careers. This was a question of law, not a question of fact, said Bryce Bennett Jr., the Republican chairman of the Indiana Election Commission. Its pretty clear under campaign finance laws that theres nothing against using campaign funds to respond to activities that are politically averse to a candidate. Bosma did not comment on the decision himself. Instead, his attorney Margaret Christensen of Bingham Greenebaum Doll LLP, emailed a statement on his behalf. We are pleased with the bipartisan and unanimous decision made by the Indiana Election Commission during its recent public meeting to dismiss the complaint, which was clearly politically motivated, she stated. Moving forward, the speaker will continue to fully cooperate with the House Ethics Committee and is confident the committee members will do their due diligence to come to a conclusion. In the face of the #MeToo movement in which many political and public figures came under scrutiny for improper sexual conduct, questions swirled about decades-old rumors about Bosma. In early 2018, he used more than $44,000 of his campaign funds to hire an attorney, Linda Pence of the Indianapolis law firm SmithAmundsen LLC, to investigate the former intern. Bosma has denied any relationship with the woman. The former intern, Kandy Green, told The Indianapolis Star she had a consensual sexual encounter with Bosma. Green said she was shaken by Pences investigation, in which numerous family members were contacted in what they interpreted as an attempt to intimidate her out of publicly discussing the relationship. Pence a former Democratic candidate for attorney general and no relation to Vice President Mike Pence did not respond to a request for comment. She has previously denied any intimidation of Green. The allegations became public, though, because Pence was hired to look into them. And in November, Hamilton County Democratic Party Chairman Joe Weingarten asked the Indiana Election Commission to investigate the use of campaign funds, saying in an email to the commission that the $44,000 to Pences firm was meant to dig up embarrassing information on Green. The use of these funds was accomplished without any grounds for the investigation related to his public office or election, Weingarten alleged. All four members of the election commission Republicans Bennett and Zachary Klutz and Democrats S. Anthony Long and Suzannah Wilson Overholt voted against pursuing the allegations, according to a memo sent to Bosma by Secretary of State Connie Lawson. A separate investigation is still possible through the House Ethics Committee, which would be responsible for examining Bosmas alleged behavior and determining if his actions violated ethics rules applied to state representatives. Despite calls from some Democrats, including former Rep. Linda Lawson of Hammond, that members on the House Ethics Committee move forward with an investigation, the committee has yet to publicly announce a course of action for addressing the allegations. But the same day election commission members voted against an investigation in their department, Rep. Sharon Negele, R-Attica, said the House Ethics Committee held an executive meeting to consider next steps in reviewing Bosmas conduct. Executive sessions are closed to the public and Negele, who chairs the committee, declined to disclose additional details about their discussion. Thats really all I have to say, because its an executive session and we believe in preserving the integrity of that, Negele said. Were a bipartisan committee and all very committed to working together and fairly on this. House Ethics Committee Co-Chair Sue Errington, D-Muncie, agreed with her colleague, noting the public can expect to hear more about the committees discussions when more information is available. We take it seriously when theres a complaint like this, Errington said. But we know its also important to secure the facts, and we just dont have them yet. Rep. Greg Steuerwald, R-Avon, has been criticized for signing an Oct. 11 letter issued by House Republicans in Bosmas defense while he served as the ethics committee chair. He remains a majority member on the committee. In January, both the House and Senate adopted new standards in their ethics codes that prohibited any sexual contact or conduct between lawmakers and paid or unpaid interns, including when the act is consensual. Erica Irish is a reporter for TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students. Chris Barth has fond memories of the Impossible Shapes early days. Aaron [Deer] and me were just pretty obsessed with music and finding out as much as we could about how to be in a band, says the Bloomington groups frontman. We didnt really let anything get in our way. On Saturday, February 9, the Impossible Shapes will reunite for a performance at the Bloomington Music Expo. Ahead of the show, our Seth Johnson chatted with Barth, taking a retrospective look at the band and their humble origins. NUVO: What led you Bloomington? Can you lay out the scenery for how the Impossible Shapes first started? CHRIS BARTH: I grew up in Indy and then I went to Bloomington, just to go to college. I moved there with my friend Aaron. The band had kind of existed in an early form when we were in high school in Indianapolis with Peter [now of Peter and the Kings], but then, we went to different colleges. Aaron and I wanted to keep doing music at IU, and we met Jason Groth and Mark Rice our freshman year. During our freshman and sophomore years, everything came together, and we just started playing shows. NUVO: What was the music community in Bloomington like at that time? BARTH: This was 1999-2000. There were definitely a lot of bands. I was always meeting people that were doing music. There had been a good scene there in the 90s that I wasnt really a part of but had heard about. I was always kind of interested in the Bloomington scene, even going back to bands in the 70s like the Gizmos, the Dancing Cigarettes, and all that stuff. In the 90s, I remember being super into the Panoply Academy. They were an early Secretly Canadian/local Bloomington band. They went through lots of different formations, but they were doing really cool stuff. I remember seeing them at Rhinos, which was one of those venues you could get into before you were 21. I had to do a lot of sneaking around to get into Second Story, the Bluebird, and Bears Place. I wasnt 21, but Id find my way in those places somehow. [laughs] I remember doing that a lot. NUVO: When you first started putting out releases, where were you guys recording at? How did those first couple albums come together? BARTH: Our first two releases [The Great Migration and Laughter Fills Our Hollow Dome] were all home recordings on cassette 4-tracks in various bedrooms, garages, and basements. They were released by Todd Robinson. Hes still in Indianapolis doing LUNA Music. We were lucky enough to have somebody with the means to put stuff out back then. After that, we were going into studios and having outside engineers. We actually recorded a lot of the third album [Bless the Headless] with this guy Bill Doss, who was in a band called The Olivia Tremor Control. Paul Mahern from the Zero Boys also helped us put that third album together too. The fourth album we did in Bloomington at Farm Fresh Studios, when it was in a little cabin out in the woods. And then after that, we went and recorded our fifth album in Indy with LonPaul. After all that, we eventually found our way back to home recording. So we recorded a couple more albums that way, which was nice. NUVO: You had some albums released on Bloomington-based label Secretly Canadian. When did they come into the picture? BARTH: We met them just through being in Bloomington and liking a lot of the bands they had. They were obviously quite a bit smaller at the time. They were operating out of a little house on the northside of Bloomington. We were really into all their bands: Marmoset, Swearing at Motorists, Scout Niblett, Danielson Family, and Songs: Ohia. All those bands were really inspirational. We played shows and toured with some of those bands. They just approached us and said they were interested after hearing the albums we put out with Todd at LUNA. So we met with them at a Waffle House and made it happen. NUVO: When was the band touring the most? BARTH: The peak of our touring happened from 2002 to 2005. We started in 2002, touring with Songs: Ohia and June Panic. We went to Europe with June and Jens Lekman, whos another Secretly Canadian guy from Sweden. We also did a bunch of four-to-six week tours all across the United States around that time too. All of us were in another band [John Wilkes Booze] at the same time as well. We were very busy. I always remember 2004 and 2005 as the time when I didnt really have a set place to live. I was just always on tour, which was really exciting as a 23-year-old. NUVO: Are there any specific memories that stick with you from the Impossible Shapes heyday? BARTH: Even though it was kind of jumbled, I really have fond memories of our first tour in Europe. Jens really welcomed us to Sweden. We spent almost two weeks there, just playing at different places in the country. It was fun to go into a fast food restaurant in Sweden and hear a Jens Lekman song on the radio. We got to play some really fun shows through Secretly Canadian and Jens. And then, we brought him over to the States after that and showed him what that was like, which was pretty fun. Ill always remember playing in Odessa, Texas in this tiny little pool hall. After playing with Jens in these big concert halls in Sweden, it was just funny to play with him at this little pool hall with high school kids hanging out and shooting pool. It was cool to do that touring before social media. It was just cool to find your way around with an atlas. Youd have to call the club on a pay phone and be like, Where are you guys located? It was like an adventure. We didnt have any reference point for how to do things. NUVO: Why did you guys choose to get back together for this reunion show at Bloomington Music Expo? BARTH: We broke up in 2009, and then we had a reunion show four-and-a-half years after that. Its been about four or five years since that. Every five years, it just feels like time to do it again. I had been thinking about it, and then Aaron had been in touch with Mike of Bloomington Music Expo. I had been thinking, Itd be cool to play with everybody. So it was just perfect timing. NUVO: What have you been up to on your own right now in terms of music? BARTH: Right now, Im working on a solo recording thats just going to be under my name. Doog [who makes music as Sir Deja Doog] kind of helped motivate me and orchestrate some things. We did some recordings at Postal in Indianapolis. I love that studio. I recorded all these songs there, and it was a really good session. So now Im just going over stuff and putting it all together. Im also playing in a band called the Glitter Brains. Its a punk-y rock n roll band. Im actually a preschool teacher these days, so its inspired by silliness and things that kids talk about. We play around Bloomington and the area every so often. And then, if Aaron and I can get together over the summer, we might actually try to collaborate again on some stuff for the Impossible Shapes. Well see if that happens, but were both kind of into that idea. I stopped into the newly-opened Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library pop-up store in Circle Center Mall last Saturday. And it was a much-needed reminder of just how long its been since Ive read Vonnegut. I went through a Vonnegut binge starting when I was in eighth grade, reading in quick succession Mother Night, Cats Cradle, Slaughterhouse-Five, God Bless You Mr. Rosewater, Sirens of Titan, Jailbird, and every teenagers favorite Breakfast of Champions. I never did make it through his first novel Player Piano, and his most popular novel Slaughterhouse-Five is one of my least favorites of his, or at least it was after I first read it. (Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library is celebrating the 50th anniversary of its first publication this year.) Not that I didnt like the off-the-wall plot, which includes passages on the planet Tralfamadore. The book also has its protagonist Billy Pilgrim being taken prisoner of war in Germany, a plot element based on Vonneguts own biography. Like his protagonist, Vonnegut survived the firebombing of Dresden by remaining in an underground slaughterhouse during the conflagration in which 60,000 died. As a teenager reading the work, however, I disliked the near-constant refrain So it goes in the novel, which to me connoted a deep and cynical pessimism. When I look back at it now, I realize that Vonnegut was a bridge for me between hard-edge science fiction writers like Larry Niven and more literary types of fiction. But nowadays, Id much rather re-read Slaughterhouse-Five than get tangled up in James Joyces Ulysses again. All of these thoughts bubbled to the surface as I browsed in the new store. The pop-up serves as something of a bridge between their old digs on Senate Avenue (now closed) and whatever building they select for their new location. In addition to a representative sample of his booksand some historical Vonnegut museum items in display casesthe shop has all kinds of Vonnegut swag for sale including bottled water, logo stickers, T-shirts, typewriter postcards, curse word bookmarks, devotional candles, and asterisk notebooks. If youve read Breakfast of Champions, you know Vonnegut drew his asterisks to look exactly like assholes. Such illustrations of his abound in this, which is perhaps the funniest of his books. Behind the counter, I found KVML staff Max Goller and Bianca Pena on my visit. Pena, became a museum associate after reading Breakfast of Champions in 2015, who is currently finishing a visual communications degree at Herron School of Art and Design, really liked the drawings in Breakfast of Champions, as well as the screenprints he made later in life. When I said I recalled seeing a Meridian Street address in one of Vonneguts novels, Goller, KVML director of education, reminded me Vonnegut grew up in Indianapolis, and his great-grandfather immigrated here from Germany. His grandfather, who founded the Vonnegut & Bohn architecture firm, was responsible for several buildings in Indy. Vonneguts father also worked for Vonnegut & Bohn and he created and designed the clock that sits at the corner of the old L.S. Ayres building and has become sort of a staple item in the city. Goller told me his favorite Vonnegut book is Cats Cradle, which happens to be mine as well. Its great dark humor that Vonnegut is known for in all his writing. The plot involves a fictional creator of the atomic bomb, Felix Hoenikker, and his dastardly creation, Ice-9, a seed crystal of a form of water that remains solid at room temperature. By dropping just a little bit of Ice-9 in the ocean, you would freeze the worlds entire water supply and effectively end life on earth just as effectively as dropping 1,000 atomic bombs on all seven continents simultaneously. Looking out at the rain while writing this, I cant help but think of a report I heard this morning on NPR about Indiana having increasing amounts of rainfall due to global warming in the past decade, and how municipalities in Indiana are trying to cope. I have to believe that would be no more committed person to fighting climate change than Vonnegut, if he were still alive. But I also have to think that, on another level, youd just see him shrug his shoulders and say, So it goes. Roseburg, OR (97470) Today Partly cloudy. A stray afternoon thunderstorm is possible. High 86F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Clear skies. Low around 55F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, February 7) I A Filipino couple was among the fatalities in a fire that razed an apartment in central Paris on Monday night, Manila time. In a statement Thursday, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said the Philippine Embassy in Paris had received confirmation that the couple was among the 10 persons who died in the incident. The DFA, in the statement, expressed its condolences to the family of the couple and assured that the Embassy will provide support to their loved ones. It did not name the victims. The fire started at around 7 pm, Manila time, on the Rue Erlanger in the city's 16th arrondissement, sending some residents fleeing onto adjoining rooftops. READ: Ten people killed in Paris building blaze, foul play suspected At least 37 people, including six firefighters, suffered injuries while one was seriously injured. Around 30 people were evacuated from the building using ladders. Two neighboring buildings were evacuated as a precaution. With reports from CNN's Euan McKirdy. The razor wire is what happens when those two worlds meet when heated talk becomes policy in the real world. And on the ground in Nogales, it is not being received well. The towns city council passed a resolution unanimously on Wednesday to formally condemn the wire, and demand that it be taken down over safety concerns. Residents and business owners have told local reporters that it makes the town feel like a war zone an inquisition, one said and worry about the effect on its life and commerce downtown. Local newspaper columnists have panned it; a letter writer, Allen Zale, who said he served with the Army, said it reminded him of his time stationed in Berlin. Garino said hes concerned that the wiring is more of a danger than a safety feature because of the way it is installed down to the ground. The towns code prohibits the use of the wire, which is also known as concertina wire, except in industrial parks and storage areas. Even then, it has to be at least six feet off the ground, he said. The wall it adorns stretches through many residential areas in the city, as close as 10 feet in some places to peoples property. The tensions with the town have been exacerbated by the fact that federal authorities have shut out local officials from the process, Garino said. Fish and Wildlife, which judges the likelihood of fatal whooper collisions to be extremely low, concludes that there is no scientifically reliable evidence that whoopers are reasonably certain to be killed by the R-Project, the statement said. By contrast, the Fish and Wildlife statement agreed that NPPDs preferred route risks moderate-to-high or high-intensity and long-term indirect impacts on five cultural resources in its path, notably the Oregon-California and Mormon trails near the R-Projects southern end at Gerald Gentleman Station near Sutherland. However, the agency stated that avoidance of all historic properties is not possible and that rerouting the transmission line is not a feasible treatment option because at this state of Project design, only minor adjustments can be accommodated to meet the needs of individual landowners. Walsh said Fish and Wildlife will keep working with NPPD and the Nebraska State Historical Preservation Office to seek further means of lessening the R-Projects impact on the trail sites and other cultural resources, including a historic North Platte River bridge and a Native American archaeological site both located north of Sutherland. HARRISBURG More than $850,000 in PAsmart Apprenticeship and Next Generation Industry Partnership grants for North Central Pennsylvania have been awarded today by the Department of Labor and Industry, according to state Sen. Gene Yaw (R-23), state Rep. Garth Everett (R-84) and state Rep. Jeff Wheeland (R-83). Nine grants totaling $403,463 for apprenticeships and $453,300 for Next Generation Industry Partnerships will support job training in advanced manufacturing, healthcare, and building and construction in North Central Pennsylvania. These grants will boost workforce readiness and provide our area businesses with the skilled workers they need, Sen. Yaw said. These are exactly the kind of projects we should be supporting, and those which I have been advocating for. The more we can expand these workforce development and training opportunities across Pennsylvania, the more prepared our labor force will be to take on high-skill, high-wage employment, said Rep. Everett. Every Pennsylvanian should have a chance to better their futures and these grants will go a long way in propelling our communities and economy. Williamsport, Pennsylvania once had more millionaires per capita than any other city in the United States, due in large part to our lumber industry, said Rep. Wheeland. These grants will help the newest industries in Lycoming County connect with the next generation of workers so they have the skills needed for quality jobs. The funding includes: A $77,050 registered apprenticeship grant awarded to the Pennsylvania College of Technology to increase the number of partners in existing registered programs sponsored by the college, and help fund the creation of two new college-sponsored registered apprenticeship associations. A $149,413 registered apprenticeship grant awarded to Workforce Solutions for North Central PA to ensure that partners have the knowledge and expertise necessary to implement effective pre-apprenticeships and apprenticeships to increase the number of pre-apprenticeships and registered apprenticeships programs in the north central regions manufacturing and healthcare industries. A $100,000 pre-apprenticeship grant awarded to the Pennsylvania College of Technology to expand the existing 10-month advanced manufacturing pre-apprenticeship program serving high school students and will establish the colleges first healthcare pre-apprenticeship program serving underemployed or unemployed adult populations and out-of-school youth. A $77,000 pre-apprenticeship grant awarded to Workforce Solutions for North Central PA to implement at least three pre-apprenticeship programs at local school districts in connection with a local powdered metal manufacturing company, and to support the current Building Trades Registered Apprenticeship program. A $45,000 Next Generation Industry Partnership Convening grant awarded to Workforce Solutions for North Central PA to create an industry partnership in the Building and Construction industries. A $45,000 Next Generation Industry Partnership Convening grant awarded to Workforce Solutions of North Central PA to create an industry partnership in the healthcare industry. A $140,000 Next Generation Industry Partnership Implementation grant awarded to Central PA Workforce Development Corporation to implement business-driven priorities and action plans to support an advanced manufacturing industry partnership. A $140,000 Next Generation Industry Partnership Implementation grant awarded to Workforce Solutions for North Central PA to implement business-driven priorities and action plans to support an advanced manufacturing industry partnership. A $83,300 Next Generation Industry Partnership Implementation grant awarded to Central PA Workforce Development Corporation to implement business-driven priorities and action plans to support a healthcare industry partnership. Apprenticeship is a natural extension of Pennsylvania College of Technologys mission, addressing the skill shortages facing companies throughout the country, said Dr. Davie Jane Gilmour, President, Pennsylvania College of Technology. We help companies close the gap through innovative solutions to upskill their existing workforce, and infuse their ranks with talented graduates. This PAsmart funding helps us further develop and deliver the vital apprenticeship training component and creates a foundation for sustainability. Apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship grants are administered by the state Department of Labor and Industry. Next Generation grants, which connect area workers and industries through public-private partnerships, are administered by both Labor and Industry and the state Department of Community and Economic Development. CONTACT: Rita Zielonis (Yaw) (717) 787-3280 Charley Hall (Everett) (570) 546-2084 Jamie Maggs (Wheeland) (570) 321-1270 The post Legislators Applaud State Grant Funding for Apprenticeship Programs appeared first on Senator Gene Yaw. More than two pounds of cocaine with an approximate street value of $100,000 was uncovered during a routine traffic stop in Williamsport this week, according to Pennsylvania State Police Montoursville. The cocaine was hidden under the front seat of the vehicle in a welded metal box secured by aftermarket wiring and hinges, police reported. The driver, Franklin Mejia, 47, of 181 Marion Street Apartment 1, Paterson, New Jersey, was stopped near the intersection of Interstate 180 West and State Route 15 North in Williamsport on February 6, 2019. He was going 80 mph in a 55 mph zone, according to police. Mejia told PSP Montoursville Trooper Robert Williamson he was traveling from New Jersey to Rochester, New York, according to the affidavit. Mejia aroused police suspicion because he has a criminal history of drug trafficking charges in New Jersey and was not able to identify the vehicle's registered owner. After receiving Mejia's consent for a search twice, the officer discovered the hidden metal compartment beneath the vehicle's front seats, court documents stated. The vehicle, a 2016 Nissan Rogue, was towed from along the busy highway to the Montoursville State Police Barracks to complete the search. Police used a battery pack to power aftermarket wiring connected to the metal box. This caused the front seat latches to release and exposed aftermarket hinges, which rolled the seats back, according to Williamson. Inside the metal compartment, police found three plastic-wrapped packages weighing a combined 2.16 pounds. The packages contained a white powdery substance that tested positive for cocaine, police reported. Mejia was charged with one felony count of possession with intent to deliver cocaine. Due to his drug trafficking history and large number of aliases, Mejia was considered a flight risk and denied bail, according to court records. He was arraigned before Muncy Magisterial District Judge Jon E. Kemp and committed to Lycoming County Prison on February 5, 2019. Docket sheet not yet available. Photo provided Ryanhood Duo is bringing its up-tempo storytelling folk music to a show Sunday at The Depot. This duo has received several awards, including "Best Folk Band" and "Best Rock Band." Doug Mills / The New York Times via AP President Donald Trump takes with Rep. Billy Long, R-Mo., after giving his State of the Union address Tuesday to a joint session of Congress at the Capitol. Kyle Phillips / The Transcript Susan Stanford serves customers during last year's Gumbo Cook-off and Zydeco Party. This year's Gumbo Cook-off and Zydeco Party will be from 7 to 9 p.m. Saturday at The Mercury, 426 E. Main St. The New Orleans Saints added running back Martez Carter on a futures contract after signing him for a pair of brief stints on the practice squad in December. Carter signed with Washington last spring as an undrafted free agent out of Grambling and suffered a fibula fracture in his first preseason game. Washington put him on injured reserve and then released him with an injury designation. Once healed, the Saints brought him in for three weeks of practices before his final release Dec. 29, one day before the regular season finale against the Carolina Panthers. He replaced Boston Scott on the practice squad after the Philadelphia Eagles added Scott to their 53-man roster. The signing appeared on the transaction wire Wednesday (Feb. 6). A total 160,376 signed up to participate Monday to win prizes up $1 million as part of the Shot At A Million campaign that the state launched to reward residents who have been or soon will be vaccinated against COVID-19. The St. Tammany Parish School Board Thursday night (Feb. 7) formally asked board member Sharon Lo Drucker to resign her elected post in the wake of a shoplifting accusation that has landed the second-term board member in a court diversion program. No way, Drucker firmly told them. I am not resigning my position, she said. In her first public comments before the full School Board since being accused of shoplifting last July, Drucker told board members and a full audience in Covington that she had made a mistake and has sincerely apologized. But, she said, her constituents re-elected her last November and continue to back her. My voters voted me in, she said. The boards vote to ask her to resign was 11-4. The resolution was a symbolic measure; the board cannot force a member to step down. Drucker last July was issued a summons to appear in court on a misdemeanor charge of theft under $1,000 stemming from accusations that she shoplifted items from a Wal-Mart near Covington. The incident did not come to light until October, when Drucker pleaded not guilty at an arraignment. The Advocate, citing the police report, has reported that the total value of the stolen items was $58.25. In January, District Attorney Warren Montgomery said Drucker had been placed in a diversion program. Under that program, the charge is put on hold and will be dismissed if Drucker completes the 12-month program, he said. Drucker, whose 9th District is based in Madisonville, began her second term on the board in January. She easily won re-election to her post last November, despite the news of incident coming to light during the campaign. Her lone challenger, Meg Good Hackney, had said prior to the election that she planned to move out of state due her husbands job but wanted to keep her name on the ballot in hopes that if she won and did not take the seat it would force a special election. Board members have said they didnt know about the incident until it was reported in the media and some expressed frustration that Drucker had not publicly commented until issuing a statement last week. The resolution before the board during Thursdays special meeting, authored by board members Michael Nation and Shelta Richardson, says that as elected officials School Board must hold themselves to a higher standard. Board resolution seeks member resignation The resolution chides Drucker for what it says are actions to conceal information about the incident from the board, administrators and her constituents. The resolution says school system employees are required to report such offenses to their supervisors within 24 hours. It further states that concealing the incident has led some community members to conclude that the board and administrators were aides in her concealment. Nation said he finds the situation very, very sad, but said Drucker has put herself above the system with her refusal to step down. Stealing is willful act, he said. Richardson and board members Tammy Lamy and Michael Winkler all spoke in support of the resolution. St. Tammany top stories in your inbox A weekly guide to the biggest news in St. Tammany. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Richardson said the public has been asking what the board will do and that passing the resolution will make a statement that the board does not hold itself above the law. Winkler added that board members will soon be asking the public to approve a $175 million construction plan fueled by bonds. That plan goes to voters in May. But board member James Braud said the law is clear that Drucker, as an elected official, doesnt fall under the same requirements as school district employees. She had no responsibility to inform the board, he said, adding that the voters in Druckers district knew of the incident before they cast their votes. Board member Richard Hursey agreed. Board member Ronald Bettencourtt, meanwhile, asked the board to censure Drucker instead. Bettencourtt also said its up to the voters of the 9th District to recall Drucker if they feel she must go. Several people in the audience spoke. Each supported the resolution. Drucker and all board members must hold themselves to the same standards as the districts teachers, Lee Barrios said. Another, Cindy Rester, said Druckers arrogance has been an embarrassment. The special board meeting amounted to a rare public rebuke by some board members of one of their own. The agenda had called for much of the meeting to happen in executive session, but a board vote led to the open meeting. Drucker could have asked for the meeting to happen in closed session but did not. Its already out in the press, she said. Drucker told the board that everyone makes mistakes. This is my mistake, she said, adding that people heal, learn and grow from their mistakes. She said being placed in a diversion program is not a slap on the wrist. Supporting the resolution were Nation, Richardson, Lamy, Winkler and board members Matthew Greene, Beth Heintz, Michael Dirmann, Stephen Loup, Brandon Harrell, Dennis Cousin and Lisa Page. Braud, Hursey, Bettencourtt and Drucker voted against it. Following the special meeting, Drucker and the rest of the board conducted two regularly-scheduled committee meetings. (NOTE: This article was altered on Oct. 28, 2020, to reflect the current hours of the food pantry, which have changed since it was opened in 2019.) A new food pantry has opened to serve families in St. Tammany Parish. The New Orleans Mission this week opened the Mission Pantry in Lacombe. It will serve 24,000 hungry individuals across St. Tammany Parish, according to a statement. The pantry is on the site of the New Orleans Missions Giving Hope Retreat at 31294 U.S. 190. As of October 2020, its hours are 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. It is closed on Tuesday and Sunday. The Mission Pantry joins the North Shore Food Bank in Covington, which has served families in St. Tammany and Washington parishes for years. Like the North Shore Food Bank, the Mission Pantry has a partnership with Second Harvest, which helps distribute food in 23 parishes across southeast and southwest Louisiana. St. Tammany top stories in your inbox A weekly guide to the biggest news in St. Tammany. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Giving Hope Retreat The Giving Hope Retreat, opened in 2015, is a nearly 60-acre campus where programs are provided to aide the homeless population. The New Orleans Mission also distributes food in the Central City area of New Orleans. With the help of our incredible community partners, we hope to get farmers, grocers and other food purveyors to support the program as we attempt to eradicate food insecurity in St. Tammany Parish, Mission Pantry Program Director John Proctor said in a news release. Low-income individuals seeking food assistance must fill out an application at the Mission Pantry. Recipients cannot receive food from any other free source to be eligible, the mission said. For more information on the Mission Pantry or New Orleans Mission, go to www.neworleansmission.org. Ochsner Health System and Xavier University have partnered to launch a new Physician Assistant graduate program that will kick off in January 2020. The Bureau of Labor Statistics forecasts the physician assistant profession to grow by 37 percent over the next decade as demand for healthcare services increase because of an aging population. Over the next five years the profession is likely to grow from 123,000 physician assistants nationally to 170,000. Varsha Gusman, the director of the Xavier Physician Assistant program, said that as the number of physician assistants in the U.S. grows she hopes the partnership with Ochsner will play a role in fighting the lack of diversity which has plagued the profession. What we are seeing is a lack of diversity in this profession with minorities representing less than 4 percent of this profession, she said. A study published in March 2018 in the Journal of the American Academy of Physician Assistants found a significant disparity between the number of people who identify as white who matriculated in PA programs compared to those who identify as black or African-American. Between 2003 to 2013 the percentage of white matriculants in PA programs nationally increased from 76.5 percent to 81.8 percent. Meanwhile the percentage of black or African-American students dropped from 6.2 percent to 4.4 percent in that same time period. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Over the years Xavier University has built a reputation in successfully graduating some of the highest numbers of black pre-med students in the U.S. In 2017, Xavier was second to only Howard University in Washington D.C. in graduating the highest number of pre-med students who identify as either black or African-American. Gusman, who will also serve as clinical assistant professor of professional programs in the Physician Assistant Department added, We want to increase the diversity within this profession and create an environment where we can have students of diverse backgrounds. The PA program, which leads to a masters degree in health sciences, involves 12 months of classroom training at Xavier followed by 16 months of clinical training at various Ochsner facilities. Students will complete 11 rotations and study with healthcare professionals across different specialties such as family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics, and behavioral health. Physician Assistant is a very interdisciplinary practice, said Dr. Leonardo Seoane, the chief academic officer at Ochsner Health System. The students will be doing all of their clinical work at Ochsner Medical School, training alongside with our medical students and nurses. We are really excited about this. The PA program is part of long-standing relationship between the healthcare system and the university, who first partnered in 1980 to extend clinical training to pharmacy students at the university. Xavier will open enrollment for the program in mid-April and anticipate a start date in January 2020. The initial cohort will be open to 40 students. For more information or to apply to the new Xavier University and Ochsner Physician Assistant program, visit www.xula.edu/physician-assistant-program or call (504) 520-5119. A Baton Rouge animal shelter named in a complaint against the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine that alleges the university violated federal law by purchasing dogs for use in experiments from unlicensed providers said it has ceased the practice of providing live animals to the school. Christel Slaughter, chairperson for the Companion Animal Alliances Board of Directors, said Thursday (Feb. 7) that the board last year passed a resolution to stop providing animals to LSU or other institutions for use in research. On Wednesday, the People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Agriculture claiming the school may have violated the federal Animal Welfare Act by purchasing dogs from the shelter. The school, in a statement earlier this week, rejected PETAs allegations and said it follows the federal regulations. PETAs complaint says the CAA shelter did not possess the required federal license needed to provide animals for research. It also says the school did not properly maintain records on some animals used in lethal anatomy courses and possibly other experimental purposes. Slaughter said the shelters board of directors was not aware that live dogs were being sent to LSU for research until the practice was called to members attention by Desiree Bender, the shelters former executive director who was terminated in October. The board soon after passed the resolution prohibiting live shelter dogs from being turned over to the veterinary school, Slaughter said. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up The shelter continues to provide cadavers to LSU for research, if they are available, Slaughter said. PETA complains to USDA about LSU veterinary school animal procurement process PETAs complaint alleges at least 70 dogs were unlawfully acquired from the shelter by LSU in from January to October of 2018, claiming the school purchases cadavers from the shelter for $20 each, and live dogs for $40. Those acquisitions would give rise to at least 140 separate violations of the federal animal act, the complaint said. The national animals rights group said the procurement ran against the Animal Welfare Act, which was enacted in 1966 to prevent the practice of companion pets being stolen by dealers and resold to research institutions for scientific experimentation. The law makes it illegal for any research facility to purchase dogs or cats from any person except an operator of an auction sale. or a person holding a valid license as a dealer or exhibitor. CAA did not possess a license, according to the complaint. In its statement, LSU acknowledged the veterinary medicine school obtains euthanized animals from animal shelters but said it does not violate federal law in doing so. It contends obtaining animals from shelters for use in teaching does not violate the Federal Animal Welfare Act, and the process used by the veterinary school to obtain animals is reviewed annually by the universitys Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, as required by the act. A former altar boy has filed a lawsuit against the Archdiocese of New Orleans, claiming he was sexually abused decades ago by two Catholic priests associated with St. Raphael the Archangel Church in Gentilly. The 23-page suit says Michael Fraser and Paul Calamari both worked as clergymen at St. Raphael and molested the unnamed plaintiff on several occasions in the 1980s. Attorneys John Denenea Jr. and Richard Trahant filed the suit on behalf of the plaintiff, who was identified in the filing as James Doe. The suit, which also names as defendants the priests and two church insurers, seeks an unspecified amount that will fully compensate the plaintiff for past and future pain and suffering, mental anguish medical expenses and impairment of lifes pleasures. The archdiocese declined to comment on the suit. Both Fraser and Calamari were among 57 clergy members named on Nov. 2 by the archdiocese as having been credibly accused of sex abuse over the past several decades. Filed Wednesday (Feb. 6) in Orleans Parish Civil District Court, the suit claims that both Calamari and Fraser were presented by the archdiocese as authority figures and were allowed to take children on sleepovers outside the church parish. The filing includes explicit details of an alleged incident involving Fraser that occurred when the plaintiff was 11 years old. While on a sleepover at St. Peter and Paul Church on the North Shore, the priest took the plaintiff and other boys out for pizza, the suit said. Afterwards, Fraser instructed the plaintiff to come to his bedroom to put Lubriderm lotion on Frasers feet. As the boy was applying the lotion, the suit said, he noticed that Fraser had placed a towel over his groin area and was masturbating. The suit said, When James Doe proceeded to leave the room, Father Fraser excitedly exclaimed, Boy, you know what you just did to me, you gave my feet the best hand job ever! James Doe immediately felt sick to his stomach, the suit says. The filing also details how the plaintiff and other boys were requested to have sleepovers at the summer home of Calamaris family on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. During those visits, Calamari would wrestle with the child, which led to fondling and groping of their genitals, according to the filing. New Orleans archdiocese was one of dozens around the country that has released lists of priests accused of abuse, in an attempt to address a public clamor for transparency in the clergy abuse scandal that continues to rock the church worldwide. Archdiocese names 57 priests credibly accused of abuse Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Fraser, who was ordained in 1975, was the target of a 1998 lawsuit filed in St. Tammany Parish civil court, accusing him of molesting a 17-year-old parishioner in 1991 in the Sts. Peter and Paul Parish rectory in Pearl River. Fraser denied the allegations when that 1998 lawsuit was filed. That lawsuit was settled in 2004, according to the website bishopaccountability.org. Fraser was removed from the ministry late that year, after allegations he sexually abused a child in the mid-1980s, at the same Pearl River parish. The bishop accountability website also lists an accusation against Fraser that he molested a boy the early 1980s at St. Raphael the Archangel church. It is unclear if that boy is the same person now filing the lawsuit against Fraser. Calamari was ordained in 1980 and served in several ministries in Louisiana, Mississippi and Delaware. He was removed from ministry in 2003, according to the Archdiocese of New Orleans, following allegations that he committed sexual abuse in the 1970s. A 2006 Times-Picayune article said Calamari left New Orleans on medical leave for treatment at a Pennsylvania psychiatric center for priests and other church ministers. The James Doe suit filed this week claims the plaintiff first learned that the archdiocese had knowledge of the multiple incidents of sexual abuse by Father Fraser and Father Calamari when the archdiocese disclosed for the first time the list of pedophile priests in November. The suit said the church did not sufficiently try to identify and help victims of abuse committed by the 57 clergymen. Attorneys representing plaintiffs in cases that may be subject to the statute of limitations have argued that litigation stemming from long ago incidents should be allowed in instances where crimes were concealed by the church. An article published in The Times-Picayune in January of 2005 reported that Fraser filed a lawsuit against former Archbishop Alfred Hughes, claiming he had been defamed by Hughes when the archbishop relieved him of his priestly duties on a charge that Fraser had molested a child. The archdiocese called a news conference to announce Hughes action, the article said. A statement released this week by the James Doe legal team, which has represented other clients in legal action against the church, says the plaintiff is likely to be shunned and criticized for filing a lawsuit. In other cases we previously filed, we are seeing the disconnect that the archdiocese has with the public. The archbishop has repeatedly cried out for justice for the victims, yet when a victim seeks justice, the archdioceses lawyers try to reveal their names, and then drags them through needless delays, the statement says. Although the archdiocese declined to comment on the suit, it did respond to the statement issued by the plaintiffs legal team, refuting the claim that it has sought to identify victims of abuse. The Archdiocese of New Orleans continues to offer the opportunity for healing to any victim of abuse without resorting to any means that would result in their identity being revealed. The archdiocese strongly disagrees withstatements to the contrary," its statement says. "When litigation has been pursued by the victims, the archdiocese has not and will not object to the suits being sealed or the identity of the victims being protected in any other legally applicable manner. We respect the victims choice." The statement adds that the archdiocese not only has the right but also the obligation to defend itself through the legal system", and that it remains "open to attempting to resolve victims claims without pursuing litigation. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today initiated enforcement action against a Walgreen Co. store in Miami, Florida and a Circle K Stores Inc. store in Charleston, South Carolina for repeated violations of selling tobacco to minors. But its a bigger problem; the FDA said Walgreens is currently the top violator among pharmacies that sell tobacco products, with 22 percent of the stores inspected having illegally sold tobacco products to minors, a press release said. "Im also deeply disturbed that a single pharmacy chain racked up almost 1,800 violations for selling tobacco products to minors across the country,'' said FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb in a press release. I will be writing the corporate management of Walgreens and requesting a meeting with them to discuss whether there is a corporate-wide issue related to their stores non-compliance and put them on notice that the FDA is considering additional enforcement avenues to address their record of violative tobacco sales to youth,'' Gottlieb said in a press release. We all share the important responsibility of keeping harmful and addictive tobacco products out of the hands of kids. Retailers in particular especially those who position themselves as health-and-wellness-minded businesses are on the frontlines of these efforts and must take that legal obligation seriously." I have particular concerns about whether the pharmacy setting is influencing consumer and retailer perceptions around tobacco products in a way thats contributing to these troubling findings.'' Walgreens issued a response: We take this matter very seriously and have taken a number of steps to help address the important issue of sales of these products to minors, including requiring identification for anyone purchasing tobacco products regardless of age in all of our stores nationwide. In addition, we are training all of our store team members on the new requirements and strengthening disciplinary actions against store employees who violate the policy. We recognize the seriousness of this issue and welcome the opportunity to meet with the FDA Administrator to discuss all of the steps we are taking since the health and wellbeing of our customers is our top priority and core mission. The FDA is evaluating data on other large, national retail chains to identify companies that also have high rates of repeat violations and are considering what additional measures we should pursue. While many of our recent enforcement actions focused on the illegal sales and marketing of e-cigarettes, todays announcement is a reminder that youth access to all tobacco products remains a public health problem. "And no retailer should be illegally selling these products to minors. As part of our Youth Tobacco Prevention Plan, well continue to employ all the tools at our disposal to monitor, penalize and prevent sales of all tobacco products, including e-cigarettes, to minors at brick-and-mortar stores and Internet storefronts as we work to ensure these products are sold in ways that make them less accessible and appealing to kids. Measles outbreaks are being reported across the country. Here's what to know The 2019 WYES Producers Circle cocktail reception Wednesday (Feb. 6) featured special guest Walter Isaacson. Isaacson is a professor of history at Tulane University and the former president and CEO of the Aspen Institute, a nonpartisan educational and policy studies institute in Washington, D.C. He was chairman and CEO of CNN and editor of TIME magazine. Isaacson is one of the contributing journalists on PBS " , which airs weeknights at 10 p.m. on WYES-TV/Channel 12. The Producers Circle is a diverse group of donors committed to quality public television, and it provides funding for WYES cultural programs that emphasize the traditions, history and cuisine of our region. Melinda L. Shelton, Social Scene correspondent WYES Producers Circle welcomes journalist Walter Isaacson Left to right, WYES president and CEO Allan Pizzato, Mallory Savoie, Lori Savoie, guest of honor Walter Isaacson, and Bobby Savoie. The Savoie family hosted the event. Melinda L. Shelton, Social Scene correspondent WYES Producers Circle welcomes journalist Walter Isaacson David G. Perlis, Consuelo Carr, and Al Duvernay. Melinda L. Shelton, Social Scene correspondent WYES Producers Circle welcomes journalist Walter Isaacson Bobby Greham, Nan Smith, and Judy Freeman. Melinda L. Shelton, Social Scene correspondent WYES Producers Circle welcomes journalist Walter Isaacson Lock Ochsner with his mother, Mary Lou Ochsner. Melinda L. Shelton, Social Scene correspondent WYES Producers Circle welcomes journalist Walter Isaacson Guest of honor Walter Isaacson, left, with Bill Goldring, and host Bobby Savoie. Melinda L. Shelton, Social Scene correspondent WYES Producers Circle welcomes journalist Walter Isaacson Anna Maria and Myra Mitchell. Melinda L. Shelton, Social Scene correspondent WYES Producers Circle welcomes journalist Walter Isaacson Shown left to right, Miles Clement, Bonnie Rault, Elizabeth and Adelaide Goodyear. Melinda L. Shelton, Social Scene correspondent WYES Producers Circle welcomes journalist Walter Isaacson Left to right, Brooke and Lori Ochsner, with Katherine Gelderman. Melinda L. Shelton, Social Scene correspondent WYES Producers Circle welcomes journalist Walter Isaacson Mary Ann and Harry Barkerding, with Peggy Scott Laborde, WYES senior producer. Melinda L. Shelton, Social Scene correspondent WYES Producers Circle welcomes journalist Walter Isaacson Marcia Kavanaugh, Jim Tapley, and Cynthia LeBreton. Melinda L. Shelton, Social Scene correspondent WYES Producers Circle welcomes journalist Walter Isaacson Jim Ward and Karen Wood. Melinda L. Shelton, Social Scene correspondent WYES Producers Circle welcomes journalist Walter Isaacson Left to right, Patricia Brinson, Tommy Westervelt, Anne Redd, and Marla Garvey. Melinda L. Shelton, Social Scene correspondent WYES Producers Circle welcomes journalist Walter Isaacson Suzie and Pierre Villere. From left, Rachel Globensky, the fruit and vegetable program co-ordinator at the Thunder Bay District Health Unit; George Saarinen, vice-chairman of Lakehead Public Schools; Jessica Dure, public health nurse; Kali Bernst, principal of Algonquin Avenue Public School, and students Genia Capar, Athena Willoughby, Phillycia Fenton, Andre Shapwaykeesic and Rudronil Roy prepare to make some smoothies with fresh fruit and vegetables at the school on Thursday. Stanley James Louis Preston Foxworth, a Shih Tzu and Boston Terrier blend from the Bywater, started his journey in New Orleans as a sickly homeless dog at a local shelter. In a few weeks, hell likely be dining at Galatoires with his queen at his side as part of his reign as the Krewe of Barkus King XXVII. The Mystic Krewe of Barkus announcement naming Stanley as its king states the mutts striking outward appearance, marked by a custom-made wardrobe, is matched only by his off-the-charts social and emotional IQ. Stanley considers himself a true New Orleans gentleman, the krewe said in its announcement. "I prefer to wear blazers as I feel my best when I do," King Stanley said, according to the announcement. Stanley will lead the annual dog-centric Barkus parade through the French Quarter at 2 p.m. Feb. 24, starting at Armstrong Park. His majesty requests his subjects to gather in full nerd mode, for this years theme: Big Bark Theory: Barkus Goes to Comic Con. Barkus, Mardi Gras' beloved dog parade, gets nerdy in 2019 Stanleys owner Tracy Foxworth adopted him from Zeus Place and found her new family member to be a guaranteed smile-maker, the announcement states. After presiding as king, Stanley plans to author a memoir, From the Streets to Seersucker. Stanleys reign, the krewe says, shines as a symbol of hope for his subjects waiting for a home. Barkus queen hasnt been announced yet, but the krewe has announced its royal princess: Innocence. She was born on the grounds of Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, and now, shes royalty. Malcolm Alexander was released from prison in January 2018 after spending almost 38 years behind bars for a crime he didnt commit. A day after his release, he was reunited with the dog he had nicknamed Inn. Innocence Project New Orleans served as local counsel to Innocence Project, the group which helped him gain his freedom. Innocence was born at the prison to another dog at the facility, and Alexander raised her, according to Vanessa Potkin, an attorney with The Innocence Project. Dogs living large: Barkus King and Queen brunch at Galatoire's, 2018 Production on the YouTube series "On Becoming a God in Central Florida" is expected to interrupt westbound traffic on Jefferson Highway on Saturday (Feb. 9) between Clearview Parkway and Edwards Avenue, motorists are being advised. According to a news release from the Jefferson Parish Public Information Office, filming is scheduled to take place between 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. During that time, "intermittent traffic control" may disrupt traffic for up to 5 minutes at a time. Filming is being done in cooperation with parish government. Co-executive-produced by George Clooney and Grant Heslov ("Argo," "Our Brand is Crisis"), "On Becoming a God In Central Florida" is a 10-episode dark comedy series featuring Kirsten Dunst as a minimum-wage worker who schemes her way to the top of the pyramid scheme that brought ruin to her family. It is scheduled to air at a yet-to-be-announced date in 2019 on YouTube Premium. Naomie Harris dons NOPD badge for upcoming cop drama The series is one of a number of TV and movie projects currently shooting or preparing to shoot in New Orleans. Others include: Apple CEO Tim Cook will address graduates as the keynote speaker at Tulane Universitys 2019 commencement ceremony. The ceremony is scheduled for May 18. Tulane University made the announcement Thursday (Feb. 7) in a video shared with its graduating senior class of approximately 3,000 students. The video featured Lisa Jackson, Apples vice president of environment, policy and social initiatives, and Tulanes commencement speaker in 2012. Cook, who grew up in Robertsdale, Alabama, was a Fuqua Scholar at Duke University, where he earned a masters degree in business administration. He holds a bachelors degree in industrial engineering from Auburn University. Cook, CEO and a member of Apples board of directors, has invested in educational opportunities for students of all ages and backgrounds over his career, according to a news release. Last year, Cook again made Fortunes Worlds 50 Greatest Leaders list. He has been named Person of the Year by The Financial Times and has received the Newseums Free Speech Award, which recognizes prominent people who use their position to take a public stand on social issues. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference also presented Cook with its Keeper of the Dream Award for Human Rights in April 2018. In a statement, Cook said Tulanes dedication to its students and New Orleans an awesome example of celebrating diversity and giving back to the community. At Apple, we believe that education is a powerful equalizing force, and I cant wait to celebrate alongside this years students, who have worked hard, followed their passions and who stand ready to change the world, Cook said. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Tulane President Mike Fitts said Cook represents the kind of success Tulane wants for all of its graduates. At Tulane, we are committed to addressing global challenges, giving back to our community and always acting with integrity and wisdom," Fitt said. Tim shows us how we can incorporate these values into life beyond graduation, and we are thrilled to have him as part of our commencement celebration. Past Tulane commencement speakers include U.S. Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, award-winning actress Helen Mirren, and the 14th Dalai Lama. Tulanes 2019 commencement ceremony will be held at 9 a.m. on May 18, 2019, at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. Tulane University breaks applications record amid school expansion Wilborn P. Nobles III is an education reporter based in New Orleans. He can be reached at wnobles@nola.com or on Twitter at @WilNobles. A woman at a French Quarter home where police on Wednesday (Feb. 6) found a man rolled up in a rug and stabbed to death told police Morgan Rothe-Skinner admitted to her that he had stabbed the man, according to court documents. Rothe-Skinner, a 26-year-old Tulane University student, surrendered to New Orleans police at the scene after a brief stand-off with officers and has been booked on a charge of second-degree murder in the stabbing, records show. During his first appearance hearing in Orleans Parish Magistrate Court, Rothe-Skinner was described as a Tulane student, according to The New Orleans Advocate. The university on Friday confirmed Rothe-Skinners enrollment in a digital design program at the school. New Orleans police responded about 6:45 p.m. Wednesday to the home in the 600 block of Burgundy Street after receiving reports of a possible hostage situation, authorities said Wednesday. Officers arrived to find the person who called police in front of the Burgundy Street home, saying that a male relative might be barricaded inside, NOPD said. An affidavit sworn by NOPD Homicide Detective Stephanie Gray states the officers encountered a man later identified as Rothe-Skinner, who was armed with a knife. After detaining him, Gray wrote, the officers went to an adjacent apartment, saw a rolled-up rug, then observed human feet hanging from the end. Upon opening the rug, officers found a man who had multiple lacerations to his body and face. The man, who authorities have not yet publicly identified, was pronounced dead at the scene. Police found French Quarter stabbing victim rolled up in rug: court documents Detectives interviewed a woman the affidavit for arrest warrant referred to only as a witness, Gray wrote. The witness told detectives Skinner had confessed to her that he killed the victim, the affidavit says. She also told detectives she had been held against her will at the home by Rothe-Skinner, for hours. The brief stand-off between Rothe-Skinner and officers happened in the homes kitchen, according to an initial NOPD report detailing Wednesdays scene. The kitchen was connected to the rear entrance by another room, and the rear entrance led to a courtyard. A multistory building, which Gray had referred to in her affidavit as an apartment, stood across the courtyard. The apartment door was open, the police report states. When officers entered they observed a great deal of blood on a bed sheet, and a carpet in the center of the floor which was rolled up, the police report states. It was at that point, it states, that officers noticed the lifeless person rolled up in the rug. Police have not said in any statements or available documents what, if any, relationship Rothe-Skinner has to the deceased man or the woman who claims she was held against her will. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up 1 in custody after man found fatally stabbed at French Quarter home: NOPD A witness at the scene said he saw a woman run out of a Burgundy Street home Wednesday night, screaming for help. Terrance Allen said she told him and his friends she had been held hostage for hours by her grandson, who had stabbed another male relative. Allen said he was with friends outside of a bar on the corner of Burgundy and Toulouse streets when the woman, who appeared to be in her 60s or 70s, ran outside. He described her as panicked, and said she told them the killing occurred in the homes courtyard. Orleans Magistrate Commissioner Jonathan Friedman set Rothe-Skinners bond at $500,000 during his first appearance hearing on Thursday, court records show. Rothe-Skinner was enrolled in a digital design program within Tulanes School of Professional Advancement, university spokesman Michael Strecker said. It was not immediately clear whether Rothe-Skinner was represented by an attorney. Friedman scheduled a Feb. 15 hearing to determine who would represent Rothe-Skinner. NOPD Homicide Detective Stephanie Gray is in charge of the ongoing investigation and can be reached at 504-658-5300 with any information regarding the stabbing. To submit an anonymous tip, call Crimestoppers at 504-822-1111. Staff writer Laura McKnight contributed to this report. ** The Jefferson Parish Sheriffs Office cancelled the alert for the woman identified as a possible witness in this case just before 10 p.m. on Friday (Feb. 8). Detectives have developed information to assist the investigation and the alert is no longer needed, authorities said. Jefferson Parish Sheriffs Office detectives are trying to identify and find a woman who may have been a witness to a double homicide in Harvey Thursday night (Feb. 7). UPDATE: Man killed in Harvey homicide was wanted fugitive from Seattle Investigators released two photographs of the woman whom theyd like to speak with about the case, said Capt. Jason Rivarde, spokesman for the department. Authorities hope she can shed light on what happened inside a townhouse in the 1500 block of Kings Road in Harvey (map) where a man and woman were found dead. UPDATE: JPSO no longer needs to speak with the woman, Capt. Jason Rivarde said late Friday (Feb. 8). Man, woman killed in Harvey homicide: JPSO Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up The Jefferson Parish coroners office identified the victims as Cheston Isom, 27, of Seattle, and Angenae Walker, 22, of Federal Way, Washington. Their causes of death are still pending, Chief Death Investigators Mark Bone said Friday afternoon. Deputies dispatched on a medical call to the two-story duplex just after 9 p.m. They arrived and found Isom lying unconscious on the first floor, authorities said. Paramedics called to the residence werent able to save Isom, who was pronounced dead at the scene. Deputies conducted a security sweep and discovered Walkers body on the second floor. She had a gunshot wound, according to the sheriffs office. She, too, was pronounced dead at the scene. No other information was available about the case. Anyone with information about possible witness identity or the double homicide is asked to call Detective Scott Bradley at the sheriffs office investigations bureau at 504.364.5300. The public can also call Crimestoppers at 504.822.1111 or toll-free at 877.903.7867. Callers do not have to give their names or testify and can earn a $5,000 reward for information that leads to an indictment. New Orleans Saints player David Onyematas Elmwood apartment was raided by narcotics officers after a package addressed to the defensive lineman that contained marijuana products was delivered to his home, according to Jefferson Parish Sheriff Joseph Lopinto. Lyft driver kidnapped, raped female passenger Onyemata, 26, was arrested by misdemeanor summons for possession of marijuana. He was not booked into jail, said Capt. Jason Rivarde, spokesman for the department. A New Orleans Saints spokesman declined to comment on the matter Thursday (Feb. 7). A U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent seized the package in Buffalo, N.Y., on Jan. 28, and contacted the Sheriffs Office. Local authorities conducted a controlled delivery the next day, allowing the marijuana parcel to be delivered to Onyematas apartment, Lopinto said. Sheriffs Office narcotics detectives executed a search warrant at the Elmwood apartment around 12 p.m. They seized a total of 80 grams of marijuana products, including hemp powder, THC oils and edibles, authorities said. Onyemata received a summons because the drug amounts did not reach distribution levels. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up It was a personal amount, Lopinto said. The Sheriffs Office wasnt targeting Onyemate, specifically, nor were they on a mission to bust someone with a small amount of marijuana, according to Lopinto. They were following tip from the federal agency about a drug alert on the package. We handle this type of investigation all the time, Lopinto said. Many residents have been arrested for allegedly having illegal drugs mailed to their home. In 2016, police arrested a man named Thomas Arbon after U.S. Postal Service Inspectors discovered marijuana and THC wax inside a package addressed to his Kenner residence. Officers obtained a search warrant and took Arbon into custody after he accepted the package, finding more marijuana and a digital scale inside, authorities said. Arbon later pleaded guilty in Jefferson Parish court. We issue misdemeanor summons all day long for possession of marijuana, Lopinto said. Its news because hes a Saints player. Officers responding to a possible hostage situation in the French Quarter Wednesday night (Feb. 6) entered a Burgundy Street home to find a fatally stabbed man rolled into a rug, according to arrest documents for the man suspected in the stabbing. Morgan Rothe-Skinner, 26, has been booked with second-degree murder in the mans death. The New Orleans Advocate reported that Rothe-Skinner was described in court Thursday as a student at Tulane University." After stabbing the man and rolling him into the rug, Rothe-Skinner then held a woman hostage for hours, the arrest documents show. She eventually was able to run from the house and seek help. A stand-off ensued between police and Rothe-Skinner, still armed with a knife. He later surrendered to officers. Authorities have not publicly identified the stabbing victim or disclosed the connections between the victim, Rothe-Skinner and the woman. However, a witness at the scene said he was standing at Burgundy and Toulouse streets when he saw a woman run from a home screaming for help. He said the woman told him that her grandson had just killed another of her male relatives. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Rothe-Skinner remained in jail Thursday evening with his bail set at $500,000, Orleans Parish court records show. Anyone with additional details on the fatal stabbing is asked to call NOPD Homicide Detective Stephanie Gray at 504-658-5300. Laura McKnight covers crime and breaking news for NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune. This post was update late Thursday (Feb. 7) with details from court records. A lieutenant with the New Orleans Police Department surrendered to the Louisiana State Police Thursday (Feb. 7) to face a charge of insurance fraud, NOPD and court records show. Gervais Allison Sr. is accused of defrauding a disability insurance company of more than $6,000, according to Louisiana State Police. NOPD records list Allison as a lieutenant who joined the force in 1990. In a statement to NOLA.com | The Times-Picyaune, NOPD did not name Allison but acknowledged one of our employees surrendered to face a charge of insurance fraud. The NOPD is fully cooperating with state police and arranged for the employee to surrender to their custody earlier today, said the statement, issued by NOPD spokesman Andy Cunningham and attributed to the NOPD. A supervisor in NOPDs 3rd District, which polices the Gentilly and Lakeview areas, Allison also serves as pastor at Rosedale Missionary Baptist Church, in New Orleans Easts Venetian Isles neighborhood. He was interviewed by CNN for a March 2017 story profiling the intersection of faith and violence in New Orleans. Reached by phone, Allison declined to comment on the charge. The Louisiana State Police Bureau of Investigation alleges Allison failed to notify a disability insurance company about his return to work while he continued to collect disability benefits, according to State Police spokeswoman Trooper Melissa Matey. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Allison returned to work in November 2016 and continued to collect disability insurance benefits until March 2017, Matey said. The policy required him to notify the insurance company if he returned to work part time or full time, she said. The total paid to Allison in disability benefits after he returned to work was about $6,340, she said. It was not immediately clear if the initial disability claim or the job to which he returned was related to the NOPD. In a statement, the NOPD said the department placed the arrested employee on emergency suspension, in accordance with routine procedure, after Louisiana State Police contacted the department Thursday morning regarding a warrant. Allison was booked Thursday into the Orleans justice Center jail, and Orleans Judicial District Judge Karen Herman preset his bond, court records show. Herman ordered Allison to be released on his own recognizance, but set a $10,000 bond penalty if he fails to appear at his next court hearing. Court records show Allison was not present in Orleans Parish Magistrate Court for his first appearance Thursday afternoon when Magistrate Commissioner Jonathan Friedman found probable cause for the charges to move forward. Allisons next court date is scheduled for July 7. A 27-year-old man killed in a Harvey double homicide Thursday night (Feb. 7) was fugitive wanted in connection with a Seattle home invasion and shooting, according to authorities. UPDATE: Harvey double homicide victim killed day after her birthday Cheston Isom was pronounced dead at a home in the 1500 block of Kings Road in Harvey after the Jefferson Parish Sheriffs Office responded to the residence for a medical call just after 9 p.m. A second victim, Angenae Walker, 22, of Federal Way, Wash., was found on the second-floor of the townhouse. She was suffering from a gunshot wound, the Sheriffs Office said. Victims identified, possible witness sought in Harvey double homicide Isom, a convicted felon, was wanted by Seattle police in a home invasion that occurred in December, authorities said. He was featured just last week on Washingtons Most Wanted by Q13 Fox News, according to anchor David Rose. Isom has family ties to the New Orleans area, according to court records. Walkers relatives say she was visiting the New Orleans area to celebrate her birthday. The Jefferson Parish Sheriffs Office has not released any information about motive or a suspect in their deaths. Detectives released photos of an unnamed woman they believe was a witness in the case. They have asked the public for help identifying the woman and finding her. Anyone with information about the deaths of Cheston Isom and Angenae Walker or the identity of the possible witness is asked to call Det. Scott Bradley at the Sheriffs Office investigations bureau at 504.364.5300. The public can also call Crimestoppers at 504.822.1111 or toll-free at 877.903.7867. Callers do not have to give their names or testify and can earn a $5,000 reward for information that leads to an indictment. A New Orleans jury unanimously convicted Johnny Jefferson of second-degree murder Thursday (Feb. 7) in a 2016 shooting that killed 17-year-old Sam Carter in the Milan neighborhood. The jury deliberated almost two hours before returning their verdict. Carter was shot four times on Aug. 11 -- twice in the chest, once in the back and once in the buttocks and police found his body in the 2200 block of Peniston Street. Detectives received anonymous tips that Jefferson was the gunman, and an eyewitness identified through a CrimeStoppers tip told police Jefferson shot Carter, according to testimony. Surveillance video captured the shooting. Assistant District Attorneys Michael Trummel and Mark Lopez said the witness, who Jefferson sometimes lived with, blamed Carter for a burglary at her house. Two days before the shooting, two people broke in and stole marijuana, he said New Orleans man booked in execution-style killing of teen in Milan area Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Defense attorneys Michael Kennedy and Tori Guidry argued police arrested the wrong man in connection with the crime. He said it was impossible to make out the identity of the gunman in the video. Another piece of evidence, a black T-shirt found blocks from the shooting scene where the witness said Jefferson and Carter had an argument, had Jeffersons DNA on it, police said. Kennedy said that also didnt prove Jefferson was the gunman. Kennedy said Thursday he was shocked by the verdict. Two of their witnesses testified contrary to the hard and cold scientific evidence presented, he said. Criminal District Judge Camille Buras will sentence Jefferson Tuesday. Second-degree murder carries an automatic life sentence. Jefferson also is facing an obstruction of justice charge connected to the shooting. The status of that charge is expected to be discussed at sentencing. Street Theatre Attacking Gov. Cuomo to Tour New York State Contact: Michael Veritas, 904-826-9989 (on site cell) BUFFALO, N.Y., Feb. 8, 2019 /Christian Newswire/ -- In response to New York State's aggressive promotion of late term abortion, a group of pro-life street actors will tour 18 cities in New York State from Feb 10 - Feb 17, starting in Buffalo, NY, and ending at St. Patrick's Cathedral in NYC. Full Tour Schedule at www.Randallterry.com (Buffalo schedule below.) The skit will include the roles of Governor Cuomo, Christ, and Satan. Following is the outline: Each actor is in full costume, with extensive props. Christ is bearing His Cross, wearing a crown of thorns. He is covered with lashes and "stage blood." He is staggering under the cross. Governor Andrew Cuomo is following Christ, beating him with a whip. Satan is watching, encouraging Cuomo in a dark sinister voice. Christ falls to the ground. Cuomo reaches down and picks up one baby doll after another, covered with stage blood. The dolls are the size of new-borns. Cuomo stabs each baby with a retractable stage knife, then throws the dead baby on Christ, while Christ is lying on the ground. Dialogue between Satan and Cuomo ensues. Satan approaches Cuomo, and holds up Cuomo's hand, like a referee holds up the hand of a victorious boxer. People are standing in background, just behind them, holding signs: "Jesus said: What you do to the least of these my brethren, you have done to me." Randall Terry, Founder of Operation Rescue, States: "I organized this tour to depict the ungodly depravity of what Governor Cuomo and the New York legislature have done. Words alone cannot describe the murderous evil of this law. This 'morality play' will portray Cuomo's villainy, and his devilish attack on babies and Christ Himself. "Abortion is murder. Cuomo is an evil, baby-killing tyrant, and he is attacking babies, Christ, and Christianity through his murderous actions. His actions prove that he is a servant of Satan..." Sunday Night, Feb. 10, 7:00 PM St. Anthony of Padua Church, Parish Hall 160 Court Street Buffalo NY 14202 Monday Morning, Feb 11, 9 - 9:50 am. Walter J. Mahoney State Office Building 65 Court Street Buffalo NY 14202 Share Tweet A Bywater man charged with killing his 18-month-old daughter is refusing to take medication doctors think could help him reach competency, his treating psychiatrist said in court Thursday (Feb. 7). Dr. Sanket Vyas said Mark Hambrick, who has been receiving treatment at the Eastern Louisiana Mental Health System in Jackson since September, said doctors there have made their best efforts to restore him to competency without medication, but have been unsuccessful, according to Hambricks defense attorney, Kerry Cuccia. He said its within Hambricks right to refuse medication, but doctors could force him to take it if Criminal District Judge Robin Pittman ordered it. Hambrick was arrested Oct. 17, 2017, after he allegedly killed his 18-month-old daughter inside his Bywater home. He called 911 and waited on his porch for police to arrive. Pittman found him incompetent in September and ordered he be sent to the state hospital after hearing testimony from forensic psychiatrist Dr. Janet Johnson. Man charged with killing 18-month-old daughter found incompetent Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up At that hearing, Johnson said Hambrick suffered from psychosis and has delusions that are adversely affecting his life. She said Hambrick told her he killed his daughter because God told him to. Pittman could authorize the hospital to administer Hambricks medication involuntarily under the Supreme Court decision Sell vs. United States. That case allows judges in some circumstances to force people who have been found incompetent to stand trial to take anti-psychotic medication if the purpose of taking the medication is to make them competent. Cuccia said Vyas testified Thursday that putting people with fixed delusions which doctors have said Hambrick suffers from on anti-psychotic medication could affect their emotional and mental health. If the medication effectively removes his delusions, Hambrick could come to the realization he was not doing what God told him to do, Cuccia said. He said Vyas testified theres a chance medication could cause Hambrick to become depressed or suicidal. Pittman did not make a ruling Thursday. Hambrick has not yet been arraigned on first-degree murder and second-degree cruelty to juveniles charges. Court proceedings are on hold while he is being treated at the state mental hospital. Former St. Tammany Parish Planning and Zoning Commissioner David Mannella was charged Friday (Feb. 8) with one count of sexual battery stemming from an alleged incident that occurred last year, District Attorney Warren Montgomery said. Mannella, of the Slidell area, was charged in a bill of information, and the case has been allotted to state Judge Alan Zaunbrecher, Montgomery said. Sexual battery is a felony that carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison. Montgomery would not comment on the case beyond saying Mannella had been charged. Mannella, a prominent resident of St. Tammany, was arrested last September on a warrant. The Sheriffs Office said it received a complaint on Aug. 29 regarding a sexual battery incident that allegedly occurred the previous day. The alleged victim, 22 at the time, told deputies the crime took place after a social gathering in a Slidell-area subdivision. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up The investigation led to an arrest warrant being issued through the 22nd Judicial District Court. The New Orleans Advocate reported last September that the alleged victim told the newspaper the incident occurred after she attended a function at Mannellas home in the French Branch subdivision near Slidell. Mannella walked the alleged victim to her SUV where he pushed the woman against the vehicle and tried to kiss her, she told the newspaper. The woman, a family friend, said she rejected Mannella, who had been drinking. Mannella allegedly grabbed her arm and lifted up her dress, groping her in the genital area, she told the newspaper. After his arrest, Mannella, who has been involved in many community organizations over the years, resigned as chairman of the parishs Planning and Zoning Commission, which rules on property rezonings, subdivision approvals and other land-use issues. He also resigned as vice chairman of the Board of Commissioners for Slidell Memorial Hospital. Mannella has not responded to requests for comment about the allegations and could not be reached for comment Friday. In September, New Orleans police released images from a scene where a store clerk was shot dead during the robbery of a Little Woods gas station. The following day, one of the two then-persons of interest allegedly pictured in the video footage turned himself in to authorities and was charged with murder. An arrest warrant shows police had identified the second accused murderer a few days after the Sept. 18 fatal shooting of Olah Bessid, 58. But that second man remained at large until Wednesday (Feb. 6) when authorities arrested Frank Sams and booked him on a charge of second-degree murder. A grand jury indicted Sams, 25, on a charge of second-degree murder, nearly a month ago, on Jan. 10. Farnell Jackson Jr., 19, who has been jailed since turning himself in to authorities on Sept. 21, was also indicted on the same murder charge. Each man also faces charges of obstruction of justice and armed robbery with a firearm. Additionally, Sams faces a charge of possession of a firearm by a felon. Murder suspect remains at large as 2 indicted in fatal robbery at Little Woods gas station According to New Orleans police, two men, now identified as Sams and Jackson, entered the Fuel Express Mart, 7220 Hayne Blvd., about 1:20 a.m. on Sept. 18. Bessid was working behind the counter. Surveillance video shows the men pushing Bessid into a corner, where Bessid was shot in the head before the pair tried and failed to open the stores cash register, according to the Orleans Parish District Attorneys office. The two stole cigarettes and other items before fleeing the scene, according to a news release about the indictment. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up A person recognized Sams from the images NOPD released to media and spoke with investigators, giving them Sams name, according to an affidavit of probable cause for Sams arrest. The affidavit was sworn on Sept. 21 by NOPD Homicide Detective Everett Briscoe. Sams was represented by the Orleans Public Defenders office during his first appearance hearing in Orleans Parish Magistrate Court on Thursday. Magistrate Judge Harry Cantrell set his bond at $500,000. Jacksons bond was previously set at $500,000. Both remain jailed. Detective Briscoe can be reached at 504-658-5300. To provide information anonymously, contact Crimestoppers at 504-822-1111 or toll-free at 1-877-903-7867. Gas station employee killed in Little Woods shooting Staff writer Laura McKnight contributed to this report. A veteran New Orleans Police Department supervisor facing a felony charge of insurance fraud had never before received disability benefits. Lt. Gervais Allison also got mixed messages from the insurance company when he asked how long the benefits would last, he told Louisiana State Police, according to court records. State Police argue, however, that Allison cashed four disability checks, from December 2016 to March 2017, totaling about $6,340, after returning to work at NOPD in November 2016. He did so despite being instructed via the policy terms and letters mailed to his home that he should notify Standard Insurance Company of his return to work, according to an affidavit for arrest sworn by Trooper Jeffrey Theriot. Allisons failure to take the opportunity to pay back the insurance company the amount overpaid to him after Louisiana State Police approached him about the problem in October also led to his arrest, Theriot wrote. This is simply a case of miscommunication, Donovan Livicarri, a Louisiana Fraternal Order of Police attorney who was representing Allison, said Friday. Lt. Allison certainly did not intend to defraud or deceive anybody. NOPD lieutenant faces insurance fraud charges: records Allison was booked Thursday by the Louisiana State Police Thursday (Feb. 7) but was released from custody on his own recognizance. The Louisiana Department of Insurance referred the case to the Louisiana State Police Bureau of Investigation, State Police spokeswoman Trooper Melissa Matey said. Allisons failure over several months to pay restitution for the overpayments or request a review of his case, showed additional intent to commit fraud, the affidavit states. A supervisor in NOPDs 3rd District, which polices the Gentilly and Lakeview areas, Allison also serves as pastor at Rosedale Missionary Baptist Church, in New Orleans Easts Venetian Isles neighborhood. He was interviewed by CNN for a March 2017 story profiling the intersection of faith and violence in New Orleans. Reached by phone Thursday, Allison declined to comment on the charge. During an October 2018 interview with State Police, with Livicarri present, Allison told detectives he asked the insurance company how long the benefits would last. Dont worry about it, well deal with it, the insurance company told Allison, according to his statement to investigators. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Allison also told investigators his claim was not approved until months after he filed it, and he was told it would take a while to kick in. The claim was filed after an injury to a rotator cuff required surgery, the affidavit says. It does not say how Allison was injured. Allison explained to investigators that he was on limited duty from November 2017 to March 2017, when the alleged overpayments were made, but State Police learned limited duty doesnt impact pay and only refers to the type of assignment an officer has. Livicarri said he was in touch with the insurance company as recently as January and was disappointed he didnt have the opportunity to resolve the issue before State Police arrested Allison. Theriot wrote that Allison did not return calls or respond to messages or letters from the insurance company between December 2016 and March 2017, at which time company stopped sending benefit payments after confirming with NOPD Allison was back at work full time. In a statement, the NOPD said the department placed an arrested employee on emergency suspension, in accordance with routine procedure, after Louisiana State Police contacted the department Thursday morning regarding a warrant. The statement, which did not name Allison, said the NOPD was fully cooperating with State Police and arranged on Thursday for the employees surrender. Allison was booked Thursday into the Orleans Justice Center jail, and Orleans Judicial District Judge Karen Herman preset his bond, court records show. Herman ordered Allison to be released on his own recognizance, but set a $10,000 bond penalty if he fails to appear at his next court hearing. Court records show Allison was not present in Orleans Parish Magistrate Court for his first appearance Thursday afternoon when Magistrate Commissioner Jonathan Friedman found probable cause for the charges to move forward. Starbucks and Aqua S, a trendy Australian soft serve ice cream chain, are among new retailers moving into the South Market District. Starbucks and Aqua S will move into ground floor spaces at the corner of Girod Street and OKeefe Avenue, inside The Beacon, an apartment complex developed by The Domain Cos., according to a news release from the developer. The stores are set to open in March. The retailers will open steps from a new Mexican restaurant developed by Akhtar Nawab, a student of celebrity chef Tom Colicchio and founder of Brooklyns Alta Calidad. The yet-to-be-named restaurant will open in retail space at the corner of OKeefe Avenue and Julia Street, part of The Standard luxury condo development. That concept is also currently set to open in March. Celebrated New York chef will open Mexican restaurant in New Orleans The changes are the latest for the evolving South Market District, a $500 million mixed-use development by The Domain Cos. centered on Girod Street and OKeefe Avenue. The Standard, a $80 million luxury condo development, opened last spring at the corner of OKeefe and Julia Street. The Odeon, a $106 million apartment building with 271 units, is under construction along Loyola Avenue. The development also includes The Paramount and The Beacon, both apartment buildings. In addition to Starbucks and Aqua S, Fidelity Bank has opened a branch in one of the storefronts on the ground floor of The Standard, according to the news release. The branch opened Dec. 31 in a storefront facing OKeefe Avenue. Eustis Mortgage will also open an office in a storefront on the opposite side of the building along South Rampart Street this spring. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up The Aqua S location is only the brands second in the United States. Based in Sydney, Australia, the soft serve retailer opened its first U.S. location in Houston last year. Known for its Instagram-friendly treats (like cotton candy-wrapped cones), Aqua S touts its signature sea salt flavor and unique toppings like roasted marshmallow and popcorn. Franchise owner Jordan Le said in a statement that hes looking forward to bringing something unique to New Orleans food scene. The Starbucks location will be the 10th to open in the Central Business District and Warehouse District. Other South Market District tenants include restaurants Willa Jean, Company Burger, Magasin Kitchen and Maypop, and retailers Lukka Boutique, Zeus Place and Simplee Gourmet. Jennifer Larino covers residential real estate, retail and consumer news, travel and cruises, weather and other aspects of life in New Orleans for NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune. Reach her at jlarino@nola.com or 504-239-1424. Follow her on Twitter @jenlarino. Temporary Judge Michael Vohland was back at the bench on Monday after a tumultuous week in which Nogales Municipal Court was temporarily shut down and put under control of the countys presiding judge, Thomas Fink. New York's New Abortion Law is More Barbaric than China Contact: Reggie Littlejohn, Women's Rights Without Frontiers, 310-592-5722 OPINION, Feb. 8, 2019 /Christian Newswire/ -- The following is submitted by Reggie Littlejohn, Founder and President of Women's Rights Without Frontiers: When I testified before Congress the first time in November 2009, I presented a shocking document I titled, "Best Practices Infanticide." It is an email chain from April 2009 discussing the topic, "What if the infant is still alive after induced labor?" It was downloaded from the official Chinese website for obstetricians and gynecologists. At the time, "Best Practices Infanticide" constituted a compelling testimony against the brutal enforcement of China's One Child Policy. Never did I imagine that ten years later, a law in New York, and a proposed law in Virginia, would allow procedures more extreme even than those required by the Chinese Communist Party under the One Child Policy. If you have ever wondered how a late term abortion is performed, "Best Practices Infanticide" -- will inform you. It is not for the faint of heart. Here is an excerpt: Usually the induced labor is for the out-of-plan pregnancies. In my hospital we do induced labor under the population and family planning official documents. This is something about the population and family planning policy. This is a state policy! If the infant comes out alive after induced labor, it will violate the policy. Also if the infant's family finds out that the infant is alive, it is a failure to us, and a medical accident. If we just throw the infant alive to a trashcan and it dies there, we will be sued by its family when they see it. My point is that for induced labor, no matter how many months the infants are, we can never let infants come out alive, nor should any signs of life of the infants be shown to their families. For infants that are over 38 weeks, we need to listen to their embryocardia. If they do have embryocardia, don't tell their mothers or family members first. Instead, prepare 95% absolute alcohol to inject into the infant's fontanelle and postpone the labor [to make sure the infant is dead]. This can also protect ourselves. However, if the pregnant woman is about to give birth and already has uterine contractions when sent to hospital, there is nothing we could do. They will have to take the infant alive back home as well. (Emphasis added.) The context of the abortions in "Best Practices Infanticide" are generally forced a human rights atrocity of the first degree. Of course, in the United States abortion is elective. Obviously, we don't have family planning police to drag us out of our homes, strap us to tables and force us to abort babies that we want. Nevertheless, even in the context of forced abortions of "illegal pregnancies" under the former One Child (now Two Child) Policy, the laws in China acknowledged that once a woman was in labor, such procedures could not be used. The infant must be born alive. I never thought I would see the day that I would be holding up "Best Practices Infanticide" for any reason other than to condemn such barbaric practices. But that day has arrived. New York's new law, the "New York Reproductive Health Act," would allow abortion "at any time" to protect the "health" of the patient. There is no restriction stating that an abortion cannot be performed during labor. The term "health" in the New York law is undefined. Under Doe v. Bolton, "health" includes "all factorsphysical, emotional, psychological, familial and the woman's agerelevant to the well-being of the patient." This expansive definition of "health" has been interpreted to allow abortion at any time for any reason. Accordingly, New York's new law allows unrestricted abortion up until birth, including during labor. When the law passed, some observers in the New York Senate Chamber cheered and offered a standing ovation. One World Trade Center was lit pink at the direction of Governor Andrew Cuomo. The proposed law in Virginia would be similar. In this now viral video, Virginia Delegate Kathy Tran admits that the "Repeal Act" would allow abortion as a woman is dilating. The bill was defeated in subcommittee, but it is disturbing how much support it received from lawmakers. Several other states are considering expanded abortion laws amidst concern that Roe v. Wade may be overturned. Never discussed are the details of how these abortions-during-birth are to be performed. "Best Practices Infanticide" provides a ghastly blueprint. How can it be that in the United States an abortion law exists that is even more barbaric than that of the Chinese Communist Party? How did we reach this point, and what does it mean for our future? If we can learn anything from the agony of China's One Child Policy, it is that such brutality must be stopped before it spreads. Aborting a baby that is in the process of being born is an act of barbarism that should not be enshrined in the laws of our land. Share Tweet A man who was high on heroin last summer when he crashed into a mother walking with two children, killing her youngest, was sentenced to prison on Thursday after admitting to the crime. Ronald Rebernik, 62 of Raritan, was driving on Anderson Street in the borough near St. Anns Elementary School on July 7 last year when he crossed into opposing traffic, struck two parked cars and drove onto the sidewalk, the Somerset County Prosecutors Office said. The mother was walking with her five-year-old son and pushing her 1-year-old boy in a stroller. She and her older son were hospitalized with serious injuries, while the younger was airlifted to a hospital, where he died. Rebernik later pleaded to vehicular homicide, assault by auto and drug charges. A judge sentenced him to 15 years in prison Thursday. Joe Brandt can be reached at jbrandt@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JBrandt_NJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. Can Americans still have a sensible and friendly political discussion across the partisan divide? The answer is yes, and we intend to prove it. Julie Roginsky, a Democrat, and Mike DuHaime, a Republican, are consultants who have worked on opposite teams for their entire careers yet have remained friends throughout. Here, they discuss the weeks events, with prompts from Tom Moran, editorial page editor of The Star-Ledger. Q. Former Supreme Court Justice Peter Verniero issued his report on the Murphy administrations handling of Katie Brennans rape accusation, and it seemed to satisfy no one. Does it change a thing? Will this scandal drag on forever? DuHaime: I dont think the report changes anything, because the most basic questions are left unanswered. No one knows who made the decision to hire after the allegation was well known to senior staff, and it doesnt seem to justify why the governor was purposely left in the dark on this. The governor has punted to this point waiting for this report. Now, we can see if there will be any accountability or real changes. Roginsky: As I've said before, I don't really care who hired Al Alvarez and I think that if that simple question had been answered right away, the person who hired him wouldn't face much backlash. But what I found most awful about this report is that it blamed "the system" for letting Katie Brennan down, as though "the system" has agency. Lets be very clear: individual people let Katie Brennan down, when they didnt seriously pursue her concerns, when they didnt ensure that her alleged attacker was separated from government immediately, when they didnt follow up on emails that she sent asking for help and when they lied to her in promising that corrective action would be taken. What we need is accountability from individuals who failed her and we dont need a report to know who they are. Its obvious that young men with virtually no real-life experience were not up to the task of doing much more than circling the wagons at the expense of common sense. I'm pretty sure that if Katie Brennan had actually spoken to a woman in a position to do something about this, events would have unfolded very differently, because for women this is not an abstract legal exercise from a second year law school class. Whether we have gone through it personally, we all understand how real the threat of sexual assault is. Q. Democrats in Washington opened investigations into President Trumps ties to Russia, took concrete steps towards demanding his tax returns, and subpoenaed the assistant attorney general overseeing the Mueller investigation. Is there a danger Democrats will blow this moment by overreaching? DuHaime: Yes, the Democrats could overreach, but they havent yet. Lets face it: The voters flipped Congress to the Democrats so they could be a check on the President. Republicans overreached politically in 1998 when they impeached President Clinton. I bet Speaker Pelosi watched and learned during that time. She will attempt to humiliate and embarrass the President just enough to satiate her liberal base, but will not go so far as impeachment, which would imperil more Democrats in more moderate districts. Roginsky: I agree. What the nation needs is continued vigilance because, left to his own devices, Donald Trump would blow up the norms that both Democrats and Republicans have worked to maintain for generations. Q. Meanwhile, the Wall. Speaker Nancy Pelosi now says she will support whatever solution the bipartisan conference committee finds. President Trump wont make the same commitment. Are we headed towards another explosion on Feb. 15, when the latest stopgap funding measure expires? DuHaime: Speaker Pelosi knows the bipartisan commission will never recommend a wall, so she looks willing to compromise by saying she will agree to whatever they say. Thats excellent showmanship to get out in front of it and look like the adult in the room. I hope we avoid a shutdown. No one wins. Roginsky: I agree with Mike. The president is in a bind. He promised his supporters a wall. If he doesn't deliver, the Ann Coulters of the world, who are really the tail wagging the dog, will blow him up with at least some of his base and he will be forced to spend "Executive Time" watching them do it on his favorite news channel. Q. In his State of the Union speech, Trump warned that Democrats would allow babies to be ripped from the mothers womb just before birth. Is late-term abortion an issue that has legs for Republicans? DuHaime: Yes, it is an issue that resonates. Even many pro-choice voters struggle with the legality of late-term abortions like the ones now allowed in New York and proposed in Virginia last week. Roginsky: There is so much misconception about what these laws actually do, but suffice it to say that terminating a pregnancy in the final months is a decision women don't make on a whim. They do it in consultation with their doctors, which is what the New York law says, and no doctor will terminate a pregnancy at that stage unless there is a very valid medical reason. But politically, when in doubt, conservative men revert back to the mantra of men making healthcare decisions for women. It has tremendous legs with some segments of the Republican Party but risks alienating the suburban women the party needs to bring back into the fold in 2020. Q. What about his warning against socialism in America? Is he talking about Medicare for All, or a dictatorship? Does this pitch have legs in Red America? DuHaime: I thought President Trumps defense of an America free of socialism and government coercion was his strongest moment in the speech. This is not just about Medicare for All, which would bankrupt every state and the federal government. I have seen polling recently where a plurality of Democrats want their party to move into a more socialist direction and are advocating redistribution of wealth. Bernie Sanders is a socialist and almost beat Hillary Clinton just two years ago in the Democrat primary. Roginsky: Come on, you two. If you spend 20 minutes watching Fox News, which is where the president is getting this, you would know what this is about: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders trying to turn the United States into Venezuela. The notion that we have everything to fear, including fear itself, is one that Fox and Donald Trump have been pushing in tandem for much longer than he has been president. And yes, it has resonance with some segment of Red America. For those of us who lived under real socialism, it is actually very offensive. Check back in with me when Democrats want to seize your private property or nationalize our banks and then we can talk socialism. And Mike, what you are talking about when you say Democrats support redistribution of wealth is, in fact, our opposition to tax policies that have redistributed wealth from the middle class to the wealthiest among us. DuHaime: Julie, you are giving some of your fellow Democrats too much credit. Some are calling for true socialism. Bernie is a socialist. I didnt make that up. It was not long ago, many on the American left praised Hugo Chavez for his expansion of health care for all. They lauded his fights with President George W. Bush. Now we see what socialism has wrought - the country with the richest oil reserves in South America has food shortages, poverty, rampant unemployment, and the vaunted healthcare system watches helplessly as AIDS patients die from entirely preventable infections. We should learn that idealism and reality clash harshly in the real world. Q. Finally, Virginia, a state that is making New Jersey politics seem functional. The governor partied in blackface in 1984. Some say the calls for his resignation from Democrats like Sen. Cory Booker are overheated, a case of political correctness gone wild. What do you think? DuHaime: In the era of pile on politics, I understand why this has moved so rapidly, but I am not going to judge the mans life for a racially insensitive joke made 35 years ago. I am, however, surprised so few people who have known him during his adult life have come to his public defense. Each one of us has evolved on racial issues over the last 35 years, just as our country has evolved over time: 160 years ago, slavery was legal; 100 years ago, women couldnt vote; 51 years ago, Martin Luther King was murdered. Marriage equality has come in just the last five years. Our country is far from perfect, nor are its people, but we strive to get better every day, even if the journey is painful. Current day race relations leave much to be desired, so I worry more about Charlottesville 2017 than the Virginia of the 1980s. Importantly and unfortunately, this controversy has obscured the very serious and much more recent allegation of sexual assault against Virginias Lt. Governor. Roginsky: If Gov. Ralph Northam had done a mea culpa and explained that he is not the person he was thirty-five years ago, I would have listened. If he had talked about his record of promoting civil rights as a public official, I would have listened. But the way he has handled this is so tone-deaf that it boggles the mind. Another example of no accountability. And when you refuse to take responsibility for your behavior, you dont belong in a role where you have the authority to demand it of others. And I agree that the allegations against Virginias lieutenant governor deserve equal scrutiny. We as Democrats cant be selective about believing certain women and not others who come forward with credible complaints about sexual assault. New Jerseys crime victims compensation program did not protect personal information about those filing claims with the state, and also fell short in documenting some of the funds it allocated for relocating victims, according to a new federal audit. That confidential data included full names, social security numbers, addresses, birth dates, medical histories, and other sensitive data necessary to process a victim compensation claim, as well as the relocation addresses for those who looked to move after a crime. Responding to the audit findings, state officials said there was no evidence the sensitive data was ever compromised. The sharing of the information was only internal. At no point was it shared or believed to be shared with the public, said Sharon Lauchaire, a spokeswoman for the Attorney Generals office. Overall, the U.S. Department of Justice audit found that most of the payments made to victims through the state program were properly supported and complied with New Jersey law, although it did question to $109,030 in rental security deposits that it said were not appropriately tracked or recovered. The state, which said it is making changes on how those payments are accounted for, defended the expenditures, adding that they represented only a small percentage of the Victims of Crime Compensation Office budget. New Jersey, like every other state, provides compensation to victims of crime or their survivors, in a program largely funded by millions of federal dollars generated from fines and penalties. Administered by the state attorney general, the compensation program paid out $8.3 million to victims in 2017. Advocates and legislators, however, have complained the program fails those who need it most guided by outdated rules and regulations that have scarcely changed for decades, denying more than half of its applicants. A NJ Advance Media investigation last year revealed the amount paid to victims in New Jersey dropped significantly over the past decade. Some who were eligible, meanwhile, said they were never told help was available. In response to that story, two state legislators in October introduced proposed changes in the law that would require hospitals and ERs to provide information about compensation and other help available to those victims. That measure is still pending in Trenton. The major complaint of the newly release audit was over the states apparent failure to protect the privacy of crime victims seeking compensation. Specifically, it said New Jersey did not put into place adequate internal controls within its office to properly secure confidential victim information. As a result, auditors said anyone logging into the programs data base regardless of their level of authority had unrestricted access to all claim information. That data could have been read by anyone signing into the information management system. The system also did not maintain a log of claims accessed by any given user. We believe that this is a significant risk as the case management system has approximately 100,000 unique claims that include personally identifiable information, such as full names, social security numbers, addresses, birth dates, medical histories, and other sensitive data necessary to process a victim compensation claim, the audit noted. The system also included details on victims relocation addresses. The report said state officials had understood the risks associated with access controls, but had not addressed the risk. New Jersey officials said they were planning new controls to restrict access. Its a system issue that we will be updating to correct, said Lauchaire. But every employee has the responsibility to protect confidentiality. The Attorney Generals office, however, took issue with the audits findings related to rental security deposits paid to landlords on behalf of victims who had to find new places to live after a crime. The audit said the state paid at least $109,030 in rental security deposits from three of the federal grants that were reviewed, but failed to seek recovery of these funds. Lauchaire said they are putting new procedures in place to track those deposits, but added there was no question that the rental security deposits were justified. She said the states Victim of Crime Compensation Office does everything it can to accommodate the real needs of victims, and sometimes the real need is moving from the scene of a crime. You cant get an apartment in New Jersey without a security deposit, she said. Ted Sherman may be reached at tsherman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TedShermanSL. Facebook: @TedSherman.reporter. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. The Benedictine religious order in charge of the Delbarton School and the former St. Elizabeths School has settled two lawsuits from men who said they were sexually abused by monks when they were students over 45 years ago. The settlements are the sixth and seventh in the last year in the sex abuse scandal involving the schools. In a letter to the community last summer, Delbarton leaders said 30 former students had reported being abused by 13 monks going back decades. Former students who said they were abused argue that the number of victims is much higher. One of the men who settled, identified in court by the pseudonym John Doe, said that reliving everything and fighting in court was a hellish experience, and he didnt settle for the money. I couldnt take it anymore, said the man, who agreed to speak to NJ Advance Media on the condition his real name not be used. I have not gotten a dollars worth of pleasure from my settlement money, he said. Maybe Im that damaged. Ive been stuck in survival mode for so long. The settlement in his case was reported to a Superior Court judge on Dec. 13. Attorneys notified the court of the other settlement, involving plaintiff identified as J.D., on Feb. 7. Their attorney, Greg Gianforcaro, declined to disclose the amounts of the settlements, as did Doe. The Rev. Timothy Brennan has been accused of sexual abuse in at least 10 lawsuits. (Submitted photo) Doe said that he was sexually abused by The Rev. Timothy Brennan more than 100 times at St. Elizabeths School between 1968 and 1971. He said Brother Tim groped him, rubbed against him, and masturbated in front of him, among other things. The Order of St. Benedict operates Delbarton, an elite all-boys school at St. Marys Abbey in Morris Township. It also previously ran St. Elizabeths School in Linden, part of the parish is part of the Archdiocese of Newark. Doe named both the order and the archdiocese in his suit. In the other settled suit, plaintiff J.D. said he was abused by Brennan, as well as Giacomo Pagano, a faculty member, and monk Beckett (Paul) Reiss at Delbarton between 1970 and 1972. Gianforcaro said J.D. did not want to be interviewed. Brennan has been named in nine lawsuits in recent years, but the first publicly-reported settlement involving him was in 1988. A year before that, Brennan pleaded guilty to aggravated criminal sexual contact and was given one year probation. He now lives in a Catholic community in Missouri known for treating troubled clergy. Calls and emails to the attorneys for Brennan, Pagano and Reiss were not returned Wednesday or Thursday, but the men denied the claims in court filings. Hed just laugh it off Doe, 63, of New Jersey, said he has struggled with anger issues and drug and alcohol addiction, though hes now been sober 25 years. It wasnt until 2015 that he began recalling what Brennan did to him, he said, and realizing the impact of the abuse. I felt like I did something wrong, he said. For months this stuff started coming back, and I went through hell. I did support groups, I went on medication. Doe said he was an 11-year-old altar boy at St. Elizabeths when he first met Brennan. He was normal, just really friendly. He started paying attention to me, he said. By 7th grade, Brennan was treating him as a friend, he said. He started talking about sex with him and making sexual comments about other students. Doe said he knows now Brennan was grooming him for abuse, trying to normalize the sexual behavior that would come next. His favorite thing to say when I was in grammar school was, I cant imagine your young, 8th-grade [penis] Doe said. He used to make that comment to me all the time. Doe said that when he was in 8th grade, Brennan progressed to masturbating under his robes while talking to him. Brennan tried to grab his penis several times, he said, and when he pushed Brennans hand away, Hed just laugh it off. He would also purposely step so close to him that their bodies would touch, Doe said. I call it crowding. Id have to squeeze by his body and he was rubbing his erection on me," he said. Brennan knew his schedule, Doe said, and would walk through the locker room when Doe was changing, sometimes grabbing himself as he did. Doe started attending a different school in 9th grade, but said Brennan would start up with the same abuse whenever Doe was on campus for sports. Painful process Doe said he felt that the attorneys for the Archdiocese and the Order of St. Benedict were purposely awful to him throughout the process, especially in his two days of deposition. They do not care about the victims and they are just totally trying every possible way to screw you, he said. Newark Archdiocese spokeswoman Maria Margiotta said it is difficult for us to address the feelings a victim endures during litigation when contacted for comment. However, we express sadness and regret to the victims and their families harmed by clergy and we remain hopeful that in resolving such cases, we are assisting in the victims healing process, she said. Anthony S. Cicatiello, a spokesman for the Order of St. Benedict, said plaintiffs including Doe are free to speak about their experiences, and the order regrets that Doe feels that he was treated poorly." In addition to the seven suits that have settled, there are active lawsuits from three men and one woman who say they were all abused by Brennan while at St. Elizabeths. And Gianforcaro says he expects to file more litigation on behalf of survivors of abuse. I dont anticipate claims against Delbarton, in one form or another, ending any time soon, Gianforcaro said Wednesday. The settlements come as the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General, following the model of the Pennsylvania grand jury probe of clergy abuse, is working on its own investigation into how the Catholic Church in New Jersey has handled abuse allegations. In a step toward transparency, the dioceses have said they will name all the credibly-accused priests in New Jersey sometime in early 2019. However, the Order of St. Benedict is not part of any diocese and has not decided whether it will name accused monks. We are evaluating processes related to the release of names and will make a decision when that is completed," Cicatiello said Thursday. Rebecca Everett may be reached at reverett@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @rebeccajeverett. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. A groom from New Jersey left his wedding at a country club in Pennsylvania in handcuffs after allegedly propositioning and later sexually assaulting a teenage waitress before igniting a drunken brawl in which he punched another employee, authorities said. Matthew Aimers, 31, of Willingboro, was arrested Nov. 25 as his wedding wrapped up at the Northampton Valley Country Club in Richboro, Pennsylvania. The young server rejected Aimers repeated advances, according to Philly.com. After asking her to go outside and make out, he later offered $100, according to the report. Later, he followed her into the womens bathroom where he pulled her into an empty stall, exposed himself and sexually assaulted her, an affidavit obtained by the website says. Later, Aimers was in the middle of a fight that broke out near the conclusion of the reception when an employee told him he couldnt bring alcohol outside, the report said. He punched the worker and then got into a scrum with police when he ignored an officers commands while attempting to board a shuttle bus, the report said. He is charged with indecent assault, indecent exposure, false imprisonment of a minor and other offenses, according to Pennsylvania court records. Aimers will be arraigned on Feb. 15 and his trial is scheduled to begin on May 30. He is free after posting 10 percent of his $350,000 bail the day after his arrest. Aimers has a lengthy criminal history dating to 2006 with previous convictions for robbery, theft, assault, harassment and drug offenses, according to court records. The New York City woman found dead in Morris County this week was killed by her son in Manhattan and driven in the trunk of his moms car to her second home, where the son attempted to dispose of the body in the trash, according to court documents. While Jared Eng, 22, of Manhattan, has not been charged in the killing of his mother, Paula Chin, 65, the new details emerged in a criminal complaint filed by the Manhattan District Attorneys Office related to Chins death. Eng, and two of his friends, Jennifer Lopez, 18, of Manhattan, and Caitlyn ORourke, 21, of Patterson, New York, have been charged with concealment of a corpse and tampering with evidence. Police have both surveillance evidence and an account from ORourke saying that Eng confessed to killing his mother and sought help in the coverup, according to the court documents. ORourke told detectives that Eng acknowledged it took her a while to die, according to court records. Police have not said how Chin was killed, but the court documents say blood was found in the trunk of Chins car along with a bloody blanket, duct tape and Chins clothing. ORouke also said Lopez admitted to helping Eng transport Chins body to New Jersey, authorities said. Its all clean, the hardest part was backing up the car," Lopez told ORourke via phone, according to her cell phone records officials have. Chin was initially reported missing Monday from her home in Manhattans Tribeca neighborhood, the New York Police Department said. Video surveillance obtained by NYPD shows Chins 2004 Toyota, which is registered in New Jersey, backing out of a parking space on Jan. 31 at 12:50 a.m. Lopez is seen getting in and out of the car, authorities said. At 2:31 a.m., someone came out of Chins Tribeca apartment building carrying a duffle-bag like container that they put in the trunk of Chins car, authorities said. ORourke also told investigators that she, Eng and Lopez went back to Chins New Jersey home on Feb. 1, authorities said. They stuffed Chins body in a garbage bag and put it in an outside garbage container, authorities said. While they were there, ORourke said they brought clothing from the New York apartment to clean in the washing machine at the Morristown home, authorities said. Detectives say they have searched Chins car trunk where they found blood on the carpet, a blanket with blood, duct tape and Chins clothing. The Morris County Prosecutors Office said they are only assisting the NYPD on the case. Taylor Tiamoyo Harris may be reached at tharris@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @ladytiamoyo Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. EDITORS NOTE: Interested in the marijuana business industry? NJ Cannabis Insider is a new premium intelligence briefing that features exclusive weekly content geared toward entrepreneurs, lawyers and Realtors. View a sample issue. State leaders have made significant progress on plans to legalize marijuana in New Jersey and could move forward on new legislation as early as next week. Several sources close to the negotiations told NJ Advance Media that an updated legalization bill and renewed debate in the state Legislature could come any day now," though when exactly a new measure might be introduced and when a vote could be held remains unclear. Also unclear: whether it would pass a vote. But the recent progress on taxes and regulation, plus a push to act on legal weed before the Legislature gets bogged down with the state budget and other legislation in the next few months, has nudged negotiations closer to resolution, the sources say. Once we get out of the first quarter, we get into budget world, New Jersey Cannabis Industry Association President Hugh OBeirne said, referencing the June 30 deadline for the state to enact a budget. If its going to happen, (legalization) has to happen in the next few weeks. A senior official in Gov. Phil Murphys administration, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they werent authorized to speak publicly on the matter, said the governor and his fellow Democrats who lead the Legislature are nearing a deal on a bill. I dont think we are there yet but darn close, the source said. Three other sources familiar with negotiations said its possible an agreement could happen by next week, though no timeframe has been set. One source said Murphy, state Senate President Stephen Sweeney, D-Gloucester, and state Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, D-Middlesex, are tentatively set to meet next week to discuss pot and other issues. As reported last month by NJ Cannabis Insider, Murphy and legislative leaders have been making progress on two of the biggest unresolved issues in the legal weed debate: taxes and regulation. Those talks have reportedly advanced the timeline for resuming the debate in the Legislature. Still, Sweeney said Friday that no deal is in place. Thats news to me, Sweeney said when asked about a new legalization bill dropping next week. "Its not out of the question. But I havent been given any indications that we have an agreement. Kevin McArdle, a spokesman for Coughlin, declined to comment because of ongoing negotiations. Despite reports that a new tax proposal was floated last month, sources say there is no agreement in place on taxes. Sweeney is still holding firm at a 12 percent tax on marijuana sales, while Murphy has been seeking a tax closer to 25 percent. But even if lawmakers and the governor can reach a deal on a new bill, theres no guarantee it would pass. Both houses of the Legislature the Senate and Assembly need to approve the measure before Murphy could sign it into law. We havent even started counting the votes, Sweeney said. Other sources have said the same. Many legislators are waiting to see what the new bill looks like before deciding how theyll vote. Lawmakers could soon start running short on time, though. Murphy is set to unveil his second state budget proposal next month, and its widely thought that if legalization doesnt happen before budget negotiations begin, it will get pushed later into the year. I think the process gets treacherous if we go beyond March, said Bill Caruso, a marijuana lobbyist who previously worked in the Legislature. NJ Advance Media staff writers Claude Brodesser-Akner and Justin Zaremba contributed to this report. Payton Guion may be reached at PGuion@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter@PaytonGuion. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Brent Johnson may be reached at bjohnson@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @johnsb01. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips Are you interested in the N.J. cannabis industry? Subscribe here for exclusive insider information from NJ Cannabis Insider. A student was hospitalized Thursday after an assault in a stairwell at Snyder High School in Jersey City, authorities said. The incident, which involved two students, occurred at 12:30 p.m. at the Bergen Avenue school. The injured student was taken to the RWJBarnabas Healths Jersey City Medical Center, where he was uncooperative with police who were trying to interview him. It could not be determined if anyone was arrested in the assault. A North Hudson Regional Fire and Rescue dispatcher has landed in a Hudson County jail cell after being accused of sexually assaulting a family member when she was 11 and 12 years old, authorities said. Michael P. Clark, 38, of West New York, has been suspended without pay from his position with NHRFR following his arrest on Jan. 17. Clark faces seven charges, ranging from aggravated sexual assault to terroristic threats for allegedly threatening to kill the girl if she told her mother about the abuse. The victim recently told her mother that she was molested on multiple occasions while spending time with Clark. According to a criminal complaint outlining the charges, Clark choked the girl when she refused his advance during one of the incidents. Clark made his first appearance on the charges Feb. 4. Hudson County Superior Court Judge Paul DePascale ordered that he be detained throughout his prosecution. Clark is also charged with sexual assault, three counts of endangering the welfare of a child, assault for allegedly choking the victim. North Hudson Regional Fire and Rescue holds its employees to the highest standard and if convicted Clark will be terminated from his position as a civilian dispatcher, a spokeswoman for the agency said. These allegations are troubling and NHRFR is fully cooperating with law enforcements investigation. Former Hoboken Councilman Christopher Campos, who is currently serving a 30-month federal sentence for a cab-leasing scheme -- and his campaign treasurer were fined more than $22,000 for 12-year-old campaign finance reporting violations, the state election commission announced. The fines, totalling $22,321.85, were related to the 2007 municipal and runoff elections, which Campos lost in a hotly contested race against the future mayor, Dawn Zimmer. Marilyn Monrroy, Campos campaign treasurer, was also named in state Election Law Enforcement Commision ruling last month that cited campaign finance reports that were filed eight years after they were due. Reached by telephone, Monrroy said she was unaware of the hefty fine. She declined to comment on violations or the fine, but she said it was Campos who finally filed the reports in August and September of 2015, all of which were more than 2,900 days overdue. Campos, currently in federal prison in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, was convicted of helping orchestrate a complex livery cab financing scheme that ultimately defrauded banks out of more than $7 million. The scheme involved buyers, including his wife, borrowing money to buy new cars they could not afford, for vehicles they claimed were for personal use, but were actually leased out to others and driven as cabs on the streets of New York. Ultimately, the buyers defaulted on the loans. Campos campaign was initially hit with 17 violations, but the election commission ultimately found the campaign guilty of 14 of them. ELEC initially issued these violations in December 2012. Among the fines that totaled $22,321, are: $7,300 for the late reporting of 56 contributions totalling $73,000; $6,325 for failure to file 48-hour notices for seven contributions totaling $12,650.00 $6,296.09 for the late reporting of 443 expenditures totaling $62,960.92; $1,446.76 for the late reporting of payee addresses for 206 expenditures totaling $36,168.94. On Jan. 20, 2007, Campos was arrested and charged with driving while under the influence after he was pulled over for running a red light on the West Side Highway in New York. Following months of court delays, Campos pleaded guilty in October 2008 to a violation charge of driving while impaired. By Simon Calder, The Independent | Feb. 08, 2019 One of the UK's biggest holiday firms is seeking a buyer for its airline. Thomas Cook, which has just announced increased first-quarter losses, says it will consider all options for its flying business "to enhance value to shareholders and intensify our strategic focus". The tour operator stressed that flights will continue as normal and that any deal will require the buyer to provide the same level of carrying capacity for package holidays. The airline operates in the UK, the Nordic nations and Germany, where it uses the Condor brand. It is a mid-sized carrier with 103 aircraft, flying around 20 million customers a year to 120 destinations - mostly in Europe but with long-haul operations particularly across the Atlantic. Unlike some other airlines of a similar scale, Thomas Cook Airlines is in reasonably good health. It made a profit per passenger of over 6 pounds in the most recent financial full year. Just under half of its capacity is currently used by the tour operation arm for providing seats for package holidaymakers. The remainder is sold to other holiday firms or direct to travellers. A sale would help Thomas Cook to reduce its debt, currently at 1.59 billion pounds, and accelerate its strategy of differentiation by opening exclusive hotels. This summer it will open 20 new own-brand hotels. Thomas Cook's underlying loss for the first quarter, covering October to December, rose by 14 million to 60 million pounds. Margins were lower, which Thomas Cook said reflected "the highly competitive market conditions in the UK at the end of the summer season, and weaker demand for winter holidays in the Nordics". Strong demand for Turkey, Egypt and Tunisia is offsetting weaker demand for Spain. Peter Fankhauser, Thomas Cook's chief executive, said: "As expected, the knock-on effect from the prolonged summer heatwave and high prices in the Canaries have impacted customer demand for winter sun. "Bookings for summer 2019 reflect some consumer uncertainty, particularly in the UK, and our decision to reduce capacity which will both mitigate risk in our tour operator business and help our airline to consolidate the strong growth achieved last year." Bookings for the summer of 2019 are 12 per cent down, reflecting a capacity cut aimed at reducing exposure and shoring up prices - which are 4 per cent higher overall. Mr Fankhauser said: "Some customers appear to be putting off bookings because of concerns about Brexit." But he told The Independent: "We are really confident we will be able to offer high-quality holidays even in the event of a no-deal Brexit." Newark is considering clamping down on home rental services like Airbnb, in a move officials say will help regulate the growing industry and allow the city to cash in on the profits. A group of proposed ordinances will require homeowners to collect the signatures of everyone on their block in order to apply for a $300 annual permit that allows short-term rentals (28 days or less). The names and ages of all guests must also be provided to the city. Only homeowners will be permitted to participate. People are operating Airbnbs in the city, unregulated as far as were concerned, said Kenyatta Stewart, the citys corporation counsel. If theres an incident that happens, the city needs to have a sense of whats going on." He said the proposed legislation was prompted by residents complaining about short-term rentals bringing unknown groups of people to their blocks. The people within the neighborhood should have some say so on whats going on their neighborhood," Stewart said. And not have to wake up to strangers in a hotel room on their block. Airbnb, the online short-term rental giant, is fighting these measures. Turning over guest information is unprecedented, the company said, and not required of brick-and-mortar hotels. Airbnb officials said the stringent regulations are burdensome and in Newark, could affect how residents are benefitting from the burgeoning sharing economy. A lot of people share their homes because they are rent-burdened, said Liz DeBold Fusco, an Airbnb spokeswoman. Cutting out renters is basically saying to renters who are the most rent-burdened, you dont get to access this tool. In Newark, 78 percent of residents are renters. Last year, about 35,000 guests stayed in the city through 250 Airbnb hosts, the company said. On average, a typical host earned $8,200 a year. Most guests were solo travelers, couples or small families with the average group size of 2.2 people staying for 3.5 nights, the company said. Its good for the city, not just for the tax revenue they can benefit from but also from the small businesses that are getting patronized, DeBold Fusco said. She said enacting onerous legislation could put the city at a competitive disadvantage, especially as it looks to grow as a tech hub. Newark is joining cities across the U.S. that have stepped up their regulation of the industry, in many cases requiring some sort of registration system. New York City demanded companies turn over information about the hosts but a judge blocked the law this year, according to media reports. The measure was meant to relieve housing affordability concerns and discourage landlords from seeking higher profits through short-term rentals versus long-term leases. Were not against regulation, we think we can achieve common sense regulation, DeBold Fusco said. We have done so all over the world and we want to work together to do that. Aibnb sent a letter to city officials proposing alternatives. The ordinances were deferred on first reading during Wednesdays City Council meeting and will be heard later this month. Karen Yi may be reached at kyi@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter at @karen_yi or on Facebook. Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. A teachers aide at a public school in Newark has been charged with sexually assaulting a student at the school, authorities announced Friday. Liz Perez, 31, of Newark is charged with sexual assault and endangering the welfare of a child for allegedly having sexual intercourse with a 14-year-old student over the winter break, at her residence, the Essex County Prosecutors Office announced. She was arrested Friday. Perez was a per diem teachers aide at the time at Dr. William H. Horton School, a K-8 school on North 7th Street. A detention hearing on Perezs case is scheduled for Feb. 11. The Essex prosecutors Special Victims Unit is investigating. Taylor Tiamoyo Harris may be reached at tharris@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @ladytiamoyo Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. The men who robbed and killed an engineering student while raiding his fraternity house at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in 2016 were sentenced to prison Thursday, four months after admitting their guilt. Taquan Harris, 24, was sentenced to 26 years in prison for shooting Joseph Micalizzi to death during a struggle at the fraternity May 2, 2016. Nafee Cotman, 21, who pleaded guilty to robbing Micalizzi, was sentenced to 12 years, according to a statement from the Essex County Prosecutors Office. The men from Newark broke into the Kappa Epsilon fraternity house on Martin Luther King Boulevard at 3:15 a.m. to rob students, the prosecutors office said. They found Micalizzi and his roommate studying in a third floor bedroom. During his plea hearing in October, Harris admitted that he pointed a revolver at Micalizzi and after they struggled, shot at him three times. Cotman said he tried to take Micalizzis belongings during the incident. People who knew Micalizzi, 23, of Freehold, said they werent surprised he fought back against the intruders. In earlier interviews, they recalled him as smiling, respectful and disciplined guy who excelled at the performing arts magnet program at Howell High School. After he graduated, he attended Brookdale Community College and worked at Brio Tuscan Grille in Freehold. He was an extraordinary young man, witnessed by the fact that more than 1,400 people attended his wake. He made an impact, Assistant Prosecutor Eric Plant said in a statement. Hundreds of students gather at the New Jersey Institute of Technology campus on May 3, 2016, for a candlelight vigil to mourn the death of junior Joseph Micalizzi in a fatal shooting. Harris and Cotman pleaded guilty on the eve of their trial in October, in front of many of Micalizzis family and friends in Superior Court in Newark. The prosecutors office said Harris tried to withdraw his aggravated manslaughter plea Thursday, but Judge Ronald D. Wigler refused to let him, ruling he knowingly and voluntarily entered the guilty plea. They will have to serve at least 85 percent of their sentences more than 22 years for Harris and more than 10 years for Cotman before they will be eligible for parole. They will get credit for more than 1,000 days theyve already spent in jail awaiting trial. Plea agreements are rarely completely satisfying for family members of the victims of violent crime, but we believe this was an appropriate resolution of this case, Plant said in the statement. We hope that the sentencing today will allow the Micalizzi family to continue to focus on honoring the cherished memory of their son. Rebecca Everett may be reached at reverett@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @rebeccajeverett. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. Amazon is rethinking its decision to establish a second headquarters in New York City, according to The Washington Post. Last year, the online retail giant crushed Newarks dreams of picking it for its new second headquarters. But, two sources told the Post that Amazon officials were considering alternatives to New Yorks Long Island City given public backlash to the plan and pushback from local politicians, including U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. In November, Amazon announced it would open two new headquarters, not one, splitting its facility between New York City and Northern Virginia. The news came after 20 finalist cities, including Newark, rolled out the red carpet for Amazon officials, each vying for a chance to clinch 50,000 jobs and $5 billion investment. Newark made it far in the race -- it was only a handful of locations that received a second, unannounced visit from company representatives. The city and the state offered Amazon a $7 billion incentive package, dwarfing deals offered by other states. Its unclear what sort of alternative Amazon is considering if it does pull out of the New York deal to bring 25,000 jobs. AOC on Amazon reconsidering New York HQ: I think its really exciting. I think its really encouraging to show that government and all of us primarily have a responsibility to the communities that we directly impact." (H/t @KilloughCNN) David Wright (@DavidWright_CNN) February 8, 2019 Were focused on engaging with our new neighbors - small business owners, educators, and community leaders," an Amazon spokesperson said in a statement to NJ Advance Media. Whether its building a pipeline of local jobs through workforce training or funding computer science classes for thousands of New York City students, we are working hard to demonstrate what kind of neighbor we will be. A Newark city official said its a big opportunity for us if its true Amazon is considering alternatives. Karen Yi may be reached at kyi@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter at @karen_yi or on Facebook. Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. Michelle Rodriguez has inserted herself into the controversy over Liam Neesons recent comments in which he recalled looking for black men to attack as vengeance for the rape of a family member. Rodriguez, 40, who lived in Jersey City when she was younger, rose to fame in 2000 as the star of the film Girlfight and is known for playing Letty in "The Fast and the Furious movies. She weighed in on Neeson when speaking to Vanity Fair at the amfAR Gala in New York on Wednesday. The actress, who co-starred in the Widows with Neeson and Viola Davis and has a part in the upcoming movie Alita: Battle Angel," said that Neeson couldnt be racist because of his kissing scene with Davis in the film. Its all f***in bullsh**," Rodriguez said. "Liam Neeson is not a racist. Dude, have you watched Widows? His tongue was so far down Viola Davis throat. You cant call him a racist ever. Racists dont make out with the race that they hate, especially in the way he does with his tongue so deep down her throat. I dont care how good of an actor you are. Its all bullsh**. Ignore it. Hes not a racist. Hes a loving man. Its all lies. Someone please tell Michelle Rodriguez that slave owners routinely raped Black women. That didnt absolve them from being racists. Her defense of Liam Neeson is insulting. Stephanie. (@qsteph) February 7, 2019 On social media, Rodriguez was immediately criticized for her comments, with many noting the obvious fact that many racists have sexually abused black women. Neeson, 66, recounted his original story to The Independent during a press junket for his film Cold Pursuit." The actor, when explaining how his character in the film acts on anger (and, like many of his past characters, on vengeance), said a family member once told him she had been raped. Neeson asked what color the person was, and she said black. He said he was consumed by a desire for vengeance, and went around looking for any black man to attack. next thing u know michelle rodriguez is going to tell me men can't be misogynists because they date women kate bush stan account (@ashcech) February 7, 2019 I went up and down areas with a cosh (a bludgeon), hoping Id be approached by somebody Im ashamed to say that and I did it for maybe a week, hoping some black bastard would come out of a pub and have a go at me about something, you know? So that I could kill him. It was horrible, horrible, when I think back, that I did that, he continued. And Ive never admitted that, and Im saying it to a journalist." Ultimately, Neeson did not attack anyone, he said, but the actor has been widely criticized in the wake of the interview for his racist behavior. His movie premiere was canceled, as was his planned appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Heres more of the response to Rodriguez from Twitter on Thursday. Lionsgate PR dept: ok the news cycle is finally moving on I think we're goo- Michelle Rodriguez: LEEROY JENKINS https://t.co/76sBHmVElB pic.twitter.com/kPfMJgEP0U Matthew Elliot (@matttbastard) February 7, 2019 Those comments from Michelle Rodriguez don't surprise me. During my interview with her and the cast of WIDOWS, she and Erivo discussed that scene b/w Viola and Liam. Then Viola came with facts. Interview is here: https://t.co/rs397ri5RT pic.twitter.com/VADlshJSqV Yolanda Machado (@SassyMamainLA) February 7, 2019 while we're out here educating michelle rodriguez about trash men, she's gonna have her mind blown when she finds out that men who make out with women can also be misogynists https://t.co/FdaomDeuRj Elizabeth May (@_ElizabethMay) February 7, 2019 You could have said nothing Vol. 23862514 https://t.co/dcFUECsjZU sam greisman (@SAMGREIS) February 7, 2019 Have a tip? Amy Kuperinsky may be reached at akuperinsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @AmyKup or on Facebook. Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. First there were the school lockdown drills, followed by the buzzer systems and fortified entrances. Now comes the next step in the escalating hardening of schools: ex-prisons guards and retired Fish and Wildlife officers patrolling the campus with their guns. Fueled by fear and constrained by finances, New Jersey school districts have been steadily adding part-time police officers to guard their buildings in the wake of last years deadly shooting in Parkland, Florida. But state lawmakers say the supply of retired police officers eligible to fill those posts is running low. Their solution? Allow a wide-ranging assortment of retired law enforcement to serve as part-time cops dedicated solely to defending local schools. Soon, the good guy with a gun could be a former NJ Transit or Port Authority cop, a retired sheriffs officer or almost any physically fit law enforcement retiree whos under 65 with basic police training. Its really what we need," said Assemblyman Anthony Bucco, R-Morris, who sponsored the proposal thats awaiting Gov. Phil Murphys approval. I think that the schools will be a lot safer. The idea sounds either completely logical or like an accident waiting to happen, depending on your point of view. But love it or hate it, the use of retired law enforcement from all backgrounds appears to be the future of securing New Jersey schools. I think its a win-win for everybody, said Christopher Wagner, past president of the New Jersey State Association of Chiefs of Police. Of course, everyone agrees schools should be safer. But once the discussion turns to guns in schools and who should be holding them the dissension begins. The states largest teachers union has opposed previous plans to put more guns in schools, and the new proposal has already raised obvious questions, even from supporters, about the ability of prison guards and others to transition into schools. We dont think that schools are safer by making them more heavily armed, said Steve Baker, spokesman for the New Jersey Education Association, which has not taken a position on this proposal specifically. You cant make schools safer or students safer by putting more guns into a situation. Yet many parents and school leaders are unnerved by the mounting tally of school shootings, from Columbine to Newtown to Parkland. If bringing in armed guards seems controversial, just imagine the backlash that would come if a shooting happened and the school didnt have one. The big problem for schools, like any other initiative, is money. Districts can already hire anyone to be an armed guard as long as they have a license to carry a gun and hold an Armed Security Officer credential. Those private security guards come cheap, around $30,000 a year , but they are not actually police officers. They have no law enforcement authority and have no radio communication with local police. Full-time school resource officers are recommended, and many districts have them. But they can cost more than $100,000 a year, plus benefits. Though the cost is usually shared with a local town, its a high price tag for districts that make parents pay for tissues and pencils. The happy medium for districts has been a new class of police officers the state created after the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Called Class Three special police officers, the group is currently restricted to retired police officers under the age of 65 who work part time and receive no benefits while exclusively serving schools. Those officers, uniformed and armed, are considered one and the same as school resource officers. While theres no consistent salary across the state, they usually cost significantly less than a full-time officer. We found out that the demand is high, Bucco said. Some schools and some chiefs have had trouble filling the positions. The bipartisan proposal now on the governors desk would expand the Class 3 pool to include retired corrections officers, sheriffs officers, Port Authority and NJ Transit police, Department of Environment officers and others, including university police officers and federal law enforcement, such as FBI agents. The New Jersey School Boards Association supports the plan because anyone who wants to become a Class 3 police officer would need to take a week-long course training them for working in a school. All Class 3 officers, regardless of background, would have the same training as a school resource officer, supporters say. But critics of adding more armed officers in schools point to two major problems. First, cops in schools arent guaranteed to prevent mass shootings; the officer assigned to Parklands Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School infamously waited outside while 17 people were killed. The other issue is a police officer stationed in a school can easily become involved in everything else that happens when there isnt a shooting, said Christian Villenas, director of research for the National School Climate Center. Can a retired NJ Transit cop navigate the nuances of adolescent stress and anxiety? Will a former prison guard use the proper de-escalation tactics when a fight breaks out at a high school? Clearly, this is not a step in the right direction, Villenas said, adding that schools should be clear about when officers should and should not get involved with students. Though Wagner, a former Denville Township Police chief, supports the plan, hes also worried about how prison guards will adapt to a school setting, he said. I am not ecstatic, he said. We have worked really hard with the public to say we dont want our schools to be a prison, we want them to be safe, secure, positive environments where every kid is free to learn and safely to go to school. (Wagner added he would rather schools have armed police officers than no one to protect them at all.) Corrections officers must go through a 16-week training program and receive active shooter training, said William Sullivan, executive vice president of the union that represents the states corrections officers. They have full arrest power and are often deployed as police officers for large-scale events, such as the Super Bowl or the Popes visit to New Jersey, he said. If a prison guard can protect the Pope and citizens of this great state I assure you we can protect the children in our school systems, Sullivan said, adding that the term prison guard is antiquated and doesnt reflect their work. As far as Bucco is concerned, the mere presence of the officers would make students safer. Every day when I drive by the elementary school in Denville, I see the police car parked outside," Bucco said. If that doesnt send a signal to somebody who might be thinking of something, nothing else does. Adam Clark may be reached at adam_clark@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on twitter at @realAdamClark. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. Writers note: this story was updated Friday, February 8 at 12:25 p.m. to include further information about Martinaks home owners insurance coverage. New Jersey students fundraised thousands of dollars to help a down-on-his-luck teacher, but now, school officials are saying the he cant keep the donations. William Martinak, a social studies teacher at John P. Stevens High School in Edison, had a heart problem that caused emergency medical services to come to the school and cart him out in October. Soon after, a sewer line clogged and ruined his homes basement, causing $10,000 worth of damage. His students asked how he was doing when he returned to school. Martinak was honest: Not so well. In addition to his own health issues, Martinak said his wife was on disability and he was helping his son pay for college. The damage to his basement seemed like more than the family could manage. His homeowners insurance paid sewer backup repairs and part of the restoration, but not all of it. He took out a loan to help pay for the rest. Unbeknownst to Martinak, one student from his AP World History class jumped into action. Students, alumni, community members, and Martinaks friends pitched in, raising about $4,000 on GoFundMe within a few months. When he heard of the fundraiser in early December, Marinak talked to the teachers union representative, who warned Martinak that accepting the money could be considered a conflict of interest. Martinak said he wanted to be open and honest about what was going on so he told the board of education about the fundraiser. Board members told Martinak he could not accept the donations. Unfortunately, board policies prohibit the teacher from taking the money, Jinwei Jerry Shi, president of the Edison board of education said. Shi pointed to three policies, all in existence since 2011. One, titled Conflict of Interest, said, The Board of Education discourages the presentation of gifts to teaching staff members by pupils and their parents...because it may embarrass pupils with limited means or give the appearance of currying favor. Martinak, who has taught in the district for 20 years, said he would never show favoritism to students, and the vast majority of the donations came from non-students. Yet, he said he understood the school officials point. Martinak asked the student to return the money and the online platform began sending out refunds in January. Im very flattered and very touched by it all, he said. I cant sing enough praises to the students, the community. I have the best friends in the world. Some of Martinaks friends showed interest in starting a separate fundraiser, but he said he hopes they dont. Could I use the money? Absolutely, he said. But Im not the kind of guy to go begging for money. Ill find my way around it. State records show Martinak makes $99,622 annually, but with rising taxes and other expenses, he said, just like other New Jerseyans, he can find it hard to live in the state. Cassidy Grom may be reached at cgrom@njadvancemedia.com Follow her at @cassidygrom. Eric S. Smith Jr.s family helped convince him to surrender to police on Jan. 23 after he allegedly fired on officers and barricaded himself in an apartment for more than three hours in Salem. The standoff came two weeks after he allegedly smashed into a police car and fled a traffic stop just hours before he was scheduled to face trial in another case. His family and friends returned to fill a Salem County courtroom Friday morning just a few hundred feet from the standoff scene as a judge reviewed Smiths growing pile of charges and ruled that he will remain jailed pending trial for attempted murder and other offenses. In remarks after the hearing, Smith and his mother called the court system unjust. Members of the U.S. Marshals Regional Fugitive Task Force were looking for Smith, 26, of Quinton Township, on two warrants when they came to his girlfriends second-floor apartment on East Broadway in Salem. Smith, who was in a bedroom, climbed out a window onto the roof and allegedly fired at an officer. The officer returned fire, but no one was struck. He then entered an adjoining apartment via another window and held police at bay. Hes charged with attempted murder, aggravated assault and various weapons offenses. He faces up to 30 years in prison on the attempted murder charge. Superior Court Judge John Eastlack presides over a detention hearing for Eric S. Smith Jr., 26, of Quinton Township. Smith is charged with attempted murder, aggravated assault and various weapons offenses.Joe Warner | For NJ Advance Medi Smith allegedly told police he was staying in the apartment because he was wanted on warrants. He denied firing at the cops or even having a gun, Assistant Prosecutor Michael J. Forte said Friday, but when he was asked about where the gun was, he said its probably still on the roof. Police located a loaded Glock 19 9mm handgun at the scene. In challenging the attempted murder charge, public defender Joseph Moran referred to an interview with the officer allegedly fired on by Smith. When he was actually interviewed, he said, I dont know who fired first,' Moran said. Forte took issue with that point. I dont see how that could possibly affect the attempted murder charge, he said. What matters is that a gun was pointed at a police officer. A police officer doesnt have to take the first shot. He can defend himself. The warrants being served involved two incidents that occurred on the same day. A bench warrant was issued for Smith after he failed to show up in a Salem County courtroom on Jan. 7 for a trial on drug and weapons charges. Smith was arrested on April 11, 2016, in Pilesgrove Township, and allegedly found in possession of two 9mm Luger handguns, a .40-caliber Smith & Wesson handgun, at least 5 ounces of cocaine and the stimulant drug dibutylone. As a result, he was indicted on several weapons charges, possession with intent to distribute a controlled dangerous substance and possession of firearms during the commission of certain crimes. The same day he missed his trial, police say they stopped Smiths car at a Salem gas station less than a mile from the courthouse. The reason given for the early morning stop was a tinted windows violation, Forte said. When an officer allegedly smelled marijuana in the vehicle, he called for backup. Officers say Smith revved his engine, put his car in reverse and smashed into a police car and a gas pump before speeding off. Police briefly gave chase before breaking off the pursuit for safety reason. Smiths estimated speed was in excess of 100 mph, Forte said. The gunfire and standoff that followed the attempt to serve those warrants on Jan. 23 prompted a lockdown at area businesses and offices, including the nearby county courthouse, as police from various agencies arrived to secure the area. Thanks to a New Jersey State Police crisis negotiator and assistance from members of Smiths family, he surrendered around 3 p.m. that day. In addition to the charges related to that incident, Smiths charges in the Jan. 7 traffic stop include multiple counts of aggravated assault on a police officer, resisting arrest and eluding. Moran noted that Smith has no prior violent crime convictions, though his record does include convictions for drug possession and distribution, and unlawful possession of a handgun. In arguing for his pre-trial release, Moran pointed to his clients strong ties to the community, noting that his mother, sister and others were in court to support him. Smith also has two young children and has the promise of employment if released. Smiths past actions make release impossible, Forte countered. Eric Smith is a clear and present danger, not only to the community at large but law enforcement, and should not be released, Forte said, adding that he has no faith Smith would show up for his court dates or abide by release terms. In denying his pre-trial release on the Jan. 7 traffic stop charges, Superior Court Judge John Eastlack Jr. said Smith endangered police officers and posed a risk to the public based on his actions and the way he engaged in them on that day. How do you know the way I engaged in them? Smith asked the judge, to which Eastlack issued a warning. Sheriff, if he continues to talk, hes going to be taken from the room. Eastlack ordered Smith jailed pending trial in the attempted murder case, too. Hes done everything to resist appearing in court ... through very violent means, the judge observed. Smith said nothing else during the hearing, but remarked, I asked for justice, but the system is unjust, as he was being taken from the courtroom. He remains housed in Salem County Correctional Facility. During the hearing, Eastlack also denied defense motions for change of venue and his own recusal from the case. Moran asked that the case be moved to another county or even another court vicinage, since the shooting and standoff happened so close to the courthouse and resulted in a lockdown at the facility. There were shots fired. People could hear those shots in the courthouse, Moran said. Our argument, judge, is either consciously or subconsciously, your close association with folks in this courthouse would make it impossible for your honor to be fair and partial. Eastlack, who was not at the courthouse that day, found no support for those claims, noting no judges or court personnel were specifically threatened. On the venue issue, he said Moran could seek a change of venue when it came time for a trial. Eric S. Smith Jr., 26, of Quinton Township, appears before Judge John Eastlack for a detention hearing.Joe Warner | For NJ Advance Medi Speaking after the hearing, Smiths mother, Hydica Booker, said she was thankful no one was hurt in the incidents, but called the Jan. 7 traffic stop an erroneous, unwarranted stop. Booker said the entire matter really began with the 2016 gun and drug charges, for which she said her son was facing life in prison. This started in 2016. It continued to play out for almost three years in Salem court under a cover of darkness, Booker said. He was facing life in prison for non-violent offenses. Thats unjust. Do I believe that if someone commits a crime they should be held accountable? Absolutely. But the time should match the crime. She said her family, like many others nationwide, is fighting an uphill battle against an unjust, biased criminal justice system. Smith will return to court March 12 for a pre-indictment conference. Matt Gray may be reached at mgray@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MattGraySJT. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us: nj.com/tips. Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. A man recently charged with felony murder in an August 2018 home invasion was a neighbor of the victim and even attended his funeral, attorneys revealed during a hearing on Thursday. Corey L. Grier, 21, of Woodbury, will remain in jail pending trial following his arrest last month. Grier and Thadius W. Oswald, 19, allegedly forced their way into a Woodbury home on Aug. 11 and robbed the residents of their cellphones and cash. One of the victims, Misael Ruiz Garcia, 32, followed one of the robbers out of the home and across the street, where prosecutors allege Oswald turned, raised a handgun and shot Ruiz Garcia in the forehead at point-blank range. Witnesses quickly identified Oswald as the alleged shooter and he was arrested two days later. The search for his alleged accomplice took a bit longer, Assistant Prosecutor Dana Anton explained during Thursdays hearing. The other two robbery victims left the state weeks after the crime and, when prosecutors recently found them in Tennessee, they helped identify Grier. The witnesses do not speak English, officials noted. When we interviewed them in Tennessee, they told us they were afraid to identify him because he lived across the street, she said. So it is only now that we found them in Tennessee that they were willing to come forward and to identify him. Public defender Richard OBrien acknowledged that Grier knew Ruiz Garcia. He submits that he was on good terms with the victim and even went to the victims funeral service and had no ill-will towards any of the people involved in this, OBrien said. Grier was arrested Jan. 28 on charges including murder, robbery, conspiracy, burglary and theft. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison on the murder charge. During a probable cause hearing held Thursday, OBrien disputed the first-degree murder charge, arguing that Grier didnt have a gun and didnt know Oswald would use his firearm. OBrien said Oswald has made statements suggesting that Ruiz Garcia took a swing at him and that the gun went off accidentally. Regardless, our position is it was an act solely attributable to Mr. Oswald. Mr. Grier was not present, OBrien said. This, I submit, was a spontaneous action on the part of Mr. Oswald that Mr. Grier could never have contemplated. The pair fled in opposite directions after they left the Centre Street house, Anton said, but Griers participation in the robbery something he has admitted to, she noted makes him accountable for the killing even though he isnt accused of pulling the trigger. Although Mr. Grier was not present right with Mr. Oswald when he shot the victim of the robbery, it was in the flight from the robbery that the victim tried to stop (Oswald) and Mr. Oswald turned around and shot him in the head. The evidence suggests that they went into the house together, they went through the house and took items from the people that lived in the house, Anton said. Facebook messages between the pair days before the crime and statements Grier made to police confirm that he knew Oswald had a gun during the crime, she added. There are also several reports that came in earlier in the day of the murder that Mr. Grier was seen around town carrying a handgun, Anton added, drawing a dismissive noise from Grier, who frequently conversed with his attorney during the hearing. Superior Court Judge Kevin T. Smith reviewed the felony murder statute and found probable cause for the charge against Grier. Arguing for pre-trial detention, Anton noted Griers criminal history, which includes three felony convictions for robbery, burglary and obstruction, adding that he was on pre-trial release when the killing occurred. Hes also enrolled in the states drug court program. Three felony convictions before age 21 says volumes, Anton said. He has a history of failure to appear, including just days before this arrest. In arguing for his clients pre-trial release with electronic monitoring, OBrien told the judge that Griers aunt, who was in the courtroom Thursday, would serve as his sponsor and guarantee his court appearances. He also noted that Grier works as a maintenance man for an apartment complex and presented his boss, who said Grier could continue working for him. He wants to fight the charges. He wants to fight the homicide charges, the murder charges, OBrien said. He wants to clear his name. He will show up to fight those charges." Yes, Grier chimed in. Corey L. Grier, 21, of Woodbury, enters the courtroom for his detention hearing, Thursday, Feb. 7, 2019. Grier is charged with murder, robbery, conspiracy, burglary and theft.Joe Warner | For NJ Advance Medi Hes adamant that he had no involvement in the actual homicide, OBrien continued. Grier is a high school graduate who recently enrolled in Pennco Tech. He has joint custody of a 3-month old daughter for whom he provides financial support, OBrien noted. Hes also doing fairly well in drug court, he added. In sealing her argument against release, Anton noted that Grier could hinder the investigation if released. There may still yet be people to be charged in this, and those people are still in the community, and I think that his release may pose some issues for that as well, she said. Citing his criminal record, danger to the community and potential to obstruct the case, Smith ordered Griers pre-trial detention. He will remain in Salem County Correctional Facility, where Oswald is also housed. Oswald was indicted on murder, robbery, theft and weapons charges in October. Grier will return to court March 14 for a pre-indictment conference. Matt Gray may be reached at mgray@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MattGraySJT. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us: nj.com/tips. Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. A 37-year-old New Jersey man robbed a Rite Aid at knifepoint of its Percocet twice in the past month, according to authorities. Andrew Dixon III, of Lumberton, was arrested at about 7 p.m. Tuesday following a brief foot chase outside the pharmacy store on Juliustown Road in the Browns Mills section of Pemberton Township, police said. Dixon also robbed the same store on Jan. 7, Lt. Brian Smith said. In both instances, he walked in, showed a knife and demanded an employee hand over all the stores Percocet. He got way following the first robbery, though, according to police. Dixon is charged with robbery, possession of a weapon for unlawful purposes and possession of prescription legend drugs. He was sent to the Burlington County jail. Jeff Goldman may be reached at jeff_goldman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JeffSGoldman. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. Xinhua | Feb. 05, 2019 Lao Airlines believes that the number of Chinese customers could surge to 241,500 this year. This will be an increase of about 42 percent compared to 2018 when the Chinese nationals made 170,500 flight reservations, local daily Vientiane Times reported on Tuesday. An official from the Lao national flag carrier's commercial department said, "We're expecting a significant increase this year because Laos' tourist attractions are becoming more well-known and there are more activities of interest to tourists. These are being promoted by the Lao government and private sectors as well as our airlines for Visit Laos-China Year." "We're also offering special promotions on tickets purchased in the early part of this year. And we have special prices for groups, which vary depending on the route," he added. Lao Airlines now has more flights to China than to any other country and China is the airline's main market. Lao Airlines has 21 direct flights to China each week. From capital Vientiane seven flights go to Kunming, three to Guangzhou, two to Changsha, three to Chengdu, one to Changzhou, one to Shanghai, one to Wenzhou, and two to Jinghong. There is also a flight from Luang Prabang to Changsha, said the report. "Visit Laos-China Year will benefit our business because the demand for air transport will rise accordingly. We will earn more revenues from the increase in customers," he added. Lao Airlines plans to increase the number of flights from capital Vientiane to Shanghai from one to four each week to meet the anticipated customer demand this year. Last year, Lao Airlines opened a new sector from Vientiane-Luang Prabang-Changsha in China's Hunan province, aiming to attract more Chinese travellers. Lao Airlines has seen a steady increase in the number of customers from China, rising from 145,615 people in 2017 to 170,500 last year. A car driven by a 91-year-old woman fatally struck an 80-year-old man, apparently mounted a curb and crashed into a brick pillar at a North Jersey shopping center Thursday. The pedestrian was hit in the parking lot outside a Spencer Savings Bank branch in Saddle Brook around 11:45 a.m., according to police. He died at the scene. Photos from the scene showed a black sedan, which struck a building pillar supporting the facade, on the sidewalk at the Market Street shopping center. This extremely tragic incident is currently under investigation, said township police Detective Captain John A. Zotollo. Unfortunately no additional information can be provided at this time, however further [information] will be released when available and appropriate. Members of HFD assist today at a mva in Saddle Brook https://t.co/4bdy60Kgu1 Hackensackfirenj (@HackensackFDNJ) February 7, 2019 Authorities did not identify the man who died or the driver, an Elmwood Park resident. The cause of the crash was not immediately confirmed. The Bergen County Prosecutors Office, which assisted in the investigation, referred questions to local police. Noah Cohen may be reached at ncohen@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @noahyc. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. Angelis Molina traveled to Puerto Rico on Jan. 16 to celebrate her 20th birthday and attend the San Sebastian Festival in Old San Juan. In the two weeks she had been there, she was offered a modeling job, pursuing a bartending position and started getting over a broken heart. Now, the aspiring model is fighting for her life after being shot in the face, leaving her with a glass eye and shattered cheekbone. The Mays Landing woman was shot on Jan. 31 in Condado, on the outskirts of San Juan, officials said. She remains in critical condition in the intensive care unit at Centro Americo hospital and is recovering from her most recent surgery, which included replacing her eyeball with a glass eye, said her mother, Michelle. The woman traveled to Puerto Rico in mid-January to celebrate her 20th birthday, her mother said. And in the eight days since the waitress from Atlantic City was shot, the circumstances surrounding the shooting remain unclear, while stories and leads keep changing. Originally, the shooting was reported as a robbery, Puerto Rican authorities said. But, for reasons they could not divulge, it became clear it was not a robbery, they said. And according to local media, a man who was with Molina the night she was shot is now a suspect in the shooting. He had told officials they were running away from three people who intended to jump them when they shot at her, but hes changed his story several times, Telemundo reported. The murky details of the shooting, which is under investigation by Agentes del Cuerpo de Investigaciones Criminales de San Juan, is making it harder for her mother to process, she said. She believes it was a personal attack. She begged her 20-year-old daughter not to plan a trip to San Juan, where crime and looting is prevalent as the island is still recovering from the the devastation of Hurricane Maria. Shes just adventurous. Shed go anywhere and do anything, she said. I begged her to go anywhere else, but she said no. Molina went to Puerto Rico after a recent break-up, telling her mom that she wanted to experience life a little more. Im broken inside and hurt. When someone hurts your baby, as sweet as she is, I never thought anyone would want to cause her any harm, she said while crying. The family is taking things day by day while Angelis recovers from her eye surgery in the intensive care unit, she said. Angelis Molina, a 20-year-old from Mays Landing, was shot in the face while vacationing in Puerto Rico. Courtesy Molina was originally supposed to be down there for a few days, but after missing her flight, decided she would stay until April, her mother said. Although Michelle Molina was apprehensive to let her stay, she didnt want to take happiness away from her daughter, she said. I didnt want to make her come back. For the first time in three months she was happy. Shes 20-years-old now, how can I make her do something she doesnt want to do? Michelle Molina said. She said her daughter got tangled up with the wrong crowd, and was nowhere near the kind of kids she usually would be. How she ended up around the likes of people she did, it tortures me. Im confused. Its very confusing, because she was just enjoying herself, she added. Friends from high school organized a GoFundMe for her medical expenses and to bring the woman back to N.J. As of Friday afternoon, $2,865 had been raised. Shes the nicest human being Ive ever met in my whole life, said one of the organizers, Jaclynn Perry. Shes been there for me through my toughest times and I want to thank her as much as possible. Sophie Nieto-Munoz may be reached at snietomunoz@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her at @snietomunoz. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. The Borgata has been out $10 million ever since poker star Phil Ivey employed a card marking tactic he sees as clever, but the house calls cheating. Now, the casino has legal permission to seek out the funds in Nevada, as Iveys hometown is currently Las Vegas. U.S. District Judge Noel L. Hillman ruled on Jan. 29 that his 2016 New Jersey decision ordering Ivey to repay his winnings can be entered into court in Nevada. Its the latest legal step in a saga that started nearly seven years ago when Ivey and his friend Cheng Yin Sun won $9.6 million playing baccarat and another $504,000 at the craps table at the Atlantic City casino. But it turned out the two didnt just come by those large sums out of luck, like most winners of baccarat. Instead, they used a technique known as edge-sorting, which involves noticing practically un-noticeable inconsistencies on the backs of cards, allowing them to tell whether high- or low-value cards were next in the deck, according to court documents. They then used some of the winnings to play craps. Thats not fraud, Hillman ruled in 2016. But the act does breach states Casino Controls Acts standards prohibiting marking cards. Ivey, who graduated from Old Bridge High School, countersued the casino, arguing the responsibility was on the house to know its cards had inconsistencies. To him, having a keen eye wasnt breaking the rules. But he also took extra measures to make sure he knew the deck like the back of his hand. Ivey allegedly demanded Sun sit with him at all times, that only one deck of cards known to lack perfect symmetry be used and that they be shuffled with an automatic device, which keeps the cards oriented the same way, according to court documents. Ivey bet $50,000 and walked away with $2.4 million during his first visit to play in 2012. He returned in May, July and October, once winning $4.8 million in just 16 hours. The 42-year-old is one of the worlds most successful poker players, winning 10 World Series of poker bracelets, and one World Poker Tour title. The Borgata became suspicious when they heard Ivey pulled a similar scheme in London, and filed suit against him. In 2016, a federal judge ruled Ivey would have to hand over the $10.1 million Ivey and Sun have appealed the decision. An attorney for Ivey did not immediately return a request for comment Friday afternoon. An attorney for the Borgata said the casino does not comment on on-going litigation. Amanda Hoover can be reached at ahoover@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @amandahoovernj. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. Japan Data Department stores are doing a brisk business in cosmetics thanks to demand from foreign tourists, but apparel and household goods are no longer selling well. Overall sales are down more than a third compared to 20 years ago. Japanese department stores had another disappointing year in 2018. According to figures compiled by the Japan Department Stores Association, sales for retailers totaled 5.887 trillion, marking a 0.8% year-on-year decline. Factors contributing to the decrease in sales include diminished personal consumption due to a string of natural disasters since the summer season, including landslides and floods in Western Japan and a major earthquake in Hokkaido. Department stores sales have continued to edge downward and have remained under 6 trillion for the past three years, a far cry from the more than 9 trillion logged in 1998. Some experts point to slumping sales as proof that department stores must revamp their business models to meet changes in the consumer market or risk closing their doors for good. Department stores once occupied a prestigious position in the retail industry, but have had their value eroded by the spread of online shopping. So-called ekinaka outlets, shopping complexes inside train stations, have also eaten into department store profits. These markets primarily sell food and specialty items, and have expanded sales by tapping into the diverse consumer needs of Japanese commuters. Apparel sales at departments stores were down year-on-year by 3.1%, household goods fell by 5.7%, and factors like the growing popularity of ekinaka complexes contributed to a 1.9% decline in food sales. One bright spot has been cosmetics, which rose year-on-year by 9.5%, bolstered by strong demand from foreign tourists. Japan welcomed a record number of foreign tourists in 2018, and shopper from overseas accounted for a greater number of customers at department stores, rising by 28.6% to 5.24 million. Spending by foreign travelers increased by 25.8%, reaching a record 339.6 billion. (Translated from Japanese. Banner photo Jiji.) James Neiss/staff photographerChandra Foote, Niagara University dean of education, and Vincent Rinaldo with NUs Ontario Education Leadership Faculty, look at images of the new Niagara University facility in Vaughan, Ont., before a press conference announcing the bi-national program on Thursday. Niagara Falls, NY (14301) Today Lots of sunshine. High 73F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph.. Tonight Partly cloudy. Low near 60F. Winds S at 10 to 15 mph. DARIEN It took two stints in federal prison, and the assurance of his daughters, before John G. Rowland found his true calling, channeling the political skills that won him a record third election as governor to help offenders like himself back into their communities. Speaking to about 120 men gathered for breakfast and prayers with the New Canaan Society, Rowland, in one of his first public appearances since his release from prison last May, tied an old story into a new one, proclaiming that it was a blessing to go back to prison for a second term. For up-to-date information on public policy issues, sign up for the CT Politics newsletter. Speculating the various active investigations into the leader of the free world, President Donald Trump, are political in nature, the states former top Republican said that during the 2014 federal probe that led to his indictment and conviction, Rowland was told that it was mostly payback for a relatively lenient first stretch in prison. The 61-year-old development director for the Prison Fellowship said that during the latest sentence for political-campaign corruption, he realized he had a lot more going for himself than an average inmate, even as he fit the definition of recidivist, among the majority of inmates who return to incarceration. I had a loving wife, children, a stable home and a high school diploma and there wasnt much of that among the faces around me, said Rowland, a Waterbury native and Villanova University graduate who served two terms in the state House of Representatives and three terms in Congress before winning the 1994, 1998 and 2002, governors races. He resigned in mid-2004, on the heels of an impeachment inquiry that preceded a guilty plea for corruption and his first 10-month prison term. Released last May from his latest adventure in the Lewisburg, Pa., federal prison camp, Rowland, whose state pension is $53,065, said he turned down a lucrative job to become a Northeast regional director of the nonprofit Prison Fellowship, the land of the frozen chosen, he quipped. The Prison Fellowship had a $40 million budget last year, most of which went into its prison ministry program, according to its annual report, which includes $9.1 million in fundraising, $3.3 million in public education and $3.9 million for management expenses. He noted the irony of his experience, first running Connecticuts prisons, then becoming a two-time inmate. I know the ins and outs and ups and downs, he joked to the weekly males-only, Jesus-oriented breakfast group, gathered in a Post Road restaurant in downtown Darien. The founding chapter of a national group, the New Canaan Societys motto is Through friendship, men helping each other become better husbands, fathers and leaders. Rowland began his 25-minute speech with an often-told story he heard from General William Westmoreland, who was the top military commander during the Vietnam War. Westmoreland recalled a phone call he made to a motor pool to ask for an inventory of vehicles, when an enlisted man counting the equipment included a jeep for the stupid general. Identifying himself, Westmoreland was met with silence over the phone, then a hasty Goodbye stupid, before the soldier slinked off into anonymity. Rowland said that life came relatively easy for him when he was young. Sometimes when you have early success, with that early success theres not grounding, maybe theres no wisdom, Rowland said. I have the extraordinary, the unique opportunity to be one of the 67 percent to return to prison. You need spiritual transformation in order to become a better person. The former governor said that the spiritual life he fostered in his first prison term and later, in a career as an afternoon-drive host on WTIC-radio in Farmington, blossomed during his latest incarceration. John Grosvenor Rowland May 24, 1957: John G. Rowland born in Waterbury 1981: Elected to the Connecticut General Assembly at the age of 23 1985: Elected to the U.S. Congress representing the 5th Congressional District 1994: Elected governor, the state's youngest, at age 37 1998: Re-elected, second term as governor 2002: Re-elected, third term as governor January 2004: Impeachment committee formed in the state House of Representatives June 2004: Resigns as governor rather than testify to the House panel December 2004: Pleads guilty in federal court to conspiracy and fraud in connection with accepting vacations, luxury air charters and home renovations from state contractors. February 2006: Released after serving 10 months in prison April 2014: Indicted on election fraud charges, after serving as an off-the-books consultant to a congressional campaign. September, 2014: Found guilty of campaign fraud and other charges March 2015: Sentenced to 30 months in prison June 2015: Enters Otisville Federal Correctional Institution in New York, and is later transferred to a federal prison camp in Lewisburg, Pa. January 2018: Transferred to a halfway house to complete term. May 25, 2018: Leaves halfway house. See More Collapse What is Gods purpose? he said. What is Gods plan? How do I use this? When he heard he was being investigated for again, I couldnt kind of grasp what happened, Rowland recalled, adding that his attorneys quoted federal prosecutors as saying, your guy didnt do enough time 10 years ago. In September 2014 he was convicted of seven felony counts for a behind-the-scenes role in the losing Republican congressional campaign of Lisa Wilson-Foley, whose husband, Brian Foley, paid Rowland $35,000 in consulting fees. He remembered sitting on a bench in the park behind the New York Public Library when he realized his appeal would be rejected. He started praying and wondering, How is my family going to deal with this? And I lost hope. I was always an upbeat guy. But at dinner that night with his wife Patty and their daughters, Kirsten and Julianne, the young women gave him hope. Dad, weve got this, they said. Police in California arrested a woman they say went on a vandalism spree, causing $15,000 worth of damage to a Watsonville church. Investigators say 23-year-old Jackeline Chavira hit multiple businesses Wednesday before making her way to St. Patricks Church. HARTFORD - State Treasurer Shawn T. Wooden recently launched the 2019 Dream Big! college-savings competition that will award up to $1,000 each to 48 students in grades K-8. Encouraging young Connecticut students to start thinking about and planning for college as early as possible is crucial to their future success, said Wooden in a statement. He Trustee of the Connecticut Higher Education Trust (CHET), the sponsor of the annual Dream Big! Competition. And as the owner of CHET accounts for my two sons, I cant think of a better way to get started than by taking part in this fun and thought-provoking competition. Four students will be awarded a grand prize of $1,000, while the others will be awarded $500. A total of $26,000 will be awarded statewide to 48 students in the form of a contribution to a new or existing CHET account. The competition asks students to use a creative outlet, in the form of a drawing or essay, to answer the question: What do you want to be when you grow up? Kindergarten through third grade students are asked to share artwork depicting what they want to do after they go to college. Students in grades 4-8are asked to answer in a 250-word essay how they will change the world after college. Schools are also eligible for a prize. Eight schools, one per county, will be selected to receive up to $500 in cash for entries submitted on behalf of their students. To be eligible to win, the school must submit a minimum of 50 entries on behalf of entrants and have the highest number of entries in their county. School winners in the past have used the money to purchase library books, classroom materials and other items to enrich their students' academic experience. Entries are judged based on theme, originality and creativity. Drawings will also be evaluated based on artistic design and attractiveness, while essays are also judged on overall grammar, spelling and punctuation. Printable entry forms, official rules and additional details can be found at www.CHETDreamBig.com. No purchase is necessary to enter or win. The competitions entry deadline is Friday, March 29. The Connecticut Higher Education Trust (CHET) direct-sold college savings plan was established in 1997 and as of December 31, 2018 has grown to more than $2.9 billion in assets and 125,000 accounts. Nearly $1.9 billion has been withdrawn from CHET accounts to help more than 51,000 students pay for college expenses. The State of Connecticut offers CHET to help families save for future college costs. Funds deposited into a CHET account have tax advantages and can be used at accredited colleges and universities across the country, including vocational and technical schools, and some colleges abroad. Connecticut residents are allowed to deduct 529 contributions from their state income taxes - up to $5,000 for an individual or up to $10,000 for a married couple filing jointly. Investment earnings are exempt from state and federal taxes if used for qualified educational expenses. The CHET direct-sold plan is managed by TIAA Tuition Financing, Inc. For more information about CHET, visit www.aboutchet.com or call the customer service center at 866-314-3939. Find it on Facebook (facebook.com/CHETcollegesavings) or follow on Twitter (@CHET529). Arnold Gold / Hearst Connecticut Media file photo NEW HAVEN Yale University ranks among the lowest of its peer institutions in terms of average alumni-giving rate, the Yale Daily News reports. The Yale Daily News article cites information from the U.S. News & World Report annual rankings on alumni donations, which show that the alumni giving rate is 28.3 percent. NEW HAVEN City officials and stakeholders gathered in an emergency meeting Thursday in an effort to stop violence after multiple shootings occurred within 24 hours, many involving young people. Between Tuesday evening and Wednesday afternoon, four people were shot, including people 18, 19 and 20 years old. The incidents spurred YouthStat leaders to convene with partners to share information and manage the situation. YouthStat is a school-based intervention program that collaborates with the citys Youth Department, Board of Education, social services agencies, Police Department, mental health professionals, community members and parents to create networks of individuals and agencies to help to funnel young people into positive outcomes and avoid crime. Its also to provide information with partners who may know something and may know whats going on, Assistant Chief Herb Johnson said. Its something unheard of in many other jurisdictions. Its something we do here thats unbelievable. On Wednesday, an 18-year-old woman was shot in the leg in the 1300 block of State Street while a 20-year-old man was taken to the hospital after being shot near Shelton Avenue in the Newhallville around 7:20 p.m. Tuesday and a 19-year-old man was also shot in the ankle, police said. The 20-year-old was taken to the hospital and reported to be in critical but stable condition as of Wednesday, police said. In an earlier shooting Tuesday on Sherman Avenue, a 29-year-old man was shot in the hand, according to police. Older youth in their 20s affect youth that go to high school and are on the cusp of graduation, said Youth Services Director Jason Bartlett, who is an executive team member of YouthStat. When youre trying to stop violence you want to make sure you do large outreach to everyone affiliated. Sometimes older folks like to use younger folks to do their bidding and sometimes our younger folks are reckless because they dont know any better. Bartlett said the briefing gave YouthStat and the police an opportunity to share information and help identify young people in and out of high school to focus on. YouthStat is collaborating with the school board to make sure they engage young people immediately after these incidents to make sure theres no retaliation, he said. We feel good, he said. I only have praise for our department and we want to support them and our schools and each other as we try to reach out to our young people. We walked away with tangible tasks. Mayor Toni N. Harp, Acting Chief Administrative Officer Sean Matteson and Community Services Administrator Dakibu Muley were among the city officials engaged in the meeting. Others included school resource officers, street outreach workers, representatives from the Hill Health Center, and the Board of Education. Everyone was really hearing each other and thats helpful, Bartlett said. The best thing that comes out of this process is youd be surprised who knows what. When youre able to share information in that setting its helpful because nobodys working in silos and that makes our collaboration different from other cities. Johnson said police have some leads on the cases and have gotten information that they may be connected with rival groups. Police have served search warrants and arrest warrants but the investigations are still active. By this time last year, the city had seen three homicides and six shootings, Johnson said. So far this year, there has been one homicide and at least 12 shootings. The meeting with YouthStat produced a better understanding of whos connected to the cases and helped information to flow freely, he said. It provides us with more information as the investigation goes along if we corroborate, it helps with us to follow through and provide more links down the road, Johnson said. We convened because of the incidents in a short time frame and were all passionate about what we do. We all get upset when a gun gets fired in the city. YouthStat is a collaborative effort, making sure partners who may not talk are in the same room, Youth Service Specialist Ron Huggins said. Program leaders meet weekly in middle schools and high schools addressing students at risk. What you see is people banded together saying we care about these kids and whatever we can do to keep these young people safe we will do that, Huggins said. We wont just allow shootings. Those emergency meetings need to take place because what happens out in the community effects our kids in schools, Huggins said. Youth Stat will reach out to students who havent been directly impacted by shootings, but they may know somebody involved and will make sure the student is safe and positively engaged so he or she wont get pulled into the violence, Huggins said. We are not just meeting kids on the violence, we are building strong relationships and when you build the relationships before they get into violence, theyll reach out, he said. Intervention goes beyond keeping kids away from gang violence and crime by meeting students everyday needs, such as tutoring, academic support, employment and more, Huggins said. Youth Stat is bigger than this emergency meeting, Huggins said. We holistically try to help people. Contributed photo NEW BRITAIN The five police officers who shot and killed 20-year-old aspiring rapper Zoe "Gangstalicious" have been exonerated from any wrongdoing by an internal affairs review, the city announced Friday. Dowdell was shot along with two others on Dec. 14, 2017, as he was trying to flee from officers who had surrounded his car. Dowdell and the others, a 15-year-old and an 18-year-old, were believed to be suspects in a string of violent carjackings in the city when police tried to take them into custody on a secluded side street in New Britain. HAMDEN Four Hamden restaurants received poor scores on recent inspections, according to the Quinnipiack Valley Health District. Elis On Whitney, 2392 Whitney Ave., received a C grade with a score of 88 at its Dec. 5, 2018 inspection, according to the health district. It failed the inspection because of a four-point violation for failing to keep some cold food at appropriate temperatures, inspection records show. According to the inspection report, chicken wings were found at 44-46 degrees 41 degrees or less is required and numerous soups, chowder, rice, broth were measured at 43 degrees in a walk-in refrigerator, then discarded. The inspector noted that numerous thermometers were needed in the fridge to locate warmer areas. The restaurant was also cited for not sanitizing cleaning rags regularly enough and a filthy vacuum for the sous vide cooking process. It was re-inspected earlier this week and earned a B grade, according to the health district. Scott Scalabrino, general manager of Elis On Whitney, said the restaurant got a score of 92 upon reinspection. The restaurant incurred another four-point violation because of a temperature issue with a cooler, he said. Elis On Whitney previously earned an A rating with a score of 99 at its April 5, 2018, inspection. Scalabrino said that Elis earned a B, not a C on Dec. 5 QVHDs listing was wrong, which prompted him to call for a re-inspection. While a B is written on the paper form, a C was accurate given the point violations the restaurant incurred, according to Leslie Balch, director of public health. Scalabrino said the restaurant takes food safety seriously. Were in business to take care of our customers, not to get them sick, said Scalabrino. Golden Chopsticks, 2380 Dixwell Ave., received a C rating with a failing score of 74 at its Jan. 15 inspection. It has not yet been re-inspected, according to the health district. The restaurant was cited for having a variety of dirty items, including containers, shelves, a flour sieve, thermometer probe and 30 glasses. The inspector also marked the actions of a new, untrained employee, who was using their cellphone, eating in the kitchen, and serving food without washing their hands afterward; a broken, taped refrigerator door, oatmeal found at 97 degrees on the stove and a lack of hats and hairnets. There was also a leak in the roof, according to the report. Owner Xiao Yan Chen said the restaurant has tried to repair the roof repeatedly, but the building is old and the patches keep failing. Chen said the kitchen was clean staff always work to keep the place clean, she said and that the glasses, rather than being dirty, just had water spots on them. The employee had washed their hands in the bathroom, but the inspector said they needed to wash them in the kitchen as well, Chen said. Golden Chopsticks previously received an A rating with a score of 93 at its March 13, 2018, inspection. Two other restaurants earned C ratings and/or a designation of failure on recent inspections, according to the QVHD. Sopori DItalia, 295 Circular Ave., failed its Jan. 17 inspection because of a four-point violation for failing to keep food at appropriate temperatures. It received a score of 82. The restaurant was required to fix an issue with the front display case the same day, according to QVHD records. It was re-inspected the next day and found to be compliant with regulations. It received an A rating with a score of 92 at a second follow-up inspection Jan. 31. Manager Antonio DeNicola said the fridge needed to be adjusted a minor issue, quickly dealt with. He said he and his family have run the business for 15 years and take the safety of their customers seriously. Of course I take (food safety) seriously. Its my number one priority, said DeNicola. I take pride in what we do. Mama Rosas Pizza, 23 Putnam Ave., received a C rating at its Sept. 4, 2018, inspection, according to QVHD. An exact score was not immediately available, staffers said. The restaurant has since closed. The Quinnipiack Valley Health District oversees between 400 and 500 restaurants in Hamden, Bethany, North Haven and Woodbridge, according to Balch. Approximately 27 eateries have been inspected in 2019, according to QVHD records. Any restaurant that receives a score lower than 80 (out of 100) or is found to have committed a four-point violation is considered to have failed the inspection, according to Balch. A four-point violation is the most serious as it immediately relates to food safety. These restaurants are typically re-inspected within two weeks unless the issue is corrected immediately, according to Lynn Fox, chief of environmental services. Any imminent threat to public health would lead the health district to immediately close the establishment in question or request it voluntarily close to repair the issue, Balch said. Read more about Connecticut restaurant inspection regulations here. william.lambert@hearstmediact.com NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y. A neighbor of Valerie Reyes said she had prayed that the body found in Greenwich earlier this week was not that of the quiet young woman she knew who asked about her kids and made sure to check if others needed anything before snowstorms. Soon after the body was discovered, stuffed in a suitcase left off Glenville Road on Tuesday morning, police began investigating a possible connection with Reyes, 24, who had been reported missing from her New Rochelle, N.Y., home in late January. I was praying to God it wasnt her, Brenda DeGiacomo, a New Rochelle native who lived across the street from Reyes, said Thursday. And then when I found out it was her and the way she was, it was horrible. I really pray to God that they find out who did it. Greenwich police confirmed Thursday morning that the homicide victim was Reyes but did not release the cause of death in the grisly murder. The victims mother, Norma Sanchez, tearfully told the Journal News that her daughter was afraid the night before she disappeared that she would be murdered. Reyes, who lived alone, had moved into a basement apartment in a multifamily house in the historic Westchester County city about two or three years ago, DeGiacomo said. The young womans family lives nearby. At first, they only knew each other to say Hi, and Reyes kept mostly to herself. But they became friends after the younger woman adopted a pitbull puppy, which attracted kids from the neighborhood. You know how kids are. All the neighborhood kids went to her, said DeGiacomo, a mother of five. They also bonded when Reyes saw DeGiacomos tattoos and mentioned that her brother is a tattoo artist. After that we were just talking, friends every morning we would have a conversation, she said. If she didnt see my son for a couple of days she would ask how he was, Is he OK? She was a sweetheart. When Reyes wasnt around for a couple of mornings, DeGiacomo said she thought her neighbor might be on vacation. Until they posted an article Friday on Facebook (looking for Reyes). I got home and I read it and thats when I started crying, DeGiacomo said. Still, she held out hope against the worst, even after learning Tuesday about the grim discovery up the highway in Greenwich. She was the sweetest most gentle girl, like I cant see anyone harming her, DeGiacomo said. Its disgusting. And to put her in a suitcase? And just think about her last minutes, her last breaths. Reyes neighbor began to tear up at the thought. Its disgusting. Its disgusting. And this person is on the streets? Walking the streets still? Its unbelievable, she said. And then to find out someone took pictures of her? DeGiacomo was reacting to reports that Greenwich authorities are investigating a town Department of Public Works foreman, identified by his lawyer as James Clifford, who was called to the scene by a co-worker and then took photos of Reyes and the crime scene. That disgusting, she said. Her family didnt even get to identify her yet, and youre taking pictures and sending them out? This is not a joke. Its someones life. His lawyer, Lindy Urso, said Clifford was stunned and devastated by what he found ... and it was an obvious error in judgment to take a picture - but he certainly had no ill will or bad intention. Clifford has been placed on administrative leave by the town. Reyes killer did not just take her life, and a beloved daughter from her family, DeGiacomo said, but a neighbor and friend from their neighborhood. The kids are horrified and hurt, too, to see something happen to their neighbor. This is the first time something happened close to home, she said. My kids are prisoners now because I dont know where this happened and until I know where this happened, I dont feel safe letting my kids out on my own block where I live. Not even in front of my house, which is scary. I really pray to God they find out who done this, she said. The Greenwich Police Department is asking anyone who may have seen anything suspicious on Glenville Road in the last few days to contact the Greenwich Police Tip Line at 203- 622-3333, or send an email at Tips@greenwichct.org. As news spread quickly through Reyes tight-knight community, many expressed shock and dismay over the fate that befell their young neighbor. At a small market around the corner from Reyes apartment, Mary Narvaez learned late Thursday morning that police had positively identified Reyes as the homicide victim. Oh my God, Narvaez said, as she heard the news. Im sad because I saw her that day. (She was) very young. Oh my God, Im so sorry for her family. How can this happen? The woman said even though she didnt know Reyes well, she will miss seeing the happy, friendly, bubbly customer. Its gonna be hard, she said. Narvaez said she was interviewed about the womans disappearance a couple of days ago, and police checked the stores video surveillance. They asked me if I saw her, said Narvaez. And I said that that she was here like a regular client. I told them, Theyre gonna find her maybe tomorrow. Maybe next week. And I was hoping to see her again. The last time Narvaez said she saw Reyes in the store was Jan. 28. Reyes picked up groceries and seemed, Very normal. Like a happy person, she said. The woman said Reyes brought her boyfriend into the store right after the start of the New Year. It was the first time Reyes brought anyone in with her, she said. The man, who Narvaez described as Filipino, didnt talk much, but seemed normal, she said. A man working at a deli near Reyes home said his sister saw the woman with a guy about two-and-a-half weeks ago. He said Reyes usually came in alone. At Allesios Floral Decorations, owner Eddie Loprete said he met two customers mourning Reyes on Thursday morning. They commented that they knew the girl. They were friends of hers, he said. Obviously, they were very upset, because you could see them, one was almost tearing. They were shocked. Co-workers became worried when Reyes didnt show up to her job at Barnes & Noble in Eastchester, where she had worked for two-and-a-half years. The entire Barnes & Noble community is grieving the loss of our beloved employee Valerie Reyes, said spokesman Alex Ortolani. Our hearts go out to her family, friends and co-workers during this difficult time. GREENWICH, Conn. Greenwich officials are continuing to investigate allegations that a town worker took photos of the body of Valerie Reyes near Glenville Road on Tuesday morning and possibly shared them with others. Town officials would not identify the employee Thursday, but multiple sources have confirmed he is Department of Public Works foreman James Clifford, who has been placed on administrative leave pending the investigation. Officials said they would take appropriate action once the probe is completed, according to a statement from Town Hall. Clifford was allegedly called to the grisly scene Tuesday by another town worker who discovered the body of a slain woman, who had been stuffed in a large suitcase. Upon arrival, he allegedly then took photos of the homicide victim and the crime scene, and then disseminated them to others. The Greenwich Police Department, which is continuing to investigate the homicide, identified the victim as Reyes, 24, of New Rochelle, N.Y. Her body was found inside a large suitcase with her hands and feet bound. She had been reported missing from New Rochelle and had last been seen Jan. 29. First Selectman Peter Tesei, who would not identify the employee, issued a statement Thursday condemning his alleged actions. The victim was a daughter, a sister and a cousin of a family who is suffering a tremendous loss at this time, Tesei said. This thoughtless and insensitive behavior by an employee is inexcusable. We extend our heartfelt condolences to Ms. Reyes family. Greenwich attorney Lindy R. Urso, who is representing Clifford, said that snapping a photo was a lapse in judgment made by a traumatized person, who was stunned by what he had encountered. One would think that (Greenwich police) would want to use all of their resources trying to find out who murdered this poor woman rather than trying to make a scapegoat of Mr. Clifford, Urso said, describing Clifford as an Army veteran, single father of three, a grandfather, and town worker of 26 years who hasnt called in sick in over 4 years. He was stunned and devastated by what he found - he has a daughter of similar age and stature - and it was an obvious error in judgment to take a picture - but he certainly had no ill will or bad intention, Urso said. In fact he has done all he can to help police mitigate any fallout from that momentary lapse. I just hope rational heads prevail. The Greenwich Police Department would not comment on whether the employee they did not name Clifford could face criminal charges. The town said it was a pending personnel matter and would not comment further. Clifford is a member of the Teamsters Local #456 labor union. Patrick Tucker at Defense One has reported that James Smith, SOCOMs acquisition executive has stated that the Special Ops Exoskeleton is nowhere near ready for use in combat. There have been improvements in lightweight body armor and improved helmet displays. There are tests of partial suits to help support walking and running with heavy loads. In 2018, the Army began evaluating Lockheed Martins ONYX exoskeleton. The ONYX supports the knee joints when carrying heavy loads over uneven terrain. ONYX uses less power than a full-body exoskeleton. The current design is able to achieve 8 to 16 hours of operation over realistic terrain. If the tests are successful the suits could be used in the field as early as 2021. It is likely that the partial suits will be used in warehouse and supply chain situations for support personnel. It will take years before they are ready for combat situations. The soft exosuits are also not ready and are struggling to provide a 20% boost in the efficiency of movement. The batteries are not good enough to power the exoskeletons and will not be ready in the next 10 years. There is the lightweight Liquid Piston engine, but they still are quite noisy. There would need to be a mix of the light-weight engines and batteries. Batteries would be used when soldiers need to be quiet. The military will test the $3000 to $5000 lower-body booster. They make running and long marches easier. They will take it off before they start fighting. The system will enable people to run 4-minute miles. These partial exoskeleton systems seem less useful than silent, all-electric dirt bikes. The Zero MMX can run up to 90 miles on one charge, weighs 275 lbs. and can carry up to 355 lbs. It has top speed is 85 mph with a sustained high speed of 70 mph. This would be less than one minute to cover one mile. Special Operations Forces have been working with the DARPA to develop light, silent dirtbike for operations. On electric the SilentHawk produces about 55 decibels of sound, or the equivalent of a typical spoken conversation. The TALOS exoskeleton was originally conceived as protection for a human commando to breach a door and save hostages in a room full of terrorists. Special Forces can use various robots and other weapons for safely and quickly breaching doors. SOURCES -CNAS, Army Times, Defense One Written by Brian Wang, nextbigfuture.com The Mayor of San Jose, California, Sam Liccardo, is in talks with Elon Musks Boring Company for a tunnel from the airport to Diridon Station. Mayor Sam Liccardo told reporters at City Hall that this represents a chance for the station to grow with the city. Google is expected to build a massive campus near Diridon. This will bring thousands more people, jobs and homes to the area. Diridon station itself is expected to undergo an overhaul of its own with BART eventually set to extend downtown and to the station. The Silicon Valley BART extension is currently scheduled for completion around 2026. A half decade ago, the estimated cost for building a traditional rail link between the airport and station came in around $800 million. A Boring tunnel could potentially cost a fraction of that figure. Boring tunnels could be used to lower the $4.7 billion cost of the Silicon Valley BART extension. A $4.7-billion extension has been proposed to downtown San Jose. The extension will be built by VTA but it will be operated by BART. The line would continue to the San Jose Diridon station (transfer point to Amtrak, Caltrain, Altamont Corridor Express, VTA Light rail and bus, and the planned California High-Speed Rail system). The proposed BART subway station would be called Diridon. It continues to the proposed Santa Clara Caltrain Station. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, February 8) More than 70 people have died this year due to measles after the Health Department declared an outbreak of the highly contagious disease in different regions. Department of Health (DOH) Spokesperson Enrique Domingo reported around 72 deaths among more than 2,000 cases of measles nationwide. Fifty five of the deaths were from San Lazaro Hospital, Manila in January alone. "All over the country I think we have more than 2,000 cases and we've had deaths, in San Lazaro alone we have 55 deaths in January," Domingo told CNN Philippines' New Day. In CALABARZON, Domingo reported nine deaths, while in Region III there were four deaths from measles. The DOH also recorded three deaths in Region VI (Western Visayas) and one death in Region VII (Central Visayas), Domingo said. Meanwhile, an initial report from the Health Department also recorded two deaths in Ilocos Region and one death in Bicol Region from January 1 to January 26, 2019. This comes after the DOH declared a measles outbreak in Metro Manila and Central Luzon on Wednesday and in CALABARZON, Western and Central Visayas on Thursday. Health officials attributed the rising number of measles cases to a long-term decline in vaccination coverage. According to DOH records, 960,457 children have not been vaccinated for the first three quarters of 2018, a spike from its 2017 figure of 855,039. On the other hand, the World Health Organization (WHO) said there are about 2.5 million children below five years of age in the Philippines who are susceptible to measles due to lack of appropriate vaccination. WHO Representative to the Philippines Dr. Gundo Weiler said the outbreak did not come as a surprise to them given the low coverage of the countrys immunization program. We are not very surprised about this. This is a situation that could have been predicted. Its against the background of low immunization coverage we have seen here in the country over the last years, Weiler said in an interview with CNN Philippines. He explained that a country must achieve a 95% coverage for its immunization program to ensure that communities will be protected from the disease. However, in the last few years the Philippines has maintained only 70 to 80% coverage and this dropped even further to close to 60% in 2018. This has lead to a periodic pattern of measles outbreaks every three to four years, Weiler added. A measles outbreak was declared in 2011, 2014 and 2018 before the epidemic this year. What is happening now is we have a big campaign with a lot of investment to catch up with immunization. After that big campaign, well be quiet for a few years but as long as we dont strengthen routine immunization, again well fall back into the same pattern, Weiler said. Domingo explained that children can receive vaccines as young as six months old if their mothers have not been vaccinated. If the mother has been vaccinated, the child can receive the vaccine by nine months old. "It's safe. Usually we give that nine months old because assuming that the mother is vaccinated or has measles antibodies and at birth during breastfeeding they can give the antibodies to the children, which usually protects them until nine months old," he said. Domingo assured that the government has enough supplies of vaccines to provide for vulnerable communities. "We have enough supplies because every year the Philippines buys enough vaccines to cover the whole vulnerable population and this year we ordered extra doses from UNICEF (United National International Emergency Fund)," he said. He added that they are also coordinating with the Philippine Red Cross to set up temporary tents, specifically in San Lazaro Hospital, to admit more patients. DARIEN It took two stints in federal prison, and the assurance of his daughters, before John G. Rowland found his true calling, channeling the political skills that won him a record third election as governor to help offenders like himself back into their communities. Speaking to about 120 men gathered for breakfast and prayers with the New Canaan Society, Rowland, in one of his first public appearances since his release from prison last May, tied an old story into a new one, proclaiming that it was a blessing to go back to prison for a second term. For up-to-date information on public policy issues, sign up for the CT Politics newsletter. Speculating the various active investigations into the leader of the free world, President Donald Trump, are political in nature, the states former top Republican said that during the 2014 federal probe that led to his indictment and conviction, Rowland was told that it was mostly payback for a relatively lenient first stretch in prison. The 61-year-old development director for the Prison Fellowship said that during the latest sentence for political-campaign corruption, he realized he had a lot more going for himself than an average inmate, even as he fit the definition of recidivist, among the majority of inmates who return to incarceration. I had a loving wife, children, a stable home and a high school diploma and there wasnt much of that among the faces around me, said Rowland, a Waterbury native and Villanova University graduate who served two terms in the state House of Representatives and three terms in Congress before winning the 1994, 1998 and 2002, governors races. He resigned in mid-2004, on the heels of an impeachment inquiry that preceded a guilty plea for corruption and his first 10-month prison term. Released last May from his latest adventure in the Lewisburg, Pa., federal prison camp, Rowland, whose state pension is $53,065, said he turned down a lucrative job to become a Northeast regional director of the nonprofit Prison Fellowship, the land of the frozen chosen, he quipped. The Prison Fellowship had a $40 million budget last year, most of which went into its prison ministry program, according to its annual report, which includes $9.1 million in fundraising, $3.3 million in public education and $3.9 million for management expenses. He noted the irony of his experience, first running Connecticuts prisons, then becoming a two-time inmate. I know the ins and outs and ups and downs, he joked to the weekly males-only, Jesus-oriented breakfast group, gathered in a Post Road restaurant in downtown Darien. The founding chapter of a national group, the New Canaan Societys motto is Through friendship, men helping each other become better husbands, fathers and leaders. Rowland began his 25-minute speech with an often-told story he heard from General William Westmoreland, who was the top military commander during the Vietnam War. Westmoreland recalled a phone call he made to a motor pool to ask for an inventory of vehicles, when an enlisted man counting the equipment included a jeep for the stupid general. Identifying himself, Westmoreland was met with silence over the phone, then a hasty Goodbye stupid, before the soldier slinked off into anonymity. Rowland said that life came relatively easy for him when he was young. Sometimes when you have early success, with that early success theres not grounding, maybe theres no wisdom, Rowland said. I have the extraordinary, the unique opportunity to be one of the 67 percent to return to prison. You need spiritual transformation in order to become a better person. The former governor said that the spiritual life he fostered in his first prison term and later, in a career as an afternoon-drive host on WTIC-radio in Farmington, blossomed during his latest incarceration. What is Gods purpose? he said. What is Gods plan? How do I use this? John Grosvenor Rowland May 24, 1957: John G. Rowland born in Waterbury 1981: Elected to the Connecticut General Assembly at the age of 23 1985: Elected to the U.S. Congress representing the 5th Congressional District 1994: Elected governor, the state's youngest, at age 37 1998: Re-elected, second term as governor 2002: Re-elected, third term as governor January 2004: Impeachment committee formed in the state House of Representatives June 2004: Resigns as governor rather than testify to the House panel December 2004: Pleads guilty in federal court to conspiracy and fraud in connection with accepting vacations, luxury air charters and home renovations from state contractors. February 2006: Released after serving 10 months in prison April 2014: Indicted on election fraud charges, after serving as an off-the-books consultant to a congressional campaign. September, 2014: Found guilty of campaign fraud and other charges March 2015: Sentenced to 30 months in prison June 2015: Enters Otisville Federal Correctional Institution in New York, and is later transferred to a federal prison camp in Lewisburg, Pa. January 2018: Transferred to a halfway house to complete term. May 25, 2018: Leaves halfway house. See More Collapse When he heard he was being investigated for again, I couldnt kind of grasp what happened, Rowland recalled, adding that his attorneys quoted federal prosecutors as saying, your guy didnt do enough time 10 years ago. In September 2014 he was convicted of seven felony counts for a behind-the-scenes role in the losing Republican congressional campaign of Lisa Wilson-Foley, whose husband, Brian Foley, paid Rowland $35,000 in consulting fees. He remembered sitting on a bench in the park behind the New York Public Library when he realized his appeal would be rejected. He started praying and wondering, How is my family going to deal with this? And I lost hope. I was always an upbeat guy. But at dinner that night with his wife Patty and their daughters, Kirsten and Julianne, the young women gave him hope. Dad, weve got this, they said. Detectives are still searching for answers in the January shooting death of a loving wife and avid Star Wars fan in the driveway of her Texas home. Elizabeth "Liz" Barraza, 29, was setting up for a garage sale outside her home in the 8600 block of Cedar Walk Drive around 7 a.m. Jan. 25 when she was shot several times, according to the Harris County Sheriff's Office. Barraza's family said Liz hoped to make some extra spending money for an upcoming wedding anniversary trip she was taking with her husband, Sergio Barraza. They were supposed to leave two days later. "A coward drove up, approached my daughter and forever changed our lives," Liz's father, Bob Nuelle, said fighting tears during a press conference Wednesday. "An unknown assailant shot and killed an unarmed and defenseless woman in a brutal act that demands justice." The shooter struck Liz several times and drove away in an older, dark-colored Nissan Frontier pickup truck. Detectives are unsure if the shooter was a man or a woman. Paramedics rushed her to a nearby Memorial Hermann hospital, where she stayed in critical condition until her death the next day. "We never imagined a life without her," Nuelle said. "We still can't." Sergio Barraza had just left for work minutes before his wife was shot, according to Harris County Sheriff's Office Homicide Detective Michael Ritchie. Detectives have spoken with him and other family members about Liz's death, all of whom have been cooperative throughout the investigation, Ritchie said. Sergio Barraza told reporters that he and Liz were active members of the 501st Legion a Star Wars fan group infatuated with the saga's villains. However, Sergio and Liz's involvement in the group was anything but evil. The couple spent hours dressing up in costume with other group members, bringing smiles to sick children and adults at area hospitals. In fact, Liz died in the same hospital where she had spent those hours bringing cheer to countless patients. "I don't understand how someone could do this to her," Sergio Barraza said. "She didn't deserve to pass away like this. How someone could be so monstrous to commit an act like this ... I just really can't understand. I had to trade our fifth anniversary for a funeral." Houston Crime Stoppers and the 501st Legion are working together to offer a $20,000 reward to find her killer. "I need justice for Liz," Barraza said, turning to speak as if his late wife was standing right next to him. "I love you," he said. Gonzalez urged the public to check surveillance cameras near the neighborhood to see if the pickup truck shows up in the early morning hours of Jan. 25. Investigators said the pickup truck was seen on camera shortly before Sergio Barraza left for work that morning, possibly indicating that the shooter was waiting for their victim to be alone with her guard down. "We will do everything possible to bring justice to Elizabeth's killer," Gonzalez said. "... Somebody out there knows something." Anyone with information about the shooter or the pickup truck is urged to call Houston Crime Stoppers at 713-222-TIPS (8477). Police in New York City are searching for a man who slashed a woman's face during a robbery. WPIX reports Dana Sagona, 31, was approached by a man in Williamsburg at about 7:45 a.m. Sunday. Fox 5 reports the man reportedly said, "You pretty. Are you scared?" When Sagona said she wasn't scared, the man grabbed her, according to The New York Post. I thought it was going to be a rape because he didnt ask me for anything by that point, he was just grabbing me, Sagona told The Post. Sagona said the man threatened to kill her as they struggled over her purse. He then reportedly punched her and slashed her face with a razor blade. The blood was gushing, it was pooling in my scarf, Sagona said. When I saw how big it was, I was shocked. Im still in shock at the size (of the cut)." The laceration reportedly needed 44 stitches to close. The man wanted in the slashing is described as Hispanic and in his 40s. He got away with the victim's purse and phone. The NYPD released images of him caught on surveillance cameras. A veterinarian who surgically implanted liquid heroin in puppies on behalf of Colombian drug traffickers has been sentenced to prison in New York. U.S. Attorney Richard P. Donoghue in Brooklyn and other law enforcement officials said Andres Lopez Elorez received a six-year sentence on Thursday. A caregiver has been arrested after investigators say a developmentally disabled woman was a raped and impregnated at a facility in Florida. According to an arrest affidavit from the Rockledge Police Department, authorities learned in January of 2015 that a woman with the mental capacity of a small child had been impregnated while she was living in a group home for developmentally disabled individuals. The alleged assailant, Willie Shorter, 58, was arrested Wednesday at the Woodsmere Estates Group Home on Bridle Lane in Rockledge. He was charged with lewd and lascivious battery on an elderly or disabled person. Investigators said Shorter was working at a different home in 2015. Police said that during questioning, because of her diminished mental capacity, the victim was unable to tell the difference between a truth and a lie, or right and wrong. She was, however, able to identify Shorter as a potential father of her child, according to the affidavit. Police said the victim also named two other people when she was questioned, but investigators said those men were quickly determined not to be the father. Police said they obtained a DNA sample when the child was born, but were not able to obtain a DNA sample from Shorter At the time of the initial investigation there was not enough evidence to obtain DNA from the defendant, and when he was questioned, he denied the allegations, police said. According to the affidavit, the woman made a report in April of 2018 that Short had inappropriately touched her. Because Shorter had been named years earlier as a potential father of the womans child, police requested a DNA sample. That sample came back Wednesday and stated there was a 99.99 percent chance Shorter was the father, the affidavit said. You can get really specific about the Google search results you want, as well as the ones you don't.Copyright 2020 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved This article originally appeared on entrepreneur.com WASHINGTON Region 12 is going back to grammatical basics as a way to boost its SAT English scores. The change comes after the district saw the average English scores drop to 530 in 2018 from 574 in 2017. This translated in a combined score drop to 1058 in 2018 from 1107 in 2017, according to the state Department of Education. The district already invested in ways to improve the math scores, including dedicating advisory periods for tutoring in the subject, offering after-school and weekend classes, adding grade-level assessments to revise the curriculum and using the PSAT to identify improvement areas. Though the SAT math scores remained fairly level from 533 in 2017 to 528 in 2018, officials said there was a 37-point jump between the juniors PSAT scores in October to the SAT in April. We didnt have time to put supports in for English in the school day and so we see the difference there, Lori Ferreira, Shepaug Valley Schools associate principal, said at a recent school board meeting. Now we know. To fix this, school officials are adding more enrichment and revising the curriculum for students in seventh through ninth grades to help students understand the grammatical jargon and word structures to better answer the SATs questions. Ferreira said the school needs to change its approach because the test focuses on language at the granular level. We cant throw the baby out with the bath water, Ferreira cautioned. We do some things really well and we cant change them. She said the school has a strong writing program that teaches students how to be critical, write fluidly, examine historical perspectives and present arguments. This is why the changes are coming before 10th grade, starting as early as third grade. We dont want to lose that conceptual, but we want to make sure we are skill-building on the way, she said. Ferreira offered some examples of the grammatical jargon students now have to know for the test. What are the 10 most common conjunctive adverbs? When do you use these conjunctive adverbs? What is the difference between a conjunctive adverb, a coordinating subjunctive and a subordinating conjunctive? she said. Shepaugs scores are still better than the Connecticut averages of 516 for English and 503 for math. The U.S. average is 487 for English and 483 for math. Were doing better than the state and nation, but were not doing well enough, Ferreira said. She said she would at least like to bring Shepaugs combined scores up to 1148, which was the highest score reported in its district reference group. When she reached out to successful schools in other district reference groups, she was told most of those students attend SAT prep courses outside of school or have private tutors. Ferreira instead recommended adding more enrichment options during Shepaugs breaks and during the summer. Superintendent of Schools Megan Bennett said these changes will gradually ease students into the material. Board members and administrators agreed its more important for students to understand the material than to learn how to just get a high score on the test. The SAT will help you get into college, but it wont help you pass the courses, where the other prep will, Ferreira said. Over spring break, high school sophomore Ella Norwitt and her mother Glori will travel to Ghana in western Africa to volunteer with the nonprofit Unite for Sight. This New Haven-based organization supports eye clinics worldwide to eliminate patient barriers to eye care. Worldwide, 80 percent of blindness is preventable, said Glori Norwitt, who is shadowing Ridgefield optometrist Dr. George Amatuzzi in preparation for her visit. [A total of] 36 million people are needlessly blind. Unite for Sight has provided services to more than 2.5 million people worldwide, including more than 103,000 sight-restoring surgeries. Joette Katz, the former commissioner of the Department of Children and Families and the former Connecticut Associate Supreme Court Justice, has taken a job with the prominent Hartford law firm, Shipman & Goodwin LLP. Katz, who served 11 years as commissioner and almost two decades on the state Supreme Court, will work with the firms business litigation group. Joette has had an exemplary career of public service on behalf of the state of Connecticut. Her experience in the judicial and executive branches of state government over a lifetime, as well as her commitment to our state, are extraordinary, Alan E. Lieberman, Managing Partner of Shipman & Goodwin said in a statement. We are honored that she has chosen this firm as her new professional home. A statement from the firm said that Katz will work in several areas, including with the firms practitioners who handle federal, state and administrative appeals. Katz will also be a significant contributor to the law firms pro-bono efforts, the statement said, providing legal services on behalf of the underserved and underprivileged members of the community. Katz said in a statement, I gave a great deal of thought to the next and likely final stage of my career, and am delighted to join Shipman & Goodwin, which has a stellar reputation for excellence and integrity. We are all working together and thinking outside of the box to create real value for our clients doing business in Connecticut and beyond, Katz continued. I am confident the firm will support the development of my practice and allow me to contribute in a variety of ways consistent with my more than four decades of legal experience. DANBURY Police are investigating a vague, threatening message made on social media about a potential threat at a Danbury school. All students are safe and in classes and no schools are lockdown, but the district has referred the matter to Danbury Police to investigate, Superintendent Sal Pascarella said just after noon on Friday. The threat was not specific about what kind of threat or at what school, but Danbury High School has asked the police who are usually on campus to stay put while it is being investigated, Pascarella said. The message apparently was sent on Snapchat and some students reported it to high school administrators. A robocall went out to parents Friday morning to warn of the situation. There's been some unfounded Snapchats and some stuff went out about today, but it wasn't specific, Pascarella said. That led to a number of rumors and (DHS Principal) Dan Donovan sent something out to parents. Everything is safe and good. zach.murdock@hearstmediact.com Submitted photo / City of Danbury DANBURY City leaders are now offering federal employees affected by the recent government shutdown a tax deferral program that could offer them more time to pay their city bills. The program was made available last month under a new state law that allows municipalities to defer the due dates of property taxes, vehicle taxes, or water and sewer bills for federal employees who went without pay during the shutdown in December and January. Carol Kaliff / Hearst Connecticut Media BRIDGEWATER After a close call at Burnham School recently, Region 12 will now have custodians check school buildings on the weekends to ensure everything is working properly and prevent pipes from freezing. That is our stopgap until we can get a more permanent solution we can rely on, Superintendent of Schools Megan Bennett told the Region 12 school board at a recent meeting. STAMFORD Most workers in the booming technology sector have moved or considered relocating for a new job, according to survey results released this week by online job-search firm Indeed. Some 57 percent of survey respondents reported having moved for a new job, while 80 percent said they had considered relocating for work. The numbers correlate with the perennial demand for technology professionals and bode well for markets across the country, including Connecticut, that have a growing need for professionals with strong digital skillsets. Most tech workers are open to relocation, Indeed officials wrote in a related blog post. This is great news for employers wanting to attract new talent because it means you dont have to limit your talent search to one geographic area. Reasons to go, reasons to stay Seeking better career opportunities and wanting a new environment ranked as the top drivers of a possible move. Both of those reasons were cited by around half of the respondents, from a survey that polled about 1,000 U.S. tech workers. In technology, there is a great range of opportunity of what there is to work on, said David Lewis, founder and CEO of Norwalk-based HR consulting and outsourcing firm Operations Inc., and a board member of the Consumer Technology Association. Its much easier to say youre going to relocate somewhere else when you can say that company is on the cutting edge of drones, robotics, wearables or some kind of new technology. Some 43 percent said they were contemplating a move because they wanted a lower cost of living. At the same time, 34 percent cited a higher cost of living as an obstacle to going to another area. A desire to stay close to family and friends ranked as the leading rationale for staying put; 56 percent referenced that reason. Nearly half of respondents reported working for companies that offer voluntary relocation. When asked if they would move if their company provided that option, one-third of employees said, yes, definitely. Slightly more than half said, yes, but it depends where. Supporting relocation is also a great tool for retaining the tech employees you already have, the Indeed blog post said. By offering an incentive, such as reimbursing moving costs, you can further encourage top talent to stay with your organization. Opportunities nationwide While Silicon Valley still reigns as the countrys largest technology hub, projects such as Amazons HQ2, Apples planned campus in Austin, Texas, and Indeeds own growing headquarters in the Texas capital show the sectors expanding footprint. In the past couple of years, Connecticut has seen a number of major technology companies expand or relocate operations to the state. Alongside the Austin expansion, Indeed has significantly grown its downtown Stamford offices, where more than 900 work. Last December, it announced plans for another 500 local jobs. Last September, IT consulting and research firm Gartner announced it would add another 400 Stamford-based jobs. Another IT powerhouse, Infosys, rolled out plans last March to create about 1,000 jobs in the state, with a hub in Hartford. At the same time, the growth of advanced manufacturing has created an abundance of opportunities for technology specialists at companies including Sikorsky, Pratt & Whitney and Electric Boat. We have a formidable presence in this state of companies that offer attractive tech opportunities, Lewis said. We just need to do a better job of branding and positioning them. pschott@scni.com; 203-964-2236; Twitter: @paulschott Washington: Saudi Arabia's crown prince told a senior aide he would go after Jamal Khashoggi "with a bullet" a year before the dissident journalist was killed inside the kingdom's Istanbul consulate, the New York Times reported quoting US intelligence. US intelligence understood that Mohammed bin Salman, the country's 33-year-old de facto ruler, was ready to kill the journalist, although he may not have literally meant to shoot him, according to the newspaper. After initially denying any knowledge of Khashoggi's disappearance, the kingdom has acknowledged that a team killed him inside the diplomatic mission but described it as a rogue operation that did not involve the crown prince. The conversation was intercepted by US intelligence agencies, as part of routine efforts by the National Security Agency and other agencies to capture and store the communications of global leaders, including allied ones, The Times said. It was only recently transcribed, however, because of mounting efforts by US intelligence to find more conclusive proof linking the prince to the killing. The conversation took place between Prince Mohammed and an aide, Turki Aldakhil, in September 2017 -- around 13 months before the October 2 killing, the paper said. The prince said that if Khashoggi could not be enticed to return to Saudi Arabia, then he should be brought back by force. If neither of those methods worked, then he would go after Mr. Khashoggi "with a bullet," he said. It came as officials in the kingdom were growing increasingly angry about Khashoggi's criticisms -- and the same month he began writing opinion pieces for The Washington Post. Meanwhile, Rights groups pressed US President Donald Trump to take action over Saudi Arabia's killing of the dissident writer on the eve of a Friday deadline by Congress to punish perpetrators. A special UN rapporteur said Thursday that the killing was "planned and perpetrated" by Saudi officials. In October, the then top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee invoked the Magnitsky Act, which gave the Trump administration 120 days -- until February 8 -- to determine who was behind Khashoggi's killing and to describe actions against them. The law, which targets extrajudicial killings and torture, is named for Sergei Magnitsky, an anti-corruption accountant who died in Russian custody. In a joint statement Thursday accompanied by a rally outside the White House, six advocacy groups including Human Rights Watch, Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists urged Trump to lay out action over Khashoggi's killing and to release CIA records on the death. "Notwithstanding public and congressional outrage and the reported findings of the CIA, the Trump administration appears to be engaged in a cover-up on behalf of the Saudi government," they wrote. The groups called for "an effective, independent, international investigation" and the immediate release of other journalists and activists detained in Saudi Arabia. The kingdom's promises to prosecute those responsible have turned into a "sham," the groups said, with senior officials resigning rather than facing repercussions. The Trump administration revoked visas for nearly two dozen Saudi officials over Khashoggi's killing and froze assets of some 17 others. But Trump also said in a blunt statement that the killing was not worth jeopardizing the alliance with Saudi Arabia, crediting the kingdom with buying US weapons and supporting its hard line on regional rival Iran. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Washington: The Guantanamo Bay detention center would receive new prisoners for the first time in more than a decade under one option being considered as the US withdraws its forces from Syria and works to resolve the fate of hundreds of captured suspected ISIS fighters, officials say. US-backed Syrian fighters have custody of nearly 1,000 suspected ISIS terrorists who the State Department said should be sent back to their home countries and prosecuted. The Syrian fighters have warned they may not be able to continue to hold the ISIS fighters after the withdrawal of American forces from Syria ordered by President Donald Trump in December. If they can't be repatriated, though, the detention centre on the US base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, could be used to hold them "where lawful and appropriate," the State Department said Thursday. "The Administration's National Strategy for Counterterrorism makes very clear that Law of Armed Conflict detention, including at Guantanamo, remains an important and effective counterterrorism tool," it said in a statement to The Associated Press in response to questions about the prisoners. Trump had said in his first State of the Union last year that he would use Guantanamo "in many cases" to detain prisoners as part of the fight against Islamic State and al-Qaida. As a candidate, when asked about what he would do with the controversial detention centre, he said he would "load it up with some bad dudes." But the administration has not added any prisoners to the detention centre that President Barack Obama sought to close and officials say that sending suspected Islamic State fighters back to their homelands remains the preferred choice. "Repatriating foreign terrorist fighters to their countries of origin and ensuring they are prosecuted and detained is the best solution to prevent them from returning to the battlefield," the State Department said. A US official, said Guantanamo is the "option of last resort." The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the US has identified about 50 people among the more than 900 held by Syrian forces as "high value" suspects that could be transported to Guantanamo if they are not repatriated. Sending ISIS prisoners to Guantanamo would open up new legal challenges, according to experts. The US is allowed to detain al-Qaida and "associated forces" at Guantanamo under the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force. But whether ISIS group fighters meets that criteria is an untested question, said Robert Chesney, a national security law professor at the University of Texas. "No court has ever once had the case and the executive branch for many years has really not wanted the court to answer that question," Chesney said. The US began holding prisoners suspected of links to al-Qaida and the Taliban in January 2002, drawing intense international criticism for holding men indefinitely without charge amid reports of mistreatment at the isolated base on the southeastern tip of Cuba. Guantanamo held nearly 700 prisoners at its peak in the summer of 2003. Amid legal challenges and international pressure, more than 500 were released under President George W Bush. Obama viewed the detention centre as a waste of money that damaged America's reputation and ordered it closed but was blocked by Congress. There are now 40 prisoners held, including nine who have been charged and are facing trial by military commission in proceedings that have dragged on for years. From a purely practical standpoint, US military officials have said they could accommodate additional prisoners at the base. The forces overseeing Guantanamo prison say the prison can hold 40 more people "with no additional staffing" and the facility could accommodate 200 more inmates total, "with minimal adjustments to current infrastructure and manpower," said Navy Cdr. Adam Bashaw, a spokesman for the military task force that runs the detention centre. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Brussels: Huawei's top executive in Europe brushed off Western critics and defended the company's track record against accusations that it could serve as front for Chinese spying. Huawei has raised suspicions in the west for its close ties to the Chinese government and fears are that the company may be an integral tool of the superpower's international espionage capabilities. "Recently Huawei has been under constant attack by some countries and politicians," Huawei vice president and representative to the EU Abraham Liu said in a speech in Brussels. "We are shocked or sometimes feel amused by those ungrounded and senseless allegations," he added. Liu said Huawei had an "excellent track record" and had won the solid endorsement of major European telcos Deutsche Telekom, British Telecom and Orange. The executive also said that Huawei would open a "cyber security centre" in Brussels next month that will show that the company is "part of the solution, not part of the problem." The speech came just days after a team of US officials toured EU capitals -- including Brussels -- urging European governments to scrap Huawei technology from their telecom infrastructure plans. The US considers the matter urgent as European Union countries prepare to roll out 5G networks that will deliver near-instantaneous connectivity, vast data capacity and futuristic technologies to Europeans. Several other countries, under the pressure of the United States, have banned Huawei's 5G equipment. But dumping the telecom company comes at a cost as experts say Huawei is between six months and one year ahead of rivals in terms of the quality of 5G equipment. Finland's Nokia is said to be even further behind. Deutsche Telekom, in an internal document obtained by Bloomberg, warned that Europe could fall behind China and the United States by as much as two years if it forgoes using Huawei's 5G equipment. Liu said Huawei hired 12,000 people in Europe and in 2018 procured USD6.3 billion worth of goods in Europe. US justice officials last month unveiled sweeping charges against Huawei, including against a top executive whose arrest in Canada on a US warrant ratcheted up tensions between the two superpowers. In a case centring on Meng, Huawei is charged with violating US and UN prohibitions on trading with Iran. New Delhi: Google Doodle celebrated German analytical chemist Friedlieb Ferdinand Runge on his 225th birth anniversary Thursday. He is best remembered for discovering caffeine, after being given a carton of coffee beans as a gift following a demonstration of his pupil dilating discovery. Caffeine is the psychoactive drug present in coffee beans which is responsible for stimulating the central nervous system. He was born near Hamburg on February 8, 1794, and conducted experiments from a young age. Told to investigate them by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Runge was able to isolate caffeine. His work no doubt enabled the method of removing caffeine from coffee, allowing people the choice of getting a buzz on, or not. Runge successfully identified and separated the chemical caffeine from Arabic mocha beans. Thus, the isolation of the ingredient caffeine took place for the first time in 1819. Runge also is recorded as being the first person to notice Liesegang rings in chemicals undergoing a precipitation reaction. Also during 1934, he was one of the first scientists able to isolate quinine, which is used to treat malaria. Again, his discovery came from the coal tar which he seems to have had a mild professional obsession with. Despite having engraved his name in the scrolls of chemical history, Runge spent the last days of his life in poverty after being sacked by the manager of a chemical company in 1852. Runge died 15 years later, on March 25, 1867, at the age of 73 --- a tragic end. Washington: British billionaire Richard Branson plans to travel to space within the next four or five months aboard his own Virgin Galactic spaceship, he told AFP. "My wish is to go up on the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, that's what we're working on," the head of the Virgin group said Thursday on the sidelines of an event to honor Virgin Galactic at the Air and Space Museum in Washington. The American Apollo 11 mission landed on the moon July 20, 1969. Virgin Galactic is one of two companies, along with Blue Origin, on its way to sending passengers into space -- though just barely, and just for a few minutes. The companies want to send hundreds or thousands of people on these short "suborbital" flights, meaning they wouldn't get high enough to orbit the earth. These missions would be shorter and more affordable than SpaceX's planned project to send a Japanese billionaire to the moon by 2023 at the earliest. Virgin Galactic flew 50 miles (80 km) above the earth, which the US considers the edge of space, for the first time in December (the international consensus is 100 km). Virgin Galactic's spaceship, called SpaceShipTwo, is commanded by two pilots. To take off, it's dropped by a carrier plane like a bomb, then starts its own engine to jet off straight into the sky, eventually climbing high enough to see the curvature of the earth. The craft hovers and descends naturally, gliding back towards its original departure point, Mojave Air and Space Port in California. It will be able to carry six passengers along with its two pilots. Branson has previously announced dates for this first trip into space, though they've always come and gone without the voyage happening. But this time the businessman claims preparations are in their final stages. "By July we should have done enough testing," he said. But he doesn't want to make any promises he can't keep: "I need to wait for our team to say they're 100% happy. I don't want to push them," he said, but thinks they'll be ready for clients by the end of the year. He told AFP Virgin Galactic costs him $35 million a month; previously, he said he had invested more than a billion dollars in the venture since the 2000s. According to Branson, the SpaceShipTwo's next test flight is planned for February 20, depending on weather conditions. For all the Latest Science News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Ok, we agree Indians are born with creative streaks, but this desperate act of innovation is certainly one not to be proud of. A 22-year-old school bus driver has been arrested for risking the lives of the innocent after he was seen operating a bus using a bamboo stick as a gear lever. The matter even got worse, when his vehicle carrying school students hit a car in Mumbai, a police official said on Thursday. Although no injury or casualty was reported in the mishap, the driver, Raj Kumar, has been arrested for endangering the lives of the innocent. According to reports, the school bus driving was driving to Poddar International School located in Khar suburb on Wednesday when the vehicle hit the high-end car of a businessman, the official said. Read | Mumbai man lands up in jail for catching a cop who has riding without a helmet The infuriated businessman confronted the driver for causing damage to his car and two policemen were called when Kumar blamed the steering wheel of his bus for the mishap. The risky innovation was discovered upon entering the bus by the businessman and the policemen. Officials say that Kumar, who was arrested for negligent driving had told the police that the bus gear knob had broken some days back and since then he was using the bamboo stick as gear lever. "All the students inside the bus were safe," he said. The driver was later produced in a local court which granted him bail, he said, adding that a probe was underway into the incident. For all the Latest Offbeat News News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: This policeman is definitely not a law-abiding citizen. Where is Dexter or Spiderman when we need him? As far as we know, the law which is proudly written down in the Constitution applies for every breathing Indian citizen and that includes the ones, who are assigned to make sure we abide by it. This particular police in Mumbai however, does get the simple rule-'not drive without a helmet'. The policeman was given the taste of his own medicine for driving without a helmet when he was caught by a Mumbaikar man for breaking the rules. The Mumbai man, Pawan Sayyadni however, on his mission as a vigilante instead landed up in a police custody for chasing down the policeman. The incident is reported to have happened when passers-by witnessed a cop travelling without his helmet in Kherwadi on Sunday evening. Sayyadni, who was one among the witnesses stopped the constable Pandrinath Ramu from riding his bike without a helmet because he had clearly broken the law. Read | Meet the man behind 'Instagram Egg' who broke Kylie Jenners record Things turned for the worse when Pawan pulled out the keys of the bike, stating that he wont return them keys as he was not wearing a helmet. The policeman is, however, reported to have registered a case against the three witnesses, Pawan, Gavas and Shirodkar under section 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty) and 341 (punishment for wrongful restraint) while the constable got a traffic ticket of Rs 500 for not wearing a helmet, reports HT. For all the Latest Offbeat News News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: In a major success against black money economy, the Income Tax officials have detected tax evasion to the tune of Rs 433 crore in Tamil Nadu. The massive operation, in which the I-T officials conducted raids at 72 locations across Tamil Nadu. Interestingly, the officials dug up several graveyards in the state to discover gold, diamonds and cash. According to latest media reports, the I-T officials seized 626 carats of diamonds, 12 kg of gold and Rs 25 crore in cash from the graveyards. G Square Realtors Private Limited and Lotus Ventures and Infrabuild Private Limited are the main companies that had underreported their income. According to The News Minute report, these companies used a rigged accounting software to underreport their income. 120 teams with 800 officials conducted the mega raids. Lotus group has also carried out land consolidation for some big companies. According to the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, both firms were incorporated in 2012. The Income Tax Department had launched searches at 74 places in Tamil Nadu in connection with a tax evasion probe against some real estate groups and a retail store chain in the state, officials said. They said the raids are being carried out in state capital Chennai and two places in Coimbatore against two realty groups and premises of retail chain Saravana stores, they said. The premises of Saravana group business owner Yogirathinam Pondurai are also being covered as part of the action, they said. A total of 74 places are being covered as part of the raids and a team of 70 tax officials are undertaking the operation with police assistance, they added. The department had last month conducted large-scale raids on a number of popular eateries of the state including Saravana Bhawan outlets. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed the plea of former Bihar deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav, challenging the Patna High Court order asking him to vacate a government bungalow meant for the deputy chief minister and ordered the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader to shift to an accommodation for the Leader of the Opposition. He was also slapped with a fine of Rs 50,000 for challenging the decision. A bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna pronounced the verdict. The sprawling bungalow at 5, Deshratan Marg was allotted to Yadav in 2015 upon his appointment as the deputy chief minister of the then 'Grand Alliance' government headed by Nitish Kumar. The Nitish Kumar government has asked Yadav to swap residences with Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi, who lives in 1, Polo Road, situated about a kilometre away. Yadav, who is currently the Leader of the Opposition in the State Assembly, had filed an appeal against the Patna High Court judgment turning down his petition challenging the Bihar government order to vacate his bungalow to make way for deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi. On January 7, the Patna High Court had dismissed Tejashwi Yadav's petition challenging the Bihar government's order asking him to vacate the bungalow allotted to him while he was the deputy chief minister. Yadav had appealed against the single-judge order of October 6 which asked him to swap his accommodation with his successor. The Patna High Court had in its order said "the petitioner has been allotted a bungalow matching his status as a minister in the government at 1, Polo Road, Patna... He cannot raise complaint on the decision so taken simply because the present bungalow is more suited to him." For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. highlights Vadra has been refusing any links with arms dealer Sanjay Bhandari. News Nation has the very mail on which the ED is basing its probe. Vadra has also shared documents with the investigating officer of the case. New Delhi: Robert Vadra, who has been grilled for two consecutive days, has been called again on Saturday again for questioning in money laundering case. Robert Vadra has been called to Enforcement Directorate office tomorrow again for questioning in money laundering case, tweeted ANI. The central probe agency had questioned him for over 8 hours on Thursday and for almost six hours on Wednesday in connection with alleged criminal charges of dubious financial dealings. The son-in-law of UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi has been refusing any links with arms dealer Sanjay Bhandari and his relative Sumit Chadha, the ED officials think otherwise. According to the probe agency, a mail reveals the extent of dealings between all three accused in the money laundering case. Delhi: Robert Vadra has been called to Enforcement Directorate office tomorrow again for questioning in money laundering case. (File pic) pic.twitter.com/O3R57pE7pu ANI (@ANI) February 8, 2019 News Nation has the very mail on which the ED is basing its probe. The mail is written by Chadha complaining about not receiving any funds for the London house renovation. Vadra has also been warned if he makes a wrong statement, he may have to face legal proceedings, sources said. Vadra told the ED officials that he has not purchased the property and calls himself innocent. "I do not remember much about the email and I do not know much about Sanjay Bhandari", says Vadra. The ED then showed the emails and said he had sent the mails to Bhandari. Earlier on Thursday, Vadras wife and Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi came to the ED office, in Jamnagar House in central Delhi, in a black SUV to pick him up around 9:30 PM. Her vehicle was guarded by SPG personnel when it went inside the ED office. Priyanka had dropped off her husband for questioning at the ED office on Wednesday noon. Official sources said Vadra was required to rejoin the probe on Thursday as he needed to answer more questions on allegedly acquiring immovable assets in the UK. It is understood that he was "confronted with" documents that the agency has obtained or seized as part of its probe in the case, including those linked to absconding defence dealer Sanjay Bhandari. Vadra has also shared documents with the investigating officer of the case and has assured some more will be provided as and when he gets them, official sources said. Here are some of the questions ED officials asked Robert Vadra on Wednesday: 1. Is London's 12 Brighton Squire property yours? 2. Whats your connection with the London property, why mails were sent to you regarding its renovation? 3. Is it right that the floor plan of this property was sent to you? In 2010, when these mails were coming to you, this property was with the arms dealer Sanjay Bhandari. Then why did the email come to you? Is this property linked to you? 4. A fund was also sought to build a property from you, and in response, you also responded to Sumit Chadda who had sent the mail. You had assured him for the fund, why were you arranging for the fund? 5. Why was the copy of every email sent to you was given to Sanjay Bhandari? 6. How do you know Sanjay Bhandari and Sumit Chadda? 7. Do you know the Indian national CC Thampi, who lives in Dubai, and who bought this property from Sanjay Bhandari? For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Friday conducted a rally in Madhya Pradeshs Bhopal as a part of his partys campaign for the Lok Sabha elections in Madhya Pradesh. This was also Rahuls first visit after forming government in the state in December 2018. During his speech, Rahul mimics PM Narendra Modi over his style and change in body language from the 2014 elections campaign to the current style. He also took jibe at PM Modi saying that he tried his best to stop Congress party but failed to do so as the party came into power recent Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. Also Read | PM Modi slams Mamata Banerjee in Jalpaiguri over her dharna, says people not scared of violence created by 'Didi' Rahul Gandhi also hold a press conference on Friday on Rafale fighter deal in the national capital and accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of being directly involved in the Rafale fighter jet deal with France. He claimed that the prime minister was carrying out a parallel negotiation with the French government. "We have been saying for more than a year that the Prime Minister is directly involved in the Rafale scam," Gandhi said while addressing a press conference at the party headquarters on Akbar Road. "Today, The Hindu newspaper has put it in black and white. It is absolutely clear that the Prime Minister himself was carrying out a parallel negotiation with the French," he said. "This is your money and this is about your future. And here it is absolutely clear that Modi has stolen Rs 30,000 crore of your money and given it to his friend (an Indian industrialist)," he said. His remarks come after The Hindu published a report: "Defence Ministry protested against PMO undermining Rafale negotiations". "Now Ministry itself has said that we may advise PMO (Prime Minister's Office) that any officers who are not part of Indian Negotiating Team may refrain from having parallel parlays," the Congress president said. #WATCH Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh: Congress President Rahul Gandhi mimics PM Narendra Modi. pic.twitter.com/hRXStKreRx ANI (@ANI) February 8, 2019 For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Even as the Congress upped its ante and intensified its attack against the Narendra Modi government over Rafale deal, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has rubbished the latest media report, which said that the Defence Ministry had protested against PMO. Amid loud protests in the Lok Sabha, Sitharaman said that, it is like flogging dead horse. New report by The Hindu quotes the dissent note by then defence ministry officials. The Hindu report published the note of dissent that was recorded on November 24, 2015 on a note prepared by SK Sharma, Deputy Secretary (Air-II), and endorsed by the Joint Secretary & Acquisition Manager (Air) and the Director General (Acquisition) in the Ministry. However, the then defence secretary G Mohan Kumar said that, Defence Ministrys dissent note had nothing to do with Rafale pricing. Questioning the intent of the report published by The Hindu, Sitharaman said, a newspaper published a file noting written by Defence Secretary. If a newspaper publishes a noting then the ethics of journalism will demand that the newspaper publishes the then Defence Ministers reply as well. The defence minister also said that by repeatedly raking the issue, the Congress is trying to provoke the Indian Army and the Indian Air Force against Modi government. Then Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar ji replied to that MoD note that remain calm, nothing to worry, everything is going alright. Now, what do you call the NAC led by Sonia Gandhi's interference in earlier PMO? What was that, asked Sitharaman. Earlier, the Defence Minister had said that ever since the Modi government came to power, there was a conscious effort to keep middlemen at bay from the corridors of the Defence Ministry. Between 2014 and today, in the purchases (in defence), including the ones done by Manohar Parrikar and Arun Jaitley, we deliberately not had any middleman coming into the corridors of South Block, the Defence Minister said. At a time when the Congress is accusing the Modi government of parallel negotiation and corporate war, Sitharaman had said, "You (Opposition) are misinforming the public and doing disservice to the country if you are becoming pawns in a corporate rivalry. Is India's interest at the top of your agenda or are you becoming a partner to some kind of corporate rivalry," she asked. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Former defence minister Manohar Parrikar had in a note termed his own ministrys apprehension to the Prime Ministers Office intervening in the Rafale deal with France as an over-reaction. The Modi government was on Friday rocked by a 2015 Defence Ministry note cited in a media report expressing strong objections to the "parallel" negotiations by the PMO in the controversial Rafale jet deal and came under fresh attack from Congress chief Rahul Gandhi. In the note, tweeted by news agency ANI, Parrikar recorded: It appears the PMO and the French Presidents office are monitoring the progress of the issue which was an outcome of the summit meeting (between Modi and French President Francois Hollande in April 2015). Para 5 appears to be an over reaction. ANI accesses the then Defence Minister Manohar Parrikars reply to MoD dissent note on #Rafale negotiations. "Defence Secretary (G Mohan) may resolve the matter in consultation with Principal Secretary to PM" pic.twitter.com/yXGQJNiDvB ANI (@ANI) February 8, 2019 Stepping up his offensive on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Gandhi demanded answers to questions raised in the media report, saying it is now crystal clear that the "watchman" is the "thief", an apparent reference to Modi's alleged cronyism in the Rafale deal. Gandhi's offensive drew a counter-attack from Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman who dismissed the report in The Hindu newspaper on the internal note in the Ministry of Defence(MoD) dated November 24, 2015 as "flogging a dead horse" and alleged that the opposition was playing into the hands of multinational companies and vested interests. As the MoD note led to a ruckus in the Lok Sabha and sparked a fresh confrontation between opposition parties led by the Congress and the Centre, Sitharaman also maintained that "periodical enquiries" by the Prime Minister's Office(PMO) cannot be construed as interference." Sitharaman, who also spoke to reporters, criticised the news report for raising issues "selectively" and ignoring the then defence minister Manohar Parrikar's reply to file notings of officials. She said Parrikar had made a note asking officials to remain "calm" as everything was "alright". Gandhi declared at a news conference that the Rafale deal was an "open and shut" case, citing the report claiming the defence ministry raised strong objections to "parallel discussions" conducted by the PMO during the negotiations over the Rs 59,000 crore Rafale fighter jet deal between India and France. Gandhi also brought in his brother-in-law Robert Vadra and senior Congress leader P Chidambaram to make his point in the escalating Rafale row with the BJP terming his allegations another "lie from his lie manufacturing factory". Former defence minister AK Antony said it was "shocking" that the PMO was conducting parallel negotiations. "Whatever inquiry you want to do, you do it. You implement the law. Robert Vadra, P Chidambaram - you implement the law on everyone. No problem. But you also give answers on the Rafale matter," he said using the report for a fresh offensive on Modi over the Rafale deal. Both Chidambaram and Vadra are facing probes by the Enforcement Directorate(ED) in separate cases. "We have been saying for more than a year that the prime minister is directly involved in the Rafale scam. Now, today, in 'The Hindu' newspaper, it is black and white... that the prime minister himself was carrying out a parallel negotiation with the French," Gandhi said. "It has been proven now that the watchman (chowkidar) is the thief (chor). What can be more clear than this?" he asked, reiterating epithets he has used several times earlier. Holding up the documents quoted in the newspaper, he said the then Defence Secretary G Mohan Kumar clearly objected to the interference by the PMO as it "undermined out negotiating position seriously" going by the official notation in his own hand. Gandhi also read out from the defence ministry note, published in the newspaper. "Now, it is crystal clear that the ministry itself has said, and I will read it to you, 'It is therefore clear that the parallel discussions by the PMO has weakened the negotiation of the MOD and the Indian negotiating team. We may advise PMO that any officers who are not part of the negotiation team may refrain from having parallel parleys with the officer of the French government'," Gandhi said. Gandhi also alleged that the Centre has lied to the Supreme Court. "If Supreme Court had this paperwork, do you think that the Supreme Court would have given the judgment that they give? This was withheld from the Supreme Court. Of course. So that entire judgement is also in question." The apex court in December dismissed the pleas challenging the deal between India and France for procurement of 36 Rafale jets, saying there was no occasion to "really doubt the decision-making process" warranting setting aside of the contract. Addressing a `Kisan Aabhar Sammelan' (thanksgiving rally) in Bhopal Gandhi cited the media report and alleged that the PMO was directly involved in conducting parleys with the French side and this had weakened the MoD negotiations on the same deal. Air Marshal SBP Sinha (retd), who was leading the Indian negotiating team for the Rafale deal, rejected the charge that the PMO was holding parallel negotiations, a view endorsed by Mohan Kumar during whose tenure the Rafale deal was signed. The comments of Sinha and Kumar were sought by PTI after the controversy over the MoD note broke out. (With PTI inputs) For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will lay the foundation stone of Rs 1,938 crore highway project at Jalpaiguri in West Bengal today. Congress president Rahul Gandhi will address a 'thanksgiving rally' for farmers at the BHEL Jamboree Maidan in Bhopal. The Supreme Court will hear a petition filed by BJP spokesman Ashwini Upadhyay challenging Article 35A. According to this new petition, Article 35A violates the rights of the women of Jammu and Kashmir who marry people from other states. India will play New Zealand in the second T20 in Auckland. Bangladesh Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen will meet Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj in New Delhi. Bangladesh has sealed off its border with Myanmar to stop further influx of refugees fleeing the troubled Rakhine state. 22:56 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Nepal: An explosion has taken place at Arun III Hydropower Project. More details awaited. 18:56 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Punjab government has announced 6% Dearness Allowance (DA) to government employees and pensioners, with effect from February 1, 2019. 16:03 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar arrives in Shillong. Kumar will be questioned by the CBI in connection with the Saradha Chit Fund Scam case. Meghalaya: Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar arrives in Shillong. He will be questioned by CBI here, in connection with the #SaradhaScam. pic.twitter.com/7ab0wwO3sa ANI (@ANI) February 8, 2019 14:33 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Delhi's Patiala House Court extends ED remand of Rajiv Saxena, a co-accused in AgustaWestland case, to four more days. 13:53 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Jammu and Kashmir: Two persons have been rescued from near the police post in Jawahar Tunnel area in Kulgam district where an avalanche took place earlier today. One of them is in critical condition. Jammu and Kashmir: Two persons have been rescued from near the police post in Jawahar Tunnel area in Kulgam district where an avalanche took place earlier today. One of them is in critical condition. pic.twitter.com/xBQcd2kTGK ANI (@ANI) February 8, 2019 13:03 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Prime Minister Narendra Modi's rally in Jalpaiguri is scheduled for 3:30 pm. The rally comes just a few days after Trinamool Congress government and Centre were at the loggerheads over CBI's action against Kolkata Police Chief Rajeev Kumar. 11:21 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Supreme Court dismisses a plea of RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav challenging the Bihar government's order asking him to vacate the bungalow allotted to him while he was the deputy chief minister. CJI Ranjan Gogoi also imposed a cost of Rs 50,000 on Tejashwi Yadav. 10:10 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In 14 children injured in fire in UP madrasa Fourteen children were injured when a fire broke out in a madarsa at Shuru village in the district, police said Friday. The blaze started Thursday night from a candle kept in a room in the madrasa in Kotwali Police Station area during a power cut, they said. A refrigerator near the candle caught fire which spread rapidly, they said. Fourteen children were injured, ten of them seriously, and they were rushed to a hospital, police said, adding an investigation was underway. 10:07 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Madhya Pradesh: Poster seen in Bhopal portraying Congress President Rahul Gandhi as Lord Rama and Prime Minister Narendra Modi as Ravana. Madhya Pradesh: Poster seen in Bhopal portraying Congress President Rahul Gandhi as Lord Rama and Prime Minister Narendra Modi as Ravana. pic.twitter.com/MNaMu3cBjI ANI (@ANI) February 8, 2019 09:23 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Andhra Pradesh: A woman and her daughter in law murdered at their residence in Bondilipuram, Srikakulam yesterday. The family of the victims claims that money and jewellery have been stolen. Police begin investigation. 08:28 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Twenty-four houses collapsed and at least 20 people were injured when a sudden storm having high wind speed swept through a village in the Ecotech Sector 3 area here Thursday night, police said. The incident took place in Ali Bardipur village at around 8:30 pm, Ecotech-3 police station in-charge Inspector Anita Chauhan said. The injured are undergoing treatment at various hospitals in Greater Noida, she said, adding that the condition of four victims was stated to be critical. The inspector said the fire brigade and police reached the spot after getting information about the incident, adding that search and rescue operations were underway. The police said some cattle were also injured in the incident. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Siddaramaiah, the former Karnataka Chief Minister, today said that he will petition before the Assembly Speaker to suspend the four dissenting Congress MLAs. This statement shows that the infighting in the Congress has not been resolved. Earlier, on January 18, the Karnataka Congress had issued notice to the dissenting lawmakers. The leaders who didnt attend the Congress meet are - Ramesh Jarkiholi - who was dropped as a minister in the recent Cabinet rejig, B Nagendra, Umesh Jadhav and Mahesh Kumatahalli. Earlier, Siddaramaiah had alleged that the BJP was offering Rs 50 crore each to Congress MLAs as part of its bid to topple the JDS-Congress government in Karnataka, but asserted none of them would fall for it. "They (BJP) are under some illusion of power. They are offering Rs 50 crore (to Congress MLAs). They huddled their 104 MLAs in a seven-star hotel in Haryana for a week, Siddaramaiah had said. At the height of political turmoil early last month after two MLAs withdrew support to the government and some Congress MLAs went incommunicado, Siddaramaiah had made a similar charge alleging that the BJP was trying to buy Congress MLAs by offering Rs 25-30 crore. The lawmakers who have withdrawn their support are H Nagesh (Independent) and R Shankar (Karnataka Pragnyavanta Janata Paksha). The development comes amid reports of some Congress MLAs go missing. In the 224-member Karnataka Assembly, the BJP has 104 members, Congress 80 (including Assembly Speaker KR Ramesh Kumar), Kumaraswamys JD (S) has 37, BSP, KPJP and Independent one each. BSP is supporting the coalition government. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Ahead of the Budget Session, chief minister HD Kumaraswamy has removed dissenting Congress MLA Umesh Jadhav from the post of chairman of the Warehouse Corporation and replaced him with Pratap Gowda Patil. Basanagouda Daddal, the Congress MLA from Raichur, has been appointed as the chairman of Maharshi Valmiki Scheduled Tribes Development Board. Gopalaswamy is the new parliamentary secretary to Water Resource Minister DK Shivakumar. This development can be seen as a move towards pleasing potential rebels in an effort to pacify them ahead of Friday's Budget Session. The Budget Session will be held at 12.32 pm, following legislative party meetings by the Congress, BJP an JDS. Sources said Jadhav and another dissident, Ramesh Jharkiholi, may be sacked by the Congress today. Congress and Janata Dal (Secular) MPs had called a joint press conference at Karnataka Bhavan-1 in the national capital on Thursday, apparently as a show of their strength. The development comes a day after 10 Congress lawmakers skipped the joint session, which was marked by the huge uproar. Soon after the session started, about 30-40 BJP members trooped into well of the House, raising slogans against the coalition government following which Governor Vajubhai Vala had to abruptly cut short his speech. "You are made to read lies, so please don't read it," BJP members said. "We don't want a bundle of lies to be read. Down down... the government that has lost majority and trust," BJP lawmakers shouted. Soon after Vala left, Speaker KR Ramesh Kumar tabled his address as 'read' for adoption by the House after a motion of thanks during the budget session till February 15. The House was adjourned after it paid tributes to state's iconic seer Shivakumara Swami, who passed away at Tumakuru on January 21, and Mangaluru-born former Defence Minister George Fernandes, who died in New Delhi on January 29. Three BJP legislators were also conspicuously absent from the House. Defending the protest against the ruling alliance partners, BJP's state unit president and opposition leader in the House BS Yeddyurappa said the coalition government was not stable due to a revolt in the Congress and serious differences with the JD-S, the government had no moral right to continue. Yeddyurappa, however, reiterated that the BJP would not move a no-confidence motion against the coalition government. In the 225-member Assembly, including one nominated from the Anglo-India community, the Congress has 80, including the Speaker, JD(S) 37, BJP 104 and remaining are an Independent and one each from the BSP and the KPJP. (With agency inputs) For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: As many as 16 persons have died after consuming spurious liquor in the Balupur village of Haridwar district. Ten of them died in Haridwar district while six lost their lives in the neighbouring Saharanpur district of Uttar Pradesh. About four persons are said to be in a serious condition and several others are admitted to the hospital. Ashok Kumar, director general (DG) law and order told TOI, People from three to four villages on the border of Haridwar and Saharanpur gathered on Thursday for a terahvi (ceremony conducted to mark the final day of mourning after a death). It seems they had country-made liquor after the ceremony, which led to their death. The police are yet to ascertain the exact cause of the deaths and awaiting post-mortem examination reports. It is said that the men were returning to their respective villages in Haridwar and Saharanpur after the function. The administration has announced Rs 2 lakh relief for the kin of the victims. An inquiry has also been ordered. Several cases have been also been reported from Roorkee. The Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has also sought a report on the matter from the district administration. Kushinagar hooch tragedy On Thursday, the death count in the spurious hooch case in Uttar Pradesh's Kushinagar district rose to 10, prompting authorities to take action against nine officials. The authorities have suspended the excise inspector, two head constables and two constables of the department. Besides, SP Kushinagar has sent four cops including SHO Tarya Sujan police station to the police line. Ramvriksha, 32, Bedupar village under Tarya Sujan police station died on Wednesday around 12.30 in the night and Ramnath, 45, of the same village died Thursday morning. On Tuesday night Chanchal Chauhan, 45, died after consuming the intoxicant, while Deba Nishad (55), Heera Lal Nishad (33) and Awadh Kishore Nishad had died immediately after consuming the drink on Monday. "In the post-mortem report, the cause behind the death of two people was not clear so the viscera sample has been sent to Varanasi for a chemical test to ascertain the cause of death. The post-mortem report of other bodies is awaited. SHO Tarya Sujan, Vinay Pathak along with inspector and two constables of the area have been called at police lines, SP Kushinagar Rajiv Narayan Mishra said. (With PTI inputs) For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Amid intense political war over the Rafale deal, a new media report has said that the defence ministry was against the deal. The Hindu report published the note of dissent that was recorded on November 24, 2015 on a note prepared by SK Sharma, Deputy Secretary (Air-II), and endorsed by the Joint Secretary & Acquisition Manager (Air) and the Director General (Acquisition) in the Ministry. However, the then defence secretary G Mohan Kumar said that, Defence Ministrys dissent note had nothing to do with Rafale pricing. Kumar was quoted as saying by the ANI that, It (MoD dissent note on Rafale negotiations) had nothing to do with price. It was about sovereign guarantees and general terms and conditions. Last month, The Hindu had reported that how the Narendra Modi government's 2015 decision exponentially increased the price of each fighter jet. The report said that the deal bypassed the procedures despite some serious objections raised by top defence brass. The January 18 report said that the 2015 decision caused the price of Rafale jets to go up by 41%. According to the report, Manmohan Singh-led UPA government had decided to buy 126 Rafale aircraft in 2007. The 2007 bid meant India was buying 18 fighter jets in fly-away condition and 108 were to be made in India. In 2015, the Modi government surprised everyone and signed the deal with France for the multi-role fighter jets. But instead of 126, India now settled for 36 fighter jets. This is where the problem is. 'The Hindu' reports that the Dassault Aviation had quoted 1.4 billion euros as the 'design and development' cost. At that time, this cost was supposed to be divided into 126 fighter jets. In 2016, this cost came down to 1.3 billion euros after tough negotiations. But due to the lesser number of aircraft, the price per jet increased as much 41%."This straightaway meant an increase of 25 million euros in the price of each aircraft as compared with the UPA-era bid by Dassault," 'The Hindu' report had said. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: The Kolkata police on Friday conducted raids on two properties allegedly belonging to M Nageswara Rao, former interim CBI director, in West Bengal. The police carried out searches at a place in Kolkata which reportedly has links with Nageswara Rao. The police officials also searched Rao's wife's company Angelina Mercantile Pvt Ltd at Salt Lake, according to news agency ANI. A team of around 30 police officers raided the two offices, allegedly linked to Rao's wife Mannem Sandhya, he said. "There have been a series of transactions between the company and Mannem Sandhya. We are looking into the matter," the police officer said. However, Rao, issued a press statement, refuting any link with Angela Mercantile Pvt Ltd which is being raided by the Kolkata Police. In a statement, Rao, who is currently the additional director of CBI, said: "I deny the linkage of this firm with my family members as reported by some media outlets today." "In light of certain reporting appearing in some media outlets, including some TV channels today linking my family members with a company on which Kolkata Police has carried out raids, I want to state that I had already clarified regarding this issue through a signed press statement on 30th October, 2018. "Further, complete details of all property of my family and mine have already been submitted in my annual property return submitted to the government which are available on Ministry of Home Affairs' website," the statement said. According to a Kolkata Police source, the owner of the company might be called for questioning on Saturday. Former interim CBI chief M Nageshwar Rao issues a press statement, refuting any link with M/s Angela Mercantile Pvt Ltd which is being raided by Kolkata Police today. pic.twitter.com/g9RfW3Yl4c ANI (@ANI) February 8, 2019 The raids were conducted a day before the CBI is scheduled to question Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar in Shillong in connection with Saradha scam, officials said, in the backdrop of Sunday's dramatic raid on Kumar's residence by the agency that triggered a slugfest between the Centre and the state government. The agency has also called former Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha MP Kunal Ghosh to Shillong on February 10. The CBI wants to question Kumar, a 1989-batch IPS officer, as he was heading the SIT formed by West Bengal government to probe Saradha and other ponzi scheme cases, they said. The CBI is relying on a 91-page letter from Ghosh, who was expelled by TMC, to the Enforcement Directorate, detailing the role of Kumar in handling the ponzi scam probe after the main accused Sudipta Sen and Debjani Mukherjee, both promoters of Saradha group of companies, had fled to Kashmir, officials said in Kolkata. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: The Rajasthan governmnet on Friday formed a committee to discuss Gujjar reservation issue after agitators marched towards railway tracks and stopped Bandra-Gorakhpur Awadh Express at Sawai Madhopur railway station, while Chandigarh Express was forced to stop at Bayana Railway Station. Comprehensive security plan has been put in place by Railway Protection Force (RPF). Besides, additional companies of RPF and RPSF (special forces) have been deployed in Jaipur and Ajmer division. Rajasthan: Members of Gujjar community hold reservation movement in Sawai Madhopur. Gujjar leader Kirori Singh Bainsla says, We want 5% reservation. Govt hasn't responded to my request. So, I am going to do an agitation. Govt should give, I dont know from where do they give? pic.twitter.com/FowC95S02E ANI (@ANI) February 8, 2019 Staging a protest in Sawai Madhopur, Gujjar leader Kirori Singh Bainsla said: "We want 5% reservation. The government hasn't responded to my request. So, I am going to do an agitation. The government should give, I dont know from where do they give. Bainsla last month gave a 20-day "ultimatum" to the state government to clear its stand on reservation to the communities in government jobs and educational institutes, failing which he threatened of reviving the quota agitation. As the deadline lapsed on Friday, Bainsla after holding a 'Maha Panchayat' at Malarna Dungar in Sawai Madhopur district, started the sit-in along with his supporters, blocking trains. "Things are changing fast. I have not come here but the crowd has brought me on the railway tracks. People cannot be fooled all the time. It is a fight to do or die. State government should stand on its promise. It will be a peaceful protest. I will lead the protest and the youths will support," Bainsla told reporters. As the protest started, high-level meetings were held in the state capital to find out ways to pacify the agitators. The protestors are demanding five per cent separate reservation to Gujjars, Raika-Rebari, Gadia Luhar, Banjara and Gadaria for government jobs and admission in educational institutions. Currently, these communities are getting one per cent separate reservation under the legal limit of 50 per cent under the most-backward category in addition to OBC reservation. (With agency inputs) For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwals convoy was attacked in Narela by a mob armed with sticks, an official in the Chief Ministers Office said, adding that nobody was hurt. A group of about 100 men tried to stop Kejriwals car and attacked it with sticks, news agency PTI reported. The incident occurred when Kejriwal visited the outer Delhi locality to inaugurate development works in 25 unauthorised colonies, the official told. .@ArvindKejriwal's car attacked by BJP goons in Narela area when he had gone to inaugurate development works in unauthorised colonies of Narela. Ankit Lal (@AnkitLal) February 8, 2019 The Aam Aadmi Party took to Twitter to target the Delhi Police for failing to provide security to the Delhi chief minister. If @DelhiPolice cannot protect a chief minister then how will they protect the common man? Does this happen in any Indian state where CM is attacked repeatedly and the Police fails to act??? https://t.co/eJ7IsDatuj AAP (@AamAadmiParty) February 8, 2019 For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: With only a few days before the nation mourns the death of Sridevi, Ram Gopal Varma shared an unseen picture of the late actor and it is a walk down the lane of the joyous past. Taking it to Twitter, the filmmaker shared a nostalgic photo of the Sridevi with Rajinikanth with Salman Khan. The candid, raw photo shows the late actor seated next to fellow stars with VJ Neelam Kothari among others. Seen captured in a moment that will be remembered for years to come, Sri Devi wore a white coloured salwar kameez suit combined with white, pump, heeled shoes. Rajinikanth and Salman, on the other hand, can be seen rocking the fashion of their time which are skinny jeans and loose fitted-button up shirts. Salman can be seen in his white long sleeve shirt with light blue skinny jeans and brown shoes, while Rajinikanth wore the same except for the colour of the outfit and the shoes, which he shipped for a sneaker instead of a shoe. Check out the image here: Giving the caption, 'Wowwwww, the photo shared by the filmmaker sure does give us all the feels for the fans of the much-admired actor. The legendary actress who passed away on February 24 last year, will have her first death anniversary this February 14. Reports added that the family with friends will hold a puja for the late actress on the particular day as her titthi for her death anniversary falls on the 14th. For all the Latest Entertainment News, Bollywood News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Ramkishna Kusmaria, the former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP and senior Madhya Pradesh leader, on Friday joined the Congress in the presence of party chief Rahul Gandhi in Bhopal. Kusmaria was the member of Lok Sabha from Damoh constituency of Madhya Pradesh from 1991 to 1999 and went on to win Khajuraho seat in Lok Sabha elections 2014. He also served as an agriculture minister in the state. Earlier, speculations had been rife that Kusmaria was offered a Congress ticket for the upcoming General Elections from the Bundelkhand region. With Kusmaria and several other senior leaders leaving the party, the BJP is facing a lot of trouble in Madhya Pradesh. Those leaders include another BJP dissident and former chief minister Babulal Gaur, Sartaj Singh, Kusum Mehdele and Raghunandan Sharma among others. Sartaj Singh, who had been at logger heads with the BJP leadership in Madhya Pradesh, joined the Congress ahead of the 2018 Assembly elections in the state. However, Singh lost the Hoshangabad seat to the BJP candidate in Madhya Pradesh Assembly Elections 2018. There were also reports that Kusmaria was instrumental in the defeats of two BJP candidates in the Damoh and Pathariya seats in recently concluded Madhya Pradesh assembly elections. He was also congratulated by Chief Minister Kamal Nath after BJP's rout in the Bundelkhand region of the state. In December, the Congress emerged as the single largest party in the state, managing a wafer-thin majority with the BJP. While the Congress has bagged 114 seats in the state, the BJP, in a tantalising see-saw battle with the grand-old party managed to get 109 seats. The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) won two seats and the Samajwadi Party (SP) one. Independents bagged four seats. The BJP lost the Hindi heartland state after 15 years of power since 2003. Shivraj Singh Chouhan was the chief minister of the state between 2005 and 2018. However, the BJP's vote share was more than the Congress in the state Assembly elections. New Delhi: Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Friday held a press conference on Rafale fighter deal in the national capital and accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of being directly involved in the Rafale fighter jet deal with France. He claimed that the prime minister was carrying out a parallel negotiation with the French government. "We have been saying for more than a year that the Prime Minister is directly involved in the Rafale scam," Gandhi said while addressing a press conference at the party headquarters on Akbar Road. "Today, The Hindu newspaper has put it in black and white. It is absolutely clear that the Prime Minister himself was carrying out a parallel negotiation with the French," he said. "This is your money and this is about your future. And here it is absolutely clear that Modi has stolen Rs 30,000 crore of your money and given it to his friend (an Indian industrialist)," he said. His remarks come after The Hindu published a report: "Defence Ministry protested against PMO undermining Rafale negotiations". "Now Ministry itself has said that we may advise PMO (Prime Minister's Office) that any officers who are not part of Indian Negotiating Team may refrain from having parallel parlays," the Congress president said. "Even the Defence official was against such discussions and had desired for them to be avoided by the PMO as it undermines our negotiating position seriously, he said while quoting the remarks of the Defence Secretary in the letter to then Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar. "It cannot get any clearer or stronger than this," Gandhi said. Highlights of Rahul Gandhi's press conference on Rafale: 11:00 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Sitharaman too lied. Former French President has admitted that he was made to choose Anil Ambani by PM Modi himself: Rahul Gandhi DM @nsitharaman too lied. Former French President has admitted that he was made to choose Anil Ambani by PM Modi himself: Congress President @RahulGandhi#PakdaGayaModi Congress (@INCIndia) February 8, 2019 10:59 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In I don't like using strong words but there is no other word that I can use: Rahul Gandhi on 'chowkidar chor hai' 10:58 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In You continue with inquiry on about Robert Vadra, P Chidambaram and others but do give answer on Rafale: Rahul Gandhi 10:56 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Why it is that President of France has called him (PM Modi) thief, asks Rahul Gandhi 10:55 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Defence Ministry had opposed the deal: Rahul Gandhi 10:55 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Why Narendra Modi not talk about Rafale, asks Rahul Gandhi 10:54 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Since the government lied to the Supreme Court, the entire judgment is in question: Rahul Gandhi 10:53 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In It's a corporate war and PM Modi is doing parallel negotiation: Rahul Gandhi. 10:52 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In I met Parrikar ji and it was a courtesy call and it was not appropriate to talk about Rafale and PM Modi at that time. 11:12 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Former French President Francois Hollande had said that PM Modi had bypassed the procedure. 11:07 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Nirmala Sitharaman has lied, PM Modi has lied: Rahul Gandhi Congress President Rahul Gandhi: Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman lied as well. Former French President has admitted that he was made to choose Anil Ambani by PM Modi himself pic.twitter.com/IU5aYZiysS ANI (@ANI) February 8, 2019 10:46 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In "Today, in The Hindu newspaper it is black and white that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was involved in the Rafale scam," says Rahul Gandhi. 11:05 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In PM Modi has bypassed the process to give money to his friends: Rahul Gandhi Congress President Rahul Gandhi: PM Modi himself robbed Air Force's Rs 30,000 crore and gave it to Anil Ambani, we have been raising this since 1 year. Now a report has come where Defence Ministry officials say that PM was holding parallel negotiations with France Govt. #Rafale pic.twitter.com/76OPEVe3Vl ANI (@ANI) February 8, 2019 10:44 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In PM Modi has stolen 30,000 crores of your money, says Rahul Gandhi. 10:41 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Modi has consistently undermined the Air Force & Defence Ministry in the Rafale deal for corruption, to benefit his cronies, said CPM leader Sitaram Yechurry. Modi has consistently undermined the Air Force & Defence Ministry in the Rafale deal for corruption, to benefit his cronies. His actions have hurt the public exchequer & damaged national security. These facts have been hidden from Supreme Court where a review petition is pending. https://t.co/WZuuKqu9Y8 Sitaram Yechury (@SitaramYechury) February 8, 2019 New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed a public rally at Raigarh in Chhattisgarh on Friday. Union minister of state for Steel Vishnudeo Sai and other senior BJP leaders were also present. BJP workers and people from Raigarh and neighbouring districts also attended the meeting. Earlier PM reached state capital Raipur where he was welcomed by state cabinet minister Dr Shiv Kumar Deharia. Later he flew to Raigarh by a helicopter. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was addressing a rally in Chhattisgarh and said that when the new Congress government was formed in Chhattisgarh, 'we also congratulated them that maybe they will implement some new approach for the development of the state. But what they have only done is try to stop the ongoing schemes." Addressing a rally in Chhattisgarh's Raigarh, PM Narendra Modi said that the people of the state must think about the first two decisions taken by the Congress government. "The first thing they did was to remove Chhattisgarh from Aayushman Bharat and second decision was to not let the CBI enter the state, Why? What are you afraid of?" he said. Here are the HIGHLIGHTS: 12.46 pm: Most members of the (Gandhi) family are either on bail or have obtained anticipatory bail, says PM. 12.15 pm: I have come amidst you to get a new mandate for a new India, says Prime Minister Narendra Modi. 12.10 pm: The Congress has only tried to hide the corruption. 12.08 pm: Congress has destroyed the poor for the past 55 years, misled the country. We instilled hope, confidence in the poor, says PM Modi. 12.05 pm: By opting out of Ayushman Bharat scheme, Congress government in Chhattisgarh has deprived poor of healthcare: PM 12.02 pm: "You should think about the first two decisions that the Congress government has taken. The first thing they did was to remove Chhattisgarh from 'Modicare' and the second decision was to not let the CBI enter the state, Why? What are you afraid of?" asks PM Modi. 11.58 am: When the new government was formed in Chhattisgarh, we also congratulated them that maybe they will implement some new approach for the development of the state. But what they have only done is try to stop the ongoing schemes, the PM said. 11.55 am: All good work carried out by our government has been stopped, says PM. New Delhi: Day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi slammed the Congress in his 55-minute-long Vote of Thanks speech in the Lok Sabha during the Budget Session, Rahul Gandhi today said that the Prime Minister was directly involved in the multi-billion Rafale fighter aircraft deal. He accused PM Modi of stealing Rs 30,000 crore of taxpayers money and giving it to his friend Anil Ambani. The fresh allegations of parallel negotiations came after a report in The Hindu said that the Defence Ministry had opposed the deal. Its an open and shut case. Its clear that PM stole money, Gandhi said while addressing the media in New Delhi on Friday. The stinging attack came a day after Gandhis brother-in-law was grilled by the Enforcement Directorate officials. Vadra was quizzed by the ED officials for almost 12 hours in last two days. The son-in-law of UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi has been refusing any links with arms dealer Sanjay Bhandari and his relative Sumit Chadha, the ED officials think otherwise. According to the probe agency, a mail reveals the extent of dealings between all three accused in the money laundering case. News Nation has the very mail on which the ED is basing its probe. The mail is written by Chadha complaining about not receiving any funds for the London house renovation. Earlier on Thursday, Vadras wife and Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi came to the ED office, in Jamnagar House in central Delhi, in a black SUV to pick him up around 9:30 PM. Her vehicle was guarded by SPG personnel when it went inside the ED office. Priyanka had dropped off her husband for questioning at the ED office on Wednesday noon. Official sources said Vadra was required to rejoin the probe on Thursday as he needed to answer more questions on allegedly acquiring immovable assets in the UK. Here are some of the questions ED officials asked Robert Vadra on Wednesday: 1. Is London's 12 Brighton Squire property yours? 2. Whats your connection with the London property, why mails were sent to you regarding its renovation? 3. Is it right that the floor plan of this property was sent to you? In 2010, when these mails were coming to you, this property was with the arms dealer Sanjay Bhandari. Then why did the email come to you? Is this property linked to you? 4. A fund was also sought to build a property from you, and in response, you also responded to Sumit Chadda who had sent the mail. You had assured him for the fund, why were you arranging for the fund? 5. Why was the copy of every email sent to you was given to Sanjay Bhandari? 6. How do you know Sanjay Bhandari and Sumit Chadda? 7. Do you know the Indian national CC Thampi, who lives in Dubai, and who bought this property from Sanjay Bhandari? New Delhi: Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, newly appointed All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary in charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh, on Thursday, attended the first official meeting of Congress party. In the meeting, Priyanka was deliberately seated away from her brother and party president Rahul Gandhi. IANS quoted political observers as saying that she was deliberately not seated next to Rahul but away from him to give a message to senior party leaders that as the All India Congress Committee (AICC) Secretaries, they are as important as Priyanka Gandhi who is also a General Secretary. Priyanka was given a seat next to Jyotiraditya Scindia, general secretary in charge of western Uttar Pradesh, in the middle of the right-side row. The 47-year-olds formal entry into politics was announced on January 23. Soon after that, she was allotted a room next to that of Rahul Gandhi's at the Congress headquarters. The room was earlier used by Rahul when he was the party vice president. Scindia was also allotted an office in the same room, in a way to show that as Uttar Pradesh in-charges, both he and Priyanka are on the same pedestal, reports IANS. Priyanka, who has been given the responsibility of reviving the Congress in the Uttar Pradesh, will visit Lucknow on Monday on her first trip to the state after being given the charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh. She will be accompanied by Rahul Gandhi and Jyotiraditya Scindia - all three visiting the crucial state for the first time after the appointments announced last month. Congress workers are planning a road show when the three leaders travel from the airport to the party's state headquarter. The party in Uttar Pradesh is seeing the visit as the virtual launch of the Congress campaign in the state, ahead of the coming Lok Sabha elections. New Delhi: A woman was stabbed to death in the national capital by a jilted lover, a police officer said. The accused, identified as Shyam Yadav, was apprehended when he was planning to flee Delhi. Yadav is a native of Pansalwa in Madhubani district of Bihar and further investigation is underway. "The accused identified as Shyam, works as a constructor in a shoe factory where the deceased also used to work under him. He was apprehended on Thursday morning from West Delhi's Nangloi area, following a tip-off. The weapon used in the crime was also recovered," Additional Commissioner of Police Rajender Singh Sagar told IANS. As per reports, the woman - mother of five kids - had left the job after sensing Yadav's desperation. However, the accused started following her and used to visit outside her house very often. The incident took place on Wednesday night when Madhuri was walking outside her residence with her younger daughter. "Seeing Madhuri alone, Shyam came to her and stabbed her over half a dozen times following an argument after she refused to elope with him. When her daughter came to rescue Madhuri, Shyam dragged her and escaped," Sagar said. "Locals informed the police and Madhuri was taken to the hospital where she was later declared dead. During the investigation, it was found that Madhuri was already married and a mother of five children. Shyam used to harass her. He was forcing her to get married to him from the last few days," the officer added. However, Madhuris family members alleged that she had earlier filed a complaint against Shyam after he threatened her with dire consequences if she turned down his marriage proposal. For all the Latest Crime News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Honda Cars India Ltd (HCIL) recently reported a 23 per cent increase in its domestic sales to 18,261 units in January. The company had sold 14,838 units in the domestic market in January 2018, HCIL said in a statement. The company also exported 200 units last month. "Responding to the tepid market situation with extensive marketing efforts, including on-ground activations focusing on tier 2 and 3 markets, drove sales of all Honda models in the month," HCIL Senior VP and Director-Sales and Marketing Rajesh Goel said. With additional benefits in direct taxes announced in the Interim Budget presented on February 1st, the company expects the consumer sentiment to improve in the coming months, he added. During the ongoing financial year, the company has registered a cumulative sales growth of 5.7 per cent, selling 1,53,058 units, as compared with 1,44,802 units in the corresponding period last year. The auto giant recently said it will increase prices of its vehicles by up to Rs 10,000 from next month in order to partially offset the impact of increase in commodity prices and foreign exchange rates. The company will hike price of its premium SUV CR-V by Rs 10,000 and other models by up to Rs 7,000 from February, Honda Cars India Ltd (HCIL) said in a statement. "There has been a huge pressure on costs owing to commodity prices and foreign exchange rates and we had been trying to hold this increase for as long as possible. However, we are now compelled to pass on a part of the increased costs to customers effective February 1," HCIL Senior Vice President and Director Sales and Marketing Rajesh Goel said. The company currently sells a range of products in the country from hatchback Brio to premium sedan Accord Hybrid. Earlier, during the month, Maruti Suzuki India had announced price hike for its select models by up to Rs 10,000. Besides MSI, automakers like Toyota Kirloskar Motor and utility vehicle maker Isuzu Motors India had also announced plans to hike prices of their respective models from January this year. Please purchase a subscription read this premium content. If you have a subscription, please sign up for a digital website account or log in. Members of a South African political party are facing backlash for saying the world was free of "three future problems" after a group of white children died when a concrete slab fell on them at school. Four children died and another 23 were injured at Hoerskool Driehoek in South Africa when a concrete slab above a corridor came crashing down last Friday. Members of political party Black First Land First (BLF) commented on social media that the childrens' deaths were a sign that "God is responding". Facebook User Siyanda Gumede commented on a Facebook post about the school incident, saying he doesn't "have the heart to feel pain for white kids". His comment was supported by BLF, who said "why should we frown on the ancestors' petitions to punish the land thieves including their offspring?" The South African Human Rights Commission told local sources that the comments were "insensitive, offensive, and inappropriate and do not align with the ideals and aspirations of our constitutional democracy". Trade Union 'Solidarity' announced its plans to hold the BLF spokesperson Lyndsay Maasdorp liable for the remarks made about the school tragedy. "As a society we should not tolerate a person who celebrates the death of four children. "In this instance a clear message must therefore be sent that such statements are contemptible and unwelcome." Newshub. Pope Francis has confirmed that a congregation of nuns in France was dissolved after reports they were being used as 'sexual slaves'. On Tuesday Pope Francis told CBS News US that nuns had been, and are still subject to, sexual abuse from Catholic priests and bishops. In the worst cases, have been treated as slaves by clergy. He said, in one case, nuns at the French Community of St. Jean were abused so badly that the entire congregation was dissolved by his predecessor, Pope Benedict. The order was dissolved in 2005, but the reason for this was never made public. Pope Francis said that the work of his predecessor had been crucial in the fight against sexual crime within the church, reported CBS. "Pope Benedict had the courage to dissolve a female congregation which was at a certain level, because this slavery of women who had entered it - slavery, even to the point of sexual slavery - on the part of clerics or the founder," the Pope said. "I would like to underscore that he was a man who had the courage to do many things on this topic." He told reporters that the Catholic Church "shouldn't be scandalised by this" and that officials were working on steps and a process to weed out similar on-going behaviours, reports CBS. The Vatican has become more open in recent years about the abuse of nuns after years of stories about young boys across the globe being subjected to abuse at the hands of clergy members. Newshub. A Florida politician has resigned after being accused of licking the face of a former city manager. Commissioner Nancy Oakley is facing accusations that she sexually assaulted a former city manager at a fishing tournament in 2012, reports ABC Action News. The Florida Commission on Ethics issued a report on its findings that said the commissioner had possibly violated state law when she licked the face of, and inappropriately, touched the victim. The report cited multiple witness reports and said the city manager had not reported the incident at the time for fear of losing his job. He filed a formal complaint in 2017 when she filed for re-election, says ABC Action News. The Miami Herald reported that Oakley had resigned in order to not be fired, knowing what the report would uncover. Since the issue was reported, many others have said that Oakley had acted in similar ways towards other members of staff. The sponsor of the fishing tournament where Oakley allegedly licked the city manager said Oakley had also licked his face and the faces of many other people at other fishing tournaments, according to the Miami Herald. Newshub. France has recalled its ambassador to Italy after what it claimed were the most provocative verbal attacks from the country's leaders since the Second World War. On Friday (NZ Time), the French foreign office issued a statement questioning the Italian Government's intentions towards France after a series of comments from Italy's two deputy Prime Ministers. In recent months, the two right-wing deputy Prime Ministers, Matteo Salvini and Luigi Di Maio, have made several scathing remarks towards French President Emmanuel Macron, relating to immigration and the yellow vest demonstrations. Mr Di Maio met with yellow vest leaders this week as they seek to run in European parliament elections, saying that a "new Europe is being born of the yellow vests" and the "wind of change has crossed the alps". The so-called yellow vest protesters have been demonstrating throughout Paris and other French cities against high living costs and the perceived indifference of Mr Macron towards their issues. France called the comments provocative and said they showed a "lack of respect for democratic choice by a nation that is our friend and ally". "For several months, France has been the target of repeated accusations, baseless attacks and outrageous remarks... unprecedented since the end of World War II," the country's statement said. "The European election campaign is no justification for a lack of respect toward any nation or its democracy." France said in light of "this unprecedented situation" it would recall its ambassador for "consultations", and called on Italy to restore its relationship based on friendship. Mr Salvini responded to the statement by saying that the Italian Government didn't want to fall out with France and that it would be open for a meeting with Mr Macron. But he also called on France to end border checks blocking traffic, send back 15 Italian left-wing militants who were taking refuge in France, and for French police to stop forcing migrants back into Italy. Newshub. 5:15pm- Nelson mayor Rachel Reese said her main message was for locals to continue to listen to the mesages of Fire and Emergency. She also said that people should reach out to others who may be on their own or may be "really anxious". 5:00pm- Zane Hooper from the police, said that their main message was for residents in south Wai-Iti to prepare to evacuate, as it is the area of most concern. That notice of prepare to evacuate was issued yesterday. Anyone who wishes to self-evacuate needs to register with Civil Defence. "It is critically important that people in this area take all precautions now in relation to being able to move if they are asked to by police," he said. Mr Hooper said if the message is sent out to evacuate, police would go door-to-door. He said police would have a high presence and there would be no access to Wakefield. "If you have no business being in that area, don't go there." 4:40pm- The Tasman fire is less than two kilometres away from Wakefield, and at a press conference, Fire spokesperson, John Sutton, said the high winds continue to be a major threat. "It is one of those timebombs that is sitting if the wind does change," he said. He said 100 firefighters would continue working overnight to extinguish any hot spots. Roger Ball, the Nelson-Tasman Civil Defence group controller, said there is no prospect of the declaration of emergency relating to Pigeon Valley being lifted anytime soon. The New Zealand Defence Force continues to have a major presence, operating convoys to allow traffic through State Highway 6. Restricted access was provided to residents in the Redwood Valley to return to their home to check on stock and grab some belongings. Mr Ball said the community meetings held on Saturday morning were "well-attended" and more are planned for on Monday. The local Wakefield Primary School and some pre-schools would not be opened on Monday. The Pigeon Valley fire remained active overnight and 200 properties have been evacuated there. Around 860 properties have been evacuated at Wakefield, while Mr Ball said remaining residents should be prepared to evacuate as a precaution. 4:00pm- Carolyn Press-McKenzie from HUHA (Helping You Help Animals) said their temporary shelter for animals displaced by the fires had become extremely busy in recent days. "Unfortunately we have got busy, we have over 300 animals in our care now," she said. Ms Press-McKenzie said there was a variety of animals, including 150 turkeys and chickens, and an assortment of goats and sheep among them. While everyone was on edge, seeing which way the wind would go, she said she was impressed by the locals' resilience. "I had a little cry earlier, I think it was a sense of pride and a sense of distress, and seeing what an amazing community this is." Fizzy drinks at schools are in the firing line, with the Green Party calling for healthier food in schools. The party is calling for the return of food in school guidelines scrapped ten years ago. Green Party MP Gareth Hughes says it's an epidemic. "Last year we saw 29,000 kids have their teeth pulled, obesity is going up - we are facing an epidemic - and our schools are still selling pies and cokes and chips and lollies." The Greens want some cafeteria staples given 'treat food' status in schools - so they wouldn't be sold every day. Instead it would be food like teriyaki chicken and filled rolls. "I think we're a food bowl in New Zealand. We could be providing nutritious, affordable food for every kid" says Mr Hughes. The party surveyed 75 schools and found out 22 percent sell fizzy drinks, 25 percent sell lollies, and 51 percent sell potato chips. The Greens want the Government to reinstate a decade-old guideline that schools makes only healthy food available. The national administration guideline came into effect in June 2008, and required Boards of Trustees to promote healthy food and nutrition for students, and ensure only healthy options are available for purchase in schools. Ministers at the time literally danced when they announced measures aimed at getting Kiwis active and tackling obesity. The party was short-lived - National dumped the regulation when they were elected in 2008, but left the requirement that schools promote healthy food. "We need to acknowledge the world's moved on since 10 years ago, so we need to acknowledge many more schools are providing healthy options and it is a bit nanny state" says National MP Nikki Kaye. Mr Hughes disagrees that it's a 'nanny state'. "Not at all. This is simply about providing some national leadership and guidance to schools. We are leaving it up to them and kids are missing out." Parents in Newtown mixed on who should make decisions about the food kids buy at school. Associate Health Minister, Jenny Salesa has asked officials to work on ways to make schools healthier, including food guidelines. But a spokesperson for the Minister couldn't say whether schools will end up with food requirements or just recommendations. Newshub. A 'rush to judgment' on Northam Goaded by politicized news and social media, the American people have been herded onto a rush to judgment train that is hurtling us toward the destruction of civil society. Whatever happened to the notion of innocent until proven guilty that was the bedrock of our countrys founding? Not only in the case of Gov. Ralph Northam, but earlier, the Covington High School students and, of course, the Kavanaugh hearings. We dont know whether Northam is a racist. He says he is not, and his conduct since the time of the infamous photograph (whether he is in it or not) appears to indicate he is not. Labeling someone as racist on the basis of a photograph showing two figures in what are today considered politically incorrect costumes and asking for his resignation on that basis is a rush to judgment. Yes, whoever is in that picture demonstrated stupidity, insensitivity and immaturity but not necessarily racism. Who among us has not done or said something so colossally stupid in our youth that we still cringe when reminded of it? (And hope no one has photographs or a recording!) The committees are expected to vote on the legislation on Friday for action by both chambers on Monday so it can go to Northam for signature within seven days. Secretary of Finance Aubrey Layne, who played a pivotal role in the agreement, plans to attend both committee meetings to express the administration's support. "I am pleased we have reached an agreement on tax policy that is equitable for all Virginians and allows them to keep more of their paychecks," Northam said in a statement. "I want to thank Secretary Aubrey Layne for his hard work on this compromise, which will ensure that Virginians will have certainty this tax season and can file their returns in a timely manner," the governor said. Northam has been under political siege since a scandal erupted a week ago after publication of a racist photo on his medical school yearbook page in 1984. He has been pressured by both Democratic and Republican leaders to resign, but he has made clear that he will not step down while he attempts to clear his name. A fourth man charged with the Aug. 12, 2017 beating of DeAndre Harris pleaded guilty to malicious wounding in Charlottesville Circuit Court Friday. Tyler Watkins Davis, 50, from Florida, entered an Alford plea Friday, acknowledging the Commonwealth had enough evidence to convict him but disputing that he was acting with malice when he struck Harris. Davis was the most recent of the four men to be charged and will be the last to be sentenced. According to Nina-Alice Antony, assistant commonwealths attorney for Charlottesville, Davis can be seen on video evidence striking Harris once in the head with a tire thumper. Antony said the area on Harris head it appears the thumper struck is consistent with a head wound he sustained that required stitches. Because Davis used a weapon to strike Harris in the head, Antony said the Commonwealth believed he acted with malice. Davis attorney Matthew L. Engle said the date of the crime had been intense and violent due to the Unite the Right rally, which saw white supremacists flock to Virginia to ostensibly protest the proposed removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. I think that it offers a real opportunity for educators and other professionals who touch the lives of African American children to get a deeper understanding into why its so important to understand the life experiences of African American kids, he added. Lester said the series provides real tools such as talking points for individuals to implement when interacting with children on a daily basis. Student success is so important for the future of individuals as well as our whole community, so it is really important that the community come around and support our young people, she said. Jeanell Smith, with the Virginia Cooperative Extension Family Assistance Program, said the program is beneficial to everyone, not just those in education. After each webinar video, a community leader who has participated in inclusion or equity work will facilitate a discussion about the topic. Smith said the hope is these discussions will facilitate a thoughtful dialogue that engages the community and prompts action. This cant be done with just one or two people in a school it has to be a district wide embrace; it has to be a community wide embrace, Cardwell said. I emphasize community because the schools cant do it by themselves. In fact, from my vantage point, we are asking the school districts to do much more than what their core mission and responsibility is and the community needs to take some of that responsibility back. Michigan-based Bells Brewery Inc. has stopped shipping its beers to the entire Virginia market as part of an unresolved distribution dispute with the nations largest beer distributor. Bells Brewery ceased shipment of its beers including the popular Hopslam, Two Hearted Ale and Oberon Ale to the Richmond-area market in December as it attempts to get out of its contract with Premium Distributors of Virginia. When Premium Distributors of Virginia acquired Henrico County-based Loveland Distributing Co. in December, it also acquired Lovelands distribution territory and its regional distribution contracts with such brands as Coors, Corona, Guinness, Miller and more than 25 craft beers, including Bells. Premium Distributors of Virginia is a division of the nations largest beer distributor, Illinois-based Reyes Holdings. On Feb. 1, Bells announced it would stop shipping its beer to the entire state, regardless of the distributor or its parent company. Because of the laws in the state of Virginia, if I stayed in the market, we see a significant risk to our business, said Larry Bell, founder and president of Bells Brewery. Bells Brewery is the 16th-largest brewery in the country and the seventh-largest craft brewery. Simultaneously, Congress chief Rahul Gandhi addressed a farmers' rally at Bhopal's BHEL Jamboree Maidan. Attacking the Modi government over the Rafale report in Hindu, he said Prime Minister Narendra Modi made the aircraft deal directly with the French government without informing our Defence Ministry. He also attacked the government over the budget announcement of Rs 6,000 per year cash support for farmers, saying, Modi government wrote off Rs 3.50 lakh crore debt of rich people but gives a paltry Rs 17 per day to farmers. A media report on PMO allegedly undermining the Rafale negotiations with France has given Congress chief Rahul Gandhi-led opposition fresh ammunition against the Narendra Modi government in the run-up to elections. Gandhi said the government can use the law against his brother-in-law Robert Vadra and former finance minister P Chidambaram, who are under the ED scanner, but must answer questions on Rafale. Cornered in the Lok Sabha by the opposition, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the Congress is flogging a dead horse. Meanwhile, there is also speculation that the Congress president is likely to announce an unemployment dole, in an effort to match incentives announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Party's media cell coordinator Narendra Saluja termed the MP event a "thanksgiving rally" where farmers would felicitate Gandhi for the farm loan waiver announced in the state after a Congress-led government under Chief Minister Kamal Nath took over. Gandhi, during the campaign for the MP Assembly polls in November last year, had promised a farm loan waiver if his party was elected to power. "All top Congress leaders from the state, including (CM) Kamal Nath ji, Jyotiraditya Scindia ji (AICC general secretary) and Digvijay Singh ji (ex-CM), will participate in the rally," he said. Congress spokesperson Pankaj Chaturvedi claimed more than two lakh farmers from the state are likely to participate in the rally. The MP government had earlier said the Rs 50,000 crore farm loan waiver scheme titled 'Jai Kisan Rin Mukti Yojana' would benefit 50-55 lakh farmers. Under the scheme, loans up to Rs 2 lakh of eligible farmers are to be waived off. The government has said that farmers will start receiving benefits of the waiver in their bank accounts from February 22. The Vilcek Foundation is pleased to announce the winners of the 2019 Vilcek Foundation Prizes for Biomedical Science, awarded to immigrants who have made significant contributions to the field. Dr. Angelika Amon will receive the $100,000 Vilcek Prize, while Drs. Amit Choudhary, Jeanne T. Paz, and Mikhail G. Shapiro will each receive the $50,000 Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise. "Immigrant scientists are behind some of the most transformative discoveries made on American soil, as epitomized by the winners of the Vilcek Foundation Prizes," says Jan Vilcek, Chairman and CEO of the Vilcek Foundation. "Their work has extraordinary implications for our understanding of human biology and our prospects for treating human disease." The Vilcek Prize, awarded to individuals with records of significant accomplishment, is bestowed to Austrian-born molecular and cell biologist Angelika Amon, the Kathleen and Curtis Marble professor of cancer research and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Amon studies cell growth and division, and how errors in these processes contribute to birth defects and cancer. Her research has identified molecular, protein, and spatial signals crucial to triggering progression in cell division, as well as how certain errors in cell division, a state called aneuploidy, lead to disorders like Down syndrome. Amon has also illuminated the interplay between aneuploidy and cancer cells, increasing the potential for new treatments capable of selectively targeting cancer cells. Among other honors, Amon has been elected into the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the European Molecular Biology Organization, and received the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences and the Ernst Jung Prize for Medicine. The Vilcek Prizes for Creative Promise are awarded to emerging biomedical scientists who have shown exceptional promise early in their careers. The recipients are the following: Amit Choudhary's research lies at the intersection of physics, biology, and chemistry. He identified a fundamental force integral to the structures of biomolecules like proteins and nucleic acids, opening up avenues for new modes of drug design and delivery, as well as insight into molecules tied to the origin of life. He refined controls for the genome-editing enzyme CRISPR-Cas9 to minimize unintended effects, increasing its potential for treating genetic disorders and curbing vector-borne diseases. His research on binge-eating snakes led to insights on insulin-secreting pancreatic beta cells, suggesting possible therapeutic approaches for human diabetes. Choudhary, born in India, is an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, a member of the Renal Division faculty at Brigham and Women's Hospital, and an associate member of Broad Institute. Jeanne T. Paz uses optogenetics, a technique in which light is used to control genetically modified brain cells in living animals, to understand the brain mechanisms underlying epileptic seizures in rodent models. Her work revealed the role of the basal ganglia and thalamus in mediating seizures with a genetic underpinning, as well as those following stroke-induced brain damage. Her research forms the potential basis for predicting and arresting seizures, even in cases of intractable epilepsy, with implications for treating brain disorders such as dementia as well. Paz, born in Georgia (then part of the Soviet Union), is an assistant investigator at the Gladstone Institutes and assistant professor at the University of California, San Francisco. Mikhail G. Shapiro developed a new class of noninvasive imaging tools to visualize molecules and structures in living organisms at high resolution. Shapiro fashioned sensors allowing magnetic resonance imaging to visualize clinically relevant molecules, like dopamine, which play a role in various brain disorders. Then, he coopted structures known as gas vesicles, a biological feature in certain bacteria, to serve as ultrasound sensors; Shapiro also demonstrated that these and other biomolecules could be used to monitor and manipulate genetically engineered microbes, allowing for their greater potential as therapeutic drugs. Shapiro was born in Russia (then part of the Soviet Union), and is a professor of chemical engineering at the California Institute of Technology. The prizewinners were selected by independent panels of biomedical experts. In addition to biomedical science, the 2019 Vilcek Foundation Prizes also recognize immigrant contributions in culinary arts and art history. The prizewinners will be honored at a gala at the Mandarin Oriental in New York in spring 2019. The Vilcek Foundation was established in 2000 by Jan and Marica Vilcek, immigrants from the former Czechoslovakia. The mission of the foundation, to honor the contributions of immigrants to the United States and to foster appreciation of the arts and sciences, was inspired by the couple's careers in biomedical science and art history, as well as their appreciation for the opportunities they received as newcomers to this country. The foundation awards annual prizes to immigrant biomedical scientists and artists, sponsors cultural programs, and manages the Vilcek Foundation Art Collections. When women or men receive the worrisome diagnosis of breast cancer, that news comes with an important piece of information, namely, whether their cancer is HER2-positive or HER2-negative. It can be especially difficult to hear that one's cancer is HER2-negative, because it means an effective group of targeted anti-cancer drugs isn't available. A new study from the lab of Scripps Research chemist Matthew D. Disney, PhD, suggests that in the future, that might not be the final word on the matter. Writing in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, Disney's group describes shifting three different cancer cell lines from HER2-negative status to HER2-positive status with the addition of a selective micro-RNA binding molecule they referred to as TGP-515. It's a revolutionary idea, that a cancer's genotype might not have to be the limiting factor in its range of targeted treatment options. However, this is just a first step in a long series of work ahead to enable the technology to benefit cancer patients, Disney notes. The team designed their compound by using a mathematical system Disney developed called Inforna. The compound rendered the cancer cells vulnerable to both Herceptin (trastuzumab) and Kadcyla (ado-trastuzumab emtansine), both targeted therapeutics. Meanwhile, it left healthy breast cells unaffected. "It's possible that precision medicines like Herceptin can be made available to a wider group of people by altering gene expression with therapeutics that bind not to the proteins but to noncoding RNA," Disney says. About 20 percent of people diagnosed with breast cancer have the HER2-positive mutation, which means the surface of their cancer cells have more of the HER2 protein on them. While that mutation is associated with faster growing, more aggressive cancers, since 1998 it has come with good options for effective treatment. Since the monoclonal antibody drug Herceptin was introduced, 10-year disease-free survival rates for the HER2-positive breast cancer subtype surged to 84 percent. For breast cancer patients with dwindling options, switching on HER2 sensitivity might be life-changing, Disney says. "This study is proof of concept for the strategy of creating sensitivity to a drug where one otherwise wouldn't exist," Disney says. "It also validates the notion that transcription of genes can be modulated via small molecule compounds engineered to bind to relevant noncoding RNA. This means that supposedly untreatable diseases may, one day, be readily treatable. There is a long way to go for this to get to patients, however." There were many challenges that had to be overcome to create the effective compound, says first author Matthew G. Costales, a Scripps Research graduate student. Unintended targets had to be identified and blocked, and selectivity engineered into the molecule. Disney's computational system, Inforna, guided the efforts. The first compound the Inforna database highlighted bound to two different micro RNAs, both 885 and 515. That could have posed problems. Further refinement made it clear that a compound could be designed to be selective for one micro RNA but not the other. Eventually they created a molecule that successfully selected only for the desired microRNA, 515. The result was that the cells produced increased HER2 levels, making them sensitive to the drugs. "The demanding synthetic, biochemical, and cellular experiments described in this paper were three years in the making," Costales says. "It required tremendous effort, but the work is by no means complete. I am looking forward to future work guided by the lessons we learned here." Disney credits his colleague, Scripps Research chemist Alexander Adibekian, PhD, with helping understand the mechanisms of action of their compound, TGP-515, and demonstrating its selectivity. It's important to note that this is a first step toward making drugs to boost HER2 sensitivity where there is none, Disney says. Significant additional research lies ahead, he says. Successful tests in cultured cells must be followed with tests in mouse models of cancer, a process that will take several years. Financial support from the community, including Frenchman's Creek Women for Cancer Research, Alan and Susan Fuirst, and the R. J. Scheller Graduate Student Fellowship, has helped made the work possible. "These studies would not have been realized without the local support graciously provided by the community," Disney says. "I am incredibly grateful for the community taking the time to invest in the future of biomedical research completed here at Scripps Research." Healthcare-associated infections are the fourth leading cause of death in Canada, predicted to move up to second place by 2050. Scientists at the University of Toronto received $1.5 million in newly-announced funding from Genome Canada to support efforts to develop a new nanoparticle sensor technology that will allow hospitals and long-term care facilities to rapidly detect and visually identify highly infectious pathogens including C. difficile, methicillin-resistant S aureus (MRSA), Norovirus and influenza. "Patient-to-patient transmission of dangerous bacteria and viruses through contact with contaminated surfaces is a major problem in healthcare facilities," says Shana Kelley, University Professor and scientist at the University of Toronto's Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy. "The sensors that are the focus of this project will enable the rapid and sensitive detection of these pathogens on surfaces to enable their effective decontamination, and potentially reduce or prevent the spread of illness." Kelley and her team have partnered with Charlotte Products Ltd., a family-owned Canadian company that develops and manufactures innovative cleaning products. The company has developed an environmental monitoring system and optical sensor technology, called Optisolve Pathfinder, which is able to identify areas of biological contamination but not specific bacterial species. "To effectively prevent the spread of these illnesses, infection control experts need to be able to identify exactly what is on a surface in order to properly decontaminate it. By using nanomaterials enhanced with pathogen-specific recognition units, this information will be gleaned on site, without the need to wait and run tests in a lab offsite," says Kelley. Called OptiSolve Insight, the new system will significantly reduce healthcare-associated illness while also enabling infection control specialists to avoid taking a "worst-case scenario" approach to infection outbreaks, which can include bed closures and costly cancellation of procedures. The system could also be used to detect and identify pathogens in other high-risk locations like transit hubs and education facilities. "We hope that the research funded by Genome Canada will decrease rates of infection significantly, which will benefit patients and the healthcare system overall," says Kelley. In addition to the Genome Canada funding, the project is receiving support from the Ontario Centres of Excellence, University of Toronto and Charlotte Products Ltd that gives the project $4.5M in total funding. New research reveals RNAs, which are crucial for cells to produce proteins, are also involved in protein aggregation, where proteins do not fold properly and 'clump' together into aggregates. If cells cannot clear these away, they become toxic and prevent cells working properly. This discovery, led by scientists at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) in Barcelona, reveals that RNAs act as a 'scaffold' to hold several proteins that stick to RNAs together, and that certain RNA molecules with distinct properties attract more proteins and encourage proteins to aggregate. They also investigated how an RNA called FMR1 is implicated in a neurodegenerative disease called Fragile X Tremor Syndrome, or FXTAS. Many neurodegenerative diseases are linked to protein aggregation, including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and Alzheimer's disease. We know that proteins can form toxic aggregates, but until now, the contribution of nucleic acid molecules such as RNA has been up for debate. CRG researcher and ICREA Research Professor Gian Gaetano Tartaglia and CRG Alumni Teresa Botta-Orfila, and currently at Institut d'Investigacions Biomediques August Pi i Sunyer (IDIBAPS), wanted to understand how RNA can promote aggregation. In their research, published in the journal Cell Reports, they discovered that specific RNAs do indeed interact with many proteins within cells, and that these RNAs have distinct properties - they are structured, have a long area of untranslated genetic code called a UTR region, and often contain several repeats of genetic code (called CGG expansions) within them. "Using theoretical tools, Fernando Cid in the group investigated how an RNA called FMR1 attracts proteins in FXTAS," explains Gian Gaetano Tartaglia. "Together with Teresa we then worked out the proteins that bind to FMR1 using novel lab approaches and identified one of them as a protein called TRA2A. Using cells, mouse models of FXTAS and post-mortem samples from patients, we confirmed that TRA2A aggregates with FMR1 in this disease and we studied the consequences of its aggregation. Now that we know the components of some of these aggregates, we can begin to understand what is causing this disease and it may reveal new ways to treat it." Botta-Orfila continues: "We were surprised to find that our predicted interactions could act as biomarkers for the disease. And it was particularly exciting that we detected the TRA2A protein in the brains of people with the disease - it was one of the most important findings in my time at CRG. Lots of things suddenly made sense. The TRA2A protein that we discovered was involved in FXTAS is involved in RNA splicing, a crucial process that ensures the pieces of genetic code are in the correct order and produce the right protein. Because this protein aggregates in FXTAS, it isn't carrying out the splicing process correctly - and as a result many RNAs are altered and cannot work properly." And the team's biomarker discovery has raised more interesting questions that they'd like to answer. "Many of the genes that we found were deregulated because of protein aggregation are related to brain development, which is a key factor in disease development," explains Gian Gaetano Tartaglia. The team now have an arsenal of proteins to test for FXTAS, and they would like to extend their work to other complex diseases. In the longer term, they would also like to discover the function of sticky RNAs. Together, this work could improve our understanding of complex diseases where protein aggregation is important and could ultimately reveal new ways to treat them. Source: https://www.crg.eu/en/news/rnas-play-key-role-protein-aggregation-and-neurodegenerative-disease-according-new-research Pregnant women face a much greater risk of having a fatal, but less common, type of stroke caused by bleeding into the brain, according to results of two studies presented by The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) at the International Stroke Conference 2019. A study led by senior author Farhaan Vahidy, PhD, MBBS, MPH, found that pregnant women and those who recently gave birth were three to 10 times more likely to suffer intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), which occurs when a blood vessel inside the brain bursts and spills blood into or around the brain. Vahidy is an associate professor of neurology at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth and director of the Population Health & Health Services Research Division at UTHealth Institute for Stroke and Cerebrovascular Disease. "It's important to remember that stroke is uncommon among the younger female population. Women undergo a number of physiological changes while pregnant, so we hypothesized that pregnancy would confer a higher ICH risk," said first author and presenter Jennifer Meeks, MS, a research coordinator in the Department of Neurology at McGovern Medical School. "However, the scale of the increase was highly significant and strikingly greater than what was anticipated." Women with a history of other medical conditions such as high blood pressure and diabetes were found to be at a greater risk of ICH. Those who had preeclampsia or eclampsia were 10 times more likely to suffer ICH, according to the study. Using publicly available administrative data, researchers analyzed more than 3.3 million deliveries among women in hospitals in New York, California, and Florida. The same women, age 28 on average, were followed and served as their own controls when no longer pregnant or postpartum. "The results showed that the risk of ICH starts to increase during the third trimester and continues to rise into an extended postpartum period. Other attributes, such as race, also appeared to influence the likelihood. For instance, black women were twice as likely as white women to suffer ICH and Asian women were 1.68 times more likely," Meeks said. "Further research is required to more precisely predict those groups of women who are at an increased risk of ICH during pregnancy so preventive measures may be taken." There are two types of stroke, hemorrhagic and ischemic, which occurs when a blood vessel carrying blood to the brain is blocked by a clot. Around 15 percent of all strokes are hemorrhagic, but they account for approximately 40 percent of all stroke deaths, according to the National Stroke Association. In the second study, researchers found women with arteriovenous malformation (AVM), an abnormal tangle of blood vessels in the brain, had increased incidence of ICH from AVM rupture during pregnancy. Results showed women with AVMs were almost 3 times more likely to have ICH associated with pregnancy and delivery. "Researchers have suspected that brain AVMs are more likely to bleed with pregnancy, but because they are uncommon, this connection was hard to prove. In our study, we looked at millions of women; the data confirmed this and were very compelling," said Sunil Sheth, MD, the senior author, who is an assistant professor of vascular and interventional neurology at McGovern Medical School. The study analyzed data from nearly 6.3 million women, age 28 on average, with first-time pregnancy in hospitals in New York and Florida. Of these patients, 1,024 (0.02 percent) had an AVM, which was linked to a 340 percent increased risk of ICH during the pregnancy period. "An AVM is like having a little bomb in the head, which creates an explosion of blood in the brain if it ruptures. When this happens it can put the mother and baby in considerable danger," Sheth said. The abstract called for further research and improved methods to reduce ICH risk. "We need to understand exactly what is happening - why do AVMs bleed in the first place and what is causing this substantially higher risk among pregnant women who have them?" Sheth said. "These findings could change the conversation of care for a very particular patient group. If we know a woman with a brain AVM is planning a pregnancy, it may be appropriate to treat the AVM before pregnancy or counsel for close monitoring during pregnancy." Source: https://www.uth.edu/news/story.htm?id=5d2d8b9a-d1b4-4dc9-86fc-344378006898 A phthalate found in many plastic and personal care products may decrease fertility in female mice, a new study found. Researchers at the University of Illinois found that giving female mice oral doses of the phthalate DiNP for 10 days disrupted their reproductive cycles, decreasing their ability to become pregnant for up to nine months afterward. The findings, reported recently in the journal Toxicological Sciences, add to a growing body of research that links phthalates, also called plasticizers, with various reproductive abnormalities and other health problems in rodents. Phthalates, which are added to plastic and vinyl to make them softer, flexible and more durable, are found in many types of consumer goods, including food and beverage packaging, vinyl flooring, medical devices and cosmetics. Research studies have reported a variety of health risks associated with the phthalates that the mice in the study consumed, DiNP and DEHP. These studies include a 2015 study in mice by U. of I. scientist Jodi Flaws' research group, which found that DEHP disrupted hormone signaling and the growth and functioning of the ovaries. That study was published in the journal Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology. However, much of the previous research on phthalates used very high dosages that don't reflect real-world exposure levels and the potential effects on female reproduction, said graduate student Katie (Catheryne) Chiang, a co-author of the current study with Flaws. To investigate these phthalates' effects on female fertility, female mice were fed corn oil solutions containing environmentally relevant concentrations of DEHP or DiNP ranging from 20 micrograms to 200 milligrams per kilogram of body weight. Such doses are comparable to the levels of exposure that people may experience during their daily living and work activities, Chiang said. After the 10-day dosing period ended, the phthalate-treated female mice and their counterparts in the control group were paired with untreated male partners twice for breeding. "At three months post-dosing, a third of the females that were treated with the lowest doses of DEHP and DiNP were unable to conceive after mating, while 95 percent of the females in the control group became pregnant," Chiang said. "The thing that was really concerning was that these females' fertility was impaired long after their exposure to the chemicals stopped," said Flaws, a professor of comparative biosciences at Illinois. As in Flaws' 2015 study, the findings suggested that steroid hormone production and signaling were disrupted. At three months and nine months post-dosing, the DiNP-treated females' estrous cycles differed from those of the control group. The proestrus stage, when the ovarian follicles grow rapidly and fertility increases, was shorter. However, the latter stages of the cycle, the metestrus and diestrus stages - during which the ovaries produce progesterone and the uterine lining forms - were longer. In examining the mice immediately after the 10-day dosing period, the researchers also found that the treated females' uteruses weighed significantly less than those of the females in the control group. However, they found no such differences at the three-month and nine-month intervals. Among the females treated with the lowest doses of DEHP or DiNP, there was a significant reduction in the number that became pregnant and produced pups compared with the control group. Chiang and Flaws hypothesized that dysregulation of the mice's steroidal hormones made their uterine linings less receptive to embryo implantation. There's a narrow window of time when the endometrial lining of the uterus is receptive to implantation and a female's sex steroid hormones must be well regulated for it to occur, according to the study. Or, perhaps phthalate exposure accelerated the end of the female mice's reproductive lifespans, reducing their chances of becoming pregnant, the researchers said. Other studies have reported that phthalate exposure in humans through cosmetics and personal care products can trigger reproductive aging, causing women to enter menopause several years early. While the findings of the U. of I. study are yet to be replicated in humans, Chiang and Flaws said they warrant further investigation, particularly into DEHP's and DiNP's potential effects on the ovaries and the production of sex steroid hormones. "These chemicals' half-lives in the body are relatively short," Flaws said. "They tend to be broken down quickly and the metabolites excreted in urine within a couple of days. It's troubling that these effects were continuing several months later." Scientists from ITMO in collaboration with their international colleagues proposed new DNA-based nanomachines that can be used for gene therapy of cancer. This new invention can greatly contribute to making the treatment of oncological diseases more effective and selective. The results were published in Angewandte Chemie. Gene therapy is considered one of the promising ways of treating oncological diseases, even though the current approaches are far from perfect. Oftentimes, the agents fail to discern malignant cells from healthy ones, and are bad at interacting with folded RNA targets. In order to solve this issue, scientists, including a Russian team from ITMO University headed by professor Dmitry Kolpashchikov, proposed special nanomachines. Their operation principle is based on using particular molecules, deoxyribozymes, which can interact with targeted RNA, bind them, unfold and cleave. According to the scientists' idea, these nanomachines have to recognize DNA oncomarkers and form complexes that can break down messenger RNA of vital genes with high selectivity, which will then result in apoptotic death of malignant cells. The researchers have tested the efficiency of the new machines in a model experiment and learned that they can cleave folded RNA molecules better than the original deoxyribozymes. They showed that the design of the nanomachine makes it possible to break down targeted RNA in the presence of a DNA oncomarker only, and the use of RNA-unfolding arms provides for the machine's better efficiency. The scientists also learned that the nanomachine can inhibit the growth of malignant cells, though cellular experiments didn't show high specificity. The researchers associate such a result with a possibly poor choice of the RNA target and a low stability of DNA structures in the cell. The new approach differs fundamentally from the ones used before. The existing gene therapy agents are aimed at suppressing the expression of oncological markers. In the research in question, the scientists focused on the messenger RNA of vital genes, and the oncological marker was used as an activator. This makes it possible to apply the DNA nanomachine in treating any kind of cancer by using new DNA oncomarkers for activating the breaking down of targeted molecules. The new invention opens new ways of treating oncological diseases. Still, there are many experiments to be conducted before it can be applied in therapy. "For now, we are trying to introduce new functional elements in the framework, ones that will contribute to a more effective recognition of oncological markers, and are also optimizing the DNA nanomachine for various RNA targets. In order to improve the efficiency and selectiveness of our constructions in cellular conditions, we are selecting new RNA targets and studying the stability of DNA machines in cells, which we plan to improve with the help of the already existing chemical modifications," comments Daria Nedorezova, Master's student at ITMO University. JUUL is one of the fastest growing vaping companies, with its main customer base being young adults. For many years, the company has been steadily raising the nicotine content of its e-cigarettes, with little scrutiny. Now, a report has been published stating that the company has undone decades of public health messages and campaigns that have tried to keep children and teenagers away from nicotine. Fedorovacz | Shutterstock The report, which was written by a team at Stanford University and led by Dr. Robert Jackler, was published in the latest issue of the BMJ journal Tobacco Control, entitled, Nicotine arms race: JUUL and the high-nicotine product market. The company initially used 1 to 2 percent nicotine refills, but quickly increased this to 5 percent, spurring other vaping companies to raise their nicotine levels too. The effect of this has been huge. Now, almost all refills contain 5 to 7 percent nicotine. When Juul came out with very high-nicotine electronic cigarettes, it triggered a nicotine arms race amongst competitive companies seeking to emulate the success of Juul. Dr. Robert Jackler, Lead Author A 5 percent pod delivers the same amount of nicotine as a packet of cigarettes, write the authors of the study. Jackler explained that such high amounts of nicotine may be a benefit to addicted adult smokers, who were trying to quit smoking, but it also makes it potently addictive to nicotine-naive teenagers. There is a steady rise in vaping among teenagers in the US and health advocates are calling for the US Food and Drug Administration to enforce stricter laws and regulations. In a statement released in 2017, the FDA said it is, committed to encouraging innovations that have the potential to make a notable public health difference and inform policies and efforts that will best protect kids and help smokers quit cigarettes. Juul spokeswoman, Victoria Davis said, As part of our commitment to prevent underage use, we are taking swift and decisive action against counterfeit and infringing products. Researchers at Duke-NUS Medical School have demonstrated for the first time a physical interaction between two types of immune cells that plays an important role in the early fight against dengue virus infection. Dengue virus is widespread in the tropics and is transmitted by mosquitos. Dengue virus infection incidence has grown dramatically in recent years, with estimates suggesting 390 million infections annually. It manifests as a severe, flu-like illness with high fever, and can in some cases develop into a life-threatening condition. No treatments exist for dengue fever. A vaccination does exist but is only recommended for use in people who have had dengue at least once before. "We need much better vaccinations for dengue and for related viral pathogens that are injected into the skin by mosquitoes," said Dr Ashley St. John, Assistant Professor of Duke-NUS' Emerging Infectious Diseases (EID) Signature Research Programme and corresponding author of the study. Very little is known about how the immune system first recognizes viruses, such as dengue virus, in the skin, she explains. Understanding how this happens could help design better vaccines for this and similar viruses. Dr St. John and study co-author Dr Chinmay Mantri, a Research Fellow in the EID Programme, investigated the role played by a type of immune cell, called a mast cell, which patrols the skin to guard against infections. Mast cells are largely known for recruiting other types of immune cells through the release of special attracting chemicals. Much is understood about how mast cells react in the presence of bacteria and parasites, but investigations into their roles with viruses have only recently begun. The researchers analysed how the dengue virus reacted in an animal model without any mast cells and compared the responses to animals with normal numbers of mast cells in order to determine which reactions were dependent on the presence of mast cells. They found that mast cells attracted several types of immune cells to the site of infection. One of these is called gamma delta () T cells. Not only were T cells attracted to the infection site, they also physically interacted with the mast cells, something not previously observed in viral infections. The T cells bound to a receptor present on the mast cells called the endothelial protein C receptor. This so-called 'immune synapse' led to the T cells activating, proliferating, and producing interferon gamma, which initiated their role in killing cells infected with dengue. "These [immune synapse] structures of cells in the process of communication were very exciting and visually striking to us when we first made this observation, and provide a glimpse into the ways that cells must work together to fight infection," said Dr St. John. Professor Patrick Casey, Senior Vice Dean of Research, Duke-NUS Medical School, commented, "According to recent news, the number of dengue cases in Singapore since the start of 2019 have been at their highest in over two years. This timely study is all the more important as an example of how we develop insights from outstanding basic research that can one day lead to clinical innovations to protect against such diseases." Source: https://www.duke-nus.edu.sg/news/interaction-between-two-immune-cell-types-could-be-key-better-dengue-vaccines-duke-nus-study Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, February 8) Nearly all barangays (villages) in North Cotabato which took part in Wednesday's plebiscite will join the new Bangsamoro autonomous region, according to the provincial office of the Commission on Elections (Comelec). In total, 63 out of the total 67 villages will form part of the new region. Based on unofficial tally from the North Cotabato plebiscite board of canvassers, all barangays from the towns of Carmen, Kabacan, Midsayap, and Pigkawayan got double majority "yes" votes. Two villages in Aleosan and 22 villages in Pikit will also be included in the new Bangsamoro. However, Barangay Galidan-- the only village which petitioned for inclusion in Tulunan town-- failed to get enough "yes" votes. Results from North Cotabato will then be transmitted to the National Plebiscite Board of Canvassers (NPBOC) at the Comelec headquarters in Manila. The NPBOC will determine the final and official tally for the historic Bangsamoro plebiscite. Once results are declared final, the villages will form part of the soon-to-be-established Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), which will comprise the provinces in the current Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (except Isabela City, Basilan) as well as Cotabato City. Meanwhile, the six towns in Lanao del Norte which also participated in Wednesday's plebiscite failed to get double majority of "yes" votes needed for them to break away and join the new autonomous region. When the areas covered by the BARMM are established, President Rodrigo Duterte is expected to appoint members of the Bangsamoro Transition Authority, which will include incumbent officials of the regional government. CNN Philippines Correspondent Triciah Terada contributed to this report. UF biologist joins team led by Brazilian Ministry of Health to tackle endemic viruses In the epicenter of the Zika epidemic in northeast Brazil, 73 percent of people living in an urban slum in Salvador were infected in 2015. However, in this highly affected population, those with immunity to dengue, a genetically similar virus, had a reduced risk of infection with Zika. University of Florida epidemiologist Derek Cummings is a senior author on the first study to explore the relationship between dengue antibodies and Zika resilience. This new research, published in Science on Feb. 8, 2019, offers insights into how immunity might be conferred from dengue-infected individuals exposed to Zika. "This study is the first to demonstrate that immunity to dengue can protect against Zika infection in human populations," said Cummings, professor of Biology and faculty in the Emerging Pathogens Institute. Led by the Brazilian Ministry of Health, a team including Cummings, as well as scientists from the Yale School of Public Health and the University of California San Francisco, examined a cohort of 1,453 residents participating in a long-term health survey in Pau da Lima, Salvador, Brazil. The residents may have been exposed to Zika during the 2015 outbreak in northeastern Brazil. The team then examined a subset of 642 dengue-infected residents and analyzed their risk for Zika. "Even though there was protective immunity in the population, this community was heavily infected," said Cummings. "We estimate that 73 percent of the population was infected by Zika." The team developed a unique assay that measured immunoglobulin G3, which responds to a key protein in Zika. Despite the study area comprising less than one-quarter of a square kilometer, the researchers found an overall attack rate of 73 percent, yet wide variation in the risk of Zika infection across short distances. Likely depending on environmental factors such as mosquito breeding grounds, rates of infection varied from a low of 29 percent to a high of 83 percent. Out of the 642 samples, 86 percent were positive for dengue, and for those with this prior immunity to dengue, each doubling of antibody titers was associated with a 9 percent reduction in risk of Zika infection. "Although there are pockets of susceptible populations which were not hit by Zika, the Zika pandemic has created overall high rates of immunity in the Americas, which will be a barrier for outbreaks for the next few years," said Cummings. Researchers found no evidence that the ACA reduced the proportion of bankruptcies driven by medical problems; insurance offered little protection to middle-class Americans Medical problems contributed to 66.5% of all bankruptcies, a figure that is virtually unchanged since before the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), according to a study published yesterday as an editorial in the American Journal of Public Health. The findings indicate that 530,000 families suffer bankruptcies each year that are linked to illness or medical bills. The study, carried out by a team of two doctors, two lawyers, and a sociologist from the Consumer Bankruptcy Project (CBP), surveyed a random sample of 910 Americans who filed for personal bankruptcy between 2013 and 2016, and abstracted the court records of their bankruptcy filings. The study, which is one component of the CBP's ongoing bankruptcy research, provides the only national data on medical contributors to bankruptcy since the 2010 passage of the ACA. Bankruptcy debtors reported that medical bills contributed to 58.5% of bankruptcies, while illness-related income loss contributed to 44.3%; many debtors cited both of these medical issues. These figures are similar to findings from the CBP's medical bankruptcy surveys in 2001 and 2007, which were authored by three researchers in the current study (Himmelstein, Thorne, and Woolhandler), and then-Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren. As in those earlier studies, many debtors cited multiple contributors to their financial woes. The current study found no evidence that the ACA reduced the proportion of bankruptcies driven by medical problems: 65.5% of debtors cited a medical contributor to their bankruptcy in the period prior to the ACA's implementation as compared to 67.5% in the three years after the law came into effect. The responses also did not differ depending on whether the respondent resided in a state that had accepted ACA's Medicaid expansion. The researchers noted that bankruptcy is most common among middle-class Americans, who have faced increasing copayments and deductibles in recent years despite the ACA. The poor, who were most helped by the ACA, less frequently seek formal bankruptcy relief because they have few assets (such as a home) to protect and face particular difficulty in securing the legal help needed to navigate formal bankruptcy proceedings. Relative to other bankruptcy filers, people who identified a medical contributor were in worse health and were two to three times more likely to skip needed medical care and medications. Dr. David Himmelstein, the lead author of the study, a Distinguished Professor at the City University of New York's (CUNY) Hunter College and Lecturer at Harvard Medical School commented: "Unless you're Bill Gates, you're just one serious illness away from bankruptcy. For middle-class Americans, health insurance offers little protection. Most of us have policies with so many loopholes, copayments and deductibles that illness can put you in the poorhouse. And even the best job-based health insurance often vanishes when prolonged illness causes job loss - just when families need it most. Private health insurance is a defective product, akin to an umbrella that melts in the rain." In the article, the authors note that "medical bills frequently cause financial hardship, and the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau reported that they were by far the most common cause of unpaid bills sent to collection agencies in 2014, accounting for more than half of all such debts." The study's senior author Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, an internist in the South Bronx, Distinguished Professor at CUNY/Hunter College and Lecturer in Medicine at Harvard commented: "The ACA was a step forward, but 29 million remain uncovered, and the epidemic of under-insurance is out of control. We need to move ahead from the ACA to a single-payer, Medicare for All system that assures first-dollar coverage for everyone. But the Trump administration and Republicans in several states are taking us in reverse: cutting Medicaid, threatening to gut protections for the more than 61 million Americans with pre-existing conditions, and allowing insurers to peddle stripped-down policies that offer no real protection." Study co-author Robert M. Lawless, the Max L. Rowe Professor of Law at the University of Illinois College of Law noted: "In the Supreme Court's words, bankruptcy is a fresh start for the 'honest but unfortunate debtor.' Our study shows that for many bankruptcy debtors, the misfortune continues to come from the way we pay for health care. Bankruptcy may provide a fresh start, but it comes at a high financial and emotional cost for those who file. Filing for bankruptcy can stop the financial bleeding that the health care system imposes, but curing that system's ills is the only lasting solution." Deborah Thorne of the University of Idaho and Pamela Foohey of Indiana University Bloomington also were co-authors of the study. Drs. Himmelstein and Woolhandler founded Physicians for a National Health Program, a nonprofit research and education organization whose more than 22,000 members support single-payer national health insurance. PNHP had no role in funding or otherwise supporting the study described above. A Melbourne researcher will take an important first step in tailoring rehabilitation and support services to the estimated 142,500 working-age Australians living with the impact of stroke. Doctor Karen Borschmann from The Florey Institute of Neurosciences and Mental Health and St Vincents Hospital and her project team were awarded the first Tim Glendinning Memorial Grant as part of the Stroke Foundations 2019 grant round. To inform the development of health services targeting the young stroke community, the $50,000 grant will be used to identify current service gaps and the ways young stroke survivors and carers would prefer their needs to be met. Dr Borschmann said there were currently no services in Australia that we are aware of dedicated to younger stroke survivors. People in their 20s often end up in wards with older patients where they feel they dont fit in. In many cases, the cause of their stroke is unknown and their needs are unmet by the healthcare system. We know young adults want to regain their independence, return to work, return to their role in the family and get on with life as best they can, but current health and social services systems are not design nor equipped to help them." Doctor Karen Borschmann, The Florey Institute of Neurosciences and Mental Health and St Vincents Hospital Currently around 20 strokes a day are impacting Australians of working-age. International evidence shows the number of working age people impacted by stroke will increase in the coming years, largely due to lifestyle factors. Stroke Foundation Research Advisory Committee Chair Professor Amanda Thrift said advances in stroke prevention, treatment and care are needed now more than ever. Effective research takes time, perseverance and a great deal of funding. This initial grant will help Dr Borschmann to establish a robust foundation for her larger program of research, and the opportunity to seek further funding. Dr Borschmanns work has the potential to benefit generations to come. Professor Amanda Thrift The has been offered on behalf of the Glendinning family who set up a fund in their sons honor after he tragically lost his life to stroke in 2017 at the age of 36. Dr Borschmann is one of six researchers to be awarded a share of almost $500,000 through the 2019 Stroke Foundation research grants round. Source: https://strokefoundation.org.au/ Stem cells are the ultimate mother cells of the human body. Not only do they have the capacity to self-renew, they can develop into specific cell types as the body requires. But as the human body ages, the regenerative capacity of our stem cells diminishes. For example, as the capacity of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) to regenerate other blood cells diminishes, so does our immune system, thus giving rise to such disorders as cancer. To better understand and treat such age-related disorders as cancer, researchers with the EU-funded SyStemAge project studied HSC aging within the red bone marrow microenvironment. Because vulnerability to cancer is associated with a decline in the immune system, a loss in the regenerative function of our stem cells can be interpreted as an early warning sign for the propensity to contract cancer, explains Adndrey Zaritskey, a leading researcher at Russias Almazov Medical Research Centre, one of the SyStemAge projects partners. Using HSC and their microenvironment as a model, our goal was to develop a systems-level understanding of the molecular mechanisms of ageing in adult stem cells, the consequences of this aging and a means to correct age-related alterations and diseases. Expertise in B-CLL Being a centre of excellence in B-chronic lymphocytic leukemia (B-CLL), a type of cancer of the blood and bone marrow, the Haematology Institute at Almazov Medical Research Centre was well-positioned to provide the project with important insights from its B-CLL patients. With scientific research being a key part of our medical center, we were able to study HSCs across a variety of patients and age groups, explains Zaritskey. Furthermore, our state-of-the-art facilities and biobank have enabled us to readily isolate, sort and store biological material before sending it to the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, or EMBL, for further validation. Benefits all around Thanks in part to the Almazov Medical Research Centres expertise in the clinical and fundamental aspects of B-CLL, the SYSTEMAGE project was able to translate knowledge about HSC aging into potential new treatments. For example, researchers standardized and harmonized methods for isolating HSC, mesenchymal stroma cells (MSC) and other constituent cells of the bone marrow niche from healthy human subjects, as well as from patients with B-CLL. In close collaboration, we compared the differences in the mechanisms of physiological aging versus those with B-CLL, adds Zaritskey. The Almazov Medical Research Centre also benefited from its collaboration on the project. The results of the project laid the foundation for the ongoing clinical research that we are conducting here at the Centre, says Zaritskey. It also opened the door to a continuing collaboration with Kyoto University. But most importantly, it is the general public that will benefit from the projects work. The main basis of our health is the state of our immune system, which is maintained by HSC, adds Zaritskey. What we learned is that although aging may have many facets, keeping our blood cells healthy benefits all our bodys systems leading to a happier, healthier and longer life. Compounds found in fish oil prevent pregnancy complications, including preterm birth, neonatal death, and stillbirth, in mice when the complications are caused by a common oral bacteria, according to research published today in the journal JCI Insight. The study, by scientists at Columbia University's College of Dental Medicine and Vagelos College of Physicians & Surgeons, suggests a new strategy for protecting pregnancy in women. Why it matters Approximately one in 10 U.S. infants are born before term. Between 10 and 30 percent of preterm births have been attributed to uterine infections with a type of bacteria commonly found in the mouth, F. nucleatum. This research identifies a potential prophylactic treatment for pregnant women to lower the risk of adverse outcomes including stillbirth. Background "This type of bacteria is ubiquitous; everybody has it in their mouths," says Yiping Han, PhD, senior author of the new study. "The problems start when it travels to other parts of the body." In pregnant women, the placenta is at particular risk for infection with F. nucleatum. Hormonal changes during pregnancy can cause inflammation and bleeding in the gums, which affects between 30 and 100 percent of pregnant women. Bleeding gums create an entryway for bacteria to leak into the bloodstream. Once in the circulatory system, the bacteria can migrate to the placenta and cause inflammation there, sometimes triggering miscarriage or stillbirth. Isolating the inflammatory mechanism "We knew from our previous work that uterine inflammation due to infection with this bacteria is associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes, but in order to prevent those outcomes, we needed to determine exactly how these infections trigger inflammation." Using a mouse model, the researchers injected the bacteria into mice during their third trimester of pregnancy. As predicted, the bacteria invaded the animals' uteruses. The researchers saw that the bacteria triggered an inflammatory response in endothelial cells within the mouse placenta, leading to preterm births. The inflammatory response only occurred when a specific immune protein was present in the mothers' endothelial cells. In pregnant mice lacking this protein, fewer fetuses died, suggesting that inflammation ignited by this protein is critical for causing preterm births. Omega-3's prevent inflammation, improve birth outcomes in mice After determining how the bacteria trigger inflammation within the placenta, Han's team used cultured cells to look for ways to inhibit those mechanisms. "We were looking for an anti-inflammatory agent that's safe for pregnant women to use," says Han. Because omega-3 fatty acid supplements are widely used to reduce inflammation in chronic inflammatory diseases, such as heart disease and rheumatoid arthritis, Dr. Han considered fish oil, which is rich in omega-3 fatty acids. These supplements are already recommended for pregnant women to support fetal development. The experiments showed that supplements containing omega-3 fatty acids also inhibited inflammation and bacterial growth in pregnant mice, and reduced preterm births, miscarriages, and stillbirths. What's next Han now hopes to begin a clinical trial to test whether omega-3 fatty acids can prevent intrauterine F. nucleatum infection and adverse outcomes in pregnant women. Caveats The doses of omega-3 fatty acids used in this study were far higher than those recommended for people taking fish oil supplements. The study points to a promising avenue for further research, but does not support any immediate changes in clinical practice. Source: https://www.cuimc.columbia.edu/ Health policy played a surprisingly robust role in President Donald Trump's 2019 State of the Union address. The president laid out an ambitious set of health goals in his speech Tuesday to Congress and the nation, including reining in drug prices, ending the transmission of HIV in the U.S. during the next decade and dedicating more resources to fighting childhood cancer. Meanwhile, in Utah and Idaho, two of the states where voters last fall approved expansion of the Medicaid health program, Republican legislatures are trying to scale back those plans. This week's panelists for KHN's "What the Health?" are Julie Rovner of Kaiser Health News, Anna Edney of Bloomberg News, Margot Sanger-Katz of The New York Times and Alice Ollstein of Politico. Among the takeaways from this week's podcast: The Trump administration is proposing to change the drug rebates in Medicare so that consumers purchasing the medicines get more of the savings and the middlemen negotiating the deals get less. But that effort could lead to increased insurance premiums a consequence that could have significant political repercussions. Trump's pledge to end HIV transmissions in 10 years was a bit of a surprise since the disease had not been much of a priority in earlier moves by the administration. The efforts to restrict Medicaid expansion approved by voters in Utah and Idaho show the limitations of referendums and could impact a move to get a Medicaid expansion question on the Florida ballot. An intriguing study this week showed that medications to treat cardiac problems saved Medicare money. The results were surprising because generally public health officials suggest that prevention is important to improve health but doesn't necessarily save money. Also this week, Rovner interviews KHN senior correspondent Phil Galewitz, who investigated and wrote the latest "Bill of the Month" feature for Kaiser Health News and NPR. It's about a man with a minor problem fainting after a flu shot and a major bill. You can read the story here. If you have a medical bill you would like NPR and KHN to investigate, you can submit it here. Plus, for extra credit, the panelists recommend their favorite health policy stories of the week they think you should read too: Julie Rovner: NPR's "Texans Can Appeal Surprise Medical Bills, But the Process Can Be Draining," by Ashley Lopez Margot Sanger-Katz: The Los Angeles Times' "In Rush to Revamp Medicaid, Trump Officials Bend Rules That Protect Patients," by Noam N. Levey Anna Edney: Bloomberg News' "Ketamine Could Be the Key to Reversing America's Rising Suicide Rate," by Cynthia Koons and Robert Langreth Alice Ollstein: The Washington Post's "'It Will Take Off Like a Wildfire': The Unique Dangers of the Washington State Measles Outbreak," by Lena H. Sun and Maureen O'Hagan To hear all our podcasts, click here. And subscribe to What the Health? on iTunes, Stitcher or Google Play. Popular e-cigarette manufacturer Juul is one of the fastest growing vaping companies around. It has been targeting youngsters and adolescents with their flavoured e-cigarettes. The company has recently come under scrutiny for steadily raising the nicotine content of its e-cigarettes. A report stating the rise of nicotine in Juuls e-cigarettes and its impact on other vaping companies was published in the latest issue of the BMJ journal Tobacco Control in a study titled, Nicotine arms race: JUUL and the high-nicotine product market. It comes from a team of Stanford researchers led by Dr. Robert Jackler, founder of Stanford Research into the Impact of Tobacco Advertising and co-authored by Divya Ramamurthi. Image Credit: Oneinchpunch / Shutterstock Experts in the report said that the e-cigarettes have undone the decades of public health messages and campaigns that have tried to keep children and teenagers away from nicotine. The company initially used 1 to 2 percent nicotine refills that has been ramped up to 5 percent refills. This has spurred other vaping companies to raise their nicotine levels as well and now almost all refills are at 5 to 7 percent. When Juul came out with very high-nicotine electronic cigarettes, it triggered a nicotine arms race amongst competitive companies seeking to emulate the success of Juul, Jackler said. A 5 percent pod can deliver nicotine amounts equivalent to a pack of cigarettes write the authors of the study. Jackler explained that these high amounts of nicotine may be a benefit to addicted adult smokers, who were trying to quit smoking, but it also makes it potently addictive to nicotine-naive teenagers. Researchers report that Juul had developed the nicotine salt which masks the bitter taste of nicotine and allows consumers to take in more amounts. This rise in nicotine levels in their products has not only made the e-cigarettes more addictive but also more affordable as well. The refills are mostly priced on the pod and not the refill. United Kingdom and Israel have restricted their sales to 1.7 percent refills only while Americans are getting the higher end refills. There is a steady rise in vaping among teenagers in the US and health advocates are calling upon restricting laws and regulations from the US Food and Drug Administration. The FDA said in its 2017 statement that it is, committed to encouraging innovations that have the potential to make a notable public health difference and inform policies and efforts that will best protect kids and help smokers quit cigarettes. This action will afford the agency time to explore clear and meaningful measures to make tobacco products less toxic, appealing and addictive, the agency said. Juul spokeswoman Victoria Davis in a statement said, As part of our commitment to prevent underage use, we are taking swift and decisive action against counterfeit and infringing products. Noting that science has "brought a once-distant dream within reach," President Donald Trump on Tuesday night pledged to eliminate HIV transmission within 10 years. "We have made incredible strides, incredible," Trump said in the annual State of the Union address. "Together, we will defeat AIDS in America and beyond." It's a goal long sought by public health advocates. But even given the vital gains made in drug therapies and understanding of the disease over nearly 40 years, it is not an easy undertaking. The reason we have an AIDS epidemic is not just for a lack of the medication," said Dr. Kenneth Mayer, medical research director at the Boston LGBT health center Fenway Institute. "There are a lot of social, structural, individual behavioral factors that may impact why people become infected, may impact if people who are infected engage in care and may impact or affect people who are at high risk of HIV. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, who provided details of the initiative after Trump's announcement, said the administration will target viral hot spots by providing local groups more resources, using data to track the spread of the disease and creating local task forces to bolster prevention and treatment. Neither Azar nor other federal officials who briefed reporters offered cost estimates for the program. Azar said the plan seeks to reduce new infections by 75 percent in the next five years and 90 percent in the next decade. That goal is predicated on growing use of current medications that suppress the virus to such low levels that it is not transmitted during sexual intercourse. PrEP, a drug combination available to individuals with a negative HIV status but may become infected, can reduce their risk of getting the virus by 97 percent, Azar said." This is not the HIV epidemic of the 1990s," said Terrance Moore, acting executive director of NASTAD, a nonprofit organization that represents officials who administer HIV and hepatitis programs. "We have the tools to end this epidemic. Gay and bisexual men made up two-thirds of the nearly 40,000 new HIV cases in 2017, but one clear signal of that difference in the epidemic today is the geography. The nation's HIV hotbeds are no longer located just in coastal metropolitan areas. In 2017, more than half of the new cases were diagnosed in Southern states. HHS said it will focus its efforts on the heart of the epidemic: 48 counties across 19 states; the District of Columbia; San Juan, Puerto Rico; and rural areas in seven states, many of which are in the South. The new federal initiative would expand PrEP access in community health clinics for low-income patients and quickly refer any new clinic patients with HIV to specialized care. Medications alone are not the answer. Lawmakers must have the political will to move forward with policies based in science, said Moore. Existing programs do not provide enough infrastructure to achieve this goal, he added. You cant be simultaneously attacking and undermining the needs of these communities, while claiming that you want to support them and end the AIDS epidemic," said Scott Schoettes, HIV project director for the LGBT advocacy group Lambda Legal. The Trump administration has pursued policies that may hinder the president's goal. And efforts in the South face additional challenges, like higher levels of poverty, difficulty providing health care in rural areas and historical racial tension. I dont think that these things are things that we cannot overcome," said Greg Millett, vice president and director of public policy at the HIV research foundation amfAR. "But I also think that we need to be very clear about what the obstacles are and to start thinking now innovatively about how were going to be able to obviate them. Here are some of the challenges that experts said the president's plan could face. Health Insurance Insurance coverage plays a crucial role in keeping HIV patients healthy. Comprehensive insurance helps patients access the expensive medications needed to keep the virus under control and vital tests to check on virus levels and white blood cell counts key health indicators. HIV patients are also often susceptible to infections because the virus compromises the immune system. And they tend to have higher rates of mental health conditions, which could affect their ability to adhere to HIV medication if left untreated. The Affordable Care Act opened up coverage for thousands of HIV patients with its guarantee of insurance for people with preexisting conditions, but many Republican officials are still calling for the law's repeal. In addition, the ACA's Medicaid expansion led to a substantial jump in the number of people with AIDS who got that coverage, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. But many states, especially in the South, have not expanded Medicaid. (Kaiser Health News is an editorially independent program of the foundation.) A federal judge in Texas in December ruled the ACA unconstitutional in a lawsuit waged by a faction of conservative states and supported by the president. If youre not going to provide it through the Affordable Care Act," Schoettes said, "then there needs to be something thats as comprehensive in terms of getting people care. Housing Although the federal government provides some housing assistance for people with HIV, it does not fill the need. Those who are homeless or have unstable housing have lower access to HIV medications and poorer treatment outcomes. A study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that among individuals living with HIV in certain impoverished urban areas across the country, the lower the household income, the higher the rate of HIV in the area. The federal government provides assistance through a program called Housing Opportunities for Persons With AIDS, known as HOPWA. In 2016, HOPWA changed its funding formula to better allocate its resources to Southern areas hardest hit by HIV. However, some of these HOPWA programs have waiting lists that can extend years. The nation is also experiencing an affordable housing shortage, which further limits options for low-income individuals living with HIV and their families. Stigma And Mistrust Experts continue to cite stigma as a key obstacle for treatment. Twenty-six states have laws that penalize an HIV patient for exposing someone to the virus, including 19 that require people who are aware they are infected to notify sexual partners and 12 that mandate disclosure to needle-sharing partners, according to the CDC. The problems extend to doctors and medical staff. One study, published in 2016, found widespread stigma against HIV patients among health care staff in Alabama and Mississippi, especially among whites and men. Gina Brown, a community engagement manager for the Southern AIDS Coalition, in part blames the culture of the South, where religious beliefs often clash with gay culture, for perpetuating these problems. "We are still in Bible Belt country, where religion plays a huge part in how we talk about sex or not talk about sex, she said. But federal policies, such as the Trump administration's ban on transgender men and women serving in the military, also play a role. Federal officials acknowledged these difficulties and affirmed the program would not discriminate against transgender patients. In addition, minority communities hard hit by the HIV epidemic harbor lingering distrust toward the medical system due to historical abuses such as the Tuskegee syphilis trials, said Mayer. Injection Drug Use The scourge of addiction has killed tens of thousands across the nation, spread hepatitis C and is now leading to spikes in HIV transmission, as drug users share needles. In 2015, Scott County, Ind., sought to combat an HIV outbreak fueled by injected opioid use that infected 215 people. Drug use has also been connected to multiple HIV clusters in Massachusetts and Kentucky. HHS reported that injection drug users accounted for 1 in 10 new HIV cases in 2016. Expanding syringe exchange programs across the country could minimize this problem, experts said. "Unfortunately, in the United States we haven't done as good a job as other Western countries in making sure that those programs are widely available for those Americans who need them," said Millett. The CDC and HHS consider syringe exchange programs effective interventions, but some cities, such as Charleston, W.Va., that implemented the programs have now shut them down because of neighborhood complaints, funding concerns and opposition from citizens who object to providing injection equipment. Federal funds can be used to support this intervention, but these dollars cannot go directly toward purchasing needles. Thank you for reading! Please log in, or sign up for a new account to continue reading. To subscribe, click here. Already a subscriber? Click here. Lake County Assistant Prosecutor Michael L. DeLeone, standing, addresses commissioners from Ashtabula, Geauga and Lake counties last week during a press conference in Painesville regarding the filing of an amicus brief against the federal lawsuit regarding Ohio redistricting. The brief was filed Feb. 6. Free access for current print subscribers As a home delivery subscriber, you get free unlimited digital access to news-daily.com including stories, photos, obituaries, e-edition and more on your computer, tablet or phone. All you need is your print subscription account number and your last name. Don't know your subscription number? Email access@news-daily.com with your delivery address. Activate your account now. TheatreWorks New Milford will open its production of David Mamets controversial and provocative drama Race March 1 at 8 p.m. Following opening night, the play will be staged Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. through March 16, as well as March 10 at 2 p.m. The play had been scheduled to open in February but was postponed due to inclement weather that impacted the theaters rehearsal schedule. In the play, when a rich white man is accused of raping a younger African- American woman, he looks to a multicultural law firm for his defense. But even as his lawyersone of them white, another black begin to strategize, they must confront their own biases and assumptions about race relations in America. The play has very strong language and controversial themes. Tickets are $25 for reserved seating. Students and military personnel and veterans with ID will be admitted for $20. Senior citizens are invited to a free dress rehearsal Feb. 21 at 8 p.m. A pay-what-you-can-night will be held Feb. 28 at 8 p.m. The theater is located at 5 Brookside Ave., but parking is located behind the Catherine E. Lillis Administration Building at 50 East St. For more information and RSVP, call 860-350-6863 or visit www.theatreworks.us. NEWTOWN When the towns top elected leader discovered a lawsuit filed against Newtown came from the same law firm that represents the school board, he felt certain it was a conflict of interest. It isnt, according to the Connecticut Bar Association, which says towns and school boards are so distinct theres nothing unethical about suing one and representing the other. But that isnt good enough for Newtown First Selectman Dan Rosenthal, who says it may be ethical, but its not acceptable. Rosenthal wants the firm to stop representing a developer who sued a Newtown land use agency in August. If it sounds like Newtown and the Hartford law firm Shipman & Goodwin are headed for a showdown, they are. They basically told me to pound sand, so I told them I am going to move to have you terminated, said Rosenthal, who will speak with Newtowns school board about canceling its $250,000 contract with Shipman and Goodwin at a Feb. 19 public meeting. The showdown follows two months of discussions between Rosenthal, schools Superintendent Lorrie Rodrigue, and senior partners at the law firm. The lawyers have offered Newtown some concessions in the hope of a resolution, but they have stopped short of promising to never represent developers who sue Newtown. The firm did not say on Friday whether a showdown with Newtown could be averted. The situation is complicated for Shipman & Goodman, which represents 100 school boards across Connecticut, but has a substantial statewide land use practice. That is why in a Feb. 1 letter to Rodrigue and school board President Michelle Ku, the law firm made only a partial concession by promising never to sue the town in some areas, such as tax appeals and employment claims. Given the firms client base, the assurance does not extend to land use matters, which we have long handled for our clients across the state, wrote Shipman & Goodwins Anne Littlefield, a partner and general counsel. Littlefield offered to erect and maintain an ethical screen between lawyers representing Newtowns school board and lawyers suing Newtown, to prohibit any exchange of information between the two groups of attorneys... Rosenthal on Friday said the law firms attempt to segregate the town and the school district was a distinction without a difference. To me, Shipman & Goodwins funding for representing the school board is coming from local taxpayers, who then have to turn around and pay to defend the lawsuit, he said. The trouble between Newtown and the law firm started in August, when a Trumbull developer seeking approval to build 175 apartments on Church Hill Road sued the towns Water and Sewer Authority over a decision that would limit the size of the development. The lawsuit, filed by attorneys from Shipman & Goodwin, charges the authority with abuse of its discretion, exceeding its scope and imposing improper conditions on the developer, among other charges. When Rosenthal called for the matter to be resolved immediately in mid-December, Shipman & Goodwin replied with four pages of legal opinions justifying the law firms position. Rosenthal replied in a letter that the firms position may make legal sense, but it defies common sense. I do not think there is a logical way to explain why the town pays a large sum to your firm, while at the same time having to expend resources to defend a lawsuit brought by your firm in its representation of another client, he wrote. rryser@newstimes.com 203-731-3342 MORRIS TWP. New York City resident Jared Eng, 22, entered a innocent plea at his arraignment on Wednesday, Feb. 27 in New York Supreme Court Help support your local hometown newspaper/website. Independent local news reporting matters. Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription, for as little as $3, so we can continue to provide independent local reporting on our communities. Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito was in Georgetown on Thursday to sign the towns second Community Compact with the governors office. The town has received a $10,000 grant to fund an online budget transparency program. Pictured, from left, are Selectman Gary Fowler, Polito, Rep. Lenny Mirra, Selectman Joseph Bonavita and Town Administrator Michael Farrell. Sen. Bruce Tarr is out of view.BRYAN EATON/Staff photo Virginia's Democrats struggled to find their way out of three interlocking political crises Thursday that could bring down the party's top elected officials and put a Republican in the governor's chair. With Gov. Ralph Northam's career in peril over a racist photo in his 1984 medical school yearbook, the state attorney general acknowledged on Wednesday that he put on blackface when he was in college, and a woman publicly accused the lieutenant governor of sexually assaulting her 15 years ago. While nearly the entire Democratic establishment rose up against Northam over the past week to demand he resign, party members largely withheld judgment on the two latest developments, which threaten to cause a political chain reaction that could make a GOP legislative leader the governor. President Donald Trump accused the Democrats of a double standard, tweeting: "If the three failing pols were Republicans, far stronger action would be taken." In a statement Thursday night, Virginia's Legislative Black Caucus reiterated its call for Northam to resign, but stopped short of calling for Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax or Attorney General Mark Herring to step down. Fairfax would become Virginia's second black governor if Northam stepped down. The black lawmakers said the sexual assault allegation against Fairfax must be "thoroughly investigated." They also said that while they appreciated Herring's "candor" in admitting to wearing blackface, they "await further action on his part to reassure the citizens of the Commonwealth of his fitness for leadership." Many Democrats are likely to follow the group's cues. Quentin Kidd, a political science professor at Christopher Newport University, had initially predicted Northam would be unable to hang on to office for more than a week. Now, with all three top Democrats in trouble, the equation has changed, he said. He said it is possible all three could survive just out of political necessity because conservative Republican House Speaker Kirk Cox would be next in line for governor if they all resigned. The Democrats' "moral clarity" last week has given way to the realization they could "lose power completely at the executive level," Kidd said. He likened the situation to three sinking boats "that suddenly lash themselves together and find they can float." Several top Democratic female lawmakers in Virginia declined to comment Thursday on an allegation of sexual assault that California college professor Vanessa Tyson made against Fairfax. Tyson said Fairfax forced her to perform oral sex at a hotel in 2004 during the Democratic National Convention in Boston. Fairfax has denied the allegations, casting them as a political smear. State Sen. Barbara Favola said "it's still a he-said, she-said" and suggested an investigation should be done in Massachusetts. In Washington, Virginia's Democratic Senator Tim Kaine said he, too, would prefer to know more before reaching a conclusion. He said that the accuser offered "a very compelling and detailed statement of a serious, serious charge," while Fairfax has given "a very unequivocal denial." Asked whether Northam should stay in office, Kaine replied: "No. We've reached a conclusion and we've made a recommendation." Meanwhile, the Rev. Al Sharpton said in a fiery speech at historically black Virginia Union University that Northam and Herring must step down over their blackface admissions, and the allegations against Fairfax should be investigated thoroughly. The civil rights leader said he came to Richmond to deliver a message to the governor: "I'm not going to be your minstrel!" Members of the crowd of 300 students, faculty, clergy and political leaders shouted in agreement and jumped to their feet several times during Sharpton's speech. The governor is under fire over the discovery of a photo on his yearbook profile page of someone in blackface standing next to a person in a Ku Klux Klan hood and robe. Northam initially said he was in the photo, then denied it, but acknowledged putting shoe polish on his face for a dance contest in Texas in 1984, when he was in the Army. On Wednesday, Herring, who had been urging Northam to step down, admitted wearing blackface to look like a rapper during a party when he was a 19-year-old at the University of Virginia in 1980. He apologized for his "callous" behavior. Another scandal unfolded Thursday after The Virginian Pilot reported that a top Virginia Republican served as an editor for a college yearbook that includes racial slurs and at least one image of a person in blackface. Senate Majority Leader Tommy Norment was managing editor of the 1968 yearbook for the Virginia Military Institute. The yearbook includes a photo of a man in blackface standing with others in costumes, and uses racial slurs to describe a student from Bangkok, Thailand. Up to now, the Democrats nationally have taken an aggressive stand against misconduct in their ranks, in part so that they can criticize Trump's behavior without being accused of hypocrisy. Democrats in Virginia have expressed fear the crises could jeopardize their chances of taking control of the GOP-dominated legislature this year after big gains in 2017. Associated Press writers Alanna Durkin Richer, Elana Schor, Denise Lavoie and Matthew Barakat contributed to this report. The mother of a 24-year-old woman whose body was found bound in a red suitcase on a street in an upscale Connecticut suburb Tuesday morning said her daughter was "panicked," "frightened" and "scared" when she last spoke to her. Greenwich, Connecticut police said the body was positively identified as Valerie Reyes of New Rochelle, New York; her family was notified Wednesday night. Reyes was last seen on Jan. 29, and was reported missing on Jan. 30. Her mother, Norma Sanchez, spoke to News 4 New York Thursday, stunned and still grasping for answers. She said the last time she spoke to her daughter, Reyes had left her New Rochelle apartment, then gone into Manhattan. Her family thought she was seeking help for her anxiety and depression. That Monday night, Sanchez got a call from her daughter: "She was panicked. She was frightened. She was scared." "We asked if her ex-boyfriend made her feel a certain way, and she said no. 'If anything, he made me feel safe,'" Sanchez said her daughter told her. Reyes had taken bed sheets and towels from her New Rochelle apartment before heading into the city, where she took out money from a bank near Rockefeller Center. Days later, she took out more money at another bank. The family thought Reyes "was strong enough to just leave and seek help in the city. We were hoping. We were hoping she was seeking therapy." "We just went about our day, 'She's fine, she's gonna come back, they're gonna find her,'" said Sanchez. "But not this way. This is a mother's worse nightmare." Sanchez said her daughter, whom she called Val, was vibrant and friendly. She worked at a Barnes & Noble bookstore in Eastchester since it opened two and a half years ago. "She was very hard-working, very dedicated," said Sanchez. "She didn't show up for work on Wednesday. That was something very unusual. She didn't call, so that's what made us worried even more." Reyes was passionate about art and enjoyed drawing and painting, according to Lauren Bradford, who said she worked with Reyes at the bookstore for about 10 months before Bradford left the job to go to college a few months ago. Reyes had plans to train to become a tattoo artist, Bradford said. "Horrified. Absolutely horrified," said Bradford, 19. "I'm just like totally shocked. She was a confidant. She really encouraged me and my aspirations. She had a really bright future. She was really excited about her art and her goals." Emotional family members and friends lit candles and released balloons at a vigil for Reyes at Glen Island Park in New Rochelle Thursday night. Sanchez, anguished and sobbing, called her daughter "a beautiful soul" and "amazing in so many ways -- always wanting to be happy and helping others." "He's going to pay for it," she said, crying, of her daughter's unknown killer. "Sooner or later he will get caught. I know it, I know it." Highway workers found Reyes' body inside a full-size suitcase off of Glenville Road in Greenwich, north of Stillman Lane, around 8:15 a.m. Tuesday, police said. Reyes' hands and feet were bound inside the suitcase, according to police. Police said it was difficult to tell how long Reyes had been dead due to the environment and fluctuating temperatures in the particular area where the victim was found. The chief medical examiner will determine a cause and manner of death. On Thursday, Greenwich First Selectman Peter Tesei announced that a town public works employee who allegedly took photos of the body and crime scene has been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation. He declined to name the worker. "The victim was a daughter, a sister and a cousin of a family who is suffering a tremendous loss at this time," Tesei said. "This thoughtless and insensitive behavior by an employee is inexcusable. We extend our heartfelt condolences to Ms. Reyes' family." Authorities urge anyone with information to call the Greenwich Police at 203-622-3333. Residents in a New Hampshire town have voted against funding lifeguards at a beach where a married couple drowned last year. The original amendment to the Seabrook town budget called for $225,000 to fund lifeguards at Seabrook Beach over the summer. Town selectman declined to support the amendment, saying hiring lifeguards could open the town up to lawsuits and the cost was too high for taxpayers. Resident Debbie Tomaszewski proposed lowering the cost to $120,000 by reducing lifeguards, but her motion also failed Tuesday. The amendment was proposed after Michael Cote and Laura Cote, of Methuen, Massachusetts, were caught in a rip current at the beach in August and later died. A friend of the couple, Al Cestrone says he is "disappointed" in Tuesday's result. What to Know Michelle Carter, 22, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter for the death of her boyfriend, Conrad Roy III. Carter sent a series of text messages encouraging Roy, who was suicidal, to kill himself. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court on Wednesday upheld Carter's conviction, saying the evidence proved she caused Roy's death. Lawyers for a woman convicted of involuntary manslaughter for encouraging her boyfriend to kill himself in dozens of text messages say they plan to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Michelle Carter, 22, of Plainville, was convicted in 2017 in the 2014 death of 18-year-old Conrad Roy III, who died by suicide after Carter encouraged him to end his own life. Carter was sentenced to 15 months in jail but has remained free as she pursued her appeal. Her appeal was denied Wednesday by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. A judge concluded Carter caused Roys death after she told him to get into his truck as it was filling with carbon monoxide. The then-17-year-old Carter texted her long-distance boyfriend: "You keep pushing it off and say youll do it but u never do. Its always gonna be that way if u dont take action." The Bristol County District Attorney's Office filed a motion Thursday to revoke the stay of sentence in the Carter case, and a hearing was scheduled for Feb. 11 in Taunton Trial Court. But Carter's lawyers filed a motion Friday to reschedule that hearing, saying they are planning to file a motion for stay of sentence by Monday morning based on the fact that they are planning to petition the U.S. Supreme Court to review her case. Later Friday, th DA's office told NBC10 Boston the motion to reschedule had been denied. The sensational trial drew national attention and was closely watched on social media, in part because of the insistent tone of Carter's text messages. In dozens of text messages, Carter urged Roy to follow through on his talk of taking his own life. "The time is right and you are ready ... just do it babe," Carter wrote in a text the day he killed himself. "You can't think about it. You just have to do it. You said you were gonna do it. Like I don't get why you aren't," Carter wrote in another text. Carters attorneys argued that she made bad choices in her communication with Roy during his final hours, but did not commit any crimes. They said Roy was determined to kill himself and nothing Carter did could change that. They said Carter initially tried to talk Roy out of it and urged him to get professional help, but eventually went along with his plan. They also said Carter was struggling with mental health issues of her own bulimia, anorexia and depression during the time she urged Roy to kill himself. Carter and Roy met in Florida in 2012 while both were on vacation with their families. After that, they only met in person a handful of times. Their relationship consisted mainly of texting. If you are in crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255 or reach out to the Crisis Text Line by texting 'Home' to 741741. More than 200 parents and teachers in Maynard, Massachusetts, attended a school board meeting Thursday night to address concerns after mold and asbestos were detected inside a school. Tests conducted in Green Meadow Elementary School finding asbestos and mold resulted in the kindergarten wing of the school being temporarily shut down. Parents voiced their frustration with the school board, especially Maynard's superintendent, Robert Gerardi. "Teachers have been getting sick for the last two to three years," said union president Mike Waldron. "Tiles have been falling for the last two to three years. This is nothing new." The meeting lasted several hours with extensive public comments from parents, teachers and their union. The short-term answer to the problem is abatement. However, the school board is hopeful that in the years to come, they'll be able to secure a new building. A Massachusetts cab driver is being praised by police for helping an 87-year-old woman from being taken by a classic scam. Richard Spencer, who drives for Yellow Cab of Quincy, tells The Patriot Ledger he sensed something was wrong when the woman he was driving Wednesday told him she was going to Walmart to purchase thousands of dollars in gift cards. Instead of taking her to the store, he drove her to the police station. The woman told police she had received a phone call saying her grandson was in trouble and needed the money to stay out of jail. Unfortunately, the woman had already been scammed out of $4,000, but police say "it could have been much, much worse." Spencer says what he did was not a big deal. I instantly felt anxious being in that space. I couldnt imagine him being in there, said Emily LaMarca, the mother of a 12-year-old with Down syndrome. She has seen her sons calm room. The NBC10 Boston Investigators do not have pictures of that room, and she doesnt want to name the school for fear her son may experience retribution. The only thing I remember being in there was a metal filing cabinet no chairs, she said. LaMarca said her son, Cole, was 10 when he was repeatedly put into a calm room, sometimes also referred to as time-out rooms or quiet rooms. But she does not know how many times Cole was taken to a calm room at his former school, nor how long he spent there. It turns out that schools in Massachusetts are not required to tell parents their child was removed from class and taken to a calm room, which vary dramatically in size, decoration and furnishings. Schools also are not required to track usage or report anything to the state. So the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education does not know how many calm rooms are in schools in Massachusetts, what they look like, or how they are used. School staff and faculty also do not have to tell the principal unless a time out lasts longer than 30 minutes. Cole used to call it the naughty room, LaMarca said. She said she only learned of the repeated time outs when some incidents escalated into school staff physically restraining Cole. The trips to the calm room were mentioned in those school incident reports. We never got information on how long he was in there or how many times a day he went there, she said. Coles experience at his former school led to a neuropsychologist diagnosing him with an anxiety disorder related to his difficult school issues from ill-advised behavior management strategies. He was feeling traumatized by this, he started wetting the bed, he was having nightmares, LaMarca said. Massachusetts Time Out Rooms The NBC10 Boston Investigators sent a public records request to 351 public school districts and charter schools, asking them whether they used time-out rooms, how many they had and how often they were used. Of those, 100 said they did not use them, 64 said they did and 90 would not answer either way, saying they did not have "documents responsive" to our request. Because the state does not gather any information on calm rooms, the NBC10 Boston Investigators sent a public records request to 351 public school districts and charter schools, asking them whether they use these rooms, how many they had, and how often they were used. Of those, 100 said they did not use them, 64 said they did, and 90 would not answer either way, saying they did not have documents responsive to our request. The remainder did not respond at all. Massachusetts public records laws do not require public entities like school districts to create records in response to a request or to answer questions. The NBC10 Boston Investigators contacted 10 districts that reported using calm rooms, asking to see the rooms. All 10 declined. The LeMarca family is not alone in their concern. A mother in Lawrence posted a photograph on Facebook in December 2017 of a bare cinderblock wall, no windows, a small floor mat, and a broken chair, a room she said was used as a calm room where her daughter was sent multiple times during the school year. Chris Markuns, a spokesman for Lawrence Public Schools, said the superintendent at the time, Jeff Riley, ended use of the room and launched an investigation. Markuns said the chair was not in the room when it was used as a calm space, but did acknowledge that throughout the 2017-18 school year, items in the room that were soiled or damaged were removed and not replaced, eventually leaving it bare. The room has been renovated, and Markuns said it is now used by students and staff daily as a meeting space to work on behavior and calming strategies. Those meetings are by appointment, rather than after a classroom disruption. The Disability Law Center, a nonprofit empowered by Congress to provide protection and advocacy for disabled individuals, has investigated several complaints that included questionable uses of calm rooms. Regrettably, weve seen these problems in private schools, public schools, private residential schools, said Stan Eichner, director of litigation at the DLC. Attorneys there said that calm rooms can be therapeutic when used correctly. But more tracking and more transparency can make sure the rooms are used correctly, and that students are not taken there as punishment, which is prohibited by state law. The question is, does it help when the child is in the room for a period of time, how much learning time is the child missing, are the school officials vigilant about returning the child back to the learning area after he or she has calmed down, as opposed to keeping him or her in the room for a longer period of time just because the child has pushed peoples buttons and it becomes more of a punitive exercise rather than one thats meant to calm people down, said DLC attorney Pamela Coveney. There also is a fine line between time out and seclusion, when a child is locked in a room and left alone. Seclusion is prohibited by state regulation. In 2017, the DLC investigated complaints at Crowell kindergarten center in Haverhill and found that parents had witnessed staff, including the principal, blocking the door of a closet storage room with a mat that covered the entire door, preventing the child inside from leaving. The Crowell Kindergarten Center in Haverhill, Massachusetts, is accused of neglecting disabled children. The report, released Feb. 1, 2018, describes an hysterical 40-pound girl trapped inside. Parents told the DLC some students spent the majority of the day or a half day in the room. In a statement to NBC10 Boston last year, the superintendent at the time, James Scully, said the district had just received the report and were still reviewing it. Unfortunately, we did not have an opportunity to thoroughly review the findings before it was released to the media," Scully said in the statement. "Since the district was informed of these allegations last year, several of the issues identified in the report have been and will continue to be addressed to ensure that all Haverhill Public School students receive high quality instruction, supports, and services. In addition, significant changes in the Special Education Department have been implemented." The current superintendent, Margaret Marotta, stated in part, "There have certainly been changes in our practices relative to restraint over the past year, and we are actively adhering to regulations and best practices in the field of special education. "However, I would not feel comfortable comparing our current efforts to those in the past, as I did not have first-hand knowledge of the events at Crowell," she wrote in a statement to NBC10 Boston. Bill Lichtenstein filed a complaint against Lexington schools in 2007 over a calm room there. It was really very disturbing, he said. A Look Inside a Calm Room in One Massachusetts School He said his daughter, a kindergartener at the time, was repeatedly put in what appeared in photographs like a padded closet with a bare light bulb. She was in there almost daily over a three-month period, he said. He and the school district settled his lawsuit with a non-disclosure agreement. If it happened to an adult, theres no questions it would be something you would say should be prosecuted, he said. Lexington Public Schools would not confirm the existence of the agreement in response to a public records request, and would not comment. Russell Johnston, senior associate commissioner at the state department of education, said the state has recommendations and best practices that schools should use. They dont have to notify the state, but we think its a really important practice they notify parents, he said. But, he added, We dont require it. Mark LaMarca, Coles father, said the family just wants to change how the rooms are used. I dont want money. I dont want anything. I just wanted him to be able to go to school and feel comfortable going to school, he said. Emily LaMarca is pushing to have cameras installed in schools. Plano Independent School District in Texas uses cameras, and several years ago they caught an employee knocking a boy to the ground inside a calm room and holding the door shut for several hours. The district pledged changes, like removing the doors to calm rooms, and two staff members are no longer employed. The LaMarcas have since moved to a new school district, where they say their son is thriving and there are no calm rooms. An off-duty dispatcher spotted a fire in Milford, Massachusetts, on his way home from work Wednesday night. Jay Covino pulled over around 11 p.m. and called his dispatch center, then ran inside to alert people in the building. "I was just whacking on doors and yelling 'Fire,'" said Covino. Two officers that came to the scene helped knock on doors and get people out. The fire department rescued a woman, who was transported the hospital. Covino has been a dispatcher for 10 years. Every day, on the phone, he talks to people at some of their worst moments. But this scenario is a first for him. "I am pretty sure it's the first time I have called the police," said Covino. "It's very ironic, I guess." Covino said he's glad he was able to help, but in response to people calling him a hero, he shook his head. "I prefer 'good bystander,' I think hero's a little overstated," he said. "I was just a good bystander." What to Know Two women were arrested after they allegedly stole an off-duty Boston police officer's firearm. The suspects met with the unnamed officer at a lounge, strip club and ended up at a Hampton Inn after their rendezvous. One of the women was charged with prostitution following a raid at the Foxy Lady, a Rhode Island strip club that has since shut down. Two exotic dancers were arrested for allegedly stealing an off-duty Boston police officers gun after a night out at a Rhode Island strip club. Neish Rivera, 25, of Pawtucket, and Melissa Dacier, 22, of Providence, were arrested around 11:45 p.m. on Saturday after police tracked them down for allegedly taking the officer's firearm. The police officer, whose name has not been released, told authorities he met the two women at a club and later went to a Hampton Inn in Pawtucket with them. He claimed one of the women stole his gun from his glove compartment. The officer told authorities he was introduced to Rivera by a cousin and would communicate with her via Instagram. He met with her at the Hampton Inn bar before the two left to a lounge in Providence together. At the lounge, the two met with Dacier and the trio left to a strip club before returning to the Hampton Inn, according to police documents. Dacier asked if the officer had a phone charger and he gave the woman his car keys to it from inside his vehicle, documents stated. Dacier returned, then later stepped out of the hotel room to make a phone call, and Rivera said she needed to leave. Documents said Dacier never returned and the officer went to check on his vehicle, where he noticed the glove compartment containing his gun was open. The off-duty officer then called authorities to report the stolen firearm. Responding officers were shown Rivera's Instagram account and recognized her as one of the three women charged with prostitution following a raid at the Foxy Lady in Providence. The suspects were later arrested and charged with felony larceny of a firearm and conspiracy. It's unclear if they have an attorney for this case. The officer has been placed on leave. Rivera, along with two other women, allegedly offered to perform sex acts in exchange for money when they worked at the Foxy Lady. The adult club was shut down following the allegations, but has since been reopened. Trump aide Kellyanne Conway reported to police that she was assaulted at a Mexican restaurant in Bethesda, Maryland, last year in front of her daughter. A woman grabbed Conway from behind, shook her and shouted "shame on you," Conway told police and CNN. "Her whole face was terror and anger. She was right here, and my daughter was right there. She ought to pay for that," Conway said in a CNN interview published Friday. Mary Elizabeth Inabinett, of Chevy Chase, was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct and second-degree assault in connection with the alleged attack on Conway, according to court records. Inabinett's lawyer said no assault took place and his client was just expressing her personal opinions. Conway was at a birthday event with her daughter at Uncle Julio's Mexican Restaurant in Bethesda on Oct. 14, 2018 when another diner approached her and started yelling, according to a police report. Conway told police she initially thought another partygoer was trying to give her a hug but she turned around to find Inabinett screaming and making aggressive hand gestures. She also told police the woman shook her for a few seconds and yelled at her for up to 10 minutes. Inabinett was yelling "shame on you," according to a police report. Conway's daughter filmed some of the encounter, the report said. The restaurant manager told police that Inabinett was separated from Conway and taken out of the restaurant before she went into a parking garage across the street. Police pulled receipts from the restaurant, then found the suspect's name and photos. On Nov. 20, Conway went to the police station in Bethesda and identified Inabinett as the alleged assailant. Inabinett faces charges that could carry fines or jail time including a maximum sentence of 10 years in the assault. Inabinett's attorney, William Alden McDaniel, Jr., denied that his client assaulted Conway. "Ms. Inabinett saw Kellyanne Conway, a public figure, in a public place, and exercised her First Amendment right to express her personal opinions," he wrote in an email sent to NBC Washington. "She did not assault Ms. Conway. The facts at trial will show this to be true, and show Ms. Conways account to be false." Her trial date is set for March. Inabinetts longtime neighbor Peter Dove said he doesn't think she's capable of assaulting anyone. It's unbelievable, he said. She's not that forceful a personality and I think she's a gentle lady, I would say. Conway is the latest official from the Trump administration to meet hostility or protest while dining in D.C.-area restaurants. In June, as the Trump administration was scrutinized for separating parents and children who crossed the southern border, protesters chanting "Shame!" disrupted U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen's meal at MXDC Cocina Mexicana. She ultimately left the restaurant. In July, a woman carrying her son approached former EPA head Scott Pruit at a cafe in D.C. and asked him to resign. White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked by staff in June to leave the Red Hen restaurant in Lexington, Virginia. Sanders said she "politely left." Rene Sandler, a former Montgomery County prosecutor who is now a defense lawyer, told News4 public shaming becomes criminal when someone intentionally touches another person without that persons consent or someones conduct is intimidating or puts a person in fear. CORRECTION (Feb. 8, 2019, 9:23 a.m.): An earlier version of this story briefly reversed Inabinett's first and middle names and did not accurately reflect the length of time that the alleged shaking lasted, according to a police report. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said Thursday he was the target of "extortion and blackmail" by the publisher of the National Enquirer, which he said threatened to publish revealing personal photos of him unless he stopped investigating how the tabloid obtained his private exchanges with his mistress. Bezos, who is also owner of The Washington Post, detailed his interactions with American Media Inc., or AMI, in an extraordinary blog post Thursday on Medium.com. The billionaire did not say the tabloid was seeking money instead, he said, the Enquirer wanted him to make a public statement that the tabloid's coverage was not politically motivated. Bezos' accusations add another twist to a high-profile clash between the world's richest man and the leader of America's best-known tabloid, a strong backer of President Donald Trump. Bezos' investigators have suggested the Enquirer's coverage of his affair which included the release of risque texts was driven by dirty politics. "Of course I don't want personal photos published, but I also won't participate in their well-known practice of blackmail, political favors, political attacks, and corruption," Bezos wrote of AMI, in explaining his decision to go public. "I prefer to stand up, roll this log over, and see what crawls out." AMI released a statement Friday saying it "believes fervently that it acted lawfully" in reporting on Bezos but that the company's board of directors will investigate the claims despite the company having been "in good faith negotiations to resolve all matters with him." "Upon completion of that investigation, the Board will take whatever appropriate action is necessary," the statement said. AMI's CEO David Pecker also serves as chairman of the board. The company has admitted in the past that it engaged in what's known as "catch-and-kill" practices to help Trump become president. Trump has been highly critical of Bezos and the Post's coverage of the White House. The Bezos affair became public when the Enquirer published a Jan. 9 story about his relationship with Lauren Sanchez, a former TV anchor who is also married. Bezos then hired a team of private investigators to find out how the tabloid got the texts and photos the two exchanged. Several days ago, someone at AMI told Bezos' team that Pecker was "apoplectic" about the investigation, Bezos said. AMI later approached Bezos' representatives with an offer. "They said they had more of my text messages and photos that they would publish if we didn't stop our investigation," Bezos wrote. Bezos wrote that this week, the tabloid's editor, Dylan Howard, emailed an attorney for Bezos' longtime security consultant to describe photos the Enquirer "obtained during our newsgathering." The photos include a "below the belt selfie" of Bezos, photos of him in tight boxer-briefs and wearing only a towel, and several revealing photos of Sanchez, according to the emails Bezos released. According to the emails, an attorney for AMI offered a formal deal Wednesday: The tabloid wouldn't post the photos if Bezos and his investigators would release a public statement "affirming that they have no knowledge or basis" to suggest the Enquirer's coverage was "politically motivated or influenced by political forces." Bezos said he decided to publish the emails sent to his team "rather than capitulate to extortion and blackmail," despite the "personal cost and embarrassment they threaten." It does not appear that AMI demanded any money from Bezos only that he call off his investigation and issue a statement saying the coverage wasn't political. In its Jan. 9 story, the Enquirer said reporters followed Bezos and Sanchez "across five states and 40,000 miles" and "tailed them in private jets, swanky limos, helicopter rides, romantic hikes, five-star hotel hideaways, intimate dinner dates and 'quality time' in hidden love nests." It reported that Bezos sent "sleazy text messages and gushing love notes" to Sanchez, months before Bezos announced he was splitting up with his wife, MacKenzie. The story carries the bylines of Howard and two reporters. But Bezos was suspicious about how the tabloid could have possibly gotten access to his private exchanges. Bezos usually stays out of the public eye, frequently delegating announcements and public Amazon business updates to his executives. He doesn't even speak on the company's quarterly financial earnings call with analysts. His personal investigators, led by his longtime security consultant, Gavin de Becker, concluded that Bezos' phone wasn't hacked. Instead, they've been focusing on Sanchez's brother, according to a person familiar with the matter. De Becker and his team suspect Michael Sanchez, a talent manager who touts his support of Trump and is an acquaintance of Trump allies Roger Stone and Carter Page, may have provided the information to the Enquirer, the person said. The person wasn't authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. Sanchez, who is also his sister's manager, has declined to speak with The Associated Press on the record and did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Thursday. In a tweet, he said de Becker "spreads fake, unhinged conservative conspiracy theories" and "'dog whistle' smears." AMI's relationship with Trump has gotten the company into hot water in the past. It admitted to "catch-and-kill" practices as part of a deal with federal prosecutors, who agreed to not pursue charges against the company. AMI acknowledged secretly assisting Trump's campaign by paying $150,000 to a Playboy model for the rights to her story about an alleged affair with the then-candidate. The company then intentionally suppressed the story until after the 2016 election. In September, the Justice Department agreed to a non-prosecution agreement with AMI, which requires the company and some top executives, including Pecker and Howard, to cooperate with authorities. De Becker is now trying to find a way that federal prosecutors in Manhattan where the non-prosecution agreement was signed could investigate the text message scandal, the person familiar with the matter said, though it wasn't immediately clear what, if any, crime the prosecutors would be asked to look into. It is a federal crime to threaten to injure someone's reputation in exchange for money or a "thing of value," though federal courts haven't made it directly clear whether a public statement, like the one demanded by AMI, could be considered something of value. Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor and professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, said the allegations potentially put prosecutors in an awkward position because of the deal they had already cut with AMI. "It shows how complicated and dangerous it is to make an agreement with National Enquirer," Levenson said. "They may have to cooperate, but they're continuing in their ongoing battle with Bezos and others." But Levenson said it was too difficult to tell if the case amounted to blackmail or extortion without additional context and some prosecutors may be reluctant to charge someone for threatening another with embarrassing material. Associated Press writers Brian Melley and Rachel Lerman contributed to this report. A local federal whistleblower is raising questions about the welfare of K-9s deployed overseas through a State Department program intended to help other countries fight terrorism complaints that have caught the attention of multiple government oversight officials, News4 has learned. Dr. Karen Iovino, a veterinarian who until 2017 worked for a private contractor that trains the explosive detection K-9s in Virginia, is calling for the U.S. government to impose tougher oversight of the dogs once deployed in the war on terror. At issue is the State Departments Anti-Terrorism Assistance Program (ATA), which provides training and equipment to law enforcement agencies in more than 150 countries. As of September 2018, at least 100 explosive detection K-9s have been granted to six partner countries through the ATA program, according to a State Department official. The U.S. provides training to the recipients of the explosive detection canines. But in a federal complaint filed with the State Departments Office of the Inspector General in August 2017, Iovino alleges that, once leaving U.S. control, some of the K-9s given to foreign governments are dying due to medical conditions and lack of veterinary care, as well as poor working conditions. Unfortunately, we're sending dogs to an area of the world that has a lot of poverty and doesn't always see dogs or animals the way we do in the United States, she told News4. If we're going to gift a dog to these countries, we've gotta be sure they're taken care of. Iovino provided the I-Team with an internal email from a former colleague indicating one dog sent to Jordan died of suspected heat stroke in July 2017. She also provided photos of underweight K-9s she alleges were taken by a former contractor visiting the K-9s overseas photos News4 could not independently verify. Her allegations have sparked multiple federal inquiries. The State Departments inspector general has confirmed to News4 that its reviewing the health and welfare of explosive detection K-9s sent overseas. The IG, as well as the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Reform, are also reviewing Iovinos whistleblower complaint. In the filing, she alleges the private contractor, MSA Security, terminated her after she brought her concerns about the K-9s and other matters to the State Departments Office of Acquisitions Management. MSA Security declined comment to News4, citing a confidentiality agreement with the Department of State, but court records show it vehemently rejects Iovinos accusations pertaining to the reason for her dismissal. The contractor is appealing a July 2018 decision by the State Department IG that found it committed retaliation against her after she made protected disclosures. In an August 2018 letter made public in court records an attorney for the contractor blasted the IG investigation and said Iovinos position was eliminated because the Department of State had placed increased emphasis on monitoring the well-being of the overseas K-9s and created a position for a new veterinarian that would travel to provide care. Iovino, the attorney wrote, was not qualified for that position. MSA and the government can readily rebut Iovinos retaliation charges, the attorney stated. Last December, former House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy issued a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, requesting documents outlining the State Departments oversight of the Winchester-based Canine Validation Center, as well as governmental agreements between State and recipients of K-9s through the ATA program. Staff for the committees new chairman, U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., have since reached out to Iovino, though its unclear whether the committee will pursue the issue. The State Department confirmed its aware of Iovinos complaints but declined an interview about the ATA program, and the Embassy of Jordan in Washington, D.C., has not yet responded to multiple News4 requests. Reported by Scott MacFarlane and Katie Leslie, produced by Katie Leslie, and shot by Steve Jones and Jeff Piper. Two women and a dog who went missing in Warren County on Monday were found dead in an icy pond. Nancy Borders Forest, 74, and Jane Angela Whitney, 69, were found just after midnight Tuesday. Forest left her home in Front Royal, Virginia, with one dog on her way to pick up another dog from the groomers, police say. They never arrived. Her spouse reported Forest missing about 7:25 p.m., prompting police to contact local hospitals and vets. None had made contact with the missing woman. During the investigation, Forest's car was found in Warren County outside Whitney's home but neither was inside. Police searched the neighborhood before heading onto the trails. Shortly after midnight, Whitney, Forest and her dog were found in a partially ice-covered pond, police say. The women's bodies were taken to the medical examiner's office for autopsies. Police said Thursday afternoon that the investigation is ongoing but that nothing is pointing to a crime or anything criminal in nature. Anyone with information is asked to contact authorities. Winter weather has returned just in time for the weekend so you can ring in the Lunar New Year, run in your undies or commemorate Black History Month in a puffy coat. Chinese New Year Parade The parade goes from 6th and I St. NW to 6th and H St. NW Sunday, Feb. 10 at 2 p.m. The Year of the Pig is upon us! Traditional lion and dragon dances, Kung Fu demonstrations, firecrackers, music and marching bands will take over streets around D.C.'s Chinatown for an annual parade. Here's a map of the parade route. A firecracker display is set to go off about 3:45 p.m. Metro Closures Don't expect to take the Red Line to the parade: On Feb. 9 and 10, buses will replace Red Line trains between Dupont Circle and Judiciary Square stations. The closures come because Metro will install new, brighter lighting at Farragut North, Metro Center and Gallery Place stations But crews can't work with trains running through, Metro says. You can still take Green and Yellow line trains to the Gallery Place stop. In addition to regular bus lines, the Circulator's Yellow Line stops a few blocks away from the parade route. Circulator rides are free this month. Chinese New Year Food Specials Various Restaurants There are plenty of options for eating well. Through Feb. 10, CHIKO (423 8th St SE, Washington, D.C.) is offering a $65 meal celebrating the imperial cuisine of Korea and China. The Source by Wolfgang Puck (575 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest, Washington, D.C.)is offering a $75 class on making dumplings on Saturday. Tiger Fork (922 N Street NW, Washington, D.C.) will host a celebration from 2 p.m. to 7 p..m Saturday, complete with dancers, King Fu demos and photo ops. They also have a special menu. Spoken English (1770 Euclid Street NW, Washington, D.C.) will celebrate the new year with a Year of the Pig-themed, five-course tasting menu. On Feb. 9, the hotel will host a lion dance and dragon blessing in the DC Line lobby. D.C. chef Tim Ma's restaurant, American Son (1201 K St NW, Washington, D.C.), has a special Chinese New Year menu, including kung pao pork belly, scallion pancakes and more. Cupid's Undie Run 801 E. Street NW, Washington, D.C. 12 p.m. Saturday Freeze off all your extremities in the name of charity at Cupid's Undie Run, one of D.C.'s annual pantsless traditions. The run kicks off from Penn Social (801 E Street NW, Washington, D.C.) at 12 p.m. Saturday. You can register for $45 in advance or $50 at the door. Proceeds go to the Children's Tumor Foundation. Black History Month D.C. has a host of ways to celebrate Black History Month this February, and some particularly cool events are coming up this weekend. Saturday at 11 a.m., the Shepherd Park Neighborhood Library will offer a free discussion on black genealogy. Genealogist Andre Kearns hosts "Getting Started: African American Genealogy and DNA Testing" to share his own story and provide tips and tools to novice researchers. The Kennedy Center's Millenium Stage will host a free performance of "Black Wall Street" Sunday, Feb. 10 at 6 p.m. Consider arriving early because free events often reach capacity quickly. German authorities ruled Thursday that Facebook should not be allowed to use customer data from other apps and websites to help target advertisements shown on their Facebook pages without their explicit consent, saying it was exploiting its dominant position in social media. The Federal Cartel Office, or Bundeskartellamt, said Facebook was guilty of "exploitative abuse" by forcing users to agree to allow it to collect data from other Facebook-owned services like WhatsApp and Instagram, as well as third-party websites through the "Like" or "Share" features. "On the one hand there is a service provided to users free of charge," Cartel Office president Andreas Mundt said. "On the other hand, the attractiveness and value of the advertising spaces increase with the amount and detail of user data. It is therefore precisely in the area of data collection and data use where Facebook, as a dominant company, must comply with the rules and laws applicable in Germany and Europe." Facebook said it rejected the decision, and would appeal within the one-month frame before it becomes final. If the ruling is upheld, Facebook will be required to allow users to specifically approve data collected from other Facebook-owned sources and third-party websites be assigned to their accounts. The decision is not about Facebook's processing of data generated by its own site, which the Cartel Office acknowledged is the business model for data-based social networks like Facebook. Facebook said that with its ruling, the Cartel Office underestimates the competition Facebook has in Germany from YouTube, Snapchat, Twitter and others in calling it a "dominant company," misinterprets Facebook's compliance with regulations, and undermines mechanisms provided for in European law ensuring consistent data protection standards. "The Bundeskartellamt's decision misapplies German competition law to set different rules that apply to only one company," Facebook said. It noted that it had been cooperating with the office in its investigation since 2016, and will continue discussions, but would also "defend these important arguments in court." In ruling that Facebook was a "dominant company," the Cartel Office said it was subject to "special obligations under competition law" and "must take into account that Facebook users practically cannot switch to other social networks." "The only choice the user has is either to accept the comprehensive combination of data or to refrain from using the social network," it said in its judgment. "In such a difficult situation the user's choice cannot be referred to as voluntary consent." It said many users were not aware that Facebook is currently able to "collect an almost unlimited amount of any type of user data from third-party sources," which allows it to better target specific advertisements to specific user's interests. "By combining data from its own website, company-owned services and the analysis of third-party websites, Facebook obtains very detailed profiles of its users and knows what they are doing online," Mundt said. Facebook has said that it plans to integrate the messaging functions of WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger in 2020 or later. While it has not given many details, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a conference call recently that the idea is to help users message people more easily, without having to navigate different platforms and lists. The company also said it would encrypt all the services (currently only WhatsApp is encrypted by default). But critics have raised another possible reason the threat of antitrust crackdowns. Essentially, if Facebook combines its messaging services so that they are different in name and design only, it will be much more difficult, if not impossible, to then separate out and spin off Instagram and WhatsApp as separate companies. Combining the three services also lets Facebook build more complete data profiles on all of its users. It has already been moving in this direction. Businesses can already target Facebook and Instagram users together with the same ad campaign, for example. While WhatsApp does not yet have ads, it's not too hard to imagine that this is not too far behind. Instagram also encourages users to link their accounts to Facebook and it suggests their Facebook friends as contacts to add on Instagram. Then there's competition from other messaging services, such as Apple's or Google's. Users are more likely to stay within Facebook's properties if they can easily message their friends across different services, rather than having to switch between Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram. AP Technology Writer Barbara Ortutay contributed to this story. U.S. land managers will move forward in March with the sale of oil and gas leases that include land near Chaco Culture National Historical Park in New Mexico and other sites sacred to Native American tribes. The sale comes as Democratic members of Congress, tribal leaders and environmentalists have criticized the federal Bureau of Land Management for pushing ahead with drilling permit reviews and preparations for energy leases despite the recent government shutdown. With limited staff on duty over the last month, the critics complained that they were locked out of the process because the agency didn't release any information about the sale. They also questioned whether the agency would be able to adequately review the land that's up for bid and whether it would consider protests to the move. U.S. Sen. Tom Udall told The Associated Press in an email that he's concerned about the latest attempt to lease potentially culturally significant land in New Mexico without a more comprehensive plan in place. "It's a mistake that while critical public services were shuttered for 35 days during the government shutdown, BLM still moved forward with this opaque process," the New Mexico Democrat said. Bureau spokeswoman Cathy Garber said officials decided to push back the lease sale by a couple of weeks to accommodate a public protest period that was delayed because of the shutdown. The agency quietly confirmed on its website that it would accept comments starting Feb. 11 and that the sale was scheduled for March 28. Depending on the outcome of the protest period, it's possible for the agency to withdraw the land in question, including nine parcels near Chaco, a world heritage site with massive stone structures, kivas and other features that archaeologists believe offered a religious or ritualistic experience. In all, more than 50 parcels in New Mexico and Oklahoma will be up for bid. "We cannot help but protest what appears to be an intentional bias in the favoring of oil and gas development over other interests," former Acoma Pueblo Gov. Kurt Riley said last week during a congressional forum. Riley and others said the shutdown exacerbated an already tense situation over the expansion of oil and gas development in northwestern New Mexico. In recent years, land managers have declined oil and gas exploration on land within 10 miles (16 kilometers) of the park, creating somewhat of an informal buffer. In early 2018, then-Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke halted a lease sale over cultural concerns after hundreds of people protested. The battle over energy development around Chaco has been simmering for years. In 2015, government officials visited the region in hopes of brokering a way forward for the tribes and energy companies. The Bureau of Land Management and the Bureau of Indian Affairs began working together on revamping the resource management plan for the San Juan Basin, which covers a larger portion of northwestern New Mexico and parts of southern Colorado. The partnership was meant to ensure tribes would be consulted and that scientific and archaeological analysis would be done to guarantee cultural sensitivity. Udall argued that the repeated pursuit of land near the park and the lack of a final management plan have resulted in "a scattershot, shoot-from-the-hip approach." He called for the upcoming lease sale to be delayed. Paul Reed with Archaeology Southwest said the informal buffer should be adopted as part of the management plan because scientists have barely scratched the surface when it comes to studying and understanding Chaco. "Aside from the sites that everyone knows about in Chaco, there are a number of communities that exist within the 10-mile zone that we think need a greater level of protection," he said. A second woman has accused Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax of sexual assault, saying the two were students at Duke University when Fairfax allegedly raped her. Lawyers for the woman, Meredith Watson, said in a press release Friday that the alleged assault happened in 2000 and was "premeditated and aggressive." Watson is now calling for Fairfax to resign, the release said. Fairfax denied the accusation and gave the following response: I deny this latest unsubstantiated allegation. It is demonstrably false. I have never forced myself on anyone ever. I demand a full investigation into these unsubstantiated and false allegations. Such an investigation will confirm my account because I am telling the truth," Fairfax wrote in a statement to News4. "I will clear my good name and I have nothing to hide. I have passed two full field background checks by the FBI and run for office in two highly contested elections with nothing like this being raised before." Virginia's attorney general is the latest of the top elected officials in the state to face a scandal. He said Wednesday that he once wore blackface. News4's Julie Carey has the latest details from Richmond on Gov. Ralph Northam, Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax and Attorney General Mark Herring. Watson is the second woman to accuse Fairfax of sexual assault. Vanessa Tyson, a political science professor on leave from Scripps College in California, accused Fairfax earlier this week of sexually assaulting her in a hotel room at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. Fairfax has denied that account, saying that when he was 25, he had a "100 percent consensual" encounter with a woman he met at the convention. On Friday, lawyers for Watson said she shared her account with friends via email and Facebook messages and said they have statements from former classmates saying Watson told friends about the assault. "The details of Ms. Watson's attack are similar to those described by Dr. Vanessa Tyson," Nancy Erika Smith, an attorney for Watson, wrote. A second woman has come forward accusing Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax of sexual assault. Fairfax says the claim is "demonstrably false" and he has "nothing to hide." News4's Julie Carey reports. Virginia Del. Patrick Hope, a Democrat who represents the 47th District in Arlington County, said he will move to impeach Fairfax on Monday if he has not resigned before then. "I believe these women. He needs to resign immediately," Hope said in a news conference Friday night. Hope cited Virginia's constitution, which states that the lieutenant governor can be impeached due to "malfeasance in office, corruption, neglect of duty, or other high crime or misdemeanor." "There's no question that violent sexual assault clearly qualifies as a high crime," Hope said. Hope said the House of Delegates would have to grant him unanimous consent to move forward with legislation for impeachment. Virginia House and Senate Democrats issued a joint statement saying Fairfax should step down. "Due to the serious nature of these allegations, we believe Lieutenant Governor Fairfax can no longer fulfill his duties to the Commonwealth. He needs to address this as a private citizen. The time has come for him to step down." The Virginia Legislative Black Caucus joined the call for his resignation later Friday. "In light of the most recent sexual assault allegations against Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax, the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus believe it is best for Lt. Governor Fairfax to step down from his position. We remain steadfast in our conviction that every allegation of sexual assault or misconduct be treated with the utmost seriousness," the VLBC said in a statement. "While we believe that anyone accused of such a grievous and harmful act must receive the due process prescribed by the Constitution, we can't see it in the best interest of the Commonwealth of Virginia for the Lieutenant Governor to remain in his role." By late Friday night, nearly every Democratic elected leader in the state had called for Fairfax to resign. I believe Dr. Vanessa Tyson. I believe Meredith Watson. And I believe Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax must resign. Rep. Jennifer Wexton (@RepWexton) February 8, 2019 "The allegations against Justin Fairfax are serious and credible. It is clear to me that he can no longer effectively serve the people of Virginia as Lieutenant Governor. I call for his immediate resignation," Former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe said. Smith said Watson came forward because of a "strong sense of civic duty" and is not seeking any financial damages. Tyson first publicly accused Fairfax Wednesday and Fairfax has previously referred to that allegation as a political smear. Both allegations of sexual assault come as Virginia's top three Democratic leaders are embroiled in scandal. Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam continues to face calls to resign after he first admitted Feb. 1 to being in a racist photo displayed on his 1984 medical school yearbook page. Northam later walked back that admission, saying he was not pictured in the photograph. On Friday, Northam told his top staff that he is not going to resign, according to a top administration official. And on Wednesday, Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring said he wore blackface in college. Attorney General Mark Herring says he dressed in blackface in 1980, further shocking Virginians after pressing calls for Gov. Northam to resign and a sexual assault allegation came out against Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax. Lawmakers reportedly cried as Herring detailed past actions. News4's Aaron Gilchrist reports live from Richmond. Stay with News4 for updates to this developing story. From power restaurants in Washington and a belt-buckle maker in Colorado to a brewery in California, businesses that count heavily on federal employees as customers are feeling the punishing effects of the government shutdown. In many cases, it's forcing them to cut workers' hours and buy less from suppliers measures that could ripple through the larger U.S. economy. "It's a fog with no end in sight," Michael Northern, vice president of a company that owns three restaurants in the Huntsville, Alabama, area near a huge Army base that houses some 70 federal agencies, including NASA. He said business is down 35 percent. "People are just going home and nesting, trying to conserve resources." Western Heritage Co. in Loveland, Colorado, which makes buckles for uniformed employees of the National Forest Service and other outdoor agencies, has seen sales plummet 85 percent this month and laid off 12 of its 13 workers. In the nation's capital, Clyde's Restaurant Group, which owns the Old Ebbitt Grill restaurant down the street from the White House and 10 other dining spots, reported a 20 percent drop in sales and is cutting hours for waiters and kitchen staff. So far, the broader economic impact of the shutdown is not clear because, well, many agencies that compile such data are closed. The Labor Department, which is open, said Thursday that the number of people seeking unemployment benefits fell last week to the lowest level since 1969, a sign the job market is still strong. But most economists are forecasting slower growth in the first three months of this year. Analysts estimate gross domestic product shrinks 0.13 percentage points for each week the shutdown lasts. Those estimates reflect the loss of government spending and lost paychecks for federal employees. What is not known is how much the shutdown will reverberate through the rest of the economy. When waiters at restaurants that serve federal employees lose income, for example, will they also cut back spending? And will that then harm other companies? Among the hardest hit are the owners of restaurants, hotels and gift shops near federal agencies and national parks around the country. In Mariposa, California, just outside Yosemite National Park, tourism has dropped sharply and most of the 6,000 county residents who work in the park have not been paid for a month. "For my business personally it's been absolutely devastating," said Hanna Wackerman, co-owner of the 1850 Restaurant and Brewing Company. "Usually January is a pretty busy month for us. With the new snow being in Yosemite, that tends to bring new tourists to the park." Instead, business is down 80 percent, she said. Mike Lynch, owner of Western Heritage, saw online orders collapse almost immediately after the government shut down Dec. 22. The company sells buckles, keychains, commemorative coins and badges to employees of the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management and other agencies. It also sells patches and some clothing. Most of the purchases are discretionary and customized. For example, if a BLM employee is retiring, co-workers might order a plaque from Lynch's company. His online orders went from thousands of dollars a week before Christmas to just $78 in the first week of January. On Jan. 7, Lynch laid off nearly everyone, leaving one person to answer the phone "in case someone wants to buy something." They were the first job cuts in the company's 43-year history. With business so slow, Lynch isn't ordering any of the bronze, silver or pewter he uses and isn't replenishing other inventory. Larger companies are also affected, though it is typically easier for them to weather the impact. Airlines like Delta and Southwest, for example, are losing tens of millions of dollars in business, but that's out of billions in revenue. David Moran, director of operations for Clyde's, the restaurant chain in Washington, worries what will happen if the shutdown extends into February, when events like Valentine's Day typically give a boost to business. "My fear is that it is getting worse, because people are getting panicky," he said. Associated Press writers Martin Crutsinger, David Koenig and Haven Daley contributed to this report. Former U.S. Rep. John Dingell, the longest-serving member of Congress in American history and a master of legislative deal-making who was fiercely protective of Detroit's auto industry, has died. The Michigan Democrat was 92. Dingell, who served in the U.S. House for 59 years before retiring in 2014, died Thursday at his home in Dearborn, said his wife, Congresswoman Debbie Dingell. "He was a lion of the United States Congress and a loving son, father, husband, grandfather and friend," her office said in a statement. "He will be remembered for his decades of public service to the people of Southeast Michigan, his razor sharp wit and a lifetime of dedication to improving the lives of all who walk this earth." Dubbed "Big John" for his imposing 6-foot-3 frame and sometimes intimidating manner, a reputation bolstered by the wild game heads decorating his Washington office, Dingell served with every president from Dwight D. Eisenhower to Barack Obama. He was a longtime supporter of universal health care, a cause he adopted from his late father, whom he replaced in Congress in 1955. He also was known as a dogged pursuer of government waste and fraud, and even helped take down two top presidential aides while leading the investigative arm of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee, which he chaired for 14 years. "I've gotten more death threats around here than I can remember," Dingell told The Associated Press in a 1995 interview. "It used to bother my wife, but oversight was something we did uniquely well." Dingell had a front-row seat for the passage of landmark legislation he supported, including Medicare, the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act, but also for the Clean Air Act, which he was accused of stalling to help auto interests. His hometown, the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, was home to a Ford Motor Co. factory that was once the largest in the world. Yet one of his proudest moments came in 2010, when he sat next to Obama as the $938 billion health care overhaul was signed into law. Dingell had introduced a universal health care coverage bill in each of his terms. "Presidents come and presidents go," former President Bill Clinton said in 2005, when Dingell celebrated 50 years in Congress. "John Dingell goes on forever." Tributes poured in from current and former politicians in both parties. "Today, we have lost a beloved pillar of the Congress and one of the greatest legislators in American history," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement. "John Dingell leaves a towering legacy of unshakable strength, boundless energy and transformative leadership." Former President George W. Bush said he was fortunate to speak to Dingell Thursday afternoon. "I thanked him for his service to our country and for being an example to those who have followed him into the public arena," Bush said in statement. "He was a fine gentleman who showed great respect for our country and her people." Former President Barack Obama issued a statement saying Dingell's life "reminds us that change does not always come with a flash, but instead with steady, determined effort. Over the course of the longest congressional career in history, John led the charge on so much of the progress we take for granted today." Dingell's investigations helped lead to the criminal conviction of one of President Ronald Reagan's top advisers, Michael Deaver, for lying under oath, and to the resignation of Reagan's first environmental protection chief and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch's mother, Anne Gorsuch Burford. She stepped down after refusing to share subpoenaed documents with a House subcommittee investigating a Superfund toxic waste program. Another probe led to the resignation of former Stanford University President Donald Kennedy after the school misused hundreds of millions of dollars in federal research funds. Dingell often used his dry wit to amuse his friends and sting opponents. Even when hospitalized in 2003, following an operation to open a blocked artery, he maintained his humor: "I'm happy to inform the Republican leadership that I fully intend to be present to vote against their harmful and shameless tax giveaway package," he said from the hospital. Critics called him overpowering and intimidating, a reputation boosted by the head of a 500-pound wild boar that looked at visitors to his Washington office. The story behind it? Dingell is said to have felled the animal with a pistol as it charged him during a hunting trip in Soviet Georgia. The avid hunter and sportsman also loved classical music and ballet. His first date with his wife, Debbie, a former prominent Democratic activist whom he affectionately introduced as "the lovely Deborah," was a performance of the American Ballet Theater. "He taught me how to shoot a rifle," former Ohio Rep. Dennis Eckhart told the AP in 2009. "I remember he said shooting a rifle is a lot like legislating. ... You have to be very, very sure of your target, and then when you get your chance, don't miss." Born in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on July 8, 1926, John David Dingell Jr. grew up in Michigan, where his father was elected to Congress as a "New Deal" Democrat in 1932. After a brief stint in the Army near the end of World War II, the younger Dingell earned his bachelor's and law degrees from Georgetown University. Following the sudden death of his father in September 1955, Dingell then a 29-year-old attorney won a special election to succeed him. The newly elected politician was no stranger to the Capitol. Dingell was serving as a page on the House floor when President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan on Dec. 8, 1941. In college, he supervised the building's elevator operators. And when he became the longest-serving U.S. House member in history in 2009, Dingell recalled entering the chamber for the first time as a 6-year-old and being in awe of the East door. "I had never been in a place like this. I was a working-class kid from a Polish neighborhood in Detroit, and this was quite an event for me," Dingell told Time magazine at the time. "I've only begun in later years to appreciate what it all meant." Dingell won more than two dozen elections during his career, at first representing a Detroit district but eventually shifting because of redistricting to various southeastern Michigan communities. He became the longest-serving member of Congress on June 7, 2013, when he surpassed the former record holder, the late West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd. "The length of time is really quite unimportant," Dingell told the AP in an interview in 2009. "It's what I have done with that time." Dingell, at age 87, announced in early 2014 that he would not run for a 30th full term because he could not have lived up to his own standards. Continuing the family tradition, his wife, Debbie, successfully ran for her husband's seat in 2014. "I don't want people to be sorry for me. ... I don't want to be going out feet-first, and I don't want to do less than an adequate job," said Dingell, who by that time was using a cane or motorized cart to get around the Capitol. Dingell suffered a heart attack four years later, in September 2018 at age 92. He was hospitalized but was soon "cracking jokes as usual," his wife said at the time. An autobiography, "The Dean: The Best Seat in the House," was written with David Bender and published in December. Forewords were written by former President George H.W. Bush, who died only a few days before its publication, and former Vice President Joe Biden. Dingell had more than 250,000 followers on Twitter, which was an outlet for the outspoken Democrat's wry takes and quick wit. In January, he noted the negative 7-degree temperature in Hell, Michigan, and retweeted a tweet from the Detroit Free Press that said the "Detroit Lions are going to win the Super Bowl" now that Hell had frozen over. Along with his wife, Dingell is survived by two daughters, two sons, one of whom served 15 years in the Michigan Legislature, and several grandchildren. A 2-year-old boy from North Park needs a rare, expensive surgery and his family is calling out to the San Diego community for help. Malakai has already undergone multiple surgeries to correct the problems caused by a condition called Mercedez Benz Syndrome. The condition affects the skull's ability to keep up with the growth of the brain. The sweet toddler and his family have to travel to Dallas, Texas for his fifth surgery, which will cost them $45,000. Theyve set up a GoFundMe account in hopes that their community will help give Malakai the opportunity to live a normal life. The back of his head is flat. His head is growing [abnormally], Malakais mother Stephany Rodriguez explained. So this doctor, what he plans to do, is reshape his whole head, open up the skull bones in the back. He said that if everything goes well, this should be his last surgery." According to his mother, Malakai suffered Hypoxic Ischemic Encephalopathy at birth due to lack of oxygen. Doctors had to resuscitate him in the delivery room. When he was in the NICU fighting for his life, I said OK, Stephany. You have to put whatever youre feeling aside, because you have to fight for your son, Stephany said behind teary eyes. "He came back, you know. I can cry, I can let go of these emotions, I can feel the strength inside me that he is giving me, his father Marco Segura said. Together, Marco and Stephany have held Malakais hand through four surgeries, including three on his skull, and have had hands-on responsibilities in his care that is hard for most parents to imagine. Baby Malakai was given a feeding tube during his first surgery. His second left him with two screws protruding from the back of his head which his parents had to manually turn once a day. "It was scary when they told us, Stephany said. I cried because I was like, How am I going to turn screws coming out of my sons head once a day? That's crazy. But we got through it. The two screws were removed individually during his third and fourth surgeries. Now, Malakai can run around, scream and play like any 2-year-old, but he still needs one more surgery. Our insurance doesn't cover it, everything has to come out of pocket, Marco said. The parents say they have already raised half the money and are working towards getting the rest so that Malakai can finally have the freedom to play and grow up like any other boy. You can help Malakai by donating to his GoFundMe page, or you can call and donate money directly to his account at The Craniofacial Center in Dallas. There will also have a fundraising event Friday at Just Java Cafe in Chula Vista from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. Scientists think they have achieved the first gene editing inside the body, altering DNA in adults to try to treat a disease, although it's too soon to know if this will help. Preliminary results suggest that two men with a rare disorder now have a corrective gene at very low levels, which may not be enough to make the therapy a success. Still, it's a scientific milestone toward one day doctoring DNA to treat many diseases caused by faulty genes. "This is a first step," said Dr. Joseph Muenzer of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who helped test the treatment. "It's just not potent enough." He gave the results Thursday at a conference in Orlando, Florida, and has consulted for the therapy's maker, California-based Sangamo Therapeutics. Researchers are working on a stronger version of the treatment. Gene editing is intended as a more precise way to do gene therapy, to disable a bad gene or supply a good one that's missing. Trying it in adults to treat diseases is not controversial and the DNA changes do not pass to future generations, unlike the recent case of a Chinese scientist who claims to have edited twin girls' genes when they were embryos. Sangamo's studies involve men with Hunter or Hurler syndrome, diseases caused by a missing gene that makes an enzyme to break down certain sugar compounds. Without it, sugars build up and damage organs, often killing people in their teens. In 2017, Brian Madeux of Arizona became the first person to try it. Through an IV, he received many copies of a corrective gene and an editing tool called zinc finger nucleases to insert it into his DNA. Results on him and seven other Hunter patients, plus three with Hurler syndrome, suggest the treatment is safe, which was the main goal of these early experiments. Three problems bronchitis, an irregular heartbeat and a hernia were deemed due to the diseases, not the treatment. Tissue samples showed evidence of gene editing at very low levels in two Hunter patients who were given a middle dose but not in one given a low dose. Tests are expected later this year on patients who received the highest dose and on Hurler patients. Blood tests detected slightly higher levels of the missing enzyme in a few of the Hunter patients but none of them reached normal levels. One patient had a larger increase but also showed signs that his immune system might be attacking the therapy. He was treated for that and symptoms resolved. More encouraging results were seen in Hurler patients enzyme levels rose to normal in all three after treatment, tests on certain blood cells showed. "This is very promising" for Hurler patients, said Dr. Paul Harmatz of UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital Oakland, who presented those results. None of the patients with either disease showed a sustained decline in urine levels of the troubling sugar compounds, though, and some other tests also did not detect intended effects of the therapy. The key test will be stopping the patients' weekly enzyme treatments to see if their bodies can now make enough of it on their own. Three have gone off treatments so far and one was recently advised to resume them because of fatigue and rising levels of the sugar compounds. The others have not been off long enough to know how they will fare. "It looks like it's safe ... that's a very positive sign," said one independent expert, Dr. Kiran Musunuru of the University of Pennsylvania. He called the early results promising but said "it's hard to be sure it's doing any good" until patients are studied longer. "What they're trying to do with gene editing is very challenging," he said. "It's much harder to make a correction or insert a gene" than to disable one. Dr. Tyler Reimschisel of Vanderbilt University agreed. "It's not discouraging, it's just early and on a small amount of people," he said. "This is definitely a novel and innovative treatment" but it's not clear if it's going to help. Sangamo's president, Dr. Sandy Macrae, said a more potent version is being manufactured. Because the treatment seems safe, regulators recently agreed to allow teens with Hunter syndrome to join the study. The ultimate goal is to treat children at a young age, before the disease causes much damage. He said the company will wait for more results on current patients before deciding how to proceed. "We've done something important" by achieving gene editing, he said. "There is a foundation to build on." When U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren officially jumps into the race for president, it won't be from her Cambridge hometown where Harvard and MIT reside, or nearby Boston, where presidential hopefuls have launched campaigns over the generations. Instead, the 69-year-old Democrat is widely expected to kick off her campaign Saturday some 30 miles (50 kilometers) north in Lawrence, a faded mill city that's one of New England's poorest and most heavily Latino. The struggling city, once a center of the American textile industry and where one of the nation's most significant labor strikes occurred, provides a fitting backdrop for Warren's economic message of fighting for workers in the face of powerful corporate interests and a growing wealth divide. With a long tradition of welcoming immigrants, the nearly 80 percent Latino city is also a place where the fight over immigration deeply resonates. "Lawrence is a microcosm of the story Democrats want to tell about where America has been and where it wants to be," said John Cluverius, a political science professor at the University of Massachusetts in nearby Lowell. "It's an industrial city where American workers fought for fair wages and labor conditions. It's also an immigrant city that's grown from many of the policies that President Trump and Republicans now oppose, like family or chain migration." But what makes the city, where more than 80 percent of voters picked Hillary Clinton in 2016, ideal for Democrats also makes it an easy foil for Republicans. President Donald Trump and governors in neighboring Maine and New Hampshire have called out Lawrence for being a hub for the lethal heroin and fentanyl trade. They've taken aim at the city for its sanctuary city policies limiting cooperation with federal immigration enforcement agencies. "Ending sanctuary cities is crucial to stopping the drug addiction crisis," Trump argued last March, citing a Dartmouth College study that found Lawrence was one of the primary sources of fentanyl in six New Hampshire counties. Democratic Mayor Dan Rivera acknowledged his city's reputation for crime and corruption has been difficult to shake, but he pointed to signs of progress. Trendy cafes and restaurants are starting to take their place among the vacant storefronts, barber shops, convenience stores and other modest businesses downtown. A smattering of biotech and other firms have moved in among revitalized mill buildings, and sneaker company New Balance's towering factory along the Merrimack River is among the most visible links to the city's manufacturing past. "There was a time when politicians wouldn't want to be seen in Lawrence," Rivera said. "But Lawrence isn't just the bad things in the past. There's so much going here." In downtown Lawrence this week, news of Warren's visit was greeted with surprise and curiosity. Many welcomed the positive attention as the city recovers from a series of natural gas explosions and fires. The September disaster killed one resident, injured dozens more, damaged scores of homes and businesses, and left thousands without gas service for heating and cooking for weeks as winter set in. Susan Sirois, who heads Bread and Roses, a soup kitchen named after the city's famous 1912 strike, is among many hoping that Warren offers tangible solutions to the challenges facing Lawrence and many other old cities in her speech Saturday. "She has to if she's coming here. She has to," Sirois said. "We might be the poorest city in Massachusetts, but this is not an aberration. This is the United States. This is the way it is." A resident of nearby Salem, New Hampshire, Sirois is a registered Democrat who voted for Clinton in 2016 but hasn't decided whom she'll back in 2020. Across the street from the Everett Mills, where Warren is set to speak Saturday, Carmen Reyes was excited at the prospect of hearing from the senator she's back in both her senate campaigns. The 60-year-old registered Democrat, who voted for Clinton in 2016, said Warren would be her pick if the presidential election was today. "I really want a woman president," Reyes said. "She can probably do a lot better than what the current one is doing." But a few blocks over, at El Taller cafe, David Cabrera was less willing to commit to a candidate this early. The 47-year-old telecommunications salesman, who is unaffiliated, said he's intrigued by U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, of Ohio, and former U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke, of Texas neither of whom has confirmed a presidential candidacy but would vote for Warren if she was the Democratic Party's nominee. "I find her to be a little more to the left than I would prefer," he said. "Free college tuition, for example, sounds wonderful, but what are our taxes going to look like after that happens? How is it going to affect what I take home?" What to Know Amazon is reconsidering its plan to open a new headquarter in NYC following opposition from local politicians, the Washington Post says The company has not leased or purchased office space for the project, making it easy to withdraw its commitment, the publication says The e-commerce behemoth announced in November 2018 it will be splitting its new East Coast bases between LIC and Virginia Amazon is reconsidering its plan to open a new headquarters in New York City following opposition from local politicians, The Washington Post reported. The company has not leased or purchased office space for the project, making it easy to withdraw its commitment, the newspaper said Friday. Mayor Bill de Blasio's press secretary said in a statement: "The Mayor fully expects Amazon to deliver on its promise to New Yorkers." Meanwhile, in a separate statement, Amazon said: Were focused on engaging with our new neighbors - small business owners, educators, and community leaders. Whether its building a pipeline of local jobs through workforce training or funding computer science classes for thousands of New York City students, we are working hard to demonstrate what kind of neighbor we will be. The New York Times, in its own story Friday afternoon, cited Amazon sources as saying the Post's reporting had gone too far, and that the company had no plans to pull out of the NYC project. State Sen. Michael Gianaris, who has the power to veto some aspects of the Amazon deal, told NBC 4 New York that the deal presented is a bad one, adding that he is fine with being known as among the opposition. "It's a horrible deal. If people want to say I'm responsible, I'm happy to live with it," he said. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also weighed in on the reports, tweeting: "Can everyday people come together and effectively organize against creeping overreach of one of the world's biggest corporations? Yes, they can." But neighbors who already had their hearts set on the company coming to Queens were nervous about the Washington Post report. "We are expanding our business in a couple of years, and everybody's excited about that," said restaurant manager Hamer Iwin in Long Island City. "That's not good news." Eric Benaim, the CEO of the Long Island City-based Modern Spaces real estate firm, said, "I was upset. It's kind of sad that there is a small constituency of people who are against jobs. I don't know what's going on with society that 25,000 jobs is a bad thing." "That's how New York always loses opportunities," said Mike DeAngelo in Long Island City. "They refuse things and then it goes to other places.' Queens councilman Jimmy Van Bramer, who originally lobbied to lure Amazon here, then reversed himself when the state and city offered big tax breaks, said Friday: "We are thrilled. The battle we've been waging since the mayor and governor announced their secret deal has come to fruition." Gov. Andrew Cuomo pushed back on the idea that $2.5 billion in tax breaks were really that big. "It's like saying instead of paying 10 percent taxes, they pay 9 percent," he said. "That's the economic package." Amazon announced in November 2018 that the e-commerce behemoth will be splitting its new East Coast bases between Long Island City, Queens, and Crystal City in northern Virginia. The new headquarters would bring 25,000 jobs to New York City. Unlike in Virginia where elected leaders quickly passed an incentive package for a separate headquarters facility final approval from New York state is not expected until next year, the Post reported. The November announcement sparked protests among community members who feared the move would displace long-time residents. Following reports of Amazon's reconsideration, New York Communities for Change (NYCC), one of the many groups opposed to the Amazon LIC headquarters, released a statement. New Yorkers wont be fooled. They are rejecting a $3 billion giveaway to a multi-million dollar company that will only displace low-income communities and hardworking residents," Jonathan Westin, executive director of NYCC said. "We are well aware of the damage Amazon has done in other communities and do not want that repeated in New York. In Seattle, where homelessness have gone out control, they have refused to pay their fair share of taxes and low income residents have been left without the promised jobs. Amazon executives recently had internal discussions to reassess the situation in New York and explore alternatives, two people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly about the companys perspective, told the Washington Post. The question is whether its worth it if the politicians in New York dont want the project, especially with how people in Virginia and Nashville have been so welcoming, the report quoted one person familiar with the companys plans as saying. However, the publication said that although no specific plans to abandon New York have been made, it is possible that Amazon may try to use a threat to withdraw to put pressure on city and state officials. Earlier this week, Cuomo accused his fellow Democrats in the state Senate of "playing politics" by nominating a critic of subsidies for Amazon's planned campus in Queens to a state board with the power to derail the project. The governor said on public radio that lawmakers would have to answer to the voters if their opposition to the plan scuttles the project. The comments came a day after Senate Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins tapped the chamber's No. 2 lawmaker, Queens Sen. Michael Gianaris, to serve on the obscure but powerful Public Authorities Control Board. Australian police arrested six people after what authorities said Friday was the largest single seizure of methamphetamine in the United States and the biggest drug haul bound for Australia. U.S. Customs and Border Protection said 1,728 kilograms (3,800 pounds) of the drug were seized mid-January at the Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex along with smaller amounts of cocaine and heroin. The drugs were hidden in metal boxes labelled as loudspeakers. Australian authorities said it was also the largest haul of the drug intercepted while bound for Australia and would have provided around 17 million hits of the substance also known as ice. Australian authorities said that the operation with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Drug Enforcement Agency, Australian Federal Police and Victoria state police had stopped "a tsunami of ice" from reaching their shores. Police said that six people arrested in Australia on Thursday and Friday were tied to a U.S.-based syndicate under investigation over the drugs. Two of those arrested are Americans: a 52-year-old man and a 46-year-old woman. Police said the raid in the Melbourne suburb of Woodstock in which they were arrested also found "hundreds of thousands of dollars of proceeds of crime." Police said that three of those arrested would appear in the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Friday, charged with attempting to import illegal drugs. Two other Australians face the same charge. Australian Federal Police Assistant Commissioner Bruce Hill told a news conference in Melbourne that police now believe Mexican cartels are actively targeting Australia. "They have been sending smaller amounts over the years. This is now flagging intent Australia is now being targeted," he said. "The cartel is among one of the most powerful and violent drug trafficking syndicates in the world." None of the agencies involved has further identified the cartel. The operation also involved raids in British Columbia on Thursday by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which resulted in the seizure of "a significant quantity" of suspected proceeds of crime, police said. Jason Halls, Victoria manager for the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission, said the drugs would have had an "immeasurable" impact on the Australian community. He said sewage drug monitoring data showed Victoria state which has a population of 6.3 million was estimated to consume just over 2 tons of ice each year. The previous record haul of meth seized in Australia was 1.3 tons in December 2017. Associated Press writer Robert Jablon contributed to this report. What to Know Philadelphia officials have offered tacit support for what would be the first safe injection site in the United States. Philadelphia has the highest opioid death rate of any large U.S. city. Former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell has joined the board of Safehouse and said he's willing to face arrest. The top federal prosecutor in Philadelphia has filed suit to stop a nonprofit from opening a first-in-the-nation supervised drug injection site to address the city's opioid problem. The lawsuit pits U.S. Attorney William McSwain's stance on safe injection sites against those of Philadelphia's mayor, district attorney and a former Pennsylvania governor. McSwain believes supporters should try to change the laws, not break them. "Normalizing the use of deadly drugs like heroin and fentanyl is not the answer to solving the epidemic," McSwain said at a Wednesday news conference, while protesters gathered outside his Independence Mall office. They said thousands of people could die of overdoses in Philadelphia in the time it might take to change the law. Philadelphia has the highest opioid death rate of any large U.S. city. Mayor Jim Kenney and some city officials have said they'd support a private entity operating and funding safe injection sites. A likely location is the Kensington neighborhood, north of downtown, where so-called "drug tourists" flock to buy high-grade heroin and city librarians have learned to use Naloxone to respond to bathroom overdoses. "We are not going to prosecute people who are trying to stop people from dying," District Attorney Larry Krasner said in response to McSwain's remarks. "We had 1,200 people die last year. I think it is inexcusable to play politics with their lives." Krasner said he has visited a safe injection program in Vancouver to study the situation. The staff does not administer drugs, he said, but instead nudges users if they fall asleep or have trouble breathing and, as a last resort, administers Naloxone. Former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a fellow Democrat, has joined the board of Safehouse, the nonprofit trying to raise $1.8 million to open an injection site, and has said he's willing to face arrest. He bucked similar regulations when he was Philadelphia mayor in the 1990s, sanctioning the city's first needle exchange program. "If I thought for a minute that safe injection sites would create new addicts, I wouldn't be a part of it. I see the ability to save lives and get people who are addicts exposed to treatment," Rendell said last fall. McSwain said he hopes the civil lawsuit - a pre-emptive strike of sorts - will prompt a federal judge to declare the plan illegal. For now, he is seeking only a ruling that the practice violates the 1986 "crack house statute," which was aimed at people running drug dens. His critics say the statute is being misapplied. "We are not arresting anyone," said McSwain, a President Trump appointee. "We're not trying to seize any property or do any thing heavy-handed at all. We're just asking the federal court to look at it." The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Gerald McHugh Jr., a West Philadelphia native appointed by President Obama. Protester Lisa Kelley, a 48-year-old artist, grew up in Kensington, known even then as a drug haven, if on a smaller scale. She believes the Safehouse program would help the neighborhood as well as users.. "I absolutely believe it would help the community," said Kelley, who lost a friend, addiction activist Paul Yabor, to an overdose two years ago and has a foster son in recovery. "It would cut down on the needles found on the street, cut down on the number of people using on the street, cut down on the number of kids having to see that when they're walking to school in the morning." The decorative artistry and intricate carvings on this Revolutionary War powder horn arent the only things that make it special. The horn was owned by African-American soldier Gershom Prince and could be the only surviving one of its kind. The rare artifact helps shed light on the little-known stories of African-American soldiers in the war, both freed and enslaved. This is probably the only surviving powder horn of a black soldier who was killed in action, said Dr. Philip Mead, chief historian and director of curatorial affairs for the Museum of the American Revolution. Prince, a free black man, served in both the French and Indian War and the Revolutionary War. He died fighting in the Wyoming Massacre of 1778 in Pennsylvania. In both wars, Prince carried his spectacular powder horn. It is a moving testament to the contributions of African Americans to the freedom of this nation at its inception, said Mead. The horn is a cows horn and was used to store gunpowder. In addition to having Princes name carved into it, the horn also displays carvings of trees, forts, and other scenes of his everyday life. To have it down here in Philadelphia where I now live and to know that many thousands of people are going to have the opportunity to see it is just thrilling to me, said Denise Dennis, a descendant of Princes family. Dennis grew up in the Wyoming Valley hearing family stories about the powder horn and about Gershom Prince. She believes people who see the powder horn on display will find its artistry as inspiring as she does. The horn will be on display at the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia until the end of the year. What to Know A Philly-bound flight was canceled after a pilot was arrest on suspicion that he was intoxicated, American Airlines confirmed. The pilot was arrested in Manchester, England, and passengers were placed on a different flight. Officials have not yet revealed the pilot's identity. A Philadelphia-bound American Airlines flight was canceled after one of the pilots was arrested on suspicion of being intoxicated, the airline confirmed with NBC10. The pilot, who has not yet been identified, was one of three on flight AA735. The pilot was arrested in Manchester, England, Thursday morning after authorities suspected he was intoxicated, according to a spokesperson for American Airlines. Greater Manchester Police found that the 62-year-old pilot appeared to be over the limit for alcohol around 11 a.m. in England. The flight, which was headed to Philadelphia, was canceled. All passengers were re-booked and arrived in Philly later during the day, the spokesperson said. Safety is our highest priority and we apologize to our customers for the disruption to their travel plans, we have rebooked them on alternative flights, the spokesperson told NBC10. We are fully cooperating with local law enforcement and further questions should be referred to them. With Democrats now controlling the House and holding the legal key to seeking President Donald Trump's tax returns, Republican lawmakers are invoking privacy in defending Trump's flank. At an oversight hearing Thursday, lawmakers examined proposals to compel presidents and presidential candidates to make years of their tax returns public. And they discussed the authority under current law for the head of the House Ways and Means Committee now Democratic Rep. Richard Neal to make a written request for any tax returns to the Treasury secretary. The law says the Treasury chief "shall furnish" the requested information to members of the committee for them to examine behind closed doors. Republicans accused the Democrats of using powers in the tax law to mount a political witch hunt for Trump's tax returns. "In reality, this is all about weaponizing our tax laws to attack a political foe," Rep. Jackie Walorski of Indiana said at the hearing by the Ways and Means oversight subcommittee. Getting Trump's returns has been high on the Democrats' list of priorities since they won control of the House in November's midterm elections, but asking for them will probably set off a huge legal battle with his administration. The Democrats tried and failed several times to obtain Trump's returns as the minority party in Congress, seeking to shed light on his complex financial dealings and potential conflicts of interest. Their newly energized leftward wing is pushing Neal to set the quest in motion, and fast. Thursday's hearing appeared to set the table for the move by examining the legal foundations. "A strong case is being built," William Tranghese, an aide to Neal, told The Associated Press this week. He said Neal is consulting with lawyers for the House "to determine the appropriate legal steps to go forward with this unprecedented request." Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., chairman of the oversight subcommittee, said the American public is intensely interested in the subject. "We ask the question: Does the public have a need to know that a person seeking or holding the highest office in our country obeys the tax laws?" George Yin, a professor of law and taxation at University of Virginia Law School, testified to the panel that he doesn't see any "wiggle room" in the law for the Treasury secretary to refuse Neal's request for Trump's returns. If the Trump administration refused the request, "We would be in uncharted territory," Yin said. The legal battle that could ensue over Trump's tax filings would be unprecedented. It could take years to resolve, possibly stretching beyond the 2020 presidential election. Rep. Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania, the subcommittee's senior Republican, accused the Democrats of gearing up to obtain the president's returns and release them. "Congress is prohibited by law from examining and making public the private tax returns of Americans for political purposes," said Kelly. "Such an abuse of power would open a Pandora's box. It would set a very dangerous precedent." The tax returns of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, other lawmakers or federal employees could be in jeopardy, he warned. But Bill Pascrell, D-N.J., insisted that no one, including the president, is above the law. "The law is on our side," he said. At a news conference Thursday, Pelosi said the public "overwhelmingly" wants to see Trump's tax returns, but the move cannot be made in haste. "It's not just a question of sending a letter; you have to do it in a very careful way. And the chairman of the committee (Neal) will be doing that," the Democrats' leader said. The hearing came two days after Trump faced a divided Congress in his State of the Union address, imploring the Democrats to step away from "ridiculous partisan investigations." The subcommittee also examined a proposal that would require all presidents, vice presidents and candidates for those offices to make public 10 years of tax returns. It's part of House Democrats' comprehensive election and ethics reform package their first major bill for the new Congress this year. The legislation also would make it easier for citizens to register and vote, and ban executive-branch officials from lobbying their old agency for two years after they leave government. While the ethics bill includes a range of reforms, some Democrats have made clear that one of their chief targets is Trump. Some elements of the bill have bipartisan support, but the overall package is unlikely to advance in the Republican-controlled Senate. If the administration mounted a legal challenge over Trump's returns, "I assume that there would be a court case that would go on for a period of time," Neal, D-Mass., said just after the November election. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin "will review any request with the Treasury general counsel for legality," the department has said. Trump's attorney Rudy Giuliani has suggested the Democrats could have a hard time proving their demand was intended for pursuing legitimate congressional oversight and was not a political scavenger hunt. Trump broke with decades of tradition for presidential candidates by refusing to release his income tax filings during his 2016 campaign. He has said he won't release them because he is being audited, even though IRS officials have said taxpayers under audit are free to release their returns. Trump claimed at a news conference following the November elections that the filings are too complex for people to understand. Democrats want to dive in and explore numerous questions about Trump's personal financial webs. Among them: whether there are conflicts of interest between his companies and his presidential actions; what are the sources of his income and to whom he might be beholden as a result; whether he's properly paid taxes; and whether he benefited from the sweeping Republican-written tax law enacted in late 2017. What to Know Matthew Aimers, of NJ, was arraigned on charges of indecent assault, indecent exposure, false imprisonment of a minor and related charges Cops say he forced himself on a teenage waitress at his wedding reception and then was taken from the hall in handcuffs over a drunken brawl Aimers' attorney Louis Busico says he 'completely maintains his innocence on all charges' Police in Pennsylvania say a groom forced himself on a teenage waitress at his wedding reception and then was taken from the hall in handcuffs over a drunken brawl. The Philadelphia Inquirer says Matthew Aimers, of Willingboro, New Jersey, was arraigned Wednesday on charges of indecent assault, indecent exposure, false imprisonment of a minor and related offenses. An affidavit says the waitress had spurned Aimers' advances during the reception. Police allege he followed her into a bathroom and sexually assaulted her. Craziest Stories of 2018: NYC 'Tiger,' Oblivious Metro-North Rider, Salon Melee, Hudson Paddleboarder He's also charged with simple assault, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest after police say he fought officers responding to a brawl at the reception. A worker alleged Aimers punched him after he tried to stop him from bringing alcohol outside. His attorney Louis Busico says Aimers "completely maintains his innocence on all charges." 2018 Top Stories in Photos: Four'easter, Conor McGregor Rampage, Steam Pipe Explosion, Pipe Bomb Mailings, NJ School Bus Crash A Manhattan man was arrested Thursday as tried to get on a plane to fly overseas, allegedly to Pakistan to join and train with a terror group, prosecutors said. The FBI and NYPD arrested Wilfredo Encarnacion, 29, at JFK Airport. Prosecutors said he spoke to an FBI undercover about his alleged plans to join the terror group Lashkar e-Tayyiba, which is believed responsible for several major terror plots including the 2008 Mumbai attacks. "Not only did Mr. Encarnacion express a desire to execute and behead people, he scheduled travel and almost boarded a plane so he could go learn how to become a terrorist," said FBI New York Director William Sweeney. Investigators said the suspect did not yet have weapons or training, but repeatedly spoke about how "I want to execute. I want to behead. Shoot." Encarnacion allegedly called himself "lionofthegood" and "jihadinheart" online. He allegedly wrote a message on a jihadist forum on Nov. 1, 2018: "I want to fight till death alongside the Islamic State...Im a lone wolf looking for a family I can strike the crusaders ... I want to be part of a family willing to kill not afraid of death." On. Nov. 6, he allegedly wrote: "I want to join a group like isis, al wards or Taliban. I just dont have connections. I want to learn. Fight. Kill. Die. And go to paradise." A Dallas, Texas man was also charged Friday. Michael Kyle Sewell, 18, was allegedly encouraging Encarnacion to travel overseas and joing the terror group. Both Sewell and Encarnacion are charged with material support for terror charges. The man who once was in charge of public affairs for the U.S. Pacific Fleet will go to prison for secretly moonlighting for a foreign defense contractor who bribed senior Navy officials and overcharged the Pentagon. The bribery scheme involving Leonard 'Fat Leonard' Francis spanned a decade and included dozens of U.S. Navy officials including commanders and admirals. Francis successfully overcharged the Pentagon by tens of millions of dollars after bribing key Navy personnel with everything from travel and hotel stays to alcohol and prostitutes. Former U.S. Navy Capt. Jeffrey Breslau, 52, was sentenced Friday to six months in custody, fined $20,000, ordered to perform 250 hours of community service and pay $65,000 in restitution to the U.S. Navy. He is the 18th current or former U.S. Navy official to plead guilty in the investigation, federal prosecutors said. As of February 2019, 33 defendants have been charged and 22 have pleaded guilty. The Cumming, Georgia man served as the Director of Public Affairs for the U.S. Pacific Fleet, headquartered in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii from Oct. 2009 to July 2012. After that, he was assigned to the Commanding Officer for the Joint Public Affairs Support Element in Norfolk, Virginia. Part of his duties from Aug. 2012 to July 2014 was to lead joint crisis communications teams. However, Breslau pleaded guilty in November to a conflict of interest, admitting that from March 2012 until Sept. 2013 he was also secretly working for Francis. He was paid more than $65,000 to write talking points for Francis to use when he negotiated contracts with high-ranking Navy personnel. Breslau was secretly advocating for Leonard Francis behind the backs of his Navy colleagues, U.S. Attorney Robert S. Brewer Jr. said Friday in a written release. Breslau is now retired. A coyote lounging in a Weston backyard caused concern and now the city is reminding residents to remain cautious. Mirella Ernst's backyard on Thursday hosted a coyote, which was trapped by Daniel DiPaolo from the Bee Brothers Pet Solutions animal control company. DiPaolo said the coyote is likely fully grown and at least 2 years old. DiPaolo, who said he's been in the business for 17 years and has seen coyotes in various South Florida locations, said the animal likely couldn't find his or her way out of the neighborhood. The best thing to do when encountering a coyote is to leave them alone, as they are likely looking for food, according to DiPaolo. If hungry, coyotes may become agitated. "Coyotes are an important part of Florida's natural ecosystem. They live in urban, suburban and rural areas," the City of Weston wrote in a statement. "Be aware of unusual coyote behavior. Unusual behavior could include a coyote that has lost its fear of humans and is approaching people, chasing joggers and bikers, or attacking leashed pets." Anyone who sees a coyote acting unusual or aggressively should report it to the FWC at 561-625-5122. When it came to investigating animal abuse, a South Florida non-profit had a powerful ally in Miami-Dade County the State Attorney's Office. But now that partnership is broken after prosecutors say the organization Animal Rescue Mission, or ARM, went too far. For eight years, the group has gathered undercover video of cockfights, slaughterhouses, dairy farms and other places where it says animal abuse occurs, and their materials have repeatedly been relied on in Miami-Dade County to prosecute suspects. In 2015, after helping lead Miami-Dade to an illegal slaughterhouse, ARM's founder, Richard "Cudo" Couto, issued a warning through the assembled media to anyone abusing animals for profit: "You better shut down now because if you don't, ARM is coming after you and right behind us is the Miami-Dade Police Department and the State Attorney's Office." But those days are over, the state attorney has decided. The split came after Couto and his operatives conducted a months-long investigation into cockfighting in South Dade without first alerting and working with law enforcement. Instead, during a June 23 gathering of cockfighters, gamblers and spectators at the Rancho El Triangulo, ARM called 911 to report the activity. "We expected arrests would be made, the operation shut down," Couto told the NBC 6 Investigators. It is a felony to conduct or attend cockfights in Florida. Instead the police did "absolutely nothing," he said. "No arrests. Law enforcement were actually letting all of the offenders of the cockfighting operation flee." At one point, Couto stood in front of one car leaving Rancho El Triangulo, demanding the driver be arrested. "Run me over," he said on video recorded by ARM and provided to NBC 6. "We will not let anyone leave this property." Eventually, though, they did leave. "I was furious," Couto recalled. "Imagine taking five months of your life and going undercover somewhere and having uniformed officers disperse the entire operation." Miami-Dade Police patrol units answering the surprise 911 call could not quickly assess the situation and conduct a thorough, orderly, safe investigation that was likely to result in a successful prosecution, according to a Miami-Dade prosecutor who reviewed the case. Responding "to a large and chaotic scene involving dozens of possible suspects" increases the likelihood of force being used and of physical evidence not being documented and collected by uniformed officers, wrote Assistant State Attorney Michael Filteau. "I am concerned that if ARM continues to engage in unsupervised investigations such as they did in this case, one of their personnel is going to be hurt or killed in the process," Filteau concluded. He found it "conceivable" that the property's owner and the cockfighting referee could have been successfully prosecuted, based in part on ARM's videos, but declined the case, concerned that "filing such charges would tend to encourage ARM (and other civilian organizations) to conduct future undercover investigations without appropriate supervision," which could be extremely unsafe and potentially illegal. "I believe that ARM's intentions are good, and that they sincerely want to help protect animals from truly atrocious treatment," Filteau wrote. "Animal cruelty and animal fighting cases should be investigated and prosecuted. If ARM personnel refrain from conducting unsupervised investigations and work with law enforcement officers in a properly supervised fashion from the outset of any future investigations, I have little doubt that they could be a useful resource in combatting such criminal activities." But Couto refuses to work with Miami-Dade law enforcement. "We've done that with our past two cockfighting operations we've investigated. Both operations, our cover was blown," he said, speculating without proof that someone from Miami-Dade Police or others alerted to another ARM investigation tipped off its targets. Prosecutors asked Couto to name anyone he believed may have leaked information to suspects, but he told them he could not identify a specific person who he thinks may have been responsible. Miami-Dade Police told us no one from the agency tipped off subjects. "In this case, we share many of the concerns of the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office and encourage any persons or groups with information concerning criminal activity to bring the information to the attention of law enforcement personnel or contact Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at 305-471-TIPS, so an investigation can be initiated by proper authorities and under the rule of law," the agency said in a statement. Couto remains independent and defiant. "Bringing law enforcement in early? That's not going to happen," he said. "Will we stop investigating animal cruelty crimes and turn our back on the animals in our own community? That will never happen - ever. We will go out, and we'll investigate crime the very same wayThen, we'll call 911, after our investigation, at the foot of the farm. We'll expose it to the public." Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam told his top staff Friday that he is not going to resign over a racist photo that has roiled state politics despite intense pressure to step down, according to a top administration official. Northam called a Cabinet meeting Friday at 4 p.m. and told his team he was not going to resign and that he intended to finish out his term, an official told News4. The official said the cabinet members applauded at the end of the meeting. The announcement comes at the end of an unprecedented week in Virginia history that has seen the state's three top Democrats embroiled in potentially career-ending scandals. The tumult began last Friday afternoon, when Northam's medical school yearbook page surfaced with a picture of one person in blackface and another in a Ku Klux Klan hood and robe. Northam immediately apologized for appearing in the photograph, saying he could not "undo the harm my behavior caused then and today." Most of the Democratic establishment called for his resignation by the end of the day. On Saturday, though, the governor reversed course and said he wasn't in the picture. He said he wasn't going to resign immediately because he owed it to the people of Virginia to start a discussion about race and discrimination and listen to the pain he had caused. "I believe this moment can be the first small step to open a discussion about these difficult issues," Northam said. But the governor left his long-term plans open, saying he would reassess his decision not to resign if it became clear he had no viable path forward. The pressure on Northam reached a crescendo Saturday when almost the entire Virginia Democratic establishment, as well as nearly every Democratic presidential hopeful, called on him to resign. That pressure has tapered off as a cascade of scandals involving top politicians has rocked the state. California college professor Vanessa Tyson publicly accused Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax of forcing her to perform oral sex on him at a hotel in 2004 during the Democratic National Convention in Boston. Fairfax, who would replace Northam if he resigned, has cast the allegations as a political smear. And Attorney General Mark Herring in line to become governor if Northam and Fairfax resign admitted putting on blackface in the 1980s, when he was a college student. Herring had previously called on Northam to resign and came forward after rumors about the existence of a blackface photo of him began circulating at the Capitol. Although the Democratic Party has taken almost a zero-tolerance approach to misconduct among its members in this #MeToo era, a housecleaning in Virginia could be costly: If all three Democrats resigned, Republican House Speaker Kirk Cox would become governor. Northam's decision to stay in office comes despite many fellow Democrats in Virginia and beyond reiterating their calls for him to resign as recently as Friday. Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, a 2020 presidential hopeful, said Friday that he still thinks Northam should step down. "I think it dredges up very hurtful, painful things from the past. ... I think he's betrayed the public trust, and he should resign," Booker said in response to a reporter's question during an appearance in Iowa. And in statements Thursday night, the state legislature's Black Caucus and Virginia's Democratic congressional delegation reiterated calls for the governor to step down, while the state House Democrats who also previously called for Northam's resignation said they remain disappointed in him. In a positive sign for Northam, even before he announced his plan to stay in the job, a lawmaker from Virginia's Democratic-leaning D.C. suburbs said Friday he won't call on the besieged governor to resign. "I will not request the Governor's resignation," State Sen. Chap Petersen, a Democrat, said in a statement. "Nor will I request any other official to resign until it is obvious that they have committed a crime in office or their ability to serve is irredeemably compromised." There has also been little appetite among lawmakers to use official means to force him out. Cox, the House speaker, himself said Monday that there was "a rightful hesitation" among lawmakers to seek Northam's impeachment or removal. He called on Northam to resign, saying "that would obviously be less pain for everyone." Regarding the allegation against Fairfax, the district attorney's office in Boston declined to say whether it is investigating. Under Massachusetts law, the statute of limitations is 15 years for rape and several related crimes, an interval that would expire this summer for the woman's accusation. News4's Julie Carey reports Northam will make his first public appearance in a week on Saturday when he attends the funeral of a Virginia State Trooper in Chilhowie, Virginia. Associated Press writers Alanna Durkin Richer in Boston and Thomas Beaumont in Mason City, Iowa, contributed to this report. A city commissioner in Florida has resigned after the state ethics commission fined her over accusations she sexually harassed a former city official by licking his face and groping him. Madeira Beach City Commissioner Nancy Oakley handed in her resignation Tuesday. The Tampa Bay Times reports that in her resignation letter Oakley says she's innocent and plans to appeal the ethics violation ruling. The Florida Commission on Ethics last month fined Oakley $5,000 and called on the governor to issue a public reprimand. A former city official filed the ethics complaint against Oakley two years ago, saying she'd sexually harassed him by licking his face and groping him at a public event. What to Know Sunday, Feb. 10 Debs Park $25; kids 12 and under may enter for free Southern California, it may be factually stated, is a sizable region where all residents are into a little bit of something. This means that if you want to pick up some crochet tips, or learn how to curl, or find out more on the art of mosaic-making, you can. There is always a Southern Californian who can teach you what they know, in a blithe and patient way. Even hallowed pastimes that seem like they might seem rather more challenging, and have a higher barrier to entry, such as blacksmithing, an art form that has also served as a bedrock of community-building for centuries, have their skilled practitioners around our area. And to find many of those skill-rocking pros, you only need to head for Debs Park on Sunday, Feb. 10. That's the where/when for the second annual Adam's Forge Festival, a celebration of "the art of blacksmithing." Live demonstrations are at the fiery heart of this clank-clank-clank-filled festivity, one that will give visitors a close-up look at what goes into this metal-amazing art. Tomahawk throwing is part of the four-hour happening, too, as are live music performances, which will give more sweet sound to the sweet sounds produced by the shaping of metal. Yep, there shall be food trucks nearby, too. Blacksmithing, like all great art forms, can and should stir the appetite. Is the noon-starting celebration billed as friendly for families? You bet. Will there be an arts and crafts marketplace to browse, too? Oh yes, but be sure you arrive well ahead of 4 o'clock, when everything wraps. A ticket is $25, and kids ages 12 and under can join for free. The people behind this interesting to-do, by the by? Adam's Forge, a blacksmithing school which will mark its 20th anniversary in a few short years. It's a place that aims to "preserve creative heritage and celebrate craft" through study, classes, and, yes, this cool festival. Perhaps the festival will serve as the first spark-producing strike against the iron for you, if you've always wanted to take up blacksmithing, or at least learn more about it. Start here. What to Know At least 5.5 million pills of powder Tadalafil were sold to distributors across the United States, prosecutors allege. Arraignments for Lee, KHK and SHH have been scheduled for Feb. 19 in downtown Los Angeles. Arraignments for Park, RNG Global, Burroughs and Lancaster are expected on March 18. Three people and four companies have agreed to plead guilty in Los Angeles to federal criminal charges related to the illegal importation and sale of $11 million worth of pharmaceutical-grade erectile dysfunction drugs that were falsely marketed as herbal remedies for men, it was announced Thursday. Jin Su Park, 40, of Hacienda Heights agreed to plead guilty in Los Angeles federal court at a future date to felony counts of importing contraband into the United States and introducing misbranded drugs into interstate commerce, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. Park's Rowland Heights-based company, RNG Global Management and Trading Group Inc., is also expected to enter guilty pleas to federal counts of introducing misbranded drugs into interstate commerce. In a separate case, Lancaster Distributors Inc., a Salem, Oregon-based company, and one of its employees, Matthew Burroughs, 42, of Salem each agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor count of conspiracy to introduce misbranded drugs into interstate commerce, prosecutors said. Last month, Park's friend and former colleague, John Seil Lee, 40, of Walnut agreed to plead guilty to felony counts of conspiracy, importing contraband into the United States, filing a false tax return and introducing misbranded drugs into interstate commerce, according to court records. Lee's companies -- KHK International Trade Enterprise Inc. and SHH World Trading Enterprises Inc. -- also agreed to plead guilty to the charges, federal prosecutors said. From 2011 through early 2017, Lee illegally imported shipments of powder Tadalafil -- a prescription drug used to treat erectile dysfunction and sold under the brand name Cialis -- from suppliers in China, according to case documents. Lee then manufactured the powder Tadalafil into at least 5.5 million pills that he sold to distributors across the United States, prosecutors allege. In order to boost sales, Lee allegedly made the pills with up to 14 times the level of Tadalafil contained in Cialis. The U.S. Attorney's Office contends that Lee sold at least $11 million worth of pills across the United States -- under names such as "X Again," "X Monster" and "Royal Master" -- with labels that did not disclose the presence of Tadalafil and falsely stated that no prescription was necessary. After Lee closed SHH following the execution of federal search warrants in February 2017, his friend Park set up RNG Global to operate as a copycat business, according to Park's plea agreement. Park allegedly took 14,000 of Lee's pills, rebranded them as "EEZZY UP PLATINUM," and sold them to Lee's former distributors across the country. Arraignments for Lee, KHK and SHH have been scheduled for Feb. 19 in downtown Los Angeles. Arraignments for Park, RNG Global, Burroughs and Lancaster are expected on March 18. The FDA's approval of Cialis is limited to the use under the supervision of a licensed professional. Due to toxicity and other potentially harmful effects -- including life-threatening drops in blood pressure, loss of vision, loss of hearing and prolonged, painful erections that can result in permanent injury -- drugs similar to Cialis are not safe for use except under the supervision of a medical practitioner. An attorney appointed by the Federal Court to monitor the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's compliance with a series of jail reforms has asked Sheriff Alex Villanueva to provide proof of claims the public was misled by former Sheriff Jim McDonnell about the levels of violence inside County jails. "I do not believe that anyone in the Department has intentionally misled us," wrote Richard E. Drooyan, who is one of several monitors responsible for ensuring the Sheriff's Department follows a 2015 court settlement with inmates who sued and complained there was a pattern of deputies using unnecessary and excessive force. The letter, sent Monday and obtained by NBC News, questioned Villanueva's findings that incidents of violence in the jails were much higher than previously acknowledged. "Without accurate data to serve as a benchmark, it is not possible to draw any reliable conclusions or comparisons regarding the level of force and violence in the jail during your predecessor's tenure," Drooyan wrote. The Sheriff's Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Last week Villanueva said at a news conference McDonnell's administration had engaged in a conspiracy to conceal from the public an increase in the number of inmate attacks on deputies and an increase in the overall level of inmate-on-inmate violence. Villanueva presented several graphs and charts that he said showed the actual level of violence had gone up following the implementation of the reforms demanded in the settlement. Villanueva told reporters inmates and deputies were not made safer as a result of those reforms, and said public reports on the implementation of the reforms were not accurately measuring what was going on inside the jails. Drooyan, a former federal prosecutor with many years of law enforcement oversight experience, cautioned Villanueva not to try to change any jail or use of force policies without first notifying the court. "Any changes in the Department's use of force policies are subject to review and approval," he said. Drooyan previously served as president of the Los Angeles Police Commission, as deputy general counsel for the 1991 Independent Commission on the LAPD, known as the "Christopher Commission," and as general counsel of the Rampart Independent Review Panel in 2000. The letter followed a contentious week for Villanueva, who clashed with several LA County Supervisors concerned about the Sheriff's decision to rehire a deputy who had been fired after a domestic violence complaint. Villanueva defended his decision at several public meetings. He said the domestic violence accuser's account was not credible to him, and said there were another half-dozen deputy terminations he intended to reverse. The Sheriff said he believed the administrative process used to evaluate deputy and employee misconduct was corrupt and that, "politics," were driving County commissioners decisions to fire the deputies. In a Facebook post disputing the cover-up claims former Sheriff McDonnell said the information presented by Villanueva should be fact checked independently. "Sheriff Villanueva is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts," McDonnell wrote. What to Know American women are coming forward with stories of sexual assaults at popular vacation resort destinations Jamaica and the Bahamas are flagged as critical threat locations, according to the State Department A former State Department special agent urges tourists to research their destinations, especially crime statistics and police response Turquoise water, white sand beaches, and carefree days by the pool -- these are the images of paradise that vacation resorts want you to see. But a shadow has been cast over some of the top vacation spots in the world as the State Department issues dire safety warnings. New Jersey couple Ashley and Jeffrey Pascarella learned the hard way when they and their closest friends and family flew to a Sandals resort in the Bahamas to celebrate their wedding. "It really just one of the most memorable trip of our lives, up until the night of our wedding," said Ashley Pascarella. After their welcome party, a butler assigned to their room brought up water and snacks. Jeffrey headed to the bathroom with the butler close behind. "I told him I have to get ready, so we have to go," Jeffrey recounted. "He gets up, follows me. I go to the bathroom and he leaves." But the butler, they said, snuck back into the room and headed straight for the bed where Ashley was asleep. "He was standing over me next to the bed," said Ashley. "His hands were in my pants." Ivy Lee said she was also molested at a Sunscape resort in Montego Bay, Jamaica. A man who worked for a beach vendor at the hotel offered to teach her how to swim. She remembers trying to float while he was holding her up in the water. "He starts touching me, Im like 'no, no, no!'" Lee recalled. Since 2011, the Embassy in Jamaica has recorded 78 reports of rapes or sexual assaults of American tourists. Year after year, the State Department has issued warnings of "sexual assaults perpetrated by hotel employees at resort hotels." Jamaica and the Bahamas, where Ashley and Ivy vacationed, are both flagged as "critical" threat locations. Both women said finding justice is not easy. Because of their persistence, the Pascarellas say they were able to file a police report and their butler was arrested. He eventually pleaded guilty to indecent assault. In Lees case, she was on her way to the police, but said she changed her mind after talking to a hotel worker. "He told me that after I filed the report, the police would go and arrest him and that he would sit in jail until the court date," Lee recalled. "And that I would have to return on my own expense for the trial, but in my heart I knew I would never return." A spokesperson for Sunsplash said "in any instance, crimes of sexual assault are horrific and our empathy is with the people affected by them." Former State Department special agent and current Senior Director of Security Risk Management at Kroll, a division of Duff & Phelps, Matthew Dumpert says reporting the crime to police is critical, even if its not easy, as well as contacting the U.S. embassy. "They understand the local culture and the local judicial system," said Dumpert. "They might be able to give you some assistance." Sandals offered to refund the Pascarellas for the trip but only if they agreed to sign an agreement and to remove all social media posts and online comments about their trip. The couple refused and filed suit against Sandals instead. Their attorney is in the process of serving the lawsuit. "They were trying to keep it quiet as possible," said attorney John Iannuzzi. "It can be quite damaging if it became widespread and known that these things happen." In a statement, Sandals, which has 24 resorts in the Caribbean, said "the narrative that the Pascarellas are presenting is contrary to the statements collected at the time of the alleged incident." They also said, "We take criminal allegations of violence seriously, report such allegations to law enforcement, and fully cooperate with law enforcements investigation." Dumpert said doing research can go a long way. Instead of focusing on the hotel amenities, find out the environment of the place you are visiting. What types of crimes are being committed? And are the local police aggressive about making arrests? "They dont want bad headlines. They dont want bad press and they dont want to deter the foreign income they rely on for tourism dollars." A health alert for North Texas as a student at Lake Dallas High School in Denton County has been diagnosed with pertussis, commonly referred to as whooping cough. Denton County Public Health Department sent a letter to parents asking them to make sure their students immunizations are up to date as the bacteria is highly contagious and can spread quickly in a school setting. On the heels of the announcement, a Dallas emergency room doctor is reminding the public, while this is not a widespread issue, families need to be vigilant. "I don't want to strike too much panic in the public here this is not the bubonic plague. But this is a significant illness," said Dr. Scott Jones of Trusted ER Hillcrest. "There are people who die from it." Dr. Jones said the best form of defense is vaccination, to be followed up by booster shots. "We're seeing more and more of it [whooping cough]. In the 1980's, we kind of thought we had it leveled off. But since the 1980's, cases have been slowly growing by the year. Back in 2012, we had a peak year since 1955. So we are heading the wrong direction," said Dr. Jones. Dr. Jones said the most vulnerable are children, specifically infants, older adults and people who have pre-existing, respiratory conditions. "It's sneaky because the initial symptoms look and sound like a regular cold. You get congestion, maybe a runny nose and some sneezing, low grade fever and a little tearing in the eye perhaps. That will last for a few weeks and then this is where the coughing comes in and the breathing issues come in," said Dr. Jones. Dr. Jones said if you have questions about your immunization status or your child's, the best place to start is your family's general practitioner. Texas' election chief on Thursday defended giving prosecutors a list of 95,000 potential noncitizens on the state's voter rolls before vetting the information, which turned out to wrongly include scores of people who were naturalized before casting legal ballots. Secretary of State David Whitley deflected sharp questions from Texas lawmakers over whether his office made mistakes in his first public comments since his office in January called into question the citizenship of tens of thousands of voters since 1996. Nearly 58,000 of those voters were said to have cast a ballot at least once, but those numbers quickly unraveled . Within days, local officials found that the list wrongly included scores of naturalized citizens, setting off accusations from Democrats and Latino rights groups of attempted voter suppression and launching another heated voting rights battle in Texas. "I will readily level with you that we can always improve the process," Whitley said. "But the data is what the data is, and we were confident that was the best data we could get." Whitley was appointed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in December and is facing confirmation by the Texas Senate. He was pressed over why his office immediately turned the numbers over to Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, explaining he wanted to get the information "in the hands of someone who could do something with it." Three days later, Paxton sent a campaign fundraising email to supporters with the headline, "VOTER FRAUD ALERT." President Donald Trump also seized on the original announcement to renew his unsubstantiated claims of rampant voter fraud. Whitley said the goal is to have accurate voter rolls but said had no update on how much the original list has shrunk. Democrats zeroed in on the whiff of politics. "If you weren't at least attempting to create the appearance of illegal activity, then there's no reason or explanation for immediately referring 95,000 people to the Office of the Attorney General," asked Sen. Kirk Watson, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Nominations Committee. Whitley defended the referral by saying his office has no authority to prosecute cases or investigate a person's citizenship. He later told Watson it "sounds reasonable" to ask Paxton's office to not open cases into any names on the list but stopped short of committing to do so. "My goal was to ensure that folks who could actually do something with it actually had this data in their hands," Whitley said. "The attorney general has statewide jurisdiction in enforcing election law. We do not." The release of the faulty information -- and the GOP's amplification of it as potential proof of widespread election fraud -- plunged the state into another battle over voting rights. On Wednesday night, the ACLU asked a federal judge for an injunction to stop Texas' 254 counties from questioning registered voters about their citizenship based on the list. Another lawsuit was filed by Texas voters whose names erroneously appeared on the original list sent to local election officials. Texas officials say they matched registered voters against records of noncitizens with state IDs. But they failed to exclude scores of people who legally cast ballots only after becoming U.S. citizens. Many of the voting and civil rights groups suing Texas have a have a long history of battling Republican leaders over gerrymandered maps and one of the toughest voter ID laws in the country. Paxton has also made election fraud a priority of his office, which helped prosecute a Mexican national who was sentenced to 8 years in prison in 2017 for illegal voting and now faces deportation. Whitley, who was previously Abbott's deputy chief of staff, does not face certain confirmation despite Republicans controlling the Senate. He will likely need some Democrats to reach the two-thirds threshold needed for confirmation the day of the vote, which remains uncertain. Texas A&M history professor Dr. George C. Wright was a special guest speaker for Black History Month at the University of North Texas at Dallas. "Is Black History Month necessary," asked Dr. George C. Wright as he spoke to an audience at the University of North Texas at Dallas Thursday afternoon. Wright was the special guest speaker for Black History Month. His talk focused on 'black migrations', from the forced migration on slave ships from Africa, to freed slaves migrating to look for lost family members, to African American communities forming around economic opportunities. "You think about the death of Martin Luther King and other kinds of things," Wright said. "I have often been asked, have things improved?" Wright reminded those in attendance that he grew up in the segregated South, where places weren't always accessible to everyone. "I looked forward to going on Negro Day, can you believe that? I'm a black historian," Wright pointed out. "You look at where we are today, there are instances that offend all of us, but here's my punchline; progress has been made along the way." "I feel like I needed to come here today because I needed to know more about my history," said UNT Dallas sophomore Shania Anderson. Wright joked that though today people call him a 'smart' teacher, he was not a good student. The former President of Prairie View A&M and Provost at UT Arlington said he got where he is today because of scholarships that were offered when he was younger to help lift up African American students. "We've got to find a way to continuously reach back and help other folk," Wright said. "That's what we're supposed to do." The 2019 Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo is winding down. When it ends Saturday night, another chapter in its 100-plus year history will close, too. The Will Rogers Coliseum, the home of the "World's Original Indoor Rodeo" will host its last rodeo Saturday night. Competitors and fans have gathered there for years, making memories in the dirt and in the stands. This time next year, the rodeo moves to the city's $540 million Dickies Arena. It's still under construction, just steps from Will Rogers, but it already brings big promises. "The finish outs in this arena will be some of the nicest you've seen. It's gonna be Bass Performance Hall in an arena setting," Dickies Arena President and General Manager Matt Homan said. Homan knows every inch of this place as if it was one of his children. He came to Fort Worth from Philadelphia to oversee the 34-month, multi-million dollar project and manage the venue. The construction crew broke ground Feb. 8, 2017. Since then, more than 2 million man hours have been spent turning what was a piece of dirt into "the next level of arenas." In nine months, Homan and Dickies Arena will welcome the first visitors. "I'm excited to see people's faces as they walk into the building," Homan said. For now, construction workers are tasked with shaping the space into the palace promised in models and mock-up rodeo boxes and suites. "This is the time to turn the page. And you're gonna have a new facility, newer amenities, and it's gonna lift the rodeo and lift all the events we can do in Fort Worth to a new level," Homan said. Voters wanted the new development. In 2014, they approved a public-private partnership. "Public funding is capped at $225 million with no increase in property, sales or hotel occupancy tax rates and no impact to the citys operating funds and debt capacity. The arena will be financially self-sufficient, with no public money going toward operations or maintenance," the city said in a July 2018 news release. "This is really that gift back to the citizens of Fort Worth, and what a gift it's gonna be," Homan said. Homan praised voters for their willingness to support a new multipurpose arena that can host rodeos, sporting events, concerts and graduations. And, he said, it will happen with no threat to the city's other event spaces. "We actually have a trilateral non-compete with the Fort Worth Convention Center, meaning I'm not going after their business. And the trilateral includes the Will Rogers campus because I'm not trying to bring those equestrian events over here," Homan explained. Likewise, the convention center will step out of the arena business. And, Homan said, the deal to build Dickies Arena will ultimately lead to an improved convention center. "The bond dollars the city is using for their part of the project, that $225 million that they're capped at, once that debt starts being paid back, they can use those same bond dollars and go back and start revitalizing the convention center. So this arena's success is vital to revitalizing the convention center," Homan said. And, the 14,000-seat arena is mission critical as the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo. "It gives us a chance to take, by then,102 years of professional rodeo history and tradition and authenticity, and take it to a new level in a 21st century complex that has all those bells and whistles that will truly give that fan an enhanced and new experience that'll be second to none," said Matt Brockman, Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo spokesman. Mixed in with the new bells and whistles will be links to the post. "It might smell a little different at the beginning, but hey, a rodeo arena is a rodeo arena, and it won't be long until the popcorn, that arena smell, everything that people are used to will be replicated in Dickies Arena." Just like at Will Rogers, you'll still see the bunting hanging from the ceiling and on the arena walls. The red diamonds on the bucking chutes will be there; the configuration of the arena will be the same. And, at every rodeo, that beautiful grand entry parade will still snake its way through the arena. Preserving parts of history matters in a city that prides itself on its cowboy culture, yet so does providing a first-class facility with more seats 14,000 versus 6,000 in Will Rogers and more opportunity. "Every little detail's been looked at to make sure this arena is something Fort Worth citizens can be proud of. And that's the piece people don't understand yet that I want them to continue to get," Homan said. Many seem eager to get a place in the arena. Three of four premium levels are sold out: 40 suites, 214 rodeo boxes 62 more than in Will Rogers and 32 loge boxes have been bought. The goal now is to sell out the seats in the lower bowl of the arena in time for the 2020 Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo. "We have 2,600 club seats to sell. It includes all rodeos in the year, a parking place during the rodeo and first right of refusal to buy those seats for other event in the arena," Homan said. Dickies Arena debuts in November with a two nights of concerts from country music legend George Strait. The Nov. 22 date sold out in minutes, so the Texas Troubadour added a second show. Tickets to the Saturday, Nov. 23 concert go on sale Friday, Feb. 8 on Ticketmaster. The arena will host the first indoor rodeo on Friday, Jan. 17, 2020. And, year-round equestrian events will still find a home at the Will Rogers Coliseum. Arizona is trying to catch up to 10 states with laws allowing electronic monitoring and other technology aimed at deterring abuse of vulnerable people at long-term care facilities, following the rape of an incapacitated Phoenix woman who later gave birth. Cameras are most commonly used, but they pose privacy issues, and advocates and experts disagree about their effectiveness. Some say video surveillance can help in criminal cases but may not stop attacks, while others have seen improvements and urge any effort to safeguard those who are aging, sick, disabled or otherwise unable to protect themselves. The Arizona House is considering a measure that would let certain facilities install video surveillance in common areas. The providers would have to detail how to avoid privacy violations. "We're looking into how to make it so parents have more reliable ways to ensure their loved ones are safe," Republican Rep. Nancy Barto, the measure's sponsor. "I'm learning a lot of group homes already do this. Some of those policies are actually working." Arizona would join Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Washington with laws or regulations allowing surveillance equipment inside nursing homes, assisted living centers and other group residential settings. Most of those laws place the option and cost of electronic monitoring on residents and their guardians. A majority of the laws say residents or their surrogates can put a camera or monitoring device in their rooms but must notify the facility, among other conditions. Carole Herman, founder of the advocacy group Foundation Aiding the Elderly, is not sure cameras would have helped her aunt, who died of bedsores in a nursing home but said that they might be useful in other cases. Cameras in hallways can show who is at a patient's bedside and how often the patient is getting care, she said. She questions why any facility would oppose them. "The industry doesn't want it obviously," Herman said. "But if they care about these people, what's the resistance to these cameras?" Nicole Jorwic, director of rights policy at The Arc, a national advocacy group serving people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, cautioned that cameras are not a "magic pill." "Even if the law's written perfectly well, it's not going to capture every form of abuse and neglect," Jorwic said. While cameras could help catch abusers, it's not clear they're effective at preventing violence, said Brian Lee, a former Florida long-term care public advocate who heads the advocacy group Families for Better Care. "As far as prevention, I don't know," Lee said, "but I've seen it used for prosecution." But one expert says a properly designed closed-circuit TV system with multiple monitoring points can be a good deterrent. A common mistake is to have one monitoring area that nobody is watching, which makes cameras reactive instead of proactive tools, said Steve Wilder, president of Sorensen, Wilder & Associates, an Illinois-based health care safety and security consulting group that works primarily with hospitals and senior living communities. "A lot of facilities think cameras give the message of 'We're not a safe facility.' Nothing could be further from the truth," Wilder said. Details were not known about the security system at the Phoenix facility, where a licensed nurse is accused of sexually assaulting a 29-year-old woman who had a baby boy Dec. 29. Hacienda HealthCare said Thursday that it was closing the intermediate care facility that serves young people with intellectual or developmental disabilities and would work with the state to move patients elsewhere. After the birth, the Arizona Department of Health Services implemented new safety measures at Hacienda, including more monitoring of patient care areas but not video cameras. The department declined to comment on the surveillance legislation Thursday. In Texas, a 2013 law allowing facilities to install and operate video surveillance equipment in common areas has made an impact, health officials said. Devices can only be placed in the state's 13 intermediate care facilities, which serve nearly 3,000 patients with intellectual disabilities. Cameras have both confirmed and cleared staff in allegations of abuse, neglect or exploitation. "There was an initial rise as (the Department of Family Protective Services) was able to confirm cases more readily, but since then, the rates have fallen," Carrie Williams, a Texas Health and Human Services Commission spokeswoman, said in an email. New Jersey has taken a different approach. Its "Safe Care Cam" program aims to catch abuse or neglect by allowing residents to borrow a hidden camera. A loaner camera led to the January arrest of a caretaker at an assisted living facility. The attorney general's office said footage showed her slapping a 90-year-old bedridden woman on the hand and roughly pushing her head back onto a pillow several times. The victim couldn't communicate verbally because of a stroke. In Arizona, the lawmaker behind the camera legislation said it has "a good chance" of passing. As chairwoman of the House Health & Human Services Committee, Barto can likely get the measure a hearing. Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, is usually skeptical of regulations and has touted his record of rolling them back, but the Republican has ordered agencies to improve protections for people with disabilities. Arizona also is considering legislation that would require facilities like Hacienda to get a state license and conduct background checks of employees that care for clients. So far, neither bill is scheduled for a vote. Associated Press national writer Matt Sedensky contributed to this report. Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker said on Friday that he has "not interfered in any way" in the special counsel's Russia investigation as he faced a contentious and partisan congressional hearing in his waning days on the job. The hearing before the House Judiciary Committee was the first, and likely only, chance for newly empowered Democrats in the majority to grill an attorney general they perceive as a Donald Trump loyalist and whose appointment they suspect was aimed at suppressing investigations of the Republican president. They confronted Whitaker on his past criticism of special counsel Robert Mueller's work and his refusal to recuse himself from overseeing it, attacked him over his prior business dealings and sneeringly challenged his credentials as the country's chief law enforcement officer. "We're all trying to figure out: Who are you, where did you come from and how the heck did you become the head of the Department of Justice," said Rep. Hakeem Jeffries. When Whitaker tried to respond, the New York Democrat interrupted, "Mr. Whitaker, that was a statement, not a question. I assume you know the difference." Yet Democrats yielded no new information about the status of the Mueller probe as Whitaker repeatedly refused to discuss conversations with the president or answer questions that he thought might reveal details. Though clearly exasperated he drew gasps and chuckles when he told the committee chairman that his five-minute time limit for questions was up Whitaker nonetheless sought to assuage Democratic concerns by insisting he had never discussed the Mueller probe with Trump or other White House officials, and that there'd been no change in its "overall management." "We have followed the special counsel's regulations to a T," Whitaker said. "There has been no event, no decision, that has required me to take any action, and I have not interfered in any way with the special counsel's investigation." Republicans made clear they viewed the hearing as pointless political grandstanding, especially since Whitaker may have less than a week left in the job, and some respected his wishes by asking questions about topics other than Mueller's probe into potential coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign. The Senate is expected to vote as soon as next week on confirming William Barr, Trump's pick for attorney general. "I'm thinking about maybe we just set up a popcorn machine in the back because that's what this is becoming. It's becoming a show," said Republican Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, who accused his Democratic colleagues of "character assassination." But Rep. Jerrold Nadler, the committee chairman who a day earlier had threatened to subpoena Whitaker to ensure his appearance, left no doubt about his party's focus. "You decided that your private interest in overseeing this particular investigation, and perhaps others from which you should have been recused, was more important than the integrity of the department," said Nadler, of New York. "The question that this committee must now ask is: Why?" Whitaker toggled between defending his role in the special counsel's investigation and echoing the president's talking points, conceding for instance that while foreign interference in U.S. elections was a problem, so too was voter fraud a key issue for Republicans, but one that Democrats say is overstated. He said he had no reason to doubt Mueller's honesty or to believe that he was conflicted in his leadership of the investigation. But he also declined to say if he still agreed with sharply critical comments about the Mueller probe that he made as a television commentator before arriving at the Justice Department in the fall of 2017 as chief of staff to then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions. And he passed up a chance to break from the president's characterization of the Mueller investigation as a "witch hunt," saying simply, "I think it would be inappropriate for me to comment about an ongoing investigation." FBI Director Christopher Wray, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Barr have all maintained that they do not believe the investigation to be a witch hunt. Whitaker also denied a news report that Trump had lashed out at him after the guilty plea of Michael Cohen, the president's former lawyer. But he did not answer directly about whether he had discussed that investigation, run by prosecutors in New York, with Trump, insisting only that the president had never instructed him to take particular actions. He said his comment at an unrelated news conference last week that the Mueller investigation was close to wrapping up a remark that generated significant attention and speculation reflected only "my position as acting attorney general." He said Mueller would finish on his own schedule. White House officials kept an eye on Whitaker's performance and, while they appreciated his combative tone and aggressive defense of the administration, there was a sense from aides that his performance, at times, appeared halting and ill-prepared. The president himself kept an eye on the proceedings before leaving the White House for his annual physical. Democrats also inquired about Whitaker's past business dealings. Nadler and three other House committee chairmen released documents that they said show Whitaker failed to return thousands of dollars that were supposed to be distributed to victims of a company's alleged fraud. Whitaker has come under scrutiny for his involvement with the invention promotion company, which was accused of misleading consumers. Whitaker, a former U.S. attorney from Iowa, took over when Sessions was forced from the Cabinet last November as Trump seethed over Sessions' decision to step aside from overseeing the Russia investigation. Trump insists there was "no collusion" between his campaign and Russia. Nadler said Friday that he wanted Whitaker to return for a deposition in the coming weeks. A West Hartford man who receives rental assistance from the state was convicted Tuesday of one felony count of criminal property damage to a rental home. Chad Anderson was sentenced to two years jail time, which was suspended. One of the conditions of his probation is paying back both landlords who accused Anderson and his wife of trashing their properties. Chad and Jessica Anderson were arrested in June 2018, one month after NBC Connecticut Investigates first reported the allegations. The criminal case against Jessica Anderson is pending. The pair receives rental assistance through the federally-funded Shelter Plus Care program, which is administered through the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (DMHAS). A DMHAS spokesperson declined to comment on the guilty verdict. It is not clear if the family is still receiving aid. Although DMHAS finds and pays for housing for its clients, the agency says it is the landlords responsibility to conduct background checks on any prospective tenants. A spokesperson previously told NBC Connecticut Investigates the leases are between the landlord and tenant, and any disputes should be handled in court. PHOTOS: Family Enrolled in State Program Accused of Trashing Homes Laura Guilmartin said she agreed to rent to the Andersons on the assumption that DMHAS would vouch for them. I never imagined that the state would allow them to destroy my home, Guilmartin told NBC Connecticut last year. DMHAS paid Guilmartin $2,000 for damages, the maximum allowed under the rules of the Shelter Plus Care program. Guilmartin also kept the $2,000 security deposit. She estimates she spent more than $20,000 on repairs. Last September, the Andersons were charged in connection with damages to a second rental property in West Hartford. At the time, the couple told NBC Connecticut Investigates they were not allowed back into Guilmartins home to clean it or remove their belongings. They also said they were kicked out of the second property because Guilmartin tracked down their landlord and told him they cause trouble. That landlord, Dritan Dalipi, told NBC Connecticut the couple violated his no pets policy and caused thousands of dollars in damage. Although Chad Anderson was convicted solely on the charges linked to Guilmartins case, he was ordered to pay restitution to both Guilmartin and Dalipi. An exact amount and payment schedule has not been determined. Anderson and his attorney declined to comment on the guilty verdict. Police are looking for a man who robbed the Stop & Shop on Hemingway Avenue in East Haven on Friday afternoon. The shoplifting suspect was confronted by a store employee around 2 p.m. Friday and pulled out a stun gun, according to police. The man activated the stun gun and told the employee to step away. The worker was not struck by the stun gun, police said. The suspect took off into the parking lot with about $150 in meat, according to police. He got into the passenger side of a 2005 black Ford Escape with gray bumpers. The SUV had Connecticut license plate AS-21275. Anyone with information on the identity of the suspect is asked to call East Haven police at 203-468-3820. Post University opened 128 years ago as a one-building schoolroom in downtown Waterbury. Seven weeks ago, Post moved 400 employees from the online student services division into 53,000 square-feet of space in the refurbished Howland-Hughes building on Bank Street. We got great historic buildings in downtown Waterbury, said Carl Rosa, the CEO of Main Street Waterbury that focuses on downtown revitalization and historic preservation. Rosa said the arrival of a new workforce has provided a boost to local business. It resulted in almost an immediate impact of economic development, Rosa said. Downtown the businesses saw an immediate spike in their business. The restaurants, the lunch places saw an uptick in their businesses and its been great. Danielle Mazza started working in admissions for Post two weeks ago. Ive never worked in a city-type life so Im really enjoying this. Can go out take a stroll and see downtown Waterbury, she said. Post has taken over space on three floors and the main lobby features a massive monitor with scrolling promos for the university. The renovations that they did were beautiful, Post employee Brittany Difalco said. They were able to keep the original architecture of the building as well as incorporate our business office as well, so I think its a beautiful little spot for us. At the nearby Seven Villages Restaurant, owner John Velezis said he gets daily orders from Post employees. Weve seen a little more action -- a lot more action actually and a lot delivering, he said. I just gave a few people a few extra hours and we just work a little harder, thats all. Post Universitys enrollment has grown more than 60-percent in the last three years and the campus residence halls are nearing capacity, Post Director of Communications Joan Huwiler said in an email to NBC Connecticut. With this growth, it is natural to think of expansion, Huwiler said. Taking on additional space might be a foregone conclusion but it is still very early in the process. We need to have additional conversations with various folks. Waterbury Mayor Neil OLeary was unavailable for comment Friday, but he spoke in favor of Post moving more workers into the Bank Street building during his monthly radio broadcast on Thursday. Wed love to see more of our historic vacant buildings converted to mix-use development and this is a classic case of that right now, Rosa said. Connecticuts U.S. senators have been joined by Massachusetts U.S. senators in their efforts to combat the crisis that has led to hundreds, and potentially thousands of homes crumbling to the ground. U.S. Senators Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal have proposed separate bills, but have signed on to each as a co-sponsor, aimed at having a pair of federal agencies provide assistance to homeowners. Blumenthals measure calls for FEMA to pay $20 million annually for five years to affected homeowners, while Murphys calls for the same from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Both of Massachusetts U.S. senators, Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, both Democrats, have signed on co-sponsors, as their state has been impacted by the crisis as well. In a statement, Murphy said, Ive visited the homes of Connecticut families with crumbling foundations, and Ive seen firsthand the stress and financial burden this is causing them. While weve been successful in getting Congress to take some action, its not enough. These common-sense steps will help alleviate the pain of homeowners and businesses across Connecticut repairing and rebuilding crumbling foundationsa continuing financial and emotional nightmare, Blumenthal said in a statement. Mike Maglaras, who is in charge of the Connecticut Captive Insurance Company, said if Connecticut were to receive $50 million, half of either bills proposal, that could pay for repairs for about 300 homes, on average. The funding is in addition to the bonding approved by the state last year, and the $12 annual surcharge on all homeowners insurance policies. Tim Heim, one of the most vocal homeowners on the issue, said hes happy that crumbling foundations has received more broad attention in Congress and in Washington. It gives us strength. Massachusetts cannot be forgotten. The issue was a Connecticut issue that crossed state lines and it effects the good hardworking people of not only Connecticut, but Massachusetts as well, he said. Heim even had HUD Secretary Ben Carson in his home, and says the issue should not be viewed through a political lens. Its not a partisan issue and its a lot of people from both sides working on this and were going to continue to keep fighting and stay optimistic. Murphy and Blumenthal proposed similar legislation last year but they never received final votes for passage. Amid reports that Amazon is reconsidering its plan to open a new headquarters in New York, the state of Connecticut has reached out to the company, according to the governor. Gov. Ned Lamont said on Twitter that the state has already reached out to the company through its in-state representation. Upon the 1st indication days ago that there may be trouble with @Amazon's proposed deal with #NY, we mobilized our new Partnership to Advance the Connecticut of Tomorrow and more specifically, @CERCInc co-chairs Indra Nooyi and Jim Smith, to construct a path forward. (1/2) Governor Ned Lamont (@GovNedLamont) February 8, 2019 The state has already made an outreach to @Amazon through its in-state representation, and we are looking forward to expanding the dialogue. (2/2) Governor Ned Lamont (@GovNedLamont) February 8, 2019 After Amazon announced it would be opening a second headquarters, 238 proposals flooded in from cities and towns across North America, including Hartford, Stamford, Waterbury, Danbury and a joint bid for New Haven and Bridgeport. No Connecticut municipalities were selected and in November, the online giant announced that it would split its new East Coast bases between Long Island City, Queens, and Crystal City in northern Virginia. Then on Friday, the Washington Post reported that Amazon was reconsidering its plan for a new headquarters in New York City following opposition from local politicians. Lamont took to Twitter Friday night to share word of the state reaching out to the company. Upon the 1st indication days ago that there may be trouble with @Amazon's proposed deal with #NY, we mobilized our new Partnership to Advance the Connecticut of Tomorrow and more specifically, @CERCInc co-chairs Indra Nooyi and Jim Smith, to construct a path forward, Lamont Tweeted. Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuaron's "Roma," a darling of the 2019 award season with 10 Academy Award nominations and two wins in the Golden Globes, is an intimate story of Cuaron's childhood told through the eyes of an indigenous woman who works as a nanny to a middle-class family in Mexico City. The family drama also provides a gripping glimpse of Mexican society at the cusp of great social change in the early 1970s, a time of migration, urbanization and cultural transformation. "The movie is to a great extent a story about modernization," said Claudio Lomnitz, professor of anthropology at the Department of Latin American and Iberian Cultures at Columbia University. "We see two rural girls come from Oaxaca who have moved to the city. They are indigenous and they speak Mixtec, but they also speak Spanish, they go to the movies, they have sex." Almost 50 years have passed from the time in which the movie is set. How does today's Mexico compare with the Mexico of Cuaron's childhood with regard to the more disturbing social issues it portrays, like violence and social inequality? NBC spoke to four researchers on Mexico from the fields of history, sociology and anthropology. More Violence After the Drug War Begins "Mexico is a country that hurts," said Maria Amalia Gracia, sociologist at the Department of Society and Culture of Colegio de la Frontera del Sur, a research center located on the southern border of Mexico. For Gracia, violence in Mexico today has reached unimaginable levels. "It is surprising that people can continue to live in those conditions," she said. The Corpus Christi Massacre of 1971 is the backdrop to a frightening scene in "Roma," the moment when the film's pregnant protagonist, Cleo, discovers that the father of her child is part of a government paramilitary group. The massacre and the paramilitaries in the film represented the dominant form of violence of the day: centrally directed repressive violence, known as "The Dirty War" that took place under the orders of the presidency and the Ministry of Interior. It was a war that the country's authoritarian one-party regime was fighting, indiscriminately, against two enemies: a growing urban middle class demanding democratization, and a left-wing student movement featuring guerrilla groups, Lomnitz said. "Mexico is a much freer country today, but it is also a much more violent country," Lomnitz said. The new violence is "less heroic, less easy to romanticize." It is no longer about struggles for justice or freedom, against a repressive society and regime. The now prevalent drug-related spike in violence has its roots in 2006, the year Mexico's Drug War formally began. Between the early 1970s and the eve of the Drug War, violence in Mexico had decreased significantly, Lomnitz said. In 2007, homicide rates (9.3 per 100,000 people) were not much higher than in the United States (5.7 per 100,000). But by 2018, they reached 25 per 100,000. At the beginning of the Drug War, the government's official take was that the death toll was to a large extent, a result of organizations killing each other off in turf wars. But recent studies by Mexico's Center for Research and Teaching in Economics (CIDE) suggest that Mexico's military and federal police have executed a substantial proportion of the 150,000 Drug War-related killings. "Much of the violence today also comes from local governments, which are often in the control of criminal organizations," Lomnitz said. The Iguala Massacre of 2014, where 43 students from a rural teachers' college were taken and disappeared, is an example of this new type of violence, as is the fact that during the 2018 federal elections, more than 100 local candidates were assassinated. "The closing of the U.S.-Mexican border is an untold part of this story," Lomnitz said. As moving across the border became more difficult in the 1990s, the firepower and discipline of organized crime trafficking with Colombian cocaine grew. It triggered an increase in the concentration of criminal money, wealth and violence. More recently, powerful Chinese criminal organizations have partnered with Mexican ones to produce methamphetamine in Mexico, destined for the North American market. This development is furthering the concentration of violent criminal power. Tensions Over Land Dampened by Modernization Conflicts over land come up various times in "Roma." The government takes away land belonging to Cleo's mother. A man sitting in a bar has lost a family member due to a land dispute. A family of landowners exhibits on its farmhouse wall, the stuffed head of a pet dog that had been poisoned during another land dispute. And the New Year's party being held by that same family is eerily interrupted by arson in the surrounding woods. "Low-scale agrarian violence is very old in Mexico," Lomnitz said, adding that it goes back to colonial times. And after the land reforms of the 1920s and 1930s, when the countryside was made up of small scale farmers, conflicts sprung up between towns, between smallholders, and between smallholders and larger landowners. Conflict over land began to recede in the 1980s due to an increasing migration to the city, which led to fewer land disputes in the countryside. "Roma" shows the beginning of this migration. Cleo visits, in search of her baby's father, a shantytown located just outside of Mexico City limits that was beginning to be occupied by squatters, migrants from the countryside. Today, this place, known as Ciudad Nezahualcoyotl with a population of 1.1 million, is the 10th largest city in Mexico. A Continuing Racial Divide Yalitza Aparicio, the first indigenous woman to be Oscar-nominated for best leading actress, plays Cleo, the servant of a white family. She is treated with affection and care, but the difference in social status is enforced at all times, in both explicit and subtle ways. For example, while cuddling with the family in front of the TV, she is abruptly ordered to fetch tea for "the doctor." "She is very lucky," said Kevin Terraciano, professor of history and director of the Latin American Institute at UCLA. Indigenous servant women are not always treated well. Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu has spoken of how vulnerable she felt living with a family as a young woman. Sexual advances and mistreatment is an underlying possibility. "Since that decade, there has been increased awareness of the problems faced by domestic workers," Gracia said, "but racism and behaviors underscoring inequality continue to exist. Results of our most recent research on domestic workers are eloquent on the problems of discrimination and abuse." Some progress has been made at the legislative level in recognizing the rights of the indigenous population. Laws protecting the right to their languages and culture, and to self-empowerment have been enacted since the turn of the century. A rebellion of indigenous people in the 1990s, known as the Zapatista rebellion, in which paramilitary death squads massacred indigenous people, marked the beginning of increased awareness. Since then, indigenous communities have also made progress in "the creation of autonomous communities, which give them more direct representation over their land and resources," Terraciano said. But it is still common to see indigenous women working as servants. And the indigenous populations remain extremely poor. "Here in Mexico being indigenous gives you a particular social status. There is a marginalization, a social discrimination that we Mexicans know by the social norms and social codes with which we are educated," said Jesus Ruvalcaba, a researcher at the Center for Research and Higher Studies in Social Anthropology (CIESAS) in Mexico City. "There has been some progress, but not much." Being "indio" in Mexico continues to be a stigma. And the indigenous people feel it and know it, Terraciano said. "After independence from Spain, the leaders of the new nation saw these traditional cultures as obstacles." Since then, governments have used laws and force to dissolve native communities and mainstream indigenous peoples. "Today, leaders continue to speak of the 'Indian problem.'" Warning: Graphic details in this article could be offensive or disturbing to some readers. Jurors have found an Iowa woman guilty in the death of her infant son, whose lifeless body was found in a baby swing. The Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier reports it took the jury about four hours Wednesday to find 21-year-old Cheyanne Harris guilty of first-degree murder and child endangerment causing death. The charges stem from the death of 4-month-old Sterling Koehn, whose body was found Aug. 30, 2017, in a maggot-infested diaper at an apartment in Alta Vista. First responders found his body in a sweltering bedroom in a baby swing. An autopsy shows he died of malnutrition, dehydration and an E. coli infection. First-degree murder carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole. The baby's father, Zachary Koehn, already has been sentenced to life in prison in the case. Congressman Dan Lipinski and Illinois House Minority Leader Jim Durkin, along with other elected officials, are calling on the Environmental Protection Agency to "immediately shut down Sterigenics in Willowbrook." Joining Willowbrook Mayor Frank Trilla and other elected leaders, the group plans to host a press conference outside the EPA Region 5 building in downtown Chicago. The call comes one day after the Illinois EPA and U.S. EPA met with Sterigenics following reports of elevated levels of ethylene oxide concentrations surrounding one of the company's suburban Chicago facilities. In a joint statement Thursday Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Attorney General Kwame Raoul urged the EPA to "protect the health and safety of families living near the [Willowbrook] facility." "Recent media reports of alleged improper handling of dangerous chemicals at the Sterigenics facility in Willowbrook and reports of elevated EtO levels within the Willowbrook community are deeply disturbing, and we urge the United States EPA to take swift and effective action to protect the health and safety of families living near the facility," the statement read. Pritzker and Raoul said "after this meeting, we will evaluate any outcomes and exercise all available legal authority to protect the community from this exposure." New air-quality metrics released by the U.S. EPA this week revealed that the two sites closest to the suburban Chicago Sterigenics facilities have the highest ethylene oxide concentrations. The EPA posted the results of 12 days of air-quality testing from late November into mid-December. One of the two locations with the highest concentrations include the Willowbrook Village Hall. Average readings were a little over 2 micrograms per cubic meter, with readings as high as 10 or 11. Environmental health experts said the data confirms prior modeling data that went into the calculations, indicating the cancer risk at more than six extra cancers per 1,000. The EPA considers one extra cancer per million as acceptable. The EPA said that downwind of the Sterigenics facility, the concentrations in the community have been as high as 1.7 micrograms per cubic meter. That's much too high for residents who have been fighting to shut down the facility since they found out about the carcinogen in the air this past summer. "They need to do what's right and protect this community and these children," said Sri Rao of Stop Sterigenics. "Levels at these schools are hundreds of times higher than the acceptable actual levels. This has to stop. Our children are being poisoned. We are being poisoned." "We don't need any more tests," said Neringa Zymancius of Stop Sterigenics. "We are not lab rats for them to conduct testing to see how far they can keep releasing emissions until we all start dying." In a statement earlier this week, Raoul and DuPage County States Attorney Robert Berlin said they are "very deeply troubled by recent media reports showing improper operations at the Sterigenics facility in Willowbrook." "We have also since learned just this afternoon from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that 12 more days of EtO sampling results from November and December 2018 show a clear link between EtO emissions from the Sterigenics facilities and elevated EtO levels within the Willowbrook community," they said. "The citizens of DuPage County should not have to endure this exposure to a known human carcinogen. We are coordinating our review of the data released this afternoon with the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency and the Willowbrook EtO Task Force, which includes retained environmental professionals, including toxicologists. We will exercise all available legal authority to protect the community from this exposure." The U.S. EPA said the data is still too limited to determine the long-term health risks of the levels and expects to issue a full risk assessment in the spring. Residents have also demanded an immediate shut-down of the facilities. A massive fire was burning Friday afternoon in Highland, Indiana. Multiple fire departments were battling the blaze about 5 p.m. in the 9500 block of Hampton Drive. The burning structure appeared to be a three-story apartment building. "We spent the first 45 minutes of the fire trying to put the fire out from the inside and it just kept working again us," said Highland Fire Chief Bill Timmer. One former resident, Eric Kiszenia, showed NBC 5 video he took of another fire at the same building in 2010. "Oh no," Kiszenia said of his reaction to the latest blaze. "Not again." Timmer said no one was injured during the fire. No other information was immediately available. A 1-year-old boy was shot in the head Thursday night during a drive-by shooting on the South Side. The shooting happened about 5:30 p.m. in the 9900 block of South Throop Street in the Longwood Manor neighborhood. The child was sitting in the passenger-side backseat of a parked car with four other people when a darker, older sedan pulled up alongside and opened fire, police said. The boy was driven by his mother to Little company of Mary hospital in critical condition. Police said he would be transferred to Comer childrens hospital. "There was a grandmother and the mother was here," Andrew Holmes, a community activist, told reporters. "An unidentified car pulled up and discharegd the weapon. The car was full of children. No one was in custody and detectives were investigating. "A 1-year-old baby, a 1-year-old! My message to the perpetrators, it wont be long I guarantee you," Holmes said. "You wont get away with this one. You wont get away with this one." Chicago Police say the only suspect description they have is the gunman drove off in a dark older model sedan. Three teenage boys were charged with carrying a knife at their school in Valparaiso, Indiana, on Thursday. The weapon was brought to Washington Township School, which serves middle and high school grades, in the morning by a 13-year-old eighth grader, according to a statement from the Porter County sheriffs office. The 13-year-old told other students that he had a knife and threatened them if they reported him, the sheriffs office said. One student warned him he would get in trouble for having the weapon. In order to hide the knife, the 13-year-old passed it around among a 15-year-old freshman and a 14-year-old eighth grader, the sheriffs office said. Eventually, a student reported the trio and they were called to speak with the principal, the sheriffs office said. The 15-year-old allegedly lied to a school resource officer about his involvement, but later all three boys admitted to carrying the knife. They were taken to Porter County Juvenile Detention Center and each charged with misdemeanor possession of a knife on school property, the sheriffs office said. Their identities were not released because they are children. The 13-year-old was also charged with felony intimidation and the 15-year-old faces a misdemeanor charge of false informing, the sheriffs office said. No one was injured during the incident. While plenty of attention has been paid to the Chicago mayoral race, and to all of the drama surrounding the City Council, one important race has largely flown under the radar. That race is the battle to replace Kurt Summers, the current treasurer and former chief of staff for Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, who announced he wouldnt seek re-election after just one term in office. With the February election nearing, three candidates are hoping to fill his seat. The treasurers job is essentially that of an accountant for the city, with the office managing the citys increasingly-troubled pension funds. The office also maintains all operating funds for the city, and controls the citys investments. NBC 5s Mary Ann Ahern has the latest details on the mayoral race. 47th Ward Alderman Ameya Pawar is one of the candidates running for the position, and hes hoping this run goes better than his failed run for Illinois governor. Pawar, a progressive who dropped out of that race last year, has floated the idea of creating a publicly-owned bank, which would aim to provide low-interest loans for residents and would essentially cut private banks out of the business of handling the citys finances. Pawar has received several key endorsements, including from the Chicago-Sun Times and SEIU Local Chapter One. Representative Mike Quigley has also endorsed Pawar, along with a handful of other state lawmakers. Another candidate, State Rep. Melissa Conyears-Ervin, has also received some key support, with SEIU Local 73, the Chicago Teachers Union, and Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White all pledging their support. Conyears-Ervin has served as the 10th Districts representative since 2017, and has a Masters Degree in Business Administration from Roosevelt University. Accountant Peter Gariepy, who unsuccessfully tried to unseat Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas last year, is also running. His campaign is largely self-financed, after he loaned himself just under $40,000 last quarter. 32nd Ward Alderman Scott Waguespack has also endorsed Gariepys candidacy, and has also loaned him $15,000, according to a filing with the State Board of Elections. Conyears-Ervin has $216,184 in her war chest, according to the State Board of Elections, and that outpaces the $193,834 that Pawar currently has on hand. A Chicago mayoral candidate received a high-profile endorsement as the crowded race for mayor inches closer to Election Day. Former Vice President Al Gore endorsed Bill Daley for mayor as the duo discussed climate change and Daleys climate policy for Chicago Friday afternoon. "I have worked with and certainly experienced the leadership of mayors all over this country," Gore said Friday in Chicago. "I feel like Ive come to learn quite a bit about what it takes to be a successful mayor and Ive certainly learned a lot about the tremendous difference that a successful mayor can make in the city he or she leads." "Bill Daley will be a great mayor of Chicago," he said. Daley recently canceled his appearance at a mayoral forum with FOX32 and the Lincoln Forum to instead attend a 20-minute endorsement session with the Local 130 Plumbers union. After the televised debate, the Daley campaign said he plans to attend a second interview taping Friday with several of the other candidates. Meanwhile, the Chicago Sun-Times Editorial Board announced its endorsement of Lori Lightfoot Friday. The former Chicago Police Board president was also recently endorsed by the Equality Illinois PAC. Its a great honor to receive the endorsement of the Chicago Sun-Times Editorial Board, Lightfoot said in a statement. Voters dont want a Chicago machine candidate. This race is about whether were resigned to the broken past or resolved to fight for something more. Its about shining a light on the corruption and backroom deals that havent served us. Its a race thats rattled by corruption scandals in a city thats sick and tired of the old Chicago way. If you've ever worried it was too late to right a wrong, take a page from this book. The Silver Spring Library in Maryland recently got a surprise in the mail: a book that was 73 years overdue, along with a letter of apology. It all started in 1946. Two-year-old Mora Gregg fell in love with a picture book called "The Postman." It showed how postal workers did their jobs in the 1920s, horses and all. "I just loved the book. I loved the pictures," said Gregg, who now lives in Canada. When Gregg's family moved from the Washington, D.C., suburbs to Canada, the book went with them. All these years later, Gregg recently found the book, stamped with "Property of Silver Spring Library," and mailed it to the library with a typed letter. "I couldve hung onto it forever," she said with a laugh. "At my age, you give things back that you've lived with for many years." Anita Vassallo, acting director of the Montgomery County Public Libraries, said she was surprised to see the book and letter. "This is the oldest thing Ive ever seen. And we dont always get an explanation of how it was lost to us for so long," she said. News4 did the math on the fines Gregg would face at the standard overdue rate of 35 cents per day. At 73 years late, that's more than $9,000. But, lucky for her, the county caps late fees at $15, and there's no charge for late fees on children's books. Gregg said she wasn't worried about having to pay thousands in fees anyway. "I would've talked my way out of it," she said. If you look through the Silver Spring Library's shelves to try to find "The Postman," you won't find it; library officials said the book was too fragile to be checked out, but that they'll show it to anyone who's interested. "We want [books] out in peoples hands," the library director said. "Even if theyre in peoples hands for almost 73 years." If Gregg wants to read "The Postman" yet another time, she can go to the Toronto Public Library, which has a copy. Investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board arrived late Thursday at the site of a natural gas explosion in San Francisco that sent flames into the sky for hours and damaged five buildings. An eight-person team traveled to San Francisco representing the federal agency that often investigates blasts on pipelines because they transport oil and natural gas, which it oversees. California regulators also are investigating. A private construction crew digging on a street to install fiber-optic wires cut a natural gas line, igniting the fire Wednesday, Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White said. No one was injured. Flames shot above the rooftops of three-story buildings and burned for more than two hours until Pacific Gas & Electric workers were able to shut off the gas fueling the fire. Some questioned why it took the utility so long. State law required crews to dig by hand around numerous other pipelines before they were eventually able to "squeeze" a 4-inch plastic line, PG&E spokeswoman Melissa Subbotin said. Because the fire was contained to a limited area, the utility said it had to weigh the threat from the flames with the risk of more drastic action on a cold day in San Francisco. Officials opted not to quickly shut off a massive transmission line as they would do in an earthquake, Subbotin said. "Had we turned the gas off to a transmission system, we would have shut off gas to nearly the entire city of San Francisco," Subbotin said. "The objective of this was to turn the gas off safely and as quickly as possible." The company stressed that the workers who cut the gas line are not affiliated with the nation's largest utility. Gas service was restored to most customers late Thursday, and PG&E was sending representatives door-to-door to do safety checks and assist affected customers with relighting their pilot lights, the utility said. Just under 100 customers still were without gas late Thursday night, and PG&E expected to have those restored by Friday morning. Five buildings were damaged, including one housing Hong Kong Lounge II, a reservations-only dim sum restaurant that is a fixture on the city's "best of" lists. The fire began on the street in front of the restaurant. Officials evacuated several nearby buildings, including a medical clinic and apartments, Hayes-White said. Vehicles on one of the city's main arteries were rerouted as authorities cordoned off the bustling neighborhood. Caroline Gasparini, 24, who lives kitty-corner from where the fire ignited, said she and her housemate were in their living room when the windows started rattling. She looked up to see flames reflected in the glass. "We went into crisis mode," Gasparini said. "We grabbed our shoes, grabbed our laptops and grabbed our passports and just left." Gasparini said they saw employees of the burning restaurant run out the back door and people fleeing down the block. Firefighters worked to keep the fire from spreading while PG&E crews worked to shut off the gas line. The utility faces heightened scrutiny over its natural gas pipelines after one exploded in a neighborhood south of San Francisco in 2010, killing eight people and wiping out a neighborhood in suburban San Bruno. A U.S. judge fined PG&E $3 million for a conviction on six felony charges of failing to properly maintain the pipeline, and the utility remains under a federal judge's watch in that case. The Bay Area's wet winter has increased the water in the reservoirs but it has also increased flooding concerns, and even prompting one campground in Morgan Hill to evacuate its guests. Located just southeast of the Uvas reservoir on a low lying road, Thousand Trails Campground was feared to be at risk of flood if water overflows out of the 280-acre artificial lake, according to operators. The Santa Clara Valley Water District said it warned the campground last week that the Uvas Reservoir may spill and make the campground's access road inaccessible. The Santa Clara Valley Water District announced that it will be releasing up to 179,000 gallons of water per minute this week. The dam must remain at 58 percent capacity in order to avoid a flooding. During a drought, the capacity usually stands at 24 percent capacity. The spokesperson for the Thousand Trails Campground didn't say how many people were asked to evacuate, but said guests were given the opportunity to relocate to another campground in San Benito County. Water is gushing out of the Anderson Dam outlet pipe and down Coyote Creek in Morgan Hill, as more rain looms. @nbcbayarea pic.twitter.com/1OdnMAdYtQ Stephen Ellison (@sj_ellison) February 8, 2019 Thanks to recent storms, Uvas and Almaden reservoir in San Jose are at capacity, according to the district. Santa Clara County has 10 reservoirs in total they are at 53 percent capacity. "Our ground water is looking really good right now and that's why our recharge basins are dry because of groundwater is doing really well," Colleen Valles with the Valley Water District said. Vasona reservoir in Los Gatos is near capacity at 97 percent. Lexington resevoir is Los Gatos is at 70 percent capacity and Anderson reservoir in Morgan Hill is at 36 percent, according to the water district. With Friday's incoming rainfall, the district could release water from six of the reservoirs. Last month, The Los Angeles Times reported that since Jan. 1, some 580 billion gallons of water were added across the state. Department of Water Resources spokesman Chris Orrock says while the news is good now, it's too early to tell what the water supply will be in when the winter rainy season is over. CORRECTION (Feb. 8, 2019, 11:50 a.m.): An earlier version of this story misstated the percentage of water in Anderson reservoir. Kris Sanchez, Marianne Favro, Kiki Intarasuwan and the Associated Press contributed to this report. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, February 8) Metro Manila Rail System (MRT) officials said they issued tighter security measures in their train stations because they received a bomb threat weeks before the twin explosions in Jolo, Sulu in January. An MRT Media relations officer told CNN Philippines that they received a bomb threat through e-mail on January 3 and coordinated immediately with the police. This, they said is the reason behind the decision of transportation authorities to tighten security in MRT and Light Rail Transit (LRT) lines, including a ban on liquids such as bottled drinks and perfumes. "That's one reason kung bakit po kami naghihigpit ng seguridad [why we tightened security] following recent attacks in Mindanao. We just wanted to be cautious, since we have thousands of passengers daily," the officer said. Only bottled baby formula, breast milk, medication, liquids used to augment the body for medical and cosmetic reasons and liquids for the needs of children and people with disabilities are allowed on the trains. Otherwise, the liquids will be confiscated by security personal during inspection. The officer said they will await the advice of the Philippine National Police on when they can lift the new security measures for the riding public. The twin blasts that rocked a cathedral in Jolo killed at least 22 people, and injured more than 90 others. Authorities recently apprehended the suspects behind the attack, who were members of a local terrorist group. Size and time impact outcomes when mechanical clot removal used for large core strokes HONOLULU, Feb. 7, 2019 --Mechanical clot removal has been shown to be safe and effective in stroke patients with minimal damaged brain tissue. Ideal patient selection may also someday hold promise for strokes damaging large areas of brain tissue, according to late breaking science presented at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2019, a world premier meeting for researchers and clinicians dedicated to the science and treatment of cerebrovascular disease. "Outcomes in stroke patients treated with thrombectomy (mechanical clot removal) is affected by the size of the stroke - the larger the stroke, the worse the outcome," said lead author Amrou Sarraj, M.D., associate professor of neurology at McGovern Medical School at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. In addition, longer time lapses between onset and treatment lowered good outcomes, with researchers noting much lower likelihood of benefit beyond 12 hours of stroke onset. Currently, patients who a have large core stroke - large area of tissue damage - are routinely excluded from thrombectomy treatment. In this study, researchers evaluated such patients' outcomes after mechanical clot removal. Of 2,453 patients treated with mechanical clot removal, 221 had large core strokes. Thirty-five percent of those with large core strokes achieved functional independence three months after stroke, which was considered a good outcome. However, the rate of good outcomes decreased and complications such as brain bleeds and death increased as the size of the stroke increased and the time to treatment increased. Sarraj noted that while the safety outcomes (brain bleed up to 4 percent and deaths up to 12 percent) were reasonable in patients with strokes less than 100 mL volume, those complications were significantly higher in strokes that exceeded 100 mL in volume, with brain bleed in up to 75 percent of patients and deaths in up to 50 percent of patients. Sarraj said advanced imaging to determine stroke size could extend thrombectomy treatment to more patients. Most upcoming stroke studies of this population use simple CT imaging of the brain to determine patient eligibility. This study evaluated patients with CT imaging and advanced imaging with contrast (perfusion imaging). "The addition of perfusion imaging may help identify the best candidates who can benefit the most by thrombectomy procedure, which we implemented in the design of upcoming SELECT 2 trial," Sarraj said. Evidence from future randomized trials will help confirm these results to expand treatment eligibility and potentially help improve outcomes in many stroke patients, Sarraj added. ### Co-authors and author disclosures are listed on the abstract. Stryker Neurovascular partially funded the study. Note: Scientific presentation is 11:43 a.m. Hawaii Time/4:43 p.m. Eastern Time, Thursday, Feb. 7, 2019. Additional Resources: * VIDEO: Miguel Perez-Pinzon, Ph.D., FAHA, Chair, International Stroke Conference 2019 Program Committee, offers overviews and perspective on late breaking science via downloadable Skype video (transcript provided) available on the right column of the release link https:/ / newsroom. heart. org/ news/ size-and-time-impact-outcomes-when-mechanical-clot-removal-used-for-large-core-strokes?preview= e6be81e40ff56e83e80a717bd6471583 * For more news from AHA International Stroke Conference 2019, follow us on Twitter @HeartNews #ISC19. Statements and conclusions of study authors that are presented at American Heart Association scientific meetings are solely those of the study authors and do not necessarily reflect association policy or position. The association makes no representation or warranty as to their accuracy or reliability. The association receives funding primarily from individuals; foundations and corporations (including pharmaceutical, device manufacturers and other companies) also make donations and fund specific association programs and events. The association has strict policies to prevent these relationships from influencing the science content. Revenues from pharmaceutical and device corporations are available at https:/ / www. heart. org/ en/ about-us/ aha-financial-information . About the American Stroke Association The American Stroke Association is devoted to saving people from stroke -- the No. 2 cause of death in the world and a leading cause of serious disability. We team with millions of volunteers to fund innovative research, fight for stronger public health policies and provide lifesaving tools and information to prevent and treat stroke. The Dallas-based association officially launched in 1998 as a division of the American Heart Association. To learn more or to get involved, call 1-888-4STROKE or visit StrokeAssociation.org. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter. This story has been published on: 2019-02-08. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. Hundreds of people, many arriving in buses, gathered at a candlelight ceremony Thursday to remember five people killed when a small plane crashed into a Southern California home. The vigil in a schoolyard in Yorba Linda drew friends, neighbors and others in mourning after a plane broke apart Sunday over the Orange County community. The people who died in the home were identified Wednesday as 85-year-old Roy Lee Anderson of Yorba Linda, his 68-year-old wife Dahlia Marlies Leber Anderson of Yorba Linda, 48-year-old Stacie Norene Leber of Corona and 58-year-old Donald Paul Elliott of Norco. Mourners gathered Thursday Feb. 7, 2019 to remember those killed when a plane broke apart and slammed into a Yorba Linda home. "Theyre wonderful people, they would open their door to anybody," said Anderson family friend Patty Crozier. "The world lost some very good people." Their families released a statement saying they were "devastated by our loss of our family members, who will be greatly missed." Family Photo "Our family bond is tight and each member lost in this tragedy represents more than just one role within our family," according to the statement. "We lost parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, spouses, sisters, brothers, aunts and uncles. The home lost was a beacon for so many family and friends where many celebrations were held. "We want to thank our extended family and friends who have provided amazing support, kindness and compassion. It takes a village." The Rev. Mark Jackson remembered seeing Elliott in chruch earlier that Super Bowl Sunday. "It was an amazing experience," said Jackson. "Little did we know he was going to be gone that afternoon." The Andersons were remembered for their warmth, inviting people into their home. "Everybody that knew them became their family," said friend Linda Boyer. The family thanked the first responders and neighbors who tried to help after the crash, and all the agencies "who have worked so tirelessly since the incident to provide us with assistance and answers." "As we deal with the reality that lies ahead, we ask that the news media please respect our privacy during this extremely difficult time." The 75-year-old pilot and restaurant owner who crashed into the home was identified as Antonio Pastini of Gardnerville, Nevada. Family Photo Pastini's 1981 twin-engine Cessna 414A nose-dived onto the 19000 block of Crestknoll Drive at 1:45 p.m. Sunday, about 10 minutes after departing from Fullerton Municipal Airport, according to National Transportation Safety Board Investigator Eliott Simpson. Sheriff's deputies at the crash scene found a Chicago Police Department badge and retirement papers on the pilot, according to Orange County Sheriff's Department spokeswoman Carrie Braun. After consulting with Chicago police Monday night, it appeared the credentials were fake, according to Braun. According to various media reports, the badge he was carrying had been missing since 1978, although it was unclear if it had been lost or stolen. An investigation was continuing into the cause of the fiery crash. Radar data indicate the plane made a left turn and climbed 7,800 feet before crashing into the two-story home, leaving the cabin in a ravine behind the house and debris scattered over four blocks, Simpson said. Pastini, who was flying solo, died at the scene, as did the four people in the home, Orange County Sheriff's Lt. Cory Martino said. The bodies of the four occupants of the home were badly burned, delaying their identification. Two injured victims were hospitalized with moderate burn injuries, and one firefighter suffered a minor ankle injury. NTSB investigator Maja Smith told reporters that many witnesses reported seeing the plane's wings and tail fall off before it crashed. NTSB investigators combed the neighborhood this week, gathering evidence and picking up the pieces of the aircraft, which were to be taken to a storage facility in Phoenix for further examination. A preliminary crash report was expected to be available in 10-14 days. On Pastini's Facebook account on Jan. 27, he discussed his volunteer work with Angel Flight, which provides airplane rides for the needy to get to doctor appointments. "Now I want to help more of those who need help, so I have an idea," he wrote. "You want to go flying? Want an easy trip somewhere? Coordinate with me so we can take a child for treatment or bring medicine or blood somewhere where it will save a life. Pay for the fuel and together I will take you where you want to go and we can help way more people. If you just save one person isn't it worth it, and this way we can save many." In a Nov. 26, 2008, Nevada Appeal news article about a restaurant that Pastini owned at the time called Carson City Diner & Catering, he told the newspaper that he had retired after 21 years on the Chicago police force. "I loved it," he said. "I loved my friends, I loved where I lived, I loved Mayor (Richard J.) Daley." Pastini told the newspaper that after he retired, he moved to northern Nevada to get into the food industry, where he worked as a child with his mother, a chef. His first restaurant, he said, was Chicago Express in Reno in 1986. "A couple of cops came by and found out I used to be a cop too, and it became a cop hangout," Pastini said. The newspaper reported he opened three more locations and then sold out in the late 1990s after he was diagnosed with cancer. When he recovered, he got back into the restaurant business, the newspaper reported. At the time of his death, he owned Kim Lee's Japanese Restaurant and Sushi Bar. An employee who answered the phone at the eatery on Monday declined comment, citing the family's wishes. (Natural News) Americans may think they get fed up with divided government when one party controls Congress and the other party controls the White House, or vice versa but the alternative, which is uni-party government, is worse. In a uni-party system, where there is no serious opposition, the party with the power is never held accountable. And when its members arent held accountable, corruption becomes rampant. As the old saying goes, power corrupts but absolute power corrupts absolutely. Take New York City, for example. Like most major cities, its controlled by Democrats and, in fact, has been for a number of years. The Democrat Party machine has not only taken over the governors mansion, known as Gracie Mansion (the official residence of the NYC mayor currently socialist Democrat Bill DeBlasio), but also NY City Hall and most all of the boroughs, with a few exceptions. Politically speaking, its a pretty sweet deal. Its an arrangement that allows the party to make up rules as it goes along. Like, for instance, who is allowed to enjoy their Second Amendment rights and who isnt. As reported by the New York Daily News, Charlene Gayle, a well-connected Brooklyn real estate agent, set up what were called de Blasio specials with privileged clients easy peasy gun permits via the NYPDs corrupt license division in early 2014, the paper reported, citing multiple sources. The paper reported that Gayle was given VIP treatment when she accompanied members of NYCs Jewish Orthodox community as they sought gun permits so they could better protect and defend themselves against potential threats, even as ordinary New Yorkers were either routinely denied similar permits or never bothered to apply because they knew they probably couldnt get one thanks to NYCs grotesquely restrictive gun laws. (Related: Recent concealed-carry study shows that relaxing carry laws does not increase violent crime.) A former NYPD lieutenant, Paul Dean, told prosecutors that the permissively corrupt licensing environment was, in effect, sanctioned by former Police Commissioner Bill Bratton, the Daily News reported in a separate story last month. Some of those who allegedly received special consideration, Dean said, included former NYC resident and now-President Donald Trump, Donald Trump, Jr., the presidents former personal lawyer Michael Cohen, and an unidentified associate of de Blasio. Reforms are badly needed even the NRA agrees According to Deans attorney, his supervisor told the lieutenant, This person takes care of Mayor de Blasio and in return, we are supposed to take care of this person. The Daily News reported further: Sources identified the businesswoman as Gayle, a longtime donor to de Blasio who served on his 2014 inauguration team. She is currently on the board of advisers to the Mayors Fund to Advance New York City. It is unclear if Gayles alleged role in arranging the upgrades was improper. A spokesman for Manhattan Federal prosecutors declined comment. Gayle did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Dean discussed what was happening at the licensing division over three meetings with federal investigators in 2017, the paper said. He added that ex-Sgt. David Villanueva, another License Division employee, also told the Feds about Gayle. In April 2017, the NRA reported on its website that the corruption was a sure sign that reforms are needed within the NYPD, mostly because it is ripe for abuse. New York City has an incredibly onerous handgun licensing scheme. Under this may-issue regime, law enforcement is granted wide discretion to grant or deny a license. Applicants can be denied for something as simple as a poor driving history, or as vague as any other good cause, the gun rights group noted. The process is also expensive. Applicants must pay a $340.00 application fee and an $89.75 fingerprinting fee. Its bad enough that Democrats are the party of gun control; its worse when the party is so corrupt it denies those rights to ordinary Americans while reserving them for friends, allies, and protected classes. But thats what happens when no one is around to hold Democrats responsible. Read more about Democrat Party corruption at Corruption.news. Sources include: NRAILA.org NYDailyNews.com TheNationalSentinel.com (Natural News) With the release of bombshell video surveillance footage that the FBI tried to cover up thanks to InfoWars.com we now know that the FBI deployed dozens of deadly weapons during its staged Gestapo raid of Roger Stone. While this was happening, the FBI directed CNN cameras to maximize the theater of this staged, government-engineered domestic terrorism event targeting a political opponent of the Clintons. Now, an infographic has emerged that shows a detailed analysis of the weapons used by rogue FBI agents, acting as the private mercenary army of Robert Mueller, one of the leaders of the illegal political coup thats attempting to overthrow the United States of America and install a radical authoritarian tyranny into power (i.e. Hillary Clinton). As the infographic shows below, the FBI thugs who raided Roger Stones home at gunpoint Roger Stone owns no weapons and has never been considered violent or a flight risk had geared up with a huge array of military-class assault gear, including: AR-15 rifles with collapsible stocks 30-round magazines Aimpoint Micro T-1 red dot sights Military class IR laser pointers / illuminators Tactical weapons belts Chest rigs Trauma shears and blowout kits Communications radios Backup iron sights See full details in this stunning infographic. Share it everywhere and link to StoneDefenseFund.com to help support Roger Stones legal defense against this jaw-dropping tyranny now being directed against nearly all associates of the President. Heres a link to a larger version of this infographic. Anti-gun zealots want to disarm Americans so that these types of criminal FBI Gestapo raids will meet no resistance Now its perfectly clear why the deep state wants to disarm all Americans. They want to make sure innocent Americans who are targeted by the FBI Gestapo are unable to defend themselves against acts of government-initiated terrorism. Note that FBI agents carry AR-15s and 30-round magazines, which are the very same types of gear that anti-gun zealots want to criminalize across America. In fact, these systems have already been outlawed for citizens to own in California, Oregon, New York, Connecticut, New Jersey and elsewhere, in various forms. The whole point of the gun control movement, of course, is to monopolize all firepower in the hands of the corrupt, rogue government and make sure all citizens are shootable and unable to defend themselves. Tyranny is here, and gun control is just one element of how the tyrants want to turn citizens into obedient slaves. The following screen grabs were captured by Roger Stones home security camera: Stay informed about your gun rights vs. the tyrannical police state. Read SecondAmendment.news and Tyranny.news. Anti-grizzly Fever Grips Wyoming, Again Grizzly Times. It makes me happy theres a blog devoted to news and opinion about grizzly bears. Montana veterinarians bring nearly frozen, unresponsive cat back to life (video) WABC Left high and dry by a crypto founders demise FT No thank you, Mr. Pecker Jeff Bezos, Medium (fine word, legitimate) and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos accuses National Enquirer of extortion over intimate photos WaPo. Jeff Bezos: Alexa, send nudes to my secret admirer. Alexa: Got it. Sending nudes to the National Enquirer. Pranay Pathole (@PPathole) February 8, 2019 (Interestingly, the Enquirers parent company, NMI, is hosted on AWS.) Bonds Faced Their Waterloo and Came Out Winners Bloomberg America faces a battle to find buyers for its bonds Gillian Tett, FT Facebook ordered to stop combining WhatsApp and Instagram data without consent in Germany The Verge We won: Landmark climate ruling as NSW court rejects coal mine Sidney Morning Herald Chevron ties executive pay to methane and flaring reduction targets Reuters. Such as they are. In Praise of Carbon: Review Resilience (Drumlin Woodchuckles). Venezuela Brexit How To Think Clearly About Anti-Semitism Controversies In The Labour Party Current Affairs 5 fights between France and Italy Politico. The provocation that seems to have tipped the French over the edge was when Luigi Di Maio, leader of the 5Star Movement and deputy prime minister, met with leaders of the Yellow Jackets movement in Paris. Oddly, or not, we dont seem to be hearing a lot about the gilets jaunes themselves. Presidents, prime ministers, and ambassadors, yes. Protesters, no. OPINION: Frances yellow vest conflict is heading into calamitous new territory The Local. From last week, still germane. Gilets Jaunes face big decision as Macron fights back BBC Frances Yellow Vest Movement Comes of Age The Nation French lawmakers approve controversial anti-riot bill France24 Why Germany has no gilet jaunes protesters Economists China? A Profound Development in Japan-South Korea Relations The Diplomat. The ruling is probably the first time in history that the highest judicial institution of a country has declared colonial rule to be illegal. New Cold War Trump Transition Democrats in Disarray Justices grant stay, block Louisiana abortion law from going into effect SCOTUSblog Health Care Everybody In, Nobody Out: What We Know So Far About the Medicare for All Act of 2019 Common Dreams. From Healthcare-NOW and the Labor Campaign for Single Payer Healthcare: Understandably, the transition to a new lead sponsor and an extensive rewrite process has created some nervousness and confusion in sections of the single-payer advocacy community. This has allowed a range of rumors and misrepresentations to run rampant among activist groups, including some rumors that have started spilling into published articles. A good summary, well worth a read. After the storm Aeon. Disaster relief. Class Warfare The sinking ship of self-interested super rich Anand Giridharadas, Unherd Antidote du Jour (via): Bonus anti-antidote: Baby had one for the road before heading off. pic.twitter.com/QsTegu6VLd Mark Duckett (@MarkRDuckett) February 8, 2019 See yesterdays Links and Antidote du Jour By Jerri-Lynn Scofield, who has worked as a securities lawyer and a derivatives trader. She is currently writing a book about textile artisans. Cisco yesterday issued a call to governments and citizens around the world to establish privacy as a fundamental human right in the digital economy, according to a Cisco press release. Other Big Tech companies have already endorsed drafting a federal privacy law, as reported by Ars Technica in Cisco, like Apple and other tech giants, now wants new federal privacy law. Is this a sign that tech executives have suddenly developed misgivings about how the companies theyve created collect and misuse our data? No, not exactly. As the New York Times reported in August, in Tech Industry Pursues a Federal Privacy Law, on Its Own Terms, in the wake of California adopting a sweeping privacy protection law: In recent months, Facebook, Google, IBM, Microsoft and others have aggressively lobbied officials in the Trump administration and elsewhere to start outlining a federal privacy law, according to administration officials and the companies. The law would have a dual purpose, they said: It would overrule the California law and instead put into place a kinder set of rules that would give the companies wide leeway over how personal digital information was handled.[Jerri-Lynn here: my emphasis.] We are committed to being part of the process and a constructive part of the process, said Dean Garfield, president of a leading tech industry lobbying group, the Information Technology Industry Council, which is working on proposals for the federal law. The best way is to work toward developing our own blueprint. What Has Cisco Proposed? Lets turn to that Cisco press release again, in which the company urges three basic principles for US data privacy legislation: Ensure interoperability between different privacy protection regimes; Avoid fracturing of legal obligations for data privacy through a uniform federal law that aligns with the emerging global consensus; Reassure customers that enforcement of privacy rights will be robust without costly and unnecessary litigation. And now, lets examine each of these in turn. First, Ensure interoperability between different privacy protection regimes. The EU implemented its General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in May 2018, a change EU GDPR.org called the most important change in data privacy regulation in 20 years(for a summary see here). What Cisco recognizes in making this recommendation is that any change the US would make to its privacy protection regime would need to mesh with the EU framework. Im not going to focus on this point here, but will instead focus on Ciscos other two points, which concern US domestic privacy law. Second, Avoid fracturing of legal obligations for data privacy through a uniform federal law that aligns with the emerging global consensus. The stated concern over fracturing merely refers to the cost of having to comply with multiple state regulatory regimes. A recent post in the New Jersey Law Journal, The California Consumer Privacy Act: What You Need to Know, for example, outlines what criteria trigger obligations by businesses outside the state to comply with the new California statute. And my post from yesterday, Illinois Supreme Court Affirms Biometric Privacy Law, Clearing the Way for Lawsuits, discusses one law firms assessment of what steps businesses that have employees in Illinois or that operate in the state should consider to avoid liability under the states biometric statute. Ciscos call to replace this fractured system with a uniform national framework rejects the position Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis set out 1932: that states should act as laboratories of democracy, assaying their own policy experiments, before the national government acts on an issue. The best recent example of this I can think of is Colorados decision to legalize marijuana five years ago. But there are many other such experiments that have been successfully undertaken, and implemented at the state, and city level some of which such as Californias emissions framework that have then been taken up at the national level. What Cisco and Big Tech especially fear: Californias privacy framework, which comes into effect in 2020. And the concern is not limited to compliance with the provisions of this flagship data protection statute, but also, as I wrote in this December post, Advertising Trade Association Presses for Federal Data Privacy Regulation, a recognition that large companies may have less coercive influence over state legislatures and policymakers than they do at the federal level: Undoubtedly a huge unmentioned motivating factor, as far as data procurers, users, and brokers are concerned, is that the governments of some states including California have not been captured to the same extent as the federal regulatory apparatus. So on occasion, states may either enact meaningful consumer protections, and in some instances, state legal officers actually attempt to enforce them. I am of course well aware that a certain amount of grandstanding occurs at the state level, but nonetheless, the situation is not nearly as dire as the federal state of play where the deterioration, I should point out, in public policies even remotely reflecting popular opinion and majority needs, occurred well before Trump was inaugurated. Third, Reassure customers that enforcement of privacy rights will be robust without costly and unnecessary litigation. This brings us to the heart of the matter. Big US corporations fear lawsuits. The taming of the Justice Department and various regulatory agencies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Environmental Protection Agency, in enforcement matters means that private lawsuits are one of the sole remaining means ordinary people can use to try to redress grievances. As an aside, I should mention that regular readers know this deterioration is not something that occurred on Trumps Watch. Ill spare you a recitation of the litany of citations to previous posts on his immediate predecessors failures in this regard, but will be happy to discuss some of them in comments, if theres interest. As to lawsuits, I recognise there are huge obstacles to bringing and prevailing in these, especially in class actions. These obstacles have increased, and indeed accelerated, since at least the Clinton administration, as part of a considered campaign in which corporate lobbyists acting on behalf of potential corporate defendants- have largely prevailed. Elements include: statutory changes, such as the the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act (1995) and the Class Action Fairness Act (2005); Supreme Court decisions, including imposing restrictions on punitive damages, upholding mandatory arbitration clauses, and interpreting standing and pleading requirements; seating business-friendly friendly judges, which the Trump administration has excelled at, building on previous framework constructed by his predecessors (and not just the Republican ones); and funding and pursuing legal reform or tort reform campaigns, which include financing judicial campaigns, particularly for the highest state courts where judgeships are often elected positions; and changes to state laws. What Is To Be Done? Im glad to see Cisco espousing the importance of data privacy as a fundamental human right even if this is a mere rhetorical exercise. I fear, however, once the current Congress considers this issue, that the federal data privacy regime they will enact will be much worse than the current state of play. Corporate Democrats rely too much on tech money for campaign finance to construct a system of tight restrictions, and progressive Democrats have their eyes set on different prizes Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, tax increases on the wealthiest. Although there are some Republicans who espouse libertarian principles, I think it unlikely that the Trump administration nor many influential Republicans, will take up the challenge of safeguarding our privacy. PRESIDENT Emmerson Mnangagwas spokesperson yesterday said the leader of the mainstream opposition MDC Nelson Chamisa risked missing the bus if he failed to pitch up for talks. This comes as under-fire Mnangagwa is breaking new ground in his response to the worsening crisis in Zimbabwe by opening talks with opposition groups, as authorities begin to show more urgency about ending Zimbabwes decades-long political and economic mess. Chamisa snubbed Mnangagwas talks-about-talks gathering at State House on Wednesday because he preferred the much-talked about national dialogue to be held under the guidance of an impartial convener. The dramatic development came after Mnangagwa had invited many of the countrys well-known opposition figures, including those who contested him in last years hotly-disputed presidential election. Among the notable opposition politicians who attended Wednesdays indaba were Thokozani Khupe, Nkosana Moyo, Lovemore Madhuku, Daniel Shumba, Elton Mangoma, Ambrose Mutinhiri and Bryn Mteki. In an exclusive interview with the Daily News yesterday, Mnangagwas spokesperson George Charamba urged Chamisa to drop his opposition to the talks saying he risked missing the bus altogether if he insisted on pre-conditions that have either been met or are beyond the Executive. Charamba, who also doubles up as the deputy chief secretary to the President and Cabinet, alleged Chamisas decision to skip the meeting was self-defeating and claimed it was a sign that the he has foreigners whispering to him. As far as we are concerned, the question to us is, firstly, was that decision taken by Chamisa thoughtful and secondly whether it was independent? I would say it was thoughtless, the dialogue will proceed with or without him, except we dont shut doors, we dont shut windows, whenever he feels he wants to join, he will still be welcome, except he cannot hold the nation to ransom because he is not the summation of the nation. If he is having difficulties with his external constituency, which as of yesterday (Wednesday) had not given him the nod to participate, that is a matter for him and his donors to deal with. He should never globalise his predicament because the economy has to move on, said Charamba. In his letter to the chief secretary to the President and Cabinet, Misheck Sibanda, Chamisas chief of staff, Sesel Zvidzai, said the MDCs position is that the dialogue process must be convened by an independent mediator and not one of the disputants. In this respect, the MDC believes that genuine dialogue can only take place if regionally facilitated and mediated by Sadc and guaranteed by the AU and the UN, the MDC letter to Mnangagwa said. Charamba said dialogue does not mean assimilation of the opposition by Zanu PF but rather will enhance cooperation among parties. I am raising this issue because I notice Chamisa has raised it, there is no implication at all that the President is the convener, no he isnt or that Justice Sello Nare, head of the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission is or isnt the convener, we dont know yet. It is a matter that has to be resolved by the political parties, but the key issue is that they have put up mechanisms for resolving that issue, he said. Charamba said the ongoing talks among political parties should be managed locally, and ruled out any prospects of engaging foreigners to mediate the talks. Chamisa yesterday also exhorted the Church to mediate in the talks at a prayer meeting convened by the Zimbabwe Council of Churches held at a Harare hotel. Firstly, there was unanimity that national dialogue was important, so the principle of national dialogue was embraced; this is a national dialogue which should be a local affair under local management. Secondly, there was another decision that was reached to say that the dialogue must take the form and format of inter-State forum, there is a principle of parity which was embraced at yesterdays (Wednesday) meeting, so they will meet as equals, whether you have structures or are the ruling party. Chamisa also spelt out 10 issues that Mnangagwa needed to meet before any meaningful dialogue could take place including a requirement that all prisoners of conscience be freed, and that there be an immediate return to the barracks by the military. Charamba said the State House meeting on Wednesday resolved that there should be no pre-conditions for dialogue. They should be no preconditions at all from whom so ever, and coupled to that, is that, no issue or no theme should be deemed off limits, which means anything, everything under the Zimbabwean sun is up for discussion. Conceding that some of the countrys internal challenges give foreign nations, specifically the West, reason to maintain sanctions on Zimbabwe, Charamba indicated that the Mnangagwa government is now ready to amend some problematic laws and also to clean its battered human rights record. There was unanimity that sanctions are hurting Zimbabwe and that they must be a joint approach to tackling them, but they was a very interesting debate because people were saying, and this was Daniel Shumba (leader of the United Democratic Alliance), he said that some of the issues that are being used as a pretext by those who imposed sanctions on us are things we must correct ourselves, the negative laws, the human rights issues in the country, the recent deployment of the military and how they conducted themselves as alleged by many players, and he was very emotional about it, Charamba told the Daily News. Those things must be out of the way so that we can make a united message against the sanctions. Nkosana Moyo (leader of the Alliance for People Agenda) put it in typical business language, he said we must have to make product locally and take it to the outside world that imposed sanctions, and that point was conceded. The question kept arising that soldiers should go back to the barracks and that those who broke the law should be punished accordingly, that was also conceded. Charamba said Chamisa was suffering from absence, which is why he is out of sync with decisions that were taken yesterday and which is why his response is regressive and outdated because those issues have been superseded by the meeting. In any case, even as Zanu PF, you dont set pre-conditions. He said on the issue of deployment of the military, there is a contradiction there. There has been a question on who deployed the soldiers? Essentially, there is an attempt by the opposition to deploy the military, short of declaring yourself a commander-in-chief. How do you tell the military to go back to the barracks? It means you have de facto powers and are the commander-in-chief. The decision to roll back the security forces is based on the question of national security, it is not predicated by one political party and they must accept that by virtue that we are the Executive, we have a broader understanding of the national security situation. Forces cannot be deployed perpetually, its very costly to keep a soldier on the street. So, really, from the point of view of managing the budget, it is not desirable for us, but at the same time, we also know the price of losing peace. But, in any case, you can see there is a visible decline in the number of soldiers that are on the streets, so there is a process that is underway, except it has to be scientific and it has to be predicated on a realistic assessment of the security situation. We dont want any regression to what happened three or four weeks ago, said Charamba. On the demand by Chamisa to release prisoners of conscience, Charamba said government respects the separation of powers principle and the executive will not dictate terms to the judiciary. From our perspective, they are not prisoners of conscience, they are not even political prisoners, it is a very strange contradiction. At one point, he calls them Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Union members, now he is calling them prisoners of conscience, from a union? In other words, it is an admission on his part that this was a political programme. Anywhere, that set aside, if you are a suspect, the branch of the State called the judiciary comes in, it is not for the Executive, it is not for the Legislature and it is not for the opposition to say those persons should be freed unconditionally Let us respect the judiciary, how are you importing judiciary issues to the dialogue? Its an anomaly, said Charamba. DailyNews Breaking News via Email Loading... Related Zimbabwe Latest News President Mnangagwa has left the country for Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, this afternoon for the 32nd Ordinary Session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union. The summit is running under the theme, The year of refugees, returnees and internally displaced persons: Towards durable solutions to forced displacement in Africa. Zimbabwe is home to over 11000 registered refugees and asylum seekers. They comprise Congolese, Mozambicans, Rwandese, Burundians, Ethiopians, Malians, Ugandans and Somalis. Besides the refugees and the internally displaced, the summit will appoint a new AU chair, who will succeed President Paul Kagame of Rwanda. He was seen off at the Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport by Vice President Kembo Mohadi, Defence and War Veterans Affairs Minister Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri, Minister of State Security Owen Ncube, Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet,Dr Mischeck Sibanda, service chiefs and other senior Government officials. VP Mohadi is the acting President More to follow Herald Breaking News via Email Loading... Related Zimbabwe Latest News After humiliating Alick Macheso over poor management of shows, Chimurenga music maestro Thomas Mapfumo, tasted his own medicine when his management and promoters went a step further leaving him homeless and penniless in the streets of Harare. Mukanya who was last week thrown out of a Harare accommodation over $10 000 debt has revealed that he is returning to his base in the United States penniless after he was swindled by a music promoter identified as Max Mugaba. According to Mukanya, Mugaba cheated him of all the money that he was supposed to receive from the takings of his many shows. He also added that contrary to their agreement, Mugaba failed to pay for his groups return tickets to the United States. Mugaba is also the one who failed to pay rent for the Glen Lorne house where Mukanya was staying which resulted in him getting evicted. Revealing his ordeal in an interview with the local publication, H-Metro, Mukanya said: When we came back home for this tour, we thought everything was in place. Our manager Austin Sibanda and Max Mugaba entered into an agreement where we were supposed to get 70 percent of the proceeds after sharing the costs with Max getting the remainder. I sensed that something was wrong when we arrived in Zimbabwe after we learnt that our return air tickets had been cancelled since Max owed the travel agent some money. When we asked him, he said everything would be rectified and we decided to continue with the tour. Speaking on how he was swindled at various shows, Mukanya said: At the Large City Hall show in Bulawayo, the attendance wasnt that bad, but thats when Max began to act funnyAfter the show, Max and our own (Blessing) Vava did not give us a breakdown of what we realised and we did not get even a cent from that showMugaba pulled the same trick after the Beitbridge show and I suspected he connived with Vava. They did not give us a breakdown of the gate-takings and thats when I realised that something was fishy. After a show held at Club Hide-Out in Lochinvar, as had become the norm, Max and Vava played the same trick and disappeared with the money. The show was well attended and we really made a killing on that day. Max started acting funny again as he could not give us a breakdown of the money. We even contacted the EcoCash people who advised that Max owed them a fortune. Mapfumo said that as soon as he is settled back in the States he is going to take legal action against Mugaba. He also said he had cut ties with Vava as he had shown his true colours. Its unfair to be duped by one of your own and I will take legal action against him. I pray that the National Arts Council of Zimbabwe de-register such kind of promoters. Honestly, with people like Max, we are doomed and going nowhere. Its sad when one black man is exploiting another black man, he added. Mukanya is returning to his base in Oregon on Monday. HMetro Breaking News via Email Loading... Related Zimbabwe Latest News IN a weird case of suspected witchcraft, a Sakubva family was left shocked after they found the grave in which they had buried their 53-year old relative dug up and left wide-open a day after interment at Dangamvura Cemetery. It is not known whether the coffin or the deceaseds body was tampered with as the relatives only consulted a spiritualist who performed some rituals at the grave before covering it again. The late Farai Mudukani was laid to rest at Dangamvura Cemetery on Saturday but relatives who visited the grave the next morning to conduct usual traditional rites (Rumuko) got a shocker after discovering that it had been dug up. The Weekender visited the Mudukani family in the Chinyausunzi section of Sakubva and caught up with Richard Mudukani, son to the late Farai. He said they are still in the dark concerning the weird incident. My father died after a short illness at Mutare Provincial Hospital last Wednesday. We buried him on Friday afternoon at Dangamvura Cemetery. Before the burial, strange things started happening when we washed his body. He started bleeding through the nose. This is something that we did not expect and we were all surprised. We went on to block the nose bleeding by using cotton wool. After the burial, we went back to the graveyard the next morning just like our Shona culture demands. Everyone was shocked when we found the grave open. Even another family that had also buried a relative the previous day was also shocked to see our fathers grave wide-open. They advised us not to touch anything and consult a spiritualist first before we cover the grave again, he said. Richard said his family strongly suspects that it was a case of witchcraft. Even though we do not know who could have dug up the grave, we strongly believe that this was a case of evil ritual acts. We only managed to consult a spiritualist who went with us to the graveyard and conducted some rituals before he told us that it is now safe to cover up the grave again, he said. The spiritualist, who resides in the same suburb, refused to comment saying his church regulations do not allow him to do so. Yes, I assisted the family but unfortunately I am not allowed to talk to the media and appear as if I am advertising my work. You can talk to the family and get their side of the story. As for me I do not want my name and work in the newspaper, he said. When contacted for comment, Mutare prophet Madzibaba Skynage said such things normally happen when perpetrators want to weaken the spirit of the deceased and deter it from avenging for his or her death. Some people do it after causing the death of the deceased person and they would not want the deceased persons spirit to avenge for his or her death. They conduct rituals at the grave and I think this could have been the issue here. Some even go to the extent of taking some body parts for rituals but it is sad to note that in this incident it is not known whether the body was tampered with as well, said Madzibaba Skynage. Mutare legal practitioner Ashel Mutungura said it is crime to tamper with a grave in Zimbabwe. There are provisions of the law that deal with protection of the deceased and burial site. It is a crime to tamper with a grave in Zimbabwe and people should know and understand that. In fact, when exhumation is to take place there are well stipulated regulations on application for exhumation. The law says any person who violates a grave in which human remains are situated, knowing that he or she is doing so or realizing that there is a real risk or possibility that he or she may be doing so, shall be guilty of violating a grave and liable to a fine not exceeding Level Seven or imprisonment for a period not exceeding one year or both, he said. A warden at the graveside, who refused to be named, said he had not witnessed a similar incident in the 15 years he has worked at Dangamvura Cemetery. ManicaPost Breaking News via Email Loading... Related Zimbabwe Latest News TEACHERS who have not been reporting for duty will suffer salary deductions on the basis of the No Work, No pay principle, the Public Service Commission (PSC) warned yesterday. The warning came after a realisation that some teachers were not reporting for duty. This follows announcements of an illegal job action by the Zimbabwe Teachers Association (Zimta) and the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ). In a statement yesterday, Public Service Commission (PSC) chairman, Dr Vincent Hungwe said discussions between Government and the Apex Council on the improvement of conditions of service for civil servants were continuing in the context of the National Joint Negotiating Council. He said the Apex Council had not declared a strike nor declared a deadlock in the negotiations. The commission has been made aware of isolated cases of abscondment by a minority of teachers at specific schools across some districts and provinces of the country. Accordingly and in keeping with the applicable regulations, the comission advises members that unauthorised non-attendance at workstations will result in corresponding deductions from the salaries of the offending individuals on the basis of the principle No Work, No pay, he said. Incidents in any form of intimidation or coercion to withdraw labour should be reported to law enforcement authorities. Dr Hungwe applauded civil servants who had continued to report for work. The commission is pleased to note that civil servants in all categories continue to report at their workstations and continue to work in the interest of the public who are entitled to their uninterrupted service. The Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education and the PSC inspectorate agency will continue to monitor attendance and take action to contain instances of abscondment in all schools, he said. Governments focus is on availing non-monetary benefits to its workers to enhance their livelihoods. In this regard, efforts are being channelled towards the all-round improvement of standards of living with particular focus on decent housing, quality health, productive education and a sustainable transport system, among many other demands. On Monday Government committed itself to operationalising non-monetary incentives and economic initiatives for teachers. This development saw majority of their representative unions calling off a strike that was set to begin on Tuesday. Non-monetary incentives and other hardship-alleviating initiatives are at the centre of President Mnangagwas raft of measures to lessen the burden on Government workers in light of austerity measures being undertaken to achieve a long-term economic turnaround. Chronicle Breaking News via Email Loading... Related Zimbabwe Latest News Deputy Defence minister, Victor Matemadanda, yesterday said no armoury was broken into during the recent violent protests, contradicting Zimbabwe Defence Forces Chief of Staff Major-General Douglas Nyikayaramba, who claimed that thugs had stolen uniforms and arms. Nyikayarambas statement on Wednesday follows reports of rampant abuse of civilians by armed soldiers, including rape, torture and the killing of at least 16 people during the January 14 to 16 demonstrations against the high cost of living in the country. We have heard allegations that the army armoury was raided and uniforms taken, and that is scary for us as a people. We want the minister to tell us the magnitude of what happened and where it happened so that we know as a nation that our armoury is in safe hands because at the end we do not want a situation such as that in Somalia where everyone has a gun, MDC Alliance Masvingo Senator Tichinani Mavetera asked Matemadanda in Senate yesterday. In response, Matemadanda said: I do not have information of an armoury having been broken into. The senator must put his question in writing so that we investigate and see whether any armoury was broken into because armoury is not situated at any special cantonment area. Bulawayo Metropolitan Senator Siphiwe Ncube (MDC Alliance) then asked him to explain if the people that raped, tortured and killed civilians were thugs and not soldiers as reported by State media? Unfortunately, I do not take information to run my ministry from newspapers. I am not the minister of newspapers or Information, and your question can best be responded to by people from Information (ministry) because they are the one that published it. As Ministry of Defence, we do not work with newspapers, we work using standard procedures, Matemadanda said. Mashonaland East Senator Jane Chifamba also asked Matemadanda to explain why soldiers were deployed at school gates this week, as a result scaring away children. Unlike the initial Lancaster House Constitution, which was written by people who represented political opinion, the Constitution we have now was written by people. It says if police fail to control the security situation in the country, then they can request aid from soldiers. So soldiers do not deploy themselves, they are deployed by the police at schools to remove thugs troubling school children where the police feel they cannot contain the situation, Matemadanda said. He was also asked to explain why the law enforcement agents were failing to arrest the alleged thugs, and why soldiers continued to be deployed when the riotous situation in the country had normalised? Unfortunately, the soldiers deployed cannot be commanded from Senate. They work under command and not public opinion. To make a decision that the situation has now normalised is done by experts in that field and not ordinary people. That soldiers were deployed at schools is what you read in papers because I have no official communication about that issue and our ministry is not run through newspapers, Matemadanda said. Manicaland Senator Douglas Mwonzora (MDC Alliance) asked Matemadanda to explain why procedure was not followed in the deployment of soldiers in terms of section 214 of the Constitution, which compels the President to come and explain to Parliament the reasons for that deployment? In the same Constitution on section 213, it talks about deployment of soldiers and the conditions are that it is done by the President. As to whether the Executive is going to address this issue, that remains the prerogative of the President, and Senate can find means and ways to call the President to explain, Matemadanda said. On a question by Midlands Senator Lillian Timveos (MDC Alliance) on what the Defence ministry was going to do to curb the rapes, beatings and torture by rogue soldiers, Matemadanda said if senators can identify the culprits, then they must report them so that they are arrested. NewsDay Breaking News via Email Loading... Related Zimbabwe Latest News President Emmerson Mnangagwas days in office are increasingly becoming numbered, and he faces the humiliation of being violently removed from power anytime soon due to a meandering list of massive political problems pile-up on his young tenure, Spotlight Zimbabwe, can exclusively reveal. Well placed army sources said time is running out for Mnangagwa as there is a growing swell of discontent among junior officers over his alleged appalling treatment of the force and reportedly reneging on paying them US dollar salaries after playing a pivotal part in removing former leader, President Robert Mugabe from power in a putsch in November 2017. Other grievances cited include poor accommodation, uniform shortages and poor food rations at the barracks. He (Mnangagwa) will be very lucky to remain in office for the coming six months to a year, the sources said. The situation in the army is dire, especially disgruntlement among junior officers who are demanding a fair slice of the cake for removing Mugabe. They were promised US dollar salaries, but only received a one time payment in greenbacks in June 2018 before the elections. Even after backing the president to remain in power following the disputed results, which led to the unfortunate August shootings, there was shock to learn that government was reverting to bond note salary payments. In short your president is on the verge of being violently kicked out of office by this irate constituency in the military. I can also reveal that theyre part of a bigger faction in favour of VP Chiwenga to takeover as soon as possible, as he is trusted with improving their working conditions and welfare since hes the former boss and one of us. Spotlight Zimbabwe has also been told that the military faction said to be backing Rtd General Constantino Chiwenga, regrets that the VP handed over power to Mnangagwa in the November coup when they could have isolated and cut him off in South African exile. They also want the military to be ready for any eventuality by having another army leader (name supplied) to become president of Zimbabwe should Chiwenga fail to make it, in the wake of his deteriorating health condition. There is suspicion and speculation that Chiwenga could have been poisoned during the 2017 coup days. Media reports suggest that he was flown for a medical emergency earlier this week to South Africa and was reportedly flown to India yesterday for further treatment, although government has remained mum on the latest developments. They are saying Chiwenga must reclaim his throne, because there was no need to invite Mnangagwa, who was out of the equation when he escaped to South Africa, while their former boss risked it all by flying back from China to clear the mess, at a time Mugabe had planned to arrest him and possibly charge him with treason. Zimbabwe is on the verge of a cliff as Mnangagwa has failed to fix the economy. The military wants to secure the presidium for itself as they ended Mugabes dictatorship. There are candidates already in place to step in, even if Chiwenga fails to ascend to the top. Defence minister, Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri, two months ago made the startling disclosure that she fears there will be a coup against her bosss government, because soldiers have got only one uniform per person, while speaking at parliaments pre budget consultative Forum in Bulawayo. We also had challenges as was indicated: inadequate budget, delays in cash disbursements to Ministrys bank accounts; prices of goods and services suppliers refusing to accept quotations; and also this affects our levels of our preparedness to deal with any eventuality, Muchinguri-Kashiri told the forum. Non availability of adequate institutional accommodation is an area of concern. Our accommodation is in a very deplorable state, and I hope that we are envisaging the putting up of accommodations of thousands of forces to build a hospital and also to provide family accommodation; and this we appeal to you because most of our soldiers depend on accommodation in townships; sometimes are disgraced, insulted, and that brings our own force into disrepute; and this is the situation. When we compare ourselves with other countries we are lagging behind- lack of decent uniforms adequate, our soldiers have only one uniform and you can imagine how embarrassing this situation is; and for me to be exposing our force to this situation where I have to share with Parliament. I normally am not expected, to disclose these issues. But again, I appeal to you failure to access health care, even food. But I want to thank the minister of Finance, who has chipped in and assured us that he will address the need to make sure that we are accommodated in terms of budgetary intervention or mitigation. We share these concerns because we are afraid of mutiny. We need to control the situation in keeping our forces comfortable and happy we know what has happened in other countries. Other high level military officials and diplomatic sources in Harare said Mnangagwas downfall might also be accelerated by his fallout with the United Kingdom and Chinas relaxation in bailing out his government to resuscitate the economy, over a hitherto unknown invisible Zimbabwe diamonds mining row brewing between Russia and China, two of Harares most important international allies. This publication has it on good account in a full story to be published by this reporter and its Canada-based international editor next week, that China is reportedly losing appetite to bail Mnangagwa and Zimbabwe, over a diamonds row. Exclusive information at hand shows that China is now competing with Russia to mine Zimbabwe diamonds, and Beijing is said to be unhappy with Mnangagwas decision for Russian and Chinese firms to jointly mine new diamond finds in the country together. Also Mnangagwa is yet to put out a legal mining framework to allow China explicit diamond mining rights in Marange, through a new diamond policy promised by Mnangagwa in August 2018 but has not materialised, as the pending law is still being drafted. The UK has come out guns blazing against Harares brutal crackdown on citizens by the army during last months protests triggered by a massive 150 percent fuel price hike. Londons Minister for African Affairs, Harriet Baldwin, has condemned Mnangagwas government action, and said the UK will not back Zimbabwes arrears clearance appeals with the international community. The fallout with London has resulted in Sadc and the African Union (AU) being urged to put pressure on Mnangagwa, with the Zanu PF leader desperately dispatching special envoys since last week to Kenya, Namibia, Zambia and Botswana to explain his side of the story about the crackdown by security forces on unarmed civilians, alleged raping of women and door to door beatings of youths, to fellow sceptical heads of state in the region, ahead of the 32nd Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union set for February 10 and 11 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Zanu PF Politburo members Patrick Chinamasa and Ambassador Chris Mutsvangwa were sent with special messages to Bostwana, Namibia and Zambia respectively, while acting foreign affairs minister, Perence Shiri travelled to Kenya to meet President Uhuru Kenyatta. Mnangagwa has continued with political fire fighting to save his presidency, which is all but now hanging by a thread by calling for a so called national dialogue with opposition political party leaders and the countrys church leaders in vain this week. Janes Intelligence Weekly, a monthly journal on global security and stability issues, on Wednesday said Mnangagwas talks with the opposition will likely worsen divisions within the ruling party and heighten government instability. Talks with the opposition are unlikely to be successful, as President Mnangagwa will be pressured by opposition leaders to take strong action against military personnel who carried out attacks on protesters and who are still carrying out human rights abuses in Harare and Bulawayo, said the journal. President Mnangagwa is unlikely to accede to opposition demands to form a government of national unity, as doing so would weaken his position and distance him from the influential security establishment within his party and his cabinet. Only last week Mnangagwa revealed to the private media at State House, that he had been told about an impending coup while in Eurasia in January, and that he would be barred from entering the country after his tour. Somebody actually told me while I was in Eurasia that I would be barred from returning home and I just laughed that off, said Mnangagwa. Deputy Chief Secretary for Presidential Communications, George Charamba, was not reachable for comment yesterday, as he is said to have driven off to his farm after work. Spotlight Zimbabwe Breaking News via Email Loading... Related Zimbabwe Latest News As one reads the lay commissions report and its conclusions about the sexual abuse claims against the archdiocese, an important component appears to be missing: the specific role of bishops who enabled repeat offenders to commit these atrocities against children, and then covered them up. Healing will be impossible until the behavior of these men is fully brought to light. Allen Kosub Punish the rich? Re: Taxing the rich would not be easy, Business, Saturday: Several Democratic presidential candidates are promoting different plans to tax the rich, ranging from very high income tax rates to a wealth tax. Not only would these plans be difficult to effectively implement, theres not enough income or wealth in this tiny percentage of the population to make a significant difference in tax revenue. These policies are not really about increasing revenue. Nor will they improve the plight of the poor. They are about envy and punishing the most economically successful among us. Is that really where we want our politics to go? J. David Trawick The H-E-B way Re: H-E-B unit shows how to respect, not rip off, consumers, Business, Saturday: I remember that when H-E-B came to Floresville, people looked forward to it, in contrast to their feelings about other large retailers. What was the difference? In addition to quality products at good prices, there is an adequate number of employees, and they are unfailingly friendly and helpful. I recall one situation when the checkout system went down and lines were growing long. Employees were in the different lines sympathizing and offering reassurances that the system would be back up soon and, in doing so, changed what could have been an ugly situation into something more like a bonding experience. We have numerous examples of the harm caused by greed in the corporate world, but the example of H-E-B is reassuring as an illustration that the free enterprise system can work to the benefit of everyone by doing the right thing. Ed Farmer, Floresville The refocused attention on family violence cases at both the felony and misdemeanor level by new Bexar County District Attorney Joe Gonzales is a welcome change. Under the realignment, the Family Violence Unit once again will be a stand-alone unit and will operate under the direction of Angelica Powers, a long-tenured prosecutor with expertise in this area of the law. Under the previous administration, family violences cases were handled by the White Collar Crime Unit. Gonzales is also allocating more resources to handle family violence cases by increasing the units staff from 22 to 35 lawyers. That includes an increase in the number of lawyers reviewing cases as they come in and the addition of a prosecutor to each of the 10 felony courts. Each now will have three family violence prosecutors to handle domestic violence and child abuse cases. In addition, the unit has two prosecutors devoted to human-trafficking cases. Family violences cases are handled a bit differently at the misdemeanor level, making it a more difficult to implement drastic changes. Bexar County has 15 courts-at-law. Two of the courts are designated to preside over family law cases, two hear civil cases, and the rest preside over criminal law cases. Judges are not limited to hearing only the type of cases that have been designated for their court. Judges often volunteer to hear other types of cases when they have court time available. Gonzales hopes to capitalize on that. He plans to seek volunteer judges to help move more family cases through the courts. Together, the two misdemeanor family violence courts have about 2,900 cases on their dockets. The other misdemeanor court average about 1,100 cases because there are more of them to share the caseload. The new judges in the family violence courts County Court-at-Law No. 7 Judge Michael de Leon and Country Court-at-Law No. 13 Judge Rosie Speedlin Gonzalez said they welcome assistance from other judges in bringing down the caseloads. We encourage a team effort on this. With only two designated courts to handle the large volume of family law cases, only a limited number can go to trial any given week. Delays are inevitable. Family violence cases are highly emotional and difficult to prosecute. By the time the cases get a court date, the parties have often reconciled and witnesses are reluctant. But even when witnesses are cooperative, the cases sometimes become a matter of he said, she said. No one benefits when cases languish in the system. Juanita Vazquez-Gardner, the new misdemeanor trial chief, has plans to increase training in this area for all prosecutors assigned to the misdemeanor courts. Many law-school graduates with freshly minted bar cards launch their legal careers in the misdemeanor section of a district attorneys office. Filing a family violence complaint is a difficult step for most victims, who often feel overwhelmed by the system. Allocating more resources at the prosecutorial and judicial levels to bring family violence cases to court in a timely manner will help ensure justice is served. Three suspects, including a 14-year-old boy, are accused of raping a woman in the bathroom of a West Side apartment last year, according to court records. Jesus Francisco Obregon, 20; Arnulfo Domingo Herrera, 20; and the 14-year-old boy are now facing charges in connection to the alleged sexual assault. Obregon was arrested Wednesday on a charge of aggravated sexual assault and booked into the Bexar County Jail on a $75,000 bail. Herrera has yet to be booked, and the minor's status is unknown. FIND OUT FIRST: Get San Antonio breaking news directly to your inbox According to an arrest affidavit, the 19-year-old victim had been introduced to the suspects through another woman whom she considered a friend. The two women met the suspects at Obregon's apartment in the 2200 block of Hidalgo Walk on Sept. 3. At some point during the gathering, the victim's friend left her alone with the suspects. As she waited for her friend to return, the suspects gave her alcoholic drinks, and she became intoxicated. The victim would later tell investigators she felt her friend had "misled her about her intentions to abandon her at the crime scene with the defendants." During interviews with police, the victim said she consented to oral sex with Herrera, but what happened afterwards was non-consensual. According to the affidavit, Obregon admitted to raping the victim in the bathroom as she "lay still" on the floor. Herrera and the 14-year-old then started knocking on the door, saying they "wanted a turn." Obregon told police he left her unresponsive on the floor. The victim later told police she was too intoxicated to fight off the suspects. RELATED: Suspect in double homicide arrested, swallowed unknown substance during interview "[The victim] insisted that she had no intentions of having sexual intercourse with any of the males at the crime scene," the affidavit says. "Furthermore, she did not consent to have consecutive sexual intercourse with all three male Defendants at the apartment." Herrera later admitted to police he had sex with the victim but denied going into the bathroom with her and said she had been "flirting" with everyone. The 14-year-old suspect, according to the affidavit, allegedly used social media to post "admissions/messages" about the assault. "THE F--- YOU MEAN!!! That b---- was 19... she raped me," he wrote on Instagram. Investigators later obtained messages from the juvenile's Facebook in which he denied his involvement in the assault but "admitted to have been present during the offense when someone else allegedly raped the victim," the affidavit says. Investigators obtained DNA samples from all three suspects. Herrera's DNA was found on samples from the victim as well as samples from the teen suspect and Obregon. Following the positive DNA results, authorities obtained arrest warrants for all three suspects. Text "NEWS" to 77453 for breaking news alerts from mySA.com Caleb Downs covers crime in San Antonio and Bexar County. Read him on our breaking news site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com | cdowns@mysa.com | @calebjdowns Deputies on Thursday arrested a suspect in connection to the fatal shooting of a man in the parking lot of a bar in East Bexar County last year. David Gene Becka, 68, faces a charge of murder in the death of 44-year-old Laval Thomas Jr. He was booked into the Bexar County Jail and his bail was set at $75,000. Becka was released on bond Friday morning. LIVE OAK From cashier to store manager, from Seattle to San Antonio, Diedre Goodchild sings the praises of the only company shes worked for over the past two decades. Goodchild will be among the excited faces manning the doors and floors when Ikea opens its first store in the San Antonio market, adjacent to Interstate 35 and Pat Booker Road in Live Oak. The stores grand opening is 9 a.m. Feb. 13. Goodchild started with the furniture icon 23 years ago, as a senior in high school in Sumner, Wash., at its location in Renton, a suburb of Seattle. RELATED: Ikea having 'tons of giveaways' at grand opening in Live Oak Hired as a cashier, Goodchild worked her way up the corporate ladder. I went to college a little bit, she said, but quite honestly I focused on the development opportunities with Ikea. She moved through the sales area, and became manager of communication and interior design, my first big promotion, she recalled. Her career path soon took her back to sales, where she was the stores sales manager for four years. Her next promotion was even bigger to store manager, a position she held in Renton for eight years. While there, she oversaw the building of the new Renton store. Once the store was up and running, Goodchild said, she realized it was probably time for a new adventure, so my husband (Rob) and I talked. Where would we want to go, what would I want that project to be, knowing that the opportunities with Ikea are pretty amazing? she said. RELATED: 10 things you didn't know about Ikea ahead of San Antonio opening The design-and-build process was underway in Live Oak when the company began to address management. Soon she was selected as the stores initial manager. The Washington native made the move to Texas in September. So far, we love it, she said. Its been cooler temperatures here. The day we arrived it literally started raining and didnt stop for a while. But I am anxious for the heat; thatll be a big change. Ikea Live Oak features 40 room displays, many with elements meant to appeal to San Antonio-area shoppers, Goodchild said. Beds, tables, chairs, kitchenware, light fixtures, stuffed animals, tents, chests of drawers, desks, plants, candles and, of course, tools are the mainstays among the 10,000 products scattered throughout the 289,000-square-foot store. Theres a restaurant, bistro and Swedish food market atwhere people can chow down on meatballs and buy lingonberry preserves. The area seats 359 people, and the restaurant typically opens 30 minutes before the store. Theres also a childrens play area. Arrows and maps in the mazelike store point toward the self-serve area, where people can pick up the items they saw on display and then head home for the sometimes daunting task of assembling them. RELATED: VR pop-up lets you explore an Ikea showroom days before S.A. opening What is Goodchilds top tip for furniture-building? Follow the directions, she said. About 500 construction workers built the store, which will employ roughly 250 permanent workers. The single-story Ikea store anchors a new shopping hub with another 500,000 square feet of retail, restaurants and other commercial operations. Weitzman, a Dallas commercial real-estate firm, is developing the mixed-use project, called Live Oak Town Center. Ikea announced its plans for the location, its fifth in Texas, in 2016. Officials with Live Oak and Bexar County said at the time that they had been courting the furniture giant for at least a decade. The shopping center will receive $27 million in incentives, with $26 million in sales and property tax rebates over nine to 10 years, and $1 million in fee waivers and a lump sum payment when Ikea opens its doors, said Live Oak City Manager Scott Wayman. Live Oak officials have been told that as many as 26,000 people could visit the store on opening day. Wayman expects visitors from San Antonio and other area cities, as well as Mexico, and said theyve been marketing the store south of the border and in the Rio Grande Valley. Goodchild said shes excited about the opportunities at Ikea Live Oak. She said she accomplished a lot in the Seattle area. But I just felt it was time to allow someone else to come in and share their uniqueness in that role, she said. As much as I love the project of building up the new store, the idea of being able to create a team, and create the culture in the store, was incredibly inspiring. Goodchild said she looks forward to bringing that culture to the entire San Antonio region. I am just thankful, every day, for the folks we bought together to make this team. What takes us from being a great company to an amazing company is really, the people, she said, and for me, that is about setting that culture and really living our values. Express-News staff writer Madison Iszler contributed to this report. Jurors in 379th state district court listened intently as a clearly anguished teenager told a 911 operator that her father had just shot her mother. In a chilling 911 recording played Friday as the murder trial of Gabriel Martinez continued into the afternoon, the jury heard the sobs of his daughter, Brianna, who was 15 at the time. I need an ambulance ... someone has been shot, the teen said. You got shot, the 911 operator is heard to say. No, my mom and my dad got shot, she replied. When asked if she knew who shot them, Brianna Martinez said, yes, my dad, as her voice trembled. Did he shoot your mother then shoot himself? asked the operator. Yes. Just send an ambulance, the teen said, as she continued to cry. Gabriel Martinez, 37, is accused of shooting his common-law wife, Lori Lee Ortiz, three times with a rifle before shooting himself in the abdomen on May 18, 2016. Ortiz, 35, died shortly after arriving at University Hospital. Martinez, who was critically injured and underwent surgery, was booked by proxy while he was hospitalized. Martinez pleaded not guilty before Judge Ron Rangel as his trial began Friday morning. San Antonio police were called about 9:30 p.m. that day in May to investigate a double-shooting at a home in the 7000 block of Myrtle Valley Street on the Southwest Side. On ExpressNews.com: San Antonio man charged in alleged murder-suicide The 911 recording followed the testimony of the teen, now 18, who earlier testified that the night before her mother died, she saw her father point a rifle at her mother while sitting at the kitchen table. Brianna Martinez told the jury that things had been normal between her parents until her father accused her mother of having an affair in the weeks leading up to her death. She said the night before the shooting was the first time she saw her father with a gun. I heard them arguing and I got up and went into the kitchen. They were sitting down, my father and mother, with a glass of alcohol between them, the gun was at the front of the table, she said. He picked it up and pointed it toward her. I was frightened. The only thing I said was stop. Police recovered an AK-47 rifle with a pistol grip, which was shown to the jury Friday, by the closet in the couples bedroom. This case comes down to If I cant have you, no one else can, prosecutor Jennifer Brown told the jury in her opening statement. She told the panel Ortiz was going to school and was dating someone else before Gabriel Martinez shot the mother of his three children, Brown said. Martinezs attorney Miguel Najera told the judge he would provide an opening statement when the defense begins presenting its case. Express Briefing: Get the morning headlines in your inbox Det. Jesse Arteaga, who also was on patrol at the time, testified that Brianna Martinez led him to the room where her parents were when he arrived. He said Ortiz was face down and still on the floor when he saw her, and Martinez was wounded but moving, the rifle near his body, which officers secured. Under cross-examination, Arteaga told Najera that Gabriel Martinez told him his wife had shot him. Neighbors interviewed at the time of the shooting said the couple had been high school sweethearts and had lived in the neighborhood since 2005. Elizabeth Zavala is a courts and crime reporter in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read her on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | ezavala@express-news.net | Twitter: @elizabeth2863 UPDATE 12:53, Sunday According to Bexar County Sheriff's Department, Beatrice Sampayo has been released from the Bexar County Adult Detention Center after posting a $50,000 bond. UPDATE: 9 a.m., Saturday According to Bexar County Sheriff's Department, a bond of $50,000 has been posted for Beatrice Sampayo who is now in the process of being released from the Bexar County Adult Detention Center. ORIGINAL STORY CONTINUES: A judge lowered the bail Friday for the grandmother accused of helping stage a kidnapping to cover up the death of 8-month-old King Jay Davila. According to her family, Beatrice Sampayo, 64, has ovarian cancer that has spread to her bones. Sampayos court-appointed lawyer, Melissa Lesniak, said Friday the $250,000 bail set by a judge in January was exhaustive and oppressive given her situation. Magistrate Judge Andrew Carruthers agreed and lowered the bail to $50,000. The hearing Friday was the first time Sampayo has appeared in court since she was arrested Jan. 10. Police say Sampayo helped her son, Christopher Davila, 34, cover up King Jays death after he died in a purported accident while in Davilas care. Sampayo has been charged with tampering with evidence. Police have charged Davila with injury to a child, child endangerment and tampering with evidence, along with two other charges. On ExpressNews.com: Asked about missing child, grandfather says Only God knows Davila remains in jail in lieu of a $1.25 million bond. He now says King Jay died after the car seat holding the boy fell off a bed. He says he did not call 911 because he panicked. Police officials have hinted that they do not believe Davilas latest account. The Bexar County Medical Examiners Office concluded that King Jay died of a blunt force trauma injury. It ruled his death a homicide. During Fridays hearing, Jorge Luna, a social worker from Trinity Hospice San Antonio, testified that Sampayo has been under hospice care since June. Luna said he visited Sampayo at her West Side home about 20 times. During his visits, Sampayo reported having a lot of pain, he said. I never saw her out of her bed, he said. On ExpressNews.com: King Jays death is tearing family apart During cross examination, prosecutor Samantha DiMaio asked Luna whether he would be surprised to learn that Sampayo was diagnosed with cancer in 2000 and that she was capable of driving and grocery shopping. That would be a surprise, Luna said. DiMaio also asked Luna whether he was aware that members of Sampayos family were drug addicts who attempted to access Sampayos medication. We took precautions because that was a suspicion, he said. For a time, that was a concern. He said nurses with Hospice San Antonio kept Sampayos prescriptions including methadone and morphine in a secure location that only Sampayo could access. Sampayo remained in a wheelchair throughout the hearing Friday, saying very little. At one point, she turned around to smile at members of her family who sat in the gallery. Emilie Eaton is a criminal justice reporter in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read her on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | eeaton@express-news.net | Twitter: @emilieeaton An apartment resident was fatally shot Thursday morning during a home invasion on the East Side. San Antonio Police Chief William McManus said they received a call for a shooting at about 10:30 a.m. at The Place at Commerce, 3136 East Commerce St. Officers arrived to find a man, believed to be in his late 30s or early 40s, dead in the doorway. RELATED: SAPD: Suspect in double homicide home invasion captured Police said it appears that the suspect broke into the apartment and immediately shot at the victim. No words were exchanged, McManus said. Investigators said there were other people inside the apartment but the man was the only one who was shot. FIND OUT FIRST: Get San Antonio breaking news directly to your inbox The individual wanted a person in that apartment, McManus said. The witnesses have since been interviewed by detectives. Im confident that we will soon know the identity of that person, McManus said. Text "NEWS" to 77453 for breaking news alerts from mySA.com Float Fest organizers have filed an appeal in Guadalupe County District Court challenging the county's decision to deny the popular music festival a permit for this summer. The petition was filed Wednesday by Current Events, LLC doing business as Float Fest, against the Guadalupe County Commissioners Court. The commissioners court in January voted 3-2 to deny a permit for the festival to host up to 25,000 attendees per day, an increase from the 20,000 allowed in 2018. Later, festival organizers presented a settlement offer to commissioners and threatened to appeal if the settlement was not accepted and the permit granted. Details of the settlement offer have not been made public. RELATED: Get San Antonio breaking news directly to your inbox The commissioners court discussed the settlement in an executive session and took no action, effectively allowing the appeal process to take its course, Guadalupe County Court Commissioner Greg Seidenberger said. Float Fest organizers declined to comment on the appeal. If the appeal is a success and the festival approved, Float Fest 2019 will take place at Cool River Ranch along the San Marcos River in Martindale July 19-21. This is not the first year festival promoter Marcus Federman has had to appeal a decision by the Guadalupe County Commissioners to deny him a permit. He's faced a similar battle each year, and as of 2018 had a perfect winning record. In 2018, Federman applied for a permit to host up to 30,000 people more than double the previous year's attendance and was denied. He sued in district court but before any further action was taken the county commissioners reconsidered and reached a compromise to move forward with a 20,000 person cap. The festival is popular among college students, who enjoy floating the river, camping out and listening to popular musicians live. It's primary enemies are neighbors of the festival grounds. They say the music is too loud, the litter too overwhelming, the traffic too slow and the safety of attendees and nearby residents a possible concern. Ultimately, it was safety and traffic concerns -- bolstered by photos and stories from residents -- that prompted the denial from the commissioners, though a county-commissioned traffic engineer, who presented the results of his study during a special meeting discussing the permit application, said there were no major congestion or safety issues caused by traffic during the 2018 festival. RELATED: Cleaning crew collected 40,000 beer cans during Float Fest Seidenberger, who voted in favor of the festival, said there wasn't a preponderance of evidence to suggest traffic would be a problem. "I think to have a festival one weekend out of the year is not unreasonable," Seidenberger said. "(Federman's) done everything he can to try to be a good neighbor to the people out there. He's spent a lot of money and made a lot of accommodations. Our environmental health, state environmental health, sheriff's department, everybody's signed off on this plan, including traffic." An Angelou Economics study released earlier in January indicated Float Fest generated a total economic impact of $12.3 million in 2018. It was not clear how much of that, if any, went to Guadalupe County, where the festival takes place. S. M. Chavey is a breaking news and general assignment writer. Read her on our breaking news site, mySA.com and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com | sarah.chavey@express-news.net | @smchavey The deadly drug bust in Pecan Park last month that left two people dead and five officers injured netted only 18 grams of marijuana and 1.5 grams of white powder, according to the results of a search warrant released Friday. One day after a narcotics officer was relieved of duty pending an internal investigation, officials remained tight-lipped about the botched raid, which was one of the most violent in the history of the Houston Police Department. "We're not going to piecemeal the discussion," Police Chief Art Acevedo said Friday, after a promotion ceremony at the training academy in north Houston. "When we are done with our investigation, we will have uncovered every stone to get to the truth." The chief declined to address continued questions that have swirled since the Jan. 28 raid, when police raided the home expecting to shut down a heroin-dealing operation. Instead, their no-knock raid kicked off a gun battle that ended with the deaths of Navy veteran Dennis Tuttle, his wife Rhogena Nicholas and their dog but failed to turn up any heroin. Besides the small amount of drugs which officials later said included cocaine police recovered a 20-gauge Beretta shotgun, a Winchester rifle and a Remington shotgun and rifle, according to the search warrant return. The handgun that Acevedo said Tuttle used in the gun battle was not among the listed firearms. The court filing released this week did not list any drug paraphernalia or scales, which were apparently not recovered from the scene. 'ONGOING QUESTIONS': Officer connected to deadly raid, shootout relieved of duty The drug probe leading to the botched bust started on Jan. 8, when officials say an anonymous caller phoned police to complain that her daughter was "doing drugs" inside the home at 7815 Harding Street. When officers showed up, they didn't see any suspicious activity, but stopped a passerby to ask if she'd called 911. She hadn't, but according to what Acevedo said days later the woman allegedly turned back to her phone call and said, "Hey, the police are at the dope house." Afterwards, HPD's Squad 15 began investigating and eventually sent in a confidential informant for a pre-arranged drug buy, according to a sworn statement. Initially, officials said the purchase netted black tar heroin, though records later showed that it was brown powder form of the illegal narcotic. The informant also warned police of a "large quantity" of drugs inside, packaged in plastic baggies, and a 9mm handgun, according to a court filing. The following day, on Jan. 28, a municipal court judge signed off on a warrant authorizing the no-knock raid. Hours later, police broke down the door and shot the couple's pit bull after the animal lunged at them. Tuttle came out from around the back of the house, police said, and started shooting. Inside the home, a wounded officer fell down on the sofa, and Nicholas allegedly tried grabbing his weapon, police said. Authorities have not yet clarified who fired which of the shots. READ THE WARRANT: Search warrant from drug raid that left five officers injured In the days after the deadly shoot-out, the couple's friends and family called into question the official narrative, saying Nicholas and Tuttle weren't drug dealers and questioning whether police raided the wrong house. On the other side, the police union framed the officers' shootings as more evidence of a war on police, and president Joe Gamaldi sparked criticism with controversial comments blaming mainstream media and certain activists spreading anti-police rhetoric. Later, a coalition of justice groups and attorneys called for his resignation. Then on Thursday, police said that one of the officers involved in the raid was relieved of duty in light of "ongoing questions" about the deadly encounter. The officer, who was not publicly identified, was not among those wounded. His suspension, law enforcement sources said, comes amid a probe into questions over whether the sworn affidavit used to justify the no-knock warrant may have contained false information. The investigation has been delayed while the case agent on the raid recovers after being shot in the neck. He is one of two officers who remain hospitalized. Samantha Ketterer contributed to this report. Noted San Antonio bar manager Benjamin Krick plans to say something new at the space formerly occupied by The Last Word. Krick and business partner Lucas Bradbury have not yet announced a name or concept for the space at 229 E. Houston Street, but they plan to open early this spring. The two said guests can expect an extensive cosmetic makeover, including new furniture, wallpaper, ceiling tiles and renovated restrooms among other improvements. The Last Word closed in April 2018, and has been used as an event space by the San Antonio Cocktail Conference since that time. How do you like your liquid chocolate? Hopefully not with "floating debris" and "watery on top and solid chunks" on the bottom. Unfortunately for one fast food restaurant, that was what a city health inspector observed in the restaurant's dessert item during a random health inspection on Feb. 5, according to San Antonio city health inspections. More than 30 kitchens were marked with grades of 89 or below in the Alamo City some with standard offenses, like an accumulation of black residue in ice machines, but other eateries housed actions you don't see every day, like the owner of a Northwest Side market cutting fish without a hair net. LAST WEEK'S INSPECTIONS: Feb. 1, 2019 Other more gross violations included an employee at a North Side Chinese spot "mixing steamed rice with bare hands" and rodent droppings observed by an inspector at a River Walk restaurant. To make the Express-News' list of dirtiest restaurants, an establishment must score 89 or below or anything less than an "A" during a random city health inspection over the past week. Click through the gallery above to see which San Antonio establishments were cited by health inspectors this week. The San Antonio Express-News examines hundreds of restaurant inspections each week conducted by the San Antonio Food and Environment Services division to bring you the eateries with scores of 89 or below. Restaurants are graded on a 100-point system where "100" is a perfect score, and demerits are based upon the number of violations found during a regular food establishment inspection. There are three categories of demerits and each is assigned a demerit score of 3, 2, or 1 points, according to the health division. If you have questions about inspections or complaints about a food establishment, contact the Metropolitan Health District office by calling 3-1-1 or 210-207-6000. Be prepared to provide the name, location, date of incident and details of the incident. An increase in illness prompted Plainview Independent School District and Hale Center ISD officials to cancel school on Friday as maintenance and custodial staff work to disinfect school facilities. The districts made the announcement via Facebook Thursday citing a flu and stomach bug outbreak as the reason for the cancelation. Classes for Hale Center will be also be canceled Monday. School will resume on its regular schedule for HCISD Tuesday. Dr. Robin Stanfield, family nurse practitioner at Covenant Health Care Center, said the activity correlates with flu numbers through Covenant Health Plainview. "We would consider the flu epidemic in full force," she said via phone Thursday. "February or March is the peak season." An increased number of people of all ages have been seeking medical care for flu and RSV symptoms for the past couple of weeks, she said. Flu numbers for the Covenant Health Care Center show there were 90 positive flu tests reported in January and 56 of them were reported during the last week of the month. For comparison, there were 58 reported cases at the clinic during the first week of February - and more than 100 reported cases and counting between the clinic and Covenant Health Plainview ER since Jan. 31, as of Thursday afternoon. Stanfield said the best way to combat them is practicing good hygiene and take extra precautions if you have to be out in public places. "Make sure your hands are being washed, cover your cough," she said. The Health Department, 111 E. 10th St., will offer flu shots from 8-10:30 a.m. for $20 today. Call (806) 293-1359 for more information. A limited supply is available. Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker View Photos Washington, DC Mother Lode Republican Congressman Tom McClintock was among those that asked pointed questions to Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker during a House Judiciary Committee meeting this morning. McClintock indicated to Whitaker that he has been reading a book authored by Fox News analyst Gregg Jarrett entitled, The Russia Hoax. McClintock says it lays out instances of political bias within the FBI, illegal conduct, destruction of evidence and perjury. McClintock questioned, Can we expect a full, complete and aggressive investigation of charges of wrongdoing by officials in the FBI and the Department of Justice on these matters? Whitaker responded, Congressman, I can assure you that any allegation of misconduct by an employee of the department of justice will be looked into thoroughly. McClintock also referenced former IRS employee Lois Lerner, who was in the middle of a controversy where conservative groups argued that they were improperly targeted by the IRS related to tax exemption applications. McClintock asked why no action was taken. Whitaker responded that he was a private citizen when the Lois Lerner allegations surfaced, and added that former Attorney General Jeff Sessions had reviewed the matter after taking office. McClintock also questioned why Democratic US Senator Bob Menendez was allowed to quietly turn himself in during an FBI corruption investigation, but President Trump supporter Roger Stone was taken into custody during a predawn raid that included 29 armed combat officers. McClintock argued that it was merely a political act to scare people from working with the Trump campaign in the future. Whitaker responded, Congressman, this is a very serious situation that you raise, but just know that the FBI makes arrests in a manner most likely to ensure the safety of its agents and the person being arrested. Pressing further, McClintock asked again about the disparity between Menendez and Stone, and Whitaker then promised to address it later during a closed session, because talking in public could put other FBI agents doing other investigations in harms way. During the hearing, Democrats focused many questions on the Mueller investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Whitaker declined to answer most of those questions, citing that it is an ongoing investigation. Atlas Fire burning in Nappa and Solano counties View Photos Sonora, CA To assist in wildfire prevention, up to five million California customers could temporarily lose power this year if state utility regulators approve Pacific Gas & Electrics (PG&E) safety proposal. In a filing submitted to the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) today, the company is promising to spend $2.3 billion this year to improve wildfire prevention after its equipment was blamed for causing more than 1,500 Northern California wildfires since 2014. It is part of the companys 2019 Wildfire Safety Plan that asks regulators for permission to cut power during wildfire threats throughout its entire system, which serves 5.4 million customers in the northern and central parts of the state. The utilitys emphasis on blackouts has drawn criticism from a Bay Area consumer advocacy group charging that power outages should only be an emergency response and not a routine preventive measure. Claiming that It puts customers in harms way, the group calls on PG&E to make safety improvements on equipment and employee training more of a priority than cutting power. Promising to overhaul much of its wildfire-prevention measures in response to growing legal, financial and public pressure, the embattled utility also proposed removing 375,000 trees this year after cutting down 160,000 last year and increase in-depth pole inspections from 9,400 last year to 40,600 this year. The company also plans to bury underground or insulate 150 miles of bare wire next year and 7,100 miles over the next decade while doubling its weather stations to 400. The utility filed for bankruptcy last month as its equipment has been blamed for starting 17 major wildfires in the last two years that has left the utility facing more than 1,000 related lawsuits that could cost more than $30 billion. The safety plan is a result of a new state law passed in response to the destructive 2017 wildfires that requires utilities to file their wildfire-prevention plans with the CPUC. The agency has scheduled several public meetings to review and amend the proposals before they are adopted. Sonora, CA Comcast acknowledges that they are dealing with a service outage in the Mother Lode due to this weeks storms. Clarke Broadcasting learned that well over a hundred customers including some businesses in the Twain Harte area were experiencing service outages. Comcast officials state that some of the outages are due to PG&E power outages and some due to down lines within its system. They emphasize that all are storm related and the company is operating in storm mode throughout the Sonora and Placerville areas with teams working as quickly as possible. In the cases involving PG&E outages, they are following those crews. There is no estimated time yet for service restoration. Snow in Soulsbyville (1-12-17) View Photos The National Weather Service has issued a Winter Storm Warning for the Sierra Nevada and the Mother Lode above 2,500 feet, now through 4 AM Monday. A cold weather system will bring continued moderate to heavy snow today into this evening. The snow levels begin around the 1,500 foot elevation. Additional snow accumulations above the 2,500 foot elevation, will range from five to fifteen inches. Breezy winds, combined with the snow, will continue to create poor visibility at times. Winds gusts of forty to eighty mph are expected over exposed ridge tops and near the crest of the Sierra. The cold wind chills, as low as 30 below zero in the Sierra Nevada, could cause frostbite on exposed skin in as little as thirty minutes. Travel today into this evening is not recommended, with chain controls, long delays, and road closures likely to continue. Lingering showers will continue into this evening before diminishing overnight into Monday morning. A Winter Storm Warning means there will be snow covered roads and limited visibilities. Travel is not recommended while the Warning is in effect. If you must travel, keep an extra flashlight, food and water in your vehicle in case of an emergency. California Farm Bureau Federation logo View Photos Sonora, CA State water regulators under fire for approving what critics describe as a massive water grab are dealing with over a half-dozen related lawsuits, including a new one from the farming industry. California Farm Bureau Federation (CFBF) officials share with Clarke Broadcasting that the bureau filed its suit late last week in Sacramento County Superior Court. CFBF Environmental Attorney Chris Scheuring says the move is unsurprising, given the size and magnitude of the Water Boards action. Back in December, as reported here, the board voted to approve its intended phase-one for increased unimpaired flows plan in three San Joaquin River tributariesthe Stanislaus, Tuolumne, and Merced riversfor the primary purpose of increasing fish populations. The members came to their decision in the face of contested data, alternative mitigation plans, continued protests, and political pressure by then-Governor Jerry Brown and Governor-elect Gavin Newsom to avoid certain litigation through a negotiated solution with stakeholder groups. Filing For Top Producing Farmers It is a landscape-level regulatory action that is very novel in many wayslots of legal questions associated with it as well as legal questions, Scheuring comments. While several of the other lawsuits cover farming interests within specific irrigation districts, he says the Farm Bureau is representing the countrys top-producing farming region and covering the producers among its 36,000 members located outside those districts. Chiming in, CFBF spokesperson Dave Kranz shares, The areas of the Central Valley that would be affected by this plan are among the most productive agricultural regions in the world. Reducing water to those areas would have a variety of cascading environmental impactsfarmers have told us that they would expect to have to reduceor maybe go out of production, if they dont have that water available. The Water Board maintains that farmers can perhaps compensate for the loss of surface water by pumping more groundwater. However, as Kranz notes, new groundwater regulations phasing in may reduce the ability. Not to mention that groundwater is an environmental resource that also needs protection. He adds, So, we feel that the Water Board did not adequately study the impact on the agricultural resources from the plan and that should be taken into consideration for something as sweeping as this plan would be. Continuing, Kranz emphasizes, There are a number of reasonable alternatives to the approach that the board has offered. We need to do more to control predators that eat the protected fish. We need to provide more food and habitat for those fish. We think the board ignored a lot of evidence about the impact that those factors are having and instead focused only on flows and by doing that, they produced a plan that doesnt meet the standards of the state environmental laws. He maintains, The fish do need help but we think there are better waysways that can be successful for the fish and also maintain the agricultural and other human uses of water. We think that cutting water to tens of thousands of acres of productive farmland for unlikely benefit to fish is just not the way to go. Other Lawsuits Involve Mother Lode Resources As reported here, Tri-Dam Project Partners the Oakdale Irrigation (OID) and South San Joaquin (SSJID) irrigation districts filed suit at Tuolumne County Superior Court early last month with other members of the San Joaquin Tributaries Authority (SJTA), which includes the City and County of San Francisco. Tri-Dam built and maintains senior water rights on New Melones reservoir, the states fourth largest, and operates and maintains the Donnells, Beardsley and Tulloch projects on the Middle Fork of the Stanislaus River in Tuolumne County. That same week, the Modesto Irrigation District (MID), which co-owns and operates Don Pedro dam and powerhouse, filed an independent suit with the Superior Court of the State of California for the County of Sacramento, as reported here. Among its claims are that the Water Boards plan would sacrifice a third of the districts surface water supplies. Of course, while it is impossible to tell what will come from the multiple lawsuits, whether or not they consolidate, Scheuring surmises that unless there is a negotiated settlement it will take at least a couple of years for the matter to wind its way through the court system. In that event, the Water Board and involved parties may well see the issue itself flow through the Court of Appeal and perhaps to the State Supreme Court. Question: My condominium association is overrun with dogs. We are concerned that someone will be injured, and we will be sued because we did not impose the proper precautions. What should we do? Answer: Over 4.5 million people are bitten by dogs each year, and according to the Centers for Disease and Prevention (CDC) almost half were children. And 1 out of 5 bites become infected, with such diseases as rabies, MRSA a type of Staph infection, or different types of bacteria such as capnocytophaga or pasteurella. In fairness to dog owners, the CDC reported that during the early part of this century, more cats than dogs were determined to be rabid. The majority of these cases were associated with spillover infection from raccoons in the Eastern United States, CDC said, and the larger number of rabies-infected cats might be attributed to fewer cat vaccination laws, fewer leash laws and the roaming habits of cats. Typically when a person is bitten and is infected or severely injured an insurance claim will be filed. According to the Insurance Information Institute, there were over 18,000 claims made in 2017, a 2.2 percent increase over 2016. Homeowners in California filed the most claims; the Washington metropolitan area did not make the top ten list of dog bite claims. Because of the volume of claims, many insurance companies are now refusing to insure homeowners (or community associations) where certain brands of dogs are present. Dogs such as pit bulls, rottweilers, akitas and chow-chows are often labeled as dangerous and insurance companies will either exclude injuries from these dogs or significantly increase the annual premium. You should immediately confirm with your insurance agent whether your policy covers dog bites, and from all kinds of dogs. For years, the law around the country was called the one-bite rule. Owners regardless of the kind of animal would only be held responsible (and liable) for injuries caused if the owner knew or should have known the dog has dangerous propensities abnormal to its class. The rule originated in England, and was adopted as the common law here in the United States. Virginia still follows this rule. However, the owner may face criminal penalties if a dangerous dog causes injury or death. And all of the surrounding counties have some form of leash law, requiring a dog to be on a leash at all times when outside of the home environment. Additionally, all dogs over four months old must be properly registered with the local county. In the District of Columbia, dogs must be leashed, vaccinated and registered. The Mayor acting through one of her agencies has the power to impound a dangerous animal, defined as an animal that because of specific training or demonstrated behavior threatens the health or safety of the public. The one-bite rule does not apply; if a dog injures a person while at large, lack of knowledge of the dogs vicious propensity will not necessarily be a defense; the court will look at all of the facts in order to determine if the owner was negligent. Maryland has an interesting dog law history. In 2012, the highest court in the state ruled that pit bulls are inherently dangerous and such a dog owner could be held to strict liability in the event of a dog bite. According to the court, it is not necessary that the (pit bulls owner) have actual knowledge that the specific pit bull involved is dangerous. Pit bull owners and many other dog lovers rose up in arms, claiming this law unfairly singled out specific breeds. Accordingly, the Maryland legislature enacted a law that in essence repealed the high court ruling, thereby adopting a strict liability approach for any dangerous animal. According to the new law, a dangerous dog is one, that without provocation, has killed or inflicted severe injury on a person. The law does, however, allow the dog owner to claim the defense of contributory negligence; the plaintiff cannot win if he contributed in any way to the dog bite. Maryland is unique in that the state law governs the specific licensing and other regulations certain counties may adopt or enforce. And many of the local counties, have, in fact, determined certain dogs as dangerous. What can your association do? Adopt a rule that all dogs must be leashed when outside of the homeowners property, and require that all dogs register with the association, and show proof that the dog has been properly vaccinated. Furthermore, the rule should state that if any one is bitten by a dog, regardless of whether it was on a leash, the owner will be subject to a hearing and a possible fine. Furthermore, if any more incidents occur, unless the dog owner agrees to muzzle the dog when outside, the dog can be permanently removed from the area. In some cases, legal action may be necessary. And most importantly, the Board should confirm that the association has the necessary insurance coverage. People sleep better knowing there is insurance. In Maryland, the state dog is the Chesapeake Bay Retriever; the American Foxhound is the Virginia state dog. There is no such State dog in Washington. Written by Benny L Kass author of the weekly Housing Counsel column with The Washington Post for nearly 30 years, Benny Kass is the senior partner with the Washington, DC law firm of KASS LEGAL GROUP, PLLC and a specialist in such real estate legal areas as commercial and residential financing, closings, foreclosures and workouts. Published for www.RealtyTimes.com Copyright 2018 Realty Times All Rights Reserved. We were not paying attention to ... You can choose to behave anyhow. ... For the Intelligencer The journey for our new brand supporting our region as Great Rivers & Routes just hit a major milestone. This past week at the Illinois Governors Conference on Travel and Tourism in Chicago, one of our first forays into this brand space received a major boost of affirmation and recognition. We won the best visitor publication for the state of Illinois at the Illinois Excellence in Tourism Awards. Not only did we win the best visitor publication award, but the project actually received the highest amount of points across all categories, such as branding, websites, social media and much more. As the entry with the highest amount of points earned, we were awarded the Best of Show award. We are extremely humbled and proud as hundreds of fantastic entries were a part of the competition and won awards, including Sky Deck Chicago, Illinois Holocaust Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Magnificent Mile Association. However, a new brand in southwestern Illinois presented itself as the marketing excellence example for 2019. Ford Motor Co. said Thursday that it would invest $1 billion in its Chicago-area manufacturing operations to expand production of its Ford Explorer and Lincoln Aviator sport utility vehicles. The announcement, made at the Chicago Auto Show, will add 500 jobs to two manufacturing facilities, the assembly plant and stamping plant, said Joe Hinrichs, Fords president of global operations. The expansion, which represents new investment, is part of a commitment the company made in its agreement with the United Auto Workers in 2015, and brings the total number of workers at its Chicago-area plants to 5,800. The overhaul of the plants is expected to begin in March and be completed in the spring. When its all finished, Chicago Assembly will have an all-new, state-of-the-art body shop, an all-new paint shop and new tooling to build this new lineup. And the Chicago Stamping Plant will have all new lines to support the new vehicles, Hinrichs said. The announcement comes as Ford continues a major restructuring put in place by CEO Jim Hackett, who was named to the position following the abrupt dismissal of Mark Fields in 2017. In recent months, Ford has announced steep job cuts to its salaried workforce and an overhaul of its European operations as it embarks on a significant shift in its product lineup that includes the discontinuation of slower-selling sedans like the Fusion in favor of trucks and SUVs. The changes come amid a recent decline in earning, though workers at the two Chicago-area plants recently learned they would be receiving profit-sharing checks of $7,500 for 2018. But as Ford continues its restructuring, its Chicago-area operations, an assembly plant at 12600 S. Torrence Ave. in Chicago and a stamping plant in Chicago Heights, stand to benefit from the emphasis on larger vehicles. The production of the Explorer ST, the Police Interceptor and the Aviator will add to Fords position as the top producer of vehicles in the U.S., with nearly 2.4 million built in 2018, the company said. This investment will further strengthen Fords SUV market leadership, Hinrichs said. Ford also announced that it would spend $40 million to improve working conditions at the plants, long a source of scrutiny and legal trouble for the company. In 2017, The New York Times highlighted a history of sexual and racial harassment at the two plants that had continued for decades. The article prompted an apology from Hackett, who promised stricter oversight and training. And earlier that summer, workers reported an embarrassing string of auto thefts from the parking lots at the plants, including one where a security guard was run over. On Thursday, Hinrichs announced a string of improvements for workers, including new team break areas on the plant floor, increased security, better lighting and a renovated cafeteria. In 2017, working conditions at the plants fell under scrutiny when The Chicago Assembly Plant which began making the Model T in 1924 represents one of the few large assembly operations remaining for Ford in a large American city. Many have closed as Ford has spread its manufacturing operations around the world. But President Donald Trump has applied enormous pressure on domestic automakers to keep their plants, and the jobs that go with them, in the U.S. In 2017, in an abrupt reversal, Ford said it would cancel plans for a $1.6 billion plant to make small cars in Mexico, instead adding 700 jos to s plant in Michigan. Its a real vote of confidence in this city, Mayor Rahm Emanuel said, noting that in 2011, Ford had added 1,200 jobs to the two plants. He added that the city had ordered 200 new police cruisers from Ford. Authorities filed charges Thursday against an Alton woman in the death of a weeks-old infant, after she was accused of falling asleep on the floor while holding the baby after an evening of drinking. Destinee K. Dozier, 26, of Richfield, Minnesota, was visiting the babys father in Alton when the death occurred July 7. A prosecutor said Dozier and the childs father went out for the evening and that an investigation revealed they had been drinking. Can Science Make Sense of Life? By Sheila Jasanoff Polity. 208 pp. $19.95 paperback --- The scientific revolution that began in the 16th century marks one of the most significant transformations in human history of the past 500 years - intellectual, economic, military, technological, social and cultural - and it continues to reverberate today. Science has shaped the modern world and reconfigured almost every aspect of our lives by advancing our understanding of the laws that govern nature and by applying that new knowledge to widespread technological enhancements: rockets, robots, cars, computers, smartphones, sanitation, refrigeration, penicillin, Prozac, pacemakers, etc. While the triumph of modern science and technology is a tale of unprecedented human progress, its fruits have not been shared equally by all peoples, nor have its benefits been unalloyed. In some cases - eugenic sterilization, synthetic pesticides, lobotomies - science has led to demonstrable harm. In others - genetically modified foods, nuclear power, predictive privacy - the question of risks vs. benefits continues to be debated. Science seeks to uncover underlying physical truths and, based on those truths, to construct new capabilities, which are not automatically ethically right or in society's best interest. It is up to us, as humans living in a contingent social order, to make those decisions for our greater good, as we define it. Current public discussions of science are narrowly polarized, like much else in these divisive times, and often reduced to an all-out "war on science," coming from anti-science climate deniers and the religious right, and a counter-adversarial "march for science," coming from the pro-science, progressive left. Anyone picking up a copy of Sheila Jasanoff's punchy, deeply informed critique of science and scientific hubris, "Can Science Make Sense of Life?" will see a more complex reality. Jasanoff is a sociologist and founder of science and technology studies at Harvard, a field that views science not as a stand-alone enterprise to be judged solely on its own terms but as a social practice embedded in, and accountable to, the particular societies and institutions of which it is a part. Here she is specifically interested in how the life sciences, biology and biotechnology, have interacted with law, ethics and public policy in modern democratic societies. The author knows how important science is, but she worries about its self-importance and its claims to unique sovereignty in determining the rich, multidimensional meaning of life. In this critical and deeply humanistic new book, she contends that 20th-century breakthroughs in the life sciences turned biology into a secular religion, enshrined in the publication of DNA as the secret "code-script" of life. Biologists discovered the double helical structure and then the 3 billion-letter sequence of DNA; they learned to tinker with that universal genetic code, to amplify it, to transfer it from one species to another and to grow it in a test tube; they developed molecular scissors to snip and edit that genome, enabling permanent alterations to any species; and they managed to synthesize and engineer new, self-replicating life forms from artificial, non-life sources. These remarkable advances based on deciphering a single master code underlying all physical life gave biology its "soaring status" and "made it increasingly more acceptable for biologists to claim ownership of the meaning of life." Jasanoff, who frames the modern search for meaning with Gaugin's Tahitian painting "Where Do We Come From? Who Are We? Where Are We Going?," finds this monopoly on "steering human progress" by a small band of specialists - still mostly male, white and Western - problematic for society. Biologists, in her view, have been allowed to define not just "what life is for" - which rightly belongs to "other, long-established discourses and modes of reflection" - but also to reconceive and redesign "what life is." Her book is a plea, at times an erudite polemic, to wrest back some of that control and moral authority from science to society at large. She takes us through the major landmarks in biology with a skeptic's eye on its accumulating power and reductiveness: the shift from 19th-century field naturalists to 20th-century molecular biologists in a lab and then to increasingly data-based genomics; the myth of pure science and the lone scientist-genius motivated solely by the pursuit of truth vs. the role of capital, big business and personal enrichment; the concomitant shift from basic research to applied technologies that can become profitable, beginning with Genentech and the biotechnology revolution; the abdication by legal, bioethical and political systems in the face of science's claim to represent a unique progress (she revisits the 1975 Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA as a pre-emptive bid by scientists to forestall regulation and public debate); and the ascent of New Biology, in which engineering has infiltrated the life sciences and turned biology into a self-appointed problem-solving enterprise for remaking life rather than for understanding it. Jasanoff offers an instructive example of deciding what constitutes life in discussing in vitro fertilization (IVF). The technology for creating an early-stage human embryo outside the female body has helped millions of infertile couples since Louise Brown's birth in 1978, but it also gave rise to an entity that had never existed before. Was this test tube creation an early-stage human or just a clump of cells for further research, including deriving lifesaving embryonic stem cells? Jasanoff compares how the United States, Britain and Germany came up with divergent answers, with only Britain developing a comprehensive solution, known as the 14-day rule, after which the collection of cells achieved human status and no further research was permitted. The United States, owing to the toxic politics of abortion, responded with a bifurcated public-private system to officially condemn but privately support such research, while Germany also used "legal jujitsu" to sidestep the moral issues without burdening science. They both kicked the can down the road and failed to engage with the public and the myriad social, legal and ethical issues involved. The current controversy surrounding a Chinese scientist's use of CRISPR to edit human embryos shows how urgent such questions remain. While almost all scientists have publicly condemned this rogue experiment - though even CRISPR's co-founders disagree on whether a moratorium is needed - Jasanoff's call for "a global observatory on human genome editing and other heredity-altering techniques" looks prescient. Society, not just scientists, needs to weigh in on these vital issues. This timely and important work is a powerful reminder that we are still in the midst of a scientific revolution that demands shared decision-making regarding the boundary between natural and artificial life - what life is - as well as what life is for. Jasanoff's compact, sweeping book has a mildly academic structure and tone; she occasionally belabors her thesis and does not always give science or scientists their full due; and I might have changed her title to "Can Science Alone Make Sense of Life?," since she is not questioning science's contribution to our understanding of life, only its claim to exclusive sovereignty. Surely there remain few investments in society as worthy as support for basic scientific research. But Jasanoff is just as surely right in her fundamental argument that we need the two cultures of science and the humanities, and the multiple voices of moral philosophers, lawyers, political theorists, bioethicists, and even artists and religious leaders, along with scientists and engineers, to decide where we came from, who we are and where we are going. --- Weber is a vice president at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, where he directs the Public Understanding of Science & Technology Program to support work linking science and the humanities. He's the Writers Room board president and author of "Immortal Bird: A Family Memoir." Figuring By Maria Popova Pantheon. 578 PP. $30 --- In 1609 Johannes Kepler wrote a curious tale about a trip to the moon, hailed now as one of the first works of science fiction. Titled "Somnium," or "The Dream," the tale has its young astronomer protagonist encountering a race of lizard beings on the moon who have developed technology tailored to the conditions of their lunar environment, a radical attempt on Kepler's part to envision what science might produce on an alien "world." Looking up at the Earth, these moon creatures believe that our orb is revolving around them, much as many of Kepler's contemporaries believed that the sun was revolving around the Earth. Through the lens of fiction, Kepler took the bold step of trying to convey to late-Renaissance readers the scientific claim that how we see the universe is a matter of perspective. (BEGIN ITAL)What(END ITAL) we see is dependent on (BEGIN ITAL)where(END ITAL) we see from. Maria Popova, creator of the much-admired Brain Pickings blog, begins her new book, "Figuring," with a chapter about Kepler, and the resonances she sees rippling out from his surreal personal and professional life to a litany of figures in astronomy and the arts ever since. With nearly 900,000 Twitter followers, Popova is a member of a rare pantheon of "influencers" for the brainiac crowd. Miraculously, she makes a living writing a blog about science, literature, philosophy, feminism and whatever else takes her voracious and generous fancy. Full disclosure: I've been a Brain Pickings supporter for years. When I read that the subject of her first long-format book was "figuring," my interest was piqued. Not only because I'm a fan of her site but because figuring - a multifaceted, multidisciplinary term that spans the domains of science, mathematics, the arts and human cognition - has been at the core of my own work for decades. In 2003, I started an organization called the Institute for Figuring, whose mission is to engage audiences with the aesthetic and poetic dimensions of science and mathematics. One inspiration for this practice has been Kepler, among the foremost figurers in science. For Popova, Kepler becomes a kind of ur-figure, a man whose multiplexed life, entwining science, aesthetics and theology, she uses to set the stage for a cast of later historical characters who also crossed disciplines and boundaries in pursuit of truth, beauty and a life well-lived. In a book titled "Figuring," it would be hard to find a more fitting muse. Kepler wrote a treatise on the shapes of snowflakes and made a mathematical conjecture about the optimal way to stack spheres, which was finally proved in 1998. Most famously, he figured out the laws of planetary motion. These cosmic rules, which include the fact that planets travel in ellipses rather than circles around the sun, overthrew 2,000 years of astronomical dogma and paved the way for Newton's law of gravity and his subsequent cosmic synthesis. Though Kepler isn't nearly as famous as Newton or Copernicus, he is their equal - and arguably a more important figure than Copernicus. It was Kepler who understood first that mathematical figures hidden in the dance of the planets implied that these bodies are driven by real physical forces, thereby making him the first true astrophysicist. Kepler is beloved by historians for the powerful mixing in his life of mathematical rigor and aesthetical play. He did nothing by halves, including defending his mother from accusations of witchcraft, a charge that he believed was precipitated by his "Dream" book. At the end of a long and painful process his mother was saved, but her treatment in prison weakened and finally killed her. Popova movingly reports that this led Kepler to another leap of perspectival insight: that, being female, his mother had not had the benefit of an education and was thus at the mercy of "learned" men. As Popova writes, "The difference between the fates of the sexes, Kepler suggests, is not in the heavens but in the earthly construction of gender." Popova's book, which from here focuses mainly on female stories, is about the lives of some remarkable women - all undaunted thinkers - who overcame immense obstacles and "the earthly construction of gender" in their time to make astronomical discoveries, to write poetry, paint pictures and found the environmental movement. Chief among them are Kepler's intellectual descendents, astronomers Maria Mitchell and Caroline Herschel, mathematician Mary Somerville, marine biologist/environmentalist Rachel Carson, writer/critic Margaret Fuller, artist Harriet Hosmer, and poet Emily Dickinson - women who all embody the landmark assertion of 17th-century philosopher Francois Poullain de la Barre that "the mind has no sex." Popova's "Figuring" is an intricate tapestry in which the lives of these women, and dozens of other scientific and literary figures, are woven together through threads of connection across four centuries, linking one to another in unexpected chains through mutual friends, serendipity, meetings, letters and even lovers. It is as if in her vast reading of source materials, especially original correspondence, she has fitted her brain with a set of filters to sift out references that might link any of her figures to any other. One is reminded of the 18th-century polymath Athanasius Kircher's declaration: "The world is bound by secret knots." Most overtly, the "figures" of Popova's narrative are the human beings whose stories she uses to illuminate her thesis that, as per Kepler's journey of triumph and terror, life is lived for us all "between chance and choice." But the word "figure" has other connotations, too, and one suspects that Popova may have been drawn to these further dimensions of its meaning from a quote in Maria Mitchell's diary. While on her first trip to Europe in 1857, Mitchell, by then a famous astronomer and the only female member of the American Astronomical Society, met with many of her scientific, literary and artistic heroes. Between them all, she wrote, "figures are a common language." The languages that nonhuman figures speak are varied in the extreme. In mathematics, figures are numbers and geometric forms. Figures are also diagrams in scientific texts. In the Middle Ages, what became perspectival imagery was originally called "geometric figuring." Humans have figures that painters draw and sculptors render in marble. In literature, there are figures of speech and figures of fun. Drama has its tragic figures and comic figures. Dancers at cotillion balls spin figures across the floor, while the floor itself may be figured with parquet patterns, that mathematicians study as "tessellations." As cognitive beings we are constantly engaged in figuring things out, and it is a pleasure to observe the mental subtleties of Popova's formidably gifted characters as each of them figures the world anew. In "Figuring," we are thrust into a waltz of exquisitely honed minds - most of them belonging to women, many of them sexually queer - all insisting on living to their fullest. "Mingle the starlight with your lives," Mitchell exhorted her students at Vassar. Kepler, the patron saint of cosmic figuring, would have agreed. --- Wertheim is a science writer and artist who founded the Institute for Figuring, an organization through which she creates projects at the intersection of mathematics, science and art. She is the author of "Pythagoras Trousers," a cultural history of physics and women. During a speech to U.S. Air Force personnel station in the United Kingdom recently, President Joe Biden warned that global warming is the greatest physical theat to the nations security. Biden has suggested that climate change poses a threat to U.S. military security on multiple occasions. In February, he noted that he had directed the Pentagon to reimagine the countrys strategy for dealing with the impact of climate change. Do you agree with the President that climate change is the great physical threat to the United States? Choices are: You voted: Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, February 8) Three more establishments got sanctioned Friday as part of government efforts to rehabilitate Manila Bay. The Laguna Lake Development Authority (LLDA) issued cease and desist orders to Makchang Korean Restaurant in Manila, and Legend Seafood Restaurant and NetWorld Hotel, both in Pasay City. The LLDA said the establishments failed to meet government standards and are now prohibited from discharging wastewater directly to Manila Bay. They will still be allowed to operate. They join eight other establishments with cease and desist orders since January 27, when the rehabilitation of Manila Bay kicked off on orders of President Rodrigo Duterte. In a speech on January 9, Duterte threatened to close down restaurants near the Manila Bay without proper water treatment systems, following his order to rehabilitate the polluted body of water. On January 22, the Manila Zoo another Manila landmark was ordered temporarily closed by city authorities. Meanwhile, the LLDA in a February 6 order also recommended the issuance of notices of violation to the following: Harbour View Square and China Oceanis Inc. Philippines - Manila Ocean Park in Manila, and SM Development Corp.'s Breeze Residences, Sofitel Philippine Plaza, Philippine International Convention Center, Midas Hotel and Casino, Carwash by Benjas, Sogo Hotel, and Harrison Mansion, all in Pasay City. Ex-parte orders, which require the companies to explain their supposed violations, will also be sent to San Andres Public Market and Malate Royale Development Corp. - Malate Crown Plaza Condominium in Manila, and Center for International Trade Exposition Center, Metroescapes Corp. - Seascape Village and Antel Seaview Towers Condominium in Pasay City. It is not immediately known if the warnings have been issued to the said companies. The government is trying to stop sources of pollution as it eyes Manila Bay to have swimmable beaches by this year. Levels of coliform, a group of harmful bacteria found in human and animal feces, have gone down in some parts of Manila Bay following the start of the government's rehabilitation drive, Environment Undersecretary Sherwin Rigor told CNN Philippines on Thursday. Dr. Synar is curriculum writer of the Suffrage Movement in America. She hopes to educate young girls about the fore-mothers who came before them. She can be reached at synar@remembertheladies.com. The Bexar County District Attorney's Office has released graphic crime scene photos and videos depicting the aftermath of a road rage shootout last year involving an intoxicated off-duty police officer in the parking lot of a Northwest Side strip club. The material, which includes prosecution documents, was made public in a rare move by former District Attorney Nico LaHood, according to current DA officials. It provides new insight into the chaotic gun battle outside the Allstar's Gentleman's Club on May 29 that left 26-year-old Demontae Walker paralyzed and resulted in a 15-day suspension for San Antonio Police Officer Dezi Rios. According to a prosecution guide detailing the shooting and body worn camera footage of the crime scene and Walker's testimony, the incident began at about 9:30 p.m. when Rios sped past Walker on Interstate 10 onto the Wurzbach Road exit. Rios was heading home from a cadet dinner at Ajuua Restaurant, where he estimated he had had about five mixed drinks. FIND OUT FIRST: Get San Antonio breaking news directly to your inbox Both men pulled into the Allstar's parking lot. Walker was taking his cousin, Destiny Rhodes, to the club so she could dance, and Rios told investigators he pulled over to call his wife. At some point, both men got out of their cars and got into a verbal altercation. Walker, a firearm enthusiast who often carried a pistol on him, told investigators he put his pistol in his pocket and went to check on Rios to see if he was okay. "It was just a coincidence that we went to the same parking lot," Walker later told a detective from his hospital room. "So, I'm guessing he thought like, I wanted to fight or something." "He looked amped," Walker said during the same interview, noting Rios used a racial slur while yelling at him and never identified himself as a police officer. Walker told investigators he remained calm during the confrontation. Rios later told investigators that Walker had been aggressive. "Hey, motherf----r, you know you almost killed me back there?" Walker said, according to Rios' statement to detectives. "Obviously, I f-----g didn't because you're still here," Rios said he retorted. "You're a f-----g dumbass for pulling over. Get the f--k out of here." RELATED: Former UTSA-area barber cleared of charges in shootout with off-duty officer outside S.A. strip club During the confrontation, Walker said he saw Rios reach for something near his waist so he shot him. "I go to the gun range every week. I could've shot him in the face," he told a detective. He didn't want to kill Rios, he said, so he aimed for his pelvis and below. He struck Rios multiple times, then ran to his car to call 911. Rios then crawled to his own car, grabbed his Glock pistol and shot at Walker through his vehicle. Walker was shot while on the phone with 911 operators and Rhodes was grazed in the head. Rhodes ran to the club to ask for help, and Rios stumbled to the front door, where he was detained by a security guard until authorities arrived. RELATED: Father left with questions after son accused of shooting off-duty police officer in San Antonio Officer Matthew Robles was one of the officers who responded to the scene. His body warn camera footage shows him running to Rios and helping paramedics treat him. "He shot me, man," Rios says repeatedly. "I shot him back. I had to." Paramedics took all three to University Hospital for treatment. Walker was later charged with two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, one charge relating to Rios's injuries, and one related to Rhodes, though he did not shoot her. A grand jury later dismissed the charges. "It's very hard for a prosecutor to take the position of someone other than a police officer," Walker's Houston-based defense attorney Charles Adams told MySA.com after his client was cleared. "I have a lot of admiration for the Bexar County District Attorney's Office. It really was very admirable, their dedication to the truth and justice." Rios was issued a 15-day suspension for the road rage dispute and being intoxicated "to the extent that he was rendered unfit to report for duty." Rios made a full recovery from his injuries, but Walker is now a paraplegic and is unable to support himself. Text "NEWS" to 77453 for breaking news alerts from mySA.com Caleb Downs covers crime in San Antonio and Bexar County. Read him on our breaking news site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com | cdowns@mysa.com | @calebjdowns Less than a month after the first Buc-ee's outside of Texas opened in Alabama, the convenience store is facing a lawsuit claiming gas prices at the new location are unfairly low, according to the petition filed in federal court last week Oasis Travel Center, LLC, claims in the lawsuit that the Alabama store's gas prices are "predatory" and harmful toward its business. The travel center appears to be located about four miles east of the new Buc-ee's location in Baldwin County, along Interstate 10 and Country Road 64. A Texas family is mourning the loss of a 4-year-old girl who died from the flu and pneumonia. According to KTRK, Ashanti Grinage began showing symptoms last Tuesday, went to the emergency room and started taking medicine. She died on Thursday. Her father, Martel Grinage, arrived at the hospital as medical staff were attempting to bring the girl back to life. "I said, 'Maybe if she hears my voice...' I know she's getting up. I'm praying, I'm praying, because I believe in God. So I'm just waiting for her to wake up," Grinage said. Pneumonia, an infection that sometimes develops during or after the flu, was blamed for her death. Grinage said doctors didn't check Ashanti for the infection the first time they went to the emergency room. He wishes he would have asked them to. "I'm mad at myself. I'm mad at everyone. I'm mad at the hospital. I'm mad at God. I can't lie to you," Grinage said. He hopes his daughter's story can help others. "See, I feel like I failed because I'm not even 30 yet, and I'm about to bury my little girl," Grinage said. "That was my best friend. She was only 4, but that was my best friend." A GoFundMe page has been created for Ashanti's family. It has raised more than $15,000. "Ashanti Brielle Grinage was only 4 years old. Ashanti fell ill with Flu Type A and pneumonia. Although we are not ready and it is hard to accept we know our family has gained a beautiful angel in heaven. My sister, Ashantis mom, and her father Martel are heart broken to say the least as the life they knew has been shattered into a million pieces," the page reads. "From the bottom of my heart which feels so deep, dark, and empty at this time I am asking you to please provide prayers for our family." DENTON University of North Texas alum G. Brint Ryan -- a Big Spring native who was behind the restoration of the Settles Hotel -- and his wife, Amanda, have made a $30 million donation to his alma mater. The commitment is the largest gift in university history and will go toward the G. Brint Ryan College of Business, according to a press release from UNT. The gift will provide ongoing support for business research through academic endowments, as well as funds to support strategic program initiatives to ensure the college is one of the nations top providers of business higher education. Im so proud of G. Brint Ryan, and I am pleased to celebrate his achievements and his commitment to ensuring that UNTs business students receive the very best education possible, UNT President Neal Smatresk said in the release. The gift will create at least six endowed chairs and provide funding for academic program initiatives over seven years. Among the areas of focus will include taxation and tax research, entrepreneurship, finance, logistics, information technology, cybersecurity, and behavioral accounting. These initiatives will be aimed at increasing the reputation, prestige and ranking of the College of Business. My experience at UNT transformed me. It opened my eyes to a world of incredible possibility, said Ryan, founder and CEO of Ryan, a Dallas-based global tax services provider. The skills and lessons I learned at UNT enabled me to build and lead a fantastic team of people to the top of the global tax services and software business. This gift will help the College of Business attract and retain some of the best minds in the field enabling us to be more competitive and more effective in our mission at UNT. Ryan earned a combined bachelor of science and master of science degree in accounting from UNT in 1988, and is the founder, chairman and CEO of Ryan an award-winning. He and his wife of 23 years, Amanda Sutton Ryan, have five daughters ranging in age from 19 to 11 years Beth, Sarah, Annabelle, Victoria and Mary Rae. He currently serves as chairman of the UNT System Board of Regents. He has received numerous acknowledgements honoring his service and generosity to the university, including the prestigious UNT Wings of Eagles Presidential Award and a UNT Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award. The naming of the G. Brint Ryan College of Business will become official after final approval from regents later this month at the boards quarterly meeting. (Bloomberg) -- Just a year after rushing into Americas busiest oil field with new mines, frac-sand producers may have overdone it. West Texas sand used in the hydraulic fracturing process will drop 19 percent this year to about $30 a ton compared to 2018, according to industry consultant Rystad Energy AS. Sand pricing is a key financial input for oil explorers because fracturing is the most expensive phase in drilling an oil well. A slew of new West Texas mines close to Permian Basin drilling sites is elbowing Midwest mines that formerly dominated the frac-sand trade. Miners in and around Wisconsin that controlled 75 percent of the market in 2014 will see that diminish to 34 percent in 2020, Ryan Carbrey, Rystads senior vice president of shale research, told Petroleum Connections Frac Sand Industry Update conference in Houston on Wednesday. RELATED: Water In Energy conference gears up for second year We do think that things continue to be rather sloppy from a pricing standpoint in 2019, Chase Mulvehill, an analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, said in a presentation during the conference. Well see if people renegotiate contracts. What weve heard so far is people are actually starting to do that for some in-basin contracts. Fracturing Demand The sand oversupply has developed just as demand for fracturing is taking a hit from the late-2018 slump in crude prices and more modest exploration programs by oil producers, Mulvehill said. Fracturing demand is set to drop 3 percent in 2019, he said. For Wisconsin sand, the price drop will be even more dramatic this year: Rystad is forecasting a 29 percent drop to $25 a ton. Fracturing involves blasting high-pressure jets of sand, water and chemicals underground to crack open oil- or natural gas-soaked rocks that dont respond to traditional drilling methods. Hi-Crush Partners LP, the first to open a mine in West Texas, said Wednesday in announcing fourth-quarter financial results that its Midwest mines felt the biggest pain from the Permian sand boom. And while the Houston company expects more high-cost mines to idle or close throughout the industry because of the heightened competition, it added that the so-called Northern White sand mined in Wisconsin is not dead. RELATED: Blackstone bets $500 million on growing full-cycle water management trend "Different circumstances and preferences dictate what sand is used by individual E&Ps in particular basins and for specific completion designs," Chief Executive Officer Robert Rasmus told analysts and investors Wednesday on a conference call. "We continue to believe that Northern White sand will remain in demand at significant levels to meet growing frac sand needs in basins throughout the U.S." To contact the reporter on this story: David Wethe in Houston at dwethe@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Simon Casey at scasey4@bloomberg.net, Joe Carroll, Carlos Caminada 2019 Bloomberg L.P. A pair of pipelines to move crude oil and natural gas liquids from the Permian Basin to Corpus Christi have received their final federal permits. San Antonio pipeline operator EPIC Midstream Holdings LP announced on Wednesday that the company had obtained the final permits needs for the company's crude oil and natural gas liquids pipelines. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued a Nationwide Permit 12 for the projects, giving the company approval for final construction activities and placing the pipelines into service. "The issuance of the Corps permit further demonstrates our ability to safely and responsibly build these two pipelines and I would like to thank all stakeholders involved in the approval process," EPIC Midstream Holdings CEO Phil Mezey said in a statement. Permian Basin: Noble Energy buys stakes in two Permian Basin pipelines Already largely complete, the EPIC Y-Grade Pipeline is a 700-mile project to move natural gas liquids, or NGLs, from the Permian Basin of New Mexico and West Texas to a facility in Robstown. Construction for the EPIC Crude Oil Pipeline is expected to be completed by January 2020. The 650-mile project will move crude oil and from seven terminals in the Permian Basin and Eagle Ford Shale of South Texas to a facility in Robstown. As part of a plan announced in October, EPIC plans to temporarily use its natural gas liquids pipeline to ship crude oil starting in the third quarter. Fuel Fix: Get daily energy news headlines in your inbox The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Permit comes days after a subsidiary of Houston oil company Noble Energy bought stakes in both pipelines. Los Angeles private equity firm Ares Management is backing both the natural gas liquids and crude oil pipelines. A top executive at a Long Island mortgage lender has pleaded guilty to his role in an $8.9 million mortgage fraud scheme. Edward E. Bohm, president of sales of Vanguard Funding, pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit wire fraud and bank fraud. Bohm is the third Vanguard exec to admit his role in the scam, which involved the illegal diversion of more than $8.9 million in warehouse loans that Vanguard had obtained to fund mortgages. According to the US Attorneys Office for the Eastern District of New York, between 2015 and 2017, Bohm along with Vanguard CFO Edward J. Sypher Jr. and COO Matthew T. Voss obtained warehouse loans for Vanguard by falsely claiming that the company would use those loans to fund mortgages or mortgage refinancing. Once the loans were received, however, the three executives siphoned off the money to pay personal expenses and to pay off loans theyd previously obtained with fraudulent loan submissions. Moultrie, GA (31768) Today Mostly cloudy this morning. Scattered thunderstorms developing this afternoon. High around 85F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 60%.. Tonight Scattered thunderstorms. Low around 70F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 50%. Latest figures from the Vancouver municipal government indicated that the empty homes tax has had a tangible impact on both vacancy rates and rental supply. The proportion of unused properties in the city has declined by 15% in just one year, from 1,085 homes in 2017 down to 922 in 2018. Over half of previously empty homes have also been moved to the rental market. Vancouver mayor Kennedy Stewart welcomed the data, sourced from initial returns of the citys 2018 empty homes tax, as the beginning of a promising trend. The government previously stated that the levy was implemented out of a need to open up unoccupied homes to would-be tenants, most of which are struggling to find rental homes amid Vancouvers market tightness. Many of these vacant properties are situated in the highly sought-after downtown area, which had an empty house rate of over 1%. The year-over-year numbers are very encouraging, Stewart said, as quoted by The Canadian Press. Read more: The cost of ownership in Vancouver is worsening National Bank However, a markets observer warned that while the imposition of the tax is a laudable move, Vancouver is still far from seeing an equitable distribution of relief. Andy Yan, the director of the City Program at Simon Fraser University, noted late last year that price shrinkages have occurred only in the highest-priced segment of the market, while the middle and lower price tiers remained essentially unchanged. The softening of the market and cooling of the market is something that is definitely happening, Yan said, but added that its a little bit premature to know whether the polices are a success or failure. We believe Nordstrom (JWN) continues to be a top operator in the competitive U.S. apparel market. It has cultivated a loyal customer base through its reputation for differentiated products and service and has built a narrow economic moat based on an intangible brand asset, in our view. While no-moat Macys (M) and other department store competitors have suffered declining sales, Nordstrom increased revenue from about $10 billion to $16 billion between 2010 and 2018. Nordstroms full-price and Rack (off-price) stores consistently reported positive same-store sales growth over this period. We forecast same-store sales growth of 1% and 3% for Nordstroms full- and off-price segments, respectively, over the next 10 years. We believe Nordstrom is responding well to changes in its market. The company has about 140 full-price stores, nearly all of them in desirable Class A malls (sales per square foot above $500). Still, Nordstroms full-price business is vulnerable to weakening physical retail. Online apparel sales as a percentage of total U.S. apparel sales have more than doubled since 2010 to more than 20%, while discount retailers have continued to open stores (for example, narrow-moat Ross (ROST) has opened more than 500 stores since 2010). NPD estimated off-price sales represented 75% of apparel transactions in 2016. Rack has been part of this trend, as sales for this segment have nearly doubled since 2012 to $5 billion. Six candidates participated in a forum on Feb. 7 at Courtyard by Marriot Cleveland Elyria Hotel, 1755 Travelers Lane in Elyria. The Democratic Party will select a candidate on Feb. 10 to fill the vacant seat on the Lorain County Board of Commissioners. @MJ_JournalRick on Twitter Richard Payerchin covers Lorain City Hall, business news and other interesting stories for The Morning Journal. Reach the author at rpayerchin@MorningJournal.com or follow Richard on Twitter: @MJ_JournalRick. Jeremy A. Diestler was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 41 years for the 2014 killing of 25-year-old Matthew Stinson. Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. The field of Democratic candidates who have announced their candidacy for president or are about to is a veritable rainbow of minorities. From former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro, whose grandmother was a Mexican immigrant, to Sen. Kamala Harris, whose parents were born in Jamaica and India, to Sen. Cory Booker, a man whose ancestors include both blacks and whites, as noted in an episode of "Finding Your Roots," to Tulsi Gabbard, born in American Samoa to a white mother and part-Samoan father, the Democratic candidates are the most ethnically diverse in the history of U.S. presidential politics. There is much to be applauded in such an ethnically and racially broad group of candidates, but more because of what it says about success and assimilation in the American model than it does about discrimination. The new industry of DNA testing has made it possible for Americans to get a better idea about their origins than relying on family myth. In melting-pot America, the desire to discover more about ancestry is driven by a sense that most of us have ancestors who hailed from someplace else and the wish to learn more about where that was. But Sen. Warren's quest seems very different. By asserting actual kinship with Native Americans, she has frequently used her "roots" to play a role in identity politics. She listed herself as Native American on prestigious law school faculties where she taught and as a "minority" professor in the Association of American Law Schools' staff directories, among other places. But nothing in Warren's background suggests that Native American culture, much less tribal affiliation, was hers to claim. Whether she gained any benefit from her "minority" status in affirmative action hiring is difficult to assess, but it definitely made her a part of the cool diversity crowd on campus, where being a white woman wouldn't automatically have entitled admission. Wells Fargo customers might find themselves as the victims to a possible scam after a systems issue saw customers nationwide lose access to their accounts on Thursday. Outages for Wells Fargo customers started after the bank claimed a power shutdown caused system issues at one of its facilities, according to a release. The company said the shutdown came after smoke was detected after routine maintenance. Thursday afternoon, a News Herald reporter received a text message from an unknown number telling them their account was temporary (sic) locked and to unlock it, they needed to call a number provided in the text message. News Herald reporters decided to call that number to see what would happen. The first prompt was for a Verizon Wireless pin. Reporters used a fake pin to get through the prompt. The next prompt was a recording of the Wells Fargo telephone banking system that sounded legitimate, but had a poor connection. That recording asked for the caller to input a debit card number. Reporters again used a fake card number. Once the fake number was entered, the answering system hung up. Christina Carmichael, a Wells Fargo official, said the company was looking into the problem. For anyone looking for information about their Wells Fargo debit or credit cards should use only official numbers, such as the companys toll-free line at 1-800-869-3557 or by contacting their local branch. Four family members have died and a fifth is missing in the accident, which is being called the worst recreational disaster in Rockingham County. The CARE Foundation of Western North Carolina, Inc. will offer a free seminar called, Alzheimers/Dementia: Know the 10 Signs, from 6-7:30 p.m. at Summit Community Church at 407 S. Green St. in Morganton. Emily Jaynes, an education specialist for the Alzheimers/Dementia Association, will speak about signs of the diseases, and Dr. Golnosh Sharafsaleh, MD, MS, of Blue Ridge Health Care, will speak about how to diagnose, treat and manage memory-loss patients. Those interested in attending should RSVP by contacting 828-201-5728 or careofwnc@bellsouth.net . The Burke County Senior Center will facilitate a Seniors Night Out at 5:30 p.m. at Yiannis restaurant in Morganton, followed by dessert at Toasted and Rolled. The cost of the meal/dessert and transportation is each persons responsibility. To RSVP, contact the center at 828-430-4147. The social justice focus group of the Burke County Democratic Party will meet from 6-7 p.m. at the BCDP headquarters at 310 S. Sterling St. in Morganton. The Salem precinct of the BCDP will meet from 6:30-7:30 p.m. in the media center at Salem Elementary School at 1329 Salem Road in Morganton. The precinct is open to people who vote at the school on Election Day. The Quaker Meadows No. 1A precinct of the BCDP will meet from 7-8 p.m. at the Oak Hill Ruritan Building at 1045 Watermill Road in Morganton. The precinct is open to people who vote at the Oak Hill Ruritan Building. The Morganton No. 10 precinct of the BCDP will meet at 6:30 p.m. at the Carbon City Fire Department. Important election information will be discussed. For more information, contact Anne Fischer at 828-455-9255. A couple from the UK have been brutally shamed online because they started a fundraiser for their wedding. While they knew that their tactics to have their wedding were unique, they never expected to be publically shamed for it. The pair launched their fundraiser on popular crowd-funding site GoFundMe with a target of 4,500 (NZD$8,654). They had their wedding date set for April this year and also both sacrificed their time by taking on extra shifts at their respective jobs, as well as sold some of their belongings. But when their GoFundMe went live, many people were less than impressed by the engaged couples attempt to tie the knot. On social media, several said that if the pair cant afford their wedding, they shouldnt get married or should simply try a registry office. One Twitter user even said the couple were missing the point of marriage, while one woman, Caroline Orr, said it was pretty cheeky to set up a fundraising page for that. The bride-to-be was forced to defend herself saying that she was not a "money-grabber". I think if people had done a media campaign to pay for their wedding I would think thats pretty cheeky, but if its to pay for the day instead of presents, its fine, "We dont have a honeymoon booked, weve just booked two weeks off and will chill out and go out for walks to the beach. Were not money-grabbing people, were people that have worked really hard for our big day." "I shouldnt need to hide anything, Im just a normal person and not a money-grabber." she said. She also added that she wasn't forcing people to donate and if they didn't met their goal then they weren't going to be too disappointed. Every day she updates the GoFundMe page to let people know what she had bought with the crowd sourced money. It is everything from rings, party favours, decorations and dress costs. February 08, 2019 Open Thread 2019-08 News & views ... Posted by b on February 8, 2019 at 17:34 UTC | Permalink Comments next page REA Group Limiteds [ASX:REA] share price has taken a hit following the release of their half year results. At the beginning of trade this morning the property group was down 4.07%, or $3.18, to trade at $74.77. REA provides property and property-related services on websites and mobile apps across Australia and Asia. The company provides digital tools, information and data for people interested in property. Property slowdown spells poor profits REA, who owns property listing website realestate.com, revealed listings in Australia were down 3% overall with Sydney driving the overall decline. The company speculates that cause for the decline has been due to federal and state government elections having buyers hold off pending their results. The NSW election is scheduled for 23 March and the federal election must be held by May. Financial results were mixed. REA Group said despite the fall in listing, Australian revenue still rose 16% and EBITDA 18% in FY19. While revenue also rose across their Asia and financial services business, bringing total group revenue to $469 million, up 15%, net profit delivered a measly $2.5 million, down 98% from the previous corresponding period. However, revenue would have been up 20% from the last period if it were not for a $173.2 million impairment charge. The impairment charge came about because of changes in the macroeconomic environment in the groups Asian businesses, which have resulted in more challenging conditions in some markets according to REA. Owen Wilson, REA Group CEO, said the company will not be dissuaded from totals results The long-term growth potential of Asia is very clear, and we will continue to invest to maintain and strengthen our leadership position while these markets mature. Our focus is on having the best talent in the region, improving our audience lead, and continuing to create innovative products and experiences for our customers and consumers. For income investors, todays result will be somewhat pleasing as the company boosted its dividend per share to 55 cents, up 17% from 47 cents. Special 2019 report: The next generation of Aussie income super stars revealed. Hint: its not the banks. Click here to claim your copy now. How will the housing market affect REA Group in 2019? With the Banking Royal Commission now concluded and recommendations handed down, the course Australian houses take this year will in part be up to the banks. According to Deloitte Access Economics, banks that flipped from lending too much to lending too little were to blame for current housing price declines. Source: Australian Financial Review According to the Australian Financial Review, house prices are expected to correct by 1020% over the coming year.While the downturn in the housing market might spell good news to some new prospective homebuyers, it is unlikely to be favourable to REA. The royal commission has forced banks to ration credit to protect against irrational regulators and because of the higher probability of a Labor victory at the next election. A Labor victory could have the most adverse impact on house prices and we will likely see less listings on sites like realestate.com as homeowners and investors wait for more favourable conditions. Despite the headwinds REA Group is currently facing, it has actually performed remarkably well. Over 1H FY 19 it has grown and engaged its online audience, recording 73.4 million average monthly visits across its platform. It has also seen significant growth within its Asia business, which will help to reduce its exposure to Australias slowing housing market. Regards, Ryan Clarkson-Ledward, For Money Morning PS: In this just released report, Matt Hibbard shows you his top five dividend picks for 2019. Click here to claim your copy today. At time of writing, shares of Beach Energy Limited [ASX:BPT], Santos Limited [ASX:STO] and Woodside Petroleum Limited [ASX:WPL] are all down. Beach Energy was the worst hit, down 9.95%, trading at $1.63. These moves mirror the decline in oil price, with WTI Crude down 0.51% today trading at $52.37. Interested in commodities? Fire up your portfolio in 2019 with these 10 Aussie miners. Oil price slides on trade war fears With the price of WTI Crude falling in three of the past four days, there are now growing fears the US and China will not be able to strike a deal by the 1 March deadline. The US has signalled its intention to levy a new batch of tariffs on Chinese goods on 2 March. White House economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, said that there is a pretty sizeable distance between the two parties. When President Trump was asked if he would meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping before the deadline, he simply said No. He continued, Not yet. Maybe. Probably too soon. Probably too soon. As the news broke, there was a sharp sell-off in US stocks. Stocks like Beach Energy, Santos and Woodside have been swept up in the downturn. Whats the outlook for oil? It depends on your timeframe. Long-term, these stocks look cheap. Oil demand may well pick up in the years ahead as developing nations pick up the slack. Source: Reuters There are myriad short-term factors influencing the current price of oil. The US is pumping out record amounts of the stuff and is set to become a net exporter. Chaos in Venezuela may be offering some support coupled with as yet fully realised OPEC production cuts. Macroeconomic risk in the form of a global recession this year is also a feature of the current market. So if you are investing in Beach Energy Limited [ASX:BPT], Santos Limited [ASX:STO] and Woodside Petroleum Limited [ASX:WPL], you may want to consider your investment horizon. Regards, Lachlann Tierney, For Money Morning PS: If youre interested in adding some superstar stocks to your profile, check out this MUST-READ, FREE report: 10 Aussie Mining Stocks You Should Buy First Thing Tomorrow. Britain and the EU agreed to hold more talks to try to avoid a no-deal Brexit, after a "robust" meeting between Prime Minister Theresa May and European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker. A joint statement issued after the talks in Brussels said Juncker had again warned that November's withdrawal agreement could not be renegotiated -- after May came hoping to persuade Brussels to change the so-called "backstop" clause for the Irish border. But Juncker expressed only his "openness to add wording" to a parallel political declaration laying out ambitions for future EU-UK ties if London wants to seek a "more ambitious" closer relationship after Brexit. After his own talks with May, EU President Donald Tusk warned there was "no breakthrough in sight", though the British leader said she had seen willingness from Brussels to find a deal. "Prime Minister May did not offer any new concrete proposals on the way forward," an EU official told AFP after May's meeting with Tusk. Talk has been growing that Britain may have to delay Brexit to give enough time to get the necessary legislation through parliament, but May vowed once again to bring Britain out of the bloc on schedule on March 29. "I'm going to deliver Brexit, I'm going to deliver it on time. That's what I'm going to do for the British public. I'll be negotiating hard in the coming days to do just that," she said. The EU official said Tusk had asked May about the timeline for British officials and parliament to ratify and implement a deal, but received "no clear answers." And Tusk also, the official said, suggested to May that she study a Brexit plan laid out earlier in the day by British opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, which "might be a promising way out of the impasse." May did not respond. In a sharp reminder of the urgency of finding a solution before Brexit day, Bank of England governor Mark Carney warned that Britain's economy was "not yet prepared" for a no-deal departure. May said she had spelled out to Juncker and Tusk Britain's "clear position" that legally-binding changes are needed to the backstop to win round MPs fearful it could be used to "trap" Britain in the bloc against its will. Such changes were not forthcoming, but instead she got a fresh round of talks. EU negotiator Michel Barnier will now meet British Brexit Minister Stephen Barclay in Strasbourg on Monday, but an EU official described these as "exploratory talks," adding: "There is no mandate to negotiate." May herself will meet Juncker again before the end of February, a commission spokesman said. Expectations for Thursday's visit were already modest when, a day earlier, Tusk and Juncker torched May's prospects of winning changes to the withdrawal agreement. Juncker told reporters May knows and accepts the Union will not reopen talks on the deal, while Tusk, who represents EU member governments as head of the European Council, triggered outrage across the Channel by damning pro-Brexit politicians for -- in his view -- recklessly failing to plan. "I've been wondering what that special place in hell looks like, for those who promoted Brexit without even a sketch of a plan how to carry it out safely," Tusk said. May said she had raised the incendiary remarks with Tusk, calling them "not helpful" and saying they had caused "widespread dismay" in Britain. Ahead of the trip, Number 10 said that because the British parliament rejected the deal, May must seek material changes to the accord or see it fail. The impasse in Brussels has deepened fears that Britain could crash out of the EU without a deal on March 29, disrupting trade and supplies to manufacturing. May has exasperated EU leaders by repeatedly coming to Brussels without detailed proposals to solve the Brexit deadlock, and Tusk warned her he expected her to bring "a realistic suggestion on how to end the impasse". Corbyn, the leader of the main opposition Labour party, wrote to May on Thursday setting out his five conditions for backing her on Brexit -- including the UK staying in the EU's customs union. While his demands will not be palatable to many in May's Conservative party -- not least because of the deeply-entrenched tribalism of British politics -- it suggests there may be room for manoeuvre, if not yet a clear path to a cross-party deal. The EU official told AFP that Brussels has not had long to study Corbyn's plan, but that Tusk had recommended May look it over. May will have dinner with her Irish counterpart Leo Varadkar in Dublin on Friday. Varadkar, whose government has stressed the importance of maintaining an open border between Ireland and Northern Ireland after Brexit, said recent "instability in British politics" showed why a backstop was essential. Last month, the House of Commons overwhelmingly rejected the Brexit deal that May had negotiated with the EU after 18 months of painstaking diplomacy. Rights groups in the conservative Islamic kingdom of Saudi Arabia are requesting tech giants Apple and Google to remove an app called Absher from their respective stores immediately. Absher, which was launched by the country's Interior Ministry, allows male guardians to track the movement of women. The country's laws bar women from traveling anywhere without the permission of their male guardians. The app is currently available for download on the Google Play Store and Apple App Store. The application gives male guardians access to a log of a woman's travel apart from giving them the right to cancel a travel permit. According to reports, nearly 1,000 women try to escape the kingdom each year. The app "Absher" is a tool of the oppression of women in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. https://t.co/3f9Iph5Mcz#EndMaleGuardianship https://t.co/olBVNFPivf Robert Rutledge (@rerutled) February 4, 2019 Absher has made it difficult for women to travel out of the country as the app sends a notification to the guardian each time a women's passport is used to travel. Many men have managed to cancel the travel permits of women after being alerted that they were flying out of the country. Recently the case of Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun drew global attention after the teen was detained in Thailand while trying to flee to Australia. She was granted refugee status in Canada after the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees' intervened following backlash on social media. The logo of Foxconn, the trading name Nikon Corp said Foxconn Technology Group had requested to delay the instalment of equipment at the Taiwanese firm's new liquid crystal display (LCD) plant in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou. Comments from the Japanese equipment maker come after Foxconn, formally Hon Hai Precision Industry Co, last week said its plant at Guangzhou was on schedule and denied a media report of production delay. "We received the request for delay last month," Nikon's finance chief Masashi Oka said at an earnings briefing. "But we are yet to discuss how long we should delay and other details." Nikon also said on Thursday a client or clients in China had postponed orders for semiconductor-producing equipment and that it had cut its sales outlook for the business for the year ending March. The company raised its annual operating profit outlook due to a one-off profit from a lawsuit settlement with ASML. But the bleaker forecast for the chip equipment business, coupled with weaker sales of digital cameras, sent Nikon's shares down more than 10 percent on Friday. Foxconn's request and Nikon's weaker forecast come at a time when tech companies are bracing for a tough year in China as growth in the world's No.2 economy slows, exacerbated by a protracted Sino-U.S. trade war. Industry behemoths such as Apple, Samsung Electronics and Intel have already warned of weaker demand for electronic devices in the country. The Nikkei business daily reported last week that Foxconn, the world's largest contract electronics manufacturer, would delay most of its planned production in the Guangzhou project for a minimum of six months. But, when contacted by Reuters on Thursday, Foxconn reiterated that its Guangzhou project was "on schedule". "We will commemorate the installation of the first Exposure System in Guangzhou later this month. Further updates will be shared in due course," it said. Foxconn announced the $8.8 billion Guangzhou plant in 2016, hoping to start operations by 2019 to meet an expected rise in demand for large-screen TVs and monitors in Asia. Nikon is a top supplier of lithography systems for the so-called Gen-10.5 plants, such as Foxconn's Guangzhou project, that specialize in large-screen flat panel displays. Last week, Foxconn said it would build a panel factory in Wisconsin, following a report from Reuters that the Taiwanese company was reconsidering the $10 billion project. Recent gains by Kurdish-led forces in Syria have shrunk the Islamic State group's "caliphate" to less than one percent of its original size, the US-led coalition said on February 7. Major General Christopher Ghika, the coalition's deputy commander, described the size of the last patch of land held by the jihadists as "now less than one percent of the original caliphate". The coalition and allied Kurdish forces have captured "approximately 99.5 per cent" of IS-controlled territory, he said in a statement. At its height, the jihadist proto-state proclaimed by IS in Syria and Iraq in June 2014 was roughly the size of Britain. But it has since lost most of that territory to various offensives. The jihadists are now clinging on to a small sliver of land near the village of Baghouz in eastern Syria and many residents are fleeing and turning themselves in ahead of a final offensive. Jihadists "are attempting to escape through intermixing with the innocent women and children attempting to flee the fighting", coalition deputy commanding general Christopher Ghika was quoted as saying. "These tactics won't succeed, our Syrian partners are focused on finding ISIS wherever they hide, and our Iraqi partners have secured their borders," he said, using another acronym for IS. More than 37,000 people, mostly wives and children of jihadist fighters, have fled IS territory since the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, backed by the US-led coalition, intensified its offensive in December, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The Britain-based war monitor has said that figure includes some 3,200 suspected jihadists. Finland's basic income scheme did not spur its unemployed recipients to work more to supplement their earnings as hoped but it did help their wellbeing, researchers said on Friday as the government announced the trial's initial findings. The two-year trial, which ended a month ago, saw 2,000 Finns, chosen randomly from among the unemployed, become the first Europeans to be paid a regular monthly income by the state that was not reduced if they found work. Finland, which will hold parliamentary elections in April, is exploring alternatives to its current social security model. The project is being watched closely by other governments who see a basic income as a way of encouraging the unemployed to take up often low-paid or temporary work without fear of losing their benefits. That could help reduce dependence on the state and cut welfare costs, especially as greater automation sees humans replaced in the workforce. Finland's minister of health and social affairs Pirkko Mattila said the impact on employment of the monthly pay cheque of 560 euros ($635) "seems to have been minor on the grounds of the first trial year". But those in the trial reported they were happier and healthier than the control group. "The basic income recipients of the test group reported better wellbeing in every way in comparison with the comparison group," chief researcher Olli Kangas said. Sini Marttinen, 36, said that knowing her basic income was guaranteed had given her enough confidence to open a restaurant with two friends during the trial period. "I think the effect was a lot psychological," the former IT consultant told Reuters. She had been unemployed for nearly a year before "winning the lottery", as she described the trial. "You kind of got this idea you have two years, you have the security of 560 euros per month... It gave me the security to start my own business," she said. The basic income was only 50 euros a month more than her jobless benefit had been, "but in an instant you lose the bureaucracy, the reporting", Marttinen said. Mira Jaskari, 36, who briefly found a job during the trial delivering newspapers but lost it due to poor health, said losing the basic income had left her feeling more insecure about money. OVERHAUL The centre-right government's original plan was to expand the basic income scheme after two years as it tries to combat unemployment which has been persistently high for years but reached a 10-year low of 6.6 percent in December. It took a different tack last year, however, by imposing benefits sanctions on unemployed people who refused work. The basic income has been controversial in Finland, with leaders of the main political parties wary of offering "money for nothing". Prime Minister Juha Sipila said in December that he saw it as a means of simplifying Finland's "screamingly complex" social security system. On Thursday, Sipila's Centre Party proposed a welfare model in which only the poor could claim the basic income, with sanctions if they reject a job offer. Conservative finance minister Petteri Orpo has meanwhile said he favours a scheme like Britain's Universal Credit, which consolidates six different types of state benefits into one. Italy is due to introduce a "citizens' wage" in April in a major overhaul of the welfare state, which will offer income support to the unemployed and poor. One issue with the Finnish pilot is that it did not include any tax claw-back once participants found work and reached a certain income level, which the researchers had said would make the results more realistic. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has warned that basic income schemes would need to be paid for with higher taxes. Participants were generally positive, however, with Tuomas Muraja, a 45-year-old journalist and author, saying the basic income had allowed him to concentrate on writing instead of filling out forms or attending jobseekers' courses. He published two books during the two-year trial period but said its closure meant it had again become difficult for him to accept small freelance commissions. "I ... can earn only 300 euros per month without losing any benefits," he said. "If people are paid money freely that makes them creative, productive and welfare brings welfare," Muraja told Reuters about his experience of the scheme. "If you feel free, you feel safer and then you can do whatever you want. That is my assessment." The choice of Vietnam as the venue for a second US-North Korea summit this month shows the possibility of moving beyond conflict and division toward a thriving partnership, the U.S. State Department said on Thursday. State Department spokesman Robert Palladino told a news briefing that U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun was in Pyongyang to prepare the Feb. 27-28 summit and seeking progress on commitments made at the first meeting between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore in June. These included complete denuclearization, transformation of U.S.-North Korea relations and building a lasting peace mechanism on the Korean Peninsula, he said. Palladino reiterated that sanctions relief that North Korea has been seeking would follow its denuclearization. He said U.S.-Vietnamese history "reflects the possibility for peace and prosperity." "We moved past conflict and division towards the thriving partnership we enjoy today," Palladino said. He gave no other details on Biegun's talks in Pyongyang and declined to say how long he would stay there. The State Department said earlier in the week that Biegun would travel to Pyongyang for talks with his North Korean counterpart Kim Hyok Chol on Wednesday, but has not commented further. South Korea's Yonhap news agency earlier quoted diplomatic sources as saying that Biegun was expected to fly back to South Korea on Friday to share the outcome of his Pyongyang visit, although his stay in North Korea could be extended if additional discussions were needed. Trump announced the plan for his second meeting Kim in his annual State of the Union address on Tuesday. He said much work remained to be done in the push for peace with North Korea, but cited the halt in its nuclear testing and no new missile launches in 15 months as proof of progress. Trump has been eager for a second summit despite a lack of significant moves by North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program. He and Biegun have stressed the economic benefits to North Korea if it does so. Biegun said last week his Pyongyang talks would be aimed at mapping out "a set of concrete deliverables" for the second summit. He said Washington was willing to discuss "many actions" to improve ties and entice Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons and that Trump was ready to end the 1950-53 Korean War, which concluded with an armistice, not a peace treaty. While in the U.S. view, North Korea has yet to take concrete steps to give up its nuclear weapons, Pyongyang complains that Washington has done little to reciprocate for its freezing of nuclear and missile testing and dismantling of some facilities. Communist-ruled Vietnam, which has good relations with both the United States and North Korea, has been keen to host the second summit as a demonstration of its normalization of ties with the United States since the Vietnam War, which ended in 1975 and killed more than 58,000 Americans and an estimated three million Vietnamese. The United States sustained more than 33,000 battle deaths in the Korean War, while the number of North Koreans killed, both military and civilian, has been estimated at about one million. While Trump has hailed "tremendous progress" in his dealings with North Korea, a confidential report by U.N. sanctions monitors seen by Reuters this week cast further doubt on North Korea's intentions. It said the country's nuclear and ballistic missile programs remained intact and North Korea was working to make sure those capabilities could not be destroyed by any military strikes. Palladino did not comment when asked about the report. Flash Matthew Whitaker, acting U.S. attorney general, will testify before the House Judiciary Committee on Friday as scheduled after a showdown with congressional Democrats over the hearing. House Democrats had threatened to subpoena Whitaker over his oversight of the ongoing Russia probe led by special counsel Robert Mueller, his contacts with White House related to the probe and the firing of former Attorney General Jeff Sessions. In response, Whitaker, who previously had agreed to testify, warned that he wouldn't show up unless lawmakers dropped the ultimatum he described as "political theater." In a letter posted on Twitter late Thursday, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler told Whitaker that there will be no need for the panel to issue a subpoena if he appears "before the Committee tomorrow morning and if you are prepared to respond to questions from our Members." The New York Democrat later confirmed that Whitaker will appear on Friday morning. The Justice Department also issued a statement, saying that Whitaker "looks forward to voluntarily appearing at tomorrow's hearing." Democrats have said they want to speak to Whitaker, a close ally of President Donald Trump who has repeatedly blasted Mueller's inquiry, which the acting attorney general oversees. Asked about Whitaker's congressional appearance, Trump called Whitaker an "outstanding person" and said he would do very well should he testify. "I think he's an outstanding person. I would say, if he did testify, he'd do very well," Trump said during a White House event on Thursday. The wide-ranging Mueller probe has focused on possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow during the 2016 U.S. presidential elections and whether the president obstructed justice, among other things. The special counsel has so far indicted or gotten guilty pleas from 34 people, including six former Trump associates and over two dozen Russian nationals, as well as three Russian entities. Whitaker said late last month that the Mueller-led investigation is "close to being completed," although there has been no confirmation of this from the special counsel's office. The hearing also comes as Whitaker's time leading the Justice Department is about to end, as a Senate panel voted on party lines on Thursday to advance the nomination of William Barr, Trump's official pick for attorney general. The nomination now heads to the Senate floor, where Republicans have a 53-47 majority over Democrats and Democratic-caucusing independents. The nomination of Barr, who served as attorney general between 1991 and 1993 under President George H.W. Bush, is expected to be confirmed in a vote that could come as early as next week. The Justice Department has been led on a temporary basis by Whitaker since Sessions was ousted by Trump in November immediately after last year's midterm elections. Twenty-nine-year-old advertising professional Chris Godfrey had a clear motive to break Kylie Jenners record of having the most liked picture on Instagram. So, early in January this year, he set out on the task of beating the Insta queen at her own game. He decided to share the photo of an egg to see if something as simple and routine as an egg could do the trick. First shared on January 4 on UK-based Instagram account @world_record_egg, the photo of the golden brown egg has close to 50 million likes. The photo shared was a stock image, originally clicked by Sergey Platonov. While Godfrey chose to remain anonymous for the longest time, 19-year-old Massachusetts-based marketing guru Ishan Goel said he helped the photo gain maximum traction on the social media platform by getting in touch with his celebrity and influencer friends. You can find the photo here. Interestingly, Godfrey junked all such claims and said the accounts growth was completely organic. No one person helped the eggs rise in popularity and no single account or group of accounts helped it to explode. Getting in touch with his network of influencers and celebrities, Goel acted as a catalyst in letting Godfrey break the record of Kylie Jenner's post (that announced the birth of her daughter where she got 19 million likes on Instagram). In an interview with the Daily Mail UK, Goel explained how the post also helped decode the halo effect celebrities have on the masses. Celebrities wield so much power and influence, and an egg uniting so many people is a powerful commentary on social media's impact on society today. Social media has given celebrities this sort of omnipotence, he said. Revealing his identity for the first time to The New York Times, Godfrey said he chose an egg because it has no gender, race or religion and its appeal is universal. Goel, on the other hand, attributed the popularity of the post to how people wanted the thrill of seeing something as simple as an egg overriding the popularity of an international celebrity. The egg, by the way, has been named Eugene and it would now focus on spreading awareness on mental health! New Delhi: Interim director of the CBI M Nageswara Rao seen at Home Minister's office, in New Delhi, Thursday, Oct 25, 2018. The 1986 batch Odisha cadre IPS officer Rao, has been made interim director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and is known for his acumen in handling disasters in the state as well as neighbouring Andhra Pradesh.(PTI Photo/Arun Sharma)(PTI10_25_2018_000011B) The Kolkata Police on February 8 conducted raids at two different locations of companies allegedly linked to former interim CBI director M Nageshwar Rao. Among one of the locations where a raid was conducted is a company called Angelina Mercantile Pvt Ltd at Salt Lake, allegedly linked to Rao's wife. Former interim CBI chief M Nageshwar Rao issues a press statement, refuting any link with M/s Angela Mercantile Pvt Ltd which is being raided by Kolkata Police today. pic.twitter.com/g9RfW3Yl4c ANI (@ANI) February 8, 2019 M Nageshwar Rao issued a press statement, refuting any link with M/s Angela Mercantile Pvt Ltd. On Kolkata police raiding these firms, Rao told media persons, "All that is happening, appears to be propaganda." In a statement dated, 30 Oct 2018, Rao had also refuted any link with M/s Angela Mercantile Pvt Ltd which is being raided by Kolkata Police today, ANI has reported. This comes in the wake of Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar being summoned by the CBI in Shillong for questioning over the Saradha scam investigation. Kumar had headed the SIT (Special Investigating Team) formed by the West Bengal government to look into the Saradha Scam. Rao has called this raid politically motivated, although, it cannot be confirmed at this time if it has any links to the ongoing tussle between the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Kolkata Police, CNN News 18 has reported. (This is a developing story. More details awaited) In a turn of events no lesser than a Hollywood flick, a senior programmer with a Chinese bank managed to dupe the company of $1 million USD over a period of two years. Qin Qinsheng was a manager in Beijings Huaxia Banks technology development centre when he spotted a loophole in the banks core operating system. This loophole did not record the withdrawals made during midnight, and Qinsheng could use simple programming scripts to suppress the alert which would be triggered. Since 2016, Qinsheng has made over 1300 withdrawals, amassing a fortune of 7.179 million yuan (over $1 million), as per a report in Sina news. Qinsheng was caught in 2018 when the chief information officer of Huaxia Bank alerted that a person had implanted a Trojan virus into the bank's procedures and that the loss had been discovered was about 7 million yuan. Qinsheng was arrested and charged for theft after the report. Qinsheng stated that he was just testing the systems of the bank, and the money was safe to be returned. Though the bank accepted his statements and asked to drop the charges, the court pressed charges and sentenced him to 10 and a half years in prison, along with an 11,000 yuan fine. There is no denying that digital technology has become the priority of every business. This means that every company is working on digital transformations and that digital itself is no longer differentiating. To set them apart from each other companies will have to take notice of the emerging trends. According to Accentures 2019 report titled The Post Digital Era Is Upon Us, five emerging trends in 2019 will shape businesses in the next three years. DARQ The report said that in the coming years power of cloud and artificial intelligence will continue to advance but what will reshape business is the combination of technologies like distributed ledger, extended reality, and quantum computing (DARQ). As many as 89 percent of businesses are already experimenting with one or more DARQ technologies, the report said. Companies like Volkswagen with early-stage tests and pilots are gaining expertise, forming key partnerships, and building up DARQ capabilities. The company has used quantum computing to test traffic flow optimization. Volkswagen also teamed with Nvidia to add AI capabilities to future models. In addition, it is testing distributed ledgers with an eye to protect cars from hackers, facilitate automatic payments at gas stations, create tamper proof odometers. Get to Know Me Another technology trend to watch out for will be Get to Know Me. Companies are using technologies to interact with customers. And to bring this experience to the forefront companies will have to understand every customers technology identity that they leave behind after every interaction. Lending platform SlicePay which serves unbanked students in India uses technological insights to build applicant profiles that replace traditional financial histories. Netflix is another example to favour this trend. The OTT (over the top) platform came up with a download feature for Indian consumers to be in sync with connectivity and invested in mobile video encoding to guarantee the same experience to all customers, as mostly Indian consumers are primarily mobile users. Human+ Worker Reskilling employees will also be one way that companies can set themselves apart. A renewed focus on workforce will decide winners and losers, the report said. One example of this is Telenor Group that challenged its employees to dedicate 40 working hours self-learning. The company found that not only did the workers meet the challenge but they exceeded it as they nearly doubled the time spent online. And for 2019, they have renewed the challenge. Secure US to Secure ME According to the report, to deal with threats like cyber attacks companies will have to expand the horizons of their risk assessment and threat modeling to account for a much wider threat landscape. Siemens is helping move its entire ecosystem and industry players toward this reality with a Charter of Trust initiative that the company established in 2018. 30 Partners signing the charter agree to make commitments to a number of cybersecurity tenets. These include baking security into the design of products and technologies, collaboratively innovating on cyber security measures, providing transparency on incidents to all participants, and more, the report added. MyMarkets According to the survey conducted by Accenture, 85 percent of executives agree the integration of customization and real/near time delivery is the next big wave of competitive advantage. Paper Boat is using this technology to create an intensely customized and on-demand experiences. The beverage brand operating in India uses hyper customization as a key driver of market growth. The company runs seasonal beverages to celebrate regional holidays and uses local variants to ensure customers in every region are delighted. The company takes localized feedback from customers by surveying them on WhatsApp, using the aggregated data to continuously gain new insight with a proprietary analytics platform. Its factory, fully equipped with Internet of Things (IoT) sensors, is extremely flexible: changing recipes takes at most two to three minutes, is transacted through computers, and even factors in external variables like weather and air pressure to ensure the finished beverage tastes exactly as intended, the report explained. Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India (HMSI), the countrys second largest two-wheeler maker, has launched the CB 300R at Rs 2.41 lakh (ex-showroom, pan-India). The model is Hondas maiden attempt at the unconventional motorcycle segment of street bike with retro design theme, which is not gaining ground across brands. The CB300 R is powered by a 286cc liquid cooled engine that generates peak power of nearly 31ps. The CB300R will feature full LED headlamps, LCD instrument display, runner mounted steel handlebar, 2-channel ABS. The bike weighs 147kg without fuel. The cafe racer inspired model will compete against TVS Apache RR310, BMW G 310R, Bajaj Dominar, Yamaha R3, KTM Duke 390, the 350cc range of Royal Enfield (Eicher Motors company), Kawasaki Ninja, Mahindra Mojo to name a few. Although some of these bikes cater to different customers they all fall in the 300-400cc engine capacity range. This will be the third model (after CBR650F and Africa Twin) from Honda that will be assembled in India. The company said that the model has been booked for over three months, the bookings for which were thrown open less than a month ago. Deliveries of the bike will start in March. the bike will be avialable in two colour -grey and red. Honda has decided to retail the model through its limited 22 premium dealerships called Honda Wing World, which has outlets in Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Cochin, Pune. It otherwise has a 'regular' network of 5,700 outlets. Honda India is the largest contributor of revenues to its global operations with a share of 30 percent. Last financial year HMSI clocked a growth of 22 percent with sales of 6.12 million and a share of 29 percent. India's two-wheeler industry saw sales of 29 million units last year. No 9 | Kerala | Total value of fake Rs 2,000 notes seized: Rs 8,804,000 Every election season sees the number of visitors to Emoor Bhagavathy temple near Palakkad in Kerala, soar manifold. Those thronging the temple premises around this time are usually politicians and party cadres, who wish to seek blessings of Goddess Parvati. The temple houses a peculiar idol in the form of two hands, believed to be of the Goddess herself. Managed by the state governments Malabar Devasom Board, the temple came to limelight and began being revered by the political fraternity after former Prime Minister Indira Gandhis visit four decades ago. Legend has it, back in the 1970s, during the Emergency, after Indira Gandhi lost the elections and her party symbol; she opted for the hand after hearing about the holy idol down south. The temples manager, P Mohanasundaran, told Hindustan Times, the Iron Lady visited the temple in 1982, after coming back to power, as a token of her gratitude and presented a huge bell to the authority. While the manager refused to divulge any information on the politicians who have been visiting the temple now, he explained, one of the hands in the temple symbolises Goddess Parvatis fearlessness while the other symbolises her ability to overcome all obstacles. Given the non-religious stance of the CPI(M), it is obvious that those visiting the premises mostly belong to either the Congress or the Bharatiya Janata Party. Also, the politicians are not only from Kerala; those from Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh also throng its hallowed portals. Another official at the shrine told HT it is obvious for politicians to throng the temple in trying times. Whats interesting to note here is, the temples Goddess goes by three names. In the morning she is known as Hemambika, and is worshipped as Saraswati, at noon she is Lakshmi, and in the evening she is Durga. Since theres a belief that a visit to the temple proves lucky, members of the district Congress committee wish AICC president Rahul Gandhi will offer prayers here too. The ruling Sikkim Democratic Front (SDF) plans to field new faces in 50 percent seats in the upcoming assembly polls in Sikkim, Chief Minister Pawan Kumar Chamling said. The party also proposes to give 30 percent tickets to women, he told reporters on February 7. There are 32 Assembly seats in Sikkim where the Assembly polls were last held in April, 2014. Chamling, who is also the SDF president, said the party will declare its candidates soon after the announcement of poll dates by the Election Commission. The 68-year-old chief minister said he will contest from Namchi-Singhithang constituency in south Sikkim. "Why should I change my constituency? I have been contesting from this seat for the past 40 years. It is for the eighth time that I will be contesting from Namchi," he said. On the Yangang-Rangang Assembly constituency, which the SDF lost in the 2014 bypoll after the CM had vacated the seat following his victory from two constituencies, Chamling said the SDF will win from the seat this time. "I regret the fact that my party lost that seat. Even the people are regretting. This time the party and the local people will work in tandem to win Yangang-Rangang seat," he said. The chief minister's younger brother, R N Chamling, had won from the Yangang-Rangang as an independent candidate. The SDF chief said that the people of urban areas have realised that they want peace and security and not unrest but in the end, it is up to them to decide who they want as their representative in the Assembly. Speaking at another event on February 7, Chaming said providing peace, security and a tranquil environment in the border state had been the most significant achievement of the SDF government. The good governance of the SDF has ensured that the border state remained untouched by violence of any kind, the chief minister said. Chamling said that business activities flourished in Sikkim and the state capital in particular due to the prevalence of peace and tranquility. A Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi on February 8 asked Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati to deposit the public money spent on constructing her statues to the state exchequer. Although the matter was posted for final hearing on April 2, the bench was of the tentative view that Mayawati has to deposit the public money spent on her statues and party symbol to the state exchequer. This was in response to a petition filed by an advocate who had contended that public money cannot be used to construct ones own statues and further propaganda. Lets take a closer look at what the case is and how much money does Mayawati owe the public exchequer. What is the case? Mayawati was the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh from May 2007 to March 2012. During this time, she is known to have constructed multiple Dalit memorials, including statues of BSP founder Kanshi Ram and BSPs election symbol, an elephant. In 2014, when the current SP chief Akhilesh Yadav was the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, the state vigilance department registered a case against Mayawati accusing her of financial irregularities. The UP Vigilance Department alleged that the construction of these statues had led to a loss of over Rs 111, 44, 35, 066 to the government exchequer and unlawful gain to public servants and private individuals, something that later came to be known as the Memorial Scam. Where is the money? The Mayawati government had constructed statues, memorials and parks in various parts of Uttar Pradesh, including Noida and Lucknow, at a total cost of Rs 2,600 crore. In May 2013, the UP Lokayukta alleged that Rs 1,400 crore of public money has been siphoned off in the construction of these memorials. The Lokayukta pointed out that this was 34 percent of the budget for the construction of memorials and parks. Who all were named in this scam? The FIR registered by the state vigilance department indicted 199 individuals in the scam, including Mayawatis then close aides and former ministers Naseemuddin Siddiqui and Babu Singh Kushwaha. Besides, 12 of her party MLAs were accused of alleged wrongdoings in the purchase of sandstone for the memorials. What is the progress on the case so far? After assuming the position of chief minister in 2012, Akhilesh Yadav ordered a probe into the alleged irregularities and corruption in the supply of pink sandstone from Mirzapur. At that time, Lokayukta NK Mehrotra, in his report to the chief minister, recommended filing of an FIR under Prevention of Corruption Act and Section 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant) of the IPC against 19 persons, including Siddiqui and Kushwaha. However, Mehrotra had told reporters that there was no proof of Mayawatis personal involvement in the scam. In September 2018, the Allahabad High Court had sought a status report from the UP Vigilance Department. On January 31, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) had raided six locations in Lucknow in connection with the scam, a move that experts saw as politically motivated in the wake of SP and BSP announcing an alliance to ouster the BJP ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. P Chidambaram Former finance minister P Chidambaram appeared before the Enforcement Directorate on on Friday in connection with a money laundering probe related to INX Media. The Congress leader, who was summoned to record his statement under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), arrived at the agency's office in central Delhi at about 11 am. Chidambaram has been grilled a number of times in this case in the past. His son Karti was questioned by the agency in the same case on Thursday for about six hours. The ED attached Karti's assets worth an estimated Rs 54 crore, located in India and abroad, in the case last year. The central probe agency registered the PMLA case on the basis of a CBI FIR and had alleged irregularities in the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearance to INX Media for receiving overseas funds to the tune of Rs 305 crore in 2007, when P Chidambaram was the finance minister. It registered an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR), the ED's equivalent of a police FIR, against the accused named in the CBI complaint, including Karti, INX Media and its directors -- Peter and Indrani Mukerjea. Karti was arrested on February 28 last year by the CBI, the other central agency investigating the case, for allegedly taking money to facilitate the FIPB clearance to INX Media in 2007. He was granted bail subsequently. The agency has alleged that Karti received money from INX Media, using his influence to manipulate a tax probe against it in a case of violation of FIPB conditions to receive investments from Mauritius. National Conference leader Omar Abdullah on Friday said he would like to see how those aligned with the BJP would explain reports that the Defence Ministry had protested over the mechanism being adopted by the PMO for the Rafale deal. He had tagged a document, purportedly of the Defence Ministry, which was published as part of a news report by The Hindu. According to the article, the ministry had raised strong objections to "parallel negotiations" conducted by the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) with the French side. "I'd like to see how this one is explained by the talking heads aligned to the BJP. @PMOIndia 'weakened the negotiating position of the Ministry of Defence & the Indian Negotiating Team' as per this note in a MOD file that went up the the Defence Minister," the former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister claimed. The National Conference was an ally of NDA when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the prime minister but shifted to UPA-II in 2009. Flash Thailand's Princess Ubolratana Mahidol, in an unexpected move, accepted on Friday the nomination as candidate for prime minister in the March 24 general election. Thai Raksa Chart (Thais protect country) Party leader Preechaphol Pongpanit submitted to the Election Commission the name of the Princess as the party's only candidate for prime minister. The polling agency is scheduled to officially announce the names of all electoral candidates, including those for the post-election prime minister, on Feb. 15. Ubolratana, 67, is the eldest child of the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej and sister of King Maha Vajiralongkorn. She will run under the tickets of Thai Raksa Chart Party in competition with incumbent Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, who also accepted the nomination as candidate for prime minister under the banners of Palang Pracharath (power of people's state) Party, as well as former prime minister and Democrat Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva, among others. According to the Palace rules, Ubolratana has become a commoner since she was divested of royal titles following her marriage to an American in 1972. She returned to Thailand in 2001 from the United States after her divorce, and has since regularly taken part in charity, social welfare and health promoting events as well as anti-drug campaigns for youths. Thai Raksa Chart Party leader Preechaphol declined to comment whether Ubolratana will go on a campaign trail alongside Thai Raksa Chart electoral candidates nationwide. Thai Raksa Chart Party is largely viewed as an affiliate of the once-ruling Pheu (for) Thai Party. Many of Thai Raksa Chart Party members and electoral candidates had belonged to Pheu Thai Party over the past several years. Both parties are known to remain loyal to former prime ministers Thaksin Shinawatra and Yingluck Shinawatra, who have been residing in self-exile overseas. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday dismissed the media report on the Rafale jet deal as "flogging a dead horse" and accused the opposition of playing into the hands of multinational companies and vested interests. Sitharaman's suo motu statement came in Lok Sabha in the wake of protests by Congress and other opposition over the report which claimed that the Defence Ministry had protested to the PMO the mechanism being adopted for the Rafale deal. "They are flogging a dead horse. Periodical enquiries by the PMO cannot be construed as interference," the minister said during the Zero Hour. The Defence Minister charged the opposition with playing into the hands of multinational companies and vested interests and not working in the interests of the Indian Air Force. Referring to the report, which claimed that the then Defence Secretary had objected to the PMO allegedly conducting price negotiations with the French company, Sitharaman said the then Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar had replied to the letter asking the official to remain "calm" as everything was "alright". Sitharaman also alleged that the then Chairperson of the National Advisory Council Sonia Gandhi used to run the PMO regularly during the UPA regime. "Was that not interference?," she asked.. Sri Lanka's former President Mahinda Rajapaksa smiles during a news conference after winning the local government election in Colombo, Sri Lanka February 12, 2018. REUTERS/Dinuka Liyanawatte - RC12B12677B0 Sri Lanka's Opposition leader Mahinda Rajapaksa is set to visit India, his office has said. This will be Rajapaksa's first overseas tour since being appointed as the Leader of the Opposition last month. He will leave on February 8 on an official tour to India, his office said. Rajapaksa is to deliver a lecture on Sri Lanka-India relations in Bangalore, it said. His will be his second visit to India within 6 months. In September, he visited New Delhi and met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Rajapaksa was controversially appointed the prime minister by President Maithripala Sirisena late October, triggering an unprecedented constitutional crisis which lasted for over 50 days. The Supreme Court later restored of Ranil Wickremesinghe as prime minister. File Pic: Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar has termed the "mahagathbandhan" an "outcome of desperation and despair" which has all the constituents but any public base. Khattar, who was in Jodhpur on February 7 to address a meeting of BJP party workers in four parliamentary constituencies falling under the Jodhpur cluster, said this while talking to media. "Mahagathbandhan was an outcome of desperation and despair. The parties in this gathbandhan have no public base and support," Khattar commented on the grand alliance. He said people are well abreast of the intentions and agenda of these constituencies of the alliance and would not be influenced by them. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has laid the foundation of "New India" and it would be in the interest of the country to bring Modi back to power, he said. "Narendra Modi, by way of his policies, has laid the foundation of new India. It is in the interest of the country to bring Modi back to take the country further," Khattar said. Before this, Khattar, while addressing the party workers, said the BJP would be back to power on the basis of the strength and unity of its workers. "Workers are the strength of the BJP and we would make a comeback harnessing this strength and unity of our workers," Khattar said. After addressing the party meeting, he left for Jaipur. He was supposed to address the party workers in Rajasthan capital but headed straight to Delhi on account of inclement weather conditions. Lalu Prasad Yadav RJD national president Lalu Prasad has flayed his arch rival and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar over Supreme Court's order to transfer Muzaffarpur sex scandal to a POCSO court in Delhi. The apex court Thursday came down heavily on the Bihar government for its management of 16 shelter homes in the state, other than that at Muzaffarpur, and warned that unsatisfactory response of its queries will force it to summon the chief secretary. A bench, headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, directed the Bihar government to render all assistance in smooth transfer of the Muzaffarpur case within two weeks. Prasad, who is serving sentences in a number of fodder scam cases and lodged in a Ranchi hospital for his ailments, came out with tweets offering his take on the embarrassment caused to the Bihar government. In the first such tweet, he said in the rustic dialect Bhojpuri "ka ho Nitish, kuchh sharm bachal ba ki naahi" (Nitish, are you left with any shame). His Twitter handle is managed by people close to him. In another tweet, the RJD supremo came out with an acerbic one-liner "habitual protectors of rapists of Bihar will keep quiet. Chupppp". Kumar has been accused by opposition leaders, especially Prasad's younger son Tejashwi Yadav, of keeping silent over allegations against the accused in the scandal. The case had come to light last year when a report of social audit conducted by Mumbai-based Tata Institute of Social Sciences flagged sexual abuse of inmates at the Muzaffarpur shelter home. An FIR was lodged in May last year and a number of persons, including Brajesh Thakur, the owner of the NGO running the shelter home, were arrested by police in connection with the scandal. The matter was handed over to the CBI in July. Shortly afterwards, state social welfare minister Manju Verma stepped down after media reported that her husband had close links with Thakur. Thakur has been shifted to a jail in Patiala following the order of the Supreme Court even as other accused, including his close aides and some government officials, are lodged in jails at Patna and Muzaffarpur. The apex court had recently also directed the CBI to take over the probe into allegations of sexual abuse at all such shelter homes across the state. DMK President MK Stalin speaking at a public meeting. (Image: PTI) DMK President M K Stalin on February 8 urged the Election Commission to hold by-polls for 21 vacant assembly seats in Tamil Nadu simultaneously with the Lok Sabha elections, due by May. A delegation headed by Rajya Sabha MP and DMK leader Kanimozhi submitted a letter addressed to the EC by Stalin at the office of the poll panel in New Delhi, a party release said here. "We request the ECI to hold elections to the 21 Assembly seats along with election to 39 parliamentary seats in Tamil Nadu," Stalin said in the letter, a copy of which was released to the media here. The DMK chief said this would save time of voters, the EC and government staff and also ease the burden on the public exchequer. Of the 21 seats, as many as 18 had fallen vacant following the disqualification of ruling AIADMK MLAs loyal to ousted leader TTV Dhinakaran by the Assembly Speaker in September 2017, which was upheld by the Madras High Court late last year. The court had also lifted an earlier stay on notifying the seats as vacant. Two other seats are vacant after the death of sitting members -- then DMK president M Karunanidhi (Tiruvarur) and A K Bose (Tiruparankundram) -- while Minister Balakrishna Reddy representing Hosur constituency was disqualified after being sentenced to three-year imprisonment in a criminal case. Stalin said, "Since the 21 assembly seats form part of the some of the 39 parliamentary constituencies, it would be easy to enforce election related guidelines including the model code of conduct..." Such a move would also benefit political parties as there would be no need to conduct separate poll campaigns, the DMK President said. "Also, electoral rolls are going to be the same for both the elections, logic demands that the elections must be held together," he added. In protest against the Citizenship Amendment Bill, the Communist Party of India will boycott the functions planned in Agartala on February 9 to be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the three party MPs said on February 8 . The three MPs from Tripura - Rajya Sabha MP Jharna Das Baidya and two Lok Sabha MPs of the party - Jitendra Choudhury and Shankar Prasad Dutta said in a joint statement issued here said the passage of the bill will "grossly" harm the cause of the northeast in the long run and pose severe fracture to the secular feature of the country. "To record our protest and express solidarity with the collective and spontaneous movement against the move of the Modi government to pass the Citizenship Amendment Bill 2016. We the three MPs of Tripura have taken conscious decision to boycott the functions at Agartala to be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi tomorrow on February 9, 2019," the statement signed by the three MPs said. They also appealed to the PM to withdraw the controversial bill from Rajya Sabha, honouring the "genuine sentiments and anguish" of the people in general and the northeast in particular. The bill seeks to grant Indian citizenship to non-Muslim minorities of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan who fled religious persecution. It was passed by Lok Sabha on January 8 and is awaiting the nod of Rajya Sabha. Modi is set to address a rally in Agartala and inaugurate several projects, including a railway line and a new block at Tripura Institute of Technology campus. The new railway line, spanning 23 kilometres, will connect Garji to Belonia in South Tripura district. The prime minister is also scheduled to unveil a statue of Tripura's erstwhile ruler Maharaja Bir Bikram Kishore Manikya, the sources said. Congress The Congress will lead the opposition alliance in Jharkhand for the Lok Sabha polls and contest more seats than any other partner in the state, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha sources said. The JMM will lead the opposition alliance, that has the Congress, Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (JVM), and the Rashtriya Janata Dal as its part, in the assembly polls also slated for this year, they said. The understanding was given concrete shape as JMM leader and former Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren met Congress chief Rahul Gandhi here. Congress' state unit chief Ajoy Kumar and All India Congress Committee general secretary in-charge of the state R P N Singh were also present during the meeting. "Met former Chief Minister of Jharkhand and Executive President of JMM, Shri Hemant Soren ji at my residence today. We are together in this fight for saving democracy," Gandhi tweeted after the meeting. Akhilesh Yadav Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on February 8 said BSP's lawyers will present their side before the Supreme Court, which expressed a tentative view that party chief Mayawati has to deposit the public money used for erecting statues to the state exchequer. The SP and the BSP have recently forged an alliance for the Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh. "I don't have full information about this. The court might have made some observations. BSP's lawyers will put their side in the court," Yadav said. The court, earlier in the day, said it was of the tentative view that Mayawati has to deposit public money used for erecting statues of herself and elephants, the party's symbol, at parks in Lucknow and Noida to the state exchequer. A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi has posted the matter for final hearing on April 2. Attacking the BJP without taking its name, the SP chief said, "A statue is going to be installed in the Lok Bhavan here. We will also install a statue of SP leader Ram Sharan Das there." He was referring to the Yogi Adityanath government's plan to install a 25-feet statue of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee at Lok Bhawan, which houses the chief minister's office, in the state capital. The bench was hearing a petition filed by an advocate who had contended that public money cannot be utilised for creating own statues and for propagating the political party. The petitioner has alleged that crores of rupees was used from the state budget for 2008-09 to glorify Mayawati who was then the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh. File Picture Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's car was on February 8 allegedly attacked by a mob armed with sticks in Narela, New Delhi, an official in the Chief Minister's Office said. Nobody was hurt, he said. A group of about 100 men tried to stop Kejriwal's car and attacked it with sticks. The rearview mirror of Kejriwal's car was broken, but he escaped unhurt, CNN News 18 has reported. The incident occurred when Kejriwal had gone to the outer Delhi locality to inaugurate development works in 25 unauthorised colonies, he said. AAP workers have alleged BJP's hand behind the attack. This is a developing story. More details awaited. With inputs from PTI Russian nuclear pact is in danger following the US move to withdraw from a Cold War-era arms control treaty, a senior Russian diplomat said on February 7 . Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov charged that the US refusal to negotiate an extension to the New Start treaty signals Washington's intention to let it expire in 2021. He warned that time is running out to save the pact, which was signed in 2010 by US President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. Ryabkov said that the US has shown "no readiness or desire" to engage in substantive talks on extending the pact, which limits each country to no more than 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads and 700 deployed missiles and bombers. US Undersecretary of State Andrea Thompson argued in February 6 phone call with reporters that there is enough time to discuss the treaty's extension. "We have until 2021," Thompson said. "It is a relatively simple treaty to extend, so we have time with that." But Ryabkov warned that the procedure isn't going to be simple. He noted that the US said it has converted 56 Trident submarine-launched intercontinental ballistic missiles and 41 B-52H strategic bombers that carried nuclear weapons for use with conventional weapons, but stonewalled Russia's repeated requests for a verifiable way to exclude their conversion back to nuclear status. "In the worst-case scenario, they may carry 1,286 nuclear warheads," he said, meaning that the US could nearly double the number of deployed warheads allowed by the New Start treaty. He said "that there is almost no time left" to discuss that and other issues for the treaty to be extended by another five years as envisaged during the signing. "It gives reason to suspect our American counterparts of setting ground to avoid those discussions ... and just let the treaty quietly expire," Ryabkov said. Ryabkov also said Russia stands ready for talks on a possible successor to the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty. "We are ready for dialogue," Ryabkov said. "If the US is interested, it should spell out its proposal." Citing Russian violations, the US on Saturday formally suspended its obligations under the INF that bans all land-based cruise and ballistic missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometres, setting the stage for the treaty to terminate in six months. Russia, which has denied any breaches, has followed suit. Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed the military over the weekend to work on developing new land-based weapons that were previously forbidden by the INF treaty, but emphasized that such new weapons won't be deployed to the European part of Russia or any other region unless the US does so in those areas. Later on February 7, though, Russia's Defense Ministry called on the US to stick to the INF treaty and destroy the types of weapons that Russia thinks violates it. The Defense Ministry said that it had seen the official notification from the State Department on the withdrawal from the treaty and has invited the US military attache to officially present it. Ryabkov on February 7 expressed particular worry about US plans to produce new, low-yield nuclear weapons, warning that it could dramatically lower the threshold for their use. "It's very alarming," he said, adding that the plans could revive old Cold War era concepts. "It throws us many decades back to the ideology of nuclear battlefield weapons," he said. "There are just a couple of steps left ... before the revival of nuclear artillery, nuclear mortars, nuclear mines, nuclear grenades and other things like that. It appears to reflect the eagerness of those who have grown up in the age of computer games to easily push the button." Flash South Korean Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon said Friday that the planned second summit between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the United States was anticipated to make a concrete, substantial progress for denuclearization and peace on the Korean Peninsula. Cho made the remark at a function in Seoul, saying a concrete, substantial progress was anticipated to be made in the second summit between top DPRK leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump as the leaders reached a comprehensive, principled agreement on the peninsula's denuclearization and peace during their first meeting. Kim and Trump were scheduled to meet in Vietnam on Feb. 27-28. The leaders held their first summit in Singapore in June last year. The unification minister said South Korea will make utmost efforts for the success of the DPRK-U.S. summit and the establishment of permanent peace on the peninsula by closely communicating and cooperating with the DPRK and the United States. Meanwhile, Baik Tae-hyun, spokesman of the unification ministry, told a press briefing that South Korea anticipated a more concrete, substantial progress to be made in the second Kim-Trump summit. The spokesman noted that relations between the two Koreas and between the DPRK and the United States formed a virtuous cycle along with denuclearization negotiations. Sharad Pawar Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) president Sharad Pawar said Friday that some of his party colleagues are insisting that he contest Lok Sabha election from Madha in south-western Maharashtra this time. He had no desire to contest election, but he assured them that he will think about their demand, Pawar said. The former Union minister was speaking to reporters after chairing a party meeting to take overview of constituencies ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. Asked about the speculation that he may contest from Madha again, Pawar, currently a Rajya Sabha member, said, "During the meeting, some senior party leaders and the sitting MP from Madha insisted that I contest election (from Madha)." The constituency which is in Solapur district is currently represented in the Lok Sabha by NCP's Vijaysinh Mohite Patil. "I have not taken any decision so far and I have no desire (to contest election), but some party leaders clearly said that the way they obey my policy decisions, I too should respect their decision," he said. He told them he would think about it, the NCP chief added. After representing Madha in the Lok Sabha during 2009 to 2014, Pawar had said he will not contest Lok Sabha elections anymore. Man serves food to Sikhs from India outside the shrine of Guru Nanak Dev Ji in Kartarpur Pakistan said it will send a delegation to India next month to discuss and finalise draft agreement for setting up a corridor to facilitate visit of Sikh pilgrims to the Gurdwara Kartarpur Sahib Gurudwara. India and Pakistan agreed to open up a special border crossing linking Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Pakistan's Kartarpur - the final resting place of Sikh faith's founder Guru Nanak Dev - to Dera Baba Nanak shrine in India's Gurdaspur district. Kartarpur Sahib is located in Pakistan's Narowal district across the river Ravi, about four kilometres from the Dera Baba Nanak shrine. Gurdwara Kartarpur Sahib, the first Gurdwara, was established by Guru Nanak Dev in 1522, where he is said to have died. The corridor will facilitate the visa-free travel of Indian Sikh pilgrims to Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Kartarpur. Foreign Office spokesperson Mohammad Faisal announced on social media that Pakistan also proposed a return visit by Indian delegation on March 28. "In a spirit of constructive engagement, Pakistan has proposed to India that the Pakistan delegation may visit India on March 13 followed by the return visit of the Indian delegation to Pakistan on March 28 to finalise the draft agreement for the Kartarpur corridor," he tweeted. Faisal further said that "we look forward to positive reciprocity from India." Last month, the two countries floated proposals to host talks in order to give the final shape to the agreement. Pakistan has committed to open the corridor in November on the occasion of the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev. Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu and Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on November 26 last year laid the foundation stone for the Kartarpur corridor in Gurdaspur district. Two days later, Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan laid the foundation stone for the corridor at Narowal, 125 km from Lahore. The decision to build the corridor -- from Dera Baba Nanak in Gurdaspur district to the International Border -- was taken by the Union Cabinet on November 22. The two governments have also launched the construction work to build corridor for the Sikh pilgrims to help them visit the shrine through the shortest route. But, both sides are yet to finalise the modalities of travel of the Indian pilgrims to the Gurudwara across the international border without visa. Union Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday threw a challenge to opposition parties, including Congress, to counter the data in the Prime Minister's speech, saying his reply demolished false narrative and slogans. In a series of tweet, Jaitley said Prime Minister Narendra Modi's reply in Parliament is a "Report Card" of the Government's five year performance. "Will the Congress and other Opposition leader's reply to the data in the PM's speech or only resort to slogans and falsehood. Truth has an inherent strength. It demolishes a false narrative easily. This is what the PM did today," Jaitley said. In his reply to the motion of thanks on the President's address, the Prime Minister also hit back at the Congress over the Rafale issue, which has been repeatedly raised by its chief Rahul Gandhi, as he alleged that the Congress did not want the Indian Air Force to be strong and asked "which companies are they bidding for that they are acting so shamefully". Modi also alleged that those who imposed Emergency, "bullied" the judiciary and insulted the Army were accusing him of destroying institutions. Donald Trump and Narendra Modi The powerful Congressional India caucus, both in the House and the Senate, has played a sterling role in strengthening and deepening of bilateral relationship between the two largest democracies of the world, the Indian Ambassador to the US, Harsh V Shringla, has said. Addressing a gathering of top US lawmakers at a reception co-hosted in his honour by the co-Chairs of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian-Americans, Shringla said India has counted every step of the way. A record number of 60 members of the US House of Representatives and Senators attended the reception held at the US Capitol on Thursday evening. Prominent among them were Senators John Cornyn and Mark Warner, who are co-chairs of the Senate India Caucus; Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard among others. Indian American Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi and Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, were also present at the event. Praising the "understanding" of US lawmakers to steer the countries "ever closer together", the Indian diplomat said: "Many in this room will recall the sterling role played by the India caucus in getting us past the finish line on the landmark civil nuclear agreement." The designation of India as a Major Defense Partner was also codified into law by the US Congress, thanks to the unstinting support by members of the India Caucus. Referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's address to the joint session of the US Congress that the Indo-US ties have "overcome the hesitations of history", Shringla said he was looking forward to the same comfort, convergence and candour while working closely with members of Congress, particularly the India Caucus. "Our synergies and similarities are immense. Our values and love of freedom identical. The spirit of entrepreneurship, innovation, and high regard to family and community define the best of both of our peoples," Shringla said. Senator Cornyn said the bipartisan group of more than 30 Senators who form the Senate India Caucus were working to promote India-US relationship. India and US have a "unique relationship" which is based on shared values and opportunities that are presented in this very dangerous world. It was in 2004 that the Cornyn and the then Senator Hillary Clinton founded the Senate India caucus. It is the largest bilateral caucus in the US Senate, Senator Warner said. "We look forward to the continued success of the caucus and continue growing friendship between India and the United States," he said. India is an important ally of the United States and the Indian American community has played a very important role in this, said Congressman Steny Hoyer. "The contribution that the Indian community has made to America is immense," he said. Gabbard, who this month launched her 2020 presidential campaign, called for building on the momentum of the relationship between the two countries. "There are so many areas of common interest, so many areas of potential. So I have no doubt that with this bipartisan group that's gathered here from both the house and the Senate, we will continue to do that work," she said. Referring to his recent meeting with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Congressman George Holding said in the last two years the India Caucus was able to work successfully in strengthening the military to military relationship. "I think we're going to have a good opportunity to sell more US military equipment to India," he said. "I think we can look forward to great US companies furthering their relationship than India, such as Raytheon, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and many others. And with that more Indian companies strengthening their relationship here in the United States," he added. "We look forward to building our alliances and the Indo Pacific region and there's no ally that we have in the region that better mirrors the similar values of a strong democracy and freedom," Holding said. Congressman Brad Sherman, who is now also chairman of the Asia subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee said he was a strong supporter of strenthening India-US relationship. Amit Shah_BJP_ BJP president Amit Shah Friday called illegal migrants a vote bank of the SP and the BSP and also targeted the opposition over the issues of triple talaq and the Ayodhya dispute. He said from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, every intruder will be sent home if the BJP returns to power. Shah said the party remained committed to the construction of the Ram temple at the disputed site in Ayodhya, and challenged the opposition parties to spell out their its own stands on the issue. He was addressing booth-level party workers, in a series of such interactions in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections. "Should the intruders not be thrown out of the country? Shah asked them, in an apparent reference to migrants from Bangladesh. He said the recent exercise on the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam had identified 40 lakh such people, and the process of throwing them out has started. "If UP elects the Narendra Modi government again in 2019, every single intruder will be ousted from Kashmir to Kanyakumari," he said. "These intruders may be a vote bank for "bua and bhatija, Shah said, referring to alliance partners Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati and Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav. For us, it is national security that is most important." The Bharatiya Janata Party chief said all BJP workers want to know the party's stand on the Ram temple. "I want to make it clear that the BJP is committed to building a grand Ram temple at the same place at the earliest," he said. He charged that the Congress wanted the Ayodhya land case taken up only after the elections. He said the faith of crores of people was attached to the case, and asked the Congress, Whom do you want to appease?" "I have said here that the BJP is committed to the Ram temple's construction, but I want to ask bua-bhatija and Rahul baba to clear their parties' stand on it, he said, throwing a challenge at UP's opposition alliance and the Congress. If they do not want it, they should clearly tell the people. Whatever their stand is, the BJP will get a grand temple built there," he said. Shah recalled that the Centre has moved the Supreme Court seeking permission to return the uncontested land adjacent to the disputed site to its original owners. He referred to Congress women wing chief Sushmita Dev remark Thursday that the party will scrap the triple talaq law if it comes to power. "Should Muslim women and girls not get their rights? he said. Every woman in the country has the right to her dignity and Modi will give this right to Muslim women as well," Shah said. India ranks 8th in the quality of private and public research institutions across 112 countries, according to the World Economic Forum's Global Competitive Index 2018. While India ranks among the top 10 countries with high quality of research institutes, there is a catch. It scores just 0.42 out of 5 in the quality of research institutions index. USA tops the list with a score of 3.88. Source: World Economic Forum. One of the reasons why India makes it to the top 10 is because the quality of research across the globe remains poor. The top spots are occupied by developed economies such as the US, China, France, Germany and others, who are in a position to fund research institutes. The quality of India's research institutes is largely considered below-par, with the country contributing the highest number of low-quality research and bogus journals. Nearly 88 percent of the University Grants Commission (UGC) approved list of journals have been found to be of 'low quality', according to study on Critical Analysis of the UGC- approved list of journals published in Current Science. The primary reason for low-quality researches is the low spending on research and development (R&D). India spends just 0.62 percent of GDP on research, according to R&D Data Release 2018 by UNESCO Institute for Statistics. In contrast, France spends 2.25 percent of its GDP on research, and the United States, 2.74 percent. Interestingly, India's spend on R&D has been rising but the percentage of GDP devoted towards it has been declining. The low spends answer why India lacks the resources required for conducting high-quality researches. Time and again, questions have been raised on the quality and authenticity of the research output in India and policymakers have long been aware of the dismal state of research. In 2013, the government launched a string of initiatives such as Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan or the National Higher Education Mission to boost the number of researchers in higher education. Two years later, the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) was launched to rank universities and institutes in various parameters, including research. Subsequently, the government also announced the Institutes of Eminence (IoE) scheme, where it initially pledged to support 20 institutes to become world-class universities of which six have already been announced and more than a dozen are awaiting the status upgrade. While it may be too early to judge whether these measures will bear fruits in the future, the government may have to continue working in this direction. Read: IIT Bombay to develop world-class labs, launch skill-based courses under Institute of Eminence tag The scarcity of compensation or funds for scholars, however, is not the only reason behind the research crisis in the country. The woes of India's education system are rooted in early schooling. The quality of education imparted to students in government, as well as private schools, has come under the scanner after the Annual Status of Education Report, 2017 stated that about 57 percent of the country's youth aged 14-18 years were unable to solve a basic division problem. The survey, which focused on the quality of education at various institutes, said that teens couldn't successfully perform simple activities like counting money, adding weights and telling time. Read: DATA STORY: Indian teen's math problem is not child's play Analysts have long pointed to the problem of students "reproducing" textbooks in examinations without applying critical thinking -- and such culture is carried all the way to higher education, as per a recent study by Observer Research Foundation (ORF). The government policies too play a major role in the publication of a large number of bogus journals and researches. In 2010, the University Grants Commission (UGC) introduced the academic performance indicator (API) for evaluation of teachers, which laid considerable emphasis on the number of research publications (publish or perish). It further mandated publication of at least two papers prior to the submission of a doctoral thesis in 2013. As a result of these guidelines, publication in journals spurt due to the required 'compliance' criterion in the university system. This also triggered the publication of predatory/dubious journals offering 'pay and publish' services for gullible authors in the country. India needs to support researches and development within the country, bring in laws to check the loopholes that exist in the laws and set up a strict monitoring body to check the research quality. Thus, ranking among the top 10 countries with high-quality research institutes means nothing until India improves in its quality of researches at the ground-level. People engage in flood rescue work after the Kakkayam dam was opened following heavy monsoon rainfall, in Kozhikode. (Image: PTI) Viju Cherian Congress leader and Thiruvananthapuram Member of Parliament Shashi Tharoor has nominated Keralas fishermen for this years Nobel Peace Prize for their courageous service and sacrifice during the floods in Kerala in 2018. There couldnt be a more deserving group for the prize. Tharoor has nominated the fishermen in his capacity as a Member of Parliament. In his letter to the Norwegian committee Tharoor notes that It was during the height of this tragedy that fishermen groups of Kerala, at great risk to their lives and potential damage to the boats that are the source of their livelihood, jumped into the fray to save their fellow citizens. Keralas fishermen have been recognised for their efforts by the state government and various organisations. What adds an element of intrigue and veneration is that the fishermen came as a faceless group to the rescue and once the job was done returned to their lives without waiting for the applause. Perhaps, it is this incomplete expression of gratitude which wants to see them being recognised at an international level. However, will they win the Nobel Peace Prize? At the moment it is anybodys guess as to who could win the coveted prize. If one were to draw a pattern looking at past winners, it can be said with confidence: expect the unexpected. In 2016, at the height of the conflict in Syria, many thought that the efforts of the Syrian Civil Defence (or White Helmets) would win the peace prize but, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos won it for his resolute efforts to bring the country's more than 50-year-long civil war to an end. Today, in 2019, armed conflict is far from over in Colombia the January attack at a Bogota police academy killing 21 military personnel and wounded more than 60 is proof. Also, it still remains a mystery as to why former US President Barack Obama won the prize a few months into his first term of presidency. That said, the prize has recognised the efforts of many deserving individuals and organisations/collectives, such as the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet in 2015, the European Union in 2012, and, of course, Liu Xiaobo in 2010. Irrespective of whether they win the Nobel Peace Prize or not, Keralas fishermen will be remembered for their selfless service at a time when everyone stood helplessly watching the state drown. For more Opinion pieces, click here Representative Image: Reuters Jagyaseni Biswas No more punishments and arson. Hindu fringe group Bajrang Dal has taken up a more civil approach to fighting the evils of western civilization. This Valentines Day, the outfit wants to counsel young, unmarried couples against celebrating Valentine's Day. Reiterating the old, Subhash Chauhan, the outfits state convener, said: "Valentine does not belong to this country. Why do we need February 14 in our country?" He said members of the group will keep a strict vigil and counsel young couples caught visiting parks and other public places on February 14 and also inform the parents of the truant youngsters. The Panth Pramukh, however, ensured his words werent misconstrued and explained how they are not principally against love, but against MNCs making moolah by fooling impressionable minds. Chauhan also urged Indians to celebrate Hindu festivals like Ugadi, Dussehra, and Sankranti instead. Cautioning the youth, Chauhan said that all discounts offered and events organized on the day are aimed at making money, and therefore, there is no reason why one should observe it as a day of love. On Wednesday, the outfit also released posters stating how V-day is against Indian culture. They reminded the ignorant that Saint Valentine, who is celebrated on February 14, was in fact, just a traitor of Rome. The government is expected to announce the e-commerce policy shortly, officials of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry told Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) on February 8. "It was assured today that e-commerce policy is almost ready and will be announced shortly," said Praveen Khandelwal, General Secretary of CAIT. "It was made very clear that the government is concerned about small traders of the country and that is why the Internal Trade has been brought under the domain of Commerce Ministry and DIPP renamed as Department for Promotion for Industry and Internal Trade," he added. CAIT met the government to express concerns over how e-commerce companies were readying to flout the norms again. Last week, Amazon offloaded the two sellers, Cloudtail and Appario from its platform immediately after the revised foreign direct investment (FDI) guidelines for the e-commerce companies kicked in on February 1. However on Thursday, it brought back Cloudtail by making a rejig in its structure. Khandelwal also said the government has promised that a national policy for retail trade will be worked out. There was no immediate clarity if the government will push for an open consultation by the industry stakeholders on the draft before it came out with the final policy. In July, the government had come up with the first leg of the draft e-commerce policy that talked about allowing companies having FDI of up to 49 percent to switch from a marketplace model to an inventory-led model. The idea was to promote the sale of domestically-produced goods on online platforms under the governments Make in India initiative by allowing B2C online retail companies to keep limited inventory However, offline traders didn't take to the proposal kindly and criticised it for acting as a backdoor entry for FDI in B2C retail. While the stakeholders were consulted while preparing the draft, it was never made public. The draft also recommended a separate wing in the Enforcement Directorate - a specialised financial investigation agency under Finance Ministry - to look at the existing violations in the e-commerce sector as well as incentivising companies for domestic data storage. Moneycontrol News Amazon's biggest seller Cloudtail is back in business. Appario will join the party soon and it took Amazon barely a week to get around the changes in e-commerce regulations. Foreign companies have been able to take advantage of the 'design flaws' in the new policy, which they felt was going to hinder their successful established practices. The rules have multiple loopholes and law firms are having a great time exploiting some of these to give their multi-billion dollar clients the best solutions. To begin with, guidelines for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) on e-commerce sector says that, "An entity having equity participation by e-commerce marketplace entity or its group companies, or having control on its inventory by e-commerce marketplace entity or its group companies, will not be permitted to sell its products on the platform run by such marketplace entity." This means that in case a seller has an investment from a marketplace or any of its group companies, it will not be able to sell its products on the respective marketplace. In order to comply with this norm, Amazon pared its stake in Cloudtails parent firm. The idea was to ensure that Prione Business Services, which owns Cloudtail, was no longer a group company of the marketplace. A report in The Economic Times said that NR Narayana Murthy's Catamaran Ventures increased its stake in Cloudtail's parent company Prione Business Services to 76% from 51% earlier, reducing JV partner Amazon Asias stake to 24% from 49%. However, while it addresses the issues mentioned in black and white, it can be argued that the intent of Press Note 2 still remains unaddressed. The idea was to bring about a level playing field between the offline retailers and the marketplaces. But with this restructuring, Amazon wont be losing its vice-like grip on the market. Offline retailers had also warned the government of such a scenario early on and the idea was to ensure that the rules were implemented in letter and spirit. They are now seeking government's intervention in the case, calling for a ban on indirect ownership in the sellers. Another controversial topic is that of private label products sold in the marketplaces. Conventionally, under this, marketplaces tie up with manufacturers for the production of goods under a specific brand name. Private label products help marketplaces control the production and price of products under specific categories. It essentially gives a marketplace an added advantage which then forces then other brands on its platforms to keep the prices down. In some instances, marketplaces can also have equity in the companies that sell products on their platforms. They also mostly have exclusive tie ups with these companies. This again flouts the Press Note 2 in more ways than one. Press Note 2 states that, "E-commerce entities providing marketplace will not directly or indirectly influence the sale price of goods or services and shall maintain a level playing field." Private label products are guilty of doing all these things and surprisingly, just a week after announcing Press Note 2, they went ahead to state that the new rules will not impact private label products. In its notification on January 4, it stated the government was not concerned about the nature of the products sold on the websites. This development was strange because the nature of the products will only decide whether or not it is influencing the market and competition. With sellers crying foul over Amazon's latest move, it will be interesting to see if the government succumbs to their demands and issues a clarification on indirect equity holding in sellers. The government is caught between the devil and the deep sea as any move against foreign entities will send wrong signals to global investors. It also happens just a few months after global retail giant Walmart acquired a majority stake in Flipkart. There's also been chatter about the need to come up with Press Note 2 in such a haste. Many saw this as a politically motivated idea as it was suggested that the government wanted to appease the traders who form a huge vote bank of the ruling BJP. The rules were being flouted for the past two years after the government came up with Press Note 3 in 2016. The ideal way would have been to set up a committee and probe the companies flouting the norms. It will be interesting to see if the government now plans to set up a body to scan the business models of marketplaces in the country. Flash Chinese Ambassador to the United States Cui Tiankai on Wednesday called for more cooperation between China and the United States as their diplomatic ties reached its 40th anniversary. Addressing a reception for the anniversary of China-U.S. diplomatic relations and the Chinese New Year at the Chinese embassy, Cui said history has proven that cooperation serves the interest of both countries. "The past 40 years have proved that cooperation is in the interests of both countries while confrontation hurts both," Cui said, adding "there is no better option for us than cooperation." Cui said cooperation is not only essential for both countries but for the world, adding that overcoming the global financial crisis and finding a political solution to the situation on the Korean Peninsula are two success stories where the two countries worked side by side. "New global challenges keep coming up. More than ever before, the world needs China and the U.S. to work together," Cui said. Acknowledging the differences between China and the United States, Cui said both countries "need to properly handle differences." "We need to respect each other's independent choice of social systems and paths of development, and accommodate each other's core interests and concerns," Cui said, adding that "whether on economic or security issues, we can always find a way out if we address the differences with candor and good faith, based on mutual respect and common interest." Cui warned that talks of "decoupling" China and the United States would be disastrous for the world economy, pledging that "China will open its door wider to the United States and look forward to more cooperation at various levels." "We are the two largest economies in the world. Each has its own strengths. Each is complementary to the other. Both have much greater opportunities if we stay open to each other. Both will be much more prosperous if we cooperate with each other," Cui said. Cui also called on the two countries to promote mutual understanding, stay open to each other, step up people-to-people exchanges and get more connected. Former U.S. Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez, who attended the event, resonated with Cui's words, saying that he "can't conceive" that both country would "decouple." "We are so integrated that to think of a world where China is on its own and the United States is on its own, I can't conceive that," he said. National Security Council Senior Director for Asian Affairs Matt Pottinger, also at the event, said he was "delighted to be celebrating 40 years of official ties" and that he was "looking forward to a productive and prosperous relationship." Approximately 750 guests attended the reception, including U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross and a number of U.S. lawmakers. The guests were able to wander through an exhibition of photos documenting the 40 years of China-U.S. relationship, and were offered a taste of traditional Chinese culture as Chinese craftsmen demonstrated porcelain painting, costume making and displayed lion dance props. A ministerial panel headed by Gujarat Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel will finalise a report that is expected to give boost to the real estate sector under Goods and Services Tax (GST) by making under-construction residential houses cheaper. It is learnt that the panel has indicated 5 percent GST on under-construction residential houses and 3 percent tax in case of affordable housing category. However, in both cases, input tax credit (ITC) cannot be claimed. The Group of Ministers (GoM) for boosting real estate sector under GST regime met earlier during the day at North Block and is in its last stage to finalise the report that will be submitted to the GST Council for its final approval. Currently, GST is levied at an effective rate of 12 percent (standard rate of 18 percent less a deduction of six percent as land value) on premium housing and effective rate of eight percent (concessional rate of 12 percent less a deduction of four percent as land value) on affordable housing on payments made for under-construction property or ready-to-move-in flats where completion certificate has not been issued at the time of sale. However, homebuyers do not have to pay GST if they purchase a ready-to-move-in property after the issue of completion certificate as it is considered as transfer of property and comes under states jurisdiction of stamp duty. This generally makes under-construction properties costlier for the buyers. "This will ensure the problem of homes not being bought during the under construction phase will get solved, and we should see off-take of under construction homes picking up as home seekers will not face the problem of GST payable on under construction projects," said Niranjan Hiranandani - National President, Naredco and founder & MD, Hiranandani Group. The GoM was formed to look into the issues faced by the real estate sector. Terms of reference included possibility of introducing composition scheme for residential construction unit. The panel also had to examine various aspects of GST rate on transfer of development rights (TDR) and development rights in a joint development agreement and suitable model. Besides, it was expected to look at the legal aspect of inclusion or exclusion of land or any other ingredient, in composition and suggest valuation mechanism. live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More Highlights: Flattish volume growth due to subdued end market Q4 to witness similar performance due to demand deferment Company focusing on defending margin as a strategy in difficult market Capex plan on track expected to add peak sales potential of ~Rs 850 crore NOCIL's Q3 performance reflects the slowdown witnessed in end market auto sector - on the chemicals supply chain. Table: Q3 financials Source: Company Also Read: Trade war a growth opportunity for rubber chemical major Key concerns Sequentially, there was a 4 percent decline in sales as the Auto industry (both domestic and China industry) is witnessing a subdued demand slowdown. Three factors have contributed to deferred buying. One is US-China trade war has led to uncertainty in terms of demand, secondly in an unusual phase of sharp decline in Oil derivatives (Benzene etc) customers have resorted to cautious approach towards buying. Customers have a bias for Just in time (JIT) purchase rather than a regular contracted supply. Thirdly, end market demand has dropped. In the current quarter itself, various tyre manufacturers and OEMs have resorted to plant shutdowns. Gross margins contraction was attributed to high cost inventory. Key positives However, adjusting for high inventory cost margins are broadly stable. Company reports that for majority of the products price adjustments commensurate with the input cost changes helping it to defend margins. In the near term, H2 FY19, management guides for flattish production volume growth. This means FY19 volume growth is expected to be ~5 percent YoY. Margins are also expected to be flat, unless additional cost cut measures are taken. This implies 27-29 percent margin profile to continue till anti-dumping duty is enforce. Secondly, US-China trade partially helps in US export opportunity. Towards the end of last quarter company has started supply quantum of 500 tonnes per annum for the US market. Key observations On a medium-term, the company remains positive on global and domestic opportunity on the back of committed expansion plans from global and domestic tyre industry have of the order of $ 10 billion and ~Rs 18000 crore respectively. Secondly, due to declining supply from the China due to environmental compliance, NOCIL has emerged as one of the secured source of rubber chemical supply for the tyre manufacturers. Now, company's legacy manufacturing capacity of 55,000 tonnes is operating at an optimum level. And hence to meet the incremental demand the company is undergoing multi-phase capacity expansion program (Rs 425 crore) which is expected to double its capacity. The phase 1 (Rs 170 crore) of the expansion is complete which includes two locations In the Navi Mumbai plant, commercial production started in Q1 FY19 while in Dahej expansion, trial productions started in the quarter gone by. In the next phase (Rs 255 crore), the company is also focusing on intermediates used for making rubber chemicals. This phase is expected to commission by Oct 2019. Overall capex announced are expected to have asset turnover of 2x i.e. a peak sales potential of ~Rs 850 crore. Outlook NOCIL is expected to maintain its dominant presence in Indian market on account of its technological leadership and client relationship. It needs to be noted that lengthy process for the product approval (~ 2 years) and the indispensable characteristic imparted by the rubber chemicals ensures a certain level client stickiness. Further, revenue share contribution from the exports can increase due to focus on specialty products and ongoing trade disruptions. However, on account of moderation in volume growth in the near term and decline in product prices, we expect a downward adjustment in sales estimates which translates to 18 percent sales CAGR (FY18-21e). We shall revisit this estimates as the demand outlook in auto sector improves. Here it is noteworthy that management expects auto sector slowdown to be short lived not more than six months. Operating margins are expected to moderate if the anti-dumping duty is not extended. Taking that into consideration EBITDA margins can contract by 100 bps in FY20e and can possibly settle at around 25-26 percent in the medium term (from 28 percent currently). Stock is currently trading at around 7.9x FY21e earnings and 4.1x EV/EBITDA for FY21e which seems reasonable. In our view, the stock has already priced in a significant moderation in auto demand outlook. With global and domestic auto demand expected to improve after a couple of quarters, the company looks well positioned to capitalise on that opportunity. Follow @anubhavsays (Disclaimer: Moneycontrol Research analysts do not hold positions in the companies discussed here.) live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More Here are the stocks which are in news today: Results on Friday: BPCL, Tata Steel, M&M, Sun TV Network, UCO Bank, Alkem Laboratories, Allcargo Logistics, Inox Wind, Cochin Shipyard, Engineers India, HFCL, Sonata Software, Jk Lakshmi Cement, KRBL, Marksans Pharma, SJVN, VIP Industries Jet Airways: Four aircrafts grounded due to non-payment of amounts outstanding to lessors under lease agreements Coffee Day Enterprises: The company reported a profit of Rs 64 crore. Tata Motors: The company posted a consolidated loss of Rs 26,961 crore. Borosil Glass: The net profit has risen to Rs 14.7 crore. Fortis Health approves appointment of Ashutosh Raghuvanshi as CEO Khadim: Net profit fell 56 percent at Rs 3.9 crore. Aurobindo Pharma: Q3 net profit at Rs 712 crore. Varun Beverages: To Acquire PepsiCo's Franchise Rights In 3 States Raymond: Company clarified on related party transactions undertaken in compliance with laws and on an arms length basis Ceat: Commissioned commercial production of Truck Bus Radial Tyres at the expansion phase of Halol plant in Tamil Nadu with effect from February 7. Sun Pharma Advanced Research: Company received demand order worth Rs 46.04 crore for payment of Service Tax, from Commissioner of GST and Central Excise (Mumbai). Shriram EPC: Company received three orders worth Rs 291.6 crore from Jharkhand Government for construction in the water management sector. HCG: Company said it will increase its stake from 50.1 percent to 100 percent in its arm BACC Health live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More Indian market remained under bear grip throughout the trading session on Friday and wiped out most of the gains made during the week. The S&P BSE Sensex finally closed 424 points, or 1.1 percent, lower while the Nifty50 ended 125 points down at 10,943. The S&P BSE Sensex closed 0.2 percent higher for the week ended February 8. In terms of sectors, metals, auto, PSU stocks led the decline while telecom and realty stocks bucked the trend. The major indexes, Nifty and Sensex, as well the sector indexes - auto, metals, banks and infra, remained in the red throughout the trading session today. The 1.15 % fall in the indexes follows a similar fall in all the major eastern markets," Dr. Joseph Thomas, Head Research, Emkay Wealth Management. "It may be added that Europe also has slipped into losses mainly on sluggish economic outlook. Absence of fresh triggers , and the dismal results from Tata Motors, in conjunction with other auto results sullied the sentiments quite a bit," he said. Here is a list of top 4 factors which might be weighing on D-Street: Weak Global Cues Global cues were not supporting from the word go. The SGX Nifty was down 20-30 points ahead of the market opening largely weighed down by concerns of a larger economic slowdown. Adding to the gloomy mood, US President Donald Trump said he did not plan to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping before a March 1 deadline to achieve a trade deal, said a Reuters report. Remember, US President has vowed to increase US tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports to 25 percent from 10 percent currently if the two sides cannot reach a deal by 12:01 a.m. (0501 GMT) on March 2. Most of the Asian markets closed in the red. Hong Kongs Hang Seng lost 0.25 percent and South Koreas KOSPI retreated 1.1 percent. Japans Nikkei tumbled about 2 percent. Largecaps led the fall: Tata Motors hit 10-year low Large-cap stocks led the fall on Sensex and Nifty. In terms of Sensex, Tata Motors fell 17 percent to hit a 10-year low but recovered later to end the day at 8-year high, followed by HDFC, L&T, Reliance Industries, ITC, and ICICI Bank. Tata Motors Q3 operating results were below estimates driven by lower than expected margins at JLR. Weaker sales in China, de-stocking and warranty expenses have dented margins, commentary from experts suggested. The management has given weak demand outlook across geographies - China, UK and USA for JLR and India for domestic business. Also, JLR has cut EBIT margin guidance from 4%-7% in FY 20-21 to 3%-6% in FY20-FY22 and stated that JLR free cash flow will continue to be negative in FY2020, said a Sharekhan report. Most experts advise investors to remain cautious on the stock given weak results and weak management commentary and advise investors to avoid the counter and not to bottom-fish in the stock. Reacting to the results, most brokerage firms reduced their earnings per share (EPS) estimate for Tata Motors and reduced their target price on the stock. CLSA, which retained sell rating on Tata Motors, has a target price of Rs 150 which translates into a downside of 17 percent from Thursdays close. Carnage in Small & Midcaps: The S&P BSE Midcap index closed 1.4 percent lower while the S&P BSE Smallcap index was down by 0.9 percent. More than 300 stocks on the BSE hit a fresh 52-week low which includes names like Tata Motors, Tata Motors (DVR), MRF, VST Tillers, Balkrishna Industries, IFB Industries and TTK Healthcare. Profit-taking at higher levels The Nifty50 corrected from an intraday high of 11,118 on Thursday. The index closed below 11000 levels suggesting weakness at higher levels. The Nifty index opened negative and witnessed sustain selling pressure till the end of session towards 10925 zones. It wiped out most of its gain of the week and formed a High Wave candle with the long upper shadow which indicates that selling pressure is intensifying at higher zones. It has negated its formation of higher lows of last seven trading sessions and witnessed profit booking after the consecutive gains of last six trading sessions. It formed a Doji candle followed by a Bearish candle on a daily scale which suggests a short term pause in positive momentum as it failed to hold its gains even after its consolidation breakout above 10,985 zones, Chandan Taparia, Associate Vice President, Analyst-Derivatives, Motilal Oswal Financial Services told Moneycontrol. Now, the index has to again cross and hold above 10,985 zones to witness an up move towards 11,080 zones while on the downside support exists at 10,880 then 10,820 levels, he said. The Nifty50 is likely to open lower on Friday tracking muted trend seen in other Asian markets. The index closed 6.95 points higher at 11,069 on Thursday. Trends on SGX Nifty indicate a negative opening for the broader index in India, a fall of 32.5 points or 0.29 percent. Nifty futures were trading around 11,062-level on the Singaporean Exchange. Wall Street stocks tanked on Thursday as worries that the United States and China would not be able to reach a trade deal increased concerns about slowing global economic growth, said a Reuters report. Asian stocks slipped on Friday as investors fretted about a broadening global economic slowdown, with sentiment not helped by the absence of any positive signs for a resolution in the US-China trade row, it said. As many as 240 companies will declare their results for the quarter ended December on Friday which include names like Allcargo Logistics, Avanti Feeds, BPCL, Cochin Shipyard, Inox Wind, Jaiprakash Associates, Dr Lala Pathlabs, M&M, Tata Steel, UCO Bank, VIP Industries and VST Tillers among others. Stocks in news: Aurobindo Pharma, India's second largest drug maker's net profit rose 19.7 percent to Rs 712.2 crore in the third quarter ended December on a year-on-year (YoY) basis, beating analyst estimates. Within hours of the RBI cutting its key rates by 25 bps, state-run Bank of Maharashtra, which is under the PCA framework, Thursday announced a 0.05 percent cut in its marginal cost of funds based lending rate. State Bank of India on Thursday said the Reserve Bank of India has slapped Rs 1 crore penalty on the country's largest lender for violating norms. Technical Recommendations: We spoke to IIFL and heres what they have to recommend: CEAT: Buy| Target: Rs 1233| Stop Loss: Rs 1080| Upside 9% Havells India Ltd: Buy| Target: Rs 800| Stop Loss: Rs 722| Upside 7% Manappuram Finance Ltd: Buy| Target: Rs 115| Stop Loss: Rs 98.5| Upside 11% Disclaimer: The views and investment tips expressed by investment expert on Moneycontrol.com are his own and not that of the website or its management. Moneycontrol.com advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions. The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) building is illuminated during a special "muhurat" trading session for Diwali, the festival of lights, in Mumbai, India, November 11, 2015. Stock markets opened on Wednesday for a special one-hour Diwali holiday session. REUTERS/Shailesh Andrade Ravindra Rao Crude palm-oil futures rebounded from December lows and gained around 10% in January. The commodity was a victim of supply glut in 2018 in the two largest supplying nations, Malaysia and Indonesia. Palm-oil inventories in Malaysia surged to a record in December 18, pushing the benchmark Malaysian palm-oil futures to a many-year low in the last quarter of 2018. The effect was seen in India, one of the largest importers of palm oil from Malaysia. For 2019, the scenario is exactly opposite. Palm-oil prices recovered as Malaysian exports rose while production declined due to seasonally lower yield. Accordingly, stockpiles have been declining from the record levels of December. A Bloomberg survey shows that Malaysian inventories in January may drop about 6% from the month prior to 3.03 million tonnes. Output is down about 10% to 1.63 million tonnes and exports probably up 13% from December to 1.56 million tonnes. Indonesia's palm-oil exports are likely to decline from this year as a vigorous bio-diesel program starts absorbing more local supplies. Lower supplies from Indonesia, the largest palm-oil-producing nation, would increase opportunities for Malaysia to export palm oil and reduce its record stockpiles further. Global vegetable oil demand may increase this year, particularly from China. Because of an outbreak in China's hog herds of African swine-fever, it is cutting soybean imports this year; hence, it would need to increase its vegetable-oil imports. Indian is one of the largest edible-oil-importing nations 70% of India's domestic consumption is comprised of imports. Thus, domestic CPO futures are mostly driven by developments in major supplying nations, Malaysia and Indonesia. This week and the next will be crucial as the USDA's monthly demand-supply report is scheduled for Friday while the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) will release its official January production, export and stock figures on February 11. Edible-oil markets would be volatile ahead of the data. Although the short- to medium-term trend is bullish, prices are due to drop in the immediate term. (The author is Head - Commodity Research & Advisory, Anand Rathi Commodities) The views and investment tips expressed by investment experts/broking houses/rating agencies on Moneycontrol are their own, and not that of the website or its management. Moneycontrol advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions. February 08, 2019 / 03:35 PM IST Market at Close Equity benchmarks witnessed intensified selloff in the last hour, which dragged the market to lower points. The Nifty gave up 11,000-mark, while the Sensex dropped over a percent. Across sectors, selling was visible, with maximum pain seen in automobiles, consumption, metals, and infra companies, among others. At the close of market hours, the Sensex was down 424.61 points or 1.15% at 36546.48, while the Nifty was down 125.80 points or 1.14% at 10943.60. The market breadth was negative as 950 shares advanced, against a decline of 1,552 shares, while 125 shares were unchanged. Kotak Mahindra Bank, Bharti Airtel, and Bharti Infratel were the top gainers, while Tata Motors, Vedanta, and Indiabulls Housing lost the most. Bears had a field day as benchmark indices witnessed a big plunge, especially in the last hour of trade. The Sensex cracked a little over 420 points, while the Nifty gave up the psychological 11,000-mark and ended below 10,950. Tepid global cues, selloff in big names such as Tata Motors and Vedanta dented sentiment. Weakness was visible among all sectors, with maximum pain seen in consumption, metals, and infra companies, among others. The day began on a lower note amid jitters in the global markets. Investors were reacting to news that US President Donald Trump was unlikely to meet Chinese Premier Xi Jinping before the March deadline. This could have raised concerns whether all was well between the nations as far as trade talks are concerned. Through the session, markets continued to be lower, but in a narrow range. However, selling in the last hour dragged the market furthermore, pushing them to close at low points. At the close of market hours, the Sensex was down 424.61 points or 1.15% at 36546.48, while the Nifty was down 125.80 points or 1.14% at 10943.60. The market breadth was negative as 950 shares advanced, against a decline of 1,552 shares, while 125 shares were unchanged. Kotak Mahindra Bank, Bharti Airtel, and Bharti Infratel were the top gainers, while Tata Motors, Vedanta, and Indiabulls Housing lost the most. Stocks in the News Tata Motors shares cracked over 18 percent as investors reacted to poor results by the company. Mahindra & Mahindra posted earnings that came below expectations. The stock was near 52-week low. Developments around related party transactions pressurized the stock of Raymond, but a clarification by the management later boosted the stock. Reliance Communications and other Anil Ambani Group stocks staged a recovery amid a blame by the company against L&T Finance and Edelweiss. Global Markets Stocks in Europe were around flat levels as trade war concerns re-emerged. Stoxx 600 was trading flat. Asia slipped on Friday amid growing concerns over the trade fight between the U.S. and China. Nikkei 225 declined 2.01 percent to close at 20,333.17. The Topix shed 1.89 percent to close at 1,539.40. live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More What a day for D-Street! A lot of volatility but towards the end benchmark indices closed around the same level where they opened which suggests traders preferred taking profits at higher levels. Last one hour of selling pushed the S&P BSE Sensex below 37000 while Nifty50 also closed below 11100 levels. The market turned volatile after the announcement of RBIs monetary policy as investors started booking profit from the recent rally. The Nifty rallied from 10581 levels recorded on Jan 29 towards 11000 levels this week which translates into an upside of nearly 5%. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), on expected lines, changed its stance to 'neutral' from 'calibrated tightening' on February 7 in its sixth bi-monthly monetary policy review meeting but what came as a surprise was the repo rate cut of 25 basis points (bps). The future commentary suggests that more cuts are in the offing that will be taken positively by traders and investors. Industries like real estate and NBFCs, which are facing severe margin pressures, will benefit from this decision. The rupee on Thursday appreciated by 11 paise to close at 71.45 against the US dollar after the Reserve Bank of India cut the repo rate and changed its policy stance to 'neutral'. On the institutional front, FPIs and DIIs were net buyers in India markets to the tune of Rs 418 crore, and Rs 294 crore respectively, provisional data showed. Big News: On the earnings front, as many as 240 companies will declare their results for the quarter ended December on Friday which include names like Allcargo Logistics, Avanti Feeds, BPCL, Cochin Shipyard, Inox Wind, Jaiprakash Associates, Dr Lala Pathlabs, M&M, Tata Steel, UCO Bank, VIP Industries, and VST Tillers etc. among others. M&M: PAT likely to grow by 3% YoY to Rs 1045 crore Tata Steel: PAT likely to fall by 9% YoY to Rs 2645 crore (All estimates are from Motilal Oswal) Technical View: Nifty formed a Doji pattern on charts Short-term traders are advised to book profits below 11043 kinds of levels whereas positional traders with multi-week time horizon can remain cautiously optimistic and look for a bigger target placed around 11350 with a stop below 10987 on a closing basis, suggest experts India VIX fell down by 1.25 percent at 15.43 levels. VIX needs to hold below 16 zones to extend its positive momentum with the hold above 10985 zones. Max Call OI: 11400, 11100 Max Put OI: 11000, 10700 Technical Recommendations: We spoke to IIFL and heres what they have to recommend: Ceat: Buy| Target: Rs 1233| Stop Loss: Rs 1080| Upside 9% Havells India: Buy| Target: Rs 800| Stop Loss: Rs 722| Upside 7% Manappuram Finance: Buy| Target: Rs 115| Stop Loss: Rs 98.5| Upside 11% : The views and investment tips expressed by investment expert on Moneycontrol.com are his own and not that of the website or its management. Moneycontrol.com advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions. Budget 2019_Piyush Goyal In his first post-Budget interaction with industry leaders, Finance Minister Piyush Goyal, on February 8, said that the Interim Budget was a culmination of the ideas from the last 5 years. "Prime Minister Narendra Modi wanted it to be a completely honest budget," he said. He said that every willing consumer will have an electricity connection by next month. Goyal also said that as of now, close to 98 percent households have toilets, compared to the one in three households being equipped with a toilet when the government first took over in 2014. He also said that only 12 crore of 25 crore families had access to an LPG connection. On the annual Rs 6000 allocation for farmers in the interim Budget, Goyal said, It's only right that the 14.5 crore small and marginal farmers get opportune support from portion of your taxes. He also added that the first installment of the allocations will be disbursed in this year, and will boost spending. Goyal had proposed the rolling out of the Pradhan Mantri Samman Nidhi scheme on February 1,which gives direct income support of Rs 6,000 per year to small and medium farmers who hold less than two hectares of land in the Interim Budget speech. Goyal said that close to 42 crore are engaged in the unorganized sector.Post retirement, I think it is incumbent we should have some honorarium to allow them to live their retirement with self-respect, he said. The Finance Minister first announced a Mega Pension Scheme for the unorganised sector in the Interim Budget speech on February 1. Workers in the sector will get Rs 3,000 per month after the age of 60 as part of the scheme. Rs 500 crore has been allocated for the scheme, with the money to be directly transferred to the bank accounts of the beneficiaries. The Finance Minister also acknowledged the support of the Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) banks for improving financial inclusion, and credited them for the opening of 36 crore Jan Dhan accounts. He also praised them for improving the availability of credit among the rural population. The Finance Minister said that the government is trying to get banks out of Prompt Corrective Action (PCA) framework, and that the government has taken steps to prevent wrongful investigation against innocent bankers. Goyal also said that prudent investment by the salaried class could help them save on taxes. If you avail a mediclaim policy for your family, invest in the right financial instruments of upto Rs 1.5 lakh, avail tax benefits on your education loan etc, one can save Rs 8.5 lakh to Rs 9 lakh on taxes. Flash Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Thursday that Moscow will take comprehensive measures to ensure its security if the United States leaves the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. "If the United States reconsiders its destructive line and returns to compliance with the INF Treaty, Russia is open to meaningful dialogue on the subject of the treaty and other issues of strategic stability," Ryabkov told a press conference. He said that on Feb. 2, the Russian Embassy in Washington received a note from the U.S. State Department with official notification about leaving treaty. In a response note on Feb. 4, the Russian Foreign Ministry said that Moscow would suspend its obligations under the treaty "for the period before the United States returns to strict compliance with the treaty or until its termination," Ryabkov said. He recalled that to save the INF Treaty, Russia has done its utmost to engage the United States in conversation and offering concrete initiatives to find a solution. However, all Russian efforts were ignored or blocked by the United States, the senior diplomat said. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced last week that the United States is withdrawing from the INF Treaty, citing Russia's violation of the deal, a claim that has been repeatedly denied by Moscow. Pompeo's announcement, made nearly 60 days after Washington threatened to quit the historic INF Treaty, will start a six-month countdown period, which will lead to a permanent exit from the pact inked in 1987 between the United States and the then-Soviet Union. The INF Treaty marked the first-ever pact reached by Washington and Moscow on nuclear disarmament and a major step forward in restricting the arms race. However, the two sides have accused each other of violating the arms control agreement in recent years amid increasing tensions. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, February 8) Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono will make an official visit to the country and is scheduled to meet with his Filipino counterpart and other Cabinet members, according to the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA). He will be in the country on February 9 to 11, the DFA said in a statement. Kono will meet with Foreign Affairs Secretary Teddyboy Locsin in Davao City on February 10 to hold bilateral discussions on areas of mutual interest, including political, economic, and people-to-people engagement. Japan is also expected to show support for infrastructure development in Mindanao after the ratification of the Bangsamoro Organic Law. He is also scheduled to "call on" President Duterte and meet with other Cabinet officials in Davao. He will also grace the inauguration ceremony of the Japanese Consulate General in Davao. Budget 2019 The Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) has sent a proposal to the finance ministry to be allowed to raise at least Rs 1,000 crore via market to finance waterways projects. We are going to the government separately to allow us to raise extra budgetary resources of Rs 1,000 crore, Pravir Pandey, vice chairman, IWAI told Moneycontrol. He said that the Authority has already moved the proposal and is hoping to receive the governments nod soon. IWAI was allocated Rs 757 crore during the interim budget of 2019-20, down from last years revised allocation of Rs 891.13 crore. According to sources, IWAI had sought a whooping Rs 1,884.13 crore from the government for its projects which are at various stages of implementation. The allocation, however, is only 40 percent of that amount. Grants to IWAI stand at Rs 450 crore in 2019-20 coupled with allocation towards its projects at Rs 307 crore. While the grants are marginally higher from Rs 384.95 crore, allocation towards the work has been reduced from Rs 497.54 crore in 2018-19 (revised estimate). While the funding for Jal Marg Vikas Project is not an issue as we are working in association with World Bank, so we are getting the funding But work on other waterways could be an issue, Pandey said. IWAI and World Bank are working together for the development of national waterways-1 from Varanasi to Haldia. Of the total $ 800 million, $ 375 million would be given by WB, $ 380 million will be provided by the Centre and the remaining $ 40 to 45 million will be routed through private sector. Officials said that projects under inland waterways will peak in two-three years, thus, while the Authority will manage project financing with the allocation this year, it will require more funds from next year onwards. Projects always have a bell curve... So initially, projects have studies, detailed project reports (DPRs) are being readied, where there is no significant cost as such. The cost begin to peak in second-third year of implementation when we are at the completion stage. And then again, it begins to fall when we wrap it up...," an official from IWAI said adding, "Now, because we will touch peak of the curve by next year (FY21), we will be able to manage with this year's allocation". He said that IWAI will need huge sums of money by 2020-21 owing to various works being undertaken across National Waterways 2, 4 and 16. NW 2 and 16 are in the north-eastern state of Assam. While NW2 is from Dhubri to Sadiya across Brahmaputra, NW 16 is across Barak river. Their length is 891 km and 121 km respectively. NW4 is spanned across three states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. The length is 1,095 km. Work across all three waterways in underway. While certain sections are operational, complete stretches could be operational in a year or so, officials believe. Moneycontrol Contributor "Unlike in the past, it is proposed to ensure that these enterprises transfer as dividend or surplus profits, a reasonable part of their post-tax profits instead of determining the dividend payable merely on the basis of the capital investment. The Reserve Bank of India will also be transferring a larger share of its profits. Those following the current economic debates would think that this has been said either by the current Finance Minister or someone in the bureaucracy at the ministry. However, this was actually said by Manmohan Singh in his Budget speech in 1992-93. Therefore, the government asking for higher dividends from RBI (and public sector firms) is not new. The government being the major shareholder in these organisations is within its rights to demand maximum/higher dividends. Lets start from the beginning. At the time of inception, RBI started with a capital and reserve fund of Rs 5 crore each. It started as a shareholders bank. Thus, having a reserve fund was seen important for stability just like in case of other banks. Moreover, RBI insisted that commercial banks should transfer a part of their profits so that reserves are equal to paid-up capital. By equating the two at its end, RBI did set up an example for other banks to follow. It is interesting to note that RBIs capital has remained unchanged at Rs 5 crore, but its reserves have changed significantly over the years. RBI has also created new reserves for different purposes over time. For instance, the reserve fund today stands at Rs 6,500 crore and it has remained unchanged at least since 1999, shows the available annual reports on the RBI website. RBI should also put out historical annual reports, which will help people understand as to how the reserve fund grew with time. In 1955, the rural credit survey recommended that RBI should establish two funds: National Agricultural Credit (Long-term Operations) Fund and a National Agricultural Credit (Stabilization) Fund. The operations fund was intended to finance long-term lending to state governments and enable them to subscribe, directly or indirectly, to the share capital of all types of cooperative credit institutions. The stabilization fund was intended mainly as a source of medium-term finance for cooperatives and help them convert short-term loans, which had gone into default due to factors like a drought. Accordingly, both these funds were established in the same year and played a key role in the financing of the agriculture sector. Apart from an initial non-recurring contribution of Rs 5 crores, the bank was to contribute at least Rs 5 crores to the former fund and Rs 1 crore to the latter fund annually from its profits. In 1982, both these funds were transferred to National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD). The National Agricultural Credit (Long-term Operations) Fund was renamed to National Rural Credit (Long-Term Operations) Fund, signalling a broader application of funds. However, RBI continued to deploy a part of its profits towards the two reserves. The Act was modified and the central bank was mandated to contribute each year such sums of money it may consider necessary and feasible to do so, to the National Rural Credit (Long Term Operations) Fund and the National Rural Credit (Stabilization) Fund maintained by the NABARD. Later, the reserve was developed to support the industrial sector. National Industrial Credit (Long Term Operations) Fund, which was established in 1964, along with the founding of the IDBI in the same year. RBI began to transfer money from its profits to the fund. This fund was utilized to finance the Industrial Development Bank of Indias (IDBI's) subscription to shares, bonds, and debentures of the Industrial Finance Corporation of India (IFCI), state financial corporations, and other financial institutions, notified by the central government such as Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India (ICICI). The next RBIs reserve was the National Housing Credit (Long Term Operations) Fund, which was incorporated in the RBI Act (1934) under Section 46D 1934 in 1987. This fund was created to support the National Housing Bank (NHB). Its purpose was to provide loans and advances and purchasing bonds and debentures issued by the NHB. The above four funds/ reserves were created prior to the beginning of economic reforms in 1991. Before 1991, RBI played a critical role in the development and financing of financial institutions such as IDBI, NABARD, and NHB. But this started to change post-1991 when markets were expected to play a larger role in the financing of these institutions. However, as these funds were created under the RBI Act, the central bank had no choice but to transfer a part of its profit towards these funds. Accordingly, it was decided that a token amount of Rs 1 crore would be provided to the four funds from RBI's profits. This practice continues till date. After these legislated funds, let us turn to unlegislated reserves in RBI balance sheet. The first one here is the contingency reserve. The exact date of the formation of this reserve is not known. However, it was formed to absorb unexpected and unforeseen contingencies. Post-reforms, the unutilised balances in the industrial long-term fund, arising from repayments were also transferred to the contingency reserve. By 1997-98, Rs 400 crore was transferred from industrial fund to the contingency reserve. An internal RBI committee, headed by V Subrahmanyam, recommended that the RBI should pursue a pro-active policy of strengthening the contingency reserve and accordingly set an indicative target of 12 percent of the size of the bank's assets to be achieved in phases by the year 2005, subject to review if considered essential. Of the 12 percent, 5 percent were to be kept for losses from operations in government securities and foreign exchange markets, 5 percent for shocks to gold and foreign exchange rates and 2 percent for systemic risks and development activity. This also led to setting another targeted reserve in 1997-98, named Asset Development Reserve (ADR). It was set up to meet the internal capital expenditure and make investments in its subsidiaries associate institutions. The target for ADR was a percent of total assets by 2005. The chart below shows that contingency reserve never really touched the 12 percent target and after reaching 10.8 percent in 2010 has declined to 6.4 percent by 2018. ADR reached 1.1 percent of assets in the 2002-04 period and hovered around 0.9 percent levels till 2013 before declining to 0.6 percent by 2018. Later, the Malegam Committee in 2013 said that the balances in the contingency reserve and ADR are in excess of the buffers needed and there was no need to make any further transfers. These two reserves were created to account for gains/losses on the valuation of foreign currency assets and gold. RBI is a conservative institution and books changes on these assets not towards its Profit & Loss statement but against these reserves. The first one here is the Exchange Fluctuation Reserve, which books gains/losses on valuation of foreign currency assets and gold. This was later renamed as Currency and Gold Revaluation Account (CGRA) in 2001-02. The second one is Exchange Equalisation Account, which is utilised to meet exchange losses on an accrual basis with respect of liabilities under schemes involving exchange guarantees provided by RBI. This was renamed as Foreign Exchange Forward Contracts Valuation Account (FCVA) in 2013-14. RBI also created a Provision for Forward Contracts Valuation Account (PFCVA) where contra entries to FCVA are booked. Two more reserves were opened to account gains/losses on foreign and domestic securities. They were named as Investment Revaluation Account (IRA) Foreign Securities, which was formed in 2009-10, and IRA-Rupee Securities formed in 2015-16. Within these five reserves, it is the share of CGRA which has risen steadily to touch 19 percent of RBIs assets. The share peaked in 2011-12 at 23 percent. The other four reserves are insignificant. affordable housing The government has decided to award the best-performing states and Union territories under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban) for implementation and innovation. It comes at a time when around 15 lakh houses have been constructed so far against the target of about one crore houses under the PMAY (U) between 2015 and 2022. In a statement, the Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry said that the awards are aimed at enthusing states and Union Territories (UTs) to perform better and make the dream of house for millions a reality within the decided period. According to the ministry, few special category awards to give recognition to states and UTs for innovative technology in construction, community mobilisation, slum redevelopment, policy initiatives, project monitoring among others have also been instituted. In the statement, the ministry, which is mandated to implement the PMAY (U), stated one of the major factors influencing the rank of state and UTs for the evaluation of PMAY(U) awards is their monthly incremental progress on vital parameters which will be given more weightage for the period of January to May 2019. It stated that this provision has also been specially incorporated for giving a window of opportunity to slow progressing states and UTs for becoming good performers, giving them better chances of the award. "The ranking of states and UTs will be made public every month to create competitive environment among stakeholders," the statement read. The winners will be awarded in a special national event which will be held in New Delhi tentatively in the month of June, the ministry said. According to the statement, the PMAY (U) mission has achieved a significant milestone of approving 73 lakh houses against a demand of about 1 crore in urban areas. Out of these, around 39 lakh houses are at various stages of construction and around 15 lakh houses have already been completed, it added. The Income Tax (I-T) Department is holding back tax refunds of many private and public sector enterprises, likely equaling to 5-10 percent of total tax collection in 2017-18, sources in the department told Moneycontrol. The delay in some cases extends up to four years. Direct tax collection in 2017-18 was Rs 9.95 lakh crore, exceeding the revised budgeted target of Rs 9.8 lakh crore. The I-T Department is likely to be holding the refunds to exhibit a high tax collection figure. An additional commissioner in the department told Moneycontrol, "We have not received any formal communication from Central Board of Direct Taxes to delay tax refund to corporates. However, we are also not giving approval for any major tax refund to corporates." Speaking about the volume of the pending refunds, the source said, "About Rs 1 lakh crore of tax refund is stuck at this point of time across the country, which is almost 10 percent of tax collection. In my circle alone, thousands of crore of tax refund is pending. In some companies, the tax refund is pending for the last 3-4 years." Another officer at Aaykar Bhavan in Delhi told Moneycontrol, The delay is creating pressure on us and we have shared this concern in one of the meetings of the unions of Indian Revenue Services, Mumbai, in October." Withholding the refund can be expensive for the government. As per the Income Tax Act, we have to pay an interest on delayed tax refund at the rate of six percent after 90 days in the case of an appeal. However, the department has held back the refund to show a good number in tax collections, another source said. Aarti Sathe, an Independent Counsel who deals in income tax cases told Moneycontrol The department has shown a very lackadaisical attitude towards issuing refunds. In most cases, it amounts to denying the assessee the money which rightfully belongs to them. The Dept is bound to refund delayed money with interest as per section 244A of the act. With the present amendments of digitising filing returns and refunds without human interface, hopefully, this problem will be resolved." Revenue from direct tax grew 13.6 percent to Rs 7.43 lakh crore in the first nine months of the current financial year 2018-19 (April-March. The tax receipt figures indicate net direct tax collection, which is arrived after adjusting refunds. Following is the response of the CBDT to a query sent by Moneycontrol: "It is stated that the Department has been focusing on issuing refunds expeditiously. It is pertinent to state that during F.Y. 2018-19, over 2.57 crore refunds have been issued as against 1.75 crore refunds during the corresponding period of F.Y. 2017-18, marking, not only an increase of 47% but also representing more than 94% of all refund claims." "In fact, the total amount of refunds issued during F.Y. 2018-19 stands at Rs.1.42 lakh crore as compared to refunds of Rs. 1.26 lakh crore issued in the corresponding period of the immediately preceding year. This translates into an increase of 12.5% over the preceding year. The balance refund claims pertain to such cases as were either selected under scrutiny or awaiting response from taxpayers on defective returns or are under processing as the income tax returns claiming such refunds have been filed only in the past few months." Mumbai: Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis speaks at the Indian Economic Conclave 2018, in Mumbai, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. (PTI Photo) (PTI12_12_2018_000147B) The Maharashtra government will soon invite tenders for a Rs 2,000-crore contract to select an insurance company to manage the state-sponsored universal health insurance scheme called Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Jan Arogya Yojana (MJPJAY). This is the largest such tender in the country. MJPAY is a mixed model. The state government identifies beneficiaries, decides on coverage, package rates, empanels hospitals and then calls for tenders to select insurance company to run the scheme. The government funds the scheme, and the insurer who quotes the lowest premium is awarded the contract. Currently, National Insurance Company is providing insurance for MJPJAY at Rs 690 per family. "It's largest contract in health insurance awarded by a state; in a few days we will come out with the tender," said Sudhakar Shinde, CEO of MJPJAY. Shinde said since inception, the state government has spent around Rs 5,000 crore on premiums and 52 lakh people benefited. Launched in 2012 as Rajiv Gandhi Jeevandayee Arogya Yojana (RGJAY), the scheme was renamed in April 2017 to Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Jan Arogya Yojana (MJPJAY). The scheme provides medical coverage of up to Rs 150,000 per family per year on cashless basis. Around 2.25 crore families or 90 percent of Maharashtra population with orange and yellow ration cards are eligible for the scheme that covers around 971 medical procedures. Shinde said he is happy with National Insurance Company in terms of settling claims, but the volumes are expected to grow as they expand procedures, empanel more hospitals and more people become aware of the scheme. Most states including Maharashtra are integrating Ayushman Bharat with their state-level schemes for common beneficiaries, while for beneficiaries outside the purview of Ayushman Bharat, the states are continuing to extend their existing schemes. National Insurance Company earlier this year got the Ayushman Bharat account of Maharashtra, for a premium of Rs 640 per family per year. Ayushman Bharat covers around 83 lakh families or 37 percent of families currently covered by Maharashtra government under MJPJAY. Sources told Moneycontrol that Maharashtra may see both public sector as well as private companies taking part in the tender. "The claims experience has been benign with no major losses. Loss ratios are said in the range of 100-105 percent which is much better than the other health insurance schemes. This means that for every Rs 100 collected as premium, Rs 100-105 is paid out as claims," said a senior official. tata motors There is a saying among market veterans that Tata group firms are sound companies to lend to, but not to buy shares in. After Fridays 20 percent drop in Tata Motor shares, said market veterans must be smiling smugly. The stock was battered by as much as 22.4 percent in early trade before recovering a bit. Analysts are falling over themselves to downgrade the stock or cut target prices after its record loss in the December quarter. There can be no two views that medium term prospects for Tata Motors are as bleak as a picnic in the Gobi desert. The firm is facing a perfect storm. Chinese sales have fallen off the cliff, its bet on diesel has gone wrong, it has to accelerate investments to get its product and technology mix right, all this while keeping costs from spiralling. Rating agency warnings and unhappy bond holders means that debt costs are rising; the yield on Jaguars 4.5 percent bond maturing in 2027 is close to 9 percent. Tata Motors hopes that taking an impairment of 3.1 billion pounds at JLR in the December quarter will help cut costs. It will save 300 million pounds in amortisation and depreciation costs. But that may not be enough. The company itself has indicated that free cash flow will be negative for at least five quarters. Thats not surprising given its 12 billion pound capex programme over three years. JLR wont do much to improve cashflows. Indeed, its management has cut its EBIT margin guidance to 3-6 percent from fiscal years 2020-2022 compared to 4-7 percent earlier. A big part of the disappointment is owing to the slowdown in China. In the December quarter, retail sales fell 47 percent in China. In January 2019, they declined almost 40 percent. To be fair to JLR and Tata Motors, the China market has been tough. Auto sales fell for the first time in two decades in 2018. So, JLR has not been alone. Apple Inc said earlier this month that it would miss its sales target for the December quarter by at least $5 billion. According to the Nikkei Asian Review, nine-month net profits for Japanese companies with heavy exposure to China fell 8 percent year-on-year compared to a 2.9 percent drop for all Japanese listed firms. A second factor of course is that globally most automakers are having a tough time. There is a technological disruption in the industry electric vehicles, hybrid vehicles, self-driving cars etc that is prompting huge investments and reduced profit forecasts. Having said that, JLRs problems are bigger. Some, like for example, Brexit, where a bad deal for Britain leaving Europe could cause a billion-pound dent in JLRs profit statement, or US President Trumps constant tariff threats, are fait accompli. Others are of JLRs own making. That includes its excess capacity and even its China strategy of pushing sales at high discounts, or the diesel bet in Europe. The excess capacity and aggressive investments in future technologies has led to an unsustainable cost structure. The Project Charge programme to reduce 2.5 billion pounds in costs is just the first step. But a big question remains as to how much returns will its investments bring? Remember, the 3.1-billion pound writedown also included research and development investments. The immediate focus of the management should be on how to up the ante in China, the worlds largest market. The current turnaround action plan of cutting dealer stock and inventory, and giving additional support to dealers doesnt inspire much confidence. Piyush Goyal, Minister of Railways Finance Minister Piyush Goyal on February 8 said the government may provide more funds for the world's biggest health care scheme -- Ayushman Bharat -- next year. In the last four months of the its launch, the scheme has already benefited over 10 lakh people, he said while speaking at the sixth Global Fund Replenishment organised by Ministry of Health here. "The government has already provided half a billion dollar funding for the programme. We expect to provide much more funds in the next year," he said. The interim Budget presented last week has raised the allocation for Ayushman Bharat scheme to Rs 6,400 crore for 2019-2020. "Unless we create a distress free health care system for 1.3 billion people in India, unless we look at health in a very holistic fashion right from preventive health care...we will not be able to take people out of distress that health care can cause particularly to lesser privileged," he said. Improvement of infrastructure of health care also opens up huge opportunities for companies around the world to participate in effort to expand the health care system, he said. The scheme aims to provide free health care to 50 crore people encompassing different dimension of family health care needs. Referring to energy access to every household, the Finance Minister said, electricity will reach to every home by April of this year, a decade ahead of sustainable development goal. China's oldest manuscript of the Koran has attracted thousands of visitors since it went on display at a scenic site in northwest China's Qinghai Province last month. The one-month exhibition of the valuable work -- which dates back to around 1,000 years ago -- started on Jan. 23 at the tourist service center of the Camel Spring scenic area in the Salar Autonomous County of Xunhua. It is part of the county's cultural and tourism events. The 867-page sacred book in 30 volumes has been stored at the Jiezi mosque in the county. It underwent restoration by domestic experts in 2007. "This time, I took my relatives with me to the exhibit. It is a treasure of our ethnic group and country," said Han Guolong, a local villager of ethnic Salar minority group. "Seeing the manuscript, I feel deeply impressed." Every day, the exhibit attracts about 6,000 visitors, who mainly come from Xining, the provincial capital of Qinghai and Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture in neighboring Gansu Province. Camel Spring is named after the white camel which, according to legend, carried the Koran copy for the ancestors of the Salar group who left their homeland in central Asia and settled in Xunhua in the 13th century. China is still an export hub for Volvo Cars, Hakan Samuelsson, the company's president and chief executive, has said. "Currently, the majority of cars sold in China were built in China, it's a very good degree of localization," Samuelsson told Xinhua on Thursday. "But China is also used as Volvo Cars' export hub. Due to U.S. imposed tariffs, we had to redistribute." To avoid cost hikes due to tariffs, "cars produced in China now do not export to the U.S., but still export to third countries not affected by the tariffs," he said. On Thursday, Volvo Cars released its annual report of 2018, boasting a fifth straight year of record sales. Volvo Cars reported an operating profit of some 1.53 billion U.S. dollars in 2018, a yearly increase of 0.9 percent. Net revenues increased by 21 percent to 27.4 billion dollars, thanks to the company's best ever annual sales of 642,253 cars, up by 12.4 percent from 2017. The operating profit margin for the full year was 5.6 percent, down from 6.7 percent a year ago. "This result is in line with our expectations, but does not totally live up to our longer-term ambitions. Revenue growth and sales in 2018 were healthy, but profitability was affected by external factors such as tariffs and increasing price competition in several markets," said Samuelsson at a press conference. "For 2019, we see another year of volume growth as we continue to benefit from our strong product program and increased capacity," he added. "But we have to be realistic and acknowledge that margins will remain under continued pressure." "Looking ahead, I like to be optimistic, we will see where the dispute of tariffs lands," said Samuelsson. "I am sure that China will be an industrial hub for Volvo Cars, and that's really good for China," he said, "China's car industry needs to be ... able to export and compete with others, so I am very glad that Volvo Cars are a forerunner in that respect." Volvo Cars, acquired by Chinese automaker Geely in 2010, employs 38,000 people globally. A man who was reported to be disturbed, and who appeared to be making threatening comments to either himself or his fellow passengers, was removed from the train and taken into custody by Winnetka police around 7:30 a.m., Metra spokeswoman Meg Reile said. The generosity and compassion has been unbelievable and overwhelming, Haraf said by email. It's truly humbling to know just how much the community cares for and appreciates the crew and their families. It means so much to the crew, and reinforces the mutual partnership between Coast Guard Station Wilmette Harbor and the communities we are so proud to represent and serve. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has slammed Washingtons belligerent rhetoric against his country in an open letter addressed to the American people. Maduro published an image of the letter on his official Twitter account, saying it would be delivered to the White House to demand respect for Venezuelas inalienable right to Peace. In the letter, Maduro denounces US President Donald Trumps aggressive statements against him which include branding Maduro an illegitimate dictator and hinting at a military intervention. They want to invade and intervene in Venezuela they say, as they said then in the name of democracy and freedom. But it's not like that. The story about the usurpation of power in Venezuela is as false as the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Maduro accuses Trump of disrupting noble dialogue initiatives, which are promoted by Uruguay and Mexico and backed by the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and aim to "a peaceful solution and dialogue favorable for Venezuela." Venezuelans are willing to continue being business partners with the US, while politicians in Washington are ready to send their countrys sons and daughters to die in an absurd war, Maduro writes. The Venezuelan president demands that the US stops its aggression against Venezuela, including both attempts to suffocate our economy and the serious and dangerous threats of military intervention. He signed off with the phrase Long live the people of America! The Trump administration has been leading the call for the overthrow of Maduro, recognizing opposition leader Juan Guaido as the countrys legitimate leader. It was joined by a number of European nations. Several other countries including Russia, China and Turkey are standing behind Maduro as the legitimately elected president and denouncing Washingtons actions as attempts to foment a coup. to RT newsletter to get stories the mainstream media wont tell you. The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) has decided to conditionally reinstate the Russian Paralympic Committee (RPC), ending a near three-year suspension over alleged doping violations. The decision was made Friday at an IPC Governing Board meeting in Bonn, Germany. IPC President Andrew Parsons stressed that the ban will be fully lifted by March 15 if Russia meets certain conditions outlined by the Paralympic governing body. READ MORE: WADA upholds reinstatement of Russian Anti-Doping Agency The IPC Taskforce which was appointed to assess Russias progress said that 69 of the 70 reinstatement requirements had been successfully met, except for publicly addressing the findings of the McLaren Report. Despite Russias refusal to accept the McLaren Report which alleges state-sponsored doping the IPC decided to reinstate Russias membership, emphasizing that they need to move things forward and find a solution that protects the integrity of Para sport. In August 2016 the IPC suspended the RPC because it was necessary and proportionate to the situation we faced and essential to ensure clean sport, Parsons said. Twenty-nine months later it is the IPC Governing Boards firm belief that keeping the RPC suspended is no longer necessary and proportionate to the situation we now face in Russia. During its suspension, the RPC has implemented 69 measures which provide the IPC with confidence that it is now a very different organization to the one that it was prior to Rio 2016. READ MORE: Its about honor & dignity: Russian athletes file $4.5mn lawsuit against McLaren Russian Para athletes are amongst, and will continue to be, the most tested athletes in the Paralympic Movement. Under the supervision of WADA, RUSADA has effectively been rebuilt from the ground up, is back testing and is conditionally reinstated by the global body responsible for it, Parsons added. The RPCs restoration will now allow Russian athletes to take part in the Olympic Games under their national flag, after they were banned from the 2016 Summer Games in Rio and required to compete as neutrals at the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Games. Also on rt.com We failed to prevent it: Russian President Vladimir Putin on doping scandal The IPC president also noted that Russian para athletes will still be among the most tested, adding that the body may reconsider the RPCs status if any of the criteria are not met. I personally have no interest in Donald Trump tax returns. He's a billionaire and make lots of money I accept that. But our Congress is totally focused on that point while Americans are dying at the hands of illegals because we have no border wall. Congress drags their feet on that issue. Why cannot they compromise? Congress gives funds for a border wall and Trump releases his tax returns. Everybody wins except the criminals blocked by the wall. The curvy, sexy women of Uganda are set to be promoted as an attraction for visitors to the African nation. But the tourism minister who came up with the idea is now facing calls to resign from local feminists. Uganda already boasts stunning scenery, national parks, and a wide variety of wildlife. But Minister for Tourism Godfrey Kiwanda announced a new initiative to get more people to visit the country the Miss Curvy Uganda beauty pageant. He hopes it will help increase the influx of visitors and tourist dollars. Flanked by a small army of curvaceous women around the swimming pool of a Kampala hotel for the pageants launch, Minister Kiwanda told the Daily Monitor: We have naturally endowed, nice-looking women that are amazing to look at. Why dont we use these people as a strategy to promote our tourism industry? Due to take place in June, the pageants organizer, Ann Mungoma, said it will bring out the endowment of the real African woman, showcasing both their beautiful curves and intellect. Not everyone agrees, however. Ugandas feminists have struck back at the event, saying it demeans and objectifies women. They have called on Minister Kiwanda to step down. Also on rt.com Dont have oral sex, your mouths for eating: Ugandan president warns citizens The two hosts of popular Ugandan morning radio show Gaetano & Lucky In The Morning locked horns in a vigorous debate over the pageant, with the female host Lucky slamming it as a lazy way of thinking, and wondering whether her co-host Gaetano would be willing to sell his sister this way. He tried to parry the question by saying the event actually promotes diverse beauty (which is also the line taken by the pageants organizer) and noting that many other countries already have similar events. Meanwhile, a petition has been set up to have the event shut down and for Kiwanda to issue a public apology to the nations women. In a country where women are grabbed by men while walking on the streets and now they have legalized it by making them tourist attractions is not fair, wrote the petitions author, Primrose Murungi. They are objectifying us and reducing women to nothing. Meanwhile, Kenyan TV star Grace Msalame is taking legal action against the Miss Curvy Uganda organizers, as she says her image was used to promote the event without her knowledge. I take great exception to the fact that my image and likeness are being used to propagate, disseminate and encourage the objectification of womens bodies. I do not endorse or agree with such a message, she said. Like this story? Share it with a friend! Brazilian prosecutors have doubled former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silvas jail sentence following his second corruption and money laundering case. His supporters took to the streets in protest across Brazil Thursday. Lula, 73, who led Brazil between 2003 and 2010, was convicted on corruption charges in 2017 and sentenced to 10 years in prison. He later had the conviction upheld in January 2018 for which he is currently serving a punitively extended 12-year sentence. Now, an additional 12 years and 11 months have been added to his sentence following this latest conviction. There have been protests in support of and against Lula across Brazil since the corruption scandal broke. Supporters took to the streets again after his jail sentence was doubled on Wednesday. Since the beginning of the initial case against him, Lula and his legal team have claimed it was an opposition tactic to prevent him from running against the now-President Jair Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro tweeted news of the second conviction without comment. Da Silva, a two-time president who left office in 2011 with a record-high approval rating, was leading in the polls last year to win another term even after he went to jail. But less than a month before the vote, electoral authorities barred him from running because of the corruption conviction. The case stems from extensive renovations on a beach front property carried out by construction group OAS. Lula denied the house belonged to him, claiming instead that his friend Fernando Bitter was the owner. The accused received these unjustified benefits because of his position as president of the republic, of whom exemplary behaviour is demanded, said Judge Gabriela Hardt. Judge Hardt took control of a sprawling corruption investigation, known as Operation Car Wash, which has shaken Brazilian political, financial and judicial institutions to their core. Hardt took over from Sergio Moro who was appointed as Bolsonaros minister for justice. The US Department of Justice has dubbed Car Wash the largest foreign bribery case in history. Also on rt.com Former Brazil president Lula da Silva loses appeal against 12yr corruption sentence Meanwhile, the leader of Lulas left-wing Workers Party (PT) Gleisi Hoffmann tweetedthe persecution of Lula continues, in reaction to the latest decision. READ MORE: Bolsonaro gives top justice role to judge who jailed his rival Lula, sparking outrage In Brazil, those convicted can be released on probation after a minimum of a third of their sentence has been served, meaning now that Lula will not be allowed to leave prison for eight years rather than four. He was not allowed leave to attend his brothers funeral which took place last week. Bolsonaro previously said he hopes Lula rots in prison. Think your friends would be interested? Share this story! Norways govt proposes legislation to secure rights of citizens in case of no-deal Brexit Norways govt proposes legislation to secure rights of citizens in case of no-deal Brexit Norway proposed legislation on Friday to secure the rights of Norwegians living in Britain and of Britons living in Norway in case of a no-deal Brexit, the Justice Ministry in Oslo said. While Britain and EU-outsider Norway agreed last year to apply the principles of a Brexit agreement in their bilateral relationship, the new legislation would also cover a no-deal scenario. We hope Britain will have an orderly exit from the EU. We must however be prepared for Britain choosing to leave the EU without a deal, said Justice Minister Tor Mikkel Wara. If approved, the legislation would delegate power from the non-EU nations parliament to the government, allowing it to protect citizens rights, Reuters said.Source : RT - Daily news Moscow continues dialogue with Netherlands on MH17, says Russian data should be considered Moscow continues dialogue with Netherlands on MH17, says Russian data should be considered Dialogue between Russia and the Netherlands about the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 in Ukraines airspace in July 2014 has not been broken off, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Aleksandr Grushko said on Friday. Moscow is ready for the conversation, he said, adding that Russia insists that the dialogue should take into account the information that it had passed to the investigators earlier, RIA Novosti quoted the diplomat as saying. Such issues as Ukraines refusal to release primary data and Kievs responsibility for failing to close its airspace should also be considered, he said. The Kremlin has no information on any negotiations with the Netherlands on the crash of MH17 in Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted by TASS as saying on Friday. RTL channel reported on Thursday, citing the Dutch Foreign Ministry, that the Netherlands expects to start negotiations with Russia on the MH17 crash as soon as possible.Source : RT - Daily news Three Belgium trade unions have called for a country-wide general strike next Wednesday over wage disputes, with authorities warning travelers to expect massive delays by plane, train and bus. The Christian, socialist and liberal unions planned work-stoppage is expected to seriously disrupt travel across the country, with 150 of the day's 222 scheduled flights having already been canceled, affecting 11,288 passengers. Long delays and cancellations at the airport are likely to dramatically increase vehicle-traffic which could bring motorways across the country to a crawl. On top of that, demonstrations planned for Brussels city center will drastically increase travel times in the capital. British Airways, Air France, Lufthansa, and Swiss International Airline flights in and out of the UK may also be affected by the strike. The Airlines are warning passengers to leave home extra early for flights, only bring carry-on luggage and, if possible, cancel travel plans altogether. Nearly a year after the Salisbury incident, the number of Russian suspects implicated in the alleged Novichok poisoning by UK authorities is suddenly growing exponentially, with two others now being investigated by the police. Citing senior security sources the Daily Mail reported Friday that the two suspects posed as Russian tourists to obtain a UK visa in March 2018, and are thought to have successfully returned back to their homeland. According to the report, the two are alleged to have played a much smaller role and did not travel with primary poisoners Aleksandr Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov to the cathedral city, which Russian defector Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia had made their home. Also on rt.com To be continued? 3rd suspect in Skripal poisoning saga may have stayed in UK, report claims While the information appears to have been leaked to the tabloid, government officials were expected to be briefed on the new suspects involvement within weeks. The report comes days after the Telegraph published a story claiming that a Russian agent with a passport in the name of Sergey Fedotov aborted his plan to leave the UK on the same day as the Skripals fell ill, and on the same flight as the first two named suspects. It is not clear why Fedotov did not board the flight. But at the last minute he checked himself and his bags off it, a source alleged to The Telegraph. He could still have been running around Britain. Citizen journalists Bellingcat have claimed that Fedotovs passport had a near-identical number to those of Petrov and Boshirov, and that he likely flew back to Moscow from another European capital. Russian news outlet Fontanka has alleged that Fedotov, whose supposed role was first publicized in October last year, had previously been in the Czech Republic at the same time as Sergei Skripal in 2014, and was also implicated in the unsolved poisoning of a Bulgarian businessman in Sofia the following year. Also on rt.com Our men in Salisbury: Petrov & Boshirov's European adventures turned into board game in Russia None of the latest allegations have been backed up with prima facie evidence, and Petrov and Boshirov remain the only men charged by UK prosecutors over the events of last March. The Russian embassy in London has condemned the UK for trying to keep the story alive with a series of staggered leaks, each citing unnamed sources. This allows London to regularly remind its citizens about Russias use of chemical weapons without presenting any evidence, and to distract them from Brexit, it said in a statement, demanding greater transparency over the investigation, and consular access to the Skripals, both of whom remain Russian citizens. Paris has settled on a compromise with Berlin, allowing Germany to remain the key negotiator with Russia on the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Europe. The agreement follows the announcement by the French Foreign Ministry on Thursday that it would support the EUs oversight of new offshore energy pipelines. The move could have derailed the undersea pipeline plans between Russia and Germany. According to a copy of a draft obtained by AFP, the two EU countries agreed on Friday to ensure oversight will come from the territory and territorial sea of the member state where the first interconnection point is located. The draft text replaced the older wording stating the EU rules on gas imports will be applied by the territory of the member states and/or the territorial sea of the member states. Also on rt.com Is France trying to derail Germanys key energy plan for Russian gas pipeline? Diplomats said the draft compromise was submitted to a meeting of EU ambassadors discussing a revision of gas market rules for the 28-nation bloc. The draft compromise reportedly addressed the concerns, saying: We consider a (gas rules) directive in this spirit indispensable for a fruitful discussion on the future gas transit through Ukraine. A French diplomatic source told AFP that Paris was not for or against Nord Stream 2. He added, however, that it sought guarantees for the security of Europe and for the security and stability of Ukraine. Also on rt.com US threatens sanctions against Nord Stream 2 contractors as construction goes at full drive The $11 billion Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project is set to run from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea. It is expected to double the existing pipelines capacity of 55 billion cubic meters annually. The EU bloc is divided over the project. Eastern European, Nordic and Baltic Sea countries oppose the pipeline, while those in northern Europe, especially Germany, prioritize the economic benefits. For France, which relies more on nuclear energy than natural gas, the Nord Stream 2 project is not as critical as it is for Germany. Germany has long been one of the main supporters of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline and resisted attempts to change the EU rules. Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has long been a proponent of the pipeline, responded to the Nord Stream 2 criticism on Friday. Do we become dependent on Russia because of this second gas pipeline? I say no, if we diversify. Germany will expand its gas terminals with liquefied gas, she said at the Visegrad Summit in Jerusalem. She reminded that Russia was already a source of gas in the Cold War and will remain one, but it would not be one-sided dependency. The current EU regulations do not apply to pipelines like Nord Stream 2 but if the amendments were adopted, Brussels would gain leverage over the project. For more stories on economy & finance visit RT's business section Canada, like several other countries, is considering banning tech giant Huawei amid fears that future 5G networks could be used for spying by Chinese intelligence. But according to RT's Boom Bust, the decision is not clear cut for Canada. The US and its allies have already shunned Huawei and is pressuring Canada to do the same for security reasons. At the same time, China is Canada's second largest trading partner after the United States and Beijing has threatened retaliation if the Chinese tech giant is banned. So Canada is trying to keep both the United States and China happy, RT correspondent Alex Mikhailovich tells the host of the program, Bart Chilton. RT's Boom Bust also covers the downward revision for EU growth, the diplomatic rift between Italy and France, a Honduran CEO facing murder charges in an activist's killing, and many other topics. For more stories on economy & finance visit RT's business section Ankara says Saudi authorities must extradite Khashoggis killers to Turkey Ankara says Saudi authorities must extradite Khashoggis killers to Turkey The complete lack of transparency from Saudi officials on the investigation into the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi is detrimental to their credibility, an aide to Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said. Fahrettin Altun, Erdogans communications director, told Reuters that the series of false denials from Riyadh had led to uncertainty on a host of issues around the case. Saudi authorities must extradite Mr. Khashoggis killers to Turkey, where they committed a premeditated murder, as proof of their willingness to serve the cause of justice, Altun said. On Thursday, a UN-led inquiry into the murder said evidence pointed to a brutal crime planned and perpetrated by Saudi officials. It added that Saudi officials had seriously undermined and delayed Turkeys investigation.Source : RT - Daily news The Detroit Pistons are close to reaching an agreement to sign guard Wayne Ellington, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN. Ellington, 31, is regarded as one of the top players available in the buyout market following Thursdays trade deadline. He would assume most of the minutes that were freed up when Detroit dealt Reggie Bullock to the Lakers on Tuesday. The Phoenix Suns waived Ellington after acquiring him in a trade with the Miami Heat this week. He will be a free agent when he clears waivers this weekend. The 6-5 Ellington averaged 8.4 points while shooting a career-low 37.5 percent from the field in 25 games for the Heat this season. He is a 3-point threat, shooting 36.8 percent from beyond the arc. He has played in 617 games over 10 seasons, for seven teams, averaging 8.0 points and shooting 38 percent from 3-point range. To make room on their roster for Ellington, the Pistons will release Henry Ellenson, Chris Haynes of Yahoo! Sports reported. Ellenson, the 6-11 forward the Pistons selected with their first pick in 2016 (18th overall), didnt develop under former coach Stan Van Gundy and has played in only two games this season under coach Dwane Casey. Ellenson appeared in 59 games over three seasons and averaged 3.8 points and 2.2 rebounds. The Pistons had declined his option for next season and he was set to become an unrestricted free agent. My husband and I use canes and sometimes walkers to get around. We shop, run errands and keep appointments, maintain our home with a sometime paid help, and never cease to be amazed that there are so many people that offer their help, whether it is to hold a door open for us, pick something off a shelf that is hard to reach, help fill our trunk with groceries, or pick up something we have dropped. Each of you know who you are, and we just want to thank you again for your thoughtfulness and a caring heart for those who have difficulties managing what used to be an easy task. We are Valparaisians and love our community. Thank you too for the many companies that have motor carts without them, we would be unable to be independent 'shoppers'. Thank you all. BAY CITY, MI A fleet of tall ships is coming from countries like Spain, New Zealand and Canada to visit Bay City for the 2019 Tall Ship Celebration later this year. Bay City will kick off the maritime event starting July 18 and it will run until July 21. Shirley Roberts, executive director of Bay Sail, said it is exciting to have the 11 new and returning ships come to the city, including two of Bay Citys own schooners the Appledore IV and Appledore V. The only way to describe how this all comes together, its a long slow dance, she said, adding she doesnt think she could pick a favorite ship out of the current lineup. I think there will be a lot of excitement around the Bluenose II and the Picton Castle... all of the ships are beautiful (but) these two have really interesting stories." Ships coming to Bay City include Nova Scotias tall ship the 143-foot Bluenose II, which is now operating again after a six-year and over $20-million restoration project. The ship hasnt visited Bay City for almost 20 years with its last appearance being in 2001. It is a replica of the original Bluenose schooner that was launched almost 100 years ago in 1921. Also joining the festival after its seventh world circumnavigation voyage that saw stops in Panama, the Galapagos, French Polynesia, South Africa and other world destinations, is the Barque Picton Castle which will join for the fleet second time, following its debut at the festival in 2006. It will also be the largest Class A vessel this summer. New to the Great Lakes and to Bay City is the 95-foot Santa Maria, which is a replica of Christopher Columbus flagship during his time sailing across the Atlantic in 1492. Its sister ship the El Galeon Andalucia, a popular Spanish galleon, visited Bay City during the 2016 festival. The Santa Maria was built in Spain in 2018. The Perception is a 68-foot schooner owned by a Michigan-based organization called the Michigan Challenge Traditional Sail Training out of Traverse City. Other returning ships to the festival include the 157-foot Baltimore clipper called the Pride of Baltimore II, the 95-foot gaff topsail schooner called the Madeline, as well as the sail training vessel from Toronto, the 72-foot St. Lawrence II also last seen in Bay City in 2001. Additionally, the 137-foot Denis Sullivan from Milwaukee, Wisconsin and the 198-foot Niagara Flagship from Erie, Pennsylvania, will make their third and fourth times visiting the festival. The appearance fees for all the ships is expected to exceed $255,000 this year, according to a news release. We have to pay them all to come here, people dont realize that, Roberts said. Those (prices) range from $7,000 to $62,000 for each of the ships. Michigan Sugar Co. is the the 2019 presenting sponsor, meaning it has picked up the top level sponsorship; its also the companys first year as a major/ship sponsor. We signed on to that because we understand how important and significant the Tall Ship Celebration is, not only to Bay City, but the the Great Lakes Bay Region and to Michigan, said Rob Clark, director of communications and community relations for Michigan Sugar, adding they are sponsoring $50,000. This is an incredible opportunity to show how much we love this community. He added that the company is thrilled to see such a diverse tall ship lineup coming to the area because it reflects the international flavor of the event. Other returning sponsors for ships include Huntington Bank, Ascension St. Marys of Michigan and Independent Bank, Wildfire Credit Union and Consumers Energy. Also, McLaren Bay Regional Medical Center is a three-time major ship sponsor, in addition to, Chemical Bank and AmeriLodge Group. Also the Dave Hausbeck Trucking Inc. is a new sponsor this year as well. Companies that are major ship sponsors typically have given between $20,000 and $50,000. Each company will get a chance to select a ship to sponsor at a special event tentatively scheduled for the last weekend in March. A number of mid-Michigan school districts will be closed on Friday due to wintry conditions. Ithaca, Beaverton, Mt. Pleasant, Sheperd, Harrison, Gladwin, and St. Louis schools are some of the districts that have cancelled classes for students on Friday, Feb. 8. Due to continued extreme winter weather, the Mt Pleasant Public Schools will be closed on Friday, February 8th, 2019, reads a post on the districts Facebook page. Due to continued extreme weather conditions and an already scheduled half day for students, the Mt Pleasant Public Schools will be closed on Friday, February 1st, 2019. Thank you for your patience with us this week. Oilers, we look forward to seeing you back in school on Monday! Stay warm and safe this weekend!! Also Professional development for staff members will still be held tomorrow. All staff members should plan on reporting to their PD locations at noon. Professional development and data meetings will run from noon-3:00 pm in all buildings. Please check your e-mail for additional information regarding tomorrows PD. Thank you!! Oiler Staff see you tomorrow!!! #OP Posted by Mt Pleasant Public Schools on Thursday, January 31, 2019 A complete list of school and organization closings is available on the ABC 12 website here. The National Weather has issued a wind advisory thats in effect until 10 a.m. Friday, Feb. 8 for several counties including Genesee, Midland, Shiawassee, Bay, St. Clair, Huron, Oakland, Saginaw, Tuscola, and Sanilac. Sustained winds of 30 miles per hour are expected overnight, with gusts of up to 45 MPH possible through Friday morning as a cold front pushes through the region. Subzero wind chills are possible as temperatures fall into the teens. Subzero temperatures wind chills can be expected by sunrise, reads the advisory, adding downed tree limbs and power lines are possible along with hazardous driving conditions for high profile vehicles. Meanwhile, a winter weather advisory is in place through 7 p.m. Friday in some mid-Michigan counties including Gratiot and Isabella. Snow showers and blowing snow are expected overnight Thursday into Friday, with total snow accumulations of up to one to three inches along with the high wind gusts. SAGINAW, MI A 43-year-old probationer is facing numerous charges one could land him in prison for life related to police allegations he went on a spree approaching children at bus stops. Saginaw County District Judge Elian E.H. Fichtner on Friday, Feb. 8, arraigned Willie B. Chico Peterson on counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct-assault, accosting a child for immoral purposes and indecent exposure by a sexually delinquent person. The three counts are divided between two files. The most serious count is the third. While indecent exposure is a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail, the same offense by a sexually delinquent person comes with a penalty ranging from one day to life in prison. State law defines a sexually delinquent person as "a person whose sexual behavior is characterized by repetitive or compulsive acts which indicate a disregard of consequences or the recognized rights of others. Second-degree criminal sexual conduct is limited to touching and is a 15-year felony, while accosting a child for immoral purposes is punishable by up to four years in prison. During the arraignment, Peterson would frequently interrupt and talk over Judge Fichtner. I just dont, I dont, I dont, I dont understand that, Peterson said at one point as the judge read him his charges. Fichtner advised him not to speak regarding the charges against him. Peterson reiterated he doesnt understand the charges, saying no one has explained the allegations to him. The judge replied shes not at liberty to explain such matters to him, but he can address them with his attorney. Peterson said he believes his family has or is in the process of hiring an attorney. Fichtner set Petersons bond at $250,000 cash-surety on both files. She also ordered he have no contact with the alleged victims. I dont even know em! Peterson said. Police arrested Peterson on Tuesday, Feb. 5, as part of their investigation into four incidents involving children approached at Saginaw bus stops. The first incident occurred around 7:10 a.m. on Jan. 11 on Madison near North Bond, as a female student and her brother were walking separately from one another when an unknown man approached and tried to grab her. She ran to her brother and the subject fled. Shortly before 7 a.m. on Jan. 15, a female student was walking on North Bond near Reed when a man got out of a light-colored four-door vehicle and began to chase her. The student managed to get on the bus, police have said. Moments later, four female students were waiting for the bus on South Elm near Division when they observed a man standing across the street behind a tree. The girls thought this was suspicious, went back to one of their homes, and notified a parent, according to police. The fourth incident occurred about 8 a.m. on Jan. 25 on Mackinaw near South Mason. Two female students were waiting at a bus stop when they observed a male make a lewd gesture as he drove past in a light-colored vehicle. The females walked away and he followed them. The subject drove past them again, this time exposing his genitals, according to Gomez. Peterson has a lengthy criminal record, serving prison time on at least eight convictions dating back to 1994. His rap sheet includes convictions of armed robbery, carrying a concealed weapon, possessing a short-barreled shotgun and assaulting a jail employee or escaping from jail. A Saginaw County judge on Oct. 23, 2017, sentenced Peterson to two years probation on convictions of carrying a concealed weapon and felon in possession of a firearm. None of Petersons convictions listed by the Michigan Department of Corrections are sexual in nature. Peterson is to appear for a preliminary examination at 2 p.m. on Feb. 22. OSHTEMO TOWNSHIP, MI Suspects in a scam that originated on Facebook Marketplace and resulted in two vehicles being stolen have been arrested, the Kalamazoo County Sheriffs Office reports. On Monday, Feb. 4, two vehicles were stolen involving a Facebook Market Place scam, in separate incidents in Portage and in Oshtemo Township, the sheriffs office said in a news release. In one incident, Cheri Bell, the wife of Kalamazoo County Probate Court Judge Curtis Bell, said she was communicating with a woman on Facebook about the vehicle that Bell had for sale on Facebook. Bell, who lives in Oshtemo Township, said she allowed the woman to take the Buick Enclave for a test drive on Feb. 4, but she never returned. The suspects were located the next day in Van Buren County and taken into custody, still in possession of the Oshtemo Township stolen vehicle. Currently, the suspects remain in Van Buren County custody facing additional charges there, the Kalamazoo County Sheriffs Office said. After they face charges in Van Buren County, the suspects will be transferred to Kalamazoo County where they are facing Unlawful driving away of a vehicle (UDAA) charges and also hold outstanding warrants, police said. Investigators are continuing an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the theft of a third vehicle Monday, from a Speedway gas station in Comstock Township, and at this point in the investigation, detectives to not believe these same suspects are responsible for this incident, police said. Detectives are working on active leads in the investigation, the sheriffs office said. LEONI TWP., MI An election-night dispute at Leoni Township Hall will not result in assault charges. Supervisor Howard Linnabary is not being charged for swiping at a recording cellphone held by a former trustee, Calhoun County Prosecutor David Gilbert ruled. The case was sent to Calhoun County to avoid a conflict of interest. Police were called to the Township Hall just after midnight on Nov. 7, 2018, for a reported assault, hours after results were posted from a contentious recall election. Linnabary survived the recall, while former clerk Michele Manke and former treasurer Lori Stack did not. Robert Sutherby, a former township trustee, pressed charges against Linnabary for "smashing" his arm while taking video on his phone in the parking lot. Sutherby previously said he and others left their election-night watch party to go to the township hall, after hearing rumors of township officials stealing things. Multiple people started phone recordings once the dispute heated up. In a written opinion, Gilbert says his reason for denying charges is due to the apparent ongoing animosity between the parties in this complaint. Contrary to the alleged victims statement, there was no smashing of the arm, but there most certainly was a touching, at least of the cellphone in the alleged victims hand, Gilbert said in his opinion. It appears the alleged victim either fumbles with his cellphone or intentionally drops the phone. While Sutherby claimed his phone went flying eight feet after the contact, Gilbert said video shows it only went a few inches. A lack of intent to commit assault or battery also contributed to the decision, Gilbert said. Gilberts written opinion refutes statements from Mark Carpenter, who won the election for clerk that night. According to a police report cited in Gilberts opinion, Carpenter said Linnabary hit Sutherby in the shoulder and was cursing and made a fist before the swing. This statement is not substantiated and is actually contradicted, Gilbert said, citing the video footage. Recordings from Sutherby and a camera attached to the building helped Gilbert piece together what happened, he said. While it's legal to record video with a phone in public, Gilbert said it can be "harassing, intimidating and threatening" in some situations. Allegations of theft from the building are also unsubstantiated, Gilbert said. There has been no evidence presented showing anything was removed from the hall, Gilbert said. And it is unknown why someone would call 911 making such an emergency statement without seeing something taken from the hall. The case is closed unless further evidence contrary to the opinion is presented, Gilbert said. Former trustee Corey Kennedy who witnessed the incident and Linnabary declined to comment. Carpenter didnt return requests for comment. Sutherby, who hadnt heard of the decision until speaking with MLive/Jackson Citizen Patriot, declined to comment until he could read the written opinion and didnt respond to further requests Friday morning. JACKSON, MI A man accused of tying up an elderly woman in her home during his 22nd home invasion on record has pleaded no contest as charged. Tracy Ott pleaded no contest, Feb. 1, to six felony charges stemming from a home invasion that occurred Oct. 28, 2017, in Tompkins Township, court records show. Ott, 37, was charged with one felony count each of assault with intent to rob while armed, carjacking, first-degree home invasion, unlawful imprisonment, larceny of a firearm and felony firearms. In the middle of the afternoon the day of the incident, Ott allegedly entered a home in the 9000 block of Pope Church Road and used a wire ripped from a landline telephone he found in the living room to tie up an 84-year-old woman living there, officials said. After searching the home for cash, he fled stealing the womans car, cellphone and a shotgun kept near a doorway, prosecutors said. Shortly after Ott left, the woman managed to free herself and call 911 from a different landline phone on her kitchen wall, the woman said during his preliminary examination. The womans vehicle, a silver 2011 Dodge Journey, was found unoccupied at a park-and-ride lot in Portland, northwest of Lansing. Ott was identified as a suspect and apprehended three days later after leading police on a chase through multiple counties that ended with him crashing into a tree in Allegan County, police said previously. In 2005, Ott was sentenced to serve seven to 15 years in prison for 21 home invasions crossing multiple counties, according to the Michigan Department of Corrections. He was released from prison in June 2017. Ott is currently lodged in the Jackson County Jail awaiting sentencing, which is scheduled for March 14 before Circuit Judge Thomas Wilson. (Update: This story has been changed to reflect that Josephus Anderson was convicted for lying at the evidentiary hearing where he recanted his trial testimony.) JACKSON, MI A man who testified against his brother, who was on trial for an armed home invasion he also was part of, has been convicted of lying to get a better deal with prosecutors for himself. A jury, on Feb. 1, found Josephus Anderson, 27, guilty of perjury for lying at an evidentiary hearing where he recanted the testimony he made during Willie Anderson IIs, trial in October 2015, according to a statement from the Jackson County Prosecutors Office. During the hearing, Josephus Anderson changed his story and claimed his brother did not commit a violent home invasion he previously testified they were involved in together, court records show. Josephus Anderson testified during the 2015 trial that, while he stayed behind in a car, his 29-year-old brother broke into a home on Mound Avenue in October 2013, and demanded money from a woman he threatened with a gun. The woman said she didnt have any money and ran out of the home, police said. Josephus Anderson later recanted his testimony, saying he committed the robbery with another man as the getaway driver, records show. The victim testified Willie Anderson II was the man who entered her house, and another eyewitness testified she was 95 percent sure she saw him in the victim's driveway, records show. Josephus Anderson was convicted for his role in the home invasion before his brothers trial and was sentenced to four to 20 years in prison, records show. Josephus Anderson agreed to testify against his brother in exchange for a shorter sentence through an appeal, records show. Prosecutors later withdrew the deal after it was determined Josephus Anderson was not telling the truth, records show. The Michigan Court of Appeals issued an opinion, Jan. 15, upholding the Jackson County Prosecutors Offices decision to withdraw the deal and send the case back to Jackson County Circuit Court for resentencing. Willie Anderson II was on parole at the time of the home invasion after serving nearly six years for the 2006 shooting death of Harinder Singh Kahn, who was killed in what prosecutors described as a "bungled robbery attempt." After a long murder trial in 2008, a jury could not reach a consensus and the judge declared a mistrial. Instead of having another trial, the prosecutor's office made an agreement and Willie Anderson II pleaded no contest to manslaughter and was later sentenced to serve six to 15 years in prison. Josephus Anderson is scheduled for sentencing for the perjury conviction March 27 before Circuit Judge Susan Jordan. He is currently incarcerated in the Michigan Department of Corrections. Perjury is punishable by up to 15 years in prison. GRAND RAPIDS, MI While investigating the shooting death of East Kentwood High senior James King, Grand Rapids police recovered a dozen surveillance videos from shopping-center businesses. Investigators also found social-media messages that tied the suspects, including alleged gunman, Israel Valdez, 17, to a robbery plot that ended in Kings killing during a supposed marijuana sale. Valdez and four other teens are facing open-murder and other charges in the Jan. 13 killing at Towne and Country Shopping Center at Kalamazoo Avenue SE and 44th Street. Detective A.J. Hite testified that police recovered messages about Valdezs efforts to get a gun from a friend, Sebastian Quinones, 17, and the set-up of the bogus drug deal. It was quite evident in the messages they were discussing getting a gun, bullets for a gun, he said. Valdez also told Quinones to delete the messages, the investigator said. Two of Valdezs four co-defendants testified at a probable-cause hearing about a plan to rob a dealer of a quarter-pound of marijuana, valued at $600 to $700. The deal was set up on Facebook Messenger, testimony showed. Grand Rapids District Judge Jennifer Faber ordered Valdez bound over to Kent County Circuit Court on charges of open murder, assault with intent to rob while armed and conspiracy to commit armed robbery, all life offenses. Co-defendants Quinones, Alanah Faith Claflin, 18, Ahmed Hasan, 17, and Kayleb Sims, 17, waived rights to a probable-cause hearing and had their cases sent to Circuit Court. Valdez, seated next to his attorney, James Kiebel, scribbled notes on a legal pad during the hearing. Attorneys for the other defendants took note of testimony. The courtroom was so packed that sheriffs deputies restricted the audience to family members and told some students, in particular, those under 16, they could not stay. Testimony showed that Claflin and Valdez talked the night before the killing about robbing a marijuana dealer. She asked Hasan to drive them. Hasan was driving the defendants to the meeting spot before Sims got behind the wheel. Hasan testified he didnt understand how five people would rob someone inside the car. He said he got out at the shopping center and told the others to do what you need to do and pick me up later. He said he walked into a gas station to get change for a homeless man to buy coffee before he heard a gunshot. He heard someone yell, Oh my God somebody got shot, call 911. The others left in his car. Claflin, who knew King, said she was sitting in the front passenger seat when King got in and sat behind her. King sat next to Valdez but he apparently didnt notice Claflin. She did not turn around. She said King wanted to see the money. Valdez wanted to see the marijuana. It got quiet (then) it sounded like fist fighting and the gun went off, Claflin testified. This all happened very quickly. King was shot in the face. Valdez pushed King out of the car, testimony showed. Im yelling at Israel. (Sims is) yelling. Were just all in shock. What did you do that for? Israel was in shock himself. Before the robbery, Claflin realized that King, a friend, was the target. She said she didnt want to rob him. King had sent her a message asking if Valdez was OK. Claflin said Valdez called off the robbery and said he had cash to buy the marijuana. Quinones and Sims were outside of the car when the shooting happened but soon fled. Kings cousin, who accompanied him, stayed at the scene where he died. Claflin said that the gun, a black revolver, was put into a street sewer. She later showed police where it was left but it was gone. Hite, the Grand Rapids detective, said it appeared someone moved the grate to get the gun. It hasnt been recovered. But police found a trove of electronic evidence on cell phones, social media and texts along with recordings from a lot of business cameras, Hite said. He said that one of the defendants destroyed a cell phone by running it over with a car. Another put their phone in a Slurpee. But police have Kings phone and others and have filed search warrants with Facebook. GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- A number of emergency shelters in West Michigan are available to those without power as temperatures overnight dip below freezing. The American Red Cross has opened shelters in Kent County at: North Rockford Middle School, 397 E Division St. NE, Rockford Walker Fire Station No. 3, 470 3 Mile Road NW, Walker Ottawa Hills High School, 2055 Rosewood Ave. SE, Grand Rapids Union High School, 1800 Tremont Blvd. NW, Grand Rapids In Ionia County, the American Red Cross has a shelter available at: The Ionia Armory, 439 W Main St., Ionia (Those without transportation should call 211) The American Red Cross and Ottawa County are opening a shelter in the northeast corner of the county. To reserve a spot, call 1-800-249-0911. Ottawa County officials did not disclose the location of the shelter. Roughly 143,000 customers in the state were reported without power Thursday evening, Feb. 7, according to the Consumers Energy outage map. Most of the reported outages occurred in West Michigan, specifically Kent, Muskegon and Ionia counties, where as much as a half-inch of ice accumulated during Wednesdays storm, Consumers Energy reports. Consumers Energy officials estimate power outages across West Michigan could last through Sunday or Monday. Consumers Energy crews are bracing for more outages across the region as the National Weather Service forecasts wind gusts of up to 45 mph and dropping temperatures overnight Thursday. GRAND RAPIDS, MI The Grand Rapids Food Co-op wants to put its first grocery store specializing in affordable, healthy local food on the ground-floor of a 7-story independent senior living center planned for the corner of Division Avenue and Logan Street SE. But before that can happen, it needs to raise enough money to make that goal a reality. Linda Jones, president of the co-op, says her organization will need to attract about 1,000 members and raise at least $1.2 million by 2020, before the senior living center, known as Tapestry Square, opens. Raising $1.2 million will enable the grocery store to borrow the remaining funding needed for the project $2.2 million, she said. It wont be easy, but Jones is confident the co-ops mission of communal ownership and providing healthy, locally grown food to an underserved part of the city will resonate with the community. I think the community is going to rally around this project because it empowers people to solve their own problems, and thats one of food access in the center of town, she said. The proposed co-op would be 10,000-square-feet. Residents can become members by purchasing a one-time $250 share, which can be paid in full or over a 10-month period. Low-income residents can buy a share for $25. Food co-ops are owned and governed by members, who determine the vision and scope of services. The Grand Rapids Food Co-ops profits would be reinvested in the organizations mission, rather than going to shareholders, Jones said. Plans call for the co-op to include a deli, a buffet with hot food, such as macaroni and cheese, and a community room with a demonstration kitchen, Jones said. It may also include a cafe. Shoppers could find everyday groceries sold at most supermarkets. But the emphasis would be on local and organic food not soda and junk food. Jones said the co-op would be comparable to a Whole Foods grocery store, only cheaper. Were not trying to make as much profit as possible, she said. Were trying to provide affordable food for our community. The co-op has not officially signed an agreement with the Inner City Christian Federation to lease space at Tapestry Square. But officials with the organization have supported the idea, Jones said. Officials with ICCF could not be reached for comment Thursday night. The co-op would join two grocery stores that recently opened in downtown Grand Rapids Meijers Bridge Street Market and a Gordon Food Service store on Michigan Street. Also, a renovated Great Giant Supermarket is now operating on Madison Avenue SE. Jones said theres room for another grocery store. The co-ops mission will be to serve residents in a part of Grand Rapids that has not shared in the reinvestment happening in other city neighborhoods, such as the burgeoning Bridge Street corridor. But others will be attracted to shop there as well, because of its emphasis on communal ownership and support for local farmers. There isnt a grocery store nearby, and its in an area that could bring together disparate communities around our food co-op, people that dont see each other that often because they move in different circles, she said. I looked around to see if anyone was watching. Thats when I noticed another customer in line behind me checking out at the register. It was an older woman who was glancing our way. She motioned to the woman next to me that their groceries would be coming down the other conveyor belt. Not down my conveyor belt. UPDATE: 11 vehicles involved, 2 hurt in crashes that closed I-96 MARNE, MI A portion of eastbound I-96 was shut down to due to multiple crashes and whiteout conditions, according to police. The highway was closed near Marne in eastern Ottawa County, according to the Michigan Department of Transportation. MDOT reopened the highway around 11:40 a.m., Friday, Feb. 8. Several spin-outs and slide-offs were reported by police around 9 a.m. Friday on the highway near 16th Avenue, according to MDOTs online traffic crash map. Ottawa County Sheriffs deputies were on scene assessing the crashes and are diverting traffic off the highway at the Ironwood Drive NW exit. Injuries have been reported but the severity of those injuries is currently unknown. This post was updated at 11:50 a.m., Friday, Feb. 8. FLINT, MI A man who posed as a state trooper to lure a Florida teenager to send cash as part of an online scheme has been charged in connection to the incident. Jason L. Inman, 38, convinced a 15-year-old Florida boy to send cash for a remote-controlled boat Inman posted for sale on Facebook, according to a statement from the Michigan State Police. The boy saw the posting in the fall of 2018, according to investigators, and Inman told the boy to send cash and Inman would then mail the boat to Florida. Police said the boy was suspicious of sending the cash and Inman told him he was a state trooper. Inman worked as a mechanic at a Lapeer-area car dealership and videoed himself entering and driving a full marked Michigan State Police cruiser that was at the business getting repairs, according to the statement. Thats my carIm a state trooper, Inman allegedly said in the video. The teen sent Inman the cash after seeing the video, but when he didnt get the boat he contacted Inman a few weeks later, the statement said. Inman told the teen he scammed him using the police cruiser and closed his Facebook account. The teen thought he was being scammed by an actual state trooper and contacted the Michigan State Police, according to the statement. Inman was charged after of a four-month investigation and has been arraigned in Lapeer District Court on suspicion of unlawful driving away of a motor vehicle, unlawful use of a motor vehicle, impersonating a peace officer to commit a crime, using a computer to commit a crime and larceny by false pretenses. DEXTER, MI - About 600 middle school students seated in their schools cafeteria cheered when a health educator asked who was living their best life. Health and wellness is about living a balanced lifestyle, explained community health educator Jaz Brennan, of the Corner Health Center in Ypsilanti. Its not about feeling happy all the time, Brennan told Dexters Mill Creek Middle School students gathered Thursday, Feb. 7 for their schools first Mental Health Matters conference. Instead, its achieving this wellness mindset. When you hear wellness, I want you to think balance. The emphasis on mental health comes as more middle school and high school students in Washtenaw County are considering suicide, according to the Michigan Profile for Healthy Youth Survey. In the 2017-18 school year, 15.8 percent of more than 5,000 local middle and high school students who took the voluntary survey said they had seriously considered suicide. The study was conducted by the Michigan Department of Education. In the 2009-10 school year, the oldest survey data available for Washtenaw County, 11.4 percent of 1,575 students who took the survey said they had seriously considered suicide. The chart shows the percentage of Washtenaw County middle and high school students who said they had considered suicide, according to the Michigan Profile for Healthy Youth survey. The graph shows the number of 15 to 24 year olds who died by suicide each year in Washtenaw County, according to the medical examiner's office. Washtenaw County also has seen a rise in the number of deaths by suicide among young people in recent years. In 2018, 12 people ages 15 to 24 died by suicide in Washtenaw County, according to the county medical examiners office. There were five deaths by suicide for that age group in 2017 and 17 in 2016 - the highest in the past decade. Molly Kalick, a first-year social worker who organized Mill Creeks Mental Health Matters event, said her colleagues observations match the survey results - more teens are considering suicide and dealing with depression and anxiety. I know that the landscape at school has changed with what kids are experiencing and talking about, and I think its more important now than ever (to teach students about mental health), she said. Kids might have been having these feelings all along, but now they have language for it. Theres so much exposure to it, but not enough knowledge about it. More than two dozen workshops offered throughout the day at Mill Creek covered topics like self-care strategies in different countries, causes of depression and anxiety, positive affirmations combined with yoga poses and the value of therapy animals. Kalick hoped students gained new tools for making healthy choices and learned that school can be a safe place to talk about their feelings. Especially at this age, kids are very unsure of themselves and can become very closed off, she said. Then on social media, they want to look like they have it all. Other local schools and health professionals also have increased efforts recently to address teens social-emotional needs, including hiring more counselors and promoting peer-to-peer support groups. A Why You Matter art project that started at Chelsea High School has been recreated at schools across the state. Tony Weatherly, director of a local taskforce for the RU?OK suicide prevention campaign, said its important to educate parents and students about suicide prevention. RU?OK members run afterschool groups, meet with students during the school day, send informational materials to parents and refer students to crisis text and call hotlines. We know we have a problem, but what is the solution? Whats going to help these students heal? Weatherly said. A lot of kids are looking for where to go, but they dont know where the resources are. DEARBORN, MI The death of former U.S. Rep. John Dingell, D-Dearborn, is being met with sadness and warm reflections on the towering legacy he leaves behind. Heres how the nation is reacting to the passing of the longest-serving member of Congress in history: U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Michigan: Congressman John Dingellthe Dean of the House and my dear friendwas not merely a witness to history. He was a maker of it. His original family name, translated into Polish, meant blacksmith. Nothing could be more fitting for a man who hammered out our nations laws, forging a stronger union that could weather the challenges of the future. John Dingell loved Michigan. He understood the connection our people have to manufacturing, to agriculture, and to the land and the Great Lakes that support our Michigan way of life. Today the great State of Michigan said farewell to one of our greatest leaders. John Dingell will forever be remembered as The Dean of Congress not simply for the length of his service, but for his unparalleled record of legislative accomplishments. Governor Gretchen Whitmer (@gretchenwhitmer) February 8, 2019 Progress Michigan Executive Director Lonnie Scott: "John Dingell has long been one of my political role models from the time I was old enough to understand the political process. He is and always will be one of the true statesmen of our state and country. The United States is a better place because of his unbridled dedication to public service. For nearly 60 years, John Dingell represented the people of Michigan with honor, integrity & great good humor. There are few major legislative triumphs since 1955 that he didnt have a key hand in passing. Hillary & I are grateful to have worked with him & called him our friend. Bill Clinton (@BillClinton) February 8, 2019 Michigan Democratic Party Chairwoman Lavora Barnes: John Dingell was The Dean and more. He was and will remain the embodiment of what it means to be a Michigan Democrat: hard-working, selfless, and relentless in his pursuit to improve the lives of the everyday people who built our state and make it great. John Dingell was the Dean of the House. He earned that title not just because he was there the longest but because he led with great moral courage and vision. He was a friend and I will miss him terribly. Debbie is in my prayers. Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) February 8, 2019 Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan: He will be remembered as of the greatest legislators in American history who never forgot about the people he served and the city of Detroit. When our workers or automakers needed help, John always answered their call. No one fought harder for working people in Congress than John did. When the Rouge and Detroit Rivers festered with pollution, John led the effort in Congress to clean them up. Perhaps most importantly, when his father died, John carried on his legacy of fighting for universal healthcare coverage. While its hard to imagine a world without John Dingell, his legacy of working to improve peoples lives will last forever. President Donald Trump: As a mark of respect for the memory and longstanding service of former Representative John David Dingell, Jr., of Michigan the longest-serving Member of Congress in our Nations history I hereby order, by the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, that the flag of the United States shall be flown at half-staff at the White House and upon all public buildings and grounds, at all military posts and naval stations, and on all naval vessels of the Federal Government in the District of Columbia and throughout the United States and its Territories and possessions until sunset, February 9, 2019. I also direct that the flag shall be flown at halfstaff for the same period at all United States embassies, legations, consular offices, and other facilities abroad, including all military facilities and naval vessels and stations. Ann Arbor Mayor Christopher Taylor: We have lost a dear friend, strong and true, a leader who has served with dignity and grit to make the world a better place. Thank you, John Dingell, for everything you have done over the decades, for us here in Ann Arbor and throughout our great land. John Dingells legacy, from his early championing of healthcare to his joyous wit, will always be a prime example of showing love for people by fighting hard for them. An example to all of us. Wishing @RepDebDingell & his loved ones peace during this difficult time. https://t.co/8nyWYuZnDQ Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) February 8, 2019 Former U.S. Rep Candice Miller, R-Harrison Township: John Dingell has had one of the most impactful lives of any public figure in the history of our great state. From his service in the Army during World War II to his advocacy on so many issues that helped shape modern America civil rights, endangered species and the environment, health care, support of U.S. manufacturing and the auto industry John Dingell was a true giant. My favorite memory of John Dingell is how when you went to talk to him he'd put his great paw of an arm around you and maneuver you carefully to the side with his good ear, and it was all good. #RIPJohnDingell julie rovner (@jrovner) February 8, 2019 Office of U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Dearborn: It is with a heavy heart that we announce the passing of John David Dingell, Jr., former Michigan Congressman and longest-serving member of the United States Congress. Congressman Dingell died peacefully today at his home in Dearborn, surrounded by his wife Deborah. He was a lion of the United States Congress and a loving son, father, husband, grandfather, and friend. He will be remembered for his decades of public service to the people of Southeast Michigan, his razor sharp wit, and a lifetime of dedication to improving the lives of all who walk this earth. I first met @JohnDingell over 10 years ago. As an 18 year old kid w/no clue what I was doing, I said something dumb to a room full of reporters. He put his arm on my shoulder and responded w/ kindness & grace, and helped guide me. Its been such a gift to be his friend. pic.twitter.com/2mTq4tc3Sh Jason Morgan (@JasonMorganA2) February 8, 2019 Daniel J. Loepp, president and CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan: John Dingell was a Michigan icon and champion for our state and nation. From the time he took office until the time he retired, Congressman Dingell fought tirelessly on behalf of Michigan residents and all Americans. He was a respected policymaker, a champion for honesty and ethics and a history maker who led through compromise and collaboration. RIP @JohnDingell. A man who proved you're never to old to kick ass on the Twitter machine. Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) February 8, 2019 Michigan Republican Party Chairman Ron Weiser: John Dingell was an incredible public servant who will be greatly missed. While we didnt always agree on issues, I enjoyed Congressman Dingells company and admired his patriotism, his love for our state, and our shared love for the University of Michigan. Rest In Peace, John Dingell, the man who was fighting for Medicare For All decades before this political moment. Laura v2.0 (@auberginefedora) February 8, 2019 U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Flint Township: John Dingell will forever be recognized as one of the most impactful and consequential leaders of our time. John lived every day of his life with clear moral purpose, incredible humor, a strong work ethic and an unwavering devotion to both Michigan and his family. Johns passing is an enormous loss to the nation. RIP John Dingell. Fierce fighter for the right things, Twitter god. Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) February 8, 2019 U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Tipton: I count it a privilege to have served with John Dingell in the House and to represent a part of his former district. He was a towering figure in this institution and left a mark that few can match. Throughout his lifetime of public service, John was a fierce advocate for the people of Michigan and was guided by a love of country. We lost two great Americans today Frank Robinson and John Dingell citizens who inspired me and so many others by leading on the civil rights issues of our time, opening doors to others, and leaving it all on the field. Barack Obama (@BarackObama) February 8, 2019 My statement on the passing of former Congressman John Dingell: pic.twitter.com/gjBYHHImzB Barack Obama (@BarackObama) February 8, 2019 Bill Ford, Ford Motor Co. executive chairman: For my 20 years as Chairman of Ford Motor Company, I considered John Dingell a friend and advisor. John was a larger-than-life legend whose presence will be deeply missed at Ford. Even on the most divisive issues at the most difficult of times, he was unwavering in his efforts to find common ground. He constantly reminded us as a company and as an industry that we either work together or we fail separately. John Dingell was a giant. His fingerprints are on countless pieces of legislation that form the framework for our country, and no one told a better story. He will be missed but he will never be forgotten. Thinking of @RepDebDingell and his family today. Rep. Joe Kennedy III (@RepJoeKennedy) February 8, 2019 U.S. Sen. Gary Peters, D-Michigan: Chairman Dingell was a true statesman: he embodied the values, spirit and dedication that all public servants should aspire to have. He was a mentor to me and countless others who sought to give back to their communities. I will never forget his wise counsel as I learned my way around Congress. Chairman Dingell will always be with us because his legacy will be forever woven into the history of Michigan and our country. I, our country, and Twitter will miss @JohnDingells quick wit, good heart, and profound sense of patriotism. My thoughts are with @RepDebDingell, the whole Dingell family, and the wide community of friends, constituents, and fellow Americans who admired and respected him. Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) February 8, 2019 Leigh Greden, Dingells former chief of staff: John Dingell set the gold standard for serving constituents. He always strived to do more for the people he served, even when he was already far exceeding their expectations. He was a mentor to countless people. He presided over the passage of Medicare and wrote the Clean Air Act. He was kind, humble, funny and smart. His legacy is immeasurable. John Dingells resolute devotion to the people of Michigan and our nation set a high standard to which we should all aspire in public service. We will miss him dearly, but his impact will endure. https://t.co/CQDD3j1qa4 Dr. Mark Schlissel (@DrMarkSchlissel) February 8, 2019 U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Detroit: You will be missed, John Dingell. Thank you for always being so kind to us younger activists and never trying to reduce our voice. Your humor, intelligence and drive for a better world will never be forgotten. ill have plenty of stories to tell and memories to share on the life and love that was my friend @JohnDingell, but in the meantime heres a voicemail he left me in 2017 after he read a buzzfeed article about a guy who got stuck in an ATM. my gift to you: https://t.co/Vn2cziYf6m Christopher Schuler (@_christopher) February 8, 2019 Washtenaw County Commissioner Andy LaBarre, Dingells former district administrator: John Dingell was a tremendous man, an unmatched legislator, the best example of a public servant. He lived an amazing and remarkable life. Im lucky to have known him and learned from him. Our nation is fortunate to have had his service. Love the send off John Dingell is getting on Twitter. The ability to express vitality and humor in a medium that didnt exist till you were past 80. To be toasted fervently by people 60 and 70 yrs your junior. Life is fleeting. But if lived well it can be ok. Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) February 8, 2019 U.S. Rep. Fred Upton, R-St. Joseph: John was enormous in stature, integrity, and accomplishments. When he put his hand on your shoulder and spoke, you listened. Representing the great state of Michigan was truly a labor of love and John Dingell fiercely fought to support and rescue our auto industry in the toughest of times. There is a reason why a Dingell has represented Southeast Michigan for some 86 years. Their constituents know they always put country over everything else. They have all been chiseled from the same block of gold. I didn't cry during Marley and Me but I cried just now when I logged on to Twitter dot com and learned that John Dingell passed away. macy (@MaybeItsMacy) February 8, 2019 Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez: Life is a little dimmer without John Dingell. Over six decades of public service, John did it all. Whether it was fighting for civil rights or expanding access to health care for millions, he fought tirelessly to improve the lives of the American people and move our country closer to fulfilling its founding promise of justice and equality for all. Even after John left office, our nation relied on his grace, courage, and sharp wit to get us through. No matter the subject of the day, John always seemed to know the right thing to say. Dan Musser III, president of Mackinac Islands Grand Hotel Congressman Dingell and Congresswoman Dingell have been wonderful friends and frequent guests for decades and we treasure those memories. During their visits, the Congressman particularly enjoyed the view from a rocking chair sitting in the sunshine on our front porch and loved to engage in conversation with other guests from that vantage point. Though he was an iconic and legendary figure on the nations scene, he was open and approachable for all who greeted him and lively conversations often ensued. We join the State of Michigan and the nation in mourning the passing of a man who epitomized the ideal of public service. YPSILANTI, MI Eastern Michigan University is evaluating if it will pursue privatization of student housing and how that might impact students living on campus. A university committee plans to make a recommendation to President James Smith later this month regarding the best way to deliver on-campus housing to students, EMU Chief Financial Officer Michael Valdes said. The university has been actively engaged in developing and enhancing the overall student experience, Valdes said. That has taken form in what weve done with dining, and enhanced facilities there. As a natural part of that process we turned and looked at our housing assets and did an evaluation around where those shortcomings were. Valdes stressed that a decision has not been made one way or the other regarding privatization, and that EMU has not sent out requests for proposals. EMU has been engaged with Student Government, the Faculty Senate and University Budget Council in discussions on how to best deliver campus housing, he said. Students have also participated in a survey and focus groups to better understand how housing oversight and maintenance should be delivered, Valdes said. While its premature to determine if privatization is the best method, Valdes said EMU has looked into various methods of privatized housing delivery. There are a whole variety of models out there around that, some of which involve the private partner owning the assets, Valdes said. Those arent the kind of models we would be looking at, if, in fact, we chose to go down that path. Ours would be more collaboration. EMU Student Government President Candice Crutcher didnt speak in favor or against privatization during the Thursday, Feb.7 Board of Regents meeting, but was clear the university needs to do something to address student housing maintenance. Crutcher has received photos from students displaying concerning infrastructure issues inside dorms and facilities that are in need of updates, she said. In the future I look forward to working with companies to pay to help us update our buildings, Crutcher said. EMU has offset some of its financial shortfalls in recent years through privatization of its dining services and parking operations, signing long-term contracts that have included signing bonuses and up-front payments to help stabilize its finances. The university approved a 10-year contract with Chartwells for dining services in June 2016 that included a $5 million signing bonus, $18 million in initial capital funding and $2.5 million for graduate assistant scholarships. A year-and-a-half later, it inked a five-year extension with Chartwells through 2031, providing a $5.5 million up-front cash payment. Despite some initial opposition from students and workers toward privatization, students who were surveyed said they were more satisfied after the Chartwells agreement in areas like taste, fresh ingredients availability of healthy options, atmosphere and cleanliness, speed of service and variety of foods. EMU saw satisfaction improve in areas of price and value from 67.5 percent in 2016 to 72.9 percent in 2017. EMU later opted to privatize its parking operations, signing a 35-year agreement with LAZ Parking that provided an up-front capital payment of $55 million to EMU to bolster the universitys finances. Some EMU students have since voiced displeasure with parking enforcement strategies, an unsatisfactory appeals process for tickets, short grace periods and wrongfully issued tickets. LAZ later forgave some tickets it issued during winter break after students complained the operators enforcement strategies were overly-stringent. Update: The funeral location was changed Friday afternoon. It will be held at Church of the Divine Child, 1055 North Silvery Lane in Dearborn. DEARBORN, MI John Dingell, a World War II veteran and the longest-serving member of Congress in history, will be laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery outside Washington, D.C. Memorial services will begin in Michigan with visitation Monday, Feb. 11, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the Ford Community and Performing Arts Center, 15801 Michigan Ave. in Dearborn. A funeral mass will be held Tuesday, Feb. 12, 11 a.m. at Church of the Divine Child, 1055 North Silvery Lane in Dearborn. Memorial services will be open to the public. Dingell, who served in office from 1955 to 2015, died Thursday, Feb. 7 after battling cancer and heart trouble. He was 92. In a career spanning nearly 60 years, the Michigan Democrat helped shape landmark legislation in support of the environment, civil rights, the American auto industry and access to health care. My heart is broken. My true love is gone, his wife, U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, wrote on Facebook Friday morning. The tears are flowing pretty freely as I miss the man that made me whole. One can know it is coming, but nothing prepares you for the hole in your heart. He was my one and only true love. Know he loved everyone of you And was proud to call you friend. She included a quote from Marcus Tullius Cicero, The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living. Read more: John Dingell, nations longest-serving congressman, dies at 92 John Dingell remembered as true statesman,' Twitter ninja John Dingell gives advice to future elected representatives One last time, John Dingells greatest tweets YPSILANTI TOWNSHIP, MI - Several of Martha Agnews dogs were euthanized following her homicide and the subsequent arrest of her husband last year, family says. But the two women charged with animal cruelty, relatives of Martha Agnews accused murderer, deny the charges against them. Cassandra Agnew and Nicole Stephenson, sister and daughter of Gregory Agnew, respectively, are charged with two counts each of misdemeanor abandoning/ cruelty to two or three animals or causing the death of an animal. Gregory Agnew, 51, is accused of strangling his 49-year-old wife to death during a contentious divorce and trying to stage the scene to look like an overdose in February 2018. Hes also been named a suspect in the 1993 disappearance of his off-and-on girlfriend Tammy Niver. Two dogs, a father and son pair named Butch and Bear, were put down after Martha Agnew's family found them emaciated and covered with feces in the couple's once-shared Ypsilanti Township home, said Martha Agnew's daughter Michelle Singh. Another dog, Curly Fry, was missing and is believed to be dead, she said. Six dogs were found in the home on Dorset Avenue and its believed two of them were born between February and October 2018. Police previously said five of the six dogs found belonged to Martha Agnew. Singh and her family tried to get access to the home for months, calling the Huron Valley Humane Society on multiple occasions out of concern for the dogs, Singh said. They finally went into the home in October after Singh was appointed a personal representative for her mother's estate, she said. That's when they found feces, feathers and dead rodents strewn across the house. The death of their childhood dogs, the elder a roughly 15-year-old American Eskimo and the younger a roughly 12-year-old American Eskimo-poodle mix, was particularly difficult, said Singh. The dogs were deaf, blind and had organ failure and fractures, she said. "Putting down Butch, in that moment of letting go, it was like being there with my mom and letting my mom go," she said. "No animal should be treated with this much neglect." Though Singh says she doesn't know who was responsible for the dogs last year, officials believe Cassandra Agnew and Nicole Stephenson were in charge, Derrick Jackson of the Washtenaw County Sheriff's Office previously said. But Stephenson denied being the caretaker for the dogs following a brief appearance at 14B District Court on Thursday, Feb. 7. She believes other family members, the ones handling her father's affairs, were the responsible parties. "The charges, I feel, are invalid," she said, later adding: "I didn't do anything wrong." Shes frustrated, she said. She said shes never been in trouble before and as a busy mom, only helped with the dogs on occasion, when family asked her to. She let the dogs out and tried to keep the home clean when she did, she said. She also loves animals, she said, and alerted her aunt when she had concerns about the older dogs and lack of veterinary visits. She hoped to speak with the prosecutor Thursday to show photos of the home as she left it - clean, she said. But she didnt get a chance. The pretrial hearing was ultimately adjourned when Ronald R. Gold, Gregory Agnew's attorney in the homicide case, took over representation for Cassandra Agnew. He told District Court Judge Charles Pope he needed more time in connection with discovery material. Cassandra Agnew did not stop for comment following the hearing, but Gold called the charges, "baloney." "My clients, they're careful, considerate people," he said. "They would never mistreat their animal or any animal." He did not have information on the specifics of what happened to the dogs, he said. Gold is not representing Stephenson, she said. The Humane Society of Huron Valley declined to comment. The aunt and niece are now scheduled for pretrial hearings on April 11. They face up to one year in jail, a $2,000 fine, community service, or all three if convicted. Gregory Agnew remains held without bond and scheduled for a March 7 pretrial in Martha Agnews death. The political action committee that supported Governor Gretchen Whitmers campaign for office is being fined over two television ads that violated state campaign finance law. Build a Better Michigan is being fined $37,500 for two ads that aired before the Aug. 7, 2018, primary election that broke the Michigan Campaign Finance Act, according to a conciliation agreement with Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson signed Feb. 7. The political action committee admits no guilt but will dissolve within 60 days, per the agreement. Build a Better Michigan -- which was headed by Mark Burton, who now heads Whitmers transition team -- was organized under Section 527 of the Internal Revenue Service. Such groups are allowed to run ads on issue advocacy and to mobilize voters, but they cannot expressly advocate for a specific candidate or coordinate with a candidates campaign. Build a Better Michigan aired two ads featuring Whitmer talking to the camera about her platform with the words: Gretchen Whitmer, candidate for governor. Then-Secretary of State Ruth Johnson ruled in December that they violated state law. "At no point does the content of the ad take a position on a specific issue," Benson wrote Feb. 5 to Graham Wilson, the Washington D.C.-based lawyer for Build a Better Michigan. "Instead the ads clearly identified then-candidate Gretchen Whitmer by name as a candidate for the office of Governor, rendering them express advocacy that is subject to MCFA regulation." Benson concluded a reasonable person watching the ad would see it as advocating for Whitmers election -- and that it appeared the ad sponsor coordinated with the candidate, as Whitmer read from a predetermined script into the camera, according to the letter. Benson is now also alleging the committee failed to fully comply with the registration and disclosure requirements. Though the committee disagrees with Bensons allegations, they have agreed to pay the fine and dissolve. The conciliation agreement also states the investigation into the ads will not result in any additional legal proceedings. Conciliation Agreement by on Scribd Build a Better Michigans advertising is part of a long tradition of issue advocacy used for years in Michigan by both parties and were proud to have played a role promoting affordable health care, improved infrastructure and clean water. While we respectfully disagree with the Secretary of States determination and settlement, we fully intend to comply with her ruling to put this matter behind us and move forward, the group said in a statement, issued by Mark Fisk. Michigan Freedom Fund Executive Director Tony Daunt, who filed the complaint against Build a Better Michigan, called the fine a slap on the wrist. The $37,500 fine represents two percent of the amount spent on the ads, Daunt said. Jocelyn Benson managed in a single afternoon to pull every tooth from Michigans campaign finance law, to save Gretchen Whitmer and her chief strategist millions of dollars in fines and fees, Daunt said in a statement. The Michigan Republican Party also issued a response Friday, stating Bensons actions had destroyed the ability of her office to be fair and impartial in overseeing elections. Michigan State Police recently issued a warning of an increase in fraudulent emails containing malicious links or attachments being sent to businesses and residents throughout the state. MSP reports in a Friday, Feb. 8 news release that these malicious emails have featured the subject lines of either Invoice or Receipt. Inside the email is an attachment or link to download a PDF, or Microsoft Word or Excel document that contains malware. Recent infections have been a result of the Emotet virus, MSP says in the release. "Once infected, the virus has been known to steal contact information from any email address book that the user maintains, which allows the scammer to send spoofed emails to the users contacts. Other side effects of the malware include the stealing of passwords or banking information, encryption of user files and spreading of the virus to other computers that may be connected to the users network. The Michigan Cyber Command Center recommends residents to carefully screen emails before clicking links or downloading attached files. As for the Emotet Malware, the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team describes it as an advanced, modular banking Trojan that primarily functions as a downloader or dropper of other banking Trojans. The malware is dubbed as one of the most costly and destructive viruses that can attack government entities, businesses and the everyday population. Negative consequences listed by the federal agency include temporary or permanent loss of sensitive information, disruption to typical operations, financial losses and potential harm to an organizations reputation. For more information on the malware, potential solutions and what else to look out for, click here or head to us-cert.gov. As of July 2018, the most recent campaigns imitate PayPal receipts, shipping notifications, or past-due invoices purportedly from MS-ISAC, the agency reports. Initial infection occurs when a user opens or clicks the malicious download link, PDF, or macro-enabled Microsoft Word document included in the malspam. Once downloaded, Emotet establishes persistence and attempts to propagate the local networks through incorporated spreader modules." About 3.5 percent of Michigan schoolchildren had vaccination waivers in 2017, but hundreds of Michigan school buildings and day-care centers have waiver rates that public health officials say are cause for concern. Oregon is currently in the midst of a measles outbreak that officials blame on pockets of people who have not been vaccinated. Health officials say that communities need to have between 93 and 95 percent of the population vaccinated against measles to stop its spread. Michigan requires schoolchildren to be vaccinated against 14 communicable diseases or obtain a waiver based on medical, religious or philosophical reasons. Below are online databases that allow you to look up the vaccination rates at any public or private school in Michigan where at least five vaccination records were checked. Students are required to provided immunization records when they enroll in a Michigan day-care facility, at the start of kindergarten and seventh grade, and if/when they transfer to a new school system. Almost 400,000 students in K-12 students and almost 170,000 children in day care were required to provide vaccination records in 2017. Our first database looks at 2017 vaccination rates by school building for K-12 schools. The numbers here are a combination of vaccination and waiver rates for kindergartners, seventh-graders and transfer students, and are based on numbers provided by school officials to the state. (The caveat: The number of children asked to provide records or a waiver is typically a relatively small fraction of the school population.) You can search by county, school district or by school. 2017 vaccination rates for public and private schools If you call up a county or district without specifying a school building, you will see the buildings ranked by their 2017 vaccine waiver rate. For comparison purposes, 94 percent of Michigan students in K-12 schools are fully vaccinated, 2.5 percent were partially vaccinated at the time their records were checked and 3.5 percent have a vaccine waiver. Next is a database with 2017 vaccination rates for more than 3,700 child-care programs in Michigan. The law requires those facilities to obtain vaccination records or a waiver from children newly enrolling in their program. 2017 vaccination rates for Michigan child-care programs And heres a map that shows 2017 vaccine waiver rates at a county level. You can click on a county to see the underlying data. This map combines the numbers for K-12 school and child-care programs. An eighth grade student allegedly brought the knife to school and made others aware he had it, then made a threat if they told on him, Erow said, adding another student told the boy he would get in trouble for having it at school. We've all heard of Rudy Reyes, the Recon Marine, martial artist, and actor who famously played himself in the HBO miniseries, Generation Kill, but few people really know what Rudy has been up to these days. Hell, we didn't know either until we asked Rudy to sit down and chat. The only problem? Rudy doesn't sit. He's always on the move. Always. As a former Marine and Green Beret myself, I should've known what I was getting into when I asked Rudy for an interview. I'm sitting in my office waiting for the 47-year old Marine to arrive from Mongolia (yep, you read that right). After knowing Rudy for years, I can tell you there is one thing I should be doing right now: stretching. I first met Rudy in a NYC restaurant back in 2010, just a few weeks after I had left the Marine Corps myself. I was in that awkward, post-military transition phase where the opportunity for a new life seemed so real, but I still had no idea what to do with myself after three tours to Iraq. That's when I ran into Rudy. He was waiting tables at a Thai restaurant in Brooklyn, trying to pick up some extra cash between auditions. I can tell you with 100% accuracy, Rudy is a horrible waiter, but that didn't stop him from giving the task his complete focus and energy. He only knows one speed: fast. In fact, the Recon Marine and veteran of some of Iraq's most gruesome battles moved around the restaurant like he was clearing a room. Maybe it was the newly grown "veteran" beard on my face or just the post-military emptiness that all warriors feel, but Rudy stopped when he saw me and asked me, "hey brother, are you a vet?" When I answered,"yes" and mentioned that I was just a few weeks out, Rudy invited me to join him for a workout the next day. See, that's the kinda guy Rudy has always been. He knew me for less than a minute before welcoming me into his world. Nearly a decade later, I am excited to see my friend again, especially now, because he's literally traveled the globe to come up to my office. Besides his warrior spirit, there is one thing that I've always loved about Rudy: He knows how to make an entrance. He's just walked in wearing a sleeveless WWII blouse while carrying a kettlebell and tactical boombox. So let's get this interview started (photo courtesy Rudy Reyes) Brother and leader of Marines, welcome back to We Are The Mighty. What the hell are you wearing? RR: Hey brother, good to see you. Aww yeah, you love this jacket. My buddy who worked on 'The Pacific' hooked me up. It's what the hard chargers wore when they stormed Iwo Jima. And what about the sleeves? Didn't need them. [Rudy's now doing pull-ups in the office] Dude, it's been a decade since 'Generation Kill,' and you still look like you're on the teams. How the hell do you find time to get in the gym? Brother, I am the gym. I have Sorinex center mass bells, Monkii bar straps, and a positive attitude. That's all I need. Ok, well, I have no excuse not to work out today. What were you doing in Mongolia? Aww, oh my gosh bro, it was amazing. I'm part of the Spartan Race Agoge Krypteia. I am one of the leaders of these 60-hour endurance races all across the globe. Just like the Spartans of Greece, we train people to be the strongest and [most] mentally tough citizens on earth. (photo courtesy Rudy Reyes) Why Mongolia? It's the land of Genghis Khan. We took a group of Agoge athletes through a training program just like the amazing warriors of the steppe. There was wrestling, archery, and shapeshifting. Shapeshifting? Oh yeah, the Shaman [priest], covers his face so you can't see it, but it's real. He changes into different animals to help the athletes remove the evil spirits from their lives. It's amazing how this cleansing will move you towards peak performance. Wow, this just got interesting. You really think that fighting spirits is part of fitness? I don't just think it, brother. I know it. I've been cleansing my own demons for years as I move toward being my best self. I've learned to dive into my dreams and explore the world as if I was awake. I'm an oneironaut. (photo courtesy Rudy Reyes) An Onierawhat? Oneironaut. I'm able to travel into my dreams, and once I am awake, I draw what I saw so that I can learn about the future or the past. It's like being on a reconnaissance mission again. I have to get close to the enemy around me so that I can learn how to defeat them. What have you learned from these dream missions? The enemy can come in many forms both internal and external. I have to fight things like self-doubt and depression as well as evil spirits that put barriers in our path to success. I've grown to be a better warrior, athlete, and father as an oneironaut. I recently dreamed about my son and I traveling to a beautiful waterfall. (photo courtesy Rudy Reyes) Can you teach me how to do this? Yes, of course. Sh*t! He said yes, change the subject before we actually start fighting spirits. It sounds like you've had a helluva year thus far, what does 2019 look like for you? Brother, I am so blessed. I've spent the years since I first met you focused on the things I love and believe in, and now it's paying off. I get to be the warrior I am on camera with the Spartan Agoge and travel the world. I also have my non-profit, Force Blue, where we pair special operations veterans and underwater conservationists to save the planet's coral reefs. We were just awarded a grant from the State of Florida to rescue and restore the coral reef off of Miami and the keys. Wait, what? The state of Florida is paying you guys to dive coral reefs? Hahaha [Rudy's laugh is now visibly causing all my coworkers to look in our direction]. Pretty much, brother. Florida's reef is the 3rd largest in the world and one of the most threatened. The coral is both a wall and source of life. By getting in the water and restoring the coral, we are protecting the coastline from tidal erosion and protecting the fishing industry. We call it Project PROTECT. Dude, that's awesome. You're rocking it. I see the same passion in you now that you had back when we first met in NY. What's your secret? Positive mental attitude, my brother. We are our best when we believe in ourselves. That's where I start each day and try to land each night. Positivity is contagious just like an insurgency. You know I like that. Semper Fi. Semper Fi, brother. [Rudy is now doing more pull-ups] MORE POSTS FROM WE ARE THE MIGHTY: Why getting in trouble early makes you a better leader The ridiculous anatomy of most Army Reserve drill days 7 real excuses troops use that no NCO ever believes We Are The Mighty (WATM) celebrates service with stories that inspire. WATM is made in Hollywood by veterans. It's military life presented like never before. Check it out at We Are the Mighty. Four spouses and two fiancees of veterans eligible for the Department of Veterans Affairs' family caregiver program have filed a lawsuit against the VA for denying or improperly revoking their benefits. In a suit filed Jan. 22 in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, the plaintiffs, led by Florida resident Zamantha Tapia, fiancee of Army veteran Cesar Silva, allege that the VA did not follow the laws and regulations governing the department's Comprehensive Assistance for Family Caregivers program, which provides compensation and health benefits to those who provide care for seriously injured post-9/11 veterans. According to the suit, Silva and Tapia's application was denied, and the benefits of the other plaintiffs were inappropriately downgraded or terminated without proper investigation or determination. In 2017, veterans and their caregivers enrolled in the program began seeing their benefits curtailed or terminated -- often with no reason given, other than that their VA providers determined they no longer needed help with their daily activities. In August 2018, the VA Office of Inspector General found that across the VA, facilities didn't adequately manage the program, failing to provide consistent access to it, improperly accepting ineligible veterans and declining to monitor the health statuses of nearly half the veterans it discharged from the program. The IG also learned that the department paid out $4.8 million to caregivers of veterans who weren't eligible for the program, and the VA "failed to manage the program effectively because it did not establish governance that promoted accountability for program management," staff members wrote in the report. Related: VA Suspends all Discharges from Caregiver Program In 2015, plaintiff Jennifer Wilmot and her husband George Wilmot, an Army National Guard veteran who served from October 2007 to May 2013, were booted from the program. Wilmot had been injured during a 2009 deployment to Mosul, Iraq, when the Humvee he was riding in came under small-arms fire and crashed. He suffered a traumatic brain injury, fractured portions of his back and pelvis and nearly lost his left arm. He also has post-traumatic stress disorder and memory loss. The Wilmots were accepted into the caregiver program in 2013 but should have received the highest level of compensation rather than the level they were awarded, according to attorneys Jason Perry and Luke Miller. Then came the dismissal. "After completing a comprehensive review of your medical records, it appears that you have met the intention of the program and your participation will be discontinued," VA officials wrote to the Wilmots. The lawsuit calls the termination "arbitrary and capricious." Silva was deployed to Iraq from November 2003 to August 2004, sustaining shrapnel injuries in an attack. According to the lawsuit, he received a VA disability rating of 70 percent in 2009 for rotator cuff strain and impingement and suffers from chronic headaches, degenerative joint disease, back pain and neuropathy. He also has PTSD, TBI, memory loss, depression and irritable bowel syndrome. Tapia and Silva applied for the family caregiver program in 2014 but were denied. According to the suit, the VA found that Silva did not need assistance for physical injuries and said his mental health conditions were not service-connected. They reapplied in 2017, but following a phone assessment, VA officials said that Silva was not "receiving medical treatment" -- an error, the lawsuit alleges -- and that Tapia was "an enabler." According to Perry, an attorney in Wellington, Florida, and Miller, of Military Disability Lawyer LLC in Salem, Oregon, the plaintiffs have asked the court to certify the suit as a class action, meaning that other affected caregivers could sign on if it is approved. They estimate that the VA received more than 100,000 applications for the family caregiver program between May 2011 and September 2018 and, therefore, thousands may be able to sign on to the possible class action. The plaintiffs also are requesting that the VA stop what they perceive as arbitrary dismissals from the program and are seeking monetary compensation in an amount "to be determined at trial," according to the suit. The federal government has until March 25 to file a response in the case, and a status conference is scheduled for March 29, according to court documents. -- Patricia Kime can be reached at patricia.kime@military.com. Follow her on Twitter @patriciakime. Thousands of Marines carrying out crisis-response missions in the Middle East are getting a better look at what war with a potential adversary such as Russia might look like. As the battlespace in the Middle East gets more complex -- with Russia backing Syrian forces and Turkey, a NATO ally, fighting on the opposite side of the conflict from the U.S. -- members of the Marine Corps' ground-based crisis response force are encountering new threats while operating in the region. For a service that has spent nearly two decades fighting insurgent groups, it's providing a real-world look at what they can expect if they face off against more advanced enemies with sophisticated equipment. Members of Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force-Crisis Response-Central Command are operating across swaths of Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. And some of the tactics and equipment they're encountering could shape the way U.S. forces train for future fights. "We always learn things through operating, but ... as we consider operating against near-peer and hybrid threats, there's a lot of commonality in the past," Col. George Schreffler III, who commanded the task force from April to December, told reporters at the Pentagon this week. Schreffler said Marines and other troops must think about physical camouflage and hiding their electronic footprints "when any adversary [can look] at you with their own small unmanned aerial systems or their aircraft." "We have to continue to train to minimize our signatures, both from an electromagnetic perspective and from a physical visual and audible observation perspective," he said. Citing operational security, Schreffler declined to provide examples of the threats his Marines encountered during their deployment. But U.S. troops have shot down drones from pro-Assad groups that were flying near them, and American warplanes have encountered Russian jets above Syria. Russia routinely disrupted U.S. communications in Syria, while also carrying out a sophisticated information campaign, Breaking Defense reported in the fall. Leaders called it multi-domain warfare, the website reported. Russia's efforts included discrediting U.S. and other coalition efforts while sharing feel-good videos meant to win over the hearts and minds of the locals showing Russian troops delivering food to civilians. With so many actors operating in the U.S. Central Command space and inaccurate information being spread, Schreffler said commanders are aware that things can escalate quickly. "Quite frankly, something could've happened in CENTCOM during the course of our deployment that would've required high-end skills against a peer or near-peer adversary," he said. Now Schreffler and other Marines on that deployment are sharing what they saw with other U.S. and coalition leaders, so they know what to watch for. And the Marines, he added, are gaining valuable experience they can apply during future missions. "There clearly are threats out there and, with our aircrews in particular, operating in Central Command is a significant opportunity to assess and deal with those threats and to fly in an environment ... where they're gaining significant operational experience," he said. -- Gina Harkins can be reached at gina.harkins@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @ginaaharkins. The Air Force Knew It Had an Ejection Seat Problem, But Didn't Speed Up a Fix. Then a Pilot Died And his widow fears that another pilot may suffer the same fate. Public Works Director Eric Horvath said the new sensors have made a difference for road crews, helping during the late fall to determine when roads needed brine or when the ground temperature was warm enough to melt off snowfall, and aiding in pre-application for colder temperatures when city street crews apply differing combinations of brine and BEET HEET, a beet-based de-icing product. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, February 8) President Rodrigo Duterte on Friday said that he will pay for communist rebels' trip home-- in order for their peace talks with the government to resume. Speaking at a peace and order summit in Albay, Duterte- likely alluding to members of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP)-asked the communists to "stop extorting money." He guaranteed an all-expenses paid trip for the group. "You have to stop extorting money and yung taxation ninyo. I said I will guarantee na ako na mismo ang gagastos sa (peace) talks," Duterte said on Friday evening. [Translation: You have to stop extorting money, and your taxation I said I will guarantee that I will pay for the peace talks.] The President assured that members of the peace panel will not be arrested. "You can come and be billeted in simple hotels because luxury is not for us. You can come in peace. Di kayo huhulihin (you will not be caught)," the chief executive added. Duterte, in previous speeches, had repeatedly said he was "open" to resuming peace talks with communist rebels. In the past, the government and the rebels accused each other of violating ceasefires, prompting Duterte to terminate the peace talks aimed at ending the communist group's five-decade insurgency, one of the longest running in Asia. The government also seeks to tag the CPP-NPA as a terrorist group, but that bid is still pending in court. Malacanang in January disputed reports that Duterte had ordered backchannel talks with the groups. NDFP consultant Randy Malayao on January 30 was shot and killed while on board a passenger bus in Nueva Vizcaya. The NDFP is the umbrella group that represents communist rebels in peace talks with the government. The Bedford, Mass. man who allegedly forced a man at knifepoint to drive him to New Haven early Monday after breaking into the victims home has been captured, federal authorities said. Julian Field, 24, of Bedford, Mass., is being held in Key West, Fla., were he was charged by federal authorities with kidnapping. Noticeably absent among the names on the ballots was Portage Mayor James Snyder, a Republican now in his second term and on trial in U.S. District Court in Hammond on bribery and other charges. He has pleaded not guilty. Theres not much in the filing, as far as their allegations, that we didnt expect, Clark said, adding he was served notice of the document late Wednesday and the complaint focuses on a failure to comply with public notification about the lease 20 years ago. Just the idea of asking a court to void a lease thats 20 years old and been extended three times seems highly inequitable to the property owner. WASHINGTON, D.C. U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney (CT-2), a member of the House Education and Labor Committee, as reintroduced the Protecting Americas Workers Act during the ninth anniversary of the deadly Kleen Energy natural gas explosion in Middletown. The blast killed six workers and injured dozens others Feb. 7, 2010, at the plant on River Road. Something ignited 400,000 cubic feet of gas and air that had accumulated during a gas blow, when high-pressure natural gas is pushed through pipes to clear debris, according to investigators. This week, Courtney was joined by Congressman Robert C. Bobby Scott (VA-3), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, and Congresswoman Alma Adams (NC-12), chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Workforce Protections in reintroducing the legislation. The Protecting Americas Workers Act would strengthen and modernize the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 by giving the Occupational Safety and Health Administration tools to ensure that employers promptly correct hazardous working conditions, protect workers from retaliation when they blow the whistle on unsafe working conditions, and hold employers accountable for violations that cause illness, death or serious injury to workers, according to a press release. The OSHAct has not been meaningfully updated since it was passed in 1970, Courtney said. The explosion took the lives of six workers including that of my friend, Ronald Crabb of Colchester, Connecticut and injured dozens more. Today, on the ninth anniversary of the accident, its appropriate that my colleagues and I reintroduce this legislation to make critical, decades-overdue updates to OSHA, he said in a prepared statement. Every day, 14 employees go to work and never come home to their families due to fatal on-the-job injuries. The OSHAct made great strides in protecting American workers, but since it was enacted the American workplace has modernized and diversified. The law should keep up with the realities that workers face on the job today. Our bill is focused on updates and compliance, not on petty, punitive measures against employers, and will ensure that todays workforce is empowered and protected by our nations chief worker safety law, he added. The Protecting Americas Workers Act makes long overdue improvements to Occupational Safety and Health Act, by providing coverage to millions of workers who have been excluded from the laws protections. The legislation bolsters remedies for workers who face retaliation for reporting unsafe work, and ensures that there are adequate deterrents for employers who may be tempted to cut corners and put profits ahead of safety, Scott said in the release. The Protecting Americas Workers Act will: Protect millions of workers by expanding OSHA coverage to state and local government employees in 25 states, and broadening OSHA coverage to include federal employees. Ensure worker safety is protected in a timely manner by mandating that employers correct hazardous conditions while a citation for a serious, willful or repeat violation is being contested. Currently, the requirement to abate violations is stayed while a violation is litigated, leaving workers in harms way. Reinstate an employers ongoing obligation to maintain accurate records of work-related illness and injuries, and reverses a Congressional Review Act resolution that undermined OSHAs ability to enforce against employers who violate requirements to record workplace injuries and illnesses. Improve whistleblower protections for workers who call attention to unsafe working conditions. Update obsolete consensus standards that were incorporated by reference when OSHA was first enacted in 1970. Deter high gravity violations by providing authority for increased civil monetary penalties for willful and serious violations that cause death or serious bodily injury. Require employers to report injury and illness records to OSHA to provide the agency with data to effectively target unsafe workplaces. Authorize felony penalties against employers who knowingly commit OSHA violations that result in death or serious bodily injury and extend such penalties to corporate officers and directors. Criminal penalties are misdemeanors under current law. Require OSHA to investigate all cases of death and serious injuries that occur within a place of employment. Establish rights for families of workers who were killed on the job by giving families the right to meet with OSHA investigators, receive copies of citations, and to have an opportunity to make a statement before any settlement negotiations. Improve protections for workers in state plans by allowing the Secretary of Labor to assert concurrent enforcement authority in those states where the plan is fails to meeting minimum requirements needed to protect workers safety and health, as recommended by a Government Accountability Office report. NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y. The fog rolled in on a chilling sunset as rosary beads passed through the wrinkled hands of two family matriarchs. Santa Maria, Madre de Dios, ruega por nosotros pecadores, ahora y en la hora de nuestra muerte, the women prayed, as a crowd of about 200 people joined in to mourn the loss of Valerie Reyes. They gathered in distraught silence at a vigil at Glen Island Park along Long Island Sound on Thursday night. Each person there, no matter how well they knew 24-year-old Reyes, were touched by a ripple of grief caused by her horrific slaying. We love you, said her mother, Norma Sanchez, weeping and overcome by the weight of the unbearable trauma. A young woman was found bound at her hands and feet, stuffed into a suitcase and tossed into a wooded area off Glenville Road in Greenwich on Tuesday morning. By Thursday morning, police had identified the victim as Reyes. She had been reported missing from New Rochelle on Jan. 29 after she didnt show up for a shift at the Eastchester Barnes & Noble, where she worked for two-and-a-half years. Whoever did this is going to pay, Sanchez said. My daughter didnt deserve whatever you did to her. You will get what you deserve. Up until Thursday morning, Reyes family were holding to hope that the young woman would return. We thought shed come back, said a cousin of Reyes who declined to give her name. We never expected this to happen. Reyes friend, Jackie, said that she wanted the womans family to know that their daughter didnt deserve to be taken from them. I am sorry people are so cruel, she said. She is in a better place now. She is looking down upon us watching over us. And she is in peace. The prayer leader at the vigil told the crowd, We are sad, but we have hope that she will live in eternity in the house of the Lord. The crowd, illuminated by candles and assembled near an old stone castle, chanted Justice for Valerie. At the end of the vigil, the crowd released white balloons into the night sky. She was a beautiful young girl, said Jackie. May she rest in peace. Staff Writer Robert Marchant contributed to this story. WASHINGTON Connecticut Democratic lawmakers on Thursday called on President Donald Trump and congressional leaders to adjust the $10,000 cap on state and local taxes SALT after Trump said in an interview that he was open to talking about revisions to the 2017 GOP tax law. "The number one concern I've heard over the past year about the GOP tax bill is the restriction on SALT deductions, which disproportionately affects states like Connecticut, especially in Fairfield County, said Rep. Jim Himes. Fixing the SALT issue should absolutely be a priority. Connecticut is enmeshed in a lawsuit against the federal government along with three other Northeast states, claiming the limit is in the tax reform act is unconstitutional. The lawsuit says its aimed at states like Connecticut and New York with relatively high median incomes, high costs, high taxes and Democratic governors. In a White House interview Wednesday with reporters from regional outlets including Hearst Connecticut Media, Trump initially defended the SALT cap as a fair balancing of the tax burdens of low-tax, low-cost (and mostly Republican) states in the South and West, and those of states like Connecticut and New York. Trump, a New York-based real estate tycoon before becoming president, put a political spin on his comments by saying the SALT cap equalizes the burden of states that that have been really well run and dont have debt, and states that have been poorly run, like New York and others. The SALT cap makes all states the same, he said. But he also acknowledged he had been in touch with unnamed political figures and individuals stressing what they saw as the unfairness of the added tax burden to homeowners and state taxpayers in Connecticut, New York and elsewhere. Id be open to talking about it, Trump said, adding that the impetus for change would have to come from the Democratic-controlled House. That gives Democrats an opening to craft a fix. I will be working with my colleagues to do just that, said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-New York, the Senate minority leader. The administrations tax bill was a giveaway to the already-wealthy and corporations at the expense of the middle class and working people, Schumer said. Capping the SALT deductions at $10,000 was a gut punch to thousands of middle-class New Yorkers that also lowers home values; it is a punitive and misguided policy that needs to be reversed. But even if President Trump ultimately decides to back changes to the cap on SALT, Democrats in Connecticut, New York and elsewhere would face a major hurdle the Republican-controlled Senate. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said through a spokesman that he would not consider any tweaks to the SALT deduction. Trump questioned whether the SALT cap has affected middle-class homeowners in Northeast states or just the wealthy, Trump also said its been severe on them. Some Connecticut lawmakers tut-tutted Trump for only now realizing the damage that the SALT cap is doing to middle class homeowners and state taxpayers. Even President Trump concedes that his rigged-for-the-rich tax law is hurting middle class families and homeowners in Connecticut, said Rep. Rosa DeLauro. The most recent data shows that 40 percent of the residents in my district were able to make ends meet because of this provision, but the President and Republicans in Congress were not concerned about them when they jammed through the tax bill. Sen. Chris Murphy, who like the rest of Connecticuts congressional delegation bitterly opposed the tax bill when it won Congressional approval late in 2017, called the cap a partisan trick aimed at hurting states like Connecticut. And now, families are starting to feel it as they file their taxes this season." Sen. Richard Blumenthal said he was pretty underwhelmed by President Trumps vague references to `talking about... changing the egregiously harmful tax hit that he pushed through Congress. Had Trump listened to the American people, Blumenthal said, he might have understood the devastatingly unfair impact of his cuts in the SALT deduction on middle class families in states like Connecticut. The cap now in place limits taxpayers to a combination of $10,000 worth of deductions on either property taxes, state income taxes or state sales taxes. But a total of 41 percent of the federal tax returns filed in Connecticut in the past claimed an average SALT deduction of $19,665, nearly double the $10,000 limit, according to a Connecticut Office of Legislative Research report. Connecticut ranked second among states in the percentage of filers claiming the deduction. Trump and Republicans had argued in 2017 that capping the SALT deduction would impact the very rich with high incomes and large high-cost homes than the middle class. Indeed, in the interview Wednesday, Trump told a reporter that he thought the cap affects wealthy people. The General Assemblys Office of Legislative Research shows that in previous tax years, the percentage of filers taking a SALT deduction rose alongside their income brackets. Virtually every taxpayer with a household income above $200,000 took advantage of the SALT deduction. But, the study showed, so did 88 percent of those with incomes between $100,000 and $200,000, and 67 percent between $75,000 and $100,000. I really hope President Trump is serious about taking a look at eliminating the cap on the SALT deduction, but he knew the disaster he was creating when he pushed this bill relentlessly last term, Murphy said. The Republicans tax bill has been an all-around failure for working- and middle-class Americans and has exploded our deficit. dan@hearstdc.com Theres a din in Gotham City as George Jepsen, the former attorney general, and Perry Zinn Rowthorn, who was Jepsens top deputy, started work on Wednesday as partners in the novel attorney general practice at Shipman & Goodwin LLP in Hartford. Theyve been taking some heat including from my once-again colleague, Colin McEnroe about hanging out a shingle to represent corporate clients against AGs that are going after them for one transgression or another. Jepsen and Rowthorn did, after all, devote much of their careers to the white-hat side, going after bad guys. A skeptical McEnroe, in this weeks newsletter: How is this not like Batman and Robin making their services available to the Joker and the Penguin, with the specific purpose of telling them how not to be defeated by other superheroes? For money! Ive known Colin for decades. Hes saying that because hes in the Amalgamated Superheroes and Bone Repair Union with Dick Blumenthal. I spoke with Batman and Robin and as always, theres more than meets the eye in the big city. Yes, theyre representing clients up against the righteous slings of law enforcers. But theyre also hoping to work with superhero attorneys general in other states on strategy and multi-state negotiations. They did a lot of that over the last eight years. And, theyre available as outsourced lawyers to jump in the Batmobile and rush from Wayne Manor Jepsen does, after all, live across the street from the stately governors mansion to do the very work that AG offices do, for the AGs. Finally, theyre now in the business, they hope, of monitoring big, multi-state settlements as the neutral referee. Bet you didnt know that existed. I certainly didnt. On the enforcement side, Jepsen took a more collaborative approach with businesses than his predecessor, now-Sen. Blumenthal though both filed no shortage of lawsuits over the years. Its a little simplistic to say that were just switching teams, Rowthorn said. When they were involved in a case, he added, If there were cool heads who were credible, reasonable, creative, who could help us solve problemswe always appreciated those people. And so we kind of want to be those guys, the practical problem-solvers. Under ethics rules, they cant appear before the Connecticut AGs office for a year. Theyre defining that broadly, so theyll probably avoid most in-state work for clients on the hook even if theyre appearing before other agencies if the office of Attorney Generals office under William Tong is any way involved, as often is the case. Also at the same firm, on the same floor, is former state Supreme Court Justice Joette Katz, now a litigator, who just finished a long stint as commissioner of the Department of Children and Families. Katz is not in the fledgling AG practice but Shipman lawyers may help out and the practice could grow. One practical concern: Whos the boss between the two West Hartford residents? Its Jepsens second tour of duty at Shipman & Goodwin, and he had the big title and the mandate from voters in their last gig. But theyre strictly partners now. If there were a hierarchy, Rowthorn demurred, he would be the practice head. dhaar@hearstmediact.com The room where the victim was found was in disarray, as if there was a struggle, the affidavit states. A nurse said that Withrow and the victim were roommates and had not been paired up for all that long, according to the affidavit. They have both been known to be violent, the affidavit states. LANSING A bill seeking to improve the early education standards in the state would require all Michigan students to attend kindergarten. The recently introduced legislation is being sponsored by State Rep. Bill Sowerby, a Democrat from Clinton Township. Early childhood education lays the groundwork for future academic success, and studies have shown that children who attend kindergarten are better prepared for elementary school both academically and socially, Sowerby said. With third-grade reading requirements taking effect next year, it is more important than ever that we ensure our students are not falling behind." "We need to make sure were providing Michigan children with every opportunity to learn, grow and flourish," he added. As part of House Bill 4071, children who turn 5 years of age before or on Sept. 1 would need to be enrolled for the upcoming school year, and those who turn 5 after that date will be enrolled the next year. The length of the school days either half or full will be left up to the discretion of the individual school district. If made law, HB 4071 would make Michigan the 18th state to require kindergarten for its students. Current Michigan law does not require school districts to offer kindergarten or for 5-year-olds to attend kindergarten. Children aren't required to attend school until they turn 6, and they must be enrolled in the first grade. Come hell or high water, Anthony Gerald shows up. Be it with a cane, a walker or simply limping; he rarely misses a community event because he knows how important it is to be a shining example to his children, often seeks out every opportunity he can to serve as a blessing to someone else. In the midst of a financial recovery plan we started developing in 2018, we have made the decision to not host the larger event this year but to keep working and take steps toward securing strong sponsors and supporters of the citys signature event in 2019, 2020 and 2021, Freeman-Wilson said in a statement. Christ Baptist Church: 4700 E. 7th Ave. The Financial Focus Workshop scheduled for Saturday has been cancelled. The 30th Annual Northwest Indiana Christian Womens Retreat will be March 15 to March 17 at Swan Lake Resort, 5203 Plymouth LaPorte Trail, Plymouth. The theme is Grateful, Thankful & Hopeful. The retreat includes workshops for spiritual growth. The cost is $175 per person. A group rate for 10 people or more is 20 percent off per person. Request invoices at www.facebook.com/nicwr or nicwr@comcast.net. Installment payments may be made to March 3. Information: call Kamilah Moore at 219-484-5281. This action would reduce the districts portion of the annual tax bill for a $400,000 market value home by approximately $280. Officials point out that OPRF is just one of the local taxing bodies, and a property owners tax bill may still increase. The net reduction in the tax levy also means that the total taxes extended for OPRF District 200 would be below its 2010 tax level, officials said. The Secretary General for European Affairs, Panagiotis Pavlopoulos, and Germanys Minister of State for Europe, Michael Roth, discussed the positive prospects that arise following Greece's return to normalcy, as well as its role in the region upon entry into force of the Prespa Agreement. During their meeting held at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, they also examined the political developments and processes in Europe especially the upcoming European elections, as well as the major and pressing open issues for the European Union, such as the deepening of the Eurozone and the new 2021-2027 Multiannual Financial Framework, which is under development. They agreed that the necessary reforms in the Eurozone will have to be in line with strengthening of its democratic institutions and that the new multiannual European budget will have to deal with the expanded economic and social inequalities within the Union and its Member States. Similarly, the expressed the common position that no margin exists for renegotiation of the agreement for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union. Your All Holiness, ladies and gentlemen, representatives of the Turkish government, Mr. Representative of the President of the Republic of Turkey, Your Eminences, friends, it is a great joy, a great honour, and with much emotion that I am with you today, feeling that I am taking steps that bear historic weight. Today, I had the pleasure and blessing to tour important monuments of Hellenism and Orthodoxy here in Istanbul, which are also monuments of global cultural heritage. Monuments that now belong to all of humanity, universal monuments. But, we dont overlook the fact that they are Hellenic monuments; of Hellenism and a of a Greek community, a Greek and Orthodox minority here in Istanbul, which went through many trials and tribulations. It was wounded, hunted down, decimated, but it did not forget its roots. It may appear like the trunk of a wounded tree, but the roots exist, breathe, are present. And of course, it is with great emotion and joy that I am here today at Halki, the historic island of Halki, in this historic and holy place. In Halki where, in the 9th century, St. Photios, Patriarch Photios at that time, founded the Stavropegial Monastery of the Holy Trinity and where, later, the Theological School of Halki was housed, having been founded by Patriarch Germanus IV in 1844. A school where great men studied, scholars, Orthodox theologians, priests, with great knowledge and a very significant contribution, as well as great figures who later became important hierarchs. Many of them also sat on the Ecumenical throne, among whom present day Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, whom I thank for giving me a tour of those places to which he came to study, as a youth of 15, from Imvros. Therefore, having all these memories, great and emotional memories, I had the opportunity to enter the same halls where at one point learning took place, which unfortunately stopped from 1971 onwards. But also to take a tour of an ark of wisdom and knowledge in this unbelievable wealth of knowledge and wisdom that is the Library of the Theological School, with more than 100,000 books, to see the great and remarkable effort which is being made, also with the assistance of the Hellenic Parliament, in order for these to be catalogued and digitised to be read and become the object of knowledge for the whole world, from wherever one may originate, through the possibilities that new technologies provide us with. I would like, therefore, given the opportunity of my being here, to say that beyond the historical nature of this visit, which coincides with an important celebration for Halki and the Theological School and the Greek Orthodox minority - today I had the pleasure to discover that the presence of all of us here at Halki, my own, that of the Ecumenical Patriarch, as well as all the visitors, was not the subject of discord but was the subject of hope, joy, a positive response by the citizens of this historic place, Turkish citizens, who rushed to the wharf as soon as our boats arrived, by the dozens, the hundreds, to greet us, to shake our hand, to express their love. A love which is sincere and is at the heart of the friendship between Greeks and Turks, which we wish to build upon. And the message we wish to send today here, from this historic place, is that re-opening of the School of Halki will not constitute a subject of discord or conflict, differences or divides, but it will serve as a message of friendship, mutual understanding, and fraternity between our peoples. I firmly believe that religion, faith in our differing religions, monotheistic religions which place man at their centre and therefore love for man and our fellow humans, regardless of what and in whom one believes, both religion as well as minorities, the Muslim minority in Greece and the Greek minority in Turkey, must serve as bridges between our peoples, and not as a battlefield. And I say this, dear friends, because the voluntary obligation of our governments to uphold and defend the interests, the claims, and the rights of the minorities in each country separately is not the subject of a bilateral agreement, negotiation, transaction, or exchange. It is not the subject of bilateral negotiations but a voluntary obligation and proof that we are states and governments that respect the principle of egalitarianism, the principle of equality and the religious freedoms of our citizens. We have nothing to prove to one another. Rather, we have something to prove to our ourselves, to the International Community and to the principles and values we stand for. It is only to ourselves that we have something to prove. As such, I believe that today sends the correct messages, and I too wish to convey these correct messages. And I would like to say that points of contention do exist between the two governments and the two countries, which we can only resolve through dialogue and good will. I would like to acknowledge that the Turkish government has taken steps in recent years, especially with regard to the issues of the Ecumenical Patriarchates property, a large portion of which has been returned. And I would like to believe that we are approaching that day when these steps will become even greater. I would like to believe, Your All Holiness, that we are approaching that day when in these halls, of which you gave me a tour just moments ago, the happy laughter of students will resound, who will be taught by worthy individuals so as to become worthy preachers of Theology as well as friendship and fraternity between our peoples. I would also like to thank you for your kind words and your hospitality. And I would like to say that the Ecumenical Patriarchate constitutes a repository of universal human values and is an institution which the Greek Government supports. And I would like to congratulate you on your work, because we have the pleasure and the luck to have this unique institution being headed by a dynamic figure with international recognition. And I would like to believe that your presence and contribution will serve as a catalyst so as to put into practice what we believe in. In other words, for religions to bring people together and not what divides people; for religious faith to be that which brings people together and not that which divides people. So, with these thoughts, Your All Holiness, dear friends, I would like to sincerely thank you once again for your reception, your warm words, and your gifts. Mainly, though, I would like to thank you for the tour of this historic place; and to tell you that I can feel this great weight of History bearing down on my shoulders. I am also optimistic that the next time I will step over this threshold, I will not be alone, but with President Erdogan, and with you, Your All Holiness, to declare a glorious day for friendship and mutual understanding between our peoples, for the re-opening of the Theological School of Halki. My warm thanks. The [entities] will band together to create a regional effort to look at how we can further fair housing in our area, Grossman said. We think this is a really good opportunity for the village to participate. The best part is, we think there would be a really good, strong synergy between the communities because it would be such a regional initiative. NOTICE OF SALE Notice is hereby given that the personal property listed below will be sold at public auction held on October 15, 2018, at Time: 12:00PM. Location: The auction to be held online at www.bid13.com for Carver County Self Storage, description of the goods and name of the person(s) whose personal property is to be sold is as follows: Unit #136 10x20 Schuler, Melissa with last known residence of Waconia, MN 55387. Published in the Waconia Patriot September 20, 27, 2018 859201 Ad details NOTICE OF SALE Notice is hereby given that the personal property listed below will be sold at public auction held on October 15, 2018, at Time: 12:00PM. Location: The auction to be held online at www.bid13.com for Carver County Self Storage, description of the goods and name of the person(s) whose personal property is to be sold is as follows: Unit #136 10x20 Schuler, Melissa with last known residence of Waconia, MN 55387. Published in the Waconia Patriot September 20, 27, 2018 859201 You have permission to edit this image. Edit Close On Saturday, June 19, 2021, Emmett Colon Mitcham Jr. died at Rush Foundation Hospital. He was a true gentleman; He loved God, his family, his church, and his work. Emmett was kind-hearted and quick-witted, often making up songs to describe his current situation. To him, work was the joy of a LAS VEGAS Feb. 8, 2019 Las Vegas February 2, 2019 Las Vegas Las Vegas Karla Gutierrez Gordon Murray Kostika Polena Cortnie Sanchez Andrew Schneider Joel Stokes Kathleen Uy Matthew Welebir Burleson, TX February 9, 2019 Matthew Welebir Las Vegas Crystal Strait /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Perfect Smile Dental partnered with the Smiles for Everyone Foundation to open itsoffice to provide free dental services for nearly 100 underinsured, low-income individuals onVolunteers from Smile Brands Inc.'s affiliated offices inarrived on a rainy Saturday morning ready to cast rays of sunshine over all those who stepped into the Perfect Smile Dental office. The Team, comprised of nine doctors and over 30 support staff, worked together to deliver pro bono care to underserved patients. Members of thecommunity were informed about the event through our Foundation's partnerships with local nonprofit organizations, such as Street Teens, an organization that gives guidance to homeless youth, Helping Hands of Las Vegas Valley, a support program for low-income senior citizens, and The Cupcake Girls, a resource center for victims of sex trafficking. Services included checkups, cleanings, oral cancer screenings, fluoride treatments,fillings, extractions, and more. Volunteer dentists included Dr., Dr., Dr. Sara Parasido, Dr., Dr., Dr., Dr., Dr., and Dr.The patients were extremely vocal about how grateful they were for the level of compassion shown to them by the Team. "They were smiling through, even though they were tired," said Hollie S., who learned about the event from the local news. "I would just like to tell them thank you, and not to worry about the long wait. Linda C, from the Jewish Family Service Agency wrote to us saying, "The staff is the bomb and humor filled, but also extremely patient, caring, and knowledgeable. I'm a disabled, senior veteran on a budget. This afforded me relief and satisfaction. You're a blessing to the community! Keep up the good work, and God bless."The Smiles for Everyone Foundation would like to give a warm thank you the entire volunteer Team. Their hard work truly paid off, and as patient Hector M said it, "You made my 2019!"The next Day of Giving that the Foundation will be hosting will be inon. Please visit http://www.smilesforeveryone.org for more information.About P3 Dental GroupP3 Dental Group is a rapidly growing group dental practice affiliated with Smile Brands Inc. Founded by Dr.in 2003, P3 Dental has been delivering quality care toarea residents. With five convenient general dentistry locations and two co-located specialty centers, P3 Dental Group provides state-of-the-art general and specialty care, including: preventative care, periodontal care, restorative care, cosmetic care, Invisalign, dental implants, oral surgery, and sedation dentistry. Their mission is to create long-term patient relationships by making dental visits convenient, affordable and stress-free. P3 relies on Smile Brands to provide world-class business support services so they can focus on delivering highly personalized patient care.About the Smiles For Everyone Foundation The Smiles for Everyone Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization with the mission of delivering smiles for everyone by providing free dental care for those in need, both at home in the U.S. and around the world. Since 2011, the Smiles for Everyone Foundation has delivered over 19,000 smiles and $14.5 million in donated dentistry. The foundation currently supports programs which provide free dental care to those in need in Cambodia, Ghana, Laos, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Thailand, and the United States. For more information or to make a donation, visit http://www.smilesforeveryone.org.Contacts: Perfect Smile Dental Jody Martin PR(at)smilebrands.com 714.427.1299Smiles for Everyone Foundationcrystal.strait(at)smilesforeveryone.org 714.824.5037SOURCE Perfect Smile Dental Approximately half of the worlds population experiences, will experience, or has experienced menstruation, and yet myths about this biological process still abound. In this Spotlight feature, we debunk some of the most widespread menstruation misconceptions. Share on Pinterest In this Spotlight feature, we debunk some widespread myths surrounding menstruation. As of 2017, the worlds population numbers 7.53 billion people, of which 3.73 billion are born with female genitalia. Virtually all of them do, have, or will go through menstruation (period), the part of the menstrual cycle in which the uterus sheds mucosal tissue alongside blood through the vagina. Periods can last between 3 and 7 days and usually occur every 28 days, though menstrual cycle lengths can vary. Although this biological process affects about half of the worlds population, many myths and misconceptions about it persist. Cultures around the world still vilify menstruation, and consider period blood dirty and impure, and menstruation itself as a taboo topic. For instance, although this practice is now mostly illegal, some communities as a series of recent tragedies in Nepal suggest still have the so-called menstruation huts, in which women on their period spend the days in which they bleed in complete isolation. Though this is an extreme example, there are many smaller myths and misconceptions related to menstruation that remain in circulation across the globe. Read this Spotlight feature to find out what some of the most popular misconceptions are, and why they are untrue. 1. Sex on your period Some of the most widespread myths regarding menstruation gravitate around sex while on your period, with the top contender likely being that you cannot get pregnant while menstruating. Share on Pinterest You can absolutely get pregnant if having unprotected sex on your period. However, this idea is entirely false. While it is true that, in many individuals, menstruation is the period when they are least fertile, it really depends on the length of their monthly cycles. Peak fertility occurs during the ovulation stage which usually kicks in approximately 12 to 16 days before the start of the next period when the ovaries produce and release fresh ovules (eggs). And while most menstrual cycles last about 28 days, some cycles can be as short as 21 days, which also impacts when ovulation takes place. Moreover, sperm can live inside the genital tract for up to 5 days or, according to some sources, even 7 days. Thus, having unprotected vaginal sex during your period could mean that the sperm gets to linger for just long enough to coincide with ovulation and fertilize an egg, resulting in pregnancy. Moreover, if you have sex during menstruation without using a condom, the risk of getting a sexually transmitted infection (STI) including HIV or a yeast infection increases, due to the hormonal changes that occur at this time. Vaginal-penile sex during a period can also, in some cases, cause inflammation of the penis head a type of infection called balanitis. Still, as long as you take all necessary precautions to avoid an unwanted pregnancy and the transmission of STIs, there is no reason not enjoy sex while on your period to the contrary, in fact, as sex can help relieve cramps and improve your mood. 2. Unsafe to keep skipping your period? Another widespread misconception is that it is unsafe to use birth control pills to enable you to skip your period for a prolonged period. Share on Pinterest Skipping your periods for a prolonged time is safe. However, recent guidelines from the National Womens Health Network indicate that it is just fine to suppress menstruation through birth control pills, and most gynecologists agree that this approach is typically safe. Some people even argue that, outside of their role in reproduction, periods are unnecessary, and can be more trouble than they are worth. For instance, James Segars, from the department of gynecology and obstetrics at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD, told The Atlantic that, Having a monthly period is reassuring, but it is certainly not necessary. And with these long-term, reversible contraceptives, the failure rate is really, really low so women can benefit a lot from them. James Segars For many individuals, menstruation symptoms can be severe and interfere with their normal functioning and quality of life. They may experience heavy bleeding, disabling pain, and other unpleasant symptoms, such as migraines and nausea. Those with dysmenorrhea (painful periods) or certain conditions that cause troublesome symptoms, such as endometriosis, may decide, in agreement with their doctors, that skipping several periods, or skipping menstruation continuously, is the best option for their health and productivity. 3. Shouldnt have a bath Some think that having a bath or even taking a shower during your period is unsafe. This is either because hot water stimulates bleeding, or because the water stops you from bleeding, which can have ill effects. Share on Pinterest Go ahead and enjoy that bath without worry! It will make you feel better. While hot water can help stimulate blood flow, this can actually help relieve menstrual cramps and ease muscular tension. Bleeding does not stop following full immersion in water. However, the pressure from the water may temporarily prevent the blood from flowing out of the vagina. There is no reason not to have a bath or shower during your period. Most likely, relaxing in a bubble bath and feeling cleaner as a result of it will improve your mood and help you cope with menstruation symptoms a little better. Furthermore, it is better and healthier to use water and mild, unfragranced soap to clean the vulva than wipes or other products. This is because many intimate care products can disrupt the delicate bacterial balance in the genital area, making it easier for infections to take hold. A study that Medical News Today reported on last year found a strong correlation between the use of intimate care products, such as gel sanitizers and vaginal cleansers, and a heightened risk of infection. Plus, having a hot bath could bring a host of other health benefits. One study covered on MNT last year suggested that baths may reduce inflammation and improve blood sugar. 4. Syncing periods Share on Pinterest Is period synchrony a real phenomenon? One pervasive question surrounding periods is whether can they actually sync. For example, if two or more women spend enough time together, perhaps as roommates, will they have periods at the same time? One person, speaking to MNT, said that she was even taught about period synchrony in school, and was still wondering whether the notion was accurate. She told us: I heard about period syncing a long time ago when I studied in an all-girls school. Then, when I started living with [my two female roommates], I noticed we often had periods around the same time. [Another friend] says that this is due to an alpha-female releasing hormones that affect the period cycles of other women around her. So is any of this true? After all, many of us are likely to have experienced period syncing at some point, in a school, work, or home-sharing environment. The notion of period synchrony first appeared as a scientific idea in a 1971 Nature article. This article argued that women who lived in close quarters roommates in a college dorm or who were close friends, experienced increased menstruation synchrony. The studys authors believed that this probably happened because the women who lived so closely together exchanged pheromones over time, which eventually led to this phenomenon. However, later studies cast doubts on the methodology researchers used for the 1971 research. The later studies highlighted numerous shortcomings and modifying factors that the original researchers had not accounted for. They also noted a lack of empirical evidence for synchrony in the foregoing studies of both Western and non-Western populations. Moreover, studies that followed were never able to replicate the findings of the initial research. convincingly. Research published more recently did not find that college roommates experienced menstrual synchrony. Investigators have since become more inclined to believe that the notion is nothing but an enduring myth, with any synchrony being purely coincidental. Alexandra Alvergne, who is an associate professor in biocultural anthropology at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, told the BBC that, As humans, we always like exciting stories. We want to explain what we observe by something that is meaningful. And the idea that what we observe is due to chance or randomness is just not as interesting. New research, now published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, investigates whether the order in which we drink beer and wine has any impact on the severity of our hangover. Share on Pinterest Does it make a difference to our hangover if we drink beer before wine? Many people from all around the world will have heard different myths about drinking and curing hangovers. They range from the hair of the dog, the belief that the best cure for a hangover is to have another drink, to the greasy morning-after meal that supposedly soaks up the alcohol. Lots of people do believe in hangover remedies and prevention strategies, but these are rarely backed up by research. One such belief concerns the strength of the alcohol consumed. Some believe that it is better to start with a drink lower in alcohol volume, such as beer, and continue with higher-volume alcohol, such as wine, to avoid getting a hangover. Does such a claim withstand rigorous research? Scientists at the Witten/Herdecke University in Germany in collaboration with the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom set out to examine the literal truth behind the saying, Beer before wine and youll feel fine; wine before beer and youll feel queer. To do so, the researchers examined the effects that drinking beer and wine in different orders had on 90 study participants who were all 1940 years old. by Karlene Lukovitz @KLmarketdaily, February 8, 2019 Wine and spirits giant Pernod Ricard -- home of Absolut, Chivas Regal and many other brands -- has launched its first global corporate campaign, featuring a documentary-style film and a partnership with Vice. The campaign, an extension of the companys longstanding Creators of Conviviality mission statement, is themed Be a Convivialist. The objective is to urge customers, consumers and employees to reverse the negative trends in genuine, real-world connectivity we see around the world by exercising more conviviality in our lives every day, in Pernod Ricards words. Theres a real yearning for connection and sharing in todays world, Pernod Ricard chairman and CEO Alexandre Ricard tells Marketing Daily. Convivialiteechoes the lifelong motto of my grandfather Paul Ricard, who launched an invitation to all his employees to make a new friend every day. advertisement advertisement As a basis for the campaign, the company used the results of a survey of some 11,500 people in 100 countries. While 78% of all respondents, and 70% of Americans, said that their countries are convivial, 56% of the total, and 61% of Americans, said that thats less true today than it was five years ago. The campaigns centerpiece 10-minutes-plus film, The Power of Convivialite (below), was directed by Elephant At Work. It consists of footage of convivial experiences filmed in 12 destinations around the world, such as millennials meeting in a karaoke bar in Shanghai, and friends enjoying time together at a a beach aperitif in Tulum (above), a bar in Brooklyn, a wedding in Goa, and a New Years Eve gathering in Berlin. A dedicated campaign website offers the film, profiles of the people in the film, the surveys results, more content and a manifesto for a more convivial world. Vice is promoting and distributing content from the film on several of its social networks, with focus on the United States, the United Kingdom and China. Vice also worked with Pernod Ricard on a content series featuring footage of people from around the world who help bring people in their communities together, by reporter Laurence Cornet and photographer Stephane Lavoue. As part of the campaign, Pernod Ricard will also host conviviality-themed events around the world, and work with influencers within the spirits category. by Wendy Davis @wendyndavis, February 8, 2019 Facebook appears to be poised to settle lawsuits in New York and California accusing it of violating housing laws by facilitating ads that discriminate. In the New York case, the National Fair Housing Alliance and other advocacy groups alleged that Facebook enables landlords and brokers to place ads that discriminate against women, families with children, people with disabilities and other people protected by civil rights laws. This week, U.S. District Court Judge John Koeltl in Manhattan dismissed that lawsuit -- but with a provision specifying that the case can be revived within 45 days if it isn't resolved out of court. The move came at the request of Facebook and the advocacy groups; they previously said in a letter to Koeltl that they were meeting with a mediator and making progress toward settlement. The other lawsuit, which is pending in front of U.S. District Court Judge Edward Davila in San Jose, California, alleges that Facebook enables race-based targeting of housing and employment ads. advertisement advertisement Three weeks ago, Facebook and the plaintiffs in that matter told Davila they had made significant progress towards resolving this action. The San Jose lawsuit was brought in November of 2016, soon after ProPublica reported that Facebook enables advertisers to prevent their ads from being shown to users who belong to certain "ethnic affinity" groups -- including people the social networking believes have an ethnic affinity of black, Asian-American and Hispanic. After ProPublica's initial report, Facebook updated its ad guidelines to strengthen prohibitions against discrimination based on race, ethnicity, color, national origin, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, family status, disability, or medical or genetic condition. The company also said it would require advertisers offering housing and employment ads to certify compliance with anti-discrimination laws. Despite the move, ProPublica reported in November of 2017 that the company still allowed advertisers to prevent minorities from viewing housing ads. Several months after that subsequent report, the National Fair Housing Alliance sued Facebook in New York. Last year, Facebook eliminated 5,000 ad-targeting options, including ones that enabled discrimination based on ethnicity or religion. Among other segments, Facebook removed advertisers' ability to block ads from being seen by users interested in things like Passover, Evangelicalism, Native American culture, Islamic culture, and Buddhism. by Tanya Gazdik , February 7, 2019 The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection is preparing to offer ultra-luxury cruises starting next year on the first of three custom-built yachts. The company, which uses The Ritz-Carlton mark under license from The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company and is not an affiliate of The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company or Marriott International, has begun an email campaign directing prospective customers to the company website, The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection. The website allows visitors to sign up for a digital brochure with itinerary information for the inaugural season. Prospective guests can also sign up for email marketing from The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection, where theyll receive the latest offers and programs leading up to launch. advertisement advertisement A PR spokesperson declined to reveal which agency created the email campaign, website and digital brochure. Each ship will accommodate a total of 544 people, including 298 passengers in 149 suites and 246 crew members. The company will fill a distinctive niche, says Doug Prothero, chief executive officer of The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection. Prothero was on hand at the Rolls Royce Villa at Concours DElegance last year promoting the company. The intimate size of our yachts allows us to sail into coveted city harbors around the world, and the relaxed pace offers both daytime and overnight ports of call, giving guests more flexibility for their time on land, Prothero tells Marketing Daily. The first yacht will cruise a wide variety of destinations, including the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, northern Europe, Canada and New England. Voyages will range from seven to ten nights with ports including Barbados, Cartagena, Bordeaux, Copenhagen, Mykonos and Portofino. Each itinerary includes a range of distinctive activities, from the christening celebration on the inaugural voyage to the Monaco Grand Prix, the Edinburgh Military Tattoo music festival and exploring the yachting playgrounds of the Greek Isles, Balearic Islands and French Riviera, Prothero says. Antitrust regulators in Germany are ordering Facebook to change the way it tracks users across digital channels. Germanys Federal Cartel Office -- or Bundeskartellamt -- warned the company that within the year, it must stop collecting the data of unsuspecting consumers and combining it with their Facebook accounts. In response, Facebook said it plans to fight German regulators in count; it took issue with its specific demands. While weve cooperated with the Bundeskartellamt for nearly three years and will continue our discussions, we disagree with their conclusions and intend to appeal so that people in Germany continue to benefit fully from all our services, Yvonne Cunnane and Nikhil Shanbhag, Facebooks head of data protection in Ireland and director-associate general counsel, said in an official statement. The Bundeskartellamt underestimates the fierce competition we face in Germany, misinterprets our compliance with (General Data Protection Regulation) and undermines the mechanisms European law provides for ensuring consistent data protection standards across the EU, according to Cunnane and Shanbhag. advertisement advertisement Taking issue with German regulators characterization of Facebook as a monopoly, Cunnane and Shanbhag cite their own survey showing that over 40% of social media users in Germany dont use the social network. Since the GDPR went into effect last year, the comprehensive European data law has threatened a number of U.S. tech titans with significant fines. In the wake of a security breach that affected roughly 50 million Facebook accounts late last year, European regulators reportedly threatened the company with over $1 billion in fines. Facebooks lead European privacy regulator, Irelands Data Protection Commission (DPC), made its concerns public last October. Last month, privacy regulators in France hit Google with roughly $57 million in fines for failing to comply with GDPR guidelines. The French National Data Protection Commission said the U.S. search giant failed to obtain consumers consent before using their data to deliver more targeted advertising. Vaccinium myrtillus, commonly known as wimberry, bilberry, European blueberry or whortleberry, is a species of shrubs with blue color edible fruit of high medicinal values. Vaccinium myrtillus is distinctly known as common bilberry or blue whortleberry in order to distinguish from other Vaccinium species. Vaccinium myrtillus is majorly found in Europe, Greenland, Iceland, northern Asia, U.S. and Canada. However, majority of the Vaccinium myrtillus is produced in Eastern Europe regions. Vaccinium myrtillus are majorly found in the wild on acidic soil conditions. Vaccinium myrtillus find its application in varieties of end-use industry verticals, and hence a positive outlook can be witnessed for Vaccinium myrtillus market in the upcoming years. Global Vaccinium myrtillus Market Dynamics Global scenario of increasing disease burden and extensive R&D efforts for the innovation of drugs are the prime factors supporting the explosively growing pharmaceutical industry world. According to the American Diabetes Association, over 30.3 million Americans were diagnosed with diabetes, which was proved to be the leading cause of death in the United States, in 2015. With increasing prevalence of diabetes, demand for Vaccinium myrtillus products is expected to witness a rise in the U.S and other regions around the world. According to a study published in European Review for Medical and Pharmacological Sciences, Vaccinium myrtillus can be used to provide relief for dry eyes. Vaccinium myrtillus can be used to reduce eye discomfort, where Vaccinium myrtillus extracts plays a vital role in improving tear secretion and plasmatic antioxidant potential in patients suffering from dry eye. Click here to subscribe Sample @ https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=S&rep_id=2081 According to University of Maryland Medical Center, Vaccinium myrtillus are very rich in anthocyanosides which helps in assisting the viability of blood vessels and ensures healthy circulation throughout the body including capillaries in the eyes. More comprehensive research on Vaccinium myrtillus reveals anthocyanosides present in Vaccinium myrtillus accelerates formulation of the pigment called rhodopsin, which helps in the eyes ability to see in darkness as well as improves the adaptability of eyes towards changing light intensity. Vaccinium myrtillus also helps delay cataract development. Vaccinium myrtillus contains a significant amount of anthocyanosides, which assists in minimizing blood clot because of its properties to thwart blood platelets from aggregating. Moreover, anthocyanosides are antioxidants and helps in preventing the oxidizing of cholesterol. Improved vision, reduction in hemorrhagic tendencies in the eyes, improved blood vessel structure are some of the factors because of which Vaccinium myrtillus is widely used in the pharmaceutical industry. High medicinal properties of Vaccinium myrtillus and increasing health-related issues will drive the Vaccinium myrtillus in the forecast period. High demand for Vaccinium myrtillus can be seen in the upcoming years but there are few factors which might impede the overall growth of Vaccinium myrtillus market. Some factors includes adulteration Vaccinium myrtillus extract. Vaccinium myrtillus are often adulterated with intensive dark blue color, such as anthocyanidin-containing extracts or red food coloring such as amaranth dye. Such extracts and dye are harmful for human consumptions. Also, rising global geopolitical tensions resulting in trade wars will negatively impact the overall growth of the Vaccinium myrtillus market during the forecast period. Global Vaccinium myrtillus Market Segmentation Vaccinium myrtillus can be segmented on the basis of product type, end-use application and nature. On the basis of product type, Vaccinium myrtillus can be further segmented as fruit extract and leaf extract. On the basis of end-use application, Vaccinium myrtillus can be further segmented as food and bakery products, pharmaceutical industry and cosmetic and personal care industry. Vaccinium myrtillus is widely used in jams, fools, juices and pies. On the basis of nature, the market can be further segmented as fresh and frozen. Frozen form to account for comparatively more share than fresh Vaccinium myrtillus. Request/View TOC@ https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=T&rep_id=2081 Global Vaccinium myrtillus Market Regional Outlook and Competition Tracking High demand for Vaccinium myrtillus can be seen in North America and Europe region. In the U.S., Vaccinium myrtillus was among the top 20 herbal supplements between 2007 and 2012 in the food and pharmaceutical market. Asia Pacific and Latin America to register high CAGR during the forecast period. Some of the leading manufacturers of Vaccinium myrtillus includes Eevia Health Oy, ETchem, Sanyuan Jinrui Natural Ingredients Co., Ltd, BioMax Life Sciences, NOW Foods, Bio-Botanica, and other global and local players. This analytical research study imparts an all-inclusive assessment on the market, while propounding historical intelligence, actionable insights, and industry-validated & statistically-upheld market forecast. Verified and suitable set of assumptions and methodology has been leveraged for developing this comprehensive study. Information and analysis on key market segments incorporated in the report has been delivered in weighted chapters. A thorough analysis has been offered by the report on Market Dynamics Market Size Market Segments Demand & Supply Trends Current Issues and Challenges Companies and Competitor Landscape Value Chain Technology Regional Segments Analyzed Include North America (U.S., Canada) Latin America (Mexico. Brazil) Western Europe (Germany, Italy, France, U.K, Spain) Eastern Europe (Poland, Russia) Asia Pacific (China, India, ASEAN, Australia & New Zealand) Japan Middle East and Africa (GCC, S. Africa, N. Africa) Compilation of authentic and first-hand intelligence, insights offered in the report are based on quantitative and qualitative assessment by leading industry experts, and inputs from opinion leaders & industry participants around the value chain. Growth determinants, macroeconomic indicators, and parent market trends have been scrutinized and delivered, coupled with the market attractiveness for each market segment encompassed. Qualitative impact of growth influencers on the market segments across regions has also been mapped by the report. Highlights from the Report Elaborated scenario of the parent market Transformations in the market dynamics Detailed segmentation of the target market Historical, current and forecast market size based on value and volume Latest industry developments and trends Competition landscape Strategies adopted by the market players and product developments made Potential and niche segments, along with their regional analysis Unbiased analysis on performance of the market Up-to-date and must-have intelligence for the market players to enhance and sustain their competitiveness Grow Your Business From Expert Advice: https://www.factmr.com/report/2081/vaccinium-myrtillus-market NOTE All statements of fact, opinion, or analysis expressed in reports are those of the respective analysts. They do not necessarily reflect formal positions or views of Fact.MR , a company based in Israel, has announced that it has developed an unusual intra-cardiac monitoring device that has a built-in microchip but no battery. The V-LAP monitoring device allows patients to take measurements of the left atrial pressure at any time, which is done with the assistance of a small external module. The first implantations of the device are now being conducted as part of a first-in-human study that will enroll 30 patients across Europe and Israel. Left atrial pressure (LAP) is an an important parameter for evaluating heart health, particularly when trying to detect worsening signs of heart failure. Measuring it outside the hospital is not possible, since ultrasound and other technologies are required. The V-LAP system is probably the only product available to provide left atrial pressure monitoring as needed and outside the clinical setting. The implant is positioned inside the interatrial septum of the heart during a percutaneous minimally invasive procedure that requires only local anesthesia. Once the procedure is over, the patient can scan the heart using the accompanying module, the readings from which can be automatically shared with that persons radiologist. Any drastic reduction in function can therefore be quickly identified and the patient treated before serious symptoms set in. The increase of LAP is the most specific and earliest sign of impending heart failure exacerbation long before clinical symptoms occur, in a statement said William T. Abraham, professor of Internal Medicine, Physiology, and Cell Biology, Ohio, USA. V-LAPs unmet clinical need has been evident for years, and the cardiology profession will benefit greatly from the availability of technology that can provide this valuable indication non-invasively on a daily basis. This technology will really change the way we manage patients with severe heart failure, added Prof. Horst Sievert, the director of the CardioVascular Center Frankfurt, Germany, who performed the first implantation. This is the first device that specifically enables us to monitor pressure within the left side of the heart and because of its cloud-based system, we can access patient data on-demand, monitoring the atrial pressure and managing dosages, medications and overall quality of life consistently and remotely. Link: Vectorious company homepage Via: Vectorious Medical Technologies QY Research has come up with a newly published report on global Breast Cancer Screening market in its database that provides an in-depth analysis of the key market insights, its future trends, and developments, profiles of leading players, key restraints and drivers, segmentation and forecasting. The report highlights the Breast Cancer Screening market size and CAGR of the important segments, thus providing quick relevant information about the global Breast Cancer Screening market. The global Breast Cancer Screening market is valued at 1430 million US$ in 2018 is expected to reach 2710 million US$ by the end of 2025, growing at a CAGR of 8.4% during 2019-2025. Get PDF template of this report: https://www.qyresearch.com/sample-form/form/960403/global-breast-cancer-screening-market Breast cancer screening is the medical screening of asymptomatic, apparently healthy women for breast cancer in an attempt to achieve an earlier diagnosis. A number of screening tests have been employed, including clinical and self-breast exams, mammography, genetic screening, ultrasound, and magnetic resonance imaging. The top players cover Hitachi Medical Corporation, Siemen Healthineers, Philips Healthcare and GE Healthcare etc., which are playing important roles in the global Breast Cancer Screening market. At present, the global economy is fluctuant, and most countries take measures to stimulate the economy, especially in Rest of Asia, Europe, Australia and the resources providing countries, like Russia, Middle East, Brazil etc. In many fields, China is the largest consumer, but in the past several years, Chinas economic growth slows. The China government is reforming the economic structure, to release energy of the economy. USA economy is relatively stable with low-speed-growth, but in the future, it also is full of risk. In Southeast Asia, the economy also is fluctuated the economic base is comparatively unsubstantial, due to the exchange fluctuations. In India, although many people look to further increase in India, the economic aggregate is too low and the infrastructure is behindhand and inefficient. In a long term, India will keep a stable and low growth in the economy, due to its economic structure and bureaucratic system. On the other hand, the political factors, like government succession, security fears, trade dispute, domestic employment, even the regional military crisis, always affect the economic activity, country to the country, corporation to the country. So it needs us with deep insight, to analyze the prospect avoid risk, to grasp the opportunity and reduce losses. Major Key Manufacturers of Breast Cancer Screening Market are: Hologic GE Healthcare Siemen Healthineers Philips Healthcare Canon Medical Fujifilm Metaltronica Sino Medical-Device IMS Srl Breast Cancer Screening market includes market size, segmentation data and geographical analysis of market growth trends, leading companies, and microeconomic information. Major Classification as follows: Mammography Screening Breast Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) Screening Breast Ultrasound Screening Major Application as follows: Hospital Clinic Get Complete Report in your Inbox within 24 hours: https://www.qyresearch.com/settlement/pre/75a99dcf9890adbb3ba76051d61684a9,0,1,Global%20Breast%20Cancer%20Screening%20Market%20Size%20Study%20and%20Regional%20Forecasts%202019-2025 Reasons to buy this report: The Breast Cancer Screening report is designed in a method that assists clients to acquire a complete knowledge of the overall market scenario and the important sectors. This report consists of a detailed overview of Breast Cancer Screening market dynamics and comprehensive research. Explore further Breast Cancer Screening market opportunities and identify high potential categories based on detailed volume and value analysis. Detail information on competitive landscape, Breast Cancer Screening recent market trends and changing technologies that can be useful for the companies which are competing in the Breast Cancer Screening industry. Gaining knowledge about Breast Cancer Screening market competitive landscape based on detailed brand share analysis to plan an effective market positioning. About Us: QYResearch always pursuits high product quality with the belief that quality is the soul of business. Through years of effort and supports from the huge number of customer supports, QYResearch consulting group has accumulated creative design methods on many high-quality markets investigation and research team with rich experience. Today, QYResearch has become the brand of quality assurance in the consulting industry. Contact Rutuja Karwa QY Research, INC. USA: +1 6262 952 442 China: +86 1082 945 717 Japan: +81 9038 009 273 India: +91 9766 478 Emails enquiry@qyresearch.com Web www.qyresearch.com The market for augmented reality in healthcare is evolving pervasively mainly due to the proliferation of smart connected devices with the integration of AR. Moreover, factors such as the increasing investments in the AR technology by companies to make various medical devices and advent surgical procedures escalate the market on the global platform. Acknowledging the pace at which the market is climbing up pervasively, Market Research Future (MRFR) in its recently published study report asserts that the global augmented reality in healthcare market will garner a valuation of approximately USD 1.32 BN by 2023, registering a striking CAGR around 23 % throughout the forecasting period (2017 2023). Get Sample Copy @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/5236 The extensive uptake of AR technology, increasing demand for more surgical treatments along with the increasing penetration of connected devices in the healthcare sector boosting the growth in the market to an extent. Also, the increasing investments in the augmented reality by companies to make various kind of devices such as handheld, head-mounted display, and others are fostering the growth of the market. Additional factors propelling the market growth include rapidly increasing population and the improving economic conditions, worldwide that are increasing healthcare expenditure and the number of healthcare centers. Furthermore, market penetration of smartphones, increasing numbers of mobile app stores, and growing investments in smart devices fuel the growth of the market. On the other hand, lack of technical awareness and technology restrictions are some of the key factors that are acting as a headwind to the growth of the augmented reality in the healthcare market. Key Players Some of the major players in global augmented reality in healthcare market include Microsoft Corporation (U.S.), Google LLC. (U.S.), DAQRI (U.S.), Wikitude GmbH (Austria), Mindmaze (Switzerland), Medical Realities (U.K), Augmedix (U.S.), Atheer (U.S.), Oculus VR (U.S.), Philips Healthcare (the Netherlands & U.S.), CAE Healthcare (U.S.), 3D Systems (U.S.), VirtaMed (Switzerland), Blippar (U.K), HTC (Taiwan), Magic Leap, Inc. (U.S.), Siemens Healthineers (Germany), Osterhout Design Group (U.S.) and Virtually Better (U.S.) among others. Augmented Reality in Healthcare Markets Segments The MRFR analysis is segmented into four key dynamics for enhanced understanding. By Component : Hardware, Software and others. By Device Type : Head-Mounted Display, Handheld Device, and others. By Application : Fitness Management, Medical Training & Education, and others. By Regions : Asia Pacific, North America, Europe, and Rest-of-the-World. Browse Full Reports @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/augmented-reality-in-healthcare-market-5236 Augmented Reality in Healthcare Markets Regional Analysis The North American region, heading with the vast technological advancements and high per capita healthcare expenditures will continue its dominance over the global augmented reality in the healthcare market. Factors encouraging the growth of the regional market include the huge demand led by the increasing adoption of consumer electronic devices. Moreover, factors such as the presence of the best medical facilities alongside the vast technological advancements and high per capita healthcare expenditures lead the regional market. The presence of several well-established players that are well-capable of delivering a range technological solution and the substantial investments made by them are undoubtedly impacting the market growth positively. The augmented reality in healthcare market in the European region is expected to account for the second-largest market, following the North American market closely. Factors escalating the growth of the regional market include technological advancement and the augmented adoption of smart connected devices among healthcare providers mainly in the UK, Germany, and France. The resurging economy in Europe is playing an important role in the growth of the market, increasing consumers purchasing power and per capita healthcare expenditures. The Asia Pacific region, heading with the high uptake of technology, is rapidly emerging as a profitable market for the augmented reality in healthcare. The ongoing trend of digitalization of patient records among healthcare organizations is one of the key driving forces behind the growth of the market in this region. The market in India, China, and Japan heading with the augmenting demand for augmented reality in healthcare, increasing healthcare expenditures, and the increasing number of healthcare software solution providers predominantly contributes to the growth of the regional market. Contact Us: Market Research Future Office No. 528, Amanora Chambers Magarpatta Road, Hadapsar, Pune 411028 Maharashtra, India Phone: +1 646 845 9312 Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com Meadville, PA (16335) Today Sunshine and a few afternoon clouds. High 74F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low near 55F. Winds light and variable. Note: We have changed our commenting system. If you do not have an mdjonline.com account, you will need to create one in order to comment. The mother of a child believed dead from natural causes in 2018 and her boyfriend have been charged with murder after an autopsy revealed the Images Sorry, there are no recent results for popular images. Videos Sorry, there are no recent results for popular videos. An officer attempted to talk to Kelley and persuade him to drop his weapon, which he had put to his head, but he instead pointed the gun at officers and started to walk toward them, a video released by the police department shows. He was shot by one of the officers, and then taken to the hospital. McAlester, OK (74501) Today Cloudy skies this morning will become partly cloudy this afternoon. High 91F. Winds S at 10 to 15 mph.. Tonight Clear to partly cloudy. Low 76F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph. A friend hadnt heard from Roger Bemis in a while and asked for Clinton police to go by his Clinton Housing Authority apartment to perform a well-being check on Thursday evening. Inside Apt. 5, police found the injured body of 58-year-old Bemis, Worcester District Attorney Joseph Early Jr. said at a news conference on Friday afternoon. It appeared that Bemis had been dead for a few days. Early would not elaborate on the nature of the injuries, saying it was obvious that foul play had occurred and that the injuries were open and they were obvious. State and local police searched the apartment, part of an elderly housing complex, from Thursday night and through the day Friday. Yellow police tape blocked off Bemis apartment. Police started to eye Dean Valchuis, 48, as a suspect, Early said. The Massachusetts State Police STOP team began to close in on Valchuis residence on Pleasant Street in Berlin Friday afternoon, the district attorney said. As the State Police STOP team responded to the residence, they heard moaning coming from the backyard of the house, Early said. Troopers discovered that Valchuis had fallen from a tree stand used for hunting and was lying on the ground, seriously injured, Early said. The man fell sometime before State Police arrived at the residence. The district attorney was not able to say if Valchuis fall from the tree was an accident, or possibly an attempt by the man to harm himself. He literally was just found a very short time ago, Early said. Valchuis was taken to the hospital. He is being charged with assault and battery causing serious bodily injury. He could face further charges after an autopsy determines the exact cause of Bemis death, Early said. The autopsy was underway as of Friday afternoon. I expect that the charges will change pending the autopsy, Early said. It is not yet clear when Valchuis will be arraigned. Early said it was too soon to speculate on what happened between the two men. Early said the death appears to be an isolated incident that does not appear random. Residents of Clinton and Berlin do not appear to be in danger, he said. I just want everyone to know that they should feel safe conducting their daily activities in town, said Clinton Police Chief Mark Laverdure. The investigation is ongoing. Early said whether any weapons were recovered in connection with death is a part of the investigation. Clinton Housing Authority Executive Director Emily Mitchell said early Friday afternoon that authorities were investigating an unattended death. Its a police matter, she said. We have no comment at this time. Lucille Gannon, a resident of the complex, said she saw at least five police cruisers outside as the investigation unfolded. Im afraid. Its scary, said Gannon, who has lived at the complex for 13 years. I always thought it was safe here. According to the police report, the delivery driver arrived at a refrigerated warehouse on Chicagos South Side with just three of the 23 pallets of lobster tails he had been hauling. The delivery driver, a resident of Glenview, reportedly told warehouse representatives that he did not know what happened to the other pallets, police said. A death investigation is underway at a Clinton Housing Authority elderly apartment complex, officials said Friday. Part of the 367 Water St. apartment complex was roped off by yellow police tape on Friday afternoon. A Clinton police cruiser was parked outside the complex. Clinton Housing Authority Executive Director Emily Mitchell said that authorities were investigating an unattended death. Its a police matter, she said. We have no comment at this time. Clinton police said its officers were in the middle of an investigation with the Massachusetts State Police and directed further questions to the office of Worcester County District Attorney Joseph Early Jr. An incident log at the police station lists a call for an unattended death at the address at 6:37 p.m. Thursday. Lucille Gannon, a resident of the complex, said she saw at least five police cruisers outside as the investigation unfolded. Im afraid. Its scary, said Gannon, who has lived at the complex for 13 years. I always thought it was safe here. Gannon wasnt home when the investigation started early Thursday evening. She said police knocked on her door around 10:30 p.m., wanting to know if she heard any commotion or saw strangers in the area. She hadnt seen anything and didnt ask the officers what had happened. I didnt ask them that. I assumed they didnt know if they were asking me questions, she said. A resident of the housing authority complex who only identified himself as Bill said he hasnt seen this kind of commotion at the complex in his seven years of living there. I wasnt out looking, Bill said. My shades were down, I looked out and I went back into my bed and watched TV. Bill said he keeps to himself and did not know the person who lived in the unit blocked by police tape. Another resident, who declined to give his name, said State and Clinton police were at the complex Thursday night and through the day Friday. The medical examiner was also reportedly at the scene. State Police troopers and K-9s swarmed a residence on Pleasant St. in Berlin, reportedly in connection with the death. A spokeswoman for the Earlys office announced a press conference will be held at 4:30 p.m. at the Clinton Police Department regarding the investigation. No further information was immediately available. SPRINGFIELD A Hampden Superior Court jury on Friday found Michael Brawner guilty of second-degree murder in the fatal shooting of Kevin Blanton. The conviction carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison. Brawners parole eligibility, between 15 and 25 years, will be set at his sentencing. Blanton, 39, was shot and killed in front of his Anne Street home in Chicopee on Feb. 10, 2017. Sentencing is set for Monday at 10 a.m. Brawner was also found guilty of illegal possession of a firearm and two counts of illegal possession of ammunition. For those three counts he was charged as a subsequent offender, having been convicted of armed robbery previously. Defense lawyer Alan J. Black told Ferrara he is renewing his motion for a mistrial based on the closing argument of Assistant District Attorney Mary Sandstrom. Black said Sandstrom said things in her closing that werent presented as evidence in the trial. When Black asked for a mistrial right after closing arguments, Ferrara denied Blacks request. Ferrara said he would arrange for the lawyers to get transcripts of the closing arguments. He told Black he has to get his renewed motion for a mistrial to Sandstrom 48 hours before any hearing on it. Jurors began deliberations late Wednesday afternoon. At 11 a.m. Thursday, Ferrara excused a deliberating juror who had a child care issue. One of the three alternates was randomly selected to replace he excused juror. When an alternate replaces a deliberating juror, they jury is told they must begin deliberating again from the start. In closing arguments, the defense and prosecution presented the jury with two vastly different accounts of Blantons death. In her closing argument Wednesday, Sandstrom said Brawner, 30, of Springfield, went to Blantons home with a loaded gun. She said Brawner fatally shot Blanton with premeditation and extreme atrocity and cruelty. Black said Brawner simply accompanied his friend Sorheyddi Colondres to Blantons home at that time because she didnt want her 16-year-old daughter to stay overnight at the home of Blanton, the girls father. Brawner testified Blanton had a gun and was accidentally shot when it went off during a struggle. During Sandstroms closing argument, Ferrara stopped her twice, saying she made incorrect statements about the law. After closings were over and the jury was out of the room, Ferrara severely chastised Sandstrom about her closing argument, saying she didnt follow his orders about what could be said. When Sandstrom tried repeatedly to explain why she believed she did follow his orders he told her, Sit down. Once upon a time, the Democratic Party was an affiliation that existed under a large umbrella, and proud of it. As Republicans of the latter 20th Century increasingly narrowed their focus and appeal, the Democrats became the party of differing views. This was often unwieldy from a platform standpoint, and when the Dems lost elections they could have won, it was often suggested their splintered, intramural squabbling was the reason behind it. No more. If youre a Democrat, get in line, turn left and shut up. At least, thats the case with Massachusetts Democrats, who have deemed Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno unfit to speak at the state party convention in his own city. Sarno is a conservative Democrat on many issues, though nowadays, conservative and Democrat qualify as antonyms. That conflict of terms was not once the case, and it was a better party then, because there was room for serious discussion and even disagreement. This differs greatly from the narrowing ideology that makes todays Democrats no different than right-wing Republicans, beyond the fact their narrowness is found on the left. Defending Sarno must be done with several qualifying statements. Hes a loose cannon within his own party and for as much he denies it, his comments have left him portrayed as anti-immigrant while his party positions itself as pro-immigrant. He says intemperate things that sometimes confuse refreshing candor with needless insensitivity. Hes been supportive of Republican Governor Charlie Baker and appears to be no buddy of Elizabeth Warren - and as Warren launches her campaign for the presidency, Massachusetts Democratic politics will become her show. Giving Sarno a platform in his own city is not so much a defense of Sarnos politics as a defense of his right to have them. It would also have shown the Democratic hierarchy to be more open-minded and fair then the Republican leaders they excoriate as close-minded and unfair. Theyll get away with it in Massachusetts, that bluest of states and one which elects GOP governors only if they promise not to really be GOP governors. Sarno has received some attention and support from Baker, since the mayors job is to make Springfield succeed, hes decided to work with the incumbent. The alternative would be inflammatory partisan statements the Democratic leadership would like, but would risk costing Springfield influence, money and help from a governor the voters overwhelmingly endorse. Formally endorsing Baker might have been taking it a step far, maybe even too far, but its not a good enough reason to lock Sarno out. Asked about the snub, Gus Bickford, chairman of the Massachusetts Democratic Party, would not comment. So much for transparency by the party that harangues the GOP for its lack of it. Bickford did issue this statement: Massachusetts Democrats are excited to return to Springfield for our annual convention in 2019, and to experience everything this wonderful city has to offer. Well, if Springfield is that wonderful, the Democratic incumbent cant be doing too terrible a job, can he? Besides, if the convention left out all the states Democrats who have found a comfort level with Baker, it could be held in an elementary school cafeteria, not the MassMutual Center. Sarno doesnt always talk in niceties and he doesnt necessarily toe the party line. But the Democrats were a better party when their party line was not so rigid, restrictive and exclusive as it is today. Internal friction might have cost them a few elections, indeed, but the irony is that a broader-based party - the type that could fit both the liberal Warrens and conservatives Sarnos under its tent - would be better positioned to knock off Donald Trump in 2020. Instead, the parties insist on dividing American politics into the politically correct far left and the politically incorrect far right. Democrats should have learned in 2016 that a lot of people who dont identify with either will check off the far right if those are the only two choices they are given. Maybe theyre afraid of what Sarno will say once he seizes the microphone. If so, theyre being ridiculous. The mayor is blunt, to say the least, but he is not stupid. And lets not forget, hes a politician. By excluding Sarno, the Democratic leadership is doing what liberal Democrats do best. They are listening only to themselves and those of like minds. When voters express different views at the polls, theyre shocked, amazed and offended - and they often blame the voters, which makes their chances worse. Thats what happens when a party closes ranks around a rigid ideology, which is why the Republicans are such a mess and why the Democrats - with an opening to reclaim the middle and dominate in 2020 - are making the same mistake. They dont have to listen to Sarno, but they should indulge him. Hes the mayor of the host city and, officially at least, an incumbent from their own party. But he talks differently than they do. Theyd rather listen to each other. They should not be surprised if outside their walls, a lot of potential voters tune them out - maybe not in blue Massachusetts, where Warren can cash in her 11 electoral votes now, but on the much larger stage. I am thrilled that the Massachusetts Democratic Party is having its convention in Springfield. They are coming into a city that has reinvented itself on many fronts. As a political slight, they have not invited Mayor Domenic Sarno to speak. Mayor Sarno has been at the forefront of most the positive elements happening in the city. There are many reasons Mayor Sarno endorsed in the governors race and thousands of democrats (including this one) voted for Republican Charlie Baker. Gov. Baker has shown time and again that he is in Springfields corner. There is a reason he is the most popular governor in the country. Nothing against Jay Gonzalez, but he had a better chance playing shortstop for the Red Sox than beating Charlie Baker. I implore the Democratic committee to reconsider and invite Mayor Sarno to speak at the convention. John Milbier Jr., Springfield The biggest obstacle facing a rural jobs bill on Beacon Hill might come from skeptics who point to the inability of other states to produce desired results. That should not stop the Rural Jobs Act from moving forward, though. The bill introduced by State Sen. Adam Hinds of Pittsfield and first-term Rep. Natalie Blais of Sunderland would encourage investment in small businesses and small towns. The definition of a small business is fewer than 250 employees and revenue less than $10 million in the states 250 smallest towns. Thats a wide enough net to potentially help many businesses that need it. Nowhere in Massachusetts is the need felt more acutely than in the western sector, where many towns are struggling with aging and declining population, inconsistent availability of high-speed Internet and sometimes, the lack of public transportation. The Rural Jobs Act would provide tax breaks to investors who commit to jobs and businesses in rural Massachusetts. The western sector would benefit greatly, obviously, but other regions would be in line for positive benefits as well. According to a Pew study of similar programs, 11 states were considering like-minded incentive programs in 2017. But in other states, this type of incentive program has fallen short of expectations often enough to add to the challenge of selling its viability in Massachusetts. Hinds says that would be avoided by ensuring that investors only received the tax break once jobs were created. Several proposals to help rural communities are on the table. This is encouraging for the most part, as it indicates awareness that rural economic struggles are negatively affecting the entire state and that taxpayers in less populated areas deserve not to be left behind. In some ways, they need representation and considering more than anybody. The Jobs Act proposal speaks to Blais campaign promise to find ways to spark the rural economy. Continuing to let the situation atrophy with the loss of population and especially younger workers will only make the problem worse, and will drag down the entire state economy, especially but not only in Western Massachusetts. Hinds stipulation makes sense by requiring commitment - and results - before tax breaks are given. The biggest obstacle with tax incentives on any level is when they are based on projections and promises, not firm action. If that could be avoided, theres no logical reason not to support this bill. Rural towns and residents need help. Western Massachusetts deserves attention. As Beacon Hill legislators come to realize an economy cannot fully flourish if only part of the state is thriving, this bill comes at an opportune time. Just because it fell short of its goals elsewhere does not mean it cant work here. Massachusetts has done it better than other states on other issues before. Lawmakers should give themselves a chance to do it again. Norton Police arrested a Wheaton College student on arson charges related to six fires at a campus residential hall in the last four months. Janelys Pimentel, a 22-year-old Boston native, was arrested on Thursday after Norton firefighters and police officers responded to a fire at McIntyre Hall at Wheaton College and conducted a subsequent investigation. Authorities responded to a box alarm at the residential hall around 3:26 a.m. on Thursday, where they discovered a fire in the hallway from an old bubbler, according to a statement shared by Norton Police. Students were safely evacuated and the fire was extinguished. The fire on Thursday marked the sixth fire at the McIntyre Hall since late November, police said. Norton Police detectives conducted an investigation and, through interviews and other factors, took Pimentel into custody for allegedly committing arson. Police charged the 22-year-old college student with four counts of arson for wantonly injuring real and personal property in connection to fires on Nov. 28, Dec. 2, Dec. 14 in 2018 and Feb. 7, 2019. She also faces two separate, additional counts of arson for the fires on Dec. 2, 2018, as well as six counts of vandalism for her alleged involvement in all of the fires. Norton Police said no injuries were reported in any of the six fires at McIntyre Hall. Pimentel is expected to be arraigned at Attleboro District Court on Friday. When the owner of Boon and Caro Sheridans loft apartment in Everett decided to sell the property, the couple was faced with a choice. Find another rental in the increasingly expensive Boston suburbs where they had lived and worked for years, or buy a converted church in Holyoke for under $240,000 and wake up to the sun streaming through vintage stained-glass windows For the Sheridans, who at the time both worked from home, the decision was clear. I could not afford the house I grew up in in Hyde Park, Boon Sheridan said in an interview. We were looking for unique spaces. We were actually church hunting. If we have to go to Boston, its two seconds from the Pike and its a straight shot -- easy to get to airport and Hartford. The Sheridans journey to Holyoke, a diverse city whose economic fortunes declined in tandem with the 20th century closure of its paper mills, has now inspired legislation. State Sen. Eric Lesser has put forward a proposal to fund the relocation expenses of remote workers and telecommuters who move to Western Massachusetts. The bill would establish a $1 million pilot program to provide up to $10,000 for people to move, buy equipment for home offices or rent a coworking space. The proposal, which is similar to a program recently enacted in Vermont, is designed to benefit both Eastern and Western Massachusetts residents, Lesser said by offering remote workers relief from the Greater Boston housing crunch and bringing much needed new blood to Western Mass. communities facing population declines. I was really inspired by their story, and the thought process behind this bill is we know what our assets are in Western Mass. We have a tremendous quality of life, we have a much lower cost of living. We have great open space and we have a lot of incredible cultural assets that rival big cities, Lesser said. The challenge we have is were not producing enough jobs, and our population as a result is aging and a lot of our young people are leaving. That creates a self-reinforcing cycle, Lesser continued of fewer students leading to less state aid and fewer workers to support the regions businesses. And the proposal is a deliberate inversion of how economic subsidies often work in Massachusetts. Lesser cited the incentive package given to GE when it moved its headquarters to Boston, which included $25 million in property tax relief and $120 million in infrastructure commitments from the state. [Its a] massive subsidy to one of the worlds wealthiest corporations, Lesser said. Instead of giving that money to a company thats going to park that money on Wall Street, lets give that incentive directly to families who are going to move here. State Rep. Aaron Vega, who represents his native city of Holyoke, said he sees the proposal as a win-win for both Boston and cities like his. We understand that we need a strong Boston. This isnt versus Boston, this I working with Boston, Vega said. But when we see a huge company go into Boston and get a huge tax break, were not getting any benefit from that While the booming suburbs of Greater Boston have to worry about rising rents and gentrification with each new development and influx of transplants, Vega said that he does not think that is an immediate problem in Holyoke, whose population has shrunk by tens of thousands since its manufacturing heyday. Im not concerned about housing until we get 10,000 more people in Holyoke," Vega said. Both Lesser and Vega described the program as a conversation starter, acknowledging that Boston-area technology workers are not likely to uproot their lives simply because of aid for relocation costs. The pilot is a way of introducing Western Massachusetts as a realistic place to live and work, Lesser said a place that contains more than just excellent colleges, natural beauty, isolated hill-towns and economically bruised cities. A lot of people in Boston or New York or San Francisco literally dont know what the opportunities are out here, Lesser said. Professor Michael Goodman, the executive director of the Public Policy Center at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and an expert on Massachusetts economy, said in an interview that he supports innovative experimentation to bring economic growth to Western Massachusetts and that Lessers proposal is worth debating. But he questioned whether the relocation program would move the needle, saying that the regions challenges stem from deeper structural economic issues than the cost of moving down the Pike and setting up a home office. The long term challenge I think has been demographics. Younger people are relocating, but why? It isnt because of the cost of living or the quality of life in Western Massachusetts. Its because of the absence of a critical mass of quality job opportunities, Goodman said in an interview. Its unclear to me how much of a barrier moving expenses are. So color me skeptical. Goodman also asked why the proposal focuses on transplant telecommuters, rather than the underemployed workforce that Western Massachusetts needs to convince to stay. Im not opposed to the issue, Goodman said. I think it deserves to be discussed and debated, and I think western Massachusetts has advantages that are not well understood in the rest of the state in terms of quality of life and cost of living and a long tradition of strength in a number of industries including advanced manufacturing, metalworking, higher education and healthcare. East of the River Chambers of Commerce Executive Director Nancy Connor, whose organization represents businesses in East Longmeadow, Hampden, Longmeadow, Ludlow and Wilbraham, was more optimistic about the measures possible effects. Our towns certainly would benefit from what I would call remote employment. That would mean more folks shopping locally, improving the economic vibrancy of where were at," Connor said in an interview. I would hedge a bet that if people were looking [to move], this would encourage them to take a strong look. Asked why the program is designed to benefit telecommuters and home-office workers, rather than industrial and service workers who must live close to their places of work, Lesser emphasized that it is part of a broad menu of policies designed to promote job creation in Western Mass. The regions legislative delegation has in recent years championed funding for advanced manufacturing training, infrastructure and local development grants. The job growth is in the high tech sector and we ignore that at our peril, Lesser said. If the house next door to us is empty, that hurts me too. Sheridan, a Boston native, works as a user experience designer. He and Caro lived in Austin, Texas until they moved to Somerville in 2007. There, they experienced sticker shock, paying $2,400 per month for an 800 square foot apartment. Unafraid of unconventional living spaces, they moved to a former convenience store in Everett that had been converted into a loft apartment. The Sheridans stayed in Everett for about six years and got used to working from home. Boon left his corporate job and began freelancing, doing design work for ad agencies and other clients. Caro ran her own sewing business out of their apartment, and the need for more room became clear. We needed room for Caro to have a studio and me to have an office, Sheridan said. Their eyes turned to Western Massachusetts. Boon knew the area, having spent more than a few evenings attending concerts at Northamptons Pearl Street club while in high school. Caro knew less about the region but made regular pilgrimages with other knitters to WEBS, a Northampton-based yarn store. That was really all I had done in Western Mass, she said. What they found was 76 Lincoln St. a former church with high-vaulted ceilings, abundant office and studio space and a low asking price. The building had already been converted into a living space, and the couple moved in as renters for about a year before buying the home for $238,600 in July of 2016. Boon, who maintains a lively Twitter presence, soon connected online with Lesser, his state senator. Lesser then met Caro at an event for Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and they kept in touch with the Sheridans story now providing inspiration for Lessers latest economic development idea. Boon said he welcomes the proposal and hopes more tech workers follow in his and Caros footsteps. When he tells his friends in New York and Chicago about the low cost of housing in Western Massachusetts, they lose their minds, he said. You just cant match it in Boston, Sheridan said. STOCKBRIDGE A major walkout of volunteer firefighters following the dismissal this week of the long-time fire chief caused a stir around town, but the head of the Board of Selectmen is assuring homeowners the volunteer department remains properly staffed and is able to respond when needed. The fire department is fully operational, fully functional and fully capable, Board of Selectmen Chairman Donald M. Chabon said Friday. The walkout, in which at least 12 firefighters resigned on Tuesday, came the morning after the Board of Selectmen voted to terminate long-time chief Ernest Chuckie Cardillo. The protest resulted in media coverage throughout the Berkshires and parts of New York state. Cardillo, who is also a member of the three-member Board of Selectmen, was terminated after it was learned that as fire chief, he repeatedly fell victim to scammers in the purchasing of equipment for the department over the telephone. The result over six years was that his actions cost the town around $83,000, selectmen contend. Chabon said that after learning he had been taken advantage of, Cardillo then tried to conceal the town from finding out. He changed the books, Chabon said. He exposed the town to a lot of vulnerabilities. Cardillo, according to the Berkshire Eagle, has denied falsifying records or trying to conceal anything. The scam was found by the town accountant and reported to the Board of Selectmen, Chabon said. Cardillo was placed on partial administrative leave in January. Deputy chief Neil Haywood was named interim chief, and assistant chief Peter Socha was named deputy. The Board of Selectmen voted 2-0 Tuesday night to dismiss Cardillo as chief. Cardillo as selectman recused himself from the vote. The vote cited mismanagement and poor judgment as reasons for dismissal. The next morning, between 12 and 15 of the departments 20 volunteer firefighters announced they would no longer volunteer out of loyalty to Cardillo. Fifteen firefighters signed a letter to the Board of Selectmen in January defending Cardillo. The letter said calling Cardillos competence as a chief into question because of a budgetary oversight is an insult to the department. A photo on Facebook shows 12 sets of turnout gear lined up in the driveway to the town Fire Station. A Facebook page titled The Stockbridge 15 railed against the dismissal of Cardillo as unfair after 40 years of service. For those of us who stood proudly by his side we will continue to do so, but not as firefighters or EMTs for the town of Stockbridge. We follow honest men; they dont sit in the towns offices, and they no longer sit behind the doors of the Fire Department. The mass departure would have left the town in a difficult spot, but problems associated with the walkout seem to have been averted, Chabon said. A number of them left. They quit. But a number of them came back, he said. And some people who left before and were not on the force decided to come back. Department staffing is more or less what it has been, he said. We have had a number of responses since (the dismissal and walkout), and all of them have been fully responded to as they should have been, Chabon said. Attempts to reach Cardillo were unsuccessful. The Eagle reports that he is considering legal action against the town for termination without cause. Chabon said some in town have raised the question about amending by-laws to prevent any member of the Board of Selectmen from serving on any town position that is overseen by the board. SPRINGFIELD - Police are seeking the publics help in finding a missing 15-year-old runaway who has been gone for a week and may be in the Boston area. The girl, Daisy Matos, ran away from home on Jan. 30. She reportedly received a ride from a friend to Boston, and may still be in that area, or in Dedham or Lexington. Matos is 5 feet, 4 inches tall, and weighs 165 pounds. She has dark hair, but may have changed its color. Someone reported to police that just before she left, she was overheard to say she was considering dying her hair to change her appearance. If you have any information on her whereabouts please contact the Springfield Police Department at (413) 787-6360 or (413) 787-6302. People may also call their local police department of the community where she is seen. SUFFIELD - A 27-year-old Springfield man with a long history of burglaries in Massachusetts is being charged with a series of break-ins in three Connecticut towns, and police say theres the possibility that more are on the way. Jarne Jones is facing charges for breaking and entering in separate incidents in the towns of Avon, Windsor Locks, Suffield and Newington over the past year. Following his arrest last week in Avon, the other three communities each took turns arresting Jones on Wednesday for outstanding warrants related to house breaks in each community. He was booked and processed multiple times over a several-hour span as he was transported from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, beginning with Windsor Locks and ending in Newington. Jones was arrested Jan. 25 in Avon after he was caught in the act of breaking into a home. A homeowner witnessed a break-in at his home via a remote camera and called police. When officers arrived, Jones made a break for it, but was apprehended and charged with 3rd degree burglary. He was released after posting $100,000 bond and pledging to appear in Hartford Superior Court on Wednesday, according to Avon police. Jones appeared for the arraignment, but so did Windsor Locks police. He was taken into custody on a warrant issued in connection with a break-in in that town in April. They brought him back to Windsor Locks to be booked on charges of 3rd degree burglary, according to Windsor Locks police. When Windsor Locks Police were finished processing his arrest, and Jones posted a $50,000 bond, and was turned over to Suffield. Police there had issued a warrant for Jones in connection to a July 4 house break. He was identified from surveillance video in the home, according to Suffield police. He was charged with burglary and criminal mischief, and released on a $100,000 bond. Released into the hands of the Newington Police, who took him into custody because he is wanted there for burglary and criminal mischief. Suffield Police Capt. Christopher M. McKee said the arrests were the result of tenacious commitment and diligence of police personnel from the Windsor Locks, Avon, Newington and Suffield Police Departments, working in partnership," Aiding police, he said, was the technology of video surveillance security systems. According to Windsor Locks police, police in multiple communities are investigating whether Jones was involved in other unsolved housebreaks over the last several months. Jones has a history of breaking and entering charges north of the state line too. As recently as 2015, he was sentenced to 18 months in jail after pleading guilty to breaking into a Chicopee home. The sentence was to begin after he completed an 18 months sentence for violating his probation. A little more than a year before his Chicopee court appearance, Jones was publicly celebrated as a successful graduate of Roca, the Springfield program that works with young, repeat offenders to teach them job skills and responsibility. Jones was such a success story within the program that he was invited to be one of the speakers at a 2014 luncheon during which Roca was receiving $27 million in state funding. SPRINGFIELD The City Council and Mayor Domenic J. Sarno approved a newly revised ordinance this week that requires contractors on public construction projects to meet minimum hiring requirements for women, minorities, veterans and city residents. The Responsible Employer Ordinance was approved by unanimous vote of the council and signed by the mayor after years of discussion and the citys decision to hire a two-person compliance unit to help ensure the ordinance is enforced. "I'm very excited," said Councilor Melvin Edwards, who chaired the council's REO Committee. "I'm appreciative of the mayor and his administration. This has been a long, long journey." The ordinance is for public construction projects in excess of $500,000, including such taxpayer-funded projects as new schools and major road reconstruction. There were discussions of having the project cost limit set lower or higher, but the council and mayor agreed on the $500,000 figure, Edwards said. Under the ordinance, contractors are required to provide employment of at least 35 percent of total project hours to Springfield residents. The contractors must provide employment of at least 20 percent to minorities, at least 6.9 percent to women, and at least 5 percent to veterans, the ordinance states. A Responsible Employer Ordinance Monitoring Committee, consisting of three mayoral appointees and two council appointees, will monitor compliance with the hiring requirements. Contractors will be responsible for maintaining a monthly compliance log and providing related documentation, the ordinance states. Each contractor must track all of its subcontractors. If the contractor has failed to comply with the compliance thresholds, and has failed to show or document satisfactory efforts to the Monitoring Committee, the city can impose penalties or a combination of penalties, the ordinance states. The penalties include a cease-and-desist order to stop the project, withholding payment until there is compliance and permanent removal from any work on the project, the ordinance states. Jason Garand, business manager for Local 336 of the New England Regional Council of Carpenters, said he is excited that possibly for the first time, the city has a real Responsible Employer Ordinance. The ordinance was strengthened as waivers were removed and the focus was placed on the general contractor for compliance, he said. A key to its success is that the city will have two people in the compliance department "that will ensure that the contractors who bid on city projects no longer just give lip service to the requirements," Garand said. A second key is the citys ability to enforce the ordinance through strong sanctions, Garand said. The union was a regular participant in the REO discussions, officials said. The development of the ordinance was a team effort including the support of the mayor, council, and city department officials, Garand said. There was a diversity study led by researchers from the University of Massachusetts Boston that backs the enforcement powers, city officials said. The study described deficiencies in the hiring of women, minorities, and residents working on city-owned projects, including that qualified and interested women are extremely underutilized. SPRINGFIELD A fatally man shot in the doorway of a Liberty Heights neighborhood home late Wednesday night has been identified as 38-year-old Timothy Redmond. The Hampden District Attorneys office released the victims identity Thursday afternoon. Investigators found a significant marijuana growing operation" inside the home at 37 Francis St., James Leydon, a spokesman for district attorneys office, said. Redmond appears to have been shot multiple times. A dog was also found deceased at the scene. Gullunis office said the case remains open and under investigation. A neighbor reported hearing gun fire at around 11:30 p.m. Wednesday. Michael Smith said he heard one gunshot, and then a few seconds later heard 3 or 4 more. On Thursday afternoon, Springfield Narcotics officers were seen loading contents from the house into a Department of Public Works box truck. Several officials with Springfield Code Enforcement were also present to inspect the property. City official say there was a large sophisticated marijuana-growing operation in the basement. The house is going to be boarded up to prevent entry. Under Massachusetts law, it is legal to possess and grow marijuana, but only in limited amounts. For recreational use, someone can have no more than one ounce on their person or 10 ounces in their residence. Someone who is approved for medical marijuana is allowed to have a 60-day supply in their residence and may purchase up to 10 ounces at a licensed dispensary. For recreational uses, the state caps the limit on plants at 6 per person or 12 per household. Someone approved for medical marijuana is also allowed to grow their own but the number of plants is to be limited to the amount needed to maintain a 60-day supply. Neighbors told The Republican earlier in the day that they were suspicious of the house because traffic would come and go, that it never seemed like anyone lived there, and that it seemed to smell like marijuana. The property has been owned since 2001 by Donna M. Redmond-Fitzgerald of Springfield. Timothy Redmond had an extensive criminal history, including drug offenses, violent crime and confrontations with the police. In 2002, he was convicted of resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer but was acquitted of more serious charges for drug trafficking and attempted murder on the officer. He was sentenced to 2 years, plus additional time for a probation violation and ordered to serve a decade in prison. The officer in the case, David Barton, then a new officer who has since retired after a lengthy career, testified that he was patrolling Indian Orchard when he pulled over Redmonds Pontiac and found cocaine on the front seat. Redmond fled on foot with Barton in pursuit, and when the officer caught up to him, a fight started. Barton testified that during the struggle, Redmond somehow managed to wrap the microphone cord from Bartons radio around his neck and choke him to the point where he lost consciousness. Other officers responding to his aid found a bloodied and unconscious Barton lying on the ground. The homicide is the citys second in 2019. Gunshot victim Alexis Martinez was found dead inside a car in the Five Town Plaza on Cooley Street on Jan. 5. Karl Exantus, of 28 Manhattan St., turned himself in at the lobby of police headquarters at 130 Pearl St. several days later. Exantus is charged with murder, carrying a firearm and carrying a loaded firearm without a license. BOSTON A former employee of a residential facility for court-involved youth pleaded guilty on Thursday to sexually abusing a boy in his custody. He also assaulted a male family member. James Christian, 48, was sentenced by Suffolk Superior Court Judge Linda Giles to four to six years in state prison followed by five years of probation. According to the Suffolk district attorneys office, Christian worked for Community Resources for Justice, which had a contract with the Department of Youth Services to provide residential treatment to juveniles in DYS custody. The department oversees juveniles who have been committed by the court system or are awaiting trial in juvenile court. The boy Christian abused was in a DYS facility between 1999 and 2001. Christian drove the victim from a facility outside of Suffolk County to Boston on weekends and assaulted him during the trips, prosecutors said. The boy was between the ages of 13 and 16 at the time. Prosecutors also say Christian sexually assaulted a family member at a home in Revere over a period of three years, beginning in 2001 when the boy was 13 years old. Christian pleaded guilty to four counts of rape of a child stemming from the assaults on the two boys. Both victims, who did not know each other and disclosed the abuse as adults, say they are still suffering from the effects of the abuse. The victim who was in DYS custody said he ran away from DYS because he did not trust anyone, after Christian used his position as a staff member to sexually assault him. I still have trouble trusting people and every aspect of my life has been severely impacted by what he did, the victim told the court. Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins said in a statement, This case involved the worst kind of betrayal the abuse of a child by a person in a position of trust. But it also showed us the courage of two men to defy the fear and shame that too many survivors may feel trapped by. They stepped forward to tell the truth, and their strength helped us hold their abuser accountable. Legendary drummer Hal Blaine, who recently turned 90, will be honored in his hometown with a celebration at Holyoke Community Colleges Leslie Phillips Theater on Feb. 27 at 7 p.m.. Blaine has performed on 40 No. 1 singles, 150 Top 10 hits and played on, by his own count, more than 35,000 recorded tracks. A member of the fabled Wrecking Crew, he has backed such stars as Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, John Lennon, The Beach Boys, Simon & Garfunkel, Steely Dan, The Byrds and many others. He has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and is a recipient of the Grammys Lifetime Achievement Award. Organized by Massachusetts International Festival of the Arts Victory Theater, the HCC celebration will feature a screening of the 2008 documentary about The Wrecking Crew. The film will be followed by cake, conversation and a special video/Skype message from Blaine. We have been working on this project for a few years now, said Donald Sanders, MIFAs executive artistic director. We cant wait to celebrate a music legend from Holyoke in Holyoke for his 90th birthday. The event is free and open to the general public, but reservations are required. Visit www.mifafestival.org for more details or to make a reservation. The Wrecking Crew film was produced and directed by Denny Tedesco, son of the late Wrecking Crew guitarist Tommy Tedesco. The film tells the story of the unsung musicians that provided the backbeat, the bottom and the swinging melody that drove many of the number one hits of the 1960s and 70s. Bill Cosby has not had any visits from his wife or daughters since arriving at a Pennsylvania state prison four months ago. A spokesman for the disgraced TV icon said he doesnt expect Camille Cosby or their daughters to visit SCI-Phoenix in Montgomery County, which is about 20 miles from a family estate in the Philadelphia suburbs. He doesnt want to have them in that environment, Andrew Wyatt, a spokesman for Cosby told the Associated Press. Why put them in that position, to make it turn into some form of a circus? The 81-year-old Cosby, who is legally blind, last week was moved out of special housing where he spent time getting acclimated, and into the general population, according to a prison spokeswoman. Inmates have been assigned to help him throughout the day, given his age and disability. Cosby, who has a home in the Franklin County village of Shelburne Falls, is serving a three- to 10-year term for drugging and molesting a woman in 2004. Some 50 women have accused Cosby of sexual misconduct, over a 50-year span. However, Cosby sees himself as a political prisoner, targeted for his social and political views, much like Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela, Wyatt said. Camille Cosby made just one brief appearance at each of her husbands two criminal trials, and their three surviving daughters stayed away. Cosbys wife of more than 50 years has filed an ethics complaint against the trial judge, accusing him of bias in the case. GREAT BARRINGTON - An immigrant and longtime resident of Western Massachusetts was arrested by officials with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency this week, leaving local community members confounded as to why. Aleks Gole, an Albanian national who relocated to Great Barrington after fleeing violence and unrest abroad, has been living in the Massachusetts town for the past four years. Until this week, he worked as a chef at the Patisserie Lenox on Main Street and was also attending Berkshire Community College to learn English. But Gole was taken into custody by federal authorities early Tuesday morning, according to The Berkshire Eagle. It is so far unclear why Gole has been incarcerated. A profile of Gole from 2017 details how he escaped the turbulence of his home country--an ex-Communist nation undergoing political upheaval in the wake of the Cold War--by traveling to Greece during the 1990s. He lived there for years until the 2009 financial crisis made it difficult to find work. It was shortly after this that Gole made the decision to move to the U.S., settling in Great Barrington. Before his capture, Gole had expressed a seeming desire to stay in the U.S. "I'm a person who always goes forward. I'm not looking back. I never forget who I am, and I have my parents in Albania and my siblings in Greece for vacation. But I have no reason to go back to stay," he said, in an interview with The Eagle. Gole is allegedly being held in the Greenfield jail. He is alleged to also have legal representation. AGAWAM - When 71-year-old Rev. J. Willard Cofield Jr. retired as an area pastor at the end of 2015, the well-known faith leader believed his days of leading a church were done. God and a Baptist congregation here had other plans. Cofield will be installed Sunday, Feb. 10, at 9:30 a.m. as the 35th pastor of the First Baptist Church of Agawam. "We are ecstatic," said Deacon Doug Thies of Cofield's decision to "take the call" to be pastor and come out of retirement. "We are extremely happy." And Cofield? Cofield is pleased too, though he admits that becoming a pastor again is not what he had in mind when he offered last fall to fill in at Sunday services through the Christmas season. The 100-member church had been without a settled pastor and a search committee was in the process of interviewing candidates from as far away as California. However, along the way Thies said church members like what they saw in Cofield's relationship with God and the interest he was adding to Sunday worship and the thought was aired that Cofield should apply to be the settled minister. "I thought what? Be the settled pastor? I was just having fun being the fill-in pastor," Cofield said. "I wondered if God was messing with me again. I went home and talked to my wife and family. People told me, 'Pastors never retire. Once a pastor, always a pastor.' So, I said, 'Lord, I surrender. You made me a pastor later in life the first time, so maybe you need a couple more years from me. OK, I'll do it.'" At the end of the Sunday morning worship service Jan. 27 at the church that dates to 1790 and was one of the town's first churches, Cofield was unanimously voted by church members to be their pastor. Located at 760 Main St., the 100-member church has been without a settled pastor since the retirement of the Rev. George Thomas of West Springfield nearly two years ago. Thies said Cofield had help created an "excitement" around Sunday services during the Christmas season by bringing in student musicians and others to participate. "He got the congregation feeling pretty good about Sunday worship," said Thies, who has been a long-time member of First Baptist that he describes as a supportive community. "The choir started rebuilding because of him." He added, "Personally, I couldn't be happier to have him as pastor." "He lives what he preaches," said Thies of Cofield. Cofield, whose father was a Baptist minister, retired at the end of 2014 after two decades as pastor of Alden Baptist Church in Springfield, where he was appointed a chaplain for that city's Fire Department in 2006. Cofield was Alden Baptist's fourth pastor and during his time there the H.M. Hutchings Family Life Center and renovation of the third floor and other initiatives were completed and a number of deacons and ministers were ordained. He noted that his association with Alden also started not as the settled pastor, and at the time he was installed there he was in his late 40s and most of his colleagues from Virginia Union Seminary already had churches. A sociology graduate from St. Augustine's College in Raleigh, N.C., Cofield had been working in Philadelphia and elsewhere in the field of social work after seminary. "My colleagues did have their churches, but I told myself that when the Lord is ready for me, a door will open and it did at Alden Baptist," Cofield recalled. "I went to Alden Baptist for six months and stayed for 20 years." He has been married to his wife Madeline for more than four decades. The couple are the parents of Junius and Linnzi and grandparents of Jay and Cameron. Cofield has remained occupied in the world of the laity for the last two years. Through a grant administered through the YMCA of Greater Springfield, he works as a resource person with students and teachers at the Springfield High School of Science and Technology. He likes working with young people, supporting them to stay and school and continue their goals and hopes to continue that at First Baptist. "They students call me grandpa. Sometimes they are sent to me for counseling or help with a family issue or need something like a suit or bus tokens," Cofield said. "I hope to do outreach ministry at First Baptist and to attract younger members. Many of the members are in their 70s like myself and when I do finally retire, I want younger members there to carry on." Funnyman Steven Wright returns to Western Massachusetts with a performance at the Academy of Music in Northampton. His stand-up show is one of several events worth checking out this weekend: Comic Steven Wright performs Friday in Northampton Vicki Barbolak playing MGM Springfield Roar this weekend Smith College exhibiting late photojournalist's 'Portraits of War' Four Sundays in February series continues in Northampton 'Toytopia' exhibit at the Springfield Museums 'The Mountaintop' recalls Martin Luther King Jr. Don't forget to visit masslive.com/events for all of our events listings. Did we miss anything? Post suggestions in the comments section below Jason Aldean will kick off his summer tour with a two-night stand at Mohegan Sun Arena. The "Ride All Night" tour plays the Connecticut casino on May 3 and May 4. Both shows start at 8 p.m. Aldean will also play the Xfinity Center in Mansfield, MA on Sept. 20. Tickets are on sale beginning Feb. 15 at 10 a.m. through all Ticketmaster outlets and locations including ticketmaster.com and by phone at (800) 745-3000. Carly Pearce and Kane Brown will open the show. Aldean is only the second Country act in history to score four consecutive chart-toppers on the all-genre Billboard 200 albums chart with his current album "Rearview Town." The country star has already earned 22 Number One country singles. Two exotic dancers in Rhode Island were arrested last weekend after they allegedly stole a gun from a Boston police officer. Pawtucket police arrested Neish Rivera, 25, of Pawtucket and Melissa Dacier, 22, of Providence for allegedly stealing a semi-automatic pistol out of the glove box of a Boston police officers personal BMW on Saturday night. The Boston officer has been placed on administrative leave pending an internal affairs investigation, according to Boston Police Sergeant John Boyle. The Boston officer, whose name was redacted in a police report, called Pawtucket Police shortly before 3 a.m. on Saturday to report that a gun had been stolen out of his vehicle in the Hampton Inn parking lot. The Boston officer told Pawtucket Police that he had met a woman named Natalia, later identified as Rivera, at the bar of the Hampton Inn on George Street earlier that evening. The officer told police that his cousin connected him to Natalia, who has worked as an exotic dancer at the Cadillac Lounge. Prior to meeting, the two had chatted via Instagram messages, the officer told police. After meeting at the inn bar, the Boston officer said he and Natalia left to the Nara Lounge, according to the report by Pawtucket Police. The officer noted that he had his firearm on him while at the Nara Lounge, where he met a friend of Natalia named Melissa, later identified as Dacier. About two hours later, the three of them left the Nara Lounge in exchange for the Cadillac Lounge, the Boston officer said. Before entering the Cadillac Lounge, the officer secured his gun in a glove box using a cable lock, he later told Pawtucket Police. After the three of them spent some time at Cadillac Lounge, the Boston officer told police the trio returned to the Hampton Inn, where they went to his hotel room and hung out. Before arriving in his hotel room, the two dancers got into a fight in the hotel hallway with an unknown couple who accused the dancers of trying to steal something, the Boston officer later told Pawtucket Police. The officer added that he tried to stop the fighting and the argument soon ended. Later in the hotel room, Melissa said she needed a phone charger, according to the officers account in a police report. The officer said he offered Melissa his car keys to go fetch a phone charger that he had. Melissa left for a bit, came back and then said she had to step out to make use her phone, the Boston officer later told police. Within minutes, Natalia said she had to leave and so the officer walked her to the lobby, according to his account to Pawtucket police. The officer realized Natalia had never returned from stepping out, he told police. He then went to his car and found the glove box open and his pistol gone, he said. The cable lock was on the seat of his car, as were the keys to the cable lock, which were previously located in the cupholder, the officer told Pawtucket Police. Through some investigation of social media photos, Pawtucket Police Officer Andrew Torres wrote in a report that he recognized Natalia. She appeared similar to Neish Rivera, who had been arrested for prostitution at the Foxy Lady in Providence, Torres wrote. The investigation ended with the arrests of Rivera and Dacier, who now face charges of conspiracy and the larceny of a firearm. According to the Providence Journal, Dacier and Rivera were both arraigned Monday and were ordered held without bail for violating previous charges. The officers gun, which Pawtucket Police say was issued by the Boston Police Department, was later recovered. Its been five months since park officials announced their ambitious plans for Maxx Force, which will sit in the footprint vacated last spring by the Pictorium IMAX theater in Carousel Plaza. Those ambitions were touted again on Friday Maxx Force was designed to be a triple record-breaking launch coaster, with a 175-foot double inversion that would be the worlds highest; a 60 mph zero-G roll that would be the worlds fastest inversion; and a 0-to-78 mph launch that, at less than 2 seconds, would mark the fastest acceleration in North America. McGarry said Thursday he was interested but thought it was premature to comment, because the General Assembly has not appointed the judges. Its no secret I have expressed interest in being elected a judge, he said. Belongia confirmed that I have expressed an interest in that position and that she was interviewed in January. She said she was cautiously optimistic. Ive had no further contact, she said. I dont know if Im going to get it. Its not certain until its voted on. Belongia said she has been an attorney in Martinsville for about 23 years, and her practice primarily has been in Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court. I have handled all the kinds of cases in that court, she said. Belongia also has served as a substitute judge for about 14 years, primarily in the 21st District but also some in Franklin and Roanoke counties. She resides in Collinsville. A brief bio of McGarry submitted to the Patrick County Bar Association indicates that he moved to Martinsville after obtaining a law degree in 1993 and since that time has been practicing law with the firm now known as Young, Haskins, Mann, Gregory, McGarry & Wall, P.C., where he is a partner. Carlos Garcia Roldan, wanted in connection with a major real-estate swindle in Majorca, has been arrested in Bogota in a joint operation by Colombian police and the Guardia Civil from Palma. Officers from the Guardia have been in Colombia. The Spanish authorities will now formally request his extradition. Forty-six-year-old Garcia Roldan, known as Charly, fled Spain in May last year. There had been various complaints regarding the sale of properties that didn't exist. Some 200 people were said to have been affected. At the centre of this scam were two real-estate companies - Lujo Casa and Mallorca Investment, which shared the same offices. The director of Mallorca Investment, Michele Pilato, was one of several people arrested. He is currently on remand. The scam is estimated to have been worth between four and seven million euros. The reaction at the news of his arrest from one of those affected, Pilar Reyes, was: "We are euphoric. We have always had confidence in the Guardia Civil." Ensure you get a print copy of the Loudoun Times-Mirror delivered weekly to your home or business! Complete online access is included with all print subscriptions purchased online. Plus, up to four other members of your household can share online access through this subscription with their own, individual linked accounts at no additional charge. (Are you a current advertiser? Ask your sales rep for our special advertiser rate code!) This February, Backstage will play host to the much anticipated comedy by the Olivier Award winning author Marie Jones. Renowned for her hit shows Stones In His Pockets, Women on the Verge of HRT and A Night in November, Fly Me To The Moon packs all those comedy punches and is guaranteed to be a hit with the audiences across Ireland. Described as desperately funny by The New York Daily News, the play follows Francis and Loretta who are two community care visitors. Davey, one of the elderly men they visit, has had a significant win on the horses, but he doesnt know. When the cash-strapped women learn that Davey will not be around for a considerable time they are faced with a mouth-watering dilemma. This hilarious comedy investigates whether we are valued more in life or in death. Fly Me to the Moon comes to Backstage Theatre on Thursday February 7 at 8pm. Tickets 18/16 are available on 043 33 47888, from Farrell Coy in Longford town or online on backstage.ie. Latest Storm Erik weather forecast from Met Eireann predicts severe winds of up to 130 km per hour as it hits Ireland bringing heavy rain and flood risks to parts as it pushes through. In her forecast after the RTE News Met Eireann's Joanna Donnelly said weather warnings remain in place for the Atlantic storm which is set to take effect in the hours before dawn. Worst of the weather will be felt in Galway, Mayo and Donegal where Ms Donnelly said flooding is likely. Prior to the storm hitting a band of heavy rain will sweep the country. Status Orange wind warnings were issued on Thursday morning for the west and north-west of the country with the rest of the country covered by a Status Yellow alert. A Status Yellow rainfall warning for Donegal, Galway, Mayo and Kerry 30 to 40 mm rainfall expected with risk of spot flooding, especially on coasts and hills was issued on Thursday evening. A commentary from the forecaster says winds will be "most severe" in Atlantic coastal areas where there will be dangerous sea conditions. It says the combination of low pressure, high seas and high tides will lead to localised coastal flooding. The Status Orange warning is in operation for Galway and Mayo from 5am to 1pm Friday and for Donegal from 9am Friday to 6am Saturday. Erik is the sixth named storm this season, after Ali, Bronagh, Callum, Diana & Deirdre. Ms Donnelly urged people to check out Met Eireann's website for more details. MORE DETAILS BELOW TWEET from UK Met Office on course of storm. #StormErik has been named by @MetEireann for the area of low pressure arriving on Friday. Impacts will be greatest across Ireland though warnings are in force across parts of the UK Stay #weatheraware pic.twitter.com/ca1VqXoQ6G Met Office (@metoffice) February 7, 2019 Met Eireann website forecast issued Issued at 7.28pm on February 7. TOMORROW - FRIDAY 8TH FEBRUARY Tomorrow Friday will be a very windy day with strong to gale force and gusty southwesterly winds gradually veering westerly. Potentially damaging gusts on the west coast through the morning and for much of the day on north coasts. After a mild and wet start to the day, drier, brighter and more showery conditions will extend to most places by the afternoon. Afternoon highs of 7 to 10 degrees. NATIONAL OUTLOOK Widespread blustery showers will continue on Friday night, and some of the showers will be heavy with a risk of hail and isolated thunderstorms. Lowest temperatures will stay around 4 and 7 degrees. Strong to near gale southwest to westerly winds, with gales or strong gales near the coasts, will slowly ease overnight. Saturday will start windy with further scattered showers. The showers will be most frequent in the west and north, with an ongoing risk of hail and thunder, but they will gradually become more isolated towards evening. Highest temperatures will be around 6 to 9 degrees. Strong and gusty southwesterly winds will gradually abate. Showers will continue to affect Atlantic coastal counties on Saturday night, but it will be largely dry with clear spells elsewhere. Minima of 1 to 4 degrees Celsius. Light southwest winds will freshen and veer westerly overnight, helping to mitigate the risk of frost and icy patches. Sunday will be a cold, bright and breezy day with sunny spells and scattered showers. The showers will be most frequent in the west and north, with a continued risk of hail and isolated thunderstorms. Afternoon highs will range from 5 to 8 degrees, and it will feel chilly in the moderate to fresh northwest winds. Sunday night will be cold with a sharp frost and icy patches developing. Minima will drop to between minus 3 and plus 3 degrees. Dry on Monday with variable cloud amounts and bright or sunny spells. Top temperatures 6 to 8 degrees in light variable breezes. Current indications for Tuesday suggest a milder but mostly cloudy day with patchy rain developing in the western and northwestern areas and highs of 7 to 11 degrees. The police reviewed surveillance video, which recorded the woman and two men, one later identified as Napleton, walking to a hotel room at about 12:10 a.m. Aug. 8. The woman then fell to the ground and appeared unconscious, police said. The other man is shown dragging her into the hotel room by her feet, police said. Both men entered the room, but are shown leaving about 30 seconds later. Fianna Fail General Election Candidate for Longford, Cllr Joe Flaherty has criticised the Department of Rural and Community Development for failing to spend allocated LEADER funding. Cllr Flaherty was commenting as information obtained by Fianna Fail shows that just 9% of the LEADER funding allocated to Co. Longford has been spent to date. Cllr Flaherty explained, The purpose of LEADER is to provide rural communities with the resources to actively engage in community-led local development. Historically, it has been extremely successful in revitalising rural areas but the roll-out of funding under the current programme is hampering communities. "In 2014 the Fine Gael-led Government not only reduced LEADER funding from 400 million to 250 million but they also decided to tie the scheme in knots, undermining it with huge bureaucracy and unnecessary red tape. This is evidenced through the fact that to date, 86% of funding nationally has been spent on administration costs. "We are now into year six of a seven year funding programme, yet just 690,735 of Longfords total allocation of 7,597,623 has been spent to date. Questions need to be answered as to why so little of this funding has made its way to the communities that need it most. "This is damaging to rural communities, it is another example of a Government which is treating rural Ireland with indifference", concluded Cllr Flaherty. According to police, the cashier complied, giving the man the cash. The cashier was asked if it was protocol to give robbers money through the air chute system, to which the cashier replied "yes, Franklin Park police said. On Monday, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, or CBP, planners will be in Laredo to begin assessing where to place a wall in our community. At a State of the Border address on Feb. 1, Felix Chavez, interim chief for the U.S. Border Patrols Laredo sector, presented information to justify the 150 river miles of wall construction requested for Webb and Zapata counties. CBP believes that a permanent, impermeable barrier is necessary to meet its goal of operational control. To our dismay, we learned that CBP wants to specifically target Laredos middle reach as a top funding priority for the wall. This is a position with which we fiercely disagree. This area represents the heart of Laredos urban center. It includes downtown, the Laredo College campus, densely populated middle- and low-income residential areas, and prime parks, trails and habitat for recreation, kayaking and birding, which have made Laredo and the lower Rio Grande Valley a major destination for eco-tourists. Historical data on illegal apprehensions clearly indicate that there is no urgent, or even impending, border crisis. The data shows that in 2017, apprehensions for Laredo and the entire Southwest border were at an all-time low, similar to the early 1970s. The 2018 numbers were at one-fourth of their peak in 2000. As for illegal drug seizures, BP data show that more than 90 percent occur at ports of entry. Meanwhile, our government has waived every regulation for wall construction on our biodiverse river floodplain, dismantling protections that directly impact the security of Laredos only source of drinking water, which we share with 6 million people up and down the Rio Grande. In waiving the Clean Water Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, Clean Air Act, Solid Waste Disposal Act and at least 20 other environmental laws, the Trump administration threatens the health and safety of millions of Americans and Mexicans who live along the banks of this river. Todays border situation is complicated by the changing demographics of immigration. In the past, migrants were overwhelmingly single males from Mexico. Today, 78 percent are from countries other than Mexico, and families and unaccompanied minors now make up 60 percent of illegal apprehensions. Contributing factors include violence and poverty in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, which are propelling migrants northward to legally seek asylum; an overloaded court system; and detention policies that complicate crossings at legal points of entry, creating incentives to cross between the ports. A wall does not address these deeper-rooted factors and therefore will not resolve the migrant situation at the border. Therefore, we urge our congressional leaders to budget zero dollars toward the wall so that security funds are better spent on more urgent and pressing measures increasing staff and upgrading technology at ports of entry and between the ports of entry. We urge them to: Restore all environmental laws, which are vital to protect the health and welfare of all of us who live on the border. Budget for southbound interdiction to intercept cash and guns flowing into Mexico, which embolden the drug cartels with greater resources. Propose policy changes to help resolve the factors that drive migrants from their countries. Constructing a wall in Laredos urban center would devastate our landscape, ecology, cultural heritage and quality of life. Flooding could significantly increase in our lower-lying sister city, creating a wreckage whose risk will not be addressed because of the dismissal of construction regulations. Hundreds of species of wildlife rely on river access for their survival. Relocating millions of dollars worth of city infrastructure now near the rivers edge illustrates real-world costs of implementation. Laredo is a historic community in the South Texas borderlands. Its lifeblood, the Rio Grande, has been its No. 1 asset since our communitys founding in 1755. We cannot support this wall, especially when the Border Patrols own data contradict the reason for its conception. The Rio Grande continues to rank as one of the 10 most endangered rivers in the world. Every effort must be made by our federal government to protect and preserve it not to destroy it and the wildlife, drinking water and dynamic communities that it sustains. Melissa R. Cigarroa is board president and Tricia Cortez is executive director of the Rio Grande International Study Center, an environmental advocacy group based in Laredo. A 19-year-old man was arrested by the Lone Star Fugitive Task Force Monday after doctors discovered his infant child had suffered skull fractures, broken ribs and liver lacerations, according to San Marcos police. Richard Blythe of Kyle now faces a charge of injury to a child causing serious bodily injury. He was arrested in Killeen. A man accused of fatally shooting two people and injuring two others during a South Side home invasion was arrested Thursday and later hospitalized after he ingested an unknown substance, San Antonio police said. Jonathan Winston Johnson, 25, faces a charge of capital murder, police said. SAPD Chief William McManus said that Johnson was arrested without incident at about 6 p.m. on the East Side. After he was interviewed by detectives, Johnson was seen reaching deep into his pants pocket and swallowing a handful of an unknown substance. He retrieved what we believe to be narcotics that he had concealed somewhere in the middle of his body, McManus said. FIND OUT FIRST: Get San Antonio breaking news directly to your inbox On Tuesday before 8 p.m., a gunman kicked down the door to a ground-level unit at the Robin's Nest Apartments, 538 Hot Wells, and began shooting. The Bexar County Medical Examiners Office said Andres Luis Rangel, 19, and Katrina Marie Casarez, 18, were struck multiple times and died in the apartment. Two women also were shot but survived the attack. One was shot in the chest, and the other was struck in the arm, McManus said. They were taken to area hospitals. One of the women told police that the suspect was wearing a bandana covering the bottom half of his face to conceal his identity. Apparently he didnt do a good enough job of that, McManus said. RELATED: Graphic crime scene photos show aftermath of gun battle outside strip club involving SAPD officer The chief said she recognized the shooter as Johnson because she had met him before the incident. The woman said that she was immediately hit by a bullet after the door came down, McManus said. She believes that she only survived because she pretended to be dead, he said. Johnson also allegedly shot at two of her children, both under 10 years old, but missed, McManus said. The chief said he could not release the motive behind the shooting because it is part of the investigation. Johnson is expected to face additional charges, police said. Jacob Beltran is a reporter covering San Antonio and Bexar County. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | jbeltran@express-news.net | Twitter: @JBfromSA Monday's burglary at the River Oaks mansion of Tony Buzbee (the millionaire attorney running for mayor of Houston) is still being investigated by police, the Houston Chronicle reports. The thief reportedly made off with $21 million worth of jewelry, artwork and other valuables, including $50,000 in watches, $300 in cash and an Apple computer, reports abc13. RELATED: Millions in artwork, jewelry stolen from Tony Buzbee's home, police say Several firearms were also reportedly stolen, including three guns, a pistol, rifle/shotgun combo, and an automatic rifle, along with millions of dollars worth of artwork, according to abc13. The roster of paintings, abc13 reports, includes Femme Accoudee by Pablo Picasso valued at $216,611; La Plaine de Gennevilliers by Claude Monet valued at $1,273,125; and Jeune Femme au Chapeau noir by Pierre Bonnard valued at $832,125.00. Paysage au coq rouge by Fernand Leger valued at $1,284,015; Femme en Vert by Jean Pierre Cassigneul valued at $111,563; and California Hills in Spring by Childe Hassam valued at $985,000 were also stolen, abc13 reports. In a social media post Monday afternoon, Buzbee incorporated the theft into his mayoral campaign. The tweet reads: "Last Friday we learned that Police Chief Art Acevedo's wife's car was burglarized, and this morning my own home was burglarized. Murders, robberies, burglaries, etc. continue to rise. Crime knows no boundaries or zip codes. We have to address this crime wave, NOW." Monday's burglary marks the second artwork-related incident at Buzbee's mansion. In December 2017, a Dallas woman, on a date with Buzbee, was accused of destroying at least $300,000 worth of sculptures and original paintings, according to the Houston Chronicle. Buzbee has amassed a multi-million-dollar fortune representing plaintiffs in a variety of cases, from wrongful death suits to breach of contract actions. He successfully defended then-Governor Rick Perry against a 2014 abuse-of-power charge, getting the charges dismissed, reports the Houston Chronicle. Marcy de Luna is a digital reporter specializing in social media, the famous, and food. You can follow her on Twitter @MarcydeLuna and Facebook @MarcydeLuna. Read her stories on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and on our subscriber site, HoustonChronicle.com. | Marcy.deLuna@chron.com | Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message On Friday, 67-year-old Ubolratana Rajakanya Sirivadhana Varnavadi was put forward as a candidate for prime minister in Thailand's upcoming elections. A former U.S. resident, Ubolratana is a well-known public figure in Thailand who has more than 100,000 followers on her private Instagram account. If she is approved as a candidate in March's election, however, Ubolratana may cause chaos in Thai politics. That's because she is officially known as Princess Ubolratana, the elder sister of Thai King Vajiralongkorn. In Thailand, the royal family is held in high regard, and criticizing the king and his successor is harshly punished under the country's lese-majeste laws. Unlike in other countries where the royal family is widely mocked (Britain) or more or less ignored (Norway), Thai law makes it illegal to defame, insult or threaten "the King, the Queen, the Heir-apparent or the Regent." The Thai constitution also says: "The King shall be enthroned in a position of revered worship and shall not be violated. No person shall expose the King to any sort of accusation or action." Though other countries still have similar laws - both Spain and the Netherlands have lese-majeste laws on the books - Thailand's enforcement of its laws may make them the strictest in the world. The punishment under Section 112 of the legal code is imprisonment from three to 15 years; a single person can sometimes face multiple sentences on different counts. It is unclear how this would apply to criticism of Ubolratana. As The Washington Post reported, the princess relinquished her royal titles in 1972 when she married an American she met in college (they later divorced). In an Instagram post after her nomination, she described herself as living "as a commoner" without rights and privileges above other Thai citizens. But given Thailand's lese-majeste laws, it's hard to imagine her opponents or political analysts openly criticizing her. They certainly have good reason to be wary. Some form of lese-majeste law has been on the books since 1908, though the law was expanded and has been more strictly enforced since a military coup in 1976. There have been accounts of people arrested on lese-majeste charges for seemingly minor infractions in recent years: A woman who wore black in 2014 on the birthday of then-King Bhumibol Adulyadej was charged, as was a man who wrote a "sarcastic" Internet post about the revered Thai king's dog in 2015. Bhumibol died in 2016 and was succeeded by his son, Vajiralongkorn. Foreigners have been ensnared by the law, too. An American named Joe Gordon was arrested in 2011 for translating excerpts from a book about the king and posting them online (Gordon was pardoned and released the next year). In 2015, a printer in Thailand blocked out an article in a local edition of the New York Times that questioned the monarchy's future. Critics of the laws say that their unclear boundaries and broad application leave them open to political abuse. Groups that track lese-majeste arrests say that they shot up after a military junta seized power in 2014, in part because the new government arrested people for making false claims and other unrelated offenses under the law. In 2017, the United Nations special rapporteur on the promotion of freedom of opinion and expression, David Kaye, called on Thai authorities to stop using lese-majeste laws to stifle political speech. "Public figures, including those exercising the highest political authority, may be subject to criticism, and the fact that some forms of expression are considered to be insulting to a public figure is not sufficient to justify restrictions or penalties," Kaye said. By some accounts, use of the laws has declined in the last couple of years. But the prospect of a fraught election in March could raise real questions about its use. Ubolratana was nominated for her position by the Thai Raksa Chart Party of Thaksin Shinawatra, a former prime minister who was ousted by a coup a decade ago. Critics have accused Thaksin's movement of being anti-monarchist, and some of his "red shirt" followers served prison time for lese-majeste. The Thai royal palace put out a statement Friday saying that Ubolratana's nomination was "extremely inappropriate." It is not clear how King Vajiralongkorn would react further if his sister were to run, but there have been some signs in the past that even Thai royals had their doubts about lese-majeste laws. "When you say the king can do no wrong, it is wrong. We should not say that," King Bhumibol said in 2005. He added that criticism allowed him to make better decisions and that jailing people for criticizing him put him in an awkward position internationally. We learned this week that President Donald Trump's 19 trips down to his private club in Palm Beach, Florida, Mar-a-Lago, have probably cost taxpayers at least $64 million to date. Of that total, we figure that about $370,000 has been paid to Mar-a-Lago itself for hotel rooms and event space. (Much of the cost of those trips is eaten up by air transportation costs.) That $370,000 isn't a small sum, but it's less than the cost of two people paying their initiation fees to become members. Luckily for Trump - who recently called serving as president "one of the great losers of all time" for how much it has cost him - Mar-a-Lago has also been the beneficiary of another type of spending: Spending by political committees. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, February 8) House Majority Leader Roland Andaya Jr. on Friday accused Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno of attempting to bribe lawmakers to put the alleged budget anomalies under wraps. Andaya, who is investigating the alleged anomalies and the supposed insertions Diokno made in the 2019 national budget, said he met with the Budget Chief months after he became majority leader in July 2018. Prior to the alleged meeting where he was bribed, Andaya said he had met a number of times with Diokno, other economic managers, and the Executive Secretary to raise red flags on the budget. "I talked about 2019 budget. I told him that we had a problem. Told him the red flags, told him the problems we are encountering. He then, Secretary Diokno, tries to buy our cooperation. He offered the House P40 billion for us to shut up about the P75-billion insertion," the majority leader said. Andaya has accused Diokno of inserting P75 billion in the proposed 2019 budget of the Department of Public Works and Highways without the knowledge of Secretary Mark Villar. "He told me, 'I will get it from savings from 2018.' That's the reason why I'm asking for the documents on the 2018 savings," Andaya said. Related: Diokno denies conflict of interest in Sorsogon budget The Camarines Sur representative explained why he has been pushing for Diokno to attend the hearings, even issuing a subpoena on Thursday. "You tried to buy our silence for P40 billion out of the 2018 savings. That simple buy of yours encouraged me to go through with all these investigations," he said. However, Andaya said P40 billion is only the "half truth" as there is a bigger amount of money involved. He asked Diokno to reply to his allegations before he discloses the real amount of bribe offered. Diokno denied the allegation. "Absolutely false. It is again one of his wild and baseless accusations. If I were trying to silence the Committee, why would I even bother to submit to them the 2017 and 2018 savings for their review?" he said in a text message to CNN Philippines. Diokno skipped the hearing on Friday despite the subpoena issued to compel him to attend. Instead, he sought for a reschedule. He cited the House rule that a witness should be given three days notice before the scheduled hearing. Related: Budget Chief Diokno skips House hearing despite subpoena U.S. authorities have charged 20 people, including more than a dozen Romanian citizens, with running a multimillion-dollar scam that targeted Americans by pretending to sell cars online. The sprawling case announced Thursday by the Justice Department began in a small Secret Service office in Lexington, Kentucky, and grew to uncover what officials said was an international racketeering and money laundering scheme. Officials said the case is a warning to consumers to be wary of increasingly nimble online scammers. "The defendants allegedly orchestrated a highly organized and sophisticated scheme to steal money from unsuspecting victims in America and then launder their funds using cryptocurrency," said Assistant Attorney General Brian Benczkowski. According to court documents, the suspects posted fake ads on auction and sales websites like Craigslist and eBay, advertising cars and other high-cost items. Often, the cars were advertised as being for sale by members of the U.S. military who were soon going to deploy overseas. In truth, according to the indictment, the "sellers" were in Romania and had nothing of actual value. The suspects also tried to make their offers look legitimate by pretending to be affiliated with eBay and other companies, giving assurances that any financial transactions were secure and could be refunded, according to authorities. The indictment charges that once a victim sent money to purchase a car, that money was quickly traded for bitcoin so the money could be moved out of the United States. A dozen of the suspects have been extradited to the U.S. to face trial, officials said. "The Trump administration has awarded more than $50 billion in new federal contracts to companies that continue to shutter U.S. factories as they seek cheaper labor abroad." - tweet by Indiana Democratic Party, Feb. 5 - - - We spotted this tweet and followed a link to an opinion article that attacked President Donald Trump for betraying American voters for failing to take action against companies that offshore U.S. jobs. The article, by Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of labor-backed Good Jobs Nation, cited a study by the group that included the statistic in the tweet. We wondered about this claim, given that we had recently concluded that the president had "some bragging rights" to boast about companies returning jobs to the United States. Good Jobs Nation has promoted its study with tweets similar to the one above, labeling Trump as "Offshorer-in-chief." So let's take a look at the study that formed the basis of the tweet. The Good Jobs Nation report, titled "Broken Promise #2," was issued in August. It noted that Trump had pledged on "day one" to stop companies from shipping jobs overseas. "It's so easy to stop. It's so easy," he said at a campaign rally Nov. 7, 2016. But the report, by George Faraday, legal and policy director for Good Jobs Nation, argues that the president has failed to crack down on companies that feast on big U.S. contracts and yet continue to ship some jobs overseas. The Labor Department has a program known as Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA), originally enacted to assist workers whose jobs were displaced by the North American Free Trade Agreement. Faraday studied the jobs certified as being shipped to another country and then crosschecked with data on federal contract awards posted on usaspending.gov. He concluded that, as of June 8, major contractors had earned $52 billion contracts and had shipped more than 13,000 jobs offshore. Most of the list consists of 12 companies that received about $48 billion in contracts, with the biggest job losers led by General Motors, Boeing, United Technologies and Siemens. In a recent blog post, Faraday provided updated numbers, as of Jan. 24: $115 billion in federal contracts and 15,000 jobs shipped overseas. The overall numbers add up in the report and a spot check of the data indicates it is sound. (We have questions about the yearly rate data, putting Trump at a disadvantage, but that's beyond the scope of this fact check.) So what's wrong? It provides only half of the picture. We had noted before that data from the Reshoring Initiative shows that companies started to return jobs to the United States - or other countries invested in the United States - during the Obama administration, but the trend really started to pick up in 2017. About 73,000 jobs were brought to the United States in 2015, 113,000 in 2016 and 171,000 in 2017, Trump's first year in office. That's a gain of more than 50 percent between 2016 and 2017. Looking at the TAA numbers, one sees a similar decline in workers who were certified as having lost jobs because they were shipped overseas. We calculated there were 126,165 lost in 2016, Obama's last year in office, and then 85,482 lost in 2017 and 78,514 lost in 2018. Obama had two better years, in 2014 and 2015, but otherwise overall losses were higher in every other year of his administration - including 214,125 in 2010 and 244,617 in 2009. Certainly the pattern of the past three years shows fewer jobs are being shipped overseas. Combined with more jobs being returned, that's a pretty positive trend line. "It's an interesting point," acknowledged Faraday, but he said the group was focused on the losses, not the gains. "We're labor, and that how's we see the world." He said it was important that the jobs be returned to the communities that had lost them. Faraday noted that the focus of the report was on companies that benefited from U.S. contracts. He said that Trump could have taken action, via an executive order, to punish companies that shipped jobs overseas but that the president had failed to do so. The top executives of five companies that had offshored jobs, according to the TAA data, were members of Trump's American Manufacturing Council, which the president later disbanded. Still, a number of companies on the list have also said they will bring jobs back from overseas or add jobs in the United States, according to news reports. AT&T, for instance, is listed in Faraday's report as offshoring 270 jobs since Trump became president. Yet in 2017, the company announced an agreement with the Communications Workers of America to bring back 3,000 jobs that had been sent to Mexico. (The CWA, in a report in January, charged that the company has continued to close call centers in the United States and lay off workers.) As regular readers know, context is important. If the glass is half full, you can't look at only the empty part. A more balanced presentation in the report would include the jobs that have been returned from overseas, not just the ones that are lost. Two pinocchios. --- Video Embed Code Video: After the State of the Union, the Indiana Democrats critiqued the Trump administration for awarding federal contracts to companies that send labor abroad and close U.S. factories.(Meg Kelly,Joy Yi/The Washington Post) Embed code: Company leadership for Golden Pass shared more details Thursday about an estimated $10 billion terminal expansion project that would create more than 9,000 jobs during the five-year construction period. As elected officials and employees gathered under a temporary banquet hall to celebrate Exxon Mobil and Qatar Petroleums investment decision in the project, Golden Pass executives highlighted some of the work that has gone into the project so far. I can finally tell you we will be one of the largest LNG facilities in North America, said David Williams, senior project manager. We have all the infrastructure that is necessary to move 2 billion standard cubic feet of gas so we can liquify it and send it to the rest of the world. Golden Pass is an investment by two companies looking to strengthen their footing and change direction after a slumping oil market, but company executives said the joint venture will also represent the second wave of liquid natural gas in North America. Robert Bilnoski, vice president of human resources and public affairs, said he felt his company, along with its two shareholders, were in a position to capitalize on the nations changing position as a powerhouse exporter of fuel. In all my years, 40 years of experience, this is the most exciting period, Bilnoski said. The U.S. is in an advantaged role right now, and we have an ample supply of gas. Williams said the companys goal was to connect the companys 69-mile pipeline not only to the Permian Basin, but to a broader network of gas available from shale fields across Texas and the country. The company expects the project will have a capacity of about 16 million tons of liquefied natural gas per year, according to a statement. Golden Pass has predicted the project will create about 9,000 construction jobs over the five-year construction period and more than 200 permanent jobs once the facility opens. If the project gets under way by the first quarter, as projected, Golden Pass thinks the terminal will be open by 2024. Engineering, procurement and construction contracts were given to a collaboration between Chiyoda International Corp., McDermott International Inc. and Zachry Group. Bilnoski said the company would set the pace for what its commitment to the community would be by starting with a focus on using local people in construction. After this event today, we will be sitting down with all three firms to talk about their plans, but also set expectations to, as much as we possibly can, give priority to local hires and local businesses, Bilnoski said. Bilnoski said the more than 200 permanent jobs would run the gamut from technicians trained in work with liquid natural gas to accountants and public relations professionals. The project could be one of the largest private construction jobs in the region once it is under way, but the Sabine Pass area and other nearby shipping lanes are on the radar of companies other than Golden Pass. Sempra Energy, which recently announced it was a step closer to an LNG facility in Port Arthur, is also constructing a facility in Hackberry, La., just across the border. Bill McCoy, president of the Port Arthur Chamber of Commerce, said the area was ready with infrastructure and workers to embrace its new role in the world of natural gas export, and the investment by Golden Pass seems to show their agreement. This means a successful completion of eight years of hard work for this company, but it also means an indication of the confidence in the economy of Port Arthur and the nation to invest a $10 (billion) to $12 billion facility here, McCoy said. McCoy conceded the project would require far more workers and contractors than the Port Arthur area could generate in a tight job market, but the community was ready to train and educate people ready for opportunities. Exxon Mobil is including the Golden Pass project in its $50 billion Growing the Gulf initiative, which aims to expand manufacturing and add 45,000 U.S. jobs over the next five years. The company has already established a sales and procurement agreement with Ocean LNG, a natural gas trade operation co-owned by affiliates of Exxon Mobil and Qatar Petroleum. Ocean LNG signed its first supply deal with Centrais Eletricas de Sergipe to sell gas to Brazil by 2020. The facility expansion is part of Qatar Petroleums overall plans to invest about $20 billion in the United States to increase its overseas oil and gas footprint. Qatar announced in December that it would be leaving the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) after the first of the year. While the country was one of the smallest oil producers in OPEC, it is one of the largest producers of liquefied natural gas in the world. During an agreement signing in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry used the Golden Pass agreement as an example of the U.S. strengthening its ties with the country and took an opportunity to call out OPEC. Todays agreement is the latest example of the vital partnership between the U.S. and Qatar from American universities putting campuses in Qatar, to our strategic military relationship, and of course, our collaboration in the energy sector, Perry said in a statement. The Golden Pass project is proof that two of the worlds top energy producers can work together as allies to increase energy diversity, advance energy security, and support rather than subvert an open energy marketplace. jacob.dick@beaumontenterprise.com Twitter.com/jdickjournalism WASHINGTON - Democrats and liberal groups on Friday pointed to a Supreme Court ruling in an abortion case to argue that Justice Brett Kavanaugh would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, focusing their ire on Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican who supported Kavanaugh's nomination last year and faces a tough 2020 reelection. The outcry from the left follows the court's 5-to-4 vote to block a restrictive Louisiana abortion law. The 2014 law, which has never been enforced, would effectively shutter most of the state's abortion clinics by requiring physicians at those facilities to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals. While Democrats hailed the decision, they pointed to Kavanaugh's dissent as a sign that he is poised to side with conservatives in future rulings on abortion rights. In his dissent, Kavanaugh said there was a dispute about whether the physicians in the Louisiana case could obtain admitting privileges, and that a 45-day grace period would have provided time to settle that question. Democrats are particularly incensed at Collins, who delivered a 44-minute-long floor speech in October declaring her support for Kavanaugh. At the time, Collins, who supports abortion rights, said she did not think Kavanaugh would vote to overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion. Collins' communications director, Annie Clark, said it was "clear that a lot of the critics of Justice Kavanaugh's dissenting opinion haven't even read it." "If the far left groups weren't targeting Senator Collins for Justice Kavanaugh, they would be targeting her for something else," Clark added. Brian Fallon, director of Demand Justice, a liberal group that opposed the Kavanaugh nomination, said the group will launch a digital ad buy of more than $10,000 next week in Maine to inform voters of how Collins' vote for Kavanaugh helped lead to the close call in Thursday's ruling. He said coming Supreme Court cases that will be decided before the next election, on issues such as abortion, immigration and transgender troops, will provide more opportunities to make the Kavanaugh vote costly for Collins. "These are all issues that we think will make Collins look like just another politician for having supported Kavanaugh," Fallon said. "We will be able to say, 'I told you so.' " "The Kavanaugh thing for her is going to be a very salient issue," he continued. "It might be the deciding issue in that race." The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Senate Democrats' campaign arm, is also criticizing Collins for her vote in support of Kavanaugh. "It's hard to know what's worse: misleading Mainers and Americans about a Supreme Court justice who just tried to make Roe v. Wade obsolete or raising hundreds of thousands of dollars off the vote," DSCC communications director Lauren Passalacqua said in a statement. "Susan Collins keeps showing Maine families she's not on their side and why she won't be reelected if she runs." National abortion rights groups, including Planned Parenthood and NARAL, also drew attention to Kavanaugh's dissent Friday, as did several Democratic senators. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., argued that Kavanaugh "has started attacking Roe v. Wade from the bench." "That means women & men who believe women should have access to safe, legal abortion must stand up stronger than ever for women's constitutionally protected health care rights," Murray said in a tweet. Collins' office countered such criticism Friday by noting that Democrats responded with "near total silence" after Kavanaugh provided the decisive vote in Planned Parenthood's favor in a December Supreme Court ruling. "During his confirmation process, Planned Parenthood was Justice Kavanaugh's number one opponent," Clark said in a statement. "They went after him with everything that they had. And yet, when it came to a case involving them, he was able to put that aside and rule impartially and independently." Collins will make a firm decision on whether to run for reelection near the end of 2019, she said in a televised interview last month. "I'm getting ready to run. But frankly, I just think it's, it's too early to make that kind of decision," Collins said on NBC's "Meet The Press." "But I am getting prepared, and I'll make a final decision towards the end of this year." Twenty-two Republican-held Senate seats are at stake in the 2020 election, and Collins is among the most vulnerable incumbents. She is one of only two Senate Republicans facing reelection who represent states won by Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016; the other is Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado. But Collins has cultivated a bipartisan reputation in the state that will present a difficult challenge for Democrats. One Democrat who generated a stir in the fall was Susan E. Rice, who served as President Barack Obama's national security adviser. In an October tweet, Rice appeared to signal interest in running, before later making clear she did not have any announcement to make. Days after that, Rice said she would consider it after the midterm elections. "The people of Maine have always appreciated Senator Collins' diligent work ethic, her extraordinary command of federal issues, and her thoughtful and deliberative approach," Clark said. "And that's exactly how she's going to continue to proceed." --- The Washington Post's Robert Barnes contributed to this report. . Washington Democrats launched a sweeping plan Thursday to transform the U.S. economy to combat climate change and create thousands of jobs in renewable energy, signaling its likely elevation as a central campaign issue in 2020 despite President Donald Trump's failure to mention climate change in his State of the Union address. At least six senators running for president or considering White House bids backed the Green New Deal put forth by freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and veteran Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts. The nonbinding resolution calls for a "10-year national mobilization" on the scale of the original New Deal to shift the economy away from fossil fuels such as oil and coal and replace them with renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power. It sets a goal to meet "100 percent of the power demand in the United States through clean, renewable and zero-emission energy sources," including nuclear power. "Our energy future will not be found in the dark of a mine but in the light of the sun," Markey said at a Capitol news conference. The plan goes far beyond energy to urge national health care coverage and job guarantees, as well as high-quality education and affordable housing. The resolution urges elimination of fossil fuels pollution and greenhouse gas emissions "as much as technologically feasible" in a range of economic sectors and calls for "upgrading all existing buildings in the United States" to be energy-efficient. More than 80 percent of registered voters supported the concept of a Green New Deal in a December poll by Yale and George Mason universities. "This is now a voting issue across the country," Markey said. "The green generation has risen up and they are saying they want this issue solved" as one of the top two or three issues in the 2020 election. A coalition of labor, economic justice, racial justice, indigenous, and environmental organizations immediately announced their support. While setting lofty goals, the plan does not explicitly call for eliminating the use of fossil fuels, a nod to pragmatism that may disappoint some of Ocasio-Cortez's strongest backers. Even so, the Green New Deal is more ambitious than the Clean Power Plan proposed by former President Barack Obama to impose emissions limits on coal-fired power plants. Trump, who has expressed doubts about climate change, scrapped Obama's plan as a job killer. While Democrats did not specify a price tag, some Republicans predict it would cost in the trillions of dollars. GOP lawmakers denounced the plan as a radical proposal that would drive the economy off a cliff and lead to a huge tax increase. "The Green New Deal is a raw deal for the American taxpayer," said Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. The measure is supported by at least six senators with their eyes on the White House: Cory Booker of New Jersey, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Kamala Harris of California, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota. None of the six attended the news conference, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said hours earlier she hadn't read the proposal. Pelosi did not explicitly endorse it, but welcomed "the enthusiasm" of its backers. The resolution introduced Thursday marks the first legislative language attached to the Green New Deal, a concept that until now has been loosely defined as a call for action to head off catastrophic climate change and create jobs. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Thursday warned of a possible 30 percent subway fare increase if state lawmakers do not approve a congestion pricing plan that would pay for improvements to New York City's subway system. Cuomo threw down the gauntlet in a speech in Manhattan, pressuring state lawmakers who are reluctant to support his proposal with the idea of a staggering fare increase that would undoubtedly infuriate transit riders. Transit officials are already planning to raise fares this spring by about 4 percent. "Either the rider pays in fares and tolls, or it's congestion pricing," Cuomo said at a luncheon sponsored by the Association for a Better New York. "That's the real choice." The governor's blunt assessment was his most forceful argument for the proposal since he first embraced congestion pricing a plan to toll drivers entering the busiest parts of Manhattan to raise money for the failing subway system two years ago. Cuomo, a Democrat in his third term, has made congestion pricing one of his top legislative priorities in Albany this year, but some lawmakers are concerned about pushback from drivers. He acknowledged that congestion pricing would be a "politically difficult battle" this year. "Why? Politicians do not like to vote for toll increases myself included," the governor said. But congestion pricing offered the best option, he said, to raise money for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which oversees the subways, buses and commuter railroads. All the systems are struggling to provide reliable service. Congestion pricing has a long history in Albany, where former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg failed to garner enough support for the idea about a decade ago. Cuomo said his proposal could raise about $15 billion for the transit agency. Under a 30 percent fare increase, the price of a monthly MetroCard could jump to $157, from $121. The price of a single swipe could increase to more than $3. Cuomo's comments Thursday suggest that he is serious about winning approval for the proposal this year and wants to frame congestion pricing as the best choice among many difficult options. Richmond, Va. Virginia's Democrats struggled to find their way out of three interlocking political crises Thursday that could bring down the party's top elected officials and put a Republican in the governor's chair. With Gov. Ralph Northam's career in peril over a racist photo in his 1984 medical school yearbook, the state attorney general acknowledged Wednesday that he, too, put on blackface once, when he was in college, and a woman publicly accused the lieutenant governor of sexually assaulting her 15 years ago. While nearly the entire Democratic establishment rose up against Northam over the past week to demand he resign, party members largely withheld judgment on the two latest developments, which threaten to cause a political chain reaction that could make a GOP legislative leader the governor. President Donald Trump accused the Democrats of a political double standard, tweeting: "If the three failing pols were Republicans, far stronger action would be taken." Some clarity on the way forward could come from Virginia's Legislative Black Caucus, which was preparing a statement on the crisis. The caucus has been calling for Northam's resignation but was silent about Attorney General Mark Herring and Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, who would become Virginia's second black governor if Northam stepped down. The caucus chairman, Lamont Bagby, said the group needs time to sort out the series of revelations. Many Democrats are likely to follow the group's cues. Quentin Kidd, a political science professor at Christopher Newport University, had initially predicted Northam would be unable to hang on to office for more than a week. Now, with all three top Democrats in trouble, the equation has changed, he said. He said it is possible all three could survive just out of political necessity because Republican House Speaker Kirk Cox would be next in line for governor if they all resigned. The Democrats' "moral clarity" last week has given way to the realization they could "lose power completely at the executive level," Kidd said. He likened the situation to three sinking boats "that suddenly lash themselves together and find they can float." Meanwhile, the Rev. Al Sharpton said in a fiery speech at historically black Virginia Union University that the matter should be dealt with swiftly. He said Northam and Herring must step down over their blackface admissions, and the allegations against Fairfax should be investigated thoroughly. The civil rights leader said he came to Richmond to deliver a message to the governor: "I'm not going to be your minstrel!" Members of the crowd of 300 students, faculty, clergy and political leaders shouted in agreement and jumped to their feet several times during Sharpton's speech. The governor is under fire over the discovery of a photo on his yearbook profile page of someone in blackface standing next to a person in a Ku Klux Klan hood and robe. Northam initially said he was in the photo, then denied it, but acknowledged putting shoe polish on his face for a dance contest in Texas in 1984, when he was in the Army. On Wednesday, Herring, who had been urging Northam to step down, admitted wearing blackface to look like a rapper during a party when he was a 19-year-old at the University of Virginia in 1980. He apologized for his "callous" behavior. Then Vanessa Tyson, a 42-year-old college professor from California, put out a detailed statement alleging Fairfax forced her to perform oral sex on him in a hotel room in 2004 during the Democratic National Convention in Boston. Fairfax said the encounter was consensual, and he dismissed the allegations as political smear. Democrats have expressed fear the crises could jeopardize their chances of taking control of the GOP-dominated Virginia legislature this year after big gains in 2017. At the same time, the Democrats nationally have taken a hard line against misconduct in their ranks because women and minorities are a vital part of their base and they want to criticize Trump's behavior without looking hypocritical. WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump appealed to conservatives in part by promising to protect religious freedom. A recent Supreme Court decision has some of his supporters feeling let down by the court's conservative majority. On Thursday, the court voted 5-4 to allow the execution of Domineque Ray, a 42-year-old Muslim man sentenced to death for raping and killing a 15-year-old girl. Ray wanted his imam at his side when he died. But his Alabama prison refused to allow the imam in the room, calling it a security risk to host a clergy person not employed by Alabama's corrections department. Only the prison's own Christian chaplain would be permitted to witness Ray's death from inside the execution chamber. Ray challenged that decision in court. And on Wednesday, a federal appeals court granted a stay of execution until it could be determined whether the prison had preferred one religion over another, violating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. On Thursday, the Supreme Court denied the stay and ruled that the execution could go forward. Ray died Thursday night by lethal injection. His imam, Yusef Maisonet, watched from the next room, behind glass. In allowing the execution to move forward. the conservative majority said only that Ray had waited too long to seek relief. But the liberals who dissented said Alabama's policy showed preferential treatment to Christian inmates over those of other faiths. "That treatment goes against the Establishment Clause's core principle of denominational neutrality," Justice Elena Kagan wrote in her dissent. Quite a bit of criticism also came from conservatives. Conservative columnist Bethany Mandel tweeted: "The state should not play God. But if it does, it shouldn't deny a (wo)man a way to atone to their God before doing so." Seth Mandel, executive editor of the Washington Examiner Magazine, tweeted: "As a conservative who opposes both the death penalty and religious discrimination I find this story appalling." And Southern Baptist minister Alan Cross tweeted: "Every time we want the state to favor Christianity over other religions, the result is a loss of religious freedom for all." Many religious conservatives backed Trump because he promised to appoint judges who support religious freedom. The Ray ruling may expose just how narrowly some understand that idea. And even if the Supreme Court's decision in Ray was based on a strict adherence to a rule, the ruling may be remembered most for an absence of grace and mercy. WASHINGTON - During his 59-year tenure as the longest-serving member of Congress, John Dingell uncovered government fraud, fought for universal health care, helped to pass the Civil Rights Act and fiercely defended the automotive industry. He also got to be very good at Twitter. "Someone told me that the man behind everyone's favorite cup of coffee might run for President and I just want to wish @TimHortons the very best," Rep. Dingell, D-Mich., tweeted last week, after Starbucks founder Howard Schultz announced that he was weighing a bid. "You have my support." On Thursday, after news broke that Dingell had died at92, there was a collective sense of mourning on the site where he had developed a cult following for his self-effacing humor, charmingly grumpy observations and sarcastic political commentary. "I know he was an icon, a legislative giant," CNN commentator Ana Navarro wrote. "I know he leaves behind a meaningful legacy. I know his loss is heartbreaking for Debbie and their loved ones. But man, I am really going to miss @JohnDingell's tweets." Dingell's unexpected journey to social media celebrity began in July 2014, when a since-deleted tweet accidentally sent by the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Water invited followers to download "Kim Kardashian: Hollywood" from the iOS App Store. "I'm the last original author of the Clean Water Act, but I have no idea who/what a Kardashian is and I rarely play games," Dingell, then 88, replied. "You OK, @EPAwater?" The next day, he posted, "Staff has now informed me of what a Kardashian is. I'm only left with more questions." Before that point, the 29-term congressman had posted photos of himself with Cookie Monster and jokes about being so old that he didn't even buy unripe bananas anymore. But the viral Kardashian exchange cemented his fame as possibly the only politician who knew how to have fun online, and prompted BuzzFeed News to name him "probably the best person on Twitter." Afterward, Dingell, who had announced that he planned to retire at the end of 2014, began to share his thoughts on the platform regularly, weighing in on subjects ranging from "Sharknado 2" ("So it's a tornado full of sharks? That's what the entire film is about?") to the 313th anniversary of Detroit's founding ("No, I wasn't there at the time.") Dingell's "mastery of Twitter showed it can be done at any age," South Bend, Indiana Mayor and Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg wrote on Thursday night, as fans joked that they were deleting their accounts now that the site's best user, who had over 262,000 followers as of Friday morning, had passed away. "Now . . . it is official . . . there is no joy left in Twitter," MSNBC's Stephanie Ruhle wrote. After he retired in 2015, Dingell regularly turned to Twitter to express his outrage with President Donald Trump and the Republican Party. "Burn this entire administration down," he tweeted in January, after Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said that he didn't understand why furloughed federal workers needed to visit food banks during the government shutdown. But rather than hurl shrill, impassioned invective at Trump and his associates, Dingell typically preferred to crack jokes at their expense. When Melania Trump showed up to tour a shelter for migrant children in her now-infamous Zara jacket - which read 'I REALLY DON'T CARE, DO U? across the back -- his response was to tweet, "Boy did I pick an awkward day to wear my jacket with 'Be Best' scribbled on the back." "Safe to say @realDonaldTrump has had the least productive first 100 days in office," he wrote in April 2017. "Except maybe Harrison, who died of pneumonia on Day 31." Last August, Dingell told Detroit's WDIV-TV that the wry commentary reflected his serious concerns about the direction that the country was heading in. "I'm scared to death," he said. And yes, he confirmed, it was really him tweeting. "John Dingell can say, 'When you're 92 you can get away with saying a lot of things that the rest of us can't,'" his wife, Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., who was elected to his seat in Congress after he retired, told the NBC affiliate. When the longtime congressman wasn't taking shots at politicians, he could often be found venting his frustrations with the Detroit Lions and the Michigan Wolverines, his two favorite teams. He also displayed a more whimsical side, repeatedly referencing his love of Hostess cupcakes and cracking jokes about his advanced age. "Feeling old because you remember when Pluto was a planet back when you were younger?" he quipped in 2015. "I was born before they even discovered the darn thing." May 21, 2018: "I've made it nearly a century without knowing who Jordan Peterson is and I'll be damned if you internet miscreants ruin that for me." May 12, 2016: "Either my hearing aid is failing me or Paul Ryan just called Trump 'a very warm and genuine person.' Either scenario needs to be fixed ASAP" Whether he was referencing the latest meme or perfectly deploying the deadpan tone popularized on the site ("Always great to interact with folks here on Twitter dot com,") nothing about Dingell's Twitter presence matched what you might expect of a retired congressman who was first sworn into office in 1955. He frequently dunked on other users, calling astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson a nerd and advising him to lighten up, and mocking journalist David Corn for complaining about issues with his AOL email account. And despite his initial confusion about the Kardashians, he eventually revealed himself to be well-versed in pop culture. "Someone please send me @kanyewest's number," Dingell wrote in April 2018, after the rapper posted photos of himself in a "Make America Great Again" hat and cited "dragon energy" as his reason for supporting Trump. Though most Twitter users are many decades younger than him, Dingell's dry sense of humor was a perfect fit for the platform. As it turned out, the persona that he had crafted - a cantankerous old man despairing at the state of the world - had a lot in common with the millennials tweeting, "lol everything is terrible": Jan. 1, 2019: "Happy New Year or whatever." Nov 7, 2017: "99% of you people don't even deserve 140 characters." Aug 22, 2017: "We should have all just stared at the eclipse." But unlike, say, the individual behind the Nihilist Arby's parody account, Dingell also turned to Twitter to express sincerely held convictions. "I signed up to fight Nazis 73 years ago and I'll do it again if I have to," he wrote in August 2017, after a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, ended in deadly chaos. "Hate, bigotry, & fascism should have no place in this country." "In a way, Twitter lets us behind the curtain, and he did it in an authentic and enjoyable way," Erin Meyers, an associate professor of communications and journalism at Michigan's Oakland University, told the Detroit News on Thursday. "You didn't feel like he was grandstanding or putting on an act like others. He had a Michigan-ness about his tweets. He kept it real." On Wednesday evening, Dingell posted his last tweet before succumbing to complications from prostate cancer. "The Lovely Deborah is insisting I rest and stay off here, but after long negotiations we've worked out a deal where she'll keep up with Twitter for me as I dictate the messages," he wrote, referring to his wife. "I want to thank you all for your incredibly kind words and prayers. You're not done with me just yet." Authorities recovered a stolen vehicle and seized 23 pounds of marijuana from a home in the San Jose neighborhood, off U.S. 59, according to Laredo police. Authorities also arrested Flavio Amador Alvarez-Vasquez, 24, and Eloy Martinez-Vasquez, 24, on the charge of theft. Alvarez-Vasquez was additionally charged with possession of marijuana. More than 60 undocumented immigrants, including four minors, were discovered Wednesday in a tractor-trailer at the Texas travel information center parking lot off Interstate 35, according to the Webb County Sheriff's Office. The discovery was made after sheriff's deputies and U.S. Border Patrol agents were able to locate a vehicle suspected of smuggling humans. The 16-year-old boy who was shot in the head on Tuesday has died, according to Laredo police. Authorities identified him as Jesus Alejandro Ramirez Jr. He was a student at Nixon High School, according to the Laredo Independent School District. A lawsuit filed by 50 local veterans and Gold Star mothers compelling Webb County and the City of Laredo to create a veterans museum did not go far in district court; Judge Monica Notzon dismissed the case Thursday. The city and county filed an interlocal agreement in 2010 pledging to create a public veterans museum at the Farias House, a historic home in downtown Laredo. Each entity pledged $500,000. But little progress has been made since the signing. The veterans' lawsuit, filed in the 111th District Court, claims that Webb County has refused to comply with the terms of the interlocal agreement. They want the county to refurbish and restore the Farias Home and to establish a public veterans' museum there. READ ALSO: 8 Laredo dogs struggling to find their forever homes However the merits of this case were not heard in court, as Notzon accepted the pleas to jurisdiction filed by the city and county, which argued that the veterans coalition is not a party to this interlocal agreement. "I have no choice but to grant the plea to jurisdiction filed by both the county and city," Notzon said. "I hope, however, having said that, counsel, that you will go speak to the powers that be about following through with their intentions. We have a group of the population that's obviously been wronged," she added, addressing the attorneys for the City of Laredo and Webb County. After the lawsuit was filed in August, both the City Council and Webb County Commissioners Court voted to remain in the interlocal agreement and build the museum at the Farias home. However the future of the museum remains unresolved. The City of Laredo says that under the contract, the county has to initiate this project in order for the city to follow through. And Webb County Judge Tano Tijerina told Laredo Morning Times on Thursday that they don't know what's next for this project. The majority of veterans are still asking that the museum not be housed at the Farias property, he said. Tijerina wanted to make clear, however, that the $500,000 the county pledged is still budgeted for the museum. "It's just a matter of where we put it," he said. Hector Farias, great-great grandson of Juan Francisco Farias, who built the house, said on Thursday that he does not believe the dismissal of the case affects the future of the museum. READ ALSO: 'Good still exists:' Video of Laredo Border Patrol agent's kind gesture goes viral "All we've wanted to do always is light a fire under them, in particular when the county wanted to sell it. And that's when we had sued, that's what got it moving. So today, I think we're good, because it's brought attention. They're going to get a lot of pressure from the veterans we are going to get that museum," he said. What the veterans coalition does not want is for the Farias home to go the way of the Webb County Annex, a historical building that had to be demolished due to neglect. "The Francisco Farias building is older than the county. It was built in 1840. The county was not created until 1847 by the Legislature. Not even Texas was around. It's the same age as the Republic of the Rio Grande. It's the oldest building in town, and they don't care about it!" Farias said. Julia Wallace may be reached at 956-728-2543 or jwallace@lmtonline.com Works of intellectual history come in a few varieties. There's the Salon Book, the story of a like-minded clique coming together to develop a new philosophy or sensibility, or at least to take down old ones. Louis Menand's "The Metaphysical Club," on the rise of pragmatism, is the ideal of the form. Then there's the Book Book, arguing that one particular title remade the world, shaped the century, upended the cosmos. Think of Randall Fuller's "The Book That Changed America," about the impact of Charles Darwin's "On the Origin of Species" upon a nation verging on civil war. And there's the Big Idea Book, painting a single, vital stroke across a vast canvas. Try Ibram X. Kendi's relentless "Stamped From the Beginning," on the arc of America's racist designs from pre-colonial times to the new millennium. These books are usually lengthy; intellectual historians have read a lot, after all, and they want us to read a lot, too. But "The Ideas That Made America" by Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen is an anomaly in the genre. Its brevity is a point of pride, yet it aspires to do a little of everything. It covers various schools in America's life of the mind, from transcendentalists to progressives, from the Harlem Renaissance to mid-20th-century conservatives. It dwells on the struggles of a young nation to affirm its own literary and academic traditions - to end, in Ralph Waldo Emerson's complaint, America's "long apprenticeship to the learnings of other lands." It highlights essential works and scholars, putting them in conversation across time, and it surfaces the recurring strains in American intellectual life. "There is no period in American history when thinkers have not wrestled with the appropriate balance of power between self-interest and social obligation," Ratner-Rosenhagen writes, identifying a central theme not just of her book but of the republic. It is a fraught enterprise, she acknowledges, to try to determine the intellectual motivations of history's actors, to peek inside their heads. "Making the claim for the causal force of ideas is always a little risky," Ratner-Rosenhagen admits. But it is a risk she is eager to take, and that willingness is infectious. "The Ideas That Made America" urges us to see intellectual trends as intrinsic to America's story, not just equal to our political and social currents but, often, shifting the tides. The American Revolution, for instance, responded to the ferment of immigrants, concentration of wealth and British taxation of the colonies, Ratner-Rosenhagen writes. But "before waging a fearsome war ... a dramatic intellectual transformation had to occur first." Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" offered "the right words at the right time," arguing that the colonists had the power to begin the world anew. A similar metamorphosis occurred nearly two centuries later, when the collected works of 1962, including Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring," Michael Harrington's "The Other America," Ken Kesey's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," Milton Friedman's "Capitalism and Freedom" and Thomas Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions," not to mention the Port Huron Statement, would propel America's cultural wars. "The sixties - and the dramatic decades that followed - started in ideas," Ratner-Rosenhagen declares, simple and persuasive. 1963 was no slouch, either, with Betty Friedan's "The Feminine Mystique" and Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter From a Birmingham Jail" appearing that year, both a form of "prison writing," the author notes, in one of her many sly asides. America's enduring religiosity makes its intellectual evolution especially intricate. "What gave the Enlightenment ideas in America their distinct form," Ratner-Rosenhagen explains, "is that America's foremost thinkers were not hostile to religion." For every intellectual revolution vaulting faith over reason, countervailing forces appeared. Transcendentalists sought to "bring religion in line with secular knowledge," Ratner-Rosenhagen writes, while the pragmatists, buoyed by Darwin's methods and theories, came to regard all beliefs and claims to truth as "nothing more than propositions that needed to be tested." Yet thinkers of faith in the late 19th century tried to unlock the divine even within Darwinism, arguing that "fellowship and compassion, not greed and ruthlessness, were the human traits most necessary for racial progress and survival." And after World War II, some New Deal-style notions of scientific and administrative advancement came to seem naive, "even a bit taunting," Ratner-Rosenhagen writes. "Intellectuals and educators wanted more assurances about moral universals." No surprise that terms such as "hopeful empiricism" and "sanctified reason" make cameos throughout this book. Ratner-Rosenhagen regards American intellectual life as a history of "crossings" across geography, time and culture - "between one cultural setting and another, text and context, secular analysis and sacred belief." At times, the religious origins of secular notions are easily forgotten or distorted. In his farewell address in 1989, President Ronald Reagan famously drew from John Winthrop's 1630 sermon "A Modell of Christian Charity" to fashion his "shining city upon a hill" as an ode to America's unique purpose in the world. Except, as Ratner-Rosenhagen points out, Winthrop's original sermon was focused on the fate of his particular faith community and its own moral mission. "More than two hundred years passed before Winthrop's conception of the Puritans' special charge would become refashioned as American exceptionalism." Ratner-Rosenhagen devotes just a few paragraphs to that long transformation, whereas the recent book by historian Daniel T. Rodgers, "As a City on a Hill," provides a more comprehensive look at the many uses and contortions the original sermon has suffered. But this is the appeal of Ratner-Rosenhagen's book: Even if it is a gateway drug for heftier works of intellectual history, it's still a pretty decent hit. More than a work of intellectual history, "The Ideas That Made America" is also a work on intellectual history. The author pauses to delight in her field, a daily opportunity to "eavesdrop on the past," and offers a tutorial on its limits and possibilities. She is acutely cognizant of those left out of this history. Archaeological and historical inquiry may describe the daily lives of indigenous Americans before the 16th century, for instance, but "none of this reveals much at all about how native people made sense of the arrival of Europeans, not to mention how they made sense of themselves and their worlds prior to contact." Intellectual evolution, like its biological counterpart, is neither predetermined nor admirable - it just is. It can be embraced, but also exploited or resisted to satisfy long-held beliefs, Ratner-Rosenhagen explains. "The human imagination is extraordinarily deft at making new ideas jibe with prior intellectual and moral commitments, and when the two cannot or simply will not be reconciled, it is almost always the prior worldview that wins out." Although Ratner-Rosenhagen contends that the intellectual historian need not pass judgment on the moral decisions of the past, but rather "seek to comprehend how those actors came to their understanding," she highlights her heroes and villains. The author's admiration for 19th-century antebellum feminist Margaret Fuller and Progressive-era writer Randolph Bourne, for instance, appears boundless. By contrast, she emphasizes that activist Margaret Sanger and historian Lothrop Stoddard, through their advocacy of eugenics in the early 20th century, reveal the abuses of so-called intellectual progress. "Both used the authority of modern science to credentialize racial bigotry," she writes. And she neatly captures the contradictions of Thomas Jefferson, whose "enlightened anthropology looked for escape clauses in its claims for a common humanity." Though foreign influences are essential to her story, this is a deeply American history. While Ratner-Rosenhagen lingers on the faddish fascination that mid-20th-century America had with the French existentialists, for instance, she stresses how writers such as Ralph Ellison and Richard Wright "were able to render a distinctly American existentialism by drawing on their own haunting experiences." Such works are a critical part of the "struggle for moral identification," a persistent tension in American intellectual life. Ratner-Rosenhagen concludes with the early-21st-century battles over globalization and inequality. At first, I wished she had added a final section exploring the intellectual origins of today's political and cultural divides. Yet I ended up respecting her reluctance to include a dutiful Trump chapter. She offers clues, lingering on the nation's narcissistic impulses, its fights over identity politics and the naivete of thinkers who believed that globalization would break down nationalism rather than intensify it. For the intellectual historian, that can suffice. It is for us, today, to write the rest. Houston-based Braun Enterprises will expand its Urban Office product to a second location in the Galleria area after acquiring an office and retail complex on a prime parcel along West Alabama. The concept will take space in the 196,000-square-foot Yorktown Plaza property at 5353 and 5373 West Alabama, which Braun plans on renovating, rebranding and restocking with new tenants serving both the neighborhood and office occupants. The Urban Office package offers private office spaces starting at $700 a month. Shared amenities include conference rooms, lounge areas and coffee bars The property was purchased from Wedge Properties Management Corp. in a deal brokered by HFF. The complex, which includes a 35,000-square-foot, single-story retail space flanked by two six-story office buildings, is 54 percent occupied. The site, between Rice and Yorktown, also has a two-story parking garage. Braun Enterprises has redeveloped a number of inner-city retail and office projects. The company plans an extensive renovation of the interior and exterior of the office buildings, which were developed in the 1970s, along with a complete redevelopment of the retail space. The company recently rolled out its Urban Office product in 15,000 square feet of 5757 Woodway, another office building in the Galleria area it acquired in late 2017. The exteriors and common areas were redeveloped, adding a Sola Salon Suites in 6,000 square feet as part of the parking garage. Tenants are close to retail amenities, such as Cyclone Anayas, Starbucks, a dry cleaner and Brisket House. Brauns other Urban Office projects are in buildings with retail on the first floor at 3100 and 3033 Fannin in Midtown and 535 W. 20th and 2522 Yale in the Heights. The West Alabama complex is across the street from the Hyatt Regency Houston Galleria and Hyatt Place Houston Galleria, one block west of the Galleria. It would likely contain one floor of Urban Office space, according to Zach Wolf of Braun Enterprises. Davis Adams, Wally Reid and Kelly Layne of HFF represented Wedge Properties, a privately-held company based in Houston. Braun Enterprises has acquired and developed more than 3 million square feet of commercial real estate since 1989. katherine.feser@chron.com twitter.com/kfeser Luckily, Fluffy's owners brought her to the animal clinic before she froze to death. Not all heroes wear capes. Some wear ice-encrusted fur. Fluffy, an adorably resilient cat recently survived a brush with the polar vortex after her owners found her covered in chunks of ice and snow. The owners (who were not identified) rushed Fluffy, who looked more ice-ball mop than feline, to the Animal Clinic of Kalispell in Montana, where veterinarians essentially defrosted the cat more than a week ago, according to news reports. Fluffy wasn't frozen solid, Andrea Dutter, executive director of the Animal Clinic of Kalispell, told the Washington Post. But her temperature was well below 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius) the lower limit on the hospital's thermometers. Cats normally run temperatures a few degrees warmer than humans' average body temperature of 98.6 F, according to PetMD. [Gallery: Freeze-Dried Pets] "We immediately began to warm her up," Dutter told the Post. "Warm water, heating pads, hot towels . . . within an hour she started grumbling at us." Fluffy is normally an indoor-outdoor cat who knows her way back home, but was likely immobilized outside after an injury which doctors discovered after they warmed her up, according to the Post. Fluffy, looking extremely fluffy and very warm, after her frigid ordeal was over. (Image credit: Animal Clinic of Kalispell) Unlike frogs, which can freeze solid over the winter, only to croak back to life when spring returns, there's nothing unusual about cat biology that would allow them to survive being buried in snow. Rather, Fluffy's owners caught the situation before Fluffy froze solid. (Humans can also be reanimated after spending days or hours in sub-freezing temperatures, as long as their cells don't completely freeze and burst, Live Science previously reported.) "Fluffy was used to living outside," the clinic told Live Science in a Facebook message. "But really it's mostly that the owners found her quickly and rushed her in for us to start caring for her." Originally published on Live Science. The Europeans killed so many indigenous Americans during the 16th century through warfare and by causing disease and famine that it actually cooled the planet during the Little Ice Age, a new study suggests. Essentially, once these tens of millions of people died in North, Central and South America, they could no longer farm. The forest then crept in, taking over farmland and doing what plants and trees do best: breathe in carbon dioxide (CO2). This process decreased the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, leading to widespread cooling, the researchers said. However, not everyone is convinced by this argument. Two experts Live Science interviewed called the idea "interesting" but said that more research is needed to support the claim. [10 Things We Learned About the First Americans in 2018] What's not in dispute is the sheer number of indigenous people who died as the Europeans colonized the New World. In an exhaustive review, the researchers of the new study combed through historic population estimates, finding that there were about 60.5 million people living in the Americas before the Europeans arrived in 1492. (For comparison, at that time, there were between 70 million and 88 million people living in Europe, which had less than half the area of the Americas, the researchers said.) In the 100 years that followed, warfare, slavery and diseases such as smallpox, measles, influenza and cholera wiped out approximately 90 percent of these inhabitants, leaving a mere 6 million indigenous men, women and children alive in 1600, said study lead researcher Alexander Koch, a doctoral student in the Department of Geography at University College London. This event was so catastrophic, it's called the Great Dying, Koch told Live Science. Wilderness takes over As the Great Dying progressed, forests took over indigenous land, Koch said. To determine about how much farmland was likely abandoned as indigenous people died, Koch and his colleagues looked at studies showing how much land current-day indigenous societies use per person. "We can then translate that into what the societies might have used back in the day," Koch said. Granted, not all indigenous cultures used land the same way. In the American Northeast, some of the Native Americans farmed. Other groups used fire-based hunting strategies, in which they burned large areas to channel animals into corridors where people could hunt them, Koch said. Meanwhile, there was high-intensity farming in areas such as Mexico and the Andes, he said. In all, about 216,000 square miles (56 million hectares) of land an area about 1.3 times the size of California transitioned from farmland to wilderness, Koch found. Inca terraces in Peru (Image credit: Shutterstock) This transition to wilderness was likely responsible for a drop in global atmospheric carbon dioxide by 7 to 10 parts per million (ppm), according to data from Antarctic ice core studies that occurred in the late 1500s and early 1600s, Koch said. In turn, this change in CO2 lowered surface air temperatures globally by 0.27 degrees Fahrenheit (0.15 degrees Celsius), the researchers wrote in the study. By then, the Little Ice Age, a period that lasted from about 1300 to 1870, was well underway. At this time, many places around the world got cooler, with global temperatures reaching their lowest points during the period in the 16th century, the researchers said. [10 Surprising Results of Global Warming] Much of the Little Ice Age was likely caused by volcanic eruptions and lower solar activity, but the Great Dying may have also contributed to cooler temperatures during that time, Koch said. Outside takes The researchers are likely overstating their case, said Joerg Schaefer, a Lamont research professor in geochemistry at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University in Palisades, New York, who was not involved with the study. "I am absolutely sure this paper does not explain the cause of the carbon dioxide change and the temperature change during that time." It's still a highly interesting paper, though, Schaefer said. "The biggest positive impact of that paper will be that it's so controversial, it will trigger a lot of discussion and follow-up from research," he told Live Science. Meanwhile, other researchers have come to the opposite conclusion, said Gifford Miller, a professor of geological sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder and the associate director at the university's Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research. For instance, a 2016 study in the journal Nature Geoscience found that photosynthesis decreased during the Little Ice Age, meaning that forest regrowth wouldn't explain the drop in carbon dioxide. "I don't have a strong opinion as to who is right here," Miller, who was not involved in the new study, told Live Science. "But at least we're saying that there is an alternative explanation" that comes to very different conclusions than those of Koch and his colleagues. However, even if the new study is onto something, it definitely does not imply that killing people is a good way to solve the challenges of climate change, Koch said. "Killing people is not the way to go for tackling our present-day problems," Koch said. "We need to cut down our fossil fuel emissions and not by killing people." The study will be published online in the March 1 issue of the journal Quaternary Science Reviews. Originally published on Live Science. About 300 million years ago, southern Africa was covered in ice. Now, scientists have found traces of an ancient ice stream in the hills of the desert region. On a journey through the deserts of northern Namibia, two geologists discovered hills that were shaped in a way that looked like they had been eroded by glaciers. Indeed, these structures turned out to be drumlins a type of egg-shaped hill that is often found beneath glaciers and whalebacks and megawhalebacks, which are their larger, more elliptical counterparts. [Photos: Traces of an Ancient Ice Stream] They reported their findings online Jan. 30 in the journal PLOS ONE. (Image credit: Copyright 2019 West Virginia University) "We visited Namibia to do a completely different study that turned out to be a bust," said co-author Graham Andrews, a geologist at West Virginia University. Andrews was traveling with his wife, Sarah Brown, who is also a geologist at West Virginia University. "We were basically killing time at the end of our trip visiting other geology when we came across the drumlins and whalebacks." On foot and in their car, they saw about six or seven of these structures. Both geologists were familiar with such structures, since Andrews grew up near a drumlin in Northern Ireland, and Brown frequently saw them in Illinois and Wisconsin. "So the shapes just struck me as 'off' in Namibia, but strangely familiar, too," Andrews told Live Science. These observations on foot and their "gut feelings" spurred them to study the structures after returning to the lab in West Virginia. There, their students, Shannon Maynard and Andrew McGrady, looked at the bumpy scape in satellite images from Google Earth; they figured out the shapes and dimensions of the hills that made up one expanse in Namibia. They then compared these measurements with published data on whalebacks and megawhalebacks in Scotland and Canada. Thats when they saw that there were so many of them around 100 that formed their own distinct "field. The drumlins stood out because, when viewed from above, they looked like the outline of an egg. The "whalebacks" are larger and more elliptical than drumlins in this aerial view. The largest and even more elongated ones at the site are called "megawhalebacks." All of them had these large grooves etched into them, which could have only been shaped by something fast moving (not by glaciers themselves, which seasonally melt and then grow). The culprit: ancient ice streams, which are flows of ice that move much faster than a surrounding glacier does, comparable to those seen in Antarctica today, the team reported. The fast-flowing ice would have carved a path through the surface of Namibia some 300 million years ago, piling the carved-out material into various formations. In the intervening time, these formations drumlins and megawhalebacks were buried under hundreds of thousands of rocks. As more time passed, erosion peeled away all of those concealing rocks, re-exposing the telltale structures, Andrews said. Though scientists knew the area was once covered in ice, no one had documented these eroded hills before, Andrews said. As to why, "my guess is that most geologists looked for new rocks made by the glaciers, and not for how the glaciers sculpted older, pre-existing rocks," he said. Based on the location and orientation of these structures, the team concluded that the ice stream likely flowed toward the northwest into shallow waters in modern Brazil, the team reported. In fact, the drumlins and whalebacks are similar to glacial features in modern Brazil that date back to the same time, Andrews said. Their findings further confirm that southern Africa was joined with South America and sat over the South Pole during this late Paleozoic age. Originally published on Live Science. THE former Limerick racecourse site at Greenpark is on the market at a guide price of 12m. The Limerick Race Company has announced the sale this Friday afternoon, saying it will allow for future investment at its current site in Greenmount Park, Patrickswell. The 116.5-acre site at Greenpark Racecourse, which has not been operational since 1999, is one of the largest mixed-use development sites to be brought to the market in Limerick in the past decade. Limerick Racecourse, which had been at the site for over 130 years prior to its closure, has hosted several significant events including the visit of US President John F. Kennedy in 1963 and Pope John Paul II in 1979. Mark McMahon, the chairman of the Limerick Race Company, said: With an increasing appetite for development land outside Dublin, we feel the time is right to sell the site of our former racecourse to invest in the future of racing in Limerick at Patrickswell, where we have been since 2001. Racing in Limerick has taken place at seven venues for over 225 years with the first Limerick racecourse being established in 1790. The current racecourse, Greenmount Park, was the first new racecourse developed in Ireland for 60 years. The first meeting at the Patrickswell site was held in October 2001 and attracted over 18,000 racegoers. The racecourse counts the Munster National and its Christmas Racing Festival among its racing calendar highlights. FLOOD defences are being put in place in Limerick as authorities monitor the track of Storm Erik. A Status Yellow wind warning remains in effect for Limerick until 6am this Saturday and Limerick City and County Council said it was continuing to monitor Storm Erik as it tracks across Ireland. Southwest to west winds will reach mean speeds of 50 to 65 km/h with gusts of 80 to 110 km/h. Along exposed Atlantic coasts these values may be exceeded for a while and with very high seas this will give the risk of coastal flooding. As a result, due to the predicted combination of high tides and adverse winds Limerick City and County Council is taking measures to protect areas along the Shannon Estuary. As a proactive measure flood defences are being put in place in flood prone areas in Limerick city along the quays and Strands, Askeaton and Foynes. A spokesperson said: Limerick City and County Council will continue to monitor the situation during Storm Erik. During the period, the weather warning is in force, Limerick City and County Council is urging people to stay away from open water and the drive with caution on Limericks roads. A CHINESE man who admitted having a large quantity of cannabis and more than 20,000 in cash at his home in Limerick has avoided an immediate prison sentence. Jinlong Xue, aged 36, who has an address at Howleys Quay, Limerick had pleaded guilty to possession of cannabis, worth around 10,000 for the purpose of sale or supply. During a sentencing hearing last year, Garda Alan Considine said Mr Xue's apartment was searched at around 6.30pm on July 5, 2016 after confidential information was received by gardai. He said the drugs were found in a number of vacuum-packed bags in a press in the kitchen and that other paraphernalia associated with drug dealing was also found in the house. Incriminating texts were found on a mobile phone belonging to Mr Xue and 23,825 in cash was found in a bedroom wardrobe. Mr Xue, who is known as Pat, told the court around 6,000 of the money was wages from a Chinese restaurant where he worked while a further 10,000 was money he had brought with him from China to Limerick. He said he was working as a manager at a Chinese restaurant in Ennis at the time and that the remainder of the money almost 8,000 was profits from the restaurant which he had brought home as the company did not have a bank account. Haibin Lin, a director of LLK Street Food Limited, opposed an application by the State for the forfeiture of that money. Mr Lin, who is known as Stephen, told the court Mr Xue was a satisfactory, reliable hard worker and that he trusted him to bring the cash home for convenience over a short period in 2016 while the restaurant was being re-branded. Mr Lin, who lives in Limerick, told Judge Tom ODonnell that 7,825 of the cash which was seized at Mr Xues apartment belongs to the company. The witness rejected assertions from John OSullivan, BL, prosecuting, that documents submitted by him to the court had nothing to do with the cash found or the nice quantity of drugs which was found at Mr Xues apartment. Imposing sentence, Judge ODonnell said the quantity of drugs seized was not insignificant but he noted Mr Xue had made admissions and had pleaded guilty. He accepted he has a strong work ethic, is a family man and that he is at low risk of re-offending. The judge imposed a three year prison sentence which he suspended for three years. He directed that 10,000 of the cash seized be forfeited to the State and that the remainder be returned to Mr Xue and Mr Lin. We're sorry that the ministry you were looking for is no longer available on LightSource.com. However, below are some great ministries that offer related content. Enjoy the inspiration, encouragement, and Biblical challenge from these LightSource.com ministry partners! LifeStyle The best Lifestyle shows are right here, from Australia and around the world. Catch up with the experts on home design and interiors, food and cooking, the property market, and get fresh ideas with the savviest of renovators. Whether you need inspiration for cooking up a storm, to refresh a tired room, or tips to sell your property, Foxtel Lifestyle will always something new for you to watch. Enjoy your favourite experts like Andrew Winter and Neale Whitaker, or Shaynna Blaze and Jamie Oliver live or On Demand. Elgin should be an attractive option for home buyers for several reasons, the local real estate brokers said. Elgins proximity to Metra stations and Interstate 90 attracts those commuting to Chicago for work, and the citys downtown continues to evolve and grow, they said. The city and School District U46 have done a good job of promoting the benefits of Elgin, they said. Eslin farmer and County Councillor Enda Stenson made his feelings on Brexit and the backstop well known in Brussels this week. The independent councillor was speaking at the European Committee of the Regions in the European Parliament on Wednesday, February 6. Stenson put how worried Leitrim communities are about Brexit and stated "we no longer trust the British to leave in an orderly fashion." He asked Brexiteers "Do you know what you want?" He said a hard border would have "real consequences for real people particularly in the North West and Border Region." He outlined that nobody want to return to a violent past and said as a farmer Brexit will have a "detrimental effect on farmers." "As a father I can't believe the UK have decided to give their children less opportunities than at the present ... to allow their people to work, study to live in the EU freely." Stenson went on to tell Brexiteers to "stop blaming Brussels and the Irish - look in the mirror and blame yourselves." Also read: Mohill and Lough Rynn to host important European Alliance meeting Sixth class pupils from the Kildare Town Educate Together school were in the Dail yesterday to present Minister Joe McHugh with a thank you card in relation to the recent new school decision. The Department of Education has sanctioned permission for a new 1,000 pupil school to replace the Curragh Post Primary, which currently has 130 students enrolled. The school is to be jointly run by the Kildare and Wicklow Education and Training Board (KWETB) and Educate Together. The news came just before Christmas after a lengthy campaign by the South Kildare Educate Together (SKET). It had been highlighting the urgent need for more school places in Newbridge and surrounding areas. Deputy Martin Heydon said he is continuing to push for progress in identifying a site for the school. It's understood the preference is for a location within the Curragh area. On January 22, Mr Heydon asked the Minister if his officials will engage with officials from the Department of Defence in relation to identifying a site. The minister said: "A new site will be required for the school and the Department will be liaising with KWETB with a view to the process for identifying a suitable site. The standard identification process includes identifying suitable sites already in public ownership. I can assure the Deputy that my Department will make every effort to progress the matter. In response to a further question as to what steps are being taken to progress the issue, the minister stressed the location of the site "will be determined as part of the site acquisition process". "Due to commercial sensitivities with site acquisitions in general, I am unable to elaborate further at this time and it will be confirmed at a later date," he said. The pupils in the Dail yesterday with Minister Joe McHugh and Deputy Martin Heydon A Kildare resident linked through DNA evidence to a revolver found inside a blood-stained plastic bag at a Dublin business park has been jailed for three years by the Special Criminal Court. Sean Ruth (29), with an address at Blacktrench, Rathangan, Co Kildare pleaded guilty on January 22 to possession of a .38 Special Calibre "Rossi" revolver and a 9mm calibre round of ammunition at a place unknown within the State between January 1, 2016 and January 24, 2017, both dates inclusive. These offences are contrary to Section 2 of the Firearms Act, 1925 as amended by Section 27 of the Criminal Justice Act 2006. The maximum prison sentence in respect of each count is seven years in prison. Passing sentence today, presiding judge Mr Justice Paul Coffey said that it was accepted by the prosecution that the charges which Ruth had pleaded guilty to were "unconnected" to the firearms which had been recovered from Greenogue Business Park. A "lethal arsenal" of weapons which included four loaded guns and over a thousand rounds of ammunition was recovered at a unit in Greenogue Business Park, Rathcoole, Co Dublin on January 24, 2017. The judge said it was not in dispute that the firearm and ammunition linked to Ruth were incompatible and there was no evidence to suggest that they were ever in use. Having regard to the gravity of the offence, the judge said the court placed it at the upper end of the middle range. The aggravating factors in the case included the absence of any evidence that the firearm and ammunition were required for a lawful purpose as well as Ruths 29 previous convictions. However, the offending was extenuated by the fact that there was no evidence that the firearm and ammunition had been used, said Mr Justice Coffey. The headline sentence in the case was four and a half years imprisonment. Mr Justice Coffey said that Ruth comes from a good, law-abiding family but he was not law-abiding and had not been since his life was marked by a downward spiral of criminal behaviour in 2010. The sole mitigating factor was the defendant's guilty plea which had come relatively late, said the judge. It was a plea to a lesser charge than those on the original indictment and it was accepted by the prosecution that it was of real value, he explained. The headline sentence was reduced from four and a half years to three and a half years because of this guilty plea, said the judge, adding that both sentences are to run concurrently. In conclusion, Mr Justice Coffey said that the three judges had carefully read the testimonials which were handed into the court as well as a letter from the defendants parents which outlined their clear and genuine belief that their son had the capacity to rehabilitate himself. Mr Justice Coffey said the non-jury court would suspend the final six months on condition that Ruth enter a "peace bond". Sentencing the defendant today, Mr Justice Coffey, sitting with Judge Gerard Griffin and Judge David McHugh, sentenced Ruth to three and a half years imprisonment with the final six months suspended, backdated to May 17, 2017 when he went into custody. Jonathan Harding (45) of McNeill Court, Sallins, Co Kildare, and James Walsh (33), with an address at Neilstown Drive, Clondalkin, Dublin 22 both previously pleaded guilty at the Special Criminal Court to the possession of nine revolvers, four pistols, a sub-machine gun, an assault rifle and various ammunition magazines at the unit in Greenogue Business Park on January 24, 2017. In January 2018, Harding was sentenced to ten years in prison with one year suspended and Walsh was sentenced to nine years in prison with one year suspended. SENTENCE HEARING At last months sentence hearing on January 24, Detective Inspector Noel Browne, of the National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau, summarised the facts of the case. Detective Insp Browne told prosecuting counsel Paul Burns SC that after receiving confidential information, gardai put a surveillance operation in place and raided a warehouse at Greenogue Business Park, Grants Drive, Rathcoole, Co Dublin on January 24, 2017. Ruth was originally from Kilkenny but had been living in Kildare, the court heard. Det Insp Browne said five firearms were found during the search and they were laid out on cardboard boxes in the upstairs loft area of the warehouse. None of these firearms were connected to the defendant, he added. Other firearms were found on two other cardboard boxes nearby, which were labelled box 1 and box 2. Two assault rifles were on box 2 as well as a blood-stained bag which contained a Rossi revolver, a Glock automatic pistol and various calibre ammunition. The items were sent to Forensic Science Ireland and swabbed for DNA purposes. The witness said a blood-stained Spar plastic bag containing a disposable glove was found on top of a timber box downstairs in the warehouse. Inside the finger of this glove was a 9mm calibre round of ammunition which was not suitable for the revolver. A radio transmitter was found on the mezzanine level of the unit and it had Ruths DNA. The witness said a Ford Focus car was also on the premises and there was blood-staining inside the passenger door which matched the defendants DNA. Ruth was arrested by gardai at the Amber Springs Hotel on May 7, 2017 and he was detained at Clondlakin Garda Station where he was photographed, fingerprinted and DNA buccal swabs were taken from him. Det Insp Browne said little evidence was provided during Ruth's interviews but he told gardai that he had an accident when he was in the Ford Focus car which had caused the blood. However, the defendant said he was not aware of the car being at Greenogue Business Park. The DNA profile generated from Ruth's buccal swabs matched the DNA recovered from the revolver as well as the two plastic bags. Ruths DNA profile also matched the profile generated from the glove, the radio and the blood-staining inside the Ford Focus. Under cross-examination, Det Insp Browne agreed with Dominic McGinn SC, defending, that gardai were running a surveillance operation which had "specific targets" but his client was not one of these. The witness accepted that Ruth was not sighted at the premises during the search and agreed that he was in the gym at the time of the raid. The detective further accepted that blood cannot be dated and Ruths guilty plea was of value to the investigation. Mr McGinn asked the court to take into account that his client was from a good, law-abiding family and they had been very supportive of him through this process. In mitigating factors, Mr McGinn asked the court to consider that the revolver was loaded but not compatible with the ammunition in it. The barrister said Ruth was only linked through the blood and not tied to the crime through responsibility. Mr McGinn asked the judges to consider in mitigation his clients early guilty plea which was of value to the court. Another factor in mitigation, he said was a letter from the defendants parents who had attempted to paint the full picture of their son as a hard-working individual but with a restless spirit. According to his parents this "restless spirit" had led him down a road in his adolescents to early twenties that he should not have gone down. This downward trend is not of his character and the abrupt stop to his sequence of offending makes them optimistic for his future, indicated Mr McGinn. In his submissions, Mr McGinn said that his client had completed a number of courses since he went into custody in May 2017. He asked the court to fix the offence in terms of its seriousness and to weigh up the mitigating factors. Counsel submitted to the court that his client was not in immediate possession of the gun when it was found on January 24 and the weapon was not capable of being used as it was not loaded. The only inference the court can draw is that Mr Ruth has some amount of authority and control over the firearm, said the lawyer. The prosecution said each of the counts were separate items found at the premises which were not directly related to each other. Building on the recent success of the new Portlaoise branding and gift card, the Portlaoise Town Team has unveiled the new branded gazebos proudly displayed by the Portlaoise farmers market traders. Laois County Council's Business Support Unit worked closely with traders Mary Lowry and Peter McHugh over the past few months with the aim of creating a farmers market that had more visual impact. Making use of the new Portlaoise Well Meet You There brand, the Business Support Unit worked with local designers Penhouse to design a complimentary Farmers Market Logo. Present at the launch was Director of Services Kieran Kehoe. Laois County Council welcomes the addition of the Farmer Market branding which builds on our overall vision of Portlaoise as a place to meet, live and do business. A visually stimulating Farmers Market will add to the atmosphere of the town centre, bring footfall into the main street and support our plans to rejuvenate the town centre, he said. The Portlaoise Farmers Market provides fresh, quality, artisan and craft produce. It trades every Friday in the Market Square Portlaoise between 8.30am and 3pm. If you are interested in joining the Portlaoise Farmers Market contact Jake Lawlor in the Business Support Unit on 057 86 64000 or businesssupport@laoiscoco.ie Easton police on Friday morning investigated a report of a suspicious vehicle Thursday afternoon on College Hill. The black, newer-model Subaru Forester with a Pennsylvania license plate was seen just after 4:45 p.m. in the area of the 200 block of Reeder Street and near Wayne Avenue, police said. A man wearing a blue shirt was behind the wheel, police said. A news release did not say what made the vehicle suspicious. In an update early Friday afternoon, Easton police Inspector Daniel Reagan said: Easton police are no longer seeking info on a suspicious vehicle (Subaru) that was reported in the area of Reeder and Wayne Streets at about 4:45 p.m. on Feb. 7. The operator is identified and cooperative; police concluded there was no wrongdoing. Editors note: This article was updated from its original version to reflect Easton police dropping their investigation. Tony Rhodin may be reached at arhodin@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyRhodin. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.. Police said a pair of teens picked up on weapons charges outside Wilson Area High School said they hate cops and wanted to use a stolen handgun on someone. Nathaniel Charles Donnelly, 19, and CaMel Jeremiah Douglas, 18, both of whom are homeless, made the remarks to corrections officers, borough police Chief Chris Meehan said, reading from a Northampton County Department of Corrections report. When arrested in the 400 block of Warrior Lane, Donnelly was carrying a .40-caliber handgun, which was stolen in the borough, and Douglas had a knife and marijuana, Meehan said. In the custody of the department of corrections, they said they had wanted to use the handgun on someone, Meehan said, citing the report. When asked if there were someone in specific they wanted to shoot, they said they hate cops and have opposition out there, Meehan said. Douglas referenced Daniel Clary, who wounded two Pennsylvania State troopers in a shooting Nov. 7, 2017, along Route 33 in Plainfield Township. All the COs (corrections officers) were afraid of his boy who shot the trooper, the report attributes to Douglas saying. Douglas wanted bodies on him, because it would be fun, according to the report Meehan read. The chief wasnt certain if the men were making serious threats or if they were showing off because they were about to go to jail. Donnelly was charged with receiving stolen property, firearms not to be carried without a license and possession of a weapon on school property, while Douglas was charged with possession of a weapon on school property, false identification to a law-enforcement officer, possession of drugs and possession of drug paraphernalia. Douglas charges were either misdemeanors or lesser counts, while Donnelly faces two felony counts, records show. The pair were arraigned separately after 10:30 p.m. before District Judge Nancy Matos Gonzalez and neither is likely to walk free anytime soon. Donnelly was held on 10 percent of $750,000, while Douglas was housed in the jail in lieu of $750,000 straight bail, records show. Court papers dont list attorneys for either man. Tony Rhodin may be reached at arhodin@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyRhodin. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. Three African-American students, T.J. Glass, Brianna Paulino, and Keyvon Kyles, said they have had positive interactions with fellow ECC students, but they still question some of the stares they get walking on campus. ECCs enrollment is less than 10 percent African-American. The students said they have established connections with ECC professors or staff of color, but a lack of diversity persists. UPDATE: Bethlehem mans sale of Oxycodone with fentanyl led to raid, authorities say A search warrant was served about 6 a.m. Friday at a Bethlehem home in a law-enforcement operation headed by the Lehigh County Drug Task Force, authorities report. The Bethlehem police Emergency Response Team assisted at the scene in the first block of West Goepp Street near North Main Street, police Chief Mark DiLuzio confirmed. It wasnt immediately clear if anyone was arrested. The exact address wasnt available. Neighbors were awakened by bullhorn announcements as the warrant was being served, a witness said. Because it is an ongoing investigation and city police werent the primary investigators, they couldnt immediately provide more details, a public information officer said. Authorities raided a home about 6 a.m. Feb. 8, 2018, in the first block of West Goepp Street in Bethlehem. (Photo courtesy Essie Rockmore)Photo courtesy Essie Rockmore The Lehigh County District Attorneys Office, which oversees the task force made up of county detectives and local police on temporary assignment, also said due to the nature of the ongoing probe it couldnt provide details. A search of the home continued after dawn, according to a witness. As of 9 a.m., three nearby district justices in Northampton County, where the Goepp Street home is located, had not arraigned anyone from that address, clerks reported. Tony Rhodin may be reached at arhodin@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyRhodin. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. An appellate court judge denied a request by Allentowns former mayor to be released on bail pending his appeal of federal corruption convictions. The request by former Mayor Ed Pawlowski was denied Thursday by Judge Theodore A. McKee of the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals. The mayor is serving a 15-year sentence at a federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut. He was sent there last October after he was convicted at trial of taking bribes and rigging contracts in exchange for campaign contributions. Pawlowskis attorney Jack McMahon argued in court papers that Pawlowski and his family have strong ties to the community, so hes no risk to flee if hes released from prison pending his appeal. More than 100 supporters submitted letters on Pawlowskis behalf, McMahon wrote. There is not one single thing that the court or the government can point to that gives any hint of the possibility of fleeing from this situation, McMahon wrote. The prosecutors, however, argued the mayor has $300,000 in savings which could finance his departure from the area. He lied to the FBI and lied on the witness stand, so he cant be trusted to stay in the area pending the outcome of his appeal, according to papers filed by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Anthony J. Wzorek and Michelle L. Morgan. In the motion for bail, McMahon argues the government failed to prove in that the mayor exercised his authority and took specific steps that warrant a corruption conviction for a handful of the allegations against him. He is asking the appellate court to throw out the convictions. The prosecutors say the verdicts must stand. For many of the counts, such as those alleging wire fraud and false statements to the government, he presents no argument at all. For others, he presents only snippets of testimony he says support his position, while omitting the rest of the overwhelming evidence presented by the government that supported the jurys verdict. There is no substantial question that the government presented sufficient evidence of the bribery schemes, Wzorek and Morgan wrote. Rudy Miller may be reached at rmiller@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @RudyMillerLV. Find Easton area news on Facebook. The owners of Spankys East Club in Wilson Borough can go back inside the locked strip club before the hearing on accusations it is a nuisance bar, a Northampton County judge ruled. The owners of the strip club at 1700 Butler Street petitioned to be allowed back inside after sheriffs deputies changed the locks on Tuesday afternoon. The temporary closure is part of a temporary injunction approved by Judge Samuel Murray in District Attorney John Morganellis bid to have the club deemed a nuisance bar. The owners were unaware of the emergency shuttering and need to get inside to deal with the heat, lights and appliances, according to court paperwork. Judge Sam Murray signed off on the request Thursday with the provision that Northampton County sheriffs deputies are there when the owners go back. The club is slated to remain closed for business until a hearing in the nuisance case, which was rescheduled from Friday to Thursday morning. Attorneys Joseph Hanyon and Paul Bender represent the clubs property owner, Mirage LP, and operator AMPM Inc. Hanyon declined to comment about the nuisance bar case and the prosecutors allegations that the bar is a magnet for known criminals and gang members. Morganelli said borough police have responded to 165 calls at the club since 2006, including shootings Jan. 19 inside the bar that left three men injured and the fatal shooting of Jason Oliver in 2006. In court papers, Morganelli said the calls have also included aggravated assaults, acts of prostitution, drug overdoses and fights inside and outside the club. Sarah Cassi may be reached at scassi@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @SarahCassi. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. A recently retired Bethlehem firefighter says he wants to continue to help the city he loves so much, so hes running for Bethlehem City Council. South Bethlehem resident and Democrat David A. Saltzer said hes been a strong advocate for the citys first responders and backs investments in Bethlehems working class. Ive grown up in this beautiful city, and I had the privilege of serving as a Bethlehem City Firefighter for 15 years," Saltzer said. Since I was a teenager, Ive held multiple jobs at one time to make ends meet and I want to represent the hard working people of Bethlehem. Saltzer sustained a catastrophic knee injury fighting a fire in 2015, which contributed to his 2017 retirement. While with the department, he also served as president of the union for more than seven years and spent six years as secretary. He promised to continue to support city firefighters, police and paramedics. These men and women put their lives on the line daily, and cutting funding for personnel and infrastructure for first responders is unsafe, Saltzer said. "We do these jobs because we are called to help people, and in order to do that we need to be funded for success. In addition to working as a city firefighter, Saltzer has held down several other jobs, many simultaneously: 911 acting supervisor and telecommunicator with Lehigh County; an emergency medical technician with Upper Saucon Township and an emergency dispatcher for MedEvac at Lehigh Valley Health Network. Since I was young, Ive felt a strong drive to help people. Thats what I find fulfilling, and serving on city council is another way I can do that," Saltzer said in a news release. Bethlehem is a historic steel city made up of hard working people and I want to be a voice for these hard workers. I feel like I can represent them because Im just like them. Id feel so honored to be able to do that. Saltzer is passionate about animals and is a proud dog-dad to Chevy and Cloie, both Shih Tzus, and Sophie, a Husky. He currently is a volunteer grant writer, treasurer, and fundraising coordinator for Aunt Helens Cats In Need, a local nonprofit cat rescue. This year, four council seats are up for grabs and the field is starting to get competitive. Councilman Shawn Martell, a Democrat, has announced he does not plan to run for another term. Martell was first elected to council in 2015 along with Councilman Michael Colon. He was the second-highest vote getter behind Councilman J. William Reynolds, councils longest serving member, who is running for re-election. Dr. Paige Van Wirts seat is also up for re-election. Van Wirt was appointed to fill the final two years of Eric Evans term when he stepped down to become city business administrator. Van Wirt, who waged an unsuccessful write-in campaign in the general election before being appointed, intends to run for a four-year seat. Easton Area High School guidance counselor Grace Crampsie Smith, a Democrat, has announced she plans to run for council. Small business consultant Carol Ritter, a Democrat, is also running for council. Sara K. Satullo may be reached at ssatullo@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @sarasatullo and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. The Bethlehem Area Public Library is looking for an artist to help it honor the Lehigh Valleys most renowned literary figure. In 2017, the library commemorated Bethlehem native Hilda H.D Doolittle (1886-1961), and dedicated a literary landmark plaque outside the library, where her childhood home just happens to have once stood. It was razed to make way for the library and City Hall. Dolittle is considered a pioneer poet, credited with helping to launch the modernist movement in the early 20th century. She is widely recognized today as a queer, feminist visionary, according to a library news release ."She remains the most influential literary figure born in the Lehigh Valley." The library is looking for a portrait artist to create a large portrait of Doolittle, which could be framed and hung in the main library on East Church Street. Artists are asked to submit their applications to library Executive Director Josh Berk via email by March 8. The selected artist will be notified by April 1. Project details: Large portrait, approximately 2 ft x 3 ft, framed, of Hilda Doolittle Style/medium are at artist's discretion Final concept drawings due April 30, 2019. Final work due August 1, 2019. Applications must include: initial sketch and portrait concept proposal artist portfolio (sample of your work) price estimate (include the price of frame/framing) Answer to the question: "What would painting H.D.'s portrait mean to you personally?" (approximately 500 words) The final decision will be made by a committee of library staff and community partners, voting based on the fit of the artists work and their response to these requirements. The library reserves the authority and discretion to reject all proposals and post again at a later date. There is a GoFundMe set up to collect donations for the portrait. Sara K. Satullo may be reached at ssatullo@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @sarasatullo and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. Friends have taken to social media to mourn the death of a Nigerian lady who passed on two days after welcoming her baby. The joy of every parent is to live long enough to spend as much time with their children as possible. Sadly for her, death has robbed her of the opportunity to experience this privilege. The pretty young lady passed on barely two days after welcoming a new baby. In a sad twisted version of the Solomon Grundy story, the lady gave birth on a Monday, celebrated her birthday on a Tuesday and died Thursday. PAY ATTENTION: Get the Latest Nigerian News on Legit.ng News App A friend wrote: "Knt still believe ure gone U gave birth on Monday, everybody congratulate u U celebrated ur btdae on Tuesday everybody wished Nw wednesdae ure gone So painful exist gone so soon damilola May your soul rest in perfect peace Knt still believe ure gone Iqmot" READ ALSO: Personal letter from the Editor-in-Chief of Legit.ng (former NAIJ.com) While it is yet to be confirmed what caused her death, the tragic news has left her family and friends heartbroken over her passing. Get the hottest gist on Africa Love Aid Meanwhile, a Nigerian man identified as Stephen Uwa has landed in police net after his lover died mysteriously. 45-year-old Joy Vincent, a mother of four, was said to have spent the day with Vincent before returning home and dying few hours later. HELLO! NAIJ.com (naija.ng) upgrades to Legit.ng We keep evolving to serve our readers better Maternal Death Rate in Nigeria | Legit TV Source: Legit - The All Progressives Congress (APC) primaries conducted in Rivers state have been nullified by the Federal High Court - The Federal High Court's ruling on the APC's primaries in the state was on Friday, February 8, upheld by the Supreme Court - The decision was reached by a panel of five justices presided by Justice Mohammed Dattijo The Supreme Court has upheld the position of the High court in Port Harcourt nullifying the primaries of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers. READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda A panel of five justices, presided by Justice Mohammed Dattijo on Friday, February 8, overruled the objection of the Tonye Cole-led faction of the APC that it had earlier withdrawn from the appeal against the court's ruling, Daily Trust reports. Meanwhile, Legit.ng reported that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had been asked by the Rivers chapter of the APC to postpone elections in the state. The APC in Rivers had been disqualified by the electoral commission, from taking part in the elections in the state, over the crisis which affected the partys primaries. PAY ATTENTION: Get the Latest Nigerian News Anywhere 24/7. Spend less on the Internet! Legit.ng noted that following the crisis, two factions of the part emerged in the state; one led by the minister of transportation, Rotimi Amaechi and the other led by Senator Magnus Abe. The director of strategic communications for the Tonye Cole campaign, Tonye Princewill, said it would be an exercise in futility to conduct the elections without the APC. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng: Same great journalism, upgraded for better service! 2019 Elections: Sirleaf Meets With INEC Chairman | Legit TV Source: Legit - An APC chieftain, Yekini Nabena, has accused Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and the PDP of plotting to destabilise the country - Nabena accused the PDP presidential candidate and his party of plotting to smuggle in weapons and cash through Cameroon - Nabena alleged that Atiku controls an extensive network in Cameroon and has strong family ties in the country The All Progressives Congress (APC) deputy national publicity secretary, Yekini Nabena, has accused Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of plotting to destabilise the country ahead of the 2019 presidential election. According to Nabena, Atiku and his party plans to smuggle in weapons and cash from his Cameroon connection, through the Nigeria-Cameroun border. The plot, according to a Bayelsa-born APC chieftain, the plan is to destabilise Nigeria during the forthcoming general elections in such a way to draw sympathy of the international community. The deputy APC scribe made the allegation at an interactive session with journalists in Abuja on Friday, February 8. READ ALSO: 2019: Atiku raises alarm over alleged plot to arrest key associates As a result of increased monitoring and scrutiny of financial transactions in the country particularly by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the recently established Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU), Atiku has found it extremely difficult financing his campaign through his stash of illicit cash. In desperation, Atiku has perfected plans to smuggle in cash for vote buying and weapons to foment violence during the elections. It is not a coincidence that Atiku has quickly alleged plans to arrest some of his close aides and henchmen before the elections. Intelligence reports disclose the weapons and cash will be brought in through the Nigeria-Cameroun border where Atiku controls an extensive network and has strong family ties. Atiku was born in Jada, in Ganye local government of Adamawa state. The area was once part of Cameroon before Nigerias independence. The International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol), local security and border agencies must be on high alert, Nabena. READ ALSO: INEC fixes Monday, February 11, as deadline for collection of PVC Meanwhile, a member of the Lagos state House of Assembly representing Eti-Osa constituency 2, Honourable Gbolahan Yishawu has said the mammoth crowd at APC rallies nationwide is an indication of the good governance by the party. Yishawu made the statement while speaking to journalists on the sidelines of the flag-off of his campaign in Lagos on Monday, February 4, stressing that people trooped out to support party at the campaign venues because of the APC's good reputation. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng: We have updated to serve you better! I married four wives, built houses under Buhari's regime - farmer boasts| Legit TV Source: Legit.ng - A group has warned all south east residents against violent activities in the forthcoming election - Igbos in Nigeria Movement said the people cannot continue with strategies that have failed the region in the past - They also advised residents of the southeast states cooperate with the Nigerian Army and other security agencies in ensuring that the elections are not hijacked by thugs An Igbo group has called all residents of the southeast region to avoid violence and support the Nigerian Army's operations in the area. The group, Igbos in Nigeria Movement urged the people to be discerning in their choices in the general elections coming up in February and March. INM said that strategies that have failed the region in the past must not be repeated again since they will yield the exact same results. The movement's president, Ifeanyi Igwe, while speaking in Abuja on Friday, February 8, said it is important that residents of the southeast states cooperate with the Nigerian Army and other security agencies in ensuring that the elections are not hijacked by thugs that hide under agitation to foment trouble. Igwe also said that the Igbo must disregard the call by the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu for the boycott of the elections. READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda He said such demand can only be made by someone that is interested in getting the Igbos to be labelled as anti-democratic elements that did not support the entrenchment of democracy. The Igbo states, being peaceful, would not have needed the Armys nationwide Operation Python Dance had IPOB and other divisive elements not engaged in a needless sabre-rattling that created the impression that war is afoot," Igwe said. According the movement's president, the southeast cannot operate differently by trying to achieve the same objective through violence and calling for the disintegration of the country as IPOB and Kanu are doing. He said the region must also not make itself unnecessary enemies by being abusive of other ethnic nationals and directing hate speech against Nigerians from other tribes. Igwe said: This is why we advise those creating the false impression that the entire Igbo nation has endorsed any one particular candidate to desist from the unwholesome act as it would be unfair for them to set up the entire southeast for victimization when a wrongly endorsed candidate loses the election as happened in the past." We also urge our people to shun violence and other political actions that inimical to the growth and development of Nigeria. READ ALSO: Why we endorsed Atiku for 2019 presidency - Igbo Assembly in 19 northern states "This appeal becomes necessary given the worsening instances of threats and counter threats that politicians are issuing against each other. Our people need to read between the lines and appreciate that the ancestral homes of these candidates and cities where they have huge business investments will at no time record political violence even if we allow impassioned support for the them to ignite Igboland. Not only must the people refrain from violence we urge our people in Igboland to support the Nigerian Army and all security agencies that have deployed to maintain the peace during the elections. "The support to the army and other agencies is to ensure that thugs that have been hired to unleash violence on the political opponents of their paymasters do not succeed. The people must also be careful of the incitement from IPOB and its leader, Nnamdi Kanu, who is now clearly acting out a script that does not accommodate the interest of the Igbos," Igwe noted. Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that the leadership of 'Igbo Delegate Assembly' has thrown its weight behind the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar. The endorsement by the Assembly is coming barely one week after Ohaneze Nd'Igbo, a Pan socio-cultural group in southeast Nigeria, adopted Atiku as candidate of the region in the forthcoming presidential election. PAY ATTENTION: Download our mobile app to enjoy the latest news update In a decision which followed a stakeholder's meeting in Abuja on Thursday, February 7, the Igbo Assembly, released its communique, affirming its support of the Nnia Nwodo-led Ohanaeze Ndigbo and its endorsement of Abubakar, as the Presidential ticket of choice for Ndigbo. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng Same great journalism, upgraded for better service! Nigeria Latest News: Buhari vs Atiku - 2019 Elections | - on Legit TV Source: Legit - Rice smuggling into Nigeria has become a source of concern for local rice millers and farmers in the country - Local rice millers say massive rice smuggling into the country is threatening their confidence and ability - The rice millers lamented that this is happening in spite of the fact that the importation of the product by land is prohibited Babatunde Ajibola, head, media and communications, Elephant Group Plc, on Friday in Lagos said that massive rice smuggling into the country is threatening the confidence and ability of local rice millers and farmers. Ajibola said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on the outcome of rice stakeholders meeting in Lagos on Thursday, February 7. Legit.ng gathers that he noted that a visit to major rice markets, such as Iddo, Daleko, Ketu, Mile 12, Alaba and Sango-Ota, revealed that the various brands on display were imported with few or no local ones. READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda He said: This unprecedented flooding of the nations major markets with smuggled imported rice is of great concern to investors in rice, Agro companies and farmers in spite of governments ban on the products. We highlighted at the stakeholders meeting we just-concluded now, that almost all the varieties of rice in the market presently are foreign and they come through the land borders. This is happening in spite of the fact that the importation of the product by land is prohibited. Smuggling of foreign rice into the country has become a big business which calls for a serious attention. The influx of smuggled rice has rendered local rice milling companies and farmers inactive as the local rice produced are not patronised due to difference in their prices. This of course, does not encourage local production or help in boosting investors confidence in the rice industry. Ajibola noted that rice smuggling into the country would soon translate into massive job loss for Nigerians working in the local rice production companies. He called on the federal government to put a stop to the massive smuggling of rice into country if its quest to encourage local production was anything to go by. Ajibola said that millers and farmers had invested heavily on the local production of rice in line with the government 's agricultural plan. He said the federal governments plan to boost local production of rice by placing ban on the importation of foreign rice might not work as local rice would not be able to compete with foreign rice. Ajibola said that while smugglers were smiling to the bank, major Nigerian key players in the local rice business were gnashing their teeth and slipping into debt. He said that smuggled rice also posed serious health hazard for consumers as some had expired and did not undergo adequate quality standards check to certify them good for consumption. PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that the federal government said Nigeria was no longer importing rice needed to be consumed by Nigerians across the country. Speaking at the maiden edition of the Nigeria Policy Development (N-PoD) summit, on Tuesday, February 5, a special assistant to the governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, development finance, Nduka Eluhaiwe, said the president Muhammadu Buhari-led administration had ensured an end to rice importation. The event themed: Interrogating the Change Agenda: Challenges and Lessons Learnt was organised by the office of the special assistant to the president on policy development and analysis. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng We have updated to serve you better Customs Seize N1bn Worth of Codeine: Importation of Fairly-Used Bags, Shoes Banned | Legit TV Source: Legit - No fewer than 1,515 young Nigerians will be contesting for various political positions in the forthcoming general elections - 253 are contesting for Senate while 1,262 youths are among 4,680 candidates that would contest for the House of Representatives - A board member of the YIAGA Africa said the participation of youths in the electoral process will enable them to effectively enforce their civic rights Ezenwa Nwagwu, board member of the YIAGA Africa, disclosed that about 1,515 young Nigerians will contest for the Senate and House of Representatives positions at the forthcoming general elections. News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Nwagwu made this known at the public presentation of report on youth candidacy in the elections compiled by the group. Nwagwu said he got the figure from the Independent National Electoral Commission. According to him, The participation of youths in the electoral process will enable them to effectively enforce their civic rights, only when their political aspirations are firmly protected in the constitution. READ ALSO: Resist external pressure and intimidation - United States tells INEC He added that the number represents 27.4 per cent for House of Representatives and 13.5 per cent for the Senate. The number he said was against 18 per cent recorded for the House of Representatives and 10 per cent for the Senate in the 2015 general elections. He attributed the increased participation of youths to the Not-Too-Young-To-Run law. The board member also said of the 1,904 senatorial candidates, 253 were youths while 1,262 youths were among 4,680 candidates that would contest for the House of Representatives. Cynthia Mbamalu, Programme Manager, YIAGA Africa said 10 candidates or 14 per cent of the presidential candidates are aged between 35 and 40. Mbamalu said that 15 per cent of political parties fielded candidates for the office of vice-president that were aged between 35 and 40. READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda She said the number of young female candidates in the 2015 general elections was below 20 per cent and was even lower in the 2019 general elections. The reports further claimed that the youth candidacy is produced with support from the United Kingdom Agency for International Development (UKAID). Meanwhile, Legit.ng had reported that YIAGA Africas Watching The Vote commenced a nationwide advocacy visit to election stakeholders in Nigeria. The largest citizen movement committed to credible elections in Nigeria, said the move was in a bid to, share the promises of the WTV project, discuss the deployment plans for the 2019 elections, seek stakeholder buy-in and explore areas of collaboration as well as to provide information on the ongoing pre-election observation across Nigeria. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng We have updated to serve you better The Next President of Nigeria. Who Will Win the 2019 Elections? | Legit TV: Source: Legit - Lai Mohammed, Nigeria's minister of information and culture has disclosed that the country is yet to take delivery of the 12 A-29 Super Tucano attack aircraft - Mohammad said the delivery of the aircraft would boost the war against insurgency in the northeast region - According to the minister, Nigeria was still getting the backing of other countries through the Multinational Joint Task Force The federal government says it is yet to take delivery of any of the 12 A-29 Super Tucano Attack Aircraft, being manufactured by an American aerospace contractor, Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC). The minister of information and culture, Lai Mohammed, disclosed this in Abuja on Thursday, February 7, at the launch of the national campaign in support of the Military. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports the federal government in February, 2018 placed an order for the 12 Super Tucano aircraft at a cost of $496 million. Responding to questions from newsmen at the launch, Mohammed said earlier delivery of the aircraft would boost the war against insurgency, which had metamorphosed from a rash-tag home grown Boko Haram group to a world tested terrorist network. Mohammed, who solicited the support and prayers of all Nigerians for the troops fighting insurgency, added that Nigeria was still getting the backing of other countries through the Multinational Joint Task Force. Mohammed said the launch of the National Campaign in Support of the Military was to seek the support of the citizens for the troops. READ ALSO: EFCC recovered N527bn, $53m, 123 through whistle blowing - Magu He admonished Nigerians to stop vilification, insults and other acts capable of of dampening the morale of the military, especially those fighting insurgency. The minister stressed that the men and women in uniform who were risking all, including making the supreme sacrifice, to keep the country safe deserved the support and prayers of all Nigerians, not vilification. Doctored videos and pictures purporting to show massive military casualties are willfully circulated online. Such unpatriotic acts are discouraging and demoralizing our troops, and must stop forthwith, he said. The minister also solicited the support of the media to play the leading role in the campaign. We want to appeal to the media to show utmost professionalism in reporting the insurgency. They must seek official clarification before reporting casualty figures, and must realise that the military will not release the identities of soldiers who have paid the ultimate price without first notifying their families. They must also not reveal national security as well as military plans, since such acts can put our troops in harms way, he said. READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda Speaking in the same vein, Brigadier General John Agim, director, defence information expressed delight over the launch, adding that the time to stand in support of the military was long overdue. He noted that the responsible journalism was needed more than ever, owing to the fact that publicity fuels terrorism. To buttress his claim, Agim recalled an incidence in 2016 when 18 of the most wanted Book Haram members escaped into Lagos metropolis and the military had to keep the news a top secret. He noted that if such scoop had leaked out to any journalist, it would be unpatriotic and irresponsible to publish the news because of the trauma it would have caused among Lagos residents. The Defence spokesperson also recalled when a journalist called him for confirmation of a purported story that the military was short of and rationing ammunition in the North-East. He said if the fake news was even to be real, it fell into the categories of stories that ought not to be published by responsible journalists because of its tendency to make people unsecured and lose hope. PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app Agim appealed to the media to avoid publishing stories that would break the spirit of the fighting force, promote cowardice and cause panic among citizens. The event was attended by Brigadier General Sani Usman, Director, Army Public Relations, Air Commodore Ibikunle Daramola, Director Public Relations and Information, Nigerian Airforce and Commodore Suleiman Dahum, Director Information, Nigerian Navy. Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that United States Department of Defence (US DOD) has assured the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) of its readiness to channel all efforts towards on-schedule delivery of the 12 units of A-29 Super Tucano aircraft. The aircraft, Legit.ng gathered were recently paid for by the federal government. Also, the United States Air Force Security Assistance and Cooperation (AFSAC) directorate, Brigadier General Sean Farrell, said that he and members of his team were in Nigeria to discuss the delivery schedule of the aircraft as well as the construction effort at NAF Base where the aircraft would be stationed. He expressed the readiness of his team to complete the execution of the contract in record time while noting that the visit to the Base would provide the team with firsthand knowledge of the construction site as well as help avoid delays in schedule and risks in the future. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng. We have updated to serve you better. Nigerian Air Force Operations Against Boko Haram | Legit TV Source: Legit.ng - Nigerian embassy in Chad has allayed fear over the condition of 102 Nigerians held in its prisons - The inmates are being held in various prisons across the country for various offences, including smuggling and attempting to use routes in Chad to enter Europe - According to the embassy, 39 of the prisoners had regained freedom following its intervention The embassy of Nigeria in Chad on Friday, February 8, said no fewer than 102 Nigerians were in the countrys prisons, serving varying jail terms. NAN reports that Charge dAffaires in the embassy, Nasiru Waje, disclosed this in Ndjamena to some Nigerian journalists on a working visit to Chad. He said that the inmates, some of whom had not been convicted, were in various prisons across the country. Waje, however, stated that 39 of the prisoners had regained freedom following the intervention of the embassy. READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda He said that the Nigerians were held for various offences, including smuggling and attempting to use routes in Chad to enter Europe. The envoy also said that 8,000 persons who fled communities in the northeast due to persisting Boko Haram crises, were in Chad and had been registered as refugees. He said that additional 5,000 victims of the insurgency were registered by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNCHR), adding that there were many other unregistered refugees also in Chad, from Yobe. Waje said that Nigeria and Chad had very cordial relationship, stemming from their linguistic, religious and cultural closeness and existing feeling of oneness among their border communities. He added that both countries had five agreements which he noted had strengthened the relationship. According to him, the agreements are: security co-operation agreement, bilateral trade agreement, investment promotion and protection agreement, bilateral air service agreement and waiver of residence permit payment for their nationals. READ ALSO: 2019: Resist external pressure and intimidation - United States tells INEC He said: "All the agreements have helped in stimulating development in both countries. For instance, Chad has granted permit to Nigeria, based on the security agreement, to pursue fleeing criminals from Nigeria into the country, and Nigeria has also granted same permit to the Chadian government. "It has helped to reduce or eliminated havens of criminals in both countries. The waiver on payment of residence permit has encouraged more Nigerians to come into Chad and it is also encouraging increased marriages between nationals of both countries." The envoy said that the air agreement had led to Chad Airline and Maersk Airline deciding to fly Nigerias route. According to him, the coming of these two airlines will eliminate the monopoly being enjoyed by ASKY Airline, which goes to Nigeria only twice in a week and charges very high rate. On activities of the Multi-National Joint Task Force (MNJTF), Waje said that its operations had restored the corridor or business among the countries in the Lake Chad Basin, particularly between Nigeria and Chad. PAY ATTENTION: Download our mobile app to enjoy the latest news update Waje said: "Chadians were really suffering and their economy was down, but the operations of MNJTF have significantly helped in boosting business activities in Chad and making the economy vibrant. Livestock business, which Chad is known for, is really thriving now and Nigeria is benefitting from it." Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that the Russian embassy in Nigeria said that six Russian sailors abducted by pirates near Benin's territorial waters in January had regained their freedom. The embassy said the sailors, who were abducted on Wednesday, January 2, during an attack against the container ship - The MSC Mandy, were released in Nigeria. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng We have updated to serve you better Robbers Return Firearms to Nigerian Police (Crime News in Nigeria) | Legit TV Source: Legit.ng - A 40-year-old maid identified as Memory Makore has been sentenced to 25 years imprisonment - According to reports, Memory indecently molested her boss' 10-year-old son on two occasions - It was gather that Makore who is also HIV positive infected the young boy Reports reaching Legit.ng claim that a Zimbabwean 40-year-old maid identified as Memory Makore has been sentenced to 25 years in prison after allegedly molesting her boss' 10-year-old son. It was gathered that Makore who is HIV positive reportedly forced herself on the young boy on two occasions and deliberately infected him with the human deficiency virus as well as genital warts. The persecutor, Chipo Matambo, revealed that Memory had her way with the minor in April 2018, and the young boy who went to stay with his grandmother in May 2018, fell ill. He was taken to the hospital where he was discovered to be developing genital warts. He was then treated. READ ALSO: Prophet Faleyimu claims Funke Akindele had her twins with IVF, says it is not in the Bible However, on News Year's eve as stated by Matambo, Makore had her way with him again, this time making sure to infect him with HIV. 40-year-old Memory Makore charged to 25 years in prison (Picture/UGC) Source: UGC PAY ATTENTION: Get your daily relationship tips and advice on Africa Love Aid group The traumatized young boy exposed details of the situation to his mother which led to Makore's arrest. The alleged culprit appeared before Harare Magistrate Jessy Makufa and was charged on two counts of aggravated indecent assault and deliberately infecting a minor with HIV. Meanwhile, operatives of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) have arrested six men involved in the shocking, barbaric and indecent assault meted out on a young Nigerian female as shown in a video that recently went viral. In a video that went viral on Wednesday, February 6, the men forcefully dragged a naked lady to the ground, spread her leg and put powdered pepper in her private parts, while she screamed for help, begging them to stop. Did you know? NAIJ.com (naija.ng) is now-> Legit.ng We have updated to serve you better. PAY ATTENTION: Read best news on Nigeria's #1 news app Is it appropriate to do house chores, wash your wife's undies? on Legit TV: Source: Legit - Nigerian students have expressed mixed reactions to the recent suspension of the ASUU strike made public on Thursday, February 7 - Some of the students regretted going back to the stress of academic activities after a long holiday - Others wished the strike would continue so that they can celebrate the forthcoming Valentine's Day on Thursday, February 14 Following the resolve of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) on Thursday, February 7, to call off its prolonged industrial action after reaching a deal with the federal government, some Nigerian students have expressed their feelings over the certainty of returning to their various schools. Whereas some Nigerian students regretted going back to the stress of academic activities, others wished the strike would continue so that they can celebrate the forthcoming Valentine's Day on Thursday, February 14. READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda The rest simply made fun out of the entire issue, jeering at others who wanted the status quo to be maintained. ASUU's suspension of the three-month-old strike, after the deal with the federal government, is to take effect from Friday, February 8. The agreement was signed by the leadership of ASUU and federal government after a series of meetings. The lecturers, however, promised that they would resume strike if government reneged on the Memorandum of Action (MoA) just reached. The union warned vice chancellors against act of impunity, nepotism antithetical to university culture. In an earlier post, Legit.ng reported that ahead of the 2019 general elections, the leadership of National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) had vowed to disrupt the election if the strike embarked upon by ASUU and the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) is not resolved. According to the students, the three-month old strike apart from hindering their academic pursuits would also disenfranchise about 22.3million of them. The students claimed many of them had registered at the INEC offices nearest to their institutions and are presently in their various homes due to the ongoing strike. PAY ATTENTION: Get the Latest Nigerian News Anywhere 24/7. Spend less on the Internet! NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng: Same great journalism, upgraded for better service! Parents advice government over ASUU strike | Legit TV Source: Legit An award-winning gospel musician in Ghana, Evangelist Diana Asamoah, has lashed out at people who are fond of consuming alcoholic beverages. According to her, the Bible specifically described people who consistently drink alcohol in the book of Ephesians 5:18 as senseless people. She made this known in an interview with Zionfelix, during the launch of the Kumasi edition of the Abba Father Concert 2019. This remark was a reply she gave to a question about whether or not the drinking of alcohol was something the Bible speaks against. READ ALSO: Born-again artiste Lynxx claims drinking alcohol is not a sin Explaining further, she said people at every point fear to board a car that was driven by a drank driver because they believe that it was not safe. She, therefore, questioned why these same people would have no problem drinking the alcohol and say that it was good. PAY ATTENTION: Read best news on Nigeria's #1 news app When asked about the popular cliche about people stating that they only drank a little as not to get drunk, she made the point that everything had a beginning. PAY ATTENTION: Get your daily relationship tips and advice on Africa Love Aid group She, however, advised those who always throw this cliche around to desist from the act or else they would eventually become proper drunkards. Legit.ng had previously gathered the report of a Nigerian man who brutalized his wife for questioning him about his alcohol consumption. The assaulted wife had taken to social media to reveal the sad news of what her lover had done to her. READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda EXCLUSIVE: Im not normal; normal doesnt work in Nigeria - Klint D Drunk | Legit TV Source: Legit.ng - President Muhammadu Buhari is said to be a leader anointed to lead Nigeria for eight years - This was stated by the National Inter-Faith and Religious Organisation for Peace, under the leadership of Bishop Sunday Garuba - According to the organisation, the Buhari-led government has been winning the war against insurgency and should be allowed to continue the task for another four years The National Inter-Faith and Religious Organisation for Peace (NIFROP) has said President Muhammadu Buhari was anointed to lead the country for eight years, adding that the president should be given the necessary support to fulfill the prophecy. The organisation spoke through its national president, Bishop Sunday Garuba, on Thursday, February, at the grand rally of 1,000 clerics for the re-election of President Buhari, Leadership reports. Legit.ng gathers that Garuba said Buhari-led government has been winning the war against insurgency and should be allowed to continue the task for another four years READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda He said: Before the National Inter-Faith and Religious Organisations for Peace [NIFROP] announced todays rally sometimes last week, we had been led by the spirit to hold 40 days fasting and prayer. In the course of this exercise, undertaken on behalf of the nation, it was revealed to us that President Buhari is Gods anointed to lead Nigeria to greater heights. The message we got included the one from the Book of Isaiah 32 Behold, a king will reign in righteousness, and princes will rule in justice. 2 Each will be like a hiding place from the wind, a shelter from the storm, like streams of water in a dry place, like the shade of a great rock in a weary land. 3 Then the eyes of those who see will not be closed, and the ears of those who hear will give attention. 4 The heart of the hasty will understand and know, and the tongue of the stammerers will hasten to speak distinctly. 5 The fool will no more be called noble, nor the scoundrel said to be honourable. The Lord revealed to us concerning Nigeria that (Philippians 1:6) being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will continue to perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. It is in similar fashion that we came to the realisation that President Buhari, who began many good things in the interest of Nigeria, will continue to improve on the good things he is doing for the country during his second term in office as ordained by God. We consequently relayed the message to Nigerians not to disrupt the flow of Gods blessing to the land, which requires that the person already anointed to lead the country, in the person of President Buhari, is allowed to continue running the errand God has sent him. At the end of the 40 days of fasting and prayers, we relayed this message to Nigerians so that they will be guided when the time comes to cast their votes. But we have seen that the devil is hard at work trying to get Nigerians to violate the instruction given unto them as to who to elect. It is for this reason that we have decided to rally for President Buhari." PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app Meanwhile Legit.ng previously reported that the United States asked the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to resist external pressure and intimidation in the forthcoming general elections scheduled for February 16 and March 2. The United States secretary of state, Michael Pompeo, in a press statement, said that the forthcoming elections in Nigeria would be an opportunity for the country to solidify its democratic leadership in Africa. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng We have updated to serve you better The Next President of Nigeria. Who Will Win the 2019 Elections? | Legit TV Source: Legit.ng News - The Independent National Electoral Commission has been asked to resist external pressure and intimidation in the forthcoming general elections - The call was made by the United States through its secretary of state, Michael Pompeo - The US says the 2019 general elections will be an opportunity for Nigeria to solidify its democratic leadership in Africa The United States has asked the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to resist external pressure and intimidation in the forthcoming general elections scheduled for February 16 and March 2. The United States secretary of state, Michael Pompeo, in a press statement, said that the forthcoming elections in Nigeria would be an opportunity for the country to solidify its democratic leadership in Africa, News Agency of Nigeria reports. Legit.ng notes that Pompeo said: The United States government supports a free, fair, transparent, and peaceful election that reflects the will of the Nigerian people. READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda It is critical that the Independent National Electoral Commission operates free from outside pressure and intimidation and in a totally objective manner. Nigerian security services must provide a safe and secure environment for the Nigerian people to exercise their rights. Those who interfere in the electoral process or incite violence must be held to account. The upcoming elections are an opportunity for Nigeria to solidify its place as a democratic leader in Africa." The United States and the international community have continued to call for credible and peaceful general elections in the country. The country had described Nigerias 2019 general elections as a critical test for the country, the ECOWAS sub-region and the entire continent. The United States had also warned against violence during the February and March 2019 general elections in Nigeria, saying it would remain intensely focused on the elections. PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that United States ambassador to Nigeria, Stuart Symington, on Tuesday, January 29, said Nigeria should get the 2019 elections right in order not to disappoint those that looked up to it after the feat recorded in 2015. Symington made the remarks when he paid a visit to the police command in Kaduna. He said: The state of Kaduna is an important place during this election. I am here to underscore a couple of key ideas. The first being that these elections are really about Nigerians, decided by Nigerians under its laws which will define the future of Nigeria." NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng We have updated to serve you better The Next President of Nigeria. Who Will Win the 2019 Elections? | Legit TV Source: Legit.ng - General Abdulsalami Abubakar (rtd) has said that election violence is not something new in Nigeria - As the elections draw closer, politicians have been advised by the former head of state to do away with violence - The retired general said all politicians should work towards making the election a hitch-free exercise A former head of state, General Abdulsalami Abubakar (rtd), on Thursday, February 7, said though the country is very familiar with election violence, politicians must shun any kind of political unrest during the forthcoming general elections. Abubakar asked all popular politicians in the country to work towards making peace reign during the elections so the electoral exercise can be free of violence, fair and credible, Vanguard reports. READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda The retired general said this through a statement at a peace conference tagged Peaceful elections and national development that was organised by Goodluck Jonathan Foundation in Abuja. He said: The period of election in the country is often tension-soaked because of the competition involved. Nigeria is not a stranger to electoral violence. "Nigerians and indeed, the world are praying that the election would be peaceful. Without peace, there would be no nation, and without a nation, there would be no election." PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app Meanwhile Legit.ng previously reported that the former military head of state said ex-president Goodluck Jonathan saved the country from plunging into political crisis by conceding defeat in the 2015 presidential election that brought Muhammadu Buhari to power. He also pointed out that Jonathan kept to his words that his ambition is not worth the blood of any Nigerian. Abubakar maintained that the country has had its share of election violence in the past. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng: Same great journalism, upgraded for better service! We are honestly tired of Buhari and Atiku | Legit TV Source: Legit - IGP Mohammed Adamu says the NPF would soon withdraw or prune down its Special Protection Unit (SPU) and Counter Terrorism Unit (CTU) operatives attached to certain categories of personalities - The IGP said the withdrawal was aimed at ensuring that personnel were fully mobilized and deployed during the forthcoming general elections - Adamu said both units were critical components of the broad election security plan of the Nigeria Police Force The Nigeria Police Force has stated that it would soon withdraw or prune down its Special Protection Unit (SPU) and Counter Terrorism Unit (CTU) operatives attached to certain categories of personalities. The disclosure was made by the acting inspector general of police, Mohammed Adamu, at a a meeting with commanders of both units in Abuja, Leadership reports. READ ALSO: Oil drilling to commence in Benue soon - Buhari Legit.ng gathers that the IGP disclosed that the withdrawal was aimed at ensuring that personnel were fully mobilized and deployed during the forthcoming general elections. He said the conduct of policemen during the elections would be subjected to national and international scrutiny and that the force expected a highest level of professionalism from the officers. The IGP said adequate provision had been made for the welfare of policemen while they would be performing their duty during the elections. Adamu said the SPU and CTU were set up to complement the Police Mobile Force (PMF) towards supporting the conventional police in addressing civil disorders and critical internal security threats. According to the police boss, both units were critical components of the broad election security plan of the NPF and are expected to provide specialized protection for the Independent National Electoral Commission ( INEC) staff, NYSC, among others, during the elections. PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that Kayode Egbetokun, a former chief security officer to the national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, was appointed as the commissioner of police for Kwara state. Egbetokuns appointment and deployment alongside 36 others, was approved by the Police Service Commission (PSC). Egbetokun, with the deployment, will oversee the elections in Kwara, which alongside the rest of the country, is scheduled to begin on Saturday, February 16. The appointments reportedly came following a recommendation to the PSC by the acting inspector general of police, Mohammed Adamu. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng: We have updated to serve you better! Former IGP hands over to new police boss - on Legit TV: Source: Legit Hastings said that along with the resolutions, he is working on legislation concerning a sale or possible transfer of the property. A simple transfer of the land at no cost or nominal cost to the village will be an option considered, he said. Prosecutors allege that Cruz had consumed a dozen beers at a friends house on Sunday as they watched the Super Bowl, and, several hours before the girl was struck, had been arrested in nearby Merrionette Park and charged with theft for allegedly reaching behind the bar at 115 Bourbon Street and drinking from bottles of alcohol. Police said Cruz bonded out at 11:50 p.m. Sunday on that charge. Phil Gruber is the news editor at Lancaster Farming. He can be reached at 717-721-4427 or pgruber@lancasterfarming.com. Follow him @PhilLancFarming on Twitter. MILLER COUNTY, Mo. Joshua Murray was not killed in the Dec. 11 house fire in Iberia, where his body was found, according to investigators. They say he was poisoned by his wife who wanted to marry an inmate at the prison where she worked. Amy Murray, Joshuas wife at the time of his death, has been charged with 1st Degree Murder and Armed Criminal Action. Murray is being held in the Miller County Jail on $750,000 bond. On Dec. 11, 2018, at 1:15 a.m., a 911 call reported a fire at 9 Janice Dr. in Iberia. Authorities say they noticed something suspicious about the fire as they began investigating. The Missouri State Fire Marshal and Miller County Sheriffs Detectives found the fire had originated in the master bedroom where Joshua Murrays body was found, and determined an accelerant had been used to start the blaze. An autopsy was conducted by the Boone County Medical Examiner, who indicated Joshua Murray was already dead when the fire started: he had been poisoned with Ethylene Glycol, commonly used as antifreeze. Amy Murray was identified as a suspect. According to the probable cause statement for Amy Murrays arrest, cell phone records obtained during the investigation revealed she had been at the residence a half-hour before the fire was reported to authorities. She reportedly told investigators she had been at the house earlier that night but had left with her 11-year-old son and two inside house dogs and drove to McDonalds in Osage Beach. She told investigators that when she got back to the house, it was full of smoke and the bedroom was on fire, saying she could not get inside the residence because the smoke was too heavy, according to the document. Authorities say Osage Beach McDonalds video camera footage does show Amy Murray at the drive-through at 11:48 p.m. on Dec. 10, with a younger male in the passenger seat. She reportedly received a drink and food bag. The probable cause document revealed a McDonalds sandwich was located by investigators on the kitchen counter inside the home and a McDonalds food bag was located in the trash can in the garage. Amy Murray had been employed as a nurse at the Jefferson City Correctional Facility, and authorities say they discovered Murray had been in a romantic relationship with an inmate there for some time. Investigators recorded Department of Corrections phone conversations between Amy Murray and the inmate, Eugene Claypool, in which she told Claypool she wanted a divorce from Joshua Murray, was tired of being around him, and did not want him to come home from Nebraska, according to the document. Authorities say she also told Claypool that they could now get married because Joshua Murray was dead. Several phone conversations between Amy Murray and Eugene Claypool talked about having a life now that Joshua Murray was deceased and out of the picture, the probable cause documents states, adding Amy Murray had spoken with Claypool about getting him an attorney to try to get him out of prison early. Amy Murray is scheduled for a bond-reduction hearing on Feb. 13. She is currently being held on $750,000 bond. The presence of the Chicago Heights Stamping Plant has been important to the livelihood and success of many people and families of Chicago Heights, he said in a statement. I also know many retired workers of the stamping plant who still live in Chicago Heights who are thankful to have been employed by this plant. Rome, February 8 - Three out of 10 Italian kids are online bullies, making embarrassing videos to make other children feel bad, parents' group MOIGE said Friday. Education Minister Maro Bussetti called for civic education against cyberbullying. Florence, February 8 - Italian police on Friday arrested a 20-year-old Moroccan man on suspicion of robbing at least eight pedestrians in a few hours in the historic centre of Florence Thursday night. The man has been identified by his victims, police said. Rome, February 8 - Rome environment councillor Pinuccia Montanari quit on Friday after the city government rejected the 2017 financial results of municipal trash company AMA. Montanari was against the city government's decision. AMA has been in financial trouble for years amid trash-collection woes in the Italian capital. Rome Mayor Virginia Raggi said earlier she wanted AMA's finances cleaned up, as well as the city's streets. Tel Aviv, February 8 - Two activists from the NGO International Solidarity Movement including one Italian were released late Thursday after being arrested by Israeli forces earlier in the day near a school in the centre of the West Bank city of Hebron, Palestinian news agency WAFA said. They were taken into custody near the Cordoba elementary school in Shuhada Street, not far from a Jewish settlers site, WAFA said. The pair were reportedly trying to make sure children left the school safely. Milan, February 8 - Confindustria industrial employers' chief Vincenzo Boccia on Friday appealed to Premier Giuseppe Conte to restore "normal" relations with France after Paris recalled its ambassador in a diplomatic spat. "I send an appeal to the premier to call Macron and normalise the affair with France, specifying that they were remarks at the level of parties and not relations between governments," Boccia said. France recalled its Rome envoy Thursday citing unacceptable attacks and deputy Premier Luigi Di Maio's meeting with the Yellow Vests earlier this week. Genoa, February 8 - A 22-year-old North African inmate tried to kill himself in Genoa's Marassi Prison Friday. He has been taken to hospital in a serious condition. The cell's surveillance camera had been broken for some time. Brussels, February 4 - The European Commission warned Monday that EU funding for the TAV Turin-Lyon high-speed rail link could be withdrawn. The Italian government has said it will decide whether to press ahead with the project when it has a new cost-benefit analysis that it has commissioned. "We cannot rule out having to ask Italy for the contributions that have been paid in if there are prolonged delays," a Commission spokesperson said. "There is also the risk that, if the funds are not used, they could be allocated to other projects. "The current cost-benefit analysis was not requested by the commission," the spokesperson said, adding that a previous analysis was presented in 2015. The project has split the parties of the ruling coalition. The 5-Star Movement has long been against it, citing its cost and environmental impact. But Deputy Premier, Interior Minister and League leader Matteo Salvini has said it should go ahead. Transport and Infrastructure Minister Danilo Toninelli said the fact the Commission had not requested the new analysis of the project was irrelevant. "The decision for the TAV cost-benefit analysis was made by a sovereign government that wants to spend its public funds in the best possible way," Toninelli, an M5S member, said via Twitter. "The EU can relax, in a few days it will have all the documentation, as agreed". Paris, February 8 - Premier Giuseppe Conte and not Deputy Premier and Interior Minister Matteo Salvini should meet French President Emmanuel Macron after France recalled its ambassador citing "unprecedented attacks", a French government spokesman said Friday. Commenting on Salvini's willingness Thursday to meet Macron, Benjamin Griveaux told Europe 1: "Dialogue has never been broken off, but there is also a premier in Italy, his name is Giuseppe Conte, he is the head of the Italian government and Macron has met him many times". He went on "as you know, these Italian ministers have already sat down with their French counterparts on the occasion of the various European councils they take part in". Rome, February 8 - Air France-KLM is pulling out of the Alitalia rescue, Il Sole-24 Ore newspaper said Friday. It is doing so, the Italian financial daily said, "for political and institutional reasons following the recall to Paris of the ambassador to Rome". Ferrovie dello Statto (FS) rail group, which is handling the rescue, had been expecting a formal commitment by the Air France-KLM board, which was reported to be considering a part in the operation alongside Delta, "but yesterday Paris's no arrived". Rome, February 8 - Two 20-something men who have confessed to shooting by mistake a promising 20-year-old swimmer and paralysing him from the waist down outside a Rome pub on Saturday were aiming to kill, a judge said on Friday. The preliminary investigations judge (GIP) ruled that the men accused of attempted homicide, Lorenzo Marinelli and Daniel Bazzano, should stay in jail. The judge said that many shots were fired "towards the vital parts of the victim, with the clear intention of killing him, not injuring him". The men, aged 24 and 25, face a prison term ranging from seven to 20 years for the attack on Manuel Bortuzzo in Rome's Axa district. Prosecutors said the shooting was premeditated because the pair returned to the pub after a scuffle there, bringing with them a pistol they had buried in a field after discovering it by chance about two months ago. Williams was on parole as of last June following a robbery conviction, with his parole due to end in June 2020, according to Illinois Department of Corrections records, Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, February 7) The House Appropriations Committee will resume its inquiry on the alleged anomalies in the proposed 2019 national budget on Friday, with Budget Secretary Banjamin Diokno summoned to appear in the hearing again. The panel on Thursday issued a subpoena for Diokno asking the budget chief to explain the supposed insertions he made in the 3.757 trillion budget. The committee also requires Diokno to bring the Budget Department's records of its savings and how they were used for 2017 and 2018. The subpoena, dated February 6, was signed by Camarines Sur Representative Rolando Andaya Jr., the committee's chairperson, and Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. Andaya's committee on Wednesday carried a motion to subpoena Diokno over his failure to attend previous hearings on the issues hounding the proposed 2019 national budget. Diokno, in a letter dated January 31, told Andaya that he had already "sufficiently" answered lawmakers' questions on the budget during the "Question Hour" held in December. READ: House rude to Diokno? Just 'check and balance' says Suarez READ: House summons Diokno, to 'grill' him about proposed 2019 budget The lawmaker has accused Diokno of inserting multibillion-pesos in the proposed budget of the Department of Public Works and Highways sans the knowledge of the agency. Andaya also claimed that the budget chief inserted funds for projects allegedly bagged by the construction firm owned and run by his son-in-law. Diokno has denied the allegation. The proposed national expenditure is poised to hurdle the bicameral committee this week before Congress goes on break for the midterm elections. Senator Loren Legarda, chairperson of the Senate finance panel, on Monday said the committee is eyeing the ratification of the proposal by Friday, February 8. Presidential Spokesperson Sal Panelo said Malacanang is leaving it up to Diokno to act on the subpoena. Panelo said they are confident that Diokno will not be mistreated by lawmakers like the last time should the secretary decide to show up in the House probe. "I don't think he will be mistreated. I think members of Congress know or realize that it could have been it could have created a slight on Diokno's integrity when he was mistreated," Panelo said in a media briefing. He said President Rodrigo Duterte and the rest of the cabinet continue to support Diokno. CNN Philippines' Ina Andolong, Xianne Aracangel, and Robert Vergara contributed to this report. L'Aquila, February 8 - Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said Friday that he wants to raise the issue of 15 Italian terrorists who he says are freely living in France with his French counterpart Christophe Castaner. "Next week I'll meet the French interior minister in Rome," Salvini, who is also deputy premier and leader of the League party, said at a rally ahead of Sunday's elections in the central region of Abruzzo. "I will summon him because I want to resolve the situation. You don't go anywhere with noes. "I will ask the French minister for the 15 terrorists who are in France to be sent back to Italy". Rome, February 8 - French government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux told Europe 1 on Friday that Paris's decision to recall its ambassador to Rome for consultations "is not permanent". "But it was important to give a signal," Griveaux added. On Thursday the French foreign ministry said the recall was related to "groundless attacks by Italy without precedent since the end of the war" and "outrageous statements" by the Italian government. Tension between Rome and Paris has been high in recent months over several issues, including the management of asylum seekers and the TAV Turin-Lyon high-speed rail link. But it was the support of Italian Deputy Premier Luigi Di Maio's 5-Star Movement (M5S) for the Yellow Vests protestors in France that triggered the diplomatic move. Lincoln-Way West High School presents a two part event to address anxiety in children. The movie Angst, explores anxiety, its causes, effects and what we can do about it. The film features candid interviews with kids and young adults who suffer, or have suffered, from anxiety and what they've learned about it. It also includes discussions with mental health experts about the causes of anxiety and its sociological effects, as well as help, resources, and tools. It will be screened from 6 to 7 p.m. Feb. 19 at the schools Performing Arts Center, 21701 S Gougar Road. Chemistry teacher Dave Fetty was in the latter category, having performed his camp songs every year. He teaches the audience a song he learned as a Boy Scout leader, including the movements, and then he and the crowd do it together. Nearby cases of measles have been causing concern for many Texoma parents. There have been seven confirmed cases of measles in Texas, and none in Oklahoma this year, and no cases confirmed in Texoma. Doctors say vaccination is key to making sure it stays that way. The closest confirmed measles case this year is in Denton County. Measels is a rare viral infection that can lead to serious complications. "It generally starts with upper respiratory cough, runny nose, red eyes, fever followed with red rash around scalp," said Dr. Jeannine Hatt. Hatt is a pediatrician at Texoma Care Pediatrics. She said the confirmed cases in the Dallas area have caused many parents to want to vaccinate their kids earlier than they are supposed to. "First dose should be given between 12-15 months with a booster at four to six years," Hatt said. Hatt said there haven't been any confirmed cases this year in Grayson County. "The last case of measles in Grayson County was in 1980s, we're thankful for the vaccine." She says vaccines are vital, especially for mothers like Durant mom Angie Sullivan. Her 3-year-old daughter Blair Sullivan had a heart transplant and isn't able to receive a vaccine. "Since she has no immune system she can't get a live vaccine," Sullivan said. Sullivan said it's scary hearing about the measles outbreak and warns other parents to take precautions. "It's been a worry in the back of my mind. There's not an option. If she got measles, it could be deadly easily," she said. Hatt said if parents have questions, they should call their physician. The Grayson County Health Department said physicians order blood tests for any suspected case of measles. it can take several days to get those test results back. Dont judge Trump: Id like to ask what educated fool or fools decide what a mans power is based on the size of his hands, his shoes or other extremities. Since when have you guys been put on earth to be God. If you look in the mirror, I bet you all have something wrong. Maybe your nose is slightly off or your eyes are tired. Or you just have more money than the next guy to cover up all your faults. Either way, look how far Trump has come in life. You guys are nobodies. Do you think you are perfect? Well, perfect doesnt cut it. Racism still haunts the United States and 50 years later it feels like little has changed, McGrath declares. He then cites two examples of very dumb and racially insensitive remarks, one by U.S. Rep. Steve King and one by President Donald Trump. Progressive blinders firmly on his thinly veiled message is Republicans and conservatives are the racists haunting the country. MISSOULA- Parents whose children attend a daycare facility on the University of Montana campus want answers after the center was relocated after results revealed the previous building, McGill Hall, had "unacceptable levels" of asbestos. Thursday, those parents gathered on the UM campus to ask questions and get an update from UM. University officials said while air samples now come back clean, it's the dust wipe samples that are concerning. This leaves many parents wondering why their kids remained inside the daycare for so long. That because initial results were discovered in December, but McGill was not closed until January. "I dont think that you understand what we are dealing with as parents and this anxiety that we are having about this and that we have to live with this anxiety," said one parent at Thursday's meeting. "There's not studies, they didnt go and do air studies on the samples, they don't exist." Answering question after question, University officials explained that they've hired the top experts to cleanup McGill Hall and make it safe again. "We have testing and air quality samples that have shown no airborn particulate matter but we want to understand it and we want to understand from experts in this field the appropriate steps that we should take moving forward," said University of Montana President Seth Bodnar. With no concrete knowledge on how long the daycare will remain in the education building where it's been relocated, UM officials continue to apologize, and want parents to know they are working as hard as they can to get to the bottom of this. "We are sorry for the anxiety and uncertainty that this situation has created, what we are working on right now is making sure that we have knowledgeable experts to help us understand this situation and deal with this appropriately, said Bodnar. UM has created a website with information about the McGill Hall - click here to view it. The Montana All-Class State Wrestling Tournament begins Friday in Billings at the Rimrock Auto Arena at MetraPark. Every year, there are efforts made to keep wrestlers and referees safe from infections like the ringworm. The sanitation of mats at the state tournament begin before the mats are even rolled out at Metra. Brian Michelotti, the director for the tournament, explained the different things officials do to make sure wrestlers are ready to compete, "At each one of our meets, they are required to have a skin check, at every one of those, and at our divisional meets, we have an actual medical professional at each one of those. And then at state, Dr. Klepps here in Billings, and his team show up here and do skin checks of every wrestler." Within those skin checks, health professionals will look for infections like ringworm and impetigo. If a wrestler's skin check proves he or she does have an infection, they can't compete until that infection is cleared. "We have done that in the past as well, is we've had to disqualify wrestlers at that point in time because they could've affected the field as well." Once the mats are rolled out, Michelotti said a good amount of time is spent making sure after every round, the mats are sanitized. He said, "It delays the tournament just a little bit but it's a very important process to take a certain mixture of bleach and water and we have what's called a monster mop is what we have. And this monster mop is a pretty quick device that goes through and actually cleans the mat in an appropriate manner. And it's kind of like a monster swiffer, I guess." Michelotti said that there are over 620 wrestlers who will compete at the state tournament, and that last year's tournament did not see any wrestlers who could not compete because of a skin infection. These past few days, the whole state of Montana has been under a winter weather advisory, seeing negative temperatures throughout the day. Construction workers from a company called Permanent Exteriors said they don't want to work in this cold, but sometimes they have to in order to get paid. Raheem Redstar has been working for Permanent Exteriors for 2 and a half months now. He and his coworkers are building a business located on King Avenue West and South 29th Street West. He said this week alone, his boss ordered him to take two days off due to the freezing temperatures. He also said this has affected him financially even though it's cold, this job is the only kind of income he gets and he'd rather work than stay indoors at home. Another construction worker, Keenen Heath, has been working for the same company for about 5 months now. He said the motivation for him to work in these conditions is the pay. He said to work outside, you have to be smart about what to wear. "I got two shirts, I got one sweater and this big jacket, a couple gloves, a couple socks and shorts under here," Heath said. "Weather like this, environments like this, the job sometimes will unemploy you or you got to sign up for unemployment because the construction job, the conditions are too cold," Redstar said. Redstar said there have been a couple of coworkers with health problems this week alone. One had an asthma attack and another with diabetes lost circulation in his legs. Both were asked if they would work in the construction business for another winter season, both replied they would because of the pay. Redstar said Thursday was probably the coldest day he's had to work in, so far. (LEWISTOWN, Mont.) A report that will help the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) analyze a proposal to change grazing allotments in north central Montana held by the American Prairie Reserve (APR) has been released. APR controls private properties tied to 18 BLM grazing allotments in Chouteau, Fergus, Petroleum, Phillips, and Valley Counties. The APRs stated intent is to build a 3.5 million acre nature reserve using about 500,000 acres of private land and 3 million acres of public lands, much of which is BLM-managed. The APR has submitted a proposal to change the class of livestock from cattle to bison; allow for season-long grazing; fortify existing external boundary fences by replacing the second strand from the top with an electrified wire; and remove interior fences on all 18 permits. The BLM held meetings in Winnett, Winifred, Malta, and Glasgow last spring during a 2-month scoping period to seek public recommendations on topics the BLM should consider in its environmental analysis. The BLM thanks the public for submitting these scoping comments. Your input is a valued part of this Environmental Assessment process, said BLM North Central Montana District Manager Mark Albers. During the public scoping period, the BLM received 2,497 submissions regarding APRs proposal and the scope of the associated National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) analysis. BLM Malta Field Manager Tom Darrington noted that each submission received was logged and organized. Since some submissions contained multiple comments, individual comments were parsed from larger submissions and organized according to topic area. Based on the substantive comments received, 24 summary issue statements were developed. The BLM will consider and refine these issue statements, in conjunction with those developed by the BLMs interdisciplinary team, in determining the final set of issues to be include in the NEPA analysis. The BLM anticipates preparing an environmental assessment that is focused on the key issues and meets the legal requirements of NEPA and is in accordance with DOI guidance on streamlining the NEPA process. The public will be notified once the environmental assessment is complete. The scoping report, copies of each unique submission received, as well as a representative example of each of the 17 form letter campaigns received and a list of senders of each form letter, are available at https://go.usa.gov/xQWBw. A Kane County sheriff's deputy who arrived outside the Shenko house in the 7N200 block of Longridge Road in St. Charles Township around 1 a.m. Aug. 13, 2017, saw the two men covered in blood and Shenko straddling his father's naked body repeating, Die, die, die, die, die, according to Kane County court records. Willis registered a fake business with a name similar to Aurora-based Cyl-Tec as part of a scheme to take money from the company, according to Beacon-News archives. Aurora police previously said the case involves $444,000 in checks, along with $4,035 in Amazon purchases and $1,177 for airline tickets. Having this new post formalizes the service opportunities we have here in Aurora, Krolik said. Warehouse Church is going to be joining in our service programs as well as other groups like Visiting Voices, a reading group that has visited Gates Elementary School including myself and two other ladies. Wed like to recruit additional readers and visit nursing homes as well. In Tuesday night's State of the Union address, President Donald Trump called for the elimination of HIV transmissions in the United States by 2030, raising hope and questions about putting an end to the epidemic. An outbreak of measles is spreading across the Philippines -- with more than 1,500 cases of the disease and 26 deaths reported in recent weeks. We were fairly confident that with the amount of funding set aside for the program, it would not be enough to fund that many districts ahead of ours. While we are disappointed, the program is valuable and we hope that if additional funds are allocated for it in the future, we may be a recipient, Komitas said. Angola, IN (46703) Today Cloudy with occasional light rain...mainly in the morning. High 73F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 60%.. Tonight Mostly cloudy skies this evening will become partly cloudy after midnight. Low 59F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. Kendallville, IN (46755) Today Cloudy. Slight chance of a rain shower. High 73F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph.. Tonight Some clouds. Low 59F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. A number of factors went into determining this list, including critical assessment, box office performance, and how influential the movie has been. Some of these movies were sensations right out of the gate, while others required the benefit of time to reveal themselves as classics. There are comedies and dramas, horror films, and family features. Some of the movies are set in the same year in which they were made, while others recreated the fashion and look of a decade or more beforehand.Hopefully you have already seen the biggest movie set in the year of your birth. If not, you'll have a great viewing recommendation. For more galleries visit Ranker.com Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, February 7) China has deployed up to 95 ships near Pag-asa Island in the disputed South China Sea as the Philippines conducted repairs there, according to a U.S.-based think tank. The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI) on Wednesday released photos of what it said was China's response to runway repairs the Philippines started last May 2018 on Pag-asa Island, one of the biggest islands in the contested Spratlys. The AMTI said that as early as July 2018, "a handful of Chinese vessels" started operating in the area between Chinese-occupied Subi Reef, locally known as Zamora Reef, and Pag-asa Island, which Beijing calls Thitu. By December that year, the number of Chinese ships rose to 24, the AMTI said, just as the Philippines began building the beaching ramp that would enable authorities to bring in construction equipment to finish the runway. "In five subsequent satellite images captured from mid-December to late January, their numbers fluctuate, reaching a high of 95 on December 20 before dropping to 42 by January 26," the AMTI noted. The AMTI said spotted were two Chinese government vessels - People's Liberation Army-Navy (PLAN) and China Coast Guard ships - were spotted last December 20 and January 11. "At the same time, one of the Philippine Navy's flagships, the BRP Ramon Alcaraz, can be seen to the southeast of Thitu just over 7 nautical miles from the PLAN frigate," the AMTI said. A PLAN frigate off Pag-asa Island on Dec 20, 2018, according to the AMTI A China Coast Guard Type 818 cutter and unidentified boat off Pag-asa Island on Dec 20, 2018, according to the AMTI Also seen were dozens of fishing vessels with sizes from 30 to 70 meters, anchored between 2 to 5.5 nautical miles west of Pag-asa Island. The AMTI is convinced the fishing vessels have all the hallmarks of China's maritime militia "including having no gear in the water that would indicate fishing activity and disabling their Automatic Identification System (AIS) transceivers to hide their activities." Naval and coast guard ships were farther away and the AMTI observed this is consistent with China's "cabbage strategy" as it is known for employing "concentric layers of fishing, law enforcement, and naval vessels around contested waters." By January 26, only the China Coast Guard ship was seen near Pag-asa Island, meaning the PLAN might have left. "The drop in the number of government vessels, mirroring the reduction of the militia presence, suggests Chinese forces have settled into a pattern of monitoring and intimidation after their initial large deployment failed to convince Manila to halt construction," the AMTI noted. Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana earlier revealed that China tried to stop the government from repairing structures on Pag-asa Island, citing his meetings with Chinese Ambassador Zhao Jianhua. Pag-asa Island is the seat of the Kalayaan municipal government under the province of Palawan. Philippine troops and a community of fishermen live on the island. Lorenzana has said the Philippines will continue to improve military facilities on Pag-asa Island in 2019, including the repair of military barracks there. The government expects the Pag-asa runway to be completely repaired by the end of 2019. Mayoral candidate Daley to the Tribunes Bill Ruthhart on why he stays away from so many mayoral forums: Some of these people in this group would go to a door opening, because they have nothing else to do. Im not going to be dictated by the schedules of people who are looking for anything to get a few people in a room and think theyre going to get points by kicking the hell out of me with a bunch of lies or rhetoric that heats up the crowd. Why would I want to do their work for them? Forget it. I dont need to do that. St. Louis man fired for refusing to cut his hair says he has religious reasons On Friday, The Washington Post reported that Amazon executives were reconsidering their decision to hand 25,000 of those jobs to New York City because of opposition by some city and state officials. The question is whether its worth it if the politicians in New York dont want the project, especially with how people in Virginia and Nashville have been so welcoming, according to a Post source familiar with the companys plans. Its worth noting that the Post is owned by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, which is only to say that the newspaper has extra incentive to accurately report on the companys thinking. 'She picked up one boy by his legs'; Mom voices concern after claiming to see daycare teacher throwing a child Illinois lawmaker introduces bill to legalize recreational marijuana, would allow residents to grow plants at home Facility where patient in vegetative state was raped, gave birth is shutting down But some members of the LGBT community are skeptical. Its a joke we all know, said Sean Drohan, a teacher based in New York City who identifies as gay. If I was making a movie for a gay audience, and a straight couple introduced themselves as partners, that would definitely get a laugh. For most of his life, Drohan told me, he assumed hed never be able to get married, and struggled with which words to attach to his romantic relationships, present and future. His father, he remembers, used the word lover, which felt awkward and strangely disparaging. Gay people, he said, have had the experience of treading weirdly over different words, ultimately finding partner. That was our word, he said , and it kind of sucks for other people to want in on that. Acting AG says he will not appear before House panel unless he gets guarantee he won't face subpoena New York State Police tell 7 Eyewitness News they have arrested a person for allegedly throwing coffee on a 68 year-old woman working as a volunteer fire officer in Niagara County. Liam Hehir writes: The Parliament of the European Union has recognised social democrat Juan Guaido as the interim president of Venezuela, in accordance with the countrys constitution. In doing so, it joins a number of individual European states as well as most of Venezuelas neighbouring countries. This should make it harder for New Zealanders to dismiss whats happening in that benighted country as a yankee coup. Hatred of Donald Trump really ought not to excuse toleration for the actual tyranny of Nicholas Maduro, who has assumed dictatorship over the country. Chris Trotter, a veteran commentator from the Left, has a long piece out that kind of defends the Maduro government, while admitting some mistakes. He argues that you cant blame nationalisations for the disintegration of the country since the sector was first nationalised 40 years ago. This half-hearted talking point, which has made the rounds on social media, flies in the face of the recorded facts of what has happened in Venezuela. Here is a list of what Chavez did to business in his country up until 2012, when things started to fall apart. By 2015, more than 1,200 private firms had been seized. There is a reason why Venezuela languishes near Cuba, North Korea and Zimbabwe in most indexes of economic freedom. So whats caused the collapse? Trotter lays the blame at the shrinking oil prices which have damaged but not destroyed other oil dependent countries, conspiracies by internal saboteurs and, of course, the evil United States and its wicked sanctions. Ken Livingtone, a former UK Labour MP and mayor of London, also blames the US and appeared on the BBC to defend the Maduro regime. He spoke for many New Zealand defenders of 21st Century Socialism when, on the BBC, he laid the blame for the catastrophe on US sanctions. And like those New Zealanders, he couldnt name the sanctions in question. When it was pointed out that sanctions against Venezuelan oil were only imposed very recently, he pointed to other, old sanctions. It was pointed out that the first US sanctions levied against the country were imposed by Barack Obama in 2015. This was well after Venezuela had started to disintegrate and, in any event, only targeted regime leaders. Red Ken had no answer to this, unsurprisingly. In the end, he had to fall back on a claim to have been briefed by the regimes ambassador in London, who blamed the United States. Naturally. It would all be rather funny but for the scale of the human misery on display. The economic policies of Chavismo has created a refugee crisis unlike any other in the Western Hemisphere. Children are dying of hunger in one of the most resource-rich countries in the world. The fact that no Green Party MPs arent really interested in it doesnt mean it isnt so. Thus far, the New Zealand government has held out against the tide of liberal nations recognising Guaidos government (or, at least, calling for new elections). This passive support for Maduro has been justified on a principle of non-interference with the domestic politics of other countries. As with all principles, adherence to this prime directive seems to be somewhat selective. Guaido has called for humanitarian aid to relieve the suffering of his compatriots. The regime refuses to allow aid in. Which side sounds like it has the best interests of a suffering people at heart? Whether we recognise his administration or not, New Zealand should respond to Guaidos call to alms. As I pointed out last week, the country has made a lot of money out of selling milk powder to Venezuela in the recent past. Quite apart from your stance on the politics of the situation, it is right and just that we come to their aid in their hour of darkness. (Kitco News) - Wall Street and Main Street both remain bullish in the weekly Kitco News gold survey, in essence considering this weeks pullback as a correction in a market that still is still in an uptrend. Fifteen market professionals took part in the Wall Street survey. There were 11 votes, or 73%, calling for higher prices. There were two votes each, or 13%, for both lower and sideways. Meanwhile, 467 respondents took part in an online Main Street poll. A total of 259 voters, or 55%, called for gold to rise. Another 129, or 28%, predicted gold would fall. The remaining 79 voters, or 17%, see a sideways market. Wall Street Bullish Bearish Neutral VS Main Street Bullish Bearish Neutral In the last survey, nearly two-thirds of Wall Street and Main Street was bullish on gold. As of a.m. EST, Comex April gold futures were trading 0.3% lower for the week so far to $1,318 an ounce. I remain bullish on gold for next week, said Colin Cieszynski, chief market strategist at SIA Wealth Management. A recent correction appears to have run its course with gold having successfully tested $1,305 support and the price starting to turn back upward again. With another U.S. government shutdown looming, Brexit talks going nowhere, U.S.-China trade talks having normal ups and downs, and earnings season continuing, there is a lot going on to keep the volatility pot boiling and defensive havens like gold still attractive to some investors. Kevin Grady, president of Phoenix Futures and Options, also looks for further price appreciation as long as gold holds above $1,305. Were kind of in a step-up pattern technically, said Daniel Pavilonis, senior commodities broker with RJO Futures. I think stocks are still going to be weak, but I think the metals will be higher. Phil Flynn, senior market analyst with at Price Futures Group, also looks for the precious metal to trade higher, citing its ability to bounce late in the week even as the U.S. dollar remained strong. The continuing U.S.-China trade spat could prompt some safe-haven buying, he continued. Generally speaking, gold has been a forgotten asset for a while, Flynn said. It is starting to look better from a technical standpoint. Jim Wyckoff, senior technical analyst with Kitco, also said higher, commenting that the trend is still up and the downside correction is likely near an end. Afshin Nabavi says the area around $1,302 is becoming a strong support and the market could move higher. The concerns over U.S.-China trade dispute [and] eventual possibility of another government shutdown would make me think of a push towards $1,350ish area, he said. Meanwhile, independent technical analyst Darin Newsom is one of those who sees gold moving lower. I still see April gold moving into a secondary downtrend on its weekly chart, Newsom said, citing bearish crossovers by weekly Stochastics above the overbought 80% mark. The U.S. dollar index moved to a new four-week high this week (barely so far), indicating more strength ahead, which should mean increased pressure on gold. Phillip Streible, senior market strategist with RJO Futures, looks for gold to be in a sideways pattern. I wouldnt be surprised that we have a new defined range between $1,306-$1,330." And, maybe it had haunted him. But we should note that it apparently didnt haunt him enough to bring it up when he was first running for office five years ago or at any moment since. He became properly haunted only when he was within throwing distance of the governorship and chances were good someone else would dig up a photo. (Changes slug, raises number of those evacuated, adds details about evacuation near ArcelorMittal dam) By Marta Nogueira and Pedro Fonseca BELO HORIZONTE/RIO DE JANEIRO, Feb 8 (Reuters) - Some 700 people were evacuated early on Friday from Brazilian towns near two separate tailings dams operated by Vale SA and ArcelorMittal on mounting fears of a recurrence of last month's deadly dam burst nearby. The collapse two weeks ago unleashed an avalanche of mud that engulfed nearby buildings and farms, killing an estimated 300 people in Brazil's deadliest mining disaster. As evidence mounted that Vale missed warnings of trouble at the dam in the town of Brumadinho, pressure has risen on the firm and other mining companies to bolster safety measures to avoid a recurrence. Vale shares were down 1.9 percent in morning trading to an 11-month low of 40.87 reais. ArcelorMittal shares dropped nearly 5 percent at 19.26 euros. Another dam, also used to store the muddy mining detritusknown as tailings and co-owned by Vale and BHP Group , had collapsed in 2015, killing 19 people and wreaking massive environmental damage. Vale said Brazil's mining agency ordered the evacuation of about 500 people from a dam area at its Gongo Soco mine on Friday as a preventive measure after engineering consultancy Walm said a certificate guaranteeing stability conditions had not been issued for the dam. Walm could not be reached immediately for comment. Local firefighters sounded evacuation sirens early on Friday, warning residents to flee because of signs of instability in the dam. Vale said it has intensified inspections in the area and was installing equipment to detect vibrations and bringing in international consultants to assess the situation. Separately, ArcelorMittal said it ordered the evacuation of about 200 people near its dam by the town of Itatiaiucu, about 40 km (25 miles) from Brumadinho, after consulting with local authorities. The decision came after the steelmaker said it adopted more rigorous inspection criteria in the aftermath of the Brumadinho disaster. A barrier stores tailings from the company's Serra Azul dam, with an output of 1.2 million tonnes of iron ore concentrate and pellets. "We will try to return people to their houses as quickly as possible, even though it's not possible to say when that will be," ArcelorMittal Brazil Chief Executive Officer Benjamin Baptista said in a statement. At the Vale mine 500 inhabitants from Barao de Cocais were taken to a gym nearby, the municipality said on its Facebook page. Like the collapsed dams Brumadinho and Mariana, co-owned by Vale and BHP, the evacuated dams are in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, traditionally its mining heartland. Also on Friday, authorities closed a port terminal operated by Vale in Vitoria, in the southeastern state of Espirito Santo, due to pollution problems. The municipality of Vitoria said on Thursday it had fined the company 35 million reais ($9.5 million) for throwing mining residues in the sea. Vale said it would take appropriate measures but added that recent inspections by local authorities had not detected any problems. In the wake of the Brumadinho mining disaster, the state of Minas Gerais cancelled Vale's license to operate another dam and a mine in the state. On Tuesday Vale declared force majeure on some iron ore contracts after a court-ordered halt to a mine responsible for nearly 9 percent of its output following the disaster. (Additional reporting by Alberto Alerigi in Sao Paulo; Writing by Carolina Mandl; Editing by Jason Neely, Susan Fenton and Jeffrey Benkoe) 97116-3806;)) WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is holding direct communications with members of Venezuelas military urging them to abandon leader Nicolas Maduro and is also preparing new sanctions aimed at increasing pressure on him, a senior White House official said. The Trump administration expects further military defections from Maduros side, the official told Reuters in an interview, despite only a few senior officers having done so since opposition leader Juan Guaido proclaimed himself interim president last month, earning the recognition of the United States and dozens of other countries. We believe these to be those first couple pebbles before we start really seeing bigger rocks rolling down the hill, the official said this week, speaking on condition of anonymity. Were still having conversations with members of the former Maduro regime, with military members, although those conversations are very, very limited. The official declined to provide details on the discussions or the level at which they are being held, and it was unclear whether such contacts could create cracks in the Venezuelan socialist leaders support from the military, which is pivotal to his grip on power. With the Venezuelan military still apparently loyal to Maduro, a source in Washington close to the opposition expressed doubts whether the Trump administration has laid enough groundwork to spur a wider mutiny in the ranks where many officers are suspected of benefiting from corruption and drug trafficking. Guaido says the May 2018 vote in which Maduro won a second term as president was a sham and on Jan. 23 invoked a constitutional provision to declare himself president, promising free and fair elections. VENEZUELAN ASSETS The U.S. government also sees European allies as likely to do more to prevent Maduro from transferring or hiding Venezuela government assets held outside the country, the U.S. official said. Major European countries have joined the United States in backing Guaido but they have stopped short of the sweeping oil sanctions and financial measures that Washington has imposed. At the same time, the Trump administration is readying further possible sanctions on Venezuela, the official said. Previous rounds have targeted dozens of Venezuelan military and government officials, including Maduro himself, and last month finally hit the OPEC members vital oil sector. But the administration has stopped short of imposing so-called secondary sanctions, which would punish non-U.S. companies for doing business with the Venezuela government or the state oil monopoly PDVSA. The U.S. official said that Washington had every tool available to apply pressure on Maduro and his associates to accept a legitimate democratic transition. The U.S. government is also weighing possible sanctions on Cuban military and intelligence officials whom it says are helping Maduro remain in power, a second U.S. official and person familiar with the deliberations have told Reuters. Maduros government has accused Guaido, who has galvanized Venezuelas opposition, of attempting to stage a U.S.-directed coup. General Francisco Yanez of the air forces high command became the first active Venezuelan general to recognize Guaido, but he is one of about 2,000 generals. Venezuelas chief military attache to the United States also said he was defecting late last month. Guaido has actively courted members of the military with promises of amnesty and preferential legal treatment if they disavow Maduro and disobey his orders, and Washington this week raised the prospect of dropping sanctions on senior Venezuelan officers if they recognize Guaido. Maduro still has the support of the military high command, and now routinely appears in pre-recorded events at military bases where officers stand behind him and chant triumphal slogans such as Loyal always, traitors never. BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Its a proposal that is not even on the table, and reverses Theresa Mays determined position - but EU officials are still urging her to grasp an offer from the Labour opposition to break an impasse over the terms of Britains EU exit. The Conservative prime minister gave no sign during her visit to Brussels on Thursday of softening her rejection of a permanent EU-UK customs union, as Labour proposes, European Union sources said. But for many in Brussels, the possibility of Labour support for an orderly Brexit that avoids the likely chaos of no-deal is the only way out of the deadlock, and justifies an attempt to influence Britains highly tribal internal politics. We are still very much in the party politics perspective. The only hope is that, at some point, the threat of no-deal disruptions would mobilise minds in the UK, an EU diplomat briefed on Mays talks in Brussels said on Friday. For now, May is still looking at her own party rather than a nationwide consensus. The EU says London agreeing to closer ties with the bloc after Brexit would largely obviate the need for a contentious backstop provision in the future, an insurance policy meant to keep the border between Ireland and the British-run province of Northern Ireland open under any and all circumstances. We are looking at those proposals with interest but there are obviously very considerable points of difference that exist between us, said a senior official in Mays office. The PM continues to believe that an independent trade policy is one of the key advantages of Brexit, the person said under condition of anonymity. Staying in a customs union with the EU would limit the UKs ability to seal trade deals with other countries on its own. But the bloc believes that solution might be acceptable to the Northern Irish unionists propping up Mays government, as well as to at least some Labour lawmakers, and thus secure a parliamentary majority for the divorce deal before Britain leaves on March 29. Given the EUs opposition to the concessions on the backstop that May is currently demanding, the only alternative appears to Brussels to be a delay to the exit and/or a no-deal Brexit, with no transition period to soften the economic rupture. THE ONLY WAY OUT By that time, hopefully, May will have worked with Labour and get Labour votes. Its the only way out. There will be no illusions on what will happen in the last week of March if they dont vote for it, another EU diplomat said. One senior EU diplomat added: Our leaders cannot understand why she still has not been able to do what they do every day talk to the opposition, build coalitions. The EUs chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, said he would reiterate on Monday at a planned meeting with Britains Brexit minister that the EU would not re-open the legally binding Brexit deal agreed with Britain over two years, but was ready to rework the political declaration that accompanies it. The bloc rejects Londons demands for a time limit to the backstop, saying that would defeat its purpose. But it has given May an olive branch, agreeing that Brexit negotiators from both sides will sit down to talks again. EU diplomats and officials dealing with Brexit expect it to go right down to the wire. While May has refused to rule out a no-deal Brexit, which she believes gives her bargaining power, Brussels hopes that she would come round to requesting at least a short delay if that scenario seemed unavoidable. They juxtapose Mays brinkmanship with a somewhat unexpected role model - Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. Long at loggerheads with the EU over Greeces economy and migration, the blocs former enfant terrible has now won widespread praise in the EU for putting to rest a protracted name dispute with neighbouring Macedonia at considerable political cost. Look at Tsipras and Macedonia a leader who stuck his neck out and risked his own government and premiership to do what he knew was right. We need that type of thinking in the UK, said another EU diplomat. OSLO (Reuters) - Norways $1 trillion wealth fund will push the 9,000 firms it invests in to disclose more data on greenhouse gases they emit and how they adapt to climate change during the coming annual general meeting season, a top fund official said. The worlds largest sovereign wealth fund invests the revenues of Norways oil and gas production and has stakes in some 9,000 companies across 72 countries. It was an early mover among international investors in trying to assess climate change risk, wanting to avoid investments in one sector negatively impacting another - so-called externalities - and hurting its overall portfolio. This year, it will make a fresh push on firms to explain how their business will be affected, and how they are adapting, to a world where temperatures may rise by 2 degrees Celsius (35.6F). What we would like to see more of is scenarios, including a two-degree scenario, and we want better disclosure of the assumptions for these scenarios, Carine Smith Ihenacho, the funds chief corporate governance officer, told Reuters. We want clear targets for CO2 emissions and other greenhouse gases, including methane. And we want to see reporting of progress against the targets, she added. We would like to see it more disaggregated, meaning not for the whole company, but more broken down, for instance regional or even on an asset level. DIVESTMENTS As part of its green push, the fund has been developing an in-house software, called Angle, that can take non-financial data, such as CO2 emissions, combine it with trading data and earnings data, and see how it will affect a company years ahead. That tool has informed divestments in some 30 companies in 2018, fund CEO Yngve Slyngstad told Reuters, helping show that these companies did not have a sustainable business model over the long-term. He did not name them. Presentation material showed two of the 30 divested companies were involved in palm oil; one in rubber; ten in coal-based power; and one in CO2 intensity. The next step in the softwares development, first disclosed by Reuters in October, is to develop the platform to see how much of the carbon cost can be passed on to customers and how much companies must pay themselves. It is still in the works, Slyngstad said. Smith Ihenacho said companies were generally better at reporting climate-related data, citing for instance banks and oil and gas companies as quite good examples. But others, like power producers, were lagging. There is still far to go for many companies to report at the level we would like to see, she said. The fund itself emitted 107 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents in 2018 via its ownership stakes roughly twice the amount emitted by Norway in 2017 according to its annual responsible investment report released on Thursday. In 2018, the fund voted against one or more resolutions put forward at 27.5 percent of AGMs it attended last year, roughly the same level as in 2017. The fund said it voted against the CEO also holding the position of board chairman at Amazon, Johnson & Johnson, Total, Procter & Gamble and Pfizer, among others. It also voted against executive pay proposals at JP Morgan Chase, Verizon, AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline, among others. (Graphic: Largest SWFs - tmsnrt.rs/2tskfub) BANCROFT TOWNSHIP, Minn. A semi rolled over on Interstate 35 Thursday afternoon, just north of Albert Lea. It happened in the southbound lanes near mile marker 11 just before 3 pm. The Minnesota State Patrol says Jay Leon Valentine, 40 of Mineola, MN, lost control just south of the Interstate 90 interchange and rolled into the median. Valentine and a passenger, Angeline Marie Kridler, 49 of Phoenix, Arizona, suffered non-life threatening injuries and were taken to Mayo Clinic Health System in Albert Lea. The State Patrol says Valentine was wearing his seat belt but Kridler was not. The Freeborn County Sheriffs Office, Albert Lea police and fire, MnDOT, and Gold Cross Ambulance assisted at the scene. CLEAR LAKE, Iowa- Its ugly out there, said Edward Brown. Brown got off the roads Thursday while he could and waited for the storm to pass. He said he saw too many wrecks on the snow and ice covered I-35. The Iowa State Patrol said they handled a number of calls for help for jack-knifed semis and cars going in the ditch. They advise everyone take Browns advice and get off the roads. If I have to go to slow then I dont make much money and it starts eating in to my hours, he said. I have to pull over and save the hours for later in the week. Troopers said they will likely not be shutting down the interstate unless the storm gets really bad. They say it does take a lot of manpower and resources to accomplish. ALBERT LEA, Minn. Sexual contact with a child in Freeborn County is sending a man to prison. Joel Callejas Cantor, 25 of Red Springs, North Carolina, was sentenced Friday to nine years behind bars, with credit for 203 days already served, followed by 10 years of conditional release. Cantor was arrested in July 2018 and charged with 1st degree criminal sexual conduct. Authorities say Cantor had sexual contact with a female under the age of 10 in Albert Lea. He pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of 2nd degree criminal sexual conduct in September 2018. MASON CITY, Iowa Its at least 17 years behind bars for a North Iowa man who admitted to sexually abusing an eight-year-old girl. Russell Neil Leverne, 61 of Mason City, was arrested in August 2018 and eventually pleaded guilty to two counts of 2nd degree sex abuse. Authorities say he committed sex acts with his victim in June and July of 2018. Leverne has been sentenced to 25 years in prison on each count, to be served concurrently, and must also serve a minimum of 17 and years before being eligible for parole. Leverne will also have to register as a sex offender. DES MOINES, Iowa Mason City and POET Biorefining in Hanlontown are winners at the 2019 Healthiest State Annual Awards. Mason City was recognized in the community category, along with Algona and Knoxville, and POET was honored in the small workplace category. The awards are given to individuals and organizations that work to improve the physical, social, and emotional well-being of Iowans. We are pleased to present Mason City with their second Healthy Hometown Community Award, said Jami Haberl, Iowa Healthiest State Initiative executive director. The City has earned the title of 2019 Healthy-Mason City and will also receive $5,000 to continue the important work of improving the physical, social and emotional well-being of the community. Mason City and POET Biorefining will each receive a monetary gift to continue their work promoting well-being. The Healthiest State Initiative is proud to recognize our award winners who are doing impressive work across the state, said Jami Haberl, Healthiest State Initiative executive director. Each one is an example to other Iowa schools, workplaces and communities of the strides that can be made towards health and wellness. Each of our winners put ideas into action and created sustainable change in their respective sector. BROOKLYN, Iowa (AP) A Poweshiek County farmer has been injured in a suspected gas explosion that leveled his home. The Des Moines Register reports the explosion happened just before 10 a.m. Thursday on the 70-acre farm of Wayne Cheney that sits about 13 miles southeast of Brooklyn in east-central Iowa. Cheney was among a number of people interviewed by police in the disappearance last summer of 20-year-old Mollie Tibbetts from her hometown of Brooklyn. Her body was later found in a cornfield, and former farmhand Cristhian Bahena Rivera has been charged with first-degree murder in her stabbing death. Poweshiek County Sheriff Tom Kriegel says Cheney was sent to an Iowa City hospital with burns and was conscious when first responders reached him. He is expected to survive. Kriegel says Cheney told firefighters he was trying to light a space heater when the home exploded. Investigators believe gas had filled the house. MASON CITY, Iowa - Each month KIMT News 3 and our giving your best partners, Diamond Jo Casino and First Citizens Bank recognize someone who goes above and beyond to give back to their community. When it comes to volunteering, Marie and Glenn Borchardt are a power couple. That's why they are both our February GYB Volunteer of the Month. I never dreamt we would get nominated for this, says Marie. For 20 years now, Marie has taken communion to residents at The Willows and patients at the hospital. She reads to students at Newman Catholic School, sings in the church choir and most recently has taken up the recycled greeting card ministry at her church. It's really almost more than a part time job anymore, she says. This group takes old recycled cards and makes them new again, selling them to people who appreciate their work. We send out a lot of cards, we sell a lot of cards, its just really a big process, says Marie. Marie goes everywhere, if she didn't go to sell them to different places, the ministry wouldn't go, says Maries friend Margaret Lang. As for Glenn, he helps with the card ministry; he also ushers at church and helps other seniors find supplemental drug plans. But the work he might enjoy the most is helping students each week in the Newman Catholic School lunchroom. I think eating hot lunch at Newman is probably my best part of volunteering, says Glenn. I guess as long as we are able to do something like that Im glad to do it, says Marie. Congratulations to Marie and Glenn Borchardt. If you'd like to nominate someone for volunteer of the month, click on the "Giving Your Best" link under the "Community" tab. ROCHESTER, Minn. A not guilty plea has been entered in a Rochester garage burglary. Joshua Jon Carlson, 31 of Rochester, is pleading not guilty to 1st degree burglary and possession of stolen property. He was arrested on December 11, 2018, after police say a woman spotted Carlson inside a garage in the 900 block of 16th Street SE. His trial is set to begin on July 15. Weather Alert ...EXCESSIVE HEAT WATCH REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM FRIDAY AFTERNOON THROUGH TUESDAY EVENING... * WHAT...Dangerously hot conditions Friday through at least Tuesday. Triple digit heat will develop in central Washington Friday and spread into eastern Washington over the weekend. * WHERE...Portions of North and North Central Idaho. Portions of Central, East Central, North Central, Northeast, and Southeast Washington. * WHEN...From Friday afternoon through Tuesday evening. * IMPACTS...Several days of triple digit heat and unusually warm overnight temperatures will make it difficult to control the build up of heat in homes without air conditioning. * ADDITIONAL DETAILS...This will likely be an historic heat wave. Chances are good that many long standing records will be broken during this upcoming heat wave. PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS... Monitor the latest forecasts and warnings for updates on this situation. Be prepared to drink plenty of fluids, stay in an air- conditioned room, stay out of the sun, and check up on relatives and neighbors. && PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- A grand jury has declined to bring charges against Oregon deputies who shot and killed a man after he used an ax, knives and other objects to kill four of his relatives. The Oregonian/OregonLive reports Clackamas County prosecutors announced this week that the four deputies were justified in shooting 42-year-old Mark Gago last month. The sheriff's office says Gago killed his mother, stepfather, girlfriend and his 9-month-old daughter. He also injured two others who lived in the home. Clackamas County prosecutor Chris Owen says it's not clear why Gago attacked his family. He says Gago was likely high on meth and believed to be suicidal before the unprovoked attack occurred. Toxicology results are pending. The family's home is about 20 miles south of Portland near Woodburn. 55 Shares Share In a New York Post article dated January 23, 2019, the author states how Americans without health care insurance hit 13.7 percent. This 2.8 percent increase means an additional seven-million Americans lack health coverage as noted by the Gallup survey period. This is not far behind the 18 percent recorded just before the Obamacare mandate in 2014. Everyone is blamed in this article except the culprits. Do you think for one moment that insurance premiums have not continued to go up over the past four years? In fact, since the launch of Obamacare, the nation has seen a 12 percent increase in premiums as of January of 2018. Imagine physicians incomes dropping by $18 billion between 2013-2015 and continuing to drop? So, patients, as well as physicians, are giving up incomes to insurers, the government, and pharmaceuticals. Yes, they are indeed left behind. Are we all dumbed down enough to blame the lack of an Obamacare or ACA-like structure for not lowering premiums and making health care affordable? You can call it anything you like its insurance! I see it in my practice every day and hear it from my patients all the time. After all, in the trenches, the truth always comes out. Many, too young for Medicare or generally healthy defer buying health insurance altogether. Although Gallup has polled this number to be the lowest on the East Coast, I see a very different picture. I see hard-working young professionals without job-provided health insurance biting the bullet, paying in cash for minor office procedures and, at times, even pre-negotiated minor hospital or surgical center procedures. Rather than having an out-of-pocket deductible upwards of $5,000 before their health coverage kicks in, they dare survive without it. The trend is growing. Hospitals now collect co-pays before they even stop the bleeding so to say. Its become a desperate dog-eat-dog scene in our new and improved health care landscape. People are working crazy hours and taking on jobs they hate simply to get the worst possible albeit some sort of health care coverage. Well-known insurers that boast of large networks of physicians often wind up sending patients 25 miles or more from their residences to find such in-network physicians. Many times, this is in the least desirable neighborhoods and not necessarily the highest rated of providers. Further unraveling the true face of our nations health care are all the apps, gizmos, telehealth, visiting nurses, APNs and NPs (not to mention required patient portals, MIPS, MACRAs, population health) that are continually diluting the quality and value of a precipitously declining state of medical care. I often see the face of panic on my patients and hear of their trepidations should a medical disaster strike. And it comes as no surprise when I see how excoriated the health care playing field has become. No wonder physicians offices are wary of patients and their insurers as they fear not getting paid and even refunding payments more and more given the more aggressive nature of todays health insurance industry. After all, when you consider all players equally, it is the physician who most often does not get paid for his or her work. There should be a law against contractually working for free which doesnt apply to doctors. As a result, more and more physicians are choosing to get out of various insurance companies, go out of network or be employees of large entities, further helping to water down the quality of and increase the morbidity and mortality in medical care. You wont hear about this on TV commercials, news articles or the media as the powerful health insurance industry comprises one of their most prized sponsors. Cutting to the chase, people are left to scramble between paying their rents, feeding their children, perhaps paying for auto insurance by deferring unaffordable health care premiums. What about seniors? Are they so much better off when they get their Medicare cards? How do you think a social security check that is inversely proportional to the growing cost of supplemental or co-insurance premiums, drug prices, being served donut holes in drug benefits and rising co-pays fare? This being especially so if these poor souls are only on Medicare is but a glimpse of reality-based health care survival? I often see cash-strapped families deferring health insurance to afford purchasing expensive drugs for their parents. After all, Obamacare and others were intended to provide health care for our nations families. Could we ever admit that it as well as other health insurance products benefit only insurers and never prioritize the public? They unlike physicians are never policed in their practices. I think we need to admit these harsh facts before any change can ever take place. We need to stop being the medical ostriches we are and lift our heads as we observe and take in reality. I wonder why the Gallup polls never question the victims of unaffordable care rather than just confirming they are on a rapid ascent? I guess the true pictures physicians see every day wouldnt reflect as well on the health insurance industry. Its certainly not a pretty picture. Theres no question its something Americans, our legislators and the industry needs to hear and deal with. It wont just go away it will undoubtedly get worse and unmanageable. As healers, we must do more than practice our skills as we must also stand up to the obstacles of our profession. Norman Cousins said it well when he posited how: It is reasonable to expect the doctor to recognize that science may not have all the answers to problems of health and healing. Michael Weiss is a cardiologist and can be reached on Twitter @HeartAndSoulDoc. Image credit: Shutterstock.com 18 Shares Share If you are a physician or know a physician or have ever visited one, chances are you have probably heard them complain about technology in health care. More to the point, they are likely to be complaining about the one piece of technology that affects their lives minute-to-minute: the electronic health record (EHR). To get a sense of how central EHRs are to our daily routines, consider that physicians now spend more time in the EHR than they do seeing patients (6 hours of an average 11-hour work day). And while it is easy to write them off as luddites unable to adapt to new technology, an important study by the RAND organization noted that physicians approve of EHRs in principle and see the potential for the technology to improve the delivery of clinical care. So where is the disconnect between the vision that physicians see for the EHR and its implementation in clinical practice? Instead of being a tool to facilitate communication and coordination, the EHR has become an additional burden. Common critiques include that fact that EHR technology interferes with face-to-face patient-physician communication (this has become the aptly named screen between), has significantly increased the amount of time physicians spend performing data entry and clerical duties (and in some cases, has created brand new administrative tasks), and is associated with poor user experience. It all feels as if the physician is working for the EHR rather than the other way around. The changes physicians have had to make to clinical practice because of the EHR have had profound impacts. For example, EHRs have been identified as the #1 reason for physician burnout. This is particularly problematic given that one study demonstrated over half of all physicians are suffering from professional burnout. Whats more, physicians who were dissatisfied with their EHR and clerical burden were also more likely to have plans of leaving clinical practice. This adds to ongoing concerns of an impending physician workforce shortage. How have physicians responded? Medical scribes have emerged as one solution. Medical scribes follow the physician into the exam room where they observe the interaction and subsequently draft up the physicians documentation. While scribes are a great way to alleviate some of the EHR burden, they are not without limitations: scribes can be unaffordable for some providers (approximately $35,000 per year), require initial generalized training, need additional ramp-up time to learn the preferences of a specific physician, and are subject to turnover. Another approach has included retraining existing medical personnel such as clinic nurses or medical assistants to assist the physician with clerical duties. The challenge is both of these approaches involve mobilizing additional human resources to make up for the shortcoming of technology. Instead of creating more efficiencies and reducing human clerical burden, we continue to come up with creative workflow hacks for working around the EHR rather than improving it. Technology is supposed to be an efficiency gainer. It is supposed to increase the productivity of the existing human workforce. Most sectors worry that technology will put humans out of work. With that said, skeptics may rightfully question the notion of improving technology with more technology. However, the problem is not technology itself but rather the way it is envisioned, designed, and implemented into clinical practice. Tools such as artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing (NLP) offer exciting opportunities to improve upon the existing healthcare IT environment. And If three easy steps are followed in implementing these tools, we can make an important leap from our current status quo to a future where technology integrates seamlessly into the clinical workflow. First, the creators of technology must take a problem-oriented approach. Notice that above I mention tools such as artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing (NLP). That is because these should be seen as solutions to a specific problem rather than just another technology we should squeeze into the clinical workflow. Therefore, by viewing AI and NLP as one of perhaps many tools we can mobilize to solve the problem of excessive data entry and clerical duties for physicians, we are more likely to succeed in creating value for physicians and building a product that they actually love (rather than the ones they currently lament). Second, we must include physicians in the solution creation process. Good entrepreneurs refer to this as customer discovery and would not dream of launching an initial product without getting extensive feedback from the end user. We must see the problem we are solving through the eyes of the physician. How do they understand it? How does it impact their workflow? Where are the greatest opportunities for improvement? By attempting to see the problem through their lens, we are able to build solutions with the right combination of features that physicians will actually want. Third, we must see the problems as more than just equations to be solved. With AI and NLP, there is the tendency to think that all that is needed is more data and a better performing algorithm. While adequate performance is undoubtedly necessary, it is not sufficient. The challenge with making AI work for clinicians is as much one of packaging it into an intuitive design and an enjoyable user interface (UI)/user experience (UX) as it is about enhancing performance. The best performing model is not much good if the physician hates the way it looks and feels; or worse, if it adds additional time to their workflow. The EHR we have today does not have to be the one we have tomorrow. Efficient and enjoyable clinical practice is possible. A future where doctors spend more time with their patients than they do with the EHR is achievable. It just requires a problem-oriented approach, end-user engagement, attention to the clinical workflow, and beautiful design. Brandon McCutcheon is a neurosurgery resident and CEO and co-founder, Phraze. Image credit: Shutterstock.com 3 Shares Share I am certain that many of you might be familiar with the intelligent, vibrant young lady named Brittany Maynard. Brittanys story was so compelling to the world that it reached the most outstanding and historic numbers through digital media. Ms. Maynard was only 29, diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and decided that she would end her own life when the time seemed right. Maynard was an advocate for the legalization of assisted death, and there wasnt a California law established at that time for MAiD, so she had to move to Oregon. Although the right to die movement has been around for many decades now, what made a significant impact on this movement is when Brittany Maynard shared her story five years ago. It was when her and Brittanys husband Dan Diaz partnered with Compassion & Choices, the nations oldest, largest and most active nonprofit working to improve care and expand options for the end of life to help get her message out to the entire world. Maynards story was so profound that it resonated with millions of people around the world. Technology advanced the movement. Brittany Maynards story garnered so much interest and made such an impact, that her interview was the most viewed video in People magazines history, garnering 16.1 million unique visitors. The story was the largest to captivate a digital audience ever on People.com and for any brand under Time Incorporated. In addition, nearly 54 million people were reached on Facebooks platform. Brittany Maynard also has a powerful advocacy video posted on YouTube that currently has over 12 million views. When it comes to Medical Aid in Dying, consumers identify that it is an authentic, progressive agenda of today. Compassion & Choices recently made a statement that the organization frequently talks about expanding end-of-life care options as a consumer movement that consumers are the ones driving the change. The Medical Aid in Dying Movement has been around for decades, however, through the power of digital and social media, its message has been able to reach the worlds most influential, significant, and powerful mediums around to raise awareness for such issues. The internet is still in its early stage year, with digital effects and social media platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter at even earlier stages. Digital revolutionized the right to die movement, with Brittany Maynards story being a key factor to driving todays growing impact globally. Media outlets and social media have carried out her voice ever since. Today, we are reliant on social media as a key means of communicating to the world, deriving our news, recording our daily lives and relaying our perspectives and viewpoints unlike anything before. I feel momentum right now in health care and politics is on medical aid in dyings side. To date, eight jurisdictions currently authorize medical aid in dying: California, Colorado, Montana, Oregon, Vermont, Washington state, Hawaii and Washington, D.C. There are at least 25 states considering aid-in-dying bills this year, according to Compassion and Choices. Social media has delivered profound advancement. Jennifer Lynn is a health care consultant. Image credit: Shutterstock.com Manila (CNN Philippines Life) In response to the Marawi siege back in May 2017, the Duterte administration declared a state of martial law across the whole Mindanao island. However, despite the end of the conflict in Marawi, martial law is still in effect today, with both House and Senate recently voting to extend it for a third time. The new extension will now last until the end of 2019, making martial law across Mindanao a more-than-2-year ordeal. According to this administration, rebellion is still ongoing in several conflict areas, and that martial law is the only way to quash the rebellion and finally secure peace for Mindanao. But what do actual Mindanaoans think of martial law and its extension? Is it truly the solution to the security problem, or is its existence driving a rise in abuses of power in the island? Cecille Turrecha, 24, youth programs volunteer from Cagayan de Oro As a Mindanaoan, I firmly believe that there can be several means in achieving peace and trying to secure the area than martial law. Though strong visibility of police, military, and checkpoints are being implemented during martial law and have made the people feel more secure especially after what happened in Marawi, we still see rising number of threats and attacks from those who seek to disturb peace. Some of my friends would even say that there is really not much of the difference of imposing martial law since having a heightened alert after a threat is what usually happens. Some though are also afraid that this additional power might be abused, which then deviates from their purpose of implementing it. I am for peace, but the means to it must not deviate from the very purpose of it all. This is different from the peace we have imagined and how it should be. May Fiel Divino, 23, youth leader from Davao Personally, di ko ma-feel na may martial law. Yung situation now sa Davao, same lang even before martial law. Parang walang martial law kasi walang changes. But of course, di lang sarili iniisip ko. Nababasa ko sa news ang bad effects ng martial law sa far-flung communities: schools being bombed; IPs being killed, abused, and displaced. But then sadly, yun naman talaga [ang] kalagayan ng mga IPs even before martial law. In short, I dont think our city needs martial law kasi if we base it on our Constitution, the only grounds for martial law is invasion or rebellion. For Marawi, I think the declaration of martial law was necessary because the city was already invaded by terrorists. But as for Davao and other cities, theres no need. Since tapos naman din yung war sa Marawi. But ending martial law doesnt mean na hindi na maging strict sa security. Val Vestil, 23, Advocacy and Comms Officer of Ateneo SUGPAT from Zamboanga I have been to many corners in Mindanao, for either residency, leisure, or work, and I must say nothing much has changed. Life since martial law was declared here has been lived in normalcy I still go out to the same hotspots, I still walk the streets at night with no fears of abduction. The only difference and I think this is why I feel that it is necessary is that I feel a lot safer. Violent extremism here in the South is not a myth and as a civilian, I am at constant unrest. The increased presence of the military has however helped pacify what I feel. Contrary to what some friends feel about getting up and close with the military, I am met with only warm and polite officers who simply do their jobs at checkpoints. No, the city doesnt shut down at 7 p.m. (Umuuwi kasi ako 1 a.m., and this is Zamboanga ha, where there is heightened alert); and no, the military men dont cadence the streets like predators looking for their prey; and most definitely no, I am not stripped off of my human rights or civilian privileges. There is no place in the world that is safe because danger breeds anywhere. But in the context of a Mindanaoan living in Mindanao, I can say that I am at peace with the current situation of martial law in my province. Alfie Agang, 25, LGU staff from Alabel, Sarangani The declaration of martial law in Mindanao is triggered by the presence of alleged ISIS-inspired group Maute in Marawi City. Marawi City, a city that is known to be peaceful, is now a ghost and war-zone city between the Maute and the military. Though martial law was declared to [quell] terrorist group/s in the city and protect the people from rebel insurgencies, it brings a big question on the perception of the critical situation not only in Mindanao but also in the global community. Interestingly, with the experience of Marawi City, martial law was extended and implemented in the entire Mindanao. Curfews are strictly implemented in different localities and checkpoints are tightened to ensure that no members of the said terrorist or rebel group will enter various places in Mindanao and will spread violence or terrors. As a Mindanaoan and headed by a first Mindanaoan President Rodrigo Duterte, I know it is imperative to maintain peace and order in Mindanao so as to safeguard people from the horrors of terrorism and violence; however, the declaration of martial law proliferates many armed groups. The imposition of martial law in Mindanao accompanies stricter curfews, the suspension of civil rights, habeas corpus, and the application of military justice to civilians. This is alarming given the sole reason that anyone can be put in jail without trials in the court or having no court order if accused as part of an anti-government group or lawless element. The government should think of a long-term solution to address lawlessness, violent extremism, and terrorism. Claire Demetrio*, 26, store manager from Davao I dont think Davao felt the impact of martial law as much as the other provinces of Mindanao because ever since before, rules that were thought to be for martial law were implemented already: checkpoints, liquor ban, etc. As for how necessary it is to extend martial law Im against it because I feel that the longer it is established, the more likely there will be abuse from those in power. And if Davao could implement rules that are similar to those in martial law, then other provinces can probably implement depending on their needs, which would make martial law unnecessary, dont you think? Ive heard other provinces are not used to the stricter policies and checkpoints, kaya nanibago sila sa martial law, and mas naging traffic because of the checkpoints. Theres also the stigma of martial law that a lot of people in Mindanao have to deal with investors were scared to invest in Mindanao when they heard that there was martial law, [because of] the whole idea na Mindanao is in chaos which is not the case naman. When I travel outside of Davao, medyo may kaba kapag sobrang daming military because it might mean danger zone siya, pero then again, with or without martial law, marami kang military na makikita. Kloyde Caday, 25, instructor from Koronadal City You can rarely get an opposition in Mindanao regarding martial law because that might read as defying ones friends, teachers, or parents who are loyalists. We always get expressions of approval among social media platforms by Mindanaoans, but we must never miss what lies beneath these opinions. Its coming from the sentiments of privileged urban residents better taken care of soldiers. The question really is, have we really seen the effects of martial law? One must draw the nuances among different areas in Mindanao. Mindanao isnt just Davao or Gensan or CDO. While big cities experience martial law just by enduring queues of checkpoints, there are definitely little-known human rights violation cases in rural areas in Mindanao, like in Compostela Valley, Lianga, Surigao del Sur, and other places where attacks between AFP and residents do happen. Its time to acknowledge our privilege, that if we are comfortable with the uneven imposition, there are others in Mindanao whose civil liberties are trampled upon, or worse, rights are violated without them knowing. Martial law extension worries me because it sends a message that visibility of armed men is normal. As we see, the public outrage on martial law has subsided. Parang napagod na rin ang iba. martial law is just false security that paves way for more violations. Nizam Pabil, 26, Executive Director of Office on Bangsamoro Youth Affairs from Lanao del Sur In a democratic country like the Philippines,martial law should always be the last resort in dealing with a crisis as it potentially hampers with the rights of people. This means that the government should ensure first that it has used other measures before declaring a martial law. The declaration of martial law is wrong and unnecessary, as the government has failed to establish the clear and present danger in the entire Mindanao argument. [It is] unnecessary as other measures, especially with the help of other stakeholders, could have been explored first. The government failed to see how the declaration can potentially affect the ongoing peace process, lives of those living in conflict areas, and also what message it creates for other areas in Mindanao. As a Mindanaoan, it is frustrating that the immediate response of this government to a crisis is military rule. History tells us how it hasnt only worked but even led to the darkest times in our country. The martial law declaration during Marcos regime actually triggered a lot of the conflicts we are currently trying to address in Muslim Mindanao: Jabidah Massacre, Palimbang Massacre. *Name has been changed upon request. The application process is thorough. Students must complete applications for nominations, which includes an interview process with my military academy advisory board. During four days, members of my staff conducted more than 50 interviews in multiple locations throughout Nebraska. Once students receive their nomination, the application process begins with their respective academy. Cadets at service academies are the best of the best, and it would be an honor to challenge myself and other students, one applicant wrote. She continued, I believe that the military bonds people together in a way that is unmatched by any university or camp. When I saw all the platoons marching together between the stone buildings of West Point, the synced footsteps created an incredible echo against the buildings. It was in those moments I knew that I wanted to spend my college years at a military academy. Years of hard work have paid off for these nominees. They have shown leadership in their communities and readiness to serve our country. I am confident that if they are selected, the nominees will represent our state and the United States with distinction. I am grateful to these individuals for stepping forward to take part in Nebraskas long-standing tradition of service to our country. For future applicants, my office will host an annual Military Academy Day this spring. The event is an opportunity for students and their families to learn more about the nomination process. Representatives from the service academies will be available to provide information and answer questions or speak to concerns that any prospective applicants may have. Please stay tuned for an announcement regarding the time and location of the Military Academy Day. What will jobs of the future look like? Some observers, including Shaun E. McAlmont, who is president of career readiness at K12 Inc., believe the days are fading when people can learn a skill or trade and then hire on for life with the same company. Those days are passing because too many companies are coming up short as they hunt for employees who possess the necessary skills. Facing chronic labor and skills shortages, companies are having to temporarily hire contractors to do whats needed. The contractors then move along to their next job, or gig. McAlmont refers to the growing necessity to temporarily contract for service the birth of the gig economy. Its defined as a free market system in which temporary positions are common and organizations contract with independent workers for short-term engagements or gigs. According to predictions by Intuit, in just two years 2020 40 percent of American workers could be independent contractors as the technology skills gap widens. This is happening because employers are scrambling to find job candidates with the skills they need to fill jobs that didnt even exist five years ago. The situation sounds like a giant management headache, but for young people in middle and high schools, its the opportunity of their lifetime. Benak and Greers daughter both identified up to six teens or preteens who regularly spent the weekend at Greers house. Greers daughter said her mother told the kids to keep the events at her house a secret. Some of the events included drinking margaritas, playing drinking games and eating marijuana-infused gummy bears. She said we shouldnt tell anybody because shed get in trouble and lose her kids, the girl testified about her mother. Benak said investigators found three photos of Greer on the cellphone of the one of the boys Greer is alleged to have sexually assaulted. Under questioning by McGough, Benak acknowledged not knowing who sent the pictures to the boy. McGough hammered away at the inability of law enforcement to find any marijuana, marijuana edibles or containers that would have held the gummy bears when they searched Greers home. He also questioned whether the kids had taken the alcohol or been given it by Greer. Appearing distraught, clutching tissues and wiping her tears, the daughter testified that she went with her mother to Walmart to purchase strawberry and watermelon margarita mix. KEARNEY The Kearney Area Parkinsons Support Group will meet 2-3 p.m. Monday at First United Methodist Church at 4500 Linden Drive in Kearney. Following a short exercise session, attendees will view a DVD from the Parkinsons Foundation titled Sleep and Parkinsons, presented by Dr. Aleksandar Videnovic from Massachusetts General Hospital. The meetings are open to anyone with movement disorders and their caregivers. Call Theresa Harris at 308-224-9908 with questions. HOLDREGE There are two reasons Al Dutcher doesnt pay attention to late winter-early spring weather predictions by Punxsutawney Phil or any other real or imagined characters. First, he lives in Nebraska, not Pennsylvania. Second, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln associate state climatologist relies on science positions of highs and lows in the Gulf of Alaska and in equatorial regions of the Pacific Ocean, historical trends, real-time maps and years of experience to guide his own weather forecasts. Dutchers late winter-early spring forecast at Tuesdays South Central Water Conference in Holdrege was, I think its going to be a tough row to hoe for calving season. Thats not good news for cattle producers or anyone hoping to downsize winter coats or put away snow boots and shovels anytime soon. Dutcher said conditions are in place for wet weather, with possibly one or two major snowstorms in Nebraska from now until mid-March. He cautioned that the storms likely will involve wet and wind-driven snow, but other dangers may include more arctic air, freezing drizzle and rain. and seek custody of the child, you must seek legal counsel from your own attorney immediately. You may file a Notice of Objection to Adoption and Intent to Obtain Cus- tody at any time during the preg- nancy and up to as last as five business days after the child's ac- tual date of birth or receipt of this notice, whichever is later. If you fail to do so, your right to object to the adoption will be extinguished. If you wish to be advised of the ac- tual date of birth of the child, please contact the above-named attorney to provide information about where you wish to be con- A potent winter storm will impact Southern Oregon and Northern California this weekend bringing low elevation snow and difficult travel conditions throughout the region. Here's everything you need to know about this storm. Be sure to check back for forecast updates. What To Expect: A much more potent storm system is expected to arrive tonight and impact our region through the weekend bringing widespread snow, even down to our lowest elevations. There is growing concern for snow and even accumulating snow in our lower elevations in the Rogue Valley and even down to the immediate coast by Saturday night. There are some key differences to the storm system as opposed to last weekend's system; This storm system is stronger and will likely produce bursts of heavier precipitation on Saturday into Saturday night that will help lower snow levels, we're seeing a much colder air mass ahead of this storm compared to the one from Monday, and this storm system is packing even colder air with it. For these reasons, that's why there's more concern for higher snow totals in our higher elevations and even some accumulating snow in our valleys. Snow levels will still be low, dropping down to 1,500' in the morning on Saturday, but we expect snow levels to drop further during the day. Moderate to heavy precipitation will help drag those snow levels down more quickly. Snow levels will likely reach the valleys later in the day and into the evening before dropping to the coast as we head into Saturday night. Significant snow is expected in our higher elevations with over 12" through the Cascades and Siskiyous. Some areas could see up to 2 feet or more. Several inches will fall for our lower passes such as the Sexton Summit and Hayes Hill. The Klamath Basin will also see several inches of accumulation for Saturday into Sunday, too. For our westside valleys, we will likely see a changeover from rain to snow Saturday with accumulations up to 1-3" on the valley floor. Totals will go up though into the foothills and for places like Ashland. Accumulating snow will also impact Northern California. The combination of snow and gusty winds in our higher elevations will likely have significant impacts to travel around Southern Oregon and Northern California. Periods of snow will continue Saturday night into Sunday morning. Any wet roads will also turn icy into Sunday morning as temperautres fall below freezing throughout the region. Any accumulating snow will taper to just flurries in the afternoon on Sunday. Winter Weather Alerts: A WINTER STORM WARNING has been issued for the areas of Siskiyou County for elevations above 3,000', Southern Oregon Cascades and Siskiyous at all elevations until 10 PM Saturday, in Klamath and Lake Counties above 4,500' from 4 AM Saturday until 10 PM Saturday, in Jackson County for elevations above 2,000' (including the city of Ashland) from 10 PM Friday until 10 PM Saturday, and in Curry and Josephine Counties for elevations above 1,500' from 10 PM Friday to 4 AM Sunday. Gusty winds in our higher elevations and east of the Cascades could lead to blowing snow and further reduced visibility. A WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY has been issued for Klamath and Lake Counties below 4,500' from 10 PM Friday until 10 PM Saturday, Siskiyou County below 3,000' from 10 PM Friday until 4 AM Sunday, for the Southern Oregon Coast below 1,500' from 4 PM Saturday until 4 AM Sunday, Josephine County below 1,500' from 4 AM Saturday until 4 AM Sunday, and for Jackson County below 2,000' from 4 AM until 10 PM Saturday. Forecast Snow Totals: Here's a breakdown of forecast snow from Friday night through Sunday morning... Higher Cascades Passes, Siskiyou & Coastal Mountains: 12-24", locally higher amounts (Hwy 140, Crater & Diamond Lake, Mt. Ashland) I-5 Siskiyou Summit: 10-14" Lower Passes & Foot Hills: 8-12" (I-5 Sexton Summit, Smith Hill, Stage Road & Canyon Mt. Pass, Hwy 199 Hayes Hill) Klamath Basin: 4-8", locally higher amounts Shasta, Seid & Illinois Valleys: 3-6" (Yreka, Montague, Happy Camp, Cave Juntion, Selma) Higher Elevations of Siskiyou County: 6-12", locally higher amounts (Mt. Shasta Ski Park, I-5, Hwy 89 & Hwy 97 near Mt. Shasta and Tennant, and western mountains) Rogue Valley & Coast: Amounts will range between 1-3" with lesser amounts towards the coast. **Forecast snow totals are subject to change ahead of the storm impacting our region.** Stay up-to-date on the forecast with StormWatch 12 on-air and online. Also, be sure to download our StormWatch 12 weather app. By MATTHEW DALY , Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) Democrats launched a sweeping plan Thursday to transform the U.S. economy to combat climate change and create thousands of jobs in renewable energy, signaling its likely elevation as a central campaign issue in 2020 despite President Donald Trump's failure to mention climate change in his State of the Union address. Goals of the 'Green New Deal' (as outlined by Senators Wyden and Merkley) The Green New Deal Resolution lays out the goals and projects for a 10-year national mobilization to: build resiliency against climate change-related disasters; repair and upgrade U.S. infrastructure; meet 100 percent of our power demand through clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources; build or upgrade to energy-efficient, distributed and smart power grids; upgrade all existing U.S. buildings and build new buildings, to achieve maximum energy efficiency; spur massive growth in clean U.S. manufacturing and remove pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from manufacturing and industry; work with farmers and ranchers to remove pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the agriculture sector; overhaul U.S. transportation systems; remove greenhouse gases and reduce pollution, including by restoring our natural ecosystems through proven low-tech solutions; restore and protect threatened, endangered, and fragile ecosystems; clean up existing hazardous waste and abandoned sites; make the United States the international leader on climate action and help other countries achieve a Green New Deal There is an imperative to curb carbon pollution to save our way of lifeand there is an opportunity in this transition that we cant afford to miss, said Senator Jeff Merkley. For too long, we have seen inequality soar, social injustices fester, worker protections and labor unions erode, and wages stagnate. As the rich and privileged consolidate power, our communities struggle for clean, safe water, to access quality health care, to afford education, and to recover from more common and powerful natural disasters. We must fundamentally change our economy to support workers, communities that have long been denied economic opportunity, and our rural economies that have been left behind. The climate crisis cannot be ignored. Its here, its happening, and its impacts are already devastating communities, Senator Ron Wyden said. The Green New Deal resolution sends a powerful message that its time for Congress to kick Americas carbon habit. A failure to act spells dire consequences for the health and safety of our families, our economy, and the future of our planet. At least six senators running for president or considering White House bids backed the Green New Deal put forth by freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and veteran Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts. The nonbinding resolution calls for a "10-year national mobilization" on the scale of the original New Deal to shift the economy away from fossil fuels such as oil and coal and replace them with renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power. It sets a goal to meet "100 percent of the power demand in the United States through clean, renewable and zero-emission energy sources," including nuclear power. "Our energy future will not be found in the dark of a mine but in the light of the sun," Markey said at a Capitol news conference. The plan goes far beyond energy to urge national health care coverage and job guarantees, as well as high-quality education and affordable housing. The resolution urges elimination of fossil fuels pollution and greenhouse gas emissions "as much as technologically feasible" in a range of economic sectors and calls for "upgrading all existing buildings in the United States" to be energy-efficient. Markey predicted more Democrats would sign on as the plan gets better known and said some Republicans may back it. More than 80 percent of registered voters supported the concept of a Green New Deal in a December poll by Yale and George Mason universities. "This is now a voting issue across the country," Markey said. "The green generation has risen up and they are saying they want this issue solved" as one of the top two or three issues in the 2020 election. A coalition of labor, economic justice, racial justice, indigenous, and environmental organizations immediately announced their support. While setting lofty goals, the plan does not explicitly call for eliminating the use of fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas, a nod to pragmatism that may disappoint some of Ocasio-Cortez's strongest backers. Even so, the Green New Deal is more ambitious than the Clean Power Plan proposed by former President Barack Obama to impose emissions limits on coal-fired power plants. Trump, who has expressed doubts about climate change, scrapped Obama's plan as a job killer. While Democrats did not specify a price tag, some Republicans predict it would cost in the trillions of dollars. GOP lawmakers denounced the plan as a radical proposal that would drive the economy off a cliff and lead to a huge tax increase. "The Green New Deal is a raw deal for the American taxpayer," said Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Barrasso called the plan "a socialist manifesto that lays out a laundry list of government giveaways, including guaranteed food, housing, college and economic security even for those who refuse to work." Ocasio-Cortez said the plan's scope was its strength, saying "small, incremental policy solutions are not enough" to repel climate change, which she called an "existential threat" to the planet. Far from overreach, the plan addresses a sense of growing frustration by young people and others who "don't feel we're being ambitious enough" to address a potentially cataclysmic danger, she said. With a whiff of presidential politics and a rock-star freshman in attendance, Democrats drew an unusually large crowd for the Green New Deal unveiling. The outdoor event was attended by more journalists and activists than lawmakers. It was a notable gathering for a proposal that is not a bill, but only guidance for any legislation on climate change Congress develops. The measure is supported by at least six senators with their eyes on the White House: Cory Booker of New Jersey, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Kamala Harris of California, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota. None of the six attended the news conference, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said hours earlier she hadn't read the proposal. Pelosi did not explicitly endorse it, but welcomed "the enthusiasm" of its backers. "I welcome the Green New Deal and any other proposals" to address climate change, Pelosi said, adding that she also wants to hear from a new House committee on climate change. Pelosi said the panel will "spearhead Democrats' work" on climate issues. Ocasio-Cortez said Pelosi invited her to join the climate panel but she declined, saying she wants to focus on the Green New Deal and other committee assignments. The resolution introduced Thursday marks the first legislative language attached to the Green New Deal, a concept that until now has been loosely defined as a call for action to head off catastrophic climate change and create jobs. Answering critics who call the plan unrealistic, Ocasio-Cortez said that when President John F. Kennedy wanted to go to the moon by the end of the 1960s, "people said it was impossible." She compared the plan to Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal and Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society. While focusing on renewable energy, Ocasio-Cortez said the plan would include existing nuclear power plants but block new nuclear plants. Nuclear power does not emit greenhouse gases, which contribute to global warming. Asked how the plan would be paid for, Ocasio-Cortez said it would be "the same way we paid for the original New Deal, World War II, the bank bailouts, tax cuts for the rich and decades of war with public money appropriated by Congress." She called the plan an "investment" that would produce more than it costs in new infrastructure, jobs and avoided health care costs. .@AOC unveils #GreenNewDeal: "Today is also the day that we choose to assert ourselves as a global leader in transitioning to 100% renewable energy and charting that path... We should do it because we are an example to the world." https://t.co/2wVPSEx6SK pic.twitter.com/a6AG8TWtPK The Hill (@thehill) February 7, 2019 In a statement issued on Wednesday, Representative Greg Walden (R-Hood River) expressed skepticism about a proposal as dramatic as the Green New Deal promises to be, saying that "adapting Americas power portfolio in a way that benefits both the economy and the environment" was the better course of action. Walden said he was concerned that "certain Democratic proposals" on climate change would be too costly for taxpayers and consumers, potentially hurting jobs and economic growth. We want a healthy environment for our children, grandchildren, and their children. But we also want the people who live in our districts and in this country today, right now, to have jobs and to be able to provide for their families, said Walden. These are not mutually exclusive principles. Working together we can develop the public policies to achieve these goals. The Sacklers and members of their company Purdue Pharma have been named in a lawsuit that accuses them of profiting from the opioid crisis by aggressively marketing OxyContin, claims denied by attorneys for the family and Purdue. Tim and Beverly Nyden stopped in Kansas City on Tuesday to get some much needed rest after leaving Lynchburg, Virginia the night before. "As a nonpartisan organization, we don't call for the election or removal of individual politicians, but we will state the obvious: Any government official in the region or across the nation must be able to represent our diverse citizenry and govern effectively," Board of Trade President and CEO Jack McDougle said in the statement. "Our region is evolving rapidly and, more than ever, we need strong leadership that unites us." An American Airlines plane prepares to take off at the UK's Manchester Airport in May 2018. An American Airlines pilot has been arrested on suspicion of being drunk a few minutes before he was scheduled to take off from the UK's Manchester Airport. Ronan Farrow said Thursday that he and "at least one other prominent journalist" who had reported on the National Enquirer and President Donald Trump received blackmail threats from the tabloid's parent company, American Media Inc., over their work. Farrow's allegation came just hours after Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos published a remarkable public post accusing the National Enquirer of attempting to extort and blackmail him by threatening to publish intimate photos unless he stopped investigating the publication. (Bezos owns The Washington Post.) In a tweet Thursday night, Farrow wrote that he and the unnamed journalist "fielded similar 'stop digging or we'll ruin you' blackmail efforts from AMI." Farrow, who last April published a story in the New Yorker about the Enquirer's "catch and kill" practice -- in which stories are buried by paying off sources -- that benefited Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign. Farrow, in his tweet, added that he "did not engage as I don't cut deals with subjects of ongoing reporting." AMI did not immediately return a message from The Post about Farrow's claim. In response to Farrow, former Associated Press editor Ted Bridis tweeted, "We were warned explicitly by insiders that AMI had hired private investigators to dig into backgrounds of @AP journalists looking into the tabloid's efforts on behalf of Trump." Bridis spent 11 years as the editor of the AP's Washington investigative team. The relationship between the National Enquirer and Trump has been repeatedly scrutinized by the media, given the president's long friendship with AMI chief executive David Pecker. Beyond Pecker directing the Enquirer to publish favorable stories about Trump in 2016, last year AMI admitted to paying $150,000 in hush money to a woman who allegedly had an affair with Trump to prevent the woman's story from "influencing the election." Federal prosecutors in December reached an agreement with AMI that they would not prosecute the company for its role in attempting to influence the election if they cooperated and admitted to paying off the woman. On Thursday, Bezos wrote that he began investigating the tabloid after it published a story, complete with text messages, that revealed his relationship with former TV anchor Lauren Sanchez. Bezos said the Enquirer wanted him and his security consultant, Gavin de Becker, to make a false public statement saying they "have no knowledge or basis for suggesting that AMI's coverage was politically motivated or influenced by political forces." Emails published by Bezos appeared show Enquirer executives threatening to publish a series of salacious photos of him and Sanchez if the demands were not met. This story first appeared in the Washington Post. Gutierrez, a former alderman who was part of the late Mayor Harold Washingtons Rainbow Coalition, made his mark as an immigration reform advocate with a high national profile on the issue. Born in Chicago and of Puerto Rican decent, he was a vocal critical of the Trump administrations response to the heavy damage inflicted there by Hurricane Maria in 2017. The congressman visited the island to deliver food and supplies from Chicagoans. Detectives have checked more than a dozen cameras in the Streeterville area but had yet to find any footage of an attack. They have been able to track stretches of Smolletts walk between the Subway shop and his apartment building and have spotted two other people in the area at the time. But the images are dark and blurry. Three jailhouse witnesses have said Carter told them he killed a cop, including Carters former cellmate who gave the most extensive details about the purported confession, but later recanted. Under a new state law intended to add more scrutiny to controversial use of jailhouse informants, who have been known to lie to get more leniency in their own cases, judges now assess the reliability of these informants ahead of trial. On 15 January 2019, the Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) acquitted Laurent Gbagbo and Charles Ble Goude by a majority, stating that the prosecution had not provided evidence of all the required elements of the crimes against the accused. All eyes focused on Gbagbo because of his status as former president of Cote dIvoire. An immediate question was the consequences of this acquittal for his place on the Ivorian political scene. This reminds us of a recent precedent in Kenya, where two major ICC defendants, Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto, found in the proceedings against them a motivation for their political union, and made it a powerful electoral argument. Being able to present themselves as victims of external, even neo-imperialist intervention contributed to their victory in the presidential elections. Once elected, they were able to complain that the Court did not respect their immunity and they may have convinced the witnesses to stop speaking. Their reputation increased when the case was dismissed, so that they appeared as the heroes they are not. The question is therefore, on the one hand, why an acquittal seems to improve the public profile of politicians and, on the other hand, what are the specific issues of the double acquittal in the Cote dIvoire case. Acquittal is not innocence The first question requires a simplified answer. Many people think acquittal means innocence and that if the prosecutor could not convince the court, it is because the charges were unfounded. However, nothing could be further from the truth. First, the prosecution may fail on technical issues, sometimes with private personal perspectives. I am thinking in particular of the Protais Zigiranyirazo case, a man considered central to the Hutu extremist movement in Rwanda, and prosecuted for genocide before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). The accused wrote a pamphlet expressing all his hatred of the Tutsi and it is difficult to doubt that his hatred did not lead him, in 1994, to participate in discussions on the identification of persons to be eliminated. However, the ICTR Appeals Chamber considered that the Trial Chamber was deeply mistaken about the burden of proof as well as the standard of proof. In such a case, it would have been logical to refer the case to another Trial Chamber. But no, the Appeals Chamber decided to acquit, opening the way for all possible speculation on this extreme option, which took no account of the merits of the case or the interests of the victims. It is difficult to infer from such an acquittal that the accuseds innocence has been established. Shortly before Gbagbo, there was also the case of Jean-Pierre Bemba, a former Congolese vice-president accused before the ICC of crimes committed in the Central African Republic in 2003. Here, the decision of the Appeals Chamber to acquit was equally technical, with additional complexity due to the interplay of judges opinions: three out of five considered that he should be acquitted, but for different reasons. What a mess! Again, why not refer to a new Trial Chamber? How many substantive acquittals? Acquittal is therefore not necessarily the restoration of innocence because it may mean that what the accused person did was simply not found out. But that is the way criminal justice works: the monopoly of violence against the individual does not justify establishing responsibility in the absence of sufficient evidence, and as a lawyer I respect this principle. Some acquittals, however, are more strongly in the direction of innocence. This is the case of Andre Rwamakuba, former Minister of Education during the genocide in Rwanda, where the prosecution case collapsed in its entirety, to the point that reading between the lines of the judgment one could wonder whether the case had not been fabricated. The reasoning of the Trial Chamber had been so harsh that the prosecution, despite an initial will to appeal, quietly gave up. But how frequent are these substantive acquittals? way open for Ble Goude The second question, on the political consequences of the ICCs decision in the Ivorian case, seems to me to have partly missed the point. Because the real question should not focus on Gbagbo but on his co-acquitted, Ble Goude. Gbagbo comes out of prison with a new aura but his age 73 is not in his favour. He can be expected to set about healing the wounds in his party unifying its supporters while continuing the battle against age and legal procedures. There is no guarantee that he will want to get involved politically, at least not at the forefront. He has found a clean image that he may not want to dirty by entering the ring. President Ouattaras side is not in a better position. There are sparks between him and his former Prime Minister Guillaume Soro, and the risk of fire is not minor. Henri Konan Bedie, kingmaker but even older (84 years old), is mostly looking for a new alliance for him and his movement. Ble Goude, by contrast, is young and dynamic, a force for the youth of the Gbagbo camp. The way has opened for him to throw himself back into the political ring and hope to capitalize, like others before him, on his judicial martyrdom and on Gbagbos aura, whose companion in misfortune he has been much more than any other. This is the real risk for the political scene in Cote dIvoire. However, in truth, it is not the acquittal at the ICC that creates this risk but the loss of power of the Ouattara-Soro duo, in association with Bedie. The failure of this alliance, conceived in 2010, makes this acquittal an opportunity for Ble Goude more than for Gbagbo. The future will tell us what he will do with it. Dont get the wrong target International criminal justice must learn to play its part more effectively. Acquittal is not a problem in itself, but it should be rare if the prosecution did its job well. The prosecutors office should not proceed with a case if it is not sure of its evidence. The rate of acquittals and dismissal of charges at the ICC 9 people (Gbagbo, Ble Goude, Bemba, Kenyatta, Ruto, Sang, Ngudjolo Chui, Mbarushimana and Gharda) compared with 3 convicted persons (Al Mahdi, Katanga and Lubanga) is raising the alarm. We should not be distracted by the possible political repercussions when the important fact is the failure of the prosecutor. The national political impact is just a coincidence. Summerville, SC (29483) Today Partly cloudy this morning. A few showers developing during the afternoon. High 84F. Winds ENE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 30%.. Tonight Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 66F. Winds ENE at 5 to 10 mph. There's a new move out there -- the Virginia facepalm. I got it from just about every Virginian I talked to this week about the blackface scandals threatening the governor and attorney general, and the sexual assault allegation engulfing the lieutenant governor. They take a hand out of a pocket in the freezing rain to do it. They put down a beer to do it. They shift a kid to the other hip to do it. "Do you have a minute to talk about all this?" I'd ask. Hand goes out, face goes in, head shakes. The Commonwealth has had a rough go of things this week, whiplashing from national darling to dumpster fire when a domino effect of misdeeds plopped Virginia's three top Democratic leaders into hot water. Gov. Ralph Northam is still writhing after the bombshell of a 1984 medical school yearbook page exploded. His photo spread included a picture of two men in costume with beers in their hands - one in blackface, the other in a Ku Klux Klan hood and robe. President Donald Trumps State of the Union address was not a great speech he can no more deliver a great speech than his bargain-basement aides can craft one but it was greatly revealing. What it showed is how little his views have in common with what used to be known as American conservatism. There was, in fact, almost nothing conservative about it save for his cheap-shot attack on socialism (which he equated with Venezuela rather than, say, Denmark) and his evangelical-pleasing call to ban late-term abortions. He offered almost no domestic agenda, but much of what he proposed more infrastructure spending, nationwide paid family leave, and lowering prescription drug prices was straight out of the liberal wish-list. There was not a mention of cutting spending or balancing the budget once staples of GOP rhetoric. Republicans used to be the party of free trade, but Trump bragged about his imposition of tariffs and asked for authority to impose even more tariffs (a.k.a. taxes). Republicans also used to be the law and order party, but in one of the speechs odder lines if there is going to be peace and legislation, there cannot be war and investigation Trump seemed to equate special counsel Robert S. Mueller III with foreign enemies bent on attacking America. The reality is, of course, the opposite: Mueller is defending America from an attack carried out by Russia. On Thursday morning, Dr. Bill Roper, interim UNC system president, was asked about the photos during a media availability with Kevin Guskiewicz, who was just named interim chancellor of the Chapel Hill campus on Wednesday. "There's a number of things about our past that we need to understand and deal with," Roper said. "That's a horrific part of our past, one that I think has no place then or now in our university system." Guskiewicz, also asked about the images on Thursday, said, "We clearly became aware of this last evening. As President Roper said, there's no place certainly now or in the past -- I don't believe that that reflects what our university is about today, nor could I believe it represents what it was about back in 1979. So we are disheartened by that and we'll continue to monitor it." Joel Curran, vice chancellor of university communications, said Thursday that, "The photos found in the 1979 student yearbook are abhorrent. We fully and wholly condemn both the photos and the racist behavior they depict. That kind of behavior has no place on our campus now or then." Curran said the yearbook is designed and created entirely by students. Thousands of yearbooks from North Carolina schools are available for viewing online through the N.C. Digital Heritage Center. Woodbury, who spoke to reporters after the news conference had ended, said that she is confident that the board can find a good replacement for Emory. Kellie Easton, the coordinator of Action4Equity, a group that has been holding the school systems feet to the fire over concerns such as the achievement gap between races and school health issues, said Friday in a telephone interview that Emory failed to live up to promises she made when she came on board with the schools. There are many people in the community who have been demanding that more attention be paid to (Emorys) contract and wanted her to quit or get fired, Easton said. I have heard people share that with the school board in the past. (Emory) did say how much she cared about the students, and how diversity and equity were important to her, but there were no significant measures made toward achieving much of what she outlined. Easton said she will be pleased to see Emory go, because it will give the school board a chance to look for fresh leadership. Several school board members praised Emory in comments after the announcement, as they stood in the administration offices. Winston-Salem police arrested a teenager Friday at Carver High School after officers accused the teen of carrying a gun under his clothes, authorities said. Ja'lyn Rahshard Washington, 16, of Quail Drive was charged with possession of a handgun on educational property, possession of a handgun by a minor and carrying a concealed gun, police said. The incident happened at 12:25 p.m. when detectives and a school-resource officer were speaking with Washington at the school on an matter unrelated to weapons' charges, police said. The detectives then seized a handgun from Washington, police said. Washington also was charged with robbery with a dangerous weapon, possession of a stolen automobile and first-degree burglary, police said. Washington was being held Friday in the Forsyth County Jail with his bond set at $100,000, police said. Washington is scheduled to appear in court on Feb. 28. Anyone with information about this incident is asked to call Winston-Salem police at 336-773-7700 or Crime Stoppers at 336-727-2800. Crime Stoppers is also on Facebook. Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Police sources said detectives are not sure of the motive but that the boys mother has been shot in the past. The boys father is serving time in a federal prison downstate for identity theft and is due to be released in two months. The father of the boys older brother, who also was in the SUV, was killed in a previous shooting. Details were not available. Q: I just received a call claiming it was from the Internal Revenue Service and that I am subject to lawsuit for tax violations, and that I should call them or I will be prosecuted within 24 hours. I have the number they called from. Should they be reported, and to whom? P.B. Answer: Its the time of year that these hoaxes increase. The 888 telephone number you gave us is commonly associated with these scams, and as you suspected, has nothing to do with the IRS. According to an IRS report, thieves call taxpayers claiming to be IRS officials. They demand that the victim pay a bogus tax bill. They con the victim into sending cash, usually through a prepaid debit card or wire transfer. They may also leave urgent callback requests through phone robo-calls, or via phishing email. Callers try to scare their victims. Many phone scams use threats to intimidate and bully a victim into paying. They may even threaten to arrest, deport or revoke the license of their victim if they dont get the money. Scammers sometimes use spoofing technology to make it look like the call came from a legitimate agency number, and use IRS titles and fake badge numbers to appear legitimate. They often target seniors, immigrants, and people who speak English as a second language. Q: Id like some history about a lamp that belonged to my grandparents. It has a wooden base with brass trim and a reverse-painted glass shade with a boat scene. Its signed C. Durand, Pairpoint Corp 19. Is that the year it was made? Answer: Pairpoint Manufacturing Company was founded by Thomas J. Pairpoint in New Bedford, Massachusetts, in 1880. It became the Pairpoint Corporation in 1900. Reverse-painted glass shades were made until the 1930s. The signature C. Durand was used by the artist who painted the shade, Adolph J. Frederick. We dont know why he chose a pseudonym for his signature. Frederick worked at Pairpoint from 1891 until 1937. The number marked on your shade probably means it was made in 1919. The company was reorganized several times, and the name was changed. It became the Pairpoint Glass Company in 1957 and is still in business, now in Sagamore, Massachusetts, where it makes luxury glass items. Pairpoint lamps sell at auction for several hundred to a few thousand dollars. Q: Is there a new collecting vocabulary? I remember an antique had to be 100 years old, so that means it is anything made before 1918. Vintage meant anything too new to be antique but not young enough to be collectible. And contemporary meant something made recently or even today. About 25 residents attended the Enfield Fire Commission meeting Thursday night to hear an update on a January vote to purchase new fire vehicles. (Jessica Lerner / Journal Inquirer) HARTFORD On a nearly party-line vote, the House approved a bill Tuesday that would grant people on parole the right to vote, but the measure The victim was inside her apartment with a 54-year-old-man when they heard a knock at the door. When they opened it, they saw three unknown males. When they immediately tried to close the door, the group started to push their way in but failed. Sgt. Robert Sell, of the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office, spoke of his role as a liaison to the state's Fusion Center during the Homeland Security and Emergency Management quarterly meeting Friday. As an indication of how various interests will fight over how to divvy up tax revenue from the new industry, Ammons bill would create a 10 percent excise tax on marijuana and send 30 percent of the proceeds to a state school fund; 50 percent to the General Fund; and 2.5 percent each to the State Employees Retirement Pension, Teachers Retirement System, State Universities Retirement System and to Illinois State Police, to hire and train drug enforcement officers. Page Content The City of Johannesburgs Transport Department has invited residents of Soweto to a feedback session addressing safety solutions along Koma Road tomorrow, 9 February 2019. The feedback session at the Jabulani Civic Centre from 9am to 1pm, is aimed at sharing proposed solutions and conceptual designs aimed at correcting accident causing elements and other contributing factors along the 6.8km corridor between Chris Hani and Elias Motsoaledi roads. The session will also highlight proposed interventions aimed at addressing the needs of vulnerable road users such as scholars, pedestrians, public transport users and people living with disabilities. Cody Cottier covers town and state government. He grew up with a view of the Olympic Mountains, and after graduating Washington State University he traded it for a view of the Tetons. Odds are the mountains are where youll find him when not on deadline. Allie Gross covers Teton County government. Originally from the Chicago area, she joined the News&Guide in 2017 after studying politics and Spanish at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Scene Editor Billy Arnold covers arts and entertainment. He apprenticed as a sound engineer at the Beachland Ballroom in Cleveland, Ohio before making his way to Jackson, where he has become a low-key fan of country music. Yes. Our bridges and roads are crumbling. No. It is too expensive. Yes but the current price tag is too high. I support it but for less money. No. States should pay for this, not the federal government. I haven't really thought about it. Vote View Results For nature lovers, a long weekend in March to witness the migration makes for a magical spring getaway. This isnt one of those adventures where you hike miles or wait hours to catch a fleeting glimpse of some elusive creature. You dont need to be an expert birdwatcher; you dont even need binoculars. And while you can pay for guided tours, public viewing spots arent hard to find. As sure as the sun rises and sets, youll see the cranes. Russia's Supreme Court later ruled the group was "extremist" and ordered it to disband nationwide. Both statements came a day after a court in the western city of Oryol found Dennis Christensen, a Danish citizen and a member of the Jehovah's Witnesses, guilty of "organizing the activity of an extremist organization" in Russian Federation and handed him a six-year prison sentence. The Russian president noted that Jehovah's Witnesses are also Christians and he did not understand why they were persecuted. The policies have caused some of the religious group's adherents to flee the country and seek refuge in neighboring nations. The statement gives neither the number of people detained nor the exact date of the arrests. According to the statement, the suspects held illegal gatherings, "propagating extremist ideas and recruiting new members to the banned religious group". In a statement released on February 7, officials in the Khanty-Mansiisk region in northwestern Siberia said that they had arrested another group of Jehovah's Witnesses for preaching their superiority over other religious organizations. Before the ban, the world headquarters of the Jehovah's Witnesses claimed about 170,000 adherents in Russian Federation. The religious group got a glimmer of hope in December when President Vladimir Putin publicly pledged to look into the reported persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses, calling extremism charges against the religion's adherents "nonsense". "Deeply concerned by the six-year sentence imposed on Jehovah's Witness Dennis Christensen", she tweeted. "Everyone acquainted with Dennis Christensen knows that he has committed no crime. Jehovah's Witnesses will continue to appeal for justice while supporting their fellow worshippers", Paul Gillies, worldwide Spokesman for Jehovah's Witnesses, told Newsweek. Jehovah's Witnesses is an global religious organization that supports offbeat views on the essence of the Christian faith and provides special interpretations of many commonly accepted notions. "The harsh sentence imposed on Christensen creates a risky precedent, and effectively criminalizes the right to freedom of religion or belief for Jehovah's Witnesses in Russian Federation - in contravention of the State's obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights", Michelle Bachelet, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in a statement. "Dropping the case against Christensen would be a good first step toward ending the raids and other criminal cases against people who are merely practicing their faith". Campus to Celebrate Asian Culture at Lunar New Year BLOOMINGTON, Ill. Illinois Wesleyan University students will come together with food, music and dancing to mark the Year of the Pig, during the 2019 Lunar New Year celebration on Sunday, Feb. 10 at 5:30 p.m. at the Young Main Lounge in the Memorial Center (104 E. University Ave, Bloomington). This event is free and open to the public. A prominent holiday in several Asian countries, the Lunar New Year is an opportunity to showcase several unique traditions from Vietnam, Korea, China, Japan and India. Co-hosted by Chinese Culture and Communication Club and Japanese Language and Culture Club, the evening will include free Asian cuisine and cultural performances. Student-led performances will include a Japanese fan dance by Japanese Language and Culture Club, a K-pop routine by Cypher Dance Team and a traditional Chinese Lion Dance. This years festival will specifically highlight India with an Indian dinner and a dance by the McLean County Indian Association (MCIA). By Rachel McCarthy 21 With all major mobile carriers expected to offer 5G this year, enterprises that want to take advantage of this next-gen mobile data service need to start thinking about how to support it on site. Anticipation is keen for 5G, given that it promises to deliver faster speeds and lower latency than the current premium wireless technology, 4G LTE. Ideally, 5G networks could deliver fast internet to areas of the country where wired broadband is unavailable, and more reliable connections to a variety of devices including not only computers and smartphones but also appliances, automobiles and security systems. But to use these services as a WAN option, businesses need hardware that can connect it to their existing wired and wireless LANs.Here's a rundown of the device makers that are known or rumored to be providing networking gear to pipe 5G to your office. D-Link 5G gateway D-Link revealed its DWR-2010 5G NR Enhanced Gateway in January. The device accepts a SIM card to receive 5G and 4G LTE signals from a carrier and routes them to devices connected to it by Wi-Fi or Ethernet. It has AC2600 dual band Wi-Fi (which transmits up to 800 Mbps and 1732 Mbps for each band) with MU-MIMO, and 5 Ethernet ports. D-Link D-Links 5G NR Enhanced Gateway will be available in the second half of 2019. It supports D-Link's own Wi-Fi Mesh Technology (which allows for it to be networked with other D-Link routers) and Voice over LTE to let you make voice calls on your carrier's LTE network. The DWR-2010 is scheduled for release sometime in the second half of 2019. Many D-Link devices are sold to the general public. It remains to be seen if this will be true with the DWR-2010. For now the company lists its price as "varied" depending on which 5G carrier will provide it for its customers. HTC 5G hub HTC and Sprint announced in November that they're working together to develop a mobile 5G "smart hub" to support the carrier's 5G network. (Sprint's 5G network is set to launch sometime in the first half of this year.) The intial announcement revealed only that the device will run Qualcomm's Snapdragon x50 5G modem chipset. More details emerged in December, when a 5G hub device developed by HTC was revealed for use on Australian carrier Telstra's 5G network. The HTC 5G Hub for Telstra has a display about the size of a small smartphone to show status information for 5G and Wi-Fi signals, and the devices connected to it. It's speculated that the display larger than usual for a hotspot could also be used to show pictures and video. As of this writing, it hasn't been confirmed if the HTC 5G Hub is the same smart hub device that Sprint will sell to customers to use on its 5G network. Huawei's 5G devices In February of last year, Huawei announced devices that would run its own 5G chipset, the Balong 5G01. The company claimed it would be the first to support the final 5G specifications sanctioned by 3GPP, the trade group that governs cellular standards. Huawei also revealed two 5G router devices: A large unit that comes in both indoor and outdoor models, and a smaller unit for indoor use. At the time, the larger 5G models were being tested on a major Canadian carrier, Telus. But ongoing controversy is impeding the Chinese company's plans. The U.S. government accuses Huawei of enabling spying through its devices, perhaps at the behest of the Chinese government. So Huawei has been banned from supplying its equipment to the U.S.'s emerging 5G networks. Australia and New Zealand have also decided to fully ban Huawei from their nations' 5G infrastructure. Inseego 5G mobile hotspot Inseego has two 5G routers, both for the Verizon's 5G network that launched in October. The first, the R1000, is a white cylinder that takes the 5G signal from Verizons towers and forwards it to devices connected to it. It supports Wi-Fi with 4x4 MIMO technology and Voice over LTE, has power-over-Ethernet capability and can run on a battery that is replaceable. The computer network at the Federal Parliament has been infiltrated and security agencies are now trying to find out if any data was stolen in the attack and who was responsible. The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian both reported the breach, with the former saying that the director-general of the Australian Signals Directorate, Mike Burgess, and the head of the Australian Cyber Security Centre, Alastair MacGibbon, were both on the scene. The passwords of all users of the network were changed as a precaution. In 2011, the network was breached by attackers who were said to be from China and its defences were upgraded thereafter. The speaker of the House of Representatives, Tony Smith, and the Senate president, Scott Ryan, issued a joint statement, saying that the perpetrator(s) were as yet unknown. The Department of Parliamentary Services and relevant agencies are working jointly to take the necessary steps to investigate the incident, while our immediate focus has been on security of the network and protecting data and users,they said. There is no evidence that any data has been accessed or taken at this time. However this will remain subject to ongoing investigation. Similarly, we have no evidence that this is an attempt to influence the outcome of parliamentary processes or to disrupt or influence electoral or political processes. The Department of Parliamentary Services and relevant agencies are working jointly to take the necessary steps to investigate the incident, while our immediate focus has been on securing the network and protecting data and users. While there is no guaranteed approach to cyber security, best practice is the ability to detect and remediate threats quickly. The department has done this working jointly with expert agencies. An ASD spokesperson said in a statement: "We can confirm the Australian Signals Directorate is working with the Department of Parliamentary Services on this matter to ensure the network and its users are protected. The Department of Parliamentary Services responded immediately to the detection. "ASD and its Australian Cyber Security Centre will continue to work with DPS to understand the full extent of this network compromise. "Meanwhile, the necessary steps are being taken to mitigate the compromise and prevent any harm. "At this early stage, our immediate focus is on securing the network and protecting its users. Proper and accurate attribution of a cyber incident takes time." Daniel Lai, the head of ASX-listed Canberra-based cyber security firm archTIS, told iTWire: "Clearly the international rule of law has broken down. If this morning's reports are true, Australia's democracy is under attack in an unspoken cyber war with foreign entities. "This proves once again that old antiquated security models no longer have the capacity to protect our existing systems that we rely on to safeguard our national sovereignty and values. We need to take urgent action to protect our government institutions, our economic interests and our national security. "What is most bizarre about this incident is the fact that we have a cyber security industry in Canberra that is unparalleled in the world and yet our government is still looking to overseas multinationals for the answers. "If they had them we would not be so compromised. The government is still trapped in cultural constraints that are not letting them engage effectively with industry to adopt innovative security solutions that would give them a competitive advantage against these adversaries. We need to do something differently. After all, the definition of madness is doing the same thing over again and expecting a different result." Mark Sinclair, ANZ country manager of security outfit WatchGuard Technologies, was of the opinion that a sophisticated attack requiring a mature skillset was highly likely to be executed by a foreign state-based actor or a very well-funded organisation. "The fact that it is targeting MPs is a strong indication that it is a foreign nation. Any MP can be the target of such an attack since the attacker may be able use it as a springboard to launch subsequent attacks on other MPs on the network," he said. "If this attack was the result of weak or stolen credentials then the use of multi-factor authentication will play a big part in preventing further attacks. Geoff Andrews, APAC regional director of Ping Identity, said: "Although Ping Identity has no specific insights into this incident, we are aware of several highly active state-sponsored cyber actors who have successfully compromised other government entities worldwide. "Government ministers and MPs are high-value targets for hackers. Highly sensitive information assets should, at a minimum, be protected by multi-factor authentication, including something you are (biometric), something you know, for example a password, and something you have such as a one-time code or token. Sophisticated protections will overlay intelligent, dynamic step-ups in authentication based on other factors such as location, time, changing IP addresses, or other behavioural characteristics." Michael Warnock, Australia country manage of Aura Information Security, said the breach against confirmed that distance did not provide any defence for the Australian public and private sectors. "Both individuals and their employers need to have proactive cyber defence measures in place day in day out and also ensure that they have a strong focus on educating their employees," he said. "As with the community in general, the Australian public sector is in the sight of cyber criminals and we should all continue to take note of the ASD Essential 8 strategies to mitigate cyber security incidents. Email fraud attacks continue to grow dramatically, with the number of attacks against targeted companies increasing 226% between Q3 2018 and Q4 2018, and a whopping 476% when comparing Q4 2017 and Q4 2018, according to a new global security threat report. Email fraud has seen explosive growth and its clear that todays cybercriminals are relentlessly targeting people, rather than infrastructure, said Tim Bentley, vice president of Asia-Pacific and Japan for cyber security and compliance company, Proofpoint. As these threats continue to grow in volume and sophistication, it is imperative that Australian organisations implement a people-centric security approach that includes a comprehensive email fraud defence and security awareness training. Ultimately, Australians must consider the individual risk each user represents, and understand how they are targeted, in order to better protect them. The report from Proofpoint, revealing threats and trends across its own global customer base and in the wider threat landscape, found that banking trojans remained the top email-borne threat in Q4 2018, making up 56% of all malicious payloads. And of those, 76% were classified as Emotet (advanced, modular banking trojans). With remote access trojans accounting for 8.4% of all malicious payloads in Q4 and 5.2% for the year, marking what Proofpoint says was a significant change from previous years in which they were rarely used by crimeware actors. Proofpoint says social media channels remain key vectors for fraud and theft, While the platforms themselves continue to develop automated protections, social media fraud remains a key challenge for consumers and the brands in which they interact, with fraudulent social media support account phishing, or angler phishing, increasing by 442% year-on-year. Interestingly, phishing links on social channels continue to drop as platforms address this issue algorithmically, Proofpoint notes. Proofpoint says Australian organisations can further protect themselves in the coming months by taking the following steps: Assume users will click Social engineering is increasingly the most popular way to launch email attacks and criminals continue to find new ways to exploit the human factor. Leverage a solution that identifies and quarantines both inbound email threats targeting employees and outbound threats targeting customers before they reach the inbox. Build a robust email fraud defence Highly-targeted, low volume business email compromise scams often have no payload at all and are thus difficult to detect. Invest in a solution that has dynamic classification capabilities that you can use to build quarantine and blocking policies. Protect your brand reputation and customers Fight attacks targeting your customers over social media, email, and mobileespecially fraudulent accounts that piggyback on your brand. Look for a comprehensive social media security solution that scans all social networks and reports fraudulent activity. Partner with a threat intelligence vendor Smaller, more targeted attacks call for sophisticated threat intelligence. Leverage a solution that combines static and dynamic techniques to detect new attack tools, tactics, and targetsand then learns from them. Train users to spot and report malicious email: Regular training and simulated attacks can stop many attacks and help identify people who are especially vulnerable. The best simulations mimic real-world attack techniques. Look for solutions that tie into current trends and the latest threat intelligence. To download the Proofpoint Q4 2018 threat report click here. In an interview with this newspaper about his previous book, Scapellato said of this novel that he was trying to turn the genres of film noir and detective stories inside out in some ways. The most prominent of these ways are his extremely mannered stylistic choices. He makes most chapters relatively short in many cases, no more than a line or a single paragraph on a page and the text itself floats adrift in a sea of white space, perhaps to indicate the depth of Stanleys perplexity and isolation. Moreover, as opposed to a table of contents, Scapellato gives the reader only a List of Scenes, emphasizing the choppy nature of the storytelling. Nearly half (46%) of all e-commerce market revenue in Australia last year was transacted through mobile devices, the tech analyst firm Telsyte says, with what it calls the m-commerce market being worth $15.2 billion in 2018, compared to $12.0 billion in 2017. The increase was reported in the Telsyte Australian Smartphone & Wearable Devices Market Study 2019. It came as the number of Australians using smartphones grew despite device price increases, with about 9.1 million active primary iPhone users and 11 million Android users at the end of 2018. These figures were up from 8.6 million and 10.3 million respectively at the end of 2017. About 4.6 million smartphones were sold in the second half of 2018, Telsyte said, a fall of 3% from the corresponding period in 2017. The average selling price went up by 13%. Telsyte said of 1025 users surveyed, nearly one in four (24%) indicated they were waiting for 5G devices to arrive before buying a new smartphone. Another 33% said 5G capability would be an important factor in deciding on their next smartphone. The survey also found that smartphones were increasingly being used for mobile payments, with about half of all mobile payment users saying they used smartphones for this purpose regularly. One in eight Australians between the ages of 16 and 34 the so-called millennials had changed or joined a new banking provider because of lack of support for mobile payments. Fourteen percent of Apple Watch users had done likewise. The company said about nine million smartphones would be sold in 2019, up 1% compared to 2018, as only a handful of Android vendors were expected to release 5G smartphones this year. However, if Apple released a 5G iPhone at its usual timeframe in 2019, Telsyte predicted that this could lift total sales to 9.4 million, putting growth closer to 6%. There is a clear imperative for carriers to bring 5G handsets to market as soon as possible given the lengthening of the replacement cycle, Telsyte managing director Foad Fadaghi said. John Stanton: "The bill, as passed, still raises serious concerns for many stakeholders on a range of fronts." Communications Alliance chief John Stanton has urged the IT industry to highlight the changes needed in the Federal Government's encryption law that was passed last year, telling a forum in Sydney on Thursday that there was an urgent need "to try to repair this dangerous piece of legislation". "The bill, as passed, still raises serious concerns for many stakeholders on a range of fronts, including the scope of the powers given to agencies, the damaging impact of the legislation on the Australian IT industry, the dangers posed by the bills interaction with international laws, the weakness of consultation and assessment provisions and many more," he said. Present at the forum were representatives from the Alliance for a Safe and Secure Internet which includes ACCAN, Access Now, AI Group, AIIA, Amnesty International Australia, AMTA, Blueprint for Free Speech, Communications Alliance, DIGI, Digital Rights Watch, Future Wise, Hack for Privacy, Human Rights Law Centre, Internet Australia, IoTAA, and Liberty Victoria, who together represent consumers, human rights organisations, business, industry and a wide range of technology companies. Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo! and Twitter are all members of DIGI. Stanton said the bill had been passed with government amendments that had been prepared in a hurry, "and we must acknowledge that these amendments did make some minor improvements to the legislation". The encryption law, officially known as the Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment (Assistance and Access) Act 2018), was passed on 6 December, but just 12 days later, the PJCIS said it would begin a fresh review. The new review has asked for submissions and will submit a report by 3 April. The law was passed without any amendments due to there being a lack of time for Labor to add them in the Senate. Labor leader Bill Shorten agreed to this compromise, on the proviso that the amendments would be passed during the first sitting of 2019. The lack of time came about because the government delayed voting on another bill in the Senate a cross-party push to amend existing legislation on moving refugees from Manus Island and Nauru to the mainland. The delay was in order to prevent it going back to the lower house for a vote and embarrassing the government. There is now uncertainty whether the amendments will be considered before the PJCIS submits its review in April. If that happens, then it would not be possible for the amendments to be looked at until the expected Federal Election in May has taken place. Stanton referred to the government commitment to consider the amendments during the first sitting week of Parliament the law is listed for discussion next Wednesday saying that as the legislation was about to pass the Senate, Finance Minister Matthias Cormann had said the PJCIS would conduct a review of the operation of the amendments made by the Bill and report on 3 April. "He also said 'The government has agreed to facilitate consideration of these amendments in the New Year in Government Business Time'," Stanton said. "Confusing words (understood he meant the Labor amendments). Labor believed the deal was that its amendments would be considered in the first Parliamentary sitting week in 2019. "[Home Affairs Minister] Peter Dutton, through his spokesperson, is now saying he will do nothing until after the PJCIS reports in April. There are only four Senate sitting days and 8 House of Representatives sitting days, between 3 April and 18 May. "Labor wants the government to bring forward a bill that, at least, makes the legislation consistent with the 17 recommendations the PJCIS made in its interim report back on 6 December. Labor might bring forward a private member's bill and seek cross-bench support in the Senate, to get it passed there. Not sure what its chances would look like in the House of Reps." The CA chief also referred to the upcoming challenge for the group. "The next task coming down the path for the PJCIS is the scheduled review of the Data Retention legislation, which must commence on or before 13 April," he reminded his audience. "That review will also encompass issues with the Assistance and Access Act, given that some of its provisions create loopholes in other Acts such as the ability to get around the Special Journalist Warrant requirements of the Data Retention legislation." Kadie Salfis evocative work is on display in Brooklyn until March 10. Pleasant from a distance, they present uncomfortable truths when examined more closely. On Friday, officials with the Walker County Hospital District board announced that they have finalized a $7.8 million purchase of Huntsville Memorial Hospital. Do you feel like this is a good use of tax dollars, and is this the right direction for the struggling health care facility? You voted: But maybe not. Very few actors who came of age in the second half of the 20th century gave audiences more pleasure than Albert Finney. Yet that pleasure was often dead serious, as in Shoot the Moon (1982, the rare really good Alan Parker movie). A glimmer of enjoyment can be found in every Finney turn, from his fantastically droll Poirot in Murder on the Orient Express (1974) to even the bloody climactic business of his final film, Skyfall (2012). World Trump-Kim Summit Venue Shows Possibility of Moving Beyond Conflict: State Dept U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un meet at the start of their summit at the Capella Hotel on the resort island of Sentosa, Singapore, on June 12. / Reuters WASHINGTON The choice of Vietnam as the venue for a second U.S.-North Korea summit this month shows the possibility of moving beyond conflict and division toward a thriving partnership, the U.S. State Department said on Thursday. State Department spokesman Robert Palladino told a news briefing that U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun was in Pyongyang to prepare the Feb. 27-28 summit and seeking progress on commitments made at the first meeting between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore in June. These included complete denuclearization, transformation of U.S.-North Korea relations and building a lasting peace mechanism on the Korean Peninsula, he said. Palladino reiterated that sanctions relief that North Korea has been seeking would follow its denuclearization. He said U.S.-Vietnamese history reflects the possibility for peace and prosperity. We moved past conflict and division towards the thriving partnership we enjoy today, Palladino said. He gave no other details on Bieguns talks in Pyongyang and declined to say how long he would stay there. The State Department said earlier in the week that Biegun would travel to Pyongyang for talks with his North Korean counterpart, Kim Hyok Chol, on Wednesday, but has not commented further. South Koreas Yonhap news agency earlier quoted diplomatic sources as saying that Biegun was expected to fly back to South Korea on Friday to share the outcome of his Pyongyang visit, although his stay in North Korea could be extended if additional discussions were needed. Trump announced the plan for his second meeting with Kim in his annual State of the Union address on Tuesday. He said much work remained to be done in the push for peace with North Korea, but cited the halt in its nuclear testing and no new missile launches in 15 months as proof of progress. Trump has been eager for a second summit despite a lack of significant moves by North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program. He and Biegun have stressed the economic benefits to North Korea if it does so. Biegun said last week his Pyongyang talks would be aimed at mapping out a set of concrete deliverables for the second summit. He said Washington was willing to discuss many actions to improve ties and entice Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons and that Trump was ready to end the 1950-53 Korean War, which concluded with an armistice, not a peace treaty. While in the U.S. view North Korea has yet to take concrete steps to give up its nuclear weapons, Pyongyang complains that Washington has done little to reciprocate for its freezing of nuclear and missile testing and dismantling of some facilities. Communist-ruled Vietnam, which has good relations with both the United States and North Korea, has been keen to host the second summit as a demonstration of its normalization of ties with the United States since the Vietnam War, which ended in 1975 and killed more than 58,000 Americans and an estimated 3 million Vietnamese. The United States sustained more than 33,000 battle deaths in the Korean War, while the number of North Koreans killed, both military and civilian, has been estimated at about one million. While Trump has hailed tremendous progress in his dealings with North Korea, a confidential report by U.N. sanctions monitors seen by Reuters this week casts further doubt on North Koreas intentions. It said the countrys nuclear and ballistic missile programs remained intact and North Korea was working to make sure those capabilities could not be destroyed by any military strikes. Palladino did not comment when asked about the report. World Long, Strange Trip: How U.S. Ethanol Reaches China Tariff-Free A container is carried away from a cargo ship at Tianjin Port, in northern China, on Feb. 23, 2017. / Reuters NEW YORK/KUALA LUMPUR In June, the High Seas tanker ship loaded up on ethanol in Texas and set off for Asia. Two months later after a circuitous journey that included a ship-to-ship transfer and a stop in Malaysia its cargo arrived in China, according to shipping data analyzed by Reuters and interviews with Malaysian and Chinese port officials. At the time, the roundabout route puzzled global ethanol traders and ship brokers, who called it a convoluted and costly way to get U.S. fuel to China. But the journey reflects a broader shift in global ethanol flows since U.S. President Donald Trump ignited a trade war with China last spring. Although China slapped retaliatory tariffs of up to 70 percent on U.S. ethanol shipments, the fuel can still legally enter China tariff-free if it arrives blended with at least 40 percent Asian-produced fuel, according to trade rules established between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the regional economic and political body. In a striking example of how global commodity markets respond to government policies blocking free trade, some 88,000 tons of U.S. ethanol landed on Malaysian shores through November of last year all since June, shortly after China hiked its tax on U.S. shipments. The surge follows years of negligible imports of U.S. ethanol to Malaysia. In turn, Malaysia has exported 69,000 tons of ethanol to China, the first time the nation has been an exporter of the fuel in at least three years, according to Chinese import data. Blending U.S. and Asian ethanol for the Chinese market undermines the intent of Beijings tariffs and helps struggling American ethanol producers by keeping a path open to a major export market that would otherwise be closed. Global commodity markets are incredibly creative in finding ways to ensure willing sellers are able to meet the demands of willing buyers, Geoff Cooper, head of the Renewable Fuels Association, said in a statement to Reuters. The group represents U.S. ethanol producers. In at least two cases examined by Reuters, including that of the High Seas, blending of U.S. ethanol cargoes with other products appeared to have occurred in Malaysia before the cargoes were shipped on to China, according to a Reuters analysis of shipping records and interviews with port officials. Chinese merchants including the state-backed oil company Unipec notified Chinese authorities about the unusual activity last summer which represented competition they had not anticipated under the tariff scheme, according to two industry sources. Unipecs parent company, Sinopec, did not respond to requests for comment. A spokesman for Chinas General Administration of Customs declined to comment. Norazman Ayob, deputy secretary general of the Malaysian trade ministry, confirmed that Malaysia exported ethanol to China this year. The ministry was unable to confirm whether it had been mixed with U.S. fuel, he said, but noted such blending would be legal under the ASEAN-China pact. Malaysia has no track record of significant domestic ethanol production, so it is unclear where the ethanol blended with the U.S. product originates. Additional U.S. ethanol has flowed in unusual volumes to other destinations since Trumps trade war began, including other ASEAN member nations the Philippines and Indonesia, according to shipping and trade data, though Reuters could not confirm its final destination. Ethanol on the High Seas The High Seas cargo ship was among the first to engage in the rising U.S.-to-Malaysia ethanol trade, according to shipping data from financial information provider Refinitiv and bills of lading from the ports. It loaded 25,000 tons of ethanol in Texas City on June 23 and then another 10,000 tons in Beaumont on June 27. Some of the ethanol was produced by Green Plains Inc, one of Americas top ethanol producers. Green Plains spokesman Jim Stark confirmed the loading of the companys product in Beaumont but said it could not confirm the cargos ultimate destination. At the time it left Texas, the shipment was owned by units of SOCAR Trading SA, the marketing arm of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic, according to the bills of lading. The shipment was initially destined for the Philippines. But after it crossed through the Panama Canal and reached the waters near Singapore in mid-August, the High Seas transferred its cargo to the QUDS, another tanker, according to the Refinitiv data. Vincent Mohy, general counsel for SOCAR, said that the firm sold all of the U.S. ethanol at the time of the transfer to the QUDS and that it made clear to the buyer the fuel originated in the United States. Mohy declined to name the buyer. The QUDS landed in the Malaysian port of Kuantan days later and took on another 12,074 tons of ethanol before heading to the Chinese port of Zhoushan and emptying its hold by the end of the month, according to the shipping data, a Chinese port official and two Malaysian port officials. According to one of the Kuantan port officials and a source in the Malaysian government, the cargo on the QUDS was sold by Malaysias Rich Greenergy Sdn Bhd to Chinas Zhanjiang Industry Petrochemical Company Limited. Kelvin Shum, Rich Greenergys CEO, declined to comment, saying he had signed a non-disclosure agreement about the deal. Efforts to reach Zhanjiang were not successful. The convoluted voyage was replicated in at least one other case, that of the Maritime Tuntiga. That ship also carried Texas ethanol into Southeast Asia this summer, transferring its cargo into another vessel, the Taibah, near Singapore. Like the QUDS, the Taibah moved on to the port of Kuantan in Malaysia, picked up about 12,000 tons more ethanol, and then moved on to Zhoushan, according to the shipping data and the Kuantan port officials. News Western Business Chambers Call for More Foreign Investment in Myanmar A photo of participants and attendees taken at the opening of Invest Myanmar Summit 2019 in Naypyitaw on January 28, 2019. / Htet Naing Zaw / The Irrawaddy YANGONA joint letter was officially issued by seven major international chambers of commerce in Myanmar on Tuesday, stressing the importance of foreign direct investment for the country and briefly outlining the chambers work with eligible investors which support Myanmars Sustainable Development Plan. The letter, signed by top-level members of the European, French, German, Italian, American, Australian and British chambers of commerce, states the important role foreign direct investment plays in the countrys growth and development. The letters release comes one week after the government-organized Invest Myanmar Summit 2019 and three weeks before an investment forum for Rakhine State is to be held in Sittwe, the state capital. Having been in isolation for so long Myanmar now requires the broad regeneration of its economy to meet the demands of modern-day trade, the letter states. According to the letter, there is a growth in the number of Western companies choosing to participate rather than isolate regarding investments in Myanmar. This growth comes following a dramatic drop of interest from Western investors after the violence in northern Rakhine State in 2017 and the ensuing flight of over 750,000 Rohingya refugees to neighboring Bangladesh. The letter says Western investors help the economy by establishing international standards in corporate governance and refers to Myanmars Sustainable Development Plan and the need to provide better employment opportunities in order to improve livelihoods here. Revenues from exports would increase if Myanmar were to transition away from exporting raw agricultural products to value-added goods. Many of the chambers member companies, which include more that 600 organizations from 30 countries, are exporters of such goods and services, according to the letter. News Request for Dialogue Over Loikaw Activists Grievances Ten more activists are arrested during a police crackdown on their protest camp in front of the local NLD office in Loikaw on February 8, 2019. / Progressive Karenni Peoples Force / Facebook A Lower House lawmaker has requested for the Karenni state government to negotiate with rights activists in order to solve problems in the region, following the arrest of ten more rights activists in Loikaw on Friday morning, according to local sources. Khun Thomas, a rights activist who has been charged three times for his participation in recent protests in Loikaw over the installation of a bronze statue of Gen. Aung San, told The Irrawaddy about the fresh arrests. They were arrested and are being detained at the police station. We dont know yet what type of charges they will face or whether they will be released on bail, said Khun Thomas. On Thursday evening, 36 activists were arrested and released on bail later that night. Six of those who were released were among those detained again this morning, along with four additional activists, when they resumed their protest. Police arrested the activists in front of the local NLD office where they had been holding a protest camp since Sunday. On Friday, a number of right activists met the Karenni State parliament house speaker U Hla Htwe in order to voice their concerns. They requested for negotiations to be held in order to discuss the issues regarding the statue. Fridays arrests bring the total number of arrests over the issue to 68. Their actions may lead to the fall the state as more problems will come, said Khun Thomas. The Karenni National Progressive Party on Friday sent an open letter to President U Win Myint and State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi decrying the actions of the Karenni state government. The letter said the actions of the state government threaten the stability of the region and the safety of the local people. They may also cause challenges to peace and rule of law in the region, it said. The letter also says that the NLD had promised to build a government that would listen to the voices of the people during their election campaign but that instead their actions have shown a misuse of power and refusals to listen to the people. Request for negotiation Lower House lawmaker of Loikaw Township Daw Khin Sithu has urged the state government to negotiate with the protesters in order to solve the problem. She told The Irrawaddy that before she entered politics, she worked with some of the right activists while Myanmar was ruled by the military regime and that during that time, they took part in Martyrs Day events commemorating Gen. Aung San even though such events were forbidden then. She said the activists are not acting out of spite for Gen. Aung San, but in order to have their voices heard. They were the people who distributed letters about Gen. Aung San in our area even though it caused them difficulties as it was prohibited by the military and they had to hide to avoid arrest, said Daw Khin Sithu. Our country is working towards democracy and a federal system and in order to achieve that, we all need to recognize historical ethnic leaders as well as Gen. Aung San, she said. I dont mean we shouldnt build Gen. Aung San statues in ethnic statesI want to say its time to pay respect to both and if we honor historical leaders from ethnic groups, then we will be more accepting of Gen. Aung San statues. She cited President U Win Myints request for the state government to work in cooperation with the people during his visit to Karenni State last month. The local government is losing dignity even though it seems to be winning, she said. I want to make it clear that I do not want the Karenni state government to go down in history as a bad government, she said. News Police Open Case Against Anti-Myitsone Dam Protest Leader Thousands of people join a protest against the Myitsone Dam project in Myitkyina, Kachin State on Feb. 7, 2019. / Kachin Baptist Convention / Facebook YANGONPolice have filed a lawsuit against a leader of Thursdays protest against the Myitsone Dam project in the Kachin State capital, Myitkyina. Around 10,000 members of the Kachin community joined the protest march calling for the termination of the China-backed dam project at the source of the Irrawaddy River, which arises out of the confluence of two smaller rivers. Police filed a lawsuit against Ja Hkawn, one of the protest organizers, under Section 20 of the Peaceful Assembly and Procession Law, according to Police Major Myint Moe of Myitkyinas Police Station No. 1 If convicted, she faces a maximum of one month in prison and/or a 10,000-kyat fine. [The protest] violated provisions of Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 [of the Peaceful Assembly and Procession Law], the police major said. Under the law, organizers must notify township police of any protest in advance, as well as the location, timeframe and aims of the protest. They must also provide details of any slogans to be displayed and the personal information of anyone planning to speak. Kachin religious leaders, Buddhist monks, leaders of Kachin political parties, Kachin civil society organizations, activists and locals from Myitkyina and Waingmaw townships joined Thursdays protest. Wearing headbands reading No Myitsone Dam, protesters held placards written in Burmese, English and Chinese reading, No dam on the Irrawaddy River, the lifeblood of Myanmar, Terminate the dam projects upstream and downstream on the Irrawaddy River, Let the Irrawaddy River flow freely and Let those displaced by [the dam project on] the Irrawaddy River go back home. According to police, protesters used loudspeakers, though they were only cleared to use megaphones. They also wore headbands and engaged in other activities such as making speeches without permission, police said. We have told them that we cant allow them to do those thingsfor example, using speakersdue to legal restrictions. They understand that, Police Maj. Myint Moe told The Irrawaddy. Ja Hkawn said, I received a notification from the police. I could not stop protesters using loudspeakers, as there were many protesters. We used the headbands because they bear the same slogan we were given permission to use. News Japan to Take Leading Role in Pushing FDI in Rakhine Japanese Ambassador to Myanmar Ichiro Maruyama speaks to journalists at his residence on February 7, 2019. / The Irrawaddy YANGONThe Japanese Ambassador to Myanmar revealed his governments plan to boost economic development in Myanmars most troubled and impoverished Rakhine State by backing the upcoming investment fair there and by pushing Japanese investors to consider opportunities there. Despite Rakhines tarnished reputation due to the Rohingya crisis and ongoing armed conflict, the government is desperately seeking foreign investment in the state as a means of improving economic development and thus solving the states issues. With the slogan Rakhine is open for business to the world, the Myanmar Investment Commission and the Rakhine state government is set to kick off the first Rakhine Investment Fair on Feb. 21 and 23, with a Japanese government agency, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) acting as co-organizers of the fair. The Rakhine Investment Fair will focus on three major areasthe agriculture, livestock and fisheries sector, tourism development and small and medium enterprise (SME) development. We are seeking ways for Japanese investors to invest in Rakhine. We also want to introduce potential sectors to the [Japanese] investors, Japanese Ambassador to Myanmar Ichiro Maruyama said at his residence on Thursday. He said the Japanese government wants to find ways to help boost investment in Rakhine State and that it would act as a negotiator between the local government and Japanese investors. We want to figure out together how the [state] government can encourage the investors if they want to do investment in Rakhine State, he said. That is the main thing. In late January, Rakhines state government participated in the countrys first investment fair held in Naypyitaw which showcased six priority projects in the state: the Kyaetaw-Mingan development project which involves a port, trade zone, apartments, supermarket and a small and medium enterprises (SMEs) zone in Sittwe Township; construction of a new airport in Mrauk-U; the upgrade of Ngapali Airport in Thandwe Township; an eco-tourism project on Man Aung Island; Ponnagyun industrial project in Sittwe; and a new city project in Mrauk-U. Rakhine is one of the poorest states in Myanmar though it is situated on the western coast which is rich in natural resourcesparticularly oil and gas. However, 69 percent of people in Rakhine are living in poverty, lack access to public services and struggle with poor infrastructure, unemployment, meager living conditions and a lack of legal support. Currently there are Chinese companies operating in the oil and gas sector and on mega infrastructure projects on the western coast of the state. Ichiro Maruyama said that Japanese investors have their sights set on the agriculture, fishery and tourism sectors in Rakhine but have not yet made any specific decisions. The local government plans to sit down with Japanese investors after the fair in order to discuss further investment details. Rakhine sits at a checkpoint of the Chinese-owned pipeline that has been carrying natural oil and gas from the Bay of Bengal, across Myanmar to Kunming in Chinas Yunnan Province since 2010. Amid cries of outrage from the international community over the governments handling of the Rohingya crisis in Rakhine State, China inked a framework agreement for the Kyaukphyu Deep Sea Port last November. The port will give China access to the Bay of Bengal and enhance its regional connectivity as part of Beijings Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Since the National League for Democracy (NLD) government took office in 2016, they have made several economic reforms. However, following the 2017 Rohingya crisis which badly tarnished the countrys image, foreign investment has significantly declined and western investors have grown increasingly cautious of Myanmar. FDI in Myanmar was shown to have significantly declined last year, dropping to its lowest since 2013. Rakhine is a particularly problematic state when it comes to inviting and securing foreign investment. The Japanese ambassador said the main challenges for Rakhine in attracting investment are poor infrastructure and security issues. However, he said that his government is considering providing an Official Development Assistance in order to improve infrastructure, particularly electricity supplies and roads in Rakhine State. He stressed, we will try the best. Since 2017, Japan has been playing the role of mediator in the Rohingya repatriation process and is closely working with the Myanmar government in solving the problems in Rakhine State. In October, during her trip to Japan, Myanmars State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi praised Japans understanding and help during a time when tensions have been high between Myanmar and the rest of world. If there is economic development, I believe that there will be no conflict, Ichiro Maruyama said. At the Invest Myanmar Summit in Naypyitaw, Union Minister for Investment and Foreign Economic Investment U Thaung Tun strongly pushed investors to invest in Rakhine instead of blaming or shaming. Referring to the Rohingya crisis, he claimed that Rakhine States problems only happened in three out of 17 townships and that the rest of the state is safe to invest in. The Rakhine government itself is also making efforts to attract investments in southern parts of Rakhine where there is no conflict, according to U Kyaw Aye Thein, Rakhine States minister of finance, revenue, planning and economy. Earlier this week, the leaders of seven foreign business groups in Yangonthe British, Australian, American, European, Italian, German and French chambers of commercesigned an open letter that called for more FDI in Myanmar, pointing out that it plays a major role in the countrys transition. The letter stressed that Myanmar has been isolated for over 50 years and has only effectively re-opened for business in the past six years, and that after having been in isolation for so long, that Myanmar now requires a broad regeneration of its economy to meet the demands of modern-day trade. The letter said the country has a significant range of private sector investment opportunities across every sector of the economy. Some countries have been blaming the Myanmar government for what happened in Rakhine. However, most of the countriesincluding Japanwant to see Myanmars economic development, lasting peace and also a peaceful transition, Ichiro Maruyama said. I understand that there is conflict but we also need to look into the economic development [of Rakhine State] for the future, he said. Sure, but that doesn't mean it's not a lot of fun. Gilroy's set-piece slaughters are expertly executed old-school camp, some of them laugh-out-loud funny. Maybe not since "Peeping Tom" have scenes of art and murder been so closely synthesized. That film, of course, had much more on its mind and posed more disquieting questions for its audience. "Velvet Buzzsaw" doesn't lead anywhere inward; it becomes just a litany of (exquisite) death scenes for art-world caricatures. Burma Time to Abolish Ministries Other Accounts: NLD Lawmaker Lower House lawmaker Daw Thet Thet Khaing / Htet Naing Zaw / The Irrawaddy NAYPYITAWA National League for Democracy (NLD) lawmaker has called for the abolition of the so-called other accounts (OAs) held by government ministries and agencies. In Parliament on Thursday, NLD Lower House lawmaker Daw Thet Thet Khaing asked what measures the government was taking to improve transparency in the reporting of revenue by the countrys extractive industries, and to ensure that state enterprises revenue ended up in the Union budget. The Lower House in November 2017 approved a proposal by Daw Thet Thet Khaing to ensure such transparency, including greater scrutiny of revenue transfers into the Union budget by enterprises under the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation. Daw Thet Thet Khaing told The Irrawaddy that she raised the question this week because there had been no significant progress more than one year after the proposal was approved. Internationally, there is no practice of keeping other accounts. I think they should be abolished, she told The Irrawaddy. I would like to know how much the government departments involved in the extraction businesses are earning. I would like to know the exact figure, she said. There are 25 state-owned economic enterprises (SEEs) in Myanmar authorized to keep OAs, which currently hold around US$9 billion (nearly 14 trillion kyats). The accounts were created under U Thein Seins administration, she said. The government retains exclusive rights to conduct business in certain sectors, including the extractive industry, according to the State-Owned Economic Enterprises Law enacted under the military regime in 1989. Under the law, local and foreign investors may conduct business in these sectors through contracts or joint venture agreements with the government. During a parliamentary debate on the issue in November 2017, lawmakers pointed out that the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation has more than 10 trillion kyats (US$7.3 billion) in its OAsfar more than the combined budgets for health and education in fiscal 2017-18. They said that only about half of the ministrys revenue goes to the Union budget, while the rest is kept by the ministry in a manner that lacks transparency. According to Parliaments Joint Public Accounts Committee, the News and Periodicals Enterprise of the Information Ministry, Myanmar Posts and Telecommunications, Myanma Timber Enterprise, No. 1 Mining Industry, No. 2 Mining Industry, Myanma Gems Enterprise, Myanma Pearl Enterprise, and Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise have other accounts and operate with their own funds. Other government enterprises that have OAs while also spending Union funds include Inland Water Transport, Road Transport Services, Myanma Railways, Myanmar Post, Electricity Supply Enterprise, Myanma Petrochemicals Enterprise, No. 3 Heavy Industry, No. 2 Heavy Industry, No. 3 Heavy Industry, and Myanmar Pharmaceuticals Enterprise. Some enterprises operate with their own funds. The government doesnt fund them. They have to sustain their operations using their profits. It is understandable that such departments keep OAs. But OAs should not be kept to hold revenue from extractive industries, said secretary U Aung Kyaw Kyaw Oo of the Lower House Investment and Industrial Development Committee. In response to Daw Thet Thet Khaings proposal, the deputy minister for planning and finance, U Maung Maung Win, told the Lower House that all the revenue of enterprises under the Natural Resources Ministry have been transferred to the Union budget. The National Economic Coordination Committee is discussing what to do with OAs kept by state-owned economic enterprises, he said. The committee is led by State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. The deputy minister said that OAs are a part of the Union Budget and are spent in line with the Budget Law. Upper House lawmaker Dr. Khun Thaung Win said there was a need for more information about OAs. I dont understand how OAs operate. So, I dont want to comment on it. But the government should provide more details about them, the lawmaker said. Daw Thet Thet Khaing told The Irrawaddy, [The deputy minister] said that [those revenues] are given to [the Union] budget. But what we want is transparency. We want to know the details about these accounts. Burma Red Cross Says Services in Northern Rakhine Stalled by Fighting Soldiers and police search travelers in northern Rakhine States Kyauktaw Township this week. / Zaw Win / Facebook YANGON The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) announced on Thursday that a number of its activities in northern Rakhine State have been stalled for weeks due to ongoing fighting between the military and rebel Arakan Army (AA). On Jan. 10, a week after coordinated attacks by the AA on four police border posts in Maungdaw Township, the state government banned international relief agencies, including those affiliated with the U.N., from that and four other townships in northern Rakhine. The ICRC and World Food Program were exempt. Since then, the military has also blocked aid shipments from local civil society groups. The ICRC and World Food Program are allowed access to only 17 locations in the region, and upper Kyauktaw Township and Paletwa Township in neighboring Chin State remain off limits. Local volunteers and civil society groups estimated that about 6,000 people have been displaced by the fighting. In an interview with The Irrawaddy last week, the ICRC said it could not access those displaced in Paletwa. Because boats transporting aid are not allowed to reach some areas, host communities in the conflict zones have been sharing their resources with the new arrivals for more than a month. The fighting has also cut off some villages from markets in urban areas. People who had to flee from their villages are afraid. Many families have left their homes with very little or nothing, so they do what they can to help one another, Dena Fisher, who heads the ICRCs sub-delegation in the Rakhine State capital, Sittwe, was quoted as saying in a statement on Thursday. Apart from providing food to more than 5,000 displaced people in the 17 locations in can access northern Rakhine, most other ICRC activities in the fields including those related to healthcare, water, sanitation and agriculture have been on hold for weeks, leaving many communities without access to livelihoods and other essential services. Its mobile clinics, which serve approximately 250 patients a week, stopped operating about three weeks ago. Although we are able to provide much-needed relief to most people displaced, we are increasingly concerned about the continuity of our operations for all other communities in Rakhine, said Stephan Sakalian, head of ICRC Myanmar. He said it was vital that humanitarian assistance reach all conflict-affected communities in order to minimize the impact of the fighting on the civilian population, in line with international humanitarian law. Paletwa resident Ko Tin Tun said soldiers and police were preventing rice shipments from Kyauktaw to Paletwa and examining identity and travel documents at several checkpoints. Ko Zar Nee Phyu, a member of the Rakhine Ethnic Congress, a local civil society group, said the military was not allowing rice to be shipped to upper Kyauktaw either. Burma Formation of Constitution Amendment Committee Stalled Attendees of meeting to discuss the formation of a committee to draft amendments to the Constitution on February 8, 2019. / Htet Naing Zaw / The Irrawaddy NAYPYITAWEfforts by parliamentarians to form a committee to draft amendments to the 2008 charter have stalled as Tatmadaw (Myanmar Army) appointees and Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) lawmakers have opposed the proposed committee structure. Following the Union parliaments approval to form the committee, Lower House Speaker T Khun Myat proposed that it would be a 45-member body, comprising 22 lawmakers each from the two houses of Parliament and lead by a chairman. The speaker revealed the tentative structure of the committee when he met lawmakers on Friday afternoon. Taking lessons from a similar committee formed under the previous U Thein Sein government, the new committee will be a leaner one, said the speaker. The committee to review the Constitution formed by the previous parliament consisted of 109 members, and there were resulting inefficiencies, he said. There is no decision yet on the matter and it will be taken up in the next meeting [which has been moved to Feb. 15]. Today many have debated on this and we will have to think about the possible approaches. We are stuck at the formation of the committee. We will look for a [solution] and then we will meet again, said Sai Thiha Kyaw, the Lower House lawmaker who joined the meeting held in the Parliament compound. Lower House lawmaker U Thaung Aye from the USDP said his party wants equal representation rather than representation by proportion. According to the proposed 45-members, U Thaung Aye said, the National League for Democracy (NLD) would have 20 places, while the USDP would only have two and other parties would not get to send more than two people to the committee. The NLD makes up 59 percent of total elected-lawmakers in the Parliament, followed by 25 percent military appointees, 11 percent represent the combined ethnic parties while 5 percent are from the USDP. As it is the committee to amend the Constitution, we suggest it should be balanced [in representation], whether five or 10 from each [party], he said. He then added, if they move ahead on the formation of the committee in this way, the NLD would be blamed and also the Tatmadaw would not agree. The Tatmadaw has not yet clearly said whether they would take part in the committee or not. Upper House lawmaker Dr. Myat Nyana Soe, of the NLD said as the Union Parliament has approved the formation of the committee, it cannot turn backwards. Thus they are openly negotiating with lawmakers from the 14 parties who are in the Parliament as well as with the military appointees. He said it wont take long and they would meet again to exchange views on how to form the committee and that they would update the Parliament on this. U Lar Mar Lay from the Lisu National Development Party said, as we are a small party, we do not have any complaints. If a party has only one lawmaker in the Parliament, they can be in the committee too, but Rakhine and Shan parties are not so happy with the proportion. As this committee is a working committee to draft the bill to amend the Constitution, there is no problem in this formation of the committee, said U Sai Thiha Kyaw, of the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy, representing Mongyai constituency in Shan State. It is no problem for us, but some want more than their quota. Some suggest having equal proportions. Anyhow, it is appropriate that the members are lawmakers representing the parties and the Tatmadaw, said U Sai Thiha Kyaw. There were only two NLD representatives in the previous 109-members Committee formed under the President U Thein Sein, but there were no objections from the NLD on that, said U Ye Tun, former Lower House lawmaker from Hsipaw, Shan State. The number of committee members is not so important here yet, whatever the decision is. If the lawmakers draft a bill that is agreed by the Tatmadaw, it would be interesting, U Ye Tun said. Present at the meeting were lawmakers from the ruling NLD, USDP, Wa Democratic Party, Pa-O National Organization, Zomi Democracy Party, Taang National Party, Shan Nationalities League for Democracy, Arakan National Party, Kokang Democracy and Unity Party, Mon National Party, National United Democratic Party, National Unity Party, Kachin State Democracy Party and Lisu National Development Party. Four military lawmakerstwo representing the military bloc in Parliament and two as observersattended the meeting though they previously boycotted the proposal and debate on forming the committee. Asia Thai Kings Sister Running for PM in March Polls Thai Raksa Chart party leader Preechapol Pongpanich holds Princess Ubolratanas prime ministerial candidate application at the Election Commission office in Bangkok on Feb. 8, 2019. / Reuters BANGKOKThe sister of Thailands king entered the race to become prime minister on Friday as the candidate of a populist party, an unprecedented foray into politics by a royal that instantly upended the first election since a 2014 military coup. Princess Ubolratana Rajakanya Sirivadhana Barnavadi, 67, the elder sister of King Maha Vajiralongkorn, was nominated by a party loyal to ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra, the figure at the center of political turbulence and rival street protests that have riven Thai society for years. One of her chief opponents in the March 24 election will be Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, the leader of the ruling military junta, who also announced his candidacy on Friday. Thailand has been a constitutional monarchy since 1932 but the royal family has wielded great influence and commands the devotion of millions. It was not immediately clear whether the nomination of Ubolratana, who has starred in Thai soap operas and lived in California for years, had the approval of King Vajiralongkorn. The nomination of a member of the royal family by the pro-Thaksin Thai Raksa Chart party could transform an election that had been viewed as a straightforward battle between Thaksins populists and their allies, on the one hand, and the royalist-military establishment on the other. This is a profound development that will shape the contours and dynamics of Thai politics before and after the election Thai Raksa Chart is a leading contender now, said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political analyst at Chulalongkorn University. Ubolratana relinquished her royal titles in 1972 when she married an American, a fellow student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Peter Jensen. She lived in the U.S. for more than 26 years before they divorced in 1998. The conflict between the Bangkok-centered, royalist elites and Thaksin and his more rural-based supporters has resulted in street protests, military coups, and violent clashes over almost 15 years. Pundits were left guessing whether the princess nomination was a bid to unify those divisions, with the approval of the king who assumed the throne after the death of his father in 2016, or a bold gambit by Thaksin loyalists to undercut the royalist appeal of the pro-establishment parties. Previous assumptions and scenarios have to be reconsidered, Thitinan said. If this turns out well, it will be a process of reconciliation and unity. If this does not turn out well, it will pose alarming risk and even greater risk for Thailands political future. Thai Raksa Chart is an off-shoot of the main pro-Thaksin Pheu Thai party, whose government, led by Thaksins sister Yingluck Shinawatra, was ousted from power in 2014 in a coup led by then-army chief Prayuth. Thaksin and his party have at times been accused by enemies of being opposed to the monarchy. Thaksin and his party have always rejected that. Back-up party Pheu Thai is also fielding candidates in the election, and Thai Raksa Chart was formed by Thaksin loyalists and the core leadership of the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD), or red shirts group, as a strategy to help Pheu Thai win seats, or to act as a back-up if the main party was disqualified. The party has nominated the princess as its sole candidate, Thai Raksa Chart Party leader Preechapol Pongpanich told reporters at the Election Commission. Ubolratana is running for prime minister but not a seat in parliament, which is allowed under the election law. She is knowledgeable and is highly suitable. I believe there will be no legal problems in terms of her qualification, but we have to wait for the Election Commission to endorse her candidacy, he said. A small pro-military party, the Peoples Reform Party, asked the Election Commission to consider whether the princesss candidacy violated laws forbidding parties from invoking the monarchy in campaigns. The Election Commission is required to endorse or reject all candidates by next Friday. Prayuth accepted his nomination from the Palang Pracharat Party, a new party set up by his loyalists, in an official statement. I am not aiming to extend my power but I am doing this for the benefit of the country and the people, he said. There was no mention of the princess nomination in Prayuths statement. Ubolratana, the eldest child of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, was born in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1951. She studied mathematics and biochemistry at MIT and earned a masters degree in public health from the University of California at Los Angeles. She returned permanently to Thailand in 2001, performing royal duties but never regaining her full royal titles. She is referred to as Tunkramom Ying, which means Daughter to the Queen Regent, and is treated by officials as a member of the royal family. But she would not be covered by Thailands strict lese majeste law against insulting the monarchy. Ubolratana is known for her To Be Number One anti-drugs program as well as starring in several soap operas and movies. Her son was killed in the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004. On her Instagram account, the princess recently posted a video of her eating street food and another complaining about Bangkoks pollution. Soon after Fridays announcement, her catchphrase #SongPhraSlender (Long Live Slender) was number one on Twitter in Thailand. I have been bored with politics for so long, but the princess has made me happy about the election again, one fan wrote on the Web forum Pantip. News Angelina Jolie Calls For Sustained Support For Rohingya Refugees Actor Angelina Jolie, UNHCR special envoy, speaks during a news conference at the Al Zaatri refugee camp in the Jordanian city of Mafraq, near the border with Syria, on Jan. 28. / Reuters DHAKA American movie star Angelina Jolie concluded her visit to Bangladesh with a call for sustained support for Rohingya refugees and for Myanmar to take the necessary steps to end their displacement and statelessness. Jolie, a special envoy for the U.N.s refugee agency, the UNHCR, visited the Rohingya refugee camps in Coxs Bazar ahead of a fundraiser next week organized by the agency to raise more than $920 million in aid for the sprawling camps and the local communities they have impacted. Until the Rohingya refugees can voluntarily return home to Myanmar, we have a collective responsibility to ensure that they can continue to live dignified lives in Bangladesh, she said at a press conference on Tuesday in Kutupalong, the worlds largest and most densely populated refugee settlement. She said the world must not turn away from the more than 1 million Rohingya refugees who have fled Myanmar for Bangladesh, the UNHCR said in a press release on Thursday. Jolie held official meetings with Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen on Wednesday in Dhaka during which she expressed the UNHCRs gratitude to the people and government for their generosity in receiving more than 700,000 refugees since August 2017. Momen reportedly urged Jolie to organize a mega event in Hollywood in an effort to mobilize public support and to highlight the plight and rights of the Rohingya community. Jolie began her three-day visit on Monday in the Chakmarkul and Kutupalong refugee camps, where she heard testimonies from Rohingya women, children and men who have endured persecution and discrimination. In its press release, the UNHCR said Jolie urged continued support for those who have been displaced until Myanmar shows a genuine commitment to ending a decades-long cycle of violence and displacement. During her visit, Rohingya refugees were seen holding placards with their demands. One of the placards said: Education for all. Why not for Rohingya? Help us to build our future. Please, do not deprive us from education. Jolie said that without an urgent expansion and strengthening of educational opportunities the future of a generation of Rohingya children would be at risk. And while recognizing efforts to provide schooling, she said they remained limited and called for programs that can lead to recognized qualifications. Md Abul Kalam, head of Bangladeshs Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commission, told The Irrawaddy recently that Bangladesh was allowing education for forcibly displaced Myanmar nationals but only in the Myanmar and English languages. Jolie also visited a transit center for newly arrived refugees and a hospital for women and girls. While in Dhaka, she visited two museums the Liberation War Museum and the Bangabandhu Memorial Museum where she viewed exhibitions about the countrys history, including its own experience of large-scale displacement. Special envoys represent the UNHCR at the diplomatic level with a focus on major forced displacement crises. This was Jolies first visit to Bangladesh. She met with forcibly displaced Rohingya during a visit to Myanmar in 2015 and to India in 2006. Arts Painting to Portray a Numb and Confused Society One of Brang Lis paintings currently exhibiting at Nawaday Tharlar art gallery. / Supplied YANGONArtist Brang Li metaphorically depicts large crowds of people moving like zombies in confusion and numbness before a smoky grey backdrop. Our minds have been poisoned all our lives. We grew up under various illusions that Myanmar would be shattered, Myanmar would become a Muslim country and so on. People, like zombies, are unable to know whether such narratives are right or wrong. I feel like that, said Brang Li. Paintings of such crowds can be seen at the Life and Shade art exhibition currently showing at Nawaday Thalar Gallery on Yawmin Gyi Street in Yangon. Brang Li, as a member of the Kachin ethnic group, is familiar with battles and has always depicted the tough lives of IDPs in his smoky paintings. He said the smoke in his paintings represents the smoke that comes from explosions of gun powder. However, this time he has turned his attention to subject of crowds of urbanites, including children, women and men who are going to markets with their baskets, to work with their backpacks and to nowhere in disorientation. He said that society, the mind of which has been poisoned, is always fumbling in darkness. Altogether 15 paintings measuring 4 feet x 3 feet and 8 feet x 6 feet will be displayed at the exhibition. Brang Li is an art graduate from the University of Culture and has participated in a number of art exhibitions. He usually uses smoked canvases for painting his subjects on. He said this technique is the perfect way to depict the smoke of wars, gun powder and illusions. All his series highlight the issues we must treat very seriously and remind us of them. His integrity in art enhances his creativity, said Ko Pyay Wai, the owner of Nawaday Tharlar. The Life and Shade art exhibition runs until Feb. 15. Translated from Burmese by Myint Win Thein The worlds fourth-largest economy has set 2038 as the deadline for reaching zero coal, not a moment too soon, say Johan Rockstrom and Owen Gaffney. Germany is about to break its coal addiction. Last year, the government created a 28-member coal commission comprising scientists, politicians, environmental campaigners, trade unions, and utilities representatives with the unenviable mandate of deciding when the country would get clean. Balancing pragmatic considerations with recognition of the reality of climate change, the commission has now set 2038 as the deadline for reaching zero coal, with the withdrawal beginning immediately. The Wall Street Journal calls it the worlds dumbest energy policy. In fact, Germanys shift is vital and long overdue. The real question is whether it will be enough to support meaningful progress in the global effort to mitigate climate change. It is scientifically well-established that if the world is to keep the average increase in global temperature well below 2C, relative to pre-industrial levels the safe limit enshrined in the 2015 Paris climate agreement no more than another 500bn-800bn tons of carbon dioxide can be emitted. On current trends, this would take just 12 to 20 years. Instead, the world needs to follow a trajectory called the carbon law, which requires reducing CO2 emissions by half each decade, until, 30-40 years from now, we have achieved a carbon-free global economy. Growing evidence shows that adhering to the carbon law is technologically feasible and economically attractive. In this process, coal the most polluting energy source must be the first to go, exiting the global energy mix entirely by 2030-2035. This will be particularly challenging for Germany, which, despite its reputation as a climate leader, has long had a dirty secret: the most polluting type of coal lignite remains the countrys single-biggest source of electricity. Although renewables have penetrated 40% of the electricity market, coal still accounts for 38%. A decision to phase out nuclear power, spurred by the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan, left Germany with a significant energy gap, filled partly by coal. Germany has built ten new coal-fired power plants since 2011, bringing its total to about 120. As a result, it is set to miss its 2020 emissions goal (a 40% reduction, compared to 1990), and, barring decisive action, it could miss its 2030 target (a 55% reduction), as well. The coal commissions plan which still needs to be turned into legislation by the chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the Bundestag would reduce Germanys coal emissions from 42 gigawatts today to 30 GW by 2022, and to 17 GW by 2030. This is a cut of more than 50% over one decade, making it even more ambitious than the carbon law trajectory, but only if coal is not replaced by natural gas. Indeed, if the coal phase-out is going to work, it will need to happen alongside a rising carbon price. In any case, 2038 is still a long way off. A sluggish exit from coal by Germany the worlds fourth-largest economy could send a signal to other coal-dependent European Union countries that there is no rush. Countries like Hungary, Poland, and the Baltic states may even pursue a coal renaissance. This would further weaken the EUs climate leadership and its ability to reform its carbon-trading system. Confident that coal will continue to be burned in the long-term, investors would keep the money flowing. Moreover, because Germanys influence extends far beyond Europe, a weak stance on coal could trigger a domino effect what we call the road to hell scenario. US president, Donald Trump, might cite Germanys slow action as proof of its double standards on climate change, and even attempt to use it to justify, however weakly, his effort to revive the US coal industry. Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, might do likewise, as he distances his country from the Paris climate agreement. Australia, where climate politics are tense and an election is pending, could also be tempted to increase coal use. China and India, too, could become more inclined to expand coal-fired power plants. With that, meeting the 2C threshold would become impossible, and the devastation of Hothouse Earth would potentially become inevitable. A giant excavator at Hambach open-cast mine in the Rhineland. Picture: EPA/Philipp Guelland But there is good reason to think this will not happen. Even if the 2038 deadline is not ambitious enough, the immediate pace of the coal phase-out follows the carbon law. If Germany implements what it has agreed on paper, one should not underestimate the symbolic value of a coal-dependent, industrialised economy setting a clear end date for coal, and locking itself to a quantified phase-out plan. This, together with definitive, shorter-term targets, would signal to investors that they can confidently invest in alternative energy sources. This dynamic could well accelerate the timeline for Germanys exit from coal. A clause in the agreement creates the potential for an earlier exit from coal. After all, the best-performing major commodities in 2018 were European emissions allowances. Designed to make coal less competitive, those allowances are expected to double in price in the next year or two. Hedge funds, and other investors, have already taken notice. A deadline on German coal use would reinforce confidence that the value of allowances will keep increasing, creating a positive feedback loop of rising prices. Add to that a precipitous drop in the costs of wind and solar power, and it is not unrealistic to imagine that the markets will bring about a much faster departure from coal than any policy would. Sometime in the 2020s, it will become cheaper to build new renewable systems than to continue running existing, fossil-fuel plants in parts of Europe. At that point, there will be little chance of stopping the fastest energy transition in history. Johan Rockstrom is director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. Owen Gaffney is a global sustainability analyst at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and the Stockholm Resilience Centre. Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2019. Developers JCD have made an off-market multi-million euro swoop on the Cork city Albert Quay site occupied for the past 50 years by family-owned Carey Tools, including the Sextant bar which was subsequently acquired by the Carey family. Market sources put the value of the site deal at between 7m and 8m, but this is unconfirmed. The proposed development will see Carey Tools relocate, the Sextant bar close from February 16, and be demolished, with a new bar-restaurant created in retained, protected buildings on another corner of the site in a rapidly transformed city quarter, between City Hall and the south docks campus. A JCD spokesperson said the company was considering all options, and not just offices, for the site theyve now acquired: no decision has been made on its future uses, it was stated. The pivotal 0.9 acre plot, to be redeveloped primarily for offices, is between JCDs fully occupied 60m 170,000 sq ft One Albert Quay seven-storey office development, and is directly alongside OCallaghan Properties 350,000 sq ft Navigation Square office scheme on Albert Quay and which will have blocks facing onto Albert Road. Architects for both OCPs Navigation Square, and JCDs One Albert Quay, were Henry J Lyons. It is understood that OCallaghan Properties had also recently expressed an interest in acquiring the Carey Tools property, given its proximity to its 350,000 sq ft Navigation Square office development, with work now rapidly advancing on OCPs Block B, and where Block A is now at tenant fit-out stage over three floors for anchor tenants Clearstream. The Carey Tools/Sextant site fronts onto Albert Quay, Albert Street and Albert Road, embracing protected structures including a former two-storey rail station administration building and a curved, Victorian single-storey ticket office: it was the location for the Cork Blackrock and Passage West rail service, from 1873 (when it relocated from Victoria Road) until the line closed in 1932. The Careys site deal, in train for the past several months and just secured by John Cleary Developments, will see a new quay and street corner/gate created, and a new bar-restaurant replacing the Sextants role in a section of the former rail station buildings, opening onto an internal plaza. It was confirmed this week that the Sextant bar, which employs up to 18 full- and part-time, and which had been successfully leased out and expanded in recent years, is closing on February 16, with hopes by the lessees to reopen in another city premises. Carey Tool Hire is to continue to trade in the medium term, until a replacement premises is secured, and the company also operates in Ballincollig, and in Ennis, Co Clare. John Cleary of JCD Group last night expressed delight to have reached agreement to purchase the Carey Tool Hire site which is a pivotal site between the city centre and the docklands. This is a very exciting time for Corks progression given the large-scale projects planned and underway, including our Penrose Dock scheme which is currently under construction and will deliver 250,000 sq ft of next generation office space in April 2020. Cork has a unique opportunity now to continue to attract foreign direct investment and become a proper counterbalance to Dublin, as envisaged in the Ireland 2040 plan, asserted Mr Cleary. JCD say they have engaged a very experienced design team, including an international urban design practice to masterplan this important site. Part of the proposed scheme will include the relocation of the bar and restaurant use to the protected former Station House located on Albert Street and the creation of an internal public plaza. There will be significant investment in these protected structures to restore them to their former prominence. This investment will bring renewed vibrancy and ensure the long-term viability of these important buildings along with access to an internal public plaza that will complement the overall proposed scheme and the other developments that have transformed this area of Cork City, such as The Elysian, One Albert Quay and Navigation Square. Commenting on the deal and decision to sell, Ken Carey of Carey Tool Hire expressed confidence in JCDs ability to deliver an excellent design solution to the Albert Quay site. We have been operating from the site for the past 50 years and it will be business as usual at our present location, while suitable new premises are sourced. We would like to thank our customers and staff for their ongoing support as we enter this exciting new chapter in our business. Among the possible relocation sites for Carey Tools speculated on by market sources yesterday was one by the Kinsale Road roundabout and Kinsale Road, acquired a year ago by JCD and where a planning application for a logistics/distribution building was refused last year. "This is a man from very humble origins who became rich when he was very young," said Quentin Falk, author of an unauthorized biography of Finney. "It brought him a lot of side benefits. He's a man who likes to live as well as to act. He enjoys his fine wine and cigars. He's his own man, I find that rather admirable." Semesters and trimesters: its student life, but not as you know it. When women combine third-level studies with pregnancy and motherhood, it brings challenges, writes Ellie OByrne. Each year, when a new influx of eager-faced, excited young women arrives in Cork to embark on their third-level student adventures, I spare a thought for those who will get pregnant. Because it happened to me. Twenty years ago, I left school bound for Trinity College, to study philosophy (who knows what career I thought I was going to get out of it). I had a boyfriend in Cork. Travelling back at weekends to see him, just three months into my first semester, I was pregnant at 18. Before you wise-ass commenters of the internet ask, yes, failed contraception was involved. There were nights of nausea and crying in my shared student apartment, as my life unravelled. On top of the morning sickness was the knot in my stomach at the thought of telling my parents. I didnt consider abortion, though a couple of friends mentioned it. It wasnt a political or religious choice, but a personal one, a feeling that my destiny was now shared. When I went home for Christmas, ten weeks pregnant, I told my parents. File photo. They were amazing. There were no recriminations: they were worried, but supportive. The next morning, when I woke, my mother, in one of her many stellar parenting moments, brought me a bouquet of flowers. No-one has congratulated you yet, she said. Trinity College, kindly, given that the courses were not compatible, arranged for me to transfer a deferred place to UCCs arts degree: as naive and stubborn as I was, I knew I couldnt manage alone in Dublin and my boyfriend and I had decided to live together. My little boy arrived, the most perfect being ever to have crawled into this world. The pain, love, and ecstasy of birth are earth-shattering even for the most mature and prepared mother, but I think it hit me all the more because I was so young. I was completely besotted, in love. The deferred college place came around when my son was only two months old. In fairness to the college, I didnt enquire about what was on offer for students who were breastfeeding mothers. I just couldnt imagine being apart from my baby for so many hours each day. I walked away from the course. Life, an artisan bakery business, and a daughter as wonderful as her brother got in the way. Now, my son is older than I was when I had him. It took me 13 years to get back to third-level education, but now I have a BA in journalism and an MA in journalism and new media from CIT: the MA was a one-year programme that took two years, because I was parenting, supporting the family as a freelance journalist, and studying. In my experience, there are penalties to be paid in our society for following any course other than the normal life trajectory of school, college, work, marriage, and babies, in that order. But young women get pregnant: they always will. Even the best forms of contraception have 99% success rates: wherever you have a large cohort of women of child-bearing age, youll get pregnancies. There are over 33,000 students enrolled in UCC and CIT this year. In the lead-up to the abortion referendum, the In Her Shoes social media project highlighted the extent of the student experience of abortion in Ireland. Almost 30% of Irish women who travelled to the UK for abortions in 2016 were between 18-24, according to the UK Department of Health. With GP-led medical abortion services now being rolled out across the country, its not possible to predict what impact this will have on students choices; maybe decisions like mine will be rarer in the future. But if were really pro-choice, we support those who continue their pregnancies as well as those who dont. Talking to women for this article, more post-grad students had pregnancies they kept than did under-grads, and mature students had planned a pregnancy around the academic calendar. Sadly, there were women who chatted off the record, but who didnt feel comfortable sharing their stories; women who experienced extreme stress and isolation while studying or struggled to complete degrees for years, or even, in one case, were worried that sharing their story would damage their job prospects. Planned or accidental, therell always be women combining pregnancy and motherhood with third-level studies. Ellie O'Byrne at 20 with her baby son Suz Brown's story Suz Brown did a postgraduate course in UCC in co-operatives, agri-food, and sustainable development while pregnant: she started the course in September 2015 and gave birth to Billy in March 2016. The second trimester of pregnancy combined well with her studies, but she says later pregnancy was a struggle. Suz Brown, weeks from her due date, on a field trip to Cloughjordan Ecovillage for her course in co-operatives, agri-food, and sustainable development. It was quite hard after Christmas, because I was wrecked, and everything had to be delayed until after he was born, says Suz, whose primary degree is in economics and psychology (also from UCC). Suz and her partner, Tom, had not planned the pregnancy; it was a shock in the beginning, but fine, Suz says. After Billys birth, she completed her course within one year, but only by doubling down on her sleep-deprivation. I had a beautiful baby and I was very lucky, but it was hard-going, because I had to do everything at night, she says. Sometimes, Id have him in a sling, and Id be studying at the desk, with him dozing or awake. Now, thered be no chance of that. Hes a toddler and flying around the place; hes harder work now than he was then. Suz says support from Tom and her family was vital, but that the departmental staff in UCC were also very helpful and facilitated her. I had to do a work placement that should have been from April to June, but I did it in September and October, instead, she says. I also did my exams in the autumn, during the resits. I got extensions and deferrals, when I needed them, and my department were amazingly supportive. Childcare at UCC is limited to just 80 places at Creche Cois Laoi, the campus creche that serves the needs of staff and students alike; theres normally a waiting list for places, but theres a childcare assistance fund towards the costs of external childcare arrangements. In CIT, there are no childcare facilities at all, although there is a similar student assistance fund for students who are paying for childcare elsewhere. Niamh Connelly is UCCs student welfare officer. She says shes only had one student inquiry this year relating to a pregnancy, but that the college has no way of knowing how many students are pregnant, because they dont always disclose themselves, or they may approach the Student Health Centre or the Student Experience Centre. There are 21,000 students, so there are definitely pregnant students, but there isnt one clear point of access, she says. Niamh urges students to disclose their pregnancy to their head of department as early as possible, if theyre continuing the pregnancy, not only to avail of a full range of supports, but also because, on certain courses involving medicine or laboratories, there may be safety issues for the developing foetus. The first 13 weeks are pretty critical to avoid chemicals, radiation, and biological factors, so, on some courses, its about working out any risks that might arise and making sure there are measures in place, so that both student and baby are safe and looked-after during study. Niamh says UCCs policy is to facilitate study wherever possible and deferrals are offered if the timing of a pregnancy or challenges relating to parenting are insurmountable. If you cant sit a summer exam, you can sit it in the autumn, at the repeats, without the results being capped. "You can also defer your place for up to two years. You just need to work with your department. The woman who sent a card to European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker said she was surprised to see the response to her gesture. Hailey Kierse, from Co Clare, sent the European Commission president a card to thank him for his support for Ireland in the Brexit negotiations. The woman said it was not a political move, just one of gratitude from one family in Ireland. She said she was inspired by Mr Juncker standing up for Ireland during the Brexit negotiations after Mr Juncker told the European Parliament that Irelands borders are Europes borders. According to the card, she wanted to jump for joy, punch the air and kiss Mr Juncker when she heard that statement. Speaking on RTEs Liveline, Hayley said she was delighted that the message has resonated with people. A picture of Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Mr Juncker reading the card emerged on Wednesday. The card, which had the words Thank You from Ireland printed on the front, captured imaginations when produced at a press briefing, with many incorrectly assuming it was from the Taoiseach. However, Mr Juncker clarified that it was sent by an Irish citizen. It was signed by Hailey, her husband Dave and their two dogs, Scooby and Little Boo. The card said: I will be honest. I never really understood the importance of the EU. It was something we learned about in school, a part of history, more than part of today. "But your 5 words, Irelands borders are Europes borders made me want to jump for joy, punch my hands into the air, and kiss you. It included the following passage that struck a chord with many: For the first time ever Ireland is stronger than Britain. That strength comes not from guns or bombs. It comes from your words, and that of your colleagues. Hailey said she had absolutely no agenda in sending the card. She did not expect Mr Juncker to ever see it, let alone respond publicly to it. Anybody who knows me knows Im big on thank-you cards, she said. If my niece gets an A, she gets a card in the post. I happened to make it giant, only because I am that sort of person. The Irishwoman who sent a green thank you card to European Commission President @JunckerEU says she's been shocked by the online response to the gesture. | https://t.co/E8oCTS90Xd pic.twitter.com/beSg0i6lwm RTE News (@rtenews) February 7, 2019 Hayley insists that she is not a politically-minded person but is worried about the impact of Brexit on Ireland. Seeing the support of European neighbours motivated her to send the card. She said: Ireland does need to be proud of the support the EU has given. In my lifetime, it is nice that this little island of Ireland is now mighty. "We are strong and we are able to stand up to people to whom we werent able to stand up to before. A woman, who alleged she had been accused of stealing a 1 shopping bag from Dunnes Stores, has settled her 75,000 defamation claim for an undisclosed sum against the shopping chain. Catherine Duff, with an address at Lower Gardiner St, Dublin, told the Circuit Civil Court Thursday that security man Giedrus Pieka had shouted at her: You did not pay for the bagyou were going to steal that bag. Pieka denied having spoken the words and told Circuit Court President, Mr Justice Raymond Groarke, that he had discreetly asked a check-out operative at Dunnes Stores, North Earl St, Dublin, if she had checked through the plastic bag for life with Duffs groceries. He had been told she had not. He told barrister Frank Crean, counsel for Ms Duff, that his client had called him a fucking foreign bastard during the incident at the check-out. Mr Crean, who appeared with OHanrahan Lally Solicitors, told Pieka in cross-examination that he had not stated in his direct evidence he had seen Ms Duff pull the price tag off the bag and throw it away. Mr Pieka said while he had not thought it important at the time he was saying it now. I didnt think that was important but now I remember it, he told Mr Crean. Judge Groarke said Mr Piekas new evidence in cross-examination had become a very important part of the case and the suggestion had not been put to Ms Duff when she was in the witness box. Ms Duff denied she had shouted at Pieka and claimed such evidence if presented to the court would be so not true. She said she had taken the bag for her groceries and had put it up on the check-out desk and believed the lady on the desk had scanned it through with her groceries. Mr Crean asked for some time to discuss a new development with his client. A short time later he told Judge Groarke that the case could be struck out with an order for taxation of Ms Duffs legal costs. Details of the settlement were not disclosed in court. An English tourist who was hit in the face with a pool cue in an unprovoked attack at a Dublin hostel has said the experience has tainted his view of Ireland. The man, together with a Finnish woman also holidaying in Dublin, were the victims of an unprovoked assault at the Generator Hostel, Smithfield Square, in 2016. He suffered a deep scar on his chin and is apprehensive about returning to this country, Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard today. The woman was also left with a scar from the pool cue on her forehead which causes her embarrassment, the court heard. Paul Maguire, 32, of Nicholas Avenue, Church Street, Dublin, pleaded guilty on the day of his scheduled trial to two counts of assault causing harm on June 1, 2016. Judge Melanie Greally condemned the assault as an outrageous outburst of impatience and anger on two completely unsuspecting people who had just arrived in the country. The judge noted that neither victim wished to accept the sum of 5,000 which Maguire had bought to court as a practical expression of remorse. She accepted Maguire's suggestion that the sum of money be paid over to Temple Street Children's Hospital, where she said it would be put to very good use. The case was adjourned until May 9 for sentence, pending the preparation of a probation report. Garda Michael Lennon told Fiona McGowan BL, prosecuting, that the two victims had arrived separately in Ireland from Finland and London in the days proceeding the assault. They had not known one another beforehand, but met up at the Generator Hostel and went for dinner at the Brazen Head pub. The woman told gardai that after eating, the pair returned to the hostel where they began chatting to a number of people who were waiting their turn to play pool. She said she remembers being struck with something, seeing half a pool cue and blood all over the floor, and holding her head. The male victim said he heard one of the pool players saying Fuck this, before he was also struck on the face with a pool cue. The pool players left the hostel and gardai later identified the accused man on CCTV. Both victims were taken to the Mater Hospital where the woman was treated for a superficial forehead wound. The man had suffered a 4cm deep wound to his chin which required stitches and caused him pain for days. Maguire has 26 previous convictions, including for drugs, firearms and public order offences. In a victim impact statement, the English man said his experience had tainted his view of this country and that he was apprehensive about returning. The court heard he worked as a teacher and his scar did not look appropriate, so he had had to grow a beard to hide it. Garret McCormack BL, defending, offered a sincere apology on behalf of Maguire who said he had been on a three-day bender of alcohol and illicit substances. The court heard that Maguire and his partner have a one-year-old daughter. Judge Greally commented that nasty as the injuries were, they could have been a lot worse. She said she would take Maguire's offer of 5,000 as a mitigating factor, notwithstanding the victims' refusal to accept the money. Tailgating, particularly on the M50 motorway, is "all too common in this country", a High Court judge has said. Mr Justice Seamus Noonan made the comment when he awarded 17,237 to Tanya Ryan, 32, who sued over a multi-vehicle collision on the M50 on March 19, 2015, during the 7am rush hour. He found Ms Ryan, Canterbrook, Trim Road, Navan, Co Meath, 25% liable and a truck belonging to David McEntee Transport, Ashbourne, Co Meath, 75% liable for the accident. He did not accept her claim she was hit from behind by an unidentified vehicle but said she had lost control after braking hard while travelling in the fast lane. The truck driver was not keeping a proper lookout and was unable to stop causing the subsequent collisions, he said. She had sued the truck company, the drivers of the three other cars involved and the Motor Insurers Bureau of Ireland (MIBI) which compensates victims of untraced or uninsured motorists. Mr Justice Noonan dismissed the cases against the three car drivers and the MIBI. Mr Justice Noonan said Ms Ryan was mistaken in her belief she was travelling at 65kph because that would be "an extraordinarily low speed" in the fast lane. Other witnesses, in the middle lane, said they were driving at between 75kph and 80kph. She was also mistaken in her belief she had been pushed from behind by the unidentified vehicle which she said had driven on after she was hit and had spun around and ended up facing the wrong direction in the middle lane. There was no damage to her rear bumper and none of the other drivers saw the unidentified car that had been behind her making contact with her, the judge said. He believed she may have reconstructed in her own mind what happened since then. She also said she had been driving a "good car length" behind the car in front of her. "Tailgating is all too common a problem in this country and particularly on the M50 in my experience", he said. "And because she was too close to the car in front of her, her reaction was to brake hard and that is what in my opinion caused her to go out of control and end up facing oncoming traffic." He was satisfied the drivers of the other three cars involved, Aoife Boland, of Edgewood Lawns, Blanchardstown, Dublin, Brian Keoghan, of Slane Road, Navan, Co Meath and David Fox, of Woodlands, Portmarnock, were driving safely and were able to stop before the collisions occurred. He dismissed the claims against them. In relation to the truck, driven by Krzystov Kopiczak, he said that the driver had "a grandstand view" of the vehicles in front and "should have been able to stop if paying attention and giving himself enough room from the vehicle in front". He was satisfied Ms Ryan and the truck company were negligent. The case was before him on appeal from the Circuit Court which found the truck company and Mr Fox were 50/50 liable. Mr Fox appealed as did Ms Ryan against that court's decision dismissing her case against the MIBI. He cut Ms Ryan's award by 25%, giving her 17,237 for which the truck firm is liable. Drivers are being warned to slow down and expect the unexpected as Storm Erik hits the country. Strong winds are expected in parts of Donegal, Mayo and Galway - where a Status Orange Wind Warning is in place. Very windy in all areas today with stormy conditions for a time in western and northern coastal counties as Storm Erik tracks to the north of Ireland. Heavy rain in eastern counties will clear quickly this morning to leave a mix of bright intervals and widespread blustery.... pic.twitter.com/vi9Ck7b27c Met Eireann (@MetEireann) February 8, 2019 There is a Status Yellow alert for the rest of the country with a chance of some coastal flooding due to high seas. Michael Roland from the Road Safety Authority said: "We're asking them to slow down, to drive with their dipped headlights on, to watch out for vulnerable road users and in particular watch out for any debris that may have blown across their path or is lying the road. "Slow down and expect the unexpected." Gerard O'Flynn from the Coast Guard said people need to be extremely careful when walking near the coast in stormy conditions. He said: "Stay back, stay high, stay dry - seas are unpredictable...don't take unnecessary risks and don't view this kind of weather as an opportunity to take fancy photographs or even selfies because it is a dangerous time, and people must look after their own personal safety." The Irish Coastguard has been assisting two vessels that got into difficulty off the south west coast today during Storm Erik. Met Eireann issued a storm warning for areas from Loop Head to Malin Head. Divisional Controller Derek Flanagan told RTEs News at One how the Coastguard rescue coordination centre in Valentia is dealing with the incidents. One was an Irish fishing vessel that was 120 miles west of Dingle that got struck by a very large wave and sustained major damage, it is now slowly making its way towards an Irish port, thankfully none of the crew were injured and they are safe at the minute, they are reporting that sea conditions are starting to drop down, as the storm passes further to the north. Around the same time - 7am - a Russian based vessel further out to sea, 230 miles south-west of Dingle, also reported an incident where they had some mechanical issues due to the weather. That's quite a big vessel with 91 persons on board, they actually lost engine power and are currently adrift in very high seas - 10m seas, we're waiting for the weather to abate before another vessel can tow them into port and sort out their engine problems. Mr Flanagan pointed out that 10m seas are probably as high as two buses together. The swells are very high out there, conditions are very rough. Our biggest concern is the danger that these waves represent to the vessels, the likelihood of injury to crews working aboard these vessels is increased quite a lot as they try to contend with those weather conditions. The Coast Guard strongly advises the public to stay away from exposed beaches, cliffs and piers, harbour walls and promenades along the coast during storm conditions. Remember to Stay Back, Stay High and Stay Dry. #StormErik pic.twitter.com/ahO2uvdHUp Irish Coast Guard (@IrishCoastGuard) February 8, 2019 There's about 20 of those very large vessels working in an area about 200 miles off the coats at the minute. They've decided to work through this weather, they're used to it, to these conditions all the time, they know that these storms pass quickly, they ride out the weather until conditions get better then start fishing again. He added that quite a few other large vessels have taken refuge in places like Sheephaven and Donegal, having decided not to risk damage that might be caused. We expect the weather to be like this for the next 12-36 hours. It starts in 1864, when the French emperor Napoleon III installed Maximilian of Hapsburg as emperor of Mexico. He held a teetering role in conflict with the rule of President Benito Juarez until he was executed in 1867. During this brief French regime, 50,000 French folks, including Henri Vallet, migrated to Mexico. Vallet, a chemist who settled in Mexico City, created two Old World-style bitter liqueurs Amargo-Vallet (an earthy angostura bitter) and Fernet-Vallet (an herbal spirit) that are still made according to his formulations to this day. Even after the French rule was just a memory, the Fernet-Vallet lived on, sitting on a dusty shelf in nearly every taberna in Mexico as a hangover cure, taken in a shot called a piedra, consisting of the fernet plus anisette plus a squirt of limon (lime). The Psychiatric Nurses Association (PNA) has announced it will hold three additional days of strike action in the coming weeks. The three days of consecutive industrial action are scheduled for February 19, 20 and 21. With up to a quarter of a million people potentially affected by the nurses' dispute, someone is going to fall through the cracks, patient advocate, Stephen McMahon has warned. Mr McMahon, who is chairman and co-founder of the Irish Patients Association, said he was gravely concerned because of the number of people affected by the industrial dispute. The numbers are so high that I feel somebody, or a number of people, will fall through the cracks, he said. Mr McMahon said he had been contacted by a number of patients who had appointments or surgical procedure cancelled because of the dispute. They are very concerned at how the strike is impacting on them and living in hope, like me, that the dispute will be resolved soon. Mr McMahon said he did not think patients were angry at the nurses; they were just worried about when their appointments and operations would be rescheduled. He referenced one particular case where a mother was very upset about her baby, who has a serious heart defect and needs an operation. She is concerned that the pre-op scans and evaluation may not happen next week because of the dispute. Stephen McMahon Mr McMahon said patients had to make plans when they had surgery and often relied on loved ones while they recovered. It is not always easy for some people to take time off work and many care plans have gone out the window because of the nurses' strike action. One woman, whose operation was cancelled, told him her husband had taken a week off work to take care of her after the procedure. She has become very stressed because she does not know when she is going to have her operation. Mr McMahon said it was heart-breaking to see so many people suffer while the dispute dragged on. He said it was crucial that whoever was negotiating on the Government side had something to put on the table. You are not going to get past the starting line if the answer is always no, no no, he said. If the benchmarking is causing problems maybe it is time to revisit it it has not been looked at for some time. Is it right that if someone gets a pay increase in one area of the public service because of extra work and responsibilities everybody should get a divvy from that?" INMO general secretary, Phil Ni Sheaghdha, said she did not think there was a risk that public opinion could turn against nurses if there were three consecutive strike days next week I don't think so. I think the public is very adamant. They know why nurses and midwives are taking this action. They know it is because the public health service is understaffed; will not be there when they need it, particularly up to 2030 when we know our ageing population will have an even bigger need for the health service. It is simply not tenable to continue with the staffing levels that we have and make no provision. Meanwhile, the INMO and PNA will hold a national rally in Dublin today. It will be led by young nurses and midwives with suitcases who will ask the Government to give them a reason to stay in Ireland. An INMO petition supporting nurses has been signed by over 68,000 people. A bizarre knife attack saw a woman with no criminal record stab a friend in the neck after she had fallen asleep sitting at a kitchen table. The accused was today given a suspended 18-month jail sentence. At Cork Circuit Court, Judge Sean O Donnabhain recalled: The injured party and the defendant were friends. The injured party made a full recovery. It was adjourned for a considerable period and now there is a very positive report on the accused. This lady has made very good progress. It is a bit perplexing. Not only is it perplexing but it is worrying. Margaret OBrien, of 33 Glenamoy Lawn, Mayfield, Cork, was sentenced today after previously pleading guilty to assault causing harm to Margaret Kennedy at another address at Glenamoy Lawn on October 9, 2016. Ms OBrien also admitted producing a knife capable of causing serious injury. Ms Kennedy, who is in her early 50s, said: We were sitting down laughing and talking. To this day, I dont know why it happened. I am one of these people that if I am tired I just fall asleep. I was asleep. If I was awake I could have defended myself. Alison McCarthy, defence barrister, said the accused had no previous convictions. My client accepts how serious it was, she said. It was completely out of character. It was fuelled by alcohol. She has engaged with the probation service. The probation report notes the offence is quite bizarre. She has given up alcohol since it occurred. Ms McCarthy said the accused was truly sorry for her actions. Det Garda Brian Murphy agreed the defendant had shown remorse. He testified that three women were in the kitchen of the house at 3am. One of the women was pregnant and went to the sitting room to rest. Ms Kennedy, was tired and fell asleep sitting at the kitchen table. She did not know how long she was asleep and felt the pain in the back of her neck. The defendant later admitted when questioned that she got a knife and began to stab Ms Kennedy in the neck a number of times, Det Gda Murphy said. Ms Kennedy said in her victim impact statement: I feel ashamed this has happened to me at my age. I feel so ashamed to be associated with a stabbing. I keep thinking I could have died. When I think Margaret picked up a knife and stabbed me in the neck causes me anger and almost rage. I cannot think of anything to justify her actions. A man who claimed 45,000 in jobseekers allowance by using two different identities over several years, while working under a third identity, avoided a jail term yesterday by repaying the full amount of fraudulent claims. Judge Sean O Donnabhain imposed an 18-month suspended jail term on Jose Da Costa, aged 37, who was living at Hardwick St, on St Patricks Hill, Cork. Da Costa had gathered a total of 14,000 and offered to make weekly payments at a rate of 125 per week until the balance is cleared. Previously, at Cork Circuit Criminal Court, Judge O Donnabhain said it would have taken an extremely long time to pay back what was taken. The case was adjourned until yesterday for a more realistic approach to compensation. Da Costa brought the remainder of the 45,000 to court today. In those circumstances, the judge said he was prepared to impose a fully suspended sentence. Garda Hilary Lynch, on secondment to the Department of Social Protection and Family Services, testified previously that the Mozambique national moved to Portugal as a teenager and later obtained a Portuguese passport. He came to Ireland in 2007 and signed on for jobseekers allowance in one name and then in another. She said that he worked in catering under a third name. Between 2007 and 2016, he claimed 45,000 in job seekers allowance to which he was not entitled. Gda Lynch said facial image matching software identified Da Costa as the same person claiming jobseekers allowance under two names. It was later established he was employed in the catering industry. He pleaded guilty to having a public services card in a name which was false and which he knew to be false. He admitted sample counts related to stealing jobseekers allowance. More than 200 immigrants have registered to vote for the first time, and several hundred more are expected to sign up, as part of a massive voter registration drive in Cork. And one of them, a microbiologist from India, has decided to run for election as an independent candidate. Dr Lekha Menon Margassery, originally from southern India but who has lived and worked in Cork for almost a decade, confirmed her intention to contest for a seat on Cork City Council in May. Dr Lekha Menon Margassery who is standing as an independent candidate in Cork City for the local elections in May. Picture: Eoin English. Dr Margassery, a part-time demonstrator in UCCs department of microbiology and president of UCCs Indian Alumni Society, said she wanted to be a voice for the estimated 400 Indian families living in Cork, and for the wider migrant community here. I am Indian by heart: Irish by soul. My main motive to run for election is to tackle problems regarding housing and transport, as well as something for asylum seekers, she said. I didnt know an immigrant could vote here. "We were not aware of it until I took part in a workshop as part of this campaign, and that made me think: we didnt make use of the vote, and yet we had the power. Was at the #Cork Migrant Centre at @NanoNaglePlace earlier for the latest #ShapeYourCity voter registration drive - 100s are signing up. Also met a microbiologist from India whos running for @corkcitycouncil in #LE19 - her story is in tomorrows @irishexaminer #corkcc pic.twitter.com/1ovA8hT1fz Eoin English (@EoinBearla) February 8, 2019 She said through her alumni work at UCC, she has received countless messages from international students raising concerns about lack of suitable housing and inadequate public transport. But she said non-Irish families arriving here to work are also finding it difficult to source and secure accommodation. She was speaking at the latest Shape Your City voter registration event at the Cork Migrant Centre, at Nano Nagle Place. The centre supports the integration of immigrants with a special focus on those at risk of poverty, social exclusion, exploitation and discrimination. Gulnaz Aaqif Muhammad, left, with Deborah Oniah, right, and her daughter, Munachi, registering to vote at the Shape Your City voter registration event at the Cork Migrant Centre at Nano Nagle Place in Cork. Dozens of asylum seekers living in direct provision centres in the city and county were among those who registered today. EU citizens can vote at European and local elections. Non-EU citizens can vote in local elections, and British citizens can vote in national, local and EU elections. Stephen Murphy, a social inclusion development worker at Cork City Council, said the message of the campaign is simple. If you are living in Cork for more than six months, you have a right to register to vote and we can help you to do that, he said. "We are looking to get more people who are new to the city to register to vote, to get better representation for people who have to come to the city to work, or to live here." We met some incredible people today during our voter registration session at Cork Migrant Centre, its looking like we have 30+ people signing up to have their voice heard in the upcoming local elections #Yay Find out more about #ShapeYourCity: https://t.co/raP3p1seVC pic.twitter.com/LKI03IBq9k Cork City Council #StaySafe (@corkcitycouncil) February 8, 2019 Shape Your City events have taken place at some of Corks biggest employers with large multinational workforces, including Voxpro, Johnson Controls, and Marriot Hotels. The campaign will visit Dell EMCs three sites next week. Since 2011, only eight counties recorded an increase in their non-Irish national population. Cork city saw the largest increase with non-Irish nationals making up 14.1% of those living in the city in 2016. Data released this week shows that over 42% of the population living in the city centre are non-Irish nationals. Nationally, around 12% of the population is made up of migrants but just 31 non-Irish candidates ran in the 2014 local elections, with three elected. Defence Forces reserves are being discriminated against because they are not getting the same pay and conditions as regulars in the Army, Naval Service and Air Corps. One extraordinary anomaly is that Naval Service reservists are required to have perfect 20/20 vision, whereas those serving in the frontline force do not. This and a number of other issues have been raised by Neil Richardson, general secretary of the Reserve Defence Forces Representative Association (RDFRA). An applicant for the Naval Service Reserve can be rejected on eyesight grounds, but that same person can then apply for and successfully join the Permanent Defence Forces Naval Service. The permanent force will accept candidates of varying eyesight standards, but the Naval Service Reserve is only permitted to recruit those with 20/20 vision, Mr Richardson said. He said those with eyesight issues in the regulars are posted into units dealing with logistics and supplies, but this is not done with reservists who were quite capable of doing those jobs. Mr Richardson said the minister with responsibility for defence, Paul Kehoe, had committed to changing these standards 10 months ago, but it has not happened yet. The reserve will be recruiting again April 1 and so time is of the essence. If the eyesight standards are not updated by then, many more Naval Service Reserve applicants will be turned away unnecessarily, he said. Also, reservists are not being paid the rates they should for training. The reserve is supposed to be paid on a par with the lowest permanent Defence Forces pay scale for each rank, but there is now an average 18% discrepancy between permanent and reserve pay rates that the Department of Defence has allowed to come into existence. This is in breach of two ministerial Defence Forces regulations, Mr Richardson said. He said as such there was a substantial amount of money owed and there were also issues with payments being delayed. Mr Richardson said the current strength of the reserves is 1,840, far short of the 4,069 its supposed to be and like the permanent forces those leaving the reserves are outstripping recruitment. A new recruitment model specifically for reserves has been designed but still not been implemented. The reserve is not being properly utilised, and is instead only being tasked with training for trainings sake. This position is untenable and ignores the wealth of specialist skills and qualifications that members of the reserve possess. These skills could be properly utilised by the Defence Forces for the benefit of the State, Mr Richardson said. He mentioned a number of these issues while addressing the Oireachtas committee on defence yesterday. A man approached by gardai after he had kicked the wing mirror of a car produced a 50 note and threw it at them, saying: Take the money, I have plenty of it, you look like you need it. Following his arrest in the early hours of May 6 last, Ronan Butler of Drombane in Limerick was taken to a Garda station, where he again produced money and said: This is going nowhere my grandfather was chief super [Supt] in Henry St. Butler, aged 22, appeared before Bandon District Court facing three charges in relation to the same night at the Kinsale Rugby Sevens tournament last year. Sgt Paul Kelly, prosecuting, said gardai observed Mr Butler kicking a wing mirror of a white Range Rover on Main St in the town at 1am, causing him to fall over on his backside. It was when gardai then approached him that Butler, a recent graduate from Limerick Institute of Technology, produced the 50 and made his remarks. Judge James McNulty heard he then refused to be handcuffed and had to be restrained. It was when he arrived at the Garda station that he made the second comment, referring to his grandfather and Henry St in Limerick. Judge McNulty read a letter of apology written by Butler in which he outlined how he had made a 100 donation to the Irish Kidney Association in memory of an uncle who had recently passed away. His solicitor Plunkett Taaffe said his client had just finished college and had been celebrating and had drank to considerable excess, resulting in him behaving in an appalling fashion and causing embarrassment to himself and others in his family. The court heard two of his uncles are serving gardai. Mr Taaffe said Butler, who now works with a hedge fund, had no recollection of the events. The court heard he had failed to appear at a previous court sitting, resulting in the issuing of a bench warrant. Mr Taaffe said his client had paid his own way through college and that it was a first offence. Its a serious first offence, the judge said, adding that Butlers insulting, offensive and denigrating behaviour towards police officers doing their duty was really quite appalling. He convicted him and fined him 1,000 for the offence, adding that he was taking the other charges of being intoxicated in a public place and his previous failure to appear in court into consideration. Mr Taaffe argued that the reason his client had not attended the earlier court hearing was as he had broken his leg and asked that the judge not convict, stating: He is a man on the cusp of life. He added that his client had engaged in drunken, stupid, irrational behaviour but that it was all due to drink. The court also heard Mr Butler had come to Garda attention since the incident in Kinsale, and Judge McNulty said the conviction would stand, but fixed recognisance for any appeal at 1,000, all cash. Gardai are investigating a two-vehicle fatal crash in Wexford between a van and a truck, in which a man was killed. The incident happened at 7.25am at Ballymackesy, approximately four miles from Enniscorthy. Here are just a few of the promising recommendations from Smith and the Food & Dining team. Plus early in the week, well eat at several Chicago Black Restaurant Week participants and write about the deals. Follow along at chicagotribune.com/dining. The Taoiseach has said he has total confidence in Health Minister Simon Harris. It comes as documents show Minister Harris was aware of a possible 400m overrun at the National Children's Hospital in August last year, seven weeks before he told the Taoiseach or the Finance Minister. Leo Varadkar has said concerns about the impact that had on budget planning are a red herring - as capital expenditure was decided last February. The Taoiseach said even if Simon Harris had told him about the overruns earlier, he would have instructed him to do exactly what he did. PAC chair: Harris should 'do the right thing' and resign today By Vivienne Clarke The Chair of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), Fianna Fail TD Sean Fleming is calling on the Minister for Health Simon Harris to do the right thing and resign today. Mr Fleming told Newstalk Breakfast that personally he feels confidence in the Confidence and Supply agreement is diminishing rapidly. Were not yet at zero, but were heading there. At this moment were rapidly heading to zero confidence in the Minister for Health. However, he said that he did not think a vote of confidence in the Minister for Health should happen. The Minister should do the right thing, he should step out of office. The Dail shouldnt have to force the Government to do the right thing. If he doesnt step down the issue will continue. Mr Fleming said that as Chair of the PAC he was disappointed that he had to receive details on the cost over run for the national childrens hospital in dribs and drabs. He also said that he did not believe the cost being discussed at present is accurate. We never got accurate information. I have no confidence in any of the figures there. Mr Fleming said there will be a bigger problem going forward and asked if the people over seeing the project so far should be allowed to continue to do so for the next three years. He said that as a Fianna Fail spokesperson his view was quite clear that information was withheld during the Budget negotiations. We worked on the basis that we had the full facts, the true information. It is clear that the Minister knew the figures were not accurate. Fianna Fail should not have to decide the future of Simon Harris, he added. A vote of confidence should not arise. I think the country wants him to resign. Sinn Fein says Simon Harris' position is 'untenable' Sinn Feins health spokesperson Louise OReilly says that the Minister for Healths position is untenable and she is calling on Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin to declare if he has full confidence in Mr Harris. She told RTEs Morning Ireland that the Ministers revelation on RTEs Prime Time last night he was first aware of the overrun on the national childrens hospital in August was evidence of his policy of drip feeding information. The Minister rejected criticism about why the information hadn't been revealed in the Dail or during the negotiations on the Budget and renewing the confidence and supply agreement between Fine Gael and Fianna Fail. He said the Taoiseach and Minister for Finance and Public Expenditure were informed of the situation 'at the appropriate moment' in November. He added that his department had been 'seeking to engage' with the Department of Public Expenditure in September and October. Mr Harris said he believed he had behaved entirely appropriately and that it was clear that he retained the confidence of the Taoiseach. He didn't accept that he'd withheld information from the Dail. He said a collective decision had been made to proceed with the project adding that delaying the hospital or retendering it would have cost more money. He added that the hospital board refused the 200m requested by the contractor. Ms OReilly questioned why the Minister for Health did not flag the issue of the cost over run to the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform at an earlier stage. He was meeting Paschal Donohoe on a regular basis in the run up to the Budget, he should have flagged it. He should have indicated to the Minister for Finance that there was a serious over run, after all he holds the purse strings. For ten and a half weeks he kept that information, he didnt share it with colleagues. Minister Harris position is untenable, Taoiseach must remove him - Louise OReilly TD https://t.co/AFFp2HpxSk @loreillysf pic.twitter.com/QXRKOXCgEO Sinn Fein (@sinnfeinireland) February 7, 2019 She said the Minister had mislead the Dail, withheld information and had not answered questions, so his position was untenable. Fianna Fail have to come out and express confidence in this Minister, they have to let us know their position, they were not told during Budget negotiations. We need to know if Fianna Fail have full confidence in the Minister. Ms OReilly accused the Minister of drip feeding information and revealing details to journalists before informing Dail colleagues. Thats not acceptable. A two-year-jail term was imposed on a 55-year-old credit union official from Cork for the theft of 407,000. The judge said Moira Coughlan plundered accounts of deceased members in a breach of trust that was phenomenal. She was what I would term the insurance officer in the credit union, the person in whom trust revolved to account for the accounts of deceased members until probate was taken out," Judge Sean O Donnabhain said of Coughlan. He said she was the one who was culpable for these multiple frauds. The judge said the money was gone and nobody knew where it went. Patrick ORiordan defence barrister said the defendants home was in the process of being sold and that she would have 215,000 available from that to repay the Synergy credit union in Fermoy, Co Cork. The judge said a custodial sentence could not be avoided given the length of time and the methodical nature of the thefts. The two-year sentence was backdated to November 2018 as the accused was in custody from that time. Mr ORiordan said Moira Coughlan, 55, of The Stables, Mineville, Knocknahorgan, Sallybrook in Glanmire pleaded guilty previously at Cork Circuit Criminal Court to 592 offences relating to the theft of the money from the credit union. Detective Sergeant James OShea said the total amount of money stolen by the accused between 2009 and 2016 amounted to just over 407,000. The charges against her consisted of 251 for theft, 300 for fraudulent use of a computer and 41 for false accounting. The thefts arose out of transactions totalling 1.5 million on 27 accounts. A small number of accounts were ones for which she had authority but most of them were accounts of deceased credit union members. Det. Garda OShea said the accounts were in probate and the accused was in a trusted position in the credit union. The financial controller of the Synergy credit union noticed an unusual action on a deceased members account. An internal investigation was carried out and gardai were notified. The detective said that the accused was transferring money from account to account. When probation on a deceased members account was finalised the defendant would transfer money from other accounts into that account to bring the balance to what it should have been, the detective explained. No members were at a financial loss. In a victim impact statement on behalf of the credit union the hope was expressed that her punishment would be proportionate to her actions. In relation to what the 407,000 was used for the defendant said when interviewed, "day to day living". But the detective said that was hard to believe as she would steal 5,000 one day and 3,000 another. At the highpoint of the crimes she stole 78,000 in 2012 and 72,000 the following year. She also referred to a house loan but there was no supporting documentation, the detective said. Patrick ORiordan said it all started with various loans that the accused had with the credit union which she could not repay. She lost her marriage and moved out of Mitchelstown as a direct result of her actions and she has had psychiatric difficulties including self-harm. The total amount referred to in the charges is 407,441.94 and the offences were contrary to the Criminal Justice (Theft and Fraud Offences Act). Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan is set to ask Chief Justice Frank Clarke to establish a temporary judicial body to set caps for insurance claims in a bid to help reduce costly premiums motorists have to pay. The Government is considering setting up the body because of delays tackling high insurance costs due to the prolonged setting up of a permanent judicial council. Michael DArcy, the junior finance minister, confirmed to the Irish Examiner that the new body will be asked to recalculate the book of quantum a guide to amounts awarded for personal injury claims. He said: This is essential. We cant wait the best part of two years for the judicial council. We need to do something now. So this is the way to do it. "We are talking about [setting awards for] soft tissue injuries, possibly lower than 30,000 where there have been no breakages. Separately, the issue will come before the Dail and Seanad, with a Government politician set to propose legislation to fast-track agreement on amounts for injury claims. Fine Gael senator Anthony Lawlor said the bill will help reduce insurance charges. The Irish Examiner understands the Government will progress both these areas in the coming weeks, depending on legislative priorities surrounding Brexit. It had been intended that injury claims would be capped by a new judicial council. Slow progress on that legislation has prompted the fresh move. This follows a report last year by the Personal Injuries Commission, which called for a new system to establish levels for injury awards. This new non-statutory interim body of judges could begin work on assessing injury rates by Easter, say Government sources. Mr Flanagan is considering how best to approach the judiciary. It is thought that the interim body will need to set robust rules for new claim levels in case of any court challenges. Last month, he complained to a meeting of the Fine Gael party that filibustering in the Seanad is frustrating his work and could even destabilise Government. Figures show the courts received 22,417 new personal injuries cases in 2017. Mr DArcy is keen to reduce payout levels, saying that claims here are sometimes four times higher than those paid out in Wales, the North, or other jurisdictions. The minister is concerned about fraudulent claims indirectly hiking up insurance charges demanded by firms. He also recently highlighted how some insurance companies are settling personal injury claims without relying on medical reports to prove injuries actually occurred. Insurance Ireland, the body representing firms, has warned that promised reform has been incomplete and that inaction is costing policy holders. Anthony Lawlor In the meantime, Mr Lawlor is preparing to bring forward private members legislation which may force the Government to set a policy or plan for new claim levels amid the outcry over the delays. Mr Lawlor confirmed to the Irish Examiner that, in the coming weeks, he will table the private members bill in the Seanad. This will save money, and not just for motorists and their insurance costs, but other areas such as retail, he said. The idea would be to set caps. But we have to finalise this and get it right. The Independent Alliance has sought a meeting with Taoiseach Leo Varadkar on the cost escalations at the Children's Hospital and the ongoing nurses' strike. That meeting is scheduled for Tuesday amid significant pressure on Health Minister Simon Harris. Speaking to the Irish Examiner, junior Business minister John Halligan confirmed the Alliance is "backing" Mr Harris and are not seeking his head. Mr Halligan was scathing in his criticism of attempts by Sinn Fein to call for Mr Harris' removal from office. "Rather than trying to seek a motion of no confidence in another minister, Sinn Fein would be better served if they went over to Westminster and put down a motion of no confidence in Theresa May, who has the potential to wreck the Irish economy," he said. A woman and her former partner who re-occupied her former South Dublin residence are facing a legal bill of 60,000 after a High Court judge ruled they should pay the costs of injunction proceedings against them. The pair, who cannot be named for legal reasons, were before the court after a house formerly owned by the man, where his former partner and their two teenage daughters had resided, was late last month re-entered resulting in the eight occupants being forced out. Shawl Property Investments Ltd, which in September bought the house from a receiver appointed by a financial fund over the property, secured temporary injunctions against the pair, requiring them to vacate the premises. The couple then agreed to vacate the property, have consented to the injunction being put in place until the case has been determined and in a letter to the court apologised for their actions. Today Ms Justice Leonie Reynolds, following an application by Rossa Fanning SC for Shawl, said that the couple should pay the legal costs of the injunction application, which the court heard are 60,000. The matter was before the court for a few hours spread over three separate days. Mr Fanning said the costs were on a solicitor-client basis, the highest level of legal fees, in order to mark the "wholly illegal" actions of the defendants who he said could have no defence to the claim against them. The Judge in agreeing to measure costs on a solicitor-client basis refused to put a stay on the order, but adjourned a request by Shawl for an interim payment of the legal costs incurred. John Donelan Bl for the couple said it was accepted that Shawl was entitled to its costs, but said a stay should be placed on that order until the full hearing of the action had been determined. Counsel said his clients intended to defend allegations made against them and bring a counterclaim in respect of the property. The Judge adjourned the case for a month to allow the parties to discuss a timetable for the hearing of the action. Shawl brought proceedings after the occupants at the property were forced out of the premises by the defendants. It claims the man and six others broke into the Dublin 6 property, changed the locks and forced out the occupants. The woman and the couple's teenage daughters entered the house later on that evening. Shawl claims the occupation was illegal, and that the couple were well aware that they have no rights to the house. Shawl also claims there has been "orchestrated attempts" by persons connected to the couple to force it out of the Dublin 6 property, and another house in Dublin 4 which it bought that had also previously been owned by the man. The house at the centre of the dispute was one of several purchased by the man with EBS loans over a decade ago. In 2011, EBS Ltd got a 9.4m judgment against the man over the loans which had been secured on the properties. A receiver was appointed over the properties, none of which were ever a family home. Beltany Property Finance acquired the loans from EBS in 2017. The woman claimed she had obtained orders in family law proceedings, including a right of residence in the Dublin 6 property, and claimed she would have been surrendering her family law rights if she had vacated it. Her claims were rejected by the courts, clearing the way for the receiver to sell the properties to Shawl. Arising out of the woman's refusal to comply with orders granting the receiver possession she was jailed for contempt last May. She was released from Mountjoy Prison in late August after giving undertakings to vacate the property. County councillors are adamant they will not change amenity zoning on a former GAA club in Cork after talks to purchase it broke down with the receiver. Fears have been raised that the land, acquired by a construction company that has since gone into liquidation, could be sold off to another developer who might seek to have the land rezoned for housing. The land was acquired some years ago by Castlelands Construction in a deal with the local GAA club which saw it moving to modern facilities on the eastern side of the town. It had been the companys intention to build on it, but it ceased trading. At one time Castlelands Construction was building up to 700 houses a year and employed up to 500. Council officials said that for some time, they had been in talks with the receiver to try and acquire the site, which they want to develop as a recreation and amenity area for the people of the town. In a statement, the council said the negotiations have recently fallen through. No further explanation was given by officials at a meeting of the Kanturk/Mallow Municipal District Council, but the talks were described as commercially sensitive. Sinn Fein councillor Melissa Mullane, who had raised the issue, said she was very disappointed to hear that had happened. Its a massive site which has lain unused for years. Its shameful, she said, adding that sporting clubs in Mallow are crying out for such amenities. Fine Gael councillor John Paul OShea said he hoped talks could be restarted with the receiver and that the council should consider the option of issuing a compulsory purchase order for the land. Fine Gael councillor Gerard Murphy said it wasnt zoned for housing and urged council officials to make it clear to the receiver that they would not rezone it from its current recreational/amenity status. However, under new legislation some Strategic Housing projects, which have to be in excess of 100 homes, can bypass local authority planners and go straight to An Bord Pleanala for a final decision. Technically, An Bord Pleanala can overrule zonings created by councillors in their local area plans, if its officials believe there is a specific need for additional housing in certain places. Liz Donovan, an officer with the municipal district council, said she would write on its behalf to the property section in County Hall asking officials that they formally inform the receiver that councillors are refusing to rezone the land. She said she would also ask the same council officials to investigate the possibility of using a compulsory purchase order on the land. More than half of litter fines handed out in Dublin in the last five years have not been paid. Figures from the City Council also show the number of on-the-spot fines being issued is falling. CervicalCheck programme manager John Gleeson has been subpoenaed by Ruth Morrissey's legal team to appear before the High Court and give evidence in her case over the alleged misreading of her smear test slides. In the High Court today, Mr Justice Kevin Cross said he was not going to set aside a subpoena for Mr Gleeson and Simon Kelly, a former chairperson of the Quality Assurance Committee of the National Cancer Screening Service. The judge also ruled that they can be asked questions in relation to governance which pertain only to the 37-year-old mother's claim for exemplary damages in the case. Limerick woman Ruth Morrissey, who has cervical cancer and at maximum has only two years to live, has sued the HSE and two US laboratories over the alleged misreading of two smear tests she had in 2009 and 2012 under the CervicalCheck screening programme. Today, the court heard CervicalCheck programme manager John Gleeson can attend the High Court next week but Mr Kelly who is in Lanzarote caring for his wife who is recovering from an accident had expressed his non-availability. The judge said the HSE and Morrissey sides can agree a date when Mr Kelly can give evidence to the court. It is understood Dr David Gibbons, a former chair of the Cytology/Histology Group within the Quality Assurance Committee of the National Cancer Screening Service, will also give evidence in the case next week. CervicalCheck programme manager Mr Gleeson, the court heard, wrote the letter to Ms Morrissey's consultant in 2016 in relation to the audit results on her previous smears of 2009 and 2012 and which revealed the smear tests had been reported incorrectly as negative. Ms Morrissey was told the audit results in May last year. It was the seventh day of the action by Ruth Morrissey and her husband Paul Morrissey of Kylemore, Schoolhouse Road, Monaleen, Co Limerick who have sued the HSE and the US laboratory Quest Diagnostics Ireland Ltd with offices at Sir John Rogerson's Quay, Dublin along with Medlab Pathology Ltd with offices at Sandyford Business Park, Dublin 18. It is claimed there was an alleged failure to correctly report and diagnose and there was an alleged misinterpretation of her smear samples taken in 2009 and 2012. A situation it is claimed allegedly developed where Ms Morrisseys cancer spread unidentified, unmonitored and untreated until she was diagnosed with cervical cancer in June 2014. It is further claimed a review of the 2009 and 2012 smears took place in 2014 and 2015 with the results sent to Ms Morrissey's treating gynaecologist in 2016, but she was not told until May 2018 of those review results which showed her smears were reported incorrectly. The Morrisseys further contends that if Ms Morrissey had been told the results of the smear test audits in late 2014 or early 2015, she would have insisted on an MRI and other scans. The HSE the court has already heard admitted it owed a duty of care to Ms Morrissey but not to her husband. The laboratories deny all claims. In court today, Patrick Treacy SC asked "why did we have to wait until Ruth Morrissey has cancer before there was any supervision" and why the audit findings were not immediately disclosed. He said the HSE are denying "primary liability " in the case. Counsel for the HSE Patrick Hanratty SC told the court Mr Kelly had nothing to do with audits and has since retired from the HSE. Counsel said the HSE were struggling to meet a brand new case "parachuted into the action." The case before Mr Justice Kevin Cross continues on Tuesday. British fashion group Superdry, which has a number of stores in the Republic and the North, reported lower revenue in the Christmas quarter, blaming issues with its product range and mild weather. Superdry, whose strategy has been criticised by the company founder, has issued a string of profit warnings, the latest in December, and its shares have slumped 70% over the last year. The stock initially fell 4% in early trading, before recovering and rising 1.5%. The firm has more than 500 stores and concessions in the UK, Ireland and Europe. It has four stores in Dublin, as well as Cork, Limerick and Kildare. It also has stores in Belfast, Newry and Ballymena. Superdrys management, led by chief executive Euan Sutherland, is under fire from Julian Dunkerton, the companys founder and former chief executive who left the business last March but still owns 18.4% of the equity. Mr Dunkerton, who quit because he could not put his name to the strategy, wants to return to Superdrys board and has raised the prospect of convening a shareholders meeting to facilitate that. He does not agree with Superdrys product and internet strategy and has the support of co-founder James Holder, who owns 9.7% of the shares. Last April, Superdry launched an 18-month product innovation and diversification programme, aiming to reduce its over-reliance on cold weather clothing by entering new areas such as clothing for children. It reported early progress with that plan yesterday. Group revenue in the third quarter to January 26 was 269.3m (308.2m) down from 273.3m in the same period last year. That reflected an 8.5% fall in store sales and a 0.7% decline in online sales, partly offset by a 12.7% rise in wholesale sales. Other fashion retailers such as Next and Ted Baker fared better over Christmas. We continued to be impacted by the ongoing product mix and relevance issues we have previously highlighted and by the lack, until the end of quarter three and the start of quarter four, of any prolonged period of cold weather in our key markets, said Mr Sutherland. Reuters and Irish Examiner staff Think of the Irish heartlands in the United States and the mind will automatically focus on those centres where the Celtic footprint is traditionally greatest New York, Boston, San Francisco. Over the past 200 years, the Irish experience in America has seen the tricolour fly in major cities as well as hundreds of smaller locales around the vast continent some much less well known than others. Take, for instance, the Massachusetts town with an unusual name Scituate. Unusual though its moniker may be, theres no disputing the Irish credentials of this picturesque coastal town near the tip of Cape Cod a place officially designated as the most Irish town in America. Data from the 2010 US census found that the Massachusetts town is home to a higher concentration of people who trace their heritage to Ireland than any other place in the United States. Founded in the 17th century, Scituates status as an Irish enclave began following the Famine and the subsequent enormous emigration to America. Legend of Carrageen Moss Legend has it that a fisherman named Daniel Ward discovered carrageenan otherwise known as Irish moss growing beneath the rocks along the towns shoreline. A new industry was born, and Irish mossing became a thriving business, used in a variety of products from beer to cosmetics. The red algae raked from the sea floor at low tide was used as a thickener in ice cream, as well as having uses in beer, wine, medicine and in calico dye manufacturing. Mossers working at both low tides could gather as much as 1,000 pounds weight a day, spreading the seaweed on the beach to dry and packing it into crates. A full-time job for Irish immigrants in the mid-19th century, one of them famously declared: Its a great farm we have out there. We dont have to plow [sic] it or plant it, but it gives us four crops a season. While the industry did eventually die out, it did leave the legacy of creating the Irish Riviera in nearby towns like Quincy, Randolph, Marshfield, Weymouth and Kingston. After the second world war the migration continued right up to the 60s as returning GIs from Boston, Hyde Park and Dorchester moved to the South Shore suburbs. Today the Irish Riviera proudly displays its Irish lineage with flags, Catholic churches and schools, pubs, restaurants and bakeries. Dancers performing at Ohios hugely popular annual Dublin Irish Festival, which is regularly attended by more than 100,000 people each year. In 2016, Mayor of the County of Cork, Cllr Declan Hurley together with the chief executive of Cork County Council, Tim Lucey, signed a formal twinning agreement with representatives of Scituate. Scituate Harbour is a hive of marine activities much like many west Cork towns such as Schull and Baltimore, Mayor Hurley said. Likewise, with our Taste of West Cork and Scituates annual restaurant week, we both showcase all our region has to offer in food and food tourism. There are huge opportunities for us to share ideas, food producer exchanges and marine tourism. Tim Lucy noted how the twinning was a natural progression for west Cork and Scituate: Following on from a friendship pact, this twinning will develop permanent ties between our communities from a tourism, cultural and educational perspective and is one which I am confident will be mutually beneficial. Scituate Select Chair, Maura Curran, added: Scituate already has deep bonds of affection for Ireland and this agreement will only serve to deepen and strengthen those bonds. The similarities between Scituate and Cork County and west Cork make this twinning agreement a natural fit and we look forward to seeing the positive results of this agreement come to fruition. A half-dozen Dublins in Americas heartland Irelands capital city has, like a fine wine, travelled well in fact there are six of them across the USA. Dublin, Pennsylvania, is a town with a population of 2,120 of which 474 are Irish Americans which accounts for 20% of the total. Dublin, Virginia, is 19% Irish American, with some 507 the 2,665 population claiming Irish ancestry. Dublin, Ohio, is a Midwest town of 43,224, with 6,187 claiming ancestry in the Auld Sod 14%. It also hosts the Dublin Irish Festival, attended by more than 100,000 people each year one of the largest celebrations of Irish American culture in North USA. Boston, USA. In the Lone Star state, Dublin, Texas, has an 11% Irish American population out of 3,671 residents, and was designated it the official Irish Capital of the Lone Star State by Governor Rick Perry in 2005. On the West Coast, the Californian town of Dublin is a popular suburb of San Francisco, with a population of 52,063 of which 4,172 are Irish Americans, making up 8%. And last, but not least, theres Dublin, Georgia, way down South. Out of a population of 16,181, some 453 are Irish almost 3%. Rather interestingly, the town merited a mention in James Joyces celebrated novel, Finnegans Wake. Hands across the ocean: Americas long established ties to Ireland Today, more than 155,000 people are directly employed in over 700 US firms in Ireland, and which also indirectly support a further 100,000 jobs in the Irish economy, in total accounting for 20% of employment. Collectively US investment in Ireland amounts to $387bn, an increase of 16% from 2015. The Industrial Development Authority of Ireland won more than 237 overseas investments in 2017, creating almost 19,851 new jobs. US firms remain the largest source of new investment, and investment in 2017 accounted for 67% of all foreign direct investment in Ireland. In a geographical spread that encompasses much of the country, the US multinational footprint stretches from Dublin to Galway, Wexford to Mayo and Cork to Donegal. Ireland is the EU gateway for many US firms accessing European and international markets. Ireland, which represents just 1% of the European economy, attracted 12.1% of all US FDI investment to Europe in 2016. US companies are also responsible for major social benefits in their local communities and throughout Ireland through providing innovative and inclusive social impact programmes and other activities. In 2015 alone, employees of US companies contributed over 600,000 work supported volunteer hours to 7,300 CSR projects. John Daly talks to CIT physicist Dr Paul Reynolds about the Veritas project. Veritas the Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System is an international astrophysics collaboration between the USA, Canada, Germany and Ireland (UCD, NUIG and CIT). The project involves nine founding institutions and 15 collaborating institutions. It operates a ground-based gamma-ray instrument at the Smithsonian Institutions Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory in southern Arizona, USA an array of four 12m optical reflectors that uses the Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov technique to perform gammaray astronomy in the GeV TeV energy range. High-energy gamma rays are associated with exotic cosmic objects such as exploding stars, or supernovae, pulsars, quasars and black holes. Expensive, space-based observatories are normally required to detect gamma rays as they are absorbed in the atmosphere, but VERITAS is able to use the Atmospheric Cherenkov Imaging technique to observe them from the ground. Ireland has had an important role in this going way back to the 1960s when the actual technique was discovered by an Irish American scientist, Neil Porter, who was a professor in UCD, explains Dr Paul Josh Reynolds, CIT Department of Physical Sciences. He set up in the Wicklow mountains with a series of searchlights and started the Atmospheric Cherenkov Imaging technique, and led through to the breakthrough discovery in this area of astronomy in 1987. It consisted back then of a small group of Irish and American scientists, but which has over the years mushroomed into a number of observatories. Dr Reynolds highlights the major project currently underway the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA), the next generation ground-based observatory for gamma-ray astronomy at very-high energies. With more than 100 telescopes located in the northern and southern hemispheres, CTA will be the worlds largest and most sensitive high-energy gamma-ray observatory. This will hopefully come on line in three or four years time and is where the knowledge gleaned over the years will be put into. The southern array will be hosted in Chiles Atacama Desert, and the northern at La Palma in Spain. Dr Paul Josh Reynolds, CIT Department of Physical Sciences, who is playing a lead role in the international VERITAS astrophysics project. With one on either side of the equator, it will allow for full coverage of the sky, he said. This is an enormous project, with thousands of scientists involved. Dr Reynolds has been a member of the VERITAS collaboration ever since its inception back in 2003, as well as being a member of its progenitor the Whipple Observatory collaboration. He is also a co-author of the publication that announced the discovery the Atmospheric Cherenkov Imaging Technique in 1989. My participation to-date in VERITAS has been funded with Basic Research Grants from Science Foundation Ireland, with some contributions from CIT, but funding for this class of basic Astronomy research has been discontinued by SFI since 2012, Dr Reynolds said. VERITAS has a prodigious research output, with approximately 90 publications in peer reviewed journals over the last eight years. CIT hosted the VERITAS summer collaboration meeting in 2010. I was responsible for installing and currently run and maintain two of the atmospheric quality monitoring systems at the VERITAS, namely a LIDAR and a network of Mid-IR radiometers. "The LIDAR system was purchased by CIT through a Science Foundation Ireland Research Frontiers Programme grant in spring 2011 and was deployed at VERITAS after a six month testing period at Blackrock Castle. Congratulations to Dr Josh Reynolds @CIT_PhysSci & all @ VERITAS observatory https://t.co/Bo245Dmih2 for contributing to major scientific discovery https://t.co/YnizQU9Zi1 on origin of cosmic rays in our Universe. @CIT_ie @CITScience4Life @stemireland @blackrockcastle https://t.co/Z4AKhxpGl9 MTU PhysicalSciences (@CIT_PhysSci) July 12, 2018 Each collaboration member is required to spend at least two weeks on-site, in the period from September to June, taking data and performing engineering work with the instrument. My most recent research visit was a two-week tour of duty in January 2018 when I was one of a three-man team taking data with the VERITAS instrument and performed maintenance and calibration on the CIT sourced atmospheric monitoring instrumentation. Results from data taken on the gamma ray blazar TXS 0506+056 during this observing campaign was published as part of The ICE-CUBE neutrino emission discovery from the same source. Dr Reynolds next research visit to VERITAS is scheduled to take place in June/July 2019. Data from the instrument has been used in multiple level 8 projects over the years in CIT last semester a Maths Department Data Analytics student performed deep learning on the raw images and his project achieved joint top project marks in the class. The VERITAS collaboration is bound by a teaming agreement between nine founding institutions and 15 collaborating institutions, of which CIT is one. I was elected as one of the two collaborator representative member of the 12 person VERITAS Executive Committee (VEC) for two years between Spring 2016 Spring 2018. The VEC is a supervisory and regulatory body for the project that determines membership of the VERITAS collaboration, advises the project office on budgetary and policy matters, defines appoints and reviews committees, reviews and approves proposals pertaining upgrades to the VERITAS instrument and for additional instruments relating to the VERITAS site. I was a graduate student and had joined the research group in UCD back in 1985, working for a year with the Smithsonian when the discovery was made. That was probably the most exciting time, but there have been others along the way that have made it quite a memorable journey to be part of. Dr Reynolds says the current VERITAS spokesman is Irish the recently elected Professor John Quinn. Further information on the VERITAS experiment are available at www.veritas.sao.arizona.edu An unprecedented drive is underway by US multinationals in Ireland which see their Irish operations as ever more critical to their global business to continue to bring innovation and crucial R&D to this country, writes Ailin Quinlan. Thats according to Mark Redmond, chief executive of the American Chamber of Commerce. We have never before seen the level of ambition being displayed by US multinationals in Ireland as we are seeing now; firstly to continue to bring valuable research development and innovation into Ireland, and secondly to really elevate Irelands global strategy internationally, he declares. The Irish operations of US multinationals are becoming ever more critical to the global business of these international firms, partly as a result of the high level of talent available in Irelands increasingly diverse workforce, he says. Another factor, Redmond observes, is the ground-breaking innovation that is currently taking place in every multinational sector here, from pharma to IT. Ireland has a growing reputation as a centre of innovation and talent, he says, adding that inclusion is a very important issue for the multinational sector here. Some of the multinational firms based in this country have as many as 90 nationalities working with them, something which is very important, he adds: If youre serving a global market its very important to have a global workforce. The American Chamber, he declares, believes Ireland now has a superb opportunity to be perceived globally as a location where ambitious employees can hone their talents and improve crucial workplace skills. Its a view which is roundly endorsed by the general public - Redmond points to an independent survey of public opinion by the American Chamber of Commerce last July which shows that 84% of the general public believe the US is critical to Irelands future, while 71% believed that the quality of Irelands workforce was the main driver in attracting further investment. We fully endorse that, Mark said, adding that other factors, such as the strength of Irelands education system, its personal tax regime, the availability of rental residential accommodation and easy access to high quality broadband as well as the provision of an adequate transport infrastructure, public and private, were all crucial to the countrys continued success in attracting ongoing foreign investment. Vital role of education In terms of education, the requirement that our education system meets the ever-changing needs of the workforce cannot be over-stated, he insists this is essential in a global economy where the skills required, and the roles being created are continually changing. High quality broadband access is required to facilitate flexible working and to ensure that Irelands SMEs had access to the necessary markets internationally, Mark warns, adding: We also need to make sure that we future-proof Irelands capacity to be the location for future waves of foreign investment. There is strong public support for Irelands EU membership; 92% think Ireland has benefited from EU membership; 85% think that Irelands membership of the EU is a good thing; 88% support the euro The Chamber, he reveals, is strongly focused on advocating for gender balance and equality, and has developed a number of programmes to create awareness of these issues and to help women advance their careers and ascend to more senior positions. One of these, its Leaders of Impact programme, which is currently running in Cork, Dublin, Limerick and Galway, is designed to assist women to develop their influence, impact, self-confidence and networking skills. In the coming year, Mr Redmond remarks, the American Chamber will focus very strongly on the southern region. Great networking & discussion this morning with @AmericanChamber #Sligo members - a lot happening - thank you @AbbottGlobal for hosting pic.twitter.com/aej1koicT9 Mark Redmond (@MarkFXRedmond) February 6, 2019 The American Chamber of Commerce Southern Region Conference, to be held in Cork on September 26 and hosted by UCC, is a prestigious event designed to spotlight opportunities in the southern region in terms of job creation, R&D investment and its reputation as a location where strong collaboration between the third-level sector and industry is a priority. That evening a high-profile dinner, to be attended by all stakeholders from the multinational sector to representatives of local business, education, chambers of commerce and elected representatives, will feature the presentation of two new awards. The Cairdeas Award - the word cairdeas means friendship in Irish - will be presented to an industry or organisation which has strongly promoted community impact in the southern region. The second prize, the Creafog Award creafog is the Irish word for earth will be presented to a multinational firm which has demonstrated real excellence in terms of sustainability and environmental awareness. The dinner will be attended by representatives of all the major multinational firms in the southern region, as well as local business representatives, educational institutions, local chambers of commerce, elected officials and NGOs. A similar programme will take place in Galway next June and then in Limerick in October. Transatlantic conference Another significant initiative for 2019 will be a major transatlantic conference on March 7 at Croke Park Conference Centre, which will showcase Irelands status as a critical centre between the US and the EU. This event will feature speakers from the USA, Brussels and Ireland who will point to Irelands ever more crucial industry role, says Mr Redmond. Because of the very unfortunate departure of the UK from the EU we are being told that Ireland is seen as having an even more critical role to play in terms of the Brussels table, Mr Redmond explains. The American Chamber of Commerce, he says, is seeing real opportunities as well as further investment set to come to Ireland in the future. However, the key to achieving, he warns, is not to become complacent but to stay agile and move quickly. Irelands ability to be speedy of execution in terms of key physical infrastructure such as the M20 or the Ringaskiddy linkup or, indeed, the rollout of Broadband is crucial, he warns. We need to move fast. Good work is being done but we are saying the key to our success is the ability to execute effectively and swiftly. In Ireland today, there are more than 700 US companies with bases serving global markets. The sectors where they tend to be found are the most advanced in the world industries such as information and communications, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, medical technologies and financial services. In total, these companies directly employ more than 155,000 people in the Irish economy. And theres at least a further 100,000 employed indirectly in support and supply chains. Altogether, this accounts for around 20% of all employment in Ireland, and a US$446 billion total investment which is almost 70% of all foreign direct investment coming into the country. Most will agree that this is a remarkable achievement and an investment success story of which we should be rightly proud. What many people dont often realise is that it is a two-way story. AmCham President Mark Gantly and CEO Mark Redmond are welcomed to Killorglin, Kerry, by CEO of Fexco Denis McCarthy for a Summit with members in the region last December. There are more than 700 Irish companies exporting to the US, and there are 100,000 people employed by Irish affiliated entities in 50 US States. Smart ideas and decisions made over decades ensured that Ireland has emerged, not as a bit-part player but a central driver of business in the 21st century global economy. Its true of all business, but especially true of FDI business that adaption is key to survival. US FDI in Ireland is remarkably resilient. That can be largely attributed to its ability to anticipate and adapt to change. In the context of changes including Brexit, its vital that we keep looking ahead, and find the new ideas that will help us to adapt and stay resilient. In the past five years, we are seeing a significant change in the priorities for FDI companies. Attention has shifted towards a question of how we can attract and retain the best and the brightest from at home and around the world. The demand for talent is intense globally. This means our offer as a world-wide destination of choice to work and live must be unquestioned. In an uncertain world, the factors which influence talent acquisition and retentions are, to a large extent, within our own control. We need to look towards our cities, to invest in improving quality of life and thats everything from choosing a home to better office buildings, from better education choices, to leisure and cultural amenities. We need to look at making our infrastructure best practice and more connected, both physically and digitally. Given the diversity of the countrys workforce, we also need to put inclusion at the centre of our agenda. At present, around 17% of the total population was not born in Ireland. In US multinationals that proportion rises to 27%. Having a global workforce equipped to serve global markets will be a major differentiator for any country hoping to attract FDI in the future. Regardless of sector of industry, collaboration is key. Ireland is fortunate to have excellent agencies like IDA Ireland, Enterprise Ireland and Science Foundation Ireland working hard on its behalf. For companies today, there are myriad opportunities to be found by partnering with startups, inward investors or academic research groups. For would-be entrepreneurs, FDI will continue to be an enabling factor catalysing start-ups and scale-ups through licensing and acquisition. On 7 March @CrokeParkEvents leaders within the US business community in Ireland will come together to discuss the themes critical to Irelands role within the Transatlantic economy. #USIRL19 https://t.co/fxp1VfA2GC pic.twitter.com/mKXUSNeLFv American Chamber (@AmericanChamber) January 23, 2019 Facilitating networks Facilitating those networks and eco-systems is an important part of the AmCham agenda In 2019. As a country we have weathered much over the past decade. And like the unpredictability of our climate, we must be ready for more change to come. Knowing that the route to continued success is to anticipate, then be prepared to be flexible and adaptable I believe we can future proof our economy. More than that based on my own personal experience, it will be our ability to listen out and find new ideas, big and small that will help us navigate and succeed in the way ahead. Regina Moran, enterprise director of Vodafone Ireland, on the benefits of smart working. The SME sector accounts for 56% of the total turnover of the Irish business economy and provides 70% of all jobs in the non-financial business economy. They are the backbone of our local economies creating employment and generating cash flows in communities across the country. According to the latest research from Vodafone Ireland The Future of Business in Ireland: A Conversation with SMEs, employers and employees in SMEs have a very positive outlook in terms of future prospects. The majority of business owners and employers are predicting growth across existing or new local markets. And many SMEs are planning to invest in their business particularly in staff attraction and retention. This is hardly surprising given the war for talent within the Irish economy. How SMEs should be investing their hard-earned income in order to secure the right talent? New technologies are changing working patterns. With at least 216,000 people in Ireland engaged in some form of smart working, which is the combined use of technology and connectivity with flexibility and agility for people to work from home, a co-working hub or using a hybrid model (part-home, part-office), it is increasingly important to Irish workers. A third of the 300 SME employees said they would be willing to change jobs for the sole purpose of having smart working options. But Irish SMEs have yet to capitalise on what could be a key differentiator for their business. Whats interesting is that our report found most employees and employers recognise the benefits of smart working such as increased employee engagement and an improved employer brand. Additionally, certain business benefits were voiced by an SME representative panel who contributed to the report. These included improved connectivity and productivity, a reduction of operating costs, staff attrition and commuting times and a positive impact on the environment and local economy in towns, as people do not leave for jobs in cities. It was recognised that smart working is just as much about being able to manage assets more effectively as it is about employees being able to work flexibly. And that modern technology such as IoT devices which build capability for converged communications can help businesses manage resources better. Yet, only 9% of employers surveyed said they were fully embracing smart working and 38% of businesses suggested they were not even considering it. The barriers called out through the research included company culture, technology and the impact on customers. But there are ways SMEs can overcome these barriers to enjoy the benefits of smart working and stay ahead of competitors many of whom were born digital. Both the employees and employers who took part in our research cited company culture as the main barrier to smart working practices. This barrier does not require investment in a new gadget or physical asset that would represent a major cost. In relation to technology, any employees who wish to undertake smart working practices will already own the tools and equipment necessary for their work to be carried out. And in terms of broadband, advances are being made for smart working particularly in rural areas. With more and more initiatives underway, the hybrid model of smart working provides an optimal solution. In terms of the impact on customers, any change in the workplace environment could create ramifications for customer service - from inputting a new system to restructuring a department. Therefore, employers are right to be wary of such changes. If we consider the contributions SMEs make to our economy, then the ability of such businesses to remain competitive is of vital importance to our society as a whole. It is therefore imperative that SMEs and those who support them recognise that employee expectations have changed and should seek advice as to how smart working could improve working environments and secure their future. Alternatively, if SMEs in Ireland dont recognise that these new workplace trends are here to stay, they run the risk of competing with other businesses who are embracing such trends and therefore able to create more efficient operating models. Ireland has transformed itself into a leading global provider of financial services since the launch of the IFSC in Dublin just over 30 years ago, writes Kyran Fitzgerald. There are now more than 200 foreign multinational firms with bases here while the country is also home to over 200 Irish owned international services firms. One of the best known as well as longest established indigenous firms is Fexco, based in Killorglin, south Kerry, a town that has played host to Puck Fair for many decades. The firm was founded in 1981 by Brian McCarthy and it employs more than 2,300 people around the world. Around six months ago, Fexco announced the creation of 175 new jobs in Kerry over the next three years, jobs in engineering, software and sales. The expansion is being backed by Enterprise Ireland. It is now one the worlds leading FinTech companies providing an extensive suite of payments as well as foreign exchange products. Over the years, some of the best known names in finance have established bases in the regions. In the 1980s and early 1990s, GPA rose to become the leading global player in aviation leading operating out of a base in Shannon. The group was taken over by GE following a failed attempt at a flotation, but it spawned an industry, as former GPA executives set up their own aircraft leasing operations. The current Minister of State for Financial Services is Michael DArcy, a Co Wexford based Fine Gael TD. His Department has identified six main priority areas for the development of the sector. These include the promotion of Irish regions as financial centres along with the development of broader financial infrastructure. IFS 2020, the Governments strategy to created 10,000 jobs over five years in the financial services sector. In 2015, the Government launched an international financial services strategy known as IFS2020 with the aim of creating up to ten thousand net new jobs over the following five years. More than 200 Irish owned firms now find themselves at the cutting edge of innovation in payments and other financial technologies. There are 25 payments companies alone in the country while more than 1,800 people are employed directly by leading firms. Alongside IFS2020, the State funded skills development body, Skillnet Ireland which sponsors collaborative training involving enterprises and trade unions has also launched a 2020 strategy for the financial sector. Since 2015, more than 5m has been invested in training for firms and employees in the sector by Skillnet companies. The IDA has come under pressure from the politicians to invest the flow of foreign direct investment into the regions and it has enjoyed particular success in areas of manufacturing such as pharmaceuticals and biotech. Killorglin, Co Kerry. The agency itself is working on a new five year strategy that takes into account the rapid changes in the nature of work, with the shift away from low skill jobs such as back office work and basic manufacture. The focus will be on preparing people for careers in which artificial intelligence and robotics play a much bigger part. In the meantime, the regions are continuing to benefit from IDA sponsored international FDI. Recent examples include Deutsche Borse which is adding 200 positions at its growing funds business in Cork where it operates through a subsidiary, Clearstream Global Securities Services. Around 375 people are currently employed by Clearstream near Cork Airport. However, the operation is being relocated to the new Navigation Square complex shortly. The company provides mutual funds custodian services for around 60 major financial institutions. Elsewhere, another international financial services company, Alter Domus, opened its second Irish office in Cork in 2017. Its main businesses are aircraft leasing, private equity, real estate and debt. The group was founded in Luxembourg where it is headquartered in 2002. It is currently filling roles in Cork for accountants and senior officers who will play a role in the initial set up of funds, liaising with specialists and taking care of the day to day operations of funds. US based BNY Mellon has set up offices in Dublin, Cork and Wexford providing services in asset management, funds administration and servicing. The nature of finance is changing dramatically with the rise of digital providers. Financial technology, or Fintech has emerged as a sector in its own right and enjoying rapid growth. IDA Ireland has secured key investments from such US industry leaders as Stripe, Yapstone and Equifax , according to solicitors A& L Goodbody in a recent survey. Enterprise Ireland has a dedicated FinTech team which manages over 220 companies. Home grown successes include Future Finance and Fenergo, which focuses on regulatory compliance and efforts to combat money laundering. Future Finance recently raised $317m, while Fenergo has raised $80m. Homegrown successes include the Kilkenny based specialist, TransferMate, which provides international business to business solutions. Its payment systems are licensed in all US states. Clearly the situation in the light of Brexit is a highly dynamic one with many companies reassessing their operations and many UK companies ramping up Irish businesses in order to retain EU passporting rights allowing them to operate across the European Union with freedom. The regions are pitching to benefit from overspill effects while pointing to lower costs in key areas such as housing and commuting. The leading provincial cities are moving to ease local commercial property constraints. Estate agents CBRE have pointed to continued momentum in the commercial property market in Cork with strong interest in assets. Several new schemes are planned or have commenced, in particular in docklands, Mahon, the city centre & close to the railway station. A 100m office scheme is due to get underway in Galway where suitable space is in short supply this Spring. Limerick has announced an ambitious renewal programme, Limerick 2030, with up to 3,000 due to be employed at the Opera site over the next six years. A clear pitch is being made to incoming international services companies. Venture capital is playing an increasingly important part in the role out of new era financial sector projects. Two of the countrys top ten VC investors are based in Cork namely Kernel Capital and SOSV. Kernel was founded in 1999. It has offices in Cork, Dublin and Belfast. To date, it has invested in companies such as Pilot Photonics and Altratech. SOSV, with offices in Cork and Princeton, New Jersey, its HQ, has $300m in assets under management. SOSV was founded by the technology entrepreneur Sean OSullivan. And according to media reports, it is one of the most active firms in the world in the financing of startups. SOSV recently made more than 30m from the sale of a 20% stake in a bike-sharing company. It moved part of its business from Cork to London recently. The clear message is that suitable infrastructure is being put in place within the regions to attract high level investment. Leading accounting firms have been beefing up their main regional offices while many leading local professional firms are in expansion mode. Third level institutions are playing their part, with UCC having opened its new Centre for Executive Education in the heart of the city at Lapps Quay in November. Over the long term, 100m is being invested in an expansion in its business school. However, the other regional educational institutions are also playing their part in ensuring greater availability of local talent with suitable skills. Facebook is making a strategic investment in Ireland, having announced plans to create 1,000 new jobs here during 2019. The jobs will be spread across the US-founded companys 60 teams including sales, engineering and marketing, but the team that is set to see the biggest expansion on the back of this announcement will be content policy and moderation. DePuy Synthes Ireland is to invest 36 million in ground-breaking research and development projects at its Innovation Centre, Loughbeg, Ringaskiddy, Co Cork. The five-year project is supported by the Department of Business, Enterprise & Innovation, through IDA and reland. It will result in significant developments at the companys Materials and Surface Technology Centre, including co-location with Johnson & Johnsons 3D Printing Center of Excellence, creating 30 additional high-quality positions. Acquired by Johnson & Johnson in 1998, the orthopaedic and neurosurgery companies within DePuy Synthes form part of the Johnson & Johnson Medical Devices group, headquartered in Raynham, Massachusetts, USA. DePuy develops and markets products under the Codman, DePuy Mitek, DePuy Orthopaedics and DePuy Spine brands. Since launching a decade ago, the Centre has accelerated innovative technologies and new product introductions for the companys orthopaedic portfolio, driven by a diverse technical team. The five-year investment expands the scale and scope of activities at DePuys Innovation Centre in Ringaskiddy. Projects will focus on advancing material science in 3D printing, coatings and surface treatments to meet future needs. The expansion includes the establishment of a 3-D Printing Development and Launch Center on-site, as well as the Johnson & Johnson 3D Bioprinting Laboratory, launched last year in collaboration with Trinity College Dublin. Shannon Crespin, VP, global supply chain, DePuy Synthes said: This investment marks the next phase in the exciting R&D activity being undertaken at this Innovation Centre. Gary Clerkin, global leader, manufacturing engineering, science & technology, DePuy Synthes, added: "It is crucial that we continue to deliver impactful research outcomes, and this advanced Materials and Surface Technology Centre will help accelerate innovation through the supply chain and shape the products of the future. "A central element of this investment, the 3D Printing Development and Launch Center, complements the 3D Bioprinting partnership with TCD launched last year. Cork Airport, Irelands second-largest international airport, is entering its fourth year of consecutive growth, forecasting a 7% growth increase in passenger numbers for 2019 with approximately 2.6 million passengers expected to pass through its doors. Over 50 routes are on offer from Cork Airport across the UK, continental Europe and the east coast of the USA. Management are committed to continuing this growth and it looks promising as weekly passenger numbers in January are up 10% already on last year. Seats selling well for direct US/Cork route The direct transatlantic US/Cork route to Boston Providence with Norwegian Airlines will be reinstated on April 2nd and seats are selling well. This service runs three times weekly up to the end of October and links Cork Airport with TF Green Airport in Providence. Irish passengers are familiar with this route and the reaction since we introduced this service in July 2017 has been very positive, said Brian Gallagher, Head of Aviation Business Development, Cork Airport. Boston is like a second home for Irish people, with Rhode Island located just one hour away and the famed Cape Cod just under two hours. The increase in American visitors, he said, using this route into Ireland has seen a new found visibility for Irish tourism through our southern gateway. We still have more US inbound visitors rather than Irish outbound but we expect that really is where Ireland has had its advantages with US flights as there is such a big pool interested in visiting and holidaying here. Since take-off on July 1, 2017 Cork Airport has seen over 31,000 passengers travel between Cork and the US on the three times weekly route. Head of Aviation Business Development at Cork Airport, Brian Gallagher. This direct transatlantic service has benefitted the south of Ireland hugely in terms of inbound tourism from the US, with 60% of the passengers who use the Norwegian route being US visitors, said Brian. It has definitely opened up many new doors for both business and leisure passengers in the region and has proven vital for those travelling between the south of Ireland and the east coast of America. Irish people now have affordable direct access form Cork Airport to popular US holiday destinations in New England such as Marthas Vineyard and Nantucket. This service has also given US holiday makers a significantly easier arrival into the south of Ireland, perfect for those who wish to experience the beauty the region has to offer. Cork Airport he said continues to work closely with Tourism Ireland to bring more visitors in from abroad. We work closely with Tourism Ireland across a range of carriers, both Irish and foreign, and all with different marketing activities in place. The new @CorkAirport Summer Schedule e-brochure is now available online to help you plan your next trip from @CorkAirport. View the e-brochure here: https://t.co/k8QP6Dcy45 pic.twitter.com/OUmqPqq0Fd Cork Airport (@CorkAirport) February 5, 2019 "We grew 4% in 2018, just under 2.4 million passengers. "In terms of short to medium term opportunities we would love a New York service but we realise there are at least another 50 regional airports across Europe that would like a NY service too. "The west coast USA meanwhile is a long term target and not on our immediate hit list which is no big surprise when you consider West coast USA was only reinstated in Dublin in 2014. Passengers using the US service are a good mix from business people to those visiting friends and relatives and then pure holiday leisure traffic. The price point of Norwegian fares in particular has attracted a lot of passengers who may have travelled in Europe prior to this but are now flying to the US for the same price and that is where a lot of the stimulation has come from. Irelands second busiest airport, Cork Airport welcomed almost 150,000 passengers over the Christmas and New Year holiday period. Steady passenger growth Mr Gallagher said it is a rewarding time for Irelands second largest and best connected international airport after Dublin, with a passenger growth of 4%, that is just under 2.4 million passengers in 2018. This growth is a direct response to Cork Airports ongoing efforts to secure new routes and services for the region, with a further three new services launched last year. Brian is sure of one thing. It will be a good year. We have eight new routes opening up for 2019, two routes launched this Winter to Lisbon and London Luton and six new routes for Summer with Budapest, Malta, Naples, Nice Poznan and Dubrovnik. Going forward we would like to see a combination of growth from the existing airlines, so Aer Lingus and Ryanair adding more frequencies and more routes to their network out of Cork and then new airlines adding routes out of Cork as well. "There are a few capital cities we would like to reconnect plus some Eastern European cities that were served prior to the downturn which we would like to reinstate. "We would also like to further develop sun destination routes in the likes of Spain, Portugal, Italy and even Greece. 2019 has started quite well so we want to keep it going, Mr Gallagher said. Theres a great positivity here at Cork Airport and we look forward to keeping that positivity in partnership with all our customers, staff and our airlines. So thats Friday nearly wrapped up. Here are some of the stories we published on irishexaminer.com today which we hope will help you make sense of it all this evening. TO INFORM Children's hospital: The Independent Alliance has sought a meeting with Taoiseach Leo Varadkar on the cost escalations at the Read More: Read More: Gun attack: A 39-year-old man who died after being shot in north Dublin this morning Read More: Brexit: Leo Varadkar has said he will not be negotiating Brexit Read More: Read More: Energy prices: All Irish customers will be affected "sooner or later" by the raft of energy price hikes that are still in "full swing", Read More: Six Nations: Irelands Guinness Six Nations title defence suffered another setback today when second row and lineout leader Read More: TO ENGAGE Readers' blog: Cork has been mismanaged by city planners. South Main St is the most stupid place to build an events centre. City planners Read More: Turning anger into a force for good: Since her daughter was killed in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre last year, Lori Alhadeff has become an activist, and Read More: TO ENTERTAIN Semesters and trimesters: Its student life, but not as you know it. When women combine third-level studies with pregnancy and motherhood, Read More: RIP to a 'broadcasting legend': Former broadcaster Arthur Murphy, best known for the series 'Mailbag', Read More: MOST READ SO FAR TODAY Courts: Tailgating, particularly on the M50 motorway, is "all too common in this country", Read More: Federal prosecutors have sought more documents from the North Carolina Department of Insurance about an industry magnate whos also donated lots of money recently to North Carolina political causes. A department spokeswoman confirmed Tuesday it received the Jan. 23 federal grand jury subpoena in a matter involving Greg E. Lindberg. The subpoena seeks more recent documents that comply with a similar subpoena last September for information since 2014 about Lindberg, his Durham investment firm Eli Global, and several associated insurance companies. Federal authorities have repeatedly declined to comment on the investigation. Lindberg also hasnt responded to requests for comment about the probe or his campaign donations. Lindberg has given more than $5 million to North Carolina candidate and party committees and independent expenditure groups. WRAL-TV first reported on the new subpoenas existence. Related: Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics North Carolina John Cox has joined the Employee Benefits Group of Alliant Insurance Services as vice president, based in Austin, Texas. Cox has more than 25 years of experience in the employee benefits field. Prior to joining Alliant, Cox was president of the health division of a large, integrated human resources services organization. Throughout his multifaceted career, he has repeatedly set new standards for creating resilient, high-performing, and healthy organizations ranging from large Fortune 500 companies to regional companies and nonprofits Headquartered in Newport Beach, California, Alliant Insurance Services Inc. provides property and casualty, workers compensation, employee benefits, surety, and financial products and services to clients nationwide, including public entities, tribal nations, healthcare, energy, law firms, real estate, construction, and other industry groups. Authorities say a person is in custody after driving a stolen cement truck through a locked gate at a General Motors facility in mid-Michigan and hitting several parked vehicles. The Eaton County sheriffs office says no one was injured in the early Thursday collisions in Delta Township, about 75 miles northwest of Detroit. The sheriffs office says the cement truck had been stolen in neighboring Ingham County and later was recovered in Ingham County. The sheriffs office didnt say why the male subject drove the truck to Detroit-based GMs Customer Care and Aftersales facility. The department is investigating. GM spokeswoman Erin Davis says in an email that that the truck caused some damage to the automakers property and it contacted law enforcement about what happened. Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Auto Michigan A judge has approved a class-action settlement between Muscatine, Iowa, residents and a local factory that they blame for a noxious odor and haze and for causing health problems. District Judge John Telleen on approved the settlement over the Grain Processing Corporation plant, which makes corn-based products, The Muscatine Journal reported. The company, a subsidiary of Muscatine-based Kent Corp., agreed to pay $45 million to cover an estimated 14,000 claims and to spend $6.5 million on pollution controls at the Muscatine plant. Residents sued the company in 2012, alleging that the plant was negligent with its emissions and the odor was a nuisance. The case later received class-action status. GPC supports the settlement and believes its fair, said Joshua Frank, an attorney for the company. The company will continue to operate successfully in the area, he said. The settlement is groundbreaking because of the duration of coverage, complexity and value, said Sarah Siskind, an attorney for the residents. People who lived within 1.5 miles of the plant between April 24, 2007, and Sept. 1, 2017, may qualify for payment. Plaintiff Kelcey Brackett said he was happy with the settlement. I think, as the judge stated during the hearing, this was probably the most fair turn out of the case, he said. And I think what this does is secure a way for GPC and the community to work together. Brackett said hes already seen improvements, noting that GPC invested $83 million in upgrades during the lawsuit. I know Ive seen reduction of odors in the area, he said, and I want to see that continue. Residents have until March 19 to file a claim and could receive $2,000 to $16,000, depending on where they live. Up to $2 million of any money remaining after the payouts will be placed into a community fund for neighborhood improvements, Frank said. Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Pollution Iowa Ed, the London-based reinsurance, wholesale and specialty broker, announced the appointment of Laura Skaanild as client director, Professional and Executive Risk. She will report to Paul Richards, managing director of Professional and Executive Risk. Skaanild will focus on managing and developing Eds client base in the financial and professional services sector in the UK, US and offshore financial centers. She brings 18 years of legal and insurance experience to Ed, joining from Willis Towers Watson, where she served as head of the GB Financial Institutions (FI) Major Accounts Team. Skaanild joined Willis in 2012 and held a number of senior roles at the company. She began her career as a solicitor at Barlow Lyde & Gilbert in 2000, before moving to Zurich as a coverage solicitor in 2011. Source: Ed Broking Topics Willis Towers Watson Danske Bank A/S says its been placed under formal investigation in France over suspected money laundering at its Estonian branch. The Copenhagen-based bank said the investigation covers transactions from 2007 to 2014 amounting to around 21.6 million euros ($24.5 million). Danske said it has been ordered to post bail for 10.8 million euros. Danske had been placed under formal investigation in October 2017 only to have its status changed to assisted witness in January 2018. The action on Thursday by the French court reverses that decision and comes just as the bank appeared to be recovering from the damage caused by the saga. In September the bank released a commissioned report in which it revealed that much of around $230 billion that flowed through its non-resident portfolio at the Tallinn branch was suspicious in origin, making Danske the hub of one of Europes biggest dirty money scams ever. The laundering scandal, in which its alleged that billions of dollars flowed from the former Soviet Union and into the West until as recently as 2015, has made Danske the target of numerous criminal investigations, including in the U.S. With investors bracing for hefty fines, the scandal wiped about 47 percent off Danskes market value last year. Danske said that its cooperating with French authorities. Related: Copyright 2021 Bloomberg. Topics France Hartford InsurTech Hub, powered by Startupbootcamp, has welcomed its 2019 cohort of startups to Hartford, Conn. The chosen startups cover a range of abilities, from property insurance claims to peer-to-peer insurance (P2P) and exhibit a range of technologies and insurance types. The 10 teams, selected from thousands of startups, have relocated to Hartford for the accelerator program and will remain for the three-month duration. For the startups themselves, joining the program means they will receive the support, resources and industry and investor connections they need to help grow their businesses. With support from Startupbootcamp, the teams will be provided with access to a range of partners, mentors and investors from across the accelerators global network. The startups, who will join the second year of the Hartford InsurTech Hub acceleration program, will work closely with Hartford InsurTech Hubs insurance corporate partners: Aetna, Capgemini, Cigna, Deloitte, The Hartford, Travelers, USAA, White Mountains and CTNext. Hartford InsurTech Hub, powered by Startupbootcamp, is an initiative established in 2017 by Hartford insurance companies, the City of Hartford and CTNext. The program is focused on addressing the need for attracting new technologies and talent in insurance and technology into the city of Hartford and the local ecosystem. In the future, it plans to stretch its reach to other cities in Connecticut. Source: Hartford InsurTech Hub Related: Topics InsurTech Tech Startups As these types of hacking incidents continue to rise, so too might a debate surrounding regulation of smart device security. Consumers have grown more aware of their internet privacy in the wake of news last year that political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica used ill-gotten Facebook data in an effort to influence voter behavior. In the months since, a debate over how and if the government should regulate social media has raged, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has testified before Congress. With smart devices, too, experts say the public could end up calling for more oversight. The owner of Alpha Mar, John Stergiou, misrepresented his companys payroll to Texas Mutual from 2008 to 2012. Stergiou also falsified and concealed some of Alpha Mars and other related companies operations from the insurer. In a company release, Texas Mutual explained that because workers compensation insurance premiums are partly based on a companys payroll, Stergious scheme allowed Alpha Mar to be charged a lower premium than it actually owed. Following the guilty plea, the Texas Department of Insurance, Division of Workers Compensation prosecutor in Travis County obtained the conviction. Joe brings a wealth of experience in excess & surplus lines casualty business, workers compensation, alternative risk solutions, MGA programs and surety to RFIB, commented Foden-Pattinson. Hes a great fit to our team, and Im very pleased to welcome him to RFIB. Stanoch started his career with E.W. Blanch Co., before moving to Sedgwick Re in the 90s and later onto Holborn. He joined Burns & Wilcox in 2003 and played a major role in building up its reinsurance operation. I am very excited to be joining RFIB Americas, said Stanoch. The US is a market with huge growth potential and a genuine demand for truly independent, customer-driven brokerage services. I look forward to working with the outstanding team at RFIB Americas in developing business throughout the country. Insurance has never had great brand representation and I would like to see this change, says Noble. The industry is a hidden gem with so many fantastic opportunities. Its an observation shared by many industry heavyweights, including Austcover CEO Maria Parry. I would really like our industry to be seen in a positive light, she told Insurance Business. If you tell someone what you do, they dont seem particularly interested in hearing more and I think we need to change that perception. Noble, who regularly mentors other women and has participated in high-profile leadership programs, also says high-quality education is a challenge for the industry and should be viewed as a priority. It is important to provide quality practical training to help participants understand what they are learning and that this is not just a tick-box process, she says. This too is a belief commonly shared across the industry with NIBAs Young Broker of the Year for WA commenting on the issue late last year. We must advocate for a higher level of base education to ensure we are attracting top talent, Marsh broker Marcus Pallotta told Insurance Business. Being able to incentivise young, ambitious people into undertaking a career in insurance and in broking is crucial, he added. Noble also pointed to Australias aging workforce as a pressing challenge on the near horizon however, she also expressed her faith in the younger generation. Baby boomer retirement will cause a huge loss of technical and practical experience but there are a lot of younger people who bring great ideas they just need to be patient about advancement, she said. It will come! Finally, Noble addressed the impact of technology and warned that, while it has undoubtedly revolutionised the industry, it should always play second fiddle to people. Although technology is important, relationships are even more important so they need to be savoured and strengthened if you want to be successful, she said. Meanwhile gross written premium improved 5.5% to 34.9 billion, as well as earnings before interest and taxes by 12% to 2 billion. The insurance group cited what it described as the good operating development in reinsurance and in the retail international and retail Germany divisions. Alongside the pleasing development in German and international retail business, and in reinsurance, group net income was affected by the impact of exceptionally high large losses and an accumulation of frequency losses, particularly in industrial fire insurance, it noted. Talanx is counteracting this negative impact with the 20/20/20 programme. This programme is directed towards reducing the combined ratio in the burdened 20% of the industrial lines portfolio by at least 20 percentage points by 2020. It added that very good interim results have been achieved for the portfolios restructuring. Talanx said around 87% of the total minimum rate increases planned by 2020 had been contracted by the end of January 2019, and that a balanced underwriting result for the industrial lines division is expected this year. Active in over 150 countries, Talanx is the third-largest in Germany and among the major insurance groups in Europe by premium income. The Hannover-based enterprise will release its final financial figures next month. Eleanor Debelle, QBE chief HR officer, said the recognition was a fantastic affirmation of the insurers concentrated focus on its graduate employee experience over the last 18 months. We know our graduates bring unique experiences and capabilities to our business and play a key role in meeting the evolving needs of our partners and customers, fostering innovation and creating a diverse and future-ready workforce, Debelle said. In recognition of this, and as a key part of our commitment to maintaining an exceptional employee experience for all QBE employees, enhancing the graduate program at QBE has been a key priority for us over the last 18 months. Survey participants were all current graduates who have up to 12 months of full-time experience with their organisation. They rated their employer on more than 20 different categories including induction program, quality of work, career progression, company culture, compensation and benefits, training and development, and work/life balance. QBE also made it to the AAGE list last year, after the insurer was named as a finalist for the Will Spensley Memorial Award for Innovation in the Graduate Market (private sector) at the Australian Graduate Industry Awards. Lwin is a Sydney broker with almost two decades of experience in insurance, most recently as operations manager at Austbrokers. She has also worked at Chambers Gallop McMahon, Marsh, National Transport Insurance, Aon, and CGU Insurance. New client executive Monsalve will be responsible for managing a number of client relationships within the portfolio. He has more than eight years of experience in the insurance sector, most recently as executive broker at Austbrokers. Fairlamb brings five years of strata-broking experience to her new role as service executive. Prior to the appointment, she was account executive at Austbrokers. Honan has also announced that Shelley Thomspon, account executive, has returned to work after her maternity leave. Kalai Natarajan, head of strategic engagements (insurtech ecosystem) of Prudential Singapore, spoke to the innovation community in London during the launch and noted that there are tremendous untapped opportunities to innovate with the right partners. We believe in innovating with technology companies from around the world and not just in Asia, she said. Here in London, a vibrant innovation hub, we want to find like-minded partners and bring them to Singapore where they can work with our local teams to co-create solutions that will help us chart the future of insurance. According to Natarajan, Singapore is a key innovation test-bed for the Prudential Group because of the countrys strong digital infrastructure and conducive business environment. Solutions developed in Singapore can be deployed to Prudentials 12 markets across Asia and benefit its 15 million customers in the region. Meanwhile, at the London launch of this years PRU Fintegrate programme, Prudential also announced the three selected technology partners for its 2018 edition. Ailleron, Knowtions Research and DataRobot were selected from 30 companies which presented innovative and practical solutions in customer engagement and data analytics, and Prudential has signed memoranda of understanding with the three firms. We look forward to working closely with Ailleron, Knowtions Research and DataRobot and integrating their solutions into our business, Natarajan said. PRU Fintegrate is about fostering greater innovation through such partnerships, to bring about the right solutions that can meet the needs of our customers as well our employees and the financial consultants who serve them, Erin Elliott, a spokesperson for Schneider, said in a statement that Walmart will take over operation of the warehouse and run it internally by April 6. Walmart is also taking over the operation of two California warehouses that Schneider had been running. Tattoos may have lost a bit of their countercultural cred since then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani and the New York City Council legalized tattoo shops in 1997. In fact, theres probably more ink than you think in the halls of power these days. Heres a few politicians who werent afraid to commit to something permanent. Justin Brannan justin-brannan-tattoo-submitted.jpg Alt Text: Justin Brannan's neck tattoo Title Text: Justin Brannan's neck tattoo Description: Justin Brannan's neck tattoo Image Credit: Submitted photo The granddaddy of tattooed politicians, hardcore guitarist and now New York City Councilman Justin Brannan has tattoos covering both arms, plus some on his chest and neck. He even has the logo of the Finnish goth band HIM inked on his inner lip. Brannan covered his tattoos while campaigning I dont want it to be the first thing that you think of when Im knocking on your door but now that hes in office, he said, I want people to see that the person you elected, by the way, is also covered in tattoos. He also said going to senior centers, its a conversation starter. Rafael Espinal Jr. rafael-espinal-tattoo-submitted.jpg Alt Text: Rafael Espinal Tattoo Title Text: Rafael Espinal Tattoo Description: Rafael Espinal Tattoo Image Credit: Submitted photo The Brooklyn city councilman and public advocate candidate, known for championing the nightlife sector, has two tattoos. One says, Alone, Together, the title of a 2001 song by The Strokes. The other is a line from the visual artist Jean-Michel Basquiats notebooks: I feel like a citizen. Its time to go and come back a drifter. Espinal said, Im someone who tries to leave the city for a while to recharge and think about the work Im doing, life in general. Julia Salazar julia-salazar-tattoo-submitted-2.jpg Alt Text: Julia Salazar Tattoo Title Text: Julia Salazar Tattoo Description: Julia Salazar Tattoo Image Credit: Submitted photo Five tattoos adorn the new Brooklyn state senator. Three are nautically inspired: a sand dollar, a sea horse and a lighthouse. Then theres an airplane on her bicep to honor her late father, a cargo pilot, and a rose on her shoulder coincidentally the logo of the Democratic Socialists of America, of which shes a member. I just like the way it looks, she said with a laugh. Its not a DSA thing, although Ill take it! I dont mind that significance. Jessica Ramos jessica-ramos-tattoo-submitted.jpg Alt Text: Jessica Ramos tattoo Title Text: Jessica Ramos tattoo Description: Jessica Ramos tattoo Image Credit: Submitted photo The newly elected Queens state senator has three tattoos: a crescent moon and stars on her ankle, two lines on her wrist, representing each of her boys, and on her forearm, Colombian indigenous Chibcha art, representing her family roots. Shes planning for more: a quote from Emma Lazarus The New Colossus, and, Ramos said, Maybe I can convince (fellow Queens state Sen.) Toby (Ann) Stavisky to get the Unisphere with me. Alicka Ampry-Samuel The Brooklyn city councilwoman shies away from photographs, but loves her tattoos one on her arm saying Ahlee, the name of her father, who died when she was young. Her other piece is a personal spiritual message, which keeps me grounded and focused on being true to God and living life to my fullest potential. Jonathan Viguers jonathan-vguers-tattoo-jeff-coltin.jpg Alt Text: Jonathan Viguers tattoo Title Text: Jonathan Viguers tattoo Description: Jonathan Viguers tattoo Image Credit: Photo by Jeff Coltin New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio may be too straight-laced for a tattoo, but for years he wouldnt go anywhere in public without Jonathan Viguers, his heavily inked body man. Now de Blasios deputy director of executive operations, Viguers palm and finger tattoos came after the government job. The idea of wearing a suit every day was something that made me a little uncomfortable, he said. So I wanted to have something that was visible at all times. Rafael Salamanca Jr. rafael-salamanca-tattoo-submitted.jpg Alt Text: Rafael Salamanca Jr. Tattoo Title Text: Rafael Salamanca Jr. Tattoo Description: Rafael Salamanca Jr. Tattoo Image Credit: Submitted photo The Bronx city councilman and influential Land Use Committee chairman keeps it simple. It was just a tattoo with my initials on it, he said. Its nothing I just wanted to get a tattoo. Cancer cells' plasticity makes them harder to stop HOUSTON - (Feb. 7, 2019) - When metastatic cancer cells need to avoid a threat, they simply reprogram themselves. Rice University scientists are beginning to get a handle on how they survive hostile environments. Members of Rice's Center for Theoretical Biological Physics (CTBP) and cancer metabolism researchers at Baylor College of Medicine have created a basic framework of how cancer cells -- whether in tumors or as single cells -- adapt when their attempts to metastasize are blocked by drugs or the body's immune system. Understanding the cells' strategies could someday help scientists design therapies that keep them in check. Their model shows a direct connection between gene regulation and metabolic pathways and how cancer cells take advantage of it to adapt to hostile environments, a process known as metabolic plasticity. In particular, the team led by physicists Herbert Levine and Jose Onuchic and postdoctoral fellow Dongya Jia looked at oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) and glycolysis, metabolic processes that provide cells with the energy and chemical building blocks they need to proliferate. From their model, they detailed for the first time a direct association between the activities of two protein players, AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) and hypoxia-inducible factor-1 (HIF-1), the master regulators of OXPHOS and glycolysis, respectively, with the activities of three major metabolic pathways: glucose oxidation, glycolysis and fatty acid oxidation. Their theoretical model was experimentally supported by Baylor cancer mitochondrial metabolism researchers led by Dr. Benny Abraham Kaipparettu. The new study appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "A lot of early cancer papers focus on the Warburg effect, when cancer cells primarily use glycolysis even in the presence of oxygen," Onuchic said. "This is true, but it's not like cancer cells give up on other mechanisms. The more aggressive they become, the more they are able to use any available choice to acquire energy. Our model shows how that's possible." "Only recently have people paid attention to OXPHOS," Jia added. "But they don't really understand how cancer cells regulate these two metabolic phenotypes. We want to know how cancer cells orchestrate them. Since there is an extensive cross-talk between gene regulation and metabolic pathways, we think it's necessary to simultaneously look at these two different aspects of cancer metabolism." The researchers said their model helped the team hone in on critical processes that traditional genome-scale metabolic models might miss. "We start with simple models where we can figure out completely what's going on, and then we add details to that scaffold without losing the basic understanding of how the system's working," Levine said. Jia's mathematical model details connections that allow cancer cells to adopt three stable metabolic states. One is a glycolytic state, characterized by high activity of HIF-1 and high activity of the glycolytic pathway. The second is an OXPHOS state, characterized by high activity of AMPK and high activity of such OXPHOS pathways as glucose oxidation and fatty acid oxidation. The third is a hybrid metabolic state characterized by high activity of AMPK and HIF-1 and of the glycolysis and OXPHOS pathways. The Rice model revealed the presence of both HIF-1 and AMPK can lead to the hybrid state that is difficult for current cancer therapies to address. The researchers also found the hybrid metabolic state can be promoted by the stabilization of HIF-1 and the elevated production rate of mitochondrial reactive oxygen species (ROS) in cancer cells relative to normal cells. ROS are chemically active molecules that are important to signaling but at high levels can damage cells. Kaipparettu's Baylor team backed up the theory using gene expression data from breast cancer patients and metastatic triple negative breast cancer experimental models. Experimental evidence showed that repressing glycolytic activity in the cells activated AMPK and enhanced OXPHOS. The reverse was also true. But a combination of inhibitors that attacked both glycolysis and OXPHOS successfully eliminated the cells' metabolic plasticity. "We're trying to push the field of metabolic modeling towards more flexibility, allowing for the decision-making processes we see in cells," Levine said. "And here we're coupling genes to metabolism in a way that's rather novel. "It's still a limited view of all the metabolic pathways," he said. "There are yet other possibilities that are not included in our model. We eventually need to tell a more complete story to really know what's happening." ### Co-authors of the paper are former Rice postdoctoral researcher Mingyang Lu, an assistant professor at The Jackson Laboratory, Bar Harbor, Maine; postdoctoral associates Kwang Hwa Jung and Jun Hyoung Park of Baylor; and Rice alumnus Linglin Yu. Levine is an adjunct professor of bioengineering at Rice and a University Distinguished Professor at Northeastern University. Onuchic is the Harry C. and Olga K. Wiess Chair of Physics, a professor of physics and astronomy, of chemistry and of biochemistry and cell biology and co-director of the CTBP. The research was supported by the National Science Foundation; National Cancer Institute; The Jackson Laboratory; the National Institute of General Medical Sciences; the Department of Defense; the Collaborative Faculty Research Investment Program, the Dan L. Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Charles A. Sammons Cancer Center, all at Baylor; and the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Jeff Falk 713-348-6775 jfalk@rice.edu Mike Williams 713-348-6728 mikewilliams@rice.edu Read the abstract at http://www. pnas. org/ cgi/ doi/ 10. 1073/ pnas. 1816391116 . This news release can be found online at https:/ / news. rice. edu/ 2019/ 02/ 07/ cancer-cells-plasticity-makes-them-harder-to-stop/ Follow Rice News and Media Relations via Twitter @RiceUNews. Related materials: Jose Onuchic: https:/ / chemistry. rice. edu/ people/ jose-onuchic Herbert Levine: http://www. bioe. neu. edu/ people/ levine-herbert Benny Abraham Kaipparettu: https:/ / www. bcm. edu/ people/ view/ benny-kaipparettu-ph-d/ b1915357-ffed-11e2-be68-080027880ca6 Center for Theoretical Biological Physics: https:/ / ctbp. rice. edu/ Wiess School of Natural Sciences: https:/ / naturalsciences. rice. edu Images for download: https:/ / news-network. rice. edu/ news/ files/ 2019/ 02/ 0201_CANCER-1-WEB-uwdkgi. jpg A new model by Rice University researchers details a direct connection between gene expression and metabolism and how cancer cells take advantage of it to adapt to hostile environments, a process known as metabolic plasticity. (Credit: Illustration by Dongya Jia/Rice University) https:/ / news-network. rice. edu/ news/ files/ 2019/ 02/ 0201_CANCER-2-WEB-11ezu6r. jpg Rice University researchers -- from left, Dongya Jia, Herbert Levine and Jose Onuchic -- detail a direct connection between gene expression and metabolism and how cancer cells take advantage of it to adapt to hostile environments. (Credit: Rice University) Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation's top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is home to the Baker Institute for Public Policy. With 3,962 undergraduates and 3,027 graduate students, Rice's undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is just under 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice is ranked No. 1 for lots of race/class interaction and No. 2 for quality of life by the Princeton Review. Rice is also rated as a best value among private universities by Kiplinger's Personal Finance. To read "What they're saying about Rice," go to http://tinyurl. com/ RiceUniversityoverview . This story has been published on: 2019-02-08. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. Real-time social media posts from local businesses and organizations across Northern Virginia, powered by Friends2Follow. To add your business to the stream, email cfields@insidenova.com or click on the green button below. The Latest from Barchart Sign up to receive your Watchlist or Portfolio sent to you by email up to 4 times a day; available at market open, mid-day, market close or end-of-day. Premier Members can also receive the results of custom Screeners - alerting to price or trend changes during and after each trading day. Sign up for a risk-free 30-day Barchart Premier trial. This photo taken on May 9, 2018 shows Indian military personnel patrolling in the Saranda forest area in operations against Maoist rebels in the West Singhbhum district of India's eastern Jharkhand state. (Sanjib Dutta/AFP/Getty Images) Save Jobs USA has filed a fresh lawsuit with the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, claiming that work authorization for H-4 visa holders, primarily Indian women, unfairly impacts American employees. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, the sole Indian American woman in the House, has led a coalition of 130 members of Congress seeking to continue work authorization. (Save H-4 EAD photo via Facebook) Yet through all the talk, Foxconn fell short of the minimum 260 jobs needed by the end of 2018 to qualify for a portion of the first round of state incentives, and looks likely to miss its annual tax credit targets until at least 2020, raising questions about both the scale of the project, and the availability of qualified talent in southeastern Wisconsin. Actress Kangana Ranaut has criticized celebrities for not turning up for the screening of "Manikarnika...", but contacting her for the screenings of their films. (IANS photo) Uranium company keeps license; OST keeps fighting By Talli NaumanNative Sun News Today Contributing Editor ROCKVILLE, MD - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission ruled January 31 to leave in place a license for southern Black Hills uranium mining challenged for eight years by the Oglala Sioux Tribe. If license-holder Azarga Uranium Corp., formerly Powertech USA Inc., defeats the tribe and local litigants, the license can be used to undertake South Dakotas first-ever in situ mining and milling of uranium. The activity is slated for the 10,000-acre Dewey Burdock project site located on unceded 1868 Ft. Laramie Treaty land in Custer and Fall River counties adjacent to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and upstream on Cheyenne River tributaries. The ruling is a response to a U.S. Circuit Court decision in Oglala Sioux Tribe v. NRC , which forces the commission to correct its handling of tribal cultural resource concerns at the site under the National Environmental Protection Act. The commission reasoned that the companys radioactive materials and waste license may remain in place while proper historical preservation measures are being explored, because other permits from the state of South Dakota and the U.S. EPA have not been granted. Leaving the license in place for now poses no harm to the tribe because Powertech is not yet in a position to use its NRC license, commissioners concluded . But just in case, they attached a caveat. We also order Powertech to notify the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board and the parties 60 days in advance of conducting any activities at the site under its NRC license, the commission said. This notification will allow the board to take any necessary action regarding Powertechs license before such activities at the site would commence, it said. Contact Talli Nauman at talli.nauman@)gmail.com Copyright permission Native Sun News Today Nuclear Regulatory Commission Decision D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Decision Join the Conversation Nogales demands removal of razor wire CBP added to downtown border fence By Molly StellinoCronkite News NOGALES The City Council unanimously voted Wednesday night to approve a resolution condemning the recent addition of concertina wire along the border fence within Nogales city limits. The resolution demands that Customs and Border Protection immediately remove the wire. It also states that the citys development code bans the use of this type of fencing in areas other than commercial or industrial storage areas and only at a minimum height of 6 feet. Christine Courtland, a resident who frequently walks by the fence, said the additional wiring will potentially scare away visitors, the economic backbone of the city. I have never seen anything to make a border crossing look more like a war zone than this, she said. Im absolutely insulted. Critics of the concertina wire say it not only is dangerous, it prevents people from talking to family members on the other side. Photo by Delia Johnson / Cronkite News Before city officials passed the resolution demanding removal of the wire, Nogales residents filed into the small government building on the west side of North Grand Avenue to express their displeasure. That razor wire against the wall, it made me want to cry. It truly did, said Sherrie Nixon, who has lived in Nogales for 33 years. According to Mayor Arturo Garino, Border Patrol crews began installing the concertina wire on the lower parts of the fence February 1 to fulfill orders from Customs and Border Protection to fortify the border. Before then, the wire had been strung only at the top of the fence. In a statement, a CPB spokesperson said the additional wire was installed in response to a request for additional support in high-risk urban areas commonly exploited by criminal smuggling organizations. It said CBP is constantly evaluating operational needs and that, currently, there are no plans to remove the wire. Linda Rushton and Joe Wright applaud after the resolution to condemn concertina wire was read at the February 6, 2019, meeting of the City Council in Nogales, Arizona. Photo by Delia Johnson / Cronkite News The city councils resolution said that concertina wire strung along the ground typically is found only on a battlefield or in a prison setting. Garino said that if the city council agrees, officials will probably start working on a lawsuit against the federal government. Garino is concerned the concertina wire will be a safety and economic threat. I fear the day that one of our firemen or police officers have to go there because somebody fell into the wire and they need to excavate that person out of there, he said. Due to the unsightly wires proximity to commercial businesses, Garino said it will deter tourists from the U.S. and shoppers from Mexico, a large component of the citys economy. The first thing someone is going to think is, What is on the other side that Im so afraid of? the mayor said. Cesar Lopez grew up along the border and has witnessed the progressive increase in security. I feel that more of this wire, more of these troops, more of these big military trucks, more armed men, it makes us feel less safe, he said. This story originally appeared on Cronkite News and is published via a Creative Commons license . Cronkite News is produced by the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University Join the Conversation By Acee Agoyo The Indian Child Welfare Act is under attack and tribes are pushing back after conservative and Christian groups joined a closely-watched battle over the landmark federal law. In a series of briefs filed this week, the non-Indian interests took their biggest shots at ICWA to date. They called the 1978 law, which was written in response to the large numbers of tribal children being taken from their communities, an illegal act that must be struck down by the courts. "ICWA was motivated by good intentionsbut today, it imposes race-based mandates and prohibitions that make it harder for states to protect Native American children against abuse, and extraordinarily difficult for them to find the loving, permanent, adoptive homes they often need," a coalition of conservative legal groups wrote in a brief on Thursday. That conservative coalition included the Goldwater Institute, named for the late former U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater . Tribal advocates have been eager to point out that the Republican lawmaker from Arizona was a supporter of ICWA during his time in Congress. But distinctions like that matter little in this heated battle. A group called the Christian Alliance for Indian Child Welfare , whose Twitter feed is filled with references to God and Jesus Christ, took pains to avoid mentioning religion in its brief but it too called for the law to be struck down as unconstitutional, arguing that people like Goldwater overstepped their authority in enacting it. The #DefendICWA campaign is real: "We are dismayed that opponents of the Indian Child Welfare Act and tribal sovereignty continued to perpetuate damaging falsehoods in briefs filed this week," leaders of four tribes said. Full Statement: https://t.co/z2ZNOr1eSf pic.twitter.com/HpZQxSeBLR indianz.com (@indianz) February 6, 2019 "The ICWA is a broad and far-reaching law that has little or nothing to do with commerce," the group wrote in a brief filed on Wednesday. "And it affects individuals that have no connection to, or have actively chosen to avoid entanglement with, tribal government." The Project on Fair Representation, a group funded by conservative donors and organizations, is not known for any work in Indian law or policy . That didn't stop its attorneys from describing ICWA in an entirely different manner than Congress did when it sought to protect tribes and their communities. To the contrary, according to the group's brief , ICWA's sole goal seems to be one of "placing Indian children with Indian strangers, often over the objection of their birth parents and their foster parents who have nurtured them from an early age." The clash between what tribes believe is settled and what others are trying to tear down comes in a case known simply as Brackeen . The outcome will determine whether ICWA, often described as the gold standard for child welfare, survives or falls, four decades after it became law, when separating Indian children from their communities was the norm. "Passed more than 40 years ago by Congress, ICWA was designed to reverse decades of cultural insensitivity and political bias that had resulted in up to a third of all Indian children being forcibly removed from their families, their tribes and their cultural heritage," the leaders of the the Cherokee Nation , the Morongo Band of Mission Indians , the Oneida Nation and the Quinault Nation said in a joint statement on Wednesday "ICWA ensures the best interests and wellbeing of Native American children are protected. ICWA preserves the stability and cohesion of tribal families, tribal communities and tribal cultures," the leaders said . "As federally-recognized sovereign nations, we have the duty, the responsibility, and the wisdom to protect our children." Indianz.Com Video by Kevin Abourezk: Marchers Honor Native Children Lost to Foster Care The fight is now before the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals . Oral arguments will take place on March 13 in New Orleans, Louisiana, and already the affair is shaping up to be a high-profile one. On Wednesday, as the first of non-Indian brief surfaced, the court quickly granted a motion to expand the hearing . Each side will be given 30 minutes, up from the normal 20, to present their arguments. But already, tribes are at a disadvantage. They lost the first round in Brackeen and it was a major setback -- a federal judge last October struck down ICWA as unconstitutional , declaring it to be a "race-based statute" that treats Indian children differently because of their ancestry or heritage. Although that holding goes against decades of precedent in Indian law cases, it was quickly embraced by conservative, religious and adoption groups. They have been trying to weaken ICWA since 1978 but they hadn't come anywhere close to taking it down on their own. Instead it took some creative maneuvering by a group of non-Indian foster parents and the state of Texas. By strategically placing the complaint before a federal jurist with little experience in Indian law -- no tribes are located in the district where Judge Reed O'Connor is based and he's the only judge on active status there, meaning he's the only one who can hear a case -- they were able to defeat ICWA after just one year of litigation. Standing our ground for Native Children pic.twitter.com/gfgeRBSW5A Native American (@Defendicwa) September 23, 2016 By that time, two more states -- Louisiana and Ohio -- intervened on the side of the non-Indian parents and Texas. The four tribes -- Cherokee, Morongo, Oneida and Quinault -- were also granted a role in the case but their defense of ICWA fell on deaf ears. Make no mistake, this is an intentional and direct attack on tribal sovereignty and our families and children, Sarah Kastelic, the executive director of the National Indian Child Welfare Association , told tribal leaders just a couple of weeks after the ruling came out. That same week of the National Congress of American Indians convention last October, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton , a Republican, instructed the state to stop complying with ICWA and to stop complying with Bureau of Indian Affairs regulations that were written to strengthen compliance with the law "If you don't think ICWA is under threat, you haven't read the paper," Mike Andrews, the top Republican staffer for the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs , told tribal leaders at NCAI's 75th annual meeting. Two key members of the committee have since submitted a brief to the 5th Circuit in defense of the law. The 5th Circuit also has granted a reprieve to the tribes and to the federal government, whose officials are also named as defendants in the case. Judge O'Connor's ruling has been placed on hold while the appeal is pending, and Paxton had to pull back on his letter that declared ICWA all but dead in Texas. "As long as the 5th Circuit stay remains in effect, the provisions of Section 4, The Indian Child Welfare Act, will apply to pending DFPS litigation," the website of the Department of Family and Child Protective Services now reads. Although the 5th Circuit is moving quickly to resolve the case -- a motion to expedite was granted in December -- there is no timetable for a decision. Regardless of the outcome, many observers expect an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court is all but guaranteed. The last time an ICWA matter went to the highest court in the land, it didn't turn out so well for tribal interests. By a vote of 5 to 4, the justices forced a Cherokee Nation father to separate from his daughter in Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl An update on Brackeen, the Indian Child Welfare Act case being closely watched across the nation. The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals will hear arguments during its 9am session on March 13, 2019. The hearing takes place in New Orleans, Louisiana. #DefendICWA pic.twitter.com/Sjr69n9ulm indianz.com (@indianz) February 6, 2019 The ruling, issued in June 2013, was devastating to the father and the tribe. But since the court refused to entertain request to have ICWA declared unconstitutional, opponents have continued their efforts to undermine it. "We remain committed to protecting the constitutionality of ICWA for Native children, families, and tribes. We firmly believe that our rights, and our childrens rights, will be affirmed and reinforced," the Cherokee, Morongo, Oneida and Quinault leaders said in their statement. The federal defendants in Brackeen are officials at the Department of the Interior and the Department of Health and Human Services . The Trump administration has remained committed to defending ICWA from the ongoing attack and will be arguing at the hearing on March 13. "I take my trust responsibility seriously," Tara Sweeney , the new Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs , told NCAI last October in reference to the case. Sweeney, who is the first Alaska Native woman to serve in the position, is one of the named defendants. ICWA and Congress In passing the Indian Child Welfare Act in 1978, Congress reacted to a crisis of Indian children being taken from their communities at high rates, often without input from their families or their tribal governments. Key findings from the law: "[T]here is no resource that is more vital to the continued existence and integrity of Indian tribes than their children and that the United States has a direct interest, as trustee, in protecting Indian children who are members of or are eligible for membership in an Indian tribe" "[A]n alarmingly high percentage of Indian families are broken up by the removal, often unwarranted, of their children from them by nontribal public and private agencies and that an alarmingly high percentage of such children are placed in non-Indian foster and adoptive homes and institutions" CONCORD- The man who took out a power pole on Church Street with his vehicle has been charged with impaired driving. Bobby Darrell Barbee was charged after he crashed into a utility pole and fire hydrant on Church Street Thursday morning, Feb. 7. Barbee, of Gunther Hollow in Almond, ran his car off the road and struck the pole. He then attempted to flee from the scene on foot, but was almost immediately apprehended by law enforcement officers. Witnesses said Barbee was driving erratically and suddenly veered right into the pole and hydrant. When he was brought back to the scene by police, Barbee began begging people for a cigarette while firefighters, EMS and utility workers were working. This award is a tremendous honor that can be shared by those that have mentored me, those that possess the same passion for teaching and for the fire service. In the end it isn't about what I or we accomplish, it's about what level of service we provide to those that trust in our ability to serve them, Skeris said when asked about the award. I cannot thank Chief Dunn, the Harrisburg Fire Department, and the NCSFRI (North Carolina Society of Fire Rescue Instructors) enough for allowing me to represent those that strive to have firefighters reach that level of expertise I spent a lot of time practicing especially when I was in high school. I would practice every day. Id go to school and build a project to practice for the masonry contest every single day. Sometimes Id build two or three a day. Id go to school and Id build one and sometimes two at school and then Id come home and build another one some days and it really pays off when you win." Two credit card titans are going toe to toe (PA) Visa has increased its offer for British payments firm Earthport as its takeover tussle with rival Mastercard continues. Visa has now tabled a 37p per share bid, valuing the cross-border payments firm at 247 million. It is an advance on its previous offer of 30p per share and follows a January bid from Mastercard of 33p. The new figure is 12% above Mastercards offer and 23% higher than the original Visa bid. Earthports interim chair Sunil Sabharwal said: The board of Earthport is pleased to recommend Bidcos (Visas) cash offer for Earthport which is at a 12% premium to the Mastercard proposal. This revised cash offer provides our shareholders with even greater value in cash for their shares. Visa said it has the backing of around 17% of Earthport shareholders for its offer. Mastercard said it is now considering its options, urging Earthport shareholders to take no action on Visas bid. It said it will make a further announcement in due course. The deal war comes after a difficult year for Earthport in which it lost a major customer, saw reduced transaction volumes and underwent a management shake-up. Earthport shares closed flat on Thursday at 38.8p apiece. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos last night claimed that the 'National Enquirer' tabloid is threatening to publish revealing photographs of him unless his private investigators back off the tabloid. Mr Bezos - the world's richest man, worth $150bn, and owner of 'The Washington Post' newspaper - detailed the revelations in a blog post last night. He accused the 'Enquirer' of "extortion and blackmail." The 'National Enquirer' published a story last month that included lurid texts between Bezos and former TV anchor Lauren Sanchez. Since then, private investigators have been looking into how the 'Enquirer' got the texts. Jeff Bezos said the tabloid's parent company, AMI, tried to get him to agree to a deal for the 'Enquirer' not to publish the explicit photos. As part of the deal, Bezos would have to release a public statement that he has "no knowledge or basis" to suggest the tabloid's reporting was politically motivated. Mr Bezos said his lawyers argued that AMI had no right to publish photos since any person holds the copyright to their own photos, and since the photos in themselves don't add anything newsworthy. He said AMI claims the photos are newsworthy because they show Amazon shareholders that his business judgment is terrible - despite the firm usually occupying a spot among the top five most valuable companies in the world. On his blog last night, Mr Bezos published letters received by his lawyers from legal representatives for the 'National Enquirer' which set out their offer to withhold the photographs from publication if he cancelled his investigation and issued an agreed statement. The letters listed in detail the photographs in the tabloid's possession, the people in the photos, and the nature of their revealing poses. "Any personal embarrassment AMI could cause me takes a back seat because there's a much more important matter involved here. If in my position I can't stand up to this kind of extortion, how many people can?" Mr Bezos asked. "These communications cement AMI's long-earned reputation for weaponising journalistic privileges, hiding behind important protections, and ignoring the tenets and purpose of true journalism," he said. "Of course I don't want personal photos published, but I also won't participate in their well-known practice of blackmail, political favours, political attacks, and corruption. I prefer to stand up, roll this log over, and see what crawls out." Rescued: God is great, one of the crowd chanted as Havva Tekgoz (5) was pulled from the rubble. Photo: Huseyin Aldemir A five-year-old girl was rescued from the rubble of an eight-storey apartment building in Istanbul yesterday, raising the number of survivors of the collapsed structure to 13. At least 10 people have been found dead. The girl, Havva Tekgoz, was pulled from the debris about 18 hours after the building in the mostly residential Kartal district, on the Asian side of the city, collapsed. She was carried to a waiting ambulance on a stretcher with her neck in a brace, as one person in a crowd of onlookers chanted "God is great". Overnight, emergency services also rescued a nine-year-old boy. Authorities haven't disclosed how many people remain unaccounted for. The building had 14 apartments with 43 people registered as residents. Murat Kurum, the environment and urbanisation minister, said that some apartments had guests at the time of the collapse, without providing details. Mr Kurum said the emergency teams are still "receiving sounds", suggesting signs of life from under the rubble. The cause of the collapse was under investigation but officials said the top three floors had been illegally built. Experts from the Istanbul branch of the chamber of civil engineers who visited the site concluded that the "load-bearing columns had lost the capacity to carry the weight" of the building. A majority of buildings in Istanbul are "either unlicensed, illegal or were constructed without any engineering services", they added. The incident has raised alarm over the scope of possible destruction in the event of a large earthquake in the city. Louella Fletcher-Michie, the daughter of Holby City actor John Michie, who was found dead after taking party drug 2CP at Bestival Zoe Barling/PA Wire Holby City actor John Michie has told a court his daughter's boyfriend did not love her because he let her die from an overdose. Louella Fletcher-Michie, 24, was given drugs by her on-off boyfriend Ceon Broughton, 29, and died as her parents rushed to help her, it is alleged. Mr Michie wept in the witness stand at Winchester Crown Court on Thursday as he gave evidence about the day of her death. Louella took the class A party drug 2-CP at Bestival in Dorset on September 10 2017 and died in woodland an hour before her 25th birthday. Expand Close Ceon Broughton, 29, arrives at Winchester Crown Court where he is charged in connection with the death of Louella Fletcher-Michie Steve Parsons/PA Wire / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Ceon Broughton, 29, arrives at Winchester Crown Court where he is charged in connection with the death of Louella Fletcher-Michie Steve Parsons/PA Wire Broughton, of Enfield, north London, denies manslaughter and supplying Louella the drug. The jury heard how her family were eating Sunday dinner in their north London home when they received a call from Broughton in which Louella could also be heard. Expand Close Holby City actor John Michie leaves Winchester Crown Court where he gave evidence in the case of Ceon Broughton, 29, who is charged in connection with the death of his daughter Louella Fletcher-Michie. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Thursday February 7, 2019. The daughter of the Holby City actor died after taking the party drug 2CP at the Bestival music festival in Dorset on September 11, 2017. See PA story COURTS Bestival. Photo credit should read: Andrew Matthews/PA Wire / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Holby City actor John Michie leaves Winchester Crown Court where he gave evidence in the case of Ceon Broughton, 29, who is charged in connection with the death of his daughter Louella Fletcher-Michie. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Thursday February 7, 2019. The daughter of the Holby City actor died after taking the party drug 2CP at the Bestival music festival in Dorset on September 11, 2017. See PA story COURTS Bestival. Photo credit should read: Andrew Matthews/PA Wire Mr Michie said: "The thing that I most remember was that Louella seemed very distressed. I could hear her in the background shouting things like 'I hate you, I don't trust you', obviously referring to Ceon." He added: "I've never heard her speak in that way. It almost didn't sound like her." Mr Michie said Broughton's voice, on loudspeaker, sounded "watery", "without energy in it" and he didn't seem "compos mentis". "He didn't seem to be concerned, I thought. Obviously any normal person would be concerned," he added. Louella's worried parents jumped in their car to go to find their daughter at the festival but they struggled to gain entry and persuade security to look for her. The couple's daughter was eventually found dead by a security steward in the woodland, 400m from the festival's hospital tent, at around 1am, after Broughton left her to seek help. Mr Michie said he thought Louella and Broughton's relationship was "beautiful to see" and that he had issued a statement in support of Broughton following his initial arrest. But he said he had not realised "how he had not taken her to get help, how he had seen her in a very, very distressed state and how, I believe, he possibly even filmed her after she has died". "I think Louella loved Ceon. I'm not sure he loved her. I don't know how you could ever say you loved someone if you left them to die in front of you," Mr Michie told jurors. The court was previously shown a 50-minute video of Louella in which she shouts at Broughton to "film me", "call my mum" and "call my brother, call my sister". He also took a photo of Louella around the time she died as she lay motionless in undergrowth with her eyes closed, the court heard. Giving evidence, Louella's mother, Carol Fletcher-Michie, said she had "trusted" Broughton who had even spent a Christmas with the family. She said her daughter sounded like a "wild animal" and was "screeching" in the call received from Broughton. "I couldn't believe that was her voice and that's the last time I heard her voice," she told the court. An emotional Ms Fletcher-Michie said her daughter loved dancing and taught Voga - a combination of yoga and dance - at festivals and retreats around the world. She had an "open relationship" with her daughter and had discussed the need to be "careful" around drugs. Ms Fletcher-Michie said she believed Louella loved Broughton "more than anyone she had before". Louella's sister Daisy Fletcher-Michie and her brother Sam Fletcher-Michie also told the court how they had "begged" Broughton on the phone to take Louella to a medical tent. Sam, who admitted taking drugs with Louella before, said he could not remember if he had asked Broughton whether his sister had taken 2-CP or 2-CB, but Broughton had replied: "Yes, but I bumped it up a bit". He said this could have meant a "bigger dose" or "maybe something else alongside" the drug. A tearful Daisy said she "so wanted to believe that Ceon had done everything he could" to help her sister, but claimed he "did nothing to help her and put himself first". She added: "If that was me and my boyfriend there is no way he wouldn't have saved me." The trial continues. John Dingell died at his home in Michigan on Thursday (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File) Former US representative John Dingell, the longest-serving member of Congress in American history, has died at the age of 92. The Michigan Democrat, who served in the US House for 59 years before retiring in 2014, died on Thursday at his home in Dearborn, said his wife, Congresswoman Debbie Dingell. He was a lion of the United States Congress and a loving son, father, husband, grandfather and friend, her office said in a statement. He will be remembered for his decades of public service to the people of Southeast Michigan, his razor sharp wit and a lifetime of dedication to improving the lives of all who walk this earth. Dubbed Big John for his imposing 6ft 3in frame and sometimes intimidating manner, Mr Dingell served with every president from Dwight D Eisenhower to Barack Obama. He was a longtime supporter of universal health care, a cause he adopted from his late father, whom he replaced in Congress in 1955. Expand Close Debbie Dingell pushes the wheelchair of her husband John Dingell (Todd McInturf/Detroit News via AP, File) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Debbie Dingell pushes the wheelchair of her husband John Dingell (Todd McInturf/Detroit News via AP, File) He also was known as a dogged pursuer of government waste and fraud, and even helped take down two top presidential aides while leading the investigative arm of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee, which he chaired for 14 years. One of his proudest moments came in 2010, when he sat next to Mr Obama as the 938 billion dollar health care overhaul was signed into law. Presidents come and presidents go, former president Bill Clinton said in 2005, when Mr Dingell celebrated 50 years in Congress. John Dingell goes on forever. Tributes poured in from both Democrats and Republicans. Today the great State of Michigan said farewell to one of our greatest leaders, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, said in a statement. John Dingell will forever be remembered as The Dean of Congress not simply for the length of his service, but for his unparalleled record of legislative accomplishments. Born in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on July 8 1926, John David Dingell Jr grew up in Michigan, where his father was elected to Congress as a New Deal Democrat in 1932. Following the sudden death of his father in September 1955, Mr Dingell then a 29-year-old lawyer won a special election to succeed him. Expand Close Mr Dingell during an interview in his Capitol Hill office in Washington in 1979 (AP Photo/John Duricka, File) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Mr Dingell during an interview in his Capitol Hill office in Washington in 1979 (AP Photo/John Duricka, File) He won more than two dozen elections during his career, at first representing a Detroit district but eventually shifting because of redistricting to various southeastern Michigan communities. He became the longest-serving member of Congress on June 7 2013, when he surpassed the former record holder, the late Robert Byrd. The length of time is really quite unimportant, Mr Dingell told the Associated Press in an interview in 2009. Its what I have done with that time. He announced in early 2014, at the age of 87, that he would not run for a 30th full term because he could not have lived up to his own standards. Continuing the family tradition, his wife, Debbie, successfully ran for her husbands seat in 2014. President Donald Trump has extended his sympathies to Mr Dingells family. The president said on Twitter Mr Dingell was highly respected and had a great reputation. Mr Trump also wrote in reference to Mr Dingell being the longest-serving member of Congress in US history that if people understand politics, means he was very smart. 09/02/2019 Bottle banks in the flooding at Salthill, Galway, during Storm Erik on Friday. Photo:Andrew Downes XPOSURE . Calm before the storm: Musician Sharon Shannon takes her dogs Misty and Gnasher for a walk on the beach at Salthill in Galway city ahead of Storm Erik. Photo: Andrew Downes Flooded car parks behind the Galway Atlantaquiaria in Salthill during Storm Erik on Friday Photo:Andrew Downes XPOSURE . Storm Erik is set to batter Ireland with "severe" gusts of up to 130kmh and Met Eireann has extended a Status Orange weather warning. Met Eireann has extended a Status Orange wind warning for Donegal until tomorrow, while Status Yellow wind warning is in place for the rest of the country. The national forecaster has warned that parts of the country will face a "potentially disruptive period of weather". They said in a statement this afternoon: "Very windy in all areas this aftn. with severe gusts along the north coast. There will be a mix of sunny intervals & heavy showers. "Afternoon temperatures of 7 to 10 degrees with strong to gale force southwesterly winds. Winds veering westerly and strengthening further this eve." There is also a Status Yellow rain warning in place until midnight today for counties Donegal, Galway, Mayo and Kerry, with 30 to 40mm rainfall expected. Expand Close Carefree: Cian Hardiman (4), from Knocknacarra, Co Galway, goes for a cycle in the calm ahead of the storm in Salthill. Photo: Andrew Downes / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Carefree: Cian Hardiman (4), from Knocknacarra, Co Galway, goes for a cycle in the calm ahead of the storm in Salthill. Photo: Andrew Downes Forecasters have warned of a risk of spot flooding, especially on coasts and hills. There are reports of a number of fallen trees in Galway, Sligo, Mayo and Tipperary. ESB Networks has urged the public not to approach fallen trees as there may be fallen wires. "VERY IMPORTANT: If you come across fallen trees be aware that there may be fallen wires. "Please DO NOT APPROACH as the wires could be live and would be extremely dangerous. "Please stay clear and phone ESB Networks immediately on 1850 372 999 , 021 238 2410." The Road Safety Authority is advising motorists, warning them "to expect the unexpected", they tweeted. They also advised those near coastal areas to use caution when driving through large areas of water. "Watch out for wind-blown debris on the roads, and allow extra space around other road users, especially pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists. Slow down on wet roads too, as it takes longer to brake," a spokesperson said. "Bear in mind that there is a risk of coastal flooding on Atlantic coasts in particular: only drive through water if you know its not too deep for your car." South-west to west winds will reach average speeds of 65kmh to 80kmh, with some severe or damaging gusts of 110kmh to 130kmh. The Coast Guard has asked the public to "heed the warnings and take appropriate action". "The Coast Guard is asking users of smaller vessels to pay particular attention to the weather warnings and for the general public to be mindful of the risks on exposed areas - in particular piers, walkways and cliff areas," a spokesperson said. Marine rescue services are on standby after two vessels were damaged in raging Storm Erik seas off the south west coast. Both have now been forced to seek shelter and repairs in west Cork bays. The two vessels, a large Russian factory ship and an Irish trawler, suffered damage as Storm Erik swept by Ireland's south west coast. Almost 100 crew are on both vessels though neither is at risk of sinking. Marine rescue services are monitoring both vessels purely as a precautionary measure. The Irish trawler is now steaming back towards Castletownbere after heavy seas smashed several windows in its wheelhouse. It is understood eight crew are on board. The vessel was fishing off the Porcupine Bank when it was damaged in heavy seas and gale force winds. Meanwhile, a giant Russian factory ship lost power in heavy seas some 200 miles off the Cork coast. More than 90 crew are on the giant fish factory ship. The vessel was immediately taken in tow by another Russian vessel and both are steaming slowly towards west Cork. Both are expected to take almost 12 hours to arrive in an Irish port. It is understood the Russian vessel will likely berth in Castletownbere pending specialist repairs to her engines and propellor. Dozens of Irish, Spanish and French trawlers fled to the shelter of Irish bays and ports amid Status Orange warnings over the winds and high seas likely from Storm Erik. Met Eireann said today's gale force winds and severe gusts would gradually ease later in the day. Rain forecast for this morning was expected to clear, but was to be followed by heavy showers for the rest of the day. The weekend will see a mixture of sunny spells and scattered showers with frost and ice forming at night. The National Parks and Wildlife Service has advised the following will be closed today: Connemara National Park, Wild Nephin Ballycroy National Park, Derryclare Nature Reserve, Old Head Nature Reserve, Knochma Wood, near Tuam, Co Galway, and Laughil Wood, near Pontoon, Co Mayo. Meanwhile, a wildlife rescue centre has said last year's heatwave had a detrimental effect on its hedgehogs and is now raising funds for a new air handling unit. Hedgehog Rescue Dublin said during the record-breaking temperatures of last year it had to close its doors and move all its animals into the house. Its volunteers have set up a GoFundMe page with a target of 2,000 for the new cooling/heating system which they hope will keep their hedgehogs happy during the summer and winter months. Irina Shayk and Bradley Cooper attend the 76th Annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on January 6, 2019 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images) Bradley Cooper and Irina Shayk attend The National Board of Review Annual Awards Gala at Cipriani 42nd Street on January 8, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for National Board of Review) Irina Shayk seen on the streets of Manhattan on January 8, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by James Devaney/GC Images) Bradley Cooper (R) and his partner Russian model Irina Shayk arrive for the 76th annual Golden Globe Awards on January 6, 2019, at the Beverly Hilton hotel in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by VALERIE MACON / AFP) Irina Shayk made a choice to keep her private life out of the spotlight. The 33-year-old Russian supermodel and her husband Bradley Cooper - who have 22-month-old daughter Lea De Seine together - dont share much of their personal lives with the world, and Irina has said that choice was made because shes already in the public eye so much in her career, so wanted to keep something for herself. Speaking to the February digital edition of Glamour UK, she said: "I have a lot of friends who share a lot of their personal life on Instagram or social media, very publicly. I admire it and I think it's great - but I think it's all about personal choice. Because my work requires me to be out there, I just decided my personal life will be quiet. That's why it's called personal, because it's something for you and your family and I feel happy with it. Although neither Irina or her A Star Is Born star partner are overly open about their family life, they have spoken about it on occasion, with Bradley recently saying his daughter reminds him of his late father, who passed away in 2011. Expand Close Bradley Cooper and Irina Shayk attend The National Board of Review Annual Awards Gala at Cipriani 42nd Street on January 8, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for National Board of Review) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Bradley Cooper and Irina Shayk attend The National Board of Review Annual Awards Gala at Cipriani 42nd Street on January 8, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for National Board of Review) He said: "[Having a family has] changed everything. Our daughter, she's incredible. And I see my father in her quite often. "I can't believe I'm gonna admit this, but I had moments when ... I was in the room with her, I would say, 'Dad?' There are some moments where she looks just like my father. I watch too many movies. Whilst Irina revealed last month that motherhood is one of the "greatest things in the world", as she says it changed her life for the "better". She said: "I always say that being a mom is one of the greatest things in the world. I don't think it's changed my life. It did change in a way to make me better. Family is the most important thing in the world." Prince Carl Phillip of Sweden and Princess Madeleine of Sweden arrive at a charity dinner in connection with the World Childhood Foundations 20th anniversary at Tyrol restaurant on February 7, 2019 in Stockholm, Sweden. (Photo by Michael Campanella/Getty Images) Prince Carl Phillip of Sweden and Princess Madeleine of Sweden arrive at a charity dinner in connection with the World Childhood Foundations 20th anniversary at Tyrol restaurant on February 7, 2019 in Stockholm, Sweden. (Photo by Michael Campanella/Getty Images) Prince Carl Phillip of Sweden and Princess Madeleine of Sweden arrive at a charity dinner in connection with the World Childhood Foundations 20th anniversary at Tyrol restaurant on February 7, 2019 in Stockholm, Sweden. (Photo by Michael Campanella/Getty Images) Prince Carl Phillip of Sweden and Princess Madeleine of Sweden arrive at a charity dinner in connection with the World Childhood Foundations 20th anniversary at Tyrol restaurant on February 7, 2019 in Stockholm, Sweden. (Photo by Michael Campanella/Getty Images) King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden and Queen Silvia of Sweden arrive at a charity dinner in connection with the World Childhood Foundations 20th anniversary at Tyrol restaurant on February 7, 2019 in Stockholm, Sweden. (Photo by Michael Campanella/Getty Images) Prince Carl Phillip of Sweden and Princess Madeleine of Sweden arrive at a charity dinner in connection with the World Childhood Foundations 20th anniversary at Tyrol restaurant on February 7, 2019 in Stockholm, Sweden. (Photo by Michael Campanella/Getty Images) Sweden's seemingly impossible glamorous royals may not be as well known as their British counterparts, but their influence remains all the same to royal watchers. Queen Silvia and husband Karl Gustaf were joined by their youngest children Prince Carl Philip (39) and Princess Madeleine (36 at a charity event in Stockholm on Thursday night, celebrating the World Childhood Foundation's 20th anniversary with a gala dinner at Tyrol restaurant. Silvia founded the organisation in 1999 with the intention of preventing violence and sexual abuse in children and supporting youths in need and the cause has been such an important part of her reign that Madeleine flew over from her home in Miami, Florida to be there. The mother of three often divides her time between her family home at Drottningholm Palace in Sweden with her husband Chris O'Neill's career in finance, which saw them spending the last number of years in the UK before moving to the US last year. Chris stayed at home in Florida to care for the couple's three children, while Carl Philip's wife Princess Sofia was also absent from the event, spending time with their sons Alexander and Gabriel. The siblings were joined by close friends for the festivities last night and Carl Philip opted for a classic black tuxedo, while Madeleine chose a dazzling metallic sequin gown with a white fur jacket draped over her shoulders, sporting a new tan thanks to her new home with year-round sun. Expand Close Prince Carl Phillip of Sweden and Princess Madeleine of Sweden arrive at a charity dinner in connection with the World Childhood Foundations 20th anniversary at Tyrol restaurant on February 7, 2019 in Stockholm, Sweden. (Photo by Michael Campanella/Getty Images) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Prince Carl Phillip of Sweden and Princess Madeleine of Sweden arrive at a charity dinner in connection with the World Childhood Foundations 20th anniversary at Tyrol restaurant on February 7, 2019 in Stockholm, Sweden. (Photo by Michael Campanella/Getty Images) Paula Guillet de Monthoux, the Secretary General of Childhood, said she was thrilled with the work of the organisation has achieved over the last 20 years. "It is amazing to see what impression our organisation has made in two decades, and how the issue of sexual abuse against children has gone from being a taboo to something we are talking about openly and jointly wanting to solve," she said. Madeleine is the youngest of King Gustaf and Queen Silivia's three children with Crown Princess Victoria next in line for the throne, followed by her two children, then Prince Carl Philip and his children. However, according to Swedish rule, you remain in line for the throne if you've attended school in the country from the age of six, which leaves two years for Leonore to potentially move home and retain her royal rights. The couple previously said they are more focused on achieving the best education and providing a happy home. "The answer is that we do not know, and therefore we take all steps to prepare them for what we could call a normal life. A good education, for starters," O'Neill recently told Swedish magazine King. "We are in the queue for schools in London, which we need to do four years in advance, but we take a year at a time." Moral panic seems to be hardwired into our DNA and each generation worries about the one coming next. More often than not, this fretting is useless and unfounded, and the kids end up turning out all right. But every now and then it's time to hit the panic button and ask serious questions about how families, and members of society more widely, are raising our young people and whether we're helping them or harming them. Every community in Ireland has been touched by tragic events like young people taking their own lives. A teacher friend of mine paints a picture of today's children as the most physically safe but mentally fragile generation she has ever encountered in almost 40 years in the classroom. It's more than a hunch or nostalgia for the good old days, when adults were unquestionably in control and children understood that it was better to be seen and not heard. A YouGov poll published in Britain this week reveals that the number of youngsters who think that life is simply not worth living has doubled in a decade to one in five. Teenage suicides reflect that - they've nearly doubled over the same period in the UK. In Ireland, 70 schoolchildren died by suicide last year. Unicef ranks Ireland as having the fourth-highest teen suicide rate across the European Union. The charity found that 22.6pc of children between 11 and 15 reported that they had experienced two or more psychological symptoms of ill-health more than once a week. The National Self-Harm Registry Ireland - a national system of population monitoring for the occurrence of hospital-treated self-harm - recorded 11,600 presentations to hospital due to self-harm last year, involving 9,103 people. The highest rates of self-harm were consistently recorded in young people. Since 2007, the rate of self-harm among young people has increased by 21pc. The increase has been worse among females and the age of onset of self-harm is decreasing. Charities consistently report an increase in the number of young people seeking help for mental health issues such as anxiety and depression. Critics bemoan what they describe as the 'snowflake generation', shielded from the rough edges of life by helicopter parents and teachers tiptoeing around their sensitivities. Faced with challenges and adversity, the theory goes, the young people of today reach hysteria before melting. It's over-baked as a theory and can't deflect from the reality of mental health issues, but there are serious questions to be asked about why young people are less resilient and seem less able to cope with the ups and downs of life. Are we failing to look after them or protecting them too much? Social media is certainly an issue, and the nature of life online often magnifies and deepens feelings of anxiety and unhappiness. The felt pressure to have an endlessly awesome life and chronicle it all on YouTube or Instagram leaves one group of teenagers exhausted as they keep up the pretence, and another group upset that their life is not as good as they perceive others' to be. But social media and the web make up only one part of the picture that is, I believe, a symptom of a much deeper problem. We are simply not teaching children self-reliance in the way that we once did. In a bid to avoid stigma, fragility and vulnerability are often celebrated. Everyday melancholy - part-and-parcel of everyone's life regardless of what they post on Facebook - is not an illness and should not be medicalised. Time-poor parents who often feel guilty about not being around as often as they would like to be believe that the best way to compensate is to refuse their child nothing. That's why we see seven-year-olds with smartphones and teenagers wearing designer dresses. Parents anxious that delayed gratification will push their youngster over the edge are increasingly unable to say 'no' and cave in to often-exaggerated demands. The consequences? Many young people never experience disappointment or learn to cope with unrealised desires. An inflated concern about damaging a young person's self-esteem leaves many parents feeling that they can't say boo or offer even the mildest piece of advice without it turning into a row of epic proportions. Being disappointed or feeling unfulfilled is part of life from time to time - the longer we try to keep children from experiencing such feelings, the more fragile they become when trouble comes their way. The best thing we can do for young people is to help them cope with adversity rather than bubble-wrapping them or medicating teenage angst. Anxiety and stress can be very good things and help us achieve goals. The wider collapse in authority across the Western world has also crept behind all of our hall doors. Parents and other responsible adults such as teachers need to be able to reassert their authority in a way that helps young people understand that there are sensible boundaries in life. I am not dismissive of the very real difficulties some experience, and teenagers and young people deserve to have specialised mental health care. Resources at the moment are desperately inadequate. No one wants a culture where professional help is only available at the point of absolute crisis, but nor should we pathologise the ups and downs of everyday life. Unless we make resilience the top priority, we run the risk of cultivating vulnerability and making our young people lifelong children, people who never have to grow up because they are not taught self-reliance and, crucially, not taught how to endure unhappiness. For reasons of survival, the British government raised the backstop to a core issue. It is indeed a core issue - but for the EU, not for the UK. The backstop is part of the UK-EU 585-page binding Withdrawal Agreement and can be replaced but not repealed. It is reasonable to assume that it will never be used because the UK's trade rules must continue to be in alignment with the EU's. This will be the outcome of Brexit negotiations one way or another. The key issue is the customs union, which came into existence following the Treaty of Rome in 1958. It is an important pillar of the single market and is vital to the free flow of goods and services. The UK says it wants to leave the EU but it certainly does not want to leave the union's market. The European single market accounts for almost a quarter of global gross domestic product. Currently about 45pc of the UK's exports go to other EU countries, and half of its imports are from EU countries. The UK Office for National Statistics points out that exports are distance related. The nearer the EU country, the more the UK exports. For example, the value of trade with Ireland is higher than that of Italy or Spain. Furthermore, the UK runs a trade surplus with Ireland. In the context of Brexit, Article 28 of the Treaty on the functioning of the EU is inescapable. It reads: "The union shall comprise a customs union which shall cover all trade in goods and which shall involve the prohibition between member states of customs duties on imports and exports and of all charges having equivalent effect, and the adoption of a common customs tariff in their relations with third countries." In a nutshell - no duties on trade with partners, common duties on those outside. At present there are EU duties on about 6,000 imported products. EU duty rates can be as high as 10pc but average 4pc. It is possible to be outside the customs union but inside the single market where goods move freely as well as services, people and capital (the four freedoms). This brings with it obligations. The UK government says it does not want this arrangement. There are about 120,000 officials working for customs authorities across the EU. In 2015 they seized 7,000 weapons and 3.2 million pieces of ammunition, and in 2014 about 450 tonnes of drugs. The European Commission says that a strong customs system helps foster competitive business, increases wealth, protects against terrorism and enhances health and environmental protection. Almost three-quarters of trade is by sea or air, according to the European Parliament's Research Service (EPRS). As islands, the UK and Ireland make up a large part of this. Turkey, Andorra and San Marino have individual customs arrangements with the EU. General rules apply to this arrangement, such as: a) free movement of goods either wholly produced or put in free circulation after their importation from third countries; b) alignment of external tariffs; and c) approximation of customs law and some other laws. Two other provisions apply: though goods covered can circulate freely, products not so covered will be based on a free-trade agreement. This will include rules about the origin of products. For San Marino, the customs union applies to all products except coal and steel. Turkey's customs union is limited to industrial products and processed agricultural products (not other agricultural products or coal or steel products). As they are not in the single market they do not have free movement of people or capital. So different countries can have different arrangements under a customs union with the EU. The words "alignment" and "free-trade" arrangements give plenty of room for negotiation, but rules must be binding. These rules have worked to everybody's advantage. The difficulty the UK has raised, as spelled out by the EPRS, is this: the EU must impose a common external tariff. All imports to states in the customs union are subject to the same rate of import duty. If one of the customs union members was allowed to unilaterally lower its external tariffs it would lead to goods entering the EU through the ports/airports of that country. These would then be re-exported to other states, tariff-free inside the customs union. The technical term for this is "trade deflection". This same principle is raised by the UK's departure. This reality will govern future relations, and applying external tariffs is the last thing the UK or the EU want. The EU offered a type of free-trade agreement dealing with limited services, zero tariffs and no quotas on goods to the UK last March. That was an opening position and a much closer arrangement is possible. British and EU civil servants are very capable of crafting a deeper agreement but, on the UK side, they need sound directions from the politicians. A simple direction to seek an outcome that does not involve tariffs could create a climate for re-engagement. Negotiations under the non-binding 26-page statement on future relations could then get under way and real progress would be made and made quickly. Gay Mitchell is a former MEP and Minister for European Affairs The heavy equipment-maker isnt alone in its quest to use a downtown outpost to lure highly sought-after data scientists and other tech workers. Companies in industries from fast food to insurance have opened offices in the heart of the city, where tech employees want to work. The hip office spaces have proved worth the extra cost for suburban companies, who often end up competing for talent with behemoths like Facebook or Google. Mortgage holders and those planning to buy a home might be forgiven for worrying that home-loan interest rates were about to start going up. Last week's move by Bank of Ireland to increase the interest on some of its fixed-rate mortgages was interpreted as a sign that it expects European Central Bank (ECB) rates to start moving up in the next year or so. Although the bank also reduced some of its short-term rates, Bank of Ireland pushed up the cost of its five and 10-year fixed rates. It has been quite a while since any lender in this market put up its mortgage rates. Up to now we have had reductions, particularly from the smaller banks such as Ulster, KBC and Permanent TSB. Ulster Bank shook up the market last year when it introduced a two-year fixed rate of 2.3pc. It is unusual for banks here to offer home-loan rates below 3pc. We have expensive mortgages despite the ECB's key lending rate remaining at 0pc. We may have lost our place as the eurozone country with the most expensive new mortgages, and existing variable rate ones, but rates here are still way higher than in other countries in the current bloc. Only Greece is more expensive. Now there is every prospect that ECB rates will remain at 0pc well into 2020. Up to now there was an expectation that the ECB would start to raise rates from the end of this year. Anaemic economic growth across Europe is the reason why ECB rates won't rise for a while. The European Commission has slashed its growth forecasts for all the euro region's major economies and warned that Brexit threatens to make the outlook worse. What this means is that the 300,000 or so people on trackers can look forward to continuing to have the best value mortgages, with no prospect for ages of having to pay more. For those already on a fix, you are locked in. People on expensive variables and those taking out a new mortgage should opt for one of those fixed rates that are under 3pc. The fact the ECB won't be raising its rates soon should mean there will be no more mortgage rate rises, for a while, like we saw from Bank of Ireland. But the prospects of further reductions look remote as banks argue they have to set aside 50 of capital for every 1,000 of lending, compared with just 16 in other eurozone countries. What that means is we are now in a mortgage situation where it is as good as it gets. Still, it could be a lot worse. Hainan Airlines will launch a new, year-round direct service between Dublin and Shenzhen later this month, Dublin Airport has announced. Hainan will operate two flights a week between the cities from February 25, using a Boeing 787-900 Dreamliner with a 289 seat configuration. It is the third new service directly linking Ireland and China in the past year. Hainan already flies between Dublin and Beijing, a route which returns to four-times weekly this summer, while Cathay Pacific flies direct to Hong Kong. Shenzhen is Chinas answer to Silicon Valley," said Vincent Harrison, the airport's Managing Director. "This new route will further increase trade, tourism and investment between Ireland and China. It comes as outbound travel from China is booming, with the country expected to see 200 million travellers a year by 2020. Around 90,000 Chinese visited Ireland in 2017, the last year for which full figures are available, and Failte Ireland is running a 'Get China Ready' programme aimed at helping businesses adapt to the needs of this distinct market. Shenzhen, in south-eastern China, was one of the worlds fastest-growing cities in recent decades and has a population of about 13 million. The city is a 30-40-minute bullet train ride away from Hong Kong and Guangzhou, and was ranked second in Lonely Planets Top 10 Cities to visit in 2019. Lonely Planet described it as Chinas most innovative city with a strumming indie-music scene, cool cafes, a small contingent of craft brewers and a whole new arts district risen from the remains of former warehouses. The flight is one of 20 new routes set for Dublin this year. Last year was a record one for the airport, which welcomed 31.5 million passengers - up 6pc on 2017. Read more: Checkpoint Charlie, the best-known crossing point between East Berlin and West Berlin during the Cold War, was the setting for many a spy film and novel, from Octopussy to The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. It was at the Berlin Wall checkpoint - dubbed Charlie by the Allies - that Soviet and American tanks briefly faced off in 1961. The East German checkpoint watchtower, the last surviving original Checkpoint Charlie structure, was demolished in 2000 to make way for development. In 2007, Mayo brothers Cathal and Michael Cannon, who own developers Cannon Kirk with Owen Kirk, bought the land for 29m, with loans that were later transferred to Nama, and then sold the site in 2015 for about 85m. The proceeds of the sale are understood to have to reduced Cannon Kirk Group's Nama loans. The homebuilder left the state-owned bad bank two years ago, following a 100m-investment from US private equity house Oaktree in return for an equity stake. During the boom, Cannon Kirk built some 3,000 homes in Ireland, including at Aiken's Village in Sandyford and at Waterside in Malahide. About 550 apartments, duplexes and houses were built at the latter scheme, which has a long water fountain acting as a central focal point. Cannon Kirk has returned to development, and has earmarked schemes for Dundalk, the Co Kildare village of Kill, and Donabate, according to its website. At Waterside, which is located off the Swords Road, about 3km west of the centre of Malahide, Cannon Kirk has added a new block of 29 apartments and duplexes. The first 15 one, two and three-bed homes were quietly placed on the market last year. Of the remaining 14 apartments and duplexes just released, five are still available. While all the two-beds at the new building have been reserved, there are still one-bed apartments and three-bed duplexes for sale. Prices start at 267,500 for a one-bed measuring 625 sq ft, while the duplexes, which range in size from 1,170 sq ft to 1,345 sq ft, cost from 343,500 to 377,500. The new block has been appealing to first-time buyers, downsizers, and investors attracted by the strong rental demand from people working at Dublin Airport, which is just a 10-minute drive away, and in Malahide and Swords. Waterside is just 1.5km away from Swords Main Street. The new building at Waterside has a facade finished with brickwork and render, with UPVC to the fascia, soffits and gutters. Each unit has a custom-designed fitted kitchen with integrated appliances such as an oven, a hob, an extractor hood, a fridge/freezer, a dishwasher, and a washer/dryer. There are built-in wardrobes to the main bedrooms. There is extensive wall and floor tiling to the bathrooms and ensuites, as well as sanitaryware and thermostatically-controlled showers. All the walls and ceilings are painted throughout. The A3-rated apartments and duplexes benefit from PV panels that generate electricity and from condensing boilers for the gas central heating. Both features help keep household utility bills in check. Neighbourhood amenities at Waterside include a Daybreak convenience shop, a Four Star Pizza, two creches, a playground, a park, and playing fields. For family buyers, there are seven primary schools and six secondary schools between Swords and Malahide. Commuters can use the Dart at Malahide to reach Dublin city centre, which is 15km away, or use the M1 motorway, which is a 13-minute drive away. The M50 is 6.5km from Waterside, which has stops for Dublin Bus routes 32, 32X, 42 and 102 at the entrance to the development. Waterside residents will also benefit if the proposed Metro North line in Swords goes ahead. Viewings at Waterside will take place tomorrow, from 11.30am to 1pm. Expensive: Construction of the new National Childrens Hospital in Dublin will be much costlier than first thought. Photo: Gareth Chaney, Collins Government departments are scrambling to finding savings to make up for the massive Budget black hole caused by the National Children Hospital development project. A memo will be brought before the Cabinet by the Department of Finance next week which will make significant changes to budget allocations due to the hospitals rising cost. The move will affectively see this year's budget ripped up to ensure the 1.7bn hospital project can proceed. Ministers are being asked to find savings in their departments budgets to make up for the 450m hospital project overrun which emerged before Christmas. The saving sought from this years budget, which was agreed with Fianna Fail in October, will be in the region of 100m. The savings will be spread across most departments but it as of yet unclear what areas will be most impacted by the reduced budget funding. The move follows calls for Health Minister Simon Harris to resign over the National Childrens Hospital scandal after it emerged he was aware of the rising costs before the budget last year. The Office of Public Works (OPW) wrote to the Oireachtas Finance Committee to cancel a scheduled budget meeting next week after the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform this morning insisted on the agencys budget being revised. An OPW official said the department advised this morning that the OPW Revised Estimate will be adjusted in the coming weeks. I understand that a memorandum will go to Government on Tuesday on the National Childrens Hospital which may propose a change in a number of Departmental allocations for 2019, the official said. In the event that the memorandum is agreed by Government the OPW Revised Estimate may change. In light of the above PER have asked that the consideration of the OPW estimate by the Select Committee on Finance, scheduled for Tuesday 12thFebruary is postponed to allow for the Revised Estimates to reissue to Departments, he added. It is understood the OPW has been asked to find savings totalling 3m this year as part of the effort to address the cost of the Childrens Hospital. A former Fine Gael executive member at the centre of controversy over a series of tweets about women branded "unacceptable" by the Taoiseach has successfully appealed a decision to suspend him. Barry Walsh resigned from the national executive of the party in 2017 and the party's executive council took the decision to suspend him for 12 months, which he appealed. The controversy emerged over derogatory comments he made on the social media platform about a number of high-profile women. TD Kate O'Connell made an official complaint to party secretary Tom Curran. She was among those referred to in the tweets; others were Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald, comedian Tara Flynn, and Social Democrats co-leader Roisin Shortall. The executive council of the party decided last month to uphold Mr Walsh's appeal. A party spokesman said: "When this issue came to light, Barry Walsh resigned from Fine Gael's executive council in 2017 and subsequently his membership was suspended for 12 months following a meeting of the party's disciplinary committee. Following an appeal, the suspension of membership was revoked by the party's executive council as the appeals body. Mr Walsh does not hold any position within Fine Gael. The determination is final and the matter is closed." Mr Walsh did not respond to a request for comment at the time of writing. Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar TD and the UK Prime Minister Theresa May Photo: Maxwell Taoiseach Leo Varadkar may claim to be cutting back on his meat intake but that didn't stop beef topping the menu for his dinner with the British Prime Minister. Theresa May's visit to Farmleigh House in the Phoenix Park is said to have been a pleasant occasion, although there was no breakthrough on the Brexit deal. The pair discussed the impasse over the backstop as well as the inability of Northern Ireland's main political parties to form an Assembly in Belfast. Their meeting went on for over two hours before the Prime Minister was whisked back to Baldonnel airport under Garda escort. Independent.ie understands the Taoiseach arranged for Mrs May to be offered a menu full of "good Irish produce". The starter consisted of cured organic salmon. This was followed by a filler of Irish beef served with potato, green beans and parsnip puree. For dessert there was meringue, followed by a cheese board. Amy Gill (23) from Mayo was killed in a car crash in Australia this week. A YOUNG Irish woman killed in a car crash in Australia has been described as an angel by friends and family. Amy Gill (23) from Co Mayo was fatally injured in the two-car collision yesterday in Melbourne. The Kiltimagh native had moved to Melbourne in January and had just started working on a tomato farm last week. Amys friend Nicole Williams told Independent.ie that her loved ones were heartbroken when she took the leap and decided to move abroad. Expand Close Amy Gill (23) had moved to Melbourne in January. / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Amy Gill (23) had moved to Melbourne in January. She said that Amy would forever be in the thoughts of those that knew her. "Amy was the nicest, caring and genuine person. She had such a pure and gentle soul, and would do anything to help you, whenever it was, she said. "Our hearts were broken when she told us her plans to move to Australia, and even more so when we heard that she had been taken so tragically. "I don't think anyone who knows who will ever forget about her, and she will always be missed and in our thoughts. Expand Close Amy Gill (23) from Mayo was killed in a car crash in Australia this week. / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Amy Gill (23) from Mayo was killed in a car crash in Australia this week. Tributes have flooded in from friends and family on social media, who said the 23-year-old will be dearly missed. "Thank you for all the memories and laughs Amy. Always a friend, forever our angel, one friend wrote. The Department of Foreign Affairs said yesterday that it is aware of the incident and is providing consular assistance to the family. Gardai at the scene of the Fatal shooting in Marigold Crescent, Darndale A Garda Technical Team at the scene of the fatal shooting in Darndale A Garda Technical Team at the scene of the fatal shooting in Darndale Inset: Victim John Lawless The country's latest gun murder victim has been named as father-of-three John Lawless (39), who was shot dead on his way to work this morning. Gardai have confirmed they are exploring a number of lines of inquiry into his killing but do not at this stage believe it is connected to serious organised crime. Mr Lawless himself was not linked to any ongoing gangland feud in the capital or high-level crime. One motive being looked at is that the shooting was linked to a local issue, with "all the indications" pointing to the locality where he lived. Supt Gerard Donnelly, of Coolock garda station, said: "A 39-year-old man left his home at Marigold Crescent, John Lawless is his name, and he was making his way to work when he was shot. He was brought in a critical condition to Beaumont Hospital and died a short time after his arrival. "Shortly after the shooting a burnt out car was discovered at Greenwood Avenue. This car is described as a silver Ford Focus, with a 132 registration number. "Now we believe this car may have some connection with the shooting incident. "This is a car too which we believe was stolen on the January 1 this year in the Santry area. Expand Expand Previous Next Close A burned out car on Greenwood Avenue Scene of the shooting on Marigold Crescent, Darndale / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp A burned out car on Greenwood Avenue "Two scenes were examined, the scene at Marigold Crescent where the shooting took place and the scene at Greenwod Avenue where the car was located. These scenes were examined by the garda Technical Bureau. "We are in consultation with the local Coroners Office, we are also in consultation with the State Pathologist office and a post mortem is currently taking place at the city mortuary in Whitehall. Expand Close Scene of the shooting on Marigold Crescent Darndale / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Scene of the shooting on Marigold Crescent Darndale "At this stage we have no known motive for this shooting. Mr Lawless left his home this morning on the way to work. He is not a person who was known to us for involvement in serious criminal activity. "We have a number of lines of inquiry which we will explore, a conference has already been held here at Coolock garda station and a further conference will be held later on this evening." Shortly after the shooting a silver Ford Focus car registration number 132-D was found partially burnt out at Greenwood Avenue off Blunden Drive, Coolock a short time after the shooting. It is believed that this car may have been used in the shooting and was stolen in the course of a burglary in the Santry area on the 1st January 2019. Expand Close The scene of the shooting / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The scene of the shooting John Lawless was described as a family man whose partner is expecting their fourth child. Investigators have sealed off a corner in the Marigold Crescent housing estate in Darndale after the shooting, which occurred at approximately 6.30am. Mr Lawless was shot outside a house and was with a number of other people at the time of the shooting. However this group fled from the scene as the gunman opened fire. Gardai say they are anxious to locate these witnesses. He was treated at the scene by emergency personnel and then taken to Beaumont Hospital where he later died. The senior officer also appealed for any person who may have witnessed the shooting at Marigold present, or any motorist who witnessed the silver car driving from Darndale to Greenwod Avenue, or anyone with information, to contact them. "I would also make an appeal here, the Lawless family, they have lost a partner, a son, a brother and I appeal for them to be respected at this time. "We are satisfied at this stage (of no organised crime link), all the indications are that it may be something in the local area. "We will adjust our policing arrangements in accordance with the investigation as it progresses. "We have a number of lines of inquiry which are pointing in a number of directions at the moment and we are exploring all avenues. "No firearm has been recovered, we believe it is a handgun from the ammunition we picked up at the scene." Members of the Garda Technical Bureau have been carrying out a forensic examination of the scene throughout the morning, and have focusing on the area where the gun victims body was discovered. A Garda cordon remains in place, while senior officers have also attended the scene this morning. Armed gardai have also been visible in the area, with members of the Armed Support Unit (ASU) on petrol at the scene earlier today. One neighbour described the shooting as very unusual for the area. I was woken by the flashing lights this morning and thought it was just an ambulance. Its really sad to hear, she said. Labour Senator Aodhan O Riordain described the latest shooting as a "wake up call" and called for increased resources to tackle gun attacks in the area. "This mornings shooting incident in Darndale shows once again that the Government is out of touch with the realities of life on the ground across the northside. This latest killing must receive the attention it deserves," he said. "Consistently I have raised through Seanad commencement debates the need for increased Garda resources on the northside. Another life has now been lost. "Why is the northside being ignored? These are no ordinary crimes and deserve the attention of the Minister for Justice. He can no longer ignore the escalation in serious crime. "It is time to take on the escalating number of gun shootings by committing the resources to tackle this once and for all. Dismissing these incidents as being an operational matter for the Gardai is insulting to the communities who need protection." Independent TD Tommy Broughan condemned the shooting and called for an increased garda presence in the area. "All citizens should feel safe and secure in their own communities. I am very concerned about the rise in gun crime over recent years which has again produced a loss of life early this morning. "Increased Garda presence on the ground in all areas of the Northside is urgently needed, as is improved estate management from the Local Authority in charge, Dublin City Council and full support from government for local housing, health, education and social services," he said. Gardai are appealing for witnesses including those who may have dashcam footage from the area. A statement said: "Gardai investigating the fatal shooting of a man in Dublin continue to appeal for information. "The scene of the shooting is currently preserved pending an examination by Garda Crime Scene Examiners. A second scene is also sealed off pending a technical examination of a burnt out car in the Greenwood Avenue area of Donaghmede. "A post mortem examination will be carried out this afternoon by Dr Michael Curtis at the City Morgue. "Investigating Gardai are appealing for anyone with information or anyone who may have witnessed this incident to contact the incident room at Coolock Garda Station on 01- 6664200, the Garda Confidential Line 1 800 666 111 or any Garda Station." Retired farmer, Charlie Meehan from Drumoghill, Co. Donegal , winner of the the 500,000 in EuroMillions draw. Photo Brian McDaid An 84-year-old farmer who has just scooped 500,000 on the EuroMillions lottery says he doesn't care about money after revealing he has overcome cancer. Charlie Meehan had to wake his wife after he checked his lottery numbers on Tuesday night and found he was half a million euro richer. Mr Meehan, from Carrick in Drumoghill, Co Donegal, said he often does the lottery when buying a newspaper but never thought he would win. He admitted that he had a nightcap after checking the numbers with his family. "I woke the wife from the bed as she was sleeping and I told her that we'd won some money. Of course, like a good woman she asked me exactly how much we'd won," laughed Mr Meehan. But despite winning the huge sum, Mr Meehan said he had already won the lottery after overcoming cancer. "I've no real plans for the cash. It is a nice sum but I have my health now and that's all that matters," he said. "I had my own health problems in the past when I had cancer in 2012. "I spent most of that year in hospital in Galway but I have made a great recovery. "The staff in Letterkenny and Galway hospitals were very good to me. "To be honest, I don't worry too much about the money at this stage in my life. "All I'm concerned about is being able to live a happy and healthy life and money can't buy you that." Mr Meehan said he has no immediate plans for the cash as he has a decent car and a house. "It's a lovely sum of money. I'm kind of glad I didn't win anything bigger because it might bring its own worries with it then," he said. The Dail's public spending watchdog is seeking to haul senior civil servant Robert Watt in for a grilling on the National Children's Hospital (NCH) cost overrun. Mr Watt, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (DPER) secretary general, refused a previous invitation to the Health Committee. The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) will also invite another senior DPER official, Paul Quinn, who also sits on the board of the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board. Labour TD Alan Kelly said it was "absolutely necessary" that both officials attend the PAC so it could get to the bottom of what happened. There have been claims that Mr Quinn was obliged to tell his department of the cost overruns under the terms of a 2010 government circular. Last night, a DPER statement said neither had yet received a formal invite. Sinn Fein said last night that Mr Harriss position is completely untenable. Photo: Gareth Chaney, Collins Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said he 'gets' why people are annoyed about the overspend on the National Children's Hospital - but insists it's not Health Minister Simon Harris's fault. Mr Varadkar has left scope for his minister to offer a public apology over the debacle while simultaneously arguing the controversy shouldn't cause the Government to collapse. Speaking in Belfast today, the Taoiseach said Mr Harris would address the Dail on the issue next week. "I don't want to pre-empt what he will say, that's up to him," he said. Mr Varadkar acknowledged that taxpayers are rightly annoyed that the project is costing 450m more than planned. "I feel that. I get that. And I understand that," he said. But he asked that people "judge us in the round" when it comes to management of the national finances. The Taoiseach described his embattled Cabinet colleague as somebody "who has delivered" in the Department of Health, citing the abortion referendum and Public Health Alcohol Bill as two examples. "I have total confidence in him," he said. Earlier, Tanaiste Simon Coveney gave staunch backing to the under-fire Health Minister and claimed he was being unfairly targeted over the 1.4bn National Children's Hospital (NCH) controversy. Mr Coveney insisted that Mr Harris has the "toughest job in Government" and had acted properly and appropriately over the 400m-plus cost-overruns with the long-delayed Dublin project. The NCH now has a 6,500 per square metre cost - more than 10pc higher than comparable health projects worldwide. He also dismissed criticisms that Mr Harris did not act promptly last year once the ballooning costs became apparent within the Department of Health and Health Service Executive. "I have absolute confidence in Simon Harris. I know Simon Harris very well, he is a hugely competent minister, communicator and very talented politician," Mr Coveney said. "He probably has the toughest job in Government." "Managing the health service is not easy as is clearly evident at the moment from the multiple challenges that he faces." The Cork TD also dismissed suggestions Fine Gael will face a voter backlash next May for the Local and European elections over the NCH controversy and the nurses strike. "I hope not - I think when people see this hospital finished they will see why it is as expensive as it is." "It will be a world-class facility and it will transform paediatric care in Ireland and the experience for both families and children." "I think we owe that to children." "I think when people get the PWC report they will see the reason why the increased costs happened." He said it was important to understand that the costs problem involved initial estimates and not a construction costs overrun. "This was not a costs overrun - it was an estimate of costs that was wrong at the start." Memos released by the Department of Health last night showed that Mr Harris was informed on August 27 of a potential overrun of 391m. However, Mr Harris did not inform Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe of the issue for two and a half months. This was after the negotiations for Budget 2019 were complete. He has said the August figures were only estimates and he wanted the full facts before raising the issue. Sinn Fein has called on the Taoiseach to sack the minister, while Fianna Fail has described the situation as an omnishambles. Micheal Martins party are propping up the minority Government through a confidence and supply deal that means they cannot call for Mr Harris to go without risking a general election. In a statement this morning, Mr Varadkar said: If Minister Harris had informed me any earlier of the emerging overrun in the cost of building the new NCH, I would have instructed him to do exactly what he did - explore all options to reduce the scale of it and to establish a precise and final figure. "The impact on Budget 2019 is a red herring. It would have had no impact on the Budget Day package. The Taoiseach argues that capital infrastructure spending profiles are now multi-annual and were announced in February 2018, not on Budget Day. The increase in the capital budget for 2019 was 1.5 billion. 100m will have to be taken from this for the NCH overrun. Its manageable. I have total confidence in Minister Harris, he concluded. The Minister has said it was November 9 before the total construction cost was confirmed as 1.4bn, which is 450m above the original price. Mr Leo Varadkar learned of the overrun on the same day as he happened to be visiting the Department of Health when news of the revised figures came in. The August 27 memo showed Mr Harris was told the hospital would cost an additional 191m. The memo also showed that an extra 200m was sought by the builders. However, it shows the national paediatric development board assessed this 200m as being a late submittal which was an attempt to deliberately frustrate the process. It wrote to BAM on August 29 saying this figure was not acceptable to the board and the final cost relating to this was significantly reduced. Around 60m of this 200m was later included in the final price. The board sought a three-month window to conclude the negotiations and said it would be premature to provide a revised project cost update beyond that already briefed in August. A spokeswoman for the minister said last night: From then on, the minister was being briefed on detailed efforts to establish the extent of the cost increase, to consider options for reducing it and to work through all contingencies. On August 27, 2018, the minister was advised the construction budget was trending over budget estimated to be 191m. It remains the position he did not know about the final figures until November. The work undertaken from August on was essential to enabling the minister to bring to Cabinet a thorough assessment and a clear recommendation. Micheal Martin speaking on Kildare FM this morning that the minister should "correct the Dail and he needs to apologise to the Dail". He said it was extraordinary that the minister would not have told anybody about the overspend until November. He said the onus was now on Fine Gael needs to reflect on the issues raised. PAC chairman and Fianna Fail TD Sean Flemming however told Newstalk Breakfast that he believed Mr Harris should stand aside. Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald has ramped up pressure on Fianna Fail in relation to the controversy surrounding the cost. In a letter to Micheal Martin, Ms McDonald said the position of Health Minister Simon Harris is untenable. She said Brexit should not be used as a catch-all excuse to tolerate and enable bad government. I invite you to make clear whether you have confidence in Minister Simon Harris and whether you will move or a support a confidence in the Minister for Health, she wrote. Previously Fianna Fail TD Barry Cowen said that if Brexit was not an issue the current government would be gone. Standing together: Dr Sarah McDonnell offers her support to nurse Helena Clarke during the protest outside the Coombe Hospital in Dublin. Photo: Damien Eagers A third day of strike action brought 37,000 nurses and midwives back to the picket line yesterday, but with three more strike days planned next week, the industrial action is beginning to take its toll. The dispute between members of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) over pay and working conditions will see nurses once again down tools and pick up their placards from next Tuesday to Thursday. But as nurses lose a day's wage for each day they picket, financial worries have begun to set in. "One of our nurses, a wonderful Italian girl, only last week was in tears because she didn't know how she was going to pay her mortgage over this," said Tess Shorthall, a nurse at the Coombe Hospital in Dublin. "We would much rather be inside and looking after our patients. We don't want people to be suffering out there." Meanwhile, Emma Thompson, a midwife at the National Maternity Hospital on Holles Street, also said her colleagues were coming under financial pressure as more strike days loomed. "I have been organising the strike days here and I know that the girl that works alongside me is worried about the days she is missing," she said. "But that's what we're going to have to do. We have to remain strong to the Government. We have to remain strong until we get a resolution. "Unfortunately for all our patients, they are being put out and they are being really good supporting us so we hope they continue supporting us." "We have to lose something to have something," nurse Alice Campari said, speaking of her commitment to the industrial action. "We are giving up the payment that we won't have now to try and have something in the future and for our entire career." Fears are rising that the public support for nurses could begin to wane if thousands more appointments are cancelled next week. INMO general secretary Phil Ni Sheaghdha, however, said she was confident the public would continue to support the strike action. "I think the public are very adamant. They know why the nurses and midwives are taking this action," she said. "They know that it is because the public health service is understaffed and will not be there when we need it ... when we know our population and our ageing population will have an even bigger demand and a bigger need for the health service." Nurse Emma Feely, from Dublin, who works on the antenatal ward at the Coombe Hospital, said she understood the "frustration" of patients but support would continue regardless of the duration of the industrial action. "I think the public will stick behind us," she said. "I think people will start to get frustrated and hopefully that will just show how necessary the services are, that the nursing staff are so important in the hospital." As he sits in his cell on the E wing of the top security prison in Portlaoise that will be his home for at least 17 years, Kevin Braney will have plenty of time to reflect on the day he changed his mind about the peace process and became a dissident. Braney, who received the mandatory life sentence from the Special Criminal Court yesterday for his conviction of the murder of a former associate, Peter Butterly, was the key figure in the New IRA on this side of the Border and was particularly influential in the ranks of the terrorist organisation in Dublin and Cork. Expand Close Kevin Braney was involved in the murders organisation / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Kevin Braney was involved in the murders organisation He was initially a strong supporter of the peace process and remained loyal to Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams as they led the Provisional republican movement to back a ceasefire and a decommissioning of weapons. Braney (44), from Glenshane Crescent, Tallaght, in south county Dublin, stood by McGuinness despite the formation of a new dissident organisation that became known as the Real IRA. The split followed a major row at a Provisional IRA convention in Falcarragh, Co Donegal, in October 1997 over the direction to be taken by the movement, resulting in a walkout by several senior figures, including its quartermaster, Michael McKevitt. As quartermaster McKevitt, was in overall charge of all arms and explosives, and his defection was followed by others, who also joined the Real IRA when he formed it. However, Braney eventually became disillusioned with the peace process and threw his support behind the dissident group. His opportunity to rise to the top ranks of the Real IRA came when a group of experienced republicans, including some recently released from prison in Northern Ireland, forged an alliance between the Real IRA, the Republican Action Against Drugs, based mainly in Derry, Strabane and Clady, and other former Provisionals, who had remained unaligned since the ceasefire, partly because they saw how the various dissident groups had been infiltrated by the Garda and the PSNI. In Dublin the Real IRA, under the control of Alan Ryan, had developed into an undisciplined crew that became immersed in a deadly feud with criminal gangs involved in drug trafficking and extortion. The Northern leaders began stamping their authority internally through threats and punishment shootings and when it was over Braney was in charge of the Dublin and Cork units. Among the victims of the infighting was Peter Butterly with Braney playing his part in the planning of the murder. In the meantime, the alliance had grown into the New IRA, which publicly announced its existence in July 2012 and began a campaign of attacks on what it termed security targets in Northern Ireland. One of its first targets was prison officer, David Black, who was shot dead as he was driving to work at Maghaberry jail in November 2012. During the planning of his brutal murder, the New IRA turned to Braney's terrorist team to supply a car for use by the killers. The car was purchased in Tallaght and taken to Carrigallen, Co Leitrim, where it was handed over to the Northern based terrorists. Gardai later secured a conviction for IRA membership against Vincent Banks, who had previously been acquitted on a charge of withholding information about the murder of Mr Black, partly on the grounds that there was no evidence he knew the car was to be used in a murder. Banks used a false name and a wrong address when purchasing the car but gardai identified him as the buyer when they called to the address and found a letter containing the car registration certificate. His right thumb print was on the form. The New IRA also claimed responsibility for killing prison officer, Adrian Ismay, who died after he was injured in a bomb attack in Belfast in March 2016 while some of its current members are believed to have been involved in the murders of British soldiers, Mark Quinsey and Patrick Azimkar, as they collected a pizza outside Massereene barracks in Antrim town in March 2009. Current members are also thought to have been behind the murder of Constable Ronan Kerr in an under-car bomb attack in Omagh in Apri 2011. The PSNI revealed in 2017 that the New IRA had developed a new highly dangerous explosive device. It involves a pressure plate designed to detonate when a vehicle drives over it. The device was developed because of the difficult of attaching booby trap bombs to the underside of cars - a method used by dissidents to kill their targets, with the most infamous attack of this type killing British Conservative politician Airey Neave, a close friend of Margaret Thatcher, as he was driving out of the car park at the House of Commons in March 1979. The device was fitted under his seat and detonated by a mercury tilt switch. However, the use of magnets became more problematic with modern cars using more plastic and the new device has been developed by the New IRA to overcome that difficulty. It was used by the New IRA in Derry two years ago to target an off-duty police officer. The bomb consists of a box of explosives wrapped in tape and placed under the vehicle with the plate detonator activated when the wheel drives over it. Explosives intercepted by gardai in Dublin's north inner city in June 2017 comprised four kilos of commercial TNT, which ballistic experts could have been used to make 30 under vehicle bombs. The seizure saved many lives in Northern Ireland, particularly police and prison officers. Braney was also chairman of the Dublin branch of Saoradh, a political organisation that came into existence in 2016 with the support of New IRA prisoners in jails on both sides of the Border. A tribute was paid in a Saoradh newsletter to Michael Barr, who was shot dead in the Sunset House pub in Summerhill, Dublin, during the Kinahan-Hutch feud. The New IRA has more than 50 activists listed as persons of interest to the Garda security and intelligence section and is estimated to have another 200 supporters. Its members on this side of the Border are heavily involved in extortion to help finance the purchase of weaponry for use in the North. Dublins Lord Mayor Nial Ring has managed to save his home from a bank sale after raising well over 1m to pay off debts he owes Bank Of Ireland Mortgage Bank, the Circuit Civil Court heard today Friday. Barrister Kate Conneely, counsel for Cllr Ring and his wife Joyce who was also named in repossession proceedings, told the court that a three-mortgage debt amounting to 903,420, together with the banks undisclosed legal costs bill, could be struck out by consent of both parties. Ms Conneely, who appeared with Business and Commercial Solicitors, told Judge Jacqueline Linnane the extent of the new funds and where and how they had been raised, could not be divulged on the basis it may breach data protection legislation. She said funds capable of meeting all outstanding debts owed to the bank and its legal costs had been lodged with Mr Rings solicitors ready to be transferred to Bank of Ireland Mortgage Bank. Judge Linnane said she did not think the proceedings should be struck out until confirmation was received that the funds had been transferred to the bank, just in case of any slip up. Eithne Corry, counsel for the bank, confirmed that the bank accepted it was to be put in funds for settlement of outstanding debts and the bank's costs which, it had been suggested, could be measured by Judge Linnane. Judge Linnane said that on May 24, 2017 she had made an order for possession of the Ring family home at St Lawrence Road, Clontarf, Dublin. The Civil Bill had outlined three loans for 234,000; 380,000 and 486,000 (totalling 1.1mi) with a stay on her order for six months on the basis that 10,000 a month would be paid off for the duration of the stay. It was part of her order that on default of any 10,000 payment the stay would be automatically lifted. The judge said her order had been appealed and had come before the High Court on March 15, 2018. The appeal had been withdrawn and a consent order had been made again on grounds of a stay of 11 months on the basis that 10,000 a month would be paid over that period, again with a stipulation that the stay would be lifted in default of a single monthly payment. Judge Linnane said that according to papers in the proceedings, no 10,000 monthly payments had been made and only one payment of 5,000 had been paid over to the bank which had moved to execute the order and send in the sheriff. The Rings had then obtained a High Court ex parte injunction restraining the sheriff from acting on behalf of the bank. The Rings had given the bank an undertaking as to damages which, Judge Linnane said, she thought would not be worth very much bearing in mind the extent of their outstanding debts, which included mortgage arrears of 527,000. When Judge Linnane suggested postponing any order to strike out the proceedings until the funds had been transferred from the Rings solicitor's account, both parties asked for a brief adjournment to facilitate talks. Shortly afterwards the court was told the funds had been transferred to the bank but confirmation of the transfer may take a day. Judge Linnane put the matter in for mention again on Monday and was told there would be no need for the court to measure the banks legal costs. Mr and Mrs Ring did not have to attend court for mention of the settlement, and will not have to attend on Monday. A Dublin woman signed forged documents for a 160,000 mortgage application but avoided a conviction when she made a "substantial donation" to charity. Natalie Hughes (40) claimed she was unaware that the documents, which were prepared by a third party for a mortgage broker, were forged and "blindly" signed them in a "desperate attempt" to buy a family home. In what was described as a "tragic case" by her solicitor, Cahir O'Higgins, Ms Hughes produced the documents at Bank of Ireland in Drogheda, Co Louth. However, she was refused the mortgage and there was no loss to the bank, Drogheda District Court was told. The court heard Hughes told the arresting garda she would have made the repayments had she been given the mortgage. The defendant, of Melrose Grove, Clondalkin, Dublin, pleaded guilty to three counts of fraud on dates between May 20 and December 16, 2015. She further pleaded guilty to one count of deception by using the three false documents on her mortgage application on the same dates. She has no previous convictions. Defence solicitor Mr O'Higgins said it is "an extremely tragic case". "She was reckless and blindly signed documents prepared for a mortgage broker by a third party," said Mr O'Higgins. He said there was no loss of money and the mortgage was for 160,000. Mr O'Higgins said the defendant has no previous convictions, "not even a parking ticket". "She also made a substantial donation to charity and she is a nervous wreck," he said. Judge John Coughlan suggested the Probation Services speak with the defendant and the prosecuting garda to see if a probation report would help. After a short consultation, a probation officer told the court that the defendant is "of low risk of re-offending, has no addiction or mental health issues and has 15 years service working with vulnerable adults". "There is no reason for the Probation Services' assistance," the probation officer told Judge Coughlan. Before finalising the case, Mr O'Higgins told the judge: "I understand your benevolent practice of giving people a chance. She has made a substantial donation and it was in an act of desperation to house herself." Judge Coughlan said: "This is not a court of law, it is a court of justice and if I convict her, even give her the Probation Act, she may lose her job," and struck the case out. Suing for damages: Denis OBrien arrives at the Four Courts yesterday for his High Court action. Photo: Collins Courts Businessman Denis O'Brien has said he is not "self-obsessed" in believing he was "lumped in" with 22 borrowers allegedly blamed in newspaper articles for the 2008 financial crisis here. "I'm second place to you in the vanity stakes," he told Michael McDowell SC during cross-examination in his High Court action alleging defamation in several articles published in the 'Sunday Business Post' (SBP) on March 15, 2015. He said he was "maliciously" put into a category of borrowers where he should not have been and defamed because the articles wrongly meant he was "a member of a select group responsible for the property bubble in Ireland". He had made some property investments but was not a developer and disagreed it was not defamatory to describe someone as a developer in 2015. If you interacted with the public between 2008 and 2015 and said you were a developer and not a barrister, you "would get dog's abuse", he told counsel. "I am not a property developer king and I didn't bust the country." Mr O'Brien is suing Post Publications Ltd for substantial damages over the alleged defamation. The focus of the articles, which ran over six pages, was what the SBP referred to as a "secret" report concerning exposure in 2008 of Ireland's banks, compiled by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). The report was provided to the Government in November 2008 and obtained in 2015 by the newspaper but was destroyed shortly after publication to protect the source who provided it. The articles include a front page story headlined "22 men and 26 billion" with a subheading: "The secret report that convinced Cowen the banks weren't bust." Mr O'Brien claims the various articles wrongly meant he was among 22 borrowers identified with the downfall of Ireland and the bankruptcy of its banking system and injured his reputation. The defendant denies defamation. Yesterday, Mr McDowell said the SBP denied the "they" in a strapline "The files they didn't want you to see" included Mr O'Brien. Remarking Mr O'Brien had probably heard of the Carly Simon song, 'You're So Vain', counsel put to him the articles did not mean Mr O'Brien, or others, was being blamed for the 2008 financial crisis. Mr O'Brien reiterated his view the articles, including one headlined "The Gang of 22", meant he was part of a "gang" of 22 responsible for the 2008 crisis. He did not know how counsel could say otherwise or suggest he was "self-obsessed" or like the person referred to in the song, 'You're So Vain'. He denied his interpretation of "gang" as referring to people engaged in wrongdoing or criminality was "excessive". Mr McDowell put to him "gang" is used widely to describe different groups of people. Mr O'Brien said counsel, as a former justice minister, knows what gang means and it is not "a loving term". He said he has never seen the PwC report but believed the newspaper had "sensationalised" it and the journalists involved had set out to do him damage. The hearing continues. A builder who attacked his neighbour following a lengthy dispute has pleaded with a judge to spare him a criminal record so he can move to Australia with his partner. Peter Lambe (50) had denied assault causing harm to Gerard Furlong (62), who suffered serious facial injuries during the incident at Arran Road, in Drumcondra, Dublin, on the morning of March 4, 2016. But he was found guilty following his trial at Dublin District Court in December and yesterday, despite not accepting the verdict, he pleaded with Judge John Cheatle to spare him a criminal record. Judge Cheatle was furnished with a probation report on Lambe. He adjourned sentencing until April to allow the accused time to complete a restorative justice services programme. That would involve a letter of apology, which defence counsel Alan Grace described as "a sticking point" for his client. Expand Close Gerard Furlong. Photo: Collins / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Gerard Furlong. Photo: Collins He said his client had 1,000 to offer to Mr Furlong, who had earlier turned down an offer of compensation. Mr Grace said the offer was still available or it could go to charity instead. Pleading for leniency, he asked for the judge to spare his client a conviction. He said the probation report was largely positive, however, Lambe did not fully accept his guilt. The accused "seems to view it as an altercation that got out of hand", counsel said. The court heard there was "no love lost" between the neighbours and the incident followed a lengthy dispute. Mr Furlong had told the trial that on the day of the incident Lambe grabbed him and started punching him. They went to the ground and Lambe got the better of him. He said his daughter Claire Tynan came out and a neighbour witnessed the incident. Ms Tynan told the court she was petrified when she saw the attack on her father and she described how he was punched and continuously headbutted. Mr Furlong said in his victim impact statement that he was "still continuously in fear of Mr Lambe". Olivia Colman has attended a pre-Oscars champagne party after being nominated for the Best Actress Award. The Favourite star and hotly-tipped big winner in the 2019 awards season attended the Oscars Champagne Tea in London alongside leading lights in film. Colman, who is also heavily backed for Bafta success, was flanked by fellow stars for the nominees event at Claridges, and was seen with her costume designer on The Favourite, Sandy Powell. Expand Close Olivia Colman, left, and Sandy Powell (Isabel Infantes/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Olivia Colman, left, and Sandy Powell (Isabel Infantes/PA) Expand Close Spike Lee was also in attendance (Isabel Infantes/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Spike Lee was also in attendance (Isabel Infantes/PA) Expand Close Rami Malek underwent a transformation for his role in Bohemian Rhapsody (Isabel Infantes/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Rami Malek underwent a transformation for his role in Bohemian Rhapsody (Isabel Infantes/PA) Bohemian Rhapsody star Rami Malek, who transformed himself as Queen frontman Freddie Mercury, also attended the event. Spike Lee, who has often been seemingly snubbed by the Academy, made an appearance in a hoodie featuring a picture of Marvin Gaye. Expand Close Alfonso Cuaron could win the best director Oscar (Isabel Infantes/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Alfonso Cuaron could win the best director Oscar (Isabel Infantes/PA) The highly-praised film Roma is in the running for Best Picture, and director Alfonso Cuaron attended to represent the films selection. Polish filmmaker Pawel Pawlikowski, nominated for the Best Director award for his noir-influenced tale of defection, Cold War, joined the glittering company at the London event. The 91st Academy Awards will take place on February 24. The issue of race has been front and centre in American cinema of late, but the movies tackling it have often been conversion vehicles with heartfelt agendas, more earnest than artful. Not in the case of Barry Jenkins, however. His Oscar-winning 2016 drama Moonlight was a dense, complex, many-layered creation, which succeeded in achieving multiple aims: it told the semi-autobiographical story of a young gay black man's struggle to come to terms with his sexuality in the macho environs of a Florida project, but did so using the visual palette of a nouvelle vague art-house movie. In addition, it carefully subverted all the ghetto stereotypes we've been force-fed for decades: the kindest person in the film was a black drug dealer, played by Mahershala Ali. It was the most important film released in America that year, and deserved all the praise heaped on it. The question was, would Jenkins be able to sustain that level of excellence? Remarkably, he has. If Beale Street Could Talk is based on a novel by James Baldwin, and adheres closely to its source. But while paying due homage to the problems endured by African-Americans in the 1970s, it subtly connects them to contemporary experience to quietly demonstrate how little has changed. In New York City in the early 70s, things are going pretty well for 19-year-old black woman Tish Rivers (KiKi Layne). She's working at the perfume counter of a big department store in a front-of-house role no black woman has previously occupied, and is head over heels in love with Fonny Hunt (Stephan James), a talented and enigmatic young man. He's a sculptor, and they have high hopes of making a decent life for themselves in Manhattan, but the little matter of skin pigment will thwart them at every turn. When Tish gets pregnant, their families react very differently. Her mother, Sharon (Regina King) and father, Joseph (Colman Domingo), while understandably not over the moon, quickly adapt to this new reality and are supportive. But Fonny's fearsome mom (Aunjanue Ellis) is a holy roller, thinks Tish isn't good enough for her son, and throws the toys out of the pram. In a magnificently busy scene, all hell breaks loose when the two families convene to discuss Tish's pregnancy: some of the dialogue (most of it Baldwin's) is very funny, but the humour dissipates when Fonny's seemingly easy-going dad rounds on his wife and hits her. In this film, nothing is simple, and things are about to get worse. When Tish is sexually harassed by a white man in a convenience store, Fonny arrives and knocks him down. But a policeman called Hayward (Finn Wittrock) is watching, addresses Fonny as "boy", and moves him to the top of his sh*t list. Fonny is soon bound for prison and Tish and the two families must pull together to find a way of proving his innocence. The hard realities of a society where blackness is proof of criminal guilt is juxtaposed in Jenkins' film with the elegiac passion of Tish and Fonny's love. They're devoted to each other, and would live forever in a bubble of mutual contentment if racial politics did not constantly intrude. The simplest of tasks are complicated by colour: when the couple go looking for an apartment together, they're turned down time and again until a kindly Jewish landlord (Dave Franco) acknowledges, with a smile, their common humanity. The hatred and suspicion Tish constantly encounters as she works to free her man seems to surprise her: perhaps her good family has insulated her from a world whose ugliness she only now fully understands. At one point, the couple are visited by an old friend of Fonny's, who's spent time in jail. Calmly, affably, he tells them that if you're black, it doesn't matter if you're innocent or guilty: the system is rigged against you. The story sounds grim and sometimes is, but Jenkins tells it beautifully, using light and colour to juxtapose the couple's love with the wider institutional hatreds. Soft browns and greens evoke the mood of 70s New York, and the film effortlessly flicks back and forth in time. A stunning-looking film, its stylistic elegance only emphasises its sombre underlying message. Blackness was a crime in 1970s America: sadly, one could argue that it still is. If Beale Street Could Talk (15A, 119mins) - 5 stars Films coming soon... Instant Family (Mark Wahlberg, Rose Byrne, Octavia Spencer); Happy Death Day 2U (Jessica Rothe, Israel Broussard); A Private War (Rosamund Pike, Jamie Dornan); The Kid Who Would Be King (Rebecca Ferguson, Patrick Stewart). Your guide to movies, music and more... The Lego Movie 2 (G, 107mins) - 4 stars The Lego Movie was one of the biggest hits of 2014. It used Lego mini-figures and building blocks to tell the story of a power struggle in a kid's playroom. Chris Pratt did a fine job of voicing Emmet, an insanely optimistic construction worker who becomes an unlikely hero. Elizabeth Banks was his true love Wild Style, Will Arnett the impossibly conceived Batman, and all reprise their roles in this sequel which involves a mysterious attack of Duplo (baby Lego). It's neither as busy nor original as the first film, but it's still extremely funny in parts and skates along with giddy and irresistible joie de vivre. Boy Erased (15A, 115mins) - 3 stars Written and directed by Joel Edgerton, this slow-moving drama is based on a true story and explores the insanity of gender-conversion therapy. Lucas Hedges plays Jared, the college-going son of an Arkansas Baptist minister (Russell Crowe) and his wife (Nicole Kidman), who is sent to the Love in Action therapy centre, run by Victor Sykes (Edgerton), a very persuasive therapist who may not have any qualifications, but browbeats his inmates into renouncing their sexuality. Boy Erased features some fine performances, but The Miseducation Of Cameron Post tackled the same subject far more imaginatively. All Is True (12A, 101mins) - 4 stars All Is True is inspired by the fondly-held belief that, in 1513, following a devastating fire at the Globe Theatre, William Shakespeare (Kenneth Branagh) retired to Stratford and never wrote or acted again. There he faces a reckoning with his somewhat neglected wife (Judi Dench), and his angry, unmarried daughter, Judith (Kathryn Wilder). Scripted by Ben Elton and directed by Branagh, All Is True creates a lush and loving portrait of a literary lion in winter. It's entertaining, the acting is excellent and Ian McKellen adds a welcome acidic touch as Shakespeare's arrogant patron, the Earl of Southampton. Albert Finney has died at the age of 82 with his wife and son at his side. The veteran actor, best known for roles in Tom Jones, Erin Brockovich and Annie, had been in Londons Royal Marsden Hospital for the past month. He died from a chest infection on Thursday afternoon with his wife Pene Delmage and son Simon at his bedside. A statement from his family said: Albert Finney, aged 82, passed away peacefully after a short illness with those closest to him by his side. The family request privacy at this sad time. Expand Close Finney with John Hurt in 1999 (Michael Stephens/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Finney with John Hurt in 1999 (Michael Stephens/PA) It is understood his funeral will be held at a later stage and will be private. The five-time Oscar nominee, who was born in Salford in 1936, started his career in the theatre and made his movie debut with a small part in The Entertainer in 1960. Director Tony Richardson then offered Finney the lead in kitchen-sink drama Saturday Night And Sunday Morning, and period romp Tom Jones in 1963, which landed him his first Oscar nomination and made him a major star. Expand Close Albert Finney, left, with co-star Shirley Anne Field and author Alan Sillitoe at a party for Saturday Night And Sunday Morning (PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Albert Finney, left, with co-star Shirley Anne Field and author Alan Sillitoe at a party for Saturday Night And Sunday Morning (PA) Along with Tom Courtenay, he was part of the wave of working class actors who revolutionised British film and television at that time. Finney went on to play the title role in Scrooge and Hercule Poirot in Murder On The Orient Express, which garnered his second nomination, as well as Daddy Warbucks in Annie. He earned consecutive nods in 1984 and 1985 for The Dresser and Under The Volcano, and his fifth came in 2001 for his role as lawyer Ed Masry in Erin Brockovich, in which he starred opposite Julia Roberts. Expand Close Albert Finney as Sir Winston Churchill in The Gathering Storm (BBC) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Albert Finney as Sir Winston Churchill in The Gathering Storm (BBC) He played Winston Churchill in the TV movie The Gathering Storm in 2002 and more recently starred in the James Bond film Skyfall and the Bourne films. He received the Bafta Fellowship, the British Academys highest honour, in 2001 but reportedly turned down a knighthood. Renault has found evidence that it paid part of Carlos Ghosn's wedding costs and is preparing to turn the investigation over to prosecutors, two weeks after the French carmaker's scandal-hit chairman and chief executive was forced out. An internal probe established that a 2016 sponsorship deal with the Chateau de Versailles included a 50,000 personal benefit to Ghosn, the carmaker said yesterday, confirming a report in Le Figaro. The carmaker replaced Ghosn on January 24, more than two months after his arrest in Japan over allegations of financial misconduct uncovered by Renault's Japanese affiliate Nissan, which he also chaired. Renault began its own examination of payments to Ghosn within days of his detention but had not flagged any irregularities until now. "The event space at Versailles was made available to him without charge, and Mr Ghosn was unaware that the use of the space would be charged against Renault's allotted usage," Ghosn's French-based lawyer Jean-Yves Leborgne said in an e-mailed statement. "Carlos Ghosn paid for all of his wedding expenses," he added. Renault has discovered that "Mr Ghosn was accorded a personal benefit valued at 50,000 under the terms of a sponsorship contract with the Chateau de Versailles", the company said in a statement on Thursday. "Renault has decided to bring these findings to the attention of the judicial authorities." The office of Ghosn's Japanese lawyer, Motonari Otsuru, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Ghosn remains in detention in Tokyo with limited opportunity to respond publicly to allegations against him. Renault had agreed before the wedding to sponsor 2.3m of Versailles renovations in return for a credit granting the carmaker services from the chateau worth 25pc of that amount, or 575,000, a person with knowledge of the matter told Reuters. The rental fee was deducted from Renault's credit for use of the Grand Trianon at Versailles on October 8, 2016, when Ghosn and his second wife, Carole, hosted their wedding reception at the 17th-century palace, the source said. The event had already attracted public attention for its opulence and Marie Antoinette-themed costumes. The Renault board was informed about the discovery on Wednesday, as reported by Le Figaro, the source added. There has been a sharp drop in the number of court proceedings issued to repossess homes. Consumer advocate Brendan Burgess said that it was time to cancel the warning of a tsunami of repossessions. Figures he has obtained from the Courts Service show 1,600 court proceedings for possession were issued last year, down 50pc on the previous year. There has been an 80pc drop in the number of proceedings for possession issued since the peak in 2014. Separate repossession figures gathered by the Central Bank, although using different methodology, show the same trend of a plummeting in possession proceedings being issued. Mr Burgess said that estimates that 20,000 possession cases are in the courts system are a gross exaggeration. "The true figure is around 7,000. "Is it time to cancel the tsunami warning?" Mr Burgess said it was strange that just 7,000 proceedings are in the system, when 28,000 mortgage accounts are in long-term arrears. Arrears campaigner David Hall, of the Irish Mortgage Holders Organisation, has repeatedly warned of a tsunami of repossessions. He said that he had been expecting a fall in the court proceedings as banks had sold problem mortgages to vulture funds. Asked about his repeated warnings over a tsunami of repossessions, he warned: "This is the calm before the storm." He referred to a recent Central Bank report that states that half of those in long-term arrears will lose their homes. Zone levy: The overall Digital Hub campus is in the heart of old Dublin near the Guinness brewing complex A prime Dublin city centre development site controlled by the State-owned Digital Hub Development Agency has been confirmed as being vacant by An Bord Pleanala. The board's decision will likely cost the agency hundreds of thousands of euro in levies a year. The site is in the heart of old Dublin, with the Guinness brewing complex located nearby. It includes a large, two-storey industrial building that has fallen into disuse. Dublin City Council notified the Digital Hub Development Agency in May last year that the site would stand on the vacant site register and attract the relevant levies. Under the 2015 Urban Regeneration and Housing Act, all planning authorities are required to establish and maintain a vacant sites register. A site can be entered on the register by a local authority if it deems that the site has been vacant or idle for at least the preceding 12 months. The sites must more than 0.05 hectares in area, and be zoned for either residential or regeneration purposes. Vacant or idle sites on the register attract a levy of 3pc of the market value of the site. The levy is set to jump to 7pc from 2020. The site owned by the Digital Hub Development Agency is worth millions of euro and has been the subject of previous planning applications. The Digital Hub Development Agency has appealed to An Bord Pleanala against the site's inclusion on the vacant site register. The agency argued that it had received notice from Dublin City Council on June 1 last year that the site would be included on the vacant sites register. The agency claimed that under the terms of the relevant Act, the notice should have been received before June 1. However, the legislation had been amended so that the deadline for informing site owners of a site's inclusion on the register was extended to November 1. An Bord Pleanala rejected the State agency's appeal, and said that the site should remain on the register. Prolific developer Gerry Gannon is eyeing a large development outside his traditional Dublin heartland, with a huge scheme of 364 apartments and houses in Gorey, Co Wexford. He has entered a consultation with An Bord Pleanala in relation to the project. It's not the first time that the Roscommon-born Mr Gannon has ventured outside Dublin, but the planned scheme in Gorey is probably one of the largest for the developer outside the capital. The scheme will include the demolition of existing structures on the site in Gorey, and the construction of 64 duplex units, 172 apartments and 128 houses. Gorey, a 40-minute drive to Wexford town, is about an hour from south Dublin. The journey time to Wexford will also be cut later this year with the opening of the Enniscorthy bypass. Mr Gannon was one of the so-called Maple 10, a group of investors who bought shares in Anglo Irish Bank in order to reduce Sean Quinn Sr's stake in the doomed lender. The bank loaned the investors the money to buy the shares. Mr Gannon was also a co-owner of the K Club until he sold it to Michael Smurfit, a move he was compelled to make by Nama after he ended up owing Anglo Irish Bank more than 1bn. The developer has continued to be a significant presence in the housing market in and around Dublin. Pre-tax profits at Mr Gannon's building firm, Gannon Homes, rose 41pc to 6.2m in 2017. Revenue at the firm edged 4pc higher, from 34.8m to 36.25m. The company's revenue included 18m gleaned from the sale of investment properties. The former partner of a Galway financial brokerage has been banned indefinitely by the Central Bank from having any function in a regulated firm over what was described as the misappropriation of client funds. Paul Tarpey, who was the partner in Costello & Tarpey Financial Services, failed to act honestly, ethically and with integrity, according to the Central Bank. The financial services firm has since been dissolved. He has been prohibited indefinitely from carrying out any controlled functions, including pre-approval controlled functions, in any regulated financial service provider. The prohibition arises from a Central Bank investigation into the misappropriation of client funds by Mr Tarpey during his time at Costello & Tarpey Financial Services, the regulator said in a statement. An indefinite ban is the most serious outcome when the Central Bank conducts an investigation under its fitness and probity regime. Director of enforcement and anti-money laundering at the Central Bank Seana Cunningham, said referred to what she called a statement of undisputed facts, adding that this document clearly demonstrates Mr Tarpeys failure to act honestly, ethically and with integrity. Ms Cunningham added: This case should serve as a reminder that the Central Bank will prohibit people who act dishonestly. This outcome is also notable, as it is the first time that we have exercised our discretion to publish full reasons for a prohibition. The Central Bank prohibition arose from whistleblower tip-off to the regulator in 2016. When the regulators began probing the financial firm, Mr Tarpeys solicitors wrote to the Central Bank admitting he had misappropriated funds, details on the case reveal. It is understood the Gardai are not currently investigating Mr Tarpey. It is the sixth prohibition notice issued by the Central Bank. How are chemicals distributed in a cell? Chinese scientists have developed a combined mass spectrometry and biological imaging device that enables direct, label-free detection, and high-resolution mapping of chemicals inside a biological cell. As demonstrated in their publication in the journal Angewandte Chemie, the distribution and accumulation of the disinfectant proflavine around the cell organelles could be visualized directly, based on the mass signal from the molecule. Ultrafine optical methods, such as STED and PALM microscopy, are well-established techniques to identify gene expression and localize molecules in cell compartments at molecular resolutions. But these are indirect methods, which usually monitor the fluorescence generated when a dye binds to target molecules. A direct method to identify molecules is mass spectrometry, which senses the chemical mass of a molecule that has been desorbed from a surface and ionized by a laser beam. However, mass spectrometry poses inherent diffraction problems when combined with high-resolution imaging processes. In addition, biological cells usually have rough surfaces, which give rise to signal artifacts. Considering all these challenges, Wei Hang and colleagues at Xiamen University, Xiamen, China, have now constructed a time-of-flight mass spectrometer with a desorptionionization-imaging method that accounts for both the special surface conditions of biological cells and the high resolution demanded in such a system. They developed an elaborate setup called near-field desorption postionization time-of-flight mass spectrometer (NDPITOFMS) and used it to detect and map chemical molecules in HELA cellsa human cell line and workhorse in cell biology. The dried cells were put on a stage and an ultraprecise laser scanned the surface by etching craters a few tenths of a micrometer in size. The desorbed molecules were ionized by another laser beam and then identified in the mass spectrometer. As the authors pointed out, the advantage of this method is that the cells can be imaged at the same time as sample acquisition, thus enabling co-registered chemical and topographical imaging within an individual cell. Indeed, their 3D reconstructed images revealed the signals for proflavine, a drug that was added to the cells, exactly where they were expected: in the cytoplasm and around the organelles. The three-dimensional information was gathered to account for the uneven surface. In contrast to the available mass spectrometry imaging techniques, this hybrid technique, which combined scanning probe microscopy and mass spectrometry provides undistorted high-resolution chemical mapping of irregular surfaces, says Hang. Given the compact nature of the device, the authors recommend its implementation in diverse mass spectrometry imaging setups, but especially where biological samples are concerned. However, some fine-tuning is still needed. Although this first test showed that chemical mapping was possible on the submicrometer scale, the authors aim to go further down the scale and, in addition, improve the processing conditions for the cells. This would set the stage for direct, label-free chemical mapping of drug molecules within biological cells. The importance of women holding positions of leadership and influence in tech is being highlighted at a one-day event in Dublin. Microsoft will be hosting the inaugural Hopper Local at its new Leopardstown campus to support the inclusion of women in the sector. Ireland's tech leaders from giants including Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Stripe, and SAP will be in attendance. The Hopper Local is designed after the AnitaB.org Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC), the world's largest gathering of women technologists. Panels addressing diversity in the sector, with a focus on software engineering, cybersecurity, data science, AI, and inclusive design will feature at the conference. Executive Vice President of Business Development at Microsoft, and global advocate for women in tech, Peggy Johnson will give the keynote address. Cathriona Hallahan, Managing Director at Microsoft Ireland said that the first Hopper Local here celebrates women who are blazing a trail in Irelands ICT sector. "The variety of voices at the event speaks to the importance of seeking out perspectives that are different from our own. For only when we value difference can innovation truly flourish," she said. Meanwhile, more than 6,000 transition year girls have attended 'I Wish' events in Cork and Dublin to promote Stem (science, technology, engineering and maths) careers. 'I Wish' co-founder Caroline O'Driscoll said Ireland has made major strides in encouraging women to enter the greater science field, but more remains to be done. "Employment within the general Stem field here in Ireland is around 25pc for women," she said. "A survey has indicated that 60pc (of students) change their subject choices after attending here." The first Grace Hopper Local Dublin is being supported locally by Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Stripe, Science Foundation Ireland, and SAP. It will take place on February 27 in One Microsoft Place, Leopardstown. A North Louth farmer who lost eight pregnant ewes carrying up to 17 lambs in a savage attack by marauding dogs claims many sheep owners arent bothering to report kills any more. Padraig Rice who is about to lose another ewe from the attack is also calling on more stringent laws to make dog owners more culpable for sheep kills The part-time farmer was on his way to feed his flock at land near Ballymascanlon when he was met with the siight of torn and bloodied sheep. The stomach-churning slaughter was discovered at 10am on Thursday, January 24 when Padraig and a friend Gerry Carroll went to check on his heavily-pregnant flock. I am a carpenter by trade and was running late for work that morning so went to check on the sheep during my break, he said. I was reared on a farm and during the recession went back to part-time sheep farming . I had about 70 ewes in total. When we reached the fields, I saw straight away the injured sheep and noticed about ten were missing. We searched for about three hours and had to drag the dead sheep out of old drains. We nearly got stuck in there ourselves. Many of the dead ewes had obviously fled from the dogs and drowned. Others died from pneumonia and yet more from stress in the onslaught. I lost eight ewes. One was pregnant with three lambs, four were due twins and two had singlets. Another ewe who survived aborted her twins in fear. Im about to lose another ewe who didnt recover from the attack. Padraig has been too upset to count the monetary loss for the nine ewes and 17 sheep but claims a pregnant ewe with twins could be worth up to 200 alone while the lambs, if born and reared until June could have earned him upwards of 100 He is also forking out for veterinary fees on the sheep that need antibiotics and treatment after being bitten. About 14 more sheep had their throats cut or ears torn so we have to give them antibiotics and hope they make a full recovery. They are scared stiff though. If I bring my sheepdog into the field, they run a mile. Shockingly, its the second time Padraig has lost sheep to savage dogs and is now calling on more action to be taken. I lost about three sheep when I started out farming about 20 odd years ago. People think farmers hate dogs but thats not true. I have three dogs and love them Its in every dogs nature to kill. I dont blame the dogs, I blame the owners. There was more than one dog in this attack. There had to be because my sheep were over 50 acres in three different fields. Many farmers I know have given up reporting attacks because nothing happens. How do you prove it? Even if a dog is picked up, the owners will just go and get it and it often will kill again. Padraig has paid over 1,000 in meshing now for the gates in the hope it will keep his sheep safe but he knows it is no guarantee. Loose dogs have to be picked up regardless of what they are at. Laws have to be changed and owners have to be more responsible. The dogs that did this had to have gone back to their homes covered in muck and blood. The owners have to have noticed! US farmers are in relatively stable financial health despite a bruising trade war between the United States and China that has weakened crop prices, the chief executive of farm supplier Nutrien Ltd said this week. Farmer bankruptcies in 2018 were lower than the previous year, and below the 10-year average, CEO Chuck Magro said on a quarterly conference call. Farmers increasing debt is largely due to purchases of land, the value of which has been firm, he said. Nutrien has also seen an increase this year in pre-payments for crop inputs such as seed, fertilizer and chemicals. Their balance sheets are relatively stable, Magro said. What we have to worry about is liquidity and the cash flow from the farms. That comes down to margins. Prices of US soybeans, which face steep tariffs in China, are down year over year, but have recouped some of their losses since hitting a low point last summer. Magro said he expects farmer economics to improve in 2019. Nutrien is the worlds biggest fertilizer producer and sells directly to US farmers via a large chain of retail supply stores. The US Department of Agriculture said in November that US net farm income for 2018 was likely to decline by 12pc to $66.3 billion. US Farm Credit chief executives warned White House officials in January that 2019 could cause more financial losses for farmers if the trade dispute with China is not resolved. A trade settlement between the US and China would boost crop prices and lift a cloud of uncertainty from the sector, Magro said. Famers and local business owners are being advised to secure their fuel tanks, after a spate of thefts of diesel from premises. Gardai in Limerick and Galway are investigating separate incidences where diesel was stolen from a a Limerick farm and from a number of tractors on a Bord na Mona site in Galway. Its understood that a significant quantity of diesel was taken from a farmyard in Ballylanders after the thieves entered the farm around 4pm taking a large amount of diesel out of the farmers tank. The thieves escaped in a Dublin reg silver Toyota Avensis, according to a Garda spokesperson, after they were confronted by the farmer. In a separate incident, Gardai in Galway are investigating the theft of diesel from tractors parked at the Bord na Mona Clonfert site. The tractors were parked up on the site when the thieves stuck and they also took a number of items including a television and an oil heater. Meanwhile, Gardai in Kildare are investigating a fire that occurred on a farm in Kildangan last week A tractor was set on fire before local fire services extinguished it. No arrests have been made and enquires are on going. The offending chicken slices, made by Denny which is owned by Kerry Foods, were highlighted by food writer Katy McGuinness Poultry farmers are today protesting outside the Kerry Foods plant in Wicklow that produces its Denny slow cooked made in Wicklow chicken. The IFA farmers say Kerry Foods is exploiting a loophole in current labelling legislation, which it says means Irish consumers are being misled into thinking they are buying locally-produced food. It is calling for country-of-origin of the primary source of meat used in prepared foods to be clearly stated on the packaging of Kerry Food products and its subsidiary brands, including Denny, to ensure that Irish consumers understand where the product they are purchasing is from. Denny told the Irish Independent that the chicken in its 'made in Wicklow' slow cooked chicken isn't from Brazil, as it had initially told journalist Katy McGuinness, but actually came from Holland. Now the meat producer has said that it made a mistake saying its 'made in Wicklow' product was made with chicken from Brazil. It also says it sources all its chicken from Northern Ireland, UK and European suppliers, with none coming from Brazil or outside the EU. When asked why it doesn't source all its chicken in Ireland and whether its decision to import chicken and pigmeat is down to cost, it said: "..in Ireland, the cooked chicken consumption is predominately breast meat and this creates an imbalance in requirements. To ensure we can always meet the demand and provide consistently high quality we also source chicken breast from EU approved suppliers who meet our strict standards of quality and traceability." It also said, in relation to pork processed in the same Wicklow factory, which has been picketed previously by pig farmers over the importation of pig meat, that its policy is to "source as much of our pork meat from Irish suppliers as possible". It also said that sometimes it has to import pigmeat as some customers want pork from certain customers. Denny also said its packaging fully complies with the strict EU labelling regulations and that the Made in Wicklow claim refers to the product being cooked, cooled, sliced, packaged and labelled in Co. Wicklow. Hailey Kierse, from Killiney with a photograph of Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Jean Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission, looking at the Thank You card Hailey sent to him. Photo: Damien Eagers A Dublin woman who sent a 'thank you' card to the president of the European Commission for defending Irish interests said she has never felt so proud after a photo emerged of him reading it. Hailey Keirse (38), from Killiney, in south Dublin, sent the card to Jean-Claude Juncker when he refused to remove the backstop from the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement. She feared Ireland would become a "whipping boy", and the Good Friday Agreement would be at risk if the backstop was to be amended. "Then I had the television on the next day when the EU said it was not up for negotiation and Jean-Claude Juncker stood up and said five words, he said 'Ireland's borders are the EU's borders'," she said. "We're just a small country but those words made it look mighty." She then decided to send a card directly to Mr Juncker after googling his address. A photo has since emerged of Mr Juncker reading the card alongside Taoiseach Leo Varadkar - and Ms Keirse delighted people listening to Joe Duffy's 'Liveline' programme where she told her story. "I had intended to send one to Leo Varadkar as well but it costs 11 and I'm ashamed to say I didn't have the money spare so I just sent it to Juncker. I'm not political, I'm not from a political party, I couldn't even say if I am for Fine Gael, Fianna Fail or Labour," she said. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker shakes hands with British Prime Minister Theresa May before their meeting at the European Commission headquarters in Brussels. AP Photo/Francisco Seco British Prime Minister Theresa May will be told "nothing has changed" on Brexit when she dines with the Taoiseach in Dublin tonight. After a day of "robust" exchanges with EU chiefs in Brussels, Mrs May hopes to convince Leo Varadkar to offer some compromise on the backstop. However, the Irish side has not even placed Brexit on the agenda for the meeting. Instead Mr Varadkar wants to focus on ways of re-establishing the Northern Ireland executive. "Brexit will be the elephant in the room so if she wants to discuss it we will, but nothing has changed," a source told the Irish Independent. They added that if Mrs May was to introduce new ideas on how to maintain an open Border then the Taoiseach would listen. The tone for the meeting has already been set by a difficult day in Brussels for Mrs May during which she was told in no uncertain terms that the EU will not reopen the Withdrawal Agreement. European Council chief Donald Tusk is understood to have told the prime minister that her Labour Party rival Jeremy Corbyn's plan for the UK to remain in the customs union "would be a promising way out" of the current stalemate. Mr Varadkar's hardline stance is likely to be buoyed by research which 'Sky News' plans to release today showing 79pc of voters here believe he should hold out for a legal guarantee even if it risks a no-deal Brexit. The broadcaster polled more than 1,600 people and found just 7pc think Ireland should compromise at this late stage. Expand Close Seeking support: Tanaiste Simon Coveney lobbied in the US. Photo: PA / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Seeking support: Tanaiste Simon Coveney lobbied in the US. Photo: PA Remarkably, eight out of 10 would cut economic ties with the UK rather than with the EU if they had to choose. On the question of Irish unity, a strong majority (64pc) support the idea of a 32-county republic. Ahead of hosting Mrs May tonight, the Taoiseach will travel to Belfast for meetings with Northern Ireland's five main political parties. His discussions with the DUP, which aggressively opposes the backstop, will be closely watched in London and Brussels. Addressing the Dublin Chamber of Commerce AGM last night, Mr Varadkar said: "Brexit is the great political challenge of our time, and we have to hold true to our position and we have to hold our nerve." He said the Government's main objective is a close trading relationship with Britain that ensures "no tariffs, no red tape, no customs and of course to avoid the reintroduction of a hard Border on the island of Ireland and to protect the rights and freedoms of EU citizens north and south of the Border". The Taoiseach noted that he has alerted the European Commission that Ireland will seek emergency aid in the event of a no-deal Brexit. "The purpose of this aid would be to help mitigate the impact on Irish trade," he said. Meanwhile Tanaiste Simon Coveney has concluded two days of lobbying support in the United States, including inside the Trump administration. He briefed the White House's acting chief of staff yesterday, telling reporters afterwards that Mick Mulvaney agrees Ireland cannot be "collateral damage" in Brexit. Mr Coveney said that the Irish-American is a "very influential person" within Donald Trump's administration. "He understands only too well the fragility of the peace process and certainly agrees that Ireland cannot be collateral damage here because of a Brexit deal that doesn't take account of the obligations of the British and Irish governments to protect a peace process and an all-island economy that reinforces that peace process," Mr Coveney said. "Of course, the Border question is very much at the centre of that issue. "That is understood in the real heart of Washington now and I would be surprised if that view wasn't heard clearly in London." The Tanaiste said the message from Washington to the UK is that Irish-America is "watching very closely". THERE will be no negotiations on Brexit when UK Prime Minister Theresa May comes to Dublin tonight, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has insisted. While the two leaders will discuss the impasse, he denied their dinner date amounted to bilateral talks. The Irish government has always maintained that it cannot get into direct conversations with the UK on the controversial backstop as they are represented in negotiations by the EU taskforce. Speaking to reporters in Belfast ahead of his meeting with Mrs May, the Taoiseach said: "Today is not a day for negotiations. It's a day for us to share our perspectives and listen to each other." Mrs May will fly into Dublin this evening and travel directly to Farmleigh House in the Phoenix Park for dinner before returning to London. Mr Varadkar warned: "Time is running short." He said they could discuss potential additions to the joint political declaration which accompanies the Withdrawal Agreement but is not legally binding. "We're not threatening no deal. We never have," Mr Varadkar said. He is also meeting with the five Northern Ireland political parties today, including the DUP who are aggressively opposed to the backstop. DUP leader Arlene Foster has said it will not support any deal that includes the mechanism. Mr Varadkar said his priority in meeting the parties is to see if there is any way to get the North's Assembly up and running again. The Northern Ireland Executive has not sat since it was collapsed in January 2017. Sarah Jane Brazil was described as the kind of person who would "give you her last cent" A young mother who died after being found unresponsive at her sick childs bedside has been described by her devastated family as a beautiful person and full of life. Mum-of-two Sarah Jane Brazil (32) is understood to have been attending her young son, who was being treated at Childrens Health Ireland near her home in Tallaght, when tragedy struck last weekend. At her funeral mass this morning in the Church of the Sacred Heart in Killinarden, emotional friends and family members wore white shirts with a photo of Sarah Jane on the front. A family member read out a eulogy on behalf of Sarah Janes daughter Caitlin which received a round of applause from mourners who gathered to pay their respects. Expand Close Sarah Jane Brazil Photo: RIP.ie / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Sarah Jane Brazil Photo: RIP.ie Never in my life did I think I would be writing something like this, it began. You were so young and beautiful. Youd do anything for your family. It just breaks my heart that youre gone and it is horrible thinking Ill never see you again. You were someone I could tell everything to, you werent only my mam you were my best friend. I just miss you so much. I hope youre looking down on me, youre family is in bits were trying to be strong and stick together. You always knew what to do and I just want you to know that I love you so much. I miss you, its nearly a week but youre in a better place up there. Until we meet again rest in peace my beautiful mam." Parish priest Fr Fintan ODriscoll spoke of the familys grief at losing their loved one and having already lost her siblings Derek and Maureen. Losing Sarah Jane at a very young age, life can seem very cruel and unfair, he said. The family have described Sarah Jane as a great mother who lived for her children, full of life and would give you her last cent. An angel and a saint, he continued, a beautiful person inside and out and always positive - a loyal, loyal person Its obvious that hearts are broken and will be broken for a long time to come. Im sure we cant really understand why this has happened, we have lots of different emotions. At the end of the ceremony doves were released by friends in memory of Sarah Jane and received another round of applause before the coffin was removed for cremation. Danville Police look for a man suspected in a stabbing; investigators have confirmed the identity of remains found in the Dan River; Virginia tops the 70% mark in adult COVID vaccinations; God's Pit Crew rebuilds in Louisiana. President Trump says that in the coming week the US and its allies will announce that they have captured all of the land previously controlled by Isis. He claims that US-led forces have liberated virtually all of the territory previously held by Isis in Syria and Iraq we will have 100 per cent of the caliphate. The prediction has sparked a sterile and misleading debate about whether or not Isis is finally defeated, something which will remain unproven since the movement is unlikely to run up a white flag and sign terms of surrender. The discussion has like all debates about foreign policy in the US very little to do with the real situation on the ground in Syria and Iraq and everything to do with the forces at play in Washington politics. In discussing the demise or survival of Isis, pundits make the same glaring omission. They ignore the fact that by far the largest stronghold in Syria held by an al-Qaeda type group is not the few shattered villages for which Isis has been battling in the east of the country. Much more important is the jihadi enclave in and around Idlib province in north-west Syria which is held by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (Liberation of Levant Organisation), a powerful breakaway faction from Isis which founded the group under the name of Jabhat al-Nusra in 2011 and with whom it shares the same fanatical beliefs and military tactics. Its leaders wear suicide vests studded with metal balls just like their Isis equivalents. It is not that the US has any doubts about what HTS is since last year, a foreign terrorist organisation despite a name change. Nathan A Sales, the State Departments coordinator of counterterrorism, noted that todays designation serves notice that the United States is not fooled by this al-Qaeda affiliates attempt to rebrand itself. Over the past year HTS has expanded its control to almost all of the Idlib enclave, which the UN estimates to have a population of three million, half of whom are refugees, and can put at least 50,000 fighters into the field. The zone is surrounded on three sides by the Syrian Army backed by the Russians and on the fourth side it shares a common border with Turkey whose local proxies it has crushed. Fighting between Assad government forces and the armed opposition in Idlib has largely died away under the terms of a shaky ceasefire agreed and enforced by Moscow and Ankara. Blindness in the west to this embattled al-Qaeda-run mini-state, which has a population the same size as Wales and a fighting force not much smaller than the British army, is explained by the fact that such an admission would reveal that the US and its allies are weak players in Syria and there is more than one jihadi group in the country. A recurrent and disastrous theme of western involvement in the war in Syria is for governments and media to focus only on part of the multilayered crisis in which they are engaged. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty Pretending that Isis is anything close to the potent threat it used to be is part of the struggle between Trump and the foreign policy and security establishment in Washington. They represent what President Obama derided as the Washington playbook which he denounced as always looking to military solutions and always overplaying its hand in fighting wars that never end. This skewed vision of the Syrian conflict with its over-emphasis on whether or not the death certificate of the caliphate should be formally signed diverts attention from a more important question. In the short term, it is true that can Isis carry out guerrilla and terrorist attacks, but for all practical purposes Trump is right in saying that it has been decisively defeated. The caliphate that once ruled a de facto state the size of Great Britain with a population of eight million is gone. A more important question to ask now is how far the whole al-Qaeda idea and mode of operating have become obsolete and discredited. Not so long ago, this militarised cult of extreme fanaticism with core beliefs derived from the Wahhabi version of Islam was extraordinarily successful. Suicide bombing on an industrial scale enabled it to turn untrained but committed believers into a devastating military weapon. Suicide attacks as an expression of Islamic faith produced 9/11, which was the most successful terrorist attack in history: the overwhelming impact of the destruction of the Twin Towers provoked the US to jump into a trap of its own making by launching wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda, which had scarcely existed as an international organisation before 9/11, instantly took advantage of this overreaction. The US and British invasion of Iraq in 2003 enabled the local al-Qaeda franchise to became the core of the armed resistance of the Sunni Arabs against their enemies at home and abroad. Can these conditions be recreated in Idlib or in the deserts of western Iraq, eastern Syria or wherever else al-Qaeda type groups have their hideouts from Pakistan to Nigeria and Chechnya to Somalia? A ferociously disciplined group with experienced military leaders will always have an influence out of proportion to its size in chaotic war-time conditions. But al-Qaeda and its clones should not be allowed to remain a bugbear, a cause of obsessive fear because of its past successes in staging 9/11, dominating the armed opposition in Iraq in 2004-09, and unexpectedly resurrecting itself in Syria and Iraq after 2011. It once was able to offer miraculous victories to its followers but for the past few years it has been able to offer them nothing but defeat and martyrdom for a cause that has been failing demonstrably. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events The al-Qaeda formula worked because it caught its enemies by surprise and this will not happen again. Early successes after 2003 required a degree of covert assistance or tolerance from Syria, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, all of whom imagined at different moments that they could channel or manipulate the jihadis into acting in their own interest. Al-Qaeda operated through fear and fanaticism but it also required a constituency among the Sunni Arabs of Iraq and Syria which no longer exists; and for which the Sunni have paid a terrible price in the form of lost wars and devastated cities from east Aleppo to Raqqa and Mosul. Al-Qaeda no longer works as a winning formula, but this does not mean that its destructive capacity is exhausted. Its track record of savagery was such that its limited attacks can still provoke almost unlimited terror among potential victims. I was in Baghdad last year when Isis kidnapped and killed some half dozen police on the main road north to Kirkuk, provoking a wave of fear out of proportion to what had happened among my friends who started to recall past massacres by Isis. Casual remarks by Trump such as saying that the US might keep troops in Iraq in future to watch Iran will continue to keep the pot boiling which is to the advantage of al-Qaeda. But the all-conquering warrior cult whose columns of fanatical fighters were wining Napoleonic victories in 2014-15 has gone for good and cannot be recreated. Roberto Salvini, the Italian deputy minister, has advised the French to get rid of their terrible leader Emmanuel Macron, and apparently throws darts at a picture of the French president. Macron has described right-wing populism of the Rome government as a kind of leprosy spreading across Europe. Italy has even threatened to stop a loan of Leonardo da Vincis works for a show in Paris at the Louvre. France has now recalled its ambassador to Rome in protest at antagonism it says has reached the level of the Second World War. All this, one may say, puts the view of Donald Tusk that irresponsible Brexiting politicians deserve a special place in hell into perspective. The UK leaving the European Union may resemble the various long retreats from Moscow at the end of failed campaigns; but the real diplomatic warfare threatened in Europe is now between France and Italy. The recalling of an ambassador between two major states which are members of the European Union and Nato is an extraordinary step. That Paris declared that this was in response to rhetoric which had reached an aggression without precedent since World War Two, evoking Mussolinis fascist Italy while France was under Nazi occupation, reflects the sheer rise in tension that has taken place. At one level this state of affairs between these two countries sharing a border is a reflection of the wider political confrontation taking place in Europe and beyond. Italys administration of the far-right Northern League and the anti-establishment Five Star Movement is a manifestation of populism which has spread through the continent, while Macrons La Republique En Marche! government can be viewed as representing, generally, traditional parliamentary politics. It has also become personal. With Angela Merkel starting her withdrawal from public life, it is Macron who is presenting himself as the champion of western neoliberalism, taking on Frances own gilets jaunes (yellow vest) protestors and other populist movements, warning against its rise in the continent and clashing with Donald Trump. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty Salvinis Northern League and Luigi Di Maios Five Star Movement in Italy is held up by the European right as an example of how they can get to power. Relations with France soured after the two parties formed the government in Rome with Macron, who had been under pressure to accept the refugee ship Aquarius, which had been turned away from Italian ports by Salvini, declaring that populism was spreading a bit like leprosy. Salvini retaliated in a Facebook video saying, I hope the French will be able to free themselves of a terrible president, urging voters not to vote for En Marche! and emphasising his closeness to Marine Le Pen, whose party, National Rally (formerly Le Front National), is scoring high in the polls with the European elections coming up in May. Di Maio, meanwhile, met leaders of the gilets jaunes this week who are thinking of running in the elections and wanted to stress the wind of change has crossed the Alps and a new Europe is being born of the yellow vests. Italys prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, a compromise appointment between La Liga and Five Star, had his own take on the attacks on Macron. The Italian TV channel La7 broadcast footage of him and Angela Merkel at a bar during the Davos conference in which he says Di Maio had gone on the offensive because his party was down in the polls ahead of the European elections and needed an enemy. The German chancellor is seen laughing in response. But the French have had enough. Recalling the ambassador, the foreign ministry in Paris said: For several months, France has been the target of repeated, baseless attacks and outrageous statements. Having disagreements is one thing but manipulating the relationship for electoral aim is another. All of these actions are creating a serious situation which is raising questions about the Italian governments intentions towards France. Salvini appeared to feel that things were getting out of hand. Perhaps he realised that being a mini-Trump in his language (Macron is a terrible president etc) may have gone too far. After all, even Trump is now not quite the Donald Trump he has been in his tweets after his climbdown in the federal shutdown, and losing the House of Representatives to the Democrats and facing yet more investigations. A seemingly emollient Italian deputy prime minister suggested a meeting with Macron, even offering to go as a penitent. I dont want to row with anyone, I am prepared to go to Paris, even by foot, to discuss the many issues we have. The discussion, however, is unlikely to go well. The French president, insisted Salvini, must stop French police sending refugees back to Italy; end lengthy border checks causing traffic tailbacks; and hand over 15 Italian radical activists who had taken refuge in France in recent decades. The issue of the activists is regarded as a bit of a red herring and is likely to fade. But the emotive topic of refugees and migration had helped to propel the Northern League and Five Star to office and it is certainly not going to go away. There is a feeling in Italy, not just among the supporters of the current government, and not unjustified, that the country has borne a disproportionate number of refugees while other northern European states are not taking their fair share. France is a particular target on this count, not just because it has sent refugees back to Italy but also because of its part in getting Nato to carry out the bombing campaign which led to the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi, and the state of semi-anarchy in the country which made it a haven for people-smugglers. It is worth recalling that the European Union used to pay Col Gaddafi to ensure that his country was not a major conduit for the trade, and he had broadly kept his side of the bargain. At a recent international conference in Italy a government minister once again castigated the French for the Libyan war. He did not, however, mention Britain, despite David Cameron having been as much of a cheerleader for the cry of Gaddafi must go as Nicolas Sarkozy. The Italian government has, in fact, been very careful not to blame London over what happened, ignoring that the UK has been among those accepting the lowest numbers of those coming across the Mediterranean. One reason behind this is apparently that Northern League/Five Star, antipathetic to Brussels, see Brexit Britain as an ally. It is not just French action in Libya eight years ago which is the target of Italian anger. Di Maio last month charged: France, above all, has never stopped colonising dozens of African countries. If it was not for Africa, France would rank 15th in world economies, not in the top six, said the deputy prime minister as he demanded the European Union imposes sanctions on Paris. Libya, in particular, has become a diplomatic battleground between Italy and France: and not just over migration. The Italians, Libyas former colonial rulers, were at the forefront of western states reopening a diplomatic mission in Italy amid the post-Gaddafi turbulence, and saw themselves as leading the European efforts to form a government among the warring factions. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Then the French stepped in, undermining, claims Rome, the national unity government in Tripoli that Italy, and the UN, was supporting and swinging, along with the Russians, Egyptians and Emiratis, behind General Khalifa Haftar, known to his supporters as the strongman saviour-in-waiting of the country. France was among the countries that supplied arms to Haftars forces as he spread his reach. A spokesman for the general said recently: We had a common interest, which is combating terrorism. France wanted to pursue terrorist groups in our neighbouring countries from the south, such as Chad, Mali and Niger. Salvini, however, holds that it is not counterterrorism which has drawn the French back to Libya. France has no interest in stabilising the situation, probably because it has oil interests that are opposed to those of Italy, he claimed. The oil conglomerates Eni, Italian and the French Total, have separate ventures in Libya. French government officials dismissed the Italian accusations as ludicrous and baseless. One said: These are empty words, for populist consumption back home. The Italian ambassador was summoned to the French foreign ministry and a protest was lodged. The confrontation has continued and there is little sign of it ending. What is unfolding, it appears, is not just causing fractures between two governments but also provides a glimpse into the emerging fierce struggle between two competing ideological positions, spiced with a degree of personal animus. It threatens the future political and social map of Europe. The hostile atmosphere toward immigrants, whipped up by the Conservative government in the run up to, and since, the Brexit vote, seems to worsen on a daily basis. Stories about the mistreatment, detention and abuse of migrant communities are constantly emerging. When the Windrush scandal first broke last year, the callous disregard by the British government towards black British citizens was laid bare for all to see. British citizens from the Caribbean, who first migrated to the UK in the 1940s, 50s and 60s, known as the Windrush generation, were being deported by the UK government despite their citizenship status, or were not permitted to re-enter the UK to return to their homes, having travelled to the Caribbean. A toxic mix of an inept and incompetent government, combined with racist Home Office policies, pioneered and allowed to fester under prime minister Theresa May, led to the heartbreaking and infuriating situation with Windrush. Families were being torn apart, and lives were being ruined forever. Some of those deported, often with no family or support network, died following the trauma they experienced. Windrush generation: threat of deportation from UK Show all 15 1 /15 Windrush generation: threat of deportation from UK Windrush generation: threat of deportation from UK The ex-troopship 'Empire Windrush' arriving at Tilbury Docks from Jamaica, with 482 Jamaicans on board, emigrating to Britain. Getty Windrush generation: threat of deportation from UK Jamaican immigrants being welcomed by RAF officials from the Colonial Office after the ex-troopship 'Empire Windrush' landed them at Tilbury. PA Windrush generation: threat of deportation from UK Alford Gardner who arrived in Britain in 1948 on the first Windrush ship to dock in Tilbury, Essex, speaking at his home in Leeds PA Windrush generation: threat of deportation from UK Alford Gardner in Leeds shortly after he arrived in Britain in 1948 on the first Windrush ship to dock in Tilbury, Essex PA Windrush generation: threat of deportation from UK Gardner was 22 years old when he boarded the ship in Kingston, Jamaica, with his brother Gladstone before they and hundreds of Caribbean migrants called on to rebuild post-war Britain disembarked the ship in Tilbury Docks PA Windrush generation: threat of deportation from UK Alford Gardner (right), during his RAF service in 1947 PA Windrush generation: threat of deportation from UK The son of Ruth Williams, a Windrush-generation immigrant, wants to the leave the country after threats of deportation. According to his mother, Mr Haynes applied for British citizenship in 2016 but was rejected, despite Ms Williams having lived in the UK almost permanently since arriving from St Vincent and the Grenadines in 1959. Ruth Williams, 75, said she felt "betrayed" by Britain after the Home Office twice turned down applications for her 35-year-old son, Mozi Haynes, to remain in the country. Ms Williams is understood to have cancer and said she relies heavily on her son for support. PA Windrush generation: threat of deportation from UK The British liner 'Empire Windrush' at port in 1954. Getty Windrush generation: threat of deportation from UK Ruth Williams, 75, with her British passport. "I feel betrayed and a second class citizen in my own country," she said. "This makes me so sad and the Home Office must show some compassion. "I am unwell and almost 75, I live on my own and I need my son to stay here. I need my family around me and I cant face being alone. He has applied to the Home Office and been refused twice." PA Windrush generation: threat of deportation from UK From the top, hopeful Jamaican boxers Charles Smith, Ten Ansel, Essi Reid, John Hazel, Boy Solas and manager Mortimer Martin arrive at Tilbury on the Empire Windrush in the hope of finding work in Britain. Getty Windrush generation: threat of deportation from UK Jamaicans reading a newspaper whilst on board the ex-troopship 'Empire Windrush' bound for Tilbury docks in Essex. Getty Windrush generation: threat of deportation from UK After half a century in Britain, Anthony Bryan decided it was time to go abroad. But the decision set off a nightmare that saw him lose his job, detained twice and almost deported to Jamaica. AFP/Getty Windrush generation: threat of deportation from UK Jamaica-born Anthony Bryan poses outside his home in Edmonton, north London. Now 60 and a grandfather, Bryan thought the issue could be resolved swiftly, as he legally moved to Britain with his family as part of the Windrush generation of Caribbean migrants after World War II. In 1948, the ship Windrush brought the first group of migrants from the West Indies to help rebuild post-war Britain, and many others followed from around the Commonwealth. A 1971 law gave them indefinite leave to remain, but many never formalised their status, often because they were children who came over on their parents' passports and then never applied for their own. AFP/Getty Windrush generation: threat of deportation from UK Three Jamaican immigrants (left to right) John Hazel, a 21-year-old boxer, Harold Wilmot, 32, and John Richards, a 22-year-old carpenter, arriving at Tilbury on board the ex-troopship 'Empire Windrush', smartly dressed in zoot suits and trilby hats. Getty Windrush generation: threat of deportation from UK Newly arrived Jamaican immigrants on board the 'Empire Windrush' at Tilbury in 1948. Getty As if all of this wasnt bad enough, this week the government poured salt into the still open wound. Before the inquiry into the Windrush scandal had been completed, and with victims still waiting to be compensated, the government began a fresh round of forced deportations to Jamaica, the first since last year when the story first emerged. The government temporarily halted the deportations following the initial outcry, but has seemingly decided that enough time has passed since the scandal to carry on abusing Britains Caribbean communities. The brazen disregard for their livelihood, even by this government, is breathtaking. Its hard not to interpret the move as a deliberate and calculated snub to anyone not deemed British enough to stay here. What is critical at this stage of the national discussion, is that we do not fall into the good migrant, bad migrant trap. We see this kind of thinking during Brexit debates: the idea that somehow only migrants with skills or who are viewed as a resource should be allowed to live in the UK is pushed routinely. British jobs for British workers is another dangerous mantra, which we have also sadly seen repeated among sections of the left, as well as the traditional revisionist right, in order to gain votes. Judging by this weeks events, it appears Britain has capitulated to right-wing populism, rather than opposed it. Some have argued that the 50 or so Jamaican nationals who were due to be deported on Wednesday deserved their fate due to having committed crimes. Bad migrants. Such critics point to some of the more serious crimes to justify the governments action. But the majority of those facing deportation to Jamaica were being punished for committing lesser offences. All had already completed and served custodial sentences in the UK. Many had British children and British families. Recommended Home Office admits just one person helped by Windrush hardship scheme There has been no serious review of the cases, no adequate chance of appeal. Black people being chained up by agents of the UK government, forcibly imprisoned and deported without any chance of justice and without being heard, is a disturbing reality. And it is an all too familiar hallmark of racist colonialism. The backdrop to all of this, is a pernicious nostalgia for empire which has been building in Britain, and this isnt happening in a vacuum. Immigrant communities up and down the country are suffering from a vile wave of racism that has been unleashed. The Windrush scandal is just one of many examples of racist government policies implemented from the top-down but mirroring and taking their cue from the surge in right-wing populism. We call it right-wing extremism in the streets, but what do we call it when it comes from the state? Its already open season on immigrant communities or anyone perceived to be one. Muslims, Eastern European migrants, those with foreign accents, and British born Caribbean citizens are all fair game. And of course, Britain itself is not vacuum either, the problem is spreading throughout Europe and around the world. But if Britain takes the giant lurch toward political isolationism and nativism at the end of March, and takes the inevitable economic freefall that follows, the problems we currently face will be magnified tenfold. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Immigrant communities desperately need representation and a voice. Brexit, a campaign driven by anti-immigrant sentiment, has been opportunistically embraced by factions of both the left and the right. David Cameron called the referendum. But Labour voted to trigger Article 50 the day after the referendum, with some in the leadership clinging to a Bennite commitment to leaving the EU, despite the immediate impact its having on immigrant communities and the fact that the majority of the Labour membership voted Remain. Many people feel betrayed as a result. There has been no Lexit. Only left wing politicians echoing the right. Immigrant communities have been left hung out to dry while the political classes wrangle and battle over Britains political soul. Recommended The Stansted 15 have avoided prison but the battle is far from over Whether Brexit happens or not, the current atmopshere shows that the lid is now off pandoras box. If Brexit doesnt happen, God only knows what kind of right-wing nationalism powder-keg will explode in the streets, and who and what kind of project will enter 10 Downing Street. If we thought the racism of past decades was bad, it will be nothing compared to the situation we are heading towards. I wrote last year that my grandfather, who was part of the Windrush generation, would be shocked at the treatment of migrants. I think today, he would be utterly horrified to see an even worse situation having developed, and to see where we are heading as a country. Vulnerable communities, targeted and failed by a great swathe of the political classes, have been forced to rely on each other, work together urgently to develop political and economic mechanisms in order to defend themselves. Strength in numbers, unity and organisation might be the only pushback against social and political forces that could take an even further swing to the right very quickly. The first and most important point to begin with about Christopher Chope is that the boilerplate defence of Christopher Chope, as used by Christopher Chope on the regular occasion Christopher Chope embarrasses himself in public, is that it is fundamentally untrue. Today, he rose in the House of Commons to object to an anti-female genital mutilation bill, just as he rose last year to throw out a proposed ban on upskirting. Then, as now, he claims his objection is to the parliamentary procedure and the lack of proper scrutiny, not the legislation itself. It is unfortunate in the extreme that this argument does about as well under the scrutiny of which Mr Chope is so fond, as Winona Ryders shoplifting spree that she once attributed to researching a role. First of all, theres the fact that this bill had already been through several stages of legislative scrutiny. Then theres the fact that had he allowed it to pass, it would have been through several more, of far more detail, before perhaps becoming law. Women's march 2019 global protest in pictures Show all 30 1 /30 Women's march 2019 global protest in pictures Women's march 2019 global protest in pictures Berlin AFP/Getty Women's march 2019 global protest in pictures London Angela Christofilou/The Independent Women's march 2019 global protest in pictures New York Reuters Women's march 2019 global protest in pictures Washington Reuters Women's march 2019 global protest in pictures New York Reuters Women's march 2019 global protest in pictures London EPA Women's march 2019 global protest in pictures Washington REUTERS Women's march 2019 global protest in pictures New York Reuters Women's march 2019 global protest in pictures Berlin AFP/Getty Women's march 2019 global protest in pictures Washington Reuters Women's march 2019 global protest in pictures London Angela Christofilou/The Independent Women's march 2019 global protest in pictures New York AFP/Getty Women's march 2019 global protest in pictures London Angela Christofilou/The Independent Women's march 2019 global protest in pictures London Angela Christofilou/The Independent Women's march 2019 global protest in pictures Washington REUTERS Women's march 2019 global protest in pictures Washington Reuters Women's march 2019 global protest in pictures Berlin Getty Images Women's march 2019 global protest in pictures London Reuters Women's march 2019 global protest in pictures Berlin Getty Images Women's march 2019 global protest in pictures London Angela Christofilou/The Independent Women's march 2019 global protest in pictures Berlin EPA Women's march 2019 global protest in pictures London Angela Christofilou/The Independent Women's march 2019 global protest in pictures Berlin EPA Women's march 2019 global protest in pictures London Reuters Women's march 2019 global protest in pictures London Reuters Women's march 2019 global protest in pictures Berlin Getty Images Women's march 2019 global protest in pictures London Angela Christofilou/The Independent Women's march 2019 global protest in pictures Berlin EPA Women's march 2019 global protest in pictures London Angela Christofilou/The Independent Women's march 2019 global protest in pictures London Angela Christofilou/The Independent Secondly, theres the unfortunate fact that in 2009 Mr Chope once used the very same methods, namely a private members bill, to bring through legislation that would allow companies to opt out of paying the minimum wage. Then we move on to 2016, and one bill that the now 71-year-old Mr Chope did mysteriously allow to pass in this fashion. It concerned the safeguarding of a pot of public money to be paid to ex-MPs. Which begs the question: in favour of female genital mutilation? In favour of, to pick another example, Alan Turing not being pardoned? That would be quite the claim, but if you call him up and ask him, as The Independent has done, what you will find is that he puts the phone down on you. So all youre left with to go on is the available public evidence of what Mr Chope objects to and what he does not, and his very deliberate choices to put so much of it out there. Its also worth mentioning that not so long ago, when the public relations heads of the big tech companies came to give evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee, Christopher Chope used all of his questions to admonish the lady from Twitter about why a Christopher Chope parody account had not been taken down. And good for him. Why should Christopher Chope have to suffer that kind of indignity for a second longer than necessary? Victims of upskirting and FGM can wait for another day. For the proper processes. Unless they happen to be an MP, and a member of the Home Affairs Select Committee of course, then they can abuse them all they like. You may choose to accept his reasoning that the procedures are broken. If hes allowed to do it, then why shouldnt he? Its the same argument applied with some justification to tax avoidance. Should Jimmy Carr be hated for paying an accountant to minimise his tax bill? Should Amazon? It is up to the authorities to make it impossible for them to do so. It is up to the House of Commons to reform itself, to make this thing impossible, and stop wasting such vast amounts of public time and money. But there is a subtle difference. Tax avoiders dont carry the word honourable in their titles. Not many of them, anyway. There is no centuries-old custom imploring them to be their best selves, and not just an ambulant embarrassment, stealing a cushy living. The truth though is a little more boring. The tiny handful of MPs, of which Chope is one, that gather on the rare occasions that the House of Commons sit on Fridays, to throw out legislation they personally object to, have gained a cult status in Westminster. And they have gained a cult status for it precisely because they have never done anything else. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Christopher Chopes contribution to public life does not rise above that of a ringtone. Were somebody allowed to leave a mobile phone on speaker-setting on the backbench of the House of Commons, that was programmed to shout object four or five times every few Fridays, there would be no use for Christopher Chope at all. In 32 years in the House of Commons, Mr Chopes sole ministerial contribution has been a very brief time as parliamentary-under-secretary of state in the department of transport, a department which, you may know, you only have to be Chris Grayling to run. So before you get too angry, try to remember whats really going on here, which is the pitiful cry for attention of a very small man, risen to an incredibly low height. Still, his time will be up soon. And as Oscar Wilde never quite said, theres only one thing worse than being widely ridiculed and universally loathed. Nelson Mandela, the hero of South Africas struggle to end apartheid and establish democracy, is honoured in a new visitor attraction on Londons South Bank. Mandela: The Official Exhibition traces the story of the 20th centurys most iconic freedom fighter and political leader through previously unseen film clips and photographs. It includes artefacts such as one of his hand-printed batik shirts and the ceremonial headdress awarded to Mandela upon his release from prison in 1990. The exhibition also contains symbols of oppression, such as the signs used to separate Europeans and non-whites during the decades of apartheid. Graphic images depict the brutality with which the security forces put down protests against inequality and oppression. The exhibition is designed to tour the world: after closing in London in June it will go to Paris. But a special UK alcove called Anti-Apartheid in Britain records the contributions of activists, trade unions and celebrities in fighting oppression. A Day That Shook The World: Nelson Mandela freed Show all 6 1 /6 A Day That Shook The World: Nelson Mandela freed A Day That Shook The World: Nelson Mandela freed 553027.bin Reuters A Day That Shook The World: Nelson Mandela freed 553026.bin Getty Images A Day That Shook The World: Nelson Mandela freed 553025.bin Reuters A Day That Shook The World: Nelson Mandela freed 553024.bin Getty Images A Day That Shook The World: Nelson Mandela freed 553023.bin Getty Images A Day That Shook The World: Nelson Mandela freed 553022.bin Reuters The location is a fascinating space across the River Thames from Westminster Square, where Nelson Mandelas statue is located. It is 26 Leake Street, beneath the arches of Britains busiest railway station London Waterloo, and adjacent to the constantly changing graffiti tunnel. Mandela: The Official Exhibition has been created with the help and support of the family of Madiba, as he is often referred to. One of the producers is Nkosi Zwelivelile Mandela, grandson of Nelson Mandel and the traditional leader of Mvezo. He said: "London and the United Kingdom more broadly was home to many South African exiles and activists in the anti-apartheid struggle. "In the 1980s and 90s Trafalgar Square and South Africa House was the scene of many a picket and protest action and this news found its way to Mandela in his cell, either in encoded messages, by word of mouth and in the latter years, via news clippings. It was therefore no surprise that Madiba chose London as one of the first cities outside Africa to visit as a free man after his 27-year incarceration. I can say without the slightest doubt that Madiba would have given his stamp of approval to staging this exhibition in London. There are reflections on Nelson Mandela from Benjamin Zephania, Peter Gabriel and Jerry Dammers of The Specials. Another collaborator is Zelda la Grange, Nelson Mandelas long-term personal and presidential secretary. She worked on the section of the exhibition called Healing the Nation, which shows how the first black president of South Africa created a fragile unity from the wreckage created by Apartheid. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Ms la Grange told The Independent: This exhibition brings the person to life again and has been able to invigorate the legacy. I hope people will be inspired by his life story. It is possible to forgive, it is possible to reconcile. Nelson Mandela's prison warder on Robben Island, and, later, lifelong friend, Christo Brand, has also provide insights and donated objects for the section of the exhibition titled 10,000 Days: The Prison Years (19641990). After a worldwide tour, the exhibition will be permanently installed in Mvezo, Nelson Mandelas birthplace. Mandela: The Official Exhibition runs from Friday 8 February to Sunday 2 June. The address is 26 Leake Street; SE1 7NN (nearest Tube and train: Waterloo; 0844 453 9094, mandelaexhibition.com) Pressure is mounting on Saudi authorities over the killing of Jamal Khashoggi and the cases aftermath this week as a deadline for action imposed on President Donald Trump by the US lawmakers last year passed without any response from the White House. A series of rapid-fire developments showed continuing outrage over the murder and dismemberment of The Washington Post columnist at the hands of Saudi spies and security officials dispatched to the Istanbul consulate more than four months ago. A deadline demanding a response on a US Global Magnitsky Act ruling calling for punishment of state human rights abuses came and went this week without a response from the White House on the culpability of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, who has strong ties to Mr Trump and his family. The White House says it is conferring with lawmakers, and contiuing to examine the murder. Hatice Cengiz in Istanbul on Friday introduced a new book about her late fiancee Jamal Khashoggi (AP) But if the Trump administration and its allies in Riyadh were hoping the 2 October killing would fade away, they were wrong. The case exploded into headlines again this week with a report describing the preliminary result of a UN probe, leaks of classified intelligence tying the crown prince, or MBS as he is known, to the murder, and new proposed Senate sanctions on Saudi Arabia, solidifying Khashoggis status as a global icon for press freedom and human rights. The attention to Jamal Khashoggi has exceeded in length and depth the regular killings of other political critics from the region dramatically, said Timothy Kaldas, a fellow at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy. Unlike many of the other victims of brutal authoritarians like MBS, Khashoggi allowed observers and the public to put a face to the murderous violence often visited upon individuals willing to risk their freedom and even lives to shed light on the wrongdoing of their leaders. The UN special rapporteurs preliminary report late Thursday, which followed a visit to Turkey, sharply condemned Saudi actions before and after the murder. Agnes Callamard, leader of the mission, also told the Associated Press she had been informed of a previously undisclosed 31 January court hearing in the case of 11 unnamed suspects that Saudi Arabia claims it is prosecuting for the murder. The evidence presented to us during the mission to Turkey demonstrates a prima facie case that Mr Khashoggi was the victim of a brutal and premeditated killing, planned and perpetrated by officials of the state of Saudi Arabia and others acting under the direction of these state agents, the report said. The New York Times published leaks that if confirmed would be among the most convincing pieces of evidence tying Mohammed bin Salman to the murder of Khashoggi. Based on accounts of leaked US intelligence intercepts, the young crown prince had told a close aide a year before Khashoggis murder he would like to use a bullet against the journalist. Saudi officials say that the killing was ordered by rogue elements. A group of both Democratic and Republican Party US senators introduced a new bill that if enacted would restrict arms sales to Saudi Arabia as punishment for the killing. Seeing as the Trump administration has no intention of insisting on full accountability for Mr Khashoggis murderers, it is time for congress to step in and impose real consequences to fundamentally re-examine our relationship with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, said US senator Robert Menendez, a Democrat, said in a statement. Agnes Callamard (right), UN special rapporteur on executions, stands in front of the Saudi consulate in Istanbul (EPA) At a bookshop in Istanbul on Friday morning, Hatice Cengiz, the fiancee of the slain journalist, unveiled a new book about his final days. She wept as she described the loss of Khashoggi, and called for UN and US congressional pressure on Saudi Arabia, and offered to meet with Mr Trump if he shifted his stance on the Saudi leadership. Ankara also upped pressure on Saudi, reiterating its demand for the extradition of the suspects it has named for trial in Istanbul. After four months, we are still waiting for answers, Fahrettin Altun, spokesperson for Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, wrote in a Tweet. Where is the body? Who ordered the hit? Was there a local collaborator? The world is watching. The new developments add pressure onto Saudi Arabia just as Riyadh was attempting to leave the high-profile murder behind and resurrect its grand plans to draw foreign investment into the country, and begin a geopolitical gambit to confront Iran. But Mr Kaldas suggested that crown princes reception at the World Economic Forum conference in Davos last month suggested many key global political and economic leaders have already moved on. There is a cynical hypocrisy manifested in many western governments choosing to ultimately ignore MBS crimes and try to get back to business as usual, he said. Its still prominent in the press and there are members of the press who continue to raise the issue. As toxic as MBS is, among the people hes comfortable with so far theres not a sign that theres any kind of material consequences for his actions. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told a top aide that he would use a bullet on Jamal Khashoggi in a conversation in 2017, according to current and former US and foreign officials with direct knowledge of intelligence reports. The officials said that the crown prince threatened to take this action if Khashoggi did not return to the kingdom and end his criticism of the Saudi Arabian government. The conversation, intercepted by US intelligence agencies, is the most detailed evidence to date that the crown prince considered killing Khashoggi long before a team of Saudi operatives strangled him inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and dismembered his body using a bone saw. Khashoggis killing prompted weeks of outrage around the world and among both parties in Washington, where senior lawmakers called for an investigation into who was responsible. The Saudi government has denied that the crown prince played any role in the killing, and Donald Trump has publicly shown little interest in trying get the facts about who was responsible. Crown Prince Mohammed, the next in line to the Saudi throne behind his ailing father, King Salman, has become the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia and a close ally of the Trump White House especially Jared Kushner, Mr Trumps son-in-law and senior adviser. The conversation appears to have been recently transcribed and analysed as part of an effort by intelligence agencies to find proof of who was responsible for Khashoggis death. The National Security Agency and other US spy agencies are sifting through years of the crown princes voice and text communications that the NSA routinely intercepted and stored, much as the agency has long done for other top foreign officials, including close allies of the United States. For the past several months, the NSA has circulated intelligence reports to other spy agencies, the White House and close foreign allies about the crown princes communications. The reports were described by several current and former officials. Weeks after the killing, the CIA finished its first assessment about the operation, concluding that Crown Prince Mohammed had ordered it. The conversation between Crown Prince Mohammed and the aide, Turki Aldakhil, took place in September 2017, as officials in the kingdom were growing increasingly alarmed about Khashoggis criticisms of the Saudi government. That same month, Khashoggi began writing opinion columns for the Washington Post, and top Saudi officials discussed ways to lure him back to Saudi Arabia. Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Show all 7 1 /7 Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Jamal Khashoggi Washington Post journalist who was critical of the Saudi regime and the young Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, he was murdered on 2 October in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul AFP Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Heir to the Saudi throne, Mohammed bin Salman has been implicated in the murder, with US officials claiming that he must have known of the plot AFP/Getty Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures 15 man hit squad Turkish police suspect these 15 men of being involved in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, issued 10 October, 8 days after the journalist disappeared EPA Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Saud al-Qahtani Aide to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saud al-Qahtani is claimed to have ordered Khashoggi's murder Saud Al-Qahtani/Twitter Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb A former diplomat who often travelled with the Crown Prince, Mutreb was initially claimed to be the leader of the hit squad and is pictured here entering the Saudi consulate on the day of the murder AP Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Mustafa al-Madani First implicated in the 15 CCTV photos released by the Turkish police, al-Madani was later found to have been used as a body double for Khashoggi, leaving the Saudi consulate dressed in his clothes on the day the journalist was killed CNN Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Salah bin Jamal Khashoggi (L) Son of the murdered journalist met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on 23 October EPA In the conversation, Crown Prince Mohammed said that if Khashoggi could not be enticed back to Saudi Arabia, then he should be returned by force. If neither of those methods worked, the crown prince said, then he would go after Khashoggi with a bullet, according to the officials familiar with one of the intelligence reports, which was produced in early December. US intelligence analysts concluded that Crown Prince Mohammed might not have meant the phrase literally in other words, he did not necessarily mean to have Khashoggi shot but more likely used the phrase as a metaphor to emphasise that he had every intention of killing the journalist if he did not return to Saudi Arabia. Days before the conversation with Mr Aldakhil, according to the same intelligence report, Crown Prince Mohammed complained to another aide Saud al-Qahtani that Khashoggi had grown too influential. Crown Prince Mohammed said that Khashoggis articles and Twitter posts were tarnishing the crown princes image as a forward-thinking reformer, and the criticism was more cutting because it was coming from a journalist who had once been seen as supportive of his agenda. When Mr al-Qahtani said that any move against Khashoggi was risky and could create an international uproar, his boss scolded him: Saudi Arabia should not care about international reaction to how it handles its own citizens, the crown prince told Mr al-Qahtani. Crown Prince Mohammed also told Mr al-Qahtani, according to an official who has read the report, that he did not like half-measures he never liked them and did not believe in them. Days after this conversation and the one about the bullet, Khashoggi wrote his first column for the Washington Post: Saudi Arabia Wasnt Always This Repressive. Now Its Unbearable. It was a withering attack on Crown Prince Mohammeds crackdown inside the kingdom. I have left my home, my family and my job, and I am raising my voice, Khashoggi wrote. To do otherwise would betray those who languish in prison. I can speak when so many cannot. Spokesmen for the NSA and the CIA declined to comment. In a statement, Mr Aldakhil said, These allegations are categorically false. They appear to be a continuation of various efforts by different parties to connect His Royal Highness Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to this horrific crime. These efforts will prove futile. On Thursday evening, a Saudi official issued a statement saying: We again deny any involvement on the part of the crown prince in the heinous murder of Jamal Khashoggi. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is moving forward with its investigation and has already indicted a number of officials linked to the crime. We are focused on uncovering the full truth and ensuring complete accountability. US intelligence agencies have identified Mr al-Qahtani as the ringleader of the operation that killed Khashoggi, and last year, he was put on a list of Saudi officials sanctioned by the United States for their role in the journalists death. Mr Al-Qahtani is viewed in the kingdom as a brutal enforcer of the crown princes agenda and has used an army of online trolls to harass Saudi dissidents on social media. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty After Khashoggis killing, the kingdom announced that Mr al-Qahtani had been removed from his position as an adviser to the royal court. Saudi Arabia has since begun criminal proceedings against 11 individuals involved in the operation. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for five of them. The kingdom has not released the names of the people on trial, and it is unclear whether Mr al-Qahtani is among them. Mr Aldakhil, the other aide to the crown prince caught in the intercepts, until recently was the general manager of the Al-Arabiya television network in Saudi Arabia. He is an influential media figure in the kingdom and a prominent adviser to the crown prince. During the September 2017 conversation, according to intelligence reports, Mr Aldakhil spoke to Crown Prince Mohammed about luring Mr Khashoggi back to Saudi Arabia with the possibility of a job at Al-Arabiya. The crown prince was sceptical that Mr Khashoggi would accept the offer. Last month, Mr Aldakhil left his post at the network. Saudi news sites have reported that he is expected to be named the next Saudi ambassador to the United Arab Emirates. US officials said there is no evidence that Mr Aldakhil had knowledge of a specific plan to capture or kill Khashoggi, and his name has never been among the suspects in the killing. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events In the weeks after Khashoggis death, classified evidence piled up that senior Saudi royals approved the Khashoggi operation, even as US officials insisted that there was no smoking gun directly tying the crown prince to it. The narrative from the Saudi royal court changed repeatedly, and the Saudi government has been determined to insulate the powerful crown prince from blame. Most recently, Saudi officials have said that the operation was a kidnapping gone awry that the team had been sent to Istanbul to forcibly bring Khashoggi back to Saudi Arabia but made the decision to kill him after he refused to cooperate. Saudi officials have said that Crown Prince Mohammed had no knowledge of the operation. In the latest indication that the international uproar over Khashoggis killing will continue, a UN investigator released a preliminary report on Thursday that concluded that Khashoggi was the victim of a brutal and premeditated killing, planned and perpetrated by officials of the State of Saudi Arabia. New York Times The murder of Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi was "planned and perpetrated by Saudi officials", the UN special rapporteur leading an independent human rights inquiry into the killing has said. Agnes Callamard is writing a report to be presented to the Human Rights Council about the incident and has visited Turkey as part of the investigations into Mr Khashoggis death. Mr Khashoggi, a prominent critic of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was last seen alive when he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on 2 October. Premilnary findings have said it was almost two weeks before Turkish authorities were allowed to enter the consulate and have placed the blame on the Saudi state. Evidence collected during my mission to Turkey shows prime facie case that Mr Khashoggi was the victim of a brutal and premeditated killing, planned and perpetrated by officials of the State of Saudi Arabia, Ms Callamard said. Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Show all 7 1 /7 Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Jamal Khashoggi Washington Post journalist who was critical of the Saudi regime and the young Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, he was murdered on 2 October in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul AFP Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Heir to the Saudi throne, Mohammed bin Salman has been implicated in the murder, with US officials claiming that he must have known of the plot AFP/Getty Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures 15 man hit squad Turkish police suspect these 15 men of being involved in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, issued 10 October, 8 days after the journalist disappeared EPA Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Saud al-Qahtani Aide to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saud al-Qahtani is claimed to have ordered Khashoggi's murder Saud Al-Qahtani/Twitter Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb A former diplomat who often travelled with the Crown Prince, Mutreb was initially claimed to be the leader of the hit squad and is pictured here entering the Saudi consulate on the day of the murder AP Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Mustafa al-Madani First implicated in the 15 CCTV photos released by the Turkish police, al-Madani was later found to have been used as a body double for Khashoggi, leaving the Saudi consulate dressed in his clothes on the day the journalist was killed CNN Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Salah bin Jamal Khashoggi (L) Son of the murdered journalist met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on 23 October EPA The murder of Jamal Khashoggi and the sheer brutality of it has brought irreversible tragedy to his loved ones. It is also raising a number of international implications which demand the urgent attention of the international community including the United Nations." Ms Callamard was unable to examine the Saudi consulate where Mr Khashoggi was killed despite requesting access to the crime scene, prompting Turkish officials to add pressure on Riyadh. She said the killing violated both international law and core rules of international relations, including the requirements for lawful use of diplomatic missions. Guarantees of immunity were never intended to facilitate the commission of a crime and exonerate its authors of their criminal responsibility or to conceal a violation of the right to life. The circumstances of the killing and the response by state representatives in its aftermath may be described as immunity for impunity, she said. Ms Callamard conducted her research between 28 January and 3 February; she was the special rapporteurs first official visit to the country. The team, which includes a UK barrister and a Portuguese forensic pathologist, met the minister of foreign affairs, the minister of justice, the chief of Turkish intelligence, the chief prosecutor of Istanbul and a number of other stakeholders, including from civil society and the media. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events They praised Turkeys efforts to apply independent, impartial and transparent investigations in line with international law which they said had been seriously curtailed and undermined by Saudi Arabia. Woefully inadequate time and access was granted to Turkish investigators to conduct a professional and effective crime-scene examination and search required by international standards for investigation, she said. Lucas Glass had not long finished school when he decided to join Isis. In the summer of 2014, shortly after the terror group declared its global caliphate, he left his home city of Dortmund and set off with his wife to start a new life in Syria. He was just 19 years old. All I knew about Isis was that they were establishing Islamic law and fighting Bashar al-Assad, he says, cutting a solemn figure under the watchful eye of his captors at a military installation in northern Syria. I came to practise my religion. I thought I would find what I wanted here, but actually it was very different. Glass, a German citizen, now 23, is one of thousands of foreigners who came to this country in the throes of a brutal civil war to live under the strict interpretation of Islam that Isis promised its followers. That is not all they did, however. Many played a key role in the groups reign of terror, acting as soldiers, executioners and recruiters. Over the past few months, as the caliphate nears its end, hundreds of foreign nationals have been detained by the Syrian Democratic Forces as they leave the ever-shrinking territory of Isis. But their capture is just the start of a complex process which has no clear end in sight. "War of Annihilation" devastating toll on civilians in Raqqa, Syria Show all 20 1 /20 "War of Annihilation" devastating toll on civilians in Raqqa, Syria "War of Annihilation" devastating toll on civilians in Raqqa, Syria A child injured by an IED explosion in Raqqa Amnesty International "War of Annihilation" devastating toll on civilians in Raqqa, Syria Children riding a bicycle among destroyed buildings in Raqqa Amnesty International "War of Annihilation" devastating toll on civilians in Raqqa, Syria Entire neighbourhoods in Raqqa are damaged beyond repair Amnesty International "War of Annihilation" devastating toll on civilians in Raqqa, Syria Satellite image showing the house where seven members of the Badran family were killed in a Coalition strike on 18 July 2017, before the strike CNES/Airbus DS "War of Annihilation" devastating toll on civilians in Raqqa, Syria Satellite image showing the house where seven members of the Badran family were killed in a Coalition strike on 18 July 2017, after the strike CNES/Airbus DS "War of Annihilation" devastating toll on civilians in Raqqa, Syria Members of the Badran family killed in three separate Coalition air strike on 18 July and 20 August 2017 in Raqqa Amnesty International "War of Annihilation" devastating toll on civilians in Raqqa, Syria The city of Raqqa in northern Syria has become hardly recognizable to those who try to return after months battle between US-backed forces and the Islamic State terrorist group for control of it. The city has no running water or electricity and homes, business and public squares are mere rubble and debris Amnesty International "War of Annihilation" devastating toll on civilians in Raqqa, Syria Satellite image showing the houses where 16 members of the Fayad family and neighbours were killed in Coalition strikes on 12 October 2017, before the strike CNES/Airbus DS "War of Annihilation" devastating toll on civilians in Raqqa, Syria Satellite image showing the houses where 16 members of the Fayad family and neighbours were killed in Coalition strikes on 12 October 2017, after the strike CNES/Airbus DS "War of Annihilation" devastating toll on civilians in Raqqa, Syria Fayad Mohammed and his daughters Wafa, Fadda and Tamam; Ammar al-Faris; Reem al-Maddad, Yusra Abd-al-Aziz, and baby Razqiya Habib; Jasim Hamal and Salem Hamad. They were among the 16 civilians killed in Coalition air strikes on 12 October 2017 in Raqqa Amnesty International "War of Annihilation" devastating toll on civilians in Raqqa, Syria Men wait by the side of the road for casual labour in Raqqa. Many end up clearing partially destroyed or damaged buildings, a very risky endeavour as many building were mined by IS and civilians are frequently killed and injured by mines Amnesty "War of Annihilation" devastating toll on civilians in Raqqa, Syria Satellite images showing the Aswad familys building before it was destroyed in a Coalition air strike which killed eight civilians, five of them children, on 28 June 2017 CNES/Airbus DS "War of Annihilation" devastating toll on civilians in Raqqa, Syria Satellite image showing the Aswad familys building after it was destroyed in a Coalition air strike which killed eight civilians, five of them children, on 28 June 2017 CNES/Airbus DS "War of Annihilation" devastating toll on civilians in Raqqa, Syria Amal Othman, 13, and her brothers Ammar, 8 and Mahmoud, 17; and Jamal Aswad, 41 four of the eight victims killed in a Coalition air strike on 28 June 2017 in Raqqa Amnesty International "War of Annihilation" devastating toll on civilians in Raqqa, Syria Low-income district west of the Jezra intersection on the western outskirts of Raqqa city destroyed by the Coalition shelling started in June 2017 Amnesty International "War of Annihilation" devastating toll on civilians in Raqqa, Syria Satellite image showing the houses where 16 members of the Fayad family and neighbours were killed in Coalition strikes on 12 October 2017, before the strike CNES/Airbus DS "War of Annihilation" devastating toll on civilians in Raqqa, Syria Satellite image showing the houses where 16 members of the Fayad family and neighbours were killed in Coalition strikes on 12 October 2017, after the strike CNES/Airbus DS "War of Annihilation" devastating toll on civilians in Raqqa, Syria Ali Hassan Nafa; Mahdia Hashish and her husband Hussein Ali; Hussein Hashish, Mohammed Hashish and Hussein Ibrahim Hashish, and Mohammed Ali Hashish Amnesty International "War of Annihilation" devastating toll on civilians in Raqqa, Syria Harat al Badu, a built up area in central Raqqa, next to the stadium. It was the scene of the final battle in the city between SDF/Coalition forces and IS Amnesty International "War of Annihilation" devastating toll on civilians in Raqqa, Syria Map showing where the Badran, Hashish, Aswad and Fayab families were living before the coalition air strikes Unosat /Amnesty International Most countries do not want to take back those citizens who left to join the caliphate, fearing they would be a security threat if they returned. Prosecuting them is extremely difficult due to a lack of evidence of what individuals did during their time living with Isis. Foreigners leaving the caliphate know this, and the majority claim they had nothing to do with the group or were not fighters. They say they were cooks, doctors or humanitarians who simply found themselves in the caliphate by accident. Recommended The last days of the caliphate loom as Isis nears defeat in Syria They all say the same thing, a Kurdish intelligence official responsible for handling suspected Isis members tells The Independent. We dont believe them. Glass is not one of those people. He admits to being a member of Isis, and to working for its police force for two years. But he claims he was duped by its propaganda, and did not discover the groups true nature until it was too late. Glass story gives an insight into the inner workings of one the most feared groups in the modern world, and the disillusionment of many of its followers as its fortunes started to decline. In an exclusive interview with The Independent, he recounts the tale of how he came to join Isis, and how it all fell apart. You can compare it with a US soldier who wants to join the army, he says of his motivation for joining the group, speaking in accented English. Why is he ready to join the US army, and go to Afghanistan or Iraq or Syria to sacrifice his life for the sake of democracy? We heard that they announced an Islamic State, this is what we came for, he says. SDF fighters gather near the frontline against Isis in the village of Baghouz Tahtani, eastern Syria (Richard Hall/The Independent ) (Richard Hall/The Independent) Glass converted to Islam in 2010, some 10 years after his mother had done the same. He had been familiar with the religion for most of this life, but it wasnt until he got older that he discovered his faith. But he says he felt Germany did not afford him the space to live the religious life he wanted to. In July 2014, Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi issued a call to Muslims around the world to come to Syria and Iraq to build an Islamic state. Rush O Muslims to your state. Yes, it is your state. Rush, because Syria is not for the Syrians, and Iraq is not for the Iraqis, he said in an audio message. Those words hit home with Glass. He felt it was his duty to go. He married his German wife, and a month later they traveled to Turkey, where he paid a smuggler to take him across the border into Syria. Shortly after, he found himself enrolled at an Isis religious school. There were 400 of us in one camp. People from Germany, France, Belgium, Britain, north African countries, he says. It is simply not plausible to suggest that there was any doubt over Isiss true nature in 2014 Shiraz Maher, director at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence Glass wanted to fight for the group, against the Syrian government, but an injury meant he was unfit for the frontline. Instead, he was assigned to the police force in Aleppo province. The main work was manning checkpoints in the streets. I would stop cars and look out for cigarettes and drugs, he says. I never pointed my gun at another human, he insists. He did this job for two years, he says. Life was as close to normal as it could be for a German living in an active warzone. But by 2016 Isis had gained enemies on all sides in Syrias civil war, and began to lose ground in Aleppo to the Syrian opposition. Its fighters withdrew from Aleppo to Raqqa; Glass and his family, which now included children, went with them. Throughout the time Glass was a member of the Isis police force, the group carried out some of its most heinous atrocities. In August 2014, Isis fighters overran the Iraqi town of Sinjar, where it massacred Yazidi civilians and kidnapped thousands of women to keep as sex slaves. Shortly after, Isis members killed the American journalist James Foley. Then in September they released videos showing the beheading of American-Israeli journalist Steven Sotloff, and then the execution of British aid worker David Haines. All of these were designed to maximise publicity, shared on Isis propaganda channels, and aimed at shocking the world and instilling fear in its enemies. Glass continued to do his job, manning checkpoints for Isis while the group wrought havoc across the region. He insists he did not know these crimes were being committed, despite their widespread publication. It wasnt until 2016, in Raqqa, that he says he had a change of heart. I had seen some stuff going on in Isis which I dont accept, which I thought was un-Islamic, he says. Some of the propaganda videos of Isis, burning people, drowning them. I got shocked when I saw these things. This is not allowed in Islam. These were things I dont accept, he says. After that, I decided to leave. Thousands of Syrians flee last Isis territory: Richard Hall meets families fleeing from the once mighty caliphate in its dying days By the time Glass says he realised the truth about the group, Isis was carrying out deadly attacks far beyond its borders. In France, the US and Tunisia, Isis-inspired attacks killed hundreds. But Isis was also on the back foot in Iraq and Syria, losing ground in both countries. The US had entered the conflict and was bombing intensively across Isiss self-declared caliphate. I just asked to leave, says Glass. They give you a paper and you get stamps from the people who are responsible for you. From this day I lived as a civilian, but still within the caliphate. I didnt want to be a part of Isis anymore. I wanted to be innocent of these things, he adds. Glass says he tried to escape once with his family but was caught by the Isis secret police. They imprisoned me for one and a half months. They released me under the condition that if I tried to leave a second time they would kill me, he says. From that moment on, as he tells it, he was a prisoner of Isis, and was forced to retreat as they retreated, from Raqqa to Deir ez-Zor. The Isis caliphate got smaller and smaller, its fighters faced defeat after defeat. Eventually, a string of villages along the Euphrates became the last holdout of the group. The SDF, with US backing, launched its offensive on this last stronghold in December. The caliphate was surrounded, and battered by daily airstrikes, as Isis made its last stand. I remember a few times, me and my family and my children we went to the market, and there was bombing next to us, and I saw in front of my eyes women and children, gone, arms gone, head gone, he says. You didnt know what would happen tomorrow. Every moment you expected to die. In the past months, an exodus of people have fled the Isis-held areas. The groups usually tight control over who comes and goes has seemingly collapsed. Thousands of women and children were among those fleeing, many of them believed to be the relatives of Isis fighters. Glass says there was a sense of abandonment among Isis supporters and fighters when the groups leaders were suddenly nowhere to be found. Everybody was asking this question. Where are they? Why dont they show themselves? They claim to be responsible for us, for the Muslims, why dont they help us? The majority of people in Isis areas, even the majority of Isis fighters, hate them, he says. Glass was eventually captured as he crossed the front lines east of the town of Susah on 6 January. He was separated from his family and remains in detention to this day. His wife and children are currently being held with thousands of other families of suspected Isis members in a holding camp. What comes next for him, and the thousands of other foreign prisoners held by the SDF, is unclear. The Syrian Democratic Forces is calling on foreign countries to take back their citizens who came here to join Isis. So far, France is the only European country to say it will bring them back. The US has also said it will try citizens suspected of Isis membership at home. The UK, meanwhile, has refused to allow its citizens to return. Defence secretary Gavin Williamson said last year: I do not believe that any terrorist, whether they come from this country or any other, should ever be allowed back into this country. Germany has so far taken the same position. I hope Germany is going to take me back, but I dont expect they will, he says. I expect they will hand us over to the Syrian government. It is likely he will face prosecution for belonging to Isis no matter where he ends up, even if he was not directly involved in killing, as he claims. But there will be many who dont believe his story. It is simply not plausible to suggest that there was any doubt over Isiss true nature in 2014. Indeed, by the end of January in that year the group was drawing heavy criticism from even other rebel groups for its barbarity, says Shiraz Maher, an expert on foreign fighters in the Syrian conflict, and director at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence at Kings College London. It is true that individuals within Isis sometimes performed specialised roles, serving as doctors, engineers and so on, but interviews I conducted suggest that they did this in addition to holding combat roles. A prominent Australian doctor, Tarek Kamaleh, was revealed to be doing just that in Isis propaganda, alternating between his work as a doctor and serving on the front line, he adds. It will not be long before Isis loses the last of its territory, bringing an end to the caliphate in Iraq and Syria. Already, many here are preparing for what comes next. Isis has already begun to transform back into an insurgency, and has demonstrated its ability to carry out attacks. But according to Glass, who once held the group in high esteem, it will never again be able to muster the same support it did four years ago. At the beginning, when they announced their caliphate, thousands of Muslims came to Syria to support it. But now we know the reality of Isis. They will not find any supporters anymore in the Muslim world. All these things Isis did, and all these crimes, made Muslims all over the world hate Isis. So it will never be able to find any supporters anymore, he says. I got cheated. All of us got cheated. All of these foreigners, thousands of Muslims who came to join Isis got cheated. People from across the state of Montana filled the Montana Capitol last Wednesday, January 30, to give emotional testimony before the state Judiciary Committee in support of a bill named after Hanna Harris, a young woman murdered on the Northern Cheyenne reservation in 2013 A farmer was eaten alive by pigs after collapsing in their sty. The 56-year-old woman is believed to have suffered an epileptic seizure while feeding the animals, Russian state media reported. She is said to have suffered severe bites to her face, ears and shoulders and died of blood loss. The woman was found by her husband early on 1 February at their farm in a village in the Malopurginsky district of Udmurtia, western Russia. He had gone to bed early because he felt unwell and did not find his wife until the next day, according to Moscow-based news website Newstes. It did not say how many pigs were in the sty. Officials have launched an investigation into the incident, Russian media reported. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty It is not the first time a farmer has been consumed by his own pigs. A man in the US state of Oregon was eaten by his animals in 2012. Authorities found Terry Vance Garner's dentures and pieces of his body in the enclosure in which he had been feeding the livestock. Investigators said the 69-year-old may have been knocked over by the 50-stone animals before they ate him. The symbolism of aid lorries, halted by barricades on the Venezuela-Colombia border, would have been familiar enough for anyone watching from the Kremlin. It told the story of an outmanoeuvred regime, a default defensive response, and terrible PR. Russia, one of Venezuelas major backers since Hugo Chavez took power in 1998, finds itself holding an increasingly toxic asset. With every week, power seems to be slipping away from Nicolas Maduro, Chavezs hand-picked successor, and towards his rival, the leader of the outlawed National Assembly, Juan Guaido. An overwhelming majority of countries in the west and in Latin America now recognise his presidency. Russia has shown few signs of following suit. At the same time, ever so slightly, its calculations do seem to be tilting away from Mr Maduro and towards protecting the more tangible assets it has left in the country. In interviews with experts and politicians, The Independent recorded a growing resignation that Maduros regime would not endure in the long term. Alongside this was a realisation that Moscow had few cards left to play. There was little expectation of a new cash injection into the crisis economy and less so of staging a major military intervention in a country halfway around the globe. Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Show all 18 1 /18 Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Protesters clash with the Bolivarian National Police during a demonstration against the government of the Venezuela and president Nicolas Maduro in Caracas on 23 January 2019 EPA Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Demonstrators cheer as Venezuela's National Assembly head Juan Guaido declares himself the country's "acting president" at a rally in Caracas AFP/Getty Images Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Opposition supporters take part in a rally against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government REUTERS Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Opposition supporters take part in a rally against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government in Caracas REUTERS Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Juan Guaido, head of Venezuela's opposition-run congress, declares himself interim president of the nation until elections can be held during a rally in Caracas demanding leader Nicolas Maduro's resignation AP Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Opposition supporters carry letters to form the word "Democracy" while taking part in a rally against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government REUTERS Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Police watch over marching anti-government protesters in Caracas EPA Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government A vehicle is overturned as opposition demonstrators block a road during a protest against the Venezuelan government AFP/Getty Images Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government A National Police officer fires rubber bullets during a protest against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government in Caracas REUTERS Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government A demonstrator throws back a gas canister while clashing with security forces during a rally against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government in Caracas REUTERS Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Security forces look on after clashing with opposition supporters participating in a rally against Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro's government REUTERS Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Demonstrators during a protest against the government of Nicolas Maduro at Plaza Altamira in Caracas Getty Images Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Demonstrators during a protest against the government of Nicolas Maduro at Plaza Altamira in Caracas Getty Images Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government EPA Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government AFP/Getty Images Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government The remains of a statue of Venezuela's late President Hugo Chavez is seen hanging from a pedestrian bridge after it was destroyed in San Felix, Venezuela REUTERS Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Riot police on motorcycles clash with opposition demonstrators during protests in Caracas AFP/Getty Images Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Supporters celebrate Juan Guaido declaration that he is Venezuelan president EPA While Russia is far from being the only major backer of Venezuela, it is arguably its most exposed creditor. Chinese investment stands at nearly three times the estimated $20bn-25bn (15bn-19bn) Moscow is said to have ploughed into Venezuela. But Chinese investment has followed a more pragmatic pattern, and is largely repayable in oil. The Russian bet, which includes military deals and controversial, discounted stakes in oil fields, is more vulnerable to politics. The opposition-controlled National Assembly has, for example, called for some of the most recent oil deals with Russias Rosneft to be revisited. The reported appearance of Russian mercenaries at oil installations seems to be a direct response to these threats. Dmitry Rosenthal, a Latin American expert at the Russian Academy of Sciences, told The Independent he believed Moscow could reach compromise with whatever government is in power. Backchannels were already likely in play, he says. But unease about the oppositions rhetoric remained. The Kremlin has been much more supportive of Maduros regime than the maximally pragmatic China, which has engaged with the opposition to a much greater extent, he said. Unsurprisingly, it sees Maduro as a much more reliable partner when it comes to protecting its interests. As with other matters of foreign policy, Vladimir Putin is said to be taking a leading role in formulating the Russian response to the crisis. There have been few clues as to the presidents thinking. But on Wednesday, Bloomberg claimed some insight by quoting two Kremlin sources, both expressing doubt about the viability of Maduros regime. The report was quickly dismissed by Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov. Yet voices in the outer circle of Russias foreign policy community in parliament and the foreign ministry have toned down earlier, more categorical statements of support. Vladimir Dzhabarov, deputy chair of the international affairs committee of Russias upper house, told The Independent that while Russia would not walk back its support of Maduro, it accepted its ally faced a battle to survive. Russia has never hidden its recognition of Maduro as the countrys only legitimate president, he said. We understand he has led a flawed government and didnt get everything right in the economy or the social arena. But is it really worth taking country to revolution or collapse? We dont think so. Venezuela: Maduro blockades bridge to stop humanitarian aid entering country Mr Dzhabarov said Venezuelas future could only be resolved around the negotiation table, but said the Guaido opposition was unwilling to enter talks. Half of Venezuela still supported the Maduro regime, he said, and could be provoked to take to the streets if their man was toppled. Fyodor Lukyanov, a foreign expert considered close to the policy elite, also suggested Russia held little hope for the survival of the Maduro regime. But it could continue, he said, for as long as it had the army on its side, which might be much longer than people think. As toxic as things might get with Maduro, what Moscow would not do is convert its support to Guaido, who was an American puppet. As terrible a president as Maduro is, hes loyal and hes a partner, said Lukyanov. For Russia that is important. France has taken the unusual step of recalling its ambassador from Italy stating it is a warning to its ally not to meddle in its internal affairs. A spokesperson for the French government said it took the decision after months of unfounded attacks by Italys populist government about migration and economic policies. France is currently being wracked by the gilets jaunes protests and the movement has been egged-on and endorsed by politicians in Italys government. Luigi Di Maio, the leader of Italys governing Five Star movement, most recently met with protesters in a Paris suburb who are looking to stand as MEPs in the upcoming European elections against Emmanuel Macrons governing party. French government spokesperson Benjamin Griveaux told the Europe-1 radio broadcaster on Friday that the unannounced meeting violated the most elementary diplomacy. He said the withdrawal of Frances ambassador to Italy was temporary but called on the Italian government to behave better towards partners. Earlier this month Italys de facto leader, interior minister Matteo Salvini, from the far-right Northern League party, said he hoped French voters would throw Emmanuel Macron out of government. Mr Salvini and his coalition partners have positioned themselves in opposition to Mr Macrons centrist liberalism particularly on the issue of migration. The French government faces a struggle in the upcoming European elections in the face of domestic discontent and Mr Macrons flagging approval ratings. He is being criticised from both the right and left about accusations he is president of the rich. Mr Salvinis anti-immigration party is set to make significant gains in the European parliament elections. The Northern League and other far-right groups have talked about creating an anti-immigration axis in the EU to change the blocs policies provocatively borrowing terminology associate with the Third Reich. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty The Italian government sees its closest allies as Hungary, Poland and Austria, which all have a varying flavour of populist right-wingers in government. One rival of Mr Macron in France is Marine Le Pen, leader of the Front National, which has since rebranded as National Rally. The French far-right has done well in the presidential contest in recent decades, but has so far failed to make a breakthrough into first place. Ms Le Pen would likely be an ally of Mr Salvinis on the European stage, as both have a similar political agenda. Finlands ground-breaking experiment in basic income has failed to help the unemployed rejoin the workforce. The two year test, saw 2,000 randomly-selected citizens who did not have jobs given 560 about 490 a month for two years. Although it was guaranteed to them whether they managed to find jobs or not, it did not appear to spur the recipients on to seek work more, researchers said. The impact on employment seems to have been minor on the grounds of the first trial year, Finlands minister of health and social affairs Pirkko Mattila said. The experiment attracted global attention when it began, as it was the first time a European nation committed to paying its citizens a monthly tax-free wage with no strings attached. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty But when compared to a control group who were not receiving the basic income, the test subjects given the money, were not significantly more likely to have got back into employment. However, they did report being happier and healthier than the control group. The basic income recipients of the test group reported better wellbeing in every way in comparison with the comparison group, the trials chief researcher Olli Kangas said. The experiment formed one part of a range of welfare reforms launched by Finlands centre-right government to try and bring down the countrys high unemployment rate. Some 6.6 per cent of Finns were out of work in December; a 10-year low, but still almost two-thirds higher than the British rate of four per cent. Finland has now embraced a different approach to the problem, imposing tougher new sanctions on unemployed people who choose not to accept jobs while receiving benefits. Interest in basic income has soared in recent years. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events A poll in August found 40 per cent of British people supported the concept and would welcome experiments of the radical policy in their local area. John McDonnell, the Labour shadow chancellor, told The Independent last year his party would include plans for a pilot of universal basic income in its next election manifesto. At least one person has died and 100 passengers have been injured after two trains collided head-on in Spain. The commuter trains crashed on Friday evening between the towns of Sant Vicenc de Castellet and Manresa, 35 miles northwest of Barcelona. Three of the injured passengers were in serious condition, according to Catalonian emergency services. Another 16 were "less serious" condition and 76 had mild injuries, officials said. About 100 passengers escaped unhurt. One of the trains was heading to Barcelona and the other was travelling on the same track towards Manresa, in northeastern Spain, when they collided at 6.20pm local time (5.20pm.) World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty Images broadcast on Catalan public broadcaster TV3 showed the torn metal where the two trains slammed into each other, along with passengers who had evacuated on the side of the tracks. Renfe, the state train operator, has launched an investigation into the cause of the crash. Spokesman Antonio Carmona said: The information we have is that there was a frontal collision. Recommended Passengers trapped as landslide causes deadly train crash in Barcelona One of the trains involved in the collision was travelling on the same line on which a fatal accident took place in November last year. One person died and 44 were injured when a Barcelona-bound service derailed near Vacarisses, about 30 miles northwest of the Catalonian capital. Hundreds of thousands of cows are believed to have died in floods in northern Australia after the state of Queensland was hit by record rainfall. A torrential downpour that lashed the coastal city of Townsville on Saturday and Sunday swept inland and flooded grazing land across the region this week. The floodwaters are estimated to have killed up to 300,000 cattle worth up to $300m Australian dollars (164m) to the countrys farming industry, according to Australian Associated Press. Pictures posted on social media showed scores of cows trapped on patches of high ground surrounded by water, or lying dead in the mud. Queensland cattle farmer Michael Bulley said he flew over his properties by helicopter and saw water stretching for miles in every direction. He estimated up to 60 per cent of his cattle had been killed by the flooding. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty Its devastated the country ... theres stock dead everywhere. Not just cattle, its sheep, kangaroos, wild pigs, theyve all died and suffered from it. Weve had a year and a half of rainfall in about seven days, Mr Bulley added. Annastacia Palaszczu, the Premier of Queensland told Australias ABC News she had witnessed a sea of dead cattle when she toured one part of the flooded region. Recommended Crocodiles and snakes wash up as Australia hit by huge floods To see the cattle spread across these yards not moving, it made you feel sick in the stomach, she said. Prime Minister Scott Morrison told reporters: We are expecting hundreds of thousands in terms of stock losses. This will be heart-breaking to these communities that have been experiencing years of drought only to see that turn into a torrential inundation. Authorities plan to drop bales of hay for the surviving cattle stranded in flooded areas. Affected farms will be eligible to apply for grants of up to $25,000 Australian dollars (13,700) as part of a disaster recovery fund. Some surviving cows in flood-stricken area (AFP / Anthony Anderson) The weather bureau said a wide arc of the Queensland outback stretching for 250 miles from Mt. Isa to Richmond had been hit by flooding. The full scale of the disaster would not be known until the clouds cleared. Two men died in Townsville and more than 1,100 people were evacuated earlier this week after authorities opened floodgates at the Ross River Dam when the rains filled reservoirs to overflowing. The government of Queensland announced an inquiry into the flooding in Townsville following questions about why local authorities failed to predict the record rainfall. Flooding in Townsville (Getty) Earlier this week the Mayor of Townsville Jenny Hill said the town had received more than years worth of rain in seven days It surpasses anything we have on record. A spokesman for global commodities trader Glencore said on Friday the monsoon had resulted in a short term production disruption at its Collinsville and Newlands coal operations in the state. Queensland desperately needed rain and now its had way too much in some areas, said Phin Ziebell, agribusiness analyst at National Australia Bank. I just dont think we have enough information at this stage to determine the scale of the stock losses and what benefit that part of the country can get from a bit of pasture, he added. Additional reporting by agencies A 16-year-old boy has been found alive in the rubble of a collapsed block of flats, two days after the building suddenly fell down. The teenager was found by rescue workers in Istanbul, who were working their way through the apartment building. Fourteen people have already been confirmed to have died in the disaster, which unfolded in the residential Kartal district. The interior minister Suleyman Soylu said at least 11 more people were still missing in the collapsed eight-storey building. The teenager who was pulled from the rubble alive was taken to hospital but there has not been any further update on his condition. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty His rescue brought the number of those survivors found alive in the ruins of the flats to 14. Specialist rescue teams, including sniffer dogs, are still working around the clock to try and locate more victims of the disaster, while friends and relatives of those unaccounted for anxiously wait nearby the wreckage. We hope to bring out those inside safely, Mr Soylu told reporters at a press conference. Anyone found to have caused the collapse would be held responsible, he also vowed. Investigators are still looking into why the apartment block suddenly fell down, but one official has pointed the finger at unauthorised extensions. Three extra storeys were reportedly added to the building without proper approval. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events The governor of Istanbul has also said a textile workshop was operating without a licence in the entrance to the flats. While inquiries into the collapse continue, seven other buildings nearby have been evacuated as a precaution. Indias capital came to a standstill when a heavy storm swept over Delhi, dropping what was a rare sight for many residents - hail. While many delighted in the covering of white and posted photos and videos on social media, for others the sudden downpour caused significant travel disruption. Delhi and adjoining areas had not seen a heavy hailstorm like Thursdays in at least a decade said Mahesh Palawat, director of the private weather agency Skymet. AccuWeather described the occurrence of hailstorms in Delhi as infrequent. Residents compared the scene to famous Himalayan hill towns like Shimla and Srinagar, while the accompanying lashing wind brought comparisons to Chicago. I have not seen so many hail stones gather in seconds, one Twitter user, Dr Tirthali, wrote. The noise was deafening. Those who went to Mukteshwar [Uttarakhand] or Kashmir to enjoy snowfall have wasted their money, said Shikhar Sharma. Delhi and NCR [National Capital Region] are having some fun. While even relatively light rains can bring Delhis roads to gridlock, the addition of hail and prolonged heavy downpour meant disruption extended to both flights and rail connections. At least 12 Delhi-bound trains were delayed by up to six hours, and dozens of flights destined for the capital were redirected to nearby cities during the worst of the storm, between 6pm and 8pm. Departure boards at the main Indira Gandhi International Airport showed many outbound flights suffered significant delays. The airport apologised to customers, saying the severe weather disrupted safe operations. New Delhi toxic smog pushes air pollution to peak levels Show all 14 1 /14 New Delhi toxic smog pushes air pollution to peak levels New Delhi toxic smog pushes air pollution to peak levels India's Rashtrapati Bhawan is partly visible due to smog as traffic plies on Rajapth. Smog levels spike during winter in Delhi, when air quality often eclipses the World Health Organization's safe levels AP New Delhi toxic smog pushes air pollution to peak levels Cooler air traps pollutants -- such as from vehicles, building sites and farmers burning crops in regions outside the Indian capital -- close to the ground AP New Delhi toxic smog pushes air pollution to peak levels A man wearing a protective mask walks amidst smog in the early morning in New Delhi Reuters New Delhi toxic smog pushes air pollution to peak levels Indian people receive treatment for respiratory problems at a hospital in New Delhi AFP/Getty New Delhi toxic smog pushes air pollution to peak levels Buildings shrouded in smog Reuters New Delhi toxic smog pushes air pollution to peak levels A combination of pictures showing people wearing face masks to protect themselves against air pollution AFP/Getty New Delhi toxic smog pushes air pollution to peak levels Indian workers are seen in the morning smog as they clean a lane littered with remains of firecrackers AP New Delhi toxic smog pushes air pollution to peak levels Smog envelopes the horizon in New Delhi AP New Delhi toxic smog pushes air pollution to peak levels Motorists on a busy road amid heavy smog AFP/Getty New Delhi toxic smog pushes air pollution to peak levels A man cycles past a government building amid heavy smog AFP/Getty New Delhi toxic smog pushes air pollution to peak levels Commuters are seen amid heavy smog in New Delhi AFP/Getty New Delhi toxic smog pushes air pollution to peak levels An Indian shepherd walks along his herd of sheep amidst heavy smog AFP/Getty New Delhi toxic smog pushes air pollution to peak levels A train moves through heavy smog EPA New Delhi toxic smog pushes air pollution to peak levels A pedestrian crosses a road near the Indian President's house AFP/Getty Nikita Mandhani, 30, didnt get to see the spectacle of the hail herself - but she was certainly impacted by it. She told The Independent she spent more than six hours waiting at the airport for her flight to Bhopal, which had been scheduled for departure at 8pm. She missed a family wedding party, or sangeet, because of the disruption. Towards the end, I was just praying for the flight to not get cancelled, she said. I was particularly anxious because no one had an answer [to what was going on], they kept delaying it by 10 minutes, then 15 minutes, then an hour. Every time they made an announcement, my heart sank. The bad weather was not limited to Delhi itself - mountainous regions further to the north experienced heavy snowfall and authorities issued avalanche warnings for 16 of the 22 districts of Jammu and Kashmir, the Press Trust of India reported. But for residents of the capital, the storm at least brought relief from its notoriously bad air pollution. One AQI (air quality index) monitoring site put Delhis air quality at 144 poor at 7pm on Thursday - down from a high this week of 575 hazardous on Tuesday morning. Donald Trumps administration is holding direct talks with members of the Venezuelan military and urging them to abandon president Nicolas Maduro, according to a new report. Two weeks after opposition politician Juan Guaido declared himself Venezuelas president and a succession of countries, including the US, recognised him as its legitimate leader, a White House official said it was speaking with members of the armed forces and hoping for more defections. The official also said Mr Trump was preparing new sanctions against Mr Maduros government. We believe these to be those first couple pebbles before we start really seeing bigger rocks rolling down the hill, the unidentified official told Reuters. The official added: Were still having conversations with members of the former Maduro regime, with military members, although those conversations are very, very limited. In the two weeks since Mr Guaido, a leader of the defunct national assembly and a protege of opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, declared himself president, he has been recognised by a number of major nations, including Canada, the UK and many European countries. Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Show all 18 1 /18 Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Protesters clash with the Bolivarian National Police during a demonstration against the government of the Venezuela and president Nicolas Maduro in Caracas on 23 January 2019 EPA Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Demonstrators cheer as Venezuela's National Assembly head Juan Guaido declares himself the country's "acting president" at a rally in Caracas AFP/Getty Images Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Opposition supporters take part in a rally against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government REUTERS Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Opposition supporters take part in a rally against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government in Caracas REUTERS Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Juan Guaido, head of Venezuela's opposition-run congress, declares himself interim president of the nation until elections can be held during a rally in Caracas demanding leader Nicolas Maduro's resignation AP Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Opposition supporters carry letters to form the word "Democracy" while taking part in a rally against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government REUTERS Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Police watch over marching anti-government protesters in Caracas EPA Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government A vehicle is overturned as opposition demonstrators block a road during a protest against the Venezuelan government AFP/Getty Images Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government A National Police officer fires rubber bullets during a protest against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government in Caracas REUTERS Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government A demonstrator throws back a gas canister while clashing with security forces during a rally against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government in Caracas REUTERS Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Security forces look on after clashing with opposition supporters participating in a rally against Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro's government REUTERS Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Demonstrators during a protest against the government of Nicolas Maduro at Plaza Altamira in Caracas Getty Images Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Demonstrators during a protest against the government of Nicolas Maduro at Plaza Altamira in Caracas Getty Images Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government EPA Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government AFP/Getty Images Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government The remains of a statue of Venezuela's late President Hugo Chavez is seen hanging from a pedestrian bridge after it was destroyed in San Felix, Venezuela REUTERS Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Riot police on motorcycles clash with opposition demonstrators during protests in Caracas AFP/Getty Images Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Supporters celebrate Juan Guaido declaration that he is Venezuelan president EPA China, Russia, and Mexico still regonise Mr Maduro, who were sworn in for a second term six-year term in January, following an election last year that was criticised by many members of the international community as flawed. It was boycotted by the opposition. Mr Maduro has denounced the efforts of Mr Guaido and those nations who support him and engaging in nothing less that a coup. In recent days, the US has been delivering humanitarian supplies to locations outside of Venezuela, which has been more than three million people flee economic hardship, hunger and political violence. Theres an attempt to violate our national sovereignty with this show of a humanitarian operation by the government of Donald Trump, Mr Maduro said, according to the Associated Press. Most observers believe the fate of Mr Maduro depends on what the countrys military does. For now, there have been few defections, with analysts pointing out that large number of senior officers have been part of a corrupt system benefitting from the presidents rule. They are unlikely to enjoy such lives under a new government. Peter Stubley Venezuela air force general defects and urges people to take part in protests The most senior defector has been Venezuelan air force Gen Francisco Yanez, who earlier this month posted a video saying he was throwing his support behind the 35-year-old Mr Guaido. Most top military have declared their support for Mr Maduro. In the days after Mr Guaidos action, defence minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez said Mr Maduro was the countrys legitimate president and that the opposition was seeking to carry out a coup. I warn the people that there is a coup under way against our democracy and our president Nicolas Maduro, Mr Padrino said. Those of us who lived through the coup of 2002 have it etched into our minds, we never thought wed see that again, but we saw it yesterday. The US has a long history of interfering in the domestic politics of nations in Latin America, even supporting and organising coups. While Mr Maduro has faced widespread criticism for his increasingly authatorian rule and his his mismanagement of what was once a wealthy nation, the actions of the Trump administration have also been condemned by those who feel the US should keep its nose out. Congresswomen Tulsi Gabbard, who is seeing to become the Democratic Partys candidate for the 2020 presidential race, said two weeks ago: The United States needs to stay out of Venezuela. Let the Venezuelan people determine their future. We dont want other countries to choose our leaders so we have to stop trying to choose theirs. Desperate Venezuelans have reportedly been driven to sell their hair at the Colombian border as their troubled nation slips further into political crisis. Trucks carrying humanitarian aid arrived in the Colombian border city of Cucuta on Thursday after the countrys embattled president, Nicolas Maduro, ordered his military to barricade a bridge between the two nations with a tanker and two containers. President Maduro, who denies a humanitarian crisis exists and has said Venezuela is not a nation of beggars, rejected the aid convoy as a political show. He has vowed to remain in power, despite dozens of nations around the world disavowing his leadership and recognising opposition leader Juan Guaido as the countrys interim president. It remains to be seen whether Mr Maduro will allow the aid to enter the country, and he is expected to make a decision in the coming days. Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Show all 18 1 /18 Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Protesters clash with the Bolivarian National Police during a demonstration against the government of the Venezuela and president Nicolas Maduro in Caracas on 23 January 2019 EPA Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Demonstrators cheer as Venezuela's National Assembly head Juan Guaido declares himself the country's "acting president" at a rally in Caracas AFP/Getty Images Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Opposition supporters take part in a rally against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government REUTERS Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Opposition supporters take part in a rally against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government in Caracas REUTERS Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Juan Guaido, head of Venezuela's opposition-run congress, declares himself interim president of the nation until elections can be held during a rally in Caracas demanding leader Nicolas Maduro's resignation AP Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Opposition supporters carry letters to form the word "Democracy" while taking part in a rally against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government REUTERS Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Police watch over marching anti-government protesters in Caracas EPA Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government A vehicle is overturned as opposition demonstrators block a road during a protest against the Venezuelan government AFP/Getty Images Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government A National Police officer fires rubber bullets during a protest against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government in Caracas REUTERS Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government A demonstrator throws back a gas canister while clashing with security forces during a rally against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government in Caracas REUTERS Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Security forces look on after clashing with opposition supporters participating in a rally against Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro's government REUTERS Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Demonstrators during a protest against the government of Nicolas Maduro at Plaza Altamira in Caracas Getty Images Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Demonstrators during a protest against the government of Nicolas Maduro at Plaza Altamira in Caracas Getty Images Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government EPA Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government AFP/Getty Images Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government The remains of a statue of Venezuela's late President Hugo Chavez is seen hanging from a pedestrian bridge after it was destroyed in San Felix, Venezuela REUTERS Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Riot police on motorcycles clash with opposition demonstrators during protests in Caracas AFP/Getty Images Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Supporters celebrate Juan Guaido declaration that he is Venezuelan president EPA The so-called humanitarian aid operation is a show, a cheap show, a bad show, Mr Maduro said in interview with Mexican newspaper La Jornada published on Thursday. You can be sure that it wont disturb Venezuela. Mr Guaido, who requested the international assistance, has said it is necessary in a country racked by shortages of food and medicine. The opposition leader, who is backed by around 40 countries, including the US, the UK and its European allies, and several South American nations, is seeking to oust President Maduro following an election last year which many have denounced as a sham. Russia and China are among the most prominent countries to continue to support Mr Maduro. Mr Maduro has overseen an economic collapse in Venezuela that has left millions struggling to eat and led an estimated three million to leave the oil-rich OPEC country since 2015. US national security advisor John Bolton announces Venezuela sanctions On Thursday, a coalition of European and Latin American nations urged Venezuela to engage in dialogue and hold fresh elections. EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said the International Contact Group does not intend to impose a solution, but is focused on finding answers to avoid violence or foreign intervention in Venezuela. We can have different points of view and readings about the causes of the crisis, Mr Mogherini told a gathering of nations in the Uruguayan capital, Montevideo. But we share the same objective, wishing to contribute to a politically peaceful and democratic solution. Roger Stone has been made the subject of a defamation lawsuit from Jerome Corsi, the author and conspiracy theorist at the centre of a criminal case against the former Donald Trump advisor. Mr Corsi has confirmed he is the witness named as Person 1 in last months indictment against Mr Stone, who stands accused of witness tampering and lying to Congress about communications with WikiLeaks. The 72-year-old author a perpetrator of right-wing conspiracy theories about top Democrats is claiming that Mr Stone tried to smear, defame, intimate and threaten him after discovering he had given testimony to special counsel Robert Mueller. The former Trump advisor has accused Mr Corsi of working with Mr Mueller to sandbag him on a fabricated perjury charge. Mr Corsi is now seeking over $25 million in damages, according to a complaint filed in Washington federal court late on Thursday. President Trump delivers State of the Union address Show all 22 1 /22 President Trump delivers State of the Union address President Trump delivers State of the Union address Nancy Pelosis sarcastic clapping stole Trumps thunder For many the president's speech was overshadowed by Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's applause after his call for political unity, which many interpreted as "sarcastic" AFP/Getty President Trump delivers State of the Union address Trump issues ominous threat over investigations as he rails against immigration and abortion In a State of the Union speech calling on Washington to cast aside revenge, resistance and retribution, Donald Trump was accused of issuing a veiled threat over the investigations dogging his administration. An economic miracle is taking place in the United States and the only thing that can stop it are foolish wars, politics or ridiculous partisan investigations, Mr Trump said AFP/Getty President Trump delivers State of the Union address Congresswomen, dressed in white in tribute to the women's suffrage movement, pose for a photo as they arrive AFP/Getty Images President Trump delivers State of the Union address The 72-year-old harkened back to American achievements, celebrating the moon landing as astronaut Buzz Aldrin looked on from the audience and heralding the liberation of Europe from the Nazis AFP/Getty President Trump delivers State of the Union address He also led the House chamber in singing happy birthday to a Holocaust survivor sitting with first lady Melania Trump. "Together, we represent the most extraordinary nation in all of history. What will we do with this moment? How will we be remembered?" Mr Trump said Getty President Trump delivers State of the Union address Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez dressed in white in an act of solidarity with other women declined to join a standing ovation for Donald Trump despite his purported call for unity Reuters President Trump delivers State of the Union address The president ticked through a litany of issues with crossover appeal, including boosting infrastructure, lowering prescription drug costs and combating childhood cancer Getty President Trump delivers State of the Union address Republican Veronica Escobar reacts as President Trump claims that El Paso, Texas, has become safer due to a wall along the border with Mexico Reuters President Trump delivers State of the Union address Despite no one working in the White House Office of National Aids Policy, and having sacking his HIV advisory council last year, Mr Trump pledged to inject funds to stop the spread of the disease in America by 2030 Getty Images President Trump delivers State of the Union address "Scientific breakthroughs have brought a once-distant dream within reach," the president said. Together, we will defeat Aids in America and beyond." he said Reuters President Trump delivers State of the Union address Trump led the House chamber in singing happy birthday to a Holocaust survivor sitting with first lady Melania Reuters President Trump delivers State of the Union address He also appealed to his political base, both with his harsh rhetoric on immigration and a call for Congress to pass legislation to prohibit the "late-term abortion of children EPA President Trump delivers State of the Union address Women from both political parties wore white outfits tonight at the behest of the Democratic Womens Working Group to honor the legacy of women's suffrage in the United States AFP/Getty President Trump delivers State of the Union address He devoted much of his speech to foreign policy, another area where Republicans have increasingly distanced themselves from the White House EPA President Trump delivers State of the Union address Trump greets Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, alongside Vice President Mike Pence AFP/Getty President Trump delivers State of the Union address US First lady Melania Trump (left) with Grace Eline and Joshua Trump, special guests of President Donald Trump AFP/Getty President Trump delivers State of the Union address Trump announced details of a second meeting with North Korea's Kim Jong Un, outlining a summit in Vietnam starting on 27 February AFP/Getty President Trump delivers State of the Union address "If I had not been elected president of the United States, we would right now, in my opinion, be in a major war with North Korea," he said AFP/Getty President Trump delivers State of the Union address Getty President Trump delivers State of the Union address Supreme Court Justices John Roberts, Elena Kagan and Neil Gorsuch laugh AFP/Getty President Trump delivers State of the Union address President Trump greets lawmakers after delivering his second State of the Union address EPA President Trump delivers State of the Union address Independent Senator from Vermont Bernie Sanders holds his notes EPA His attorney, Larry Klayman, claimed Mr Stones actions were intended to cause his 72-year-old client heart attacks and strokes in an effort to stop him providing legal evidence. He wrote: Defendant Stones intentional infliction of emotional distress and coercion and threats are intended to try even cause plaintiff Corsi to have heart attacks and strokes, in order that plaintiff will be unable to testify at Stones criminal trial. The lawsuit also claims that Mr Stone had caused severe emotional distress and the fear of imminent serious bodily injury or death, and other mental and physical injuries, and Plaintiff was severely harmed and damaged thereby. Mr Stone faces seven charges related to Mr Muellers investigation into Russian election interference, including giving false statements and witness tampering. The grand jury indictment references an email from Mr Stone in late July 2016 in which he urged Person 1 to visit Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks living in Ecuadors embassy in London, to get the pending... emails. Mr Corsi has denied any advanced knowledge of WikiLeaks hacked emails belonging to Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. Jerome Corsi (AP) The right-wing authors lawsuit also accuses Mr Stone of making threatening allusions to the Mafia. Defendant Stone likes to portray himself as Mafia, frequently making reference to Mafia figures who he admires, as well as other unsavoury types who have been alleged to have engaged in unethical and/or illegal behaviour, it states. Thus, given his admiration for persons such as these, particularly Mafia figures, his actions as pled herein can be taken as threats, as well as being defamatory. Roger Stone after he was released on bail in January 2019 (AP) Last week US District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson warned Mr Stone, who has made several high-profile media appearances since his arrest, that he could be subjected to a gag order if he continues to talk about the criminal case. The special counsels office said the Justice Department had gathered evidence from his iCloud accounts, email accounts and computer hardware spanning several years. The political strategist has vowed never to testify against Mr Trump. Since returning as speaker of the House of Representatives in January, Nancy Pelosi has emerged as the face of a revitalised resistance movement against Donald Trump. Once written-off, the California Democrat, 78, now finds herself the third-most powerful politician in America after a blue wave saw her party win back the House majority during the November midterms. She and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer have already capitalised on their newfound advantage by standing firm to block the presidents demand for $5.7bn in federal funding to build his much-touted Mexico border wall. The Democratic leaders held out for 35 days during the stand-off the longest US government shutdown in history, beginning before Christmas and running well into the new year forcing President Trump to blink first and back down, a retreat that will have pained him personally. All eyes were on Ms Pelosi during the presidents delayed State of the Union address, waiting keenly for her reactions as he inevitably bragged about his administrations legislative achievements, took credit for an economic miracle and stressed the need for the wall to combat the southern immigration crisis he insists poses a growing danger. President Trump delivers State of the Union address Show all 22 1 /22 President Trump delivers State of the Union address President Trump delivers State of the Union address Nancy Pelosis sarcastic clapping stole Trumps thunder For many the president's speech was overshadowed by Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's applause after his call for political unity, which many interpreted as "sarcastic" AFP/Getty President Trump delivers State of the Union address Trump issues ominous threat over investigations as he rails against immigration and abortion In a State of the Union speech calling on Washington to cast aside revenge, resistance and retribution, Donald Trump was accused of issuing a veiled threat over the investigations dogging his administration. An economic miracle is taking place in the United States and the only thing that can stop it are foolish wars, politics or ridiculous partisan investigations, Mr Trump said AFP/Getty President Trump delivers State of the Union address Congresswomen, dressed in white in tribute to the women's suffrage movement, pose for a photo as they arrive AFP/Getty Images President Trump delivers State of the Union address The 72-year-old harkened back to American achievements, celebrating the moon landing as astronaut Buzz Aldrin looked on from the audience and heralding the liberation of Europe from the Nazis AFP/Getty President Trump delivers State of the Union address He also led the House chamber in singing happy birthday to a Holocaust survivor sitting with first lady Melania Trump. "Together, we represent the most extraordinary nation in all of history. What will we do with this moment? How will we be remembered?" Mr Trump said Getty President Trump delivers State of the Union address Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez dressed in white in an act of solidarity with other women declined to join a standing ovation for Donald Trump despite his purported call for unity Reuters President Trump delivers State of the Union address The president ticked through a litany of issues with crossover appeal, including boosting infrastructure, lowering prescription drug costs and combating childhood cancer Getty President Trump delivers State of the Union address Republican Veronica Escobar reacts as President Trump claims that El Paso, Texas, has become safer due to a wall along the border with Mexico Reuters President Trump delivers State of the Union address Despite no one working in the White House Office of National Aids Policy, and having sacking his HIV advisory council last year, Mr Trump pledged to inject funds to stop the spread of the disease in America by 2030 Getty Images President Trump delivers State of the Union address "Scientific breakthroughs have brought a once-distant dream within reach," the president said. Together, we will defeat Aids in America and beyond." he said Reuters President Trump delivers State of the Union address Trump led the House chamber in singing happy birthday to a Holocaust survivor sitting with first lady Melania Reuters President Trump delivers State of the Union address He also appealed to his political base, both with his harsh rhetoric on immigration and a call for Congress to pass legislation to prohibit the "late-term abortion of children EPA President Trump delivers State of the Union address Women from both political parties wore white outfits tonight at the behest of the Democratic Womens Working Group to honor the legacy of women's suffrage in the United States AFP/Getty President Trump delivers State of the Union address He devoted much of his speech to foreign policy, another area where Republicans have increasingly distanced themselves from the White House EPA President Trump delivers State of the Union address Trump greets Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, alongside Vice President Mike Pence AFP/Getty President Trump delivers State of the Union address US First lady Melania Trump (left) with Grace Eline and Joshua Trump, special guests of President Donald Trump AFP/Getty President Trump delivers State of the Union address Trump announced details of a second meeting with North Korea's Kim Jong Un, outlining a summit in Vietnam starting on 27 February AFP/Getty President Trump delivers State of the Union address "If I had not been elected president of the United States, we would right now, in my opinion, be in a major war with North Korea," he said AFP/Getty President Trump delivers State of the Union address Getty President Trump delivers State of the Union address Supreme Court Justices John Roberts, Elena Kagan and Neil Gorsuch laugh AFP/Getty President Trump delivers State of the Union address President Trump greets lawmakers after delivering his second State of the Union address EPA President Trump delivers State of the Union address Independent Senator from Vermont Bernie Sanders holds his notes EPA Her seemingly sarcastic applause at the conclusion was the moment commentators were waiting for and quickly became a meme, just as her exit from the White House in a red winter coat and sunglasses had in December. Or, for that matter, her appearance on TV to rebut the presidents scaremongering early January broadcast from the Oval Office, appearing side-by-side with Mr Schumer like concerned parents after a curfew had passed or the dour rural siblings of Grant Woods American Gothic (1930). Christine Pelosi, one of the speakers five children, joked on Twitter that the State of the Union clap took her back to her teenage years. President Trump might well have felt similarly. Born in Baltimore, Maryland, in March 1940, Nancy Pelosi is the daughter of activist Annunciata Lombardi and Thomas Big Tommy DAlesandro Jr, a congressman and later the port citys mayor. Acquainted with the Democratic political machine from an early age, Pelosi had a role in the family business as a teenager, helping at her fathers campaign events and answering eight separate phone lines on his behalf. Her brother, Thomas DAlesandro III, would in turn sport Baltimores mayoral chains of office. She attended John F Kennedys inauguration in January 1961 and graduated from the Catholic all-girls high school the Institute of Notre Dame a year later. Before graduating in political science from Trinity College, Washington, she interned with Maryland Senator Daniel Brewster. She married financier Paul Pelosi in September 1963 at Baltimores Cathedral of Mary Our Queen. The couple moved first to Manhattan, then to San Francisco where they settled, Nancy initially a stay at home mother who had five children in six years. Nancy Pelosi poses with her gavel after being sworn-in as Speaker for a second time on 3 January (Getty) By the early 1970s, she returned to politics after befriending California congressman Phillip Burton, working her way up the Democratic Party ranks. In 1976, she helped California governor Jerry Brown win the Maryland primary during an unsuccessful presidential run and was herself elected as the Democratic National Committee member for California, a position she would hold for 20 years. She was chair of the California Democratic Party between 1981 and 1983. That year, Phillip Burton passed away and was succeeded by his wife Sala. She in turn fell ill and decided not to seek re-election in 1988, designating Ms Pelosi as her successor. When Sala Burton died one month into her second term, Ms Pelosi won the special election to replace her and became the 5th Districts new congresswoman. She was one of just 24 women in the 435-seat chamber at the time. In the House of Representatives, she served on the Appropriations and Intelligence committees in the 1990s, campaigning for greater AIDS research funding and for a San Francisco military base abandoned in 1994 to be turned into a national park. She succeeded and the Presido near the the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco Bay was opened to the public in 1996. She was elected House minority whip in 2001, the first woman to hold the post, beating Steny Hoyer, an old contemporary from her intern days. A year later she became her partys minority leader when Dick Gephardt of Missouri stepped down, emerging as an outspoken opponent of George W Bushs War on Terror. Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer and speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi deliver a televised response to President Donald Trump's national address about border security at the US Capitol on 8 January (Chip Somodevilla/Getty) ((Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)) This stood her in good stead in 2006 when the Democrats won back their majority after 12 years in the midterms. She was duly elected the first female speaker of the House in American history on 4 January 2007. She was also the first Italian-American and first California speaker. In accepting the gavel, she spoke of her generation having broken the marble ceiling for their daughters and granddaughters, for whom the sky is the limit. Unfortunately for herself, the triumph would be short lived, the Democrats surrendering their advantage just four years later. Her tenure coincided with the 2008 economic collapse and her chamber pushed through a $840bn stimulus package and legislation backing financial reform and outlawing gender discrimination in pay. She also fought tirelessly for President Obamas Affordable Care Act reforming healthcare, reportedly holding countless meetings and phone calls day and night to secure a yes. In doing so, she became a focal point for Republican outrage and negative campaigning thereafter, making her return to the speakers chair after being unseated in 2011 look entirely unlikely. Nancy Pelosi 'I don't think the President would be that petty, do you-' Close observers credit her subsequent renaissance to a tenacious work ethic and her skill as a fundraiser and organiser. She is said to get up at 5.30am every morning. Her return as speaker came with one major concession, agreeing to eight-year term limits for members of the Democratic leadership. She has said she regards herself as a bridge to the next generation of party leaders at an exciting moment in which 89 of the 235 Democratic members of Congress are women. The fact was celebrated when they all wore white in solidarity with the suffragettes at the State of the Union. This House will be for the people, she promised as she was sworn-in for a second time on 3 January 2019. Pointedly, she also quoted Ronald Reagans final speech as president: If we ever close the door to new Americans, our leadership role in the world will soon be lost. Perhaps her most scorching burn of recent days came when she was asked by a reporter whether Mr Trump had denied her the use of a military plane to take a congressional delegation to Afghanistan as an act of revenge after she had suggested he postpone the State of the Union. I dont think the president would be that petty, do you? John Dingell, the longest serving member of the US Congress in history, has died, according to Detroit News. Dingell, a Michigan Democrat, was 92. Before his reported death, Dingell had entered hospice in poor health on Wednesday. His wife, Representative Debbie Dingell, had said she did not attend Donald Trumps second State of the Union on Tuesday in order to be with her husband. He is my love and we have been a team for nearly 40 years, Ms Dingell tweeted on Wednesday. Dingell was known as a an old-school Democrat who retired from his position, and was honoured by former President Barack Obama as one of the most influential legislators of all time. Mr Obama then awarded the former congressman the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2014. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty His death follows roughly a year after he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, according to his family. He decided not to treat the cancer, and instead chose to enter hospice care. Dingell spent nearly six decades in Congress, and was known for his work on several landmark legislative victories. Those included the 1965 legislation that created Medicare, the 1973 Endangered Species Act, and the Affordable Care Act, which Mr Obama saw pass as his signature legislative achievement in 2010. The former congressman was born in 1926, and grew up during the Great Depression. He then served in the US Army, before studying at Georgetown University. After death, Dingell regularly used his Twitter account to poke fun at Mr Trump, and regularly challenged his policy on the platform. With freshman Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez leading the charge, Democrats in Congress have unveiled their ambitious Green New Deal that would implement sweeping reforms with the promise to drastically reduce US carbon emissions while adding millions of jobs and investing heavily in American infrastructure. On Thursday, Ms Ocasio-Cortez was joined by Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey in announcing the slate of measures, with reads as something of a progressive manifesto with the lofty ambition to overhaul the American economy and, hopefully, save the world from the dangers posed by climate change. Today is the day that we truly embark on a comprehensive agenda of economic, social and racial justice in the United States of America, Ms Ocasio-Cortez said from outside the US Capitol. Thats what this agenda is all about, she said. Because climate change climate change and our environmental changes are one of the biggest existential threats to our way of life not just as a nation but as a world. In his remarks, Mr Markey compared the plan set forth by himself and Ms Ocasio-Cortez to the kinds of efforts taken before by American visionaries to bring astronauts to the moon. Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges Show all 25 1 /25 Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges Demonstrators block Westminster Bridge in central London to show anger at government inaction on climate and ecological issues AFP/Getty Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges A pro environment protester is arrested by police on Lambeth bridge in London EPA Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges Organised by Extinction Rebellion, the protest is part of many taking place this weekend to bring attention to political inaction on issues of pollution and climate change Reuters Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges AFP/Getty Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges Organised by Extinction Rebellion, the protest is part of many taking place this weekend to bring attention to political inaction on issues of pollution and climate change PA Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges Demonstrators on Blackfriars Bridge PA Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges Police with demonstrators on Blackfriars Bridge PA Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges AFP/Getty Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges EPA Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges A demonstrator is led away by police on Blackfriars Bridge PA Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges Reuters Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges PA Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges Reuters Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges AFP/Getty Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges AFP/Getty Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges PA Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges EPA Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges EPA Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges EPA Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges PA Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges Reuters Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges EPA Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges AFP/Getty Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges EPA Extinction rebellion: Climate change protesters block London bridges Reuters I say today that it is time for us to be bold once again," he said. "We have the technology to do it. We have the moral obligation. We have the economic imperative. We just need the political will to get this done. The sun is setting on the dirty energy of the past. Today marks the dawn of a new era of climate action". Heres what you need to know: The deal is not a piece of legislation it is a framework for a dramatic restructuring of the US economy The resolution released by Ms Ocasio-Cortez and Mr Markey offer a range of actions that they view as necessary to combat the immense threats posed by climate change. It is also non-binding, meaning that it would not be necessary for the provisions to be enacted if it is voted on and passed. With 60 House cosponsors and nine cosponsors in the Senate, the ideas put forth would include massive infrastructure investment challenges already posed by climate change, including efforts to mitigate the increasing impacts of drought, wildfires, and rising sea levels the world has already seen. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events The deal also focuses on economic concerns of Americans who are suffering from wage stagnation, and a growing wealth disparity in the country. Altogether, the relatively short document released on Thursday by supporters of the deal includes a preamble, five goals, 14 projects, and 15 requirements. The deal proposes a prescription to combat rising costs of climate change Recent climate change reports have put forth dramatic predictions on how damaging climate change will be. Forests will burn as a result of drought, food will become scarce, coastal communities will flood, and any number of species on Earth could face significant hardship. By 2100, according to some estimates, climate change could lead to as much as $500bn in lost output. Meanwhile, the United Nations warned late last year that the world has just 12 years to keep global temperatures from raising above 1.5C before risking any number of climate related catastrophes, a report that serves to underline the urgency of the deal put forth by Democrats on Thursday. To combat those costs, the Green New Deal would call for a net-zero carbon emission output in the United States, achieved in part by investment in green American transportation and renewable energies. The loft goal set forth by Democrats would see that emission rate by 2030. Vulnerable communities are a particular focus in the resolution As climate change impacts are felt across the country and globe, those most vulnerable in society will be on the front lines, the document says. That includes communities of color, indigenous people, migrant workers, and the elderly, amongst others. Climate change, pollution and environmental destruction have exacerbated systemic racial, regional, social, environment and economic injustices, the resolution states. The deal has been received with mixed reaction While some groups praised the Green New Deals unveiling including some 2020 Democratic hopefuls not all are on board with the approach. Progressive groups have criticized the effort for a lack of concrete actions within the resolution itself. The deal sets forth worthy and ambitious goals, those critics have said, but the climate crisis needs concrete legislation. We urgently need a bold and ambitious Green New Deal that tackles fossil fuels head-on, Wenonah Hauter, the executive director of the progressive environmental non-profit Food & Water Watch, told ABC News. We support the ambition and scale of this resolution, and we are heartened by its recognition that climate change poses a grave threat to healthy food and clean water, but any legislation that does not explicitly address the urgent need to keep fossil fuels in the ground is insufficient. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has used a speech before finance watchdogs to expose the vast conflicts of interest which shape American politics. In just three minutes the Democrat congresswoman laid bare the almost total absence of rules stopping lawmakers from being bought off by wealthy corporations. We have a system with right now which is fundamentally broken, she concluded after her question and answer session with a panel of senior figures from campaign finance watchdog groups. The 29-year-old told the officials she wanted to imagine what she could do within the current rules if she was a bad guy who wanted to enrich myself and advance my interest, even if that means putting that ahead of the American people. Lets say I have some skeletons in my closet that I need to cover up so I can get elected. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - the Democratic congresswoman in pictures Show all 15 1 /15 Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - the Democratic congresswoman in pictures Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - the Democratic congresswoman in pictures Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez greets fellow lawmakers ahead of the State of the Union address Getty Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - the Democratic congresswoman in pictures Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez participates in an event with Democratic members of Congress EPA Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - the Democratic congresswoman in pictures The Democrat senator speaks during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol January 30, 2019 Getty Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - the Democratic congresswoman in pictures Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and fellow Democrat Rashida Tlaib AP Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - the Democratic congresswoman in pictures Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at the Senate chamber to watch two votes on January 24, 2019 Getty Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - the Democratic congresswoman in pictures Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez arrives with Chellie Pingree at a House Democratic Caucus meeting Getty Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - the Democratic congresswoman in pictures Ocasio-Cortez during Donald Trump's State of the Union address Reuters Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - the Democratic congresswoman in pictures New York State Assembly member Catalina Cruz with Ocasio-Cortez AFP/Getty Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - the Democratic congresswoman in pictures Nydia Velazquez talks with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Reuters Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - the Democratic congresswoman in pictures Ocasio-Cortez casts her vote for Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House EPA Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - the Democratic congresswoman in pictures Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez poses with a campaign worker during a whistle stop in the Queens borough of New York Reuters Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - the Democratic congresswoman in pictures Ocasio-Cortez outside the US Capitol AFP/Getty Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - the Democratic congresswoman in pictures Ocasio-Cortez after casting her ballot in the 2018 midterm general election at a polling site in New York EPA Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - the Democratic congresswoman in pictures Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez looks on during a march organised by the Women's March Alliance in Manhattan Reuters Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - the Democratic congresswoman in pictures Ocasio Cortez looks on at the Capitol in Washington, DC, on January 16, 2019 AFP/Getty If I want to run a campaign that is entirely funded by corporate political action committees, is there anything that legally prevents me from doing that? she asked. The panel admitted there were no regulations stopping politicians from pursuing such a course of action. Ms Ocasio-Cortez then went further: So I use my special interest dark money-funded campaign to pay off folks that I need to pay off to get elected. Now Im elected I have the power to draft, lobby and shape the laws that govern the USA. I can be totally funded by oil and gas, by big pharma, and theres no limit to that whatsoever. The congresswoman, who represents New Yorks 14th district, then noted how a corrupt legislator could even buy stocks in a company, then write laws deregulating that industry, causing the share price to soar and pocket a huge profit. State of the Union: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez refuses to stand after Trump's call for unity You could do that, confirmed one of the officials, adding that even the minor ethics regulations which did apply to members of Congress did not affect the president. So I and every member of this body are being held to a higher ethical standard than the president of the United States, Ms Ocasio-Cortez concluded. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Its already super legal as we have seen for me to be a pretty bad guy. So its even easier for the president to be one. Ms Ocasio-Cortez won her seat in congress by unseating long-time Democrat elder statesmen Joe Crowley, who outspent her in the primary campaign 18 to 1. Almost 75 per cent of her campaign funding came from small individual donations, compared to just 1 per cent for Mr Crowley, who was mostly funded by larger businesses. A bipartisan group of US politicians has introduced legislation that would allow transgender people to serve openly in the military, after the Supreme Court moved to allow Donald Trump's ban to go into effect last month. The legislation was introduced by senators Kirsten Gillibrand, Susan Collins, and Jack Reed in the Senate and representatives Jackie Speier, Joseph Kennedy, John Katko, Susan Davis and Anthony Brown in Congress. It would prohibit the Department of Defence from denying the enlistment or continued service of transgender people solely on the basis of their gender identity. Transgender rights advocates hailed the legislation as a step towards ensuring the equal treatment of transgender service members. "The bills introduced today affirm that anyone who meets military standards should be able to serve their country," said Jennifer Levi, the director of the GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders' Transgender Rights Project, in a statement. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty "We appreciate that leaders in congress are stepping in to protect our troops and work for a solution at the same time our legal fight for the rights of transgender service members continues. In July 2017, Mr Trump announced in a tweet that he would ban transgender people from serving in the military, a move that reversed an Obama administration rule allowing transgender troops to serve openly. Several lower courts have blocked the Trump administration's policy. But last month, the Supreme Court allowed Mr Trump's restrictions to go into effect, even as the legal battle continues to make its way through the courts. The Washington Post A Colombian veterinarian who surgically implanted liquid heroin in puppies has been sentenced to six years in prison for conspiracy to import the drugs to the US. Between 2004 and 2005, Andres Lopez Elorez raised the animals on a farm in the city of Medellin. He then placed bags of liquid heroin inside the animals on behalf of drugs cartels. Elorez was arrested in Spain in 2015 before he was extradited to the US to face drug-smuggling charges. A judge US District Court in Brooklyn judge has now sentenced him to six years in jail. Prosecutor Alicia Washington, told the court that when law enforcement officials found the puppies some already filled with heroin and others being prepared for surgery they tried to remove the balloons from the dogs that were still alive. Colombian police stormed the farm in Medellin, seizing the 17 bags of liquid heroin, 10 of which were already implanted in the puppies (DEA/ AP) Three puppies later died, however, after contracting viruses from the emergency operations. Several of the dogs have since found new homes, including one Rottweiler who is now a drug detection dog for the Colombian national police, and a beagle who was adopted by a Colombian police officer, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. Urging the judge to hold the 39-year-old responsible for betraying his responsibility as a veterinarian, Ms Washington suggested as many as nine years in prison, adding, Without his skill set these Colombian traffickers couldnt have done what they did. Elorez, who pleaded guilty to the conspiracy in September, approached the judge with his hands crossed behind his back. Speaking through an interpreter, he called the five-month span 2005 when he rented the farm, raised the puppies and conducted the surgeries a very difficult time for me. He added: They were formative years for me personally and professionally. Recommended Four things we learnt this week in the explosive El Chapo trial Court proceedings and filings show that Elorez did not work alone. Mitchell Dinnerstein, his court-appointed attorney, mentioned an unnamed veterinarian of some influence in Colombia, who has never been arrested in connection with the conspiracy. That veterinarian, who had ties to drug traffickers, had mentored Elorez, securing him an internship and stipend and eventually orchestrating the puppy project, Mr Dinnerstein said. Elorez said the mentor did everything he could professionally to help me out, and also taught me that there was a door I should never open, but unfortunately I did open it. Then, on 1 January 2005, the Colombian police stormed the farm in Medellin, seizing the 17 bags of liquid heroin 10 of which were already implanted in the puppies totalling almost 3kg. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Elorez fled to Spain, using Venezuelan documents and settling in Galicia, where he eventually married and raised two children. He eluded authorities until 2015, assisting veterinarians and undergoing a total transformation, according to his attorney. I know I cannot justify my actions, Elorez told the judge. Because I have made mistakes. Two floors below the courtroom, jurors were deliberating the fate of Joaquin Guzman Loera, the Mexican drug kingpin known as El Chapo, who has gained notoriety for his novel smuggling techniques. Testimony from Guzmans trial has detailed his systems of transporting drugs on sea vessels, in the bedding of trucks and even hidden in cans of chili peppers. The New York Times A Muslim inmate who filed a legal challenge after the state of Alabama refused to allow his religious adviser to be present during his execution has been put to death. Dominique Ray, 42, was executed by lethal injection on Thursday in Altmore over the 1995 rape and murder of 15-year-old Tiffany Harville. Ray had argued procedures in Alabama favour Christian inmates because a chaplain employed by the prison remains inside the execution chamber as the death sentence is carried out. The prisoner had wanted his imam, Yusef Maisonet, present during the lethal injection process. However, attorneys for the state said only prison employees were allowed to enter the chamber for security reasons. Activists protest the death penalty in Texas Show all 6 1 /6 Activists protest the death penalty in Texas Activists protest the death penalty in Texas Family and friends of Jeff Wood and anti-death penalty activists march from the Texas State Capitol to the Office of Governor Greg Abbott to deliver a petition with over 10,000 signatures asking the governor and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to commute Wood's sentence on August 18, 2016 in Austin, Texas. Jeff Wood is scheduled to be executed by the state of Texas on August 24, 2016 under what is referred to as the "law of parties" for a criminal act he committed on January 2, 1996. The Texas law says that if a person, " acting with intent to promote or assist the commission of the offense, he solicits, encourages, directs, aids, or attempts to aid the other person to commit the offense;" then they are criminally responsible for the conduct of another, as well. Tamir Kalifa/AFP/Getty Images Activists protest the death penalty in Texas Carla Harvey adds her name to a petition with over 10,000 signatures asking Governor Greg Abbott and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to commute Jeff Wood's sentence, during a demonstration outside of the Texas State Capitol on August 18, 2016 in Austin, Texas. Family and friends of Jeff Wood and anti-death penalty activists delivered the petition to the Office of the Governor after the demonstration. Jeff Wood is scheduled to be executed by the state of Texas on August 24, 2016 under what is referred to as the "law of parties" for a criminal act he committed on January 2, 1996. The Texas law says that if a person, " acting with intent to promote or assist the commission of the offense, he solicits, encourages, directs, aids, or attempts to aid the other person to commit the offense;" then they are criminally responsible for the conduct of another, as well. Tamir Kalifa/AFP/Getty Images Activists protest the death penalty in Texas A massive explosion guts Mexico's biggest fireworks market in Mexico City, on December 20, 2016. The explosion killed at least 31 people and injured 72, authorities said. The conflagration in the Mexico City suburb of Tultepec set off a quick-fire series of multicolored blasts that sent a vast cloud of smoke billowing over the capital. Tamir Kalifa/AFP/Getty Images Activists protest the death penalty in Texas Darius Broussard adds his name to a petition with over 10,000 signatures asking Governor Greg Abbott and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to commute Jeff Wood's sentence, during a demonstration outside of the Texas State Capitol on August 18, 2016 in Austin, Texas. Family and friends of Jeff Wood and anti-death penalty activists delivered the petition to the Office of the Governor after the demonstration. Jeff Wood is scheduled to be executed by the state of Texas on August 24, 2016 under what is referred to as the "law of parties" for a criminal act he committed on January 2, 1996. The Texas law says that if a person, " acting with intent to promote or assist the commission of the offense, he solicits, encourages, directs, aids, or attempts to aid the other person to commit the offense;" then they are criminally responsible for the conduct of another, as well. Tamir Kalifa/AFP/Getty Images Activists protest the death penalty in Texas Family and friends of Jeff Wood and anti-death penalty activists march from the Texas State Capitol to the Office of Governor Greg Abbott to deliver a petition with over 10,000 signatures asking the governor and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to commute Wood's sentence on August 18, 2016 in Austin, Texas. Jeff Wood is scheduled to be executed by the state of Texas on August 24, 2016 under what is referred to as the "law of parties" for a criminal act he committed on January 2, 1996. The Texas law says that if a person, " acting with intent to promote or assist the commission of the offense, he solicits, encourages, directs, aids, or attempts to aid the other person to commit the offense;" then they are criminally responsible for the conduct of another, as well. Tamir Kalifa/AFP/Getty Images Activists protest the death penalty in Texas Mark Clements (L), who was imprisoned for 28 years before being released and exonerated, encourages passersby to sign a petition with over 10,000 signatures asking Governor Greg Abbott and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to commute Jeff Wood's sentence, during a demonstration outside of the Texas State Capitol on August 18, 2016 in Austin, Texas. Clements joined family and friends of Jeff Wood and anti-death penalty activists to deliver the petition to the Office of the Governor after the demonstration. Jeff Wood is scheduled to be executed by the state of Texas on August 24, 2016 under what is referred to as the "law of parties" for a criminal act he committed on January 2, 1996. The Texas law says that if a person, " acting with intent to promote or assist the commission of the offense, he solicits, encourages, directs, aids, or attempts to aid the other person to commit the offense;" then they are criminally responsible for the conduct of another, as well. Tamir Kalifa/AFP/Getty Images Mr Maisonet was present for the execution, watching from an adjoining witness room after visiting Ray several times in the past week. There was no Christian chaplain in the chamber, a concession the state agreed to make. Strapped to a gurney in the death chamber, Ray was asked by the warden if he had any final words. The inmate said an Islamic statement of his faith in Arabic. The 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday had stayed the execution over the religious arguments, but the US Supreme Court allowed it to proceed in a five to four decision on Thursday evening. Justices cited the fact Ray did not raise the challenge until 28 January as a reason for the decision. However, justice Elena Kagan wrote in a dissent that she considered the decision to let the execution go forward profoundly wrong. Other states generally allow spiritual advisers to accompany condemned inmates up to the execution chamber but not into it, said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Centre, which studies capital punishment in the United States. Mr Durham said he did not know of any other state where the execution protocol called for a Christian chaplain to be present in the execution chamber. Spencer Hahn, one of Rays attorneys, said he was appalled that Ray received unequal treatment at his death because he was a member of a religious minority. He was a son, a father, a brother. He wanted equal treatment in his last moments, Mr Hahn wrote in a statement. Ray was convicted of Tiffany Harvilles murder in 1999 after another man, Marcus Owden, confessed to his role in the crime and implicated Ray. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Owden told police they had picked the girl up for a night out on the town and then raped her, before Ray cut her throat. Owden pleaded guilty to murder, testified against Ray and is serving a life sentence without parole. A jury recommended the death penalty for Ray by an 11 to one vote. Additional reporting by AP Matthew Whitakers hearing in the US House of Representatives Judiciary Committee became combative on Friday as Democrats pressed the acting attorney general for information on the Russia probe led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Mr Whitaker, an appointee of Donald Trump, at one point caused the committee and audience members to gasp in disbelief when he avoided answering a question from the chairman by telling him his time had run out. Mr Chairman, I see that your five minutes is up," he said in response to Jerrold Nadler. The heated exchange arrived after the committee chairman asked Mr Whitaker whether he had ever been asked to approve any request or action to be taken by the special counsel. Mr Whitaker then appeared to respond to the audible disbelief caused by his response, saying, I am here voluntarily. We have agreed to five minute rounds. The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Show all 17 1 /17 The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Paul Manafort Mr Manafort is a Republican strategist and former Trump campaign manager. He resigned from that post over questions about his extensive lobbying overseas, including in Ukraine where he represented pro-Russian interests. Mr Manafort turned himself in at FBI headquarters to special counsel Robert Muellers team on Oct 30, 2017, after he was indicted under seal on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. Getty The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rick Gates Mr Gates joined the Trump team in spring 2016, and served as a top aide until he left to work at the Republican National Committee after the departure of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Mr Gates' had previously worked on several presidential campaigns, on international political campaigns in Europe and Africa, and had 15 years of political or financial experience with multinational firms, according to his bio. Mr Gates was indicted alongside Mr Manafort by special counsel Robert Mueller's team on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. AP The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation George Papadopoulos George Papadopoulos was a former foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign, having joined around March 2016. Mr Papadopoulos plead guilty to federal charges for lying to the FBI as a part of a cooperation agreement with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Mr Papadopoulos claimed in an interview with the FBI that he had made contacts with Russian sources before joining the Trump campaign, but he actually began working with them after joining the team. Mr Papadopoulos allegedly took a meeting with a professor in London who reportedly told him that Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. The professor also allegedly introduced Mr Papadopoulos to a Russian who was said to have close ties to officials at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mr Papadopoulos also allegedly was in contact with a woman whom he incorrectly described in one email to others in the campaign as the "niece" to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Twitter The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Donald Trump Jr The President's eldest son met with a Russian lawyer - Natalia Veselnitskaya - on 9 June 2016 at Trump Tower in New York. He said in an initial statement that the meeting was about Russia halting adoptions of its children by US citizens. Then, he said it was regarding the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. In a final statement, Mr Trump Jr released a chain of emails that revealed he took the meeting in hopes of getting information Ms Veselnitskaya had about Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. He and the President called it standard "opposition research" in the course of campaigning and that no information came from the meeting. The meeting was set up by an intermediary, Rob Goldstone. Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort were also at the same meeting. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jared Kushner Mr Kushner is President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a key adviser to the White House. He met with a Russian banker appointed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in December. Mr Kushner has said he did so in his role as an adviser to Mr Trump while the bank says he did so as a private developer. Mr Kushner has also volunteered to testify in the Senate about his role helping to arrange meetings between Trump advisers and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rob Goldstone Former tabloid journalist and now music publicist Rob Goldstone is a contact of the Trump family through the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant, which took place in Moscow. In June 2016, he wrote to Donald Trump Jr offering a meeting with a Russian lawyer, Natalya Veselnitskaya, who had information about Hillary Clinton. Mr Goldstone was the intermediary for Russian pop star Emin Agalaraov and his father, real estate magnate Aras, who played a role in putting on the 2013 pageant. In an email chain released by Mr Trump Jr, Mr Goldstone seemed to indicate Russian government's support of Donald Trump's campaign. AP images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Aras and Emin Agalarov Aras Agalarov (R) is a wealthy Moscow-based real estate magnate and son Emin (L) is a pop star. Both played a role in putting on the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. They allegedly had information about Hillary Clinton and offered that information to the Trump campaign through a lawyer with whom they had worked with, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and music publicist Rob Goldstone. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Natalia Veselnitskaya Natalia Veselnitskaya is a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin. She has worked on real estate issues and reportedly counted the FSB as a client in the past. She has ties to a Trump family connection, real estate magnate Aras Agalarov, who had helped set up the Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant which took place in Moscow. Ms Veselnitskaya met with Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort in Trump Tower on 9 June 2016 but denies the allegation that she went there promising information on Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. She contends that the meeting was about the US adoptions of Russian children being stopped by Moscow as a reaction to the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Mike Flynn Mr Flynn was named as Trump's national security adviser but was forced to resign from his post for inappropriate communication with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. He had misrepresented a conversation he had with Mr Kislyak to Vice President Mike Pence, telling him wrongly that he had not discussed sanctions with the Russian. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sergey Kislyak Mr Kislyak, the former longtime Russian ambassador to the US, is at the centre of the web said to connect President Donald Trump's campaign with Russia. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Roger Stone Mr Stone is a former Trump adviser who worked on the political campaigns of Richard Nixon, George HW Bush, and Ronald Reagan. Mr Stone claimed repeatedly in the final months of the campaign that he had backchannel communications with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and that he knew the group was going to dump damaging documents to the campaign of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton - which did happen. Mr Stone also had contacts with the hacker Guccier 2.0 on Twitter, who claimed to have hacked the DNC and is linked to Russian intelligence services. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeff Sessions The US attorney general was forced to recuse himself from the Trump-Russia investigation after it was learned that he had lied about meeting with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Carter Page Mr Page is a former advisor to the Trump campaign and has a background working as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch. Mr Page met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Mr Page had invested in oil companies connected to Russia and had admitted that US Russia sanctions had hurt his bottom line. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeffrey "JD" Gorden Mr Gordon met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republian National Convention to discuss how the US and Russia could work together to combat Islamist extremism should then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump win the election. The meeting came days before a massive leak of DNC emails that has been connected to Russia. Creative Commons The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation James Comey Mr Comey was fired from his post as head of the FBI by President Donald Trump. The timing of Mr Comey's firing raised questions around whether or not the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign may have played a role in the decision. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Preet Bharara Mr Bahara refused, alongside 46 other US district attorney's across the country, to resign once President Donald Trump took office after previous assurances from Mr Trump that he would keep his job. Mr Bahara had been heading up several investigations including one into one of President Donald Trump's favorite cable television channels Fox News. Several investigations would lead back to that district, too, including those into Mr Trump's campaign ties to Russia, and Mr Trump's assertion that Trump Tower was wiretapped on orders from his predecessor. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sally Yates Ms Yates, a former Deputy Attorney General, was running the Justice Department while President Donald Trump's pick for attorney general awaited confirmation. Ms Yates was later fired by Mr Trump from her temporary post over her refusal to implement Mr Trump's first travel ban. She had also warned the White House about potential ties former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to Russia after discovering those ties during the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign's connections to Russia. Getty Images He then remained defiant throughout the meeting, telling lawmakers he would invoke executive privilege in declining to discuss the contents of deliberations or conversations with the president. Democrats repeatedly accused him of running out the clock by giving them evasive or repetitive answers in the hearing. In one case, he refused to answer Democratic congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lees questions with a yes or no, and made a flippant remark about whether the time she had lost on the clock had been restored before he answered her questions. Mr Attorney General, we are not joking here and your humour is not acceptable, she said. But Mr Whitaker did say he had not discussed the Russia probe with the president, either before he worked at the Justice Department or after he became acting attorney general. I have not talked to the president of the United States about the special counsels investigation, he said. During the hearing on Friday, Mr Nadler threatened to force Whitaker to go back in front of the committee for a deposition. Justice Department ethics officials have recommended the acting attorney general recuse himself from overseeing the Russia investigation, a step he chose not to take. Mr Whitaker told lawmakers he has never tried to withhold funding from the special counsels office and never spoke with members of the presidents inner circle about his views on the probe as a private citizen before he joined the Justice Department in 2017. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events It was likely the first and last time that Mr Whitaker will testify as acting attorney general. Mr Trumps nominee for attorney general, William Barr, is expected to face a Senate confirmation vote next week. Additional reporting by Reuters Federal prosecutors are investigating whether the the National Enquirer's parent company violated a cooperation deal with the US Southern District of New York after Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos published a blog alleging the tabloid attempted to blackmail him over an affair. Mr Bezos the world's richest man, and a frequent target of Donald Trump's ire wrote in a blog post on Thursday that the parent company of the tabloid had attempted to force him to release what he said would be a false statement that the organisation's reporting on his private life was not politically motivated. Mr Bezos's post came a month after the National Enquirer published lurid texts between the billionaire and former Fox TV anchor Lauren Sanchez, prompting the Amazon founder to announce he is getting a divorce. In his post on Medium, Mr Bezos charged that representatives for the Enquirer's parent company American Media Inc, which is owned by a close ally of Mr Trump's, David Pecker had threatened to releease further photos Mr Bezos had sent to Ms Sanchez. In emails posted in the blog, representatives of the company can be seen allegedly making the threats. ::Read more about Mr Bezos's Medium post, and the full allegations made, here:: Mr Bezos wrote in his post that the emails were prompted by a the company's interest in silencing him after he launched a private investigation into the means by which the National Enquirer had obtained the texts. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty A few days after hearing about Mr Peckers apoplexy, we were approached, verbally at first, with an offer. They said they had more of my text messages and photos that they would publish if we didnt stop our investigation, Mr Bezos wrote. The new investigation into the National Enquirer's parent company appears to follow after the company agreed to cooperate with investigators after it was determined it had worked to faciliatata hush payment between Mr Trump and former Playboy playmate Karen acDougal, who alleges she had an affair with him before he became president. Mr Trump has denied the affair, as well as other affairs that have been alleged since his election. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events In agreeing to cooperate, AMI admitted to facilitating that payment in the run up to the 2016 election. "AMI admitted that it made the $150,000 payment in concert with a candidate's presidential campaign, and in order to ensure that the woman did not publicize damaging allegations about the candidate before the 2016 presidential election," the Southern District of New York (SDNY) said in a statement announcing the agreement. The SDNY is also the Justice Department arm that investigated Mr Trump's personal attorney, who helped to facilitate the payment to Ms McDougal, as well as adult film actress Stormy Daniels. The release announcing AMI's agreement included the allegation that the payments were made "to suppress the woman's story so as to prevent it from influencing the election". In one of the strongest public remarks ever, a senior representative of China's tech company Huawei on Thursday night rebutted fear-mongering against the company. A Huawei logo at one of its stores in Madrid, Spain, February 7, 2019. [Photo: VCG] In a ballroom in Brussels packed with well over 100 guests, mostly Europeans, Huawei's envoy to the European Union institutions launched into a robust defense of the Chinese technology giant. "Recently, Huawei has been under constant attack by some countries and politicians. We are shocked, or sometimes feel amused, by those ungrounded and senseless allegations," said Abraham Liu, Huawei's vice president for the European region and chief representative to the EU institutions. "For example, yesterday, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, Mr. (Gordon) Sondland, said (that) someone in Beijing (could) remotely run a certain car off the road on 5G network and kill the person that's in it. This is an insult to people's intelligence, let alone the technological experts across the world," Liu said. "Excluding Huawei from the market doesn't mean the network is safe. For example, since Huawei's equipment is not used in the U.S. networks, is the U.S. having the most secure network? The answer is no," Liu said. The company has an excellent cyber security record, Liu said, with its devices being approved by strict reviews by multiple regulators and operators. Huawei's partners in Europe include big-name telecoms operators such as Deutsche Telekom, British Telecom, Vodafone, Orange, Proximus and others. These partners "have publicly endorsed their trust in Huawei. I applaud these sensible approaches," Liu said. "Cyber security should remain a technical issue, instead of an ideological issue. Because technical issues can always be resolved through the right solutions, while an ideological issue can not," he said. Certain western governments and media outlets have consistently cast doubt over Huawei's ownership and governance. Liu made it crystal clear that "Huawei is a 100 percent employee-owned private enterprise," adding that "if we want to pursue our commercial success, we must follow our own business ethics. We have never harmed the interests of any customer or nation." Huawei has more than 12,000 employees in Europe, over 70 percent of whom are hired locally, Liu said. In 2018, the company procured goods and services worth 6.3 billion U.S. dollars from Europe. "For Huawei, Europe has become our second home," he said, adding that "our success is Europe's success. Our loss would be Europe's loss." Jeff Bezos - the worlds richest man and a frequent target of Donald Trumps criticisms - has claimed the National Enquirers parent company sought to blackmail him with a threat to publish intimate photos. A month after the supermarket tabloid published an article that included lurid texts between Mr Bezos and former Fox TV anchor Lauren Sanchez something that led the Amazon founder to announce he was getting divorced he said the magazine was guilty of extortion and blackmail. The magazine and its owner were not after money, but rather a public statement from Mr Bezos that its reporting on his private life was not politically motivated. If he did not agree, he wrote, it would publish a number of salacious photographs including including a below-the-belt selfie. In a post on Medium, Mr Bezos said the parent company of the Enquirer, American Media Inc, which is owned by Donald Trump ally David Pecker, was angry the Amazon boss had launched an inquiry into how the magazine obtained the texts. A few days after hearing about Mr Peckers apoplexy, we were approached, verbally at first, with an offer. They said they had more of my text messages and photos that they would publish if we didnt stop our investigation, wrote Mr Bezos, who is estimated to be valued at $150bn. My lawyers argued that AMI has no right to publish photos since any person holds the copyright to their own photos, and since the photos in themselves dont add anything newsworthy. Inside the Amazon Fulfilment Centres Show all 15 1 /15 Inside the Amazon Fulfilment Centres Inside the Amazon Fulfilment Centres One of Britain's largest centres in Dunfermline, Fife PA Inside the Amazon Fulfilment Centres The centre in Peterborough AFP/Getty Inside the Amazon Fulfilment Centres The centre in Hemel Hempstead PA Inside the Amazon Fulfilment Centres The centre in Robbinsville, New Jersey Getty Inside the Amazon Fulfilment Centres The centre in Tracy, California Reuters Inside the Amazon Fulfilment Centres The centre in Robbinsville, New Jersey Getty Inside the Amazon Fulfilment Centres The centre in Boves, France AFP/Getty Inside the Amazon Fulfilment Centres The centre in Swansea PA Inside the Amazon Fulfilment Centres The centre in Madrid Getty Inside the Amazon Fulfilment Centres The centre in Robbinsville, New Jersey Getty Inside the Amazon Fulfilment Centres The centre in Swansea PA Inside the Amazon Fulfilment Centres The centre in Hemel Hempstead Getty Inside the Amazon Fulfilment Centres The centre in Hemel Hempstead Getty Inside the Amazon Fulfilment Centres 'Amazon Jobs Day', a job fair, at the centre in Robbinsville, New Jersey Getty Inside the Amazon Fulfilment Centres The centre in Boves, France Reuters Mr Bezos and his wife announced last month that they were divorcing after 25 years of marriage, following a period of loving exploration and trial separation. That same day, the Enquirer touted that it would publish alleged intimate text messages between Mr Bezos and Ms Sanchez, whom he was said to be dating, the Associated Press said. As part of the investigation, Mr Bezos turned to Gavin de Becker, a public safety expert and former appointee of Ronald Reagan. Mr De Becker proceeded to tell media that the leak of material against the owner of the Washington Post, was politically motivated. This apparently made the magazines owner angry. In the AMI letters Im making public, you will see the precise details of their extortionate proposal, Mr Bezos wrote. They will publish the personal photos unless Gavin de Becker and I make the specific false public statement to the press that we have no knowledge or basis for suggesting that AMIs coverage was politically motivated or influenced by political forces. Amazon Super Bowl 2019 advert 'Not Everything Makes the Cut' Mr Bezos said the specific threat of publishing intimate images came after he had ignored a general warning that the magazine would act. Among the images the magazine said it would publish was a full-length body selfie of Mr Bezos wearing just a pair of tight black boxer-briefs or trunks, with his phone in his left hand while wearing his wedding ring. Well, that got my attention. But not in the way they likely hoped. Any personal embarrassment AMI could cause me takes a back seat because theres a much more important matter involved here, wrote Mr Bezos. If in my position I cant stand up to this kind of extortion, how many people can? Mr Bezos released a letter he said was from American Media Incs deputy general counsel, Jon Fine, a former Amazon employee, who said he wanted Mr Bezos to say the magazines pursuit of stories about his private life was not politically motivated or influenced by political forces. The Amazon founder has been subjected to repeated attacks from Mr Trump, who recently called him Jeff Bozo in one tweet. Heres a piece of context: My ownership of the Washington Post is a complexifier for me. Its unavoidable that certain powerful people who experience Washington Post news coverage will wrongly conclude I am their enemy, wrote Mr Bezos. President Trump is one of those people, obvious by his many tweets. Also, the Posts essential and unrelenting coverage of the murder of its columnist Jamal Khashoggi is undoubtedly unpopular in certain circles. Mr Bezos pointed out that last year it was reported Mr Pecker had entered into an immunity deal with the Department of Justice related to his role in the so-called catch and kill process on behalf of Mr Trump. Recommended Tabloid admits paying off Playboy model to protect Trump 2016 campaign In 2016, the magazine is said to have paid $150,000 to former model Karen McDougal, who said she had an affair with Mr Trump. The magazine also allegedly tipped off Mr Trumps then lawyer, Michael Cohen, that adult actress Stormy Daniels was seeking to sell a similar story; Cohen paid her $130,000 to keep her story quiet on the eve of the election. In December, Cohen was sentenced to three years in jail for the payments, which he said he made at the behest of Mr Trump and which a court found were a violation of campaign finance laws. These communications cement AMIs long-earned reputation for weaponising journalistic privileges, hiding behind important protections, and ignoring the tenets and purpose of true journalism, said Mr Bezos. Of course I dont want personal photos published, but I also wont participate in their well-known practice of blackmail, political favours, political attacks, and corruption. I prefer to stand up, roll this log over, and see what crawls out. Reuters said AMI did not immediately return a request for comment. American Media has launched an investigation into extortion claims made by Jeff Bezos after the billionaire entrepreneur published exchanges between his team and the media company in a revealing Medium post. In a statement responding to the allegations, American Media said it believes fervently that it acted lawfully in the reporting of the story of Mr Bezos but nonetheless, in light of the nature of the allegations published by Mr Bezos, the board has convened and determined that it should promptly and thoroughly investigate the claims. Upon completion of that investigation, the board will take whatever appropriate action is necessary, the statement continued. The investigation follows claims Mr Bezos made on Thursday, alleging he was the target of extortion and blackmail by the publisher of the National Enquirer, which he said threatened to publish revealing personal photos of him unless he stopped investigating how the tabloid obtained his private exchanges with his mistress. In detailing his interactions with American Media, or AMI, Mr Bezos who is also the owner of The Washington Post, said the tabloid wasnt seeking money, but rather wanted him to make a public statement claiming the Enquirers coverage was not politically motivated. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty The accusations add another twist to a high-profile clash between the worlds richest man and the leader of Americas best-known tabloid, a strong backer of Donald Trump. Mr Bezoss investigators have suggested the Enquirers coverage of his affair which included the release of risque texts was driven by dirty politics. Of course I dont want personal photos published, but I also wont participate in their well-known practice of blackmail, political favours, political attacks, and corruption, he wrote of AMI, in explaining his decision to go public. I prefer to stand up, roll this log over, and see what crawls out. The company has admitted in the past that it engaged in whats known as catch-and-kill practices to help Mr Trump become president. The president has been highly critical of Mr Bezos and The Posts coverage of the White House. The Bezos affair became public when the Enquirer published a story in January about his relationship with Lauren Sanchez, a former TV anchor who is also married. Mr Bezos then hired a team of private investigators to find out how the tabloid got the texts and photos the two exchanged. Several days ago, someone at AMI told Mr Bezoss team that the companys chief executive David Pecker was apoplectic about the investigation, he said. AMI later approached Mr Bezoss representatives with an offer. They said they had more of my text messages and photos that they would publish if we didnt stop our investigation, he wrote. Mr Bezos wrote that this week, the tabloids editor, Dylan Howard, emailed an attorney for Bezoss longtime security consultant to describe photos the Enquirer obtained during our newsgathering. The photos include a below the belt selfie of the Amazon CEO, photos of him in tight boxer-briefs and wearing only a towel, and several revealing photos of Ms Sanchez, according to the emails he released. According to the emails, an attorney for AMI offered a formal deal Wednesday. The tabloid wouldnt post the photos if Mr Bezos and his investigators would release a public statement affirming that they have no knowledge or basis to suggest the Enquirers coverage was politically motivated or influenced by political forces. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Mr Bezos said he decided to publish the emails sent to his team rather than capitulate to extortion and blackmail, despite the personal cost and embarrassment they threaten. Additional reporting by AP Brazils recently elected president Jair Bolsonaro is in semi-intensive care after being struck down with pneumonia. The far-right leader, who took office in January, first went to hospital to remove a colostomy bag, which was put in place after he was stabbed in the stomach during the election campaign. He had been expected to only spend a few days in hospital, but doctors said he then developed a fever and pneumonia-like symptoms. He underwent a tomography of the chest and abdomen that showed a good evolution of the intestinal frame and images compatible with pneumonia, a statement from the Albert Einstein hospital in Sao Paolo said. Mr Bolsonaros spokesman said the president was now expected to remain in hospital until next week and he was being treated in the semi-intensive care unit with a 38C fever. Brazil election: far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro wins Presidency Show all 8 1 /8 Brazil election: far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro wins Presidency Brazil election: far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro wins Presidency A man holds an inflatable figure of jailed former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva as supporters of far-right presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro celebrate in front of the National Congress in Brasilia, after the former army captain won Brazil's presidential election AFP/Getty Brazil election: far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro wins Presidency Supporters of the left-wing presidential candidate for the Workers Party (PT), Fernando Haddad, react in Rio AFP/Getty Brazil election: far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro wins Presidency Police officers patrol the streets during a gathering of supporters of the left-wing presidential candidate for the Workers Party AFP/Getty Brazil election: far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro wins Presidency Fernando Haddad, presidential candidate of Brazil's leftist Workers Party (PT), is kissed by his wife Ana Estela Haddad Reuters Brazil election: far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro wins Presidency EPA Brazil election: far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro wins Presidency AFP/Getty Images Brazil election: far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro wins Presidency AFP/Getty Images Brazil election: far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro wins Presidency REUTERS But the controversial president has reassured Brazilians he is not seriously unwell. In a tweet he said: Be careful not to be sensationalist. We are very relaxed, well and remain steady. Recommended Jair Bolsonaro pulls Brazil from UN pact designed to protect migrants Doctors said although Mr Bolsonaro was not able to eat solid food, he was doing walking exercises and was not in pain. The presidential spokesman also said the 63-year-old was looking forward to a meal of steak and chips when he was discharged. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Under the Brazilian constitution, the vice president, retired general Hamilton Mourao, would step in should Mr Bolsonaro be unable to carry out his duties. Despite once serving with Mr Bolsonaro in the military when the president was also a soldier, Mr Mourao has already clashed with him over several issues. A woman intervened in an apparent fight between two dogs, only to discover one of the combatants was in fact a mountain lion. The Idaho woman leapt into the action after spotting her dog facing off with another animal. As she pulled the two animals apart, she realised that in one hand she held a juvenile male mountain lion, about 35 pounds, and not another dog as she expected, said the Idaho department of fish and game in a statement. The woman called for her husband to grab a gun from inside their house in Mackay, Custer County. Her husband responded and quickly dispatched the mountain lion as she held on to it, added the IDFG. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty The couple called local authorities and an officer from the department arrived to collect the carcass of the cougar. It will be tested at a wildlife forensic laboratory to determine if disease may have played a part in the lions behaviour, the IDFG said. The woman and her dog both suffered scratches from the mountain lion but were doing fine, the department added. The incident on 30 January was the third reported mountain lion attack on a dog in Idaho last month. Such attacks typically increase in winter as the cats emerge from snowy mountain area in hunt of deer and elk. Earlier this week a man strangled to death a mountain lion after it attacked him as a ran on a trail in Horsetooth Mountain Park in Colorado. The runner, whose name has not been released, was jogging alone when the cougar pounced and bit him on the face and wrist. The man fought back and choked the mountain lion with his bare hands, according to Colorado Parks and Wildlife. A groom was led away from his Pennsylvania wedding in handcuffs after allegedly sexually assaulting a teenage waitress and beginning a brawl. Matthew Aimers, 31, from Willingboro, New Jersey, was arrested on November 25 after reportedly asking a waitress at the reception, held at the Northampton Valley Country Club, if they could go outside and makeout, according to an affidavit reviewed by The Philadelphia Inquirer. After the waitress, whose age and name has not been released, denied Mr Aimers request, the groom reportedly told her they could do whatever she wanted. Mr Aimers then allegedly followed the teenage waitress into the womens bathroom, where he groped her and exposed himself, before offering her $100, according to the affidavit. The waitress told police the experience left her shaken". US sexual assault statistics Show all 8 1 /8 US sexual assault statistics US sexual assault statistics Graphiq US sexual assault statistics Graphiq US sexual assault statistics Graphiq US sexual assault statistics Graphiq US sexual assault statistics Graphiq US sexual assault statistics Graphiq US sexual assault statistics Graphiq US sexual assault statistics Graphiq Northampton Township Police were called to the wedding hours later, when a fight broke out. According to police reports, when officers arrived, they found Mr Aimers pushing and punching people. The altercation reportedly started after Aimers punched an employee whod attempted to stop the groom from bringing alcohol outside. When police attempted to restrain Mr Aimers, he allegedly tried to board a shuttle bus - at which point officers demanded he leave. According to authorities, Mr Aimers refused to comply at first and began calling officers derogatory names, before he was eventually removed from the bus and taken into custody. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Mr Aimers was reportedly charged with indecent assault, indecent exposure, false imprisonment of a minor and other offenses, and faces a preliminary hearing for sex assault on 21 February. It is not clear whether he has a lawyer or has yet had the chane to enter a plea. A cat who was found "frozen and unresponsive" after it was buried by snow has made a complete recovery. Fluffy was found with snow and ice frozen to her fur in the Montanan city of Kalispell last week, when temperatures dropped as low as -13C. Fearing the worst her owners rushed her to the Animal Clinic of Kalispell nearby. The cat was so cold her body temperature didnt even register on the facility's thermometers. But after a few hours of vets using warm blankets and a hairdryer to wake her up, Fluffy began to show signs of recovery. Niagara Falls freezes over with mesmerising results Show all 25 1 /25 Niagara Falls freezes over with mesmerising results Niagara Falls freezes over with mesmerising results A view of the Canadian Horseshoe Falls as steam rises AFP/Getty Niagara Falls freezes over with mesmerising results A tourists take pictures of the Canadian Horseshoe falls AFP/Getty Niagara Falls freezes over with mesmerising results Steam rises from the falls as a woman takes pictures AFP/Getty Niagara Falls freezes over with mesmerising results Steam rises from the US Niagara Falls before sunrise AFP/Getty Niagara Falls freezes over with mesmerising results Water flows around ice, formed on the American Falls in Niagara Falls, New York, due to subzero temperatures, viewed from the Canadian side, in Ontario Reuters Niagara Falls freezes over with mesmerising results AFP/Getty Niagara Falls freezes over with mesmerising results AFP/Getty Niagara Falls freezes over with mesmerising results Ice and snow cover branches near the brink of the Horseshoe Falls, due to subzero temperatures in Niagara Falls Reuters Niagara Falls freezes over with mesmerising results Reuters Niagara Falls freezes over with mesmerising results AFP/Getty Niagara Falls freezes over with mesmerising results A couple takes a photo of the ice Reuters Niagara Falls freezes over with mesmerising results AFP/Getty Images Niagara Falls freezes over with mesmerising results AFP/Getty Images Niagara Falls freezes over with mesmerising results Reuters Niagara Falls freezes over with mesmerising results AFP/Getty Niagara Falls freezes over with mesmerising results Visitors take a "selfie" as ice and snow coat a railing near the brink of the Horseshoe Falls Reuters Niagara Falls freezes over with mesmerising results Reuters Niagara Falls freezes over with mesmerising results Reuters Niagara Falls freezes over with mesmerising results Reuters Niagara Falls freezes over with mesmerising results Reuters Niagara Falls freezes over with mesmerising results Reuters Niagara Falls freezes over with mesmerising results Reuters Niagara Falls freezes over with mesmerising results Reuters Niagara Falls freezes over with mesmerising results Reuters Niagara Falls freezes over with mesmerising results Reuters The clinic, posted pictures of the cats recovery on its Facebook page, which have since gone viral. The first shows her lying on a tiled floor covered in snow, while another shows a vet using a hairdryer on her fur. Fluffy the cat had a miraculous recovery after she was found frozen and unresponsive after being buried in snow in Kalispell, Montana, on 31 January 2019. (Facebook/Animal Clinic of Kalispell) The final image shows Fluffy looking like she is back to her usual self. The clinic posted alongside the images: Amazing success and survival story from this week. Some clients found their injured cat buried in snow. They brought her to us essentially frozen and unresponsive. Fluffy the cat had a miraculous recovery after she was found frozen and unresponsive after being buried in snow in Kalispell, Montana, on 31 January 2019. (Facebook/Animal Clinic of Kalispell) "Her temperature was very low but after many hours she recovered and is now completely normal. Fluffy is amazing. The US has experienced record low temperatures in recent weeks with some places hitting -49C. They were blamed for at least 21 deaths. Niagara Falls was also completely frozen over last week after temperatures in Ontario, Canada, dropped to 18C. The sudden extreme temperatures are the result of a polar vortex a weather phenomenon that occurs in the winter and impacts parts of the northern hemisphere. A mother in Iowa was found guilty for killing her four-month-old son after the boy was found dead in a maggot-infested swing while suffering extreme nappy rash. It took jurors at Plymouth County courthouse four hours to determine that Cheyanne Harris, 21, was guilty of first-degree murder and child endangerment causing death. On 30 August 2017, Sterling Koehn, the baby boy, was found lifeless and bleeding from his mouth in his swing in a stifling bedroom in an apartment in Chickasaw County. The autopsy found he died from malnutrition, dehydration and an E. coli infection. The infection is likely caused from wearing a maggot-infested nappy for up to two weeks. Harris was arrested after medics discovered the dead baby. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty The authorities said she had new nappies and baby ointments to treat the rash in her home, according to the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier. In Iowa, a first-degree murder conviction has a mandatory life-sentence in prison without parole. Zachary Koehn, the 29-year-old father of the boy, has already been convicted and is serving a life prison sentence for the same charges. Witnesses told the court the apartment where the baby was discovered smelled of urine and faeces. Jordan Clark, a former friend of the babys father, testified in court that he didnt even know Koehn had a son. Harris and Koehn also have another child, a two-year-old girl, who appears to be healthy. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Harris fed the baby boy the night before he was found, chief deputy Reed Palo said. A forensic entomologist a scientist who studies insects said the baby boy had been sitting in the maggot-infested swing for nine to 14 days in the same nappy. Nichole Watt, Harriss attorney, also used mental health as a defence. Harris, who confessed to using meth a few weeks before her sons death, claimed postpartum depression and argued intoxication, or diminished responsibility". The monster in this case is mental health, Ms Watt said. The monster in this case is depression." Bruce McArthur has been sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for at least 25 years after pleading guilty in January to eight counts of first-degree murder. McArthur sexually assaulted, killed and dismembered men he met in Torontos Gay Village district over seven years. Police narrowed a list of suspects in the case after seeing surveillance video of the last victim, Andrew Kinsman, enter a red Dodge Caravan in 2017. They later linked that vehicle to McArthur and found Kinsmans blood and semen in it after McArthur sold it to a wreck yard. He staged photos of some of his victims after they died, posing corpses in fur coats and cigars in their mouths, a prosecutor said Monday as the sentencing hearing began. Prosecutor Michael Cantlon said McArthur would later access some of the photos long after the killings. The prosecution didnt display the images found on McArthurs electronic devices during the session, but said they included after-death photos of six of the eight victims. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty Victims were posed naked, with cigars in their mouth, shaved, and/or made to wear a fur coat and hat, Mr Cantlon said. He also said police found a naked man handcuffed to the bed when they raided McArthurs home and arrested him last year on 18 January. He said police moved in when they realized McArthur had someone over. The man, who survived, was identified only as Middle Eastern and named John. McArthur, now 67, moved to the Toronto area around 2000 and previously lived in a suburb where he was married, raised two children and worked as a traveling salesman of underwear and socks. His landscaping business was small, but he periodically hired workers, including a 40-year-old man who disappeared in 2010. The victims fit a pattern: Most were of Middle Eastern or South Asian descent and lived on the margins of Canadian society. Their disappearances attracting little attention. Recommended Serial killer was about to murder ninth victim when police knocked Many of the victims had ties to Torontos LGBT village and had a social life within that community. Many met or corresponded with Mr. McArthur through dating apps, Mr Cantlon said. Some were forced to live parts of their life in secret because of their orientation. Some lacked stable housing. There is evidence that Mr. McArthur sought out and exploited these vulnerabilities to continue his crimes undetected, the prosecutor said. One victim hid the fact that he was gay from his Muslim family. Another was a recent immigrant with a drug problem. Another was a refugee who was ordered deported. Another alleged victim was homeless, smoked crack cocaine and worked as a prostitute. Mr Cantlon said most of the killings were facilitated under the pretense of sex. He said McArthur repeatedly strangled his victims with rope. The prosecutor said McArthur shaved victims after he killed them and kept some hair stored. He also held onto items belonging to them. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Mr Cantlon also said McArthur has shown some remorse by pleading guilty to the charges. He said there is no evidence McArthur has murdered anyone else. Additional reporting by AP. More follows Sierra Leone has declared a national emergency on rape and sexual assault after a surge in recorded cases. President Julius Maada Bio said each month hundreds of cases of rape and sexual assault are being reported against women, girls and babies. He said fatalities included three-month-olds and that 70 per cent of survivors are under 15. More than 8,500 cases were recorded last year, according to police statistics, just over double the number recorded in 2017. President Bio said he wanted to bring awareness to the issue since thousands of cases are unreported because of a culture of silence or indifference in the west African nation. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty The president said he had now made sexual penetration of minors punishable by life imprisonment. The current law carries a maximum penalty of 15 years, and very few cases have been prosecuted. No-confidence motions against Labour MP Luciana Berger have been withdrawn, in a row that has sparked a call by deputy leader Tom Watson to suspend her local party. Activists in Liverpool Wavertree backed down after widespread condemnation of their move and accusations of antisemitism. Now Mr Watson has attacked their actions as intolerable and urged general secretary Jennie Formby to suspend the local party for bringing Labour into disrepute. Earlier, Labour MPs attacked John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, after he suggested Ms Berger was to blame for the clash with her local party by failing to rule out joining a new centrist party. They said she was being targeted as part of years of antisemitic abuse and was a victim of outrageous racism in Labour. Mr Watson had quickly distanced himself from Mr McDonnell and demanded support for Ms Berger as the subject of racist abuse, the subject of misogynistic abuse, the subject of bullying and antisemitism. In a letter sent to Ms Formby, he wrote: This behaviour by her local party is intolerable. The actions of her constituency are not only threating towards Luciana personally but are bringing our party into disrepute. I am therefore requesting that you take the necessary steps to suspend Liverpool Wavertree Constituency Labour Party. Protests against Labour antisemitism Show all 14 1 /14 Protests against Labour antisemitism Protests against Labour antisemitism Protesters clashed during the demonstration Reuters Protests against Labour antisemitism Members of the Jewish community hold a protest against Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn and antisemitism in the Labour Party AFP/Getty Protests against Labour antisemitism Protesters hold placards and flags during a demonstration, organised by the British Board of Jewish Deputies for those who oppose antisemitism, in Parliament Square Reuters Protests against Labour antisemitism Hundreds of people gathered in Parliament Square to protest against antisemitism in the Labour Party EPA Protests against Labour antisemitism Labour MP Luciana Berger speaks during the protest PA Protests against Labour antisemitism A protester blows through a shofar during the demonstration Getty Protests against Labour antisemitism Members of London's Jewish community protest in support of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn outside parliament EPA Protests against Labour antisemitism Labour MP John Mann speaks during a protest against antisemitism PA Protests against Labour antisemitism People protest against antisemitism in the Labour Party as Jewish community leaders have launched a scathing attack on Jeremy Corbyn, claiming he has sided with antisemites again and again PA Protests against Labour antisemitism Labour politicians Stella Creasy and Chuka Umunna leave after attending the demonstration Getty Protests against Labour antisemitism A pro-Jeremy Corbyn protester holds a placard during a counter-protest Getty Protests against Labour antisemitism A support of the Labour Party hold up a placard during the demonstration Reuters Protests against Labour antisemitism Jeremy Corbyn supporters during the demo Reuters Protests against Labour antisemitism A protester holds up a sign reading For the many, not the Jew AFP The first of two motions against Ms Berger, which were to be put to a vote on 17 February, accused the MP of continuously criticising our leader when she should be working for a general election and opposing the Tories. The other also highlighted alleged undermining of Jeremy Corbyn, claiming she is continually using the media to criticise the man we all want to be prime minister. However, one of the motions was proposed by a member who previously called Ms Berger, the parliamentary chair of the Jewish Labour Movement, a disruptive Zionist. Nevertheless, Mr McDonnell while saying it would be completely wrong if the motions were a response to Ms Berger standing up to antisemitism insisted there were other motivations. It looks as though theres other issues, he said. It seems on social media, from what Ive seen, whats happened is Luciana has been associated in the media with a breakaway party. Some local party members [and] the media have asked her to deny that. She hasnt been clear in that. Mr McDonnell added: So my advice really, on all of this, is for Luciana to just put this issue to bed. Say very clearly: No, Im not supporting another party, Im not jumping ship. Ms Formby is due to update Labour MPs on progress made in rooting out antisemitism at a meeting of the parliamentary Labour party (PLP) on Monday, having been given a week to do so. The partys ruling national executive committee is believed to have agreed that it will share new data on the number of cases of abuse. John McDonnell has sparked fury by suggesting a Jewish Labour MP facing a vote of no confidence needs to confirm her loyalty to the party. The shadow chancellor said Luciana Berger "hasn't been clear" in distancing herself from reports of a possible breakaway of Labour MPs and called on her to "put the issue to bed". Ms Berger, who has suffered anti-Jewish abuse and been a vocal critic of Jeremy Corbyn's handling of antisemitism, is the subject of two motions of no confidence tabled by party members in her Liverpool Wavertree constituency. One has been proposed by a member who previously called Ms Berger, the parliamentary chair of the Jewish Labour Movement, a "disruptive Zionist". The motion accuses the MP of "continuously criticising our leader when she should be working for a general election and opposing the Tories". Recommended Labour MPs criticise party leaders over response to antisemitism The other claims that she is "continually using the media to criticise the man we all want to be prime minister". They will be debated and put to a vote on 17 February. The move against Ms Berger prompted many Labour MPs to post messages expressing support for her. But Mr McDonnell said that, while it would be "completely wrong" if the motions were a response to Ms Berger standing up to antisemitism, he believed they were instead motivated by doubts over her loyalty to Labour. He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "If people are saying 'look, we are expressing a vote of no confidence because Luciana has stood up and exposed antisemitism in our party', that would be completely wrong and, of course, we would say that is not right. "But it looks as though there's other issues. It seems on social media, from what I've seen, what's happened is Luciana has been associated in the media with a breakaway party. "Some local party members, the media, have asked her to deny that. She hasn't been clear in that." He added: "So my advice really, on all of this, is for Luciana to just put this issue to bed. Say very clearly 'no, I'm not supporting another party, I'm not jumping ship'." Protests against Labour antisemitism Show all 14 1 /14 Protests against Labour antisemitism Protests against Labour antisemitism Protesters clashed during the demonstration Reuters Protests against Labour antisemitism Members of the Jewish community hold a protest against Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn and antisemitism in the Labour Party AFP/Getty Protests against Labour antisemitism Protesters hold placards and flags during a demonstration, organised by the British Board of Jewish Deputies for those who oppose antisemitism, in Parliament Square Reuters Protests against Labour antisemitism Hundreds of people gathered in Parliament Square to protest against antisemitism in the Labour Party EPA Protests against Labour antisemitism Labour MP Luciana Berger speaks during the protest PA Protests against Labour antisemitism A protester blows through a shofar during the demonstration Getty Protests against Labour antisemitism Members of London's Jewish community protest in support of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn outside parliament EPA Protests against Labour antisemitism Labour MP John Mann speaks during a protest against antisemitism PA Protests against Labour antisemitism People protest against antisemitism in the Labour Party as Jewish community leaders have launched a scathing attack on Jeremy Corbyn, claiming he has sided with antisemites again and again PA Protests against Labour antisemitism Labour politicians Stella Creasy and Chuka Umunna leave after attending the demonstration Getty Protests against Labour antisemitism A pro-Jeremy Corbyn protester holds a placard during a counter-protest Getty Protests against Labour antisemitism A support of the Labour Party hold up a placard during the demonstration Reuters Protests against Labour antisemitism Jeremy Corbyn supporters during the demo Reuters Protests against Labour antisemitism A protester holds up a sign reading For the many, not the Jew AFP The claim triggered a furious response from Labour MPs. Responding to the shadow chancellor's suggestion that Ms Berger had not been clear enough in her support for Labour, Ilford North MP Wes Streeting said: "The only thing Luciana isnt clear about is whether she is still welcome in the Labour Party after years of antisemitic abuse. She could dance through the streets of Liverpool singing Oh Jeremy Corbyn and she would still be on the receiving end of antisemitic abuse." Streatham MP Chuka Umunna added: "So a victim of outrageous racism in Labour must promise she will not walk because of that racism and then this can all go away. How about demanding her [constituency Labour party] treats her with the respect she deserves. How about the party deals with that racism. Words fail me. Totally unacceptable." As the row escalated, Labour's deputy leader, Tom Watson, said those seeking the no-confidence vote in Ms Berger "bring disgrace to the party". Speaking in the Commons, he said: "Let us not forget our honourable colleagues on both sides of this House, the subject of death threats, the subject of racist abuse, the subject of misogynistic abuse, the subject of bullying and antisemitism. "As the deputy leader of my party, let me say to the honourable colleagues facing abuse, and in particular my friend and comrade [Ms Berger], that she has our solidarity, our support, as she battles the bullying and hatred from members of her own local party. They bring disgrace to the party that I love." Mr McDonnell's words were also angrily condemned by Jewish community leaders. Jonathan Goldstein, chair of the Jewish Leadership Council, said: "Given the chance to support a fellow MP or play to the baying crowd, John McDonnell chooses the latter. Shameful but not surprising. The bullying nature of the current Labour Party shows its face again." British Jews are leaving the country because of antisemitism, claims rabbi Jonathan Sacks Karen Pollock, chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, called the comments a "disgrace". She wrote on Twitter: "Demanding loyalty from Luciana Berger rather than addressing the racism in your party? What a disgrace. Take responsibility John McDonnell and deal with the racism in your own party. What has Labour become?" Jon Lansman, chair of the influential Momentum campaign group, also appeared to lend his support to Ms Berger. He said: "We are a political party. The messages we send to voters are important. Whether you agree with her politics or not, whether you think she is the best possible MP for her constituency or not, shes suffered appalling abuse. Must we always agree with people to show solidarity? "This is not a selection process. It is just an attack which will have no consequence except damage to the reputation of the party. On someone who has suffered and is still suffering abuse." Jeremy Corbyn is battling to calm a growing Labour civil war over his refusal to support a fresh Brexit referendum, as some of his MPs threatened to quit the party in protest. The Labour leader was forced to justify his intentions after his new offer to help Theresa May deliver Brexit triggered accusations that he had torpedoed his partys policy of keeping a public vote on the table. Amid growing tensions, Mr Corbyn wrote to party members to insist that party backing for a Final Say referendum remained an option hours after furious Labour MPs accused their leader of helping enable Brexit. The backlash was triggered when Mr Corbyn wrote to Ms May on Wednesday evening offering continued discussions in constructive manner with the aim of securing a sensible agreement that can win the support of parliament and bring the country together. Labour would support an exit deal if five conditions were met, he said, including a customs union with the EU and guarantees on workers rights. Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Show all 20 1 /20 Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Brexit supporters outside parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester adjusts her pro-EU wig AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A message to Jeremy Corbyn in support of a peoples vote Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A mock Titanic captained by Theresa May heads towards an iceberg in a stunt by campaigning group Avaaz AP Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters outside parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides are in close contact outside of parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Paintings of Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage speaks to the media at the protests outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A pro-Brexit protester in Parliament Square Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Opposing protesters share the space outside parliament Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester holds EU balloons outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters stand on Westminster Bridge PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage speaks to the media at the protests outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters demonstrate outside the Houses of Parliament EPA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A pro-Brexit protester sets up outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An Avaaz campaigner holds a Peoples Vote life float Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A demonstrator holds a sign advocating a no-deal Brexit outside parliament AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester waves an EU flag on Westminster Bridge PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides demonstrate outside parliament AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides stand near parliament Reuters The move infuriated anti-Brexit MPs pushing for Labour to back giving the public the final say on Brexit, with two suggesting they were considering quitting the party over the issue. Owen Smith, who stood against Mr Corbyn for the party leadership in 2016, said Labour should be opposing the disaster that is Brexit. Asked if Mr Corbyns letter paved the way for Labour MPs to support a Brexit deal put forward by Ms May, he told BBC 5Live: I think thats probably right. My fear is that this is the leadership rolling the pitch for accepting a version of Theresa Mays deal, and I think that will be at odds with our values and damaging to our country and damaging to the politics that weve traditionally believed it. Recommended Labour row over Brexit deepens as remainer MPs hint at quitting party Brexit is a right-wing ideological project and we should be opposing it on those terms. Asked whether he would resign over the issue, Mr Smith admitted he was considering whether he could continue as a Labour MP, saying: I think thats a very good question and I think its something that I and lots of other people are considering right now. Pushed on whether he could quit if Ms Mays Brexit deal is passed next month, he replied: Thats possible. Liverpool Wavertree MP Luciana Berger, another supporter of the campaign for a Final Say referendum, also refused to rule out leaving the party. Appearing on ITVs Peston, she did not deny being part of discussions about a breakaway party and admitted there was a disaffection with the lack of leadership were seeing on all sides. Asked whether she might quit, she said: Im focused on Brexit thats my responsibility as a constituency MP. She added: Theres many people that have many different challenges, not just Brexit, in terms of seeing leadership from all the main political parties. It comes after Chris Leslie, another leading advocate of a fresh referendum, hinted that he could also quit, telling The Observer: A lot of peoples patience is being tested right now. I think there are some questions we are all going to have to face, especially if Labour enables Brexit. With the party threatening to be engulfed by civil war over Brexit, Labour officials emailed MPs insisting they had not ruled out backing another referendum. In a briefing document justifying Mr Corbyns decision to reach out to Ms May, they wrote: This is consistent with our conference policy and the frontbench amendment we set out on 29 January: that made clear there are two credible options that Labour could support to prevent no deal and break the current impasse either a close economic relationship or a public vote. This letter sets out in more detail the first of those options. It does not rule out the latter. Sir Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary, also sought to quell the growing backlash, telling the BBC: What this letter does is to set out that the prime minister needs to abandon her Brexit red lines. It does not rule out the option of a second referendum a public vote and Jeremy Corbyn is going be writing to members today to reassure them about that. Sir Keir is seen to be more favourable than Mr Corbyns inner circle to the idea of Labour backing another referendum. Defending his offer to work with Ms May, Mr Corbyn told Sky News: Half of our trade is with Europe, a lot of our manufacturing industries are very frightened and very worried at the moment that on 29 March there will be a cliff edge. There cannot be a cliff edge and we will do everything we can in parliament to prevent this cliff edge exit. Guy Verhofstadt: 'We welcome the letter sent by Jeremy Corbyn' In an email to party members, he said: Labour can and must take a lead in bringing our country together. We are convinced that our sensible alternative, set out in the five demands in my letter, could both win the support of parliament and bring together those who voted Leave and Remain. He added: Theresa May is unable to reach a sensible deal because it would split the Tories and we will never vote for a bad Tory deal. If parliament is deadlocked, then the best outcome would be a general election. Without it, we will keep all options on the table, as agreed in our party conference motion, including the option of a public vote. That was not enough to reassure supporters of a Final Say referendum, with MPs condemning Mr Corbyns offer to work with Ms May if she agreed to meet Labours five conditions. Writing exclusively for The Independent, Streatham MP Chuka Umunna said: These tests are nonsense and Labours policy is all over the place. Above all, the letter makes no mention of referring this back to the people. The spirit of Labours conference policy was that if we couldnt get an election, Labour would commit to referring this issue back to the people. He added: The leader and those around him have made it clear they have no interest in going there at all. He has also tacitly given a green light to those who not only wont support a Peoples Vote but are also happy to thwart the House of Commons ability to stop the UK crashing out of the EU without a deal in 50 days. That is the harsh reality of what we have learned these past couple of weeks. The party wont be forgiven by the next generation. Mr Corbyns letter was welcomed by the EU, however. The European Parliaments Brexit coordinator, Guy Verhofstadt, said in a joint statement with its president, Antonio Tajani: Cross-party cooperation is the way forward and I think I can say that we welcome the letter that Jeremy Corbyn has written to Mrs May to offer such a cross-party exit, I should say, to the Brexit. Close What does a no-deal Brexit mean? No confidence motions in Labour MP Luciana Berger have been withdrawn after activists in her local constituency backed down following widespread condemnation of their move. Ms Berger, who has suffered anti-Jewish abuse and been a vocal critic of Jeremy Corbyn's handling of antisemitism, is the subject of two motions of no confidence tabled by party members in Liverpool Wavertree. Their actions received widespread criticism and deputy leader Tom Watson, described the behaviour of the activists as "intolerable". John McDonnell sparked fury by suggesting that Ms Berger needed to confirm her loyalty to the party but did say it would be "completely wrong" if the motions were a reponse to Ms Berger standing up to antisemitism. The shadow chancellor also said Labour would support a fresh referendum on Brexit if Theresa May is unable to get a compromise exit deal through parliament. The prime minister is due to hold critical talks with Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar tonight, as she scrambles to achieve a breakthrough on her Brexit deal. Ms May flew to Dublin to meet Mr Varadkar, after a series of challenging meetings in Belfast and Brussels over the divisive issue of the Irish backstop, which MPs have ordered her to remove from her deal. Here's how we covered developments live: Labour will support a fresh referendum on Brexit if Theresa May is unable to get a compromise exit deal through parliament, John McDonnell has said. The shadow chancellor admitted it would be necessary to go back to the people if the prime minister rebuffs Jeremy Corbyns proposal for a softer Brexit. The Labour leader wrote to Ms May on Wednesday offering Labours support for a potential deal if five conditions were met, including a customs union with the EU and guarantees on workers rights. That sparked an angry backlash from many Labour MPs, who want their party to support giving the public a Final Say referendum on Brexit. But Mr McDonnell insisted Labours plan could secure a Commons majority and was now the only alternative to a fresh public vote. Recommended Corbyn sparks Labour civil war over referendum The shadow chancellor told BBC Radio 4s Today programme: If Theresa May said Ill sign up to Labours deal and we went to parliament, I think we would have a secure parliamentary majority. But were at that stage now where were saying very clearly to everybody that people have looked over the edge of a no-deal Brexit and it could be catastrophic for our economy ... In the national interest we have got to come together to secure a compromise, and then if we cant do that, well yes, we have to go back to the people. He added: Weve also said that, if there cant be approval by the prime minister of our deal, if there cant be agreement in parliament, weve kept on the table the prospect of going back to the people in a public vote. Asked to confirm that Labour had not ruled out supporting a fresh referendum, he replied: No, not at all. It comes after Mr Corbyn was forced to deny that his letter to Ms May torpedoed the possibility of Labour endorsing another public vote. Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Show all 20 1 /20 Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Brexit supporters outside parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester adjusts her pro-EU wig AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A message to Jeremy Corbyn in support of a peoples vote Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A mock Titanic captained by Theresa May heads towards an iceberg in a stunt by campaigning group Avaaz AP Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters outside parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides are in close contact outside of parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Paintings of Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage speaks to the media at the protests outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A pro-Brexit protester in Parliament Square Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Opposing protesters share the space outside parliament Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester holds EU balloons outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters stand on Westminster Bridge PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage speaks to the media at the protests outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters demonstrate outside the Houses of Parliament EPA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A pro-Brexit protester sets up outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An Avaaz campaigner holds a Peoples Vote life float Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A demonstrator holds a sign advocating a no-deal Brexit outside parliament AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester waves an EU flag on Westminster Bridge PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides demonstrate outside parliament AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides stand near parliament Reuters Facing anger from MPs and party activists, he wrote to members to insist that the option remained on the table if Ms May rejects Labours alternative Brexit plan. He said: Labour can and must take a lead in bringing our country together. We are convinced that our sensible alternative, set out in the five demands in my letter, could both win the support of parliament and bring together those who voted Leave and Remain. He added: Theresa May is unable to reach a sensible deal because it would split the Tories and we will never vote for a bad Tory deal. If parliament is deadlocked, then the best outcome would be a general election. Without it, we will keep all options on the table, as agreed in our party conference motion, including the option of a public vote. Jeremy Corbyn set hares running this week when he wrote a letter to Theresa May laying out Labours terms for supporting her Brexit deal. His intervention took many in Westminster by surprise, as all eyes were on Brussels, where European Council president Donald Tusk was busy stoking Brexiteer fury by claiming there was a special place in hell for politicians who botch Britains exit from the bloc. But the letter caused a major stir. Until now, Labour has said it will oppose any Brexit deal that fails to meet its six tests, which were widely regarded as being pretty much impossible to achieve. Theresa May's Brexit deal risks causing a "never-ending nightmare" for British citzens and businesses, two former senior civil servants will warn today. Lord Kerslake, former head of the Home Civil Service, and Lord Kerr, who headed up the Diplomatic Service, will say that the prime minister's withdrawal agreement would deliver a "leap in the dark" Brexit. They will speak out as Ms May heads to Ireland for talks with taoiseach Leo Varadkar as she tries to secure fresh concessions in a bid to get her exit plan through parliament. Launching a report by the People's Vote campaign that criticises the draft declaration on the future relationship agreed by the UK and the EU, Lord Kerslake will say the current deal would result in "an endless low-intensity political civil war". The peer will call for Article 50 to be extended to allow for further negotiations, saying Britain is not ready for Brexit and that the "proper functioning of government" requires a deal containing more detail on the future relationship between the UK and EU. Recommended Corbyn sparks Labour civil war over referendum He is expected to say: There were once hopes, wildly exaggerated, that Brexit would be some sort of dreamland. But it is now clear it will not be an awakening for our country. Instead, it threatens to turn into a never-ending nightmare with no clarity and no closure for a decade to come. Brexit will become like a bad remake of Groundhog Day with the country waking each morning not to I got you babe but the latest reports from an endless low-intensity political civil war. If like me you have found the last two years of political debate by turns depressing, dis-spiriting, infuriating and plain boring the next decade will just be more and more of the same. Lord Kerr, formerly the UK's most senior diplomat and the author of Article 50, is expected to echo concerns about leaving the EU without more certainty about the end destination. He will say: To leave on the basis of Mrs Mays deal would be a leap in the dark. No-one knows where wed end up. The next negotiation would take longer, and our hand would be weaker. The only certainty would be continuing uncertainty. Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Show all 20 1 /20 Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Brexit supporters outside parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester adjusts her pro-EU wig AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A message to Jeremy Corbyn in support of a peoples vote Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A mock Titanic captained by Theresa May heads towards an iceberg in a stunt by campaigning group Avaaz AP Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters outside parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides are in close contact outside of parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Paintings of Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage speaks to the media at the protests outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A pro-Brexit protester in Parliament Square Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Opposing protesters share the space outside parliament Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester holds EU balloons outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters stand on Westminster Bridge PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage speaks to the media at the protests outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters demonstrate outside the Houses of Parliament EPA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A pro-Brexit protester sets up outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An Avaaz campaigner holds a Peoples Vote life float Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A demonstrator holds a sign advocating a no-deal Brexit outside parliament AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester waves an EU flag on Westminster Bridge PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides demonstrate outside parliament AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides stand near parliament Reuters The People's Vote report, titled "No Clarity, No Closure", criticises the lack of detail in the draft UK-EU political declaration on the future relationship. It says the UK is yet to set out how it will guarantee the frictionless trade of goods with Europe or how it will secure a close relationship on services. The report claims hopes of a close security partnership are already being scaled back and suggests Ms May might have to ditch her insistence that freedom of movement will end once Britain leaves the EU. What is the meaning of a sausage? Until the other day, I had no idea that a sausage even had any meaning (unless, that is, you happen to be ravenously hungry). Imagine the surprise, therefore, of the conservators in London who, back in 1983, were sprucing up a classic painting by the 17th-century Dutch master Jan Steen, when they discovered a lost sausage. Or rather not so much lost as disappeared. You can see that painting, Celebrating the Birth, in all its domestic glory, in the wonderful Wallace Collection in Manchester Square, just off Oxford Street. But prior to 1983 you would not have seen the sausage, or indeed the hand of the long-haired artist himself, about to go out of the door at the back of the kitchen, holding two fingers over the head of the babe. Painting cleaners (or conservators) are sometimes like detectives carefully inspecting the scene of a crime. In this case their research took them back to the Victorian period when the works of Shakespeare could be re-written for the purpose of making more of a happy ending and when the statue of a naked David in the V&A could have a fig-leaf applied to the relevant parts on the occasion of a visit from Queen Victoria. Probably sometime in the 1850s, a skilful painter had been employed to paint over (rather as you might use software today to remove undesirable elements from your favourite holiday snap) the offending sausage and the two-fingered salute originally dating from 1664 (the year is spelt out in the painting itself). But what was the big deal about the sausage anyway? How could hypersensitive Victorian morality be offended by the depiction thereof? Scientists on a quest to understand the hangover have shattered one of the central beliefs of pain-free drinking, finding that drinking beer before wine did not result in test subjects feeling fine. University of Cambridge and German researchers were inspired to test the folk mantras which exist in several languages, warning unwary drinkers not to mix their beverages. While an unhelpful loved one in the UK might chide grape or grain, but never the twain, the German lying foetal on the sofa can expect to hear wein auf bier, das rat ich dir, bier auf wein, das lass sein and queasy French partygoers are told biere sur vin est venin, vin sur biere est belle maniere. But after exhaustive testing, the researchers concluded that overindulging will leave you just as sickly, regardless of the order you neck your drinks. For their study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, they recruited 90 volunteers. Each was given an identical volume of alcohol, but administered either as wine (white) then beer (lager), beer then wine or just wine or beer, with the order reversed a week later. The 10 countries that drink the most alcohol Show all 10 1 /10 The 10 countries that drink the most alcohol The 10 countries that drink the most alcohol 10. Poland Results from an OECD report The 10 countries that drink the most alcohol 9. Germany The 10 countries that drink the most alcohol 8. Luxembourg Rex Features The 10 countries that drink the most alcohol 7. France The 10 countries that drink the most alcohol 6. Hungary Rex Features The 10 countries that drink the most alcohol 5. Russia AFP/Getty Images The 10 countries that drink the most alcohol 4. Czech Republic The 10 countries that drink the most alcohol 3. Estonia Rex Features The 10 countries that drink the most alcohol 2. Austria Getty Images The 10 countries that drink the most alcohol 1. Lithuania AFP/Getty Images The plucky participants were kept under medical supervision overnight and the next day after several bouts of vomiting reported their wellbeing on the Acute Hangover Scale. This scientific device breaks the hangover down into its constituent parts, including thirst, fatigue, headache, dizziness, nausea, stomach ache, increased heart rate and loss of appetite. We didnt find any truth in the idea that drinking beer before wine gives you a milder hangover than the other way around, said first author Joran Kochling from Germanys Witten/Herdecke University. The only reliable way of predicting how miserable youll feel the next day is by how drunk you feel and whether you are sick, he added. Dr Kai Hensel, a senior clinical fellow at Cambridge University said that hangovers, though poorly understood, play an important role. They are a protective warning sign that will certainly have aided humans over the ages to change their future behaviour, he said. Had his team found a recipe for avoiding hangovers Dr Hensel said they could have helped millions of overindulgers to have a better day after a night out. Unfortunately, we found that there was no way to avoid the inevitable hangover just by favouring one order over another, he said, before adding he hopes the rigorous approach will inspire others in future. Amazon's planned headquarters in New York City could be in jeapordy after two officials indicated the massive tech company is reconsidering its plan amid local opposition. The plan, which would have brought 25,000 jobs to the city, has come under fire since it was announced last year, with local politicians concerned that the incentives Amazon has demanded would strip much needed cash from the community. The question is whether its worth it if the politicians in New York dont want the project, especially with how people in Virginia and Nashville have been so welcoming, one official told The Washington Post, which first reported the potential change in attitude from Amazon towards the project. No official plans have been made against New York so far. Amazon's decision last year to split its second headquarters between New York and Virginia was initially praised by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio as an economic success story, and touted as a positive development that would spur job growth and development in Queens neighbourhood that had been chosen. But, since then, outrcry from activists and local politicians has put a damper on the mood, with opponents questioning why one of the world's most valuable companies deserves the massive subsidies it demanded in order to build facilities in the Long Island City neighbourhood of queens. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty In the months that followed, the company has reportedly not leased or purchased any land or buildings for the facility. And, that lack of investment means Amazon could still change course if it felt like local conditions were not as ideal as previously thought. The situation in Queens stands in contrast with how the company has proceeded in Virginia, where local leaders moved quickly to approve an incentive package to keep Amazon's interest in the region. New York politicians are still mulling over their own package, which is not expected to receive approval until 2020. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Should Amazon choose to scrap its plans for New York City, the company would still theoretically have plenty of options after having received numerous proposals from all over North America during a lengthy bidding process. Among the politicians in New York State who have spoken out against the deal are Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose district borders the areas chosen by Amazon for development. In the aftermath of the public announcement, opponents have gone door to door in the Queens neighbourhood to warn residents of coming rent hikes if the tech giant moves in. It is not clear what Amazon would do in the case that New York ultimately abandons its plan to offer an incentive package, and some analysts have noted that the company could still develop in the city on a smaller scale. Other tech giants, like Google, have notable already opened up facilities in the city with that strategy. Anyone with an interest in the future of Jaguar Land Rover in Britain should have felt a chill this morning. The vehicle makers Indian owner, Tata Motors, stunned the markets by posting the biggest quarterly loss in Indian corporate history having racked up a deficit of $4bn (3bn). Investors immediately took flight, with the shares falling by 30 per cent. Jaguar Land Rover, which generates most of its revenue, will swing into the red in the year to March with the business, which had been hoping for a break even, set to report a full year loss as a result of weak sales. It has been hit with a business tsunami. The Chinese economic slowdown saw retail sales in that country halve in December as the car market there contracted for the first time since the 1990s, at a time when the company is already grappling with Europes shift away from diesel. Oh, and theres Brexit. Sorry, but you just cant avoid that one given the companys important presence in the UK. Tata cant solve Chinas economic issues, but can at least address some of the other problems it faces there. It is doing that by altering its strategy and how it operates, which makes sense. As regards Europe, well the answer is obviously to shift focus away from diesel. At the same time, the company is going to book itself in for the sort of surgery that every company in its situation goes through: Cost cutting and other measures to boost competitiveness. This is where Brexit comes in. It is fashionable among Brexiteers to blame anything but their project when companies like Tata Motors shudder and the UK gets caught in the backwash. We witnessed this when Nissan shifted a new model that it had been planning to build in Sunderland to Japan, which has just fixed a free trade deal with the EU and so will be able to export tariff free to the bloc. Thats a privilege that will be denied Britain if it exits without a deal, as seems increasingly likely. Up popped the Brexiteer empty heads, the ones that always make the most noise, to point to the ongoing scandals surrounding former boss Carol Ghosn, and the slump in the diesel market, which is a big problem for Nissan too. They were correct in one respect. Brexit is not the sole problem facing either company. But it is still a problem that has to be addressed alongside the others. And its far easier to fix: You do it by diverting investment to places where it isnt an issue and help with reducing costs and boosting competitiveness. Business news: In pictures Show all 13 1 /13 Business news: In pictures Business news: In pictures Flybe collapses Airline Flybe has collapsed. All future flights on the Exeter-based airline have been cancelled leaving more than 2,300 staff facing an uncertain future, and wrecking the travel plans of hundreds of thousands of passengers. The chief executive, Mark Anderson, said: Europes largest independent regional airline has been unable to overcome significant funding challenges to its business. AFP via Getty Business news: In pictures Future product placement will be 'tailored to individual viewers' Marketing executives say that product placement in films and televison shows on streaming services such as Netflix may be tailored to individuals in future. For instance, if data shows that a viewer is a fan of pepsi, a billboard in the background of a shot would host an advert for pepsi, while for a viewer known to have different tastes it could be for Coca-Cola Paramount Business news: In pictures Corbyn wishes Amazon a happy birthday In a card sent to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on the company's 25th birthday, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn writes: "You owe the British people millions in taxes that pay for the public services that we all rely on. Please pay your fair share" Business news: In pictures No deal, no tariffs The government has announced that it would slash almost all tariffs in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Notable exceptions include cars and meat, which will see tariffs in place to protect British farmers Getty Business news: In pictures Fingerprint payment NatWest is trialling a new bank card that will allow people to touch their hand to the card when paying rather than typing in a PIN number. The card will work by recognising the user's fingerprint NatWest/PA Wire Business news: In pictures Mahabis bust High-end slipper retailer Mahabis has gone into administration. 2 Jan 2019 Mahabis Business news: In pictures Costa Cola Coca-Cola has paid 3.9bn for Costa Coffee. A cafe chain is a new venture for the global soft drinks giant PA Business news: In pictures RIP Payday Loans A funeral procession for payday loans was held in London on September 2. The future of pay day lenders is in doubt after Wonga, Britain's biggest, went into administration on August 30 PA Business news: In pictures Musk irks investors and directors Elon Musk has concluded that Tesla will remain public. Investors and company directors were angry at Musk for tweeting unexpectedly that he was considering taking Tesla private and share prices had taken a tumble in the following weeks Getty Business news: In pictures Jaguar warning Iconic British car maker Jaguar Land Rover warned on July 5, 2018 that a "bad" Brexit deal could jeopardise planned investment of more than $100 billion, upping corporate pressure as the government heads into crucial talks AFP/Getty Business news: In pictures Spotif-IPO Spotify traded publically for the first time on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday. However, the company isn't issuing shares, but rather, shares held by Spotify's private investors will be sold AFP/Getty Business news: In pictures French blue passports The deadline to award a contract to make blue British passports after Brexit has been extended by two weeks following a request by bidder De La Rue. The move comes after anger at the announcement British passports would be produced by Franco-Dutch firm Gemalto when De La Rues contract ends in July. The British firm said Gemalto was chosen only because it undercut the competition, but the UK company also admitted that it was not the cheapest choice in the tendering process. Business news: In pictures Beast from the east economic impact The Beast from the East wiped 4m off of Flybes revenues due to flight cancellations, airport closures and delays, according to the budget airlines estimates. Flybe said it cancelled 994 flights in the three months to 31 March, compared to 372 in the same period last year. Jaguar has already announced 4,500 job cuts in the UK this year, and has been one of the more vocal companies in sounding the alarm over the governments inexorable drift to a no-deal cliff edge. When its bosses meet to discuss what next, to decide where to swing the axe and where to channel investment, Britain is more likely to be at the top of the former list than the latter because of Brexit and the way it has been handled by this country's political class. So no, Brexit is not Jaguar's only problem, nor is it the biggest. But in the midst of the corporate turmoil created by heavy losses, it will be addressed to the detriment of the people that work there and the UKs faltering economy and future. Sandwich chain Pret A Manger is opening a house for homeless people, offering them both accommodation and paid work. Pret House will provide 13 people in London with somewhere to live for six to 12 months before they are helped to move into a rented property. The company has revealed its ambition is to help at least 20 homeless people get off the streets by the end of the year. Launched in collaboration with West London Mission (WLM) a charity that supports homeless people and marginalised members of society the new house will provide each resident with their own private room. As well as being given jobs in Pret stores nearby, they will also receive advice on how to get a bank account, save for a deposit and develop their wider literacy and computer skills. The Stats: Homelessness in the UK Show all 10 1 /10 The Stats: Homelessness in the UK The Stats: Homelessness in the UK Sleeping rough up 165% from 2010 The total number of people counted or estimated to be sleeping rough on a single night in autumn 2018 was 4,677, up 2,909 people or 165% from the 2010 total of 1,768 Getty The Stats: Homelessness in the UK London rough sleepers up 13% The number of people sleeping rough increased by 146 or 13% in London since 2017 AFP/Getty The Stats: Homelessness in the UK London accounted for 27% of people sleeping rough in England London accounted for 27% of the total number of people sleeping rough in England. This is up from 24% of the England total in 2017 Getty The Stats: Homelessness in the UK 64% of rough sleeps UK nationals 64% were UK nationals, compared to 71% in 2017 AFP/Getty The Stats: Homelessness in the UK 14% of rough sleepers are women 14% of the people recorded sleeping rough were women, the same as in 2017 Getty The Stats: Homelessness in the UK 6% were aged 25 years or under, compared to 8% in 2017 AFP/Getty The Stats: Homelessness in the UK Thousands of families staying in temporary housing Almost 79,000 families were staying in temporary housing in the last three months of 2017 because they didn't have a permanent home, compared with 48,010 in the same period eight years before Getty The Stats: Homelessness in the UK Reduction in families living in temporary housing before Coalition government There had been a significant reduction in families living in such conditions before the Coalition government came into power, with the number having fallen by 52 per cent between 2004 and 2010 under the Labour government AFP/Getty The Stats: Homelessness in the UK Families staying in temporary has risen since But the figure has crept up in each of the past seven years, from 69,140 in the last quarter of 2015, to 75,740 in the same period in 2016 and 78,930 at the end of last year Getty The Stats: Homelessness in the UK Nearly 58,000 families accepted as homeless (2018) Nearly 58,000 families have been accepted as homeless by their local council in the past year (as of March 2018), equating to an increase of 8 per cent over the last five years Getty Clive Schlee, CEO of Pret, revealed the home has been in the works for around five years. Ever since Pret opened its first shop in London, helping the homeless has been part of our promise to our customers and the communities in which we operate, he said. We set up the Pret Foundation with the singular purpose of breaking the cycle of homelessness, and to do that, we believe that people need three things: food, employment and shelter. Each resident will be given their own private room in Pret House (Pret-A-Manger) The opening of the Pret House at WLM St Lukes is the next evolution in our efforts to help the ex-homeless live their lives independently. The initiative comes under the the Pret Foundation umbrella an internationally registered charity set up by the sandwich chains founders in 1995 - and is part of Pret's Rising Star programme which gives homeless people job opportunities in its stores. The residents will also be offered a job at a nearby Pret store (Pre-A-Manger) The chain says it donates more than three million items of food donated each year, as well as helping to provide money, showers, sleeping bags, food shopping and chefs. Minister for Housing and Homelessness, Heather Wheeler MP, said the new hostel is not just about putting a roof over their heads but also about ensuring they have the support they need to recover from life on the streets and get back on their feet. (L-R): Jude McKee - director of operations at WLM - Mattia - a Rising Star - and Nicki Fisher - head of the Pret Foundation (Pret-A-Manger) She added: This important scheme will provide vulnerable rough sleepers with the vital assistance they need to secure their own home and rebuild their lives, and I look forward to hearing about its successes over the coming months and years." Nina Garcia has penned a powerful essay about her decision to undergo a preventive double mastectomy. On Thursday, the ELLE US editor-in-chief revealed she will be recovering from the elective surgery during New York Fashion Week this month, instead of attending the runway shows. A mastectomy (also known as a prophylactic mastectomy) is surgery to remove one or both breasts to lower the chances of getting breast cancer. According to cancer.gov the surgery has been shown to reduce the risk of breast cancer by at least 95 per cent in women who have a disease-causing mutation in the BRCA1 gene or the BRCA2 gene. Looking at the upcoming Fashion Week schedules piling up on my desk, it feels strange knowing that for the first time in 25 years, I will miss the excitement, creativity, and energy of the shows, which have always served as a reminder of why I love this industry, she wrote. Breast cancer survivor gets double-mastectomy tattoos Show all 6 1 /6 Breast cancer survivor gets double-mastectomy tattoos Breast cancer survivor gets double-mastectomy tattoos Art helped Ms Black to cope with her treatment. She is pictured here with an Alice in Wonderland 'Drinke Me' bottle painted on her head, symbolising the drugs she took but didn't understand. Lillyan Ling Breast cancer survivor gets double-mastectomy tattoos Nikki as she waits to be tattooed Breast cancer survivor gets double-mastectomy tattoos Comedian Nikki Black before being tattooed Breast cancer survivor gets double-mastectomy tattoos Nikki being tattooed at The Gilded Lily Design Breast cancer survivor gets double-mastectomy tattoos Ms Black mid-way through her tattoo Breast cancer survivor gets double-mastectomy tattoos Nikki Black after being tattooed The editor explained that her battle of the boobs began in 2015 when decided to get tested for mutations to the BRCA geneswhich increase the risk of breast and ovarian cancer. She later found out that she had a BRCA1 gene mutation and was at high risk for breast cancer. Nina Garcia speaks at a 'Project Runway' panel in 29 January 2019 (Getty Images) After three years of regular mammograms, breasts checks and additional tests, Garcia and her doctor agreed she should have a preventive double mastectomy. I was living in a loop of testing, every day waking up thinking: Is today the day I will get cancer? she explained. I no longer wanted to have these scary thoughts, and I knew the only way they would stop was to schedule the surgery. The answer was clear. Garcia added the days after making the decision were the hardest and made her realised how lonely and overwhelming the past few months had been. The Project Runway judge added that she worried about telling her children, colleagues and being away from work during New York Fashion Week, which started on Monday 4 February. I didnt know how people would react, and I feared I would look weak, she said. However, after talking with several friends who had undergone the procedure she realised she had entered an incredible community of strong women who could offer their help and support. For the first time in years, a dark cloud lifted, and I felt a sense of relief and clarity about my choice, she added. While she admitted to being scared of the surgery, she said she is deeply grateful for the science and technology that makes early detection possible, her team of doctors, the sisterhood of women who have been so open and supportive, her husband, sons, and family. Recommended How to check your breasts for cancer symptoms She concluded her essay by saying she has learned to pass it forward, be there for people, be open about your life. I ultimately decided to write this in hopes that my story might serve as comfort to at least one woman out there who is going through something similar. For that woman, I want you to know that you are not alone. And while I may be having a hard time feeling brave at this very minute, I know that my sisters will be waiting for me on the other side, ready to put me back together again. In 2013, actress Angelina Jolie revealed she had undergone a double mastectomy after her doctors estimated had an 87 per cent risk of breast cancer and a 50 per cent risk of ovarian cancer. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events "I feel empowered that I made a strong choice that in no way diminishes my femininity," she wrote in an article entitled My Medical Choice for the New York Times. Two years later, Jolie underwent an operation to remove her ovaries and fallopian tubes (salpingo-oophorectomy) to reduce her risk of developing ovarian cancer. If you would like to find out more information about preventive double mastectomies or breast cancer, you can visit the NHS, Cancer Research UK, Breast Cancer Care and CoppaFeel!. Nasa has unveiled the last full image the Kepler Space Telescope saw before it shut down forever. The mission was tasked with taking imagery of the very depths of our galaxy, exploring stars to see if they had planets that could potentially sustain life. But the mission was retired in October, when its fuel finally run out and Nasa moved the telescope into a safe orbit and shut it down. The image called "last light", just as the "first light" was taken nearly ten years earlier closes a mission that has discovered thousands of those distant worlds and brought hope that habitable planets deep in our galaxy could be waiting to be found. Since Kepler first opened its eye up to space and started looking for those stars, it found more than 2,600 worlds beyond our solar system proving that planets are far more common than expected and that other places like our own Earth could be lurking out there. The image also shows some of the effect of those ten years. The blackened gaps at the middle and top of the image are where parts have failed in the camera, but Kepler was designed in a modular way that meant those problems did not affect the rest of the instrument. The final image came after Kepler's last observation campaign, for which it was pointed towards the constellation Aquarius. Lurking in the image is the TRAPPIST-1 system, which has seven rocky planets, many of which are touted as hopeful second Earths that could support life. Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Show all 30 1 /30 Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Solar Flare An image from Nasa's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) shows a 200,000 mile long solar filament ripping through the Sun's corona in September 2013 Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Nasa Celebrates 50 Years of Spacewalking For 50 years, NASA has been "suiting up" for spacewalking. In this 1984 photograph of the first untethered spacewalk, NASA astronaut Bruce McCandless is in the midst of the first "field" tryout of a nitrogen-propelled backpack device called the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU) Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space A Hubble Cosmic Couple The spectacular cosmic pairing of the star Hen 2-427 more commonly known as WR 124 and the nebula M1-67 which surrounds it ESA/Hubble & NASA Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Veil Nebula Supernova Remnant Nasa's Hubble Space Telescope has unveiled in stunning detail a small section of the Veil Nebula - expanding remains of a massive star that exploded about 8,000 years ago Nasa's most stunning pictures of space The Soyuz TMA-15M rocket launch The Soyuz TMA-15M rocket launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Monday, Nov. 24, 2014, carrying three new astronauts to the International Space Station. It also took caviar, ready for the satellite's inhabitants to celebrate the holidays Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Earth from the ISS From the International Space Station, Expedition 42 Flight Engineer Terry W. Virts took this photograph of the Gulf of Mexico and U.S. Gulf Coast at sunset Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Black Hole Friday Nasa celebrated Black Friday by looking into space instead sharing pictures of black holes Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space NuSTAR X-rays stream off the sun in this image showing observations from by NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, overlaid on a picture taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Cassiopeia A c A false colour image of Cassiopeia A comprised with data from the Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes and the Chandra X-Ray observatory Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Orion Capsule splashes down The Orion capsule jetted off into space before heading back a few hours later having proved that it can be used, one day, to carry humans to Mars Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Earth Observations From Gemini IV in 1965 This photograph of the Florida Straits and Grand Bahama Bank was taken during the Gemini IV mission during orbit no. 19 in 1965. The Gemini IV crew conducted scientific experiments, including photography of Earth's weather and terrain, for the remainder of their four-day mission following Ed White's historic spacewalk on June 3 Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Frosty slopes of Mars This image of an area on the surface of Mars, approximately 1.5 by 3 kilometers in size, shows frosted gullies on a south-facing slope within a crater. The image was taken by Nasa's HiRISE camera, which is mounted on its Mars Reconaissance Orbiter Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Yellowstone from space NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman shared this image of Yellowstone via his twitter account Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Saturn This near-infrared color image shows a specular reflection, or sunglint, off of a hydrocarbon lake named Kivu Lacus on Saturn's moon Titan Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Worlds Apart Although Mimas and Pandora, shown here, both orbit Saturn, they are very different moons. Pandora, "small" by moon standards (50 miles or 81 kilometers across) is elongated and irregular in shape. Mimas (246 miles or 396 kilometers across), a "medium-sized" moon, formed into a sphere due to self-gravity imposed by its higher mass Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Solar Flare An X1.6 class solar flare flashes in the middle of the sun in this image taken 10 September, captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy An image of the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy seen in infrared light by the Herschel Space Observatory. Regions of space such as this are where new stars are born from a mixture of elements and cosmic dust Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Mars Rover Spirit Nasa's Mars Rover Spirit took the first picture from Spirit since problems with communications began a week earlier. The image shows the robotic arm extended to the rock called Adirondack Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Morning Aurora From the Space Station Nasa astronaut Scott Kelly captured this photograph of the green lights of the aurora from the International Space Station Nasa/Scott Kelly Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Launch of History - Making STS-41G Mission in 1984 The Space Shuttle Challenger launches from Florida at dawn. On this mission, Kathryn Sullivan became the first U.S. woman to perform a spacewalk and Marc Garneau became the first Canadian in space. The crew of seven was the largest to fly on a spacecraft at that time, and STS-41G was the first flight to include two female astronauts Nasa's most stunning pictures of space A Fresh Perspective on an Extraordinary Cluster of Galaxies Galaxy clusters are often described by superlatives. After all, they are huge conglomerations of galaxies, hot gas, and dark matter and represent the largest structures in the Universe held together by gravity Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Hubble Sees a Galactic Sunflower The arrangement of the spiral arms in the galaxy Messier 63, seen here in an image from the Nasa Hubble Space Telescope, recall the pattern at the center of a sunflower ESA/Hubble & NASA Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Pluto image Four images from New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) were combined with colour data from the Ralph instrument to create this enhanced colour global view of Pluto Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Fresh Crater Near Sirenum Fossae Region of Mars The HiRISE camera aboard Nasa's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter acquired this closeup image of a "fresh" (on a geological scale, though quite old on a human scale) impact crater in the Sirenum Fossae region of Mars. This impact crater appears relatively recent as it has a sharp rim and well-preserved ejecta Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Hubble Peers into the Most Crowded Place in the Milky Way This Nasa Hubble Space Telescope image presents the Arches Cluster, the densest known star cluster in the Milky Way NASA & ESA Nasa's most stunning pictures of space An Astronaut's View from Space Nasa astronaut Reid Wiseman tweeted this photo from the International Space Station on 2 September 2014 Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Giant Landform on Mars On Mars, we can observe four classes of sandy landforms formed by the wind, or aeolian bedforms: ripples, transverse aeolian ridges, dunes, and what are called draa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Expedition 39 Landing A sokol suit helmet can be seen against the window of the Soyuz TMA-11M capsule shortly after the spacecraft landed with Expedition 39 Commander Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Soyuz Commander Mikhail Tyurin of Roscosmos, and Flight Engineer Rick Mastracchio of NASA near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan (NASA/Bill Ingalls) Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Jupiter's Great Red Spot Viewed by Voyager I Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system and perhaps the most majestic. Vibrant bands of clouds carried by winds that can exceed 400 mph continuously circle the planet's atmosphere Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Chandra Observatory Sees a Heart in the Darkness This Chandra X-Ray Observatory image of the young star cluster NGC 346 highlights a heart-shaped cloud of 8 million-degree Celsius gas in the central region Even though Kepler has been dead for months, it has continued to make discoveries as scientists check through the data it sent back before it shut down. Even as the New Year arrived, scientists found entirely new and strange planets in the data that has been returned and expect to find many more in the year to come. And the last moments of Kepler also overlapped with the instrument that replaced it the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS which is now hunting or yet more planets. That slight overlap means astronomers can compare data from the two spacecraft, helping calibrate and improve the data Nasa will go on to receive. Cryptocurrency markets have seen a dramatic turn-around in fortunes, as bitcoin, ethereum and litecoin experienced a sudden surge in price. Litecoin, which is often described as the silver to bitcoin's gold, saw the biggest gains, rising by more than 30 per cent in value in the space of just a few hours. The price rise is the most significant of 2019 and follows months of market stagnation. Bitcoin had been trading close to a seven-week low before the unexpected reversal, which saw it gain more than $200 over the last 24 hours, with one $100 surge coming in the space of just 30 minutes. The positive market movement will come as a relief to cryptocurrency investors, who have witnessed steadily declining prices ever since bitcoin surged close to $20,000 (15,400) in late 2017. Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures Show all 10 1 /10 Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures Satoshi Nakamoto creates the first bitcoin block in 2009 On 3 January, 2009, the genesis block of bitcoin appeared. It came less than a year after the pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto detailed the cryptocurrency in a paper titled 'Bitcoin: A peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System' Reuters Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures Bitcoin is used as a currency for the first time On 22 May, 2010, the first ever real-world bitcoin transaction took place. Lazlo Hanyecz bought two pizzas for 10,000 bitcoins the equivalent of $90 million at today's prices Lazlo Hanyecz Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures Silk Road opens for business Bitcoin soon gained notoriety for its use on the dark web. The Silk Road marketplace, established in 2011, was the first of hundreds of sites to offer illegal drugs and services in exchange for bitcoin Screenshot Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures The first bitcoin ATM appears On 29 October, 2013, the first ever bitcoin ATM was installed in a coffee shop in Vancouver, Canada. The machine allowed people to exchange bitcoins for cash Reuters Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures The fall of MtGox The world's biggest bitcoin exchange, MtGox, filed for bankruptcy in February 2014 after losing almost 750,000 of its customers bitcoins. At the time, this was around 7 per cent of all bitcoins and the market inevitably crashed Getty Images Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures Would the real Satoshi Nakamoto please stand up In 2015, Australian police raided the home of Craig Wright after the entrepreneur claimed he was Satoshi Nakamoto. He later rescinded the claim Getty Images Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures Bitcoin's big split On 1 August, 2017, an unresolvable dispute within the bitcoin community saw the network split. The fork of bitcoin's underlying blockchain technology spawned a new cryptocurrency: Bitcoin cash Reuters Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures Bitcoin's price sky rockets Towards the end of 2017, the price of bitcoin surged to almost $20,000. This represented a 1,300 per cent increase from its price at the start of the year Reuters Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures What goes up... Bitcoin price crashes spectacularly, losing half of its value in a matter of days Getty Images Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures Bitcoin plunges The cryptocurrency eventually bottoms out below $4,000 in 2019 before slowly rebuilding momentum to outperform more traditional assets Getty Images Speaking to The Independent before the latest price surge, one cryptocurrency expert lamented the negativity in the market but hinted a spark could set it off in a positive direction once again. "Cryptocurrency has been comparatively dull by the standards that we have become accustomed to, and for the most part caution and negativity still prevail," said David Thomas, director of Mayfair-based cryptocurrency broker GlobalBlock. "Something needs be the catalyst to get things going again. Unfortunately, global uncertainty for a multitude of reasons is driving many to become more risk averse and so whatever that spark is, it needs to be significant." Bitcoin gained more than $200 over the space of a few hours as cryptocurrency markets skyrocketed (CoinMarketCap) Some analysts have even speculated that bitcoin could return above its 2017 highs, with the next major wave potentially rising as high as $65,000 if previous market patterns are used as a forecast tool. The latest rise follows news that bitcoin's hashrate the amount of power its network consumes to process transactions and generate new units of cryptocurrency is at its highest level since November 2018. This can be an indicator of subsequent price gains, though there are many factors that determine a cryptocurrency's value. A rising hash rate will also raise concerns about bitcoin's environmental impact, with its electricity consumption estimated to be more than the country of Ireland. Other analysts had warned that a fall below $3,000 would have signalled a "blood bath" for bitcoin, as traders sought to offload the crashing cryptocurrency. Fashion month is already off to a roaring start, and we're only a quarter of the way through. As ever, the proceedings began with New York Fashion Week (NYFW), where on-catwalk highlights include Tom Ford, Ralph Lauren and Marc Jacobs. But when it comes to immersing yourself in the sartorial splendour that is fashion month, ogling over the new collections is only part of the fun. In fact, there's a whole other runway to marvel at, and it's taking place on the streets. Sure, the catwalk models might be dressed to the nines in eccentric designer creations, but the colourful, and often eccentric, ensembles worn by the attendees outside the show venues are no less deserving of attention and praise. New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Show all 54 1 /54 New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Olivia Palermo is a fashion month regular. She was spotted outside the Michael Kors show on Wednesday morning wearing a polka dot jumper with black skinny jeans. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Puffer jackets are having a moment, and this candy-coloured style is an apt illustration as to why. Adding both volume and joy to an otherwise fairly conventional outfit with minimal effort? Yes please. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Bella Hadid wrapped up warm for the cold weather in a beige aviator-style jacket paired with super-slim red sunglasses. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Stunning florals, chic boots and a classic trench coat - whats not to love? These two guests attending the NYFW Carolina Herrera show struck a stylish pair outside the New York Historical Society by Central Park West. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style This guest was wearing tassels for days as she made her way across a road crossing to the Carolina Herrera fashion show. Paired with a pair of cool sunglasses, a matching black clutch and high boots, this fashionista looked every inch a style queen in her striking ensemble. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style 'Mission Impossible' actor Michelle Monaghan brought a touch of sparkle to the streets of New York, when she attended the Carolina Herrera show wearing a multicoloured, high-neck dress by the Venezuelan designer. I like to sparkle on Mondays, the star wrote on Instagram. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Just because the February skies are grey, that doesnt mean you have to dress to match, as Marvels Runaways actor Virginia Gardner demonstrated at NYFW. The 23-year-old wore a bright yellow, off-shoulder tiered Carolina Herrera gown to the designers show, which she accessorised with gold strappy heels. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Dressing in all-black simply never goes out of fashion when its done right. This guest proved just how to pull off a look that lacks colour, wearing a long skirt with a similarly coloured jacket, black gloves, stiletto boots, a flat-brimmed hat and carrying a Dior Oblique Saddle Bag. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style This guest made a bold statement on the streets of New York in a stunning black-and-white polka dot dress, completing the look with a thick black belt and her hair tied up in a tousled bun. She was accompanied by a friend wearing a modish tan ensemble, accessorising with a Blair Waldorf-esque headband and black kitten heels. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style 'Big Little Lies' actor Shailene Woodley shone brightly at NYFW wearing a marigold coat by Carolina Herrera, with lime green shorts and a white patterned shirt. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Double denim is continuing to have its moment, as shown by this guest who wore a hybrid faux fur-denim jacket while attending the Carolina Herrera show. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Diablo actor Camilla Belle stood outside at NYFW in a wide-legged Carolina Herrera jumpsuit, complete with blouson sleeves and a colourful feather design. She completed the look with a long, black tailored jacket. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style This stylish black-and-white look was made even more eye-catching by the addition of the fashionistas gold accessories as she crossed a New York road on her way to the Carolina Herrera show. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style This guest took a leaf out of Britney and Justins book, donning a denim-on-denim ensemble as she arrived at Spring Studios in New York. The floppy hat and cropped, flared jeans give this look a very 1970s vibe. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style The matching of this guests red-orange lipstick to the lettering on her trousers gives this outfit an extra edge. Not to mention her chic faux fur coat, ideal for a cold winters day out in the Big Apple. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style If youre going to attend one of the most coveted fashion events of the year, you might as well make a strong impression while doing so. Thats exactly what this guest did, turning up in a bright yellow jock-inspired jacket, a colourful jumpsuit, black combat boots and a multiple-ringed gold necklace. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style If someone were to imagine Elsa from 'Frozen' as a modern-day sartorial queen, this is probably what theyd come up with, minus the ice blonde hair. The bright blue 1980s-esque prom dress, white jacket, Gucci belt and animal print high heeled boots make for a very dramatic overall look. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style This guest displayed the power of subtlety with his NYFW look, matching the bronze buttons on his pea coat with the cuffs on his sleeves. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style A white beanie, colourful tartan jacket, cropped jeans and dazzlingly white trainers - this guest is definitely a la mode. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Cheetah print is continuing to reign supreme in the fashion world. This guest donned a classic cheetah print coat at the Dion Lee show, completing her look with bubblegum pink high-waisted trousers, a bronze handbag and navy boots. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style It may not be spring yet, but this guest was bringing the warmth at the NYFW Tibi show in a sunset orange coat. She accessorised with a forest green purse and black ankle boots. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Fashion and interior design blogger Aimee Song was the picture of elegance at NYFW, wearing a garish long blue coat with blue snakeskin boots. Song was featured in Forbes 30 under 30 Art and Style list in 2016. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Social media influencer Camila Coelho looked like shed stepped right out of the 1970s when she attended the Tibi show in an orange ensemble by the American designer, finishing off the look with a pair of classic round sunglasses. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Entrepreneur Babba Rivera wore a navy-coloured trench coat and high-neck dress from Kate Spade for her outing in New York City during fashion week. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Soft nude tones are in for spring as perfectly highlighted with this laid-back athleisure look. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style One street style expert paired a cream-coloured skirt and a white polo neck jumper with a perspex Fendi jacket with a brown trim and pockets. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Clashing textures such as leather and wool compliment each other superbly in this terracotta and blue-hued winter ensemble. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Sequins, feathers, plastic, leopard print come together in perfect harmony in this mismatch spring look courtesy of blogging sisters Charlotte and Sophie Bickley. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Model and rapper TK Wonder rocked a Noughties-inspired look on the streets of NYC, pairing a pair of feathery pink stiletto boots with a baby pink coat and light denim jeans. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Camel-coloured coats show no sign of going out of fashion and this is a sentiment clearly shared by this fashion expert. The satorial star teamed her look with a pair of black brogues, a wide black belt and grey roll neck jumper. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style This all-black outfit was given the perfect hint of playfulness with a pair of turquoise-coloured drop earring, turban, and matching eyeshadow. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Influencer Oriane Adjibi brought the sunshine to a cold, wintery New York weekend in a bright orange-hued cropped jacket, white pointed-toe boots and a sheer lilac skirt with a feather trim. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Red and pink have long been viewed as fashion "frenemies" but their feud has finally been put to bed thanks to fashion blogger Opal Stewart. She finished off her bold look with a cobalt blue fluffy jacket and a pillar box red bag. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style "Be uniquely you. Stand out. Shine," wrote model Alicia Burke on her Instagram to describe her look. The long raindbow-coloured puffer jacket was the perfect pop of colour to her otherwise all-black outfit. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Patrick Amara and Dustin Rogers showed their love of designer labels and the high street in this Gucci, Dior and Asos fashion mash-up during NYFW. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Nothing shouts "sartorial swagger" louder than a tonal look featuring two different types of animal print. The beach hat adds a pleasing bohemian touch. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Man Repeller founder Leandra Medine is renowned for her comfy, cosy-chic style, and this look illustrates why. A cropped polo-neck jumper might look ridiculous on most, but Medine wears hers here with aplomb by adding a grey cardigan and pale blue jeans. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style This look is very Britney Spears circa the Oops I Did It Again music video, and we're into it. The full-length floral coat is a practical and elegant addition. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Karlie Kloss knows a thing or two about the colour blue, so it seems. The American supermodel's outfit is the perfect example of how slick tailoring and a fitted coat render the need for tonal variation utterly obsolete. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style In case you missed it, camel is back in and few items of clothing look better in this neutral shade than a classic trench coat. This one has pouffed-up sleeves to give a edgier silhouette, it works a treat. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Why wear one jacket when you can wear two? That's what this street styler thought when she woke up one morning. If you're going to try out this style move, it's best to follow to use something neutral, like the denim jacket seen here, so as to avoid aggressive colour clashes. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style There's nothing more satisfying than throwing a baggy sweatshirt on over an ankle-grazing skirt. The tie-dye clash works a treat here, particularly with the chunky navy blue headband. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style This might just be the best Legally Blonde impersonation yet, at least, sartorially speaking. Aside from the clutch and the boots, everything about this look is a bright shade of bubblegum pink, and on a grey, miserably New York day, what a wonderful thing it is to see so much radiance in one hit. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Yellow and orange might sound like a colour combo made in hell, but when the tailoring is razor-sharp and the accessory is a strange square-like shape, it's a sunny and optimistic look. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style White boots have had a resurgence in recent months thanks to their versatility, which is aptly demonstrated here. Neither plaid nor wide-leg trousers can detract from their stylishness. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Plaid is clearly here to stay on the ever-changing fashion trend circuit. This suit is very well coordinated, thanks to white cat-eye shades and beige heeled booties. The Gucci bag adds a splash of sophistication. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style All beige everything is the underlying lesson in this look. There's no reason not to embrace the shade of the moment with such vigor, as you can see. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Fendi's logo can be spotted from a mile away, and when combined with these two-tone floral trousers, you could spot this street styler from much further. The pink polo-neck jumper tones things down, but only by a smidgen. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Jumpsuits are having a moment, and this grey, workman-style variation explains why. Cinching it in at the waist with a wide belt adds a feminine silhouette while the rounded sunglasses give the look a retro flair. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style It's a good idea to wear a warm coat to fashion week, as this street styler is clearly aware. It's the perfect burnt autumnal hue too. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style When a jacket just won't do but you can't decide which shirt to wear, why not wear a jacket that doubles up as a shirt? That's what this street styler seems to have done, giving her cream dress a slouchy but stylish feel. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Why not wear a bright tie-dye top underneath a pink suit? Clearly, it looks more elegant than it sounds, especially when accessorized with oversized square sunglasses and a blue box bag. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Tiny sunglasses continue their reign on the street style scene, as spotted here adding drama to a sportswear-inspired look. Getty Images New York Fashion Week 2019: Best street style Those sleeves are quite something. Pairing this lime green dress with kitten heel shoes and a dark, cropped jacket allows the melodrama of those feathery cuffs to stand out in the way that they should. Getty Images Whether its a Carrie Bradshaw-style tutu or an oversized pair of sunglasses that scream fash-un, see the best dressed street style looks at NYFW by clicking through our gallery above. Avengers: Infinity War brought about the destruction of Marvel's beloved superhero team. With Thanos looming large and half the Avengers turned to dust, anticipation for Avengers: Endgame has reached fever pitch. Will Iron Man, Captain America and the remaining crew be able to put a stop to the Mad Titan? Can they bring back Spider-Man, Black Panther and Doctor Strange? Disney and Marvel have kept remarkably quiet on the upcoming sequel, but small details have emerged thanks to trailers, chatty actors and the occasional leaked set photo. Heres everything we know about the fourth Avengers movie. Release date Avengers: Endgame reaches cinemas on 26 April 2019, just over a year after Infinity War was released. Trailer The first official trailer for Avengers: End Game was released last year and featured Iron Man stranded in space, Captain America searching for a way to defeat Thanos, and Ant-Man hoping to get into the Avengers' facility. Watch the trailer at the top of this article, and click through our breakdown of it below. Avengers 4 trailer shot-by-shot breakdown Show all 15 1 /15 Avengers 4 trailer shot-by-shot breakdown Avengers 4 trailer shot-by-shot breakdown Battle Worn Thanos punched a nice big hole in Iron Man's helmet when we last saw the two of them, so here's a reminder that things are going not great. Avengers 4 trailer shot-by-shot breakdown Stranded Tony's now adrift in space, with his food and water running out. He's leaving a final message for Pepper Potts. I think we can safely assume he's going to get out of this situation, unless Marvel are really going to give their banner hero such a genuinely depressing death scene. Avengers 4 trailer shot-by-shot breakdown Alone At least he managed to find a way off that planet he was stuck on, borrowing the Guardians's ship to make a clean getaway. It's OK, Star Lord won't miss it, considering he's just a pile of ash now. Avengers 4 trailer shot-by-shot breakdown Peace Thanos gets to relax now, presumably. He's completed his self-appointed mission, hoisted the armour off, and now just gets to brush his hand through fields of wheat. Avengers 4 trailer shot-by-shot breakdown Aftermath A shot of the Avengers headquarters. Now that 50% of the population doesn't exist anymore, at least there'll be plenty of parking spaces. Avengers 4 trailer shot-by-shot breakdown Hopelessness Black Widow there, reminding us of the facts. Yes, 50% of all living creatures are gone, so it's time for a conference meeting about it. Avengers 4 trailer shot-by-shot breakdown Death A list of the fallen: Ant-Man, Spider-Man, and Shuri are all gone. The last one will come as a surprise, since her fate was left unconfirmed at the end of Infinity War. Avengers 4 trailer shot-by-shot breakdown Devestation Nothing much to add here, but look how sad Thor looks. Avengers 4 trailer shot-by-shot breakdown Despair And Nebula! She looks especially sad, considering the only Guardian left is Rocket Raccoon, and he's not much of a travel buddy. Avengers 4 trailer shot-by-shot breakdown Blade Runner A mysterious figure stands in the middle of a Japanese city, unsheathing their blade. Avengers 4 trailer shot-by-shot breakdown Ronin It's Hawkeye, who's finally letting us in on where he's been all this time. Becoming Ronin, apparently, which is an alias used by several characters in the Marvel Comics universe. The term "Ronin" refers to the Japanese word for a masterless samurai or lone warrior. Avengers 4 trailer shot-by-shot breakdown Longing This picture of Peggy could hint at what's been a rumoured end for Captain America: that, somehow, whether through the Quantum Realm or not, he'll be sent back to the 1940s to live out his days with his great love. Avengers 4 trailer shot-by-shot breakdown A Plan Black Widow's line of, "this is gonna work Steve", suggests there is a way to bring back those who have been snapped. Our guess is that it might have to do with the unexpected arrival at the end of the trailer... Avengers 4 trailer shot-by-shot breakdown Hope ... one Scott Lang AKA Ant-Man, who, last we saw, was trapped in the Quantum Realm with no way out. What if he saw something while he was in there that could reverse the snap and save the day? Avengers 4 trailer shot-by-shot breakdown A Title There we go... Avengers: End Game. Which, actually, comes from a line Doctor Strange uttered at the end of Infinity War. During the Super Bowl, a second trailer only 30 seconds long was released, featuring a very empty world and some very sad Avengers. Some fans believed that some members of the superhero group have been removed from the trailer, as to avoid spoilers... Avengers: Endgame - Big Game Spot Those fans were proven right following the release of Captain Marvel, when another new trailer dropped. Interestingly, Tony Stark is pictured back on Earth and Brie Larson's Carol Danvers facing off against Thor (not in a fight, but a stare off). Trailer for Avengers: Endgame Soon after, one final trailer was released, featuring the superhero team heading off to fight Thanos, as well as a first look at the Mad Titan post-The Snappening. The events depicted seem to still be from early in Endgame, as the team are not wearing their white Quantum Suits (more on those later). Trailer for Marvel Studios' Avengers: Endgame A clip from the film, showing Captain Marvel, Captain America and Black Widow coming up with a plan to defeat Thanos has also been revealed much of the footage was previously seen in the trailer. Avengers: Endgame first clip Title For quite some time, no-one knew what the fourth Avengers movie would be called. First, the Russo Brothers who directed Infinity War and return for the sequel confirmed that the movie would not be given the subtitle Infinity Gauntlet. They initially claimed that the title was not said during Infinity War, which ruled out the title Endgame as the phrase was used during Infinity War. As we now know, the brothers were hiding the real title all along. Length Speaking during a live-streamed Q&A, Joe Russo revealed: The running time on Avengers 4 is currently sitting right at three hours. Well see if that holds. Asked later about the length of the film, the Russo brothers said that the run-time was still around the three-hour mark, with reports later claiming Marvel were considering having an interval in the film. The film was listed as three hours and two minutes long on AMC theatress official website, with the time later being removed from the webpage for the film. That length has since been confirmed by Marvel. Plot Thanks to License Global magazine the same publication that offered the world first synopsis for Infinity War we have a short, very non-spoilery summary of what to expect. A culmination of 22 interconnected films, the fourth instalment of the Avengers saga will draw audiences to witness the turning point of this epic journey. Our beloved heroes will truly understand how fragile this reality is and the sacrifices that must be made to uphold it. The only real pointer there is the fact sacrifices will be made which hints that a couple of big character deaths could be around the corner. Which brings us nicely to our next point... Who will die? Chris Evans has confirmed that hes hanging up the shield after the next Avengers, strongly implying that Captain America may die. And while the actor has said that his characters death is not a sure-fire thing, fans are expecting the honourable Captain to perish at some stage. Another possibility is Iron Man. Robert Downey Jr has been demanding increasing pay for each Avengers outing, with some estimates putting his salary for Infinity War and Endgame at around $200 million. Can the studio afford to keep paying the actor such massive amounts? Considering Infinity War grossed upwards of 2 billion, they certainly can but do they want to? Nonetheless, fans are still expecting Iron Man to kick the iron bucket at some stage in the near future. There's also Thor. Chris Hemsworth has heavily hinted that the character will not be returning, saying: "Who knows what the future holds and whether they do prequels and sequels or whatever, I'd be open to anything. But right now, this is where we finish up." Of course, with Thanos still around, theres a chance any of the beloved characters who survived the snap Hulk, Ant-Man, Rocket, and Hawkeye could perish. The only survivor with a future solo movie currently in development is Black Widow, but her movie will likely be a prequel to her Avengers days. Will the dusted Avengers come back? Somewhat bizarrely, those who actually died during Infinity War are more likely to survive Thanoss anger. Why? Because those superheroes who were dusted are the ones with sequels already lined up. Black Panther, Spider-Man, Doctor Strange and the Guardians of the Galaxy all have sequels lined up (Black Panther 2, Spider-Man: Far From Home, Doctor Stange 2 and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, respectively). Other future projects include The Eternals, with The Riders Chloe Zhao attached to direct, plus a film centred on Black Widow (though this could be a prequel). Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Speaking of people coming back, one actor has let slip that his villain returns for Endgame; Frank Grillo revealed on a podcast that he will be back as Captain America nemesis Crossbones in a flashback. Stan Lee The comic-book writer passed away at 95-years-old, leaving behind a huge legacy. Many fans have wondered whether the icon filmed his Avengers: Endgame cameo before passing away. This has previously been confirmed by The Russo Brothers, who said the cameo was filmed alongside his Ant Man and the Wasp cameo. Will Hawkeye be back? Hawkeyes on his own journey in this movie, the Russo brothers said of the missing Avenger. What journey exactly? Well, some comic-book fans are speculating that Clint Barton may have undergone some serious changes since the snap something which has since been confirmed by the movies first trailer. In the comics, once his family gets brutally killed, Hawkeye takes on the vigilante identity of Ronin. Considering the trailer sees Jeremy Renner wearing clothes very similar to what Ronin is depicted as wearing, these theories seem very likely. Who else survived? Recommended How to watch every Marvel film and TV show in chronological order A brand new tie-in book from Brandon T Snider, titled Marvels Avengers: Infinity War: The Cosmic Quest, Volume 2: Aftermath, has revealed that Thanos finger-snapping destruction left two Thor side-kicks alive: Dr Erik Selvig (played by Stellan Skarsgard) and his associate Darcy Lewis (Kat Dennings). Theorists believe Selvigs survival will prove key to defeating Thanos. They argue that the scientist knew Thanoss destructive snap was going to happen thanks to being hypnotised by the Mind Stone back in Avengers: Age of Ultron and so created a fault which will see the destruction reversed. Other confirmed survivors include Valkyrie, Aunt May and Howard the Duck. SHIELDs comeback With Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders) returning for Spider-Man: Far From Home, theres been some fan speculation about how SHIELD may once again become important in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And thanks to a new Agents of SHIELD trailer, that certainly looks to be true. The trailer features the SHIELD team fighting crime in broad daylight once more, having gone into hiding following the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Witht the team no longer underground, many fans believe Endgame will conclude with SHIELD once again working at full capacity and as the world once more needing a specialised task-force to deal with otherworldly threats. With that in mind, expect a large nod to the future of SHIELD in Endgame. Captain Marvel post-credits scene During the post-credits scene to Captain Marvel, we see Nick Furys pager that same pager established during Captain Marvel and pictured during the Avengers: Infinity War post-credits scene now at the Avengers facility with Captain America, Black Widow, Bruce Banner and War Machine. Fury had been attempting to contact someone and the gang are keeping the pager powered, hoping someone responds. Suddenly, the pager goes blank. I thought we bypassed the battery, Steve Rogers says, to which Rhodey replies: Well, we did. Its still plugged in, just stopped. Black Widow responds: I want to know whos on the end of that thing. Then, BAM, Captain Marvel appears behind Natasha, and asks: Wheres Fury? Turns out Captain Marvel was surprise - at the other end of the pager all along and she survived Thanoss snap. Fans believe this scene could have been taken directly out of Endgame and may explain why a character was seemingly missing from on the second trailer. Have there been any leaks? There have not been many leaks, although photos from the set of Avengers 4 have been posted online including one hinting that perhaps Gwyneth Paltrows Pepper Potts will have a bigger role to play. Theres also been a new casting 13 Reason Whys Katherine Langford. Marvel, being secretive as they are, have not revealed who she will be playing, although fans believe the 22-year-old could play an older version of Cassie Lang, the daughter of Paul Rudds Ant-Man originally portrayed by Abby Ryder Fortson, who is 10 years old. The Independent has previously dived into what these photos could mean for the Avengers here including how time-travelling and the quantum realm will likely play a major part. Read our spoiler-filled in-depth look at the speculation surround the plot here. Sir Elton John has welcomed Donald Trumps State of the Union commitment to defeat Aids in America within a decade. His announcement followed a campaign by The Independent and Evening Standard to raise awareness about the disease. During his speech to the joint houses of Congress, the president vowed to take on a problem many thought had been defeated decades ago, but which remains an epidemic for some communities. In the US today, one in two gay black men will be diagnosed with HIV during their lifetime, an infection rate that matches those of cities in southern Africa. In the address, Mr Trump said the country had made remarkable progress, but he wanted to do even more. My budget will ask Democrats and Republicans to make the needed commitment to eliminate the HIV epidemic in the United States within 10 years, he said. Together, we will defeat Aids in America. Independent campaign with the Elton John AIDS Foundation Show all 10 1 /10 Independent campaign with the Elton John AIDS Foundation Independent campaign with the Elton John AIDS Foundation Sir Elton John and Evgeny Lebedev The Independent has launched it's Christmas charity appeal for essential HIV testing around the world with the Elton John AIDS Foundation. Funds raised will pay for those at risk to be able to get tested, and will make sure they have access to the treatment they need. Sir Elton John and Evgeny Lebedev with their HIV test swabs at the Ponce Centre in Atlanta Jeremy Selwyn Independent campaign with the Elton John AIDS Foundation Elton John and Andrew Williams Andrew Williams had never heard of the word HIV when he tested positive. It was his mother who had forced him to go to the doctor where he got the diagnosis that he thought was a death sentence. At that time he was in a wheelchair. It was the unbearable itching of his back that finally got him to get medical help but, he discovered, he not only had HIV but diabetes, high blood pressure and kidney disease. That was two years ago. This week, as the 31-year-old joined Sir Elton John and Evening Standard and The Independent owner Evgeny Lebedev in Atlanta to witness the revolutionary new breakthroughs against the disease at the citys Grady Ponce De Leon Centre, there was no need for a wheelchair. Nor, he now knew, was there any need for fear Jeremy Selwyn Independent campaign with the Elton John AIDS Foundation Evgeny Lebedev and Andrew Williams Within two months of starting the latest antiretroviral drugs, the virus in his body had become undetectable in his blood. Not only is he now healthy, partly due to the drugs and partly due to the healthy lifestyle adopted for his other illnesses, but he can virtually not pass the infection to other people. He feels, he says, reborn. I have a reason to live, he explained, and that is to help people who were like me and to show youre going to be OK. Jeremy Selwyn Independent campaign with the Elton John AIDS Foundation It was a message so stark in its optimism that it reduced Sir Elton to tears. He knows first-hand the realities of what, in the past, an HIV diagnosis can mean. When he started his Elton John AIDS Foundation in the US in 1992, it was because his friends were dying and he wanted to do what he could, anything that he could, to help. When we set up the Elton John AIDS Foundation we were delivering meals to peoples doors, he said. [The stigma meant] they would not go outside. We have come a long way. Jeremy Selwyn Independent campaign with the Elton John AIDS Foundation But part of the reason for his tears was not only happiness at Andrews story. It was also the knowledge that, despite all the advances that have been made, the fight is far from won indeed, in some parts of the world, things are getting worse. Sir Elton John with everyone at the Ponce Centre in Atlanta Jeremy Selwyn Independent campaign with the Elton John AIDS Foundation It is why he and Mr Lebedev had come to Atlanta to mark the first day of our Christmas Appeal, for that city, sadly, is one place where the situation is not only getting worse but, as those at the centre made clear, dramatically so. Jeremy Selwyn Independent campaign with the Elton John AIDS Foundation Sir Elton John with Vic Mensa at the Ponce Centre Jeremy Selwyn Independent campaign with the Elton John AIDS Foundation Sir Elton John with his HIV test swab In Atlanta, one of Americas richest cities and the home of such international corporate giants as Coca-Cola and CNN, if you are a gay black man in 2018 then, unbelievably, you still have a one in two chance of being diagnosed as HIV positive during your lifetime. Jeremy Selwyn Independent campaign with the Elton John AIDS Foundation Elton John with the mayor of Atlanta, Keisha Lance Bottoms Jeremy Selwyn Independent campaign with the Elton John AIDS Foundation Elton John talks at the Ponce Centre Jeremy Selwyn Sir Elton, who has devoted decades to raising awareness about the issue of HIV and the treatments now available, said the presidents words were to be welcomed. The award-winning musician and songwriter established the Elton John AIDS Foundation (EJAF) in 1992, to promote education and awareness, and fight stigma associated with the illness. I applaud President Trumps announcement of a renewed commitment to ending the Aids epidemic in the United States, he said. While we have made tremendous progress in reducing new infections and reaching those who are at risk or HIV positive with lifesaving testing and treatment services, the epidemic in the US is far from over. While early epicenters like San Francisco and New York have seen dramatic declines in the incidence of HIV in recent years, the epidemic in the Southern United States still rages on, particularly among young black men who have sex with men. He added: I saw this first hand when I visited Atlanta recently. Meeting patients and clinicians, city leaders and HIV activists at the Ponce Centre in Atlanta on the eve of World Aids Day last year and hearing their stories was heartbreaking. At the end of last year, Sir Elton and Evgeny Lebedev, owner of The Independent and the Evening Standard, spearheaded a campaign to highlight the challenges confronting those working to beat HIV and Aids, not just in the US but around the world. As part of a campaign to raise both awareness and funds for Sir Eltons foundation, the two men visited Atlanta, where they spoke with people living with HIV, talked to physicians and community groups, and underwent a HIV test to show how simply the test can be performed. The campaign raised $4.2m (3.26m), and was picked up by media around the world. Carlos del Rio, professor of global health at Atlantas Emory University, which works with the Grady clinic visited by Sir Elton and Mr Lebedev, said he believed the news coverage generated by the visit was one of the factors that helped lead Mr Trump to include in his speech a commitment to end Aids in a decade. Elton John and Evgeny Lebedev travel to the Ponce De Leon centre in Atlanta to support their HIV work as part of The Independents campaign (Jeremy Selwyn) Mr del Rio, a member of the leadership team of Fast-Track Cities, a global, United Nations-backed initiative to tackle HIV, said he had forwarded some of the articles published by The Independent and Evening Standard to senior officials at the department of health and human services (HHS), and the national institutes of health (NIH). In particular, he drew attention to an article that featured two physicians from the Grady clinic, Wendy Armstrong and Jonathan Colasanti, explaining how, for all their efforts, they annually lost 100 patients a year to Aids. The numbers alone are certainly astonishing. For 2016 and 2017, a single hospital in the Atlanta area, we have lost over 100 individuals a year. Mostly young people, said Mr Colasanti, an assistant professor of medicine in infectious diseases. The tragedy is not only do they tend to die very painful, drawn-out physical deaths, but the tougher thing for me to watch, is the emotional aspect. The number of people that we watch die alone, with no one in the room with them, surrounded by no family, is one of the greatest tragedies of our time. Ms Armstrong, who carried out the HIV tests on Sir Elton and Mr Lebdev, said there were many reasons why HIV infection rates among black communities in the American South were so high among them education, poverty and distrust of the medical community. AIDSFree: The grim reality of dealing with HIV at Atlanta's Grady hospital She added: One cannot ignore in the South the legacy of racism and the remaining structural racism that affects our institutions. Mr del Rio said he had taken the reports and forwarded them to some very important people. I think it was among a number of catalysers that resulted in Mr Trumps commitment, he said. He added that he had been working with health officials for the past month and had expected Mr Trump to include the commitment in his address on Tuesday night. In a statement, the HHS department said: This initiative is the result of months of conversations among various HHS leaders, who then took the proposal to President Trump. HHS is in regular contact with leaders of the HIV community, whom we hope to partner with in making this initiative a great success. HHS secretary Alex Azar said the battle to tackle Aids in a decade would focus on three main area increasing investments in geographic hotspots, using data to identify where HIV is spreading most rapidly, and providing funds for the creation of local HIV HealthForce in these areas. We have the tools available to end the HIV epidemic, and most infections are now highly concentrated in certain geographic hotspots, he said. More than 50 per cent of new HIV diagnoses in 2016 and 2017 occurred in 48 counties, Washington DC, and San Juan, Puerto Rico. We also know certain rural areas carry a disproportionately high burden of HIV, especially in the South. Sir Elton said his foundation looked forward to working in coalition with political leaders on both sides of the aisle, private partners, civil society and leading experts to find creative solutions. He also stressed that the presidents commitment to addressing the epidemic in the US, should not be a trade off with the life saving working the US government does in relation to HIV around the world. He added: If we all work together, we can defeat Aids in the 10 year deadline set by President Trump. The untimely and unexpected death of the CEO of a startup in the cryptocurrency space may have cost his customers $ 190 million. Gerard Cotten, 30, died in India last December of complications from Crohn's disease. He was the founder and CEO of QuadrigaCX, Canada's largest cryptocurrency exchange. According to court filings last week, Jennifer Robertson, Cotten's widow, said her husband's company owes its customers roughly C$250 million (US$190 million) in cash and cryptocurrency. "Quadriga's inventory of cryptocurrency has become unavailable and some of it may be lost," Robertson told the court. Robertson has access to Cotten's laptop, but told the court that she's unable to open it. "The laptop computer from which Gerry carried out the companies' business is encrypted and I do not know the password or recovery key," she said. "Despite repeated and diligent searches, I have not been able to find them written down anywhere." I reached out to Ramona Pringle, a leading technology journalist and one of my colleagues at Ryerson University, about Cotten's story. "More and more, passwords, online accounts and other forms of digital property--including licenses, cryptocurrency, and even domain names--are falling in limbo because individuals don't manage such with the same diligence as they do with their real world property," she told me. She's correct. Researchers at the University of Melbourne have found that few people systematically download and store their online content in formats accessible to others after their death, meaning a great deal of the content may be lost. And that's just content. Consider other forms of digital property, including online accounts like Paypal and Stripe, social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and even memberships like Netflix and Hulu. So how do you safeguard all of that? It starts with knowing the rules. The Rules Just like real-world property--like cash, stocks, houses, and cars--digital property is covered by local regulations, legislation, and case law. But digital accounts and assets are also protected by online privacy laws and terms of service, and these are interpreted differently across various jurisdictions. Can you will your digital property like you will your home? The answer is very platform-specific and varies greatly. For instance, you don't actually "own" shows you purchase on iTunes. You actually only have a right to access them. Further complications arise because each social platform and online service provider has its own policy for account closures in the event of death. Your best bet is to explicitly and legally give control of those assets to someone. Facebook simply isn't going to let you access your recently deceased relatives account because you email them. That's why we all need a digital will. What's a digital will? I'm glad you asked. Digital Wills A digital will is a document that instructs loved ones on how to manage your digital presence and assets after you're gone. It's a summary of explicit instructions (with passwords) on how to deal with your digital property upon your death. It can be an informal document that allows family members to close down your online accounts. However, if you want to transfer rights to things like domain names or cryptocurrencies, you should account for that in your formal will. With that in mind, here are four steps to create your digital will: Make a list. Create a list of all the sites where you have accounts, including social media, photo storage, email accounts, online brokerage accounts, blogs and accounts that automatically withdraw from your bank account. Appoint an executor. Select a mature person to carry out your wishes after you're gone. Let the executor know about your digital will in advance. Let them know how they will find the document when the time comes. Be sure to name your executor in your digital will. Many sites require both proof of death and proof that you have the right to act for the deceased. Draft explicit instructions. Make sure people know what you'd like to see happen with each account. For example, what do you want your last Facebook post to be? Who should get access to the photos on Facebook and who should get access to any funds in a Facebook account? Don't guess or leave it to the executor to decide your wishes. Be clear. Store the digital will in a safe place. A digital will is only useful if it can be found. Consider printing and signing your digital will, and storing it with your other important personal documents. Personally, I recommend attaching it as an appendix to your formal will and leaving it with your attorney. If art can reflect the society around it, the posters hanging on the walls in Facebook's offices right now arguably are in a unique position to offer commentary. Scott Boms is the man responsible for those posters. He's the lead designer within something called the Facebook Analog Research Lab. The lab's home base is in Facebook's headquarters in Menlo Park, California, and designs posters, paintings, installations, and books that adorn all of its offices around the world. As Boms explained it Wednesday evening to an audience of fewer than 100 people at New York City's Type Directors Club, the artwork is designed to reflect the company's culture--but also to create important dialogue among employees. A few recent examples include a stark "Black Lives Matter" print. Another features a ticket on which are printed the words "Give More Than You Take." A series of colorful prints exhorts employees to "Be the nerd." Another poster, which went up in 2016--the same year Facebook was accused of helping spread misinformation during the presidential election-- reads, "Slow down your hurry up." Boms said that one was specifically designed to encourage employees to think about what's happening around them and why. "It really breaks the bubble in many ways," he told Inc. "We don't want to make things just to make people happy or to make them feel comfortable--or ask when it's appropriate to push the needle a little bit." Despite being onsite, the lab is distinct from the corporate space. Boms said the posters are rarely used for Facebook or its initiatives and "never come from the top down." One misconception that irks him? That these are motivational posters. "We try to run away from that as quickly as possible," he said. The artwork, Boms argued, is a reflection of the people--or at least the people who make up the company. Tech companies lining their walls with colorful posters and inspirational quotes is not a new concept. New Jersey-based industrial research company Nokia Bell Labs has a history of collaborating with artists since the 1960s when it was owned by AT&T. Google, Amazon, and Airbnb have artist-in-residence programs. Austin-based Bumble, maker of the social and dating app, hangs posters that say things like "Make the First Move" or "Be the CEO Your Parents Always Wanted You to Marry" on its walls. True to Boms's words, corporate artwork can, indeed, spark reactions among employees--and not necessarily positive ones. Last August, at least 10 LGBT posters at Amazon's headquarters were defaced. Some of the more provocative works of Facebook art have come from outside artists. Last December, artist-in-residence Luiza Dale blew up the "terms and services agreement" and printed it on sheets of paper that employees could take. Dale, who spoke at Wednesday's event, admitted at the time that she felt somewhat hesitant and wondered if she was violating her nondisclosure agreement. She went ahead anyway. "My intention was to bring light to foggy pieces of information," Dale told the audience. Both Dale and Boms said neither received any backlash from the company. The lab hasn't always been a part of Facebook, and it has something of its own scrappy startup story. In 2010, Facebook designers Ben Barry and Everett Katigbak, who sat in front of computers all day, were yearning to get their hands dirty again. Without formal approval, they began building a space in the back of an office in Palo Alto where they could hack things together. They used cheap, rudimentary equipment to screenprint posters. (Screenprinting involves a blade or squeegee to force ink through mesh creating a pattern.) Soon enough, the posters made their way onto the office walls and have stayed there since. Boms, who first joined Facebook in 2012 to design the marketing for products, now leads the lab, which has grown to 25 people or so. In 2016, the lab launched the invite-only artists-in-residence program, bringing people outside of Facebook to incorporate more diverse viewpoints. It has outposts in at least 10 cities including New York City, Seattle, London, Dublin, and Austin. The first posters, which came in 2011 and used only red ink (because it was cheap), reflected the "move fast-break things" mantra; a couple of years later, the focus had switched to "move fast-build things." In recent years, they have acquired a more progressive cultural dimension. And while no posters explicitly reference Facebook's data leaks and Russian meddling scandals, several do allude to them, though some are more critical than others. One recent design says, "Nothing at Facebook is somebody else's problem." Another poster reads, "Orville Wright did not have a pilot's license." The quote is from the book Orbiting the Giant Airball: A Corporate Fool's Guide to Surviving With Grace. "It very much encapsulates the idea that Facebook is doing this thing that no one has ever done before--so there have really never been rules on what to do," he said, alluding to Facebook's recent troubles. "Even if there are no boundaries, you have to set some to make sure things are going in the right direction." (The Center Square) High school students may soon be able to take financial literacy courses as part of their required two years of social studies with a measure awaiting the governors approval. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) General Secretary, Anthony Bellanger, has sent a letter of support to Turkish journalist Ayse Duzkan, who was sentenced to an 18-month jail imprisonment for acting as the symbolic editor-in-chief of Kurdish Ozgur Gundem newspaper for one day. Dear Ayse, It is with great dismay that I received the news of your and four other fellow journalists prison sentencing. On behalf of the IFJ and myself, I wish to send you and your peers all our support. You have been convicted at the end of a long trial of spreading propaganda for a terrorist organisation. We all know, as may the prosecution itself, it is not true and the accusations made against you are groundless. What you have done is carry on with your journalistic work, champion solidarity with fellow colleagues at Ozgur Gundemand stand up for press freedom in one of the most difficult and divisive times Turkey has ever faced. We salute your commitment and your courage. Sadly, over 161 journalists are currently imprisoned in Turkey and more continue to be sent behind bars, as a result of unprecedented and irrational crackdown on the media and for no other reason than carrying out their duty. The vast majority of these cases are politically motivated, despite the authorities saying otherwise and claiming the judiciarys independence. It is the medias duty to report society, however divided it may be and however difficult the task is. Turkey is polarized and this policy is making matters worse. It is not only harming journalists and the media, it is harming people and the countrys prospects to unite and regain peace. Dear Ayse, you are in prison but you are not alone. Be proud of your sacrifice for Turkish journalism. Be strong and certain of our indefectible appreciation and continued efforts to secure your release. In solidarity, Anthony Bellanger, General Secretary Today, the Aliansi Jurnalis Independen (AJI) have met with the Indonesian Government to present a letter from the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and AJI urging the President to withdraw the pardon granted to journalist killer I Nyoman Susrama. On December 7, 2018, President Joko Widodo issued the Presidential Decree No. 29/2018 to lowering the sentence of I Nyoman Susrama, the killer of Radar Bali journalist Anak Agung Gde Bagus Narendra Prabangsa. Based on the decree, Susramas sentence commuted from a life sentence to 20 years imprisonment. IFJ together with AJI and Indonesian colleagues have sent a letter of complaint tpthe President urging him withdraw the pardon. Also presented were letter of complaints received from AJI chapters throughout Indonesia as well as as online petition signed by more than 46,000. The letters and petition were presented to the Ministry of Law and Human Rights in Jakarta on Friday, February 8. Prabangsa was killed when he investigated corruption in the local department in education. His death shows that the country failed to protect journalists whilst they are doing their job, providing the information to the public. The sentence of the murderer of Prabangsa was among the very few of journalists killing that had been resolved. According to the data from the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) Indonesia, there are still eight unsolved murder of journalists. One of them is the murder of Bernas daily journalist Fuad Muhammad Syafruddin in 1996. Chairman of AJI, Abdul Manan, said the concerns expressed from different organisations has shown that the reduction of Susramas sentence is not only a major issue for journalists community but also widespread to general public. The huge supports we received since Susrama received the pardon is a strong message for the President Joko Widodo to reconsider his decision and retract the remission, Abdul said. The IFJ said: We stand with AJI and our Indonesian colleagues in urging President Joko Widodo to use his Presidential power to retract the pardon granted to I Nyoman Susrama and ensure he serves the life sentence for the heinous crime for which he was found guilty. In doing so, Indonesian government will be taking a stand to support and guarantee press freedom, journalist safety and a commitment to end impunity in the country. The International and European Federations of Journalists (IFJ/EFJ), the world and Europes largest journalists organisations, call on EU Institutions to reject provisions and proposals that aim to restrict or obliterate journalists remuneration, ahead of final negotiations on the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (DSM). It is with great dismay and disbelief that the IFJ and the EFJ have read the EU Presidencys latest proposals regarding journalists remuneration in the context of the draft legislation. While floating a possible compromise idea of an appropriate and proportionate remuneration for authors in Recital 39Y and presumably in Article -14, the EU Presidency suggests maintaining under Article 11.4a a lesser appropriate share of the additional revenues for authors of works incorporated in a press publication. It also proposes to maintain Recital 35 (mirroring Article 11) and even add additional text making journalists remuneration conditional on contractual arrangements and Member States laws on ownership of rights in the context of employment contracts. This would be a disaster for journalists. Finally, in its note, the EU Presidency suggests trading-off Articles -14 and 16a, which are important for the European Parliament, against Articles 11 and 13, short-selling in the process journalists interests to those of authors in other sectors. These proposals are appalling and unworthy of the EU. They create two categories of authors: those who will receive proportionate remuneration under Article -14 and those whose who will not their share will depend on their contractual arrangements and employment contracts, under Article 11. These discriminatory provisions and proposals in Article 11 and Recital 35 obliterate any hopes for authors in the press sector to obtain fair and proportionate remuneration for their work. They enshrine the system whereby powerful publishers force employed journalists and freelancers alike to sign contracts giving up their rights thereby offering them a proportionate or appropriate share of nothing. This draft is a far cry from the legislation which was going to deliver a fair distribution of the revenues generated in the digital world. We regret the climate around negotiations and reject measures and proposals on the table that deny the rights of authors in the press sector, said Ricardo Gutierrez, EFJ General Secretary. The IFJ and the EFJ are calling for the last time on the European Parliament, the European Council and the European Commission to stand up for journalism and democracy in Europe, uphold transparency measures (Articles 14-16) and remove exceptions and restrictions to journalists right to fair and proportionate remuneration, including in Articles 4, 11 and 13. This directive must offer authors in the press sector a fair and proportionate share, distinct from salary and irrespective of contractual arrangements, employment contracts and national industry licensing standards, said Anthony Bellanger, IFJ General Secretary. "If the directive, instead of improving rights enshrines inequality and upholds restrictions in Article 11 and Recital 35, it is not worth having it. IDTechEx Research has been analysing the technologies and markets for quantum dots since 2013. Since that time, it has stayed extremely close to the latest research and market developments via its interview programme and company and conference visits. Furthermore, IDTechEx Research has engaged closely with many of its clients, helping them better understand the technology and market landscape and helping them set their innovation and commercialization strategies. In its analysis of quantum dots, IDTechEx Research brings its wealth of expertise in analysing advanced electronic materials and devices. We have been in this business for the past 20 years and in this time have closely observed the rise and/or fall, and the success and/or disappointment, of many emerging technologies. This gives us a uniquely experienced eye when it comes to analysing emerging electronic material technologies. This is crucial because it helps us establish a realistic market and technology roadmap that reflects the true potential of the technology based on its intrinsic characteristics and on the true level of technical and commercial challenges that it faces. The depth and breadth of our expertise in these fields is reflected in our report portfolio which covers numerous advanced materials, many emerging electronic devices such as printed and/or flexible electronics, and novel manufacturing processes. What this report offers This report provides a detailed technology analysis. It considers various quantum dot compositions such as Cd-based, In-based QDs as well as the likes of emerging organic and inorganic perovskites, PbS, CuInS2, InGaN, quantum rods, and so on. It also provides a detailed benchmarking of QDs vs existing phosphor technology. Our analysis is data driven, reflecting the latest commercial and academic results. For each material, as appropriate, we assess its performance, its key remaining material challenges, its production processes, and its directions/strategies of improvement. Our technology roadmap also considers how the technology mix in various applications will be transformed with time. In displays, it considers the rise and fall of various QD integration approaches. It shows that film-type now reigns supreme after edge optic went obsolete. It however also shows the emerging approaches such as color filter (LCD and OLED) or on-chip type (LCD and microLED), enabled by material improvements, will eventually unseat it. Furthermore, it will consider QDs as the ultimate emissive material for displays, tracing the trends in efficiency and lifetime improvements whilst exploring the remaining challenges in terms of performance, lifetime, deposition/patterning, device design, and so on. In lighting, our roadmap considers how and when QDs will become used in LED lights either as direct or remote downconverters and either in general lighting or specialized niche applications. In sensors, it will explore hybrid QD-Si visible image sensors can simultaneously achieve high resolution and global shutter, whilst it shows how QD-Si NR and SWIR image sensors can overcome current resolution issues imposed unmonolothic integration. In photovoltaics, it reports the latest progress worldwide whilst stating the might commercial and technical challenges that are yet to be overcome and considers novel uses cases such as LCS. Crucially, our technology analysis considers the requirements that must be met to enable each application and outlines the current progress and future strategies in achieving targets. Here, we will consider parameters such as stability (air, heat, light), self-absorption, blue absorbance, efficiency (QY), narrowband emission (FWHM) and so on. This report also provides ten-year market forecasts in sqm (or Kg) and value, and at material and solution level, for 15 technologies: edge optic displays, film type displays, color filter QD display, on-chip QD display, emissive QD displays, QD-Si hybrid visible image sensors, NIR/SWIR image sensors, remote QD LED lights and on-chip QD LED lights, QD photovoltaics, researchers and more. Our forecasts draw heavily from our technology analysis which gives us realistic and expert view of when and how various technologies can become commercially viable compared incumbents, and also from our detailed interviews, deep market insights, and close trend tracking. This report also provides detailed overviews of 37 players in the value chain. In many cases, our overviews also include a SWOT (strength, weakness, opportunities, threats) analysis of the key players. Note: We've recently updated our online systems. If you can't login please try resetting your password. You must login with an email address. If you don't have an email associated with your account email circulation2@journalnet.com for help creating one. Buena Vista, CO (81211) Today Partly cloudy skies during the morning hours will become overcast in the afternoon. High 81F. Winds W at 10 to 20 mph.. Tonight Cloudy skies early will become partly cloudy later at night. Low 53F. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph. We've recently updated our online systems. If you can't login please try resetting your password. You must login with an email address. If you don't have an email associated with your account email circulation@idahopress.com for help creating one. Viewed of Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading. Scooter Brauns Ithaca Holdings Acquires Atlas Music, Publisher For Brandi Carlile Ithaca Holdings, the media holding company led by manager and music entrepreneur Scooter Braun (Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande) has acquired prominent music publisher Atlas Music. Founded in 2013 by Richard Stumpf, Atlas represents a significant music catalog that includes hits by Drake, Demi Lovato, Madonna, Ed Sheeran, and John Legend. Atlass most recent signing is Brandi Carlile, who is up for six Grammy nominations for her album By The Way, I Forgive. Richard has built an incredible publishing business with Atlas and we are excited to bring him and his team into the family, said Scooter Braun in a presser announcing the acquisition. By working with Richard and his team, we will have a direct line to some of the most creative writers making the publishing process more streamlined and personal. Ive admired the work that Scooter has done over the years and his commitment for doing right by talent. He has the pulse of the music industry like no other. It was clear to me that beyond the business, Scooter was someone who genuinely wants to be part of the greater good. We look forward to many successful years together with Scooter, Allison Kaye and the rest of the SB team, Stumpf added. Atlas will continue to do business out of their established New York, Los Angeles and Nashville offices, the companies said. CelebrityAccess Share on: As an existing print subscriber it is easy to get FREE access to all our online content. When you click get started below it will walk you through creating an online account to attach your print subscription number to. After your account is created it will ask you to either add a subscription for online access or click on the print subscriber button. Click the print subscriber button header and it will open a dropdown, now click on get started. The page will reload and you will be prompted to enter an account number and a zip code. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO USE THE NUMBER OFF OF THE MOST RECENT ISSUE OR ANYTHING AFTER JANUARY 28, 2019 TO GAIN ACCESS! OLD ACCOUNT NUMBERS WILL NOT WORK The account number and zip code are easily available on your most recent issue of the High Plains Journal or Midwest Ag Journal in the address fields as is shown here. Sometimes the account number has extra zero's in front of it, just ignore those. The back-and-forth trade dispute between the United States and other global powers such as China might seem like a far-off concept for many Texans. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross dismissed the impact of this dispute as a rounding error, implying that most Americans would never notice its costs. But these trade wars result in tariffs that have wide-ranging consequences in communities across the country, and the burdens imposed on the natural gas and oil industry put Texas at the center of a trade war that shows few signs of ending. The Greater Houston Partnership found that the Houston area alone is home to nearly 5,000 businesses in the energy industry, with 250,000 employees making up almost 10 percent of the local workforce. Natural gas and oil provide and support millions of jobs throughout Texas and across the United States. When the industry is affected by burdensome and misguided government policies, the consequences are anything but trivial. The tariffs on imported steel under Section 232 cause uncertainty and delays for U.S. energy projects and sometimes result in significant project cost increases, hurting companies and workers across the country. The steel tax as the Section 232 tariffs are often referred to added $40 million to a Plains All American project in the Permian Basin. The project, which generated 2,600 construction jobs, is dependent on specialty steel elements not produced in the United States. That steel had to be imported from Greece. This American energy project, with thousands of construction workers, was affected negatively by the tariffs imposed by this administration on European allies. These trade policies are doubly damaging to infrastructure projects thanks to quotas, which restrict the amount of steel American companies can import. Projects could be significantly delayed due to material shortages in addition to rising costs. Even more troubling is the discussion of future quotas with Canada and Mexico. Those quotas not only run counter to the spirit of free trade that underpins the United States-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) trade deal, they actively hurt American businesses that rely on imported materials in order to operate and create jobs. If there is no relief provided for the existing tariffs and quotas, the effects will be felt in countless industries throughout the country, including right here in Texas. In addition to U.S. tariffs and quotas, retaliatory tariffs from China have significantly affected the export markets for American natural gas and outlook for new liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facilities here in the United States. With a rapidly growing but still nascent LNG industry, the United States depends on access to overseas markets to help grow the American LNG sector and create jobs. Reuters recently reported that only six LNG vessels went from the United States to China in the second half of 2018 as a result of retaliatory tariffs, down from 25 for the same period in the previous year. That decline raises serious red flags. Last year, Chinas LNG purchases reached an all-time high. The fact that American LNG exports to China have dropped so precipitously shows that when the United States is unable to economically fill the energy needs of a major overseas market, other countries will readily fill the void. The United States is right to fight to put us on a level playing field with our global competitors. However, the current approach is causing ongoing pain for the energy industry - an important driver of Texass economy. The administration needs to shift course quickly, before the impact of its trade policies becomes even more painful. Our economy and our workers are depending on it. Padilla is senior advisor for international policy at the American Petroleum Institute in Washington, D.C.He leads APIs work to determine and represent the natural gas and oil industrys public policy positions on key international issues, including cybersecurity, trade and global economic policy, and sustainability. The first time I heard U.S. Rep. Beto ORourke speak was in 2017 at Southern Methodist University during his campaign for U.S. Senate. It was one of the early speeches in which he casually dropped a few f-bombs. While it may have taken some folks aback, I shouted Amen! and applauded. The El Paso congressman made his profane remark while discussing the mental health crisis in Texas and the fact that our jails have become a place where people go on purpose to get treatment. Before the Affordable Care Act, I was denied health insurance because of my diagnoses of major depression and anxiety disorder. These conditions were exacerbated by chronic migraines, and I struggled to get access to medications, doctor visits and therapy. Thanks to the ACA, also known as Obamacare, non-discrimination mandates and mental health parity help ensure I can get the care I need. When folks like me are forced to go without medication and treatment, the harm is not just delayed care. We risk losing our lives to suicide. My work as a disability activist is more than fighting stigma its promoting policy and defending civil rights. When I heard ORourke speak, I was thrilled to witness a politician with a passion for disability rights that matched mine. But when I had the opportunity to chat with the congressman after his speech, we didnt talk about wonky policy. Beto and I talked about punk rock. In the 1980s, punk was my introduction to politics through bands like The Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, The Clash and Minor Threat. As a middle schooler, I memorized every song on the Dead Kennedys album, Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death much to the horror of my conservative Christian parents. I was intrigued by the hard-hitting lyrics that criticized American culture, corporate consumerism and then-president Ronald Reagan. Punk was more than shocking fashion, fast music and youthful rebellion. It was a rejection of consumerism, ableism, classism and racism. As a sophomore at Richardson High School outside Dallas in the early 1990s, I joined my classmates for a protest at the civic center where presidential candidate David Duke, former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan was speaking. Nearly 30 years later, were still fighting to keep the racists out of politics. As a Gen Xer, I was even a fan of ORourkes former band, Foss. The groups made headlines just before the last election when Texas Republicans tried to embarrass ORourke by sharing an old photo of him wearing a dress, posing with bandmates. After the election, footage surfaced of ORourke playing guitar in a sheep mask and pajamas, belting out Ramones covers in a band called The Sheeps. Art and punk rock have a long, colorful history of speaking truth to power. Provocative theatrics, rejection of gender stereotypes and thumbing your nose at the establishment was precisely the point. But not just anyone with an instrument, animal mask and tight-fitting onesie can be punk. Authenticity is everything. True to form, ORourke encourages everyone to call him by his childhood nickname despite having served as an esteemed congressman. Even his public persona is unconventional: His campaign appearances were unscripted, unedited and livestreamed. The entire ethos of his senatorial campaign was punk do-it-yourself and grassroots-driven a major departure from establishment political tradition. While authenticity is a punk rock virtue, being a poseur is the greatest sin. Our current commander-in-chief is the biggest poseur of all time. Trump campaigned as a champion of the working class, but instead he gave massive tax cuts to the wealthy, aims to gut Medicaid and is willing to furlough federal workers to the point that it triggers financial crises for hardworking families. Far from rejecting the status-quo, Trump is eternally status-seeking and obsessed with fame and fortune. Punk remains an incomparable catalyst for change. ORourke doesnt have to get the band back together, but he must return to the stage. His uniquely American brand politics rousing, salient and self-produced with a vast and loyal following is destined for wider audiences. We need the marquee to read Beto 2020, not as an encore run for Senate but for president. Thats because ORourke is a rebel with a cause. Hes fighting for human rights, and he knows that disability rights are human rights. Ross is a disability rights activist in Dallas. Monica Roberts has a theory about her native city of Houston, and it isnt pretty. As awareness of the transgender community has grown, so has a backlash that has left many transgender Houstonians like her feeling more endangered than ever. Thats a troubling assessment coming from Roberts, who transitioned 25 years ago and is a leader in the trans community. And its a disheartening prospect for a city that prides itself on diversity and openness. But Roberts fear is easily understood when we hear about incidents like the Jan. 24 shooting at the Chevron gas station at 10414 Richmond Ave. in west Houston. A man chased a transgender woman through the parking lot and shot at her repeatedly in broad daylight. First responders found Candice Elease Pinky lying in the doorway and took her to the hospital, where she was treated for shots through her throat and hands and released two or three days later. She told us Thursday she is still in pain but recovering. A police spokesman said two liaison officers have been working directly with the LGBTQ community to allay fears that may have arisen from the shooting. Thats a reassuring response. But convincing transgender Houstonians that they are welcome will take more than outreach from law enforcement. It will take each of us who say we support equity and diversity to walk the walk in our daily lives. Certainly, weve come far in our general acceptance of transgender men, women and children living as our friends, co-workers and neighbors. Even just 10 years ago, the notion of ones gender not matching ones outward anatomy was foreign enough to most that it was rarely mentioned in mainstream conversation. Now though, issues regarding the trans community get a lot of ink, much of it supportive, and even folks for whom gender has never been complicated are aware that for hundreds of thousands of Americans some estimate more than 1 million, with 125,000 in Texas that isnt the case. Part of this awareness has stemmed from high-profile political fights, such as the 2015 campaign in Houston to repeal the citys anti-discrimination ordinance. For all the ugly rhetoric, it was also true that many leaders in Houston stood up for transgender residents. Statewide, a similar set of mixed messages were sent two years later, when a coalition of big business and progressive groups came together to beat back the so-called bathroom bill in the 2017 Texas Legislature. Unfortunately, the harshest language often leaves the most lasting impressions. All the condemnation has left many in the transgender community feeling like targets. Roberts says hateful words make it easier for those who would harass or harm transgender people. Perhaps surprisingly, Roberts also argues that the 2015 Supreme Court ruling legalizing gay marriage also inadvertantly placed a bigger target on the trans community. The right-wing, she told the Editorial Board, has decided to switch targets, and were it. Her theory is not easily documented through statistics. The Houston Police Department keeps track of confirmed hate crimes, and last year just one confirmed case was reported to have involved a victim targeted due to gender identity. At the same time, confirmed crimes against people due to their race or sexual orientation leaped in 2018. And overall, hate crimes nearly tripled from the year before reaching 32 confirmed reports. But statistics rarely tell the whole story, especially in an area where so many abusive encounters never rise to the level of actual crimes, and even many of those that do go unreported. An overheard whisper while standing in line at the grocery store can shake a persons sense of belonging as easily as a threatened punch. Its easy to understand how a community under attack for years in political speeches, TV ad campaigns, and casual conversation can feel besieged. Its easy to imagine the trans community feeling besieged. But its not so hard for those of us who welcome and appreciate our trans neighbors to let them know it. The gas station shooting will echo for a while. Rattled nerves will take a while to calm. Spokesman Kese Smith urged all Houstonians to come forward with any information they may have about the incident. Time will tell what precisely motivated the shooter in this case. Pinky says she has no idea why she was shot. But in the meantime transgender residents of our city shouldnt be left to confront their rising fears alone. All of us should recognize that when one part of our city feels unwelcome or unsafe, it affects all of us. Were one city, after all. WASHINGTON As the new Democratic majority in the U.S. House takes its first tentative steps to obtain President Donald Trump's tax returns, Texas Republican Kevin Brady has emerged as one of the administration's top congressional defenders, arguing that the move would jeopardize all Americans' right to privacy. "This is about protecting the private tax returns of every American," the Republican from The Woodlands wrote Thursday in a letter to the Democratic chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, which was holding its first hearing on presidential tax returns. "When we start making exceptions for one taxpayer, it begins the process of eroding and threatening the privacy rights of all taxpayers." Brady, the former chairman of the tax-writing committee and now its ranking Republican, registered himself "deeply concerned" and accused Democrats of "weaponizing our nation's tax code by targeting political foes." BORDER WALL DEBATE: Trump to rally in El Paso In part, the battle over the president's tax returns has become a tale of two powerful Texans on the Ways and Means Committee, one a Republican, the other a Democrat. Texas U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, one of the panel's top Democrats, has filed six motions in the past two years calling for Trump's tax returns. "This has never been a problem before," Doggett said in an interview Thursday. "But we see almost daily now some indication of the president's interest in putting personal gain over the public interest, and we need to know through these returns if that's been happening." Democratic leaders in Congress have portrayed the effort as a question of transparency and accountability, arguing that since the early 1970s, most presidents have chosen to release their returns publicly to head off questions about how their financial interests might affect their decisions as president. Trump would be the only major-party candidate since 1976 not to do so, according to a Joint Committee on Taxation report released ahead of Thursday's hearing. He has said he won't release his returns while under IRS audit, though there is no legal prohibition against self-disclosure. "Overwhelmingly, the public wants to see the president's tax returns," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters Thursday. Brady's letter, joined by Pennsylvania Republican Mike Kelly, the top Republican on an oversight subcommittee, came two days after Trump warned Democrats about "ridiculous partisan investigations" an apparent dig at the special counsel and congressional probes of alleged Russian election interference. Democratic leaders brushed off Trump's implied threat about bottling up legislation and continued to press for the release of his tax returns, which some critics say could provide evidence of his business ties to Russia. As the battle over the president's tax returns intensifies, Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani has made clear that the Trump will fight any request in court, something Doggett said Democrats must be prepared to do. SOUNDING THE ALARM: Former GOP leader joins Cornyn campaign and warns: Texas is now a swing state Thursday's House hearing focused on a part of a sweeping Democratic ethics package that would require future presidential candidates to release 10 years of tax returns. But the provision is widely seen as directed toward Trump, who is running for reelection in 2020. The new chairman of the Ways and Means panel, Massachusetts Democrat Richard Neal, also has said he plans to invoke a rarely-used IRS provision that Democrats say authorizes him to request Trump's tax returns from the Treasury Department. The law, IRS code 6103, putatively grants that authority to the chairmen of the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means Committees. Democrats sought support for their position from a panel of tax, ethics and federal policy experts, some of whom urged Congress to demand Trump's tax returns immediately. The witnesses included Tax History Project Director Joseph Thorndike, University of Virginia law professor George Yin, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington Executive Director Noah Bookbinder, Tax Policy Center senior fellow Steven Rosenthal, and Ken Kies, managing director at the Federal Policy Group. Kies, who was invited at the request of the panel's Republicans, testified that even if the Treasury Department acceded to the Democrats' request for Trump's tax returns, it would be illegal to release them to the public. Meanwhile Brady and other Republican leaders in Congress have dismissed the Democratic effort as a partisan witch hunt. "Our view is that this isn't about whether the president should release his tax returns or not," Brady told reporters Wednesday. "This should be about protecting the rights of every private taxpayer.... Because if democrats or any party can abuse their power to rummage through the tax returns of the president what will stop them from abusing that power in the future frankly to target any individual American that they see as a political enemy." Doggett, an outspoken critic of the president, scoffed at the suggestion that releasing the Trump's tax returns would endanger the privacy of ordinary Americans. "The president is in a unique position as the most powerful elected official in the world," he said. "The range of the president's ability to influence public policy is immense. The public has an interest in knowing of the president's personal and business affairs." Doggett also maintained that the demand is not partisan. The same would be expected of former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a billionaire businessman and philanthropist who has talked of running for president as a Democrat. It would apply equally to former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, who is mulling an independent run for president. Doggett also bristled at Brady's accusation of "weaponizing" the IRS against Trump. "Sunlight may be a weapon, but it's a weapon against corruption, bias and self-dealing, and that's what's involved here." Brady, in his letter to Neal on Thursday, said he recognized the public's right to know about potential conflicts of interest. But he said the public already is protected by existing financial disclosure requirements, FBI background checks, and annual IRS audits. "Mandating the release of tax returns without consent is lazy legislating," he wrote. "Such a half-hearted attempt masks the real reason for this hearing playing partisan 'gotcha' politics." While Brady called it a "dangerous path," some on the Democratic Party's left flank have pushed Neal and other party leaders to move faster to request Trump's tax returns from the Treasury Department. Pelosi, however, urged caution. "It's not a question of just sending a letter," she said Thursday, "you have to do it in a very careful way." Several apartment homes were charred and others were damaged in a three-alarm fire in Houston's Galleria area Friday. The fire sparked around 11:20 a.m. at The Plaza on Westheimer near Hillcroft Avenue, according to Houston Fire Department Assistant Chief Michael Mire. Callers to 911 said there was a fire in a second-story unit that spread to the top floor just above. Now Playing: A 3-alarm fire ripped through a Houston apartment Friday, displacing several families and destroying at least nine apartment homes. Video: Houston Chronicle Firefighters from HFD Stations 60 and 28 arrived minutes after the call and started to tackle the blaze, but cold northerly winds and the layout of the complex made fighting the fire difficult, Mire said. Authorities pulled a second alarm on the fire, and then a third within minutes to have more firefighters respond and help. In all, close to 75 firefighters were on scene assisting in some way, Mire said. "There are quite a few challenges, however all of our crews on scene are working very hard," Mire said. "The city will be proud of the effort they're putting out today." Flames could be seen shooting nearly 20 feet into the air from the three-story building. IN-DEPTH: Get the day's best news, analysis and story-telling delivered straight to your email at HoustonChronicle.com Three of HFD's ladder trucks helped firefighters get on the apartment's roof to cut holes through the attic, alleviating smoke and pressure from inside the building. Firefighters also fought the fire from inside the building. Roberto Ramirez, who lives in an apartment home in the same building as the fire, woke up to people screaming in the small courtyard as firefighters pulled up. Ramirez, who had returned from a business trip earlier Friday morning, yelled to his wife that she and the couple's 4-year-old son needed to gather important documents and evacuate. The couple went through savings to make their home special but fear the fire damaged their stuff. "I'm glad I was here for my wife," he said. "We'll just have to save up again and buy everything again." Mykeba King was working nearby when her daughter called her saying that her building was on fire. When she spoke with Chron.com, she didn't know if her apartment home was saved. "I'm a single parent," King said. "This is our home. I don't know what we're going to do right now. We work very hard for what we have. It's hard to leave it behind. We have to start all over." Arson investigators are working to determine how it started. Jay R. Jordan covers breaking news in the Houston area. Read him on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and our subscriber site, HoustonChronicle.com | Follow him on Twitter at @JayRJordan | Email him at jay.jordan@chron.com | Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message The federal government has found Baylor St. Lukes Medical Center to be in violation of key patient care requirements and notified the hospital Thursday that state and federal officials would begin taking a more aggressive role in enforcing safety standards. The notice of deficiencies, issued in a letter from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, is the latest in a series of setbacks for an academic hospital that has been regarded as among the nations best for cardiac care. The federal agency cut off Medicare funding for heart transplants at St. Lukes last year after an investigation by the Houston Chronicle and ProPublica documented an outsized number of patient deaths and unusual surgical complications in recent years. Federal and state inspectors descended on the Houston hospital again last month after an emergency room patient died as the result of receiving the wrong blood type in a transfusion, according to information provided by the hospital. That inspection revealed serious problems related to nursing care, quality assurance programs and patient rights, the letter from regulators said. A full report detailing each of the care deficiencies was provided to the hospital Thursday and will be made public once St. Lukes submits a corrective action plan, a spokesman for the Medicare agency said. The latest citation does not carry the immediate threat of lost funding, but the letter from regulators said the newly uncovered deficiencies were of such a serious nature as to substantially limit your hospitals capacity to render adequate care. In a statement Thursday, St. Lukes officials said they anticipated the federal citation and had already initiated improvement efforts. This is an important opportunity to focus our organization and conduct a top-to-bottom evaluation with CMS so that we can make the changes necessary to better meet CMS standards for patient care, said Megan Fischer, who was named vice president of quality at St. Lukes last month. Fischer is one of several new executives hired in recent weeks to guide St. Lukes through its turnaround efforts. Last month the hospitals board announced it had ousted three top executives in the wake of the fatal error involving a blood transfusion and pledged to develop a 90-day plan to improve care. The changes come in the wake of a yearlong investigation by the Chronicle and ProPublica into problems at the hospital in recent years. The news organizations reported on poor outcomes following heart bypass surgery, repeated complaints about inadequate nursing care, a recent rise in the number of deaths after liver and lung transplants, and a physicians allegation that he was retaliated against after raising concerns that some of his patients had received unnecessary medical treatments in intensive care units. In response to those stories, hospital leaders repeatedly defended the quality of care provided at St. Lukes and said any previous problems had already been corrected. In the letter Thursday, the Medicare agency urged St. Lukes to develop a corrective action plan but said one was not required. The agency also notified St. Lukes that state and federal regulators would soon conduct a comprehensive audit of the hospital to assess its compliance with all federal standards. Authorities are searching for an Humble man accused of exposing himself to a pair of boys and then offering to pay them to expose themselves to him. Jerry Wayne Louis, 54, is a blacktop paver who told police he was looking to repave the parking lot of a Pasadena apartment complex on Dec. 1, 2017, according to court documents. But detectives claim Louis was there for more than just work. Two boys 8 and 10 years old told Pasadena police that Louis exposed his genitals to them, according to court documents. CRIME: Smash and grab heist at James Avery jewelry store takes less than five minutes He then offered one of the boys a $20 for the boy to expose his own genitals to him, court documents state. The boy refused and ran home, where he told his mother what happened. Officers came to the complex in the 300 block of Richey Street and interviewed both boys, learning that the perp drove a pickup truck and walked with the help of crutches. A few days later, police claim Louis showed up to the same complex again this time targeting two young girls by asking them if they wanted to join him at his home for ice cream and candy, police say. One of the young girls was intrigued, police said, but the older of the two was able to pull her away before Louis could take her. NEW: HPD officer connected to deadly raid, shootout relieved of duty The mother of one of the boys was told by her older son that Louis was back at the complex as he was allegedly speaking to the girls. She immediately ran outside and snapped a few pictures of his license plate before he sped away. Louis spoke with detectives several times, each time denying he had been in Pasadena or that anything felonious had happened. Detectives looked into the truck's license plate caught on the mother's camera and learned it belonged to Louis' sister, who was letting him use her truck since he had wrecked his a month earlier. Charges for felony indecency with a child were filed in September, although police have yet to find Louis. Anyone with information is urged to call Houston Crime Stoppers at 713-222-TIPS (8477). Jay R. Jordan covers breaking news in the Houston area. Read him on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and our subscriber site, HoustonChronicle.com | Follow him on Twitter at @JayRJordan | Email him at jay.jordan@chron.com | Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message Assistant District Attorney Michael Hanover crouched against the wall outside courtroom 17-B in the Harris County Criminal Justice Center, his laptop screen angled toward him, scrolling through the 40 felony cases on Wednesdays docket. The 26-year-old prosecutor spent the morning in the 174th Criminal Court, where he is assigned, poring over court files to ensure he could represent the district attorneys office in dozens of them, including aggravated assaults, robberies, organized crime and drug possession. As District Judge Hazel B. Jones trudged through the docket, Hanover met with witnesses, haggled with defense attorneys and arranged for a Houston Police Department officer to testify, all while repeatedly checking the docket for updates. In his filing cabinet on the other end of downtown, where the district attorneys office has holed up since being displaced by Hurricane Harvey 18 months ago, sit 130 cases he is responsible for bringing to trial by May. His regular 60-hour workweeks leave Hanover worried about burning out, though he said prosecutors have a responsibility to prepare for cases, regardless of how long that takes. The defendants and the people of the county deserve that, Hanover said. I cant show up on Monday and say the state is not ready because I maxed out on my comp time. Hanover is one of many prosecutors Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said are overburdened the reason she has asked Commissioners Court for a budget that would fund 102 additional assistant district attorneys and more than 40 support staff. Ogg said the surge is needed to clear a backlog in cases exacerbated by Harvey, a driver of overcrowding at the Harris County Jail. Her proposal to expand the prosecutor corps by a third, however, has evolved into a proxy battle over the future of criminal justice reform in Harris County. Ogg finds herself so far unable to persuade Democrats on Commissioners Court as well as reform groups, who have questioned her self-identification as a progressive and said her proposal would lead to more residents in jail. Simply adding prosecutors is the strategy that got us here in the first place, with this mentality that the only thing we can spend money on is police and prosecutors, said Jay Jenkins, project attorney with the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition. Ogg, a first-term district attorney who unseated a Republican in 2016 with the support of many progressive groups, said these critics fail to grasp the on-the-ground realities of her prosecutors, whose heavy workloads mean they sometimes are the reason cases are delayed and defendants languish in jail. Ogg pledged to send the first 25 new hires to the felony trial bureau, where she said they can help achieve the reforms progressives seek, such as identifying low-risk defendants who can be sent out of the criminal justice system without a conviction. Who else is going to divert offenders who should re-enter society, and prosecute the people who should be incarcerated to protect the public? she said. This is a question of how fast do our funders really want to reform our justice system? Rationale Ogg laid out her argument in an interview Wednesday at the district attorneys temporary quarters at 500 Jefferson, where a regular shuttle takes prosecutors to the criminal justice complex more than a mile away. Ogg said since taking office, she is proud to have diverted 38,000 defendants for a variety of low-level offenses, including marijuana possession, misdemeanor theft, first time DUI and mental health-related charges such as trespassing. With an active caseload that jumped from about 15,000 when Harvey hit to 26,523 this week, she said prosecutors are not always able to give victims and defendants the attention they deserve. Her staff noted Harris Countys 329 prosecutors are less than half the number in Illinois Cook County, which is only slightly more populous. With adequate staff, well be able to offer pleas that are reasonable earlier, Ogg said. Well be able to focus on public safety to make sure we dont let someone go who is really a risk and threat to either his family or his community. She sought to mollify the concerns of progressives who fear it could lead to more people in jail, saying, Theres no data showing that more prosecutors equals more prosecutions. Now Playing: Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg explains her request to add staff attorneys to her office to help alleviate a case backlog compounded by Hurricane Harvey. Video: Brett Coomer/HoustonChronicle A 2011 law review article written by William & Mary Law School professors Adam Gershowitz and Laura Killinger a former Harris County prosecutor found that adding prosecutors could result in increased prosecution of low-level drug or prostitution cases without any real reduction in the caseloads of existing prosecutors. Gershowitz and Killinger also found, however, that a better-resourced district attorneys office can allow prosecutors to identify and dismiss weak cases more quickly. The article concluded that caseloads of Harris County prosecutors are among the highest when compared to the largest district attorneys offices in the country. Ogg said her felony prosecutors have caseloads of 600 to 1,200, while misdemeanor prosecutors are handling 500 to 900 cases at a time. In comparison, the American Bar Association recommended caseloads of 150 felonies or 400 misdemeanors for defense attorneys, who do not have the investigative resources of police departments typically working in their favor. The ABA has no specific caseload recommendation for prosecutors. Other criminal justice reformers, such as Portland-based attorney David Menschel, pointed to alternative solutions instead than hiring more prosecutors. If the goal is to move cases quicker, he said, she could decline to prosecute more. John Pfaff, a Fordham Law School professor and criminal justice expert, said reallocating existing positions also could offer a better answer. She filed 40,000 felonies and around 60,000 misdemeanors in 2018, he said, so that would suggest that there might be misdemeanor lawyers that she could shift to other things. Support unclear As of Thursday, Oggs plan lacked the support of a majority of Commissioners Court, who will set the countys budget for the upcoming fiscal year next month. At the Jan. 29 court meeting, Ogg found herself aligned with the two Republican commissioners, Steve Radack and Jack Cagle, and clashing with the three Democrats: commissioners Rodney Ellis and Adrian Garcia and County Judge Lina Hidalgo. Hidalgo, who made criminal justice reform central to her campaign last fall, cited a desire to develop metrics to evaluate how a larger district attorneys office would lead to better outcomes. I want to understand how having these 102 prosecutors is going to, specifically, help our system as a whole move forward, Hidalgo said. Garcia, Ellis and Hidalgo on Thursday said they remain undecided about Oggs request for additional prosecutors. The Texas Organizing Project, a progressive advocacy group that provided $227,000 worth of in-kind donations to Hidalgo last year and $35,000 to Garcia, said Tuesday that Harris County should shrink, rather than expand, the district attorneys office. Ellis suggested at the Jan. 29 meeting that an increase in Oggs office should correspond with a boost in funding for the countys public defender. Chief Public Defender Alex Bunin has proposed to nearly double his annual budget, which would add 61 attorneys and support staff. The slate of Democratic criminal judges who swept into office this past November have said they wish to use public defenders more frequently. Ogg does have support from other sources. Commissioners Cagle and Radack said they need no extra time to deliberate, as Ogg has made clear her office needs help. To create an artificial bottleneck by delaying justice through having inadequate resources in the prosecutors office is not kind, nor compassionate, nor sensitive to those who are criminally accused in our system, said Cagle, who represents Precinct 4. Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez told the Houston Chronicles editorial board Monday that if additional prosecutors result in faster adjudication of cases, the county could more quickly end the practice of sending hundreds of inmates to adjacent counties because of overcrowding at the Harris County Jail. Even if Ogg uses the funding in a way that does not increase incarceration, there is no guarantee that her successors would use the new positions similarly. If the next DA arrives, they could do whatever they want unless the commissioners have restricted what can happen, Gershowitz said. You want to make sure its to relieve workloads, not just to staff up so they can charge more. Hanover, the young assistant district attorney, said an influx of new prosecutors would boost morale, which has sagged since Harvey. Much like the countys flood control district was buoyed by overwhelming support for last years $2.5 billion bond, a funding boost could signal Commissioners Court values the work of prosecutors. I think it would send the message that we appreciate your efforts, and we want to help you succeed at doing something that is important for the county, Hanover said. zach.despart@chron.com keri.blakinger@chron.com The latest developments of Houstons ongoing green renaissance will transform two of the citys busiest parks in ways that make them more attractive than ever to families with children. Designs by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates for Hermann Park and Hargreaves Associates for Discovery Green also aim to better connect green spaces to the densifying city, with more inviting gateways and wider-open views. Visitors to both parks come from all over the Houston area and reflect the citys diversity. The play areas at the two parks are going to be more packed than ever, with enticing, 21st-century experiences that are as much about discovery as exercise. (Swings and Jungle Jims are out; imaginative structures geared to kids of different ages are in.) BIG PLANS: More about Discovery Green's $12 million renovation On Thursday, Van Valkenburghs Matthew Urbansky unveiled a vision for transforming the most timeworn corner of Hermann Park into the Commons, a 24-acre wonderland with undulating topography; pavilions, picnic tables and shaded seating within a more diverse, wildlife-friendly native landscape; and a complex new play area. The first project of the parks 20-year master plan to be executed, the Commons will unfold along Fannin and Cambridge streets, adjacent to the Texas Medical Center and close to developing technology hubs. Still in the design phase, with a price tag of $40 million to be raised by the Hermann Park Conservancy, it is likely five years away from completion. Conservancy president Doreen Stoller said 25 percent of all the funds will be reserved to support the increased maintenance the new amenities will require. The elements of the state-of-the-art playground designed 25 years ago are exactly right, Urbansky said. Were just making it better, bringing in contemporary thinking. A lot has changed about how we think about play since Hermann Parks first master plan was created. That was understatement. The Van Valkenburgh team is working with Danish designers to develop inventive play structures such as a Gorilla Forest and tunnels shaped like animals. We have scoured the Earth to find the best equipment, Urbansky said. He compared an attraction called the Water Lab to a science project; children will manipulate water flow on a multi-tiered Aquadrat with pumps and other devices. The landscape itself also will be playful and ADA accessible, featuring dry and wet areas that incorporate a Moon Crater, a Rocket Slide (a nod to a much-loved slide that disappeared years ago), a Splash Cove and a bayou system with sand. (Anticipating parents needs, a new cabana will provide space to change into dry clothes.) Its also flood-friendly, with flows designed to drain into the parks McGovern lake. Stoller appreciates how the interactive elements will require children to work together, to make water flow or scramble up a meteor. Providing this shared experience for children of all backgrounds and abilities is important to our city, she said. Hills have become obligatory in Houston parks, favored for their elevated views. The Hermann Park design offers several although not where they are now. To Urbansky, the wide-open mound that holds Sharon Engelsteins monumental, bubbly pink Dillidiidea looks like a visual impediment. (It will be moved.) Architect Marlon Blackwell is designing new picnic pavilions and a dining pavilion; and the picnic area will have grilling stations. If you want to make people happy, put in picnic tables, Urbansky said. And if you want to make them really happy, add grills. Things dont have to be complicated. Stoller said the plan developed into more than she initially envisioned. When we started the project, I thought Oh, it will be nice to clean up this part of the park and improve the habitats, she said. I didnt realize how transformational it would be for so many different visitors children, tech workers, medical center employees and patient families. The communitys most requested amenity a dog park is being developed at a 2.4-acre site across the park, off South MacGregor Way along Brays Bayou. Urbanskys presentation pleased the Hermann Park Conservancys board. I like many things about it, said board chairman David Ruiz, and one is that they have taken input from the community. Thats a really important corner with a bad history, but it has so much potential for kids and families. Meanwhile, downtown, the Discovery Green Conservancy has begun a $12 million upgrade of its wildly successful 12-acre park, which is just 11 years old. The original playground has been dismantled, and a temporary replacement will open in about two weeks. The new playground will have twice as many play structures as the original, along with a new area for birthday parties and a new hill to roll down. New, lighted signage will be installed at all of the parks corners, with most attention given to the northeast corner, which is being redesigned as an important gateway. The upgrade also includes enlarged restrooms; new, brighter and more energy-efficient lighting; and a new allee of trees. About 1.5 million people visit Discovery Green each year, 200 percent more than the parks planners imagined, said president and park director Barry Mandel. The park, which cost $125 million, has also been an economic engine, helping to spark a $1.2 billion neighborhood building boom; creating a vibrant nightlife that didnt exist in the area a decade ago. No one anticipated 10 years ago that Discovery Green would be as popular as it is, said landscape architect Mary Margaret Jones, a Hargreaves senior partner. The context of Discovery Green has changed so much since we built it, she said. She cited a berm at the parks northeast corner that was originally created as a visual shield from surrounding wasteland; it needed to change. We want to open our arms now and connect to the active, growing and bustling downtown community. However, another hill adjacent to what is now the Marriott Marquis unexpectedly became a favorite spot for visitors of all ages. Kids love rolling down it, and Jones isnt going to disturb that. A little bit of topography goes a long way in Houston, she said. Maybe play doesnt have to be so scripted. Which is funny, because playground safety codes are going in the opposite direction. Both designers said todays playgrounds need to give children a place to learn boundaries and gage risks such as, Can I jump this high? When the Discovery Green project is complete in about seven months, kids will have more than twice as many play structures to explore there, with designated areas for those ages 2-to-5 and five to 12. Anythng to get them to play, imagine and move to entice them to put down whatever device they have in their hands, Mandel said. They will also be interacting more with art. Doug Hollis popular Mist Tree will be better incorporated into the playground, and beginning in March, Discovery Green will lease a major art installation from the High Museum in Atlanta for six months. Geared to children, Yuri Suzukis Sonic Playground consists of six interactive, trumpetlike structures that manipulate sound. Mandel said the Discovery Green Conservancy has established a fund to bring a continually evolving series of public art installations to the park during the next five years. Gust, an interactive installation by the Mexican collective Cocolab made of pinwheels that line the parks Oak Allee, was the first; its up through March 20. Mandel said the four major philanthropic foundations that launched Discovery Green 11 years ago have all reinvested in the next 10 years, although the conservancy has about $2 million more to raise to meet its upgrade goals. The Hermann Park Conservancy is just beginning the campaign for the Commons, but Ruiz was optimistic. With this group of supporters, everything is doable, he said. molly.glentzer@chron.com NEWS WHEN YOU NEED IT: Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message | Sign up for breaking news alerts delivered to your email here. President Donald Trump woke up on Thursday feeling persecuted. "The Dems and their committees are going 'nuts,' " he tweeted, launching investigation after investigation into Trump's campaign, presidency and private business. "The Republicans never did this to President Obama," he added, "there would be no time left to run government." While it's true that Republicans didn't launch investigations into President Barack Obama's nonexistent private business or his campaign, it's far from true that they never launched a full-scale attack on Obama's administration. Over the course of his two terms in office, there were at least four issues that prompted significant congressional investigations into Obama's administration, if not Obama himself. In fact, there were far more than four issues that prompted congressional scrutiny. In the interests of making the list below manageable, we excluded issues in which Republican-controlled committees in Congress held only a hearing or two, such as the investigation into the failure of Healthcare.Gov to work as advertised at launch. We also excluded lengthier probes that were more tangential to Obama, like the investigations into the General Services Administration's spending habits early in his presidency. Our criteria, generally, were lengthy investigations that resulted in reports and were aimed, at least in part, at questioning Obama himself directly. (Even within those boundaries, it's very possible that we missed something, given Congress' apparent disinterest in preserving old material online once control of committees changes hands.) Here are the four main investigatory areas Congress explored, most of them at the hands of Republicans. For the first two years of Obama's presidency, there were no significant investigations into his administration that focused on him. Once Republicans took control of the House in early January 2011, though, that changed. - - - Fast and Furious The first issue that prompted such an investigation was a failed operation conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, in which the Bureau allowed illegal gun sales near the border with Mexico in hopes of tracking where the weapons went. The operation was largely unsuccessful, and one weapon that was sold was found near the scene where a Border Patrol agent was killed. Fast and Furious was presented as an example of the Obama administration acting to cover up its mistakes. (All timespans for the investigations listed below refer to the first public hearing or public announcement of the formation of an investigation through the final report issued by a committee.) House Oversight Committee, February 2011 to July 2014 Then chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., the Oversight Committee launched an investigation into the operation aimed at determining what had happened and what administration officials knew about it. In July 2011, the committee released the first of a three-part report assessing what it had learned. House Oversight, October 2011 to June 2017 In October 2011, as part of its investigation, the committee subpoenaed materials from the Justice Department, then led by Attorney General Eric Holder. While it received some of the material it sought, Holder's refusal to supply additional documents resulted in a protracted fight and his eventual censure by the House. The third of the three parts of the Oversight probe focused on this fight and was only released after Obama (and Holder) had left the government. - - - Solyndra One of Obama's focal points as president was to bolster jobs associated with renewable energy. That included making loans through an established Energy Department program that acted as investments in clean energy companies, including a California-based solar-panel company called Solyndra. It collapsed, defaulting on its loan to the government - although the loan program overall ended up earning a profit for the government. The investment was presented as an example of "crony capitalism," an investment made at Obama's behest to favor a particular company. House Energy and Commerce Committee, February 2011 to August 2012 The final report on the investment found that the administration didn't allow the company to fail earlier than it did, choosing instead to restructure the loan and fostering heavier losses. - - - Benghazi By far the biggest target of congressional investigators were the twin attacks on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012 - shortly before the 2012 election. How the attacks led to the deaths of four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens, was a subject of intense scrutiny - aimed first at Obama's administration and, as the 2016 election neared, at Obama's secretary of state, Hillary Clinton. Five House committees launched investigations shortly after the attacks took place (and mostly before the 2012 election). House Armed Services Committee, September 2012 to February 2014 House Foreign Affairs Committee, November 2012 to February 2014 House Intelligence Committee, September 2012 to November 2014 House Judiciary Committee, September 2012 to April 2013 House Oversight, October 2012 to September 2013 The five committees released a joint preliminary report in April 2013. Most of the committees continued their work beyond that point, the result of which included broadly rebutting many of the conspiracy theories flying around on conservative media. Two Senate committees, then controlled by the Democratic majority, also launched probes. Senate Intelligence Committee, October 2012 to January 2014 Senate Homeland Security Committee, October 2012 to December 2012 But the most notable and influential investigation came with the formation of a select committee of members of the House to investigate the attacks. Select Committee on Benghazi, May 2014 to December 2016 The most important finding from the select committee didn't relate directly to the Benghazi attacks at all. It was this committee that uncovered Clinton's private email server, the existence of which prompted an eventual FBI investigation and which played a key role in Clinton's losing the 2016 presidential election. The committee concluded its work shortly after the campaign ended. - - - IRS targeting There were hints in Obama's first term that the IRS was applying special scrutiny to certain political groups that were hoping to form 501(c)(4) nonprofit organizations. The House Ways and Means committee began seeking information on the subject in June 2011, but it never released a formal report summarizing its findings. Formal investigations didn't begin until after IRS executive Lois Lerner admitted publicly in May 2013 that the agency had singled out certain groups - including some that identified as tea party groups - for additional questioning. House Oversight, May 2013 to December 2014 Issa's Oversight committee was again actively involved in questioning IRS decisions and behavior. The committee ultimately determined that liberal and conservative groups had been subject to additional scrutiny. Despite theorizing in conservative media, no link was found to the White House ordering that conservatives be put under the microscope. Senate Finance Committee, May 2013 to August 2015 The Senate report dealt largely with IRS mismanagement of the process. Overall, according to our tally, the above inquiries of the Obama administration totaled more than 8,400 days of investigation, from launch to final report. That's 23 years of probes covering an eight-year administration. The ranch-style home looks simple from the curb: a fairly common brick exterior and pairs of pillars across the front porch, all sitting behind a pair of sprawling live oak trees. Its what you see in the Del Monte II neighborhood, beyond the Galleria but not quite to Tanglewood, a subdivision still dominated by the original inventory of single-story homes built in the 1960s or so. Outside, its a flashback to decades ago, but inside, most houses have had significant remodeling, updating kitchens and baths and adding more current furnishings. It was the exterior that made Aashish Shah stumble a bit when his wife, Roseann Rogers, led him to the front door a few years ago. He thought he was a new-house kind of guy, and she was prepared to convince him that this older home would be full of character and personality. We spent forever, looking and not finding, Shah said of a new-home search that lasted about a year and a half, only to leave them empty-handed after visiting at least 40 homes. It came down to you finding the right house, and its the wrong part of town. You find the right part of town, and its the wrong house. You find kind of what you want but, on total, its not. Shah, 44, is an Ob-Gyn who works as chief health care value officer at MD Andersons Proton Therapy Center, and Rogers, 50, is well known as the former Buzz Lady at KPRC-Channel 2. She is now sales manager of Stewart Titles Houston division. They had lived in large homes in Bellaire, and when Shahs career took him to another state for a couple of years, Rogers and their son, Nikhil, now 13, got an apartment in an Uptown midrise. They loved the sense of community there, the lock-and-leave lifestyle and simply having less home to take care of. When it was certain that Shah was returning to Houston, they knew they needed to find another home. Retirees' grand plan: Houston couple create dream home in San Marcos Rogers had been looking for several months, and Shah joined in for another year. He joked that often theyd pull up to a home in separate cars, and Shah would leave without even getting out of the car. One day he suggested she look in the area around St. Michael Catholic Church, where Rogers worships. Since she has a real-estate license and works at a title company, shes skilled at finding homes just as theyve hit the market. Thats how she found the home theyre in now one that, on paper, had almost nothing Shah was looking for. But Rogers got him in the front door and he liked it. He liked the formal living room they call it their parlor and he loved the kitchen. Shah couldnt always visualize what they could do in any particular room, but he knew he could live in this house. Rogers used her friend Allie Wood of Allie Wood Design Studio to decorate, and all was good. Then Hurricane Harvey hit, and the family felt blessed that their home was dry, even as they worked for hours to help friends whose homes flooded. Until one day Shah realized the wood floors felt moist and eventually started buckling. Nikhil joked that he knew they didnt have a ghost, but something was making baseboards pop off the walls. They didnt know it, but an air-conditioning pipe in a wall between a brick fireplace and a guest bathroom had separated, spilling up to a gallon of water an hour into the bones of the home. Five contractors were stumped: They all knew something was wrong but couldnt figure out what. Mix and mingle: Designer mixes colors, patterns and textures in her own Heights home After days of head scratching, the problem was identified. Water was turned off to that part of the home, but the damage was done. Wood floors were ruined, baseboards and the bottoms of walls needed to be replaced, and that guest bathroom was going to need a lot of work. The family chose to see it as an opportunity for some remodeling and a face-lift for every room with new colors and new furniture. Getting it done took longer than it probably should have because contractors in town were all busy helping repair flooded homes. It may be a ranch-style home, but its a spacious 3,862 square feet on a lot thats considerably bigger than it looks from the street. Though many 60s-era ranches have lots of walls and separated rooms, Shah and Rogers embraced the floor plan instead of taking down walls to create big open spaces. With Woods help, they transformed the home into a stylish and sophisticated space that perfectly fits who they are today. Roseann always said, I want a house with character, Shah said, looking at framed photos of homes they lived in before. Ive gone from liking new houses that are lacking personality, not fully understanding what that even means in a home. Now, its, This is character and personality and how a home should feel. That is growth for me. This is really Roseanns style and is becoming mine. Before photos show a home that was comfortable but more than a little too beige. They had nice artwork but wanted more. And at the back is what they called the ugly room more on that later. Woods goal wasnt to lighten or brighten the smallish rooms. Instead, it was to add drama and sophistication with a simple palette of grays and blues with pops of red in art and accessories. When Shah and Rogers relax in the parlor a room without a TV they look like they never want to leave the space. The walls, ceiling beams, brick fireplace and open, built-in bookshelves were all painted a moody dark gray, and a dark-blue sofa shares space with a pair of white leather chairs and two dark-blue chairs with ottomans. Wood and Rogers took care of the furnishings, and Shah curated the art, acquiring several pieces in the process. Over a fireplace is his pride and joy, a piece from Reuben Nakians Leda and the Swan series. It was the first piece of art that he bought some 20 years ago when he finished his residency the last baby he delivered was his own son more than 13 years ago. In time, he decided to get rid of the painting, but recently he regretted it and started a search to find it and buy it back. Hes also drawn to the colorful modern work of John Pavlicek and Robert Rector their work is at Gremillion & Co. Fine Art and shelves hold luxurious coffee-table books and accessories that represent the world travelers that they are. They like an eclectic style and a collected feel, and they build a much more interesting room because everything has to be important to them, Wood said. Theres nothing in here that was bought just because it was the right color. The guest bathroom with the broken pipe got a big makeover, in dramatic black and white. In fact, they painted the door red so that when they entertain they can just say, The bathroom is down the hall; look for the red door. A nearby guest bedroom was converted into a very masculine study for Shah. The once white walls and built-in bookcases were all painted dark brown. A gorgeous desk was found through Meredith ODonnell, and contemporary lighting was added overhead. A barn-style door covers the closet now with shelves and used more as a bar to make it look less like a bedroom closet. At the end of the hall, what used to be a simple storage closet was turned into a spectacular wine closet. Wood replaced the bland wooden door with a glass one, wallpapered the space and added wine-bottle holders to the back wall. It was a genius move that anyone could replicate that is, if you dont need the storage space. Weve always had houses, but now we have a home. That is how I feel about it, Shah said. They introduced me to things I never would have thought about it and it was always uncomfortable for me. But theres nothing in the house I dont like. Nikhil was the unluckiest one of the family his bedroom was hardest hit. But in his room makeover, he got a couple of handsome nightstands, an industrial-style desk and an iconic Eero Saarinen red Womb Chair. For the seven months of the remodeling and redesign, Nikhil slept on a sofa in the ugly room. But its not ugly anymore. Its filled with comfortable furniture and a table and chairs where they can play board games. Overlooking the vast space is a mounted red stag, which Shah shot on a hunting trip in Argentina. Theres a courtyard in the center of the house, and most visitors at first assume its the backyard. Not so. The real backyard a huge space with a large swimming pool sits outside the family room. This is us to a T. We would never have come up with this on our own. Its the difference between character and just a nice house, Shah said. This speaks volumes about us. diane.cowen@chron.com In her own living room, designer Hallie Henley Sims mixes colors, prints and textures in a way that most homeowners wouldnt dare. At least not on their own. But Sims, who founded Hallie Henley Design five years ago, does it in a way that seems so simple and effortless. On the dark-stained wood floors of her Heights home is a natural fiber rug topped with a soft cowhide printed to look like a zebra skin. The collection of furnishings includes a gray velvet tuxedo-style sofa with geometric-print pillows, curved-back chairs with black bamboo trim and a black-and-white spotty print by Brunschwig and Fils, an acrylic coffee table topped with a bold floral print and two small stools with yellow, ikat-print cushions. Tall end-table lamps have a floral design with bright-yellow flowers winding around their scalloped bodies. Mixing colors and patterns is instinctual for me. Its a no-brainer to do your big sofa big upholstery piece in a solid fabric. Then Ill do a pair of swivel chairs or club chairs in a print, she said. Mix your scale of patterns: I have a big floral on the coffee table, an ikat on the benches and a geometric on the pillows. For Sims, though, its also a mix of memories. The acrylic coffee table is one she created in a design-studio class as an undergraduate yes, she got an A and the chairs are a pair she bought for her first apartment right out of college and later had painted and reupholstered. The cowhide reminds her of her grandfathers cattle ranch. A small orange settee, still in its original upholstery, is straight out of her grandmothers home. A taxidermied peacock sitting on top of an armoire was a gift from an aunt and a tribute to her grandparents farm. High-rise life: Ready for a lock-and-leave lifestyle, retirees move to the next level I like to mix things that are new and old. I always tell clients that we have to add a layer of antique and vintage pieces to give the home some essence and character; otherwise, it looks like everything is brand new and purchased out of a catalog, she said. You want to have a collected feel. She and her family husband William Sims, who works in business development at Kosmos Energy, and daughter Scarlett, who turns 4 in February moved into their home in the Houston Heights East Historic District two years ago. It was built in 2000 but fits in well in a neighborhood with much older homes. Both natives of Oklahoma and both 35, Hallie and William met as freshmen at the University of Oklahoma. Right out of college, William moved to Houston to work in the energy industry. Hallie went on to earn a masters degree in interior design at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia and worked for the Duncan Miller Ullmann design firm in Dallas for a couple of years before the two married and she moved to Houston. She went to work for Courtney Hill Interiors in Houston for four years, and William enrolled in the South Texas College of Law. Once he was out of school, they moved from a Museum District apartment to a 1,400-square-foot bungalow in the Heights, but after their daughter was born, that charming little home started feeling cramped. On the chance that their family will someday grow, they figured it was time to search for a home with more room. They found the 3,600-square-foot home theyre in now and, launched a renovation that started at the front of the home with paint, wallpaper and furnishings and moved toward the back of the home, completely renovating the kitchen. All of their furniture filled the living room and dining room, but the rest of the public spaces were empty, with Hallie acquiring things here and there, reupholstering and repainting furniture as needed. Dream home: One couple shifts from traditional to contemporary once the kids were gone When youre a designer and working on your own house, its like youre the cobblers children; you come last. Its been two years since we moved in, she said of her homes transformation over time. I remember pulling wallpaper as fast as I could before we moved in. The foyer has a sense of enclosure that allowed her to do anything she wanted without worrying too much about the rooms beyond. She fell in love with Bob Collins & Sons Bamboo Floral wallpaper and let its soft palette of blue-greens, coral and yellow set the tone for the entire house. For the front door and millwork, she matched the wallpapers background with Benjamin Moores Wythe Blue, a color that continues in the living rooms front vestibule where youll find the orange settee and the sassy peacock. Beyond the living room is a dining area, where a silvery-blue, bamboo-print wallpaper glistens in sunlight. Their vintage-style dining table is surrounded by a mix of chairs: blue upholstered chairs on each end are joined by four cane-back chairs painted white with seats upholstered in a blue floral pattern. Along the back wall are a buffet and two extra chairs, both upholstered in yellow. The home was designed with a small office in the middle of the first floor, and Sims envisioned a whole new use for it: a playroom for her daughter. Instead of stuffing the shelf-lined room with a desk, Sims deposited a small table with child-size chairs and filled lower shelves with baskets of her daughters toys. Upper shelves hold Sims design books and smaller pieces of art. Once the front was finished, they shifted to the back of the house a small breakfast area, the kitchen and a large family room which proved to be a bigger project. They gutted the space to make it more functional. Originally a sink was positioned on an outside wall beneath a window that looked directly into the next-door neighbors kitchen. So they moved the sink to the island, which originally was a flat, less-than-functional surface. 'Man in the Glass House': Biography goes deep into the life of architect Philip Johnson Now the island is painted dark blue and topped with gray-veiny marble and has a sink and gold plumbing fixtures. Lower cabinets are the same dark blue and upper cabinets are white, with white subway tile and blue-and-white wallpaper Quadrilles Climbing Hydrangea in French Blue pulling it together. That wallpaper is in the nearby breakfast area, too, and if it looks familiar, thats because the same wallpaper in a different color lines a staircase in a home used in Gone With the Wind. (You see it in a scene when Rhett Butler kisses the hand of a tearful Scarlett OHara.) And the family room, featuring navy-blue walls with a navy-blue sectional and two floral-print swivel chairs, is an inviting space with another cushion-topped ottoman, though this one has a brass frame. On the rooms back wall, Hallie created unique art by mounting pieces of wallpaper in bamboo frames. In between the pair of images floral scenes digitally printed on grasscloth paper is a table with a collection of blue-and-white Asian ginger jars. Like most people, we spend the most time in the kitchen and family room thats where the TV is. And I love that the playroom is off of the kitchen. Thats where my daughter usually is, Sims said. Soon, the couples daughter will transition to her first big-girl bedroom. Until now, shes been sleeping in her nursery with the same furniture they started with in their bungalow. For now, she loves pink and, if her vocabulary is any sign one of her first words was wallpaper shell appreciate the cute new room with pink-and-white wallpaper and twin beds with headboards upholstered in a vintage floral pattern, a thrift-store find with an interesting story. Sims is friends with Lindsey Herod and Meg Lonergan, who are also interior designers and have young children. One day, Herod and Sims got a text from Lonergan, with an alert about something she saw at the Houston Junior Forum Resale Shop in the Heights. Meg is a good friend and knows Lindsey and I both have daughters. She texted us, Girls, they have these headboards for $100 and one of yall need to get them. I texted back: I am on my way. I beat Lindsey to them, but she was a good sport about it, Sims said of the beds that fit her style so well she easily could have created them herself. The homes third floor is a guest bedroom and bathroom, filled with bedroom furniture the Simses used in their bungalow. Now its the room their parents use when they visit, and its the room Sims and her assistant use as their office. The carpeted room has a four-panel piece of Asian-themed art hung behind the bed in lieu of a headboard. Its a sophisticated style with monogrammed bedding, and antique dressers add Old World charm. For the new house, Sims designed a new headboard a stair-step shape covered in linen for the master bedroom. She found a couple of sets of folding doors at a local antiques store; theyre painted black and gold, and the centers are filled with chicken wire. Instead of big blank spaces in this huge room, they fill the corners in a sophisticated way. Silvery nightstands hold a pair of beautiful lamps, gourd-shaped pieces covered in a pretty floral design. Those were my grandmothers. I always say that if my house is on fire and Will and Scarlett are safe, those lamps are the first thing I will grab, she said. diane.cowen@chron.com A guitar, a keyboard and a tambourine. Flower pots, pitchers and lamps. A boot and an ice skate. And a ceramic monkey. Rebecca painstakingly spray painted these items and numerous others a radiant white to provide a bright backdrop for the promotional photos for her new album "Give Up Your Ghosts." "Every person you meet has this lifetime of experiences that are invisible to the naked eye," she says. "All these small decisions and large decisions that build up. To me those items represent that idea that our history stacks up silently. And you can't outrun it. But you can learn to control your relationship with it." Those thoughts also flowed into the title of Loebe's album. The songs on "Give Up Your Ghosts" are full of evolutions and changes, and movements, both emotional and physical. Almost all of the song titles speak to that transitional theme: "Everything Changes," "Flying," "Ghosts," "Got Away," "On Your Mark." Even those that don't imply movement like "Popular" and "Tattoo" well, popularity wanes and tattoos fade. FOR HOUSTONCHRONICLE.COM SUBSCRIBERS: Songwriter Lucy Dacus finds mystery in her history Austin-based Loebe wasn't really planning to make a new record. She released "Blink" in 2017. Typically after an album's release and a cycle of touring she takes some down time. But an offer came from Houston's Blue Corn Music to release a new album, and the songs arrived more swiftly than usual. And Loebe found herself in a reflective state, as many songwriters have over the past couple of years. But hers wasn't driven by outrage. Her songs were a different sort of protest music, urging change in herself. "We're constantly inundated with political information, even 30 seconds after you wake up," she says. "Thirty years ago you'd write a protest song TO some other listener ABOUT someone else. But now those voices are all around us. It has moved me to consider self-care a little more. So a lot of these songs are about unburdening myself. Not giving weight to feeding fears and creating false barriers." Which isn't to say the songs are without their sharp edges. "Growing Up" opens the record by addressing challenges women face in a culture tilted against them for generations. But even then, Loebe frames the song in a progressive way. "I'm just an optimist, almost pathologically trained to look at the bright side of everything," she says. "So I see it as positive that there's more awareness about the experiences women have. That men finally know that women teach women to hold keys in their hand when they're walking down the street. That's one of thousands of tiny examples of things you learn and internalize when you're growing up in our society as a young woman. And all of it can be brutal. So that song is about the importance of trying to continue to move forward." Two of the album's songs came about through TV, a medium with which Loebe is familiar. A Virginia native, who grew up in Georgia, Loebe moved to Boston as a teen to attend the Berklee College of Music. There she started recording her songs, putting out her first album, "Hey, It's a Lonely World" in 2004. She recorded a second album, all the while drawing notice with appearances at the Kerrville Folk Festival. In 2011 relocated to Austin, which has been her base of operations since. There she auditioned for "The Voice" in 2011. Her take on Nirvana's "Come As You Are" was well circulated. So she found that run on television interesting and not soul-crushing. So when a friend of Loebe's who works as a TV music supervisor asked her to submit two songs for a forthcoming show, she altered her writing process. THEATER: Small Houston stages push cultural boundaries with 'Two Mile Hollow,' 'WET' "I read the email and thought, 'Nope, can't do that,'" she says. "It's not my process. I need more organic inspiration. But then I got to the bottom of the email and it said the chosen songs would earn $7,000 each. And I thought, 'Can't hurt to try.' "They wanted an introspective folk ballad and an upbeat folk pop radio hit." She laughs. "As though I always knew how to write a folk pop radio hit, I'd just been keeping it a secret all these years." But she dug in, writing the ballad first, mixing familiar emotions with a fictional character and coming out of it with "Tattoo." Then she tried the upbeat folk pop radio hit, "just as an exercise." And she came away with "Got Away." "I think it gave me permission to be more brazen than I usually am with my songwriting," she says. "I mean, even though I was a contestant on a singing show, I never really wrote big melodies into songs. So I thought it would be fun to write a big melismatic melody." On an album full of strong songs, "Got Away" is a standout. But, alas, neither song made it to the small screen. "No, I'm not $14,000 richer," Loebe says. "But the experience taught me something that fits the theme of the album. It taught me about self-limiting what you believe you can do. I used to believe I could only write under a certain set of circumstances. And now I know I can do much more than that." Rebecca Loebe When: 7 p.m. Friday Where: McGonigel's Mucky Duck, 2425 Norfolk Details: $22; 713-528-5999, mcgonigels.com When: 4 p.m. Friday Where: Cactus Music, 2110 Portsmouth Free STAY IN THE KNOW: Get caught up on what's going on around Houston. From sports to news and entertainment, check out the newsletters we're offering. Texas is cracking down on the most common form of tax evasion: failure to pay sales tax. For decades, online shoppers have taken advantage of a 1992 U.S. Supreme Court decision that said tax collectors could not force out-of-state retailers to collect sales tax. Shoppers thought they didnt have to pay tax on Internet purchases and enjoyed an 8.25 percent discount. Consumers were wrong. Texas law says that if a retailer does not collect the tax, the purchaser is required to send a check to the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. Almost no one complied, though, and state officials did not pursue individual evaders. Shopkeepers, though, started complaining. Few companies that rent a storefront, hire locals and pay sales tax could compete with online stores. On HoustonChronicle.com: Online sales up, retail hiring is down South Dakota lawmakers decided enough was enough and imposed an Internet sales tax. The state sued Wayfair, the massive home decor company, for not collecting and then fought all the way to the Supreme Court. The Internets prevalence and power have changed the dynamics of the national economy, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the Court in overturning the 1992 ruling. This expansion has also increased the revenue shortfall faced by States seeking to collect their sales and use taxes. Kennedy said as long as the tax does not create an undue burden on remote sellers, states can demand that e-commerce companies collect sales taxes. This is important because it allows for fairness in the system with those remote sellers as well as those that are brick-and-mortar stores, Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar told me. The tax has been due, and the Wayfair decision just simply allows Texas to be able to impose and collect the remittance. The question for Hegar and state lawmakers is what constitutes an undue burden. Kennedys opinion did not offer any definitions, and e-commerce companies will likely test state laws. Hegar said his staff held dozens of meetings with consumers, in-state retailers, e-commerce companies and lawmakers to strike a balance. Some changes require legislation. Hegar is asking the Legislature and Gov. Greg Abbott to approve a law that allows e-commerce companies to pay a single tax rate. Not all cities and counties charge 8.25 percent, the maximum rate allowed under Texas law, and companies could have a hard time complying. The comptroller also wants a law that spells out the duties of websites like Amazon, which operate so-called marketplaces. More than half of the sales on Amazon.com involve small, third-party retailers, and Hegar wants to require marketplaces to collect sales tax. Texas could collect an additional $250 million a year if these changes are approved. Hegar and his team also had to decide when an online retailer should be required to collect tax. Some states decided the threshold should be based on the total value of sales, while others set a minimum number of transactions. Some set a total value or a minimum number of transactions. Hegar decided $500,000 in sales should trigger compliance, without a minimum number of transactions. Hes told retailers to begin collecting the tax effective Oct. 1. We want to make sure that we do not place an undue burden on small businesses, he explained. Every single company wanted things a little different for themselves, but this is the best we can get and it seems as though it resolves a lot of the issues. This is a huge step forward for fairness, but not everyone thinks Hegar is going far enough. Local retailers point out that South Dakota and most other states set a $100,000 threshold. Oklahomas and Pennsylvanias are only $10,000. On HoustonChronicle.com: Taxes big reason online shopping is killing brick and mortar A $500,000 threshold is about what a small business might sell in an entire year. So youre exempting almost everybody except for the big operations, said Chris Pfeiffer, owner of Homestead House Furniture in Conroe. He and other local retailers want a $100,000 threshold. Ive written in the past about Pfeiffers campaign to force Internet sellers to collect sales tax. He worries some sellers will set up subsidiaries and different websites to dodge the tax every time they come close to $500,000 in sales. Hegar insists he is acting responsibly in imposing a new rule in the second-most populous state. But he notes that he or his successors can tweak the threshold later without going back to the Legislature. Lawmakers should carefully monitor Hegars strategy to make sure it does not disadvantage local retailers. After all, he is essentially deciding how much tax evasion will go unpunished, and how difficult local businesses will find it to compete. Chris Tomlinson writes commentary about business, economics and policy. chris.tomlinson@chron.com twitter.com/cltomlinson A new artificial intelligence company is teaching Houston's oil and gas sector how to better use its data. Hypergiant, which launched publicly on Tuesday, is seeking to demystify artificial intelligence through consulting services, technology development and venture financing. "There's this general hunger for AI and AI-related technology," co-founder and CEO Ben Lamm told the Chronicle. "It's like the greatest drug that everyone wants but nobody knows what it does." RELATED: Houston lab working to connect the internet's many dots Hypergiant has spent the past few months ramping up and securing 11 customers, including four in Houston. At Rod Lift Consulting, a subsidiary of Houston-based Schlumberger, Hypergiant reduced manual tasks related to inventory management by 50 percent. Rod Lift Consulting employees had been taking stock of inventory with clipboards. Hypergiant created a digital inventory management system and installed predictive data analytics, which means the system learns and can provide employees ample notice before existing inventory needs to be serviced or new inventory needs to be purchased. "To tackle this industry, we want to be very pragmatic," Lamm said. It's initially focusing on sectors, like energy, that already have lots of data. RELATED: Station Houston connects entrepreneurs with big industry Hypergiant has three divisions. The first is a consulting arm that helps businesses create artificial intelligence solutions for their specific problems. Hypergiant will use existing technology or create new technology. Creating new technologies is the company's second division. Its third division makes investments into other artificial intelligence companies with promising and unique products. Hypergiant has also created strategic partnerships with companies including Adobe and GE Aviation. On the latter, Hypergiant can help GE customers automate their data and get new technologies. Hypergiant has an office in Austin but plans to open locations in Dallas and Houston later this year. In Houston, it will also expand beyond the energy sector. Lamm is a serial technology entrepreneur with a track record of spurring collaboration, said John "JR" Reale, co-founder and CEO of Station Houston. He's excited to work with Hypergiant. Station Houston is a hub for startups and part of a bigger local movement to nurture tech-driven startups that have a potential to attract venture capital and scale quickly. RELATED: Houston Exponential to harness startup potential Rather than creating "technology for technology's sake," Reale said Hypergiant is focused on helping customers see a return on their investment. This is essential in Texas. "When you get into industrial operations or anything outside of just selling traditional tech," he said, "folks ask the question all the time, 'What's the ROI? What's the business value?'" He ultimately thinks Hypergiant will bring more entrepreneurial connections and technology jobs to Houston. Oracle has responded to claims of workplace discrimination, saying the U.S. Department of Labor is tacking new allegations onto a complaint it filed against the tech company two years ago to bolster a doomed case. Labor officials began investigating the Redwood City company several years ago for allegedly discriminatory pay practices that the department said cost Oracles female and minority employees more than $400 million in lost wages. The department is seeking to amend its complaint with new claims that Oracle showed preference to job candidates whom it could underpay. Once on the job, labor officials say, black, Asian and female employees were paid as much as 25 percent less than their peers doing similar work. Oracle denies the claim, saying it is based on the inaccurate premise that employees at Oracle who share the same job title or job code perform similar work. Oracle said in a notice of opposition filed in California administrative court that labor officials have two possible reasons for amending its complaint, and that neither justifies the pending motion. Labor officials added these claims, Oracle said in the new court papers, because the department realizes its existing claims against Oracle are doomed to fail, and it therefore wants some alternative theories. Second, regulators want the media to spread unflattering claims about Oracle to apply pressure on the company, its lawyers told the administrative court Wednesday. This meritless lawsuit is based on false allegations and a seriously flawed process within a branch of the Labor Department overseeing employers doing business with the federal government that relies on cherry-picked statistics rather than reality, Oracle general counsel Dorian Daley said in a statement. At the same time Oracle tussles with the Labor Department, it faces a similar complaint from former employees who say Oracle paid women less than men who perfomed similar work. Female workers earned on average more than $13,000 less per year than similarly employed men, according to a complaint the plaintiffs filed in San Mateo Superior Court in 2017. Attorneys representing those former Oracle employees filed a motion for certification as a class action in January, just days before federal labor officials lodged new claims against Oracle. The tech company raised concern about the Labor Department and private counsel for the former Oracle employees working together to bolster their respective claims. The two parties entered into a common interest agreement in 2017, which lets them share information without fear of waiving attorney-client privilege. Its a routine legal practice, said Adam Pulver, a former Labor Department litigator who is now a public interest attorney at Public Citizen Litigation Group in Washington and is not involved in the case. People who share a common interest should be able to communicate with each other to more effectively prosecute claims, Pulver said. Its not nefarious; its just more efficient. An attorney representing the former Oracle employees did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday. Melia Russell is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: melia.russell@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @meliarobin Houston Endowment has purchased 1.5 acres near the intersection of Memorial and Waugh to build a new home the institution says will better reflect its values while offering a more collaborative workplace for its employees and community partners. This building has to reflect our values and priorities, Ann Stern, president and chief executive of the philanthropic institution, said, citing sustainability, innovation and collaboration. Were viewing this as an investment in our current work. County records show the site, in the 3600 block of Willia Street, just north of Buffalo Bayou and overlooking Spotts Park, was purchased from an affiliate of Pinto Realty Partners, the real estate arm of Houston-based investment firm Cockrell Interests. Several years ago, Pinto had plans to build an 18-story, 250,000-square-foot office tower to be named Park Place at Buffalo Bayou on the site. Terms of the sale, which closed Wednesday, were not disclosed, and officials from Pinto could not be reached Thursday. The county valued the property, which at one time the site housed a YWCA, at $4.4 million in 2018. The Endowment, established by builder and philanthropist Jesse H. Jones and his wife Mary Gibbs Jones in 1937, has more than $1.8 billion in assets. Each year it provides some $70 million in funding toward efforts that aim to enhance civic assets and strengthen systems that support residents. A plan to relocate its staff of about 30, currently housed in 16,000 square feet at downtowns Chase Tower, where it has had offices since 1992, has been in the works for several years. As a perpetual institution, this just makes business sense for us, Stern said. And its also appealing to have it be ours from a functional standpoint. An architect has not yet been selected to design the new building, which is estimated will be between 35,000 and 40,000 square feet. Stern said it will likely be late 2021 or 2022 until the group is ready to move. Cushman & Wakefield represented the Endowment in the land acquisition. The Gensler architecture firm, Forney Construction and law firm Jackson Walker also assisted the institution. nancy.sarnoff@chron.com twitter.com/nsarnoff Americans for the first time will contend with the massive overhaul of U.S. tax laws that Congress passed and President Donald Trump signed at the end of 2017. Expect some big changes. Seven out of 10 American will see their taxes decline, according to the Tax Policy Center, a Washington think tank, but they may not get there without a little heartburn. The standard deduction has nearly doubled. The write-offs for state and local taxes have shrunk. The personal exemption is gone. Even the tax forms have changed. It will be a year of confusion, said David Donnelly, a partner at accounting firm Carr, Riggs & Ingram in Houston. Heres a look at some of those changes and what taxpayers might consider as they navigate them. Form 1040 The 2018 Form 1040 has been completely redesigned and simplified. There is now only one form for all taxpayers to use. All others, such as the 1040EZ or 1040A forms, have been eliminated. The new 1040 Form has been reduced from 79 lines to 23 and is said to be postcard-sized, which is a bit of an exaggeration as it still takes up a half an 8.5 by 11 piece of printer paper, front and back. The lines removed from the form are in six schedules or attachments, which taxpayers can add to their 1040 Form depending on their individual needs. For example, additional schedules can be selected for those who need to report capital gains or self-employment taxes. Tax facts The filing deadline to submit 2018 tax returns is Monday, April 15, 2019. More than 150 million individual tax returns are expected to be filed for the 2018 tax year. About 90 percent of returns are expected to be filed electronically. Taxpayers who can't pay the full amount of federal taxes they owe should file their tax return on time and pay as much as possible. This will help reduce penalties and interest The Internal Revenue Service cautions taxpayers to be alert for scam artists impersonating IRS agents on the phone. If the IRS wants to reach you, it's typically by mail. The federal income tax was adopted in 1913. Tax rates in 1913 ranged from 1 percent to 7 percent on incomes above $3,000. The average annual U.S. income then was $800. See More Collapse About 90 percent of the 150 million tax-paying Americans now e-file using tax software such as TurboTax or TaxSlayer, which ask questions about income and other financial matters, does the math and fills out the form automatically. Income tax rates The new law keeps seven tax brackets, but lowered the rates in some of those brackets. For example, a married couple filing jointly with an income of $175,000 had a marginal tax rate of 28 percent in 2017. In 2018, that rate falls to 24 percent. On the lower end of the scale, a single taxpayer making $50,000 was in the 25 percent bracket in 2017. In 2018, the rate slipped to 22 percent. The biggest changes came at the top of the income scale. The top marginal tax rate fell to 37 percent from 39.6 percent. The amount that brings taxpayers into the top tier was also raised. For example, a married couple filing jointly would have to earn at least $600,000 to get into the top tax bracket, up from $470,700 in 2017. Thats why its deemed that the wealthy got a break on this, said Jan Meade, an accounting professor at the University of Houstons Bauer College of Business. Standard deductions The tax overhaul nearly doubled the deduction, which means that for many taxpayers it will no longer be worth it to itemize deductions such as mortgage interest or charitable donations.. In fact, the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation estimates the number of households choosing to itemize deductions will drop from 46.5 million in 2017 to 18 million in 2018. The standard deduction for single filers is $12,000 (up from $6,350 in 2017). For married couples who file jointly its $24,000 ($12,700 in 2017). That means a married couple filing jointly and claimed itemized deductions of $15,000 in 2017 will benefit by claiming the standard deduction Not only is it a time-saver, but they will be able to deduct an additional $9,000. Meade said those with modest incomes will come out ahead by using the higher standard deduction. But not everyone benefits: Married couples who own big houses and have high property taxes could lose on deductions. Changes to state and local tax deductions Among the most controversial changes adopted by Congress were limits on deductions on state and local property taxes, now capped at $10,000. And that means itemizers who own big houses with big property tax bills could take a hit. Take, for instance, a married couple filing jointly who paid property taxes on their home of $20,000 and contributed $8,000 to qualifying charities in 2017. Their itemized deductions are $28,000. In 2018, they again pay property taxes of $20,000 plus $8,000 of qualifying charitable contributions. But because the tax deduction is capped at $10,000, their itemized deductions are limited to $18,000 and they claim a standard deduction of $24,000 instead $4,000 less than in 2017. It gets worse, too, when you consider that Congress eliminated the personal exemption of $4,050. For this married couple, its another $8,100 that theyll be unable to use to lower their taxes, meaning their deductions and exemptions would shrink from about $36,000 to $24,000. The losers in the deduction world are those that have property and sales tax in excess of $10,000, Donnelly said. Also, if you had any miscellaneous itemized deductions, such as attorney fees, investment expenses, or employee business expenses and these caused your itemized deductions to exceed $24,000, you would be a loser. Family tax credits For 2018, the maximum credit increased from $1,000 to $2,000 per qualifying child, but to claim the credit, the child must have a Social Security number issued before the due date of the tax return, including extensions. Also, the income threshold at which the child tax credit starts to phase out has been increased to $200,000 for single and head of household filers or $400,000 for married filing jointly. Before the new tax law went into effect, those limits were $75,000 and $110,000 respectively. Suspension of miscellaneous itemized deductions New for the 2018 tax year is the suspension of a deduction for job-related expenses listed under miscellaneous itemized deductions. Previously, an employee who was not reimbursed by their employer for certain business expenses could deduct those costs in their taxes if they exceeded 2 percent of a taxpayers adjusted gross income. Those deductions ranged from uniforms, union dues, and business-related meals, to entertainment and travel. Now, none of those deductions are accepted. Accountants advise employees to make sure they get reimbursed by their employers. john.roper@chron.com Ten years removed from their first collaborative project, How Fly, Wiz Khalifa and Curren$y decide to come through today and share their long-awaited joint album 2009, which is a reference to the year How Fly came out. Laced with 14 tracks, the follow up to Live In Concert features guest appearances from Ty Dolla $ign and Problem, the latter of which who appears on the song Getting Loose. Meanwhile, production is handled by the likes of Cardo, DJ Fresh, Naija Beats, Harry Fraud and Monstabeatz, among others. It consists of songs like Benz Boys, Stoned Gentlemen & Bottle Poppers to name a few. The artwork, which is done by FortyFPS, is in fact a replica of the New Orleans apartment Curren$y and Wiz Khalifa stayed at in 2009 when they recorded the project. In support of the project, the two weed enthusiasts are about to embark on a 22-date North American Tour kicking off later today in Seattle, Washington If youre interested in seeing them, peep tour dates right here. Out now, fans can stream the long awaited project in its entirety via any one of the streaming platforms. Hit play and let us know what you think. After EarthGang briefly teased a Revenge of the Dreamers 3 compilation in mid-December, J. Cole put the plan into action at the top of January, for all of the public to see. In a game-changing tactic, the head of the Dreamville imprint sent out exclusive invitations for a week-long rap camp in Atlanta. The first invitations were revealed by Dreamville's in-house talent, including J.I.D and EarthGang. Following which, social media feeds were soon littered with the gritty yellow invitations, each labeled to its chosen recipient, surely making anyone without an invitation envious in the process-- it was like the birthday party in elementary school that you weren't invited to, but everyone was talking about. Yet, that's not to speak ill of Dreamville, one of the most open-armed and collaborative collectives out there; even the amount of artists that did receive invitations was surprising and spoke to the camp's good-natured attitude and humility. Among the Dreamville collective, though, there has been a distinct interest and excitement surrounding J.I.D, with the release of his recent album DiCaprio 2 only intensifying this consensus among hip-hop heads. His raw talent, diverse influences, and technical ability have made him a likeable rap figure across many types of audiences. Then, there is the duo of EarthGang, who are on the precipice of their own big year. This is all just a feeling, but it's one that is generally agreed upon within the hip-hop community. The anticipation for Dot and Venus' album MirrorLand has clearly heightened, perhaps even more so since the release of the phenomenal, good-hearted and slightly quirky "Proud of U" with touring mate Young Thug earlier this week. All this to say: it's going to be a great year for both J.I.D and EarthGang in 2019, and we are here for it. Before the bandwagon starts to spill over, we had our writer Mitch head down to Atlanta as the Revenge of the Dreamers 3 sessions were underway. His story, which you can click below to read, not only helps paint a picture of the type of camaraderie and output that was going down during the week of January sixth to the sixteenth, he was also able to visit the Spillage Village house, EarthGang and J.I.D's place of come-up. READ OUR NEW DIGITAL COVER STORY WITH J.I.D AND EARTHGANG. Words by @mitchfindlay Photos by @armenkeleshian In a message relayed to the Associated Press, Bill Cosby's main spokesperson says the comedian hasn't received a single visitation from his family, since beginning his prison sentence in Collegeville, Pennsylvania - and by the looks it, it was Cosby himself who suggested the embargo for two reasons: A) he doesn't want to subject his family to the prison experience, and B) he believes that parole is a reasonable possibility. Mark Makela/Getty Images "He doesn't want to have them in that environment," Andrew Wyatt, the spokesperson who visits Cosby on the regular, told AP. "Why put them in that position, to make it turn into some form of a circus?" Just yesterday, it was reported that Bill Cosby, who stands convicted of sexual assault in September, will be moving to the prison's general population after serving the first 4 months of his bid in a special housing unit. The new prison layout places the disgraced comedian in a single-cell unit at a newly built prison in neighbouring Montgomery County. In an ironic twist, the new facility is but a half-hour drive from the Cosby family estate. Although Cosby's wife Camille has been cast adrift for much of her husband's prison bid, she did file a formal complaint against the judge presiding over his sexual assault case. As Andrew Wyatt would have it, Camille continues to work on an exit-strategy from behind the scenes. It's finally arrived. Ariana Grande's Thank U, Next album is here in full and so far the track "Ghostin" has left die-hard fans in tears over the honesty and emotional lyrics that are so clearly about her exes, Mac Miller and Pete Davidson. Ariana has previously explained that the track is about "feeling badly for the person you're with bc you love somebody else. feeling badly bc he can tell he can't compare.... and how i should be ghosting him." The tune is very angelic with violins contributing softly in the background while Ariana's soft vocals starts things off with her singing: "I know you hear me when I cry, I try to hold it in at night, While you're sleeping next to me, But it's your arms that I need this time." Another touching verse comes in after the first post-chorus: "Though I wish he were here instead, Don't want that living in your head, He just comes to visit me, When I'm dreaming every now and then." Ariana responded to a question on Twitter from a fan who asked her just how she's feeling now that her tape has been released. "My eyes and lips are puffy from crying sm. I feel relieved n overwhelmed n grateful. thank u for everything," she responded. 21 Savage's lawyer has come forth to clarify details surrounding his arrest. TMZ reported this morning that a police report indicated that a fully-loaded Glock was found in the glove compartment of his vehicle which officials believe belong to the rapper. Brian Steel, 21's lawyer, clarified that neither the gun or the vehicle he was driving in belonged to the "A Lot" rapper. Jason Kempin/Getty Images Alex Spiro, the attorney Roc Nation hired to help 21 Savage, disputed claims that the ATF arrested the rapper. "ICE has confirmed he was targeted for immigration enforcement and nothing more. He was never arrested by the police, and some other individual's firearm and vehicle is not our concern here," Spiro said. Earlier reports claimed that 21 Savage was pulled over after he was "driving recklessly" and nearly crashed into a cop car. They also said that he was driving across a sidewalk in order to get to another street. They claimed they found a Glock with an extended magazine after the rapper was cuffed and taken away. ICE's involvement in 21's arrest still remains unclear. The tabloid publication reported that they weren't listed at the time of the rapper's arrest in the police report. The DeKalb K-9 Unit, Vice Unit, Narcotics Unit, ATF, Georgia State Patrol, and the DeKalb 90 Unit was listed as being present during the rapper's arrest. ATF later reassured that ICE was present at the scene. A few weeks ago, 21 Savage released his new album I Am > I Was. The title of the project rings true especially now as he faces deportation from the United States. The Atlanta rapper is currently being detained in one of the worst detention centers in the country as he hopes for an imminent release. Until he was seven-years-old, Savage lived in the United Kingdom, moving here with his family and building a life in Atlanta. If hes deported, he would be away from his children and all of the networks that he has worked so hard to build over the years. His mother has been supportive of him, speaking out after his arrest earlier this week . Now, shes decided to throw things back to when he was just a young boy, sharing a photo of her son as a kid. JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding. You should upgrade or use an You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.You should upgrade or use an alternative browser Performance 8 February 2019 HENDERSONVILLE, Tennessee, and MILWAUKEE The Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index opened the year with a 7.8% increase and finished January at a level of 4,388. "Hotel stocks snapped back with the broader stock market in January after a challenging fourth quarter last year," said Michael Bellisario, senior hotel research analyst and VP at Baird. "The hotel REITs and the hotel brands jumped 12.4% and 5.5%, respectively, in January, but both sub-indices are still well off their recent highs. Stocks ended last year in an oversold position with investor sentiment too negative, in our opinion, and all eyes are now focused on 2019 guidance and how all of the recent capital markets volatility and the government shutdown are impacting hotel demand." Advertisements "More positive investor sentiment was encouraging given the performance uncertainty that came from opening the year with a government shutdown," said Amanda Hite, STR's president and CEO. "Our latest forecast released at ALIS projects further flattening of occupancy and continued tepid ADR growth. The mood at ALIS aligns with our expectations for good, not great performance, moving forward." The increase in the Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index was below both the S&P 500 (+7.9%) and the MSCI US REIT Index (+11.6%). The Hotel Brand sub-index rose 5.5% from December to 6,496, while the Hotel REIT sub-index jumped 12.4% to 1,562. About the Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index and Sub-Indices The Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index was set to equal 1,000 on 1 January 2000. Last cycle, the Index peaked at 3,178 on 5 July 2007. The Index's low point occurred on 6 March 2009 when it dropped to 573. The Hotel Brand sub-index was set to equal 1,000 on 1 January 2000. Last cycle, the sub-index peaked at 3,407 on 5 July 2007. The sub-index's low point occurred on 6 March 2009 when it dropped to 722. The Hotel REIT sub-index was set to equal 1,000 on 1 January 2000. Last cycle, the sub-index peaked at 2,555 on 2 February 2007. The sub-index's low point occurred on 5 March 2009 when it dropped to 298. The Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index and sub-indices are available exclusively on www.HotelNewsNow.com. The indices are cobranded and were created by Robert W. Baird & Co. (Baird) and STR. The market-cap-weighted, price-only indices comprise 20 of the largest market-capitalization hotel companies publicly traded on a U.S. exchange and attempt to characterize the performance of hotel stocks. The Index and sub-indices are maintained by Baird and hosted on Hotel News Now, are not actively managed, and no direct investment can be made in them. As of 31 January 2019, the companies that comprised the Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index included: Apple Hospitality REIT, Chatham Lodging Trust, Chesapeake Lodging Trust, Choice Hotels International, DiamondRock Hospitality Company, Extended Stay America, Hilton Inc., Hospitality Properties Trust, Host Hotels & Resorts, Hyatt Hotels, InterContinental Hotels Group, Marriott International, Park Hotels & Resorts, Inc., Pebblebrook Hotel Trust, RLJ Lodging Trust, Ryman Hospitality Properties, Summit Hotel Properties, Sunstone Hotel Investors, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, and Xenia Hotels & Resorts. This communication is not a call to action to engage in a securities transaction and has not been individually tailored to a specific client or targeted group of clients. Research reports on the companies identified in this communication are provided by Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated, and are available to clients through their Baird Financial Advisor. This communication does not provide recipients with information or advice that is sufficient on which to base an investment decision. This communication does not take into account the specific investment objectives, financial situation or need of any particular client and may not be suitable for all types of investors. Recipients should consider the contents of this communication as a single factor in making an investment decision. Additional fundamental and other analyses would be required to make an investment decision about any individual security identified in this release. About Baird Celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2019, Baird is an employee-owned, international wealth management, asset management, investment banking/capital markets, and private equity firm with offices in the United States, Europe and Asia. Baird has approximately 3,500 associates serving the needs of individual, corporate, institutional and municipal clients and $217 billion in client assets as of Sept. 30, 2018. Committed to being a great workplace, Baird ranked No. 12 on FORTUNE's 2018 100 Best Companies to Work For list. Baird is the marketing name of Baird Financial Group. Baird's principal operating subsidiaries are Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated in the United States and Robert W. Baird Group Ltd. in Europe. Baird also has an operating subsidiary in Asia supporting Baird's investment banking and private equity operations. For more information, please visit www.rwbaird.com. Opinion Article 8 February 2019 The HEDNA 2019 agenda illustrated the incredible potential for a meeting of the top minds in the hospitality industry, and the conference certainly didn't disappoint. This year's HEDNA gathering exceeded even my loftiest expectations, with 355 people marking the highest attendance to date. It was an inspirational meeting with the leading thinkers in our field providing plenty of insights to spark in-depth discussions about the core challenges facing today's hospitality sector and the future direction of our industry. The attendees had the privilege of listening to many fascinating, high-level speakers, including: Sam Shank: Founder and CEO of Hotel Tonight Todd Dunlap: Managing Director at Booking.com Adam Harris: CEO and Co-founder of Cloudbeds Jordan Hollander: Co-founder of HotelTechReport Cammy Houser: Hotels Program Lead at Airbnb Abhijit Pal: Head of Research at Expedia Steven Van Belleghem: Co-founder of Nexxworks Jason Dorsey: Co-founder and President of The Center for Generational Kinetics Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning AI and ML were major topics of discussion throughout the conference, with a focus on the great importance of seamlessly integrating artificial intelligence into the core ingredients required to provide exemplary customer service. The future of our industry will include a wide range of technologies driven by AI and ML, including facial recognition (smart glasses), caching (using ML to determine which data is most valuable to cache at specific times), and room mapping (harmonizing the multitude of systems describing a room type differently). At the same time, as the use of these advanced technologies increases, the industry faces the significant challenges involved in its integration. The growth of AI and ML is particularly difficult to manage due to the hospitality sector's frequent use of older technology with siloed data that cannot easily talk to the latest systems. I hope to see our industry take a big leap over the coming year to let go of antiquated ways of managing data to develop comprehensive solutions capable of full integration with every technological arm required to run today's software as well as tomorrow's innovations. Major advancements in the value of algorithms are already changing the manner in which buying and decision making occurs, with increasingly accurate predictions of the ancillary services and products that a consumer will be interested in based on a purchase. Shifting Consumer Preferences Millennials prefer texting to all other forms of communication, with other generation segments rapidly joining this shift. Although luxury hotels remain focused on "high touch," their customers desire this style of communication less-and-less. This fundamental change in consumer preferences is expected to result in the growing usage of chatbots, webchat widgets, and messaging, as an increasing percentage of people embrace this evolution. Virtually everyone has a mobile device these days, which is leading the industry toward further deployments of systems that resemble the simplicity of the very things that people are already familiar with, such as voice and other IoT solutions frequently used in homes. Industry Challenges Latency continues to be one of the biggest obstacles standing in the way of deploying advanced technology solutions. In the dynamic world of hospitality, data sharing must be immediate for technology to be effective. When a hotel is connected to Expedia or other OTAs, a delay of even just a few seconds can cause havoc, with the potential of double bookings and other unacceptable complications. Technology experts in our industry are working diligently to solve this significant challenge to allow the deployment of the best solutions without any latency of connectivity. On the disruption front, Airbnb's star continues to rise as consumer expectations and preferences shift, with the travel "experience" coming to the forefront of the market landscape. Unfortunately, many experts believe that an economic downturn is on the horizon. Although it's too early to know when this situation will impact the hospitality sector, some believe we'll see this slip beginning as soon as the end of this year. Overall, HEDNA 2019 was a wonderful opportunity to discuss the core principles of our evolving industry with the leading minds. As the integration of technology grows exponentially throughout the hospitality sector, the execution of innovative solutions is improving the landscape of our industry in monumental ways. Please share your thoughts about HEDNA 2019 with me on LinkedIn. Performance 8 February 2019 HENDERSONVILLE, Tennessee The U.S. hotel industry reported positive year-over-year results in the three key performance metrics during the week of 27 January through 2 February 2019, according to data from STR. Advertisements In comparison with the week of 28 January through 3 February 2018, the industry recorded the following: Occupancy: +0.1% to 56.7% Average daily rate (ADR): +2.3% to US$124.95 Revenue per available room (RevPAR): +2.4% to US$70.83 STR analysts note that results were more stabilized than in recent weeks as the government shutdown ended. Additionally group (bookings of 10 or more rooms) RevPAR was up 9.6%, indicating that many events were shifted to avoid Martin Luther King Jr. Day the prior week. Super Bowl LIII host, Atlanta, Georgia, reported the largest increases among Top 25 Markets in ADR (+72.6% to US$204.75) and RevPAR (+80.0% to US$141.64). Occupancy in the market rose 4.3% to 69.2% with more substantial growth on Friday and Saturday. Denver, Colorado, experienced the only double-digit rise in occupancy (+17.6% to 65.9%) as well as the second-largest increases in ADR (+15.2% to US$132.79) and RevPAR (+35.4% to US$87.55). San Diego, California, posted the only other double-digit lift in ADR (+13.5% to US$165.45) and the third-largest jump in RevPAR (+20.9% to US$123.90). Overall, 15 of the Top 25 Markets registered an increase in RevPAR. In comparison with its Super Bowl host week last year, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota-Wisconsin, registered the steepest declines in each of the three key performance metrics: occupancy (-31.6% to 49.6%), ADR (-56.8% to US$104.95) and RevPAR (-70.4% to US$52.07). Chicago, Illinois, experienced the second-largest decreases in occupancy (-9.1% to 45.5%) and RevPAR (-13.9% to US$46.61). Seattle, Washington, posted the second-largest decline in ADR (-7.1% to US$142.11) and the only other double-digit decrease in RevPAR (-13.5% to US$90.86). Download STR's weekly U.S. hotel review here. Press Release 8 February 2019 London UK/Spokane WA - Magnuson Worldwide's global hotel brand is proud to announce the addition of Magnuson Hotel Hampton to the Magnuson family. Advertisements Located in Hampton, Virginia; the property offers an outdoor pool and fitness centre, is steps from Buckroe Beach and 1 mile from the Hampton Roads Convention Center. All rooms enjoy free WiFi, a 32-inch flat-screen TV with cable, air-conditioning and coffee-making facilities. The hotel has 24-hour reception and is near a variety of restaurants including Cracker Barrel and Outback Steakhouse. Plus Hampton Coliseum and Boo Williams Sportplex are within 1.5 miles of the hotel. Thomas Magnuson, CEO of Magnuson Worldwide says: "We are delighted to be welcoming the team at the Magnuson Hotel Hampton to the Magnuson family." Now Open 8 February 2019 The PuXuan Hotel & Spa has opened its doors in Beijing, becoming the latest project for Urban Resort Concepts (URC). Designed by German architect Ole Scheeren, the luxury hotel completes the new Guardian Art Centre in an iconic building at the intersection of WangFuJing Street and WuSi Street, a symbolic crossroads of commerce and arts. The property's interiors are the work of Shanghai-based design firm MQ studio, who have integrated luxury and metaphorical design throughout the space alongside local, cultural references, while artwork has been curated by the Guardian Art Centre and features some of the finest contemporary Chinese art in the region. Meanwhile, each of the 92 guestrooms and 24 suites feature handcrafted and artisanal furniture by Hermes-owned Chinese lifestyle brand Shang Xia, and boast views over either the Forbidden City or one of Beijing's oldest neighbourhoods, the DongCheng District. On the menu, dining destination Rive Gauche serves unpretentious French classics, whilst Fu Chun Ju offers some of the capital's finest Cantonese preparations. With direct access on levels two and three of the hotel respectively, the restaurants will offer guests the chance to discover a new appreciation for local provenance with seasonal menus that highlight the unique flavours of heirloom ingredients. A slice of bohemian Paris in the heart of Beijing, Rive Gauche will be headed up by Executive Chef Ivan Miguez, who interprets French classics with his own personal twist, imbued with influences from his travels around the globe, paired with his eye for detail after years spent in Michelin-starred kitchens. The space is designed to include a variety of dining, lounge and bar, private and outdoor spaces, creating a vibrant atmosphere that draws inspiration from the Parisian comptoir culture. Similarly, Fu Chun Ju offers a journey into the culinary world of Chef Waikit Yeung; one in which he and his team pay homage to time-honoured Cantonese flavours, interpreted in contemporary ways. Designed as a tribute to the capital's traditional Hutong home, the space features Beijing's famed hues with an aesthetic of amber glass, delicate timbers and stone. With a strong emphasis on seasonality of ingredients, Chef Yeung's cuisine is characterised by its meticulous preparation and nuanced flavours, be it his delicate dim sum, roast meats, claypot dishes or seafood preparations. The PuXuan also features URC's proprietary UR Spa, offering bespoke treatments by Cha Ling - 'L'Espirit du The', an LVMH brand that combines traditional Chinese medicine with French beauty, along with organic formulations by the creators of wellness products Comfort Zone. Other spaces include The PuXuan Club, with round-the-clock access to a fully serviced lounge, Tea Room, The Lobby Lounge, fitness centre and a variety of indoor and outdoor venues for both corporate and social gatherings. A collection of half and full day programmes curated by The PuXuan also provide guests with exclusive access to local hidden gems and landmarks alike, ensuring travellers experience the breadth of the city's history, culture and gastronomy. Pipeline 8 February 2019 Next Hotel Colombo and Kafnu Colombo will open their doors to welcome guests in third quarter 2019. This will mark the entry of Next Hotels and Kafnu into Sri Lanka, a fast-growing tourist destination and will be the first foray of the Next brand outside of Australia. Next Hotel Colombo and Kafnu, which combines the best elements of a shared workspace, boutique hotel and social community, will be located in the iconic Colombo City Centre, a premier lifestyle destination in Sri Lanka. Jointly owned and developed by Next Story Group and the Abans Group, Colombo City Centre is a mixed-use development which consists of a Next Hotel, luxury apartments and the first international shopping mall in the country. Next Hotel Colombo will occupy the 9th to 20th floor of the 48-storey building within Colombo City Centre. It will showcase the hallmarks of the Next Hotels brand, which reinvents modern business travel with innovative luxury designed to inspire creativity and efficiency. Powered by technology, the Next Hotels brand offers modern, innovative hospitality and focuses on empathetic and efficient service to deliver a uniquely stimulating experience with every visit. Next Hotel Colombo will receive guests on its 9th-floor lobby which provides stunning views of the city skyline and the Indian Ocean. The 164 rooms and suites will also feature similar views. Guests can choose to dine at its 120-seat all-day dining restaurant or the 75-seat Grill Restaurant which is located on an outdoor terrace, overlooking the Beira Lake. The Lounge Bar will offer classic favourites and contemporary cocktails. Guests can take a dip in its swimming pool or work out at its gymnasium. It is also the ideal venue for corporate meetings and social functions. Next Hotel Colombo will join a portfolio of close to 40 hotels in Asia Pacific including the acclaimed Next Hotel Brisbane. Next Hotel Colombo will feature the first Kafnu within a Next Hotel. Conceptualised as an urban village for the new generation of creators, Kafnu is a physical, intellectual and social launch pad for today's trailblazers. It is designed for members to Work, Learn, Play and Stay in an open and supportive environment that elevates their individual and collective potential. Kafnu members enjoy access to strategic partnerships, premium services and private events. Kafnu Colombo will join the Kafnu network which will include Hong Kong, Taipei, Bangaluru, Sydney, Ho Chi Minh City and Mumbai. Enter the Once Upon A Child Spring Style Sweepstakes today for the chance to WIN! Refresh your child's wardrobe! You could be the LUCKY WINNER of $200 in Store Cash! Agriculture expert Craig Curry testified in support of Senate Bill 489 because he said Hoosier farmers shouldnt have to follow other state regulations to sell their products outside Indiana. Just scan and upload a photo of your completed "news story" and you'll be entered for a chance to have your story published. Click here to find out where to get a COVID-19 vaccine or test. To find out how many local residents have been vaccinated for COVID-19, click here. Use the map to find numbers for individual counties. Find detailed statistics about COVID-19 tests, cases and deaths by county and for the state as a whole on the Indiana State Department of Health's online dashboard. Lima, OH (45805) Today Partly to mostly cloudy. A sprinkle or two possible. High 76F. Winds SW at 5 to 15 mph.. Tonight A few clouds. Low around 59F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph. Please be aware that Cache Valley Publishing does not endorse, and is not responsible for alleged employment offers in the comments. Recommended for you Wisconsin congressman was the reform movements most successful politician DEJA VU IN 2016, BERNIE SANDERS, a socialist-leaning Independent, threw a scare into Hillary Clinton on her way to coronation as the Democratic presidential nominee. Hillary prevailed, but the Vermont senator took a clutch of primaries. Two years later, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, self-described democratic socialist, unseated 10-term House incumbent and Democrat sachem Joe Crowley in the partys primary in Queens, then cruised to an election-day victory. Sanders is an old man, and an old story. Born in September 1941 in Brooklyn, New York, he has held office as a mayor, a congressman, or a U.S. senator almost continuously since 1981. By contrast Ocasio-Cortez, 29, is the youngest woman ever to serve in the House. Before her upset victory, she worked at a hip taqueria in Manhattan, where we knew each other to say hi. Socialism is the flavor of the moment, a judo response toor perhaps a parallax image ofTrumpian populism. However, socialists have long been an ingredient in the great stew of American third parties. At the end of the 19th century triumphant industrial capitalism became the target of reformers and radicals from populists and progressives to anarchist assassins. Socialists, the leftmost reformers, sought nothing less than to transform the economic system. They also were the rightmost radicals, willing to work within the political system. In the presidential elections of 1912 and 1920, Eugene V. Debs, the Socialist Partys presidential candidate, scored more than 900,000 votesimpressive, but nothing like successful; Debs tallied zero electoral votes. During the same period two socialists did win House seats. The first, and longest-serving, was Victor Berger. Berger, born into a German Jewish family in Transylvania in 1860, came to America at the end of the 1870s and found his way to Milwaukee. Wisconsin was a magnet for Germans; at the turn of the century they accounted for ten percent of the population there. Berger taught high school history and German, then switched to journalismin late 1911 he founded the Milwaukee Leader, a daily newspaperand politics. He flirted with radical factionspopulism and Henry Georges single-tax theoriesthen set about building a Milwaukee-based Socialist Party political machine blending ideology and an emphasis on municipal infrastructure. Berger believed, like Karl Marx, that the arc of capitalism bent inexorably toward oppression and class conflict, and that socialism was the next phase of civilization, if civilization is to survive. In the socialist phase, the government supposedly would own businesses and banks; farms, Berger thought, should stay in private hands. He respected the capitalist enemys acumen. A socialized United States Steel, he wrote, might still be run by its former CEO. But we would not pay him $800,000 a year, he added. Berger parted from Marx in thinking that socialism could arrive peaceably, via democratic elections. The American reality of a widely dispersed franchise made a profound impression on him. John D. Rockefeller cast the same number of votesoneas any of his employees. This is the first instance in the history of the world that the oppressed class has virtually the same political basis as the ruling class, Berger wrote. It is foolish to expect results from riots and dynamite, from murderous attacks and conspiracies, in a country where we have the ballot. In 1910, as if in fulfillment of his hopes, a slate of Milwaukee socialists won local office on a platform of municipal ownership of utilities. The same year, Wisconsins Milwaukee-centered Fifth District sent Berger to the U.S. House of Representatives. Bergers first stint in Congress lasted only one term before world events changed the domestic political landscape. When Europe went to war in 1914, socialists wanted America to stay neutrala stance rooted in the fact that, like Berger, many were culturally German. That affinity and their antiwar attitude made them pariahs in 1917, when America joined the fight on the side of the Allied Powers. The U.S. Post Office refused to deliver copies of the Leader, calling Bergers paper disloyal. The December 1917 Bolshevik takeover of the Russian Revolution offered a nightmare image of socialism. The Bolsheviks appalled Bergerhe called communist Russia a super state supported by terrorismbut during the 1919-20 Red Scare suspicion transmogrified anyone on the left into a murderous demagogue. Undaunted, Berger toiled on. In 1918 he won a second congressional race. Now his troubles began. In December 1918, the U.S. Justice Department tried Berger and four other socialists in Chicago before elaborately named Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis for conspiracy to hinder the war effort. Convicted, the five drew 20 years in prison. In May 1919, free on appeal, Berger appeared in the House to be sworn in. The House refused, asserting that he had given aid and comfort to the enemy, a violation of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, designed to keep former Confederates from holding office. Only one member voted to admit the socialist. Wisconsin called a special election in December 1919 to fill Bergers seat. He won handily; Fifth District voters did not like to see him being pushed around. Again, the House voted to keep him out; this time all of six congressmen spoke in his favor. I do not share the views of Mr. Berger, explained one, but I am willing to meet his views in argument before the people rather than to say that we should deny him to opportunity to be heard. The next election, 1920, was the Harding landslidebad news for any candidate lacking an R after his name. However, in 1922 Bergers district voted him in once more, by which time the U.S. Supreme Court, on a technicality, had overturned those five convictions. A less feverish House calmly accepted Berger into the ranks. He served until 1928. He died the year after he left Congress, run over by a trolley on the streets of the city he loved. Berger showed he could win elections, and his legal travails and vindication made a stirring story. Did he bring America nearer the next phase of civilization? Socialists to Bergers left decried his moderation, branding it slowcialism or, mocking his focus on urban mechanics, sewer socialism. The academic Roderick Nash argued that Berger was too successful for his own good, proving only that socialism in America succeeded when it was susceptible to absorption and dilution in the American ethos. The mainstream has adopted Socialist Party platform plans piecemeal: public utilities, a graduated income tax, federal health insurance in the form of Obamacare. Public ownership of banks and transportation remain a way off, though the TARP bailout and Amtrak could be seen as steps in those directions. The nations first 80 years saw major parties come and goFederalists and Whigs, for instance, plus dramatic flare-ups like the Anti-Masons and the Know-Nothingsbefore the Civil War baptized the two-party system of Democrats and Republicans in blood. Subsequent political storms have beaten in vain against that plinth. New parties function for 150 years has been to bring to national notice issues like Prohibition and programs like populism or socialism to be absorbed and if necessary, discarded by donkeys and elephants. Hence Bernie Sanders, though mostly maintaining his label as an Independent, caucusing in Congress with the Democrats and running in 2016 in Democratic primaries, and Ocasio-Cortez making her maiden run as a Democrat. The failure of John Browns rebellion sent surviving freeman Osborne Anderson on a harrowing journey THINGS WERE spiraling out of control for John Brown. From less than 100 yards away, Osborne Anderson could see that the radical abolitionist had barricaded himself in the tiny fire engine house. The little brick building, at the federal armory and arsenal in Harpers Ferry, Virginia, was crowded with Browns followers, their hostages, and slaves the raiders had come to free. Outside, a mob of citizens and militiamen was shouting for blood. It was Monday, October 17, 1859. Anderson was watching the chaos from another arsenal building. Clearly, Browns scheme to spark a slave uprising that he hoped would rage throughout the South had failed. With Anderson was Albert Hazlett, 22. Raw-boned and muscular, the Pennsylvanian had signed up with Brown to fight slavery in Kansas. At one point Shields Green joined the two. Green, an escaped slave, had met Brown through Frederick Douglass when Brown tried in vain to persuade the freedman abolitionist to join the raid. Green was the most inexorable of our party, a very Turco in his hatred against the stealers of men, Anderson wrote later. Green also saw that Brown had no chance, but nonetheless returned to the engine house to share his leaders fate. Anderson, 29, had joined Browns improvised war on the peculiar institution with enthusiasm. Now he knew Brown was doomed. His own chances, Anderson believed, were a bit better. Osborne Perry Anderson was a tall, handsome mulatto, with a thoughtful face, sadly earnest eyes, and an expression of intellectual power that impressed toe observer strongly, wrote a contemporary. He was born in West Fallowfield, in Pennsylvanias Chester County, in July 1830, to parents who were free blacks; his slaveholding grandfather was white. Anderson lived with his father until age 19 or 20, receiving a common school education. He loved to read. Growing up in a state rife with abolitionist sentiment, he hated human bondage. Pennsylvania was home to anti-slavery activists like William Goodridge. Born a slave in Baltimore in 1805, Goodridge became free at 16, moved north, and opened a barbershop in York. Business-minded, he acquired a dozen properties and ran a railroad, the Reliance Line. Besides hauling freight, Goodridge used his 13 railcars to smuggle escaped slaves to Philadelphia and points northan Underground Railroad conductor worthy of the title. Another abolitionist figure in Pennsylvania was Philadelphian William Still. Born free in New Jersey in 1821, Still started working for the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society in 1844 and later chaired the Philadelphia Vigilance Committee, which aided fugitive slaves. According to one count, Still helped 649 slaves reach freedom. Anderson developed into a passionate abolitionist. As a biographical note in his 1861 memoir put it, He often expressed to his father great regret at his inability to assist the oppressed and wronged of his race who were then in bondage in the South, stating that he was satisfied that God who created us all free and equal never intended his people to be held this way in slavery. As a youth, Anderson met Mary Ann Shadd, and her parents, free black abolitionists. Shadd became a teacher in New York City. In 1851, she moved to Canada, a magnet for African-Americans seeking to avoid slaverys reach, especially after passage in 1850 of the Fugitive Slave Law. In Chatham, Ontario, 50 miles west of Detroit, Michigan, ShaddNorth Americas first black female newspaper publisheroversaw the Provincial Freeman. When Shadds father and uncle gravitated to Chatham, Anderson, now a young man, came along. Shadd hired him as a subscription agent and printer. In April 1858, Anderson met John Brown. The abolitionist had become a legend among foes and friends of slavery for his willingness to take up the gun and the sword. Sporting a white beard that bespoke his Calvinistic intensity, Brown had come to Chatham to convene like minds; his zeal impressed the young printer. He realized and enforced the doctrine of destroying the tree that bringeth forth corrupt fruit, Anderson wrote. Slavery was to him the corrupt tree, and the duty of every Christian man was to strike down slavery, and to commit its fragments to the flames. To his 46 delegates, Brown, who had been fighting slavery in Kansas, revealed a new strategyhe would spark a slave insurrection across the South. He would establish fortified sanctuaries in the Appalachian Mountains for escaped slaves to use as bases in making war on their former oppressors. As evidence of his seriousness, Brown presented to the delegates for ratification a Provisional Constitution and Ordinances for the People of the United Statesa preamble enumerating slaverys evils and 48 ordinances outlining a reformed, anti-slavery U.S. government. The document included oddities; Article XXXV bore the title No Needless Waste. The delegates elected Brown their commander-in-chief. For their secretary of war, they selected John Kagi, formerly a lawyer, teacher, and journalist and now unofficial second-in-command to Brown. The convention also selected Osborne P. Anderson, the quiet, reserved printer, as a member of its congress. Brown spent almost a year staging his insurrection. As Isaac Smith, he established himself in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, where he stockpiled supplies and weapons. From a Connecticut blacksmith Brown ordered nearly 1,000 pikes with which to arm the slaves he expected to join his rebellion. The first target, Harpers Ferry, Virginia, lay 50 miles south on a tongue of land at the confluence of the Potomac and the Shenandoah riversa place of singular beauty set off by cliffs rising precipitously above wide waters. Besides the rivers, the town had rail lines and the Chesapeake & Ohio Canaland a federal armory, arsenal, and rifle factory, whose inventory would further arm the uprising. From a widow named Kennedy, Smith rented a hillside farm in Maryland, five miles outside Harpers Ferry. From there, in October 1859, Brown planned to ignite what he expected to be a conflagration purging America of its original sin. Brown recruited Anderson and 20 others, including Browns sons Owen, Oliver, and Watson, and two of his son-in-laws brothers, Dauphin and William Thompson. Among the insurrectionists was the hot-tempered Aaron D. Stevens, a Mexican War veteran court-martialed for attacking a U.S. Army officer. Escaping from Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, Stevens joined an anti-slavery militia, leading him into Browns circle. Anderson was one of the partys five black insurrectionists, along with Shields Green; Dangerfield Newby, a former slave intent on buying his wife and children out of bondage; Lewis Leary, who had left his wife in Oberlin, Ohio, to join Brown; and Learys nephew, John Copeland. Other raiders included Albert Hazlett; John E. Cook, a ladies man who while scouting Harpers Ferry for Brown had married a young townswoman; Charles P. Tidd, a Maine native fond of practical jokes and sharp teasing; William Leeman, 20, another Mainer and the youngest raider; and Francis Meriam, the last of Browns followers to reach the Kennedy farm. Annie Brown, the leaders daughter, and Martha Brown, his daughter-in-law, tended house for the raiders until the end of September, when Brown sent the women away. On September 13, a Tuesday, Anderson left Chatham to join Brown. Anderson traveled to Philadelphia, where he boarded a train for Chambersburg, departing there afoot on September 24. By dark Anderson had walked 16 miles to the Maryland border, where Brown was waiting with a wagon. The men drove overnight to the rented farm, purposefully arriving before daybreak; in Maryland, a slave state, the sight of white and black traveling together could raise suspicion. Browns headquarters for toppling the slave empire was not much to see[r]ough, unsightly, and aged, in Andersons eyes. The first floor had a kitchen, dining room, and bedroom; upstairs was a loft where the raiders hid during the day. Anderson compared life there to prison. When Brown was present, days began with a Bible reading, after which his troops crammed themselves into the loft. If strangers appeared, the men upstairs froze. At night they could step outside to breathe the fresh air and enjoy the beautiful solitude of the mountain scenery around, by moonlight. The morning of Sunday, October 16, Brown read a Bible passage applicable to the condition of the slaves, and our duty as their brethren, remembered Anderson, and prayed for divine help in liberating the bondmen in that slaveholding land. That afternoon the old man, as Brown was called, issued orders for the coming days action. Some men would remain at headquarters, assigned to transfer weapons and supplies to a schoolhouse nearer town that they intended to seize. Others were to secure bridges over the Potomac and the Shenandoah. A third group had orders to seize buildings at the armory and prepare to hold prisoners. Brown had a list of prospective hostages. He assigned Anderson and others to grab Lewis Washington, a great-grandnephew of George Washington. A wealthy slave owner who lived outside Harpers Ferry, Lewis Washington had inherited items of symbolic importancea sword Frederick the Great supposedly had given the first president and pistols the Marquis de Lafayette once owned. Brown directed that Anderson personally relieve Washington of the sword. Anderson being a colored man, and colored men being only things in the South, it is proper that the South be taught a lesson upon this point, Brown said. Under Stevenss command, Tidd, Green, Cook, and Leary would back Anderson on this mission, which also included grabbing a slave owner named John Allstadt. At 8 p.m., Brown departed for Harpers Ferry driving a wagonload of weapons; Anderson and the others walked, as solemnly as a funeral procession, to the Maryland terminus of the Potomac bridge. Raiders captured the watchman, secured the span, and crossed on the rails to seize the lightly defended armory and rifle works. They stowed prisoners in the armorys engine house and sent two men to take the Shenandoah bridge. These places were all taken, and the prisoners secured, without the snap of a gun, or any violence whatever, Anderson noted. Andersons squad set out for Lewis Washingtons home. When they confronted the slaveholder, he volunteered to free his Negroes and, blubbering like a great calf, begged for his life. Washington appeared startled when Anderson stepped forward to take the sword. Next, the raiders bundled Allstadt, his son, and his slaves into a wagon for the ride to Harpers Ferry. After returning with the hostages, Anderson handed the ceremonial Washington sword to Brown, who buckled on the weapon and asked Anderson to distribute pikes from the wagon to the few slaves present. By this time the raid had begun shedding blood. At the rail station, raiders had stopped a Baltimore-bound train. Told to halt, baggage handler Hayward Shepherd kept moving. A raider shot him. The first fatality in Browns war on slavery was a free black man. The first raider to fall was Dangerfield Newby. Harpers Ferry residents and militiamen from the countryside were pouring into town, and on Shenandoah Street one of their bullets felled Newby, a letter from his enslaved wife in his pocket. Souvenir hunters cut off pieces of the dead mans ears. The situation deteriorated, and with it Browns resolve. Capt. Brown was all activity, though I could not help thinking that at times he appeared somewhat puzzled, Anderson wrote. The old man sent Tidd, Leeman, and Cook back to the Kennedy farm with several freed slaves. He posted Leary, Kagi, and Copeland at the rifle factory. Brown told Anderson and Hazlett to hold the arsenal building. Beyond these steps, the raids leader seemed to have no plan, and his retreat into the engine house trapped him. Brown sent William Thompson out under a flag of truce; foes grabbed and killed him. Gunmen shot Stevens and Oliver Brown. A bullet claimed Leeman as he tried to escape across the Potomac. Townsmen and militiamen chased Kagi, Leary, and Copeland from the rifle works and into the Shenandoah, where they shot Kagi dead, mortally wounded Leary, and captured Copeland. Anderson began gauging his chances. From this point his 1861 memoir, A Voice From Harpers Ferry, doesnt add up, perhaps because, writing as a fugitive, he hesitated to give information useful to prosecutors; he also may have been responding to latter-day accusations that he abandoned Brown. By his own account, Anderson hid with Hazlett in the armory until Tuesday, when U.S. Marines from Washington DC, led by U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Robert E. Lee, stormed the engine house. More likely, Anderson slipped away Monday night, before Lee and the Marine contingent had arrived at Harpers Ferry. Anderson and Hazlett decided it was better to retreat while it was possiblethan to recklessly invite capture and brutality at the hands of our enemies, Anderson wrote years later in his memoir. We could not aid Captain Brown by remaining. We might, by joining the men at the Farm, devise plans for his succor; or our experience might become available on some future occasion. Anderson and Hazlett climbed out a window and headed to the banks of the Shenandoah. In his memoir, which tests reader credulity, Anderson says he and his companion captured and released a townsman before hiding downstream and trading shots with locals. In this passage he claims to have seen attackers bite the dust before their companions withdrew. In any event, the fugitives found a boat and crossed the Potomac to Maryland. They followed the C&O Canal towpath north toward the farmfinding it deserted, as had been the schoolhouse where the raiders had stashed arms. The path to safety went through Chambersburg, 50 miles away. With that city still distant, Hazlettexhausted, hungry, his feet blisteredgave up. He declared it was impossible for him to go further, and begged me to go on, as we should be more in danger if seen together in the vicinity of the towns, Anderson wrote later. Reaching Chambersburg in the middle of the night, Anderson hid his rifle and found the home of an unnamed acquaintanceperhaps Henry Watson, a barber who had guided Frederick Douglass to his August meeting with Brown. Greatly agitated to find Anderson at his door, this party nonetheless took in and fed the fugitive. Anderson had just eaten when a federal marshal knocked. As the marshal entered the front door, Anderson slipped out the back. He retrieved his weapon and made for York, another 70 miles east. He hoped to find William Goodridge, the entrepreneurial freedman and Underground Railroad conductor. Like Andersons nameless savior in Chambersburg, Goodridge was discomfited to see the fugitive. Goodridge spirited Anderson from his Philadelphia Street home to another of his holdings, where Anderson hid for weeks in a closet. Once the hue and cry about Harpers Ferry subsided, Goodridge probably ran Anderson by rail across the Susquehanna River to Columbia, an Underground Railroad hub 15 miles east of York. From Columbia, Anderson traveled to Chester County to find his parents, only to have his father rebuff him, as he later told Browns daughter, Annie. Anderson told me with tears in his eyes and voice that, while escaping through Pennsylvania, his own father turned him from the door, threatening to have him arrested if he ever came again; and that most of the colored people he met turned the cold shoulder to him as if he was an outcast, Annie Brown recalled. Andersons next stop would have been Philadelphia, home of one man he knew would not reject him. William Still makes no mention of Anderson in a memoir he published after the Civil War, but the two had met in March 1858, and a month before the raid Brown had been to Philadelphia to meet with Still and other black leaders. With or without assistance from Still, Anderson departed Pennsylvania for Ohio. In December 1859, Charles Tidd, the raider John Brown ordered to go to the farm from the armory before everything fell apart, said he encountered Chatham Anderson in Cleveland. He escaped from below with Hazlett but before they got to Chambersburg, Al gave out, and so Anderson had to leave him, Tidd wrote to Owen Brown, who had also escaped to Ohio. Tidd said he and Anderson traveled together to Chatham, where they ran into Francis J. Meriam, another former raider, so there were three of the originals together. Other raiders had made their way from Harpers Ferry, but the ranks of the fallen were growing. Hazlett, captured in Pennsylvania, was tried, convicted, and executed. John Cook was arrested in Pennsylvania; authorities hanged him in Charles Town, Virginia, in December 1859the same month John Brown, captured by Lee and his Marines, was hanged. The family took their patriarchs body to the Brown homestead in North Elba, New York, for interment. One day at North Elba the following July, Annie Brown noticed a figure kneeling at her fathers gravea black man who appeared to be weeping and praying. Going to the burial site, Annie Brown recognized Anderson. She invited him in; he declined. I might not be welcome, Anderson told his former commanders daughter. I have seen you and the Captains grave, and now Ill go. But Annie Brown insisted, and Anderson remained at the Brown homestead long enough to be present at an Independence Day ceremony honoring the old man at graveside. The harsh manner in which, among others, some of his own relatives had received him, threatening even his arrest in their selfish and cowardly alarm, had made the refined and sensitive man timid even of this hospitality, Annie told one of her fathers biographers. As Anderson was leaving the Brown place, he apologized for staying so long and said he dreaded to go back and into the world where he would be so friendless and alone, Annie Brown recalled later. Although a wanted man, Anderson periodically left the safety of Canada for the United States to give speeches and raise money. In January 1861, aided by Mary Ann Shadd Caryshe had married in 1857Anderson published A Voice from Harpers Ferry, a pamphlet in which he described Browns raid and his own escape, contesting claims that local slaves had spurned Brown. As Shadd Cary and others did, Anderson may have helped recruit African-Americans to fight for the Union during the Civil War. Some accounts have him enlisting, but his name appears on no muster rolls. After the war he moved to Washington, DC. He is said to have visited Harpers Ferry with friends to show where he had fought. Anderson died at 42 of tuberculosis in the capital on December 10, 1872. Osborne P. Anderson was truly a noble and devoted lover of freedom for all mankind and proved his devotion in a way that many other decided and earnest friends of freedom really had not the courage to pursue, or of which they failed to see the utility, wrote editors with the New National Era in an obituary in which they observed that attendance at Andersons funeral was not as large as the occasion merited. No one knows where Osborne Anderson is buried. A rare 17th century tray produced in Bidar in south India that exemplified Indian superiority in metallurgy at the time long before England had the expertise has been blocked from export by the Theresa May government, seeking to retain and preserve it in the United Kingdom. Described by the department of digital, media, culture & sport as mysterious and unique, the artwork has been assessed by experts to be at risk of being exported from the UK unless a buyer can be found and retained within the UK. Officials said a decision on the export licence application for the item will be deferred until April 17, which may be extended until July 17 if a serious intention to raise funds to purchase it is made at the recommended price of 75,000, plus VAT. Experts believe the tray highlights Indian superiority in metallurgical knowledge, or scientific study of metals, at the time it was made. Appreciation of the zinc alloy technique of bidri may be indirectly linked to sharing with England how to produce metallic zinc, or carry out zinc smelting, on an industrial scale. This would ultimately lead to a transformation in English industrial production around a century later, officials said. The export of Tear Shaped Bidri Tray, which is believed to have been made in the first half of the 17th century by an unknown craftsman, has been blocked by Michael Ellis, minister for arts, heritage and tourism, to provide an opportunity to keep it in the country. Credit: Department of Digital, Culture, Media & Sport, UK The tray, deemed to be of a rare size and shape and unparalleled finesse, is in a metalworking technique known as Bidri, the name deriving from the capital city of the Bahmani sultanate of the Deccan which was one of the major Muslim kingdoms of medieval India. It is also believed to be one of only two Bidri objects to have its entire outer surface covered in silver inlay, decorated through a complex intertwining of scrolling lines bearing leaves and stylised flowers. Officials said 17th century Bidriware is rare in any collection in the world, with the vast majority of pieces in UK public and private collections dating from the 19th century. Even the Jagdish and Kamla Mittal Museum of Indian Art, which has the finest collection of Bidriware in the world, does not own a tray of this type. Ellis said: The Tear Shaped Bidri Tray highlights the style, detail and innovation of metalware produced on the subcontinent during this influential period in world history. When considering its unique nature, it is right that we do what we can to preserve this valuable item for the nation. Most of the trays ownership history is unknown. It is recorded as having been acquired by the London-based antique dealer Anthony Tobi Jack in London by at least 1974, and was owned by the dealer Bashir Mohamed from 1974 to 2017. The decision to defer the export licence follows a recommendation by the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest, administered by the Arts Council. It made the recommendation on the grounds that the item is of outstanding aesthetic importance and significance for the study of Indian and Deccan decorative arts. Chairman of the committee Hayden Phillips said: This 17th century Indian tray is exquisite; both in the beauty of its appearance, in the shape of a tear, and in the manner of its creation. It fully reflects the sophistication of Deccan design in the regions monuments and interiors. We were unanimous in our view that the tray was of outstanding aesthetic importance and of outstanding significance to the study of Bidri ware. In the US Navy, we say that every sailor is a firefighter. Thats because when a fire breaks out on a ship at sea a real threat given the combustible mixture of fuel, ammunition, electrical circuits and stored supplies the entire crew is trained to step up and douse it. Its not like you can just walk across the street and let the blaze burn itself out. I have fought fires several times, and here is the most important lesson: Never underestimate the power of a fire to re-flash. If you put out the initial flames but leave smoldering material, there is a high possibility of it leaping back to life. Navy protocol is to set a watch of sailors prepared to go back into action if a re-flash occurs. This is also the right way to look at the Islamic State at the moment. Over the past several years and under two presidential administrations, US and allied forces have taken away at least 95 percent of ISISs terrain. But without a re-flash watch, there is a real chance of the group reviving itself. Someone who knows this well is the head of the US Central Command, General Joe Votel, a career special forces operator who has led the fight since 2016. If the major actors and their proxies become embroiled in a competition for influence in Syria, he told Congress recently, this may create space for ISIS remnants or other terrorist groups to reform or reconstitute. He echoed the view of former Defense Secretary James Mattis, who resigned after President Trumps foolish declaration of a full withdrawal of US troops from Syria. Its not just physical territory thats a concern. ISIS remains very capable in the digital realm. It has used social media with savvy to bring in recruits, raise money and set up a command-and-control network. It continues to launch terrorist attacks globally, including the deadly bombing last month of a cathedral in the southern Philippines. Bear in mind that todays Islamic State grew out of the collapse of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq, and the ill-advised pullout of all US troops in 2011 without leaving in place a contingent to ensure a stable transition. You can drop a plumb line from that precipitate departure and todays virulent and still dangerous ISIS in Syria. Why repeat that mistake? What would an effective re-flash watch look like? First, contra Trump, it would mean keeping 7,000 to 10,000 U.S. troops across Iraq and Syria for special operations, intelligence-gathering and supporting regional allies especially Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. The U.S. needs to reinvigorate the global coalition against the Islamic State, which is losing momentum with the resignation of the U.S. special envoy, Brett McGurk, who departed in Mattiss wake. The Pentagon should put new emphasis on interagency cooperation with the intelligence agencies, the State Department and the Drug Enforcement Agency all of which bring different tools to the fight. And while the US Cyber Command is doing its utmost to protect networks, it needs to go on the offensive. The US military must also think more coherently about private-public cooperation. This includes working with partners such as the International Red Cross and the Red Crescent, and educational nongovernmental groups as it did in providing humanitarian assistance and medical diplomacy in Latin America and the Caribbean when I headed the US Southern Command. And, above all, getting cooperation from the tech firms and large social networks that Islamic State has used so cleverly. Even Google, which has at times leaned away from cooperating with the Defense Department, has been very effective in countering violent extremism with projects generated through its Jigsaw tech incubator (formerly known as Google Ideas). One redirects potential extremists to more benign websites, for example. But big tech companies as a group could do far more. Finally, the US and its coalition allies would be wise not to be excessively triumphalist or to claim victory over ISIS. All should take pride in the progress made against this relentless and implacable foe but the job is far from over. Jeff Bezos, the worlds richest man and owner of Amazon and The Washington Post, has accused American Media Inc (AMI), a media company with close and longstanding ties to President Donald Trump, of trying to blackmail him using intimate photos of him and text messages sent by him. Bezos wrote in a blog on Thursday that AMI threatened to publish those texts and pictures if he did not stop an investigation he had ordered into the publication last month by AMIs National Enquirer of intimate texts from him to Lauren Sanchez, a former news anchor with whom he was in an extramarital relationship at the time. Bezos and his wife MacKenzie Bezos announced they were separating just ahead of the publication of the report. The threats were conveyed verbally and through emails from top executives of AMI, Bezos wrote. And he made the emails public in the blog. Apart from halting the investigation, AMI demanded, according to the emails, a statement from Bezos that he and his investigators have no knowledge or basis for suggesting that AMIs coverage was politically motivated or influenced by political forces. That, in other words, National Enquirers earlier article had nothing to do with how President Trump, and those in his orbit, felt about Bezos, in the context of his ownership of The Washington Post. Also read | Donald Trump wishes Amazons CEO Jeff Bezos luck in his divorce and predicts a beauty AMI, the parent company of National Enquirer, Radar, OK and other tabloids, is owned by David Pecker, who is a long-time friend of President Trump and is cooperating currently with federal prosecutors in the payment of hush money to women to keep quit about their affairs with Trump in the run up to the 2016 elections. AMI ran what is called in media industry catch-and-kill operation, buy stories but never publish them, as it did with Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model who had a 10-month affair with Trump in 2006. Bezos pointed to the presidents ties to AMI in the Thursday blog. My ownership of the Washington Post is a complexifier for me. Its unavoidable that certain powerful people who experience Washington Post news coverage will wrongly conclude I am their enemy. President Trump is one of those people, obvious by his many tweets. Also, The Posts essential and unrelenting coverage of the murder of its columnist Jamal Khashoggi is undoubtedly unpopular in certain circles. Trump has been very upset with the coverage of his presidency by The Washington Post as he has been with many other media outlets such as The New York Times and CNN and has attacked it saying, among other things, it has become a vehicle to further Bezoss business interests. And here is what the president wrote on Twitter after National Enquirer published Bezoss texts to Sanchez last month, calling the Amazon founder Bozo. So sorry to hear the news about Jeff Bozo being taken down by a competitor whose reporting, I understand, is far more accurate than the reporting in his lobbyist newspaper, the Amazon Washington Post. Hopefully the paper will soon be placed in better & more responsible hands! Also read | The Jeff Bezos divorce: $136 billion and Amazon in the middle Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge, has conferred the royal honour of OBE (order of the British empire) on Indian-origin Dhruv Patel for voluntary service to Britains Hindu community and social cohesion. Patel, 35, a businessman with interests in property, retail pharmacy and insurance, is the founder of City Hindus Network, a non-profit organisation. He received the honour from Prince William in the Ballroom at Buckingham Palace. The announcement of the honour for Patel was made in the Queens Birthday Honours List 2018, when several Indian-origin individuals were named for a range of Britains civilian honours. They receive the honours at various times and locations from members of the royal family. Patel became the City of London Corporations first ever chair in 2015 of a committee from a BAME background when he was elected chairman of Community & Childrens Services, with the responsibility of leading members into making decisions about social care, education, housing, health and well-being. The London-born Patel, who holds several positions in trusts and public organisations, said: Im am deeply humbledI have been heavily engaged in voluntary service, particularly for the Hindu community, since my university days. My focus has been on ensuring Londons young people have the best start to life, and all communities have the opportunity to thrive. Whilst it is wonderful to receive this national honour, recognition cannot be the driver sewa or selfless service is, and shall continue to be, a vital part of my life. In a ringing bipartisan and continued endorsement of ties with India, 67 US lawmakers, both senators and member of the House of Representatives, joined a reception on Capitol Hill Thursday to welcome the new Indian ambassador, Harsh Vardhan Shringla. Among them were the leaders of the Senate and House India caucuses John Cornyn (Republican), Mark Warner (Democrat), Michael Holding (R) and Brad Sherman (D), Indian Americans Raja Krishnamurthy (D), Pramila Jayapal (D) and Ro Khanna (D), and Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (D), the first Hindu in US congress and now a presidential hopeful. Numbers matter on the Hill. And 67 is a significant turnout, and one that drew comparison with the attendance at event about Israel, whose legendary clout in the United States and among lawmakers is general taken to be the gold standard. We are on out way, said an Indian diplomat with a sense of satisfaction. Shringla took office earlier in January presented his credentials o President Donald Trump soon after, no mean feat as ambassadors are known to take while, some times months, to get to that stage. And now a grand reception on the Hill, which is home to US congress. They arrived in groups or solo, sometimes accompanied by their Indian American constituents, spoke briefly, hung around posing for pictures and selfies and left. Senator Cornyn, who founded the senate India Caucus in 2004, roping in then Democratic senator Hillary Clinton as co-chair, recalled how he has had string of co-chairs since. Warner has been Cornyns co-hair for some years now.. You need only look around this room to see the enthusiasm of your constituents who have flown in from all parts of the United States to be with us here today, Ambassador Shringla said, in a nod to the buzz and excitement in the room. It is no co-incidence that the bi-partisan India Caucus is the largest country specific Caucus on the Hill. The ambassador went on to detail, briefly, the growing trade, defense and diplomatic ties between the two countries and the unstinting support from the two caucuses and the role they have played from the passage of the civil nuclear agreement to the codification of the designation of India as a Major Defense Partner. I am confident that with your continued support, we will realize the immense potential of this relationship which promises to be a defining one for the 21st century, Shringla said in conclusion. At least 30 students from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have returned from the United States. They were those who were not detained or served notices by US authorities in the pay-to-stay scam, according to Telugu organisations. Telugu organisations working with the students, who had enrolled in a fake university floated by US authorities to expose the immigration racket, said returning home was the safest option for the students who were not detained or received notices for violation of immigration laws. As many as 129 students, all from the two Telugu states, continued to remain under administrative detention since the racket was busted last week. About 600 foreign students, 90 per cent of them Indians, had enrolled themselves with a fake University of Farmington floated by the US authorities under a sting operation. More than 80 per cent of these students were from the two Telugu states. While eight students, who worked as recruiters, were arrested, 129 were kept under administrative detention at different places. Those who had shifted to other universities are safe but there is no problem for others in returning home, Buchiram Kalapatapu, chief coordinator, Andhra Pradesh Non-Resident Telugu (APNRT) Society, told IANS. Those working with the victim students believe that there should be no problem for the students returning home in finding suitable job opportunities in India. They had already done MS from other universities and subsequently availed Optional Practical Training (OPT), a one-year work permit. To stay in the US and work, they took admission in this university for another MS as it lured the students with the offer that they need not attend the classes, said Buchiram. The students doing MS in any US university have to attend classes for a specified period to avail Curricular Practical Training (CPT) or to work as intern during the course period. Even if a university is offering online courses, the students should find out if it has physical presence or not. This particular university was offering online courses but had no physical presence, said Buchiram. Since many of students had taken bank loans for the studies in US, they wanted to continue to stay and work there to repay the loans. Each student had paid $20,000 to $25,000 to enrol in the fake University of Farmington, which recruited students in 26 states across the US. Ravikumar P. Vemuru, President of APNRT Society, had earlier said that since there was no clear-cut intention by the students to defraud the US government, the maximum punishment they could undergo was deportation. APNRT is working with the Indian Embassy to provide legal assistance to all the students. It is working closely with Indian Consulate in Houston. Even the eight students who worked as recruiters were provided attorneys. One of them has already got the bail. The Society officials hoped that the remaining would also get the bail soon. Yatra Director: Mahi Raghav Cast: Mammootty, Sachin Khedekar, Rao Ramesh and Jagapathi Babu Rating: 3/5 Mammootty-starrer Yatra, directed by Mahi Raghav, is one of those political films you wish had more to offer than merely focusing on one particular event. The idea to build a story based on a single event might sound exciting on paper but when translated on screen, it needs more heft to make the story really captivating. As much as Yatra makes one root for YS Rajasekhar Reddy and the most significant moment of his political career the padayatra (walkathon) which changed the course of politics in Andhra Pradesh one really wishes the film had more to offer. Nevertheless, its an extraordinary story of one mans vision and how it made him a messiah of sorts for the poor and underprivileged. Watch the trailer for Yatra: What really makes Yatra a solid if not great political film is the fact that it does not try to make YSR appear heroic, despite having a star like Mammootty essay the character. It humanizes the protagonist and makes us really understand why YSR was a powerful leader and what set him apart from his contemporaries. Mammootty couldnt have chosen a better character for his comeback film, Yatra. The walkathon segment, which really is the soul of the film, really makes us root for YSR. The film focuses on two major issues that were addressed during the padayatra farmer suicides and lack of good healthcare to the poor. The two populist schemes are fittingly narrated through two elaborate sequences which are easily the best stretches of the story which otherwise doesnt have much more to offer. Yatra is neither a full-length political drama nor a propaganda film. It is a docudrama at best when it focuses on the padayatra, devoid of any major twists and turns that usually leave you in awe. Mahi Raghav, who has made a mark with lesser known but well-made films like Paathshala and Anando Brahma, proves that he can handle subjects that need to be told on a large scale. He handles the story of YSR with sensitivity and could have easily played it safe. But he surprises everyone by making this story stand out. Mammootty makes a grand return to Telugu cinema after two decades. When you walk out watching Yatra, Mammootty leaves one with the feeling that he couldnt have chosen a better character for his comeback. As YSR, he almost nails every trait that makes the character memorable, including his walk and his signature hand wave. No other actor couldve played this character with the kind of effortlessness Mammootty brings to his performance. Follow @htshowbiz for more ott:10:ht-entertainment_listing-desktop Jharkhand had emerged as the role model for open defecation-free (ODF) initiatives under the Centres ambitious Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM), as people from abroad were coming to the state to study ODF success stories, officials said on Thursday. A 35-member team that has come all the way from Nigeria, West Africa, is on a three-day visit to Jharkhands Hazaribag district from Thursday. The team has undertaken a case study in four panchayats under three blocks to understand the initiatives and work done to make the district ODF. The team comprises officials from the Nigerian government and delegates from World Bank and UNICEF. Globally, Nigeria is the second country, behind India, in the ranking of countries with the highest number of people defecating in the open; while in Africa, it ranks first, as per a report prepared jointly by the World Health Organization and UNICEF. The report was released in 2014, officials said. However, Indias ranking is expected to improve in the next survey, because of the national-level Swachh Bharat campaign, said officials in the drinking water and sanitation department. All 24 districts in Jharkhand were declared ODF in November 2018. Unprecedented work The Nigerian team members said that they had approached the Government of India for a comprehensive study of ODF campaign under Swachh Bharat Mission. The Government of India suggested that we visit Hazaribag for better study, as the district has done unprecedented work in the field of sanitation, a delegate said. Hazaribag district development commissioner (DDC) Jadhav Vijaya Narayan Rao said, Poverty was a major hurdle for ODF here, which is not the case in Nigeria. They [require] a case of behavioural change among citizens. She added, In Hazaribag, [the ODF implementation team] not only built toilets but also ensured their use by bringing about a behavioural change among the people, which was a major challenge. The Nigerian team would study how Hazaribag people adopted the change. The DDC said that the delegation would also study community participation in toilet construction; retrofitting work on toilets being done by the Rani Mistri (women masons); Swajal scheme (a solar power-based drinking water system); and GOBAR (Galvanizing Organic Bio-Agro Resources)-DHAN scheme. The GOBAR-DHAN scheme is aimed at keeping villages clean, increasing the income of rural households, and generation of energy from cattle waste, and these are major components of the ODF-plus strategy. The GOBAR-DHAN scheme was launched in Banha Tola village in Katakmadag block of Hazaribag. Hazaribag has already earned accolades at the national level for its quality work in toilet construction. The district had toilets at only 56,577 households, against the requirement of 2.32 lakh toilets till 2014. After the Centre launched Swachh Bharat Mission in 2014, the district built over 1.76 lakh toilets in four years, at an estimated cost of Rs 212 crore. The ongoing probe by the Maharashtra Criminal Investigation Department (CID) into the 2015 Akola kidney racket case seems to have hit a dead end with the state agency alleging a lack of cooperation from the health department. This racket came to light in December 2015 when two victims labourers Shantabai Kharat and Santosh Gawli filed a case complaining that they were duped by agents who promised to pay them rupees five lakh for a kidney. According to first information reports filed in the Akola police station on December 2 and 3, 2015, Gawli and some others were flown to a hospital in Sri Lanka where their kidneys were removed. The case was transferred from the Akola crime branch to the CID on February 18, 2016. In January-end, Sunil Ramanand, special inspector general of police (Crime, East) CID, said that the CID had sought the cooperation of the health department to establish the role of doctors and hospitals in the racket. However, with no information forthcoming, the investigations came to a halt, he said. We wanted the state health department to explain to us the roles of the doctors in this case and whether they could also be booked. But even after constant reminders there has, so far, been no reply, Ramanand said. On December 18, Neeva Jain, superintendent of police, CID, sent a reminder to the director, Maharashtra public health department, asking whether the hospitals, pathological laboratories and doctors who prescribed the lab investigations and carried out the procedures should be charged in the case or not. The health department replied that while they can be charged, the matter is under discussion and cannot be proceeded upon without permission from the state advisory committee. The 16-member committee comprises public health experts and takes critical decisions on important issues such as organ transplant, swine flu outbreak among others. It is headed by the principal secretary, health department. The state health department, on its part, has rejected the charge of the CID that it has been ignoring the repeated reminders from the CID. Dr Anup Kumar Yadav, state health director and Mission Director of National Health Mission, Maharashtra, said, There are some new revelations in the case which we have been informed of by our team. The police needs to send us the report about the doctors or hospitals who have been involved in the illegal kidney transplant, so that we as the state public health department can take further action against those found accused. The action will be no less than shutting down the hospital and cancelling the registration of both, the doctor and the hospital. Dr Sanjeev Kamble, former director, state health services, who retired on December 31, 2018, said, Before I left, I sent a letter to the police [asking them] to send us a detailed report about the Akola kidney racket because often, if a doctor is involved and knows about the charges he will face, he tries to flee or applies for bail and seeks full legal protection. This leads to pending cases and the action also gets delayed. Hence, we want the police to speed up the process. Dr Satish Pawar, additional director, National Health Mission (NHM) and former director of the Maharashtra health department, also refuted the charge that health officials were not cooperating with the CID. We expected them to solve the case, make arrests and nab the people involved just as the Mumbai police did with the Hiranandani kidney racket (Mumbai) which came to light in 2016. However, in the Akola case, there has been no progress and there are only certain communications that are going back and forth between the health department and the CID. It is an extremely sensitive case as international waters are involved and we expected more from the CID, but in vain, Pawar said. The racket was first investigated by the local crime branch which had arrested two alleged agents, Vinod Pawar and Devendra Shirsat. The duo, in turn, named the alleged kingpin, Shivaji Koli, who was nabbed in early 2016 and who confessed to the crime during interrogation, according to investigators. Koli allegedly named three hospitals in Pune, claiming the involvement of these hospitals, in the racket. Koli and his agents confessed to targeting poor labourers and deliberately lending them enough money so that they failed to repay the amount, said Dr Pawar. According to the police, a total of five people Shivaji Koli, Vinod Pawar, Devendra Shirsat, Mahendra Tayade and Pramod Rao were arrested in connection with the kidney racket. All were booked under the Human Organ Transplant Act, 2014, a CID official said. Three years after the case first broke out, the Akola crime branch now says they are not sure whether the accused are still in custody. Vikrant Desmukh, additional superintendent of police from Akola, said, The accused must be in the magisterial custody. The case is old and the investigating officer in this case has been transferred. The International centre of the Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU) organised a food festival on February 5, Tuesday which is part of the International Youth Festival 2018-2019 with the theme Energise, Innovate and Create : Peace and Harmony. Students from 24 countries presented exclusive food items from their cuisine at the food festival which saw Yukta Mookhey, actor and the winner of the Miss World 1999 pageant, as the chief guest and Ekapol Poolpipat, consul general of Royal Thailand as special guest. Mookhey and Poolpipat visited every stall accompanied by Nitin Karmalkar, vice-chancellor, SPPU, and appreciated the efforts put in by the students. It feels great to be part of such an event, where there is so much energy and enthusiasm among the international students, she said. A majority of the students studying in Pune colleges and staying in the International centre hostel hail from Middle East or Africa. It is interesting to see them come together to recreate the tastes of their home country for the visitors and friends from other countries, said Vijay Khare, head, International Centre, SPPU. Khare said that students worked more than a day for making the food festival, a memorable event. Nafissa Amado from Mozambique who is studying Microbiology at Fergusson College joined hands with her friend Silvia Massitela, who is pursuing B Com from Symbiosis College, to make fish Carrepau, Cassovo , Bean Stu and Mokldi, which are exclusive to Mozambique. It is exciting for us to prepare and showcase our dishes in India, said Nafissa. At least 20 dishes were presented by each group of international students. There were food counters from Thailand, Iran, Iraq, Sri Lanka, Mauritius, Afghanistan, Yemen, The Gambia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bostwana, DR Congo, Maldives, Malawi, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. We spent at least 10 hours in making some of these dishes. We all pitched in with food ingredients and helped each other in preparing the dishes. It was great fun to work on dishes that we consider as regular and explain them to the visitors and friends, said Paimora Kalandarbekova, Kazakhstan, undergraduate student of Business Administation at Brihan Maharashtra College of Commerce (BMCC). Try our creamed Suji, and the hunger busters which we have made in both vegetarian and meat options, along with Chakalaka. Drink Gemere, a special ginger juice, best for the summers, said Desmond Latelang, a native of Botswana and studying in Modern College. He was helped by his friend Janet Keetile who is studying at Fergusson College. Aslam Jamadar, student of Indian film Studies, SPPU, who visited the food festival said, This is my first visit to a food festival. Although the event began late, it was impressive. I found the food at the Afghanistan stall quite good. They served Chicken Pulao and juice, which was good. Also, it was not costly, as compared to the food at the Thailand counter. At least 150 including, the students and staff of SPPU visited the food festival. A five-year-old girls body was found in an isolated lane in Mahim on Thursday morning after she was allegedly kidnapped and killed in the early hours the same day. The Mahim police have stated that she was sexually assaulted before being killed. Autopsy at the state-run J J Hospital revealed that the girl had been raped, reported news agency PTI. We have registered an offence of rape with murder and also added sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, said Vikram Deshmane, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Zone -V) to PTI. Cops have found a CCTV footage of a man walking with the girl on Thursday. The minor used to stay with her parents in a hut near Razzak Manzil on Lady Jamshedji Road in Mahim. She was sleeping with her parents on Thursday. Around 5am, her parents saw she was missing. After looking for her nearby, they approached the police at 7:30am to file a complaint, said an officer. At 8:30am, the police received a tip-off about the body of a five-year-old girl lying naked in front of New Rajendra Apartment in Mahim. The body was sent to Sion Hospital where her parents identified her, said an officer. The city crime branch and officers from central region have formed teams to track the accused. CCTV footage from a nearby showroom shows the accused walking with the girl between 2:30am and 3am. The place where she stayed is hardly 100m from the spot where her body was found, the officer said. (With inputs from PTI) Congress president Rahul Gandhi, who will kick off his partys campaign for the Lok Sabha election in Madhya Pradesh with a farmers rally in Bhopal on Friday, is being shown as a Ram Bhakt, who will build the Ram temple in Ayodhya, and the future prime minister in posters put up to welcome him. This will be Rahul Gandhis first visit to the state after the Congress formed the government in Madhya Pradesh in December last year after a gap of 15 years. The Congress won the assembly elections held in November last year with 114 seats of the 230 seats in the state. Analysts say that by and large farmers voted for the Congress, and the loan waiver announced by Rahul Gandhi before the state election proved to be a game-changer for his party. And, there are 29 Lok Sabha seats in Madhya Pradesh and the Congress holds three of them. They had won only two seats in the 2014 election chief minister Kamal Nath from Chhindwara and Jyotiraditya Scindia from Guna. In 2015, Kantilal Bhuria won the Jhabua-Ratlam by-election following the death of Dileep Singh Bhuria. At Fridays campaign called the Aabhar or gratitude rally, he is expected to announce employment schemes for the urban youth and starting of unemployment benefit, both of which had been promised by the Congress government in its election manifesto. Rahulji and the Congress party want to thank the people, and especially the farmers, for ensuring a victory for the Congress in the state elections and we will seek their continued support in the Lok Sabha elections, the states Congress media cell head Shobha Oza said. In the run-up to the assembly election in November 2018, Gandhi was portrayed as a Shiva Bhakt or the Shiva devotee, which was soon after his visit to Kailash Mansarovar. And this time, he is being depicted as a Ram Bhakt at a time when the issue of construction of the Ram temple in Uttar Pradeshs Ayodhya has captured the space in the political discourse of the country. Oza said that declaring Gandhi as a Ram Bhakt and a future prime minister is just the love and affection of the party workers. So, as far as the construction of a Ram temple goes, the party has made it clear that they will abide by the Supreme Court ruling, she said. According to his schedule, Gandhi will reach the Bhopal airport at around 1pm and will eat lunch there. He will take a helicopter to Jamboori Maidan at around 2.30pm and address the rally and leave for Delhi at around 4.30pm. Chief minister Kamal Nath, senior Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia, former chief minister Digvijaya Singh, Congress party state in-charge Deepak Babaria, former state president Arun Yadav among others will be present. Oza said that the arrangement for the rally will be done solely by the Congress party and nothing would be taken from the government and they expect thousands of people to take in the rally. Unlike the BJP who misused government machinery for their party programmes, the Congress government will not use any resources from the government. Everything will be arranged by party workers, she said. BJP president Rakesh Singh said that by portraying Rahul Gandhi as Rams devotee and the future prime minister is the compulsion of the Congressmen. There can be no one else. The top job is reserved for the Gandhi family. But it is not necessary that the country will think the way the Congress is thinking, Singh said. The multi-lingual film on the life of YSRC leader Jaganmohan Reddys father and former chief minister late YS Rajasekhar Reddy, set to release in two Telugu states on Friday, has run into controversy with the Congress alleging that their leader Sonia Gandhi has been portrayed in a bad light. Yatra, directed by Mahi V Raghav, revolves around the life of YSR, as Rajasekhar Reddy was popularly called in the undivided Andhra Pradesh, his struggles against his detractors within the Congress and how he led the Congress to a landslide victory in 2004 by trouncing the Telegu Desam Party (TDP). Mammootty plays the late Rajasekhar Reddy Janga Gautam, the spokesperson of the CongressAndhra Pradesh unit, said the biopic intentionally targeted the Congress party and its leader Sonia Gandhi as part of a hidden agenda of Jagans YSRC to finish off their party in collusion with the BJP. Congress state unit president N Raghuveera Reddy had also criticised the movie at a recent media conference, saying it is not a biopic but a bio-trick. Let the people behind the movie make the cast speak the truth that Rajasekhar Reddy was a true Congressman YSR wished to see Rahul ji as the Prime Minister and we are all striving to realise his dream. His son, Jagan, needs to acknowledge this fact, Raghuveera said. Another Congress leader V Gurnadham said the party will take a decision on whether to protest the movie after watching it. YSRCs social media wing in-charge G Devendar Reddy, however, asserted that the filmmakers have only tried to present the facts before the people beyond personal animosities and politics. Is it not true that YSR faced a lot of troubles from the Congress leadership and that he undertook a grueling padayatra in 2003s midsummer against the wishes of the Congress high command? Is it also not true that Sonia Gandhi jailed Jagan for political reasons? he asked. Its all true history which the movie is trying to show, Devendar Reddy added. It has been raining biopics in the Telugu states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana head of the Lok Sabha election this summer and like Yatra have also generated controversy. A song in the Ramgopal Varmas Lakshmis NTR sparked a row with TDP alleging that their leader and Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu was depicted in an offensive manner in the video. A Nandamuri Balakrishna starring biopic NTR Kathanayakudu on TDP founder and Balakrishnas father NT Rama Rao was released recently ahead of the general elections. Part two of the NTR biopic and RGVs version of NTRs life are also set to be shortly launched. One of the governments mega budget announcements, a 3,000 per month pension for unorganised sector workers once they turn 60, excludes those above the age of 40, doesnt allow for children of subscribers to be made nominees, and has stringent exit norms, according to details contained in the notification of the scheme issued on Thursday. Unorganised sector workers can enter the scheme as early as the age of 18 by contributing 55 per month. The latest they can subscribe to the scheme is at the age of 40 by paying 200 monthly, the notification by the ministry of labour and employment said. The central government has committed to contribute an equal amount. According to the notification, labourers above the age of 40 years cannot join the scheme. The scheme, the Pradhan Mantri Shram Yogi Maan-dhan, 2019 for was announced in the interim budget on February 1, and targeted a major constituency of about 400 million unorganised workers in both urban and rural India. The labour ministry said after finance minister Piyush Goyals budget speech that the scheme would benefit 100 million workers in the informal sector, including domestic helps like maids, cooks and housekeepers in addition to those who work in small, informal business establishments who earn up to 15,000 per month. Half of Indias GDP comes from the sweat and toil of 42 crore [420 million] workers in the unorganised sector working as street vendors, rickshaw pullers, construction workers, rag pickers, agricultural workers, beedi workers, handloom, leather and in numerous other similar occupations, Goyal said. Domestic workers are also engaged in big numbers. We must provide them comprehensive social security coverage for their old age, he added. According to the notification, an Aadhaar-linked savings bank account is one of the pre-requisites for joining the scheme; a monthly salary ceiling of 15,000 is another. The scheme has exit options, but subscribers exiting it will lose benefits. In case an eligible subscriber exits this scheme within a period of less than 10 years from the date of joining the scheme by him, then the share of contribution by him only will be returned to him with savings bank rate of interest payable thereon, the notification said. If an eligible subscriber exits the scheme after the completion of 10 years or more from the date of joining the pension fund, but before turning 60, then his or her share of contribution only will be returned along with accumulated interest as actually earned by the pension fund. In both cases, the governments contribution will stay with the pension fund. If an eligible subscriber dies before the age of 60, the spouse can continue with the scheme subsequently by paying the monthly contribution till the time the subscriber would have turned 60 and then avail of the pension, or exit by receiving the share of contribution paid by such a subscriber along with accumulated interest actually earned by the pension fund. In this case too, the governments contribution will stay with the pension fund. After the death of the subscriber, the spouse will be eligible for the pension benefits, but children of the subscriber will not be entitled to them. The central government may, however, amend any other exit provision, including nomination by issuing instructions from time to time, the notification said. Alakh N Sharma, a labour economist and director of the Institute for Human Development said that the scheme could have been better drafted and should have been more inclusive. The income criterion will require income certificate, which will be a daunting task for poor workers. Ideally, it should be universally applicable, even if the amount could have been reduced to 2,000 per month. Only people working in the organised sector and income tax payee should have been excluded, he said. The notification also clarifies that unorganised workers covered under other such schemes such as the National Pension Scheme, Employees State Insurance Corporation scheme or Employees Provident Fund will not be eligible to join the scheme. Income-tax assesses are also excluded from the scheme, the notification added. In her first official meeting, the Congresss newly appointed general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Thursday told her party colleagues she had vowed to fight the ideology of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The Congress general secretary for Uttar Pradesh east was attending a meeting of general secretaries and state incharges at the party headquarters at 24, Akbar Road. In her first intervention at the meeting, she said the ideology and thought process of the RSS-BJP combine needed to be countered, according to three functionaries present at the meeting. Priyanka Gandhi, 47, also said she is new and inexperienced but asserted that she will give her best. Read | Congress says PM Modi has not done anything apart from talking Congress president Rahul Gandhi, for his part, said he did not expect a miracle from Priyanka Gandhi and Jyotiraditya Scindia, party general secretary incharge of Uttar Pradesh west, in two months, and that they should not feel any pressure. However, he asked them to lay the structure for a Congress revival and make it fighting fit for the 2022 assembly elections in the state. Congress general secretary incharge of the organisation KC Venugopal said Rahul Gandhi gave a clear direction to general secretaries and state incharges about the preparedness for the 2019 general elections. We discussed the process of selection of candidates, campaign strategy and alliances, wherever necessary. All our general secretaries and incharges have given their views about their respective states. Finally, we have given an ultimatum that selection of candidates should be completed this month itself, he told reporters. Venugopal said the Congress president met Priyanka Gandhi and Scindia on Thursday morning, when it was decided that the three will go to Lucknow on February 11 and stay there till February 14. Also Read | Robert Vadra grilled for 9 hours on day 2, Priyanka picks him up from ED office They will go in a procession from the airport to the party office in Lucknow. The general secretaries will interact with Congress leaders and workers of Uttar Pradesh from February 12 at the party office in Lucknow, he added. Rahul Gandhi said the party should not give tickets to sitting Rajya Sabha members and legislators unless unavoidable. In response to a question from Scindia, the Congress president also told the leaders to avoid giving tickets to those who have lost elections more than once. Jharkhand incharge RPN Singh said the party should make realistic promises, rather than jumlas and false dreams as sold by the BJP. Senior Congress leader Siddaramaiah said on Friday he will request the Speaker of the Karnataka state assembly to suspend the four dissenting legislators. They skipped the latest legislature party meeting and also failed to turn up during the budget session. The four rebel MLAs, Ramesh Jarkiholi, Umesh Jadhav, Mahesh Kumathahalli, and B Nagendra, have not turned up despite the Congress issuing a whip on Tuesday asking them to be present throughout the session. Hours ahead of the state budget, Karnataka chief minister HD Kumaraswamy on Friday removed dissenting Umesh Jadhav from the post of the chairman of the Warehouse Corporation. Pratap Gowda Patil will be replacing Jadhav. The four MLAs have already skipped the Congress legislature party meeting last month. While all four responded to CLP chief and former chief minister Siddaramaiah after he issued them a show-cause notice, they have not met him to explain their absence. Also read: Missing MLAs haunt Karnataka govt as it readies to present budget tomorrow BC Patil was also absent during Fridays meeting but, Siddaramaiah said, he had informed him that he will meet him soon. Patil had also failed to turn up and did not answer phone calls by party leaders. All of them have said they cant come till February 15. Sufficient opportunities have been given to these MLAs. I had issued show cause notices to them after they skipped the meeting on January 18. I had asked them after they replied to the notices to justify their excuses in the replies. I also told them to meet me personally but they have not turned up so far, Siddaramaiah said during a press conference. It is the unanimous opinion of the CLP that I should take legal action under the anti-defection law. Therefore, I have decided to approach the speaker, requesting him to take action under the anti-defection law I have requested all the MLAs to be present till the finance bill is passed and whip has been issued to that effect, he said. Also read: Four Karnataka Congress MLAs refuse to budge despite issuing whip Siddaramaiah, however, said the Congress party will not act against absconding MLA JN Ganesh, who allegedly assaulted his colleague Anand Singh at a resort on the outskirts of Bengaluru last month. Ganesh was among the five MLAs who did not turn up. We will not take any action against JN Ganesh yet because he is absconding and natural justice requires sufficient opportunity to be given. The other four were given sufficient opportunities but failed to turn up, he said. Legislative party leader Siddaramaiah had sent a notice to the missing MLAs on Wednesday. The party also issued a whip to all MLAs to be present in the House on Friday. The latest notice comes a month after Siddaramaiah served ultimatums to the four legislators who did not turn up at a Congress legislature party meeting in Bengaluru. The four on January 18 abstained from the CLP meeting, after which remaining 76 legislators were moved to a resort. The meeting had been convened by the party to assess whether its flock was intact amid speculation that some of the party MLAs had switched over to the BJP. The Congress, which shares power with JD(S), has 80 MLAs in the 224-member assembly, including the Speaker. Accordingly, 79 MLAs were expected to attend the CLP meeting held under the supervision of central leaders KC Venugopal and Mallikarjun Kharge. The opposition BJP to claim that the Kumaraswamy-led Congress-Janata Dal (Secular) coalition government lacked majority amid the absence of the MLAs. Differences have cropped up within the Sabarimala temple administration, a day after it sprung a U-turn in favour of the Supreme Courts September 2018 verdict allowing women of childbearing age to enter the Kerala hilltop shrine. A Padmakumar, the president of the Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) that runs the temple, expressed displeasure on Thursday that he had not been kept in the loop about the latest position taken by the board in the Supreme Court. I wasnt aware of the latest position. The TDB did not file a review petition. We only filed a petition seeking more time to implement the verdict and it was not mentioned at all during the proceedings on Wednesday, he said. There is speculation that the state government, which is for implementing the top court verdict, is upset with the president for not toeing its line and that he could likely be sacked. A media report has claimed that he has expressed his desire to quit. Recently, Padmakumar had drawn flak from the state government for saying that those trying to destroy Lord Ayyappa, the celibate deity of Sabarimala, would suffer his fury. After his words sparked a row, he apparently said he had been misquoted. There are reports that the chief ministers office intervened at the last moment to ensure the TDB takes the government position and that the president was kept in the dark. Board insiders said after he fell from grace, he was not called for many important meetings. Ahead of the February 12 re-opening of the shrine, tension is simmering with the Sabarimala Karma Samiti, an apex body of Hindu outfits, deciding to restart its protests against the top court verdict and many women announcing their plan to trek to the temple. In New Delhi, the National Ayyappa Devotees Association, one of the petitioners in the Sabarimala case, on Thursday approached the Supreme Court objecting to denial of a meaningful hearing to it when the court heard review petitions on February 6. On Wednesday, a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi had reserved its orders on over 69 review petitions challenging the September 2018 judgment. The application of the Ayyappa devotees association said that majority of the petitioners were heard except for its counsel who was given just two minutes to put forward his arguments. The association said the court should recall its orders reserving the judgment on review petitions and reopen the case, affording it a chance of hearing. The Chhattisgarh police on Friday booked two senior Indian Police Service (IPS) officers Mukesh Gupta and Rajnesh Singh on charges of illegal phone tapping and destroying of evidence during their probe into the alleged public distribution system (PDS) scam, a police officer said. While Gupta is posted as special director general of police at the police headquarters, Singh is the superintendent of police, Naryanpur. The alleged irregularities in the PDS took place during the previous Bharatiya Janata Party government led by Raman Singh and the investigation of the case was handed over to the anti-corruption branch (ACB) of the Chhattisgarh police headed by Gupta. While investigating the PDS scam, the accused IPS officers tapped certain phone numbers without getting requisite permission. A back-dated permission was later taken, said Kalyan Elesela, an officer who is part of the special investigating team (SIT) probing the role of senior government functionaries in distributing poor quality rice to people under PDS. Elesela said that there were about a dozen phone numbers that were tapped without any approval from the competent authorities. I am denying all these charges & categorically stating that I have done nothing illegal, Gupta said responding to the claims. Singh did not respond to phone calls. The Supreme Court on Friday expanded the scope of a public interest litigation (PIL) filed in the wake of the Meghalaya incident, in which 15 workers got trapped in an illegal coal mine, and sought details from the state government of such illegal operations there. A bench of justices A K Sikri and S A Nazeer was hearing the PIL filed by advocate Aditya Prasad after 15 miners were trapped in a flooded mine in East Jaintia Hills district. The court also asked the central and state authorities to continue using 15 100 HP Kirloskar pumps in the rescue operations, as was urged by petitioners counsel senior advocate Anand Grover. Upon solicitor general Tushar Mehtas suggestion, the court also issued notice to the illegal mine owner where the tragedy took place. The owner is currently in jail. Fifteen miners got trapped in a rat-hole coal mine near Lumthari village at Ksan in East Jaintia Hills district on December 13 when it was suddenly flooded by water gushing in from the nearby Lytein river. More than a month later, on January 24, Indian Navy and National Disaster Relief Force (NDRF) personnel had managed to retrieve one body. The rat-hole mining involves digging small holes into the ground to extract coal. Prasad alleged a lethargic approach on the part of the authorities is delaying the rescue operations. In a status report submitted before the court, the government had said the possibility of rescuing the trapped miners was remote and that efforts were underway to recover the dismembered bodies. Meghalaya has nearly 640 million tonnes of coal reserves. Large-scale illegal and indiscriminate mining of the coal by private landowners and the local community started nearly three decades ago. In 2014, the National Green Tribunal had banned coal mining in Meghalaya following a series of tragedies between 1992 and 2014. A fresh political firestorm broke out on Friday over a report that the Prime Ministers Office (PMO) had conducted parallel talks with the French government over the 59,000-crore Rafale jet fighter deal and had prompted the Union ministry of defence (MOD) to protest that the PMO was undermining Indias negotiating position. Both houses of Parliament were rocked by Opposition protests over the newspaper report, which defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman dismissed as flogging a dead horse, saying periodic inquiries by the PMO cannot be construed as interference.In a statement in the Lok Sabha, she said the opposition parties were playing into the hands of multinational companies and vested interests. Members of the Congress, Trinamool Congress and the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) strode to the well of the house, chanting slogans and showing placards referring to the report. Opposition members shouted slogans demanding that Prime Minister Narendra Modi resign. The report handed fresh ammunition to the Opposition to attack Modis National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government ahead of 2019 general elections. The controversial defence deal, together with agrarian unrest, unemployment, and the alleged undermining of institutions such as the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Reserve Bank of India are at the heart of the Opposition campaign. Congress president Rahul Gandhi reiterated his demand for a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) probe of the Rafale deal and used the report, published in The Hindu, to step up his attack on Modi. Also read | Will file a police complaint in Rafale audio tape case if Congress directs: Girish Chodankar Now, we have been saying now for more than a year that the Prime Minister is directly involved in the Rafale scam. Now today, in The Hindu Newspaper, it is black and white it is absolutely black and white that the Prime Minister himself was carrying out a parallel negotiation with the French, Gandhi told reporters. The newspaper report cited a November 24, 2015 defence ministry note to then defence minister Manohar Parrikar as saying that we may advise the PMO that any officers who are not part of the Indian Negotiating Team (INT) may refrain from having parallel parlays (parleys) with the officers of French government. The note said that the details of the parallel negotiations conducted by the PMO had come to the defence ministrys notice from an October 23, 2015 letter from General Stephen Reb, the head of the French negotiating team. ...In case the PMO is not confident about the outcome of negotiations being carried out by the MoD, a revised modality of negotiations led by PMO at appropriate level may be adopted in the case, it added. Sitharaman noted that the newspaper had published a file noting written by then defence secretary G Mohan Kumar that read: It is desirable that such discussions be avoided by the PMO as it undermines our negotiating position seriously. She said that it showed only half the truth because a handwritten reply to the defence secretarys note by then defence minister Manohar Parrikar was not reported. If a newspaper publishes a noting, then the ethics of journalism will demand that the newspaper publishes the then defence ministers reply as well, Sitharaman said. Then defence minister Manohar Parrikar ji replied to that MoD note saying remain calm, nothing to worry, everything is going alright. In his file noting, seen by HT, Parrikar wrote: It appears that PMO and French presidents office are monitoring the progress of the issue which was an outcome of the summit meeting. He wrote that the last paragraph, which suggested a revised modality of negotiations to be led by PMO, appeared to be an overreaction and suggested that the defence secretary resolve the issue on consultation with the private secretary to the PM. Former defence secretary Mohan Kumar told HT the defence ministry note was not about the pricing of the jets but about the sovereign guarantee. Various points emerge during the process of negotiations. We had thought it was not necessary for another point of negotiations. The whole thing . The issue of a sovereign guarantee was sorted out to the satisfaction of both sides, he said. Initially, India had demanded a sovereign guarantee from France to back up the purchase of 36 fighters. Later, however, India agreed to accept a Letter of Comfort from Paris. In December, the Supreme Court dismissed petitions seeking a court-monitored probe into the purchase of the Rafale fighter jets and said there was no reason to doubt the process. In an affidavit to the court, the government said negotiations with French officials was carried out by an Indian Negotiating Team as per the Defence Procurement Procedure-2013. Also read | If you take panga...: Mamata Banerjee riposte to PM Modis attack Gandhi repeated his accusation chowkidar chor hai (the watchman is the thief). Now, I want to speak to the youngsters of this nation and I want to speak to every single member of the armed forces of this nation. This is about your future, you defend us, you protect us, you fight for us, you die for us and here it is absolutely clear that the Prime Minister has stolen 30,000 crore of your money, bypassed the process and given it to his friend Mr Anil Ambani, he alleged. Sitharaman objected to Gandhis language. It is very dangerousIs he trying to provoke the defence forces?, she asked. Her colleague, minister of human resource development Prakash Javadekar, also rubbished Gandhis allegations. The lie-manufacturing factory of Rahul Gandhi continues to operate and he has served us yet another lie, he said. Rahul Gandhi and the Congress are working to get the Rafale deal scrapped. They are playing in the hands of foreign forces and companies with vested interest, Javadekar alleged. The NDAS decision to enter a government-to-government deal with France to buy 36 Rafale warplanes made by Dassault Aviation was announced in April 2015, with an agreement signed a little over a year later. This replaced the previous United Progressive Alliance regimes decision to buy 126 Rafale aircraft, 108 of which were to be made in India by state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL). The deal has become controversial with the opposition, led by the Congress, claiming that the price at which India is buying Rafale aircraft now is 1,670 crore for each, three times the 526 crore, the initial bid by the company when the UPA was trying to buy the aircraft. It has also claimed the previous deal included a technology transfer agreement with HAL. The NDA has not disclosed details of the price, but the UPA deal, struck in 2012, was not a viable one, former defence minister Parrikar has previously said, implying that it would have never been closed and that, therefore, any comparison is moot. Indeed, the UPA was not able to close the deal till 2014, largely over discussions related to pricing of items not included in the initial bid. The NDA has said that the current deal also includes customized weaponry. The deal has also become controversial on account of the fact that one of the offset deals signed by Dassault is with the Reliance Group of Anil Ambani. The Congress claims the earlier deal was scrapped and a new one signed just to provide Ambani this opportunity for an offset deal. Both the government and Reliance Group have repeatedly denied this. Sniffing an electoral opportunity in the Rafale deal, the Congress has been relentlessly keeping up the heat. Gandhi has claimed that it is the corruption of the century. In his reply to the debate on the Motion of Thanks to the Presidents address in the Lok Sabha on Thursday, PM Narendra Modi said: The Congress does not want our air force to be powerful. I am levelling a serious allegation. Who are they batting for? Former Lok Sabha secretary general and political analyst P Sridharan said, The Supreme Court had said that there is no need for any enquiry into the Rafale deal. But now new facts are coming out. These facts are also very important. Political parties have the right to take their issues to the people and they must do so. But blocking Parliament proceedings would not serve any purpose. Also read | Flogging a dead horse: Sitharaman dismisses Rahuls new Rafale charge Congress trying to provoke armed forces: Sitharaman Congress trying to provoke the army and air force against the government. It is not only unfortunate but dangerous too: Defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman Manohar Parrikar had replied to that MoD note: Sitharaman Then defence minister Manohar Parrikar ji replied to that MoD note, saying remain calm, nothing to worry, everything is going alright. Now, what do you call the NAC led by Sonia Gandhis interference in the earlier PMO: Defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman in Lok Sabha Demand joint parliamentary committee: Kharge We demand a joint parliamentary committee, everything will be revealed then, we dont want any explanation now, have heard many explanations, from PM also: Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress. Uproar in Lok Sabha by Opposition Uproar in Lok Sabha by opposition members over MoD dissent note on Rafale negotiations. TMC MP Saugata Roy says, Modi-Shah duo is destroying the defence backbone of the country. Congress leaders have got supari to misguide people on national security: Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi Sometimes it looks like some people, especially senior leaders of the Congress, have got supari to defame and misguide people on the sensitive issue of national security. Congress situation is: Na izzat ki chinta na fikar kisi apmaan ki, jai bolo beimaan ki: Union minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi on Rafale row MoD dissent note was about sovereign guarantees: former defence secy It (MoD dissent note on Rafale negotiations) had nothing to do with price. It was about sovereign guarantees and general terms and conditions: G Mohan Kumar, defence secretary at the time of Rafale negotiations to ANI. Note clearly says PM held parallel talks with France: Rahul Gandhi Note clearly says PM bypassed defence ministry, PM held parallel talks with France: Rahul Gandhi PM stole Rs 30,000 crore of public money: Rahul Gandhi Hollande too had earlier claimed PMs interference. PM stole Rs 30,000 crore of public money: Rahul Gandhi Defence ministry note claims parallel negotiations by PMO: Rahul Gandhi Defence ministry note claims parallel negotiations by PMO. Narendra Modi is guilty in Rafale deal. Nirmala Sitharaman lied, Modi lied. I want to speak to our jawans: Rahul Gandhi Prime Minister directly involved in Rafale deal: Rahul Gandhi Prime Minister directly involved in Rafale deal. According to Hindu newspaper, now it is black and white: Rahul Gandhi Defence ministry opposed PMOs interference in Rafale deal: Congress Signed, sealed & now delivered for the whole country to see. Your lies are out in the open Modiji, the Defence Ministry clearly opposed your interference in the Rafale deal & you have single handedly undermined India's position. #ChowkidarChorHai #PakdaGayaModi pic.twitter.com/8nGic1xH4V Congress (@INCIndia) February 8, 2019 Hours after external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj spoke to chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh and asked him to apprehend the travel agents responsible for the plight of Punjabis stuck in Armenia, Punjab Police on Thursday arrested a travel agent in Kapurthala. Komaldeep, 27, a resident of Jandiala in Amritsar, was working as a middleman for an Armenia-based travel agent, Harpreet Kaur, in Kapurthala and its surrounding areas. Kapurthala senior superintendent of police (SSP) Satinder Singh said raids are on to nab the other accused booked for sending four people to Armenia fraudulently. On Tuesday, Kapurthala police had registered three FIRs against six travel agents, including Harpreet, Gurdev Singh, Paramjeet Kaur, Parminder Kaur of Dhilwan, Komaldeep of Jandiala and Jaswinder Kaur of Beas in Amritsar under Section 420 (cheating) and Section 13 of the Punjab Prevention of Human Smuggling Act, 2012, for duping Harmanjeet Singh of Nadala town, Jatinder Singh of Amritsar district, Shamsher Singh of Bholath and his wife Pinki. The accused agent had sent them to Armenia on travel visa after promising him a work visa in December 2018, police said. Earlier in the day, the CM assured Swaraj strict action against the agents. The CM also directed to director general of police (DGP) for appropriate action. After talking to Amarinder, Swaraj also called up to Sangrur MP Bhagwant Mann, who brought the issue to her notice, and assured him that the accused agents will be arrested soon. After HT report on February 7, Swaraj contacted to the Indian ambassador to Armenia and the four people from Punjab, who sent a video seeking help from Mann. Swaraj tweeted: I have seen the news report in Daily Hindustan dated 7th February reg four Indians from Punjab who are stranded in Armenia. Indian Ambassador in Armenia has reached them and is providing all help and assistance. @IndiainArmenia. I have also spoken to @capt_amarinder, Chief Minister, Punjab to apprehend the concerned travel agents. He has promised immediate action in the matter, she tweeted. After Swarajs tweet, the CM replied: @SushmaSwaraj ji a case has already been registered and Ive instructed the @DGPPunjabPolice to take appropriate action against the suspects immediately. Will keep you informed. In the video, the youths claimed that they did not have food for five days and the landlord has asked them to leave the place. We are receiving hundreds applications and videos on daily biases from abroad but the state government is not serious about the matter. If we want to save our youth from fake travel agents, the government should set an example by punishing these agents, Mann said. Arunachal Pradesh will have its first dedicated 24x7 television channel, DD Arunprabha, which will be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Doordarshan Kendra (DDK) in Itanagar on Saturday. The Prime Minister is also scheduled to launch an airport in Itanagar on the same day. These projects are part of the governments focus for the development of the North-east region through its Act East Policy, an official in the Union ministry of information and broadcasting said on condition of anonymity. The policy aims at reducing the isolation of the region by improving all-round connectivity through road, rail, telecom, power and waterways, this person added. Arunprabha channel will be equipped with state-of-the-art facilities, including a digital satellite news-gathering unit to provide live coverage from remote areas, for 24x7 telecast, information and broadcasting (I&B) secretary Amit Khare said. The playout facility and the earth station established at DDK Itanagar will ensure seamless transmission of the channel, Khare added. The Rs 60 crore project is part of the Rs 1,054.52 crore fund approved by the Cabinet on Wednesday for Prasar Bharatis broadcasting infrastructure and network development. Out of the Rs 1054.52 crore, an amount of ~435.04 crore is for continuing schemes of All India Radio (AIR) and an amount of Rs 619.48 crore is for the schemes of Doordarshan, a government statement issued on Wednesday said. The continuing schemes of AIR and Doordarshan are at different stages of implementation and are scheduled to be completed in phases, it said. The government approved the launch of the channel in Itanagar to fulfil the aspirations of the people of the North-east Region, it said. In addition to this, 150,000 DTH [direct-to-home] sets have been approved for distribution in different states in the country which will help people in the border, remote, tribal and LWE areas to watch Doordarshans DTH programmes, it added. The Cabinet also approved setting up of DTTs at 19 locations and the digitisation of studios at 39 locations, Digital Satellite News Gathering vans at 15 locations, and the upgradation of earth stations at 12 locations, it said. The government is focusing on modernising and upgrading existing facilities in studios that are essential to sustain the ongoing activities and also for high definition television [HDTV] transmitters at Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata. For All India Radio, the scheme provides for FM expansion at 206 places, and the digitalisation of studios at 127 places is envisaged. The FM expansion programme will allow an 13% additional population of the country to listen to All India Radio programmes. Apart from this, 10KW FM transmitters will be set up along Indo-Nepal border while 10KW FM transmitters will be set up in Jammu and Kashmir border to significantly improve the radio and TV coverage along the border areas. Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Guwahati on Friday on a two-day visit to the Northeast amid protests against the proposed Citizenship (Amendment) Bill (CAB). Students bodies had declared that they will protest against the proposed amendment during PMs visit. It is Modis third visit to Assam since December 25, when he inaugurated the Bogibeel bridge in the state. During his last visit in January, in a rally in Silchar, he said the government was committed to bringing the CAB. On Saturday, PM Modi will inaugurate several projects and address public meetings in Arunachal Pradesh, Assam and Tripura. The All Assam Students Union (AASU), which is leading the protests against CAB, staged a protest with black flags at its office in Guwahati as Prime Ministers cavalcade made its way to Raj Bhawan. The state administration has made heavy security arrangements for Modis visit. Earlier in the day, the All Assam Students Union, and 38 other organisations representing indigenous groups burnt copies of the bill all over the state. On Saturday morning, Prime Minister Modi will head to Arunachal Pradesh where he is scheduled to lay the foundation of the greenfield airport at Hollongi in Parum Pare district, inaugurate a 110 MW hydro electric project, and lay the foundation of Sella Tunnel. Post noon in Changsari on the outskirts of Guwahati, Modi is scheduled to lay the foundation of a six-lane bridge over river Brahmaputra, inaugurate Numaligarh Refinery Ltds bio-diesel refinery, the Barauni-Guwahati gas pipeline, North East gas grid, besides kicking off construction work of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), also the venue of his public meeting. In Agartala, the Prime Minister will address a public meeting, unveil the statue late king Bir Bikram Kishore Manikya Bahadur at the airport, inaugurate the 23-kilometre railway track between Gomatis districts Garjee and Belonia in South Tripura. In Assam, the BJP leaders said they plan to mobilise around 3 lakh workers for the rally. It is a government programme. AIIMS, bridge over Brahmaputra, are all part of Assam Accord. We need development but we do not want the bill, said Samujjal Bhattacharya, the chief advisor of AASU. The volume of the people in protests will be more than that of Prime Ministers meeting, he said, adding that they will burn effigies of the PM. We will hold protests against the Bill across the Northeast tomorrow. In Tripura, we will boycott his programme, said Upendra Debbarma, joint secretary of North East Students Union (NESO), an umbrella body of students organizations from the Northeast. Slamming the protesters, Assam minister Siddhartha Bhattacharya said, These are all allies of the Congress who are protesting. What do you expect from them? The three MPs from Tripura, all belonging to CPI(M), said they, too, would boycott the visit. Former defence minister Manohar Parrikar had termed as over reaction his ministrys note objecting to parallel parleys by the Prime Ministers Office (PMO) with the French authorities in the controversial Rafale deal, reports ANI. The ongoing back and forth between the Congress and the government over the estimated Rs 58,000 crore deal to buy 36 combat jets from France took a new turn with a newspaper report on Friday citing a November 24, 2015 note of the defence ministry, which said that parallel discussions by the PMO weakened the negotiating position of the MoD and Indian Negotiating Team. The note further added, according to the report, We may advise the PMO that any officers, who are not part of the Indian Negotiating Team may refrain from having parallel parlays (parleys) with the officers of the French government. In the note, tweeted by the ANI, defence minister Manohar Parrikar recorded: It appears the PMO and the French Presidents office are monitoring the progress of the issue which was an outcome of the summit meeting. Para 5 appears to be an over reaction. ANI accesses the then Defence Minister Manohar Parrikars reply to MoD dissent note on #Rafale negotiations."It appears PMO and French President office are monitoring the progress of the issue which was an outcome of the summit meeting. Para 5 appears to be an over reaction" pic.twitter.com/3dbGB9xF4Z ANI (@ANI) February 8, 2019 Para 5 here refers to the last para in the note that mentions parallel parleys. Parrikar goes on to write that the defence secretary may resolve the issue in consultation with principal secretary to the Prime Minister. In her suo motu statement in Lok Sabha on the newspaper report, defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman questioned the journalistic ethics of the newspaper that published a defence ministry note selectively. She said, A newspaper published a file noting written by Defence Secretary. If a newspaper publishes a noting then the ethics of journalism will demand that the newspaper publishes the then Defence Ministers reply as well. She said raising the Rafale deal issue on the basis of a media report is flogging a dead horse. She accused the opposition parties of playing into the hands of multinational companies and vested interests. Congress president Rahul Gandhi, who has been at the forefront of a campaign against the Modi-led government over the Rafale deal, earlier held a press conference tearing into the Prime Minister. Reading out portions of the note Gandhi said it has confirmed what we have been saying for a year. He said it is crystal clear that PM Modi bypassed the defence ministry in signing Rafale deal. Gandhi repeated his charge against PM Modi saying, Chowkidar chor hai (the watchman is a thief. In her response, Sitharaman also objected to the language used by Gandhi. I honestly expected more from the Congress party, she said. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah on Friday told the party workers in Uttar Pradesh not to get rattled by the tie-up between the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. At a rally of party workers in eastern UP, Shah said the BJP is ready for the challenge posed by the opposition in the polls. You dont need to get rattled by the alliance. The BJP is ready for a battle for 50 per cent vote share in Uttar Pradesh, Shah told the booth-level workers of the BJP at Maharajganj. The SP and the BSP recently shelved their rivalry to join hands in Uttar Pradesh against the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. SP president Akhilesh Yadav and BSP chief Mayawati announced their alliance last month. The alliance is considered to be formidable force in the parliamentary polls, likely to be held in April-May this year. The parties defeated the BJP in the Lok Sabha bypolls when they put up joint candidates. Shah alleged that under the SP and the BSP governments, Purvanchal or the eastern UP was facing the menace of mosquitoes and mafia. Shah said that development of the state was never a priority for the SP and the BSP during their rule in Uttar Pradesh. During Bua-Bhatija reign Purvanchal was facing menace of mosquitoes and mafia. After the BJP government was formed, mafia disappeared and encephalitis cases are going down, he said. The BJP president also attacked the Congress party alleging that dynasty is the most important criterion in the party for deciding leadership role. The BJP doesnt function on basis of dynasty but on democracy. When our government is formed, theres development, said Shah. Shahs interaction with the partymen in Purvanchal was aimed at galvanising the ground-level workers in the region. Eastern UP has emerged as a key electoral battlefield particularly after the Congress appointed Priyanka Gandhi Vadra as the general secretary in-charge of the region. Prime Minister Narendra Modi won his Lok Sabha election in 2014 from Varanasi that lies in eastern UP. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanaths constituency Gorakhpur is also in located in Purvanchal. The alliance of the SP and the BSP is expected to pose a serious challenge to the BJP in its stronghold. Priyanka Gandhis appointment as in-charge of eastern UP for the Congress has made the poll battle here three-cornered. Former Supreme Court judge, justice (retired) Kurian Joseph, who was part of the unprecedented press conference last year by four senior-most judges against the functioning of the chief justice, said on Friday that he has no plan to dabble in politics. Hailing from Kalady in Ernakulam district, he said both, the ruling Left Democratic Front and Congress-led United Democratic Front, have approached him but he told them he has no plan to throw his hat into the poll fray. Known for his clean image and secular credentials, both the fronts were racing to pocket him, but he told them in clear terms he has no plan to take a plunge now and he will concentrate more on his home ground, legal affairs. Several people from both camps informally approached me. One of them even said I can chose from four seats. But I told them point blank that I am not interested, he said in Delhi. Many offers came. But it is a question of my interest. As of now, it is a big no, he said scoffing all rumours. Post retirement last November, justice Joseph has settled in the national capital. Speculation was rife that he will join politics and contest in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. Last year in January, justice Joseph was among four judges who held an unprecedented press conference where they disagreed with then-CJI Dipak Misras style of functioning, saying he was assigning important cases to junior judges. When the worst flood of the century hit Kerala in last August, justice Joseph was at the forefront in coordinating relief supply to the state and also sang we shall overcome at a fund-raising event in Delhi. Starting his legal career in 1979, he held many positions and in 2000, he was appointed as a judge of the Kerala High Court. In 2010, he was elevated as the chief justice of Himachal Pradesh high court and in 2013, became a judge of the Supreme Court. The Delhi High Court on Friday dismissed a plea seeking a ban on online platforms including Netflix and Amazon Prime till the regulations are framed, reports ANI. The order came on a petition filed by a non-governmental organization claimed that due to lack of regulation for the web-exclusive content, the platforms were telecasting shows full of vulgarity, religiously forbidden and morally unethical. The petitioners lawyer had earlier claimed that in response to an application under the Right to Information Act, the government had admitted that there was no policy on regulating online content. The petition singled out Sacred Games, Game of Thrones, Vikings, and Spartacus as examples of the kind of content it wants regulated. Congress chief Rahul Gandhi Friday mocked the Modi government for announcing support of Rs 6,000 per year to small and marginal farmers when it wrote off Rs 3.5 lakh crore loans of 15 big industrialists. Gandhi also reiterated that the PMO was directly involved in conducting negotiations with the French side on the Rafale deal. The Congress would ensure minimum income guarantee for the poor if elected to power after the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, he said. Addressing a Kisan Aabhar Sammelan (thanksgiving rally) here, the Congress president said that the BJP hailed the announcement of the cash support for farmers in the Lok Sabha when the interim Union Budget 2019-20 was presented. They were hailing the decision, but announced only Rs 17 assistance per day to farmers on one hand, the government wrote off Rs 3.5 lakh crore loans of 15 big industrialists, but gave Rs 17 per day to farmers. If you divide that amount further, it comes down Rs 3.5 per person, he told the gathering. Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath was also present on the occasion. Also read | Didi eyes Delhi, has left Bengal to middlemen: PM Modi hits out at Mamata Banerjee PM Kisan, the Narendra Modi governments cash-transfer programme for small farmers, hinges on how soon messy land records can be cleaned up in a country with 140 million operational land holdings, the number of land lots owned by total households. Of these 140 million holdings, 120 million, or 86%, are below two hectares; the owners of these will qualify for an annual cash transfer of 6,000 because they are counted as small and marginal farmers.Benefits under PM-Kisan will be handed out on the basis of land ownership, meaning the beneficiary has to have the land in his or her name. Experts fear inadequate land records can leave out eligible farmers for want of proof of ownership. The cash-transfer scheme will go by ownership on official records as on February 1, 2019. There are two issues, one of updating, and secondly, of digitisation (of land records). Both are critically important for any scheme targeted at land holdings, says economist T Haque, who chaired an expert committee on land leasing set up by the NITI Aayog, the state-run think tank. For instance, a small farmer who doesnt have land in his own name but in the name of his father who has died, or owns a property which has been informally divided, without such allocation reflecting in revenue records, may lose out. A review of land-ownership status by HT shows that while some states have their land records in order, many others dont. Under the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) governments Digital India Land Records Modernisation Programme (DILRMP), a revamp of the previous governments National Land Records Modernisation Programme, Rs 1,403 crore was spent between 2014-15 and 2017-18 to computerise land titles. A title is a legal document that proves land ownership. While the scheme is centrally sponsored, the actual work to clean up land titles is under a states jurisdiction. A review letter sent to states on December 26, 2018 by the department of land resources, and seen by HT, reads: States/UTs where significant progress has been made and work can be completed with minimum efforts are: Chhattisgarh, Daman & Diu, Haryana, Puducherry, Punjab, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh. The evaluation relates to computerisation of land records only, although the scheme has other goals, such as digitisation of worn-out British-era paper maps held in dusty revenue offices in about 500 villages. The review letter also states that states/UTs lagging behind other states and which need extra efforts and monitoring include Assam, Bihar, Chandigarh, Goa, Kerala and Tripura. Jammu and Kashmir and Manipur have made no progress at all. Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Odisha have achieved near 100% completion, while 21 states are in various stages of issuing digitally signed right of records, a document chain tracing historical ownership and land transactions. A parliament reply on January 3, 2019 stated that substantial progress is being made in 31 states/UTs on computerization. Updating land records in a digital database is no easy task. According to law ministry data, two-thirds of civil disputes in courts deal with land disputes over ownership. In a potential setback to Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati, the Supreme Court on Friday, in oral observations, said the former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh should reimburse the public money spent on erecting statues of herself and the party symbol, the elephant, in public places. Madam Mayawati, reimburse to the exchequer the public money you have spent on the elephants, a bench led by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi said. We are of tentative view that you (Mayawati) should pay the public money from your pocket, CJI said. The remarks were oral observations directed at senior advocate Rakesh Khanna, who was representing the leader in a 10-year-old public interest litigation (PIL) that alleged misuse of public money for installing the statues. The court asked Khanna to convey its views to Mayawati and fixed April 2 to hear the matter for its final disposal. The court refused to fix a hearing in either the first or second week of May as had been requested by senior advocate Satish Mishra, a close aide to Mayawati. We cannot have a hearing in May as the court goes on a long vacation. We would hear it in April, the CJI said. When Mishra insisted, the CJI responded: Please do not force us to say anything more. The observations come at a time when Mayawati is preparing for the general elections in UP, which BSP will fight in an alliance with the Samajwadi Party (SP). The SC was hearing advocate Ravi Kants PIL alleging misuse of crores of rupees of public money spent for installing the statues, including in a park in Noida, on the outskirts of Delhi. Filed in 2009, the PIL sought a restraint order against the installations, which Kant said was being done at the cost of the state exchequer. He asked for a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe and also a directive to remove the statues. Public money was spent to falsely glorify the then chief minister, Kants PIL alleged. Not only was it against the state policy, it even violated the Constitution, he said. The statues were installed at a cost of Rs 52.20 crore at public places. Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati has to deposit the money she spent on installing statues of herself and elephants -- the party symbol -- at parks in Lucknow and Noida, the Supreme Court observed on Friday. The court observations came while hearing a petition filed by an advocate who had contended that public money cannot be utilised for creating own statues and for propagating the political party. We are of the tentative view that Mayawati has to deposit the public money spent on her statues and party symbol to the state exchequer, a bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said. The bench, also comprising justices Deepka Gupta and Sanjeev Khanna, posted the matter for final hearing on April 2. Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao is likely to meet his Uttar Pradesh counterpart Yogi Adityanath in Andhra Pradeshs Visakhapatnam on February 14 during the anniversary celebrations of the Sri Sarada Peetham mutt. Both the chief ministers will attend the concluding ceremony of ashta bandhana maha kumbh abhishekam at the Sri Sarada Peetham headed by popular Hindu seer Swamy Swaroopanandendra from February 10 to 14. A spokesperson of the Peetham confirmed that KCR, as the Telangana Rashtra Samithi president is popularly known, would attend the last day of the rituals and take part in the yagyam along with his family members. We have also invited the Uttar Pradesh chief minister and he has agreed to participate in the rituals, the spokesperson said. Interestingly, the TRS chief has also received an invitation from YSR Congress party president YS Jaganmohan Reddy for the house warming ceremony of his newly-constructed residence and camp office at Tadepalli in Andhra Pradeshs Amaravati on the same day. If time permits, KCR will attend Jagans house warming function. As of now, the programme has not been confirmed, a TRS leader familiar with the Telangana chief ministers schedule said. The YSRC chief has been cosying up to the TRS leader for the last few months, particularly since the recent assembly elections in Telangana. While YSRC cadre openly campaigned for the TRS in some assembly constituencies like Kukatpally, KCR deputed his son and party working president KT Rama Rao to hold talks with Jagan Reddy to discuss the prospects of a federal front. KCR has also extended his support to the YSRC in the ensuing Andhra Pradesh elections as part of his return gift to Telugu Desam Party president and chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu, who had joined hands with the Congress to fight against the TRS in Telangana polls. During his visit to Visakhapatnam, KCR was accorded a rousing reception from YSR Congress party leaders, lending credence to speculations that the TRS would extend support to the YSRC in the ensuing assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh. It will be the second visit of the Telangana chief minister to the neighbouring state in less than two months of his return to power for a second successive term. He visited Sarada Peetham on December 23 last year on his way to meet Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik to discuss the federal front proposal. KCR had been a staunch follower of Sarada Peetham seer who performed the Raja Shayamala Yagam at his farmhouse at Erravalli before the assembly elections seeking victory for the TRS. He also performed the Maha Rudra Sahitha Sahasra Chandi Yagam from January 21 to 25 at the same farmhouse seeking blessings for his ambitious plan to play a bigger role at the national level. India and Pakistan on Thursday agreed to hold the first meeting to finalise modalities for the Kartarpur corridor next month. External affairs ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar tweeted that a team of Pakistani officials would visit India on March 13 to discuss and finalise modalities for facilitating visit of pilgrims through the Kartarpur corridor. A follow-up meeting can be held in Pakistan, as required, he added. In another tweet, Kumar said India had also proposed technical level discussions between engineers on both sides for quick completion of the corridor, which will connect Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Pakistans Kartarpur the final resting place of Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism with Dera Baba Nanak in Indias Gurdaspur. We hope Pakistan would positively respond & confirm coordinates of the crossing point as well, he said. Last month, India had shared with Pakistan its coordinates for the crossing point along the international border. For expeditious realisation of #kartarpurcorridor, India has also proposed technical level discussions between engineers on both sides without waiting for discussion on the modalities. We hope #Pakistan would positively respond & confirm coordinates of crossing point as well. 2/2 Raveesh Kumar (@MEAIndia) February 7, 2019 Kumars reply came soon after Pakistans foreign office spokesman, Mohammad Faisal, said in a set of tweets that Pakistan had proposed, in a spirit of constructive engagement, that its delegation wished to visit India on March 13. In a spirit of constructive engagement #Pakistan has proposed to India that the Pakistan delegation may visit #India on 13 March followed by the return visit of the Indian delegation to Pakistan on 28 March to finalise the draft agreement for the #kartarpur corridor (1/2) Dr Mohammad Faisal (@ForeignOfficePk) February 7, 2019 Pakistan also proposed a return visit by an Indian delegation on March 28 to finalise the draft agreement for the corridor. Pakistan had recently sent the draft agreement to the Indian side. Last month, apparent differences between the two sides on the venue for a meeting had emerged, with India saying the discussions should be held in New Delhi. The move came shortly after Pakistan proposed dates for the meeting to be held in Islamabad. People familiar with matter said the two sides reached a compromise after Pakistan didnt insist that the first round of talks be held in Islamabad. India and Pakistan had unveiled plans last November to build the corridor to facilitate visits by Indian pilgrims to the gurdwara at the site where Guru Nanak died in 1539. Both sides have said they plan to open the corridor on Nanaks 550th birth anniversary in November 2019. Soon after Prime Minister Narendra Modi attacked West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on her home turf, she returned the favour in the same measure saying she becomes better if someone picks up a fight with her. If you take panga (fight) with me, I will become changa (better), news agency ANI quoted Banerjee as saying in Kolkata. She also used chaiwala reference, often made by Modi to reflect his humble economic background, to corner the prime minister on the Rafale deal. During the election, he (PM Modi) becomes Chaiwala. He becomes Rafalewalla once election is over, Banerjee said. Friday saw return of fresh Rafale charge against the Narendra Modi government following a report in The Hindu that cited a note written by defence ministry officials in November 2015 objecting to parallel parleys by the Prime Ministers Office (PMO) at a time when the Indian Negotiating Team was in talks with the French team. Also read | Didi eyes Delhi, has left Bengal to middlemen: PM Modi hits out at Mamata Banerjee The report gave a shot in the arm to opposition. Congress president Rahul Gandhi mounted his attack on Modi alleging that the defence ministry note makes it crystal clear that the prime minister bypassed the due process for finalising the Rafale deal. He repeated his charge that chowkidar chor hai (the watchman is a thief). The government rejected the allegations with Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman giving a suo motu statement in the Lok Sabha where she said that raising the Rafale issue again on the basis of a media report is like flogging a dead horse. On Thursday in Parliament, PM Modi had responded to the Rafale charge leveled by the opposition with a counter-allegation that the Congress doesnt want to see a strong Indian Air Force. In Bengal, Banerjee renewed the Rafale charge against PM Modi while targeting his government over a range of issues. He is a master of Rafale. He is a master of demonetisation... He is a master of corruption. He is matter of arrogance, she said. Earlier in the day, PM Modi launched scathing attack on Banerjee alleging that middlemen and syndicate run the Trinamool Congress government in West Bengal while the chief minister eyes the seat of power in New Delhi. PM Modi was in Jalpaiguri in North Bengal, where he inaugurated a bench of the Calcutta High Court. Banerjee took a potshot at PM Modi for allegedly not inviting anyone from the TMC government or the high court. Nobody from Calcutta High Court was present. All infrastructure was paid for by us. The land is ours. The circuit bench is of the high court but nobody from them was there. It means the bride-bridegroom wasnt there but the band party was there. Also read | Over reaction, wrote Manohar Parrikar on ministry note on PMO role in Rafale deal Dismissing PM Modis charge that Banerjee is afraid of electoral loss in West Bengal during upcoming Lok Sabha polls, the Trinamool Congress chief said, He is afraid because we are working together. I was never scared. I have always fought my way out. The prime minister had said that Banerjee was nervous and acting in desperation fearing that the BJP would outperform her TMC in the parliamentary polls, likely to be held in April-May this year. PM Modi said the TMC has lost mass support in Bengal. Banerjee responded to PM Modi throwing a question as to why everybody, from RBI to CBI, is saying bye-bye to him (PM)? Acrimony between the Centre and the TMC government of West Bengal has escalated since Banerjee held a United India rally in January in Kolkata giving a call to vote the Modi government out in the Lok Sabha polls. The rally was attended by leaders from 23 opposition parties including the Congress. The tussle took an unexpected turn on Sunday when Banerjee staged a sit-in protesting action by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) against Kolkata police commissioner Rajeev Kumar in connection with chit fund scam cases. Banerjee called it a case of political vendetta. PM Modi, at his Jalpaiguri rally, slammed Banerjee saying the dharna was an act in protection of those who looted money of the poor. Also read | In black and white: Rahul Gandhi cites MoD document on PM role in Rafale At least 39 people died and several more were in a critical condition in several villages of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand after they consumed country liquor between Wednesday and Thursday, officials in both states said on Friday. The deaths were reported between Thursday and Friday from villages in Haridwar district of Uttarakhand, and Saharanpur and Kushinagar in Uttar Pradesh. At least one of the sources for the poisonous liquor may have been in Saharanpur, with officials in Uttarakhand saying they had detained four people who smuggled pouches of it from the UP town. The liquor was smuggled into these villages from its source in Saharanpur. So far, we have got some inputs about the villages in Saharanpur where this spurious liquor is being manufactured. We have already sent a team there which is investigating with Saharanpur police as deaths were reported from there also, said senior superintendent of police, Haridwar, Janmejay Khanduri. The number of dead in Uttarakhand was put at 13 while 40 others were in hospital. Saharanpur, bordering Uttarakhand, reported 18 deaths. Most of the victims had gone to one of the Uttarakhand villages where they consumed the liquor. In Kushinagar, which comes under chief minister Yogi Adityanaths Gorakhpur division, the number of fatalities stood at nine. Several officials were suspended in both states, with Uttar Pradesh taking action against seven excise and seven police officials. A state government spokesperson said chief minister Adityanath had announced a compensation of 2 lakh each for the families of those dead and 50,000 each for those undergoing treatment. The sale and consumption of hooch is a problem in rural districts across the country, as illegal brewers run fly-by-night operations to evade hefty levies and taxes. The harm comes from methanol content, which can increase in liquor that is not brewed properly. Methanol is also added in trace amounts to increase the potency of liquor. We didnt know that spurious liquor was being consumed which caused this tragedy. We will now support anti-liquor and liquor prohibition drives in the area as this incident has opened our eyes, said Seth Ram, one of the villagers who was taken ill in Uttarakhand. India has registered a strong protest with Islamabad over a speech by Lashkar-e-Taiba founder Hafiz Saeed on the occasion of Kashmir Solidarity Day that advocated terror and violence against India, people familiar with developments said on Friday. The external affairs ministry registered the protest through a note verbale an informal, unsigned form of diplomatic correspondence that was sent to the Pakistan high commission in New Delhi on February 6. It referred to Pakistani media reports of a speech by Saeed, who was described as a UN-designated terrorist and head of the Jamaat-ud-Dawah, on February 5 that advocated terror and violence against India, people quoted above said. Registering a strong protest at the continued use of Pakistan-controlled territory by extremist and terrorist elements to freely propagate and promote violence and terror against India, the note asked Pakistan to abide by its international obligations and bilateral commitment to not allow any territory under its control to be used for terrorism against India, in any manner, the people said. The Gir National Park in Gujarat will get dedicated ambulances and veterinary hospitals to treat injured and sick lions as part of the Asiatic Lion Conservation Project, launched by the Union environment ministry on Friday, officials said. Last year, out of the 39 lions that tested positive for canine distemper a viral disease 24 succumbed to the infection. The Centre will spend Rs 98 crore over three years for the implementation of the project, with the Gujarat government contributing another Rs 250 crore. The Centre has released Rs 17 crore for the first year. Additional chief secretary, Gujarat, Rajiv Kumar Gupta, said the number of lions in Gir and the Greater Gir Region a bigger area comprising Girnar, Pani and Mitiyala sanctuaries has improved over the years. There are around 600 lions at present, compared to 523 assessed during the lion census in 2015. We will spend Rs 80 crore on a hospital and ambulances for our lions, he said. The Greater Gir Region will be divided into various zones and they will be managed according to various zone plans and theme plans, the project brief said. Vaccination of livestock, control of cats and dogs in lion habitat, identification of wildlife corridors, improvement of habitat, legal aid, wildlife forensic systems and offering attractive relocation packages to Maldhari (a pastoral community) and other communities are the highlights of the project. I think a conservation plan was much needed because lions are now there outside the sanctuary area as well. Their population has been on the rise. Since lions are going out, measures are needed to reduce conflict and prevent infections. Anti-poaching measures are also important, said Diwakar Sharma, director, monitoring and evaluation at WWF India. Any relocation of Maldharis or other tribes should be congenial and of value to the community since they have also been playing a role in conservation of lions. He added that similar rescue vans and veterinary doctors have already been deployed in tiger zones of the country. Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday launched a counter-attack on Congress president Rahul Gandhi over Rafale deal. She said raising the Rafale deal issue on the basis of a media report is flogging a dead horse. She accused the opposition parties of playing into the hands of multinational companies and vested interests. Sitharaman also questioned Gandhi over his criticism that the prime minister diverted Rs 30,000 crore to his industrialist friend Anil Ambani which could have been used for defence forces. Sitharaman said, It is very dangerousIs he trying to provoke the defence forces? The defence minister earlier defended the Rafale deal in the Lok Sabha, where she made a suo motu statement after the opposition members disrupted the proceedings in the house and demanded clarification from the government over a report published by The Hindu. Also Watch | Defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman rejects Rahuls new Rafale charge The report claimed that at the height of the Rafale negotiations, defence ministry officials objected to parallel parleys by the PMO with the French authorities. Gandhi read out portions from the report at a press conference in New Delhi and said the report has confirmed what we have been saying for a year. He said it is crystal clear that PM Modi bypassed the defence ministry in signing Rafale deal. Gandhi repeated his charge against PM Modi saying, Chowkidar chor hai (the watchman is a thief. In her response, Sitharaman also objected to the language used by Gandhi. I honestly expected more from the Congress party, she said. The defence minister also questioned the journalistic ethics of the newspaper that published a defence ministry note selectively. She said, A newspaper published a file noting written by Defence Secretary. If a newspaper publishes a noting then the ethics of journalism will demand that the newspaper publishes the then Defence Ministers reply as well. Sitharaman said, Then Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar ji replied to that MoD note that remain calm. There is nothing to worry about. Everything is going alright. Now, do you call the NAC (the national advisory council during the Manmohan Singh government) led by Sonia Gandhi as interference in earlier the PMO? What was that? Responding to the defence ministers reply in the Lok Sabha, Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge said the government has offered enough explanation, it must now set up a joint parliamentary committee for probe. We demand a joint parliamentary committee, everything will be revealed then, we dont want any explanation now, have heard many explanations, from PM also, he said. The Hindu report that created fresh controversy over Rafale deal claimed that senior defence ministry officials objected to what they termed parallel parleys by the PMO officials with the French authorities while the Indian Negotiating Team was handling the talks for procuring fighter jets for the Indian Air Force. The Rafale deal was signed between India and France at the inter-governmental level in 2016 for the purchase of 36 fighter jets. The Punjab government on Thursday appointed 1987-batch IPS officer Dinkar Gupta as the new Punjab Police chief. Gupta, 55, replaces Suresh Arora, who had been on an extension since his retirement on September 30 last year. Guptas appointment was cleared by chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Thursday, said an official statement. Interacting with reporters after taking over as the states top cop, Gupta said keeping the border state, facing multiple challenges, safe and secure would continue to be the priority of Punjab police under him. A decorated officer with a cool head, Gupta was of the senior most of all three officers, who had been empanelled for the appointment to the top post by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) earlier this week. The other two officers in the panel were DGP (admn) MK Tiwari and DGP (provisioning) VK Bhawra. Currently, in the Punjab Police hierarchy, there are five officers, who are senior to Gupta. These Include 1984-batch officers Samant Goyal (on central deputation) and DGP (law and order) Hardeep Dhillon, 1985-batch officer and DGP, special task force, Mohd Mustafa, and 1986-batch officers DGP (internal vigilance cell) Harminder Singh and DGP (PSPCL) Sidharth Chattopadhyaya. As Hardeep and Harminder are going to retire this year and Goyal being on central deputation, only two officers Mustafa and Chattopadhaya (apart from Gupta), were left fulfilling the condition of having at least two years of service cited by the Supreme Court recently to be eligible to become the state police chief. Though the state government had included names of Mustafa and Chattopadhyaya on the panel of eligible officers sent to the UPSC, the latter didnt include them on the panel of three officers sent back to the state. In his previous stint, Gupta was posted as director general of police (intelligence) which involved the direct supervision of Punjab state intelligence wing, states anti-terrorist squad (ATS) and organised crime control unit (OCCU). He played a key role in solving high-profile targeted killing cases and busting more than 50 pro-Khalistan modules. Gupta is going to retire in 2024. Gupta was also decorated with the Police Medal for Meritorious Services and the Presidents Police Medal for Distinguished Service in 2010. His wife Vinni Mahajan is additional chief secretary (ACS) in Punjab and had served in Prime Ministers Office (PMO) when Manmohan Singh was the prime minister. He is close to Amarinder, many say, even more than Arora and belongs to Patiala, CMs home town. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday lashed out at West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee saying that the Trinamool Congress chief is harbouring ambition to lead a government in New Delhi leaving Bengal to middlemen and syndicate. Addressing a public rally at Jalpaiguri in North Bengal, PM Modi said the middlemen rule supreme under the TMC government of Bengal. Didi is worried about moving to Delhi and she has left Bengal, the poor and middle class to be looted by the alliance of middlemen and syndicate, PM Modi said at his third rally in week in the state. He said, Today, the situation in West Bengal is such that Didi is the chief minister but someone else is doing dadagiri. The TMC is in power but administration is run by jagaai and madhaai (a reference to middlemen). PM Modis sharp attack at Banerjee comes at a time when the Centre and the West Bengal government are engaged in a bitter face-off over action by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) against Kolkata police commissioner Rajeev Kumar on Sunday in connection with chit fund scam cases. Also read | Ill expose plot: Karnataka CMs sharp attack on PM Narendra Modi on alleged horse-trading Banerjee had staged a three-day sit-in protesting the CBI action calling it a misuse of central agencies against political opponents by the Modi government. The political fight between the BJP-led government and the TMC escalated after Banerjee held a United India rally in January in Kolkata, where leaders from 23 opposition parties including the Congress shared the stage. The prime minister responded to the charge leveled by Banerjee with a counter-attack. He said, It is unprecedented that a chief minister sits on dharna to protect a person facing allegations of corruption. This chowkidar will spare neither the perpetrators of chit fund scams nor those protecting them, he asserted. PM Modis comment has come a day ahead of Kumars scheduled before the CBI team in the Saradha chit fund scam case. The CBI will question Kumar in Meghalayas capital Shillong. The Supreme Court, earlier this week, directed Kumar to appear before the CBI at the neutral place. Watch: PM Modi hits out at Mamata, TMC at Jalpaigudi rally PM Modi also accused the TMC government of resorting to violence against its political opponent. He said, The people of Bengal voted for Didi to get rid of the violence of the communists. But the new government is following the same model of violence against its opponents...TMC government has become communist part-two. Banerjees TMC had defeated the Left Front government in West Bengal in 2011 ending more than three-decade rule of the coalition in the state. The TMC was re-elected in 2016 state elections. Also read | Mahagathbandhan is mahamilawat: PM Modi targets opposition unity Congress president Rahul Gandhi stepped up his attack on the Narendra Modi government over Rafale deal on Friday following a news report claiming that the defence ministry objected to parallel parleys by the Prime Ministers Office (PMO) with the French authorities. Gandhi said the news report makes it crystal clear that the Prime Minister was conducting parallel negotiations with the French on Rafale deal. We have been saying this for more than a year that the prime minister is directly involved in the Rafale scamIt is absolutely black and white that the prime minister himself was carrying a parallel negotiation with the French, Gandhi said at a press conference in New Delhi. Signed, sealed & now delivered for the whole country to see. Your lies are out in the open Modiji, the Defence Ministry clearly opposed your interference in the Rafale deal & you have single handedly undermined India's position. #ChowkidarChorHai #PakdaGayaModi pic.twitter.com/8nGic1xH4V Congress (@INCIndia) February 8, 2019 A report published by The Hindu claimed that the French side took advantage of parallel parleys by the PMO that weakened Indian teams position in negotiating the Rafale deal with France. Also Watch | PM was conducting parallel negotiations on Rafale: Rahul Gandhi Gandhi targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi directly accusing him of stealing Rs 30,000 croreto give it his friend Anil Ambani. He said, It is a corporate warfare and the Prime Minister is representing Anil Ambani. The government has lied to the Supreme Court...This means that the entire judgment is under question now, he said. Gandhi has been attacking PM Modi over Rafale deal alleging he is personally involved in corruption in the defence deal. At a convention of the minority department of the Congress party on Thursday, Gandhi challenged PM Modi to a debate over Rafale deal. I say to BJP leaders... make Narendra Modi stand with me on stage for five minutes and debate on national security, Rafale, the Congress president said. The newspaper report cited a November 24, 2015 note of the defence ministry, which said that parallel discussions by the PMO weakened the negotiating position of the MoD and Indian Negotiating Team. The note further stated, according to the report and reiterated by the Congress president in his press conference, We may advise the PMO that any officers, who are not part of the Indian Negotiating Team may refrain from having parallel parlays (parleys) with the officers of the French government. The defence ministry had, the paper reported, also stated that in case the PMO is not confident about the outcome of negotiations being carried out by the MoD, a revised modality of negotiations to be led by PMO at appropriate level may be adopted in the case. Meanwhile, the then defence secretary G Mohan Kumar has said that the dissent note of the defence ministry had nothing to do with the price of Rafale deal. News agency ANI quoted him as saying, It (MoD dissent note on Rafale negotiations) had nothing to do with price. It was about sovereign guarantees and general terms and conditions. Whatever has been brought out (recent media report on Rafale deal by the Hindu) has nothing to do with pricing, said Kumar. The fresh attack from the Congress president comes a day after PM Modi strongly defended the Rafale deal during his reply to the debate on the Motion of Thanks to the Presidents address in the Lok Sabha. Dismissing the Congresss charge, PM Modi said, All accusations on Rafale deal have been answered by Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. The Supreme Court has already studied all aspects of it. He also said, The Congress does not want our air force to be powerful. I am levelling a serious allegation. Who are they batting for? The 7.87 billion euro Rafale deal was signed between India and France in 2016 for the purchase of 36 fighter jets. The report in the paper quoted from the defence ministry note saying that the MoD came to its notice after General Stephen Reb, the head of the French Negotiating Team wrote a letter to on October 23, 2015. The letter made mention of a telephonic conversation between Shri Jawed Ashraf, Joint Secretary in the Prime Ministers Office and Mr. Luis Vassy, Diplomatic Adviser to the French Minister of Defence, which took place on 20.10.2015. The government, on its part, has denied any irregularities in the Rafale deal that was signed as an inter-governmental agreement between the two countries. Under the agreement, French defence manufacturer, Dassault Aviation will supply 36 Rafale fighter jets to Indian Air Force in phased manner. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday informed a Delhi court that Deepak Talwar, who has been brought to India from the UAE in connection with a money-laundering case, has links with fugitive liquor baron Vijay Mallya. To support its allegation, the EDs lawyer submitted the copy of a purported email correspondence in 2018 between Talwar and Mallya, who is wanted in India to face charges of financial irregularities running into thousands of crores of rupees. Earlier this month, the UK home secretary signed an order to extradite Mallya to India, almost two months after the Westminster Magistrates Court upheld Indias evidence against him and cleared his extradition. Investigation has revealed his (Talwars) links with fugitive Vijay Mallya when both the said persons were evading the process of law, and the investigation on the said aspect is ongoing for determining the trail of the tainted money in the instant case, the ED told the Delhi court. The ED brought Talwar to India in January-end on allegations that he acted as a middleman in negotiations to favour foreign private airlines causing the loss to national carrier Air India. He was initially sent to the EDs custody for seven days. On Thursday, the court extended his custody till February 12. Talwar is accused of criminal conspiracy and forgery under the Indian Penal Code and under various other sections of the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act for allegedly diverting Rs 90.72 crore of foreign funds received by his NGO from a missile manufacturing company. Companies associated with Talwar were paid in excess of Rs 230 crore in connection with a 2009 case involving Air India, the ED told the court. By questioning Talwar, the agency said, it wants to find out the names of officials the civil aviation ministry, the National Aviation Company of India Ltd (NACIL) and Air India who are suspected to have helped the alleged lobbyist. The ED said his custody was essential to probe the tainted money that he allegedly received through different channels. Talwars counsel, Tanveer Ahmad Mir, told the court that his client was being hounded by the agency to take name of the politicians. Congress has extended an olive branch to actor-politician Kamal Hassan to join the grand alliance, a day after he announced that his party Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) would go solo in the Lok Sabha elections. The move has not gone down well with Congresss partner in Tamil Nadu, DMK, which Kamal has said was corrupt a day earlier. Besides calling ruling AIADMK also corrupt, he had urged Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) of Ramadoss and DMDK of actor Vijayakanth not to have any truck with the Dravidian majors. The DMK which had ignored the actor so far, was quick to respond, describing him as one who could not take a political stand on any issue. However, playing the role of a peacemaker, newly appointed TNCC president KS Alagiri appealed to the actor to come forward to join the DMK-Congress coalition. If Kamal wants to protect secularism, he should make an alliance with Congress-DMK coalition. If he comes to our alliance, we will consider his demands, Alagiri told newspersons. Also read: Rajinikanth meets Kamal Haasan While Congress has openly invited the MNM, the DMK appears to be in no mood to accommodate Kamal. We have already made clear our stand that we are not ready to join hands with Kamal. We cannot tolerate his diatribe against the DMK and terming our party as corrupt, said R S Bharathi, organising secretary, DMK. Vaagai Chandrasekaran, a DMK legislator and a celluloid star of the 80s, told HT that by criticising the DMK, Kamal was trying to satisfy certain vested interests and gain political mileage. Kamal has tried to forge an alliance with Congress. Since Congress has shut the doors to the MNM, he has been criticising DMK. It shows his political immaturity, he said. Kamal says that our party is corrupt. However, the same actor had praised our late leader M Karunanidhi on several occasions. While Kamal has been praising our late leader Karunanidhi as one who inspired him to take an interest in Tamil, he had conveniently forgotten that it was the patriarch who had led the party for over five decades, Chandrasekar said. Speaking about Congresss invite Kamal, a senior party leader said, When Thirunavukkarasar was the TNCC president, Kamal had engaged him in talks and had hoped to get at least one seat for the MNM from the Congress quota. Now, things have changed with a new president for the TNCC. Also, Kamal was not promised anything by the Congress high command. However, the new chief has welcomed him to the DMK-Congress fold. The ball is now in Kamals court. However, MNM sources said they were never interested in joining hands with the DMK or the AIADMK. Kamal has already said that he is ready to forge an alliance with Congress if the national party ends its ties with the Dravidian party. Since Congress is not ready to lose DMKs friendship, we have decided to contest on our own in all the 40 seats including Puducherry, said an executive committee member of MNM who did not wish to be identified as he is not authorised to speak to the media. The Bhupesh Baghel government in Chhattisgarh has decided to withdraw cases against agents of chit fund companies which were registered in the last seven years. The government is also working on a policy to return the money of investors who were duped in chit fund scams during the erstwhile BJP government. A cabinet meeting held on Tuesday evening approved the decision to initiate the process of taking back the cases. Congress in its election manifesto promised that criminal cases against local youths who worked as agents of these chit fund companies will be taken back. During its election campaign, the Congress had raised the issue of alleged chit fund scam worth Rs 5,000 crore and claimed it was committed under the protection of the Raman Singh government in the state. The party had promised to probe the alleged scam and take action against the guilty. As many as 286 agents were arrested between 2012 and 2018. Total 424 cases were registered in connection with irregular chit fund companies in the state in which about 2,70,616 investors had deposited around Rs 1,105 crore, informed Taran Prakash Sinha, director, public relations, Chhattisgarh government. A senior police official looking after the case said that around 200 chit fund companies were operating in Chhattisgarh in the last seven years and all of them are under scanner. The cabinet also discussed about the formulating a policy to return of money to investors, who were mostly villagers. The government will study the model of other states where investors money have been returned by the state and then formulate a policy regarding this, said a senior official in chief ministers office. Meanwhile, the BJP alleged that Congress is misleading the people and has not given the exact date for returning the money of the villagers. In their (Congress) manifesto, they said that will return the money as soon as they will come in power and now Congress is saying that a policy will be made. Congress is misleading people and will not return the money, BJP spokesperson Sachidanand Upasane said. On allegations of BJP leaders being involved in the chit fund scam, he said it was BJP which made strict laws against chit fund companies in Chhattisgarh. We have started an awareness drive due to which chit fund companies fled from state. Disgruntled BJP leader Shatrughan Sinha has once again praised Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Twitter, saying he has improved tremendously in a short span of time. The outspoken actor-politician also complimented Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his speech in Parliament but added a word of caution. Great speech in Parliament by the charming leader & Congress President Rahul Gandhi @RahulGandhi. His responses were with facts & quite impressive. Really must say he has improved tremendously with maturity in a short span. He is high on confidence especially after his party won 3 states in the recently concluded elections, Shatrughan Sinha tweeted. Our Honble PM was also in his elements in his speech, though the enthusiasm could have been higher as lots needs to be done, with limited time on hand. Transparency & honesty has to rule. Jai Hind! (sic) he said. It was not clear which speech he was talking about. Shatrughan Sinha, the two-time Lok Sabha MP from Patna Sahib, has openly praised Rahul Gandhi in the past. He had credited the Congress president for the massive revolutionary victory of the main opposition party in the assembly elections in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan in December last year. Watch video: Shatrughan Sinha praises Rahul Gandhi for Congress performance in Assembly elections Before that, Sinha had called Gandhi a show stealer after his speech in the Lok Sabha during the debate on a no-confidence motion in July last year. Asaduddin Owaisi (AIMIM) was effective & sharp, saying a lot in few words, Tariq Anwar (NCP) was effective just as Farooq Abdullah (JKNC), was short and crisp to the point, all highly appreciated & applauded but for me the one who stole the show was Rahul Gandhi....3>4 he had tweeted. Sinha has in the past lashed out at his own party leaders on national and state issues, often from public platforms. He has also targeted Prime Minister Modi on issues like rising fuel prices, demonetisation, Rafale deal and the Vijay Mallya case. Also read: Narendra Modi a real action hero, Mamata Banerjee perfect for PM: Shatrughan Sinha He has recently been advised by Bihars deputy CM and senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi to leave the party. Modi said Sinha had fallen into bad company of Yashwant Sinha. Also read: BJP finally tells off Shatrughan: Quit if you dont like it here Karnataka chief minister HD Kumaraswamy on Friday accused the BJP of trying to dislodge the state government as he released two audio clips purportedly of opposition leader BS Yeddyurappa allegedly poaching JD(S) legislator Naganagouda Kandkur. The president of the Bharatiya Janata Partys state unit BS Yeddyurappa, on his part, dismissed the audio clips as fake and a concocted story. HD Kumaraswamy released the clips at a hurriedly called press conference hours before presenting the state budget in the assembly. Kumaraswamy claimed Yeddyurappa called Naganagoudas son Sharangouda Kandkur early on Friday attempting to entice his father, who is an MLA from Gurmitkal. The clips feature conversations allegedly between BS Yeddyurappa and Sharangouda Kandkur. The BJP leader made an offer of Rs 25 crore and a ministerial post for his father, Sharangouda Kandkur has alleged. The other was allegedly between Sharangouda and Pritam Gowda, the BJP MLA from Hassan. Is it possible without the knowledge of the Prime Minister? HD Kumaraswamy asked. On one side Narendra Modi is preaching to the country and politicians. On the other side, he is encouraging his friends to demolish democracy through black money. I will expose this now, I have the proof to back my charge, he said. Sharangouda said he got a call saying Yeddyurappa wanted to talk to him. I got three calls. The caller said Yeddyurappa is in Devadurga and asked me to go there. I connected the call to chief minister and he heard everything. I said I would ask my father who is the MLA and call back. I didnt want to trap anybody but I am close to the Deve Gowda family. Yeddyurappa has spoken to me many times but I didnt care. But this time I wanted to show my loyalty, he said. At 2am I reached the circuit house. He (Pritam Gowda, Hassan MLA of the BJP) said everything has been approved and there are 12 MLAs. We will help you with election expenditure. He said all of this. He said we have booked the speaker for Rs 50 crore. When I asked him about the Supreme Court, he said (BJP chief) Amit Shah has booked them, he said. He said BS Yeddyurappa was also present during the meeting. The ruling coalition partners Congress and JD(S) have been accusing the BJP of trying to topple their nine-month-old government with various offers, including bribe in cash and ministerial berths, a charge the opposition party has rejected. Senior BJP leader Yeddyurappa said, shortly after Kumaraswamy released the audio clips, that he had not met anyone to woo Naganagouda and the charge against him was far from the truth. The BJP leader said he went to Devadurga, where Sharangouda claimed to have met him and recorded the conversation, to visit a temple and flew back to the city. Yeddyurappa told reporters in the state capital that Kumaraswamy had concocted the story to hide his failures and inability to keep the JD(S) and Congress flock together. It is fake audio... I have not met anyone. Kumaraswamy is trying to hide his failures. This is a drama, Yeddyurappa said. He said the HD Kumaraswamy-led government has lost the trust of the people and had no moral right to continue in office. Kumaraswamy himself is a film producer. He is an expert in voice recording... Whatever the charge he has made is baseless, Yeddyurappa said. He also dismissed a claim by the chief minister that he had spoken in the audio about a Rs 50 crore offer to the assembly speaker. I will retire from politics if it (the allegation) is proved... If I had spoken like this (about the speaker), if it is proved... I will resign as an MLA and quit politics. (With PTI inputs) Karnataka chief minister HD Kumaraswamy is set to present the state budget for 2019-20 on Friday at 12.32 pm, considered an auspicious time a move that has come in for criticism from the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party. This will be the second budget of the Congress-Janata Dal (Secular) coalition government and is set to be along the lines of the one presented in July, in which the chief minister announced the farm loan waiver scheme, which he said, would cost the exchequer Rs 45,000 crore. However, the 2019 budget is set to be read out amid protests by the BJP, whose legislators entered the well of the House for a second day, having ensured on Wednesday that governor Vajubhai Vala cut short his address to the joint sitting of both Houses. They have chosen to present the budget at 12.32 pm because they are afraid this government is set to collapse. That is why they have reposed faith in astrology, BJP leader R Ashok said. Although the BJP claimed that the government did not enjoy a majority, its leaders said they would not move a no-confidence motion against the ruling coalition. In this, the BJP has been emboldened by the continued absence of four rebel Congress MLAs Ramesh Jarkiholi, Mahesh Kumathahalli, Umesh Jadhav and B Nagendraand MLA J N Ganesh, who is absconding after a brawl with a colleague at a Bengaluru resort. At present, the coalition enjoys the support of 117 MLAs 79 of the Congress, 37 of the JD(S) and one legislator of the Bahujan Samaj Party. This number excludes speaker K R Ramesh Kumar. The BJP, meanwhile, has the support of 104 MLAs. Apart from them, there are two independent MLAs, who withdrew support to the government last month, and are expected by the coalition to vote against the finance bill, if the BJP insists on a division of votes. Speaking to reporters, former chief minister and Congress Legislature Party chief Siddaramaiah condemned the behaviour of the BJP, saying the party did not believe in democracy. The BJP doesnt believe in democracy, if it did its MLAs wouldnt have disrupted the governors speech, he said. Taking on the opposition for its sloganeering in the House on Thursday that the government did not enjoy a majority, Siddaramaiah challenged BJP leaders to move a no-confidence motion. They dont want the assembly to function because they have worked hard to ensure this government falls, they offered money to MLAs, and have even given money to some, according to my information, he added. The former chief minister said the Congress would take a decision on the rebels after the CLP meeting at 9 am on Friday. The whip has been issued...I am an optimist and feel that all the MLAs will be present tomorrow, he said. All India Congress Committee (AICC) secretary in-charge of Karnataka Manicka Tagore alleged the BJP was trying to destabilise an elected government through horse-trading. A desperate BJP is using every agency to destabilise the JD(S)-Congress government but we have the numbers and the coalition will not only remain intact but also win all the Lok Sabha seats in the upcoming elections, he said. Former chief minister and state BJP chief B S Yeddyurappa, though, stuck to the partys claim that the government did not enjoy a majority. This government doesnt have a moral right to present the budget. The people of the state dont have confidence in this government because Congress leaders keep saying Siddaramaiah is their chief minister, he said. With a defiant Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) sticking to its demand for contesting 20-22 seats in the forthcoming general elections, a resurgent Congress, highly enthused by the grand success of Rahul Gandhis maiden rally at Gandhi Maidan on Sunday, has also raised its claim to 15 seats indicating that the two senior allies in the Grand Alliance may be heading for a showdown during the seat sharing talks expected next week. Congress leaders on Thursday said that the RJD should follow Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), neighbouring state Jharkhands lead opposition party, which despite having more legislators in the state assembly (18), settled for only four parliamentary seats and handed over seven seats to the Congress for contesting the ensuing Lok Sabha polls. Congress has only six assembly seats in the Jharkhand assembly. Congress has resurfaced as a strong political power in the country. AICC president and prime ministerial candidate, Rahul Gandhis acceptability among the people of the country has increased phenomenally. The grand success of his maiden rally at the historical Gandhi Maidan, which drew more than 2 lakh people despite several trains being cancelled following the derailment of Seemanchal express in Hajipur, is testimony to his growing popularity. It would be in the larger interest of the state and the Grand Alliance (GA) that RJD makes some sacrifice and lowers its seats demand, said AICC member and Bihar Congress general secretary, Sanjeev Singh. Congress had made its intent public when it vouched 20-20 seat share formula in October last, suggesting that the grand-old-party would adjust some other allies from its own quota of seats but still be considered as an equal partner of the RJD. The formula did not find favour, either from the RJD quarters or other allies in the GA. Singh, however, said for an amicable settlement, his party is proposing 15 seats each for both Congress and RJD while the remaining 10 seats may be sliced up for distribution among remaining GA partners. There should be no hitch on this as the ruling NDA partners BJP and JD (U) have also agreed to contest equal number of seats with 17 each, he said, adding, Congress will no more play on the back foot. We are much stronger than before and hence its time we play on the front foot. A senior leader preferring not to be quoted said that if the RJD doesnt relent, Congress might well go into the polls with smaller parties led by leaders like Sharad Yadav, Pappu Yadav, Upendra Kushwaha and Jitan Ram Majhi. In fact, the relations between RJD and RLSP have not been sweet. RLSP chief Upendra Kushwaha joined the GA at the behest of Congress leaders and hence he is more loyal to the grand old party. RJD leaders too have maintained no-love-no-hate relationship with their RLSP counterparts. On Saturday, RLSP chief was badly injured in a lathicharge by police in Patna and had to be hospitalized. Several GA leaders barring Tejashwi Yadav visited Kushwaha at the hospital. Come election season, and the Emoor Bhagwati temple on the outskirts of Palakkad witnesses an unusual rush. Candidates and their hangers-on, even ticket-seekers, throng the temple to seek the blessings of the idol two hands, believed to be those of Goddess Parvati. The reason for the popularity of the temple goes back at least four decades. The urban legend is that after the 1975-77 Emergency, when former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi lost the election and the party symbol, the cow and calf, she chose one of the hands as her party symbol after hearing about the temple. In 1982, after storming back to power, she visited the temple for thanksgiving and presented a big temple bell, said temple manager P Mohanasundaran. Former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi coming out of the hand temple after offering prayers: (HT Photo) One of the hands symbolises Goddess Parvatis fearlessness and other, the ability to come out of any difficulties, said the manager, although he refused to name those who have been visiting the temple in recent days. Going by the CPI(M)s dialectical materialism, naturally, leaders of Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party top the list of visitors. It is obvious for politicians to throng the temple in trying times, said another official at the shrine. Also known as Hemambika, the temples goddess is worshipped as Saraswati in the morning, Lakshmi at noon, and Durga in the evening. Besides Kerala, politicians from neighbouring Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh also flock to the temple. The governments Malabar Devasom Board manages the temple. For us the temple is part of our history. It is believed that former Supreme Court judge PS Kailasam and his wife Soundara Kailasam, also a Tamil poet and mother-in-law of former minister P Chidambaram, told Indira Gandhi about the temple and its legend. Gandhi then consulted party strongman K Karunakaran, former CM of Kerala, and decided to make one of the hands the party symbol, claimed district Congress committee president VK Sreekandan. Gandhi visited the temple on December 13, 1982, he added. Many politicians claim privately that a visit to the temple brings them luck. The district Congress committee wants Congress president Rahul Gandhi to offer prayers at the temple when he campaigns in the state. The Punjab and Haryana high court has directed the Punjab Police to ensure safety of life and liberty of a newlywed Sangrur couple 67-year-old Shamsher Singh and 24-year-old Navpreet Kaur. Shamsher of Balian village of Dhuri subdivision and Navpreet tied the knot at a Chandigarh gurdwara in January and the pictures of their wedding were widely circulated on the social media. They approached the high court, saying they faced a threat to their safety from their families and relatives. It was an odd marriage and the families did not accept this relationship. So, the couple moved the HC, arguing that their lives are in danger from their families and relatives. On February 4, the court directed the SSPs of Sangrur and Barnala district to ensure their safety, Mohit Sadana, the counsel said. The couple refused to make a comment but their counsel said the marriage was legal. They are adults and have every right to solemnise the marriage. The marriage is legal as neither has a living spouse, Sadana said. Sangrur SSP Sandeep Garg confirmed the HC order and said the couple will be given protection as per the law. The police will follow the order and provide security, he said. Shamshers relatives reportedly objected to the odd marriage, but the couple rubbished the allegations through their counsel. A two-judge bench of the Pakistani Supreme Court has directed all state agencies, including the government, army and intelligence to operate within their mandates. The court was delivering its verdict on a 2017 sit-in staged by groups, including the Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), against an amendment to the declaration that public office holders are required to make. The Pakistani government reversed its amendment, but was unable to end the protests without involving the all-powerful army. The Supreme Court has censured the role played by the army and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) during the protest. The perception that the ISI may be involved in or interferes with matters an intelligence agency should not be concerned with, including politics, therefore was not put to rest, the court said. This is remarkable because the army and the ISI are rarely castigated in this manner by either the government or the judiciary in Pakistan. The supreme court had also done its reputation no harm by upholding the acquittal of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman charged with blasphemy, despite widespread outrage by hardline elements in Pakistani society and clergy. If the Pakistani judiciary can make independent decisions like these in the future, it is certainly to be welcomed. However, the track record of the Supreme Court does not inspire confidence. The Supreme Court of Pakistan has, on multiple occasions, helped the Pakistani army in its nefarious designs against the civilian government. The former prime minister Nawaz Sharif was ousted from office in 2017 on a trivial charge of failing to reveal a potential income from a Dubai-based company. Acting in the manner it did, the court dashed all hopes of finally a Pakistani prime minister completing his full tenure. Before Sharif, Yousaf Raza Gilani was also dismissed from the prime ministership in 2012 on charges of contempt of court. The controversial dismissal of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in 1996 was upheld by the court without much of a problem. In addition, the Supreme Court has had no objection to the Pakistan armys idea of using military courts to try terrorism-related offences. The Indian citizen Kulbhushan Jadhav has been given a death sentence by a military court against all known norms of jurisprudence. This latest show of spine by the Supreme Court is good, but it remains to be seen how long it will last. A man killed a married woman, 18 years older than him, after she rejected his marriage proposal in outer Delhis Nangloi, police said Thursday. Shyam Yadav, a native of Pansalwa in Madhubani district of Bihar, wanted to marry 45-year-old Madhuri. Both of them worked at a shoe factory where Yadav allegedly fell in love with her. Since the woman was already married, the proposal did not interest her, police said. The woman left the job after sensing Yadavs desperation for her. This was not the end of her ordeal as Yadav started following her and eventually stabbed her to death Wednesday. Officials of Nangloi police station were informed regarding stabbing of a woman on Wednesday, following which they rushed to the spot, police said. The woman was taken to a nearby hospital where she was declared brought dead, Seju Kuruvilla, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Outer) said. The womans daughter told police that she was killed in front of her by one Shyam. Based on her statement, a case was registered and an investigation was taken up, he said. The arrest was made after the police received a tip off that the accused would come at Shiv Bux Park in Nangloi. Subsequently, he was apprehended from the spot and the knife used in the crime was recovered at his instance, he added. The accused was planning to leave Delhi after killing the woman, the officer said. Further investigation is underway, police said. On the intervening night of Wednesday and Thursday, within a span of just nine hours, two cases of murder and one of attempt to murder, for resisting a robbery, were reported from the Nangloi and Mundka areas of outer Delhi. In the first case, a 45-year-old woman, Madhuri Jha, was stabbed to death in front of her 11-year-old daughter allegedly by her co-worker for rejecting his marriage proposal. In the second case, a 35-year-old man was stabbed to death in front of his wife allegedly by two of his friends. The murders took place between 7pm Wednesday and 3am on Thursday in Nangloi and Kavita Colony, both under the jurisdiction of the Nangloi police station. Police said in the womans murder, they have arrested her 27-year-old co-worker, Shyam Yadav. The knife that he used in the murder was also recovered from him, additional deputy commissioner of police (outer) Rajender Singh Sagar said. Police are yet to nab the suspects in the other two crimes. The additional DCP said Jha lived with her husband and four children two daughters and two sons in Nangloi and worked at a shoe factory in the same locality. Yadav also worked in the factory and the two knew each other for the past two years. Yadav is also married and has children. Yadav fell in love with the woman and wanted to marry her. However, she rejected his proposal. When Yadav started pressuring her, she quit her job and changed her home, a police officer said. The womans family has alleged that she had filed a police complaint against Yadav some days ago but no action was taken against him. The police claimed that it was a dispute over money and they were probing the case. On Wednesday around 7pm, Yadav came to the womans home and proposed again. When the woman snubbed him yet again, he allegedly stabbed her in front of her daughter. When the girl tried to save her mother, Yadav pushed her to the floor and fled, police said. Sagar said the woman was rushed to Sanjay Gandhi Memorial hospital where she was declared brought dead. A murder case was registered on her daughters complaint and Yadav was arrested on Thursday morning, he said. In the second murder case, Deepak (goes by a single name), a man with seven criminal cases against him, was stabbed to death allegedly by his two friends during a dinner party at his home early Thursday. Police said Deepak was stabbed in the thigh and he bled to death. The suspects have a criminal record. Efforts are on to nab them, the DCP said. In the third crime that took place in Mundka, a 36-year-old collection agent of a lime plaster factory was shot and injured during a robbery attempt, around 7.30pm Wednesday. Police said Brij Pal was on his motorcycle, with the days collection, of about Rs1 lakh, in his bag. Two unidentified men stopped him near the Rani Khera underpass and tried to snatch his bag. When Pal resisted, one of them fired at him and the attackers fled with his bag. We have registered a case and are looking for the suspects, Sagar said. Why is the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) angry with its oldest ally, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)? What caused the party to vent publicly by skipping the National Democratic Alliances (NDA) January 31 pre-Budget meeting? For record, the SAD, through its leader and Rajya Sabha MP Naresh Gujral, cited as the ignition point the Maharashtra governments alleged interference in Sikh affairs. The conferment of Padma awards on SS Dhindsa and HS Phoolka also took the SAD by surprise. Dhindsa was once the secretary-general of the SAD and Phoolka was until recently a leader of the Aam Aadmi Party. They both arent on the best of terms with the Badal family, especially former deputy chief minister Sukhbir Badal and his wife Harsimrat Kaur, who is a Union minister. The SADs unease was compounded when the Padma list was released close on the heels of a critical statement by Dhindsa; the Badals later diplomatically complimented him for the honour. For his part, Phoolka has plans to open a broader front with a campaign to free the SAD-controlled Shriomani Gurdwara Prabhandak Committee (SGPC) from the clutches of politicians. As a lawyer who for years worked for justice for the victims of the 1984 riots, he is held in high esteem by the Sikh community across the country. The SAD is also miffed with the BJP for not being consulted in the formulation of farm-related policies. Sukhbir Badal was kept waiting despite two requests for a meeting with Amit Shah (the BJP president reached out to him only when the SAD stayed away from the NDA meet). Shah is believed to have promised Sukhbir Badal that he will make the Devendra Fadnavis regime in Maharashtra withdraw the contentious amendment to the Takht Sri Nanded Board Act. The Akalis are particularly angry with the changes that vest the state government with the power to appoint the president of the shrines board. This happened in 2015, after which the BJP installed one of its legislators, Tara Singh, at the helm in the board of the Takht Hazur Sabih, where Guru Gobind Singh breathed his last. The matter came to a head with the completion of the incumbents tenure last October. The Akalis perceived Tara Singh as a nominee of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which has a record of interfering in the Sikhs religious affairs the SAD considers its exclusive domain. In the year 2000, there was a major controversy when the then RSS chief KS Sudarshan said the Sikhs were a part of Hinduism, and their faith was originally crafted to defend Hindus against the tyranny of Mughal rulers. The comments, made at a meeting of an RSS affiliate, the Rashtriya Sikh Sangat, caused a furore in the community. It eventually led to the Sangh accepting Sikhism as a faith distinct from Hinduism in a submission to the national minorities commission. In the manner of other NDA allies, such as the Janata Dal (United) and the Lok Janshakti Party, the Akalis are discomfited by alleged attacks on other minorities by the BJP-RSS fringe. They are worried about the vicarious consequences of such incidents on their base among Muslims and Christians. Taking a leaf out of the Shiv Senas book in Maharashtra, the Akalis are keen to show that they arent without choices other than the BJP in Punjab. Their brinkmanship game has lately entailed flaunting the option of an alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). The BSPs founder, the late Kanshi Ram, hailed from Ropar in Punjab. He first entered Lok Sabha in 1996 from Hoshiarpur while contesting in alliance with the SAD. The pact disintegrated when the BSP aligned with the Congress in Uttar Pradesh in 1996. In a multitude of uncertainties about the 2019 polls, there is one fact we can all agree on: This will not be a wave election. There is neither an upsurge of support for Prime Minister Narendra Modi nor any sort of mass rage against him (of the kind the Congress had to face in 2014). On the ground, there is, however, clear discontent and simmering anger with the government over economic issues, especially the jobs crisis and agrarian distress. This can erupt in many localised pockets.The Bharatiya Janata Party strategy apart from redressal through welfare schemes in the interim budget is to look for other headlines to deflect from the narrative about a desultory economic situation. Hindutva is one such election headline and corruption is evidently the other. Both the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) swoop in West Bengal in relation to a chit fund scam and the interrogation of Robert Vadra by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on charges of money laundering are to fortify this counter-narrative. The problem is this: The BJP has got its timing all wrong. In the Saradha chit fund case, the CBI is technically correct in arguing that its investigation was Supreme Court mandated and hence its officials did not need any warrants when they arrived to question Kolkata police commissioner Rajeev Kumar. But the argument comes across as disingenuous because the court order was passed in 2014. For nearly two years there was not even procedural forward movement in the investigation. In the meantime, big names from the Trinamool Congress like Mukul Roy, who had been linked to the scam, crossed over to the BJP and were suddenly absolved of corruption allegations. When case files that have only been gathering dust are suddenly taken out, the BJPs weapon of attack gets blunted. Yes, it was inappropriate for serving police officers to join the dharna led by Mamata Banerjee. But if the Bengal police can be accused of politicisation, so, too, must the CBI for becoming an instrument of political muscle flexing for the BJP. In this zero sum game, it is difficult for the BJP to build an authentic case. The same mistake has been made with regard to Robert Vadra. In the 2014 campaign, Narendra Modi himself would mock the Gandhi family and the businessman-husband of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. The Damaad-ji swipe became a favourite taunt to the Congress. At the time, there was likely little public sympathy for Vadra. Had the investigative agencies questioned him in the early years of the Modi government, the political effect may have been much more potent. In both the states of Haryana and Rajasthan, where Vadra is alleged to have struck contentious land deals, the BJP was in power. Yet, despite a window of several years, neither state closed any clinching case against Vadra. The present controversy/allegations of links with arms dealer Sanjay Bhandari and the charge of benami property in London has also been in the public domain for over two years. Journalists across television networks broke this story in 2016. So, if there was indeed enough evidence to make a concrete case, what was the BJP government and the relevant agencies doing all this while? The way this now comes across to most people is that the timing of the Vadra interrogation is linked to the entry of Priyanka Gandhi in electoral politics. The partys new general secretary in charge of east UP also made a bold political statement by accompanying her husband to the ED office and then driving from there to take charge at the party headquarters. Priyankas message was clear: Neither she nor the Congress was going to shy away from taking the issue head on. It was almost a dare to the Modi government. What she told the media that she will stand by her husband and her family is exactly what millions of Indians would have said in her position. By moving against Vadra in the same week that Priyanka Gandhi officially embraced her new political role, the BJP has miscalculated badly. Not just do their motives seem suspect, they betray a certain degree of panic. Without getting into the merits of the cases that either the CBI or the ED is trying to build against different opposition leaders, the fact that it is all happening one month before the model code of conduct kicks in, could well boomerang on the BJP. Several right-wing supporters are puzzled at why the government was in paralysis on these cases all these years. To act in the twilight of its tenure is not smart politics. It may have handed over the advantage to the opposition. Barkha Dutt is an award-winning journalist and author The views expressed are personal A parliamentary panel wants the finance ministry to spell out steps to make Indias credit rating agencies more accountable and transparent in the backdrop of the crisis at the highly rated finance firm Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS). The panel wants the government to end the practice of agencies getting paid by the companies that want credit ratings, a business model that has often come under criticism. We want the government to change rules so that firms seeking ratings should pay Sebi [Securities and Exchange Board of India] instead of rating agencies for their work. This will possibly make the system more transparent and the chances of manipulation will reduce, said a senior member of the panel. Another member pointed out that investors also go by credit ratings before buying mutual funds or parking money in fixed deposits. A wrong rating can create a havoc for common investors who park their hard earned money in financial instruments. Earlier this week, members of the standing committee on finance met representatives from credit rating agencies and ministry officials to discuss the functioning of the agencies. During the interactions, several members, including panel chairman Veerappa Moily and Trinamool Congress leader Saugata Ray, drew a parallel between the IL&FS crisis and the Lehmann Brothers collapse and pointed out that both firms were given the highest credit rating. We were of the firm opinion that these agencies have failed not only in the IL&FS case, but also in the infrastructure sector. Look at how many infra companies are in the red despite enjoying good credit ratings, said a senior member of the panel. Credit rating agencies are currently regulated by market regulator Sebi through regulations formed in 1999. Such agencies usually engage in the rating of financial instruments. The ratings assigned by agencies reflect their opinion about the credit risk associated with the financial product taking into account factors such as business and industry situation, financial aspects, and capabilities of the management. Currently there are seven such agencies registered with Sebi out of which three CRISIL, ICRA and CAREare listed in the stock market. Several restrictions are already in place for the rating bodies and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) also conducts an annual review. Guidelines on their objectivity, independence, transparency and disclosures are issued periodically. The law regulating them was amended last year to hike the minimum net worth requirement of credit agencies, from ~5 crore to ~25 crore, and to restrict cross-holdings at a maximum of 10%. The average Indian student who starts an undergraduate course in economics in the next academic session would have been born after 2001. This is a decade after India adopted economic reforms, which drastically changed the economic landscape, both in material and intellectual terms. Economies and societies change with time. Not all changes are for the good. Post-reform India has brought a new set of challenges. But one can say with some degree of confidence that despite problems like systemic agrarian distress, lack of remunerative jobs, and an impending day of reckoning on the ecological front, post-reform India is better than the nation we had before 1991 at least in material terms. Two attributes complicate any long-term and structural economic decision making in India. It is the worlds largest democracy. So, economics must negotiate its way through politics. And, we are a country of large economic inequality both across class and regions. This complicates the interaction of politics and economics. These two challenges also demand a far more nuanced intellectual approach to economic policy-making in India than what one often comes across in the public discourse. Unfortunately, very little of this nuance can be seen in our public discourse. Among the biggest reasons for this is the lack of historical knowledge about the processes and intellectual trends which shaped our post-independence economic evolution. Knowing and analysing the Bombay Plan, an economic agenda for newly independent India written and released by the biggest industrial leaders including the proverbial Tata-Birlas is one of the basic requirements of developing such an understanding. It is on this count that Sanjaya Baru and Meghnad Desai have done a service to the popular economic discourse by taking the step to publish a set of essays on the Bombay Plan, along with the original document. Some details from the Plan would be seen as radical today. Imagine a group of capitalists saying that people should be entitled to 2,800 kilo calories of nutritional intake everyday. Subsequent poverty lines are associated with much lower levels. Similarly, there is a passage in the Plan which makes a virtue of deficit financing, provided it was used for investment purposes. Business houses squirm at the talk of government not meeting its fiscal deficit targets today. Of course, these are tidbits when compared to the fact that Indias biggest capitalist leaders wrote an economic document arguing for state control over the economy. This, as Ajay Chibber rightly points out in the book, shows that the parenthood of Indias shift to State Planning is hard to pin on Prime Minister Nehru alone. Even the top industrialists of that time, JRD Tata and GD Birla, were pushing for State control and planning as co-authors of the Bombay Plan. Other essays including those by the editors offer interesting views on not just the plan but also Indias post-independence economic trajectory. One need not agree with all the views which have been presented, but the writings do trigger some interesting questions. For example, most of the essays highlight the fact that the Bombay Plan argued for a dismantling of landlordism in the Indian economy. However, history shows that the Indian capitalist class did not offer any concrete assistance to what was then a strong movement for land reforms in the country. Was this a manifestation of reluctance on the part of Indias big capitalists to take on entrenched vested interests in the rural economy? Similarly, while most authors highlight the concern of authors of the Bombay Plan towards economic inequalities, none of them says anything remarkable about the concern for social inequality. The role of caste in perpetuating inequality in India was given a lot of attention by the founding fathers or our Constitution and rightly so. On the other hand, many pro-reform voices who criticise the Indian state for imposing fetters on freedom of capital and enterprise after independence have remained silent about the unfreedom imposed by caste on freedom of mobility in the labour markets. Also, the Bombay Plan is a big vindication of the fact that policies and intellectual currents should not be seen in isolation. Had Jawaharlal Nehru not been influenced by the success of the socialist experiment in the Soviet Union and not championed the socialist cause in the Congress, the Bombay Plan would probably have been very different. Quite a few essays in the book argue that the Plan was an attempt to prevent a radical takeover of private capital after independence under a socialist government. Similarly, it is important to realise that the rising clamour for doing away with all sorts of government intervention in the Indian economy is also because of the fact that Indias capitalist class does not need the state anymore. Things were very different in the 1940s, when imagining a significant capital goods industrial base without state support was almost impossible. There can be many agreements and disagreements with the arguments made in the Bombay Plan and the commentary made in the book. However, one could argue that the Bombay Plan was and continues to be a unique initiative by the Indian capitalist class where they saw their interests as part and parcel of the larger macro economic interests of the Indian economy. More than seven decades after the Bombay Plan was released, India faces a very different set of challenges. Many of these require serious engagement with private capital. However, what is lacking is the initiative which can put individual challenges in a macro perspective. BOOK DETAILS The Bombay Plan - Blueprint for Economic Resurgence edited by Sanjaya Baru and Meghnad Desai Publisher: Rupa Pages: 343 Price: Rs 500 Actor Sushant Singh Rajput may be selective in his choice of projects but the actor has a long list of films lined up for release this year. One of them is Kizie Aur Manny, the Hindi adaptation of successful Hollywood film Fault In Our Stars. Now the makers have released the first look of the film besides announcing the title change. The film is being directed by Mukesh Chhabra and is now titled Dil Bechara. The new still shows Sushant and his debutant co-star Sanjana Sanghi with the Eiffel Tower in the background. Earlier, Chhabra had shared a picture of the two from the back while sitting on top of a bus along with an oxygen cylinder. Rucha Pathak, chief creative officer of Fox Star Studios has specified the reason for the title change in a Mumbai Mirror report. She said, AR Rahman, who is composing the music, shared a vibrant and fun number, with lyrics penned by Amitabh Bhattacharya. When we heard the song, we found our title in it. It perfectly embodies the theme of our film. Also read: Also read: Shah Rukh Khan sweeps bride off her feet with romantic gesture at Azhar Moranis sangeet. See pics, video The report also says that Saif Ali Khan is now a part of the film. Chhabra has said in the report that the actor was in Paris for a special cameo. He, however, confirmed that the song sequence shot in the city doesnt show Sushant and Sanjana dancing around the Eiffel Tower. Chhabra is a casting director and is making his directorial debut with the film. He was named in the #MeToo movement with two anonymous women accusing him of sexual harassment in a Mid-Day report. He had responded to the allegations by issuing a notice to the publication and also shared it on the social media while asking for details of the complainants. Follow @htshowbiz for more Alia Bhatt said on Thursday she will apologise to Kangana Ranaut on personal level if she was upset with her. The Raazi actors response comes days after Kangana lashed out at her for not responding to her gestures. In a recent interview, Kangana had spoken out about how people in the industry, including Aamir Khan and Alia, did not support her during the release of Manikarnika. Kangana said while she had turned up for the screenings of Dangal, Secret Superstar and Raazi, Alia and Aamir failed to respond during the release of her film. Replying to a question, Alia said, I hope she doesnt dislike me and I dont think she dislikes me. I dont think I have done anything intentionally to upset her. If I have, I will apologise to her on a personal level. The actor, who is currently promoting her upcoming film Gully Boy with Ranveer Singh, said she has always admired Kangana. Also read: Is Rani of Jhansi my chachi? Kangana Ranaut vows to expose Bollywood gang that ignored Manikarnika. Watch video But I have always said that I have admired her a lot as an actor and a person. She is very outspoken and it takes courage to be that way. I wasnt aware of this problem or anything, I was busy with the shooting. So yes, what can I say, I dont want to upset anybody, Alia said in an interview on Thursday. Kangana on Thursday claimed that the industry had ganged up against her for her nepotism comment but she was not afraid. The actor can be seen saying in a video interview, one thing is for sure, Im not going to spare anyone. Main inki waat laga dungi, ek ek ko expose karungi (I will make their lives hell, and I will expose every single one of them), Kangana said in a video of the interaction. (With HT inputs) Follow @htshowbiz for more President Donald Trump declared victory against the ISIS in December 2018 and decided to withdraw all US forces from Syria. He also announced that the US would withdraw half the troops from Afghanistan in about two months. Both decisions contravene carefully formulated strategies to defeat the Islamic State, al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban. In Afghanistan, in particular, Trump has unwittingly handed over the initiative to the Taliban. After vacillating for over six months, the US President announced his administrations policy for the resolution of the conflict in Afghanistan in August 2017 as part of his strategy for South Asia. Contrary to his campaign promise to pull out, he pledged continuing US support for diplomatic, military and financial commitment to peace and stability and political reconciliation. In a major departure from the policies of the Obama administration, Trump invited India to help the US to work towards conflict resolution in Afghanistan. As was widely anticipated, Trump put Pakistan on notice for encouraging terrorist organisations to destabilise neighbouring countries and warned the country that it has much to lose by continuing to harbour criminals and terrorists. But despite immense American pressure, Pakistans ISI has continued to support several factions of the Afghan Taliban and provide them safe havens. The present situation in Afghanistan can be described as a strategic stalemate. The Afghan National Army (ANA), supported by the US-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), is not losing but the resurgent Taliban now controls about one-third of the country. While the ANA controls most of the large towns, the writ of the Taliban runs in huge areas of the countryside. One estimate suggests the direct war-related casualties number 111,000 dead and 116,000 wounded in the last two decades. The Taliban continues to haunt government forces. Sporadic strikes by terrorists belonging to ISIS Khorasan the local branch of the ultra-extremist Islamic State to stoke sectarian conflict by attacking the Shias continue unabated. Governance is weak, crime is rampant and corruption and tax evasion are widespread. The presidential election that was scheduled for April 2019 has been postponed to July 2019. Till a week back, efforts to find a negotiated end to the conflict had not made much headway. Though there is general agreement that reconciliation negotiations should be Afghan-led and Afghan-owned, the Taliban consistently refused to meet representatives of the Afghan government. A parallel Russian initiative, called the Moscow format, succeeded in bringing together the Taliban and Afghan representatives but the Afghans were from the High Peace Council, a national but non-government institution. The reconciliation talks between the US special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad and representatives of the Taliban did not see any forward movement because the Taliban negotiators were stalling for time. The withdrawal of troops ordered by President Trump further emboldened the Taliban and weakened the Afghan government. One of the Taliban leaders gloated that it has defeated the worlds lone super power. The group demanded the withdrawal of all foreign forces without itself making any concessions and the Trump administration, eager to pull out, has apparently conceded. Given its geographical location on the strategic crossroads to the Central Asian Republics (CARs) and West Asia, a peaceful and stable Afghanistan is a vital national interest for India. India has not been invited to join ISAF; nor is there any support for military intervention in Indias policy community. However, after being kept away from the high table by the George W Bush and Obama administrations in deference to Pakistans sensibilities, India is now being urged by the Trump administration to do more to help resolve the conflict. India has invested over $3 billion in reconstruction projects in Afghanistan, donated four Mi-25 attack helicopters, provided training to Afghan military personnel, civilian pilots and administrators and has been regularly providing humanitarian aid and medical supplies. The Indian embassy in Kabul and Indian consulates as well as road construction protection parties of ITBP have been attacked by the Taliban and have suffered a large number of casualties. Till very recently, the Indian position for conflict resolution was that there should be no negotiations with the Taliban as it is a terrorist organisation. Yet, India sent two former diplomats as unofficial observers to the Moscow conference with the Taliban. India appears to have now accepted that negotiations for conflict resolution cannot be Afghan-led and Afghan-owned without talking to the Taliban leadership. With the withdrawal of US-led ISAF likely to begin soon, the cliched Taliban taunt, You have the watches, but we have the time, has begun to ring true. The worst case scenario for India would be the Talibans return to power in Kabul. If that happens, Pakistans ISI would be sure to divert many of the hard core Taliban fighters of the factions over which it has control to Kashmir. Indias national interest lies in formulating a comprehensive strategy, jointly with the Afghan government, that ensures that a Taliban takeover can be prevented. Gurmeet Kanwal is former director, Centre for Land Warfare Studies, New DelhiThe views expressed are personal What do the Dalit youth want? The standard political wisdom seems to be still stuck in the 1980s and has missed the rapid sociopolitical change in the post-liberalisation era. The demography has changed; increasing urbanisation and education levels, coupled with the rise of the subaltern castes to political power, has given birth to a new generation of Dalits who are far more assertive and aspirational than what society and politics is willing to concede. Unlike their parent generation, which simply sought dignity and nominal representation in the state apparatus as guaranteed by the reservations, the Dalit youth today seek a share in real power and decision making. The increasing education levels and exposure to the wider world, thanks to the internet revolution, mean that they are no longer satisfied with the promise of a life free from caste-based violence and discrimination. They want faster socioeconomic mobility and affluence just like other sections of the youth today. This generation rejects the old Congress model of clientelism with Dalits as the recipient of the patronage of the dominant castes in power but instead seeks to democratise the access to the power itself. And the political parties and institutions are at a loss about how to deal with this new generation. The cluelessness shows when upper caste leaders of political parties arrive to eat at Dalit homes and create an awkward scene. Or when eternally angry activists resort to radical left rhetoric or anti-Hindu rants thinking that it will attract Dalits towards them. The fact is that none of these tamashas (spectacles) appeal to the Dalit youth. They are simply not impressed by dining with such leaders. And long gone are the days of the Dalit Panther and radical decades of the 1960s and 1970s when the allure of communism was strong. In fact, the common Dalit abhors leftists and their politics of pitting Dalits against the might of the state. The educated members of the community point to the extreme landlessness and disempowerment of Dalits and the complete absence of Dalits from the left-dominated academia in West Bengal and Kerala after decades of left rule. The anti-Hindu rhetoric, too, doesnt attract Dalits despite what the academic discourse tells us. The overwhelming majority of Dalits remains Hindu. Buddhism hasnt found significant takers beyond some sections of castes like the Mahars in Maharashtra and Jatavs in western Uttar Pradesh. At the same time, Dalit youth is also not too enamoured by the Hindu right despite the significant rightward shift in the recent years. The main reason is that the lack of genuine power sharing and absence of Dalit icons and heroes from the Hindutva and nationalist ecosystem. Instead, what Dalit youth seek is an alternative vision best described by BR Ambedkar as Prabuddh Bharat (an enlightened India). It is an urban-industrial modern India, which is a post-caste society with gender equality, that stirs the imagination of the Dalit youth. They do not seek the village dystopia of the Gandhians, Samajwadis and the upper caste orthodoxy, nor do they dream of a Soviet paradise of the left or a post-Hindu India of the missionary demagogues and Islamists. What they seek is something simple: a new India with social mobility and economic prosperity, where birth-based identities become irrelevant. They seek a strong state capable of defending its people and upholding the constitutional rights. Far from the dreams of anarchists, Dalits oppose chaos for they are the biggest losers in every such situation. In a revolution, power never passes on to the people on the ground in whose name chaos is unleashed, but to those standing behind the throne. But today, most of the political parties seem to be out of sync with the Dalit youth, including Dalit-focused parties like the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). Even the new faces of Dalit politics are only giving expression to the opposition voice against the present ruling dispensation rather than putting forward an agenda for the future. The pitch for a new India by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has a strong appeal but it is marred by the lack of adequate representation of Dalits in the power structure. There is also a suspicion that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is anti-reservations. It is clear that Dalit unrest shall continue for years to come till it finds an anchor in a new politics and leadership. Abhinav Prakash Singh is an assistant Professor at SRCC, Delhi University The views expressed are personal Breaking News Updates Would you like to receive our Breaking News updates? Signup today! Calendar Updates Would you like to receive our weekly Calendar updates? Signup today! Deals Updates Would you like to receive Deals updates? Signup today! HICKORY Hickory Day School is now enrolling kindergarten through eighth grade. The campus will be open for visitors to observe classroom interactions and activities from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Wednesday, March 6. Eighth-grade student ambassadors will lead guided tours of campus at 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. with additional Hickory Day School representatives, including current HDS parents, students, and teachers, available for further questions and conversation. For more information, call 828-256-9492. Founded in 1993, Hickory Day School is a non-sectarian, nonprofit, co-education, independent school for students in kindergarten through eighth grade, and is authorized by the International Baccalaureate Organization World School. Hickory Day Schools mission is to instill in its students a love of learning in a unique environment that emphasizes academic excellence, critical-thinking skills, and global perspectives. ASHEVILLE (AP) A contractor accused of bribing several former North Carolina county officials has reached a plea deal with federal prosecutors. The Asheville Citizen-Times reports court records filed Wednesday say Joe Wiseman of Roswell, Ga., will plead guilty to conspiracy to commit honest services fraud. The charge has a maximum sentence of five years in prison. A judge was set to rule Thursday on whether to accept the deal. Prosecutors say Wiseman bribed ex-Buncombe County officials Wanda Greene, Mandy Stone and Jon Creighton for years with items including spa treatments and vacations in exchange for contracts worth millions of dollars. Greene, Stone and Creighton await sentencing on corruption charges. Greenes son and ex-county employee, Michael Greene, awaits sentencing for misusing county-issued credit cards. An investigation of the county government is ongoing in Asheville. Wiseman also has connections to Catawba County. ****************** MID-MONTH MADNESS WINNERS GRAND PRIZE WINNER - Roxanne Cruz BLOG WINNER: Melanie Backus Individual Winners: Nancy: Amazon Gift Card: Connie Ruggles Contest #2 (not sure of prize): Marilyn Ridgeway Naomi: Ebook of Love Coward and swag: Darla Fillmore Catherine: Reader's choice of Destiny Series book: Deb Allard Vicki: Anonymous Bride: Darla Fillmore Mutiny of the Heart: Marilyn Ridgeway Linda: Ebook of Gold Rush Bride Hannah: Avis Powers Ebook of Gold Rush Bride Hannah: Nancy Costello ***************** GIVEAWAY RULES Winners must leave their email address and will be notified by email and the winne r s name will be anno unced in the days comments. No one under 18 can enter our giveaways. No purchase is necessary. All winners have one week to claim their prize. USA shipping only. Offer void where prohibited. Odds of winning vary due to the number of entrants. On July 19, 2018, the Knesset, Israels parliament passed what is known as a basic law, declaring that the State of Israel is the Nation State of the Jewish people. Why did a majority of the 120 members of the Knesset feel it necessary to memorialize in legislation that which was already declared more than 70 years earlier, when on May 14, 1948, David Ben Gurion proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel as the sovereign nation of the Jewish people in their historic homeland? The answer lies in the fact that of all the nations in the world, the existence of no other nation state or identifiable ethnic people is so vigorously challenged, so assiduously opposed, and whose survival is so aggressively threatened as the Jewish people and the Jewish State of Israel. No nation in the world has been more criticized, de-legitimized or condemned by the United Nations in both the Security Council and the General Assembly. These are the very international bodies that recognized the legitimacy of Israels creation and welcomed the newly formed state into the community of nations as a full member. How did this come about? The answer can be found in Arab oil, Muslim extremism and the persistent, and apparently incurable disease of anti-Semitism and its current mutation, anti-Zionism. One would have thought that the slaughter of 6 million Jews during the Holocaust would have been a kind of final catharsis for chronic and historical hatred of Jews; that somehow the wide-spread blood-letting would have made humanity see both the evil and futility of irrational hatred toward Jews; and would have opened the eyes of the people of the world to the great treasure that the Jewish people are and historically have been to all of humanity. Unfortunately, that was not to be. Anti-Semitism is once again rampant throughout the world. Even in the enlightened societies of Western Europe and the United States, armed guards are needed for security at Jewish schools and houses of worship. Ironically, groups in these enlightened societies, who consider themselves oppressed, find time to promote hatred of and separation from Jews, who traditionally have always been on the front lines fighting for equality and justice for the very folks who now disavow Jewish support under the guise of anti-Zionism. So more than 70 years after the re-establishment of the commonwealth of Israel, the world not only questions the legitimacy of the Jewish State as the homeland of the Jewish people, but passively and in many cases actively, accepts the objectives of the Arabs and Muslim extremists to either physically destroy the Jewish State or deny its ethnic, cultural and national identity with the nonsensical concept that Israel cannot be Jewish and democratic at the same time. These are the questions I am left with. Can England be English and democratic? Can France be French and democratic? Can Italy be Italian and democratic? Can Ireland be Irish and democratic? If the answer to these questions is yes, then the only correct answer is also yes for the people who accepted the law handed down at Sinai that has become the fundamental law of all western civilization. Israel is and cannot be anything but Jewish and democratic. The Nation State Law was passed by the democratically elected Knesset because the world has yet to accept the legitimacy of the indigenous and sovereign Jewish people residing in their historical homeland. It is that failure that created the necessity for this legislation; to put the world on notice of the permanency of the sovereignty of the Jewish People and the State of Israel as both a Jewish and democratic state. In you wish to comment or respond you can reach me at melpearlman322@gmail.com. Please do so in a rational, thoughtful, respectful and civil manner. Shabbat Shalom and Happy New Year! Mel Pearlman holds B.S. & M.S. degrees in physics as well as a J.D. degree and initially came to Florida in 1966 to work on the Gemini and Apollo space programs. He has practiced law in Central Florida since 1972. He has served as president of the Jewish Federation of Greater Orlando; was a charter board member, first Vice President and pro-bono legal counsel of the Holocaust Memorial Resource and Education Center of Central Florida, as well as holding many other community leadership positions. (JNS)The Palestinian Authority last week removed a photo from the website of one of its ministries because it showed a meeting of P.A. officials in which bottles of a popular Israeli juice were visible on the table. For friends of Israel, it was another in a long series of mildly amusing incidents in which P.A. officials have gone to absurd lengths to slight the Jewish state. It was all the more entertaining because it exposed the blatant hypocrisy of P.A. officials who call for boycotts of Israeli products while they are enjoying Israeli products. It also fits into a narrative that friends of Israel have been repeating for decades, but which the Arabs never accept: If the Palestinian Arabs would just realize that peace is good for them, they could be enjoying delicious Israeli foods, having easier lives thanks to advanced Israeli technology, be exposed to the latest agricultural techniques and so on. I have a different take on stories about P.A. boycott advocates who violate the boycott. I say: Wait, that doesnt make any sense. The Oslo accords obligate the P.A. to have friendly relations with Israel. Its not allowed to promote a boycott of the Jewish state. J Street and The New York Times keep telling us that we can trust the P.A., that it wants peace, that it honors the treaties it signs. So why is the P.A. so blatantly violating the accords it already signed? Meanwhile, the official P.A. newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadida last week featured remarks by leader Mahmoud Abbas resurrecting the blood-libel accusation that Israel poisoned Yasser Arafat. Wait, that doesnt make any sense. Separate teams of French, Swiss and Russian scientists have investigated the poisoning accusation and never found evidence to support it. Peace Now and the United Nations have been assuring us for years that Palestinian leaders are reasonable, rational people. So why are the P.A.s leader and official newspaper knowingly propagating such baseless lies? And dont forget the little matter of such falsehoods blatantly violating the Oslo accords. The accords obligate the P.A. to refrain from hostile propaganda against Israel. Accusing Israel of murdering the P.A.s most beloved leader surely qualifies as hostile. So why does the P.A. keep violating the accords? What happened to all those promises that it can be trusted to honor the agreements that it signs? Also in the past few days, a rally was held in Tulkarmunder Abbass official auspicesto honor convicted Palestinian murderer Maher Younes, while the Bethlehem branch of Fatah (the ruling party, chaired by Abbas) posted photos on its Facebook page glorifying teenage terrorist Ahmed Sanagrah. Wait, that doesnt make any sense, either. The proponents of creating a Palestinian state keep telling us that its safe to create such a state because the P.A. is against terrorism. They say Hamas is the bad one, while the P.A. is moderate. So if the P.A. is against terrorism, why do its leader and ruling party keep glorifying, sheltering and paying terrorists? By the way, when Abbas spoke at the United Nations earlier this month, he proclaimed the P.A.s commitment to international law and legitimacy and to a peaceful solution. And that makes perfect sense. Abbas is truly bilingual. When he speaks to Western audiences, he uses all the right words that they want to hear. He sounds peaceful, reasonable and moderate. But when he speaks to his own people, he literally speaks another language: the language of hatred and violence. Its the kind of language that gets innocent people killed. There was a time, not so long ago, when it was almost impossible to find out what was being said by Palestinian Arab leaders in their own media. Every once in a while, something would leak out. But by and large, the world news media did an effective job of keeping Americans in the dark about what Arafat, Abbas and the others were saying. Thats all changed, thanks to Palestinian Media Watch, which exposed the above-cited outrages and so many others. By exposing the P.A. leaders true words, PMW has affected U.S. and European policy towards the P.A. and in some cases has led directly to reductions of Western aid to the PA. Palestinian Media Watch is a uniquely worthwhile organization, and it deserves to receive a level of support from Jewish federations comparable to what is given to various other Israel-based agencies that do good work. Now that would make a lot of sense. Stephen M. Flatow, an attorney in New Jersey, is the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995. His book, A Fathers Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian Terror, is available on Amazon. Photo: CTV News A search and rescue boat ran aground Thursday night off Sooke Harbour. One crew member had to be airlifted to hospital in Victoria, CTV News reports. The Royal Canadian Marine fast response boat hit rocks and flipped over about 9:30 p.m. The crash happened during a night training exercise near Christie Point, the Victoria Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre says. Four people were rescued from the boat, and the three less injured were taken to hospital by ambulance. The Canadian Coast Guard, another SAR rescue boat, paramedics and firefighters all responded to the scene. with files from CTV Vancouver Island (JNS)If theres one concept in Western progressive circles that is deemed essential for a decent society, its social inclusion. The promotion of diversity is assumed to be morally unchallengeable. Thats also the prevalent attitude among Jews in both America and Britain. Many if not most support liberal immigration policies and equate anti-Semitism with Islamophobia. The belief is that those who are against immigration and diversity will be against the Jews too. In fact, the opposite is the case. The default narrative on the left is venomous hostility to Israel. This is the new anti-Semitism, singling out Israel for demonization based on lies and distortions afforded to no other country, people or cause, and which has legitimized anti-Semitic tropes straight out of the Nazi or medieval Christian playbooks. In Britain, this has all but consumed the Labour Party under its far-left leader, Jeremy Corbyn. In the United States, it is making steady and unchecked headway in the Democratic Party. But what has not been acknowledged is that this is being fueled by the embrace of diversity. In Western Europe, mass immigration and the increasing Islamization of countries such as France, Germany or Sweden are the principal cause of a horrifying increase in violent attacks on Jews. This is rarely acknowledged. In Britain, anti-Semitic attacks have reached record levels. They are perpetrated by significantly disproportionate numbers of Muslims relative to their proportion of the population. This is rarely acknowledgedalthough the Muslim activist Mehdi Hassan did blurt out in 2013 that the British Muslim communitys dirty little secret was its routine and commonplace anti-Semitism. In America, the promotion of diversity is producing similar results. Three of the four co-founders of the Womens MarchTamika Mallory, Carmen Perez and Linda Sarsourare devoted admirers of the vicious anti-white racist and anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan, head of the Nation of Islam. In November 2016, when Perez posted a picture of herself holding hands with Farrakhan, Sarsour commented: God bless him. Sarsour has asserted that there is nothing creepier than Zionism, hailed the Palestinian tactic of getting children to throw rocks at Israel Defense Forces soldiers as the definition of courage and claimed that some folks ... always choose their allegiance to Israel over their commitment to democracy and free speech. Mallory has called Farrakhan the Greatest of All Time. A year ago, she attended a Farrakhan speech in which he denounced Jews as children of the devil and mentioned her in complimentary terms. Tablet magazine has reported the claim that Mallory turned on Vanessa Wruble, a Jewish co-founder of the Womens March, with remarks such as your people hold all the wealth. Theres worse in Congress. Palestinian-American Rashida Tlaib, elected last year as a representative for Michigan with the support of Muslim Brotherhood Islamist groups, danced at her victory party draped in the Palestinian flag. In April 2017, she shared a platform with Palestinian terrorist Rasmeh Odeh, convicted for the murder of two Israelis in a 1969 terror attack, saying she was honored to be on the same stage. On her first day in office, Tlaib posted a correction to the world map in her congressional office by marking Israel as Palestine. Her swearing-in ceremony and a subsequent private celebratory dinner were attended by Abbas Hamideh, executive director and co-founder of the Palestinian activist group al Awdah. Hamideh has repeatedly stated that Israel does not have a right to exist, equated Zionism with Nazism and ISIS, and voiced support for the Iran-backed genocidal terror organization Hezbollah and its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, who he says is the most honorable Arab-Muslim leader of our lifetime. Meanwhile, Ilhan Omar, the new representative for Minnesota who was also backed by Brotherhood groups, has opposed moves to stop BDS, called Israel an apartheid regime and expressed anti-Semitic views. In 2012, during one of Israels wars with Hamas in Gaza, Omar tweeted: Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel. The claim that the Jews hypnotize the world is of course one of the signature tropes of paranoid anti-Semitism. Omar initially blamed the subsequent outrage on Islamophobia. This week, however, after even The New York Times called her out for this, she issued a lame apology saying she had used the word not realizing it was ugly and offensive to Jews. This wont do. The key point is that she thinks of Israel in this paranoid and potentially murderous way as uniquely and conspiratorially evil. If any Republican was revealed ever to have appeared on a platform with, say, David Duke or parroted neo-Nazi rhetoric there would be an eruption of outrage and their career would instantly be terminated. Yet in response to this anti-Jewish bigotry, the Democrats and their supporters are not just turning a blind eye but actually embracing it. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand has called the Womens March leaders the suffragists of our time; House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has praised them as courageous; the American Civil Liberties Unions magazine has extolled Sarsour as a leader in the truest form of the word. Jonathan Greenblatt, director of the Anti-Defamation League, once again displayed his dismayingly shallow grasp of anti-Semitism when, after referring to Omar evoking an old anti-Semitic trope, he tweeted: And hats off to Rep Omar for her honest apology & commitment to a more just world. This about someone who continues to call Israel evil. Most astoundingly of all, Pelosi has now appointed Omar to the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Thus the Democratic Party has now actively embraced and implicitly legitimized vicious anti-Semitism and an agenda aimed at the destruction of Israel that any decent leader should exclude from civilized discourse. The reason for this moral collapse is the shift in political gravity that has taken place on the left in which positions previously shunned as marginal and unacceptable have now become mainstream. Support for Palestine has transformed what has never ceased to be a genocidal agenda into a presumed liberation movement and the signature progressive cause. Black power, once seen rightly as a hateful, anti-white, violent revolutionary movement is now an accepted narrative in Americas black community. This would undoubtedly have horrified its great and visionary leader Martin Luther King Jr. Contrary to the poisonous travesty published a few days ago by The New York Times that vilified Israel and wickedly suggested that King would today be its foe, he actually said: When people criticize Zionists they mean Jews. You are talking anti-Semitism. Tragically, the mainstreaming of black power has now also mainstreamed black anti-Semitism, just as the championing of Palestine has mainstreamed hatred of Jews. This shift that has taken place to an anti-white, anti-West, anti-Jew agenda is denied largely because it is so closely associated with diversitythat is, black people and Muslims. The sheer terror of being tarred as racist or Islamophobic causes such circles not only to deny this is happening, but to hurl accusations of racism or Islamophobia at any who point it out. Black power demagogues like Farrakhan whip up black-on-white race hate wherever they can. Preying on Americas guilt over its terrible history of slavery and anti-black bigotry, this anti-white racism threatens to unstitch Americas social fabric. In 2014, the Investors Business Daily described how the radical Muslim Brotherhood has built the framework for a political party in America that seeks to turn Muslims into an Islamist voting bloc. Social inclusion has meant embracing not just the unconscionable but a dagger at the throat of Jews, America and the West. Melanie Phillips, a British journalist, broadcaster and author, writes a column for JNS every two weeks. Currently a columnist for The Times of London, her personal and political memoir, Guardian Angel, has been published by Bombardier, which has also published her first novel, The Legacy, released in April. Her work can be found at her website, www.melaniephillips.com. (JNS)Organized disruptors, both students and non-students, who shut down a pro-Israel gathering at University of California Los Angeles last May might not be prosecuted, according to information from LA City Attorney Mike Feuers office. Instead, they will be called to a confidential but mandatory proceeding called a City Attorney Hearing, an alternative to prosecution that can be described as a warning not to repeat the conduct. One legal expert compared it as a deferred prosecution, but stressed a full trial could still result. Victims generally do not appear at such a hearing, the City Attorneys office explained, and generally no criminal record gets attached to the defendant Still, the prosecutor retains the right to issue charges later if he feels the illegal conduct has recurred or may recur. To the south of Los Angeles, newly installed Orange County Prosecutor Todd Spitzer is still undecided about prosecuting rambunctious disruptors of a pro-Israel event at University of California, Irvine, which also took place last May, according to official university sources. Spitzers office has asked for additional police investigation to develop more facts. With or without actual prosecution, the two incidents and the Jewish communitys response have potentially changed the landscape for belligerent disruption of pro-Israel events on California campuses, which last year arguably yielded some of the most pernicious in the nation. Those involved in the two California eventsthe affected students and the Jewish communal groups who rose to invoke prosecutionsexpressed a range of reactions as to whether justice has been minimally obtained or seriously delayed. StandWithUs and the Brandeis Center for Human Rights pivotally intervened to jump-start the criminal referral process on both UC campuses. Roz Rothstein, StandWithUs CEO, said it shows good progress that the [Los Angeles] authorities are holding the disruptors accountable for attempting to remove the freedom of speech from those they disagree with. Alyza Lewin, president of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, added, We are gratified by this development. At long last, the universities are holding responsible the perpetrators of these egregious event disruptions. We trust this will deter similar behavior in the future and demonstrate that universities must take such criminal conduct seriously. A spokesperson for Canary Mission, the anonymous online watchdog that closely monitored both cases, commented this is not a strong enough response. Justin Feldman, president of Students Supporting Israel, himself victimized by the harassment, agreed, saying, As one of the proponents of the effort to hold disruptors accountable at UCLA, I am deeply disappointed that such accused students will merely face a slap on the wrist for their deliberate misconduct in silencing student voices on campus. A bizarre species of free speech Outrage first emerged after two separate but particularly belligerent disruptions of pro-Israel UC student events in May 2018. On May 7, College Republicans at UCI, hosting Israeli reservists, saw their session shattered by a sudden invasion of bullhorn-wielding BDS advocates chanting anti-Israel slogans. A few days later, on May 17, Students Supporting Israel at UCLA sponsored an outreach panel discussion with indigenous students only to have it violently shut down by nose-to-nose BDS harassment. Both dramatic disruptions were captured on viral video. For Jewish students and legal defense groups, the two egregious incidents were the tipping point of campus harassment at UC schools. The consensus among Jewish leadership and students was that the school administrations had consciously created a permissive anti-Israel atmosphere so toxic that it virtually encouraged increasingly severe forms of anti-Israel harassment. At UCI, the video shows bull-horn disruption going for several minutes as police and university administrators watched. Disruption of public meetings explicitly violates California law. Three statutes pertain to this. Title 11, Sec. 403 concerns event disruption. Every person who... willfully disturbs or breaks up any assembly or meeting... is guilty of a misdemeanor. This was the very statute used to successfully prosecute and convict the Irvine 11. Title 11, Sec. 415 involves disturbing the peace. The statute calls for jail time for any person who maliciously and willfully disturbs another person by loud and unreasonable noise. Title 11, Sec. 182, a conspiracy statute, can be invoked when two or more persons conspire to commit any crime. Initially, both UCLA and UCI administrations declined to refer the incidents to the police for investigation and prosecution. This reinforced the belief that the permissive environment on campus actually promoted harassment as a bizarre species of free speech. Moreover, the legal system itself permits the universities to exercise broad discretion, allowing them to simply look the other way. Californias unusual state laws juridically enable the universities to potentially create a double standard and promote unequal justice. The UC administration can decide who shall be referred to its own police force, and who shall be given a pass, or subjected to so-called academic discipline. No referral to the police means no referral to prosecutors. Two California statutes create the system. The California Education Code empowers UC officials to function as jurisdictions unto themselvesas though they were small cities. They can hire their own police departments and exercise discretion on police policy and conduct. Section 92600 states, The Regents of the University of California are authorized and empowered to appoint one or more persons to be members of the University of California Police Department... [and] are peace officers... upon the campuses of the University of California and an area within one mile of the exterior boundaries of each thereof. Section 830.2 of the California Penal Code states: A member of the University of California Police Department, appointed pursuant to Section 92600 of the Education Code, is a peace officer whose authority extends to any place in the state... specified in Section 92600 of the Education Code. The law also vests campus officers with concurrent jurisdiction with local law enforcement agencies. Within legal limits, UC police departments function like a private force, answerable to the campus administration, which, in turn, often pivots on the dictates of the colleges public affairs managers. If a university wants to downplay an incident, it can exercise discretion and instruct the police forces to overlook a disruption. If the police departments do not investigate and refer a case to prosecutors, no criminal action will be taken by prosecutors. Observers believe a built-in conflict of interest and system of unequal justice can emerge when publicity-shy media-relations managers can give campus police their marching orders. One Jewish organization president called it shameful, adding UCLA is not acting neutrally when it shields students from prosecution. Indeed, at UCLA, the campus administration officials were extremely sensitive to the adverse publicity attending the video of SSI students being harassed. Campus police referred all inquiries to UCLA Media Relations. When this reporter, first contacted Tad Tamberg, senior executive director of media relations at UCLA, he referred to a Letter to the Editor in the campus newspaper and declined to discuss the matter further or answer any questions. At one point when this reporter said, May I ask a question? Tamberg snapped back, No, you may not. UCLA campus police, eager to address the offense, repeatedly and apologetically declined to answer any questions, stating they were under specific instructions from Media Relations to refuse to answer. This included even UCPD media spokesman. Ironically, the UCLA police manual mandates, in section 505 titled, NEWS MEDIA, that in accordance with department policy, employees shall make every effort to cooperate and assist members of the news media, using care to ensure that any release of information is not detrimental to the conduct of police operations. UCI had a very different response. Its media manager facilitated exploration of the criminal aspect of the incident and quickly assured its police department would investigate and refer the matter to prosecutors. The UCI investigation is still underway. UCLAs refusal to refer its students for prosecution or even investigate the crime was thwarted when legal staff at StandWithUs and the Brandeis Center converged on the campus to walk students into the UCLA PD and UCI police stations to file criminal complaints. Filing those complaints forced the police to investigate and then refer the cases to prosecutors. Ultimately, that included both student and non-student participants. Whether or not the perpetrators at UCLA or UCI are prosecuted, a change at UC campuses may already be starting to take shape. In the days after Thanksgiving 2018, despite concerns, four lectures on Israel history at California campuses: UC Davis, UC Berkeley, San Francisco State, and UCLA successfully took place without any interference or disruption. The UCLA event was sponsored by a coalition of groups, including the same Students Supporting Israel chapter that had been harassed last May. Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, attended to kick off the live streamed event. At UCLA, it was a new day. When campus police learned of the event, they took immediate steps to ensure it would proceed with no interference. Two UCLA police officers were dispatched to the event itself, both highly trained and deeply conversant with the pro-Israel and Jewish communal scene. A representative of the administration joined the officers. The police and administration declared that, in the event of a disruption, perpetrators would be given one warning to immediately cease and desist; and if they did not, they will be arrested and charged. This, coupled with the LA prosecutors watchful eye, combined to insulate the event from criminal disruption. Thus, thanks to leadership at StandWithUs and the Brandeis Center, and courageous students who stepped forward, combined with intense media scrutiny, the rate of acceleration of anti-Semitism on campus and especially at UC colleges, has been temporarily been slowedat least, slowed for the moment. Edwin Black is The New York Times bestselling author of IBM and the Holocaust and Financing the Flames. He can be followed @Edwinblackbook. This is part 2 of a four-part series. There have been investigations of Prime Minister Netanyahu on possible legal charges relating to four different cases going on for years. The attorney general has not yet indicated which, if any, of the charges he might end up indicting the Prime Minister for. If indicted before the election, depending on what the charges are, there could be increased calls for his stepping down immediately, and stepping down as the Likud partys candidate to be Prime Minister. Its possible that recommendations for an indictment may come in February, which will be a potential game changer. This could be similar to the 2016 U.S. Presidential campaign where, just before the election, FBI Director James Comey indicated that he would reopen an investigation to Hillary Clintons possible illegal use of personal emails. It was seen then that this had an adverse impact on Clintons campaign. Similarly, an announcement by Israels attorney general about a Netanyahu indictment could have a major adverse impact to the Prime Minister. Of the various investigations against Netanyahu, while all focus on potential violations of Israeli law, the ones that are most serious focus on alleged bribery. Other possible charges include fraud, breach of trust, and corruption. Certainly, left wing and most opposition parties will look for any opportunity to oust Netanyahu. That is a primary, if not the central pillar of their campaigns. The question is what will be of the more centrist and right-wing parties in case of an indictment. As potential or likely coalition partners, they must balance political integrity before the voters along with pragmatically negotiating a coalition agreement if Netanyahu wins as projected. Sometimes real politick trumps integrity. We have already begun to see that with some of the parties that seek to be in the government, or at least will not rule that out. There will also be responses to a potential indictment that are muted and strive to balance the need to take a stand but not burn bridges. Israels Justice Minister, Ayelet Shaked, has already stated that if indicted, Netanyahu would not have to resign. Politically however, she represents a party looking to capture a greater portion of the right-wing vote and it may become expedient to backtrack from her previous position. If this were to be challenged legally in any way to the Supreme Court, that might not go in Netanyahus favor as the court has a tendency to be activist and left wing which could color its decision. Even within his own Likud party there will likely be calls for Netanyahu to step down if indicted, particularly among candidates who see themselves as his successor. Some of these have strained relations with the Prime Minister. For them to call for him to step down is largely a no-lose proposition. They not only want to be his successor, but they are unlikely to be given too many senior posts in forming the next government. All are campaigning strategically alongside others, looking to the soonest opportunity to become the next Prime Minister. Time will tell whether Netanyahu will be indicted at all, and if so on what charges, and when. Theres a school of thought that to indict him before the election would unfairly and deliberately tip the electorate. In order to maintain a sense of impartiality, thats something that the attorney general probably does not want to seem to do. Yet he may feel obliged to do so as a matter of letting the public know who they are voting for. Recent reports are that his recommendation as whether to indict Netanyahu or not may come as soon as the middle of February. Either way, this has the ability to create a wide-ranging ripple effect through Israeli politics, in April 2019 and beyond. This will be discussed further in Part 4 of this series. Netanyahu has aggressively charged that an indictment, or recommendation for an indictment, before the election, without the proper due process including the right to face his accusers, would be unjust at best. He recently called a prime time press conference, taking a firm stance against the charges and the process. Beyond the regular politics of an Israeli electoral season, whether an indictment is recommended or not, this is and will be a factor that influences the elections outcome one way or another. If he is indicted, theres a strong sense that he may make this a central campaign theme, which will resonate with many voters. Publicly blaming people out to take him down unfairly could be a strong campaign strategy. But if indicted, it may be his only strategy. There is a sense of public embarrassment in past indictments and guilty sentences of Prime Minister Olmert, President Katzav, and several other past senior government members. Some of these have been rehabilitated and even re-elected so there is a forgiving nature among many Israelis. Or if not forgiving, theres a willingness to overlook past indiscretions. Obviously, the working of Israels legal system is a domestic issue, but in this election its a stand-alone issue worth noting. In the next article we will explore how an array of domestic issues impact Israelis and the upcoming election. Footnote: If you have thoughts or questions about things raised here, or things not mentioned at all, or wish to have updates as the campaign goes along, please feel free to reach out directly. If youd like a list of relevant articles to add depth to your understanding, please let me know. I may not be able to answer all the questions in real time but will be glad to do so where I can and incorporate these into updates in the future. Thanks for your interest. firstpersonisrael@gmail.com Jonathan Feldstein was born and educated in the U.S. and immigrated to Israel in 2004. He is married and the father of six and became a grandfather in 2018. Throughout his life and career, he has been blessed by the calling to fellowship with Christian supporters of Israel and serve as a bridge between Jews and Christians. He shares insights and experiences of living as an Orthodox Jew in Israel, writing for prominent Christian and conservative web sites and appearing on many Christian TV and radio programs. He is the president of Run for Zion and the Genesis 123 Foundation. He can be reached at firstpersonisrael@gmail.com and via http://www.runforzion.com. (JNS)Amid the rising tide of anti-Israel sentiment in the Democratic Party, a new group has launched to counter that narrative that will be led by prominent party members. The Democratic Party has a long and strong track record of support for Israel, said Democratic Majority for Israel CEO and president Mark Mellman, a longtime Democratic strategist. Our mission at Democratic Majority for Israel is to strengthen the pro-Israel tradition of the Democratic Party, fight for Democratic values and work within the progressive movement to advance policies that ensure a strong U.S.-Israel relationship. The organizations co-chairs will be veteran Democratic strategist Ann Lewis, and acclaimed Democratic fundraiser and activist Todd Richman. Other board members include, but are not limited to, Democratic strategist and Clinton alum Paul Begala; former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Henry Cisneros; and former Democratic Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm. Lewis, who served as White House communications director under U.S. President Bill Clinton, told JNS this month that anti-Israel Democratssuch as Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, who was recently appointed to the influential House Foreign Affairs Committee despite her past anti-Israel statements, and Michigans Rashida Tlaib, who questioned the dual loyalty of Republicans, in addition to meeting with a Palestinian activist that called Israel a terrorist entityare dominating the press, the media. And they arent going to be able to get anything done. Added Lewis: Im a lot less concerned about them than I [am] about the agenda we have. Lets use these two years to show that we can really make a difference in peoples lives. Both Omar and Tlaib support the BDS movement, in which Mellman told The New York Times that his group is strongly opposed to using Israel and BDS as some kind of partisan wedge. In a statement released by Democratic Majority for Israel, Lewis said that Democrats across the country understand the importance of Americas relationship with Israel. We are launching Democratic Majority for Israel to represent the majority of Democrats in our party, serve as the voice of pro-Israel Democrats everywhere, and advocate for policies that ensure our partys and our countrys long-term global leadership. The organization will focus its efforts on the 2020 presidential and congressional campaigns. The group plans to interact with grassroots activists, elected officials and Democratic candidates who support liberal values to vouch for continued backing of a strong U.S.-Israel relationship based on both shared values and interests. Members of Congress have already voiced support for the new initiative. Democrats understand a strong U.S.-Israel relationship is vital for our country and a key element of our partys agenda, said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.). Knowing the leadership of Democratic Majority for Israel, Im confident they will play a central role in ensuring our party remains steadfast in its support for our ally and fellow democracy, Israel. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), who is also the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said the relationship between the United States and Israel is a special one that is rooted in shared values, an important strategic partnership in the Middle Eastperhaps the worlds toughest neighborhoodand a mutual commitment to a lasting two-state solution. I look forward to working with the Democratic Majority for Israel as it advances the unbreakable U.S.-Israel bond into the future. Freshman Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) said we must maintain the enduring bond between the United States and Israel. Our shared values of democracy, security and self-reliance set our partnership apart, so I am thrilled the Democratic Majority for Israel formed to make sure our alliance remains strong. The share of progressive Democrats who sympathized more with Israel than Palestinians has declined from 33 percent to 19 percent in just three years, according to a Pew Research survey released in 2018. Jewish National Fund is once again calling attention to people with special needs and disabilities during Jewish Disabilities Awareness, Acceptance, & Inclusion Month. As part of its focus on improving quality of life for all in Israel, JNF-USA is dedicated to ensuring that no member of Israeli society is left behind. Observed each February, JDAAIM was founded in 2009 by the Jewish Special Education International Consortium to raise awareness and encourage inclusion for people with disabilities and special needs. People with disabilities make up the worlds largest minority group. Globally, around 10 percent of the worlds population lives with a disability of some kind. One in 10 people in the U.S. suffer from a disability. Over 10 percent of people in Israel have some form of a disability that can make lifes daily activities a struggle. These statistics are just the beginning. Take into account the family, friends, and loved ones of those with disabilities who are also affected, and these numbers skyrocket. This is where JNF-USA and the importance of JDAAIM help. Many people with physical, emotional, and developmental disabilities in Israel feel alienated from their communities and sometimes the entire family feels marginalized, complicating an already challenging life, said JNF-USA Task Force on Disabilities Director Yossi Kahana, whose son has autism. At Jewish National Fund we open the doors to acceptance and inclusion, and we are changing lives for thousands of children and their families every day. Throughout the month of February, JNF-USA is hosting events across the country to highlight JDAAIM, featuring representatives from the organizations partners to raise awareness of and foster inclusion for people with disabilities and special needs. Through a variety of initiatives, JNF-USA provides cutting-edge rehabilitative services, special education, and medical care for people with cognitive, sensory, communicative, developmental, and other disabilities. In addition, JNF-USA makes its forests, parks, picnic areas, playgrounds, nature trails, lookouts and recreational facilities inclusive for all visitors, ensuring that everyone, regardless of their ability level, is able to enjoy nature with their friends and family. JNF-USAs partners in this mission include: ALEH Negev-Nahalat Eran: A state-of-the-art rehabilitative village in the Negev, ALEH Negev offers unparalleled care for people with severe disabilities, empowering residents and outpatients to help them reach their potential for communication and development. LOTEM-Making Israel Accessible: LOTEM brings people with special needs closer to nature through field trips, accessible hikes in JNF-USAs first inclusive park, and creative workshops in nature that have been adapted to the needs of participants and for people of all ages. Red Mountain Therapeutic Riding Center at Kibbutz Grofit (RMTRC): RMTRC provides weekly horseback riding therapy to nearly 200 children and adults with physical and mental disabilities, as well as emotional and behavioral issues in Israels Central Arava Valley region. Special in Uniform: An innovative and unique program, Special in Uniform integrates youth with disabilities into the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), and assists in preparing them for careers and independent living following the completion of their military service. Like all of JNF-USAs efforts for the land and people of Israel, its work for those with disabilities and special needs takes place every day. Over the last year, JNF-USA and its partners have: Provided services for over 55,000 people. Hosted over one million visitors with LOTEM at JNF-USAs Nahal HaShofet inclusive trail. Created a pathway for 360 participants to join Special in Uniform, expanded the programs presence to 25 IDF bases, and seen 52 soldiers graduate and successfully integrate into the workforce and Israeli society. Administered more than 10,000 individual outpatient treatments at ALEH Negev and welcomed 143 permanent residents at its rehabilitative village. Provided 10,000 therapy sessions at Red Mountain Therapeutic Riding Center for 230 riders, and 9,200 sessions for 160 children through JNF-USA scholarships. Israelis working at the site of a dam collapse at a mining operation in a rural area of the Minas Gerais state of Brazil. By Marcus M. Gilban RIO DE JANEIRO (JTA)-Less than one month after Benjamin Netanyahu gained pop star status across Brazil for blending in with the locals during the very first visit of a sitting Israeli prime minister, Israel is making headlines in the land of samba once again. A 130-strong Israeli military and search-and-rescue team landed here on Sunday and has been working against the clock to find survivors of a dam collapse last Friday around a mining operation in a rural area of the Minas Gerais state. The humanitarian delegation has earned wide praise, but also criticism from critics of Israel who say it represents a diversion from its conflict with the Palestinians. "It's amazing how people in the streets are sympathetic, asking for selfies with us. They are grateful for the Israeli army and the Jewish people," Rabbi Nissim Katri, of the Chabad House in Belo Horizonte, told JTA. "They seem amazed with this type of solidarity that is not so common in our modern world." The dam collapse that left 65 people confirmed dead and nearly 300 missing took place not far from the city. The Israeli mission includes soldiers and reserve officers, among them engineering specialists, doctors and rescue personnel. Hosted by the Brazilian army, they are lodged at a military base, where Katri's synagogue has been providing kosher food, religious services and more. "I offered that Israel would dispatch aid to the disaster site and assist in the search for survivors. We agreed that an Israeli mission would leave within 24 hours," Netanyahu tweeted after talking to Brazil's new President Jair Bolsonaro on Saturday. Netanyahu attended Bolsonaro's inauguration on Jan. 1, when the ardently pro-Israel Christian politician reiterated his promise to move the Brazilian embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem soon. Last Saturday, he highlighted the Israeli humanitarian aid to the media and through social media channels. "By phone the 1st Minister of Israel, @netanyahu offered us help to search for missing people in the Brumadinho. We welcome and appreciate this Israeli technology at the service of humanity," Bolsonaro tweeted. Mud and mining waste has buried everything for miles around the iron ore mine. The number of missing is rising fast and chances of finding survivors are low and decreasing by the hour. In addition to the dam used to store mining byproducts that burst on Friday, a second water dam is said to be at risk of breaking, making the rescue work even more tense. Brazil's 120,000-strong Jewish community is also mobilizing to gather donations for victims of the dam breach and to help the Israeli workers. Rabbi Uri Lam, who has just ended his nearly four-year term as spiritual leader of the Congregacao Israelita Mineira synagogue in Belo Horizonte, feels a personal connection to the disaster. The inn where he used to stay with his family in Brumadinho has been buried by the mud. Owners, guests and employees are all missing. "Jewish communities across Brazil are mobilizing to donate whatever is needed. The presence of the Israeli forces also fills the Brazilian Jewish community with pride. We know that in any part of the world where there are major disasters, whether in countries with or without diplomatic relations with Israel, Israelis will mostly always be the first to offer help," the Sao Paulo-born rabbi told JTA. The Jewish federation of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil's southernmost state that borders Uruguay and Argentina, has sent its security manager and crisis and disaster management expert Ezequiel Gotlib, who is now supporting the Israeli delegation. "Israel's action is of great value and shows that the ties between both countries are increasingly strengthened. We hope Gotlib's expertise will be useful in helping to locate all the victims who are still missing," the federation's president Sebastian Watenberg told JTA. The humanitarian mission could not, however, deflect criticism of Israel and a Brazilian government that has sought to reverse strained ties with the Jewish state. Lieutenant Pedro Aihara, from the Minas Gerais Fire Department, spoke up on Monday to deny recent articles in the Brazilian press that said the Israeli rescue equipment would not be helpful. "The cooperation with Israel has been extremely effective," he said, adding that Israeli equipment will be useful for finding people located deeper in the mud and need only minor adaptations to move about. Israeli ambassador Yossi Shelley blamed the negative press on "jealousy" and highlighted that five bodies were found in a matter of hours. "Israel has all the necessary equipment to save lives, including plunging into the mud. This news out today is fake news," the diplomat told Folha de S.Paulo newspaper. "We will leave aside the people who want to fight, we will do the work that needs to be done and the results will come over the next few days. Our actions show the great cooperation and great heart of Israel. We won't listen to those who are jealous. We do everything with our hearts," Shelley replied. The 16 tons of equipment brought by the Israelis include a mobile signal localization system, high-quality submarine sonars, voice/echo detectors and drones. "In other countries, we receive only praise, as in Mexico, in the Philippines. Whoever misses the poor relationship between Israel and Brazil needs to get used to a new reality and swallow the hat," Shelley added, using a literal translation from Hebrew meaning that opponents will be frustrated. Brazil's president's son, congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, echoed Shelley's remarks. "Israel does this because it is a friendly country. It was always around, but was always mistreated by former governments," he wrote on Twitter. "Excuse me, but for all the bad guys on duty, you just have keep quiet and look how much good comes of this approach." Cartoonist Carlos Latuff, a frequent critic of Israel and Zionism, released a drawing in which President Bolsonaro welcomes an Israeli military unit whose hands are stained with blood. They answer, "Sorry for the delay! We were busy killing Palestinians." "Latuff is an anti-Semitic racist, who uses Israel to distill hatred against the Jews," Israel's honorary consul in Rio, Osias Wurman, told JTA. He noted that the Simon Wiesenthal Center included the cartoonist on a list of "top ten" anti-Semitic incidents in 2012. Leandro Spett, a Jewish cartoonist, posted a drawing in response Latuff's, which quickly went viral in social media. As Brazilian and Israeli rescuers struggle to reach a survivor's hand sticking out of the mud, a Palestinian cartoonist watches the scene. The Brazilian shouts, "You stay there and don't do anything? Go get help! Go!" The smiling cartoonist continues to depict the scene and writes: "Israeli kills a survivor." "This is probably one of the lowest, [most] vile and disgusting cartoons I've had the displeasure of seeing in my entire career as an illustrator and cartoonist," said Spett, referring to Latuff's drawing. "I think nothing was as low, soulless and devoid of moral compass. There is not a drop of humanity in his work." "We will no longer accept anti-Semitism, racism or any other form of aggression against the Jews and Israel," he added. "No matter how much it hits, we'll hit it back. The time to lower your head is over." The Ultimo Segundo news portal joined Wurman and Spett by publishing an article titled "Cartoonist disrespects Brumadinho victims with rude drawing." "The anti-Zionist media in Brazil tried to disqualify the work of the Israelis in Brumadinho. But the news broadcasters have listened to the Brazilian authorities who are at the scene of the tragedy and everyone was unanimous in acknowledging that the Israeli team is highly qualified in disasters," Wurman told JTA. The Israeli humanitarian aid seems to be the first outcome of Netanyahu's historic five-day visit to Latin America's largest nation earlier this month, when he met Bolsonaro as a guest of honor. They called each other "brothers" and promised a new era of friendship ties between both countries. CEO and founder of the startup Accelerated Evolution Biotechnologies Ltd. Ilan Morad (r), with Hanan Itzhaki, the chief science officer, at their lab. JERUSALEM (JTA)-A team of scientists at a biotech company in Israel claimed that they will have a cure for cancer-all cancer-within a year. Sadly, their claims were shot down by fellow scientists. In recent articles in Israel and the United States, Accelerated Evolution Biotechnologies Ltd., or AEBi, which was founded in 2000 from the ITEK Weizmann technology incubator, announced that a new treatment being developed by the company would offer a complete cure for cancer with "no or minimal side-effects at a much lower cost than most other treatments on the market." The treatment, according to Dan Aridor, chairman of the board of AEBi, and CEO Dr. Ilan Morad-which they call MuTaTo, or multi-target toxin-works essentially like a cancer antibiotic, they told the Jerusalem Post. They said the results of pre-clinical trials have been very good. But fellow scientists quickly rejected the claims, calling them "spurious," "highly irresponsible," "unsubstantiated" and even "cruel." The skeptical scientists note that the research group has not published any findings to back up their claims, as is traditional in the science community. Morad told The Times of Israel earlier this week that it has not published its research in medical journals because it "can't afford" to do so. But reputable scientific journals, that are peer reviewed and highly respected, do not charge to publish serious scientific research, though the process can be rigorous. Writing in Forbes, Victoria Forster, a cancer researcher and child cancer survivor, called AEBI less than forthcoming with information about their alleged cure. "Delving into what the company does supply, there are two graphs and some pictures taken down a microscope, much less than I provided from a 6-week undergraduate research project a decade ago," she wrote. She also calls a claim that one cure will work for all of the over 200 different types of cancer out there a "huge red flag" that such a claim is "highly unlikely." Meanwhile, she notes, the American Cancer Society published a blog article from their deputy chief medical officer explaining why the company's claims are unlikely to be true, including that their approach isn't that unique and that other similar approaches have failed. The CEO of the Israel Advanced Technology Industries group said the whole situation has "damaged the image of Israel's life sciences industry." So far, the tests have also only been conducted on mice, not on humans, although the scientists told the Jerusalem Post that their results are "consistent and repeatable." The company told The Times of Israel that it plans to advance its research and get to clinical trials as fast as possible. Please see a related article on immunotherapy treatment that could possibly cure cancer on page 3. By Paul Lefton In order to better serve the Central Florida Jewish community, The Jewish Federation of Greater Orlando and The Roth Family Jewish Community Center have formed the JFed Alliance, the result of their two-year search for avenues of meaningful collaboration between the organizations. Starting Feb. 1, the organizations began joint operations in key business areas under the executive leadership of Keith Dvorchik, CEO of The Roth Family JCC, who will serve concurrently as JFGO's executive director. The boards of directors of both organizations approved the terms of the alliance's shared business services in January. In January 2018, the JFed Task Force was created, consisting of board members from each organization, at-large community members and senior staff, and was chaired by Dick Appelbaum, who is in the unique position of having served as president of both organizations. The task force researched potential areas in which The Roth Family JCC and JFGO could consolidate operations while maximizing the effectiveness of their respective missions and having the greatest impact on behalf of the Central Florida Jewish community. The task force identified key commonalities in the two organizations' missions, namely community outreach and programming. Those areas became linchpins of the new alliance and helped the group to determine the most advantageous avenues for collaboration. Under the JFed Alliance agreement: Functional departments that merged Feb. 1 include Marketing, Facilities Management, Security, Administration, Community Relations activity, and some areas of Family and Young Adult programming. Each organization will continue to have staff focused on execution in each area. Remaining departments for phased consolidation include Development and Accounting Services. A joint search for a chief development officer is under way. The organizations will continue to have separate and autonomous Boards of Directors, governance, and fiduciary accounts and responsibility. As the alliance moves forward, there are several areas-including Israel and overseas philanthropy, educational programming (all age groups), leadership development and senior programming-that will require ongoing research and collaboration. Leaders emphasized that the goals of the alliance extend well beyond leveraging cost savings, staff and resources on the Maitland Jewish Community Campus, where both organizations are located. "This alliance is truly a testament to the power of collaboration," Dvorchik said. "Both The Roth Family JCC and The Jewish Federation of Greater Orlando have key roles to play in our community. Together we can maximize our impact and work with the other critical agencies in our community to ensure a growing and vibrant Jewish life in Central Florida." JFGO President Brad Jacobs said the alliance will strengthen both organizations' ability to connect with their constituents and will eliminate duplication of efforts in connecting with key groups, especially young adults. "By working as partners and not competitors, both the Federation and JCC will be much better positioned to accommodate the next generation of Jewish Orlando," he said. Todd Haber, president of The Roth Family JCC board, concurred. "The JFed Alliance will lead to stronger Jewish reach into our community through synergies of two organizations with similar mission statements who will benefit the Greater Orlando area in their own unique way," Haber said. Appelbaum's involvement with the task force, which Dvorchik said was pivotal to its success, was equal parts coincidence and providence. Appelbaum had just completed working out at the JCC Fitness Center with his wife, Dottie, when he looked in the window of a conference room and saw a nascent version of the JFed task force brainstorming. Dvorchik invited him to join the discussion. Keith Dvorchik Twenty minutes later, Appelbaum was the newly appointed JFed Task Force chair. "Keith said to me, 'If this group can convince you, we can convince anyone,'" Appelbaum recalled. Appelbaum said it was especially rewarding that the alliance was conceived and executed by a group of Jewish leaders that transcended generations. "I saw people on different sides of the table with an interest in accomplishing a common goal, and it was a delight for me to see young people with the brains and the conviction and the fortitude to work together and make it happen," he said. "I'm very proud to have been a part of this process. I think this partnership will be a catalyst for great things in our community." (ISRAEL21c)-Ten years ago, Dr. Michael Har-Noy, founder and CEO of a Jerusalem-based startup developing an immunotherapy treatment that could potentially cure cancer, lamented that the fight against the dreaded disease "is a battle we are losing." Today, Har-Noy's company is getting closer to turning the tide. In the past decade, Immunovative Therapies has conducted dozens of clinical trials, opened branches in California, Arizona and Thailand, and raised $35 million. But the biggest boost came from the publicity surrounding immunotherapy pioneer Jim Allison, who won this year's Nobel Prize in chemistry. Ten years ago, "We couldn't get a venture capitalist to open a business plan if they saw the words 'immunotherapy.' They'd say, 'That doesn't work in cancer,'" Har-Noy tells ISRAEL21c. Following Allison's work that proved immunotherapy's efficacy, "anyone with 'immune' in their name is now able to raise funds," Har-Noy says. Indeed, consulting firm Transparency Market Research predicts that the global market value of cancer immunotherapy drugs will reach $124 billion by 2024. Is the excitement warranted? After all, science is filled with promising approaches that don't pan out in the end. In the case of immunotherapy, the answer seems to be yes. Immunotherapy is the only current mode of treatment that could actually cure cancer, Har-Noy says. Unlike chemotherapy, which as its name implies uses noxious chemicals to kill cancer cells (along with a lot of healthy ones), immunotherapy enlists the body's own immune system to do the heavy lifting. Moreover, while chemotherapy is often effective, it's not always permanent. If even a single cancer cell survives, it can begin to replicate and start the process of tumor-building all over again. The goal with immunotherapy is to "train" the immune system to hunt down and destroy every last cancer cell, including those in metastatic tumors resistant to chemotherapy. However, today's immunotherapy drugs "only work in 20 percent of patients," Har-Noy says. "And they're still toxic. That means 80 percent of patients get no clinical benefit but they get the toxicity." Nor does immunotherapy work in some cancers including colorectal cancer, which is among the three biggest killers worldwide. That's one reason Immunovative is focusing first on tackling bowel, colon and liver cancers. There are relatively few drugs to treat colorectal cancer and "the ones that exist are relatively ineffective, only extending life by a matter of months, not years," explains Har-Noy. Immune cells from a healthy donor The Immunovative process starts by collecting immune cells from a normal, healthy donor. There's no need to "match" the donor cells to the recipient. Immunovative technicians purify and culture the donor's healthy T-cells in a bioreactor, which causes them to multiply and activate without any genetic engineering or manipulation. Immunovation has a patent on the new immune cells, which it calls AlloStim. The AlloStim cells are next injected into the cancer patient. While the body will reject these alien cells, subsequent injections lead the patient to develop immunity to the foreign cells and to create more of a particular type of immune cell called "memory Th1," which is normally suppressed in cancer patients. The final step is injection of AlloStim intravenously. The body's new abundance of Th1 cells rush to the tumors and, in conjunction with existing "natural killer" cells, begin decimating the tumors. As more AlloStim is injected, the body creates its own tumor-specific Th1 immune cells, essentially vaccinating itself against the cancer. The AlloStim process also "teaches" the immune system to seek out similar cancerous tumors throughout the body. This means it will spring into action any time it detects the same type of cance, even years after treatment. One donor can potentially produce enough cells to treat up to 1,000 patients, making the resulting drug affordable even to economically disadvantaged patients. In addition to AlloStim, Har-Noy and his team are working on a cancer vaccine called CryoVax that combines AlloStim with cryoablation (a process where a tumor is killed inside the body using extreme cold) for tumors that resist initial treatment, as well as a personalized cancer vaccine dubbed AlloVax. In addition to cancer, Immunovative's treatment is now being tested on five HIV-positive patients. While the clinical trial is small, "the results are very promising," Har-Noy says. Do no harm Har-Noy became interested in the immunology of cancer while in medical school, when he saw patients getting chemotherapy and doctors spending a lot of their time treating the side effects of the chemo. Seeing patients suffer so horribly didn't square with his understanding of the Hippocratic Oath of physicians to "do no harm." Science understands how the immune system works with certain viruses and bacteria. "So I thought if we could harness and control it, why not with cancer, too?" he wondered. "That became my life's work." Har-Noy immigrated to Israel in 2003, and launched Immunovative in 2004 at Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem. A $300,000 grant from Israel's Chief Scientist allowed Har-Noy to do trials on monkeys. In 2009, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gave Immunovative permission to begin human trials. Har-Noy opened a clinic in the San Diego area. "But just before the first patients arrived, we hit a regulatory glitch," Har-Noy recalls. "The FDA said we needed preclinical data from not one but two animal models." Immunovative's California lab had signed up some "very sick patients with very high tumor burdens, most of them bedridden." Har-Noy didn't want to start all over again in animals. That's how the company got to Thailand. "A colleague of mine from medical school was appointed as head of the clinical trial unit at the National Cancer Institute of Thailand," Har-Noy explains. The Thai government gave Har-Noy permission to treat seven patients in California and the FDA agreed to use that data in lieu of the second animal model. The Southeast Asia connection was not just opportunistic. According to the World Health Organization, almost half of all new liver cancer cases occur in China. "Liver cancer is endemic in that part of the world," Har-Noy says. "It's four times the frequency of the US, probably because of hepatitis B infections in young people who are now aging." Of the 42 patients in the San Diego clinical trial for Immunovative, 11 survived for a year, nine were still alive after two years and four are still with us after four years. Dr. Michael Har-Noy, founder of Immunovative Therapies. "These patients had about a 60-day life expectancy," Har-Noy points out. "The data was pretty surprising." Immunovative now has a facility in Phoenix, opened to collaborate with a leading researcher who lives in Arizona and is associated with MD Anderson Cancer Center. Har-Noy divides his time between Jerusalem, Phoenix and Thailand. "I have 1.4 million frequent flyer miles on United and another 800,000 on El Al," he quips. The company employs 25 in Jerusalem's Malcha Technology Park, 12 in Phoenix and eight in Thailand. Immunovative has 200 people currently enrolled in clinical trials. In 2019, the company will be looking to raise up to $30 million to launch phase III studies, hire a professional pharmaceutical management team and develop an automated production system. An IPO in the next few years is also on Har-Noy's radar. By Yori Yalon (Israel Hayom via JNS)Birthright Israel reached a new milestone in 2018, with a record 48,000 participants from around abroad and 8,300 Israelis. Birthright Israel, also known as Taglit in Hebrew, brings Jewish youths from around the world to Israel on a 10-day tour free of charge. The tour is aimed at fostering a bond with the Jewish state and increasing awareness of Jewish identity. A number of Israeli students and soldiers usually join each group for a portion of the tour. Since the launch of the initiative in 1999, some 650,000 young Jews from 67 countries have participated in various Taglit-Birthright tours. Birthright Israel also noted Thursday that the number of participants in 2018 was higher than in 2017. As anticipated, 2018 saw a record volume of participants, said Birthright Israel CEO Gidi Mark. The project continues to excite young Jews around the world and participants say the tours are extremely meaningful. Dr. Miriam and Sheldon Adelson, the projects largest donors, have donated hundreds of millions of dollars to Taglit-Birthright so far. Birthright Israel recently announced a new age category for the first time since the organizations founding, offering a limited number of Birthright Israel trip options for 27- to 32-year-olds. It also sponsors trips for adults with special needs. Dr. Miriam Adelson is the publisher of Israel Hayom. The Adelson family owns the company that is the primary shareholder in Israel Hayom. Photo: The Canadian Press Alexandre Bissonnette arrives at the courthouse in Quebec City in February of 2017. The man who shot dead six worshippers in a Quebec City mosque in 2017 has been sentenced to serve 40 years in prison before being eligible for parole. Quebec Superior Court Justice Francois Huot called Alexandre Bissonnette's attack gratuitous and insidious as he handed down the sentence today. Several people in the room wept as the judge read a detailed account of the shooter's actions. Six Muslim men, aged between 39 and 60, were killed when Bissonnette stormed the mosque and opened fire on Jan. 29, 2017. Bissonnette pleaded guilty last March to six counts of first-degree murder and six of attempted murder. The Crown had recommended that the 29-year-old Bissonnette serve six consecutive sentences totalling 150 years. The defence argued the sentences should be served concurrently, which would have made him eligible for parole after 25 years. In a decision that took nearly six hours to read, Huot said a sentence of 50 years or more would constitute cruel and unusual punishment. The longest prison sentence in Canada to date is 75 years without parole, which has been given to at least five triple killers since the law was changed in 2011 to allow consecutive sentences. The judge began his ruling by saying the day of the murders "will forever be written in blood in the history of this city, this province, this country." (JTA)-For most of her adult life, Rachel Riley was only vaguely aware of her Jewish ancestry. A moderately famous daytime game show television host, Riley, 33, is one of countless unaffiliated Jews in the United Kingdom-a country with 250,000 Jewish citizens and where synagogue attendance is at a historic low. "When I was a kid my mum would give us pepperoni pizza," she told The Times of London in an interview published Saturday, pointing out that she didn't keep kosher. On Chanukah, she added, "We'd light the menorah candles but we didn't go to synagogue and I've never done Friday night [Shabbat]." But after experiencing anti-Semitic abuse online for criticizing Britain's liberal Labour party-whose far-left leader Jeremy Corbyn has been called anti-Semitic for his rhetoric and anti-Israel views-Riley was compelled to speak out, including in parliament last week, against the proliferation of that hatred and about how it has affected her own family. "My family came over in the pogroms. For centuries Jews have been persecuted and kicked out of countries," she said in the Times interview. Riley's revisiting of her Jewish identity is part of a larger process that is creating "an unparalleled unity and sense of solidarity amongst Jews of all persuasions" in the United Kingdom, the London-based Campaign Against Antisemitism watchdog group told JTA. The crisis generating this sense of unity centers on the 2015 election of Corbyn to head Labour. Thousands of his followers joined Labour for him, creating a toxic atmosphere for Jews and thousands of cases of hate speech against Jews in the party's ranks. Last year, Margaret Hodge, a veteran Labour lawmaker in the upper house of the British parliament, was probed by her own party over her criticism of Corbyn's anti-Semitism problem. She said the party's decision made her think of what it felt like to be a Jew in Germany in the 1930s. It was a highly unusual statement from a person so unaffiliated that many British Jews didn't even know she was Jewish. "I have never been active in the Jewish community; my two marriages were to non-Jews," she wrote in an Op-Ed for the Guardian in July. But, she added, "I am a Jew." Hodge's mobilization against anti-Semitism is not entirely unexpected-she wrote in the Guardian piece that she had joined Labour in the 1960s to fight racism. But Riley's statements are less predictable. Before she began speaking out against anti-Semitism last fall, she was best known as one of the hosts of Channel 4's long-running puzzle show "Countdown." Tabloids often focus on her eye-catching dresses-including a metallic silver mini she wore to a November 2018 gala. Her other claim to fame was her ability to solve math puzzles. Few Brits knew that Riley, a blue-eyed blonde, is Jewish. That began to change in September, when she took to Twitter to express her concerns about billboards that had been illegally placed across London reading, "Israel is a racist endeavor." The signs, part of a war of words and billboards between Corbyn supporters and his critics, were over Corbyn's objection to Labour adopting a definition of anti-Semitism that includes anti-Israel sentiment. But as soon as Riley spoke about them, she exposed herself to anti-Semitic abuse online, she said. Her Twitter account-usually full of requests from school girls asking for help with math problems-was inundated with racist and other insults by people she says are Corbyn fans. "In the name of Labour I've been called a hypocrite, lying propagandist, tits-teeth-and-ass clothes horse, dolly bird, weaponizer of anti-Semitism, fascist, right-wing extremist, Nazi sympathizer, Twitter cancer," she said during a Jan. 22 speech in parliament ahead of International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Other insults, she added, included: "Brainwashed, an anti-Semite, white supremacist, hate preacher, Zio political trollster, not a real Jew, a child bully, conspiracy theorist." She also got physical threats, leading her studio to increase security for her show. During the same speech, she said that had someone told her a year ago that she'd be commemorating the Holocaust in parliament, "I wouldn't know where to begin with my incredulity." Historically speaking, the galvanizing effect that anti-Semitism can have on some Jews' sense of Jewish identity "is neither surprising nor unusual," Keith Kahn-Harris, a London-based sociologist and writer, told JTA. "It often takes violent, crude anti-Semitism to make people discover what you might call 'latent Jewishness.'" In that sense, Riley's experiences and reaction to them are part of how "anti-Semitism in the United Kingdom has gone from being a containable issue to a major public issue." The proliferation of anti-Semitism in Britain can be measured in the number of incidents reported (last year had 1,382 of them-an all-time record). It's reflected in British media, which from 2016 on began devoting unprecedented levels of attention to the issue. Much of the debate centers on the role of Corbyn, who in 2013 defended an anti-Semitic mural in London (he later expressed regret for that). In 2009 he called the terrorist groups Hezbollah and Hamas his "friends," adding that the latter Gaza-based group is "dedicated towards the good of the Palestinian people and bringing about long-term peace and social justice." He has laid a wreath at a monument for the killers of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics and said in 2015 that "Zionists" who have "lived in this country for a very long time, probably all their lives," don't "understand English irony." Against this backdrop, even British Jews who rarely speak about politics in the Middle East or elsewhere find themselves under attack online. On Monday, another Jewish celebrity, "Game of Thrones" actress Laura Pradelska, told the BBC she turned off the comment option on her Instagram account because of anti-Semitic abuse that's "mostly to do with Israel," although she hardly ever posts about that country. The leaders of the U.K.'s Jewish community prefer low-profile action. But the previous chief rabbi of Britain, Jonathan Sacks, has called Corbyn an anti-Semite-an accusation Corbyn has denied, adding he is determined to fight anti-Semitism in Labour and beyond. Last year, Britain's three leading Jewish newspapers united in publishing a front-page editorial warning that a Corbyn premiership would constitute an "existential threat to Jewish life in this country." The events have even rallied unaffiliated Jews who have not experienced abuse themselves. Rachel Riley at a Holocaust commemoration even in London, Jan. 22, 2019. "I usually avoid politics but Corbyn is making the Jews feel really bad," a Belgium-born Jewish woman from north London, who requested to remain anonymous, told JTA. It made her for the first time in her life join a protest against anti-Semitism last year outside parliament. To her, the debate on anti-Semitism in Britain is catching up with local Jews who "did not suffer as much as other European Jews," she added, because Britain was never occupied by the Nazis. Murray Lee, an unaffiliated Jewish real-estate agent from London, said that Britain's anti-Semitism problem "saddens" him primarily as a Brit, not necessarily as a Jew. Asked whether the problem makes him think of his ancestors, Murray, who is a third-generation U.K.-born Jew, said: "It's very hard to say no to that, but in principle, my ancestors are pretty much British." Benny Gantz, right, with Moshe Yaalon at the opening campaign opening of the Israel Resilience Party party in Tel Aviv, Jan. 29, 2019. JERUSALEM (JTA)-There's a new political power in team in Israel, and it hopes to defeat longtime Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in upcoming elections. Benny Gantz, a former head of the Israeli army, announced Tuesday that he will combine his new political party, Israel Resilience, with one led by fellow former Israel Defense Forces chief of staff Moshe Yaalon. This is a significant partnership: Since its formation last month, and before he issued any kind of political platform, Gantz's party has been polling second behind Netanyahu's ruling Likud party. Yaalon, Netanyahu's former defense minister, is, like Gantz, a popular figure. Together, they hope to unseat Netanyahu from power. His Likud party could take as many as 30 seats in the April 9 elections. Gantz's party looks to garner up to 15 seats, polls show. Yaalon's Telem party has not polled above the electoral threshhold to gain a seat. Gantz made the announcement on Tuesday night while officially launching his Israel Resilience Party's campaign in Tel Aviv. Yaalon, whose nickname is Bougie, joined Gantz at the end of his speech. Gantz called Yaalon "a man of values, my former boss and my new partner." Gantz told a crowd of supporters chanting "Benny, Benny" and waving Israeli flags that he will not let a new government be formed by a prime minister with an indictment hanging over his head. He thanked Netanyahu for his years of service in the position and added: "We will take over for him." Gantz added that his government would have zero tolerance for corruption, another swipe at Netanyahu, who is at the center of at least four corruption investigations, and faces indictment in at least one of the cases either before or immediately after the April 9 elections. Gantz also said that Jerusalem will remain Israel's "eternal capital," that he will strengthen settlement blocks, and that Israel will not give up the Golan Heights. He also said his government would pursue making peace with the Palestinians and Israel's Arab neighbors. "There is nothing more dear to me than the state of Israel. For me Israel comes before everything else," he said. "The Jewish people and the Zionist state is a great story, unparalleled, bigger than any leader. We are one nation, we have one flag, one anthem and one army," he also said. On Monday, the party released a campaign jingle, which states: "There is no right wing or left wing, there is only Israel, before everything else." Gantz, 59, served in the IDF as a paratrooper and became a career army official. He commanded several units, including special operations units, before serving as the head of Israel's military from 2011 to 2015. Several existing parties courted Gantz to run with them in the upcoming election before he decided to make his own. Photo: The Canadian Press Canadian judge Marie Deschamps, chair of the Independent Review Panel on UN Response to Allegations of Sexual Abuse by Foreign Military Forces in the Central African Republic, speaks during a news conference at the United Nations. Former Supreme Court justice Marie Deschamps says the Canadian military has been slow to change its highly sexualized culture. Testifying to the House of Commons defence committee, she said victims of sexual aggression in the ranks aren't served well by the military's complaints process. Deschamps led a report on sexual misconduct in the military in 2015. She told the committee the "duty to report," which compels service members to report criminal behaviour and trigger a formal process, does not support the needs of victims. Her comments echo the findings of a fall report by the auditor general. Defence chief Gen. Jonathan Vance defended the practice last month but said officials were looking at ways to empower and support victims. Photo: The Canadian Press Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO, speaks at The Economic Club of Washington's Milestone Celebration in Washington. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos says he was the target of "extortion and blackmail" by the publisher of the National Enquirer, which he said threatened to publish revealing personal photos of him unless he stopped investigating how the tabloid obtained his private exchanges with his mistress. Bezos, who is also owner of The Washington Post, detailed his interactions with American Media Inc., or AMI, in an extraordinary blog post Thursday on Medium.com. The billionaire did not say the tabloid was seeking money instead, he said, the Enquirer wanted him to make a public statement that the tabloid's coverage was not politically motivated. Bezos' accusations add another twist to a high-profile clash between the world's richest man and the leader of America's best-known tabloid, a strong backer of President Donald Trump. Bezos' investigators have suggested the Enquirer's coverage of his affair which included the release of risque texts was driven by dirty politics. "Of course I don't want personal photos published, but I also won't participate in their well-known practice of blackmail, political favours, political attacks, and corruption," Bezos wrote of AMI, in explaining his decision to go public. "I prefer to stand up, roll this log over, and see what crawls out." In a statement on Friday, American Media said it "acted lawfully" and was engaged in "good faith negotiations" with Bezos. But the company said its board of directors met and determined it should "promptly and thoroughly investigate" Bezos' allegations and would take "whatever appropriate action is necessary" following the investigation. The company has admitted in the past that it engaged in what's known as "catch-and-kill" practices to help Trump become president. Trump has been highly critical of Bezos and the Post's coverage of the White House. The Bezos affair became public when the Enquirer published a Jan. 9 story about his relationship with Lauren Sanchez, a former TV anchor who is also married. Bezos then hired a team of private investigators to find out how the tabloid got the texts and photos the two exchanged. Several days ago, someone at AMI told Bezos' team that the company's CEO David Pecker was "apoplectic" about the investigation, Bezos said. AMI later approached Bezos' representatives with an offer. "They said they had more of my text messages and photos that they would publish if we didn't stop our investigation," Bezos wrote. Bezos wrote that this week, the tabloid's editor, Dylan Howard, emailed an attorney for Bezos' longtime security consultant to describe photos the Enquirer "obtained during our newsgathering." The photos include a "below the belt selfie" of Bezos, photos of him in tight boxer-briefs and wearing only a towel, and several revealing photos of Sanchez, according to the emails Bezos released. According to the emails, an attorney for AMI offered a formal deal Wednesday: The tabloid wouldn't post the photos if Bezos and his investigators would release a public statement "affirming that they have no knowledge or basis" to suggest the Enquirer's coverage was "politically motivated or influenced by political forces." Bezos said he decided to publish the emails sent to his team "rather than capitulate to extortion and blackmail," despite the "personal cost and embarrassment they threaten." It does not appear that AMI demanded any money from Bezos only that he call off his investigation and issue a statement saying the coverage wasn't political. Matthew Umstead mumstead@herald-mail.com MARTINSBURG, W.Va. Berkeley County Prosecuting Attorney Catie Wilkes Delligatti said Friday that a parents secret audio recording at her childs elementary school shows numerous instances of verbal abuse of children by employees, but no evidence of a crime. Delligatti said in a statement that the verbal treatment of the children at Berkeley Heights Elementary in Martinsburg is shocking and disturbing, but verbal abuse, under state law, is not a criminal act. The school district said Friday that two school employees involved in the incident are on administrative leave without pay and the classroom teacher had resigned. The teachers resignation, which came after she was placed on administrative leave, was approved by the school board on Dec. 4, the school district said. A mother provided Delligattis office with eight hours of audio recording in the classroom made by hiding a recording device in her childs hair. Delligati did not describe the content of the verbal abuse in her statement on Friday. Delligatis statement said she and her offices victim advocate and investigator met in the fall with Kasey Murphy and Amber Pack, the mothers of two children who previously attended Berkeley Heights Elementary School. Pack provided the audio recording. The statement from Delligati says Investigator Scott Dillon from her office found that the recording contained numerous instances of verbal abuse that are frankly unconscionable. Martinsburg police also investigated the audio recording and also found no evidence of a crime, according to Delligati. The children who were in the particular classroom were placed at other schools in the district, officials have said. Were conducting an internal investigation and are cooperating fully with the investigation by the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources Child Protective Services, Berkeley County Schools said in a statement also released on Friday. State and federal privacy laws prohibit Berkeley County Schools from providing any additional information at this time. Delligatti said she shares the concerns of Berkeley County residents about the treatment of the children and has contacted the West Virginia Department of Education and the Berkeley County Board of Education to urge action after the mistreatment of these children. Delligatti said her office can help with investigations by the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources Child Protective Service and the Civil Rights Office of the U.S. Department of Education. In an interview with Herald-Mail Media last fall, Lisa Sheppard, a grandmother of one student, said her family is eager to know what will come out of a school district decision to investigate the allegations. Sheppard said at the time that her grandchild was moved to a different school at the familys request. In November, the school district said that limited information was available because the allegations are under investigation. but indicated that the Office of Special Education and Human Resources began working immediately to address the parental concerns. A third-party investigator also was reviewing the allegations, the school district had said. If the results of the investigation warrant, additional actions will be taken in accordance with West Virginia personnel laws, the school districts statement said. The health and well-being of all students is crucial to their education and personal development, and such allegations are taken very seriously, the statement says. Matthew Umstead mumstead@herald-mail.com MARTINSBURG, W.Va. A Berkeley County, W.Va., man allegedly told police early Thursday that he fatally shot a man Sunday during an apparent attempted home invasion on South Raleigh Street in Martinsburg. Alvin Deshaun Gilbert, 27, of Apple Harvest Drive in Glengary was arrested on five outstanding drug-distribution warrants. An investigation into the shooting led Martinsburg police to suspect his involvement in the death of 26-year-old Corey Barkhamer. Gilbert was being held without bond Thursday night at Eastern Regional Jail near Martinsburg on one count of first-degree murder. Bonds totaling $204,500 were set for charges of distribution of controlled substances, possession with intent to deliver crack cocaine and heroin, destruction of property and domestic battery, court records said. In a news release sent early Thursday, police said Gilbert waived his Miranda rights and gave a statement admitting the killing. Police responded Sunday at 4:03 p.m. to 405 S. Raleigh St. for a report of a man shot in the chest. They found Barkhamer in the living room of the home with two apparent gunshot wounds on his chest, court records said. Barkhamer was taken to Berkeley Medical Center in Martinsburg, where he was pronounced dead, police said. An autopsy by the West Virginia Office of the Chief Medical Examiner found that the cause of Barkhamers death was gunshot wounds on his left chest and left lateral back. Two small-caliber bullets were recovered from his body, court records said. Detectives at the South Raleigh Street home found five fired cartridge cases four on the front porch and one inside the front door leading to the porch, records said. Broken glass was seen in the area and the front door was damaged, appearing to have been forced open, police said. Witnesses told police they saw a black man kick the front door of the home open. They reported hearing a series of gunshots before observing the man leaving the residence. The man got into a car on Stephen Street and left the area. The man also parked on West Stephen Street and walked on South Raleigh Street to the home, court records said. A search of the home led to the discovery of several cellphones. All but one were accounted for by the occupants of the property. For the remaining cellphone, the telephone number matched one the Eastern Panhandle Drug and Violent Crime Task Force contacted to purchase heroin from Gilbert in drug deals orchestrated by the law-enforcement team, court records said. Gilbert, who was found at the Apple Harvest Drive address, initially denied being involved in the homicide, according to a complaint filed by Martinsburg Police Department Detective Sgt. Adam Albaugh. Albaugh wrote that Gilbert changed his story and indicated he was a drug dealer and that he was contacted to sell drugs and meet an unknown person near the monument at Virginia and Faulkner avenues and West Stephen Street. Gilbert recounted how he gave drugs to a white male who met him there, but the person didnt give him any money and left, Albaugh said. Albaugh said the defendant indicated that he then followed the male to his house and kicked in the door. When the door opened, the white male had a pistol and Gilbert used his own pistol and shot the male, according to the complaint. While looking for Gilbert, task force members found him and a female with three bags of suspected crack cocaine and one bag of suspected heroin Wednesday in their vehicle, court records said. Police made the discovery after approaching Gilbert in the driveway of the Apple Harvest Drive residence while he was in the vehicle, records said. The drugs were spotted on the drivers-side back-passenger floorboard where Gilbert was seated, records said. Police alleged on Jan. 31 that Gilbert, known on Facebook as Skeeno Groove, sold drugs around King, Liberty and Third streets in Martinsburg, court records said. The domestic-battery charge stems from an alleged incident Jan. 10 in Martinsburg. The destruction-of-property charge was filed in August in connection with another alleged domestic-related incident, records said. Dan Dearth ddearth@herald-mail.com BLUE RIDGE SUMMIT, Pa. Pennsylvania State Police are continuing to investigate the deaths of two men found in a home Thursday afternoon near Blue Ridge Summit. Police issued a news release early Friday identifying the men as Roger Lee Gilland, 61, and Jesse Earl Bennaka, 35, both of Washington Township. Police said troopers were called at about 5 p.m. Thursday for a death investigation at 14876 Buchanan Trail East in Washington Township. Investigators confirmed Friday that Gilland was discovered in a bedroom. Police said they believe Bennaka died by suicide in the garage. Police did not respond later Friday to requests for an update on the investigation, but they said earlier that no foul play was observed at the scene. They have not revealed details of how the men died. In early January, Bennaka and Gilland were in a vehicle that crashed into a utility pole in the Mechanicsburg area of Cumberland County, Pa., according to a report on the Upper Allen Police Department website. Police said Bennaka was driving and was charged with driving under the influence. Gilland was a passenger and was charged with possession of drug paraphernalia, the police report said. Bennaka and Gilland were both arrested at the scene of the 5:45 a.m. Jan. 5 crash and taken to Cumberland County Prison for processing. Its unclear in court records if the men spent any time in the lockup or the circumstances of bail. According to online court records, Gilland was scheduled for a March 18 preliminary hearing on the misdemeanor charge. Bennaka faced five separate DUI and drug paraphernalia charges and was scheduled for a preliminary hearing on April 12. Police said early Friday that an autopsy was scheduled to determine the cause of death for Gilland. When contacted by email Friday evening, Franklin County Coroner Jeff Conner said all information on the case would come from state police. Jennifer Fitch waynesboro@herald-mail.com WAYNESBORO, Pa. Further protections have been put in place for Washington Township, Pa.s Amsterdam Road, which sustained damage to a box culvert last summer. The township supervisors recently authorized limiting truck traffic to only vehicles with two axles on Amsterdam Road from Midvale to Welty roads. To avoid traffic congestion and traffic lights, tractor-trailers were using Midvale Road and Amsterdam Road to get off Pa. 16 south of Rouzerville, Pa., Township Manager Jeffrey Geesaman said. Amsterdam Road was not built to accommodate big rigs, he said. Signs were installed to notify truckers of the size restrictions, which carry exceptions for local deliveries and emergency vehicles. That is because of the curves, hills and turns, Geesaman said, noting that township officials were worried about trucks crossing the yellow line. We werent waiting for someone to get hit or killed. The small bridge at the box culvert will remain closed indefinitely, Geesaman said. The damaged section of the road is between Old Mill Road and Buena Vista Drive near Shanks Mill. Geesaman said municipal officials are not yet sure how or when it will be repaired. The township authorized a traffic study from Grove Miller Engineering before putting the truck restrictions in place. Don Aines daines@herald-mail.com A Georgia man and a Frederick, Md., woman are facing charges after someone reported seeing a handgun in a vehicle at a Hagerstown car wash. A person spotted a gun in a Nissan Altima with Georgia license plates at the The Auto Spa car wash at 32 W. Baltimore St., according to a charging document. The person informed a Maryland state trooper who was getting his cruiser cleaned at the time. Jonathan Lamar Moss, 40, of Conley, Ga., was charged with being a felon in possession of handguns, possession with intent to distribute narcotics and other firearm and drug possession offenses. Angelita Lavosha Javon-Ferguson, 34, of Norwich Drive in Frederick was charged with 11 firearm violations, including being a felon in possession of a firearm and possession of a stolen firearm. Police said she had an active warrant from York, Pa. The trooper who was at the car wash notified Hagerstown police. Moss, Javon-Ferguson and a second woman who had been in the vehicle were questioned as they stood by waiting for their vehicle to be cleaned. Inside the Altima, police found a loaded .40-caliber Taurus and a loaded 9 mm Ruger in the passenger compartment. One gun was reported stolen in Cobb County, Ga., in November 2018, while the other was stolen in September 2018 in South Fulton, Ga., the document said. A large amount of mens clothing was inside the trunk, along with 122 ecstasy pills, 43 pain pills containing Oxycodone and quantities of crack cocaine, powder cocaine and marijuana, authorities said. Moss had $2,803 in his pants pocket, the document said. The second woman told police she met Moss at a fast food restaurant in Frederick that day and he asked her if she wanted to go have some fun, the document said. That woman was released without charges. Assistant States Attorney Rena Heneghan said Moss has an armed-robbery conviction in Georgia for which he was sentenced to 13 years. That was back in 1996, when I was 17 years old, Moss said over the closed circuit TV link between the detention center and Washington County District Court Building. He simply did not know these items were in the vehicle, Assistant Public Defender Lisa Havilland told visiting Frederick County District Judge Earl W. Bartgis Jr. The car was a rental and was used by several other people earlier in the day, she said. Javon-Ferguson has several convictions for driving under the influence, Heneghan said. Javon-Ferguson was merely a passenger. ... She had a really rough and horrible day, Havilland told Bartgis. Javon-Ferguson had been assaulted on Wednesday and called Moss for a ride from the hospital, she said. Bartgis ordered Moss to remain held without bond. He released Javon-Ferguson on a $5,000 unsecured bond, meaning she would owe money only if she failed to show up in court. Both are scheduled for preliminary hearings on Feb. 28. Dan Dearth ddearth@herald-mail.com Maryland State Police are investigating a report of a possible shooting early Friday on U.S. 40 near Stottlemeyer Road. The incident happened shortly after 2 a.m. when a woman said she saw the driver of a westbound Ford pickup truck lean out the window and fire a shot at a pedestrian, according to a news release from state police. Troopers said the woman told investigators that the pedestrian fell to the ground. The Ford then turned south on Md. 66 toward Boonsboro. Neither the victim nor evidence was found during a search of the area. Troopers said they notified local hospitals in Maryland, Pennsylvania and West Virginia about the incident. The pickup was described as an older model Ford. It was dark blue or dark green. Anyone with information may call state police at 301-766-3811. The Herald-Mail ANNAPOLIS In response to a request by the owner of a Smithsburg liquor store, local lawmakers agreed this week to file legislation to expand Sunday liquor sales in Washington County by one hour. Jim Doll, owner of Village Spirits in Smithsburg, told the countys legislative delegation in December that shops like his, on the edges of the county, lose business to shops in bordering counties with earlier Sunday sales hours. Doll noted that in recent years, Frederick County expanded the Sunday start hour to 10 a.m. and Allegany County allows sales starting at 11 a.m. Since then, he said, he and his wife, who also owns a liquor store, noticed a double-digit drop in the first hours of their Sunday sales. Currently, alcohol sales are permitted from noon to midnight on Sundays in Washington County, or from 11 a.m. to midnight for establishments with Class B, Class C, or Class B Restaurant licenses, provided the customer is also consuming a meal. The bill sponsored by the Washington County delegation would allow owners of a Class A beer license, a Class A beer and light wine license or a Class A beer, wine and off-sale liquor license to begin sales at 11 a.m. on Sundays rather than noon for a fee. The bill would be effective July 1. Not all delegation members were in favor of the bill. Del. Neil Parrott, R-Washington, voted against filing the bill. Sen. Andrew Serafini, R-Washington, was not present at the delegation meeting, but Parrott said he had spoken to Serafini, and that Serafini was uncomfortable with the bill. All four of the other lawmakers representing the county voted to proceed with the bill. In Pennsylvania, liquor licensees and retail dispenser licensees with Sunday sales permits may dispense alcohol between 9 a.m. Sunday and 2 a.m. Monday. A liquor licensee with a wine expanded permit and a Sunday sales permit may sell wine to go on Sundays from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m., according to the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board. West Virginias laws are more restrictive. The law there allows for packaged beer and wine Sunday sales from 1 p.m. to 2 a.m. Thirteen counties, including Berkeley, Jefferson and Morgan counties, and 18 home-rule municipalities, including Martinsburg, Charles Town, Ranson and Shepherdstown, allow Sunday sales. Alcoholic beverages may be sold at 10 a.m. for on-premises consumption as a result of the brunch bill referendum approved in 2016. Legislation to further relax West Virginias Sunday sales laws stalled in the Legislature last year. Don Aines daines@herald-mail.com Charges were dismissed against one of 11 people charged in county Narcotics Task Force raids last summer because the substance police seized was not illegal. Tacara Jackson, 28, whose address at the time was Fort Washington, Md., was one of four people arrested at 920 Salem Ave. on the morning of the raids on June 21, 2018. She was charged with one count each of possession of a controlled dangerous substance-not marijuana, possession with intent to distribute a controlled dangerous substance, possession of a large amount of a controlled dangerous substance, creating a common nuisance for the distribution of narcotics, possessing drug paraphernalia and firearm use in a violent crime. During the raid, a Mickey Mouse backpack was seen being thrown out of a second-story window. It contained a white powdery substance suspected to be narcotics. However, recently completed tests showed that the substance was a mixture of benzocaine, the active ingredient in some over-the-counter topical anesthetics, and caffeine. Jackson had posted bond in her case 10 days after the raid. Last week, charges against another man arrested at that address, Joseph A. Williams, 33, of Davenport, Fla., were dismissed for the same reason. Williams still had active drug felony warrants in Virginia. Another person arrested on June 21, Racheida Bolden, was given probation before judgment by Circuit Judge Dana Moylan Wright after pleading guilty Thursday to possession of prescription painkillers. The guilty finding will be stricken from Boldens record as long as she successfully completes one year of unsupervised probation. Bolden, 33, was in jail four days before posting bond. Bolden and another suspect, James Farmer, were arrested in an apartment on Lynnehaven Drive. Assistant States Attorney Michele Hansen told Wright that the prescription drugs were found in Boldens purse. The Herald-Mail ANNAPOLIS The state legislature can be an intimidating place at any age. But a determined boy from Boonsboro had business to do. He bravely took a seat in front of a microphone in the House Health and Government Operations Committee Thursday afternoon and, with his doctor beside him and his parents behind him, spoke. My name is Lucas and I am 10 years old, he began. Then, he described a medical condition several of the legislators on the committee had not heard about before. Lucas Murdock has pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorders associated with streptococcal infections a long name for a disease in which the body produces antibodies that attack the brain. Its called PANDAS for short, and is often triggered by strep infections. This disease is incredibly hard to describe what it does to my brain, Lucas told legislators. When my brain is under attack, I do things I cant even understand why I do. Its frustrating. His doctor, pediatric neurologist Yuval Shafrir, told lawmakers there are several treatments for this condition, depending on its severity. But some of the most expensive and effective treatments, such as intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG), arent covered by insurance companies because their use for treating this illness is deemed experimental. Lucas hasnt yet needed IVIG, but he might one day, his mother, Laura Murdock, told Herald-Mail Media. Lucas and his parents traveled to Annapolis, so he could testify for legislation sponsored by Del. Charles Sydnor, D-Baltimore, to mandate that insurers and Medicaid in Maryland cover treatment. Many kids are not as lucky as me because they cant afford the treatments that are needed, Lucas told the committee. And thats not fair. We have enough stress as kids living with this disease. I feel for the kids whose family cannot afford the necessary treatment that the doctors prescribe such as IVIG. It is heartbreaking. it makes no sense. An overnight change Lucass testimony was prefaced by a video presentation showing the affects of the disease on children and their families. Laura Murdock who later confessed the video gets me every single time got emotional while it played. Its just the same stories that we all have, she said. Del. Terri Hill, D-Baltimore/Howard, who is a surgeon, left her desk and sat next to Murdock, squeezing her hand as the video played. Parents in the video described how contracting the disease has changed their children overnight. Later, several parents described how their children became anxious and irrational and exhibited obsessive compulsive disorder, rage, even suicidal tendencies. Autumn Metzger told the committee she had three children with PANDAS. Her son was suicidal at age 5; her daughter at age 3. Metzger said the problem has been reversed for all three of her children, but at a price. Her son, she said, required IVIG, which can cost as much as $10,000 a hit. But for him, she said, the treatment was the silver bullet. Shafrir said the sooner children are diagnosed and treated, the better their chances of responding. But parents said misdiagnoses and denials of coverage rob their children of proper treatment. Murdock told Herald-Mail Media that Lucas initially was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, but treatment didnt work. Weve probably been struggling for two, two-and-a-half years with misdiagnoses, she said. Lucas finally was diagnosed with PANDAS on Oct. 10. Within 24 hours of getting an antibiotic my son was smiling, she said. So thats when we knew that PANDAS was really his true diagnosis. Within 48 hours, I would say, he was about 80 percent back. Its been about four months, she added, and the kid you saw today testify would not have been able to do that prior to Oct. 10. So were very proud of him. Lucas wants to help I also have an overwhelming sadness for those that have paid for these treatments because its not easy, Lucas told the committee as his service dog, Willette, lounged on the floor behind him. You will hear testimonies from these families today and the ultimate sacrifices they have gone through to save their child, he said. After all, I am sure you would do everything you could for your child including going into debt, setting up GoFundMe accounts and trying to hold fundraisers time after time. I am asking for your vote to pass this law, he added. I am here to be the voice for PANDAS kids and to ask you not to deny another child the care they deserve. As he finished, committee members applauded even though theyre not supposed to do that. Staff reports The Herald-Mail MARTINSBURG, W.Va. The Blue Ridge Community and Technical College Board of Governors met Feb. 6 at the main campus in Martinsburg Ann Shipway, vice president of workforce and engineering technology, provided a facilities report highlighting expansion at the Technology Center. She also updated board members on the status of the assurance argument, required for the Higher Learning Commission visit scheduled for 2020. Shipway notified members of the receipt of a technical program grant, which will be used to establish a new Associate of Applied Science for environmental science technicians. She concluded by reviewing the annual West Virginia Higher Education Report Card for 2018. Leslie See, vice president of enrollment, noted the unofficial enrollment for the spring term shows an increase in full-time enrollment. She also reviewed the fall 2018 enrollment report, noting Blue Ridge CTC ranked first in multiple areas. Kristy Scarlata, comptroller, presented the finance report with an overview of FY 19 quarter financials, noting a strong financial position. For more information, call 304-260-4380 or go to www.BlueRidgeCTC.edu. Photo: The Canadian Press Shipbuilders and Irving employees attend the announcement of Lockheed Martin Canada as the designer of 15 new Canadian Surface Combatants to be built at Irving Shipbuilding's Halifax shipyard in Halifax on Friday, February 8, 2019. The federal government awarded U.S. defence giant Lockheed Martin a long-awaited contract to design its $60-billion fleet of warships despite lingering questions about the selection process and a legal challenge from a rival bidder. Procurement Minister Carla Qualtrough announced the deal in Halifax early Friday, saying the Royal Canadian Navy's 15 new warships will be built by Irving and based on the British-designed Type 26 frigate. She made the announcement at Irving's Halifax Shipyard surrounded by hundreds of applauding workers, and touched on the persistent suggestions it wasn't a fair and balanced fight for the contract. "Our government is providing the Royal Canadian Navy with the ships it needs to do its important work of protecting Canadians," she said in a statement. "This procurement process for Canada's future fleet of Canadian Surface Combatants was conducted in an open, fair and transparent manner that yielded the best ship design, and design team, to meet our needs for many years to come." Lockheed's design had been selected as the best last October, beating out submissions from Alion Science and Technology of Virginia and Spanish firm Navantia to replace Canada's existing frigates and destroyers. In a statement, Lockheed Martin Canada's vice-president praised the decision. "This award is true validation of our Canadian capability," Gary Fudge said. "Our team is honoured, knowing that we offered the right solution for Canada and a proven ability to perform on complex defence programs." Defence Department officials will now sit down with Irving and Lockheed to figure out what changes need to be made to the company's design, along with the navy's requirements to make sure they fit. The department's top procurement official, Patrick Finn, has said the plan is to keep changes to a minimum to keep costs and schedule under control. Rebecca Massie Lane Special to The Herald-Mail Last Sunday, the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts recognized the artists whose works were accepted into the Cumberland Valley Artists and Cumberland Valley Photographers exhibitions. The exhibitions are sponsored by Conservit Inc., Dr. and Mrs. Hugh and Marty Talton and The Delaplaine Foundation Inc. The exhibitions are on view in the Don and Jone Bowman and the Groh galleries at the museum in Hagerstown City Park. The exhibitions received 667 entries. Ninety-nine works of art by 90 artists were selected for display in the exhibitions. Entrants came from 15 states, with most entries from the four-state region and Washington, D.C. The exhibitions were juried by Eric Key, director of the arts program at the University of Maryland University College, and Tess Vinnedge, regional director of the Edwynn Houk Gallery of New York. Ten jurors awards were given, and the artists were introduced. The top awards went to painter Judith Peck of the Washington, D.C., region, and photographer Michael Hunter Thompson of Cumberland, Md. Other jurors awards were announced at Sundays reception and are marked in the exhibitions by special labels. Two popular choice awards will be given at the close of the exhibitions and will be decided by visitors to the museum. Everyone who visits the exhibition will have a chance to cast a vote for their favorite CVA and CVP works of art. Peck won the CVA Best in Show for her painting, Steeled, oil paint and plastic. She was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., and received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from George Washington University. Last year, her work was included in exhibitions at TIAC Academy of Fine Arts in Florence, Italy; Arts Club of Washington; Huntington Museum of Art in Huntington, W.Va; the Midyear Exhibition at the Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio, where she won the Phil Desind Award; and the Haggin Museum in Stockton, Calif. Her work was also featured in a solo exhibition in the Gallery at Penn College in Williamsport, Pa. She has exhibited for several years in the Art Basel Fair in Miami and has received four purchase-award grants from the District of Columbia Commission on the Arts and Humanities. Peck has written: I look at the things happening in the world today, and what history has taught us about our broken world, and I cant stop being drawn into the unreason of it all. What I try to express in my art is that we all have the same hopes and dreams as anyone, anywhere, at anytime in the present or throughout history. I depict how, despite our rifts, we might experience healing in a broken world, and how that undertaking is universally human. Thompsons archival digital print, Lake House, won the CVP Best in Show award. This photograph is part of his cinematic portfolio, which he describes as Peripeteia ambiguous narratives and perhaps familiar subjects. Images that are often times of a moment or event that will leave a lasting impression on the characters, a turning point or sudden reversal of fortune. Also the goal is to leave a lasting feeling of ambiguity to the viewer. Last year, his photographs were included in exhibitions at the Mansion at Strathmore in Bethesda, Md.; Maryland Federation of Art, Circle Gallery in Annapolis; The Delaplaine in Frederick, Md.; Grin Gallery in Altoona, Pa.; Graphicus Atelier in Cumberland; Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition Gallery in the Redhook area of Brooklyn, N.Y.; Praxis Photographic Arts Center in Minneapolis; Saville Gallery in Cumberland; and New York Center for Photographic Art in New York City. Thompson won a Jurors Award in the 2018 Cumberland Valley Photographers exhibition at the MFA. Born in Morgantown, W.Va., he completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in graphic design at Frostburg State University. In 2015, he was awarded the prestigious Individual Artist Award in Visual Arts: Photography from the Maryland State Arts Council. Also, Thompsons mother was an art teacher. Black History Month Throughout the month of February, Americans give special recognition to the depth and significance of black history through myriad events and celebrations. On Feb. 2 at the MFA, the museum partnered with the African American Historical Association of Western Maryland to present a book talk and panel discussion on John Brown to James Brown. Ed Maliskas, author of the book, has delved into the history of the Kennedy Farm in southern Washington County, where abolitionist John Brown organized his raid on the armory in Harpers Ferry, in what was then Virginia. One hundred years later, in the 1960s, African-American youth from the four-state region enjoyed great musical artists of the era Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Tina and Ike Turner and James Brown, among others who performed at an auditorium and social hall built on the farm. Four panelists, Eleanor Gooch of Martinsburg, W.Va., and Lola Mosby, Leonard Cooper and Wendell Greene of Hagerstown, shared memories of their musical and dance experiences with an audience of 94 eager listeners. On view at the MFA is an extraordinary painting by an exceptional artist: Jazz at Takoma Station, completed in 1998 by Joseph Deweese Holston. The painting is included the exhibition, Ashcan to Abstraction: 20th Century American Art, in the Kerstein Gallery. Working as a painter and printmaker for mroe than 40 years, Holston is known for his cubist, abstract style which has important references to the Harlem Renaissance painters. His work can be found in distinguished American art museums, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Phillips collection, Baltimore Museum of Art, Yale University Art Gallery, Butler Institute of American Art and Howard University, as well as the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts. Rebecca Massie Lane is director of the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts. Provo, UT (84601) Today Partly to mostly cloudy. A stray afternoon thunderstorm is possible. High 92F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible early. Overcast. Low 64F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. During oral argument in December, one judge on the three-member panel asked a lawyer defending the administrations position if there is any product that the president does not have the congressionally conferred power to restrict imports on national security grounds: Could he, say, put a tariff on peanut butter? The judge got a foggily evasive answer. Gary Lawson of Boston University School of Law has argued that the Constitutions structure and a background or embedded principle permit Congress to delegate to presidents discretion regarding matters ancillary to a statute but not regarding fundamental matters. He says that the Constitutions Framers were not redundant when they said Congress could make laws necessary and proper for the exercise of an enumerated power (e.g., to regulate commerce with foreign nations). The two words have independent meaning: A proper law is not only necessary but consistent with, among other things, the separation of powers. Larry Alexander of the University of San Diego School of Law and Saikrishna Prakash of the University of Virginia School of Law have argued that a law cannot properly give to the president discretion to make rules for the governance of society, which is legislating. As the number of flu cases rises locally, Ballad Health is increasing visitation restrictions at all its hospitals. The health system announced on Thursday that its hospitals are asking anyone with flu-like symptoms, such as cough, sore throat, fever, chills, runny nose, body aches, nausea, vomiting or diarrhea, to refrain from visiting patients. Anyone younger than 18 years old and any groups of more than two adults per patient are also asked to refrain from visiting hospitals, Ballad officials said in a news release. To keep our patients and our community safe, were trying to limit the number of visitors who come into the hospital, said Jamie Swift, director of infection prevention at Ballad Health. Since Oct. 1, weve seen 944 cases of flu this season, but 475 of those were reported over the last week and a half. So as a precaution, weve implemented our enhanced visitation restrictions. The dominant flu strain in Southwest Virginia and Northeast Tennessee and across the country is Influenza A, H1N1, which generally results in a milder season, Ballad said. This years vaccine seems to be a good match, resulting in fewer emergency room visits and hospitalizations overall compared to last flu season, the release states. I fear many of these specialties we have today will no longer be available 24/7, 365. That has every potential to significantly impact the quality of care not only of trauma patients but also medical patients in the entire area. This is so important to the great majority of those of us in the Ballad service area, Spivey said, adding that Holston Valley and Bristol should at least be maintained as Level II centers. Dr. William Buselmeier of Kingsport said he and his other partners in a 25-doctor practice are concerned about the changes at Holston Valley. Over the past several months, we have experienced ongoing concerns for the safety of our patients due to Ballad Healths proposal to remove key services from Holston Valley Medical Center, Buselmeier said. The lack of sufficient input from community physicians in creating this plan is deeply concerning, and we are fearful the proposed changes will significantly disadvantage our patients. Support Local Journalism Your subscription makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} Other health care providers told the board how their pay and hours have been negatively impacted since the merger. They voiced concerns about patient care and safety due to insufficient staffing, access to critical care in bad weather and extended wait times for patients to receive care. Photo: The Canadian Press In this artist's sketch, serial killer Bruce McArthur (centre) attends his sentencing hearing in Toronto. A serial killer who murdered eight men from Toronto's gay village won't be able to apply for parole for 25 years. Bruce McArthur, 67, pleaded guilty last week to committing the crimes between 2010 and 2017. The sentence delivered by Justice John McMahon means McArthur will not be eligible to apply for parole until he is 91 years old. The judge says McArthur's guilty plea was a mitigating factor, as was the age the serial killer will be when he can apply for parole. McMahon also says he has no doubt McArthur would have continued to kill if he wasn't arrested last year. First-degree murder carries an automatic life sentence with no parole for 25 years, but a court can decide to impose consecutive periods of parole ineligibility for several convictions. "The law is clear: a guilty plea is a mitigating factor. The second factor is the age of accused when he could apply for parole," McMahon said. "The accused has saved the family, friends and community at large from enduring a graphic public trial that would have been a nightmare for everyone." The Crown sought a life sentence with no chance of parole for 50 years, while the defence had asked that McArthur be eligible for parole in 25 years. McArthur's victims were Andrew Kinsman, Selim Esen, Majeed Kayhan, Dean Lisowick, Soroush Mahmudi, Skandaraj Navaratnam, Abdulbasir Faizi and Kirushna Kanagaratnam. Court heard that many of them were immigrants and of South Asian or Middle Eastern descent. Some lived parts of their life in secret because of their sexual orientation. All of them had ties to the city's LGBTQ community. McArthur sexually assaulted and forcibly confined many of his victims before murdering them, court heard. He killed most of the men in his bedroom, where he bound and then strangled them with rope, the court was told. Then he posed their bodies for photographs, with many of the images featuring the same fur coat. Court heard he kept those images in folders on his computer labelled for each of his victims, accessing some of those photographs long after the killings. McArthur dismembered all his victims and buried most of their remains in large planter pots at a home in midtown Toronto where he stored his landscaping equipment. One man's remains were found in a garbage bin buried in a nearby ravine. When he was arrested in January 2018, court heard that officers found a man tied to McArthur's bed. Police later found a folder on McArthur's computer labelled with the man's name that contained images of him. Anderson, IN (46016) Today A few showers this morning with mostly cloudy conditions during the afternoon hours. High 78F. Winds S at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 30%.. Tonight Some passing clouds. Low 59F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph. Betty Faye Isham, 90, of Greenville, passed away on June 20, 2021, in Greenville. Funeral services will be 2 p.m. Wednesday, June 23, 2021, at Coker-Mathews Funeral Home Chapel with Mr. Amos Lowry officiating. Visitation will be Noon until service time at the funeral home. Interment will be Education & Special Projects / Royse City Reporter Hojun Choi is a native of Houston and a graduate of University of Texas at Austin, where he studied journalism and worked as a reporter at The Daily Texan. To reach him outside of business hours, email HChoiReporter@gmail.com. Photo: CTV News B.C.'s Speaker of the House Darryl Plecas, right, and his chief of staff Allen Mullen. Two and a half weeks after B.C.'s Speaker of the House released a report accusing two senior legislature staff of misspending taxpayers' money, he now says he believes elected officials also broke the law. In an interview with CTV News, Darryl Plecas said MLAs absolutely had to know about the alleged inappropriate work and travel expenses from suspended Legislature Clerk Craig James and Sergeant-at-Arms Gary Lenz. Plecas, sitting with his chief of staff Allen Mullen, said he believes MLAs not only contravened spending rules, but also broke the law. "Given what I've seen over the past over a year, yeah, there's people going to jail," Mullen told CTV News. "The RCMP are spending a lot of resources and they're working around the clock ... They're not looking about who expensed a glass of orange juice or a breakfast when they shouldn't. They're looking at some serious criminal matters." Plecas would not provide details about the allegations, or say if the investigation includes any sitting politicians. After Plecas released the initial report on Jan. 21 alleging flagrant overspending of public money, James and Lenz strongly denied any wrongdoing. I think what will happen down the road in the coming weeks and months - people will be very disturbed by what else is yet to come," Plecas told CTV News. Mullen added he's been fielding calls from a couple new people every day who have provided him with additional information. "I'm seeing people from private sector, from Crown Corporations as well as the legislature coming saying, 'Boy, have I got something to say about wrongdoing in this province,'" Mullen said. The RCMP continue their investigation of the legislature, telling CTV News they are not in a position to confirm any specific details with respect to the ongoing and active investigation at the B.C. legislature." - with files from CTV Vancouver This is the final installment of the H&N's weekly series "Birds of the Winter Wings Festival," featuring birds that have been seen during the festival's 39 years. The festival is held annually over Presidents Day weekend in February. The 40th Winter Wings Festival is produced by the Klamath Basin Audubon Society and will be Feb. 14-17. Registration for workshops and field trips began online Dec. 15. For more information, visit winterwingsfest.org. Sunday registration deadline Registrations remain open for several Winter Wings Festival events planned for Feb. 14-17 at Oregon Institute of Technology. Deadline for online registrations at winterwingsfest.org is Sunday. For information on how to register, call 877-541-2473 and leave a message, or email info@WinterWingsFest.org. Onsite registration at Oregon Tech's College Union from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday, and 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. both Friday and Saturday. As of earlier this week, programs still available include: Thursday, Feb. 14 Its Okay to Shoot with Auto Great Shots from Feeder Hops Birding Basics 1 Tule Lake Segregation Center and Museum Laid Back Birding Beginning Raptor ID* Stop Documenting: Start Creating Beautiful Wildlife Images Writing with Light and Words Ferruginous Hawks* Buffet Keynote: Solving Crime with Feathers: The Casebook of a Forensic Ornithologist Friday, Feb. 15 Waffles & Waterfowl Behind the Scenes 1 West Basin Oak, Conifer and Wetlands Tour Bird Photography for Birders The Rapture of Raptors Tracking the Rough-Legged Hawk in Western North America* An Owls Journey Sip and Paint at the Favell Museum Buffet Keynote: Here, There, and Everywhere: Photographing Birds* Saturday, Feb. 16 The Rapture of Raptors Nature Photography and Negative Space Birding Basics 2 Divers or Dabblers? Understanding Waterfowl Adaptations* Through the Lens: Nurturing a Golden Eaglet* Best Oregon Bird Trips* Buffet Keynote: Baby Birds: An Artist Looks Into the Nest Sunday, Feb. 17 Birding the Burbs * Activities with asterisks are free with registration. Vendors, demonstrations & art Vendors and exhibitors will share products and information Friday and Saturday, Feb. 15 and 16 in the Oregon Tech College Union. Vendor hours are noon to 6 p.m. Friday, and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday. A no-host bar will be open on Friday and Saturday from 4:45 until 6 p.m. in the vendor area. Childrens activities on Saturday, Feb. 15 will be downstairs in the College Union, with the Childrens Art Contest entries on display by the auditorium. Getting there A shuttle service will be offered Thursday and Friday for Winter Wings Festival events at Oregon Tech, due to on campus basketball games and other activities. Visit https://bit.ly/2RMIiyJ for a shuttle schedule and map. Attendees are asked to arrive on campus about 1/2 hour before a scheduled activity begins. Photo: File photo Police forces a world apart teamed up to confiscate more than 400 grams of heroin. The RCMP Federal Serious and Organized Crime (FSOC) unit and the South African Police Services joined forces in the fight against international synthetic drug importation and distribution, resulting in the seizure of 400-500 grams of heroin. On Jan. 9, South African Police Services were alerted to a suspicious package that was dropped off at an express delivery service company for shipping to a residence in Victoria. The RCMP took over the investigation and on Jan. 17, police executed a search warrant at the residence in Victoria with the assistance of Victoria Police Department, the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit BC and the Emergency Response Team. Two men were arrested and have since been released. Police are arranging to interview a third man. No charges have yet been laid as the investigation is continuing. This case highlights the continuous communication and building of relationships that our officers conduct on a regular basis with other law enforcement agencies around the world to advance our priority of keeping the public safe, said Chief Supt. Keith Finn, Deputy Criminal Operations Officer of Federal Policing. I would like to credit our partners with the South African Police Services for their swift actions in notifying us here. With their help, we advanced the investigation and stopped these illicit drugs from harming our communities. Note: We've recently updated our online systems. If you can't login please try resetting your password. You must login with an email address. If you don't have an email associated with your account email customercare@heraldandnews.com for help creating one. This is the Dublin woman who signed forged documents for a 160,000 mortgage application but avoided a conviction when she made a "substantial donation" to charity. Natalie Hughes (40) claimed she was unaware the documents, prepared by a third party for a mortgage broker, were forged and "blindly" signed them in a "desperate attempt" to buy a family home. Tragic In what was described as a "tragic case" by her solicitor, Cahir O'Higgins, Hughes produced the documents at Bank of Ireland in Drogheda, Co Louth. However, she was refused the mortgage and there was no loss to the bank, Drogheda District Court was told. The court heard Hughes told the arresting garda she would have made the repayments had she been given the mortgage. The defendant, of Melrose Grove, Clondalkin, pleaded guilty to three counts of fraud on dates between May 20 and December 16, 2015. She further pleaded guilty to one count of deception by using the three false documents on her mortgage application on the same dates. "She was reckless and blindly signed documents prepared for a mortgage broker by a third party," said Mr O'Higgins. Counsel said the defendant had no previous convictions, "not even a parking ticket". "She also made a substantial donation to charity and she is a nervous wreck," Mr O'Higgins said. Judge John Coughlan suggested the Probation Service speak with the defendant and the prosecuting garda to see if a probation report would help. After a short consultation, a probation officer told the court Hughes was "of low risk of re-offending, has no addiction or mental health issues and has 15 years' service working with vulnerable adults". "There is no reason for the Probation Service's assistance," the probation officer said. Before finalising the case, Mr O'Higgins told the judge: "I understand your benevolent practice of giving people a chance. She has made a substantial donation and it was in an act of desperation to house herself." Judge Coughlan struck out the case, saying: "This is not a court of law, it is a court of justice, and if I convict her, even give her the Probation Act, she may lose her job." A recruitment consultant with a "bright future" was caught supplying cocaine to "associates" outside a Dublin pub. Angelo Orsini (29) had had "all the advantages in life" but fell into a "particular lifestyle" and developed an addiction, a court heard. Judge Michael Walsh contrasted Orsini's background with the disadvantaged circumstances of many drug addicts who appear before the courts. He spared him an eight-month jail sentence, but ordered him to carry out 220 hours of community service. Orsini, of Brewery House, Clancy Quay, pleaded guilty to possession of cocaine with intent to supply. Dublin District Court heard gardai saw him acting suspiciously at Coppinger Row last August 11. He was searched and had a quantity of cocaine on him worth 1,400. Weighing scales were found in his bag. The drugs were "not solely for personal use" and Orsini accepted he was "supplying the drugs to associates", his solicitor Niall Walsh said. It was "not a commercial endeavour". Clumsy The accused had come from work and was in the smoking area of a pub, Mr Walsh said. "It was an out-in-the-open transaction, he passed the drugs to someone else," he said. "It wasn't done with any discretion. It was unsophisticated. It was quite clumsy." Orsini was from a good family in England and had no prior convictions. He had a good education, with a degree in accounting and banking. He worked in healthcare recruitment and was team leader in the Irish branch of a UK firm, the court heard. He had an "excellent work ethic", and although his employers were aware of the case and were "disappointed in him", they were "backing him 100pc". Orsini accepted he had "got himself on to a slippery slope" and made a grave error. Judge Walsh said the drugs could have made 28 deals. He said the court had to recognise the "huge contrast" between Orsini's background with "all the advantages in life" and the disadvantaged circumstances of many other accused. Photo: The Canadian Press A vessel has been acquitted of all charges over its spill of 2,700 litres of bunker fuel into Vancouver's English Bay in 2015. In a 77-page ruling released Thursday, Judge Kathryn Denhoff says the MV Marathassa discharged a harmful pollutant into the waters of English Bay and says four migratory birds were smeared with oil in April 2015. But her ruling says the Marathassa exercised due diligence and the discharge was caused by two unforeseeable shipbuilder defects on the new vessel, which had only been in operation for three weeks. It says the defects were only discovered as a result of the leak and were not foreseeable to external shipbuilding auditors nor to two experienced Transport Canada inspectors, who inspected the vessel in a search for the source of the leak. The Marathassa also had extensive pollution prevention systems in place and had conducted a comprehensive crew training program aimed at safety and pollution prevention that covered spills. The ruling says the Marathassa's crew also implemented its pollution emergency plan by taking samples of the fuel oil in the water and helping with containment. "As a result, the Marathassa is acquitted of all charges," the ruling says. "The Marathassa also took all reasonable steps to avoid the fuel oil spill on April 8, 2015." The City of Vancouver filed a federal court claim in April against the owner of the Marathassa, saying it still hadn't received compensation for about $550,000 it spent on response efforts. In March, the B.C. Court of Appeal ruled that Alassia Newships Management Inc., the Greek company that operated the vessel and employed its crew, was not properly served a summons notice so the trial proceeded only against the Marathassa. Dublin City Council wants more money to buy social housing from developers in pricier parts of the city. It has written to the Department of Housing requesting that certain areas - particularly Dublin 2 and 4 - be zoned off as "special cases". Under the Rebuilding Ireland scheme, the council must work within cost guidelines when buying homes. The council said this prevents it purchasing properties from developers in areas such as the Docklands. Because of this, some councillors fear there will be an over-concentration of social housing in other areas. Under the Rebuilding Ireland scheme, the most the council can pay for a two-bed apartment is 469,500 - which is below the market value in some areas of the city. The most that can be paid for a one-bedroom apartment is 400,800. Under the scheme, 10pc of all private developments must be ring-fenced for social housing. However, this is at the market price. If the price is too high, the developer must supply the 10pc elsewhere. This has been the case for 39 units to be sold by Kennedy Wilson to the council at a Herberton apartment complex in Rialto. Luxury They have been sold to the council instead of luxury units in the Capital Dock apartment complex on Sir John Rogerson's Quay - the tallest apartment block in the city. It is understood the difference in price is saving the council in the region of 10m. The luxury complex units could cost renters up to 3,300 a month. Tony Flynn, the council's housing supply manager, said the specification for apartment complexes in the Docklands area are high and regularly include concierges, gyms and cinemas. "In the context of that, they're very, very expensive," he said. He added "price ceilings" were currently standing in the way of the council. "What I would suggest is that somebody from a policy context looks at those ceilings and considers whether the Docklands need to be made a special case or not," he said. He added that the Herberton site had been made available to the council and it can move people into it almost immediately. Mr Flynn said the council wanted to predominantly stay in the area rather than take apartments off-site. He said an evaluation and special status should be given to certain areas and be looked at on a "unique basis". He said that areas such as Dun Laoghaire - which is outside the council's remit - would probably require a similar status. "Based on the current caps that are there, it's proving extremely difficult," he added. Cllr Christy Burke said he was "annoyed and outraged" at the lack of social housing in the Docklands area. "The Docklands has let us down north and south of the city on social housing," he said. A spokesperson for the Department of Housing said: "We are required to get value for money for the taxpayer." Denis O'Brien has said he is not "self-obsessed" in believing he was "lumped in" with 22 borrowers allegedly blamed for the 2008 financial crisis. The businessman was speaking during cross-examination in his High Court action alleging defamation by the Sunday Business Post on March 15, 2015. He said he was "maliciously" put into a category of borrowers, and defamed because the articles wrongly implied he was "a member of a select group responsible for the property bubble in Ireland". He said he had made some property investments, but was not a developer and disagreed it was not defamatory to describe someone as a developer in 2015. Abuse If you interacted with the public between 2008 and 2015 and said you were a developer, you "would get dog's abuse", he told counsel. "I am not a property developer king and I didn't bust the country." Mr O'Brien is suing Post Publications for substantial damages over the alleged defamation. The focus of the articles - run over six pages - was what the newspaper referred to as a "secret" report compiled by Price WaterhouseCoopers (PWC) on the exposure in 2008 of Ireland's banks. The report - which was provided to the Government in November 2008 - was obtained in 2015 by the newspaper, but destroyed shortly after publication to protect the source who provided it. The articles include a front page article headlined "22 men and 26 billion" with a subheading that read, "The secret report that convinced Cowen the banks weren't bust". Mr O'Brien claims the articles wrongly implied he was among 22 borrowers identified with the downfall of Ireland and the bankruptcy of its banking system, and that this injured his reputation. The defendant denies defamation. Michael McDowell SC said yesterday that the Sunday Business Post denied the word "they" in a strapline - "The files they didn't want you to see" - included Mr O'Brien. Remarking Mr O'Brien had probably heard of the Carly Simon song, You're So Vain, counsel put it to him that the articles did not mean Mr O'Brien, or others, were being blamed for the 2008 financial crisis. Mr O'Brien reiterated his view the articles, including one headlined "The Gang of 22", meant he was part of a "gang" of 22 responsible for the 2008 crisis. He said he did not know how counsel could say otherwise or suggest he was "self-obsessed" or like the person referred to in the Carly Simon song You're So Vain. He denied his interpretation of "gang" as referring to people engaged in wrongdoing or criminality was "excessive". The hearing continues. Photo: CTV News After posting its third-quarter financial results Thursday, ICBC is now on track to lose $1.18 billion during the 2018-19 fiscal year. The Crown corporation posted an $860-million loss for the first nine months of the fiscal year, which Attorney General David Eby blames largely on escalating costs of settling personal injury claims. Eby says these costs have risen by 43 per cent in the past five years, reaching $3.67 billion in 2018 alone. Until major reforms kick in on April 1 of this year, ICBC's financial situation remains critical and is worsening, Eby said in response to the third-quarter results. Losses of this magnitude are unsustainable and unacceptable. They are especially frustrating given the opportunity British Columbia had to avoid these losses if the upcoming reforms had been implemented years ago when they were first recommended, instead of being buried by the previous government. Eby says the use of almost unlimited experts during litigation has increased ICBC's settling costs by 20 per cent. Almost half of each litigated settlement is now being absorbed by legal expenses, Eby said. This includes lawyers' fees, estimated contingency fees, the costs of securing and paying for expert witnesses and the costs of delay. Eby says the ICBC reforms coming on April 1 are expected to save ICBC more than $1 billion annually. He notes that while privatization of auto insurance is touted by some as a solution, this may not be the case. Many of the significant challenges facing auto insurance in our province are also plaguing other jurisdictions in Canada, Eby said. Ontario, a fully privatized system, has the highest insurance rates in the country. Free access for current print subscribers As a home delivery subscriber, you get free unlimited digital access to premium content on HenryHerald.com, including local news, local sports, obituaries, legal notices, local features, and the e-edition. All you need is your print subscription account number and your last name. Don't know your subscription number? Email access@henryherald.com with your delivery address. Activate your account now. 'American Experience' profiles George Bond's Sealab role George Bond Sr., as shown in the PBS documentary 'American Experience' George Bond Sr. was known throughout Henderson County and especially Bat Cave for bringing health care to unserved isolated pockets of the mountains. Less is known of his role in the 1950s and 1960s in the development of Sealab, a U.S. Navy research station that sought to explore the depths of the ocean the way NASA was exploring space. Until now. Related Stories Dr. Bond's son, George Bond Jr., the retired director of Public Health in Henderson and Buncombe counties, tells us about a new documentary that features his father for his pioneering research on the effects of deep sea diving. Known as the "father of saturation diving," Bond, a Navy captain, spearheaded U.S. Navy's Sealab I, II and III. Sealab I first plunged into the Pacific Ocean in February 1969 off the shore of northern California. "The massive tubular structure was an audacious feat of engineering a pressurized underwater habitat, complete with science labs and living quarters for an elite group of divers who hoped to spend days or even months at a stretch living and working on the ocean floor," PBS says in a synopsis of the 'American Experience' show, set to air Tuesday night. Known by the deep-sea crew as Papa Topside, Bond was a key part of the new science of underwater exploration. "The Sealab project, as it was known, was the brainchild of a country doctor turned naval pioneer who dreamed of pushing the limits of ocean exploration the same way NASA was pushing the limits of space exploration," PBS said. "As Americans were becoming entranced with the effort to land a man on the moon, these divers, including one of NASAs most famous astronauts, were breaking depth barrier records underwater. Sealab tells the little-known story of the daring program that tested the limits of human endurance and revolutionized the way humans explore the ocean." George Bond Jr. recounts how it came to pass that his dad left his beloved Bat Cave practice itself a pioneering effort at rural health care and became a part of the deep sea exploration history. "My Dad, Dr. George Bond came to Bat Cave in 1945 to bring medical care to a 600 square mile area that was largely isolated in those days," he writes. "Our family lived in an honest to goodness log cabin and Dads sole medical asset was an Army surplus jeep with no roof. He made house calls all over the mountains until the 18 hour days almost killed him and eventually worked with the community to buy an old school and opened the Valley Clinic & Hospital. It was truly a 13-bed miracle in the mountains. For his pioneering work in rural health care he was featured in 1956 in the Ralph Edwards television show, "This is Your Life," which included lots of locals telling their stories of how Dad saved their lives or delivered their babies. "His career path took a sweeping change when he was drafted in 1954 at the tail end of the Korean War. He was sent to Diving School for underwater training by the Navy and then we went to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii where Dad became a Submarine Medical Officer. It was there that his fascination with all things underwater blossomed. Along the way he set the world record for escape from a submarine 306 feet below the surface with nothing but a single breath of air which he had to exhale all the way up to keep his lungs from exploding! He also developed techniques inside of a jet strapped to a diving submarine which later allowed escaping from a sinking jet aircraft saving lives of pilots launching off aircraft carriers. "While he was Officer in Charge of the Medical Research Laboratory in New London, Connecticut, he began a systematic research program of determining how deep and how long man could venture into the depths of the ocean. Those efforts led to the 'Sealab' program where in 1964 Dad put four men 193 feet below the surface off Bermuda in a special 'habitat' built out of two Navy surplus underwater floats! They breathed an exotic mixture of helium and oxygen and stayed down for almost two weeks until adverse weather forced them to bring the habitat up, decompressing the men for two days along the way. Thus began the era of what is now called saturation diving whereby the divers tissues become perfused with the gasses they breath such that their decompression time does not increase even if they stay on the bottom for days or weeks. This technology revolutionized the diving industry and it all started with the curiosity of an old country doctor who wondered how deep and how long." The 2012 book Sealab by Ben Helwarth told the entire story of Bond's early experiments with goats breathing exotic gas mixtures under extreme pressures, which ultimately led to the Navys Sealab 1, 2, and 3 programs. PBS has been filming the documentary for the past 18 months, Bond said. It's scheduled to air on WUNC-TV at 9 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 12. Flat Rock Park Foundation hires new fundraiser The Flat Rock Park & Recreation Foundation has hired Tracey Daniels as its new director of development, replacing Maurean Adams. Adams, who retired after five years of serving the Foundation Board, played a crucial role in bringing the Park at Flat Rock to life. Daniels has more than 25 years of experience in public relations, marketing, community outreach and programming. She also serves as social media and website consultant for the Town of Tryon Tourism Board. I am honored to work for this incredible organization, town and public facility," she said. "Building upon the foundation and Maureans history and success, I am confident I can further the momentum, enthusiasm and dedication to the park and our supporters. Daniels has drafted a tentative plan for 2019 that includes dedication ceremonies, a donor thank-you event, the annual Feast & Frolic gala and an official early-summer celebration for the Tot Lot Playgrounds completion. Public parks have always been part of the fabric of my life," she said. "My father worked tirelessly at Harmon Field in Tryon. Outdoor education and programming directly correlates to the health and happiness of my son. Hiking trails and nature walks are my happy place. The Park at Flat Rock is a local gem and I am honored to help the park continue to thrive, shine and grow. Joining the staff late last fall, Julia Buchanan continues as a part-time administrative assistant while Myra Grant expands her role as grant coordinator and development advisor. A 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded in 2013 by the Village of Flat Rock, the Flat Rock Park and Recreation Foundation raises the funds required to fulfill the vision of a signature municipal park for the community. That vision includes opportunities for recreation, health, and education for all generations while preserving the natural beauty that draws visitors from far and wide to Western North Carolina. Duncan Fraser is chair of the Board of Directors. For more information, contact Daniels at tracey@villageofflatrock.org or 828-697-8100 or visit the Park at Flat Rock Facebook page. Capsule that releases insulin in the stomach could replace injections for patients with type 1 diabetes. Anne Trafton | MIT News Office An MIT-led research team has developed a drug capsule that could be used to deliver oral doses of insulin, potentially replacing the injections that people with type 1 diabetes have to give themselves every day. About the size of a blueberry, the capsule contains a small needle made of compressed insulin, which is injected after the capsule reaches the stomach. In tests in animals, the researchers showed that they could deliver enough insulin to lower blood sugar to levels comparable to those produced by injections given through skin. They also demonstrated that the device can be adapted to deliver other protein drugs. We are really hopeful that this new type of capsule could someday help diabetic patients and perhaps anyone who requires therapies that can now only be given by injection or infusion, says Robert Langer, the David H. Koch Institute Professor, a member of MITs Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, and one of the senior authors of the study. Giovanni Traverso, an assistant professor at Brigham and Womens Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and a visiting scientist in MITs Department of Mechanical Engineering, where he is starting as a faculty member in 2019, is also a senior author of the study. The first author of the paper, which appears in the Feb. 7 issue of Science, is MIT graduate student Alex Abramson. The research team also includes scientists from the pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk. Self-orientation Several years ago, Traverso, Langer, and their colleagues developed a pill coated with many tiny needles that could be used to inject drugs into the lining of the stomach or the small intestine. For the new capsule, the researchers changed the design to have just one needle, allowing them to avoid injecting drugs into the interior of the stomach, where they would be broken down by stomach acids before having any effect. The tip of the needle is made of nearly 100 percent compressed, freeze-dried insulin, using the same process used to form tablets of medicine. The shaft of the needle, which does not enter the stomach wall, is made from another biodegradable material. Within the capsule, the needle is attached to a compressed spring that is held in place by a disk made of sugar. When the capsule is swallowed, water in the stomach dissolves the sugar disk, releasing the spring and injecting the needle into the stomach wall. The stomach wall has no pain receptors, so the researchers believe that patients would not be able to feel the injection. To ensure that the drug is injected into the stomach wall, the researchers designed their system so that no matter how the capsule lands in the stomach, it can orient itself so the needle is in contact with the lining of the stomach. As soon as you take it, you want the system to self-right so that you can ensure contact with the tissue, Traverso says. The researchers drew their inspiration for the self-orientation feature from a tortoise known as the leopard tortoise. This tortoise, which is found in Africa, has a shell with a high, steep dome, allowing it to right itself if it rolls onto its back. The researchers used computer modeling to come up with a variant of this shape for their capsule, which allows it to reorient itself even in the dynamic environment of the stomach. Whats important is that we have the needle in contact with the tissue when it is injected, Abramson says. Also, if a person were to move around or the stomach were to growl, the device would not move from its preferred orientation. Once the tip of the needle is injected into the stomach wall, the insulin dissolves at a rate that can be controlled by the researchers as the capsule is prepared. In this study, it took about an hour for all of the insulin to be fully released into the bloodstream. Easier for patients In tests in pigs, the researchers showed that they could successfully deliver up to 300 micrograms of insulin. More recently, they have been able to increase the dose to 5 milligrams, which is comparable to the amount that a patient with type 1 diabetes would need to inject. After the capsule releases its contents, it can pass harmlessly through the digestive system. The researchers found no adverse effects from the capsule, which is made from biodegradable polymer and stainless steel components. Maria Jose Alonso, a professor of biopharmaceutics and pharmaceutical technology at the University of Santiago de Compostela in Spain, describes the new capsule as a radically new technology that could benefit many patients. We are not talking about incremental improvements in insulin absorption, which is what most researchers in the field have done so far. This is by far the most realistic and impactful breakthrough technology disclosed until now for oral peptide delivery, says Alonso, who was not involved in the research. The MIT team is now continuing to work with Novo Nordisk to further develop the technology and optimize the manufacturing process for the capsules. They believe this type of drug delivery could be useful for any protein drug that normally has to be injected, such as immunosuppressants used to treat rheumatoid arthritis or inflammatory bowel disease. It may also work for nucleic acids such as DNA and RNA. Our motivation is to make it easier for patients to take medication, particularly medications that require an injection, Traverso says. The classic one is insulin, but there are many others. The research was funded by Novo Nordisk, the National Institutes of Health, a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, Brigham and Womens Hospital, a Viking Olaf Bjork Research Scholarship, and the MIT Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program. Other authors of the paper include Ester Caffarel-Salvador, Minsoo Khang, David Dellal, David Silverstein, Yuan Gao, Morten Revsgaard Frederiksen, Andreas Vegge, Frantisek Hubalek, Jorrit Water, Anders Friderichsen, Johannes Fels, Rikke Kaae Kirk, Cody Cleveland, Joy Collins, Siddartha Tamang, Alison Hayward, Tomas Landh, Stephen Buckley, Niclas Roxhed, and Ulrik Rahbek. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Rice U. team links genomic, metabolic processes in cells evasive strategies as they metastasize HOUSTON When metastatic cancer cells need to avoid a threat, they simply reprogram themselves. Rice University scientists are beginning to get a handle on how they survive hostile environments. Members of Rices Center for Theoretical Biological Physics (CTBP) and cancer metabolism researchers at Baylor College of Medicine have created a basic framework of how cancer cells whether in tumors or as single cells adapt when their attempts to metastasize are blocked by drugs or the bodys immune system. Understanding the cells strategies could someday help scientists design therapies that keep them in check. Their model shows a direct connection between gene regulation and metabolic pathways and how cancer cells take advantage of it to adapt to hostile environments, a process known as metabolic plasticity. In particular, the team led by physicists Herbert Levine and Jose Onuchic and postdoctoral fellow Dongya Jia looked at oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) and glycolysis, metabolic processes that provide cells with the energy and chemical building blocks they need to proliferate. From their model, they detailed for the first time a direct association between the activities of two protein players, AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) and hypoxia-inducible factor-1 (HIF-1), the master regulators of OXPHOS and glycolysis, respectively, with the activities of three major metabolic pathways: glucose oxidation, glycolysis and fatty acid oxidation. Their theoretical model was experimentally supported by Baylor cancer mitochondrial metabolism researchers led by Dr. Benny Abraham Kaipparettu. The new study appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. A lot of early cancer papers focus on the Warburg effect, when cancer cells primarily use glycolysis even in the presence of oxygen, Onuchic said. This is true, but its not like cancer cells give up on other mechanisms. The more aggressive they become, the more they are able to use any available choice to acquire energy. Our model shows how thats possible. Only recently have people paid attention to OXPHOS, Jia added. But they dont really understand how cancer cells regulate these two metabolic phenotypes. We want to know how cancer cells orchestrate them. Since there is an extensive cross-talk between gene regulation and metabolic pathways, we think its necessary to simultaneously look at these two different aspects of cancer metabolism. The researchers said their model helped the team hone in on critical processes that traditional genome-scale metabolic models might miss. We start with simple models where we can figure out completely whats going on, and then we add details to that scaffold without losing the basic understanding of how the systems working, Levine said. Jias mathematical model details connections that allow cancer cells to adopt three stable metabolic states. One is a glycolytic state, characterized by high activity of HIF-1 and high activity of the glycolytic pathway. The second is an OXPHOS state, characterized by high activity of AMPK and high activity of such OXPHOS pathways as glucose oxidation and fatty acid oxidation. The third is a hybrid metabolic state characterized by high activity of AMPK and HIF-1 and of the glycolysis and OXPHOS pathways. The Rice model revealed the presence of both HIF-1 and AMPK can lead to the hybrid state that is difficult for current cancer therapies to address. The researchers also found the hybrid metabolic state can be promoted by the stabilization of HIF-1 and the elevated production rate of mitochondrial reactive oxygen species (ROS) in cancer cells relative to normal cells. ROS are chemically active molecules that are important to signaling but at high levels can damage cells. Kaipparettus Baylor team backed up the theory using gene expression data from breast cancer patients and metastatic triple negative breast cancer experimental models. Experimental evidence showed that repressing glycolytic activity in the cells activated AMPK and enhanced OXPHOS. The reverse was also true. But a combination of inhibitors that attacked both glycolysis and OXPHOS successfully eliminated the cells metabolic plasticity. Were trying to push the field of metabolic modeling towards more flexibility, allowing for the decision-making processes we see in cells, Levine said. And here were coupling genes to metabolism in a way thats rather novel. Its still a limited view of all the metabolic pathways, he said. There are yet other possibilities that are not included in our model. We eventually need to tell a more complete story to really know whats happening. Co-authors of the paper are former Rice postdoctoral researcher Mingyang Lu, an assistant professor at The Jackson Laboratory, Bar Harbor, Maine; postdoctoral associates Kwang Hwa Jung and Jun Hyoung Park of Baylor; and Rice alumnus Linglin Yu. Levine is an adjunct professor of bioengineering at Rice and a University Distinguished Professor at Northeastern University. Onuchic is the Harry C. and Olga K. Wiess Chair of Physics, a professor of physics and astronomy, of chemistry and of biochemistry and cell biology and co-director of the CTBP. The research was supported by the National Science Foundation; National Cancer Institute; The Jackson Laboratory; the National Institute of General Medical Sciences; the Department of Defense; the Collaborative Faculty Research Investment Program, the Dan L. Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Charles A. Sammons Cancer Center, all at Baylor; and the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Rice University researchers from left, Dongya Jia, Herbert Levine and Jose Onuchic detail a direct connection between gene expression and metabolism and how cancer cells take advantage of it to adapt to hostile environments. (Credit: Rice University) Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nations top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is home to the Baker Institute for Public Policy. With 3,962 undergraduates and 3,027 graduate students, Rices undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is just under 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice is ranked No. 1 for lots of race/class interaction and No. 2 for quality of life by the Princeton Review. Rice is also rated as a best value among private universities by Kiplingers Personal Finance. To read What theyre saying about Rice, go to http://tinyurl.com/RiceUniversityoverview. Photo: CTV News The driver in a deadly bus crash in downtown Vancouver two years ago has been fined $1,800. The crash near Canada Place claimed the life of an American tourist. Patrick Gerard Campbell pleaded guilty to driving without due care and attention, CTV News reports. That is a Motor Vehicle Act offence, not a Criminal Code offence, Judge Reginald Harris explained. Campbell was boarding riders on Aug. 13, 2017, when he noticed the bus was tilting, so he pulled forward and away from the curb. in doing so, he struck two families unloading a rental vehicle. with files from CTV Vancouver Lois Kay "Katie" Nielsen, 81, passed away of natural causes Tuesday, January 29, 2019 at her home in of Gildford, MT. Katie was born in Portland, OR, June 24, 1937, and was the first child in a family of three children. From the time Katie was a baby till she was 13, the family moved often, living in Pocatello, ID, where her brother and sister were born; Ogden, UT, where her father had been deployed to supervise POWs from World War II; to Rupert, ID, after the war ended in 1945; to Boise, ID, in the summer of 1948 for a year; to New Plymouth, ID, for a year and finally settling in Jerome, ID, in the summer of 1950. At a very early age, Katie developed a musical talent and in grade school both she and her sister would sing harmony duets together in church. She had the extraordinary talent of being able to pick out the alto by ear! Katie would often provide piano accompaniment to Margaret's vocal solos. The two sisters enjoyed playing duets together on the piano. In addition to the piano, Katie played the flute in band during junior high and high school. She was a member of the International Order of Job's Daughters, where she held various offices, which included the privilege of being elected honored queen, which is the highest office. Kay graduated from Jerome High School in 1955 with a scholarship to the College of Idaho, where she attended for one year before transferring to Westminster College in Salt Lake City, UT, for nursing. On December 14, 1962 Katie married Ted Nielsen. Katie was previously married and had one child from that union. As a young married couple, Katie and Ted moved frequently, living in Pocatello, ID, till 1964; American Falls, ID, till 1966; Sunnyvale, CA, till 1967; and Burley ID, till 1970. While living in Burley, the family was blessed with two more children. She was an impeccable pianist and lent her talents for church services and weddings while residing there. In 1970, the family of five moved to Havre, MT, and stayed there for the next eight years. While in Havre, Katie was blessed with her last child and was an active member in the Homemakers Club. It was in 1978 that Katie relocated her family to the tiny town of Connell, WA. Katie lived in Connell for the next 32 years, until the passing of her husband Ted in 2010, after which Katie moved to Gildford, MT to live out the remainder of her days with her daughter Chelise and be near the grandchildren and great-grandchildren. During Katie's 32 years in Connell she was active in the community, where she volunteered at the pre-school as well as in the high school, helping children with special needs. Katie was always open to help anyone. She is remembered by old friends for her kind and giving heart as well as her listening ear and helpful advice. Katie's favorite pastime was bowling, and she was actively on a bowling league for many a year. Katie enjoyed playing her electronic organ piano in her home and would often be found playing nostalgic tunes. Family was very important to Katie and she relished in the time that she was able to spend with her grandchildren and great-grandchildren; she could often be found reading to them. Katie enjoyed sewing, knitting, crocheting, sketching and babysitting the grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Katie was preceded in death by her husband of 48 years, Ted Nielsen; parents, Estes and Melba Rowlands, and special friends, Betsy Coe and Mary Ann Buerkle. Lois Nielsen Katie is survived by daughters, Chelise (Blaine) Sterner of Gildford, MT, and Therese (Tim) White of Pasco, WA; sons, Chris Nielsen of Portland, OR and Ray Nielsen of Washtucna, WA; special daughters, Ritta Nielsen of Boise, ID, Traci (Wes) Knowles of Scottsboro, AL, and Kori Nielsen of Scottsboro, AL; sister, Margaret (John) Schroeder of Mid Pines, CA; brother, Bill (Mona) Rowlands Cerritos, CA; including steps, 19 grandchildren, 21 great-grandchildren; several nieces and nephews; and special friend Carol Thiel of Havre, MT. Cremation has taken place and a memorial service will be held at a later date this summer in American Falls, ID. Memorial's in Katie's name may be made to the charity of the donor's choice. Holland and Bonine Funeral Home has been entrusted with arrangements. Please visit Katie's online memorial page at http://www.hollandbonine.com and leave a message of condolence for her family. Out our way, one learns to listen to the wisdom of those who know what they are doing. It saves time and possibly some broken bones. Charlie taught me that when first approaching a herd of cattle that have been out on their own for a time, one goes slow and easy. Let them see you and get used to you before you try to herd them, was his counsel. Range cattle especially those that have not had to deal with people for a long time, can be a bit edgy and are easily spooked. Back in Wyoming, at my first round up, a guy drove his pickup into the herd honking his horn and we had an in... Havre Police Senior Officer Justin Gomke watches over students at Havre High School this morning. The Havre Police Department increased its presence in the Havre School District after a cryptic message was found in a boys bathroom Nov. 8, at Havre High School. Along with the Havre police, the Hill County Sheriff's Office is adding extra patrols at Havre schools. In the past year, Havre schools have seen at least four reported threats and while nothing has come of them, their impact is still felt deep within the community. Havre Police Chief Gabe Matosich said that each threat takes up resources from the department. Officers who are working other cases or patrolling in different areas get pulled from their areas and have to come assist, he added. Matosich said there are also financial implications to the department. In some situations, they'll have to call in officers who are off duty and that's when overtime starts to factor in. "It's starting t... The Hill County Commissioners met with members of the Road Advisory Board Thursday afternoon in the Timmons Room of the Hill County Courthouse to go over plans for applying for the BUILD grant. After regular meeting items were discussed, Hill County Commissioner Mark Peterson passed out maps and an outline of his proposal for the Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development, or BUILD Transportation Directionary Grants program. Peterson said his goal is to receive at least $25 million from program. He added that there can only be three projects included in the proposal and he had f... Emily Mayer The events of 1918 spilled into 1919, according to the February 8, 1919 issue of The Havre Plaindealer. C. W. Shorty Youngs cases were moving forward. The Plaindealer printed a very lengthy article pertaining to the upcoming District Court year. In part, it reads: DISTRICT COURT WILL OPEN TERM NEXT WEEK So-Called Shorty Young Cases Are Set for Trial Monday morning the February term of the district court begins for Hill county with the usual list of criminal and civil cases down upon the calendar for trial. In the number of criminal cases set the list is unusually long but this is because the seven hundred odd so-called Shorty Young cases appear upon the list. These cases will probably attract the most interest throughout the county and city. They have gained added interest because of their history since the informations were filed and because of certain statements in some so-called reform circles during the election campaign last fall. It also will be recalled that the state attorney generals office elected to handle these cases which were brought by the former county attorney, and Assistant Attorney General Grorud was scheduled to appear at the time twenty of the cases were set for trial last fall. When the time came it was given out that Mr. Grorud had missed his train and the cases were continued indefinitely at his request although it was never explained why the cases were not continued until the next day or some later date of that same term of court. Some three hundred and sixty of the cases charge violation in the Mint saloon of certain statutes regulating wine rooms while the remaining three hundred and sixty odd cases allege that the ground glass front in the saloon was an obstruction of the view in violation of other statutes pertaining to saloons. Throughout the county is generally expected these cases will afford some vindication of certain statements made by some noisy self-styled reformers during the election campaign last fall. Another case set down for trial at this term which will attract considerable attention is that of the state against A. A. Grorud which is up on appeal from justice court. It will be recalled that following the Border saloon raid the assistant attorney general was haled into court on a charge alleging the taking of property without due process of law, and his conviction and fine followed at the trial in the lower court. That an official in his position should get into such a predicament occasioned considerable amusement at that time. Prohibition in Montana was underway, and one of its side effects was the (supposed) closing of saloons. Saloon owner Pat Yeon had closed his Board of Trade establishment, but the large safe in the building was getting some attention from the City Council, who were looking at options to keep city records and documents safe. One option was to build a new vault, another option was to rent the safe from Mr. Yeon for $400, and a third option was to rent one for a lower price in Great Falls but the vault was found to be much inferior to that of Mr. Yeons. The decision went back to committee for consideration. Another worry on the City Councils minds was the size of the jail. The City was renting space at $75 per month plus expenses running $100 to $150 per month, and it was felt it would be more economical to build a new jail rather than incur more expense to what everyone knew would be an increase of incarcerated persons due to Prohibition. Returning soldiers and the aftermath of The Great War was also making news. A well-known former Havre residents actions in France made for an incredibly lengthy column in the Plaindealer. Captain L. N. Fournier had written a letter to his Havre friend, Harry L. Short, about his time in France. The Plaindealer prints: In a stirring account of American achievements on the battlefields abroad he exposes to a degree not revealed in any of the other dispatches which have appeared in the newspapers how near to collapse was the morale of the French before the Americans turned the tide of battle in France. He won his own bars as captain in a bitter engagement from which he led his company out after all the officers with which they went in had been lost. Bills were being introduced in the Montana Legislature regarding the care of returning soldiers. Locally, a new group had been formed regarding our returning warriors. MEETING OF BUREAU ON MONDAY EVENING Membership is Announced by Judge W. B. Pyper The first meeting of the local Bureau for Returned Soldiers and Sailors will be held in Judge Pypers office at 8 Monday evening. This bureau is formed to work as its name implies in connection with the federal employment service and was organized by Judge Pyper in accordance with instructions received from the Great Falls office of the federal employment service. The membership of the bureau is composed of a representative from every organization or distinct interest in the community to establish a point contact with all to help in the work of caring for those who return from offering their lives to their country. Through such a representative bureau it is believed that the co-operation of all the citizens in the work can be more easily accomplished. At the meeting Monday night Judge Pyper will preside as the local representative of the federal employment service. The membership of the bureau as announced by Judge Pyper follows: James Holland for the Red Cross, Earl Clack, Y. M. C. A., Leon Choquette, K. C., (Knights of Columbus) Lou Lucke, Rotary Club, Mrs. V. R. Griggs, Womens Club, Mrs. Olive Kirkland, W. C. T. U., (Womens Christian Temperance Union) Miss Helen Thompson, Women of Havre, Mayor McKenzie, Men of Havre. There is more news in the February 8, 1919 issue, but more on that next week! The Havre Public Schools Board of Trustees will meet Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. in the Havre Middle School. The agenda for the meeting is: A. Call to order 1. Pledge of Allegiance 2. Roll call 3. Welcome to visitors 4. Presentation and display Academic achievement award 5. Agenda deletions or corrections, if any B. Unanimous consent agenda C. Old business D. New business 1. Election resolutions May 7, 2019 a. Call for an election, Elementary School District 16 elementary only b. Call for an election, District A 2. Consideration of Havre High School spring activity schedule 3. Consideration of offering SPCH 141: Fundamentals of Speech through Montana State University-Northern ads a dual-credit class 4. Consideration of out-of-state travel: Havre High School Close-Up to Washington, D.C. and New York City 5. Consideration of out-of-state travel: All-NorthWest Honor Choir in Portland, Oregon 6. Consideration of Havre High School upgrades and renovations Phase 1 Open Agenda An opportunity for any member of the audience to bring to the attention of the board questions or relevant comments concerning district matters not on the agenda. The board will not discuss or take action on items not on the agenda, but may refer a matter presented to a future agenda. E. Superintendents report 1. Enrollment report 2. Holly Bitz and Ed Norman area reports F. Announcements/communications/information 1. Announcements from the chair 2. Montana High School Association annual meeting report 3. Correspondence G. Executive session H. Closing The next special board meeting will be Tuesday, Feb. 26, at 12:15 p.m. at Robins School Administration Building The next board meeting will be Tuesday, March 12, at 6:30 p.m at Havre Middle School Delores Kay Cichosz, 54, passed away due to natural causes at her residence on Tuesday, February 5, 2019. A visitation will be held from 4:00 until 6:00 p.m. today, Friday, February 8, 2019, at Holland & Bonine Funeral Chapel. Funeral services will be held at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, February 9, 2019, at St. Jude Thaddeus Catholic Church with Deacon Timothy Maroney officiating. Kays family has suggested memorial donations be made in her name to Special Olympics or any charitable organization that benefits children. Services and arrangements have been entrusted to Holland & Bonine Funeral Home. Please visit Kays online memorial page and leave a message of condolence for her family at hjttp://www.hollandbonine.com. Kay was born on October 26, 1964, in Havre to Vernon and Glorraine (Stiffarm) Cichosz Sr. She was raised in Havre, attending school here, and spending the majority of her time outside while not in school. After her high school years, Kay worked hard for several years before entering Northern Montana College, when she met the love of her life, Brian Buskirk. The couple married in 1987, and together, they raised their three children. Kay worked off and on during their early years together, but became a stay-at-home mom, caring for the children, their home, and her beloved Brian while they raised the children. In the early 2000s, Kay began working for the Havre School District, first as a teachers aide, and then as a cook, where she remained until her death. Kay was a loving, protective, nurturing woman, who enjoyed a good joke and spending time with her family. She was a great mom, supporting her children, their friends, and her nieces and nephews in whatever they attempted. Her daughter Beccas care was Kays greatest concern, and she loved spending time with her. Glacier Park and the mountains called to Kay, and she seemed most at peace while there. Drag racing and softball were two of her favorite sports, and she spent countless hours fundraising and volunteering for Special Olympics. Kay was preceded in death by her parents, Vernon and Glorraine Cichosz Sr .; nephew LJ Morsette; niece Megan Morsette; Grandma Fincke; and brother-in-law Randy Martin. She is survived by her husband, Brian Buskirk of Havre; children, Mellisa (Justin Shandorf) Haymaker of Shelby, Chris Buskirk of Coeur DAlene, ID, and Becca Buskirk of Havre; four grandchildren, Reece, Brayden, Lilyann, and Bryce; siblings, Cathie Cichosz of Missoula, Vern (Debbie) Cichosz of Havre, Marcia Morsette of Great Falls, Dave Cichosz of Havre, Mark Cichosz of Havre, and Judy (John) Danaher of Virginia; and numerous aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews, and other extended family and friends. Haiti - News : Zapping... VISA Brazil and Chile postponements of appointments IOM / BVAC (Brazil) informs you that due to the demonstrations its doors were closed Thursday, February 7, 2019. If you had an appointment for a day there, please come to the Center during the week of 11 February 15, 2019. IOM / CAVC (Chile) informs you that because of the protests its doors were closed yesterday, Thursday, February 7, 2019. If you had an appointment for that day, please come to the center on February 11 and 12, 2019. See also : https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-26873-haiti-flash-new-things-for-brazil-and-chile-visa-applications.html Clash between students, 10 wounded Wednesday, public school students and college students Gros Morne clashed. Balance : 10 wounded including the Principal of college Baptiste Peniel. Public school students were demonstrating in the streets of the city to demand the return of teachers to the classrooms. Fusion and OPL radicalize The Fusion Parties of the Socio-Democrats (FUSION) and People in Struggle (OPL) who were until now in the moderate opposition, pass in the camp of the radical opposition and demand the resignation of the President Jovenel Moise. President Moise cancels his activities Thursday, Jude Charles Faustin, the Adviser to the Head of State announced that the President of the Republic who was to launch his reunifying dialogue, celebrate his two years in power and make an address to the Nation, had to cancel all his activities for avoid fueling the confrontation because of opposition demonstrations... BRH presents innovative projects to the Saving and Credit Caisses Wednesday, at the Convention Center, Jean Baden Dubois, the Governor of the Bank of the Republic of Haiti (BRH), received the heads of the Saving and Credit Caisses, the largest in terms of assets, in order to present them the various products of the BRH including structuring and innovative projects to facilitate the access of the Savings and Credit Banks to payment systems : the Haitian Interbank Payment System (SPIH) and the National Payments Processor (PRONAP), two financial instruments that were reserved solely for commercial banks. BRH also presented the benefits of the Credit Information Bureau, a center that collects information and makes it available to credit users. Introduction to Gender Training The GENDER Focal Point of the Office of the National Authorizing Officer of the European Development Fund (EDF) organized this week the first gender training session, called Gender 101. This training covered key concepts, stereotypes and definitions of the genre while addressing the subject with a conceptual clarification. All this through practical exercises and fruitful exchanges. HL/ HaitiLibre Haiti - Demonstrations : Message from the Director General of the PNH In a message addressed to the police forces involved in the maintenance of order, during the demonstrations of Thursday, February 7, 2019, Michel-Ange Gedeon, the Director General of the National Police of Haiti (PNH) "[...] congratulates the police officers for their mastery, their know-how and their professionalism during the demonstrations of February 7, 2019. Several officers were victims of malicious individuals who, having infiltrated the demonstration, wanted to create panic and chaos by throwing stones and firing for no apparent reason. The police officers were able to show restraint and weighting particularly in Mirebalais where the PNH had 9 wounded in its ranks without making a victim. The High Command is proud of their behavior and encourages them to control their emotions so they do not give in to provocation. The General Directorate of the PNH, presents its sympathies to the police victims, to the members of their families and is very sensitive to the various testimonies of esteem and friendship that it shares with all the members of the institution in the circumstance [...]" See also : https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-26875-haiti-flash-important-damage-at-least-4-dead-and-21-wounded-during-the-demonstrations.html HL/ HaitiLibre Photo: Contributed A petition demanding the Ministry of Forests not spray a chemical cocktail over a reforested area has garnered thousands of signatures. Almost 67,000 people have signed the online petition by Stop the Spray BC in an effort to stop the spraying of forest that have been replanted over the past five to 10 years. "When a boreal forest regrows after logging, it is a paradise for wildlife like bees, moose, birds, and beavers, with a large selection of food including fireweed, poplar (aspen), birch, willow, grass, and many other plants that are critical to wildlife," the petition states. However, to industrial forestry, only one type of tree has value conifer trees like Lodgepole Pine. Utilizing helicopters equipped with spray nozzles and tanks of herbicides, companies spray these cutblocks five - 10 years after logging with industrial-strength glyphosate to kill every plant that isn't a conifer. The effects are devastating and long-lasting, as a forest without aspen will support far fewer wildlife, and especially moose, than one with. The petition claims the only reason so called 'weed-trees' are sprayed is because they have no commercial value. Cherryville resident Debra Werner said one of the herbicides that they are proposing to use is now a known carcinogen, and is currently under reinvestigation by Health Canada. Another big issue is that the spraying of our forests leaves vast areas of dry, dead plants and grasses creating fire hazards, as well as killing off broadleaf tree species known to be fire deterrents as well as being needed by wildlife for food. Green Party leader Andrew Weaver brought the matter up in Question Period last November and said every year in B.C., 16,000 hectares are sprayed with a herbicide that is likely a carcinogen. Weaver said spraying the replanted areas also causes a mono-crop forest that is more susceptible to wildfires and pine beetle infestation. Weaver said there is also reduced wildlife in areas that have been sprayed. We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on! Submit GREENWICH Authorities released no new information about the murder investigation of Valerie Reyes on Friday, but Greenwich police said they were exploring a number of different avenues. Police are looking closely at the evidence collected at the scene on Glenville Road where Reyes body was discovered on Tuesday morning inside a large red suitcase. Many pieces of possible physical evidence were collected and results from forensic analysis are pending, Lt. John Slusarz said in a statement. Reyes, 24, of New Rochelle, N.Y., was reported missing in late January, triggering a search by police in New Rochelle and New York City. Authorities developed evidence that she had been spotted in New York City in the days before her death, and the New York City Police Department issued a missing-person advisory. But then her body was found on Tuesday by a town highway worker about 15 feet off the side of the road. The state medical examiner conducted an autopsy on Wednesday and confirmed her identity, but did not disclose her cause of death. Due to the circumstances and pending further investigation, the results will not be available to the public for another six to eight weeks, a spokesman said Friday. In addition to being stuffed in the suitcase, Reyes was bound at her hands and feet, police said. Family members have said Reyes was in a state of anxiety and fear before she went missing. Her mother, Norma Sanchez, tearfully told the Journal News that her daughter was afraid, the night before she disappeared, that she would be murdered. Sanchez told Univision this week that her daughter was troubled after a personal relationship ended. She had a lot of panic, a lot of fear in her single apartment, after breaking up with her boyfriend, she said. I said, Stay with me. But she said, No mama, Im OK. Sanchez said it did not appear her daughter was anxious about the ex-boyfriend. The ex-boyfriend declined to comment when approached by a reporter at the vigil. Reyes, a bookstore employee, was from a tight-knit family of Mexican origin, and her death sent shock waves through her extended group of family and friends. They said she was a hard worker who was not involved with drugs or other risky behavior. Reyes, who was quiet and friendly, had recently gotten a dog who was popular with neighborhood kids. A family friend, Ely Salvador, said at a prayer vigil for Reyes at Glen Island Park in New Rochelle that she was a young woman with laughter. Hundreds of people came to pay their respects at the seaside park, lighting candles, offering prayers in Spanish and releasing white balloons. Another friend, Michael Falotico, wrote on social media, If it wasnt for this young lady named Valerie I wouldnt have learned digital art. She saw my sketches and persuaded me to get an iPad and an Apple Pen and to just create. A New Rochelle woman, Melissa Nicole, has started a Facebook site to highlight the murder investigation. All of us women can connect and come together to support Valerie, support her family, friends, each other. This is another terrible tragedy to have happened in our cruel world, and we, like thousands of others are searching for the horrible people that couldve done something so heinous to bring justice to others, she wrote. A memorial fund has been established for Reyes and burial expenses at www.gofundme.com/valerie-reyes. Over $15,000 was raised in one day to show our love, support and condolences to the Reyes family, the webpage says. Lets keep the Reyes family in our prayers during this difficult time. Reyes was last in contact with her family on Jan. 28. Her family reported her missing Jan. 30, after she did not show up for work at Barnes & Noble in Eastchester, N.Y. Police in Greenwich are leading the investigation, in cooperation with authorities in New Rochelle. With Staff Reporter Hannah Dellinger rmarchant@greenwichtime.com After Valerie Reyes body was found, bound and stuffed in a suitcase on the side of a Greenwich road Tuesday, police were quick to deem the homicide an isolated incident. The words are intended to reassure the public. To make us feel safe. To suggest this was a societal anomaly. Except its not. It hasnt been within memory. A Stamford Advocate editorial published Nov. 8, 1975 bore the headline Martha Moxley and violence. Marthas body had been found nine days earlier. Her death was also deemed an anomaly, as murder was, and remains, a rarity in Greenwich. ... she lived in the Belle Haven section of Greenwich which has security guard posts at its boundaries and is patrolled by guards. There, if anywhere, violence should have been kept at bay, the editorial reads. This country must deal with its violence which has increased to the point that it constitutes a national epidemic. What progress have we made in the intervening 43-plus years? Experts emphasize the relentless epidemic of violence against women. We know that from newspaper headlines throughout the state just this week. Sujata Lee Edwards, 36, killed by gunfire that traveled through the window of her home in Bridgeport on Tuesday. Alice Marie Figueroa, 28, shot dead in her Middletown home Monday. Fairfield resident Catherine Taylor, 70, shot to death Sunday. And the list will go on ... The list is so long that its easy to see how masses of people become desensitized to brutal acts of violence. Consider that most of the top network television shows involve killing, or hospital trauma. A Greenwich town employee is under investigation for allegedly taking photos of Reyes body and distributing them. It represents another form of abuse against women. We dont know yet who killed Valerie Reyes. For that matter, Martha Moxleys murder remains unresolved. And Reyes, 24, was not from Greenwich, or even Connecticut. She lived a mere dozen miles away in New Rochelle, N.Y. But she reminds us that potential violence is always right around the corner in America, regardless of the community. Changing the statistics requires us to gaze upon the worst part of our culture, the violence that occurs routinely behind closed doors. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control reports that nearly half of female homicide victims in the nation are killed by men who are, or were, intimate partners. YWCA Greenwich President and CEO Mary Lee Kiernan, who guides the agencys domestic violence program, accurately characterized the consistency of such statistics as deeply disturbing. The YWCA offers a hotline at 203-622-0003, while the Stamford-based Domestic Violence Crisis Center uses the statewide crisis line at 888-774-2900. Murders may be rare in Greenwich, but domestic violence remains the No. 1 reported crime in Greenwich. There is nothing isolated about domestic violence. Its up to all of us to contribute to shifting this disgraceful American culture. Ive spent Monday and Tuesday thinking about it, how it could have ended very differently, or if we were in a different part of the house where there was active fire, said Budnick, who manages Spa on the Boulevard in Abingdon. I thought about how we didnt get to say goodbye to our loved ones, that my husband was at work. WASHINGTON - The Trump administration declined Friday to submit a report to Congress determining whether Saudi Arabia's crown prince is personally responsible for the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Senators had asked for the finding by Friday, with an eye to imposing new human rights sanctions on Saudi Arabia over the journalist's Oct. 2 killing inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. Under the Magnitsky Act, the president has 120 days to respond to a direct request from Congress about possible violations. The request, made Oct. 10 in a letter signed by 11 Democratic and 11 Republican senators, required the administration to make a determination of responsibility for the killing, particularly including involvement by the Saudi royal family, and to act on it by imposing sanctions on responsible individuals. "The President maintains his discretion to decline to act on congressional committee requests when appropriate," a senior administration official said in a statement. "The U.S. Government will continue to consult with Congress and work to hold accountable those responsible for Jamal Khashoggi's killing." The Trump administration cited the constitutional separation of powers and the precedent of the Obama administration in declining to meet what the lawmakers had called a deadline. The decision was expected, and a bipartisan Senate bill introduced Thursday would supersede the request and direct the president to impose sanctions on anyone - including Saudi officials and the royal family - he determines was "responsible, or complicit in, ordering, controlling, or otherwise directing" acts that caused or contributed to Khashoggi's death. The new legislation relies on the authority of the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, and imposes a 30-day deadline from the date of passage for presidential findings and sanctions imposition. The act is named after a Russian whistleblower, Sergei Magnitsky, who died while in detention in Russia after being beaten and denied medical care. U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Khashoggi's killing was premeditated and almost certainly carried out on orders from Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The Saudi government claims that the prince, who is the kingdom's de facto ruler, was not involved. Trump announced in November that he would not downgrade the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia, regardless of whether Saudi rulers were culpable. Discounting his administration's intelligence findings, Trump has repeatedly pointed to the lack of a single piece of evidence, or a "smoking gun," that would irrefutably pin blame on the prince. The administration has said it continues to investigate the killing. "President Trump himself has said repeatedly to the extent we continue to develop facts that implicate others in the terrible act . . . we will continue to hold all the people connected to it accountable," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in an interview Wednesday with Fox Business Network. "It's an American commitment . . . and we'll do it." "Seeing as the Trump administration has no intention of insisting on full accountability for Mr. Khashoggi's murderers, it is time for Congress to step in and impose real consequences to fundamentally reexamine our relationship with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and with the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen," Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement Thursday. Menendez and Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., had requested the report in October, shortly after Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributing columnist and U.S. resident, disappeared. Late Friday, Menendez said he had received what he called a letter from Pompeo. "The Administration failed to meet its legal requirement to make a determination of responsibility for this heinous murder and report to Congress. I am very disappointed that the response from Secretary Pompeo doesn't come close to fulfilling the statutory mandate and demonstrates what the administration has wanted all along - the Khashoggi murder to be forgotten," Menendez wrote in a statement. The new legislation, sponsored by Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine and Todd Young of Indiana, as well as Democrats Menendez, Jack Reed of Rhode Island, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Chris Murphy of Connecticut, would also prohibit certain arms sales to Saudi Arabia and in-flight refueling of Saudi coalition aircraft in Yemen. "It is not in our national security interests to look the other way when it comes to the brutal murder of Mr. Jamal Khashoggi," Graham said in a statement. "I fully realize we have to deal with bad actors and imperfect situations on the international stage. However, when we lose our moral voice, we lose our strongest asset." Young and Shaheen released a separate letter to Pompeo on Thursday, in advance of a Saturday deadline for the administration to certify that Saudi Arabia is taking "demonstrable actions" to minimize the danger to civilians from its war effort in Yemen. After meetings with the administration and with lawmakers here this week, Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi minister of state for foreign affairs, expressed some exasperation Friday at what he saw as unwarranted congressional accusations. He repeated his government's insistence that the crown prince "did not order this." "We know that this was a rogue operation," Jubeir told reporters gathered at Saudi Arabia's Embassy. "We came out and we acknowledged it, that it was committed by officials of the Saudi government, acting outside their authority and outside their responsibilities. And that's why they're charged," he said of the 11 unnamed Saudis on trial in Riyadh. Accusing the crown prince, he said, "is like saying, when Oliver North was engaged in Iran-contra, did Ronald Reagan know? "These things happen. Mistakes happen; we acknowledge that this is a huge mistake," he said of the killing, but "those responsible will be held accountable." Two hearings are known to have been held so far in the case, in which prosecutors have asked for the death penalty for five of the 11 charged. Jubeir said that representatives of the permanent five members of the U.N. Security Council, and of Turkey, have been invited to attend, "and I believe they have." He said that the allegations and continued controversy has not affected Saudi Arabia's relationships with other countries. Asked about the bill introduced this week, Jubeir said that "there's no need to be taking steps like this, because we are doing what we need to do. . . . I think logic would say, wait until the process plays out, and then judge it. Here, I think people are putting the cart before the horse, and I believe that's driven in part by politics, in part by the atmosphere in Washington. It's a horrific crime. We understand that. But I think wisdom has to prevail, and people have to let the legal process play out," he said. Suggesting that Congress was holding Saudi Arabia to a higher standard than other countries, Jubeir said, "You've had so many journalists murdered in the last year, are they going to legislate sanctions against all countries in which journalists have been killed? I think the view is, they wait until the results come out, and where there is guilt, you can take action. "I wish the Congress would take a step back, look at the overall relationship, look at the steps that Saudi Arabia has taken, and let the process play out," he added. Charges have been filed against a man who authorities said had been living with his fathers corpse for months at his Oklahoma home. According to police, family members from out of state attempted to check on the elderly man many times over several months. When they talked to the man's son, 50-year-old Lynn Little, Little allegedly would tell them his father "was sleeping or was not feeling well and did not want to be bothered." GREENWICH Ralph Mayo says he has moved on. Now he wants the residents of Greenwich to do the same. There was an outcry across the community last month after Mayo, who has served as interim superintendent since last summer, was not chosen by the Board of Education to be the next permanent leader of the Greenwich Public Schools. While I was disappointed not to be selected as the permanent Superintendent of the Greenwich Public Schools, I respect the Board of Educations decision and their right and responsibility to make that decision, Mayo said in an email Friday. He sent the message to a general email list that includes parents, teachers and others in the school district. In January, the Board of Education decided to appoint Toni Jones, who currently leads the Fairfield Public Schools, to be the next superintendent. Soon after the decision was made, on a Friday afternoon before a long holiday weekend, many in the community took to social media expressing their disapproval. An online petition was started, and even First Selectman Peter Tesei put out a Tweet that, as a parent, he disagreed with the decision. The response and support I have received from the community since the boards announcement has been heartwarming and appreciated, Mayo said. However, now that the decision has been made, I would ask you all to let go and move on. Instead, community members should put their energies and efforts into eduction, he said, asking town governance to fund both the proposed operating and capital budgets for the towns schools for the next fiscal year. Let us not divide our focus in protesting the boards decision; it will only serve to distract from our priority our students, he said. Have a restful winter break and return re-energized to keep the positive momentum we have worked so hard to create moving forward. Mayo was named interim superintendent last summer after Jill Gildea left the post after less than a year on the job. A search then began for a permanent superintendent. In an interview Friday, Mayo said he will be staying in the district, but he and board members have not yet developed a plan of where he can help the most. Mayo said that board members would love for him to stay in central office. They have been engaged in conversations to develop a plan for him, Mayo said. School board member Peter Sherr responded to the email Friday by saying the school board should be communicating to the public, not Mayo. What we were going to do with Ralph Mayo shouldve been a major factor in the (superintendent) decision, and it shouldnt have been so dismissed so cavalierly, Sherr said. If our board were more effective as a governing body, we wouldve taken this into account more completely. Sherr was the only school member who voted no on the appointment of Jones. Suzanne Sullivan, an Old Greenwich resident who organized the petition, which garnered more than 1,200 responses, understands Mayos wish that the community move on, and respects it. The appointment of Jones, however, reveals a deeper problem, she said in an email Friday. This decision has brought to light the real issue that needs to be addressed, which is the BOE and its decision-making process, Sullivan said. There are many parents who are deeply concerned that the board is completely out of touch with the community they represent and are making decisions that do not reflect the will and best interests of the constituents. She had twice requested a meeting with school board members, and board chair Peter Bernstein offered the regularly scheduled meeting on Feb. 21 as the only forum for parents to express their concern, she said. I hope that parents who are concerned about the BOEs decision making process will come to the meeting and express their opinions, she said. jo.kroeker@hearstmediact.com In the Book of Exodus, we read: At midnight, the Lord killed the first-born son of every Egyptian family, from the son of the king to the son of every prisoner in jail. He also killed the first-born male of every animal that belonged to the Egyptians. That night, the king, his officials and everyone else in Egypt got up and started crying bitterly. In every Egyptian home, someone was dead. During the night, the king sent for Moses and Aaron and told them, Get your people out of my country and leave us alone! Go and worship the Lord, as you have asked. Take your sheep, goats and cattle, and get out. But ask your God to be kind to me. The Egyptians did everything they could to get the Israelites to leave their country as quickly as possible. They said, Please hurry and leave. If you dont, we will all be dead. So the Israelites quickly made some bread dough and put it in pans. But they did not mix any yeast in the dough to make it rise. They wrapped cloth around the pans and carried them on their shoulders. This is the reason for eating Matzah on Passover; for we left so quickly, we didnt even have time for the bread to rise. After the 10th and final plague, the Death of the First Born, the Egyptians were terrified of what might happen next so they urged our spiritual ancestors to hasten their departure from the land. They said, Please hurry and leave. If you dont, we will all be dead. The 10th plague, however, isnt the last great miraculous sign that led to our final redemption from Egyptian bondage. God has one last great miracle to perform: the Parting of the Sea. Its with this great miracle that forever establishes God as the One who has the Ultimate Power, the One who has the power over tyranny. Within our Friday Night liturgy, I often ask us to participate in an adapted English reading composed by Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan ZL. We acknowledge that there is but one universal God, and that to Gods service Israel stands eternally committed. We recognize in God the Power that has enabled us to triumph over defeat, persecution, and oppression. It was God who redeemed us from Egyptian bondage, and delivered us from the despotism of the Pharaohs; For God wills that we be free to use our powers for worthy ends, unfettered by arbitrary rule of any mortal. Whenever human tyrants usurp Divine authority, oppressing or exploiting others, The hardening of their hearts proves their undoing; their unrelenting arrogance writes their doom. Therefore we will not be discouraged or dismayed, when unrighteous powers rise up against us. Though enemy hosts pursue us, we shall remember how our ancestors were saved at the Sea. We shall recall, in every age, the words of triumph with which they gave thanks for their deliverance from peril. Mi Chamocha - Who is like You, O Lord, among the mighty? I find this reading to be especially poignant, and historically accurate. It is the reality of the Jewish People that our faith in God, and living by Gods teachings, has always given us the strength not only to survive, but to thrive. The miracle of the Parting of the Sea is our story; the story that makes us who we are, and who we continue to be as Jews. The Parting of the Sea truly is the staging place for the birth of the Jewish People; like the mother whose water breaks, we emerge from the narrowness of Egypt and are re-born in to the freedom of Gods expansive. The Hebrew word from Egypt is Mitzrayim, which literally means narrowness. The lambs blood on the doorposts of the Israelites that instructed the Angel of Death not to strike was the birth-blood of the soon to be born Jewish People. In Mitzrayim the Egyptian land of narrowness and tyranny we left for the open space of sacred freedom and values; the place where God ultimately rules. There have historically been many Pharaohs and/or Pharaoh wannabes; people who want to act without concern for any moral curbs on their behaviors. People who wish to utilize power so as to oppress others. The Jew has faced many such oppressors, yet our faith and our commitment to leading Jewish moral lives assures that we outlast all of our oppressors. As Mark Twain observed: The Egyptian, the Babylonian and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then ... passed away. The Greek and the Roman followed. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts ... All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality? The secret to our immortality was our knowing that the story of Passover, the story that made us who we are, is our historic reality if we continue to make it true each and every day. We live our Jewish lives continued to be tethered to Gods laws; living up to our sacred responsibilities both as Jews and as human beings. God delivered us from bondage. God has always been our hope and strength even in our times of despair. And, with each new day, we Jewishly rededicate ourselves to leading a sacred life by which we recall our past, live responsibly in the present, and help assure our future. In doing this we forever hear the echoes of the Parting Sea. Rabbi Mitchell M. Hurvitz is senior rabbi at Temple Sholom of Greenwich, co-founder of the Sholom Center for Interfaith Learning and Fellowship and is president of the Greenwich Fellowship of Clergy. For an archive of past columns, visit www.templesholom.com. Google Maps Street View NORTH HAVEN - A mans leg became stuck under of the tire of his vehicle after he stopped at a gas station early Friday morning. At 12:15 p.m. an officer heard someone screaming for help near the station. STAMFORD A Greenwich woman facing child abuse charges was taken out of a Stamford courtroom in handcuffs Friday after a prosecutor told a judge of new child cruelty allegations against her. While making her court appearance for felony charges of second-degree assault, cruelty to persons and risk of injury to a child, Evelyn Stowell was ordered by Judge Bruce Hudock to be held in lieu of an additional $100,000 court appearance bond. Stowell, 41 was arrested on the original charges by Greenwich police last July, and was released after posting a $25,000 bond. Assistant States Attorney Daniel Cummings made an impassioned request Friday morning to raise Stowells bond because of new allegations of abuse that came to his attention just this week. Cummings said that a neighbor became alarmed after hearing much yelling and screaming coming from Stowells basement apartment on Sound Beach Avenue several days ago. The neighbor, who may have known about the abuse allegations against the mother of three, recorded the yelling, which Stowell and directed toward her children, Cummings said. The prosecutor said the neighbor told the state Department of Children and Families that the yelling was a regular occurrence at Stowells home. Stowell was heard cursing at the kids and calling them animals, dogs and MFers, Cummings said. According to Stowells arrest affidavit from last year, her children are ages 10, 6 and 5. In an eight-page affidavit from last summer, Stowell was accused of whipping her older son regularly with a belt, striking at least one other child with a wooden spoon and making the children watch others receiving their corporal punishment. Cummings reminded Hudock that upon Stowells arrest she was given a partial protective order prohibiting her from abusing, harassing or threatening her children. As well as requesting a bond hike, Cummings also asked that the judge place a 100-yard stay-away order to keep Stowell away from her kids and also asked for a another protective order that would prohibit Stowell from harassing or threatening the person who reported on her as well as that persons immediate family. Attorney Amelia Ruggeri asked that the judge not increase the bond and told him that Stowell would abide by any order he issued. But Hucock, who seemed a little surprised by the allegations, said that he had known Cummings for a couple years and knew he was not prone to exaggeration. Hudock then upped the bond and put in place the stay-away orders. Cummings said he anticipated more charges would be filed against Stowell next week. jnickerson@stamfordadvocate.com We are experiencing a sea of change regarding how some of us frame this nations age-old political and religious beliefs. It used to be that character matters in politics. Now? Not so much. It used to be that politicians relied on the light of the world and the Good Book to guide them in crafting the best policies for the people here and beyond our borders. Now we are being thrust into an every man for himself culture and my moral compass is dizzily spinning. Where did we go wrong and how do we find our way back? More than a dozen Greenwich residents turned in fine performances at the seven-day regional tournament that ended Jan. 27 in Tarrytown, N.Y. The following are those local players who placed in the overall rankings of their respective events on the final three days of the tournament: Friday, Jan. 25: Golden Opportunity Pairs, Grant Perkins-Wayne De Vries, sixth, 300. Round Robin Teams Bracket 4, Joan Stone, second; Carol Cram-Linda Fritz-Jane Young, fourth. ABC Pairs, Rich De Martino, first, A. Saturday, Jan. 26: Golden Opportunity Pairs, Linda and Don Fritz, sixth, 200. Round Robin Teams Bracket 4, Rufus Cole-Silvia Szanto, second. ABC Pairs, Vivian Wu, third, B. Sunday, Jan. 27: No top finishers from Greenwich. Last weeks column listed top finishers during the first four days. Todays quiz: Here is another in the current series of quizzes on interpreting your partners bids. In the following problem, you are given an auction accompanied by three hands, only one of which could actually fit the bid your partner has made (you are not shown your own hand). Applying the principles of standard bidding, which of the three hands do you think partner has? The bidding: You-1NT; Partner-4NT. Partner could hold: a) S KQJ942 H A53 D KQ3 C 6 b) S QJ5 H AJ3 D K942 C AJ8 c) S AJ4 H KQ2 D Q43 C Q875 Answer: A direct raise to four notrump in response to a one notrump opening asks opener to bid six notrump with a maximum and to pass four notrump with a minimum. The special meaning of this bid which shows 16 or 17 points in a balanced hand is sometimes forgotten by players who mistakenly attempt to use it to ask for aces (Blackwood) when they hold a hand that has the potential to produce a slam opposite a notrump opening. When a player does wish to check for aces in such a situation, he must either employ the Gerber Convention, or first name a suit before bidding four notrump on the next round to ask for aces. This being so, an immediate jump to four notrump by partner with hand a), which should yield a slam in spades, would be inappropriate, since you might pass; instead, partner would either bid four clubs (Gerber) immediately or establish that spades will be trump before bidding four notrump (Blackwood) at his next turn. Nor can partner have hand c), which would fall two points short of the 33 points needed to make a small slam even if partner has a maximum; instead, he would bid three notrump as a closeout. With hand b), however, partner would think a small slam was possible if you had 17 points opposite his 16, so he would invite you to bid a small slam by bidding four notrump. The weeks duplicate results: Greenwich YWCA weekly open duplicate: North-South, 1. Carol Cram-Penny Foote, 2. Judy Crystal-Maureen Smith; East-West, 1. Eleanor Gimon-Susan Vock, 2. Diana Hamilton-Ruth Newberg. Central Greenwich Bridge Club weekly duplicate, 2/1: North-South, 1. Dave Babson-Dorothea Bellafiore, 2. Joanne Marr-Wendy Rehberger, 3. Barbara Bellafiore-Holly Pastula; East-West, 1. Bob Driessen-Dean Goss, 2. Gaye Heilpern-Ginny Wolff, 3. Joyce Beach-James Chung. Attorney Jonathan Perkins has expanded his practice to serve people facing discrimination. His firm, which has traditionally represented people who have suffered physical injuries in Connecticut, is now representing clients suffering emotionally and financially as victims of discriminationincluding age discriminationin the workplace. We provide a service to our clients and we found that that is a potentially a growth area, so we wanted to be able to assist more people, he said. Census data shows that almost 40 percent of people 55 and older were working or actively looking for work in 2014 and is expected to increase through 2024. There is also a surge expected among workers 65 and older. While employment and anti-discrimination laws promote employment of older personsover age 40based on their ability rather than age, recent research suggests that age biases still exist. A 2018 study by the Urban Institute analyzing data by the Health and Retirement Study showed that more than half of working adults in their early 50s were edged out of their jobs through layoffs, business closings, job dissatisfaction or unexpected retirement. Although discrimination against anyone in the workplace is not a good idea and can be extremely harmful to the victim, in addition it is almost doubly bad for an older person to lose his or her job because of his or her age, because its harder for an older person to get a new job than it is for a young person, Perkins said. Jonathan Perkins Injury Lawyers has five locations statewide Bridgeport, New Haven, Waterbury, Hartford and New London and recently added two positions to accommodate discrimination cases for the entire business. Additional hires could be on the horizon depending on the number of cases that they receive, Perkins said. Since the expansion, the firm has already received four cases none for age discrimination. That could change in coming months as area organizations say that older workers face a number of barriers to employment brought on by stigmas. Its constantly in the background, said Marie Allen, director of programming for the Southwestern CT Agency on Aging in Bridgeport, which offers several services to the senior population in Fairfield County including connecting clients to financial and health benefit programs. Its common, Allen said, for the SWCAA to receive complaints from clients looking to work but being met with challenges that they associate to their age. We hear that there is a lot of passive discrimination, Allen said, like interview questions or an application process that appears designed to discourage or rule out older applicants. Age discrimination has been the focus of lawmakers who proposed a bill to prohibit employers from asking an applicant when they were born or when they graduated from high school or college. Employers are cheating themselves because these are experienced people, said Joe Carbone, president of The Workforce in Bridgeport. Theyve got good work records and theyve got skill. The workforce development organization, which serves the entire state, is preparing to launch another orientation for its Platform for Employment, which president Joe Carbone said has seen an uptick in older participants in recent years. After more than five years since it was established, the program, which has traditionally attracted younger individuals seeking employment, has shifted. Right now, Carbone said, roughly 77 percent of applicants for Platform to Employment program are 50 or older. That is a monumental shift just from what it was five years ago, Carbone said. Jordan.grice@hearstmediact.com Support local journalism We are making critical coverage of the coronavirus available for free. Please consider subscribing so we can continue to bring you the latest news and information on this developing story. Reviving our film industry We hope state lawmakers will now take a step sought by one local TV executive to rescue a project Netflix is about to ship elsewhere. Wilmington has had a love affair with the film industry since Dino De Laurentiis had Drew Barrymore burn down Orton Plantation in 1984s Firestarter. But after the heyday of 2012, when the state awarded $80 million under an incentive program that used tax rebates, Republicans in Raleigh slammed the industry with two actions. In 2014, they eliminated the 25 percent refundable tax credit in favor of a grant program that started with a miserly $10 million a year. Film production almost immediately fell off. Then the Republican-led body enacted House Bill 2 in 2016, which required citizens to use public restrooms that corresponded with the gender on their birth certificate. The legislation was disastrous for transgender people, not to mention completely unenforceable. Thank you for reading! We hope that you continue to enjoy our free content. The Conservators Center released the USDA inspection report on the center after a lion killed an intern Dec. 30, 2018. The report, issued from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service on Jan. 31, is two sentences. No non-compliant items documented on this inspection report. This inspection and exit interview were conducted with facility representatives, the report said. Veterinary Medical Officer Mary Ann McBride signed off on the report along with Conservators Center Executive Director Mindy Stinner. The report did not address how the lion Matthai, 14, got out and killed husbandry intern Alexandra Alex Marie Black, 22, what Black died from or how long it took before staff reached her body after Matthai attacked her. McBride could not be reached for comment. The Conservators Centers attorney Nancy Halpern with Fox Rothschild LLP refused to answer any questions about how Matthai got out, what Black died from or how long it took before staff reached her body. We are still investigating the issue, Halpern said. We have no further comment at this time. One week later, Martrell Harris, 21, was gunned down during a drive-by shooting on Reisterstown Road. A woman told police she was walking behind Harris when she saw gunfire flash from a Lexus. In charging documents, police wrote that Carter admitted to shooting Harris, saying the man had disrespected his girlfriend. Police are searching for multiple suspects after a 17-year-old Winston-Salem student was stabbed downtown on Friday afternoon. The victim, Oscar Mendez-Rodriguez was attending his first day of class at the Winston-Salem Street School, said Principal Nick Wright. Law enforcement and school authorities at the scene said the stabbing happened about 1:15 p.m. in the schools parking lot, at 630 W. Sixth St. Police Lt. A.J. Santos said that Mendez-Rodriguez was able to drive himself after the assault to Downtown Health Plaza at 1200 N. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. He was then taken to Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. Mendez-Rodriguez told police that the stabbing took place at the Crystal Towers housing complex at 625 W. Sixth St., a short distance from the school, according to a police news release. Santos said Mendez-Rodriguez was in stable condition Friday at Wake Forest Baptist. Police are looking for multiple suspects who ran from the scene, Santos said. Wright said the school dismisses early on Fridays for service learning. Mendez-Rodriguez was preparing to leave school for the day when he was attacked. Another teacher saw it escalate, Wright said. The beech tree, one of the more stately trees in our forests, could be facing a new threat. Beech Leaf disease was first noticed in 2012 in Ohio. The cause is yet to be identified. It is spreading rapidly and now appears in 11 counties in Ohio and has moved into Pennsylvania. Its spread is reminiscent of such diseases as Emerald Ash Borer and Sudden Oak Death. Sudden Oak Death, which has killed tens of thousands of trees in California and Oregon, was detected in a nursery shipment to North Carolina but has not been seen in the landscape here. Emerald Ash Borer is in North Carolina. Susceptible trees include green ash in Guilford County and white ash, Carolina ash, pumpkin ash and white fringetree (not an ash, but in the same family) elsewhere in the state. It is not known whether Beech Leaf is caused by an insect or a bacterial, viral or fungal organism. Researchers are at work to identify the problem, then to hopefully find a means to contain it. There is another issue in western North Carolina Beech Bark Disease. It is brought by insects and is identified by reddish scars or lumpy areas covering the bark. Once acquired this disease is ultimately fatal. Beech trees are popular as park trees, where they have room to spread as is their nature. If you walk into Jones Spanish Immersion Elementary School you will hear students learning in Spanish, and next year at Allen Jay Elementary, youll hear them speaking Urdu. At Montlieu Academy of Technology, each student works with a tablet, and at Peeler Open School for the Performing Arts, students learn to express themselves through dance, drama, voice, instruments and visual arts. For older students, they will build airplane wings that meet Federal Aviation Administration standards at Andrews Aviation Academy, learn costume design at Weaver Academy, start earning college credits at one of nine early and middle colleges, or receive rigorous academic studies in a traditional high school environment through Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate courses. These are just a handful of the more than 50 great choices for students that Guilford County Schools offers through magnet and choice programs across the school system. The options are as diverse as the student body, with offerings to ignite any interest. White, one of the community members in Freedom Voices, said that this documentary readers piece does is what all good art does: It takes what may have been mostly a cognitive awareness and makes it a personal experience which is the only environment in which deep change can take place. Frank Kuhn, a professor and professional stage director, said that putting the piece together was a great eye-opening experience for him. He gathered materials from the University of Mississippi library, which housed papers from the State Sovereignty Commission and White Citizens Council, and editorials and articles from across Mississippi. Also, he used information on microfilm, archival material, including meeting minutes, from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee to create the piece. Everything in the script, with the exception of linking narratives, was spoken, written, or sung during Freedom Summer, Kuhn said. The piece is both convicting and inspiring, White said. One new insight from the project is the incredible courage of both the students who came that summer and their local hosts, he said. Carlin said that Greensboro Project Space is excited to bring this piece, which highlights an important historic moment in our nation, to our community. We see this performance as a great example of Greensboro Project Spaces mission of connecting the arts at UNCG to the community, Carlin said. Ruth D. Anderson is the director of SecondbreathCenter.com. Unlike other recent west-to-east storms, this one is not expected to move up the Appalachian Mountains; rather it will continue east, Krichinsky explained. How far east it goes, and whether it parks itself over Maryland, will determine how much wintry weather the region experiences, he added. Electrify America has released its National Zero Emissions Vehicle (ZEV) Investment Plan for Cycle 2; Cycle 2 is a 30-month investment period that begins in July 2019. The $300-million investment will build on Electrify Americas initial priorities and expand into new areas, where the need for electric vehicle charging stations and technology are greatest or are most likely to be used regularly. Electrify America National Cycle 2 ZEV Investment Plan. Highlights of the National Cycle 2 ZEV Investment Plan include: Charging Infrastructure Metro Community Charging: The major focus of infrastructure investment in Cycle 2 is charging within metro areas, where research shows that EV drivers charge most often. Electrify America will invest in metro-based direct current fast charging (DCFC) stations in 18 metro areas, including these new metro areas in Cycle 2: Atlanta, Baltimore, Honolulu, Las Vegas and Phoenix Electrify America also will continue to invest in these Cycle 1 metros: Boston, Chicago, Denver, Miami, New York City, Philadelphia, Portland, Seattle and Washington, DC In Cycle 2, Electrify America also will broaden its investment in existing metros by adding: Boulder (CO) for the Denver market; Bremerton (WA) and Olympia (WA) for the Seattle market; and Bridgeport (CT) for the New York City market. These metro areas are expected to account for more than 50% of expected battery electric vehicles (BEVs) in operation outside California through 2022 (Navigant, 2017). Metro DCFC stations will be placed in retail locations and are intended to serve EV drivers in their daily fueling needs. Select DCFC stations also will be installed near multiunit dwellings (MUDs), expanding access to drivers who reside in apartment complexes and similar communities. Finally, Electrify America will invest in DCFC stations specifically designed to serve shared mobility drivers (car share, taxis, and transportation network company (TNC) drivers) to ensure that these high mileage drivers and passengers are able to enjoy the benefits of ZEV adoption conveniently and cost effectively. Highways and Regional Routes: Cycle 2 investments will build upon Cycle 1 efforts to develop a highway network of ultra-fast DCFC stations. This will include building new sites connecting regional destinations and filling in existing routes as station utilization of the highway network increases. Autonomous: To support the growth of autonomous ZEVs, Electrify America will build up to two commercial deployments of charging stations for autonomous electric vehicles where this need is emerging. Renewable Generation: Electrify America will invest in renewable generation for select stations to help to reduce station operating costs and reduce the carbon content for EV refueling. Education and Awareness Programs Electrify America will continue to invest in educational efforts to increase consumers awareness of EVs. In Cycle 2, Electrify America will engage in a brand-neutral campaign to drive ZEV adoption and a branded media campaign intended to drive station utilization. Efforts will primarily focus on boosting awareness and consideration by informing the general public of the benefits of ZEVs through traditional media advertising, similar to Electrify Americas Cycle 1 JetStones TV/radio campaign, and could broaden to include encouraging customers to research ZEVs and test drive the vehicles. The National ZEV Investment Plan benefited from collaboration with public and private sector stakeholders throughout the ZEV ecosystem and a comprehensive national outreach period, during which Electrify America received nearly 800 submissions and conducted follow up with many of the submitters. Electrify America was established to implement the ZEV Investment Commitment, a part of Volkswagens Court-approved settlement involving 2.0-liter diesel vehicles in the United States. The ZEV Investment Commitment includes four 30-month investment cycles that will direct $1.2 billion in electric vehicle infrastructure and education programs in states except California for a ten year period, and investment in each cycle is laid out in a National ZEV Investment Plan. In addition, under separate plans, Electrify America will invest $800 million in California, one of the largest ZEV markets in the world. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently acknowledged that the Cycle 2 National ZEV Investment Plan is consistent with the requirements of the settlement and is now final. Nationally, inside and outside California, the total number of metro areas invested in for Cycle 1 and Cycle 2 by Electrify America is 29 (Please note: some cities received investments in both cycles). The metro cities are: Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Boulder (CO), Bremerton (WA), Bridgeport (CT), Chicago, Denver, Fresno, Honolulu, Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York City, Olympia (WA), Philadelphia, Phoenix, Portland (OR), Raleigh, Riverside-San Bernardino, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, Santa Cruz-Watsonville, Santa Rosa, Seattle, and Washington D.C. (29) The US Department of Energy announced $35 million in awards for 12 projects that find new ways to harness medium-voltage electricity for applications in industry, transportation, on the grid and beyond. The selected projects are part of ARPA-Es Building Reliable Electronics to Achieve Kilovolt Effective Ratings Safely (BREAKERS) program, as well as the latest OPEN+ cohort, Kilovolt Devices. The 8 BREAKERS projects will work to develop new direct current (DC) devices to better manage power by eliminating electrical faults, improving efficiency and reaction times, and potentially enabling greater proliferation of energy storage and renewable resources. The four Kilovolt Devices OPEN+ projects will focus on a variety of challenges facing power electronics in the medium-voltage space, with a particular eye toward grid security and reliability. Todays power distribution networks are primarily powered by alternating current (AC) electricity, but DC can provide lower distribution losses and higher power carrying capacity. BREAKERS projects will develop DC devices that prevent electric arcing, a safety hazard, while handling large amounts of power and voltage. Medium-voltage DC circuit breakers could enable significant improvements in the United States electrical system, transforming how electricity is delivered and managed across the entire power grid, as well as critical applications in industry, transportation, and resource production. BREAKERS projects include: Drexel University, Ultra-Efficient Intelligent MVDC Hybrid Circuit Breaker $4,413,913. Drexel University aims to design a significantly more efficient, fast, low-cost, compact, and reliable circuit breaker for medium-voltage direct-current (MVDC) power system. The breaker is designed to protect MVDC systems from electrical faults and expected to respond in 500 microseconds. To realize this goal, Drexel proposes a solid-state circuit breaker based on silicon carbide devices that aims to significantly improve breaker performance for the MVDC ecosystem. Eaton Corporation, DC Wide Bandgap Static Circuit Breaker $3,760,000. Eaton will develop a silicon carbide-based direct-current circuit breaker design that boosts efficiency and can scale up or down medium voltage application requirements. The teams comprehensive approach includes a robust design that effectively dissipates excess energy and autonomously coordinates fault protection across multiple devices. The project results will extend to future ultra-wide bandgap power semiconductor devices and other advances affecting future generations of devices and power electronics. Eaton Corporation, Ultra-Efficient Intelligent MVDC Hybrid Circuit Breaker $4,413,913. Eaton will build an ultra-high efficiency, medium-voltage direct-current (MVDC), electro-mechanical/solid-state hybrid circuit breaker prototype, combining the advantages of both breaker types in offering low conduction losses and fast response times. The team will develop a high-speed actuator/vacuum switch to carry the normal electrical load. Combined with a novel transient commutation current injector, this switch will transfer power to a separate solid-state device, interrupting the current in event of a fault. The design should allow for scaling in voltage and current, enabling a range of circuit breakers across the MV application space. GE Global Research, Inline Gas Discharge Tube Breaker for Meshed MVDC Grids $4,350,686. GE Global Research will develop a medium-voltage direct-current (MVDC) circuit breaker with exceptionally fast response time based on its innovative gas tube technology. Gas tubes switch without mechanical motion by transitioning the internal gas between its ordinary insulating state and a highly conductive gas plasma. The team will develop a new cathode and control grid to reduce power loss during normal operation and meet program performance and efficiency targets. A fast MVDC breaker is an important component to enable uprating existing alternating-current distribution corridors in congested urban areas to MVDC, and connect distributed renewable energy sources to concentrated demand for growing applications such as electric vehicle charging. Georgia Tech Research Corporation, EDISON Efficient DC Interrupter with Surge Protection $3,000,000. Georgia Tech is proposing a novel hybrid direct-current (DC) circuit breaker technology that will enable multi- terminal DC power systems. The breakers mechanical switch enables switching speeds 10 times faster than the existing technology, severing the mechanical linkage while the power-electronics-based circuit handles the fault current. A new configuration of the fast switch and solid-state devices/circuits will reduce steady-state losses compared to state-of-the-art hybrid circuit breakers. A new control scheme dramatically reduces the peak fault current levels, enabling more compact packaging and increasing reliability. A consortium of industry partners will guide the design process and advise on commercialization. Marquette University, Ultra-Fast Resonant DC Breaker $500,000. Marquette University will develop a direct-current (DC) breaker combining the advantages of a vacuum interrupter with a wide-bandgap based resonant current source and novel actuator topology. The proposed solution represents a transformational state-of-the-art DC breaker scalable across voltage and current in medium voltage DC applications, such as power distribution, solar, wind, and electric vehicles. The Ohio State University, T-Type Modular DC Circuit Breaker (T-Breaker) for Future DC Networks $2,309,950. The Ohio State University will develop a medium-voltage direct-current (MVDC) circuit breaker prototype based on a modular design using silicon carbide modules to reduce cost and weight while enabling simpler manufacturing, increased reliability, functionality, efficiency, and power density. The modular structure will be self-sustaining and allow for inherent scalability while providing possibilities for multiple ancillary functions. Sandia National Laboratories, ARC-SAFE: Accelerated Response semiconducting Contactors and Surge Attenuation for DC Electrical systems $2,250,000. Sandia National Laboratories will develop a solid-state circuit breaker for medium-to-high voltage applications using switches based on the wide-bandgap semiconductors silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN). The concept builds on Sandias knowledge of optically triggered GaN devices, as well as the teams experience in circuit design for medium-voltage (MV) applications. Sandia will build a prototype breaker to demonstrate a fast response time using a photoconductive switch that is potentially scalable from 1 to 100 kV for direct-current (DC) systems. This technology could contribute to more widespread adoption of MVDC power distribution across the grid. The OPEN+ Kilovolt Devices selections are: I am wholly opposed to this memorial in Taneytown, Wantz announced at the Mayor and Council workshop meeting Feb. 6, breaking from his colleagues who have all raved about the idea. I just want to make it clear that it may seem like the council is standing together on this and, right now, were not because Im opposed. Gamber & Community Fire Company, along with neighboring agencies, got a call at about 10 p.m. to the 100 Block of Henry Avenue in Sykesville, according to a news release from the fire company. Fire crews responded to find a house fire with smoke and flames showing from the rear of a two-story, wood frame residence. A talent show to benefit Ulster Project was held at the Immanuel Lutheran Church in Manchester in July of 1990. Immanuel Lutheran is celebrating its 259th anniversary on Feb. 9 and Feb. 10. (Photo courtesy of Ken Koons) Census records between 1870 and 1910 show most men in the Western Chapel area worked as farmers, farm hands, or day laborers. A few were employed as stone quarriers in Medford which was within walking distance. One man dug wells, another was a cooper, but opportunities to improve your life were likely few and far between for unskilled blacks who grew up in the Maryland countryside. That explains why so many migrated to a place like Baltimore where they could find jobs as that city grew into an industrial powerhouse. Note: We've recently updated our online systems. If you can't login please try resetting your password. You must login with an email address. If you don't have an email associated with your account email circulation@skagitpublishing.com for help creating one. As Ilan Berman of the American Foreign Policy Council wrote this week in The Washington Times, since 1979, Irans economy has dropped from 17th to 27th place in the world, one of the steepest declines in modern history. ... Iranian citizens are now 30 percent poorer than they were in 1979. All of this makes me remember that, soon after Khomeini came to power in February 1979, I interviewed Yasser Arafat, then leader of the P.L.O., in his hideaway in Beirut. This usually inscrutable and often incoherent man was almost delirious with joy that night. I sat up there, I sat up there, he kept saying, with him! We reviewed the troops together, and I ... was ... up there! Translated that means he had just been in Tehran with the ayatollah and they had been together, up on the reviewing stand, overseeing the marching, shouting, fanaticized troops of the Islamic revolution. But a too-often ignored rule of history that these men never seem to learn is that the ego gratification and demagogic fervor of reviewing troops does not a nation build. Senate Majority Leader Tommy Norment, R-James City, served as one of the leading editors of the 1968 Virginia Military Institute yearbook that features at least one image of people in blackface and some racially offensive language. The Virginian-Pilot first reported Norment's role as managing editor of the yearbook and the offensive material published in the 1968 Bomb. An editor in chief served over Norment on the yearbook staff. In addition to the photos, the yearbook includes several instances of derogatory terms for Asian-Americans, and one reference to a student as the "Barracks Jew." Norment said in a statement Thursday afternoon: The use of blackface is abhorrent in our society and I emphatically condemn it. As one of seven working on a 359-page yearbook, I cannot endorse or associate myself with every photo, entry, or word on each page." Norment says he did not appear in or take any of the racially offensive photos. As my comment on Page 236 notes, I supported the integration of VMI," Norment said. "And in 1997, I led the effort to have my alma mater include women for the first time." Brian Leach of the East Texas Fugitive Task Force also could not say how Jones made it to Texas, but noted that such an arrest is not unusual for U.S. Marshals, which also provide security to federal courthouses. What typically happens in cases like this: local jurisdictions get a warrant on someone who is a violent offender [and] the local U.S. Marshals will adopt that case and start working it to see where he goes, Leach said. It is a common occurrence across the country. While Jones was the only person arrested, there was somebody else in the house with him as Marshals took him into custody, Leach said. He did not have any weapons on him when he was arrested. According to a news release from the Danville Police Department, more charges are expected to be filed against Jones. We anticipate more charges directly related to the homicide in the very near future, Chivvis said at the news conference. Commonwealths Attorney Michael Newman said that, because the investigation is ongoing, he could not comment on what types of charges may be filed against Jones. It would be improper to comment on what any possible charges could be prior to any presentation to a grand jury or magistrate, Newman wrote in an email. At this time he will be extradited back to Virginia on his charge of possession of firearm by felon. James Whitlow reports for the Danville Register & Bee. Contact him at jwhitlow@registerbee.com or (434) 791-7983. NEW Zealands new-vehicle market is now trending downward in parallel with Australias softer conditions, recording a 6.0 per cent fall in January compared to the first month of trading in 2018. Coming off its fifth consecutive record annual sales result, with the Kiwi car industry posting 161,770 sales last year, the January result of 13,938 new-vehicle registrations is 896 fewer than a year ago but still marks the second-highest total ever recorded for the first month of the calendar year. As 2019 gets underway, the economic environment that existed this time last year and before that has begun to fundamentally change, albeit slowly, NZ Motor Industry Association chief executive David Crawford said. However, levels of new-vehicle sales, while softer than this time last year, remain at historically high levels. Marking an end of five consecutive years of record January sales, New Zealands major vehicle categories were all down last month, with combined passenger car and SUV sales falling 7.9 per cent to 9942 sales, and light-commercial vehicles were down 1.0 per cent, to 3996 units. There were mixed fortunes among the leading players, with Toyota remaining the clear market leader on 2312 vehicle sales and a 16.6 per cent market share, but its sales volume was down a significant 29.2 per cent and its share at this point last year was 22.0 per cent. Ford maintained its position as the nations number-two brand, but the Blue Ovals sales were also down 9.7 per cent, to 1494 sales. As was the case in Australia, Mitsubishi was a standout performer that turned its back on the prevailing winds, posting 1248 sales for the month in New Zealand to claim third place. This was more than 300 units than it managed a year ago, marking a 32.2 per cent improvement. Mazda also bucked the trend, pushing up past Holden to fourth position in the marketplace with 1215 sales up 1.5 per cent while GMH finished the month with 1042 sales, 120 fewer than last January for a 10.3 per cent slip. Kia maintained its position just outside the top five with 710 sales for the month, down 6.8 per cent, holding off Nissan by just two units as the Japanese brand posted 708 sales for a result that was lineball with last January (+0.1%). Rounding out the top 10 was Hyundai on 627 sales, up 1.6 per cent and enough for eighth place, while Suzuki recorded 597 sales (+0.2%). Volkswagen also had a solid month, with its 473 sales earning it a place in the top 10 as Honda, on 450 units, fell 14.1 per cent. Also just outside the top 10 was Mercedes-Benz (331), while the other two notable brands with volume around the 200-unit mark were Isuzu (201) and Land Rover (179). Mid-size SUVs were the most popular vehicles in New Zealand last month, with 2203 sales, while compact SUVs were not far behind on 2203. Together, they accounted for 30.4 per cent of the entire market, and throw in large SUVs (1754) and luxury SUVs (91) and the 6078 combined total reflects a 43.6 per cent share for the high-riding class. As the third-biggest segment, 4x4 pick-ups/cab-chassis recorded 1921 sales last month, and combined with 4x2s (1129) the latter coming in at number six behind the mainstream SUV classes, 4x4 utes and small cars the tray-backed utilities posted more than 3000 sales (3050) for a 21.9 per cent share of the overall market. Among passenger cars, there were 1714 small cars sold last month, and 1126 light cars, while mid-size cars were further back on 389 units. MIA figures also show that 457 heavy commercial vehicles were sold, 362 vans, 284 large cars, 177 sportscars, 78 people-movers, 70 micro cars and 39 light buses. Among individual models, the Australian-developed Ford Ranger continued on its merry way as New Zealands Most Wanted with 837 sales for the month, up 17.4 per cent on January last year. It was followed by the Toyota Corolla (669, of which 428 were rental purchases), Mitsubishi Triton (445), Toyota HiLux (434), Mazda CX-5 (364), Suzuki Swift (351), Mitsubishi ASX (347, with 225 rentals), Kia Sportage (339), Nissan Navara (338) and, rounding out the top 10 and making it five utes in the mix, the Holden Colorado (335). NZ top 10 makes January 2019 Ranking Brand Sales Share% 1 Toyota 2312 16.6 2 Ford 1494 10.7 3 Mitsubishi 1248 8.9 4 Mazda 1215 8.7 5 Holden 1042 7.5 6 Kia 710 5.1 7 Nissan 708 5.1 8 Hyundai 627 4.5 9 Suzuki 597 4.3 10 Volkswagen 473 3.4 The Road to Recovery podcast series Some readers will recall an Oct. 8, 2014 article in the Carroll County Times which reported upon his international election. Riley, past president of the Kiwanis Club of Westminster and past governor of the Capital District of Kiwanis, was elected to a three-year term on the board of trustees of Kiwanis International at the 99th annual convention in Japan. The term begins Oct. 1, with installation occurring at the Kiwanis International headquarters in Indianapolis, Indiana. The article explained, The international board is composed of 15 Kiwanians elected from throughout the Kiwanis world and is responsible for policy, management and organizational development of the organization. You asked. We listened. Your daily crossword, Sudoku and dozens of other puzzles are now available online. Play them or print them here. Play now Pentagon Official: No Plans to Develop New Missiles After End of INF Treaty Sputnik News 04:04 07.02.2019(updated 04:08 07.02.2019) The head of Pentagon policy John Rood said that because the US has been in full compliance with the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty it has no plans to create or deploy an intermediate range missile system. The Undersecretary of Defense for Policy made his statement after Russia indicated on Tuesday that it will also abandon the INF after the US withdrawal, with plans to develop two new land-based missile launch systems by 2021 to counter US developments in its missile capabilities. "We don't have an intermediate range system or something like that that we would, that we're talking about deploying at this time. We're going to look at our options in this regard," Rood said, cited by the Hill. The Trump administration last week announced long-anticipated plans to stop complying with the INF Treaty, accusing Russia of violating the agreement for years and giving Moscow a six-month withdrawal period. Russia has repeatedly denied breaching the agreement. In his State of the Union speech on Tuesday night, US President Donald Trump announced that the United States "is developing a state of the art missile defence system," and "will never apologize for advancing America's interests." "Perhaps we can negotiate a different agreement, adding China and others, or perhaps we can't. In which case we will outspend and out-innovate all others, by far," Trump added. Rood said that US officials will discuss their defence options with allies at a NATO defence ministers meeting later this month in Brussels in order to see "how we adapt our defence posture in response to that new reality." "[Washington doesn't] have any plans right now and aren't contemplating deployment of nuclear missiles in Europe or anything of that nature. That's not what we're thinking about right now," he added. Sputnik EU To Call For Ukraine Support Ahead Of Elections, In Document Seen By RFE/RL By Rikard Jozwiak February 07, 2019 BRUSSELS -- Eighteen European Union member states have called on the bloc to be "ready to act" in support of Ukraine in case Russian tries to undermine the country's presidential and parliamentary elections later this year, according to a document seen by RFE/RL. In a discussion paper titled Keeping Ukraine On Its European Path, the 18 countries also say that the bloc should "avoid EU fatigue in Ukraine or Ukraine fatigue in the EU." The document, which EU officials were not authorized to release publicly, was endorsed by representatives of Austria, Belgium, Britain, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Sweden. It will be debated when EU foreign ministers gather in Brussels on February 18 to discuss the political situation in Ukraine, ahead of the country's presidential election set for March 31 and parliamentary elections later this year. The discussion paper says that the upcoming elections will be "a test case for Ukraine: its democracy, its reforms, its resilience, and its orientation. It remains a key interest of the EU to keep Ukraine on a European path of reforms and to continue its support." It states that "the campaign environment is challenging and Ukrainian resilience will be key in case of Russian interference," noting that Moscow is expected to "seek to influence the elections through support to its preferred candidates, cyberattacks, and disinformation campaigns." The 18 EU countries call for measures to counter the "false Russian narrative of Ukraine as a 'failed state.'" According to the document, Brussels should also "provide additional assistance, including humanitarian assistance," to eastern Ukraine where fighting between Ukrainian government forces and Russia-backed separatists has killed more than 10,300 people since April 2014. The paper praises the Ukrainian leadership, which together with "a vibrant civil society and the international community, has made impressive efforts to promote vital reforms and strengthen Ukraine's resilience and European orientation." "Reforms have been more profound and extensive for the past five years than in the previous 22 years of its post-Soviet life," it says, citing "progress achieved on decentralization, public administration reform, deregulation, pension system, and transparency." However, it emphasizes that the establishment of a "fully independent and effective" anticorruption court was crucial to give "the anticorruption agenda a vital and irreversible push forward, independently of the political leadership that will emerge from elections." It urges Kyiv to "protect the striving and vibrant civil society and bring those responsible for intimidating and attacking civil society activists and journalists to justice" The authorities must also ensure a "pluralist, independent, and accessible media landscape" as well as a "properly financed and operational public broadcaster," the paper says. Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/eu-to-call-for-ukraine -support-ahead-of-elections-in-document- seen-by-rfe-rl/29757626.html Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. Ukraine Moves To Bar Election Monitors From 'Aggressor State' Russia February 07, 2019 Ukrainian lawmakers have voted to ban Russian citizens from serving as election monitors in the country. The draft legislation was passed by the Verkhovna Rada on February 7, ahead of next month's presidential election and parliamentary polls later in the year. According to the bill, Russia will not be able to send observers to the elections -- even under the auspices of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), of which both Ukraine and Russia are member states. The OSCE has submitted a list of candidates for the presidential election observation mission, and it included two Russians. But the proposed legislation, which must now be signed by President Petro Poroshenko to go into effect, says that election observers cannot be citizens of a country recognized by the Ukrainian parliament as an "aggressor state or occupying state." Ukraine's parliament declared Russia an "aggressor state" in January 2015, after Moscow illegally annexed Ukraine's Crimea Peninsula in March 2014. Russia is also backing armed separatists in a conflict in eastern Ukraine that has killed more than 10,300 people since April 2014. Following the passage of the bill, the head of the State Duma's Foreign Affairs Committee called into question the "openness and democratic nature of the election process in Ukraine." Moscow will raise the issue at the next OSCE Parliamentary Assembly session later this month, Leonid Slutsky said. Meanwhile, the U.S. special envoy for Ukraine, Kurt Volker, said that Ukraine "needs" OSCE observers, even if some are Russian citizens, "to prove it adheres to democratic standards." Ukraine "needs to have confidence in its own democratic institutions," he tweeted. Based on reporting by dpa, AFP, AP, and Interfax Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-moves-to -bar-election-monitors-from-aggressor- state-russia/29757708.html Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. After Slip In Polls, Tymoshenko Goes Low In Ukraine Campaigning By Christopher Miller February 07, 2019 KYIV -- As she slipped from the top spot in preelection polls, Ukrainian presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko has offered explosive and seemingly unsubstantiated claims this week in an apparent effort to climb back atop an expanding field. The first accusation came on February 4, when the former prime minister accused President Petro Poroshenko's reelection campaign of attempting to buy Ukrainians' votes for 1,000 hryvnyas ($36). Without providing proof, she urged Ukraine's interior minister and prosecutor-general to launch probes into the matter. Members of Poroshenko's party, in turn, accused Tymoshenko's camp of bribing voters and improperly collecting their personal data. But it was at the kickoff of Tymoshenko's nationwide campaign tour on February 5 in her hometown of Dnipro that especially resonated with her critics on social media. She told a crowd of supporters waving blue-and-yellow posters adorned with her "I Believe!" slogan that U.S.-born acting Ukrainian Health Minister Ulana Suprun was "sent by foreigners" who want to "experiment on Ukrainians." The full video of the campaign stop was published on Tymoshenko's Facebook page. But it was a clip that highlighted the "experiment" comment shared by activist group EuroMaydan that quickly spread across Ukrainian social media. Tymoshenko's campaign has not commented on the remarks since. Earlier that same day, a district administrative court in Kyiv had ruled that Suprun could no longer head the Health Ministry. It cited a Ukrainian regulation that says a person may be acting minister for only one month and another that stipulates that government officials may not hold foreign passports. Suprun, who was born in Detroit, Michigan, was granted Ukrainian citizenship by Poroshenko in July 2015 and appointed acting health minister in August 2016. She has been hailed by officials and activists in Ukraine and the West for implementing crucial health-care reforms that reportedly have dealt a blow to corrupt practices within the industry. Tymoshenko's allegations came after five of six independent polls showed her falling behind Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a comedian who portrays a president on a popular TV series and is now running to be the actual president of Ukraine. Many of the same polls showed Zelenskyy defeating Tymoshenko should the two advance to a second round. Poroshenko, a businessman and compromise candidate in a special election after pro-Moscow President Viktor Yanukovych fled and war with Russia-backed separatists broke out in 2014, has polled third in four of the same surveys and second in the other two. All of them put his popularity below 18 percent. 'Distorted' Data The first round of Ukraine's presidential election is set for March 31, with a possible two-candidate runoff on April 21. Critics, including some who have researched her tactics in two decades of politics, suggest Tymoshenko's colorful accusations were not necessarily out of character. Tymoshenko occupied the top spot in an analysis of "populists and liars in Ukrainian politics" conducted by the Kyiv-based think tank Vox Ukraine in February 2018. Vox Ukraine wrote that Tymoshenko "corroborates her statements with statistics: 70% of her quotes contain data." However, it continued, "patent untruth can be found in 26% of Tymoshenko's statements" and "manipulations were discovered in nearly half of [the Fatherland party] leader's quotations." "[Tymoshenko]'s favorite rhetorical technique is to take correct statistical data and distort it beyond recognition," Vox Ukraine alleged. Among the issues that Vox Ukraine accused Tymoshenko of speaking about manipulatively: health care. It cited Tymoshenko as having said, "Today, Ukraine is Europe's leader in terms of infant and maternal mortality rates." But that's not the case, according to Vox Ukraine. "Maternal mortality rate in Ukraine is close to that in other CIS [Commonwealth of Independent States] countries: 24 maternal deaths per 1,000 births and 5.5 infant deaths per 1,000 live births," the think tank wrote. "But in Romania, for example, the situation is much worse: 31 maternity deaths and 6.3 infant deaths per 1,000 births." Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-tymoshenko -campaigning-polls-suprun/29757308.html Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. Ukrainian Parliament Passes Constitutional Amendment To Reflect EU, NATO Aspirations By RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service February 07, 2019 KYIV -- The Ukrainian parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, has approved in its final reading a constitutional amendment that reflects the country's strategic goal of becoming a member of NATO and the European Union. During a February 7 session, the amendment passed 334-17. Addressing the lawmakers ahead of the vote, President Petro Poroshenko said February 7 was a "historic day for Ukraine" and called the measure "another important step" toward eventual membership in the Euro-Atlantic structures. The bill was approved in its first reading on November 22 and it will come into force after it is made public. Poroshenko said Russia was able to launch an attack against Ukraine because certain Ukrainian politicians had been promoting neutrality "talking about the necessity for Ukraine to...stay away from all alliances." Poroshenko, who is up for reelection this year, came to power after Moscow-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych was pushed out by large protests and fled to Russia. The protests began in November 2013 after Yanukovych made a last-minute decision to scrap a key Association Agreement with the EU under pressure from the Kremlin. One month after Yanukovych fled to Russia in February 2014, Moscow annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula. Shortly thereafter, Moscow began supporting separatists in eastern Ukraine in a conflict in which more than 10,300 people were killed since April 2014. The EU Association Agreement was signed in 2014 by Poroshenko and came into force in 2017. Joining the EU or NATO requires support from all existing members, and many EU and NATO countries are wary of taking in Ukraine or believe it will not be ready to join soon. Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-parliament-passes- constitutional-amendment-to-reflect-eu-nato -aspirations/29756695.html Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. Juncker Rules Out EU Reopening Withdrawal Agreement at Meeting With UK PM May Sputnik News 15:20 07.02.2019(updated 16:12 07.02.2019) MOSCOW (Sputnik) - European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker ruled out at the meeting with UK Prime Minister Theresa May that the bloc may renegotiate the withdrawal agreement with London, the European Commission said in a statement, adding that the two senior officials would meet before the end of February to sum up the Brexit discussions. "President Juncker underlined that the EU27 will not reopen the Withdrawal Agreement, which represents a carefully balanced compromise between the European Union and the UK, in which both sides have made significant concessions to arrive at a deal", the statement said. Juncker, at the same time, expressed willingness to amend the political declaration agreed by London and Brussels in order to be more ambitious in terms of the content of the future EU-UK relationship. "The Prime Minister and the President will meet again before the end of February to take stock of these discussions", the statement read further. The president of the European Commission has previously stated that the so-called Irish backstop plan in any Brexit deal is not subject to renegotiation. At the same time, May said she would try to seek alternative arrangements on the issue, following the vote of the House of Commons, urging the government to replace the Irish backstop deal with another kind of agreement. Sputnik UK's May planning to delay second Brexit vote: Report Iran Press TV Thu Feb 7, 2019 05:07AM British Prime Minister Theresa May has reportedly decided to delay next week's parliamentary vote on her Brexit deal out of fears that she will not be able to renegotiate a deal with the European Union (EU) by then. May's chief whip, Julian Smith, signaled at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday that the second vote on the divorce agreement would be delayed until the end of February to buy the PM enough time to strike a deal with the bloc in time, the Telegraph newspaper reported late on Wednesday, without citing its sources. The vote on a new deal is now being planned for the week beginning Feb. 25, just over a month before Britain is due to leave the EU on March 29, according to the report. Last month, May suffered a humiliating defeat at the House of Commons after lawmakers overwhelmingly rejected her original deal, urging her to make changes to the treaty. The EU, however, has ruled out renegotiation for major changes. European Council President Donald Tusk said Wednesday that the bloc will make no new offers. He went as far as implying that supporters of Brexit deserved a "special place in hell" for promoting the exit "without even a sketch of a plan how to carry it out safely." May is due in the EU capital Brussels on Thursday to warn EU leaders that they should either accept legally binding changes to the Irish border arrangements, the main bone of contention in the deal, or risk a disorderly no-deal Brexit. The Telegraph reported on Tuesday that the cabinet had discussed delaying Brexit by no less than eight weeks. Corbyn sets out conditions to support May's deal Meanwhile, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, a firm critic of May's handling of Brexit, said Wednesday that he would back a Brexit deal if it addresses his five key demands. In a letter to the embattled PM, Corbyn said his party desired a UK-wide customs union and close alignment with the EU single market after the divorce. He also called for "dynamic alignment" with the bloc on citizens' rights and protections, "clear commitments" on future participation in various EU agencies and funding programs and "unambiguous agreements" on the terms of post-Brexit security arrangements with the bloc. He made it clear that "simply seeking modifications" to the Irish border arrangements was not a sufficient response. Corbyn said the EU would accept the UK's demands for change if London changed its Brexit red lines. Aid reaches internally displaced Syrians at Rukban camp near Jordan border Iran Press TV Thu Feb 7, 2019 03:47PM A convoy of the UN and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) has delivered aid, including medical supplies and basic commodities, to tens of thousands of internally displaced Syrians, who are enduring freezing temperatures and harsh living conditions in a refugee camp near the country's southern border with Jordan. SARC announced in a statement that "the humanitarian aid convoy of 133 trucks carried 8,345 food packages, the similar number of flour bags, canned food, medicine, healthcare items for children and pregnant women as well as children's clothes." "SARC in collaboration with the United Nations is continuing to carry out its duty towards more than 40,000 displaced people in Rukban [refugee camp]," the statement added. The convoy contains vaccines for nearly 10,000 children under the age of five, the UN said in a statement. "A vaccination campaign will be launched, under the supervision of a medical team, to immunize children against measles, polio, tuberculosis and hepatitis," SARC elaborated. The Wednesday delivery is the first such delivery in three months as a smaller convoy from Damascus entered Rukban on November 3. The UN says about 45,000 people, mostly women and children, are trapped inside the Rukban refugee camp, where conditions are desperate. On January 12, a Syrian mother attempted to torch herself and her children to death in the camp after she failed to find food for her family for three straight days. Other refugees in the camp put out the fire, which had damaged the tent, and evacuated the woman and her children to hospital. The woman and her infant were seriously hurt while the two other children suffered minor injuries. This is while Geneva-based international aid agency Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has put the number of refugees living there at some 60,000. In October, the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said people in Rukban have been without access to food and humanitarian aid for several months, highlighting that the tough situation was further complicated with a closed border by Jordan. In the same month, Amman re-opened the Nasib border crossing with Syria for the first time in three years, as the crisis in Syria is gradually winding down thanks to the Syrian army's decisive gains against terrorists. Jordan had closed its border with Syria following an attack on its soldiers by Daesh Takfiri terrorists back in 2016. The area where Rukban is located is controlled by the former US-backed Shuhada al-Qaryatayn militant group. The extremists were supposed to evacuate to northern Syria in accordance with a Russian-backed deal, but refused to do so. Syria has been gripped by foreign-backed militancy since March 2011. The Syrian government says the Israeli regime and its Western and regional allies are aiding Takfiri terrorist groups wreaking havoc in the country. US May Give President Right to Use Nuclear Warheads Against ICBM Silos - Moscow Sputnik News 13:13 07.02.2019(updated 13:19 07.02.2019) MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The United States is seeking to give the country's president the option to use low-yield nuclear warheads against intercontinental ballistic missile silos, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said Thursday. "I studied with great attention the comment by high-ranking Pentagon representatives on this topic, read reports that, in practical terms, the National Nuclear Security Administration began to produce the first piece of such ammunition. From the explanations of the Pentagon representatives I made several conclusions," Ryabkov said at a press conference in the Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency. The first conclusion, according to the Deputy foreign minister, is that the US wants to grant the US Armed Forces Commander in Chief the option of using relatively low-yield nuclear warheads against specially fortified, protected targets. Speaking further, Ryabkov said that Moscow believes, different political forces in Washington would use the issue of extending the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) to their advantage during the US 2020 presidential campaign. "Yes, it will be gambled on", the diplomat said, answering the corresponding question. Ryabkov added that there is less time to renegotiate the extension within the bilateral commission format. "We will meet with the US side only four times within the next two years. There are two sessions per year, about ten days each. So, it is necessary to get down to work right now", the official concluded. As far as the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) is concerned, the senior official said that Moscow had done everything possible to preserve the treaty. "Russia has done its utmost to save the treaty, we have repeatedly tried to bring the Americans to a professional conversation, offered concrete initiatives in the interest of finding solutions for resolving mutual complaints. Displaying goodwill, we went to unprecedented transparency measures that went beyond the scope of this agreement," Ryabkov said in the Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency. Moreover, according to Ryabkov, Russia is ready to receive and study specific arguments of the United States and its allies about how Russia's 9M729 missile that allegedly violates the INF treaty. "If someone among the US allies, who confidently tell us that they can use their national means to confirm the US conclusion that the 9M729 missile violates the treaty, is able to convey something to us, we will deal with it additionally. Although, as you understand, now it is almost irrelevant, given the fact that both parties suspended the implementation of the agreement," Ryabkov said at a press conference. The diplomat added that any new Russia-US negotiations on the treaty should take into account the military potential of other states. Prior to that, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the United States intended to withdraw some of the missiles from the agreement, denuclearising them, but Russia has the right to make sure that it is impossible to re-equip them back. The New START Treaty entered into force in 2011 and covers a 10-year period with the possibility of a five-year extension. The treaty limits the number of deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, nuclear-armed bombers and nuclear warheads. The talks on extending the treaty have been delayed over mutual concerns about compliance. Sputnik Russia Proposes That US Destroy Tomahawk Missile Launchers Falling Under INF Sputnik News 20:04 07.02.2019(updated 20:51 07.02.2019) Washington announced its suspension of obligations under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty on 1 February, claiming that it would withdraw from the agreement unless Russia "returns to compliance" within 6 months. The Russian Defence Ministry stated on Thursday that the United States had been violating the INF Treaty, creating conditions for the production of missiles banned by the agreement. "Despite the openness of the Russian Defence Ministry to a substantive dialogue on the parties' fulfilment of their obligations under the INF Treaty, the United States has not provided any evidence to support their stated position. At the same time, the United States has not taken the required action to eliminate the breach of its own obligations under the treaty", Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov added. At the same time, Moscow proposed that the US destroy its strike aerial drones, as they fall under "land-based cruise missile" category. According to Konashenkov, Moscow also urged Washington to return to compliance and destroy its MK-41 systems designed to launch Tomahawk cruise missiles. The spokesman also addressed the US note on the treaty. "The Russian Defense Ministry has familiarized itself with the content of the US State Department's note on the suspension the US side's participation in the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and the beginning of the withdrawal procedure", he said. Before the suspension of obligations in February, the US repeatedly accused Russia of violating the 1987 INF Treaty by testing the M9729 missile. Moscow, in turn, denied the claims, pointing out that the US was using a false pretext in order to leave the deal because other countries like China have developed their own intermediate-range nuclear capabilities. Sputnik Another Nuclear Deal With U.S. In Trouble, Russian Minister Says February 07, 2019 Another U.S.-Russian nuclear treaty could soon expire without renewal following Washington's withdrawal from a Cold War-era arms-control pact, a senior Russian diplomat has said. Talks to renew the 2011 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) agreement on nuclear-missile reduction must begin this year, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told the TASS news agency on February 7. Ryabkov warned that time was running out to save the pact, which was signed in 2010 by U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, and is set to expire in February 2021. Ryabkov said that Washington had shown "no readiness or desire" to engage in negotiations on prolonging the treaty that limits each country to no more than 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads and 700 deployed missiles and bombers. Ryabkov said that campaigning for next year's U.S. presidential election could disrupt negotiations for renewing New START. "This is why we need to do it this year," he said. The White House announced that the United States was withdrawing from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty as of February 2, setting the stage for the treaty to terminate in six months. Russia has followed suit. The United States has repeatedly accused Russia of violating the INF -- something Russia has repeatedly denied. Based on reporting by AP and dpa Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/another-nuclear-deal-with-u-s-in- trouble-russian-minister-says/29757167.html Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. S. Korean Military Slammed for Their Arms Buildup Korean Central News Agency of DPRK Date: 07/02/2019 Pyongyang, February 7 (KCNA) -- Shortly ago, the south Korean military made public "2019-2023 mid-term defense program" under the pretext of "coping with military threat and security change". The south Korean military is planning to increase military spending more than before and develop, introduce and upgrade large-scale war hardware such as reconnaissance satellite and airborne early warning and control aircraft. It said that it would purchase stealth fighters from abroad within this year, adding it would import more foreign-produced war equipment including high altitude reconnaissance drone and ship-to-air missile in the future. Minju Joson Thursday comments that this is a challenge to the aspiration and wishes of all the Koreans who want a durable and stable peace on the Korean Peninsula and a naked provocation against the DPRK. The commentary points out that the south Korean military should assume sincere stance and stand to thoroughly implement the north-south declarations if they earnestly want national reconciliation, unity, peace and prosperity. It goes on: Explicitly speaking again, war and peace, confrontation and dialogue can never go together. It is the DPRK's firm stand that joint military exercises with outsiders and introduction of war hardware from abroad, a root cause of tension on the Korean Peninsula, should be completely stopped as the north and south of Korea have already agreed to follow the road of peace and prosperity. The south Korean military had better behave itself after thinking twice about the catastrophic consequences to be entailed by their arms buildup going against the trend of the times. -0- Detention Of Ethnic Pashtun Activists Fuels Pakistan-Afghanistan Tensions By RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan February 07, 2019 The detention of ethnic Pashtun activists in Pakistan this week has reopened long-standing tensions with neighboring Afghanistan, with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani expressing "serious concerns" about Islamabad's treatment of the peaceful protesters. At least 19 members and supporters of the Pashtun Protection Movement (PTM) were detained during an Islamabad protest against police violence on February 5 -- the latest move against the civil rights group. One of them, prominent human rights activist Gulalai Ismail, was later released. Ghani, himself a Pashtun, tweeted on January 6 that the Afghan government "has serious concerns about the violence perpetrated against peaceful protesters and civil activists" in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces. Pakistan rejected Ghani's comments, with Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi saying in a tweet: "Such irresponsible statements are only gross interference." Afghan leaders should "focus on long-standing serious grievances of the Afghan people," Qureshi added. PTM, whose support comes mainly from the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, has been holding rallies across Pakistan since early 2018 to protest against what it says are human rights abuses and extrajudicial killings by security forces in the tribal regions. Islamabad's crackdown against the group has drawn criticism and protests from over the border in Afghanistan, where ethnic Pashtuns are the largest ethnic group. "We believe it is the moral responsibility of every government to support civil activities that take a stand against the terrorism and extremism that plagues and threatens our region and collective security," Ghani also wrote in a separate tweet. "Otherwise there could be long-standing negative consequences." Afghanistan has long had troubled relations with Pakistan, which Kabul and Washington accuse of harboring the Taliban leadership, a claim Islamabad has denied. The latest dispute between Islamabad and Kabul comes as Pakistan has been supporting efforts to open a peace process with the Taliban to end the 17-year war in Afghanistan. The February 5 protest in Islamabad followed the death of PTM regional leader Muhammad Ibrahim Arman Luni in the southwestern province of Balochistan. The authorities ordered an inquiry into the death, which PTM blamed on police. PTM leader and lawmaker Ali Wazir told the Reuters news agency that 18 activists were still in custody after Ismail, the 2017 winner of the Anna Politkovskaya award, was released this week. "It was very painful for my family, who took 30 hours to know where I was," the activist told the AFP news agency. "They didn't charge me with anything. They didn't let me contact my lawyer. They just kept moving me around," she added. Amnesty International on February 6 urged the authorities to " immediately and unconditionally" release the protesters, who it said had been "arbitrarily detained." "It is shocking that the Pakistani authorities have resorted to such heavy-handed methods," the London-based human rights watchdog's South Asia researcher, Rabia Mehmood, said in a statement. With reporting by Reuters and AFP Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/detention-of-ethnic -pashtun-activists-fuels-pakistan-afghanistan -tensions/29757607.html Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. Parliamentary bid to democratize Myanmar constitution a 'positive development' says UN rights expert 7 February 2019 - A newly formed parliamentary committee to amend Myanmar's problematic constitution was welcomed as a positive move on Thursday by Yanghee Lee, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the country. "The establishment of this committee is a positive development that I hope will aid Myanmar to truly transition to democracy," she said. Noting that there was popular support for constitutional reform, Ms. Yanghee Lee encouraged the new joint committee to deliver accordingly. The ruling National League for Democracy party, led by Aung San Suu Kyi, pledged to amend the constitution during its 2015 national election campaign, which it won by a landslide. The previous military government had drafted the 2008 constitution, which has been a stumbling block to a full democratic transition, as it reserves 25 per cent of parliamentary seats for the military, as well as designating military control of the Ministries of Home Affairs, Defense Services and Border Affairs. "The current constitution is not democratic, and Myanmar cannot be considered a democracy without it being amended", underscored the Special Rapporteur. The world must not turn away Rohingya refugees Much of the international focus on Myanmar has stemmed from the flight of hundreds of thousands of mostly-Muslim Rohingya refugees across the northern border into Bangladesh since late August 2017, following a Government-sanctioned military-led campaign of brutal killings, sexual violence and multiple human rights abuses against the minority group, based in Rakhine state. Visiting Bangladesh this week, Angelina Jolie, the UN Refugee Agency's (UNHCR) Special Envoy, underscored that the world must not turn away from the nearly one million Rohingya refugees who have fled Myanmar. On Wednesday, Ms. Jolie met Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen in the capital, Dhaka. The Special Envoy expressed UNHCR's gratitude to the Bangladeshi people and Government for receiving over 700,000 refugees since August 2017, saying: "I pray that generosity and that support continues for these wonderful families. She also raised concerns that without an urgent expansion and strengthening of educational opportunities, a generation of Rohingya children would be at risk. Ms. Jolie began her three-day visit on Monday in Chakmarkul and Kutupalong refugee camps, where she heard testimonies from Rohingya women, children and men who have endured a lifetime of persecution and discrimination. There she witnessed some of the remarkable humanitarian response efforts to date, including a joint Government-UNHCR led registration process providing refugees, for the first time, with a legal identity. She also visited a transit centre for newly arrived refugees and a hospital giving much-needed care and support to women and girls. On Tuesday at a press conference in Kutupalong, the world's largest and most densely populated refugee settlement, she said that until the Rohingya refugees can voluntarily return home to Myanmar, we have a collective responsibility to ensure that they can continue to live dignified lives in Bangladesh. The Special Envoy's visit came just ahead of a new funding appeal, the 2019 Joint Response Plan, to be launched next week by UNHCR, along with other humanitarian agencies. It seeks to raise more than $920 million to assist Rohingya refugees and affected local communities this year. Myanmar villagers flee fresh fighting in Rakhine state Iran Press TV Thu Feb 7, 2019 04:47PM Scores of tribal villagers in western Myanmar have crossed into Bangladesh in recent days amid fierce fighting between the army and ethnic rebels in the restive Rakhine state. They have entered Bangladesh through a remote border area in southeastern Bandarban district over the past few days, Bangladesh border guards and an activist said on Thursday. Colonel Zahirul Haque Khan, a senior official from the Border Guards Bangladesh (BGB), confirmed that the group of 136 people was now living in shelters across the remote region. Members of nearly 40 families said they had fled their homes fearing attack from military helicopters. Brigadier General Sazedur Rahman, a regional BGB commander, said Bangladesh had beefed up security near the border to prevent more refugee arrivals. Win Thein, a member of the non-governmental Bangladesh Human Rights Commission, said he had visited the refugees in their remote jungle camp. They had crossed into Bangladesh on Sunday and Monday after fleeing two villages in the Chin state's rugged Paletwa township after they heard gunfire and saw helicopters nearby. Some villagers, who are members of the Khumi, Cho and Rakhine ethnic groups, said they later witnessed Myanmar soldiers looting and setting fire to homes. Win Thein said some of the refugee children were seriously ill and had no access to medical care. "There are no blankets at all and it is very cold." Firas al-Khateeb, a spokesman for the United Nations refugee agency in Cox's Bazar, was trying to gather more information about the new arrivals. "We'll coordinate with the government so we will be able to help them as soon as possible." The Arakan Army, a rebel group calling for greater autonomy for Rakhine, conducted raids on police border posts on January 4, killing 13 people. The clashes have added a new, complex dimension to troubles in Rakhine. Rakhine has been the scene of communal violence since 2012. Many Muslims have been killed and hundreds of thousands have been forced to flee as a result of attacks by Buddhists. The refugees largely live in camps in dire conditions. Now Myanmar's Buddhist rebels are in a conflict with the army they backed to drive out the Rohingya Muslims just 18 months ago. Bangladesh has summoned Myanmar's ambassador to protest against the new influx of refugees. Bangladesh has already been struggling to cope with more than 700,000 Rohingya refugees who have fled to Bangladesh since August 2017. Back then, Myanmar's armed forces, backed by Buddhist extremist mobs, intensified a crackdown that had already been underway against the Muslim community in Rakhine. Rohingya Muslims, who have lived in Myanmar for generations, are denied citizenship and branded illegal migrants from Bangladesh, which likewise denies them citizenship. Their former communities in Myanmar have been razed. Reports say Buddhists have been shuttled and settled there in newly-built structures to repopulate the area. The United Nations has already described the Rohingya as the most persecuted community in the world. UN: Clearing Iraq's Mosul From Explosives to Take Decades By Lisa Schlein February 07, 2019 The U.N. Mine Action Service (UNMAS) estimates it could take 10 years to clear Mosul, Iraq, of landmines and decades longer to free this former Islamic State stronghold of thousands of tons of other explosive hazards. The nearly year-long battle by Iraqi forces to retake Mosul from Islamic State militants has left the city with a legacy of death and destruction. An estimated 800,000 people fled Mosul during the conflict. Most would like to return to their homes. But officials with the U.N. Mine Action Service say the old city of Mosul has been flattened and they cannot return. They say no buildings are left standing and the city is heavily contaminated with landmines and explosive hazards. Chief of the UNMAS program in Iraq, Pehr Lodhammer, told VOA these weapons must be cleared before people can return home safely. He said unexploded ordnance, booby traps and other explosive devices are particularly hazardous. "People are getting injured, yes. But there is also more of a tendency that people actually are getting killed by those devices rather than injured because of the explosive weight. And, the fact that many of them are also within a container that is made from metal, creating fragmentation," Lodhammer said. UNMAS began clearing operations in the fall of 2017, shortly after the conflict in Mosul ended. Since then, Lodhammer says 7.6 million tons of debris from the fighting containing many explosive devices have been removed. Last year, he says 17,000 explosive hazards, including 2,000 improvised explosive weapons were hauled away. "This also included 782 suicide belts. Many of them actually fitted on fallen ISIS fighters in debris, in rubble - gruesome work for operators who were doing this very, [in] very difficult physical and psychological conditions for them," Lodhammer said. UNMAS reports the clearance of landmines and explosive ordnance is advancing rapidly in many regions, but the amount of new contamination is keeping up with these advances and putting more lives at risk. The agency is running 146 projects in 19 countries, at a cost of $495 million. More than half that amount is going toward clearance operations in the post-conflict zones of Iraq. Mosul's '3D contamination' adds to challenges of deadly mine clearance work 7 February 2019 - Demining and other explosives clearance operations are ongoing in former ISIL-held areas of Iraq, but the work is painstaking and even more dangerous because of "3D contamination", the UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS) said on Thursday. Government-led military campaigns and conflict to retake Iraq's cities from the extremists, also known as Da'esh, displaced more than 5.8 million people between 2014 and 2017. Many are still homeless or unable to return home because of what UNMAS calls "significant explosive hazard contamination" linked to airstrikes and improvised explosive devices left behind by ISIL and sometimes even planted on dead fighters. 7.6 million tonnes of debris to make safe, in Mosul alone In Mosul alone, there is an estimated 7.6 million tonnes of debris from the fighting to make safe, UNMAS believes. In Mosul, "people want to return home, but the Old City of Western Mosul, you cannot return home tothere is nothing", said Pehr Lodhammar, Chief of UNMAS in Iraq. He added: "We are looking at almost two million people who are still displaced outside of their homes, their towns, their villages and our work is to ensure that they can return. We are also looking at over 100,000 houses - of the 100,000 houses destroyed or damaged - potentially with explosives assets in them." The update on UNMAS's work which complements that of the Government of Iraq coincides with the launch of an online resource showing the status of mine action in 19 countries and territories, along with current funding status and project proposals. The 2019 Mine Action Portfolio "constitutes a solid and UN-vetted compilation of requests for assistance put together by affected countries", according to UNMAS, with total needs amounting to $495 million. The highest funding requirement is in post-conflict zones including Iraq ($265 million), Afghanistan ($95 million) and Syria ($50 million). Speaking to journalists in Geneva, UNMAS Director Agnes Marcaillou, underlined the importance of her agency's mission to ordinary people caught up in conflict. "Mine action is about suffering, it's about people waking up at night with nightmares," she said. "It's about kids who have their future jeopardized by disabilities; disabilities being mental health or physical disabilities. It's about a country that cannot get back on its feet, cannot have all the tools they need to revive their economies because their lands are contaminated." In Iraq's Mosul a former ISIL stronghold much of the Old City was damaged and destroyed during months of door-to-door fighting to drive out the extremists in 2017. '3D contamination' an additional danger Countless buildings were also booby-trapped, Mr. Lodhammar explained, noting the additional complications caused by having to work in an urban setting with "3D contamination", rather than a rural location, where mines are usually buried in the ground. "In 2018 only, we removed close to 17,000 explosive assets," he said. "2,000 of these - it's a staggering amount - were improvised explosive devices; 2,000 devices with pressure plate fuse triggers, trip wires, infra-red devices, anti-lift devices, remote control devices - combinations of the five. This also included 782 suicide belts, many of them actually fitted on fallen ISIS fighters in debris, in rubble." When clearance operations started 18 months ago, finding unexploded devices was relatively straightforward, as they were scattered on the ground, the UNMAS Iraq chief noted. Now, the operation is much more complicated, involving the use of camera-carrying drones to assess the dangers, and heavy plant machinery. "What we are looking at now, is that we have to sift through the debris," Mr. Lodhammar said, noting that it was likely to take at least another eight years before Mosul was cleared of danger to an acceptable level. "We have to sift through the rubble, we have to use mechanical equipment dig out parts of the rubble, spread it out evenly, inspect it and that takes a lot longer time." The presence of much larger explosive weapons is also significantly altering the work that UNMAS has to do. This includes unearthing unexploded bombs dropped by coalition airstrikes against ISIL, which are in many cases buried several metres deep in the earth. "These are not mines any longer, an anti-personnel mine would have up to 230, 250 grammes of explosives in it," Mr Lodhammar said. "Now we are looking at 10 to 20 kilos. People are getting injured yes, but there is also more of a tendency that people are actually getting killed by those devices rather than injured, because of the explosive weight, and the fact that many of them are within a container that is made of from metal, creating fragmentation." Threats can't force Iran into bargaining over missile might, regional interests: Top cmdr. Iran Press TV Thu Feb 7, 2019 11:12AM Iran's top military commander says enemy threats will fail to intimidate the Islamic Republic into bargaining over its missile power and regional interests. Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Major General Mohammad Baqeri made the remarks at an exhibition of defense achievements in Tehran on Thursday, with foreign ambassadors and military attaches in attendance. He hailed the Armed Forces' self-sufficiency in fulfilling the country's defense needs, saying they have managed to produce up to 80 percent of their required military equipment in ground, aerial, naval and missile defense areas. Baqeri also highlighted the US's cruel campaign of economic pressure against the Iranian nation, saying sanctions have targeted even food, medicine and the purchase and repair of passenger planes, and that such restrictive measures "are not acceptable at all under international law." "Our message to arrogant governments which have excessive demands [from Iran] -- is that we are ready to defend [the nation] and counter their different plots,and we will not be intimidated by their threats into bargaining over own defense and missile power as well as regional interests," he said. The Iranian Armed Forces, Baqeri added, are ready to share their military experience with brotherly and Muslim countries to promote their fight against terrorism. He also highlighted Iran's pivotal role in the region, saying the Islamic Republic has employed all its capacities to boost the battles against Takfiri Daesh terrorists. Iran, he added, has "done a great service not only to the security of the people in Western Asia but also to the entire humanity" through its military advisory presence on the battlefield against Daesh in Iraq and Syria. "The Islamic Republic of Iran, alongside the Armed Forces of Iraq and Syria, defeated Daesh and prevented its advance into other countries, even into the Europe," the general said. Iran Navy to stage large-scale military drills in Indian Ocean Iran Press TV Thu Feb 7, 2019 02:42PM The Iranian Navy's deputy commander says the country's naval forces are to hold large-scale drills in the Indian Ocean in two weeks' time. The Air Force along with the Navy will hold the military maneuvers, Rear Admiral Touraj Hassani-Moqaddam told IRNA on Thursday. The exercises are to be held in an area extending from the Makran Coast in southeastern Iran to "the Indian Ocean ... towards the end of [the Iranian calendar month of] Bahman (which ends on February 19)," he added. "The Navy's state-of-the-art armaments and equipment will be deployed during the large-scale exercises," including naval vessels, submersibles, surface-to-sea missiles, drones, and electronic warfare equipment, said the official. Noting that the drills are also to be joined by marine brigades and naval commando units, the military commander added, "In these exercises, we will display the Islamic Republic's power in the region with the aim of establishing security." Hassani-Moqaddam further said, "In order to contribute to international maritime security and reinforce the country's diplomacy, Iranian naval vessels stay invariably alert and in addition to carrying out surveillance missions, are ready to engage [in any possible confrontation] if necessary," he added. Prior to the victory of Iran's Islamic Revolution in 1979, the Iranian Navy only sailed in the Persian Gulf waters, but now it maintains a "powerful presence" in the high seas, said the official. The Navy carries out recurrent military maneuvers and maritime security missions in the Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean, the Gulf of Aden, and the Suez Canal, the commander noted. The Iranian Navy sailed in the Atlantic Ocean in November 2016 for the first time, with then Navy commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari saying that the development followed a port call in South Africa by the Iranian fleet. "For the first time, the 44th flotilla of the Iranian Navy, consisting of the Alvand destroyer and the Bushehr [logistic vessel], succeeded in circling the African continent and have sailed into the Atlantic Ocean," Sayyari added. Last month, the Navy said it was to dispatch a flotilla, including Sahand, its most advanced destroyer with radar-evasion properties, to the Atlantic Ocean on a five-month mission. Highlights of Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah's Islamic Revolution address Iran Press TV Thu Feb 7, 2019 06:03PM Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah spoke Wednesday on the 40th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, praising the outstanding achievements made in Iran in different fields after the victory of the 1979 revolution. The following is highlights of Nasrallah's televised speech broadcast live from the Lebanese capital Beirut. "We speak about Iran because it is the 9th country out of 13 influencing countries in the world developments. It was ruled by an oppressive dictator who dubbed himself 'the King of Kings,' excluded the country's religious and Islamic culture and submitted it to the US, which allowed the latter to steal its (Iran's) oil and have full control over it. [Some] 60,000 US counselors led Iran under [Mohammad Reza] Pahlavi who was the policeman of the [Persian] Gulf and had a strategic relation with Israel; he even gave it Iran's oil for free," Nasrallah said. He added, "Imam Khomeini, the great and significant cleric who had a courageous character, a heart that did not know fear, and a determination that couldn't be undermined, emerged at the beginning of the 60s after having followed up the events, planned a revolt, and stood in the face of the Shah who was preparing to sign a deal with Israel which would've destroyed Iran economically. This is the revolution we are celebrating its 40th anniversary today, it started with one man who stood up for the sake of Allah and without having any selfish or material benefits for himself." "Those men who led the revolution suffered from torture, imprisonment, oppression [and] expulsion but did not give up. Instead, Imam [Khomeini] spoke against relations with the US and Israel and highlighted the importance of the Palestinian cause. He also spoke about the agriculture that was destroyed by the Shah, the corruption, hunger, deprivation, poverty [and] disease." "On the 11th of February 1979, the revolution triumphed and the US and Israeli counselors were driven out of the country as the alliance was cut and real independence was attained, and after 40 years it is still preserved, putting Iran in the forefront of the region's independent countries," he explained. He went on, "They stood firm in the face of the eight-year global war that was waged against them under the leadership of the US, the Soviet Union and [the Persian] Gulf and Arab states. It triumphed and started rebuilding itself." Nasrallah also enumerated a list of achievements that Iran has made as well as major developments throughout these 40 years. After victory, Iran's population was 30 million, today it is 80 million. During the Shah rule, Iran did not have any position concerning scientific production. Today, Iran is the first in the region and the 7th in the world for its inventions and the 16th in the world for its education. After victory, Iran had 232 university and educational establishments, today it has over 3,000. There are over 200,000 intellects and 80,000 university professors. As for university students, there are now over four million. Illiteracy among adults has been completely eradicated. In 2018, 107,000 books were published, and there are 8,000 female authors. In the past, it imported 70 percent of medicines it needed; today Iran produces 97 percent of its medicines, ranks the 11th in the world in producing medical drugs, and ranks the first in the Middle East in producing vaccines and serums. Iran today produces over 95 percent of its weapons and exports five arms. Nasrallah explained, "I'm not denying that poverty does exist in Iran for several reasons on top of them the sanctions and internal divisions, but we have to be fair in the data we present, especially that Iran lies in the eastern part of Asia in the Arab and Muslim world which imports most of its needs, and all that is the outcome of its great efforts, sacrifices, and persistence." "This revolution brought religion back to life, not just Islam, it brought back people's faith in themselves, in God and in His power to bring victory," Nasrallah said. "What I mentioned are facts even though most international media try to distort the image of Iran, while concealing the actual crimes of their own leaders. Some claim that it is an Israeli-Iranian war or a Saudi-Israeli conflict, and this is untrue This is literally a US war on the Islamic Republic in Iran and Saudi [Arabia] is only a tool in this war, so are several other [Persian] Gulf states" he added, asking, "Why does the US insist on its war on Iran? Firstly, because Iran is an independent state and makes its own decisions on oil, gas, metal and wealth and does not submit to the US, and the latter cannot tolerate that. Secondly, [it] is [because of] Iran's regional position and stance toward the oppressed countries and al-Quds." "If the entire world abandoned Palestine, Iran would never abandon al-Quds and the sacred places," he stressed. The Hezbollah chief further reiterated that neither "Israel" nor the US is capable of waging a war on Iran because the outcome will not be to their benefit. Locally, Nasrallah assured that Iran is ready to help Lebanon in various fields, and it could back Lebanon in the process of development, security and education without asking for anything in return. He pointed out that the Islamic Republic is ready to help Lebanon solve its biggest problem in the government today which is electricity. He said Iran even offered Lebanon a deal to build highways that would solve its traffic issue for fifty years. In conclusion, Nasrallah said "with Imam Khamenei and the victory of the Islamic Revolution, we entered the era of victories and this era will be completed by further victories, God willing." 'Islamic Revolution's achievements really amazing' In an exclusive interview with Press TV on Thursday, political analyst Kevin Barrett reflected on Hezbollah chief's remarks on the Islamic Revolution in Iran, noting that what Iran has achieved following its revolution is really amazing. "He [Nasrallah] is absolutely right that the Islamic Revolution in Iran has had some amazing achievements, and here in the West with corporate-controlled mainstream media we are not allowed to hear about the actual positive achievements of the Islamic Revolution," Barrett, an author, journalist and radio host who holds a PhD in Islamic and Arabic Studies, said. He added, "We are endlessly told that there are terrible economic problems in Iran and we are not told that in fact, since 1979, Iran has taken tremendous strides [by] rising in the human development index, [while] poverty level has gone way down, education has gone way up, and particularly women's education has gone [greatly up] from the state under the Shah of Iran prior to 1979 in which very sizable percentage of Iranian women were not even literate, to the state today where the majority of university students and even teachers at many levels are women." "We can compare this to places like Saudi Arabia where as late as 10-20 years ago when I was studying these things, it [had a population, which] was nearly 50 percent illiterate." Iran unveils underground ballistic missile plant for 1st time Iran Press TV Thu Feb 7, 2019 07:21PM Iran has unveiled an underground plant manufacturing precision ballistic missiles for the Aerospace Division of its Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC). "Unveiling this missile production city deep underground is an answer to the idle talk made by the Westerners, who assume they can restrict us and dissuade us from [pursuing] our long-term goals by means of threats and sanctions," Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari, the IRGC's chief commander, said during the unveiling ceremony on Thursday. The ceremony, which was joined by the commander of the IRGC's Aerospace Division, Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, also featured the inauguration of a smart surface-to-surface missile dubbed Dezfoul. "Today, the mass production of advanced precision and smart missiles became a reality within the IRGC's aerospace force," Jafari hailed. Iran's defense program not open to negotiation Elsewhere in his remarks, Jafari said that Iran's defense might was in line with the country's deterrence doctrine and was by no means open to negotiations. "Iran's defensive capability is deterrent [in nature] and in line with preserving its national security, and it cannot be subjected to any transaction or negotiation," the commander asserted. He said the country declares possession of full defensive might on the eve of the 40th anniversary of the victory of its Islamic Revolution. Jafari also especially addressed European countries' demands from the country to start negotiations over its missile program before they the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX) comes into force. INSTEX is a non-dollar payment mechanism, which European countries have announced to safeguard trade with Iran in the face of the United States' sanctions targeting the Islamic Republic. "Today, the Europeans are talking of imposing restrictions and sanctions on our defensive capability, while egregiously, their offensive capability is being used to attack the oppressed and innocent people throughout the world," he said. "But, we proudly enhance our defensive capability and are not afraid of anything," the commander stated. National security a red line Hajizadeh, meanwhile, described national security as the Iranian Armed Forces' red line, saying the Dezfoul missile was the latest outcome of the Aerospace Division's research activities. Describing the projectile's features, he compared the success achieved through its production to that of the Zolfaqar ballistic missile, whose mass production the country began in September 2016. However, Dezfoul's range reaches 1,000 kilometers, 300 kilometers above Zolfaqar, and its destructive capability is twice the latter's "given the special materials used in its warhead," the commander said. Hajizadeh also addressed European countries' recent comments about Iran's missile might. Those comments included France's calling on Iran last month to "immediately cease all ballistic missile-related activities designed to carry nuclear weapons, including tests using ballistic missile technology." Iranian authorities have invariably asserted that the country's missile program has not been established for non-conventional purposes. The commander reminded that European countries had provided various forms of arms support to the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein during his 1980-1988 invasion of Iran. "They should be answerable for their support for Saddam and crimes against the Iranian nation," he said, adding, "We do not trust the Europeans, and it is better for them not to sacrifice themselves for [US President Donald] Trump." He was apparently referring to European countries' echoing Washington's stance concerning the Islamic Republic and their trying to similarly exercise pressure on Tehran. Analysts: Location, Length of Second US-North Korea Summit Important By Steve Miller February 07, 2019 U.S. President Donald Trump announced during his State of the Union Address Tuesday that he would next meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Vietnam on February 27-28. "As part of a bold new diplomacy, we continue our historic push for peace on the Korean Peninsula," Trump said. In his speech, the President also acknowledged the road toward denuclearization remains long, "Much work remains to be done, but my relationship with Kim Jong Un is a good one," he said. The formal announcement of the second U.S. - North Korea summit came as South Korea celebrated the Lunar New Year. While government offices were closed for the national holiday, South Korean presidential spokesperson Kim Eui-kyeom said Seoul hoped the two countries would make progress when they met later this month. Kim, speaking to reporters, said, "Vietnam and the United States used to point a gun and knife at each other, but now they are friends. We expect Vietnam to be the best venue to host the event for North Korea and the United States to make history." Vietnam importance President Trump's announcement of the summit dates and location were not a surprise. U. S. Secretary of State Mile Pompeo had previously confirmed that President Trump would meet Kim in late February in Asia. However, analysts told VOA that the length of the next summit and its location have special meaning. Tufts University Kim Koo-Korea Foundation Professor of Korean Studies, Sung-yoon Lee, said as Saigon was falling in 1975, Kim Il Sung "visited Beijing and asked Mao Zedong and other officials to help him do what Hanoi was doing after having compelled the United States to sign a peace agreement to leave." He said, "That is the perfect Vietnam model for the Kim regime." Lee said Trump is essentially saying, "Hey, look at Vietnam. We [the United States] had a very hostile relationship with Vietnam in the past, but we've patched over things," adding, "Vietnam has remained single-party communist dictatorship, but it's grown rich. You too can do it." In addition, the Center for the National Interest Directory of Korea Study's Harry Kazianis said the length of the upcoming summit is of note and may indicate "something big." "I think there is work around a peace declaration," Kazianis said. "I also think that the North Koreans have been quite serious and telegraphing to the United States, to Seoul, really to anybody, that will listen, that they want some sort of sanctions relief." As evidence to support his theory, Kazianis points to comments made last week by U.S. SpecialRepresentative for North Korea, Stephen Biegun. "Therefore it is all the more urgent that we engage diplomatically with North Korea to see if we can change the trajectory of their policies, by changing the trajectory of our own. And that's what we're trying to do," said Biegun while speaking at Stanford University. Kazianis said that "from a rational perspective," to move North Korea toward denuclearization, there "needs to be an action for action sort of situation," and Biegun's remarks seem to indicate a shift in policy. In his remarks though, Biegun remained firm, "President Trump has made clear, both to North Korea, as well as to our team that he expects significant and verifiable progress on denuclearization -- actions that are bold, and real to emerge from that next summit." But Lee indicated concern when Biegun said, "President Trump is ready to end this war. It is over. It is done. We're not going to invade North Korea." Lee said that while the Korean War did not end in a formal peace treaty in 1953, that does not mean the peninsula has been in a constant state of war, but rather an "imperfect peace." To "say we have to end this war, right now 70 years of hostility. That is to fall right into Kim Jong Un's hands because that's North Korean verbiage," Lee said, adding that a de facto peace has been maintained through deterrence. If the United States were to initiate a peace agreement with North Korea, Lee said that plays into Kim Jong Un's hands and gives him the advantage in talks. Kazianis disagrees, noting both Kim and Trump have domestic audiences watching. "You've got to figure out some way to package this (the summit) where both sides get a win," and for Kazianis, that means an end to the Korean War. "Both sides saying that the war is over through a peace declaration makes a lot of sense, and we all know the war is over and both sides get that clear win that they can go back home," he said. War claims During the State of the Union address, Trump said, "If I had not been elected President of the United States, we would right now, in my opinion, be in a major war with North Korea." Lee said the President's assertion is untrue, "Because everyone says the Korean War ended on July 27, 1953, not with a formal peace treaty, but a ceasefire agreement." Kazianis said when Trump made comments, as he did on August 8, 2017, "North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen;" the President "inflamed tensions." He added that looking at the interaction between Washington and Pyongyang from the "mid-2000s" both nations were on a trajectory, with North Korea testing intercontinental ballistic missiles, that would eventually create some "problems in 2017." But "If Hillary Clinton had [won the 2016 election]," said Kazianis, "there's a lot of archival research... that does suggest that she would have had a tougher line as well [against North Korea]. But I don't think she would be calling for fire and fury and making some of these very, very intense statements." Experts: Plan for Partial Denuclearization Realistic Goal at 2nd Trump-Kim Summit By Christy Lee February 07, 2019 A roadmap for partial denuclearization is a realistic goal for President Donald Trump to set for the second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, because Pyongyang is unlikely to give up all its nuclear weapons in the near future, experts said. During their first summit, Trump and Kim agreed to "work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula." But since then, the two sides have failed to agree on what that means, and how or when it will be carried out. A second summit is scheduled to take place in Vietnam Feb. 27-28. "It is absolutely possible to make progress toward denuclearization, but it is not clear whether the objective of full denuclearization is achievable on North Korea's current trajectory," said Scott Snyder, director of the U.S.-Korean policy program at the Council of Foreign Relations. "But the job of Trump as a disruptive policymaker is to work with Kim to change the trajectory of the respective policies of the two governments," Snyder added. North Korea has not taken meaningful steps to dismantle its nuclear program, raising doubts about making significant progress toward full denuclearization. Ken Gause, director of International Affairs Group at the Center for Naval Analyses, echoed Snyder, saying the likelihood that Pyongyang will not give up all its nuclear weapons is "entirely possible at least for the foreseeable future." However, Gause said, "that does not mean that North Korea might not make concessions on its nuclear program and dismantle a part of its nuclear program. So as long as we're not talking absolutes here, I think that progress could be made toward denuclearization." Optimistic tone from Trump During his State of the Union address on Tuesday, Trump used an optimistic tone to announce the second summit. "Much work remains to be done, but my relationship with Kim Jong Un is a good one," he said. The official announcement came after the president appeared on "Face the Nation" on Sunday and told Margaret Brennan, host of the CBS show, that there is "a very good chance of making a deal" with Kim. To gear up for the second summit, U.S. Special Representative Steve Biegun traveled to Pyongyang to have working-level talks with his North Korean counterpart Kim Hyok Chol on Wednesday. Ahead of his trip, Biegun laid out several demands Washington wants North Korea to meet including "a set of concrete deliverables" and "a roadmap of negotiations" on denuclearization when he gave a speech last week at Stanford University. First summit The first summit Trump held with Kim in Singapore in June has been characterized as "a missed opportunity" where "only vague and ambiguous language" came out of the joint statement issued by the two leaders and lacking "any follow-up implementation process," according to Robert Manning, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. Experts said the ideal deal for Washington at the second summit would be to secure from Pyongyang an agreement to disclose the inventory of its nuclear weapons as a sign of Kim's seriousness about eventual full denuclearization. "What the U.S. administration, and also Seoul, has talked about is a declaration of North Korea's nuclear program," Gause said. Nicholas Burns, former undersecretary of state for political affairs at the State Department during the George W. Bush administration suggested to VOA Korean that Trump should not go to Vietnam without a certainty of obtaining the inventory. "If you are able to establish that [Kim's] ready to make those concessions, declare all of his nuclear weapons, fissile material, then you go." Burn said. "But if he's not ready to do that, don't go." Bargaining chip Biegun said in his Stanford speech the U.S. must "have a complete understanding of the full extent of the North Korean weapons of mass destruction missile programs," but it is unclear whether he has asked for a list during his meeting in Pyongyang this week. Gause, however, thinks Pyongyang is unlikely to reveal the list that it considers one of its best bargaining chips. "I cannot imagine them for the foreseeable future giving a comprehensive list," Gause said. "To do so, would take away leverage and flexibility from their negotiating position." Some experts believe it is unlikely that Pyongyang will give up its nuclear program. "I do not believe that Kim Jong Un will give up his nuclear weapons because I think that he sees them as an insurance policy for his regime survival," Burns said. "He believes he can have the negotiations and keep his weapons." Evans Revere, acting assistant secretary at the State Department's Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs during the George W. Bush administration, said, "The North Korean leader has made a strategic decision to retain his nuclear weapons, even as he seeks to improve relations with the United States. "As a result," he added, "getting Kim Jong Un to take the kind of steps that would constitute real denuclearization will likely not be possible." Their assessment follows the testimony of Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats at a Senate hearing last week. Coats expressed skepticism over Pyongyang's willingness to give up its nuclear weapons. A confidential report by the United Nations Security Council sanctions committee, which Reuters obtained and reported on Monday, assessed North Korea is trying to prevent its nuclear and missile capabilities from being destroyed by any military strikes by "using civilian facilities, including airports" and dispersing "its assembly, storage, and testing locations." Since last year's negotiations that stalled when Pyongyang abruptly canceled a planned meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Washington has softened its initial hard-line approach toward North Korea. At the time, Washington refused to relax its maximum pressure policy until North Korea denuclearized. But last week at Stanford, Biegun said the U.S. will pursue commitments made at the Singapore summit by taking steps "simultaneously and in parallel" with the process of Pyongyang's denuclearization. "Washington realizes that 'final fully verified' denuclearization can only be achieved in a series of stages over time and that the U.S. will need to take measures in response to North Korean actions at every stage," said Gary Samore, the White House coordinator for arms control and weapons of mass destruction during the Obama administration. "The U.S. flexibility comes in not insisting on a definitive result on the front end of the process," Snyder said, "but instead in being willing to join with North Korea in an experiment in which the desired outcome is not yet completely defined." Lee Joeun of the VOA Korean Service contributed to this report. PHOTOS Suggest Alleged Iran's 'Attempt to Launch Satellite' Despite US Criticism Sputnik News 10:25 07.02.2019(updated 12:34 07.02.2019) Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said in January that two domestically made satellites would be launched "in the coming days" despite US claims that this would violate a UN Security Council resolution dealing with Tehran's nuclear programme. Tehran appears to have attempted a second satellite launch despite US criticism that Iran's space programme is helping the country develop ballistic missiles, satellite images suggest, according to The Times of Israel. Iran has not yet confirmed conducting such a launch. The Times of Israel reported that images released by the Colorado-based company DigitalGlobe show a rocket at the Imam Khomeini Space Center in Iran's Semnan Province on 5 February. According to the DigitalGlobe, the images suggest Iran used a Safir, or "ambassador" rocket in the launch. Images from 6 February show the rocket was gone and with what appears to be burn marks on the launch pad. Iran's previous attempt to launch a Payam satellite on 15 January was unsuccessful because the third stage of the launch rocket failed to gain enough momentum to reach orbit. The following day, Rouhani noted that Iran would carry out a new satellite launch in the coming months as part of its space programme, having resolved the "minor" problems. Iran emphasises that the launches do not violate UN Security Council resolutions and are part of the nation's space exploration programme. Sputnik Imagery Suggests Second Launch Attempt Of Iranian Satellite By RFE/RL February 07, 2019 Two satellite-imagery companies have released photos that suggest Iran has attempted a second launch of a satellite after the failure of the first lift-off in January. The images released early on February 7 show a rocket at the Imam Khomeini Space Center in Iran's Semnan Province on February 5. Images from the next day show the rocket was gone and what appear to be burn marks on its launch pad. The images were released by Colorado-based DigitalGlobe and San Francisco-based Planet. The images showed words written in Persian in large characters including the phrase "40 years" and "Iranian made." Iran is this month celebrating the 40th anniversary of its Islamic Revolution. It was not immediately known if the launch was successful. David Schmerler, a senior research associate at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, said that since Iran had made no immediate announcement surrounding the launch, it was possible it was unsuccessful. After a launch in January failed to put a satellite into orbit, Tehran said it would launch a second satellite, called Doosti (Friendship), in the near future. The Doosti is a remote-sensing satellite developed by engineers at Tehran's Sharif University of Technology. Tehran acknowledged the first failure, with Telecommunications Minister Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi telling state TV that the rocket carrying the Payam (Message) satellite failed to reach the "necessary speed" in the third stage of launch. President Hassan Rohani said the satellites were intended to gather information on environmental change in Iran. The United States on January 15 condemned the previous launch attempt, warning that Washington "will not stand for Iran's blatant disregard for international norms." The United States says Iran's satellite program uses technologies "that are virtually identical and interchangeable with those used in ballistic missiles" in defiance of UN resolutions against any activity related to delivering nuclear weapons. Iran insists its satellite and rocket launches do not violate UN resolutions that only "called upon" it not to conduct such tests. It has said its missile program is only for civilian purposes. With reporting by AP and NPR Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/imagery-suggests- iranian-satellite-launch-after- first-failure/29755920.html Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. Bolivia Not Supporting Montevideo Declaration on Venezuela Sputnik News 02:57 08.02.2019 MONTEVIDEO (Sputnik) Bolivia has not supported the joint declaration, adopted at the Montevideo meeting of the International Contact Group for Venezuela, Bolivian Foreign Minister Diego Pary told Sputnik, adding that it was the Venezuelans who should find solutions to their problems themselves. "There should not be any imposed solution. We should not tell Venezuelans what they should do. They are independent and they have a right for self-determination They should find solutions to their problems themselves We do not support this declaration but Bolivia has joined the Montevideo mechanism. Bolivia will continue participating in this contact group. We do not support only this declaration," Pary said. "We believe in dialogue. We are convinced that dialogue is the only mechanism which will allow us effectively find a solution. We also believe that the dialogue should be like an open agenda and that Venezuelans should determine this agenda," the top diplomat pointed out. Meanwhile, Spain's Foreign Minister Josep Borrell said that Spain opposes any military intervention in Venezuela. Mexico's Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard told Sputnik that sanctions imposed against Venezuela, in reality,y are imposed on the Venezuelan people and will worsen the humanitarian crisis in the country. "The thing that more and more actions are taken, sanctions against Venezuela, in real terms are actions against the people," Ebrard said. "So the humanitarian crisis is going to be worse." In late January, the European Union announced the establishment of the ICG, comprised of representatives from France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom along with Bolivia, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Uruguay. In a joint statement released on February 3, EU High Representative Federica Mogherini and Uruguayan President Tabare Vazquez said the agenda at the ICG inaugural meeting would be focused on finding a solution to help Venezuelans choose their own future. Creating the ICG came after the European Union gave Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro eight days to organize new presidential election. The deadline passed over the weekend. Several EU member states recognized Guaido as interim president of Venezuela. However, four EU members states have chosen to abstain from backing Guaido, including Italy, Ireland, Greece and Slovakia. Russia recognizes Maduro as the legitimate president of Venezuela and has characterized the EU decision to recognize Guaido as direct interference in Venezuela's internal affairs. Sputnik Conflicted Spain Delays EU Recognition of Venezuela's Guaido By Martin Arostegui February 07, 2019 The recognition by several EU countries of Juan Guaido as acting president of Venezuela this week may further isolate Nicolas Maduro but the hesitation of some European leaders to back the move may have bought Maduro valuable time in which to mobilize and step up repression against his opposition, observers say. When Guaido invoked his constitutional powers as president of Venezuela's congress to declare himself acting president on Jan. 23, he drew immediate recognition from U.S. President Donald Trump and 14 Latin American governments who have long denounced what they condemn as Maduro's moves towards dictatorship. President Donald Trump this week said U.S. military intervention remains an option. EU countries waited until Feb. 4 when Spain's socialist prime minister Pedro Sanchez delivered a cautious statement recognizing Guaido as "caretaker president" while insisting on "elections in the shortest time possible", safeguards against "external intervention" in Venezuela and a "multilateral contact group" to open a dialogue with Maduro. "Maduro has had 12 days in which to regroup and step up repression. There have been killings on the streets, arbitrary arrests and even an attempt to arrest legitimate interim president Juan Guaido" said the leader of Spain's conservative opposition Popular Party (PP), Pablo Casado, who has demanded that Sanchez to appear before Spain's congress to "give explanations." Spain has been the EU's reference point for Venezuelan policy due to its extensive historical, cultural and commercial ties with its former colony. Other EU leaders had deferred to Sanchez on the decision to give official backing to a self-proclaimed leader who was largely unknown and attacked by Maduro as a U.S. lackey. Sanchez gave Maduro an 8-day period in which to call elections before recognizing Guaido. Maduro refused to accept what he called "ultimatums" and has spent the last several days visiting army garrisons to underpin support from the military who are the main pillar of his regime. Soldiers invaded Venezuela's congressional building on Tuesday, according to news reports. Maduro's ruling PSUV party also organized a mass rally in Caracas where the embattled president spoke last Sunday to eclipse opposition marches led by Guaido. Crackdown on opposition Maduro's secret police, SEBIN, has arrested about 1,000 opposition activists and a number of foreign journalists over the past two weeks, according to human rights organizations. Hundreds of Russian advisers described by Kremlin officials as "military contractors" have also been arriving in Venezuela for the apparent purpose of protecting Maduro. An ex-colonel in Colombia's military intelligence service, Juan Marulanda, now an international security consultant, has told VOA that they are special forces being assigned to elite Venezuelan units to boost their capacity to resist a possible coup. A Russian government spokesman said that Europe's recognition of Guaido could provoke "civil war." Maduro has said he is in the process of arming political militias called Colectivos with high-powered weapons supplied by the armed forces. Despite clear signs that Maduro is digging in, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini is exploring possibilities for a negotiated settlement. She has refrained from recognizing Guaido and has instead promoted an international contact group due to meet in Uruguay on Thursday to seek a peaceful and democratic solution to the crisis in Venezuela. Calling for talks with Maduro Some European countries including Italy and Greece have not recognized Guaido and called for direct talks with Maduro. The U.S. position expressed by Vice President Mike Pence rules out any dialogue. Spanish diplomats say that the Trump administration is influenced by Venezuelan opposition leaders who are highly critical of a former socialist prime minister who mediated in previous negotiations with Maduro which they say Maduro tried to use to legitimize his reelection in a sham poll. The father of opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, who has been imprisoned by Maduro, said on Spanish television Monday that it was "senseless" to expect free elections in Venezuela under current electoral authorities which are controlled by the regime. "The United States is convinced and has let us know that there is no room for more mediation or facilitating further conversations with Maduro," Spanish foreign minister Josep Borrell told Spain's parliament last week. Press reports said Madrid has yet to grant diplomatic status to the ambassador Guaido has designated. According to the Spanish newspaper El Pais, the U.S. ambassador in Madrid, Duke Buchan, met with Borrell hours before Guaido proclaimed himself president of Venezuela Jan. 23 to urge the Spanish government to close ranks with the U.S., Canada and the Organization of American States. But the Sanchez government is also influenced by the far left Podemos party on which it relies for critical parliamentary support. Podemos spokespersons have often praised Maduro and criticized the decision to recognize Guaido as dangerous. Sanchez has said that his main concern is the well being of about 150,000 dual Spanish nationals who live in Venezuela where major Spanish companies including oil giant Repsol and Banco Bilbao Vizcaya are heavily invested. Italy's oil company Eni also has investments there. A new test of Europe's solidarity is expected in coming days as international efforts get under way introduce humanitarian aid to Venezuela. Spain, Germany and other EU countries have pledged to lead the effort which Maduro has vowed to block, calling it a "Trojan Horse." Even with relief on the way, farmers struggle after storm Burkina Faso Plagued by Terror Attacks, Rights Allegations By Ricci Shryock February 07, 2019 The Burkina Faso government claims to have killed 146 jihadists in the country's north this week, but Human Rights Watch says it believes some of the dead are civilians. The military is also implicated in dozens of extrajudicial killings in the same region. The international rights group says some of the nearly 150 men killed were innocent civilians who were pulled from their homes and executed in front of their families. "It is entirely possible that a good number of those people that the army are alleging are so-called terrorists are in fact civilians or suspects who were killed unlawfully," said Corinne Dufka, Sahel director at Human Rights Watch. "I spoke with a few people with knowledge of the incidents. One of them described speaking with women who were weeping, talking about how their husbands had been taken from their homes and killed in front of them." The Burkina Faso military did not respond to requests for comment on the allegations. The nation's army commander reports Thursday that terrorists killed five paramilitary police and wounded three others in retaliation for this week's counterterror operation. Earlier this week, leaders of the so-called G5 Sahel Forces met to discuss regional efforts to combat Islamist militants in the region. The group includes Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger. Burkina Faso President Roch Marc Kabore said the group will reinforce and accelerate efforts launched in October with the support of France and the United States. While terror attacks are on the rise in Burkina Faso there have been more than 200 since 2015 the military is accused of committing human rights abuses in the name of fighting terrorists. "The local population consistently described to me being between a rock and a hard place, being fearful of the army and the Islamists, wanting to live their lives in peace, but feeling they are blamed by the army for collaborating with the Islamists. But when the Islamists come into town, they felt pressure to sell goods to them," added Dufka. Rising terrorist attacks Before 2016 the Sahel country had on the surface been a stalwart of peace and stability. Former and long-serving President Blaise Compaore had a practice of negotiating with terror groups to keep attacks at bay. "The old system protected them and fed them," said Serge Bambara, spokesperson for Balai Citoyen, a protest group that helped lead the movement to topple Compaore in 2014. According to International Crisis Group's (ICG) West Africa project director, Rinaldo Depagne, those deals deteriorated after Compaore's government was ousted in a popular movement to sweep in reforms. "When the insurrection in October 2014 happened, and then when the military transition took place in 2015, it became more and more difficult to keep those deals between Burkina and terrorist groups, and then they started to operate in the country," said Depagne. The insurrection is led by the homegrown militant group Ansarul Islam, and according to ICG, the attacks continue to take a heavy toll on government forces in the country's north, while in 2018, a second hotspot emerged in the east. Besides Ansarul Islam, the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM) and the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) are two more groups active in the country. Bambara added that despite the names of the groups, to simply label them as Islamic terrorists is to fail to grasp the full picture. The threat is not necessarily based just on religious extremism, he said, but also on the communities' deep frustrations over being denied development. Despite rising costs of living, the country's minimum wage is capped at $55 per month, and most rural areas lack basic infrastructure. "There are more important questions, questions of infrastructure, of health centers. The people feel left behind. There are a lot of regions who are left out of the system, and all that can create a form of frustration that feeds into the recruitment for the jihadists," said Bambara. To compound the issue, the terror attacks are making it harder for residents to get health care, education and more. Growing humanitarian crisis The humanitarian situation for residents has only worsened as the attacks have increased. According to the United Nations, more than 80,000 people are internally displaced in Burkina Faso. Attacks on local government buildings have inflamed fears. Hundreds of schools have closed. Health care workers are now afraid to show up for work. According to Medecins Sans Frontieres, or Doctors Without Borders, ambulances in the north were recently stolen by armed groups, and now many residents are too scared to take the medical vehicles when they need emergency care. "There is an area of insecurity, where some health posts are closed or function with very few medical staff," said Sylvien Auerbach, head of MSF's Burkina Faso operations. "And those staff are not sufficient to meet the needs of the population in that area." When people are displaced and schools closed, it makes it difficult to administer basic health needs, such as child vaccinations. "We can assume that the coverage of vaccination now is getting low because of the difficulty to reach the points of vaccination outside of the health posts," added Auerbach. All this could play into the recruiting tactics of the militants. "We have observed this in some other parts of the Sahel, is that these groups are very at ease when the situation is uncontrolled and to a certain extent those groups are also presenting themselves as service providers, especially in terms of security against other communities," said Depagne. Besides lack of social services, the terrorist groups are using human rights abuses committed by the military to recruit new members, added Dufka. Allegations of human rights abuses In January, Dufka said she recorded interviews with people alleging dozens of additional illegal killings had been committed by the Burkina Faso military since September. "I heard very credible accounts from families of how their extended family members who were forced to flee northern Burkina Faso, and they believe that some of them have joined with the armed Islamist groups," said Dufka. The Fulani community is particularly vulnerable, because it is targeted for recruitment by the militias, which also makes the nomadic group an easy target for government retribution. "It's quite clear that the Islamists since 2015 have targeted the Fulani for recruitment. The Fulani are mobile, they are present in a number of West and Central African countries. They have deep grievances with the state in a number of different places, so I think this is part of their expansion strategy," added Dufka. Challenges to fighting terrorism In January, the government resigned and Kabore, who has led the country since 2015, fired his Cabinet and named a new government. Cherif Sy was appointed as the new minister of defense. "Sy already made an important declaration and put an important problem directly on the table," said Depagne, adding, "The fight against terrorism in the nation can't be properly done if you don't have a good relationship between these two parts of society - the military and the nation." One hurdle in their battle is that the militant groups' ideology and long-term goals are hard to pinpoint. At least 90 percent of attacks are not claimed by any groups, although some investigations by scientific police in the north found that similar improvised explosive device tactics had been used both in the north and the east. That lets us think that those groups are connected and are sliding from one region of Burkina to another one," added Depagne. Bambara added that more needs to happen besides killing terrorists if the government is going to truly squash the violence. "We say that a program, a real strategy of defense must also be put in place with a real will to transform this region, that these solutions exist for the populations so they can not be easily recruited," he said. Meanwhile, outside analysts fear the violence could continue to spread, beyond Burkina Faso's borders and into neighboring countries. Later this month, Flintlock, an annual, joint military training exercise between African and Western nations to help combat terrorism, will be held in both Mauritania and Burkina Faso. It is the largest U.S. special operations training mission in West Africa. UNMISS Boss: Conditions Improving in South Sudan By Carol Van Dam February 07, 2019 The head of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan said there is reason to be hopeful that the country's transitional government will succeed. David Shearer said that following the signing of a new peace agreement, conditions have greatly improved from when former Vice President Riek Machar fled Juba in 2016. Shearer said Tuesday that the government has control of more territory, and there's an enormous push by the people of South Sudan for real change. "And I don't think either side can turn their back on that. And together with the way that the peace negotiations were conducted, it brought both sides together, and they were able to agree on the basic framework for going forward," Shearer said at U.N. headquarters in New York. Shearer acknowledged "some tricky issues going forward," and said while no agreement is perfect, the U.N. feels it is an agreement "that offers the best chance in a long while for moving South Sudan in the right direction." Shearer also said that while the U.N. is very mindful of the pitfalls that lie ahead, it is cautiously optimistic both sides are "committed to going down that path. And if that happens, it'll make an enormous change to South Sudan." Warring factions and the government of President Salva Kiir signed a new peace agreement in September 2018. Under the agreement, Machar, who led one of the largest rebel groups, expects to return home later this year and take part in the transitional government. The U.N. mission chief paints an optimistic picture of the current state of security in the country. He said civilian casualties have greatly diminished in recent months. In the last four months since the signing of the agreement, Shearer said there has been "a very significant decline in casualties as a result of political violence." But he said there's been an uptick in casualties with regard to cattle raiding. Shearer said the numbers are in the low 100s. Some fighting continues in parts of the Equatoria region in the southern part of the country, but Shearer added the casualties "are in the 2s and 3s, not in the hundreds." And where peacekeepers patrol, such as around Protection of Civilian sites, Shearer said violence is almost non-existent. "Very low numbers, in the POCs it's virtually nothing. If there's anything, it will be criminal more than anything else and through the rest of the country, but the peace agreement and cease-fire has largely held," said Shearer. Some people have concerns about security when Machar returns to the country. The SPLA-IO leader is expected to come back in May when the pre-transitional government is supposed to wind down to make way for the transitional government of national unity. Shearer pointed out that a combined, pre-transitional committee, as outlined in the revitalized peace deal, will make decisions about security arrangements. "We believe that it's in the best interests of the peace agreement that the parties themselves decide how they want to handle those security arrangements. If they can handle them themselves, that is an enormous confidence step to being able to get things moving that does not involve the U.N.," said Shearer. To date, the U.N. has not been approached by any side regarding security for Machar's return. S. Sudan's Kiir Blames Outsiders for Peace Deal Inaction By Dimo Silva February 07, 2019 South Sudan President Salva Kiir said Thursday that implementation of the revitalized peace agreement still faced many challenges, largely because of the international community's wait-and-see stance on its implementation. Kiir told hundreds of ruling SPLM party cadres in Juba that the September deal was "not a good agreement, but I signed it because people have suffered and I do not want that to continue." The president, meeting with members of the SPLM parliamentary caucus shortly before they left for home on recess, said the government did not have enough money to implement the deal. But his administration gave each caucus member more than $7,500 (1 million South Sudanese pounds) to share details of the peace deal with their constituents. "The implementation is facing difficulties because there is no funding. If America has refused to recognize the agreement, the other European countries and Western countries will not pay their money, so everybody has adopted the position of 'wait and see,' because they think we will fight as soon as the opposition comes in," Kiir said. The United States, Norway, and the United Kingdom, known as the Troika, have repeatedly advised the government to use its own resources to implement the deal and show some political will toward moving the implementation forward. Speak of peace Kiir urged SPLM party members to accept one another and speak the language of peace for the sake of all South Sudanese. "Let us focus now on the future of our country. We will do this through peace implementation, sending out positive and reconciliatory messages that [are] aimed at repairing our social fabric," Kiir said. Kiir said he welcomed back former detainees, but also admonished them for advising the international community to withhold money from South Sudan until the warring parties carried out the terms of the deal. "I told the FDs [former detainees] when I was meeting them that the distractions that they did are worse than what Riek Machar has done, because he wanted to uproot us violently, which he did not make, but for you, [you] went to Western capitals to backbite us and stop all the money [from coming] to us, so it is you who have really destroyed South Sudan," Kiir told SPLM leaders. The president concluded his remarks by saying he had forgiven his opponents and welcomed them back to the SPLM party. UN: Yemen's Houthi Rebels Must Allow Access to Grain Silos By Margaret Besheer February 07, 2019 The United Nations' humanitarian chief Thursday called on Yemen's Houthi rebels to give aid workers access to unused grain that could feed nearly 4 million starving people. The grain is stored in silos near the port city of Hodeida and is at risk of rotting. "I am deeply concerned that the United Nations has been unable to access the Red Sea Mills in Hodeida since September 2018," Mark Lowcock said in a statement. "Enough grain to feed 3.7 million people for a month has sat unused and possibly spoiling in silos at the mills for more than four months, while nearly 10 million people across the country remain just a step away from famine." In November, the Saudi-led coalition took back the area where the Red Sea Mills is located in one of its last offensives against the Houthis before talks in Stockholm led to a fragile cease-fire for the Hodeida area. But the Houthis control the access route to the silos, and Lowcock said their forces have refused to let the U.N. cross the frontlines to reach the mills. The World Food Program had some 51,000 metric tons of wheat stored there. "I implore all parties, in particular Ansar Allah-affiliated groups, to finalize an agreement and facilitate access to the mills in the coming days," Lowcock said, referring to the Houthis by their formal name. Last month, two of the silos were hit by rebel mortars. Lowcock said some of the grain was destroyed, probably enough to feed hundreds of thousands of people. "These events are to be deplored," he said. The U.N. has been working for months to prevent a famine taking hold in the war-torn country. More than 24 million people 80 percent of all Yemenis need humanitarian assistance. They include nearly 10 million people who are on the brink of famine. Yemen is currently the world's largest humanitarian disaster. The World Food Program provides assistance to nearly 10 million Yemenis each month and is scaling-up operations to reach 12 million. Preliminary compromise Meanwhile, the United Nations said talks continue aboard one of its ships in Hodeida harbor to resolve outstanding issues related to the mutual redeployment of forces away from the city and the opening of humanitarian corridors as called for in the Stockholm agreement. "A preliminary compromise was agreed, pending further consultation by the parties with their respective leaders," U.N. Spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters Thursday. Separate discussions being held in the Jordanian capital, Amman, on an exchange of as many as 8,000 prisoners from each side also are continuing. US Halting Some Military Assistance to Cameroon Over Rights Concerns By Moki Edwin Kindzeka February 07, 2019 The United States has announced it is cutting some security assistance to Cameroon following allegations of human rights violations allegedly committed by the Cameroonian military. The U.S. decision comes after videos, documented by Amnesty International and that went viral last year, showed Cameroonian security forces shooting and killing civilians, including women with small children strapped to their backs. Colonel Didier Badjeck, a Cameroonian military spokesperson, criticized the Amnesty report, saying his country's military is professional. Cameroon is a key U.S. security partner. Three-hundred U.S. troops are based in the northern town of Garoua to train and assist the Cameroonian military, including in its fight against extremism in its far northern region. Officials in Yaounde have not commented on the U.S. move. Coinciding with the decision was a charity effort at a school in Fotokol, on Cameroon's northern border with Nigeria. At the school, students were receiving school equipment and medication from the Rapid Intervention Battalion, an elite corps of the Cameroon army. Teacher welcomes troops Teacher Epoum Mahaman says the move was encouraging to the children, who have suffered attacks by militant group Boko Haram such as the burning of schools, kidnapping of teachers and killing of some of their parents and relatives. He said, "We now have rulers and exercise books that we can give to the kids. We have displaced children who do not have books and who have lots of difficulties. Before now, some teachers were the ones helping to provide books to some. These gifts will encourage us and them to work." Military colonel Alain Mvogo says the troops were handing out the gifts because the military not only fights wars but also reconciles people and strives for peace. "Wars are not only won with military might," Mvogo said. "Now that we are at the stabilization phase, we think it is very necessary to meet the center of gravity, which is the population." Fotokol is one of the areas cited last year in the Amnesty report. Boko Haram blamed Amnesty said numerous human rights abuses were committed by Cameroon's military in its crackdown on Boko Haram, including the killing of dozens of civilians, torture, and arbitrary mass arrests. The Nigeria-based Islamist terrorist group has been recruiting fighters in Cameroon, using them as spies and informants in areas it does not know. Boko Haram, whose name in the Hausa language roughly translates to "Western education is a sin," has attacked mosques and churches on Cameroon's northern border with Nigeria, in addition to schools. Military behind suffering Pascal Tantoh is a 31-year-old teacher who fled the fighting between the military and separatist forces in the English-speaking northwest region. He said the U.S. decision to scale back security assistance indicates that America is finally realizing what Cameroon has suffered. "I told myself that, oh, this is the right time. Let other nations follow suit," Tantoh said. "The people have been suffering a lot because of the barbaric action of the military, and we want to believe that the military proves their strength because of this support from foreign bodies. I pray that other nations should follow if that is the ultimate goal for peace to return to our nation. It is very clear, a military solution cannot help the situation that we are going through. I just pray that even the state of Israel, let them come in. We are very very happy and we say kudus to [U.S. President] Donald Trump." Businessman Victor Enow said he was targeted by Boko Haram terrorists in the northern town of Mora while returning from a business trip to Nigeria. He says the United States should have ensured peace returned to Cameroon before considering if it could withdraw its support. "If America just leaves like that, what will happen to those citizens who are being killed every day?" Enow said. "I think they should first of all look at those citizens who are crying day in day out asking them {America} to come to their aid and try to see how they can stop the killing before withdrawing the aid that they give to Cameroon." Relations remain good Peter Henry Barlerin, U.S. Ambassador to Cameroon, met with Cameroon's government spokesperson Rene Emmanuel Sadi after the cut was announced. Barlerin said despite the announced reduction in military aid, relations between the two countries remain good. "We are not going to stop security cooperation with Cameroon," Barlerin said. "We have our differences, Cameroon is a sovereign country and the United States is a sovereign country. Relations between Cameroon and the United states are excellent and long-standing and we aim to continue that relationship." Besides the U.S., other countries that help Cameroon militarily, and which Cameroon counts on, include Israel, France, Germany and China. Human rights groups have reported that Cameroonian security forces have targeted civilians in the far north and in the country's unstable southwest and northwest regions, where the military is battling English-speaking separatists fighting to create a breakaway nation called Ambazonia. US General Warns of Russian, Chinese Inroads in Africa By Jeff Seldin February 07, 2019 Fears that Washington is increasingly losing influence across the globe are starting to come to fruition in Africa, where a top military official says Russia is playing on perceived U.S. weaknesses to gain leverage and resources. The most alarming inroads have come in African countries where leaders are seeking to consolidate power, the commander of U.S. Africa Command, Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, told lawmakers Thursday, adding Russia seems to have its sights set on areas that could give them an edge over U.S. allies. "It's, I think, clear that's their strategy along the northern part of Africa, southern part of NATO, the Mediterranean, to have influence inside of Libya, for example," Waldhauser told the Senate Armed Services Committee. But he warned the Kremlin's designs go even further, pointing to Russian inroads in the Central African Republic, where the Russian military firm Wagner has stationed about 175 mercenaries. "The individuals are actually in the president's cabinet and they're influencing the training," Waldhauser said. In addition, the Russian military itself sent 500 trainers to CAR, along with weapons, helping to train 1,000 soldiers as of September of last year. Despite concerns from some CAR officials and the international community, Russia's overall effort has been welcomed. "We are a country that has endured a grave crisis, and we are returning with great difficulty because we don't have the means to control everything that happens in our territory," CAR Defense Minister Marie-Noelle Koyara told VOA's French to Africa service this past October. "We want a professional army that will truly be of service to the people," she said. Hunting for access U.S. military commanders, however, worry that Russia's outreach is increasingly part of an effort to gain access to raw materials, like mineral deposits, as well as leverage. "Russian interests gain access to natural resources on favorable terms," Waldhauser noted in his prepared testimony, warning that CAR elected leaders continue to "mortgage mineral rights for a fraction of their worth to secure Russian weapons." "We're concerned that that model might be looked at or viewed positively by other countries," Waldhauser told lawmakers. "To a large degree it's still a matter of influence, especially in areas we're not in or especially in areas where they could say the United States, or the U.K. or Western partners, are perhaps backing away," he said. 'Toxic mix' of threats Waldhauser's warning followed similar statements from top intelligence officials who testified last week that the U.S. is facing a "toxic mix" of threats, including a synergistic approach from Russia and China to gain influence in Africa at Washington's expense. "The Chinese bring the money and the Russians bring the muscle," he told lawmakers, referencing a recent quote from a presidential candidate in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. U.S. military officials also worry that Beijing, too, is likely to become more ambitious when it comes to flexing its military might across Africa. China currently has a single military base in Africa, in Djibouti, but its military forces have been increasingly active in U.N. peacekeeping missions. And, officials say, they continue to eye additional ports as they look to expand their economic presence. "The Chinese work hard at developing and maintaining relationships with the senior officials of the governments inside the African continent," Waldhauser said. "They come with a full plan." "If we want to maintain influence, we kind of need to up our engagement," he added. Afghan Leader Roils Pakistan With Pashtun Comments By Ayaz Gul February 07, 2019 Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's denouncement Thursday of the arrest of a group of ethnic Pashtun activists in neighboring Pakistan has triggered a harsh response from Islamabad, reigniting bilateral political tensions. The unusual reaction by Ghani came two days after authorities in the Pakistani capital arrested about two dozen members of a non-violent group, known as the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) or Pashtun Protection Movement. The detainees were protesting against the death of one of their leaders in an alleged police crackdown. "The Afghan government has serious concerns about the violence perpetrated against peaceful protesters and civil activists in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan," Ghani said in a series of tweets. Ghani named the two Pakistani border provinces with predominantly Pashtun populations and where the PTM has its support base. PTM leaders repeatedly have alleged in recent months that authorities are suppressing their activists elsewhere in Pakistan to deter them from raising their voice against "injustices" facing the country's Pashtuns. Authorities deny the charges. "We believe it is the moral responsibility of every government to support civil activities that take a stand against the terrorism and extremism that plagues and threatens our region and collective security," said Ghani, who himself is a Pashtun. Several cities in Afghanistan, where Pashtuns are in the majority, also have been the scenes of rallies in support of PTM. Pakistan claims 'gross interference' Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi swiftly took to Twitter, though, to reject Ghani's comments. "Such irresponsible statements are only gross interference. Afghan leadership needs to focus on long-standing serious grievances of the Afghan people," Qureshi insisted. The Pakistani group says its senior member, Arman Loni, was participating in a protest in the Lorali town of Baluchistan when police attacked and beat him to death in a bid to disperse the rally. For their part, provincial authorities maintain the 35-year-old university teacher died of a heart attack during clashes between protesters and riot police. The government has promised a swift inquiry, but PTM activists and leaders of opposition political parties are demanding an independent probe. Afghanistan and Pakistan regularly accuse each other of supporting and harboring militant groups carrying out terrorist attacks on their respective terrorizes. The allegations are at the center of mutual tensions and mistrust. The latest war of words comes as Pakistan has been facilitating renewed U.S.-led efforts to seek a political settlement with the Taliban to end the Afghan conflict. The insurgent leadership is allegedly sheltering in the neighboring country with the help of Pakistani security agencies charges Islamabad rejects. PTM is considered anti-military because of its belief that Pakistan's military has used the fight against terrorism to carry out human rights abuses against Pashtuns in restive tribal areas and other parts of the country. The group has been demanding an end to extra-judicial killings and enforced disappearances, particularly of Pashtuns. The military has been carrying out anti-militancy operations in those areas along the Afghan border, particularly in the northern Waziristan district, the birthplace of PTM. Pakistani army officials flew a group of reporters to the Waziristan area last week to showcase an improved security situation and ongoing reconstruction projects in an area previously was condemned as the epicenter for international terrorism. Million across Yemen 'just a step away from famine', with food available but inaccessible 7 February 2019 - While nearly 10 million people across Yemen remain "just a step away from famine", the United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator has spoken of his deep concern that a large food storage depot on the outskirts of the crucial port city of Hudaydah, has been out of bounds since last September. "Enough grain to feed 3.7 million people for a month has sat unused and possibly spoiling in silos at the mills for more than four months", said Mark Lowcock, in a statement on the depot, known as the Red Sea Mills. "No-one gains anything from this, but millions of starving people suffer". The World Food Programme (WFP) alone, has 51,000 metric tons of wheat stored there, a quarter of its in-country wheat stock and enough to feed 3.7 million people for a month. WFP has been unable to access the Mills since September 2018 because of fighting. Last month two silos in the Government-controlled area were hit by mortar fire, probably destroying enough grain to feed hundreds of thousands of people for a month. "These events are to be deplored" stressed Mr. Lowcock. Access to the mills grows progressively more urgent as the longer they remain inaccessible, and the risk of grain spoilage is growing each day. Citing security concerns, forces affiliated with the Houthi rebels, formally-known as Ansar Allah, have, to date, not allowed the UN to cross front lines to access the mills. According to Mr. Lowcock, discussions continue with all parties. "I appreciate the genuine efforts that have been made on all sides to find a solution", he said, "but it remains elusive". He implored all parties "to finalize an agreement and facilitate access to the mills in the coming days". Meanwhile, the UN and its humanitarian partners are scaling up to reach 12 million people with emergency food assistance a 50 per cent increase over 2018. In December, the World Food Programme (WFP) reached a record 10 million people. "We can save huge numbers of people, most of them in areas controlled by Ansar Allah" concluded Mr. Lowcock, "But we need more help to do that from the authorities who control these areas". Earlier this week, the Security Council stressed the "vital importance" of making progress towards a political agreement to end the conflict and "relieve the humanitarian suffering of the Yemeni people". 'Challenges remain' implementing first steps of Stockholm peace deal Meanwhile, in talks brokered by UN aimed at delivering the Hudaydah Agreement, which grew out of historic consultations between Government and Houthi leaders in Stockholm at the end of last year, challenges remain, the UN told correspondents in New York on Thursday. The Redeployment Coordination Committee (RCC) met again, ending a session on Wednesday, which involves both sides, chaired by General Michael Lollesgaard, who is heading a team of UN observers and monitors, trying to negotiate the withdrawal of fighters from the Houthi-held port city, stabilize the fragile ceasefire, and open new humanitarian corridors. "Nevertheless, challenges remain, not least the complex nature of the current frontlines," said UN Spokesperson, Stephane Dujarric, adding that "to help overcome these issues, the RCC Chair tabled a proposal that proved acceptable, in principle, to both parties to move forward on the implementation of the Hudaydah Agreement. A preliminary compromise was agreed, pending further consultation by the parties with their respective leaders." He added that "both parties have given a firm commitment to observe and enhance the ceasefire in the interim". Canada Deploys Warship to Asia-Pacific, Mideast Sputnik News 02:05 07.02.2019(updated 04:19 07.02.2019) WASHINGTON (Sputnik) The Canadian warship Regina departs its home port for a deployment to the Asia-Pacific and Mideast regions along with the Naval Replenishment Unit Asterix, the Defence Ministry announced in a press release on Wednesday. "The ships will initially support Operation Projection working with partner navies and conducting key leader engagements to enhance military cooperation and partnerships in support of Canada's diplomatic efforts in the Asia-Pacific region," the release said. In March 2019, the ships will transition to Operation Artemis, supporting the Combined Maritime Force coalition of 33 partner nations, which promotes stability in the Middle East, the release said. Regina is a Halifax-class frigate, which features extensive anti-submarine warfare and anti-surface warfare weapons and sensors, the release added. Sputnik US Navy Successfully Tests New Ship Self-Defense System for Ford-Class Carriers Sputnik News 03:33 07.02.2019(updated 03:36 07.02.2019) The US Navy's new Ford-class aircraft carriers just got a little closer to being safer on the high seas, thanks to a successful test Tuesday of the Ship Self Defense System. Fired from a test ship, it intercepted a drone, a task that required the integration of multiple ship systems. The test of the Raytheon-built system took place off the coast of California and saw the SSDS work with at least four other integrated-combat system components, including the radar that found and illuminated the target, the computer system that processed the data and passed launch commands to the missile, and the missile itself, which intercepted the drone, Military.com noted. The weapon used was a specialized, close-in, anti-air ship defense missile, the Evolved SeaSparrow, already in use on the Navy's amphibious assault ships but not yet implemented on its supercarriers, which are more than twice the size of an AAS. "The design of our Ship Self Defense System enabled seamless integration of the sensors and missiles with the CVN 78 combat system during this first-of-its-kind test, proving the ability of the system to defend our sailors," Mike Fabel, Raytheon's SSDS program manager, said in a statement Tuesday. "This integrated combat system success brings Ford one step closer to operational testing and deployment." Ford, the lead ship of what the Pentagon hopes will be a 10-member class of 100,000-ton ships, is scheduled to enter full service in 2022. However, right now the ship is a very long way from that. It's suffered numerous setbacks and cost overruns, including being delivered without a single working munitions elevator and an unreliable magnetic aircraft catapult system delays that led the late Sen. John McCain to call the ship "a spectacular debacle." Only last month did one elevator actually come on line, and Navy Secretary Richard Spencer said the remaining 10 should all be working by the summer of 2019. Despite the setbacks, last week the Navy signed a contract to buy two more of the ships in a highly controversial double-buy for $14.9 billion, Sputnik reported. Spencer has touted the deal as a huge cost-saver, but others have remained skeptical, since the only ship of the class built so far, the Ford, has had so many problems. Also this week, the Navy finally parted ways with its beleaguered Anti-Torpedo Torpedo Defense System, designed to protect its carriers from submarine threats, Sputnik reported. The Pentagon's Office of the Director of Test and Evaluation pulled the system after it proved too unreliable. Sputnik The Sanibel-Captiva Art League will meet on Feb. 21 from 1 to 3 p.m. at The Community House, at 2173 Periwinkle Way, Sanibel. Sanibel artist Barbara Eisenberg will be the guest speaker. The topic will be Thinking In Reverse, The Art of Printmaking. Eisenberg uses the printmaking process as a primary means of expression. Her presentation will incorporate an emphasis on spatial concepts and response to these ideas in simple, bold imaginative forms through monotype, relief, intaglio, collograph and lithograph. An Ohio snowbird for the past 35 years, Eisenberg has studied with professional printmaking artists and design professors at the Cleveland Institute of Art and at local colleges. Her work has been shown in solo and group shows at galleries and museums regionally and nationally, and it is represented in private collections. The leagues meetings are free and open to the public. For more information, visit sancapart.com. Venezuelan Army Chopper Crashes Amid Drills Against 'Possible US Aggression' Sputnik News 09:10 07.02.2019(updated 09:42 07.02.2019) Military servicemen from the Venezuelan armed forces were injured in a helicopter crash in the country's western state of Cojedes, on 4 February, Venezuela al Dia reported. Five soldiers were injured amid a training exercise aimed at "repelling possible aggression from the United States", according to the online media outlet Venezuela al Dia. The soldiers reportedly received prompt medical attention, and their lives are not in danger. The servicemen were diagnosed with multiple head injuries, as well as injuries to the chest and abdomen, according to Venezuela al Dia. The reasons for the crash have not been made public, no official statement has been provided by the government. The incident took place days after US President Donald Trump confirmed in an interview with the CBS broadcaster that US military intervention in Venezuela was "an option". Tensions in Venezuela escalated nearly two weeks ago when Venezuelan opposition parliament speaker Juan Guaido declared himself interim president, disputing last year's re-election of incumbent President Nicolas Maduro. Guaido was almost immediately recognised by the United States and several other countries. Russia, China, Mexico, Turkey and Uruguay were among those that have voiced their support for Maduro as the country's legitimately elected president. Sputnik Venezuelan Opposition to Get Money From US Fund Filled With Oil Money - Report Sputnik News 13:41 07.02.2019 Washington earlier imposed sanctions against Venezuelan state-owned oil company PDVSA and passed control over some of its foreign funds held by US-insured banks to Juan Guaido, a leader of the opposition, who proclaimed himself interim president of Venezuela. The Venezuelan opposition will be getting money from a US-based fund that will accrue some of the country's oil income, Reuters reported, citing opposition lawmaker Carlos Paparoni. The fund will be reportedly filled with the profits from PDVSA's American subsidiary, Citgo starting from last month. Paparoni has refused to give details about the future fund, but added that its creation will likely be announced next week by the opposition's representative in the US. Citgo is one of the largest US-based refineries and Venezuela's biggest foreign asset, which has found itself in the middle of a conflict between Caracas and Washington, as it is formally controlled by Venezuela's PDVSA, but operates on US soil. The move to create the fund, which will bankroll the Venezuelan opposition, comes in the wake of US calls for Nicolas Maduro to step down and recognition of self-proclaimed interim President of Venezuela Juan Guaido. In a bid to cut Maduro's earnings, Washington has sanctioned major state-owned oil-producer PDVSA and frozen its foreign assets. The US passed control over some of these assets to Guaido and his team. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has accused Washington of orchestrating a coup and severed diplomatic ties with the country. He is currently supported as the only legitimate president by Russia, China, Iran, Turkey and several other nations. The US, Canada, Israel, and over a dozen South American countries have recognised Guaido as the interim president. Most EU states have supported him as well, with the notable exception being Italy. Sputnik Washington Already Made Decision on Forceful Intervention in Venezuela - Moscow Sputnik News 16:23 07.02.2019(updated 20:27 07.02.2019) The United States is working on scenarios for regime change in Venezuela, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has stated at a weekly briefing in Moscow. "There are still signs coming from Washington about the possibility of using force in order to overthrow the legal authorities, including through direct military invasion. This is actually being spoken about openly in the White House. I would like to recall that this kind of statement from the mouth of American officials is a direct violation of Article 2 Par. 4 of the UN Charter, ordering all UN members to refrain from the threat or use of force in international relations", Zakharova said at a briefing. According to Zakharova, the decision on the use of force has already been made by Washington, "everything else is nothing more than a covering operation". Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has also stated that the United States has incited Venezuela's military to commit crimes, promising them amnesty for betraying the country's authorities. "Washington has turned to direct threats of sanctions to the Venezuelan military, who remain loyal to the legitimate government. That is just a different, new reading of the 'carrot and stick' approach. On the one hand, they threaten a potential punishment. On the other hand, they promise a potential reward", Zakharova noted. The official noted that imposing sanctions against Venezuela while at the same time delivering international humanitarian aid to the country is a vivid example of cynicism. "They say that Venezuelans live poorly under the incumbent authorities, so do not impose sanctions! Let the state live and develop and solve its problems independently, and do not aggravate them," Zakharova added. A day earlier, US National Security Advisor John Bolton said that Washington was prepared to waive punitive sanctions on senior Venezuelan military officers if they pledge allegiance to opposition leader Juan Guaido who has proclaimed himself the Latin American country's interim president. The statements come after US President Donald Trump confirmed in an interview with CBS that he is considering sending the American military to Venezuela as an "option". The crisis in Venezuela intensified when opposition leader Guaido proclaimed himself interim president of Venezuela on the 23rd of January after the opposition-controlled National Assembly declared that Maduro had usurped power. Maduro has called Guaido a puppet of the United States and accused Washington of attempting to conduct a coup d'etat in Venezuela. Russia, Mexico, and Uruguay were among those that voiced their support for Maduro as the country's only legitimate president and expressed readiness to act as mediators in the conflict between the government and the opposition. Sputnik Senior US Navy Adviser Suggests Rulebook With China to Avoid Close Calls at Sea Sputnik News 21:56 07.02.2019(updated 22:01 07.02.2019) The chief of US naval operations said at a meeting of the Atlantic Council think tank earlier this week that the US and China need to draw up rules to govern their naval operations in the South China Sea, and once arrived at, the US should aggressively enforce them. Chief of US Naval Operations Admiral John Richardson gave his thoughts to a major US policy think tank on Wednesday, focusing on how the US should approach encounters with Chinese and Russian naval forces on the high seas. Richardson referred to these kinds of showdowns, like one that happened between a Chinese and American destroyer in the South China Sea last year when the two warships came within a couple dozen yards of each other, as "gray-zone" conflicts. "[T]he Chinese navy is growing; there's going to be more opportunities where we meet," Richardson said, "and so these rules are going to be operative more and more. We should approach each other all the way down to the tactical level, our front-line commanders, in ways that actually make it easy for us to adhere to these rules of behavior." "[F]irst of all, we do have an operational construct that is designed to minimize the chance of miscalculation when two of our ships meet on the high seas," said Richardson, who is the highest-ranking officer of the Navy. That rulebook is called the Code of Unplanned Encounters at Sea, but the admiral said more structure was needed for these "gray-zones." "So let's not be obstructing one another, driving our ships in front of one another, throwing obstacles in front of the ship. Let's just be biased towards making it easy," Richardson said, according to USNI. "[T]hese rules have to apply to all of the forces so it can't just be the People's Liberation Army Navy to which they apply, but it's also got to be the [China] Coast Guard, and it's also got to be the Maritime Militia, and everybody's got to abide by these. Being more insistent about those would be a good first start." China's Maritime Militia has played a key role in its expansion and marking of claims on South China Sea islands in recent decades, and the irregular forces have frequently been on the front lines of quarrels with other nations' fishing vessels in the region, Foreign Affairs noted. However, Beijing claims those ships and crews aren't controlled by the People's Liberation Army-Navy, which makes regulating their conduct difficult, the South China Morning Post reported. Richardson said the Automatic Identification System (AIS) could serve as the basis for such an arrangement. AIS is "a shipboard broadcast system that acts like a transponder that is capable of handling well over 4,500 reports per minute and updates as often as every two seconds. It uses Self-Organizing Time Division Multiple Access (SOTDMA) technology to meet this high broadcast rate and ensure reliable ship-to-ship operation," according to a US Coast Guard information sheet. "[J]ust putting in some of these enforcement mechanisms makes it harder to play fast and loose with the rules," the admiral said. "But you've got to make a move to enforce those things. I think a lot of that structure exists, it's just we've got to be a little more muscular in enforcing it." Finding a way to regulate encounters between the two navies is a pressing need because of the frequency with which they come into contact in the waterway. As the US doesn't recognize Chinese claims to most of the islands in the South China Sea, it regularly violates what China considers to be its domestic waters by conducting what it calls "Freedom of Navigation Operations." The PLAN challenges US ships or those of its allies, such as the UK and Japan, as they conduct these operations, and the episodes can be quite intense. Both the US and China, as well as their allies, have staged major military exercises in the sea in recent years, including such shows of force as flying nuclear-capable bombers through the waterway and staging live-fire drills. The waterway is no small prize, either. Aside from the estimated $3 trillion in trade that passes through it annually, there's estimated to be 11 billion barrels of untapped oil and 190 trillion cubic feet of natural gas underneath its sea floor, National Interest noted. Six nations have laid claim to some parts of the sea, including China, Taiwan, Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam. Sputnik Time for Dialogue With Maduro 'Has Long Passed' - US Envoy to Venezuela Sputnik News 22:57 07.02.2019(updated 23:33 07.02.2019) Elliott Abrams, US President Donald Trump's special envoy to Venezuela, told a US State Department press briefing Thursday that the time for dialogue with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has "long passed" and advised other countries to deal with Juan Guaido, the self-appointed interim president recognized by Washington. Abrams also said the US was imposing visa bans on "illegitimate" members of the Maduro-controlled Venezuelan Constituent Assembly. The body was elected from a cross-section of Venezuelan society in 2017 to draw up a new constitution for the country, but aroused criticism by opposition forces who said it was anti-democratic. The Constituent Assembly later disempowered the Parliament after it refused to recognize the assembly's legal superiority. Guaido, the speaker of the disempowered National Assembly, declared himself to be interim president of Venezuela on January 23 during a rally to commemorate the fall of the military dictatorship in 1958. Maduro, who won reelection last May, was sworn in to his new term on January 20, and massive protests both for and against his government have swept the nations since several days before the inauguration. Guaido, who a recent poll showed is unknown to 80 percent of Venezuelans, did not run in that election race. The envoy said the "end game" for Maduro should be for him to leave power, noting it was preferable for Maduro to leave the country afterward and that countries had privately approached the US offering to take in members of Maduro's government. Responding to a question about trucks carrying humanitarian aid that had arrived at the Venezuelan border with Colombia Thursday, Abrams said "I don't think that we or the Colombians or the Brazilians or anyone else is planning to try to force [the aid] in [to Venezuela]." The Lima Group of 14 nations dedicated to forcing regime change in Venezuela decided last week during an Ottawa meeting to use the offer of humanitarian aid as a bargaining chip. However, on Wednesday the Venezuelan government blockaded a major highway crossing the border in order to stop additional shipments into the country after officials said they'd seized a large shipment of weapons the previous day. "If he [Maduro] sees a real demand on the part of the Venezuelan people, let it in," Abrams said of aid sent to the South American nation. "That's all we're asking. Let it in." Abrams commented that if a transition to a "free and democratic government" without Maduro at the head hasn't commenced soon, "it will be the fault of the regime" and no blame should be placed on either Guaido or the National Assembly. Sputnik Kyrgyz Security Chief Says Bishkek Not Considering Another Russian Military Base February 07, 2019 Kyrgyzstan's top security official says Bishkek is not looking into the possibility of having a second Russian military base on its territory. Russia's air base at Kant, in northern Kyrgyzstan, was opened in 2003 under the auspices of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), which includes Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan. Talking to journalists in Bishkek on February 7, Security Council Secretary Damir Sagynbaev said that the issue was not being considered either by his council nor by the president's office. Sagynbaev added, however, that the issue might be under consideration at some point in the future. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on February 4 said during a visit to Kyrgyzstan that Moscow was open to discussing the idea of opening a second military base in the Central Asian country if Bishkek was interested. Earlier on February 1, Kyrgyz Ambassador to Russia Alikbek Jekshenkulov told the TASS news agency that his country did not rule out opening a second Russian military base in southern Kyrgyzstan. Reports and rumors about the possibility that Russia could open a second military base have been circulating in Kyrgyzstan and Russia for months. Based on reporting by Interfax, TASS, and RIA Novosti Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/kyrgyz-security-chief- says-bishkek-not-considering-another- russian-military-base/29756678.html Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. Now That NATO Door Is Open, North Macedonia Gets To Show That It Belongs By Alan Crosby, RFE/RL's Balkan Service February 07, 2019 NATO says it is now ready North Macedonia. But is North Macedonia ready for the Western security alliance? At the center of a tug-of-war for influence between Russia and the West, Skopje signed a protocol on February 6 that could see another successor state of Yugoslavia become the military alliance's 30th member if the move is ratified by all current NATO members -- foremost among them Greece. The signing was made possible after Athens and Skopje settled a decades-old name dispute through a compromise that changes Macedonia's moniker to the Republic of North Macedonia, thus allaying Greek fears of any claim to its region of Macedonia. The only remaining hurdle could be cleared as soon as February 7, when Greece is expected to ratify the NATO Accession Protocol and truly open the path to the official name change. Privileges And Costs While membership in the world's most powerful military alliance has its privileges, it also has its costs. And many of North Macedonia's 2 million inhabitants are worried the price may be too steep. North Macedonia's economy is struggling, the rule of law is weak, corruption is rampant in the public sector, the budget deficit is rising, and less than 1 percent of economic output is earmarked for defense spending, less than half of what NATO demands from its members. "The major economic concern -- because it is so non-quantifiable -- is how the country will pay for implementing all of the changes it pledged to do in last year's Prespa Agreement with Greece, which was the price of admission for NATO and possibly EU membership," says Chris Deliso, an American political and security analyst based in what will soon be North Macedonia. "These costs are expected to fall entirely on the Macedonian taxpayer. This is a question that no one can answer as it includes both tangible and intangible costs. But it is bound to be quite high and have long-term ramifications beyond the control of this or any future Macedonian government," he added, saying he's "optimistic" politicians will find a way to fulfill the financial obligations that come with NATO. The landlocked country's accession into the alliance follows its former Yugoslav republic peers Montenegro, Albania, and Croatia. Successive Political Crises And though it may have caught up to some of its neighbors on one diplomatic front, Macedonia hasn't had the same fortune in terms of its economic development. It has been rattled by successive political crises marked by intense rivalry between the political parties in recent years. The battles and a two-year financial crisis have left a sputtering economy, unemployment above 20 percent, and an average monthly net salary of about $400, the lowest in the region. The country's economy posted the slowest growth in the region last year, according to estimates from the World Bank, while the budget deficit widened to 2.85 percent of gross domestic product. "The country finds itself in an extremely difficult economic, political, interethnic and military situation," says Biljana Vankovska, a professor at Saints Cyril and Methodius University of Skopje. Vankovska says the current administration not only lacks the funds needed to prepare the armed forces for NATO, it has even less experience in executing reforms to modernize a military that analysts at GlobalFirepower rank 118th out of 136th in the world. Most Macedonians see NATO as "heaven on earth," but "it won't take long before the current government will prove unable to manage the extremely high expectations," Vankovska told RFE/RL. "To [the] great disappointment of the Macedonian citizens, it will soon become clear that the NATO membership does not mean better life quality, rule of law, higher employment rate, internal stability, and progress," she added. Bitter Pills That would be another bitter pill to swallow for a country that has already been prodded to relinquish many of its cultural claims -- along with statues, signs, and memorials -- to the classical warrior-king Alexander the Great. Macedonia's politicians are meanwhile playing up the "historic" NATO accession, one of the few triumphs they can point to in recent history. "We're happy, and rightfully so, because we have secured lasting stability for our country. We've secured safety, security, and peace," Prime Minister Zoran Zaev said after the signing ceremony in Brussels. "Progress and development cannot be stopped now. Our contemporaries and our contemporaries' children will live better, in a country and a region that beam with hope," he added. A key hurdle should come on February 7 or in the following days, when Greece should ratify the NATO Accession Protocol. 'A Thumb In Russia's Eye' For Ljupco Nestorovski, a pensioner from Skopje, the cost of that hope can't be counted solely in objective terms. "The move is upsetting to the Russians -- it's like we're sticking a thumb in their eye," Nestorovski said. North Macedonia's entrance into NATO -- and its drive toward European Union integration -- is seen as another in a series of blows to Moscow, which has battled to maintain influence in the Balkans. Russia's Foreign Ministry has accused the alliance of pulling Macedonia into its sphere "by force." But a majority of Macedonians support NATO entry, even if they have concerns. Some expect membership will bring stability to part of the Balkan "powder keg" that has reeled from the political and financial crises that sparked four elections, none of which produced a stable Macedonian government. Membership will increase investments as well as economic and security stability, says Dragan Dimitrovski, a state employee in Skopje. "I hope that it will be safer in the country, the economy will be more stable, there will probably be real investments, not like those before," he said. Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/macedonia-nato-russia -influence-greece-name-change/29757662.html Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. Explainer: Why There Are Two Competing Tracks For Afghan Peace By Frud Bezhan February 07, 2019 As the prospect of a negotiated end to the war in Afghanistan is closer than it has ever been, the peace process with the Taliban could be derailed by competing agendas. Longtime rivals Russia and the United States have backed separate negotiations with different stakeholders, muddling the complex process. To highlight the confusion, the Taliban first sat down for talks with American negotiators in Qatar last week before meeting a delegation of powerful Afghan power brokers in Moscow for "intra-Afghan" talks this week. Why Two Simultaneous Negotiating Processes? U.S. peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad has held a series of direct talks with Taliban negotiators in the Qatari capital, Doha, culminating in the basic framework of a possible peace deal. Meanwhile, Moscow has organized two peace conferences -- the latest on February 5-6 -- that have drawn representatives from Afghanistan's neighbors, opposition politicians, and the same Taliban negotiators that met with the American delegation in Doha. Both processes have frozen out the Afghan government, which the Taliban has refused to meet. The militants see the Kabul government as a Western puppet and have said they will negotiate directly with Washington. Analysts say Moscow is trying to promote itself as a power broker to challenge the U.S.-backed peace process. Thomas Ruttig, co-director of the Afghanistan Analysts Network, an independent think tank in Kabul, says the Russian peace talks are fueled by "Russian political sniping against the [United States]." Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on February 4 that the United States was trying to "monopolize" peace talks with the Taliban and was conducting talks in secrecy while keeping regional countries "in the dark." Haroun Mir, an Kabul-based political analyst, says it has been the Taliban's strategy to have two simultaneous tracks for negotiations. "The Taliban has insisted on negotiating first with the United States and then bypassing the Afghan government and initiating a dialogue with different Afghan political groups," says Mir. "Thus far they have been successful in dividing the Afghan political elite who have supported the constitutional process in the past 18 years." What Are The Consequences Of Having Two Tracks? Analysts say a major consequence is deepening divisions inside Afghanistan between President Ashraf Ghani's administration and a host of powerful opposition politicians, including former President Hamid Karzai. Among those who attended the Moscow meetings were key power brokers who have announced their candidacy to run against Ghani in the July presidential election. Ruttig says for Moscow not to include the Afghan government was an "affront" and has the strong feel of election campaigning and Russia taking sides. "A united 'Kabul camp' would be better, but maybe this is an illusion anyway," says Ruttig. "But [unity] was clearly not the desire of the Russian government: this is divide and interfere." Ghani is reportedly furious about his administration being left out of both the U.S. and Russian talks. The president's office criticized the meeting in Moscow, saying that Afghan politicians attending the gathering were doing so "in order to gain power." Meanwhile, Kabul fears Washington will make a deal in Doha with the Taliban behind their back. Analyst Mir says by keeping the Kabul government out of the U.S.- and Russia-backed talks the Taliban wants to "reduce the legitimacy of the Afghan government to a minimum and thus further strengthen [its] bargaining position vis-a-vis the United States and extract maximum advantage." Who Are The Likely Winners And Losers? Graeme Smith, an Afghanistan analyst and a consultant for the International Crisis Group, says no one has won or lost because all of the actors have stakes in the outcome. "If these talks give birth to an inclusive intra-Afghan process, the people of Afghanistan could finally gain relief from the world's deadliest war," says Smith. "If the talks fail to include all sides and no durable peace results [from them], the people could suffer another collapse into civil war." Sidelined and frustrated, the weak, deeply unpopular Afghan government may feel it is the biggest loser so far. Mir says it's not just the government that stands to lose, but "all of those who have defended the constitutional process for the past 18 years." Analysts say the talks have given Russia the chance to burnish perceptions of Moscow's global significance while dealing a fresh blow to Western influence. Ruttig says Moscow's role is another assertion that it is "back in the strategic game." Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/explainer-afghan -peace-process-two-tracks/29757472.html Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. Taliban, Afghan Delegations Hail 'Successful' Moscow Meeting, Pledge To Meet Again By RFE/RL February 07, 2019 Taliban representatives and an Afghan delegation led by former President Hamid Karzai have said that after two days of negotiations in Russia they aim to continue their "intra-Afghan" dialogue in Qatar "as soon as possible." Karzai led a delegation of about 40 Afghan politicians -- although without representatives of the current government in Kabul -- at the two-day round of talks in Moscow on February 5-6. The two sides said in a joint statement quoted by Afghan broadcaster Tolo News that they agreed to meet again in Doha, the capital of Qatar, where the Taliban has a semiofficial office. The Moscow meeting came as broader peace talks involving the U.S. and Taliban representatives in Doha appear to be gaining momentum. U.S. and Taliban negotiators are scheduled to meet again on February 25 in Doha, weeks after Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan reconciliation, said a framework peace agreement had been reached with the militants. Khalilzad, who also did not attend the Moscow meetings, is due to speak in Washington on February 8 about the status of the Afghan peace process. Karzai said at the end of the Moscow meeting that those talks had been "very satisfactory." Despite the absence of any Afghan government representatives, the Moscow meeting has been described as part of an "intra-Afghan" peace process. However, the gathering has been criticized by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. "Those taking part in the talks are independent individuals," Ghani said, according to Tolo News. "When Mr. Karzai returns from Moscow we will see what he has brought.... I wish the best for him," Ghani said. Karzai said the main issue under discussion in Moscow was that Afghanistan should be free of foreign forces, adding that there was a near-consensus on this matter. Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, the head of the 10-member Taliban delegation in Moscow, said the meetings had been "very successful." "We agreed on many points and I am hopeful that in future, we can succeed further, and finally we can reach a solution, we can find a complete peace in Afghanistan," Stanikzai told reporters. Stanikzai also said the timeline for a U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan had not yet been fixed and that negotiations on the issue were continuing. With reporting by Reuters, AFP, AP, Interfax, and TASS Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/taliban-afghan-delegation-say -talks-to-continue/29756223.html Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. Taliban says no agreement with US on troop withdrawal deadline Iran Press TV Thu Feb 7, 2019 03:03AM The Taliban says no timeframe has been agreed for the pullout of American troops from Afghanistan despite Washington's earlier promise to draw down half of its forces from the war-torn country. A Taliban official on Wednesday said that the United States had promised to withdraw half of its troops from Afghanistan by the end of April, but the US says it has not set a timeframe for that. "The Americans told us (last month) that they would withdraw half of their troops from the beginning of February to the end of April," Taliban official Abdul Salam Hanafi was quoted as saying by RIA. A US State Department spokeswoman said Washington had "not agreed to any timeline for a possible drawdown of troops. Hanafi said Washington and the Taliban had agreed at talks that all foreign troops would eventually leave, and that Afghanistan would never be used as a base for attacks on the United States. "The timeline (of the withdrawal) will be discussed at future meetings," Hanafi said. US and Taliban delegations met in Qatar in January and are due to meet again this month. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday his administration had accelerated talks for a political settlement in Afghanistan and would be able to reduce US troops there as negotiations advanced to end America's longest war. A US official said in December that Trump was planning to withdraw more than 5,000 of the 14,000 US troops in Afghanistan. Taliban insists all troops must leave Trump on Tuesday used his State of the Union address to stress the importance of accelerated talks with the Taliban to end the longest of America's "endless wars". Trump offered no specifics about when he would bring home the 14,000 US troops in Afghanistan but said progress in negotiations with the Taliban would enable a troop reduction and a "focus on counter-terrorism". The Taliban, however, rejected the idea, and reiterated on Wednesday their long-held demand that all foreign troops get out of Afghanistan. Asked about Trump's speech, a Taliban official told Reuters that all foreign troops in Afghanistan had to go. "At the first step, we want all the foreign forces to leave and end the military presence in our country," said Sohail Shahin, a spokesman for a Taliban office in Qatar and a member of a Taliban team meeting Afghan opposition politicians in Moscow. "But after ending their military presence, their non-military teams can come and we need them too, they can come and take part in the reconstruction and development process," he said. Moscow talks 'very successful' The Taliban officials were in Moscow for talks with Afghan opposition politicians, including former President Hamid Karzai. The militant group on Wednesday hailed two days of unprecedented talks with Afghan politicians as "very successful", despite disagreements over women's rights and its demands for an Islamic constitution in the war-torn country. The extraordinary gathering in the Russian capital was the Taliban's most significant with Afghan politicians in years, and concluded with both sides agreeing to future talks and ensuring a "durable and dignified peace" for the people of Afghanistan. Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, head of the Taliban delegation, made a rare appearance in front of international media alongside Karzai after the talks. "This meeting was very successful," the Taliban official told reporters. "We agreed on many points and I am hopeful that in future, we can succeed further, and finally we can reach a solution. We can find a complete peace in Afghanistan." Drawing on proceeds from the 2018 A Peek at the Unique, the Zonta Foundation of Southwest Florida again awarded grants totaling $105,000 to local and regional non-profits whose mission mirrors Zontas: empowering women and girls. In addition, the foundation separately pledged $35,000 its highest ever contribution to Zonta International for global initiatives that enhance womens education, health and freedom from violence. Locally, organizations are invited over the summer to submit preliminary applications, from which 17 qualified through the selection process. With the requests totaling almost $165,000 a record the committee faced a daunting challenge. Diane Chesley and Janine Boardman, co-chairs of the Grants Committee, reported that grants were awarded to organizations some long-standing recipients whose work supports women at risk due to financial, health and domestic safety issues. We focus on organizations that help women on our islands and in the Southwest Florida community achieve greater safety, success and self-worth, they said. As governmental support continues to decline, Zontas financial support for these organizations is more important than ever, and we are so grateful for continued community support so that we can meet needs that grow every year, Barbara Beran, past president and 2018 Peek co-chair, added. For 2018, the local projects supported by Zonta include: Abuse Counseling & Treatment for an economic empowerment program Childrens Network of Southwest Florida for a program for 18-year-olds aging out of foster care Community Housing & Resources for educational support and emergency funds for female residents facing crisis Dr. Piper Center for Social Services for foster grandparent program uniting seniors and children with special needs Dress for Success/Fort Myers for two programs helping women find employment or succeed as entrepreneurs F.I.S.H. of Sanibel-Captiva for emergency medical and dental care for women Goodwill Industries of Southwest Florida for support for its Micro-enterprise Institute promoting economic independence Habitat for Humanitys Lee County Women Build for rehab or help building two homes for female heads of household Healthy Start Coalition of Southwest Florida for FOCUS program to educate teen mothers Human Trafficking Awareness Partnerships for ArtReach and school-based programs for pre-teen awareness OILE, or Organizacion Internacional de Latinos en el Exterior SWFL, for teaching immigrant women sewing skills PACE Center for Girls Lee County for attendance at PACE day, a field trip to the state Capitol Parent University at Head Start for literacy classes and support services for immigrant women Partners for Breast Cancer Care for mammograms in at-risk communities SalusCare for economic empowerment for women in recovery Southwest Florida Womens Foundation to partially fund Earn to Learn, covering four to five years of college for lower income women Also, to support the work by Girl Scouts organizations to mentor and support young girls, a small support award was made to help fund a financial literacy workshop for middle school girls in Lee County. The 18th annual Peek at the Unique is set for March 16. Tour tickets are $100 plus a small service fee, available through EventBrite.com or via a link at zontasancap.com/Events/Peek. Anyone needing assistance can email info@zontasancap.com. For more information, visit www.zontasancap.com. US blocks UN motion against Israel's expulsion of al-Khalil monitors Iran Press TV Thu Feb 7, 2019 06:25AM The US has blocked yet another UN Security Council (UNSC) draft resolution that would condemn Israel for expelling an international observer group tasked with safeguarding Palestinians in the flashpoint West Bank city of al-Khalil (Hebron). Kuwait and Indonesia presented the motion on Wednesday after a closed-door UNSC meeting on the Tel Aviv regime's recent decision to suspend the mandate of the Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH). UN diplomats said Washington did not believe a Security Council statement was appropriate regarding the issue. The draft resolution, seen by AFP, expressed "regret" about Israel's "unilateral decision" to boot TIPH observers out of al-Khalil and urged "calm and restraint" there. It also stressed "the importance of the mandate of the TIPH and its efforts to foster calm in a highly sensitive area and fragile situation on the ground, which risks further deteriorating," warning Israel that it has an obligation under international law "to protect the Palestinian civilian population" in al-Khalil and the rest of the West Bank. Security Council President Anatolio Ndong Mba said that the countries had "exchanged different views" about Israel's decision during Wednesday's meeting. "There was almost unanimity in the concern for the situation," he added. Meanwhile, Kuwait's Ambassador to the UN Mansour al-Otaibi said that the UNSC would discuss a proposed visit to the Israeli-occupied territories for a close-up look at the situation on the ground. Late week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that the TIPH's mandate would not be extended, claiming that the monitoring mission "acts against" the Tel Aviv regime. The foreign ministers of the countries that provide observers to the TIPH Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, Italy, and Turkey denounced Netanyahu's move in a joint statement and rejected his accusation against the group as "unacceptable and ungrounded." The TIPH was set up in 1994, when an Israeli settler killed 29 Palestinian worshipers at the Ibrahimi Mosque in al-Khalil. The mission did not start its work until 1998, after the Israeli military refused to leave al-Khalil following the establishment of an illegal Israeli settlement at the heart of the city. TIPH's mandate is renewed every six months. Its latest mandate ended on January 31. US to complete Syria pullout by April: WSJ Iran Press TV Thu Feb 7, 2019 11:10PM The United States military is expected to fully withdraw its forces from Syria by the end of April following an order by President Donald Trump, unnamed officials have confirmed to The Wall Street Journal. Current and former Trump administration officials told the WSJ on Thursday that American troops stationed in Syria would leave the country even though the White House has yet to unveil its plans to protect allied Kurdish forces in the Arab country. Trump announced in December that he was withdrawing more than 2,000 US forces from Syria because the Daesh terrorist group had been defeated and was no longer considered a threat. The decision was met with backlash at home and prompted then Defense Secretary James Mattis to hand in his resignation. On Monday, the US Senate voted overwhelmingly in favor of a largely symbolic amendment that opposed the decision. Drafted by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and heavily supported by Republican lawmakers, the new amendment states that while there has been progress in the fight against Daesh, the Trump administration had more to do in order to ensure the terror outfit's "enduring defeat." It further warned that "a precipitous withdrawal" could cause instability in the region and leave behind a vacuum that Iran and Russia would fill. Trump, however, insists that he has made the right call. In an interview aired by CBS on Sunday, Trump made it clear that he would not halt the withdrawal and retract one of his main campaign promises just because Senate Republicans said it was being done "precipitously." "Precipitously? We've been there for 19 years. I want to fight. I want to win, and we want to bring our great troops back home," Trump said. "I ran against 17 Republicans. This was a big part of what I was saying, and I won very easily. I think the people out in the world - I think people in our country agree," he said, referring to the 2016 presidential primaries, where he defeated over a dozen Republican candidates to win party nomination. He doubled down on his decision during his much-anticipated State of the Union speech on Tuesday too. US military officials have warned that leaving Syria would expose Kurdish groups working with US troops in northern parts of the country to possible attacks from Turkey, which has been running its own military campaign in Syria to eliminate what it calls Kurdish terrorist groups. Turkish president vows to take up US role in Syria Meanwhile, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Thursday that Turkish military forces were ready to continue the US military mission in Syria. "Turkey is ready to undertake responsibility for fighting against terrorists in those Syrian regions where US troops will be withdrawn from," he said at a US-Turkish Council meeting. "The most calm Syrian regions are those where Turkey ensured security." Washington has long been supporting the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an anti-Damascus coalition of Kurdish militants, as its most effective partner in Syria. Ankara, however, views the SDF as a terrorist organization and an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) that has been seeking an autonomous Kurdish region since 1984. Feb. 7, 2019 News By David Vergun Defense.gov Partnerships in Hemisphere Important, Southcom Commander Says WASHINGTON -- The commander of U.S. Southern Command provided an assessment of Southcom's concerns and initiatives to lawmakers today during testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee regarding the defense authorization request for fiscal year 2020 and the Future Years Defense Program. "China has accelerated expansion of its 'Belt and Road Initiative' at a pace that may one day overshadow its expansion in Southeast Asia and Africa," Navy Adm. Craig S. Faller told the committee members. The initiative aims at growing China-centered infrastructure development and investments on a transcontinental scale. "Belt" refers to refers to overland road and rail transportation routes, while "road" refers to sea routes. Russian activity in the region is also raising concerns including its support for autocratic regimes in Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua, Faller added. "Russia supports multiple information outlets spreading its false narrative of world events and U.S. intentions," he said. And, the admiral noted, "Iran has deepened its anti-U.S. Spanish language media coverage and has exported its state support for terrorism into our hemisphere." Partnership Strategy Partnerships are important to efforts to address these and other concerns in the region, such as criminal organizations, narcotraffickers, illegal immigration and violent extremists, he told lawmakers. "Strengthening partnerships is at the heart of everything we do," Faller said. In several nations, such as Brazil, Colombia and Chile, these partnerships are important drivers for regional stability and security, he said. In addition, Argentina "has reinvigorated military-to-military interactions" and, along with the U.S., co-hosted the annual South American Defense Conference in August, Faller noted. That conference was a forum for dialogue among 11 nations, facilitating the exchange of ideas, experiences and perspectives on defense issues, and promoting cooperative approaches to regional security. Peru continues a tradition of strong liaison officer exchanges with Southcom and recently conducted training with the U.S. Marine Corps, the admiral said. Southcom reinitiated security cooperation with Ecuador, and is moving forward with a renewed military-to-military partnership, Faller said. Similar cooperation efforts are taking place several other nations, Faller noted, including El Salvador, Panama, Honduras, Guatemala, Trinidad and Tobago, and Jamaica. Absence of Permanent Presence In the absence of an enduring U.S. military presence in most of Latin America and the Caribbean, recurring rotations of small teams of U.S. active and reserve forces "play central roles in building trust and enabling the exchange of critical expertise," Faller said. For example, the State Partnership Program links a state's National Guard with the armed forces or equivalent of a partner nation, "leveraging National Guard capabilities for engagements that build enduring relationships and advance mutual defense and security goals," he said. Of the 75 SPPs worldwide, 24 are in Socom, he said, but noted that number includes an inactive partnership between Venezuela and Florida. Another way the U.S. plays a military nonenduring presence role is through its participation in multinational exercises such as Unitas, a naval integration exercise; Panamax, the defense of the Panama Canal; and, Cruzeiro do Sul, a regional air exercise hosted by Brazil, he said. These are just a few of the many ways the U.S. cooperates with partner nations, Faller said. "The men and women of our team work every day to earn the trust of partners in Latin America and the Caribbean," he added. Feb. 7, 2019 News By Jim Garamone Defense.gov Africom Uses Whole-of-Government to Engage Nations WASHINGTON -- The commander of U.S. Africa Command told the Senate Armed Services Committee today that his command is engaged throughout the continent to encourage allies and partners and strengthen the rule of law. Marine Corps Gen. Thomas Waldhauser said his combatant command is engaged in fulfilling the needs of the National Defense Strategy in Africa, especially in light of the main threat the return of global competition from Russia and China. Africa is a huge continent with diverse people. Overall, the continent suffers from a lack of infrastructure and development. In some countries, corruption is rampant and the basic needs of their citizens are ignored. Extremism, Competition Some countries on the continent such as Somalia, Libya, Nigeria, Niger and others suffer from the plague of violent extremism. The al-Shabab terror group in Somalia still controls areas in that unfortunate nation. Boko Haram in West Africa threatens Nigeria, Niger, Mali and the countries of the Lake Chad region. There are others. Piled on top of this is the resurgence of great power competition and China is the most active participant on the continent, Waldhauser said. "Taken comprehensively, the overall U.S. strategic interests in Africa are clear," he said." "Prevent the undermining of our alliances or destabilization of Africa nations, counter violent extremist organizations, decrease the potential for Africa to become a failed continent, protect U.S. citizens and the homeland and advance American influence including economic opportunities and transactions." Whole-Of-Government Approach Waldhauser said a whole-of-government approach is the centerpiece for everything the command does on the continent. Command officials work closely with colleagues in the State Department and the Agency for International Development. "U.S. strategic interests on the continent cannot be solely advanced through the use of military force alone," he said. "As such, Africom uses the military tool in concert with diplomacy and development efforts to help negate the drivers of conflict and create opportunity." Somalia is a good example of this. Yes, there is a military aspect to countering al-Shabab, Waldhauser said, but the command works closely in Mogadishu with the U.S. ambassador and the resident office of USAID. "In Libya, our counterterrorism commitment supports the U.S. charge [d'affaires], who works closely with the international community to prevent civil conflict and facilitate political reconciliation process," he said. The command participates in exercises and operations throughout the continent. All are meant to strengthen local security, facilitate alliances in the regions and support rule of law initiatives. "Our partnered networks and influence ensures access for U.S. forces in times of crises to protect our personnel and facilities on the continent, such as in Djibouti and area with strategic significance to multiple combatant commands," Waldhauser said. The command emphasizes engagements and capacity building among the African nations, he said, and African military personnel study at American schools and participate in exercises and operations alongside American personnel. Trump Calls New Probe Into Alleged Collusion With Russia 'Unlimited Harassment' Sputnik News 17:02 07.02.2019(updated 17:08 07.02.2019) MOSCOW (Sputnik) - US President Donald Trump has stated that the new probe launched into his alleged collusion with Russia by the US House Intelligence Committee as "unlimited presidential harassment". "So now Congressman Adam Schiff announces, after having found zero Russian Collusion, that he is going to be looking at every aspect of my life, both financial and personal, even though there is no reason to be doing so. Never happened before! Unlimited Presidential Harassment", the US president said on Twitter. The statement comes a day after the committee chairman, Dem. Adam Schiff, announced that the body opened another investigation into Trump's alleged collusion with the Kremlin during the 2016 presidential election, and any further influence that Moscow might have had on the US president since he took office, including through Trump's business interests. In 2018, the Intelligence Committee already carried out a probe into the alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin and issued a final report stating that no evidence had been found to support the allegations. Ever since Trump won the 2016 presidential race, Washington has accused Russia of meddling in the election in order to influence the results of the vote in favor of Trump. The United States has claimed that Moscow tried to influence voters via social media and hacked email accounts of the US Democratic Party. Russia has repeatedly refuted the allegations, arguing that they had never been substantiated and insisting that Moscow does not interfere in the internal affairs of other countries. Sputnik Friend Of Russia's Butina Indicted On Fraud, Money-Laundering Charges By RFE/RL February 07, 2019 A conservative U.S. political activist who has been identified as the boyfriend of admitted Russian agent Maria Butina has been indicted by a federal grand jury in South Dakota, officials say. The U.S. Attorney's Office in South Dakota on February 6 said Paul Erickson, 56, was indicted on 11 counts of wire fraud and money laundering. He pleaded not guilty in a court appearance and was released on bond. No trial date has been set. The charges do not appear to be related to the matters involved in a separate U.S. case against Butina. An attorney for Erickson did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Erickson, a well-known figure in Republican politics, was romantically linked to the 30-year-old Butina, who pleaded guilty in December to conspiring to act as a foreign agent in a case that Washington said highlighted Moscow's efforts to influence U.S. foreign policy. Prosecutors have alleged that Butina, who received a graduate degree from American University in Washington and who publicly advocated for gun rights, sought to build relationships with influential conservative political groups, including the powerful National Rifle Association (NRA). In Russia, Butina had established a group that advocated for Russians to own firearms, something strictly proscribed under Russian law. Butina admitted working with a top Russian official to infiltrate the NRA and to make inroads with American conservatives and the Republican Party as an agent for Moscow. Erickson's name did not appear in those court filings. However, the descriptions given by prosecutors match up with Erickson's background and past activities. The South Dakota indictment against Erickson alleges that Erickson between 1996 and 2018 made "false and fraudulent representations" to people in the state and elsewhere about his business deals in an effort to raise money from potential investors. Among Erickson's career accomplishments, he served as an executive producer in 1989 for an anticommunist action movie, Red Scorpion, and worked as national political director for the 1992 Republican presidential campaign of Pat Buchanan. He faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison on each count and possible fines. With reporting by Reuters, AP, and The Rapid City Journal Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/friend-of-russia-s-butina -indicted-on-fraud-money-laundering -charges/29756135.html Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. US House intel panel to probe collusion with Russia Iran Press TV Wed Feb 6, 2019 08:56PM The US House of Representatives' intelligence panel is set to investigate "any links or coordination between US persons and the Russian government." Laying out parameters for the probe, California Representative Adam Schiff, made the comments on Wednesday. "The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence will conduct a rigorous investigation into efforts by Russia and other foreign entities to influence the US political process during and since the 2016 U.S. election," he said in a statement. "In addition, the committee will investigate the counterintelligence threat arising from any links or coordination between US persons and the Russian government and/or other foreign entities, including any financial or other leverage such foreign actors may possess." The probe is in part aimed at finding out whether a foreign actor has sought to compromise or holds leverage over President Donald Trump or anyone in his orbit. "Unfortunately, these and numerous other avenues of inquiry were not completed during the last Congress," noted the panel's chairman, referencing the Republican majority lost in the 2018 midterms to Democrats. During his State of the Union address Tuesday night, Trump cautioned Democrats for pursuing the myriad investigations into his business and alleged Russia ties. "If there is going to be peace and legislation, there cannot be war and investigation. It just doesn't work that way," Trump said at the Capitol. Schiff asserted that he would not be intimidated by such remarks. "His efforts to discourage any meaningful oversight, that is a non-starter. We are not going to be intimidated or threatened by the president to withhold any legislative advancement," he told reporters. "The Committee may pursue additional lines of inquiry regarding matters that arise from the investigation, and it intends to cooperate with other congressional committees, as needed, on matters of overlapping interest." As for the connection between violent computer games and mass shootings, the Society for Media Psychology, Division 46 of the American Psychological Association, released the results of a peer-reviewed report in 2018 that concluded, Journalists and policy makers do their constituencies a disservice in cases where they link acts of real-world violence with the perpetrators exposure to violent video games or other violent media. Theres little scientific evidence to support the connection, and it may distract us from addressing those issues that we know contribute to real-world violence. The 2020 school utilization chart indicates 16 schools have closed since last year; six have opened. Schools are closed when they are expected to reach capacity. The threshold for elementary and middle schools is 95 percent, and 100 percent for high schools. Most Coloradans are knowledgeable about wildfire prevention and follow best practices when outdoor recreating/building and maintaining their property. Most Coloradans lack adequate knowledge but would follow best practices with education. Most Coloradans don't know enough about wildfire prevention and wouldn't change behavior regardless of education. Vote View Results Vodafone Idea plans to launch music streaming app: Report News oi-Priyanka Dua The total income of the telecom operator stood at Rs 11,982.8 crore during the same quarter and the income increased by 52 percent compared the previous July-September quarter. With an aim to give tough fight Wynk Music and JioSaavn, India largest telecom operator Vodafone Idea is likely to launch its own music streaming app, Mint reported according to a report by Mint. "We are sunsetting the Idea Music app and we will come up very soon with an offering that will provide the best-in-class music streaming services, through a partnership that we are in the final stages of closing," the report quoted Balesh Sharma, chief executive officer of Vodafone Idea. "We will keep you posted on this but music is a big priority for us and we will work on that as well through partnerships," Sharma said. Meanwhile, Vodafone Idea reported a net loss of Rs. 5,005 crore for the quarter ended December 31. The total income of the telecom operator stood at Rs 11,982.8 crore during the same quarter and the income increased by 52 percent compared the previous July-September quarter. "We added 11,123 4G sites during the quarter, including the addition of 9,066 sites on TDD. Our 4G population coverage has improved rapidly to over 64 percent as of December 31, 2018," the telco said in a statement. The telco said that its 4G population coverage has improved rapidly to over 64 percent as of December 31, 2018 (compared to less than 50 percent for each of the brands in August 2018). The company has added 9.5 million 4G customers, taking the overall 4G subscriber base to 75.3 million. The data volume of 2,705 billion MB for the quarter grew by 11.5 percent compared to the last quarter and average monthly data usage per data subscriber improved to 6.2 GB (vs 5.6 GB in Q2). Total minutes on the network declined by 2.6 percent during the quarter, largely attributable to the introduction of service validity vouchers. Furthermore, the company has enhanced the capabilities of some of our 900 MHz sites through dynamic spectrum re-farming and re-farmed 2100 MHz spectrum from 3G to 4G usage on selected sites. Best Mobiles in India Facebook, To stay updated with latest technology news & gadget reviews, follow GizBot on Twitter YouTube and also subscribe to our notification. Allow Notifications Samsung Galaxy M30 specs leaked and they are underwhelming News oi-Vivek Galaxy M30 is expected to launch in the next few weeks The M series of smartphones from Samsung are set to take on the budget smartphones from Chinese smartphone brands like Xiaomi, Honor, Vivo, and Oppo. Under the M series, the company has already launched two devices, the Galaxy M10, and the M20. And now, the specifications of the Galaxy M30 has been leaked online. For the most part, the Galaxy M30 features a similar set of specifications as of the Samsung Galaxy M20 with minor changes in the camera and the display. The most significant difference between the Galaxy M20 and the Galaxy M30 is the display, the Galaxy M20 comes with a TFT display, whereas the Galaxy M30 will flaunt a Super AMOLED display with FHD+ resolution. Samsung Galaxy M30 specs- -Exynos 7904 Soc -6.38-inch screen with resolution of 2220x1080 -13MP (F1.9) + 5MP (F2.2 ) +5MP (F2.2) -16MP (F2.0) selfie -5000mAh battery -159mm x 75.1mm x 8.4mm -175g -4GB+64GB (LP DDR4+ eMMC) -gradient design, with a gradient blue and black. Sudhanshu Ambhore (@Sudhanshu1414) February 7, 2019 Samsung Galaxy M30 specifications The Samsung Galaxy M30 is expected to come with a 6.38-inch Super AMOLED display with 2220 x 1080p resolution, protected by 2.5D curved tempered glass. Just like the Galaxy M20, the Galaxy M30 features the Exynos 7904 SoC with 4 GB RAM and 64 GB internal storage. Do note that, unlike the Galaxy M20, the Galaxy M30 will not be available with 3 GB of RAM and 32 GB of internal storage. In total, the Galaxy M30 will have four cameras (three on the back and one on the front). The rear camera setup will feature a 13 MP primary RGB sensor, a 5 MP super wide angle lens, and a 5 MP depth sensor. The primary camera setup will be similar to the Samsung Galaxy A7 (2018). The 16 MP selfie camera is most likely to reside inside the water-drop of the infinity-V notch. A 5000 mAh Li-i will fuel the Samsung Galaxy M30 with support for 15W fast charging via USB type C port with a dedicated 3.5mm headphone jack. The smartphone is expected to feature a gradient back panel (blue and black) with an all-glass design. As one can clearly see, there is only two significant difference between the Galaxy M20 and the M30. The Galaxy M30 will be priced upwards of Rs 15,000 and is expected to sell on the fact that the device has a high-res selfie camera with an AMOLED display. With respect to performance, the Galaxy M30 will be identical to the Galaxy M20. Best Mobiles in India Facebook, To stay updated with latest technology news & gadget reviews, follow GizBot on Twitter YouTube and also subscribe to our notification. Allow Notifications Thomson TV partners with ZEE5 to offer 1-year complimentary subscription News oi-Priyanka Dua Thomson TV partners with ZEE5 to offer 1-year complimentary subscription. French electronics giant Thomson TV has joined hands with ZEE5. Avneet Singh Marwah, CEO, SPPL, Exclusive Brand Licensee of THOMSON TV in India says "We are glad to announce the partnership with ZEE5, Thomson will be the first tv brand in India to give 1-year complimentary ZEE5 subscription on premium content to its customers on Thomson TV Day. In the future, we will be having more offers so that Thomson customer can get access to premium content." As a part of the partnership the company is providing 1-year complimentary ZEE5 subscription to its first 1000 customers on THOMSON TV day sale on February 10th - 11th, 2019, only on Flipkart. Avneet Singh Marwah, CEO, SPPL, Exclusive Brand Licensee of THOMSON TV in India says "We are glad to announce the partnership with ZEE5, Thomson will be the first tv brand in India to give 1-year complimentary ZEE5 subscription on premium content to its customers on Thomson TV Day. In the future, we will be having more offers so that Thomson customer can get access to premium content." To recall, the company is also planning to invest Rs 150 crore to set up a new television manufacturing facility in Noida. The company also plans to enter the premium segment of 4k televisions and plans to launch its new premium TV models, bigger than the already existing models. The company has aggressive plans to give a very serious competition to other existing online players, as well as the new entrants. To recall Thomson has launched UHD Smart TVs in big screen sizes of 50 and 55 inches with a starting price of Rs. 33, 999. The Thomson TV comes with Samsung Display Panel and a resolution of 3840 x 2160 pixels. It is powered by a CA53 Dual Core 1.4GHz with Mali-T720 for graphics with 1GB RAM and 8GB ROM. Best Mobiles in India Facebook, To stay updated with latest technology news & gadget reviews, follow GizBot on Twitter YouTube and also subscribe to our notification. Allow Notifications Sony A6400 mirrorless camera launched in India starting from Rs. 75,990 News oi-Abhinaya Prabhu Sony A6400 is the latest offering from the company and is touted to be the worlds fastest AI-powered autofocus camera. Sony has launched the A6400 mirrorless camera to its portfolio in India. This camera is positioned between A6300 and A6500 cameras and comes with an impressive set of features including real-time Eye AF and tracking. Also, this camera is touted to be the world's fastest AI-powered autofocus camera with an autofocus acquisition speed of 0.02 seconds. Sony A6400 mirrorless camera is priced at Rs. 75,990 for the body. The kit with 16-50mm lens is priced at Rs. 85,990 and that with 18-135mm lens is priced at Rs. 1,09,990. The new offering is a sequel to the A6300 APS-C mirrorless camera. Still, it is not the flagship model as the A6500 has been launched as the flagship camera in December 2018. Notably, the A6400 is relatively less expensive than the S6500 as it misses out on the 5-axis in-body stabilization. Sony A6400 mirrorless camera features When it comes to the features, this Sony camera has an autofocus system that is faster than that of the A6500. This is possible as it uses 425 phase detection AF points and an equal number of contrast detection points that cover around 84% of the overall image area. Also, it uses a new Bionz X image processor that lets you lock the focus in just 0.02 seconds. The latest market entrant from the company has a new real-time Eye AF feature, which employs Artificial Intelligence to detect people. It will be enabled automatically in any AF mode as soon as you do a half-press on the shutter button. The company touts that a future update that is likely to be rolled out in Summer this year might enable Eye AF for animals, making it great for wildlife photographers. The real-time tracking feature of this camera that makes use of artificial intelligence for object recognition. Sony A6400 comes with a 24.2MP APS-C sensor, 4K video recording resolution without any pixel binning technology, a maximum native ISO value of 32,000 11fps burst shooting, OLED viewfinder, 180-degree tilt functionality and a 3-inch LCD touchscreen display. There are standard connectivity features including Bluetooth, NFC and Wi-Fi are also included in this camera. Best Mobiles in India Facebook, To stay updated with latest technology news & gadget reviews, follow GizBot on Twitter YouTube and also subscribe to our notification. Allow Notifications Gillette, WY (82718) Today Clouds and some sun this morning with more clouds for this afternoon. Hot. High around 95F. Winds WNW at 10 to 20 mph.. Tonight Cloudy skies early, followed by partial clearing. Low 56F. Winds NNW at 10 to 20 mph. Let's Make a Deal involves selected members of the studio audience making deals with the host, Wayne Brady. A trader is offered something of value and given a choice of whether to keep it or exchange it for a different item, hidden from view. The trader does not know if he or she is getting something of greater value or a zonk, a prize purposely chosen to be of little or no value to the trader. South Corvallis has experienced a great deal of change over the last few decades. Our welcoming community has allowed for high-density zoning to encourage the development of affordable and low-income housing, while others fight against it. As with many low-income areas, South Corvallis suffers from limited access to essential services, little public investment and a highway straight through the neighborhood that makes it unsafe for pedestrians, bikers, and children. As a designated truck route, Highway 99 is full of speeding cars and speed limits dont seem to be enforced. It used to be if we drove the speed limit in the left lane, other drivers slowed, realizing they were speeding. Now those speeders exhibit signs of road rage if they're discouraged from speeding 35 is the new 25. Our neighborhood is coming together to fix some of these problems funding safer streets for everyone, affordable housing development, and a more livable community with access to services. Help us make that a reality by voting yes on Measure 2-121 to establish an urban renewal district in South Corvallis. The district will provide funding for these important community projects without raising your taxes. A better South Corvallis means a better Corvallis for everyone. Sue Hirsch Corvallis (Feb. 5) Love 1 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 3 Angry 1 I became aware late in November that the League of Women Voters has an active interest in eliminating gerrymandering a foul practice that has made a mockery of our republic for over 200 years. This practice can be imposed by whomever is charged to redistrict the state after decennial censuses. Often this is the Legislature, essentially its controlling party. While redistricting is intended to equalize citizen power within the state's congressional districts, the juggling of district demarcations can provide partisan control and corrupt the intent. This advantage is manifested in party control of the House of Representatives and, subsequently, the Electoral College. As a league member and having advocated nonpartisan redistricting in six letters to the editor since 2001, I helped publicize the Dec. 5 redistricting forum at the Corvallis library. The turnout showed the subject to be of considerable interest. Perhaps they were not as disappointed as I to find the "forum" was a well-polished, slide presentation of the Oregon League of Women Voters plan for redistricting that would be advanced to Oregon's Secretary of State. Thereby, it signaled that the time for league chapters' discussions of other plans had passed. The focus of its plan is the transfer of redistricting responsibility from the Legislature to an independent redistricting commission. Ricardo Lujan, a policy associate for the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon, said many people who get drug tested at work are working low-wage jobs. The current policy creates a two-tier system favoring the wealthy, whose employers are less likely to drug test. The state should pass the legislation to make the use of marijuana equal for all, he said. Much less time was spent possible interstate commerce of marijuana, but those who did testify said if Oregon fails to act now it could be giving up a prosperous future where Oregon would be the de facto home of the marijuana industry. Right now, federal law prohibits states where marijuana is legal from buying or selling to each other. But as a green wave flows over the country, that will likely change one day. When that happens, Oregon needs to act, marijuana industry representatives said. The legislation just sets the stage for granting the governor the authority to negotiate agreements with other states. Far more marijuana is grown in Oregon than is bought by consumers. In 2018, the state said it had 1 million pounds of surplus marijuana in its tracking system. The glut has cut recreational prices in half and forced growers and retailers to cut their workforce. To the editor: William Edwards Deming, an American quality pioneer, famously said, In God we trust, all others bring data. Using data, I describe why building a border wall is a political smoke screen designed to divert attention from much more serious problems affecting the United States. Donald Trump and the Republicans want you to think there is a huge crime problem with illegal immigrants. Unauthorized immigrants compose 3.5 percent of the U.S. population. The Cato Institute reported in 2018 for all crimes, undocumented immigrants committed 56 percent less crime than native-born Americans. Legal immigrants committed 86 percent less crime than native-born Americans. Immigrants are not the main cause of crime. There were 17,000 murders in the U.S .in 2017. The National Institute of Drug Abuse reported 72,000 synthetic opioid overdose deaths in 2017. NHTSA reported 10,874 deaths from drunk driving crashes in 2017. Collectively, this is 99,874 deaths in 2017 or 273 deaths per day. Purdue Pharma knowingly engineered opioids to be addictive to increase sales. Many drivers with long records of alcohol abuse continue to legally drive. Considering these factual data, how could anyone possibly think that building a border wall is a national priority? Paul Kiefner Cape Coral Galveston, TX (77553) Today Sun and clouds mixed. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 91F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph.. Tonight A few passing clouds. Low 83F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph. A celebration of life for Barabra Zackery, 79, of Gainesville, will be held at a later date. A full obituary will be published when service times have been scheduled. Barbara passed away on June 15, 2021 in Gainesville. You may sign the online registry at www.geojcarroll.com. Have any questions? Please give us a call at 907-352-2250 America needs to turn back to God At the end of many of President Trumps speeches he will say, God bless America. The first thing that comes to mind is, why should God bless this nation? We have removed God, the Bible, prayers and the Ten Commandments from our schools because someone might be offended. We have legalized the killing of 60 million babies in their mothers wombs and use taxpayers money to fund the killing of innocent children. America has legalized same-sex marriage, which God calls a sin. In society, the name of Jesus Christ is used as a curse word millions of times a day. There is no longer any fear of God in America. We tell our children they evolved by chance, but we cant tell them they were created by a loving God who can give their lives meaning and purpose. We do what is right in our own eyes. Some want to remove In God we trust from our money. America is rapidly becoming a godless nation. Even in our turning away from God, He is waiting for us to return to Him so He might bless us with true riches. Is it time to say God bless America or America, bless God? Its our choice. Dale Taylor Spotsylvania Alternate ERA proposal is push toward evangelical theocracy The Virginia House of Delegates recently killed a resolution that would have made Virginia the 38th state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. It met its demise, after being passed by the Senate, in the House Privileges and Elections Committee, where voter-friendly legislation goes to die. Actually, the ERA was DOA (dead on arrival). On Jan. 9, Dels. Mark Cole, R88th District, and Margaret Ransone, R99th District, the chair and vice chair of the P&E Committee, introduced HJ692: Equal Rights Amendment; new language. This is a resolution that keeps the name but replaces the text with a request for Congress to submit a new ERA with language addressing concerns over religious and privacy rights. In other words, to push the U.S. Constitution further towards an evangelical theocracy. Unlike the ERA resolution that they killed, HJ692 has been assigned to the House Rules Committee controlled by Speaker of the House Kirk Cox. Cox and Cole are members of the American Legislative Exchange Council, along with an untold number of other Republican delegates. Virginia voters have good reasons to question who these delegates really represent. Bob Wilson Reedville LAST month, the state agency that administers Medicaid in Virginia announced that an independent consulting firm would be hired to conduct a top-to-bottom review of its financial management and forecasting systems. Thats because in November, state lawmakers were caught off guard when officials from the Virginia Department of Medical Assistance Services informed them that the agencys traditional Medicaid cost forecasts were off by $462.5 millioncreating a large gap in the commonwealths 20182020 biennium budget. That was before Virginias Medicaid expansion went into effect on Jan. 1 and is not related to it. Then last month, legislators were told that the Medicaid expansion would cost Virginia taxpayers $85 million more in administrative costs than DMAS had previously estimated. Gov. Ralph Northam wants to cover the overage by taking money out of the states General Fundafter telling taxpayers last year that a $300 million bed tax on hospitals would pay for the states 10 percent share of the federal program. It was always my expectation that this was going to be part of the provider assessment, House Appropriations chairman Chris Jones, RSuffolk, said when he heard the latest Medicaid cost estimate. Hes not the only one. They were natives of Hiroshima, Japan, who had come to the United States about 25 years before World War II and settled in Berkeley, California. She had been a teacher of Japanese at a Buddhist temple. He earned a living from blue-collar odd jobs. Two months after their son was drafted into the Army in February 1942, the elder Kawamotos were taken in a presidentially ordered roundup of 120,000 ethnic Japanese considered security risks and forcibly relocated to remote internment camps. In 2011, Mr. Kawamoto told The Post that he took his own conscription into the Army as a wartime necessity and that his parents' incarceration was beyond his control. He would visit them while on leave. "I wasn't happy about it," he said. "They were there for the duration of the war, while I was out fighting for the United States. But what could you do?" Yukio Kawamoto was born in Berkeley on Nov. 13, 1919. Japanese was the language spoken at home, but English became his primary language as he attended Berkeley public schools. In the World War II Army, he was sent to a Japanese-language school to test his fluency and receive additional training in Japanese. Then he was assigned as an interpreter to combat units in the Pacific. We repealed that and stopped talking with developers about proffers. Like other localities across the state, Stafford officials were concerned that developers could file lawsuits citing proffer violations, Thomas said. Stafford spokeswoman Shannon Howell said the boards Legislative Committee has decided to hold a neutral stance on bill HB2342. At this time, the County is not accepting any proffers under the 2016 legislation, and the future impacts of the proposed legislation are yet to be determined. Meg Bohmke, a current Stafford supervisor, said the pause in rezonings caused by the 2016 law has in a way been a blessing in disguise because it slowed development, something she said county officials want. Yet she also noted that the law tied our hands in negotiating with developers. And the situation, if held in place, would create an imbalance in development, which wouldnt be good. She believes the change in the proffer law should help avoid that. We have to balance out the economics of our community, and developers provide a lot of jobs, Bohmke said. King George County will pay an independent company $15,000 to sniff around the King George Regional Landfill. County officials have received numerous complaints in the new year about unpleasant odors from the landfill, one of the largest in the state. On a particularly damp and foggy Saturday last month, the Fredericksburg Police Department even sent out an alert that the noxious outdoor smell that is similar to a gas leak is actually the King George Landfill odor wafting into the city. A second alert later rescinded the statement, saying the exact origin of the disagreeable smell could not be determined. In light of the complaints, County Administrator Neiman Young suggested King George pay a third party to look at the landfill. Supervisors agreed, noting that residents have said that having Waste Management, which operates the landfill, investigate its own problems is similar to the fox guarding the henhouse. An independent study will help us immensely and give us a better perspective and better assurance that things are really safe, said Supervisor Ruby Brabo. On Saturday, the Colonial Beach Community Foundation will host its third annual Chocolate and Wine Tasting. The fundraiser will be conducted by Eric Nelson, the former owner of Artfully Chocolate salons in D.C., Maryland and Virginia. He has taught classes in pairing chocolate and wine for 15 years. The event will be held at Coldwell Banker Elite at 233 N. Irving Ave., Colonial Beach, on Saturday from from 68 p.m. Tickets are $35 per person or $60 for two, and are available through Facebook (Eventbrite) or at Coldwell Banker Elite, Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more on the foundation, visit cbcommunityfoundation.org. The following people were indicted recently by a Stafford County grand jury: Elijah Blu Aquilar, abduction, three counts of strangulation, assault and battery and aggravated malicious wounding. Sean Joseph Allowitz, possession of illegal drugs, possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of marijuana. Rachel Kathleen Baltzell, four counts of felony larceny and four counts of shoplifting. Michael Lee Banks, possession of illegal drugs and driving revoked. Derek McClinton Bass Jr., possession of illegal drugs and possession of drug paraphernalia. James Edward Baumann Jr., three counts of felony shoplifting, three counts of felony larceny, 10 counts of hit and run, grand larceny of a vehicle, DUI, reckless driving, driving after forfeiture of license and possession of controlled paraphernalia. Brian Joseph Blake, assault on a law-enforcement officer. Candace Lynn Bumbrey, five counts of false pretenses, five counts of forgery, five counts of passing a forged document, five counts of identity theft, false statement to obtain property or credit and felony larceny. The woman bolted to the nearest police cruiser with her boys right behind her. All three were grasping at the vehicle door trying to get inside. The children told police that they hadnt left the house in years others than to go to the mailbox or to a shed behind the home. They did not go to school but received some teaching from their mother, who also brought food to their room when they were locked in for weeks or months at a time. When on extended punishments, the children said they were allowed out once a day to have bowel movement. A jug was kept in the room for them to urinate in. The children recalled seeing their mother tied up on the bed with extension cords when Moore left the house. They told police they were frequently beaten and forced to stand in a corner overnight for such offenses as eating nachos. Sweeney said Moore installed a security system in the home to help him keep the other occupants in check. There was a motion sensor in the hallway that alerted Moore if the woman or the children entered the hallway. At the time she was rescued, the woman was sick with chronic medical conditions that are still hindering her today. She said Moore would stomp three times, signaling her to come to him to perform sex acts or to bring other things he wanted. He was 28 years old at the time of his death, with four years on the job. Gavin Lee, a Buckingham County-based trooper who also graduated from the academy alongside Dowell, called him a natural police officer with an uproarious sense of humor. Hes just one of the most outstanding people that you would ever want to run across, Lee said. And you know, if you never had the chance to meet him, you missed out on a good opportunity. Lee said the news of Dowells death came as such a powerful shock he hardly managed to sleep Monday night. It was really hard to wake up that morning and put your badge on and put your vest on and go, you know, do your job when you have nothing to think about but Lucas, Lee said. Im still going through it. Ill think Im doing okay and then Ill catch a memory of him. Barbour and Lee, like other troopers across the state mourning the fallen colleague, wore black bands around their badges Thursday, with 876 Dowells badge number written in white lettering. In the town of Amherst, Dowells cruiser has served as a makeshift memorial for the fallen officer since Tuesday. Locals have left dozens of cards and bouquets across the cruisers front hood and windshield. Compounding the issue, the state doesn't know exactly what it has to offer companies. The online database of available sites, both for megasites and smaller locations, is missing critical information, like what kind of utility infrastructure is available, Virginia Economic Development Partnership President and CEO Stephen Moret said. The development partnership is working on a detailed inventory of sites 25 acres and bigger. Until that study is done, Moret said, it's too soon to say whether public money has been spent on a site that will have to be written off. "I truly don't know," he said. That's raised some questions about whether spending on the megasites is worthwhile. "This school of 'if we build it, they will come' on spec is risky business," said Greg LeRoy, executive director of the corporate subsidies watchdog group Good Jobs First. The push to create megasites began in 2004, when several manufacturers were looking for locations in the Southeast, according to Tim Pfohl, grants director for Virginia's tobacco commission. The commission, an independent board created to use national tobacco settlement money to promote economic development in tobacco-dependent areas, allocated $100 million to buy land and bring in infrastructure. Keep the conversation about local news & events going by joining us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Recent updates from The News-Post and also from News-Post staff members are compiled below. First Watch Expands Reach In Lexington The new daytime cafe is the fourth Lexington location owned by Bluegrass FW, LLC February 08, 2019 // Franchising.com // LEXINGTON, Kentucky - First Watch, the popular breakfast, brunch and lunch restaurant with three existing locations in Lexington, has opened its fourth area restaurant off of Nicholasville Road. The free-standing First Watch opened for business on Monday at 119 West Reynolds Road. The 4,200-square-foot eatery employs about 25 people. This new First Watch is the eighth First Watch restaurant that has opened in the Lexington and Louisville markets as part of an agreement with Kentucky-based Bluegrass FW, LLC. The group first opened First Watch in Lexington in September 2012 and is now continuing its expansion throughout Kentucky and southern Indiana. Owner Gary Holland also owns and operates a Skyline Chili and La Rosas restaurants in Lexington. Since we first opened First Watch in Lexington in 2012, weve seen nothing but wonderful support from the community here, said Gary Holland, owner of Bluegrass FW, LLC. During the past seven years, the brand has grown and evolved tremendously. We cant wait to show off our new restaurant design off Nicholasville Road and to serve our friends and neighbors at First Watch in Lexington for years to come. First Watchs curated menu takes an elevated approach to traditional and innovative offerings made to order using farm fresh ingredients. It includes crave-able items such as Avocado Toast, Smoked Salmon Eggs Benedict, Farm Stand Breakfast Tacos and Lemon Ricotta Pancakes. The new restaurant offers healthy, flavorful favorites like house-made granola and pico de gallo, organic greens, house-roasted vegetables and cage-free eggs as well as more indulgent, traditional breakfast, brunch and lunch offerings. First Watch on West Reynolds Road also serves the restaurants new Project Sunrise coffee, grown by an independent group of female farmers in Huila, Colombia, called Mujeres en Cafe. The restaurant also offers options from its Juice Bar - including the best-selling Kale Tonic - juiced in-house daily using only the highest quality fruits and vegetables. First Watch serves its entire menu seven days a week from 7 a.m. until 2:30 p.m. The restaurant also offers customers complimentary newspapers and free Wi-Fi Internet access. About First Watch First Watch specializes in award-winning, made-to-order Breakfast, Brunch and Lunch. A recipient of more than 200 Best Breakfast and Best Brunch accolades, First Watch offers traditional favorites, such as omelets, pancakes, sandwiches and salads, and unique specialty items like Quinoa Power Bowls, Avocado Toast and the Chickichanga. First Watch was recognized as one of TripAdvisors Best Restaurant Chains for 2019, one of Business Intelligence Groups Best Places to Work in 2018 and as one of Nations Restaurant News 2017 Second 100 restaurant brands. First Watch is the largest and fastest-growing daytime-only restaurant concept in the United States with more than 350 restaurants in 32 states, including more than 300 First Watch restaurants and 55 The Egg & I restaurants and one Sun & Fork restaurant. For more information, visit firstwatch.com. SOURCE First Watch ### Comments: Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. Disqus SPARTANBURG, SC (FOX Carolina) - A kitten who was rescued by a Spartanburg police officer is now settled in her new home -- with the officer that saved her, no less. In January, Spartanburg PD shared that Ofc. Russo and her training officer got a call from a business on North Pine Street to try and help the kitten get free, and with a little effort Russo got the kitten out. Spartanburg police officer rescues kitten stuck under hood of car SPARTANBURG, SC (FOX Carolina) Spartanburg police said they were called to help rescue a k A few weeks later, SPD has even happier news: Russo has officially welcomed the kitten into her home, naming her Maya. SPD reports Maya has been spayed, and reminds pet owners to keep their own furry friends spayed and neutered to help control the animal population. ATLANTA (CBS46) -- A Juneteenth menu is serving up controversy at the Atlanta based IKEA store, after employees said fried chicken and watermelon, were just a some items selected to honor Juneteenth. WAYNESVILLE, NC (FOX Carolina)- The Waynesville Police Department says that it is searching for a suspect accused of robbing a Waffle House in the early hours of Friday morning, according to a post on the department's official Facebook page. The U.S. Department of Justices Bureau of Justice Assistance, or BJA, awarded $2,000,100 to the state of Nevada to cover expense related to law enforcement that responded to the 1 October incident. | BY Lynchy | The Asia Pacific Tambuli Awards has released the list of jurors for the 2019 Overall Executive Jury led by jury chairman Ronald Ng, Global Chief Creative Officer at Isobar. The members of the overall executive jury includes leading clients from Unilever, Coca Cola, Colgate Palmolive, Nestle, McDonalds, and Nutriasia as well as CEOs from Agency networks MullenLowe, Publicis and Havas. The full list of judges for Tambuli is below: Ronald Ng, Global Chief Creative Officer, Isobar Worldwide Josy Paul, Chairman & Chief Creative Officer, BBDO India David Porter, Vice President Media Asia, Africa, Middle East, Turkey & Russia, Unilever Anne Rayner, Chief Solutions Officer, North Asia, SEA and the Pacific, CEO, Cambodia and Myanmar, Kantar Kais Marzouki, Chairman & CEO Nestle, Philippines Arvind Sachdev, Corporate Vice President & General Manager, Colgate Palmolive Angie G. Flaminiano, President & Chief Operations Officer, Nutriasia Inc. Winn Everhart, President & General Manager, Coca Cola Philippines Margot Torres, Managing Director McDonalds Philippines Vincent Digonnet, CEO Asia Pacific, MullenLowe Group Vishnu Mohan, Chairman & CEO, India & South East Asia, HAVAS Group Kasper Aakerlund, President, Asia Pacific, UM Kenneth Lingan, Country Head, Google Philippines Nicolas Menat, CEO, North Asia & South East Asia Publicis Groupe Evaluating entries at the APAC Tambuli awards happens at two levels: the executive juries for creative, media & digital, and humanity & culture categories evaluate entries and determine the bronze, silver, and gold winners. All gold winners are then evaluated by the Overall Executive jury to determine which among them deserve to be elevated to grand prix. From among the grand prix, the platinum winner is chosen. Kais Marzouki, Chairman & CEO of Nestle Philippines believes that we should exemplify and celebrate excellent creative work in order to inspire us to greater performance, as we know that brands with purpose deliver more. Coca Cola Philippines President & General Manager, Winn Everhart (pictured below right) comments, gone are the days that businesses just operate to sell. We have the opportunity and the responsibility to create meaningful impact for every brands touchpoint. Not only because it makes business sense, but because it is the right thing to do. Publicis Groupes CEO for North Asia & South East Asia Nicolas Menat (pictured at top on left) says, today, most of our clients are evolving in a low growth environment, they are facing huge pressures on costs, and they are suffering from a lack of brand trust. On top of that, new behaviors and disrupted media make it harder than ever for brands to engage with consumers. More than ever, the only successful way is to stand for Creativity! Never forget that we need to give brands a clear and meaningful purpose, to open the hearts of consumers. And that we need to relentlessly work to bring this purpose to life through big ideas! I am very honored to participate to the Asia-Pacific Tambuli Awards and see the best creativity for brands with clear and inspiring purpose. Vincent Digonnet, Chief Executive Officer, Asia Pacific of MullenLowe Group (pictured at top on right) opines that there was a time when hard line financial analysts believed that ethics and return on investment were incompatible. Today, ethical investment funds are hugely popular and yield even better results than funds without purpose outside financial return. In the world of marketing, the Tambuli award honours brands able to combine effectiveness with uplifting society, and I believe that through time it will demonstrate that brands that do both are more successful than the one single-mindedly focused on short term sales. The pioneer award show globally that honors creative and effective brands with purpose, the APAC Tambuli Awards celebrates brands that show the seamless integration of creativity + purpose + results. Case study entries must demonstrate how brands uplift society, create positive change, and correlate purpose with purchase. The APAC Tambuli Awards is not an award on charity, advocacy, pro bono, or CSR advertising, even if those campaigns are welcome and encouraged to enter. The award, however, focuses on mainstream brand campaigns that celebrate humanity, inspire purpose, and deliver results. A statement from the U.S. Department of Justice announced more than $8.3 million in federal funding would go towards helping California's victims of the Oct. 1 mass shooting. Please either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin. (CNN) -- An outbreak of measles is spreading across the Philippines -- with more than 1,500 cases of the disease and 26 deaths reported in recent weeks, authorities said Thursday. The capital region of Metro Manila has seen 441 cases, with five deaths, CNN Philippines reports, while many other areas across the country have also been affected. Those include parts of Luzon and Visayas, with some areas seeing staggering increases in the number of cases of the preventable disease. The Calabarzon region to the south of Manila has seen a jump of 2,538%, with 575 reported cases so far in 2019 -- compared with 21 in 2018. The area has seen nine deaths since the beginning of the year. "We are expanding the outbreak from Metro Manila to other regions as cases have increased in the past weeks and to strengthen surveillance if there are new cases and alert mothers and caregivers to be more vigilant," Health Secretary Francisco Duque said. Vaccinations dipped after Dengvaxia program Department of Health Undersecretary Eric Domingo said the relatively low number of measles vaccinations in the country could be attributed to the aborted Dengvaxia vaccination program that began in 2016. In 2017, French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi Pasteur published clinical trial data showing that the dengue vaccine could have unintended consequences in patients who had never been infected with the mosquito-borne virus. "The analysis confirmed that Dengvaxia provides persistent (protective) benefit against dengue fever in those who had prior infection," Sanofi said in a statement at the time. "For those not previously infected by dengue virus, however, the analysis found that in the longer term, more cases of severe disease could occur following vaccination ..." The country's Public Attorney's Office indicted government officials in connection with deaths linked to the vaccine. Duque has sought to assure parents that the vaccination for measles is not similar to the Dengvaxia vaccine. He told parents and caregivers Thursday that the measles vaccines "are safe and have been in use worldwide for decades now," according to the state news agency. According to the Department of Health, the number of unvaccinated children has risen by over 100,000 in the last year. The-CNN-Wire & 2019 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved. (CNN) -- The number of people infected with measles in the European region in 2018 is the highest in a decade, the World Health Organization said Thursday. According to newly released data for the year, 82,596 people were infected and 72 people (children and adults) died from measles last year. Sixty-one percent of those infected were hospitalized, according to the report. The number of cases reported is "the highest this decade," WHO said in a statement, noting that the numbers are "3 times the total reported in 2017 and 15 times the record low number of people affected in 2016." The illnesses in 2018 were reported in 47 of the 53 countries that make up the WHO European region. Ninety-two percent of the cases were reported by 10 countries: Ukraine (53,218), Serbia (5,076), Israel (2,919), France (2,913), Italy (2,517), Russia (2,256), Georgia (2,203), Greece (2,193), Albania (1,466) and Romania (1,987). The United States is experiencing measles outbreaks in New York state, New York City and Washington state, which the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said began when travelers to Israel and the Ukraine returned to the US infected. "The strain D8 in Washington's outbreak matches the strain from an ongoing Eastern European outbreak. This is consistent with testing from the first known case (a child) from this outbreak in WA. All of our cases match this strain," the Washington State Department of Health said in an email. Measles is a contagious virus that spreads through the air via coughing and sneezing. Symptoms such as high fever, rash all over the body, stuffy nose and reddened eyes typically disappear without treatment within two or three weeks. Yet one or two out of every 1,000 children who get measles will die from complications, according to the CDC. The new report also found that more children in the region were vaccinated than ever before, although the total number of vaccinations was not readily available. Of note, 2017 was also a record year for vaccination coverage when 90% of coverage for the second dose of the measles vaccine was achieved for the first time ever, according to WHO. "The picture for 2018 makes it clear that the current pace of progress in raising immunization rates will be insufficient to stop measles circulation. While data indicate exceptionally high immunization coverage at regional level, they also reflect a record number affected and killed by the disease. This means that gaps at [the] local level still offer an open door to the virus," Dr. Zsuzsanna Jakab, the WHO regional director for Europe, said in a statement. The agency said it will continue working to improve vaccination rates. "We cannot achieve healthier populations globally, as promised in WHO's vision for the coming five years, if we do not work locally. We must do more and do it better to protect each and every person from diseases that can be easily avoided," Jakab said. The-CNN-Wire & 2019 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved. WASHINGTON (AP) U.S. health officials are telling doctors to be on the lookout for a rare cancer linked to breast implants after receiving more reports of the disease. The Food and Drug Administration sent a letter Wednesday to family doctors, nurses and other health professionals warning about the form of lymphoma that affects breast implant patients. In suspected cases, the FDA recommends laboratory testing to confirm or rule out of the disease. It's the first time regulators have issued a direct warning to doctors other than plastic surgeons. The disease is not breast cancer, but usually forms in the scar tissue that forms around implants. The earliest signs of the disease are usually lumps, swelling and pain around the breasts. Patients will often seek care from their primary physicians, gynecologists or other health practitioners, rather than a plastic surgeon, FDA noted. "Having everyone informed about this is in the best interest of the patient," said FDA spokeswoman Stephanie Caccomo. The cancer usually grows slowly and most patients are treated with surgery to remove the implant. The FDA has been tracking reports of the cancer for years and officially confirmed its link to breast implants in 2017. The latest update comes as health experts around the world attempt to gauge the cancer's frequency and whether extra restrictions are warranted on certain types of breast implants. The FDA is holding a two-day meeting next month on the safety of breast implants. FDA officials said they have identified 457 likely cases of the cancer since 2010, including nine patient deaths. In each of these cases the disease was diagnosed by a physician or through laboratory testing. The FDA also said it received nearly 250 new reports of the disease in the last year, though many were duplicate reports or missing key information. The updated numbers still reflect a rare disease, considering 400,000 U.S. women receive implants annually. There is no firm agreement on the exact frequency of the disease, known as breast implant-associated anaplastic large cell lymphoma. Published estimates ranging from 1 in 3,000 patients to 1 in 30,000 patients. The FDA's efforts to monitor problems with breast implants have long been hampered by its system for tracking injuries and malfunctions with medical devices. The decades-old electronic database relies on hand-typed submissions from companies, doctors, patients and lawyers that often include incomplete, unverified information. As a result, the FDA data is generally understood to be an incomplete snapshot of problems. The FDA warning applies to all types of breast implants; they contain either saline or silicone. Experts in the U.S. and abroad have focused on a particular style known as textured implants. They have a sandpaper-like coating, designed to keep the implants from shifting out of place. Those are a small segment of all breast implants used in the U.S., said Dr. Alan Matarasso, president of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. "The vast majority if not all of the cases have been in patients that at some point had some form of a textured implant," Matarasso said. In November, French health regulators recommended surgeons stop implanting textured implants until more is known about their links to the lymphoma. They are meeting this week to discuss textured implants. Breast implants have long been subject to high rates of complications, including wrinkling, scarring, pain, swelling and implant rupture. The FDA estimates 1 in 5 women getting them for cosmetic reasons need to have them removed within 8 to 10 years. ___ The Associated Press Health & Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content. A local man is sharing his story of redemption through film. Chris "Champ" Napier was convicted of murder and after 14 years in prison he was released on parole. 11 years after that, he was pardoned. The documentary is a story Napier hopes will resonate with young people who may be on the same path he was on before his life changed. "I've been affected by gun violence as a youth," said Napier. After witnessing his father being killed at a young age, Napier says his life took a turn for the worst. "When I was 18 years old, I killed a man. Was sentenced to life in prison for 1st degree murder and the distribution of crack/cocaine," Napier said. He served out 14 years of a life sentence in prison before he was granted parole and released in 2004. In 2015, he was pardoned by the governor. "I'm the first one in the state of Alabama with a murder conviction to get a pardon and get my voters right back," he said. Truly receiving a redemption beyond his past, Napier has made it his life's mission to keep others from going down the same road. As a high school drop out who was deep in a life of drugs and crime, Napier says he didn't learn how to read and write until he went to prison. That's where he started writing his book. "This is something that I prayed for when I was serving life in an Alabama prison and I said if I ever get out, I'll commit myself to uplift," added Napier. Years later, Napier teamed up with John Woods to tell his story through film and tonight was it's premiere at the Ben May Main Library. "It really shows his commitment and the difference that he's made in the community. So that he's been able to reach out to kids. He's going to churches, he's going to prisons, he's going to different venues, public schools and telling people his story," said John O'Melveny Woods, who worked with him on publishing the book and re-making the film. If you'd like to hear Napier's full story, you can buy his book and documentary, here. MOBILE COUNTY, Ala. (WALA) - The family of Aubreigh Nicholas has created a foundation in honor of the little girl who died last year following a battle with DIPG. The Aubreighs Army Foundation 328 will raise money and raise awareness in the fight against the rare cancer that claimed the life of Aubreigh in August 2018 at 11-years-old. We are committed to continuing to support families in the fight and DIPG research through Aubreighs Foundation, said Jay Nicholas, Aubreigh's father. Aubreighs Army Foundation 328 will hold its first official fundraising and awareness Gala on Aubreighs birthday, March 28, 2019. Dr. Kathy Warren, a leading researcher at the National Institute of Health will be the keynote speaker. Sponsorship opportunities at various levels are available to both businesses and individuals. In addition to the Gala, the Foundation has also been invited and accepted the opportunity to be a part of The DIPG Collaborative. It's a collection of foundations that share the goal of inspiring research to help find a cure for DIPG. Being a part of the collaborative lets Aubreighs efforts and the generosity of our community be so much more than a local Foundation," said Aubreigh's mother Brooke Nicholas. "It gives us an International platform while still allowing Aubreighs Army Foundation 328 to decide which research programs will be funded by the funds raised in Aubreighs honor. To be a part of the Gala as a sponsor, silent auction donor or to contact the Aubreighs Army Foundation 328 for tickets, call Brooke Nicholas at 251.401.8120 or email info@aubreighsarmyfoundation328.com. MOBILE, Ala. (WALA) - Police arrested a man accused of using Snapchat to set up a robbery in Mobile. According to investigators, Christopher Teague, 22, used the app to make arrangements to buy a rifle from the victim. Police said Teague met the victim on January 11 at Palladian Apartments on Leroy Stevens Road. The victim told officers Teague and another person pulled out handguns and stole the rifle from him. No one was injured. Officers caught up with Teague on February 6 and arrested him on three charges of robbery. Police said Teague also had outstanding warrants for carrying a pistol without a permit, distribution of a controlled substance, and possession of marijuana. What issues would you like to see our state legislators tackle in the upcoming Alabama legislative session? What's important to you? Thursday, many members of the Mobile and Baldwin County legislative delegation met to hear about issues important to the Mobile Area Chamber of Commerce. It was also an opportunity for FOX10 to talk to legislators about the big issues that will be coming up in Montgomery and the issues that are important to you, the people they represent. One issue every lawmaker we talked to mentioned was fixing up our infrastructure: roads and bridges, and how to pay for it, perhaps with an increase in gasoline taxes. Infrastructure was one issue, but there were other items on the minds of lawmakers, too. State Senator Chris Elliott of Baldwin County said, "It's the Baldwin Beach Express, its major corridors in Mobile and Baldwin Counties that need to be addressed, its the Port of Mobile that is so crucial, not just to the success of coastal Alabama, but for this entire state." Violent crime is among the issues facing state lawmakers in the new legislative session. The shooting death of Mobile Police Officer Sean Tuder could spark a lot of discussion about getting some tougher laws on the books. It concerns an issue that Mayor Sandy Stimpson and Mobile Police have been talking about: weapons being stolen from unlocked vehicles. Mobile Police say the gun Marco Perez used to kill Officer Tuder was stolen from an unlocked vehicle just a few days before the shooting. Mobile City Council Member C.J. Small had said he was asking the council's attorney to work with the state legislature to change laws, perhaps fine gun owners who leave their weapons in an unlocked vehicle. I asked State Representative Barbara Drummond about what legislators could do on that issue. Drummond said, "But we're going to be looking at strengthening the penalties because we, as consumers and those who are gun owners, I own a gun and have a permit for one, but we should should make sure, if we're using or carrying those guns on our person, they should be secured at all times." We asked legislators about some other issues they were looking at. State Representative Shane Stringer of Mobile County said, "Myself and Representative Barbara Drummond have pre-filed a bill to restrict and regulate the sales of the vaping devices, which have become an epidemic in our school system with our children." State Representative Margie Wilcox of Mobile County said, "I'm working on a litter bill. You know, we're losing the battle on litter in Mobile County, Baldwin County, and statewide, so I'm looking for ideas from our citizens." And these are just some of the issues you'll be hearing about, and not too long from now. The legislative session starts March 5th. CLARIFICATION: The Alabama Department of Mental Health is not named in the lawsuit reported below. MOBILE, Ala. (WALA) - FOX10 News Investigates has learned that a group home provider named in a lawsuit after one of its clients was allegedly beaten to death by a caregiver has been shut down by the state. According to the Alabama Department of Mental Health, 38 people who lived in group homes operated by a company called New Way Out were moved to other facilities on Wednesday, February 6. In October, New Way Out caregiver Trent Yates was arrested and charged in the murder of Matthew Cox. According to Mobile Police, Cox died from blunt force trauma at the hands of the group home caregiver. After his death, Cox's family filed a lawsuit against New Way Out. An attorney with the Alabama Department of Mental Health said the decision to shut down the provider's group homes was made after a female client was found beaten on January 30. Based on that incident, and what the department called "other deficiencies," the state said it decided that all New Way Out group homes needed to be closed for the safety of the people who lived there. FOX10 News went to the New Way Out headquarters for comment, but we were asked to leave. | BY Ricki Green | Medical students and junior doctors are being urged to consider a career in General Practice in new digital content developed by The Shannon Company for the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP). The digital campaign Become a GP, features six GPs from across metropolitan and rural Australia telling their stories, providing insights into what their lives as GPs are actually like. The Shannon Company, managing director, Ian Forsyth, said research and behavioural interviews with students and registrars highlighted how little they knew about life as a GP. Says Forsyth: Much of their medical training and learning comes through a big hospital environment, with what we found was surprisingly little exposure to life as a general practitioner. When we highlight the options that general practice offers, in terms of being able to work in a diverse range of environments and locations, greater work-life-balance, the ability to develop caring and often lifelong relationships with patients, and the variety of the work, interest in general practice really starts to ramp up. The content includes a 45 second spot and six approx. 2 minute vignettes featuring GPs from inner city Adelaide, rural Western Victoria, far north Western Australia, the Gold Coast, Sydney, and a GP who is frequently on the move. Client: Royal Australian College of General Practitioners Leah Williams: National Manager, Media & Communications Amanda Weavers: National Manager, Brand & Marketing Creative: The Shannon Company, James Shannon Daphne Police are asking for the publics help identifying a theft suspect theyre calling a cigarette bandit. They said hes hit three stores in Daphne and one in Fairhope over the last few weeks. So far hundreds of dollars worth of cigarettes has been stolen, the latest theft happening Wednesday, February 6, 2019. Surveillance video from the Lake Forest Shell on January 18th shows the suspect keeping the clerk busy ringing up a number of items, including multiple packs of cigarettes. He then distracts her by asking for something else. The suspect helps bag items as part of the distraction. When the clerks back is turned, the cigarettes go down the pants. After the theft, store owner, Kevin Spriggs posted the suspects picture at all three of his stores. The next day, an attempt was made the Jubilee Shell, but the clerk there was on the lookout. I believe that the clerk recognized him from the photo and then refused to let him have any transactions, Spriggs said. That didnt put an end to the spree of thefts, though. Fast times on Highway 98 and the Cefco station near Publix in Fairhope were also hit. In each case, the suspect was wearing distinguishing hats and glasses. Hes obviously trying to disguise himself. Hes wearing glasses that actually dont have any glasses in them. They just have the frames. In the one video, hes wearing the big hat. In another, hes got a toboggan on, explained Sgt. Jason Vannoy with Daphne Police. Hes obviously trying to conceal his identity, knowing that theres cameras in the gas stations. The latest theft was Wednesday, February 6, 2019 when police said the same suspect did the same thing at the Circle K on Main Street. Surveillance video shows the same tactic of distracting the clerk long enough to shove multiple packs of cigarettes down his pants. Police said the thief tells the clerk he has to get money from the car and never returns. Police are hoping that the quality surveillance images theyve retrieved will help identify the thief before another crime is committed. Spriggs shares that concern. Its always a risk because weve had customers, you know try to stop felons like that before and its potentially dangerous, said Spriggs. Anybody thats willing to break the law that way, you just dont know how far theyre willing to go. Police said the suspect left the three Daphne stores in three different vehicles so they believe he had help. They are a silver Ford Escape, a maroon Nissan Altima and a dark colored Chevy Lumina or Malibu. If you recognize the suspect, youre asked to call Daphne Police. It really depends on what you want. I had a '95 F-150 with a 351W and (I think) E4OD with 3.55s and 32" tires. I really liked that combo, but most would say the gears were too tall. It would cruise effortlessly at 60 - 70+ mph in overdrive, and could even hold overdrive most of the time at 65+ mph when carrying a slide-in camper. At 55 mph if there were any hills, or tighter curves, it would tend to hunt between 3rd and 4th a bit too much, so I'd usually take it out of OD then. But it pulled as strong as I needed it to from a stop, and any time that it couldn't pull 4th I could always downshift to 3rd.For people that want to be set back in the seat every time they pull away from a stop sign, or people who don't want to ever take it out of OD 4.10 gears would probably be a better choice. Or lower gears would be a better choice if a lot of heavy towing was in the plans. But with my setup I hauled the slide-in camper (~1200 lbs) and towed a Jeep (~3500 lbs) occasionally. And most of those trips were either to the Black Hills or to Colorado. It slowed down on the long uphills. And while I couldn't keep up with the turbo-diesels I could still pass most of the motorhomes and semis, which was fine for me. Penny stocks are the get-rich-quick scheme of investing. But like most wealth-building shortcuts, they often end in disaster. Considering the deceptive and desperate measures undertaken by penny stock scammers, it shouldn't be too surprising that most "investments" in microcap companies disappear into thin air. The overwhelming evidence makes it clear: Don't waste your time or money! Instead, individuals looking to build long-term wealth can rely on the tried-and-true method of buy-and-hold investing. While it's simple, it's not easy. But investors who can suppress bias and emotion to buy great businesses and hold on for sufficiently long time periods can sleep soundly at night. We recently asked three contributors at The Motley Fool for their top stock picks right now that fit the bill. Here's why they like Enterprise Products Partners (NYSE:EPD), Square (NYSE:SQ), and Franco-Nevada (TSX:FNV). A leader of the American energy revolution Maxx Chatsko (Enterprise Products Partners): Perhaps OPEC hasn't figured it out yet, but every time the cartel agrees to production cuts, it's really just handing over market share to American oil and gas producers. Thanks to unparalleled expertise and a steady stream of new technology, shale oil and gas from the U.S. are among the cheapest in the world. Combine that with brand-new export infrastructure, and the fact that market-driven domestic producers really don't care about production quotas, and OPEC's relevance is waning by the barrel. Enterprise Products Partners is one of the companies positioned to capture the most benefit from America's redirection of global energy trade flows. The $60 billion business focuses primarily on pipeline infrastructure for shuttling natural gas liquids (NGLs), crude oil, and natural gas across North America. That provides steady and predictable fee-based cash flow and supports a 6.1% distribution yield -- and surging domestic production is leading to truly amazing results. In 2018, the business reported $4.2 billion of net income and $6 billion in distributable cash flow -- both records -- representing year-over-year growth of 47% and 33%, respectively. Companies as large as Enterprise Products Partners don't typically grow at that rate, but perhaps no other company is as well positioned to capitalize on growing demand for NGLs -- a class of petrochemicals largely overlooked by investors. NGLs are by-products of oil and gas production. Because they're so bountiful and cheap, petrochemical manufacturers are racing to utilize them. In fact, close to $200 billion in investments have been announced for upgraded or new petrochemical facilities in the U.S., according to the American Chemistry Council. That will help the United States boast an expected trade surplus in chemicals of $71 billion by 2023. Enterprise Products Partners will be the foundation for it all, transporting NGL feedstocks to facilities in dedicated pipelines, carrying refined products to market and export facilities, and storing excess product throughout its nationwide network. Simply put, this giant is only just beginning to awaken. The future of mobile payments is already here Chris Neiger (Square): Instead of riding the roller coaster of penny stocks with shaky business foundations, Square offers plenty of potential for share price gains and a solid market opportunity in the expanding contactless-payment space. Square's point-of-sale terminals allow the company to collect a fee every time someone makes a payment through its devices (either using their phone or credit card). These transactions make up 74% of the company's total sales -- and business is booming. In the most recent quarter, total revenue jumped 51%, and the company's gross payment volume (GPV) -- the total dollar amount of processed payments through Square -- was up 29%. Even more impressive is the fact that the company just posted its first quarterly net profit in the most recent quarter. But it's not satisfied with just collecting transaction fees; it's also expanding its reach with its Square Cash App and a potential move into banking. Square Cash App downloads outpaced PayPal's popular Venmo app in 2018 and in the first month of this year. That's no easy feat, and it shows just how competitive Square is as it takes on established players. And the company has applied for a license that would allow it to lend money. If it gets approved, the company would be able to lend money directly to customers (it lends some money now, but only through a third-party bank) and open up an entirely new way to make money. If you're chasing penny stocks for their potential for massive share-price gains, consider that Square has lots of upside as it continues to grow, but it comes with a stable business rooted in the expanding mobile payments market. The company's share price is up 744% over the past three years. And with contactless transactions expected to grow from $8.8 billion in 2017 to $27.2 billion in 2023, there's still plenty of runway left for Square. Check out the latest Square and Enterprise Products Partners earnings call transcripts. A gold stock like none other Neha Chamaria (Franco-Nevada): You might have heard time and again how precious metal stocks can help diversify your portfolio, but mining stocks aren't necessarily the only way to gain exposure to metals like gold. In fact, a gold streaming stock like Franco-Nevada has handily outperformed its mining peers over the years, and there's a fair chance it will continue to do so, making it one stock you'd want to pick over the lure of several mining penny stocks that could eventually burn your fingers. Franco-Nevada shares have nearly quadrupled in the past 10 years, thanks primarily to its streaming business model. The company doesn't own and operate mines, but instead buys precious metals like gold from mining companies at discounted prices in return for funding them up front. It's a high-margin business, as Franco-Nevada doesn't have to bear mining-related costs and can also secure metals for low prices. In the past decade or so, the company has built a solid portfolio of streaming assets with leading mining companies and has even diversified into oil and gas royalties, adding another offbeat yet lucrative source of revenue to gain an edge over its streaming peers. Between 2017 and 2022, Franco-Nevada expects to grow its gold-equivalent-ounce production by 17%, and oil and gas revenue by nearly 177%, to achieve at least 30% growth in EBITDA. The company looks well positioned to grow its cash flows in coming years and maintain its industry-leading dividend track record that boasts 11 consecutive years of annual dividend increases. Steadily growing dividends add significant appeal to Franco-Nevada shares as dividends not only reflect the resilience of the company's underlying business model in a volatile industry, but also contribute substantially to investors' total returns from the stock in the long haul. With Franco-Nevada's portfolio exhibiting strong growth options and management affirming its commitment to shareholders, you shouldn't regret having invested your hard-earned money in this stock when you look back some years from now. This article originally appeared on InHerSight.com, a website where women rate the female friendliness of their employers and get matched to companies that fit their needs. Emotional labor is a word that gets thrown around a lot, but what does it really mean? It's a term I've struggled to define in a perfect, simple sentence. But the truth is, it's a complex issue that's easier to unpack with examples. So let's start unpacking. You know when a client comes into your office and mistakes you as the secretary, presumably just because you're a woman, and you just chuckle and shrug it off? Or you rephrase an email upwards of 10 times so you don't come off as too harsh and demanding? Or your male coworker asks you to explain the wage gap? Or you feel forced to constantly put on a happy face around the office so no one asks you why you're not smiling? Yeah, that's emotional labor. So what's the problem? These little things that go unnoticed may seem like they're not a big deal, but it's not healthy to micromanage your emotions and actions to please others. Sociologist Arlie Hochschild coined the term in 1983, and journalist Gemma Hartley describes emotional labor as, "the unpaid, often unnoticed labor that goes into keeping those around you comfortable and happy." So why does emotional labor disproportionately fall onto women? Probably because society has taught us from a young age that it's our job to keep those around us happy and satisfied. Women are pulled in every which direction -- we have to kick ass at our jobs, be assertive but not bossy, intelligent but not a know-it-all, and empathetic but never emotional (god forbid). Whenever we're hit with sexist remarks or subtle harassment, we've been conditioned to internalize them at work in order to keep the peace and not completely lose it. It takes an emotional toll on us to balance out all of these expectations and always remain calm. In other words, emotional labor is exhausting. I'm no stranger to it myself. My first day of work in Spain, I was smiling ear to ear, politely laughing at everyone's jokes because I was genuinely excited to start working in a new place -- and also because I wanted to make the best impression possible. Since then, I've felt a pressure to maintain this positive, cheery presence. I worry that if I'm not constantly smiling, it'll affect my co-workers and they'll think something is wrong. Even if something is bothering me, I feel like I can't let it show. So what can you do about it? The first step is just acknowledging that it happens. Since we're so accustomed to emotional labor in our daily lives, we may not even realize we're doing it. But if you find yourself emotionally drained and ready to explode with pent-up steam at the end of every day, start making a list of the labor you do at work that isn't really part of your job description. Once you can see a physical list of everything you're doing, it'll be easier to manage the next steps. Once you realize that it's happening, seek out a female mentor. At InHerSight, we know how important it is to find the right mentor. To ease the burden of emotional labor, find one you can talk to about the weight it's put on you, and together you can develop a plan to better foster personal growth and a healthy workplace mindset. Finally, set more boundaries for yourself. Don't feel pressured to always clean up after your co-workers or say yes to favors. Prioritize your own work, share more responsibility among your co-workers, and ask for help with managing projects and office housework. Don't be afraid to voice your contributions and stand up for yourself. Keep on killin' at the job you were hired to do! Beyerdynamic has launched Soul BYRD, a new lightweight in-ear headset in India. It has an ultra-slim design that do not protrude from the auricle and will not exert pressure on the ear even when the user is lying on their side, says the company. It has a three-button remote with integrated microphone and comes with five included silicone ear tips (XS, S, M, L and XL) that ensure perfect fit. The cable is extremely flexible and robust, minimising cable noise and staying in perfect shape even when used daily. The elegant decorative plates, made of anodised and glass-bead blasted aluminium, feature the new and characteristic Y signet. Ear tips and cerumen protection can be easily cleaned or replaced. Transducer -Dynamic Acoustic design Closed Frequency response 10 25.000 Hz Form factor In-ear Transmission Wired Length & type of cable 1.2 m / both-sided / fixed Connection plug 3.5 mm plug, 4-pole Remote & microphone In-line remote control with microphone Weight (without cable) 6 g The Beyerdynamic Soul BYRD is priced at Rs. 6999 and is available in India through Headphonezone.in and Amazon.in. Android Q developers preview is expected sometime next month, but a month ahead of the announcement, early build of the OS was leaked. Android Q is said to bring a revamped permission management system, and now we are getting to see more details about this interesting addition to Android Q. As noted earlier, Android Q is said to allow the user to restrict permission only while the app is in use. However, to clarify, only the location permission can be restricted to when an app is in use. That means you cant restrict the microphone or camera only while the app is in use. Since Android Pie already introduced some restrictions on the background use of the camera and microphone by requiring apps to be in the foreground or use a foreground service. Android Q expands on that by disclosing to the user whenever any app is using the microphone, camera, or accessing the devices location. This is shown to the user as status bar icons in the top-right hand corner. If the user taps the icon, a new dialog is shown that tells the user which apps are using which permissions. The UI also has special app access permissions like battery optimization, device admin, Do Not Disturb access, notification access, etc. is unchanged. A new Financial Apps SMS Access special permission has been added to the list and its possible that this new permission is intended for banking apps that use SMS for certain transactions. Android Q will alert the user when an app is accessing one of several sensitive/dangerous permissions including camera, location, and microphone. Google is also blocking background clipboard access in Android Q, in-line with the earlier report. Google seems to be changing external storage file access in Android Q. For an app to access files on external storage, the app needs to hold the READ or WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permissions. Once an app has these permissions, there are no restrictions on what files on external storage it can read or modify. In Android Q, Google is breaking down these two permissions into more granular permissions, allowing the user to restrict an app so it can only read or write certain file types. Specifically, the new permissions in Android Q will let the user restrict an app so it can only read locations from media, read or write music files, read or write photos/image files, read or write video files. An app that has already been granted the READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission prior to the user upgrading to Android Q will automatically be granted the read permissions listed above, but not the write permissions. Android Q is adding new permission which, when granted, always allows an app to have access to a devices location, even when the app is running in the background. Thus, protecting users from undesired background location access but will also provide a mechanism for users to allow apps to monitor their location in the background. Androids default package installer is getting a redesign. Rather than showing a fullscreen activity anytime you want to install a new app, the updated package installer in Android Q displays a small dialog in the middle of the screen. This is the first were seeing it on Android smartphones. In Android Q, running any app targeting API level 22 or below (Android 5.0 Lollipop) will show a warning that the app is outdated. Google will require any apps submitted to the Play Store after August 2019 to target API level 28. Android Q would let you block calls from unknown, private, pay phone numbers, or any numbers not in your contact list. Theres a new Quick Settings tile called sensors off which not only turns on airplane mode but also disables all sensor readings on the device. Source | BY Ricki Green | Following a creative restructure, Host/Havas has today announced that its executive creative director, Jon Austin, will take the sole reins of the agencys creative leadership. Austin will take on his new responsibility following the departures of co-executive creative directors, Seamus Higgins and Ant Melder. Austin will oversee the creative output across the agency, with a growing focus on the intersection of entertainment, innovation and advertising. Over the past six years with the agency, Austin has led a series of major campaigns, including the development of Air New Zealands critically acclaimed and multi-award-winning brand campaigns such as the chart-topping Summer Wonderland and A Very Merry Mistake as well as the Super Bowls Losers Paradise. Says Austin: I couldnt be more excited about what lies ahead. Not just because we have an incredible stable of collaborative and adventurous clients, but because I find myself surrounded by some of Australias most formidable creative talent, sharpest strategic minds and most inspiring leadership. Host/Havas is one hell of a family, with one hell of a future. Im grateful for the continued opportunity to help chart its course. Says Laura Aldington, CEO, Host/Havas: Jon has proven himself to be an exceptional creative leader and is responsible for some of our most popular work over the last six years, as well as the vast majority of our new business success. We are incredibly excited to be opening the next creative chapter for the agency under his watchful and very talented eye. Higgins (far left) leaves the agency after more than five and a half years to pursue an exciting new opportunity following a successful tenure, which has seen him lead a number of successful, multi-award-winning campaigns. Melder (left) also departs the agency for pastures new, following a successful two year focus on Defence Force Recruiting (DFR), which helped result in the 2018 Grand Effie for Long-Term Effectiveness. Says Aldington: Seamus has made an indelible mark on Host/Havas, playing a central role on both DFR and, of course, the career-defining Palau Pledge. Im extremely thankful to have had the opportunity to partner with him and wish him the very best for his next adventure. And, whilst Ant has been with us for less time, he has had no less of an impact. As well as being very talented and totally committed to his craft, he is also one of the most liked and respected people in the business. Theyve both been brilliant and I want to take this opportunity to thank them for everything theyve done for us. Says Higgins: Over the past five and a half years, Ive been honoured to be involved in so many great campaigns and work with so many smart and imaginative people. Ive certainly done my best work since Ive been here and the teams collective passion and ambition to create great stories, push boundaries and embrace innovation, has made it a great place to work each day. Ill miss the team greatly but I know that they will continue to thrive in the very capable hands of Jon. | BY Ricki Green | In the spirit of continuous evolution, Caleb Bush, managing director of GPJ Australia has been promoted to Senior Vice President. In addition to this, Bush has been elevated to managing director, Project ANZ. Says Ben Taylor, CEO Asia Pacific, Project Worldwide: Caleb is a most driven and capable leader and has played a vital role in making GPJ Australia what it is today. Im proud to be able to promote from within, recognising all that Caleb has done for the business. As part of Bushs new role as MD and SVP of GPJ Australia and MD, Project ANZ he will be focused on ensuring engagement and collaboration between the Project ANZ agencies GPJ Australia, Dig & Fish, Spinifex and Dark Horse is optimised. Joining GPJ Australia in 2009, Bush proved his strong leadership skills early on and was tasked with establishing the Melbourne office in 2012. He was then promoted to general manager in 2012 and in 2016 Bush was elevated to managing director and vice president. Says Bush: I am thrilled to have been promoted into a Project role. Having the ability to work with CMOs to solve big business problems, and with an arsenal of the worlds best agencies at our fingertips is pretty special. In my new role, I plan to particularly focus on driving collaboration between Project ANZs agencies in the relentless pursuit of delivering market-leading offerings for our amazing client partners. Iran unveiling a new ballistic missile with a 1,000-kilometre range was the latest show of military might by the country as it celebrates the 40th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution at a time of heightened tensions with the United States. Washington: The United States on Thursday vowed to remain "relentless" in pressuring Iran to deter its missile programme after the Islamic Republic unveiled a new ballistic weapon days after testing a cruise missile. Iran's Revolutionary Guards unveiled a new ballistic missile with a range of 1,000 kilometres, their official news agency Sepah News reported. The move was the latest show of military might by the country as it celebrates the 40th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution at a time of heightened tensions with the United States. "Iran's blatant disregard for international norms must be addressed," State Department deputy spokesman Robert Palladino said in a statement. "We must bring back tougher international restrictions to deter Iran's missile programme," he added. "The United States will continue to be relentless in building support around the world to confront the Iranian regime's reckless ballistic missile activity, and we will continue to impose sufficient pressure on the regime so that it changes its malign behaviour, including by fully implementing all of our sanctions." Tehran reined in most of its nuclear programme under a landmark 2015 deal with major powers but has kept up development of its ballistic missile technology. President Donald Trump pulled the US out of the nuclear accord in May and reimposed sanctions on Iran, citing the programme among its reasons. "Iran's latest missile launch again proves the Iran deal is doing nothing to stop Iran's missile programme," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted late on Thursday. Iran and the other signatories have stuck by the 2015 agreement, although some European governments have demanded an addition to address Tehran's ballistic missile programme and its intervention in regional conflicts. Meanwhile, UN Security Council Resolution 2231 adopted just after the nuclear deal calls on Iran "not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons". Tehran insists that its missile development programme is "purely defensive" and compliant with the resolution. Britain and the European Union agreed to further negotiations in the next few weeks, although that means any deal will come perilously close to the scheduled deadline of 29 March. That risks a chaotic departure for Britain that could be costly to both sides both to businesses and ordinary people. Brussels: Britain and the European Union refused to budge an inch on Thursday toward any compromise over Brexit, but at least they are on speaking terms again about their impending divorce. They agreed to further negotiations in the next few weeks, although that means any deal will come perilously close to the scheduled deadline of 29 March. That risks a chaotic departure for Britain that could be costly to both sides both to businesses and ordinary people. "A no-deal is, for us, not an option. It is a disaster on both sides of the English Channel," said Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament's chief Brexit official. Looking at the ever-tighter deadline, British prime minister Theresa May said after talks at EU headquarters in Brussels, "It's not going to be easy." But she vowed: "I am going to deliver Brexit. I am going to deliver it on time." May was able to clear the air after EU council president Donald Tusk exacerbated the frosty climate on Wednesday by wondering aloud what "special place in hell" might be reserved for those who backed Brexit with no idea of how to deliver it. May said she had "raised with Tusk the language that he used," saying his words "caused widespread dismay" in Britain. Tusk's comments were condemned by British Brexiteers but at least served to focus minds on how wide a gulf remains between the UK. and the EU. It was little surprise that talks at EU Commission headquarters were described as "robust." At the end, May and EU Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker agreed on a renewed effort to hold more negotiations on seeking a breakthrough. The two leaders agreed to assess progress "before the end of February to take stock of these discussions," a joint statement said. Two years ago, May set Brexit day as 29 March and original plans were to have a deal in place six months ahead of time. As the time shrinks between a deal and the cutoff date, the more difficult it becomes for businesses and authorities to adapt quickly to the fundamental changes that a withdrawal from the bloc would entail. Both sides still disagree on whether the divorce agreement struck between May's government and the EU and then summarily rejected by Britain's Parliament can be changed to ease British objections. "The EU27 will not reopen the withdrawal agreement, which represents a carefully balanced compromise between the European Union and the UK, in which both sides have made significant concessions," the joint statement said. UK officials said May's primary concern was not to be "trapped" in a system that could see Britain linked to the EU in a customs union for an indefinite time and not be able to set its own trade agenda. Britain's parliament voted down May's Brexit deal in January, largely because of concerns about a provision for the border between the UK's Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland. The mechanism, known as the "backstop", is a safeguard that would keep the UK in a customs union with the EU to remove the need for checks along the Irish border until a permanent new trading relationship is in place. Thursday's statement said that May "raised various options for dealing with these concerns in the context of the withdrawal agreement." Many pro-Brexit lawmakers in Britain say they won't vote for the withdrawal agreement unless the backstop is removed from the 585-page, which the EU leaders oppose vehemently. Juncker and the other leaders have agreed to look for a compromise in a political text accompanying the withdrawal agreement, but not in the document itself. "What we would look at as positive from today is that there are going to be talks," a senior Downing Street official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the UK-EU negotiations. "Obviously we've got work to do." In London, there was significant momentum from the Opposition, with the Labour Party making perhaps its biggest move in months. Party leader Jeremy Corbyn dangled a possible way out of the impasse, saying his left-wing party could support a Brexit deal if May committed to seeking a close relationship with the EU after Britain leaves. That would include a commitment to maintain roughly equivalent standards in areas such as the environment and workers' rights. Corbyn's key demand, set out in a letter to May, is permanent British membership in a customs union with the EU. May has repeatedly ruled that out, but it would solve the problem of the backstop by making customs checks on the Irish border unnecessary. It is the firmest sign yet that Labour lawmakers might be willing to vote for a Brexit deal in Parliament. But the party like May's Conservatives is divided. Corbyn's position disappointed some Labour Party legislators who had hoped he would back calls for a second referendum on whether to leave the EU. Britain's Parliament is set to hold a debate and votes on 14 February on the next steps, giving lawmakers a chance to force May to change course toward a softer Brexit if divided lawmakers can agree on a plan. Corbyn said Thursday that Labour would "do everything we can in Parliament to prevent this cliff-edge exit." "Half of our trade is with Europe. A lot of our manufacturing industries are very frightened, very worried," he said. By Richard Cowan WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. By Richard Cowan WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials on Wednesday described a multi-pronged strategy for tightening the southern border with Mexico that did not focus mainly on a massive wall President Donald Trump demands, according to lawmakers who attended a classified briefing. A group of 17 Republican and Democratic members of the Senate and House of Representatives are trying to beat a Feb. 15 deadline for passing legislation to fund U.S. border security operations over the next eight months. Trump is insisting on $5.7 billion to build a wall - a demand that led to the recent 35-day partial federal government shutdown that ended last month. Leading Democrats have said there will be no money for a wall, despite the president's declaration during his State of the Union address on Tuesday that "I will get it built." One of the 17 negotiators, Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, left the briefing by Customs and Border Protection agents telling reporters that lawmakers demanded a list of priorities for securing the U.S.-Mexico border from illegal drugs and undocumented immigrants. "What they said over again was technology," Durbin said. "They don't rule out barriers, they don't rule out fences. But that isn't the first priority." Other members backed up Durbin's assessment of the border officials' position. "Technology" refers to devices such as huge scanners that can look inside trucks and cars, sensors, drones and other high-tech tools that could be quickly dispatched. Senator Richard Shelby, a senior Republican negotiator, told reporters that the administration's border security experts advised providing money for a mix of additional law enforcement agents, physical barriers and high-tech devices. Shelby also said the lawmakers were briefed on "terrorists" who were coming across the southern border. While he said they were originating in the Middle East, he did not provide figures on the number of people detected and did not know whether they were apprehended. For Congress to be able to pass legislation funding the Department of Homeland Security and a range of other federal agencies by a self-imposed Feb. 15 deadline, the negotiators aimed to strike a deal and write a bill by this Friday or Saturday. Failure could result in another partial government closure, following the shutdown that began last Dec. 22, when Trump refused to sign a funding bill that did not contain the money he wanted for wall construction to fulfill an often-repeated campaign promise. The shutdown, which Trump initially said he would take responsibility for before shifting blame to Democrats, idled some 800,000 government employees. Lawmakers noted there is the possibility of passing another short-term funding bill to give more time to negotiate border security. While Trump repeatedly has described illegal immigration as "an urgent national crisis," Durbin said the focus at Wednesday's briefing was on "the most serious drug epidemic in the history of the United States of America" with undetected opioids coming mainly through U.S. ports of entry. Late on Tuesday, Democratic Representative Pete Aguilar, another border security negotiator, told Reuters in a telephone interview that a "range of options" were being weighed. He said there was nothing in Trump's State of the Union speech, which focussed on building a wall, that he thought would help the negotiators. "But our job is to tune out all the noise and to try to get to a compromise," Aguilar said. (Reporting by Richard Cowan and Susan Cornwell; Editing by Bill Trott) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. The prince said that if Jamal Khashoggi could not be enticed to return to Saudi Arabia, then he should be brought back by force. If neither of those methods worked, then he would go after Khashoggi 'with a bullet.' Washington: Saudi Arabia's crown prince told a senior aide he would go after Jamal Khashoggi "with a bullet" one year before the dissident journalist was killed inside the kingdom's Istanbul consulate, the New York Times reported Thursday quoting US intelligence. US intelligence understood that Mohammed bin Salman, the country's 33-year-old de facto ruler, was ready to kill the journalist, although he may not have literally meant to shoot him, according to the newspaper. After initially denying any knowledge of Khashoggi's disappearance, the kingdom has acknowledged that a team killed him inside the diplomatic mission but described it as a rogue operation that did not involve the crown prince. The conversation was intercepted by US intelligence agencies, as part of routine efforts by the National Security Agency and other agencies to capture and store the communications of global leaders, including allied ones, The Times said. It was only recently transcribed, however, because of mounting efforts by US intelligence to find more conclusive proof linking the prince to the killing. The conversation took place between Prince Mohammed and an aide, Turki Aldakhil, in September 2017 around 13 months before the 2 October killing, the paper said. The prince said that if Khashoggi could not be enticed to return to Saudi Arabia, then he should be brought back by force. If neither of those methods worked, then he would go after Khashoggi "with a bullet," he said. It came as officials in the kingdom were growing increasingly angry about Khashoggi's criticisms and the same month he began writing opinion pieces for The Washington Post. UN special rapporteur Agnes Callamard said the murder of Jamal Khashoggi raised a number of international implications which demand the urgent attention of the international community and the United Nations. Geneva: A UN rapporteur probing the murder in Turkey of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi said on Thursday that the killing was "planned and perpetrated" by Saudi officials. Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributor and Saudi regime critic, was murdered at the ultra-conservative kingdom's consulate in Istanbul on 2 October by what Ankara says was a hit squad sent from Riyadh. "Evidence collected during my mission to Turkey shows (a) prima facie case that Mr Khashoggi was the victim of a brutal and premeditated killing, planned and perpetrated by officials of the state of Saudi Arabia," Agnes Callamard said at the end of a visit to Turkey, according to a UN statement. Turkey says Khashoggi was killed by a team of 15 Saudis who strangled him at the mission, and media reports have said his body was cut up and dissolved in acid. Riyadh, after denying the killing for two weeks, eventually described it as a "rogue" operation but denied any involvement by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. It has arrested several senior Saudi officials, but the murder plunged the kingdom into one of its worst diplomatic crises. Nearly four months on, Khashoggi's body has not been recovered. He was visiting the consulate to obtain paperwork for his upcoming marriage to a Turkish woman. "The murder of Jamal Khashoggi and the sheer brutality of it has brought irreversible tragedy to his loved ones," said Callamard, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions. "It is also raising a number of international implications which demand the urgent attention of the international community including the United Nations." 'Chilling, gruesome audio' The rapporteur's final report is scheduled to be presented in June before the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, but is expected to be published a few weeks earlier, in late May. In the report, the rapporteur will present a series of recommendations, which are not binding. Callamard had met Istanbul's chief prosecutor and the head of the Turkish secret service, as well as the Turkish foreign and justice ministers. The statement did not say whether she had had access to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, as she had requested. However, Callamard's team had access to "crucial information" about the journalist's murder, including excerpts from an audio recording, described as "chilling and gruesome", in the hands of the Turkish secret service. Callamard said her team were unable to perform a "thorough review" of this material and she did not have the chance to authenticate the recording independently. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday accused the United States of maintaining "silence" on the murder, which has strained the kingdom's ties with Washington. "I cannot understand America's silence... We want everything to be clarified because there is an atrocity, there is a murder," Erdogan told an interview with state-run TRT television. "The Khashoggi murder is not an ordinary one." Unhappy with Riyadh's cooperation in the investigation, Ankara has called for an international inquiry. Eleven men are on trial in Saudi Arabia, accused of involvement in the killing. The attorney general is seeking the death penalty for five of them. tech2 News Staff It might be too early for leaks, but that isnt stopping the rumour mill from spilling beans on OnePlus upcoming plans. The Chinese OEM has reportedly begun sending out media invites for a press brief at the Mobile World Congress 2019 which will take place in Barcelona from 25 February. As per a report by Digit, OnePlus has sent invites for a closed-door event at MWC. Notably, the Chinese handset maker didnt make any presence at the biggest exhibition in the mobile industry so far. The invite shared by the publication comes with a tagline that reads, Reimagine the future with OnePlus. There is no word as to what the company will announce at the event, however, the report suggests that it could be a networking event where OnePlus might talk about its future products and services. OnePlus in December last year confirmed that its working on a 5G phone and reports widely speculate that the company may showcase it at its MWC event. Reports further suggest that Chinese handset maker could unveil its OnePlus TV as well. Reports about the OnePlus TV surfaced last year, with CEO Pete Lau reportedly saying that the new device will feature premium flagship design and enhanced image, audio quality. OnePlus previously stated that it will be one of the first to launch a device with the new Snapdragon 855 chipset, however, another Chinese OEM Lenovo has already taken the first slot with Lenovo Z5 Pro GT. But while the company is slated to introduce a smartphone likely the OnePlus 7 with Qualcomms latest flagship chipset, it is unlikely that it will be showcased at OnePlus MWC event. As for the OnePlus 5G phone, the company earlier announced that it will launch before the end of May. Two posters went viral recently which portrayed Rahul and Priyanka as 'Lord Ram' and 'Goddess Durga' respectively. It is interesting to note here, that reportedly, Priyanka's grandmother Indira Gandhi was also once portrayed as Goddess Durga. Name-calling and mud-slinging are not new to Indian politics, however, there are also examples aplenty of the deification of mass leaders, putting them on a pedestal higher than the aam junta. Recently, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) called its leader and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee as "today's Jhansi ki Rani" and warned the BJP government that like the brave queen, the TMC chief will not be cowed down by "attacks". Speaking in the debate on the motion of thanks to the President's address in Lok Sabha on Thursday, TMC leader Dinesh Trivedi drew a parallel between the central government and the pre-independence British regime, alleging that both have used threats and intimidation to quell Opposition. "Recently a movie called Manikarnika was released... We are reminded of the queen of Jhansi... Who was 'Rani Jhansi'? She was an ordinary woman whom people chose that she should guard Jhansi," he said. "In Bengal also there is Rani Jhansi whose name is Mamata Banerjee. Mamata Banerjee said that 'sar kata sakte hain lekin sar jhuka sakte nahin' (we are ready to be beheaded but will not kowtow). She is today's Rani Jhansi who is an ordinary woman and not a queen," Trivedi said, referring to the West Bengal chief minister. "No matter how much you attack us it will not affect us as the public is with us," he added. Trivedi further went on to explain his analogy by saying: "What happened in Bengal a few days back was done by the British government. During British time what did the Britishers do? They used to scare you, threaten you. They used to enter your house and tell you to support them or else they would attack you. Today, the condition is the same." However, on Friday Union minister Giriraj Singh while reacting on the TMC leader's remarks alleged that Mamata was a demoness who had destroyed the state. He said that the TMC chief cannot be compared with Jhansi ki Rani, as it would be an insult to the brave queen. "It is like an insult to Jhansi ki Rani. Someone who can murder those who speak against her cannot be Jhansi ki Rani or Padmavati... She has destroyed Bengal," Singh alleged, terming Banerjee a "putana(demoness)". Singh added that Mamata did not have the strength to be these women (Jhansi ki Rani or Padmavati) and went on to compare her with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. "The person who supports Rohingyas and Bangladeshi infiltrators... someone who speaks of breaking India and stopping Hindus cannot be called Jhansi ki Rani who strived for uniting the country," he told reporters. In September 2018, BJP's Ashwini Kumar Choubey had called UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi also "putana". This is not new though. In the past as well, political leaders have been compared to mythological characters, been called names, or being referred to as a controversial character from history. For instance, last week, after a controversy broke out over the NSSO data on unemployment, Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini entered our political discourse. The report on the NSSO jobs survey prompted Congress chief Rahul Gandhi to indirectly invoke Adolf Hitler in criticising Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "The Fuhrer promised us 2 crore jobs a year. 5 years later, his leaked job creation report card reveals a National Disaster (sic)," Rahul tweeted. Immediately after the Congress president's attack, BJP retaliated by calling Rahul Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. "It's clear that Rahul Gandhi has inherited Mussolini's shortsightedness and has a myopic understanding of issues," the BJP said in a tweet. Those involved in the discourse seemed to have had forgotten that Mussolini was, in fact, an ally of Hitler and not a rival. Recently, after Congress announced Priyanka Gandhi's induction into Congress the party, many barbs were thrown at her by rival parties. However, a BJP MLA from Ballia, Surendra Singh went on to call her 'Suparnakha' (Ravana's sister). Downplaying Priyanka's political entry, Singh said: Jab Ram-Ravan ka yudh hone wala tha tab Ravan ne pahle apni bahen Surpanakha ko bheja tha. Rahul ne Ravan ki tarah apni bahan ko Surpanakha ki tarah utara hai (When the battle of Ram and Ravana was to begin, Ravana had sent his sister Surpanakha. Similarly, Rahul like Ravana has sent Priyanka). Singh also eulogised Modi as Lord Rama. In the upcoming parliamentary elections, Rahul will be in the role of Ravana, while Modi in the role of Rama is already keeping Indias flag high in the world. Like Ravana, Rahul has fielded his sister in this battle and proved his inability to fight against Modi, who will, no doubt, again become the PM, he added. Singh, who is known for making controversial remarks, had earlier called Mamata also 'Surpanakha. Mamata, meanwhile, has also been referred to as another female demoness, Taadka, from the epic Ramayana. Haryana health minister Anil Vij had said, Chahe Yogi Adityanathji ki rally ho, chahe Amit Shahji yatra nikaalna chahte ho usmein rukawat daalti hai. Kabhi kisi ka helicopter rokti hai, isliye poori tarah se Mamata Banerjee wahi kar rahi hai jo Taadka kiya karti thi. (Be it the rally of Yogi Adityanath or Amit Shah's public address, she puts obstacles in the way just like Taadka used to when saints used to do holy work)." The battle of 'political lords and demons', however, is not just limited to a verbal feud as posters and banners of various political parties often depict their leaders as mythological leaders. Two posters went viral recently which portrayed Rahul and Priyanka as 'Lord Rama' and 'Goddess Durga' respectively. It is interesting to note here, that reportedly, Priyanka's grandmother Indira Gandhi was also once portrayed as Goddess Durga. There are more such instances, for example, there is a temple in central India dedicated to Indira and Rahul has been portrayed as Rama on posters in 2018 as well. At that time, he was shown aiming a bow at his political rival, Modi, who was likened to Ravana. Like Ravana, Modi was portrayed with 10 heads, his face copied into each of them. Taking an apparent dig at BJP, a slogan etched in the middle of one the poster read: "Woh Ram naam japte rahe, tum bannkar Ram jiyo re (Let them keep chanting the name of Lord Ram, you [Rahul Gandhi] be Lord Ram himself)." The poster exuded the hope that Rahul will usher in 'Ram Rajya' in the country and will end the "BJP's misrule". Another poster in Uttar Pradesh, put up by a Samajwadi Party (SP) worker for celebrating the union of SP and Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in the state, had depicted SP chief Akhilesh Yadav as Tipu Sultan and Mayawati as Rani Lakshmibai. The local leader claimed that the partnership of both will win over the Opposition. Such deifications, Krzysztof Iwanek writes in this article, happen because "the district-level gung-ho party activists may sometimes go to extremes to make their efforts noticed and their voices heard". At a meeting with AICC general secretaries and in-charges of various states at the party headquarters, Congress president Rahul Gandhi said that new faces should be given precedence over those who have lost the elections 2-3 times while selecting candidates. New Delhi: Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Thursday directed senior office-bearers of the party to finalise candidates for the Lok Sabha polls by February-end and asked newly-appointed Uttar Pradesh in-charges Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Jyotiraditya Scindia to strengthen the party in the state in "mission-mode". At a meeting with AICC general secretaries and in-charges of various states at the party headquarters, Rahul said that new faces should be given precedence over those who have lost the elections 2-3 times while selecting candidates. Priyanka, who was attending the first meeting as AICC general secretary in-charge of the party's affairs in Uttar Pradesh East after taking charge on Wednesday, said she would not rest till the flag of Congress' ideology flies high in the state. "I met with our AICC general-secretaries and state in-charges at the AICC headquarters this evening (Thursday). Our discussions covered a wide range of subjects. The team is match-ready and we will play on the front foot," Gandhi said on Twitter after the meeting. According to Congress general-secretary (organisation) KC Venugopal, Rahul asked leaders to ensure that the campaign should be a decent one, and "not like the BJP's". When asked about Rahul's direction coming on a day he called the prime minister a "darpok" (coward), Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala, at a press conference, said that a liar has to be called a liar and it can't be helped. During the meeting with the general secretaries and state in-charges, Rahul gave an ultimatum that selection of candidates should be completed in February itself, Venugopal said at the press conference. The need for a mechanism at the central level to monitor the campaign in various states was also discussed at the meeting, he said. Campaign strategies and alliances were also discussed at the nearly three-hour meeting. All the in-charges shared their views and the Congress president told them what he expects from them, Scindia told reporters after coming out of the meeting. The Congress president also gave a clear vision about the current political situation in the country the way the BJP government is misusing agencies and propagating false promises, Venugopal said. Surjewala said that Rahul stressed at the meeting that in selecting candidates youth and experience both should find place. Congress chief congratulated Priyanka and Scindia, and encouraged them to work for the strengthening the Congress party in the state in mission-mode. He also highlighted that the Congress was going into polls with new ideas and in that context talked about the minimum income guarantee scheme, Surjewala said. Rahul said the Congress has to fight divisive politics and polarisation. The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill was also discussed during the meeting and it was highlighted that the traditions and culture of the Northeast was being attacked, Surjewala said, dubbing the bill as a conspiracy. The Congress president said that if the BJP tries to bring the Bill, the Congress will oppose it both inside and outside Parliament, according to Surjewala. The Congress will not allow it to be passed in the Rajya Sabha and will talk to other parties so as to defeat the Bill on the floor of the House, he said. Priyanka, in her remarks, at the meeting said she will work together with other Congress leaders to end the politics of division and casteism in Uttar Pradesh. Rahul has also called a meeting of state chiefs and Congress Legislature Party leaders on Saturday in the national capital, to review preparedness for the general election. In his speech covering a range of topics, Rahul lashed out at Modi for his China policy, saying the prime minister flew to the country and held a summit without an agenda while Beijing sent its army to Doka La, a reference to the China-India border standoff in 2017. New Delhi: Mounting a fresh offensive on Narendra Modi, Congress chief Rahul Gandhi on Thursday called the prime minister a "darpok" (coward) and dared him to a five minute face-to-face debate on issues such as the controversial Rafale jet deal and national security. Addressing the Congress' minority department convention in New Delhi, a combative Rahul also alleged that the RSS was trying to capture the institutions of the country and said his party's governments in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhatisgarh will remove the organisation's loyalists from the system. In his speech covering a range of topics, Rahul lashed out at Modi for his China policy, saying the prime minister flew to the country and held a summit without an agenda while Beijing sent its army to Doka La, a reference to the China-India border standoff in 2017. Modi folded his hands before China, the Congress chief claimed, adding that China realised within two months that "leave alone 56 inches, he doesn't even have a four-inch chest". "I know his (Modi) character after fighting him for five years... I say to BJP leaders... make Narendra Modi stand with me on stage for five minutes and debate on national security, Rafale," Gandhi said in his speech in Hindi. "I want to say he is a darpok (coward). I have recognised him. He gets scared when he faces someone who says 'I will not back off', and he backs off," the Congress president said, walking away dramatically from the microphone for visual effect, eliciting applause from Congress workers. In a speech laced with sarcasm, Rahul did not spare Hindutva ideologue VD Savarkar, and mocked him for allegedly taking instructions from the British. He urged his party's workers to face the RSS, the BJP, and Modi with all their might. If Congress workers stand together, they (RSS, BJP, Modi) will run away as "they are cowards", he added. The Congress chief said fear was writ large on Modi's face and asserted that those who spread hatred will be defeated. Declaring that the "image of Narendra Modi is finished", Rahul said, "He now knows one can't rule India by dividing people." The Congress chief alleged that the RSS was attempting to capture the country's institutions, from the judiciary to the Election Commission. "We have not merely formed governments in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh... We will ensure that RSS people put in institutions in these states are removed," he said. Rahul claimed that Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath informed him that there was a special ministry in the state under the BJP rule to which Rs 800 crore were given and it was full of RSS people. "The bureaucracy of these states (Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Rajasthan) should know and India's bureaucracy should know that you are not RSS' bureaucracy, but India's bureaucracy," the Congress chief said. He asserted that irrespective of language, religion, and caste, the Congress will always protect all Indians. The aim of the RSS is to set aside the Constitution and run the country from Nagpur, he alleged. "The RSS puts its people in the judicial system, in the Election Commission. If the CBI chief wants to probe Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he is set aside and an RSS person is put in his place. Their aim is to finish all institutions in the country," Rahul alleged. He also alleged that Modi was the face but the government was being run by RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat. "With Narendra Modi as the prime minister, four Supreme Court judges came out and said that they were not being allowed to work. In the same sentence, they took CBI judge BH Loya's name and indirectly said that BJP president Amit Shah is not allowing the Supreme Court to do its work," Rahule said, referring to the death of Loya, who was hearing the Sohrabuddin Sheikh case and died in Nagpur on 1 December, 2014. The RSS and the BJP think that they are above India, but in three months, the country will make them understand that it is not so, he said. He alleged Modi snatched the Rafale contract from Hindustan Aeronautics Limited and helped Anil Ambani to make a profit of Rs 30,000 crore. The government, as well as Anil Ambani, have strongly denied any wrongdoing in the fighter jet agreement with France. "Do you accept that five years ago Modi's reputation was very good? Do you accept that today Narendra Modi is a thief? He can't even speak openly," Rahul said. He alleged that Modi gave Rs 3.5 lakh crore to 15 industrialists during his tenure. "I asked the team framing the Congress manifesto to give something that shakes up the country. I asked them to give me something that I could offer loudly and change the mood of the people," he said of his party's minimum income promise for the poor. The minimum income amount will be deposited in the bank accounts of the poor across the country by the Congress, he said. "If Modiji can give lakhs of crores of rupees to 15 individuals, we can also put money in the pocket of the poor people," he said. This decision will be first of its kind in the world, where a big country like India will directly transfer money in the accounts of poor people, Rahul said, adding that this will eradicate poverty. He again brought up the Rafale deal while talking to reporters after his meeting with the party's general secretaries. "The prime minister has helped steal Rs 30,000 crore from the defense forces and handed it to Anil Ambani and he has done it personally. Please remember what I have said. He has done it personally," he alleged. Modi said that when Congress formed the new Chhattisgarh government, the BJP congratulated them thinking that they will implement a new approach for the development of the state. 'But in reality, they squashed the good work that came before them,' he said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday addressed a public meeting in Chhattisgarh's Raigarh, and said that some of the ruling Congress government's decisions suggest that the party has something to hide. "The first two decisions that the Congress govt took, you must think about them," he told the gathering. "The first thing they did was to remove Chhattisgarh from 'Modicare', and the second was to bar the CBI from entering the state. Why? What are you afraid of?" he asked. Continuing his attack, the prime minister said that the BJP had hoped that after Congress would implement new means to better the state's development after they won the 2018 Assembly elections. "When the new government was formed in Chhattisgarh, we congratulated them thinking that maybe they will implement a new approach for the development of the state. But in reality, they squashed the good work that came before them." He also accused the Congress of not working for the poor. "Let me remind you (Congress), you ruined the country in 55 years, we, on the other hand, filled the aspirations of poor with new resolve. The BJP empowered poor to fight poverty," he said. "Our government is for the poor. We are a government that understands their pain. Poverty is the nation has reduced because of the various schemes we implemented to benefit the poor," the prime minister said. Modi also said that the Congress is looking to "turn Chhattisgarh into its ATM", and that its promises of loan waivers to farmers in the state were false. "Farmers are just a vote bank for the Congress. I want to ask, how many of you got any of the farm benefits? Did your farm loans get waived off? They have garnered votes, so farmers arent their concern anymore," he said. He added that meanwhile, the BJP's Kisan Honour Fund scheme, which was introduced in the budget for the 2019-20 financial year, "will allow farmers to be transferred to their bank account for Rs 6 lakh a year directly." Friday's rally was the prime ministers first address in Chhattisgarh after the BJP suffered a massive loss in the state Assembly elections in December 2018. Mamata Banerjee Friday called Prime Minister Narendra Modi 'Maddy babu', who has transformed from a 'chaiwala (tea-seller) to Rafalewala' Kolkata: In a blistering attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Trinamool supremo and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee Friday called him "Maddy babu", who has transformed from a "chaiwala (tea-seller) to Rafalewala", and said she supported the views of the Congress on the fighter jet deal. She also termed the Rafale deal "one of the biggest scam of the country". Banerjee's no-holds-barred attack on Modi came after the latter, at a rally in Jalpaiguri in West Bengal, accused her of trying to protect those involved in chit fund scams and warned neither the perpetrators nor those shielding them will be spared. Riled up over the prime minister's snide remarks over her holding a dharna against CBI action against the Kolkata police chief and allegation of prevalence of "syndicate raj" under TMC rule, Banerjee said, "The less we talk about this man (Modi) the better it is... Maddy babu is the master of corruption. He is the master of arrogance and is a shame for the country." "His standard is so low that we have never expected such a man to be the prime minister... We have respect for the chair but not for this man. He is the most corrupt man in the history of India," she told reporters after the conclusion of the Bengal Global Business Summit in Kolkata. Over the Congress' allegations on the Rafale deal, Banerjee said, "I do not know how much money changed hands or what had happened. But certainly there must be something behind the curtains. Rafale deal is a big scam and I fully support the Congress' views on it because they have detailed papers with them," Banerjee said. Earlier in the day, Congress president Rahul Gandhi had alleged that "the prime minister has stolen Rs 30,000 crore of your money, bypassed a process, and given it to his friend Mr Anil Ambani". He demanded answers to questions raised by a media report that the PMO conducted parallel negotiations on the Rafale deal, saying it is now "crystal clear" that the "watchman" is the "thief". On Modi describing her dharna at the heart of Kolkata an unprecedented event by any chief minister "guarding the corrupts", she said the prime minister was "scared" seeing the entire country uniting to drive him out of power. "It (dharna) was a non-political forum... a satyagraha. He is very scared because India is united now and that is why he is talking nonsense. He is spending sleepless nights. Our one-point agenda is 'Modi hatao desh banchao'," the TMC supremo said. "He was never a chaiwala (tea-seller) and does not know how to prepare tea. From chaiwala he has now become Rafalewala. He (Modi) is most corrupt man in the Rafale deal. He is the master of demonetisation. He lies," she quipped. Banerjee, who had organised a rally of the opposition parties at the Brigade Parade ground in Jalpaiguri on 19 January, claimed that Modi was scared as 23 major parties in the country have united against him. She also made objections to the prime minister inaugurating the Jalpaiguri circuit bench of the Calcutta High Court, keeping her government as well as the court "in the dark". "The land is ours, the Circuit Bench is of the high court. Neither the groom nor the bride is there but the bandwala has arrived," Banerjee said, adding only one month is left for the Narendra Modi government to "expire". "Since only a month is left for the general elections, the prime minister is bluffing," she alleged. "What has he been doing all these five years. He (Modi) has completed five years in the government. Now they are doing all these to suppress our political voice. 'Maddy' babu is bluffing... people have turned away from them (the BJP) and they will not be able to withstand this blow of the common people of the country," Banerjee said. The Trinamool Congress supremo also asked why so many BJP leaders, whose name surfaced in the Saradha chit fund scam, were not arrested. Arun Jaitley's Facebook post on the Bareilly nikah halala incident raises the question as to why the government has never cleared its stand on this contentious issue pertaining to the Muslim Personal Laws. On Tuesday, it came to light that a woman in Bareilly had allegedly been forced to undergo repeated nikah halala by her husband's family. On Thursday, Union minister Arun Jaitley wrote on Facebook that the incident is capable of "shaking" the conscience of society enough to "compel it to take remedial measures." Far from taking remedial measures, the government which Jaitley serves is yet to clear its stand on the issue of nikah halala. Nikah halala is an Islamic dictum that requires a woman who has been divorced thrice by her husband to marry and sleep with another man before she can return to her first husband. It takes no leap of imagination to conclude that the practice, originally instituted to keep men from mistreating their wives through repeated divorces and reconciliations, is grossly misused. Does the Bareilly Nikah-Halala not shock your conscience? https://t.co/VJsPsZAQk4 Arun Jaitley (@arunjaitley) February 8, 2019 In October 2016, reported Hindustan Times, a man divorced his wife of 25 years and the mother of his two sons, forced her to sleep with his friend on the pretext of nikah halala and then demanded that she return to him. The 42-year-old woman eventually found out that all this had been done because her husband had lost her to the friend in a bet and had found in the Islamic law, an easy route. "I cannot get over the insult and shame meted out to me," the woman had told the newspaper. In the Bareilly incident, which shocked Jaitley so, the woman who was forced to undergo halala (i.e. lawful) rapes by her father-in-law and brother-in-law had been divorced both times with the instant triple talaq a practice which the government is bent on abolishing with the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2018, that has been passed in the Lok Sabha and is now waiting in the Rajya Sabha. Why then, did the government not include the nikah halala clause in the triple talaq bill itself? Why, even after the Supreme Court has heard petitions filed by political outfits and social justice organisations, has the government not made its stand on such a stark gender injustice issue? Does the fact that the BJP has raked up the issue now, a day after the Congress women's wing president Sushmita Dev said the party would abolish the ban on triple talaq if voted to power, not speak volumes on how keen parties are to politicise personal laws instead of striking them down? Women's rights activist Zakia Soman said that the answer is in the fact that none of the governments that have ruled India in the 70 years since its Independence have taken any steps in ensuring that practices like nikah halala are abolished. "The Constitution offers women the right to freedom of religion as well. But for reasons that have everything to do with politics, women's issues are constantly bypassed when it comes to bringing laws, especially if the women belong to minority communities. The understanding at the political level is 'let the minorities do what they want to do', and even the BJP government knows that," said Soman, whose organisation Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan is in the process of filing a petition seeking a ban on polygamy and nikah halala in the Supreme Court. The current BJP government's indecision regarding the nikah halala is in direct contravention of Narendra Modi's pre-2014 poll promise of ensuring safety for women. Vacillation on the part of such a decidedly Hindu-leaning government which censures a Muslim divorce practice but not a direct offshoot of it begs the question if the party considers the issue as going into a territory which will not translate into any election-time dividends. For that, just the triple talaq ban seems to have been considered enough. The tacit politicisation of Muslim issues is also why, Soman feels, the triple talaq bill could not be expanded to include the nikah halala issue within its ambit. "There should ideally have been exhaustive discussions involving the government and all other parties before a comprehensive bill was brought. But that did not happen. Codified Muslim family laws are the need of the hour now but as long as there is inherent politics, that will not happen," she says. Soman adds that secularism cannot be an excuse to allow patriarchal practices to continue. Which is probably why, while Jaitley laments the "animal existence" to which the women on Bareilly have been reduced, an apex court petition to abolish nikah halala by one Sameena Begum who claimed she was under pressure to withdraw it was delayed to such an extent that then Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra had to question why it was not pushed sooner. Which is also probably why, while Union law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad asked Congress chief Rahul Gandhi to support the abolishing of nikah halala, the same practice found no mention as what should have been a natural corollary to the triple talaq issue in the the Bill to ban the same. Nikah halala is validated by Section 2 of the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, 1937 which ensures that marriages in the Muslim community are governed by the Muslim Personal Laws. Islamic clerics and the All India Muslim Personal Law Board have argued that abolishing the nikah halala would mean destroying an essential tenet of Islamic law. But the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, a constituent of the AIMPLB, did agree that the Jaipur womans case was that of rape. All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen president Asaduddin Owaisi, one of the more modern faces of Muslim politics, too spoke out against abolishing both this practice and triple talaq. A year and a half after it struck down the practice of triple talaq, the Supreme Court is still to pronounce verdicts on polygamy, nikah halala, nikah mutah (temporary marriage) and nikah misyar (an impermanent travel marriage). In addition to Sameena Begum's petition, six more pleas have been filed in the court by victims Nafisa Begum, Sabnam, Zakira Begum and Farzana, and two advocates, Ashwini Upadhyay and Mohsin Kathiri. The government has told the apex court that it supports the abolition "in theory" but is yet to take a stand in court. While Parsis, Christians and Hindus have all enjoyed changes in their personal laws, the Muslim issue remains one that successive governments and even the decidedly Hindutva-adhering BJP one is doggedly trying to avoid taking a firm stand on. Hours after sunset, just as the clock struck nine at the only lodge in Mayodia, loud mechanical groans confirmed the shutting down of the diesel-powered generators, cutting electricity supply to all light bulbs and, more importantly, the water heaters. Off the power grid entirely, the hill town of Mayodia in Arunachal Pradesh sits 8,710 feet above the sea level, overlooking ice-capped Chinese peaks and hosting (beyond the hundreds of exotic bird species) just a handful of intrepid tourists in sub-zero temperatures. Keep the camera batteries under your pillow at night to preserve charge in the cold, I was told, after a mere 20-minute expedition to find the Himalayan Wool Owl in the dark. But as drained as my camera batteries were after my brief meeting with the clearly-irked owl, my tour of the almost-mythical land of Lower Dibang Valley the tenth least populous district in the country had just begun. Above photo: The Himalayan Wood Owl (Strix nivicolum) Consisting of the Mishmi Hills a southward extension of the Great Himalayan Mountain Ranges beside the Chinese border and the town of Roing in the lower plains, the district boasts of hosting over 680 species of birds, including the elusive Sclater's monal, the Ward's trogon and the Fire-tailed myzornis. Although my maiden birding experience did not lead me to spot any of them, I still managed to catch sight of scores of bird species that I had previously only heard stories of. Here are a few of them (captions follow images) The Tamil Nadu government also announced a number of initiatives in various sectors, including implementing a Rs 2,000 crore comprehensive parking management project in state capital Chennai Chennai: The Tamil Nadu government on Friday proposed no new taxes in the state budget for the financial year 2019-20 and an assurance that the revenue deficit will come down in the coming years. In the budget presented by deputy chief minister O Panneerselvam, who holds the Finance portfolio, the government proposed a revenue deficit estimated at around Rs 14,300 crore. Despite the "adverse" impact of "reduced' inter-se share in devolution due to 14th Finance Commission recommendations, the state could implement the Ujjawal Discom Assurance Yojana (UDAY) scheme and pay revision, he said. The growth in State's Own Tax Revenue (SOTR) in 2017-18 was 9.07 percent and this was expected to exceed 14 percent during the current fiscal year. "Due to the positive trends in tax receipts, the revenue deficit for the year 2019-20 is expected to come down to Rs 14,315 crore as against the projected revenue deficit of Rs 19,319 crore in Revised Estimates 2018-19," he said. "With higher SOTR growth, coupled with the phasing out of the impact of UDAY and pay revision, the state expects to bring down the revenue deficit in the coming years," Panneerselvam said. The per capita income of the state has increased from Rs 1.03 lakh in 2011-12 to Rs 1.42 lakh in 2017-18 in real terms, he added. The government also announced a number of initiatives in various sectors including implementing a Rs 2,000 crore comprehensive parking management project in Chennai city. It will have underground parking facilities, multilevel parking facilities and on-lane smart parking to accommodate two lakh four-wheelers and an equal number of two-wheelers, Panneerselvam said. The government will take up construction of one lakh concrete houses to replace huts damaged in the Gaja cyclone in November last year, at an estimated Rs 1,700 crore with a central share of Rs 720 crore. For the farm sector, the government said it will during 2019-20, notify more crops and expand the coverage under crop insurance. "Further, cloud burst and natural fire will also be included in localised calamities in addition to hailstorm, landslide and inundation," among others, Panneerselvam said. On the ambitious Athikadavu-Avinashi water scheme, he said the government will commence it "soon," adding, a sum of Rs 1,000 crore has been provided in the next year's Budget estimates for the purpose. A comprehensive solid waste management project and a housing scheme for urban poor to construct 38,000 tenements for Chennai were also proposed. On the energy front, the state-run TANGEDCO will be establishing floating solar power projects in Theni, Salem and Erdoe with a capacity of 250 MW at an estimated Rs 1,125 crore, he said. The recently unveiled Tamil Nadu Solar Energy Policy 2019 will increase the solar power generation capacity to 9,000 MW by 2023, the deputy chief minister said. Touching upon the Chennai Metro Rail, he said Phase-I of the project covering two corridors running to 45 kilometres will be fully commissioned by this month while its extension was expected to be on stream by June. A feasibility study was being taken up for the extension of Metro rail line from Meenambakkam Airport to Kilambakkam metro bus terminus in the southern suburbs, he added. In the tourism sector, the government will launch a "massive" promotion project by identifying specific circuits for western, Asian and domestic tourists with quality amenities and infrastructure. Tourism-centric infrastructure like logistics and hotels will be upgraded under the Private-Public-Partnership mode, Panneerselvam informed. Talking about liquor sales, Panneerselvam mentioned that the number of retail Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IFML) shops run by Tamil Nadu Marketing State Marketing Corporation (TASMAC) has been reduced from 7,896 to 5,198. It may be recalled that closure of liquor shops in a phased manner was the AIADMK's poll promise in the 2016 Assembly elections. Incidentally, sale of liquor through such state-run outlets is a huge revenue grosser for the government. The government will procure 2,000 new electric buses, besides 12,000 new BS-VI vehicles, at an outlay of Rs 5,890 crore with KfW loan assistance, he said. The government will introduce 2,000 BS-VI buses in the state, besides rolling out 500 electric vehicles in Chennai, Coimbatore and Madurai, in the first phase. The Supreme Court on Friday asked former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt to approach the Gujarat High Court with the petition seeking security to his family. The Supreme Court on Friday asked former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt to approach the Gujarat High Court with the petition seeking security to his family. Bhatt filed the petition after his wife Shweta and son sustained minor injuries in a car accident on 7 January in Ahmedabad. A bench of Justice AK Sikri and Justice S Abdul Nazeer refused to entertain Bhatt's plea seeking security measures for his family. Supreme Court asks former IPS Sanjiv Bhatt to approach the Gujarat High Court with his petition seeking security to his family after a recent accident involving his wife and son. ANI (@ANI) February 8, 2019 On 7 January, Shweta put up a Facebook post detailing the event during which a truck rammed into the car in which she and her son were travelling. Both of them sustained minor injuries. The truck had a "beacon light" but no number plate, National Herald reported. The report added that the truck driver had not been carrying documents and claimed that he "had been hired by a contractor of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC)". However, The Indian Express reported that the driver had been dismissed by the AMC on 12 January. Bhatt, who was driving, in the post said, A yellow-coloured AMC dumper came from behind and hit my car sideways from the right. Earlier on 4 October, the apex court had dismissed Shweta's plea challenging the police probe and Bhatt's judicial custody in a 22-year-old case of alleged planting of drugs to arrest an advocate. The top court had said that he could approach an "appropriate forum" for relief. A bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and justices SK Kaul and KM Joseph had said the petition can be moved before the Gujarat High Court. The petition had also alleged that Bhatt was not being allowed to sign any document in custody to enable him to approach the top court. Bhatt and seven others, including some former policemen attached with the Banaskantha Police, were initially detained for questioning in the case. The Supreme Court on Friday sought a response from the Centre on a fresh plea challenging its decision to grant 10 percent reservation in jobs and admissions to economically weak general category candidates. New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday sought a response from the Centre on a fresh plea challenging its decision to grant 10 percent reservation in jobs and admissions to economically weak general category candidates. A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi also made it clear that there shall be no stay on the decision to grant quota to candidates. The apex court, which had earlier issued a notice to the Centre on similar petitions, on Friday ordered the tagging of the fresh plea of Tehseen Poonawalla with pending ones. Petitions have been filed by parties, including 'Janhit Abhiyan' and NGO 'Youth For Equality', challenging the Centre's decision. The petition, filed by Youth For Equality through its president Kaushal Kant Mishra, has sought the quashing of the bill, saying that the economic criterion cannot be the sole basis for reservation and that the bill violates basic feature of the Constitution as reservation on economic grounds cannot be limited to the general category and the overall 50 percent ceiling limit cannot be breached. The fresh filed by businessman Poonawalla has sought quashing the bill, saying that backwardness for the purpose of reservation cannot be defined by "economic status alone". Raphael Samuel writes that he didn't understand why the human race was propagating 'a ridiculous way of life'. Raphael Samuel not the British Marxist historian, but a 27-year-old Mumbai resident recently made headlines in the Indian and international press, after announcing that he would be suing his parents for giving birth to him. Samuel told the BBC that he hadn't yet found a lawyer to take on his case; Samuel's parents incidentally are both lawyers, and his mother issued a statement expressing appreciation for his decision. The reports on Samuel have ranged from explanations of antinatalism ("a philosophical position that assigns a negative value to birth") and thinkpieces on suffering-focused ethics to quick lowdowns on better understanding the case, and exhortations to his parents to countersue Samuel instead. There has even been some discussion on the legal merits of his case, if Samuel was inspired by Lebanese filmmaker Nadine Labaki's 2018 Oscar-nominated movie Capharnaum (in which the child protagonist sues his family "for giving him life in the first place"), and whether or not he is "a liberal". Firstpost reached out to Samuel (who posts updates on his case and antinatalism on his Facebook page) for an interview; however, he chose to share this short note instead, explaining his position and his decision to sue. Samuel wrote: "The idea the our parents are doing us a favour by having us is a ridiculous one. I have always found it so. Tell me, if I invent a machine, and then expect it to take care of itself after a certain point, how would it work? It needs to be maintained and oiled and taken care of and repaired. Why doesn't this same logic work with parents and children? First, you have me without my consent in a world like this. Then you'll educate me (something that most children aren't really into). Then, you'll expect me to work and earn my own living and do the same to my child. What a ridiculous way of life! Why propagate this? Consent itself as an idea is new in this sphere. Aren't children the beautiful gift of life? Aren't they "God's gift"? Are they not the mark of love between two people? No! We need to understand this is a sentient being. They feel, they see, they smell, they hear on their own. They have their own machinery. Yes they depend on you, but they also have the right to denounce you. The child has nothing to do with the couple. Most people do not realise that they have had the child to fill some sort of void in their life. So then will the child have a child to fill a void in its own life? What kind of a Ponzi scheme is this? If one has a void, fill it with a car or maybe mediation not a sentient being. The main objective of what I do is to get parents to understand that they need to think a lot before having a child. A child isn't the 'next step' after marriage. If you think before buying a car, please think before having that child. Remember life is a gamble , you're playing the roulette with a thing that can feel pain. Play carefully, but remember, it's you who is playing, not the child who has chosen to." Opposition members were heard shouting slogans demanding resignation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the issue. Opposition parties also demanded constitution of a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) to probe the Rafale fighter jet deal. New Delhi: The Rafale deal issue rocked the Lok Sabha on Friday, with Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman dismissing a media report on the deal as "flogging a dead horse" and lashing out at the Opposition for playing into the hands of vested interests. Amid the Opposition uproar over the Rafale matter, Sitharaman made a suo motu statement on the issue in the House. Immediately after the House convened at noon, members from Congress, TMC and TDP jumped in the Well shouting slogans and showing placards referring to a media report which claimed that the Prime Minister's Office had interfered in price negotiations in the multi-billion deal to procure Rafale jets. Opposition members were heard shouting slogans demanding resignation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the issue. Opposition parties also demanded constitution of a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) to probe the Rafale fighter jet deal. Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan asked the protesting members to go to their seats as she would allow them to speak on the matter. Referring to the media report, Saugata Roy (TMC) alleged that parallel negotiations were on when the defence ministry's negotiating committee was handling the matter. He also alleged that "notorious" National Security Advisor Ajit Doval was conducting parallel negotiations in Paris, undermining the bargaining power of the government. "It concerns national security... Modi is destroying the defence of the country and undermining negotiations... Why did PMO interfere? Rafale stands out to be a biggest scandal," he charged. Intervening in the matter, Mahajan said a newspaper will write anything and "you are raising the issue". Sticking to the demand for constitution of JPC, Leader of Congress in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge dubbed the government as anti-national. "You (government) are anti-national. You indulged in stealing but are instead blaming us... You are buying only 26 jets as against 126," Kharge said. He alleged that the defence minister and the prime minister's office were fighting on the issue and the matter has come out in newspaper also. "That is why you need to constitute JPC as the reality will come out. All files would come to JPC. We do not want any other explanation. We do not want to listen to anything," he said. On this, the Speaker said discussion has already been conducted on the matter. Union minister Narendra Singh Tomar said the government participated in the discussion and point by point answers were given by the defence minister. He said it was not good to stall Lok Sabha proceedings like this and that the media report was not correct. Amid the shouting and sloganeering, Sitharaman entered the House and made a suo motu statement. "They are flogging a dead horse. Periodical enquiries by the PMO cannot be construed as interference," she said during the Zero Hour. The defence minister charged the Opposition with playing into the the hands of multinational companies and vested interests, and not working in the interests of the Indian Air Force. Referring to the report, which claimed that the then defence secretary had objected to the PMO allegedly conducting price negotiations with the French company, Sitharaman said the then defence minister Manohar Parrikar had replied to the letter asking the official to remain "calm" as everything was "alright". Sitharaman also alleged that the then Chairperson of the National Advisory Council Sonia Gandhi used to run the PMO regularly during the UPA regime. "Was that not interference?," she asked. Rafale deal LIVE updates: 'I say with great assurance and guarantee that there was no interference from Prime Ministers office with the Indian negotiating team,' Air Marshal SBP Sinha, who was the former head of price negotiation committee in the Rafale deal said. Auto refresh feeds The report in The Hindu has opened a can of worms for the Centre. Battling allegations of irregularities in Parliament, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that the then defence minister "Manohar Parrikar ji replied to that MoD note. He said there was nothing to be worried about, everything is going alright. Now, what do you call the NAC led by Sonia Gandhi's interference in earlier PMO? What was that?" Instead of clarifying current government's stance on the latest allegation, Sitharaman countered it by alleging that Sonia Gandhi pulled a similar stunt with the NAC. "It's like flogging a dead horse," Sitharaman told Lok Sabha. Last year, the government had told the Supreme Court that the PM's Office had no role in the negotiations for Rafale that was carried out by a seven-member team. As The Hindu report on the Rafale deal gave more ammunition to the Opposition against the government in Lok Sabha, Sitharaman accused The Hindu of biased reporting, saying it should have published Parrikars response as well. "Such selective noting and building an issue out of this is completely uncalled for," said Sitharaman. The note, however, still could not clarify as to why there were parallel parleys happening on the same issue. ANI has accessed the then defence minister Manohar Parrikars reply to the Ministry of Defence's dissent note on Rafale negotiations, where Parrikar says that "para 5 appears to be an over reaction." Parrikar, in response to defence ministry's note, said that the PMO and French president's office were monitoring the issue "which was an outcome of the summit meeting". According to Sitharamn and documents accessed by ANI, Parrikar responded by saying "that the PMO and French president's office were monitoring the issue." ANI released the same letter but along with Parrikar's response at the end of the letter which is missing in The Hindu copy of the same letter. The note dated 24 November, 2015 brought to the attention of the then Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar that the PMO's position was "contradictory to the stand taken by MoD and the negotiating team" and it is "desirable that such discussions be avoided by the PMO as it undermines our negotiating position seriously". The strongly-worded 2015 note prepared by then Defence Secretary, G Mohan Kumar, further states: "In case the PMO is not confident about the outcome of negotiations being carried out by the MoD, a revised modality of negotiations to be led by PMO at appropriate level may be adopted in the case," the note further says. Last year, the government had told the Supreme Court that the PM's Office had no role in the negotiations for Rafale that was carried out by a seven-member team. However, Congress is raising a larger point. The fact that a defence secretary has noted PMO's "interference" and Parrikar, too, in his response is not denying the involvement, leaves several questions unanswered. The letter (with ANI watermark) reportedly shows the entire letter with Manohar Parrikar's response in the end, meanwhile the letter accessed by The Hindu shows the letter without Parrikar's response. Air Marshal SBP Sinha, who was the former head of price negotiation committee in the Rafale deal told CNN-News18: "I can confirm that there was no interference in the price negotiations. The minutes of the meetings are available on record and whatever decisions were taken were arrived at by the negotiation committee collectively." The Bharatiya Janata Party tweeted out Nirmala Sitharaman's speech 'debunking' the controversy over Rafale deal, adding that it was incumbent upon The Hindu newspaper to include the full note but they omitted Parrikar's response. "The context is there in the newspaper. Whatever has been brought out (in the newspaper), it has nothing to do with pricing. Negotiations are not just for pricing but other things also. It was about sovereign guarantees and general terms and conditions," he elaborated. "It was about sovereign guarantees and general terms and conditions," Kumar told ANI when asked if he remembered the context of the note. Former Defence Secretary G Mohan Kumar said that the MoD dissent note at the heart of the controversy had nothing to do with the pricing issue; it concerned sovereign guarantee aspect of the negotiations. The then Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar had replied to the MoD dissent note that the PMO and French President Office were then monitoring the progress of the deal, which he said, was an outcome of the summit meeting. He also termed defence secretary's diisent an 'overreaction'. Defence Secretary at the time G Mohan Kumar told India Today that it was Ministry of Defence alone that negotiated price of the Rafale deal, and not the Prime Minister's Office. He said that his dissenting note was only regarding parallel discussions on sovereign guarantees. The Rafale row has affected the functioning of the Parliament as well. The Congress MPs have walked out of the Lok Sabha shouting slogans against the prime minister. It said that it was Doval who advised Parrikar on doing away with a sovereign guarantee or bank guarantee for the Rafale deal, and this was also recorded by the then defence minister in a file noting. The Hindu investigation that has kicked up a fresh political storm around Rafale deal said that this is not the only instance of parallel negotiations in which the Indian side took contrary positions. The report claimed that it has already been reported elsewhere that the National Security Adviser, Ajit Doval, negotiated with the French side in Paris in January 2016 and The Hindu has access to documentation that confirms this. The then French Prime Minister Manuel Valls had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2016 saying that 'their govt would fully back the obligations made by their firms in the contract. On missing out Parrikar's note, Ram said that the latter version of the letter only verifies his story as Parrikar indeed referred the defence secretary with his grievances to the PMO, which means he was holding parlays behind the back of the committee. The Hindu's editor and author of the Rafale story, N Ram rubbished the allegations that his story fell short on adhering to ethical journalistic standards. Speaking to Times Now, Ram said that his story does have all the relevant facts on the 'parallel negotiations' by the PMO. He said that nobody can have the last word on the story yet as it was an ongoing investigation. "We carried the story with whatever we had. Nobody can have everything," he said. Former French Prime Minister Manuel Valls had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2016, saying that 'their government would fully back the obligations made by their firms in the contract, reported ANI. Air Marshal SBP Sinha, who was the former head of price negotiation committee in the Rafale deal spoke to Times Now. He said that he was shocked o see that such a move to malign the 'excellent procurement' was made from within the Ministry of Defence. He said, the note was not initiated by the negotiations committee, it was written by SK Sharma. "It has been initiated by SK Sharma, who was not part of Indian negotiation team. On whose behest he initiated this note?" On a question related to the issue over sovereign guarantee, Sinha said that in previous government to government defence deals too, no such clause was included. He gave the example of Russia and US, stating that neither countries provided a bank or sovereign guarantee when India procured defence equipment from them. " I say with great assurance and guarantee that there was no interference from Prime Ministers office with the Indian negotiating team," Air Marshal SBP Sinha, who was the former head of price negotiation committee in the Rafale deal said. It said that it was Doval who advised Parrikar on doing away with a sovereign guarantee or bank guarantee for the Rafale deal, and this was also recorded by the then defence minister in a file noting. The Hindu investigation that has kicked up a fresh political storm around Rafale deal said that this is not the only instance of parallel negotiations in which the Indian side took contrary positions. The report claimed that it has already been reported elsewhere that the National Security Adviser, Ajit Doval, negotiated with the French side in Paris in January 2016 and The Hindu has access to documentation that confirms this. This document released by ANI shows defence minister Parikkar told defence secretary to take instructions from PMO on some critical Rafale deal issues. So it is proved that PMO was conducting parallel negotiations. Why doesn't PMO admit publicly? Did they tell SC? pic.twitter.com/RfAfEHjO4K The then French Prime Minister Manuel Valls had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2016 saying that 'their govt would fully back the obligations made by their firms in the contract'. #RafaleDeal pic.twitter.com/G4Sz4ejzzO The then French Prime Minister Manuel Valls had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2016 saying that 'their govt would fully back the obligations made by their firms in the contract. On missing out Parrikar's note, Ram said that the latter version of the letter only verifies his story as Parrikar indeed referred the defence secretary with his grievances to the PMO, which means he was holding parlays behind the back of the committee. The Hindu's editor and author of the Rafale story, N Ram rubbished the allegations that his story fell short on adhering to ethical journalistic standards. Speaking to Times Now, Ram said that his story does have all the relevant facts on the 'parallel negotiations' by the PMO. He said that nobody can have the last word on the story yet as it was an ongoing investigation. "We carried the story with whatever we had. Nobody can have everything," he said. In the light of todays expose on Rafale, independent CBI shud raid PMO, seize all the files related to Rafale and make arrests just like they raided my office and residence and Kolkatta police commissioner. Former French Prime Minister Manuel Valls had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2016, saying that 'their government would fully back the obligations made by their firms in the contract, reported ANI. Air Marshal SBP Sinha, who was the former head of price negotiation committee in the Rafale deal spoke to Times Now. He said that he was shocked o see that such a move to malign the 'excellent procurement' was made from within the Ministry of Defence. He said, the note was not initiated by the negotiations committee, it was written by SK Sharma. "It has been initiated by SK Sharma, who was not part of Indian negotiation team. On whose behest he initiated this note?" On a question related to the issue over sovereign guarantee, Sinha said that in previous government to government defence deals too, no such clause was included. He gave the example of Russia and US, stating that neither countries provided a bank or sovereign guarantee when India procured defence equipment from them. " I say with great assurance and guarantee that there was no interference from Prime Ministers office with the Indian negotiating team," Air Marshal SBP Sinha, who was the former head of price negotiation committee in the Rafale deal said. "The lie-manufacturing factory of Rahul Gandhi continues to operate and he has served us yet another lie. We absolutely reject his allegations," Union minister Prakash Javadekar told reporters. PTI BJP described Rahul Gandhi's allegations against Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Rafale deal as "yet another lie from his lie-manufacturing factory" and accused the Congress president of working at the behest of foreign forces for the cancellation of the fighter aircraft deal. N Ram, Chairman of The Hindu Group: I dont need any certificate from Nirmala Sitharaman. Now they are in big trouble&trying to cover up. My only advice to her would be, You are not involved in transaction, why you take upon yourself the burden of justifying the indefensible?' pic.twitter.com/dzde151bZo Rafale deal LATEST updates: "I say with great assurance and guarantee that there was no interference from Prime Ministers office with the Indian negotiating team," Air Marshal SBP Sinha, who was the former head of price negotiation committee in the Rafale deal said. On a question related to the issue over sovereign guarantee, Sinha said that in previous government to government defence deals too, no such clause was included. He gave the example of Russia and US, stating that neither countries provided a bank or sovereign guarantee when India procured defence equipment from them. On missing out Parrikar's note, N Ram said that the latter version of the letter only verifies his story as Parrikar indeed referred the defence secretary with his grievances to the PMO, which means he was holding parlays behind the back of the committee. The Hindu investigation that has kicked up a fresh political storm around Rafale deal said that it was NSA Ajit Doval who advised Parrikar on doing away with a sovereign guarantee or bank guarantee for the Rafale deal, and this was also recorded by the then defence minister in a file noting. Air Marshal SBP Sinha, who was the former head of price negotiation committee in the Rafale deal told CNN-News18: "I can confirm that there was no interference in the price negotiations. The minutes of every meeting with french delegation are available on record and whatever decisions were taken were arrived at by the negotiation committee collectively." The Bharatiya Janata Party tweeted out Nirmala Sitharaman's speech 'debunking' the controversy over Rafale deal, adding that it was incumbent upon The Hindu newspaper to include the full note but they omitted Parrikar's response. The note - dated 24 November, 2015 brought to the attention of the then Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar that the PMO's position was "contradictory to the stand taken by MoD and the negotiating team" and it is "desirable that such discussions be avoided by the PMO as it undermines our negotiating position seriously". According to Sitharamn and documents accessed by ANI, Parrikar responded by saying "that the PMO and French president's office were monitoring the issue." ANI released the same letter but along with Parrikar's response at the end of the letter which is missing in The Hindu copy of the same letter. As The Hindu report on the Rafale deal gave more ammunition to the Opposition against the government in Lok Sabha, Sitharaman accused The Hindu of biased reporting, saying it should have published Parrikars response as well. "Such selective noting and building an issue out of this is completely uncalled for," said Sitharaman. Last year, the government had told the Supreme Court that the PM's Office had no role in the negotiations for Rafale that was carried out by a seven-member team. A news report on a defence ministry note that said Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Office conducted "parallel negotiations" with France on the multi-billion dollar Rafale fighter jet deal and the ministry had strong objections to it, triggered a huge political row today. As Congress chief Rahul Gandhi said the report by The Hindu established that the "Chowkidaar is a chor" and his party demanded a Joint Parliamentary Committee probe into the deal, defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the Congress was "flogging a dead horse". The proceedings of Lok Sabha were on Friday adjourned for nearly 50 minutes after the entire Opposition trooped into the well raising slogans on the Rafale jet deal issue. As soon as the House took up Question Hour at 11 am, members from Congress, the Left, Trinamool Congress and TDP rushed into the Well holding placards of a newspaper clipping which claimed the Defence Ministry had protested to the PMO the mechanism being adopted for Rafale deal. As members shouted slogans against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Speaker adjourned the House till noon at around 11.05 am. Earlier Speaker Sumitra Mahajan told members that she would allow them to raise the issue after Question Hour. But the opposition persisted with its protest. Nitish Kumar has been accused by opposition leaders, especially Lalu Prasad's younger son Tejashwi Yadav, of keeping silent over allegations against the accused in the Muzaffarpur shelter home scandal. Patna: RJD national president Lalu Prasad on Thursday flayed his arch-rival and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar over the Supreme Court's order to transfer the Muzaffarpur shelter home rape case to a POCSO court in Delhi. The apex court on Thursday came down heavily on the Bihar government for its management of 16 shelter homes in the state, other than that at Muzaffarpur, and warned that unsatisfactory response of its queries will force it to summon the chief secretary. A bench, headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, directed the Bihar government to render all assistance in the smooth transfer of the Muzaffarpur case within two weeks. Prasad, who is serving sentences in a number of fodder scam cases and lodged in a Ranchi hospital for his ailments, came out with tweets offering his take on the embarrassment caused to the Bihar government. Taking to Twitter, the RJD chief wrote in local dialect of Bhojpuri "ka ho Nitish, kuchh sharm bachal ba ki naahi" (Nitish, are you left with any shame). In another tweet, the RJD supremo said, "habitual protectors of rapists of Bihar will keep quiet. Chupppp". Kumar has been accused by opposition leaders, especially Prasad's younger son Tejashwi Yadav, of keeping silent over allegations against the accused in the scandal. The case had come to light in 2018 when a report of the social audit conducted by Mumbai-based Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) flagged sexual abuse of inmates at the Muzaffarpur shelter home. An FIR was lodged in May last year and a number of persons, including Brajesh Thakur, the owner of the NGO running the shelter home, were arrested by police in connection with the scandal. The matter was handed over to the CBI in July. Shortly afterwards, state social welfare minister Manju Verma stepped down after media reported that her husband had close links with Thakur. Thakur has been shifted to a jail in Patiala following the order of the Supreme Court even as other accused, including his close aides and some government officials, are lodged in jails at Patna and Muzaffarpur. The apex court had recently also directed the CBI to take over the probe into allegations of sexual abuse at all such shelter homes across the state. Controversy around Rafale deal reached a crescendo after an exclusive report on The Hindu claimed that the Defence Ministry reportedly raised 'strong objections' to 'parallel negotiations' undertaken by the Prime Minister's Office with the French in the controversial Rafale deal. Armed with fresh ammunitions following a report in The Hindu on the contentious Rafale fighter jets deal, Congress president Rahul Gandhi minced no words to call Prime Minister Narendra Modi a "thief" and accused him of interference during the negotiation process with France as claimed by the newspaper citing various documents. "Now, it is clear that the prime minister has stolen Rs 30,000 crore of your money and given it to his friend Anil Ambani. It is an open and shut case. The defence ministry has said this itself that the prime minister has interfered. Nirmala Sitharaman and Narendra Modi have lied to you. It is proven that chowkidaar chor hai," Rahul said in a press conference in New Delhi. The Congress president also included the "youths and the soldiers of the country" in his brief statement adding "This is about your future. You defend us, protect us, fight for us, even die for us." The Hindu in an exclusive report claimed that the defence ministry reportedly raised "strong objections" to "parallel negotiations" undertaken by the Prime Minister's Office with the French in the controversial Rafale deal. The Hindu claimed that the French apparently took advantage of parallel parleys by the PMO which in turn weakened India's position. A defence ministry note dated 24 November, 2015, accessed by The Hindu, brought this to the attention of the then defence minister Manohar Parrikar. "We may advise PMO that any Officers who are not part of Indian Negotiating Team may refrain from having parallel parlays (parleys) with the officers of French Government," the note reportedly said, adding "in case the PMO is not confident about the outcome of negotiations being carried out by the MoD, a revised modality of negotiations to be led by PMO at appropriate level may be adopted in the case." The Congress president referred to Modi's Lok Sabha speech on Thursday and said, "Modi made thundering claims. He called us (Opposition) chor, let's see what he has to say now. Bahut lamba bhaashan diya pradhan mantri ji ne kal, ab ispe bhi bolein (The prime minister gave a long speech yesterday, let's hear him speak on this.) "The Centre gave false information even to the Supreme Court. The top court's judgement on Rafale should be re-considered," Rahul said, reiterating the party's demand for an independent Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC). "We have been saying this for a year, Narendra Modi is directly involved in the scam. Now, it is all in front of you in black and white," he said. The Supreme Court in December, 2018 said it cannot embark on a judicial review into the deal for procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets on the basis of petitions, which seem to have been spurred by a media interview of former French president Francois Hollande and press coverage alleging "favouritism" by the Modi government. The Hindu report quotes official documents where the defence ministry protested that the position taken by the PMO was "contradictory to the stand taken by the Ministry of Defence and the negotiating team." "The then Defence Secretary G Mohan Kumar made this official notation in his own hand: 'RM may pl. see. It is desirable that such discussions be avoided by the PMO as it undermines our negotiating position seriously.'" Rahul quoted the above section and said that the note can't be stronger. It should be noted that this is not the first instance where the Indian side took contrary positions on the deal. In a December, 2018 report, The Caravan reported how National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and the Union Cabinet undermined Indian interests in the deal. Doval, reportedly, negotiated with the French side in Paris in January 2016. Doval's advice to Parrikar on doing away with a sovereign guarantee or bank guarantee for the Rafale deal was also recorded in a file noting. This will be Mahinda Rajapaksa's second visit to India within the last six months. In September, he visited New Delhi and met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Colombo: Sri Lanka's Opposition leader Mahinda Rajapaksa is set to visit India, his office has said. This will be Rajapaksa's first overseas tour since being appointed as the Leader of the Opposition last month. He will leave Friday on an official tour to India, his office said. Rajapaksa is to deliver a lecture on Sri Lanka-India relations in Bangalore, it added. This will be his second visit to India within the last six months. In September, he visited New Delhi and met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Rajapaksa was controversially appointed the prime minister by President Maithripala Sirisena in late October, triggering an unprecedented constitutional crisis which lasted for over 50 days. The Supreme Court later restored of Ranil Wickremesinghe as prime minister. According to the official handout released by the state Department of Information and Public Relations, the headquarters of this division will be in Leh. The government has also approved creation of the posts of Divisional Commissioner (Ladakh), Leh and Inspector General of Police (Ladakh), Leh. A committee led by the principal secretary of planning will also be set up to finalise details on staffing, posts, responsibilities and location of offices The government on Friday approved the creation of a separate administrative or revenue division for Ladakh which will comprise of Leh and Kargil districts. Till now, Ladakh was part of the Kashmir division of Jammu and Kashmir and administratively managed through the Leh and Kargil Autonomous Hill Councils. The state will now have three divisions Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh. According to the official handout released by the state Department of Information and Public Relations, the headquarters of this division will be in Leh. The government has also approved creation of the posts of Divisional Commissioner (Ladakh), Leh and Inspector General of Police (Ladakh), Leh. A committee led by the principal secretary of planning will also be set up to finalise details on staffing, posts, responsibilities and location of offices. There have been persistent demands for a separate division taking into account the tough topographic or geographical conditions of the region and its unique cultural status. The government statement also wrote about the long-standing demand and how it deserved a special treatment due to its distance from capital Srinagar. A report had earlier remarked how cutting across religious lines, people of Jammu and Ladakh regions were unhappy with the state government's excessive focus on the Kashmir. It also talked about how people of these two regions are hostage to the violence in Kashmir. The government order says that Ladakh is one of the most sparsely populated regions in Jammu and Kashmir and located on the highest plateau in the state, with most of it being 9,800 feet above sea level. It remains landlocked for nearly six months in a year and connectivity to Leh is possible only via air travel. No wonder then that it is riddled with insurmountable problems such as delivery of developmental schemes, redressal of public grievances and conduct of administrative affairs. "The powers of local governance have already been decentralised by formation of Hill Development Councils for the Leh and Kargil Districts," the order stated. Under the Jammu and Kashmir Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council Act, 1997, the Hill Development Councils were established both for Leh and Kargil Districts. In order to strengthen the respective Hill Development Councils of Leh and Kargil, the Act was further amended further in 2018 to give them more powers. It should be noted that making Ladakh a separate division comes months before the Lok Sabha polls. There is speculation that the move may also have to do with the NDA government's fears of a decline in its popularity in both the Jammu and Ladakh regions, both of which had previously voted for it. LAHDC's chief executive councillor Jamyang Tsering Namgyal was earlier quoted in a report by India Today saying they wanted administrative autonomy and separation from Kashmir. He accused the National Conference (NC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) regimes of discrimination. Meanwhile, former state chief minister and NC chief Omar Abdullah also said on Friday that his party will grant division status to Pir Panjal and Chenab Valley too if the party comes to power. With inputs from agencies Rajeev Kumar will be interrogated by CBI sleuths at two locations: in the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) office and at an undisclosed location Shillong: Kolkata police commissioner Rajeev Kumar reached Shillong, Meghalaya's capital city, Friday to face questioning by the CBI for his alleged role in destroying evidence in the Saradha chit fund scam, an official said here. Kumar will be interrogated by CBI sleuths at two locations: in the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) office and at an undisclosed location, he said. He is accompanied by three IPS officers of the Kolkata Police. "Kumar has been lodged in a top hotel in the city. The state police is giving security cover to him," the senior Home Department official told PTI. A group of CBI sleuths are coming from Delhi to question him and they are scheduled to reach here Friday night. The Supreme Court Tuesday directed the Kolkata Police commissioner to appear before the CBI and "faithfully" cooperate into the investigation of cases arising out of the Saradha chit fund scam, while making it clear that he will not be arrested. The CBI had alleged in the Supreme Court that Kumar, who was leading the SIT probe into Saradha chit fund scam, tampered with the electronic evidence and handed over documents to the agency some of which were "doctored". The apex court directed him to appear before the investigating agency at a neutral place in Shillong "to avoid all unnecessary controversy". The CBI officials had gone to Kumar's residence to question him on Sunday but their attempt was resisted by the Kolkata Police, following which Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee staged a dharna for three days "to save the Constitution". Supporters of bishop Franco Mulakkal, including Kerala MLA PC George, are claiming that intervention of gangster Ravi Pujari in the Kerala nun rape case, is a vindication of their allegation that the rape charge is part of a conspiracy to destroy the bishop Kerala independent legislator PC Georges claim that gangster Ravi Pujari had threatened to murder one of his sons because of his support to Jalandhar bishop Franco Mulakkal in the nuns rape case has given a new twist to the sensational case rocking the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church. George, who has been pointing fingers at the nuns, ever since the rape survivor filed a complaint with the Kerala police in June 2018, said he had received two Internet calls from a person who introduced himself as Ravi Pujari in a mix of English and Hindi and a third call from a person who spoke fluent Malayalam. The Intelligence Bureau (IB) has confirmed that the calls were made by the gangster from South Africa but denied any knowledge about the contents of the conversation. The agency found this while examining Pujari's phone call records after he was arrested by the Senegal police on 22 January. Pujari, a member of the Chotta Rajan gang, is wanted in India for a number of cases including extortion, kidnapping and murder. The Government of India has launched the process to get him extradited from Senegal. Pujari is also wanted by the Kerala Police in connection with a shooting incident on 15 December, 2018, at a beauty parlour owned by actor Maria Paul in Kochi. Police investigation revealed that the shooting incident was intended to claim Rs 19 crores from the actress to settle a debt with a client of the gangster. The MLA, who has reportedly received the calls on 11 and 12 January, 2019, alleged that the callers had asked him to recant his defence of the bishop. Supporters of the bishop, as well as George, now claim that the intervention of the gangster is a vindication of their allegation that the rape charge levelled by the nun, who belongs to Jalandhar-based Missionaries of Jesus, is part of a conspiracy to destroy the bishop. George Joseph, a former superintendent of police and a strong defender of the bishop, claims that Pujari may have intervened against the bishop as a campaign launched by the Jalandhar diocese against the drug mafia had hurt him and his clients. He alleged that the gangster might have used the nuns to trap the bishop. "I have reason to doubt since the Kerala Police case against the bishop is very weak. The evidence they have gathered so far is not enough to prosecute him. The nuns and their supporters know this and, therefore, I am not surprised if they are trying pressure tactics, he added. Kennedy Karimpinkalayil of the Save Syro Malabar Church Forum said that the huge amount being spent by the nuns and their supporters for organising campaigns against the bishop and the church was proof of external support they have been getting. He also pointed out an international video conference held by Father Augustine Vattoly, former convenor of the Save our Sisters Forum as a proof of the international connections of the nuns team. He alleged that the priest, who was served with a show cause notice for his anti-church activities, had maligned the image of the church at the conference. However, George Joseph of the Kerala Church Reform Movement (KCRM), which is supporting the nuns, said the conference was organised by KCRMs unit in the US to rally support for the nuns and it had nothing to do with any international agencies trying to destroy the Jalandhar bishop. Joseph ( from KCRM) said that the entry of the underworld don in the scene could be part of the attempt by the bishop and his supporters to torpedo the case. He said that there was enough ground to suspect that the supporters of the bishop may have hired Pujari to meet their ends. The nuns and their supporters are poor and respectable people. We have no money or connections with criminal gangs to hire a gangster like Pujari. On the contrary, the bishop and their supporters have no dearth of money or connections, he said pointing out that the nuns were offered Rs 5 crores and 10 acres of land in Kerala to withdraw the case. Agreeing with Joseph (from KCRM), senior lawyer MS Saji said that the bishop and his supporters have been trying all tactics to put the nuns under pressure. The present attempt could be to create confusion and earn sympathy for the bishop. Saji also slammed former SP George for commenting about the merit of the case which is under sub-judice. I have high respect for (former SP) Joseph. (But) he has forgotten the ethics in his attempt to defend the bishop blindly as a devout Catholic, Saji said. Saji said that those backing the nuns are respectable people in the society and they have been fighting for a just cause. Bracketing them with criminal gangs is very sad. It was least expected from a person who held a high position in the police, he added. Vaikom DSP K Subhash, also the investigating officer in the case, said that the police had not come across any external agency supporting the nuns in their investigations so far. If the MLA has any complaint about any external agency trying to trap the bishop, we will investigate it. As of now, we have a clear case of rape against the bishop. Those who are claiming that the bishop was trapped by the nuns will get enough opportunity to prove their point when the case goes for trial, he said. The police officer said that the charge sheet in the case was ready and they were awaiting the approval of the prosecutor for filing it in the court. He said that they are hopeful of filing the charge sheet within a month. Pakistan on Thursaday said it will send a delegation to India next month to discuss and finalise draft agreement for setting up a corridor to facilitate visit of Sikh pilgrims to the Gurdwara Kartarpur Sahib Gurudwara. Islamabad: Pakistan on Thursaday said it will send a delegation to India next month to discuss and finalise draft agreement for setting up a corridor to facilitate visit of Sikh pilgrims to the Gurdwara Kartarpur Sahib Gurudwara. India and Pakistan agreed to open up a special border crossing linking Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Pakistan's Kartarpur - the final resting place of Sikh faith's founder Guru Nanak Dev - to Dera Baba Nanak shrine in India's Gurdaspur district. Kartarpur Sahib is located in Pakistan's Narowal district across the river Ravi, about four kilometres from the Dera Baba Nanak shrine. Gurdwara Kartarpur Sahib, the first Gurdwara, was established by Guru Nanak Dev in 1522, where he is said to have died. The corridor will facilitate the visa-free travel of Indian Sikh pilgrims to Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Kartarpur. Foreign Office spokesperson Mohammad Faisal announced on social media that Pakistan also proposed a return visit by Indian delegation on 28 March. "In a spirit of constructive engagement, Pakistan has proposed to India that the Pakistan delegation may visit India on 13 March followed by the return visit of the Indian delegation to Pakistan on 28 March to finalise the draft agreement for the Kartarpur corridor," he tweeted. Faisal further said that "we look forward to positive reciprocity from India." Last month, the two countries floated proposals to host talks in order to give the final shape to the agreement. Pakistan has committed to open the corridor in November on the occasion of the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev. Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu and Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh on 26 November last year laid the foundation stone for the Kartarpur corridor in Gurdaspur district. Two days later, Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan laid the foundation stone for the corridor at Narowal, 125 km from Lahore. The decision to build the corridor from Dera Baba Nanak in Gurdaspur district to the International Border was taken by the Union Cabinet on 22 November. The two governments have also launched the construction work to build corridor for the Sikh pilgrims to help them visit the shrine through the shortest route. But, both sides are yet to finalise the modalities of travel of the Indian pilgrims to the Gurudwara across the international border without visa. Northern Railway has demanded Rs 16.43 crore from the Lok Sabha secretariat for running four canteens in Parliament where food prices are significantly low during 2017-18, an RTI query has revealed. This amount was claimed as 'subsidy claim and establishment cost'. Indore: Northern Railway has demanded Rs 16.43 crore from the Lok Sabha secretariat for running four canteens in Parliament where food prices are significantly low during 2017-18, an RTI query has revealed. This amount was claimed as "subsidy claim and establishment cost". A copy of the demand note sent by Northern Railway for running catering units at Parliament House, Parliament House Annexe, Parliament House Reception and Parliament House Library Building was provided under the Right to Information to Neemuch-based RTI activist Chandrashekhar Gaud. Through this note, sent in July 2018, the railways demanded Rs 16,43,90,598 for 2017-18 towards "subsidy claim and establishment cost". As of 16 January 2019, railways had not received payment on these two heads, the RTI reply further said. Replying to another RTI query by Gaud, the Lok Sabha secretariat informed on 11 December 2018, that "subsidy claim...submitted by the Northern Railway Catering Unit, Parliament House Complex, has been sent to the Ministry of Finance for scrutiny and vetting. However, to Gaud's specific query as to how much subsidy Northern Railway demanded on account of the loss suffered due to sale of food at low rates, there was no clear reply. "Separate reimbursement of losses on account of food is not demanded from Lok Sabha Secretariat. Total expenditure on account of food, establishment and other charges etc. is given to Lok Sabha Secretariat for reimbursement," it said. Low food prices at Parliament canteens had been a controversial issue in the past. On 31 December 2015, the Lok Sabha secretariat had informed that these canteens will henceforth operate on No-profit, No-loss" basis from 1 January 2016, and the rates would be hiked accordingly. As per an RTI reply obtained by Gaud in December 2018, a chapati in Parliament canteens cost Rs 2, assorted dal Rs 5, rice Rs 7, kheer and masala dossa Rs 18 each and chicken curry Rs 50. The report in The Hindu on Rafale negotiations makes it crystal clear that after the Modi government came to power the modalities of the negotiation process was abruptly changed to the detriment of Indian interests. The particular example of the feline species known as the Rafale deal is out of the bag again, with a report in The Hindu detailing serious irregularities vitiating its negotiation. This comes after a raft of reports have revealed a mountain of other problems concerning the dodgy deal. The fundamental issue flagged by the report was that the Prime Ministers Office (PMO) began a parallel stream of negotiation which undermined the bargaining position of the ministry of defence team that had thus far been conducting the negotiations. The report shows that the then defence secretary, G Mohan Kumar, protested the PMOs parallel negotiations strenuously, noting: "It is desirable that such discussions be avoided by the PMO as it undermines our negotiating position seriously." Kumar's position was iterated in a note prepared by the deputy secretary (Air-II) and reiterated by the joint secretary and acquisitions manager and the director-general (acquisition). These objections did not appear to have cut any ice with the PMO by all accounts. Until the PMO butted in, without reference to the defence ministry, the deal was being negotiated by the Indian Negotiating Team headed by Air Marshal SBP Sinha. It had no inkling that the PMO had opened its own channel until it received a letter from the head of the French negotiating team, General Stephen Reb, to the effect that a joint secretary in the PMO had had a telephonic conversation with a diplomatic advisor to the French defence minister on 20 October, 2015. It was only when the defence ministry and Sinha separately brought up the French negotiators letter that the PMO confirmed that the conversation had happened and that the French advisor had spoken to the PMO on the advice of the French presidents office to discuss the Rafale deal. It did not, from all accounts, make any reference to who exactly had advised a joint secretary in the PMO to discuss a deal already in an advanced stage of negotiation. Once this telephonic conversation came to light, the defence ministry sent a note, dated 24 November, 2015, to the then Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar bringing this parallel negotiating process to his attention. It said that the ministry ought to advise officials in the PMO who were not part of the negotiating team to refrain from having parallel parleys with the French side. If the PMO was not confident of the outcome of the defence ministrys negotiations, it added, a revised modality of negotiations to be led by the PMO at appropriate level may be adopted. We shall return to this point. The note also pointed out that the parallel negotiations would be detrimental to Indias interests because the French side could take advantage by interpreting such discussions to their benefit, especially so since the PMO was taking positions contrary to that of the official Indian negotiating team. It gave the concrete example of the issue of a sovereign or bank guarantee. The Indian negotiating team had been insisting that the French government provide a sovereign guarantee or a bank guarantee as is the standard operating procedure in inter-governmental defence deals. In his letter, Reb, however, made it clear that no sovereign/bank guarantee had been provisioned in the conversation between the PMO and the French diplomatic advisor. A letter of comfort, which is non-binding unlike a guarantee in the event that the supplier fails to give satisfaction, would provide sufficient assurances of the proper implementation of the supply protocol by the industrial suppliers. National Security Advisor Ajit Doval also pushed this line from the Indian side in another set of parallel negotiations. The PMO also took a contrary, and damaging, position on the arbitration process. The report in The Hindu makes it crystal clear that after the Modi government came to power the modalities of the negotiation process was abruptly changed to the detriment of Indian interests. But this change was not formalised as suggested by the defence ministry, if the PMO was uncertain about the ongoing negotiations. The change was made by stealth. And the government was definitely economical with the truth, as has now come to light, in its submissions to the Supreme Court, in which it claimed, that a seven-member team headed by the deputy chief of air staff had handled the negotiations. In what appears to be a case of convenient amnesia, the government failed to mention the PMOs role in substantially influencing the negotiations by changing protocols established by the negotiating team. in the teeth of the defence ministrys opposition. The question is who authorised at least two parallel tracks of negotiations and why the defence ministry agreed to let the negotiations be hijacked by the PMO? As for the latter question, it is clear that the defence ministry was clear in its objections and that its head, the defence secretary, was categorical in his view that the PMO must not interfere. That can only mean that the defence minister took the call of allowing the PMO in by stealth despite being made aware of its sub rosa role and his ministrys objections. That conclusion, in turn, answers the first question. It could only have been on the authority of the prime minister himself that parallel tracks of negotiations were conducted and it is more than likely that the defence ministers consent to this was obtained on the directives of the same person the prime minister. Given that the deal finally signed by Modi and then French President Francois Hollande, at the very least, was in some ways damaging to Indian interests, its more than time for this government to come clean. It has especially to explain why it made no mention of the PMOs role to the Supreme Court. The report on the Rafale deal on The Hindu, armed with which Congress chief Rahul Gandhi had organised a press conference slamming Prime Minister Narendra Modi, appears to have produced an internal communication between the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and the Defence Ministry only in part. The report on the Rafale deal on The Hindu, armed with which Congress chief Rahul Gandhi had organised a press conference slamming Prime Minister Narendra Modi, appears to have produced an internal communication between the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and the defence ministry only in part. What appears to be the full version of the letter alleges that the defence ministry was in the know about the PMO's involvement in the Rafale deal. However, it does not rule out the PMO's controversial involvement in the negotiations over the fighter jets, as Congress chief Rahul Gandhi pointed out in his press conference. The newspaper had produced a note dated 24 November, 2015, in facsimile. In the portion of the note published, Deputy Secretary (Air-II) SK Sharma can be seen having objected to parallel discussions on the Rafale deal between the PMO and the French side. Such parallel discussions, said the letter, have "weakened the negotiating position of Ministry of Defence and the Indian Negotiating Team." Director general of acquisitions, AR Sinag, on the same date, sent the file for approval by the defence secretary. In an added note, dated 1 December, 2015, then defence secretary G Mohan Kumar says, it is "desirable that such discussions be avoided by the PMO as it undermines our negotiating position seriously." However, in the version of the letter produced in The Hindu, a note that the then defence minister Manohar Parrikar wrote below appears to have been cut off. In the full version of the letter, which has been published on Twitter by ANI, Parrikar wrote another note at the bottom of the last sheet, ostensibly on 11 January, 2016. "It appears that PMO and French President's office are monitoring the progress of the issue which was an outcome of the summit meeting. Para 5 appears to be an overreaction. Def sec may resolve issue/matter in consultation with Pr. Sec to PM," Parrikar seems to have written. Both letters are produced side by side below. Citing the report earlier on Friday, Rahul had said, "Now, it is clear that the prime minister has stolen Rs 30,000 crore of your money and given it to his friend Anil Ambani. It is an open and shut case. The defence ministry has said this itself that the prime minister has interfered." Meanwhile, G Mohan Kumar has said the dissent note had nothing to do with price. "It was about sovereign guarantees and general terms and conditions," he told ANI. Follow LIVE updates of the controversy surrounding the report on the Rafale scam The Congress on Thursday announced that it would abolish the ban on the triple talaq should it come to power after the 2019 Lok Sabha election but while the announcement in itself may be harmful to women, this is not the first time that gender issues have been appropriated for the political ambitions of India's parties. The Congress on Thursday announced that it would abolish the ban on the triple talaq should it come to power after the 2019 Lok Sabha election. The announcement in itself may be harmful to women, but this is not the first time that gender issues have been appropriated for the political ambitions of India's parties. No sooner had the party's women's wing chief made the pronouncement at the Congress minority convention in New Delhi, than the BJP reacted to it in a press conference. Accusing the Congress of following the policy of appeasement, the BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra was quoted by The Tribune as having said that neither "Muslim women nor the people of this country will forgive Rahul Gandhi for this kind of perverted mentality." The BJP's concern for women, however, does not spill over into support for the Supreme Court directive of allowing women into the Sabarimala Temple in Kerala, where women of reproductive age had been banned for a long time. The Lok Sabha, on 27 December, 2018, passed the triple talaq bill, officially known as the the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2018, with 245 votes in favour and 11 against it. The Congress staged a walkout, along with the AIADMK. Does this, however, mean that the Congress is willing to be recognised as a distinctly anti-women party? Of course not. In a masterstroke of an effort to keep all sides happy, Dev said while announcing the move on Thursday, "I promise you people that the Congress government will come in 2019 and we will scrap this law." In the same breath she added, "But it is also certain that whatever law is brought for women's empowerment, by whichever government, the Congress will support it." The Congress has long since alleged that the BJP is only looking to further its anti-Muslim agenda and aims to please its core right-wing vote bank in abolishing the triple . In the back and forth that emerged while the bill made its way through the apex court and the two Houses of the Parliament, both parties have accused each other in using the bill to assuage their own vote banks. Many BJP-ruled states like Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh were scheduled to go for polls in 2018, when the BJP aimed to pass the bill. If the BJP has utilised the triple talaq to its own end, then the Congress can boast of a similar devotion to the Women's Reservation Bill. On 29 January, party chief Rahul Gandhi promised in Kochi that the Bill will be passed in Parliament if his party is voted to power, PTI reported. This bill was passed by the Rajya Sabha in 2010, lapsed after the dissolution of the 15th Lok Sabha in 2014 and for five years, has failed to become an act. If ever passed in its entirety, it would provide 33 percent reservation to women in Parliament and state legislatures. But the long wait of the bill was no reason for Rahul not to be chipper about his plans to include more women politics. Indeed, when it comes to women's reservation, the possibilities of vacuous promises are endless and therefore forever amenable to be appropriated by political leaders. Rahul is not the only one. Odisha chief minister and Biju Janata Dal president Naveen Patnaik who enjoys a steady support from women voters in his state, made a fresh attempt to push for 33 percent reservation late in 2018 by writing to Prime Minister Narendra Modi about it. National Congress Party president Sharad Pawar, in turn, wrote to Naveen, promising support to the bill should it ever return to the Parliament. The field had thus been prepared for the BJP to jump in. "It's a drama all together," The Asian Age reported the saffron party's Odisha vice-president Sameer Mohanty as having said. In criticising the move, the BJP did point out, however, that the BJD's cabinet itself does not have 33 percent women, so the party is not in the best position to demand a similar dimension in a state legislature or Parliament. Odisha, which was the first state to have a woman chief minister in Nandini Satpathy, now has just one cabinet minister: Snehangini Chhuria, in charge of handlooms and textiles. In 2015, Telangana Rashtra Samithi supremo K Chandrasekhar Rao had written to Modi, pushing for the bill as well. But by this year, the issue had developed into such a stalemate that an MP of the same party, Kalvakuntla Kavitha tweeted, "If the women's reservation bill could be passed in Parliament with the same speed as was the bill on 10 percent quota for economically weaker sections in general category, India would have been truly progressive." The development had come just days after the Times Magazine listed Hampi World Heritage site as the second must-see place in 2019. Hampi, an ancient village in Karnataka is dotted with numerous ruined temple complexes from the Vijayanagara Empire Almost a week after the video showing four men destroy an ancient pillar of the UNESCO world heritage site in Hampi, Karnataka had gone viral, police on Friday arrested the accused. During investigation, the youths said that they were ignorant of the historical significance of the monuments and destroyed the 14th Century pillar out of "sheer excitement", reported The Times of India. Bellary SP Arun Rangarajan on a viral video showing miscreants damaging pillars at Hampi UNESCO World Heritage Site: There are likely 4-5 people involved in it. Accused will be arrested & prosecuted. I will not be able to give more information, will speed up inquiry. #Karnataka pic.twitter.com/NGDq3wiDba ANI (@ANI) February 2, 2019 Those held have been identified as as Rajbabu, a daily-wage worker at Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, RA Raja, an engineering student in Bengaluru and Rajesh Chowdhury, who is also a daily-wage worker. According to the police, the man who filmed the incident, Ayush Shahu, works at a digital marketing firm in Bengaluru. While Rajbabu and Rajesh Chowdhury hail from Madhubani district in Bihar, Ayush Shahu is from Madhya Pradesh and Raja from Bengaluru. An Instagram video of their 'show of strength' had emerged on 2 February leading to public uproar across India, demanding protection of the ancient site. The clip also shows one of the youths rejoice when the pillar breaks. A complaint was subsequently filed the Archaeological Survey of India following which a probe was ordered by the Ballari police. Superintendent of Ballari, SP Arun Rangarajan, said that the men had come to Ballari to write the Railway Recruitment Board exams and decided to visit Hampi after writing the paper. The accused had allegedly also received multiple threats from various groups in Hampi after the clip went viral. The development had come just days after The New York Times listed Hampi World Heritage site as the second must-see place in 2019. Hampi, an ancient village in Karnataka is dotted with numerous ruined temple complexes from the Vijayanagara Empire. It is believed to have been the countrys richest city, which attracted traders from Persia and Portugal. The Supreme Court on Thursday ordered that the Muzaffarpur shelter home sexual assault case be transferred from Bihar to a New Delhi court which would conclude the trial within six months, saying 'enough is enough' over the delay in progress in the case. The Supreme Court on Thursday ordered that the Muzaffarpur shelter home sexual assault case be transferred from Bihar to a New Delhi court which would conclude the trial within six months, saying "enough is enough" over the delay in progress in the case. Directing the Nitish Kumar-led government to render all assistance in the transfer of the case and its subsequent trial, the apex court came down heavily on the state government for incidents of sexual and physical abuse of children in Bihars shelter homes. Several girls were allegedly raped and sexually abused at an NGO-run shelter home in Muzaffarpur and the issue had come to light following a report by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS). A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi took a view of the of the progress made so far and said on Thursday that it will now be transferred to a Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) court at the Saket district court complex. The bench, also comprising Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna, said the transfer of records to a Delhi court be completed within two weeks and the trial be completed within six months by holding preferably "day-to-day" trial. Supreme Court irked over Bihar governments inadequate response The bench questioned the state governments counsel over its inadequate response on issues like the total number of shelter homes, their management and the administrative control over them. "Enough is enough. Children cannot be treated like this. You cannot let your officers treat children this way. Spare the children," the bench said. At the outset, the bench on Thursday had asked: How many shelter homes were operating, how they are funded, and the extent and nature of government control in running them. "We will not ask you (state government) to file an affidavit. Affidavit means (a delay of) two weeks time. Answer the question one-by-one. Tell us the exact details," it said. "Is this the way you treat the children at shelter homes? You cannot let the officers treat the children the way they are treating them right now... the questions will get enlarged now," the bench said had asked the state counsel to be ready with the facts and figures. In July 2018, the apex court had directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to take over the probe into allegations of physical and sexual abuse of inmates at 16 shelter homes in Bihar, besides transferring of the Muzaffarpur sexual assault case. While transferring the cases to CBI, the top court had dismissed the state government's request not to do so. In the Muzaffarpur shelter home case, an FIR was lodged on 31 May, 2018 against 11 people following the TISS report. The probe was later taken over by the CBI and so far, 17 people have been arrested. The court also summoned former interim CBI director M Nageswara Rao and another official linked with the transfer of agency officer AK Sharma investigating the Muzaffarpur shelter home rape case. According to reports, the apex court said Rao has "prima facie committed contempt of court by transferring CBI officer AK Sharma", and sought his personal appearance on Tuesday. "We are going to take it very, very seriously. You have played with order of Supreme Court of India. God help you. Never play with Supreme Court's order," ANI quoted Gogoi as saying. Lalu Yadav slams Nitish Kumar over transfer order RJD national president Lalu Prasad Yadav slammed Nitish over the apex courts order to transfer the case. Lalu, who is serving sentences in a number of fodder scam cases and is lodged in a Ranchi hospital for his ailments, voiced his opinion about the embarrassment caused to the Bihar government in a series of tweets. In a rustic dialect of Bhojpuri, he tweeted "ka ho Nitish, kuchh sharm bachal ba ki naahi (Nitish, are you left with any shame). His Twitter handle is reportedly managed by people close to him. In another tweet, the RJD supremo came out with a one-liner "habitual protectors of rapists of Bihar will keep quiet. Chupppp". Nitish has been accused by Opposition leaders, especially Prasad's younger son Tejashwi Yadav, of keeping silent over allegations against the accused in the scandal. Other key cases that were also transferred for 'swift justice': Section 406 of the CrPC allows the Supreme Court to, "for the ends of justice, direct that any particular case or appeal be transferred from one High Court to another High Court or from a Criminal Court subordinate to one High Court to another Criminal Court of equal or superior jurisdiction subordinate to another High Court. A Delhi court on Monday sent the Sunanda Pushkar death case against Congress leader Shashi Tharoor to the Sessions court for further proceedings. Tharoor has been charged under Section 306 (abetment to suicide), which is triable by a Sessions judge. Hence, Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal sent the case to the court of Additional Sessions judge Arun Bhardwaj. The Congress MP has also been charged under Sections 498-A (husband or his relative subjecting a woman to cruelty), but has not been arrested in the case. The court also directed Delhi police to preserve vigilance report in the matter. The maximum punishment for the offence is 10 years of imprisonment. The court also dismissed BJP leader Subramanian Swamy's plea seeking to assist the court in the case. In May 2018, a bench of the apex court headed by former CJI Dipak Misra, transferred the Kathua rape and murder case to Pathankot in Punjab. According to reports, the victim's family had appealed for the case to be shifted out of Kathua in Jammu and Kashmir due to a "surcharged" atmosphere with a movement supporting those accused in the case. The bench had also put several guidelines in place for greater efficiency in the case: The trial would be held daily and in-camera, the court said, to allow the witnesses to testify without fear; the trial would not have unnecessary adjournments; and the documents were to be transferred into English from Urdu, a report by The Economic Times said. The apex court transferred the Sohrabuddin Sheikh 'fake' encounter case from Gujarat to Mumbai in September 2012. According to reports, the court feared that a fair trial of the case, in which BJP president Amit Shah was then an accused, would not be possible in Gujarat. With inputs from agencies In a Facebook post, Arun Jaitley lashed out at Congress for promising, at a minority convention, to withdraw the triple talaq bill which is pending in the Parliament. Some incidents are so unconscionable and repulsive that they shake the conscience of the society and compel it to take remedial measures. Injustice perpetuated by personal laws is a glaring example of this. Many communities, over the last several decades, have brought incremental but significant changes in their personal laws. The object and direction of these changes has been that gender equality is ensured, rights of women and children are protected and the right to live with dignity is ensured. Some practices which survived for centuries were so obnoxious (as Sati and Untouchability) are now considered as unconstitutional. A recent case from Bareilly has shocked my conscience. It relates to the obnoxious practice of Nikah-halala in Islamic personal law. A lady who is married in 2009 was twice divorced by her husband through Triple Talaq, once in 2011 and subsequently in 2017. The family prevailed upon the husband to accept her back. On both occasions, she was sedated and asked to undergo, Nikah-halala, on the first occasion with her father-in-law and on the subsequent occasion with her brother-in-law. They both raped her. Almost a similar case was reported by the PTI on September 2nd, 2018 as having taken place in the Sambhal District of Uttar Pradesh. That in the 21st Century there could be such gross violation of the dignity of women in the worlds largest democracy should make every head hang in shame. After raping this lady, both the father-in-law and brother-in-law used the weapon of Triple Talaq to divorce the victim so that she could be accepted by her husband. If Triple Talaq had not been a permitted mode of divorce in India, would this incident emanating from a no fault impulsive divorce have taken place. The Supreme Court has already declared instant talaq as unconstitutional and yet in the absence of a deterrent it can at best amount to a civil wrong with no penal consequences. A number of Muslim men and conservatives are choosing to even ignore the Supreme Court judgment. Unfortunately, when human conscience should have been repelled while reading this news in the morning Newspapers. The AICC President Rahul Gandhi and his coterie, while addressing a minority convention promised to withdraw the Bill pending in the Parliament, penalising Triple Talaq. History has repeated itself, neither as a satire nor as a tragedy. It has repeated itself with a mindset of cruelty. The late Rajiv Gandhi committed a monumental mistake in legislatively overturning the Shah Bano judgment of the Supreme Court which guaranteed maintenance to all muslim women. He allowed deserted women to be driven to poverty and destitution. Thirty-two years later his son has taken another retrograde step to drive them not merely into destitution but also to live a life which is an antithesis of human existence. The Muslim woman in Bareilly has been forced into animal existence. Votes are important, so is fairness. Political opportunists only look at the next days Headlines. Nation-builders look at the next Century. This article first appeared on Arun Jaitley's official Facebook page. It has not been edited for content or style by Firstpost staff. Going by its poll promises of dedicating itself for cow protection, the Congress government on Tuesday had slapped the stringent National Security Act against three persons accused of cow slaughter in the communally-sensitive Khandwa district. Khandwa/Bhopal: Although the government in Madhya Pradesh has changed in the last three months, yet the previous BJP governments love for the holy cow remains undiluted under the Congress government as well. Going by its poll promises of dedicating itself for cow protection, the Congress government on Tuesday had slapped the stringent National Security Act (NSA) against three persons accused of cow slaughter in the communally-sensitive Khandwa district. The local butcher community that suspects the police action was politically motivated, is seeking a fair probe into the issue. They allege that the cops are trying to trap innocents in the case just to show their love for the animal and get promotions. On 5 February, three persons were booked under the states anti-cow slaughter law and a few hours later NSA was invoked to maintain peace in the area. According to district superintendent of police Siddharth Bahuguna, Raju alias Nadeem and Shakeel from Kharkali village were arrested early on Friday while Azam, the third accused who had managed to escape, was nabbed on Monday. Moghat police station in-charge Mohan Singore said they got a tip-off about cow slaughter in Kharkhali village at midnight. We recovered the carcass of a heifer from the spot and caught Nadeem and Shakeel who were trying to escape. The police have booked the accused under Sections 4, 6, 9 of the Prohibition of Cow Slaughter Act, he said. Cops said that Nadeem is a habitual offender and had been booked previously also under the cow slaughter legislation. Home Minister Bala Bachchan is hoping of more such police action in the future. Talking about their plans to protect the cow, he said, "We are following our Vachan Patra (election manifesto) about protection of cows. We are committed towards our promises and it is reflecting in our action. If anyone will indulge in the killing of cows, we will take the same action against them again and again. Police will continue their action against cow slaughter in the future." The Kamal Nath government has also initiated a plan of building cow shelter in every village. Unlike other governments who only talk about saving cows, our government is protecting the cow in its real meaning," said Bachchan. Fear is palpable in Khandwas Imalipur butchers' market. Even the 28 shops owners who have the licence to slaughter cattle are now reeling under police fear. Altaf Qureshi, who belongs to the butchers' community of Imalipur, said all the licensed meat shops in the locality are following the norms of local bodies during the slaughter process. We are against cow slaughter and strictly follow the rules and regulations. If you observe the action of the police, there are many loopholes. Police wrote in its FIR that the accused fled from the spot after the police raid, Altaf said. He suspects foul play. "I spoke to the family members who said the accused were sleeping at their homes when the incident happened, the butcher said. Altaf also suspected that cops are taking revenge on the butchers' community. He said, "Three days before the police action, an inspector rank officer came to our market and started checking our licences. While some shopkeepers co-operated, others argued with him about the right of the police to check such licences. The inspector then warned the butchers' community of dire consequences." Having sided with the Congress in the last Lok Sabha election, he hoped that the party, now in power in the state, will listen to them. We have approached senior police officers, the home minister and Chief Minister Kamal Nath with our problems. We are following the norms set by the law while slaughtering cattle. We never touch cows. We want to do our business peacefully, Altaf said. On the condition of anonymity, a shopkeeper told us that besides the licensed ones, few other small vendors used to set up temporary shops in the market. Besides checking, the police have also set up a CCTV camera in front of the market to keep an eye on cow slaughters. However, from the last few days cops have started threatening us, the shopkeeper said. Muneesh Mishra, district Congress president of Khandwa, praised the police saying action against cow slaughters is the need of the hour. Khandwa is infamous for cow slaughters and they always trick the cops. Butchers have changed their modus operandi after vigilance by police and locals. Earlier, they used to transport cows alive in trucks after buying them from villages but now they are slaughtering cows in the village and then bringing in the flesh, the Congress leader said. The Congress in its election manifesto said that it will establish a Gaushala (cow shelter) in every Panchayat and cow sanctuaries at certain places. According to the manifesto, the maintenance of these sanctuaries and cow shelters will be funded by the government. The government will also promote the production of gaumutra, cow dung and dung cake on a commercial scale. There will be a shelter and medical facility on main roads for treatment of injured cows. The government will also make necessary arrangements for the last rituals of dead cows, the manifesto said. The author is a Bhopal-based freelance writer and a member of 101Reporters.com. The weather department has forecast light snow and rain in Himachal Pradesh for the next few days. Shallow to dense fog is predicted in Delhi over the next two days. Shimla: Parts of Himachal Pradesh, including state capital Shimla, were on Friday enveloped in a thick blanket of snow even as the state received rain and fresh snowfall. The snowfall is obstructing efforts by the authorities to clear the roads in Shimla since Thursday. The weather department has forecast light snow for Friday and rain in the next few days. Shimla: Snow-clearance operation underway after heavy snowfall in the district. #HimachalPradesh pic.twitter.com/N7zx61gtxy ANI (@ANI) February 7, 2019 Keylong in Lahaul and Spiti district also received heavy snowfall. According to reports from Kinnaur's Barang village, the snowfall has damaged apple orchards, one of the prime exports of the region. Kinnaur: Apple trees damaged due to an avalanche in Barang village. #HimachalPradesh. (07.02.2019) pic.twitter.com/b5KWXfWMSW ANI (@ANI) February 7, 2019 Shimla railway station has also been submerged in snow. Himachal Pradesh: Visuals of fresh snowfall from Shimla railway station. pic.twitter.com/oYVWdzfE1W ANI (@ANI) February 8, 2019 In addition, the higher reaches of Jammu and Kashmir also received heavy snowfall on Thursday. An avalanche occurred near the police post in Jawahar tunnel area in Kulgam district on Thursday for which rescue operations are still underway, according to police. Latest visuals: Avalanche occurred near the police post in Jawahar Tunnel area in Kulgam district today. Rescue operation underway. #JammuAndKashmir pic.twitter.com/2JtMNUkmPl ANI (@ANI) February 7, 2019 SSP Rajouri, Youghal Manhas, said, "Police forces in higher reaches have been put on alert. We suggest people to avoid travelling in odd hours". An intense western disturbance that caused the snowfall in Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh, also led to heavy rain and hailstorms in the evening. Delhiites were surprised to see hail raining down the city on Thursday evening covering roads in a white shroud. Shallow to dense fog is predicted in the national capital over the next two days. An overall "moderate" Air Quality Index of 166 was recorded at the Safdarjung observatory on 8 February. HD Kumaraswamy had concocted the story to hide his failures and inability to keep the JD(S)-Congress flock together, Karnataka BJP chief BS Yeddyurappa told reporters in Bengaluru. Bengaluru: BJP Karnataka president BS Yeddyurappa on Friday rubbished as "fake" and "a concocted story" audio clips released by state chief minister HD Kumaraswamy about his alleged bid to lure an MLA to topple the Congress-JD(S) government. Shortly after Kumaraswamy released the clips, Yeddyurappa said he had not met anyone to woo JD(S) lawmaker Nagana Gouda as alleged and that the charge against him was "far from the truth." Yeddyurappa said he went to Devadurga, where the MLA's son Sharan Gouda claimed to have met him and recorded the conversation, to visit a temple and flew back to the city. Kumaraswamy had "concocted" the story to hide his failures and inability to keep the JD(S) and Congress flock together, Yeddyurappa told reporters in Bengaluru. "It is a fake audio... I have not met anyone. Kumaraswamy is trying to hide his failures. This is a drama," Yeddyurappa said. He said the Kumaraswamy government had lost the trust of the people and had "no moral right" to continue in office. "Kumaraswamy himself is a film producer. He is an expert in voice recording.... whatever the charge he has made is baseless," Yeddyurappa said. He also dismissed a claim by the chief minister that he had spoken in the audio about a "Rs 50 crore" offer to the Assembly Speaker. "I will retire from politics if it (the allegation) is proven true...If I had spoken like this (about the Speaker) if it is proven... I will resign as an MLA and quit politics." Lieutenant General Ranbir Singh, said that the Pakistani army has been using social media to mobilise support among the youth of Jammu and Kashmir to stir them towards militancy. Udhampur: The general officer commanding-in-chief of the northern command, Lieutenant General Ranbir Singh, said on Thursday that the Pakistani army has been using social media to mobilise support among the youth of Jammu and Kashmir to stir them towards militancy. He also said that terrorist infrastructure continues to remain intact in PoK and Pakistan. He said Pakistan is trying to develop narratives to alter public opinion in Kashmir to disrupt peace and stability. "It is matter of concern for us. We are seized of this concern." He said the Pakistani army has been exploiting social media platforms to influence the youth of the Valley to join militancy. "Radicalisation is not only a concern in India but a global concern," Singh told reporters. However, he added, the Indian Army has developed effective counter-terrorism capabilities and the fight against terrorism has now entered "an important phase". "We are using technology and artificial-based solutions to counter the message, so that youth do not fall prey to the designs of the Pakistan army," he said. "I am hopeful that in the coming year, we will be able to see peace, prosperity and development in the state," he said. Replying to a question on America's proposed pullout of troops from Afghanistan, the officer said the Indian Army and all agencies are keeping a close watch on the developments. "We are prepared for any contingency," he said, referring to possible infiltration by Afghan-based militants into Jammu and Kashmir. He said options for another "surgical strike" on terrorist bases are open. "Surgical strikes were a tactical operation to give a strategic message that Indian Army has the capability to do acts which are unpredictable. We were successful in conveying that message," he added. On the investigation into sepoy Aurangzeb's killing in south Kashmir last year, he said, "We got information that one or two jawans intentionally or unknowingly passed information about his movement." "Perhaps the terrorists picked up the news and took benefit of it," he said, adding a probe is going on. Aurangzeb was abducted by militants from Pulwama. His bullet-riddled body was found on 14 June in Srinagar on the eve of Eid-ul-Fitr. A group of about 100 men tried to stop Arvind Kejriwal's car and attacked it with sticks. New Delhi: Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal's car was on Friday allegedly attacked by a mob armed with sticks in Narela, an official in the Chief Minister's Office said. Nobody was injured, he added. A group of about 100 men tried to stop Kejriwal's car and attacked it with sticks. The incident occurred when Kejriwal had gone to the outer Delhi locality to inaugurate development works in 25 unauthorised colonies, he said. Whether we have two of them on the field, all three of them on the field, well get creative and have some fun with it," defensive coordinator Joe Barry said. It was Rao under whose instruction officers of the central investigating agency landed at the doorstep of the Kolkata police commissioner Rajeev Kumar on Sunday evening Hours after the Kolkata Police raided two locations allegedly linked to M Nageswara Rao on Friday, the former interim CBI chief told news agency ANI, "All that is happening appears to be propaganda." ANI further reported that Rao issued a press statement dated 30 October, 2018, refuting any link with M/s Angela Mercantile Pvt Ltd, one of the two locations raided by the Kolkata Police on Friday. Former interim CBI chief M Nageshwar Rao issues a press statement, refuting any link with M/s Angela Mercantile Pvt Ltd which is being raided by Kolkata Police today. pic.twitter.com/g9RfW3Yl4c ANI (@ANI) February 8, 2019 The raids were conducted a day after the Ministry of Home Affairs asked the West Bengal government to take action against five IPS officers in the state who participated in state Chief Minister Mamata Banerjees dharna in Kolkata on the night of 3 February. It was Rao under whose instruction officers of the central investigating agency landed at the doorstep of the Kolkata police commissioner Rajeev Kumar on Sunday evening to interrogate him. The CBI sleuths were later detained by the city police. The incident later stirred a controversy in the capital city of West Bengal, where its Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee went on a three-day strike against Centre, accusing the latter of political vendetta. With inputs from ANI A day after being convicted, all the 7 accused in the Kawal murder case from 2013, which had triggered riots in Uttar Pradesh's Muzaffarnagar have been awarded life imprisonment by a local court. All the seven convicts in the Kawal murder case from 2013, which had triggered riots in Uttar Pradesh's Muzaffarnagar, have been awarded life imprisonment by a local court, ANI reported. The development comes a day after Additional District and Sessions Judge Himashu Bhatnagar convicted Muzammil, Mujassim, Furkan, Nadeem, Janangir, Afzal and Iqbal for killing cousins Gaurav and Sachin on 27 August, 2013 and rioting. The court convicted the seven after examining 10 prosecution witnesses and six in their defence. Speaking to The Times of India, prosecution lawyer Anjum Khan said that only five accused were named in the FIR at first Muzammil, Muzassim, Nadeem Jahangir and Furkan. Later, two more accused, Afzal and Iqbal, were found involved in the crime. "All of them have been found guilty of killing Sachin and Gaurav. Five of them are already in jail while the bail of the other has been cancelled." The two cousins were killed in separate incidents after their two-wheeler collided with one Shahnawaz's bike. Another local was also present at the spot. The killings led to widespread riots in Muzaffarnagar, in which 62 people had died and more than 50,000 were displaced. Later on, Shahnawaz was also killed. According to The Indian Express, Shahnawazs father Salim had filed a counter FIR accusing the families of Gaurav and Sachin of killing his son, but the SIT submitted a closure report. The SIT had given a clean chit to six accused in connection with Shahnawazs killing in 2015, while the other two accused, Gaurav and Sachin, had already died. As per official figures, given by prosecution counsel Sharma, over 6,000 cases were lodged following the 2013 riots and 1,480 accused were arrested for their alleged roles in the riots. A special investigation team, which probed the cases, had filed charge sheets in 175 cases. Fifty-six of them, involving 430 accused, resulted in acquittal. The state government has also withdrawn some cases. Christian Michel, accused of being a middleman in the AgustaWestland VVIP chopper case, on Friday approached Delhi's Patiala House Court for bail in the cases filed by the CBI and ED. Christian Michel, accused of being a middleman in the AgustaWestland VVIP chopper case, on Friday approached Delhi's Patiala House Court for bail in the cases filed by the CBI and ED. The court has sought a response from both the investigative agencies on Michel's bail plea and listed the matter for hearing on 12 February. According to reports, Michel said the chargesheet against him was not filed within the stipulated time frame of 60 days. The matter was heard by Special Judge Arvind Kumar. "Since, the chargesheet was not filed against him within the stipulated 60-day period under section 167(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC). Probe is complete. I'm in custody since 22 December, 2018," Michel said in the petition. Michel is one of the three alleged middlemen in the AgustaWestland case and has denied all charges against him. The CBI has alleged there was an estimated loss of 398.21 million (approximately Rs 2,666 crore) to the exchequer in the deal for the supply of VVIP choppers. The ED has charged Michel of having received around Rs 225 crore in the deal, reports said. On 30 January, Rajiv Saxena, a co-accused in the case was extradited to India by the UAE government. The ED, in a reply to Dubai-based businessman Saxena's bail plea, had requested for his extradition from Dubai as he had failed to join the investigation even after repeated reminders. Earlier in January, the ED had claimed that Michel had also received money from other defence deals which were to be probed. The investigative agency's statement came after a Delhi court sent Michel to judicial custody till 26 February. With inputs from agencies Eighteen from Uttar Pradesh's Saharanpur district and 16 from Uttarakhand's Haridwar district died on Friday allegedly after drinking hooch (spurious liquor) at a village in Haridwar during a mourning ritual Thirty-four deaths have died from consuming illicit liquor (hooch) in both Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh, reports said. According to reports, 16 deaths were reported in Uttarakhand's Haridwar village while 18 were killed in Uttar Pradesh's Saharanpur district. The victims from the two adjoining districts had allegedly consumed spurious liquor at a village in Uttarakhand's Haridwar district. The victims had consumed the liquor Thursday evening at the 'tehravin' the 13th day of mourning to mark a death, officials told PTI. According to ANI, around 42 people in Saharanpur are being treated at a local hospital. #UPDATE 18 deaths have been reported due to the consumption of illicit liquor in Saharanpur. 42 people being treated at local hospital. Investigation underway. ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) February 8, 2019 PTI said that 16 of the victims died in Uttarakhand's Balupur village itself. Eighteen more deaths took place in Uttar Pradesh's Saharanpur district, which adjoins Uttarakhand, as the people who had attended the mourning ritual returned home. Some of them had carried the liquor home, an official said. Congress president Rahul Gandhi expressed condolences over the deaths. "It is very unfortunate. My deepest condolences to the families of the victims who succumbed to it. I pray for (the) speedy recovery of those fighting for life in hospitals," Gandhi said in a Facebook post. The Uttarakhand administration has ordered a magisterial probe and suspended 17 personnel of the excise and police departments. In Uttar Pradesh, 16 people have died in Saharanpur and Kushinagar districts over the past few days and the toll might rise, official sources said. With inputs from PTI The rejig comes following the Income Tax Department's withdrawal of the tax exemption granted to Sir Dorabji Tata Trust Managing Trustee of the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust R Venkataramanan is likely to move to another part of the Tatas and a decision regarding this may be taken next week at the board meeting, a media report said. The rejig comes following the Income Tax Department's withdrawal of the tax exemption granted to Sir Dorabji Tata Trust after the authorities found a violation of certain conditions by the trust, The Economic Times reported. The newspaper, citing an order, said that the I-T Department had ruled that "the annual salary of Rs 2.66 crore drawn by Venkataramanan was not in accordance with the trusts deed." In October last year, six Tata Trusts had withdrawn their petitions filed in the Bombay High Court challenging the show cause notices issued against them by the Income Tax Department as to why their registrations should not be cancelled. The Income Tax Commissioner (Exemptions) had issued notices to these six trusts on 8 March, 2018 for alleged non-compliance of rules governing the trust funds. The notices sought to know why their registrations under Section 12A of the Income Tax Act should not be cancelled for non-compliance. Following this, the trusts, including the Navajbai Ratan Tata Trust, Jamsetji Tata Trust and the Tata Education Trust, had petitioned the high court challenging the notices. When the petitions came up for hearing on before a division bench of Justices SC Dharmadhikari and BP Colabawalla, the trusts' lawyers sought to withdraw the pleas without assigning any reason. Venkataramanan was also embroiled in a controversy surrounding AirAsia. In June last year, Tata Trusts came out in support of Venkataramanan, who was under investigation by the CBI for allegedly trying to manipulate government policies through corrupt means to get an international licence for AirAsia India. Venkataramanan is a shareholder and director of AirAsia India, a joint venture between Tata Sons and Malaysian budget carrier AirAsia. The office of Venkataramanan, in his capacity as a Non-Executive Director and a nominee of Tata Sons on the Board of AirAsia India Limited, in the Trust office premises, was visited by the authorities and clarifications sought on some papers relating to AirAsia India, some of which were taken by the authorities, Tata Trusts had said. Venkataramanan had said that allegations of wrongdoing against him in AirAsia probe were baseless and that he had been wrongly named as an accused. The CBI had registered a case against AirAsia Group CEO Tony Fernandes, Venkataramanan and other officials in the case. With inputs from PTI On 17 October, RIL had announced that it will buy majority stakes in Den Networks Ltd and Hathway Cable and Datacom Ltd for Rs 5,230 crore New Delhi: Reliance Industries Ltd's (RIL) open offer to acquire shares of Den Networks and GTPL Hathway through its subsidiaries will start on Friday, according to regulatory filings. RIL and its subsidiaries have proposed to acquire 2,88,40,891 full paid-up equity shares, representing 25.64 percent voting share capital of GTPL Hathway for Rs 82.65 per equity share for total consideration of Rs 238.37 crore. In case of Den Network, RIL and its subsidiaries have announced open offer to acquire 12,21,83,457 fully paid-up equity shares, representing 25.58 per cent of the expanded voting share capital at price of Rs 72.66 per equity share aggregating to total consideration of Rs 887.78 crore, according to the filings. RIL on 17 October announced that it will buy majority stakes in Den Networks Ltd and Hathway Cable and Datacom Ltd for Rs 5,230 crore, a move aimed at becoming the largest player in the broadband as well as the cable TV and direct-to-home market. The acquisition gives Reliance access to 24 million existing cable connected homes of these companies across 750 cities, thereby covering around half of its target to connect 50 million homes across 1,100 Indian cities. According to latest data of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, there were little over 18 million fixed line broadband connections in the country in July, with BSNL leading the chart. RIL announced to acquire 66 percent stake in Den Networks for Rs 2,290 crore and 51.3 per cent in Hathway Cable for Rs 2,940 crore. (Disclaimer: Reliance Industries Ltd. is the sole beneficiary of Independent Media Trust which controls Network18 Media & Investments Ltd which publishes Firstpost) State-owned Allahabad Bank on Friday said the RBI has imposed a penalty of Rs 1.5 crore on the lender for not monitoring end use of funds, among other violations New Delhi: State-owned Allahabad Bank on Friday said the RBI has imposed a penalty of Rs 1.5 crore on the lender for not monitoring end use of funds, among other violations. "We have to inform you that the Reserve Bank of India...has imposed a penalty of Rs 1.5 crore on the bank for not monitoring the end use of funds, delay in classification and reporting of fraud and non-adherence with RBI guidelines during restructuring of accounts in respect of one of its borrowers," the bank said in a regulatory filing. The amount of penalty is not material considering the size of the bank, it added. The Kolkata-headquartered lender said it has taken necessary preventive measures to strengthen internal controls to avoid such recurrence. Earlier this week, the regulator had imposed penalties on Axis Bank, UCO Bank, SBI and Syndicate Bank for violation of various norms. The gross penalties on these four lenders amounted to Rs 6.20 crore. (With PTI inputs) Tata Motors said delays at ports could disrupt import of components into the UK for manufacturing as well as export of finished vehicles. New Delhi: Tata Motors Thursday said in case of a "no deal Brexit" JLR will have two to three weeks of plants shutdown in the UK, while its British arm's profitability will be adversely impacted in the long term. As part of its preparations for a 'no deal Brexit', JLR said in an investor presentation that in the long term the company will have to reassess its manufacturing and sourcing strategy to overcome hurdles. In the short term, Tata Motors said delays at ports could disrupt import of components into the UK for manufacturing as well as export of finished vehicles. In order to overcome such a scenario, JLR has "factory downtime" under which it will pull forward five scheduled Easter Holiday beginning 15 April with an additional five days of additional plant downtime from 8-12 April. The company further said it plans to have sufficient buffer stock to minimise potential disruption due to plant shutdown expected in the first week of April. JLR has also put in place a comprehensive cross-functional Brexit governance programme to minimise the impact of a 'no deal' Brexit, wherever possible, the presentation said. Commenting on the move, Tata Motors Group CFO PB Balaji said, "We also need to prepare for a scenario where there could be disruptions. So, we are preparing ourselves by first accelerating or moving ahead some of the Easter breaks and the way we schedule production, so that we are able to keep our factories running as much as possible". Stating that it is not physically possible to stock up raw materials and keep production going, he said, "Therefore we are going to have a shutdown from the end of the first week of April. We will have two and a half to three weeks of production shutdown". When asked if there would be more job cuts in JLR in addition to the reduction in its global workforce by 4,500 people announced in January, Balaji replied in the negative. "At this point in time what we announced is what stays," he said. In the long term, Tata Motors said the imposition of tariffs on UK-EU and UK-EU-third country trade will adversely impact JLR's profitability. To overcome such a scenario, the company said it will attempt to pass on pricing for tariffs "but it is uncertain to what extent this will be possible". JLR would also need to reassess its manufacturing and sourcing strategy, it added. Balaji, however, said the company believed that there would be a "negotiated settlement sooner than later". "Therefore as per UK market is concerned our plans remain unchanged and as far as manufacturing footprint in UK is concerned there is absolutely no change in our plans at this point in time," he added. Hoping for a negotiated settlement with the EU, he said it would be in everybody's interest. "We want free borders and frictionless trade that is something we have been consistent about and we continue to expect that as our base case," he said. In case of a no deal Brexit, Britain, which voted to leave the EU will leave the European Union immediately on 29 March with no agreements in place about what their relationship would be like in future. A resolution for Ruchi Soya, which owes about Rs 12,000 crore to the lenders, has been moving between Ram Dev's Patanjali and Adani Wilmar Mumbai: The Mumbai bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) Thursday directed Ruchi Soya's resolution professional to comply with the 31 January Supreme Court order and said it will hear the matter from 5 March. A resolution for Ruchi Soya, which owes about Rs 12,000 crore to the lenders, has been moving between Ram Dev's Patanjali and Adani Wilmar. On 31 January, the Adanis walked out of the process leaving only Patanjali in the fray. The NCLT bench headed by VP Singh and Ravikumar Duraisamy, hearing on a petition filed by two of Ruchi Soya creditors--Standard Chartered Bank and DBS Bank, said it will start regular hearing on the matter from 5 March. These same lenders had dragged Ruchi Soya to the insolvency court on 8 December, 2017. The apex court on 31 January had said the suspended board members of a company should be included in all the deliberations of the committee of creditors, including the discussions on the resolution plan. The apex court also said resolution plans should also be shared with the suspended board members. The Supreme Court further said every participant in the committee of creditors meetings is entitled to notice of every meeting and such notice must contain an agenda of the meeting, together with the copies of all documents relevant for matters to be discussed and the issues to be voted upon at the meeting. Setting aside the NCLAT judgement that had refused to give copies of the resolution plans to the suspended directors of Ruchi Soya Industries, undergoing insolvency proceedings, the SC had held that the suspended directors must be given the copies of all resolution plans within two weeks from the date of the judgement. "The resolution applicant in each of these cases will then convene a lenders' meeting within two weeks thereafter, which will include the erstwhile board of directors as participants. The lenders will then deliberate on the RPs afresh and either reject them or approve of them with the requisite majority, after which, the further procedure detailed in the IBC and regulations will be followed," the apex court said. Indore-based Ruchi Soya is part of the second list of the 28 large defaulters that the Reserve Bank had flagged for bankruptcy resolution. Ruchi Soya has many manufacturing plants and its leading brands include Nutrela, Mahakosh, Sunrich, Ruchi Star and Ruchi Gold. While Adani Wilmar had offered to pay Rs 5,474 crore for Ruchi Soya, of which Rs 4,300 crore was to go to the lenders, Patanjali had offered Rs 5,765 crore, of which Rs 4,065 crore was to go to lenders. Currently, Patanjali is the only bidder for the crippled company. Jet Airways, which is grappling with acute financial problems, on Friday said its board will meet on 14 February, to approve the unaudited financial statements for the third quarter and nine months ended 31 December, 2018 New Delhi: Jet Airways, which is grappling with acute financial problems, on Friday said its board will meet on 14 February, to approve the unaudited financial statements for the third quarter and nine months ended 31 December, 2018. "The meeting of the board of directors of the company shall be held on 14 February, 2019, inter alia, to approve the unaudited financial statements for the third quarter and nine months ended 31 December, 2018," Jet Airways said in a filing to the BSE. Shares of the company fell by 2.24 percent to Rs 231.30 on the BSE. Meanwhile, in a filing to stock exchanges on Thursday, Jet Airways said four planes have been grounded due to non-payment of amounts outstanding to lessors under lease agreements. "The company is actively engaged with all its aircraft lessors and regularly provides them with updates on efforts undertaken by the company to improve its liquidity," it said. Cash-starved Jet Airways has mopped up Rs 250 crore from advance sale of tickets to its customer loyalty programme Jet Privilege, less than five months after raising money through the same route. The full-service carrier, which is grappling with acute financial problems, is working to restructure its debt as well as raise fresh funds. "Similar to what was done in October 2018, Jet Privilege Private Limited (JPPL) concluded a second Prepaid Ticket Purchase agreement, for $35 million, with Jet Airways, which is in the normal course of business," the spokesperson said. Amid the cash crunch, the airline is making delayed payment of salaries to many of its staff. In 2013-14, the country's merchandise exports touched $314.4 billion level. After that, exports came under immense pressure again due to global slowdown. Mumbai: The government on Friday expressed hope that it would be able to sign a free trade agreement (FTA) with the European Union (EU) in the "foreseeable future". "We will find the necessary balance between ambition and sensitivity in the foreseeable future to have trade agreements with various countries including the EU...The FTA will happen soon I am sure," commerce secretary Anup Wadhawan said on the sidelines of the National standards conclave organised by the commerce ministry and CII. Asked if auto is the only concern, he declined to elaborate but said that auto component is one of the few sectors something which is at the cutting edge of global standard and "we have to virtually find a way forward." He also added that the EU has expressed some concerns about India's service sector. Wadhawan seemed optimistic about India surpassing the export level that had peaked during 2013-14. "We will reach a peak level this year. Our exports had peaked at $314 billion in 2013-14 and I think we will go past that peak," he said. In 2013-14, the country's merchandise exports touched $314.4 billion level. After that, exports came under immense pressure again due to global slowdown. On the agriculture exports showing inactivity, he said, "Food exports stagnated a bit because of price issues. Global commodity prices have fallen but the volumes have not come down. The quantities are still rising. We export over $40 billion worth of agriculture products. We are the largest exporters of rice in the world." The third quarter showed a slowdown in exports but the secretary attributed it to the global prices. "Petroleum prices are coming down. Our exports are 15 percent petroleum products and that 15 percent is lagging. Agriculture commodity prices have come down worldwide and agriculture export is about $40 billion out of over $300 billion. So all the pressures are there and the global slowdown is coming so that will obviously have its effect," he said. He added that certain categories like grapes have recorded a huge jump on the back of the trade war between China and US. Asked how free trade and opening up of borders would materialise in future when global giants US and China are at loggerheads, he said,"I am sure better sense will prevail at a global level and countries will not destabilise the WTO." It is a very very useful framework, a very useful set of rules which brings some order and predictability to global trade, so I am sure the world community and the community of nations will not allow the WTO to be disrupted, he said. In the last four months of its launch, the scheme has already benefited over 10 lakh people, Goyal said New Delhi: Finance minister Piyush Goyal Friday said the government may provide more funds for the world's biggest health care scheme -- Ayushman Bharat -- next year. In the last four months of its launch, the scheme has already benefited over 10 lakh people, he said while speaking at the sixth Global Fund Replenishment organised by Ministry of Health in New Delhi. "The government has already provided half a billion dollar funding for the programme. We expect to provide much more funds in the next year," he said. The interim Budget presented last week has raised the allocation for Ayushman Bharat scheme to Rs 6,400 crore for 2019-2020. "Unless we create a distress-free health care system for 1.3 billion people in India, unless we look at health in a very holistic fashion right from preventive health care...we will not be able to take people out of distress that health care can cause particularly to lesser privileged," he said. Improvement of the infrastructure of health care also opens up huge opportunities for companies around the world to participate in effort to expand the health care system, he said. The scheme aims to provide free health care to 50 crore people encompassing different dimension of family health care needs. Referring to energy access to every household, the finance minister said, electricity will reach every home by April of this year, a decade ahead of sustainable development goal. The board of the company in a meeting held on Thursday 'approved the appointment of Tanya Arvind Dubash', Britannia Industries said in a regulatory filing New Delhi: FMCG major Britannia Industries on Friday announced the appointment of Tanya Dubash as an additional director of the company. The board of the company in a meeting held on Thursday "approved the appointment of Tanya Arvind Dubash", Britannia Industries said in a regulatory filing. "Tanya Arvind Dubash is appointed as an additional director in the category of non-executive, an independent director on the board of the company," it said. Dubash (51), eldest daughter of industrialist Adi Godrej, serves as the executive director and chief brand officer of Godrej Industries and is responsible for Godrej Group's brand and communications function, including guiding the Godrej Masterbrand. She is also the chairperson of Godrej Nature's Basket and a director on the board of Godrej Industries, Godrej Consumer Products and Godrej Agrovet. Ocean Exchange Announces Partnership with Marine Research Hub of South Florida Fort Lauderdale, Florida--(Newsfile Corp. - February 8, 2019) - The ninth annual Ocean Exchange, to be hosted in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, will feature twelve innovative, sustainable worldwide solutions that demonstrate the ability to generate economic growth and increase productivity while reducing the use of nature's resources. In its first year in Fort Lauderdale, Ocean Exchange announces its partnership with the Marine Research Hub of South Florida. The event will be held on October 28-30, within the timeframe of the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show. "Wallenius Wilhelmsen proudly continues as a global sponsor of Ocean Exchange as it moves to Fort Lauderdale and partners with the Marine Research Hub. These exciting developments will further grow Ocean Exchange as a world-class sustainable innovation event. In keeping with the changes, our Orcelle Award, which Ocean Exchange hosts, is taking on a definition based on the six United National Sustainable Development Goals applicable to our business," noted Ray Fitzgerald, chair of the Ocean Exchange board and COO of Wallenius Wilhelmsen Solutions. The Marine Research Hub, headquartered in South Florida, is a 501(c)(3) formed to solidify collaboration among four university oceanographic research centers, three economic development organizations, and the Marine Industries Association of South Florida to establish the region as a global leader in oceanographic research and increase the likelihood of research projects reaching completion in the form of commercialization and technology transfer to benefit the earth and positively impact the human condition. Bob Swindell, president of the Marine Research Hub and CEO of the Greater Fort Lauderdale Alliance, is thrilled with the Ocean Exchange partnership and is already working to ensure a smooth transition of the annual event to Fort Lauderdale, "The Marine Research Hub is extremely proud to partner with such a successful and prestigious organization as Ocean Exchange and excited to host the event during the spectacular Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show. We believe that the combination of university research, economic development, and start-up funding will become a successful model for the country as we strive toward finding marketable solutions to the world's most challenging problems." Ocean Exchange will continue to offer its two $100,000 cash awards to innovative solutions for the Wallenius Wilhelmsen Orcelle and the Ocean Exchange Neptune Awards. Additionally, during the event, Ocean Exchange will hold its fifth annual collegiate competition for a $10,000 prize. Ocean Exchange accelerates the adoption of solutions that help economies, health and the environment while respecting cultures around the world. In its ninth year, it has awarded over $1.5 million of non-dilutive awards to innovative startup companies. Learn more at oceanexchange.org. For more about the Marine Research Hub, visit marineresearchhub.org/. The Wallenius Wilhelmsen group (OEX: WALWIL) is a market leader in RoRo shipping and vehicle logistics, transporting cars, trucks, rolling equipment and breakbulk around the world. The company operates around 130 vessels servicing 15 trade routes to six continents, and operates a global inland distribution network, 121 processing centres, and 13 marine terminals. The Wallenius Wilhelmsen group consists of Wallenius Wilhelmsen Ocean, Wallenius Wilhelmsen Solutions, EUKOR and ARC. The group is headquartered in Oslo, Norway with 7.500 employees in 29 countries worldwide. Read more at walleniuswilhelmsen.com. Media Contact: Millicent Pitts 912-257-0209 millicent.pitts@oceanexchange.org Photo(s) To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/42729 Company Forms Advisory Board to Support New World Health Brands CBD NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / February 8, 2019 / Sparta Commercial Services (OTC PINK: SRCO) welcomes Meg Sanders to the Advisory Board of New World Health Brands CBD (www.newworldhealthcbd.com). Meg has been a widely recognized leader in the cannabis industry for the past decade. Ms. Sanders has been involved in the cannabis, industrial hemp, and CBD markets for years, and brings more than a decade of emerging market experience to Sparta. "I am seeing tremendous growth opportunities within the CBD industry and I look forward to working with Sparta's team as we move quickly to brand New World Health Brands CBD into the consumer market," said Meg Sanders, who is also Co-Founder of Will and Way Consulting. She goes on: "There are both similarities and cross-pollination of practices throughout cannabis, industrial hemp and CBD. There are also very distinct differences and Sparta understands that and has uniquely positioned itself to be a CBD industry leader." Meg is regularly asked to address trade groups, conferences and events across the country. She was a featured speaker at the Harvard Business School, and has well as major media outlets around the world, including 60 Minutes, Rolling Stone, New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and many more. Sanders, along with representatives from the White House, the FBI, and NASA, have been engaged by the National Science Academy to discuss cannabis as it relates to our bio-economy. Her experience prompted former Colorado Governor Hickenlooper to appoint her to his Task Force to draft rules for adult-use cannabis. Sparta CEO, Anthony Havens, says: "We are thrilled that Meg has joined our organization. She brings a high level of cannabis industry experience and expertise that will be vitally important to New World Health Brands CBD, as we enter a period of rapid expansion within this dynamic marketplace. With the addition of Meg to our team, we will now move quickly to round out our Advisory Board to include seasoned professionals from the pharmaceutical, medical and marketing industries." About Sparta Commercial Services Inc. Sparta Commercial Services, Inc. ( www.spartacommercial.com ), through its subsidiary, iMobile Solutions, Inc., provides comprehensive vehicle title history reports to dealers, insurance companies, credit unions and consumers. Sparta, via its iMobileApp product ( www.imobileapp.com ), has also become a leader in developing and servicing custom mobile apps for a wide range of businesses including restaurants, liquor stores, racetracks, and clubs; as well as vehicle dealerships including Harley-Davidson and John Deere. Other mobile communications products offered by Sparta include website design, development, hosting and SEO services, and a text messaging and alert service. Sparta's Municipal Leasing Division ( www.spartamunicipal.com ) offers and administers a specialized municipal leasing program for local and state agencies with jurisdictions seeking a better way to finance their growing essential equipment needs such as police motorcycles and cruisers, EMS equipment and busses, and any type of equipment a municipality requires. The latest product offering, via www.newworldhealthcbd.com , offers a full array of hemp-derived CBD products that include oils, topicals, capsules, tablets, pet and livestock tinctures. Forward Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Such statements are valid only as of today and we disclaim any obligation to update this information. Actual results may differ significantly from management's expectations. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that include, among others, risks related to potential future losses, competition, financing and commercial agreements and strategic alliances, seasonality, potential fluctuations in operating results and rate of growth, management of potential growth, system interruption, consumer and industry trends, limited operating history, and government regulation. In light of the significant uncertainties inherent in the forward-looking statements included herein, the inclusion of such information should not be regarded as a representation by the Company or any other person that the objectives and plans of the Company will be achieved. Further information regarding these and other risks is described from time to time in the Company's filings with the SEC, which are available on its website at: http://www.sec.gov. Company Contact: Sandra L. Ahman Corporate Secretary Sparta Commercial Services, Inc. investorrelations@spartacommercial.com SOURCE: Sparta Commercial Services, Inc. View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/534806/Cannabis-Pioneer-Joins-Sparta-Commercial-Services 'Race Your Code' Campaign Wins Innovation & Best Creative Idea Awards LONDON, Feb. 8, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Investis Digital (https://www.investisdigital.com), a leading digital communications company, announced today that its work for Rolls-Royce's 'Race Your Code' campaign has been awarded two honors at the 2019 RAD Awards, one for Innovation and another for Best Creative Idea. The RAD Awards celebrate the best in recruitment communications and has been one of the most prestigious awards in the UK for almost 30 years. The purpose of the global 'Race Your Code' campaign was to raise awareness for digital roles available at Rolls-Royce. 'Race Your Code' did so through an immersive competition that deepened key audiences' understanding of, and engagement, with Rolls-Royce. Bringing together the digital and physical worlds, 'Race Your Code' challenged entrants to program a team of autonomous vehicles, race them around a track, hacking the code in real time to improve performance and win the race. The races were broadcast over Twitch, enabling both participants and spectators to watch the action unfold. The campaign was a key means of raising awareness about Rolls-Royce's digital expertise, and of reaching a new type of candidate for the company. "Rolls-Royce is the epitome of best-in-class engineering, and 'Race Your Code' shows how creativity and data-driven insight together produce an innovative outcome that attracts top talent for a global leader," said Don Scales, CEO of Investis Digital. "It's an honor to partner with Rolls-Royce, and the RAD Awards validate our ground-breaking collaboration." The competition amassed over 971,000 total impressions, in addition to 5,000 likes, comments, shares and retweets over Rolls-Royce's social channels. The campaign saw more than 150 race applicants from over 25 countries apply to take part, including many digital and engineering specialists. The number of applicants exceeded the race slots available, and also generated a huge buzz about the campaign and the roles available internally at Rolls-Royce. 'Race Your Code' was the focal point of a wide-reaching program of work that included redefining Rolls-Royce's employer value proposition specifically for data and digital candidates, improving the user experience for online applicants, creating content in all formats from film to animation, site design and build including frictionless integration with ATS (Applicant Tracking System), and much more. "We were delighted to learn that Investis Digital received the recognition it deserved for being our partner on this ground-breaking campaign," said Dan Perkins, Global Employer Brand Manager, Rolls-Royce. "The Rolls-Royce digital team is currently involved in many innovative and cutting-edge initiatives and Investis Digital has played a crucial role in creating awareness of the opportunities for candidates here in a fun, yet informative way." To view the full case study and testimonial video from Rolls-Royce on what it means to win two RAD awards for the 'Race Your Code' campaign, visit https://www.investisdigital.com/work/rolls-royce. For a full list of 2019 RAD Award winners, visit https://radawards.com/2019/en/page/2019-winners. About Investis Digital Investis Digital is an award-winning digital communications company. Founded in 2000, the company combines effective storytelling and engaging digital experiences with world-class performance marketing and cutting-edge technology to help businesses communicate clearly and authentically with any audience. Investis Digital's 2,000 global clients, including Ascential, ASOS, Rolls-Royce, Whitbread, Paddy Power Betfair and Dixons Carphone, trust the Investis Digital team of more than 500 employees to deliver stronger relationships with audiences and improved ROI through its Connected Content approach. Investis Digital has built more than 80 careers websites and hundreds of powerful digital recruitment and employee engagement experiences to help ambitious companies hire and retain talent. This includes everything from employee value proposition development, to building out powerful brand stories to attract talent, to seamless site design and development with technical integration of ATS (Applicant Tracking System). For more information, please visit https://www.investisdigital.com. About Rolls-Royce Holdings plc Rolls-Royce pioneers cutting-edge technologies that deliver the cleanest, safest and most competitive solutions to meet our planet's vital power needs. Rolls-Royce has customers in more than 150 countries, comprising more than 400 airlines and leasing customers, 160 armed forces, 4,000 marine customers including 70 navies, and more than 5,000 power and nuclear customers. Annual underlying revenue was 15 billion in 2017, around half of which came from the provision of aftermarket services. The firm and announced a gross order book stood at 78.5 billion at the end of December 2017. In 2017, Rolls-Royce invested 1.4 billion on research and development. We also support a global network of 31 University Technology Centres, which position Rolls-Royce engineers at the forefront of scientific research. Rolls-Royce employs 55,000 people in 50 countries. More than 18,200 of these are engineers. The Group has a strong commitment to apprentice and graduate recruitment and to further developing employee skills. In 2017 we recruited 313 graduates and 339 apprentices through our worldwide training programmes. Video - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/819599/Investis_Digital_and_Rolls_Royce_RAD_Award.mp4 Dominica is set to welcome three new world-class hotels this year, all of whom are part of its Citizenship by Investment (CBI) Programme. Amongst them is Anichi Resort and Spa, operating under Marriott International's elite Autograph Collection. The eco-resort began construction in January 2018 and is expected to conclude towards the end of this year. Located in the northern town of Portsmouth, Anichi Resort will comprise of 128 rooms, presidential suites, high-end shops, a business centre and several restaurants and bars. The hotel will balance Marriott's distinguishable luxury brand with Dominica's green-friendly philosophy. With a tourism sector that exceeded all expectations in 2018, Dominica's 2019 is off to a good start with Anichi Resort making Forbes' Top 10 Most Anticipated Caribbean Hotels. Dominica's Minister for Tourism and Culture, Robert Tonge recently said: "the Government is committed to implementing its economic growth vision () This is possible today because of the funds generated through our Citizenship by Investment Programme, and the persistent and progressive efforts of the developers of the respective real estate projects." The hotel is amongst a select list of approved projects under Dominica's CBI Programme, with another two renowned brands opening their doors this year. The Programme allows investors to either make a contribution to the Economic Diversification Fund (EDF) or make a purchase from a list of real estate options. The Government then channels these investments into development of key areas such as tourism, education, climate change, healthcare and infrastructure. In exchange, the investor acquires a second citizenship that grants them greater global mobility, increased business opportunities and life-long security for their families. Dominica's Programme has been operating for over 25 years, making it one of the oldest CBI offerings worldwide. It gained international recognition for its efficiency, transparency, strong due diligence and good reputation. Last year, it was ranked the world's best citizenship programme for a second year in a row in the 2018 CBI Index, published by Financial Times' Professional Wealth Management magazine. Since inception, Dominica has been inspiring confidence amongst international investors and agents by offering a Programme that has both experience and integrity on its side. International legal advisory CS Global Partners is the government-mandated marketing promoter of the Commonwealth of Dominica's Citizenship by Investment Programme. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190208005013/en/ Contacts: Thomas Kohn pr@csglobalpartners.com +(44)2073184343 www.csglobalpartners.com VICTOR, N.Y., Feb. 08, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Constellation Brands, Inc. (NYSE: STZ and STZ.B), a leading beverage alcohol company, announced today that Bill Newlands, president and chief operating officer, and David Klein, chief financial officer, will present at the Consumer Analyst Group of New York (CAGNY) conference on Wednesday, February 20, 2019, at the Boca Raton Resort & Club in Florida. The presentation is scheduled to begin at 3:00 p.m. EST and is expected to cover the company's strategic business activities, financial and operational performance, and outlook for the future. A live audio webcast of the presentation can be accessed on the company's website at www.cbrands.com by following the instructions in the "Investors" section under "Events & Presentations." Following the presentation, the webcast will be available on the company's website for replay through the close of business on Friday, March 29, 2019. Financial and statistical information discussed in the presentation and a reconciliation of any reported (GAAP) financial measures with comparable or non-GAAP financial measures will also be available on the company's website in the "Investors" section under "Reporting." About Constellation Brands Constellation Brands (NYSE: STZ and STZ.B), a Fortune 500 company, is a leading international producer and marketer of beer, wine and spirits with operations in the U.S., Mexico, New Zealand, Italy and Canada. Constellation is the No. 3 beer company in the U.S. with high-end, iconic imported brands such as Corona Extra, Corona Light, Modelo Especial, Modelo Negra and Pacifico. The company's beer portfolio also includes Ballast Point, one of the most awarded craft brewers in the U.S., and Funky Buddha Brewery. In addition, Constellation is the world leader in premium wine, selling great brands that people love, including Robert Mondavi, Clos du Bois, Kim Crawford, Meiomi, Mark West, Black Box, Ruffino and The Prisoner. The company's premium spirits brands include SVEDKA Vodka, Casa Noble Tequila and High West Whiskey. Based in Victor, N.Y., the company believes that industry leadership involves a commitment to brand building, our trade partners, the environment, our investors and to consumers around the world who choose our products when celebrating big moments or enjoying quiet ones. Founded in 1945, Constellation has grown to become a significant player in the beverage alcohol industry with more than 100 brands in its portfolio; about 40 wineries, breweries and distilleries; and approximately 10,000 talented employees. We express our company vision: to elevate life with every glass raised. To learn more, follow us on Twitter @cbrands and visit www.cbrands.com . MEDIA CONTACTS INVESTOR RELATIONS CONTACTS Mike McGrew 773-251-4934 |Amy Martin 585-678-7141 Patty Yahn-Urlaub 585-678-7483 |Bob Czudak 585-678-7170 Tom Conaway 585-678-7503 A downloadable PDF copy of this news release enhanced with multimedia links can be found here: http://resource.globenewswire.com/Resource/Download/506da49a-1660-4b88-9568-dbd6afe5132d Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - February 8, 2019) - Xtra-Gold Resources Corp. (TSX: XTG) (OTCQB: XTGRF) ("Xtra- Gold" or the "Company") is pleased to announce today that the Toronto Stock Exchange ("TSX") has accepted a noticed filed by the Company of its intention to renew its prior normal course issuer bid for a further one year period. The Company intends to proceed with a normal course issuer bid to purchase up to 4,000,000 common shares of the Company (the "2019 Bid"). The Company is commencing the 2019 Bid because it believes that the current market price of its common shares may not fully reflect the underlying value of the Company's business and its future business prospects. The Company believes that the purchase of common shares for cancellation is in the best interests of the Company's shareholders by increasing the respective proportionate shareholdings and therefore increasing the respective equity interest in the Company for all remaining shareholders. As of January 31, 2019 the Company has 46,245,917 common shares issued and outstanding. The 4,000,000 common shares that may be purchased by the Company under the 2019 Bid represent approximately 10% of the public float (42,400,062 as of January 31, 2019) of the Company. The 2019 Bid will commence on February 13, 2019 and will terminate on February 12, 2020 or at such earlier date in the event that the number of shares sought in the 2019 Bid has been repurchased. The Company reserves the right to terminate the 2019 Bid earlier if it feels that it is appropriate to do so. All shares will be purchased on the open market through the facilities of the TSX, and payment for the common shares will be in accordance with TSX policies. The price paid for the common shares will be the market price at the time of purchase. Purchasing may be suspended at any time, and no purchases will be made other than by means of open market transactions during the term of the 2019 Bid. The maximum number of common shares that may be purchased on a daily basis is 2,837 common shares representing 25% of the average daily trading volume for the last six calendar months, except where purchases are made in accordance with "block purchases" exemptions under applicable TSX policies. The common shares purchased by the Company will be cancelled. The Company has engaged Haywood Securities Inc. to act as broker through which the 2019 Bid will be conducted. Previous purchases were made by the Company under a prior normal course issuer bid (the "2018 Bid"), the results of which are noted hereunder. Results of 2018 Bid Pursuant to a previous notice of intention to conduct a normal course issuer bid, under which Company sought and received approval from the TSX to purchase up to 4,000,000 Common Shares for the period of January 11, 2018 to January 10, 2019, the Company has purchased, as of November 30, 2018, 1,536,500 Common Shares on the open market at an average purchase price of $0.235 per share. As of January 31, 2019, the issued and outstanding number of Common Shares is 46,245,917 shares and the public float of the Common share is 42,400,062 shares. About Xtra-Gold Resources Corp. Xtra-Gold is a gold exploration company with a substantial land position in the Kibi Gold Belt, in Ghana West Africa. Contact Information For further information please contact: James Longshore, Chief Executive Officer Telephone: 416-628-2881 E-mail: info@xtragold.com Website: www.xtragold.com To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/42724 Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann. STOCKHOLM, Feb. 8, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The hotel booking platform Nustay offers its customers a large variety of hotel rooms at low prices around the world. By using big data, AI and algorithms, it offers a tailormade booking experience to suit customer preferences. Today, it is announced that the company has completed a successful round of preliminary funding of SEK16.5 million and prepares for a listing on the Spotlight Stock Market this Spring. Nustay is led by entrepreneur Mathias Lundoe Nielsen and Chairman of the board Lone Fnss Schrder. The idea behind Nustay came to the founder Mathias Lundoe Nielsen after a trip to Thailand that did not meet his expectations. The trip made him wonder why there wasn't a hotel booking site giving a realistic presentation of the hotel and its profile and at the same time offered him personalized suggestions at low prices. By using the latest technology such as big data, AI and algorithms and a business model that combines two classic booking models, Nustay has taken up the fight with industry giants like Booking.com and Hotels.com. Unlike other competitors in the industry, Nustay combines low prices from the B2B-model, which is based on buying many rooms in few hotels for a reduced price, with the B2C-model, offering a large number of hotels for on-demand booking. Nustay cooperates with several hotel booking services such as Expedia, Priceline and Agoda making it possible to offer rooms at more than 1.5 million hotels at low prices. Aided by the technological platform, suggestions are tailormade to suit the customer's requests, type of stay and earlier bookings. Our vision is simple: We give our customers access to the best hotel prices around the world with a single search. Now, we wish to continue to grow and break through internationally. Therefore, the listing on Sportlight is the next natural step. With a strong team, both within operations and management, an advanced well-functioning technical platform and our partnerships with Google Hotel Ads, Yahoo and Bing, we have every chance to succeed in maintaining our position as an innovative, smart and hungry David among the travel industry's Goliaths, Mathias Lundoe Nielsen, founder and CEO for Nustay comments. To be listed on Spotlight in spring Following a preliminary round of investments of SEK16.5million, Nustay prepares for an IPO and listing on the Spotlight Stock Market. The listing will take place in the Spring and aims at financing the company's continued growth in the future. The planned new issuing of stock will amount to a value of SEK30million. Nustay's revenues are expected to increase substantially due to an increased marketing effort. A large part of the budget will finance digital marketing activities. Sedermera Fondkommission will aid Nustay in the listing process and Nordnet Bank AB will act as Nordic Selling Agent. Nustay has brought together some of the most visionary entrepreneurs, the best programmers and the most proficient marketing people I've met. Their mutual understanding of digital marketing and community development will not only revolutionize the customer's hotel bookings, but the whole travel industry. This is interesting, fun and really exciting. For me, it was obvious to invest and to accept the task of leading the company's board, says Lone Fnss Schrder. For information about the issuing of stocks and listing, contact: Sedermera Fondkommission Telephone: +46(0)40-615-14-10 E-mail: info@sedermera.se For information about Nustay, contact: Mathias Lundoe Nielsen, founder and CEO Nustay A/S Telephone: +45-22-91-94-99 E-mail: mln@nustay.com Website: www.nustay.com This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com The following files are available for download: Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 8, 2019) - TransCanna Holdings Inc. (CSE: TCAN) (FSE: TH8) ("TransCanna" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that subject to completing of the acquisition of Goodfellas Group, LLC ("Goodfellas"), the company will, in addition to the branding and marketing business of Goodfellas, acquire its existing in-house brand "Simple". Simple has created as a user friendly, smart cannabis package called the Simple Kit. The Simple Kit was developed by the Goodfellas team to assist first time cannabis consumers to experience cannabis in a positive way. The Simple Kit comes with a user-friendly box as its packaging which, when opened, can be transformed into a tray. Within the box comes a child proof container/grinder, that is also waterproof and airtight, a portion of cannabis, filter tips, a cannabis scoping device and rolling papers. The Simple Kit began its preliminary introduction to dispensaries in the last quarter of 2018. As a result of the positive feedback from consumers and dispensaries during the early stage roll out, Goodfellas expects to start offering The Simple Kit to all dispensaries in California upon the completion of the sale to TransCanna. "The Goodfellas team reversed engineered the cannabis experience and brought it back to the beginning. Our driving question within the company was how can we help and assist a consumer, who hasn't had cannabis in 30 or 40 years, begin to enjoy cannabis again. Whether it's for medicinal or recreational purposes, we believe the Simple Kit is an ideal product to help anyone start enjoying cannabis," states Nam Tran, Managing Member of GoodFellas. "An exceptional product for the times. We're witnessing an unprecedented number of patients and consumers participating with cannabis. The Simple Kit is innovative, simple and easy to use. Conditional on the acquisition we look forward to expanding the Simple Kit throughout California," states Jim Pakulis, CEO of TransCanna. About TransCanna Holdings Inc. TransCanna Holdings Inc. is a Canadian based company providing branding, transportation and distribution services, through its wholly-owned California subsidiaries, to a range of industries including the cannabis marketplace. For further information, please visit the Company's website at www.transcanna.com or email the Company at info@transcanna.com. On behalf of the Board of Directors James Pakulis President and Chief Executive Officer Telephone: (604) 609-6199 The information in this news release includes certain information and statements about management's view of future events, expectations, plans and prospects that constitute forward looking statements. These statements are based upon assumptions that are subject to significant risks and uncertainties. Because of these risks and uncertainties and as a result of a variety of factors, the actual results, expectations, achievements or performance may differ materially from those anticipated and indicated by these forward looking statements. Forward-looking statements in this news release include, but are not limited to: the expected purchase of the facility, the terms of the facility acquisition, the payment of finders fees in relation thereto, the ability of the Company to secure financing and the acquisition of appropriate licenses for the facility. Any number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements as well as future results. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in forward looking statements are reasonable, it can give no assurances that the expectations of any forward looking statements will prove to be correct. Except as required by law, the Company disclaims any intention and assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward looking statements to reflect actual results, whether as a result of new information, future events, changes in assumptions, changes in factors affecting such forward looking statements or otherwise. Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/42701 Less brands, increased loyalty and changing attitudes highlight this year's research and analysis LIMASSOL, Cyprus, Feb. 8, 2019WhichBingo revealed details of their annual online report at the 2019 London Affiliate Conference. The report features interviews with industry leaders such as Richard Flint from Sky Betting & Gaming, as well as detailed analysis of online bingo industry trends in the UK market, such as TV marketing spend and search engine rankings. The report also contains results from the annual bingo players survey, which provide important insights into players' attitudes and behaviours. This year's report revealed: The total number of bingo sites is in decline. Tombola spent the most on TV advertising, but Gala were the most visible brand in search engines. Fairer wagering requirements have changed players' attitudes towards bonuses. The survey once again showed a trend of loyalty in the bingo market, with 47% saying they are members of 2 - 4 bingo sites. The gender divide remained relatively unchanged with 88% of survey participants identifying as women, but there were signs of an increase in the number of players aged 55+. When it comes to wagering and bonuses, last year 61% of players stated they would rather get no bonus at all if it meant they could withdraw winnings more easily. However, this figure dropped to 55% in 2018 which could be a sign that that deposit bonuses and wagering requirements have improved enough that players are more willing to claim a bonus. Also included in the report are predictions from industry heavyweights including Simon Collins from River iGaming and Ben Starr of 15 Marketing. Plus Ken Muir from iGaming Tracker provides analysis on the most popular slot titles of the year. This is the first year that the WhichBingo report has been published under XLMedia PLC, who purchased the site in 2018. The full 26-page report can be downloaded for free on the WhichBingo website here. About WhichBingo Launched in 2000, WhichBingo.co.uk is the largest independent online bingo review site in the UK. Well-known for being the first for new online bingo site reviews, WhichBingo publishes thousands of player reviews, and has won numerous industry awards, including EGR 'Best Bingo Affiliate' (2015, 2016 & 2017), iGB 'Best Bingo Website' (2016, 2017 & 2018), EGR 'Best Gaming Community' (2012), iGB 'Best Bingo Affiliate' (2012), EGR 'Best Gaming Review Site' (2011) and Online Bingo Summit 'Best Bingo Portal' (2008 & 2009). Contact: Wayne Howe, Email manager@whichbingo.co.uk FLOW TRADERS REPORTS STRONG FINISH TO RECORD YEAR 2018 Amsterdam, the Netherlands - Flow Traders N.V. (Euronext: FLOW) announces its unaudited 4Q18 results: 4Q18 ETP Value Traded was up 49% Q-o-Q to 273bn. This resulted in a 31% Y-o-Y increase, compared to a 34% Y-o-Y increase in market ETP Value Traded following market developments in the US 4Q18 Net Trading Income (NTI) was up 75% Q-o-Q to 74.1m, resulting in a record FY18 NTI of 383.4m 4Q18 fixed costs grew 6% Q-o-Q, including a one-off US office rent charge, resulting in 7% Y-o-Y growth in fixed costs in FY18 FTEs grew 10.7% Y-o-Y to 436 as at the end of December 2018 4Q18 EBITDA margin reached 46%, leading to a FY18 EBITDA margin of 52% 4Q18 Net Profit amounted to 25.9m, resulting in a FY18 Net Profit of 160.9m, and a FY18 EPS of 3.46 Flow Traders' own funds requirement, under EU Capital Requirements Regulation, was 168m as at 31 December 2018, resulting in excess capital of 110m Flow Traders proposes final FY18 dividend of 1.00, implying a 2.35 total dividend for FY18 and a 68% dividend pay-out ratio Key growth initiatives confirm our longer-term growth strategy focus on diversification and growth of our trading infrastructure Overview of Flow Traders' quarterly and full year consolidated results million, unless otherwise stated 4Q18 3Q18 Q-o-Q Change FY18 FY17 Y-o-Y Change Net Trading Income 74.1 42.4 75% 383.4 166.0 131% EMEA (Europe) 44.4 27.5 62% 153.8 114.7 34% Americas 13.8 8.1 71% 189.3 34.1 456% APAC (Asia) 15.8 6.8 131% 40.4 17.2 134% Fixed operating expenses 24.2 22.9 6% 90.7 84.7 7% EBITDA 33.8 12.7 167% 199.8 56.0 257% EBITDA Margin 46% 30% 52% 34% Net Profit 25.9 8.2 217% 160.9 39.6 306% EPS (EUR) 0.56 0.18 3.46 0.85 Flow Traders ETP Value Traded (bn) 272.8 183.2 49% 899.4 685.8 31% EMEA (Europe) 123.6 96.5 28% 473.9 418.3 13% Americas 139.5 78.4 78% 391.0 244.6 60% APAC (Asia) 9.7 8.3 17% 34.5 22.9 51% Flow Traders' non ETP Value Traded (bn) 807 586 38% 2,681 2,215 21% Market ETP Value Traded (bn) 8,454 4,874 73% 25,412 18,936 34% EMEA (Europe incl MTF) 347 281 24% 1,347 1,270 6% Americas 7,472 4,091 83% 21,800 15,726 39% APAC (Asia) 636 502 27% 2,265 1,940 17% APAC (ex China) 291 198 47% 998 767 30% Current Trading and Outlook Market activity picked up in 4Q18 after a slow summer. Geopolitical developments in the US, China and Europe resulted in more trading activity in 4Q18, especially in the US. Value Traded in the market rose substantially quarter-on-quarter, leading to even stronger year-on-year growth in Value Traded versus FY17. Growth in ETP assets under management decelerated towards the end of 2018, due to the selling pressure in markets globally. However, inflows into ETPs continued year-on-year, confirming the market long-term shift towards passive investing. Flow Traders' recent results were supported by the disciplined execution of our growth strategy, with more venues connected, more counterparties and more products traded, while at the same time diversifying trading into areas like FX and Fixed Income. Flow Traders' performance in 2018 confirmed in turn the relevance of our growth strategy, which focus in the future will remain on diversification, while growing our presence in ETPs. Management Board statements Co-CEO Dennis Dijkstra stated: "The initiatives we launched in 2017 and before, started to materialize in 2018 in the form of NTI growth. The strategic focus we presented at the beginning of 2018, combined with disciplined execution, have resulted in another record year for Flow Traders. NTI more than doubled year-on-year, as Flow Traders' presence in the overall financial markets expanded and Value Traded grew strongly. Investments made in the past years in new trading desks, new products and new venues, whilst maintaining a tight grip on our fixed cost base, have already yielded great results and puts us today in an improved market position. Those results translate in a total proposed dividend of 2.35 over 2018, or a 68% dividend pay-out ratio, as our free cash flows continue to be high and our capital position to be healthy with an unleveraged balance sheet. This foundation allows Flow Traders to provide a competitive liquidity platform for other asset classes on top of ETPs, and complements our ambition to be the leading liquidity provider in ETPs globally. As flagged before, regulatory developments like CRR and MiFID II have contributed to the development of a level playing field and to greater transparency in the financial markets and, as such, have supported Flow Traders' growth strategy in 2018. In 2019 and beyond, Flow Traders will further intensify its efforts to diversify into asset classes like FX, Fixed Income and into other financial products as a liquidity provider, which will in turn support our presence and growth in the global ETP ecosystem. This will materialize even more on the strong foundation of ever expanding trading relationships we have been building to date. " Co-CEO Sjoerd Rietberg added: "Looking at 2018, Flow Traders increased its presence in all active markets and regions and NTI grew to a record level, helped by improved overall market conditions. Flow Traders grew the number of financial products traded, both in the ETP and non-ETP space. We connected to more trading venues, started providing liquidity in FX, traded more products on a continuous basis, became an important liquidity provider in ETPs in Asia as well as an Authorized Participant in the first crypto ETF in Switzerland and grew OTC trading in all regions. This all without any loss days in 2018. Whilst all these achievements illustrate Flow Traders' strong growth in 2018, the modularity of our trading setup will provide Flow Traders with further leverage in a larger part of the financial markets in the future. Flow Traders wants to remain the leading liquidity provider in ETPs globally, which goes hand in hand with the ambition of becoming a one-stop shop liquidity platform for all kind of financial products. We will further address those objectives in our first Investor Day, which will be held on 18 April 2019." Preliminary Financial Calendar 1H19 28 February 2019 FY18 annual report release 26 March 2019 Silent period start ahead of 3Q18 trading update 16 April 2019 1Q19 trading update release (no analyst conference call) 18 April 2019 Flow Traders Investor Day 08 May 2019 AGM 10 May 2019 FY18 final dividend proposed ex-dividend date 13 May 2019 FY18 final dividend proposed record date 15 May 2019 FY18 final dividend proposed payment date 28 June 2019 Silent period start ahead of 1H19 results 24 July 2019 1H19 results release Analyst conference call and webcast The analyst conference call on the FY18 results will be held at 10:00 am Amsterdam time on Friday 8 February 2019. The presentation will also be accessible via www.flowtraders.com/investors (http://www.flowtraders.com/investors), where the presentation can be downloaded and the conference call can be followed via a listen-only audio webcast. A replay of the conference call will be available on the company website for at least 90 days. Contact Details Flow Traders N.V. Serge Enneman / Investor Relations Officer Phone: +31 20 7996799 Email: investor.relations@flowtraders.com (mailto:investor.relations@flowtraders.com) Important legal information This press release is prepared by Flow Traders N.V. and is for information purposes only. It is not a recommendation to engage in investment activities and you must not rely on the content of this document when making any investment decisions. The information in this document does not constitute legal, tax, or investment advice and is not to be regarded as investor marketing or marketing of any security or financial instrument, or as an offer to buy or sell, or as a solicitation of any offer to buy or sell, securities or financial instruments. The information and materials contained in this press release are provided 'as is' and Flow Traders N.V. or any of its affiliates ("Flow Traders") do not warrant the accuracy, adequacy or completeness of the information and materials and expressly disclaim liability for any errors or omissions. This press release is not intended to be, and shall not constitute in any way a binding or legal agreement, or impose any legal obligation on Flow Traders. All intellectual property rights, including trademarks, are those of their respective owners. All rights reserved. All proprietary rights and interest in or connected with this publication shall vest in Flow Traders. No part of it may be redistributed or reproduced without the prior written permission of Flow Traders. This press release may include forward-looking statements, which are based on Flow Traders' current expectations and projections about future events, and are not guarantees of future performance. Forward looking statements are statements that are not historical facts, including statements about our beliefs and expectations. Words such as "may", "will", "would", "should", "expect", "intend", "estimate", "anticipate", "project", "believe", "could", "hope", "seek", "plan", "foresee", "aim", "objective", "potential", "goal" "strategy", "target", "continue" and similar expressions or their negatives are used to identify these forward-looking statements. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors because they relate to events and depend on circumstances that will occur in the future whether or not outside the control of Flow Traders. Such factors may cause actual results, performance or developments to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Accordingly, no undue reliance should be placed on any forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements speak only as at the date at which they are made. Flow Traders expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to update, review or revise any forward-looking statements contained in this press release to reflect any change in its expectations or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which such statements are based unless required to do so by applicable law. Financial objectives are internal objectives of Flow Traders to measure its operational performance and should not be read as indicating that Flow Traders is targeting such metrics for any particular fiscal year. Flow Traders' ability to achieve these financial objectives is inherently subject to significant business, economic and competitive uncertainties and contingencies, many of which are beyond Flow Traders' control, and upon assumptions with respect to future business decisions that are subject to change. As a result, Flow Traders' actual results may vary from these financial objectives, and those variations may be material. Efficiencies are net, before tax and on a run-rate basis, i.e. taking into account the full-year impact of any measure to be undertaken before the end of the period mentioned. The expected operating efficiencies and cost savings were prepared on the basis of a number of assumptions, projections and estimates, many of which depend on factors that are beyond Flow Traders' control. These assumptions, projections and estimates are inherently subject to significant uncertainties and actual results may differ, perhaps materially, from those projected. Flow Traders cannot provide any assurance that these assumptions are correct and that these projections and estimates will reflect Flow Traders' actual results of operations. By accepting this document you agree to the terms set out above. If you do not agree with the terms set out above please notify legal.amsterdam@nl.flowtraders.com (mailto:legal.amsterdam@nl.flowtraders.com) immediately and delete or destroy this document. Market Abuse Regulation This press release contains information within the meaning of Article 7(1) of the EU Market Abuse Regulation. Flow Traders 4Q18 Press Release (http://hugin.info/171622/R/2234178/879095.pdf) This announcement is distributed by West Corporation on behalf of West Corporation clients. The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the information contained therein. Source: Flow Traders NV via Globenewswire Regulatory News: The Board of Directors of Sartorius Stedim Biotech S.A. (SSB) (Paris:DIM) resolved at its most recent meeting to submit a proposal to the combined Annual General Shareholders' Meeting on March 26, 2019, to pay a dividend for fiscal 2018 of 0.57 per share. The previous year's dividend was 0.46. Under this proposal, the total profit distributed would rise by 23.9% from 42.4 million to 52.5 million. This press release contains statements about the future development of the Sartorius Stedim Biotech Group. We cannot guarantee that the content of these statements will actually apply because these statements are based upon assumptions and estimates that harbor certain risks and uncertainties. Financial calendar February 19, 2019 Publication of the 2018 Annual Report March 26, 2019 Annual Shareholders' Meeting Aubagne, France April 18, 2019 Publication of First-Quarter Results for 2019 A profile of Sartorius Stedim Biotech Sartorius Stedim Biotech is a leading international partner of the biopharmaceutical industry. As a total solutions provider, the company helps its customers to manufacture biotech medications safely, rapidly and economically. Headquartered in Aubagne, France, Sartorius Stedim Biotech is quoted on the Eurolist of Euronext Paris. With its own manufacturing and R&D sites in Europe, North America and Asia and an international network of sales companies, Sartorius Stedim Biotech has a global reach. The Group has been annually growing by double digits on average and has been regularly expanding its portfolio by acquisitions of complementary technologies. In 2018, the company employed approx. 5,600 people, and earned sales revenue of 1,212.2 million according to preliminary figures. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190207005868/en/ Contacts: Petra Kirchhoff, Head of Corporate Communications and Investor Relations Phone: +49(0)551.308.1686; petra.kirchhoff@sartorius.com The big screen has often shown real-life stories and sufferings, and now we have one more movie following suit. Podhu Nalan Karudhi is about two giant loan sharks and their greed towards money, which results in the middle-class suffering in Chennai. The story revolves around a lower-middle class person, Poovarasan (Karunakaran), a call taxi driver who is in quest of his lost brother. He shoulders the responsibility of his family, which consists of his father, sister-in-law and a niece. You also have a romantic track with Anu Sithara who plays a school teacher. Uththiram (Yog Japee), a loan shark lends loans and does recovery of the same through Napolean (Santhosh Pratap) who goes to the extent of kidnap, assault and even kill borrowers in the process. We often see Uththiram and Babu (another loan shark) getting into clashes and gang fights when they cross each other. There's also another track involving a simpleton Kannan (Adith Arun), who arrives in Chennai to make a living as a two-wheeler mechanic. He happens to encounter Subiksha, who is born with a silver spoon and is in love with Kannan. The former doesn't believe in the institution of marriage though she is in love with the labour class simpleton. How are all these characters stitched together and what are the consequences faced by them forms the rest of the plot. Zion, the director of the movie, has definitely got a good line of the subject, which excites the audience upon hearing the same. The initial setup and the way forward offers good excitement, however, the tempo seems to be lost mid-way in the first half. At some point, the movie goes haywire and doesn't quite get the desired connect. Writer Zion scores ahead over director Zion Karunakaran is at his usual best and offers a varied range of expressions while Adith Arun, Santhosh Prathap, Yog Japee and Subhiksha are equally good in contributing to their respective roles. The rest of the cast and crew are adequate and neither seem to be on the downside nor add a lot of weight to the movie. Final Verdict Podhu Nalan Karudhi appears to be a rich flick on paper but not so qualitative with its final output on screen. Puneeth Rajkumar's Nata Sarvabhouma released worldwide yesterday (February 7, 2019). It is Power Star's first horror flick and he's absolutely nailed it. The film also features Rachita Ram and Anupama Parameswaran in the lead. The movie has opened with a total of 550+ shows, making it the biggest Kannada release so far. Not just in Karnataka, but Appu's fans across the world can enjoy their favorite star's movie as Nata Sarvabhouma will be released in Russia and Kenya, and Japan too, after its advent in the west. Today, Nata Sarvabhouma released in 48 theatres in America and 24 in Australia. The Puneeth starrer is being screened in Canada, France, Dubai and Singapore too. The film is currently waiting for approval from the Censor Board. Once the process is done, Nata Sarvabhouma will be gracing theatres in France, Kenya and Japan. For the first time in the history of Kannada films, fans based in Africa will be able to catch a Sandalwood film in their respective countries. With this, Puneeth's latest film has set yet another record. As per the latest records, the movie has collected between Rs 6 and 8 crore on the first day. Also, more shows have been booked in Mysore than Bangalore. MOST READ : Kichcha Sudeep's Pailwaan Sets A New Record! For The First Time Ever In Sandalwood Though fans couldn't wait to watch their favorite star on screen after a year and a half, the weekday factor might have caused a tad bit inconvenience. Nata Sarvabhouma's collection has high chances of picking up from tomorrow onwards. Shraddha Waves To The Cameras After A Photo Shoot Shraddha Kapoor was at a photo shoot in Bandra today. She waved to the camera as she was clicked by the shutterbugs. Shraddha sported a quirky casual look in a lime green tank top, green cargo pants, and a denim jacket. On the professional front, Shraddha has been shooting for Remo De'Souza's dance film 3'. She will be starring opposite Varun Dhawan in the film. It is the third installment of Any Body Can Dance. Malaika Is All Smiles After A Work Out Session We all know that Malaika Arora is a fitness freak. Today, Malaika was all smiles as she got into her car after sweating it out at the gym. She was rocking her gym look which was a grey stripped hoodie, and printed grey track pants. A few days earlier, Malaika and her rumored boyfriend Arjun Kapoor were seen at Gauri Khan's dinner party along with Amrita Arora, Karishma Kapoor, Natasha Poonawalla and others. Ranveer Spotted In An All Red Ensemble At The Airport Ranveer Singh is all set for the release of Gully Boy which might just be the most awaited Bollywood film this year. Early on Friday morning, Ranveer was seen jetting off somewhere in a red hoodie and matching pants, teamed with white sneakers. He was probably heading somewhere for Gully Boy promotions. Alia Bhatt Airport Look Is Totally Cool Alia Bhatt joined Ranveer at the airport during the early hours of Friday morning. She looked cool in a black cropped zip up jacket and matching sweatpants. She carried a red hand bacg and completed her look with a pair of retro sunglasses. Gully Boy is set to premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival on February 14th. Malaika Slays The Boss Lady Look Everyone knows that Malaika Arora is a bonafide fashionista. She makes something as mundane as going to the salon also look glamorous. Today, Malaika looked like a total boss lady as she stepped out after a salon session in Bandra, Mumbai. She wore a fabulous grey pant suit with a white tank top. She wore black ankle boots and her sunglasses screamed glam. Taimur Continues His Horse Riding Lessons Taimur Ali Khan is an everyday favourite of the paparazzi. Today, the adorable Tim Tim was snapped riding a horse in Bandra. It looks like he is continuing his horse riding lessons, a fondness he picked up sometime in December last year when he was on a trip to South Africa with his mom and pop, Kareena and Saif. It was the same chestnut coloured horse that has been helping him with lessons ever since he returned to Mumbai. Isn't he proving to everyone what a little nawab he is? Jacqueline Looks Classy At The Airport Jacqueline Fernandez was spotted by the paparazzi as she prepared to jet off somewhere at the airport. Jacqueline looked classy as hell in a light grey top with a button front denim skirt. She teamed her look with an oversized plaid brown blazer and sported black ankle boots. On the work front, Jacqueline will next be seen in Drive, a Bollywood remake of an American movie with the same name. It is scheduled for release on June 28th, 2019. Janhvi Hits The Gym One of the celebs we see hitting the gym on the regular is Janhvi Kapoor. Today, she sported a white graphic tee and black shorts as she headed in for her workout session. Janhvi had with her a denim sling bag and sported pink slippers. Malaika Arora & Arjun Kapoor Malaika Arora and Arjun Kapoor are the talk of the town and were spotted going out on dinner dates several times. Reports are doing the rounds that the couple is scouting for a property in Mumbai and will soon get hitched by the end of the year. There are good times ahead for Malaika and Arjun, folks! Arbaaz Khan & Giorgia Andriani Arbaaz Khan and Giorgia Andriani have attended several events together and it is reported that the Khan-daan has given their green signal for the couple to go ahead and get married. Also, Giorgia is very friendly and has won many hearts in the industry already. Don't be surprised if the couple gets hitched by the end of 2019, peeps! Farhan Akhtar & Shibani Dandekar Farhan Akhtar and Shibani Dandekar's Instagram PDA is for everyone to see and despite the couple not making their relationship public, people can read between the lines. The duo is head-over-heels for each other and might get hitched sooner than we expected. Ranbir Kapoor & Alia Bhatt Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt are the new love birds in town and Alia even accompanied the Kapoor family as they headed to New York City to meet Rishi Kapoor. Reports state that the couple might get engaged as soon as their movie Brahmastra hits the theatres in Christmas 2019. Exciting times ahead for Ranbir and Alia! Sushmita Sen & Rohman Shawl Sushmita Sen and Rohman Shawl's love for each other took everyone by surprise and the duo keep sharing lovey-dovey pictures on Instagram very often. It is stated that the couple might get hitched between September/November 2019 and is scouting for the perfect location. Without a doubt, 2019 is the year of love for Bollywood. critic's rating: 3.5/5 Trailer : Alita: Battle Angel Alita: Battle Angel is based on the Japanese manga series Gunnm by Yukito Kishiro. Incidentally, its protagonist shares the same concerns as that of that another Japanese export to Hollywood, Ghost In The Shell. And like the Ghost In The Shell, this film too has been accused of whitewashing its origins. Though it isnt as complex or deals with philosophical queries like Ghost... Whatever the case maybe, the film is part superhero origin story, part cross-cultural romance and part coming-of-age story. And this mix of genres is both its strength and paradoxically its weakness as well.Christoph Waltz (Dr Dyson Ido) is a doctor who specialises in prosthetic work for badly injured humans and cyborgs. His specialisation lies in creating new metal bodies. Once, while scouting for spare parts in the junkyards of the Iron City, he discovers a disembodied female cyborg with a fully intact human brain. Ido rebuilds the cyborg, who doesnt have any recollections of her past, and names her Alita after his own deceased daughter. For a while, she acts as Eliza Doolittle to his Professor Higgins but then starts listening to her own instincts and feelings. She comes across as someone well-versed in panzer kunst, a martial art for machines. Whenever she finds herself in danger, her subconscious kicks in and she becomes a total war machine easily destroying opponents even four times her size. Its this mastery that leads her to be one of the foremost players of Motorball, a deadly sport on the lines of rollerball, made famous by the film Rollerball (1975), which too dealt with the theme of a death sport existing to please the masses in a futuristic dystopian society.She begins to have feelings for Hugo (Keean Johnson), a young mechanic who is also a petty criminal. He later vows to reform himself for her. His dream is to go to the skycity of of Zalem, for which he has been procuring parts illegally for Vector (Mahershala Ali), a fixer for the Motorball tournament. Alita learns that Vector is running a scam and that the only way one can legally go to Zalem was to win the Motorball tournament. A super scientist from Zalem, Nova (Edward Norton) doesnt want the denizens of the city below to ever come up. Worse, hes been harvesting human body parts for hundreds of years to keep himself alive. Hugo, reduced to being a cyborg because of his injuries, runs up a factory chute towards Zalem but is killed. Atila vows to avenge his death and in the films last shot we see her poised to become the next grand champion of Motorball, raising her sword in defiance against Nova, against Zalem.As stated earlier, the film is coming of age story and hence the violence is kind of muted. The heroine goes through several tests to fully understand her powers and gains both physical and emotional maturity through her experiences. The action, when it erupts, is choreographed mayhem. What were seeing it is mostly CGI and while hugely appealing, takes away the emotional investment of the viewer watching human actors at work. The film has set up a premise for the future sequels which will take the story further. Rosa Salazar, who plays a big-eyed, motion captured version of herself is the soul of the film. Despite having a metal body, her human qualities show through and the actor makes the viewer root for Alita as she faces various hurdles. Christoph Waltz, in contrast, feels more mechanical despite playing a human.This long in the making film, produced by James Cameron and directed by his trusted aide Robert Rodriguez remains an interesting ride. Though given their respective pedigrees, one certainly was hoping for a grander spectacle with a more edgy storyline... Have you ever wondered just what rules and regulations govern the media or how newspapers or online news sites make decisions on what they should and should not publish? Is everything fair game or are there limitations on what can be reported? The answers can depend on where you are in the world. Different countries have different ideas on what represents a free press. For Fethiye Times with a base in the UK publishing for an audience in Turkey we have two very different approaches to consider. Did you know, for example, in Turkey, insulting the president carries a four-year prison term if the person responsible is tried and convicted? As a result of stricter security measures imposed since the attempted coup in 2015, public servants are also not allowed to speak to the media. But most countries also have their own laws to prevent libel or irresponsible reporting, most of them developed to encourage publishers to stick to established fact rather than speculation, conjecture or even vitriol. At the Fethiye Times, we do our best to ensure first of all that what we publish complies to the basic rules of western journalism, regardless of whether its something we have compiled ourselves, something submitted by a correspondent or even a comment posted on our Facebook page. Accuracy Stories in the Fethiye Times are based on information gathered in good faith by the reporting team, who will do all in their power to ensure the articles they write are a true and accurate representation of the facts. In instances where errors can be shown to have occurred, the Fethiye Times will print corrections, giving them equal prominence to the story in which any incorrect information appeared. Other than in a review, the Fethiye Times will not offer opinions on the information reported. Its important the team remains objective at all times and is not seen to take sides, whether its on a consumer issue, in a public or personal debate or in politics. Privilege Its important to note western guidelines allow the media qualified privilege at public meetings. In other words, the facts from a public meeting can be reported without the need to check with any agencies or individuals who may be mentioned. However, they have the right of reply should they wish to respond and must be given an equal opportunity to present their own arguments. The only exception is in court. A publisher has absolute privilege to print whatever is said in a court of law even if its not true as its not possible to verify details given, particularly by the defence. However, the account of any case must be fair and accurate and based on contemporaneous notes taken during the hearing. Libel The Fethiye Times will not be party to any article, Facebook status or comment by a third party which risks libel. Of course, debate is essential to a free media but any articles or comments must be factual and not based on speculation, conjecture or hearsay. Neither must they include information which cannot be substantiated or any allegations inspired by malice or spite. Personal attacks on individuals, their character, their family, their standing in the community or their business will not be tolerated. Social media Although social media has been part of the mix for a decade now, it has been notoriously difficult to regulate. However, admins on Facebook pages and groups carry a similar responsibility to a publisher and therefore need to be on top of the content. The Fethiye Times Facebook page is moderated regularly and any comment or information published which is considered offensive or libellous will be removed immediately. We carry the responsibility for the content of the page and we therefore reserve the right to decide what is posted. Turkish media policies However, although we are an internet-based operation with a UK base, the overarching principles within which we work also need to be cognisant of our host nation. Therefore we must also observe Turkish protocols and legislation, which means observing stricter controls and media management procedures, still partly inspired by the political and national security situation. As we are not a newspaper or media organisation registered in Turkey, we cannot expect to have free access to local government or public services that a news organisation could expect in the UK. Any information provided by the local authorities is at their discretion. It is not something we can demand by right. Neither can we easily challenge decisions made either by the council or the government. To do so would require us to establish facts, which would be difficult to glean without access to the relevant departments. As long as all accounts are fair and accurate, the Fethiye Times is free to report community and public events, charity affairs, natural phenomena such as storms, human interest stories and accidents and emergencies. However, under the current media regulations in Turkey, it is not our role to take up the cudgel or challenge those in authority or who serve in a public capacity. Without the full cooperation of all sides, it is also inadvisable for us to become embroiled in political reporting. A draft law was submitted to parliament proposing the ban of free plastic bags in supermarkets this week. The regulation is planned to be effective as of Jan. 1, 2019. AKP Deputy Chair Mehmet Mus made a press statement regarding the draft law. He said plastic bags used for packaging in supermarkets would be sold for 25 kurus (1 Turkish Lira is equal to 100 kurus). However, he emphasized the ban on free plastic bags would only be valid for those with a thickness ranging from 15-50 microns, as this is the standard thickness of grocery bags. Any plastic bag with a thickness greater or less than this range will continue to be free of charge. Mus added that the relevant regulation seeks to decrease the use of customary plastic bags at supermarkets to 90 per person annually by the end of 2019 and to 40 by the end of 2025. Currently every Turkish citizen uses an average of 440 plastic bags per year. The draft law not only includes a provision on the use of plastic bags, but also proposes many changes to raise the bar higher in Turkeys fight against waste management. In line with this, local administrations will be given more detailed tasks supervising efforts for zero waste. For example, it will be obligatory for at least 20 percent of vehicles in the domestic waste collection fleet in every municipality to be capable of collecting packaging waste. Minister of Environment and Urban Planning of Turkey Murat Kurum said, the decision was made due to the need to protect the environment from the great harm caused by plastic bags. Following the Fethiye Times recent feature on the Dancing Divas, we turn the spotlight onto the Fethiye Creative Womens Group art class and talk to co-founder Sharon Baltac. Creative beginnings Art has been part of Sharons life ever since she was a child, and she cant imagine it being any other way. Ive just always done it, she says. My mum was very into crafts and its something I grew up with. I love painting especially watercolours, I just adore the delicacy of using them. I have so many different projects on the go theres always something new to learn and different styles to try. Running an art class seemed a natural progression; Sharon already held a regular craft session at her home and people there told her theyd love to paint. So, when she and her friend, Kate Topcu, discussed setting up a creative womens group, it seemed an obvious addition. From abstract to Picasso Since it began towards the end of 2014, the class has covered a wide range of subjects landscapes, city skylines, nature, animals and people, to name a few. The members have produced works inspired by such famous names as Monet and Picasso, as well as more contemporary icons such as Sam Toft and Diane Salter, and Turkish artist Canan Berber. A different subject is announced each week, with the women encouraged to find their own examples to inspire them. Acrylics, watercolours and mixed media have all played their part in the resulting artworks. What delights Sharon is seeing her students discover their hidden talents, becoming less afraid to experiment and develop their own styles and skills. It doesnt matter if someone is a beginner or has painted before theres a place for them in this class, she explains. I remind people that even the greatest artists didnt get it right first time Monet did more than a thousand paintings of his water lilies compared to the three most people know. Everyone has their own style and should never say they are no good at art. A child drawing the most basic stick person thinks its a masterpiece but sadly, as we get older, we become more critical of ourselves. I love seeing the ladies grow in confidence and ability, and hope my class helps them realise they are better than they think they are. A welcoming environment and a safe space Its not just about the art, either. The weekly sessions offer company and a great way to make new friends something of which Sharon is proud. There are a lot of women on their own in this area, for whatever reason some are widowed or wanted a new life in a different country, for example. As a single woman it can be difficult to find a group where you feel comfortable, so I want our group to provide that environment. I know some of the ladies who come to class get together socially now, and thats great, she says. And she urges anyone thinking of having a go to take the plunge: I promise, painting isnt as scary as you think it will be. At the very least youll find a lovely group of warm, friendly women who are always happy to welcome a new face. Interested in joining? Classes are held every Friday from 9.30am 11.30am at Guvens Restaurant, Kocek Mustafa Caddesi, 1103 Sokak, Cals. You can catch a regular dolmus service from Fethiye centre and alight shortly before the terminus, or walk along the seafront. Sharon Baltac is also planning to run some more Saturday workshops covering different painting techniques. To find out more, or if you have questions about the regular class, email her at sjbaltaci@yahoo.co.uk. This article was written for Fethiye Times by Rebecca Parsley. Photographs by Steve Parsley. Rebecca & Steve Parsley are both former journalists with experience in newspapers, magazines and on radio. Since 2006 they have run their own communications agency, specialising in social media and online content writing. They moved to Turkey just over four years ago and live in Kayakoy with their German Shepherd dog, Dillon formerly a street dog and two cats. When not slaving over their keyboards or walking in the local countryside, they enjoy watching motorsport especially Formula 1 and are also salsa dance addicts. If someone tells you theyre a belly dancer, youd be forgiven for picturing a slinky, dusky maiden in a scanty costume, a jewel in her navel and a provocative gleam in her eye as she wiggles her hips in tantalising fashion. This, however, is belly dancing as portrayed in Hollywood movies and it has nothing to do with its origins. I would describe true belly dance as a dance by women, for other women, says Kate Topcu, who teaches a weekly class in Cals, on the outskirts of Fethiye. It should be seductive, yes, but not overtly sexual. Its about feeling comfortable with what makes us women we have curves and tummies and we should embrace them. How did it begin? There are several theories about the evolution of belly dancing. Some say it started as a fertility ritual, with a dance that focused on rotation of the hips and stomach. Theres also the belief that the name stems from the mis-hearing of the word beledi, an Arabic word meaning of the people. As Oriental and Middle Eastern dance has long been a family tradition at weddings, births and festivals, this is entirely possible. The Hollywood stereotype evolved at a time when everyday dress was modest, and the exposure of bare flesh considered risque. The belly button itself was seen as an erogenous zone, and film censors in the 1920s insisted it be covered hence the introduction of a jewel. From London to Fethiye Kate herself began dancing in the UK in 1988, becoming qualified to run her own classes in 1990. She moved to Turkey with her husband in 2007 and decided to revive her classes as part of the Fethiye Creative Womens Group, which she co-founded with Sharon Baltac towards the end of 2014. Shes keen to stress that anyone who comes her classes will find real women happy to celebrate their femininity. You dont have to be a size 8 to enjoy dancing. We come in all shapes and sizes and every woman should feel able to get up on a dance floor and do her thing. To any woman thinking of joining us, Id say do! Come and have a go. Were a friendly, supportive group who just enjoy dancing and spending that time together not to mention that its great exercise and really tones your muscles. Fethiyes Dancing Divas The group has performed at several public events as the Fethiye Dancing Divas, including Fethiyes World Environment Day celebrations at the Kultur Merkezi and the Kayakoy Festival, as well as their own haflas get-togethers where they enjoy food, music and dancing. Dont worry, though you can join the classes without taking part in any performances. Its great to perform as a group but its certainly not compulsory and I wouldnt want anyone to feel under pressure. The main purpose is to have fun and enjoy spending time with other women in a non-threatening, empowering environment where we simply celebrate being who we are, says Kate. Interested in joining? Classes are held every Friday from 11.30am 1pm at Guvens Restaurant, Kocek Mustafa Caddesi, 1103 Sokak, Cals. You can catch a regular dolmus service from Fethiye centre and alight shortly before the terminus, or walk along the seafront. Kate Topcu is happy to run an introductory taster session for women who would like to know a bit more about belly dancing before joining the regular class. To express an interest, or for more details, contact her on 0090 (0)534 666 9750 or email katetopcu@hotmail.co.uk. Dont miss the Dancing Divas at Kayakoy Senligi The Fethiye Dancing Divas will be part of the Kayakoy Festival this weekend, on Saturday, May 12, performing at Dukhas Snack Bar/Utopia Lodge Hotel between 1pm and 2pm, and again at Muzzys after 3pm. Check venues on the day for more precise times. This article was written for Fethiye Times by Rebecca Parsley. Photographs by Steve Parsley. Rebecca & Steve Parsley are both former journalists with experience in newspapers, magazines and on radio. Since 2006 they have run their own communications agency, specialising in social media and online content writing. They moved to Turkey just over four years ago and live in Kayakoy with their German Shepherd dog, Dillon formerly a street dog and two cats. When not slaving over their keyboards or walking in the local countryside, they enjoy watching motorsport especially Formula 1 and are also salsa dance addicts. Fethiye isnt just about beaches, bars and restaurants. Even after a short stay, its hard not to notice the mountains and forests which surround the town waiting to be explored and, for the adventurous, it probably seems as simple as slipping on a stout pair of shoes and heading out. But, just like the Cumbrian fells or the glens of Scotland, if youre not properly prepared, there can be some unpleasant surprises in the woods. STEVE PARSLEY has been walking dogs in the forests around Fethiye just about every day for over three years and offers his own advice on precautions which can be taken to keep both you and any furry companions out of trouble should you head for the hills. Equipment It may seem a little melodramatic but, if youre heading for the mountains and forests alone, its not a bad idea to let someone know where youre going and how long you expect to be. Back in the UK, youve probably read dozens of times of a man walking his dog discovering all sorts of things but there are far fewer of them around in Turkey. Its a much bigger country and therefore by no means crowded. Even just a short distance from Fethiye, you can find yourself in some wild countryside which is rarely visited. If you fall or have some other sort of medical emergency it could be some time before anyone stumbles across you so a fully-charged phone, a power pack if you have one, and a whistle to attract attention are probably not a bad idea. Plenty of water is also essential. The weather If youre used to the UK, obviously theres far more of it to worry about but, in Turkey, the heat of high summer is best avoided. Temperatures can exceed 50C in July and August and, when its that hot, you need to be drinking almost constantly to avoid dehydration. Water is heavy so, on a long hike, its not easy to carry enough with you. If you have to go out as you have a dog to walk, its best to stick to the cool of the morning and evening. Even so, if you feel a headache coming on, feel a little nauseous or irritable, make sure you drink something as soon as you can. Thunderstorms are the main concern in the winter months. They can arrive quite suddenly or be prolonged and pretty violent. A decent weather app on your phone which gives your real-time data on the location of nearby storm systems is a good idea. Things that slither, bite and sting Theres a season for most so theyre not necessarily a risk all year round but be aware that snakes are pretty common, particularly in May and June. By far the majority will try to avoid you just as much as you them but, if you were to step on one, they can strike. Few are venomous enough to kill a human adult but thats unlikely to be much reassurance if youve just been bitten. Hospital treatment is probably still a good idea and as soon as possible but, obviously, its even better to try to avoid being bitten in the first place. Stout walking boots are a better bet than sandals or trainers without socks. Watch where you place your feet when crossing rocky hillsides exposed to the sun with shadowy crevices between them, although you can still find snakes in the sunnier patches of forest too. If you do come across one, by far the best thing to do is stand still or, if you have to move, to do so slowly; if you dont appear to pose a threat, theres a good chance a snake will make good its escape and leave you alone. Scorpions are also pretty common in Turkey, particularly in more open ground. Theyre fast-moving, often well-camouflaged, small some no bigger than a 10p piece and, if youre wearing boots and on the move, little real threat. However, if you decide to sit somewhere for a breather or take a picnic, its not a bad idea to do a quick sweep of your intended perch first. A scorpion sting can be extremely painful, cause severe swelling and poses a far more serious risk to some. The pine processionary caterpillar is also worth keeping an eye open for in late spring, particularly if youre accompanied by a dog. They hatch in late spring from eggs laid by larvae wrapped in silken nests which resemble cotton wool hanging in the branches of pine trees. Most are on the march within a few weeks of each other, the caterpillars forming long chains which give them their name as they hunt a suitable place to burrow underground, emerging as moths in late summer. They may appear harmless and, left alone, they pose no threat but they are adorned with tiny hairs which can be a significant irritant for humans and can even prove fatal to dogs. Should you come across them, its best to steer clear. In April and early May, its probably advisable to keep any canine companions on a lead. Wild boar are also fairly widespread. By and large, if you spot them in the forest, they are less likely to be a threat; they are hunted so frequently they will probably run in the opposite direction as soon as theyre aware of you. However, some also live close to human habitation, scavenging from bins and raiding crops and there have been reports of protective mothers with young showing aggression towards people, particularly if they feel cornered or threatened. If you come across one and it hunches its shoulders and utters a growl or low grunt, its a warning so move away. Its not a good idea to run; try to appear confident but keep an eye open for something you can climb up just in case. Shepherds and their dogs Shepherds and shepherdesses have been herding sheep and goats on the Turkish mountains for countless generations and, sometimes when you come across them, its easy to believe little has changed. You can often hear their distinctive calls and whistles to their animals well before you see them, some also carrying plastic bottles filled with stones and tied to sticks which they use as rattles to drive their herds. Weve come across one shepherd who belts out folk songs at the top of his voice, one who insisted we share her meagre lunch, one old lady who regularly berates us like a demented witch every time our paths cross and others who simply scowl from beneath lowered brows. But its worth remembering where theres a shepherd or shepherdess theres often a dog or more than one and theyre not always friendly. Traditionally, they were used to deter things like bears or leopards from attacking the herd but, even though such big predators are now rare, the dogs remain and some will still attack anything they perceive as a threat. They often range a fair distance from the herd, so you may come across them before youve even seen sheep or goats and, if you have your own a dog with you, its wise to be ready for the eventuality. Kangal mastiffs are a popular breed among the shepherds; theyre both fearless and often huge. However, you can also encounter herds protected by a screen of ragtag mongrels who quickly converge to become a pack as soon as any individual barks a warning. Extricating your own dog from a seething pile of fur and teeth is both risky and stressful so wed recommend carrying pepper spray. Using a stick as a weapon isnt a good idea; it antagonises an aggressive dog and would be no good against a fully-grown kangal anyway. Its true that pepper spray can also be difficult to deploy if youre trying to restrain your own dog on a lead at the same time but at least it seems to work, even from a little distance. If you dont have a dog with you, the chances of being attacked by one owned by a shepherd are reduced significantly. Its still probably a good idea to be cautious if you come across one but, like the boar, if you appear confident and dont seem to pose a direct threat, its less likely that they will show any aggression. If they do, you can keep them at bay with the pepper spray and, if they persist, look for something you can climb. Poison Poison is a negligible threat to humans but, if youre walking with a dog, its a different story. Sadly, it is used by shepherds and farmers, sometimes to control boar which have been raiding crops, sometimes against other predators which are deemed to be a risk to lambs or kids and sometimes specifically to kill dogs seen walking in the areas where shepherds drive their herds. It is illegal and, as a result of laws going through government at the moment, could soon carry a maximum prison sentence of four years should it result in the death of an animal. But, in the more far-flung rural areas, the reality is that it would be almost impossible to prove who was responsible. As a result, when we walk our own dog, we always carry a needle, syringe and a supply of atropine an antidote that, in an emergency, can buy you enough time to get your animal to a vet for treatment. Its available over the counter from most surgeries along with information on how to administer it and the correct dosage for your pet. Poison is a nasty, insidious threat and, sadly, one which needs to be considered every time you walk your dog off a lead. It can kill quickly and can be left anywhere, even adjacent to roads or well-trodden paths. Symptoms vary but are evident within minutes. A loss of control of the limbs is usually the first sign; your dog may appear dazed and unsteady on its feet. Rapid heartbeat, violent trembling and laboured breathing, retching and coughing may follow, before collapse. Frothing from the mouth and blue gums may occur in the latter stages and, if not treated quickly, death is almost inevitable. We always keep our own dog on a lead particularly in areas where we have come across sheep and goats before and will demonstrate that to any shepherds we see. We will sit and wait patiently if a herd crosses our path and stay well clear if we can hear them along the route ahead. We have trained our dog as best we can not to react or to bark if we come across livestock and do our best to show respect for the shepherds and shepherdesses and their lifestyle which, after all, has been unchanged for centuries. In the eyes of some who make their living off the land or in the forests, recreational walkers are still the interlopers and, if they bring along dogs which can be a threat to their livestock, their instinct is to protect them. It would be impossible for many to condone or countenance the indiscriminate use of poison but, if a shepherd has half a dozen animals unaccounted for and a stranger with a dog has been seen in the same area recently, it is easy to understand their reasoning, if not their solution. People The further you go from centres of population the less likely it is that youll see anyone else. You can sometimes walk for hours without hearing or seeing another human being and, for some, thats the attraction of the forests and mountains. But, although even woods closer to habitation can still be deserted, there is more of a chance that youll encounter people. The noise of engines from a quad bike safari, the slow, plodding clip-clop of hooves from a pony trek or even a shouted conversation between other walkers will mean that sense of isolation vanishes. But its also worth remembering the forests are also every Turks hunting ground and, sometimes, as evening falls or over the weekends, some will head into the woods with their guns. More than once, Ive felt the need to make my location obvious after hearing a shotgun blast which seemed dangerously close. For the hunters, your whistle is also a handy way of making your presence a bit more obvious; failing that, just make a lot of noise. After listing so many hazards, some may wonder if its safe to leave the towns and villages at all but, of the hundreds of walks weve done, 90% have been uneventful. The views are incredible, the peace and tranquillity palpable and, even if you do encounter wildlife, you dont have to be Bear Grylls to survive. It really is just a matter being aware of the potential pitfalls and taking sensible precautions to either deal with them or avoid them just as you would anywhere else. By and large the benefits both physical and mental far outweigh the risks so, if you like to explore, strap on the boots and get out there. Rebecca & Steve Parsley are both former journalists with experience in newspapers, magazines and on radio. Since 2006 they have run their own communications agency, specialising in social media and online content writing. They moved to Turkey just over three years ago and live in Kayakoy with their German Shepherd dog, Dillon formerly a street dog and two cats. When not slaving over their keyboards or walking in the local countryside, they enjoy watching motorsport especially Formula 1 and are also salsa dance addicts. The Fauquier Times is honored to serve as your community companion. To say thank you, we are excited to offer 4 weeks FREE Digital & Print access to all subscribers new and returning alike. We are dedicated to continuing providing reliable, high quality journalism. This is possible with the trust and support of our subscribers in the community we are proud to serve. The rural sector has welcomed proposals announced by Sajid Javid on illegal encampments on private land, which would make it easier for police officers to intervene and remove travellers. The measures, announced by the Home Secretary, include reducing the number of vehicles needing to be involved in an unauthorised encampment before police powers can be exercised. It also includes extending the period during which travellers would be unable to return to land from three to 12 months. The Home Office will consult further on making it a criminal offence to set up an unauthorised encampment. The Country Land and Business Association (CLA), which represents 30,000 farmers and landowners, said illegal encampments in rural areas can have a 'detrimental' economic, environmental and social impact on local businesses, landowners and communities. CLA President, Tim Breitmeyer said: The time it takes to seek the successful removal of an encampment varies widely. Existing police powers for removal have proved ineffective on private land, resulting in frustration to the landowner who has to use alternative legal mechanisms, which are often time consuming and expensive. Making it a criminal offence to set up an unauthorised residential camp would act as a deterrent to those who might consider occupying land without consent and provide greater certainty for the police to act if they understand that an offence has been committed. However, this will mean the Government will need to ensure there is suitable provision of lawful traveller sites through up-to-date local plan policies to avoid the issues that arise from unauthorised encampments. He added: We look forward to engaging with the forthcoming consultation to bring about this change in the law. The measures follow news of a landowner left with a bill running over 100,000 after travellers left more than 250 tonnes of rubbish on a field. And last year, a West Midlands farm popular with children had to be closed after around 40 traveller caravans entered land close to it. A new campaign has been launched to tackle issues caused by irresponsible dog walkers, such as livestock worrying and dog foul on farmland. The Control Your Dog on Farmland campaign was launched at the NFU Scotland's AGM and Conference on Thursday (7 February). The 12-month campaign will focus on livestock worrying as well as on the increasing problem of dog fouling which can cause livestock to contract dangerous diseases. Livestock worrying and dog fouling are two of the biggest issues that farmers and landowners face through irresponsible access by dog owners. In early December, NFU Scotland surveyed farmers about the issues they have with irresponsible access, either through livestock worrying by dogs, or the impacts of owners failing to pick up after their pets on or near farmland. The survey had more than 340 responses, which showed that 72 per cent of respondents had an issue with livestock worrying on their land. 100 per cent of survey respondents said they have an issue with dog fouling on their land this included plastic bag pollution as well as instances where livestock have contracted diseases from eating dog poo and plastic bags. And 84 per cent of responses felt the outdoor access code requiring on a lead or under close control didnt provide sufficient protection to them or their livestock. Tougher penalties Over the last 12 months, NFU Scotland stepped up its action to tackle livestock worrying, such as giving its backing to a Members Bill by Emma Harper MSP seeking tougher penalties for those convicted of allowing their dog to chase or attack livestock. According to Police Scotland, a total of 338 incidents of livestock worrying were reported to them in 2018, with 131 incidents resulting in police conducting investigations. This included sheep, cattle, horses, and other less known species such as llamas and alpacas. However, this issue is still hugely under-reported, something which the campaign will seek to tackle. For livestock, it is not just the physical attacks by dogs that can cause damage; even allowing dogs to chase or play with sheep or cattle, for example, can cause untold damage from emotional issues to abortions to rendering the animal unable to be used for breeding in future. In addition, there are significant emotional issues for the farmers involved who work tirelessly to breed quality sheep to the highest welfare standards. 'Damage is underestimated' The campaign educates dog owners about responsible access when walking on or near farmland through national and regional events. It also seeks to educate walkers about the dangers of walking in fields with cattle and what to do if cattle charge at them or their pet. Andrew McCornick, NFU Scotland President said: It is clear that the industry can no longer tolerate the problem of dog owners who do not control their dogs on farmland. I would urge all farmers and crofters to work with us on this issue and to report each and every incident of livestock being attacked or chased or pet owners allowing their dogs to foul on their land. Many people underestimate the damage dogs can do to livestock whether that is attacking them when being off a lead or causing them to contract dangerous diseases through their poo we need dog owners to take responsibility for controlling their dogs whilst out enjoying the countryside. He added: You think your dog is just playing with the sheep but that could change in an instant and you will have no way to stop the dog when it starts to attack. Make sure your dog is on a lead when walking on farmland even if you cant see livestock they could just be over the hill or hidden in a dip. Its not worth the risk, to you, your dog or the livestock. 'Truly devastating' Inveraray farmer, Brian Walker has lost more than 32 sheep through attacks in 2010 and 2018 from dogs, as well as having many more seriously injured. In addition, this had a knock-on effect to his business as the flock were breeding sheep with many aborting lambs or unable to carry lambs following the attacks. Last year a man received just 80 hours community service for allowing his four dogs to seriously injure and kill 17 sheep on Brians farm, totalling damages of 4,100. Mr Walker said: Dog attacks on livestock are pretty much a daily occurrence on farms in Scotland. Having suffered multiple attacks, its not just the financial impact. When you arrive at a field and see sheep running around with parts of their faces torn off, that will be ingrained in my head for ever. Its truly devastating. My sheep that were attacked were all breeding animals that would have gone on to produce lambs for the next four to five years. That is taken from me within minutes. Can you imagine someone having money taken out of their salary over the next five years by their employer and having no control in the matter? Mr Walker added: Remember when you are entering land with livestock you are entering someones business premises; how would you react if someone came onto your premises and started destroying your possessions? We need dog owners to start taking responsibility and treating farmland and our businesses with respect. The food industry needs to unite behind the Red Tractor to avoid potential food security issues post-Brexit, NFU president Minette Batters has warned. Speaking at a recent meeting in Devon, organised by animal feed company Crediton Milling, Mrs Batters said it was vital to champion British food to protect against sub-standard imports and grow the market for high welfare domestic produce. We need a far more honest, open, transparent labelling system - we need to come behind one brand identity, she explained. Assurance has a huge part to play, if we step back and let cheap ingredients come in and slap the Union Jack on, its going to work against us and what weve built for 20 years. Red Tractor recently ran a big televised campaign, which boosted recognition and support considerably. The number of shoppers who said they would choose a Red Tractor product over the cheapest one rose from 36% before the campaign to 41% after. That could equate to 1.4 million shoppers moving from the cheapest brand to Red Tractor, said Mrs Batters. However, AHDB could be doing far more to promote British farming, she added. I dont think its doing what we need it to do. The AHDB receives 1million a week from farmers, its a huge investment. We need complete transformation of AHDB; the governance structure should be split so we have two platforms: One on research, development, productivity and skills and the other focussed on market development, brand and promotion, which ultimately works as a platform for exports as well as the home market. The UK had been under-exporting to Europe for years, so there were tremendous opportunities, said Mrs Batters. But there were also great threats from imported food. She said: Our relationships with other countries are very much focussed on agriculture being a key part of the trade package. The British government has given equivalence to Australia and New Zealand on standards, the US is saying the British food market is a huge untapped market for American producers; this means GM, antibiotics that we dont have, and crops sprayed with banned chemicals. Mrs Batters called on farmers to hammer this point home to local MPs and to ask them personally what theyre going to do about it. We constantly see rising British standards but they arent being championed enough. These two cards came from a punch-out set that sold for 29 cents. They were passed out to the class in the 1960s. Wall Street analysts have given iShares MSCI United Kingdom ETF a "N/A" rating, but there may be better buying opportunities in the stock market. Some of MarketBeat's past winning trading ideas have resulted in 5-15% weekly gains. MarketBeat just released five new stock ideas, but iShares MSCI United Kingdom ETF wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys. View MarketBeat's top stock picks here. Wall Street analysts have given iShares Latin America 40 ETF a "N/A" rating, but there may be better buying opportunities in the stock market. Some of MarketBeat's past winning trading ideas have resulted in 5-15% weekly gains. MarketBeat just released five new stock ideas, but iShares Latin America 40 ETF wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys. View MarketBeat's top stock picks here. Contributed photo It may not be way back when, but 2016 marks the year that the Fairfield Museum & History Center became the home of one of the best and most comprehensive libraries of Connecticut history, the Collier Collection. An announcement of the exciting acquisition was made three years ago at the Fairfield Museum in front of local and state officials, members of the press, educators, librarians and supporters of the Museum. Assembled over the distinguished academic career of former Connecticut State Historian Christopher Collier, this extensive compilation of books and other materials is the most complete collection on Connecticut history in private hands. The Collier Collection will be available to researchers and students at the Fairfield Museums Research Library, thanks to a grant from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). Gov. Ned Lamonts prison chief nominee Rollin Cook was grilled during a wide spanning confirmation hearing with lawmakers Thursday about a recently circulated email that contained critical information regarding his tenure as head of Utahs department of correction. Questions about prison deaths under his watch in Utah and that departments failure to disclose nearly 1,500 pages of medical records demanded by a judge came after Cook told lawmakers his focus, throughout his career, has been on evidence-based treatment for offenders that has allowed the corrections system to evolve and improve. I am honored to have the opportunity to serve the citizens of Connecticut and to continue to build upon the tremendous accomplishments within criminal justice and corrections that occurred over the past decade, Cook told members of the legislatures Executive and Legislative Nominations Committee, who confirmed his appointment. Cook stepped down this year after five years as executive director of the Utah Department of Corrections, where he oversaw a system with 2,200 employees and more than 7,000 inmates in five community correction centers and state correctional facilities. Lamont announced his appointment of Cook as the states correction commissioner in December, after selling him on the job in a series of telephone interviews. Cook accepted the job without a face-to-face meeting with Lamont or a trip to Connecticut, a state he had never visited. The governors nominee has been touted as a national expert in the field of criminal justice and is expected to build off of the prison reforms instituted by former prisons commissioner Scott Semple. Those efforts included repurposing one mens prison as a community reintegration center and forming special therapeutic units for inmates age 25 and younger. An email generated this week by Connecticut attorneys DeVaughn Ward and Ken Krayeske, who hired a consulting firm to distribute it to lawmakers, however, attempted to cast doubt about Cooks reputation as a reformer by including links to a series of critical news stories related to his time in Utah. Senate Minority Leader Len Fasano, R-North Haven, who went over nearly all of the issues raised in the email, asked Cook to explain why the 1,500 records requested in a Utah death penalty case were not turned over to the defendants lawyers. Cook said a department employee responsible for records retention thought there were certain records she could not disclose in complying with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) privacy laws. After a judge took the department to task for its failure to disclose the records, Cook said, his staff moved to update certain policies and address lapses in training among records workers, while also ensuring supervisors and managers reviewed future requests to meet standards. When asked by Fasano about 15 illness-related inmate deaths among a string of 20 in 2017, Cook said a high volume of sex offenders with long sentences has resulted in a lot of geriatric inmates dealing with health issues related to old age, cancer and heart disease. Among the other deaths were two suicides, two involving alcohol overdoses, and one unknown case. These answers seemed to satisfy Fasano, who later recalled positive statements made about Cook by the ACLU and the Utah Prisoner Advocate Network when he stepped down, noting and thats when you were leaving, thats when most people would take shots at you, when they know that youre done. So with respect to this email thats been circulated around and the handoutyou can take anything out of context in this building and make it look bad, Fasano said. And Im glad you had the opportunity to talk about it, and Im going to be very proud to stand up and support your position as the commissioner of DOC. Lawmakers also asked Cook to comment on how he plans to handle issues related to inmate health care in Connecticut, which have trailed the department since it assumed management of those services from the University of Connecticut Health Center this past July. Prior to that transfer, UConn Healths Correction Managed Care (CMHC) had overseen these services for the states prison system since 1997. That contract, which was worth $140 million in 2017, left lawmakers and civil rights groups with growing concerns and complaints about the quality of medical and mental health care being provided to inmates. Numerous incidents, including an inmate giving birth in her prison cell last February, large budget cuts, lack of oversight, and troubling stories outlined in lawsuits, have fueled those concerns. Cook said he plans to fill an empty chief medical officer position in the next few weeks, and would like to hire a consultant to examine the best model for needed changes in the departments health care system. He also said the department needs to fill approximately 90 additional health care positions. Department of Correction health care workers in the SEIU 1199 New England have repeatedly called on state leaders and the department to fill more than 100 vacancies they say are undermining the quality of inmate care and causing untenable overtime hours among limited staff. This is the only population that is guaranteed by the constitution to have that care, so it has to be of my highest priority to make sure that thats taken care of, Cook said. The Serbian government has adopted new regulation to grant five million euros in subsidies for the launch of ten new routes from Nis Constantine the Great Airport and has committed itself to opening Kraljevo's Morava Airport by year's end. The five million euros in subsidies will be offered for routes that are deemed to be "of public interest" for a period of up to five years. The measure stipulates that services eligible for the subsidies are either those lacking commercial interest, routes that carry less than 100.000 passengers per year, as well as those that are insufficiently served by other means of transport. The government will name the ten destinations of "public interest" later this year. If within "a short period of time" no airline shows interest for any of the routes, an international tender will be launched to find an operating carrier, according to Serbia's updated aviation law, although the government reserves the right to enter into direct talks with airlines without a public call. The Assistant Minister for Transport, Zoran Ilic, said last week, "We expect for Air Serbia to take part in the public call, which will be open to all airlines". The Serbian government will also offer subsidies to tour operators who bring groups of Russian, Turkish, Chinese, South Korean, Indian and US tourists arriving or departing either through Belgrade or Nis airports. The government will grant up to thirty euros per visitor from Russia and Turkey and up to fifty euros for tourists arriving from the other four countries. The exact sum will depend on the length of stay. Tour operators must form a group of at least fifteen people to be eligible for the incentives. The measure is expected to boost both air travel and tourism. Iraqi President Barham Salih measured his words in a telephone interview from Baghdad on Monday. He didnt want to worsen a quarrel with President Donald Trump over U.S. access to an air base in western Iraq. But Iraqi politics is fragile, and ill-considered statements by American presidents can have big consequences. I appreciate what the U.S. has done to help Iraq, Salih told me. We honor that sacrifice. But this success in Iraq is precarious and should not be unduly burdened. It could easily unravel. Short translation of this diplomat-speak: Mr. President, dont shoot yourself in the foot. If you describe al-Asad air base as if its an American facility, it offends Iraqis and adds to Iraqi domestic political pressure against any continued American military presence there. Trump lurches from blunder to blunder on the Middle East. His latest statements about rebasing American forces in Iraq were so glib and insensitive to local politics that you have to wonder if the president even understood the mistakes he was making. Sometimes, Trumps conduct suggests a behavioral syndrome in which he seems to have no real comprehension that his comments offend others and increase his social isolation. The Iraq gaffe followed a much more serious mistake in judgment in December, when Trump suddenly announced he was pulling 2,000 U.S. troops from Syria at a time when their commanders said their job of destroying the Islamic State wasnt finished. Despite opposition from virtually every corner of the U.S. government, Trump pushed ahead, and officials say the withdrawal will be completed by the end of April. The U.S. asked French and British forces if they might stay, but they balked, so right now, Turkish, Russian and Iranian forces are positioning to fill the vacuum. Trump last weekend invented a new solution: Everything would be fine, because he was moving special operations forces to Iraq. We have a base in Iraq, and the base is a fantastic edifice. We spent a fortune on building this incredible base. We might as well keep it, he told Margaret Brennan on CBS Face the Nation last Sunday. Trump explained (if thats the right word for his chain of illogic) that if there is new trouble in Syria, as is widely predicted, Well come back if we have to. We have very fast airplanes, we have very good cargo planes. Trumps rebasing-to-Iraq approach, unfortunately, may put American soldiers at greater risk. Right now, the people who kick down the doors of Islamic State terrorists in Syria are our Kurdish-led allies in the Syrian Democratic Forces. If the U.S. instead does the raids from Iraq, the danger for U.S. personnel will increase. But in Trump world, thats apparently an afterthought. Trump might have avoided a diplomatic crunch if hed stopped with the rebasing. But, no, he wanted to advertise that, with his plan, he could use the Iraqi base to be able to watch Iran. He continued: The al-Asad base is perfectly situated for looking at different parts of the troubled Middle East rather than pulling up. And this is what a lot of people dont understand. The disturbing part is that Trump doesnt seem to realize that theres an Iraqi government in Baghdad, facing substantial pro-Iranian pressure, that wants to control its own sovereignty. American forces were invited to Iraq in 2014 to combat the Islamic State, and Iraqis are genuinely grateful for American help. But they dont want another occupation. Indeed, some Iraqis had been agitating recently about Americas continued presence at al-Asad and other bases. In the weeks before Trumps botch-job on Face the Nation, President Salih had in fact been struggling to keep pro-Iranian politicians from introducing legislation in the Iraqi Parliament to force an American withdrawal. Trump may have a proprietary feel about al-Asad air base because its the one place in Iraq that he is known to have visited. He was there on Dec. 26 for a fly-by stop with troops that he turned into a quasi-political rally, touting his border wall, warning about caravans of migrants and signing Make America Great Again hats. Were no longer the suckers, folks, he said. Under my administration, were winning now. Its painful to watch an American president in this stumbling, vainglorious retreat. As one Middle Eastern leader said to me recently: Who can look at the United States as a reliable partner? @IgnatiusPost AUSTIN Stephanie C. Quinn works year-round at New Braunfels ISD as a curriculum specialist, but after hours she consults for smaller districts as far away as the Panhandle and Gulf Coast. Her husband, an assistant principal, has started bar tending at music festivals in Austin. The couple needs the extra money to cover their soaring health insurance costs. Premiums for family coverage under the state-sponsored plan for Texas educators start at over $1,000 a month roughly twice as much as a decade ago. To avoid that cost, Quinn and her husband split the family onto two insurance plans, but still face big bills. Its over $1,000 a month out of my pocket every month just for medical stuff, sometimes up to $1,500, said Quinn, who has four children, ages 6 to 17. Were trying to offset that. Texas educators, like Quinn, and local school districts are increasingly shouldering the burden of skyrocketing health care costs as the state has kept its own contribution flat over the past 16 years. So as the Legislature pledges to boost pay for teachers wages in Texas lag the national average by $7,000 a year many educators say that without a serious fix for health insurance, rising health care costs would quickly eat up any pay bump. Premiums for TRS ActiveCare insurance offered at roughly 90 percent of Texas school districts have steadily risen since the plan started in 2002. In that time the state hasnt increased its $75 monthly contribution to employee premiums. Districts are required to chip in $150 a month, but many are paying more to try and keep coverage affordable. Texas Take: Get the latest news on Texas politics sent directly to your inbox every weekday The state hasnt contributed more, but somebody has to pay for it, said Sheleah Reed, a spokeswoman for Aldine ISD, a district north of Houston where more than 85 percent of students qualify for free-or-reduced lunch. Of course, whatever you are spending in additional funds, youre not spending it in the classroom. Teachers and school staff pick up the remaining premium cost a share that has more than doubled since 2002, according to the Teacher Retirement System which oversees TRS ActiveCare. The rising costs are cutting into teacher take-home pay and sometimes outpace salary increases, said Monty Exter, a lobbyist for the Association of Texas Professional Educators. Texas teachers make on average $52,575 a year, according to data from the National Education Association . If your health care costs are so out-of-control its causing your salary to go down year-over-year, thats an issue, Exter said. To avoid big bills, educators say theyve declined critical but costly medical care, including CT scans and prescription medicine. Some have taken on second jobs. Others have removed children and spouses from their insurance plans, in favor of covering only themselves with high-deductible plans. State employees pay much lower premiums Rep. Roland Gutierrez, D-San Antonio, filed a bill this session to raise the state contribution so educators wouldnt have to pay a premium for employee-only coverage. The total cost to the state has yet to be calculated, he said. We need to come up with some sustainable way to make sure we have parity across the nation on teacher salary, but part of the benefit package is the teacher active insurance plan, he said. The state, meanwhile, contributes more than $480 a month to full-time state employees insurance premiums, meaning they pay $0 for the individual-only plan. The premium for family coverage under the most popular plan starts at $538 a month, with the state contributing over $1,200, according to the Employees Retirement System of Texas which administers health insurance for the roughly 141,000 active state workers, including lawmakers. So far, a change in teacher health insurance benefits hasnt been a big part of the school finance conversation at the Legislature. But House Education Committee Chairman Rep. Dan Huberty, R-Humble, said its something lawmakers will look at with the rising cost of health care. For subscribers: Its shameful. Lawmakers panel sounds alarm on Texas schools Teachers premiums vary depending on what their school district contributes, and who they choose to enroll in the plan. Almost 60 percent of the 438,000 district employees covered by TRS Active Care last year opted for the cheaper high-deductible plan, according to TRS data. Susan Seaton, president of the San Marcos Educators Association, is one of them. San Marcos CISD contributes almost $300 a month so employees dont pay a premium. But Seatons deductible is $2,750 with an out-of-pocket maximum of $6,650. She is on track to hit both since the co-pay for her arthritis injections is $1,100. Getting the medicine once every two weeks, like her doctor recommended, would eat up almost her entire monthly paycheck, she said. So Seaton spaces the doses out over six weeks instead. Thats just for one medication, said Seaton, an elementary school teacher. Its very hard on teachers. Facebook post offers tips to teachers Some of the largest school districts in the state, including San Antonio ISD and North East ISD, fund their own insurance plans, which gives them more flexibility to negotiate rates. Still, districts without TRS Active Care face rising costs, too. North East ISD said it has raised its contribution to employee premiums by $100 within the past four years. The San Antonio district contributes at least $360 a month toward employee premiums not including the state portion but teachers still struggle. David Garza, an early education teacher with the district, hit his head in a bike accident late last year, but declined a CT scan that would have cost him $800 in addition to a co-pay, he said. Garza couldnt afford the expense so close to the holidays, he said. I ended up going for a cheaper option, he said. In lieu of CT scan, I got X-rays done. Doctors didnt find any broken bones, but he could not be sure without the scan, he said. Some districts struggle to raise contributions, and as a result, risk losing qualified teachers. Lupita Villarreal left her job teaching elementary school at Harlandale ISD to take a lower-paying librarian position in a neighboring district last year. Her salary is less, but Villarreal ends up pocketing more money each month since her health insurance costs are lower. Its the case even as Harlandale increased its contributions to employee health care costs by $25 a month in 2018. Heres the thing that bothers me: If other districts are able to provide for their teachers, that means that quality teachers are not going to be in every district, she said. Thats so unfair to certain districts like Harlandale because those kids are just as deserving of good quality teachers. Quinn, whose district contributes more than whats required toward employee premiums, recently filmed a 10-minute Facebook video explaining how she and her husband split plans to save around $300 a month. It racked up over 45,000 views, just a few thousand shy of Gov. Greg Abbotts latest Facebook video calling for property tax and school finance reform. We pay all this money every month, Quinn said. In all honesty, I would rather them tackle health care than give us a $5,000 raise. Krista Torralva contributed to this story from San Antonio. amorris@express-news.net Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick's property tax bill dropped 14 percent over the last two years largely because of factors that involved no action on his part and a tax break available to all Texas homeowners. Last week, the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News reported on their websites that Patrick had benefited from an unusually large reduction in the tax bill on his Montgomery County home in 2017 and 2018. That Feb. 8 article ("Property tax crusader Dan Patrick can't complain about his own bill") incorrectly reported some of the details. New information makes it clear Patrick's taxes dropped because he took advantage of the state's homestead exemption, market values dipped in his neighborhood and county tax officials corrected an over-estimate of the size of his home. The homestead exemption reduces the taxable value of a person's principal residence. It is available to all Texans. Patrick applied for it in 2018, the year after he purchased his home on Lake Conroe. The Chronicle and Express-News relied in part on information about the homestead exemption for Patrick's property that was listed on the website of the Montgomery County Tax Office. The information turned out to be erroneous, and the office has since corrected it. Another portion of the reduction in Patrick's tax bill stemmed from a separate error in tax records, which overstated the size of his home by 500 square feet. The Montgomery County Appraisal District discovered the error when reviewing the previous owner's sales listing. Once the error was confirmed and corrected, the taxable value of the home, and thus Patrick's tax bill, declined. An additional factor was a decline in market values in his neighborhood. Most of Patrick's neighbors have also seen the taxable values of their homes drop over the past two years. Even so, the assessed value per square foot of Patrick's home remains higher than that of many of his neighbors. The two newspapers have removed the Feb. 8 article from their websites. The Chronicle and the Express-News regret the errors. David Whitley tried to justify the unjustifiable. During his Thursday confirmation hearing before the Texas Senates Nominations Committee, the secretary of state downplayed the political wildfire that his office sparked two weeks ago with an advisory that falsely (or, at the very least, prematurely) created an impression of rampant voter fraud in this state. The advisory stated that 95,000 registered voters in Texas indicated when they applied for drivers licenses or ID cards that they were legal residents, but not citizens (and therefore ineligible to vote). OnExpressNews.com: Texas voter fraud fiasco the latest salvo in 26-year battle For many (if not most) of those voters flagged by Whitleys office, it simply meant that they became naturalized citizens AFTER receiving their licenses. But Attorney General Ken Paxton and President Donald Trump used the advisory to proclaim that Texas had uncovered proof of widespread illegal voting. Whitleys advisory has created all kinds of confusion, with county elections administrators sending out warning letters to voters flagged by the state, and subsequently learning that some of those names were flagged by mistake. Already, the fiasco has resulted in three lawsuits accusing the state of voter disenfranchisement. So it surprised no one Thursday when Whitley found himself on the receiving end of intense questioning. In response to a query from Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, Whitley said his office merely served as a conduit between the Department of Public Safety and county elections administrators, trying to connect one source of personal data with another. If Rep. Roland Gutierrez has his way, that connection between DPS and the secretary of states office will be severed. Gutierrez, a six-term South San Antonio Democrat, filed a bill Wednesday that would repeal a 2013 law enabling DPS to share drivers license applicant information with the secretary of state for the purpose of voter registration or the administration of elections. That 2013 law was the seed. Our current voter-purge mess is the fruit. The 2013 law added a simple but seismic amendment to the Texas Transportation Code. Before the laws passage, DPS could share applicant information only with a small group of agencies, such as the child support division of the Texas attorney generals office and the unclaimed property division of the comptrollers office. The 2013 law turned DPS into a pawn in the long-standing GOP crusade against imagined voter fraud. It gave the secretary of state just enough information to muddy the election-integrity waters; just enough information to dump a ton of raw, inconclusive data on bemused county election administrators; just enough information to force thousands of American citizens to prove their citizenship within 30 days, or get wiped from the voter rolls; just enough information to weaponize the presumption of fraud. Essentially, weve got two divergent, very distinct agencies (DPS and the secretary of states office) that serve two very different functions, Gutierrez said. And under no circumstances should we expect DPS, who has historically not had wonderful data, to give us information for voter rolls. The 2013 Transportation Code amendment came only two years after the passage of a stringent and controversial Voter ID law pushed by GOP lawmakers. For some reason, however, the 2013 law sailed through the Legislature with minimal fuss. It passed in the House with a resounding 123-14 vote and received unanimous approval in the Senate. Gutierrez, Trey Martinez Fischer and Justin Rodriguez were the only members of the San Antonio delegation who voted against it. OnExpressNews.com: Two San Antonio convicted felons challenge state election law A few of us voted the right way on this thing, Gutierrez said. A few of us kind of saw the writing on the wall at the time. Unfortunately, not enough. During his Thursday testimony, Whitley seemed unable to grasp the problem with the approach taken by his office. In fairness to the secretary of state, it was Paxton who did the most damage with his irresponsible VOTER FRAUD ALERT tweet. But Whitley came off Thursday as oddly comfortable with the messiness his office created. It didnt seem to bother him that his office mistakenly sent out lists with names that quickly had to be removed. He didnt seem overly worried that eligible voters might fail to read warning letters from county election administrators and get purged from the rolls. While the response to the voter-purge story has broken down along predictably partisan lines, Gutierrez believes that at least some Republican lawmakers will reconsider the 2013 law. At the end of the day, Gutierrez said, I dont think that even partisan Republicans want to go accuse innocent United States citizens, who have gone about the whole effort of becoming citizens, of breaking the law. So, most certainly, we have to do something. @gilgamesh470 Researchers at the University of Texas at San Antonio have embarked on an ambitious project that combines behavioral data with cellular testing, work they hope will shed light on the development of diseases such as dementia and Alzheimers. The research, called the Quantu Project, seeks to predict the progression of neurodegenerative disease by tracking individuals day-to-day behaviors and physiological indicators. Participants will wear Fitbits, devices that provide a wealth of personal health information such as heart rate, daily steps and sleep patterns. That information will be compared against an individuals cells, as extracted from blood samples. Researchers hope to collect an enormous amount of data for the project by recruiting more than 100,000 local participants over the next five years. The pool will include healthy individuals, as well as people with cognitive conditions such as dementia or sleep disorders. Related: Leaders push to make San Antonio a better place for people with dementia Information will be analyzed using computer models that will predict individual peoples behavior and what someone who is starting to have cognitive declines behavior would be, said lead researcher Amina Qutub, an associate professor in UTSAs biomedical engineering department. The goal, she said, is to identify how daily behavior correlates with neurodegenerative disease and its progression in the body. Were mapping daily behaviors to the ability of new neurons to form for the same individuals, Qutub said. What our goal is to figure out is, is something that youre doing on a daily basis changing your ability of your cells to repair? Researchers cannot expect participants to volunteer their brain cells. Instead, Qutub said, they will use cells taken from blood draws every six months. Working with UTSAs Stem Cell Core, which conducts stem cell research, peripheral cells from a persons blood will be extracted and injected with a solution that changes a cells gene expression. The process reprograms the cells to form parts of functional brain tissue, Qutub said. If researchers could predict early changes associated with cognitive decline, Qutub said, there would be an opportunity to step in and provide treatment or adjust a persons behavior. Can we pick up decline 10, 20 years before theres any of the symptoms that would show up clinically? she said. Can we intervene at that point and even reverse what would happen? On ExpressNews.com: Study shows stress hormones link to memory deficits, brain shrinkage The Quantu Project team plans to partner with health institutions in the area to help recruit participants, collaborations that can give researchers access to additional information from clinical assessments and tests, Qutub said. Dr. Sudha Seshadri, director of the Glenn Biggs Institute for Alzheimers and Neurodegenerative Diseases at UT Health San Antonio, said the medical field is increasingly recognizing the role of daily health information in getting a complete picture at all stages of when a person is well and at risk for different diseases. She said many neurodegenerative illnesses begin in the brain stem, affecting behaviors such as sleep and appetite that can be easily measured. Seshadri said UT Health San Antonio plans to help recruit study participants with dementia, offering the opportunity to participate to patients and their caregivers. David Pollet, chief operations officer for Academy Diagnostics Sleep Center, said the company plans to do the same with its sleep patients. He said research has shown that poor sleep, including less rapid eye movement, or REM, sleep, correlates with dementia and Alzheimers, making sleep patients relevant to the Quantu researchers. Amount and quality of sleep affects every part of the body, he said, including cognitive and physical function. Qutub said the research is made possible by the wide availability of wearable technology that can provide information about your health every second, as well as advancements in algorithms that can analyze vast amounts of data. It is also aided by the rise of apps that track peoples health, which have made people more comfortable monitoring and working with their personal health information, she said. To volunteer as a participant in the Quantu Project, visit quantuproject.org. Lauren Caruba covers health care and medicine in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read her on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | lcaruba@express-news.net | Twitter: @LaurenCaruba The golden-cheeked warbler, a songbird that has lost much of its nesting area to suburban sprawl near San Antonio, Austin and across Central Texas, will remain protected under the federal Endangered Species Act, a judge in Austin has ruled. The decision came in a lawsuit filed 18 months ago by the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation on behalf of the Texas General Land Office. It argued that a 2015 Texas A&M University study had shown the warbler no longer needed the federal protection, which has required a development permit process that undermined property rights. The endangered status of the bird has been a significant shaper of suburban growth in the Texas Hill Country, with the setting aside of land to preserve its habitat often required as a condition for construction on other tracts. On ExpressNews.com: City responds to developer bulldozing potential warbler habitat Environmental groups that included the Audubon Society and Center for Biological Diversity hailed Wednesdays decision by Senior U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks to keep protections for the bird in place. He had previously dismissed two other parts of the lawsuit. Everybody was expecting this, said Jim Cannizzo, environmental attorney for the U.S. Army at Camp Stanley. The study that the lawsuit relied on, many were skeptical of the quality of data. If successful, the lawsuit would have opened hundreds of thousands of acres, including near Camp Bullis in northern Bexar County, to greater development. The Army, which trains combat medics at Camp Bullis, has been able to reduce the amount of acres it must maintain as warbler habitat thanks to land acquired and set aside for that purpose by San Antonio and Bexar County. Without the warbler protections, the Army wouldnt need to worry about the habitat, but it remains concerned about new development near its boundaries, whose lights could reduce the realism of training under dark night skies. The larger concern among top city and county leaders is that the military could relocate medic field training to another base if that happens. Those favoring lifting the federal protections, including Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush, say the warbler has sufficiently recovered. The policy foundation and General Land Office, in a joint statement, said officials will consult with their attorneys about whether to appeal the ruling. They also said the warblers population is now 19 times greater than estimated when the species was first listed. The removal of the golden-cheeked warbler would restore the rights of land owners to effectively manage our own properties, without oversight from the federal bureaucracy. The Texas A&M Institute of Renewable Natural Resources study, however, stated it did not advocate changes in the listing status of the golden-cheeked warbler and also did not imply that conservation measures to protect the species habitat are no longer needed. The lawsuit alleged federal authorities violated the Endangered Species Act and its regulations by listing the warbler as an endangered species without designating its critical habitat. It also said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service improperly denied the petition to delist the bird when it failed to consider new and substantial scientific data. And, finally, the suit said the government violated the National Environmental Policy Act by failing to prepare an environmental assessment or environmental impact statement in conjunction with its original decision to list the bird as endangered as well as in its five-year review and in connection with another finding. The court threw out the first and third claims in late 2017. The birds defenders contended the plaintiffs true goal was to ease the way for real estate developers at the expense of the warbler. The small songbird, up to 5 inches long with yellow markings on its cheeks, is found in 38 Central Texas counties, including Fort Hood. Were thrilled that this cynical attempt to take protection away from the warbler has been stopped, said Ryan Shannon, a staff attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. With the continued protection of the Endangered Species Act, hopefully this Texas native will charm birders from all over the world for a long time to come. Warbler advocates say construction and ranching have reduced the areas mature ashe juniper trees, whose shedding bark it uses to build bests, for decades. Central Texas is the only place in the world where it breeds. Audubon says that since the 1970s, an estimated 50 percent of its juniper habitat had been destroyed. It was listed as endangered in 1990. On ExpressNews.com: Army warns development may push golden-cheeked warblers onto Camp Bullis The foundation and the General Land Office have tried for four years to remove the warbler from the list, initially filing a petition with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to argue that development restrictions caused by its protected status had lowered property values and required developers to prove, in costly and time-consuming permit applications, that their projects wouldnt affect the bird. The wildlife service denied the petition in 2016, saying it wasnt backed by substantial information that delisting is warranted. It said habitat destruction, fragmentation and degradation remain a real and significant threat to the continued existence of the songbird. The land office, acting as plaintiff, sued the fish and wildlife agency, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and two others. Sparks, the judge, agreed with the wildlife service, saying the states argument is unpersuasive in part because the petition to delist may have overstated the warbler population. Sparks said the petition also failed to include any new information on a number of threats to the warblers survival, leading a reasonable person to conclude the warbler remained endangered despite promising population predictions and a greater known potential range outlined in the A&M study. Sig Christenson covers the military and veterans and their impact on San Antonio, Bexar County and the nation. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | sigc@express-news.net | Twitter: @saddamscribe Last month, San Antonio city leaders voted in favor of partnering with K9s for Warriors, the nationals largest provider of services dogs for disabled American veterans. The organization plans to build a new canine rescue and training center on the Animal Care Services campus this year, greatly expanding their program to pair soldiers with service dogs trained to handle the symptoms of their traumas. The agreement approves an initial 10-year lease of 3 acres of ACS property to build a canine training facility with a focus on rescuing 200 large breed dogs from ACS annually. K9s for Warriors staff will look for dogs who will qualify for the program They be at least 2 years old, at least 50 pounds and 24 inches tall, and able to pass a basic temperament test. At the new San Antonio facility, the dogs will receive basic obedience training before they are transferred to one of K9s for Warriors two Florida campuses. Once there, the dogs will finish their three- to six-month training and eventually be paired with soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), traumatic brain injury, and/or military sexual trauma as a result military service post 9/11. Dogs that dont pass the training and it happens will be adopted into good homes. The prospect of bringing our national nonprofit to San Antonio is thrilling to us, said Rory Diamond, K9s For Warriors CEO. Were more than ready to help the homeless dogs there find a new purpose as a lifesaving PTSD Service Dog. K9s for Warriors expansion into San Antonio will be a big boost for large dog rescue in our community. Brianna Bentov, spokeswoman for K9s for Warriors, said, San Antonio is an ideal place to expand the program because there is a big rescue dog population that needs help and an active military community that will be supportive. On ExpressNews.com: The easiest way to give a dog a pill While the program will begin in the spring of this year, a recent investment from the San Antonio-based Petco Foundation will aid in the construction of the canine center itself, which will begin later this year. ACS Director Heber Lefgren credits robust placement partners, like K9s for Warriors, with transforming the city shelter and helping the city achieve a 92 percent live-release rate in fiscal year 2018. Were thrilled to have a partner to support our mission and help our countrys veterans, Legren said. K9s For Warriors has a big heart for these big dogs, and we love that they will be saving a life to save another. Since 2011, K9s for Warriors has paired more than 508 warrior-canine teams across the country. More than 90 percent of these service dogs are recruited from animal shelters or are owner-surrendered. Over the next year, K9s For Warriors will need kennel enrichment volunteers (you can love on the chosen dogs) as well as donors to ensure its success in San Antonio. For more information, visit k9sforwarriors.org. On ExpressNews.com: Why does my dog butt scoot and attack the Roomba? Send your pet questions, tips and stories to cathy@petpundit.com. You can read her Animals Matter blog at http://blog.mysanantonio.com/animals and follow her at @cathymrosenthal. The San Antonio company that makes Mexican food products under the brand name Andy Garcia Foods is facing severe financial pressures, casting doubt about its future, its lender alleges in a lawsuit. Papa Grande Gourmet Foods, which says it does business as Garcia Foods, needs $1 million to stay viable, according to the lawsuit filed Tuesday by TransPecos Banks. Garcia Foods makes barbacoa, tamales, fajitas, chorizo and other products that are sold in H-E-B, Walmart, Target, and other retailers. It also makes products for food-service companies. In the lawsuit against Papa Grande and its principals, TransPecos accuses the company of defaulting on roughly $6 million in loans. Its assets, including its headquarters building at 1802 Jackson Keller on the North Side, are collateral for the loans. Saying Papa Grande is either insolvent or in imminent danger of insolvency, TransPecos is asking a Bexar County District Court judge to appoint a receiver to take control of the company. TransPecos wants the receiver to operate Papa Grande, sell the company and/or its assets, or shut down the business. A hearing on the banks request is scheduled for Tuesday. A call to the company was not returned Friday. When asked about the TransPecos lawsuit, Michael Colvard, a San Antonio lawyer representing Papa Grande, said the company is contemplating filing litigation of its own. He didnt elaborate. Colvards specializes in bankruptcy law, but he said no decision has been made regarding whether the company would file for bankruptcy. Cleveland Burke, an Austin lawyer representing TransPecos, said bank officials had no comment. Garcia Foods is a family-owned business that has been in operation for about six decades. Andrew Garcia was working in a San Antonio meat plant in the late 1950s when he bought a small barbarcoa business for $15. He and his wife, Dilia, made the barbacoa on weekends in their garage earning $30 their first weekend, the San Antonio Express-News reported in 1994. In 2014, son Kenneth Garcia acquired Garcia Foods through his company, Papa Grande. He had taken over the day-to-day operations of Garcia Foods in 1999. TransPecos, though, alleges Papa Grande breached the loan agreements by allowing Garcia Foods to occupy real estate without the banks consent. Its not clear what has led to the dire financial conditions that TransPecos alleges. Papa Grande owes roughly $2.6 million to suppliers or vendors. That includes about $1.5 million in bills considered more than four months old, the banks lawsuit says. The company is owed less than $539,000 from customers. The Bank has regularly been forced to return checks issued by Papa Grande for insufficient funds, TransPecos says. The bank also says it had to pay about $87,000 in property taxes for the defendants. In addition, TransPecos says the business has not been able to obtain the $1 million needed to survive. Kenneth Garcia and his wife, Hilda, are identified as guarantors on the bank loans. Patrick Danner is a San Antonio-based staff writer covering banking and civil courts. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | pdanner@express-news.net | Twitter: @AlamoPD Before making up our minds about the caravans of people heading to our border or foreign-born folks in suits arriving on international flights, we should look to data on the economics of immigration. The Dallas Federal Reserve Bank published a study last year showing Texas was the fourth largest destination for international migrants to the United States after California, Florida and New York from 2010 to 2017. Since 2005, Texas has gained, on average, 94,000 international migrants per year. The percentage of non-U.S.-born residents in Texas rose from 9 percent in 1990 to 17.1 percent in 2017. While the U.S.-born population living in Texas has grown by 31 percent since 2000, the foreign-born population has grown by 67 percent in that time. Texas is increasingly an immigrant-driven economy. And as everyone can plainly see, the Texas economy and state and local governments have really stagnated under the weight of all this immigration. Ha, ha, no, just kidding. Its the opposite. The Texas economy is booming. But then curious minds want to know: Is the boom because of, or despite of, immigration? The relationship between economic growth, government finances and immigration is complex and complicated to measure. To add to the complexity, we have both documented and undocumented immigrants entering the state economy. Ive found a number of data points on immigration interesting. Lets start with state government finances and what Ill assume is the more controversial group, undocumented immigrants. In 2006, the Texas comptroller published a report that estimated the economic effects of immigration on public finances in Texas. One of its key takeaways was that undocumented immigrants provide a net positive impact on the Texas economy. To dive a bit further, the report estimated these immigrants paid $2.09 billion in taxes at the state and local level, and ran up $2.6 billion in expenses. Most state expenses were for public education, while most local expenses were for health care. The net cost to state and local governments from undocumented immigration was $504 million. That same study, however, attributed 2.1 percent of the Texas economy in 2005, or $17.7 billion in economic activity, to that same group. Take away immigration, the comptrollers 2006 report argued, and, yes, you could save $504 million in state and local government costs, but youd also lose that $17.7 billion boost to the state economic. In 2018, the Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy, or ITEP, tracked the state and local tax impact of a narrower group of undocumented immigrants those eligible for DACA, the Dreamers who arrived in the United States as children of undocumented parents. ITEP estimated this group of approximately 1.3 million young people nationally contribute $1.7 billion in state and local taxes. ITEP estimated the Texas-only population of Dreamers at 182,000 young people, generating state tax revenue of $245 million from a combination of sales and excise taxes. Although ITEP is a nonpartisan group focused on tax policy, I worried if it represents a left-of-center view on immigration. So I headed on over to a 2016 study called Immigrations Impact on the Texas Economy by the right-of-center Texas Public Policy Foundation. TPPFs motto: Liberty, Personal Responsibility, and Free Enterprise. In this study, the authors highlight a variety of Texas-specific data points on immigration, both legal and undocumented. They attempt to weigh the costs and benefits of immigration. The 2016 study estimates that undocumented immigrants in Texas paid $178 million in property taxes and $1.4 billion in sales taxes in 2010. And between state and local welfare programs such as Medicaid, CHIP and what they call Uncompensated Healthcare Costs, undocumented immigrants cost public coffers approximately $803.3 million per year. TPPF estimates the cost of primary and secondary education in Texas for undocumented immigrants at $3.75 billion per year. Supporting the comptrollers 2006 study, TPPF broadly argues that the Texas economy consumers in particular benefits from lower labor costs resulting from immigration. While difficult to quantify, TPPF estimates Texas consumers save between $3 billion and $6 billion per year because of lower labor costs from immigration. Remember, these are the right-of-center guys. Returning to overall immigration legal and illegal the Dallas Fed noted in its 2018 study that immigrants in Texas followed a bimodal education pattern in the years 2011 to 2016. One cohort has significantly lower education rates compared to the domestic Texas population, arriving in the highest numbers from Honduras, El Salvador and Mexico, in that order. Immigrants on the other end of the education scale tend to have both higher educational attainment and a concentration of skills in STEM and health care fields when compared to U.S.-born Texans. The largest group of these come from India, China, Korea and Canada, in that order. Interestingly, the unemployment rate for immigrants across the education spectrum tracked by the Dallas Fed is significantly lower than for U.S.-born residents in Texas. No matter where you come from, if youre an immigrant to Texas, youre more likely to be gainfully employed than a native-born Texan. Im not a on the one hand this, on the other hand that person when it comes to immigration and its value to the U.S. or Texas. I also dont think narrow financial or budgetary concerns capture the most important part of this story. Contrary to my finance guy newspaper persona, I believe in the sentiments on the plaque at the base of the Statue of Liberty. Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door. But even so, just so were clear, I read all the data I could collect from the left, right and center on the economic consequences of immigration for Texas and the United States as this: Closing ourselves off from the world means wed all end up worse off financially. Michael Taylor is a columnist for the San Antonio Express-News and author of The Financial Rules For New College Graduates. michael@michaelthesmartmoney.com | twitter.com/michael_taylor Thursday, February 7, 2019 Trump Toots "Wall" and "Barriers" in 2019 SOTU By Peggy Sands Orchowski President Trump delivered his second State of the Union speech last night Feb. 6 in surprising moderated tones and rhetoric. The speech brought Republicans to their feet to applaud the President's words over 100 times, by one count. At one point, his words even caused dozens of Democratic Congresswomen dressed in all white, to dance and high-five each other in the aisle when the President lauded the fact that there was more women (over 100, nearly 25 percent) elected to Congress in 2018 than ever before in history. Of course the Democrats also groaned at several points (at his "If I wasn't President" comments in particular). And many times, Republicans rose to cheer as Democrats sat silently on their hands -- particularly when Trump urged Congress to pass legislation to end late-term abortions. But no one in the audience left in a huff either. There were no staged walk-outs as had been suggested. Even in the press gallery, where I sat in the front row over the Speaker's and President's podium, no one wanted to leave when the Director announced it was time to go to Statuary Hall for interviews with Congressional members about to exit at the end of the speech. Maybe members of the press were worried they would miss the fireworks that hadn't happened yet, but still hoped they would. Or maybe they really just wanted to hear Trump voice the soaring conclusion of the speech that we could read ahead of time in the hand-out. To some it seemed as if almost half of the speech was about immigration and "the wall". But in fact, the President only devoted some 12 paragraphs to the hot much-anticipated controversial subject out of a speech that lasted about 86 minutes. And he never mentioned DACA DREAMERS at all. He approached the subject by saying "My administration has sent to the Congress a commonsense proposal to end the crisis on our southern border" (the word "crisis" of course raised hackles among some Democrats who deny there is any crisis at all). The proposalTrump said, includes "Plans for a new physical barrier or wall to secure the vast areas between our ports of entry." NOTE: he said" barrier" or "wall". "Most of the people in this room voted for a wall but the proper wall never got built. I'll get it built", the President said. "This is a smart strategic see-through steel barrier not just a simple concrete wall. It will be deployed in the areas identified by border agents as having the greatest need". "Walls work," he concluded, citing El Paso Texas as "one of our safest cities with a powerful barrier in place". "The president paved a very scary and unfair picture of our border," the fourth term Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX), whose twin brother Julio is running for President, said after the speech. "Trump said El Paso is safe now after the wall was built, but it was safe before." Many Democrats did stand to applaud when President Trump lauded ICE agents and "Angel" families of loved-ones murdered by MS13 gangs and illegal immigrants who were guests of First Lady Melania Trump in the Congressional guest gallery. But they groaned loudly when Trump declared: "Large organized caravans are on the march to the United States." And Democrats were silent as Republicans applauded and some yelled "yes!" when the President said "Now is the time to show the world that America is committed to ending illegal immigration. This is a moral issue. We have a moral duty to create an immigration system that protects the lives and jobs of our citizens and millions of immigrants living here today who followed the rules and respected out laws". A surprising concluding statement on immigraton brought widespread applause from both sides of the chamber when the President said: "Legal immigrants enrich our Nation and strengthen our society in countless ways, I want people to come into our country, but they have to come in legally". For the past two weeks, a bipartisan bicameral Congressional committee has been meeting to work out a compromise bill that will fund the government and include some funding for a border wall as well as enhanced border security. A decision is expected on Friday Feb. 8. That would end any threat of a shut-down for this budget cycle. In the President's SOTU speech and reaction to it, there appear to be some core areas of agreement that could lead to such a compromise. # # # ## # # FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE One of the biggest villains in the increase in opioid addiction and overdose deaths is the aggressive marketing of the drug companies, according to criminal justice expert Paul Brakke, who has published seven books on criminal justice with American Leadership Books. These books include Dealing with Illegal Immigration and the Opioid Crisis and Crime in America, which includes a chapter on the opioid epidemic. "Now there is growing research that shows this connection of drug company marketing, opioid addiction, and death from an opioid overdose," says Brakke. To illustrate this connection, he points to a recent study that demonstrates how drug company marketing has led to more overdose deaths, as cited in a Vox article, published January 25, 2019 by German Lopez: "We Now Have More Proof that Drug Companies Helped Cause the Opioid Epidemic." As Brakke reports, the drug companies have spent billions of dollars for years to promote their drugs to doctors using all kinds of incentives, such as speaking fees, free dinners, and paid trips. One of the first opioid pills in the 1990s was OxyContin, and the manufacturers of this, Purdue Pharma, sought to convince doctors, in spite of evidence to the contrary, that the drug was safe and effective, thereby convincing doctors to prescribe even more drugs. The result of the efforts of all these drug companies was more overdose deaths, according to a study reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Network, where the researchers found more deaths when there was more marketing. The results of the study made it very clear that the marketing led to more opioid prescriptions, which led to more misuse, addiction, and overdoses. In making these drug sales, what seemed to have the most influence was the marketer-to-doctor contact. "Thus," says Brakke, "the results are clear in showing how the drug companies are contributing to the opioid crisis. Certainly other factors, such as the use of illegal opioids, especially illicit fentanyl and heroin, which account for 40% of opioid overdose deaths, have contributed. But the increase in opioid prescriptions due to drug promotions has played a major part, although people are generally unaware of this influence." So who are the major victims of these overdoses? According to Brakke, about 80% are white Americans, especially those without a college degree, in part due to low wages or a lack of jobs. As a result, they turn to drugs as a means of escape, and sometimes that escape leads to death. Then, too, U.S. military veterans are twice as likely as others in the general population to suffer, because of their chronic pain due to their service, according to a National Institute of Health study, as reported by Claire Felter in her article, "The U.S. Opioid Epidemic," for the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). What is to be done? Brakke suggests four critical steps. A first step is creating the awareness of what is causing the problem. A second step is reducing the demand for drugs. A third step is making doctors and health providers aware of how their overprescribing contributes to the problem. A fourth step is more closely monitoring the doctors' prescriptions and helping them resist the marketing efforts of the drug dealers. In writing his books and working as a consultant, Brakke brings to the table a unique conservative approach to crime, criminal justice, and American society. His approach is in contrast to that of liberals who usually discuss ways to reform the system through more of a social welfare approach. Brakke's approach is based on an economic business model of doing what works most efficiently to both cut down costs and create more productive citizens. He is now bringing his unique approach to his forthcoming book Fractured America, dealing with the many divisions that are tearing America apart and how to heal these divisions. It will be published in early February. Since publishing Crime in America, Brakke has had 35 videos made featuring highlights from the book which are available on the American Leadership Books YouTube channel at https://studio.youtube.com/channel/UCfHgXXiW3jgODnaypgcYZFw/videos/upload To learn more, you can get a copy of Crime in America, with a chapter on the opioid crisis. The book is available through Amazon, Kindle, and major bookstores. It is currently available on Kindle at a reduced price during its special KDP Select Promotion at https://www.amazon.com/Crime-America-Conservatives-Approaches-Criminals-ebook/dp/B07MKZG84Z. Also, free copies are available for government officials who are seeking ways to reduce crime and fix the criminal justice system and for members of the media at www.crimeinamericathebook.com. For media copies of the book, more information on American Leadership Books and Paul Brakke, and to set up interviews, please contact: Jana Collins Jones & O'Malley Toluca Lake, California jana@jonesomalley.com (818) 762-8353 From: American Evaluation Association (AEA) For Immediate Release: Dateline: Washington , DC Friday, February 8, 2019 Hello AEA! My name is Nancy Breton, and I am the Sexual Violence Prevention Evaluator with the New Mexico Department of Health (NMDOH). Much of my work focuses on ensuring state-funded sexual violence prevention education programs within New Mexico middle and high schools are effective, impactful, and sustainable. Over time, I noticed themes of behavior and its potential relationship with socioeconomic and demographic issues especially within marginalized populations. I sought to understand state-specific root causes of sexual violence. Luckily, our Sexual Violence Prevention program received supplementary funding from CDC, allocating $10,000 for this project. Because of the limited timeline (4 months to report findings yikes!), I had to focus in to feasibly create a thorough report by the deadline. Rad Resource: The Lessons Learned: The information from this project is sacred and private this community owns the data and will choose who and how it will be shared, should they choose to. Still, I learned a few lessons that I feel are pertinent for other evaluators: Evidence-based : This term can be subjective. Marginalized populations have practiced their own forms of research within their community. Be sure to empower them as knowledge brokers. Asset Mapping: Think about and ask the community what they see as limitations, but, also, what strengths they can identify to address their concerns. Serve vs. Help : Unless the community identifies you as one of its own, you are an outsider. Therefore, act in service to this community. They are not helpless. Complete and Absolute Partnership : If a community will be affected by your report then include them throughout deciding what is important to investigate, what should be reported, and who should have access to the data. It Takes Time : Building community relationships is an important component of ethical evaluation, even if funding deadlines make that difficult. Face-to-face meetings and maintaining rapport will show your dedication to serve, and will create invaluable partnerships. Co-leading with members of the community and adequately compensating all those involved would be a model. I hope this helps! To see more of NMDOH and our partners efforts to prevent sexual violence in New Mexico, check out our site: The American Evaluation Association is celebrating New Mexico (NM) Evaluators ( About AEA The American Evaluation Association is an international professional association and the largest in its field. Evaluation involves assessing the strengths and weaknesses of programs, policies, personnel, products and organizations to improve their effectiveness. AEAs mission is to improve evaluation practices and methods worldwide, to increase evaluation use, promote evaluation as a profession and support the contribution of evaluation to the generation of theory and knowledge about effective human action. For more information about AEA, visit www.eval.org. Hello AEA! My name is, and I am the Sexual Violence Prevention Evaluator with the New Mexico Department of Health (NMDOH). Much of my work focuses on ensuring state-funded sexual violence prevention education programs within New Mexico middle and high schools are effective, impactful, and sustainable. Over time, I noticed themes of behavior and its potential relationship with socioeconomic and demographic issues especially within marginalized populations. I sought to understand state-specific root causes of sexual violence.Luckily, our Sexual Violence Prevention program received supplementary funding from CDC, allocating $10,000 for this project. Because of the limited timeline (4 months to report findings yikes!), I had to focus in to feasibly create a thorough report by the deadline.The 2016 Sex Crimes Trends in New Mexico report states that the American Indian/Native American population comprised 15% of New Mexicans who reported experiencing sexual violence, even while comprising less than 10% of the state population. Given this was a pilot project with limited funds and time, I decided to work with the Native population within the Albuquerque area. Finding partners for this project was not easy, as there is historical trauma associated with government research on this population. I worked hard to create a relationship with various partners, which has been quite rewarding.The information from this project is sacred and private this community owns the data and will choose who and how it will be shared, should they choose to. Still, I learned a few lessons that I feel are pertinent for other evaluators:I hope this helps! To see more of NMDOH and our partners efforts to prevent sexual violence in New Mexico, check out our site: https://nmhealth.org/about/erd/ibeb/svsp/ . Keep up the amazing work!The American Evaluation Association is celebrating New Mexico (NM) Evaluators ( www.nmeval.org ) Week. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org. aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators. Thursday, February 7, 2019 On Friday, February 8, the House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing that will include a vote on the Elizabeth Whitefield End of Life Options Act (HB 90), a bill that would authorize medical aid in dying in New Mexico. If you are a supporter of medical aid in dying, you can show New Mexico legislators that you want this compassionate option. Here are the details if youd like to attend the hearing tomorrow: WHAT: House Judiciary Committee hearing on the Elizabeth Whitefield End of Life Options Act WHEN: Friday, February 8, 2019, 1:30 p.m. MST WHERE: Room 309, New Mexico State Capitol, 490 Old Santa Fe Trail, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 87501 Compassion & Choices has put together a book with stories from New Mexicans that offer compelling reasons why medical aid in dying should be available in this state. It includes heart-wrenching stories about terminally ill people who had to suffer to painful endings because medical aid in dying was not available. Read the stories here. About Dying in Peace Columnist Merilee Dannemann, whose Triple Spaced Again column runs in a number of rural New Mexico newspapers, recently wrote this opinion column about dying in peace. It provides a timely overview about what this legislation entails. Life and death; pain and suffering: sometimes its necessary to talk about the most profound questions about the meaning of life itself and how the state might intervene in the most personal decision we may ever make. New Mexico is going to be talking about medical aid in dying again this year. It is, to say the least, an uncomfortable subject. House Bill 90 proposes to allow physicians or other health care providers, upon the request of a terminally ill patient, to prescribe medication that will end the patients life. The bill is sponsored by Rep. Debbie Armstrong (D-Albuquerque) and Senator Liz Stefanics (D-Cerrillos). A similar bill was considered in 2017 but did not pass the Senate. The bill specifies that the option only may be used by a medically competent adult who is capable of taking the medication himself or herself. It contains a number of safeguards, including the requirement of a 48-hour waiting period before the prescription may be filled. The 48-hour waiting period is a new provision in this bill, compared to legislation already enacted in other states, according to UNM law professor Rob Schwartz, who has been active in this movement. Schwartz said in some states the legislation has required a 15-day waiting period before the prescription could be filled by a pharmacist. But that has led to unnecessary days of suffering by patients who did not ask for the prescription until they were in terrible pain. And in some cases, the patient died before the 15 days were up. The bill provides several legal protections. For example, it says a physician may not be held liable for either prescribing or refusing to prescribe the medication. If a person uses the option, the legal cause of death shall be the underlying disease. The first state to enact an aid-in-dying law was Oregon, in 1997. Similar laws have been enacted in Washington State, California, Colorado, Montana, Vermont, and most recently in Hawaii and Washington DC. Oregon has the most complete statistics. Its latest annual report shows most patients were aged 65 years or older (80.4%) and had cancer (76.9%). One common argument against the option is that frail, sick elders will be pressured by family members against their own wishes. Schwartz said no confirmed instances of this have been found in the states with the option. Schwartz said the reports show that a significant number of the patients who received the prescription never filled it, and many who filled it never used the medication. The fact that they have the medication in hand, so they have some control over their situation, gives them comfort. This is a very personal issue for me as I deeply wish to have the choice, when my time comes, to take advantage of this gift of modern medicine. I see no value in unnecessary suffering at the end of life. I recognize that others, based on religious values, may have different feelings or beliefs. They are free to choose not to use the option. A19th century poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes tells about the wonderful one-hoss shay/ That was built in such a logical way/ It ran a hundred years to a day.." Then, after many verses describing its continuing sturdiness, it went to pieces all at once,/ All at once, and nothing first, / Just as bubbles do when they burst.." Ive read that its a political metaphor, but Ive always thought of this poem as the way all of us would like to die. Live for a hundred years with the heart of a bull, the knees of a gazelle, the waistline of a fashion model and the digestion of a 12-year-old, and then die peacefully in our sleep. Id certainly like that to be my fate, but Im not counting on it, and neither can any of us. Merilee Dannemann is a contributing columnist with the New Mexico News Services syndicate, writing for community newspapers throughout New Mexico. Contact Merilee Dannemann through www.triplespacedagain.com. Share this: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Commonly, the widely-recognized opioid crisis is blamed on drug dealers, including illegal immigrants who are bringing in drugs across the border. But among the biggest villains are the manufacturers of these drugs. They have greatly contributed to the crisis with their marketing to both doctors and the general public, as criminal justice expert Paul Brakke points out. He has recognized this contributor to the crisis as a result of his extensive research on the opioid crisis, as described in a chapter of his recently published Crime in America and in Dealing with Illegal Immigration and the Opioid Crisis. "Illegal immigration is one factor," says Brakke. "But even more serious is the high-powered sales and marketing techniques of drug manufacturers. They are generally able to engage in these promotional activities legally, but people are largely unaware of their role in contributing to the crisis." "How did this happen and what can we do about it?" Brakke asks. According to Brakke, a first consideration is that both prescription and illegal opioids are often abused because they are so addictive. They are so addictive, because, as reported by the National Institute of Drug Abuse in an article on "The Neurobiology of Drug Addiction," opioid medications bind to opiate receptors in the brain reward areas, so the person not only feels less or no pain, but pleasure. Then, as the brain gets used to these feelings and likes them, an opioid user has to take more and more of the drug to produce the same level of pain relief and well-being. As a result, the individual becomes dependent and later becomes addicted. Even Rush Limbaugh became addicted to opioid pills and had to struggle to overcome this problem. "That reduction of pain and the increase of pleasure is the basic driver leading individuals to want more and more drugs. Then, the doctor and pharmacist responds to that demand," says Brakke. "At the same time, the drug companies actively promote the use of these drugs to doctors, pharmacists, and individual users to increase demand. So individuals eagerly want more, get hooked, may resort to illicit opioids, and that can lead to an overdose in many cases." Brakke cites some of the commonly recognized statistics that show the extent of this crisis. According to experts, over 2 million Americans have become dependent on or have abused prescription or street drugs for both pain and pleasure. In 2017, there were over 72,000 overdose deaths, including 49,068 that involved opioid drugs, according to the Center for Disease Control. Over 130 people died each day from drug overdoses in 2016 and 2017, based on data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Some other statistics about addiction are that 11.4 million Americans misused prescription pain medicines in 2016 and in 2017 according to HHS. Another finding is that many people who become dependent on pain pills may start taking heroin instead, because it is less expensive than prescription drugs. According to National Institute of Drug Abuse estimates, about half of the younger heroin abusers first abused prescription painkillers, and three out of four new heroin users got their start using prescription drugs. According to Brakke, "These statistics are horrendous and the opioid epidemic is only getting worse. It's not just illegal drugs, but overprescribing by doctors and other health professionals. And a major reason for this overprescribing is the promotional efforts of the drug companies." As Brakke points out, the problem started with the overprescribing of legal pain medications, beginning in the 1990s, with opioid medications, such as oxycodone, hydrocodone, and morphine, to treat pain. At first these medications were popular for treating patients after they had surgery or if they were being treated for cancer. But in the last 15 years, doctors have increasingly prescribed these pills for chronic conditions, such as pains in the back, joints, or muscles. More recently, people have turned increasingly to synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl, which is much stronger than heroin -- 50 times as strong -- as well as cheaper, so more and more people have used it. Unfortunately, it can easily be lethal, especially when combined with alcohol, cocaine, or other drugs. "It's like a lethal cocktail," says Brakke, pointing out that the addition of fentanyl caused about 46% of the opioid deaths in 2016, and now it is the most commonly used drug involved in drug overdoses. In turn, this increased death toll from drugs has been fueled by overprescribing by physicians who felt concerned that pain was undertreated. At the same time, the pharmaceutical companies began marketing these drugs even more aggressively, while claiming these drugs had little risk, as Brakke notes, citing an article on "The U.S. Opioid Epidemic" by Claire Felter for the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), updated on January 17, 2019. "So these drug companies bear much of the blame," says Brakke, citing the CFR article. "They have such high pressure sales tactics that even health-care providers have reported feeling pressure to prescribe opioid medications instead of alternatives, which might include physical therapy or acupuncture. But the prescribers accede to the wishes of the patients requesting these drugs, since the patients have been influenced by the ads of these drug companies, or since these other treatments may cost more or be less accessible." Brakke is particularly concerned about finding a way to overcome this opioid crisis because of his research about it, which he has reported in a chapter in Crime in America and in Dealing with Illegal Immigration and the Opioid Crisis. He is also planning a more in depth analysis of this problem in the future. In writing his books and working as a consultant, Brakke brings to the table a unique conservative approach to crime, criminal justice, and American society. That's in contrast to liberals who usually discuss ways to reform the system through more of a social welfare approach. Brakke's approach is based on an economic business model of doing what works most efficiently to both cut down costs and create more productive citizens. He is now bringing his unique approach to his forthcoming book Fractured America, dealing with the many divisions that are tearing America apart and how to heal these divisions. It will be published in early February. Since publishing Crime in America, Brakke has had 35 videos made featuring highlights from the book which are available on the American Leadership Books YouTube channel at https://studio.youtube.com/channel/UCfHgXXiW3jgODnaypgcYZFw/videos/upload To learn more, you can get a copy of Crime in America, with a chapter on the opioid crisis. The book is available through Amazon, Kindle, and major bookstores. It is currently available on Kindle at a reduced price during its special KDP Select Promotion at https://www.amazon.com/Crime-America-Conservatives-Approaches-Criminals-ebook/dp/B07MKZG84Z. Also, free copies are available for government officials who are seeking ways to reduce crime and fix the criminal justice system and for members of the media at www.crimeinamericathebook.com. For media copies of the book, more information on American Leadership Books and Paul Brakke, and to set up interviews, please contact: Jana Collins Jones & O'Malley Toluca Lake, California jana@jonesomalley.com (818) 762-8353 BLUE LECHENAULTIA "A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval." Samuel Clements aka Mark Twain Lobelville, TN, 02/07/2019 Do you need to accept and appreciate yourself? What better way to support this positivity and earn one's self-approval than with BLUE LECHENAULTIA? Herbal Supplement, BLUE LECHENAULTIA, (Lechenaultia beluba) is a Single Uncut Flower Essence believed to instill the unconscious belief, "I accept and appreciate who I am." Dr. Brent Davis, founder of FlorAlive Uncut Flower Essences. In his book, THE HAND OF GOD, Dr. Davis recommends a few drops of BLUE LECHENAULTIA in a 16 24 oz. water bottle sipped throughout the day as a good starting point to begin the personal healing process of recognizing self-worth and self-acceptance. Different people will observe different rates of transformation so one must be attentive to one's feelings and monitor dosage accordingly. Conventional extraction methods from cut flowers contain residual sap from the plant. Because there is no material extracted in uncut flower essences, (only information and memory are transmitted,) they are absolutely harmless to the physical body. Dosage is determined by how quickly one wishes to see transformation. Self-awareness will let you know what works best for your personality. In this way, FlorAlive works similarly to homeopathic modalities. For more information on how to take FlorAlive products, please watch this brief video by Dr. Brent Davis. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLbF0Tt8Wzc As a French resident (i.e. "primary residence located in France" - one of the three things that make you tax resident in France), you'll need to file a declaration each year (starting for the calendar year in which you take up residence in France). As far as what France will or won't tax you one, it depends on the tax treaty between France and Norway. Government pensions often are taxed by the government paying them out - and generally you'll receive them in your French bank account with the appropriate taxes already withheld. (But that could be affected by the tax treaty.) Other income - private pensions and/or any income from investments - again depends on the tax treaty, but is more likely to be taxed in France. In any event, you will declare your worldwide income in France each year. If parts of your income are not subject the tax in France, they may very well give you a credit for the amount of tax that you would have paid in France. Or, there are a couple other ways to credit you for the status of the income in the tax treaty. You could try checking the website for the French Consulate in Norway. They sometimes post a copy of the relevant tax treaty in both languages - French and Norwegian. Though it's not a light read, it should explain what's taxable in which country. I am the sponsor (British national) applying for the spouse visa for my wife. Me and my wife living together in Germany for 1.5 years. My wife has residence card of family member of EU in Germany. We have joint names on the bank statement, insurance letters, and tenancy agreement. However the bank the statement I am using for the cash savings visa that fulfils the requirement of 62,500 has a UK address, will this be a problem. German Foreign Trade Figures Highlight Blocs Dependence on Global Trade The Euro (EUR) remained remained sluggish through early Friday trading, declining to (but not extending) the two-week low against the US Dollar (USD). At the time of writing, the EUR/USD cross was seen at $1.13250, on target for the largest weekly losses in over four months. Price action for the Pound-to-Euro (GBPEUR) remained uncharacteristically muted into Fridays European session, failing to make significant advances in either direction from the narrow overnight range 1.1408 - 1.1427. The cross was last seen at 1.1416. Fridays session saw German foreign trade figures for 2018 hit a record high. Germany, the EUs economic powerhouse, exported goods to the value of 1.3 trillion through 2018 while importing 1.1 trillion worth of goods. While an obvious positive sign for the German economy which has suffered significantly in recent months, highlighted by a slew of weak economic data and, the volume of German trade underlines how exposed European markets are to a global trading system currently under threat of rising protectionism and a possible continuation of, and spill-over from, the US-China trade war. Overnight, president Donald Trump announced he has no plans to meet with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping before the March 1st ceasefire deadline, prompting some concerns over a re-escalation of the trade-dispute and the potential for global collateral damage. Elsewhere in the bloc, French industrial production (month on month) bounced back sharply from a previous 1.3% contraction to a positive 0.8%. However on an annual timescale, Q4 manufacturing output was seen to decrease by 1.5%. Despite mixed data, the Euros losses against the Greenback were seen to be limited with large Euro buy orders from central banks at arounf the $1.13 level keeping the Euro supported while bond yields declined. Currency strategist Kenneth Broux of Societe Generale commented, We are all scratching our heads on who the mystery buyer is on euro/dollar. Institutional forecasts are mixed on the Euros near term direction with Danske Bank chief analyst predicting the EURUSD will rise, USD continues to strengthen despite Feds soft tone and trade-deal optimism but this seems to be more about weakness elsewhere including on the cyclical side in Europe. We still the cross range-bound with 1.15 the attractor. On the other hand, DBS currency strategist Philip Wee expects the Euro to continue to slide against the Greenback to see the year out sub $1.10. Home Articles How Prepared Are UK Firms For a No-Deal Brexit Outcome? Wed, 23rd June 2021 How Prepared Are UK Firms For a No-Deal Brexit Outcome? Published: 8 Feb at 11 AM by Elaine Housten and tagged under category Corporate Finance Sending money overseas over 5000? Free Transfers, No Fees, Competitive Exchange Rates If you're looking to make an international money transfer , we recommend TorFX as our preferred currency provider.Sending money overseas over 5000? Free Transfers, No Fees, Competitive Exchange Rates Request a quote today! 40% of UK Firms Have No No-Deal Brexit Contingency Plans Above: IHS Markit / CIPS UK Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) Above: Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking UK Business Barometer With less than 50 days until the UK is due to leave the European Union (EU) and no clear route out of the current Brexit impasses as political gridlock continues both in the UK and EU, the probability of a no-deal by default outcome grows by the day.British firms have been in the news recently with reports of both the negative impact persistent Brexit uncertainty is having on business activity and optimism alongside a stream of announcements from UK firms regarding their intention to at least partially relocate business operations overseas.The latest findings from the Institute of Directors (IoD) indicated that up to a third of UK businesses had - or were in the process of planning to - trigger processes to reduce their operational exposure in the UK.Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking (LBCB) senior economist Hann-Ju Ho investigated the extent to which UK firms have prepared for the potential of adverse impacts with respect to Brexit.According to the findings from the Lloyds Business Barometer survey findings for January 46% of manufacturers have increased or are planning to increase their stockpile of raw materials because of Brexit uncertainty, while the equivalent figure for the stockpiling of finished goods is 36%.The latest IHS Markit UK manufacturing sector data supported the findings with stocks of inputs rising at their fastest pace in the 27-year history of the purchasing mangers survey.IHS Markit Director, Rob Dobson commented on the manufacturing sectors escalation of Brexit preparations, The start of 2019 saw UK manufacturers continue their preparations for Brexit. Stocks of inputs increased at the sharpest pace in the 27-year history, as buying activity was stepped up to mitigate against potential supply-chain disruptions in coming months.With respect to finished goods, Dobson added There were also signs that inventories of finished goods were being bolstered to ensure warehouses are well stocked to meet ongoing contractual obligations.Group director at the Charteres Institute of Procurement and Supply (CIPS), Duncan Brock, reinforced the ramping up of Brexit preparations, Businesses did their best to develop forward purchasing programmes to avoid potentially disappointing clients and in case of a bad Brexit outcome with some of the sharpest rises in raw materials and finished goods stockpiling since the survey started in January 1992.While on the one hand, the ramping up of preparations for a potentially disastrous exit from the EU should ameliorate some of the immediate supply chain and logistical disruption expected in such an outcome, Ho notes that elevated stockpiling means firms have working capital tied up which could lead to a drag on mid-term growth.Ho wrote, The increase in the stockpiling of goods among firms, however, means cash is being potentially tied up and not put to other uses, for example, to increase investment. Indeed, there is anecdotal evidence pointing to firms delaying their investment spend as a result of political and economic uncertainty.Adding, while stockpiling could support short-term activity, there is potential for medium-term growth to be adversely affected if uncertainty remains elevated.Given the drag of stockpiling on firms working capital or liquidity, Ho sought to investigate how prepared firms were with respect to preparations for adverse impacts on working capital and liquidity.According to the LBCB Business Barometer, only about 30% of firms in manufacturing, retail and construction have made contingency plans for such an eventuality, while only 17% of services firms have done so.Across the sectors, 28 to 44% of firms said they didnt expect any adverse impact from Brexit on their working capital. However, Ho highlights that, the remainder between a third and two-fifths of firms (blue bars in the chart) say that they have no contingency plans or are not sure.Meanwhile, new guidance issued by the government has advised UK businesses to prepare for major changes to emissions trading, nuclear safeguards and electricity trading should the UK depart the EU without a deal suggesting firms operating in the energy sector could be the first victims of a messy divorce.The latest findings put forward by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) noted that the diversion of resources to assess and prepare for the various potential Brexit scenarios meant a lack of focus on business operations.From the CBI release These efforts demonstrate businesses willingness to respond and adapt to changing circumstances. However, they also take away time and resources that could otherwise be dedicated to developing and growing the business and so mean lost potential for companies and the country.The release also highlighted that in lieu of a clear Brexit outcome, companies were adopting a prepare for the worst approach with a no-deal outcome arguably the clearest scenario to prepare for.Of respondents, the CBI survey findings indicated a higher tendency toward Brexit preparations among the UKs largest companies (> 5000 employees) with 77% reporting to have started planning for the UKs departure from the EU.Only 47% of small firms (< 250 employees) reported they had committed resources to counteract the adverse effects of a potential no-deal Brexit, citing capital constraints as limiting their ability to effectively prepare.The CBI release said, there is concern about their (small businesses) ability to get ready for Brexit Day One. This lack of small business planning is a concern for larger companies as well, that need their suppliers and clients to be as prepared as they are.While the overall expectation is that Brexit, benign or messy, will cause at least partial disruption to business operations, around 29% of businesses see potential opportunities arising from the UKs divorce from the EU.One medium-sized manufacturer cited lower Pound Sterling (GBP) exchange rates as a driver for exports, Brexit has kept the exchange rate low, driving our sales abroad.Other businesses which trade almost exclusively domestically expect trade barriers to prompt an increase in domestic demand. One horticulture business noted, If there are trade barriers, wed expect domestic demand for our plants to grow. We see that as advantage overall, as we do not trade much abroad.Despite ongoing pressure from UK business lobby groups, Prime Minister Theresa May has continued to refuse to rule out a no-deal Brexit scenario and has as-yet rejected calls to extend the March 29th deadline despite a persistent lack of progress towards a deal. While PM May's apparent plan to run down the clock and force the EU to capitulate on controversial components of the EU withdrawal agreement might work it could also spectacularly backfire should EU officials stand firm in their refusal to reopen negotiations. 8 February 2019, Wyss Center, Geneva - Maxime Baud, MD, PhD, Staff neurologist at the Wyss Center and epileptologist at the University of Bern and Geneva University Hospitals (HUG), was awarded the Pfizer Research Prize for his work in the field of neuroscience and nervous system disorders. The research, carried out in collaboration with colleagues from the University of California, San Francisco found that epilepsy seizures are linked to cycles of brain activity. The research suggests it may be possible for clinicians to predict and evaluate the risk of epileptic seizures in clinical practice. The Wyss Center is building on these research results by developing a minimally invasive device that will offer an alternative to current epilepsy monitoring methods. The device will use flexible electrodes that slip under the skin of the skull to allow chronic recordings of brain activity enabling people with epilepsy to continue with their daily lives during monitoring. The Pfizer Research Prize, first awarded in 1992, is one of the most prestigious awards in the field of medical research in Switzerland. It is awarded to young researchers who have carried out exceptional studies in the fields of basic or clinical research. The award ceremony was held in Zurich on Thursday 7 February 2019. Twenty-four researchers from Basel, Basel-Country, Bellinzona, Geneva, Lausanne, Lugano and Lucerne were awarded prizes to the total value of 180,000 Swiss francs. To date, 350 researchers have received this reward with the total prize money representing more than six million Swiss francs. This year's award highlights promising scientific approaches to the discovery of potential new therapeutics for diseases in areas ranging from cardiovascular, urology and nephrology; infectious diseases, rheumatology and immunology; neuroscience and nervous system disorders; oncology and paediatrics. ### About the Wyss Center for Bio and Neuroengineering, Geneva, Switzerland The Wyss Center is an independent, non-profit, neurotechnology research and development organization. The Center provides the expertise, facilities and financial resources to transform creative neuroscience research into clinical solutions that will improve the lives of people with nervous system disorders. The Center's experienced multidisciplinary neurotechnology development team from industry and academia provides the integrated scientific, engineering, clinical, regulatory and business expertise required to guide high risk, high reward projects on their journey from research to product. Based at Campus Biotech in Geneva, Switzerland, the Center provides advanced neuroscience and engineering facilities for the development of technology that will prevent, diagnose or treat nervous system disorders, or has the potential to improve lives. The Center has ongoing projects in brain computer interfaces, neurorehabilitation, neural circuits and sensory function, and advanced technology. It is currently seeking new partners from anywhere in the world that can fill scientific or technical gaps in the development of novel neurotechnologies in current Wyss Center projects. A major goal of the Center is to ensure that innovative neurotechnologies advance until they are sufficiently mature to attract corporate partnerships, venture funding, or other mechanisms necessary to make them broadly available to society. Established by a generous donation from the Swiss entrepreneur and philanthropist Hansjorg Wyss, the Wyss (pronounced "Veese") Center, is a partner in a progressive new neuroscience hub at Campus Biotech. Surrounded by salty water, sea snakes sometimes live a thirsty existence. Previously, scientists thought that they were able to drink seawater, but recent research has shown that they need to access freshwater. A new study published in PLOS ONE on Feb. 7 and led by Harvey Lillywhite, professor of biology of the University of Florida, shows that sea snakes living where there is drought relieve their dehydration as soon as the wet season hits, and do so by obtaining freshwater from "lenses" that form on the surface of the ocean during heavy rain--events in which the salinity at the surface decreases enough for the water to be drinkable. The yellow-bellied sea snake (Hydrophis platurus) is the only reptile in the order Squamata that lives on the open sea. It has one of the largest geographic ranges of any vertebrate species. Given its broad range and seafaring existence, during the dry season (6-7 months at the study site in Costa Rica) it has no access to freshwater. How they survive in regions of drought seems to hinge upon access to freshwater lenses, but little is known about how marine vertebrates react to or consume rainfall. "This study contributes to a fuller understanding of how pelagic sea snakes, and possibly other marine animals, avoid desiccation following seasonal drought at sea," said Lillywhite. The researchers captured 99 sea snakes off the coast of Costa Rica (interestingly, the snakes have never been observed in estuaries) and offered them freshwater in a laboratory environment. The team happened to be there just as six months of drought broke and the rainy season began. They found that only 13 percent of snakes captured after the rainfall began accepted the offer, compared to 80 percent of those captured before. The rainfall must have quenched their thirst. The study continues many years of work by Lillywhite. The present paper was coauthored by Mark Sandfoss, Lillywhite's current PhD student, Coleman Sheehy, his former student who is now the Collections Manager in Herpetology at the Florida Museum of Natural History, and then-Fulbright visiting scholar Jenna Crowe-Riddell. "How these animals locate and harvest precipitation is important in view of the recent declines and extinctions of some species of sea snakes," said Lillywhite. The question remains: How will climate change and its effects on precipitation impact the sea snakes? ### Acrylics are an incredibly diverse and useful family of chemicals used in all kinds of products, from diapers to nail polish. Now, a team of researchers from UConn and ExxonMobil describe a new process for making them. The new method would increase energy efficiency and reduce toxic byproducts, they report in the Feb. 8 issue of Nature Communications. The global market for acrylic acid is enormous. The world used close to 5 million metric tonnes of it in 2013, according to industry group PetroChemicals Europe. And no wonder, for acrylics and the closely related acrylates are the building blocks for many kinds of plastics, glues, textiles, dyes, paints, and papers. Strung together in long chains, they can make all kinds of useful materials. Acrylate mixed with sodium hydroxide, for example, makes a super absorbent material used in diapers. Add extra methyl groups (carbon plus three hydrogens), and acrylate makes plexiglass. The current industrial processes for making acrylics require high temperatures close to 450 F, and produce unwanted and sometimes harmful byproducts, such as ethylene, carbon dioxide, and hydrogen cyanide. UConn chemist Steve Suib, director of the University's Institute for Materials Science, and colleagues at UConn and ExxonMobil have designed a new way of making acrylics at mild temperatures. Their technique can be finely tuned to avoid producing unwanted chemicals. "Scientists at ExxonMobil Research & Engineering partnering with professor Suib's group in UConn have been probing new technologies that can lower energy intensity, skip steps, improve energy efficiency, and reduce CO2 footprint in the production process of acrylics," says Partha Nandi, a chemist at ExxonMobil. "The recent publication in Nature Communications describes discovery of a new route to produce a class of acrylate derivatives in potentially fewer steps and with less energy." The technique uses a porous catalyst made of manganese and oxygen. Catalysts are materials used to speed up reactions. Often, they provide a surface for the molecules to sit on while they react with each other, helping them to meet up in the right configurations to do the deed. In this case, the pores fill that role. The pores are 20 to 500 Angstroms wide, big enough for fairly large molecules to fit inside. The manganese atoms in the material can trade their electrons with nearby oxygens, which makes it easier for the right chemical reactions to happen. Depending on the starting ingredients, the catalyst can facilitate all different kinds of acrylics and acrylates, with very little waste, Suib says. "We hope this can be scaled up," he says. "We want to maximize yield, minimize temperature, and make an even more active catalyst," that will help the reaction go faster. The group also found adding a little bit of lithium helped speed things up, too. They are currently studying the exact role of lithium, and experimenting with ways of improving the manganese and oxygen catalyst. ### This research was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Division of Chemical, Biological, and Geological Sciences under grant DE-FG02-86ER13622.A000, as well as ExxonMobil. Ximena Arriaga, professor of psychological sciences at Purdue University, has known and admired Phillip Shaver for years. They are colleagues in the field of studying romantic relationships, a relatively new field. So she was thrilled to accept an invitation to an event this week where Shaver, distinguished professor emeritus of psychology at University of California, Davis, would receive the Society for Personality and Social Psychology's "Legacy" award. But she soon realized she could not congratulate him in person. Her goddaughter is getting married the same weekend. "It would be too ironic to miss her big event in order to celebrate the flourishing of attachment theory," she said in a personal note to Shaver. ShaverPhillip Shaver receives a "Legacy" award this week from the Society of Personality and Social Psychology. (UC Davis Photo) She is sad to miss the conference and award ceremony, just the same, she said. "The study of relationships would have been so vastly different had you not written the early seminal papers," she continued in her note. "Science is stronger from your contributions, but the ripple effects extend widely ... and have defined so much of what we know about human behavior and what matters most in life." The award Shaver will receive in Portland, Oregon, honors "luminary figures" in social and personality psychology, tracing their impact to contemporary work. Began with romantic love For Shaver, it started with a study he co-authored in 1987 on romantic love that would transform the study of interpersonal relations. He came to teach at UC Davis in 1992, and has since served as department chair twice. During his tenure as chair, the department grew its faculty in social and personality psychology, as well as in the emerging area of cognitive neuroscience. George R. (Ron) Mangun, a neuroscientist who also arrived on campus in 1992, said: "Phil was the person who shepherded the department into the modern era across the board, and helped put us on a track to a top-ranked department. "He was a principal player in the mind sciences initiative that led to the Center for Mind and Brain, and also supported the development of the Center for Neuroscience as the chair who understood its significance and opportunity for the department," added Mangun, who has served as department chair and as dean of the Division of Social Sciences in the College of Letters and Science, and was founding director of the UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain. Expanded knowledge of human bonding Attachment theory, as Shaver's field of study is called by academics, actually began with psychological studies in the 1960s and '70s of patterns of infant-mother attachment. His 1987 paper with co-author Cindy Hazen then identified the same patterns in adult relationships. Those findings "spawned an enormous interdisciplinary and international research literature," according to the website for the Feb. 9 Legacy Symposium: "Over the past 30 years, hundreds of studies have been published covering attachment processes in the brain, the personality, romantic and marital relationships, religious experiences, and large organizations." Hazen, now a professor at Cornell University, will be among the symposium speakers. She was a graduate student and Shaver was a professor at the University of Denver when their article, "Romantic Love Conceptualized as an Attachment Process," appeared in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Since the award was announced several months ago, Shaver has been receiving notes from colleagues at Rice, Baylor, and other universities thanking and praising him for his legacy. Guests at the legacy luncheon honoring him will include his wife, Gail Goodman, a distinguished professor of psychology at UC Davis, as well as former students and other researchers from around the world who study adult relationships. The National Science Foundation, National Institute of Mental Health, and numerous foundations have funded his work. He has written more than 300 scholarly articles and book chapters, and co-authored and co-edited numerous books. "It's both gratifying and a little embarrassing," Shaver said in an interview about his latest award. "I'm as much a legacy of these other creative people as they are of me; we have all worked hard for many years to build this field, sometimes collaborating directly and sometimes influencing each other from a distance. "At age 74, I'm happy to sit back and cheer all the young researchers who are extending the legacy." Animal bonding One of the faculty extending that tradition in the UC Davis Department of Psychology is Professor Karen L. Bales, who researches pair bonding not in humans, but animals -- specifically, prairie voles and titi monkeys -- in an effort to understand human relationships better. Bales, whose education is in biology and anthropology, was recruited by UC Davis after serving as a postdoctoral researcher at University of Illinois, Chicago. As it happened, her advisor there, who studied prairie vole bonding, was good friends with Shaver. "So while Phil looks at adult relationships in humans, I look at adult relationships in animals," said Bales, who came to UC Davis in 2004. Both titi monkeys and prairie voles form monogamous pair bonds, she explained, and are good subjects for study through observation and brain scans, in particular. She and her lab researchers look at how each pair form a bond, their pair bonding behavior (both long-term and short-term), parenting and other factors. Attraction and relationships Paul Eastwick, associate professor in psychology, continues part of the legacy at UC Davis as well. He joined the UC Davis psychology department faculty in 2016, where he leads studies in attraction and relationships. He said he knew about Shaver, and UC Davis' reputation in psychology, while he was still in grad school. One of Eastwick's research programs examines how the qualities that people say are critically important to them in a romantic partner -- their ideal partner preferences -- direct romantic partner selection and retention. He is also interested in exploring how close relationships grow and develop over time. He has published research, as well, on why people's current and former romantic partners sometimes share traits and sometimes do not. Eastwick's study published last spring looked at the differences between short-term and long-term relationships. He said Shaver's influence was a huge factor in his decision to join the faculty at UC Davis. "He is a legend for his contributions to the field." ### Kathleen Holder, College of Letters and Science, contributed to this story. Physicists from the University of Basel have developed a new method to examine the elasticity and binding properties of DNA molecules on a surface at extremely low temperatures. With a combination of cryo-force spectroscopy and computer simulations, they were able to show that DNA molecules behave like a chain of small coil springs. The researchers reported their findings in Nature Communications. DNA is not only a popular research topic because it contains the blueprint for life - it can also be used to produce tiny components for technical applications. In a process known as DNA origami, scientists can manipulate the genetic material in such a way that folding the DNA strands creates tiny two- and three-dimensional structures. These can be used, for example, as containers for pharmaceutical substances, as conductive tubes and as highly sensitive sensors. Measurement at low temperatures To be able to form the desired shapes, it is important to be familiar with the structure, the elasticity and the binding forces of the DNA components being used. These physical parameters cannot be measured at room temperature, because the molecules are constantly in motion. The same is not true at low temperatures: the team led by Professor Ernst Meyer from the Swiss Nanoscience Institute and the University of Basel's Department of Physics have now used cryo-force microscopy for the first time to characterize DNA molecules and examine their binding forces and elasticity. Detached piece by piece The scientists placed only few nanometer long DNA strands containing 20-cytosine nucleotides on a gold surface. At a temperature of 5 Kelvin, one end of the DNA strand was then pulled upwards using the tip of an atomic force microscope. In the process, the individual components of the strand freed themselves from the surface little by little. This enabled the physicists to record their elasticity as well as the forces required to detach the DNA molecules from the gold surface. "The longer the detached piece of DNA, the softer and more elastic the DNA segment becomes," explains lead author Dr. Remy Pawlak. This is because the individual components of the DNA behave like a chain of multiple coil springs connected to one another. Thanks to the measurements, the researchers were able to determine the spring constant for the individual DNA components. Computer simulations clarify that the DNA is detached discontinuously from the surface. This is due to the breaking up of bonds between the cytosine bases and the DNA backbone from the gold surface, and their abrupt movements over the gold surface. The theoretical elasticity values correlate very closely with the experiments and confirm the model of serially arranged springs. Snapshots provide insight The studies confirm that cryo-force spectroscopy is very well suited to examining the forces, elasticity and binding properties of DNA strands on surfaces at low temperatures. "As with cryogenic electron microscopy, we take a snapshot with cryo-force spectroscopy, which gives us an insight into the properties of DNA," explains Meyer. "In future, we could also make use of scanning probe microscope images to determine nucleotide sequences." ### Researchers of the University of Barcelona (UB) have analysed, with massive sequencing techniques for the first time, the evolution of the Hepatitis A virus with samples from patients. The results, published in the journal EBioMedicine, show the presence of variants of the virus that could escape the effects of the vaccine. The study, led by the Research Group on Enteric Viruses of the UB, in collaboration with Vall d'Hebron Research Institute (VHIR) and the Public Health Agency of Barcelona (ASPB), can have implications in the vaccination policies against the disease. The article counts on the participation of the lecturers Aurora Sabria, Albert Bosch, Susana Guix and Rosa Maria Pinto, from the Department of Genetics, Microbiology and Statistics of the Faculty of Biology of the UB. Hepatitis A virus antigenic variants Hepatitis A is a liver inflammation caused by a virus. Its symptomatology is quite light and can disappear after the first weeks, but in some cases the disease can last for months. Among the most affected groups are men who have risky sexual behaviours with other men (MSM). This study analysed samples from MSM patients, both vaccinated and non-vaccinated, who caught the virus during an outbreak of Hepatitis A in Barcelona (2016-2018). The objective was to study the evolution of the virus and check whether there are emerging variants that can escape the effects of the vaccine. "We identified antigenic variants in vaccinated and non-vaccinated patients, but only the former increase in number, which suggests the positive selection", says Rosa Maria Pinto. The appearance of the Hepatitis A virus antigenic variants could become a threat to public health and could have consequences in the future uses of the current available vaccines. "If we select a variant which escapes the vaccine, this one would stop being effective. The study shows that, in cases such as the occurred one due the lack of vaccines, this can happen", notes the researcher. Reviewing vaccination practice In some countries, controlling recent outbreaks of Hepatitis A has been blocked by the low coverage of vaccination and lack of vaccines, which made administrations apply restrictions in the doses. During the outbreak, these restrictions affected especially people in the MSM group. "If a few doses of vaccination are given, or if the common doses were given long ago, or the vaccine is given to patients who caught the virus weeks ago, those variants of the virus that avoid the effects of the vaccine can be selected. This is especially relevant in the MSM group, since the virus dose through risky sexual practises is very high, and circulating antibodies are not enough to neutralize the inoculum or the first produced viruses", says Rosa Maria Pinto. In this sense, researchers recommend giving two doses of the vaccine and, in some situations stated in the publication, they suggest giving additional booster doses. Apart from specifying the vaccination protocol, the expert states they should "work in order to have easier-to-get vaccines so there are no vaccine shortages and doses do not have to be reduced". ### (Philadelphia, PA) - Arthur M. Feldman, MD, PhD, FACC, Laura H. Carnell Professor of Medicine at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University, has been awarded the 2019 Distinguished Scientist Award-Basic Domain by the American College of Cardiology (ACC) in honor of contributions to the cardiovascular profession. Feldman will be recognized for these achievements along with all 2019 Distinguished Award winners at the ACC Convocation, Inauguration and Awards Ceremony on March 18 during the ACC's 68th Annual Scientific Session in New Orleans. "Dr. Feldman's dedication to improving cardiovascular health and enhancing patient care is a testament to his expertise and professionalism," said ACC President C. Michael Valentine, MD, FACC. "It is a privilege to be able to honor Dr. Feldman with the Distinguished Scientist Award-Basic Domain and celebrate his tremendous contributions to the cardiovascular field." The Distinguished Scientist Award-Basic Domain is awarded to a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology who has made major scientific contributions to the advancement of scientific knowledge in the field of cardiovascular disease. The award is given to three recipients; one each in the basic, clinical and translational domains. "I am honored to receive this prestigious award from the American College of Cardiology," said Dr. Feldman. "This award also belongs to the many outstanding students and fellows who I was fortunate to have work in my laboratory over the past 30 years." Dr. Feldman earned his Ph.D. in Physiology from the University of Maryland, College Park before earning his medical degree at the Louisiana State University School of Medicine, Shreveport, where he was elected to Alpha Omega Alpha. He then completed his internship, residency and fellowship in cardiovascular disease at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. Dr. Feldman subsequently held faculty appointments at Johns Hopkins, the University of Pittsburgh where he served as Harry S. Tack Professor and Chief of the Division of Cardiology and Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University where he served as the Magee Chair of the Department of Medicine prior to joining Temple in 2011 as the Executive Dean of the School of Medicine, a position he held until 2016. Dr. Feldman's research, supported through grants from the National Institutes of Health, has focused on the molecular biology of dilated cardiomyopathy and heart failure. He has received numerous awards and honors for his work including election to the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the Association of University Cardiologists, the Association of American Physicians, the American Clinical and Climatologic Association, and the Johns Hopkins University Society of Scholars. He has served as the President of the Heart Failure Society of America, as the President of the Association of the Professors of Cardiology and was the founding Editor-in-Chief of Clinical and Translational Science (CTS) and the Journal of Clinical and Translational Science. He was the recipient of the Rolex Achievement Award from the USILA, the Life Time Achievement Award from the Heart Failure Society of America and the Barry Coller Award from the Association for Clinical and Translational Science. Distinguished Awards recipients are nominated by their peers and then selected by the American College of Cardiology Awards Committee. ### About The American College of Cardiology The American College of Cardiology envisions a world where innovation and knowledge optimize cardiovascular care and outcomes. As the professional home for the entire cardiovascular care team, the mission of the College and its more than 52,000 members is to transform cardiovascular care and to improve heart health. The ACC bestows credentials upon cardiovascular professionals who meet stringent qualifications and leads in the formation of health policy, standards and guidelines. The College also provides professional medical education, disseminates cardiovascular research through its world-renowned JACC Journals, operates national registries to measure and improve care, and offers cardiovascular accreditation to hospitals and institutions. For more, visit acc.org. About Temple Health Temple University Health System (TUHS) is a $2.1 billion academic health system dedicated to providing access to quality patient care and supporting excellence in medical education and research. The Health System consists of Temple University Hospital (TUH), ranked among the "Best Hospitals" in the region by U.S. News & World Report; TUH-Episcopal Campus; TUH-Northeastern Campus; Fox Chase Cancer Center, an NCI-designated comprehensive cancer center; Jeanes Hospital, a community-based hospital offering medical, surgical and emergency services; Temple Transport Team, a ground and air-ambulance company; and Temple Physicians, Inc., a network of community-based specialty and primary-care physician practices. TUHS is affiliated with the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University, and Temple University Physicians, which is Temple Health's physician practice plan comprised of more than 500 full-time and part-time academic physicians in 20 clinical departments. The Lewis Katz School of Medicine (LKSOM), established in 1901, is one of the nation's leading medical schools. Each year, the School of Medicine educates more than 800 medical students and approximately 240 graduate students. Based on its level of funding from the National Institutes of Health, the Katz School of Medicine is the second-highest ranked medical school in Philadelphia and the third-highest in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. According to U.S. News & World Report, LKSOM is among the top 10 most applied-to medical schools in the nation. Temple Health refers to the health, education and research activities carried out by the affiliates of Temple University Health System (TUHS) and by the Katz School of Medicine. TUHS neither provides nor controls the provision of health care. All health care is provided by its member organizations or independent health care providers affiliated with TUHS member organizations. Each TUHS member organization is owned and operated pursuant to its governing documents. (New York, NY, February 8, 2019) -- Women who have previously been infected with dengue virus may be at risk for increased damage to their fetuses and placentas if they should later become infected with the Zika virus, researchers from the Department of Microbiology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai report. This study is the first to report a possible mechanism for the enhancement of Zika virus progression during pregnancy in an animal model. Results of the study, "Dengue virus immunity increases Zika virus-induced damage during pregnancy," were published in the February issue of Immunity, a journal published by Cell Press. Zika virus outbreaks were first found to be associated with birth defects including microcephaly, in which the baby is born with an abnormally small head and brain, in 2015 in Brazil, where dengue virus, a virus closely related to Zika virus, is endemic. The research team led by Jean Lim, PhD, Associate Professor of Microbiology and Co-Director of Microbiology Multidisciplinary Training in the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, transferred dengue virus-specific antibodies into mice prior to infection with Zika virus during pregnancy. The presence of these antibodies in the mice significantly increased placental damage, fetal growth, and fetal resorption. Zika-infected human placental tissues also showed increased replication in the presence of dengue antibodies. "Our data demonstrate that antibodies generated from a previous dengue virus infection can enhance the severity of Zika virus infection during pregnancy," said Dr. Lim. "Our research may explain the high rate of microcephaly and birth defects observed in the recent Zika virus outbreak in South America." ### Other key authors on the study include Florian Krammer, PhD, Associate Professor of Microbiology, and Adolfo Garcia-Sastre, PhD, Director of Global Health and Emerging Pathogens Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. About the Mount Sinai Health System The Mount Sinai Health System is New York City's largest integrated delivery system, encompassing eight hospitals, a leading medical school, and a vast network of ambulatory practices throughout the greater New York region. Mount Sinai's vision is to produce the safest care, the highest quality, the highest satisfaction, the best access and the best value of any health system in the nation. The Health System includes approximately 7,480 primary and specialty care physicians; 11 joint-venture ambulatory surgery centers; more than 410 ambulatory practices throughout the five boroughs of New York City, Westchester, Long Island, and Florida; and 31 affiliated community health centers. The Icahn School of Medicine is one of three medical schools that have earned distinction by multiple indicators: ranked in the top 20 by U.S. News & World Report's "Best Medical Schools", aligned with a U.S. News & World Report's "Honor Roll" Hospital, No. 12 in the nation for National Institutes of Health funding, and among the top 10 most innovative research institutions as ranked by the journal Nature in its Nature Innovation Index. This reflects a special level of excellence in education, clinical practice, and research. The Mount Sinai Hospital is ranked No. 18 on U.S. News & World Report's "Honor Roll" of top U.S. hospitals; it is one of the nation's top 20 hospitals in Cardiology/Heart Surgery, Gastroenterology/GI Surgery, Geriatrics, Nephrology, and Neurology/Neurosurgery, and in the top 50 in six other specialties in the 2018-2019 "Best Hospitals" issue. Mount Sinai's Kravis Children's Hospital also is ranked nationally in five out of ten pediatric specialties by U.S. News & World Report. The New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai is ranked 11th nationally for Ophthalmology and 44th for Ear, Nose, and Throat. Mount Sinai Beth Israel, Mount Sinai St. Luke's, Mount Sinai West, and South Nassau Communities Hospital are ranked regionally. Unique analysis of 24,000 Canadian grant applications shows clear bias against women when peer-review focuses on the calibre of the applicant, rather than the strength of the science; the article is part of a special issue by The Lancet on Advancing Women An analysis of nearly 24,000 grant applications at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) finds that women are less successful in receiving funding if reviewers are explicitly asked to review the principal investigator, rather than when they are asked to assess the quality of the science. The study is published as part of a special issue of The Lancet on advancing women in science, medicine and global health (full press release & issue content available below). Compared with men, women are less likely to be viewed as scientific leaders, contribute more labour for less credit on publications, and are more likely to experience harassment. Women are under-represented as authors and in peer-review, and articles and conference abstracts led by women are accepted more frequently when reviewers are unaware of authors' identities, and women are underrepresented as invited speakers at conferences. Female faculty are less likely to reach higher ranks in medical schools than male faculty, even after accounting for age, experience, specialty, and research productivity. Across countries and disciplines, studies show that male researchers receive more research funding than their female peers. However, there has not - until now - been any firm evidence to explain why. In 2014, the CIHR divided funding applications into two new grant schemes, one with an explicit review focus on the applicant, and the other on the research proposed, creating a unique natural experiment. Overall, about 16% of grant applications were funded. When assessments were done primarily on the quality of the science (75% of the score), the gender gap was 0.9 percentage points. However, when they were done primarily on the leadership and expertise of the principal investigator (75% of the score), the gender gap was 4 percentage points. "Our study offers the first robust evidence showing that gender gaps in research funding stem from evaluations of the scientist, not the science. Women are evaluated less favourably as principal investigators during assessment. Bias in grant review, whether individual or systemic, prevents the best research from being funded. When this occurs, lines of research go unstudied, careers are damaged, individual rights and potential go unrealised, and funding agencies are unable to deliver the best value for money. Programmes that fund projects, not people might reduce these barriers. Efforts to correct for cumulative disadvantage might also help close gaps that have grown over the course of careers. We would encourage all funders, institutions, journals, societies, and individual researchers to consider the role they might all have to play to ensure rigorous, fair peer review," says author Dr Holly O Witteman, Universite Laval, Quebec City (Canada) [1]. The study analysed applications submitted between 2011 and 2016. A total of 23918 applications from 7093 applicants (63% male, 37% female) were included. Statistical analyses included principal investigators' age and domain of health research. The authors note that no data were available on principal investigators' race, ethnicity, indigeneity, disability, or other characteristics that are associated with demonstrated disparities in funding and career progression. They encourage further research on all forms of bias. ### NOTES TO EDITORS: [1] Quotes provides directly by authors and cannot be found in the text of the article. 3.5 billion years ago Earth hosted life, but was it barely surviving, or thriving? A new study carried out by a multi institutional team with leadership including the Earth-Life Science Institute (ELSI) of Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech) provides new answers to this question. Microbial metabolism is recorded in billions of years of sulfur isotope ratios that agree with this study's predictions, suggesting life throve in the ancient oceans. Using this data, scientists can more deeply link the geochemical record with cellular states and ecology. Scientists want to know how long life has existed on Earth. If it has been around for almost as long as the planet, this suggests it is easy for life to originate and life should be common in the Universe. If it takes a long time to originate, this suggests there were very special conditions that had to occur. Dinosaurs, whose bones are presented in museums around the world, were preceded by billions of years by microbes. While microbes have left some physical evidence of their presence in the ancient geological record, they do not fossilize well, thus scientists use other methods for understanding whether life was present in the geological record. Presently, the oldest evidence of microbial life on Earth comes to us in the form of stable isotopes. The chemical elements charted on the periodic are defined by the number of protons in their nuclei, for example, hydrogen atoms have one proton, helium atoms have two, carbon atoms contain six. In addition to protons, most atomic nuclei also contain neutrons, which are about as heavy as protons, but which don't bear an electric charge. Atoms which contain the same number of protons, but variable numbers of neutrons are known as isotopes. While many isotopes are radioactive and thus decay into other elements, some do not undergo such reactions; these are known as "stable" isotopes. For example, the stable isotopes of carbon include carbon 12 (written as 12C for short, with 6 protons and 6 neutrons) and carbon 13 (13C, with 6 protons and 7 neutrons). All living things, including humans, "eat and excrete." That is to say, they take in food and expel waste. Microbes often eat simple compounds made available by the environment. For example, some are able to take in carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) as a carbon source to build their own cells. Naturally occurring CO 2 has a fairly constant ratio of 12C to 13C. However, 12CO 2 is about 2 % lighter than 13CO 2 , so 12CO 2 molecules diffuse and react slightly faster, and thus the microbes themselves become "isotopically light," containing more 12C than 13C, and when they die and leave their remains in the fossil record, their stable isotopic signature remains, and is measurable. The isotopic composition, or "signature," of such processes can be very specific to the microbes that produce them. Besides carbon there are other chemical elements essential for living things. For example, sulfur, with 16 protons, has three naturally abundant stable isotopes, 32S (with 16 neutrons), 33S (with 17 neutrons) and 34S (with 18 neutrons). Sulfur isotope patterns left behind by microbes thus record the history of biological metabolism based on sulfur-containing compounds back to around 3.5 billion years ago. Hundreds of previous studies have examined wide variations in ancient and contemporary sulfur isotope ratios resulting from sulfate (a naturally occurring sulfur compound bonded to four oxygen atoms) metabolism. Many microbes are able to use sulfate as a fuel, and in the process excrete sulfide, another sulfur compound (Figure 1). The sulfide "waste" of ancient microbial metabolism is then stored in the geological record, and its isotope ratios can be measured by analyzing minerals such as the FeS2 mineral pyrite shown in Figure 2. This new study reveals a primary biological control step in microbial sulfur metabolism, and clarifies which cellular states lead to which types of sulfur isotope fractionation. This allows scientists to link metabolism to isotopes: by knowing how metabolism changes stable isotope ratios, scientists can predict the isotopic signature organisms should leave behind. This study provides some of the first information regarding how robustly ancient life was metabolizing. Microbial sulfate metabolism is recorded in over a three billion years of sulfur isotope ratios that are in line with this study's predictions, which suggest life was in fact thriving in the ancient oceans. This work opens up a new field of research, which ELSI Associate Professor Shawn McGlynn calls "evolutionary and isotopic enzymology." Using this type of data, scientists can now proceed to other elements, such as carbon and nitrogen, and more completely link the geochemical record with cellular states and ecology via an understanding of enzyme evolution and Earth history. ### Reference Min Sub Sim1,2*, Hideaki Ogata3,4, Wolfgang Lubitz3, Jess F Adkins2, Alex L Sessions2, Victoria J Orphan2, Shawn E McGlynn2,5*, Role of APS reductase in biogeochemical sulfur isotope fractionation, Nature Communications, DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-07878-4 1. School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Seoul National University, South Korea 2. Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, California Institute of Technology, USA 3. Max Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion, Germany 4. Institute of Low Temperature Science, Hokkaido University, Japan 5. Earth-Life Science Institute, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech) Tokyo Tech stands at the forefront of research and higher education as the leading university for science and technology in Japan. Tokyo Tech researchers excel in fields ranging from materials science to biology, computer science, and physics. Founded in 1881, Tokyo Tech hosts over 10,000 undergraduate and graduate students per year, who develop into scientific leaders and some of the most sought-after engineers in industry. Embodying the Japanese philosophy of "monotsukuri," meaning "technical ingenuity and innovation," the Tokyo Tech community strives to contribute to society through high-impact research. http://www. titech. ac. jp/ english/ The Earth-Life Science Institute (ELSI) Launched in 2012, ELSI is one of Japan's ambitious World Premiere International research centers, whose aim is to achieve progress in broadly inter-disciplinary scientific areas by inspiring the world's greatest minds to come to Japan and collaborate on the most challenging scientific problems. ELSI's primary aim is to address the origin and co-evolution of the Earth and life. WPI The World Premier International Research Center Initiative (WPI) was launched in 2007 by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) to help build globally visible research centers in Japan. These institutes promote high research standards and outstanding research environments that attract frontline researchers from around the world. These centers are highly autonomous, allowing them to revolutionize conventional modes of research operation and administration in Japan. On 10 February 2019 Prof Dave Richardson from Stellenbosch University in South Africa and a leading scientist in the field of invasion biology, will receive the 2018 Kwame Nkrumah Award for Scientific Excellence Prof Dave Richardson from the DST-NRF Centre of Excellence for Invasion Biology (CIB) at Stellenbosch University (SU) and a world leading scientist in the field of invasion biology, is the recipient of the 2018 Kwame Nkrumah Award for Scientific Excellence. This continental award is one of three awards made annually by the Commission of the African Union to recognise outstanding African scientists for their achievements, discoveries and innovations. It was established in 2008 in memory of the well-known Pan-Africanist leader Dr Kwame Nkrumah. Prof Richardson is a distinguished professor in the Department of Botany and Zoology at SU, James Marsh Professor-at-Large at the University of Vermont in the United States of America, and director of the CIB, one of the most productive and influential research groups working in the field of biological invasions in the world. Biological invasions are a rapidly growing threat to biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in Africa and many parts of the world. Prof Richardson says he is extremely honoured to receive this award: "I hope that it will help to spread awareness of the massive problems with invasive species worldwide, and the urgent need for innovative solutions to prevent the escalation of impacts on biodiversity and human livelihoods." He also commended South Africa's Department of Science and Technology and Stellenbosch University for their substantial investments in this field through their funding of the CIB: "The Centre has created a critical mass of knowledge and expertise across disciplines to address diverse issues pertaining to biological invasions in Africa". Prof Louise Warnich, Dean of the Faculty of Science, says the award is well-deserved and recognises Prof Richardson's significant contributions to the field of invasion biology: "The awards confirms his status as an influential international leader in this field. The CIB has continued to blossom under his leadership and he is an excellent role model for young researchers." The Award Ceremony will be held at the AU Conference Center on 10 February 2019 during the Assembly of the AU Heads of States (The Summit) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. More about Prof Richardson Prof Richardson is regarded as one of the most influential authors globally in the field of invasion science. His research focuses on biological invasions, and in particular the dynamics of plant invasions, specifically trees and shrubs. He has worked predominantly on invasive species in South Africa, mainly in the fynbos and savanna biomes, but has also published widely on invasive species in other parts of Africa and the world, on global patterns and trends in biological invasions, and on developing a sound theoretical basis for invasion science. One of his major contributions to invasion science has been the thorough development and exploitation of new model systems for the elucidation of all the diverse perspectives that need to be considered to understand and manage invasive species. His contributions on the ecology of pines and Australian acacias are widely recognised as foundation studies in invasion science. Prof Richardson has also contributed substantially to the formulation of practical guidelines for the improved management of invasions. He is frequently consulted by conservation agencies and government departments, and serves on various committees related to environmental management in South Africa and abroad. He is currently one of only a handful of African scientists rated as a "Highly Cited Researcher" by Clarivate Analytics - these are scientists who rank in the top 1% by citations for their field in the Web of Science and are making an impact in solving some of the world's biggest challenges. He has received numerous awards, including the Hans Sigrist Prize (2006), the John F.W. Herschel Medal from the Royal Society of South Africa (2012), and the Havenga Prize for Life Sciences from the South African Academy for Science and Arts (2013). ### Lilia Cortina, PhD, and Vicki Magley, PhD, have been honored with the Raymond A. Katzell Award from the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP). Lilia Cortina, PhD, and Vicki Magley, PhD, have been honored with the Raymond A. Katzell Award from the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP). The annual award was created in memory of Raymond A. Katzell, who was a strong proponent of the scientist-practitioner model in I-O psychology. He advocated for the integration of science and practice throughout his 27 year career on the faulty at New York University, and as a long-time member of SIOP's volunteer leadership structure. The Katzell Award recognizes a SIOP member who has significantly increased public awareness of the important contributions I-O psychology makes in improving people lives by addressing social issues. Dr. Cortina and Dr. Magley have created and maintained a longstanding and fruitful collaboration while each independently has research programs on the causes, consequences, and moderators of sexual harassment in the workplace; they have also both served pro bono on the committee that wrote the benchmark National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report Sexual Harassment of Women: Climate, Culture, and Consequences in Academic Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. In the 16 days after report was released, it was downloaded 9,551 times. This report received significant coverage in major news media outlets and institutions, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Science, and garnered responses from the Association of American Medical Colleges and the National Science Foundation. Their work has been featured in numerous news articles over the years and in a variety of outlets, such as CNN, New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Business Insider, Washington Post, and Bloomberg. They have also appeared on Good Morning America, the Today Show, Marketplace, NPR, and ABC News. Lilia Cortina and Vicki Magley will be presented with the award during the opening plenary of the 34th Annual SIOP Conference, held April 4-6 at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in Washington DC/National Harbor. Learn more about the conference here. About SIOP The Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) is an international professional organization with an annual membership of more than 10,000 industrial-organizational (I-O) psychologists. SIOP's mission is to enhance human well-being and performance in organizational and work settings by promoting the science, practice, and teaching of I-O psychology. ### CAMBRIDGE, MA -- An MIT-led research team has developed a drug capsule that could be used to deliver oral doses of insulin, potentially replacing the injections that people with type 2 diabetes have to give themselves every day. About the size of a blueberry, the capsule contains a small needle made of compressed insulin, which is injected after the capsule reaches the stomach. In tests in animals, the researchers showed that they could deliver enough insulin to lower blood sugar to levels comparable to those produced by injections given through skin. They also demonstrated that the device can be adapted to deliver other protein drugs. "We are really hopeful that this new type of capsule could someday help diabetic patients and perhaps anyone who requires therapies that can now only be given by injection or infusion," says Robert Langer, the David H. Koch Institute Professor, a member of MIT's Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, and one of the senior authors of the study. Giovanni Traverso, an assistant professor at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and a visiting scientist in MIT's Department of Mechanical Engineering, where he is starting as a faculty member in 2019, is also a senior author of the study. The first author of the paper, which appears in the February 8 issue of Science, is MIT graduate student Alex Abramson. The research team also includes scientists from the pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk. Self-orientation Several years ago, Traverso, Langer, and their colleagues developed a pill coated with many tiny needles that could be used to inject drugs into the lining of the stomach or the small intestine. For the new capsule, the researchers changed the design to have just one needle, allowing them to avoid injecting drugs into the interior of the stomach, where they would be broken down by stomach acids before having any effect. The tip of the needle is made of nearly 100 percent compressed, freeze-dried insulin, using the same process used to form tablets of medicine. The shaft of the needle, which does not enter the stomach wall, is made from another biodegradable material. Within the capsule, the needle is attached to a compressed spring that is held in place by a disk made of sugar. When the capsule is swallowed, water in the stomach dissolves the sugar disk, releasing the spring and injecting the needle into the stomach wall. The stomach wall has no pain receptors, so the researchers believe that patients would not be able to feel the injection. To ensure that the drug is injected into the stomach wall, the researchers designed their system so that no matter how the capsule lands in the stomach, it can orient itself so the needle is in contact with the lining of the stomach. "As soon as you take it, you want the system to self-right so that you can ensure contact with the tissue," Traverso says. The researchers drew their inspiration for the self-orientation feature from a tortoise known as the leopard tortoise. This tortoise, which is found in Africa, has a shell with a high, steep dome, allowing it to right itself if it rolls onto its back. The researchers used computer modeling to come up with a variant of this shape for their capsule, which allows it to reorient itself even in the dynamic environment of the stomach. "What's important is that we have the needle in contact with the tissue when it is injected," Abramson says. "Also, if a person were to move around or the stomach were to growl, the device would not move from its preferred orientation." Once the tip of the needle is injected into the stomach wall, the insulin dissolves at a rate that can be controlled by the researchers as the capsule is prepared. In this study, it took about an hour for all of the insulin to be fully released into the bloodstream. Easier for patients In tests in pigs, the researchers showed that they could successfully deliver up to 300 micrograms of insulin. More recently, they have been able to increase the dose to 5 milligrams, which is comparable to the amount that a patient with type 2 diabetes would need to inject. After the capsule releases its contents, it can pass harmlessly through the digestive system. The researchers found no adverse effects from the capsule, which is made from biodegradable polymer and stainless steel components. The MIT team is now continuing to work with Novo Nordisk to further develop the technology and optimize the manufacturing process for the capsules. They believe this type of drug delivery could be useful for any protein drug that normally has to be injected, such as immunosuppressants used to treat rheumatoid arthritis or inflammatory bowel disease. It may also work for nucleic acids such as DNA and RNA. "Our motivation is to make it easier for patients to take medication, particularly medications that require an injection," Traverso says. "The classic one is insulin, but there are many others." ### The research was funded by Novo Nordisk, the National Institutes of Health, a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, Brigham and Women's Hospital, a Viking Olaf Bjork Research Scholarship, and the MIT Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program. Other authors of the paper include Ester Caffarel-Salvador, Minsoo Khang, David Dellal, David Silverstein, Yuan Gao, Morten Revsgaard Frederiksen, Andreas Vegge, Frantisek Hubalek, Jorrit Water, Anders Friderichsen, Johannes Fels, Rikke Kaae Kirk, Cody Cleveland, Joy Collins, Siddartha Tamang, Alison Hayward, Tomas Landh, Stephen Buckley, Niclas Roxhed, and Ulrik Rahbek. The so-called Abelian sandpile model has been studied by scientists for more than 30 years to better understand a physical phenomenon called self-organized criticality, which appears in a plethora of real-life situations such as the coordinated firing of brain cells, the spread of forest fires, the distribution of earth quake magnitudes and even in the coordinated behavior of ant colonies. Even though the sandpile model serves as the archetypical model to study self-organized criticality, questions about its characteristics are still open and remain an active field of research. Moritz Lang and Mikhail Shkonikov from the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (IST Austria) have now discovered a new property of this mathematical model: by adding sand grains in a specific manner to the sandpile, they induce dynamics reminiscent of the emergence, movement, collision and disappearance of sand dunes in the Gobi or the Namib desert. Different to real-world sand dunes, however, the dunes in their work--which is published in the current issue of PNAS--are composed of self-similar fractal patterns, somewhat similar to the famous Mandelbrot set. The rules of the "sandpile experiment" are fairly simple: The model essentially consist of a grid of quadratic fields, similar to a checkerboard, onto which sand grains are dropped randomly. Fields that end up with less than four grains of sand remain stable, but when more grains accumulate on a field, the field becomes unstable and "topples". In such a "toppling", four grains of sand are passed on to the four neighboring fields: one to the top, one to the bottom, one to the left, and one to the right. This might cause the neighboring fields to also become unstable and topple, which then in turn may cause the next neighbors to topple and so on - an "avalanche" emerges. Similar to real-world avalanches in the Alps, these "sandpile avalanches" have no characteristic size, and it is extremely challenging to predict if the next sand grain will cause a huge avalanche, or nothing at all. While, due to the simplicity of these rules, the sandpile model is regularly used as an easy example in elementary programming courses, it nevertheless displays various mathematical and physical phenomena still unexplained today--despite more than 30 years of extensive research. Among the most fascinating of these phenomena is the appearance of fractal sandpile configurations. These fractal sandpiles are characterized by repetitive and self-similar patterns where the same shapes appear over and over again, but in smaller and smaller versions. The occurrence of these fractal patterns has yet evade any mathematical explanation. While the researchers at IST Austria could also not solve this mathematical riddle, they rendered this phenomenon even more mysterious by showing that these fractal patterns can seemingly continuously transform into one another: They were able to produce movies in which the fractal patterns display dynamics which are, depending on the background of the observer, either reminiscent of the movement of real-world sand dunes, or of "psychedelic movies" characteristic for the 70'ies. Not solving a mathematical question but only making it appear to be even more mysterious might at first sight not seem to be the ideal outcome. However, the two scientists - Moritz Lang who is a postdoc in the research group of Professor Calin Guet, and Mikhail Shkonikov, a postdoc in the group of Professor Tamas Hausel - believe that their "psychedelic movies" might be the key to a better understanding of the sandpile model, and maybe also of many other physical, biological or even economical problems. "You could say that we have found universal coordinates for the sandpile," say Mikhail Shkonikov, "essentially, we can give every sand dune in the desert a very specific identifier." Moritz Lang, who is a theoretical biologist, adds: "the key to understand any physical or biological phenomenon is to understand its consequences. The more consequences we know, the harder it becomes to develop a scientific hypothesis which is in agreement with all those consequences. In that sense, knowing all possible sand dunes and how they move represents a lot of constraints, and we hope that, in the end, this will remove sufficient hay from the stack such that we can find the needle." The two researchers see many applications of their theoretical work to real-world problems like the prediction of earthquake magnitudes, the functioning of the human brain, physics, or even economics: "In all these fields, we find haystacks which look similar, very similar. Maybe it turns out that all haystacks are the same, and that there is only one needle to find." Moritz Lang finished his PhD at ETH Zurich in spring 2015 with a thesis entitled "Modular identification and analysis of biomolecular networks". He joined IST Austria in August 2015. Mikhail Shkonikov obtained his PhD from the University of Geneva and joined IST Austria in 2017. ### Funding information: The research was completed at IST Austria, and received funding from the ISTFELLOW program, a Marie Sk?odowska-Curie COFUND grant co-funded by IST Austria and the European Union through the Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. This program has since been succeeded by another COFUND grant, the ISTplus program, which is open for applications from qualified postdocs all over the world: https:/ / ist. ac. at/ research/ postdoctoral-research/ istplus/ About IST Austria The Institute of Science and Technology (IST Austria) is a PhD-granting research institution located in Klosterneuburg, 18 km from the center of Vienna, Austria. Inaugurated in 2009, the Institute is dedicated to basic research in the natural and mathematical sciences. IST Austria employs professors on a tenure-track system, postdoctoral fellows, and doctoral students. While dedicated to the principle of curiosity-driven research, the Institute owns the rights to all scientific discoveries and is committed to promote their use. The first president of IST Austria is Thomas A. Henzinger, a leading computer scientist and former professor at the University of California in Berkeley, USA, and the EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland. The graduate school of IST Austria offers fully-funded PhD positions to highly qualified candidates with a bachelor's or master's degree in biology, neuroscience, mathematics, computer science, physics, and related areas. http://www. ist. ac. at Original publication: Moritz Lang and Mikhail Shkolnikov: Harmonic dynamics of the Abelian sandpile, PNAS 2019, https:/ / doi. org/ 10. 1073/ pnas. 1812015116 If you've ever walked past a bee's nest on a hot summer day, you've probably been too focused avoiding getting stung, rather than stopping to wonder how all those bees stay cool. Don't worry, Harvard scientists have braved the stingers to ask and answer that question for you. Honey bees live in large, congested nest cavities, often in tree hollows with narrow openings. When it gets hot inside the nest, a group of bees crawl to the entrance and use their wings as fans to draw hot air out and allow cooler air to move in. The question is, how do bees self-organize into these living ventilating units? Researchers at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology (OEB) have developed a framework that explains how bees use environmental signals to collectively cluster and continuously ventilate the hive. "Over millennia, social insects such as bees have evolved to harness and exploit flows and forces and collectively solve physiological problems such as mechanical stabilization, thermoregulation and ventilation on scales much larger than the individual," said L Mahadevan, de Valpine Professor of Applied Mathematics, Physics, and Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, and senior author of the study. "A combination of measurements and computational models quantify and explain how fanning bees create an emergent large-scale flow pattern to ventilate their nests." "We have demonstrated that bees don't need a sophisticated recruitment or communications scheme to keep their nests cool," said Jacob Peters, a postdoctoral fellow in SEAS and OEB, and first author of the paper. "Instead the fanning response of individual bees to temperature variations, and the physics of fluid flow leads to their collective spatial organization, which happens to lead to an efficient cooling solution." The paper is published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface. Experiments began in the dog days of the summer of 2017. Over the course of several weeks, Peters, Mahadevan and former postdoctoral fellow at SEAS Orit Peleg monitored a group of man-made beehives in Harvard University's Concord Field Station. The research team measured temperature, air flow into and out of the nest, and the position and density of bees fanning at the nest entrance. They observed that rather than spreading out across the entirety of the nest entrance, the bees clustered at the hottest areas and kept those areas, which had the highest air outflow, separate from the cooler areas with the highest air inflow. Importantly, they found that different bees had different temperature thresholds above which they would begin fanning, so that collectively they were better at responding to temperature variations. In modeling the system, the researchers found that all these behaviors linked to the environmental physics of the nest. Fanning outward allows the bees to sense the upstream nest temperature; different thresholds of temperature allows for more continuous ventilation and more stable hive temperatures; and, because of the physics of friction and flow, clustering to separate inflow from outflow allows more cool air to enter the nest because of the physics of friction and flow. "Our study demonstrates how harnessing the dynamics of the physical environment allows for large-scale organization of a physiological process," said Peleg, who co-authored the paper and is now an Assistant Professor at the University of Colorado Boulder. "Although this is a physics-focused story, biological variation with roots in genetics and evolution likely plays a big role in order for this system to work," said Peters. "Our theory suggests that not only does individual variability in temperature threshold lead to a more stable hive temperature but also this diversity is critical to the stability of the patterning of fanning behavior which is required for efficient ventilation." "In everything from large HVAC systems to the fans that cool our computers, bioinspired, self-organizing systems may be able to adapt and respond to specific demands better than current systems," said Peters. "More broadly, our study highlights, yet again, the need to consider both biological organisms and their physical environments to understand the richness of collective eco-physiology, a hallmark of life itself," said Mahadevan. ### This work was supported by the National Science Foundation. Is it better to have a heart attack while travelling or at home? Find out at Acute Cardiovascular Care 2019. The annual congress of the Acute Cardiovascular Care Association (ACCA), a branch of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC), will be held 2 to 4 March at the Palacio de Ferias y Congresos de Malaga (FYCMA) in Malaga, Spain. Explore the scientific programme to see the innovations that will guide practice. Acute cardiovascular care is the specialty of cardiology dealing with urgent problems including heart attack, cardiac arrest, and acute heart failure, where decisions can make a difference between life and death. More than 1,000 participants from over 70 countries will come together to learn the most effective way to save the lives of acutely ill cardiac patients. As the leading scientific event for all healthcare professionals who care for acutely ill cardiac patients, the congress brings together cardiologists, intensivists, anaesthesiologists, internists, cardiac surgeons, nurses, and paramedics. Research is at the heart of the congress and more than 600 abstracts and clinical cases will be presented. Stay tuned for findings on the impact of dementia on treatment and prognosis after a heart attack, and the link between gum disease and vulnerability of coronary plaques. The top heart attack risk factor in young adults in Andalucia, where the congress is being held, will also be revealed. Gender must be taken into account when diagnosing and treating patients with acute cardiac problems and a session is dedicated to the distinctive features of acute coronary syndromes including heart attacks in women.1 Women are around 8-10 years older than men when they have a heart attack and while they have similar symptoms as men, heart attacks without artery blockages are more common in women. Dr Sergio Leonardi, Chairperson of the Scientific Programme, said: "Heart attacks without obstructed arteries are completely different to those with blocked vessels and require alternative treatments. When women present to the emergency department we must consider that this diagnosis is more likely." Around 100 leading specialists will present the latest advances during more than 60 scientific sessions covering heart attacks, cardiac arrest, acute heart failure, and much more. State-of-the-art practice in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest will be covered in a dedicated session,2 with insights on the use of adrenalin in this setting from Professor Gavin Perkins, lead scientist of the PARAMEDIC 2 trial. The study found that the drug improves survival but more survivors given adrenalin had severe neurological impairment than survivors given placebo. Research is difficult to perform in acute cardiac care and best practice is often informed by expert opinion. Acute Cardiovascular Care is the place to hear how experienced health professionals deal with common clinical problems. One session is devoted to mechanical complications of myocardial infarction, such as rapid onset of low blood pressure after a heart attack.3 Dr Leonardi said: "We have to quickly make a lot of major decisions in patients who are extremely sick, with an extremely poor prognosis, in situations where there will never be a randomised controlled trial. The solutions we learn at the congress will probably be the best evidence we will ever have." The art of being a doctor or other member of the team working in intensive care is also part of the programme.4 Experienced clinicians will discuss how to deal with not being able to fix every patient, how to provide a better death for patients, how to communicate with shocked, distressed patients who do not understand, or refuse to understand, what is happening, and how to cope with burnout. Dr Leonardi said: "Healthcare professionals in acute cardiac care learn the science of medicine but often, not the art. In the acute setting we often have to decide that there is nothing more we can do, the patient is going to die, and we have to manage that. Young doctors think it is a limitation to include emotion when practising medicine but it's impossible to care for someone and not have a personal involvement. This session will show us how to turn these frustrating situations into opportunities to show our human side." ### Authors: ESC Press Office Tel: +33 (0)4 8987 2499 Email: press@escardio.org Follow us on Twitter @ESCardioNews The hashtag for the meeting is #acuteCVD19. References and notes 1Distinctive features of acute coronary syndromes in women will be held on Monday 4 March at 11:00 to 12:30 CET in Conference Room 1.4+5+6. 2Out of hospital cardiac arrest: State of the Art in 2019 will be held on Monday 4 March at 09:00 to 10:00 CET in Auditorium 2. 3Mechanical complications of myocardial infarction will be held on Monday 4 March at 09:00 to 10:00 CET in Conference Room 1.1+2+3. 4What you won't find in books: the art of being a doctor in intensive care will be held on Sunday 3 March at 11:00 to 12:30 CET in Auditorium 2. About the Acute Cardiovascular Care Association The Acute Cardiovascular Care Association (ACCA) is a branch of the ESC. Its mission is to improve the quality of care and outcomes of patients with acute cardiovascular diseases. About the Acute Cardiovascular Care congress Acute Cardiovascular Care is the annual congress of the Acute Cardiovascular Care Association (ACCA) of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). About the European Society of Cardiology The European Society of Cardiology brings together health care professionals from more than 150 countries, working to advance cardiovascular medicine and help people lead longer, healthier lives. Information for journalists attending Acute Cardiovascular Care 2019 Acute Cardiovascular Care 2019 takes place 2 to 4 March at the Palacio de Ferias y Congresos de Malaga (FYCMA) in Malaga, Spain. Explore the scientific programme. Hispanic and Latino youth are more likely to drink alcohol at a younger age than their African-American and non-Hispanic Caucasian peers, but they are less likely to receive treatment for substance abuse. African-American youth show more symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder than their Caucasian peers, but they are less likely to receive appropriate treatment for disruptive behaviors. The suicide rate among Native Americans has been outpacing the rest of the country since 2003. Suicide is the second leading cause of death among Native American adolescents, and there are very few effective interventions. A research team made up of experts from Arizona State University, DePaul University and the University of Southern California has evaluated the effectiveness of interventions for mental health problems like substance use, disruptive behaviors and suicide prevention in ethnic minority American youth. The study, which was commissioned by Division 53 of the American Psychological Association, will be published February 12 in the Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology. "This careful study provides a benchmark for evidence-based interventions in minority youth, which is central to providing effective care to the diverse youth population and will be very useful to funders of research, payers of healthcare and family members," said Margarita Alegria, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and Chief of the Disparities Research Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital. Alegria was not involved in the study. "This evaluation also sets the groundwork for the future, by identifying the need to focus on the development and evaluation of more interventions for minority groups that have not yet been addressed, like Asian Americans, Native Americans and youth who do not speak English." Ten years ago, there were zero evidence-based interventions for American ethnic minority youth that met the strongest criteria and were considered well-established. Now there are four. Well-established and evidence-based To evaluate the effectiveness of mental health interventions for ethnic minority youth, ASU's Armando Pina, associate professor of psychology, worked with Antonio Polo, associate professor of clinical psychology at DePaul University, and Stanley Huey, associate professor of psychology and American studies and ethnicity at the University of Southern California. The trio rated evidence-based interventions designed to target problems like anxiety, depression, disruptive behavior, substance use, trauma and stress reactions and self-harm or suicide. In total, the team evaluated 65 interventions that had either analyzed the impact on ethnic minority participants or been tested on a participant group that was at least 75% ethnic minority youth. The highest rating was "well-established" and included interventions that were tested using randomized controlled experimental designs, had been replicated by more than one research group and demonstrated benefits to the youth that were statistically significant. The four interventions that met the well-established criteria were designed to treat anxiety, disruptive behaviors and substance use in ethnic minority youth. The team found cognitive behavioral interventions were effective at helping Hispanic and Latino youths experiencing anxiety. These interventions teach strategies to change problem thinking patterns and behaviors and often include social skills training. Interventions that involved parents, called family therapy, helped African American youth struggling with disruptive behaviors and Hispanic and Latino youth with drug or alcohol use problems. Including the family, school system or peer networks in therapy to address disruptive behaviors was also effective in helping African American youth. "Parents and caregivers need to know that for some of the most common problems children and adolescents face, there are well-established treatments that have been systematically tested," said Pina, who was the lead author on the study. "They should demand children get these empirically-supported treatments and interventions." From bench to bedside On top of the four well-established interventions, the researchers identified other treatment programs that met less-stringent rating criteria and could be considered best practices in the future. The analysis also determined which mental health problems did not yet have effective interventions for ethnic minority youth and which minority groups were underrepresented. There were no well-established interventions for depression, trauma and stress reactions, self-harm, suicide or the co-occurrence of more than one problem, like anxiety and disruptive behaviors. And, none of the 65 studies analyzed by the research team included enough Asian American or Native American participants to evaluate whether any of the interventions were robust for these populations. "Including Native American youth in research studies is important and requires working directly with Tribal nations because they regulate research within their communities. Researchers must invest considerable time to build relationships and establish trust to gain Tribal approval for a research study," said Monica Tsethlikai, assistant professor in ASU's T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics and an affiliate faculty member of the university's American Indian Studies program. Tsethlikai was not involved in the study. "Native Americans also have a unique worldview that includes a metaphysical perspective of health and well-being that does not fit within Western interventions, so effective interventions would need to originate from a foundation of respect and reciprocity and would have to be congruent with the lived experiences of Native American youth." The team advocated for more research that includes underrepresented ethnic minority populations. Because the trajectory of an evidence-based treatment program from a research setting into the real world takes 17 years on average, the researchers also suggested future work should focus on the development of streamlined methods to develop interventions and test how well they work. "Research should move outside of the lab and into the community," Pina said. "Intervention scientists need to increase collaborations with established systems of care and real-world providers, who are under real-world constraints." ### US claims Hezbollah threat as cause for an action in Venezuela US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Fox Business Trish Regan that Hezbollah is active in Venezuela. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Fox News reporter Trish Regan on Wednesday that Hezbollah has a presence in Venezuela. "HEZBOLLAH HAS ACTIVE CELLS" People dont recognize that Hezbollah has active cells, Pompeo said. The Iranians are impacting the people of Venezuela and throughout South America. We have an obligation to take down that risk for America. Regan, incredulously, tweeted out that Pompeo had confirmed to her that Hezbollah is operating in Venezuela. The US has long considered the Iranian-backed Lebanese group a terrorist organization, and sanctions on people in Venezuela linked to Hezbollah have been imposed as far back as the George W Bush administration. I am a retired Naval Officer and small business owner, outside of my work at the News & Eagle. My wife Tammy and I enjoy serving together at church and attending Gaslight and ESO. We have two daughters, three dogs and little free time. Follow James Neal | Religion/Health Reporter Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today PONCA CITY The Memorial Service celebrating and honoring the life of Carl Kerfoot, of Ponca City, are pending. Condolences may be shared with the family online at www.EnidCremation.com. Defendant Casey White, 35, of Tanner, is walked back to the jail van today following his trial in Limestone County Circuit Court. White was found guilty on nine charges, including the attempted murder of his ex-girlfriend and the kidnapping of her two roommates in December 2015. John Timothy Hudson, 62, of Elkmont, Alabama, died Monday, June 21, 2021, at his residence. Visitation is from 11 a.m. until 1 p.m. Friday at Spry Funeral Home in Athens. There will be a private graveside service at Limestone Memorial Gardens. Mr. Hudson was born July 3, 1958, in Decatur, Al Section of road to be closed for drainage works Motorists are being reminded part of a section of Queen's Pier Road in Ramsey will close for four weeks from Monday. Manx Utilities will be undertaking drainage works which will require the closure of a section of the road from its junction with Princes Road (from the bus station) to Parsonage Road. The diversion route for vehicular traffic during this work is along Albert Road onto Parsonage Road (where a parking suspension will be enforced for the duration of the works). Diversion routes will be clearly signposted. You will receive full, ad-free access to ElkValleyTimes.com as well as full access to the Electronic Edition of the newspaper. ONLY $3.00 per month for the first 3 months! Only $3.25 per month after promotional period. Or ONLY $33.75 per year for the 1st year Only $36.75 per year after promotional period. Mexico City, Feb 8 (epa-efe).- Soap opera star and former first lady Angelica Rivera said Friday that she made the "painful" decision to divorce Enrique Pena Nieto, who was president of Mexico from 2012 to 2018. "I deeply regret this situation, which is so painful for me and our children. That is why I decided to get a divorce," the actress wrote on Facebook, without mentioning the status of the legal proceedings. Rivera said that she always lovingly dedicated "time and effort to fulfill the roles of wife, companion and mother." The actress, known as "La Gaviota" (Seagull) for a character she played in a 2007 telenovela, said she will strive to "remain a good mother" as she goes about recovering her life and career. "I appreciate respect to maintain the emotional stability that our children deserve," Rivera said a day after HOLA! magazine reported on the end of the marriage. "Enrique Pena Nieto and Angelica Rivera separated in December. As confirmed to HOLA! by sources close to the couple," the magazine said in an online teaser for its forthcoming issue. The news item appeared hours after the publication of a photograph showing Pena Nieto with Mexican model Tania Ruiz among a group of people strolling on the streets of Madrid. EFE journalists have spotted Rivera attending theater premieres and other cultural events in Mexico on her own in the months since the end of the Pena Nieto presidency. Pena Nieto, 52, lives in Mexico with his three children, while the 49-year-old Rivera moved to the United States to be near her children from her first marriage, according to the magazine story. Their 2010 nuptials, a second marriage for both bride and groom, captured enormous attention as the union of the then-governor of the state of Mexico and one of the leading telenovela stars. In late 2014, a scandal erupted over Rivera's ownership of a mansion in the Mexican capital's upscale Lomas de Chapultepec district. The house, worth an estimated $7 million, was built between 2010 and 2012 by Grupo Higa, which was the recipient of several public works contracts during Pena Nieto's tenure as governor of Mexico state. Rivera purchased the Casa Blanca (white house) property with money she earned during her successful career as a soap opera actress, government spokesman Eduardo Sanchez said in November 2014. The then-first lady ultimately sold the residence. Pena Nieto, who fathered two children out of wedlock during his first marriage, has long had the reputation of being a lady's man. What's Included With a Digital Only subscription, you'll receive unlimited access to our website and e-edition. Our digital products are available 24/7 and are accessible anywhere, anytime. If you have any questions or need further assistance, please call our customer service team at 814-368-3173 or email nfinnerty@oleantimesherald.com. Mexico City, Feb 8 (epa-efe).- Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador reiterated on Friday that the only path to a solution of the crisis in Venezuela is dialogue between the government and opposition. "There is polarization on this issue and there are many arguments. And what we want is dialogue. (This was) the approach in Uruguay," he said during his daily morning press conference a day after representatives of Mexico and more than a dozen other nations met in Montevideo to discuss the situation in Venezuela. Though Mexico took part in the gathering, the Aztec nation declined to join the International Contact Group on Venezuela, made up of a dozen European and Latin American nations, which resolved to send envoys to Caracas in pursuit of creating conditions for a new presidential election in the oil-rich country. Years of political turmoil in Venezuela entered into an acute phase on Jan. 23, when Juan Guaido, the speaker of the opposition-controlled National Assembly, proclaimed himself acting head of state, denouncing incumbent President Nicolas Maduro as illegitimate. The United States quickly recognized Guaido and a score of Latin American and European countries have followed suit. Lopez Obrador, as he has done throughout the current crisis, again cited the Mexican constitution's prohibition on interference in the domestic affairs of other countries. And while he welcomed the idea of sending humanitarian aid to Venezuela, he said that such efforts must be kept separate from "political issues." An initial shipment of US aid intended for Venezuela arrived Thursday in the Colombian border city of Cucuta. On Wednesday, the Venezuelan military erected metal fences across the middle of the Tienditas international bridge, the most important of the three spans linking Cucuta to Venezuela. The Maduro government, which denounces Guaido's claim to the presidency as an attempted coup engineered by Washington, says it will not allow the shipment to enter Venezuela. US and Colombian officials have not disclosed how they plan to get the aid into the neighboring country. "We want peace," Lopez Obrador said Friday, referring again to the principles set out in Mexico's constitution: non-intervention, self-determination of peoples, peaceful settlement of disputes and respect for human rights. "It's a set of principles that forces us to act this way in the case of Venezuela. And we would do the same in any other case," he said. He also pointed out that Venezuela is not the only foreign policy issue facing Mexico. "For example, to maintain a relationship of mutual respect with the United States and address the migration phenomenon, seeking a fair and appropriate way out for the two nations and the governments of Central America," the president said. Mexico, Feb 8 (efe-epa).- Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Friday that previous administrations opened the energy sector to private firms with the intent of undermining state-owned electric utility CFE. "We need to strengthen this productive enterprise that belongs to the nation, which was dismantled so that the entire electric power market was controlled by private firms," he said during his daily morning press conference. Those companies, most of them foreign-owned, also receive subsidies from the Mexican government, the leftist president said. "What was done was a great abuse," Lopez Obrador, referring to what he called a culture of "pillage" in the energy sector just after he announced plans for a referendum in the central state of Morelos to decide whether a newly built power plant fueled by natural gas can begin operating. Some residents in the vicinity of the plant have campaigned against the facility, which also faces opposition from environmentalists. "With this plant, we could produce enough energy to power the entire state of Morelos, and without it, we would have to buy the energy from foreign private companies. I say this clearly for those raising the banners to oppose the plant," Lopez Obrador said. He said that construction of the plant and an accompanying gas pipeline cost 20 billion pesos ($1.04 billion). "There are environmentalist movements supported by foreign companies that don't want competition. And when it's a plant like this - even more if it belongs to the nation - foreign companies promote opposition," the president said. "Fortunately it is the minority (of environmentalists), so this is not misinterpreted," he added. Lopez Obrador was joined at the news conference by the top executive of the CFE, Manuel Bartlett, who promised to present next Monday a detailed description "of the looting" of the company during the 2012-2018 term of President Enrique Pena Nieto. The energy overhaul implemented by Pena Nieto had the effect of leaving the CFE in a diminished state, Bartlett said, lamenting the tendency toward the disappearance of state-owned enterprises. In 2014, Lopez Obrador brought a legal challenge against Pena Nieto over the heart of the energy reform: a constitutional change allowing private companies to develop Mexico's crude oil reserves for the first time since the late 1930s, when then-President Lazaro Cardenas nationalized the petroleum industry. Since taking office Dec. 1, the new president has worked to undo several of his predecessors major policy initiatives. Periods are gross! Dont tell me about menstruation! Dont talk about how you need a feminine product! Im sure most people have heard at least some of these phrases. Periods are treated globally as disgusting, shameful, and impure. The ironic part is that menstruation is a natural phenomenon that has maintained the survival of humankind for centuries upon millennia. However, periods themselves and the experiences of those who have them are silenced to the point of repression. Even menstruating people express vexation and uneasiness when addressing their own periods. Such an endemic societal stigma is present everywhere, from the books we read to the music we listen to. These patterns undoubtedly repeat themselves when it comes to education. Where did this all start? An upbringing where students are coerced into believing that menstruation is filthy and should be kept on the down low. If your health-class experience was anything like mine, you will vividly remember the subject of menstruation coming up. Boys are asked to leave the room, everyone erupts in a blanket of hushed giggles, and an exclusively female audience endures incomplete and noninclusive information. To put it simply, it is a bad experience. As a menstruating person, I have, for the most part, come to terms with my period, femininity, and philosophy on menstruation; but those who were never given a well-rounded view of comprehensive and scientifically accurate information will mature into adults who espouse and practice exclusive ideals about periods. I, like many other menstruating people, have experienced the utter horror of starting my period sans a pad or a tampon. You are simply existing, when all of a sudden a literal wave of uterus lining is shed into your underwear. Not simply staining your pants, but the white chair that you so conveniently happen to be sitting on. You rush to the nearest restroom in an attempt to cover up the crime your body just committed, but upon arrival, you find that no menstrual products are in sight. You feel awkward about asking someone else for a tampon, but you were not expecting shark week for another couple days. You proceed to stiffly exit the restroom and shuffle into hiding where any ambitions are forgotten, all because of an uncontrollable bodily function. The taboo of menstruation is only perpetuated by our sex education systems, as we give girls a how-to booklet on keeping menstruation a secret, and shield boys from the bloody horrors that periods are perceived to be." Of course, this sounds absolutely horrific, but some struggle with this monthly. Some simply have no access to menstrual products at home because of financial instability. Shouldnt school be a safe haven for menstruating students? Sparing the discomfort of embarrassed peers or faculty at the expense of the dignity of young menstruating people is unacceptable. One traumatizing experience with a monthly flow and another poorly taught sex ed. class later, we have adults who continue to giggle like 3rd grade boys when the word tampon arises in conversation; we have others who remain silent about their dysphoric symptoms that arise when Aunt Flo comes to visit; we even see some who are alienated for not being financially stable enough to purchase feminine hygiene products. Poverty has an overwhelming impact on people in the United States. In fact, over 42 million women live at or near poverty according to the 2014 statistic from the Shriver Report. Nonetheless, many American programs designed to assist low-income families exclude menstrual products from the list of items covered, leaving many young people struggling to afford pads and tampons. A significant paradigm shift must occur in our educational institutions to combat this endemic problem. To start, we must provide menstrual products in accessible, free, and inclusive manners. Urge school administrators to place pad and tampon dispensers in all restrooms. Provide menstrual products for all teachers to distribute as needed to students who do not have access otherwise. Thats right: No more missing class on extensive voyages to the nurses office, or irrelevant debates between students and teachers about whether or not they actually need to go to the bathroom. Lets also focus on our sex ed. classes. The taboo of menstruation is only perpetuated by our sex education systems, as we give girls a how-to booklet on keeping menstruation a secret, and shield boys from the bloody horrors that periods are perceived to be. Instead, lets focus on teaching menstrual education to girls, boys, and nonbinary people. Everyone will, at some point, come across someone who is on their period. As has been proven with racial insensitivity, sexism, homophobia, and ableism, simply because one does not identify with a particular group or experience does not negate the fact that it is important to be sensitive about it. Perhaps we would have a more compassionate and inclusive society if we did not limit our education to such outdated binaries. Menstrual equity is a challenging topic to tackle. We need an open dialogue, sparking healthy conversations about periods. It is high time that we block the harmful stigmas associated with menstruation that infiltrate not only our educational institutions, but the minds of future leaders. The ship MV Marathassa was acquitted of all charges Thursday relating to an oil spill that released 2,700 liters (approximately 713.3 gallons) of fuel into Vancouver, B.C.'s English Bay and coated four migratory birds with oil. The ship was originally charged with discharging a pollutant into the water on April 8, 2015 and failing to implement a pollution plan in response. The City of Vancouver maintained the ship still owed it more than half a million dollars in cleanup costs, which it has not given up pursuing. "The city is disappointed to learn that the charged related to this oil spill have been dismissed," it said in a statement reported by Global News Thursday. B.C Provincial Court Judge Kathryn Denhoff acquitted the vessel, registered to Cyprus, for the following reasons, according to The Vancouver Sun. 1 .The Spill Was Not 'Foreseeable' Denhoff ruled that there was no way the owners of the ship, which had only been operational for three weeks, could have detected the defects in its construction that caused the spill ahead of time. "The two defects were not foreseeable to the owner or crew of the Marathassa and were only discovered after the leak of fuel oil was traced back to the area of the defects," the judge ruled. "Those defects were not foreseeable to the external auditors of the shipbuilding or to two experienced Transport Canada inspectors, who spent an entire day inspecting the vessel and searching for the source of the fuel-oil discharge." 2. The Ship Did Help With Recovery The ship had been charged with failing to carry out its emergency plan, but Denhoff ruled it did in fact do so by taking samples of the oil and helping to contain the spill. "As a result, the Marathassa is acquitted of all charges," Denhoff concluded. Most of the fuel from the spill was recovered or dispersed within 48 hours, but it still harmed the environment of the shores surrounding English Bay. The City of Vancouver said it would continue to seek financial compensation for the money it spent on recovery. "The city's claim for compensation is under the Marine Liability Act which imposes a different standard of liability t[h]an the quasi-criminal charges brought under different statutes that were the subject matter of [Thursday's] court decision. Accordingly, the city does not anticipate that the court's decision will have any impact on its cost recovery claims," the statement reported by Global News said. Parts of two pipelines owned by controversial Canadian pipeline companies remained shut down Thursday following the discovery of a leak near St. Louis, Missouri on Wednesday, CBC News reported. Both TransCanada's Keystone pipeline and Enbridge's Platte pipeline run parallel to each other through the area. The Keystone pipeline, which carries 590,000 barrels of crude oil a day from Alberta, has faced opposition from environmental activists in the area because it transports from Alberta's tar sands. "[Leaks] are one more reason on top of climate change to show that tar sands are dangerous and should not be running through our state," Missouri Sierra Club Director John Hickey told St. Louis Public Radio. Residents are also worried the poor quality of the pipeline's steel makes leaks more likely, Hickey said. The leak was discovered by a TransCanada technician 7:14 a.m. Wednesday. The technician found crude oil covering some 4,000 square feet around the pipeline in St. Charles County, Missouri. TransCanada said it was not sure how much oil had leaked, but thought it was around 43 barrels. The company said it was not yet possible to tell if the leak came from the Keystone or neighboring Enbridge pipeline. "Until you can excavate and see the top of the pipes, you can't really determine which pipeline the release occurred from," TransCanada Public Information Officer Matthew John told St. Louis Public Radio. Part of the Enbridge Platte pipeline, which carries 164,000 barrels of crude oil a day from Casper to Guernsey, Wyoming and 145,000 barrels a day from Guernsey to Wood River, Illinois, is also shut down. "The release was reported in a location near several oil pipelines operated by several different companies, including one that is operated by Express Holdings (USA), LLC, an Enbridge affiliate," Enbridge said in a statement emailed to CBC News. "As such, personnel are onsite and working with those companies to identify the source of the oil and begin cleanup efforts. The oil is contained on the site." Missouri Department of Natural Resources Environmental Emergency Response also responded to the spill, and section head Brad Harris told St. Louis Public Radio that the spill did not threaten any waterways or endangered species. "We were very fortunate in the fact that there's a natural containment the oil resides," Harris said. The pipeline closures caused the price of Canadian crude oil to fall Thursday, Bloomberg News reported. There is increased demand for Canadian oil at U.S. refineries in the Gulf due to sanctions on Venezuela. However, Alberta also had to lower oil production in January because of pipeline congestion, CBC News reported. Landowners worst fears came true, Jane Kleeb, the head of Bold Nebraska, told DeSmog after news broke about the latest Keystone pipeline oil spill. When you have a pipe running through your farm or ranch-land all you think about is: it could break today. On Saturday afternoon that fear was realized by a Hutchinson County, South Dakota land owner. Loern Schulz found oil in surface water near the Keystone pipelines right-of-way and reported the spill. Photo credit: Cindy Myers By Sunday, TransCanada had shut down the Keystone Pipeline, which originates in Alberta, Canada and goes to Steele City, Nebraska. But the rest of its U.S. pipeline network is operational. The Keystone connects to the Cushing Extension pipeline that ends in Cushing, Oklahoma, where it connects to the Keystone XLs southern route, renamed the Keystone Gulf Coast Pipeline when the project was split into sections. The Gulf Coast line moves product from Cushing to Nederland, Texas, providing TransCanada a route to move Canadian tar sands bitumen to the Gulf of Mexico for refining and export. Though President Obama rejected the northern Keystone XL route last year, which would have stretched from Alberta to Cushing, TransCanada has transported Canadian tar sands crude via its Keystone pipeline network since early 2014, when the Gulf Coast pipeline started operations. TransCanada didnt have a representative at the potential spill site until Sunday. But by Monday, when the media broke the news, TransCanada had blocked off the area, making documenting the contaminated area from the ground impossible. It was also impossible to photograph the site from the sky, according to Bold Nebraska. Kleeb told DeSmog that FAA forbade the pilot she hired to fly over the site because it closed the airspace until May 8. To have the FAA close off airspace for a foreign corporation is a big problem, Kleeb said. We want to take our own pictures. With 100 clean-up workers on site, we have a right to be taking our own pictures and finding out our own information. If the public isnt able to take their own pictures of the site, they shouldnt expect to see any for years, if at all. Any photos that would be made available will come from TransCanada or the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), the agency responsible for regulating interstate pipelines. TransCanada turns over its findings about pipeline spills, which include photos, to the PHMSA and the agency does not share such information with the public until its investigations are complete, which can take years. And even when the agencys investigations are finished, it does not automatically release photos when requested. It took DeSmog over two years to obtain photos from PHMSA of a site in Missouri, where TransCanada had indicated to PHMSA that there may have been a spill in 2012. After TransCanada dug up parts of the pipeline that were almost completely corroded, both TransCanada and PHMSA claimed that no oil was released. But the few photos DeSmog obtained do not conclusively prove whether a spill took place or not. TransCanada has released a couple of photos taken near the site that they are working on yesterday, but the photos do not show any oil, which the company admitted was visible when its representatives arrived. Photo released by TransCanada to DeSmog. Photo credit: TransCanada Yesterday, some South Dakotans who have fought against the Keystone XL pipeline went as close to the site as they could get. They took pictures from the perimeter that TransCanada set up around the spill. But the way the perimeter was set up makes it impossible to meaningfully document the companys remediation work. Photo released by TransCanada to DeSmog. Photo credit: TransCanada Evan Vokes, former TransCanada materials engineer-turned-whistleblower, told DeSmog, If there is an oil spill the probable source of the spill is at the site of a bad weld. And bad welds are inevitable when welding is not done to code. TransCanadas first estimate reported 187 gallons were found. It can take a lot of oil to leak before enough of it percolates up to the surface level for someone to notice, Vokes said. If there was indeed a spill, Vokes believes it is fair to assume muchmore oil spilled than the initial estimate states. Vokes points out that oil from any leak that happens underground, would have moved wherever the subsurface water moved, making estimating the spills size difficult. TransCanadas leak detection equipment cant pick up a leak until 2 percent of the pressure in a pipeline drops, Vokes said. Which is what makes small leaks like this dangerous since they can go undetected for a long time. Though TransCanada confirmed its leak detection system didnt pick up a spill, it would not confirm if the product in the line was diluted bitumen or crude oil, but it is likely that if product spilled in South Dakota it is diluted bitumen, also known as dilbit. Dilbit is indeed crude oil, Mark Cooper, TransCanadas public affairs officer, wrote DeSmog in an email. But that statement isnt accurate. Dilbit is not the same as crude oil, Vokes told DeSmog. It is processed crude that has more benzene in it than crude oil. Dilbit spills in Kalamazoo, Michigan and Mayflower, Arkansas, proved more problematic to clean up than crude oil spills. It took Enbridge four years to complete remedial efforts ordered by federal regulators and in Mayflower, some homeowners had no choice but to relocate. It was thought that some of the homes nearest to the spill would never be safe to live in again. A dilbit spill releases far more toxins into the ground and water than a crude oil spill, Vokes said. Canadian regulators noted 21 incidents in the Keystone pipelines first year in operation. And U.S. regulators identified up to 62 probable deficiencies in TransCanadas operations of the pipeline, as noted in a letter PHMSA sent to TransCanada last year. PHMSA has fined the company for breaking rules, but has never taken action to stop construction when inspectors caught the company breaking the rules. It is possible the Keystone pipeline has other small leaks that have not been identified yet at the site of other bad welds, Vokes said. It is impossible to know where they are until someone notices them and by that time the damage could be catastrophic. YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE High Levels of Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals Found Near Fracking Wastewater Site Hundreds Rally Asking Gov. Cuomo to Deny the Constitution Pipeline 6 Colorado Teenagers File Appeal in Fracking and Climate Lawsuit Stanford Scientists Find Fracking Linked to Groundwater Contamination in Pavillion, Wyoming By Sierra Searcy Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has created an office for clean water, housed within the newly formed Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy, to investigate complaints about water quality. "Right now, communities across our state don't trust the water coming out of their taps, and there is a real lack of trust in state government," Whitmer said. Her executive order comes at a time when many Michiganders lack access to clean waterand the resources to fix the problem. Just ask students in Detroit. For the last six months, the nearly 50,000 students enrolled in Detroit Public Schools (DPS) have not been able to use the drinking fountains. In August, Superintendent Nikolai Vitti tested the water quality at 86 DPS schools. There is no law requiring schools to test their water, but Vitti had good cause for concern. At 57 of the schools tested, results showed elevated levels of lead and copper. Vitti ordered all drinking water to be shut off at every school in the district. A sign in the women's restroom at Southeastern High School. Sierra Searcy Lead is rarely found naturally in lakes, rivers or wells. It tends to enter drinking water through the corrosion of aging pipes, solder and faucets. Copper may enter into drinking water either by directly contaminating well water or through the corrosion of copper pipes. The presence of both lead and copper in drinking water at DPS schools is the result of corrosion. "It's all about the infrastructure. In DPS schools, they didn't take care of the infrastructure. They didn't do what they were supposed to do," said a Detroit Water and Sewer company employee who wished to remain anonymous. "They have not put money into keeping up the pipes." The tests results have left students worried. "When they told us the water was being shut off because it had lead and copper in it, they didn't give us any information on how the contaminated water affects us, so I looked it up on my own," said Southeastern High School freshman Isiah Pearl. "I found out drinking water with lead and copper in it makes you dumber." In children, exposure to even low levels of lead has been linked to learning disabilities, lower IQ, hyperactivity, stunted growth, impaired hearing and anemia. For this reason, the federal government banned lead-based paint in 1978 and began to phase out the use of lead gasoline in 1974. Although water with lead is considered safe for washing hands, some students remain concerned. "They say we can wash our hands, but if we can't drink it, I don't understand how it doesn't affect our outside body," said Joi Morgan, a senior at Southeastern High School. Southeastern math teacher Kiarra Ambrose quenches her thirst at a water cooler. Sierra Searcy To address the fountain shutoff, schools have provided portable water coolers, one for every 100 students. Southeastern has only three water cooler across three floors to serve its 300 students and staff, many of whom don't have time to reach a water cooler between classes. "Getting to class on time is already hard, so stopping to get water most of the time means going out of my way and being late," said Southeastern freshman Christopher Robbins. "The building's old. It's always so hot, so we get thirsty easily. But they are so strict here. We can't be late to class, or we will get in trouble." Pearl shared Robbins' frustration. "In middle school, kids would get sick [with dehydration] because we didn't have any water fountains," he said. "The school was basically falling apart." A cafeteria staff member who wished to remain anonymous said that water contamination has also made it more difficult to make lunch. Instead of going to the faucet, the kitchen staff must use bottled water. "It has made my job harder, but we have to do what we have to do to feed these babies," the staff member said of the students. "We don't want them to get sick." The lack of water is another setback for a district that has been beset by financial problems for more than a decade. Already facing shortages of books, supplies and teachers, many students in the largely black, working-class school district are disappointed about the water contamination, but not surprised. "We just saw it as another problem. I was just like, 'Oh, now the water doesn't work.'" said Southeastern senior Steffon Horton. "I haven't thought too much about it." Southeastern math teacher Kiarra Ambrose uses a water cooler. Sierra Searcy Lead contamination is no stranger to black communities. Studies show that black children are more likely to be exposed to lead than white children, a fact affirmed by the experience of teachers and students in Detroit. "I haven't heard about schools in Farmington or Southfield [wealthier and whiter communities near Detroit] with this problem," said Southeastern English and Language Arts teacher Jacqueline Robinson. "I feel like we would have more resources if we were in a suburban community," Morgan said. "They feel like they can give us this little water station and we will be okay because they think we don't want to come to school anyway, but that's not the case." Lacking funding to address the water crisis, Superintendent Vitti raised $2.4 million in donations from philanthropies to pay for filters that will remove lead and copper from water from drinking fountains. The district is in the processing of installing the filters at every DPS school, though the filters will need to be replaced regularly. The only permanent fix is to replace the aging pipes. Water contamination in Detroit schools is indicative of larger infrastructure issues across the state. The American Society of Civil Engineers gave Michigan's schools a D+ on its most recent infrastructure report card, as many districts are "utilizing facilities built in the 1950s and 1960s following the Baby Boom, in the condition they were originally constructed." Michigan's drinking water infrastructure received a D in the same report, which noted the state would need to spend nearly $14 billion to bring its drinking water into compliance with the Safe Drinking Water Act. In his state of the union address this week, President Trump called for an infrastructure overhaul. Democrats in Congress are willing to work with Trump on an infrastructure package this year. As part of that effort, there are steps that federal lawmakers could take to improve drinking water as part of a larger push on infrastructure, such as establishing a federal Water Infrastructure Trust Fund to help finance local improvements and repairs in cities like Detroit. For now, students and staff will continue pushing for a solution. "We won't stop talking and using our voices until we are heard," Robbins said. "We need a change. We demand a change, and I won't give up until that change happens." Reposted with permission from our media associate Nexus Media. Other views | Toppling Maduro must come with goal of rebuilding Venezuela If you're interested in submitting a Letter to the Editor, click here. Submit Offer a personal message of sympathy... By sharing a fond memory or writing a kind tribute, you will be providing a comforting keepsake to those in mourning. If you have an existing account with this site, you may log in with that below. Otherwise, you can create an account by clicking on the Log in button below, and then register to create your account. Here comes another one: Second winter storm forecast for this weekend Where are the best places to shop? Who gives the best haircut? Who cooks the best burger? Join our readers in selecting the "Best of Windham." Make your picks! BORDERLAND BEAT The Most Extensive and Reliable Source of Information Related to the Mexican Drugs Cartels. You will not find this level of coverage anywhere else, join us! Send information, pictures or videos, you remain 100% anonymous. Envia fotos, videos, notas, enlaces o informacion todo 100% Anonimo. General Mail Box: borderlandbeat@gmail.com Want to be a contributor or citizen reporter for Borderland Beat? We love to have you in our team, send us an email! WARNING: Posts may contain strong violent material, discretion is advised. COMMENTS: We do not publish all comments, and we do not publish comments immediately. Australia has ranked second last on the Digital Maturity Index according to a report released this week by global leader in next-generation digital services, Infosys. The report found that Australia was behind its global counterparts with a Digital Maturity Index of 53.1 compared to the global average of 57.4. According to the report, the four biggest barriers for accelerating their digital transformation journey is the lack of digital skills (42%), risk adverse culture (42%), inadequate collaboration between IT and business lines (43%), and lack of change management capabilities (45%). Now in its second year, the report seeks to better understand where Australia and New Zealands biggest enterprises are in their digital transformation journey and what is required to accelerate that journey. Infosys vice president Australia and New Zealand, Ashok Mysore, said that digital transformation was not just about technology but also about building a visionary mind-set and an experimental culture. Australia is trailing behind our global counterparts; the organisations surveyed cite the digital skills gap as the number one inhibitor to accelerating the digital transformation journey, Mr Mysore said. To help reduce the digital skills gap and help organisations accelerate their digital journey, I believe we need to embed a culture of continuous learning and education in every organisation and everyone. Businesses are encouraged to bridge the digital skills gap by building a culture that rewards and inspires learning. Collaboration among teams and using artificial intelligence and automation to create new business opportunities will be the key to a successful digital transformation. Infosys plans to build three innovation hubs by 2020 and is currently hiring and training 1200 new employees in Australia. The hiring and the Innovation hubs will serve as a platform to build more digital skills and to enable Infosys to co-create and co-innovate alongside clients, academia and government. The Australian Taxation Office is encouraging small business owners to take some simple steps as they transition to Single Touch Payroll reporting (STP). Single Touch Payroll is a new way for business owners to send tax and super information to the ATO from accounting software, however some software may need to be updated to allow STP reporting. Assistant Commissioner John Shepherd said that the ATO would support businesses as they transition to STP reporting with a range of free online tools and services. We have already seen around 58,000 employers take the next step in streamlining their payroll reporting through STP, and we are now helping smaller employers get ready to do the same, Mr Shepherd said. The ATO also encourages business owners to review their employees superannuation entitlements to ensure they are paying the correct amount and keep accurate records. Once businesses begin reporting through STP, employees will be able to view their super information and year-to-date tax online in myGov. Making sure your business processes are top of mind throughout the year will not only ensure your business is on the right track, it will help ease pressures when it comes time for end of financial year reporting, Mr Shepherd said. The ATO offers a range of free tools, calculators and services to help small businesses transition to STP reporting, which are available online at www.ato.gov.au Rapid growth of the space industry in Adelaide is generating national and global interest in an incubator program for space industry startups. Following on from the success of its first intake, South Australian based space incubator, Venture Catalyst Space, is on the hunt for up to 10 companies to be part of its second international cohort. Venture Catalyst Space began working with its first five companies, including Sydney startup Tekuma, in September 2018. Tekuma relocated from Sydney to Adelaide to be part of the inaugural program and launch their drone and robot controller, which allows the user to operate the drone with one hand. Tekuma co-founder Annette McClelland said the Venture Catalyst Space program had provided valuable connections with the local industry, including Defence SA. Since coming to Adelaide weve been making headway particularly with the defence industry here and it looks like there could be some positive collaborations happening this year as well as continuing our other avenues for selling into robots and underwater rovers, Ms McClelland said. The space agency is going to bring more jobs and more money to South Australia we definitely like Adelaide so far and were planning to stay here beyond the program. Venture Catalyst Space is run by the University of South Australias Innovation and Collaboration Centre (ICC) and funded by the South Australian Governments $4 million Space Innovation Fund. Late last year, the Supporting Innovation in South Australia (SISA) pilot visa program commenced and has attracted interest from national and global entrepreneurs. Applications for the second intake have already attracted inquiries from Singapore, Germany, Pakistan, the Philippines and Vietnam. Innovation and Collaboration Centre director Jasmine Vreugdenburg said the new visa and the announcement of the national space agency being headquartered in Adelaide were important for the incubators growth. Weve had quite a few inquiries from India and a number of local inquiries as well from existing organisations that have projects they want to start working on, she said. Having the space agency headquartered here is pretty significant because it does put the spotlight on Adelaide and it does show we have got a large amount of capability in South Australia that we are trying to build on. It also puts a spotlight on the research the University of South Australia is doing through its Institute of Telecommunications Research, which is where Myriota and Cohda Wireless were spun out of. Applications for Venture Catalyst Space close on April 26. Louth TD Declan Breathnach has said that he has sought clarification from Minister Richard Bruton to ensure that he will "do all in his power" to prevent the return of roaming charges post Brexit. Inadvertent roaming happens all the time in the border region and indeed just north of where I live where the phone signal which is the strongest at any time is the one which your phone connects to, said Deputy Breathnach. I would not wish to see mobile phone bills increase unfairly after Brexit for those living in the border area. This is just another example of the lack of consideration shown to those residing in the border region both north and south. The UK is currently a member of the EU Digital Single Market, but post 29th March if Britain leaves with no deal, this membership will cease." He continued: Both Governments need to ensure that free roaming is maintained on the island of Ireland and indeed between Ireland and the UK after Brexit. While I am aware that most of the large mobile service providers have stated that they have no plans to introduce roaming fees, we need to have this set in stone so that people will not need to worry about accidental roaming. We need fairness for all. Louth County Council is to hold an information event on Tuesday, 19th February 2019 at the Station House, Carlingford, Co Louth as part of a public consultation on the Carlingford Lough Greenway project. The drop-in event takes place from 12 noon to 8pm and members of the project team will be on hand to talk about the route and plans for the Greenway. They will deliver a presentation on the initiative at 6pm. The 3.46 million project is funded under the European Unions INTERREG VA Programme, which is managed by the Special EU Programmes Body (SEUPB). It is led by Louth County Council, working in collaboration with Newry, Mourne and Down District Council and East Border Region Ltd. Match-funding has been provided by the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport in Ireland and the Department for Infrastructure in Northern Ireland. When completed, the Carlingford Lough Greenway will provide a world-class cross-border green travel route. The project will extend for approximately 20km from Carlingford to Newry City, providing a commuter and recreational facility for the area. The new 10.1km stretch will build on the popular Carlingford Marina to Omeath Greenway. Commenting, Cathaoirleach of Louth County Council, Councillor Liam Reilly said: The Carlingford Lough Greenway is a fantastic amenity for this area that we hope will inspire active travel. When its complete, we envisage that it will create a safe and attractive traffic-free cross-border route from Carlingford to Newry for commuters and recreational users alike. "This is a community project and it is important that the community is aware of what its about and the benefits it will provide when its finished. As part of this, we are now inviting members of the public to meet the project team in Carlingford on Tuesday, 19th February. Chairperson of Newry, Mourne and Down District Council, Councillor Mark Murnin added: We are really excited about this project, which is a brilliant cross-border initiative on which we are delighted to work with Louth County Council. The Newry to Victoria Lough section opened last May and is already proving hugely popular so I am looking forward to the next stage being completed, linking Newry to Carlingford. At present, just 2.7 per cent of cross-border commuters travel to work or education by bike or on foot and the aim of this INTERREG programme is to get people out of their cars by providing an attractive active alternative. In an effort to increase this number to 10 per cent by 2023, a cross-border Greenway Activity Programme will be developed under the themes of sustainable transport, active travel, healthy living and social cohesion. Businesses and education institutions that cater for a significant number of cross-border commuters will also be encouraged to promote the use of the greenway. CEO of the SEUPB, Gina McIntyre said: Sustainable transport is a key objective of the EUs INTERREG VA Programme and the Carlingford Lough Greenway will provide a more environmentally friendly travel option to local commuters and visitors alike. I am delighted that we are now at public consultation stage for this stretch of the Greenway and I look forward to its completion. It is intended that Part 8 planning permission for the Carlingford Lough Greenway will be sought in early March and that work will begin on this phase of the project in early 2020. Further information and updates on the project can be accessed at www.carlingfordloughgreenway.ie Discuss this article with your neighbors or join the community conversation. Click here to get access The whole thing started in mid-December when that old LeSabre wouldnt. If youve ever been held captive by an unreliable beater Ive owned several you know the story. Peoples sure does. Receive emails for Trending news. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Id spend money to have it fixed, and itd run for three or four months, he said. And then you have to spend more money. That last conk-out was the final straw. Peoples was able to borrow his girlfriends car for a few days but that was only a temporary fix. He told his boss that the car had finally died and that it might take a while to figure out a next move. The boss, he said, was understanding and covered his shifts for a few days. But he couldnt hold my job open forever, Peoples said. I understand that. Johnson and other parents noticed the absences piling up. She said the traffic turned unruly, and Peoples smiling, familiar face created a vacuum. There were even Wheres Mr. Peoples? posted on our PTA and neighborhood (Facebook) pages. When the word about his predicament began to make the rounds, Johnson and some other parents turned to social media to see what could be done. Donations piled up quickly, and one family offered up the Acura. Construction of the long-discussed roundabout at the Campbellton Highway and Taylor Road intersection could be drawing closer with the awarding of grant money for the project. The Houston County Commission will vote Monday to make final a proposed grant agreement with the state, which would provide the county with $642,663 from the Highway Safety Improvement Program. The county would then be left to pay an estimated $71,407 for its 10 percent share of the project costs, said Barkley Kirkland, chief county engineer. The grant covers the actual construction costs of the roundabout, Kirkland said. In 2017 the county approved agreements that allowed the state to pay for rights-of-way acquisition and utility line relocation. Officials have suggested a roundabout as a way to improve traffic flow at a convoluted intersection that has experienced more traffic in recent years. While some of the increased traffic flow stemmed from natural growth in the area, much of it resulted from the construction of nearby James Oates Park, said Houston County Commission Chairman Mark Culver. For example, about 20 junior and community college softball programs will use the park for the annual Visit Dothan Invitational this weekend. The Houston County Career Academy is proposing to levy a failing grade policy for high school students who jump ship after signing up for a class. Every semester, the academy has a few students who sign up for a dual enrollment course, attend for a few days or weeks, and then decide to drop the class, according to HCCA Dual Enrollment Supervisor Glenn Maloy. Their tuition is paid for by workforce development funds -- tax money that is non-transferrable. Once that has been paid and the student doesnt take advantage of it, its wasting a lot of money, Maloy said. On top of that, if there was a student who wanted to get into that class and couldnt because there wasnt enough money, its not fair to that student, either. The academy first looked at charging a fee that would work as a deposit at sign-up. After completing the course, students would get their money back. However, after last weeks Houston County School Board work session, Maloy believes that option is out the window. Were trying to find a way to encourage students to take dual enrollment, but to take it more seriously, Maloy said. A Houston County jury convicted Joshua Steven Nance of the lesser included offense of manslaughter in the death of Paxton Wayne Kennedy. Nance had been charged with capital murder. The jury deliberated roughly two hours and determined the prosecution did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Nance deliberately intended to kill Kennedy, 23, who was shot and killed in 2016 on Hartzog Road near Wicksburg. Nance is one of four people charged in the shooting. Pamela Henderson Whitaker, 45, of Cottondale, Florida, Eric Lance West, 35, of Slocomb, and Dama Nell Clark, 41, of Dothan, are also charged with capital murder in the case. Houston-Henry County District Attorney Pat Jones argued during the trial that Nance shot Kennedy after receiving a text from Eric West wanting to know if Nance knew someone who would beat up Kennedy. Kennedy allegedly owed Wests girlfriend Pamela Whitaker between $2,000 and $2,500 for drugs. According to Jones, Clark contacted Kennedy to set up the meeting. During her conversation with Kennedy, she made it sound like she wanted to meet with Kennedy to purchase drugs and Kennedy also believed he would have sex with Clark during their meeting. DeSantis also wants to keep tuition rates at current levels at colleges and universities, and he is proposing enough money to cover the rising costs of Bright Futures, Florida's popular merit-based financial aid program. He did not recommend across-the-board pay raises for state employees, but did recommend keeping health insurance premiums unchanged. Support Local Journalism Your subscription makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} DeSantis wants to boost the amount spent on each public school student by 3 percent, or $224 more a year. Some of that increased money would go to school safety programs that were set up after a 2018 massacre at a high school in Parkland that left 17 people dead. But more than $400 million would go to a still-undefined bonus program for teachers and principals. This new program, which could be announced as soon as next week, would replace the state's existing "Best and Brightest" bonus program created by legislators. It awards bonuses to teachers who received good evaluations and earned top scores on the test the teachers took in order to get into college. Florida's teacher union has sharply criticized the program and has a lawsuit pending against it. DeSantis said rewarding teachers based on their scores on exams like the SAT "didn't make sense." Eufaula City School Employees of the Year were honored on Wednesday, Feb. 6, with a special luncheon at the school systems Central Office. Mitzi Clayton, Public Information Liaison for the city schools, kicked of the luncheon, welcoming everyone to the event. James Bailey, Director of Safety and Facilities, blessed the food as it was being served by two EHS Tiger Representatives, Zatisha Starling and Jaycie Wachs. The people we work with, the people we serve withthey really know us. They know us on our good days and our not so good days, and for them to think enough of you, out of all the people in their school and of all the people in our system that they could have cast their vote for, they chose you. That says somebody somewhere respects you, thinks that you know what you are doing, and thinks that you are a person of high moral character, so to all of you who the honor was bestowed upon this year, congratulations to you, commented Deltonya Warren, ECS Assistant Superintendent, as she started the awards part of the luncheon. According to Doerer, there are several stipulations that the city would have to meet to become a designated community. Among those is the requirement of a full-time Main Street Director position. Jason Wright, Enterprise Communications Director, said the council will have to make several key decisions as part of the process. (One of the things) will be how the main street program will be funded, Wright said. How much is from private donations? How much is fundraising? How much comes from the city? Thats where the council is going to play a big piece in making that decision of how much the city is going to give to the program. Then you get into the question of Main Street (requiring we have) a full-time director. Does Tammys job change? Is somebody else hired independently? How much do they make? Where do the funds come from? All those are things the council is going to have to decide in moving this project forward. Please allow ads as they help fund our trusted local news content. Kindly add us to your ad blocker whitelist. If you want further access to Ireland's best local journalism, consider subscribing to our ePaper and/or free daily Newsletter . Support our mission and join our community now. Letterkenny Institute of Technology (LYIT) has been awarded 2.8m of funding under the New Higher Education Innovation and Transformation Fund. The grant for developing of LYITs role as part of the Connacht-Ulster Alliance. Minister for Education and Skills Joe McHugh made the announcement of the funding which he said will drive flexible learning options in the north-west. The college is one of 23 third level bodies sharing a slice of a 23million package under the new Higher Education Innovation and Transformation Fund. The fund was launched in 2018 as part of the modernisation and reform of the funding model for higher education. Minister McHugh visited LYIT as he confirmed the massive allocation of funding for the college and also met LYIT President Paul Hannigan, GMIT president Dr Fergal Barry and IT Sligo president Dr Brendan McCormack. It is a real privilege to be able to share news like this - 2.84 million in Government funding over the next three years to reward and support LYIT, and their close colleagues in IT Sligo and GMIT, as top class academic staff chase innovative ideas to attract more people to third level education and do more to create flexible options for learning in the north-west. LYIT is taking the lead on this project and it is heartening to see a college in Donegal driving this initiative and being rewarded for that. The Government has recognised we need to do more to open up third level education and now we are backing that cause by providing millions in funding for the right initiatives. The Innovation and Transformation Fund is part of the 250million additional investment by the Government in higher education since 2016, bringing total funding to more than 1.7 billion. And it will play a vital role in the coming years in attracting a broader range of people to third level. Under the Innovation and Transformation Fund some projects will see third level institutions partnering with organisations such as An Cosan, Family Carers Ireland and the Disability Federation of Ireland to learn and adopt better ways of ensuring education is open to as many people as possible. Others will focus on developing digital systems to enable more flexible learning, including through online options and simulation training. And others focus on student mental health, supporting entrepreneurs and start-ups, student retention, leadership and preparing students for the working world. Mr McHugh added: These Government-supported initiatives will create new opportunities and help to position Irelands education system as a leader in inclusiveness, diversity and flexible models of education and lifelong learning. The Innovation and Transformation Fund opened with a call for proposals by the Higher Education Authority in 2018. Applications were assessed by an independent panel. Xem them ... Tin bai cuoi cung Khong con du lieu e load Subscriber content preview VANCOUVER Trend Capital, a fintech and lead generation software company, will move its headquarters to the Murdock Building in The Waterfront Vancouver, a 32-acre, $1.5 billion mixed-use project being developed on the Columbia River in Vancouver. This spring, Vancouver-based Trend will move about 40 employees into 10,000 square feet, according to a press release from Gramor Development. . . . Subscriber content preview BELLEVUE A warehouse property at 1509 134th Ave. N.E. has sold for a little over $2.5 million, according to King County records. The seller was an LLC related to the Dahlgren family, which owned the property for decades. . . . Subscriber content preview By MICHAEL CASEY Associated Press AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty [enlarge] Ice harvesters in New Hampshire use chain saws, ice picks and a huge saw on a sled to gather ice. The ice will be stored until next summer, when it will be used to cool beer and snacks. HOLDERNESS, N.H. Modern refrigerators have little appeal for summer guests at a rustic New Hampshire resort who prefer cooling their bottles of water, soda and beer the old-fashioned way. . . . Subscriber content preview By ALEX VEIGA AP Business Writer Renewed pessimism about the strength of the global economy and corporate profits this year led to sharp losses on Wall Street Thursday. Technology companies, health care stocks and banks accounted for much of the selling. Twitter slumped almost 10 percent after issuing a weak forecast. Traders sought safety in U.S. government bonds, sending yields lower. . . . Highlights: Xiaomi Mi A1 emits most radiation. OnePlus devices also rank high on radiation emitting list. Samsung Galaxy Note 8 releases the least radiation. While Xiaomi phones were the most preferred devices in the mid-segment market, people chose OnePlus devices in the sub-Rs 40,000 segment in India last year. Their success was attributed to the value-for-money offerings and brand awareness, but what people dont know is the radiation emitted from the phones when they are placed on ear. According to latest stats, some Xiaomi and OnePlus phones top the list of handsets that release a lot of radiation. On the contrary, phones offered by Samsung, a company struggling to reclaim the peak position in the country, emit the least amount of radiation. As per data compiled by Statista, Xiaomi Mi A1 emits the most radiation followed by the OnePlus 5T. These are followed by the Xiaomi Mi Max 3 and the OnePlus 6T on third and fourth spots respectively. In fact, the two companies are represented heavily in this list, with eight of the top 16 handsets being made by one of them. Premium Apple phones such as the iPhone 7 and the recently released iPhone 8 are also here to be seen, though, as are the latest Pixel handsets from Google, Data Journalist Martin Armstrong writes in a blog. The scoring was done on the basis of the criteria set by the German Federal Office for Radiation Protection (Bundesamt fur Strahlenschutz). There is no universal guideline for a safe level of phone radiation, however, the German certification for environmental friendliness 'Der Blaue Engel' (Blue Angel) only certifies phones which have a absorption rate of less than 0.60 watts per kilogram. According to the data compiled by Statista, all the phones that featured in the blog come in at more than double this benchmark. The research firm also listed the phones which emit the least amount of radiation. The Samsung Galaxy Note 8 was ranked first in that list, followed by ZTE Axon Elite. The LG G7, Samsung Galaxy A8 and Samsung Galaxy S8+ take up the third, fourth and fifth spots respectively to fill the top five places respectively. In fact, Samsung handsets feature prominently, with half of the top ten coming from the South Korean company. This contrasts starkly with their major rival Apple. Two iPhones occupy a place in the list of phones which emit the most radiation, compared to none from Samsung, Armstrong said, adding that all the phones that featured in the blog come in are well under the benchmark set by Der Blaue Engel (Blue Angel). Related Read: Jio Phones top feature phone, overall handset Indian market in 2018: Counterpoint Research Highlights: Vivo V15 Pro ( 23990 at flipkart ) teaser video shows the company's brand ambassador using the phone. The smartphone will feature a 32MP pop-up selfie camera and triple rear cameras. The phone will be announced on February 20 in India Vivo is presently at the forefront of smartphone design innovation after a series of industry-defining smartphones like the Vivo NEX and the Vivo NEX Dual Display. While the former introduced the world to pop-up selfie cameras, the latter got around it by implementing a second screen. Now, Vivo is apparently ready to democratise the pop-up camera design, starting with the Vivo V15 Pro. The smartphone was teased before on social media, but now Vivo launched an ad campaign featuring the companys brand ambassador Aamir Khan using the Vivo V15 Pro. The phone is likely to make some waves with a 32MP pop-up front camera alongside triple rear cameras. Vivo also teased the trifecta of cameras on the back that will be AI-powered, like we would expect anything else from the Chinese smartphone maker. While its not clear what sensor Vivo is using to power the 32MP front camera, many believe its the recently announced Samsung ISOCELL Bright GD1 sensor. Theres even an in-display fingerprint sensor to boot along with a gradient colour pattern on the back underneath a glass chassis thats all the rage these days. The Vivo V15 Pro is slated to launch in India on February 20 and is likely to replace the Vivo V11 Pro that launched last year with an in-display fingerprint sensor. Related Reads: Vivo V15 Pro with pop-up selfie camera launching in India on February 20 Highlights: Apple allegedly begins development of modem in-house. Intel is currently the only modem supplier to Apple. Apple has usually employed the policy of sourcing materials and technologies from two suppliers at the very least. But its war with Qualcomm had forced the company to rely on Intel for the modems in the iPhone. What this has resulted in is sometimes slower performance when it comes to 4G upload and download speeds. Given the inability to work with Qualcomm and Intels slower chips. This has allegedly led to Apple working on its own modem for future devices. The development is allegedly being led by Johny Srouji, Senior Vice President of Hardware Technologies. Srouji has been with Apple since 2008 when he was a senior chip designer with the company. Srouji is the man responsible for the A-series processors and the W chips used in the AirPods. If the company is indeed working on an in-house modem, we do not expect it to be a part of the 2019 iPhone. Apple will have to integrate the modem into the processor in order to make it as power efficient as possible, which would require not just the work on the modem, but also some work on the basic architecture of the processor. Incidentally, if Apple did have to make their own modems, now is the perfect time to start doing that since 5G will start rolling out in full swing within the next two years. Bad blood between Apple and Qualcomm stems from various reasons, but one of them revolves around the modem. Qualcomm charges Apple $30 per modem and additionally, has been asking for a $7.50 royalty. Apple claims that with this practice, Qualcomm is double-dipping as they are charging a patent royalty above the cost of the modem. Apple has argued that Qualcomm should be charging one or the other fee, but not both. Qualcomm, in return, says that Apple has mischaracterized the agreement between the two companies and is now just backing off on its commitments. If Apple does manage to install its own modems in future devices, it could amount to huge savings in the long run, but in the short, it would require millions of dollars worth of investment. Related Reads: Qualcomm-Apple patent feud: Chinese court bans sales of some iPhone models in country That was one aspect of the wretched institution of slavery that had never even crossed my mind. That's why today, when you ask me to get upset about somebody calling me the n-word, not wanting to serve me or dressing up in black face, that behavior doesn't even register emotionally anymore. Unless we can go back and undo the damage done to all the girls and I'm sure boys who were used as bed-warmers for their masters, I don't care about these cosmetic reproaches. I will no longer allow these vestiges of slavery to have dominion over me. Highlights: Apple releases iOS 12.1.4 with FaceTime bugfix. The company announced compensation to kid and his family. Will also help with the child's education. After a 10-day delay, Apple has finally started to roll out the iOS 12.1.4 update that brings a fix for the FaceTime bug which let a user discreetly listen in on people's conversations when the call hasnt even been answered by the receiver. Along with the iOS update, the Cupertino-based giant also announced that it will compensate 14-year-old Grant Thompson and his family who reported the bug to the company. Apple also announced an additional gift to fund the kids education. Whats the issue? To start a FaceTime group call, you need to add multiple receivers. It sometimes happens that one of the receivers hasnt answered the FaceTime call. The bug allowed one to hear the audio of the person who was called, even if he/she did not accepted the call. In this scenario, even if the receiver of the call presses the power button to mute the call, his/her audio will be audible to the caller. This bug enabled them to listen in on the conversation as long as the phone is ringing. Today's software update fixes the security bug in Group FaceTime. We again apologize to our customers and we thank them for their patience. In addition to addressing the bug that was reported, our team conducted a thorough security audit of the FaceTime app and server to improve security. This includes a previously unidentified vulnerability in the Live Photos feature of FaceTime. To protect customers who have not yet upgraded to the latest software, we have updated our servers to block the Live Photos features of FaceTime for older versions of iOS and macOS, Apple said in a statement. Apple was also sued by a Houston based lawyer, who claimed that his iPhone allowed an unknown person to eavesdrop on a private conversation with a client. One attorney Larry Williams II said the glitch intrudes on the privacy of ones most intimate conversations without consent. The attorney sought unspecified punitive damages on his claims of negligence, product liability, and warranty breach. Apple told Apples history with bug bounty rewards is mixed. The company originally started paying iOS bounties three years ago, but researchers have been reluctant to help Apple with its security. Apple offers up to $200,000 to security researchers who discover vulnerabilities and report them, but the bugs are often more valuable to sell elsewhere than to report.The Verge that it is compensating the family of the 14-year-old child for discovering the vulnerability, as well as providing an additional gift to fund Grants tuition. Apple hasnt revealed exactly how much its paying the Thompson family. The news comes three days after an Apple executive flew in to Tucson to meet with the Grant and take his feedback. The executive reportedly thanked the child and his mother. Apple is making an exception by rewarding Grant because its bug bounty programme reportedly works on an invite-only basis and is limited to specific categories of security flaws. Apple launched the bug bounty programme in 2016 to rope-in outside security researchers to help the company find and fix flaws. It offers up to $200,000 to bug reporters but, The Verge says that the researchers have been reluctant to help Apple with its security because the bugs are often more valuable to sell elsewhere than to report. Related Read: Apple iPhone shipments for Q4 plummet in China EXCLUSIVE: First look at 2019 Apple iPhone XI renders WhatsApp is under renewed scrutiny in Indian ahead of the countrys national elections, which will be held across April and May. The messaging service has refused to comply with draft proposals requiring tech firms to provide government authorities with access to encrypted messages, and has instead argued that it is identifying and blocking suspicious accounts using artificial intelligence (AI). WhatsApps head of communications Carl Woog described the proposals as over[ly] broad and not consistent with the strong privacy protections that are important to people everywhere. He added that WhatsApp would be unable to comply with the proposals without a complete rebuild of the app. Last year, WhatsApp stood accused of enabling misinformation to spread rapidly across India. Defamatory fake news messages falsely accused people of crimes, resulting in a spate of violent mobs forming, with several deaths occurring as a result. This year, political parties now stand accused of abusing the platform to smear their opponents. On this matter, Woog said: We saw how parties tried to reach people over WhatsApp, and in some cases that involved attempting to use WhatsApp in a way that it was not intended to be usedWe have engaged with political parties to explain our firm view that WhatsApp is not a broadcast platform. He added that any accounts that misused the service would be banned. WhatsApp issued a statement saying that halting the spread of misinformation was particularly important during elections, where certain groups may attempt to send messages at scale. AI tools are allowing the company to identify and block accounts that appear to be sending automated messages, or that are issuing an abnormally high amount of messages. The tools have resulted in WhatsApp shutting down over 6 million accounts in the past three months. However, the company has not disclosed what percentage of these accounts originated in India. The country is WhatsApps largest market, with 200 million of its 1.5 billion active monthly users based there. Inki Vaat Lagaa Dungi, Ill expose each and everyone in Bollywood; Swears Kangana Ranaut Actor Kangana Ranaut in a recent media interaction stated as usual in a bold and brazen manner that people from the Hindi film industry have ganged up against her for calling them out on sexism and nepotism. The actress who is known for her fearlessness and outspokenness has flared up once again and this time it is for the fact that people from the Bollywood industry have not spoken a word about her film Manikarnika-the Queen of Jhansi. She is quite aware of the fact that they have internationally done it because she called out a few of the most powerful names in the industry on the basis of sexism, favouritism and a lot more. This was when she was told that unlike others films, hers was not promoted by anyone from the film industry an that if they would have, it would have had benefitted her film as well. This was when with a calm countenance, she retorted, how will it benefit me? Ive already won 3 to 4 national awards. At the age of 31, I am a filmmaker. Khud ko hi promote karle bohot badi baat hai (It would be a big deal of they can promote themselves) she said. Jhansi Ki Rani Kya Meri Chachi Hai? (Is the Queen of Jhansi my aunt?) Shes as much mine as she is yours. Then why are these people scared? Are they worried just because I spoke on nepotism? They have formed a gang: why did she speak on nepotism? Kangana added. The actor had sparked a debate on Nepotism when she appeared on Karan Johars chat show Koffee With Karan, two years ago and started a war of words with the filmmaker after she called him the flagbearer of nepotism for launching star kids. They have all gathered together like a classroom of 60 students where a group of 59 have ganged up against one to bully him or her! How will you feel if someone did that? Arent they ashamed? Some of them are my grandfathers age. They are after me, dont they feel ashamed that its not about me. I dont even want to work with them and I have said that often. She said. The actor said Manikarnika was for the next generation to educate them about the sacrifice of the queen of Jhansi and how they got the freedom they bask in. What Bollywood is doing, the planning and plotting; one thing is for sure, earlier I used to call them out for sexism, nepotism or pay disparity but now Ill be after their life. Inki Vaat Laga Dungi. Ill expose each and everyone. They have asked for trouble by ganging up against me. She added. WATCH: Anita Hassanandani And Husband Rohit Reddy Recreate Their Romance For Teri Yaad Song! Raj Kundra has become a director and Rohit Reddy and Anita Hassanandani are now also romancing on-screen! If you are already excited about this idea, then you are up for a treat. Because a music video is now out where real life couple Anita and Rohit are romancing on-screen as well and Raj Kundra has donned the director's hat. What's more- the song has been sung Rahat Fateh Ali Khan also features snippets from real life incidents of Raj Kundra and wife Shilpa Shetty Kundra. The song, Teri Yaad is a song that captures the pain of separation. The song has Punjabi flavour to it and thanks to Rahat Fateh Ali Khan's magical voice, you'll love it. Real life couple Rohit Reddy and Anita Hassanandani are romancing on screen for the first time. They look great, because we know how lovely they are in real as well, but the fact that Rohit is a novice shows in some frames. They have also recreated the real life proposal that Raj did for Shilpa in this video. We felt that the video was a little sexist, especially in the fact of how the girl is shown to be leaving everything for love. The frames also move with a jolt and there is lack of spontaneity in many frames. Check out the song for the magical voice and for the chemistry of the real-life couple: SALT LAKE CITY Amazon may not add its second headquarters to New York after all, according to The Washington Post. Amazon is reportedly reconsidering moving one of its two new campuses to New York City after local politicians expressed concern about the project, the Post reports. The company hasnt leased or purchased office space yet in the area, which would make it super easy to not build a site there, according to the Post. Amazon is slated to bring a second headquarters to Virginia, which Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam made official this week by signing a new bill, which I wrote about for the Deseret News. Similarly, Tennessee officials remain on board for Amazon to add a new 5,000-job location to Nashville, according to The Washington Post. The question is whether its worth it if the politicians in New York dont want the project, especially with how people in Virginia and Nashville have been so welcoming, a source told The Washington Post. Flashback: New York isn't totally onboard for bringing Amazon to the city. In November, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other Democrats in Queens criticized the plan for Amazon to bring its second headquarters to the city, CNBC reported. Amazon is a billion-dollar company. The idea that it will receive hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks at a time when our subway is crumbling and our communities need MORE investment, not less, is extremely concerning to residents here, Ocasio-Cortez tweeted at the time. Amazon is a billion-dollar company. The idea that it will receive hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks at a time when our subway is crumbling and our communities need MORE investment, not less, is extremely concerning to residents here. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 13, 2018 She said its not just about Amazon, either. "Lastly, this isn't just about one company or one headquarters. It's about cost of living, corps paying their fair share, etc," she wrote in another tweet. "It's not about picking a fight, either. I was elected to advocate for our community's interests - & they've requested, clearly, to voice their concerns, she tweeted. Lastly, this isnt just about one company or one headquarters. Its about cost of living, corps paying their fair share, etc. Its not about picking a fight, either. I was elected to advocate for our communitys interests - & theyve requested, clearly, to voice their concerns. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 13, 2018 Similar: New Yorkers expressed fear that the influx of 25,000 jobs for HQ2 would crowd the subways, which are already pretty crowded, according to Business Insider. Does Utah have a shot?: If Amazon doesnt add a second headquarters to New York, will they add a second location somewhere else? And, a bigger question: Does Utah have a shot? The answer is probably not. Back in January 2018, Amazon released a list of 200 cities that it was considering for its next headquarters. Utah did not make that list. Why not Utah?: At the time, Amazon had called for proposals for its second headquarters something that critics eventually called a marketing ploy by Amazon through a nationwide search. Utah took a measured approach with its proposal, according to the Deseret News. "We don't get flashy and our incentives are never the most lucrative," GOED Executive Director Val Hale told the Deseret News in September 2017. "We protect the taxpayer by not paying companies up front. We'll always be fundamentally based on post-performance." Hale said Amazon was aiming for cities with larger populations, too. "Certainly, there's a lot of disappointment," Hale said. "But, looking at the short list we can see that the cities were of much larger populations than we have here and almost all were on the East Coast." So then, where?: Amazon released a shortlist of cities for HQ2 before eventually choosing Virginia and New York as its options. As I reported, there were a few frontrunners in the mix, including Raleigh, North Carolina; Washington, D.C.; Boston; and Austin, Texas. CIRCLEVILLE, Piute County The body of a prominent St. George resident killed in an avalanche while snowmobiling in Beaver County was recovered Friday. Beaver County Sheriff Cameron Noel confirmed that the body of Brad Stapley, 41, was found by police K-9s shortly after his buried snowmobile was discovered. Noel said this was the first incident of a person being trapped in an avalanche in Beaver County in his 27 years as sheriff. "The world lost an incredible person today. Brad Stapley was one of the kindest people I have ever known," one woman posted on Facebook. It was one of many tributes and messages of condolence that filled social media on Friday as an entire community mourned Stapley's loss. Thursday, Stapley and two others were snowmobiling in the "bowl" area on Circleville Mountain near Circleville in Piute County about 5 p.m. Two of the snowmobilers started to ride to the bowl when the avalanche occurred, according to the sheriff's office. The third snowmobiler, who was behind the others, saw it happen. Noel said the man who was with Stapley was buried up to his arms, but was able to dig himself out. The slide was about 200 yards wide. Crews were unable to search the area Thursday night due to unsafe conditions, the sheriff said. Local, state and federal officials, including 50 volunteers from three counties, began searching in earnest Friday morning. According to Noel and friends, the Stapley family is well-known in southern Utah. Utah Rep. Travis Seegmiller R-St. George, an attorney and Dixie State University professor posted his concern on Facebook Friday from the state Capitol. "My good friend from Washington City since childhood, Brad Stapley, age 41, is missing after an avalanche while he was snowmobiling," he wrote. "Brad is a prominent local business leader, father and philanthropist the owner of Stapley's Pharmacies, including his DinoCrossing Pharmacy that I love." Seegmiller asked everyone to pray for Stapley's safe return. "Brad means so much to me and to our whole community that I implore you to please join your prayers with those of all the state of Utah right now, that he shall be found safe." According to Seegmiller, Stapley is survived by a wife and six daughters. Intermountain Dixie Regional Medical Center posted a statement to Facebook describing Stapley's contributions to the community. "From our caregivers at Dixie Regional Medical Center, we offer our condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of Brad Stapley, owner of Stapley Pharmacy. Led by Brad's community spirit, Stapley Pharmacy has been a true advocate and invaluable partner in promoting patient education, community health, and safe use of prescription medications. We're grateful for his contributions and generosity of spirit that have advanced health care in southern Utah," hospital officials said. Not long after Stapley's body was recovered, friends started a GoFundMe campaign to help raise money for his family. "Brad was an icon and great friend to so many in southern Utah. His influence touched so many lives and we are in such mourning for his family," according to the page. Noel said Stapley traveled to Beaver County frequently to snowmobile and was experienced at it. SALT LAKE CITY The House voted 56 to 19 in favor of SB96 Friday, the GOP legislative leadership's alternative to the full Medicaid expansion approved by voters that now includes the possibility of reverting back to much of Proposition 3. The vote came after a group of faith leaders chanted, "Do justice, love mercy," and prayed outside the House chamber for lawmakers to support the ballot initiative passed in November rather than a more limited and initially more costly plan. Faith leaders singing outside the House chambers, pray that lawmakers dont replace Prop 3 #utpol #utleg pic.twitter.com/MqYrOtsFsU Katie McKellar (@KatieMcKellar1) February 8, 2019 There was brief cheering in the House gallery when backing the will of voters was mentioned during the debate, but House Speaker Brad Wilson, R-Kaysville, warned that the public seating area would be cleared if there was another outburst. Despite the admonishment, a pair of banners including one urging lawmakers to "Respect our vote" were unfurled during the House vote. As a man who'd brought a banner was led away, he yelled, "Fight poverty, not the poor." We shall not be moved, faith leaders chant while blocking the House chambers ahead of the vote on Prop 3 legislation #utpol #utleg @DNewsPolitics pic.twitter.com/9Eylhsynl3 Katie McKellar (@KatieMcKellar1) February 8, 2019 Outside the chamber following the vote, the four faith leaders who had been kneeling stood up but continued to pray. They vowed to continue their fight for Proposition 3, the ballot initiative that voters approved. The Rev. Curtis Price, of the First Baptist Church of Salt Lake City, told reporters there is little left for the group to do now other than put their efforts toward convincing Gov. Gary Herbert not to sign SB96. Do justice. Love mercy, faith leaders chant outside the House chambers. #utpol #utleg Calling on legislators to listen to the people on Prop 3 @DNewsPolitics pic.twitter.com/q7J5gXBVMt Katie McKellar (@KatieMcKellar1) February 8, 2019 "It amounts to a war on the poor," he said. "I don't understand. It seems like every time they want to make a point, it's at the expense of the poorest. We really feel like there is a constitutional crisis happening right now, and we don't know what else to do." The governor, who tried and failed in past years to win approval from the Legislature for a Medicaid expansion plan of his own, posted a long statement about SB96 on his website, saying the bill "balances Utah's compassion and Utah's frugality." We pray for the working poor today, faith leaders pray #utpol #utleg Calling on God to lead lawmakers on a path of righteousness when voting on Prop 3 legislation # pic.twitter.com/81NN6iakJN Katie McKellar (@KatieMcKellar1) February 8, 2019 The bill, he said, provides coverage "in a meaningful, humane and sustainable way. It is now time to set aside differences and move forward to get those in greatest need enrolled on Medicaid and on the federal health care exchanges." There are also SB96 supporters outside the House chambers, crowding around where faith leaders are blocking the chamber doors #utpol #utleg pic.twitter.com/6vU1UZfxyU Katie McKellar (@KatieMcKellar1) February 8, 2019 SB96 supporters stood in front of Prop 3 sign calling on lawmakers to respect the vote. Prop 3 supporters pull sign in front of them, but they again moved to block it #utpol #utleg pic.twitter.com/J5taezB8dl Katie McKellar (@KatieMcKellar1) February 8, 2019 House debate On the House floor, the bill's House sponsor, Rep. Jim Dunnigan, R-Taylorsville, told representatives that the cost of implementing Proposition 3 exceeds the money raised by the 0.15 percent sales tax increase in the initiative. "Having enough money and being fiscally responsible, we should at least try," Dunnigan said, to get the federal approval needed for expanding Medicaid to only about two-thirds of those who would be covered under Proposition 3. He said lawmakers can pursue what backers are calling a more financially sustainable plan knowing there is now a "backstop." Several efforts to change the revised bill failed, including an attempt to replace SB96 with HB210, a bill that would allow Proposition 3 to take effect with some modifications while waiting to see if the more limited program would be approved. But Dunnigan warned that could put the state in "legal jeopardy" because some people could receive Medicaid benefits but later lose them. He said he incorporated HB210, sponsored by Rep. Ray Ward, R-Bountiful, in the fallback plan. Ward told fellow representatives during the SB96 debate he backed the revised bill. "To me, it looks like we've done a very good job. It will be sustainable in the long run," Ward, a doctor and a longtime advocate of Medicaid expansion, said, allowing lawmakers to "keep our promises." House Majority Leader Francis Gibson, R-Mapleton, assured representatives they'll be able to tell their constituents that "we covered the spirit of what that proposition was." Proposition 3, Gibson said, "was asking for coverage for the most vulnerable in our society." He said by passing SB96, lawmakers will do that "in a way that is uniquely Utah." 'Fallback' plan Before the House convened, Dunnigan went over the proposed "fallback plan" that the House put in the bill to its Senate sponsor, Sen. Allen Christensen, R-North Ogden. Christensen said he did not oppose a fallback plan because he believes it won't be necessary. He snapped his fingers when asked if the Senate would concur with the House changes, a vote that will come Monday. "They want it done. They're happy the House is happy with it," Christensen said of the Senate. "They're all tired of the wrangling over it." Asked if the Senate would support the changes made by the House, Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, said, "Yes, I think so. We'll see on Monday." He said he believes the Senate "got a better bill back from the House." Senate Minority Caucus Manager Derek Kitchen, D-Salt Lake City, said the Senate's six Democrats still have to review the changes. All of them voted against SB96 last week, along with a single Republican, Sen. Todd Weiler, R-Woods Cross. "We'll be looking at it. We want to find common ground and some sort of agreement. Whether we'll get there, and whether this is the right bill, we're not sure yet," Kitchen said, adding that he feels "better about the bill going forward." The two-part fallback plan that kicks in only if the more limited coverage sought in SB96 is rejected by the federal government is similar to the full Medicaid expansion in Proposition 3. However, the first step of the plan that would take effect Jan. 1, 2020, does attempt to keep in place what Dunnigan called a "work effort" that requires recipients to try to find employment. If the work requirement doesn't fly with Washington, then the final version of Medicaid expansion in SB96 would be put in place on July 1, 2020, along with a $15 million annual hospital tax. Unchanged is Christensen's original proposal to provide Medicaid coverage only to Utahns earning up to 100 percent of the approximately $12,000 federal poverty rate. The full Medicaid expansion approved by voters provides Medicaid for Utahns making up to 138 percent of that rate. SB96 proponents have said federally subsidized insurance will take care of those in that category. Christensen's bill would start coverage April 1, as would Proposition 3, but at a more expensive 70 percent to 30 percent federal to state funding match rather than the 90-10 split offered for full expansion. The so-called "bridge" plan would be in place for 18 months as the state seeks permission from President Donald Trump's administration to extend Medicaid to the smaller population at the higher funding match. While the Senate passed SB96 last week 22-7 without a fallback plan, enough House Republicans balked at the bill to jeopardize the supermajority needed to ensure the bill could take effect quickly with the governor's approval. Following a closed-door House GOP caucus Thursday, Dunnigan went to work on changing the bill. Sen. Dan Hemmert, R-Orem, said legislative analysts worked past midnight to ready the substitute for Friday's vote. 'Do the moral thing' Groups on both sides of the SB96 debate assembled at the Capitol to lobby House members, while faith leaders from several Salt Lake churches prayed, sang and chanted, kneeling directly in front of the doors leading to the House floor. House security kept a watchful eye but didn't intervene. The Rev. Price, in prayer, called on God to "soften (legislators') hearts and turn their hearts to the poor." "Lead them away from this war on the poor they are exhibiting right now," he said. He called on lawmakers to "do the right thing, do the moral thing and take care of the citizens of Utah as the people have asked them to do." The Rev. Monica Dobbins, of the First Unitarian Church of Salt Lake City, and the Rev. David Nichols, of the Mount Tabor Lutheran Church, knelt with Rev. Price, elbows locked. Supporters of SB96 from Americans for Prosperity, the flagship organization of the political network backed by industrialist billionaires Charles and David Koch, gathered among the crowd, at times arguing with Proposition 3 supporters. The demonstration, though at times tense, remained peaceful. As the vote neared, faith leaders backed up and knelt closer to the House doors, blocking them. When House security asked them to move, they began singing, "We shall not be moved." One woman shouted, "We are not blocking health care!" As they sang, SB96 supporters stood in front of the banner that read "Respect democracy, our vote matters." Proposition 3 backers moved the sign, pulling it in front of the Americans for Prosperity supporters, but they moved again to block it. One woman starting singing "Row row row your boat" in an attempt to drown out the singing. But the chants continued: "The people have decided." Understands anger Ward said he'd tell Proposition 3 supporters, "I can easily understand why you're mad. That's not hard to understand at all." He added, however, that he hopes they'll feel differently once an ongoing coverage plan is in place under SB96. Other Republican lawmakers have made it clear that had Proposition 3 not passed, they wouldn't be talking about Medicaid expansion. "I never voted for any kind of an expansion bill," Senate Majority Leader Evan Vickers, R-Cedar City, said, comparing his support for SB96 to backing the Legislature's actions in special session last year on the medical marijuana initiative. "My message is, 'Thank you. Thank you for bringing it forward.' It forced us to take action," Vickers said of Medicaid expansion. "Quite frankly, if it hadn't have been brought forward through that proposition, I would not be voting for it." Karina Andelin Brown, a former Democratic House candidate from Cache County and one of the original backers of Proposition 3, said she's happy with the changes made to SB96. "I think that Proposition 3 supporters should be encouraged. All of the results that have come about show our voice matters," she said. "Sometimes, compromise is what we have to do." Contributing: Emily Ashcraft BOUNTIFUL Criminal charges were filed Friday against a Nevada man who was arrested in August in the beating death of a Bountiful man. Taniela Siale Lopiseni Salakielu, 22, of Henderson, Nevada, is charged in 2nd District Court with murder, a first-degree felony, as well as burglary and theft, second-degree felonies. On Aug. 19, the badly decomposed body of Rand Hatch, 50, who had not been seen for over a week, was found inside his house at 1433 E. Lakeview Drive. "After an autopsy from the medical examiner, it was discovered there was blunt force trauma to the victims head, including a broken jaw and skull fractures," according to charging documents. Inside the house, Bountiful police found Salakielu's jail identification card and his jail booking slip for a recent arrest, the charges state. On Aug. 20, police found Hatch's stolen Infiniti vehicle in Sunset. The next day, Salakielu was located and interviewed by police. "The defendant admitted to having the vehicle and knowing the victim. The suspect stated he and the witness were at the victims home. The suspect admitted to getting into a verbal altercation with the victim but denied that any physical altercation had taken place," the charges state. But a woman told police that she and Salakielu were living with Hatch until he kicked them out. The woman said Salakeilu sneaked back into Hatch's house possibly on Aug. 11 through a window one night and hit the victim, according to the charges. Although Salakielu was charged Friday for a homicide that happened nearly six months ago, he has had other legal issues that have resulted in incarceration. On July 26, Salakielu was arrested in a domestic violence-related assault against his girlfriend. During that incident, Salakielu "demanded while they were driving her vehicle that she find somewhere to park so he could assault her," according to a Davis County Jail report. The girlfriend filed for a protective order on Aug. 24 three days after Salakielu was arrested in Hatch's death and Salakielu was charged Aug. 30 with assault, a third-degree felony. He was convicted in October and was sentenced in January to six months in jail with credit for time served, according to court records. However, prosecutors say Salakielu also violated the terms of the protective order numerous times since his arrest. In December, he was convicted of six counts of violating the protective order. And on Friday, the day he was also charged with murder, a second case was filed in 2nd District Court charging Salakielu with seven counts of violating a protective order, all third-degree felonies. The week before Salakielu was to be sentenced for his prior protective order violation convictions, he "again contacted the victim" on Jan. 13 and on Jan. 15, the charges state. "The defendant made that contact by calling the victim while he was housed as an inmate at the Davis County Jail." During his sentencing on Jan. 16, the judge "clearly explained that any further contact with the victim would be a probation violation. The judge advised that the no-contact provision was a 'zero tolerance' condition of probation," according to charging documents. The next day, however, Salakielu called the former girlfriend from jail again, then called her multiple times on both Jan. 18 and Jan. 19, police say. SALT LAKE CITY A Utah preschool program that has helped hundreds of severely at-risk 4-year-olds avoid costly special education programs is making waves across the country. And it didnt cost taxpayers a penny to pilot the program. The Utah High Quality Preschool Program, which launched in 2013, uses a new model called pay for success in which private investors, mission-based organizations and the government team up to address social issues, such as criminal justice, health care access, graduation rates and youth employment. In this model, the government doesnt pay for any social program that isnt successful. If there isn't a measurable impact, private investors take the financial hit not taxpayers. If carefully measured data proves that the program was successful, only then does the government pay back investors. Utahs program was the second in the nation and the first addressing early child education to employ the pay-for-success model, which was first explored in 2011. Now, around 83 pay-for-success programs have launched nationwide amid rising excitement about the models potential to cut wasteful government spending while improving the quality of social services delivered. It also laid the foundation for a piece of federal legislation that Congress passed in February 2018 that set aside $100 million in federal funds for state and local governments to implement pay-for-success programs to address social problems in their communities. Applications for the funds opened Feb. 8. It's difficult to pin down exactly what the United States spends annually on social services, but a 2017 report from the Congressional Budget Office showed $1.2 trillion had been collected to fund social services. However, sometimes it can be difficult to tell if that money is being spent effectively or if real results are being achieved, said Jeremy Keele, former president and CEO of the Sorenson Impact Center, who was involved in implementing the preschool program. On the other hand, the Utah preschool program has measurable results. Its pay-for-success component ran from 2013 to 2018, serving about 4,000 preschoolers in the Granite and Park City districts and four nonprofit or private preschools. To date, only 10 percent of the 454 preschoolers originally determined to be severely at risk for needing special education services have actually needed to access those services, saving the state of Utah $2.5 million. Before the program was instituted, 100 percent of those children would have been expected to access remedial services, said Bill Crim, the president and CEO of United Way of Salt Lake, the project facilitator. Goldman Sachs and the Pritzker Family Foundation were the private investors that backed the project. As those kids continue through the public school system, Utah will ultimately see savings of $18 million in special education costs, Crim said. Because of the proven effectiveness of the program, the Utah Legislature decided in 2014 to take over funding after the initial five-year period, and another 1,200 preschoolers entered the state-funded program this past fall. The state has begun to repay investors, but even after all loans and interest are paid, it will still see overall savings of $10 million, Crim said. Nevertheless, the program has faced criticism. Because the success rate was so high, concerns were initially raised that the program evaluation wasn't serious enough, said Janis Dubno, managing director of impact analytics and social innovation at Salt Lake Citys Sorenson Impact Center, who constructed the financial model behind the preschool program. In addition, some question the concept behind pay-for-success programs, wondering if it wouldn't make more sense for the government to just pay for the programs upfront, rather than retroactively pay back the loan plus interest, which is more expensive, Dubno said. Plus, these programs are "complicated and they can take a long time to put together," she added, which can discourage involvement. However, pay-for-success programs represent a paradigm shift in government, Keele said. The whole notion is shifting to a social sector where your government and philanthropy and impact investors are paying on the basis of actual events achieved rather than services delivered. The implications of that are pretty powerful. Powerful enough, in fact, to catch the attention of the White House. Utah's impact Utahs early childhood education program helped inspire a groundbreaking piece of federal legislation called the Social Impact Partnerships to Pay for Results Act. The act, and the pay-for-success programs its $100 million in federal funds could be used for, were hot topics at the Sorenson Impact Centers annual Winter Innovation Summit in Salt Lake City, which ran Feb. 6-8. SIPPRA became known colloquially as the Sorenson Act in Washington, D.C., because Jim Sorenson played such a big role in it, Keele said. Sorenson, who founded the Sorenson Impact Center, has a lot to do with why Utah is considered a national thought leader in the fields of pay-for-success and impact investing. Sorenson built a decadeslong career as an entrepreneur he developed communication technology for the hard of hearing and philanthropist, but soon realized he was unsatisfied with traditional philanthropy. It seemed inefficient and lacked transparency and accountability. It didnt move the needle enough to solve the core intractable problems we see in the world today, he said. In 2013, he entered the newly formed field of impact investing, or investing in businesses that help solve social problems in a sustainable, scalable way. That same year, he endowed the Sorenson Impact Lab at the University of Utah, which facilitates impact investing around the world. Soon after, he invested in the countrys first pay-for-success program in New York, which was ultimately deemed unsuccessful, and became an advocate for Utah's preschool pay-for-success program. In 2014, the Sorenson Impact Center won a grant from the White Houses Social Innovation Fund and used the money to help scale the center from one to two employees to more than 40, Keele said. This put the Sorenson Impact Center on the map in the world of pay-for-success and impact investing. That same year, Sorenson became aware that new legislation was being proposed to create a federal fund for pay-for-success programs, and he got involved with the bill, helping answer questions about technicalities and feasibility. He also led several briefings to help legislators understand the ins and outs of pay-for-success programs. Sorenson encouraged then-Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, to sponsor the bill in December 2014, and, in 2018, Hatch appointed Keele to serve as one of nine members on a federal commission to help the U.S. Treasury decide which proposals should receive federal funding. In 2017, Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., took over the lead sponsorship of the bill in the Senate, with then-Rep. John Delaney, D-Md., as his counterpoint in the House. It was passed in February 2018. The act is, as Delaney said at the Winter Innovation Summit, a bipartisan solution. It brings together things each party has advocated for a long time, Delaney said. Democrats want more investment against the great issues that we face in society. Republicans want a more conservative structure around the efficiency of these programs, more metrics, more opportunity for innovation. This notion is advancing ideas that each side cares about. Of that $100 million in federal funds set aside by the act, $60 million will be available for projects once administrative and other fees are taken out, said Kathleen Victorino, chief of staff at the U.S. Treasurys Office of Financial Research. Of that $60 million, half is targeted for projects that have a direct benefit on children, Victorino added something that can be traced in part back to Utahs trailblazing pay-for-success preschool program. Paying for prevention is more effective than paying for remediation. High quality preschool will save the government money in a wide range of areas, including health, education, juvenile and adult crime, and welfare dependency, Dubno said. What's next? Since the Utah High Quality Preschool Program, state and local entities have been involved with several other pay-for-success programs, said Fraser Nelson, managing director of field building at the Sorenson Impact Center. Two Salt Lake County programs, called Homes Not Jails and REACH (Recovery, Engagement, Assessment, Career, Housing), just finished their first full year of implementation. The programs aim to help individuals who cycle in and out of homelessness and the criminal justice system by working with nonprofits The Road Home and First Step House. Another program under development, called Healthy Homes Salt Lake, seeks to improve the health of people affected by asthma living along the Wasatch Front. Sorenson said there may be plans underway in Utah to apply for some of the $100 million in federal funds as well. Itll be interesting to see how SIPPRA unfolds and begins to scale and how we can utilize this in making better decisions on how the government pays for social services in the future, he said. It will also be illuminating to finally be able to track how many people are actually helped by these social programs, and how they can be adjusted to better serve communities in the future, Nelson said. Its one thing to waste peoples money, Nelson said. Thats a tragedy, but its not the biggest tragedy. The real tragedy is the harm we cause the people we purport to serve. Were promising something we dont deliver, which harms all of us. If we can help a person become the person they could always have been, that saves our community heartache and hardship. Correction: A previous version of this article misspelled Bill Crim and Janis Dubno's names. This article has been updated to reflect the correct spelling. But the significance of Mr. McConnell's amendment was that it marked the second time in two months that he publicly broke with the president, and that fellow Republicans followed suit. In December, they voted to end U.S military aid to Saudi Arabia in Yemen, in protest of Mr. Trump's failure to rebuke the Saudis in the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. SALT LAKE CITY Gail Millers foundation, the Larry H. & Gail Miller Family Foundation, has a soft spot for education. And part of that, I think, stems from the fact that neither Larry or I have a college degree, Miller told the Deseret News. I attended one quarter. Larry dropped out after six weeks. From individual scholarships to larger grants benefiting learning facilities, the foundation has a history of education-based philanthropy. And this year, the foundation is donating $55,000 to the Deseret News/KSL Sterling Scholar Awards. This money will go toward Sterling Scholar scholarships statewide, helping certain rural areas that dont always receive adequate scholarship funding. At the awards ceremony, a student will receive the Gail Miller Community Service Award, which honors a student for his or her exceptional community service efforts. The Sterling Scholar program recognizes high school seniors for the pursuit of excellence in scholarship, leadership and citizenship in the state of Utah, according to the programs website. During her interview with the Deseret News, Miller referenced one of her companys guiding principles: Be a student. Be a teacher. Be a leader. I think when a student gets out into the community and does service one-on-one, or in a group, they get a picture of life thats different than sitting at their phone and texting or watching videos, Miller said. It gives them that human touch where they can feel worthwhile, and they can serve other people and help them feel worthwhile. Miller describes education as an exponential opportunity. When a person learns something, their individual life is enriched. When that person teaches their new knowledge to someone else, their circle of influence grows. That continues as each person pays it forward. Its something that you can have and own and keep, and enrich yourself from, but you can still give it away and never be at a loss, she said. Time, Miller said, is a difficult resource to use wisely. Allocating time for service in ones education and into ones own life generally helps the person be richer in the long run. When youre born, your life is all about you. And it stays that way for a long time, she said. But when you become an adult, and you realize there are other people who are important besides you, then you start stepping outside of yourself. And thats when you can serve others, and thats when your life becomes meaningful. SALT LAKE CITY The House Education Committee unanimously endorsed Thursday an omnibus measure intended to enhance students' physical and emotional safety through initiatives to hire more support personnel and add physical safety improvement to schools. The bill envisions spending $30 million ongoing to help school districts and charter schools hire mental health professionals and other support personnel and some $66 million in one-time funds for structural safety measures, which could include vestibule doors or software that enable schools to easily report threats or active incidents. Although the committee's vote for HB120was unanimous, some committee members and members of the public raised concerns about student privacy and the cost of the initiative. Rep. Carol Moss, D-Holladay, questioned the information that would be collected about students when school officials conduct a threat assessment. "How long would it be kept and who would have access to it?" she asked. Christy Walker, school and student safety specialist for the Utah State Board of Education, said current laws permit the collection of such data and great care is taken to ensure the state is in compliance with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act and other privacy measures. Andrew Riggle, representing the Disability Law Center, questioned why disabilities were not among a list of characteristics that HB120 says may not be used to refer students to a school safety team. The characteristics listed in the bill included race, color, sex, sexual orientation, age, religion, national origin or citizenship status. "This is a great concern to us because of the data coming out of Virginia," Riggle said. In Virginia, 12 percent of the school-age population are students with disabilities but 1/3 of referrals to threat assessment teams are students with disabilities, he said. "We think it is very important that students with disabilities be included in the list of characteristics and that referrals to the team be based only on behavior," Riggle said. Connor Boyack of the Libertas Institute, which describes itself as a free market think tank, questioned the point of conducting school climate surveys, which would ask students, staff, community members whther they feel their school is safe. Gun-free schools give people a false sense of security, he said. "We all want our children to be safe. However, feeling safe is not the same thing as being safe," he said. Mary Nielson, representing the Utah School Boards Association, spoke in support of the bill, noting that the resources tied to the proposal would "help rural districts probably more than the urban districts." Nielson, who is from Juab School District, said rural schools struggle to find the resources to hire mental health professionals due to funding. "A lot of our buildings are old," she said, describing one school that provides teachers with "old fashioned keys" to enter and exit doors. "We don't even have a card reader," she said. Ward's bill would make resources available for physical improvement to schools to improve safety. "This is going to change how we can keep our kids safe. Local school boards are in support," she said. While he voted to support the bill, Rep. Brad Last, R-Hurricane, and co-chairman of the Executive Appropriations Committee, said the legislation would need to be considered in context of available funding and other requests. "This is really a funding bill that's going to have to be decided later," he said. SALT LAKE CITY In a vote that outraged residents even leaving some in tears a Senate panel on Thursday slammed the door on a bill that would extend the sunset on a longstanding ban on trucks on a scenic byway in Davis County. "Way to listen to the people," one man shouted in anger after the vote. "Guess I'll be selling my house now," another woman shouted. Legacy Parkway is a more than 11-mile stretch known for its quiet, meandering route near wetlands, wildlife and fields of blooming sunflowers in the summertime. But as it stands now, trucks of all sizes will be cleared to bellow down the highway starting Jan. 1, 2020. That's when the 15-year truck ban in Utah law expires. The ban was drafted in a settlement that ended lawsuits filed when environmental groups tried years ago to stop the freeway from being built in the first place. The 4-1 vote by the Senate Transportation, Public Utilities, Energy and Technology Committee came after more than an hour of emotional testimony from residents pleading for support of SB119, a bill that would push the sunset out 2 1/2 years to July 1, 2022, meant to give impacted cities more time to prepare for the change. It also came during a time when legislative heavyweights are pushing hard to create the Utah Inland Port a global trade hub in about 16,000 acres of northwest Salt Lake City expected to be the largest economic development project in Utah history. Legacy Parkway has been eyed to be a key route for trucks coming and going to the port. Several lawmakers who voted down the bill Thursday have ties to the port. Sen. Gregg Buxton, R-Roy, sits as a board member on the Utah Inland Port Authority. Sen. Don Ipson, R-St. George, was the Senate appointee on the board before he resigned for a potential conflict of interest because he owned some property within the port authority's boundaries. Ipson also owns the trucking company, DATS Trucking Inc. Deeda Seed, a former Salt Lake City Councilwoman and one of the port's loudest critics called Thursday's vote "shocking," "awful," and "heartbreaking." "This is the first community that's being sacrificed to the concept of the proposed inland port," she said. "What we saw was a demonstration of the voracious appetite of the trucking industry in Utah." Bill supporters wore yellow shirts and flowers pinned to their chests to resemble Legacy Parkway's characteristic sunflower fields. The bill's sponsor, Sen. Todd Weiler, R-Woods Cross, wore a yellow tie. Among the residents was Terry Wilks, who said she inherited her grandfather's home in West Bountiful where her family has lived since 1878. She said she makes the Legacy Parkway trip frequently, "and I have to say, it is the most calm, relaxing drive of any place in Utah." "When you drive it, you kind of slow down, you curve. The roads are quiet. You look to the east and see a striking view of the mountains, and when you look to the west you see sunsets of golden, blue, orange, red and they reach clear to the lake," she said. Other residents said they bought their homes in the area with no clue the truck ban was set to sunset in 2020. Angie Keeton, of North Salt Lake, said her home sits about 800 feet from Legacy Parkway. She said she bought her home just three years ago, but didn't learn the truck ban would expire until just six weeks ago because of reporting on the Utah Inland Port Authority. "Between the mosquitos and refineries, we've made a community," Keeton said. "You didn't plan to plant the sunflowers, but someone planted them for us. They grew, they thrived, and they're beautiful, just like the parkway itself. Please don't throw them and our communities away. Please give us time to find a better way." But Rick Clasby, executive director of the Utah Trucking Association, urged lawmakers to let the sunset stand, noting his organization was "disturbed" by the ban in the first place. "We backed away from that fight in the interest of opening that highway, knowing that highway was necessary for the future of the state of Utah," Clasby said. "Today we feel like that was a deal made that should be kept." Clasby said Utah's economy is "based on trucking" and "nothing is more harmful to the trucking industry than congestion or delay." "We expect that deal be honored," he said. Lawmakers' votes condemning the sunset extension came after Sen. Jake Anderegg, R-Lehi, expressed frustration with the bill's timing and the precedent it could set for other Utah freeways. "I'm really struggling with this bill," he said. "You've had a long time to work on this. "There honestly isn't a community out there that lives next to a freeway that doesn't experience the exact same issues. If we allow this we're setting a very dangerous precedent across the state." Though residents walked away from the meeting dejected, Weiler, the bill's sponsor, didn't rule out attempts to bring the bill back from the dead. He said "time will tell" if he can revive it. "I'll keep on talking to them and see if there is a viable path," he said. SALT LAKE CITY While a slew of resident correspondence with Salt Lake officials reflects tales of being terrorized by electric scooter riders surfing city sidewalks, a legislative proposal would expand the legal, on-street territory for the new machines. The bill, SB139, proposes to modify current state code that prohibits motorized scooters from operating on streets with speed limits over 25 mph, as well as roadways that have more than two lanes. The bill also stipulates that operators may not consume alcoholic beverages while riding and those under 15 years old must have an adult supervisor present when they ride. Sen. Kirk Cullimore, R-Sandy, said the goal of the proposal is to boost the viability of the two-wheelers as a transportation option. "This bill seeks to make (e-scooters) more legally viable in Salt Lake City and the state," Cullimore said. Cullimore noted that in Sandy, he believes the scooters could help solve so-called "first mile, last mile" challenges of connecting the end of public transit lines, like FrontRunner stations, with riders' final destinations. E-scooter operators Lime and Bird launched in Salt Lake City last summer and both use networked transportation systems that allow users to locate and rent the two-wheelers with a smartphone app. While a city survey conducted last year found that a majority of those who have ridden the vehicles like the option and want to see more, dozens of complaints recounted unfortunate encounters on sidewalks, even though e-scooters (as well as bicycles) are banned from downtown pedestrian thoroughfares in Salt Lake City. Before seasonally inclement weather moved in last fall, both Lime and Bird were each deploying about 500 rentable e-scooters daily in Salt Lake City, according to city officials. Salt Lake City Transportation Director Jon Larsen told the Deseret News the city was supporting the proposal both for addressing impractical restrictions, and instituting some new, common-sense rules including stipulations on acceptable motor sizes for the two-wheelers. "Our approach has been that e-scooters should be treated the same as e-bikes," Larsen said. "I appreciate that the language in the bill basically does just that. Larsen add that the proposal "helps define what one of these scooters is. If it's something that has a really powerful motor and goes over 25 mph, it should be something else." A representative of Lime testified at the committee hearing that his company was supporting the proposal and Millcreek Mayor Jeff Silvestrini said he had worked on reviewing issues that could hinder use of e-scooters with a group formed by the Wasatch Front Regional Council. He also lauded the proposals inclusion of a speed-limiting clause that limits the scooters to 20 mph max. "We spotted some issues in state law that are problematic and the bill addresses those matters," Silvestrini said. "It's important that we can regulate the speed of these scooters downward because we want them to be operated on streets and not sidewalks." SB139 was approved on a unanimous vote and now moves to the full Senate for further consideration. MURRAY A man was hit by a train and killed Thursday afternoon after trespassing on a FrontRunner alignment, officials said. Calvin Curley, 40, was walking north on the tracks between 3900 South and 4500 South when he was hit by a northbound train, according to the Utah Transit Authority. UTA spokesman Carl Arky said officials do not know why Curley was on the tracks. He did not appear to notice the approaching train "until it was too late," Arky said. Curley resided in Arizona but had come to Salt Lake City a week ago for work-related reasons, Arky said. "While it is true he was hit by a train, trains cannot slow down quickly and they cannot swerve to avoid contact. UTA truly regrets this tragic loss of life," UTA said in a statement. "When motorists or pedestrians/trespassers place themselves in harm's way it usually leads to dire consequences. UTA asks everyone to take responsibility, be aware of warning signals and to please stay off the tracks except when crossing in designated and approved areas." The incident caused FrontRunner delays into Thursday evening. SALT LAKE CITY Utah is one step closer to allowing the sale of beer with stronger alcohol content in grocery and convenience stores. A bill that would allow the higher alcohol content beer now available in state liquor stores easily sailed out of a Senate committee Thursday afternoon. The bill, SB132, would change two key figures currently in Utah law. Currently, the law restricts beer sold in grocery stores and gas stations to an alcohol content of 4 percent by volume or 3.2 percent by weight. Under the new law, allowable alcohol content would rise to 6 percent by volume or 4.8 by weight. "This is strictly a commerce bill," said the bill's sponsor, Sen. Jerry Stevenson, R-Layton. Stevenson's bill comes amid a push from national breweries that are phasing out the production of 3.2 percent beer as markets for it dry up. Utah is one of only two states left selling the weaker beer after laws in Oklahoma, Colorado and Kansas have changed or are slated to change in coming months. Last month, Walmart launched a campaign urging customers to lobby Utah lawmakers to make the stronger beer available in stores. The retail giant is part of a group of retailers, beer manufacturers and distributors, and trade associations calling itself the Responsible Beer Choice Coalition that is lobbying the Legislature to raise the alcohol content for beer sold in grocery and convenience stores. As Stevenson presented the bill to the Senate Business and Labor Committee on Thursday, he joked that proposed changes to Utah's alcohol laws are like opening "Pandora's box." Although the bill was met with opposition from some conservative and family-focused organizations, it was widely supported by most local breweries, retailers and among Republican lawmakers on the committee. Kate Bradshaw of the Responsible Beer Choice Coalition told lawmakers the bill creates a "modest change" in Utah law that will bring it in line with other states. "It will allow us to restore these choices the beer drinkers of Utah have lost in their grocery and convenience store outlets," she said. Representatives from conservative organizations including the Sutherland Institute and the Utah Eagle Forum pushed back against the bill, expressing fears the increased alcohol content would further harm teens who drink underage. "I am opposed to adding more alcohol," Utah Eagle Forum President Gayle Ruzicka said. Still, the Senate committee voted unanimously to advance the bill to the Senate floor. NORTH SALT LAKE Throwing out food no longer means it has to go to waste thanks to a new facility in Utah that converts food waste to clean, renewable energy. Utah's first and only anaerobic food waste digester opened to the public Thursday for an open house highlighting how the center will turn food waste into renewable energy. Wasatch Resource Recovery, a public-private partnership between ALPRO Energy & Water and the South Davis Sewer District, will take in about 700 tons of food waste daily. When it expands its operation in the near future, that number will double to about 1,400 tons. Anaerobic digestion is a biological process in which microbes break down biodegradable material without oxygen. "The anticipated amount of organic waste diverted to the anaerobic digester each year will equate to taking over 75,000 cars from the highway in carbon emissions," according to a press release from the company. Other compost facilities in Utah can convert fruit and vegetable scraps into energy, but not much more. Wasatch Resource Recovery is the first in the state that's able to convert food waste into energy on a much larger scale. "We're able to take the meat and the dairy and the cooked foods and the processed foods, sugary foods and packaged foods," said Morgan Bowerman, the plant's sustainability manager. "We can process all of that food waste here. So we get to do the full plate at this facility. And there is nothing else like it here in Utah." The main sources of waste will come from food manufacturing waste, restaurant waste, grocery store waste and grease trap waste. Since it's still a part of waste management, there is a fee for companies to recycle food waste to the plant instead of sending it all to the landfill but doing so can save businesses a lot of money, Bowerman said. "If you're a good manufacturer and you've got a lot of food waste, you're gonna save a lot of money by coming here," she said. Within the year, the facility plans to place bins outside the facility for people to drop off food waste. Bowerman said residential curbside pickup could be an option someday, but would be years in the future if it happens. Bowerman said 30 percent of landfills are filled with organic waste, which emits greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. The digester is able to take that organic waste out of landfills, which would help decrease the amount of gas emitted into the atmosphere something that can help air quality, said Eric Alder, president of Alder construction, the company that built the plant. "As our community continues to grow, the landfills continue to get busier and busier and more and more full," he said. "So this takes all of the organics out of the landfill right now and extends the life of the landfills by many, many years, and that's a big deal for a lot of the communities around here." The biomethane plant operates like a synthetic animal, Bowerman said. The first step is grinding all the food waste into a slurry, like a mouth does. The mixture then goes into the heated digester where naturally occurring microorganisms break down the food waste. During that process, they put off gas methane that the facility captures. The entire operation takes about two weeks from start to finish. The methane the plant recovers is the same type of gas that operates most houses for example, it's what's used to heat up a gas stove, Bowerman said. The plant will produce enough energy to fuel a town of 40,000 people, roughly the size of Bountiful. The energy won't go to Bountiful though, but rather it will be sold exclusively to BP, at a profit. There is a byproduct of the digestion process a nutrient-rich, carbon-based fertilizer, which Bowerman said is "really wonderful." The facility hopes to partner with Utah State University to study the soil and sell it to agriculturalists. "We've been chasing this for many, many years," Alder said. "It feels very validating finally to see it like this and finally to have all the public support and all the support of the companies who are going to bring their food waste here, it's wonderful to see." The $43 million facility, located at 1370 W. Center, will test its machines next week when the first food waste delivery arrives. More information about the facility is available on its wasatchresourcerecovery.com. National polling has shown widespread support for laws that create a process to temporarily remove firearms from people deemed to be dangerous to themselves or others. Such a so-called red flag law is currently before the Utah Legislature, and it deserves to be openly and thoroughly debated and delivered to the floor for a vote by one or both chambers. The proposed bill HB209 will meet resistance among gun rights interests, as did a similar measure last year that passed the House Judiciary Committee, but never made it to a vote on the House floor. This year, the measure should be scrupulously vetted as a way to help reduce a disturbingly high rate of suicide in Utah. A state-sponsored study last year by the Harvard School of Public Health shows firearms are used in half of suicide attempts in Utah, and in nearly 9 out of 10 of those cases, the result is fatal. The bills sponsor, Rep. Stephen Handy, R-Layton, says two states that were early adopters of extreme risk laws Connecticut and Indiana have seen reductions in the number of suicides by firearm. There is also strong data in those states showing people who are subjected to risk orders receive behavior health treatment at a higher rate. Gun rights advocates have voiced concerns that such laws may impede a persons constitutional rights of due process. The National Rifle Association has advocated for implementation of red flag laws with the caveat they include protections against due process violations. At least 13 states have now passed extreme risk laws, with a variety of methodology for implementing confiscation orders. The Utah law would set forth a process by which a family member or law enforcement entity may petition a court to have a persons firearm taken following a detailed presentation of evidence of dangerous behavior. Where the laws have been implemented across the country, there are no cases to this point that have met with a successful constitutional challenge based on search and seizure protections. Nevertheless, almost all firearms-related legislation immediately meets with organized opposition. Some influential gun rights interests believe any measure that smacks of controlling gun ownership will lead to a slow erosion of Second Amendment rights. It will not. Red flag laws proposed in several states last year never made it to a committee hearing, let alone a floor vote, as a result of such narrow and reactive opposition. Yet, public support for such legislation has grown, particularly in the wake of activism by student survivors of the mass shooting nearly a year ago at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida. In a Washington Post-ABC News poll after the shooting, 85 percent of respondents said they generally favored red flag laws. In Utah, the proposed risk order bill enjoys support from public health organizations concerned about the states disproportionately high rate of suicide among teenagers and young adults. That concern alone is reason enough for HB209 to enjoy a comprehensive assessment by lawmakers. There is clear evidence that such a law will save lives. Reasoned debate on the bill should proceed in the widest public venue the Legislature can offer, and a reasoned approach should be adopted. Since 1962, high school seniors have been honored for their academic excellence by being named Sterling Scholars. According to the Sterling Scholar website, a Sterling Scholar is a high school senior who is publicly recognized and awarded for the pursuit of excellence in scholarship, leadership and citizenship in the State of Utah." Heres a look at the 2019 Sterling Scholar candidates, who represent schools throughout Utah: Wasatch Front North | Wasatch Front Central | Wasatch Front South | Northeast | Central | Southeast | Southwest Schools throughout the state are invited to participate in the program each year. Winners are named in 15 categories: Agriculture Science; Business & Marketing; Computer Technology; Dance; English & Literature; Family & Consumer Sciences; General Scholarship; Instrumental Music; Mathematics; Science; Speech & Drama; Skilled & Technical Education; Visual Arts; Vocal Performance; and World Languages. SALT LAKE CITY Rep. Chris Stewart, R-Utah, will host town halls in 11 cities within Utah's 2nd Congressional District. "I enjoy town halls and believe that they're an important venue for my constituents' voices to be heard," Stewart said in a statement. The town halls will be held at the following times and locations: Tuesday, Feb. 19: Kanab City Library, 374 N. Main, Kanab, 12:30 p.m.; location to be determined, Panguitch, 3 p.m.; Festival Hall, 105 N. 100 East, Cedar City, 5 p.m.; St. George City Hall, 175 N. 200 East, 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 20: location to be determined, Beaver, 10:30 a.m.; Sevier County Commission chambers, 250 N. Main, Richfield, 1 p.m.; Fillmore City Offices, 75 W. Center, 3:30 p.m.; Snow College's Noyes Building, 150 E. College Ave., Ephraim, 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 21: Nonna's Pizza, 8979 W. Main, Magna, 11:30 a.m.; location to be determined, Salt Lake City, 5 p.m.; Farmington City Hall, 160 S. Main, 7:30 p.m. "So now Congressman Adam B. Schiff announces, after having found zero Russian Collusion, that he is going to be looking at every aspect of my life, both financial and personal, even though there is no reason to be doing so," Trump said on Twitter. "Never happened before! Unlimited Presidential Harassment." SALT LAKE CITY Two men who allegedly assaulted a Taylorsville High School teacher at one point driving as he was clinging to the hood of their car have been charged. The wild incident happened Dec. 13, according to Unified police. Cristian Hernandez and Marquez Anthony Parker, both 19, were at Taylorsville High School, 5225 S. Redwood Road, to pick up a student. While there, the two men got into a verbal altercation with Konrad Wilson. Wilson is listed on the high school's webpage as the JROTC instructor. Wilson told police he confronted Hernandez about drinking in the parking lot and stood in front of his Lincoln Towncar to get a license plate number, according to charging documents. "Hernandez accelerated toward Wilson and Wilson jumped onto the hood of the Towncar to avoid being run over," the charges state. Hernandez continued driving with Wilson still hanging on the hood of the car to a Chevron gas station near 5600 S. Redwood Road, according to charging documents. Wilson tried to get off of the car at that point, but Hernandez and Parker "exited the Towncar and assaulted Wilson," and then got back in the car "and once again accelerated toward Wilson," the charges state. Wilson tried to get out of the way but was forced to once again hang on the hood of the car as the suspects drove to a nearby Wal-Mart, 5469 S. Redwood Road, where "Wilson let go and fell," according to charging documents. Both Hernandez and Parker were charged Thursday in 3rd District Court with three counts of aggravated assault, a third-degree felony, and assault against a school employee, a class A misdemeanor. A $50,000 warrant was issued Thursday for each man. Unified police said Thursday that both men may have fled to California. SALT LAKE CITY It's hard to believe we're in February, but somehow it's already the weekend before Valentine's Day. Whether you are looking for ideas for the day or a date night, if you're willing to brave the cold there are plenty of ways to celebrate the holiday. Cupids Chase Community Options is hosting its annual Cupid's Chase, a 5K to support people with disabilities, at Sugar House Park. You can support a racer or become one yourself to share the love with those in need this Valentines Day. This year theyve already raised more than $18,000 with the goal of raising $7,000. Feb. 9, 9-10 a.m., Sugar House Park 1330 E. 2100 South (comop.org). Utah Symphony, Tchaikovskys Pathetique The Utah Symphony is celebrating music of the romantic era with works by Wagner, Berlioz and Tchaikovsky. It promises to be an evening filled with beautiful and passionate music. The program will end with a performance of Tchaikovskys Pathetique, which is the Russian word for "passionate." Feb. 8 and 9, 7:30 p.m., 123 W. South Temple, $15-$68, (utahsymphony.org). Black & Red Valentine's Salsa & Bachata Ball Both couples and singles are welcome to dance the night away at the Black and Red Valentines Salsa and Bachata Ball. Dance classes will be given from 9:30-10:30 p.m. followed by social dancing until 1:30 a.m. Feb. 8, DF Dance Studio, 2978 S. State, $15 per person (dfdancestudio.com). Chocolate Festival Nothing says Valentines Day like chocolate, and the 32nd Annual Chocolate Festival is the perfect place to taste some of the best in Utah. The friendly competition is held at the Riverwoods Conference Center in Logan, and made up of mainly amateur entrants putting their kitchen skills to the test. Attendees get to sample delicious chocolate desserts and vote for their favorite. Feb. 9, 6:30-9 p.m., 615 Riverwood Parkway, Logan, $10 for adults, $5 for children ages 12 and younger (thechocolatefest.com). Valentines Day macarons Try your hand at baking at a macaron class, hosted by the Park City Culinary Institute. Chef Cheryl Schaefer will teach the class how to make traditional round macarons as well as heart-shaped ones. Feb. 9, 11 a.m.-3 p.m., 1484 S State St., Park City, $75 (eventbrite.com). Ballet West's Swan Lake Ballet West is presenting "Swan Lake," the tragic love story of Prince Siegfried and Odile, a woman turned into a swan, at the Capitol Theatre. You don't want to miss the last ballet performance from Christopher Ruud, who's been a principal dancer with the company for more than 20 years. Speaking about his time on stage, Ruud told the Deseret News, "When my partner and I look at each other in mutual wonder as if to say, This is really happening, I never want that feeling to end. Feb. 8-23, 7:30 p.m.; matinees on Feb. 9, 16 and 23 at 2 p.m., 50 W. 200 South, $20-$112 (balletwest.org). The pursuit of excellence in scholarship, leadership and citizenship is what defines a Sterling Scholar in the state of Utah. Each high school senior who is recognized and awarded has demonstrated their knowledge, success and vision by presenting a portfolio of their work in a specific category, has been interviewed by judges and advanced at the high school, semifinal and finals levels. From finalists in 14 categories, one overall Sterling Scholar winner is chosen and announced at an awards ceremony. The Deseret News and KSL Broadcast Group developed the program to focus attention on outstanding seniors, to recognize them publicly and award cash scholarships and tuition waivers from participating institutions. The Sterling Scholar Awards Program seeks to commend and encourage excellence among all nominees. All nominees are judged equally on the basis of scholastic achievement without regard to religion, sex, political preference or national origin. Categories for the Wasatch Front Region include: English, Mathematics, Social Science, Science, World Languages, Computer Technology, Skilled & Technical Sciences Education, Family & Consumer Sciences, Business & Marketing, Speech/TheaterArts/Forensics, Vocal Performance, Visual Arts, Instrumental Music and Dance. Denton, TX (76205) Today A mix of clouds and sun. High 96F. Winds S at 10 to 20 mph.. Tonight A few passing clouds. Low 77F. Winds S at 10 to 20 mph. Guest Column: A walk in the woods, in search of healing our divide Politics Gov. Wolf looks to get fees for state police again "To offer $100 million over 10 years, at $10 million a year, you're not really trying to make a difference, so I don't think we're close to the settlement," said Walker, a Prince George's County Democrat. "You always hear the statement, 'I've offered more than any other governor before in the past.' Well, I remember when I was here we had to deal with a deficit, a financial crisis, and there was no money there to be offered during the [Gov. Martin] O'Malley administration, so if you really want to take a leadership role, do the right thing by HBCUs in the state." featured community Garnet Valley teacher talks about run-in with Mandarin duck at Ridley Park Lake featured Politics Delco Dems call for Leach to resign from Senate Jodine Mayberry is a retired editor, longtime journalist and Delaware County resident. Her column appears every Friday. You can reach her at jodinemayberry@comcast.net. Newly appointed Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is all set to launch her party's election campaign from the state capital next week. Leaders of Samajwadi Party (SP) and BSP, who could be denied nominations by their respective parties owing to the electoral alliance in Uttar Pradesh, have already started queuing up to meet Priyanka even before her arrival here. According to the state Congress leaders here, Priyanka, her brother and Congress president Rahul Gandhi and in-charge of the western UP Jyotiraditya Scindia would be arriving in the state capital on Monday. "They will be holding a road show in the state capital... we are preparing to accord them a rousing reception," state Congress leader Rajiv Buxi here said on Thursday. Welcome arches would be erected throughout their journey to the state party headquarters and flower petals would be showered on them, Buxi said. Sources said that Priyanka and Scindia would be meeting party leaders from all the 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state and review party's organisational strength in those seats. According to sources, several SP and BSP leaders, who felt that they were denied nominations owing to the electoral alliance between the two parties, have been trying to meet Priyanka to "explore" the possibilities of joining the Congress. Sultan Ahmed Khan, the son of Athar Khan, a one time close aide of BSP supremo Mayawati, met Priyanka at the Congress headquarters in New Delhi on Wednesday. "It (meeting) shows that Priyankaji is giving preference to grass-root level workers... it is a good thing," remarked Athar Khan, who enjoyed the Minister of State status during Mayawati's regime in 2008 and had been in charge of the BSP in Jharkhand, Uttarakhand and Gujarat earlier. Sources said that many other SP, BSP leaders were likely to meet Priyanka during her stay in the state capital. Priyanka, who has also been made in-charge of the eastern UP region, would be visiting Varanasi and Allahabad in the next few days. The brother-sister duo is also likely to take the holy dip at 'Sangam' (the confluence of Ganga, Yamuna and the mythical Sarswati rivers) at Prayagraj next week. The suspects will be produced before the Nuwara Eliya Magistrate's Court today. (Representational Image) Colombo: Nine Indians have been arrested in Sri Lanka's Uva province for allegedly staying in the country without a visa, according to a media report. The accused, who are mostly in the their late 20s, were arrested after the police received information of their illegal stay in the island nation, the Daily News reported. The suspects will be produced before the Nuwara Eliya Magistrate's Court today, the report said quoting a police official. In another incident, an Indian national was arrested from the national capital's Bandaranaike International Airport with1 kg of cocaine worth Rs 15 million in the international market, the Colombo Gazette reported. The Netherlands is in diplomatic discussions with Russia that Moscow bears legal responsibility for its role in the 2014 downing of a passenger jet over Ukraine (Photo:AP) The Hague: The Netherlands is in diplomatic discussions with Russia about the European country's assertion that Moscow bears legal responsibility for its role in the 2014 downing of a passenger jet over Ukraine, the Dutch foreign minister said. Foreign Minister Stef Blok Thursday said the initial diplomatic contacts were aimed at paving the way for formal talks and conducted in "a positive atmosphere." He said it was too early to say where and when formal talks might take place. "There are diplomatic contacts to see if we can begin formal talks about national responsibility for shooting down MH17," Blok told Dutch reporters. The Netherlands and Australia said last year they held Russia legally responsible for providing the missile that brought down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over conflict-ravaged eastern Ukraine. All 298 passengers and crew members were killed. About two-thirds of the people killed when a Buk missile fired from territory held by pro-Russian rebels slammed into the Boeing 777 were Dutch. The Netherlands has been one of the main driving forces behind seeking accountability for the attack. Silene Fredriksz-Hoogzand, whose son Bryce was on board the scheduled flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur with his girlfriend, tweeted in response to Blok's update: "It's about time ... 5 years on." International investigators last year said they had strong evidence the Buk missile system that shot down the airplane came from a Russia-based military unit. Russia has denied involvement and dismissed the findings from the international criminal probe because it was not invited to be part of the investigation team. If Russia were ultimately to acknowledge some form of legal responsibility, it could lead to compensation claims from relatives of the people killed. When the Netherlands and Australia last year said they were holding Russia responsible, they quickly got backing from the United States, Britain and other allies. "It is time for Russia to acknowledge its role in the shooting down of MH17 and to cease its callous disinformation campaign," US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement at the time. The US is the second-largest arms supplier to India (Representational Image) Washington: The US has agreed to sell two advanced missile defence systems to India for two Boeing-777 Head-of-State aircraft for an estimated cost of 190 million dollars, a decision that will enhance the security of the planes flying the president and the prime minister. According to the Pentagon, the sale will support the foreign policy and national security of the US by helping to strengthen the US-Indian strategic relationship. The Trump administration approved the purchase of the two systems known as Large Aircraft Infrared Countermeasures (LAIRCM) and Self-Protection Suites (SPS) for an estimated cost of $ 190 million, the US Defence Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) said in a notification to the Congress on Wednesday. The US decision came after the Indian Government recently made the request for LAIRCM and SPS, given the high-level threat to the prime minister and the president. The defence systems, which would bring the security of Air India One at par with that of Air Force One used by the American President, would be installed in two Boeing 777 Head-of-State aircraft, the Pentagon said. The Indian Government plans to buy two Boeing 777 ERs from the national carrier Air India for this specific purpose. Unlike in the past, the two aircraft would not be used for commercial purposes by Air India. The purpose of the LAIRCM programme is to protect large aircraft from man-portable missiles. Once installed, the LAIRCM system increases crew-warning time, decreases false alarm rates and automatically counters advanced intermediate range missile systems, according to the Federation of American Scientists. The missile warning subsystem will use multiple sensors to provide full spatial coverage. The counter-measures subsystem will use lasers mounted in pointer-tracker turret assemblies. It also automatically counters advanced intermediate range missile systems with no action required by the crew. The pilot will simply be informed that a threat missile was detected and jammed. Observing that it will improve Indias capability to deter regional threats, the Congressional notification said the SPS will facilitate a more robust capability into areas of increased missile threats. India will have no problem absorbing and using this system, the DSCA statement said. The department said the proposed sale will not alter the basic military balance in the region. The prime contractor will be the Boeing Company. The purchaser typically requests offsets. Any offset agreement will be defined in negotiations between the purchaser and the contractor, the DSCA statement said. Implementation of this proposed sale will require the assignment of one additional US contractor representative to India, it said. According to the notification, India requested to buy two SPS consisting of AN/AAQ 24(V)N Large Aircraft Infrared Countermeasures (LAIRCM), ALQ-211(V)8 Advanced Integrated Defensive Electronic Warfare Suite (AIDEWS) and AN/ALE-47 Counter-Measures Dispensing System (CMDS) to protect two (2) Boeing-777 Head-of-State aircraft. This potential sale would include twelve Guardian Laser Transmitter Assemblies AN/AAQ-24 (V)N (6 installed and 6 spares), eight (8) LAIRCM System Processor Replacements (LSPR) AN/AAQ-24 (V)N (2 installed and 6 spares); twenty-three (23) Missile Warning Sensors (MWS) for AN/AAQ-24 (V)N (12 installed and 11 spares), five (5) AN/ALE-47 Counter-Measures Dispensing System (CMDS) (2 installed and 3 spares), the notification said. Also included in this sale are Advanced Integrated Defensive Electronic Warfare Suites (AIDEWS), LAIRCM CIURs, SCAs, HCCs, and UDM cards, initial spares, consumables, repair and return support and support equipment. The US is the second-largest arms supplier to India. It has already recognised India as a major defence partner, a status that which commits the US to facilitate technology sharing with India. In 2018, the US granted India Strategic Trade Authorisation-1 (STA-1) status. India is the only South Asian country to get STA1 status and third Asian country after Japan and South Korea. The status eases Indias defence procurement from the US. Last year India and the US signed the COMCASA (Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement) to facilitate interoperability between the two militaries and sale of high end technology. Gov. Larry Hogan defends his executive order to start the school year after Labor Day during a press conference. (Kim Hairston, Baltimore Sun video) US President Donald Trump has said that he does not expect to meet his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping (File Photo) Washington: US President Donald Trump has said that he does not expect to meet his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping before a March 1 deadline in trade war negotiations between the two economic superpowers. "Not yet," Trump told reporters at the White House on Thursday when asked if a meeting had been arranged for within the next month. Asked if a meeting could happen before March 1, he said: "No." Trump has said that final resolution of the trade dispute would depend on him and Xi meeting "in the near future." There had been speculation that Trump might meet the Chinese leader after he flies to Vietnam in late February for a summit with North Korea's Kim Jong Un. The United States has threatened to more than double existing tariffs on Chinese goods at the start of March if there is no agreement on measures to reform China's trade practices, which Washington says are deeply unfair. After initially denying any knowledge of Khashoggi's disappearance, the kingdom has acknowledged that a team killed him inside the diplomatic mission but described it as a rogue operation. (Photo:AP) Washington: Saudi Arabia's crown prince told a senior aide he would go after Jamal Khashoggi "with a bullet" a year before the dissident journalist was killed inside the kingdom's Istanbul consulate, the New York Times reported quoting US intelligence. US intelligence understood that Mohammed bin Salman, the country's 33-year-old de facto ruler, was ready to kill the journalist, although he may not have literally meant to shoot him, according to the newspaper. After initially denying any knowledge of Khashoggi's disappearance, the kingdom has acknowledged that a team killed him inside the diplomatic mission but described it as a rogue operation that did not involve the crown prince. The conversation was intercepted by US intelligence agencies, as part of routine efforts by the National Security Agency and other agencies to capture and store the communications of global leaders, including allied ones, The Times said. It was only recently transcribed, however, because of mounting efforts by US intelligence to find more conclusive proof linking the prince to the killing. The conversation took place between Prince Mohammed and an aide, Turki Aldakhil, in September 2017 -- around 13 months before the October 2 killing, the paper said. The prince said that if Khashoggi could not be enticed to return to Saudi Arabia, then he should be brought back by force. If neither of those methods worked, then he would go after Mr. Khashoggi "with a bullet," he said. It came as officials in the kingdom were growing increasingly angry about Khashoggi's criticisms -- and the same month he began writing opinion pieces for The Washington Post. The comments due to be delivered in a speech by Abraham Liu, Huaweis chief representative to EU institutions, come as the company finds itself under fire over ties with the Chinese government and suspicion that Beijing could use its technology for spying, which the company denies. Chinese telecoms giant Huawei wants cybersecurity to be viewed as a technical rather than ideological issue and is open to supervision by European governments to prove the point, a senior company executive is expected to say on Thursday evening. The comments due to be delivered in a speech by Abraham Liu, Huaweis chief representative to EU institutions, come as the company finds itself under fire over ties with the Chinese government and suspicion that Beijing could use its technology for spying, which the company denies. Liu will reiterate that Huawei has not and would never harm the interests of customers or countries. Cybersecurity should remain as a technical issue instead of an ideological issue. Because technical issues can always be resolved through the right solutions while ideological issue cannot, Liu will say at the companys Chinese New Year reception in Brussels, according to a copy of his speech seen by Reuters. We are always willing to accept the supervision and suggestions of all European governments, customers and partners. Liu will say that Huawei devices, tested by multiple regulators and telecoms operators, have never caused any serious cyber security breaches. The United States has launched a campaign to convince European allies not to use equipment from the worlds biggest producer of telecoms gear for 5G networks, citing security risks. The French Senate on Wednesday rejected proposed legislation aimed at toughening checks on telecoms equipment despite the US warnings. Germany has said it wants high data security standards for its 5G network. Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter. Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court on Friday issued bailable warrants against Telangana Assembly secretary V. Narasimhacharyulu and law secretary V. Niranjan Rao in a contempt case filed by expelled Congress MLAs Komatireddy Venkata Reddy and Sampath Kumar. The Speaker in the previous Assembly had expelled both MLAs from the House on the ground that they had obstructed the Governors speech and hurled headphones last year. The MLAs approached the High Court which declared the expulsion illegal and directed restoration of their membership after which they moved a contempt case against the officials for non-implementation of the order. When the case came up for hearing on Friday, Justice B. Siva Sankara Rao said that the contempt procedures issued by the single judge remained even though writ petitions of petitioners and writ appeals of the respondents were disposed of by a division bench. The atmosphere in the court turned sour when additional advocate general J. Ramachandra Rao lost his cool after Justice Rao asked why the officials had not appeared before the court. The AAG countered repeatedly, saying What nonsense... What is the exuberance (sic) in insisting the respondents to appear? Are the heavens falling down? Picking on the use of the word nonsense, Justice Rao asked the AAG why he had taken an adjournment during the previous hearing. The AAG replied that the division bench headed by the Chief Justice had set aside the single-judge order when the state preferred an appeal and said that nothing stood to remain. While recording the use of the wold nonsense, the judge said the court did not want a confrontation on the AAGs comment. While dictating the order, the judge reminded that this court has issued Form-1 Notice to both the secretaries and they are bound to appear before the court The division bench cannot direct this court to close the contempt case. The bench gave liberty to this court to close the contempt. While issuing bailable warrants, the judge directed Hyderabad police commissioner to implement the order, unless they furnish a personal bond of `10,000 each to appear before the court on February 15. Hyderabad: The Election Commission has agreed to consider TRS president and Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Raos request to modify the partys poll symbol of car. Mr Rao had told the EC soon after the Assembly elections that the partys symbol was not clearly visible on EVMs and voters were confusing it with other symbols, like the truck and the iron box. On December 27, Mr Rao and party MPs met Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora in New Delhi and requested him not to allocate poll symbols which can be confused with his partys car symbol during the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. Mr Rao told the CEC that his party had to suffer in some constituencies in the recent polls because of the symbol. TRS MP B. Vinod Kumar said the party chief also discussed about brightening the colour of the party symbol so that voters can easily recognise it. He said that in a representation made to the Election Commission, Mr Rao had told them how voters in Telengana State were getting confused with party symbols, especially truck, iron and camera, which closely resemble the TRS symbol and requested not to allow such symbols in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. He said the truck symbol was allotted to All India Forward Bloc and they deliberately gave tickets to candidates with similar names or even same names as the TRS candidate to confuse voters. B. Vinod Kumar said that responding to the representation, the election commission on Thursday asked the party to submit a modified symbol design for its examination. This was submitted on Friday. He said the EC said it will consider the partys request. 'The entire Supreme Court judgement on Rafale becomes questionable now... because the information was withheld by the government,' Rahul alleged. (Photo: ANI | Twitter) ) New Delhi: Congress president Rahul Gandhi stepped up his attack on the Narendra Modi government over Rafale deal in a press conference in New Delhi on Friday following The Hindu news report alleging that the defence ministry protested parallel parleys by the Prime Ministers Office (PMO) with the French authorities. Rahul said the news report makes it crystal clear that the Prime Minister was conducting parallel negotiations with the French government on Rafale deal. We have been saying this for more than a year that the Prime Minister is directly involved in the Rafale scamIt is absolutely black and white that the Prime Minister himself was carrying a parallel negotiation with the French, Rahul said. He added that PM himself robbed Air Force's Rs 30,000 crore and gave it to Anil Ambani. "Who do you think he's doing parallel negotiations for? Not for you and me? It is for Anil Ambani... this proves that Chowkidaar is a thief," said Rahul. Continuing his attack on PM Modi. Rahul said that the entire Supreme Court judgement on the Rafale deal has now become questionable as the information was withheld by the government. A report published by The Hindu said that the French side took advantage of parallel parleys by the PMO and the Defence Ministry with the French government that weakened Indian teams position during negotiations on Rafale deal. Congress chief Rahul Gandhi on Friday said he has no problem if the government investigates his brother-in-law Robert Vadra or senior party leader P Chidambaram as long as it also answers questions on the Rafale jet deal. "Whatever inquiry you want to do, you do it. You implement the law. Robert Vadra, P Chidambaram - you implement the law on everyone. No problem. But you also give answers on the Rafale matter," he said at a press conference. Vadra was questioned by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for nine hours on Thursday, the second day of his deposition in connection with a probe into allegations of money laundering to purchase assets abroad. Karti Chidambaram, son of former finance minister P Chidambaram, was also questioned for about six hours by the ED on Thursday in connection with a money laundering probe against him in the INX Media case. "You do whatever inquiry against Mr. Chidambaram you want. He will face any inquiry. You do inquiry on anybody you want...But please explain to us why the defence ministry is saying that prime minister has carried out parallel negotiations," Gandhi said. Describing Rafale as an "open and shut" case, he said, "I am telling you that whatever investigation you want to do, you should do it. You are the one who is in government. But then investigate this (Rafale) too." Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday strongly defended the Rafale deal during his reply to the debate on the Motion of Thanks to the Presidents address in the Lok Sabha. I am levelling a serious allegation. I want to say it on the floor of Parliament that the Indian National Congress doesnt want our armed forces to be strong... You want the Rafale deal to be cancelled. On whose behest? For which company?, PM Modi said, attacking the Congress. (With agency inputs.) Singh said, 'Maybe this is an abusive remark towards 'Jhansi ki Rani.' She can be a Putana (demon), who has destroyed the whole West Bengal. She can become Kim Jong-un, who can kill those who speak against her.' (Photo: ANI) New Delhi: A day after All India Trinamool Congress called West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee as the new-age 'Jansi ki Rani,' Union Minister Giriraj Singh on Friday compared her with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. In the Lok Sabha on Thursday, TMC leader Dinesh Trivedi drew a parallel between the Central government and the pre-independence British regime and called Banerjee as today's 'Jhansi ki Rani'. Singh told ANI, "Maybe this is an abusive remark towards 'Jhansi ki Rani.' She can be a Putana (demon), who has destroyed the whole West Bengal. She can become Kim Jong-un, who can kill those who speak against her." "She does not have the power to become 'Jhansi ki Rani' or 'Padmavaat.' She can support Rohingya infiltrators and talks about distributing India. 'Jhansi ki Rani' fought to save the country. She is fighting to divide it." Recently a full-blown face-off between West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee-led TMC government and the Centre erupted after a CBI team moved to arrest Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar on Sunday night. The central investigative agency officials were denied entry to the top cops residence and were detained briefly too. Escalating her confrontation with the Centre, Banerjee started her 'Save the Constitution' dharna on Sunday night to protest against what the TMC called a 'coup by Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led NDA government at the Centre. On Tuesday, Chief Minister Banerjee ended her sit-in protest, saying that she would take her fight against the Central government to Delhi next week. The Supreme Court has directed Kumar to appear before the CBI in connection with Saradha chit fund scam probe. The bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said that no coercive step should be taken against Kumar, who will appear before the CBI in Shillong, Meghalaya. The top court, which posted further hearing in the case to February 20, also issued a contempt notice to West Bengal Chief Secretary, the DGP and the Kolkata Police Commissioner on a plea which said that the CBI team was detained when it went to question Kumar on Sunday. In a letter sent to Goswami Thursday, Additional Commissioner of Kolkata Police said a news item aired by the Republic TV channel on February 2 contended that Kumar 'had been missing and absconding for last three days'. (Photo: Twitter) Kolkata: Kolkata Police has threatened Republic TV Group Editor Arnab Goswami with a defamation suit for airing a story that its Commissioner Rajeev Kumar was absconding, contending that it was done to malign him and the organisation. Goswami has refused to be intimidated by the machinery of Mamata Banerjee government and expressed readiness to take them on. In a letter sent to Goswami Thursday, Additional Commissioner of Kolkata Police said a news item aired by the Republic TV channel on February 2 contended that Kumar had been missing and absconding for last three days. Nothing can be farther from truth. Not only was the CP Kolkata available in the city, but had also been attending office on a regular, with the exception of 31.1.19, when he was on leave for a day, the letter said. We condemn this misinformation and feel that your channel had aired it with ulterior motives to malign both the Commissioner of Police as an individual and Kolkata Police as an organisation, the Additional CP wrote. He said this had defamed the reputation of both the CP and the Kolkata Police and asked Goswami to respond to this correspondence within three days of its receipt as to under what circumstances you had aired the news item and why a defamation suit should not be filed against you. Goswami, while commenting on the letter, said, I am ready to be arrested by Mamata and her henchmen in the Kolkata Police. Mamata should not think she can browbeat me using her stooges in the Kolkata Police. Justifying the news item, he said he was proud we exposed details of the alleged role of her police officers in concealing the Saradha scam. And if she (Mamata) thinks her lawyers and state government machinery can be used to attack us, then let Mamata know that me and the Republic media network is ready to take them on. Cabezas, with local journalist Joan Jacobson, recently published a memoir of his life and career from working as an undercover Baltimore police officer looking for mob influence on the docks and The Block to taking down top elected officials. The book, Eyes of Justice, is filled with fascinating anecdotes of corruption, which every Maryland resident should never forget and which The Baltimore Sun will highlight over the next several weeks. Churabhandar/Kolkata: Escalating his face off with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Prime Minister Narendra Modi Friday accused her of trying to protect those involved in chit fund scams and warned neither the perpetrators nor those shielding them will be spared. The Trinamul boss quickly returned the fire, calling Modi master of corruption and a shame for the country. Addressing his third rally in the state in a week, Modi said Banerjees ruling Trinamul had inherited the legacy of bloodshed, violence and atrocity from the previous Communist government, and defamed the soil of West Bengal. Attacking Banerjee, who is at the forefront of efforts to stitch together a broad-based anti-BJP coalition of opposition parties ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, Modi said the proposed Mahagathbandhan (grand alliance) was Maha Milawat (a grand adulderation) of people who had no ideology or vision for the country. Never in the history of our country have we seen a chief minister sitting on a dharna to save the corrupt. The poor want to know why did you sit on dharna to save those who are accused of negligence in probing the chit fund scam. This chowkidar (watchman) will not spare them. Whether it is the perpetrators or their protectors, nobody will be allowed to go scot free, Modi declared while addressing a BJP rally in Jalpaiguri district. Banerjee reacted quickly and sharply to Modi's fulminations, referring to him as Mr Maddy. The less we talk about this man the better. Mr Maddy is the master of corruption. He is master of arrogance and a shame for the country. I have no words to describe him. His standard is so low that we never expected such a man to be the prime minister. We have respect for the chair but not for this man, she told journalists in Kolkata. He (Modi) is the most corrupt man in the Rafale deal. He is the master of notebandi. He was never a chaiwala and doesn't know how to prepare tea. From chaiwala he has now become Rafalewala. He speaks a bunch of lies, the West Bengal chief minister said. Bengaluru: Amid hot speculation whether his nine-month-old government would survive till February 14 when the current legislature session is set to end after approving the state budget, Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy on Friday reached out to his favourite constituency-farmers allocating Rs 12,650 crore in 2019-20 for his much talked about crop loan waiver scheme. However, keeping in mind the coming Lok Sabha polls and the need to strike an urban-rural balance, the CM also doled out several projects for Bengaluru announcing a whopping Rs 1.2 lakh crore for city infrastructure like the commuter train, metro network, roads, elevated corridors, waste management and lake rejuvenation. In 2019-20, a budget provision of Rs 6,500 crore has been made for commercial bank crop loans and Rs 6,150 crore for co-operative bank crop loans," Mr Kumaraswamy said to the thumping of desks by members of the treasury benches. He promised to complete the co-operative loan waiver process by June this year, and the commercial bank loan waiver during the current financial year. Mr Kumaraswamy had met his pre-election promise in his first budget last year, announcing a Rs 46,000 crore waiver of crop loans borrowed by nearly 42 lakh farmers. He said Rs 5,450 crore had been released to about 12 lakh loan accounts of commercial banks so far. The presentation of the budget happened amid high drama with BJP members staging a walkout in protest against budget copies not being distributed among MLAs and the media prior to its presentation as is the usual practice. In what seems to be a 'please all budget,' the CM doled out hundreds of crores for various mathas and institutions belonging to different religions. CM H.D. Kumaraswamy who presented his second budget on Friday, seems to have risked fiscal prudence to dole out hundreds of crores to various mathas and institutions associated with different religions and communities. He announced Rs 25 cr for Maulana Azad Trust to propagate scientific temper and modern education among Muslims. To develop Kabarasthans (burial grounds) the government has set aside Rs 10 cr while the CM has allotted Rs 20 cr for developing burial grounds. For the development of the Christian community, Rs 200 cr has been allocated while for the celebration of the 550th birth anniversary of Sikh spiritual leader Guru Gobind Singh, the government has set aside Rs 10 cr each for two Gurudwaras- one in Halasuru in Bengaluru and the other in Bidar. CM set aside Rs 25 cr each to develop the birthplaces of Shivakumara Swamiji of Siddaganga Matha, late Balagangadharanath Swamiji of Adichunchanagiri matha, Rs 5 cr for Nadaprabhu Kempegowda Authority, and Rs 60 cr for the development of religious places and mathas of the OBCs and others. A grant of Rs 17,212 cr has been provided to the water resources department for various irrigation schemes, tank filling projects, comprehensive development works, canal modernization and development works. The budget has provided for establishing a thousand Karnataka Public Schools at the headquarters of hoblis over the next four years and proposed the establishment of a Christian Development Corporation in 2019-20 to implement comprehensive development programmes for Christians at Rs 200 cr. Bengaluru: Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy on Friday dropped a political bomb in the form of an audio tape in which state BJP President B.S. Yeddyurappa is reportedly heard trying to convince the son of a JD(S) MLA to make his father to resign in return for a huge sum as well as a ministers post. This audio conversation was released to the media by the Chief Minister just three hours before presenting his budget for the year 2019-20. Mr Kumaraswamy accused Mr Yeddyurappa of stooping to a new low in order to grab power by toppling the coalition government. The audio will be handed over to the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) for a proper investigation and a copy would be also sent to Prime Minister Narendra Modi who claims to be the proponent of clean politics, said Mr Kumaraswamy. More shocking, according to the Chief Minister, are the alleged remarks of the BJP state president on influencing Karnataka Legislative Assem bly Speaker K.R. Ramesh Kumar and also the managing of judges by the BJP top brass. If this audio is genuine. It would be a major embarrassment for Mr Yeddyu rappa as he is aspiring to become Chief Minister again. Here are excerpts of the purported conversation between Yeddyurappa, Deodurga BJP MLA Shivanagouda Nayak and Sharangouda Kandakur, son of Nagangouda Kandakur, JD(S) MLA from Gurmitkal assembly constituency BSY: What are you doing? Nayak: Sir, this is Sharangouda who does business. But he manages the entire constituency in the absence of his father. BSY: How is your father's health? How old is he? Sharan: He is seventy plus and doing well. Sir I heard that you came here to visit a temple and you wanted me to meet you. I heard that you will manage the entire situation in the coming days. Shivanagouda: You leave everything to sir and he will take care. Once sir make a promise he will keep it come what may. Sharan: What difference will it make if I come alone? BSY: Already we have ten MLAs on our side. Dr Sudhakar is in Mumbai and will be returning to Bengaluru on Friday morning. You also go to Mumbai and be there for three days. Shivanagouda: Our sir is very good and has not done injustice to anyone. You don't bother about anything. BSY: We will take care of your election expenses. You just go to Mumbai tomorrow evening. As of now, we have ten MLAs on our side and it will become eleven once you come with us. Shivanagouda: you know well that Siddaramaiah is a casteist, don't you feel our community leader (Lingayat) should become the CM. Sharan: Sir, my only worry is that our condition should not become like that of Shivanagouda. This is my only worry. Shivanagouda: My case is totally different from yours. Sir is taking full responsibility. He readily signed when I had taken a proposal for the appointment of political secretaries. You don't worry, we will carry out the constituency improvement on your behalf. We will not only make you win but also a minister as you have a bright political future. Sir, I want you to treat Sharan just like your two sons-Raghavendra and Vijayendra. BSY: You tell and convince your father to resign. Sharan: Sir, I heard a meeting of JD(S) has been convened at 9:30 am tomorrow and my father has already left. BSY: Let him attend. You come with us. Sharan: But sir..this is the strong fortress of the Congress party. I need your blessings fully sir. Shivanagouda: It's a punya that you will become a minister at a young age. BSY: I will make all those 12 MLAs who are coming with us ministers. I will give you Rs 25 crore and you go to Mumbai tomorrow. Shivanagouda: If you have faith in Sahebaru, he will do everything for you. You take the money and go to Mumbai. BSY: Don't tell anything to your father now. Later, you can convince him. You will contest the next election from your father's constituency. Sharan: Sir I heard that notices and whip are being issued to all MLAs.... BSY: You don't bother about notices and the whip which don't have any value. Ok, you can ask you father once before finalising things. We will fix Karnataka Legislative Assembly Speaker Ramesh Kumar for Rs 50 crore. If a problem arises, our PM Modi and Mr Amit Shah will manage judges also. Even if the Speaker does something, we will manage the judges. Sharan: Sir, we belong to a middle class family and our ancestors have earned a good name in the district. Who else from JD(S) is coming to BJP? BSY: K R Pet Janata Dal (Secular) MLA Narayanagowda is with us. He has sent a video on WhatsApp to his party leaders that he is down with food poisoning. The JD(S) MLA will not be there and the coalition government is going to fall. Shivanagouda: You will not only create a record of becoming a minister at 30 years but you will also be given money. There is no political future in JD(S) but you have a future in BJP. New Delhi: In a strong oral observation, the Supreme Court on Friday said BSP chief Mayawati should deposit public money used for erecting statues of herself and elephants, the partys symbol, at public places in Uttar Pradesh to the state exchequer. The remarks were made by the apex court which was hearing a petition filed in 2009 by an advocate who had alleged that about Rs 2,000 crore were used from the state budget for 2008-09 and 2009-10, when Mayawati was the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, for installing her statues and BSPs symbol at various places. It was contended that public money cannot be utilised for creating own statues and for propagating political party. On May 29, 2009 the court had issued show cause notice to the Uttar Pradesh government and Mayawati for using the public money for installing her statues and party's symbol at parks in Lucknow and Noida, adjacent to the national capital. When the matter came up for hearing on Friday, a bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said: Ms Mayawati, pay all the money back. We are of the view that Mayawati should reimburse all the money she spent. The bench, also comprising justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjeev Khanna said: We are of the tentative view that Mayawati has to deposit the public money spent on her statues and party symbol to the state exchequer. The bench made it clear that a tentative view was expressed by it as the matter would take some time for hearing. We will have it for final disposal on April 2, the bench said. The Congress and the opposition have been attacking the government on the issue of not taking a sovereign guarantee from the French side. (Photo: ANI) New Delhi: At a time when the government is facing backlash for not getting sovereign guarantee from France in the Rafale jet deal, it is emerging that the then French prime minister had written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying that their government would fully back the obligations made by their firms in the contract. "I hereby confirm that the government of the French republic is fully committed in doing whatever is necessary to make sure that Dassault Aviation and MBDA of France, each in their own respect, do their utmost to fully respect their obligations in accordance with aforesaid inter-governmental agreement and annexed supporting protocols," said the letter in possession of ANI. The letter was written by the then French Prime Minister Manuel Valls on September 8, 2016. "The contacts between our two governments defined in particular the terms of the inter-governmental agreement which determines to our mutual satisfaction the framework and modalities of our respective commitments," the French prime minister said. The Congress and the opposition have been attacking the government on the issue of not taking a sovereign guarantee from the French side. A document has also been cited in media reports which suggested that some members of the negotiating team had expressed reservations on the issue in writing. "As agreed between our negotiating teams and then between our two defence ministers, I wish to specify the full extent of the French government's commitments particularly in respect of the execution of the French industrialists' obligations," the French prime minister had stated. The deal was signed in September 2016 in which India agreed to pay more than Rs 59,000 crore for 36 Rafale combat aircraft. He said the legislators Ramesh Jarakiholi, Mahesh Kumtalli, Nagendra, Umesh Jadhav and Ganesh JN were absent from the CLP meet held in January this year. (Photo: ANI | Twitter) Bengaluru: Karnataka former chief minister and Congress leader Siddaramaiah on Friday called for the suspension of four dissenting legislators of the party under the anti-defection law. "I have issued notice and whips, three times, to them to participate in the budget session and the CLP meeting and the honourable Speaker should take legal action against them," former Chief Minister and senior Congress leader said at a press conference here. He added, "All four dissenting lawmakers wrote a letter to me in which they said that they can't come before February 15. I have already given sufficient opportunity to them. Now, the unanimous decision of the party is to proceed with a legal action against all four of them under the anti-defection law." He said the legislators Ramesh Jarakiholi, Mahesh Kumtalli, Nagendra, Umesh Jadhav and Ganesh JN were absent from the CLP meet held in January this year. Earlier in the day, Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy removed one of the four dissenting Congress MLA Umesh Jadhav from the post of the chairman of the Warehouse Corporation and replaced him with Pratap Gowda Patil. On Wednesday, Siddaramaiah issued another notice to the four dissenting party MLAs seeking an explanation before or after the Assembly Session. Earlier in January, he had served notices to the four legislators who did not turn up at a Congress legislature party meeting in Bengaluru. The four Karnataka Congress MLAs on January 18 abstained from the CLP meeting, which decided to move rest of the 76 legislators to a resort. The meeting was convened by the party to assess whether its flock was intact amid speculation that some of the party MLAs had switched over to the BJP. Prime Minister said it was for the first time that a chief minister had staged a dharna to protect the fraudsters who looted lakhs of poor people. (Photo: ANI | Twitter) Churabhandar: Prime Minister Narendra Modi Friday launched a scathing attack on the Mamata Banerjee government, claiming it had defamed the soil of West Bengal and rendered its people helpless. Addressing a well-attended BJP rally here in North Bengal's Jalpaiguri district, Modi said it was an "extortionist syndicate" and not 'Didi', as Banerjee is fondly called, that was running the state. "Those who got power in Bengal in the name of 'Maa, Maati, Manush' after unseating the Left have also adopted the culture of violence. They have defamed the soil of Bengal and rendered its people helpless," Modi said attacking TMC government. Assailing Banerjee for the sit-in she staged against the attempted questioning of Kolkata police commissioner Rajeev Kumar by the CBI in the Saradha chit fund scam case, the prime minister said it was for the first time that a chief minister had staged a dharna to protect the fraudsters who looted lakhs of poor people. "This chowkidar will spare neither the perpetrators of chit fund scams nor those protecting them," he asserted. Striking an emotional chord with the locals at his hugely attended public meeting here at Mainaguri on Friday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, You people grow tea...I make tea. And I wonder why Didi (Mamata Banerjee) is not fond of chaiwallahs. In an apparent reference to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, an upbeat Prime Minister Modi also said, Come to Jalpaiguri and see the support for BJP. "TMC is the Communist part two, he said. Prime Minister Modi, who was speaking after inaugurating the new High Court circuit bench in Jalpaiguri, said, Congress, Trinamool Congress or Left is not concerned about the peoples welfare. All the facilities provided to the people of Bengal are being facilitated by the Central government. Stating that Jalpaiguri circuit bench of Calcutta High Court would benefit the local population, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, Brothers and sisters, 20 years ago this project was initiated but your demand for ages has finally been fulfilled today. Now the people of Jalpaiguri will get justice in Jalpaiguri itself. They wont have to go to Calcutta High Court for legal help. You will now get those facilities right here only, he said. Prime Minister Narendra on Friday also laid the foundation stone for the four-laning of the FalakataSalsalabari section of NH-31 D. This 41.7-km long section of the national highway will be constructed at a cost of about Rs 1,938 crore within 2.5 years. Prime Minister Modi also paid homage to Rajbanshi reformer Panchanan Verma and Nepali poet Bhanu Bhakt and then mentioned how this NH upgradation project will make travel easier. Talking about law and order situation in north Bengal, Prime Minister Modi said: The law and order situation here has worsened over the years. Youths are migrating due to rising unemployment. Industries were not developed, and projects are stalled. All this doesnt bother the government of West Bengal, he said. (Photo: ANI | Twitter)Sitharaman also objected to the 'language' used by Gandhi. 'I honestly expected more from the Congress party,' she said. (Photo: ANI | Twitter) New Delhi: Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday launched a counter-attack on Congress chief Rahul Gandhi over the Rafale deal. Sitharaman said raising the Rafale deal issue on the basis of a media report is flogging a dead horse. She questioned Rahul Gandhi over his criticism that the Prime Minister diverted Rs 30,000crore to his industrialist friend Anil Ambani which could have been used for defence forces. Sitharaman said, It is very dangerousIs he trying to provoke the defence forces? Earlier, the defence minister defended the Rafale deal in Lok Sabha, where she made a statement after the opposition members disrupted the proceedings in the house and demanded clarification from the government over The Hindu report. The media report claimed that at height of the Rafale negotiation, ministry officials objected to parallel parleys by the PMO with the French authorities. In a press conference on Friday, Rahul Gandhi read out portions from the report and said the report has confirmed what we have been saying for a year. Gandhi said it is crystal clear that PM Modi bypassed the defence ministry in signing Rafale deal. Gandhi repeated his charge against PM Modi saying, Chowkidar chor hai (the watchman is a thief. In her response, Sitharaman also objected to the language used by Gandhi. I honestly expected more from the Congress party, she said. The defence minister also questioned the journalistic ethics of the newspaper that published a defence ministry note selectively. Sitharaman said, Then Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar ji replied to that MoD note that remain calm. There is nothing to worry about. Everything is going alright. Now, do you call the NAC (the national advisory council during the Manmohan Singh government) led by Sonia Gandhi as interference in earlier the PMO? What was that? Responding to the defence ministers reply in the Lok Sabha, Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge said, We demand a joint parliamentary committee, everything will be revealed then, we dont want any explanation now, have heard many explanations, from PM also, he said. The Hindu report has created fresh controversy over Rafale deal as it claimed that senior defence ministry officials objected to what they termed parallel parleys by the PMO officials with the French authorities while the Indian Negotiating Team was handling the talks for procuring fighter jets for the Indian Air Force. The deal was signed between India and France at the inter-governmental level in 2016 for the purchase of 36 fighter jets. The controversial Rafale deal was announced in 2016 after PM Modis talks with then French president Francois Hollande. (Representational Image) New Delhi: According to 2015 note accessed by The Hindu, the Defence Ministry expressed strong reservations to the parallel negotiations conducted by the Prime Ministers Office with France on Rafale fighter jet deal. The note provides information to the opposition which has attacked government, accusing PM Modi of signing an overpriced deal for 36 Rafale jets to help journalist Anil Ambani. The note, dated November 24 2015 was reportedly brought to the attention of then Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar. Parrikar said the position taken by the PMO was contradictory to the stand taken by Defence Ministry and the negotiating team. Then Defence Secretary G Mohan Kumar had prepared the note which further states that it is desirable that such discussions be avoided by the PMO as it undermines our negotiating position seriously. It continues to state that we may advise PMO that any Officers who are not part of Indian Negotiating Team may refrain from having parallel parlays [parleys] with the officers of French Government. Congress president Rahul Gandhi has repeatedly targeted PM Modi over the claims about the defence ministrys objection to the Rafale deal. "Congress President @RahulGandhi had a simple question for you in Parliament Modiji, you chickened out and didn't answer, did the defence ministry oppose your Rafale deal? Looks like we have the answer now... ," the Congress tweeted on Friday, citing The Hindu report. Congress President @RahulGandhi had a simple question for you in Parliament Modiji, you chickened out and didnt answer, did the defence ministry oppose your Rafale deal? Looks like we have the answer now...https://t.co/B8gj9PJNQe#PakdaGayaModi Congress (@INCIndia) February 8, 2019 The controversial Rafale deal was announced in 2016 after PM Modis talks with then French president Francois Hollande. The opposition claims that the government had finalised an overpriced deal to benefit Anil Ambani, whose firm Reliance Defence was recommended as an offset partner for Dassault despite lacking experience. Dassault is the company manufacturing the Rafale aircraft. However, both Dassault and the government have denied the allegations. The allegations were strengthened after Francois Hollande, in an interview last year, said that France had no role in the selection of Anil Ambani's company for the offset clause. Mumbai: A.R. Rahman recently attended the 10-year celebration of Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire in Mumbai with the entire cast and crew of the film. At the event, Rahmans daughter Khatija who works for the poor through A.R. Rahman Foundation made an emotional speech hailing her dad for not just being a musical icon, but for being a humble human being and an amazing father and the values he taught them. She had worn a saree with a hijab and people started trolling Rahman alleging he had forced his daughter to wear the veil. Khatijas response to the trolls was cool. She asked those who trolled her dad not to judge people without understanding the exact situation. She wrote on her FB post: There were certain comments, which said that this attire is being forced by my dad and that he has double standards. I would like to say that the attire I wear or the choices I make in my life do not have anything to do with my parents. The veil has been my personal choice with complete acceptance and honour. Im a sane mature adult who knows to make my choices in life. Hence, kindly dont make your own judgements without understanding the exact situation. #freedomofchoice (sic). During the press conference, Ball also expressed support for measures filed in the by state lawmakers representing Howard County. Del. Courtney Watson, a Democrat who represents the historic community, filed a bill that would reboot the states Comprehensive Flood Management Grant Program, which could result in long-term funding to mitigate flooding in the town. Sen. Katie Fry Hester, a Democrat who represents Howard and Carroll counties, crossfiled a bill in the Senate. Currently, under the Companies Act, the entities are required to file an annual secretarial audit report by practising company secretaries. (photo: File) New Delhi: Markets regulator Sebi on Friday came out with the format for listed entities for preparing their annual secretarial audit and compliance reports. This would also be applicable for the "material unlisted subsidiaries" of the listed entities, the regulator said in a circular. Coming out with the circular regarding format for "annual secretarial audit report and annual secretarial compliance report for listed entities and their material subsidiaries," Sebi said the compliance report should be submitted to the exchanges within 60 days of the end of a financial year. Currently, under the Companies Act, the entities are required to file an annual secretarial audit report by practising company secretaries. The annual secretarial audit reports are meant to keep a tab on entities regarding compliance with applicable laws. The listed entities and their material subsidiaries would have to provide relevant documents and information to the practising company secretary in order to obtain the certification. "The ICSI (Institute of Company Secretaries of India) may consider issuing a guidance note to practising company secretaries to enable them to undertake certifications in accordance with the regulations and this circular in letter and in spirit," the watchdog said. As per Sebi norms, every listed entity and its material unlisted subsidiaries incorporated in the country should undertake secretarial audit and shall annex with its annual report, a secretarial audit report, with effect from the year ended March 31, 2019. The per capita income of the state has increased from Rs 1.03 lakh in 2011-12 to Rs 1.42 lakh in 2017-18 in real terms. Chennai: The Tamil Nadu government on Friday proposed no new taxes in the state budget for the financial year 2019-20 and an assurance that the revenue deficit will come down in the coming years. In the budget presented by Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam, who holds the Finance portfolio, the government proposed a revenue deficit estimated at around Rs 14,300 crore. Despite the 'adverse' impact of 'reduced' inter-se share in devolution due to 14th Finance Commission recommendations, the state could implement the Ujjawal Discom Assurance Yojana (UDAY) scheme and pay revision, he said. The growth in State's Own Tax Revenue (SOTR) in 2017-18 was 9.07 per cent and this was expected to exceed 14 per cent during the current fiscal. "Due to the positive trends in tax receipts, the revenue deficit for the year 2019-20 is expected to come down to Rs 14,315 crore as against the projected revenue deficit of Rs 19,319 crore in Revised Estimates 2018-19," he said. "With higher SOTR growth, coupled with the phasing out of the impact of UDAY and pay revision, the state expects to bring down the revenue deficit in the coming years," Panneerselvam said. The per capita income of the state has increased from Rs 1.03 lakh in 2011-12 to Rs 1.42 lakh in 2017-18 in real terms, he added. The government also announced a number of initiatives in various sectors including implementing a Rs 2,000 crore comprehensive parking management project in Chennai city. It will have underground parking facilities, multilevel parking facilities and on-lane smart parking to accommodate two lakh four-wheelers and an equal number of two-wheelers, Panneerselvam said. The government will take up construction of one lakh concrete houses to replace huts damaged in the Gaja cyclone in November last year, at an estimated Rs 1,700 crore with a central share of Rs 720 crore. For the farm sector, the government said it will during 2019-20, notify more crops and expand the coverage under crop insurance. "Further, cloud burst and natural fire will also be included in localised calamities in addition to hailstorm, landslide and inundation," among others, Panneerselvam said. On the ambitious Athikadavu-Avinashi water scheme, he said the government will commence it "soon," adding, a sum of Rs 1,000 crore has been provided in the next year's Budget estimates for the purpose. A comprehensive solid waste management project and a housing scheme for urban poor to construct 38,000 tenements for Chennai were also proposed by Panneerselvam. On the energy front, the state-run TANGEDCO will be establishing floating solar power projects in Theni, Salem and Erdoe with a capacity of 250 MW at an estimated Rs 1,125 crore, he said. The recently unveiled Tamil Nadu Solar Energy Policy 2019 will increase the solar power generation capacity to 9,000 MW by 2023, the deputy chief minister said. Touching upon the Chennai Metro Rail, he said Phase-I of the project covering two corridors running to 45 km will be fully commissioned by this month while its extension was expected to be on stream next June. Feasibility study was being taken up for the extension of Metro rail line from Meenambakkam Airport to Kilambakkam metro bus terminus in the southern suburbs, he added. In the tourism sector, the government will launch a 'massive' promotion project by identifying specific circuits for western, Asian and domestic tourists with quality amenities and infrastructure. Tourism-centric infrastructure like logistics and hotels will be upgraded under the Private-Public-Partnership mode, Panneerselvam informed. Talking about liquor sales, Panneerselvam mentioned that the number of retail Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IFML) shops run by Tamil Nadu Marketing State Marketing Corporation (TASMAC) has been reduced from 7,896 to 5,198. It may be recalled that closure of liquor shops in a phased manner was the AIADMK's poll promise in the 2016 Assembly elections. Incidentally, sale of liquor through such state-run outlets is a huge revenue grosser for the government. The government will procure 2,000 new electric buses, besides 12,000 new BS-VI vehicles, at an outlay of Rs 5,890 crore with KfW loan assistance, he said. The government will introduce 2,000 BS-VI buses in the state, besides rolling out 500 electric vehicles in Chennai, Coimbatore and Madurai, in the first phase. The third quarter showed a slowdown in exports but the secretary attributed it to the global prices. (Photo: Pixabay) Mumbai: The government on Friday expressed hope that it would be able to sign a free trade agreement with the European Union (EU) in the "foreseeable future". "We will find the necessary balance between ambition and sensitivity in the foreseeable future to have trade agreements with various countries including the EU...The FTA will happen soon I am sure," Commerce Secretary Anup Wadhawan said on the sidelines of the National standards conclave organised by the commerce ministry and CII. Asked if auto is the only concern, he declined to elaborate but said that auto component is one of the few sectors something which is at the cutting edge of global standard and "we have to virtual find a way forward." He also added that the EU has expressed some concerns about India's service sector. Wadhawan seemed optimistic about India surpassing the export level that had peaked during 2013-14. "We will reach a peak level this year. Our exports had peaked at USD 314 billion in 2013-14 and I think we will go past that peak," he said. In 2013-14, the country's merchandise exports touched USD 314.4 billion level. After that, exports came under immense pressure again due to global slowdown. On the agriculture exports showing inactivity, he said, "food exports stagnated a bit because of price issues. Global commodity prices have fallen but the volumes have not come down. The quantities are still rising. We export over USD 40 billion worth of agriculture products. We are the largest exporters of rice in the world." The third quarter showed a slowdown in exports but the secretary attributed it to the global prices. "Petroleum prices are coming down. Our exports are 15 per cent petroleum products and that 15 per cent is lagging. Agriculture commodity prices have come down worldwide and agriculture export is about USD 40 billion out of over USD 300 billion. So all the pressures are there and the global slowdown is coming so that will obviously have its effect," he said. He added that certain categories like grapes have recorded a huge jump on the back of the trade war between China and US. Asked how free trade and opening up of borders would materialise in future when global giants US and China are at loggerheads, he said,"I am sure better sense will prevail at a global level and countries will not destabilise the WTO." It is a very very useful framework, a very useful set of rules which brings some order and predictability to global trade, so I am sure the world community and the community of nations will not allow the WTO to be disrupted, he said. New Delhi: The Anil Ambani-led Reliance Group on Friday accused L&T and Edelweiss entities of "illegal" and "motivated" actions in invoking the pledged shares and selling them in open market, leading to steep declines in the share value of group firms. Both L&T Finance and Edelweiss Group refuted the allegations by the Reliance Group. A few Non-Banking Finance Companies, "substantially L&T Finance and certain entities of Edelweiss Group, have invoked pledge of listed shares of Reliance Group and made open market sales of the value of approximately Rs 400 crore from February 4 to 7, the group said in a statement. It was not clear who had pledged the shares. The illegal, motivated and wholly unjustified action by the above two groups has precipitated a fall of Rs 13,000 crore, an unprecedented nearly 55 per cent, in market capitalisation of Reliance Group over just these four short days, it noted. In that period, shares of Reliance Power plunged 62.1 per cent, while those of Reliance Infrastructure dropped 58.6 per cent, and Reliance Capital fell 38.6 per cent. The Reliance Group said the actions have caused substantial losses to 72 lakh institutional and retail shareholders, and harming the interests of all stakeholders. Citing legal advice, the group also said the purported exercise of rights to enforce the security is illegal and excessive, and against the process and requirements of the respective borrowings' documentation. "The manner of conduct of the above open market sales... is also illegal on several counts, including amongst others, price manipulation, insider trading, front running and market abuse, and is in violation of various regulatory provisions...," said the statement issued during market hours. Further, the group said that Reliance Capital, Reliance Infrastructure and Reliance Power as well as their various subsidiaries are performing satisfactorily on all operating parameters, and there is no change whatsoever on any aspect as compared to the position prevailing prior to these sales. Refuting the allegations, L&T Finance said it had granted loans against pledge of shares to Reliance ADAG Group companies. "As per loan and pledge agreements, borrower did not cure various events of defaults including providing margin for shortfall in the stipulated security cover. "Despite various notices in the past few months, events of defaults continued. Consequently, L&T Finance enforced its rights of invocation and sold pledged shares to the extent of its outstanding dues by following the due process of contract and law," it said in a statement. While noting that the allegations as "unfounded, baseless and false", Edelweiss Group said it had granted credit facilities against pledge of shares to Reliance ADAG Group. Edelweiss Group said it has reached out numerous times to Reliance ADAG Group to address concerns on shortfall in margins and resultant fall in collateral valuation. "Despite our best efforts, not only did Reliance ADAG Group fail to address any of the concerns raised by Edelweiss Group, but also continued to breach contractual obligations," it said in a separate statement. On February 4, there was a sharp drop in the prices of Reliance ADAG group shares, which led to further erosion in the collateral value, Edelweiss said, adding that it also gave due opportunity for remediation. Since there was no response from Reliance ADAG Group, it necessitated liquidation of the collateral as per the agreed contractual terms. Throughout this process, Edelweiss has acted in a lawful and responsible manner, it added. The group also said that plans by RCom to resolve its debt through the National Company Law Tribunal had no adverse impact on the three companies in question. RComs stock has dropped 55.2 per cent since it announced its plan. (With inputs from agencies) The move will help Reliance to unlock value in the assets and reduce debt, Srikanth said. Mumbai: Canadian private equity firm Brookfield Asset Management is in preliminary talks with Indias Reliance Industries to buy a stake in its optical fibre and telecom tower assets, The Times of India newspaper reported on Friday. Reliance Industries Ltd said in December it planned to separate its fibre and tower business from its telecom arm Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd, commonly known as Jio. The end objective of that is to find a different set of investors who would be wanting to run these kind of assets, V Srikanth, joint chief financial officer of Reliance Industries said in January at the companys quarterly results announcement. The move will help Reliance to unlock value in the assets and reduce debt, he said. While Srikanth declined to mention the number of towers the company has, or the reach and length of the fibre optic infrastructure, the company had said earlier it wanted to cover 99 per cent of Indias population by the end of December 2019 with its telecom service. The value of the assets is expected to be around USD 15 billion, the newspaper said, without citing its sources. Reliance and Brookfield did not reply to emails seeking comment. Jio, which has absorbed USD 40 billion of Reliances capital expenditure (capex) in the last five years, has around USD 25 billion of debt and has been instrumental in turning Indias most valuable energy company into a position of net debt. Analysts at foreign broking firm CLSA have said that since a big chunk of Jios capex has been put towards building its tower and fibre infrastructure, a potential sale of the assets could reduce the telecom firms debt substantially. Since its launch in September 2016, Jio, billionaire Mukesh Ambanis most ambitious venture, has upended the telecom sector in India with cut price data and free voice calls. The entry of Jio has pushed all telecom companies into losses or forced consolidation. Last year, newspapers reported that Brookfield was also in talks to acquire a natural gas pipeline owned by a personal investment vehicle of Mukesh Ambani. Thank you for reading! Please purchase a subscription to read our premium content. If you have a subscription and are still unable to access our content, please link your digital account to your print subscription If you have a subscription, please log in or sign up for an account on our website to continue. Third-year Dal Kinesiology student Fola Akpan got her first taste of applied research last summer working on a project of increasing relevance in these tech-obsessed times: the phenomenon of text neck. Folas research, which she was able to pursue as the recipient of a Summer Student Research Scholarship from Imhoteps Legacy Academy (ILA), centred specifically around identifying ways to test a device designed to help alleviate the negative physical effects of cell phone use on the neck by improving posture. In addition to generating useful data for the Cape Breton company behind the apparatus, the project also provided the 20-year-old with a crash course in engineering and what its like to work on multidisciplinary research. I think my most valuable experience from that was actually communicating with people who were not in the health professions, says Fola, who worked on the project with an Engineering student. Engineers think a whole lot differently than kinesiologists. This weekend, Fola joins friends, students and other researchers of African descent on campus for the first annual Black Research Symposium, where shell do a poster presentation based on the project. Organized by a handful of student and advocacy organizations, including Dal's own PLANS (Promoting Leadership in health for African Nova Scotians), the two-day event aims to encourage more current Black students to pursue graduate studies by showcasing Black scholarship and research from various disciplines. Sometimes its not common that you see other Black academics and scholars, so Im really looking forward to meeting with them and talking with them, says Fola. Sharing experiences The symposium will feature a professional network night Friday, Feb. 9, which includes remarks from Ivan Joseph, Dals vice provost of student affairs. The following day includes guest speakers, poster presentations (including Folas) and a 3 Minute Thesis style segment. Fola says shes also looking forward to hearing more about their experiences in the research world. One of the really important things about the symposium is not just hey, this is research done by a Black person, but also what was their experience within that research environment? Folas own foray into research followed an independent study and literature review with Janice Moreside, a researcher in the School of Health and Human Performance. Overall, she says it sparked an interest in doing further research and in learning more about engineering, the field her own father has made a career in. She has since attended a biomechanics conference, taken a course on ergonomics alongside industrial engineering students, and developed an appreciation for how much I dont know. From home school to the lab Born and raised in Halifax, Fola is the daughter of Nigerian immigrants who came to Nova Scotia more than 20 years ago. She first took an interest in health-related topics when she was 15, an enthusiasm her parents encouraged at home school. My parents prepared me very well for university life, so its been a pretty smooth transition, she says, noting she was home schooled from primary all the way through Grade 12. Her involvement with Imhoteps Legacy Academy began in her first year at Dal when she took on a role making science projects for use in programming aimed at interesting junior high and high school kids of African descent in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields. And this year she took on the role of president of Imhoteps Learning Community, a new branch of the group for current Dal students that holds educational and de-stressing events. As Fola looks ahead to her final year, she says she plans on doing her honours and on continuing her research on neck-related issues only this time with an eye to another tech topic: virtual reality. The idea right now, still in its infancy, is looking at elderly adults and using VR as a way to increase their mobility, she says. The Black Research Symposium takes place at Dalhousie this Friday, Feb. 8 and Saturday, Feb. 9, at Dalhousie. For more information, visit the PLANS event page. Ebersole, a former Howard County high school math teacher, said that while the first days of school are the most exciting, they also show learning gaps that some students may have acquired over the summer from forgetting material. Ebersole said that at the beginning of each school year, he often had to do some remedial work with students to refresh their memories and skills before moving on to new topics. The burglary occurred on Wednesday early in the morning about 2 a.m. when two unknown males entered the church in the 100 block of W. Bel Air Avenue, according to police. APG pursues these and other environmental initiatives because we are dedicated to being good neighbors to the communities that support our mission. I am proud of Harford Countys shared commitment to stewardship of our environment, including efforts like the city of Aberdeens annual Earth Day celebration in April. These engagements show you do not have to be the president to make a positive impact. I am confident that by working together, we can continue to improve the health of the land and bay that give our region its rich identity and vitality. Hong Kong: Trademark law amendment gazetted The Trade Marks (Amendment) Bill 2019 was gazetted today. The bill seeks to amend the Trade Marks Ordinance to implement the international registration system under the Protocol Relating to the Madrid Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Marks upon its application to Hong Kong. The Madrid Protocol provides a mechanism for seeking registration of a trademark in the register of the International Bureau of the World Intellectual Property Organization. It also provides a mechanism for seeking extension of protection for such a trademark in multiple jurisdictions by a one-stop application process. The Government said the implementation of the protocol will save businesses time and cost in obtaining and managing international trademark registrations. Its implementation is in line with the Governments commitment to enhance Hong Kongs intellectual property regime, it added. The Madrid Protocol has 103 contracting parties including China and many other major trading partners of Hong Kong, but it has yet to apply to the city. The bill will be introduced into the Legislative Council on February 20. This story has been published on: 2019-02-08. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. Remember the little white baby seals brutally clubbed in the head defenseless victims of mans avarice. What an uproar was heard across the planet. Is the brutal death of viable pregnancies any less inhuman? Have we become so desensitized to the suffering of the defenseless that we can find an excuse in legislation to end the life of an baby human without regard for their precious life and considering only that of the mother? Thats why, for all but the shocked interloper from the suburbs, the new report from the Urban Institute on racial disparities in neighborhood investment came as no surprise. The report found that investment is unevenly split by race, income and geography across the city. Most of Baltimores building, rehabbing and demolition goes on in whiter, better-off neighborhoods. There were also more loans for residential developers and property owners in those neighborhoods, and more lending for commercial development in places already on the rise. Whats more, data analysis by the Baltimore Business Journal last year found that African-Americans in the Baltimore area were twice as likely as their white counterparts to be denied a home mortgage by a bank. Also last year, the Johns Hopkins 21st Century Cities Initiative found that small-business lending in the city had dropped by 32 percent between 2007 and 2016 a time when banks nearly doubled their deposits in the city, reaching $26.5 billion. Tuggles comments build on a picture of the department that emerged at a City Council hearing Wednesday night. Police commanders say theyre not only struggling to field enough officers on patrol a long-acknowledged problem but also have too few detectives to investigate shootings, robberies and homicides. Units that battle corruption and misconduct are overburdened, and the departments lack of background investigators is hampering its efforts to get out of the hole. Virginia's three top elected officials are not putting the interests of their constituents ahead of their own political interests. Gov. Ralph Northam and Attorney General Mark Herring have both admitted to acting, as young men, in ways that were at best racially insensitive, at worst disturbingly racist. Both are now interested in holding conversations about race. Both have been apologetic and expressed regret and anguish. But neither had shared with their fellow Virginians a word about their unsavory personal behavior until it threatened their own political prospects. Profiles in courage these are not. Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax faces a different challenge. Vanessa Tyson, a professor at Scripps College in California, has alleged that Fairfax sexually assaulted her in a Boston hotel room in 2004. Her claims are detailed and deserve to be treated seriously and respectfully. Fairfax, who was unmarried at the time, acknowledges a sexual encounter, but says it was consensual. His account deserves a fair and impartial hearing, too. The accumulated impact of these rapidly converging and evolving stories has been to leave most Virginians stunned and embarrassed. The state's reputation as well-governed and business-friendly is at risk. The White House announced that Monday was Child Tax Credit Awareness Day in an effort to make sure families know about the expanded tax credit and how to apply. Herring, who is second in line to become governor, on Saturday called for Northam to resign and signaled his strong support for Fairfax. On Wednesday morning, Herring became embroiled in a scandal of his own after he acknowledged he wore blackface to dress as a rapper while at the University of Virginia. The attorney general said he would think over his future and whether he can remain in office, but no elected Democrats have gone so far as to call for his resignation. With Northam and Herring showing no signs of stepping down, Fairfax, the lone African-American elected to statewide office, finds himself in a worsening situation that has created an uneasy situation for Democrats who have adopted believe survivors as a mantra for the #MeToo movement. A Duke classmate of Watson, Kaneedreck Adams, told The Washington Post in a story published Friday evening that Watson came to her crying in the spring of 2000. Adams, according to the Post, lived across from Watson in on-campus apartments while they attended Duke University. She was upset, Adams told the Post. She told me she had been raped and she named Justin. Adams told the Post that both women were friends with Fairfax and that the alleged attack happened at a fraternity house. Last night we became aware that a racist yearbook image had been shared on social media The image that was shared from the yearbook is repulsive to us. Images of this sort and the behavior and attitudes they represent, are appalling and antithetical to the values of the University today. No one should have to experience the pain caused by such vile images, or evidence of such behavior, either at the time the incident occurs or thereafter. Such images reflect a past that must be reconciled and understood. We do not intend to forget or erase those moments. Rather, we must examine and understand our history so that we may become the more inclusive community we aspire to be. The nine Democrats in Virginia's congressional delegation, each of whom previously called for Northam's resignation, said in a joint statement Thursday night that "Virginians' faith in their government and leaders has understandably been deeply shaken," but they did not call for Herring or Fairfax to step down. Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine and the seven Democrats in the state's U.S. House delegation said in the statement that Herring "has earnestly reached out to each of us to apologize and express remorse" and that Herring is holding "in-depth discussions with leaders and others" in Virginia. "The attorney general must continue those conversations, and stand ready to answer questions from the public if he is to regain their trust," the Democrats said. The congressional Democrats said they "are deeply disturbed" by the allegations against Fairfax, adding: "We believe these allegations need to be taken very seriously, and we respect the right of women to come forward and be heard." The congressional Democrats' statement was similar to a new statement Thursday evening from the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, which renewed its call for Northam to resign, but did not urge Herring or Fairfax to step down. Ford, the author of Love and Other Consolation Prizes, Songs of Willow Frost, and Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet which won the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature is the son of a Chinese-American father, grew up in Seattle and now lives in Montana with his wife and children. When were reacting to blackface, were not reacting to the act. Were reacting to what the act represents. Sharpton did not call for Fairfax to resign, saying instead that both Fairfax and his accuser, Vanessa Tyson, should be heard. Northam originally apologized for appearing in a photo on his page in his 1984 medical school yearbook that showed one person in blackface and another in a Ku Klux Klan robe. He retracted his story the day after, saying it wasnt him in the photo, but he admitted to a separate instance that same year in which he darkened his face and dressed up like Michael Jackson for a dance contest in Texas. Whether you blackfaced in Virginia or blackfaced in San Antonio, you are a blackface user, Sharpton said. Hes got to deal with how he dealt with this and I think that is part of what added insult to injury. Sharpton said he hadnt met with Northam, Fairfax or Herring since the start of the scandals. The governor isnt the only elected leader he wants gone. He also called for Herring, who apologized for his blackface use, to step down. Forgiveness without a price is not forgiveness - its a pass, Sharpton said. That part of the cultural equation was lost, he said. We cant say whos who; we were erased. Weve been subject to segregation to the point that we were confined to reservations. Our own ancestors were forced to attend boarding schools, including my own ancestors, in Virginia. Why is that not important to the segregation commission? Kirt von Daacke, a co-chair of the commission, said that while it is an important question, the commission hasnt yet had a chance to narrow its scope and define what it will research. He said the commission is aware of other groups as well, such as international medical students who had unclear status and situations during segregation. As we get into the research project and delve into the history, were going to be very willing to talk about whatever we find, he said. And to the larger question of will we be examining other issues [beyond Jim Crow and segregation of African-Americans], absolutely, yes. We want to look at the Racial Integrity Acts, and absolutely look into who was written out of whiteness and blackness. Charlottesville police officers were called to the city Commonwealths Attorneys Office on Thursday morning after reports that City Council candidate John Hall was being verbally aggressive, according to a news release. Hall, who is running as an independent, wasnt present when officers arrived about 9 a.m. No charges are being filed. Hall couldnt be reached for comment. Commonwealths Attorney Joe Platania declined comment. Hall previously was banned from City Hall, the University of Virginia and Albemarle County Public Schools. He also has been convicted of trespassing several times, as well as other misdemeanor charges. Hall, 67, was banned from city-owned facilities without making a prior appointment in 2008 by then-City Manager Gary OConnell. The rules were relaxed in 2013, with Hall needing permission from the mayor to attend City Council meetings. Mayor Nikuyah Walker has said the ban on Hall attending council meetings is no longer in effect. City spokesman Brian Wheeler said Thursdays incident does not affect Halls access to City Hall. A fourth man charged in the Aug. 12, 2017, beating of DeAndre Harris entered an Alford plea to a malicious wounding charge in Charlottesville Circuit Court on Friday. In entering the plea, Tyler Watkins Davis, 50, of Florida, did not admit guilt but acknowledged that the prosecution had enough evidence to convict him. Davis disputed that he was acting with malice when he struck Harris in the Market Street Parking Garage. Davis was the most recent of the four men to be charged and will be the last to be sentenced. According to Nina-Alice Antony, Charlottesville assistant commonwealths attorney, Davis can be seen on video evidence striking Harris once in the head with a tire thumper. Antony said the area on Harris head where it appears the thumper struck is consistent with a head wound he sustained that required stitches. Because Davis used a weapon to strike Harris in the head, Antony said the commonwealth believes he acted with malice. Per 5th District Democratic Committee rules, campaign staffers are not allowed to campaign on the floor during caucuses. Alcorn said one of Cockburns staffers, whom she identified as being African-American, had been reprimanded twice for breaking the rule. Following the Greene caucus, Alcorn announced her resignation and condemned the actions of Cockburn, who she claimed campaigned unfairly and used intimidation tactics. Cockburn lost the election to Republican Denver Riggleman. For a candidate of my party to attack volunteers, calling them racist, including myself, when we are working our tails off to encourage voter participation by people of all color and ethnicities is something I cannot tolerate, Alcorn said in an email announcing her resignation. Cockburn met with the Greene County Democrats after Alcorns resignation and denied claims her staff broke caucus rules or harassed voters. Alcorn will formally kick off her campaign at 11 a.m. Feb. 18 at the Fluvanna County Public Library. Bell was first elected as the 58th District delegate in 2001. In 2017, Bell won 61 percent of the vote, defeating Democratic challenger Kellen Squire. Send news tips to news@dailyprogress.com, call (434) 978-7264, tweet us @DailyProgress or send us a Facebook message here. Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Another piece on the schedule requires a little bit of extra effort to hear it as the composer intended. Ralph Lewiss Drive to the Edge will be aired on UVas student radio station WXTJ with the intention of having listeners tune in on the very edges of the stations coverage area. The idea is that you hear the piece, but you also hear the scrambled garbage that happens when youre getting outside of how far the station can broadcast, Brown said. So right after the keynote speech, were all going to hop in a shuttle and listen together to how its all going to get messed up. One of the big draws for this years N_SEME is the keynote speech and performance by guest artist Aaron Dilloway. The Ohioan is one of the best known and most prolific experimental musicians in the world, both from his days as a member of the ensemble Wolf Eyes and through his solo recordings. On his own, his work (most of it released through his own label, Hanson Records) ranges wildly in sound from short bursts of noise to what sounds like a synthesizer stuck in an infinite time loop to ambient field recordings picked up during his travels. Zayo Group Holdings, Inc., through its subsidiaries, provides bandwidth infrastructure solutions for the communications industry in the United States, Canada, and Europe. The company operates in six segments: Fiber Solutions, Transport, Enterprise Networks, Zayo Colocation (zColo), Allstream, and Other. The Fiber Solutions segment provides dark fiber, and fiber-to-the-tower and small cell mobile infrastructure services for carriers and other communication service providers, Internet service providers, wireless service providers, media and content companies, large enterprises, and other companies. The Transport segment offers lit bandwidth infrastructure solutions comprising wavelength, Ethernet, wholesale IP services, and SONET services through its metro, regional, and long-haul fiber networks for carriers, content providers, financial services companies, healthcare, government entities, education institutions, and other medium and large enterprises. The Enterprise Networks segment provides connectivity and telecommunications solutions comprising Internet, wide area networking products, managed products, and cloud based computing and storage offerings to medium and large enterprises. The Zayo Colocation (zColo) segment offers data center infrastructure solutions consisting of colocation space, and power and interconnection services to a range of enterprise, carrier, cloud, and content customers. The Allstream segment provides cloud VoIP and data solutions, such as voice offerings; and unified communications, as well as telecommunications services, including Ethernet, and IP/MPLS VPN solutions. The Other segment provides network and technical resources to customers in designing, acquiring, and maintaining their networks. Zayo Group Holdings, Inc. was founded in 2007 and is headquartered in Boulder, Colorado. Read More It also encourages community leaders to assist victims in accessing the necessary resources for recovery, to develop a comprehensive response to dating violence, and to engage in discussions with adult and youth community members to promote awareness and prevention of the heinous and widespread crime of teen dating violence that affects members across communities, according to a media release. Banco Santander-Chile, together with its subsidiaries, provides commercial and retail banking products and services in Chile. It operates through Retail Banking, Middle-Market, and Corporate Investment Banking segments. The company offers debit and credit cards, checking accounts, and savings products; consumer, automobile, commercial, mortgage, and government-guaranteed loans; and Chilean peso and foreign currency denominated loans to finance various commercial transactions, trade, foreign currency forward contracts, and credit lines. It also provides mutual funds, insurance and stock brokerage, foreign exchange, leasing, factoring, financial consulting, investment management, foreign trade and mortgage financing, treasury, and transactional services, as well as specialized services to finance projects for the real estate industry. In addition, the company offers short-term financing and fund raising, and brokerage services, as well as derivatives, securitization, and other tailor-made products. It serves individuals, small to middle-sized entities, companies, and large corporations, as well as universities, government entities, and local and regional governments. As of December 31, 2020, the company operated 358 branches, which include 220 under the Santander brand name, 19 under the Select brand name, 32 specialized branches for the middle market, and 28 as auxiliary and payment centers, as well as 1,199 ATMs. Banco Santander-Chile was incorporated in 1977 and is headquartered in Santiago, Chile. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of Vodafone Group: 360 Connect S.A., [email protected] Telecom, A-ccelerator B.V., A-ccelerator Holding B.V, AAA (Euro) Limited, AAA (MCR) Limited, AAA (UK) Limited, Acorn Communications Limited, Africonnect (Zambia) Limited, Ag Mercantile Company Private Limited, Al-Amin Investments Limited, Amsterdamse Beheer- en Consultingmaatschappij B.V., Apollo Submarine Cable System Limited, Array Holdings Limited, Asian Telecommunication Investments (Mauritius) Limited, Aspective Limited, Astec Communications Limited, Autoconnex Limited, Aztec Limited, BelCompany BV, Bluefish Apac Communications Pte. Ltd, Bluefish Communications, Bluefish Communications Limited, Business Serve Limited, C&W Worldwide Nigeria Limited, C.S.P. Solutions Limited, CCII (Mauritius) Inc., CGP India Investments Ltd., CGP Investments (Holdings) Limited, COOP Mobil s.r.o, CT Networks Limited, CWGNL S.A., CWW Operations Limited, Cable & Wireless Access Limited, Cable & Wireless Americas Systems Inc., Cable & Wireless Aspac Holdings Limited, Cable & Wireless CIS Services Limited, Cable & Wireless CIS Svyaz LLC, Cable & Wireless Capital Limited , Cable & Wireless Communications Data Network Services Limited, Cable & Wireless Communications Starclass Limited, Cable & Wireless Communications Technical Service (Shanghai) Co. Ltd (Beijing Branch), Cable & Wireless Europe Holdings Limited, Cable & Wireless GN Limited, Cable & Wireless Global (India) Private Limited, Cable & Wireless Global Business Services Limited, Cable & Wireless Global Holding Limited, Cable & Wireless Global Telecommunication Services Limited, Cable & Wireless Holdco Limited, Cable & Wireless Networks India Private Limited, Cable & Wireless Trade Mark Management Limited, Cable & Wireless UK Holdings Limited, Cable & Wireless UK Services Limited, Cable & Wireless Waterside Holdings Limited, Cable & Wireless Worldwide, Cable & Wireless Worldwide Limited, Cable & Wireless Worldwide Pension Trustee Limited, Cable & Wireless Worldwide Services Limited, Cable & Wireless Worldwide Voice Messaging Limited, Cable & Wireless a-Services Inc, Cable & Wireless a-Services Limited, Cable and Wireless (India) Limited, Cable and Wireless (India) Limited Indian Branch Office, Cable and Wireless Nominee Limited, Cable and Wireless Worldwide South Africa (Pty) Ltd, Cavalry Holdings Ltd, Celfocus Solucoes Informaticas Para Telecomunicacoes S.A, Cellops Limited, Cellular Operations Limited, Central Communications Group Limited, Central Telecom (Northern) Limited, Centurion GSM Limited, Chelys Limited, City Cable (Holdings) Limited, Cobra do Brasil Servicos de Telematica ltda., Commnet Cellular Inc., Complete Network Technology, Connect (India) Mobile Technologies Private Limited, Cornerstone Telecommunications Infrastructure Limited, Dataroam Limited , Device Insight, Digital Island (UK) Ltd, Digital Mobile Spectrum Limited, East Africa Investment (Mauritius) Limited, Emtel Europe Limited, Energis (Ireland) Limited, Energis Communications Limited, Energis Holdings Limited, Energis Local Access Limited, Energis Management Limited, Energis Squared Limited, Erudite Systems Limited, Esprit Telecom B.V., Eudokia Limited, Euro Pacific Securities Ltd., Eurocall Holdings Limited, Europolitan Holdings AB (now Europolitan Vodafone AB), FB Holdings Limited, FM Associates (UK) Limited, FinCo Partner 1 B.V., FireFly Networks Limited, Flexphone Limited, GS Telecom (Pty) Limited, Gateway Communications Africa (UK) Limited, Gateway Communications Tanzania Limited, General Mobile Corporation, Generation Telecom Limited, Ghana Telecommunications, Ghana Telecommunications Company Limited, Global Cellular Rental Limited, Globe Limited, GrandCentrix GmbH, Grupo Corporativo ONO S.A.U., H3ga Properties (No 3) Pty Limited, HBO Nederland Cooperatief U.A., HBO Netherlands Channels sro, HBO Netherlands Distribution B.V., Hellas Online, How2 Telecom Limited, Hutchison Essar Ltd, Indus Towers Limited, Intercell Communications Limited, Internet Network Services Limited, Invitation Digital Limited, Ipergy Communications NV, Isis Telecommunications Management Limited, Jaguar Communications Limited, Jaykay Finholding (India) Private Limited, Jupicol (Proprietary) Limited, KABELCOM Braunschweig Gesellschaft Fur BreitbandkabelKommunikation Mit Beschrankter Haftung, KABELCOM Wolfsburg Gesellschaft Fur BreitbandkabelKommunikation Mit Beschrankter Haftung, Kabel Deutschland, Kabel Deutschland Holding, Kabel Deutschland Holding Erste Beteiligungs GmbH, Kabel Deutschland Holding Zweite Beteilgungs GmbH, Kabel Deutschland Neunte Beteiligungs GmbH, Kabel Deutschland Siebte Beteiligungs GmbH, Kabelfernsehen Munchen Servicenter GmbH & Co. KG, LG Financing Partnership, LGE HoldCo V B.V., LGE HoldCo VI B.V., LGE HoldCo VIII B.V., LGE Holdco VII B.V., LLC Vodafone Enterprise Ukraine, Le Bunt Holdings Limited, Legend Communications Limited, Liberty Global, Liberty Global Content Netherlands B.V., London Hydraulic Power Company, M-PESA Foundation, M-PESA Holding Co. Limited, ML Integration Group Limited, ML Integration Limited, ML Integration Services Limited, MV Healthcare Services Private Limited, Mannesmann AG, MetroHoldings Limited, Mezzanine Ware Proprietary Limited (RF), Mirambo Limited, Misrfone Trading Company LLC, MobiFon S.A., Mobile Commerce Solutions Limited, Mobile Phone Centre Limited, Mobile Wallet VM1, Mobile Wallet VM2, Mobile by Sainsburys Limited, Mobiles 4 Business.com Limited, Mobileworld Communications Pty Limited, Mobileworld Operating Pty Ltd, Mobilvest, Motifpros 1 (Proprietary) Limited, Multi Risk Indemnity Company Limited, Multi Risk Limited, ND Callus Info Services Private Limited, Nadal Trading Company Private Limited, Nat Comm Air Limited, National Communications Backbone Company Limited, Navtrak Ltd, Netforce Group Limited, Netgrid Telecom SRL, Number Portability Company (Proprietary) Limited, ONO, Omega Telecom Holdings Private Limited, Oni Way Infocomunicacoes S.A, Oskar Mobil S.R.O., Oxygen Solutions Limited, P.C.P. (North West) Limited, PPL Pty Limited, PT Network Services Limited, PTI Telecom Limited, Peoples Phone Limited, Pinnacle Cellular Group Limited, Pinnacle Cellular Limited, Plex Limited, Plustech Mercantile Company Private Limited, Prime Metals Ltd., Project Telecom Holdings Limited, Quickcomm Software Solutions, Radio Opt GmbH, Rian Mobile Limited, SBC SMART CITY 1517 B.V., SMMS Investments Pvt Limited, Safaricom Limited, Safenet N.P A., Sarmady Communications, Scarlet Ibis Investments 23 (Pty) Limited, Scorpios Beverages Pvt. Ltd, Silver Stream Investments Limited, Singlepoint (4U) Limited, Singlepoint (4U) Ltd., Singlepoint Payment Services Limited, Siro Limited, Spar Aerospace (Nigeria) Limited, Sport TV Portugal S.A, Starnet, Stentor Communications Limited, Stentor Limited, Storage Technology Services (Pty) Limited, T.W. Telecom Limited, T3 Telecommunications Limited, TKS Telepost Kabel-Service Kaiserslautern Beteiligungs GmbH, TKS Telepost Kabel-Service Kaiserslautern GmbH & Co. KG, TNAS Limited, TSM NZ Limited, Talkland Airtime Services Limited, Talkland Australia Pty Limited, Talkland Communications Limited, Talkland International Limited, Talkland Midlands Limited, Talkmobile Limited, Tele2 Italia SPA, Tele2 Spain, Telecom Investments India Private Limited, Telecommunications Europe Limited, Ternhill Communications Limited, The Cobra Group, The Eastern Leasing Company Limited, The Old Telecom Sales Co. Limited, Thus Group Holdings Limited, Thus Group Limited, Thus Limited, Thus Profit Sharing Trustees Limited, TnT Expense Management LLC, Tomorrow Street GP S.a r.l., Tomorrow Street SCA, Torenspits II B.V., Townley Communications Limited, Trans Crystal Ltd., UMT Investments Limited, UPC Nederland Holding I B.V., UPC Nederland Holding II B.V., UPC Nederland Holding III B.V., Unified Communications, Uniqueair Limited, Urbana Teleunion Rostock GmbH & Co.KG, Usha Martin Telematics Limited, VAPL No. 2 Pty Limited, VBA (Mauritius) Limited, VBA Holdings Limited, VBA International (SL) Limited, VBA International Limited, VEI S.r.l., VM SA, VND S.p.A, VSSB Vodafone Shared Services Budapest Private Limited Company, Verwaltung Urbana Teleunion Rostock GmbH, Victus Networks S.A., Vizzavi Finance Limited, Vizzavi Limited, Voda Limited, Vodacall Limited, Vodacash s.p.r.l., Vodacom (Pty) Limited, Vodacom Business (Angola) Limitada, Vodacom Business (Ghana) Limited, Vodacom Business (Kenya) Limited, Vodacom Business Africa (Nigeria) Limited, Vodacom Business Africa Group (Pty) Limited, Vodacom Business Africa Group Services Limited, Vodacom Business Cameroon SA, Vodacom Business Cote Divoire S.A.R.L., Vodacom Congo (RDC) SA, Vodacom Financial Services (Proprietary) Limited, Vodacom Group Limited, Vodacom Insurance Administration Company (Proprietary) Limited, Vodacom Insurance Company (RF) Limited, Vodacom International Holdings (Pty) Limited, Vodacom International Limited, Vodacom Lesotho (Pty) Limited, Vodacom Life Assurance Company (RF) Limited, Vodacom Payment Services (Proprietary) Limited, Vodacom Properties No 1 (Proprietary) Limited, Vodacom Properties No.2 (Pty) Limited, Vodacom Tanzania Limited Zanzibar, Vodacom Tanzania Public Limited Company, Vodacom UK Limited, Vodafone (NI) Limited, Vodafone (New Zealand) Hedging Limited, Vodafone (Scotland) Limited, Vodafone 2, Vodafone 4 UK, Vodafone 5 Limited, Vodafone 5 UK, Vodafone 6 UK, Vodafone Albania Sh.A, Vodafone Alternatif Telekom Hizmetleri A.S., Vodafone Americas 4, Vodafone Americas Virginia Inc., Vodafone And Qatar Foundation L.L.C, Vodafone Asset Management Services S.a r.l., Vodafone Australia Pty Limited, Vodafone Automotive Deutschland GmbH, Vodafone Automotive Electronic Systems S.r.L, Vodafone Automotive France S.A.S, Vodafone Automotive Iberia S.L, Vodafone Automotive Italia S.p.A, Vodafone Automotive Japan K.K, Vodafone Automotive Korea Limited, Vodafone Automotive SpA, Vodafone Automotive Technologies (Beijing) Co Ltd, Vodafone Automotive Telematics Development S.A.S, Vodafone Automotive Telematics S.A, Vodafone Automotive UK Limited, Vodafone Belgium SA/NV, Vodafone Benelux Limited, Vodafone Bilgi Ve Iletisim Hizmetleri AS, Vodafone Business Services Limited, Vodafone Business Solutions Limited, Vodafone Canada Inc, Vodafone Cellular Limited, Vodafone Central Services Limited, Vodafone China Limited (China), Vodafone China Limited (Hong Kong), Vodafone Connect 2 Limited, Vodafone Connect Limited, Vodafone Consolidated Holdings Limited, Vodafone Corporate Limited, Vodafone Corporate Secretaries Limited, Vodafone Czech Republic A.S., Vodafone DC Pension Trustee Company Limited, Vodafone Dagitim Hizmetleri A.S., Vodafone Data, Vodafone Distribution Holdings Limited, Vodafone Egypt Telecommunications S.A.E., Vodafone Elektronik Para Ve Odeme Hizmetleri A.S., Vodafone Empresa Brasil Telecomunicacoes Ltda, Vodafone Empresa Mexico S.de R.L. de C.V., Vodafone Enabler Espana S.L., Vodafone Enterprise Australia Pty Limited, Vodafone Enterprise Austria GmbH, Vodafone Enterprise Bahrain W.L.L., Vodafone Enterprise Bulgaria EOOD, Vodafone Enterprise Chile SA, Vodafone Enterprise Communications Technical Services (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, Vodafone Enterprise Corporate Secretaries Limited, Vodafone Enterprise Denmark A/S, Vodafone Enterprise Equipment Limited, Vodafone Enterprise Europe (UK) Limited, Vodafone Enterprise Europe (UK) Limited Czech Branch, Vodafone Enterprise Europe (UK) Limited DubaiI Branch, Vodafone Enterprise Finland OY, Vodafone Enterprise France SAS, Vodafone Enterprise Germany GmbH, Vodafone Enterprise Global Businesses S.a r.l., Vodafone Enterprise Global Limited, Vodafone Enterprise Global Network HK Ltd, Vodafone Enterprise Global Network Pte. Ltd., Vodafone Enterprise Hong Kong Ltd, Vodafone Enterprise Italy S.r.L, Vodafone Enterprise Korea Limited, Vodafone Enterprise Luxembourg S.A., Vodafone Enterprise Netherlands BV, Vodafone Enterprise Norway AS, Vodafone Enterprise Regional Business Singapore Pte.Ltd., Vodafone Enterprise Singapore Pte.Ltd, Vodafone Enterprise Spain S.L.U. Portugal Branch, Vodafone Enterprise Spain SLU, Vodafone Enterprise Sweden AB, Vodafone Enterprise Switzerland AG, Vodafone Erste Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH, Vodafone Espana S.A.U., Vodafone Euro Hedging Limited, Vodafone Euro Hedging Two, Vodafone Europe B.V., Vodafone Europe UK, Vodafone European Investments, Vodafone European Portal Limited, Vodafone Finance Limited, Vodafone Finance Luxembourg Limited, Vodafone Finance Sweden, Vodafone Finance UK Limited, Vodafone Financial Operations, Vodafone Financial Services B.V., Vodafone Fixed Ltd, Vodafone Foundation, Vodafone Foundation Australia Pty Limited, Vodafone Gestioni S.p.A, Vodafone Ghana Mobile Financial Services Limited, Vodafone Global Content Services Limited, Vodafone Global Enterprise (Hong Kong) Limited, Vodafone Global Enterprise (Italy) S.R.L., Vodafone Global Enterprise (Japan) K.K., Vodafone Global Enterprise (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Vodafone Global Enterprise Limited, Vodafone Global Enterprise Russia LLC, Vodafone Global Enterprise Taiwan Limited, Vodafone Global Enterprise Telecommunications (Hellas) A.E., Vodafone Global Network Limited, Vodafone Global Network Limited Slovakia Branch, Vodafone Global Services Private Limited, Vodafone GmbH, Vodafone Group (Directors) Trustee Limited, Vodafone Group Pension Trustee Limited, Vodafone Group Services GmbH, Vodafone Group Services Ireland Limited, Vodafone Group Services Limited, Vodafone Group Services No.2 Limited, Vodafone Group Share Trustee Limited, Vodafone Hire Limited, Vodafone Holding A.S., Vodafone Holdings (Jersey) Limited, Vodafone Holdings (SA) Proprietary Limited, Vodafone Holdings Europe S.L.U., Vodafone Holdings Luxembourg Limited, Vodafone Hutchison Australia Pty Limited, Vodafone Hutchison Finance Pty Limited, Vodafone Hutchison Receivables Pty Limited, Vodafone IP Licensing Limited, Vodafone India Digital Limited, Vodafone India Limited, Vodafone India Services Private Limited, Vodafone India Ventures Limited, Vodafone Institut fur Gesellschaft und Kommunikation GmbH, Vodafone Intermediate Enterprises Limited, Vodafone International 1 S.a.r.l. Luxembourg Zweigniederlassung Bern, Vodafone International 1 S.a r.l., Vodafone International 2 Limited, Vodafone International Holdings B.V., Vodafone International Holdings Limited, Vodafone International M S.a r.l., Vodafone International Operations Limited, Vodafone International Services LLC, Vodafone Investment UK, Vodafone Investments (SA) Proprietary Limited, Vodafone Investments Australia Limited, Vodafone Investments Limited, Vodafone Investments Luxembourg S.a r.l., Vodafone Investments Luxembourg S.a r.l. Luxembourg Zweigniederlassung Bern, Vodafone Ireland Distribution Limited, Vodafone Ireland Ltd., Vodafone Ireland Marketing Limited, Vodafone Ireland Property Holdings Limited, Vodafone Ireland Retail Limited, Vodafone Italia S.p.A., Vodafone Jersey Dollar Holdings Limited, Vodafone Jersey Finance, Vodafone Jersey Yen Holdings Unlimited, Vodafone Kabel Deutschland Field Services GmbH, Vodafone Kabel Deutschland GmbH, Vodafone Kabel Deutschland Kundenbetreuung GmbH, Vodafone Kenya Limited, Vodafone Leasing Limited, Vodafone Libertel B.V., Vodafone Limited, Vodafone Luxembourg 5 S.a r.l., Vodafone Luxembourg 5 S.a r.l. Luxembourg Zweigniederlassung Bern, Vodafone Luxembourg S.a r.l., Vodafone Luxembourg S.a r.l. Luxembourg Zweigniederlassung Bern, Vodafone M-PESA SH.P.K., Vodafone M-Pesa S.A, Vodafone M.C. Mobile Services Limited , Vodafone Magyarorszag Mobile Tavkozlesi Zartkoruen Mukodo Reszvenytarsasag, Vodafone Malta Limited, Vodafone Marketing UK , Vodafone Maroc SARL, Vodafone Mauritius Ltd., Vodafone Mobile Commerce Limited, Vodafone Mobile Communications Limited, Vodafone Mobile Enterprises Limited, Vodafone Mobile NZ Limited, Vodafone Mobile Network Limited, Vodafone Mobile Operations Limited, Vodafone Mobile Services Limited, Vodafone Multimedia Limited, Vodafone Nederland Holding I B.V., Vodafone Nederland Holding II B.V., Vodafone Nederland Holding III B.V., Vodafone Net Iletisim Hizmetleri A.S., Vodafone Network Pty Limited, Vodafone New Zealand Foundation Limited, Vodafone New Zealand Limited, Vodafone Next Generation Services Limited, Vodafone Nominees Limited1, Vodafone ONO S.A.U., Vodafone Oceania Limited, Vodafone Old Show Ground Site Management Limited, Vodafone Overseas Finance Limited, Vodafone Overseas Holdings Limited, Vodafone Panafon International Holdings B.V., Vodafone Panafon UK, Vodafone Partner Services Limited, Vodafone Payment Solutions S.a r.l., Vodafone Portugal Comunicacoes Pessoais S.A., Vodafone Procurement Company S.a r.l., Vodafone Property Investments Limited, Vodafone Pty Limited, Vodafone Qatar Q.S.C., Vodafone Retail (Holdings) Limited , Vodafone Retail Limited, Vodafone Roaming Services S.a r.l., Vodafone Romania S.A, Vodafone Romania M - Payments SRL, Vodafone Romania Technologies SRL, Vodafone Sales & Services Limited, Vodafone Satellite Services Limited, Vodafone Servicios SL.U, Vodafone Servizi E Tecnologie S.R.L, Vodafone Servicos Empresariais Brasil Ltda., Vodafone Shared Services Romania SRL, Vodafone Specialist Communications Limited, Vodafone Stiftung Deutschland Gemeinnutzige GmbH, Vodafone Technology Solutions Limited, Vodafone Teknoloji Hizmetleri A.S., Vodafone Tele-Services (India) Holdings Limited, Vodafone Telecel-Comunicates Pessoais S.A., Vodafone Telecommunications (India) Limited, Vodafone Telekomunikasyon A.S, Vodafone Towers Limited, Vodafone UK Content Services Limited, Vodafone UK Investments Limited , Vodafone UK Limited1 , Vodafone US Inc, Vodafone Ventures Limited1 , Vodafone Vierte Verwaltungs AG, Vodafone Worldwide Holdings Limited, Vodafone Yen Finance Limited , Vodafone m-pesa Limited, Vodafone-Central Limited Vodaphone Limited, Vodafone-Panafon Hellenic Telecommunications Company S.A., VodafoneZiggo Group Holding B.V, Vodata Limited , Vouchercloud SA (Pty) Ltd, Wataneya Telecommunications S.A.E, Waterberg Lodge (Proprietary) Limited, Wayfinder, Wheatfields Investments 276 (Proprietary) Limited, Wireless Interactions & NFC Accelerator 2013 B.V., Woodend Cellular Limited, Woodend Communications Limited, Woodend Group Limited, Woodend Holdings Limited, XB Facilities B.V, XLink Communications (Proprietary) Limited, Your Communications Group Limited, ZUM B.V., ZYB, Zelitron S.A., Zesko B.V., Ziggo B.V., Ziggo Bond Company B.V., Ziggo Deelnemingen B.V., Ziggo Finance 2 B.V., Ziggo Financing Partnership, Ziggo Holding B.V., Ziggo Netwerk B.V., Ziggo Netwerk II B.V., Ziggo Services B.V., Ziggo Services Employment B.V., Ziggo Services Netwerk 2 B.V., Ziggo Zakelijk Services B.V., and Zoranet Connectivity Services B.V.. The following companies are subsidiares of American International Group: AGC Life Insurance Company, AIG APAC HOLDINGS PTE. LTD., AIG Advisors S.r.l., AIG Aerospace Insurance Services Inc., AIG Asia Pacific Insurance Pte. Ltd., AIG Asset Management (Europe) Limited, AIG Asset Management (U.S.) LLC, AIG Assurance Company, AIG Australia Limited, AIG Brazil Holding I LLC, AIG CIS Investments LLC, AIG Canada Holdings Inc., AIG Capital Corporation, AIG Capital Services Inc., AIG Claims Inc., AIG Egypt Insurance Company S.A.E., AIG Employee Services Inc., AIG Europe (Services) Limited, AIG Europe Holdings S.a.rl., AIG Europe S.A., AIG Federal Savings Bank, AIG Financial Products Corp., AIG General Insurance Co. Ltd., AIG Global Asset Management Holdings Corp., AIG Global Real Estate Investment Corp., AIG Global Reinsurance Operations, AIG Holdings Europe Limited, AIG Insurance (Thailand) Public Company Limited, AIG Insurance Company China Limited, AIG Insurance Company JSC, AIG Insurance Company of Canada, AIG Insurance Company-Puerto Rico, AIG Insurance Hong Kong Limited, AIG Insurance Limited, AIG Insurance Management Services Inc., AIG Insurance New Zealand Limited, AIG International Holdings GmbH, AIG Investments UK Limited, AIG Israel Insurance Company Ltd, AIG Japan Holdings Kabushiki Kaisha, AIG Kenya Insurance Company Limited, AIG Korea Inc., AIG Latin America I.I., AIG Latin America Investments S.L., AIG Lebanon SAL, AIG Life Holdings Inc., AIG Life Insurance Company (Switzerland) Ltd, AIG Life Limited, AIG Life South Africa Limited, AIG Life of Bermuda Ltd., AIG MEA Holdings Limited, AIG MEA Limited, AIG Malaysia Insurance Berhad, AIG Markets Inc., AIG Matched Funding Corp., AIG PC Global Services Inc., AIG Philippines Insurance Inc., AIG Property Casualty Company, AIG Property Casualty Inc., AIG Property Casualty International LLC, AIG Property Casualty U.S. Inc., AIG Re-Takaful (L) Berhad, AIG Resseguros Brasil S.A., AIG Seguros Brasil S.A., AIG Seguros Mexico S.A. de C.V., AIG Shared Services Corporation, AIG South Africa Limited, AIG Specialty Insurance Company, AIG Technologies Inc., AIG Travel Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., AIG Travel Assist Inc., AIG Travel Assist Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., AIG Travel EMEA Limited, AIG Travel Inc., AIG Uganda Limited, AIG Vietnam Insurance Company Limited, AIG WarrantyGuard Inc., AIG-FP Pinestead Holdings Corp., AIG-Metropolitana Cia. de Seguros y Reaseguros S.A., AIGGRE EOLA LLC, AIGGRE Europe Real Estate Fund I GP S.a r.l., AIGGRE U.S. Real Estate Fund I GP LLC, AIGGRE U.S. Real Estate Fund I LP, AIGGRE U.S. Real Estate Fund II GP LLC, AIU Insurance Company, AM Holdings LLC, Ageas Protect, AlphaCat Managers Ltd., American General Corporation, American General Life Insurance Company, American Home Assurance Co. Ltd., American Home Assurance Company, American Home Assurance Company Escritorio de Representacao no Brasil Ltda., American International Group Inc., American International Group UK Limited, American International Overseas Association, American International Overseas Limited, American International Realty Corp., American International Reinsurance Company Ltd., American International Underwriters del Ecuador-Holding S.A., American Security Life Insurance Company Limited, Arthur J. Glatfelter Agency Inc., Avondhu Limited, Blackboard Customer Care Insurance Services LLC, Blackboard Insurance Company, Blackboard Services LLC, Blackboard Specialty Insurance Company, Blackboard U.S. Holdings Inc., Chartis Takaful Enaya B.S.C. (c), Commerce and Industry Insurance Company, Crop Risk Services Inc., Eaglestone Reinsurance Company, Ellipse, Fortitude Group Holdings LLC, Fortitude Life & Annuity Solutions Inc., Fortitude Reinsurance Company Ltd., Franklin Life Insurance Company, Fuji Fire and Marine, Glatfelter Insurance Group, Globe and Rutgers Insurance Group, Grand Isle SAC Limited, Granite State Insurance Company, Group Risk Services Limited, Group Risk Technologies Limited, Illinois National Insurance Co., Jefferson Eola Venture LLC, Johannesburg Insurance Holdings (Proprietary) Limited, Laya Healthcare Limited, Lexington Insurance Company, MG Reinsurance Limited, Mt. Mansfield Company Inc., National Union Fire Insurance Company of Pittsburgh Pa., National Union Fire Insurance Company of Vermont, New Hampshire Insurance Company, PT AIG Insurance Indonesia, Pine Street Real Estate Holdings Corp., Private Joint-Stock Company AIG Ukraine Insurance Company, Risk Specialists Companies Insurance Agency Inc., SA Affordable Housing LLC, SAFG Retirement Services Inc., Service Net Warranty LLC, Stratford Insurance Company, SunAmerica Affordable Housing Partners Inc., SunAmerica Asset Management LLC, Talbot Holdings Ltd., Talbot Underwriting Holdings Ltd., Talbot Underwriting Ltd., Thai CIT Holding Company Limited, The Insurance Company of the State of Pennsylvania, The United States Life Insurance Company in the City of New York, The Variable Annuity Life Insurance Company, Travel Guard, Travel Guard Group Canada Inc./Groupe Garde Voyage du Canada Inc., Travel Guard Group Inc., Tudor Insurance Company, VALIC Financial Advisors Inc., Valic Retirement Services Company, Validus Holdings, Validus Holdings (UK) Ltd., Validus Holdings Ltd., Validus Reinsurance (Switzerland) Ltd, Validus Reinsurance Ltd., Validus Ventures Ltd., Volunteer Firemen's Insurance Services Inc., Western World Insurance Company, and Western World Insurance Group Inc.. A Maryland woman faces charges that she assaulted White House counselor Kellyanne Conway in front of her teenage daughter during a confrontation last year at a restaurant in a Maryland suburb of Washington, D.C. Mary Elizabeth Inabinett, 63, of Chevy Chase, was charged in November with second-degree assault and disorderly conduct and has a trial tentatively scheduled to start on March 29, court records show. Conway told police she was attending a birthday party on Oct. 14 at a Mexican restaurant in Bethesda when she felt somebody grab her shoulders from behind and shake her, according to a charging document prepared by Montgomery County police. The woman who confronted Conway yelled, "Shame on you," and "other comments believed to about Conway's political views," the document says. Inabinett's attorney, William Alden McDaniel Jr., said in a statement that his client exercised her First Amendment right "to express her personal opinions" about a public figure in a public place. McDaniel said his client didn't assault Conway and will plead not guilty to the misdemeanor charges. "The facts at trial will show this to be true, and show Ms. Conway's account to be false," the lawyer's statement says. In a CNN interview broadcast on Friday, Conway said she was standing next to her middle school-aged daughter and some of her daughter's friends when the woman began shaking her "to the point where I thought maybe somebody was hugging me." She said it felt "weird" and "a little aggressive," so she turned around to face the woman. "She was just unhinged. She was out of control," she said. "Her whole face was terror and anger. She was right here, and my daughter was right there. And she ought to pay for that. She ought to pay for that because she has no right to touch anybody." The restaurant's manager told police that the woman who confronted Conway had to be forcibly removed from the premises. Conway told police the woman yelled and gestured at her for 8 to 10 minutes before she was escorted out of the restaurant. Conway wasn't injured, according to the charging document. The woman who confronted her was gone by the time police arrived, but restaurant staff helped police identify her as a suspect, and Conway's daughter provided officers with a short video clip and photograph of the encounter. Conway said she told President Donald Trump about the incident "long after" it happened. She said Trump asked her, "Are you OK? Is your daughter OK? Are the other girls OK?" Wall Street analysts have given ProShares S&P 500 Aristocrats ETF a "N/A" rating, but there may be better buying opportunities in the stock market. Some of MarketBeat's past winning trading ideas have resulted in 5-15% weekly gains. MarketBeat just released five new stock ideas, but ProShares S&P 500 Aristocrats ETF wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys. View MarketBeat's top stock picks here. Playtech Plc develops and sells software platforms and services for the online and land-based gambling industry worldwide. The company operates through Gaming B2B, Gaming B2C, and Financial segments. It operates an online trading platform to retail customers, which enable them to trade contracts for differences on various instruments, such as foreign exchange, commodities, equities, and indices; provides B2B clearing and execution services for retail brokers and professional clients; and offers technology and risk management services for retail brokers. The company also offers online casino, sports betting, and casual gaming applications; bingo, live gaming, and land-based kiosk networks; and land-based sports and fixed-odds betting terminals. In addition, it owns the intellectual property rights and licenses the software; provides marketing and advertising, turnkey, and operational and hosting services; operates betting shops; and distributes lottery software. The company has strategic agreements with various subsidiaries of Greenwood Racing Inc. for the licensing of Playtech products to the Greenwood companies in the states of Michigan, Indiana, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Playtech Plc was founded in 1999 and is based in Douglas, the Isle of Man. Read More Teledyne Technologies Incorporated provides instrumentation, digital imaging, aerospace and defense electronics, and engineered systems in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, and internationally. The company's Instrumentation segment offers monitoring and control instruments for marine, environmental, industrial, and other applications, as well as electronic test and measurement equipment; and power and communications connectivity devices for distributed instrumentation systems and sensor networks deployed in mission critical and harsh environments. Its Digital Imaging segment provides image sensors and digital cameras for use in industrial, scientific, academic research, and medical applications; and hardware and software for image processing and automatic data collection in industrial, academic research, and medical applications, as well as manufacturing services for micro electro-mechanical systems. This segment also offers light detection and ranging systems; focal plane arrays, sensors, and subsystems; and geospatial software products. The company's Aerospace and Defense Electronics segment provides electronic components and subsystems, as well as communications products, such as defense electronics; environment interconnects; data acquisition and communications equipment for aircraft; components and subsystems for wireless and satellite communications; and general aviation batteries. Its Engineered Systems segment offers systems engineering and integration, technology development, and manufacturing solutions for defense, space, environmental, and energy applications; and designs and manufactures electrochemical energy systems and electronics for military applications. The company markets and sells its products and services through sales forces, third-party distributors, and commissioned sales representatives. Teledyne Technologies Incorporated was founded in 1960 and is headquartered in Thousand Oaks, California. Read More I remember growing up watching prank videos, and the funniest ones were the ones where people get all bent out of shape, Carter said. I said, What if theres content of people getting bent out of shape and getting upset? That was my goal just to get reactions out of people. The Charles Schwab Corporation, through its subsidiaries, provides wealth management, securities brokerage, banking, asset management, custody, and financial advisory services. The company operates in two segments, Investor Services and Advisor Services. The Investor Services segment provides retail brokerage and banking services, retirement plan services, and other corporate brokerage services; equity compensation plan sponsors full-service recordkeeping for stock plans, stock options, restricted stock, performance shares, and stock appreciation rights; and retail investor, retirement plan, and mutual fund clearing services. The Advisor Services segment offers custodial, trading, banking, and support services; and retirement business and corporate brokerage retirement services. This segment provides brokerage accounts with cash management capabilities; third-party mutual funds, as well as proprietary mutual funds, plus mutual fund trading, and clearing services to broker-dealers; and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), including proprietary and third-party ETFs. It also offers advice solutions, such as managed portfolios of proprietary and third-party mutual funds and ETFs, separately managed accounts, customized personal advice for tailored portfolios, and specialized planning and portfolio management. In addition, this segment provides banking products and services, including checking and savings accounts, first lien residential real estate mortgage loans, home equity lines of credit, and pledged asset lines; and trust services comprising trust custody services, personal trust reporting services, and administrative trustee services. The company serves individuals and institutional clients in the United States, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, and Singapore. The Charles Schwab Corporation was incorporated in 1971 and is headquartered in Westlake, Texas. Read More Gildan Activewear Inc. manufactures and sells various apparel products in the United States, Canada, and internationally. It provides various activewear products, including T-shirts, fleece tops and bottoms, and sport shirts under the Gildan, Gildan Performance, Gildan Hammer, Comfort Colors, American Apparel, Anvil by Gildan, Alstyle, Prim + Preux, and GoldToe brands. The company also offers hosiery products comprising athletic; dress; and casual, liner, therapeutic, and workwear socks, as well as sheer panty hoses, tights, and leggings under the brands of Gildan, Under Armour, GoldToe, PowerSox, GT a GoldToe Brand, Silver Toe, Signature Gold by Goldtoe, Peds, MediPeds, Kushyfoot, Therapy Plus, All Pro, Secret, Silks, Secret Silky, and American Apparel. In addition, it provides men's and boys' underwear products, and ladies panties under the Gildan and Gildan Platinum brand names; and ladies' shapewear, intimates, and accessories under the Secret and Secret Silky brands. The company sells its products to wholesale distributors, screen printers, or embellishers, as well as to retailers and consumer brand companies. The company was formerly known as Textiles Gildan Inc. and changed its name to Gildan Activewear Inc. in March 1995. Gildan Activewear Inc. was founded in 1946 and is headquartered in Montreal, Canada. Read More WestRock Company manufactures and sells paper and packaging solutions in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. The company operates through Corrugated Packaging and Consumer Packaging segments. The Corrugated Packaging segment produces containerboards, corrugated sheets, corrugated packaging, and preprinted linerboards for sale to consumer and industrial products manufacturers, and corrugated box manufacturers. It also provides structural and graphic design, engineering services and custom, and automated packaging machines; offers a machinery solution that creates pouches to replace single-use plastics, including bubble mailers; distributes corrugated packaging materials and other specialty packaging products, including stretch films, void fills, carton sealing tapes, and other specialty tapes; operates recycling facilities that collect, sort, grade, and bale recovered paper; and provides lithographic laminated packaging products, as well as contract packing services. The Consumer Packaging segment manufactures and sells folding cartons that are used to package food, paper, beverages, dairy products, tobacco, confectionery, health and beauty, other household consumer, and commercial and industrial products; and express mail packages for the overnight courier industry. It also offers inserts and labels, as well as rigid packaging and other printed packaging products, such as transaction cards, brochures, product literature, marketing materials, and grower tags and plant stakes for the horticultural market; and secondary packages and paperboard packaging for over-the-counter and prescription drugs. In addition, this segment manufactures and sells solid fiber and corrugated partitions, and die-cut paperboard components principally to glass container manufacturers, producers of beer, food, wine, spirits, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals, and the automotive industry. WestRock Company is based in Atlanta, Georgia. Read More But they did point to a ruling by Judge John McKenna in the 2014 verdict. He wrote that the warrant was taken with the mistaken belief that the alteration of the warrant was permitted without the necessity of formally requesting a finding of probable cause upon a properly submitted Application for Statement of Charges to the District Court Commissioner under oath and affirmation. The Coming Psychedelic Boom (Ad) Warning to all investors: There's a coming boom that might make the CBD craze look like an outdated investment. Learn More About The Coming Psychedelic Boom Now! Bristol-Myers Squibb Company discovers, develops, licenses, manufactures, and markets biopharmaceutical products worldwide. The company offers products in hematology, oncology, cardiovascular, and immunology therapeutic classes. Its products include Revlimid, an oral immunomodulatory drug for the treatment of multiple myeloma; Opdivo for anti-cancer indications; Eliquis, an oral inhibitor indicated for the reduction in risk of stroke/systemic embolism in NVAF, and for the treatment of DVT/PE; and Orencia for adult patients with active RA and psoriatic arthritis, as well as reducing signs and symptoms in pediatric patients with active polyarticular juvenile idiopathic arthritis. The company also provides Sprycel for the treatment of Philadelphia chromosome-positive chronic myeloid leukemia; Yervoy for the treatment of patients with unresectable or metastatic melanoma; Abraxane, a solvent-free protein-bound chemotherapy product; mpliciti for the treatment of multiple myeloma; and Reblozyl for the treatment of anemia in adult patients with beta thalassemia. In addition, it offers Onureg for the continued treatment of adult patients with AML; Zeposia to treat relapsing forms of multiple sclerosis; Vidaza for the treatment of myelodysplastic syndrome subtypes; Baraclude, an oral antiviral agent for the treatment of chronic hepatitis B; and Breyanzi, a CD19-directed genetically modified autologous T cell immunotherapy for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory large B-cell lymphoma. The company sells products to wholesalers, distributors, pharmacies, retailers, hospitals, clinics, and government agencies. It has collaboration agreements with Pfizer, Inc.; Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.; Ono Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.; Nektar Therapeutics; AVEO Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; Huyabio; and DarwinHealth, Inc. The company was formerly known as Bristol-Myers Company. Bristol-Myers Squibb Company was founded in 1887 and is headquartered in New York, New York. Read More Greif, Inc. produces and sells industrial packaging products and services worldwide. It operates through four segments: Rigid Industrial Packaging & Services; Paper Packaging & Services; Flexible Products & Services; and Land Management. The Rigid Industrial Packaging & Services segment offers rigid industrial packaging products, including steel, fiber, and plastic drums; rigid intermediate bulk containers; closure systems for industrial packaging products; transit protection products; water bottles, and remanufactured and reconditioned industrial containers; and services, such as container life cycle management, filling, logistics, warehousing, and other packaging services. This segment sells its products to customers in the chemicals, paints and pigments, food and beverage, petroleum, industrial coatings, agricultural, pharmaceutical and minerals, and other industries. The Paper Packaging & Services segment provides containerboards, corrugated sheets, corrugated containers, and other corrugated and specialty products to customers in the packaging, automotive, food, and building products markets. This segment's corrugated container products are used to ship various products, such as home appliances, small machinery, grocery products, automotive components, books, and furniture, as well as various other applications. The Flexible Products & Services segment offers flexible intermediate bulk containers comprising polypropylene-based woven fabric, as well as related services to the agricultural, food, and other industries. The Land Management segment engages in harvesting and regeneration of timber properties; and sale of timberland and special use land. As of October 31, 2020, this segment owned approximately 244,000 acres of timber property in the southeastern United States. The company was formerly known as Greif Bros. Corporation and changed its name to Greif, Inc. in 2001. Greif, Inc. was founded in 1877 and is based in Delaware, Ohio. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of The Procter & Gamble: "Procter & Gamble Services" LLC, "Procter & Gamble" LLC, Agile Pursuits, Agile Pursuits Franchising, Arbora, Arbora & Ausonia, Arborinvest, Billie, Braun (Shanghai) Co., Braun GmbH, Braun-Gillette Immobilien GmbH & Co. KG, Celtic Insurance Company, Compania Procter & Gamble Mexico, Compania Quimica S.A., Corporativo Procter & Gamble, Cosmetic Products Pty. Ltd., Detergent Products B.V., Detergent Products SARL, Detergenti S.A., Eurocos Cosmetic GmbH, FPG Oleochemicals Sdn. Bhd., Fameccanica Data S.p.A., Fameccanica Industria e Comercio Do Brasil LTDA., Fameccanica Machinery (Shanghai) Co., Fater S.p.A., Fountain Square Music Publishing Co., Gillette (China) Ltd., Gillette (Shanghai) Ltd., Gillette Aesop Ltd., Gillette Australia Pty. Ltd., Gillette Canada Holdings, Gillette Commercial Operations North America, Gillette Diversified Operations Pvt. Ltd., Gillette Egypt S.A.E., Gillette Group UK Ltd, Gillette Gruppe Deutschland GmbH & Co. oHG, Gillette Holding Company LLC, Gillette Holding GmbH, Gillette India Limited, Gillette Industries Ltd., Gillette International B.V., Gillette Latin America Holding B.V., Gillette Management LLC, Gillette Nova Scotia Company, Gillette Pakistan Limited, Gillette Poland International Sp. z.o.o., Gillette Poland S.A., Gillette U.K. Limited, Gillette del Uruguay, Giorgio Beverly Hills Inc., Hyginett KFT, Industries Marocaines Modernes SA, LLC "Procter & Gamble Novomoskovsk", LLL "Procter & Gamble Distributorskaya Compania", Laboratorios Vicks, Liberty Street Music Publishing Company, Limited Liability Company 'Procter & Gamble Trading Ukraine', Limited Liability Company with foreign investments Procter & and Gamble Ukraine, MDVIP, MERCK KGAA NPV, Marcvenca Inversiones, Modern Industries Company - Dammam, Modern Products Company - Jeddah, New Chapter, New Chapter Canada Inc., Olay LLC, Oral-B Laboratories, P&G Distribution Morocco SAS, P&G Hair Care Holding, P&G Industrial Peru S.R.L., P&G Innovation Godo Kaisha, P&G Israel M.D.O. Ltd., P&G K.K., P&G Northeast Asia Pte. Ltd., P&G Prestige Godo Kaisha, P&G Prestige Service GmbH, P&G South African Trading (Pty.) Ltd., PGT Health Care (Zhejiang) Limited, PGT Healthcare LLP, PPI ZAO, PT Procter & Gamble Home Products Indonesia, PT Procter & Gamble Operations Indonesia, Phase II Holdings Corporation, Procter & Gamble (Chengdu) Ltd., Procter & Gamble (China) Ltd., Procter & Gamble (China) Sales Co. Ltd., Procter & Gamble (East Africa) Limited, Procter & Gamble (Egypt) Manufacturing Company, Procter & Gamble (Enterprise Fund) Limited, Procter & Gamble (Guangzhou) Consumer Products Co. Ltd., Procter & Gamble (Guangzhou) Enterprise Management Service Company Limited, Procter & Gamble (Guangzhou) Ltd., Procter & Gamble (Health & Beauty Care) Limited, Procter & Gamble (Jiangsu) Ltd. China, Procter & Gamble (L&CP) Limited, Procter & Gamble (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Procter & Gamble (Manufacturing) Ireland Limited, Procter & Gamble (Shanghai) International Trade Company Ltd., Procter & Gamble (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Procter & Gamble Acquisition GmbH, Procter & Gamble Administration GmbH, Procter & Gamble Algeria EURL, Procter & Gamble Amazon Holding B.V., Procter & Gamble Amiens S.A.S., Procter & Gamble Argentina SRL, Procter & Gamble Asia Pte. Ltd., Procter & Gamble Australia Proprietary Limited, Procter & Gamble Azerbaijan Services LLC, Procter & Gamble Bangladesh Private Ltd., Procter & Gamble Blois S.A.S., Procter & Gamble Brazil Holdings B.V., Procter & Gamble Bulgaria EOOD, Procter & Gamble Business Services Canada Company, Procter & Gamble Canada Holding B.V., Procter & Gamble Chile , Procter & Gamble Chile Limitada, Procter & Gamble Colombia Ltda., Procter & Gamble Commercial LLC, Procter & Gamble Commercial de Cuba S.A., Procter & Gamble Czech Republic s.r.o., Procter & Gamble DS Polska Sp. z o.o., Procter & Gamble Danmark ApS, Procter & Gamble Detergent (Beijing) Ltd., Procter & Gamble Deuttschland GmbH, Procter & Gamble Distributing (Philippines) Inc., Procter & Gamble Distributing New Zealand Limited, Procter & Gamble Distribution Company (Europe) BVBA, Procter & Gamble Distribution S.R.L., Procter & Gamble Eastern Europe, Procter & Gamble Ecuador Cia. Ltda., Procter & Gamble Egypt, Procter & Gamble Egypt Distribution, Procter & Gamble Egypt Holding, Procter & Gamble Egypt Supplies, Procter & Gamble Energy Company LLC, Procter & Gamble Espana, Procter & Gamble Europe SA, Procter & Gamble Export Operations SARL, Procter & Gamble Exportadora e Importadora Ltda., Procter & Gamble Exports, Procter & Gamble Fabricacao e Comercio Ltda., Procter & Gamble Far East, Procter & Gamble Finance (U.K.) Ltd., Procter & Gamble Finance Holding Ltd., Procter & Gamble Finance Management S.a.r.l., Procter & Gamble Financial Investments LLP, Procter & Gamble Financial Services Ltd., Procter & Gamble Financial Services S.a.r.l., Procter & Gamble Finland OY, Procter & Gamble France S.A.S., Procter & Gamble Germany GmbH, Procter & Gamble Germany GmbH & Co. Operations oHG, Procter & Gamble GmbH, Procter & Gamble Grundstucks-und Vermogensverwaltungs GmbH & Co. KG, Procter & Gamble Gulf FZE, Procter & Gamble Hair Care, Procter & Gamble Hellas Ltd., Procter & Gamble Holding (Thailand) Limited, Procter & Gamble Holding France S.A.S., Procter & Gamble Holding GmbH, Procter & Gamble Holding S.r.l., Procter & Gamble Holdings (UK) Ltd., Procter & Gamble Home Products Private Limited, Procter & Gamble Hong Kong Limited, Procter & Gamble Hungary Wholesale Trading Partnership (KKT), Procter & Gamble Hygiene & Health Care Limited, Procter & Gamble Inc., Procter & Gamble India Holdings, Procter & Gamble Indochina Limited Company, Procter & Gamble Industrial - 2012 C.A., Procter & Gamble Industrial Colombia Ltda., Procter & Gamble Industrial S.C.A., Procter & Gamble Industrial e Comercial Ltda., Procter & Gamble Interamericas de Costa Rica, Procter & Gamble Interamericas de Guatemala, Procter & Gamble Interamericas de Panama, Procter & Gamble International Operations Pte. Ltd., Procter & Gamble International Operations SA, Procter & Gamble International Operations SA-ROHQ, Procter & Gamble International S.a.r.l., Procter & Gamble Investment Company (UK) Ltd., Procter & Gamble Investment GmbH, Procter & Gamble Italia, Procter & Gamble Japan K.K., Procter & Gamble Kazakhstan Distribution LLP, Procter & Gamble Kazakhstan LLP, Procter & Gamble Korea, Procter & Gamble Korea S&D Co., Procter & Gamble Lanka Private Ltd. Sri Lanka, Procter & Gamble Leasing LLC, Procter & Gamble Levant S.A.L., Procter & Gamble Limited, Procter & Gamble Manufacturing (Thailand) Limited, Procter & Gamble Manufacturing (Tianjin) Co. Ltd., Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Belgium N.V., Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Berlin GmbH, Procter & Gamble Manufacturing GmbH, Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Procter & Gamble Manufacturing SA (Pty) Ltd, Procter & Gamble Marketing Romania SRL, Procter & Gamble Marketing and Services doo, Procter & Gamble Maroc SA, Procter & Gamble Mataro, Procter & Gamble Mexico Holding B.V., Procter & Gamble Mexico Inc., Procter & Gamble Middle East FZE, Procter & Gamble Nederland B.V., Procter & Gamble Netherlands Investments B.V., Procter & Gamble Netherlands Services B.V., Procter & Gamble Nigeria Limited, Procter & Gamble Nordic, Procter & Gamble Norge AS, Procter & Gamble Operations Polska Sp. z o.o., Procter & Gamble Overseas India B.V., Procter & Gamble Overseas Ltd., Procter & Gamble Pakistan (Private) Limited, Procter & Gamble Partnership LLP, Procter & Gamble Peru S.R.L., Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals France SAS, Procter & Gamble Philippines, Procter & Gamble Polska Sp. z o.o, Procter & Gamble Portugal - Produtos De Consumo, Procter & Gamble Product Supply (U.K.) Limited U.K., Procter & Gamble Production GmbH, Procter & Gamble Productions, Procter & Gamble Productos de Consumo, Procter & Gamble RHD, Procter & Gamble RSC Regional Service Company Ltd., Procter & Gamble Retail Services BVBA, Procter & Gamble S.r.l., Procter & Gamble SA (Pty) Ltd, Procter & Gamble Satis ve Dagitim Ltd. Sti., Procter & Gamble Seine S.A.S., Procter & Gamble Service GmbH, Procter & Gamble Services (Switzerland) SA, Procter & Gamble Services Company N.V., Procter & Gamble Services Ltd., Procter & Gamble Share Incentive Plan Trustee Ltd., Procter & Gamble South America Holding B.V., Procter & Gamble Spol. s.r.o. (Ltd.), Procter & Gamble Sports and Social Club Ltd., Procter & Gamble Sverige AB, Procter & Gamble Switzerland SARL, Procter & Gamble Taiwan Limited, Procter & Gamble Taiwan Sales Company Limited, Procter & Gamble Technical Centres Limited, Procter & Gamble Technology (Beijing) Co., Procter & Gamble Trading (Thailand) Limited, Procter & Gamble Tuketim Mallari Sanayii A.S., Procter & Gamble UK, Procter & Gamble UK Group Holdings Ltd, Procter & Gamble UK Parent Company Ltd., Procter & Gamble Universal Holding B.V., Procter & Gamble Verwaltungs GmbH, Procter & Gamble Vietnam, Procter & Gamble d.o.o. za trgovinu, Procter & Gamble de Venezuela S.C.A., Procter & Gamble de Venezuela S.R.L., Procter & Gamble do Brasil S/A, Procter & Gamble do Brazil, Procter & Gamble do Nordeste S/A, Procter & Gamble-Rakona s.r.o., Progam Realty & Development Corporation, Redmond Products, Richardson-Vicks Real Estate Inc., Richardson-Vicks do Brasil Quimica e Farmaceutica Ltda, Riverfront Music Publishing Co., Rosemount LLC, SPD Development Company Limited, SPD Swiss Precision Diagnostics GmbH, Scannon S.A.S., Series Acquisition B.V., Shulton, Surfac S.R.L., Sycamore Productions, TAOS - FL, TAOS Retail, Tambrands Inc., Temple Trees Impex & Investment Private Limited, The Art of Shaving - FL, The Dover Wipes Company, The Gillette Company, The Gillette Company LLC, The Gillette co., The Procter & Gamble Distributing LLC, The Procter & Gamble GBS Company, The Procter & Gamble Global Finance Company, The Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Company, The Procter & Gamble Paper Products Company, The Procter & Gamble U.S. Business Services Company, This is L., US CD LLC, Vidal Sassoon (Shanghai) Academy, Vidal Sassoon Co., WEBA Betriebsrenten-Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH, Walker & Company Brands, and iMFLUX Inc.. The couples gift will provide a new way of paying for the post of the museums chief curator, the person responsible for overseeing the BMAs 95,000-item collection and for supervising the museums curators, conservators and registrars. The position replaces the former job of deputy director of curatorial affairs role that was held until last summer by Jay Fisher. | BY Ricki Green | WPP AUNZ has announced Nick Foley, Landors president for Southeast Asia Pacific and Japan, is leaving Singapore to return to Australia effective immediately. Whilst his remit will remain the same, he will now be based in WPP AUNZs headquarters at Kent Street with the Landor Sydney team. Says Foley on his impending return to Australia: It has been a privilege to work with the team in Singapore and be recognised as one of the most progressive agencies in the region. During my time in Southeast Asia, Landor broadened its offer and grown its client base accordingly. I am now excited to be returning to Australia where we have made some recent changes in conjunction with WPP AUNZ to move the business forward into its next phase of growth. The most exciting recent change is Cornwell in Melbourne is now part of the Landor group and we see significant upside in 2019 as we start to work more closely with our team there. Jessica Murphy has been promoted to the role of General Manager Cornwell and Im looking forward to spending more time working with Jess, the Cornwell and Landor teams and all our clients across Australia. Foley commenced working with Landor in 2008 and was promoted later that year to run the Sydney office. In 2012, he moved his family to Singapore to build Landors offer across the Asia Pacific. In Singapore Evonne Chung has been elevated to the role of managing director. Owens Corning manufactures and markets a range of insulation, roofing, and fiberglass composite materials in the United States, Canada, Europe, the Asia Pacific, and internationally. It operates in three segments: Composites, Insulation, and Roofing. The Composites segment manufactures, fabricates, and sells glass reinforcements in the form of fiber; and manufactures and sells glass fiber products in the form of fabrics, non-wovens, and other specialized products. Its products are used in pipe, roofing shingles, sporting goods, consumer electronics, telecommunications cables, boats, aviation, automotive, industrial containers, and wind-energy applications in the building and construction, transportation, consumer, industrial, and power and energy markets. The Insulation segment manufactures and sells fiberglass insulation for residential, commercial, industrial, and other markets for thermal and acoustical applications; and manufactures and sells glass fiber pipe insulation, flexible duct media, bonded and granulated mineral fiber insulation, cellular glass insulation, and foam insulation used in construction applications. This segment sells its products primarily to the insulation installers, home centers, lumberyards, retailers, and distributors under the Thermafiber, FOAMULAR, FOAMGLAS, Paroc, Owens Corning PINK, and FIBERGLAS Insulation brand names. The Roofing segment manufactures and sells residential roofing shingles, oxidized asphalt materials, and roofing components used in residential and commercial construction, and specialty applications, as well as synthetic packaging materials. This segment sells its products through distributors, home centers, lumberyards, retailers, and contractors, as well as to roofing contractors for built-up roofing asphalt systems; and manufacturers in automotive, chemical, rubber, and construction industries. Owens Corning was incorporated in 1938 and is headquartered in Toledo, Ohio. Read More Winnebago Industries, Inc. manufactures and sells recreation vehicles and marine products primarily for use in leisure travel and outdoor recreation activities. The company operates in six segments: Grand Design Towables, Winnebago Towables, Winnebago Motorhomes, Newmar motorhomes, Chris-Craft Marine, and Winnebago Specialty Vehicles. It provides towable products that are non-motorized vehicles to be towed by automobiles, pickup trucks, SUVs, or vans for use as temporary living quarters for recreational travel, such as conventional travel trailers, fifth wheels, folding camper trailers, and truck campers under the Winnebago and Grand Design brand names. The company also offers motorhomes, which are self-propelled mobile dwellings used primarily as temporary living quarters during vacation and camping trips, or to support active and mobile lifestyles under the Winnebago and Newmar brand names. In addition, it offers other specialty commercial vehicles for law enforcement command centers, mobile medical clinics, and mobile office spaces; commercial vehicles as bare shells to third-party up fitters; and boats in the recreational powerboat industry under the Chris-Craft brand name. Further, the company is involved in the original equipment manufacturing of parts for other manufacturers and commercial vehicles. The company sells its products primarily through independent dealers in the United States, Canada, and internationally. Winnebago Industries, Inc. was founded in 1958 and is based in Forest City, Iowa. Read More Vocera Communications, Inc. provides secure, integrated, and intelligent communication and workflow solutions that empowers mobile workers in healthcare, hospitality, retail, energy, education, and other mission-critical mobile work environments in the United States and internationally. The company's communication solution integrates with other clinical systems, including electronic health records, nurse call systems, and patient monitoring, as well as to provide critical data, alerts, alarms, and clinical context that enable workflow. It also offers Vocera Communication and Workflow System, a software platform, which connects communication devices, such as hands-free, wearable, and voice-controlled Smartbadge and badges, as well as third-party mobile devices; and Vocera Care Experience, a hosted software suite that coordinates and streamlines provider-to-patient and provider-to-provider communication and clinical rounding to enhance quality of care, patient and staff experience, reduce care provider's risk, and improve reimbursements, as well as Vocera Ease, a cloud-based communication platform and mobile application to enhance the patient experience by enabling friends and family members to receive timely updates about the progress of their loved one in the hospital. In addition, the company provides professional, software maintenance, and technical support services; and classroom training, distance learning, or customized courseware for systems administrators, IT and industry-specific professionals, and end-user educators. As of December 31, 2020, the company provided its solutions to approximately 1,900 healthcare facilities, including large hospital systems, small and medium-sized local hospitals, clinics, surgery centers, and aged-care facilities. It sells its products through direct sales force, resellers, and distributors. The company was incorporated in 2000 and is headquartered in San Jose, California. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of Sealed Air: AFP (Shanghai) Limited, AFP Inc. (Branch), AFPTOH LTD, Aconcagua Distribuciones SRL, Air Ride Pallets Hong Kong Limited, Austin Foam Plastics Inc., Auto-C LLC, Automated Packaging Systems, B+ Equipment, B+ Equipment SAS, Beacon Holdings LLC, Biosphere Industries, BluPack (New Zealand), Blue Dot Packaging Pty Ltd., CPI Packaging Inc., CPI Packaging Systems Inc., Cactus (Shanghai) Trading Co. Ltd., Cactus Shanghai Trading Co. Ltd., Ciras C.V., Ciras C.V. - Luxembourg Branch, Ciras C.V. Luxembourg Branch, Cleanwise Inc., Cryovac (Malaysia) SDN. BHD, Cryovac (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Cryovac Brasil Ltda., Cryovac Chile Holdings LLC, Cryovac Holdings II LLC, Cryovac Inc., Cryovac International Holdings Inc., Cryovac LLC, Cryovac Leasing Corporation, Cryovac Londrina Ltda., Cryovac Packaging Portugal - Embalagens Ltda., Cryovac Packaging Portugal Embalagens Ltda, Cryovac Sweden AB, Cryovac-Sealed Air de Costa Rica S.R.L., DELTAPLAM Embalagens Industria e Comercio, Deltaplam Embalagens Industria e Comercio Ltda, Diversey, Diversey Australia Pty. Ltd., Diversey Austria Trading GmbH, Diversey B.V., Diversey Belgium BVBA, Diversey Brasil Industria Quimica Ltda., Diversey Canada Inc., Diversey Centroamerica S.A., Diversey Danmark ApS, Diversey Hungary Acting Off-shore Capital Management Limited Liability Company, Diversey J Trustee Limited, Diversey Trustee Limited, Diversey Ceska republika s.r.o. clen koncernu Diversey, Entapack Pty. Ltd., Fagerdala (Chengdu) Packaging Co. Ltd., Fagerdala (Chengdu) Packing Co. Ltd. (Chongqing Branch), Fagerdala (Chongqing) Packaging Co. Ltd. (Branch), Fagerdala (Huiyang) Packaging Co. Ltd, Fagerdala (Huiyang) Packaging Co. Ltd. (Branch), Fagerdala (Shanghai) Foams Co. Ltd., Fagerdala (Shanghai) Polymer Co. Ltd., Fagerdala (Shenzhen) Packaging Co. Ltd., Fagerdala (Suzhou) Packaging Co. Ltd., Fagerdala (Suzhou) Packing Co. Ltd. (Hefei Branch), Fagerdala (Thailand) Limited, Fagerdala (Xiamen) Packaging Co. Ltd., Fagerdala Leamchabung Limited, Fagerdala Leamchabung Ltd., Fagerdala Malaysia Sdn Bhd., Fagerdala Mexico S.A. de C.V., Fagerdala Mexico S.A. de C.V. (Chihuahua Branch), Fagerdala Mexico Supply Chain S.A. de C.V., Fagerdala Packaging Inc. (Indiana), Fagerdala Shanghai Foams Co. Ltd., Fagerdala Singapore Pte Ltd, Fagerdala Singapore Pte Ltd (Branch), Fagerdala Singapore Pte. Limited, Fagerdala Singapore Pte. Limited (Taiwan Branch), Fagerdala Singapore Pte. Ltd., Fagerdala Suzhou Packaging Co. Ltd., Fagerdala Suzhou Packaging Co. Ltd. (Hefei Branch), Fagerdala Thailand Ltd., GEIE VES, Getpacking.com GmbH, Indonesian Rep Office of Sealed Air Hong Kong Limited, Invertol S. de R.L. de C.V., JCS Sealed Air Kaustik, JSC Sealed Air Kaustik, Kevothermal LLC, Kevothermal LLC, Kevothermal Limited, Nelipak Holdings, Pack-Tiger GmbH, Packaging C.V., ProAseptic Technologies S.L., Producembal - Producao de Embalagens Ltda., Proxy Biomedical Ltd., Reflectix Inc., SLD Air Packaging Paketleme Malzemeleri Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Saddle Brook Insurance Company, Sealed Air (Asia) Holdings B.V., Sealed Air (Barbados) S.R.L., Sealed Air (Canada) Co./CIE, Sealed Air (Canada) Holdings B.V., Sealed Air (China) Co. Ltd., Sealed Air (China) Co. Ltd., Sealed Air (China) Limited, Sealed Air (China) Ltd., Sealed Air (India) Limited, Sealed Air (Israel) Ltd., Sealed Air (Korea) Limited, Sealed Air (Latin America) Holdings II LLC, Sealed Air (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Sealed Air (New Zealand), Sealed Air (Philippines) Inc., Sealed Air (Singapore) Pte. Limited, Sealed Air (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Sealed Air (Thailand) Limited, Sealed Air (Ukraine) Limited, Sealed Air Africa (Proprietary) Limited, Sealed Air Africa (Pty.) Limited, Sealed Air Americas Manufacturing S. de R. L. de C. V., Sealed Air Argentina S.A., Sealed Air Australia (Holdings) Pty. Limited, Sealed Air Australia Pty Ltd., Sealed Air Australia Pty. Limited, Sealed Air B.V., Sealed Air Belgium N.V., Sealed Air Central America S.A., Sealed Air Chile S.P.A., Sealed Air Colombia Ltda., Sealed Air Corporation (US), Sealed Air Denmark A/S, Sealed Air Embalagens Ltda., Sealed Air Europe Holdings C.V., Sealed Air Europe Holdings LP, Sealed Air Finance B.V., Sealed Air Finance II LLC, Sealed Air Finance II LLC (Sucursal Mexico), Sealed Air Finance Ireland Unlimited Company, Sealed Air Finance Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Sealed Air Finance Luxembourg S.a.r.l. Luxembourg (L) Root Finance Branch, Sealed Air Finance Luxembourg S.a.r.l. US Finance Branch, Sealed Air Funding Corporation, Sealed Air Funding LLC, Sealed Air General Trading LLC, Sealed Air Global Holdings C.V., Sealed Air Global Holdings I C.V., Sealed Air Global Holdings I LLC, Sealed Air GmbH, Sealed Air Hellas S.A., Sealed Air Holding France S.A.S., Sealed Air Holding France SAS, Sealed Air HoldingS I LLC, Sealed Air Holdings (New Zealand) Pty. Ltd., Sealed Air Holdings I C.V., Sealed Air Holdings LLC, Sealed Air Holdings South Africa Proprietary Limited, Sealed Air Hong Kong (Jakarta Indonesia Branch), Sealed Air Hong Kong Limited, Sealed Air Hungary Ltd., Sealed Air International Holdings LLC, Sealed Air International Holdings LLC , Sealed Air Investment and Management (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Sealed Air Investment and Management Co. Ltd., Sealed Air Japan G.K., Sealed Air Korea Limited, Sealed Air LLC, Sealed Air Limited, Sealed Air Luxembourg (I) S.a.r.l., Sealed Air Luxembourg (II) S.a.r.l., Sealed Air Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Sealed Air Management Holding Verwaltungs GmbH, Sealed Air Multiflex GmbH, Sealed Air Netherlands (Holdings) I B.V., Sealed Air Netherlands (Holdings) II B.V., Sealed Air Netherlands (Holdings) II B.V. - Deutsche Zweigniederlassung, Sealed Air Netherlands (Holdings) II B.V. - Deutsche Zweigniederlassung, Sealed Air Netherlands (Holdings) III B.V., Sealed Air Netherlands (Holdings) III B.V., Sealed Air Netherlands Holdings V B.V., Sealed Air Nevada Holdings Limited, Sealed Air Norge AS, Sealed Air OY, Sealed Air Packaging (India) Private Limited, Sealed Air Packaging (Shanghai) Co. Limited, Sealed Air Packaging (Thailand) Co. Ltd., Sealed Air Packaging LLC, Sealed Air Packaging Materials (India) LLP, Sealed Air Packaging Materials (India) LLP, Sealed Air Packaging S.L.U., Sealed Air Paketleme Malzemeleri Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Sealed Air Peru S.A.C., Sealed Air Polska Sp. Zoo, Sealed Air Pty Limited, Sealed Air S.A S., Sealed Air S.A.S., Sealed Air S.r.l., Sealed Air South Africa (Pty.) Ltd., Sealed Air Svenska AB, Sealed Air Taiwan Limited, Sealed Air US Holdings (Thailand) LLC, Sealed Air Uruguay S.A., Sealed Air Venezuela Corporation, Sealed Air Verpackungen GmbH, Sealed Air de Mexico Operations S. de R.L. de C.V., Sealed Air de Venezuela S.A., Sealed Air s.r.o., Shanklin Corp, Shanklin Corporation, Soinpar Industrial Ltda., TART s.r.o., TART s.r.o. Joint Venture, TTS-Ciptec, TXAFP Asia Pacific Ltd., TXAFP GP LLC, TempTrip LLC, Trigon Industries, and Vietnamese Rep Office of Sealed Air Hong Kong Limited. Just keep putting them in front of the cameras under questioning from the Democrat-controlled committees, and before long only the most blind Trump devotees will be able to deny what's happening on the screen. It happened with Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy during the Army-McCarthy hearings in the 1950s, and for all the revolutionary change in media, I believe TV still has that kind of power to expose incompetence and evil. Meritor, Inc. designs, develops, manufactures, markets, distributes, sells, services, and supports integrated systems, modules, and components to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and the aftermarket for the commercial vehicle, transportation, and industrial sectors. It operates through two segments, Commercial Truck; and Aftermarket and Industrial. The Commercial Truck segment supplies drivetrain systems and components, including axles, drivelines, and braking and suspension systems primarily for medium-and heavy-duty trucks and other applications; and various undercarriage products and systems for trailer applications. The Aftermarket and Industrial segment supplies axles, brakes, drivelines, suspension parts, and other replacement parts to commercial vehicle and industrial aftermarket customers. It also supplies drivetrain systems and various components, such as axles, drivelines, brakes, and suspension systems for military, construction, bus and coach, fire and emergency, and other applications. The company also sells other complementary products, including third-party and private label items, which include brake shoes and friction materials; automatic slack adjusters; yokes and shafts; wheel-end hubs and drums; ABS and stability control systems; shock absorbers and air springs; and air brakes. Meritor, Inc. sells its products under the Meritor, Euclid, Trucktechnic, US Gear, AxleTech, and Mach brands primarily to OEMs, their parts marketing operations, and their dealers, as well as other independent distributors and service garages in the aftermarket industry in North America, South America, Europe, and the Asia Pacific. The company was formerly known as ArvinMeritor, Inc. and changed its name to Meritor, Inc. in March 2011. Meritor, Inc. was founded in 1909 and is headquartered in Troy, Michigan. Read More Our portfolio of high quality UK commercial property is focused on London Offices and Retail around the UK. We own or manage a portfolio valued at A13.7bn (British Land share: A10.3bn) as at 30 September 2020 making us one of Europe's largest listed real estate investment companies. Our strategy is to provide places which meet the needs of our customers and respond to changing lifestyles - Places People Prefer. We do this by creating great environments both inside and outside our buildings and use our scale and placemaking skills to enhance and enliven them. This expands their appeal to a broader range of occupiers, creating enduring demand and driving sustainable, long term performance. Our Offices portfolio comprises three office-led campuses in central London as well as high quality standalone buildings and accounts for 65% of our portfolio. Our Retail portfolio is focused on retail parks and shopping centres, and accounts for 31% of our portfolio. Increasingly our focus is on providing a mix of uses and this is most evident at Canada Water, our 53 acre redevelopment opportunity where we have plans to create a new neighbourhood for London. Sustainability is embedded throughout our business. Our places, which are designed to meet high sustainability standards, become part of local communities, provide opportunities for skills development and employment and promote wellbeing. In April 2016 British Land received the Queen's Award for Enterprise: Sustainable Development, the UK's highest accolade for business success for economic, social and environmental achievements over a period of five years. Read More Wall Street analysts have given SPDR Gold Shares a "N/A" rating, but there may be better buying opportunities in the stock market. Some of MarketBeat's past winning trading ideas have resulted in 5-15% weekly gains. MarketBeat just released five new stock ideas, but SPDR Gold Shares wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys. View MarketBeat's top stock picks here. The EstAe Lauder Companies Inc. manufactures and markets skin care, makeup, fragrance, and hair care products. The company offers a range of skin care products, including moisturizers, serums, cleansers, toners, body care, exfoliators, acne care and oil correctors, facial masks, cleansing devices, and sun care products; and makeup products, such as lipsticks, lip glosses, mascaras, foundations, eyeshadows, nail polishes, and powders, as well as compacts, brushes, and other makeup tools. It also provides fragrance products in various forms comprising eau de parfum sprays and colognes, as well as lotions, powders, creams, candles, and soaps; and hair care products that include shampoos, conditioners, styling products, treatment, finishing sprays, and hair color products, as well as sells ancillary products and services. The company offers its products under EstAe Lauder, Aramis, Clinique, Lab Series, Origins, MAAAC, Bobbi Brown, La Mer, Aveda, Jo Malone London, Bumble and bumble, Darphin, Smashbox, Le Labo, Editions de Parfums FrAdAric Malle, GLAMGLOW, By Kilian, BECCA, Too Faced, RODIN olio lusso, FLIRT!, Kiton, and Tom Ford brands. It also holds license arrangements for Tommy Hilfiger, Donna Karan New York, DKNY, Michael Kors, Ermenegildo Zegna, Dr. Andrew Weil, TOM FORD BEAUTY, AERIN, and Tory Burch brands. The company sells its products through department stores, specialty-multi retailers, upscale perfumeries and pharmacies, and salons and spas; freestanding stores; its own and authorized retailer Websites; third-party online malls; stores in airports and on cruise ships; in-flight and duty-free shops; and self-select outlets. It has operations in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific. The EstAe Lauder Companies Inc. has a joint development agreement with Atropos Therapeutics Inc. to discover senomodulators. The company was founded in 1946 and is headquartered in New York, New York. Read More Hannover RAck SE, together with its subsidiaries, provides reinsurance products and services worldwide. It operates through Property & Casualty Reinsurance, and Life & Health Reinsurance segments. The Property & Casualty Reinsurance segment offers specialty lines comprising marine, aviation, facultative and direct business, credit, surety, and political risks reinsurance products; and treaty, catastrophe XL, and structured reinsurance, as well as insurance-linked securities. This segment also provides risk solutions for agricultural, livestock, and bloodstock businesses; aviation and space business; and marine and offshore energy business. The Life & Health Reinsurance segment offers group and individual credit life, enhanced annuities, group life and health, and Sharia-compliant Takaful reinsurance products. This segment also provides risk solutions in the areas of critical illness, disability, health, longevity, long term care, and mortality and morbidity, as well as underwriting services. In addition, it offers various financial solutions, including new-business financing; monetization of embedded value; reserve and solvency relief; and divestiture of non-core businesses. The company was formerly known as Hannover RAckversicherung AG and changed its name to Hannover RAck SE in March 2013. The company was founded in 1966 and is headquartered in Hanover, Germany. Hannover RAck SE is a subsidiary of Talanx AG. Read More Bank of Montreal provides diversified financial services primarily in North America. The company's personal banking products and services include checking and savings accounts, credit cards, mortgages, and financial and investment advice services; and commercial banking products and services comprise business deposit accounts, commercial credit cards, business loans and commercial mortgages, cash management solutions, foreign exchange, specialized banking programs, treasury and payment solutions, and risk management products for small business and commercial banking customers. It also offers investment and wealth advisory services; digital investing services; financial services and solutions; and investment management, and trust and custody services to institutional, retail, and high net worth investors. In addition, the company provides life insurance, accident and sickness insurance, and annuity products; creditor and travel insurance to bank customers; and reinsurance solutions. Further, it offers client's debt and equity capital-raising services, as well as loan origination and syndication, balance sheet management, and treasury management; strategic advice on mergers and acquisitions, restructurings, and recapitalizations, as well as valuation and fairness opinions; and trade finance, risk mitigation, and other operating services. Additionally, the company provides research and access to markets for institutional, corporate, and retail clients; trading solutions that include debt, foreign exchange, interest rate, credit, equity, securitization and commodities; new product development and origination services, as well as risk management advice and services to hedge against fluctuations; and funding and liquidity management services to its clients. It operates through approximately 1,400 bank branches and 4,800 automated banking machines in Canada and the United States. The company was founded in 1817 and is headquartered in Montreal, Canada. Read More This fight isnt over, Victor Urquidez, an assistant manager at Sears Auto Center for eight years, said in a statement provided by Rise Up Retail. Lampert needs to keep his promise to keep our stores open and invest in our stores, and he needs to make sure that all employees who dedicated years to the company and whose jobs he destroyed get financial support for themselves and their families. Oshkosh Corporation designs, manufactures, and markets specialty vehicles and vehicle bodies worldwide. The company's Access Equipment segment provides aerial work platforms and telehandlers for use in various construction, industrial, institutional, and general maintenance applications. This segment also offers rental fleet loans and leases, and floor plan and retail financing through third-party funding arrangements; towing and recovery equipment; carriers and wreckers; equipment installation services; and chassis and service parts sales. Its Defense segment provides heavy, medium, and light tactical wheeled vehicles and related services for the department of defense. The company's Fire & Emergency segment offers custom and commercial firefighting vehicles and equipment; and commercial fire apparatus and emergency vehicles, such as pumpers, aerial platform, ladder and tiller trucks, tankers, rescue vehicles, wild land rough terrain response vehicles, mobile command and control centers, bomb squad vehicles, hazardous materials control vehicles, and other emergency response vehicles. This segment also provides aircraft rescue and firefighting, snow removal, and broadcast vehicles, as well as command trucks, and military simulator shelters and trailers. Its Commercial segment offers front-and rear-discharge concrete mixers for the concrete ready-mix industry; refuse collection vehicles and related components to commercial and municipal waste haulers; and field service vehicles and truck-mounted cranes for the construction, equipment dealer, building supply, utility, tire service, railroad, and mining industries. Oshkosh Corporation provides its products through direct sales representatives, dealers, and distributors. The company was formerly known as Oshkosh Truck Corporation and changed its name to Oshkosh Corporation in February 2008. Oshkosh Corporation was founded in 1917 and is headquartered in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Read More 2 hours ago | June 23rd | 2021 5:00 AM You Quit Your Job Good for You! But How Does that Impact Your Investments? As companies make plans to return employees back to the office, millions of workers have made a decision not to go back at all. In fact, the number of people who quit their jobs increased to four million in April and increased 2.7%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The largest increases in employees leaving their jobs occurred in retail trade and professional and business services. In a suspected case of robbery, a 50-year-old Delhi Police Assistant Sub Inspector (ASI) sustained severe injuries after being shot at by two unidentified bike-borne assailants in North Delhi's Kotwali area on Thursday. According to police, the victim was identified as ASI Bedi Ram, resident of Seelampur area, is posted at Hazrat Nizamuddin police station. Late night on Thursday, two bike-borne assailants allegedly intercepted him while he was returning home from work. The incident occurred in an underpass near Vijay Ghat. The accused persons allegedly tried to rob him. On resisting, he was shot in the stomach and the accused persons reportedly snatched his purse. ASI Bedi Ram was taken to AIIMS trauma centre passersby and is said to be out of danger. Prima facie, police suspect that it is a robbery case however they said they are probing all angles as it might also be a case of personal enmity or rivalry. A case has been registered at Kotwali police station and police are investigating the matter. InteriorExterior Expo begins Chandigarh: The four-day interior-exterior show, INT-EXT Expo 2019 was inaugurated at Parade Ground, Sector 17 here by VP Singh Badnore, UT Administrator and Punjab Governor. The exhibition breaks down into three sections, each covering a different facet of Architecture, Construction & Home Decor. MCC OKs Rs 1260 cr draft budget proposal Chandigarh: The Finance and Contract Committee of Municipal Corporation of Chandigarh in its meeting held here approved the budget estimates of Rs 468.90 crore under Capital Head and Rs 791.41 crore under the Revenue Head for the financial year 2019-20. The meeting was held here under the chairmanship of Rajesh Kumar, Mayor. hair artists to te participain intl contest Chandigarh: After winning the 1st edition of Shaping Authentic Beauty Kongress, 2018-2019, Asia Pacific, organized by Schwarzkopf Professional of India in Mumbai, Glamazone Unisex Beauty Salon, Chandigarh, hair artists are all set to hoist the Indian Flag at Beijing, China in Shaping Authentic Beauty Kongress International Award, which going to be held on April 8. Najeeb-Ur Rehman, PPS Director of Schwarzkopf Professional of India, honored the winners with trophies at Chandigarh Press Club. City suffering from visual pollution Chandigarh: Chandigarh is suffering from visual pollution because of the illogical decisions being taken by the local administration in the name of development and beautification, said architect Surinder Bahga, who is also the member, Advisory Committee on UTs, Ministry of Home Affairs. Bahga was speaking at the architects seminar on Smart Cities: Concepts and Reality which was held here at Parade Ground, Sector 17. financial literacy training to be held Sangrur: Sa-Dhan with support of HSBC will hold Digital Financial Literacy Training in Sangrur, Dhuri, Bhawanigarh Mandi, Sunam Mandi and Chintawala from February 11 16. Sa-Dhan has partnered with Satya MicroCapital Ltd, an NBFC-MFI to spread awareness in these areas. This training is part of Sa-Dhans outreach programme to spread awareness about Digital Financial Literacy and is conducted free of cost. 10th PU Rose Festival kicked off at PU Chandigarh: The 10th Panjab University Rose Festival kicked off with much fanfare and enthusiasm which was inaugurated today by Prof Raj Kumar, Vice Chancellor, Panjab University at Prof. R.C. Paul Rose Garden. A variety of cultural programmes were presented by the students of Ankur School, Panjab University, Guru Gobind Singh Vidya Mandir, Ratwara Sahib & NSS volunteers on the occasion. Flower Competition was also held and there was a display of about 500 participants in 90 categories. To be a GST accountant, a new scope has opened as the Government of India has launched a new training programme for the educated youths. With implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), there is an acute shortage of skilled talent and shortage of accountants is felt badly. In Odisha such shortage is acute and business establishments are facing a lot of hardships due to absence of trained manpower in GST. Accordingly in order to overcome such shortages, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MoCA) has decided to launch GST Accountant Assistant Scheme. Secretary Corporate Affairs Injeti Srinivas has informed the State Government in this regard. Srinivas said that in association with the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) and the Institute of Cost Accountants of India (ICoAI), the MoCA will organise such a programme. This will yield a big scope for large numbers of youths to get job opportunities in professional firms, companies and other business establishments. As GST is a new law and not many are aware of its implications, professionals are still undergoing training on GST and updating their knowledge on it. It will enable professional firms, companies, business entities to rope in trained professionals for better GST compliance, said Srinivas. It is expected that over a hundred thousand youths would be trained in the first phase, who would be readily employable. The GST Commissionerate working in the State will make necessary arrangements of 50 hours on-the-job training to these youths. The branches and chapters of ICAI and ICoAI have been instructed to get in touch with the GST Commissionerate in this regard. In Odisha, the State Government has asked the officials of the Department of Finance and Skill Development to coordinate such an initiative, which will not only help the youths but also the business organizations, MSME Sector, which are facing a tough time due to the new law. The Uttar Pradesh government assured the agitated Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party members that it was committed to giving reservations to Dalits and backwards in the appointment of teachers and other posts in state medical colleges that was ignored due to roster system. The SP and BSP members were on their feet over the issue as the Assembly assembled on Friday morning. Later, during Zero Hour, leader of opposition Ram Govind Chaudhary again raised the issue, alleging that the Bharatiya Janata Party government was hatching a conspiracy to deny reservations in appointment of teachers and other government posts and thus violating constitutional norms. Chaudhary said that the UGC had denied reservation in appointment of teachers in their institutions through roster system which was against the law. The issue was raised through a notice for an adjournment motion, which was rejected by Speaker Hriday Narayan Dikshit. Chaudharys view was supported by BSP leader Lalji Verma, who alleged that in the appointment of teachers, including professor, associate professor and assistant professor in new medical colleges, reservation policy was ignored. Verma said that out of the total 360 posts, not a single post had been reserved nor was any age relaxation given for the interview which began from February 4. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Suresh Kumar Khanna contested the charge, saying that the previous BSP and then the SP governments had issued notifications which denied reservation to Dalits and backwards in King Georges Medical University and the Sanjay Gandhi Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGIMS). Khanna even tabled papers of the notification in the House. He said the BSP and SP notifications made the different department of educational institution separate units which created all the problems. But I can assure the House that the BJP will ensure that reservation is given in all appointments and if required, necessary amendment will be made in the rule, Khanna announced in the House. Expressing grief at the deaths from consumption of spurious liquor, the Congress has stated that simply suspending 13 excise department officials is not enough, the Excise minister should also resign. Further, in a joint statement the partys state in charge Anugrah Narayan Singh, Pradesh Congress Committee chief Pritam Singh, leader of opposition Indira Hridayesh and Dhirendra Pratap demanded that the incident be probed by a sitting judge of the high court. Demanding stern punishment for those guilty in the incident, the Congress leaders have also sought adequate compensation to the families of men killed. Meanwhile, PCC spokesperson Garima Mehra Dasauni that simply suspending some departmental officials is not enough, the Excise minister should also resign. She alleged that the State Government had bowed down to the liquor mafia in Uttarakhand. Expressing concern, she said that after Punjab, Uttarakhand is on the way to becoming a state in the grip of substance abuse and that the reason for this is the apathy of the government. Stating that the liquor business in Uttarakhand is riddled with various anomalies, she opined that the poor people are facing the brunt of the connivance between the state government and the liquor mafia. A day after IPS officer Mohd Mustafa raised a banner of revolt by making clear his intent to move the Supreme Court against denial of Punjabs police chiefs post to him, the DGP-rank officer has been removed as the chief of the Special Task Force probing the drugs cases in Punjab on Friday. Mustafa, who is holding the posts of DGP (STF) in addition to DGP (Punjab State Human Rights Commission), has been alleging that he was ignored for the coveted post while alleging that there was a conspiracy to keep his name out. In protest, he requested the State Government to relieve him as the chief of the anti-drug STF pointing hat he is senior to newly-appointed Director General of Police (DGP) Dinkar Gupta, who is 1987-batch officer. Mustafa, a 1985-batch officer, has in fact requested the Chief Minister's office to give him the charge of the State Human Rights Commission. He argued that he fulfilled all the parameters as per the top court guidelines for judging the suitability of the person to head the state police. Notably, the DGP (STF) reports to the DGP Punjab. Mustafa would be replaced by 1993-batch ADGP-rank officer Gurpreet Kaur Deo, who is currently on leave. Till her return, the State DGP Gupta would look after the work of DGP STF. The reshuffle in the police department was expected after the elevation of Gupta, who was earlier holding the post of DGP (Intelligence). Gupta will be replaced by 1987-batch officer VK Bhawra. In all, total 10 IPS officers have been transferred on Friday. Hardeep Singh Dhillon, posted as DGP (law and order), has been given the charge of Punjab Police Housing Corporation chairman, while Jasminder Singh has been given the charge of DGP Railways with independent charge and would directly report to Additional Chief Secretary (Home). The 1987-batch officer MK Tiwari has the charge of DGP-cum-managing director Punjab Police Housing Corporation, while 1988-batch officer IPS Sahota has been shifted as ADGP, PAP Jalandhar. Kuldeep Singh has been posted as ADGP (IT & T) wing. Among others, Jatinder Singh Aulakh has been posted as IG Intelligence in addition to his present charge of IG headquarters, while Hardial Singh Mann has been posted as DIG Intelligence. A five day course of child rights and media concluded today at Indira Gandhi National Tribal University, Amarkantak. The course was conducted by Department of mass Communication and Journalism in collaboration with UNICEF. The working journalists from Annupur, Dindori, Rewa, Gwalior, Shahdol and Bhopal participated in it. Speaking at Inaugural event Michael Juma, Chief UNICEF, Madhya Pradesh spoke on the need of informed reporting on children and child rights and how this programme can help strengthen positive reporting for children in the State. Professor TV Kattimani, Vice Chancellor of the Indira Gandhi National Tribal University spoke on media and children issues and increasing in positive stories for children. Dean of the University Prof Rabindranath Manukonde spoke on the partnership and how it would be undertaking joint work in field of communication and media studies. Anil Gulati, Communication Specialist, UNICEF Madhya Pradesh spoke on the objective of the training and various aspects of child rights and needs to focus on child rights while reporting for children. Sujan Sarkar Planning Monitoring and Evaluation officer UNICEF, Madhya Pradesh shared the various data source and the indicators for children in various sessions in the training. Surbhi Dhaiya, Indian Institute of mass Communication, Prof Biswajt Das, Jamia Millia Islamia, Sarvesh Jain, Sravani Sarkar, faculty of Institute took various sessions. The participants were also trained on the theme of new born care and immunization by Dr Mainak Chatterjee, health officer, UNICEF, Madhya Pradesh. The participants were also taken to Health Centre and shown its various aspects at Amarkantak and tribal village. The training was interactive and had session followed by discussion in each session. Our Insurance Fraud Division continues to investigate all tips regarding suspected civil and criminal insurance fraud, Redmer said in a statement/ We want Marylanders to know they can and should call us if they suspect insurance fraud. All tips are confidential and we follow up on each lead. The bad actors need to be held accountable for their actions. The three- day State Arogya fair, organised jointly by Ministry of Ayush, Government of India, department of Ayush, Government of Uttarakhand and Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), started at Rishikul ground Haridwar on Friday. Harak Singh Rawat, the minister for Ayush and Ayush education, Government of Uttarakhand, inaugurated the fair. The world today recognises the power of Ayush, said Rawat while addressing the inaugural session of the fair. He further said that this is an opportunity for Uttarakhand as well as India to promote and expand their Ayush capabilities for the benefit of the society. He said that the state government would take initiatives to make Uttarakhand the land of Ayurveda. Ramesh Kumar Sudhanshu, secretary, Ayush and Ayush education Uttarakhand, said that the objective of the fair is to promote the traditional systems of medicines. He further said that Ayush systems are capable of curing the most complex diseases. They are economical too, he added. Ramanand Meena, deputy secretary, Ministry of Ayush, Government of India, said that India can bring a revolution in healthcare and be a teacher to the world if the strength lying in the traditional systems of medicine is used rightly. He said that Uttarakhand has a vast source of medicinal and herbal plants. If they are properly exploited it would boost Ayush industry. He asked the state government to send proposals for more Arogya fair in the state. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwals car was allegedly attacked by a mob armed with sticks in Narela on Friday, an official in the Chief Ministers Office (CMO) said. The incident occurred when Kejriwal had gone to the outer Delhi locality to inaugurate development works in 25 unauthorised colonies. However, nobody was hurt in the said attack, the police said. Attack took place in police presence on the route cleared by area DCP. This is fifth such attack on the Chief Minister in last three years. Under political pressure from the Central Government, Delhi Police has deliberately allowed these attacks, quoted a statement from the CMO. Interestingly, Kejriwals vehicle was moving along the route cleared by the Deputy Commissioner of Police of the area, when the BJP workers armed with sticks attacked the vehicle in police presence. The police, in its presence allowed the BJP workers to surround the Chief Ministers vehicle, block it and bang the window panes of the vehicle in full public view with sticks, the Government said in their statement. Instead of making any effort to prevent these goons from reaching the Chief Minister, it seemed the Delhi Police personnel present at the spot were more interested in escorting them till the Chief Ministers vehicle, the Government further stated. A group of about 100 men tried to stop Kejriwals car and attacked it with sticks. Meanwhile, Delhi Police has refuted any breach of security of the Chief Minister. Former MLA of BJP Neeldaman Khatri and his followers were tried to gherao the Chief Minister but the same was foiled by alert police officers. ACP Narela who was piloting the car of Kejriwal got down and cleared the passage for the official, vehicle of the Chief Minister who later went to attend the function in school and remained there for two hours. The Chief Minister was provided full security and escorted to his next destination, a senior police official said. Sometimes we fabricate a conceptual reality in order to deal with the reality we interact with on a daily basis Sometime in the late 1970s, tabloids in Indonesia, Malaysia and Egypt carried a front-page news about Neil Armstrong the famous American astronaut who, in 1969, became the first man to walk on the moon. The news claimed that Armstrong had converted to Islam. Supposedly he had done so after confessing that when he was on the moon, he had heard the sound of the azaan, the Muslim call to prayer. JR Hensen, in his 2006 biography of Armstrong, First Man, wrote that by 1980, the news had been repeatedly carried and reproduced by tabloids in a number of other Muslim-majority countries as well. So much so that Armstrong began receiving invitations from Islamic organisations in many Muslim countries and from within the US. The news continued to gather momentum in Muslim countries. Hensen wrote that in 1983, on Armstrongs request, the US State Department issued instructions to US embassies in Muslim countries asking them to politely but firmly communicate that Armstrong had not converted to Islam and that he had no current plans or desire to travel overseas to participate in Islamic activities. Despite this, the belief that he had converted to Islam after hearing the azaan on the moon continued to do the rounds. In fact, this impression still pops up on YouTube channels and websites funded and run by various Islamic evangelical organisations. Hensen suggested that the Muslims, who had first initiated the news of Armstrongs alleged conversion, might have been influenced by the claims of some American Christian organisations. A few days after Armstrongs moon landing in 1969, these organisations had announced that God had put Armstrong on the moon to show Gods greatness in a new light. They nonchalantly assumed that the extremely private Armstrong was a practicing Christian. The late pop sensation, Michael Jackson, too, was said to have converted to Islam just before his death in 2009. Whats more, an MP3 recording of a naat, supposedly recited by Jackson, began to circulate on social media. Clearly, the reciter was not Jackson but this did not stop many across the Muslim world to believe otherwise. So why does this happen? One rather convincing way of finding an answer to this question can be ascertained from historian Markus Daechsels 2002 study of India and Pakistans urban middle class milieu. Even though a part of his study was focussed on the history of fantastical claims of this nature, made by the Hindus and Muslims of the subcontinent, the tools that he used to explain such behaviour can be applied universally. According to Daechsel, people who are not happy by empirical reality create a conceptual reality. Empirical realty is the reality which one interacts with on a daily basis. Conceptual reality, on the other hand, is created and fuelled by certain firmly-held ideological drivers or by what one thinks empirical reality should actually be. The latter is an imagined world but it is stuffed with claims and physical paraphernalia to make it seem like empirical reality. Daechsel wrote that such claims can include the projection of ones religious and ideological beliefs on people that have little or nothing to do with them. Such projections, which are often proliferated through populist media, try to concretise conceptual reality. In another interesting example, Daechsel wrote that certain pre-Partition Muslim and Hindu outfits insisted that their members wear a uniform and hold parades. Daechsel wrote that in the empirical reality, there was no war or revolution taking place. But in the minds of the members of the outfits, there was (or should have been). So they created a conceptual reality in which there was revolutionary turmoil and these outfits were an integral part of it. Daechsel also gave the example in which Hindus and Muslims, after feeling unable to challenge Western inventions and economics in the empirical reality, created a conceptual reality by claiming that whatever the West had achieved in the fields of science had already been achieved by ancient Hindus and/or is already present in Islam. The projection bit in Daechsels study is most intriguing. In December 2018, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan gleefully shared a 1988 video recording on Twitter of conservative Islamic scholar Israr Ahmad. Ahmad is seen claiming that according to one of Muhammad Ali Jinnahs doctors, the founder of Pakistan, during his last moments spoke about the importance of imposing Shariah laws and the caliphate system in Pakistan. This was conceptual reality coming into play to counter the empirical reality in which Jinnah had done no such thing and was, in fact, a Westernised and pluralistic Muslim politician. But most interesting thing is that this nature of projection of a conceptual reality actually goes further back. In the following example, one can also see what inspired this claim. The day after the celebrated Turkish nationalist and founder of the modern Turkish republic, Kamal Ataturk, passed away in November 1939, one of the leading Urdu dailies in pre-Partition India, the Inqilab, reported that Ataturk, who had slipped into a coma before his death, briefly woke up to convey a message to a servant of his. Apparently, the staunch, life-long secularist, who went the whole nine yards during his long rule to erase all cultural and political expressions associated with Turkeys Caliphate past, had briefly woken up from a coma to instruct his servant to tell the millat-i-Islamiyya to follow on the footsteps of the Khulfa-i-Rashideen. Inqilab was a respected Urdu daily catering to the urban Muslim middleclasses in pre-Partition India. In its November 11, 1939, issue, the paper went on to report that Ataturk, after communicating his message to the servant, shouted Allah is great! and passed away. This time forever. Quite clearly, unable to come to terms with Ataturk and Jinnahs dispositions in the empirical reality, some created a conceptual reality in which, in death, both dramatically became Caliphate enthusiasts. (Courtesy: The Dawn) At a time when nations have gone all out to broker peace in Afghanistan, India has to find ways to not only maintain its presence but also protect its interests US President Donald Trump has now decided to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan. His patience is wearing thin. Disagreeing with the views of some of his Generals and strategic advisors, he intends to pull out of the unwinnable 17-year-old Afghan war. Trump changed his earlier calculation of keeping the American troops engaged in Afghanistan without paying too heavy a political price. But if the war situation deteriorates and results in high rate of American casualties, domestic political opinion will change. The situation is now changing for the worse. Attacks by Taliban insurgents have become more vicious and violent and Afghan security forces casualties are going up disproportionately high. The proportion of districts under Government control and influence have fallen from 72 per cent in 2015 to 50 per cent now. A Taliban attack on the training base for pro-Government militia claimed at least 43 lives, underlining the prevalent perilous security situation. President Trumps decision to withdraw his forces stationed in Afghanistan has evoked critical responses from many strategists and generals. A report authored for a US-based think-thank by James Dobbins, former US President George Bushs special Envoy for Afghanistan and others, clearly said that in an event of a precipitous withdrawal, the Government in Kabul will lose influence and legitimacy. Terror groups such as Al Qaeda and the Islamic State would be encouraged to intensify their attacks on various US targets. Afghanistan will irreversibly slide into a wider civil war. Then there is also the danger that Pakistan may become more open in its backing of Taliban insurgents. Besides, some US commentators, too, have expressed their fears that Trump may withdraw the American forces even without an agreement with the Taliban because he strongly feels that important regional countries should come forward to create stable conditions in Afghanistan rather than US, which is six thousand miles away. Trump also criticised India for building libraries in Afghanistan without providing any troops on the ground. Trumps moves on Afghanistan prompted the resignation of his Pentagon Chief, Jim Mattis, who in a letter to the President wrote that he should find a Defence Secretary who is better aligned with him. A cut of about 7,000 troops in Afghanistan would likely mean that the US abandons much of its mission of advising the Afghanistan forces and remain engaged in counter-terrorism operations and protection of military installations such as the Bagram airfield. A big problem of the present Afghan Government is all-pervasive corruption. Afghanistan has become a kleptocratic state where every transfer and promotion depends upon power and patronage. Some of the powerful warlords fighting against the Taliban epitomise corruption and misgovernance. Parliamentary elections in Afghanistan are going to be held soon and the present micro-managing Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has not inspired confidence. Other candidates, too, are in the fray. Only a credibly elected Afghanistan President can strengthen the position of the Government to negotiate with the Taliban. The new President, with a strong mandate of the Afghan people, would be in a happier position to discuss issues with the Taliban. Americas pointman on Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalil Zad, has expressed the hope that dialogue for a comprehensive ceasefire will be successful. The key sticking point is to persuade the Taliban insurgents to speak to the Afghan Government, which they have so long derided an American puppet. The Talibans will have to pledge that they would not allow international terrorist groups like Al Qaeda and IS to use Afghanistan as launching pads for attacks against America. The US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, has said that the news from Doha was encouraging. America has also involved other stakeholders like Pakistan, Russia and China. Talibanis have appointed Mulla Baredar Akhund as their chief negotiator. Akhund is one of the top leaders of the Taliban, and is expected to negotiate with authority. Pakistan, in its turn, has given up the ambition of ruling Afghanistan as a puppet state in its quest for strategic depth. It now wants an Afghan Government which is not an ally of India and not hostile to Islamabad. It realises that without stabilisation in Afghanistan, its own stability will be imperilled. Gen Dunford, Commander of the US forces in Afghanistan, was spot-on when he said that providing sanctuary to the terrorists by Pakistan will be the single biggest factor that would cause the failure of the coalition. The neighbouring power, China, wants peace and stability in Afghanistan so that there are no unsettling repercussions on Uyghurs in the Xinjiang Province of China. China and Russia, too, are interested in the stabilisation in Afghanistan. Developments in Afghanistan will put India in a tight spot. If the Taliban strengthens its grip on Afghanistan, its influence could subsequently spread to neighbouring Pakistan and Kashmir, which would be bad news for India. It may be quite possible that the Taliban will join hands with Pakistani militants to create safe-havens for the terrorists targeting India. India has made huge investments in developing soft power in Afghanistan. It is a big donor to Afghanistan, having provided about three billion dollar to that country. The new Parliament building, Salma Dam in Herat province and a highway to Irans Chabahar port are some of these big projects. At this stage when affairs in Afghanistan are fluid, protection of Indian interest will require close contacts with all groups, including the Taliban. But this has to be done covertly. Army Chief Gen Bipin Rawats suggestion that India will join the bandwagon by talking to the Taliban was unsolicited. If Pakistan succeeds in keeping some people in the new Afghan Government, who are hostile to India, it will seriously affect Indias interests and assets that it has built painstakingly over the years. India will have to thwart such designs of Pakistan. (The writer is a former Director-General of the National Human Rights Commission and former Director of National Police Academy) The much-awaited report by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) on the Rafale deal will be tabled and debated in Parliament this Budget session, giving the controversy fresh legs. Meanwhile, The Hindus latest article on the Rafale agreement (February 8, 2019) claims that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) officials, in a hand-written note (apparently cropped by The Hindu, seemingly altering its meaning) asked officials in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) not to interfere with ongoing negotiations with Dassault. It is precisely such dilatory tactics, however, by a section of MoD officials and the arms lobby long used in defence deals with kickbacks that have eroded Indias defence capability over the years. This clearly compelled the PMO to fast-track the Rafale agreement to overcome stalling tactics since, in a government-to-government deal, arms dealers and their mentors are cut out. The main agent provocateur in the Rafale deal has been Congress President Rahul Gandhi. His epithet 'chowkidar chor hai', directed at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is based on the belief that if a lie is repeated often enough, it becomes the truth. The main agent provocateur in the Rafale deal thus far has been Congress President Rahul Gandhi. (Photo: PTI) Rahul has been fallacious on three key issues concerning the Rafale deal though price, Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) and Anil Ambani. Consider the facts on each. Price Rahul says India overpaid for the 36 Rafale fighter jets to be manufactured in France and delivered to the Indian Air Force (IAF) in flyaway condition. The India-France Inter-Governmental Agreement (IGA) was finalised at Rs 59,000 crore for 36 fully loaded fighters that works out to Rs 1,640 crore for each weaponised flyaway Rafale jet with 13 India-specific enhancements. The Congress began negotiating with Dassault for 126 Rafale jets in 2007. Of these, 18 were to be made in France and 108 in India, in partnership with HAL. In 2012, the Congress abruptly aborted the deal. As then-Defence Minister AK Antony famously, and somewhat ambiguously, asked: Where is the money? Negotiations on the final price of each fully loaded Rafale jet were thus aborted by the UPA regime before a price could be agreed upon. Is there a template to compare the cost of a fully loaded and weaponised Rafale fighter jet at contemporary prices? There, in fact, are two relevant contemporary templates. The first is the price paid for fully loaded and weaponised Rafale fighters by the Qatari Air Force in 2015. Aljazeera reported the deal on May 4, 2015: President Francois Hollande and Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani have signed a 6.3 billion ($7.02 billion) agreement for the sale of 24 Dassault Aviation-built Rafale fighter jets. The US dollar traded at around Rs 64 in May 2015. Thus, the price the Qatar government negotiated for 24 Rafale jets ($7.02 billion) was equivalent to Rs 45,000 crore. That works out to Rs 1,875 crore for each of the 24 Rafale jets Rs 235 crore more per Rafale than the Indian government is paying during the same time period for similarly weaponised jets. Congress alleges India overpaid for the 36 Rafale fighter jets. Will the charge stick? (Photo: PTI) Was the Qatari order an outlier? Consider the second price template. In February 2015, the Egyptian government finalised an agreement to buy 24 fully loaded Rafale jets. France24 reported on the deal on February 16, 2015: French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian arrived in Cairo on Monday to sign a 5.2 billion contract for the sale of 24 Rafale fighter jets to Egypt, a move that will finalise the first foreign order of the French-built warplanes. The price paid by the Egyptian government for 24 Rafales (5.2 billion) was equivalent, at the February 2015 exchange rate of Rs 71 per euro, to Rs 37,000 crore or Rs 1,542 crore per Rafale jet. Like the Qatari Air Force and IAF orders, the Egyptians got fully loaded Rafales but with fewer specific enhancements, hence the slightly lower cost of Rs 98 crore per jet compared to Rs 1,640 crore India is paying and Rs 1,875 crore Qatar is paying. Why then does Rahul Gandhi allege that India overpaid for the 36 Rafales and bandy about the irrelevant figure of Rs 650 crore for a bare-bones Rafale? It cant be ignorance. The Al Jazeera and France24 reports are in the public domain. But knowledge of the truth has never come in the way of anyone determined to conceal it. Accident-prone HAL Turn now to HAL. When the UPA government was negotiating a deal from 2007 onwards to buy 126 Rafales (which it suddenly aborted in 2012), Dassault had made it clear that manufacturing Rafale fighter jets in partnership with HAL would not be feasible because it couldnt guarantee the quality of the 108 Rafales HAL would make, following delivery of the 18 initial flyaway Rafales made in France. The IAF has long been critical of HALs ability to deliver fighter jets on time and to strict specifications. The tragic crash of the Mirage 2000 trainer jet, upgraded by HAL, at the HAL-run airport in Bengaluru on February 1, 2019, is a reminder of the consequences of cynically using HAL to attack the governments Rafale deal. Rahul asked in Parliament why the initial order for 126 Rafales had been cut to 36 it hasnt. The request for proposal (RFQ) for the remaining 90 Rafale jets has been prepared. These will be manufactured in India in a joint venture with Dassault. The IAF has long been critical of HALs ability to deliver fighter jets on time and to strict specifications. (Photo: PTI) The dithering by the UPA government over the Rafale contract, between 2007 and 2012, leading to its abortion, till it was revived in 2015 by the NDA government, caused the depletion of the IAFs strength from 42 squadrons in 2004 to 31 today. The twist in the tale, of course, is a clutch of alleged arms dealers, Sanjay Bhandari, Deepak Talwar, Rajeev Saxena and Christian Michel, pitching for the Eurofighter Rafales main rival. Bhandari, who is reportedly close to Robert Vadra and Vadras aide Manoj Arora, has been absconding since 2016. He is charged under the Official Secrets Act (OSA). Vadra has meanwhile been interrogated by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on his alleged links with Bhandari. Michel is in Tihar Jail and under interrogation in the AgustaWestland VVIP helicopter case significantly, Agusta Westlands parent company has an equity stake in the firm that makes the Eurofighter. Talwar and Saxena were extradited from the UAE for their role in facilitating bribes allegedly paid for defence deals. Ambani factor Finally, Anil Ambani. Again, as Rahul Gandhi knows, offset contracts worth around Rs 30,000 crore will be given (they have not been given yet and will not be till October 2019) to several dozen Indian contractors, big and small. Those in the running include Tata, Mahindra, L&T, Bharat Forge and a Dassault-Reliance joint venture. How much will Anil Ambanis company get of the Rs 30,000 crore contracts? Probably, a fraction. By Dassaults own admission, the Dassault-Reliance JV will receive Rs 850 crore in offset contract value to make spare parts for Dassaults line of small Falcon business jets not Rafales. Assuming a net profit margin of 10%, that works out to a profit of Rs 85 crore over several years to be shared between Dassault and Reliance. Far from being the only one, Anil Ambani's company is one among many Indian firms in the Dassault Rafale deal. (Photo: India Today) But, claims Rahul Gandhi repeatedly: Modi has given Anil Ambani Rs 30,000 crore. He adds menacingly: "Why did Anil Ambanis 2017 Reliance balance sheet refer to Rs 30,000 crore as the figure the company was looking at in the Rafale deal?" Just as political manifestos are designed to please voters, company balance sheets are designed to please shareholders. In 2017, the offset contracts were theoretical and Reliance reportedly made unwise forward-looking statements in its balance sheet. To use that to attack him in light of the facts we know today that offsets worth Rs 30,000 crore will be shared by nearly 100 Indian firms is a wilful misrepresentation. But, says an angry Rahul, Anils company was just 10 days old when it got the offset contract from Dassault. That, of course, is untrue as Rahul knows or should know. The company is in fact over 20 years old. In 2015, Reliance Defence acquired Gujarat Pipapav, a reputed defence equipment manufacturer established in 1997, which has been in the defence business for more than two decades. An election issue? A recent television survey revealed that, contrary to popular perception, 54% of the respondents polled believe that alleged corruption in the Rafale fighter jet deal would be a key issue in the 2019 Lok Sabha election. Parliament will debate the CAG report on Rafale in the week beginning February 11. With the Budget session concluding on February 13, the perception battle over Rafale will then shift to the public domain. Also read: Priyanka Gandhi's focus should be Varanasi. Not Robert Vadra JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - A Polish man on trial for treason in Indonesia after meeting with Papuan independence supporters said that visitors to his prison assaulted him and threatened to kill him as guards watched. A handwritten two-page statement by Jakub Skrzypski details three consecutive days beginning Jan. 30 in which he was assaulted or threatened by men wearing T-shirts emblazoned with "Brimob," an abbreviated name for Indonesia's paramilitary police. Skrzypski, a globe-trotter who has lived in Switzerland for years, was arrested in Indonesia's easternmost Papua region in August and accused of plotting against the state. He is on trial along with a Papaun he had been in contact with, Simon Magal. Skrzypski's statement, provided to The Associated Press by one of his lawyers, said he was punched through cell-door bars at a police detention center in Wamena and spat on by the men who threatened to return to kill him if he is found guilty. "What is striking is the total indifference of the arrest guards. I was even wondering if they would open the cell doors to allow us to be harassed inside or taken away," he wrote. Jayawijaya district police chief Tonny Ananda denied any mistreatment and said officials had "tried our best" to satisfy Skrzypski'z requests for supplies such as milk. "He is always dissatisfied and made up bad stories to discredit Indonesian police," Ananda said. Skrzypski faces up to 20 years in prison and his case has highlighted Indonesia's extreme sensitivity about the long-running insurgency in the Papua region, which occupies the western half of the island of New Guinea. The Indonesian government restricts foreign journalists from reporting in the region. Human rights lawyer Latifah Anum Siregar said she protested Skrzypski's treatment at a court hearing on Thursday. ___ This story corrects name of police officer. UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The Security Council agreed Thursday to reduce the number of meetings it holds on Kosovo under pressure from the United States and its European allies who say the U.N.'s most powerful body has more important crises to discuss. Kosovo declared independence in 2008 from Serbia, a close ally of Russia which has refused to recognize its decision and had insisted on holding open meetings every three months. Council members agreed ahead of a scheduled Thursday afternoon meeting on Kosovo to reduce the number of meetings to three gatherings this year and two in 2020, avoiding what would likely have been a contentious procedural vote. Britain's U.N. Ambassador Karen Pierce said: "If you look at the amount of conflict actually on the ground in Kosovo . there isn't anything like the level of the issues that are dealt with in places like Yemen, or (Congo) or Haiti." "So four meetings a year was clearly too many," she said. But the issue of the number of meetings was still raised by many speakers at Thursday's council meeting. U.S. deputy ambassador Jonathan Cohen said the Trump administration appreciated the agreement, saying "there is much better uses for this council's limited time and resources than to maintain the past frequency of these ... briefings." "It is disappointing," he added, "that at a moment when the atmosphere begs for improvement, these council meetings continue to be used to employ antagonistic language." Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said Moscow rejects the Western line, stressing that "behind this is an attempt to hide from the international community the truth on the real situation in the region and the meddling behind the scenes in Kosovo." Kosovo came under U.N. and NATO administration after a 1999 NATO-led air war halted a crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists. The Security Council resolution that established an interim U.N. administration left the final status of Kosovo in question, and Nebenzia said the council must remain "the main forum" to deal with the issue. "Kosovo remains the main cradle of instability and a source of conflict potential in the Balkan region," Nebenzia warned. "The situation in the region is extremely unstable and at any moment it might spiral out of control," Vlora Citaku, Kosovo's ambassador to the United States, strongly disagreed saying: "It is astounding. Simply unbelievable, that this council has convened more sessions to talk about Kosovo, than it has for Syria, Yemen, or Venezuela." "There are real problems out there, real challenges that require your valuable time and attention. Real people who need your help, as we in Kosovo once did," she said. Citaku accused Serbia of using the Security Council as "a stage ... to tell its fairytales to the world." Serbia's Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic told the council "we do not ask for meetings for the purpose of upmanship, but to make a contribution to the stabilization of the situation in Kosovo ... and to the peace in the region." He said "the most important thing is that the Security Council will go on" considering the Kosovo issue. Pierce, Cohen and Germany's U.N. Ambassador Christoph Heusgen all stressed that what's needed most is for Kosovo and Serbia to normalize relations, which would open a path to European Union membership. RABAT, Morocco (AP) - Government officials say Morocco has stopped taking part in military action with the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen's war, and has recalled its ambassador to Saudi Arabia. Tensions have been mounting between Morocco and Saudi Arabia, amid international concerns about Saudi actions in the Yemen war and other issues. Morocco is not currently taking part in military interventions or ministerial meetings in the Saudi-led coalition, according to a Moroccan government official. The official didn't elaborate. Morocco's government has not divulged details of its military's participation in the coalition, which has been at war in Yemen against Iran-aligned Houthi rebels since 2015. The war has killed thousands and displaced over 3 million people. Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita said in an interview last month with Qatar-based broadcaster Al-Jazeera that "on the basis of developments" in Yemen, "there was a change in the form and the content" of Morocco's participation. Asked why Rabat didn't host Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on a recent tour of other Arab countries, Bourita said: "Official visits are prepared in advance, according to protocol." FILE - In this Jan. 3, 2017 file photo, tribesmen loyal to Houthi rebels chant slogans during a gathering aimed at mobilizing more fighters into battlefronts to fight pro-government forces, in Sanaa, Yemen. Moroccan government officials said Thursday Feb. 7, 2019 that Morocco has stopped taking part in military action with the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen's war, and has recalled its ambassador to Saudi Arabia. (AP Photo/Hani Mohammed, File) The tour came amid international concern about the Yemen war and condemnation of the killing of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Embassy in Istanbul. According to one of the officials, Morocco declined to host the Saudi crown prince, citing the Moroccan king's "busy agenda." After Bourita's interview, Saudi television channel Al-Arabiya aired a documentary on the disputed Western Sahara, supporting claims that Morocco invaded it after Spanish colonizers left in 1975. Morocco considers the Western Sahara its southern territories. Morocco recalled its ambassador to Saudi Arabia for consultations after the report aired, according to another Moroccan government official. Both government officials spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the diplomatic tensions. Morocco's ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Mustapha Mansouri, did not respond Thursday to requests for comment. FILE - In this Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2018 file photo, Moroccan Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Nasser Bourita, speaks during a press briefing after the closing session of UN Migration Conference in Marrakech, Morocco. Moroccan government officials said Thursday Feb. 7, 2019 that Morocco has stopped taking part in military action with the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen's war, and has recalled its ambassador to Saudi Arabia. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy, File) FILE - In this Feb. 12, 2018, file photo, Saudi-led coalition backed forces petrol, Mocha, Yemen. Moroccan government officials said Thursday Feb. 7, 2019 that Morocco has stopped taking part in military action with the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen's war, and has recalled its ambassador to Saudi Arabia. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty, File) The sweltering backwaters of Indonesian Borneo have become the unlikely ground zero for the global production and export of Kratom, a tree leaf hailed by some as a miracle cure for everything from opioid addiction to anxiety. Part of the coffee family, the leaf has been used for centuries in Southeast Asia and Papua New Guinea for its pain-relieving and mildly stimulating effects but it is now sold in powder form and exported worldwide - alarming some health regulators who have raised concerns about safety. Kratom stimulates the same brain receptors as morphine, although it produces much milder effects. 'I take Kratom and have had no problems. Every strain has its benefits - some help you relax, others can treat insomnia or treat drug addiction. Some help increase stamina,' grower Faisal Perdana told AFP. Kratom is already banned for domestic consumption though it allows its export in unprocessed form Fellow farmer Gusti Prabu, who now exports 10 tonnes of the drug a month, agreed. 'Our ancestors used Kratom and there were no negative side effects. It can help eliminate drug addiction and help people detox,' he explained. But its popularity is causing concern - the drug is unregulated, and has had little clinical testing to assess its safety or side effects. Kratom is already banned for domestic consumption in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, though the former allows its export in unprocessed form. Health authorities in the United States - now the drug's top importer - have linked consumption of the plant and its derivatives to dozens of deaths, warning it could aggravate a deadly opioid epidemic gripping parts of the country. Compounds found in Kratom are opioids, which expose users to the same risks of addiction and death as illicit opiates, according to the US Food and Drug Administration. But for farmers in Kapuas Hulu, West Kalimantan - the center of production - demand for Kratom is such that they have moved away from traditional commodities such as rubber and palm oil to start growing the tree, turning it into a major cash crop. And at the main post office in Pontianak, the key trading post for this part of Indonesian Borneo, it's clear the health warnings have done little to dampen interest. 'Around 90 percent of our shipments from West Kalimantan province are Kratom that's been sold to the United States,' post office head Zaenal Hamid said. As many as five million Americans use the drug and that number is growing, according to the American Kratom Association. Data from 2016 showed that the region was shipping some 400 tonnes abroad every month - worth about $130 million annually at current global prices of some $30 a kilogramme. Most Kratom customers are reached through online platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Chinese e-marketplace Alibaba. The trend for alternative medicine has been credited with increasing interest in Kratom from Europe and America, where it is usually consumed as a tea or in capsules. Opioid epidemic The US is struggling with an opioid epidemic, fueled by addiction to prescription painkillers as well as street drugs like heroin and synthetic versions such as fentanyl. Kratom is legal in 43 states, but the FDA is pushing for greater restrictions and has already put an import alert on it, which means shipments entering the US can be confiscated. In a statement, the organisation warned consumers not to use the drug and said it was 'concerned that Kratom appears to have properties that expose users to the risks of addiction, abuse, and dependence.' Scientists say that while Kratom may have positive attributes, very little research has been done into the drug. As many as five million Americans use kratom and that number is growing, according to the American Kratom Association 'It has great potential as a remedy for pain and opioid addiction given its pharmacology and its potential accessibility,' Michael White, head of the department of pharmacy practice at the University of Connecticut, told AFP. 'It is promising and not proven,' he added. Advocates insist it's a safe alternative to prescription drugs and can actually help opioid addicts. 'Of the 44 deaths on record involving Kratom, they all involve poly-drug use,' said Ryan Leung, a spokesman from kratom lobby group Botanical Education Alliance (BEA). 'The FDA health warnings...(have) proven to be misguided by multiple experts,' he added. For now, Indonesian producers are waiting to see how the regulatory battle in the US unfolds. And while bad weather and a salmonella scare dented exports in 2017, provisional data showed Kratom shipments bounced back strongly last year. Kratom farmer Prabu insisted: 'The Kratom market has been very good over the past decade and it still has potential in the years ahead.' He added: 'People will see its usefulness, sooner or later.' The case was considered a test for the Supreme Court to the right under President Donald Trump The US Supreme Court on Thursday blocked a Louisiana law that critics say would limit access to abortion in the southern state. The decision was made by a narrow majority -- 5 votes to 4 -- with Chief Justice John Roberts joining the court's progressive justices to block the legislation, which would have taken effect Friday. It was considered a test for the high court, swung to the right under President Donald Trump. The law would require doctors at Louisiana's abortion clinics to have admitting privileges at a hospital less than 50 kilometers (30 miles) away. According to pro-choice advocates, that is too restrictive -- leaving only one doctor able to perform the procedure in the whole state. But the state of Louisiana argued that due to risks of complications, it was vital to be able to transfer patients to neighboring hospitals. That convinced an appeals court, which after years of hearings, allowed the law to finally come into force this week. But those challenging it filed an emergency brief in the Supreme Court asking for it to block the law as they sought an appeal. They argued that even if they were to win later, the impact of the law coming into effect would be irreversible and closed clinics would not be able to reopen. In doing so, they highlighted a similar law in Texas that the Supreme Court in 2016 found to be unconstitutional. The law was backed by conservative judges Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh -- both picked by President Donald Trump. Two years ago, Chief Justice Roberts voted to uphold the law in Texas. But with his vote on Thursday, he brought new balance to the court. Crowds in Tehran in February 1979, several days after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's return From the return to Tehran of exiled revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to the fall of the shah's last government, Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution was over in 10 days. Here are the highlights of what has become known as the 10 Days of Dawn, or Daheh Fajr in Farsi, which ended 25 centuries of monarchy and are officially celebrated in Iran every year. - Khomeini returns - On February 1, 1979 Shiite opposition leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini makes a triumphant return to Tehran after more than 14 years in exile, mostly in Iraq. Iran's last monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, had fled on January 16 after months of protests against his regime. Jubilant crowds welcome Khomeini at the airport and line the road which leads to the Behesht-e-Zahra cemetery where he gives his first major address. Khomeini challenges the legitimacy of the government headed by prime minister Shapour Bakhtiar, appointed by the shah on the eve of his departure in a bid to prevent clerics from taking power. - Islamic revolution 'council' - A demonstration in February 1979 in support of the government formed by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, with banners calling for an Islamic republic On February 3 Khomeini announces at his first news conference that a council has been formed of key figures in the revolution movement to prepare for the establishment of an Islamic republic. A day later, in a show of support for the ayatollah while the shah's administration is still in place, there are hunger strikes within the air force. One-fifth of conscripts do not show up at their barracks. - Demonstrations, strikes - On February 6 a prime minister is appointed for a provisional revolutionary government: Mehdi Bazargan, a nationalist and Islamist engineer and long-time opponent of the shah's regime. Tehran is thus the seat of two governments: one revolutionary, the other imperial. In support of the revolutionary government, the clergy organises daily demonstrations that gather several million people. Strikes are followed in the key oil industry. On February 7 mullahs in the second city Isfahan establish a parallel authority to manage municipal affairs. On February 8 more than 1,000 soldiers in uniform march in Tehran in support of Bazargan's provisional government. - Uprising - Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in Tehran on February 5, 1979, several days after his return from exile On February 10 mutinous air force soldiers take control of eastern Tehran aided by armed civilians. The neighbourhood is cut off by barricades and sandbags and political prisoners are freed. AFP journalist Pierre-Andre Jouve describes a capital in chaos with "gatherings of demonstrators armed with clubs" and "thousands of men claiming to be 'police of the revolution' at almost all the city's major intersections". - Revolution 'completed' - On February 11 an army barracks to the northeast of Tehran is stormed by several thousand civilians and falls to Khomeini's supporters. In the late morning, the centre of the capital falls under the control of armed civilians and army deserters. The radio, controlled by Khomeini supporters, announces parliament has been dissolved. Khomeini calls on military chiefs to not stand in the way of troops rallying to the revolution. "Tehran is practically in the hands of supporters of Ayatollah Khomeini," writes AFP correspondent Patrick Meney. "At nightfall, the centre of Tehran already had the appearance of a completed revolution: it is almost time for victory parades," his report says. "Mutinous soldiers are hailed by the crowd. Army soldiers join students in revolt on campus. People who were enemies only yesterday embrace." Overnight a statement from the revolutionary government declares the "revolution having won" with the military joining the popular movement. In two days the battle has left more than 200 dead and more than 1,000 injured. With the shah's government departed, Bazargan officially takes up his post in the offices of the prime minister. Amber Heard was dressed for success as she teamed up with the United Nations in New York City on Friday. The star, 32, was wrapped up in a black blazer, loose trousers, and heels for a meeting at the restaurant Sant Ambroeus. Elsewhere in New York, Heard's fashion designer pal Kristopher Brock presented his latest collection with his wife Laura Vassar. She means business! Amber Heard braved the chilly winter weather in style as she enjoyed a day out in New York City on Friday Heard has been busy in New York with the United Nations, and took to social media to chronicle all the work she had been doing with various UN ambassadors. 'What an amazing dinner & conversation w/ the incredible UN ambassadors Stephen Hickey, UK Raphael Dang, FR Mattias Chu, SwedenUN Martin Garcia Moritan and ArgentinaUN for listening to our stories & supporting our fight with @risenow.us and @amandangocnguyen to ensure civil rights for #survivors.' It's been a few months since Amber was pictured spending time with Kristopher. The pair were seen slow dancing back in October at a bar, followed by a dinner outing at Matsuhsia restaurant in Beverly Hills later that month. Stylish display: Elsewhere in New York, Heard's fashion designer pal Kristopher Brock presented his latest collection with his wife Laura Vassar Dressed for success! Heard looked incredible in her loose black trousers and glossy heels Doing good! Heard has been busy in New York working with the United Nations, and took to social media to chronicle all the progress she had been making with various UN ambassadors Brock is a designer who founded label Brock Collection with wife and designer partner Laura Vasser. The couple were married in August 2014 and have a son, charlie, who turns four in December. The family relocated from New York to Newport Beach, California, two years ago for a better work-life balance, Vasser told The Cut. Teaming up! Heard took a selfie with the UN team They were most recently photographed together attending the CFDAs in New York in June, an event Amber was also photographed at. Heard was most recently linked with art curator Vito Schnabel after her relationship with Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Her contentious divorce from Johnny Depp, who she married in February 2015, was finalized in January 2017. Chrissy Teigen will be hosting her 'hero' Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at her house for a Grammy-viewing pizza party. The model, 33, tweeted at the freshman Democrat congresswoman on Friday, extending an invite to her home this weekend. '@AOC hello my hero, do you wanna come over and watch the grammys with us? there will be pizza,' Chrissy asked. 'There will be pizza': Chrissy Teigen will be hosting her 'hero' Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at her house for a Grammy-viewing pizza party When Alexandria didn't immediately reply, Chrissy enlisted the help of party guest Jesse Tyler Ferguson to convince her. 'Jesse will he here! help me!! tell her we are normal,' she tweeted. 'She can have my portion!' Jesse quickly replied. A few hours after Chrissy's initial invite, Alexandria replied with her RSVP. 'We can live-tweet me burning something in the kitchen': The rising political star RSVP'd to Chrissy's invite a few hours later Let's get together! Teigen reached out to Alexandria on Friday morning 'yes!' she gushed. 'we can live-tweet me burning something in the kitchen.' Chrissy has made no secret of her being a fan of AOC - the star re-tweeted a viral video posted by James Corden of Alexandria talking campaign finance laws. 'Oh my god. This is just sensational. Please watch and retweet,' James tweeted. Alexandria has been making waves ever since was became the youngest woman elected to Congress. The rising political star was elected a representative of New York's 14th congressional district during the 2018 midterm elections, and began her term on January 3, 2019. 'Help me!' Teigen enlisted the help of her friend Jesse Tyler Ferguson to convince Alexandria 'I can only speak for myself': Tyler playfully replied back to the model They cemented their romance by moving in together last year. And Downton Abbey star Laura Carmichael was the picture of happiness on Friday, as she attended the BAFTA Film Gala with her co-star and boyfriend Michael Fox. The actress, 32, made a bold statement in a plunging asymmetrical top with skinny green trousers as she arrived with her dapper partner, as they arrived for the star-studded bash in London's Savoy Hotel. Cosy: Downton Abbey star Laura Carmichael was the picture of happiness on Friday, as she attended the BAFTA Film Gala with her co-star and boyfriend Michael Fox Opting to forego the usual glamorous gown or party frock, Laura made sure all eyes were on her as she arrived for the evening, sporting the pretty floral bandeau top which boasted a quirky frill trim. The frill trim - knotted at the waist - reached all the way to the floor, giving the illusion to some that it was part of some dress. Adding to the look Laura was sporting the tight forest green capri bottoms with pale pink strapped heels, and her blonde bobbed tresses in a loosely curled style. Meanwhile Michael was looking totally dapper in a sharp navy blue suit with a classic black tie as he walked the red carpet, in a rare outing for the couple since they supposedly sparked up a romance last year. Sensational: The actress, 32, made a bold statement in a plunging asymmetrical top boasting a quirky frilled trim In April Michael confirmed that he and Laura had moved in together, and were even considering getting pet dog. 'We do live together now,' he told The Daily Mail. 'We are thinking about getting a dog a Border terrier. Theyre really cool. We want a rescue dog.' Meanwhile the couple have been back at work filming the much-anticipated film adaptation of Downton Abbey, which is set to be released this September. Laura played the unlucky-in-love Lady Edith Grantham, while Michael played illiterate footman Andrew Parker. The film is expected to pick up right where the series came to an end on New Year's Eve in 1925 when the Downton residents and staff were filled with utter joy. Dressed to impress: Foregoing the usual frocks, Laura donned skinny forest green trousers with the ensemble and accessorised with blush pink strapped heels Other stars set to reprise their roles for the movie include Raquel Cassidy, Brendan Coyle, Kevin Doyle, Harry Hadden-Paton, Rob James-Collier, Phyllis Logan and Sophie McShera. New faces will also be welcomed onto the Downton Abbey scene, including: Imelda Staunton, Geraldine James, David Haig, Simon Jones, Tuppence Middleton, Kate Phillips and Stephen Campbell Moore. The movie is set for a European release on September 13, 2019, and US release on September 20, 2019. Chic: The star was in attendance for the bash after being hard at work filming the big-screen adaptation of Downton Abbey Jaclyn Smith is still good friends with her Charlie's Angels co-star Cheryl Ladd. The 73-year-old Texas native proved that on Friday when she posted an image with the 67-year-old blonde beauty to Instagram. 'With my sweet friend @angelcherylladd. No time has past when we are together,' wrote the TV movie queen. BFFS: Jaclyn Smith is still good friends with her Charlie's Angels co-star Cheryl Ladd. The 73-year-old Texas native proved that on Friday when she posted an image with the 67-year-old blonde beauty to Instagram Back in the day: Cheryl played detective Kris Munroe while Jaclyn was Kelly Garrett on the series that aired from 1976 until 1981 It is not known how recent the photo is. Cheryl has on glasses with a black blazer over her turtleneck. Her hair is pinned up loosely. Jacklyn has on a beige winter coat over a light grey sweater with her brunette hair worn down. Cheryl played detective Kris Munroe while Jaclyn was Kelly Garrett on the series that aired from 1976 until 1981. Her role: The stunner didn't join the show until the second year, however, as she stepped in after Farrah Fawcett quit. Instead of stepping into her character, Cheryl took on the role of Jill Munroe's younger sister Kris Munroe Ladd didn't join the show until the second year, however, as she stepped in after Farrah Fawcett quit. Instead of stepping into her character, Cheryl took on the role of Jill Munroe's younger sister Kris Munroe. Farrah died from a long battle with cancer in 2009. Smith was on the show for its entirety and went on to make a fortune designing clothes for K-mart. Last year Jaclyn said she and Cheryl have been through a lot: 'We stay close, but time marches on and theres great things to replace it, but its a mix of things: Its fun but yet, also, "Hey, wow, a lot of things have happened." A lot good, but some sad things, too: We went through Farrahs illness, and David Doyles passing.' She was a big hit on the show but stayed only one year: Farrah was only on season one and was a guest star later. She died from a long battle with cancer in 2009. Seen in 1976 Ladd has not quit acting and is still starring in TV movies. In December she was in the Lifetime movie Christmas Contract with her 43-year-old mini me daughter. 'We had a ball,' Cheryl told People. 'That was the Christmas gift for me.' Jordan followed her mom into acting. She has starred in such movies as the hit indie Cabin Fever. Cheryl has said, 'If she had wanted to be a clothing designer or a scientist, I wouldve probably jumped up and down and said: Woohoo thats great!' She's best known for her portrayal of Demelza in BBC One's Poldark. And Eleanor Tomlinson looked world's away from her on-screen character as she stepped out in a revealing number for the BAFTA Film Gala at the Savoy, London on Friday. The London-born star, 26, showed off her toned figure in a strapless number by in Ralph & Russo complete with plenty of embellishment and an eyeful of her ample cleavage. Wow: Eleanor Tomlinson looked world's away from her on-screen character as she stepped out in a revealing number for the BAFTA Film Gala at the Savoy, London on Friday The quirky cold-shouldered dress came with matching long sleeves and an asymmetric sheer black skirt. Eleanor looked sensational as she showed off her long legs in the number which she clad in black pointy heels. The red head - who admitted she dyes her blonde hair for Poldark - wore her locks in loose waves while sporting plenty of sultry makeup for the night out. Stunning: The London-born star, 26, showed off her toned figure in a strapless number from in Ralph & Russo complete with plenty of embellishment and an eyeful of her ample cleavage Style: The quirky dress came with matching sleeves and an asymmetric sheer black skirt The outing comes as Eleanor finished up filming for Poldark earlier this month, and began her role as brand ambassador for Radley London. Although the show is over for now, series writer Debbie Horsfield and producer Karen Thrussell revealed they are hoping to produce another series focusing on the life of a 40-year-old Ross Poldark. The duo behind the successful drama revealed the news at the Radio Times Covers Party on Thursday, admitting there is still some way to go before they exhaust the original source material. Beauty: The red head - who admitted she dyes her blonde hair for Poldark - wore her locks in loose waves while sporting plenty of sultry makeup for the night out New job: The outing comes as Eleanor finished up filming for Poldark earlier this month, and began her role as brand ambassador for Radley London 'There are five more books we could do in future possibly,' said Karen. 'If we did a Poldark six and a lot of us would like to do it it wouldn't be for a few years yet'. She added: 'Ross would be in his 40s [and] I think we would probably focus on Ross and Demelza because we love them so much. The books are really great. 'I think for me, it would be a real honour to finish them because the 1970s series didn't finish them, they stopped where we are stopping now. And as a reader of the books [who] loves the books I would love to get to the end.' Back for more? Although the show is over for now, series writer Debbie Horsfield and producer Karen Thrussell revealed they are hoping to produce another series He's set to reprise his role as God of Mischief Loki in a forthcoming TV series about his character for Disney's new video-on-demand service Disney+. And Tom Hiddleston cut a dapper figure as he stepped out at the BAFTA Film Gala in The Savoy hotel in London on Friday. The actor, 37, looked sharp in a navy blue suit, which he paired with a crisp white shirt that he opted not to wear a tie with. Handsome: Tom Hiddleston cut a dapper figure in a navy blue suit as he arrived in style at the BAFTA Film Gala in The Savoy hotel in London on Friday Tom brushed his long brunette curls into a slicked-back style, and looked ruggedly handsome as he sported a close-cropped beard. The Thor: Ragnarok star completed his ensemble with a pair of smart black lace-up shoes, while he chose not to add any accessories to the look. His outing comes after it was confirmed by Disney that the actor will reprise his role as Loki in a TV series made by Marvel Studios. Dapper: The actor, 37, looked sharp in the suit, which he paired with a crisp white shirt that he opted not to wear a tie with Finishing touches: The Thor: Ragnarok star completed his ensemble with a pair of smart black lace-up shoes, while he chose not to have any accessories for the outing According to Disney's chairman and CEO Bob Iger, the series will centre around the fan-favourite character, though no other details were confirmed. The British actor has hinted at what is to come for the series on Twitter, sharing an image that read: 'Loki. More stories to tell. More mischief to make. More to come.' Disney+ is set to launch in late 2019, and will also include a series that follows Rogue One: A Star Wars Story character Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) prior to the film's storyline. Looking sharp: Tom brushed his long brunette curls into a slicked-back style, and looked ruggedly handsome as he sported a close-cropped beard He's back! His outing comes after it was confirmed by Disney that the actor will reprise his role as God of Mischief Loki, in a TV series made by Marvel Studios Tom last played the role in Avengers: Infinity War, which was released in April last year and saw his character appear in only one scene, in which his character died at the hands of villain Thanos. He previously admitted Loki was originally planned to be killed off in Thor: Dark World, as he told The Empire Film podcast: 'That was meant to be that he redeemed himself. He helped save his brother, he helped save Jane Foster but that he, in the process, sacrificed himself. 'It was part of the original pitch and in test screenings, the audience didn't accept it. They said, 'He's obviously coming back, that didn't really happen'. 'And there was a very strange and almost unanimous resistance to it,' he continued. 'They decided that wasn't the end.' They've been married for 15 years and are the proud parents to two daughters. And Tess Daly was enjoying a rare break from parenting duties with husband Vernon Kay on Friday, as they attended the star-studded BAFTA Film Gala in London's Savoy Hotel. The Strictly Come Dancing host, 49, flaunted her incredible physique in a scarlet frilled midi dress as she arrived for the bash with her spouse, 44, who was looking dapper in all-black for the event. Loved-up: Tess Daly was enjoying a rare break from parenting duties with husband Vernon Kay on Friday, as they attended the star-studded BAFTA Film Gala in London's Savoy Hotel Tess was flaunting her incredible figure as she arrived for the film dinner - which comes two days ahead of the British Academy Film Awards on Sunday. The presenter made a bold statement in an unusual scarlet strapless midi dress which boasted a frill across the chest and down the thigh-split, which showed off even more of her trim pins. Allowing the dress to stand out, Tess accessorised her look with simple gold thin-strapped heels and straight drop earrings, while her blonde tresses were slicked back at the roots and loosely curled. Beaming: The Strictly Come Dancing host, 49, flaunted her incredible physique in a scarlet frilled midi dress as she arrived for the bash with her spouse, 44 Lavish: Tess was flaunting her incredible figure as she arrived for the film dinner - which comes two days ahead of the British Academy Film Awards on Sunday Vernon was putting on a dapper display for the grand occasion as he sported a sharp black suit with a navy tie for the evening, proudly posing alongside his wife in a rare joint outing for the couple. Tess also reunited with her Strictly co-host Claudia Winkleman for the evening, and she was sporting her signature all-black which was delicately studded with gold. The couple have been stronger than ever in recent years after their marriage hit the rocks in 2010, as Vernon made a public apology to his wife after a set of saucy messages to glamour model Rhian Sugden emerged. The father-of-two went on to promise live on BBC Radio 1 that he would no longer contact Rhian or the four other women he had been caught messaging at the time. Chic: The presenter made a bold statement in an unusual scarlet strapless midi dress which boasted a frill across the chest and down the thigh-split Classic: Allowing the dress to stand out, Tess accessorised her look with simple gold thin-strapped heels and straight drop earrings, while Vernon look dapper in a black suit Pals: Tess also reunited with her Strictly presenting partner Claudia Winkleman once inside for the gala Cool: The quirky host wore her signature black which was covered with intricate silver detailing It was then revealed the pair had got back in touch in 2015 with Vernon sending hundreds of texts asking to 'reconnect' with the model. Speaking in December 2017, Strictly Come Dancing host Tess told The Times: 'All marriages have their moments. Marriage is a work in progress. 'Vernon and I are just people, at the end of the day.' Tess shares daughters Phoebe, 13, and Amber, nine, with husband Vernon, who she married in Horwich, near Bolton, back in 2003. United: Tess shares daughters Phoebe, 13, and Amber, nine, with husband Vernon, who she married in Horwich, near Bolton, back in 2003 The Chase fans were sent into a frenzy on a Friday night after contestant Judith scooped a record-breaking 70,000, the most ever won by a solo contestant. The quizzer decided to opt for the higher amount after the rest of her team was eliminated by 'The Vixen' Jenny Ryan, and won the final round with ease thanks to 20 correct answers. While many viewers rushed to praise Judith's showstopping performance, others demanded she should land a job on the show as the sixth Chaser, as even host Bradley Walsh lauded her 'extraordinary' performance. Staggering: The Chase fans were sent into a frenzy on a Friday night after contestant Judith scooped a record-breaking 70,000, the most ever won by a solo contestant After the other three contestants were booted off the show, Judith decided to throw caution to the wind and play for 70,000, and made it through to the final Chase with complete ease. Having answered 20 questions to give herself a significant head-start in the final, Jenny struggled with her run, and thanks to a few push backs only made it to ten questions with just one second of time remaining. Jenny once again struggled with the final question after she failed to say what pet a 'ragamuffin' was, mistakenly saying that it was a dog. Luckily Judith knew the correct answer - a cat - and once again pushed the Chaser back, and as the clock reached a zero she received a thunderous applause from the audience. Shocking: Fans were left elated to see Judith scoop the enormous prize, after the previous three contestants were eliminated Elated: As Bradley confirmed the record-breaking win he rushed to congratulate Judith Outraged: Chaser Jenny struggled with her run of questions during the final chase, and had only given 10 correct answers with just one second of time remaining As presenter Bradley congratulated Judith on the 'extraordinary' performance, Jenny said: 'Wow, what a high-class quizzer Judith is. She killed me on the push-backs. 'I have never done this before but I have to give you a standing ovation. That was incredible.' The veteran quizzer was equally gracious on social media, as after the show aired she tweeted: 'ALL HAIL JUDITH! If I remember correctly, Judith was a standby contestant, and only found out she was on the show 24 hours before recording. I was well and truly beaten.' After embracing Judith - who was near-stunned by her win - Bradley added on the show: 'I've never known anything like it, and I've been doing this show 60 or 70 years.' Stunned: In a show first Jenny even gave a Judith a standing ovation, while she herself was speechless regarding the win Gracious: Jenny tweeted after the show had aired congratulating Judith on the win, after giving her the first ever standing ovation The win sparked a thunderous response from fans on social media, as they rushed to congratulate Judith on the solo win, while others demanded she should be offered a job on the show. One wrote: 'If Judith wins this 70k on her own there will be calls for her to be hired as the new chaser - the knitting nightmare the ruthless Judy.' Another wrote: 'OMG GO ONNN! I think she should get the Chasers' job.' A third also tweeted: 'Wow! Never in all my years of watching #TheChase have I seen any one single person perform so well. Just amazing. Enjoy your 70,000 Judith.' Over the moon: The victory sent fans of the show into a tailspin, as many demanded Judith be given a job as the sixth Chaser Judith's win came after The Chase saw its biggest ever overall win in September, when a team of four managed to beat Anne Hegerty's 'The Governess' to scoop 100,000. Housewife Diane, 52, Medical Student Luca, 21, Retired database administrator Tim, 62, and Laundry Assistant Gayna, 38, won the top prize after answering 17 questions correctly, and went home with a staggering 25,000 each. Celebrity editions of the show have also led to big wins by the teams, though these are for charity so the Chasers are usually more generous with their offers. The Chase airs weekdays at 5pm on ITV. Danniella Westbrook has allegedly been forced to leave her home in Essex after failing to pay for eight months rent. The actress, 45, was required to pay 900 per month for the maisonette, which she moved into in June, and she has previously been taken to court over the debt, it has been claimed by The Sun. According to official court documents, Danniella owed 4543 in rent by the end of last year, as well as 121 in issue fees and 125 for legal representation. Hard times: Danniella Westbrook, 45, has allegedly been forced to leave her home in Essex after failing to pay for eight months rent... after she admitted to relapsing just days ago Speaking about the incident, a source told publication: 'Danniella is believed to have paid her first month of rent up front but failed to pay anything after that. 'It has taken a number of months to get her out of the property and it seems she only left when Jeremy Kyle offered to get her help. 'It's been quite a shock for neighbours because it's a nice area and there's never normally any trouble with people renting there.' MailOnline have contacted representatives of Danniella for comment. Oh no! The actress was reportedly required to pay 900 per month for the maisonette, which she moved into in June, and she has previously been taken to court over the debt Finance woes: According to official court documents, Danniella owed 4543 in rent by the end of last year, as well as 121 in issue fees and 125 for legal representation Danniella has reportedly left the property, as she is set to enter rehab for three months after her appearance on The Jeremy Kyle Show on Friday. The claims come after the EastEnders star appeared on a celebrity edition of the daytime show, where the notoriously pushy chat show host demanded she own up to the extent of her addictions. In an interview that eventually led to her entering rehab in a bid to finally overcome her issues with drugs and alcohol, Danniella was reduced to tears in front of the live studio audience in the pre-recorded chat. It began with her lying to Jeremy, who asked her when she last took cocaine. Admission: The claims come after the EastEnders star appeared on a celebrity edition of The Jeremy Kyle Show on Friday, where she owned up to the extent of her addictions Danniella claimed it was eight weeks prior to the interview - but eventually the presenter, who continually referred to her as his 'mate', got her to admit it was within the last seven days. This was then revealed to be within the last three days, with Danniella claiming the only reason it hadn't been more recently was because her friend had been with her, keeping an eye on her. Her appearance on the show - which she was also on in 2012 during which she talked about her substance abuse issues at the time - started with Jeremy asking her 'are you alright?', to which she simply replied, 'yeah'. 'When was the last time you took drugs?' Jeremy then asked. Getting the truth: It began with her lying to Jeremy, who asked her when she last took cocaine. The actress said 'eight weeks' - but eventually revealed it was four days ago She replied: 'I relapsed about eight weeks ago, I had a drink - someone gave me a line of gear and I was like 'what the hell have I done?'. That's the honest truth.' Jeremy then asked her to take a drugs test on the show, to which she asked him why. 'Because I want to try, in my own inimitable bad way to finally just - mate, I have watched this from afar, right. One minute I feel quite sad: we've done this on Good Morning Britain, we've done it here. Other times I get really angry with you,' he explained. 'You can't be sad for an addict though that wants to get, it's just an addict,' was the Celebrity Big Brother star's response. Making changes? Jeremy made the unexpected decision to offer her a 12 week placement at a treatment facility and then called his aide Graham onto the stage 'I'm sorry if you don't like this, but I still think you're taking drugs and I think you've taken them in the last eight weeks as well,' Jeremy said, frankly, to which Danniella answered: 'I think you'd be 100% right Jeremy, to say that. I have in the last eight weeks. I was taking drugs, I've been drinking.' Danniella then began to sob, saying through her tears: 'I think at the end of the day, I'd be better off not being here at all sometimes. The last seven days, I've suffered with my mental health terribly. And I find that really, really hard. 'I find having personality disorders and stuff hard because I don't understand the jargon that they give me to read about it, because I think every person with mental health is a different case because we're all different people.' 'Did you drink last night?' Jeremy then asked. Seeking help: Danniella was last on The Jeremy Kyle Show in 2012 'I had a vodka last night, yeah. I had a vodka on the train on the way up, like yesterday. I was out at a dinner thing the other night, I had a couple of bottles of wine with a friend of mine, that's a lot for me,' was her reply. She went on: 'That's what I use to numb myself, that's my crutch at the moment. And I suppose it's better than going and doing loads of drugs, because I've had so much problems with my osteoporosis that I'm frightened to do loads and loads of drugs, otherwise I probably would do as much as I was doing before and more. 'Listen, if I had the money, I would be back to where I used to be - doing 11 bags a day. I'll be straight up honest with you, I would.' Jeremy asked, 'So the only reason that you're not doing more coke is you can't afford it?', before demanding to know again when she last took drugs. Addict: 'Listen, if I had the money, I would be back to where I used to be - doing 11 bags a day. I'll be straight up honest with you, I would,' she admitted 'A week ago then Jeremy if you want the truth - a week ago. I'd be honest with you. It was a week ago,' came the truth, finally. Jeremy's backstage team had initially raised the daytime star's suspicions when his production team had claimed Danniella had been 'erratic' backstage. Jeremy made the unexpected decision to offer her a 12 week placement at a treatment facility and then called his aide Graham onto the stage. 'Right I'm doing something I never thought I'd do... I didn't think I'd do this I'm cutting through all of the BS. I tell you what, there is something I want to do for this girl. This is completely unplanned. I want to send you to rehab right now. I want to send you to rehab,' Jeremy said. Getting better: Taking to Twitter on Thursday evening she revealed the show's host has helped her start her journey to a 'drug free life' by sending her to rehab for the next three months Danniella replied: 'I'd love to go. I'd love to go I won't do a runner.. I promise, one hundred percent.' Taking to Twitter on Thursday evening she revealed the show's host has helped her start her journey to a 'drug free life' by sending her to rehab for the next three months. She wrote: 'For those of you asking my good mate Jezza had me on his show which is being Aired in the morning & has kindly sent me 2 rehab for 3 months. 'I'm grateful & excited 2 have the chance 2 get the drug free life I had for 14years back. Thank u 4 ur support especially my @KJ_Artist (sic)' The former EastEnders star had tweeted earlier this week that she was on her first day of a 10 week programme to 'change her life.' Regret: Danniella said she hasn't spoken to her 17-year-old daughter Jody in three years, as she's been forced to deal with her addictions and an online stalker She wrote at the time: 'The first day on a 10 week program which will change my life make me strong and give me the tools too never feel the way I've felt the last four years ... I'm never looking back. (sic)' Danniella has struggled with drug addiction for several years, and recently said she hasn't spoken to her 17-year-old daughter Jody - whom she has with her former husband Kevin Jenkins - in three years, as she's been forced to deal with her addictions and an online stalker. But after being diagnosed with womb cancer, Danniella says she wants to get back in touch with Jody, especially as she doesn't know what her long-term prognosis is. Previously: This is not the first time the star has spoken openly about her substance abuse issues on TV She said: 'Jody is with her dad and that's just a whole different issue because of different things but the stalker did play a huge part in that for her own safety. 'I haven't spoken to Jody for three years. She's 17, she's gorgeous. Look, it's very difficult, especially since I've been ill. 'Jody is doing her life and she's doing very well, she's done brilliantly at school and now she's in college and she's doing great, and her dad is a great dad and he's doing what's best for her, right now.' She added: 'It's probably a safer and much better environment for her whilst I've got all this stuff going on, with trials and different things and being ill, she should be there right now.' Danniella also has a son, Kai, aged 22. This is part of Beijing's policy to undermine Islam in the population. Officials deliver pork products directly to Muslim families and insist that traditional Chinese decorations for the New Year be displayed outside homes. Beijing (AsiaNews) Chinese authorities have reportedly used the countrys lunar New Year holiday to force Muslims in Xinjiang, north-western China, to eat pork and drink alcohol, which are banned by Islam. This is part of their policy to undermine the populations attachment to Islam. People living in the Ili Kazakh autonomous prefecture were invited to events marking the celebration and told they could be taken to re-education camps if they did not take part, this according to Radio Free Asia (RFA). Starting last year, some people have been forced to eat pork so they can celebrate a festival belonging to the Han Chinese, the US government-run station quoted an anonymous resident on its website as saying. Officials have delivered pork directly to Muslim households and insisted that traditional Chinese New Year decorations be displayed outside. Ethnic Han Chinese civilians have reportedly been sent to live with Muslim families for surveillance purposes, and Beijing has unveiled plans to sinicise Islam within four years. Last October, some reports indicate that officials in the capital of Xinjiang, Urumqi, launched a campaign against halal products. China is engaged in what it has called an anti-extremism and anti-separatism drive in heavily-Muslim Xinjiang, an autonomous region home to large populations of ethnic Uighur and Kazakh peoples. For years in Xinjiang, Beijing has been engaged in what it calls a campaign against extremism and separatism in an autonomous region inhabited largely by ethnic Uyghur and Kazakh populations. Since 2017 this includes a ban on the teaching of the Uyghur language in schools. Last October, the Xinjiang autonomous region also amended its laws to allow local governments to "educate and transform" people affected by "terrorism" through "professional training centres" which are really nothing more than forced re-education camps. Former prisoners say that they have been forced to eat pork and drink alcohol whilst inside. Human rights groups have accused Beijing of systematically cracking down on Islam in the region, saying that up to a million people have been held in so-called re-education camps. Everything is bigger in Texas, including wedding cakes. Real Housewives of Dallas star LeeAnne Locken gushed exclusively to DailyMailTV about the over-the-top confection that will be front and center at her upcoming nuptials. The glamorous reality star was supporting a fellow housewife from the Beverly Hills franchise, Erika Jayne, at the launch of her new makeup collaboration, Erika Jayne x TooFaced: The Pretty Mess Collection. Here comes the bride! LeeAnne Locken exclusively gave DailyMailTV all the delicious details about her over-the-top wedding cake while attending an event for Erika Jayne's new collaboration with TooFaced on Thursday LeeAnne chatted with DailyMailTV's Caitlyn Becker on the pink carpet before the event just days after she went cake tasting. The former pageant queen sparkled in a long sleeve sliver sequin mini dress and black suede thigh-high boots. Her extra long locks cascaded over the shimmering dress in waves of curls and her glam makeup was contoured to perfection by celebrity makeup artist Leticia Garcia. The Bravo star shared that she and her wedding planner, Steve Kemble, recently went to sample potential wedding cakes together. I do! The Bravo star shared that she and her wedding planner, Steve Kemble, recently went to sample potential wedding cakes together 'I had the sweetest time,' the brunette beauty told DailyMailTV's Caitlyn Becker 'I had the sweetest time,' the brunette beauty said. Locken is set to marry Rich Emberlin, who she affectionately calls her 'sweetie', on April 27, 2019 after nearly a decade together. While trying out different cake flavors, LeeAnne said that her 'sweetie' called and she put him on the phone with Steve, her wedding planner, to get him to weigh in. 'I'm gonna represent you,' Steve told the groom on the phone, asking for his favorite cake flavor. Glam! The RHOD star posed with her makeup artist Leticia Garcia before heading in to celebrate Erika Jayne x TooFaced: The Pretty Mess Collection Too cute! Locken's fiance Rich said he was would be 'so happy' on his wedding day that the cake flavor didn't even matter Amazing! Befitting the Texas star, she ultimately picked a champagne flavored cake for her big day 'And you know what he said to him?' LeeAnne recalled. 'He said "I'm going to be so happy on that day it's not gonna matter what kind of cake I put in my mouth,"' she recounted warmly. As for what she ultimately chose? 'Champagne!' the philanthropist exclaimed. Locken's champagne flavored cake is set to be an enormous homage to glamour, befitting the Texan. 'Now the wedding cake is going to be magnificent,' she revealed. 'It's a huge castle. Really! I mean, four feet tall and four feet wide castle with gold and silver turrets and rhinestone caps.' 'Now the wedding cake is going to be magnificent,' she revealed. 'It's a huge castle.' 'Really! I mean, four feet tall and four feet wide castle with gold and silver turrets and rhinestone caps,' she model explained. Adding: 'Oh it's going to be gorgeous!' Rich will be able to boast his own groom's cake at the event, LeeAnne shared, and it will be a sight to behold as well. Persona non grata: The save the dates went out for the April wedding over the holidays but not all of the Housewives of Dallas got one 'They did have rum cake but I'm saving that for the groom's cake and you'll have to see what shape that is,' Locken joked suggestively. The soiree is only months away and save the dates went out over the holidays but LeeAnne said that wedding planning isn't even close to being done. And while the 'invitations are sitting in a box' on that sofa at her Dallas mansion, the reality star admitted that not all of her RHOD castmates will be getting one. 'Those who deserve an invitation shall receive an invitation and those who need to repent and find their way back to the Lord shall do that,' LeeAnne said. 'You know most of 'em,' she said coyly. 'Those who deserve an invitation shall receive an invitation and those who need to repent and find their way back to the Lord shall do that,' LeeAnne said. Last season, LeeAnne's feud with her former best friend D'Andra Simmons got so bad D'Andra physically shoved her during an argument but they later agreed to mend fences. And, Brandi Redmond took her tumult with he star all the way to Copenhagen and back after Locken was convinced Brandi stole her phone on the trip. Celebrities are coming from far and wide to take to the coveted front row at New York Fashion Week. And Maggie Gyllenhaal looked sensational as she took her place at the Kate Spade show on Friday clad in an eye-catching number. The White House Down star, 41, flashed a glimpse of her abs under her jacket while showing off her rock side in a racy black bralet. Head-turning: Maggie Gyllenhaal, 41, looked sensational as she took her place at the Kate Spade show at New York Fashion Week on Friday clad in an eye-catching number The mother-of-two was joined by Kate Spade models Sadie Sink and Julia Garner for the show as she embraced the pink theme in a chic dusky rose suit. She opted for minimal jewels with a pair of hoop earrings accessorising her look, but Maggie donned plenty of heavy makeup for the prestigious fashion week show. The Golden Globe nominated actress wore her signature cropped locks in a quirky textured style and finished off her look with black peep toe heels. Style queen: The White House Down star flashed a glimpse of her abs under her jacket while showing off her rock side in a racy black bralet FROW: The mother-of-two was joined by Kate Spade models Sadie Sink and Julia Garner for the show as she embraced the pink theme in a chic dusky rose suit The solo outing come as Maggie, who is the older sister of Jake, was pictured earlier this week with actor husband Peter Sarsgaard during a romantic evening in New York. The pair, who are doting parents to two daughters, were a picture of love as they hit the streets arm-in-arm. Maggie fell in love with her brother Jake's close friend Peter, 47, when she set her sights on him in 2002. The pair broke the news of their engagement in April 2006 and they went onto marry two years later in May 2009 at a small chapel in Brindisi, Italy. Finished off: She opted for minimal jewels with a pair of hoop earrings accessorising her look, but Maggie donned plenty of heavy makeup for the prestigious fashion week show They raise their two daughters Ramona, 12, and Gloria, aged six, at their home in Brooklyn, New York City. Maggie's brother Jake hailed his sister as a 'good mother' as he recognised she was 'fully devoted' to her family in an interview with US Weekly in 2017. He told the publication: 'When Im with my nieces all I can think about is what incredible work my sister has put in and what a good mother she is with all the things she has on her plate already. 'With her extraordinary talent and everything she does there, it says a lot about her and it says a lot about her husband. 'They are fully devoted to their family. They give me a chance to be a fun uncle because their daughters are so cool.' Love: Maggie was pictured earlier this week with actor husband Peter Sarsgaard - who she married in 2009 - during a romantic evening in New York She was arrested for a DUI on January 31. And just days since the arrest, Real Housewives Of Orange County star Gina Kirschenheiter has reportedly been pulled over for another violation. According to court documents obtained by The Blast, the 34-year-old was cited for operating her cell phone while driving her vehicle. Scroll down for videos Not having the best luck: RHOC's Gina Kirschenheiter has been pulled over by police for using her phone while driving - just days after her DUI arrest, it has been claimed. Seen in 2018 The publication reports that Gina was cited and will have to pay a $160 fine. Her citation comes merely days since she was arrested for a DUI on January 31. The reality star later took to social media to apologize to her fans and take full responsibility for her actions. Attached to her phone: According to court documents obtained by The Blast , the 34-year-old was cited for operating her cell phone whilst driving her vehicle (pictured on her phone while filming RHOC) Loves a car selfie: Gina regularly shares snaps of herself whilst in the drivers seat for her followers In a lengthy Instagram post, she vowed to never make the mistake again after spending hours in a jail. The ordeal also set-off some self-reflection: 'I honestly believe that some issues no matter how great and important are truly only a part of our awareness once we are personally effected by them. For me....what happened this week is that issue.' The 34-year old even got philosophical with the headline of her Instagram post that read: 'The best apology is changed behavior.' She also wrote about how drastically different the reactions and opinions have been since her arrest, which have 'run from incredibly chastising to extremely supportive.' Arrested: Her citation comes merely days since she was arrested for a DUI on January 31 Drink driving: She was arrested for a DUI on January 31 Never again: In a lengthy Instagram post, she vowed to never make the mistake again after spending hours in a jail The star also pointed out that her decisions are magnified because she is a public figure. Grateful for the 'encouragement and love' she has gotten over the last few days, Kirschenheiter has also been equally 'shocked by the astonishing amount of 'it could have happened to anyone' and 'we've all been there' that she received from close friends and on social media. 'I could easily join in with the chorus saying 'you're right, it could be any of us' but it shouldn't be any of us. EVER !' she proclaimed. She also confessed her disappointment in herself for being 'part of this social norm. Especially since everyone who knows me knows I'm the queen of Uber/Lyft.' The reality star followed that be taking responsibility for her actions. 'This didnt happen to me. I wasn't unlucky I made a conscious decision to do something epically stupid. One time is one time too many. I am awake now. I can promise this will NEVER BE ME again.' The 34-year-old was stopped by the Orange County Sheriff's Department in the early morning hours of Thursday 31 for failing to stop at a stop sign. Over: Kirschenheiter is currently single, having split from her husband Matt last March, following eight years of marriage and three kids She was eventually transported to a jail in Santa Ana where she was booked and released at noon that same day. Her court date is set for February 28. The booking information listed the mother-of-three's occupation as 'unemployed', although she is expected to return for season 14 of RHOC, which is slated to premiere on Bravo later this year. The Long Island, New York native ended her Instagram apology by thanking those who have contacted her to tell their tales of heartbreak due to drinking and driving. 'I make this promise to each one of you with your messages in my heart.... I am committed to this cause and hope to effect a positive change and dialogue. You don't have to believe me with these words, but I hope over time you will see through my actions.' Kirschenheiter is currently single, having split from her husband Matt last March, following eight years of marriage. In her April divorce petition she sought spousal support and asked for joint legal and primary physical custody of the couple's three children. Meanwhile Matt's response saw him seek joint custody. However he agreed she should be granted spousal support. There was a mini Real Housewives Of New Jersey reunion on Friday. Teresa Giudice sat front row of the Cosmopolitan NYFW show alongside her former nemesis, Danielle Staub. Years after the infamous table-flipping moment, Teresa, 46, looked cool, calm, and collected as she enjoyed the show with her daughter Audriana, 10, and Danielle, 56. Reunited: Teresa Giudice sat front row of the Cosmopolitan NYFW show alongside her former nemesis, Danielle Staub Teresa looked effortlessly chic wearing all-black, hoop earrings, and a delicate choker necklace. She wore her silky brunette locks down and exuded glamour with a face full of makeup. Teresa's daughter Audriana cut a stylish figure in a black and red outfit with a pair of 'Slay' trousers. The youngster wore expertly applied makeup for the special occasion, including bold red lipstick. Glammed up: The youngster wore expertly applied makeup for the special occasion, including bold red lipstick Danielle was the definition of cool in a black PVC jacket, turtleneck, boots, and hoop earrings. Danielle recently returned to The Real Housewives Of New Jersey as a 'friend', years after becoming the show villain. She was a magnet for drama in seasons one and two, and once enraged Teresa so much, the star flipped over a table in a fit of rage. Mommy and me: Audriana enjoyed a day out with her doting mother She's back: Danielle recently returned to The Real Housewives Of New Jersey as a 'friend', years after becoming the show villain Years later, life has still been challenging for Danielle. Her husband Joe Giudice is serving 41-months in prison for mail, wire and bankruptcy fraud. He is due to be released in March, but a judge has ordered him to be deported once he is released. 'So proud': The star managed to take her mind off the drama on Friday at the fashion show, where her daughter Gia was performing her new music Strike a pose: The reality star looked sophisticated in all-black Danielle also served time in prison after pleading guilty to fraud. The star managed to take her mind off the drama on Friday at the fashion show, where her daughter Gia was performing her new music. 'So proud of @milania_giudice356 she had a goall to go out and perform at #NYFW and she did it! I couldn't be more proud of all my girls, they are all so special & amazing!' Teresa raved on Instagram. She is the hot favourite of this year's awards season with her starring role in The Favourite, whose next regal role will see her transform into Queen Elizabeth II. And Olivia Colman looked stunning as she stepped out for the Oscar Nominee Champagne Tea Reception at Claridge's Ballroom in London on Friday. The actress, 45, put on a chic display in a striking red Edeline Lee Benedict dress, which had wraparound detailing across the front for a glamorous flair. Chic: Olivia Colman stunned in a striking red Edeline Lee Benedict dress at the Oscar Nominee Champagne Tea Reception at Claridge's ballroom in London on Friday, ahead of the Academy Awards Olivia cinched her outfit at the waist with a dramatic belt, while she gave her look a touch of glitter by stepping out in a pair of silver heels. The Broadchurch star is in the running for the Leading Actress category at the Oscars alongside heavy-hitters Glenn Close for The Wife, Lady Gaga for A Star Is Born, Yalitza Aparicio for Roma and Melissa McCarthy for Can You Ever Forgive Me? Hotly tipped for success, Olivia's portrayal of a frail, eccentric and introverted Queen Anne of Great Britain in The Favourite has also earned a Best Actress nomination at the BAFTAs, which take place on Sunday. Stylish: The actress put on a chic display in her ensemble, which had wraparound detailing across the front for a glamorous flair Nominees: Olivia was joined at the event by Rami Malek, who is up for the Best Actor award for his turn as music legend, and Queen frontman, Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody Sweet: The pair looked at each other with admiration as they spoke at the event Also at the event was Rami Malek, who looked sharp in a black button-up shirt which had a white cross print design. The actor, 36, paired his ensemble with a fitted black bomber jacket and sleek suit trousers, while he completed his look with a pair of dark Chelsea boots. The Mr. Robot star styled his cropped raven locks in slick spikes, and he chose to keep his accessories to a minimum for the outing. Awards season has been a great success for Rami, and the actor is currently up for the Academy Award for Best Actor at the Oscars for his turn as music legend Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody. Dapper: Rami looked sharp in a black button-up shirt which had a white cross print design Sharp: The actor, 36, paired his ensemble with a fitted black bomber jacket and sleek suit trousers, while he completed his look with a pair of dark Chelsea boots Front runner: Awards season has been a great success for Rami, and the actor is up for Best Actor at the Oscars for his turn as legend Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody Rami was joined at the event by BlacKkKlansman director Spike Lee, who cut a casual figure in a black hoodie and a beanie. The acclaimed director, 61, looked comfy as he completed his look with a pair of black jogging bottoms and white trainers with silver detailing. Spike is currently up for Best Director at the Academy Awards, and will compete against Alfonso Cuaron, Yorgos Lanthimos, Adam McKay, Pawel Pawlikowski. Relaxed: Rami was joined at the event by BlacKkKlansman director Spike Lee, who cut a casual figure in a black hoodie and a beanie Casual chic: The acclaimed director, 61, looked comfy as he completed his look with a pair of black jogging bottoms and white trainers with silver detailing Oscar buzz: Spike is currently up for Best Director at the Academy Awards, and will compete against Alfonso Cuaron, Yorgos Lanthimos, Adam McKay, Pawel Pawlikowski Alongside Olivia, her The Favourite co-stars Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz are nominated for Best Supporting Actress. As well as Best Actor, Bohemian Rhapsody is nominated in the Best Picture, Best Sound Editing, Best Film Editing and Best Sound Mixing categories. The Oscar nominations this year have been historic with Marvel film Black Panther nominated in the Best Picture category, while foreign language film Roma has garnered 10 nods. Glamorous: Roma actress Marina de Tavira dazzled in a yellow floral print gown Loved-up: Director Asif Kapadia and his wife Victoria Harwood looked smitten as the filmmaker wrapped his arm around her waist Chic: Lebanese director Nadine Labaki stunned in a navy blue jumpsuit, as she attended with her husband Khaled Mouzanar Sparkling: Actress Marta Nieto dazzled in her silver gown as she joined Spanish director Rodrigo Sorogoyen Advertisement Andy Cohen beamed with joy as he left the hospital with his new son, Benjamin Allen, for the first time in Los Angeles earlier this week. In exclusive photographs obtained by DailyMail.com, the Bravo star is pictured gazing into the backseat of a car where the infant was as he arrived back at a private residence with long-term friend and Benjamin's godfather Bruce Bozzi on Thursday. Cohen, 50, got out of the passenger seat and peered into the backseat to gaze lovingly at Benjamin who was delivered via a surrogate last week. He and Bruce rested take-out coffees on the roof of their car while they prepared to get Benjamin out of his seat and into the home. The photographs were taken a day before Cohen and his new child flew back to New York City on a private jet to settle into their new life. Daddy dearest: Andy Cohen gazes lovingly into the backseat of a car at his baby boy, Benjamin Allen, after bringing him to a private residence from the Los Angeles hospital where he was born via a surrogate this week Cohen, 50, was awash with joy as he prepared to bundle Benjamin out of the car and into the home after announcing his arrival to the world via Instagram The Bravo star could not take his eyes off the backseat where his precious cargo was waiting to be picked up Cohen and his long-term friend Bruce Bozzi had just taken the baby home from hospital and picked up some take-out coffees en route Cohen juggled what appeared to be a cup of tea with a small steel bag case before heading inside the home with his baby Overcome with joy: The new parent looked somewhat sleep deprived but blissfully happy as he reached the house Cohen looked somewhat sleep-deprived but blissfully happy as he prepared to bundle Benjamin out of the vehicle. Wearing a hoodie and jeans, the TV darling's salt-and-pepper hair was more disheveled than usual. With a take-out cup of tea and a small bag in one hand, he gazed lovingly towards his new child before lifting him inside. On Friday, he posed for a photograph on Instagram of the pair on board a private jet as they made their way back to New York City. 'Digging the #DadGear!' Andy Cohen posted a heart-melting photo of himself with Benjamin on board a private jet on Friday Andy couldn't have looked any happier as he struck a pose inside the jet, hands on his waist as his bundle of joy rested contentedly in the carrier. 'Digging the #DadGear!' Andy raved in the caption. The Bravo star wore a black sweatshirt and jeans as his newborn child laid nestled in a baby blue onesie. Andy announced the birth of Benjamin on Monday night, delighting fans with a sweet black-and-white photo of his pride and joy. 'I'm a dad. Wow': Andy announced the birth of Benjamin on Monday night, delighting fans with a sweet black-and-white photo of himself with his pride and joy 'WOW! This is my son, Benjamin Allen Cohen. He is 9 lbs 2 ounces !! 20 inches !! Born at 6:35 pm, PT. He is named after my grandfather Ben Allen. I'm in love. And speechless. And eternally grateful to an incredible surrogate. And I'm a dad. Wow.' Andy shared the big news that he was going to be a dad on his show, Watch What Happens Live, while surrounded by several Real Housewives. 'I want you to be the first to know that after many years of careful deliberation, fair amount of prayers and the benefit of science, if all goes according to plan, in about six weeks time, I'm going to become a father thanks to a wonderful surrogate who is carrying my future,' Andy said. Andy is the first openly gay host of a US late-night talk show, and has been hosting the hit Bravo series Watch What Happens Live since July 2009. He's denied claims that he's the father of a British woman's one-year-old daughter, after a brief encounter in Liverpool in April 2017. And Conor McGregor put the allegations behind him, as he doted on his 18-month-old son Conor Jr, who he shares with partner Dee Devlin. The MMA fighter, 30, was the picture of happiness as the pair enjoyed some quality time together at the beach, in snaps that Conor shared on Instagram on Friday. Doting dad: Conor McGregor doted on 18-month-old son Conor Jr as they spent some quality time together at the beach on Friday... amid love child claims Conor looked dapper as he showcased his muscular figure in short circular-print swimming trunks, while his adorable tot wore a nappy. The fighter kept a close eye on his little one, holding his hand and guiding him around the sandy beach so that Conor Jr could happily explore. One image saw Conor sit on the beach, with the waves lapping up against him as he sweetly wrapped his arms around his son while they looked out at the ocean. In a gushing tribute to his child, the athlete wrote: 'Stay patient and trust your journey, my son.' Protective: One image saw Conor sit on the beach with the waves lapping up against him, as he sweetly wrapped his arms around his son while they looked out at the ocean Sweet: Conor looked dapper as he showcased his muscular figure in short print swimming trunks, while his adorable tot wore a nappy Last week, single mother Terri Murray, 26, told The Mirror that she wants McGregor to take a DNA test to confirm he is the father of her one-year-old daughter Clodagh. Murray said she met the Dublin-born former UFC featherweight and lightweight champion in a Liverpool hotel after watching the 2017 Grand National. She claimed she fell pregnant as a result of their encounter and nine months later gave birth to her daughter. There for him: The fighter kept a close eye on his little one, holding his hand and guiding him around the sandy beach so that Conor Jr could happily explore Wise words: In a gushing tribute to his child, the athlete wrote: 'Stay patient and trust your journey, my son' Murray told The Mirror: 'I dont want his money. I just want to prove he is Clodaghs dad and Im not lying.' McGregor, who is worth 75 million, has denied sleeping with Murray and said she may have been with one of his friends, who accompanied him to Aintree on a private jet. His son with longtime girlfriend Dee, 31, was born on May 5, 2017, a month after the alleged encounter with Murray. Ant McPartlin was putting on a jovial display as he dressed up a giant teddy bear while larking about backstage at the Britain's Got Talent auditions on Friday. The presenter, 43, was in hysterical laughter as he sported the enormous costume, in snaps posted by judge Amanda Holden. Ant's return comes following claims that his ex-wife Lisa Armstrong had accused him of playing 'happy families' with his girlfriend Anne-Marie Corbett, after they recently adopted two puppies. Funny: Ant McPartlin was putting on a jovial display as he dressed up a giant teddy bear while larking about backstage at the Britain's Got Talent auditions on Friday In one snap, only Ant's head could be seen sticking out of the top of the enormous teddy outfit, which boasted a BGT-appropriate red, white and blue rosette. The much loved presenter could then be seen in fits of laughter as he sat in the bear outfit, while sidekick Declan Donnelly and judge Simon Cowell watched on. The stars appeared to be messing around backstage in a break between the latest round of auditions in Manchester, which are expected to air sometime this April. Hilarious: The presenter, 43, was in hysterics was he sported the enormous costume, while sidekick Declan Donnelly and judge Simon Cowell watched on Ant's outing comes after his ex Lisa appeared to hit out at the presenter, as she liked a cryptic tweet regarding the news that he adopted two puppies. It read: 'After seeing the newspaper today, I really hope you got custody of Hurley - I feel that's the least he could've done after putting you through all the s**t he has, especially now as he appears to be playing happy families since the dust has settled xx.' Ant, who is currently in a custody battle with Lisa over their beloved pet Labrador, Hurley, was pictured on Saturday showing off his two new Maltipoo puppies, Milo and Bumble, during a romantic stroll with Anne-Marie. Controversial: Ant's return to BGT filming comes after his ex-wife Lisa Armstrong appeared to hit out at him for playing 'happy families' Twitter: Thhe Strictly make-up artist, 42, liked a cryptic tweet shared by a fan just hours after Ant and new girlfriend Anne Marie Corbett were pictured with the pet pooches Ant has spent much of the year focusing on his recovery, resulting in close friend Dec hosting the final episodes of Saturday Night Takeaway including a live finale shot on location in Florida alone. He returned to work at the show's London Palladium auditions on January 18, and admitted he was 'really really emotional' as he was given a standing ovation. The Geordie star was convicted of drink-driving, given an 86,000 fine and a 20 month driving ban following a three-car smash in March and later checked into rehab. In August last year, Ant revealed he was taking a break from presenting with co-host Dec to focus on recovering from his painkiller addiction, months after his drink-driving charge in April. She plays a jaded young woman whose life turns into a romantic comedy after she suffers a head injury in her upcoming comedy. But Rebel Wilson looked worlds away from her disillusioned character as she smiled from ear to ear while promoting her upcoming film, Isn't It Romantic, in New York City on Friday. Even in the middle of the wintry weather, the actress, 38, was beaming with joy as she made her way out of Good Morning America. Hello sunshine! Rebel Wilson looked worlds away from her disillusioned character as she smiled from ear to ear while promoting her upcoming film, Isn't It Romantic, in New York City on Friday The Australian star stood out in a bold red jacket, black blouse, matching trousers, and gold flats. She looked preppy and cheerful with her hair pulled up into a stylish high pony tail, and her bangs skimming across her brows. The actress was joined for her promotional rounds with Isn't It Romantic co-star Liam Hemsworth. Liam cut a cool figure in a black jacket, slacks, and suede sneakers as he headed out into chilly NYC. Playing with fire: The Australian star stood out in a bold red jacket, black blouse, matching trousers, and gold flats Walk this way: Wilson smiled wide as she stepped out into the cold In Isn't It Romantic, Rebel plays Natalie, a young woman disillusioned by romance, whose world turns upside down after she suffers a head injury and her life turns into a romantic comedy. While promoting their upcoming movie on Good Morning America, Rebel revealed working on the movie inspired her to begin looking for love, and that she had started reading dating books for advice. The actress also hilariously confessed to Liam that she had to have her toe nails super glued on under the sheets in between takes of their love scene. 'I didn't want to tell you because it was such a sexy scene': The actress also hilariously confessed to Liam that she had to have her toe nails super glued on under the sheets in between takes of their love scene 'What was going on with me that day is that two of my two nails had fallen off, and we were super gluing them under the bed sheets... it was from an injury from another stunt in the film, and I didn't want to tell you because it was such a sexy scene.' Liam, meanwhile, also opened up about his wedding to Miley Cyrus, who he called one of the sweetest people on the planet. 'It was very intimate, pretty much just immediate family, couple other close friends, it was a really special day,' Liam said of their wedding day. Looking for love: Wilson revealed she had started reading dating books after becoming inspired to find love for herself from filming her movie 'It was very intimate': Liam, meanwhile, also opened up about his wedding to Miley Cyrus, who he called one of the sweetest people on the planet Rebel also talked potentially going on a Valentine's Day date with Liam and his Miley. Last month, after Rebel admitted she never had a date on Valentine's Day, Miley asked her to become a 'trouple' with her and Liam on the loving holiday. 'She said it was like a trouple date or something,' Rebel said. 'Are you going to take them up on it?' Michael asked Rebel. Co-stars! Wilson posted a snap of herself with Hemsworth and GMA co-host Michael Strahan Brr! Hemsworth braved the cold in a cool all-black look 'I don't know! I think she should have asked Liam before,' Rebel said, before the actor said he wanted her to join them. 'I'm all for it!' Liam said. 'Aww, thanks!' Rebel said. 'If I get desperate, great option!' Act two! The actress changed into a bold yellow jacket for an appearance on the Build Series with Liam Selfie time! The actress couldn't have looked happier promoting her new movie Let's do this: The 38-year-old took fans behind-the-scenes at The View Date nights don't get much more romantic than this. Julia Roberts and husband of 16 years Danny Moder looked like they were living a romcom as they strolled the streets of Rome, Italy after dinner on Thursday. Danny presented Julia, 51, with three red roses as they left a restaurant to walk arm in arm through the city. When in Rome: Julia Roberts and husband Daniel Moder are pictured strolling in Rome after dinner in the city The couple - who have three children together - were dressed in winter layers, with the Pretty Woman star wearing a long grey coat with a hood. She wore her strawberry blonde locks loose in curls framing her bespectacled face. Danny wrapped up in a black jacket and scarf along with maroon pants. The couple looked very much in love as they strolled, Danny with his arm around Julia's shoulders. Date night: Danny, 50, presented Julia with three red roses as they left a restaurant Protective: The cameraman wrapped his arm around the Pretty Woman icon It seems the duo are enjoying time abroad without their kids Hazel, 14, Phinnaeus, 14, and Henry, 11. Julia and Danny met on the set of her film The Mexican in 2000, while she was still dating actor Benjamin Bratt. At the time, Danny was married to Vera Steimberg. He filed for divorce a little over a year later, and after it was finalized, he and Julia wed on July 4, 2002, at her ranch Taos, New Mexico. In September Julia opened up about her relationship with the cameraman. He's a fan! The rose vendor walked alongside the Hollywood couple for a while 'You know what? He's an awesome human being. We have so much fun,' she gushed to Extra. In 2017, she told Harper's Bazaar U.K. that before Danny came into her life, she was a 'selfish little brat, running around making films. I was my priority.' But that meeting her 'person' changed everything. 'When I think about what makes my life my life, and just makes sense, and just shines inside of me, it's him. Everything has come from that.' Traditionally, the monarch's family abstained from politics. Ubolratana Rajakanya Sirivadhana Barnavadi is the eldest daughter of the late king Bhumibol Adulyadej. She is a candidate in the ranks of a party loyal to the Yingluck Shinawatra family, overthrown by the military in 2014. Observer: "She can count on great popular support". Bangkok (AsiaNews) - In an unprecedented move In Thailands political history, the king's sister joined the race to become the next prime minister of the country: Princess Ubolratana Mahidol (photo), 67, will be the only candidate for the Thai Raksa Chart Party in the elections next March 24th. The party announced her candidacy, putting an end to the rumors circulated in recent days. The princess's decision breaks with the tradition of the Thai royal family, which had always remained outside the political life of the country. Ubolratana Rajakanya Sirivadhana Barnavadi is the eldest daughter of the late king of Thailand Bhumibol Adulyadej; she is one year older than his successor, King Maha Vajiralongkorn. After marrying a US citizen in 1972, she renounced the royal title and moved to the United States. After the divorce, the princess returned to Thailand and resumed participation in royal life. On January 23rd, King Maha Vajiralongkorn issued a royal decree to hold the first general elections since the military overthrew the administration of Yingluck Shinawatra in May five years ago. The princess will run for the party loyal to the still influential Shinawatra family, who for years dominated the Thai political scene. The current prime minister of the country and former head of the army, Prayuth Chan-ocha, has also announced today that he will run as a candidate for the pro-military Palang Pracharat. An observer of Thai politics, who requested anonymity for security reasons, told AsiaNews: "The local newspapers did not give much prominence to the news concerning the candidacy of the princess. There are numerous people who have applied for the upcoming elections and the confusion is great. Nevertheless, I believe that the princess can count on great popular support, since the Thai are still very attached to the royal family and have deep respect for the monarchy ". About a month and a half away from the elections, citizens do not seem to be involved in the election campaign. "At the moment, I have to say that there is a widespread climate of indifference. Intellectuals and the more affluent sections of the population show a greater participation. This semi-dictatorship, which is drawing to an end, has annoyed many, partly because Thai people are very pragmatic and they know that such a regime damages business, tourism and public image. There is a perceptible desire for change, people want democracy". Ant McPartlin headed to Britain's Got Talent filming in Manchester on Friday, after his ex wife Lisa Armstrong accused him of playing 'happy families ' with his girlfriend and their new puppies. The star, 43, who returned to presenting in January after a year off following a drink driving conviction and rehab stint, cut a low-key figure as he departed his hotel alongside his co-host Declan Donnelly. The Geordie star kept things casual in a navy peacoat with a dark ensemble underneath while a chipper Dec, also 43, beamed at fans. Out and about: Ant McPartlin headed to Britain's Got Talent filming in Manchester on Friday, after his ex wife Lisa Armstrong accused him of playing 'happy families ' with his girlfriend and their new puppies Over: Ant and Lisa went their separate ways back in January 2018, after 11 years of marriage Ant was cutting a low-key figure as he failed to crack a smile before a no doubt giggly stint on-stage alongside his beloved best pal. The duo obligingly stopped for snaps with delighted fans, who couldn't believe their luck that they had stumbled upon the UK TV royalty. Dec looked stylish in a shirt with a padded gilet paired with cream chinos and box-fresh white trainers - nailing his low-key style. This comes a day after Strictly make-up artist Lisa 42, liked a cryptic tweet shared by a fan just hours after Ant and new girlfriend Anne Marie Corbett were pictured with the pet pooches. New arrival: This comes a day after Strictly make-up artist Lisa 42, liked a cryptic tweet shared by a fan just hours after Ant and new girlfriend Anne Marie Corbett were pictured with the pet pooches Twitter: This comes a day after Strictly make-up artist Lisa 42, liked a cryptic tweet shared by a fan just hours after Ant and new girlfriend Anne Marie Corbett were pictured with the pet pooches It read: 'After seeing the newspaper today, I really hope you got custody of Hurley - I feel that's the least he could've done after putting you through all the s**t he has, especially now as he appears to be playing happy families since the dust has settled xx.' Ant, who is currently in a custody battle with Lisa over their beloved pet Labrador, Hurley, was pictured on Saturday showing off his two new Maltipoo puppies, Milo and Bumble, during a romantic stroll with Anne-Marie. The Britain's Got Talent host, 42, is said to have bought the pups - which are a cross between a Maltese terrier and a poodle and typically cost 1,000 each - a few weeks ago, but has been keeping them inside prior to their vaccinations. A source told The Sun: 'Ant has not stop smiling since picking them up. He's in a really positive place.' Here come the boys: The 43-year-old Geordie star kept things casual in a navy peacoat with a dark ensemble underneath while chipper Dec, also 43, beamed at fans Heading off: Ant was cutting a low-key figure as he failed to crack a smile before a no doubt giggy stint on-stage alongside his beloved best pal They added: 'Ant is in no way replacing [his other dog] Hurley. He just really misses him when he's not around. 'He's also thought long and hard about expanding his pet family for quite some time Ant's love of dogs has been well-documented in the past, with one of the main bones of contention in his split from wife Lisa said to be about the custody of their chocolate Labrador. The star was later seen putting on a cheery display as he slipped into a gigantic teddy bear costume, while a delighted Simon Cowell and Dec looked on. Ant has spent much of the year focusing on his recovery, resulting in close friend Dec hosting the final episodes of Saturday Night Takeaway including a live finale shot on location in Florida alone. Playful: Ant put on a cheery display as he slipped into a gigantic teddy bear costume once inside the studios Laugh out loud: Ant roared with laughter as he posed inside the fluffy contraption Heading off: Dec looked stylish in a shirt with a padded gilet paired with cream chinos and box-fresh white trainers - nailing his low-key style Happy days: The duo obligingly stopped for snaps with delighted fans, who couldn't believe their luck that they had stumbled upon the UK TV royalty Off we go: Ant has spent much of the year focusing on his recovery, resulting in close friend Dec hosting the final episodes of Saturday Night Takeaway including a live finale shot on location in Florida alone He returned to work at the show's London Palladium auditions on January 18, and admitted he was 'really really emotional' as he was given a standing ovation. The Geordie star was convicted of drink-driving, given an 86,000 fine and a 20 month driving ban following a three-car smash in March and later checked into rehab. In August last year, Ant revealed he was taking a break from presenting with co-host Dec to focus on recovering from his painkiller addiction, months after his drink-driving charge in April. Leading ladies: Amanda Holden and Alesha Dixon looked gorgeous in scarlet and monchrome coats and killer heels for the auditions Happy days: Dec also greeted fans who were vying for their attention outside the venue Off we go: Dec looked handsome in his slick ensemble as he prepped for the day on-stage The presenter previously credited new girlfriend Anne-Marie as being 'his rock' over the past year as he battled with drug and alcohol addiction and took time away from the spotlight. Speaking to The Sun, he said: 'Anne-Marie honestly is the fundamental reason for the great change in my life. She's been my rock. She's a beautiful soul. We're very happy.' Here he is: Head judge Simon cut a typically dapper figure as he left his hotel Selfie: The humble star was only too willing to pose for photos with delighted fans She endured a very public heartbreak when she split from fiance John Noble in November and has now moved on with a former TOWIE star. And Vicky Pattison looked better than ever as she slipped into a scanty bikini for a sizzling shot and urged girls not to change for guys in a motivational post on Thursday. The former Geordie Shore star, 31, flaunted her ample assets and taut midriff in a vibrant coral bikini as she sultrily climbed out of a pool. Brave: Vicky Pattison looked better than ever as she slipped into a scanty bikini for a sizzling shot and urged girls not to change for guys in a motivational post on Thursday The tiny top emphasised her buxom bust which she saucily lifted, while drawing the eye to her taut midriff and slender waist. A pair of matching bottoms rested low on her hips while revealing her bronzed thighs. Her brunette tresses were slicked back from her face and she showcased her radiant complexion by going make-up free. The One: The star was clearly in a reflective mood as she moves onto the next stage of her life, and shared an inspirational post about self-worth The star was clearly in a reflective mood as she moves onto the next stage of her life, and shared an inspirational post about self-worth. She wrote: 'You know the right guy won't change you. He won't subtly pressure you. He's not going to tell you you're wrong for being emotional and for being a girl.' She continued: 'The right guy will come along someday. You just got to tough it out and wait for him. 'But whatever you do, don't settle, you deserve so much more.' Over: Vicky split from fiance John Noble after he was seen cosying up to women in Dubai last year - with her heartbreak documented in TLC show, The Break-up Vicky split from John after he was seen cosying up to women in Dubai last year - with her heartbreak documented in TLC show, The Break-up. Ahead of the show documenting her heartache airing, Vicky gave an explosive interview to MailOnline in which she confirmed she's ready to date again in an attempt to move on from her ex. Vicky shared she had been hitting the town more, both with her girls and her male companions, because it was a 'nice distraction' from her heartache. Vicky admitted: 'When you're single you do go out more. I think that's natural and it was a nice distraction to be out and be around people, When your sad the devil does make idle work... New love: She is now dating former TOWIE star Ercan Ramadan (front) 'I exhausted myself. I slept better when I was tired and I stood by what I believed in.' Insisting she doesn't 'think' about her ex anymore, Vicky claimed her former fiance has demanded the ring back and wants to get the money out of the house. She is now dating former TOWIE star Ercan Ramadan. Speaking at the launch of her Goddiva fashion collection on Monday, the reality star, said she was 'smiling again' after enjoying a string of dates with the star. 'I am seeing someone, it's very early but I'm dating again, I'm having fun, I'm smiling again,' she told The Sun. Joseph Baena is addicted to the gym it seems. The star shared another image during a workout session on Thursday. In this one the LA native shows off his arm muscles as he sits in a machine. The son of Arnold Schwarzenegger often lifts weights at home or at Gold's Gym in Venice Beach, California. Toned: Joseph Baena is addicted to the gym it seems. The star shared another image during a workout session on Thursday. In this one the LA native shows off his arm muscles as he sits in a machine He sure has a lot of drive: In this image he said, 'When you feel the pump' Bodybuilding origins: Last week, Baena took to Instagram to mark the one year anniversary of him deciding to pursue bodybuilding He had on a rust-colored top with a print of the front. His caption read, 'Alternating half and full reps.' In the background other gym goers could be seen. This comes after he copies his father's Mr. Universe pose. Baena took to Instagram on Wednesday to re-create another one of dad's famous poses, flexing his biceps, stating he, 'Had to take advantage of the lighting.' The pose is a re-creation of a flexing pose Schwarzenegger did in a 1967 ad for a German protein product, while Arnie himself spoke about their bond in a new interview. Famous pose: Joseph re-created another one of his father's famous poses in a new Instagram snap on Wednesday Classic pose: The pose is a re-creation of a fiexing pose Schwarezengger did in 1967 ad for a German protein product Schwarzenegger was at his Arnold Pro Strongman USA event when Extra's Mario Lopez caught up with him, and mentioned that he looks great. 'Yeah, yeah, he is very serious about this whole thing,' Arnold said. 'He wants to compete in one of the classic physique competitions.' 'I don't think he wants to go to the extreme, but he wants to do the classic physique competitions and he's looking forward to that and he's training very hard,' he added. Classic physique: Schwarzenegger was at his Arnold Pro Strongman USA event when Extra 's Mario Lopez caught up with him, and mentioned that he looks great Hitting the gym: Schwarzenegger also shared a story about a recent training session when he was in the gym with his 21-year-old son, and he pushed him to a new personal best Schwarzenegger also shared a story about a recent training session when he was in the gym with his 21-year-old son, and he pushed him to a new personal best. 'We were in the gym and did the shoulder training and the arm training, lets go over there and do a little deadlift,' Schwarzenegger said. 'Because I'm a big believer in training also for strength.' 'I put in 455, which he has never lifted before, and he did two reps,' the action icon continued. 'I saw him doing the first one, it was not too much of a struggle, so I said, "Come on do a second one! Go for the second one! Come on Joseph!"' Father and son: 'We were in the gym and did the shoulder training and the arm training, lets go over there and do a little deadlift,' Schwarzenegger said. 'Because I'm a big believer in training also for strength' While Arnie is very happy about his son following in his bodybuilding footsteps, he also wants Joseph, to study as hard as he trains. 'Take care of your body, train hard if you're passionate about that, but also study hard,' Schwarzenegger said, adding it's a 'key thing' that he 'gets his business degree at Pepperdine.' Last week, Baena took to Instagram to mark the one year anniversary of him deciding to pursue bodybuilding. 'In this pic, a year ago, I was just under 185lbs (83kg). This is the moment I decided I wanted to pursue bodybuilding,' Baena said, with the hashtags #Swimmerbod #SteadyGrowth #RoadTo215. Schwarzenegger also praised his future son-in-law, actor Chris Pratt, in his interview with Mario Lopez, revealing that he's 'such a likable guy.' 'He's a great guy, they both look really great together, they're very happy together, so I wish them the best of luck.' Charlize Theron started her career as a fashion model. And on Thursday the 43-year-old siren shared a very rare photo from that time in her life. In the image, she looks almost baby faced. This comes nearly a month after the blonde bombshell was linked romantically to Brad Pitt. The Atomic Blonde star has yet to comment on the report. Just a child: Charlize Theron started her career as a fashion model. And on Thursday the 43-year-old siren shared a very rare photo from that time in her life. In the image, she looks almost baby faced New love? Brad Pitt is dating another Hollywood A-lister over two years after he split from Oscar winner Angelina Jolie. The Allied actor is seeing Charlize, according to The Sun In her old image, the Devil's Advocate star had fuller cheeks thought her body looked very slender. And she had yet to become a full-on bleach blonde like she is now. The beauty wore a red sheer blouse that had a bow at the waist. The caption read, 'Pulled a full Marie Kondo and came across this gem. My first modeling competition back in South Africa. Really wishing I kept this top. #tbt.' Marie Kondo is a Japanese organizing consultant and author. Kondo has written four books on organizing, which have collectively sold millions of copies and have been translated from Japanese. Date night? Theron went to a Roma screening at the Chateau Marmont in West Hollywood on January 12. Here she is posed with Yalitza Aparicio, Director Alfonso Cuaron and Diego Luna In late January she was linked to Pitt by The Sun. They were introduced by her ex-fiance Sean Penn, it was alleged by the publication. 'The new lovebirds were all over each over at a showbiz function last week,' a source claimed. That function was a showing of the movie Roma at the Chateau Marmont in West Hollywood on January 12. Theron was at the party and Pitt came later after a screening of his movie If Beale Street Could Talk, where he posed with Blanca Blanco. 'Brad came over to Chateau afterwards, changed his outfit and joined Charlize in a corner of the bar,' said the insider. There he is: That same night Pitt was at an If Beale Street Could Talk screening, where he posed with Blanca Blanco. Later he went to see Charlize at the Roma event inside the Chateau 'She was on a vodka cocktail while he stuck to mineral water,' noted the source. He stopped drinking alcohol after his split from Jolie. 'They were ridiculously touchy-feely and his arm was around her back. At one point he winked at her,' said the eyewitness. 'Brad seemed in a really good place they both looked really happy,' added the source. The one who left him: Pitt is still working through his divorce Angelina Jolie, with whom he co-parents six children. Seen in 2015 The power couple started dating around Christmas, it was claimed, and they spend a lot of time at his Los Feliz, California mansion, though it was noted she has has yet to meet his kids Zahara, 13, Shiloh, 12, 10-year-olds Vivienne and Knox, Maddox, 16, and Pax, 14. Theron has two adopted children: August and Jackson. 'They have been casually seeing each other for nearly a month now. He made it happen: They were introduced by her ex-fiance Sean Penn, it was alleged by the publication. 'The new lovebirds were all over each over at a showbiz function last week,' a source claimed. Seen in 2015 Theyve been friends for some time ironically through Sean but things have developed,' said the insider. Reps for the actors have been contacted by DailyMail.com. Though Charlize and Brad have never worked together on a film, she has co-starred with his best friend Matt Damon in a movie: 2000's The Legend Of Bagger Vance. Charlize was last linked to Swedish actor Alexander Skarsgard of Big Little Lies fame. Pitt's last known romantic partner is Jolie, though there have been numerous reports he is dating ex-wife Jennifer Aniston, all of which have been denied. Daniel MacPherson has struck upon a hit show with cult military drama Strike Back. But location shoots for the series take place around the world, often separating the 38-year-old Austrlalian actor and his wife, Zoe Ventoura, 37. The pair, now based in Hollywood, are frequently apart, but making it work, the actor tells The Daily Telegraph. 'We just keep doing these laps around the world to see each other': Daniel MacPherson (left) reveals how he and wife Zoe Ventoura (right) are making their long distance relationship work 'You have to make it a priority to have time, energy and effort left for your relationship, otherwise it doesn't work. But we just keep doing these laps around the world to see each other,' he says. Despite spending so much time apart, the happily married couple are hoping to soon start trying for children. Daniel joked: 'We're going to start by trying to be in the same hemisphere which apparently helps.' TV hit: Daniel MacPherson has landed a hit new show in military drama Strike Back (pictured). But location shoots for the series take place around the world Last year, Daniel revealed that fatherhood is something that he is definitely looking forward to. The A Wrinkle in Time actor told told OK! Magazine: 'It's certainly in the future for us. I can't wait to be a dad!' Daniel has in the past also discussed how their jobs have made their marriage more difficult. Apart: Location shoots for the series take place around the world, often separating the 38-year-old actor and his wife, Zoe Ventoura, 37, but they make it work 'The first year of marriage was challenging for us in a lot of ways exactly because of the travel,' Daniel said in a candid interview with WHO magazine, adding however that the pair have become good at coping. 'We're just really good at it. We can operate independently,' he revealed, adding that the pair have a policy where they can demand that 'times up' and 'hop on a plane' back to one another. Zoe and Daniel have just passed their two-year wedding anniversary after being married in Noosa in November 2016. She never fails to turn heads with her sensational sense of style. And Eizabeth Hurley looked radiant as ever as she stepped out for an evening at the theatre in London on Thursday. The actress, 53, cut a glamorous figure as she donned a leopard print knee-length coat with a racy sheer top under which flashed her bra. Out and about: Eizabeth Hurley, 53, looked radiant as ever as she stepped out for an evening at the theatre in London on Thursday Elizabeth looked sensational for the outing as she paired the coat with a black top adorned with sheer, striped detailing and skinny jeans. The Bedazzled star added height to her frame with a pair of black boots and accessorised with a matching handbag and silver earrings with small hoops. Earlier in the week, Elizabeth looked nothing short of incredible as she shared a series of smouldering snaps on her social media accounts. The actress glowed as she smiled for the camera in a simple black top with a plunging neckline. Style: The actress, 53, cut a glamorous figure as she donned a faux-fur leopard print knee-length coat Elizabeth is mother to son Damian, 16, from her brief relationship with American businessman Steve Bing, 53. The mother and son were most recently in India, where they rang in the new year alongside several of the glamorous star's friends. Damian, who has six godfathers including actor Hugh Grant and Sir Elton John and his partner David Furnish, is often rubbing shoulders with his mum's celebrity pals, as she insists she has an 'open house' policy in order for her son to meet her friends. Radiant: Earlier that week, she looked nothing short of sensational as she shared a series of smouldering snaps on her social media account Elizabeth has previously confessed she often ropes Damian into taking photographs of her - including the bikini-clad snaps she posts to social media. On their relationship, she told YOU magazine: 'Damian is a great photographer, and he instinctively knows what younger people want to see, but thats all... 'Our downtime together is usually spent watching something scary on Netflix or Vikings on Amazon Prime. By default we spend a lot of time together and we are utterly comfortable in each other's company.' Comedian Tiffany Haddish found fame aged 37 after a troubled and impoverished upbringing. And the 39-year-old told The Guardian that despite her huge success, she never really feels as though she fits in with the other A-listers. She said: 'I definitely, totally, feel like I'm on the outside. I mean, where I came from is definitely on the outside, and that's what made me who I am.' Feeling out of place: Tiffany Haddish revealed she feels like an outsider on the celebrity scene... and was once turned down by Leonardo DiCaprio Tiffany recalls the time she hit on Hollywood royalty, Leonardo DiCaprio, 44, after meeting him at a Beverly Hills party. She said to him: 'So I want to hit that - but I only want to do it to you as your character out of What's Eating Gilbert Grape.' The star adds that he never called. It comes as little surprise that Tiffany still gets starstruck as she admits her life now is a far cry away from her humble beginnings. Tiffany said to Leonardo DiCaprio: 'So I want to hit that - but I only want to do it to you as your character out of What's Eating Gilbert Grape.' He never called. The Girls' Trip star was born and raised in one of the poorest neighbourhoods in South Central Los Angeles. Her father left at three and when she was eight, her mother was involved in a car accident which left her brain damaged and potentially triggered her schizophrenia. She claims her stepfather admitted to cutting the brakes in the hope of killing her and her children, but remarkably they get along and he came to her show recently. No thanks: Meanwhile, Tiffany has ruled out the chance she could host the 2019 Academy Awards, in support of her 'brother' Kevin Hart Tiffany ended up in the care system where she was molested. Eventually her grandmother got custody of her and her siblings. Meanwhile, Tiffany has ruled out hosting the 2019 Academy Awards, in support of her 'brother' Kevin Hart. She told Lorraine Kelly last week that while it would be 'pretty cool' to land the coveted gig, she doesn't think there would be 'enough preparation time.' It comes after her Night School co-star Kevin was forced to resign from hosting the Oscars after old homophobic tweets had emerged. Candid: The Hollywood star, 39, told Lorraine Kelly that while it would be 'pretty cool' to host the show, she doesn't think there would be 'enough preparation time' He's become one of Australia's biggest exports thanks to his supporting role in Crazy Rich Asians. But Chris Pang claims it wasn't until he left Australia that he really found success on the big screen. Speaking to the Courier Mail on Saturday, the 34-year-old said that diversity has finally come to Hollywood, where he got his first big break. 'I never saw myself reflected': Crazy Rich Asians star Chris Pang (pictured) reveals he's found success after leaving Australia for Hollywood where the climate 'is terrific for diversity' 'The climate is terrific for diversity, people are ready to see it and it makes sense financially now because these films have made money,' he told the paper. The actor, who is of Chinese and Taiwanese descent, reveals that growing up he didn't see many performers like himself on TV. 'Growing up I never really had too many bad experiences. The thing I did have to struggle with was that I never got represented in media. I never saw myself reflected,' he told the paper. Changes: 'The climate is terrific for diversity, people are ready to see it and it makes sense financially now because these films have made money,' he says Melbourne-born Chris has discussed that need for diversity in the past, telling the LA Times that representation is important. 'I didn't see myself and my image in media and in films and on billboards and all that. I'd walk around and as a kid I always felt left out in that sense, you know?' he said. Chris added: 'It is quite damaging to one's sense of self to not be validated, to not see your own image represented.' Big deal! He's become one of Australia's biggest exports thanks to his supporting role in Crazy Rich Asians (pictured) Moving on and up: After his turn as the 'best friend' Colin Khoo in Crazy Rich Asians (pictured) the actor has gone on to more big projects. He will next star in the reboot of Charlie's Angels And with being on the big screen comes a sense of responsibility, 'to be a part of the conversation' the actor added. After his turn as the 'best friend' Colin Khoo in Crazy Rich Asians, the actor has gone on to more big projects. He will next star in the reboot of Charlie's Angels alongside Kristen Stewart and Elizabeth Banks. The Australian actress rose to fame after her breakout role in Netflix's 2017 series 13 Reasons Why. And on Friday, Katherine Langford became candid about her thoughts on the pressures of body image and social media. The 22-year-old took to Instagram to reference a newspaper article that spoke about the dangerous rise in the number of suicides among teenagers in the UK and the link to online social networks. 'People's lives don't look like what they post': 13 Reasons Why actress Katherine Langford has shared her thoughts on the pressures of body image and social media She explained that while she had an appreciation for social media and how it can bring her closer to her fans around the world, she is aware of how it can create 'pressure and toxicity'. 'For what it's worth; people's lives don't look like what they post (I know we all know that subconsciously anyway, but I'm saying it for emphasis).' 'If it means anything; I have, and will continue to always try and be as real as possible with you all on here (even if that doesn't make me the grooviest or most followed kid on Instagram I don't really give a f***),' she said. Appreciation: She explained that while she had an appreciation for social media and how it can bring her closer to her fans around the world, she is aware of how it can create 'pressure and toxicity' Empowered message: She wrote: 'For what it's worth; people's lives don't look like what they post (I know we all know that subconsciously anyway, but I'm saying it for emphasis)' 'You are important and that's what I care about, and if someone hasn't already told you today - you are FIERCE just the way you are,' the actress reminded her followers. Katherine's empowered message comes after The Wrap recently reported she would star in Avengers 4: Endgame. Principal photography wrapped in January, but the cast and crew reconvened for re-shoots last month, which may have been when her scenes were filmed. Under wraps: Katherine's empowered message comes after The Wrap recently reported will star in Avengers 4: Endgame. Principal photography wrapped in January, but the cast and crew reconvened for reshoots last month, which may have been when her scenes were filmed There is no indication yet if her mystery character has any roots in Marvel Comics lore, or if it's a new character unconnected to the comics. She joins a massive ensemble cast that includes MCU heroes such as Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Black Widow (Scarlet Johansson) and many more. The Perth-born beauty has also recently filmed scenes for her new Netflix drama Cursed, which has been described as a 're-imagining of the Arthurian legend.' He was last seen in Weatherfield back in 2012, when he was arrested after kidnapping Rita Tanner on her wedding day. And loan shark Rick Neelan made his return to Coronation Street after seven years away as actor Greg Wood shot scenes in Manchester this week. Greg looked focused as he joined co-star Mikey North (Gary Windass) to film gritty new scenes which appeared to show Gary on a housing estate carrying out the villain's dirty work. Guess who's back? Loan shark Rick Neelan made his return to Coronation Street after seven years away as actor Greg Wood shot scenes in Manchester this week Dastardly deeds: Greg looked focused as he joined co-star Mikey North (Gary Windass) to film gritty new scenes which appeared to show Gary on a housing estate carrying out the villain's dirty work Greg, 39, donned a cream sweater and navy chinos, paired with a dark overcoat for his first scenes back on the cobbles. Mikey, 32, looked smart in a navy suit and matching tie, with a slate grey coat worn over the top. Looking conspiratorial as they filmed, the snaps will no doubt leave fans wondering whether Gary will become the next villain of the soap. Gary has experienced money woes in 2019, causing ructions in his romance with Sarah Platt. Soap villain: Greg, 39, donned a cream sweater and navy chinos, paired with a dark overcoat for his first scenes back on the cobbles Smile: The star looked delighted to be back filming for the hit ITV soap Comeback: Mikey, 32, looked smart in a navy suit and matching tie, with a slate grey coat worn over the top Mystery: Looking conspiratorial as they filmed, the snaps will no doubt leave fans wondering whether Gary will become the next villain of the soap A source told Digital Spy: 'Rick will be coming back for a few months and will be up to his old tricks by terrorising some of the local residents. 'Viewers will have to stay tuned to find out who he'll be targeting this time, but it's safe to say that it's never good news for the characters when Rick is around Rick originally arrived in Weatherfield in 2009 when Gail's husband Joe McIntyre took out a loan from him as he battled debts. Plot: Gary has experienced money woes in 2019, causing ructions in his romance with Sarah Platt Back at it: Greg looked delighted to be back in the hit soap Trouble ahead: Mikey looked focused as he prepared to film Dynamic duo: The actors prepared to film the gritty scenes But when Joe failed to pay Rick back on time, the soap supervillain issued deadly threats and increased the interest on the loan. Joe later died after an attempt to fake his own death but Rick then targeted Joe's grieving family in a bid to get the money. He set a newspaper alight and posted it through Tina McIntyre's front door. The loan shark then returned in 2012, where he gave money to Terry Duckworth and forced his son to carry out criminal acts to repay the debt. When Tina double-crossed him, Rick kidnapped Rita on her wedding day and threatened to throw her into the canal Coronation Street will air Rick's return scenes in March. by Nirmala Carvalho The effigy is located in the parish of St. Joseph, a few kilometers from the archiepiscopal seat. The police open an investigation. For the bishop of Jhabua, not all hopes are lost: "More than 25 thousand people will participate in the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes". Mumbai (AsiaNews) - A statue of the Virgin Mary was set on fire in Madhya Pradesh, in the village of Ishgar, which falls under the diocese of Jhabua. This was reported by the Christian group Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC). Its president Sajan K George says that the fire "took place on 3 February last. The statue of Mary was found burnt in the grotto of the parish of St. Joseph, about 10 km away from the archbishop's house". The Christian community, he adds, "is very disturbed and its religious sentiment is deeply wounded". Fr Rockey Shah, spokesman for the diocese of Jhabua, announced that a complaint had been registered. "Investigations are under way. We presented a memorandum to the police officer and the collector. We have asked our people to pray for peace and harmony and not to react aggressively ". According to Sajan K George, the burning is a deep wound for the local Church. " The vulnerable Christian community conintues to suffer hostility from groups which sow seeds of mistrust and division among the community. Social disharmony is caused and the Christian faith is viewed with suspicion India a secular state and our Constitution ensures that none shall be discriminated against on the ground of religion." The Christian leader protests: "Unfortunately, repeated attacks and incidents against Christians reveal that minorities are not treated in the same way". Finally, he recalls that Fr. Damor, the priest accused of instigating a girl to suicide, "is still in jail and denied bail." Msgr. Basil Bhuriya, bishop of Jhabua, reports that he "visited the Grotto around 9.30 pm, the same day, it was very sad to witness the scene, police were guarding the place, I said Prayers at the Grotto and consoled our people who were present. There are nearly 4,000 Catholics in this Parish. A case has been registered against unidentified persons. We will renew this Grotto and offer Mass However, the situation is not too grim, currently in Sacred Heart Parish, nearly 4 kms away from Archbsihops House, dedicated to Our Lady of Grace, Novenas to Our Lady of Lourdes is underway, and we are celebrating the Feast on Sunday 10th Feb(for convenience of our faithful) . More than 25,000 people will attend the Feast Mass. Mary draws all generations and faiths to her". Bob Geldof made a rare public appearance with his daughter Tiger Lily in London on Wednesday afternoon. The Boomtown Rats frontman, 67, looked typically edgy in jeans and a shearling coat while his daughter, 22, went for a funky pair of tie-dye jeans for their outing. Strutting down the London street, the duo looked every inch the rock legend and superstar offspring thanks to their particular brand of edgy cool. Happy days: Bob Geldof made a rare public appearance with his daughter Tiger Lily in London on Wednesday afternoon Bob looked trendy in his jeans and black top as he pulled a suitcase along and chatted amiably to his beloved daughter. Proving the style runs in the family, pretty Tiger Lily wore the funky jeans with a black hoodie and a warm scarf wrapped around her shoulders. The happy pair made their way down the street in a rare appearance together. Bob was left devastated when his daughter Peaches tragically passed away from a heroin overdose in April 2014, aged just 25, leaving behind two young sons. On the up: The Boomtown Rats frontman, 67, looked typically edgy in jeans and a shearling coat while his daughter, 22, went for a funky pair of tie-dye jeans for their outing Off we go: Proving the style runs in the family, pretty Tiger Lily wore the funky jeans with a black hoodie and a warm scarf wrapped around her shoulders Peaches' death has tragic echoes of history repeating itself since her mother Paula Yates passed away in 2000, aged 41, from an accidental heroin overdose at her London home. When she died, Paula was in the house with then four-year-old Tiger Lily, whose father was late INXS rocker Michael Hutchence. Her death occurred on Peaches' sister and her daughter, Pixie's 10th birthday. Serious chats: Bob looked trendy in his jeans and black top as he pulled a suitcase along and chatted amiably to his beloved daughter Wheely good time! She looked chic for the outing as she went make-up free Tiger Lily's late father had been found dead in a Sydney hotel room three years earlier, so Paula's ex-husband Bob took her in and raised her as his own. The Irish rocker has previously said he tried to be open with his children about the deaths of Hutchence and Yates. He said he was determined that Tiger Lily would remember her parents, explaining: 'I have the records, photos, videos and all that stuff for her.' A close bond: Her death occurred on Peaches' sister and her daughter, Pixie's 10th birthday. Tiger Lily's late father had been found dead in a Sydney hotel room three years earlier, so Paula's ex-husband Bob took her in and raised her as his own She was last romantically linked to a writer and academic 20 years her junior back in October. And Helena Bonham Carter stepped out with a mystery man at Barbara Broccoli's star-studded pre-BAFTA dinner at Spencer House, London on Thursday. The Crown actress, 53, looked in great spirits as she arrived at the bash with a handsome gentleman, clad in a white shirt, bow tie, navy blazer and black trousers. Who's that? Helena Bonham Carter stepped out with a mystery man at Barbara Broccoli's star-studded pre-BAFTA dinner at Spencer House, London on Thursday The Oscar nominee and her mystery male companion looked content in each other's company as they walked along chatting. Helena, 52, who will take on the role of Princess Margaret in the third series of The Crown, went for a typically eccentric display in a black gown comprised of black fur, satin and floral print panels. The quirky gown featured extravagant flared leather sleeves and a ruffled skirt, paired with black platform sandals and polka dot tights as she carried her Lulu Guinness handbag in her hand. The Kings Speech actress wore her tresses in a tousled updo affixed with a crystal hair pin while her pretty features were enhanced with feline flicks of liner and scarlet lipstick. Companion: The Crown actress, 53, looked in great spirits as she arrived at the bash with a handsome gentleman, clad in a white shirt, bow tie, navy blazer and black trousers In October, the Mail on Sunday revealed that Helena had formed a very close friendship with a man 20 years her junior. The actress was said to be inseparable from Rye Dag Holmboe, a 32-year-old bohemian academic and writer. He was seen on the set of The Crown in southern Spain, and he was spotted leaving the actresss North London home that month. Edgy: Helena, 52, who will take on the role of Princess Margaret in the third series of The Crown, went for a typically eccentric display in a black gown comprised of black fur, satin and floral print panels Bonham Carter and Mr Holmboe scion of a wealthy Anglo-Scandinavian family were also pictured chatting as they walked down a London street in September, while he carried the shopping Friends said they met at a wedding last summer, where the academic was a friend of the groom. They hit it off immediately, a source told The Mail on Sunday. Everyone thought it was a fling but it now seems to be hotting up as they are joined at the hip. Some people are surprised that Helena has found someone who is younger and from a different walk of life, but others are less surprised as it is very like her to do the unexpected. Strut: The quirky gown featured extravagant flared leather sleeves and a ruffled skirt, paired with black platform sandals and polka dot tights while carrying a Lulu Guinness handbag Connection: In October, the Mail on Sunday revealed that Helena had formed a very close friendship with a man 20 years her junior, writer and academic Rye Dag Holmboe, 32 Helena had a famously unconventional domestic arrangement during her 13-year relationship with film director Tim Burton, with the couple living in next-door cottages in Chalk Farm, North London. The pair have two children, but split up in 2014. The actress was previously in a relationship with fellow actor Kenneth Branagh. Asked in a newspaper interview earlier this month if there was a new man in her life, Ms Bonham Carter replied with a grin: Ive got two bunnies and a tortoise. Im not prepared to talk about my friends. When asked if her reply meant yes, she coyly replied: Maybe. Helena joined her The Crown co-star Olivia Colman, at the bash, The Queen Anne actress, 45, cut a chic figure as she kept her stylish black outfit under wraps with a stylish camel duster coat, paired with an amethyst handbag. Leading lights: Helena joined her The Crown co-star Olivia Colman, at the bash Offsetting her split trousers, the Shaun of the Dead actress added a splash of colour, with scarlet satin stilettos with a diamante clasp. Her pixie crop was styled in soft waves while her pretty features were enhanced with smoky shadow and a slick of rose lipstick. Olivia was joined at the glittering bash by husband Ed Sinclair, who she wed in 2001. The pair share three children. Olivia has found herself in the running for the Leading Actress category at the Oscars alongside heavy-hitters Glenn Close for The Wife, Lady Gaga for A Star Is Born, Yalitza Aparicio for Roma and Melissa McCarthy for Can You Ever Forgive Me? Hotly tipped for success, Olivia's portrayal of a frail, eccentric and introverted Queen Anne of Great Britain in The Favourite has also earned her coveted Best Actress nomination at the BAFTAs on Sunday. Olivia has shown off her incredible acting prowess in a slew of high-profile and critically acclaimed projects over the years, including her role in the British comedy Peep Show in 2003 to 2015 and ITVs Broadchurch from 2013 to 2017. Her film credits are equally as impressive, starring alongside Simon Pegg in Hot Fuzz and The Iron Lady opposite Meryl Streep. Fans of the star will see her next in Netflix's eagerly-anticipated The Crown, in which she will take over the role of Queen Elizabeth II from Claire Foy in the third series. The dynamic duo joined a host of A-listers at the event gearing up for the BAFTAS, due to be held at the Royal Albert Hall on Sunday. Rita Ora showed off her incredible figure in a very sexy throwback snap which she posted to Instagram on Thursday night. The 28-year-old looked beautiful in a skimpy red triangle bikini which flattered her figure perfectly. Reclining on a large tree branch, the Hot Right Now hitmaker sat in front of a tropical backdrop as she gazed into the distance. Dreaming: Rita Ora shared a stunning throwback snap of herself wearing a skimpy red bikini as she relaxed on glorious beach She made sure she didn't get too much sun, wearing a black hat, showing off her golden limbs as she enjoyed a break. Rita captioned the image with the words: 'Take me back one day. Not now but when Im ready. Um After the tour! thanks.' The star will be touring the UK and Europe until the end of May. Wowzers! Meanwhile, Rita was pulling out all the stops on Thursday evening as she hit the red carpet at the Spotify Best New Artist 2019 event at Hammer Museum in LA Cheeky! She posed with fellow hitmaker Bebe Rexha who opted for a deeply plunging mini dress with a perilously high hemline Rumours have been swirling that Rita had a secret romance with Brooklyn Beckham, 19, two years ago. His mother, Victoria, was reportedly concerned after discovering Brooklyn had been enjoying a brief fling with the songstress. The fashion designer, 44, apparently made it very clear she didn't approve of the romance, which sparked following a dinner in May 2017, an insider told The Sun. Brooklyn and Rita allegedly shared some steamy smooches before his parents banned him from seeing her again and sent him back to New York. A source said: 'Posh saw a couple of texts they'd been sending. She didn't want her boy being led astray, and didn't want them partying together. David and Victoria were adamant the pair shouldn't date and made it very clear they didn't approve.' The pair were spotted holding hands at The Electric in West London before exchanging a series of flirty text messages. A representative for Victoria declined to comment. MailOnline have also contacted representatives for Rita and Brooklyn for further comment. She recently had her dream wedding which attracted all the Corrie stars. And Tina OBrien joined her new husband Adam Crofts and their son Beau at The Lego Movie 2 at the Legoland Discovery Centre, in Manchester on Thursday. It was a lot of family fun for the newlyweds, 35 and 33, and their child, four, as the couple lifted their son between the two of them for the cameras. Family fun: Tina OBrien and new husband Adam Crofts cradled their son Beau at star-studded The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part screening in Manchester on Thursday The soap star was the picture of happiness as she placed a tender hand on her child's shoulder while they posed with two Lego figurines. The actress was effortlessly chic in a thigh-grazing dungarees, with a zip-up detailing, teamed with burgundy boots. Naturally, Adam didn't let his new wife down on the style stakes as he wore a denim shirt while their son Beau opted for a grey shirt. Lucy Fallon and Jack P. Shepherd also attended The Lego Movie 2. The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part is set five years after the first film when the citizens face a new threat from outer space. Good company: The soap star was the picture of happiness as she placed a tender hand on her child's shoulder while they posed with two Lego figurines Lucy and Jack were among the stars who attended Tina and Adam's glitzy wedding ceremony in early January. They said their vows at the boutique hotel King Street Townhouse in Manchester after eight years together, with their children playing a big part in the ceremony. Tina and Adam have four-year-old son Beau, while she shares ten-year-old daughter Scarlett with former Corrie actor Ryan Thomas. So sweet: Corrie's Lucy Fallon, who plays Bethany Platt, brought her nephew along Posed together: Lucy bent down to her nephew's level as they posed for pictures She told OK magazine: 'Beau brought the ring box over. He was supposed to open it but he just handed it over. He did amazing considering he is only four! I think he was very proud of the part he played.' She added: 'Scarlett did really well, too. I was surprised she didn't snatch the microphone and start singing! They had the run of the whole hotel! I think Scarlett thought she was the queen! 'In the run up to the wedding, Beau had been going into nursery and marrying all the girls in his class! All he talked about was us getting married. He got married to two girls one day. I don't think his brides realised he was a bigamist!' Tina's ex Ryan has been romancing Lucy Mecklenburgh and the couple recently escaped to snow-covered New York City following the alleged cheating scandal. Soap opera legend Susan Lucci took an unexpected tumble in a stunning red dress on Thursday, ironically, for an event for The American Heart Association after it was revealed she had emergency heart surgery in October. The 72-year-old actress walked the runway for The American Heart Association's Go Red For Women Red Dress Collection 2019 at the Hammerstein Ballroom on Thursday. During her runway walk, the All My Children star accidentally stepped on her flowing red dress, causing her to take a spill, but she took it in stride with a sense of humor. Lucci takes a spill: Actress Susan Lucci walked the runway for an American Heart Association event and took a spill in a red dress, days after it was revealed she had heart surgery in October Stepping on the dress: During her runway walk, the All My Children star accidentally stepped on her flowing red dress, causing her to take a spill, but she took it in stride with a sense of humor Journalist Mara Schiavocampo captured video of Lucci's fall on Twitter, applauding the actress for showing, 'tremendous grace after falling on the runway.' She added that the actress, 'Gets up to a standing ovation.' The actress looked elegant as ever while making the runway walk, seen in the video lifting the massive red dress as she walked the runway, but as she made her turn to go back, she took a fall. Tremendous grace: Journalist Mara Schiavocampo captured video of Lucci's fall on Twitter , applauding the actress for showing, 'tremendous grace after falling on the runway' Standing O: She added that the actress, 'Gets up to a standing ovation' Tumble: The actress looked elegant as ever while making the runway walk, seen in the video lifting the massive red dress as she walked the runway, but as she made her turn to go back, she took a fall After the audience gasped briefly after the fall, the crowd started clapping and cheering as she made it to her feat, no small feat in a dress of that magnitude. She hopped up to make sure the dress was clear of her heels, and then made her way to the crowd to shake a man's hand after the tumble. Lucci then blew kisses to the crowd and waved before she turned and walked off the runway to a standing ovation. Grace under pressure: After the audience gasped briefly after the fall, the crowd started clapping and cheering as she made it to her feat, no small feat in a dress of that magnitude Standing up: She hopped up to make sure the dress was clear of her heels, and then made her way to the crowd to shake a man's hand after the tumble Blowing a kiss: Lucci then blew kisses to the crowd and turned and walked off the runway to a standing ovation Ironically, Lucci revealed in an interview with People on Wednesday that she had an emergency heart procedure in October. The actress said she felt a 'tightness' in her chest last October, and while that went away, it returned 10 days later, when she thought maybe she, 'fastened my bra too tightly.' Then on October 23, while she was shopping at Tory Burch in Long Island, she said, 'It felt like an elephant pressing down on my chest.' Heart procedure: Ironically, Lucci revealed in an interview with People on Wednesday that she had an emergency heart procedure in October Tightness: The actress said she felt a 'tightness' in her chest last October, and while that went away, it returned 10 days later, when she thought maybe she, 'fastened my bra too tightly' Chest pains: Then on October 23, while she was shopping at Tory Burch in Long Island, she said, 'It felt like an elephant pressing down on my chest' She was taken to nearby St. Francis Hospital where she had a CT scan that revealed a 90% in her main artery, and a 70% blockage in another artery. Lucci said that she was 'shocked' to learn about the 90% blockage, adding she's lucky to be alive, which her cardiologist, Holly Andersen, Associate Professor of Medicine at the Ronald O. Perelman Heart Institute at New York Presbyterian Hospital and Weill Cornell Medical Center, agrees with. 'Had she gone home, that 90 percent blockage could have become 100 percent and she could have suffered a significant heart attack or even sudden death,' Anderson said.' Lucci, who played Erica Kane on All My Children from 1970 to 2011, was one of several ladies to walk the runway, including Amy Robach, Ashleigh Murray, Bo Derek, Danica McKellar and more. Runway red: She was taken to nearby St. Francis Hospital where she had a CT scan that revealed a 90% in her main artery, and a 70% blockage in another artery She is famed for her sexy yet kooky style. And Rita Ora was again pulling out all the stops on Thursday evening as she hit the red carpet at the Spotify Best New Artist 2019 event at Hammer Museum in LA. The 28-year-old Hot Right Now songstress looked sensational in a feathered pink ensemble as she sashayed alongside fellow hitmaker Bebe Rexha, who opted for a deeply plunging mini dress with a perilously high hemline. Wowzers! Rita Ora was again pulling out all the stops on Thursday evening as she hit the red carpet at the Spotify Best New Artist 2019 event at Hammer Museum in LA Rita looked incredible in the pink gown which was adored with splashes of orange to provide a perfect colour blocking look and add to the kooky feel. Drowning her incredible figure but still managing to keep things sexy, the blonde beauty was surrounded by feathers in the chic look. Boosting her already statuesque height, Rita wore a pair of chic coral hued heels with a delicate ankle strap which helped accentuate her slender ankles. Keeping her beauty look muted to allow the dress to speak for itself, she slicked her trademark peroxide locks into a high ponytail with simple make-up. Cheeky! The 28-year-old Hot Right Now songstress looked sensational in a feathered pink ensemble as she sashayed alongside fellow hitmaker Bebe Rexha who opted for a deeply plunging mini dress with a perilously high hemline Stunner: Rita looked incredible in the pink gown which was adored with splashes of orange to provide a perfect colour blocking look and add to the kooky feel WOW! Drowning her incredible figure but still managing to keep things sexy, the blonde beauty was surrounded by feathers in the chic look Happy days: She also belted out tracks on the stage with her eye-popping cleavage on full display Bebe went for a wholly tougher and more flesh-flashing look as she slipped into the grape-hued mini dress with a plunging neck and volumunious sleeves. Shunning the cardinal legs-or-cleavage look, she left her braless assets on full display while also showcasing her staggering pins to perfect impact. She sported extremely tough ankle boots which gave the look the perfect edge against the Eighties-inspired mini dress. Earlier in the night NoMad Hotel played host to a cavalcade of celebs including Rita and Bebe when Warner Music held its pre-Grammy fete. Pink lady: Rita looked incredible in the pink gown which was adored with splashes of orange to provide a perfect colour blocking look and add to the kooky feel Ahem: Rita's red carpet appearance comes amid swirling reports she had a secret romance with Brooklyn Beckham two years ago Stunner: Earlier in the night NoMad Hotel played host to a cavalcade of celebs including Rita and Bebe when Warner Music held its pre-Grammy fete Glitz: Bebe's fashionable sequined dress was cut off around mid-thigh and featured a swirl of heavy mesh frill around its sloping neckline - and similar to her later ensemble Rita's red carpet appearance comes amid swirling reports she had a secret romance with Brooklyn Beckham two years ago. Victoria Beckham was reportedly concerned after discovering her then 18-year-old son had been enjoying a brief fling with the songstress, then 26. The fashion designer, 44, apparently made it very clear she didn't approve of the romance, which sparked following a dinner in May 2017, an insider told The Sun. Brooklyn and Rita allegedly shared some steamy smooches before his parents banned him from seeing her again and sent him back to New York. Oh dear: Victoria Beckham was reportedly concerned after discovering her then 18-year-old son had been enjoying a brief fling with the songstress, then 26 Brooklyn who? The fashion designer, 44, apparently made it very clear she didn't approve of the romance, which sparked following a dinner in May 2017, an insider told The Sun A source said: 'Posh saw a couple of texts they'd been sending. She didn't want her boy being led astray, and didn't want them partying together. David and Victoria were adamant the pair shouldn't date and made it very clear they didn't approve.' The pair were spotted holding hands at The Electric in West London before exchanging a series of flirty text messages. A representative for Victoria declined to comment. MailOnline have also contacted representatives for Rita and Brooklyn for further comment. Brooklyn and Rita also spent time together just a month later at Glastonbury festival, in close proximity to his mum and dad, who also attended the event. Oops: Brooklyn and Rita also spent time together just a month later at Glastonbury festival, in close proximity to his mum and dad, who also attended the event Jennifer Garner was one of the famous women who was invited to take part in the 2019 Makers Conference in Dana Point, California, on Thursday. The actress, 46, took the stage to be interviewed by Time's Up CEO Lisa Borders. While acknowledging that Hollywood is 'a very male world,' she went on to add that she has already fulfilled Time's Up's so-called four percent challenge to performers to work with a female director on a feature film in the next two years. Role model: Jennifer Garner was one of the famous women who was invited to take part in the 2019 Makers Conference in Dana Point, California, on Thursday 'To me, Ive done two films and shows with women driven by women and directed by women, and I said yes. Is it challenge? Im down, Ive got that,' she explained. Among Garner's credits are 2016's Miracles From Heaven and 2017's A Happening of Monumental Proportions, which both had female directors, and her recent HBO comedy Camping which had women directors, writers and creators. The ex-wife of Ben Affleck acknowledged that female directors change the atmosphere on a set. 'Whoevers leading the charge, its reflected in the crew and in the way that the ship is run and just the different kinds of conversations you have on set. You have to have a woman in charge,' she said. Supporting women: The actress, 46, was interviewed by Time's Up CEO Lisa Borders and spoke about how she's found opportunities to work with female directors in 'very male Hollywood' Star: 'To me, Ive done two films and shows with women driven by women and directed by women, and I said yes,' she explained Her view: She acknowledged female directors change the atmosphere on a set. 'Whoevers leading the charge, its reflected in the crew and in the way that the ship is run,' she noted A day earlier, the mom-of-three had celebrated reaching five million Instagram followers by posting a bizarre video clip in which she washed a green plastic penguin. Garner was seen washing and drying the ornament in a shower, before carrying it off camera. In the caption, she told her followers: 'All five million of you when this nonsense comes your wayyou have only yourselves to blame.' Funny: On Wednesday, Garner shared a video of her washing a green plastic penguin in a shower to celebrate reaching 5 million Instagram followers The Victoria's Secret model has been enjoying the summer sun in Sydney. And on Thursday, Australian stunner Shanina Shaik enjoyed a picturesque yacht ride on Sydney Harbour with luxury brand Dior. The 27-year-old looked radiant in a white slip dress as she posed on the water with a series of other guests. Shanina Shaik has enjoyed a yacht ride on Sydney Harbour with luxury brand Dior, on Thursday. The 27-year-old stunner dressed in a looked radiant as she posed for a photo with modelling manager Annie Kelly (left) After posing with modelling manager Annie Kelly, Shanina also appeared in a candid photo with model and former Miss Universe Australia Jesinta Franklin and her husband Buddy Franklin, as well as former AFL star Tom Derickx. Melbourne-born beauty Shanina looked chic in the simple frock, which showed off her trim pins with a thigh-high slit. Meanwhile, Jesinta Franklin looked elegant in a full-length, white lace frock, which she accessorised with an embroidered waist belt. 'All aboard the Dior loveboat!' Meanwhile, Jesinta Franklin looked elegant in a full-length, white lace frock, which she accessorised with an embroidered waist belt Candid: The Victoria's Secret model also posed for a candid photo with Jesinta Franklin and her husband Buddy Franklin, as well as former AFL star Tom Derickx (front right) In another photo, she posed on the boat with the view of the Harbour behind her. She wrote in the caption: 'ALL ABOARD THE #diorloveboat. Celebrating love with @diorparfums wearing @dior #loveislove.' AFL star Buddy dressed for the day out on the sea in a nautical inspired ensemble. Buddies on a boat: AFL star Buddy dressed for the day out on the sea in a nautical inspired ensemble. He teamed a white linen shirt with mint green trousers, and accessorised with a pair of wayfarer-style sunglasses. Former athlete Tom, dressed in a festive red shirt He teamed a white linen shirt with mint green trousers, and accessorised with a pair of wayfarer-style sunglasses. The Sydney Swans player and former athlete Tom, dressed in a festive red shirt. To wrap up the day's festivities, Shanina and Jesinta teamed up with two other pals for a snap of themselves using their bodies to model out the word LOVE. His A Star Is Born leading actress Lady Gaga will be at the Grammys on Sunday in Los Angeles. Meanwhile, Bradley Cooper will be thousands of miles away in London for the BAFTA Awards. And on Thursday, the actor and director was spotted arriving at New York's JFK Airport with girlfriend Irina Shayk to catch a flight. Journey: Bradley Cooper was spotted arriving at New York's JFK Airport with girlfriend Irina Shayk to catch a flight on Thursday The couple have been together since 2015. In March 2017, the Russian model welcomed their daughter Lea. She has been at his side throughout the Hollywood awards season as he is feted for the success of his directorial debut. A Star Is Born received seven nominations at the British Academy Film Awards for Leading Actor, Director, Adapted Screenplay, Original Music, Sound, Best Film and Leading Actress. Luggage: The actor and director was weighed down with a large holdall which he slung over one shoulder and with his other arm he held onto a garment bag Long romance: The couple have been together since 2015. In March 2017, the Russian model welcomed their daughter Lea Awards season: Cooper's directorial debut A Star Is Born received seven BAFTA nominations including for Leading Actor, Director and Adapted Screenplay Oscar-bound: A Star Is Born has also been nominated for eight Academy Awards and the winners will be announced during a live telecast on Febraury 24 A Star Is Born has been nominated for eight Academy Awards and the winners will be announced during a live telecast on Febraury 24. While the film is nominated for best picture, Cooper was not nominated in the best director category, something he recently admitted he is embarrassed about. Speaking with Oprah Winfrey at her SuperSoul Conversations from Times Square, he explained that when he realized he hadn't been nominated for his directing, 'I went, Oh wow.' 'And the first thing I felt was embarrassment, actually felt embarrassed that I didnt do my part,' he said. Shayk recently explained why she likes to keep her relationship with Cooper private. 'Because my work requires me to be out there, I just decided my personal life will be quiet,' she said Meanwhile, Shayk has also been making some admissions about why she prefers to keep her relationship with Cooper private. 'I have a lot of friends who share a lot of their personal life on Instagram or social media, very publicly,' she told Glamourmagazine.co.uk. 'I admire it and I think it's great but I think it's all about personal choice.' 'Because my work requires me to be out there, I just decided my personal life will be quiet,' she said. 'That's why it's called personal, because it's something for you and your family, and I feel happy with it.' Supportive: Shayk has been at her beau's side throughout the Hollywood awards season as he is feted for the success of his directorial debut The NoMad Hotel played host to a cavalcade of celebs including Rita Ora when Warner Music held its pre-Grammy fete there Thursday. Rita, 28, swept her platinum blonde hair tightly back into a high ponytail, which she complemented with swinging hoop earrings. Accentuating her features with makeup including a slick of pink lipstick, she added an extra splash of dazzle to the look with a stack of bracelets. Smashing: The NoMad Hotel played host to a cavalcade of celebs including Rita Ora when Warner Music held its pre-Grammy fete there Thursday Jewelry-wise, she went the extra mile with a glistening necklace, flashing her megawatt smile for the shutterbugs as she hit the black carpet. Rita opted a floor-length powder purple gown with quite a lot of sheen and an asymmetric hem that fell to the floor at the front. At the back, her dress was cut off above the ankle, allowing for a full view of her glimmering gold-toned open-toed heels. She blew a kiss for the cameras with both hands as she posed on the black carpet, showing off her multicolored nail polish. Radiant: Rita, 28, swept her platinum blonde hair tightly back into a high ponytail, which she complemented with swinging hoop earrings Aglow: Accentuating her features with makeup including a slick of pink lipstick, she added an extra splash of dazzle to the look with a stack of bracelets Fabulous: Jewelry-wise, she went the extra mile with a glistening necklace, flashing her megawatt smile for the shutterbugs as she hit the black carpet Glamour: Rita opted a floor-length powder purple gown with quite a lot of sheen and an asymmetric hem that fell to the floor at the front Peekaboo: At the back, her dress was cut off above the ankle, allowing for a full view of her glimmering gold-toned open-toed heels All that sweet affection: She blew a kiss for the cameras with both hands as she posed on the black carpet, showing off her multicolored nail polish Rita, who has never been nominated for a Grammy Award, dropped her sophomore studio album Phoenix this past November. Another one of the celebrity guests at the Thursday night party was Bebe Rexha, who flashed her cleavage in a plunging black mini-dress. She wore her platinum blonde hair in a chic little bob and put on burgundy lipstick, hoofing it across the carpet on a pair of black stilettos. Glam: The Let You Love Me hitmaker flashed glitzy rings on each of her fingers Gorgeous: Rita, who has never been nominated for a Grammy Award, dropped her sophomore studio album Phoenix this past November Sizzling: Another one of the celebrity guests at the Thursday night party was Bebe Rexha, who flashed her cleavage in a plunging black mini-dress Smoldering: She wore her platinum blonde hair in a chic little bob and put on burgundy lipstick, hoofing it across the carpet on a pair of black stilettos Bebe's fashionable sequined dress was cut off around mid-thigh and featured a swirl of heavy mesh frill around its sloping neckline. Brandi Carlile, who is up for six Grammys on Sunday, beamed for the cameras with her musical collaborators, twins Phil and Tim Hanseroth. Evan Ross, who is the son of Diana Ross put out an EP last year with his wife Ashlee Simpson, teamed black leather trousers with a colorful leather jacket. Glitz: Bebe's fashionable sequined dress was cut off around mid-thigh and featured a swirl of heavy mesh frill around its sloping neckline Trio: Brandi Carlile, who is up for six Grammys on Sunday, beamed for the cameras with her musical collaborators, twins Phil and Tim Hanseroth Showbiz legacy: Evan Ross, who is the son of Diana Ross put out an EP last year with his wife Ashlee Simpson, teamed black leather trousers with a colorful leather jacket Ally Brooke, who shot to fame as a member of the girl group Fifth Harmony, hit the black carpet solo in a mini-dress awash in gleaming metal work. Her plunging ensemble featured stretches of black fabric that fell to the floor, and she ambled about on a shimmery pair of shoes. Charli XCX slipped herself into a slightly shiny pink mini-dress that was faintly redolent of a nightie for the star-studded affair. On her own: Ally Brooke, who shot to fame as a member of the girl group Fifth Harmony, hit the black carpet solo in a mini-dress awash in gleaming metal work Posing up a storm: Her plunging ensemble featured stretches of black fabric that fell to the floor, and she ambled about on a shimmery pair of shoes Chic to the hilt: Charli XCX slipped herself into a slightly shiny pink mini-dress that was faintly redolent of a nightie for the star-studded affair The Cambridge-born 26-year-old, nee Charlotte Emma Aitchison, shot an enigmatic stare over her shoulder for the benefit of the photographers. Her dark hair was mostly swept back into a 1960s chic do, and she jazzed up the elegant ensemble with a pair of drop earrings. Charli XCX, who was nominated for two Grammys four years ago, clashed her powder pink dress against a pair of black ankle-strap heels. Making it happen: The Cambridge-born 26-year-old, nee Charlotte Emma Aitchison, shot an enigmatic stare over her shoulder for the benefit of the photographers Throwback style: Her dark hair was mostly swept back into a 1960s chic do, and she jazzed up the elegant ensemble with a pair of drop earrings Hoofing it: Charli XCX, who was nominated for two Grammys four years ago, clashed her powder pink dress against a pair of black ankle-strap heels Fur-ever fashionable! Sofia Reyes stayed warm in style as she threw on a furry pink jacket Lizzo rocked a monochrome leopard print trouser suit with solid black lapels, flinging a black and scarlet zebra print shawl over one shoulder. Her outfit flashed a bit of her cleavage, and she added an extra splash of personality with black and white stiletto boots and striking green eye shadow. Sofia Reyes let her massive pink fuzzy jacket slide off her shoulders, allowing the cameras to catch sight of her chrome blouse. Brynn Elliott wore high-waisted blue slacks with a pair of black open-toed shoes, sliding into a white turtleneck with sheer sleeves. Unforgettable: Lizzo rocked a monochrome leopard print trouser suit with solid black lapels, flinging a black and scarlet zebra print shawl over one shoulder Festive: Her outfit flashed a bit of her cleavage, and she added an extra splash of personality with black and white stiletto boots and striking green eye shadow Making a splash: Sofia let her massive pink fuzzy jacket slide off her shoulders, allowing the cameras to catch sight of her chrome blouse Megawatt smile: Brynn Elliott wore high-waisted blue slacks with a pair of black open-toed shoes, sliding into a white turtleneck with sheer sleeves Cleavage: Yet again, she made sure her perky assets were on full display courtesy of the plunging neckline, while polka dot tulle adorned the shoulders of the garment Gothic: Switching up her make-up look, she sported a plum lipstick The Mytsone project would dam for the first time the Irrawaddy River, the cradle of Burmese civilisation. Whilst Beijing is pressing for work to resume, Myanmar wavers. About 90 per cent of the power generated by the complex would go to China. One of the most authoritative voices against the dam is Card Charles Maung Bo. Yangon (AsiaNews) About 10,000 people in northern Myanmars Kachin state staged a massive rally Thursday to protest against the controversial Chinese-backed Myitsone Dam, a project to be built at the confluence of the Mali and NMai rivers, which form the Irrawaddy River. The project was put on hold in 2011. Yesterday morning, Kachin activists, political leaders, religious leaders, civil society groups, and ordinary people rallied at Manaw park in the State capital of Myitkyina, marching peacefully through the streets of the city to express their opposition. The US$ 3.6-billion, 6,400-megawatt project is controlled by Chinas State Power Investment Corporation (SPIC). Should it be completed, it would be the first dam to block the Irrawaddy River, the cradle of Burmese civilisation. In 2011, following widespread local protests against the dams potential environmental impact, then Myanmar President Thein Sein halted construction, angering Beijing. It is estimated that about 90 per cent of the power generated would go to China. Now Beijing wants construction to resume but the governments hesitation has angered people in Kachin State. The mega dam is not for us, said lead protester Steven Naw Awng. Instead, we will lose our lives and property because of it. So, we are all gathering to express our opposition [to the project] and demand its termination so that the Irrawaddy can flow freely. Duwa Gumgrawng Awng Hkam, leader of the Kachin Democratic Party, agrees. This is a call for a permanent halt of Myitsone dam project, he said. We consider [Chinas move] an act of bullying because it looks like they are trying to get what they want, so Id like to urge the government to address the issue decisively. A statement released by protest organisers calls on the Chinese companies involved in the project to respect the wishes of the people and contribute to good bilateral relations by giving up on their plans. Since ethnic Kachin are largely Christian, many leaders of the Catholic and Baptist Churches took part in the demonstration. Three days ago, Christian leaders also spoke with General Min Aung Hlaing, commander-in-chief of the Myanmar Armed Forces. The latter reassured them that the Armed Forces would respect the will of the population. One of the most authoritative voices against the Myitsone dam is Card Charles Maung Bo, archbishop of Yangon and president of the Federation of Asian Bishops Conferences (FABC). On 28 January, Myanmars first cardinal penned a public letter in which he defined the project as a "death sentence to the people of Myanmar" because of its environmental damage as well as its impact on the country's prospects for peace after decades of civil war. Dina Lohan revealed that she is ready to marry a man she has never even met during Thursday's episode of Celebrity Big Brother. Lindsay Lohan's 56-year-old mother confided to fellow house guests on the CBS reality show about her lengthy telephone chats with a mysterious 'special someone.' 'I'm gonna marry him. It's really true,' Dina gushed, while the other women all warned she was getting tricked by the secretive man who has never even video chatted with her. Marriage talk: Dina Lohan made the shocking revelation on Thursday's episode of Celebrity Big Brother that she's ready to marry a man that she's never met Dina initially confided in Kandi Burruss, 42, telling The Real Housewives Of Atlanta star that she had only been married once, referring to her tumultuous marriage to Lindsay's dad Michael, 58. 'I can't wait to tell you about this guy,' Dina then told her excitedly. 'I've been talking to him for five years, like every day, a lot. 'I feel like I know him ... You know when you talk to someone on the phone, like you feel like you know them?' When Kandi asked if they had even met, Dina said: 'Oh, we will.' Phone talks: Lindsay Lohan's 56-year-old mother confided to fellow house guests on the CBS reality show about her lengthy telephone chats with a mysterious 'special someone' Former husband: Michael Lohan is shown with daughter Lindsay and ex-wife Dina in 2003 in New York City Still, she insisted to camera that he was a 'special someone,' saying: 'I'm in New York. He's in another state. It's personal.' As Kandi looked dubious, Dina told her; 'It's not like that I swear to you he's real. 'It's crazy, but I'm gonna marry him. It's really true,' Dina insisted. When she tried to convince Kandi by telling her she even 'talked to his mom,' Kandi sighed: 'Girl, that's straight up catfish. Five years but no FaceTime?' Straight up: Kandi Burruss warned Dina that she was being played in a catfish scheme 'He doesn't use that,' she replied, with Tamar Braxton, 41, entering the room and saying: 'Lies! It's 2019. My mother is 71 and she uses it. 'That's a lie, that's a lie from the pit of the devil, don't you believe that,' Tamar warned her. They found it even more dubious that Dina had not met her secret man when she revealed he was in San Francisco, an easy city to travel to or from, with Dina insisting he had to take care of his mother: 'He can't leave. I could easily go there. And that is what I have to do.' 'You cannot go by yourself. No,' insisted Natalie Eva Marie, 34, after she walked in during the chat, while Tamar, who lives in California, offered to join Dina. Good advice: Natalie Eva Marie walked in on the conversation and told Dina to not go by herself to meet the man 'I'll come. But he don't wanna meet me,' Tamar laughed, saying she would give him a hard time asking, ''Where you been in five years?'' As Tamar sang out 'Catfish,' Dina insisted: 'It's real. Some guys just don't use iPhones.' Big Brother continues on CBS on Friday with a two-hour, double-elimination special. Keeping Up with the Kardashians stars Kim Kardashian West and Kourtney Kardashian enjoyed a ladies night with gal pal La La Anthony at Italian restaurant Cipriani in Manhattan on Thursday. It was a welcome change of setting for the Calabasas sisters, who don't normally get a chance to hang out with the 39-year-old Brooklyn native. 38-year-old Kim flaunted her curvaceous 5ft3in figure in a pink-sequin Thierry Mugler 'Marie Python' gown from 1983 and $190 Yeezy velvet booties selected by stylist Danielle Levi. Big Apple: KUWTK stars Kim Kardashian West (R) and Kourtney Kardashian (L) enjoyed a ladies night with gal pal La La Anthony (M) at Italian restaurant Cipriani in Manhattan on Thursday Make-up artist Mario Dedivanovic applied Kardashian's matching eye shadow and heavy-handed, contoured complexion while hairstylist Chris Appleton coiffed her partial updo. Fans are shelling out between $299 and $1,699 to attend Mario's six-hour Master Class happening next Saturday at LA's Ace Hotel, which features the KKW Beauty CEO and 'Queen of Brows' Anastasia Soare. Kourtney, 39, showcased her cleavage in a single-strapped b&w lace top tucked into black tuxedo trousers and matching booties selected by stylist Dani Michelle. Hey girl! It was a welcome change of setting for the Calabasas sisters, who don't normally get a chance to hang out with the 39-year-old Brooklyn native Serpentine: 38-year-old Kim flaunted her curvaceous 5ft3in figure in a pink-sequin Thierry Mugler 'Marie Python' gown from 1983 and $190 Yeezy velvet booties Glam: Make-up artist Mario Dedivanovic applied Kardashian's matching eye shadow and contoured complexion while hairstylist Chris Appleton coiffed her partial updo Seminar: Fans are shelling out between $299 and $1,699 to attend Mario's six-hour Master Class happening next Saturday at LA's Ace Hotel, which features the KKW Beauty CEO Hairstylist Andrew Fitzsimons slicked back Kardashian's raven locks into a middle-parted bun. Make-up artist Wendi Miyake applied the University of Arizona grad's reddish eye shadow and nude pout. Meanwhile, the Power actress rocked a bright red lip and severe ponytail with her black thigh-high boots and turtleneck mini-dress. 40F degrees: 39-year-old Kourtney showcased her cleavage in a single-strapped b&w lace top tucked into black tuxedo trousers and matching booties selected by stylist Dani Michelle Updo: Hairstylist Andrew Fitzsimons slicked back Kardashian's raven locks into a middle-parted bun Contoured: Make-up artist Wendi Miyake applied the University of Arizona grad's reddish eye shadow and nude pout Kinky boots: The Power actress rocked a bright red lip and severe ponytail with her black thigh-high boots and turtleneck mini-dress Braving the rain: Later, Kim and Kourtney's half-sister Kendall Jenner arrived to Cipriani with Philadelphia 76ers point guard Ben Simmons Still going strong! The 23-year-old Society Management Model and the 22-year-old NBA star have been romantically linked on/off since May of last year Famous derriere: Kim showcased her most famous asset as she strutted along the street Smouldering: Kourtney led the way as Kim sauntered behind in her skin-tight dress Gals night! The pals made their way to the event as they made the most of their girls' night Ssss-ensational: Kim flaunted her impossibly trim waist in the snakeskin number which accentuated every one of her curves Killing it: Kim coordinated the tones of her make-up with the colour of her incredible dress Elegant: Kourtney wowed in lace and satin as she made her way out of the party Making her exit: The group appeared to have enjoyed a spot of dinner at a local restaurant Cipriani Effortless: Kim looked glowing and radiant during the evening out Poised: Kourtney clutched her phone in her hand as she made her way out of the restaurant Squad: Also accompanying the girls was their sister Kendall who looked far more dressed down for the evening No pain no champagne! Never too far away from the Kardashian clan, Jonathan Cheban flanked the group Rockstar: Jonathan posed for paps after enjoying dinner with the family Gorgeous: Kourtney never fails to to put a foot wrong when it comes to working a glam look Stepping out: Kendall's beau Ben SImons opted for an all white look That same night, Kim appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon where she did the 'Can You Feel It' challenge with a taxidermied squirrel among other items. After Kardashian - who boasts 215.8M followers - tweeted about being 'put through' a traumatic ordeal, the host joked: 'You?! Me! Bonded for life. Thank you again for playing.' Kourtney's talk show appearance was far more serious Thursday with her promoting the Environmental Working Group and California Senator Diane Feinstein's Personal Care Products Safety Act on the TODAY show. Touchy feely: That same night, Kim appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon where she did the 'Can You Feel It' challenge with a taxidermied squirrel among other items After Kardashian - who boasts 215.8M followers - tweeted about being 'put through' a traumatic ordeal, the host joked: 'You?! Me! Bonded for life. Thank you again for playing' The half-Armenian socialite said: 'There should be laws put in place so that the companies and [customers] - I shouldn't have to be sitting in my bathroom scanning all my products - to know that products I'm using are safe or not safe, especially products for my kids.' The advocacy earned Kardashian an Insta-story shout out from three-time Oscar nominee Michelle Pfeiffer, who's an EWG board member. 'I'm so proud of Kourtney Kardashian for supporting cosmetics reform!' the 60-year-old actress gushed. Attention Congress: Kourtney's talk show appearance was far more serious Thursday with her promoting the Environmental Working Group and California Senator Diane Feinstein's Personal Care Products Safety Act on the TODAY show The half-Armenian socialite said: 'There should be laws put in place so that the companies and [customers] - I shouldn't have to be sitting in my bathroom scanning all my products - to know that products I'm using are safe or not safe, especially products for my kids' 'I'm so proud of Kourtney Kardashian for supporting cosmetics reform!' The advocacy earned Kardashian a shout out from Oscar nominee Michelle Pfeiffer, who's an EWG board member Fans can catch more of the famous mothers-of-three on the 16th season of their reality show, which premieres March 31 on E! Back in 2017, Kim, Kourtney, and the rest of their family signed a massive $100M deal with the cable network through 2020, according to Variety. 'We're having a baby!' Fans can catch more of the famous mothers-of-three on the 16th season of their reality show, which premieres March 31 on E! Spectrum released the first trailer for L.A.'s Finest, the first TV series to be released under their new Spectrum Originals banner, debuting May 13. The series is a spin-off of the Bad Boys movie franchise, with Gabrielle Union reprising her role from the 2003 action sequel Bad Boys II as Sydney Burnett, the sister of Martin Lawrence's Marcus Burnett. Syd was a Miami-based DEA agent in that movie, she is now an LAPD detective, who teams up with Jessica Alba's character, Nancy McKenna. Jessica and Gabrielle: Jessica Alba partners up with Gabrielle Union in the first trailer for L.A.'s Finest, a spin-off of the Bad Boys movie franchise, debuting May 13. Spin-off: The series is a spin-off of the Bad Boys movie franchise, with Gabrielle Union reprising her role from the 2003 action sequel Bad Boys II as Sydney Burnett, the sister of Martin Lawrence's Marcus Burnett The trailer begins with Alba's Nancy McKenna and Union's Syd Burnett admitting the messed up stuff they did, like Syd breaking windows of her ex's Jeep in college and Nancy stabbing 'some b***h Jody Thompson with some scissors. There is also an LAPD meeting where all of the narcotics and 'bodies dropping like it's the end of days' (quite literally) can be tied to one man, a criminal named Gabriel. There is also a brief glimpse of Ernie Hudson's character, Joseph Vaughn, warning Syd that, 'these people are dangerous,' which she responds with, 'Yeah, me too.' The trailer features another scene where Syd is outnumbered and outgunned, when she's saved by her wise-cracking partner Nancy, who asks if she's wearing glitter. Me too: There is also a brief glimpse of Ernie Hudson's character, Joseph Vaughn, warning Syd that, 'these people are dangerous,' which she responds with, 'Yeah, me too' Partners: The trailer features another scene where Syd is outnumbered and outgunned, when she's saved by her wise-cracking partner Nancy, who asks if she's wearing glitter LAPD meeting: There is also an LAPD meeting where all of the narcotics and 'bodies dropping like it's the end of days' (quite literally) can be tied to one man, a criminal named Gabriel There are also a number of random shots showcasing the L.A. scenery, including the Urban Light sculpture outside LACMA and the Hollywood sign. Another scene features both Nancy and Syd on a rooftop, enjoying a few beers, when Nancy stresses they have to trust each other to make this partnership work. The trailer also paints Nancy as the 'wild card' of the two, including a scene where they're involved in a chase and Syd suggests that her 'app' knows a shortcut. LA landmarks: There are also a number of random shots showcasing the L.A. scenery, including the Urban Light sculpture outside LACMA and the Hollywood sign Hollywood: An LAPD chopper flies over the Hollywood sign in the L.A.'s Finest trailer Trust: Another scene features both Nancy and Syd on a rooftop, enjoying a few beers, when Nancy stresses they have to trust each other to make this partnership work 'The app can suck it, I know L.A.,' Nancy says while navigating her police cruiser through the streets of L.A. There is also a mysterious meeting between Nancy and another character, who warns her that she doesn't know what this villain Gabriel is capable of. Nancy is also a single mother, with a young daughter named Isabel a.k.a. Izzy (McKenna Grace), who asks Syd if they have a 'perp in the trunk.' App can suck it: 'The app can suck it, I know L.A.,' Nancy says while navigating her police cruiser through the streets of L.A.' Mystery: There is also a mysterious meeting between Nancy and another character, who warns her that she doesn't know what this villain Gabriel is capable of Daughter: Nancy is also a single mother, with a young daughter named Isabel a.k.a. Izzy (McKenna Grace), who asks Syd if they have a 'perp in the trunk' 'Izzy, we wouldn't do that,' Syd says, before clarifying, 'We've got a snitch in the trunk. The trailer comes to a close with quick-cut scenes of Nancy and Syd in action, including a cryptic scene where the mystery man from before tells Syd, 'Everything you know is wrong.' The final scene shows Syd telling Nancy that if they go to prison, she'll have to 'shank' her, but Nancy says she has someone watching her back named Roxy. 'I go to jail with this face, first thing I do is wife up,' Nancy says as the trailer ends. L.A.'s Finest debuts on Spectrum's on-demand platform, with the first three episodes available to Spectrum subscribers May 13, with subsequent episodes released every Monday until the first season comes to a close. Shanked: The final scene shows Syd telling Nancy that if they go to prison, she'll have to 'shank' her, but Nancy says she has someone watching her back named Roxy Wife up: 'I go to jail with this face, first thing I do is wife up,' Nancy says as the trailer ends Keeping Up with the Kardashians star Kourtney Kardashian flashed her nipples in a completely sheer top while dining at Greek restaurant Estiatorio Milos in Midtown Manhattan on Thursday. 43F-degree winter weather did nothing to stop the 39-year-old mother-of-three from baring all for her posh meal out in the Big Apple. The Calabasas socialite paired her see-through bra and top with a mint-hued trench coat and matching wide-leg trousers selected by stylist Dani Michelle. On display: KUWTK star Kourtney Kardashian flashed her nipples in a completely sheer top while dining at Greek restaurant Estiatorio Milos in Midtown Manhattan on Thursday Frozen Big Apple: 43F-degree winter weather did nothing to stop the 39-year-old mother-of-three from baring all for her posh meal out Hairstylist Andrew Fitzsimons slicked back Kourtney's raven locks into a bun while make-up artist Wendi Miyake applied her reddish eye shadow and glossy pout. Kardashian fittingly finished off her scantily-clad sophistication with translucent pumps revealing her dark pedicured toes. The half-Armenian beauty's street sighting came hours after three-time Oscar nominee Michelle Pfeiffer gave her a shout-out via Insta-story. 'As a board member of the Environmental Working Group, I'm so proud of Kourtney Kardashian for supporting cosmetics reform!' the 60-year-old actress gushed. Mesh: The Calabasas socialite paired her see-through bra and top with a mint-hued trench coat and matching wide-leg trousers selected by stylist Dani Michelle Glam: Hairstylist Andrew Fitzsimons slicked back Kourtney's raven locks into a bun while make-up artist Wendi Miyake applied her reddish eye shadow and glossy pout Coordinated: Kardashian fittingly finished off her scantily-clad sophistication with translucent pumps revealing her dark pedicured toes The University of Arizona grad had discussed EWG and their database of safe products as well as California Senator Diane Feinstein's Personal Care Products Safety Act on the TODAY show that morning. 'I met with Environmental Working Group, with the women, we all had lunch together and I said, "How can I help?" I had been using their app for years, since I had my first son and I got really into it and checking my products,' Kourtney said on the NBC morning show. 'It shouldn't be up to these companies. There should be laws put in place so that the companies and [customers] - I shouldn't have to be sitting in my bathroom scanning all my products - to know that products I'm using are safe or not safe, especially products for my kids.' 'I'm so proud of Kourtney Kardashian for supporting cosmetics reform!' The half-Armenian beauty's sighting came after Oscar nominee Michelle Pfeiffer gave her a shout-out 'I had been using their app for years: The University of Arizona grad had discussed Environmental Working Group and their database of safe products on the TODAY show Kourtney said: 'There should be laws put in place so that the companies and [customers] - I shouldn't have to be sitting in my bathroom scanning all my products - to know that products I'm using are safe or not safe, especially products for my kids' Kardashian also touched on how she and her ex-partner Scott Disick continue to amicably co-parent their son Mason, 9; daughter Penelope, 6; and son Reign, 4. 'I can show a message of "Parents can get along and work together" and we travel together,' the reality star explained. 'I think it's a good message to show other people. I'm not doing it for that reason but I think the positive things that we are doing is nice to [show].' The Generation Wealth star famously ended her on/off nine-year romance with the 35-year-old Talentless clothing CEO after he was caught canoodling with stylist Chloe Bartoli in Monte Carlo back in 2015. November 22 family portrait: Kardashian also touched on how she and her ex-partner Scott Disick amicably co-parent their son Mason, 9; daughter Penelope, 6; and son Reign, 4 The reality star explained: 'I can show a message of "Parents can get along and work together" and we travel together. I think it's a good message to show other people. I'm not doing it for that reason but I think the positive things that we are doing is nice to [show]' Club gig: The 35-year-old Talentless clothing CEO and his 20-year-old girlfriend, Select Model Sofia Richie, will co-host a Sweetheart Party happening February 14 at Sugar Factory American Brasserie inside Theatre Box in San Diego The Ross School drop-out and his girlfriend, Select Model Sofia Richie, will co-host a Sweetheart Party happening February 14 at Sugar Factory American Brasserie inside Theatre Box in San Diego. Despite their 16 year age gap, Scott and the 20-year-old daughter of Lionel Richie have been practically inseparable ever since their first PDA-filled sighting aboard a yacht in the South of France in May 2017. Back in 2017, Kourtney and her famous family signed a massive $100M deal with the E! Network through 2020, and the 16th season of their reality show premieres sometime in March. All is True (12A) Verdict: an intriguing winter's tale Rating: On June 29, 1613, at the Globe Theatre in London, a stage cannon was fired during a performance of William Shakespeares play All Is True, which today we know as Henry VIII. It was a small theatrical flourish that would have devastating consequences, because the cannon set fire to the Globes thatched roof and within an hour the most famous playhouse in England, where most of Shakespeares plays had been unveiled, had burned to the ground. The career of the countrys greatest playwright ended on the same night. He never wrote another significant play and died a couple of years later. On June 29, 1613, at the Globe Theatre in London, a stage cannon was fired during a performance of William Shakespeares play All Is True, which today we know as Henry VIII. Pictured, Judi Dench as Anne Shakespeare and Kenneth Branagh as William Shakespeare Those last two years are the focus of Kenneth Branaghs All Is True, as heartbroken and bereft, Shakespeare returns to his home town of Stratford, and to the uneasy embrace of his wife Anne Hathaway and their two daughters, whom he has rarely visited over the previous two decades. All Is True is a heavyweight production, if only in terms of the personnel. Branagh, who has done as much as anyone alive to bring Shakespeares plays to the silver screen, plays the great man himself. Mind you, he is barely recognisable under a gleaming dome of a forehead, a knobbly prosthetic nose and a jutting, bearded chin which, when added to a surprising lack of assertiveness, give him the air of a man who cant decide whether to enter a lookalike contest as Ron Moody or Jimmy Hill. Less compromised by the make-up department, Judi Dench (pictured) plays Anne, and Ian McKellen has a highly enjoyable cameo as Shakespeares erstwhile patron, the Earl of Southampton Less compromised by the make-up department, Judi Dench plays Anne, and Ian McKellen has a highly enjoyable cameo as Shakespeares erstwhile patron, the Earl of Southampton. It is strongly hinted that the Earl was also the object of Shakespeares ardour. Or Bardour, if youd rather. The script is by Ben Elton, who has tempered the jauntiness of his Shakespearean sitcom Upstart Crow to give us a barrage of sexual scandal and a whirl of emotions grief, resentment, envy, lust more suited to an episode of EastEnders. Or maybe thats the wrong soap opera. All Is True largely unfolds as an everyday tale of country folk, for which Dench unpacks her best rural vowels. Its a ruff version of The Archers. The scandals concern both Shakespeares daughters. Susanna (Lydia Wilson) is unhappily married to a holier-than-thou Puritan doctor, to whom she is apparently unfaithful. Judith (Kathryn Wilder) marries the more rakish Tom Quiney (Jack Colgrave Hirst), who has already impregnated another local woman, Margaret Wheeler (Eleanor de Rohan). The grief is mostly Shakespeares, whose return to Stratford, without the distraction of writing and staging all those plays, re-ignites the pain of losing his only son, 11-year-old Hamnet, many years earlier. Ive lived so long in imaginary worlds, Ive lost sight of what is real, he laments, though he at first gets precious little sympathy either from the stolidly undemonstrative Anne, or from miserable Judith, who was Hamnets twin, and feels certain that her father would prefer her to have perished instead. Occasionally, Shakespeare loses his temper with these unappreciative womenfolk. Through my genius Ive brought fame and fortune to this house, he bellows, and 400 years or so later theres no real arguing with that, though Anne doesnt look too convinced. Gradually, however, the family learns to live with, and even love, each other again, despite Elton pulling a rather startling late twist out of his garters. Eyebrows have been raised, incidentally, at Branaghs decision to cast Dench. Anne was eight years older, whereas the actual gap between them is 26. I dont think it matters. Its a pleasure to see our greatest Shakespearean actress playing the Bards wife, and indeed, All Is True contains many pleasures, not least of which is Zac Nicholsons cinematography. He pounces like another 17th-century genius, Rembrandt, on the lighting opportunities afforded by all those candles, all those sunbeams streaming through mullioned windows. And outdoors, the panorama shots are ravishing. Warwickshire never looked prettier. If Beale Street Could Talk (15) Verdict: a musical without songs Rating: The backdrop to If Beale Street Could Talk, an adaptation of a James Baldwin novel, could hardly be more different: grimy, urban, modern New York City. There, two young African-Americans, Tish Rivers (KiKi Layne) and Fonny Hunt (Stephan James), fall madly in love. The only obstructions to their happiness are extreme poverty which doesnt stop them both looking a million dollars, but never mind and, more seismically, Fonnys arrest on a trumped-up rape charge. In other words, their colour is preventing them from living the life they deserve. Lots of rhapsodies have already been blown in the direction of this picture, but let me add a raspberry. Or not a raspberry, exactly, because its a thoughtful and thought-provoking film, but I expected to love it and didnt. The backdrop to If Beale Street Could Talk, an adaptation of a James Baldwin novel, could hardly be more different: grimy, urban, modern New York City. Pictured, KiKi Layne as Tish and Stephan James as Fonny star in If Beale Street Could Talk The writer/director is Barry Jenkins, whose last film Moonlight won the Academy Award for Best Picture once they realised theyd dished it out accidentally to La La Land. I thought Moonlight was over-praised, too, and maybe the problem I have with both films is the righteous indignation about social and racial prejudice that drives them. Legitimate grievances can make for clumsy story-telling, and so it is here. So gorgeous and admirable are our young lovers, so passionate (and frankly, soppy) their love, and so twisted and ugly the racism that blights them (as represented by a laughably venomous white cop), that If Beale Street Could Talk has the unsubtle, unreal feel of a musical, only without original songs. Theres an enormously powerful scene when Tishs mother (Regina King) travels to Puerto Rico to confront the woman who wrongly identified Fonny as her attacker a scene that on its own is probably responsible for Kings Golden Globe win as Best Supporting Actress, which might yet be matched at the Oscars. And theres a great soundtrack, too. But overall the film is less than the sum of its extravagant plaudits. Blasting out the blocks, Lego 2 is a non-stop riot The Lego Movie 2 (U) Rating: Five years have passed since The Lego Movie came out, and dismantled brick by brick the cynicism of those who expected it to be the very definition of cinematic product placement and not much more. It was a blast. This follow-up, directed by Mike Mitchell, lacks the element of surprise, but, as written once more by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, is even more relentlessly zany. It weaves an imaginary Lego universe out of the idea that Finn (Jadon Sand) fears his model-making is threatened by his younger sister Bianca (Brooklynn Prince, the sensational young actress from 2017s The Florida Project). Bianca keeps destroying his fun. And their mother (Maya Rudolph) cant bear them squabbling. Pictures shows the characters Emmet, left, and Rex Dangervest, center, both voiced by Chris Pratt, in a scene from The Lego Movie 2 Bianca is duly represented by pastel-coloured alien monsters led by General Mayhem (Stephanie Beatriz) and made out of Duplo, the girly version (at least as Finn sees it) of Lego. There follows a dizzying sci-fi Lego v Duplo extravaganza, in which sweet-natured Emmet (voiced by Chris Pratt) finds that his beloved home town has become Apocalypseburg, and he is too nice to prosper there. The song from the first movie, Everything Is Awesome, has become Everythings Not Awesome, and he has to learn nastiness from a bristle-chinned buccaneer called Rex Dangervest (also Pratt). Emmets friend Lucy (Elizabeth Banks) wants him to man up, too. Yet theres no one manlier than Batman (Will Arnett), and it seems that not even he can avoid Our-mom-ageddon (the imaginary equivalent of Finns mother ordering the children to clear all their toys away). There are some terrific jokes, snappy one-liners and a stellar voice cast also including Bruce Willis (as himself in Lego form), Ralph Fiennes, Margot Robbie, Gal Gadot, Jonah Hill and Will Ferrell, who again doubles as the childrens useless father. But the movie is such a non-stop assault on the eyes and ears that its not merely a challenge to keep up with everything thats going on, but a headache. Alita Battle Angel Verdict: overlong dystopian fantasy Rating: There is more sci-fi madness and mayhem in Alita: Battle Angel, a hybrid of live action and CGI set in the 26th century, directed by Quentin Tarantino protege Robert Rodriguez and co-written by none other than James Cameron. Unsurprisingly, restraint is conspicuously absent, especially in terms of the running-time: a bum-numbing two hours and 22 minutes. The title character (Rosa Salazar) is a big-eyed android, rescued from a rubbish dump by a brilliant surgeon (Christoph Waltz) and given the prosthetic body he designed for his disabled (but sadly murdered) daughter. The title character (Rosa Salazar) is a big-eyed android, rescued from a rubbish dump by a brilliant surgeon (Christoph Waltz) and given the prosthetic body he designed for his disabled (but sadly murdered) daughter. Somewhere in Alitas memory banks, though, lurks the instinct to fight like an Amazon warrior. Why? Where does she come from? And whose head will she stove in next? A decent cast also features Mahershala Ali and Jennifer Connelly, the special effects are excellent, but this level of dystopian violence should not be rewarded with a 12A rating. A fine quartet but a well-worn plot Boy Erased (15) Verdict: Unoriginal but watchable Rating: Last year, a fine film called The Miseducation Of Cameron Post told the story of an American teenage lesbian who was sent by her very religious aunt to a conversion therapy centre, in the hope that she might be cured of her homosexuality. These places really do exist. Boy Erased covers pretty much exactly the same ground, except that the gender is different and this film is based on an actual memoir. Its nicely acted, with Lucas Hedges excelling as Jared, the gay teen despatched for therapy by his appalled father (Russell Crowe), who also happens to be a lay preacher. Lucas Hedges stars as Jared and Nicole Kidman as his mother Nancy in Joel Edgerton's Boy Erased At first, Jareds mother (Nicole Kidman in a peroxide wig weirdly reminiscent of Miranda Richardson playing the doomed Ruth Ellis in Dance With A Stranger) goes along with this ghastly plan. Maybe it was a familiarity with the subject matter that made me feel the film dragged unnecessarily in places and was also wholly predictable, with conscious echoes of One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest. Still, a quartet of performances make it worth seeing. The fourth of them comes from Joel Edgerton, who is also the writer and director, as the centres dubiously-qualified principal. That yields the small quirk of all three adult leads being Antipodean, in a film set in Arkansas. Channel Seven shocked viewers on Friday when it aired a distressing sexual assault scene during its midday movie. In the film An Officer and a Murderer, a young mother is shown being viciously restrained and blindfolded on a bed by a male intruder. The film is rated M, but as it was broadcast between 12pm and 3pm on a school day, it does not appear to breach the commercial television Code Of Practice. Is this REALLY appropriate midday viewing? Channel Seven aired shocking scenes of sexual violence in its afternoon movie on Friday In the confronting footage, a young woman puts her baby in her cot and goes to sleep on a bed nearby. The intruder creeps into the room and pushes the woman's face into a pillow. The terrified woman is told, 'Don't fight, do what I say!' by the angry assailant. He ties the woman up and blindfolds her, before filming himself lying next to her on the bed. Horrifying: In the film An Officer and a Murderer, aired on Channel Seven on Friday, a young mother is shown being viciously restrained and blindfolded on a bed by a male intruder The disturbing scene continues as the fully clothed man is shown cutting the woman's pyjama bottoms off with a knife as she weeps. The assailant then takes photos of the frightened woman - who is clad in her underwear - and threatens to kill her if she takes off her blindfold before he leaves. The 2012 movie is based the true story of military officer Russell Williams, who was convicted of brutal crimes against women including rape, abduction and murder. Confronting: The terrified woman is told, 'Don't fight, do what I say!' by the angry assailant. He proceeds to tie her up and blindfold her, before filming himself lying next to her on the bed The shocking portion of the M-rated film, starring Gary Cole as Williams, does not appear to breach the commercial television Code Of Practice guidelines. With regards to violence in programs classified M, the code specifies: 'Depictions of violence may be realistically shown only if they are not detailed or prolonged. Any depiction of or verbal reference to violence occurring in a sexual context must be infrequent and restrained, and strictly justified by the storyline or program context.' With regards to sex, the code specifies: 'Depictions of sexual activity may be implied or simulated in a restrained way. Verbal references to sexual activity may be more detailed than depictions if this does not increase the impact.' Based on true events: In very distressing scenes, the fully clothed man is shown cutting the woman's pyjama bottoms off with a knife as she weeps Channel Seven has developed a reputation for showing often shocking, and in other cases raunchy, films during its midday timeslot. Movies such as Seeds Of Yesterday, If There Be Thorns and Manson's Lost Girls have raised eyebrows among viewers in recent months. However, these broadcasts also do not appear to have breached the Code Of Practice's guidelines. Barry Jenkins, director of the Oscar-winning film Moonlight, had no doubts about choosing KiKi Layne to star in his film of James Baldwin's novel If Beale Street Could Talk. Layne, 27, was the right age to play Tish Rivers, the young woman who, with her fiance Fonny Hunt (Stephan James) is at the heart of the story. But more than that, 'she was right for the part,' Jenkins said simply. Tisha and Fonny dream of their life together. But the harsh realities of living while black in America shake them up. Stephan James as Fonny and KiKi Layne as Tish star in Barry Jenkins' If Beale Street Could Talk I won't give it all away here, if you don't know the story, except to tell you that Tish spends a lot of time apart from Fonny. And her mother (an outstanding performance from Regina King, who's up for Bafta and Oscar supporting actress honours) tries to find justice for her daughter's young man. Initially, Layne said she was nervous about taking on the part. 'It was Barry Jenkins' next film...after Moonlight! And it was my first lead role in a film.' But she said Jenkins and the company of artists around her supported her. Plus, she had done a lot of theatre work in Chicago. Kiki Layne said she was nervous about taking on the part of Tish Rivers Though the film's set in the Sixties, it still resonates. 'So many of the conversations and the issues we see this family fighting against, we are still dealing with today.' She said Beale Street 'is the starting point of my film and television career...the beginning of everything for me'. She has other projects she's working on, and would like to make her stage debut in New York. Then she mentioned that she's from Cincinnati. My face fell and she asked what was wrong. I told her I'd been there once, and eaten a local delicacy that I did not care for. 'You had the Cincinnati Chilli, didn't you?!' she said. 'We put it on hot dogs and pasta. It's not for every-bod-y,' she trilled. And that's a fact. Watch out for... Cassidy Janson, who will play Anne Hathaway with Oliver Tompsett as her husband William Shakespeare in the new musical & Juliet, featuring hit songs written by Max Martin. The show stars Miriam-Teak Lee in the title part. Ms Janson (pictured), who played Carole King in Beautiful, said that in & Juliet, Hathaway starts writing Juliets story as if she hadnt died. There are little twists and turns in the re-telling, and its very comedy based, she said. Hathaway sets Juliet off on adventures that take her to Paris. Janson gets to sing the big Max Martin ballad Thats The Way It Is (which was a hit for Celine Dion) and a couple of duets. KiKi Layne as Tish and Stephan James as Fonny in a scene from Barry Jenkins's If Beale Street Could Talk adapted from James Baldwin's novel She and the rest of the company Melanie La Barrie, Arun Blair-Mangat, Jordan Luke Gage and Tim Mahendran are rehearsing with director Luke Sheppard. &Juliet will play at the Manchester Opera House from September 10 before moving to the Shaftesbury in London from November 2. I caught the Broadway production of Disneys musical Newsies about the 1899 newspaper boys strike in New York a few years ago and I liked it a lot. But I enjoyed the production at ArtsEd School in Chiswick, West London, even more because the terrific cast are the right age! They also filled the Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation Theatre with an exuberance that ripped the roof off. Disney should just give ArtsEd the rights and let a producer run it in the West End at a small theatre. The show deserves further life. The next generation of talent is firing on all cylinders. She recently returned to her hometown of Sydney to film scenes for Peter Rabbit 2. And Rose Byrne enjoyed a day off on Thursday when she went for a swim at Bondi Beach with her partner Bobby Cannavale. The Australian actress, 39, wore a simple black bikini as she soaked up the sun during the scorching heatwave. Feels good to be home! Rose Byrne stripped down to a bikini while soaking up the sun at Sydney's Bondi Beach on Thursday It's getting hot in here! The Australian actress, 39, wore a simple black bikini as she soaked up the sun during the scorching Sydney heatwave The Bad Neighbours star looked sensational in her two-piece, which featured high-waisted bottoms and a triangle top. Scraping her blonde hair into a tousled topknot, she went makeup free for the relaxed beachside outing. Meanwhile, Bobby showed off his muscular physique in a pair of black and red swimming shorts. Rose looked smitten with Bobby, leaning in to give the Boardwalk Empire star, 48, a kiss and a cuddle before heading into the surf. Natural beauty: Scraping her blonde hair into a tousled topknot, she went makeup free for the relaxed beachside outing Packing on the PDA! She looked smitten as she gave her partner Bobby Cannavale a quick kiss She later covered up in an chambray shirt and denim shorts before leaving the beach, carrying her white sneakers in one hand. Rose has two children with Bobby - sons Rocco, three, and Rafa, one. She is also stepmother to Bobby's son, Jake, from a previous relationship. The genetically-blessed pair have been dating since 2012, but have yet to marry. They can't keep their hands off each other! The Bridesmaids star wrapped her arms around Bobby, who she has been dating since 2012 Come here, you! The long-term lovers cuddled after going for a dip in the ocean Loved-up: Rose later leaned in to give Bobby a kiss as he relaxed on a beach towel Rose often refers to Bobby as her husband and has previously said they will get married 'one day'. 'He's practically my husband, so calling him that is easier,' she told ES magazine in May 2017. 'The formality isn't a draw for me, but we'll do it one day. Once you have children, I just think, why not?' Looking good! The Bad Neighbours star looked sensational in her bikini, which featured high-waisted bottoms and a simple triangle top Proud parents: Rose has two children with Bobby - sons Rocco, three, and Rafa, one. She is also stepmother to Bobby's son, Jake, from a previous relationship She added: 'It would be great if everyone in Australia could get married though [gay marriage was not legal in Australia at the time]. What's the hold up? Get with the program, Australia.' Meanwhile, Rose recently spoke about being a mother to two young boys, admitting that life is 'pretty hectic'. During an appearance on Live with Kelly and Ryan last August, she confessed that Rafa is 'a lot more aggressive' than his older brother. In the future: Rose frequently refers to Bobby as her husband even though they're not married Close: 'He's practically my husband, so calling him that is easier,' she told ES magazine in 2017 Future plans: 'The formality [of marriage] isn't a draw for me, but we'll do it one day. Once you have children, I just think, why not?' Busy mama! Meanwhile, Rose recently spoke about being a mother to two young boys, admitting that life is 'pretty hectic' 'He just goes in for the tackle and loves to pin [Rocco] down. It's quite a trauma, those first few months... but it's good, it toughens them up!' she said. She joked that her youngest son was just trying to assert his place in the pecking order, adding: 'You've got to establish status pretty quickly.' 'There was a bit of an adjustment at first,' she continued. 'Rocco didn't quite get having a brother... he would wake up in the morning and go, "No Rafa, no Rafa".' He's a handful! During an appearance on Live with Kelly and Ryan last August, Rose confessed that Rafa is 'a lot more aggressive' than his older brother Rocco Took some time: 'There was a bit of an adjustment at first,' she said. 'Rocco didn't quite get having a brother. He would wake up in the morning and go, "No Rafa, no Rafa"' The perils of parenting! Rose said that the only things Rafa was 'into' at the time were 'just things that'll hurt you, like electric sockets' Rose said that the only things Rafa was 'into' at the time were 'just things that'll hurt you, like electric sockets'. 'Anything dangerous they'll immediately go towards, so you're just sort of monitoring the whole time,' she added. The actress made her screen debut in the 1992 Australian film Dallas Doll, before landing her first leading role in The Goddess of 1967, which was released in 2000. Nightmare: 'Anything dangerous they'll immediately go towards, so you're just sort of monitoring the whole time,' she added Pinter Seven (Harold Pinter Theatre, London) A Slight Ache Verdict: Disappointing starter Rating: Two professional hitmen in a windowless basement room await their assignment when, thud, a message arrives for them via a dumb waiter (i.e. kitchen shaft). It contains a message: two steak and chips, two sago puddings. The Dumb Waiter is my favourite of all Harold Pinters works. It is short, it melds menace and the comical, its mid-20th century banter is just so, and it always makes me hungry for sago pudding. In 1980, I performed it with an English friend in Louisville, Kentucky, and the locals were distinctly baffled by the sago pud reference. 'In Danny Dyer and Martin Freeman (pictured), the West End has the perfect duo playing gunmen Ben and Gus in the latest instalment of the Pinter At The Pinter season of one-act plays' In Danny Dyer and Martin Freeman, the West End has the perfect duo playing gunmen Ben and Gus in the latest instalment of the Pinter At The Pinter season of one-act plays. This 1957 piece may have comical echoes of Waiting For Godot, but it is easier to endure than the Beckett, being more rooted in time and place. Dapper, punctilious Ben (Mr Dyer) is the senior of the two, while the restless, more independent-minded Gus (Mr Freeman) is the talker. Director Jamie Lloyd keeps the tone light: accentuated amplification for a flushing lavatory, Cockney geezer neck-tweaking from Ben, and the two mens unease flowering only late in the scene. Little undue weight is attached to Guss talk of their previous victim, a young woman, whose body just fell to pieces when they shot her. Guss repeated line, Ive got interests, when discussing his home life, is done breezily rather than defensively. Pinter juxtaposes talk of murder with chatter about tea and Eccles cakes. Soutra Gilmours set offers a high-ceilinged room with a mass of drainpipes, accompanied by distant clangings. Tuesdays audience laughed at some of the old-fashioned phrases and idioms. Pinters language will be the ruin of him for posterity because it is so intrinsic to his potency yet already so dated. But this is a fine rendition of The Dumb Waiter, both actors perfect. And how touching to see Mr Dyer bouncing nervously on his toes at the curtain call. The first half of the evening is less successful a 1958 radio play, A Slight Ache, in which a ladidah couple (John Heffernan and Gemma Whelan) admit a mouldering old match-seller to their house. Mr Heffernan and Miss Whelan have been encouraged to take the mickey out of their characters, over-poshing their voices. The story, initially satirical, acquires an overbearingly absurdist edge with Mr Heffernan sprawled on the carpet, whispering into a microphone. By then A Slight Ache had become a considerable pain. The lesson of the piece, far from being a comment on middle-class fear of outsiders, may be dodge the first half of a Pinter compilation evening and only bother to turn up at the interval (which starts after about 45 minutes). Stoppard's cruise ship sails into choppy waters Rough Crossing (Windsor Theatre Royal & touring) Verdict: Tom's in frivilous mode Rating: Producer Bill Kenwright gives Sir Tom Stoppards seldom-seen Rough Crossing a valiant stab. This comedy has a strong cast, a handsome set and is directed by the well-regarded Rachel Kavanaugh. With Andre Previns name also on the cheery publicity material he composed songs for the play everything should be set fair for a happy two-month tour taking in ten towns from Chichester to Leeds. And yet . . . Stoppard is patchy. I have relished his Travesties, but seldom been as bored as during Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead. Arcadia? Ingenious, but overly literary. The Hard Problem? I was one of the few critics to like its cool attack on Darwinism. Compared with those Stoppards, Rough Crossing is shallow. Yet it still has a bookish self-regard that presents an obstacle to popular enjoyment. Sir Tom simply cant write anything easily accessible. We are on a 1930 ocean liner sailing to New York. A successful playwrighting duo (John Partridge and the nicely deflated Matthew Cottle) are struggling to complete a script with young composer, Adam (Rob Ostlere). Adam is engaged to leading lady (Issy Van Randwyck, overdoing it by a quarter) and is horrified to overhear her cooing to veteran actor Ivor Fish (Simon Dutton). The character of a tipsy steward Charlie Stemp (pictured) is pushed beyond farce as, time and again, he drinks the cognac he should be serving to his passengers. Maybe Adams dismay can be neutralised if everyone pretends the apparent seduction was merely them rehearsing for the new play. Rather than settle for this (borrowed) plot, Stoppard layers it with scholastic wordplay and forces it towards satirical absurdism. The character of a tipsy steward (Charlie Stemp, left) is pushed beyond farce as, time and again, he drinks the cognac he should be serving to his passengers. There is teasing about bad theatre (Rough? Its simply under-rehearsed, someone says as the ship pitches in a storm). The play within a play is far-fetched, so much so that we hear the line: Theyll never follow this, you know. Im afraid that may be true of many punters expecting a night of Cowardesque wit. It is not quite that, yet I was not unhappy to add Rough Crossing to my Stoppard scoresheet. It's Friday! Theatre: Cost Of Living (Hampstead Theatre, London) By PATRICK MARMION Verdict: Fine acting, soft-focused play Rating: Polish-American playwright Martyna Majoks play, which won the Pulitzer Prize last year, is about two disabled people and their carers. Its an absorbing piece of work with four impressive performances including one from Adrian Lester (making his Hampstead debut). But for all its great sensitivity I found it more salutary than enjoyable. The action plays out through a series of long, cat and mouse conversations, between a quadriplegic woman and her truck driver ex-husband (Lester), and a wealthy academic and a young female graduate whos desperate for work. Plot is not Majoks thing. Instead, she offers a very high level of intimacy with her characters as both disabled actors are stripped and bathed by their carers in the course of the show. 'Polish-American playwright Martyna Majoks play, which won the Pulitzer Prize last year, is about two disabled people and their carers. Its an absorbing piece of work with four impressive performances including one from Adrian Lester (making his Hampstead debut). But for all its great sensitivity I found it more salutary than enjoyable' This delivers a degree of tenderness rarely seen in theatre and allows Majok to explore her themes of the emotional and psychological bonds that physical dependency creates. There is a particularly powerful moment when one of the disabled actors appears to be in danger of drowning. Seldom have I heard an audience hold its breath for so long; exhaling in a collective gasp. Even so, the disabled actors have the lesser parts, presented (as so often) as victims. Admittedly, Paralympian Katy Sullivan swears like a Glaswegian navvy at Lester, and burns with frustration at her physical incapacity. But she remains defined by her condition. And Jack Hunter is imperious as the Stephen Hawking-esque academic who offers solipsistic provocations and lectures on the subject of his own disability. Lester and Emily Barber have the more complex roles. At first tentative in her interactions, such as when she gives Hunter a shave in his chair, Barber discovers an unrequited love and turns out to be the one with the greater vulnerability. Lester, meanwhile, gets to fall in love with his wife a second time and, later, rebuild himself, in a performance thats big-hearted and quietly anguished. Edward Halls production is no less tender, on Michael Pavelkas set of tasteful greys. What is missing, I suppose, is the uglier side of human behaviour. What we get is comparatively doting and fond. Commendable, but soft-focused and even a little bit sentimental. Their bitter divorce proceedings have turned into a back-and-forth affair in the courts in New Jersey. Jenni 'JWoww' Farley has filed an answer to her estranged husband Roger Matthew's counterclaim on January 29, according to Us Weekly. In it, she asked a judge to dismiss his demand for primary physical custody of their two young children, child support, alimony and to make declare their 2015 prenuptial agreement 'invalid and unenforceable.' Bitter dispute: Jenni 'JWoww' Farley has filed an answer to her estranged husband Roger Matthew's counterclaim and asked a New Jersey judge to dismiss his demand for primary physical custody of their two young children Farley, 32, filed for divorce from her husband in September 2018, citing 'irreconcilable differences' with 'no prospect of reconciliation.' She asked for joint legal custody of their children Meilani, four, and Greyson, two, which would grant her primary residential custody. Then in December 2018, she filed an amended complaint for divorce that asked for joint legal custody and primary physical custody of the children with an 'appropriate parenting time schedule for Defendant', according to RadarOnline. She also asked that her ex pay child support and education-related costs and that the court enforce their prenup agreement. Back and forth: In his counterclaim, Roger Matthews also asked for child support, alimony and to make declare their 2015 prenuptial agreement 'invalid and unenforceable' In his counterclaim, Matthews, 43, denied that it is in the best interest of the children that Farley be granted primary physical custody. RadarOnline has also reported that the Jersey Shore star was granted a temporary restraining order in December after police were called to their New Jersey home and removed Matthews. The following month, the reality star went on a social media rant and accused him of verbal and physical abuse and putting their two young children in danger in a long essay titled: A Message To Roger. Along with the chronicle of his alleged abuse and infidelity, Farley posted videos to bolster her claims. In one video taken in 2017, Mathews was seen throwing Jenni to the ground in their kitchen and walking away while Farley yells: 'F*** you!' Divorce: When Farley filed papers to dissolve their marriage in September, she also requested primary custody of daughter Meilani, four, and son Greyson, two In response to the essay, Matthews denied the abuse accusations and called his estranged wife a liar in an Instagram video. 'Truly sad it has come to this,' he captioned the post. He also wrote on his website in a post titled 'A Message to Jenni': 'I am extremely saddened. Saddened, as I lay here next to both of our children that we could not have found a better way to handle our differences. 'You and your post have made me a monster.' A "preliminary" step which could be followed by "further consultations" between the parties. Next week, new meetings between the two fronts are scheduled to define the details. The port city is the entry point for most goods and aid. The humanitarian emergency remains at maximum levels. Sana'a (AsiaNews / Agencies) - The pro-Saudi government of Yemen (recognized by the international community) and the Houthi Shiite rebels supported by Iran have reached a preliminary agreement in these hours for the relocation of troops to the port city of Hudaydah. The move announced by the representatives of the United Nations, could be the means for a wider truce in the area which has been the epicenter of the conflict in Yemen, perpetuating a devastating humanitarian tragedy. The withdrawal from Hudaydah was first agreed in December, during the peace talks in Sweden. However, neither side withdrew their forces by the scheduled date. Stephane Dujarric, UN spokesman, confirms the achievement of a "preliminary agreement", which will be followed by "further consultations between the parties, with their respective leaders". Next week, new meetings are planned between the two fronts, to define the final details of the operation. The port city on the Red Sea is the entry point for most of the goods and humanitarian aid destined for Yemen. It is the only lifeline for millions of people, within the poorest country in the Arab world. Faced with a partial progress on the battlefield, with the announced withdrawal of troops, it is still impossible for UN officials to access a goods storage site that could alleviate the suffering of millions of Yemenis. Mark Lowcock, the UN Head of Mission, appeals to Houthi "in the coming days" to allow transit on the front line to access the warehouses, located in an area controlled by government troops. So far the Shiite rebels have denied the passage alleging security reasons. The progress of these last hours in Hudaydah could represent the first, significant step in the context of a conflict that, from March 2015 to today, has recorded over 10 thousand deaths and at least 55 thousand injured. In fact, some independent bodies set the toll (between January 2016 and end of July 2018) at around 50,000 deaths. But this data only concerns the combatants in the field, not the so-called "indirect victims" (civilians) for malnutrition or cholera. Among the first victims there are children, who have died as a result of bombs or very serious malnutrition: at least 85,000 children under the age of five, according to various international humanitarian agencies. Recently UN experts have said that at least 14 million people are at risk of starvation. Victoria's Secret Angels Romee Strijd and Jasmine Tookes promoted the lingerie label and chatted Valentine's Day gift ideas at the Beverly Center store in Los Angeles on Thursday. The Dutch 23-year-old was 'all about pink' while the 28-year-old SoCal native looked ravishing in red to kick off the romantic holiday a week early. When the IMG Models - who earned their 'wings' in 2015 - aren't in front of the camera in exotic destinations, they're real-life BFFs who work out up to five times a week together. Victoria's Secret Angels! Romee Strijd (L) and Jasmine Tookes (R) promoted the lingerie label and chatted Valentine's Day gift ideas at the Beverly Center store in Los Angeles on Thursday Romee showcased her slim 5ft11in figure in a plunging hot-pink top tucked into a matching mini-skirt and stilettos selected by stylist Sonny Groo. 'Valentine's Day is about celebrating all the love in your life!' Strijd said at the event - according to PRNewswire. 'This year, I am all about being a little bit daring. I gifted myself the new neon Very Sexy Push Up Bra to wear for a fun night out.' The dimpled blonde - who boasts 5.4M social media followers - made sure to Insta-story all of the behind-the-scenes action of her busy day. Sweethearts: The Dutch 23-year-old was 'all about pink' while the 28-year-old SoCal native looked ravishing in red to kick off the romantic holiday a week early Real-life BFFs! When the IMG Models - who earned their 'wings' in 2015 - aren't in front of the camera in exotic destinations, they work out up to five times a week together Make-up artist Kale Teter made sure the catwalker-turned-vlogger looked her best for her day of promoting the San Francisco bra brand. And hairstylist Ruslan Nureev Insta-storied a time-lapse look at himself coiffing Romee's long curly flaxen locks. Meanwhile, Jasmine flaunted her taut 5ft9in figure in a white lip-print camisole tucked into a red Lovers + Friends ruffled mini-skirt from REVOLVE and matching bejeweled stilettos selected by stylist Cary Robinson. Hairstylist Glen Coco made sure Tookes' brunette mane was extra shiny while make-up artist Leah Darcy brought out her natural beauty. Barbie shade: Romee showcased her slim 5ft11in figure in a plunging hot-pink top tucked into a matching mini-skirt and stilettos selected by stylist Sonny Groo Strijd said at the event: 'Valentine's Day is about celebrating all the love in your life!' She added: 'This year, I am all about being a little bit daring. I gifted myself the new neon Very Sexy Push Up Bra to wear for a fun night out' Think pink: Romee showed off her lithe frame in the flirty pink outfit Pouty: The star looked gorgeous as she blew a kiss at the camera Supermodel chic: The stars showed off their toned legs as they posed Busty: Nichelle Hines flaunted her bra in a semi sheer top Hitting up Universal Studios too! The dimpled blonde - who boasts 5.4M social media followers - made sure to Insta-story all of the behind-the-scenes action of her busy day After: Make-up artist Kale Teter made sure the catwalker-turned-vlogger looked her best for her day of promoting the San Francisco bra brand Before: Hairstylist Ruslan Nureev (R) Insta-storied a time-lapse look at himself coiffing Romee's long curly flaxen locks The Ridiculousness guest star posed with VS' new Bombshell Wild Flower fragrance made from the scent of desert wildflower, star lotus, and wild magnolia. 'Pajamas are my favorite Valentine's Day gift!' Jasmine gushed at the event. 'I love to surprise my friends with the Victoria's Secret satin pajama sets for a girls' night in.' Later, Tookes - who boasts 3.5M followers - shook her booty in a colorful-striped sequin tube dress while grooving to Kenny Man's new song Ni Gucci Ni Prada for an Instagram post. Lady in red: Jasmine flaunted her taut 5ft9in figure in a white lip-print camisole tucked into a red ruffled Lovers + Friends mini-skirt from REVOLVE and matching bejeweled stilettos selected by stylist Cary Robinson Kiss kiss: Hairstylist Glen Coco made sure Tookes' brunette mane was extra shiny while make-up artist Leah Darcy brought out her natural beauty Smells good? The Ridiculousness guest star posed with VS' new Bombshell Wild Flower fragrance made from the scent of desert wildflower, star lotus, and wild magnolia Jasmine gushed at the event: 'Pajamas are my favorite Valentine's Day gift! I love to surprise my friends with the Victoria's Secret satin pajama sets for a girls' night in' 'When your jam comes on!' Later, Tookes shook her booty in a colorful-striped sequin tube dress while grooving to Kenny Man's new song Ni Gucci Ni Prada for an Instagram post Missing from Jasmine's side was her Valentine - Snapchat's Senior Partnership Manager Juan David Borrero - whom she began dating as far back as 2016. And Romee's Valentine is her boyfriend since 2009 - business consultant Laurens van Leeuwen - whom she met as a teenager through his sister. The Dutch 28-year-old is the nepotistically-privileged son of popular Netherlands presenter Bert van Leeuwen, best known for hosting Family Dinner. In Ecuador: Missing from Jasmine's side was her Valentine - Snapchat's Senior Partnership Manager Juan David Borrero - whom she began dating as far back as 2016 (pictured January 7) In the Netherlands: Romee's Valentine is her boyfriend since 2009 - business consultant Laurens van Leeuwen - whom she met as a teenager through his sister (pictured January 27) Neon dream: Jasmine and Romee rocked incredible neon ensembles as they appeared at the Victoria Secret store in a change of outfit Wow: Romee wowed in a bright yellow bra and matching trousers combo which she paired with a glitzy silver top Legs 11! Jasmine transformed into a shocking pink trouser suit with a red cami Pals: The Angels posed with model Nicole Williams who looked sensational in a pink belted dress Glam: The girls teamed their eye-catching numbers with matching bright neon heels All smiles! The girls wore their glossy locks in sleek blown out styles Hospital (BBC2) Rating: Tucked away in a workaday documentary on BBC2 was a story of human love and courage so emotional that this cynical old hack found himself with an ache in his throat for the next half an hour. And at the same time, on ITV, a convict serving life for multiple murders gradually revealed that he was incapable of any meaningful feelings at all. What strange creatures humans are the best of mankind brimming with kindness, the worst hollowed out by evil. Were all roughly similar on the outside, and shockingly different within. The tale of hope came in Hospital (BBC2), a low-budget look at the strains facing the NHS. I quite often have my hands over my face during Hospital, but thats usually because the operating theatre footage is too graphic, not because Im wiping my eyes [File photo] The tale of hope came in Hospital (BBC2), a low-budget look at the strains facing the NHS. This time we were at the Royal Liverpool, where 27-year-old first-time mother Lauren was expecting twins. She already had names for them: Albie and Bobby. Tragically, one of her unborn boys had a fatal illness. Albies skull hadnt formed properly and he was badly brain-damaged. He wouldnt survive outside the womb. With astonishing courage and compassion, Lauren decided to carry him to full term, rather than abort him, so that Albie could spend his few hours of life with her and his twin brother Bobby. She fervently hoped, too, that he could posthumously be an organ donor, and help other babies to live. I quite often have my hands over my face during Hospital, but thats usually because the operating theatre footage is too graphic, not because Im wiping my eyes. Lauren went into labour at 35 weeks, which meant an emergency Caesarian. It also meant, heartbreakingly, that Albie was too small to be a donor. The camera watched from a respectful distance as this selfless young woman grieved over her dead baby. Consultant neonatologist Fauzia Paize is pictured above in an episode of the series. Christopher Stevens writes that delaying and postponing has been a constant theme of the series [File photo] Her calm dignity made the scene all the more affecting. Thankfully, Bobby was born healthy. Hes a lucky little boy who will have a wonderful mother. A parallel story followed a 38-year-old man with organ failure, whose loving little sister was ready to donate one of her own kidneys to save his life. She was adamant, yet the operation was in doubt till the last minute because other emergencies kept claiming the surgeons attention. That has been a constant theme of the series, though its power to shock diminishes each week: at first it seemed outrageous that ops were so frequently postponed, but after five weeks it now feels inevitable. This probably wasnt the effect the film-makers were aiming for. Confessions Of A Serial Killer (ITV) Rating: Piers Morgan had spent months setting up an interview with convicted murderer Bernard Giles in a Florida jail for Confessions Of A Serial Killer (ITV). But, after an hour, the mans reptilian coldness left him only too glad to call an abrupt halt not an effect that Piers had anticipated either, probably. Giless testimony chilled the blood because it was so matter of fact. He said he regretted killing five girls, some as young as 14, in late 1973 . . . yet he was incapable of finding the words for an apology. His sole mitigation was that I never killed anyone I knew. Piers Morgan had spent months setting up an interview with convicted murderer Bernard Giles, right, in a Florida jail for Confessions Of A Serial Killer (ITV). But, after an hour, the mans reptilian coldness left him only too glad to call an abrupt halt [File photo] The last time hed felt real sorrow, he said, was 20 years ago, when a Hollywood movie had him welling up with self-pity. Yet he was an articulate man, who still vividly recalled his crimes and relished them. He described the killings with passionate excitement: You are so there, its like you can see the atoms vibrating. That testimony was shocking enough; the shows subliminal flashes of photos and bursts of electronic interference were a needless distraction. It's been a while since she's graced the red carpet. And Lena Dunham made her return on Thursday, stepping out to show her support for the new Frida Kahlo: Appearances Can Be Deceiving exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum. The 32-year-old opted for a mini dress during the bash and looked fresh faced and upbeat. Happy days: Lena Dunham is pictured at the Frida Kahlo: Appearances Can Be Deceiving exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum in New York City on Thursday Lena wore a fitted $265 green dress from Staud that featured puffy sleeves that reached her wrists and had a bow-tie accent. She teamed the look with knee-high socks underneath a pair of statement Mother Of Pearl shoes. The Girls actress accessorized the winter look with a straw like carry bag that allowed her to keep her prized possessions close to her. Chic: Lena wore a fitted $265 green dress from Staud that featured puffy sleeves that reached her wrists and had a bow-tie accent Peace: Lena showed off her glam look on Instagram before leaving the house Gorgeous: Also lucky enough to get a sneak peek into the largest U.S. exhibition in ten years devoted to the iconic painter, was Ashley Graham Lena styled her brunette tresses out in a sweet wave and kept her makeup flam with bronzed cheekbones and a nude lip. Also lucky enough to get a sneak peek into the largest U.S. exhibition in ten years devoted to the iconic painter, was Ashley Graham. Getting the color memo, the model stunned in a satin army green colored blazer on top of a turtleneck black top. She got Lena's memo! Getting the color memo, the model stunned in a satin army green colored blazer on top of a turtleneck black top Pals: At one point, Ashley was seen laughing alongside Orange Is The New Black star, Dasha Polanco Ashley ensured her legs were the talk of the town, teaming the look with a mini skirt and pair of strappy heels. The podcaster slicked her brunette tresses back into a ponytail for the evening event. Her makeup was luminous with blushed cheeks and a simple eye and lip. Stunner: The podcaster slicked her brunette tresses back into a ponytail for the evening event Simple and stylish: Dasha kept thing monochrome in a gorgeous intricately designed white netted laced crop top that showcased her toned stomach Fun style! The actress kept things fun and flirty, styling her dark tresses back into a wavy half-up half-down style - complete with a bow At one point, Ashley was seen laughing alongside Orange Is The New Black star, Dasha Polanco. Dasha kept thing monochrome in a gorgeous intricately designed white netted laced crop top that showcased her toned stomach. She teamed the look with a a maxi skirt and shoes of a similar design. Model alert! Fellow models Imaan Hammam and Adwoa Aboah also joined Ashley on the carpet She means business! Dutch Moroccan/Egyptian beauty, Imaan, kept things structured in a fitted black power suit The actress kept things fun and flirty, styling her dark tresses back into a wavy half-up half-down style - complete with a bow. Her glam saw her with a smokey blush pink eye, similar shaded cheeks and a red lip. Fellow models Imaan Hammam and Adwoa Aboah also joined Ashley on the carpet. Dutch Moroccan/Egyptian beauty, Imaan, kept things structured in a fitted black power suit. Flirty! Adwoa stunned in a chic sleeveless style red midi-length dress and matching colored pumps The beauty teamed the look with a crisp white shirt underneath her blazer and vest with cropped trousers that futher excentuated her enviable 5'10" height. Her heels were kept simplistic yet with a unique design. Imaan had her dark hair slicked back with a center path and completed her striking look with a red lip. Adwoa stunned in a chic sleeveless style red midi-length dress and matching colored pumps. The event was also graced by the stunning Elise Crombez. Kristen Stewart rocked a throwback chic hairdo complete with frosted tips when she was spotted out in Los Angeles this Thursday. The 28-year-old The Runaways star was ambling around the Los Feliz area with her hairstylist pal CJ Romero and a female friend. Accessorizing with cat-eye tortoiseshell shades and a gleaming lock necklace, Kristen teamed a thick sweater with Adidas leggings. Hoofing it: Kristen Stewart rocked a throwback chic hairdo complete with frosted tips when she was spotted out in Los Angeles this Thursday CJ has plied his trade for such celebrities as Nicholas Hoult and Kristen's Twilight co-star Taylor Lautner, according to his website. Kristen is featuring as one of Charlie's Angels in a reboot film of the franchise, helmed by actress and Pitch Perfect 2 director Elizabeth Banks. Naomi Scott, Ella Balinska, Patrick Stewart and Elizabeth herself are starring with Kristen in the new movie, which is due out November 1. Kristen, whose ex-girlfriends include Victoria's Secret Angel Stella Maxwell and musician St. Vincent, recently featured biopic of Lizzie Borden, who in 1893 was acquitted of slaughtering her father and stepmother. On the move: The 28-year-old The Runaways star was ambling around the Los Feliz area with her hairstylist pal CJ Romero and a female friend Chloe Sevigny assumed the leading role, while Kristen played the family's Irish maid Bridget Sullivan, who found herself enmeshed in the case. In August 1892, Abby and Andrew Borden were butchered with a hatchet in their Falls River, Massachusetts home. Lizzie, then 32 years old, was charged with the crime and went to trial the following June in what became a nationwide media frenzy. What a quartet: Kristen (second from left) is starring with (from left) Ella Balinska, Elizabeth Banks and Naomi Scott in a Charlie's Angels reboot directed by Elizabeth Bridget, whom the family purportedly used to call 'Maggie,' was one of the witnesses called, and her testimony is often credited with helping secure Lizzie's acquittal. Though Lizzie was legally off the hook, nobody else has subsequently been charged with the murders, and the case remains cold to this day. The movie premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival a year ago and bowed in theaters in September, eventually getting a 65% on Rotten Tomatoes. Sometimes, dead is better. That's the tagline for the forthcoming horror film Pet Sematary, which had a chilling new trailer drop on Thursday. The Stephen King adaptation stars Jason Clarke, John Lithgow and Amy Smeitz, and is about a graveyard which has the ability to resurrect anything -or anyone- buried there. Behind you! The forthcoming horror film Pet Sematary had a chilling new trailer drop on Thursday. Seen here is star Jason Clarke However the premise of the film's latest trailer is that whomever rises from the grave doesn't necessarily 'come back the same'. The preview begins with the recently moved Louis Creed, his wife Rachel and their kids Ellie and Gage exploring the woods around their new house and discovering a 'Pet Sematary'. Doctor Louis (played by Australian actor Jason Clarke) explains to his daughter Ellie that the graveyard is a 'place to bury our pets and remember them'. 'I know it seems scary, but it's not,' he placates the creeped-out girl. All star cast: The Stephen King adaptation stars Jason Clarke, John Lithgow [pictured] and Amy Smeitz, and is about a graveyard which has the ability to resurrect anything -or anyone- buried there Look who's back: The premise of the film's latest trailer is that whomever rises from the grave doesn't necessarily 'come back the same' Totally normal: The preview begins with the recently moved Louis Creed, his wife Rachel and their kids Ellie and Gage exploring the woods around their new house and discovering a 'Pet Sematary' Apple of his eye: Doctor Louis (played by Australian actor Jason Clarke) explains to his daughter Ellie [played by Jete Laurence, pictured] that the graveyard is a 'place to bury our pets and remember them' Whoops: Then when family cat Church is killed by a truck, Louis buries her in the Pet Sematary - only for the cat to return, seemingly alive and well The family's new neighbor Jud Crandall (played by John Lithgow) is less blase about the burial ground, warning Louis, 'there's something up there.' Then when family cat Church is killed, Louis buries her in the Pet Sematary - only for the cat to return, seemingly alive and well. 'The cat was dead,' exclaims Louis, for Jud to explain that the graveyard 'brings things back'. What the? 'The cat was dead,' exclaims Louis, for Jud to explain that the graveyard 'brings things back' Logical: And when Ellie is killed by a speeding truck, the grief-stricken doctor can't resist the urge to bury his only daughter in the cemetery Hug it out! Sure enough, the girl returns, but the trailer teases that Ellie is not the same child she once was Star: Amy Seimetz [pictured here] plays Louis' wife, Rachel Creed And when Ellie is killed by a speeding truck, the grief-stricken doctor can't resist the urge to bury his only daughter in the cemetery. Sure enough, the girl returns, but the trailer teases that Ellie is not the same child she once was. The rest of the trailer features many unsettling images, which ratchet up the scare factor, including a knife-wielding child, a hand emerging from a grave and Ellie's body contorting as bones protrude from her shoulder blades and back. Jud warns an increasingly unhinged Louis that 'sometimes dead is better' - before the old man has his Achilles Heel slashed by a razor blade. Better get some ointment on that: The rest of the trailer features many unsettling images, which ratchet up the scare factor, including a knife-wielding child, a hand emerging from a grave and Ellie's body contorting as bones protrude from her shoulder blades and back The master of macabre: The movie is based on the 1983 novel by acclaimed horror author Stephen King Scream fest: It is directed by Starry Eyes auteurs Kevin Kolsch and Dennis Widmyer The movie is based on the 1983 novel by acclaimed horror author Stephen King. It is directed by Starry Eyes auteurs Kevin Kolsch and Dennis Widmyer. The bestselling fiction book which was already adapted once into a movie in 1989, with director Mary Lambert at the helm. That film starred Dale Midkiff as Louis and Fred Gwynne as his neighbor, Jud. The forthcoming adaptation is set for release on April 5. With the Grammy Awards just a few days away, host Alicia Keys teamed up with Late Late Show host James Corden for a parody of Shallow from A Star Is Born. Keys appeared on Wednesday night's episode of Late Late Show where they both sang a rather unique version of the hit song Shallow, originally sung by Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga. This version of the song features Keys, a first-time Grammy host, asking Corden, who hosted the awards ceremony in 2017 and 2018, for some advice. Alicia and James: Alicia Keys teams up with James Corden for a parody of the hit song Shallow from A Star Is Born on Late Late Show Wednesday night While Keys accompanying on the piano, Corden begins the song with, 'Tell me something, Keys/I hear you're set to host this year's Grammys.' Keys melodically sings back, 'Did you host it twice?/Maybe you could give me some advice.' 'Com-fy shoes,' Corden sings back. 'After four hours you'll find yourself drinking cheap booze/Stealing from gift bags you can get for free. Parody: While Keys accompanying on the piano, Corden begins the song with, 'Tell me something, Keys/I hear you're set to host this year's Grammys' Corden continues, 'Try not to be scared, act like you've been there,' before Keys belts out, in a powerful fashion, 'You know I've won 15 times!' She continues, 'If a speech goes long, or I hate someone's song,' before Corden interjects with, 'The host has to be polite.' The Shallow chorus is replaced with, 'Hosting the Grammys, hosting the Grammys, hosting the Grammys is Alicia Keys.' Grammy winner: Corden continues, 'Try not to be scared, act like you've been there,' before Keys belts out, in a powerful fashion, 'You know I've won 15 times!' Keys even managed to slip in a lyric to one of her own songs during the parody, with, 'This girl is on fire.' She also referenced rapper Cardi B, singing, 'Hanging with Cardi at the after-party how does she make that sound?' After Corden tries to mimic Cardi's iconic sound, she closes out the song singing in tandem with Corden. Girl on fire: Keys even managed to slip in a lyric to one of her own songs during the parody, with, 'This girl is on fire' 'I think I'll be all right, on music's biggest night, I'm hosting the Grammy's now,' the sung. The song they parodied, Shallow, is up for four Grammys, Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Best Pop Duo/Group Performance and Best Song Written for a Visual Medium. The 61st Grammys, hosted by Keys, airs Sunday, February 10 at 5 PM PT from the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Love Island star Dani Dyer confirmed she has forgiven her boyfriend Jack Fincham following his recent confession that he snorted cocaine on a night out. The show winner shared a sweet selfie on Instagram shortly after a source told The Sun that the pair were seen engaging in a steamy romp at their London flat, in front of the window for all passers-by to see. This comes after Dani, 23, reunited with Jack, 26, following her return from Tanzania on Thursday, with her sweet selfie following on from his post on Instagram Stories of a loved-up selfie in which he shared a bed with the ex-barmaid. Happy days: Love Island star Dani Dyer confirmed she has forgiven her boyfriend Jack Fincham following his recent confession that he snorted cocaine on a night out Dani and Jack's romance was rocked to its core upon Jack's recent drug shame, yet insiders insist the couple were spotted enjoying a steamy reunion. The source claimed: 'However annoyed Dani was about Jack's cocaine use and partying, she seems to have well and truly forgiven him... 'They were all over each other in the window with the curtains open and clearly enjoying making up together, absolutely anyone could have seen it.' A representative for Jack declined to comment when contacted by MailOnline. Representatives for Dani have been contacted for comment. They're OK: The show winner shared a sweet selfie on Instagram shortly after a source told The Sun that the pair were seen engaging in a steamy romp at their London flat, in front of the window for all passers-by to see What drama? A source told the publication that the pair were seen engaging in a steamy romp at their London flat, after reuniting for a cosy bed selfie on Thursday (above) Uh oh! The couple were reportedly seen getting up close during a make-up romp at home This comes after Jack and Dani were finally reunited on Thursday morning following her Red Nose Day work in Africa - ahead of her return to Tanzania in the coming weeks to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. In the Instagram Stories snap, the two reality stars were in their pyjamas as Jack captioned the picture with: 'Spilt tea down my front,' followed by a facepalm emoji. The Instagram post comes after Dani shared a picture to her own social media platform with her Red Nose Day team in Africa. Posing on a hill top with stunning scenery behind them, the daughter of EastEnders legend Danny Dyer captioned it with: 'So much love to the team. Thankyou for giving me this experience. Being friends and getting it done together. Always will remember this in my heart @comicrelief.' Hard at work: Meanwhile Jack gave fans a tease of his upcoming role in The Full Monty: Live, as he posted a snap of him donning a sailor's uniform Red Nose Day: Jack and Dani were reunited after she returned from her trip to Tanzania (above) Dani has been sharing several updates throughout her trip and after Jack's cocaine shame. On Wednesday, the aspiring actress admitted that being in Africa has been 'emotional for her and put things into perspective.' Continuing to explain how she was feeling about her gruelling Kilimanjaro trek, Dani continued: 'It shows me what really matters and what I need to address in the world, rather than all pointless things, really.' Charity work: Dani has been sharing several updates throughout her Comic Relief trip and after Jack's cocaine shame Candid: On Wednesday, the aspiring actress admitted that being in Africa has been 'emotional for her and put things into perspective.' Meanwhile, in her selfie Dani looked radiant as she took a selfie of herself wearing a yellow hair wrap and sunglasses in a car with green scenery behind her. She captioned it with: 'What an experience, what a journey can't wait for you to follow it.' The two reality stars' updates come just hours after Dani's boyfriend Jack confessed to binging on cocaine during a wild night out after finding fame on the hit ITV2 show. 'It shows what I need to address in the world': Dani continued to explain how she was feeling about her gruelling Kilimanjaro trek after Jack Fincham's drug shame The reality star said that he caved to peer pressure after finding himself on nights out where the drinks are free and everyone is trying to be his friend. During the explosive interview, Jack revealed that Dani told him that everyone makes mistakes and is willing to forgive him as long as he never does it again. However he believes that her famous father Danny Dyer won't view the situation as lightly, and told The Sun that 'most dads would take a dim view of it'. After finding love with Dani on last year's series of Love Island the couple went on to win the show, however it appears Jack has struggled with the realities of fame. Drugs shame: The two reality stars' updates come just hours after Dani's boyfriend Jack confessed to binging on cocaine during a wild night out after finding fame on the ITV2 show Smitten: During the explosive interview, Jack revealed that Dani told him that everyone makes mistakes and is willing to forgive him as long as he never does it again Talking to the publication, he said: ' I've told Dani, and obviously she doesn't agree with anything like that at all. 'She doesn't like all that. But obviously, she'll always support me. She said: 'I'll always support you, you made a mistake, we all make mistakes, but don't ever do it again. I don't want to bring her into it, I've had a conversation with her and it's not fair .' However, on Wednesday it was reported that Dani had moved out of their shared home after her mother Joanne Mas was pictured at their flat picking up her belongings. Just hours before Jack's confession, Dani shared another picture of her getaway as she continues to tease fans with a glimpse into her adventure. Wow! On Wednesday it was reported that Dani had moved out of their shared home after her mother Joanne Mas was pictured at their flat picking up her belongings Fear: As Dani prepares herself for her Red Nose Day of Kilimanjaro, she revealed another of her fears on Twitter last week Standing in jeans and a white T-shirt, the Love Island winner, 22, shared a poignant photograph of herself at the top of a hill, overlooking the city below her. She captioned the breathtaking photograph: 'I can't wait for you to find out what I've been doing here. I've met some beautiful people @comicrelief #returntokili.' The aspiring actress also took to her Instagram Stories to share a photograph of herself journeying to her destination. Her Comic Relief update comes after Dani she revealed another of her fears on Twitter last week, as she prepares herself for the one of the biggest challenges of her life. Showtime: The Love Island champion, 22, will face a gruelling eight-day trek battling altitude sickness, basic camping conditions and freezing night-time temperatures for the charity climb The Love Island champion will face a gruelling eight-day trek battling altitude sickness, basic camping conditions and freezing night-time temperatures for the charity climb with fellow celebs. And the brunette beauty admitted she is concerned about taking anti-Malarial tablets, due to fears about horrendous side-effects. She wrote: 'Has anyone on here taken malaria tablets before any bad side effects? I've heard such horror stories and I'm worrying.' Malaria is a serious tropical disease spread by mosquitoes. Unless treated promptly, it can be fatal. Fear: the brunette beauty admitted she is concerned about taking anti-Malarial tablets, due to fears about horrendous side-effects WHAT IS MALARIA? Malaria is a serious tropical disease spread by mosquitoes. Unless treated promptly, it can be fatal. Symptoms include fever, headache, vomiting, diarrhoea, muscle pain, and aches and chills. These usually occur seven to 18 days after infection. The main risk areas are large regions of Africa and Asia, and Central and South America. Malaria can be prevented by applying insect repellent, sleeping beneath a special net, and covering your arms and legs. Antimalarial medication should be taken if necessary. Treatment varies but may include antimalarial drugs. Nearly half of the global population is at risk of malaria, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). In 2016 alone, there were an estimated 216 million cases of the disease - a rise of five million from the previous year - and around 445,000 deaths. Source: NHS Choices Advertisement Symptoms include fever, headache, vomiting, diarrhoea, muscle pain, and aches and chills. These usually occur seven to 18 days after infection, The main risk areas are large regions of Africa and Asia, and Central and South America. Anti-malarial medication can cause side effects including nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, headaches, insomnia, dizziness and vivid dreams. This comes as Dani admitted she will get emotional at the prospect of being separated from beau Jack Fincham during an appearance on This Morning. Tough: This comes as Dani admitted she will get emotional at the prospect of being separated from beau Jack Fincham during an appearance on Wednesday's episode of This Morning Miss you: Bar a brief split, the couple have gone from strength to strength since leaving the Love Island villa last summer despite his cocaine shame As the show aired a clip of the excited reality star in training, she opened up about being away from her hunky love when she jets to Tanzania. She said: 'I'll be away for ten days and this is the longest me and Jack will be away from each other, I'll probably will have a little cry, I'll miss giving him a cuddle.' Discussing how the tough conditions in Tanzania will impact on her beauty regime she said: 'I like having lashes but I'm gonna try and go as natural as possible. Challenge: The Love Island winner, 22, will join celebs for the challenge set to air in a one-hour BBC documentary Kilimanjaro: The Return She's the newest Australian model to join Khloe Kardashian's #GoodSquad. And on Friday, Ellie Gonsalves revealed it's not just a business relationship she shares with the U.S. reality star, but a personal one too. Speaking to Daily Mail Australia, the 28-year-old explained that Khloe reached out to her personally after her father's death by suicide. EXCLUSIVE: 'She was one of the first people I spoke to after my dad died': Good American model Ellie Gonsalves has revealed how Khloe Kardashian helped her after her father's suicide 'She was one of the first people I spoke to after my dad died when I was living in Los Angeles,' Ellie said. 'Khloe gave me really good advice and she was just really lovely and very supportive. She gave me advice that stuck with me for a very long time.' Ellie continued: 'She could relate to what I was going through after losing my dad, so she gave me her own take on how she has dealt with personal matters in her family. Supportive: 'She was one of the first people I spoke to after my dad died when I was living in Los Angeles,' Ellie told Daily Mail Australia. Pictured: Khloe Kardashian Ellie explained that it was her personal trainer, who was also Khloe's trainer at the time, who told the KUWTK star about her father's death. 'As soon as I arrived at the gym when I came back [from her father's funeral] she just gave me a huge hug and said, "I'm so sorry".' Elsewhere in the interview, Ellie revealed she was actually approached by Khloe personally to become an Australian ambassador for her label Good American. Sisterhood: Ellie explained that it was her personal trainer, who was also Khloe's trainer at the time, who told the KUWTK star about her father's death New role: Ellie is the newest Australian model to join Khloe Kardashian's #GoodSquad 'Because Khloe already knew me, she just asked me personally if I would like to come and shoot the campaign!' she said. 'It was my first shoot with Good American and it was just so fun. 'The whole team is just really amazing. They make everyone feel comfortable and confident.' The 16th season of her hit reality show debuts next month. And Kim Kardashian was ready to dish on her famous family as she stepped out in a skin-tight snakeskin dress for an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in New York. The 38-year-old fashionista showed off her killer curves in the sparkling sequined dress on her way to the studio at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. Hello: Kim Kardashian was ready to dish on her famous family as she stepped out in a skin-tight snakeskin dress for an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in New York Wow factor: She certainly put her famous curves on show Kim flaunted her svelte waistline in the figure-hugging number which featured long sleeves and a high neckline. A cutout slit dragged from her collarbone to the top of her chest and added a daring element to the glistening gown. She perched her petite 5ft3in frame in black velvet boots by Yeezy and opted to go accessory-free for the night out. She was styled by Danielle Levi. Second skin: Kim's outfit clung to every inch of her figure as she sashayed down the sidewalk Wow: The 38-year-old fashionista showed off her killer curves in the sparkling sequined dress on her way to the studio at 30 Rockefeller Plaza Power walk: Kim flaunted her svelte waistline in the figure-hugging number which featured long sleeves and a high neckline Her long brown hair was tied up into a messy bun with tendrils cascading to her shoulders and framing her face. The Keeping Up With The Kardashians star chose subtle glam for the evening with rose hues swiped across her lids and a pale pink pout. In a new trailer for the upcoming season of her reality show, Kim finds out that older sister Kourtney is 'obsessed' with Kanye West, only for Kim to reply, 'Well ... the family that swaps together, stays together.' Fashion: A cutout slit dragged from her collarbone to the top of her chest and added a daring element to the glistening gown Flaunt it: Kim looked every inch the cover girl as she stepped out in chic couture Style: She perched her petite 5ft3in frame in black velvet boots and opted to go accessory-free for the night out Kim is likely celebrating the recent addition to her real estate portfolio after she purchased a property adjacent to her Hidden Hills abode. Jonesing for some land, her new purchase comes after Kim and Kanye backed out of the sale of $14million holiday home in Miami Beach, after rising concerns over security. Unfortunately for the couple, Kanye will lose the $600,000 down payment he made on the property when he reserved it as a Christmas gift for his wife. The married couple - who have North, five, Saint, three, and Chicago, 12 months, and are expecting their fourth via a surrogate - are now looking into property in the Bahamas. Chic: Her long brown hair was tied up into a messy bun with tendrils cascading to her shoulders and framing her face She recently revealed the secret behind her stunning looks is sleeping for 14 hours a night. And Rhian Sugden looked as radiant as ever as she attended Menagerie Theatrical's dining experience event at Salford, Manchester, on Thursday evening. The glamour model, 32, took a walk on the wild side as she slipped into a low-cut emerald dress, embellished with animal printing throughout. Style savvy: Rhian Sugden looked as radiant as ever as she attended Menagerie Theatrical's dining experience event at Salford, Manchester, on Thursday evening Ensuring all eyes were on her, the CBB star enhanced her height in a pair of trendy peep-toe ankle boots. The TV personality injected even more glamour into her look as she toted a quilted chain-strap handbag and decorated her decolletage with a dainty silver necklace. With her blonde tresses styled into glamorous waves, the reality star complemented her beauty with full-on false lashes, heavy strokes of bronzer and glossy red lipstick. Catching the eye: The glamour model, 32, took a walk on the wild side as she slipped into a low-cut emerald dress, embellished with animal printing throughout Meanwhile, Rhian recently admitted she is 'like a sloth' and will happily 'go to bed at 10AM and wake up at midday'. She has put her love of slumber down to her youthful good looks - also insisting she avoids make-up where possible. Speaking to The Sun, she said: 'I like my sleep. I can sleep for 14 hours a day. Im like a sloth. If Im not working I can go to bed at 10PM and wake at midday. I think its a skill, I can sleep anywhere. 'I dont wear make-up unless I have to, so Im not rubbing my face to take it off later. I dont even put on lipstick, just lip balm. Unless I am going out with [husband] Oliver or going to an event, I dont put anything on', she added. Turning heads: Corrie's Katie McGlynn was also in attendance, putting on a chic display in a quirky feathered jacket, a satin shirt and thigh-high boots Taking it easy: Meanwhile, the TV personality recently admitted she is 'like a sloth' and will happily 'go to bed at 10AM and wake up at midday' The blonde beauty also claims that staying out of the sun helps, as well as using a cheap face cream her 66-year-old mother uses - as well as Joanna Lumley and Amanda Holden. The cream - which contains lanolin from sheeps wool and glycerine - paired with a simple face wash is the secret to Rhian's glow, she insists. She also admitted: 'I dont go for healthy eating. I eat pie and mash and fish and chips, and I like white wine. It keeps you feeling young. I drink when I want.' Rhian wed Oliver Mellor, her boyfriend of six years, in a blissful ceremony by the Mediterranean sea, with their close friends and family in attendance in September, 2018. Stef Blok said the initial diplomatic contacts were aimed at paving the way for formal talks and conducted in 'a positive atmosphere.' The Netherlands is in diplomatic discussions with Russia that Moscow bears legal responsibility for its role in the 2014 downing of a passenger jet over Ukraine (Photo:AP) The Hague: The Netherlands is in diplomatic discussions with Russia about the European country's assertion that Moscow bears legal responsibility for its role in the 2014 downing of a passenger jet over Ukraine, the Dutch foreign minister said. Foreign Minister Stef Blok Thursday said the initial diplomatic contacts were aimed at paving the way for formal talks and conducted in "a positive atmosphere." He said it was too early to say where and when formal talks might take place. "There are diplomatic contacts to see if we can begin formal talks about national responsibility for shooting down MH17," Blok told Dutch reporters. The Netherlands and Australia said last year they held Russia legally responsible for providing the missile that brought down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over conflict-ravaged eastern Ukraine. All 298 passengers and crew members were killed. About two-thirds of the people killed when a Buk missile fired from territory held by pro-Russian rebels slammed into the Boeing 777 were Dutch. The Netherlands has been one of the main driving forces behind seeking accountability for the attack. Silene Fredriksz-Hoogzand, whose son Bryce was on board the scheduled flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur with his girlfriend, tweeted in response to Blok's update: "It's about time ... 5 years on." International investigators last year said they had strong evidence the Buk missile system that shot down the airplane came from a Russia-based military unit. Russia has denied involvement and dismissed the findings from the international criminal probe because it was not invited to be part of the investigation team. If Russia were ultimately to acknowledge some form of legal responsibility, it could lead to compensation claims from relatives of the people killed. When the Netherlands and Australia last year said they were holding Russia responsible, they quickly got backing from the United States, Britain and other allies. "It is time for Russia to acknowledge its role in the shooting down of MH17 and to cease its callous disinformation campaign," US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement at the time. Heathrow Airport is stockpiling rubber gloves so its security staff can continue to search passengers in the event of a no-deal Brexit. The gloves, as well as fabric swabs that test for explosives and parts used on baggage carousels, are all imported from the EU to the London hub. If the UK crashes out of the EU without a deal, there are concerns that border disruption could affect imported supplies to the UK's busiest airport. The CEO of Heathrow Airport, pictured, has revealed it is stockpiling rubber gloves so that security searches can continue in the event of a no deal Brexit Speaking at an event organised by the British Chambers of Commerce to promote business at Heathrow, the airport's chief executive, John Holland-Kaye, said he was confident the transport hub would operate as normal after Britain leaves the union on March 29. However, he revealed that certain items were being stockpiled in case supplies can't get through. He was quoted by the Guardian as saying: 'The obvious thing you might think of is our baggage system, which has a Dutch supplier, so do we have the spare parts? 'But some of the other things that are more urgent are the rubber gloves that security officers wear when they are searching somebody. They come from the EU and if you dont have them, you cant search people. 'The fabric swabs that we use for detection also come from the EU, and there isnt a UK supplier, so we need to make sure weve got a good stockpile of those. Weve been working on that for some time.' Mr Holland-Kaye also explained that the airport is planning for extra pressure on its cargo facilities in the event of sea and land freight being stuck at Channel ports. However, rubber gloves and swabs aren't the only items being stockpiled by the travel industry. Last month it was revealed that airline meals are being stockpiled by the world's biggest caterer to the aviation industry over fears a no-deal Brexit could leave flights without food. Last month it was revealed that airline meals are being stockpiled by the world's biggest caterer to the aviation industry, Gate Gourmet Gate Gourmet provides in-flight catering for 20 airlines in the UK, including British Airways, Virgin Atlantic and easyJet. But as its frozen foods are brought into Britain from Europe, there are concerns that a no-deal Brexit could affect supplies to airlines. Meanwhile, last month, Brits with less than 15 months left on their passports were warned they might not be able to travel to Europe under a no-deal Brexit. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office issued travel advice saying passport validity rules may change from March 29 if Britain crashes out of the EU. It could mean some tourists travelling to popular holiday hotspots such as France , Spain, Portugal and Italy could be banned from entering if their passport is due to expire before June 2020. Advertisement Rare images of the building of the US Transcontinental Railroad and the day the East and West sections united 150 years ago have gone on display in Salt Lake City, close to where it all happened. A collection of photographs and rail memorabilia goes on show this month at the city's Utah Museum of Fine Arts, on the University of Utah campus. It runs until May 26, in the month that marks the anniversary of the day the tracks from either end of the country met up 60 miles away at Promontory Summit, in the so-called meeting of the rails. What the exhibition, The Race to Promontory: The Transcontinental Railroad and the American West, aims to convey is just how momentous a milestone a connected railway was for the nation. East meets West: Chief engineers Samuel S. Montague and General Grenville M. Dodge of Central Pacific Railroad and Union Pacific Railroad, respectively, shake hands at the momentous meeting of the rails near at Promontory Summit, Utah, on May 10, 1869. The ceremony also spotlighted the meeting of Union Pacific locomotive No. 119 (on the right) and Central Pacific locomotive Jupiter The United States: Promontory trestle work and engine No. 2 (above) were critical to challenges such as bridge building. The exhibition, The Race to Promontory: The Transcontinental Railroad and the American West, aims to convey how momentous a milestone a connected railway was for the nation The peak of innovation: Salt Lake City (above) pictured in 1883 from Anderson's Tower, lying in a mountain valley between the Wasatch and Oquirrh mountains. The city's Utah Museum of Fine Arts is showcasing the work of contemporaneous photographers who were themselves pioneers of the art form, at that time, and runs until May when 150 years of the railroad is marked Photographs and stereographs by Andrew J. Russell, Alfred A. Hart and Charles Savage mark an event celebrated nationally and internationally in 1869 which, for its time, was as groundbreaking as the first moon landing, a century later in 1969. The meeting of the rails is also credited as being the first national news event, coast to coast. Ingenious opportunists attached telegraph wires to a ceremonial spike which they tapped with a silver maul so that the strokes rang out across the country. A bygone era: The wind mill at Laramie, Wyoming, in 1868 (above) illustrates the pre-Transcontinental Railroad landscape the year before the rail tracks from East and West connected and the US was to be forever transformed by migration, development and displaced communities, including the Native Americans The regions responded in kind. Whistles blew in San Francisco, the Liberty Bell rang in Philadelphia and the good people of Washington, DC, responded in a more sedate fashion by holding a ball. The feat of engineering was symbolically pioneering and progressive. Do the locomotion: Promontory trestle work and engine No. 2 (above) as captured by Russell in 1869. The railroad is shown in stark contrast to its precursor, the traditional horse and cart, in this albumen silver print, on loan from the Union Pacific Railroad Museum to the Utah Museum of Fine Arts. The arrival of the railroad was to herald the end of the concept of the frontier A locomotive near the American River, California, is packed full of Central Pacific Railroad staff. This image dates to 1865, the year that the American Civil War had ended having attempted to settle the disputes between the North and South. The joining of the rail tracks four years later would signal a significant uniting of the West and East coasts of the United States Forbidding landscape: A hanging rock in 1868 at the foot of Echo Canon (above) is among staggering scenery in Utah where the West and East coast rail tracks were to join up a year later. Photographs and stereographs by Andrew J. Russell, Alfred A. Hart and Charles Savage mark an event celebrated nationally and internationally in 1869 which, for its time, was as groundbreaking as the first moon landing, a century later in 1969 The railroad was completed shortly after the American Civil War ended. The war aimed to settle the issues of central over regional government rule and the rights of slaves, while the joined up Transcontinental Railroad further heralded the era of a more united country. If the Civil War between 1861 and 1865 attempted to put to bed the political divide between the North and the South, then the meeting of the rails united East and West. On the right tracks: The scene in 1869 near Deeth, California, with Mount Halleck in the background. This image was taken by Hart, one of three pioneering photographers whose work documents the almost four-year feat of engineering. The meeting of the rails is credited as being the first national news event, coast to coast. Ingenious opportunists attached telegraph wires to a ceremonial spike which they tapped with a silver maul so that the strokes rang out across the country Engine room: The train driver's perspective as a locomotive circumnavigates Cape Horn en route to Iowa Hill, California (above), in 1866. It shows one of the earlier parts of track laid by predominantly Chinese workers from Central Pacific Railroad Breathtaking backdrop: Castle Rock, Green River Valley (above), is among the sights Transcontinental users came to enjoy. This image was taken in 1868 by Russell who joins Hart and Savage as the pioneering triumvirate that capitalised on another emerging innovation, photography As in the aftermath of any war, generous government investment became available to rebuild the infrastructure, and the Transcontinental Railroad was among the projects to benefit from the windfall. The two lines were built by Chinese immigrants working for the Central Pacific line (west to east) and Irish immigrants working for the Union Pacific line (east to west) and they represented the new face of the States. Members of the Church of Latter-Day Saints worked alongside them. Hart captures the camp at the so-called end of the track where Chinese workers for the Central Pacific Railroad stayed (above), in 1868. The workforce were responsible for building the line from California East towards Utah where it joined up with the Union Pacific Railroad component built by Irish immigrants from East to West No mod cons: Rail workers in Laramie, Wyoming (above), forsook creature comforts to help build the 1,912-mile railroad. This image taken by Russell in 1868 shows the sacrifices made by the men who worked on the project for 46 months. Completion of the line led to national celebration. Whistles blew in San Francisco, the Liberty Bell rang in Philadelphia and the good people of Washington, DC, responded in a more sedate fashion by holding a ball It took this international workforce 46 months of endeavour before tracks from either side of the country could be laid from end-to-end. Their efforts created a railroad that stretched 1,912 miles (3,077 km) coast-to-coast. This revolutionised travel for US inhabitants. The rail journey from New York to San Francisco, which once took six months, now took only ten days. Feat of engineering: A locomotive on a turntable in California (above) in 1865. This device was critical to Central Pacific Railroad's ambitious plans to lay the track from the West Coast towards Utah. The connection cut journey times from New York to San Francisco from six months to ten days Very few members of the population were unaffected by the development. The lives of Native Americans were forever changed. New migration spurred by the railroad hastened the end of the Indian Wars and the beginning of the reservation era. Paiute Indians in Reno (above) were among the communities whose lives were changed by railroad-led migration. This image was taken in 1868 before new migration spurred by the railroad hastened the end of the Indian Wars and the beginning of the reservation era Cultural revolution: Shoshone Indians scrutinising the locomotives whose arrival marked the end of their traditional lifestyle. This image is dated to 1868. The railroad led to developments such as mail cars and telegraph wires, which assisted communication throughout the country The connectivity facilitated mass migration from one part of the country to another. It also created a method to transport produce grown nationally or imported from abroad, including tea from Japan and opened up opportunities for commuting. Mail cars and telegraph wires assisted communication throughout the country. Hell of a ride: The evocatively named Devil's Slide, Utah (above), is among the jaw-dropping scenery rail users came to enjoy. The exact date of the image is not known, but it's thought to be between 1870 and 1875. Members of the Church of Latter-Day Saints also worked on the construction Trail of the lonesome pine: Passengers were treated to spectacular scenery (above) once the US coasts were united The art of photography, emergent as it was in the 1860s, is as celebrated in the exhibition as the construction event it documents. It features 50 framed imperial albumen prints by Russell and 108 stereograph cards by Hart as well as Savage's shots. Other artefacts include rail spikes and train company documents. The Joslyn Art Museum and Union Pacific, both in Omaha, Nebraska, and the Union Pacific Railroad Museum, Council Bluffs, Iowa, have lent items from their respective collections. Another era: Savage captures the old school charm of the Saltair Pavilion (above), just outside Salt Lake City, in 1892. Sadly, it burnt down in 1925 Advertisement They wouldn't look out of place in a sci-fi fantasy world. But these buildings actually exist - on planet earth. Among them are a whole host of buildings designed by renowned architect Frank Gehry, including the futuristic Lou Ruvo Center near Las Vegas, the Dancing House in Prague and the colourful Marques De Riscal Hotel in Spain. The stunning Interlace building in Singapore also looks other worldly and resembles a random pattern of Jenga bricks placed on top of each other. The V&A Dundee also makes the grade thanks to its mesmerising design inspired by Scottish cliffs. Scroll down to discover just how wild an architect can be... The Cleveland Clinic's Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health opened near Las Vegas in 2010 and was designed by renowned American-Canadian architect Frank Gehry. Gehry wanted to make the building look as memorable. After all, the theme of the center is 'keeping memory alive' The Interlace building in Singapore is a 1,000-apartment complex that looks like a random pattern of Jenga bricks. It was designed by architecture firm OMA, as well as architect Ole Scheeren, and opened in 2013. It was the winner of the World Building of the Year awards in 2015 Game on: The King Power MahaNakhon is a bizarre skyscraper in Bangkok - and one of the tallest buildings in Thailand. It stands at 78 storeys high and opened in 2016, with architect Ole Scheeren among those that created the design. The cutaway parts of the building are meant to give the effect of it being pixelated The V&A Dundee opened in September 2018 and was designed by renowned Japanese architects Kengo Kuma & Associates. It's their first building in the UK. The museum stands on the banks of the River Tay and the shape of the building is said to have been inspired by the cliffs on Scotland's north-eastern coastline. Part of the building juts out over the water and is meant to resemble the prow of a boat, honouring Dundee's shipbuilding history The distinctive looking United States Air Force Academy Chapel is located in Colorado Springs and opened in 1962. It was designed by Walter Netsch of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill of Chicago. The building is 150 feet high and cost $3.5million to build. The frame of the entire chapel is constructed out of 100 identical tetrahedrons, weighing five tons each This jaw-droppingly wacky pyramid-shaped building is an 18-storey residential structure situated in Kunshan, a city near Shanghai. It stands at 330 feet tall and was designed by Masters' Architectural Office. The Shanghai-based firm said it was inspired by parkour, an urban activity much-loved by Chinese city dwellers that sees people running and jumping between buildings Tempranillo vines surround the colourful Marques De Riscal Hotel in Elciego, Spain, which opened in 2006. It was designed by Frank Gehry and its pink-hued exterior is said to resemble a ribbon wrapped around a present. The hotel has 43 luxurious rooms and suites. The interior was also designed by Gehry The Fondation Louis Vuitton, left, is an art museum and cultural centre in Paris that opened in October 2014. Its design is inspired by the glass structure of the Grand Palais on the Champs Elysees. Pictured right is the Dr Chau Chak Wing Building, in Sydney, which is part of the University of Technology Sydney. The building was created using custom-made bricks, with many saying it looks like a 'squashed paper bag'. Both were designed by Frank Gehry It might look like a giant shell, but this building is in fact the Ordos Museum in Inner Mongolia, China. It was designed by the MAD architecture firm and houses collections relating to the local history of Ordos and the surrounding area. The design was influenced by the Gobi desert and the building is clad in polished metal tiles that are resistant to frequently occurring sandstorms The Metropolitan Cathedral of Our Lady Aparecida, which is also known as The Cathedral of Brasilia. It was designed by Oscar Niemeyer and is the Roman Catholic cathedral serving Brasilia and the seat of the Archdiocese of Brasilia. It was completed and dedicated on May 31, 1970 Known as the Star Wars house, this residential home in South Korea was designed by architect Moon Hoon. It received its name after Hoon said the top floor looks like 'a place that could be a control room for Darth Vader' The IAC Building in Manhattan's Chelsea neighbourhood is the only building in New York to be designed by Frank Gehry. It opened in 2007 and is the headquarters of Barry Diller's media and Internet empire, InterActive Corp, which owns over 150 brands across 100 countries The Dancing House in the Czech capital Prague is often referred to as Fred and Ginger after the famous dancers Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. It was designed by Frank Gehry, who had been inspired by the Hollywood stars. The building was completed in 1996 and is now the home of the Nationale Nederlanden bank The Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle is most certainly a distinctive building - it's based on the shape of a 'smashed electric guitar'. It was designed by Frank Gehry and looks similar to the well-known Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. The Seattle Center Monorail, on the right, runs right through the building Galaxy Soho is a shopping and office building in the heart of Beijing, designed by Zaha Hadid Architects. It opened in 2012 and has continuous contours, meaning the building has no corners. The design won an award from the Royal Institute of British Architects but some in Beijing say the building 'destroys the city's heritage' Deep in the woods it appears like a sudden apparition: a lone wolf on the path ahead of us. It's there just long enough for us to register its presence, then it vanishes. Yes, wolves (and bears) do stalk the rugged interior of Abruzzo, southern Italy, although in the 12 years we've holidayed here we've never seen one before. Abruzzo is not a regular tourist haunt there are no leaning towers or grand canals but to those who love the wild outdoors it's idyllic. We follow a steep path in the region's Gran Sasso National Park, when round a bend we're startled to meet two people. We normally trek all day without seeing another soul. Tagliacozzo is one of the many scenic towns that can be explored in the Abruzzan hills Even more surprisingly they're British and holding blue and white paint spray guns. Is this a local version of paintball? They introduce themselves as Peter and Dany Wilkinson, who inspired by their passion for the area and love of trekking and mountain biking are on a mission to make the uncharted region accessible to all. 'Why not try the path to the right?' says Peter. 'But it goes nowhere,' I reply, having tried it before when it petered out into brambles. 'Not now it doesn't,' is the response. So we try it. The path is a revelation well marked and beautiful. It curves round the mountain and through a steep narrow valley alongside a river. We plunge into deep beech woods flecked with dappled sunlight. A cuckoo calls above us; at our feet grow wild mushrooms. Wide-eyed wander: The wide, grassy plains of the region are full of trails In autumn these woods turn as golden as New England in the fall, but today they offer welcome shade from a hot sun. Gradually we emerge into bright sun, and a wide grassy plain a sea of green fringed by trees called Voltigno. It's about 1,300 metres above sea level and empty apart from wild horses and cattle. We meet a shepherd carrying an umbrella (for the sun) with eight white sheepdogs. He tells us he will leave them foraging for themselves and protecting 200 sheep while he returns for days at a time to his mountain village. Following the reassuring blue and white painted markers we enter more beech woods, interspersed with sunlit meadows virgin pastures full of wild flowers, herbs and orchids; splashes of yellow, blue, white and purple against the brilliant green of the meadow grass. Intense quiet: Abruzzo is not a regular tourist destination, it is an Italian wilderness And we reflect on the solitude, the intense quiet, the feeling of being in the middle of nowhere. Suddenly, we are in the open and spread out before us is a panorama of mountains: Corno Grande (the second highest in Italy outside the Alps) is topped with snow and a halo of cloud and Camicia (known as the Eiger of the Apennines). To our left the pastel buildings of the mountain village of Castel del Monte, where The American with George Clooney was filmed. Thanks to the marked paths we can reliably reach our favourite mountain restaurant for lunch and what a lunch. For 25 euros each we have hot antipasti, homemade fettuccine with truffle and one of the regional specialities arrosticini small cubes of local lamb grilled quickly at intense heat on a barbecue; all enjoyed with the local house red wine. The village of Castel del Monte where The American, starring George Clooney, was filmed And we toast Peter and Dany for our day's wonderful walking. It has taken them three years talking and walking with the area's pensioners to discover, uncover, map and mark a 50-mile network of trails. Abruzzo offers so much: from hill top villages to an Adriatic coast with coves and reefs; culture the Capestrano Warrior is in Chieti regional food, a huge variety of wines, and olive oil that is among Italy's best. But the walking ... that's its best-kept secret. With his victories over Tommy Fleetwood at the US Open and Tiger Woods at the USPGA, Brooks Koepka had already shown he was the man for the big occasion. No surprise, therefore, to see him become world No 1 for the first time on Sunday with a touch of the spectacular. The classic way to achieve it is by winning a tournament but to do so with an eagle at the final hole is just plain showing off. Its been a dream of mine since I was a kid to become world No 1, so it will be a while before this one sinks in, said the 28-year-old American following his convincing four-shot victory at the CJ Cup on Jeju Island, Korea. Brooks Koepka poses with his trophy after claiming the CJ Cup in South Korea on Sunday Koepka shakes hands with Scott Piercy as Ian Poulter watches on at Nine Bridges Lets hope it sinks in soon enough, because he might only hold on to it for a week. Koepka clambered over his close friend Dustin Johnson to claim top spot but their positions will be reversed this time next week if the latter gets the better of the former at the star-laden HSBC Champions tournament in China, which starts on Thursday. Johnson has shown on two occasions already this year that he doesnt take too kindly to losing his crown. He was displaced by Justin Thomas in May and Justin Rose last month but fought back on both occasions to reclaim pole position. At the Ryder Cup there was a lot of overblown nonsense about best buddies Johnson and Koepka allegedly being involved in a heated confrontation in the European team room on the final evening (even if true, they had kissed and made up by the following morning). The American became world No 1 for the first time on Sunday with a touch of the spectacular Now, in China, there will be a fight between the Bash Brothers so named, it should be stressed, because of their love of lifting weights rather than knocking seven bells out of one another that really will have substance. Dont rule out Rose either, mind. He will lose a lot of ranking points as the HSBC title holder, but a successful defence would still be enough to take him back to the summit. This is the first time since 1997 and only the second since the world rankings began in 1986 that four different players have held the top spot in the same year. Gary Woodland had looked set to give Koepka a run for his money on the final day Looking ahead, there might be even more next year, if Jon Rahm maintains his progress, Frankie Molinari continues to prove a machine and fifth-ranked Rory McIlroy gets his act together. There again, Koepka might just pummel them all into submission. Prior to Sundays success, he had the curious record of three major successes to his name as against just one regular tour victory, but hes sounding now like a man ready to correct that curious anomaly. I feel like I need to win a few more regular events and keep adding majors, he said. I feel my game is set up for that. The major wins have given me so much confidence I just feel like now I have a good chance to win whether I have my A-game or not. Im so excited now, you have no idea. I just cant wait to go play again. In Korea on Sunday, Koepka showed just why he is currently not only the best player on the planet but comfortably the most intimidating. A four-shot lead with a round to play sounds great on paper but its a dangerous one on a course which positively invites low scores. Sure enough, Gary Woodland, another gym rat built in the same mould, started making a charge and pulled level with Koepka with nine holes to play. Poulter's challenge in Jeju fell away in the final round as he finished tied in 10th place Koepkas response, however was stunning. It was like a replay of the USPGA when he answered every Woods birdie with one of his own. Koepka birdied the 10th and the 12th before coming within inches of a hole in one at the par-three 13th. He then birdied the 15th and chipped in at the 16th before capping it all with his eagle at the last for a back nine completed in just 29 strokes. By his side was Ian Poulter, who played the same stretch in a costly 36 shots to fall all the way to 10th. Already voted the player of the year by his peers, Koepka has put the seal on his fantastic season and shown conclusively why there was, in reality, no other choice. Space stations of the future may be built inside distant asteroids, scientists claim. One team of researchers found it would be possible to bore into the middle of a distant space rock, erect a space station and mine valuable minerals from within. They proved it would be mathematically possible, with the right asteroid, to put a cylindrical space station inside a rock several hundred feet wide. Experts say the logistical possibilities of this concept remains an issue and that it is at least several decades away from becoming a reality. Some scientists rebuffed the research and claim not enough is known about the physical composition of asteroids to guarantee building a space station inside a huge rock would not cause it to fragment and break apart. Scroll down for video An asteroid would need to be made of solid stone and spin one to three times a minute to provide enough gravity to resemble that of the Martian surface. Visualisations of the potential project have not been created and it may look like anything from a simple cavern to a complex spacecraft similar to the International Space Station (stock image) Thomas Maindl, from the University of Vienna in Austria, says there are two main benefits to the plan; it would allow the space station to avoid damage from radiation as well as enabling mining to take place. 'If we find an asteroid that's stable enough, we might not need these aluminium walls or anything, you might just be able to use the entire asteroid as a space station,' Dr Maindl told New Scientist. Visualisations of the potential project have not been created and it may look like anything from a simple cavern to a complex spacecraft similar to the International Space Station. An asteroid would need to be made of solid stone and spin one to three times a minute to provide enough gravity for the project to be successful. If this was possible, it would create gravity similar to that of the Martian surface with approximately 38 per cent of the gravity on Earth. WHY DO SCIENTISTS WANT TO MINE ASTEROIDS? Several start-ups have begun to explore the idea of mining near-Earth asteroids for precious resources. The celestial objects are made of carbon, silicon or metal, but it is metallic asteroids that mining companies are most interested in. These rogue blocks of minerals are teeming with precious metals, including pricey platinum, which could be worth quadrillions on Earth. Nickel, iron and gold are also found in abundance within metallic asteroids. Nasa estimates the total value of resources locked in space rocks is 522 quintillion - equivalent to 75 billion ($100 billion) for each person on Earth. A company could send a small space probe to intersect with asteroids as they pass near Earth, and mine them for these resources. Experts have warned that doing so may destroy commodity prices and cause the world's economy to collapse. Advertisement Mining on the surface of most asteroids is impossible as the gravity created by the rocks is insufficient for machinery and makes hammers and other tools useless. Little is known about the physical properties of most asteroids and more information would be needed for the project to take place. The asteroid Bennu (pictured) is the focal point of new scientific studies This, they say, would be sufficient to allow machinery to stay upright and function adequately. Mining on the surface of most asteroids is impossible as the gravity created by the rocks renders hammers and other tools useless. Embedding the operation inside the asteroid would enable the rapid rotation of the tumbling rock to create simulated gravity - making mining a viable option. Details of its physical properties would need to be known beyond the limited information available for many asteroids. 'We do not know physical characteristics of the vast majority of objects in this size range,' says Peter Veres at the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center. Digging out the innards of the asteroid with complex machinery would also be likely to make the asteroid unstable and fragment. 'The border between science and science fiction here is sort of blurry,' says Dr Maindl. 'My gut feeling is that it will be at least 20 years before any asteroid mining happens, let alone something like this.' The research has yet to be peer-reviewed and is found in the arXiv. AT&T is being taken to task for what some are calling its 'fake 5G' technology. Rival telecom firm Sprint filed a lawsuit against AT&T late Thursday, saying it was misleading consumers into believing they were using fifth generation or 5G wireless networks, a technology that has not yet been widely deployed. Last month, AT&T customers saw a '5G E' logo on their mobile devices in over 400 markets - even though they were still on a 4G network. Scroll down for video AT&T recently came under fire for showing smartphone users the 5G logo on handsets- even though they are not connected to the much anticipated next generation network 5G E, which stands for AT&T's 5G Evolution initiative, can offer data speeds up to 50 or 100 times faster than 4G networks. Smartphones running on both Android and Apple's iOS platforms are sporting '5G E' for AT&T customers, even though those phones are not equipped to support 5G. Sprint said that a survey showed 54 percent of AT&T's consumers believed their '5G E' network is the same as or better than a 5G network. Meanwhile, 43 percent said if they buy an AT&T phone today, it would be capable of running on 5G. Sprint said in the lawsuit that the AT&T advertising 'deceives consumers' into thinking they already have access to 5G connectivity, when they are really only connected to a faster 4G network. 'The significance of AT&T's deception cannot be overstated,' Sprint said in the lawsuit. '5G Evolution technologies enables a peak theoretical wireless speed of 400Mbps for capable devices, or an average around 40Mbps based on real-world experiences,' AT&T said Some 54% of AT&T's consumers believed their '5G E' network is the same as or better than a 5G network, while 43% said if they buy an AT&T phone today, it would be capable of running on 5G '...[AT&T] has sought to gain an unfair advantage in the race to 5G by embarking on a nationwide advertising campaign to deceive consumers into believe that its existing 4G LTE Advanced network is now a 5G network. AT&T calls this "new" network 5GE. 'But calling its network 5GE does not make it a 5G network and instead deceives customers into believing it is something it is not,' it continues. T-Mobile also hit out at the firm, accusing it of 'duping customers' with the move. 'AT&T is so worried about how limited their 5G footprint will be that they've renamed their existing LTE network '5G Evolution' said the firm's Neville Ray. 'I've heard they even have plans to show a 5G network indicator for LTE on consumers' devices to hide the fact that actual 5G will be scarce, duping customers into thinking they're getting something they're not.' In response to the lawsuit, AT&T's Chief Executive Officer Randall Stephenson said in an interview with CNBC that the company's customers are seeing an increase in speed and performance on the '5G E' network and this is a step required to get to 'ultimate 5G.' Last month, Sprint said it plans to release 5G smartphones with Samsung in the United States during the summer, while rival Verizon in December also disclosed similar plans for the first half of 2019. AT&T did not immediately respond to Reuters request for comment. 'Helicopter parenting' adopted by well-off parents are giving their children the best chance of success in life. That's the claim of a new book that tackles the controversial style of raising youngsters. Critics of the micro-managing tendencies of middle class parents have claimed that they lead to 'defiant' children who are poorly prepared for the real world. Now, economists have argued that such intensive pushy parenting can bring life-changing benefits to children, particularly when it comes to academic achievement. However the approach may also be partly responsible for the widening gulf between rich and poor, they say. Scroll down for video 'Helicopter parenting' adopted by well-off parents are giving their children the best chance of success in life. That's the claim of a new book that tackles the controversial style of raising youngsters (stock image) Dr Matthias Doepke, a professor of economics in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern University, and co-author Dr Fabrizio Zilibotti of Yale University are behind the claims. Through personal anecdotes and original research, the pair show that in countries with increasing economic inequality, such as the United States, parents push harder to ensure their children have a path to security and success. Dr Doepke and Dr Zilibotti analysed academic tests of 15-year-olds around the world, according to reports in the New York Times. They then compared these results to reports from teenagers and their parents about how they interact. The researchers discovered that 'helicopter parenting' styles correlated with higher academic attainment. 'My parents expected us to show up for meals, go to school and be home before dark, but other than that, we had a lot of freedom,' Dr Doepke said. 'The reality is that I am now a much more intensive parent who spends a lot of time on parenting, just like most other American parents today.' Through personal anecdotes and original research, the pair show that in countries with increasing economic inequality, such as the United States, parents push harder to ensure their children have a path to security and success (stock image) Previously Dr Doepke and Dr Zilibotti developed a model that provides an economic explanation for why different parents choose different parenting styles, such as 'authoritarian', 'authoritative' or 'permissive' parenting. The most effective parents, according to the authors, are authoritative rather than authoritarian. Authoritative parents persuade their children to do what's good for them and encourage independence, rather than insisting on strict obedience to their instructions. The pair also looked at data on parenting across countries and realised that their economic approach explained a lot about why parenting differs around the world. Economics has transformed the hands-off parenting of the '60s and '70s into a frantic, overscheduled activity, they say. HELICOPTER PARENTING: A FORM OF OVERPROTECTIVE PARENTING Parents who are overprotective are sometimes referred to as helicopter parents. They earned this stereotype for being perceived as relentlessly hovering over their children, trying to micro-manage their affairs. The first use of the term is widely attributed to Dr Haim Ginott's 1969 book Parents & Teenagers. In it, teens said their parents would hover over them like a helicopter. The term became popular enough to become a dictionary entry in 2011. Helicopter parents pay extremely close attention to their children to try to protect them from failure, rejection and injury. They want happy children and often believe that teachers should pay attention to their children in the same overprotective way. This approach has sparked controversy, with some experts arguing that in order for children to become well adjusted, they need to experience a full range of emotions. Parents who want their children to always be happy are doing their children a disservice, in this view. The helicopter parent rushes in to help rather than allowing their child to have a go at managing a challenging situation themselves. Some experts say that this can lead to children who are unable to cope with even minor issues, as they are never given the opportunity to fail and then learn from their mistakes. However, some experts suggest that such 'pushy' parenting may provide children with benefits in later life. Among them is Dr Matthias Doepke, a professor of economics in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern University. He argues that the intensity of parenting has gone up in many countries in line with rising inequality. Pushy 'helicopter' parents, normally from more economically advantaged backgrounds, generally raising higher achieving offspring. Advertisement Growing inequality has also resulted in an increasing 'parenting gap' between richer and poorer families. This raises the prospect of diminished social mobility and fewer opportunities for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. 'We argue that parents respond to the environment they face, and depending on what that environment is, there can be outcomes that are socially problematic even if most parents do the best they can,' Dr Doepke said. 'In the U.S. today, the biggest concern is inequality in parenting, or what we refer to as the 'parenting gap' between social classes.' Both authors' view is that most parents are doing the right thing given the economic circumstances that they and their children face. The mystery of the cargo of a ship that sank 800 years ago may finally be solved after archaeologists zapped its contents with an 'x-ray gun'. Scientists in the US have been using new handheld portable X-ray fluorescence detector on ceramic bowls from the wreck to identify where they came from. With no written records on the ship, which sank off the coast of Indonesia, little information was known about where it was coming from or went. With their new gadget, scientists from the Field Museum in Chicago were able to pinpoint more precisely where the ceramics were made in southeastern China. Scientists zap shipwrecked ceramics from 80-years-ago with 'x-ray' gun to determine its origin in China. The handheld gun means objects no longer need to be put in an X-ray machine Scientists now know that the ceramics came from 2,000 miles (3,200 km) from where the ship sank, which is about the distance from New York to Las Vegas. Wenpeng Xu, the study's lead author from the University of Illinois at Chicago, said: 'It's amazing that we can pinpoint the production area of materials from an 800-year-old shipwreck.' Traditionally, archaeological artefacts would have been put through X-ray machines to determine their composite makeup. There are no written records on the ship, which disappeared off the coast of the islands of Java and Sumatra. But there are an estimated 7,500 pieces of cargo recovered from the wreck. Archaeologists studied 60 ceramic pieces from the mysterious shipwreck of porcelain bowls and boxes covered in a bluish-white glaze called qingbai. Based on this style, scientists knew that it came from southeastern China, but were far from pinpointing the location since many kilns from there produced similar-aesthetics. Little was known about the ship as there were no written records but it is now thought that the ship sank 2,000 miles from where its cargo was loaded. Archaeologists studied 60 ceramic pieces from the mysterious shipwreck of porcelain bowls and boxes covered in a bluish-white glaze called qingbai But the specific make up of the ceramics tell you where it originated, since there will be a notable difference in a particular region's clay or in the recipes that potters used to mix their clay. By comparing the chemical makeups of ceramics from the wreck and from different kiln sites in China, the researchers were able to more precisely determine where the ceramics were made. 'Each kiln site uses its own materials and ingredients for clay--that's what makes each sample's fingerprint unique,' said Xu. 'If the fingerprint of the sample matches the fingerprint of the kiln site, then it's highly possible that that's where the sample came from.' Lisa Niziolek, a Field Museum Research Scientist and co-author of the study said: 'You're shooting X-rays into a material you're interested in. It excites the material's atoms. Energy goes flying out, and this measures that energy. Different elements have different signatures of energy that comes back out.' The use of the project's new gadget and the study has allowed the researchers to build a picture of the extent of the navel trade networks in the 12th and 13th Century between Asia and Africa. It demonstrated that trade was much more 'global' than people thought The use of the project's new gadget and the study has allowed the researchers to build a picture of the extent of the navel trade networks in the 12th and 13th Century between Asia and Africa. It demonstrated that trade was much more 'global' than people thought, says the Field Museum's MacArthur Curator of Anthropology Gary Feinman. He said: 'We're taught to associate vast trade networks with Europeans like Magellan and Marco Polo, but Europeans weren't a big part of this network that went from Asia to Africa. Globalization isn't just a recent phenomenon--it's not just Eurocentric, not just tied to modern capitalism. The ancient world was more interconnected than a lot of people thought.' It will constantly track behaviour, activity and create an identity profile A startup is creating a mobile system that can learn everything about its user The US government may soon monitor all employees' activities using AI Bosses could soon be monitoring employees even in their spare time, if developments at the US's Department of Defense (DOD) are anything to go by. A New-York based startup has been awarded 1.87 million ($2.42m) to create AI driven smartphone software that constantly learns what its user is doing. The software will even know its owner so well that it can tell a change in identity through whoever is holding the phone walks. Scroll down for video Bosses could soon be monitoring employees even in their spare time, if developments at the US's Department of Defense (DOD) are anything to go by. A New-York based startup has been awarded 1.87 million ($2.42mn) to create an AI driven phone that constantly learns what its user is doing TWOSENSE.AI, the early-stage startup behind the system, will be providing the 'multi-factor' authentication system for smartphone and computer workstations at DOD. The system is set to replace all common access cards and passwords for the Pentagon and alert security if someone else is using the device. The company's technology is a form of deep learning, which uses algorithms to create personalised profiles of the characteristics of an individual. It does this using behavioural data or 'biometrics' of each person, such as the way they walk, interact with their phone, commute to work, and how and where they spend their time. It's the AI equivalent of a person's fingerprint but is much harder to breach as the system is constantly feeding back on multiple traits and will know if someone else is using the phone. TWOSENSE.AI will be providing a 'multi-factor' authentication system for smartphone and computer workstations. The company's deep learning technology, which tracks the behaviour of an individual, such as the way they walk, interact with their phone, commute to work, and how and where they spend their time is the AI equivalent of a fingerprint The continuous authentication system also claims to be more user friendly, ending the irritation of forgotten passwords. Dr. Dawud Gordon, CEO of TWOSENSE.AI, which is working with the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) said: 'Both DISA and TWOSENSE.AI believe that continuous authentication is the cornerstone of securing identity. 'Behavior-based authentication is invisible to the user, therefore it can be used continuously without creating any extra work.' The company, whose website states 'The password is you' on its front page, also cites its expertise in data fusion, deep learning and behavioural detection. In 2018, the ICJ, the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, decided to hold public hearings in the Jadhav case, from February 2019. Islamabad: Foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi has said that Islamabad will present evidence in the case of convicted Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on February 19. Speaking at a reception in Manchester, the foreign minister said the countrys legal team will present its stance in the case and added that the Indian spy has already confessed to being involved in terrorist activities carried out in Pakistan. In 2018, the ICJ, the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, decided to hold public hearings in the Jadhav case, from February 2019. Richard Branson claims he wants to travel to space within the next four or five months aboard his Virgin Galactic spaceship. The British entrepreneur says that he hopes to make his first voyage coincide with the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing in 1969. He also claims that the spaceflight company are still on target to send tourists into on short 'suborbital' flights by the end of next year. Speaking at an event in Washington, he said: 'My wish is to go up on the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, that's what we're working on.'. The American Apollo 11 mission landed on the moon with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on July 20th, 1969. Scroll down for video British billionaire Richard Branson, pictured here, plans to travel to space within the next four or five months aboard his own Virgin Galactic spaceship. Virgin Galactic is one of two companies, along with Blue Origin, on its way to sending passengers into space Earlier this year, the 69-year-old said he is training hard for the mission, and told CBS that his 'aim is to have the body of a 30-year-old' when he goes to space. Virgin Galactic is working along with Blue Origin, owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk's SpaceX company towards the same goal of being the first to send passengers into space 'by 2020' in a new type of race dubbed the 'billionaire space race'. The companies want to send people on these short suborbital flights, meaning they wouldn't get high enough to orbit the earth. Branson has previously announced dates for this first trip into space, though many have gone by without voyages happening. In 2013, he declared on a radio station that a Virgin Galactic space flight will be on Christmas Day 2013, and he will be on board. 'Maybe I'll dress up as Father Christmas,' he joked. Christmas day 2013 came and went without this flight or a sighting of the billionaire in a Santa suit taking place. In October 2017, he told a Finnish business conference that the craft would be in space in 'about three months'. A view from the edge of space is seen from the cockpit of Virgin Galactic's manned space tourism rocket plane SpaceShipTwo during a space test flight over Mojave, California. Virgin Galactic is working along with Blue Origin, which also belongs to Branson on its way to sending passengers into space 'by 2020 The Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo. Last year, the Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo reached the edge of space for the first time, in a milestone accomplishment for Branson's space tourism endeavours Speaking at an event in Washington, here, Branson said: 'My wish is to go up on the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, that's what we're working on.'. The American Apollo 11 mission landed on the moon with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on July 20th, 1969 Last year, the Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo reached the edge of space for the first time, in a milestone accomplishment for Branson's space tourism endeavours. The craft reached a boundary more than 50 miles above Earth for the first time, after blasting off on a critical flight test in the Mojave Desert. In any case, the achievement puts Virgin well ahead of its competitors - Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin - who have yet to carry crew to a point so high using their passenger craft. Mike Taylor, of the Spaceflight Programme at the UK Space Agency told Mail Online: 'We are in a new commercial space age, where entrepreneurs not only fuel the imagination but inspire investment. 'The space sector is a great British success story and we are working closely with industry to ensure we can take advantage of exciting commercial opportunities. The 69-year-old (center) said he is training hard for the mission, and told CBS that his 'aim is to have the body of a 30-year-old' when he goes to space. Virgin Galactic is working along with Blue Origin, which also belongs to Branson on its way to sending passengers into space 'by 2020' 'The Government has put in place legislation to make it possible to launch small satellites and conduct sub-orbital flights from the UK and is supporting domestic spaceports, including by providing 31.5 million to help establish launch services from Sutherland in Scotland.' Virgin Galactic's SpaceshipTwo can be seen as it takes off for a suborbital test flight of the VSS Unity on December 13, 2018, in Mojave, California. Branson is in a race with SpaceX founder Elon Musk and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to be the first to send paying tourists into space Virgin Galactic, which is charging 190,000 ($250,000) for a spot on one of its commercial flights, has previously said it would send passengers to space in 2019. His new claims time the businessman claims preparations are in their final stages Branson is in a race with SpaceX founder Elon Musk and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to be the first to send paying tourists into space. Virgin Galactic, which is charging 190,000 ($250,000) for a spot on one of its commercial flights, has previously said it would send passengers to space in 2019. His new claims time the businessman claims preparations are in their final stages. 'By July we should have done enough testing,' he said. But he doesn't want to make any promises he can't keep: 'I need to wait for our team to say they're 100 per cent happy. I don't want to push them,' he said. According to Branson, the SpaceShipTwo's next test flight is planned for February 20, depending on weather conditions. THE BILLIONAIRE SPACE RACE: HOW BRANSON, MUSK AND BEZOS ARE VYING FOR GALACTIC SUPREMACY Jeff Bezos in front of Blue Origin's space capsule Dubbed the 'NewSpace' set, Jeff Bezos, Sir Richard Branson and Elon Musk all say they were inspired by the first moon landing in 1969, when the US beat the Soviet Union in the space race, and there is no doubt how much it would mean to each of them to win the 'new space race'. Amazon founder Bezos looks set to be the first of the three to fly to space, having announced plans to launch aboard his space company Blue Origin's New Shepard spacecraft on July 20. The billionaire mogul will travel with his younger brother Mark, a former advertising executive and volunteer firefighter, and the winner of Saturday's multi-million pound auction. However, a report has suggested Branson might beat him to it, by making a suborbital flight two weeks before Bezos and his brother. The suggestion is the Virgin Galactic founder would travel on his VSS Unity SpaceShipTwo rocket plane on the July 4 weekend. Although SpaceX and Tesla founder Musk has said he wants to go into space, and even 'die on Mars', he has not said when he might blast into orbit. SpaceX appears to be leading the way in the broader billionaire space race with numerous launches carrying NASA equipment to the ISS and partnerships to send tourists to space by 2021. On February 6 2018, SpaceX sent rocket towards the orbit of Mars, 140 million miles away, with Musk's own red Tesla roadster attached. Elon Musk with his Dragon Crew capsule NASA has already selected two astronauts who will be on-board the first manned Dragon mission. SpaceX has also started sending batches of 60 satellites into space to help form its Starlink network. Musk hopes this will provide an interconnected web of satellites around Earth which will beam down free internet to people worldwide. Branson and Virgin Galactic are taking a different approach to conquering space. It has repeatedly, and successfully, conducted test flights of the Virgin Galactic's Unity space plane. The first took place in December 2018 and the latest on May 22, with the flight accelerating to more than 2,000 miles per hour (Mach 2.7). More than 600 affluent customers to date, including celebrities Brad Pitt and Katy Perry, have reserved a $250,000 (200,000) seat on one of Virgin's space trips. Branson has previously said he expects Elon Musk to win the race to Mars with his private rocket firm SpaceX. Richard Branson with the Virgin Galactic craft SpaceShipTwo can carry six passengers and two pilots. Each passenger gets the same seating position with two large windows - one to the side and one overhead. The space ship is 60ft long with a 90inch diameter cabin allowing maximum room for the astronauts to float in zero gravity. It climbs to 50,000ft before the rocket engine ignites. SpaceShipTwo separates from its carrier craft, White Knight II, once it has passed the 50-mile mark. Passengers become 'astronauts' when they reach the Karman line, the boundary of Earth's atmosphere. The spaceship will then make a suborbital journey with approximately six minutes of weightlessness, with the entire flight lasting approximately 1.5 hours. Bezos revealed in April 2017 that he finances Blue Origin with around $1 billion (720 million) of Amazon stock each year. The system consists of a pressurised crew capsule atop a reusable 'New Shepard' booster rocket. Bezos is one of the richest men in the world and Blue Origin has successfully flown the New Shepard rocket 15 times. At its peak, the capsule reached 65 miles (104 kilometres), just above the official threshold for space and landed vertically seven minutes after liftoff. Advertisement 'Today, for the first time in history, a crewed spaceship, built to carry private passengers, reached space,' Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson said from the flight line after the successful flight. One of the pilots can be seen in the cockpit above during the flight Art-lovers staring at these portraits will be the first, and last, to ever do so. The creation is the first self-generative AI artwork to go to auction created and only the second piece of art to be sold that uses AI. Artificial intelligence generates the images from scratch and produces an endless sequence of unique male and female portraits that have never been seen before and will never appear again. It is called Memories of Passersby 1, and is set to go to auction at Sotheby's in London on March 6 with an estimated value of between 30,00 and 40,000. Two screens are attached to a retro-style wooden sideboard which contains the AI 'brain' and this produces the endless stream of art with a male-like image and a feminine image on separate displays. Scroll down for video Artificial intelligence generates the images from scratch and produces an endless sequence of unique male and female portraits that have never been seen before and will never appear again Art-lovers staring at these portraits will be the first, and last, to ever see them. It is called Memories of Passersby 1, and is set to go to auction at Sotheby's in London on March 6 with an estimated value of between 30,00 and 40,000 It was created by Mario Klingemann, a German artist who promises the buyer of the unique item a lifetime of totally original and encapsulating portraits. Electricity is all that is needed to keep the machinery operational and the AI uses a wealth of neural networks to continue learning in a similar way to the human mind. Thousands of images of western European art were used to establish the AI and the data-set, Mr Klingeman claims. Mr Klingemann said: 'Memories of Passersby I houses a very powerful machine which creates paintings while you look at them, which I think is quite magical. 'Neural networks are involved, and you could say that they are the brushes that I've learned to use. 'The machine is in a cycle where it continuously creates new faces that start changing and fading away - it observes itself and creates a feedback loop. Its creator said: 'Memories of Passersby I houses a very powerful machine which creates paintings while you look at them, which I think is quite magical' Two screens are attached to a retro-style wooden sideboard which contains the AI 'brain' and this produces the endless stream of art with male-like image and a more feminine image on the two displays Electricity is all that is needed to keep the machinery operational and the AI uses a wealth of neural networks to continue learning in a similar way to the human mind. Thousands of images of western European art were used to establish the AI and the data-set, Mr Klingeman claims 'Of course, it's hard for me let it out into the world without me by its side, but I trust that it's ready to keep creating new portraits forever, as I always hoped it would do. 'I hope that when people sit and watch these fleeting faces pass by, they will get the same feeling I do'. The artwork's predecessor, The Portrait of Edmond de Belamy was sold in October for 337,000, despite a guide price of only $10,000. Mr Klingemann says his work differs from that ground-breaking piece of art as it is not 'curated', where as Edmond had images cherry-picked by humans. The AI-generated 'Portrait of Edmond Belamy' depicts a slightly blurry, chubby man in a dark frock-coat and white collar. Christie's said the winning bidder wanted to remain anonymous, but confirmed the price skyrocketed after a five way bidding battle on the phones and via ChristiesLive. 'Behold the futurehere it is,' the auctioneer declared before the bidding started on the piece. The artwork's predecessor, The Portrait of Edmond de Belamy (pictured) was sold in October for 337,000, despite a guide price of only $10,000 The AI-generated 'Portrait of Edmond Belamy' depicts a slightly blurry, chubby man in a dark frock-coat and white collar. The artist's 'signature' was the algorithm that created it (pictured) The artwork is one of a group of portraits of the fictional Belamy family created by a Paris-based trio of 25-year-olds known as Obvious. According to an online catalog on Christie's website, the painting had been estimated to go for $7,000-$10,000. The art work features a fictional person named Edmond de Belamy, described by Christie's as a 'portly gentleman, possibly French and to judge by his dark frockcoat and plain white collar a man of the church.' The signature on the painting is the actual algorithm used to create it. His off-centre position leaves enough white space to show the artist's signature as 'min max Ex[log(D(x))] + Ez[log(1-D(G(z)))]. To make the painting, artist Pierre Fautrel and his team ran 15,000 classic portraits through a computer software. Once the software 'understood the rules of portraiture,' using a new algorithm developed by Google researcher Ian Goodfellow, it then generated a series of new images by itself, Fautrel said. The French collective selected 11, calling them the 'Belamy family,' one of which on Thursday fetched $432,500 at Christie's in New York, the epicenter of the traditional art market. Children are spending twice as much time staring at their smartphones than talking to their own parents, a survey has revealed. Startling figures reveal the average child now spends almost an entire day (23 hours) a week looking at their device but less than two hours a day talking to family. A UK-wide survey of 2,000 people unearthed the disturbing statistics and it comes after England's chief medical officer, Dame Sally Davies, issued a warning to parents to cease control of their child's devices and ban them at bed time and the dinner table. Scroll down for video Startling figures reveal the average child now spends almost an entire day (23 hours) a week looking at their device and less than two hours a day talking to family (stock) The survey was conducted by CensusWide on behalf of music streaming company ROXI and discovered more than half (54 per cent) of all parents are growing concerned about the amount of time their children pour into the phones, tablets and games consoles. Children are now spending an average of 3 hours 18 minutes a day on personal devices and only 1 hour 43 minutes a day chatting with their guardians. Two-thirds of all parents say they wish they had more family time but two in five confessed to providing children with devices to keep them occupied. Children in London were the worst offending for screentime, spending a considerable 4 hours 42 minutes a day on phones, on average. Residents of the South East and Wales occupied the opposite side of the spectrum, with an average of just 2 hours 36 minutes wasted online. Dame Sally Davies, the chief medical officer for England, warns that doctors are increasingly worried that the time children spend online is 'detrimental to their physical and mental health'. In her official advice to parents and carers, she says phones should be left 'outside the bedroom' at night and recommends 'screen-free meal times' so families interact 'face-to-face'. As revealed by the Daily Mail last week, Dame Sally also proposes the first time limits for screentime, advising that children should have a break every two hours. And she stresses that parents themselves need to act responsibly on the internet and should not publish their children's photographs on social media without their permission. HOW CAN PARENTS PROTECT THEIR CHILDREN ONLINE? A recent study found when sharing parenting advice on social media, common topics included: Getting kids to sleep (28 per cent) Nutrition and eating tips (26 per cent) Discipline (19 per cent) Daycare/preschool (17 per cent) Behaviour problems (13 per cent) These common topics of conversation often reveal key information about a child, including: name, age/date of birth, school name and even their appearance. Whilst it may be very difficult to protect the privacy of children in the digital age, there are some things that can be done to shelter children from online dangers. Know your privacy settings It is amazing how many parents leave on their Instagram location settings. Set your location settings to off if you do not want people to be able to figure out where you and your children live. Only share with people who care Ask yourself if all the people you're sharing your photos with really want to see them and will they protect them in a way you would. Explore private social networks Private social networks offer a secure way to share the pictures of your children with your family and friends. Don't take any digital photos Ultimately the only way to be 100 per cent sure that you don't have a digital footprint is not to have any digital photos taken but this isn't a road the vast majority of people want to go down. Advertisement Two-thirds of all parents say they wish they had more family time but two in five confessed to providing children with devices to keep them occupied. Children in London were the worst offending for screentime, spending a considerable 4 hours 42 minutes a day on phones, on average (stock) Dame Sally also takes aim at the web giants, demanding that they fulfil a 'duty of care' towards children and stop making social media platforms deliberately addictive to young users. The intervention will increase the pressure on ministers to act. The guidance, drawn up with the chief medical officers for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, was commissioned last year by then Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, amid growing concerns about the impact of technology on children's health. When Matt Hancock succeeded him, he asked Dame Sally to fast track her findings and come up with guidance that could become a 'norm in society'. Dame Sally said: 'Time spent online can be of great benefit to children and young people, providing opportunities for learning and skills development, as well as allowing young people to find support and information. 'But we need to take a precautionary approach and our advice will support children to reap these benefits and protect them from harm.' A new rocket with a 3D printed engine which will deliver small satellites into the Earth's orbit will blast off from the UK in 2021. The rocket's engine is described by the company as the 'world's largest' 3D printed engine and is designed to cut down on carbon emissions. British spaceflight company Orbex, plans to open their headquarters and rocket design facility in Sutherland in the Scottish Highlands. The base in Forres, where they unveiled the rocket, will bring more than 130 jobs to the region. Prime has been designed to take satellites into Earth's orbit to altitudes of up to 776 miles (1,250 km). Scroll down for video A new rocket with a 3D printed engine which will deliver small satellites into the Earth's orbit will blast off from the UK in 2021 . The rocket's engine is described by the company as the 'world's largest 3D printed engine and is designed to cut down on carbon emissions Made from a specially-formulated lightweight carbon fibre and aluminium composite, Prime's engine is cleaner than traditional space transportation. It is engineered to work with bio-propane, a clean-burning, renewable fuel source that cuts carbon emissions by 90 per cent. The company claims it's fuel is 100 per cent renewable and cuts carbon emissions by 90 per cent. Prime will make its maiden flight from Scotland in 2021, when it will carry an experimental payload from UK-based Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL), which manufactures small satellites. Graham Turnock, chief executive of the UK Space Agency, which is part-funding the spaceport, said that Orbex's new rocket design facility will 'bring Britain one step closer to having its own domestic commercial launch capability'. 'This firmly positions the UK as Europe's frontrunner for those looking to Earth's orbit and beyond for new opportunities,' he said. 'The new facility and future spaceport operations will help unlock vast economic and societal benefits not just in Scotland but right across the UK.' Prime will make its maiden flight from Scotland in 2021, when it will carry an experimental payload from UK-based Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL), which manufactures small satellite Orbex reveals its new #Prime rocket which includes the worlds largest 3D printed rocket engine, made in a single piece without joins, giving it the edge over other engines, which can suffer from weaknesses associated with joining & welding. #OrbexReveals https://t.co/jl0qARduyb pic.twitter.com/q9Xrzdcaou Orbex Space (@orbexspace) February 7, 2019 British spaceflight company Orbex, plans to open their headquarters and rocket design facility in Sutherland in the Scottish Highlands. The 2,000 square metre HQ in Forres, in the north east of Scotland. The new base will bring more than 130 jobs to the region Prime has been designed to take satellites into Earth's orbit to altitudes of up to 776 miles (1,250 km). The new headquarters in Forres will combine a rocket design and integration facility. Here, the rocket launches proposed Sutherland site The new headquarters in Forres will combine a rocket design and integration facility, an operations centre and executive offices. Secretary of State for business Greg Clark welcomed the plans for a spaceport in Sutherland a 'significant investment'. 'Orbex's rocket design facility will bring more than 100 new jobs to the Scottish Highlands region this is our modern Industrial Strategy in action,' he said. 'The space sector is a great British success story and we are working closely with industry to ensure we thrive in the commercial space age. 'New innovations, capabilities and expertise are driving significant growth, with the sector generating close to 15 billion in income each year.' The 2,000 square metre headquarters is in Forres, in the north east of Scotland. The new base will bring more than 130 jobs to the region, combining rocket design and integration facility, an operations centre and executive offices Chris Larmour, Orbex chief executive, said: 'Since the announcement in July 2018 that we had been chosen to launch from the Sutherland spaceport, Orbex has been on an incredible journey, largely behind-the scenes. 'That is changing today, as we publicly reveal the company's technical and commercial momentum. 'Not only do we have a full engineering prototype of the complete Stage 2 of the Prime rocket, but also a growing roster of customers hoping to be among the first to launch satellites from Scotland.' Scotland's innovation Minister Ivan McKee MSP welcomed the new facility. He said: 'The new Orbex facility at Forres is an incredibly welcome development for Scotland's space sector. 'It brings us one step closer to reaching our ambitions of hosting the first orbital launch facilities in Europe and will complete our full offering to build, launch and operate satellites right here in Scotland.' Lawyers for President Trump and his three oldest children responded to a lawsuit filed by the Attorney General of New York against the family and their charitable foundation alleging a 'shocking pattern of illegality' and 'persistently illegal conduct'. In court papers obtained by DailyMail.com, attorney Marc Mukasey writes: 'The Foundation has, to date, distributed approximately $17.5 million to almost 600 charitable organizations, and, upon dissolution, will disburse another $1.74 million.' 'President Trump personally donated approximately $8 million to the Foundation,' Mujasey adds. The filing denies almost every allegation made against the family, and objects to the attorney general demanding the Trump Foundation be dissolved. The president grudgingly agreed, however, to phase out his family philanthropy in December. It still has approximately $1.7 million in funds to disburse. SCROLL DOWN TO READ THE COURT FILING Fighting back: 'The Foundation has, to date, distributed approximately $17.5 million to almost 600 charitable organizations,' says a lawyer for the Trump family (L to R: Eric, President Trump, Ivanka and Don Jr. in 2016) in a legal response Friday to a lawsuit filed last year by the New York attorney general's office Then-New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood charged the president last year with using the Donald J. Trump Foundation for his own personal and political gain President Donald Trump gave his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday; Ivanka Trump, Lara Trump, Eric Trump, and Donald Trump Jr. were in the gallery Trump has a long history of charitable giving; he famously distributed more than $6 million in 2016 to military charities following an Iowa fundraiser that he held instead of participating in a Republican primary debate, and that money flowed throughthe Trump Foundation He blamed Democrats, including New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and former New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, for its closure. 'The Trump Foundation has done great work and given away lots of money, both mine and others, to great charities over the years - with me taking NO fees, rent, salaries etc.,' he wrote in a series of tweets. 'Now, as usual, I am getting slammed by Cuomo and the Dems in a long running civil lawsuit started by sleazebag AG Eric Schneiderman, who has since resigned over horrific women abuse, when I wanted to close the Foundation so as not to be in conflict with politics. 'Shady Eric was head of New Yorkers for Clinton, and refused to even look at the corrupt Clinton Foundation. In any event, it goes on and on & the new AG, who is now being replaced by yet another AG (who openly campaigned on a GET TRUMP agenda), does little else but rant, rave & politic against me. Will never be treated fairly by these people - a total double standard of 'justice.' When the state of New York sued eight months ago, Trump vowed: 'I won't settle this case!' Trump's sons also figure prominently in the family's legal pushback, filed Friday. 'Donald Trump, Jr. has served in various capacities, including on the Board of Directors, for Operation Smile, Smile Train and their successors,' writes Mukasey. 'Ivanka Trump has long supported womens causes, was a founding partner of the UN Foundation Up Girl Initiative and donated royalties from her book, Women Who Work, to a fund which, in turn, made donated the proceeds to the Boys and Girls Clubs of America and the National Urban Leagues Entrepreneurship Centers programs.' The Trump Foundation had no full-time employees and practically no expenses. Its expense-to-donation ratio was among the lowest of all American philanthropies when it began winding down. Eric Trump is described as the most charitable of the group. He declined comment during a brief phone call on Friday. 'In 2006, at age 22, Eric Trump established the Eric Trump Foundation to support St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital in the fight against pediatric cancer,' reads the filing. 'In 2012, the Eric Trump Foundation committed to raise $20 million to build a state-of-the-art surgical center and intensive care unit at St. Jude, and in 2014, the Eric Trump Foundation Surgery & ICU Center at St. Jude opened to treat children with cancer and other life-threatening diseases.' Trump's family foundation still has roughly $1.7 million to disburse becore it closes operations Then-Attorney General Barbara Underwood sued, alleging that Trump illegally tapped his family foundation to settle legal disputes, help his campaign for president and pay for personal and business expenses, which included spending $10,000 on a six-foot portrait of himself. The attorney general's office is seeking $2.8 million in restitution and other unspecified penalties in its civil suit. News reports have hinted that the state attorney general referred its findings to the IRS and the Federal Election Commission for further action. A criminal investigation would allow state prosecutors to broaden their probe, a jump in authority that often requires a referral from the governor or a state agency. The White House has dismissed the lawsuit as politically motivated and Trump has called the case 'ridiculous.' Raising taxes on high earners reaped benefits without major negative impacts in states that have introduced a so-called 'millionaires' tax,' according to a new study. The Washington D.C.-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities offers evidence largely in favor of a millionaire's tax in its latest report. The concept of taxing the super-rich at very high rates after a certain income threshold has recently come to the forefront of national policy talks, with a handful of Democrats including high-profile freshman Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez calling for a 70 percent tax on the wealthiest Americans. The idea is popular among critics of the growing income gap between the wealthiest Americans and the rest of the country: the top 1 percent of households accounted for 21.5 percent of all income in 2017, compared to 9 percent in 1970. This chart illustrates the increase in the share of income held by the highest-income households from 1970-2015 Framing their work as case studies that could inform the larger national discussion, researchers evaluated seven states that have introduced such taxes since 2000: Maryland, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, California, Connecticut and New Jersey, as well as Washington D.C. 'The bottom line is that raising personal income tax rates on high income is a good way for states to raise a lot of money to invest in their economic future without hurting economic growth today,' Senior Policy Analyst Wesley Tharpe told DailyMail.com. Most states that have introduced such a tax are doing as well or better than their neighbors on jobs, the economy and average incomes with the additional revenue allowing them to close budget gaps, expand access to early education and college and build up 'rainy day' funds, researchers found. They analyzed factors including private sector economic growth, income growth and job creation in each of the states and compared them to the performance of surrounding states to weigh whether they were falling behind or getting ahead on each measure. This chart shows that five states and Washington D.C. are doing roughly as well or better than their neighboring states when it comes to economic growth This chart shows that six states and Washington D.C. are doing as well or better than their neighboring states when it comes to income growth Researchers also highlighted the good that states were able to do with the additional revenue raised by taxing their richest residents at high rates, including increased funding for K-12 education in California and funding a free full-day kindergarten program in Minnesota. Other states, including Oregon, New York and Maryland, were able to offset major budget shortfalls during the Great Recession due to taxation of their wealthiest citizens. New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (shown here on February 7 in Washington D.C.) has suggested a 70 percent tax on the wealthiest Americans above a certain income threshold The pictures weren't all rosy, however: Connecticut, in particular fell behind economically when compared with neighboring states which researchers attributed to non-tax factors, including the fact that Connecticut had to use the revenues it raised through higher taxes to fix past fiscal mistakes and pay off debt that had accumulated over many years. When it comes to economic growth, six of the regions (California, Maryland, Minnesota, New York, Oregon and Washington D.C.) roughly met or exceeded their neighbors, as of the second quarter of 2018. For this metric, researchers looked at Gross Domestic Product - the value of all goods and services produced in a state or district in just the private sector. The two outliers were New Jersey and Connecticut, the latter of which saw its GDP come in at 2.2 percent below its neighboring states. Next, researchers looked at income per capita in each state and D.C., finding that seven out of the eight saw average income growth that was the same or better than that of neighboring states. Again, the exception was Connecticut, which came in 11.3 percentage points below its neighbors on this metric. Finally, the report examined job creation, revealing that four states and D.C. did the same or better than their neighbors on that metric since the tax hikes took effect. This chart shows that four states and Washington D.C. are doing roughly as well or better than their neighboring states when it comes to job creation Falling behind were: California (4.4 percentage points behind its surrounding states), Connecticut (7.2 points), and New Jersey (5.3 points). The trend of taxing the highest earners started in 2003 with New York, which enacted a three-year surcharge on incomes above $500,000, followed by millionaires' taxes in California and New Jersey in 2004. Currently eight states and the District of Columbia still have some form of the tax. Researchers excluded Hawaii from their analysis given the state's unique geographic isolation, making it impossible to make fair comparisons with other nearby states. The photo is horrific: rivulets of blood running from his eyes and mouth and pooling onto his hospital gown, Sir Christopher Meyer looks as if he has been hauled out of a war zone. Seven months ago, on a July afternoon, the 74-year-old retired diplomat Britains former ambassador to the USA was pushed with such violence at Londons Victoria Tube station that when he fell, perilously close to the platform edge, he lost consciousness. Today, all memory of the attack provoked, it seems, by an altercation with a 16-year-old youth as Sir Christopher was leaving the train remains obliterated. Only the photograph, taken by his wife Catherine as he lay in A&E, provides graphic testimony of its viciousness. His wife, Lade Catherine, was so perturbed by his horrific injuries she shared a picture of her husband in A&E, feeling that the world had to see what the youth had done Dressed in immaculate casuals Ralph Lauren shirt and blue corduroys teamed with his signature red socks he is chipper, impeccably mannered, lively company When Catherine saw me she was so shocked, outraged and furious, she thought, The world needs to see this. The photo was published all over the place. But I didnt see it for several days, he says. Catherine tried to keep me away from the mirror for as long as possible. But when I saw myself I thought: Jesus Christ. I looked like a gladiator dragged from the arena. 'I was in hospital for six days. Id split my lip when my head hit the platform. I had an enormous haematoma under my left eye, which was drooping. It had to be drained twice and the wound stitched. Sir Christopher and Lady Catherine Meyer 'There was a massive gash on my left hand where Id put it out to break my fall. Ive no idea how many stitches I had. Its still tender. Today, dressed in immaculate casuals Ralph Lauren shirt and blue corduroys teamed with his signature red socks he is chipper, impeccably mannered, lively company. He is speaking fully about the attack for the first time, but Lady Meyer who is in the House of Lords on the day I visit remains too upset to talk about the whole episode. Last week, the teenager who assaulted her husband was spared jail after pleading guilty to causing grievous bodily harm without intent on July 11, 2018. Instead the youth, now 17, who cannot be named, was given a 12-month intensive referral order and ordered to pay 500 compensation. Police, piecing together evidence from 25 witnesses and CCTV footage, said Sir Christopher was trying to get off the train when his exit was blocked by the defendant. Pushing past the youth, Christopher apparently called him a bastard. He has no memory of the altercation or conversation, but says: Only one witness said I used that word. I dont think I would. It doesnt sound right. Words were exchanged, but God knows what we said to each other, then, in a fit of rage apparently, he pursued me down the platform and pushed my back with great violence with both hands. He adds: I went down, bang! and lost consciousness. When I came to a few minutes later, I just remember lying on my side surrounded by feet. Sir Christopher Meyer and Lady Catherine Meyer at the Spectator Summer Party in Westminster, London in July 2017 I was watching people getting on and off trains and wondering what the hell I was doing there on the ground. I think there was some kind of first aid. Someone said: Can you see out of your left eye? My glasses were smashed and pieces of glass were embedded in my face. My eye had swollen and I couldnt see much, and the question kept coming, Can you see? Can you see? Sir Christopher is an imperturbable man with a diplomats habit of emollience. But even he was angered by the ferocity of the assault. In the early days, I was feeling pretty vengeful, I can tell you, he says dryly. I thought he deserved to be banged up. But then I thought: What bloody good does it do to put you in a jail or young offenders institute, which can be academies of crime? The vengeful feeling began to wear off. Then after the sentencing, I thought: The judges know what theyre doing. They have guidelines and this is probably the right thing, even though GBH is a very serious offence. And he had pleaded guilty, he hadnt wasted the courts time or forced me to go and give evidence. Then I learned that after he had knocked me over hed stayed with me and hadnt tried to run away. He gave himself up to police. 'All that, plus his age, made me think the referral order is probably the right sentence, even though a lot of my friends think he should have gone to prison. Since the attack on Sir Christopher, passenger Lee Pomeroy was stabbed nine times dying from his injuries on a train near Guildford, Surrey. Such seemingly random assaults now occur daily. Home Office statistics show fatal stabbings have reached a record high with the number of young people killed by knives rising by nearly 50 per cent last year. Sir Christopher said: Catherine and I discussed the Guildford case and we concluded that people are now very quick to anger. I realised afterwards how damned lucky I was that my attacker wasnt carrying a knife. Sir Christopher and Lady Meyer at the West End opening night of 'Great Britain' a play by Richard Bean in 2014 Catherine says the assault on me was very serious, and that he should pay for what he did to deter him from doing anything like it again, by doing something valuable in terms of public service. She feels strongly about violent crime in London. It really distresses her and shed come down very heavily on general lawlessness. But in this case, she agrees with me: its better he doesnt go to jail. The assault happened as Sir Christopher was en route to Whitehall, where he had been due to address post-graduate students from the University of North Carolina. Donald Trump was visiting the UK, and Sir Christopher had been booked to commentate on the tour for the BBC and CNN. Both appointments were cancelled as he recuperated. Sketchy though his recall of the day is, a few graphic images remain. He says: From the moment I recovered consciousness and saw people in blue uniforms round me, I had the feeling I was in very good hands. I was lying close to the edge of the platform, beyond the yellow line, when I came to, then I must have been moved. I went in and out of consciousness. I dont remember how I got into the ambulance but I do recall saying I lived near St Thomass Hospital, so could I go there? But they said they were taking me to St Marys, Paddington, because there was a major trauma centre there. The big concern for me was Catherine. I was saying her phone number to myself all the time so I wouldnt forget it, and I asked the policeman with me, Please get hold of my wife. Just two days earlier, Lady Meyer had celebrated her formal robing ceremony in the Lords. It was a really joyous day, he recalls. We quaffed champagne and ate scones on the terrace overlooking the Thames. Im so proud of her. I tear up when I think about it, he says, getting misty-eyed at the recollection. I blub very easily, he admits, but Catherine is not a crier. Shes one of the most stoic people I know. This quiet fortitude was, perhaps, instilled years ago when Catherines sons from her first marriage, Alexander, then nine, and Constantin, six, were abducted by their German father after their divorce. She did not see them again until they were adults. She met Christopher during a quest to find her boys, seeking his help when he was UK ambassador to Germany. It was a coup de foudre! he cries. I was determined to lead a monastic life, devoted to work, but within a month Catherine came to see me, trying to get justice for her case. Sir Christopher: 'I realised afterwards how damned lucky I was that my attacker wasnt carrying a knife' She was wearing woollen tights, he reflects, as if this explains everything, and when I announced (within weeks) that I was going to marry her, my mother thought I was a complete raving lunatic. She said, The trouble with you, Christopher, is that you like anything with a good pair of legs. Twenty-two years on, they remain devoted. He shows me a framed photo taken at the House of Lords. In it, he is standing proudly next to his wife, the newly appointed Baroness Meyer of Nine Elms. That photo was taken on the Monday, and by Wednesday I was bloodied and bruised, lying in hospital looking like something out of Night Of The Living Dead. Catherine was in the Lords when the phone call from the police came. She was told Id been attacked and she came whizzing along to St Marys. She was shocked, appalled when she saw me and it really kills me, what I really regret, is that she and my kids saw me all lacerated and bleeding. I remember this entire medical team, six of them dressed in green scrubs, peering down at me, and I knew I was in the hands of competent people. I was feeling quite chirpy by then because I knew nothing had been broken. I had a brain scan and there was no damage. But the emotional effect on Catherine was enormous. He feared, too, that some of his physical injuries would be permanent. My drooping eye stayed for a long time, but an eye specialist said I should rub it gently every day and, lo! In a couple of months it got better. He had plastic surgery to repair the damaged tissue in his hand: his heavy fall worsened by the fact that he has Dupuytrens Contracture, a condition in which one of his fingers is permanently flexed. I wondered if there was a legacy of fear about using the Tube, but he is adamant he is not remotely wary. I love the Tube! he cries. In 50 years of using it Id never seen or experienced any violence until I was attacked. I didnt want to feel intimidated by it, so the first thing I did was go back on a train. I also thought it might jog my memory about what happened. It didnt. He and Catherine live in the heart of London. The Tube and bus are their prime means of transport and he has no intention of frittering a fortune on taxis. I love the Tube! Sir Christopher cries. In 50 years of using it Id never seen or experienced any violence until I was attacked We meet at their penthouse in a vast tower with stunning views over a busy stretch of the Thames. We moved here because wed started to fall down stairs, he explains merrily. I suppose its an ante-chamber to assisted living. We have a concierge, a porter and an NHS medical centre round the corner. Although he jokes about old age, he is spry spending 40 minutes a day in the gym and has a passion for heavy rock. AC/DC? Id love to have seen them when Highway To Hell and Back In Black were really fresh, he muses. He spots a limo with out-riders gliding over nearby Vauxhall Bridge and remarks that it probably belongs to the U.S. ambassador. It prompts recollections of the days when he and Catherine were Washingtons most glamorous diplomatic duo. During his six-year tenure he smoothed the way for the special relationship between Tony Blair and Bill Clinton. It was said they entertained 35,000 visitors a year: his easy, public school charm complementing her effortless European chic. He must, surely, miss it? We loved every minute, but no, I dont miss it at all, he says. The Foreign Office was going through one of those spasms of intense political correctness that drove me ape-s**t. Then I ask about Trump. How would he like to be our man in America dealing with the current president? Oh Id love to grapple with that challenge! he cries. Sir Christopher is a man of sanguine disposition and resilience. But he sounds a note of caution. Id advise anyone not to have an altercation on public transport. Anything can happen. Ive no idea what can be done about that. I just watch in despair. The couple have now been ordered to pay back 350,000 under proceeds of crime orders Tax inspectors were all too happy to take their cut and police turned a blind eye There was much excitement when plans were unveiled for Sandys Health Studios in the suburbs of Manchester more than a decade ago. The establishment, ideally positioned on the High Street in Northenden, would feature cardiovascular and hydrotherapy suites and perhaps most impressively a eucalyptus steam room. I had every intention of taking my seven-year-old daughter, one mum was quoted as saying in the local paper at the time. Mark Hankin and Sandra Hankin are pictured leaving Manchester Magistrates' Court last week. They appeared in the dock alongside two accomplices, Adrian Burch, 44, and Alison Sutton, 54. All of them pleaded guilty to brothel keeping and were given suspended prison sentences Imagine her surprise and shock when she turned up to get more information about the facilities and the much-publicised family membership package and was greeted instead by a sign which said Gentlemen Only. Inside, at reception were catalogues setting out exactly what kind of pampering services were on offer, not from health spa professionals, of course, but from women like blonde Emily (34C-24-34), a gorgeous young lady in her mid-20s who has a sweet, charming and caring nature that will put the most nervous client at ease. Pictured standing next to a piano in black lingerie, her skills customers were informed included kissing, fantasies, mild domination and foot worship. Emily also offered a girlfriend experience (hence the reference to her caring nature, presumably). In all, a roster of 50-plus girls, listed in alphabetical order from Abbie to Vogue worked in shifts, seven days a week, at Sandys Health Studios which was now trading as Sandys Superstars; Sandy being Sandra Hankin, a former dental nurse turned madam, who ran the premises next to a hairdressing salon. The revelation caused consternation. The local vicar said staff at bona fide businesses and shops were being pestered by men wanting massages with all the extras and, along with Northenden Civic Society, called for Sandra Hankin to be prosecuted. Two companies were set up to manage the enterprise, with one turning over 1,944,000 between 2011 and 2014, and the other 1,804,000 the proceeds of crime, lest we forget and the Hankins enjoyed an enviable lifestyle with their daughter on the back of it. They lived in a beautiful thatched cottage, behind electronic gates, in North Wales (above), drove expensive vehicles (Jaguars, Range Rovers) and enjoyed frequent holidays [File photo] In England and Wales, it is not illegal to buy or sell sex, but it is against the law to operate a brothel. Sandys Superstars, just to reiterate, was situated on a busy shopping thoroughfare, not the back alleyways, with house charges of 50 for 30 minutes and 100 for an hour. Still, police decided to do nothing. Or, to be more precise, they came to an agreement with Mrs Hankin that she could continue as long she never used underage girls or trafficked women, and her activities werent used as a front for other crime; she kept her side of the bargain as far as the authorities were concerned. Her prostitutes had regular NHS health checks. Her bouncers were accredited by the Home Office-approved Security Industry Authority. Council officials carried out regular checks. Her business even paid tax and was visited by inspectors from tax authority HMRC in other words, Sandys Superstars was really a licensed brothel in all but name. So what was life like at Sandys Superstars for the girls? Back in 2010, psychiatrist Dr Adam Osborne brother of the then Chancellor George Osborne was famously found guilty of misconduct by the General Medical Council for secretly prescribing anti-psychotic medication to a woman who was not his patient to stop hallucinations she suffered as a result of her 750-a-week cocaine habit. She was 21 and worked at Sandys Superstars. I was expected to get around 12 to 15 clients a day, she said in an interview with the News of the World. The money was great, but the pressure was intense. However, this isnt just a story about Sandys Superstars. The pragmatic policy, pursued by Greater Manchester Police, has been quietly adopted across the country. Indeed, the latest guidance from the National Police Chiefs Council states: Brothel closures and raids create a mistrust of all external agencies . . . it is difficult to rebuild trust and ultimately reduces the amount of intelligence submitted to the police and puts sex workers at greater risk. The tactics, tantamount, it could be said, to giving the green light to the red light trade, will fiercely divide opinion between those who believe that our overstretched police have more urgent priorities than closing down so-called well-run brothels, and those who argue most passionately, including many feminists, that prostitution either on the street or behind the curtains of Sandys Superstars is intrinsically exploitative and abhorrent and demands a zero-tolerance approach. Either way, what is undeniable is that the strategy has proved hugely problematic, both morally and legally, especially in Manchester where Sandys Superstars is at the centre of controversy once more. Her business even paid tax and was visited by inspectors from tax authority HMRC in other words, Sandys Superstars was really a licensed brothel in all but name [File photo] Because last week, 14 years on long after the furore had died down Sandra Hankin, 55, finally appeared in the dock at Minshull Crown Court in Manchester with her husband Christopher Hankin, 57, and two accomplices, Adrian Burch, 44, and Alison Sutton, 54. All of them pleaded guilty to brothel keeping and were given suspended prison sentences. Some unpalatable facts emerged in court. Sandys Superstars had expanded and turned into a 3.8 million empire with another branch on the other side of the city in Prestwich. Two companies were set up to manage the enterprise, with one turning over 1,944,000 between 2011 and 2014, and the other 1,804,000 the proceeds of crime, lest we forget and the Hankins enjoyed an enviable lifestyle with their daughter on the back of it. They lived in a beautiful thatched cottage, behind electronic gates, in North Wales, drove expensive vehicles (Jaguars, Range Rovers) and enjoyed frequent holidays. The extent of official acquiescence extended towards the couple is highlighted by the last set of accounts for the Northenden brothel, which is still called Sandys Health Studios (specialising in physical wellbeing activities) at Companies House, and show a corporation tax liability of 27,259 in 2016 and 2017. So, in a two-year period alone, 54,518 of dirty money a fraction of the overall tax bill down the years made from girls like the aforementioned Emily, went to HMRC; surely, few can be comfortable with that. Last night, the HMRC said it does not comment on individual cases. But an HMRC manual states: If the activities of a prostitute or any other person deriving income from prostitution are organised in such a way as to constitute a trade or profession, the profits are liable to tax. In recent years, a HMRC taskforce has netted thousands of pounds in unpaid taxes in a crackdown on the growing number of online escort agencies simply a euphemism for brothels in many instances. But back to the saga of Sandys Superstars. There is a further, more farcical twist to report. The Prestwich branch, shut down with its counterpart in Northenden in 2016, has now been replaced by another brothel, 50 Shades Massage (Manchesters favourite playroom) at exactly the same address with the same phone number as before. The new establishment, reached down an alley next to the side of Tesco Direct, even has a Twitter feed which reminds punters that the venue is, in fact, in the former Sandys Superstars building. The same sort come here, explained a young mum pushing her pram while glaring at a smartly dressed man who had just emerged from the premises and was walking towards his BMW. They arrive in flash cars and park anywhere they like, including in front of my house, they are so desperate to go in. Is it possible Sandra Hankin is running 50 Shades Massage? The freehold of the site is owned by an elderly woman from North Yorkshire who was unable to be contacted this week and Mrs Hankins husband didnt wish to comment when we caught up with him as he came out of his Denbighshire pile to walk his two Doberman dogs. Sandys Superstars was, apparently, the most reported establishment on Punternet (the TripAdvisor for the vice trade). Sandra Hankin, who interviewed the girls (from their online biographies, they appear to be almost all British) was portrayed in court as an almost saintly figure. She worked in a variety of jobs, including dental nurse and retail assistant, before becoming an escort in the late Nineties with the support of her engineer husband. It was a dangerous occupation and working women were given no security. The exact words of Sandras barrister were that: Sandra prayed these conditions would change. At Sandys Superstars, the court heard, Hankin ensured rooms had showers, freshly laundered linen and complimentary towels, as well as CCTV. There was a ban on drugs, alcohol and smoking. There is no evidence of force or encouragement to work beyond their capacity, her barrister stressed in mitigation. The regrettable aspect of other companies was to implement this for maximum profit. Note the way the prostitution is normalised in her address as if the girls at Sandys Superstars were working in an office, not a brothel. Indeed, soon after the Northenden branch opened, a file of evidence detailing activities on the premises was sent to the Crown Prosecution Service, the Manchester Evening News reported. There are possible offenders among people who work on the premises and the people who manage the premises, a police spokesman told the paper. The matter is in our hands and is being put through the right channels. Given the events that followed, it is reasonable to assume the possible offenders at Sandys Superstars were never charged. In all, a roster of 50-plus girls, listed in alphabetical order from Abbie to Vogue worked in shifts, seven days a week, at Sandys Health Studios which was now trading as Sandys Superstars [File photo] Sandra Hankin organised the rota and was the big cheese of the enterprise, running it with an iron fist, the prosecuting barrister said shortly before she, her husband and their accomplices were sentenced, which, again, rather casts doubt on the defences description of Sandra Hankin as a kind and generous soul. There is one crucial question at the heart of these events: why, after 14 years, did Greater Manchester Police (GMP) finally move against Sandys Superstars? One clue lies perhaps in the raid that took place at the home of the brothels website manager Adrian Burch on farmland on the outskirts of Greater Manchester in 2016; the officers who stormed the property were from an armed response team. A number of complaints led GMP to investigate the activities at the premises, the force said in a statement. On this occasion, action was deemed necessary due to concerns over money laundering. Intelligence may lead us to believe it is also necessary to use armed officers when entering an address. However, the decision is not taken lightly. Burch, according to a serving police source, was an experienced pimp who had managed brothels before. Nevertheless, all the main players behind Sandys Superstars were initially charged with money laundering the concealment of the origins of illegally obtained money. Even without direct evidence of a link to organised crime, the fact vast profits were being made from brothels masquerading, on paper, at least, as legitimate businesses, meant there was prima facie evidence of money laundering and, potentially, tougher sentences. Except the police had already been compromised. Defence barristers claimed it would be an abuse of process to charge their clients with money laundering when the police had permitted the operation of the premises for so long without arrest. In 2007, the case against the owner and staff of a sauna in Sheffield was thrown out for this reason; they had enjoyed the same relationship with the police as Sandys Superstars until they were suspected of breaking the rules by employing illegal immigrants. It must, at the very least, the judge said, have created in the minds of the sauna operators over several years a reasonable and legitimate expectation that their activities were at best tolerated and they would not be prosecuted, provided they abided by the rules. In the latest case, money laundering charges were dropped but Sandra Hankin and her partners admitted the offence of keeping brothels and were each given sentences of between four and six months suspended for two years. It would be hard to find a more glaring example of the inherent pitfalls involved in the policy of not enforcing the law to begin with in relation to establishments such as Sandys Superstars which could have had implications well beyond Manchester. At their previous home in Chester, a detached house with its own stables, where they lived until 2014, the Hankins are not fondly remembered; neighbours described them as horrible. Sandra Hankin and her husband have now been ordered to pay back 350,000 under proceeds of crime orders. Few will have much sympathy for them. But isnt there a hint of hypocrisy about all this, considering HMRC has been benefiting from the proceeds of crime for many years, in the form of corporation tax, from Sandys Health Studios? Additional reporting: Mark Branagan Police are seeking a man they say stole a cop car just minutes after officers saved his life by reviving him from an opioid overdose. Jeremy Christian Davis, 25, is wanted in Columbus, Ohio on a charge of grand theft auto and other charges in the outlandish caper, police there said on Friday. The incident unfolded around 8.46am on Friday, when cops responded to a call of a male overdosing in a home on East Gates Street in south Columbus. Jeremy Christian Davis, 25, is wanted in Columbus, Ohio on a charge of grand theft auto and other charges after allegedly stealing a police cruiser for a wild joy ride on Friday Officers administered Narcan at 8.52am, reviving Davis and saving his life. Davis was placed in an ambulance as police ran his name for warrants. Police say that Davis escaped from the ambulance on foot and stole a police cruiser. The cop car was recovered about two miles away on the corner of East Woodrow Avenue and South Pearl Street. Davis had crashed the vehicle and fled on foot, police say. Police say that Davis has added new face and neck tattoos since these photos were taken Davis is described as five-foot-eleven and 170 pounds. A mugshot distributed to the public was taken in April 2018, but police say that it is out of date, and that Davis has added new face and neck tattoos in the meantime. Narcan, also known under the generic name naloxone, is a fast-acting drug that blocks the receptors for heroin and prescription opioids. People revived by Narcan often awake suddenly in a confused panic. A French-Canadian man who shot dead six Muslim men in a Quebec City mosque in 2017 has been sentenced to serve 40 years in prison before being eligible for parole. Quebec Superior Court Justice Francois Huot called Alexandre Bissonnette's attack gratuitous and insidious as he handed down the sentence Friday. Several people in the room wept as the judge read a detailed account of the shooter's actions. Bissonnette, now 29, pleaded guilty last March to six charges of first-degree murder and six of attempted murder. More than 50 people were at the Islamic Cultural Centre in January 2017 when he began shooting during evening prayers. Scroll down for video Quebec Superior Court Justice Francois Huot sentenced Alexandre Bissonnette to 40 years in prison Bissonnette (left and right) now 29, pleaded guilty last March to six charges of first-degree murder and six of attempted murder 'I am ashamed of what I did,' he said at the time, according to BBC. 'I am not a terrorist, I am not an Islamophobe.' Bissonnette received a life sentence and can apply for parole after 40 years, but that doesn't mean he's likely to get parole. One of the man's victim who was paralyzed in the attack, Aymen Derbali, said that many of the survivors were not pleased with the judge's sentencing. The judge began his ruling on Friday by saying the day of the murders 'will forever be written in blood in the history of this city, this province, this country.' Bissonnette, now 29, pleaded guilty last March to six charges of first-degree murder and six of attempted murder. More than 50 people were at the Islamic Cultural Centre (pictured) in January 2017 when he began shooting during evening prayers Canadian police pictured responding to the mass shooting at the City Islamic cultural center on Sainte-Foy Street in Quebec city on January 29, 2017 Police perimeter at the parking lot of the Islamic Cultural Center in Quebec City, Canada on January 30, 2017 Those who monitor extremist groups in Quebec described the university student as someone who took extreme nationalist positions at Laval University and on social media. He was a supporter of French far-right leader Marine Le Pen and U.S. President Donald Trump. Quebec's previous premier previously acknowledged the province has its 'demons' in terms of attitudes toward Muslims. Canada is generally welcoming toward immigrants and all religions, but the French-speaking province of Quebec has had a long-simmering debate about race and religious accommodation. The prosecution had recommended that his six life sentences be served consecutively, which would have meant 150 years before being eligible for parole. His lawyer had argued the sentences should be served concurrently, making him eligible for parole after 25 years. Said El-Amari, who was injured during a mosque shooting, reacts as he speaks with reporters Friday, February 8 at the courthouse in Quebec City, following to a judge's sentencing of Alexandre Bissonnette Megda and Amir Belkacemi, who lost their father in the mosque shooting, talks to the press in the Quebec City Courthouse after the hearing Boufeldja Benabdallah (C), Quebec Islamic Cultural Center president, talks to the press following the sentencing of mosque attack perpetrator Alexandre Bissonnette, on February 8 Huot said a sentence of 50 years or more would constitute cruel and unusual punishment. Six men, aged between 39 and 60, were killed when Bissonnette stormed the mosque and opened fire on Jan. 29, 2017. Witnesses described a scene of chaos as worshippers scrambled to find friends and loved ones. Bissonnette was arrested that night in his car on a bridge nearby, after he called 911 to say he wanted to cooperate with police. The murder victims were Mamadou Tanou Barry, 42; Abdelkrim Hassane, 41; Khaled Belkacemi, 60; Aboubaker Thabti, 44; Azzeddine Soufiane, 57; and Ibrahima Barry, 39. Manon Marchand and Raymond Bissonnette walk out after hearing the judge's sentencing for their son The Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) supremo had refused to be shifted to Punjab Institute of Cardiology (PIC) and insisted to be taken back to jail. Islamabad: The incarcerated former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was shifted back to Kot Lakhpat jail on Thursday from Services Hospital in Lahore. The Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) supremo had refused to be shifted to Punjab Institute of Cardiology (PIC) and insisted to be taken back to jail. I had already been shifted to PIC before being taken to Services Hospital, Nawaz Sharif said. Earlier in the day, Mr Sharifs daughter Maryam Nawaz and mother also met him at the hospital. Maryam Nawaz said her fathers health was better but she is still worried. Nawaz Sharifs mother, Shamim Begum, prayed for both Nawaz Sharif and Shehbaz Sharif. The former premier was shifted to Services Hospital on February 3 and underwent various medical tests to ascertain severity of different diseases he is suffering from. The official said the tests had detected a stone in Sharifs left kidney. On February 6, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) adjourned hearing of a bail petition filed by Sharif in the Al-Azizia reference case on the basis of medical grounds till February 12. Medical reports of former premier were presented in the court and IHC directed National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to submit its reply regarding the case. Advertisement With five sprawling bedrooms, a sweeping staircase and plenty of outdoor space this suburban Pennsylvania home looks perfect for any family. But the house - which has just gone on the market for $750,000 - hides a surprising secret. Real estate images show the home has all the normal interior features - bedrooms, bathrooms, a kitchen and living space. It boasts a gym, a games room, an indoor and outdoor speaker system and granite countertops. But the pictures also show the home has a fully furnished sex dungeon. The huge house has just gone on the market on a private road in Maple Glen for $750,000 It also comes complete with a fully furnished sex dungeon in the basement of the home It boasts five bedrooms, two bathrooms, a gym, a games room and a large living area The listing's realtor Melissa Leonard said 'the twist is it has this sex oasis in the basement' The home was set up on Airbnb, where it was reportedly listed as 'Maison XS - Just Be You' The house had also been listed on Airbnb for $750 per night but is no longer available Real estate images show the all the normal interior features and it comes fully furnished It was owned by a man who moved to be with his family when his wife died, the realtor says But despite appearing to be a normal home the listing holds a big surprise for potential buyers Closer inspection shows the room with a sex swing, whips hanging on the wall and chains attached to the bed. The listing's realtor Melissa Leonard told BuzzFeed News: 'Total suburban beautiful home. But the twist is it has this sex oasis in the basement.' According to Leonard the home, in Maple Glen, was owned by a man who moved to Philadelphia with his family when his wife died. He then set the home up on Airbnb, where it was reportedly listed as 'Maison XS - Just Be You' before finally putting it up for sale. The home appears to have now been taken down from the renting site but was listed at $750 per night with a $250 cleaning fee, according to reports. The real estate listing calls it 'one of a kind' with 'secluded' bedrooms and located on a 'private lane of just three homes'. It also says the sex dungeon 'can be converted back to a typical suburban basement'. The home appears to have now been taken down from Airbnb but was listed at $750 per night The listing calls it 'one of a kind' with 'secluded' bedrooms and located on a 'private lane' It also notes the award winning Upper Dublin school district is nearby for any potential buyers As well as the sex dungeon the home offers hardwood floors throughout, a breakfast room with vaulted ceilings and a large deck & private wooded yard with a custom gazebo Potential buyers are in for a shock when scrolling through the home pictures The rest of the home appears to be in good condition with lots of space and neat furnishings The dining room for hosting friends and family is world's away from the dungeon below It also has an indoor and outdoor speaker system and granite countertops The listing reads: ' One of a kind suburban home. Private quiet lane of 3 homes leads you to a secluded 4 bedrooms upstairs plus 1 bedroom in basement. 'Hardwood floors throughout both floors. Breakfast room w/ vaulted ceilings walks out to large deck & private wooded yard w/ custom gazebo. 'Full finished walk-out basement w bilco doors, includes a gym or 5th bedroom. It can be converted back to a typical suburban basement. Award winning Upper Dublin school district. House is being sold furnished.' Smyths advised anyone with affected toys to return them in store immediately Smyths Toys is recalling Dutch-made toys over fears they may be dangerous for children. The Mini Cupcake Suprise Assortment toys were sold at the retailer between April 2017 and January 2018 at its stores across the UK, Ireland and Northern Ireland. The toys were manufactured by Dutch brand Ostoy and are believed to be dangerous to children because they contain too many hazardous chemicals. The products were made in the Netherlands by Dutch brand Ostoy and sold in Smyths toys in the UK and Ireland In a statement, the company said the toy's in question did not comply with so-called REACH regulations. The rules govern the amount and type of chemicals in toy products in order to protect consumers and the environment. 'Please return the item to a local Smyths Toys Store, where a refund will be issued,' a statement on the Smyths website read. 'Apologies for any inconvenience caused.' The recall applies to toys with batch number 1613. They've been sold in the UK, Ireland and Northern Ireland. To see if your product is affected, check the batch number on the bottom of the packaging. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was 'not involved' in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and blaming him would be crossing 'a red line,' Saudi Arabia's minister of state for foreign affairs said Friday. 'For anyone to think that they can dictate what we should do, what our leadership should do, is preposterous,' Minister Adel al-Jubeir told reporters in Washington, where many US lawmakers have stated they believe Prince Mohammed is responsible for Khashoggi's killing last year at a Saudi consulate in Istanbul. 'Our leadership is a red line,' al-Jubeir added. Scroll down for video Saudi Arabia's minister of state for foreign affairs Adel al-Jubeir said Friday criticism of Mohammed Bin Salman would be 'crossing a red line' Several nations pointed the finger at Bin Salman after the death of critic Jamal Khashoggi last year On Thursday, the New York Times reported that a year before Khashoggi was killed, the crown prince told an aide he would use 'a bullet' on the journalist if he did not return home and end his criticism of the government. Those comments were made in 2017, well before Khashoggi was killed last October in a Saudi consulate in Istanbul, the Times said, citing current and former U.S. and foreign officials knowledgeable about intelligence reports. Asked about the report, Saudi Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel al-Jubeir told reporters: 'I can't comment on reports based on anonymous sources. We have seen in the past that many so-called reports based on intelligence sources have not panned out.' Asked if he rejected the idea that the crown prince had used the phrase in a conversation, al-Jubeir replied: 'It's not about reject or not reject. We know that the crown prince did not order this. We know that this was a rogue operation.' Separately on Thursday, a United Nations-led inquiry into Khashoggi's murder said that evidence pointed to a brutal crime 'planned and perpetrated' by Saudi officials. Khashoggi's killing by a team of Saudi operatives on Oct. 2 provoked widespread revulsion and tarnished the image of the crown prince, who had been admired in the West for pushing deep changes including tax reform, infrastructure projects and allowing women to drive. Khashoggi was brutally murdered by a Saudi hit squad inside the consulate in Istanbul back in October A Saudi public prosecutor's spokesman said late last year that 21 Saudis had been taken into custody over the case, 11 of whom had been indicted and referred to trial. The prosecutor has said authorities were seeking the death penalty for five of the 11 indicted suspects. CCTV footage emerged in December allegedly showing Jamal Khashoggi's body parts being carried into Saudi Arabia's consul residence in bags and suitcases on the day he was murdered. The former Saudi insider turned critic was strangled before he was cut up into pieces by a team of 15 Saudis sent to Istanbul for the killing, according to Turkish officials, with media reports suggesting the parts were dissolved in acid. The consulate and the residence were searched by the Turkish authorities in October along with several other locations but Khashoggi's body has still not been found. Saudi Arabia has also repeatedly rejected Turkish demands to extradite suspects connected to the murder of the journalist, a critic of the crown prince. The journalist had decided to leave his native Saudi Arabia for the US in September 2017, but was lured to the embassy in Istanbul on in October 2018 to collect papers for his upcoming marriage. Listening devices planted inside the building by Turkish intelligence captured the 'kill squad' planning the murder in the days before and carrying it out on October 2. A man charged with murdering his pregnant real estate agent girlfriend, who was found stabbed to death at the entrance of her New York City apartment, was spared an abortion charge thanks to Gov. Andrew Cuomo's new law. Anthony Hobson, 48, was charged with murder, tampering with physical evidence, abortion and criminal possession of a weapon in the Sunday slaying of Jennifer Irigoyen, 35, in Queens. Prosecutors initially included a charge of abortion over the death of Irigoyen,'s unborn baby, but said they have since rescinded it because of the new Reproductive Health Act. A DA spokesman told the New York Post that the abortion charge 'was repealed by the Legislature, and this is the law as it exists today.' The act, which aims at protecting doctors who have to perform emergency late term abortions on pregnancies which threaten to kill the mother or put her health at serious risk, removes abortion from the state's criminal code and instead puts it into public health law. It has, however, faced backlash from religious groups and Donald Trump. Scroll down for video Jennifer Irigoyen worked at Crosstown Apartments NYC as an HR manager and licensed real estate salesperson specializing in luxury homes Anthony Hobson, 48, was charged with murder, tampering with physical evidence, abortion and criminal possession of a weapon in the Sunday slaying of Jennifer Irigoyen, 35, in Queens The bloodstained entryway of the apartment building where Jennifer Irigoyen was found Family members of stabbing victim Jennifer Irigoyen gather at Queens Criminal Court following the arraignment of her boyfriend Anthony Hobson Outside the court, one of Irigoyen's relatives sobs after her boyfriend was arraigned for her murder The family were overcome with emotion after hearing about her brutal slaying at the hearing Hobson, accompanied by his attorney, surrendered himself at to 104 Precinct on Friday morning, the New York Post reported. His arrest concluded a multi-day manhunt after Hobson became the focus of police interest in his girlfriend's brutal slaying over the weekend. Around 1am on Sunday, Irigoyen, a real estate agent and native New Yorker, was found with multiple stab wounds in her neck and body in a building in the Ridgewood neighborhood of Queens. Irigoyen, who was five-months pregnant, was taken by EMS to Wyckoff Hospital where she was later pronounced dead. Her unborn child did not survive. A neighbor who spoke to the New York Post named Kristin said she heard a man arguing with Irigoyen, 'yelling something about her baby, about wanting to protect her baby'. Bloody boot prints were seen leading from the apartment building north on Myrtle Avenue, and a man was seen fleeing the scene who police believed to be Irigoyen's boyfriend. Police responded to a 911 call at the Myrtle Avenue apartment building in Ridgewood, Queens Irigoyen was taken by emergency medical personnel to Wyckoff Hospital but could not be saved Irigoyen, 35, was a native New Yorker originally from Queens A surveillance camera points at the building's entrance potentially giving investigators additional evidence, WCBS 880 radio reported. Victim: Irigoyen was left in a pool of blood Irigoyen, listed as an HR manager and licensed real estate salesperson on the website of Crosstown Apartments NYC, specializes in luxury homes in Manhattan and Queens. Her biography also states she was born and raised in New York City and attended the Fashion Institute of Technology. The mother-to-be was a professional Latin ballroom dancer, a certified Spinning instructor, licensed Zumba instructor and a classical pianist. North Carolina authorities are searching for a woman accused of intentionally driving into a pedestrian couple and then posting a selfie with her damaged car on Facebook. Wilmington police identified 22-year-old Courtnay Danielle Lawrence as the woman seen in surveillance video plowing into her ex-boyfriend and the woman he was with on Wednesday. A photo posted on social media after the hit and run allegedly shows Lawrence posing next to her Hyundai Elantra and showing off its broken headlight. Police have accused 22-year-old Courtnay Danielle Lawrence of intentionally plowing into a pedestrian couple in Wilmington, North Carolina, on Wednesday. After the hit-and-run, the alleged driver posted a photo with her damaged Hyundai Elantra on Facebook (above) Surveillance footage showed the dark sedan plowing into a man believed to be Lawrence's ex-boyfriend and a woman he was with on Rutledge Drive. The man managed to jump out of the way but the woman was struck on the hip and sent airborne According to Wilmington police, Lawrence intentionally struck the woman with her car when she and the suspect's ex-boyfriend were walking home from the store on Rutledge Drive. The video taken from a home surveillance camera shows a man in a dark hooded sweatshirt managing to jump out of the way of the vehicle before it hit the woman's right hip and sent her flying. The victim reportedly suffered multiple injuries to her head, shoulder, hips and knees. Police said the man she was with fled the scene on foot after the collision. Lawrence was identified through tips from the public after authorities shared the hit-and-run video and offered a $5,000 reward for information about the driver. Police issued warrants for her arrest on Friday. She is facing charges of assault with a deadly weapon, hit and run, failure to give information/aid to personal injury and driving without a license. The victim, who has not been named, is seen sitting on the ground after being run over by the car allegedly driven by Lawrence. The man she was with fled the scene on foot, police say Customers get in touch with him on Instagram where they can arrange for shoes to be delivered to them he star item in his shoe collection is a pair of Louboutins trainers worth 1,249 A schoolboy has started up his own business renting out luxury shoes. As well as studying for highers, 16-year-old Iman Khan has launched a Instagram business renting out footwear worth up to 1,250. Iman, from Glasgow, has spent 5,000 of his own cash on his stock of shoes after raising the money from part-time jobs. Iman Khan, 16, has launched a Instagram business renting out footwear. Customers have positively reviewed the business venture, which Iman shared on his Instagram story Customers pay 20 a day, 40 for a weekend and 70 a week for the chance to show off footwear they couldn't normally afford. The star item in his collection is a pair of Louboutins worth 1,249. Customers get in touch with Iman on Instagram and he arranges for the required pair to be delivered. A 100 deposit is handed over and the customer has to provide photo ID with an address to reduce the risk of theft. Customers pay 20 a day, 40 for a weekend and 70 a week for the chance to show off footwear they couldn't normally afford. His collection includes a pair of Louboutins worth 1,249, shown left, and Gucci sneakers worth 500, pictured right His business, described as the 'UK's first luxury shoe rental company' deducts 30 from the deposit for scuffed or dirty shoes and the same for 'smelly' footwear. Iman, who is studying Maths, English, Physics, Chemistry and Computer Science, said: 'The idea was so people could wear the luxury shoes without having to pay full price. 'It could be people who can't afford and just want to show off at a wedding, birthday or night out. 'Or it could be people who can afford the shoes full price but know they'll only wear them once or twice so no point paying full price.' He added: 'I started Rent A Shoe when one of my long term customers was getting married and didn't want to spend 900 on a pair of wedding shoes he'll wear once. 'So I said to him I'll let him rent them for his wedding day and it went well. I then did this with a couple of my other customers. 'I thought why not just start a page and do this properly because I've always got shoes coming and going? With the investing side, my current collection is worth around 5,000.' Iman's mother, Alveera Khan, 38, said today: 'I'm so proud of him and I believe if they have a passion about something it is good to give them encouragement. Customers get in touch with Iman on Instagram and he arranges for the required pair to be delivered. A 100 deposit is handed over and the customer has to provide photo ID with an address to reduce the risk of theft 'He was always interested in shoes and would spend his pocket money on buying shoes for himself and once he was done with them he would get another pair. He would only wear them for a few months so he started sell them online. 'I was really proud to see his modesty. He thought about the idea of renting shoes because some people couldn't wear the most expensive items and felt bad about it so he thought about it and saw there was a business opportunity. 'It was cheaper for people so anybody can afford anything to wear as people want to be seen in the lastest thing.' Anonymous customers have positively reviewed the business venture, which Iman shared on his Instagram story. One said: 'Very Professional and quick service. I got shoes for a night out on Friday and got loads of compliments without having to pay the full price and I returned them on Sunday and got my deposit straight away.' Another said: 'It was perfect. First time coming across a something like this and it's exactly what I needed! Will be booking again this weekend probably.' However, not everyone was impressed. @Jaymunro7 responded on Twitter: 'Is this actually what it's come to? Act your wage.' @jessicapink1985 said: 'It shows how s*** society is if people feel theyneed to rent shows to feel decent. @DrChintester-MD added: 'I've genuinely had enough of the way the world is and the things people do. 'How has it got to the stage where people rent shoes cars homes just to pretend they own them that to me is insane.' Bruce McArthur, 67, was sentenced to life in prison on Friday in Toronto A Canadian judge handed down a sentence for a serial killer on Friday, condemning him to life in prison with no chance for parole for 25 years. Bruce McArthur, 67, pleaded guilty last week to eight counts of first-degree murder. The former landscaper sexually assaulted, killed and dismembered men he met in Toronto's Gay Village district over seven years. Justice John McMahon called McArthur a sexual predator who killed for his own 'warped sick gratification' and said the victims suffered slow and painful deaths. He called their dismemberments 'pure evil', but said the guilty plea spared a jury four months of graphic and gruesome evidence that would have likely required counseling after. McMahon said that even if McArthur lives to 91, the chances of him getting parole are remote at best. Santhanaladchumy Kanagaratnam, mother of victim Kirushna Kumar Kanagaratnam, reacts as his friend Piranavan Thangavel speaks to reporters after McArthur was sentenced on Friday Nicole Borthwick, a friend of three victims of Canadian serial killer Bruce McArthur, speaks after he was sentenced to life imprisonment on eight counts of first-degree murder on Friday Shelly Kinsman, sister of murder victim Andrew Kinsman, is embraced by supporter Susan Gapka as she leaves The Toronto Courthouse in Toronto, Ontario on Friday Crown attorneys (left to right) Gabriel Ho, Andrew Max, Craig Harper and Michael Cantlon leave The Toronto Courthouse in Toronto, Ontario on Friday after McArthur's sentencing Prosecutor Craig Harper had asked for a parole ineligibility period of 50 years, when McArthur would have been 116. The judge said that would've only been symbolic. 'This is a crime of stark horror,' the prosecutor said in a statement after the sentencing. 'Although there can be no closure from a crime of this magnitude, we hope that these eight convictions for first degree murder will assist our community in beginning a new chapter of healing.' McArthur's victims fit a pattern: Most were of Middle Eastern or South Asian descent and lived on the margins of Canadian society. Their disappearances attracted little attention. 'All or most of the victims were vulnerable individuals who were lured to their death,' Justice McMahon said. 'The accused exploited his victims' vulnerabilities, whether they involved immigration concerns, mental health challenges, or people living a secretive double life.' One victim hid the fact that he was gay from his Muslim family. Another was a recent immigrant with a drug problem. A third was a refugee who was ordered deported. And still another victim was homeless, smoked crack cocaine and worked as a prostitute. In this artist's sketch, serial killer Bruce McArthur, center, attends his sentencing hearing in Toronto on Monday. McArthur staged photos of some of his victims after they died But then Andrew Kinsman vanished. The 49-year-old LGBQT activist and former bartender had many friends. When he suddenly went missing the day after Toronto's gay pride parade, his friends noticed quickly, and so did the police. Investigators found Kinsman's calendar with an entry titled 'Bruce' dated June 26, 2017 - the day he disappeared. Andrew Kinsman (above) was McArthur's final victim, disappearing in June 2017 'Mr. Kinsman making that notation gave the police the key clue that helped bring the accused to justice,' McMahon said. Kinsman was last seen on a surveillance video getting into a red van that was later linked to McArthur. Kinsman's blood and DNA were found in the van, which McArthur had sold to a junk yard. 'McArthur made a mistake when he killed Andrew Kinsman. Andrew Kinsman was not quite in the same profile as a lot of the other victims and it definitely left a trail,' Police Inspector Hank Idsinga said. Police found a naked man handcuffed to the bed when they raided McArthur's home and arrested him on January 18, 2018. Police surveilling McArthur moved in after they saw him bring that man up to his home. The man, who survived, was identified only as Middle Eastern and named 'John.' Investigators found McArthur had a USB drive that contained a directory with nine subfolders - eight for the men he killed and one for the man found at the time of McArthur's arrest. McArthur (above) killed eight men over seven years, trolling Toronto's Gay Village area as well as gay dating sites for his victims, especially targeting Muslim men Cops stormed McArthur's unit in Leaside Towers (above) on January 18, 2018 after observing him take a man inside, and found the Middle Eastern man tied nude to McArthur's bed Police discovered post-mortem photos of six of the eight victims. 'Victims were posed naked, with cigars in their mouth, shaved, and/or made to wear a fur coat and hat,' the prosecutor said at the sentencing hearing. 'I have no hesitation in concluding that if it were not for the police intervention on January 18, 2018, John would have been the ninth victim of Mr. McArthur,' McMahon said. Investigators discovered dismembered remains in planters McArthur used in his landscaping business. The planters were stored in the backyard of a horror-stricken Toronto couple who allowed McArthur to use their property in exchange for his landscaping services. McArthur pleaded guilty to killing Kinsman, Selim Esen, Majeed Kayhan, Dean Lisowick, Soroush Mahmudi, Skandaraj Navaratnam, Abdulbasir Faizi and Kirushna Kanagaratnam. Police said most of the disappearances weren't reported for 10 to 15 days. McArthur stored the dismembered body parts of his victims in large planters behind this home, owned by a couple that let him use storage space in exchange for work Investigators spent a week combing through a compost area in a ravine behind the house, saying they found small pieces of human remains nearly every day of the search The home did not belong to McArthur, but rather couple Ron Smith and Karen Fraser (above) who were horrified to learn the sick use that their property had been put to by McArthur The prosecution said that a frequent site of the killings was McArthur's bedroom and that he repeatedly strangled his victims either with his hands or with rope and a metal bar. The killings took place from 2010 to 2017. Many of Toronto's LGBQT community said for years a serial killer was at work, but Toronto Police Chief Marc Saunders said in late 2017 there was no evidence of that. Saunders vowed on Friday to rebuild trust with the LGBQT community. Criminal experts say it is unusual for someone to become a serial killer later in life, but the prosecution said that nothing suggested the existence of earlier murders. Idsinga said they are still looking at many cold cases to see if there is a link to McArthur but said they are close to wrapping that up. 'So far, we have no evidence to link Mr. McArthur to any of those cases,' Hdsinga said. 'Based on the evidence we have, the first individual that he killed was Skandaraj Navaratnam in 2010.' A mob of furious black cabbies brought Parliament Square to a standstill for a second day running in protest at Sadiq Khan's crackdown on private hire vehicles. The cab drivers caused gridlock across central London in a show of anger at the proposed plans to stop them going near Tottenham Court Road, in the centre of the city. Cars, lorries and taxis are to be banned from the landmark thoroughfare as part of a 35million project aimed at reducing congestion while improving air quality. Scores of cab drivers parked their vehicles on Parliament square on Friday for the second day running The cabbies were protesting against mayor Sadiq Khan's plans to fine them if they go near the area around Tottenham Court Road in central London Only buses and bicycles will be permitted to use the road between 8am and 7pm from Monday to Saturday, with drivers who breach the restriction facing a 130 fine. However the taxi industry claims the plans could make congestion and levels of pollution in the area even worse. It comes just months after Mr Khan implored the government to give him the power to put a New York-style cap on how many licensed vehicles are allowed on London's streets. In a letter to transport secretary Chris Grayling, Mr Khan said back in August: 'Unlike New York, I don't have the power to cap the number of private hire vehicles in London. Sadiq Khan has previously proposed a New York-style cap on the number of cabs allowed in London Cabbies vented their anger at the Labour mayor on Friday as they brought large parts of central London to a standstill 'I am writing to again urge the Government to grant me that power as the mayor of London - alongside appropriate restrictions on cross-border hiring, to enable Londoners, like New Yorkers, to breathe better air and live in a less congested city.' The protests, which have taken place over several days since January, were criticised by commuters, with some claiming that an ambulance was delayed by the action. A Twitter user wrote: 'I've just witnessed FOUR ambulances with elderly passengers stuck in gridlock 'traffic' on #tottenhamcourtroad thanks to the black cab protest. 'Everyone protesting should be ashamed of themselves! There are better ways to have an impact.' Salim Wakil (pictured outside the Old Bailey on January 7) had lived with his parents and nine younger siblings in Fleet, Hampshire A mentally impaired brother who wired his teenage jihadi sister more than 2,000 after she fled the UK to join Islamic State in Syria has been jailed for 30 months. Salim Wakil, 25, recruited a friend who lent him his bank details to send the funds totalling 2,350, via Western Union transfer to his sister Sumaiyyah last February. She left the country when she was just 16 in August 2014, leaving behind a handwritten letter for her family begging them not to alert the police. The teenager expressed anger about the state of the Islamic community, indicating that the only way to help was by travelling to Syria to fight and help those suffering. The schoolgirl also made clear she wished to die as a martyr as she made her way to IS-controlled areas, the court heard. Wakil denied funding terrorism over the transfer, claiming the money was meant to help bring her back to the UK. But a jury convicted Wakil after a week-long Old Bailey trial. Brett Weaver, prosecuting, told the court: The offence for which Mr Wakil has now been convicted has a maximum sentence of fourteen years imprisonment. Pictures of Sumaiyyah's daughter with a drip in her hand, sent to Wakil in May 2017 to try to persuade him to send more money Wakil (pictured) claimed the money was meant to help bring his younger sister back to the UK The Islamic State was and is an organisation that is a cash economy, if I can put it that way, and my Lady saw evidence of salaries being paid to fighters and costs for infrastructure in the city of Raqqa. There is a deliberate use of encrypted communications, either to facilitate the offence or to avoid detection. We would submit that whilst there may be evidence that the defendant acted under the direction of his sister, he was required to carry out certain research himself. We also point to, we submit, a failure to respond to warnings over many months - this defendant was warned in stark terms. He added that a medical report highlights Wakils low IQ and there is a suggestion that he is more susceptible than others. Wakil first arranged for 2,350 to be sent via Western Union transfer first to Lebanon, and then to his sister in Syria. This arrangement was made by the defendant in spite of repeated warnings from police that any such transfers sent to Syria could lead to him committing a criminal offence, said Mr Weaver. Furthermore, rather than send the money in his own name the defendant sought the help of a friend of his named Robert Chisca who went with him to the Western Union outlet. Robert Chisca provided his details for the transfer although it was the defendants money that was being sent. Wakil (top left) at an HSBC branch in Fleet in February 2017 where he withdrew 2,000 in cash The prosecution say this was done quite deliberately in an attempt to conceal his actions and thereby demonstrate that he knew perfectly well what he was doing was wrong. At the relevant time, the contact that the defendant and other members of his family had with Sumaiyyah showed that not only was she in Syria but at various times she was in locations that were under the control of the Islamic State, a proscribed terrorist organisation. As a result, the prosecution say that sending money to someone in Syria in such circumstances give rise to a clear suspicion, at the very least, that it could end up being available to those engaged in terrorism overseas. In response to this allegation, the defendant accepts that he sent money to Sumaiyyah via Western Union, using the help of Robert Chisca. He says that at all times his intention was to help with the return of his sister Sumaiyyah from Syria back to the United Kingdom. The money was sent in line with instructions she had given to him and which she had told him would allow her to be brought back home. He told police he did not believe that the money would be used for the purposes of terrorism. However, despite his sending the money to Sumaiyyah for her to leave, she remained in Syria and in fact contacted him in the months that followed to request that he send her more money. Sumaiyyah, whose messages are pictured, left the UK when she was just 16 in August 2014 One message from Sumaiyyah urges her brother: 'Do something, idiot... ur so annoying' A photo sent to Wakil by Sumaiyyah of the River Euphrates, near where she was living in Syria Another photo sent by Sumaiyyah to Wakil of the River Euphrates, near where she was living John Simmons, defending said Wakil did not even understand the fact of his own conviction. When convicted he came out to me and said: "What does that mean?" That is the level of comprehension that is apparent. I suggest that this defendant did not have the wherewithal, knowing what we do about him to know how to do it. Knowing everything we do about the planning of the transfer and knowing everything we do about him, it is very difficult to that he was doing anything other than following directions. This is a multi million pound organisation, 3,000 is a drop in the ocean. His IQ is one point over the point of mental impairment. His IQ is 70, the cut off point is 69. He is in all but name, mentally impaired. Judge Rebecca Poulet, QC, said: I do consider that this defendant was undoubtedly naive and the police themselves seem to genuinely accept and make clear that they do accept that this defendant himself was not a supporter of Islamic State. He clearly was feeling genuinely unsure and concerned for his sisters safety. Wakil, of Fleet, Hampshire, denied funding terrorism but was convicted by a jury. He was jailed for 30 months. He moved to Britain after the Taliban found out about his three years of service Afghan interpreter Nazir Ayeen, 29, said he was grateful to MailOnline readers and their campaign. He worked for the British Army for three years in Afghanistan, but was threatened with deportation when visa expired in December An Afghan interpreter who risked his life working for Prince Charles and faced being kicked out of the UK when his visa expired has finally been given leave to remain in the country. Nazir Ayeen, 29, worked for the British Army for three years in Afghanistan, regularly coming under rocket and mortar attack. He fled to Britain in 2013 after the Taliban found out about his three years of service and threatened to kill him. He was granted a five-year visa and gradually built a new life, studying at Birkbeck, University of London, working for a construction company and starting a relationship with a girlfriend. But he was threatened with deportation when visa expired in December, leaving him threatened with deportation. Banned from both working and claiming benefits, he was living off his savings which were fast running out. After an exclusive MailOnline interview put pressure on the Home Office, this morning he was finally granted leave to remain safely in Britain. 'It was like a dream,' he said. The Afghan interpreter, who risked his life working for Prince Charles, faced being kicked out of the UK when his visa expired. Ayeen, pictured above centre, has finally been given leave to remain in the country 'I received a ring on my door this morning and a man unexpectedly said he had a delivery for me. 'I wasn't expecting anything but I asked him to come in. He took an envelope from his box and said it was special delivery and I signed for it. 'I felt the envelope and it was solid and hard, like a bank card. I thought it held something from the bank, even though I didn't expect anything. 'I opened it and saw it was a Home Office ID card. My heart jumped. I immediately turned it over to see if it allowed me to stay one year, two years or indefinitely. When I saw it was indefinite, it made my day.' The Home Office had not notified him of its decision in advance and had not contacted his lawyer. 'I think the major influence was media and publicity,' Mr Ayeen said. 'I have a message for MailOnline readers. I am very grateful to them and their campaign for Afghan interpreters. They have been immensely helpful in presenting our case to the Home Office and I want to say thank you to them for making a success of my case.' Ayeen is pictured standing on the right in the Sangin district of Helmand province, Afghanistan in 2007. The Home Office had not notified him of its decision in advance and had not contacted his lawyer The hero interpreter added: 'This means a lot to me. It has opened a lot of doors. Now I can work, I can apply for university and my life is not at risk. I can operate my social and official life without any legal barriers.' While the leave to remain is not full citizenship and he is not yet a British subject, it is a 'step in the right direction', he said. 'I would feel so proud to have a British passport,' the Manchester United fan said. 'I would do my best to work for the Government again as a civil servant. 'I plan to put all the talent that I have, and the potential that exists in me, into helping the Government again.' Addressing a gathering of top US lawmakers at a reception, Shringla said India has counted every step of the way. A record number of 60 members of the US House of Representatives and Senators attended the reception held at the US Capital (Photo:AP) Washington: The powerful Congressional India caucus, both in the House and the Senate, has played a sterling role in strengthening and deepening of bilateral relationship between the two largest democracies of the world, the Indian Ambassador to the US, Harsh V Shringla, has said. Addressing a gathering of top US lawmakers at a reception co-hosted in his honour by the co-Chairs of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian-Americans, Shringla said India has counted every step of the way. A record number of 60 members of the US House of Representatives and Senators attended the reception held at the US Capital on Thursday evening. Prominent among them were Senators John Cornyn and Mark Warner, who are co-chairs of the Senate India Caucus; Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard among others. Indian American Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi and Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, were also present at the event. Praising the "understanding" of US lawmakers to steer the countries "ever closer together", the Indian diplomat said: "Many in this room will recall the sterling role played by the India caucus in getting us past the finish line on the landmark civil nuclear agreement." The designation of India as a Major Defense Partner was also codified into law by the US Congress, thanks to the unstinting support by members of the India Caucus. Referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's address to the joint session of the US Congress that the Indo-US ties have "overcome the hesitations of history", Shringla said he was looking forward to the same comfort, convergence and candour while working closely with members of Congress, particularly the India Caucus. "Our synergies and similarities are immense. Our values and love of freedom identical. The spirit of entrepreneurship, innovation, and high regard to family and community define the best of both of our peoples," Shringla said. Senator Cornyn said the bipartisan group of more than 30 Senators who form the Senate India Caucus were working to promote India-US relationship. India and US have a "unique relationship" which is based on shared values and opportunities that are presented in this very dangerous world. It was in 2004 that the Cornyn and the then Senator Hillary Clinton founded the Senate India caucus. It is the largest bilateral caucus in the US Senate, Senator Warner said. "We look forward to the continued success of the caucus and continue growing friendship between India and the United States," he said. India is an important ally of the United States and the Indian American community has played a very important role in this, said Congressman Steny Hoyer. "The contribution that the Indian community has made to America is immense," he said. Gabbard, this month launched her 2020 presidential campaign, called for building on the momentum of the relationship between the two countries. "There are so many areas of common interest, so many areas of potential. So I have no doubt that with this bipartisan group that's gathered here from both the house and the Senate, we will continue to do that work," she said. Referring to his recent meeting with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Congressman George Holding said in the last two years the India Caucus was able to work successfully in strengthening the military to military relationship. "I think we're going to have a good opportunity to sell more US military equipment to India," he said. "I think we can look forward to great US companies furthering their relationship than India, such as Raytheon, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and many others. And with that more Indian companies strengthening their relationship here in the United States," he added. "We look forward to building our alliances and the Indo Pacific region and there's no ally that we have in the region that better mirrors the similar values of a strong democracy and freedom," Holding said. Congressman Brad Sherman, who is now also chairman of the Asia subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee said he was a strong supporter of strenthening India-US relationship. Spike Lee said Friday he will no longer wear Gucci or Prada until the brands hire some black designers following a pair of blackface fashion fails from the major Italian fashion houses. The director wrote on Instagram Friday: 'I,Spike Lee Of Sound Mind And Body Will No Longer Wear Prada Or Gucci Until They Hire Some Black Designers " To Be In Da Room When It Happens". 'It's Obvious To Da Peoples That They Don't Have A Clue When It Comes To Racist, Blackface Hateful Imagery. WAKE UP. Ya-Dig? Sho-Nuff. And Dat's Da "Coonery And Buffoonery Truth,Ruth.' Lee's personal boycott in the midst of movie awards season was a powerful message to luxury fashion houses that are already suffering backlashes for designs evoking racist images. He donned Gucci on the Venice Film Festival red carpet last September, following up with a stop by the Prada womenswear preview show in Milan later in the month decked out in a black Prada suit. Gucci this week apologized for a high-neck black wool sweater that featured bright red lips when pulled over the face, while Prada apologized for a monkey bag charm resembling blackface in December. Both brands withdrew the offending pieces from sale on both websites and stores. Spike Lee said Friday he will no longer wear Gucci or Prada until the brands hire some black designers following a pair of blackface fashion fails from the major Italian fashion houses Lee announced his boycott of the Italian fashion houses already suffering backlashes for designs evoking racist images in an Instagram post on Friday (above) Gucci this week apologized for a high-neck black wool sweater that featured bright red lips when pulled over the face. A similar item from the designer's Fall/Winter 2018-2019 collection is seen on the runway during Milan Fashion Week last year Prada said it 'abhors all forms of racism,' while Gucci called it 'a powerful learning moment for the Gucci team and beyond.' The blackface images have particular resonance in the United States at a time when the governor of Virginia and his attorney general have been caught up in a scandal over blackface incidents from their college days in the 1980s. The offensive depictions are reminiscent of traveling minstrels from the 19th century, who would paint their faces black to portray African characters in a ridiculous and mocking fashion. Blackface hasn't been the only fashion faux pas in recent memory. Dolce & Gabbana faced a boycott in China - the luxury world's number one market by a long shot - after one of its designers insulted Chinese people in a private chat over promotional videos featuring a Chinese model struggling to eat Italian food with chopsticks, which was seen as culturally insensitive. Lee donned Gucci on the Venice Film Festival red carpet last September (above), following up with a stop by the Prada womenswear preview show in Milan later in the month decked out in a black Prada suit Commenting on the controversies during New York Fashion Week, model Cipriana Quann said the offending designs suggested a lack of diversity within the companies, not just in the design studios but also the board rooms and on the runways. 'When the company is not diverse, so they're not inclusive,' the model said. 'So, the more diverse your company, the more you'll be able to catch those cultural appropriation screw ups.' 'So, you need to see it across the map. So not only in the boardroom. On the runway, even in street-style photography, not photographing women that are only homogenous in looks, you need diversity as well. In every aspect,' she said. While design houses have creative directors whose put their faces on the collections - Alessandro Michele at Gucci and Miuccia Prada at her brand - they work with considerable design teams behind the scenes. Also in New York, Japanese-American designer Tadashi Shoji said that the brands appeared to be lacking in cultural sensitivity. 'What are they thinking as a designer in the business? That is what puzzles me. If you think about this simple, simple stuff, offending these customers, I think it's not good for business,' Shoji said Thursday night. The 'special place in hell' that Donald Tusk controversially said was reserved for leading Eurosceptics might look very similar to the one for the architects of the EU's monetary union, a leading Greek economist has said. Tusk, who represents EU member leaders as head of the European Council, triggered outrage across the Channel by issuing a damning condemnation of pro-Brexit politicians on Wednesday. 'I've been wondering what that special place in hell looks like, for those who promoted Brexit without even a sketch of a plan how to carry it out safely,' he said. Donald Tusk criticised leading Brexiteers who campaigned without a plan on Wednesday, but former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis hit back saying it was similar to the one reserved for those who designed the EU monetary union But former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis hit back the following day by pointing out the damage caused by the EU monetary union. 'Probably very similar to the place reserved for those who designed a monetary union without a proper banking union and, once the banking crisis hit, transferred cynically the bankers' gigantic losses onto the shoulders of the weakest taxpayers,' he wrote on Thursday. Tusk did not respond. Theresa May also said she had raised the incendiary remarks in their meeting, calling them 'not helpful' and saying they had caused 'widespread dismay' in Britain. The EU Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) was launched in 1992, and involves a common monetary policy as well as common currency - the euro. Head of the European Council Donald Tusk (left) did not respond to Yanis Varoufakis, now a leading economist, on Twitter. Varoufakis served in the Greek administration at the time of the EU bailout budget, which was deeply unpopular with Greek citizens because it included severe cutbacks All 28 member states belong to the economic union - but only 19 have opted to join the euro. One of those who did however, was Greece, where Varoufakis served for eight months as Minister of Finance in 2015. During this time, he was responsible for negotiating with the EU over the enormous bailout plan - designed to rescue the collapsed Greek economy with massive loans after the 2008 financial crash. But the loans came with tough conditions: closing deficits, which led to aggressive tax increases and spending cuts; and a raft of reforms aimed at improving tax collection and the business climate in general. The economy, hit hard by spending cuts, shrank by a quarter. Theresa May said she confronted Donald Tusk (pictured together in Brussels today) about his 'unhelpful' barb about Brexiteers having a 'special place in Hell' Greece now owes hundreds of billions in debts and its people overwhelmingly believe the plan was bad for the country. Varoufakis would have dealt with Tusk over the Greek bailout as the EU Council, which he has presided over since 2014, signs off on all member's budgets. Varoufakis has previously slammed the concept of the single currency, saying: Its a bit like invading Russia. It starts off beautifully but you end up with blood on the snow. Valerie Reyes (above), of New Rochelle, New York, told her mother she was afraid of being murdered the evening before she went missing Valerie Reyes, whose body was found bound in a suitcase in a Connecticut woodland on Tuesday, had an awful premonition she was going to be murdered, her mother has revealed. The 24-year-old from New Rochelle, New York, spoke to her mother, Norma Sanchez, the night before she disappeared on January 29, telling her: 'I'm afraid someone is going to murder me.' Just over a week later, Reyes' body was was discovered by construction workers in Greenwich, tied-up at the hands and feet inside a red suitcase. Sanchez revealed her daughter battled depression and anxiety, but she became incredibly paranoid shortly before her disappearance. 'She was very scared, very frightened,' Sanchez told The Journal. 'She didn't mention anything or no one specific. She just said, 'I'm scared. I'm paranoid, mommy. I'm getting anxiety attacks'. 'She was having a hard time talking.' Norma Sanchez (pictured) said her daughter had recently broken up with her boyfriend and struggled with depression and anxiety Reyes allegedly told her mother she didn't feel safe alone in her apartment, but she refused to specify why Sanchez says she desprately tried to pry for more information, but her daughter refused to specify why she felt that way. The Barnes & Noble store clerk had broken up with her boyfriend five days earlier, according to Sanchez. 'I asked her why do you feel this way? Was there someone at your house?' She asked about her daughter's ex-boyfriend but still Reyes told her mother 'no, it wasn't him'. Reyes did however reveal that she didn't feel safe alone in her apartment, and expressed her concern at the murders of young women in the state. 'I'm worried someone is going to murder me,' Reyes then allegedly blurted out. The next day she failed to show up for work in Scarsdale. Her family hired a private detective to locate her whereabouts, who managed to track her to a Manhattan ATM at 2am. The 24-year-old's card was also used that morning at a different ATM, though it isn't yet clear whether she used the card or someone else. Eight days after she was last heard of, Police had identified a body found stuffed in a suitcase as Reyes'. Police said previously that Reyes did not die at the location where she was found, but they did not know where she was killed. The reddish-orange suitcase containing Reyes' body was discovered by highway workers in Greenwich around 8.15am Tuesday, one week after the 24-year-old was last seen on January 29 The suitcase had been dumped in a wooded area (above) about 15 feet from Glenville Road A vigil was held by family and friends on Thursday to mourn the loss Reyes, whom many have described as a 'sweetheart' According to The Journal News, Reyes had taken her iPad, iPhone, clothes and bed sheets with her when she disappeared. The reddish-orange suitcase containing Reyes' body was found in a wooded area some 15 feet off of Glenville Road in a quiet, secluded area of Greenwich by highway workers around 8.15 am Tuesday. Inside, investigators found the woman fully clothed and bound at the hands and feet. She was initially described as between 18 and 30 years old. Authorities have said they will be conducting a long, thorough investigation into the murder, with the help of the Chief State's Attorney's Office. The state's chief medical examiner, which is performing the autopsy, was on the scene for several hours on Tuesday surveying the body and the immediate surroundings, as seen in footage from NBC News. Officers are interviewing local residents and have asked for video footage from nearby security systems that may have captured relevant information. Police are unsure of where Reyes was killed but said they had reason to believe she was murdered elsewhere and dumped at the site, which is about four miles from I-95. Greenwich Police Captain Robert Berry said investigators were in communication with law enforcement agencies across state lines in New York and across the rest of Connecticut, which is standard procedure given Greenwich's proximity to the state's border. Reyes' family was notified after the Connecticut state medical examiner's office made a positive identification of the body on Thursday Glenville Road runs through a quiet and somewhat isolated area of Glenville, a wealthy suburb of Greenwich with a population of just over 2,200 people Glenville Road runs through a somewhat isolated area in Greenwich's picturesque neighborhood of Glenville, which has been hailed as one of the safest - and richest - communities in the nation. Locals say they often use the road as a running path. 'I'm just like totally shocked. She was a confidant. She really encouraged me and my aspirations,' said friend Lauren Bradford, 19. 'She had a really bright future. She was really excited about her art and her goals.' According to her mother, Reyes was a budding artist and hoped one day to work as a tattooist. Scott Chiappetta, who works at a local preschool, told Greenwich Time: 'My gut is [the murder] probably happened somewhere else, but these days, you never know. It's very quiet. 'Nothing ever really happens around here, other than [traffic] from the firehouse. It feels safe.' 'I was praying to God it wasn't her,' Brenda DeGiacomo, a New Rochelle native who lived across the street from Reyes, said to Greenwich Time on Thursday. 'And then when I found out it was her and the way she was, it was horrible. I really pray to God that they find out who did it.' The town highway worker who found the body reportedly took very took inappropriate pictures of the victim and sent them to other people before reporting their find. They are now under investigation. Glenville has a population of just over 2,200 people with an average household income of around $172,400, according to the US Census Bureau. The median property value in the area is $760,300. Authorities have asked anyone with information on the case to call 203-622-3333. A man accused of killing a 100-year-old woman in a violent mugging bought 20 worth of heroin in the minutes after the attack, a court has heard. Artur Waszkiewicz, 40, is alleged to have grabbed Zofija Kaczan from behind and stole her handbag as she walked to a church service in Normanton, Derby on May 28 last year. She suffered multiple injuries as a result, including a broken neck and fractured cheekbone, before her condition deteriorated - and she later died from pneumonia in hospital on June 6. Zofija Kaczan (pictured) died in hospital on June 6 last year after she was mugged on her way to a church service in Normanton, Derby A jury was earlier shown CCTV stills (pictured) of Polish-born widow Ms Kaczan being followed by a grey Seat Leon in the moments before she was mugged Derby Crown Court previously heard how her green handbag had been found minutes after the alleged altercation by a street cleaner and was empty of cash. And a jury was shown CCTV stills of Polish-born widow Ms Kaczan, who was held in a Nazi camp during the Second World War, being followed by a grey Seat Leon in the moments before she was mugged. In court today, Waszkiewicz, who denies manslaughter and robbery, claimed he had seen Ms Kaczan's handbag lying on the pavement while going to buy a 20 wrap of heroin. And that he had only found receipts inside the bag and so left it on a pile of rubbish nearby. He told the court: 'I was going to see my local dealer to buy heroin. I stopped in Empress Road when I saw a green bag on the side of the road. 'I stopped, got out of the car, picked up the bag and got back in the car straight away. I did not look in the bag at that stage. 'I drove to the place where I was meeting my dealer. When I reached the place where I was supposed to meet my dealer, I looked in the bag. 'If I had found some cash, I probably would have put it in my pocket. I met my dealer and obtained 20 of heroin. 'I drove on Moor Street. I was going there to buy cigarettes from the corner shop. They sell Polish cigarettes - which are a lot cheaper than English cigarettes. 'I left the bag on the top of a pile where people leave stuff for other people to find.' The junction in Normanton, Derby where Zofija Kaczan suffered a broken neck The court also heard today how Waszkiewicz would often ask neighbours to borrow money, and appeared 'desperate' after the alleged mugging- even appearing to have cleaned his car. When police first went to his home to interview him in relation to the incident he claimed he was too unwell to answer questions because he was withdrawing from drugs. And when they later came back to arrest him he reportedly hid under a bed at his parents' house in London. Prosecutor Kate Brunner QC, read out a statement from John Shinners, a neighbour of Waszkiewicz - claiming he 'seemed really anxious' in the days after the mugging. Recalling his behaviour the week after the incident, he said: 'I heard a knock at the door and saw the male standing on my door step. 'His long black hair had been cut off. It looked like it had been clippered. He asked if he could borrow my phone to make a call. He made a call and left. 'He then asked me for some money. He seemed really anxious and desperate.' Taking the stand to begin giving evidence, Waszkiewicz revealed he was born in Poland and moved to the UK in 1996. The silver Seat Leon he drove had been insured in his father Zenon Waszkiewicz's name, but his father cancelled the insurance on May 28 - the day of the mugging. Waszkiewicz, from Derby, denies robbery and manslaughter. The trial at Derby Crown Court (pictured), continues Ms Brunner, outlining the facts of the case, went on to note how several items were still inside Ms Kaczan's purse when it was found. She said: 'In the bag was a black purse, two brown wallets containing no money, a number of receipts including one on which the defendant's fingerprint was found. 'There was some jewellery including a gold coloured cross, a pocket watch on a chain and a gold signet ring and keys to her house. 'The handle of the bag had been ripped off the bag.' She also noted that the vehicle Waszkiewicz had allegedly been using to follow Ms Kaczan prior to the mugging was found two days after the incident on May 30. She said: 'There was a bottle of Flash cleaner and a blue duster. It looked clean inside and out. 'The defendant's fingerprint was on a CD in the glove box in the car.' Before going on to explain how Waszkiewicz had hidden under a bed as police came to arrest him. She said: 'He was cautioned and made no reply. The defendant answered 'no comment' to all questions.' Waszkiewicz, from Derby, denies robbery and manslaughter. The trial, set to last two weeks, continues. Joshua Moore, 36, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on January 12 Bodycam footage has been released showing a police shootout with a man who took his estranged wife hostage before turning the gun on himself. Joshua Moore, 36, died on January 12 when Officer Keith Hunter responded to a 911 call reporting a man with a gun shooting on a suburban cul-de-sac in Fort Collins, Colorado. Moore fired twice, with one shot hitting himself in the head and causing his own death, the coroner found, ruling the death a suicide. Hunter fired four times, hitting Moore in the lower extremities, the investigation found. Bodycam footage, evidence photos and 911 call recordings released on Thursday reveal the harrowing details of the incident, which prosecutors have now ruled a justified use of police force. Moore (above) had been married to his wife for two years, but the couple had been living apart for six months when they had a heated argument on the telephone on January 12 The wife and her children returned home hours after the argument to find the inside of their house smashed up with a sledgehammer (above), apparently by Moore Investigators determined that Moore and his estranged wife had gotten into a verbal argument earlier on the day of the shooting. The couple had been married for two years, but living separately for about six months. The woman and her family left the home on the 2600 block of Bradbury Court, and when some of them returned, they found that Moore had used a sledgehammer to damage the inside and left. Moore then drove to the home and began firing a gun through the front windshield of his BMW at the house, prompting multiple 911 calls at approximately 10.04pm. The enraged husband then stormed out of the car towards the home, firing his gun through the door of the house. 'My step-dad has destroyed the house and now he's back in the front yard, and he shot through - through the glass slide-door,' one frantic 911 caller told dispatch. 'He's coming in, he's coming in! Oh my God!' the caller screamed. At about 10.04pm, Moore (above) returned to the home armed with a stolen handgun Moore fired at the wife's home through the window of his BMW (above) before storming across the lawn and shooting through a glass door to gain entry Terrified, the wife and her children called 911 from inside the home (above) as he fired through the door and attempted to break in The children and other relatives fled the home, driving off in a Jeep, as Moore's wife attempted to draw him away from her children by running in the opposite direction. Officer Hunter was in the midst of a traffic stop when he received the call of shots fired, his body cam footage shows. He realized he was just blocks from the scene. Springing into action, Hunter passed the driver's license back to the stopped motorist and departed with a terse warning: 'Hey, if you're drunk, don't drive.' It took Hunter just over a minute to arrive on the scene. Moore was in the street, dragging his estranged wife with one hand and in the other wielding a .45 caliber Glock, which was subsequently found to have been stolen from a sporting goods store in 2017. The estranged wife says that she saw the police lights and shouted to Moore: 'Don't shoot me, I love you!' Moore was armed with this .45 caliber Glock, which was stolen during a burglary from Cabela's Store in Thornton, Colorado in 2017, prosecutors said Officer Hunter's bodycam shows Moore grappling with his estranged wife in the street as he arrives on the scene 'Stop now!' the officer shouts. Moore flees, and the woman falls to the ground as Moore fires a shot. Hunter believes that that Moore has shot the woman, he later says. Moore fires a second shot, which the cop believes is aimed at either him or the woman. The officer fires four times in quick succession, hitting Moore in the lower extremities. He doesn't yet realize that Moore's second shot had been self-inflicted to his own head, and ultimately fatal. Believing the woman has been shot, the officer checks her for injuries as he orders her frantic family members to stay back. Fortunately, the woman was not struck. After reviewing the investigation, the DA ruled that the force used by the officer was justified and likely saved the female victim's life. Moore (left) fires one shot as his wife (right) drops to the pavement Moore (illuminated) fires another shot as he himself falls to the pavement, and Officer Hunter returns four shots in quick succession, not realizing that Moore has shot himself in the head Had Moore survived, District Attorney Clifford E. Riedel ruled that he would have been charged with multiple felony offenses, including attempted first-degree murder, first-degree burglary, felony criminal mischief, multiple counts of felony menacing with a deadly weapon, and possession of a weapon by a previous offender. Additionally, the DA indicated that Moore would have been 'subject to habitual criminal charges based on his extensive criminal history'. Officer Hunter, who was placed on administrative leave following the incident in accordance with agency policy, has begun the process of returning to duty. 'I'm grateful for Keith's rapid response to this dangerous situation,' said FCPS Chief Jeff Swoboda. 'I'm also extremely proud of the compassion and professionalism he showed while ensuring the victim's safety. Not only did he run toward danger, he also demonstrated great care and composure immediately following a traumatic incident.' Anthony Gafford, convicted of a 1997 Omaha slaying escaped a Lincoln work-release center six days after his victim's son was killed, and was found two weeks later A convicted killer who walked away on work-release six days after his victim's son was shot dead as he slept has been found in Las Vegas two weeks later. Anthony Gafford, 40, was taken into custody without incident Thursday night, Deputy U.S. Marshal William Iverson said. He had left the minimum-security Community Corrections Center in Lincoln, where he had been since May, at 6am on January 26 to go and work at a food store and did not return. An affadavit for his arrest showed he was unaccounted for at 8pm during a prison check. He is said to have left work at 3:21pm. The public was not formally told he was missing until three days later. Prison spokeswoman Laura Strimple said: 'When Mr. Gafford failed to return to CCC-L at the appropriate time, staff initiated the appropriate notification process to law enforcement.' In 1997, at age 19, Gafford was sentenced to 30 to 50 years in the killing of 16-year-old Jacque Holbert in Omaha. Holbert's 21-year-old son, Jacque 'Jack' Holbert IV, was fatally shot while lying in a bed in a home in Omaha on January 20 - six days before his father's killer escaped. Police said the shots came from outside the home and there have been no arrests, according to reports. Court records said Gafford shot Holbert snr in September 1997 after their vehicles passed one another. Gafford is said to have got out of his car and shot his victim in the chest. Holbert's son, Jacque 'Jack' Holbert IV, was shot dead in Omaha on January 20 In 1997, at age 19, Gafford was sentenced to 30 to 50 years in the killing of 16-year-old Jacque Holbert in Omaha. His son Jacque 'Jack' Holbert IV was killed last month. Gafford left the minimum-security Community Corrections Center in Lincoln, pictured, at 6am on January 26 to go and work at a food store and did not return Jack's mother, Sophia Hall, told The Omaha World-Herald: 'My son was well-loved, and everyone who met him gravitated toward him. 'He lit up the room with his smile, he'd give you the shirt off his back. I know that sounds cliched, but that's the way he was.' 'If anybody knows anything, please come forward. There's no malice. I just want to know why.' U.S. Marshal for the District of Nebraska Scott Kracl said: 'This arrest illustrates the effectiveness of U.S. Marshals Metro Fugitive Task Force as they developed investigative leads across multiple states to locate and arrest Mr. Gafford.' DailyMail.com has contacted Omaha police. Disturbing footage shows a 'Spice zombie' spinning around before running head first into a van in the middle of the road. The clip, taken on Drake Street in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, shows the man stumbling around in circles with his arms outstretched. The man turns around on the spot several times. He looks high on drugs as he staggers wildly in the road and is almost hit by a passing car. The clip, taken on Drake Street in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, shows the man stumbling around in circles with his arms outstretched The man turns around on the spot several times apparently totally disorientated The man suddenly runs forward with both arms outstretched and hits a van head on before sliding to the ground in a heap. He rolls around disorientated on the ground for a short time before the video ends. Manchester has become Britain's Spice capital where dealers sell a potent strain of the synthetic cannabis. The 'zombie drug' is a huge problem in Manchester and it is estimated that 95 per cent of the city's homeless use the drug, according to charity Lifeshare. Despite originally being peddled as an alternative to cannabis, the effects of Spice are different and wildly unpredictable. Users hallucinate, sweat profusely and their limbs refuse to move as they overheat. It can cause liver failure, kidney failure and death. The zombie-like effects are believed to last for ten to 30 minutes before users regain lucidity. The 'Spice zombie' suddenly runs forward with both arms outstretched and hits a van head on before sliding to the ground in a heap They can then fall back into a stupor within minutes. Other side-effects such as paranoia and dizziness can last for up to eight hours. For just 5, users can buy a small bag of Spice. For 10 more, they can buy a 'ball' as large as an orange that can last more than a week. Experts claim Spice is sold to the homeless, addicts and those with mental health issues because they are less likely to be scared of the dangerous side-effects. It comes in up to 100 chemical variations, making the effects of each batch completely unpredictable. A rampaging water buffalo caused chaos at a wet market in south China as it attempted to make a bid for freedom. Dramatic footage shows the large buffalo ramming into stalls and spilling fresh fish and produce all over the ground in the market in Xingye county, Guangxi region on Sunday. According to witnesses, the owner spooked the animal when he was about to knock it out with a large hammer, prompting it to panic and escape. Dramatic footage shows the large buffalo ramming into stalls and spilling fresh fish and produce all over the ground in the market in Xingye county, Guangxi region on Sunday According to witnesses, the owner spooked the animal when he was about to knock it out with a large hammer, prompting it to panic and escape its impending death The buffalo was eventually captured after bystanders altered police officers to the scene. 'The buffalo went crazy and was out of control. It was running into the stalls and overturning the fish tanks,' a witness told video new site Pear. 'Several officers eventually knocked it out with the hammer and tied it up,' he said. Another clip shows the animal's limbs being restrained by several ropes as it lay on the ground, unconscious. 'Some fish were killed but no one was injured,' a local officer told reporters. Another clip shows the animal's limbs being restrained by several ropes as it lay on the ground The judge in billionaire Mohamed Hadid's 'monster mansion' lawsuit has lashed out at lawyers and Los Angeles city building officials for not coming up with a plan to demolish part of his controversial, half-built house, DailyMail.com can disclose. 'This is a complete mess right now,' Judge Craig Karlan blasted at LA Superior Court in Santa Monica on Thursday. Hadid - in a dark, double-breasted suit and black tie - showed up at the court with a small army of attorneys, including famed O.J. Simpson lawyer Robert Shapiro. 'This has been happening for about five years,' the judge said. 'Yet nobody knows what's going on Where will we be in three more years? Unless something changes, we are going to be in the same place as we are today.' Hadid - the 70-year-old father of supermodels Gigi and Bella Hadid - is being sued in a civil case by angry neighbors of the 30,000 sq ft house in ritzy Bel Air who would like to see the building torn down. Mohamed Hadid, 70, received a verbal lashing from Judge Craig Karlan over a demolition plan for his Bel Air mansion at LA Superior Court on Thursday. Hadid - in a dark suit and black tie - showed up at the court with a small army of attorneys, including famed O.J. Simpson lawyer Robert Shapiro Monster house: Billionaire developer Mohamed Hadid was ordered to demolish the illegal third floor of his unfinished Bel-Air mega-mansion on February 1 At a hearing in Santa Monica two weeks ago, the neighbors filed a request for a temporary restraining order to stop court-ordered demolition work on the illegal third floor of the building, saying that they wanted to make sure the demo work was done safely and wouldn't pose a threat to their nearby homes. The third floor and a pool deck were both illegal additions to the home's original plans and those parts of the house have been ordered to be torn down. At that hearing on January 23, Judge Karlan ordered the lawyers of Hadid and the neighbors, plus attorneys for LA city planners, to get together - 'and come up with a game plan' - with the prosecutor and defense attorneys in Hadid's 2017 criminal case where he's facing jail time if he doesn't demolish the illegal parts of his house within the three years probation he's serving. But on Thursday, after hearing different versions of events from Hadid's lawyers, architects and LA city building officials of how the partial demolition will be done and on what timetable, the judge expressed 'frustration and bewilderment' that he was not hearing a 'coherent' demolition plan agreed to by all parties. In a reference to last week's Super Bowl, Judge Karlan added: 'My goal is to get the ball in the end zone. What I want is a demolition plan that all parties agree on, that we all understand. This court and the criminal court must be on the same page.' The judge called a break in the hearing for all sides to confer and after almost four hours it appeared progress had been made. Hadid - the father of models Gigi and Bella Hadid - is being sued in a civil case by angry neighbors of the 30,000 sq ft house who would like to see it torn down The judge expressed 'frustration and bewilderment' that he was not hearing a 'coherent' demolition plan agreed to by all parties One of Hadid's lawyers, Bruce Rudman, said that a 'pretty detailed' demolition plan had been agreed by all parties, including the parts of the house which could be demolished right away and those parts that would be torn down later, along with a timeline on how long the demo will take. Judge Karlan ordered that the demolition plan be written up and given to him and all parties in the case by next Tuesday, February 13, and he scheduled another hearing for February 14 where everyone involved in the case must return to court to confirm that 'they have all signed off on the demo plan.' At that hearing next week, the judge added: 'I want to hear, ''here's what we all agree on,'' and everyone in the courtroom will say ''yes.''' Hadid's disgruntled neighbors - who have dubbed his mansion 'a gigantic monstrosity' and 'Starship Enterprise', brought their lawsuit against the wealthy property magnate to try to force him to tear down the property, which they say is not only an eyesore but also poses a threat to their homes. To support their suit, the neighbors commissioned stunning photographs - taken by drone and featured exclusively in DailyMail.com - which illustrate just how colossal Hadid's house is. 'It's a gigantic monstrosity,' declared neighbor Joe Horacek of the home on Strada Vecchia Road in Bel Air which he said was supposed to be 14,000 square feet, 36 ft high with two stories and a basement when plans for its construction were approved by the city some seven years ago. Neighbors have been fighting for years for the demolition of the property because of all the alleged unapproved construction. The development of the home has also been an eyesore to nearby residents After demolishing the original house, Hadid began work on his monster project which, as the pictures show, soon came to dominate the site and surrounding area Slide me Original plans: A rendering shows the mansion was intended to be 14,000 sq ft and two stories high (pictured left) but Hadid expanded the home to nearly double its size without the city's approval 'But now it's at least 30,000 square feet - Hadid himself has bragged that it's 40,000. It's 70-80 feet high and it's five or six stories, we don't know which since we've never been allowed in. It's vast - and most of it is illegal.' In an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com earlier last month, Hadid vowed to 'finish, not demolish' the partially-built mega-mansion despite being ordered to tear down the third story of the property. Hadid also denied claims in court that he hasn't been making payments on the $18 million bank loan he took out to finance construction of his controversial house and he's now facing foreclosure.. 'That is totally false - I am not in foreclosure,' he protested. 'I have been paying the interest on this loan for seven years. Yes, the bank has filed a default notice but this is nothing. It's just a notice and I will sort things out with the bank and everything will be okay again. 'I will re-finance this loan and I am confident that I will be able to pay off the original loan in full. This is nothing new to me.' Hadid told DailyMail.com that he had applied to LA city planners for new permits that would allow him to downsize and complete the house so that it complies with building regulations. The saga of how Hadid set out to build one of the biggest and most expensive luxury homes in LA has been full of controversy since he bought the hilltop plot in 2011 for $1.9 million. He knocked down the ranch-style house that was already there and started building his monster mansion. Hadid pleaded no contest to three criminal charges involving illegal construction and in July 2017 was sentenced to a 180-day jail sentence if he doesn't reduce the size of the house and bring it into compliance with city building codes - or demolish it - within the three years of probation the judge also imposed. In addition, he was fined $3,000, ordered to pay $14,191 in fees to LA city, and serve 200 hours of community service. A congressional hearing room burst into loud groans on Friday as Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker found an unprecedented way to avoid answering a tough question from a Democratic committee chairman: He told him that his time was up. The rules of most hearings allow for each member to spend five minutes questioning a witness. It's not unusual for committee chairs to interrupt long-winded answers, or for members to remind their political opponents when they stretch the clock to get more television time. But Whitaker turned the tables. 'Mr. Chairman, I see that your five minutes is up,' he said, prompting an uproar from the gallery and laughter from Chairman Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat. 'I am here voluntarily. We have agreed to five-minute rounds,' said Whitaker, the only one in the room who appeared unaware that committee chairmen can bend the rules nearly at will. Acting AG Matt Whitaker sat for a House Judiciary Committee grilling run by the new Democratic majority Chairman Jerrold Nadler asked whether anyone had ever asked him to order Special Counsel Robert Mueller to do anything related to his Russia probe; he thought it was hilarious when Whitaker told him that his five minutes of question time were up Maryland Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin's jaw dropped at the breach of protocol, even though Whitaker was the only one in the room who took it seriously Friday's hearing represented Democrats' best chance to grill Whitaker about his interactions with Special Counsel Robert Mueller before former Attorney General Bill Barr is confirmed to take his 1980s-era job back Democrats on the dais dropped their jaws in shock. Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, the senior Republican on the panel, suggested that Whitaker's objection was an appropriate 'place to end.' An aide to a senior House Republican said of Whitaker's jab during a hearing recess: 'I've never seen that one before. It's hilarious, but I hope it doesn't catch on and become a thing.' Nadler had been asking Whitaker about how much influence he had over Special Counsel Robert Mueller, whose secretive Russia-related probe is nearing the end of its second year. Robert Mueller is nearing the end of the second year of his probe into whether officials in President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign colluded ith Russian agents to tilt the election; to date, no evidence of that has surfaced 'In your capacity as acting attorney general, have you ever been asked to approve any action or request to be taken by the special counsel?' he asked. After Whitaker's attempt at a diversion, Nadler reminded committee members that 'we didn't enforce the five-minute rule on Acting Attorney General Whitaker,' whose opening statement ran more than 11 minutes. 'The attorney general was in the middle of saying something. Answer the question, please,' he pressed. Whitaker never directly answered Nadler about whether anyone had ever asked him to intervene with Mueller. But he volunteered that he had never actually used his authority to step in. While Whitaker (right) maintained his dead-serious exterior, Nadler (left) burst into laughter at the idea that an invited witness could tell him when to shut up Whitaker was Attorney General Jeff Sessions' chief of staff before President Trump tossed the former Alabama senator overboard and elevated the onetime Iowa prosecutor to keep his chair warm for a successor Georgia Rep. Doug Collins, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, piped up that the five-minute rule should apply to Nadler (left), even though Whitaker had taken 11 minutes to deliver his 5-minute opening statement 'I want to be very specific about this, Mr. Chairman because I think it's going to allay a lot of fears that have existed among this committee, among the legislative branch largely, and maybe among some American people,' Whitaker said. 'We have followed the special counsel's regulations to a tee. There has been no event, no decision that's required me to take any action, and I have not interfered in any way with the special counsel's investigation.' 'Very good. Thank you,' Nadler responded. 'My time has expired.' Allen says Amazon sought to terminate the deal in June, and has since refused to pay him $9 million in financing for his latest film. Woody Allen has filed a $68 million suit against Amazon for breach of contract, accusing the streaming giant of canceling a film deal because of a "baseless" decades-old allegation that he sexually abused his daughter. Filmmaker Woody Allen has filed a $68 million suit against Amazon for breach of contract, accusing the streaming giant of canceling a film deal because of a "baseless" decades-old allegation that he sexually abused his daughter. Allen says Amazon sought to terminate the deal in June, and has since refused to pay him $9 million in financing for his latest film, "A Rainy Day in New York," his lawyers at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan allege. That film was one of several to be produced with the Oscar-winning director under a series of agreements reached after Allen made the "Crisis in Six Scenes" program for Amazon, which was then a new content provider. He is seeking that $9 million along with minimum guarantees owed him for three other films, totaling "in excess of $68,000,000," according to a complaint filed Thursday in federal court in New York and obtained by AFP. In addition to the first nine million, the contract provided for minimum inputs of another nine million, 25 million and another 25 million for the other three films, planned for 2018, 2019 and 2020 respectively. That totals 68 million. Allen says Amazon told him the deal had become "impracticable" because of "supervening events, including renewed allegations against Mr Allen, his own controversial comments" and the refusal of actors to work with him. The four-time Oscar-winning director said he asked for details of these "accusations" and "statements," to no avail. And Allen claims Amazon's unilateral termination of the contract forced him and his production company Gravier Productions to cancel "highly recognized individuals" whom he had hired. Allen has been accused of molesting Dylan Farrow, his adopted daughter, when she was seven years old in the early 1990s. He was cleared of the charges, first leveled by his then-partner Mia Farrow, after two separate months-long investigations, and has steadfastly denied the abuse. But Dylan, now an adult, maintains she was molested. In June last year, the same month that Amazon apparently terminated his contract, Allen backed the #MeToo movement against sexual harassment -- and said he should be its poster boy. "I've worked in movies for 50 years, I've worked with hundreds of actresses, and not a single one has ever suggested any kind of impropriety at all," he said in an interview with Argentina's Canal 13 television network. "I -- who was only accused by one woman in a child custody case, which was looked at and proven to be untrue -- I get lumped in with these people." In recent months, a string of actors who have worked with Allen have distanced themselves from him, and said they would no longer work with him. Others, however, from Javier Bardem to Alec Baldwin, think authorities never established the authenticity of the charges against him. Amazon did not immediately reply to a request for comment. Amazon's relationship with Woody Allen began with "Caf? Society" (2016), to which the studio had purchased the rights, before producing and distributing "Wonder Wheel" (2017), then committing to four additional films. Jackeline Chavira, 23, was charged with vandalism and burglary A woman faces charges of vandalism after being caught on camera deliberately pushing over a crucifix in a crime spree in the northern California town of Watsonville. Jackeline Chavira, 23, first stole a bunch of roses from a store on Main Street before heading to a nearby shop where she allegedly stole and broke a religious statue, it is claimed. The crime spree continued as she entered a bakery and walked out with a soda, allegedly without paying, before heading to St. Patrick's Church. It was whilst she was in the church she could be seen heading straight for the altar where she pushing over the 15-foot tall crucifix, according to the SacBee. Chavira can be seen in St. Patrick's Church in Watsonville, California where she toppled a 15-foot crucifix, ripped down two artworks in a church and stole roses and a soda from a store Surveillance footage captures the woman pushing the crucifix over After the crucifix toppled, the statue, which was attached to the wooden symbol, fell to the floor. Footage then shows the woman running back down the aisle of the church and leaving the sanctuary, still holding the stolen roses. After leaving the sanctuary, Chavira headed into the church's prayer room, where she threw a religious statue on the ground and ripped down two large religious paintings while two church-goers prayed in the room. But the rampage wasn't over. Chavira exited the church and went into a shop selling religious goods, where she tried stealing yet another statue. Chavira could then be seen making a run for it as she left the church before anyone found out According to Watsonville PD, Chavira caused an estimated $15,000 in damage The store owner attempted to stop the theft. Chavira smashed the statue as she threw it onto the floor. Chavira was arrested a short time afterwards and is being held on $25,000 bail at Santa Cruz County jail on charges of defacing property, vandalizing a place of worship, disobeying a court order and burglary. Police said there was $15,000 in damage at the church alone, adding that the damage there was 'the most extensive.' A two-year-old girl was found sleeping and unharmed in a car next to her dead father's body after he was shot in the head in Texas. The toddler and her father were discovered in a parking lot outside an apartment complex in northwest Harris County at around 11.50pm on Thursday night. Harris County Sheriff's Office had been called to the area after a neighbor reported hearing gunshots outside. The toddler and her father were discovered in a parking lot outside an apartment complex in northwest Harris County at around 11.50pm on Thursday night The man, believed to be in his 20s, had been shot in the head and was found next to a car in the parking lot. The girl, believed to be the victim's daughter, was discovered asleep and uninjured in the backseat. She was cared for by deputies until she was reunited with her mother, ABC13 reported. Ed Gonzalez, Harris County Sheriff, said: 'A b/m in his 20's was shot and killed at Champions Townhomes. The girl, believed to be the victim's daughter, was discovered asleep and uninjured in the backseat 'Deputies discovered a two-year-old seated in a car adjacent to the body. Thankfully the child was not injured. 'She was cared for by our deputies until reunited with mom.' He said he understood the young girl was related to the victim. An investigation into the circumstances of the man's death is underway. Jackson 'Buster' Garland (pictured), 59, was killed on Tuesday in Georgia when his father-in-law shot a cow and the bullet struck him A man accidentally killed his son-in-law when a bullet he fired at a cow went through the animal and struck his relative, police believe. Jackson 'Buster' Garland, 59, was killed on Tuesday in the freak accident in Waleska, Georgia. The father-of-three had been helping his father-in-law Herbert Jordan attend to a suffering cow which they were planning to put out of its misery, Fox 5 reported. Jay Baker of the Cherokee County Sheriff's Office said: 'It's a tragic set of events, certainly unfortunate. The two men had seen the cow in 'prolapse' with some of its organs apparently outside its body, it was reported. They apparently moved it towards a vehicle to euthanize it, but the cow knocked Garland to the ground and Jordan, 79, took a shot to pacify it. 'At some point during that transition from one location to another the cow was shot,' Baker said. 'The bullet went through the cow and actually entered the victim's body and killed him.' The fatal accident occurred in woods near Moores Mill Lane in Waleska, in Cherokee County in the north of the state. An obituary page said Garland's funeral would take place on Saturday at a Baptist church in Waleska. The page said he was survived by his wife, two sons, a daughter and six grandchildren. Migrant smugglers hid eight people, including four young children, in a hot, cramped secret compartment in the back of a van in a failed bid to cross the UK border. The five Romanians were all jailed at Canterbury Crown Court today after Border Force officers described the 'unbearable' heat inside the hidden compartment. The hidden people were found after a Mercedes Sprinter van was stopped at UK passport control at the entrance to the Channel Tunnel in Coquelles, France, on August 17. Border guards found eight Afghans hidden in a compartment behind luggage in this van After the bags were removed, a 'false wall' inside the van, which hid the secret compartment Photos show how the van had been converted to hide the group, who included a baby Driver Dumitru-Daniel Cojanu told officers he was travelling to London for a couple of days with his passenger Camelia-Florina Teleaga, who said she was visiting her sister. The pair were jailed alongside three passengers, Matei Daniel Nedelcu, Ion-Aurelian Apostol and Ionut-Catalin Vasilica. When searching the boot of the van, officers found a partition hidden under carpet and discovered two men, two women and four children aged between 10 months and seven years old. They were all weak and dehydrated after being cramped inside the approximately 6ft by 2ft space, which was only 3ft high. The five smugglers were arrested and charged with assisting unlawful immigration into the UK. The migrants, who all claimed to be from Afghanistan, were passed to French border police. Camelia-Florina Teleaga was jailed for three years and two months. Dumitru-Daniel Cojanu got three years and nine months Ion-Aurelian Apostol (left) got the longest sentence of six years. Ionut-Catalin Vasilica (centre) and Matei Daniel Nedelcu (right) both got three years and two months Apostol, 34, of Wembley, north London, was convicted by a jury and jailed for six years. The others all pleaded guilty. Cojanu, 24, who also lived in Wembley, was handed a sentence of three years and nine months. Nedelcu, 25, living in Cardiff, was jailed for three years and four months, while Vasilica, 25, and Teleaga, 30, both of no fixed address, were each handed custodial sentences of three years and two months. Border Force director Paul Morgan said: 'The hide was crudely constructed, with many jagged edges, and the officers who conducted the search described the heat inside such a tiny space as almost unbearable. 'Clearly, the safety of the eight people hidden inside was of little concern to the smugglers.' An explosive new documentary has detailed how investigators exhumed Black Widow Stacey Castor's first husband and realized he too had been murdered. Ten years after her conviction for killing her second husband and for trying to kill her own daughter police have now revealed how they found Michael Wallace's body 'loaded' with antifreeze crystals. Wallace, who was buried right next to David Castor and was the father to her two children, had died of an apparent heart attack in 2000. But after the exhumation, authorities ruled his death a homicide caused by ingesting ethylene glycol. The Black Widow wasn't charged in Wallace's killing, but prosecutors presented evidence during trial that she was involved as they built their case against her. They said she killed her husbands to collect on their life insurance policies and estates. Scroll down for video. Investigators originally said Castor's first husband, Michael Wallace (pictured) died of a heart attack until his body was exhumed and authorities ruled his death a homicide Castor was convicted of fatally poisoning her second husband with antifreeze and trying to kill her daughter and frame her for the murder. David Castor was buried next to Michael Wallace Castor was also suspected of fatally poisoning her first husband Michael Wallace in 2000 Prosecutors said Castor, who died in 2016, killed husbands to collect their life insurance A new documentary featuring exclusive interviews with Castor and members of her family will air on ABC tonight. It details how authorities exhumed Wallace's body. Onondaga County Detective Dominick Spinelli told the show: 'I was standing there saying, boy I hope if he was killed this comes out, I hope there is something there. 'A few days later I was walking through the criminal investigations division when I received a phone call from the medical examiner and he said ''hey we just got done with the autopsy and we have the results for you". ' The autopsy had found Wallace's body laced with antifreeze crystals. Spinelli added: 'I knew at the point we had a double homicide and Stacey Castor probably killed both her husbands.' Stacey was convicted in 2009 of poisoning her second husband David to death with antifreeze, and trying to kill her daughter Ashley Wallace as part of a plot to pin the murder on her. His death at 48 in August 2005 was initially considered a suicide, but investigators later determined he didn't knowingly drink ethylene glycol, a toxic chemical found in antifreeze. Sgt Michael Norton told ABC Wallace was 'loaded with crystals'. He added: 'When you are poisoned with antifreeze crystals form in your organs and they don't ever go away. That was one of the reasons why we exhumed him was so that we could find out if those crystals were still there.' Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick added: 'When you do an autopsy on someone who ingested antifreeze you can see the slides of the various organs that looks like a gold vein in a western mine somewhere. You see these little beautiful crystals popping up.' Castor was convicted of fatally poisoning David Castor (left) in 2009 and was suspected of killing her first husband Michael Wallace (right) Castor (left) was convicted in 2009 of killing her second husband David Castor (right) and trying to kill her daughter Ashley Wallace as part of a plot to pin the murder on her Stacey Castor with her first husband, Michael Wallace, and their two daughters, Ashley and Bree Wallace. Castor decided to kill Ashley and frame her for killing both husbands Wallace's body was exhumed and authorities ruled his death a homicide Stacey Castor wasn't charged in Wallace's killing, but prosecutors presented evidence during trial that she was involved as they built their case against her An autopsy found first husband Michael Wallace's body 'loaded with crystals', pictured Stacey Castor was charged in September 2007, just days after investigators in neighboring Cayuga County exhumed the body of Wallace. Prosecutors said she poisoned David by using a kitchen baster to slip him the antifreeze, then staged the scene to make it appear he was depressed, had gotten drunk and killed himself by downing the toxic liquid. When authorities were closing in on her, prosecutors said, Castor decided to kill her daughter Ashley Wallace and frame her for killing both husbands. She knocked Wallace out with sleeping pills, then used a teaspoon to feed her vodka and prescription pills over a 17-hour window, prosecutors said. Castor then wrote a 750-word suicide note on her computer that claimed to be from her daughter confessing to killing the men, prosecutors said. In the suicide note, which Wallace denied writing, the word antifreeze is written as 'anti-free' in four places. An investigator testified earlier that Castor said 'anti-free' during an interview. Castor acknowledged saying 'anti-free' but said she had cut herself off mid-word because she meant to say something else. Investigators also determined that the note was written while Castor was at home and her daughter was at school, prosecutors said. Castor maintained her innocence and appealed her case for years. Her final attempt at appeal was in 2015. She died in June 2016 of a heart attack. The judge who sentenced Castor said she was guilty of the most reprehensible crimes he'd ever seen. 'In my 34 years in the criminal justice system as a lawyer and a judge, I have seen serial killers, contract killers, killers of every variety and stripe,' Onondaga County Judge Joseph Fahey said. 'But, I have to say, Mrs Castor, you are in a class all by yourself.' Castor was charged in September 2007, days after investigators exhumed the body of Wallace Stacey Castor, left, and her attorney Charles Keller pictured in 2009. She died in June 2016 Onondaga County Detective Dominick Spinelli, left, and Sgt Michael Norton, right, both feature on ABC's special prime-time program titled '20/20' ABC's special prime-time program titled '20/20' will be broadcast on February 8 at 9pm ET on ABC. It will features an exclusive interview with Stacey Castor from prison by ABC Anchor David Muir, in addition to Stacey's mother Judie Eaton and daughters Ashley and Bree Wallace. It also features new interviews with investigators, Stacey's defense team and family members of her second husband and victim, David Castor. The Black Widow killer documentary is part of twelve weeks of two-hour '20/20' programming featuring brand new interviews with key players in some of the biggest newsmaker stories in recent American history. Each documentary takes a look at these cases through a modern lens, challenges original perceptions and sheds new light on each story. White House spokesman Hogan Gidley attacked Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's plan to combat climate change as 'pointless' on Friday morning, panning it as proposal that has 'no chance of going anywhere' legislatively. The deputy White House press secretary told Fox News that it was 'quite rich' of the freshman representative to propose the plan that would 'need to ruin our economy' and stop all air travel and stop all cars' to work 'when she says the world is going to end in twelve anyways.' 'The whole thing just seems kind of pointless,' he said, as he cut into Democrats for proposing to 'crush' economic gains over the last two years with costly, progressive programs like the Ocasio-Cortez resolution that 'has no chance of going anywhere.' Critics of Ocasio-Cortez, including Democrats, have said her proposal to reach zero carbon emissions in the next decade is unworkable. Included in her wish-list is a transition to 100 per cent electric cars and the replacement of all airplane travel with high-speed trains. White House spokesman Hogan Gidley attacked Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's plan to combat climate change as 'pointless' on Friday morning, panning it as proposal that has 'no chance of going anywhere' legislatively 'That would be pretty hard for Hawaii,' Sen. Mazie Hirono, from the Aloha State, said Thursday. The ambitious package of environmental ideas proposed Thursday by Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Democratic Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, is a House resolution just 14 pages in length that suggests a framework for future policy. The Obamacare law was 2,300 pages long when Congress passed it in 2010. Thursday's effort, although already backed by 60 House Democrats, would be non-binding if it passes. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told Politico that Ocasio-Cortez's resolution is just a 'suggestion' and one of 'many' the caucus is likely to receive on green energy. 'The green dream or whatever they call it, nobody knows what it is, but theyre for it right?' she said, mocking the democratic socialist's effort. Republican Congressman Doug Lamborn of Colorado said at a climate change hearing in the House Natural Resources Committee on Wednesday that the policy was akin to a 'Soviet five-year plan.' Answering her critics, Ocasio-Cortez said that when former President John F. Kennedy said he'd put a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s, 'people said it was impossible,' too. She held up Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal and Lyndon Johnson's Great Society as examples of major government projects. Ocasio-Cortez has become the darling of the Democratic Party's socialist wing The Green New Deal calls for eliminating 'farting cows' meaning all of them The Green New Deal aims to eliminate all internal combustion engines, meaning nothing but electric cars could be sold but it's left unsaid how all the power would be generated Markey's office released six pages of bullet-points describing a plan 'to mobilize every aspect of American society at a scale not seen since World War 2 to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions and create economic prosperity for all.' The details sparked as many questions as answers on Thursday. Markey's checklist is a kitchen-sink collection of liberal priorities including guarantees of 'healthy food' and'high-quality health care,' as well as safe, affordable, adequate housing'; 'high-quality education'; and 'economic security for all who are unable or unwilling to work.' A Republican Senate aide told DailyMail.com Thursday afternoon of that proposal: 'This is a great prescription for making sure a large majority of people become unwilling to work. Great job, Einstein.' Markey and Ocasio-Cortez wrote that they 'are calling for a full transition off fossil fuels and zero greenhouse gases.' They acknowledge the difficulty with achieving a 'zero emissions' society in just 10 years, 'because we arent sure that well be able to fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes that fast.' All cows emit methane in their flatulence, and 'getting rid of farting cows' suggests geting rid of all beef. The Green New Deal aims to phase out airplane travel, which made Hawaii Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono (right) skeptical The Green New Deal calls for massive investment in high-speed rail, which produces less greenhouse emissions than airplane travel The Green New Deal's prescriptions include a new 'smart' power grid fueled with energy from renewable sources; that excludes both coal burning and nuclear The plan's proponents are not interested in expanding the use of nuclear power plants in order to offset fossil fuels, either. Instead, they aim to dismantle the existing plants. 'Its unclear if we will be able to decommission every nuclear plant within 10 years, but the plan is to transition off of nuclear and all fossil fuels as soon as possible,' they write. The package includes $4.6 trillion in new government spending on infrastructure projects aiming 'to remove greenhouse gas emissions and pollution from every sector of our economy.' Democrats want 'a sustainable, pollution and greenhouse gas free, food system,' new power grids and a program to 'upgrade or replace every building in [the] US for state-of-the-art energy efficiency.' They claim their plan would 'remove pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from manufacturing,' but offer few details. These six pages are the talking points for rolling out the 'Green New Deal' Similarly, the blueprint calls for 'a sustainable, pollution and greenhouse gas free, food system' that 'expands independent family farming.' It doesn't explain how much additional land would be needed for an expansion of less-intensive agriculture. The plan, which Speaker Nancy Pelosi dismissively called the 'green new dream' on Thursday morning, calls for 'massively expanding electric vehicle manufacturing.' 'Nobody knows what it is, but theyre for it, right?' Pellosi told Politico. Pelosi named 14 members to a new House climate change panel on Thursday. The eight Democrats and six Republicans do not include Ocasio-Cortez. Were it to become a serious endeavor, policymakers would have to find money to 'build charging stations everywhere, build out highspeed rail at a scale where air travel stops becoming necessary, create affordable public transit available to all, with [a] goal to replace every combustion-engine vehicle.' Advocates would '[r]estore all our damaged and threatened ecosystems' and 'clean up all the existing hazardous waste sites and abandoned sites.' Markey and Ocasio-Cortez say they aren't ruling out a 'carbon tax,' but claim it would be just 'a tiny part' of an economic transformation. And Republicans who worry about how to pay for it, they write, should rest easy: It will be covered '[t]he same way we paid for the New Deal, the 2008 bank bailout and extended quantitative easing programs. The same way we paid for World War II and all our current wars.' That would involve the creation of new lines of credit in banks that don't yet exist, likely devaluing America's currency abroad. 'The Federal Reserve can extend credit to power these projects and investments and new public banks can be created to extend credit,' they write. Sierra Leone's president has declared a national emergency over rape and sexual violence in a keynote address. Julius Maada Bio said hundreds of cases of rape and sexual assault are reported in the west African nation each month against women, girls and babies as young as three months old. The president declared that those who sexually assault minors will face life in prison. He added that 70 per cent of victims are under 15. The current law carries a maximum penalty of 15 years, and very few cases have been prosecuted. 'With this declaration, I have also directed the following: that all government hospitals must provide free medical treatment and certificate to every victim of rape and sexual abuse,' he said. Sierra Leone's president Julius Maada Bio, pictured today during a keynote speech, has declared a national emergency in the west African nation over hundreds of rapes Mr Bio's declaration comes after months of campaigning by activists. Thousands of cases are unreported because of a culture of silence or indifference, leaving victims traumatised, he said, adding that he wants to increase awareness. The government will engage communities and civil society in dialogue to end the scourge that is slowly wrecking the nation, the president said. That will involve addressing gaps in the Sexual Offences Act of 2012, he said. He also ordered the creation of a special police division for rape and sexual violence against minors. Olabisi Claudius Cole, head of the Rainbo Initiative that provides free medical and psycho-social services for survivors of gender-based violence, called the president's declaration a landmark in tackling such violence in Sierra Leone. It had been made possible by the tireless voices of survivors and activists, she said. First lady Fatima Bio said all forms of sexual violence are unacceptable and a menace to society. A Maryland woman faces charges that she assaulted White House counselor Kellyanne Conway in front of her teenage daughter during a confrontation last year at a restaurant in a Washington suburb. Mary Elizabeth Inabinett, 63, of Chevy Chase, was charged in November with second-degree assault and disorderly conduct and has a trial tentatively scheduled to start March 29, court records show. Conway told police she was attending a birthday party Oct. 14 at a Mexican restaurant in Bethesda when she felt somebody grab her shoulders from behind and shake her, according to a charging document prepared by Montgomery County police. The woman who confronted Conway yelled, 'Shame on you,' and 'other comments believed to about Conway's political views,' the document says. Kellyanne Conway says a Maryland woman assaulted her in a restaurant in D.C. People pass by Uncle Julio's Restaurant in Bethesda, Md. on Friday, where conway says she was grabbed and shaken by a woman at a Mexican restaurant in Maryland late last year Inabinett's attorney, William Alden McDaniel, Jr., said in a statement that his client exercised her First Amendment right 'to express her personal opinions' about a public figure in a public place. McDaniel said his client didn't assault Conway and will plead not guilty to the misdemeanor charges. 'The facts at trial will show this to be true, and show Ms. Conway's account to be false,' the lawyer's statement says. 'Her "First Amendment" right to scream like a lunatic does not include touching me or anyone else,' Conway told The Associated Press in an email. Conway, who ran President Donald Trump's successful 2016 campaign, said Inabinett 'ought to pay' for assaulting her at a birthday dinner In a CNN interview broadcast Friday, Conway said she was standing next to her middle school-aged daughter and some of her daughter's friends when the woman began shaking her 'to the point where I thought maybe somebody was hugging me.' She said it felt 'weird' and 'a little aggressive,' so she turned around to face the woman. 'She was just unhinged. She was out of control,' she said. 'Her whole face was terror and anger. She was right here, and my daughter was right there. And she ought to pay for that. She ought to pay for that because she has no right to touch anybody.' The restaurant's manager told police the woman who confronted Conway had to be forcibly removed from the premises. Conway told police the woman yelled and gestured at her for 8 to 10 minutes before she was escorted out of the restaurant. Conway wasn't injured, according to the charging document. The woman who confronted her was gone by the time police arrived, but restaurant staff helped police identify her as a suspect, and Conway's daughter provided officers with a short video clip and photograph of the encounter. Conway said she told President Donald Trump about the incident 'long after' it happened. She said Trump asked her, 'Are you OK? Is your daughter OK? Are the other girls OK?' Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz made an attempt to liven up his first policy address as a 2020 presidential candidate by encouraging the audience to clap after one of his planned applause lines fell flat. Speaking in front of a quiet crowd at Purdue University on Thursday night, Schultz, who is considering running for the presidency as an independent, praised the institution for making 2020 tuition less expensive in nominal dollars than it was in 2012. He then took a long pause before saying with a sheepish smile: 'You've gotta clap for that.' The audience obliged and gave Schultz the applause he was looking for, but it was deemed somewhat disingenuous by attendees and media outlets who called it a 'Jeb Bush moment' - a callback to the Florida politician who in a 2016 speech said: 'Please clap' after a delivering a campaign pledge that elicited no response. Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz has been ridiculed for encouraging an audience to clap during his first policy address as a potential 2020 presidential candidate after one of his planned applause lines fell flat on Thursday night at Purdue University The Seattle billionaire paused to wait for applause after he praised the university for making its 2020 tuition less expensive in nominal dollars than it was in 2012. When the applause never came, Schultz said: 'You've gotta clap for that' Schultz encouraged applause again later in the speech after detailing a proposal that would require America's wealthiest, including himself, to pay higher taxes. 'I myself should be paying higher taxes, and all wealthy Americans should have to pay their fair share. I think we can all agree on that,' he said, eliciting scattered applause. 'And by the way, the people deserve to see the tax returns of anybody who is running for president. And if I choose to run, I promise I will absolutely release my tax returns. You can clap for that.' After the speech, a video from the February 2016 Jeb Bush address resurfaced on Twitter. Bush told supporters in New Hampshire: 'I think the next President needs to be a lot quieter, but send a signal that were prepared to act in the national security interests of this country, to get back in the business of creating a more peaceful world.' The line was met with deafening silence, prompting Bush to add: 'Please clap.' Schultz was later compared to Jeb Bush, who during a 2016 campaign speech told a crowd: 'Please clap' after one of his pledges was met with an awkward silence (above) A large portion of Schultz' speech consisted of slights toward President Donald Trump, whom he called 'one of the most significant security threats America faces in the post-World War II era'. He blamed Trump for walking away from strategic alliances, starting a trade war that has raised prices for US consumers and cut market access for US farmers, and turning a blind eye to Russian interference in the 2016 election. 'He has unilaterally abdicated our historical role as a global leader,' Schultz said. 'He has poisoned our culture and our values, giving hate and hate speech and racism and bigotry license.' The billionaire promised that he wouldn't do anything to help Trump get re-elected, saying that the president 'must not serve a second term'. Schultz, a self-described lifelong Democrat, recently said in a 60 Minutes interview that he is 'seriously thinking' about running as a 'centrist independent'. Prominent Democrats have urged Schultz not to run on the independent ticket because such a move could split voters opposed to Trump and strengthen his chances at retaining the White House. A large portion of Schultz' speech consisted of slights toward President Trump, whom he called 'one of the most significant security threats America faces in the post-World War II era' Schultz used Thursday's speech to paint himself as a rags-to-riches American success story, describing how he rose from New York City's housing projects to become the CEO and executive chairman of Starbucks who is now worth an estimated $3.5billion. Although Thursday his address was short on concrete proposals, Schultz spoke about what he views as the most significant issues facing the country, beginning with partisan gerrymandering that helps the Democratic and Republican lawmakers remain safely in power and promotes the views of each party's extremes, he said. He called for immigration reform, saying the country needs both to protect its borders and to treat people with dignity. He suggested that immigrants in the US illegally should have a path to legal status and that 'Dreamers', those brought to the US illegally as children, should be able to obtain citizenship. Though he called for tax reform - including tax cuts for the middle class and small businesses and higher taxes for wealthy people like himself - Schultz remained vague on the topic. He had previously branded a call by Democratic Sen Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts for a tax on extreme wealth 'ridiculous'. He said the government must eliminate the national debt; suggested health care costs could be controlled by increasing choice and competition, requiring more price transparency and investing in preventive care; and endorsed requiring universal background checks to buy guns and banning gun possession by criminals and those suffering from mental illness. Schultz did not address the threats posed by climate change. Schultz used Thursday's speech to paint himself as a rags-to-riches American success story, describing how he rose from New York City's housing projects to become the CEO and executive chairman of Starbucks who is now worth an estimated $3.5billion Jeff Bezos showed American Media and the editors of the National Enquirer that he too is capable of releasing a bombshell expose on Thursday night. The Amazon billionaire did this by not only releasing emails outlining an attempt by the company to halt his investigation into how American Media obtained his personal texts and photos, but by also revealing why he believed they were concerned about the probe. 'Several days ago, an AMI leader advised us that Mr. Pecker is apoplectic about our investigation. For reasons still to be better understood, the Saudi angle seems to hit a particularly sensitive nerve,' wrote Bezos. 'A few days after hearing about Mr. Peckers apoplexy, we were approached, verbally at first, with an offer. They said they had more of my text messages and photos that they would publish if we didnt stop our investigation.' On Friday, American Media responded to Bezos' post, saying in part: 'American Media believes fervently that it acted lawfully in the reporting of the story of Mr. Bezos. Further, at the time of the recent allegations made by Mr. Bezos, it was in good faith negotiations to resolve all matters with him.' When asked if there was any Saudi involvement in the leaking of Bezos' texts on Friday, the Saudi Minister for Foreign Affairs Adel Jubeir said 'I doubt it,' and then a short while later said 'no.' Scroll down for video Big money: David Pecker (above in 2014) has invested large amounts in the country of Saudi Arabia according to The New York Times Prince: He also published a magazine that promoted the country and made no mention of its human rights violations called The New Kingdom early last year (Crown Prince in The New Kingdom above) Smiles: The Crown Prince is believed by US Intelligence and most lawmakers to have ordered the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a writer for the Bezos-owned Post (President Trump and the Crown Prince in March) Pecker's ties to President Trump and Saudi Arabia were detailed in an March 2018 report in The New York Times. It all began with Pecker being introduced to Kacy Grine, a French businessman with strong ties to Saudi Arabia. More specifically, according to the report, Grine 'acts as an intermediary between Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Western businesses.' That introduction was orchestrated by talent agent Ari Emanuel, reported the Times. That was a year before the affair between Bezos and Sanchez began, but it should be noted that Emanuel's business partner is Sanchez's estranged husband Patrick Whitesell. Pecker and Grine reportedly discussed the business landscape in the Middle East, and soon the publisher began making investments in the region. The two men grew close, and when Pecker was invited to see his friend in the White House in July of 2017 he brought along Grine as his guest. After meeting with the president and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, the group went to dinner, according to the Times. News of this meeting made its way back to Saudi Arabia, and Pecker was soon viewed as a businessman with an enormous amount of pull and power thanks to his ties to the current administration. In September of that year, Pecker was in Saudi Arabia meeting with the Crown Prince. That fact was ascertained thanks to a email exchange he had with Harvey Weinstein about purchasing Rolling Stone, a week before the disgraced mogul was outed as a sexual predator by the Times and New Yorker. And in January, Pecker reportedly sought out Saudi investments in his attempt to purchase Time magazine per two sources. That acquisition has always been a goal of Pecker's, and in 2013 Trump tweeted: 'David Pecker would be a brilliant choice as CEO of TIME Magazine nobody could bring it back like David!' Sneak peek: That magazine was sent to Saudi officials weeks before publication reported the AP, despite the country saying it knew nothing about the project (cover on left, Trump with Kacy Grine on right) Mood: 'Several days ago, an AMI leader advised us that Mr. Pecker is apoplectic about our investigation,' said Jeff Bezos (above with Trump and Microsoft exec Satya Nadella in June 2017) in his post about American Media on Thursday American Media even published a glossy magazine promoting the country that sold for $13.99 and was 100 pages long with no advertisements called A New Kingdom. The Associated Press later reported that the magazine 'was quietly shared with officials at the Saudi Embassy in Washington almost three weeks before its publication.' That magazine made no mention of the human right violations in Saudi Arabia, which have been most closely covered and detailed by the Bezos-owned Washington Post. That coverage has amplified considerably ever since the murder of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi, who was a columnist for the Post. Khashoggi was murdered at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2 while trying to obtain paperwork for his upcoming marriage to a Turkish woman. An investigation that was carried out by Turkish officials concluded that Khashoggi was killed by a team of 15 Saudis at the kingdom's diplomatic mission. Saudi officials denied these reports for weeks, but after international outcry declared that the murder was the result of a 'rogue' operation. At the same time, officials in Riyadh denied allegations that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was involved in any way with the murder. The New York Times reported on Thursday however that in a wire intercepted by America intelligence officials in 2017, the Crown Prince told an aide he would use 'a bullet' on the journalist if he did not return to the US and stop reporting on the country's violations of human rights. US Intelligence believes that the Crown Prince ordered the murder, as do experts with the United Nations and a majority of both Republican and Democratic lawmakers in Washington DC. President Trump meanwhile has declared very publicly that he stands by the Crown Prince. Amazon was engaging with a US government institute that tests and compares different vendors facial recognition technology. Michael Punke, vice president of global public policy at AWS, said there should be notice when video surveillance and facial recognition technology are used together in public or commercial settings. Amazon.com Inc joined the call for transparency in the use of facial recognition technology by law enforcement agencies, and said it supports an appropriate legislative framework on the technology to protect civil rights. In the companys most detailed blog yet on policy for the technology, Michael Punke, vice president of global public policy at AWS, said there should be notice when video surveillance and facial recognition technology are used together in public or commercial settings. Last month, tech heavyweight Microsoft Corp announced similar principles for the use of its facial recognition technology, saying it would recommend barring the technology from being used to engage in unlawful discrimination and would encourage customers to be transparent when deploying such services. Since May, several civil rights groups have pressured Amazon to stop selling governments access to Rekognition, a powerful image ID software unveiled in 2016 by the companys cloud-computing division. The groups cited use of Rekognition by law enforcement in Oregon and Florida and warned that the tool could be used to target immigrants and people of color unfairly. "New technology should not be banned or condemned because of its potential misuse. Instead, there should be open, honest, and earnest dialogue among all parties involved to ensure that the technology is applied appropriately," Punke wrote here on Thursday. The company said it was engaging with a US government institute that tests and compares different vendors facial recognition technology, but that it was still not possible to download its algorithms for testing outside the cloud. Researchers at the US body, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Democrats repeatedly blasted Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker during his appearance before the House Judiciary Committee Friday, grilling him on his conversations with President Trump and asserting that he was installed to rein in the Russia probe. 'In your final week, keep your hands off the Mueller investigation!' warned Democratic Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York after forcing Whitaker to respond one-by-one to questions about guilty pleas and indictments from within Trump's inner circle. Whitaker indicated he wouldn't reveal conversations with President Trump and got push-back for dangling 'privilege' without making a formal claim. But after several verbal tussles with lawmakers he did provide a handful of substantive responses and asserted that he had not interfered with the special counsel's investigation 'in any way.' PLACEHOLDER? Acting U.S. Attorney General Matthew Whitaker testified before the House Judiciary Committee Friday Scroll down for video He said he had been briefed on the Mueller investigation, stated he had never interfered in the Russia probe, and indicated he had been informed in advance of the arrest of longtime Trump advisor Roger Stone. 'I have not talked to the President of the United States about the Special Counsel's investigation,' Whitaker testified. Yet on other matters such as whether he was briefed during a six-day span before Christmas and how many briefings he got, and the time before he was installed in his post Whitaker held back. The hearing dragged on for nearly six hours as Whitaker fended off questions. When it was done, panel chairman Jerold Nadler spelled out four areas where he said Whitaker would 'owe us' a response: the times and dates he was briefed on the Russia probe, his communications with the president after those briefings, the basis for his public statement that the probe was wrapping up, and whether he told the special counsel to take any specific steps. Nadler said Whitaker was 'inconsistent' about his communications with the White House before his tenure. 'It is not credible that you both interviewed for a job handling the president's response to the special counsel's investigation and never conveyed your opinions about that investigation to the White House,' Nadler said. The hearing began with immediate fireworks Friday as the panel chairman blasted his decision to reference executive privilege thereby avoiding the need to supply detailed answers about the Russia probe. LESS IS MORE: Acting U.S. Attorney General Matthew Whitaker consults with staff before testifying to the House Judiciary Committee in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill February 08, 2019 in Washington, DC. GO HAWKEYES! The former University of Iowa football player was hit with tough questioning by Democratic chairman Jerold Nadler Rep. David Cicilline, a Rhode Island Democrat, pushed Whitaker on a report that the president 'lashed out' at him following the guilty plea of his longtime lawyer Michael Cohen. 'The president specifically tweeted that he had not lashed out,' Whitaker responded. Pressed to answer and reminded he was under oath, Whitaker answered: 'No he did not.' He also denied Trump lashed out after federal prosecutors identified 'Individual-1' (Trump) as the person who directed lawyer Michael Cohen to make payments to porn star Stormy Daniels. Committee chairman Jerold Nadler of New York tore into Whitaker before the witness was even sworn in, following the White House indication that Trump's hand-picked acting attorney general would refuse to answer certain Mueller probe questions by referencing executive privilege, even if Whitaker stops short of formally invoking it. 'In other words you refuse the right to answer the question forever. That's not how it works,' Nadler scolded Whitaker. A dispute over the nature of what was in-bounds nearly led to Whitaker not appearing and fueled a public stand-off Thursday. With White House lawyers stating sanctity of certain internal executive branch conversations, Whitaker bobbed and weaved to avoid getting pinned down about the Mueller probe. HOW HARD CAN THIS BE? 'There has been no event, no decision that has required me to take any action, and I have not interfered in any way in the special counsel's investigation,' Whitaker told lawmakers On several occasions, following an initial deflection, he provided at least part of the answer that Democrats were looking for. 'We have followed the special counsel's regulations to a tee,' he told Nadler after one lively exchange. 'There has been no event, no decision that has required me to take any action, and I have not interfered in any way in the special counsel's investigation.' In one exchange that may be unprecedented, Nadler asked the witness: 'In your capacity as attorney general, have you ever been asked to approve any request or action to be taken by the special counsel?' House Judiciary Committee ranking member Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA) made a motion to adjourn the hearing Whitaker said the president did not 'lash out' at him following Michael Cohen's guilty plea, where he admitted to working on a Trump Moscow tower project, or after prosecutors implicated Trump as 'Individual-1' in a filing 'Mr. Chairman, I see that your five minutes is up,' the Witness responded, breaching normal protocol where it is the chairman who enforces time limits. Lawmakers let out a series of groans at the comment. The question ultimately led to Whitaker's response: 'I am the person that is ultimately in charge of that investigation. And I have exercised that authority under the special counsel's regulations.' Whitaker also told lawmakers: 'I have not talked about the Special Counsel investigation with senior White House officials.' He repeatedly noted he likely had just days left on the job, with attorney general nominee William Barr set to get a Senate floor vote after making it through the Judiciary Committee. The question Whitaker wouldn't answer directly, about whether he spoke to Trump right before Christmas, appeared to be a reference to a CNN report. The network reported at the time that Trump 'lashed out' to Whitaker about the investigators in the Souther District of New York, fuming about the prosecution of longtime Trump lawyer Michael Cohen. But hours later, Whitaker said Trump hadn't lashed out at him following two key developments. One followed Cohen's guilty plea in New York to lying to Congress about a Trump Moscow project that Cohen was working on through much of 2016. Another followed developments that followed Cohen's guilty plea to campaign finance violations in connection to a hush money scheme involving a $130,000 payment to porn start Stormy Daniels. Prosecutors had implicated Trump in a court filing that said Cohen acted 'at the direction of Individual-1' Trump. Whitaker also stated that he never held back funds from the Mueller probe, an issue of concern to Democrats due to his prior public comments about squeezing its funding as a way to rein it in. Whitaker's involvement is of paramount interest to Democrats, both because of the importance of the investigation and Whitaker's past public comments blasting the probe before he assumed his post. The Mueller probe has led to multiple guilty pleas and convictions of top aides and associates of President Trump, although the president has repeatedly stated there was 'no collusion' with Russia during the campaign. Angry Republicans sought to push back and protect President Trump's hand-picked nominee, and immediately moved to adjourn the hearing. 'They just want a piece of you,' said Republican Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia. He was responding to Whitaker's opening statement, which stated: 'I want to assure you that I will seek to answer the Committee's questions today, as best as I can, but I also must make clear that I will continue the longstanding Executive Branch policy and practice of not disclosing information that may be subject to executive privilege, such as the contents of deliberations or conversations with the President.' Whitaker continued: 'As the Supreme Court has recognized, this executive privilege is fundamental to the operation of Government and inextricably rooted in the separation of powers under the Constitution. I trust that the Members of this Committee will respect the confidentiality that is necessary to the proper functioning of the Presidency just as we respect the confidentiality necessary to the Legislative Branch.' The statement was an indication that Whitaker would refuse to answer the most charged questions Democrats are girding to ask about the Russia probe. Nadler also went after Whitaker's TV appearances from before he was brought in as chief of staff to Attorney General Jeff Sessions and then tapped by Trump to replace him in an 'acting capacity.' 'These media appearances have become the cause of much concern,' Nadler told him. The hearing featured a number of angry clashes as Whitaker's testimony dragged into Friday afternoon. 'Would you say the special counsel's investigation is a witch hunt?' asked Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen of Tennessee, using the president's favored term. 'Are you overseeing a witch hunt?' he repeated. 'Congressman, As I've mentioned previously the special counsel's investigation is an ongoing investigation, and so I think it be inappropriate for me to ' he said, before Cohen cut him off. 'You'd stop a witch hunt wouldn't you?' Cohen asked. 'Congressman, it would be inappropriate for me to talk about an ongoing investigation,' Whitaker responded. Whitaker also engaged in a tense round of questioning with Democratic Rep. Hank Jones of Georgia, who pressed him on guidance from career ethics officials that he recuse himself from overseeing the Russia probe. 'I consulted with career ethics officials,' Whitaker said. 'It was my decision to make. I decided not to recuse,' he added. 'Let me be clear ...' Whitaker continued. 'You are not being clear sir other than in your obstruction,' Johnson hit back. 'I'm not obstructing anything. I'm trying to answer your question,' Whitaker responded. Then, Whitaker provided three names, including Acting Associate Deputy Attorney General Bradley Weinsheimer. 'He actually could not identify any precedent for me to recuse. He said it was a close call,' Whitaker explained. He said Weinsheimer 'said out of an abundance of caution, if asked, that he would recommend a certain course,' presumably meaning recusal. Democratic Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York brought up the string of indictments and guilty pleas achieved by Mueller. Then he raised Whitaker's retweet of an article about the 'Mueller lynch mob.' 'I recall that I retweeted an article that was titled that. I did not necessarily agree with that position,' Whitaker said. As the day's testimony wore on, Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon grew exasperated with Whitaker's answers, and brought up his time as a University of Iowa football player. 'Mr. Whitaker. You may be confused here. This may appear to be a contact sport. But it's not a gridiron, and I'm not letting you run out the time,' Scanlon told him. Whitaker also defended the conduct of the FBI agents who conducted a raid on Trump advisor Roger Stone's South Florida home. Stone has vented about 'Gestapo' tactics. 'The FBI makes arrests in a manner most likely to ensure the safety of its agents and of the person being arrested. The FBI must also consider the safety of the surrounding community, Whitaker said. He wouldn't provide specifics, but said his agency was willing to brief lawmakers in private later. 'I cannot provide the details in this open hearing without revealing what factors the FBI considers in those decisions and obviously that information could be used to put other FBI agents conducting other operations in harms way,' he said. 'What I can assure you, congressman, is that the FBI is prepared to brief this matter on the decisions that were made in that particular arrest in a closed session of this committee,' he told Texas Republican Rep. Tom McClintock. Democrats were anxious to interrogate Whitaker about the Russia probe, after he said publicly he has been fully briefed on it. They want to know if he gave Trump a head's up on pending actions, like the raid and indictment of longtime advisor Roger Stone. Whitaker told committee members that at no time had the White House sought, or had he provided 'promises or commitments concerning the Special Counsel's investigation or any other investigation.' As Acting AG, Whitaker held top oversight, although Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein contained day to day authority. Republicans took up the role of defending Whitaker. 'This hearing is pointless,' thundered Rep. Doug Collins, the top Republican on the panel, noting that Trump's nominee to be the next AG just cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee. Trump repeated his 'NO COLLUSION' claim in reference to another committee's investigation, referencing the bipartisan investigation of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which has yet to finish its work. 'The mainstream media has refused to cover the fact that the head of the VERY important Senate Intelligence Committee, after two years of intensive study and access to Intelligence that only they could get, just stated that they have found NO COLLUSION between 'Trump' & Russia,' Trump wrote in a pair of tweets. 'It is all a GIANT AND ILLEGAL HOAX, developed long before the election itself, but used as an excuse by the Democrats as to why Crooked Hillary Clinton lost the Election! Someday the Fake News Media will turn honest & report that Donald J. Trump was actually a GREAT Candidate!' the president wrote. Whitaker caved to Democratic demands and showed up voluntarily after a tumultuous day of doubts Thursday on whether or not he would appear. 'CONFIRMED: Acting Attorney General Whitaker will appear tomorrow morning at 9:30am,' Rep. Jerry Nader, the Democratic chairman of the panel, tweeted Thursday evening. The Justice Department claimed Democrats agreed to Whitaker's demanded they would not wield a subpoena against him. 'The chairman has made the commitment that we requested, and agreed that, if Mr. Whitaker voluntarily appears at tomorrow's hearing, the Committee will not issue a subpoena on or before February 8,' Justice Department spokesperson Kerri Kupec said in a statement to CNN. 'In light of that commitment, Acting Attorney General Whitaker looks forward to voluntarily appearing at tomorrow's hearing and discussing the great work of the Department of Justice.' Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker will show up voluntarily for his Friday morning appearance before Congress House Judiciary panel chair Jerry Nadler had advised Whitaker to show up 'CONFIRMED: Acting Attorney General Whitaker will appear tomorrow morning at 9:30am,' Rep. Jerry Nader, the Democratic chairman of the panel, tweeted Earlier Thursday Whitaker wrote House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler and asked for a reassurance that Democrats on his panel would not use a subpoena they pre-emptively authorized in case he avoids answering their questions. Nadler slammed back at his demand, writing that the acting attorney general had no reason to worry if he's 'prepared to respond to questions' and ended with a cheery: 'I look forward to your testimony tomorrow.' Whitaker had given Democrats a 6 p.m. deadline to respond in their escalating conflict. Nadler wrote back late Thursday afternoon: 'If you appear before the Committee tomorrow morning and if you are prepared to respond to questions from our Members, then I assure you that there will be no need for the Committee to issue a subpoena on or before February 8. To the extent that you believe you are unable to fully respond to any specific question, we are prepared to handle your concerns on a case-by-case basis, both during and after tomorrow's hearing.' He concluded with: 'Thank you, and I look forward to your testimony tomorrow.' The House Judiciary Committee on Thursday voted to authorize the subpoena ahead of his testimony. Democrats want to ask Whitaker about his conversations with President Trump and Whitaker's decision not to recuse himself from special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe. They are worried he may not answer. Asked whether Whitaker wouldn't testify due to a subpoena threat, President Donald Trump replied, 'That I don't know.' 'He's an outstanding person. I would say if he did testify he'd do very well,' the president told reporters Thursday in the Oval Office. The conflict began Thursday morning when the Justice Department sent a letter to the committee asking for reassurances before the acting attorney general met with them. 'I remain willing to appear to testify tomorrow, provided that the chairman assures me that the committee will not issue a subpoena today or tomorrow, and that the committee will engage in good faith negotiations before taking such a step down the road,' Whitaker said in a statement. He added: 'Political theater is not the purpose of an oversight hearing, and I will not allow that to be the case.' Nadler said during Thursday's authorization vote that he hoped not to have to use the subpoena but wanted to be prepared in case it was needed. 'I hope not to have to use the subpoena,' he said. 'Unfortunately a series of troubling events over the last few months suggest that we should be prepared.' Democrats worry Whitmaker may try to evade some of their questions and wanted a subpoena on hand to use if that is the case. 'If Mr. Whitaker appears in the hearing room, as scheduled, and if he provides direct answers to our questions, then I have no intention of ever issuing this subpoena,' Nadler said Thursday. The resolution to authorized the subpoena passed on a party-line vote, 23 to 13. In a letter to Nadler, the Justice Department outlined the questions that Whitaker is prepared to answer. Friday's hearing would likely be Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker's last appearance before Congress House Judiciary Committee members gather during a debate to subpoena Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker on Thursday 'The Acting Attorney General will testify that at no time did the White House ask for, or did the Acting Attorney General provide, any promises or commitments concerning the Special Counsel's investigation,' Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd wrote in a letter obtained by CNN. 'With respect to the Special Counsel investigation, the Department has complied with the Special Counsel regulations, and the Acting Attorney General will make clear that there has been no change in how the Department has worked with the Special Counsel's office.' Nadler argued the subpoena was necessary because Whitaker would not tell the committee whether or not he planned to invoke executive privilege. Friday's hearing would likely be Whitaker's last appearance before Congress. On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to advance William Barr's nomination as attorney general to the Senate floor, setting up a vote for next week. Two Instagramers looking to generate public awareness about violence in Colombia are now apologizing for staging a fake assassination. Marco Lasso and Miguel Rivera produced a skit in which the pair appears to be arguing with a motorcycle rider at an intersection in the city of Cali. The Colombian social media stars play the roles of a driver and a passenger who get into an argument following an accident after their vehicle almost collided with the biker. As part of the storyline an argument erupts and then the enraged biker opens fire on Lasso and Rivera, leaving them in a pool of blood before he zooms off. The Instagram stars laid out in front of a vehicle while staging their death at a intersection in Cali, Colombia Miguel Rivera (pictured) collaborated with fellow Instagramer Marco Lasso on a video in which they plot their death during a road rage incident with a biker at a street intersection in Colombia. The short video clip was condemned by government and law enforcement authorities because of the consequences it could have generated Lasso says the message of their video was to create awareness about the violence that for decades has impacted Colombia and the rest of the world. He and Rivera later apologized for the forum the used to distribute their point of view A woman, who is in on the act and was filming the road rage incident from her cell phone, appears from behind a tree in the quiet street when multiple shots rang. She then comes out running and nervously shouts, 'he killed him, he killed him, someone call an ambulance, call the cops.' News of Lasso's and Rivera's staged death swept across social media networks. Instagramers Miguel Rivera (left) and Marco Lasso (center) cause uproar after staging assassination with an actor playing the role of a biker (right) The plot gets out of hand when the enraged motorcycle rider (right) pulls out a prop weapon on the social media stars Colombian social media star, Rivera (pictured), says he hopes the message of their video 'doesn't go in one ear and out the other' Cali residents were quick to attack the government and law enforcement figures for the lack of security after images went viral of Lasso and Rivera laid out dead in the middle of the street. Lasso counts with over 321,000 followers on his Instagram account, marcolassoml, while Rivera's account, miguelriveratv, has more than 197,000 fans. The duo eventually confessed it was all part of a campaign to generate awareness, particularly in their homeland which for decades has been engulfed with senseless violence and an armed conflict pitting guerrilla groups against the government. However, it fell on deaf ears as the Instagram comedians were widely criticized for the method they applied in trying to disseminate their message. Cali's Secretary of Security and Justice, Andres Villamizar, went on Twitter to deny the crime and said the video could've 'generated negative consequences.' Subsequently, Lasso and Rivera would post a short video clip of the viral plot in which they expressing their motives. 'It hurt, right?' Lasso said. 'And not only our families and our friends and all our acquaintances, it hurt Cali, you, the world. And this happens every day all over the world.' Said Rivera: 'Create awareness. Breathe, think and act. Let's change the world, let's hope this doesn't go in one ear and out the other.' A British-born chimpanzee who was the subject of a petition to rescue him from a German zoo is still being brutally bullied by the other apes, shocking new footage shows. Bili the bonobo was born at Twycross Zoo in Leicestershire in 2008, but was rejected by his mother and sent to a zoo in Frankfurt before ending up in Wuppertal, in western Germany. In the video, filmed by a zoo visitor, Bili is sitting on a raised platform in the chimpanzee enclosure as some other bonobos try to push him off. Only when one violently pulls Bili's arm does he fall down. Bonobo Bili is trying to protect himself on the ground while surrounded by the other apes in the troop who are attacking him The British-born chimpanzee Bili is being still bullied by German apes at Wuppertal zoo who have not accepted him into the troop. He is seen hunched in the corner of the enclosure as a larger apes attack him Almost the entire troop of bonobos then jump on Bili and start to beat him, while another zoo visitor can be heard shouting 'nein, nein!' Bili tries to escape into a corner and protect his body from the blows by making himself as small as possible with his arms around his face. The monkeys at the zoo in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia have not accepted Bili, and their attacks have previously left him with horrific open, bleeding wounds. The shocking footage of the latest attack was shared online by Andre P., who wrote: 'After a few days of quietness, then today this "attack" happened out of nowhere. And this time almost the entire troop joined in.' Bili was sitting on a platform in the bonobo enclosure at Wuppertal Zoo when he was violently pulled down and set upon by the pack Zoo spokesman Andreas Haser-Kalthoff said he was at the enclosure himself at the time of the attack. He said: 'Such images are not nice. But it is part of the integration of the ape in the troop.' Andre P. wrote however that although he understands the zoo policy's towards the British bonobo, his acceptance of it 'melted like ice cream in the Sahara' - as not a single zookeeper interfered. According to animal welfare organisations bonobo Bili has been severely traumatised since being sent to the German zoo. The campaign to save bullied chimpanzee Bili started after heartbreaking images were released showing him with bites on his head and hand Bonobo Bili has even had part of his ear bitten off, and animal rights activists want him to be sent back to England The petition 'Save Bonobo Bili from Wuppertal Zoo' was started by Petra Bente, who says he has been severely traumatised since being sent to the zoo in western Germany Heartbreaking images were released showing 10-year-old Bili with bites on his head and hand and a chunk missing from his year. Things have got so bad that a campaign has been set up to get him sent back to Britain. The 'Save Bonobo Bili from Wuppertal Zoo' petition launched by Petra Bente aims to see Bili rehoused to the 'Monkey World Ape Rescue Centre' near Bovington, in Dorset, England. According to Bente, Bili was sent to Germany from Twycross Zoo after his mother Maringa failed to care for him. He was first flown to Frankfurt in January 2009, where he was adopted by loving female chimps who had previously brought up orphaned youngsters. He reportedly integrated well in the group, but despite that in autumn last year he was sent to Wuppertal Zoo at the recommendation of the Specialist Group of the European Zoological Community and the European Conservation Breeding Program. Bili was brought to Wuppertal Zoo for as part of a conservation programme as Bonobos are an endangered species, but can be seen here nursing open wounds A promising start: Four-month old Bili was in Frankfurt settling in well, but life has taken a darker turn since he was ostracised and attacked by his fellow great apes The petition on Change.org has been signed by more than a quarter of a million people so far. But the pleas have so far been rejected by Wuppertal Zoo, who say they are still hoping that Bili can be integrated with their own ape family. The zoo's Deputy Director Severin Dressget said that Bili was not allowed to breed by the Frankfurt Zoo he was living in, and as a result had been sent to them. He said: 'This was done with the aim of integrating him into the existing group and thus to contribute to the preservation of the highly endangered bonobos by breeding.' The renowned Jane Goodall Institute, a global wildlife and environment conservation organization headquartered in Virginia in the U.S, has also taken an interest in the battle for Bili. The little ape looked relaxed before snuggling in amongst other passengers on the flight from Birmingham to Frankfurt Grasping his 'passport' excitedly Bili and his keepers looked forward to him finding a better life in Germany This adorable mock-up 'passport' records the bonobo as having - perhaps unsurprisingly - brown hair and brown eyes Dr. Iris Weiche of the institute, which is named after the world-renowned British behavioural researcher and primatologist Dame Jane Goodall, said: 'Of course the developments in the troop, which can take quite a while, are closely monitored by us.' Bonobos are also known as pygmy chimpanzees, but are technically a separate species. They are, as their nickname alludes, smaller than chimpanzees and highly endangered. In the wild they can only be found in one country, the Democratic Republic of Congo, where it is feared only a few thousand specimen remain. Nurses and midwives have been bitten, spat at, punched and even had bodily fluids thrown at them in the past year according to a new report - as they blame ice for the increase in violence. The study conducted by University of Technology Sydney researcher Dr Jacqui Pich found 80 per cent of nurses in New South Wales experienced verbal or non-physical forms of abuse. Other incidents reported last year included a nurse who had semen hurled at her and attacks using IV poles and scissors. Nurses and midwives have been bitten, spat at, punched and even had bodily fluids thrown at them in the past year according to a new report - as they blame ice for the increase in violence A total of 388 nurses reported having blood or urine thrown at them, with 2310 saying they were sworn at while at work. Another 377 nurses have had their jewellery or hair pulled. Dr Pich said the extent of violence in hospitals had even reached birthing clinics. One mental health nurse told The Daily Telegraph under the cover of anonymity the increase in violence had him fearing for his safety. 'The ice epidemic is real - everyone is being affected by it,' he said. 'The shouting and fighting and aggression is happening on an increasing basis.' One mental health nurse told The Daily Telegraph under the cover of anonymity the increase in violence had him fearing for his safety - and blamed drugs like ice for the rise The study, entitled Violence in Nursing and Midwifery in NSW, found 35 nurses were also sexually attacked. When pitching the research in Toronto, Dr Pich asked 'why is it safer to work in a prison or be police officer?' Despite the findings, the academic said under-reporting of violence in the medical profession was still a major problem. 'Often the system is designed so that they wont report it because it is going to take time or because the violence is so common, or they know if they report it nothing will happen,' she said. Antunes, of Tottenham, pleaded guilty to one count of manslaughter. He was sentenced to 3 years and 9 months behind bars A Harrods worker who knocked out a father-of-one with a single punch which led to his death six months later has been jailed for more than three years, while his friend who booted the stricken civil engineer on the ground was spared prison. Lucas Antunes, 21, and Luis Abella, 22, had been drinking and dining with friends in London's West End after finishing a shift at the department store before launching the assault on Desmond O'Beirne, 51, at around midnight on June 3 2017. CCTV footage played at the Old Bailey showed the victim walking away from the group when Antunes landed a punch to the head, sending him sprawling to the ground, before Abella kicked him as he lay motionless. A witness saw father-of-one Mr O'Beirne, who lived in a flat in Pimlico, bleeding heavily from the mouth and head. He suffered a traumatic brain injury and died six months later on December 20, 2017. Antunes, of Tottenham, pleaded guilty to one count of manslaughter. He was sentenced to 3 years and 9 months behind bars. Abella, of Stockwell, admitted attempted assault causing actual bodily harm. He walked free from court after being given a 3 month sentence suspended for 2 years. The court heard Antunes 'began to brag how he had taken out the victim with a single punch' when he went back to work but fled to the United States following a public appeal in which police offered a 20,000 reward. The pair were brought to justice after Abella's cousin and Antunes's girlfriend came forward after realising the seriousness of the attack, prosecutor John Clifford said. Antunes, from Tottenham, north London, pleaded guilty to manslaughter while Abella, from Lambeth, south London, admitted attempted assault occasioning actual bodily harm at an earlier hearing. Prosecutors offered no evidence against Abella on the manslaughter charge. Judge Paul Dodgson jailed Antunes, who wiped tears from his eyes throughout the hearing, for three years and nine months, while Abella was handed a three-month prison sentence, suspended for two years. The judge said: 'An event that took a few seconds changed the lives of three people drastically, but many others would also suffer. 'Desmond O'Beirne lost his life as a result of what happened in those few seconds. That was an event that was intended by nobody. 'The two defendants in the dock, Antunes and Abella - both young men from hard-working families - in those few seconds acted in a manner that would lead them to the dock at the Old Bailey.' He continued: 'There is no doubt that anybody watching the CCTV would be shocked by the force that you, Antunes, used in punching someone whose only offence was to have bothered the group of which you were a part with a request for cigarettes and who would not go away when told to. Luis Abella (left) was caught on CCTV kicking Desmond O'Beirne (right) 'I of course recognise that you did not contemplate at all that your act would lead to his death but you must have known that to have hit him with such force would lead to some injury and perhaps some serious injury.' The judge added that he could not be sure Antunes boasted about the attack or that he had left the country to evade justice. Mr O'Beirne's sister, Vivienne Folan, who sat in the public gallery, said her brother grew up in Edgware and had been a 'first-rate student' before working in the civil engineering and construction industries as a 'highly skilled professional' specialising in steel fixing. 'My brother Desmond was a hard-working, larger than life character, who lived in Pimlico and worked around London,' she said in a witness statement. 'Desmond's life was needlessly cut short because of a needless and cowardly attack by two men who showed no remorse and left my brother for dead. 'We, his family, have found the past 18 months extremely difficult in coming to terms with the brutal and senseless attack on Desmond and the pain and suffering he must have endured in the intervening six months prior to his death from his injuries.' The court heard Antunes and Abella had been enjoying a night out with friends in the West End after finishing work at Harrods, where they worked through an agency, before the fatal attack. 'The two defendants and friends of theirs were enjoying an evening out in London and were in Trafalgar Square,' said the prosecutor. 'They were approached at one stage by Mr Desmond O'Beirne, who was intoxicated. 'He asked them in relatively hostile terms for a cigarette and the group gave him short shrift. 'Mr O'Beirne walked away from the group and the two defendants followed him.' Mr Clifford continued: 'Mr Antunes was the first to Mr O'Beirne. 'He punched him, Mr O'Beirne falls to the ground without any attempt to break his fall, which would suggest the punch had knocked him out,' he said. 'As Mr O'Beirne lay on the ground motionless, Mr Abella followed up the punch of Mr Antunes by kicking Mr O'Beirne to the body.' John Swain, defending Abella, said that although his client was not responsible for causing Mr O'Beirne's death, his conduct was 'deplorable' and 'cowardly' and 'it is something that has weighed very heavily on him'. Christopher Harding, representing Antunes, said: 'It is a tragedy that Mr O'Beirne lost his life and it is my client who is ultimately responsible for his death. 'It is not, however, something which he intended. 'Indeed, he didn't intend to cause any serious harm to Mr O'Beirne in June 2017, but it is something for which he is truly and deeply sorry.' A Harrods spokesman has said the defendants were not members of staff but were employed by Buzz Retail, which provides workers for demonstrations within Harrods, both for less than a year, in 2017. A Brooklyn man was arraigned this morning on a murder charge after police performing a welfare check discovered the decomposed body of his mother, who had been stabbed to death and set on fire. NYPD officers were summoned by the victims colleagues to her apartment in the 1100 block of Park Place in the Crown Heights neighborhood just before 3pm on Wednesday, after the woman failed to show up for work that morning. The woman's son, 32-year-old Jason Reeves, met the officers at the door of the unit. Scroll down for video Jason Reeves, 32, is pictured in Kings County Supreme Court during his arraignment Friday on charges of murder and concealing a human corpse in the death of his mother Police performing a welfare check made a grisly discovered inside the apartment of a 67-year-old woman on Park Place in Crown Heights, Brooklyn The woman had been stabbed to death in the chest and set on fire before police say her son, Jason Reeves, stuffed her body inside a closet Courtesy of News 12 Brooklyn When asked about his mother's whereabouts, Reeves reportedly replied that she 'went out,' reported NBC New York. But police smelled a foul odor coming from inside the unit and executed a search, which led them to Reeves' 67-year-old mother inside a bedroom closet. The woman was dead from multiple stab wounds to the chest and face. Her partially clothed body had been torched and then left to rot, according to police. It is believed the woman had been dead for several days. Reeves was then arrested on a charge of second-degree murder. He was arraigned on Friday morning in Kings County Supreme Court on counts of murder and concealment of a human corpse. The victim's neighbors told News 12 Brooklyn that her son was emotionally disturbed and struggling with drug addiction. One of the neighbors told the station that the 67-year-old woman once said, 'My son is going to kill me.' The victim has not been named as of Friday morning, but she was said to have worked at the nearby Middle School 394. Advertisement These intriguing photographs illustrate how NASCAR - the worlds foremost stock car racing series - evolved from the shady beginnings of US prohibition bootleggers. The growth of the multi-million dollar sport was fueled by those smuggling alcohol in the 20th century before showing their driving talent on tracks around the country. The moonshiners were the perfect candidates to impress the crowds as they had modified vehicles, usually a Ford Coupe or a Ford Pickup truck, which they would have resourcefully improved to readily escape the police with their loads of whiskey. Safety measures lacking, the events were scrappy affairs and still after the association was formed in 1948, known moonshiners would enter. Even renowned driver Junior Johnson returned to his home in North Carolina to help with the family moonshining business after five victories on the NASCAR circuit in 1955. Johnson previously told the BBC: If it hadnt been for whiskey, NASCAR wouldnt have been formed. Thats a fact. This early NASCAR race features drivers accustomed to running from the law with a car full of liquor during the US Prohibition era. The country had a nationwide constitutional ban on the production and sale of alcoholic beverages from 1920 to 1933. This lead to an increase of bootleggers filling their modified cars with booze and driving it around the states - soon after they would put their skills to the test on haphazard tracks A NASCAR Cup series auto race takes place in November, 2018, in Avondale, Arizona. The association was officially founded in 1948 and is now one of the best known stock car racing events A moonshine car racing at Greensboro Fairgrounds, North Carolina, in the 1930s. The bootleggers were the perfect candidates to impress the crowds of fans as they had vehicles, usually a Ford Coupe or a Ford Pickup truck, which would have resourcefully been improved to readily escape the police with their loads of whiskey A bootlegging vehicle filled with sugar used for creating alcohol which was discovered by police in the 1930s Grinning authorities pose with a large moonshine bust in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1951. The rivalry between cops and bootleggers was almost friendly. Atlanta police were even quoted as calling moonshiner Roy Hall a 'genius at the wheel' because of his ability to outrun the law A wrecked Ford sits in a bootleggers garage in North Carolina, in 1940. Most moonshiners stopped their illegal practices following the legalization of alcohol by President Franklin Roosevelt. However, some continued to make and sell their own booze without the intention of paying any tax A 1951 Ford pickup truck from Franklin County, Virginia, used for running moonshine. Liquor haulers used this pickup until 1972. The truck was modified with a different engine, extra leaf springs, heavy duty shock absorbers, and wooden bed racks to conceal the load. It also had switched license plates to fool revenuers A pool hall in Kansas is filled with patrons drinking alcohol - despite the picture being taken in April 1931 during the prohibition era. The caption of the photograph explained the bar was supplied by travelling bootleggers An illegal moonshine still in the mountains of North Carolina created and used throughout the 1930s. Barrels of liquid line the floor as the alcohol is prepared A 1951 Ford pickup truck, left, which was a favored vehicle for moonshine runners, compared to the vehicles used by modern NASCAR drivers, right The remains of a borrowed Stutz touring car after running into a tree at seventy miles an hour, in which the bootlegger driver was killed and fifty gallons of corn liquor was destroyed and confiscated on July 29, 1924 Following a chase through the busy streets of America's capital, a couple of bootleggers are captured by police as their car full of moonshine is apprehended on January 21, 1922 A policeman stands guard alongside a ruined car full of cases of moonshine in Washington DC, on November 16, 1922 Investigators looking into the death of a woman on a luxury cruise boat have discovered the vessel had been modified to dump sewage out its fuel exhaust. Shalina Abdul Hussein, 39, was found slumped over a bathroom sink on the three-level Lady Rose catamaran on February 2. The Sydney mother had been attending a party on the boat in the Sydney Harbour when the tragedy happened. Shalina Abdul Hussein, 39, was found slumped over a bathroom sink on the three-level Lady Rose catamaran on February 2 It is believed the group had been celebrating a birthday party at the time of the tragedy Her mysterious death has investigators looking at whether she was overcome by toxic hydrogen sulphide gas from the sewage tank. Hydrogen sulphide is a colourless, flammable gas, known for its rotten egg smell, which is typically formed in sewerage systems. A pipe has been uncovered on the boat, which was installed to connect the boat's sewage tank with the diesel exhaust outlet, The Daily Telegraph reported. Investigators will look at whether the modification has any link to Ms Hussein's death. Authorities will also investigate whether the modification allowed the vessel to carry more sewage or pump it out less frequently. The lady Rose is part of a fleet owned by All Occasion Cruises, which is run by millionaire Joe Elias. There is no suggestion Mr Elias had any involvement in the operation of the boat on the day of Ms Hussein's death. About 100 people were on the boat at the time, dressed in cocktail dresses and summer suits. Several partygoers were treated for shock Partygoers complained about a smell on board the vessel at 3.30pm hours before Ms Hussein was found unconscious. Initial reports found safe gas readings, however, police later claimed there were dangerous levels. 'Investigators were advised that several gas detection tests were conducted in a bathroom are,' police said in a statement to The Daily Telegraph. The Australian Maritime Services Authority (AMSA) is also investigating the death and possible breaches of national laws. A report on Ms Hussein's death is being prepared for the coroner. Daily Mail Australia has contacted All Occasion Cruises for comment. It is understood the company will not be commenting until all the facts are known. President Trump put new pressure Friday on the House Intelligence Committee to drop its Russian election meddling probe. Trump suggested in a tweet that because the Senate Intelligence Community had already done the legwork and found no evidence that his campaign was involved in an election meddling scheme, a House committee studying the issue should pack it in. He targeted the Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence panel Adam Schiff, with whom he's been feuding, in follow-up message, hinting at impropriety between the California congressman and a key witness in the Russia case. As the tirade continued, Trump hammered the media for ignoring the Senate panel's findings and alleged that Russian collusion accusations are a conspiracy concocted by Democrats before the election to justify their presidential candidate's future loss. 'It is all a GIANT AND ILLEGAL HOAX, developed long before the election itself, but used as an excuse by the Democrats as to why Crooked Hillary Clinton lost the Election!' he charged. 'Someday the Fake News Media will turn honest & report that Donald J. Trump was actually a GREAT Candidate!' President Trump put new pressure Friday on the House Intelligence Committee to drop its Russian election meddling probe Trump spent the better part of an hour complaining about the probes on Friday morning, when he had little else to do, according to his public schedule, than rage at the television. His acting attorney general, Matt Whitaker, was about to deliver testimony to Congress on the special counsel investigation into Russian election meddling. House Intelligence Committee member John Ratcliffe, a Republican from Texas, said in a Fox News interview just before the hearing that he believed his Democratic colleagues are 'trying to get to Donald Trump' rather than the truth. 'I think the Democrats have put all their eggs in the Bob Mueller basket, and if he doesn't deliver, then at the end of the day, they could have egg on their face,' the congressman said. Trump was watching a replay of 'Hannity,' which airs at 9 pm EDT, at the time of his tweets. Both of the twitter handles he tagged belonged to guests of the Fox News host the evening before. He mentioned Gregg Jarrett, author of the Russia Hoax and a Fox News contributor, in the first tweet, and journalist John Solomon in another. 'Not only did Senator Burrs Committee find No Collusion by the Trump Campaign and Russia, its important because they interviewed 200 witnesses and 300,000 pages of documents, & the Committee has direct access to intelligence information thats Classified,' Trump said. A second tweet, the one that mentioned Schiff, referred to Solomon's report that the leading Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee has been photographed at a security conference with the head of the firm that put together dossier of alleged impropriety by Trump in Moscow before he became president. Solomon said that spokespersons for the two men said they did speak at the conference they both attended when Schiff was the ranking Democrat but not the head of the intel panel - however, they claimed it was a brief conversation during a chance encounter. Trump wasn't buying it. 'Now we find out that Adam Schiff was spending time together in Aspen with Glenn Simpson of GPS Fusion, who wrote the fake and discredited Dossier, even though Simpson was testifying before Schiff,' he wrote. He suggested that the conversation with Simpson was more than meets the eye, and Schiff's Russian collusion investigation cannot, therefore, be trusted to produce a fair result. He slammed Democrats at the helm of the House Intelligence Committee for what he called 'unlimited presidential harassment' Thursday on Twitter, following a warning that they would widen the investigation into his corporate and personal finances. Facing chairman Schiff's threat of an investigation that presses the president far beyond Mueller's search for evidence of election-year collusion with Russia, Trump blasted what he called the 'continuation of [a] Witch Hunt!' that Republicans 'never did to President Obama.' 'So now Congressman Adam Schiff announces, after having found zero Russian Collusion, that he is going to be looking at every aspect of my life, both financial and personal, even though there is no reason to be doing so,' Trump wrote. President Trump slammed the Democrats as 'nuts' and said they were continuing their 'Witch Hunt' after the House Intelligence Committee said it would investigate both his financial and personal life 'Never happened before! Unlimited Presidential Harassment.' Trump said in another tweet: 'PRESIDENTIAL HARASSMENT! It should never be allowed to happen again!' 'The Dems and their committees are going nuts. The Republicans never did this to President Obama, there would be no time left to run government,' Trump added on Twitter. 'I hear other committee heads will do the same thing. Even stealing people who work at White House! A continuation of Witch Hunt!' A Schiff spokesman did not respond Thursday morning to a request for comment. Trump referred to Schiff on Wednesday as a 'political hack' who was harassing him to get his name in the news, as the men stepped up their attacks on one another. Schiff announced his intention to widen the investigation not long before Trump invited reporters into the Roosevelt Room for the introduction of World Bank nominee David Malpass. Trump pretended not to be familiar with the politician he has slammed as Adam 'Schitt' before telling a reporter who asked about the probe: 'On what basis would he do that? He has no basis to do that.' President Trump slammed the House Intelligence Committee chairman as a 'hack' who's harassing him to get his name in the news Schiff made the announcement not long before Trump invited reporters into the Roosevelt Room for an event. The House Democrat is seen here, talking to reporters, immediately beforehand 'Hes just a political hack, whos trying to build a name for himself. And I think thats fine, because thats what they do,' Trump said. 'But there would be no reason do that. No other politician has to go through that. Its called presidential harassment. And its unfortunate, it really does hurt our country.' An hour later, Schiff responded on Twitter: 'I can understand why the idea of meaningful oversight terrifies the President.' 'Several of his close associates are going to jail, others await trial, and criminal investigations continue. Were going to do our job and wont be distracted or intimidated by threats or attacks.' Trump angered congressional Democrats on Tuesday night when he complained in his State of the Union address about 'ridiculous partisan investigations' that are diluting bipartisan sentiments. 'If there is going to be peace in legislation, there cannot be war and investigation. It just does not work that way,' he lectured. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi encouraged Trump on Wednesday afternoon to use a prodigious amount of caution when addressing lawmakers in that manner. 'The president should not bring threats to the floor of the House,' she said. Trump's words were taken as a warning to House Democrats from the president about investigations they're launching into his administration. 'He said he wasn't going to cooperate unless we didn't exercise our constitutional responsibility to oversight,' Pelosi said of Trump's remarks. The U.S. Senate's top Democrat also fired a warning shot at Trump on Wednesday, saying he only demanded d that House Democrats back off from 'partisan' investigations because 'he's afraid of them.' Minority Leader Chuck Schumer mocked the president's call for bipartisan cooperation instead of 'foolish' opposition from the House majority now led by Pelosi. 'He's scared,' Schumer said hours later during an interview on CNN's 'New Day' program. 'He's got something to hide.' Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Wednesday morning that President Donald Trump only demanded an end to congressional investigations during his State of the Union address because he's 'scared' of them 'He's got something to hide,' Schumer said of the president, who faces a raft of new Capitol Hill probes led by the new Democratic House majority Schumer has been gleefully anticipating probes from the other end of the Capitol, focused on everything from White House securiy clerances to so-far unsubstantiated claims that his 2016 campaign aides colluded with Russian agents to help tilt the election. Schumer scoffed at the idea that Trump has any place asking for the soft-glove treatment. 'One of the functions of the Congress, the Article I section of government, from the days of the founding fathers, was oversight of the executive branch,' he told CNN host John Berman. 'And the president says, "If you investigate me, I'm not going to make progress." That's already doing what he did with the shutdown, holding the American people hostage. You know what I think it shows, John? He's scared. he's got something to hide.' Vice President Mike Pence said in a CBS interview while Schumer was talking on CNN that Trump was only complaining Tuesday night about 'partisan' investigations Trump began his speech with a call for bipartisan unity, but insisted on a my-way-or-the-highway approach to immigration and other contentious issues Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the 29-year-old socialist who has emerged as a Democratic Party leader, said on NBC that Trump's demand 'was, frankly, kind of bizarre' 'Because if he had nothing to hide,' Schumer concluded, 'he'd just shrug his shoulders and let these investigations go forward. He's afraid of them.' On 'CBS This Morning,' Vice President Mike Pence acknowledged that 'congressional oversight is a part of the checks and balances of our system.' Pence said that Trump was only referring to 'partisan investigations' that have been launched. 'You know his feelings about investigations on Capitol Hill,' said Pence, who served 12 years in Congress before becoming Indiana's governor. 'We don't object to oversight. That's the proper role of committees in the Congress. But when it takes on a partisan tint, when it seems more intent on becoming a forum for invective against the president and the administration, the American people expect better.' Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the 29-year-old democratic socialist who has emerged as a Democratic Party leader, said on NBC that Trump's demand 'was, frankly, kind of bizarre.' 'I don't think that investigations into federal misconduct have anything to do with our economy,' she said. Trump had begun the assault by talking about last month's jobs numbers. 'An economic miracle is taking place in the United States, and the only thing that can stop it are foolish wars, politics, or ridiculous, partisan investigations,' he'd said. Shelia Thompson (pictured), 53, of Torquay, Devon, was yesterday sentenced to 12 months prison after admitting to being drunk on an aircraft and common assault A woman has been jailed after she drunkenly assaulted a passenger on a flight - forcing the pilot to turn the plane around and land. Shelia Thompson, 53, is said to have 'slapped' someone while she flew to Alicante in Spain. Shortly after take-off from Bristol Airport Thompson started behaving in a 'disruptive manner', police said. Airport sources confirmed that a drunken Thompson had slapped a fellow passenger during the flight, on Sunday September 30. Thompson, of Torquay, Devon, has been sentenced to 12 months prison after admitting to being drunk on an aircraft and common assault. In a statement Avon and Somerset police said: 'Her action caused the plane to return to Bristol Airport shortly after take-off. 'When it landed, Thompson was arrested and subsequently charged.' Following the trial at Bristol Crown Court police airport commander Inspector Barney Gardom said: 'We will not tolerate this sort of abusive behaviour and work with the airport to take robust action against disruptive passengers. 'We will, where possible take action to put the offenders before the courts.' Thompson had been on a Ryanair flight from Bristol when she 'slapped' someone also on the flight A Bristol Airport spokesman added: 'This sentence sends a strong message that the consequences can be very serious for passengers who behave disruptively when flying. 'Thankfully incidents of this nature are very much the exception at Bristol Airport but we will continue to work closely with the police and our business partners to prevent anti-social behaviour by a small minority spoiling the experience for everyone.' As such, New Delhi will be dealing with friends if it chooses to play a part in the coming developments. The talks in Moscow earlier this week, on Tuesday and Wednesday, between the Taliban and a 42-member Afghan delegation of the nations key political players, led by former President Hamid Karzai, is indicative of the setting of a new stage in Afghanistans embattled recent history. The question is what place India sees for itself in the new picture that is emerging as the result of US President Donald Trumps plans to withdraw his countrys troops from Afghanistan, where they have been for the past 17 years after the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001. This is a goal that could well be within grasp in the foreseeable future, and the process appears to be chaperoned by Washington and Moscow working in tandem. As such, New Delhi will be dealing with friends if it chooses to play a part in the coming developments. India did send a small team of non-officials two retired ambassadors to Moscow last November as observers at the conference of key regional powers with the Taliban. As the process of reconciliation with the Taliban gathered steam with US diplomacy being energetically deployed in Doha (Qatar), where the Taliban have a representative office for international contacts, the US sent Zalmay Khalizad, its special representative for the Taliban reconciliation talks, to New Delhi last month to keep India abreast of current developments. Mr Karzai had also been in the Indian capital about the same time. So far, the Indian stance has been to align its position completely with that of the Afghan government. Since President Ashraf Ghani declined to send an official delegation to Moscow last November, India also sent a team of non-officials. Mr Ghanis guardedness is due to the fact that the Taliban dont recognise the Kabul government as being legitimate, while India along with the rest of the international community does. But, in time, it is to be expected that Taliban will engage with the authorities in Kabul. Essentially, we might be at a stage when India will need to make up its mind to officially engage with the Taliban. It will be a surprise if unofficial contacts have not already been established, but these will need to be formalised. As a part of the processes under way in respect of Afghan reconciliation, an interim government replacing the Ghani administration is being envisaged and is widely anticipated. The Taliban may be expected to not only participate in it but will likely seek to influence it in many ways. In the event, if a positive official veneer is not placed by India on its contacts with the Taliban, practical difficulties are likely to arise. The other leading regional powers Pakistan, Iran China and Turkey, besides the US and Russia have little difficulty recognising the Taliban officially. In order to pre-position itself, New Delhi would need to do the same. Paul Manafort carried out political work in Ukraine even after he was indicted by Robert Mueller's investigation for his illegal lobbying there, prosecutors believe. Donald Trump's former campaign chair arranged for polling in the Eastern European country in 2018, according to a court transcript which was made public yesterday. Manafort, 69, was indicted in 2017 and accused of failing to register as an agent of the Ukrainian government. The special counsel's probe said he had 'generated tens of millions of dollars in income as a result of [his] Ukraine work'. Paul Manafort (pictured) carried out political work in Ukraine even after he was indicted by Robert Mueller's investigation for his involvement there, prosecutors believe But in 2018 Manafort continued to organize polling on behalf of an unnamed Ukrainian political figure, prosecutors said. The claims emerged in the transcript of a court hearing which was held on Monday, where prosecutors accused Manafort of lying to obtain a plea bargain. In a plea deal last September he pleaded guilty to illegal lobbying, promising to co-operate 'fully, truthfully, completely, and forthrightly' with Mueller's prosecutors. But Mueller threw out the plea deal less than three months later, accusing Manafort of breaching the agreement by lying to investigators. In a filing in November Mueller's team said Manafort 'committed federal crimes' by lying about 'a variety of subject matters'. At the latest hearing the court was told an August 2016 meeting between Manafort and an associate with ties to Russian intelligence goes to the 'heart' of the long-running Russia investigation. Prosecutors have homed in on the repeated contacts between Manafort and his longtime associate, Konstantin Kilimnik, who the FBI says has ties to the Russia's military intelligence agency. Among the topics discussed by Manafort and Kilimnik during the election was a possible peace plan to resolve the Russia-Ukraine conflict in Crimea. Manafort was indicted in 2017 and accused of failing to register as an agent of the Ukrainian government, in the investigation led by Robert Mueller (pictured) Manafort's lawyers have also disclosed that Manafort had shared polling data on the Trump campaign with Kilimnik. Kilimnik traveled to Washington for Trump's January 2017 inauguration and met with Manafort, prosecutors said. Manafort has denied intentionally making false statements. U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson is now tasked with deciding whether Manafort's statements constituted a breach of his plea agreement. She set a March 13 sentencing for the former Trump campaign chairman on the two charges. Manafort faces a separate sentencing in Virginia on tax and fraud charges, for which he could receive a decade in prison. In the separate trial he was of convicted of eight felony counts related to millions of dollars he hid from the IRS in offshore accounts. New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian has opened up about the death of her long-lost twin sister and how it helped shape her strong work ethic. Speaking to The Australian, Ms Berejiklian, 58, recalled how she found out she had a twin when she overheard a family acquaintance mention it. She described how the family friend had visited their home one day and asked her mother Arsha 'where's the other one?' because she heard she was having twins. New South Wales premier Gladys Berejiklian (pictured) has opened up about the death of her long-lost twin sister and how it helped shape her strong work ethic Ms Berejiklian (pictured centre) with her parents and sisters after being sworn in, January 2017 Ms Berejiklian (pictured left with her family) said she found out she had a twin when a family friend visited their home one day and asked her mother Arsha 'Where's the other one?' Despite the revelation, Ms Berejiklian said she didn't know for sure until she was about 12 or 13 years old, when she applied for a birth certificate to get a passport. Written on the birth certificate were the words 'elder of twin'. The premier said learning about the death of her twin gave her a greater appreciation for life and an obligatory sense to justify her existence by sacrificing. 'I'm very lucky for me every day in life is a bonus,' Ms Berejiklian says. 'I had a twin sister and she didn't make it. It was just luck that I came out first.' She said knowing she had a twin also gave her the inner drive to work hard and appreciate the understanding she didn't need to be happy all the time. Her mother, Arsha, told the publication she chose not to tell Gladys she had a stillborn twin because she didn't want to upset her. Ms Berejiklian (pictured with her father Krikor) said she is grateful for being born in Australia Ms Berejiklian (pictured right with her parents) said her 'deep gratefulness' for life also stems from being born in Australia as a result of the choices and sacrifices her parents made She said she had often wondered whether the twin would have been like Gladys, but added just thinking about her death made her sad. The premier's sister, Mary, also told the publication her sister has often spoke about how she felt as though someone was shadowing her. Ms Berejiklian said her 'deep gratefulness' for life also stems from being born in Australia as a result of the choices and sacrifices her parents made. The premier has previously spoken about how all four of her grandparents were orphaned in the Armenian genocide and how 40 relatives lost their lives. She said her father, Krikor, was born in Aleppo, Syria, but he didn't want to raise a family in the Middle East so he moved to Australia in the 1960s, where he met Arsha. 'My parents are both really smart people, neither of them got a chance to finish high school. Life is precious. My motto's always been: 'Try to make a difference',' she said. Advertisement A record setting 1.7 tons of meth, worth a staggering $1.3 billion, has been found hidden in a speaker shipment bound for Australia from the United States. U.S. Customs and Border Protection said 1,728 kilograms of the drug was seized mid-January at the Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex along with smaller amounts of cocaine and heroin. The drugs were hidden in metal boxes labelled as loudspeakers. It was the largest single seizure of methamphetamine in the United States and the biggest drug haul bound for Australia. Australian police arrested six people following the drugs bust which authorities said would have provided around 17 million hits of the substance also known as ice. A joint operation between U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Drug Enforcement Agency, Australian Federal Police and Victoria state police had stopped 'a tsunami of ice' from reaching Australian shores, authorities said. The three containers seized Thursday also contained 55.9 pounds of cocaine and 11.5 pounds of heroin and had a street value of $1.29 billion. Scroll down for video. U.S. Customs and Border Protection said 1,728 kilograms (3,800 pounds) of the drug were seized mid-January at the Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex along with smaller amounts of cocaine and heroin The drugs were hidden in metal boxes labelled as loudspeakers and would have provided around 17 million hits of the substance also known as ice, authorities say. It had a street value of $1.29 billion The previous record haul of meth seized in Australia was 1.3 tons in December 2017. The three containers seized Thursday also contained 55.9 pounds of cocaine and 11.5 pounds of heroin Joseph Macias, special agent-in-charge for Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Los Angeles, said: 'There's no question that the criminal organization behind this scheme has been dealt a significant blow. 'Along with our law enforcement partners here and around the world, we continue in a day-to-day battle against the blight of methamphetamine that continues to devastate our communities. 'Through a collaborative effort -- pooling our information, resources and expertise we are keeping this dangerous contraband from reaching our streets and potentially saving lives.' The six people arrested in Australia on Thursday and Friday were tied to a U.S. based syndicate under investigation over the drugs, police said. Two of those arrested, a 52-year-old man and a 46-year-old woman, are Americans. It is the third major seizure announced by the US in recent weeks, ABC News reports. At the end of last month feds seized 254 pounds of fentanyl with a value of $3.5 million in Arizona. They then took 3,500 pounds of marijuana and more than 220 pounds of meth near Gila Bend. Australian Federal Police Assistant Commissioner Bruce Hill said: 'They have been sending smaller amounts over the years. This is now flagging intent Australia is now being targeted. The cartel is among one of the most powerful and violent drug trafficking syndicates in the world. 'By stopping this, we have ensured criminals will not profit from the immense pain these drugs would have caused our community. If this shipment had made Australian streets it equates to something like 17 million hits of ice. We have averted a tsunami of ice to Australia. This is a serious warning. We now believe that Mexican cartels are actively targeting Australia.' Australian police arrested six people including two Americans - a 52-year-old man and a 46-year-old woman Authorities said it stopped 'a tsunami of ice' from reaching Australian shores and said the cartel, which has not been named, 'is among one of the most powerful and violent drug trafficking syndicates in the world' Police said a raid in the Melbourne suburb of Woodstock in which they were arrested also found 'hundreds of thousands of dollars of proceeds of crime'. Three of those arrested are set to appear in the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Friday, charged with attempting to import illegal drugs. Two other Australians face the same charge. None of the agencies involved has further identified the cartel. The operation also involved raids in British Columbia on Thursday by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which resulted in the seizure of 'a significant quantity' of suspected proceeds of crime, police said. The previous record haul of meth seized in Australia was 1.3 tons in December 2017. The raccoon that served as the real-life inspiration for Marvel hero Rocket Raccoon in the Guardians of the Galaxy films has died. Oreo the raccoon was used to help animators at Marvel Studios capture natural movements and behaviours of the species when they created Rocket. The ten-year-old raccoon, who lived at a farm centre in Portugal, died after a short illness, his owners wrote on Facebook. Fan fave: Oreo the raccoon, who died on Thursday, is seen with Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn at the premiere in London in 2014 Oreo was used to help animators at Marvel Studios capture natural movements and behaviours of the species when they created Rocket, an anthropomorphic raccoon voiced by Bradley Cooper. The Marvel character Rocket is an anthropomorphic raccoon, voiced by Bradley Cooper in the Guardians of the Galaxy and Avenger films, and a fan favourite. Oreo won the hearts of Marvel fans around the world when he walked the red carpet at the London premiere of the first Guardians of the Galaxy film alongside director James Gunn in 2014. Yesterday, Oreos owners at Quinta Layla wrote: 'We have only the saddest news today. 'Our hearts are broken as we have lost our best friend, our Guardian of our Galaxy Mr Oreo Raccoon. 'Oreo passed away in the early hours of this morning after a very short illness. Many thanks to our wonderful vets for their compassion and care. Loved: Oreo, who lived on a farm in Portugal, died after a short illness, his owners said His owners described him as a 'special little man' as they paid tribute to the raccoon The animated character Rocket, voiced by Bradley Cooper, is seen next to co-stars Karen Gillan, Chris Pratt and Dave Bautista in Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 'Oreo you made so many peoples lives happy. You have been an amazing ambassador for raccoons everywhere. 'You loved all people of all ages and other animals too and were never phased by anything be it a walk down the red carpet as Rocket Raccoon, a trip to a hospice to visit a sick child or anything else that came your way. You just enjoyed everything and it showed. 'You instinctively knew when to calm, when to be bouncy and we never worried that you would do the wrong thing because you never did. You were perfect.' The owners revealed they had chosen Oreo out of a litter of little raccoons ten years before as he was the one who had been the first to approach them. 'This is so hard special little man, we wanted you to live forever but never as you have been the last few days. Have fun up there over the Rainbow Bridge my darling. I hope, no I know they will all love you as much as we do. We will miss you so, so much. Fly high Oreo, our super hero, love you lots like jelly tots.' The Taliban has said it is committed to protecting the 'legitimate' rights of women - but simultaneously attacked campaigners for promoting 'immorality and indecency' under the name of equality. During talks with their Afghan opposition in Moscow this week, representatives of the insurgent group said they would ensure women's freedoms in a way that violated 'neither their legitimate rights... nor their human dignity'. But almost in the same breath, the Taliban's lead negotiator Sher Mohammed Abas Stanekzai criticized 'so-called women's rights activists' who he said encouraged people to part with tradition and flout Afghan values. Representatives of the Taliban including Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai (centre) attend the peace settlement talks in Moscow. Stanikzai said he would guarantee women's rights but simultaneously denounced campaigners for spread 'immorality and indecency' 'Due to corruption, the expenses brought and spent under the title of women rights have gone to the pockets of those who raise slogans of women rights,' he said. 'Under the name of women rights, there has been work for immorality, indecency and circulation of non-Islamic culture. 'Dissemination of western and non-Afghan and non-Islamic drama serials, paving the way for immoral crimes, and encouraging women for violating Afghan customs are other instances that have been imposed on Afghan society under the name of women rights.' The talks between the Taliban and senior opposition figures were intended to pave the way for a peace in the war-ravished country - and included discussion on how and if the Taliban could become a serious political force in the future. Taliban political chief Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai (front row second from left) and others pray during 'intra-Afghan' talks in Moscow. Stanikzai slammed campaigners for encouraging a disregard for tradition 'under the title of women rights' But there is serious concern that a deal would see a roll-back of the fragile advancements in women's rights achieved over the past two decades. The Taliban ruled the country between 1996 and 2001 with an ultra-conservative interpretation of Islamic law that saw women were banned from working and girls from school. They were only permitted to leave the house if accompanied by a male guardian. But Stanikzai has said 'women should not worry' if a settlement was reached that granted the Taliban more influence. In the eyes of the Taliban, women are highly-valued as the 'builders of a Muslim society', Stanikzai said. Protesters including hundreds of women hold a picture of the Taliban's Muhammad Abbas Stanikzai during a protest against his statement of dissolving the Afghan Army if he came to power. Stanikzai has said 'women should not worry' if a settlement was reached that granted the Taliban more influence They would be granted rights in 'business and ownership, inheritance, education, work, choosing one's husband, security, health, and the right to a good life', he added. The 10-man delegation also demanded a new Afghan constitution that would see the end of the U.S. 'occupation'. The new law should be based on 'Islam, national interests, historical achievements and social justice,' and be free of western influence, Stanekzai said. But women's rights, though not consistently upheld, are guaranteed under the current constitution and many fear that they would be lost along the way to creating a new one. Former Mets and Phillies star Lenny Dykstra (seen here in 2017) denied knowing about any drug use at his residence, insisted he only lives there part time and said he evicted his tenants to comply with local laws Former New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies centerfielder Lenny Dykstra has been accused by his neighbors of running an illegal boarding house and turning their quiet residential street into a haven for drugs and other illegal behavior. In speaking with the Daily Mail by phone, Dykstra denied knowing about any drug use at the residence, insisted he only lives there part time and said he evicted his tenants to comply with local laws. He also denied the allegation of prostitution, which was made in a piece by New York's ABC affiliate. 'I had no idea,' Dykstra said. 'There's construction workers. They're into their own thing. I wasn't even there. I'm only there half the time.' 'The story is this,' Dykstra continued, 'all of the people's property values went way up.' There is an upcoming court date scheduled on the matter on February 12, Dykstra told the Daily Mail. A Linden Municipal Court spokeswoman confirmed the hearing date, but refused to elaborate on any specifics regarding the matter. Linden police did not immediately respond to the Daily Mails request for comment. Dykstra said he plans on selling the house as soon as possible: 'Getting the f*** out of Linden. My goal in life was not f***ing wake up and live in f***ing New Jersey.' According to 10th Ward City Councilwoman Gretchen Hickey, Dykstra was already warned about renting out rooms, but continued to post advertisements on social media. Dykstra's Linden, New Jersey neighbors claim he turned their street into a haven for drugs, but he says he's only at the residence part time and did not witness any drug use Shots of garbage piled outside of Dykstra's house have been shown on local news stations, but Dykstra insists that was simply the result of construction debris being put on the street for the neighborhood's monthly trash day 'After he was told to move everybody out, and he was fined, the next week, he also put again on social media advertising rooms for $1,000 a month,' Hickey told ABC 7. According to Mayor Derek Armstead, 'having a rooming house in Linden is prohibited.' Resident Linda Graham told NJ.com that there have been 'two overdoses' in addition to other issues. Dykstra said he was at his other residences in New York or California at the time of these overdoses and was not made aware of them until well after his return. 'There's been a scuffle on the front lawn,' Graham said. 'There's been people who are here today, gone tomorrow. We don't know who these people are and we are afraid.' Shots of garbage piled outside of Dykstra's house have been shown on local news stations, but Dykstra insists that was simply the result of construction debris being put on the street for the neighborhood's monthly trash day. 'Guess what,' Dykstra said, 'That was trash day. 'In Lidnen once a month, they let you put all your trash out. Because that house was so f***ing done and cooked, that was all the construction work that was done.' According to 10th Ward City Councilwoman Gretchen Hickey (right), Dykstra was already warned about renting out rooms, but continued to post advertisements on social media Hickey described the issues now facing the neighborhood: 'The traffic here, the overdoses, the cars being towed, someone throwing yellow liquid out the second-floor window, the trash.' Neither Hickey nor local police immediately responded to the Daily Mail's request for details about alleged overdoses and other issues. The extra tenants on Linden's tiny Stockton Circle have caused serious problems, according to residents. Resident Linda Graham told NJ.com that there have been 'two overdoses' on the street, but Dykstra insists he was not present. Graham told ABC 7 that Dykstra has ruined the legacy of the street's original tenants One man described an unwanted visitor to ABC 7: 'Knocking on my door at 11 o'clock at night, telling me that it's Domino's but there's no pizza in their hands.' Graham tearfully described Dystrak's effect on the street. 'I'm a second-generation Stockton-er,' she told ABC 7. 'I had the privilege of growing up with original owners of these houses. And this guy comes and ruins their whole entire legacy.' According to Dykstra, the neighbors were initially excited that he moved to the neighborhood to improve a house that had fallen into disrepair. 'I got that house, and no one lived in it for five years,' he told the Daily Mail. 'The weeds were up to your knees. It didn't have a sewer, it didn't have running water. So the neighbors were all excited, but the lady next to me, she was like 96, she passed. Then this man-hater moved in next to me. She started it all.' In May Dykstra was arrested and charged for making terroristic threats to an Uber driver. Police claim they found both cocaine and methamphetamine during the arrest. Dykstra pleaded innocent and the case is still pending. Dykstra told the Daily Mail that he does not believe there is enough evidence against him for a conviction in that case. 'We have this thing called the constitution, where you're supposed to follow it,' Dykstra said. 'Like fair and balanced.' The 12-year Major League veteran played eight seasons in Philadelphia, helping the Phillies to reach the 1993 World Series, after previously playing five years with the Mets, with whom he won the 1986 World Series. Dykstra has served prison time for everything from bankruptcy fraud, grand theft auto, and money laundering. He also claimed in 2009 that he owed over $31 million while declaring bankruptcy. Over the years Dykstra has fashioned himself as a businessman, and even owned a high-end jet charter company, as well as a magazine called 'Player's Club,' which was marketed to millionaire athletes. He even had a website titled 'Nails Investments,' which is a reference to his nickname, 'Nails,' which was used in the title of his New York Times best-selling autobiography, House of Nails. In this photo from 2012, former New York Mets outfielder Lenny Dykstra is seen during his sentencing for grand theft auto in the San Fernando Valley section of Los Angeles. On Wednesday Dykstra was indicted in New Jersey on drug and other charges By the end of 2009, Dykstra was reportedly living out of his car. In 2011 he pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges, admitting that he hid, sold or destroyed over $400,000 worth of property that was supposed to be part of his bankruptcy filing. He was also charged with possession of cocaine, ecstasy and the human growth hormone (HGH) known as Somatropin, and ultimately sentenced to three years in prison. However, he was given credit for one year's time served. In 1999 Dykstra was arrested for sexually harassing a 17-year-old girl, but charges were later dropped. In 2010 he was accused of paying a prostitute with a bad check. The following year he was accused by his housekeeper of propositioning her for oral sex. The woman obliged, but as she told authorities, it was only out of fear of losing her job. No charges were ever filed. The Chinese parents of a high-flying academic killed by cancer are locked in a bitter court fight with his young widow over a 425,000 home they claim was bankrolled by a 325,000 'unpaid' loan to their late son. King's College London medical statistician Dr Kun Liu died in 2015 aged 31, leaving everything to his bride, Xuan Wu, despite claims his mother openly 'disliked' her. The young couple exchanged marriage vows in hospital on November 27 2015, and four days later Dr Liu made a will by 'marking a cross on a document prepared by a solicitor'. He died just three weeks later having said it was his wish that his 34-year-old widow inherited their 430,000 home in Croydon, south London. But Xuan Wu is now caught up in a highly charged legal dispute with Kun's Chinese parents, who say they loaned him large amounts of cash to buy the property, so he would have 'the best opportunity to succeed in life.' His father Weidong Liu and mother Yali Kang, have now travelled across the globe to London's Central County Court to put their case against their daughter-in-law. King's College London medical statistician Dr Kun Liu died in 2015 aged 31 - his death has led to a bitter court battle between his widow and his parents over his money Dr Liu married his girlfriend Xuan Wu (pictured outside court) despite claims his mother Yali Kang (right) openly 'disliked' her The parents' barrister, Jason Nickless, claimed they poured over 325,000 into their son's hands from 2012 onward, firmly intending that he would ultimately repay the funds. Kun, who made his life in the UK after getting his PhD at Manchester University, even 'invited them to retire to the UK and live with him', claimed Mr Nickless. Weidong Liu claims the 325,000 his son used to buy a house in the UK was a loan not a gift that should be repaid He asked them to transfer cash to buy a property and his parents duly obliged, the court heard. 'This money came from their life savings and money borrowed from their family,' their barrister explained. The couple now seek a court ruling that they are entitled to a stake in their son's house in Mount Park Avenue, South Croydon. 'Alternatively, they say they are entitled to repayment of the sum they lent to Kun,' explained their barrister. But Xuan Wu 'denies their claim in its entirety', the court heard. Her barrister, Max Thorowgood, said the young couple became engaged in 2012 'with the consent of their parents'. And while accepting that Kun's parents channelled large sums to their son, she disputes it was intended as a loan. 'She says the larger payments were gifts made by his parents on account of her engagement to Kun Liu, and that her parents made similar payments,' totalling 200,000, claimed Mr Thorowgood. Kun and his future bride met when he was studying in Manchester in 2005 and she claims they started living together from that date, finally becoming engaged in 2012. However, Kun's parents insist that until 2014 they had no idea of the depth of feeling between their son and his girlfriend. His father explained that he and his son had an 'understanding' that Kun should not take up with a serious girlfriend while engaged in his studies. 'That should happen after graduation and not during his studies,' Mr Liu senior told the court. And when Kun was awarded his PhD in 2013, his dad quizzed him about Xuan Wu. 'I formally asked my son about the real relationship between them but my son did not confirm if they had a boyfriend and girlfriend relationship,' Mr Liu said. 'He said they were friends.' The late academic's parents now seek a court ruling that they are entitled to a stake in their son's house in Mount Park Avenue, South Croydon The couple had lavished cash on their son's academic career, said Mr Liu, describing him as an 'excellent student'. 'We had pleasure in giving him the best opportunity to succeed in life,' he said. Kun, a statistics whizz, moved to London after securing a post with prestigious King's College London. But in April 2015 came the shattering news of his cancer diagnosis, although his parents say they only learnt about his terminal illness the day after the hospital wedding ceremony. Just over a week later, they flew to the UK to see their son for the last time, and he died 12 days later. The couple returned to England for their son's memorial service six months later, said their barrister. But they were barred entry by their daughter-in-law when they visited their son's home in Croydon, he alleged. In her evidence, Xuan Wu said she doubted whether Kun's parents would ever have retired to the UK - particularly due to the tight visa restrictions. But she stressed that Kun was a 'dutiful son' who would have ensured his parents were properly cared for in their twilight years. As a caring son he may have offered to give his parents a home in England, but Xuan Wu insisted: 'I just don' think they would have got a visa'. 'He was a really good guy,' she said - close to tears. On top of everything, Kun may have been reluctant to have his mum living close at hand due to potential friction with his young wife, the court heard. Xuan Wu claimed that in his last weeks Kun spoke about trying to persuade his mum to buy a retirement home in China, she told the court. 'He was concerned that, if they retired to London, his mother might not get on with me, particularly because over the years she had expressed a dislike for me and my family,' claimed Xuan Wu. The hearing continues before Judge Nicholas Parfitt. John McCain's mother Roberta turned 107 yesterday, celebrating her first birthday since her son's death. Roberta McCain was born in Oklahoma in 1912 and was among the mourners at her son John's funeral at Washington's National Cathedral last year. Her granddaughter, John McCain's daughter, paid tribute on Twitter, saying: 'Happy 107th Birthday to my grandmother Roberta McCain - you are the epitome of strength and grace, an American treasure and one of my life role models. 'Thank you for showing me and so many others how to truly live life on your own terms. I love you.' Tribute: Meghan McCain, bottom right, shared this picture of herself hugging her grandmother Roberta, who turned 107; John McCain, who died last August, is top right with his Republican Senate colleague Lindsey Graham top left Praise: Meghan McCain posted the picture alongside this tribute to her grandmother, 107 Meghan shared a picture of herself hugging her grandmother, in a family photo with John McCain and his Republican Senate colleague Lindsey Graham. Roberta McCain was seen comforting her granddaughter at last year's funeral after Vietnam War hero John died on August 25 at the age of 81. She gave birth to him in 1936, after marrying Navy admiral John McCain Jr. - one of a line of distinguished naval officers - in 1933. As well as John she had another son, Joe, and daughter, Sandy and has 12 grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren. Her husband John Jr. died in 1981 while her twin sister, Rowena, died at the age of 99 in 2011. John McCain was captured in Vietnam in 1967 and was taken prisoner after his plane was shot down. Mourning: Roberta McCain, right, comforts her granddaughter Meghan, left, at the U.S. Senator's funeral at the Washington National Cathedral last August Younger days: Roberta McCain, right, with her husband Admiral John McCain Jr, left, at a London airport in July 1968 Candidate: John McCain was the Republican nominee for President of the United States in 2008 (pictured at his concession speech in Arizona after losing to Barack Obama) He refused an early release, knowing it would give North Vietnam a propaganda victory and demoralize U.S. troops if an admiral's son was let out early. After two terms in the House of Representatives, McCain won a U.S. Senate seat in Arizona in 1986 and held it for the rest of his life. He ran for President in 2000 and 2008, becoming Republican nominee at the second attempt but losing the general election to Barack Obama. In a gracious concession speech he praised Obama for 'achieving a great thing for himself and for his country' with his historic victory. In the Senate he became known as a 'maverick' willing to break with his party and in the last years of his life he frequently clashed with Donald Trump, who did not attend his funeral. Ivanka Trump said in an interview broadcast Friday that she's not worried Special Counsel Robert Mueller's broad Russia probe will ensnare herself or her husband Jared Kushner. She knew 'literally almost nothing' about a controversial 2016 plan to consider building a skyscraper in Moscow with help from the Russian government, she said in a 'Good Morning America' sit-down on ABC. And the effort, she said, 'was not exactly like an advanced project. ... There's nothing there, yet it's created weeks and weeks and months of headlines. So no. I have zero concern.' The first daughter also told ABC that she was angry when she learned about a 'sexist' performance art installation in Washington that involved a lookalike pushing a vacuum cleaner while observers threw crumbs at her feet. First daughter Ivanka Trump said in a 'Good Morning America' interview that she's not at all concerned about the Mueller Russia probe The special counsel has operated a broad investigation for nearly two years, trying to determine whether anyone in the Trump campaign colluded with Russians to improve the president's chances in the 2016 election Ivanka was incensed at a performance artist who paid a 16-year-old model to vacuum crumbs that people throw at her feet, at an art gallery space near the White House 'I think it's a very sexist representation of a woman,' she said. 'But what bothered me about this image is that they hired a 16-year-old girl to stand there and have crumbs thrown at her for two hours a day for a couple of months.' 'So I have a real problem with that. And that was what infuriated me more than anything.' The installation, sponsored by Cultural D.C., is housed less than a mile from the White House. Jennifer Rubell, the artist behind the installation, told news outlets the display was meant to explore 'our relationship with Ivanka' while provoking a debate about 'our complicity in her role-playing.' Ivanka, 37, tweeted this week: 'Women can choose to knock each other down or build each other up. I choose the latter.' 'Ivanka Vacuuming' debuted on February 1 and will run until February 17. Ivanka Trump sat Thursday for an interview with 'The View' co-host Abby Huntsman Ivanka said she's not worried about what trouble Mueller's investigation might cause her loved ones; pictured (L-R) during the president's State of the Union address Tuesday are her husband Jared Kushner, sister-in-law Lara Trump, brothers Eric Trump and Donald Trump, Jr., and half-sister Tiffany Trump Michael Cohen, a former Trump lawyer and fixer, has spoken with prosecutors and lawmakers about has past projects, including a proposed Trump Tower Moscow idea Her dismissal of worries about Mueller comes at a time when former Trump Organization lawyer Michael Cohen is cooperating with the special counsel and federal prosecutors in New York. He has pleaded guilty to eight crimes including tax fraud, bank fraud, campaign finance violations and lying to Congress about the Trump Tower Moscow fiasco. Cohen had conversations with Russian officials and middle-men about building the project with the blessing of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The discussions continued through the autumn of 2016, but he told a congressional committee that the concept was shelved around the time the president won the New Hampshire Primary, seven months earlier. He will report to prison next month to serve a three-year sentence. Ivanka was mentioned in a trove of leaked documents published Tuesday by Buzzfeed showing months of back-and-forth between Cohen and his associate Felix Sater about the proposed Trump Tower Moscow project complete with architectural drawings and references to Vladimir Putin. Ivanka was furious about the 'vacuuming' art project that invites visitors to throw crumbs at a lookalike model's feet as she Hoovers them up In a tweet, Ivanka said this week that she liked to 'build up women rather than knock them' Sater pitched the project, lined up financing, touted contacts to Putin in 2015 and 2016 and even praised a Trump press conference clip that he suggested Putin should see personally. Cohen's work to engage the Trump Organization on a Moscow skyscraper project has drawn investigative firepower because of the possibility that giving Putin the top floor might have been an inducement to get him to help Donald Trump win in 2016 Included in the documents are sketches of proposed huge skyscraper with 'Trump' emblazoned on it. In one Nov. 3, 2015 email Sater touted his own access and influence by invoking Ivanka's visit to Moscow. 'Michael I arranged for Ivanka to sit in Putins private chair at his desk and office in the Kremlin I will get Putin on this program and we will get Donald elected,' he wrote. Along with brothers Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, she has denied knowing anything about the sputtering progress Cohen now appears to have made. She new 'literally almost nothing, she told ABC. 'We were an active business.' 'There was never a binding contract. I never talked ... with a third party outside of the organization about it. It was one of I mean we could have had 40 or 50 deals like that, that were floating around, that somebody was looking at. Nobody visited it to see if it was worth our time. So this was not exactly like an advanced project.' 'Its not like it's a strange thing, as a hospitality company or a development company, to have a hotel or a property in Russia,' she said. 'We're not talking about Iran. It was Russia. And we weren't even advanced enough that anyone had even visited the prospective project site'.' Ronald Rebernik, 62, mowed down Domitila Rosales and her two young sons, aged one and five, on a sidewalk in Raritan, New Jersey in July A motorist who was high on heroin when he crashed into a mother walking with her two children, killing her youngest, has been sentenced to 15 years in prison. Ronald Rebernik, 62, mowed down Domitila Rosales and her two young sons, aged one and five, on a sidewalk in Raritan, New Jersey in July. Rebernik pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide, assault by auto and drug counts in December. He has now been sentenced to 15 years in state prison. His Ford Escape struck two parked cars before it mounted the sidewalk and hit the three victims as they headed towards a nearby park. The mother, 36, was pushing her infant son Matias Ortega in a stroller while her other son Daniel Ortega walked beside her. Rosales tried to push her five-year-old out of the way but he was still struck by the vehicle. Her baby was dragged under the car in his stroller. But after Rebernik struck the victims, he re-entered the roadway and hit two more parked cars before his vehicle was disabled, police said. CCTV from a nearby home captured the moment Rosales walked by with her children just moments before the fatal crash. Little Matias was airlifted to a hospital but he died a short time later. His mother and brother suffered serious injuries after the crash. Victim has been staying with aunt since her mothers demise. She made the revelation on receiving counselling about the bad touch in school. Mumbai: The JJ Marg police has arrested two men on charges of molestation after their minor niece told her teacher that they were touching her inappropriately. The victim, a Class 8 student, has been staying with her aunts after her mother passed away. She made the revelation on receiving counselling about the bad touch in school. The accused are husbands of the girls aunts. The Fazlani Ayeshabai and Haji Abdul Latif Charitable Trust regularly conduct counselling sessions at a few municipal schools under the jurisdiction of JJ Marg police station. As per the complaint, on February 5, at around 9.30 am when a member of the trust was conducting a counselling session for Class 8 children, the girl spoke about her ordeal. The student said that as her father had married again after her mothers death, she has been living with her aunt in Bhendi Bazaar since January 2017. She further said that when she used to be alone at home, her aunts husband molested her. She also claimed that another aunts husband used to visit their house on some pretext and touch her inappropriately. The counsellor told this to the principal, who lodged a complaint with the JJ Marg police the next day. The police arrested both the accused (names withheld to protect the identity of the victim). The police produced the accused before a special Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act court on Thursday and sought their remand for further investigation. Advocate R.U. Jha, on behalf of the accused, opposed the remand application and argued that the accused have been falsely implicated in the case due to discord between family members. Advocate Jha requested the court to remand them in judicial custody, saying their custodial interrogation was not needed. However, the judge remanded both the accused in police custody till February 11. The police has invoked sections 354 (A) and 34 of Indian Penal Code and sections 8, 10 and 13 of the POCSO Act. A little girl has been widely praised for bowing politely to thank a driver for giving her way on a road in south China. The heart-warming moment was caught on camera on Tuesday, showing the little girl, aged around five, waiting patiently at the crossing for a white SUV to pass in Changzhou, Guangdong province. The driver, surnamed Lin, stopped the vehicle and waved for the girl to cross, to which the girl bowed deeply in gratitude before continuing walking. A little girl has been widely praised on social media for bowing politely to thank a driver for giving her way on a road in Changzhou, south China's Guangdong province The video went viral on Chinese social media, with many net users praising both the girl and the driver for their good manners. 'Such a well-mannered girl, thumbs up for her parents and teachers!' one user said on microblogging site Weibo. 'Everyone should just follow her example and we would all live in peace,' another said. CCTV footage shows the little girl, aged around five, waiting patiently at the crossing for a white SUV to pass in Changzhou, Guangdong province The driver, surnamed Lin, stopped the vehicle and waved for the girl to cross, to which the girl bowed deeply in gratitude before continuing walking The video went viral on Chinese social media, with many net users praising both the girl and the driver for their good manners 'Kudos to the driver as well - it was very nice of him to give way,' another said. 'Such a heart-warming scene. A simple polite gesture can touch all our hearts,' the official People's Daily commented when reposting the video. 'In a civilised society, such common courtesy should be the norm. Everyone should establish a habit of being polite,' it added. Lin told Beijing Daily that she was very touched by the girl's politeness and that it was a lovely moment on his way home for Chinese New Year. An Indonesian woman forced her teenager daughter have a threesome with her and her partner to help 'spice up their sex lives', local police say. The couple, who have since been arrested, reportedly began sexually abusing the 16-year-old girl in Jakarta last October. At first, they allegedly tried to bribe her by offering her cash and a smartphone but she declined, so her mother ordered her to part-take in the incestuous act. A mother and her boyfriend have been arrested for allegedly forcing her teenage daughter to have sex with her sex father to 'spice up their sex lives'. Pictured: the couple after their arrest The abuse claim was only revealed after the girl told her real father, who immediately contacted the police. Andi Sinjaya, the Chief Commissioner of Police, said the couple told him they had wanted to 'try a new sensation in their sexual lives'. He said the idea had initially been the stepfather's but the mother had gone along with it. Mr Sinjaya added that the girl was offered 200,000 IDR (11) for her compliance. The couple reportedly began sexual abusing the 16-year-old girl in Jakarta, Indonesia, last October. She became distressed and told her real father, who told police immediately Her real father, who split up with her mother in 2011, lodged the complaint with the police. The couple were arrested at their home in the Pancoran area of Jakarta, and are facing up to 15 years in prison if they are found guilty. Their daughter is now receiving counselling. A report by 'Komnas Perempuan' (Commission on Violence Against Women) found 1,210 cases of incestuous rape were reported in 2017. Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam told his top staff Friday that he is not going to resign over the racist photo that has roiled state politics, despite intense pressure to step down, according to a top administration official. Northam called a Cabinet meeting Friday afternoon to announce his intention to stay, the official said. The official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity Republican state Sen. Richard Stuart, a close friend who has been in regular contact with Northam through the week, told Politico on Friday: 'Hes not leaving. He understands he has to stand up and face this. He knows what he has to do. Hes staying.' Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, a former governor, told reporters in Washington that Northam should resign. And Politico cited a Democratic state lawmaker concluding: 'If he wants to stay he needs to answer some questions. I need some answers.' The announcement comes at the end of an unprecedented week in Virginia history that has seen the state's three top Democrats embroiled in potentially career-ending scandals. Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (right) faces calls for his resignation after his medical school yearbook page included a photo of a man in blackface and another in KKK white hooded garb Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax (right), who would replace Northam if he quits, is now facing two women's allegations that he raped them more than a decade ago The yearbook page from Northam's 1984 medical school yearbook is seen above. He claimed he had not bought or seen his yearbook in the last 34 years, but he later admitted to wearinf racist blackface to enter a dance contest as Michael Jackson when he was 25 years old The tumult began last Friday afternoon, when Northam's medical school yearbook page surfaced with a picture of one person in blackface and another in a Ku Klux Klan hood and robe. Northam immediately apologized for appearing in the photograph, saying he could not "undo the harm my behavior caused then and today." Most of the Democratic establishment called for his resignation by the end of the day. On Saturday, though, the governor reversed course and said he wasn't in the picture. He said he wasn't going to resign immediately because he owed it to the people of Virginia to start a discussion about race and discrimination and listen to the pain he had caused. "I believe this moment can be the first small step to open a discussion about these difficult issues," Northam said. But the governor left his long-term plans open, saying he would reassess his decision not to resign if it became clear he had no viable path forward. Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax mak be the first domino to fall among a Virginia triumvirate comprised of Democrats who are all facing calls for ousters Vanessa Tyson, a 42-year-old political science professor who studies the intersection of politics and the #MeToo movement, went public with her sexual assault accusation against Justin Fairfax on Wednesday The pressure on Northam reached a crescendo Saturday when almost the entire Virginia Democratic establishment, as well as nearly every Democratic presidential hopeful, called on him to resign. That pressure has tapered off as a cascade of scandals involving top politicians has rocked the state. California college professor Vanessa Tyson publicly accused Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax of forcing her to perform oral sex on him at a hotel in 2004 during the Democratic National Convention in Boston. Fairfax, who would replace Northam if he resigned, has cast the allegations as a political smear. And Attorney General Mark Herring - in line to become governor if Northam and Fairfax resign - admitted putting on blackface in the 1980s, when he was a college student. Herring had previously called on Northam to resign and came forward after rumors about the existence of a blackface photo of him began circulating at the Capitol. Although the Democratic Party has taken almost a zero-tolerance approach to misconduct among its members in this #MeToo era, a housecleaning in Virginia could be costly: If all three Democrats resigned, Republican House Speaker Kirk Cox would become governor. Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring admitted Wednesday to putting on blackface in the 1980s, when he was a college student Northam's decision to stay in office comes despite many fellow Democrats in Virginia and beyond reiterating their calls for him to resign as recently as Friday. Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, a 2020 presidential hopeful, said Friday that he still thinks Northam should step down. "I think it dredges up very hurtful, painful things from the past. ... I think he's betrayed the public trust, and he should resign," Booker said in response to a reporter's question during an appearance in Iowa. And in statements Thursday night, the state legislature's Black Caucus and Virginia's Democratic congressional delegation reiterated calls for the governor to step down, while the state House Democrats - who also previously called for Northam's resignation - said they remain disappointed in him. In a positive sign for Northam, even before he announced his plan to stay in the job, a lawmaker from Virginia's Democratic-leaning D.C. suburbs said Friday he won't call on the besieged governor to resign. "I will not request the Governor's resignation," State Sen. Chap Petersen, a Democrat, said in a statement. "Nor will I request any other official to resign until it is obvious that they have committed a crime in office or their ability to serve is irredeemably compromised." There has also been little appetite among lawmakers to use official means to force him out. Cox, the House speaker, himself said Monday that there was "a rightful hesitation" among lawmakers to seek Northam's impeachment or removal. He called on Northam to resign, saying "that would obviously be less pain for everyone." Regarding the allegation against Fairfax, the district attorney's office in Boston declined to say whether it is investigating. Under Massachusetts law, the statute of limitations is 15 years for rape and several related crimes, an interval that would expire this summer for the woman's accusation. A man and woman have been arrested on suspicion of assisting the suicide of a 94 year old former company director. Police are investigating an 89-year-old woman and a 68-year-old man following the death of Ralph Snell at his home in the small coastal town of Lymington, Hampshire. A post-mortem examination was carried out by Home Office pathologist Dr Basil Purdue but proved inconclusive. An woman, 89, and man, 68, have been arrested on suspicion of assisting a suicide after the body of Ralph Snell, 94, was found at his home in Lymington, Hampshire (file picture) An inquest into Mr Snell's death was opened and adjourned at Winchester Coroner's Court until August 9. Senior coroner Grahame Short was told further tests were needed to determine Mr Snell's cause of death. Last night it emerged the pair had been arrested on suspicion of committing an act capable of encouraging or assisting someone to take their own life. The law on assisted suicide in the UK In England and Wales under the Suicide Act 1961 and in Northern Ireland under the Criminal Justice Act (Northern Ireland) 1966 it is a crime to encourage or assist suicide. This crime carries a maximum penalty of 14 years' imprisonment. If someone provides encouragement or assistance, that is a crime, even if the person ends their life overseas in a country where assisted dying is legal. There is no specific crime of assisting a suicide in Scotland, but it is possible that helping a competent adult to die could lead to a prosecution for culpable homicide. Advertisement A Hampshire police spokesman said: 'We were called at 9.53pm on Monday, January 28 after the body of a 94-year-old man was found at a house in Lymington. 'An investigation is under way to establish the exact circumstances of the death. 'An 89-year-old woman from Lymington and a 68-year-old man from Somerset were arrested on suspicion of intentionally doing an act capable of encouraging/assisting the suicide of another. 'They have been released from police custody but remain under investigation.' One of Mr Snell's neighbours said: 'He was very nice, very easy, but he hadn't been well for the past year or so. He wasn't the same person.' Mr Snell lived in a 600,000 Georgian-style terrace home. Helping someone to take their own life is punishable by up to 14 years in prison. The issue of assisted suicide is back in the spotlight following the death of former accountant 80-year-old Geoff Whaley. Mr Whaley chose to die at the Swiss clinic Dignitas yesterday rather than endure the final stages of motor neurone disease. Geoff Whaley, who has motor neurone disease, died yesterday in Zurich, Switzerland. He is pictured here in an emotional interview with his wife the day before he passed away The grandfather-of-four wrote an open letter to the government in which he called for laws surrounding assisted suicide to be changed before he died. The letter said: 'By the time you read this, I will be dead. 'I have been able to fulfil my final wish: to be in control of my end, rather than endure the immense suffering motor neurone disease had in store for me. 'The law in this country robbed me of control over my death. 'It forced me to seek solace in Switzerland. Then it sought to punish those attempting to help me get there.' Mr Whaley wanted assisted suicide to be made legal in the UK after his wife of 52 years, Ann, was interviewed under caution last week and warned she faces 14 years in prison. CCTV footage of the day Alfie Lamb was crushed under a car seat shows the three-year-old struggling to keep up with his mother and her boyfriend, prosecutors say. Alfie's mother Adrian Hoare and her boyfriend Stephen Waterson are on trial for child cruelty and manslaughter over Alfie's death, which came after he was crushed beneath an Audi's electric car seat on the way home from a shopping trip. Hoare, 23, allegedly failed to prevent Stephen Waterson - the adopted son of former Tory minister Nigel Waterson - from twice pushing the chair into little Alfie, who went quiet and turned blue. Waterson had allegedly said: 'I will not be told what to do by a three-year-old,' before crushing the boy, a court has heard. Afterwards, Hoare did not initially blame Waterson because her relationship with the 25-year-old was 'just too important', prosecutor Duncan Atkinson QC claimed today. CCTV images show Alfie Lamb struggling to keep up with his mother (left), her boyfriend and their friends after a shopping trip in Croydon. He later died after being crushed by a car seat. His mother, Adrian Hoare, and her boyfriend, Stephen Waterson, are accused of manslaughter Prosecutors questioned Alfie's mother, Hoare, on why the youngster was having to run Stephen Waterson is accused of deliberately pushing an Audi's seat back against Alfie Lamb, who later died from his injuries Alfie collapsed in Waterson's Audi convertible on the way home to Croydon from a shopping trip to Sutton, south London, on February 1 last year. There were four adults in the car as well as two children who were forced to sit in the footwell. Jurors were shown CCTV of 3ft tall Alfie appearing to run to keep up as the group set out from Halfords car park and later returned with their shopping. Cross-examining Hoare, Mr Atkinson asked: 'Whose pace are you walking at? What allowances were you making for Alfie's little legs? Why is Alfie having to run?' The defendant replied: 'It's just the way I walk even if it's just me and Alfie. Alfie always runs.' Mr Atkinson went on: 'Until he got into that car on the way back from Sutton, he was fine wasn't he? 'And by the time that the car reached Adams Way he was very far from fine, wasn't he? Something had to have happened in that journey? 'So when doctors and police start saying something happened to Alfie, you knew it had to have happened in the car. Were you not thinking it must have been Stephen?' Adrian Hoare and Stephen Waterson are on trial at the Old Bailey - but deny manslaughter Hoare, 23, allegedly put Alfie in the footwell and did nothing to help him as he screamed out Hoare replied: 'Not straight away.' The prosecutor asserted: 'What Stephen had done with his seat he had done deliberately. He was annoyed the second time he moved his chair back?' Hoare agreed, but added: 'To begin with I did not blame anyone for what happened.' Mr Atkinson said: 'Was it your relationship with Stephen was just too important? 'Wasn't the reality you just put what Stephen wanted first?' The defendant denied it. Earlier, Waterson's lawyer Tana Adkin QC suggested Waterson's chair had nothing to do with Alfie's injuries, saying Hoare must have 'done something'. Waterson is the adoptive son of former Tory minister Nigel Waterson (pictured together). He is claimed to have told people he had 'powerful parents' Waterson is accused of ramming his seat into Alfie, crushing him and causing fatal injuries She asked Hoare: 'Are you trying to cover up something you did in the back of the car, and now trying to say it was Stephen that moved the seat and you knew what happened?' The defendant replied: 'No.' Hoare, who is originally from Gravesend in Kent, denies manslaughter, child cruelty and common assault on Emilie Williams, who was in the car. Waterson has pleaded not guilty to manslaughter and intimidation of the driver Marcus Lamb. The couple and Williams have pleaded guilty to conspiring to pervert the course of justice by making false statements to police. A newborn baby looked fed up with life already as he posed with his head in his hands looking sad. The clip, captured in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, shows the three-day-old baby boy lying in his chair. The tiny baby has his hand curled into his head and his facial expressions change from sad to jaded. The three-year-old baby boy lies in his chair and looks very sad with his hand curled under his head He pouts his lips and looks into the distance as if he is contemplating something very important. The cute baby even furrows his brow, making him look very sad and deep in thought. And at one point, the poor baby looks as though he is about to burst into tears. Hilariously the baby boy's facial expressions and poses make him look wise beyond his years. But at the end of the clip, filmed by his parents, the newborn resumes normal baby behaviour as he stretches out. Bournemouth doctor Simon Bell died of sepsis after falling ill in the US without health insurance, forcing him to wait until he got back to the UK for treatment A doctor and known drug user died from sepsis after a lack of medical insurance meant he was unable to receive emergency treatment when he fell ill on holiday in America, an inquest has heard. Simon Bell, 50, had been on a trip to the US with his partner Andrew Slatter when he began complaining of arm and leg pain. The couple sought medical advice but having not taken out healthcare insurance they were forced to fly back to Britain. His medical condition that began in the US stemmed from a drug-related infection, an inquest into his death heard. Mr Bell was HIV positive and had been a known user of intravenous drugs, it was said. The former hospital consultant then spent two days in bed at his home in Bournemouth, Dorset, before his condition worsened. Mr Slatter called for an ambulance and Dr Bell was admitted to Poole Hospital's emergency treatment unit where he was diagnosed with sepsis. Mr Bell, who used to work at Poole Hospital, was transferred to intensive care but doctors were unable to prevent his organs from failing. He died on October 5 last year, one day after being admitted to hospital and three days after flying back from America. Mr Bell's family questioned Dr James Keegan, an intensive care consultant at Poole Hospital, as to whether the delay in receiving treatment led to his death. The former hospital consultant spent two days in bed at his home in Bournemouth, Dorset, before his condition worsened and he was rushed to Poole Hospital where he could not be saved Dr Keegan said he was unable to confirm this, but added: 'With sepsis, the earlier we are able to treat with intravenous antibiotics the better.' A post-mortem examination recorded his cause of death as multi-organ failure. Mr Bell started working as a consultant in emergency medicine at Poole Hospital from 2003. He held several management posts including chair of the audit committee before he suffered a fall from grace. In 2014 he went off long-term sick and a year later he was convicted of drink-driving. Recording a verdict that Mr Bell died of a drug-related death, Deborah Rookes, the assistant coroner for Dorset, said: 'The deceased, who was a known intravenous drug user, was admitted to Poole Hospital. 'He was treated with antibiotics and received maximum multi-organ support from the intensive care team at Poole Hospital. 'Despite this, he deteriorated and died at 9.34am on October 5. On the basis if the evidence I have heard, I am satisfied that on the balance of probabilities, that the appropriate conclusion is drug-related death'. A groundbreaking trial in Finland has found that unemployed workers are 'no better or worse' at finding a job if they receive a guaranteed basic income. The two-year experiment, which saw a randomly selected group of unemployed people being paid 560 euros (490) tax-free a month, concluded last December. It also found that the trial led to improved wellbeing and less health problems among the unemployed. Researchers studied whether the no-strings-attached income could better incentivise jobless people to find work than traditional unemployment benefits, which may be docked as soon as the recipient starts earning money. Although it was the widest such study to be conducted in recent years in Europe, the Finnish trial was limited to participants who were already unemployed. Researchers from Finland's welfare authority Kela, pictured, have found that unemployed workers are 'no better or worse' at finding a job if they receive a guaranteed basic income Proponents of a true 'universal income' call for a monthly payment, sometimes described as a citizens' wage, to be given to everyone regardless of their wealth, family or work situation. Finnish researchers believe their findings provide important insights for reforming the country's system of welfare payments. 'The recipients of a basic income had less stress symptoms as well as less difficulties to concentrate and less health problems than the control group,' Minna Ylikanno, lead researcher at Finland's welfare authority Kela, said in a statement. 'They were also more confident in their future and in their ability to influence societal issues.' Results at this stage are preliminary and relate only to the first year of the study, meaning Friday's findings are far from conclusive. Lead researcher Minna Ylikanno said the recipients, who were given 590 euros tax-free a month, had less health problems and improved wellbeing during the two-year experiment But a hoped-for stiumulus to levels of employment has not yet materialised, the project's researchers said. 'The recipients of a basic income were no better or worse than the control group at finding employment in the open labour market', Ohto Kanninen, research coordinator at the Labour Institute for Economic Research, said in a statement. Finland's social affairs minister, Pirkko Mattila, conceded on Friday that the government has no plans to roll out the scheme across the whole country. 'Even though the basic income model developed for the experiment is not likely to be adopted as such for more extensive use, I think the experiment was very successful,' Mattila said in a statement. 'We can use the data from the experiment to redesign our social security system; that is going to be the next major reform.' Similar schemes have been trialled in Canada and Kenya. The experiment has not been without its detractors. Finnish trade unions have called instead for employers to pay living wages that do not need to be subsidised by benefits. The Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has claimed that a basic income programme in Finland would not be economically viable and could leave significant numbers of people in worse poverty than now. In 2017, Swiss voters rejected a proposed universal income in a referendum after critics slammed the idea as rewarding the lazy and the feckless. Advertisement A photographer from India has captured the moment a pair of zebras seemed to share a head as they stood together in Kenya creating a striking optical illusion. The animals, part of a herd of around 80 others, huddled so close together as they scanned the area for predators that their heads appear to fuse. Photographer Sarosh Lodhi, 45, captured the 'zebra total eclipse' on camera while on a trip to the Maasai Mara reserve, a 938 square-mile stretch preserved savannah wilderness that is also home to lions, cheetahs, elephants, wildebeest and hippos. Mr Lodhi said: 'Mother nature never fails to mesmerise her admirers. This pose is such a beauty and am glad I could capture it. It just needed some timing and luck as a photographer, the rest was managed by nature. I am completely delighted by the results.' Photographer Sarosh Lodhi captured this perfectly-timed 'double-bodied zebra' on camera while on a trip to the Maasai Mara reserve in Kenya and described it as a 'zebra total eclipse' The animals, part of a herd of around 80 zebras, kept turning their heads in all directions as they were wary predators lurking close by The pair came face to face with each other while grazing on vast lands at the Maasai Mara reserve in southwestern Kenya, along the Tanzanian border A female visitor was left suspended in mid-air for 30 minutes after her zip line ride malfunctioned in south-west China. Despite the fact that she could plunge to her death at any second, the young woman remained surprisingly calm and collected as she waited to be rescued at the zip-line attraction in Pingchang county, Sichuan province. Video footage on Thursday shows the trapped woman clutching onto her harness hooked to the faulty zip line. She was even seen looking around her and taking in the scenery while waiting for rescuers. A female visitor was left suspended in mid-air for 30 minutes after her zip line ride malfunctioned at an attraction in Pingchang county, south-west China's Sichuan province Video footage on Thursday shows the trapped woman clutching onto her harness hooked to the faulty zip line. She was even seen taking in the scenery while waiting for rescuers Staff members eventually were able to repair the line and she was reeled forwards to safety. Luckily she was unhurt, according to reports. 'She looked so calm. Look at her, sitting in mid-air like it's nothing,' a man was heard saying in the video. Other witnesses said the woman remained expressionless throughout the terrifying ordeal. Many net users on Chinese micro-blogging site Weibo were impressed by how calm the woman appeared. 'She looked so calm. Look at her, sitting in mid-air like it's nothing,' a man described in the clip. Staff eventually were able to repair the line and she was reeled forwards (right) to safety 'She enjoys having the world under her feet,' one user commented. 'The woman is a true thrill-seeker,' another said. 'Who knows? Maybe she was freaking out inside and was too scared to move,' one user challenged. 'What else could she do in that situation besides remaining calm? She can't just hop off the ride herself!' another said. CCTV footage of a shop showed a man carrying the minor girl. The body of the girl was found in shrubbery outside a residential society in Mahim on Thursday morning. (Representational image) Mumbai: The Mahim police has begun investigating the case of an alleged sexual assault and murder of a four-year-old girl. The body of the girl was found in shrubbery outside a residential society in Mahim on Thursday morning. The police stated that the victim belongs to a pavement dweller family and resided outside the Razzak Manzil building in Mahim. On Thursday, when the victims mother woke up at 4 am, she found that the victim was not sleeping beside her. She then alerted her husband and they searched for the kid. Later, they approached the police and registered a complaint with the Mahim police at around 7.30 am. According to the police, they received a call at 9.30 am that body of a minor girl was found in some shrubbery outside a residential building near the familys residence. The police team rushed to the spot and found the girl in a semi-nude state. The victim was immediately taken to the Sion Hospital, where she was declared dead on arrival. The parents later identified her at the morgue. On enquiring the building residents, security guard and locals in the area, it was found that a man was carrying the girl late at night. The medical examination revealed that the victim had been sexually assaulted before being killed. The CCTV camera footage of a furniture outlet in the area showed that a man was carrying the victim at around 3.30 am. We are trying to identify and apprehend the suspect. We are picking other pavement dwellers and repeat offenders with a history of child abuse, the officer said. The police has registered offence of kidnapping, murder and sexual assault under the Indian Penal Code. The case has also been booked under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. Joycelyn Davis (pictured), a direct descendant of Clotilda survivor Charlie Lewis Descendants of the last Africans abducted into slavery and shipped to the US will gather this weekend in Alabama - 160 years after they were first smuggled into the state following a wager. Family members of the Africatown founders are holding the Spirit of Our Ancestors festival this Saturday in an effort to rebuild the once-thriving community which has been largely abandoned. Five families were involved in the event planning, and organizer Joycelyn Davis, 42, said interest has bloomed. The sixth-generation granddaughter of African captive Charlie Lewis said people who were once ashamed to say their ancestors were sold into slavery are now finding pride in their heritage. 'I am so proud to say I am a descendant. That wasn't a word that I used maybe 10, 15 years ago. It was shameful as a child.' said Ms Davis. Africatown, in Mobile, Alabama, was established after plantation owner Timothy Meaher made a bet that he could bring a shipload of Africans across the ocean before the start of the American Civil War - despite the law banning the importation of slaves in 1808. With Southern resentment of federal control near a peak, 'they were smuggling people as much for defiance as for sport,' explained historian Natalie S. Robertson. A dilapidated home (pictured) can be seen from neighboring Old Plateau Cemetery, the final resting place for many who spent their lives in Africatown, near Mobile A chimney (pictured), the last remaining original structure from the days when survivors of the Clotilda, the last known slave ship brought into the United States, inhabited the area, stands in an abandoned lot in Africatown Transported on a schooner called Clotilda, the vessel evaded authorities during a tortuous, weeks long voyage and brought 101 people to the area. The Africans spent the next five years as slaves, Ms Robertson said, freed only after the war ended. Unable to return home to Africa, around 30 of them used money earned working in fields, homes and vessels to purchase land from the Meaher family and establish Africatown. 'They resolved they would build their Africa in America,' said Ms Robertson, who wrote the 2008 book The Slave Ship Clotilda and the Making of AfricaTown, USA; Spirit of Our Ancestors. The flags of the nations of Benin and Togo (pictured), the west African homes of the survivors of the Clotilda, remain on display on a monument at what was the Africatown Welcome Center She will speak at the upcoming Africatown event this Saturday - which descendants hope will encourage new ties for the diminishing community. Africatown's peak population was estimated at more than 10,000 but currently the area has around 1,800 residents. The area is economically depressed and has few remnants of the original settlers. Meaher was charged with smuggling and faced a possible death penalty, but he was never prosecuted and his family remains prominent. A state park in Mobile bears the family name and Meaher Avenue runs through Africatown. A female officer cadet has been found dead at the renowned Sandhurst military academy in an apparent suicide, the MoD confirmed today. The 21-year-old was found in her room at the Royal Military Academy in Surrey on Wednesday. The young cadet was involved in an investigation following a party at the weekend, after which she 'did not return to her barracks.' The 21-year-old was found in her room at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, in Surrey (pictured) The unnamed cadet had joined Sandhurst in May and was in her third term at the elite academy. She is understood to have spent the night in another barracks after a 'drunken' party at the weekend. There is no allegation of wrongdoing other than not returning to her barracks at night, the MoD confirmed. Thames Valley Police has now launched an investigation into the death. It is unclear whether the woman found dead was an overseas student or from the UK. A post-mortem examination is expected to be carried out by an Army pathologist who will prepare a report for the coroner. An inquest into her death will be opened and adjourned next week. The unnamed cadet (not pictured) had joined Sandhurst in May and was in her third term at the elite academy. Pictured, Officer cadets on parade at The Sovereign's Parade in 2009 An MOD Spokesman said: 'We can confirm that an incident has occurred at Royal Military Academy Sandhurst resulting the death of an Officer Cadet, our thoughts are with the family at this difficult time.' A Thames Valley Police spokesman said: 'At around 3pm on Wednesday officers were called to the Royal Military Academy in Sandhurst. 'On attending the scene they found that a woman in her twenties had sadly died. Her next of kin have been informed. The death is being treated as unexplained but non-suspicious. A file is being prepared for the coroner.' In 1998, the Ministry of Defence faced criticism over the death of a young cadet who had taken part in a gruelling training exercise. Sandhurst cadet Graham Holmes, 23, collapsed in July 1998 after a training exercise which involved a six mile run and an assault course. The Edinburgh university graduate was carrying a 40lb kit and his core body temperature reached 43C. He died after two weeks in hospital. Martin Pybus, 26, from Bishopbriggs, Glasgow, was found hanged the day before his passing-out parade in December 2003. In his diary he had written about 'flaws' in his relationship with fellow army cadet, Tiffany Frankland. Berkshire coroner Peter Bedford recorded a verdict of suicide. Advertisement Authorities in the Cincinnati region Friday mourned a 20-year veteran sheriff's deputy, the fifth police officer in the extended law enforcement community to die in less than two months. Uniformed officers from multiple departments helped pack a church for funeral services for Bill Brewer, a Clermont County deputy gunned down while responding last weekend to a suspected suicide attempt by a man barricaded inside an apartment some 20 miles east of Cincinnati. Another officer was wounded in the leg before a man was taken into custody at the apartment complex. Clermont Sheriff Steve Leahy called Brewer someone he could always count on 'to do the right thing' and acknowledged that he was reeling from his loss. The casket of Detective Bill Brewer, a 20-year veteran of the Clermont County Sheriff's Office, is brought out of Mt. Carmel Christian Church during a funeral ceremony for the deputy Clermont County Deputy Bill Brewer was laid to rest with the traditions and honors due an officer who dies in the line of duty The procession for Brewer drew hundreds to line the streets in the cold following his funeral On Friday, hundreds of mourners from Brewer's beloved community and his law enforcement brother and sisters paid their respects to his selfless legacy as he was honored and laid to rest Along the route from the church to the cemetery, people waited to show their respect as the procession passed 'I'm a mess. I'm a wreck,' Leahy told the church audience in services carried through livestream by local news media. 'I'm devastated.' He said Brewer gave his life 'as a hero,' and said the wounds from his death will never completely heal. 'Bill is gone from us today but his life and service will never be forgotten,' Leahy said, pledging to honor him by 'carrying on his legacy' and to support the family Brewer leaves behind, including his wife and five-year-old son. Tributes for Brewer this week included one on the U.S. House floor from Rep. Brad Wenstrup, a Republican whose district includes Clermont County. Wenstrup said Brewer 'died trying to a help a member of his community as he always strived to do.' Meanwhile, Dr. Lakshmi Sammarco says she has been wearing a black mourning band over her coroner's badge since Dec. 17. That's when a recently retired suburban police officer who worked for the Hamilton County coroner's office killed himself, she said. Three days later, a Cincinnati Police sergeant was found dead in a park of a self-inflicted gunshot. Last month, a Colerain Township police veteran was fatally struck by a vehicle after responding to a crash scene, and a suburban Clearcreek Township officer on his way to work was killed in a head-on crash when another vehicle crossed the center line. The community showed up Friday to support the Clermont County Sheriff's Office and the family of Deputy Bill Brewer, who was killed in a standoff over the weekend. A procession followed the funeral service Brewers funeral services were held Mt. Carmel Christian Church and then a lengthy procession followed to the cemetery Workers from all three emergency services were out in force in a show of solidarity for the fallen officer Officers and mourners react after the casket of Detective Bill Brewer, a 20-year veteran of the Clermont County Sheriff's Office, is placed into a hearse outside of Mt. Carmel Christian Church during funeral ceremonies Clermont County Sheriff Robert S. Leahy, center, reacts alongside Lt. Nick DeRose, left, during a hearing earlier in the week Supporters of the Clermont County Sheriff's Department stand outside the courtroom after a hearing for suspect Wade Edward Winn at Clermont County Municipal Court into the shooting incident involving two officers Flags were flown at half-staff and blue ribbons were displayed outside the Clermont County Sheriff's Office for the officer Detective Bill Brewer, a 20-year veteran of the Clermont County Sheriffs Office, was transported to Anderson Mercy Hospital where he later died as a result of the gunshot wounds he sustained. Deputy Brewer is survived by a wife and five-year-old son 'Everybody in the law enforcement community is truly shaken,' Sammarco told reporters this week. The Cincinnati-based coroner since 2012 said she can't think of any comparable period for so many police deaths so close together. 'To see this many tragedies in such a short span of time, it does have an impact,' Cincinnati Police Chief Eliot Isaac said, standing Wednesday in front of memorial wall for fallen Cincinnati department officers. 'When a department loses an officer, we all feel that pain because we've gone through it.' Wade Edward Winn, 23, is jailed in Clermont County under a $10 million bond on charges of aggravated murder and attempted aggravated murder. Prosecutors said in court Monday that Winn had faked killing himself at some point during the standoff, and the two deputies were shot through a wall when they tried to enter the apartment to assist him. Winn's lawyer, Jay Clark, said Winn has been under psychiatric care in the past. The attorney said he doesn't think Winn 'fully appreciates exactly what happened or how it happened.' Sammarco said the deaths should remind the public of 'the tremendous sacrifices' police and their families make to keep their communities safe. After receiving his sergeant's badge Wednesday in a promotion ceremony, Cincinnati police officer Charles Fink said police carry a burden that's 'not normal' in their jobs. 'We see, experience, touch, and hear horrific things on a daily basis, day in and day out,' Fink told the ceremony's audience, which included family members and fellow officers. 'We work in an environment where just the words on your vehicle, the shirt on your back, can leave you wondering whether you're going to make it home that night.' Suspect Wade Edward Winn, second left, appears before Judge Kevin T. Miles at Clermont County Municipal Court Wade Edward Winn, right, was charged in the shooting incident involving two officers of the Clermont County Sheriff's Office New York Pet Fashion Show took place at Hotel Pennsylvania in Manhattan ahead of the city's fashion week Advertisement Glamorous pets were dressed up as angels and demons as they took to the catwalk in glitzy masks and costumes for a charity fashion show in New York. The event, which is the largest pet fashion and animal rescue benefit in the country, took place at Hotel Pennsylvania in Manhattan on Thursday ahead of New York fashion week and the Westminster Kennel Club dog show. Beloved pets and shelter dogs available for adoption walked the New York Pet Fashion Show catwalk in themed costumes to raise money for the Mayor's Alliance for NYC's Animals. The New York Pet Fashion Show, which is the largest pet fashion and animal rescue benefit in the country, took place at Hotel Pennsylvania in Manhattan on Thursday Beloved pets and shelter dogs available for adoption walked catwalk in themed costumes to raise money for the Mayor's Alliance for NYC's Animals The event, which took place on Thursday, February 7, came ahead of New York fashion week and the Westminster Kennel Club dog show This year, four-legged friends were asked to take part in four themed shows - Hollywood Dreams, Angels and Demons, International Masquerade Couture and Best in Show The event, hosted by celebrity pet expert Harrison Forbes, also featured a competition for the pet with the glitziest outfit Some entrants opted to match their pet's enviable style with classic gowns, masks and elaborate feather headpieces - but there was no doubt who was the star of the show. This year, four-legged friends were asked to take part in four themed shows - Hollywood Dreams, Angels and Demons, International Masquerade Couture and Best in Show. The event, hosted by celebrity pet expert Harrison Forbes, also featured a competition for the pet with the glitziest outfit on Thursday, February 7. The Golden Paw awards for those who work to support animals also took place in the hotel on Thursday evening. The Golden Paw awards for those who work to care and support animals also took place at the hotel on Thursday evening Two dogs match their owner in floral diamante masks and blue feather headdresses decorated with paper butterflies Designers from across the globe, including Italy, France, Thailand, Egypt and Mexico, took part in the show-stopping event A tiny dog sits on a carriage wearing a silver diamante mask and a glittering white dress and white feather headpiece Another pair of pampered pups are dressed in matching rose-gold and copper outfits as they talk part in the glamorous event Some owners opted to match their pet's enviable style with classic gowns, masks and elaborate feather headpieces - but there was no doubt who was the star of the show The 16th annual show, Masquerade Ball for Animal Rescue, also featured a 'royal puptial' wedding of two rescue dogs - Meghan Barkle and Harry Prince of Tails. Fashion designers from across the globe, including Italy, France, Thailand, Egypt and Mexico, took part in the show-stopping event. The runway also featured actress Rachel Grant, who appeared in Die Another Day, and television presenters Gelena Solano and Stephanie and Simon Claffey. The Mayor's Alliance for NYC's Animals is a non-profit charity that works with more than 150 rescue groups and shelters to save the lives of the city's homeless animals. An entrant in the International Masquerade category - one of four themed catwalk shows at the New York Pet Fashion Show Another dog was dressed in a traditional Chinese-style black and red outfit as he prepared to talk to the catwalk on Thursday The 16th annual show, Masquerade Ball for Animal Rescue, also featured a 'royal puptial' wedding of two rescue dogs - Meghan Barkle and Harry Prince of Tails Police searching for missing mother-of-four Savannah Spurlock have released pictures of her purse and cell phone in their latest bid to track her down. Spurlock, whose 23rd birthday was on Monday, vanished on January 4 after three men drove her away from a bar in Lexington, Kentucky, just days after she birth to twins. Cops said her wallet had been left in the car but believe she was carrying the phone and purse with her when she disappeared. They have released the pictures, of a cell phone with a white case and a light-colored purse, in the hope of gathering information which could lead them to Spurlock's whereabouts as the search enters its sixth week. The phone has not been in service since around 8.30am on the morning she disappeared, police have said. Police have released this picture of a cell phone in a white case as they try to find missing mother Savannah Spurlock. They said it went out of service at around 8.30am that morning Police have also released this picture of Spurlock's purse, which they said was not left in the car she traveled in from the bar to the home in rural Kentucky Savannah Spurlock was last seen on January 4 leaving a bar in Lexington with three men she had just met before going back to their home in a rural area of Kentucky Spurlock was last seen leaving a bar in Lexington with three men before going back to their home in a rural area of Garrard County. Police have not confirmed if Spurlock, who turned 23 on Monday, ever left the home despite one of the men involved claiming she left 'later that morning'. Authorities started searching corn fields and a bridge near the rural home this week in their search for the mother-of-four. Police do not believe that she knew the men prior to meeting them that night. Spurlock traveled to the home, located some 40 miles from the bar, in the back of a car with two of the men, while another vehicle driven by the third man followed behind. All three of the men were identified and questioned by police. Investigators confirmed they had forensically searched both of the vehicles. No charges have been filed against the three men. The latest development in the investigation comes after her son Noah celebrated his fourth birthday with his family on Sunday. Spurlock's ex-boyfriend and Noah's father, Shaquille Smith, shared photos of the boy's birthday birthday celebrations on Facebook. 'Happy Birthday to a real one. Noah Bleu #Big4,' he captioned the post. Spurlock's mother has said she believes the three men are not telling authorities everything they know. Her son Noah celebrated his fourth birthday with his family on Sunday. Spurlock's ex-boyfriend and Noah's father, Shaquille Smith, shared photos of the boy's birthday birthday celebrations on Facebook Photos of the twins Spurlock gave birth to just days before she disappeared have also been shared by her family 'I think the guys she was with know more than they are saying,' Ellen Spurlock, who lives with her daughter in Richmond, told the Lexington Herald-Leader. 'Their story doesn't make sense. She left with no money, no car, no coat, no phone in a different county than where she lives. It's not like her.' Ellen said Savannah, who gave birth to twins just days before her disappearance, had been looking forward to going out that night. 'I thought she needed a little break. She hadn't done anything for months since she just had the twins,' Ellen said. The Cajun Coast Search and Rescue crew consists of volunteer K-9 teams and three additional volunteers, two of whom are friends of Spurlock's and former US Marines Loved ones who hoped to spend Tuesday celebrating Spurlock's 23rd birthday are instead anxiously awaiting updates from investigators. The photo above was posted on a Facebook page devoted to the missing person search Officials on Tuesday confirmed that the search team is combing through corn fields and a bridge in Gabbard County. A search at the Kentucky River is scheduled to resume on Thursday Her ex-boyfriend Shaquille Smith, has previously said he believes the men know where she is. When Spurlock was last seen she was wearing a black sleeveless top, a maroon skirt and high heels. She is 5ft tall and weighs about 140lbs, with shoulder-length brown and blond hair and several tattoos, including one on the right side of her torso that reads, 'I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me,' and another on her back that reads, 'I'm her daughter'. Anyone with information about Spurlock's whereabouts is urged to contact Lt. Col. Rodney Richardson with Richmond police at 859-624-4776. Spurlock was last seen on surveillance video leaving The Other Bar in Lexington, Kentucky, with two men on the night of January 4. Investigators say she had never met the men before Spurlock traveled to the home located some 40 miles from the bar in the back of two of the men's car, with another vehicle driven by the third man following behind. All three of the men have been identified but none of them have been named as suspects German factory orders tumbled in December, the latest sign that the country's industry is not yet out of the woods as the prospect of a no deal Brexit looms. Despite a forecast rise of 0.3 per cent, industrial orders dropped by 1.6 per cent, and were down by an enormous 7 per cent year-on-year- prompting fears the country could be heading toward a recession. Deutsche Bank warned: 'The start of the German economy into 2019 has been a major disappointment so far. Germany is 'drifting toward a recession', according to Deutsche Bank, which also called the start of 2019 a 'major disappointment' 'The development of several key cyclical indicators is telling us that the German economy is drifting towards recession right now.' The drop - Germany's largest in industrial orders since 2012 - begs the question of whether Angela Merkel could really afford to allow the UK to leave the European Union next month without a deal. Commentators wonder whether Angela Merkel is really going to allow the UK to exit the EU without a deal on March 29 EU leaders are growing increasingly concerned at the prospect, with no agreement yet in place just 50 days before Britain leaves on March 29. But the odds of Theresa May's getting concessions from EU leaders have not increased after Thursday's meeting in Brussels. Markets were unimpressed by President of the European Council Donald Tusk's comments there was a 'special place in Hell' for those 'who promoted Brexit without even a sketch of a plan how to carry it out safely'. The new disappointing data comes days after the government slashed its 2019 economic growth forecast from 1.8 per cent to 1 per cent. Germany's economy grew 1.5 per cent last year and 2.2 per cent in 2017. German factory orders were dragged unexpectedly dragged down by weaker demand from abroad, in a further sign that the slowly world economy is hurting Europe's largest. The overall drop was driven by a 5.5 per cent plunge in orders from clients outside the euro zone while domestic orders edged down by 0.6 per cent. 'The decline in orders in December indicates that the industry's phase of weakness is continuing for the time being,' the Economy Ministry said, while Bankhaus Lampe economist Alexander Krueger took a harsher tone, saying: 'It's clear now that the best times for German industry are over'. 'In view of the slowing global economy and many political risks, it is doubtful where new and sustainable growth impulses should come from in the near future,' Krueger added. The leader of ISIS has reportedly survived a coup attempt by his own men and placed a bounty on the head of the foreign fighter behind the failed plot. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was attacked in a village near Hajin in eastern Syria on January 10 before fleeing with his bodyguards to nearby deserts, reports the Guardian. Following the firefight, the jihadist group offered a reward for anyone who kills Abu Muath al-Jazairi, a senior member of ISIS in the area. 'They got wind of it just in time,' an intelligence official told the Guardian. 'There was a clash and two people were killed. This was the foreign fighter element, some of his most trusted people.' ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, pictured at his last public appearance in mid-2014, has reportedly survived a coup attempt by his own men and placed a bounty on the head of the foreign fighter behind the failed plot The region, near the Euphrates River valley, is the last of the terrorist group's territory in Syria. After years of fighting, there are just 500 militants left, down from a peak of at least 70,000 in 2015. Baghdadi has not been seen publicly since mid-2014, when he declared himself to be the leader of the so-called caliphate in the al-Nuri mosque in Mosul. The news comes after he reportedly issued an order to kill 320 of his followers for their 'betrayal' of ISIS and their 'recklessness' which 'inflicted heavy losses on the group in both Iraq and Syria' back in October 2018. High-profile commanders said to be on the hit list include Abu al-Baraa al-Ansari, Sief al-Din al-Iraqi, Abu Otham al-Tal Afari, Abu Iman al-Mowahed and Marawan Hadid al-Suri. Isis fighters have been fleeing the area to surrender themselves to Kurdish-led forces near Deir ez-Zor over the past three weeks. Intelligence officials believe the diminished group have enough weapons to last at least another month. Kamal Richards, 24, has been jailed after he filmed himself doing more than thirty dangerous driving offences in London A 'reckless' biker has been jailed after he filmed himself committing more than thirty dangerous driving offences while on a mass rampage through London. Kamal Richards, 25, dodged in and out of traffic, jumped red lights and drove the wrong way round a roundabout as he joined dozens of other bikers in a meet up. But Richards, of Dulwich, south east London, was snared after he uploaded the shocking video to social media after the Ride Out across south London on New Year's Day in 2016. Police say that Richards could have killed himself or other motorists at least four times. Dramatic footage taken by Richards - described by the Judge as 'heart in the mouth material' - shows bikers and people on quad bikes weaving in and out of traffic. Richards can be seen taking a selfie video before joining other bikers who do terrifying wheelies and drive dangerously on the wrong side of the road. Dash cam footage shows Richards committing multiple offences including driving the wrong way down a tunnel as other cars are entering, ignoring red lights and deliberately obstructing the highway. Richards can be seen taking a selfie video before joining other bikers in a Ride Out across south London on New Year's Day in 2016 Dozens of bikers and people on quad bikes dangerously weave in and out of traffic during the meet up The court heard how UKBikeLife member Richards, known as @WH05DAT, took part in the UK 'Raise it Up' New Year's Ride Out. The bikers set off from Croydon at 2pm that day and completed a circuit through Purley, Coulsdon via Reigate Hill and back to Croydon. Richards, who was riding a black Honda motorbike, filmed it using a camera mounted on his helmet and uploaded the unedited footage onto a video uploading platform. He was jailed for 15 months after pleading guilty to dangerous driving at Croydon Crown Court. He was also disqualified from driving for 31 months, and will be required to complete an extended test to regain his licence. Sentencing Richards, Judge Elizabeth Smaller told him: 'You took part and committed an offence of dangerous driving in a ride out. Richards can be seen driving along with other bikers who do wheelies and drive dangerously on the wrong side of the road 'I have seen the footage and have been unable to count myself how many were involved.' The video included footage of Richards riding on the offside carriageway separated by a solid divider through a tunnel, against oncoming traffic. Three cars were waiting to enter the tunnel from the correct direction. Police said that if the approaching vehicles hadn't reacted positively, a head on collision would have been likely. Richards was also seen to overtake two vehicles, positioned and indicating to turn right into a car park. Police say the manoeuvre was 'potentially dangerous' as the stationary drivers would have been unlikely to perform a shoulder check and see him coming. Richards rides on the offside carriageway through a tunnel against oncoming traffic Richards was arrested in January last year and charged with four offences of driving a motor vehicle dangerously. Sergeant Elizabeth Hockley, of the Met's Roads and Transport Policing Command, said: 'Richards' extremely dangerous driving could have easily resulted in serious injury or even death of himself or other road users. 'Even considering the time that has elapsed, this sentence must have some element of deterrence for those recording and posting this type of behaviour on social media. 'I also hope it sends out a strong message to others that driving in this manner will not be tolerated on London's roads.' Siwan Hayward, Director of Compliance, Policing and On-Street at Transport for London, said: 'The actions of Richards were dangerous and selfish, and could have had fatal consequences. 'Dangerous and reckless driving puts many people's lives at risk and it's nothing to boast about.' A teenager was gang-raped by six men who tied her father to a tree and forced him to watch in the latest sickening sex attack in India. The men knocked on the 19-year-old victim's door in her village in Bihar's Kishanganj district asking for water before dragging her outside, reports The Times of India. She was taken to a deserted field along with her father, who was tied up and forced to watch the assault, at around 2am. The victim reported the incident and told officers the men had threatened her and warned her not to speak to police. One man, named as Mohammad Kasim, has been arrested, but the five other men have fled, according to Kumar Ashish, the Kishanganj superintendent of police. A teenager was gang-raped by six men as her father was forced to watch in the latest horrifying Indian sex attack (file photo showing activists protesting against rape in India) He added: 'According to locals, the six accused often used to harass girls and women at Patthar Ghatti and neighbouring villages. 'However, the villagers never complained against them. Faiz, one of the six accused, has criminal antecedents.' The young woman was taken for medical examination at Kishanganj Sadar hospital after the attack, but her clothes could not used for forensic evidence as they were washed. In 2018, there were 1,400 cases of rape reported in Bihar, with 39 in the Kishanganj district alone. India has seen a number of high profile rape cases in recent years, leading to widespread protests. Last month, an engineering student was subjected to a two-day gang rape before being left for dead in a wood in the eastern state of Odisha. The 20-year-old woman was left in critical condition following the attack which started when a man claiming to be friends with her brother approached her at a station as she waited for a train. The man wrongly told her that, due to repair work on the line, trains were not running to her destination and suggested she travel with him instead. Kurtis Blow has branded Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring's past behavior as 'disrespectful' following his confession that he wore blackface when dressing up as the rapper in the 1980s. Herring told members of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus during an emergency closed-door meeting on Wednesday that he attended a party with his face blacked up on at least one occasion while he was a University of Virginia student. He explained: 'When I was a 19-year-old undergraduate in college, some friends suggested we attend a party dressed like rappers we listened to at the time, like Kurtis Blow, and perform a song.' Following the scandalous admission, the former musician, who is now an ordained minister, said he would like to meet Herring to discuss forgiving his 'shocking' behavior. Kurtis Blow (pictured) has slammed Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring's past behavior as 'disrespectful' following his confession that he wore blackface when dressing up as the rapper in the 1980s Herring told members of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus during an emergency closed-door meeting on Wednesday that he attended a party with his face blacked up on at least one occasion while he was a University of Virginia student Real name Kurtis Walker, the 59-year-old told the New York Daily News: 'When you paint your face, that is the most egregious and disrespectful thing you can do considering what weve been through. Its opening up some deep, historical scars. 'We all do stupid things when were young, and this was done so long ago with Mark Herring, but there are many different ways to pay tribute to someone if you really like their music or style.' Mr Walker continued: 'Like I said, we all do crazy stupid things, and later we pay for it. I read his letter, and he really was apologetic, so well see.' Yet the rapper, whose 1980 hit The Breaks was the first rap record to be certified gold, told the publication that he has so far received no contact from Herring or his staff in recent days. Herring said he wore 'brown makeup' when he dressed up as rappers of the time, like Kurtis Blow, seen here in 1980. Herring is seen at left in his UVA yearbook photo in 1983 Herring is seen in his Sigma Chi fraternity photo his freshman year, around the time he appeared in blackface, peering out at right from behind the man on crutches Mr Walker also called out Herring for insisting the Governor of Virginia Ralph Northam should resign after a page in his medical school yearbook showed a photo of one person in blackface and another in a KKK robe. In a statement to the media, Herring said Wednesday morning that '[i]n 1980, when I was a 19-year-old undergraduate in college, some friends suggested we attend a party dressed like rappers we listened to at the time, like Kurtis Blow, and perform a song. 'It sounds ridiculous even now writing it. But because of our ignorance and glib attitudes - and because we did not have an appreciation for the experiences and perspectives of others - we dressed up and put on wigs and brown makeup. 'This was a onetime occurrence and I accept full responsibility for my conduct. That conduct clearly shows that, as a young man, I had a callous and inexcusable lack of awareness and insensitivity to the pain my behavior could inflict on others. It was really a minimization of both people of color, and a minimization of a horrific history I knew well even then.' Herring (center) with former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (left) and current Gov. Ralph Northam (right) The yearbook page from Northam's 1984 medical school yearbook is seen above. He claimed he had not bought or seen his yearbook in the last 34 years Herring insisted the Northam should resign after the page in his medical school yearbook showed a photo of one person in blackface and another in a KKK robe (pictured) Herring graduated from UVA undergraduate in 1983 before then getting a Masters, also from UVA, and going to law school at the University of Richmond. While at UVA, he was a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity. In both Herring's freshman and sophomore yearbooks, Sigma Chi's designated page celebrated that it had 'money to spend'. 'Financially, Psi Chapter enjoys one of the foremost positions among fraternities at the university,' the Sigma Chi page reads in UVA's 1981 yearbook. Photos on Sigma Chi's pages also show members happily posing with beers, bottles, and drinks. While there appeared to be no African American members in Sigma Chi in 1980 or 1981, in 1982 the fraternity claimed that diversity was its 'major strength' and a 'source of pride' in the house. Northam denied being in the photograph and refused all calls to step down, although he admitted wearing blackface to impersonate Michael Jackson in a dance contest after he graduated from medical school If all three Democrats should step down, a Republican, State Assembly Speaker Kirkland Cox (above) would take over as governor Herring had planned to run for Virginia in 2021. The state's governors are limited by law to one term in office. Mark Warner, one of Virginia's two Democratic U.S. senators, told reporters at the Capitol in Washington: 'I'm shocked and incredibly disappointed. This has been an awful week for Virginia.' Fallout continues to accumulate from Governor Ralph Northan's admission that he wore blackface after graduating from medical school, and a sexual assault allegation against Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax dating back 15 years. The deepening scandal now puts Virginia's three top officials all of them Democrats in danger of being forced out of office. If they should all step down, a Republican, State Assembly Speaker Kirkland Cox, would take over the statehouse. Unless Northam were to remain governor, whoever holds his office could run for a full term in 2021 despite the state's 'one and your done' term-limit law. 'Who do you think he's doing parallel negotiations for? Not for you and me? It is for Anil Ambani...,' said Rahul. 'The entire Supreme Court judgement on Rafale becomes questionable now... because the information was withheld by the government,' Rahul alleged. (Photo: ANI ) New Delhi: Congress president Rahul Gandhi stepped up his attack on the Narendra Modi government over Rafale deal in a press conference in New Delhi on Friday following The Hindu news report alleging that the defence ministry protested parallel parleys by the Prime Ministers Office (PMO) with the French authorities. Rahul said the news report makes it crystal clear that the Prime Minister was conducting parallel negotiations with the French government on Rafale deal. We have been saying this for more than a year that the Prime Minister is directly involved in the Rafale scamIt is absolutely black and white that the Prime Minister himself was carrying a parallel negotiation with the French, Rahul said. He added that PM himself robbed Air Force's Rs 30,000 crore and gave it to Anil Ambani. "Who do you think he's doing parallel negotiations for? Not for you and me? It is for Anil Ambani... this proves that Chowkidaar is a thief," said Rahul. Continuing his attack on PM Modi. Rahul said that the entire Supreme Court judgement on the Rafale deal has now become questionable as the information was withheld by the government. A report published by The Hindu said that the French side took advantage of parallel parleys by the PMO and the Defence Ministry with the French government that weakened Indian teams position during negotiations on Rafale deal. Congress chief Rahul Gandhi on Friday said he has no problem if the government investigates his brother-in-law Robert Vadra or senior party leader P Chidambaram as long as it also answers questions on the Rafale jet deal. "Whatever inquiry you want to do, you do it. You implement the law. Robert Vadra, P Chidambaram - you implement the law on everyone. No problem. But you also give answers on the Rafale matter," he said at a press conference. Vadra was questioned by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for nine hours on Thursday, the second day of his deposition in connection with a probe into allegations of money laundering to purchase assets abroad. Karti Chidambaram, son of former finance minister P Chidambaram, was also questioned for about six hours by the ED on Thursday in connection with a money laundering probe against him in the INX Media case. "You do whatever inquiry against Mr. Chidambaram you want. He will face any inquiry. You do inquiry on anybody you want...But please explain to us why the defence ministry is saying that prime minister has carried out parallel negotiations," Gandhi said. Describing Rafale as an "open and shut" case, he said, "I am telling you that whatever investigation you want to do, you should do it. You are the one who is in government. But then investigate this (Rafale) too." Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday strongly defended the Rafale deal during his reply to the debate on the Motion of Thanks to the Presidents address in the Lok Sabha. I am levelling a serious allegation. I want to say it on the floor of Parliament that the Indian National Congress doesnt want our armed forces to be strong... You want the Rafale deal to be cancelled. On whose behest? For which company?, PM Modi said, attacking the Congress. (With agency inputs.) Yemen has executed two men for abducting, raping and murdering a 12-year-old boy by shooting them in public. Wadah Refat, 28, and Mohamed Khaled, 31, had been convicted of raping and murdering a boy named Mohamed Saad in May last year. Hundreds had gathered in the port city of Aden on Thursday to watch the men get shot dead in front of the baying crowd. Eye for an eye: A local doctor, right, makes a final check before the execution of Wadah Refat, 28, and Mohamed Khaled, 31, who were convicted of raping and murdering a 12-year-old boy The boy had been playing next to a house where one of them lived, when the pair set upon him, dragged him into the home and raped him. 'After the rape, they could not silence the cries of the child, who begged for help, so one of them grabbed a knife and slit his throat,' court documents seen by El Mundo states. A 33-year-old woman has also been sentenced to death for helping Refat and Khaled dismember the boy's body. Face of a killer: Refat, 28, is seen in the final minutes before his public execution in Aden, Yemen, after he was convicted of the brutal kidnap, rape and murder of the boy Dr. Salah Mohamed Hussein, director of a local Forensic Unit, gives water to Khaled before their execution Members of the all-male crowd fought their way to the front and filmed the execution on their mobile phones Her execution has been postponed as she is pregnant, according to the website. Yemen has one of the highest execution rates per capita in the world, and shooting is the most common method. Islamic Sharia law is applied in the country and a number of crimes are punishable by death, including murder, rape and terrorism. Jeremy Corbyn and his allies today insisted they have not completely ruled out a second Brexit referendum as they scramble to stop Labour imploding. The party's civil war has escalated dramatically after the Labour leader tried to outflank Theresa May by offering to support a Norway-style deal with the EU. Mr Corbyn tried to woo Tory rebels by dropping his notorious six tests which demanded that any agreement had the exact same benefits as EU membership. But the move infuriated Labour Remainers, who accused him of 'enabling' Brexit - with some even threatening to quit the party. Mr Corbyns letter made no mention of the idea of a second referendum. Shadow Brexit minister Matthew Pennycook was then slapped down by the leadership after he suggested the party would back another public vote if Mr Corbyns offer was rejected by the PM. Jeremy Corbyn (pictured writing his letter this week) and his allies today insisted they have not completely ruled out a second Brexit referendum as they scramble to stop Labour imploding The grand gesture (pictured) is intended to show voters Mr Corbyn is ready to compromise, while heaping pressure on Mrs May to break her key red lines. In an effort to quell the mutiny, senior Labour officials circulated a message to MPs last night insisting a referendum had not been ruled out. And shadow chancellor John McDonnell said in a round of interviews today: 'The possibility, the option of another public vote is still on the table as we agreed.' He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'In the national interest we have got to come together to secure a compromise, and then if we cant do that, well yes, we have to go back to the people.' An amendment table by Labour in crunch Commons votes last week called for a referendum to be kept on the table - but only after MPs pass a deal. Mr Corbyn's own Eurosceptic credentials have also been highlighted by a 2009 video showing him condemning the 'European empire' and complaining that referendums should not be re-run. Former leadership contender Owen Smith suggested he would quit the party if Mr Corbyn works with Mrs May to deliver Brexit in any form. Asked if he could remain in the party if Labour backed a Tory Brexit deal, Mr Smith told BBC Radio Five: I think thats a very good question - and I think its something that I and lots of other people are considering right now. Mr Smith described Mr Corbyns stance as a betrayal, adding: The truth is, weve got a leadership that is essentially pursing a sort of warmed-over, 1970s, Bennite view of the European Union. Jeremy Corbyn has always subscribed to those views. And he is now effectively trying to acquiesce in Brexit, because ultimately he believes that Brexit will be good for our country. I think hes wrong about that. Chuka Umunna, another former Labour frontbencher, reacted angrily to Mr Corbyns intervention, describing it as totally demoralising. He added: This is not opposition, it is the facilitation of a deal which will make this country poorer. A strong, coherent Labour alternative to this shabby, Tory Brexit is absent - it has been since this Parliament began. Former shadow chancellor Chris Leslie, who is pushing for a second referendum, accused Mr Corbyn of offering to help a Tory government enable Brexit. Senior EU figures also seized on Mr Corbyns intervention as evidence that the UK could be pushed into accepting a soft Brexit. EU president Donald Tusk twisted the knife yesterday by telling Mrs May that Jeremy Corbyns plan for a soft Brexit could be a promising way out of the current impasse. During tense talks in Brussels, Mr Tusk is said to have urged her to consider a cross-party compromise based around permanent membership of the customs union. An EU source confirmed Mr Tusk had suggested Mr Corbyns plan was a promising way out of the impasse. Joining a customs union would breach one of Mrs Mays negotiating red lines and end the dream of striking post-Brexit trade deals. Conservative chairman Brandon lewis has also warned Mrs May that siding with Labour on the issue would split the party. Mrs May had a series of awkward encounters with EU chiefs including Jean-Claude Juncker (pictured) in Brussels yesterday Labour's OLD six tests for Brexit Throughout the Brexit talks, Labour said it would apply six tests to the deal when deciding whether to vote for it - most importantly whether it offered the 'exact same benefits' as the single market and customs union. The phrase was based on a quote from former Brexit Secretary David Davis. The tests were: Does it ensure a strong and collaborative future relationship with the EU? Does it deliver the 'exact same benefits' as we currently have as members of the Single Market and Customs Union? Does it ensure the fair management of migration in the interests of the economy and communities? Does it defend rights and protections and prevent a race to the bottom? Does it protect national security and our capacity to tackle cross-border crime? Does it deliver for all regions and nations of the UK Advertisement Labour's NEW demands for the Brexit deal In the new letter, Labour sets out five new demands on the future UK-EU relationship as its price for voting for the Withdrawal Agreement as drafted. Crucially the 'exact same benefits' test is gone, demanding instead a permanent customs union and close alignment with the single market. Both are against Theresa May's plan The new demands from the Labour Party are: A 'permanent and comprehensive UK-wide customs union', including a say in future trade deals. Close alignment with the single market, underpinned by 'shared institutions'. 'Dynamic alignment on rights and protections', so that UK standards do not fall behind those of the EU. Clear commitments on future UK participation in EU agencies and funding programmes. Unambiguous agreements on future security arrangements, such as use of the European arrest warrant. Advertisement Whitehall sources said Mrs May urged Mr Tusk to look at the infighting Mr Corbyns plan had sparked within the Labour Party. One source said: Its clear from the reaction Corbyns letter has provoked that he could not deliver his party on it. To the alarm of ministers, Mr Corbyns plan attracted some support from Tory MPs backing a soft Brexit. Mr Boles said: This takes us a big step forward to a cross-party compromise. Sir Oliver, another supporter of a Norway-style deal, said on Twitter: Hope No 10 has noticed Labours official support for something strikingly like Common Market 2.0/Norway Plus. This is where a cross party consensus can be formed if PMs deal fails. Both men were involved in cross-party efforts last week to allow parliament to seize control of the Brexit process and extend Article 50. The attempt was defeated, but MPs will get another chance to take control on February 14 when Mrs May has pledged to allow a series of votes on options for the way forward. One ally of Mrs May last night predicted that a cross-party bid to delay Brexit would come back next week but this time with a customs union attached. Shadow attorney general Shami Chakrabarti suggested Labour could allow free movement to continue, saying: We are not an anti-immigration party. If we have to negotiate on free movement in order to get the objectives set out in that letter that is what we will do. The move has worried some allies of the PM, who fear that it could attract the support of enough pro-EU Tories to get majority support in the Commons. Humanitarian aid for Venezuela has been blocked at the border by President Nicolas Maduro after he said the nation 'is not a country of beggars'. Two semi-trailers loaded with boxed emergency food and medicine rolled into the Colombian border city of Cucuta, which is just across the river from Venezuela, yesterday. But the Venezuelan military has barricaded a bridge between the two nations with a tanker and two cargo trailers. Opposition leader Juan Guaido, who called for assistance, has vowed to bring aid into the troubled nation. The news comes just a day after a top US admiral claimed Venezuelan soldiers are starving. Admiral Craig Faller, who is in charge of US forces in South America said 'the rank and file are starving, just like their population', and that he had seen Venezuelan soldiers who had lost as much as 30lbs in a year. Two semi-trailers loaded with boxed emergency food and medicine (pictured) have been blocked from entering Venezuela by President Nicolas Maduro It comes a day after Admiral Craig Faller, who is in charge of US forces in South America said 'the rank and file' in the Venezuelan army are starving 'just like their population' Human rights activists stood at the entrance to the Tienditas International Bridge on Colombia's side, demanding Mr Maduro allow the emergency aid to enter Armed and starving: Admiral Fuller said he had seen Venezuelan soldiers who had lost as much as 30lbs in a year The focus of Venezuela's political fight now hinges on whether Mr Maduro will allow the aid to enter the country, a move anticipated in coming days. About a dozen human rights activists stood at the gated entrance to the Tienditas International Bridge on Colombia's side, demanding Mr Maduro allow the emergency aid to cross into Venezuela. They waved flags while Colombian police trucks carrying armed officers and other authorities drove by throughout the day. Yesterday Mr Faller called the Venezuelan military a 'degraded force,' but one that 'remains loyal to Maduro - and that makes it dangerous'. Faller, who assumed command of US military's Southern Command in November, said the US military was keeping a close eye on Venezuela and was prepared to protect American personnel and diplomatic facilities 'if necessary'. 'We are prepared to protect U.S. personnel and diplomatic facilities if necessary,' Navy Admiral Craig Faller, the head of U.S. Southern Command, said during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. He did not provide any details on how the U.S. military might respond. Though President Donald Trump has declined to rule out military intervention in crisis-gripped Venezuela, Faller said the focus is on supporting diplomatic efforts. He said the United States is looking for signs the Venezuelan military's loyalty to Maduro might be 'cracking,' but he declined to elaborate in the public hearing. Meanwhile a U.N. adviser on judicial independence said on Friday that the travel ban and asset freeze imposed on Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido by the country's Supreme Court do not respect legal standards. 'The evidence suggests that the measures against Mr. Guaido have not been adopted in accordance with constitutional requirements, normal legal procedures and international human rights standards, Diego Garcia-Sayan said in a statement. Garcia-Sayan is an independent expert or 'special rapporteur' mandated by the U.N. Human Rights Council to investigate the independence of judges and lawyers. Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido attends a meeting of students in Caracas today with his wife Fabiana Rosales after a U.N. adviser on judicial independence said the travel ban and asset freeze imposed on him do not respect legal standards. The measures against Mr Guaido (centre) 'have not been adopted in accordance with constitutional requirements, normal legal procedures and international human rights standards,' according to U.N. adviser Diego Garcia-Sayan Yesterday, Maduro attended a rally in Caracas where he called Venezuelans 'warriors for peace' who will 'defeat the US coup attempt'. He also signed an 'open letter to the US demanding peace' urging Washington to stop what he perceives to be intervention threats against his government. International pressure is intensifying on Maduro to step aside and support is growing for his opposition rival Juan Guaido, who has so far been recognized by around 40 countries since declaring himself interim president on January 23. Faller said he had visited the Colombia-Venezuela border, where US troops deployed on the USNS Comfort medical ship are operating medical camps. In an apparent reference to enlisted Venezuelan soldiers, he said he had seen 'kids' who had lost as much as 30lbs (13.5 kilos) in the space of a year. 'They are stick thin, they'd never had medical attention, we think that condition affects a large swath of the population and we think that population's ready for a new leader,' Faller said. Members of the Venezuelan army and National Guard block the main access to the Tienditas International Bridge that links Colombia and Venezuela, near Urena, Venezuela Aerial view of trucks loaded with humanitarian aid for Venezuela drive to the Tienditas Bridge on the border between Cucuta, Colombia and Tachira, Venezuela Admiral Faller said the Venezuelan army is dangerous because while it is 'degraded' it remains loyal to President Maduro Maduro, seen standing next to his wife Cilia Flores, holds up a flying urging foreign nations to 'keep their hands off Venezuela' A supporter of President Nicolas Maduro holds a sign that reads in Spanish 'I sign for peace' during a event at Bolivar Square in Caracas Food and medicine shortages have pushed 2.3 million people to flee Venezuela since 2015, but despite this, the army has maintained the barricade on a bridge cross the Colombian border where aid trucks wait. Maduro claims humanitarian aid is a forerunner of a US-led invasion, and has fervently defended his decision to block the bridge as a safety measure. Guaido claims that up to 300,000 people face death if the aid being blocked by Maduro's army is not delivered. Yesterday, two semi-trailers loaded with boxed emergency food and medicine rolled into the border city of Cucuta, on the Colombian side of the bridge. The focus of Venezuela's political fight now hinges on whether Mr Maduro will allow the aid to enter the country, a move anticipated in coming days. President Nicolas Maduro says he believes humanitarian aid is a forerunner of a US-led invasion and says he will therefore not let the shipment enter from Colombia. Pictured is the tanker and trailer being used by the Venezuelan army to block the bridge Venezuela's opposition leader and self-proclaimed acting president Juan Guaido claims that up to 300,000 people face death if the aid being blocked by Maduro's army is not delivered Starving: Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans desperately need the aid set to come through via Colombia. Pictured is a starving young patient at Caracas' main children's hospital Mr Maduro denies a humanitarian crisis exists and says Venezuela is not a country of beggars. Also on Thursday, a coalition of European and Latin American nations called on Venezuela to hold free and transparent elections to peacefully resolve its crisis. A majority of 14 countries in the 'International Contact Group' urged Venezuela to return to the rule of law and respect its constitutional institutions - starting with the democratically elected National Assembly. Spain, Italy, Portugal were among European nations signing the declaration with Uruguay, Ecuador and Costa Rica. Mexico and Bolivia participated but did not sign. EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said that the coalition did not intend to impose a solution but was focused on finding answers to avoid violence or foreign intervention in Venezuela. An American Airlines pilot has been arrested at Manchester Airport on suspicion of being drunk just minutes before he was due to operate a transatlantic flight. Greater Manchester Police said it received a report shortly before 11am on Thursday that a pilot 'may have been under the influence of alcohol'. Officers went to the scene and a 62-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of performing an aviation function when over the prescribed limit of alcohol. He was bailed pending further inquiries. An American Airlines pilot has been arrested in Manchester on suspicion of being drunk shortly before the plane he was due to fly was due to take off. File photo Flight AA735 to Philadelphia was due to take off at 11.05am but was cancelled following the arrest of the pilot, who has not been named. American Airlines told reporters: 'Safety is our highest priority and we apologise to our customers for the disruption to their travel plans, we have rebooked them on alternative flights. What's the law on pilots' drinking? The UK's Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has expressed concern about the risk of air crashes due to drunken pilots. The Railways and Transport Safety Act 2003 states that flight crew, cabin crew and air traffic controllers must not exceed 20mg of alcohol per 100ml blood while working. That is nearly half the level of the UK's drink-drive limit, which is 35mg. CAA guidance states: 'Alcohol impairs performance at any level and the impairment increases exponentially with the amount take.' Advertisement 'We are fully co-operating with local law enforcement and further questions should be referred to them.' It is illegal for pilots in the UK to have more than 20mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood in their system. The drink-drive limit in England, Wales and Northern Ireland is 80mg. In Scotland it is 50mg. In November, a Japanese pilot was given a 10-month prison sentence for being almost 10 times over the alcohol limit while preparing to take off from Heathrow Airport. First officer Katsutoshi Jitsukawa was caught after security noticed he smelled strongly of alcohol, seemed drunk and had 'glazed eyes'. The furious King of Thailand has condemned his princess sister's move to become the country's prime minister as 'highly inappropriate.' Princess Ubolratana, 67, the older sister of King Maha Vajiralongkorn, has made the unprecedented decision to run for the top job in the March elections. Hours after the announcement, the king issued a late statement from the palace which declared the royals 'exist in a status above politics.' She will stand for the Thai Raksa Chart party, steered by the divisive Shinawatra political clan, whose leader Preechapol Pongpanich showed reporters her application for candidacy today. King Maha Vajiralongkorn issued a late statement from the palace which declared the royals 'exist in a status above politics' Thai Princess Ubolratana (pictured in 2017) has entered the political fray and will stand for Prime Minister in March despite the royal family traditionally remaining above politics She will take on junta chief and Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha (pictured) who came to power in a military coup in 2004 The statement did not directly criticise Princess Ubolratana, instead praising her public work, but skewered those behind her sudden stride into politics. 'To bring a senior royal family member into the political system in any way is against royal traditions and the nation's culture... which is very inappropriate.' The king's statement said. Thailand has not had a royal as premier since becoming a constitutional monarchy in 1932. Ubolratana is a colourful and public-facing figure who has played lead roles in Thai films, and amassed a sizeable Instagram following The Thai royal family, a revered institution shielded from criticism by a tough defamation law, has traditionally been seen as above the political fray, although royals have intervened in moments of political crisis. Ubolratana's nomination has electrified the buildup to a March 24 election which had seemed poised to return the junta and its proxies to power in some form. The upcoming election is the country's first since the current Prime Minister, army general Prayut Chan-o-cha, took power in 2014 a military coup. Mr Prayut overthrew the democratic government of Yingluck Shinawatra, the younger sister of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Ubolratana's involvement for a party allied to Mr Shinawatra - a billionaire self-exiled former premier, who stands at the heart of Thailand's bitter political schism - gives a royal sheen to his political machine, which has won every election since 2001. It potentially builds a bridge between Thaksin's 'Red' shirted supporters and the 'Yellow' shirts who are arch royalists. Deadly violence and disruption linked to the two groups has defined Thailand's turbulent last decade. 'The board agrees that the name of Princess Ubolratana, an educated and skilled person, is the most suitable choice,' Thai Raksa Chart party leader Preechapol Pongpanich told reporters. Thai Raksa Chart party leader Preechapol Pongpanich, holds up application of candidate for Prime Minister, Thailand's Princess Ubolratana on February 8. The party is steered by divisive former PM Thaksin Shinawatra, whose sister's government was overthrown by the current premier Mr Prayut The party falls under the tutelage of Thaksin, who is loathed by the army and Bangkok elite, yet adored by the rural poor. The announcement thrusts him back to the centre stage of Thailand's political drama just as it appeared the military were set to succeed in sidelining him. He was toppled in a 2006 coup, while his sister Yingluck was booted from power in a 2014 military takeover and forced into exile to avoid a jail term. Who is Princess Ubolratana? Born in 1951, Princess Ubolratana Rajakanya Sirivadhana Barnavadi is the first-born child of the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej. She is a colourful, public-facing royal in contrast to her more restrained brother King Maha Vajiralongkorn. Ubolratana attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and relinquished her royal titles after marrying the American Peter Jensen in 1972. But the couple divorced and she moved back to Thailand in 2001, where she is still considered part of the royal family and re-immersed herself in royal life. There she experienced tragedy, losing her son Poom to the 2004 Asian tsunami. She has two other children who now also live in Thailand. She is known to the public for lead roles in Thai films, onstage singing performances, a vibrant fashion sense and a sizeable Instagram following. Advertisement The princess's move deals a heavy blow to the aspirations of Mr Prayut, the junta head, who has spent nearly five years trying to recast the political system to limit the power of elected governments and prepare his own return as a civilian leader. In a day of high drama, Prayut declared his candidacy for premier, running for the Phalang Pracharat army party, moments after the princess's announcement. 'I want to reassure that I do not intend to hang on to power. It is not easy for me to make my decision... it is a crucial moment for the country,' he said. The military under Prayut has cast itself as the protector of the monarchy. But Ubolratana's shock entrance into politics, aligned with the junta's nemesis - the Shinawatra family - undercuts those claims. Analysts said she is not technically covered by the kingdom's royal defamation law - which carries heavy jail sentences - but that given the wide interpretation of the rules, she is unlikely to face the scrutiny given to most politicians. 'Who would dare criticise a royal prime minister?' said Puangthong Pawakapan, professor of political science at Chulalongkorn University. The stride into politics by a royal has left Thais scrambling to work out what it may mean for the nation's tattered democracy. 'This is quite unprecedented and nobody is prepared for this,' Professor Anusorn Unno, of Thammasat University, told AFP. Princess Ubolratana of Thailand has been nominated as a candidate for Prime Minister of Thailand by the Thai Raksa Chart political party. If she wins it will be the first royal premiership since Thailand became a constitutional monarchy in 1932 'I don't think it's the victory for the people; I think this is part of the adaptation of the ruling elite in terms of changing the landscape of politics.' Since ascending the throne in 2016, King Maha Vajiralongkorn has reorganised palace affairs. The vastly wealthy Crown Property Bureau is now under his personal stewardship, he has appointed several new privy counsellors and established a highly trained personal guard. Crucially he has appointed a new army chief from a different faction of the military to the ruling junta. His coronation will be held in May. Muslims in China's far west region of Xinjiang are being forced to eat pork and drink alcohol at events during the country's Lunar New Year holiday, residents have claimed. Residents in the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture said they were invited to Chinese New Year dinners where pork and alcohol were served. Chinese officials threatened to send them to 're-education camps' if they refused to participate, according to a report by Radio Free Asia. Photos sent to RFA also showed a Chinese official in Yining city visiting Muslim households and distributing raw pork on Monday, the eve of the Year of the Pig. People were also forced to display Chinese New Year decorations such as red lanterns and couplets outside their homes. Uighur vendors trade Halal meat to costumers in the Tianshan District of Urumqi, capital of north-west China's Xinjiang region. Residents in the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture said they were invited to Chinese New Year dinners where pork and alcohol were served A perimeter fence is constructed around what is officially known as a vocational skills education centre in Dabancheng in Xinjiang in China's far west region Residents walk through a security checkpoint into the Hotan Bazaar where a screen shows Chinese President Xi Jinping in Hotan in western China's Xinjiang region Both pork and alcohol are forbidden in Islam, and Chinese New Year is not usually celebrated by Muslims. 'Kazakh people in Xinjiang have never [eaten pork],' one unnamed resident told RFA. 'Starting last year, some people have been forced to eat pork so they can celebrate a festival belonging to the Han Chinese.' 'Kazakhs don't celebrate Spring Festival,' a Kazakh woman named Kesay told RFA. 'Our main festivals are Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha. Spring Festival is for Han Chinese and people who believe in Buddhism.' 'If we won't put up the couplets or hang up lanterns, they say we are two-faced, and they send us to re-education camps,' she said, adding that officials had begun delivering pork to around 80 per cent of Kazakh households in Savan county since the end of 2018. A halal restaurant in Xinjiang. Both pork and alcohol are forbidden in Islam, and Chinese New Year is not usually celebrated by Muslims A building of what is officially called a vocational skills education centre in Hotan, Xinjiang Passengers ride a donkey cart at the venue for a Chinese Lunar New Year shopping festival in Lopnur county, Bayingolin Mongol Autonomous Prefecture in Xinjiang Dilxat Raxit, spokesman for the exile group World Uighur Congress, said they have received similar reports. 'According to our information, the Chinese government is stepping up its campaign to assimilate Uighurs into Han Chinese culture,' he said. 'They are forcing Uighurs to celebrate Lunar New Year, to put up decorative couplets.' 'They are also forcing Uighurs to drink alcohol, to show that they don't subscribe to "extreme religious beliefs" and don't disrespect traditional Chinese culture.' Up to one million Uighurs and other Muslim minorities are believed to be held in extra-legal detention in Xinjiang, according to previous UN estimates, prompting an international outcry. The region is home to more than 10 million ethnic Uighurs. Detainees who most vigorously criticise the people and things they love are rewarded, and those who refuse to do so are punished with solitary confinement, beatings and food deprivation. Residents walk past a statue showing Mao Zedong near billboards with the words for 'Welcome 19th Congress,' 'Patriotism' and 'Democracy' near a square in Kashgar in Xinjiang Dozens of students are shown at their desks learning Chinese and law in the programme aired by CCTV that introduced the 'professional vocational training institutions' in Hotan Former detainees have previously claimed they were forced to eat pork and drink alcohol as punishment inside the camps. While Beijing initially denied the existence of re-education camps, the chairman of Xinjiang's government, Shohrat Zakir, told the official Xinhua news agency in October that the facilities are an effective tool to protect the country from terrorism and provide vocational training for Uighurs. A previous report published by a Christian NGO, ChinaAid, claimed that Muslims in Xinjiang had been forced to take part in new year celebrations in February last year. Last October, officials in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang launched a campaign against halal products. Radical Muslim Uighurs have killed hundreds in recent years, and China considers the region a threat to peace in a country where the majority is Han Chinese. The entrance to a jail which locals say is used to hold those undergoing political indoctrination program in Korla in western China's Xinjiang region John Humphrys was given the shock of his life this morning as he interviewed a Cambridge University economist who suddenly stripped naked in the Radio 4 studio. Dr Victoria Bateman, a fellow in economics at Gonville and Caius College, who regularly delivers lectures in the nude, surprised the veteran host when she disrobed and then challenged Jacob Rees-Mogg to a Brexit debate without any clothes on. Humphrys, who said, startled, 'oh, I see you're naked', told listeners that Dr Bateman had the words 'Brexit Leaves Britain Naked' painted across her body. It is not known whether the BBC was aware that Dr Bateman had intended to strip during the interview which saw her arrive wearing a coat and then disrobe in front of an unsuspecting Humphrys. Cambridge economist Dr Victoria Bateman appeared on BBC Radio 4's Today programme this morning while naked to debate Brexit with host John Humphrys Listeners claimed the veteran interviewer struggled while talking with the naked academic, concentrating on her lack of clothes rather than her anti-Brexit message Listeners suggested Humphrys was unable to cope with Dr Batement's arguments on Brexit The five-minute interview prompted a great deal of reaction online Listeners claimed he clearly struggled on air while interviewing the married Dr Bateman - who described Brexit as Britain's 'Emperor's New Clothes' moment. During the terse five-minute interview, Humphrys accused the academic of undermining her argument by not wearing clothes as well as offending the sensibilities of the vast majority of the British public. Dr Bateman was interviewed following an exchange on Twitter yesterday with Piers Morgan when she uploaded a video discussing women's freedom and rights across the world while standing in the nude. Morgan retweeted her video calling her 'ridiculous', and urged her to 'put some clothes on before you catch a cold.' A source at the BBC said her appearance came following her response to negative comments telling her to cover up, and because her lecture on Brexit in January has caused such a stir. The interview comes amid a wave of criticism of the flagship current affairs programme which has been accused of dumbing down since Sarah Sands became editor in 2017. Dr Bateman made the appearance following an exchange on Twitter with Piers Morgan after she uploaded a video discussing women's freedom and rights across the world During the interview with Humphrys, Dr Bateman explained the slogan across her body. She said: 'It carries three important messages, and the first is that Brexit leaves Britain's economy exposed. 'The second is that Brexit has served to reveal some anti-immigrant sentiments of a kind that we should be very much worried about as a society, and finally, Brexit exposes past government failures. Government failures that left many people feeling they have nothing to lose from Brexit because they have nothing at all.' Dr Bateman, pictured, said Brexit was Britain's 'Emperor's New Clothes' moment Humphrys said those arguments have been made repeatedly by people wearing clothes and why Dr Bateman felt the need to remove hers. She replied: 'I have myself written thousands of words looking at why Brexit is bad for Britain. 'But I thought it would be useful to reduce all of those words down, condense all of those words down to one powerful message. 'Brexit is the Emperor's New Clothes. Britain has sold itself a project that cannot possibly deliver what it promises. 'Everytime we open our mouths to speak we are inviting people to listen to our views to listen to our opinions. I am completely comfortable with my own body. I view women's bodies as one of the big battlegrounds we face today, and by engaging with society about women's bodies, one of the things that shows is the way in which people are quick to judge women solely based on their bodies.' Humphrys replied: 'Do you think in 2019 that women are judged on their bodies?' She said: 'I do. All you have to do is look at the online response to a two-minute section of my naked lecture that I posted online in the last couple of days and you will see people firing back with comments of the kind 'this woman is trashy because she has got her body on show' or 'this woman is stupid'. Dr Bateman, pictured, said that 21st century women are still judged on their bodies Dr Bateman posted a photograph of her clothes ahead of this morning's interview Humphrys suggested that society acted with a 'degree of modesty'. Dr Bateman told Humphrys: 'If we did respect that we'd still be living in days when women were covered from head-to-toe. Look at the suffragettes, they made some of the first moves to reveal their ankles and reveal their knees. So if we can dress who we want and that includes in a state of undress that I am in today why not?' Dr Victoria Bateman The British feminist economist and academic has become known for her unorthodox way of campaigning against Brexit. Lecturing in the nude, the academic divides opinions online, with some claiming her nudity undermines her approach. In her show, 'Brexit: The Naked Truth', Dr Bateman performed naked on a stage with the words 'Brexit leaves Britain naked' written across her body. Dr Bateman, who has researched the development of the European economy, previously posed naked for a portrait by artist, Anthony Connolly. The nude painting went on display as part of a Royal Society of Portrait Painters' exhibition at the Mall Galleries in London in 2015. Advertisement Dr Bateman asked whether society viewed women's bodies as shameful. She continued: 'For thousands of years, men have controlled what women can do with their bodies. Women's bodies have been seen purely as things for sex and babies. 'What is wrong with a modern day woman taking control of her body and using it to give voice to what is the most pressing political subject in Britain right now?' 'I am doing this for the words written on my body. Brexit leaves Britain naked.' At the end of the testy interview, Dr Bateman challenged a senior member of the European Research Group to discuss Britain's EU exit with her. She added: 'I invite Jacob Rees Mogg to do a naked debate with me and we will get to the roots of this issue. The issue that Britain faces many, many problems right now from housing to the NHS and the European Union is not the cause of those problems.' Many listeners were scathing about the way John Humphrys handled this morning's interview Cameron Hamblin (pictured) was given nine months' custody suspended for 18 months at Maidstone Crown Court yesterday after a judge decided he had acted 'impulsively'. He was also ordered to carry out 100 hours of unpaid work and pay 250 prosecution costs A back-seat passenger who put the lives of his girlfriend and three friends in danger when he grabbed the steering wheel and crashed the vehicle into a tree and a wall, has been spared jail. Cameron Hamblin was sitting in the rear of the Ford Fiesta being driven by partner Niamh Cosham Elam when he unbuckled his seatbelt, leant forward and yanked the wheel. A court heard the couple had been arguing that evening about a friend the 20-year-old had asked Miss Cosham Elam to block on her phone. They were travelling at about 40mph on Langton Road in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, when Hamblin reached forward. Also in the vehicle were three of their friends. The Fiesta careered off the road, hitting a tree and wall. Hamblin was later heard to say he had intended to kill himself. But Maidstone Crown Court was told yesterday that despite the Fiesta being written off following the smash on June 26 last year, no one was seriously injured. Miss Cosham Elam suffered minor chest injuries when her airbag inflated, while Hamblin and friends Harvey Harcombe, Oliver Macdonald and Michael Davison were left with bruising from the smash. The court was also told that the shop worker and Miss Cosham Elam, who sat in the public gallery during the hearing, are still together, and all five remain friends. Hamblin, who admitted damaging property being reckless as to whether life would be endangered, was given nine months' custody suspended for 18 months after a judge decided he had acted 'impulsively'. The court heard the friends had been out in Tunbridge Wells that evening when Hamblin (pictured) looked at his girlfriend's phone and saw a friend he had asked her to block had been unblocked His pleas of not guilty to the more serious offence of damaging property with intent to endanger life, as well as four offences of attempting to cause grievous bodily harm with intent, were accepted by the prosecution. No evidence was offered and formal not guilty verdicts entered. Hamblin, of Tunbridge Wells, also denied causing danger to road users by interfering with a motor vehicle. This was ordered to be left on the court file. Passing sentence, Judge Charles Macdonald QC said: 'This is clearly a case of recklessness, not intent. 'Impulsively, you undid your seatbelt and grabbed the steering wheel and directed the car into a tree. The occupants, mercifully, only suffered minor injuries.' The judge added mitigation could be found by reason of Hamblin's age, the offence being out of character, his remorse and insight. The court was also told that Hamblin (pictured outside Maidstone Crown Court at an earlier hearing) and Miss Cosham Elam, who sat in the public gallery during the hearing, are still together, and all five remain friends Hamblin must carry out 100 hours of unpaid work and pay 250 prosecution costs. The court heard the friends had been out in Tunbridge Wells that evening when Hamblin looked at his girlfriend's phone and saw a friend he had asked her to block had been unblocked. Their argument then continued while in the car and resulted in Hamblin grabbing the steering in wheel in what prosecutor Andrew Forsyth described as 'a loss of control and potentially a very serious one'. David Cohen, defending, said Hamblin, who has one previous conviction for common assault, had since spent 800 (POUNDS) buying his girlfriend a new car. He had also stopped using cannabis and brought his drinking under control. 'He acted stupidly and dangerously in the heat of the moment. He doesn't drive and relies on his girlfriend as a chauffeur,' added Mr Cohen. 'They all remain friends. They appear to have accepted this was a frightening one-off occurrence.' For confidential support in the UK, you can call the Samaritans 24 hours a day on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org Michael 'Mickey' Fudge, 31, was shot dead by police in Amsterdam after taking a fake gun to the national bank A British man reportedly carrying a fake gun has been killed by a police officer in Amsterdam in what is believed to be a 'suicide by cop'. Michael 'Mickey' Fudge, who holds dual British-Dutch citizenship, had previously told his mother: 'If I go out, I'll be shot at the National Bank by the Marechaussee'. Tanja Samojlenko told local media that her son had also wanted euthanasia, but that this had been denied. Instead, the 31-year-old acquired a fake gun to carry out 'suicide by cop', and was shot dead in front of the highly-guarded national bank yesterday evening. 'He said to me on Wednesday: "This world is not for me",' Samojlenko told Amsterdam-based newspaper Het Parool. 'He had anxiety disorders and severe depression since childhood.' Fudge was born in Amsterdam and has British descent through his father, who died last year after living in the Netherlands for 45 years. His mother, who is Dutch with a Ukrainian father and a Russian mother, said that by the age of ten he had seen four or five child psychologists, who were all unable to help him. Fudge and his mother had been living at the Weteringschans, around the corner from the scene of the shooting in central Amsterdam last night. The scene of the shooting after it was cordoned off by the police, in which dual British-Dutch citizen Michael Fudge was killed in a 'suicide by cop' Michael Fudge, 31, reportedly walked up to the heavily-guarded bank with a gun yesterday and approached police who 'felt it was required to open fire', according to a police spokeswoman Samoklenko said Fudge left the house early on Wednesday evening to go for a walk, and she had no idea what was about to happen. 'If I really had the feeling that it was going to go so wrong, I would have kept him inside, even though that is not easy with a guy of 31,' she told Het Parool. Police spokeswoman Souad Boumedien said: 'We got the report that a man was threatening people with a firearm. 'Colleagues who arrived at the scene encountered the suspect with a firearm, he walked in the direction of them and the colleagues felt it was required to open fire.' Police near the crime scene at De Nederlandse Bank last night. Michael Fudge had previously told his mother: 'If I go out, I'll be shot at the National Bank by the Marechaussee' Fudge was reportedly injured in the shooting in which several shots were fired and he collapsed to the ground. Soldiers from the military police who were guarding the bank building rushed to Fudge to provide first aid but were unable to save his life and he died at the scene, according to reports. A cyclist was shot in his leg by a stray bullet and had to be taken to a hospital to be treated for his injury, according to local media. Tanja Samojlenko found out about her son's death on local television. Despite all the sadness she said she is happy her son 'now has peace' Fudge's mother recalled hearing something big happening around the corner but when she left the house to investigate she saw only the cyclist being loaded onto a stretcher at Frederiksplein. The relief was short lived. She turned on a local television station to see that somebody had been shot by police, and recognised a partial photograph of her son's shoes. "On a partial photo of the victim I saw Mickey's shoes, it was completely wrong, I called the police and said "That's my child.",' she told Het Parool. 'I made statements for hours, that he is not a terrorist or something, and not a bank robber.' The entire area around the bank was immediately cordoned off by the police to investigate the shooting. As customary with the use of police firearms, an official investigation by the Dutch federal criminal police was started into whether the police violence was warranted. Michael Fudge had been 'thinking a lot about the idea' of committing suicide by forcing a police officer to shoot him before he carried out 'suicide by cop' yesterday, a friend said According to local media, Fudge has a track record with the Dutch police and judicial authorities but was not known to be a major criminal. His criminal record involved smaller crimes such as destruction of property and disruptive behaviour. Friends described his recent mindset as confused, with one person saying Fudge was thinking about committing suicide by forcing a police officer to shoot at him. The friend said that Fudge was 'really thinking a lot about the idea'. The Amsterdam Police are currently investigating Fudge's mental state before the shooting and whether or not he had any psychiatric condition. The entire area was cordoned off yesterday and, as is customary in such incidents, the Dutch federal criminal police have started into whether the police violence was warranted The authorities said they are not sure yet if Fudge chose the central bank just because it is heavily guarded or if he might have had other motives. Police spokeswoman Boumedien said: 'Right now we don't have any signals that the location has anything to do with it, but we are taking every scenario into account.' According to the Amsterdam Police, they are currently assuming a suicide by cop scenario as the alleged motive in the investigation. His mother said despite all the sadness she was happy that her son 'now has peace'. 'I think it's very bad for the police how this went, but it's not that he wanted a heroic ending - Mickey was ill and it wasn't working anymore.' Foodies have poked fun at Marks & Spencer's new 'sushi sandwich' and questioned the ingredients used which include chicken, bacon and avocado. Some even called the bizarre concoction 'offensive' for wrapping ingredients more suited to a BLT in rice and seaweed. The take on Japanese sushi - which also features tomato, spinach and tangy yuzu mayonnaise - costs 4. The chain has also released a soy and ginger chicken version for the same price. Foodies have slammed Marks & Spencer's new sushi sandwich which contains chicken, bacon avocado saying it's 'hardly Japanese' just because it includes rice and Nori They are supposedly based on Onigirazu - a Japanese rice sandwich which became popular in the 1990s after appearing in a manga comic book series Cooking Papa. But consumers have labelled the 4 sandwiches an 'atrocity' after a video of the chicken and bacon one was posted to the brand's Facebook page. Junko Cooper commented: 'You can't call it sushi just because you used rice and Nori. We have something similar to this but never call it sushi. It's rice burger.' Jane Ruggles agreed and said: 'Wrapping something in nori does not make it sushi! Cooked chicken and bacon? Hardly Japanese! Egads!' Emily Wong said: 'Maybe if you titled it 'sushi inspired' then that wouldn't have made me cringe so much after seeing the ingredients list.' Jody Lee-Pearson said: 'Where's the fish? It's not sushi without the fish!' Danielle Burton said she was 'offended' by the product and that it is 'a post BLT with rice' Danielle Burton said: 'Wrong wrong wrong - I'm not even Japanese and I'm offended by your calling it sushi. This is a posh BLT with rice wrapped in seaweed.' Sushi contains vinegared rice and is very often prepared with seafood such as tuna, mackerel and salmon. However there are also vegetarian options. It is not the same as raw fish. Sliced pieces of this are known as sashimi and are sometimes dipped in sauces and often served with sushi. It comes a week after M&S was accused of cultural appropriation for launching an inauthentic 'biryani' wrap. Last week, chef Maunika Gowardhan criticised M&S for using the term 'biryani' on a wrap that featured none of the ingredients in the traditional Indian dish. As well as the chicken sushi sandwich, pictured, the highstreet chain has also released a soy and ginger version Many people also pointed out that the 2.80 vegan wrap had been labelled incorrectly as 'biriyani' and not 'biryani.' Miss Gowardhan, who is the author of Indian Kitchen, said: 'Just to put it in perspective, in India firstly there is no such thing as a veg biryani. Most places will serve mutton or chicken or even fish. 'It's wrong on many levels when people will assume this is what a biryani looks like. 'Biryani needs rice, isn't stuffed in bread and doesn't include lettuce.' Marks and Spencer has been accused of cultural appropriation by a top chef over a new vegan biryani wrap which includes no meat Maunika Gowardhan, author of Indian Kitchen, tweeted a photo of the wrap which is part of the retailers Plant Kitchen line However, the high street giant is adamant the new sandwich is a perfect choice for the nation's sushi lovers. M&S Sandwich Developer, Helen Brennan said: 'The nation's love of sushi sees no signs of slowing down. 'We really wanted to offer customers even more delicious sushi options with something that no one else on the high street is doing. 'The sushi sandwich is fantastic for sushi lovers, and those just starting on their sushi journey as the flavours are so accessible. 'Could these be the new prawn sandwich? Only time will tell!' The accused Shyam Yadav, wanted to marry 45-year-old Madhuri. Since the woman was already married, the proposal did not interest her. The womans daughter told police that she was killed in front of her by one Shyam. Based on her statement, a case was registered and an investigation was taken up.(Representative Image) Delhi: A man killed a married woman, 18 years older than him, after she rejected his marriage proposal in outer Delhis Nangloi, police said Thursday. Shyam Yadav, a native of Pansalwa in Madhubani district of Bihar, wanted to marry 45-year-old Madhuri. Both of them worked at a shoe factory where Yadav allegedly fell in love with her. Since the woman was already married, the proposal did not interest her, police said. The woman left the job after sensing Yadavs desperation for her. This was not the end of her ordeal as Yadav started following her and eventually stabbed her to death Wednesday. Officials of Nangloi police station were informed regarding stabbing of a woman on Wednesday, following which they rushed to the spot, police said. The woman was taken to a nearby hospital where she was declared brought dead, Seju Kuruvilla, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Outer) said. The womans daughter told police that she was killed in front of her by one Shyam. Based on her statement, a case was registered and an investigation was taken up, he said. The arrest was made after the police received a tip off that the accused would come at Shiv Bux Park in Nangloi. Subsequently, he was apprehended from the spot and the knife used in the crime was recovered at his instance, he added. The accused was planning to leave Delhi after killing the woman, the officer said. Further investigation is underway, police said. The national baby formula epidemic is at an all time high and it's expected to only get worse as demand for the product is surging in Asia. Thousands have flocked to a Singapore baby expo where the star product of the event is Australian brand baby formula. From chaotic scenes in supermarkets to arrests from members of an organised crime syndicate - the baby formula epidemic has taken the country by storm since 2008. Scroll down for video. Thousands have flocked to a Singapore baby expo (pictured) where the star product of the event is Australian brand baby formula From chaotic scenes in supermarkets to arrests from members of an organised crime syndicate - the baby formula epidemic has taken the country by storm since 2008 (pictured: a warehouse in Australia full of baby formula ready to go overseas) A Current Affair travelled to Singapore, where a baby expo had the product heavily available for new and expecting mothers. Expecting mother Jen said the product is highly desirable because there's a perception Australia produces high quality products. 'I would think Australian quality is really... I mean it's just unquestionable,' Jen said. New mother Natalie said she's never short of baby formula and even has friends who travel to Australia for all types of baby products. 'We don't have to go all the way to Australia to... you know, get it,' Natalie said. The obsession with Australian made baby formula is growing in Asia, with many grateful they don't have to travel overseas to purchase it themselves. Australian mothers have had to change the brand they use for their babies multiple times as the product has continually gone out of stock. Some people have also travelled to multiple stores in desperate attempts to find formula to give their baby. Expecting mother Jen (pictured) said the product is highly desirable because there's a perception Australia produces high quality products Demand for the product has surged amid the massive growth in daigou shopping - a method where people buy products and re-sell them for an inflated price overseas. Mothers have complained about struggling to get hold of baby formula for months as people are continuing to buy it in bulk. It comes after recent reports of more than 30 people sneakily buying the product from Woolworths in The Glen shopping in Glen Waverley, Victoria. A father filmed the group rushing in and out of the store with bags full of baby formula, despite the supermarket having a two tin limit. Simon Dennis watched what he described as an 'international baby powder buying syndicate' and told Daily Mail Australia he believed he saw at least '80 to 100' tubs taken out of Woolworths. Demand for the product has surged amid the massive growth in daigou shopping - a method where people buy products and re-sell them for an inflated price overseas (stock image) Supermarkets around the country were forced to implement strict restrictions on how many tins of formula customers could buy at a time Coles has recently revealed drastic measures it's taking to stop customers from stocking up on the highly wanted product. Those wanting to buy the product were left with empty shells and a message - that baby formula is now available at the customer service desk. A Coles in Sydney's north also resorted to setting up security cameras and TV screens over shelves of baby formula in an attempt to slow down frenzied shoppers. Supermarkets around the country were forced to implement strict restrictions on how many tins of formula customers could buy at a time. Woolworths limits patrons to two tins per transaction while Coles' policy is eight tins. Demand for Australian baby formula is at an all-time high after new research revealed tins sell for as much as $80 to desperate Chinese mothers. Coles has revealed the drastic measures it's taken to stop customers from stocking up on baby formula and selling it overseas Customers who fronted the store this week hoping to snag multiple tins of the product were greeted with empty shelves - along with a message (pictured) The mass exportation of the manufactured baby product is a result of approximately 54,000 Chinese babies being hospitalised in 2008 due to contaminated local formula. Videos of customers of Asian appearance lining up with boxes full of the formula have gone viral online, leading some to question whether the policy is even enforced. Dozens of Woolworths shoppers were filmed jumping over one another in a desperate bid to get their hands on baby formula in early January. The aisles at Woolworths in Box Hill, in Melbourne's east, resembled mosh pits as 30 Asian shoppers tried to push their way to the front of the line. Footage showed a woman and an elderly man being pushed to the floor as customers scrambled to get to the shelves before the product sold out. Theresa May posed awkwardly with Irish PM Leo Varadkar as she flew into Dublin on Friday evening to ask for crucial Brexit concessions over dinner. Varadkar, however, had earlier insisted Brexti would not be on the menu during the summit as the EU refused to budge over the thorny issue of the backstop. The Irish PM insisted there is no question of 'negotiations' with Mrs May when he hosts her - instead saying he would only share 'perspectives' on the issues. He also again dismissed the idea of reopening the Withdrawal Agreement, a position that was echoed by Michel Barnier. Theresa May arrives for a dinner with Irish PM Leo Varadkar in Dublin on Friday evening as the Brexit date draws ever closer Earlier in the day Varadkar ruled out talking about Brexit during the summit, despite May needing crucial concessions on the backstop Mrs May is facing pressure from Tory hardliners who say they cannot support her deal unless the EU agrees to concessions The uncompromising stance came amid claims Mrs May told EU council chief Donald Tusk at least 30 Tory hardliners will never support the deal unless there are concessions on the backstop. The premier met a wall of resistance in a brutal round of talks in the Belgian capital yesterday, after Mr Tusk inflamed tensions by jibing about Brexiteers deserving a 'special place in Hell'. He also praised a rival proposal from Jeremy Corbyn to lock the UK in a customs union - while commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker insisted the Withdrawal Agreement will not be reopened. Even though there was a small comfort as the bloc agreed to re-start discussions between technical teams on a solution, it now seems impossible for Mrs May to have a new package ready to bring back to the Commons before the end of February. Irish PM Leo Varadkar (pictured in Belfast today) insisted there is no question of 'negotiations' with Mrs May when he hosts her later - instead saying he would only share 'perspectives' on the issues Theresa May met a wall of resistance from EU chiefs to her pleas for changes to the backstop in a brutal round of talks in the Belgian capital yesterday That would be barely a month before the UK is due to crash out - raising the stakes dramatically. Stormy weather allowing, Mrs May is flying to Dublin later as desperate wrangling continues. She will be joined for the private dinner at official state guesthouse Farmleigh House by the UK's Brexit negotiator Olly Robbins and her chief of staff Gavin Barwell. Blow to Remainers as Cabinet ministers go cold on bid to delay Brexit next week Remainer MPs' hopes of delaying Brexit are hanging in the balance after ministers signalled they are not ready to back the move yet. Pro-EU politicians are mulling over whether to launch a new bid to extend Article 50 next week. An amendment tabled by Labour's Yvette Cooper and Tory Nick Boles last week was only defeated after Theresa May appealed for more time to renegotiate her deal. They are considering whether to mount another attempt in the latest series of crunch votes on Thursday. There have been claims that more than a dozen ministers could quit in order to avert no-deal Brexit. However, one Cabinet minister told MailOnine they did not expect large number of colleagues to join a revolt. 'It is all about whether it is the last chance. On balance, it probably isn't,' they said. Senior Labour figures are also dubious about whether the amendment would pass. 'The problem with the Remain group is it is not solid,' one source said. 'They are a bit all over the place. Advertisement But speaking during a visit to Belfast for talks with Northern Irish parties, Mr Varadkar said while the meal presented an opportunity to 'share perspectives' on Brexit, actual negotiations 'can only be between the European Union and the United Kingdom'. 'I think everybody wants to avoid no-deal, everybody wants to avoid a hard border and everybody wants to continue to have a very close political and economic relationship between Britain and Ireland no matter want happens,' he said. 'There is much more that unites us than divides us and time is running short, and we need to get to an agreement really as soon as possible, and I'll be working very hard and redoubling my efforts, along with government, to do that.' He added: 'I believe ultimately we are going to have to get this deal over the line and I am determined to do that.' Downing Street said Mrs May would be 'emphasising what we are looking for, seeking the legally binding changes to the Withdrawal Agreement that Parliament said it needs to approve the deal'. Meanwhile, Attorney General Geoffrey Cox held talks in Dublin with his Irish counterpart, Seamus Woulfe. Mr Cox has been leading work within Whitehall on providing either a time limit on the backstop or giving the UK an exit mechanism from it. Both proposals have received a dusty response from Dublin, which insists the backstop cannot be time-limited if it is to provide an effective 'insurance policy' against the return of a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic. Mrs May, however, has warned she needs legally binding assurances the UK will not be tied to EU rules indefinitely through the backstop if she is to get her Brexit deal through the House of Commons. As tensions rose again today, former taoiseach Bertie Ahern suggested that a border poll on a united Ireland could be called. He told the BBC: 'I wouldn't say inevitable, but I do think you will see a border poll. 'I do think if the UK, which seems almost positive now, pull out of the EU, the issue then will not just be about whether there should be a united Ireland, people will also be reflecting do Northern Ireland want to be in the European Union or not? DUP leader Arlene Foster said her meeting with Mr Varadkar had been positive, insisting she was focused on helping find a deal that suited the UK and EU 'Now, Scotland might have a similar position in years to come. 'But I do see that being a factor that people who want to be in Europe will say a united Ireland is more attractive.' Brexit could trigger referendum on uniting Ireland, says former PM Brexit could trigger a referendum on uniting Ireland, former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has warned. Mr Ahern told the BBC a poll was not 'inevitable' but added he thought one would happen. 'I do think if the UK, which seems almost positive now, pull out of the EU, the issue then will not just be about whether there should be a united Ireland, people will also be reflecting do Northern Ireland want to be in the European Union or not?' he said. 'Now, Scotland might have a similar position in years to come. 'But I do see that being a factor that people who want to be in Europe will say a united Ireland is more attractive.' But DUP leader Arlene Foster rejected the idea as 'Project fear'. 'There are many people engaging in Project Fear at this point in time and we all have to recognise that,' she told reporters. 'The Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement sets out the criteria for a border poll and it hasn't been satisfied and therefore will not be called.' Advertisement But DUP leader Arlene Foster rejected the idea as 'Project fear'. 'There are many people engaging in Project Fear at this point in time and we all have to recognise that,' she told reporters. 'The Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement sets out the criteria for a border poll and it hasn't been satisfied and therefore will not be called.' She said her meeting with Mr Varadkar had been positive, insisting she was focused on helping find a deal that suited the UK and EU. 'We want to get a deal, that's what we are engaged in at the minute - trying to get a deal that will be acceptable to members in the House of Commons, because you can only get an agreement when both sides agree and at the moment you only have the European Union agreeing with what's on the table,' she said. As the process threatened to spiral deeper into acrimony, a senior EU official complained that Brexit was 'still at square one' and they had 'lost the month of February'. 'Mrs May is now flirting with no deal and there's a point where we're going to enter full blown blame game mode,' the official told the Telegraph. They claimed the PM was determined to run the negotiation 'down to the wire', describing the remaining timetable for striking and ratifying a deal as 'insane'. Mrs May will meet Irish premier Leo Varadkar for dinner tonight as she continues her shuttle-diplomacy to try to break the deadlock. Meanwhile Downing Street has said ministers are looking 'with interest' at a letter from Jeremy Corbyn setting out the terms on which Labour would support a deal in Parliament. The move provoked a furious outcry from Labour Remainers - who fear the plan effectively kills off their hopes of the party backing a second referendum - with warnings from some MPs they could quit the party altogether. The PM will tonight have dinner with Leo Varadkar (pictured left in Brussels with Donald Tusk earlier this week) Mrs May had a series of awkward encounters with EU chiefs including Jean-Claude Juncker (pictured) in Brussels yesterday Ireland could suffer crippling economic hit from no-deal Brexit Ireland could suffer a crippling economic hit if the UK crashes out of the EU without any agreement in place. Dublin's finance minister Paschal Donohoe said last month that growth could be over 4 per cent lower over the next five years if there is no deal - and other estimates have put the damage even higher. There are fears of food shortages and huge queues at ports, with speculation the consequences could be worse than for the UK. Plans published by the Irish government before Christmas insist it will still try to avoid a hard border with Northern Ireland even if there is no deal, despite the EU commission suggesting this will not be possible. But they warned there would be 'severe' impacts including on crucial supply chains and any measures that are taken can only be a 'damage limitation exercise'. Deputy PM Simon Coveney admitted the potential problems from no deal were 'stark' and 'sobering' Deputy PM Simon Coveney admitted the problems highlighted in the report were 'stark' and 'sobering'. Holyhead in Wales is one of the main destinations served by Dublin port but the UK's role as a so-called land-bridge between Ireland and Europe has been cast into doubt by fears of a hard Brexit. According to the Irish plans, work has been ongoing to create 33 inspection bays for trucks coming off ships. Parking for 270 trucks would ensure those awaiting inspection do not halt other port traffic. Office accommodation for an additional 144 staff will be required within the area. It said the application of World Trade Organisation tariffs and regulatory divergence could affect supply chains and the availability of imports from the UK. 'A further fall in the value of sterling would impact on the competitiveness of Irish businesses, while a deterioration in economic conditions in Britain could impact on exports,' the report said. 'Whilst Brexit's potential macro-economy impacts dominate headlines, Brexit has the potential to impact every element of economic functionality: trade flows, supply chains, economic and business operations, the labour market and consumer confidence and spending.' The report highlighted particular pressures on sectors like agri-food, fisheries, aviation and road transport, pharma-chemicals, electrical machinery, retail and wholesale business. The economic impact is also likely to be greater in certain regions - especially near the border with Northern Ireland - and on smaller businesses that are more dependent on trade with Britain and Northern Ireland. Measures are being introduced to try and avert shortages of food or medicine, as the document warned a no-deal Brexit could 'affect supply chains and the cost and/or availability of imports from the UK'. Advertisement Number 10 sources acknowledged there were still 'very considerable points of difference' with Labour over the blueprint - which includes a customs union with the EU, something the Prime Minister has repeatedly ruled out. However, they may hope the threat Parliament could swing behind a 'softer' Norway-style Brexit if there is no agreement on Mrs May's deal will convince some Tory Brexiteer rebels to fall into line behind her plan. It comes as the Financial Times reported that a secret group at the heart of Whitehall has been working on emergency plans to kick-start the economy in the event of a no-deal Brexit. The 'Project After' group, is said to have been put together by the Cabinet Secretary and head of the Civil Service, Sir Mark Sedwill, with senior figures from the Treasury, Cabinet Office, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and the Department for International Trade. The options said to have been considered by the group - which has been working since the summer and is in close contact with the Bank of England - range from cutting taxes and boosting investment to slashing tariffs. 'It's basically a Doomsday list of economic levers we could pull if the economy is about to tank,' one Whitehall source is quoted as saying. In her meetings in Brussels yesterday, Mrs May won a commitment from European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker that their teams will carry on talking in an effort to find an agreed solution that can command support in the Commons. Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay will hold talks with the EU's chief negotiator Michel Barnier on Monday and Mrs May and Mr Juncker have agreed to meet again before the end of the month to take stock of the situation. The EU side remains adamant it will not re-open the Withdrawal Agreement while European Council president Donald Tusk said there was 'no breakthrough in sight'. However, German Chancellor Angela Merkel was more encouraging, suggesting that a deal was possible without re-opening the Withdrawal Agreement. 'Of course its also our duty to get such an agreement - that requires Britain to tell as clearly as possible what they want,' she said during a visit to Slovakia on Thursday. 'I think we can find solutions without re-opening the withdrawal agreement. That is not on the agenda for us.' The family of an anti-government protester have told of their grief and fear after he was shot dead by a police officer who was 'just obeying orders'. Johnny Godoy, 29, was gunned down outside his home in a poor Caracas district, two days after he helped organize a march calling for Venezuela's hated socialist dictator Nicolas Maduro to quit. Now his cousin Marbelis Paredes has told how his family has been devastated by his violent death and how his loved-ones fear further retribution from government security forces. Johnny Godoy, 29, was gunned down outside his home in Caracas, two days after he helped organize a march calling for Venezuela's hated socialist dictator Nicolas Maduro to quit Mr Godoy (pictured) was about to become a father. But now his finance has cut contact with all of the family because she fears the police will arrest her and take her baby away Mr Godoy's cousin Marbelis, 26 (pictured) told MailOnline that the family are devastated, but fear that police will break down their doors again 'Everyone in the family is hurt and in pain,' Marbelis, 26, told MailOnline. 'We are devastated. 'We had a family reunion in December, the first time we had all got together for 14 years, and it was Johnny who organized it. He was at the centre of the family. 'He was kind and charismatic. He was always looking out for people. Mirabelis, a mother-of-two, told MailOnline: 'Johnny is a popular guy. He organized for some of the local people in our area to join the anti-government demonstration. A film of Johnny went viral 'But he told his family he had to go out into the streets and protest because he was sick of the miserable conditions that we are forced to live in.' Now the family live in fear that the police will break down their doors again. She added: 'Johnny was about to become a father. But now his finance has cut contact with all of the family because she fears the police will arrest her and take her baby away. 'His mother is sick with worry and frightened that the police will come again.' Some 70 activists have died in police clamp-downs on anti-government protests across Venezuela during the latest uprising against President Nicolas Maduro's regime. Johnny, a well-known street trader in the poor El Sinai district of Caracas, organized for locals to take part in a huge anti-government demonstration on 23rd January. Footage of Johnny waving the Venezuela flag, shouting anti-government slogans and cursing President Maduro became an internet sensation. But two days later members of Venezuela's feared FAES para-military police street appeared in his street at breakfast time, brandishing a photograph of Johnny and asking where he was. Footage of Johnny waving the Venezuela, shouting anti-government slogans and cursing President Maduro became an internet sensation President Nicolas Maduro is facing a fight to cling on to power in Venezuela as his socialist dream collapses amid wide protests across the country Officers beat him up and shot him in the stomach when he struggled to get away. One policeman told his mother they had been 'following orders', when she asked why they had killed her son. Mirabelis, a mother-of-two, told MailOnline: 'Johnny is a popular guy. He organized for some of the local people in our area to join the anti-government demonstration. A film of Johnny went viral. 'But two days later the FAES turned up and started showing Johnny's picture around and asking for him. 'Johnny came out of the house to talk to them. It was breakfast time and he was barefoot and not wearing a shirt. 'The police started to beat him up and pushed him down the road. Then they shot in the stomach when he struggled to get away.' His heart-broken mother Cecilia Buitrago has suffered a nervous breakdown following her son's brutal death. In a terrifying account, she described how she heard the bullets that killed her son and then confronted the officer who shot him. 'I watched from upstairs as the police aimed the guns at my son,' Mrs Buitrago, 58, told El Pais newspaper. 'I went inside the house that's when I hear the gunshots. I did not want to believe that they had shot him. 'The police came into my house and told me Johnny had died in a shoot-out. I told them there had been no exchange of fire. 'He replied; 'We're just following orders.' The paramilitary FAES police and government authorities have refused comment on Johnny Godoy's death. Marbelis Paredes, who works for Caracas food distribution charity 'Alimenta La Solidaridad' how she fears retribution from the police for speaking out. But she says she feel a duty to tell the world about the violence meted to Venezuela's people by Maduro's hated regime. She said: 'I am frightened for my safety but we cannot live in fear. 'We have a duty to stand up and be counted so that we can bring a brighter future to Venezuela. 'Hopefully from the tragedy of Johnny's death will come some good.' This interview was made possible by the Caracas charity 'Mi Convive', a non-profit organization that helps victims of violence. It is led by Esteban Farias, Leandro Buzon and Roberto Patino. Prosecutors could tear up a plea deal with the National Enquirer's parent company - American Media - after it allegedly threatened to publish intimate photos of Jeff Bezos, it has been claimed. The newspaper's owner AMI reached the deal last year after paying $150,000 to silence Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model who had allegedly had an affair with Donald Trump. The agreement with New York prosecutors required AMI to commit no further crimes for at least three years, but the company's alleged threat to Bezos could be interpreted as a breach, potentially opening it to prosecution. Further, New York state libel law prohibits 'exposing a secret or publicize an asserted fact, whether true or false, tending to subject some person to hatred, contempt or ridicule.' AMI may have breached a plea deal which protects it from prosecution over its $150,000 payment to silence Karen McDougal (pictured), a former Playboy model who allegedly had an affair with Donald Trump before he was President AMI's Dylan Howard, left, sent a letter to Jeff Bezos threatening to publish nude pictures if the Washington Post published claims about the company and its owner David Pecker, right. Analysts believe the company's 2018 plea deal could be under threat as a result The company sent a letter to Jeff Bezos, pictured in Maryland last year, after the Amazon CEO hired a private investigator to look into how the Enquirer had discovered his affair Bezos revealed yesterday that AMI had sent a letter to his team, threatening to expose intimate pictures if the Amazon CEO did not abandon his investigation into how the Enquirer knew about his affair with Lauren Sanchez. A letter from AMI's Dylan Howard warns of consequences if the Washington Post, owned by Bezos, published 'unsubstantiated rumours' about the firm and its Trump-backing owner, David Pecker. CNN's Brian Stelter said on Thursday: 'AMI, Pecker, Dylan Howard - they have an immunity deal relating to Michael Cohen. That immunity deal would be off if there are other crimes that could be prosecuted. His fellow CNN correspondent Jeffrey Toobin said: 'When you co-operate with the Southern District of New York they have a blanket rule that you co-operate about everything. You answer any question they have. 'They admit to their involvement in the Karen McDougal story which, remember, Michael Cohen pled guilty to a crime in connection with. He said he was helping an unlawful campaign contribution. 'As a result of that agreement AMI, David Pecker, Dylan Howard would not be prosecuted. 'But the condition of that agreement is always - you don't commit any other crimes, or the deal is off. 'So what they have to be concerned about is the prosecutor saying, well you've now committed blackmail, you've now committed extortion, we're going to tear up that agreement and prosecute you the same way we prosecuted Michael Cohen. AMI reached a deal with New York prosecutors last year in connection with the prosecution of Michael Cohen, pictured outside court last December, for campaign finance violations Bezos, right hired investigators to find out how and why the Enquirer had revealed his affair with Lauren Sanchez, center, pictured together in Los Angeles in 2016 'I don't know if they're going to do that, but it's possible.' The Trump-backing company's deal with New York prosecutors was reached last September in connection with the prosecution of Michael Cohen, Trump's former attorney, for campaign finance violations. The company acknowledged it had paid $150,000 to keep McDougal's story out of the headlines before the 2016 presidential election. 'As a part of the agreement, AMI admitted that it made the $150,000 payment in concert with a candidates presidential campaign, and in order to ensure that the woman did not publicize damaging allegations about the candidate before the 2016 presidential election,' New York officials said last year. 'AMI further admitted that its principal purpose in making the payment was to suppress the womans story so as to prevent it from influencing the election. 'Assuming AMIs continued compliance with the agreement, the Office has agreed not to prosecute AMI for its role in that payment.' However the deal required that AMI 'shall commit no crimes whatsoever', in a period lasting at least three years. Bezos published the letter from AMI yesterday, in which the firm told the Washington Post owner they had naked pictures of him that it would publish unless Bezos put an end to the investigation into the sourceing of the story of the billuinaire's affair with Sanchez. The Amazon boss had hired a private investigator to look into whether AMI's revelation of his affair was 'politically motivated'. The sister of a landlady who was hacked to pieces by an 'evil' butcher demands he reveal where he buried the rest of her remains so they can lay her to rest. Andrew Wallace, 42, murdered 47-year-old Julie Reilly at her flat in the Govan area of Glasgow in February 2018 and then cut off her legs with a knife before disposing of her remains. Wallace, who was Ms Reilly's lodger, pleaded guilty to murdering his landlady and attempting to defeat the ends of justice, at an earlier court hearing. Ms Reilly's sister Lynne Bryce said outside court if Wallace 'has a heart' he would now tell them where the rest of her remains were, after police found her leg bones at two separate locations in the city. Andrew Wallace (left) , 42, who trained as a butcher after a ten year sentence for killing first victim when he was just 15, will be sentenced in Glasgow's High Court today. Julie Reilly, 47, was hacked to death by the convicted killer and her remains were dispersed across Glasgow Margaret Hanlon (left) and Lynne Bryce, the mother and sister of Julie Reilly plead for Wallace to reveal where the rest of Ms Reilly's remains were outside Glasgow's High Court The murder occurred at Ms Reilly's home in the city's Govan area between February 6 and 15 last year. Wallace revealed he then got rid of the body and tried to hide his involvement in the death over a near seven-week period. Speaking after Wallace was jailed, Ms Reilly's sister, Lynne Bryce said: 'On behalf of my mum, Julie's family and myself we would like to take this opportunity to thank Mark Bell and his whole team for the significant work in solving my sister's case. 'And, all who helped out with the police. 'Without them Andrew Wallace would still be walking our streets to kill again. 'I hope that if he has a heart he could now please tell us where he has put my sister and let her come home to be put to rest properly, with the dignity she deserves.' Judge Lady Rae sentenced Wallace to life imprisonment when he appeared at the High Court in Glasgow on Friday and said he must serve 28 years before he is eligible to apply for parole. Julie Reilly's living room after the grisly murder which happened between February 6 and 15 last year Julie Reilly's living room after luminol was applied, the substance is used by forensics investigators to show blood The grandmother's devastated family revealed all they had to bury of her was just two bones when they made a desperate plea for more information. But accepted the worst when two leg bones were reportedly discovered in the wastelands, prompting a grisly investigation by police to find her dismembered corpse. DCI Mark Bell, who led the investigation praised Ms Reilly's family and appealed to Wallace to tell his team where the rest of her body has been hidden. 'Quite simply I need to make an appeal to Mr Wallace. Despite what's happened today, despite the fact he pled guilty, you need to do the honourable thing Mr Wallace. 'I ask you and plead with you, engage directly with me over the coming days, tell me where Julie is, allow me to put efforts in place to recover Julie and provide and dignity for her and her family.' The charge states at a number of addresses he did 'dismember' Ms Reilly and cut off her legs with a knife. He then put the remains in plastic bags and suitcases before burying them at a property in nearby. Wallace - a known criminal who also has a firearms conviction - was eventually arrested for murder. He pleaded not guilty at a pre-trial hearing but when a fellow inmate an HMP Barlinne told prison officers that Wallace was carrying a blade, the former butcher eventually confessed to the murder. Police discovered body parts near the woman's home prompting the murder investigation Wallace admitted h got rid of the body and tried to hide his involvement in the death over a near seven-week period Officers had swooped on Sandy Smith butcher's in Drumoyne, close to where the first remains were found, hoping to find more of the 47-year-old's body, but nothing else was discovered. Police had hoped to find more remains at Sandy Smith butcher's but were unsuccessful in their investigations. One worker at the butchers told the Scottish Sun: 'Containers, outbuildings, wheelie bins and waste bins were all checked, but unfortunately there was nothing. There was police everywhere. We were well searched. They combed this place.' Forensics teams searched an area near the grandmother's home hoping for more clues Police had hoped to find more remains at Sandy Smith butcher's but were unsuccessful in their investigations Wallace had also been accused of fraudulently claiming 368 of a woman's benefit money which was paid into Julie's bank account. He faced other accusations of stealing 410 from Julie and using her bank card for 56 of goods from Asda and Lidl shops - but his not guilty pleas were accepted. Consumers have been forking out almost three times as much for Australian grown frozen berries compared to berries imported from overseas. A woman from Perth sparked the debate over the price of frozen berries in Australia by posting images of two different products and the price difference. The first picture is of a 1kg bag of frozen berries from Canada, USA and Chile for $10. The second picture is a 350g bag of frozen berries grown in Australia that costs $9. Lana Dzanaovic, from Perth, sparked the debate over the price of frozen berries in Australia by posting images of two different products and the price difference 'We are always told to support local, but this is set up to fail when buying local is so much more expensive,' the woman's post said. 'The system is whacked.' Social media users were quick to slam the industry for the drastic price differences. 'Agreed, doesn't make any sense,' one person said. 'It's so messed up hey,' another said. However, commercially run frozen berry businesses are a fairly recent addition to Australia and there are only a handful across Australia. Company's producing 100 per cent Australian grown frozen berries began in the wake of the health scare from imported frozen berries in 2015. There were 27 cases of hepatitis A in Australia linked with the frozen fruit. Stuart McGruddy, from Queensland-operated My Berries, told Daily Mail Australia it was a small industry that struggles to compete with importers. 'They might be more expensive but they've got value, it supports Australian farmers. It is also more expensive to produce frozen berries in Australia. 'Sometimes there's more to value than just a dollar.' 'We are always told to support local, but this is set up to fail when buying local is so much more expensive,' Ms Dzanaovic's post said. 'The system is whacked' Ruth Gallace, owner of frozen berry company Matilda's, told the Huffington Post, this type of business has always been difficult to become commercially viable in Australia. 'Everything here in Australia is more expensive when it comes to manufacturing,' she said. 'It's taken something like this hepatitis scare for people to really consider that it's $1 or $2 more than the imported alternative, but I've got the information there in front of me that I trust and hopefully that provides motivation for them to then buy Australian.' A bodysnatcher who stole 29 corpses of girls and dressed them in knee-high boots with lipstick for his 'collection' is set to walk free from a Russian psychiatric ward. Anatoly Moskvin, 52, stole and mummified corpses before turning them into 'dolls' in Nizhny Novgorod. Psychiatrists claimed they cured the historian last year and recommended outpatient treatment for Moskvin - but then dramatically reversed their claim. Now they want him to be held indefinitely, but as no new court order has been granted, Moskvin is technically free to leave amid claims the grave robber has made plans to move to Moscow. The order keeping him in the secure hospital expired in December, sparking fury from the parents of his victims. Anatoly Moskvin, from Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, stole the corpses of 29 girls and dressed them in knee-high boots and lipstick to make them look like dolls The bodysnatcher, 52, was being kept at a hospital ward but is set to be released after psychiatrists claimed they had cured him last year Moskvin wedged music boxes inside their rib cages and marked the birthdays of each of his dead victims with 'parties' in his bedroom Before his detention in 2011, the bodysnatcher dressed the dead girls in stockings, girls' clothing and knee-length boots to make them look like dolls, even applying lipstick and make-up to their faces. He wedged music boxes inside their rib cages and marked the birthdays of each of his dead victims with 'parties' in his bedroom. Moskvin previously told detectives 'not to rebury the girls too deeply because I will gather them again when I am free'. He also told bereaved parents, who described him as 'evil': 'You abandoned your girls in the cold - and I brought them home and warmed them up.' The original move to release him came despite vehement objections of the parents of the deceased children, who were aged between three and 12. The parents of his victims are furious with the decision. Moskvin dug up the corpse of Natalia Chardymova's 10-year-old daughter Olga in 2002 and kept her body in his home for nine years Police say he was not motivated by twisted sexual desires, with one officer saying: 'He loathed sex and thought it was disgusting' A judge demanded a new set of psychiatric tests, which found Moskvin's condition had 'deteriorated', but there has been an unexplained delay in approving an order to keep him detained. Natalia Chardymova, 46, is one of the parents who strongly opposes Moskvin's freedom. Her daughter Olga's corpse was one of 29 he dug up and stole from local graveyards after she was murdered at the age of 10 in 2002. Moskvin kept her mummified body for nine years in his flat while her mother was unknowingly laying flowers at an empty grave. She warned: 'He is incurable. If he is released, he cannot be treated properly as an outpatient. 'He will just stop taking pills, and at some stage he will return to his sinister actions as he has promised to do.' She welcomed the demand by psychiatrists to keep him incarcerated. Ms Chardymova said Moskvin was 'incurable' and demanded he remain incarcerated. Pictured: Moskvin visiting the local cemetery The order keeping him in the secure hospital expired in December, and there has been an unexplained delay in obtaining a new one - meaning Moskvin is free to leave Ms Chardymova added: 'I still find it hard to grasp the scale of his sickening "work" but for nine years he was living with my mummified daughter in his bedroom. 'I had her for ten years, he had her for nine.' Moskvin's mother Elvira told police after he was arrested: 'We saw these dolls but we did not suspect there were dead bodies inside. 'We thought it was his hobby to make such big dolls and did not see anything wrong with it.' The historian, who was described in court as a genius, gave various explanations for his macabre behaviour. At one point, he claimed he was waiting for science to find ways to make these girls live again, and at another he said he wanted to be an expert in making mummies. He also claimed he wanted to communicated with the girls, and spoke to them as he kept them in his house. Moskvin told police he carefully selected which corpses to take, saying: 'I lay on the grave and tried to get in touch with her. I listened to what she said. Often they asked me to take them out for a walk.' Police say he was not motivated by twisted sexual desires, with one officer saying: 'He loathed sex and thought it was disgusting.' An investigation has been launched after a father was let go by police despite drink driving before killing his six-month-old son. The Queensland father, 46, was caught driving above the speed limit on Sunday and tested positive in a roadside breath test. But after giving police a 'sob story', he is understood to have been let off with an infringement notice after the officer used a flashlight to look inside the car. An investigation has been launched after a father was let go by police despite drink driving just hours before he allegedly killed his six-month-old son William (pictured) The bodies of William and his 46-year-old father were found inside a red Holden Commodore (pictured) on a remote track on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland The bodies of the father and his baby William were found in a red Holden on Wednesday at Coochin Creek on Queensland's Sunshine Coast after the 46-year-old failed to hand the child over to his mother as part of a custody arrangement. Queensland Police have now announced they will conduct an internal investigation into the circumstances leading up to their deaths. The police force's Ethical Standards Command will run independent to the ongoing investigation into the suspected murder-suicide. It will probe contact between police and family members and examine decision making in the days leading up to the man's death. The investigation will also look at the amber alert system. Police have confirmed no alert was issued, despite the fact the child was missing for more than 36 hours. Police have confirmed no alert was issued, despite the fact the child was missing for more than 36 hours Queensland Police assistant commissioner Sharon Cowden said the investigation would look at the use of the police officer's discretionary powers in the lead-up to the discovery of the bodies. 'An amber alert was not issued in relation to this matter and that decision,' Commissioner Cowden said. 'In fact all of the decisions and the processes and the systems in relation to this matter will be fully investigated,' she said. Queensland Police assistant commissioner Sharon Cowden said the investigation would look at the use of the police officer's discretionary powers in the lead-up to the discovery of the bodies (pictured Beerwah State Forest where the bodies were found) No weapons were found in the car and the cause of the deaths is yet to be established. Police said the bodies had been in the car for 'some time'. Daily Mail Australia understands a witness told investigators he saw a red Holden parked in the same spot on Tuesday. This is the dramatic moment a teenager is forced to cling on to an elephant's tusk while it runs rampage through a local market in Thailand. Nichanat Manucham, 19, was taking a picture with the elephant at a country fair in Surin, north east Thailand, when it started wrapping its trunk around her leg. The elephant, named Phan Thong, then grabbed her body, hoisting her in the air, and began trampling the surrounding food stalls, likely agitated by the heat and loud noises. Danger: Nichanat Manucham, 19, was posing for a photo with the beast when it suddenly picked her up and went on a rampage through the stalls Miss Manucham managed to hold on to the elephant's massive ivory tusks for almost two minutes as it went berserk. Astonishing footage shot by a bystander shows how the bull went on a terrifying rampage with the girl clinging on for dear life. The crazed elephant destroyed a food stand as its trainer, known as a mahout, desperately tried to control him. After almost two minutes, the elephant slowed down and Miss Manucham was able scramble free. Miraculously, she escaped unhurt apart from minor grazes on her arm and was pictured moments after smiling and calling her mother, while being treated. Incredible: The quick-thinking teenager grabbed on to the elephant's tusks and held on for dear life while it went on a two-minute rampage The incident took place at a country fair in Surin, north east Thailand, on Thursday Safe: After around two minutes, the elephant slowed down and Miss Manucham could let go of the tusk and climb down Miss Manucham even apologised for causing a disturbance at the festival. Speaking today she said: 'I love elephants and I was standing close to the procession to take a picture. 'The elephant stopped and it was touching my leg with its trunk. I thought it was so cute. 'Then he put his trunk around my body and lifted me up. It was shaking me around and the nearest thing was the white tusk so I held on to it. 'I could hear the elephant breathing and smashing the tables. I was scared but I just could only think about holding on. Then people came to help me get down.' Miss Manucham, a student, was treated afterwards for minor grazes and taken to hospital for checks. Lucky escape: The 19-year-old said all she could think about during the ordeal was holding on to the elephant's tusk What a gal: Despite not done anything unusual to provoke the elephant's rampage, Miss Manucham apologised for causing a disturbance at the festival All good: The young woman was treated for some minor bruises but could be seen smiling and speaking to her family on the phone about the incident moments afterwards She was shaken but still managed to smile and said it had made her more determined to care for elephants. She said: 'I'm sorry that I caused a problem. I feel sorry for the elephant because it was not his fault. He was stressed and couldn't control himself. I don't think he wanted to hurt me.' The incident happened at the event called 'Let's Wear Silk, Traditional Silver Beads, and Do Thai Dance!'. It was organised by Ronnakorn Paowichan, the sheriff of Khwao Sinrin District. Paowichan said: 'The elephant was likely stressed because of the heat and the loud noises. It could have been hormonal and it suddenly became agitated. 'This has never happened before and all of the elephants are normally very relaxed. We are very relieved that the Nichanat is safe.' A woman has vowed to get her town's old postcode tattooed across her arm because she's so passionate about having it reinstated. Cookernup, located in Western Australia's south-west, lost its original postcode 6219 in 1974 and was grouped together with five other communities under the postcode 6220. Despite the town having the current postcode for more than 40 years, Jac Taylor is so passionate about changing it back she's willing to get it branded on her. Despite the town having the current postcode for more than 40 years, Jac Taylor (pictured) is so passionate about changing it back she's willing to get it branded on her The community is pushing to get the postcode changed because they're concerned over fire safety and higher insurance premiums, according to the Harvey-Waroona Reporter. Ms Taylor also said the community is seeking a sense of identity and wants to break away from the other communities in the 6220 postcode. 'I'd be quite happy to run out and have my postcode tattooed on my arm somewhere if I had the opportunity,' Ms Taylor said. 'It is about a sense of identity, people move to a place and stay because they love it and are proud of it, they identify with it.' The Cookernup woman started a petition in 2016 after there were bushfires in the area and residents believed emergency messages were sent based on postcodes. Residents believe they may have been alerted to the danger late as their postcode includes suburbs that were further from the fires. The Department of Fire and Emergency Services said phone numbers are registered based on their service address. Ms Taylor also said the community is seeking a sense of identity and wants to break away from the other communities in the 6220 postcode Ms Taylor's push to change the postcode in 2016 failed, but she has now kicked off the campaign again after the matter was raised at a council meeting. 'Let us have our postcode, let us stay being Cookernup and not just fade into one of those little towns dotted into nowhere,' Ms Taylor said. The community also has concerns insurance premiums will rise as companies will look at the postcode and associate it with nearby town Harvey, where there's a higher crime rate. A spokeswoman from Australia Post said postcodes were assigned to efficiently process and deliver mail. Addressing a press conference at his residence in New Delhi, Mr Singh said that Indian Army loves the country and can never go against it. New Delhi: Union minister and former Army chief V. K. Singh on Thursday demanded a high-level probe into the alleged planting of false stories in media against him on an attempted coup during the UPA-II government in 2012. I have written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday asking for a thorough investigation at the highest level to expose these people who have committed treason against the country, he said. Addressing a press conference at his residence in New Delhi, Mr Singh said that Indian Army loves the country and can never go against it. His reaction came after a recent media report alleged that a few leaders of the UPA-II dispensation tried to establish a false narrative that the Army in 2011-12, then headed by him, was planning a coup to usurp the then Manmohan Singh government. The minister of state for External Affairs told reporters that he had taken up the issue in 2012 as well when he wrote to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) about coup allegations being raised and asserting that those spreading such rumours should be charged with treason. At that time (in 2012), in clear words I had said that the Indian Army will never do anything unconstitutional. The sentiment was echoed by the then defence minister (A K Antony), Mr Singh said. You cannot accuse the armed forces of a thing like this. I had written to the MHA in 2012 but no action was taken. Now this expose has come out, the minister added. The identity of three British 'gypsies' wanted over alleged roofing scams in Auckland has been revealed by police in attempt to locate their whereabouts. New Zealand Police released the mugshots of James Anthony Nolan, 26, Tommy Ward, 26, and William Donohue, 25, on Friday as the trio remain on the run. Auckland City Police Senior Sergeant Bridget Doell said the men are wanted in relation to alleged cases of elderly people being defrauded of thousands of dollars. James Anthony Nolan (pictured right with a family member), 26, has been identified by police after he failed to appear in court for the second time James Anthony Nolan (pictured) is accused of driving his car at a young woman who filmed him and his extended family when they left piles of rubbish at a Auckland beach last month Police believe British nationals Tommy Ward, 26, and William Donohue, 25, might be able to assist them with information about the alleged roofing scams in the Auckland region Nolan currently has a warrant for his arrest in relation to another incident, where he subsequently failed to appear at the District Court. He is accused of driving his car at a young woman who filmed him and his extended family when they left piles of rubbish at a Auckland beach last month. Krista Curnow, who captured dramatic footage of the picnic incident, alleged a man drove towards her as she tried to film the car's number plate. Nolan went on the run after he was charged with assaulting the woman and on Thursday he failed to appear in court for the second time. Police believe the other two British nationals - Ward and Donohue - might be able to assist them with information about the alleged roofing scams in the Auckland region. Several elderly people have allegedly been defrauded out of thousands of dollars they handed over to scam artists for roof repairs. Nolan (pictured left and right) went on the run after he was charged with assaulting the woman and on Thursday he failed to appear in court for the second time Nolan also faces charges of reckless driving and fraud but has not been seen since he ran away from Auckland District Court when he was given bail on January 25. A lawyer for Nolan, whose wife and children are still believed to be in the country, told the court on Thursday he had no explanation for his client's whereabouts. Barrister Sam Galler said after the hearing: 'I can't discuss the case any further.' Nolan's (pictured) failed court appearance comes shortly after his extended family were accused of wreaking havoc across the country by locals A pair of brothers, who cannot be named for legal reasons, remain on remand in jail charged with similar offences. Nolan's failed court appearance comes shortly after his extended family were accused of wreaking havoc across the country by locals. The tourists were faced with claims that they left a cafe without paying, damaged their apartment and allegedly stole a journalist's phone. Their stint of mayhem across New Zealand led to the group being labelled 'a*******' and 'trash' by the mayor of Auckland, Phil Goff. Krista Curnow, whose video of the picnic scene, featuring an aggressive young boy in a sunhat (pictured) A petition to have the British group (some members pictured) removed from the country amassed more than 2,500 signatures A petition to have the Brits removed from the country amassed more than 2,500 signatures. In a radio interview, Goff said: 'I've asked the council to follow up because I want to see them loaded with an infringement fine for trashing our country. They shouldn't even be here.' Four adults in the group were served with 28-day deportation liability notices by New Zealand's immigration service before they left to return to the UK last month. New Hampshire's highest court has upheld the conviction of three women who were arrested for going topless on a beach. Heidi Lilley, Kia Sinclair and Ginger Pierro - members of a global Free the Nipple campaign advocating for the rights of women to go topless - had filed a lawsuit in 2016 claiming that a Laconia city ordinance banning public nudity violated their constitutional rights. The court determined in a 3-2 ruling Friday that the law does not discriminate based on gender or violate the women's right to free speech. In a dissenting opinion, Associate Justice James P Bassett with Senior Associate Justice Gary E Hicks concluded the ordinance was unconstitutional because it treats men and women differently. The New Hampshire Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the conviction of three women who were arrested for going topless on a beach Laconia in May 2016. Kia Sinclair, Ginger Pierro and Heidi Lilley (above in June 2016) filed a lawsuit after their arrest claiming that a Laconia city ordinance banning public nudity violated their constitutional rights Sinclair (left), Pierro (right) and Lilley are all outspoken supporters of the Free the Nipple campaign, a global movement advocating for the rights of women to go topless Lilley, Sinclair and Pierro were ticketed and arrested in May 2016 after they removed their tops at a beach in Laconia and refused to put them on when beachgoers complained. Pierro was doing yoga, while the two others were sunbathing. The Laconia law on indecent exposure bans sex and nudity in public but singles out women by prohibiting the 'showing of female breast with less than a fully opaque covering of any part of the nipple'. A lower court judge refused to dismiss the case in October 2017, so the women appealed to the state Supreme Court. The women's lawyer, Dan Hynes (above), released a statement criticizing Thursday's ruling after it was handed down. He said they may try to bring the case before the US Supreme Court 'We are extremely disappointed in the Court's ruling that treating women differently than men does not amount to sex discrimination. The court has effectively condoned making it a crime to be female,' the women's lawyer, Dan Hynes, said in a statement. 'Since the New Hampshire Constitution, which prohibits sex discrimination, was not enough to prevent this unequal, and unfair treatment, we are hopeful the New Hampshire legislature steps up to correct this injustice by outlawing Laconia's ordinance.' Hynes said he would have to talk to the women about their next step, including possibly appealing the ruling to the US Supreme Court. Gilles Bissonnette, the legal director at the ACLU of New Hampshire, which filed an amicus brief in the case, said he was disappointed with the ruling. 'Unlike the Federal Constitution and the cases interpreting its equal protection provision cited by the majority, the New Hampshire Constitution provides even broader protections against gender discrimination,' Bissonnette said in a statement. 'What is deeply concerning about this decision is that it undermines these broader, unique constitutional protections and, in so doing, minimizes the importance of the New Hampshire Constitution.' The New Hampshire Supreme Court majority held that the Laconia law does not discriminate based on gender or violate women's right to free speech. In a dissenting opinion, Associate Justice James P Bassett with Senior Associate Justice Gary E Hicks wrote that the ordinance was unconstitutional because it treats men and women differently. The file photo above from 2017 shows two bare-chested women at Hampton Beach in New Hampshire on Go Topless Day The attorney general's office, which defended the ordinance in court, said it would have no comment beyond the brief it submitted. It had argued the city was trying to avoid a public disturbance resulting from bare-breasted women on the beach and that it narrowly tailored the law to requiring only the covering of nipples - not requiring women to wear shirts. It also questioned the First Amendment argument. The ruling is the latest setback for the Free the Nipple movement, which has had mixed success fighting similar ordinances in other parts of the country. A federal judge ruled in October 2017 that a public indecency law in Missouri didn't violate the state constitution by allowing men, but not women, to show their nipples. In 2013, a public nudity ban in San Francisco was also upheld by a federal court. But in February 2017, a federal judge blocked the city of Fort Collins, Colorado, from enforcing a law against women going topless, arguing it was based on gender discrimination. Brain-damaged babies, alcohol troubles and disengagement at school have been named as reasons why Aboriginal young people may be taking their own lives. The findings were part of a report conducted by West Australian Coroner Ros Fogliani on Thursday into a cluster of 13 young deaths in the state's Kimberley region. Coroner Fogliani's report, which was one of the most complex in the state's history, came after five young Indigenous girls took their own lives across Australia in January. Brain-damaged babies, alcohol troubles and disengagement at school have been named as reasons why Aboriginal youths may be taking their own lives (stock image) Coroner Fogliani's report, which was one of the most complex in the state's history, came after five young Indigenous girls took their own lives across Australia in January (pictured Rochelle Pryor, from Perth, took her own life after a cry for help on social media) The schoolgirl died in hospital nine days later on January 10, making her the fifth Aboriginal girl to commit suicide in 14 days Among her list of 42 recommendations included screening all infants for brain damage caused by a mother who drank during pregnancy. Coroner Fogliani said authorities should consider covering the screenings under Medicare and provide better to support to regional GPs. The coroner also took aim at the government's suicide prevention policies, saying they were tailored to the mainstream population and were not culturally sensitive enough. The WA state government said it will respond to the recommendations in the coming weeks, which also included a limit on the purchase of takeaway alcohol in the region. The investigation behind the report looked into deaths of young people in the Kimberley aged between 10 and 23 between 2012 and 2016. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner June Oscar said it was imperative the report spurred authorities into action on the issue. The findings were part of a report conducted by West Australian Coroner Ros Fogliani (pictured) on Thursday into a cluster of 13 young deaths in the state's Kimberley region 'There have been more than 700 recommendations from 40 inquires into Aboriginal youth suicide - and our children are still dying,' she said. Her call for action was echoed by one of Australia's leading child health experts, who hailed the findings as 'an almost unparalleled opportunity for a different approach.' The cluster of young Aboriginal suicides in the first weeks of the year almost spread to Sydney's Coogee Beach on January 19 - when a girl, 17, plunged from a cliff on the same day she was released from hospital following mental health treatment. Her call for action was echoed by one of Australia's leading child health experts, who hailed the findings as 'an almost unparalleled opportunity for a different approach' (stock image) Indigenous children, aged between five and 17, die from suicide at five times the rate of non-indigenous children, according to Australian Bureau of Statistics. Figures also show one in four people who took their own life before turning 18 were Aboriginal. Lifeline - 13 11 14 Kids Helpline - 1800 55 1800 Perth's notorious 'dine-and-dash queen' has pleaded guilty to over eighty charges after she racked up thousands of dollars in unpaid food and hotel bills. Lois Loder, 44, is facing jail after she was accused by several restaurant owners via Facebook of swindling businesses across the Western Australian city. Loder, who also went by aliases including Lois Lynn, Louise Lang, Emma Davis, Mia Hughes, Clare Bell and Ella Bone, pleaded guilty in the Perth Magistrates Court to 82 offences. The offences included fraud, stealing and possessing unlawfully obtained property. Scroll down for video Perth's notorious 'dine-and-dash queen' Lois Loder (pictured) has pleaded guilty to over eighty charges after she racked up thousands of dollars in unpaid food and hotel bills Loder, who also went by aliases including Lois Lynn, Louise Lang, Emma Davis, Mia Hughes, Clare Bell and Ella Bone, pleaded guilty in the Perth Magistrates Court to 82 offences Loder was also warned that she could face years in prison following her sentence hearing early next week, according to Perth Now. 'She is looking squarely at a prison term if she is convicted,' Magistrate Robert Young said at an earlier court hearing. In 2013, Loder was also jailed for more than two years for offences involving stolen credit cards. One of the cards was used to buy items from David Jones, a meal at Rialto Restaurant and perfume from a Priceline store. Loder and her accomplice, 41-year-old Chiminh Phun, were also accused of consuming $250 worth of food and drinks at another Perth restaurant in April and leaving without paying. Mr Phun has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him and is due in court later this year. Loder was remanded in custody last November at the Melaleuca Remand and Reintegration facility for female offenders, The West Australian reported. The 44-year-old was taken into custody following the latest incident in September, where she allegedly fled the Gordon St Garage cafe in West Perth without footing the $22.50 bill for a croissant and mojito cocktail. At the time, she attempted to explain the alleged incident, which she claimed was a miscommunication. 'I have lots to say about this latest scandal - the guy... is talking absolute rubbish,' Ms Loder told Daily Mail Australia in September. Loder (pictured) was accused by several restaurant owners via Facebook of swindling several businesses across the Australian city Loder (pictured) was taken into custody following the latest incident in September, where she allegedly fled the Gordon St Garage cafe in West Perth without footing the $22.50 bill The 44-year-old was remanded in custody last November at the Melaleuca Remand and Reintegration facility for female offenders 'He said I couldn't pay by card, only cash, due to the electricity being disconnected. I said that's fine and that I only had a $20 note on me. 'If I had known I would've got more from the ATM. It was at this point I was thinking I might go, but he told me to sit down'. The cafe's manager Callum Jennings later disputed Loder's claims. 'We had a quick chat when she came in before ordering a croissant from me over the counter and later a mojito,' he said. 'She was only there for a couple of minutes before a colleague of mine noticed she was scurrying away outside a different exit. 'I then waited until I was pretty sure she was making a run for it and followed her outside, pulled her up and said "you'll need to come back and pay for your bill" and she then tried to convince me that she left some money on the table but I didn't believe her'. Cafe manager Callum Loader got this photo of Lois Loder in September after she allegedly walked out without paying for a mojito and croissant Loder (pictured) allegedly also wrote about how she plans to become an author and pen a book about her experience When it came to settling her debt with establishments she allegedly scammed, Loder resorted to threatening to plague public platforms with false negative reviews. They included cafe Terrazza Cafe Applecross, which alleged Ms Loder targeted its business last year, leaving without settling a bill of about $200. The cafe posted on its Facebook page, asking public members who knew the couple to let them know 'they haven't paid for their lunch'. Shortly afterwards, Loder used her alias account 'Lois Lynn' to give a one-star review, writing 'Awful. Really bad. Wouldn't go there unless you like pubic hair in your butter'. Advertisement Married at First Sight star Ning Surasiang has been forced to flee her family home with her young children in tow, amidst Far North Queensland's worst floods in decades. The mother-of-three made the hasty escape along with thousands of others during a monsoon, which has seen the tropical city of Townsville submerged in metre-deep waters for nearly a week. Ning's neighbour Scott Gemmell told Daily Mail Australia how the flood waters engulfed their suburban street before the 33-year-old fled after the deluge took hold of her home. Married at First Sight star Ning Surasiang has been forced to flee her family home with her young children in tow, amidst Far North Queensland's worst floods in decades Married at First Sight star Ning Surasiang's home (circled in blue) was one of many submerged in metre-deep waters for nearly a week The mother-of-three made the hasty escape along with thousands of others during a monsoon, which has seen the tropical city of Townsville submerged in metre-deep waters for nearly a week 'She and the kids actually stayed in the house when it was flooding, and left on Tuesday - the whole thing was pretty chaotic,' he said. 'I've lived in Townsville for more than 30 years and we've never seen anything like this the entire city is shocked.' The region was thrown into chaos due to the once-in-a-century event with more than a year's worth of rain falling on the North Queensland region in just days. Many people remain holed up in evacuation centres waiting for the floodwaters to recede this week. Hundreds of homes have already been deemed uninhabitable and the number is expected to rise. However, some residents were able to return to their homes and have begun hosing down their mud-filled houses. Many homeowners have been forced to throw-out their flood-damaged belongings. Ning's neighbour Scott Gemmell told Daily Mail Australia how the flood waters engulfed their suburban street (pictured) before the 33-year-old fled after the deluge took hold of her home Married at First Sight star Ning Surasiang faced backlash for being rude to her TV 'husband' Mark Scrivens, 41, when the pair first tied the knot (both pictured) Ning and Mark had one of the most awkward kisses in the show's history during their honeymoon in Bangkok The mood has been stoic but Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has warned that while they are a resilient people, the enormity of what they'd been through would soon hit. Townsville was the worst affected by the flooding, with many homes, car parks and shopping centres almost totally submerged. Discarded flood-damanged items from Ming's family home were piled in the street on Friday as volunteers helped wash away the deluge left behind. It is unclear when the reality TV star will return to the home, but the hairdresser's appearance on the hit Married At First Sight has had the town talking. 'Yes, (Ming's appearance on MAFS) was definitely unexpected everyone around town is saying different things about it,' Mr Gemmell said. She faced backlash for being rude to her TV 'husband' Mark Scrivens, 41, when the pair first tied the knot. She also faced criticism for telling Mr Scrivens she wanted to 'block and delete him' during their wedding. The region was thrown into chaos due to the once-in-a-century event with more than a year's worth of rain falling on the North Queensland region in days Many people remain holed up in evacuation centres waiting for the floodwaters to recede. Hundreds of homes have already been deemed uninhabitable and the number is expected to rise Residents use a boat and an inflatable pool to salvage furniture from their flood-affected home in the suburb of Hermit Park in Townsville A Belgian backpacker who was allegedly kidnapped, raped and held against her will in an old pig shed in regional South Australia says she thought she would die during the ordeal. The 26-year-old woman on Friday continued her evidence in the District Court trial of Gene Charles Bristow, 54. The court has heard Bristow answered an advertisement she posted on Gumtree looking for temporary farm work in February 2017. The Belgian backpacker who was allegedly kidnapped, raped and held by Gene Charles Bristow (pictured), 54, says she thought she would die during the ordeal The woman said he offered her a job and picked her up from a bus stop at Murray Bridge, before driving her to his property at Meningie, 150km southeast of Adelaide. She said he took her inside a disused pig shed and asked to check the soles of her feet for needle marks, then placed a gun to her back. He bound her hands and feet and chained her to the ground before leaving her alone in the shed. 'I was feeling terrible and I would think about my family a lot,' she told the court. 'I thought I wouldn't see them again and that I would die.' She described to jurors how she eventually managed to free her hands, and used her laptop to contact friends and family. She said he took her inside a disused pig shed and asked to check the soles of her feet for needle marks, then placed a gun to her back (pictured: the Meningie property, 150km southeast of Adelaide) Fearing retribution from Bristow, she then re-shackled herself and waited for him to return. 'He told me several times that he would shoot me if I would run off,' she said. 'He told me that the snakes were very dangerous there and that they would bite you.' Jurors heard she had asked Bristow to release her, but he said he was working with others and couldn't free her or 'the numbers wouldn't be correct'. He bound her hands and feet and chained her to the ground before leaving her alone in the shed The following morning, she said Bristow told her he could let her go because his colleague had picked up another girl who could be her replacement. Prosecutors say she was released later that day when Bristow checked her into a motel, and she was then discovered by police. Bristow has pleaded not guilty to charges including aggravated kidnapping and rape. The woman's evidence continues. The top 10 suburbs for buying a bargain home have been revealed. The top two on the list were Norlane and Lovely Banks, two northern suburbs in Geelong, Victoria, while the remaining eight all come from Queensland. Hollywell in the Gold Coast was named as the best Queensland suburb for an affordable home with long-term capital gain, according to property researcher RiskWise. The Gold Coast suburb, located 70km south of Brisbane's CBD, is close to shopping centres, good schools and the beach. Experts have warned buyers not to confuse a 'bargain' property with a 'cheap' one. Lovely Banks (pictured), a northern suburb in Geelong, Victoria, secures the second spot on RiskWise's list as a good place to buy an affordable home with a solid capital growth rate Hollywell, located 70 kilometres south of Brisbane's CBD, (pictured) is close to shopping centres, good schools and the beach The coastal suburb also has many older properties which will have plenty of potential after renovation, according to realestate.com.au. It has a median house price of $786,614, according to property data researcher CoreLogic. Mount Ommaney, Sinnamon Park and Gordon Park in Brisbane also make the list, followed by Gaven on the Gold Coast and Doonan in the Sunshine Coast. Mount Ommaney, an outer suburb located 14 kilometres south-west of Brisbane's CBD, has a median house price of $852,729. Sinnamon Park, also located south-west of the Brisbane CBD, has a slightly lower median house price of $747,272. RiskWise's list ends with Gordon Park, Stafford Heights and Twin Waters in Queensland. All the suburbs listed had a median house price of $300,000 to $870,000, with Norlane having the lowest price at $370,931 and Doonan with the highest at $871,189. RiskWise chief executive Doron Peleg warns the public that a 'bargain' house does not necessarily mean buying a 'cheap' one. RiskWise listed down suburbs where capital growth was expected to increase steadily over the years. Hollywell in the Gold Coast was named as the best Queensland suburb, with a median house price of $786,614 'It's more about knowing where to buy for long-term capital gain,' Mr Peleg said. 'Sure, there are a lot of well-priced houses out there, but if they are not expected to grow in value down the track, then they really aren't the best buy. 'These (Queensland) suburbs, which all enjoyed capital growth of 13 per cent of the past 12 months, are expected to continue to do well as they have a number of things going for them. 'For starters, they are relatively affordable and all within 100km of Brisbane which means, provided there is a good public transport and road infrastructure, commuting to work is not too much of an issue'. A high school student who claimed his impressively bushy beard was a great confidence boost has slammed his principal for ordering to shave it off. Brody Hide, 17, had just returned to Te Puke High in the same-named town in New Zealand after coming through the other end of summer holidays with a fully-grown beard, Newshub reported. 'It made me feel better, it gave me a bit more confidence in myself,' he said. Brody Hide, 17 (pictured), had just returned to Te Puke High in the same-named town in New Zealand after coming through the other end of summer holidays with a fully-grown beard Though under the direction of the school and its policy, the Year 13 student was ordered to shave off his facial hair. He said his confidence had taken a hit and that he felt like a 15-year-old kid. Hide's mother Lydia Brown said she watched her son's self-esteem crumble with each stroke of the shaver, NZ Herald reported. 'When I shaved his face for him it was like watching all his self-confidence fall on the floor.' Mr Hide now intends to challenge the school's 'draconian' policy and will lay his case in a meeting with the principal and Board of Trustees. He added that he could not see why hair was an issue, especially if a tidy beard or slight colouring did nothing to impact a student's learning. The teenager said he generally followed rules, but refused to accept ones that were irrelevant to education in the classroom. The school's principal Alan Liddle stood firmly by the decision to order the student to remove the beard. 'When students and their parents/caregivers choose to enrol at our school, they sign an agreement with the school stating that they will abide by the rules and regulations of the school as stated in the prospectus,' he said in a statement. School boards have the power to make and enforce rules about appearance. That overview ranges from school uniform to personal appearance like hair. Mr Liddle said students, parents and caregivers had equal opportunity to pitch the proposals to the board. 'The board [of trustees] sets school policies that are reviewed on a regular basis. Students and parents/caregivers have the opportunity to present proposals to the board on ideas and changes they would like the board to consider,' he said in the statement. On that matter, he said there had been no appeals to challenging facial hair rules made to the Board of Trustees as of yet. They're one of the least trusted professions who may believe are keen to make money off clients in any way they can. But Josh Sammut, who works for Professionals Chambers Fleming in Padstow, south-west of Sydney said on Friday that some real estate agents struggle to make ends meet. The average income for real estate agents is $82,045, which is 50 per cent higher than the median income of $54,539. The average Australian full-time worker earns an average salary of $82,436 a year. Real estate agents who struggle to sell a number of properties each month won't be rolling in cash The average income for real estate agents is $82,045, which is 50 per cent higher than the median income of $54,539 But that high average income is skewed by agents at the top of the ladder who are earning enormous amounts. Most agents earn money through a monthly base wage along with commission from selling properties. If the amount an agent earns on commissions exceeds the base wage, the difference is added to their pay. 'If you're selling one property a month you're basically earning that minimum wage,' Mr Sammut told the Sydney Morning Herald. Agents who fail to sell any properties within a month would have to earn twice their monthly wage in commissions the next month to earn any extra money. Male real estate agents earn a median yearly personal income of $76,804 - 35 per cent higher than female agents. Most female agents work in property management, which pays a stable monthly income, but most male agents work in sales, Mr Sammut told Daily Mail Australia. Agents who work in the sales department can earn more than double the amount of property managers, given they've put in the hard work and have sold a number of homes. Most female agents work in property management, which pays a stable monthly income but most male agents work in sales A recent downturn in the property market saw many agents struggle to make ends meet and in turn, left the industry Mr Sammut said the competitive nature of being a real estate agent was one of the main reasons he chose to pursue the career. But a recent downturn in the property market saw many agents struggle to make ends meet and in turn, they left the industry. 'You're only really capped by how much you're willing to put into it,' he said. Siddaramaiah said, 'All four dissenting lawmakers wrote a letter to me in which they said that they can't come before February 15.' He said the legislators Ramesh Jarakiholi, Mahesh Kumtalli, Nagendra, Umesh Jadhav and Ganesh JN were absent from the CLP meet held in January this year. (Photo: ANI | Twitter) Bengaluru: Karnataka former chief minister and Congress leader Siddaramaiah on Friday called for the suspension of four dissenting legislators of the party under the anti-defection law. "I have issued notice and whips, three times, to them to participate in the budget session and the CLP meeting and the honourable Speaker should take legal action against them," former Chief Minister and senior Congress leader said at a press conference here. He added, "All four dissenting lawmakers wrote a letter to me in which they said that they can't come before February 15. I have already given sufficient opportunity to them. Now, the unanimous decision of the party is to proceed with a legal action against all four of them under the anti-defection law." He said the legislators Ramesh Jarakiholi, Mahesh Kumtalli, Nagendra, Umesh Jadhav and Ganesh JN were absent from the CLP meet held in January this year. Earlier in the day, Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy removed one of the four dissenting Congress MLA Umesh Jadhav from the post of the chairman of the Warehouse Corporation and replaced him with Pratap Gowda Patil. On Wednesday, Siddaramaiah issued another notice to the four dissenting party MLAs seeking an explanation before or after the Assembly Session. Earlier in January, he had served notices to the four legislators who did not turn up at a Congress legislature party meeting in Bengaluru. The four Karnataka Congress MLAs on January 18 abstained from the CLP meeting, which decided to move rest of the 76 legislators to a resort. The meeting was convened by the party to assess whether its flock was intact amid speculation that some of the party MLAs had switched over to the BJP. Two Rhode Island strippers were detained for allegedly stealing a Boston police officers handgun while they were 'hanging out' with him in a Hampton Inn hotel room. Melissa Dacier, 22, and 25-year-old Neish Rivera were arrested on Saturday by Pawtucket police. They also managed to retrieve the officer's weapon, the Providence Journal reports. The Boston cop called authorities from his hotel room at approximately 3am. Both of the women had left him alone before he noticed that his .40-caliber Glock 22 was missing. Melissa Dacier, 22, (left) and 25-year-old Neish Rivera (right) were arrested on Saturday by Pawtucket police The Boston cop called authorities from his Hampton Inn hotel room in Pawtucket at approximately 3am, saying he noticed that his .40-caliber Glock 22 was missing after the women had left him alone The night began when the officer - whose name was redacted from the police report - arranged to meet a girl named 'Natalia' off Instagram. The two were to meet at the Pawtucket's hotel bar. Investigators determined that Rivera was using the alias. The Pawtucket resident was one of the strippers who was charged with prostitution at the Foxy Lady in December. The policeman from Boston said that he and 'Natalia' went to Nara Lounge in Providence, where they met Melissa, before the three went to the Cadillac Lounge strip club, according to Pawtucket patrolman Andrew Torres. Investigators determined that Rivera was using the alias 'Natalia' to communicate with the officer (pictured at her arraignment for a previous conviction) The Pawtucket resident was one of the strippers who was charged with prostitution at the Foxy Lady in December The policeman from Boston said that he and 'Natalia' went to Nara Lounge (pictured) in Providence, where they met Melissa, before the three went to the Cadillac Lounge strip club, according to Pawtucket patrolman Andrew Torres Before going into the strip club, the officer said that he locked his service weapon with a cable lock inside his BMW 328i's glove compartment. Inside, the three 'spent some time' in the club before going back to the hotel, the police report states. A man at the hotel accused the women of stealing something, and the Boston police officer was forced to step in and intervene. The trio went up to the officer's room, and 'hung out' before Melissa claimed that she needed to get a phone charger from his car. The women were arraigned on Monday but ordered to be held without bail at District Court because they both violated previous charges. Dacier had a felony charge of assault with intent to commit felonies The cop gave Melissa his keys and she left, returning briefly before she needed to 'step out to use the phone. 'Natalia' soon left after to look for her friend and the women never returned, the Boston officer explained to authorities. Soon, the officer noticed that the women weren't returning and found that his glove box was open in his car. The cable lock sat in one of the seats. The police report indicated that the officer left his keys for the cable lock in the cup holder. Both of the women were arrested and charged with felony larceny of a firearm and conspiracy. The women were arraigned on Monday but ordered to be held without bail at District Court because they both violated previous charges. Dacier had a felony charge of assault with intent to commit felonies. The Boston police officer, however, has been placed on administrative leave while internal affairs looks into the incident, according to department spokesman Sgt. Detective John Boyle. Boyle would not provide any information about the officer's identity, citing the current investigation. Shocking footage has emerged of the moment a brawl erupted in a McDonald's car park and a father-of-two's head was stomped in. Shannan Rushworth, 32, was rushed to hospital with facial fractures after the fight broke out on Mulgoa Road, Penrith, western Sydney, at about 1.30am on Sunday. Four men, aged between 19 and 22, appeared in Penrith Local Court on Friday after search warrants led to their arrests on Wednesday, Nine News reported. Shannan Rushworth (pictured), 32, was rushed to hospital with facial fractures after the fight broke out on Mulgoa Road, Penrith, western Sydney, at about 1.30am on Sunday Mr Rushworth, who was airlifted to Westmead Hospital after he was punched and kicked in the head, remains in hospital. Inspector Phil Templeman from NSW Ambulance said the scene was confronting. 'He was unconscious and had significant injuries to his head and face, and he also lost quite a lot of blood,' he said. 'He was severely injured and we received reports that it was quite a distressing scene.' A 34-year-old man was also allegedly attacked by the group of men and suffered minor facial injuries. He was also taken to the same hospital but has been released. The charged men allegedly fled the scene before officers arrived. Shocking footage has emerged of the moment a brawl erupted in a McDonald's car park and a father-of-two's head was stomped in Inspector Phil Templeman from NSW Ambulance said the scene (pictured) was confronting Brothers Mitchell and Blake Milgate were granted strict bail conditions on Friday. They are not allowed to contact the alleged victims and must follow a curfew. Their brother Wendell and co-accused Byron Donovan have been remanded in custody. The four men are facing charges of affray and a number of assault charges, including assault occasioning actual bodily harm and causing grievous bodily harm in the company of others. The brothers who were bailed will appear in court on February 21 and the other two are expected to appear again in April. A 34-year-old man was also allegedly attacked by the group of men and suffered minor facial injuries Chief Justice John Roberts joined the Supreme Court's liberal justices in a 5-4 ruling that stopped Louisiana from enforcing new regulations on abortion clinics. The divided court's Thursday ruling put a hold on a law that would require abortion providers to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals. Women's groups have said the law would have left Louisiana with only a single doctor legally permitted to perform abortions. The case marked the first significant action on abortion by SCOTUS since President Donald Trump's nominee Brett Kavanaugh replaced Anthony Kennedy, who had generally acted as a swing vote and had a record of voting with liberals to uphold abortion rights. Kavanaugh filed the dissent after voting with fellow Trump nominee Neil Gorsuch and the two other conservative justices, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. Chief Justice Roberts sided with the court's liberal wing - made up of Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan - in a move that highlighted his new role as the court's swing vote. Chief Justice John Roberts joined the Supreme Court's four liberal justices in a 5-4 decision to block a Louisiana law that would have left the state with only one doctor legally permitted to perform abortions by requiring providers to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals. Roberts is pictured above on Wednesday in Nashville, Tennessee The Supreme Court is set to issue a final ruling on the merits of the case later this year. Thursday's majority ruling was not presented with an opinion, though it could signal that justices have doubts about the law's constitutionality. The law was passed by the Louisiana state legislature in 2014, requiring any doctor offering abortion services to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles. Two Louisiana doctors and a clinic filed a legal challenge which argued that it was virtually indistinguishable to a Texas law the Supreme Court struck down three years ago. In that case, the court ruled that the admitting-privileges requirement 'provides few, if any, health benefits for women, poses a substantial obstacle to women seeking abortions, and constitutes an "undue burden" on their constitutional right to do so'. However, the composition of the court has changed since then, with Kavanaugh replacing Justice Kennedy, who voted to strike down the Texas law. Trump had pledged during the campaign to appoint pro-life justices, and abortion opponents are hoping the more conservative bench will be more open to upholding abortion restrictions. In Kavanaugh's dissent, written only for himself, the newest justice asserted that the court's action was premature because Louisiana had made clear it would allow abortion providers an additional 45 days to obtain admitting privileges before it started enforcing the law. If the doctors succeed, they can continue performing abortions, he said. If they fail, they could return to court, Kavanaugh said. The case marked the first significant abortion action by SCOTUS since President Donald Trump's nominee Brett Kavanaugh replaced Anthony Kennedy, who had generally acted as a swing vote and had a record of voting with liberals to uphold abortion rights Louisiana abortion providers and a district judge who initially heard the case said one or maybe two of the state's three abortion clinics would have to close under the new law. There would be at most two doctors who could meet its requirements, they said. But the federal appeals court in New Orleans rejected those claims, doubting that any clinics would have to close and saying the doctors had not tried hard enough to establish relationships with local hospitals. In January, the full appeals court voted 9-6 not to get involved in the case, setting up the Supreme Court appeal. The law had been scheduled to take effect Monday, but Justice Samuel Alito delayed the effective date at least through Thursday to give the justices more time. He and Justice Clarence Thomas were the other dissenters Thursday. The justices could decide this spring whether to add the case to their calendar for the term that begins in October. The case is June Medical Services v. Gee. John Dingell, a gruff Michigan Democrat who entered the U.S. House of Representatives in 1955 to finish his late father's term and became the longest-serving member of Congress, died on Thursday aged 92. Dingell served 59 years in the House before retiring in 2015 because he no longer could 'live up to my own personal standard' for serving in Congress. On Wednesday, Dingell's wife, Debbie Dingell, who was elected to succeed him in 2014, said on Twitter that she skipped the State of the Union address in Washington to be with him after his health declined. The politician was in hospice care after being diagnosed with prostate cancer, which he had decided not to treat, reported The Detroit News. John Dingell, a gruff Michigan Democrat who entered the U.S. House of Representatives in 1955 to finish his late father's term and became a legislative heavyweight and longest-serving member of Congress, died on Thursday aged 92 Dingell tweeted from his Twitter account on Wednesday: 'The Lovely Deborah is insisting I rest and stay off here, but after long negotiations we've worked out a deal where she'll keep up with Twitter for me as I dictate the messages. 'I want to thank you all for your incredibly kind words and prayers. You're not done with me just yet.' The office of Rep. Debbie Dingell 65, released a statement which read: 'He was a lion of the United States Congress and a loving son, father, husband, grandfather, and friend. 'He will be remembered for his decades of public service to the people of Southeast Michigan, his razor sharp wit, and a lifetime of dedication to improving the lives of all who walk this earth.' Following the announcement of his death, colleagues and friends posted tributes to the legislative heavyweight. President Barack Obama awards Dingell the Presidential Medal Of Honor in 2014 The former President Barack Obama wrote: 'John Dingell's life reminds us that change does not always come with a flash, but instead with steady, determined effort. Over the course of the longest congressional career in history, John led the charge on so much of the progress we take for granted today. 'Michelle and I send our deepest sympathies to Debbie, the entire Dingell family, and all the Michiganders and Americans whose lives are better because of his lifetime of service.' House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said: 'Every chapter of Chairman John Dingell's life has been lived in service to our country, from his time as a House Page, to his service in the Army during World War II, to his almost six decades serving the people of Michigan in the U.S. Congress. Dingell (pictured in 1979) recently released a memoir called: 'The Dean, the Best Seat in the House.' 'John Dingell leaves a towering legacy of unshakable strength, boundless energy and transformative leadership ... His memory will stand as an inspiration to all who worked with him or had the pleasure of knowing him.' Meanwhile, former President George W. Bush wrote: 'I was fortunate to speak to John Dingell this afternoon. I thanked him for his service to our country and for being an example to those who have followed him into the public arena. He was a fine gentleman who showed great respect for our country and her people.' Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Michigan, said: John Dingell - the Dean of the House and my dear friend - was not merely a witness to history. He was a maker of it. Following the announcement of his death, colleagues and friends posted tributes to the legislative heavyweight 'His original family name, translated into Polish, meant blacksmith. Nothing could be more fitting for a man who hammered out our nation's laws, forging a stronger union that could weather the challenges of the future.' Elsewhere, former vice president Joe Biden praised Dingell's 'great moral courage and vision'. Last September Dingell suffered a heart attack and spent a week at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. His wife Debbie, 65, said at the time: 'He's alert and in good spirits, cracking jokes like always.' After he was released, Debbie tweeted a photo of him sitting in a wheelchair wearing a University of Michigan sweatsuit and flashing a thumbs up. The Michigan Democrat joked that the nurses and doctors had 'heard all of John's stories and decided it was time'. Dingell served 59 years in the House before retiring in 2015 because, as he said to a Michigan business group at the time, he no longer could 'live up to my own personal standard' for serving in Congress. He is pictured in 2010 Dingell recently released a memoir called: 'The Dean, the Best Seat in the House.' He has also become active on Twitter in his retirement, regularly tweeting about politics and the University of Michigan football team he loves. Over the weekend, the former representative retweeted a post from Trump offering some advice to the president after he sounded off about the controversy surrounding Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, who was accused of posing for a racist photo published in his medical school yearbook. Trump had tweeted Saturday: 'Ed Gillespie, who ran for Governor of the Great State of Virginia against Ralph Northam, must now be thinking Malpractice and Dereliction of Duty with regard to his Opposition Research Staff. If they find that terrible picture before the election, he wins by 20 points!' Dingell responded: 'Buddy, I think you might want to sit this one out.' The mother-of-two was caught in London after being spotted by Erhan Yildran This is the moment a well-respected history teacher who turned county lines drug dealer is arrested after finally being tracked down by police. Angela Davey, 38, had been on the run from police for three months after admitting dealing cocaine. Officers detained her in Camden, North London, with the moment being captured on camera by a man who recognised her from the news. During the footage the ex teacher admits she knows she is wanted. Erhan Yildiran, 31, told The Sun Online: 'I was reading an article and noticed a picture of a woman wanted in connection with county lines drug dealing. 'I read that she was possibly in London but didn't think that much of it at the time. 'Later that day I was in Camden Market and my attention was drawn to a female. 'As she crossed the road I got a closer look and identified her as being Angela Davey. 'She was making an effort to hide her appearance; she was wearing a woolly hat and a really thick scarf. Angela Davey, 38, had been on the run for three months when she was finally caught by police 'She was keeping her head down which was odd and when I went in for a closer look, I realised it was her and dialled 999.' In October the mother-of-two admitted dealing at Norwich Crown Court, but later fled. Angela Davey, 38 a former teacher went on the run from police after she admitted being involved in county lines drug deals She has a degree in history and attended 14,562-a-year Norwich High School for Girls after winning a scholarship. However, after the death of her mother the ex teacher for special needs children turned to drugs and her life spiralled out of control. Erhan, who manages local security firm LabTech, added: 'She went to leave the area but the market security team and myself brought her into the security office. 'A few minutes later the police attended and she confirmed she was the wanted lady in question. 'Police arrested her and they were a bit surprised and were grateful that I spotted her.' Angela appeared at Norwich Magistrates' Court last week in connection with breaching a court order and also for failing to appear at Norwich Crown Court. She was remanded in custody until February 8. The dramatic moment two men squared off in a road rage brawl on Friday has been captured on camera. Footage shows the two men throwing punches at each other on a dual-carriage roadway on the corner of Camden Valley Way and Willowdale Drive in Leppington, Sydneys south-west. The brawl brought peak-hour traffic to a standstill just after 9am, 9News reported. The intersection of Camden Valley Way and Willowdale Drive in Leppington (pictured) where the two men squared off in a road rage incident on Friday morning In the video, the pair trade blows before one of the men, dressed in an orange high-vis singlet and driving a truck, wrestled the other to the ground. A number of passersby eventually intervened, breaking up the pair. What sparked the fight is unknown. Police were called to the scene, but by the time officers arrived, both men had left the area. Officers are asking for anyone who may have dash cam footage to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000. The fight then moved to a nearby median strip (pictured) - after a few minutes a number of passersby stopped the argument, with both men quickly leaving the scene A human resources worker used fake text software to relentlessly troll her boss for six weeks until the woman quit. Emma Norman, 28, used SMS spoofing software to send her boss at South Western Sydney Primary Health Network seven texts a day that appeared to be from other colleagues. The bullying messages led the boss to quit in April 2017 and got a colleague she impersonated wrongfully sacked for misconduct, leaving her with depression. Emma Norman (pictured), 28, used SMS spoofing software to send her boss at South Western Sydney Primary Health Network seven texts a day that appeared to be from other colleagues Norman is accused of sending 300 texts to her boss in three months, leading her to fear for her own safety and the safety of her children. Pictured: A mock-up of one of her alleged texts Norman pleaded guilty to stalking and intimidating last month at Parramatta Local Court and will be sentenced in March. But since then she has been arrested again over a separate case involving a more recent job at a workers' compensation consultancy, reported the Daily Telegraph. What is SMS spoofing? SMS spoofing software, available online, allows users to send a text and choose a number that the text appears to be from when it arrives Advertisement Norman has been charged with using a carriage service to menace/harass/offend and using a carriage service to threaten serious harm. She is accused of sending 300 texts to her boss in three months, leading her to fear for her own safety and the safety of her children. One text allegedly said: 'Maybe I should come to your house and stab your kid. Which kid do you like the least?' She also allegedly sent a text to a client that appeared to come from her boss, saying: 'Since the moment I met you, all I can think about is putting your d**k in my mouth want to hook up sometime? This will benefit you (and your company).' Norman, who was sacked from her most recent job in December, allegedly sent a text to clients saying: 'Please be advised you may need testing if you have been treated at (a physio used by the company) in the past 12 months as a physio has tested HIV positive.' After she was sacked, she allegedly sent a text to her boss saying: 'My New Year's resolution is to make your life hell and destroy your company.' It is alleged she continued to troll the company by sending a text in January to clients saying: 'It is with sadness that I advise you (our company) will shut its doors on 1 February. 'Moving forward you can contact Recover (a rival firm) on 1300 550 276 for your workplace rehab needs.' She also allegedly impersonated a colleague and texted the boss threatening to cyber bully and 'fat shame' her 13-year-old daughter. Norman, who lives with her mother, is currently on bail and banned from contacting her old boss and four other complainants. The number of young adults living at home with their parents has risen by more than 40 per cent in two decades, a study reveals. More than a quarter of those aged between 20 and 34 are still in their family home meaning the ranks of the 'boomerang generation' have swelled by almost a million. Today's report by the think-tank Civitas found the share of young adults living at home rose from 19 per cent to nearly 26 per cent between 1998 and 2017. It revealed the UK is now home to around 3.4million 'boomerang' children so-called because they bounce back to the family nest after university up from around 2.4million in 1998. The number of students returning home to live with their parents after university has soared by a million in two decades (file photo) Many parents fearing 'empty nest' syndrome after sending their children off to complete a degree have seen them return without work or wages high enough to afford rent elsewhere. Parents in London were the most likely to be affected, with the number of those still at home up 41 per cent. Elsewhere, where house prices are lower, young adults are more likely to go their own way. In the North-East, the numbers living with their parents rose by a more modest 17 per cent. In Yorkshire and the Humber it was just 14 per cent. Parents in London were the most likely to be affected by children coming back home after studying (file photo) The report, based on ONS figures, found the proportion of Britons living alone has plateaued at about 30 per cent, compared with more than 40 per cent in Germany and Denmark. Civitas spokesman Daniel Bentley said: 'As owner-occupation and social housing has become more difficult to enter, hundreds of thousands of young adults have taken one look at the high rents in the private rented sector and decided to stay with their parents a bit longer instead.' The royal name blame game rumbles on: did Prince Harry 'ask' the Queen's permission to name his daughter Lilibet or 'tell' her? The baby has been named after the private family nickname for the Queen, the baby's great-grandmother. Harry and Meghan say that they 'shared' their hopes of using the name with the Queen in advance. But senior Palace sources told the BBC that the Queen was 'never asked' her opinion on the couple's decision to name their new baby after her childhood nickname. This prompted furious Harry to send a legal warning to the media, followed by a statement that raised more questions than answers. It insisted that the BBC report was wholly wrong and read: 'The Duke spoke with his family in advance of the announcement, in fact his grandmother was the first family member he called. During that conversation, he shared their hope of naming their daughter Lilibet in her honour. Had she not been supportive, they would not have used the name.' But Mail on Sunday journalist Kate Mansey (left) says on Palace Confidential that the whole row has made Her Majesty decide that the Palace will challenge 'mistruths' made about the family. 'It's particularly significant that tempers are at such a level in the palace that impeccable sources - insiders - are telling me that 'enough's enough',' she says. 'I think this is very much a shot across the bows for the Sussexes' spin machine they are not going to stand for 'mistruths' - as I was told - being represented in the global media'. The ex-Moldovan prime minister's son who spent hundreds of thousands on a Chelsea apartment and splashed out 200,000 on a Bentley may have to curb his spending after courts ordered him to hand over 500,000 of suspected dirty money. Luca Filat, a 22-year-old business student at City University, was seen in pictures posted on Facebook spraying bottles of champagne on St Tropez and drinking Dom Perignon through straws at plush beach parties. But a ruling at City of London magistrates' court have ordered half a million found in three different bank accounts to be handed over to authorities. Luca Filat (right wearing a cap), the son of former Moldovan prime minister Vlad Filat, has enjoyed an extravagant lifestyle The National Crime Agency froze the accounts last year following an investigation into his father, Vlad Filat, who was jailed for nine years in 2016 for embezzling 650 million from three Moldovan banks. It is now being examined as to whether the money put into his son's bank accounts may have been laundered by his father. Judge Michael Snow said: 'I am satisfied on the balance of probabilities that the cash was derived from his father's criminal conduct in Moldova.' Upon arriving in the UK in July 2016, Filat forked out 390,000 up front for a luxury Chelsea penthouse for a year and spent 200,000 on a Bentley Bentayga from a Mayfair dealership, according to NCA financial investigators. He was able to spend the vast swathes of money - despite having 'no registered income in the UK'. Upon arriving in the UK in July 2016, Filat forked out 390,000 up front for a luxury Chelsea penthouse. Pictured: Cadogan Square A Bentley Bentayga parked near to Vlad Luca Filat's Penthouse An NCA spokesman told The Times: 'HSBC records showed that Luca's accounts and living expenses were funded by large deposits from overseas companies, mainly based in Turkey and the Cayman Islands. Multiple cash deposits were also identified across the UK branch network, with 98,100 paid in over one three-day period.' Luca Filat, a 22-year-old business student at City University, drinking Dom Perignon through a straw with a female friend Ava Lee, a senior anti-corruption campaigner at charity Global Witness, said the NCA should be focusing their attention on the bank, university, estate agenct and other beneficiaries of Filat's money as to what checks they made. Rob MacArthur, from the NCA's International Corruption Unit, said: 'Luca Filat was unable to demonstrate a legitimate source for the money and the court determined it to be recoverable.' The case is just the latest in a string of high-profile clamp-downs on the dirty money entering the UK under new ports introduced by the Criminal Finances Act 2017 which gives the NCA the ability to freeze and seize bank accounts. The legislation has spawned the unexplained wealth orders (UWOs), which gives the agency powers to seize physical assets believed to have been brought with illegal money. After the disposal of the petition, the EC should pass an order in two weeks to grant a common symbol. New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday asked the Election Commission to pass an appropriate order permitting T.T.V. Dinakaran-led Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK) to use a common symbol (preferably Pressure Cooker) for the ensuing Lok Sabha and Assembly byelections in Tamil Nadu. A Bench of Justices A.M. Kanwilkar and Ajay Rastogi passed this order while disposing of appeals filed by Tamil Nadu chief minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami led AIADMK against an interim order of the Delhi high court asking EC to consider granting a common symbol to Mr Dina-karan. Pointing out that the main petition filed by Mr. Dinakaran challenging the ECs order allotting symbol to the Edappadi group, the Bench asked the Delhi high court to dispose of the petition in four weeks. After the disposal of the petition, the EC should pass an order in two weeks to grant a common symbol. The Bench said it may not be just and fair to ask the splinter group to give up its claim of a real political party until the dispute is finally settled by the court of competent jurisdiction. In the event, before the expiry of the six-week period, the EC intends to issue any Press Note or Notification for announcing the by-elections in respect of the vacant Assembly Constituencies in the State of Tamil Nadu or Parliamentary Elections for 2019, as the case may be, it shall pass appropriate directions in compliance with the interim order of the High Court dated 9th March, 2018, within one week from the date of release of such Press Note or Notification and in any case, before the date notified for filing of the nominations, whichever is earlier. The Bench upheld the High Courts interim order and said We have no hesitation in agreeing with the High Court that for doing justice and protecting the interests of all concerned and to uphold the democratic principles, including for ensuring free and fair elections, it would be just and proper to continue the interim arrangement as was directed by the EC regarding allotment of a common symbol to the political group represented by Mr. Dinakaran. The Bench said in the present case, the decision of the Election Commission is sub judice before the High Court and the claim of the group or faction of being the original registered recognized State political party represented by Mr. Dinakaran would be subject to the outcome thereof. Until such time, there is no just reason as to why the interim arrangement such as ordered by the Election Commission in terms of the interim order dated 22nd March, 2017 (allotting pressure cooker), as applicable to the group represented by Mr. Dinakaran ought not to continue. The Bench said it may not be just and fair to ask the splinter group to give up its claim of a real political party until the dispute is finally settled by the court of competent jurisdiction, which would be the consequence of seeking registration. The elected representatives, who are members of the group, may have to face the risk of incurring disqualification because of giving certain declarations whilst applying for registration of a new political party. Resultantly, an interim arrangement which would be just and fair and not cause any prejudice, whatsoever, to the other group which has been presently recognized by the ECI as the real political party, namely, AIADMK, is imperative, the Bench added. A Kiwi man, 58, has admitted importing a child sex doll after customs officers discover a 'life like' model resembling a young child in a consignment from China. Stephen Heppleston, 58, from Timaru, pleaded guilty to importing a prohibited item and possessing an objectionable publication involving the sexual exploitation of children. He is the first person in New Zealand to be charged with importing a child sex doll. The life-like sex doll resembling a young child was found in May 2018 when New Zealand customs officers examined a consignment from China. Stephen Heppleston (pictured) pleaded guilty to a range of charges at the Timaru District Court on Friday. The Timaru man is the first person in New Zealand to be charged with importing a child sex doll The life-like child sex doll was discovered by New Zealand customs officers in a consignment from China The dolls are considered obscene or indecent articles under the Customs and Excise Act, making them prohibited from importation. Customs manager investigations Bruce Berry told stuff.co.nz it is monitoring international trends around child sex dolls and working on fine-tuning how it targets the practice. Mr Berry said while customs had made a small number of similar seizures this was the first prosecution for this type of prohibited material. He also issued a warning to other potential child sex doll importers. 'Just because child sex dolls are available from overseas, it doesn't make them legal in New Zealand,' Berry said. Heppleston has been remanded on bail until May 2 for sentencing when his risk to children will be assessed and his eligibility for the child sex offender register decided. Matthew Aimers, 31, was arrested at his wedding in November in Philadelphia A groom has been charged for sexually assaulting a teen waitress at his own wedding. Matthew Aimers, 31, was taken away in handcuffs from his wedding reception in November at the Northampton Valley Country Club in Philadelphia. Police say he hit on an underage waitress at his wedding and 'asked her to go outside and make out.' The teen told police Aimers told they could 'do whatever you want', offering her $100 and telling her to 'kiss him like she means it.' When she denied, he reportedly followed her into the bathroom and pulled her into a stall where he groped her and exposed himself. The waitress told officers that the experience had left her shaken. Police were later called to the country club after a fight broke out. During the reception, he allegedly hit on a teenage waitress, following her into a bathroom, groping her and exposing himself When police arrived, they said they found the newlywed 'pushing and punching people,' according to an affidavit. An employee told officers Aimers had punched him after he tried to stop the groom from bringing alcohol outside. The officers said Aimers ignored their demands and tried to board a shuttle bus near the club. The groom continued arguing with officers, calling them derogatory names and trying to entice the cops into a fight. He was finally taken into custody after a cop boarded the bus with a taser drawn and brought Aimers off the bus in a struggle. Aimers, pictured with his wife Kayla, maintains his innocence and was arraigned Wednesday on multiple charges including indecent assault and indecent exposure Aimers made his court appearance Wednesday, where he was arraigned on charges of indecent assault, indecent exposure, imprisonment of a minor, harassment and related offenses. He was also charged with simple assault, disorderly conduct, and resisting arrest for the brawl. Aimers was released Wednesday after posting 10 per cent of $350,000 bail, court records show. His attorney, Louis Busico, said Thursday that Aimers 'absolutely denies all charges,' according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. 'He maintains his innocence, and he looks forward to clearing his name when this is all concluded,' Busico said. He faces a preliminary hearing in the sex assault on Feb. 21. It's not clear the status of his marriage. A secondary school had to send hundreds of pupils home yesterday after dozens of teachers walked out in a protest over violence and abuse. Around 40 members of staff went on strike over what they claimed was managements failure to tackle discipline. The teachers, who are all members of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers, say they have faced physical and verbal attacks at Heworth Grange School in Gateshead. Around 40 members of staff went on strike at Heworth Grange School, Gateshead over what they claimed was managements failure to tackle discipline [File photo] A protest outside the school yesterday was joined by a number of sixth formers. Classes for years seven, eight, nine and ten pupils aged 11 to 15 were closed. Year 11 and the sixth form stayed open. Chris Keates, general secretary of NASUWT, said: Teachers are entitled to a safe working environment' [File photo] John Hall of NASUWT, said teachers wanted tougher sanctions, adding: If there is physical abuse, then they should look at permanent exclusion or alternative provision. The union said more strike days were planned for March but it hoped the issues would be resolved. Chris Keates, general secretary of NASUWT, said: Teachers are entitled to a safe working environment. Head Chris Richardson said new systems have been put in place to tackle discipline, adding that he was saddened and disappointed by the strike. The school was rated inadequate by Ofsted in 2017 and last year became an academy. Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told a top aide he would use 'a bullet' on Jamal Khashoggi one year before the Saudi journalist was killed in October. According to a report by The New York Times, American intelligence agencies intercepted a 2017 conversation between the crown prince and his aide which revealed bin Salman's frustration over Khashoggi's criticism of the Saudi government and his refusal to return to the kingdom from the US. CIA officials ruled in November that Khashoggi's killing was likely ordered by bin Salman himself, however this report is the most direct evidence that ties the crown prince to the assassination. The report comes one day before a congressional deadline for the White House to submit a report on whether the crown prince did in fact order Khashoggi's killing and if it intends to impose sanctions on the de facto ruler. A new report finds Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told a top aide he would use 'a bullet' on Khashoggi during a 2017 conversation The United States has imposed sanctions on 17 Saudi officials for their role in the journalist's death, but U.S. President Donald Trump has said he stands by the crown prince. American intelligence agencies intercepted the conversation where bin Salman expressed frustration over Khashoggi's criticism of the kingdom US intelligence analysts have interpreted the 'bullet' comment metaphorically, meaning the crown prince did not necessarily mean to have Khashoggi shot, but they do think it showed his intent to have the journalist killed if he did not return to the kingdom, the Times said. The kingdom has denied Mohammed had prior knowledge of the killing at a Saudi consulate in Turkey and said in January it would seek the death penalty for five people allegedly involved. His remains have not been found and it is feared his body could have been dissolved in acid after being cut into pieces by a Saudi hit squad. On Thursday, a UN human rights official determined the Washington Post columnist was murdered inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in a 'brutal and premeditated killing' carried out by Saudi officials A Saudi public prosecutor's spokesman said late last year that 21 Saudis had been taken into custody over the case, 11 of whom had been indicted and referred to trial. The prosecutor has said authorities were seeking the death penalty for five of the 11 indicted suspects. CCTV footage emerged in December allegedly showing Jamal Khashoggi's body parts being carried into Saudi Arabia's consul residence in bags and suitcases on the day he was murdered. The former Saudi insider turned critic was strangled before he was cut up into pieces by a team of 15 Saudis sent to Istanbul for the killing, according to Turkish officials, with media reports suggesting the parts were dissolved in acid. The consulate and the residence were searched by the Turkish authorities in October along with several other locations but Khashoggi's body has still not been found. Saudi Arabia has also repeatedly rejected Turkish demands to extradite suspects connected to the murder of the journalist, a critic of the crown prince. The journalist had decided to leave his native Saudi Arabia for the US in September 2017, but was lured to the embassy in Istanbul on in October 2018 to collect papers for his upcoming marriage. Listening devices planted inside the building by Turkish intelligence captured the 'kill squad' planning the murder in the days before and carrying it out on October 2. Cut-price ambulance staff with only a few weeks training are being sent on thousands of 999 calls, a investigation reveals. Seven out of the ten ambulance services say they routinely dispatch crews of two care assistants to incidents without a qualified paramedic. Figures obtained from four organisations show they went out to 47,000 incidents last year including heart attacks, strokes and cardiac arrests. The total figure is likely to be much higher as three organisations did not provide statistics. The ambulance service is desperately overstretched and just yesterday, a son revealed how he had travelled for four hours to reach his injured mother and still beat paramedics. Mark Clements, 48, caught a bus, two Tube services and two trains to race 180 miles from London to Exmouth in Devon on Saturday. An ambulance turned up an hour later meaning 77-year-old Margaret, who had broken her hip, endured an agonising wait of seven hours. Seven out of the ten ambulance services say they routinely dispatch crews of two care assistants to incidents without a qualified paramedic (file photo) Care assistants also known as emergency care assistants (ECAs) are normally paired up with paramedics to support them while they provide care. But increasingly they are being sent out in pairs or on their own as ambulance services struggle to respond to a rise in calls. NHS bosses said it was more important for critically-ill patients to be treated as quickly as possible, and not necessarily by a paramedic. Some ambulance trusts insisted that when ECAs were dispatched to life-threatening incidents, paramedics would always be sent on later once they had finished with other patients. Two trusts the West Midlands and Yorkshire said they never sent ECAs out on their own. London Ambulance Service said it does not use ECAs, and instead uses Trainee Emergency Ambulance Crew who are joined by a clinically qualified member of staff at all times during their year-long operational training. The Mail used Freedom of Information laws to ask the ten ambulance trusts how often ECAs had been sent to 999 calls, without paramedics. Four trusts were able to provide figures which showed they were dispatched to 46,836 incidents in 2017/18, up from 30,670 calls in 2016/17. Of the call-outs they attended last year, 13,736 were classed category 2 including heart attacks and strokes. Another 2,328 were the most serious category 1 calls, which are usually cardiac arrests where a patients heart has stopped. Three other trusts said ECAs were sent on their own but could not provide figures. ECAs earn up to 19,000 a year compared to paramedics who are on up to 30,000 a year rising to 36,000 if they learn additional skills. They are quicker to train and do a course lasting between four and 12 weeks, consisting of medical skills and driving an ambulance. Paramedics, on the other hand, complete a three-year degree. Some ambulance trusts insisted that when ECAs were dispatched to life-threatening incidents, paramedics would always be sent on later (file photo) Dr John Lister, of London Health Emergency, which campaigns against NHS cuts, said ECAs were a cheap way of staffing the ambulance service. If I needed treatment I would like to be cared for by a paramedic rather than someone who has done an eight-week course, he said. Martin Flaherty, of the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives, said ECAs were a vital part of the ambulance workforce. He said they would never be sent to the most seriously ill patients as sole responders. They will only be sent when they are likely to get there faster than a paramedic to start the life-saving process until a paramedic is able to get to the scene. Meanwhile, it emerged that the ambulance trust that left Margaret Clements waiting for seven hours following her fall knew it was failing elderly patients. Internal documents identified a trend in the number of long lies following falls at least ten months before she was left stricken at home. The long waits are believed to be the result of a decision by bosses at South Western Ambulance Service Foundation Trust to focus on the most life-threatening and serious cases. Official figures show the Trust is the second worst in the country at responding to category 4 calls, which include falls such as those suffered by Mrs Clements. It left patients waiting an average of one hour, four minutes. Yesterday Mr Clements said his mother was doing much better as she continued to recover in hospital in Exeter. She had been able to sit up and had also tried walking, he added. Breakfast is undoubtedly the best meal of the day. The combination of crisp, succulent bacon, fluffy scrambled eggs, juicy fried mushrooms and a sausage or slice of black pudding followed by toast, butter and bitter orange marmalade is Britain's greatest contribution to world cuisine. What fancypants vegetarian offering could possibly compete? So I approached the Wagamama Noodle Lab in London's Soho with trepidation. The neighbourhood is achingly trendy the glitterati's Groucho Club on one side of the street, a sex shop with an alarming display of leatherware on the other. The foodscape is similarly exotic, with no sign of a greasy spoon cafe. My mission was to try the chain's new 10.25 vegan version of the 'full English' breakfast. Here's a full English vegan breakfast. The dish is being launched by Asian restaurant chain, Wagamama in the UK - 'to meet growing consumer demand Veganism is vegetarianism for true believers: not only no meat, but no animal products of any kind. No eggs. No dairy. And, I assumed, no taste and no fun either. I know that eating less meat would help my health, the planet and my pocket but I need some convincing to change life-long habits. Yet there are clear signs that public opinion is turning. A third of us are trying to cut down on meat. One in 12 of us is vegetarian. Veganism is still a minority taste, at around one per cent of the population, but it's growing fast. Only this week celebrities such as Paul McCartney and Chris Packham backed a campaign offering a donation of $1m (770,000) to a charity of the Pope's choice if the pontiff forswears animal products for Lent. For producers of vegan products, profit is also a motive. Today, the world's best food chemists are working full blast on developing meat substitutes. They are backed by billions from sharp-eyed investors, who see that the meat industry is running into a wall of environmental and social objection, particularly among the young. Coconut milk granola, one of the new vegan breakfast dishes that carnivore Edward Lucas tried Alternatives whether based on fungus (like Quorn), fermented soya (tofu), or concoctions such as seitan (wheat gluten), have the bonus of being cheaper and, say their proponents, tastier. They can be mass-produced in factories, transported for less, stored for longer and cooked more easily. If they catch on, the days of industrial meat companies might be numbered. Trendy outlets such as Honest Burgers are providing plant patties made with pea protein. Chains such as Greggs to me the epitome of English grub sell vegan offerings. So, too, does the American-Italian brand Frankie & Benny's. But their vegan breakfast is basic potatoes, baked beans, tomatoes and toast. Wagamama's new daybreak menu, however, is much more ambitious. It includes vegan bacon and sausage, both made with seitan. He admitted that he approached the Wagamama Noodle Lab in London's Soho with trepidation The atmosphere in the Noodle Lab, I have to admit, was enticing. Half a dozen white-clad chefs bustled behind the stainless steel counter. Sliding across it came the first part of the menu a bowl of granola topped with berries and vegan yoghurt. I am no fan of granola: I have an urge to boil it and make proper porridge, with lashings of cream and sea salt. But any worries about this were outweighed by a pleasant surprise: the vegan 'yoghurt'. Apparently made of coconut milk, it had exactly the right smooth, creamy consistency and mildly acidic taste. On the gastronomic front, the vegan offering was a clear winner. Anyone worried by the miserable lives of dairy cows, and the environmental problems caused by their flatulence, would choose it unhesitatingly. My only reservation would be the cost. Bought at a supermarket, it is nearly five times the cost of bog-standard yoghurt. But it was still ten out of ten for taste. Next up was avocado toast no surprises there with a vegan version of scrambled eggs, made with tofu and turmeric. Surendra Yejju, Head of food at Wagamama pictured with Ed Lucas after he tried the vegan breakfast At a quick glance, it was the right kind of yellow. The texture was right. But the taste was unremarkable although the difference would be barely discernible if eaten in a hurry. It wasn't better than the slightly overcooked product of some hapless hen in a barn, but not worse either. Five out of ten. Much more impressive was the Indian roti wrap. This was a kind of fried pancake, rolled around spinach, mushrooms and tofu, with a hefty chilli kick. It wasn't something I would normally choose for breakfast, but none the worse for that. The only disadvantage is the tofu. As the chilli heat faded away, my teeth met the tofu, prompting a blast of disappointing nothingness. Six out of ten. But the centrepiece of the new menu is the vegan bacon and sausage. The sausage was the clear winner here the right shape and colour, and with a texture like black pudding. The taste was intriguing not quite meat, but unlike any vegetarian product I have encountered. Apart from a mild tangy aftertaste, it was hardly memorable, but nothing to complain about. The Indian roti wrap was a kind of fried pancake, rolled around spinach, mushrooms and tofu, with a hefty chilli kick The pseudo-bacon was another story. The flavour was overwhelming maple syrup with a whiff of smoke. The texture recalled a pancake made with wholemeal flour: chewy but not meat. Labelled as a 'vegetable fritter slice' it would have been a pleasant surprise. But as a substitute for bacon, it was disappointing. The trimmings mushrooms, sweet potatoes, tomatoes and a second helping of the tofu-based scrambled eggs were unobjectionable. Six out of ten. So, was this a vegan victory? Well, it would be unfair to compare this chain-restaurant offering with the gourmet breakfasts I get at home. We are lucky enough to have a friend who keeps pigs and makes his own bacon. We get fresh free-range eggs from our neighbours and I make our own sourdough bread. But that is not what we get when we eat out, and confront the miserly ingenuity of the modern meat industry. For some meat producers, sausages in particular are an opportunity to sell starch minced together with the most unmentionable animal by-products. Edward said: 'Despite my many years of mocking the joyless lentil-munchers, I wouldn't think twice about joining their ranks' Not that I always care. Greasy spoon cafes in all their glory still offer fry-ups for under a fiver to early-risers in towns up and down the country. I cherish the friendliness of these outfits, and their hits-the-spot calorie-laden menus washed down with well-stewed tea. But the vegan brigade now has these long-standing institutions in its sights. Even more pretentious eateries are ripe for a challenge. I recently forked out a whopping 22 for a Full English at the Paddington Hilton. The cheapest ingredients the tomatoes and fried potatoes were fine. But the rest was not. The scrambled eggs were rubbery. The bacon was like salty cardboard and the sausage was a grey, greasy tube that was over-seasoned to make up for the lack of any discernible porcine connection. So given the choice, would I eat that again, or head to Wagamama for a much healthier and (I have to admit) tastier option? Despite my many years of mocking the joyless lentil-munchers, I wouldn't think twice about joining their ranks. I still have no desire to become a vegan, or even a vegetarian. I have no qualms about eating meat especially if it has been humanely reared, or hunted in the wild. But if I owned an industrial pig farm, I would sell it quickly. The writing is on the wall. It is vegans who will soon be bringing home the bacon. Jeremy Corbyns intervention on Brexit yesterday could easily be dismissed as a tawdry PR stunt. In a letter to the Prime Minister, he set out five negotiating demands he said Theresa May must meet before Labour will support her deal. Spin doctors even invited in a photographer to capture the moment he signed, and the resulting pictures showed him sitting at his Westminster desk with a copy of the 585-page withdrawal agreement on show. (Has he read it? Id be very surprised.) In his letter, Mr Corbyn claims his intention was to secure a sensible agreement that can win the support of Parliament and bring the country together. The message was clear: Mr Corbyn is a serious politician, even a statesman, and is acting in the national interest. Believe that if you like but remember, this is the man who recently refused to meet Mrs May to even discuss Brexit. Jeremy Corbyns intervention on Brexit yesterday could easily be dismissed as a tawdry PR stunt. In a letter to the Prime Minister, he set out five negotiating demands he said Theresa May must meet before Labour will support her deal His posturing is fundamentally dishonest. Rather than reaching out across party divides, he is acting in his own narrow interests. He was happy to largely sit out the 2016 referendum campaign after his advisers concluded he had little to gain from taking a position. Nevertheless, after months of sitting on the fence, his move is hugely significant. On one level, Mr Corbyn is driving a wedge into the Tory Party. His demand for a customs union and close alignment with the single market is exactly what a significant number of soft Brexit Tories want. One, Nick Boles an advocate of a Norway-style half-in, half-out deal welcomed the overture as a big step to a cross-party compromise. Several senior ministers, including in all likelihood Work and Pension Secretary Amber Rudd and Business Secretary Greg Clark, share his view. But for very good reasons, Mrs May will desperately try and resist swallowing Mr Corbyns poisoned apple. She still argues forcefully that a permanent customs union will make trade deals with non-EU countries all but impossible to strike after we leave. Could Liam Fox conceivably continue in his current role as International Trade Secretary? It seems unlikely. In addition, tying Britain close to the single market after Brexit would mean swallowing vast reams of EU law, without any influence over them. That would infuriate sovereignty specialists such as Michael Gove. Downing Street officials also fear that in all likelihood, Brussels would demand continued free movement of labour as its price. This would break Mrs Mays reddest of red lines. 'Mrs May will desperately try and resist swallowing Mr Corbyns poisoned apple'. Prime Minister Theresa May leaves after attending a church service near her Maidenhead constituency And any outcome resembling Norways comes with vast annual contributions to the EU budget. Indeed put simply, how would such a deal come close to upholding the promise of the referendum of taking back control of Britains money, borders and laws? But Mrs Mays resistance to such a change of course is not just principled, it is also deeply pragmatic. Accepting Mr Corbyns proposal would mean the PM tearing up the Tory manifesto. Eurosceptic MPs would mutiny, and ministers resign. Jacob Rees-Mogg has predicted that if these events unfold, the Conservative Party split would be as devastating as that following the passage of the Corn Laws in the mid-19th century, which left the Tories out of power for more than a quarter of a century. Needless to say, this is Mr Corbyns dream scenario. Brexit goes through with the Tory Party in ruins and he sweeps to victory in a general election. But his act of repositioning was significant for another reason: it damaged Mrs Mays attempts to secure concessions from the EU. It was timed to perfection, as the PM arrived in Brussels in search of something she can offer Eurosceptic Tories. EU leaders can point to Mr Corbyns letter and argue that if she would change course, Mrs May could get Brexit through the Commons. Yesterday, not content with having insulted Brexiteers by declaring they deserve a special place in hell, EU Council chief Donald Tusk was quick to seize on Mr Corbyns intervention. Twisting the knife, he said it could be a way out of the current impasse. For all these reasons, Mr Corbyns cynical manoeuvre could yet prove effective. However, it also comes with risks. By stating his position, he has enraged second referendum supporters on his own side and increased the prospect of a Labour split. Party members are overwhelmingly pro-Remain particularly the youthful, idealistic Momentum-types who flocked to the Corbyn banner in 2017, but millions of Labour voters backed Leave. Membership is down 10 per cent in a year. Are these disenchanted Remainers? A 2009 video unearthed this week showed Mr Corbyn warning of the threat of a European Empire and claimed the EU was creating a military Frankenstein. Many Labour Remainers will see yesterdays letter as a grave betrayal. Significantly, his proposal also removes from Labours list of conditions that any Brexit deal must deliver the exact same benefits of staying in the EU. It makes the prospect of Mr Corbyn acting as a handmaiden to Brexit, as many Remainer MPs on his own side fear, all the more likely. The Blairite second referendum faction reacted with visceral hostility. MP Owen Smith threatened to leave the party, and warned that a lot of other MPs are thinking the same. Chuka Umunna said Mr Corbyns position was totally demoralising. Will they back him in a leadership challenge, or at a general election? The Labour leader, while trying to undermine Mrs May, may find he has done worse, and more long-lasting damage to himself. Treasures of the 'King of Chelsea' up for sale He spearheaded Swinging Sixties London counterculture, became a style guru for a youthful Mick Jagger and his memorial service last year was attended by the Duchess of Cornwall. Now I can disclose society antiques dealer Christopher Gibbs, dubbed the King of Chelsea, is to bequeath an astonishing legacy. A treasury of his belongings are to be sold at Christies among them 29 letters by French Impressionist Henri Matisse. Mick Jagger with Christopher Gibbs at a private exhibition in London in September 2003 Gibbs in his 'set' or apartment at Albany House in Picadilly - magnificent pieces he kept in his apartment are to be auctioned at Christie's Albany House in Picadilly the apartments of which apartments are referred to as 'sets' - one of which was owned by Gibbs They are about Matisses work in Tangier, with little drawings, explains Peter Hinwood, Gibbss partner in both life and business. Gibbs, who died aged 80 in Morocco, kept the letters at one of Londons most exclusive addresses Albany, the discreet 18th-century mansion where former hellraisers Bill Nighy and Terence Stamp are among those who have sets, as apartments in the building in Piccadilly are known. Gibbss own set was just above Nighys. Christopher kept the letters in a safe, adds Hinwood, although it wasnt a safe really: more something to keep the cash in. In a separate sale, Christies is auctioning some of Gibbss more substantial pieces, including a pair of George III white-painted bergere chairs from Woburn Abbey the Duke of Bedfords family seat and a George III mahogany desk owned by the 5th Lord Harlech, British ambassador in Washington when John F. Kennedy was president. There was a photograph of my father which Christopher kept in the desk, remembers Harlechs daughter, Jane Ormsby-Gore. Christopher loved things which had wonderful stories. Christopher Gibbs (left) and a Christie's employee (right) carries in a George II mahogany chair as part of his collection A third sale of some of his quirkier items the skull of a Roman soldier, a slaves shackle and his grandfathers shoes when he was a baby will take place at south London auctioneers Roseberys. But his Thirties basin from Albany has already gone: a gift to designer Manolo Blahnik. It was enamel, with lovely enamel taps, says Hinwood. A beautiful thing. Gibbs memorably observed that taste was not something that could be learnt but was, instead, something you catch like measles or religion. Bold Poppy braves a cold front Poppy Delevingne, 32, braves the cold Society model Poppy Delevingne turned heads at a fashion show in New York this week when she arrived in a revealing black jumpsuit with a superhero-style cape. The 32-year-old daughter of property developer Charles, whose younger sister, Cara, is Britains highest-paid model, braved the chill in a 3,200 Tom Ford silk outfit cut at the sides and lower back. The 5ft 10in blonde complemented it with a 3,150 sparkly purse by the same designer and a pair of sheer black heels. If I am very unsure of a dress code, I like to keep it very, very simple, she says. Nothing too out-there thats going to get me into trouble. Oops. Ever since he appeared on Strictly Come Dancing, Radio 2 broadcaster Jeremy Vine has been enjoying a higher profile. I was locking my bike up outside the BBC when a middle-aged woman in luminous clothes approached me, he says. Excuse me, Jeremy do you have a second? I said yes, thinking no. Have you ever experienced a paradigm shift? Really. That was what she wanted to know. Not, Can I have a selfie? Or, Would you sign this? A question about a paradigm shift! Im not even sure I know what they are, and I said I would need time to think. Presumably he is still thinking. Why bathtime with Sadie could be sticky business Sadie Frost, who has four children from her failed marriages to film star Jude Law and pop star Gary Kemp, says she eschewed gender stereotypes when it came to passing on beauty tips to her brood. I treated my sons and daughter exactly the same way when it came to skincare advice, says the 53-year-old mother of Garys son Fin Kemp, 28, and Judes children Rafferty, 22, Iris, 18, and Rudy, 16. I taught them about the importance of sleep and to incorporate meditation and mindfulness into their daily routine. I also stressed the importance of how to cleanse and exfoliate properly with natural brands. We made it fun by making our own face masks with oats and honey, or body scrubs with brown sugar or salt and honey. But who had to clean out the bath? Fox stands up for oppressed white men Lewis star Laurence Fox has declared himself a meninist and hes got a shirt to prove it. Laurence Fox wore a 'meninist' shirt, the old Harrovian says it's the male version of a feminist Its the male version of a feminist, he tells me. Im a meninist, which means whatever feminists do for women I do for men. Old Harrovian Fox, who has two sons with ex-wife Billie Piper, was at a private screening of Rain Stops Play directed by Mika Simmons. He added: I think its very uncomfortable being a man in todays climate and its about time we got a hearing especially for white men. Fight the power, Laurence... Dont breathe a word to Oscar-winner Colin Firth. Asked who is her greatest love, his eco-fashion campaigner wife Livia Giuggioli replies: How can you have just one greatest love? I have so many great loves in my life, and Im grateful for all of them. My family in its entirety, for example. Only last year Firths wife, who is the mother of two of his three sons, admitted shed had an affair with her childhood friend Marco Brancaccia, whom she accused of stalking her. Macca hunt for tape of Beatles jam with Elvis Sir Paul McCartney wants to know if anyone has a recording of The Beatles jamming with Elvis Presley singing a Cilla Black ballad. The appeal came after a fan asked Sir Paul if there is a recording out there somewhere of a jam session that you had with Elvis and you covered Cilla Blacks Youre My World? The Beatles met Elvis at his house in California when the Fab Four were on their 1965 U.S. summer tour. It did not start well, according to Tony Barrow, the Mop Tops press officer. Having walked past Bentleys and Harley-Davidsons into Presleys home, John Lennon asked what had happened to the old, rock n roll Elvis. Presley laughed off the comment, but the conversation remained stilted until he ordered guitars to be brought into the room. They all started jamming and that is when the party took off, Barrow said. Sir Paul admits there is a chance there is a recording of their historic jam. Id be interested to hear it if anyone has it? he said. Stone me! Actress Tasmin's 425 'rose quartz facial' There are facials and then there are Hollywood facials. St Trinians star Tamsin Egerton, 30, the fiancee of U.S. actor Josh Hartnett, visited LA beautician Angela Caglia whose clients include Sting and Minnie Driver for a rose quartz crystal facial this week. Tamsin Egerton opted for a quartz facial, with the treatment costing 425, it includes a massage and skin peel The 425 treatment starts with a face massage, light therapy, a skin peel and oxygen infusion before the mask of 1,000 stones is placed on top. The soothing and nurturing power of rose quartz infuses the body, mind and spirit with love, compassion and relaxation, its website claims. Thousands of drivers were trapped for hours in hundreds of NCP car parks when a technical glitch stopped automatic exit barriers from opening. There were chaotic scenes at many of the 500 sites run by National Car Parks, one of Britain's biggest parking operators, when its prepaid Parkpasses suddenly stopped working and attendants refused to let drivers out. The car parks came to a standstill as lengthy queues formed behind the barriers, with furious motorists complaining of being 'held hostage' and trapped in 'parking hell'. One civil servant stuck in a car park in Croydon, south London, during the evening rush hour said he managed to get out only after he phoned the Metropolitan Police to complain of 'false imprisonment' and officers instructed attendants to open the barriers. There were chaotic scenes at many National Car Parks when its prepaid Parkpasses suddenly stopped working and attendants refused to let drivers out (file photo) He said an 'irate' member of staff at the Whitgift shopping centre said he had been instructed by bosses not to let anyone out until they had taken everybody's details. One woman told The Times she had been trapped for an hour and a half in a car park in Manchester. She said: 'It was absolutely outrageous. We were just left standing there with no one coming to help and nobody willing to even pick up the phone to tell us what was going on.' NCP said the technical issue was caused by a problem with a 'third party provider' but refused to give any more details. Many drivers vented their frustration on social media, describing the situation as a 'shambles' and 'disgraceful'. Emma Short wrote on Twitter: 'Queues and queues of cars stationary. People are getting angry. What's happening?' Robbie McNish wrote: 'Birmingham Angus barriers not opening. Hundreds of people stuck and no answer from customer service. Please sort ASAP.' Another complained: 'Currently locked in NCP in Sheffield Campo Lane parking hell! Myself and about 20 cars and the numbers are growing. Can't get out! Help! The car parks came to a standstill as lengthy queues formed behind the barriers, with furious motorists complaining of being 'held hostage' (file photo) 'No wonder NCP don't have a Twitter account that would probably break tonight as well.' But some saw the funny side, with Chris Fletcher tweeting: 'Stuck trying to get out of an NCP car park in Leeds. This could be my life from now on. Looking around trying to decide which stranded driver is going to get eaten first.' A spokesman for NCP said: 'We are aware of a technical fault that has affected some of our car parks and our team is working hard to resolve this as soon as possible. 'We have sent staff to all sites affected to assist customers with their exit and we apologise for any inconvenience this has caused.' NCP operates more than 500 sites around the UK. It has been owned by Park24, a listed Japanese company, since August 2017. Founded in 1931 in London, by the 1990s it was one of the most successful private businesses in Britain. In 1993, NCP's then chief executive, Gordon Layton, faced trial for industrial espionage after he was accused of planting spies in a rival car parking group, Europarks. He was acquitted. A woman suffered massive blood loss after she was scalped in a horrific workplace accident. The 48-year-old was working at the Manildra Group mill at Bolong, in south east NSW on Thursday morning, when her hair got caught in the drive shaft of a machine. The Illawara Mercury reported that the woman's scalp was effectively ripped from her skull. The 48-year-old was working at the Manildra Group mill at Bolong, in south east NSW (pictured) on Thursday morning when the grisly accident happened Four ambulance crews attended the scene before the woman was airlifted to a St George Hospital in Sydney in a serious but stable condition. NSW Ambulance Illawara district inspector Terry Morrow said the worker had lost a lot of blood as a result. A Manildra Group spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia the company was not open to commenting on the incident. SafeWork NSW is investigating the matter. The Congress President challenged him to a debate on issues like national security, Rafale and the economy. New Delhi: Accusing the RSS of trying to capture all the institutions of the Country, Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Thursday said that his partys governments in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhatisgarh will remove the organisations loyalists from the system if voted to power. Launching a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi for calling him a coward, the Congress President challenged him to a debate on issues like national security, Rafale and the economy. I know his (Modi) character after fighting him for five years. He is a coward. When someone stands up to him, he runs away, Mr Gandhi said at a convention of the partys minority cell here. Mr Gandhi claimed that there was fear written large on the PMs face. He now knows you cant rule India by dividing people. The image of Narendra Modi is finished, the Congress President declared. Claiming that RSS was attempting to capture institutions from the judiciary to the Election Commission, Mr Gandhi said: We will ensure that RSS people put in institutions are removed. He also alleged that while China sent its army to Doklam, the prime minister flew to China and held a summit without an agenda. He had folded his hands in front of China. A mother who raped her children to please her perverted husband has been sentenced to nine years in jail. The 51-year-old woman from Queensland raped her son when he was 15 and her daughter when she was a teenager. Horrific abuse over more than a decade was mostly perpetrated by the children's father, who is now dead. The 51-year-old woman raped her son when he was 15 and her daughter when she was a teenager (stock image; not actual) The woman, who had 'Stokholm Sydndrome', joined in when he asked because she wanted to avoid a divorce. On Thursday, the mother pleaded guilty at Maryborough District Court to seven counts of rape and was sentenced to nine years in jail with a chance for parole in four years. The daughter, who was abused from the age of 10 and is now in her 20s, wept in court. The court heard how she would beg her mother to stop and push her face away, reported the Fraser Coast Chronicle. Sometimes her mother would watch as her father raped her, before offering tissues to clean herself up. The teenager was also forced to watch pornography and blackmailed into performing sex acts, the court heard. She cried as she asked why this had to happen to her and said she was scarred for life. Horrific abuse over more than a decade was mostly perpetrated by the children's father, who is now dead (stock image; not actual) The boy was regularly raped by his mother in the weeks before his father died. Before the final rape in 2016, the man told him 'this is the last time that you'll have to do this.' The children have other siblings who also said they were abused. But charges were only laid in relation to two children. A psychiatrist cleared the mother of mental illness and said her relationship with her husband was comparable to Stokholm Sydndrome, where a victim falls in love with their kidnapper. Judge David Reid said the case was 'chilling' and the worst he had ever seen. He said the mother showed no sympathy or remorse for what she had done to her children. 'Quite frankly, it's disgusting,' he said. Students are being ripped off by the countrys worst universities, a damning report warns today. Those whose graduates end up earning the least are also the worst offenders for doling out unconditional offers and handing huge pay rises to their vice-chancellors. The report, by the think-tank Onward, accused these institutions of giving higher education a bad name by pressuring students to accept places on courses that often leave them worse off than vocational alternatives. Universities handing out the most unconditional offers also have lower than average graduate earnings, the study found. Students are being ripped off by the countrys worst universities, a damning report warns today [File photo] The worst offender, the University of Bolton, gives unconditional offers to three quarters of applicants. This means they are guaranteed a place regardless of their performance at A-level. Five years after leaving, the universitys women graduates have average earnings of just 16,578 a year. Men fare only slightly better with an average 20,098. Meanwhile, its vice-chancellor professor George Holmes earns 256,284 a figure that has risen by nearly 37 per cent in five years. The report ranked universities according to their students average earnings five years after graduation The report ranked universities according to their students average earnings five years after graduation. It showed the bottom 10 per cent which delivered the worst salary results gave vice-chancellors an average pay rise of 24 per cent between 2012 and 2017, compared with just 7 per cent at the top 10 per cent of institutions. Universities handing out the most unconditional offers also have lower than average graduate earnings, the study found. Onwards director, former Downing Street adviser Will Tanner, called on ministers to stand up for students and taxpayers and crack down on abuse. He said: It is staggering to learn that some vice-chancellors are pocketing big pay rises while the degrees they offer fail to give graduates the chance of a decent wage. It is even more worrying that some seem to be using unconditional offers to fill low-value degrees ... and are pressuring school leavers into going to university instead of technical courses with a higher return. Those whose graduates end up earning the least are also the worst offenders for doling out unconditional offers and handing huge pay rises to their vice-chancellors [File photo] He added: British universities rightly have a worldwide reputation for excellence but some institutions are ripping off students and giving the higher education sector a bad name. At the University of Wolverhampton, women graduates earn 19,950 on average while the vice-chancellor takes home 271,000. Bangor Universitys women graduates can hope to earn 19,106 against their university chiefs 248,000. Tory MP Neil OBrien claimed around a quarter of students would be better off in technical education rather than dead-end university courses. We are not doing young people any favours if we cram them onto courses that will see them leaving with massive debts but low earnings, he said. Policy should be to send people to university if they will benefit, not just to keep driving up numbers for the sake of it. A candlelit vigil has been held to remember four young children killed in a fatal house blaze. Riley Holt, eight, Keegan Unitt, six, Tilly Rose Unitt, four, and Olly Unitt, three, died in the blaze on Sycamore Lane in the Highfields areas of Stafford in the early hours of Tuesday morning. Their mother Natalie Unitt, 24, and her partner Chris Moulton, 28, escaped with the youngsters' two-year-old brother, who has not been named, after jumping from an upstairs window and remain in hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. A vigil was held this evening where candles with candles being lit by members of the public and flowers laid close to the scene of the blaze. Debbie Howe, landlady at The Oxleathers pub in Stafford, originally had the idea for the vigil as something small for the family, a few of the pub regulars, and members of the church. Mourners gather to remember the four young children killed in a fatal house blaze Families turned out to pay respects to the children who died in the fire. Their younger brother survived with their parents She said: 'We just thought it would be a few people from the church going, with a few regulars from the pub. But then people from town got in touch, and people out of town, and it turned into something quite big. 'I'm just emotional and shocked really. I just thought if I could do something to help, then I would.' It comes as an online fundraising page set up for the family smashed its 25,000 target in less than 48 hours. Almost 27,000 has now been raised by well-wishers on the Just Giving page. An investigation is continuing into the cause of the blaze, which started in the early hours of Tuesday. The fundraising page was started on Tuesday morning by another parent at the youngsters' primary school, and residents set up a Facebook page which has also received hundreds of offers of support and donations of clothing, bedding and furniture. Meanwhile, McDonald's, Domino's Pizza and Lidl all donated food to the emergency service workers who remained at the scene investigating the blaze yesterday. Chief Inspector Gemma Ward, Commander of Stafford Neighbourhood Policing Team, thanked the public for their patience and their continuing support as the investigation continues. She said: 'There has been a huge outpouring of support following the tragic loss of these four precious lives. 'People have expressed their shock and grief, but taken the time to ask about the welfare of the family and those dealing with the incident, which is much appreciated. (left to right) Keegan Unitt, 6, Tilly Unitt, 4, Olly Unitt, 3, and their older brother Riley Holt, 8 (far right), (pictured with a younger sibling, second right) 'We're aware of the community's wishes to come together tonight and will be present in the area to provide support and ensure that the ongoing investigation scene remains protected.' Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service's Deputy Chief Fire Officer, Rob Barber said: 'Our work investigating the cause of the fire continues and we will make that public as soon as we are able. 'The firefighters who responded to the incident did their best under extremely difficult circumstances and their colleagues who have been at the scene subsequently have also found things challenging. 'Firefighters at the scene have appreciated the support shown to them by local people and are grateful for it. 'We know that members of the community have been deeply affected by this shocking incident and wish to pay their respects, as well. 'However, the service does not wish to intrude on this but will continue to visit homes in the surrounding area to offer support and advice on fire safety.' Six-month-old baby William (pictured) was killed by his father in a suspected murder-suicide in remote Queensland The family of a baby killed in a horrifying murder suicide had flagged the father's worrying behaviour to police multiple times, it has been revealed. Council workers found the bodies of baby William and his 46-year-old father in a car on an isolated track in the Beerwah State Forest, on the Sunshine Coast on Wednesday morning. Now, William's maternal family have accused police of letting the infant and his mother down following countless pleas for help to authorities. Relative Katie Buckingham told The Australian details of the family's efforts to protect the pair from William's allegedly abusive father. 'Every time something was done, police were contacted,' she said. 'Even if he didn't hit the baby or anything like that, everything that happened to the mother should have been enough....It was getting worse. It shouldn't have happened.' Ms Buckingham earlier started a GoFundMe to raise funds and support William's devastated mother, adding the baby's death was the 'saddest day for everyone involved'. 'She says she needs to go back to work to pay the mortgage and for her babies (sic) funeral,' Ms Buckingham wrote on the fundraising page. Relative Katie Buckingham said the death of baby William (pictured) was the 'saddest day for everyone involved' and that his mother was 'devastated' 'Please help her and her kids to be able to pay for everything they need to so that they can grieve.' Police had a second chance to save baby William just hours before his death after they pulled the father over for speeding on Monday night. The man was breath tested and returned a positive blood alcohol reading but was let off with an infringement notice after telling police a 'sob story'. The details of the story the man gave to police are not known. It's also unknown whether the father was pulled over after his baby son was reported missing. Police sources told Nine News the officer looked inside the car with his torch but didn't see the child and is said to be devastated over what happened afterwards. Queensland Police wouldn't comment on the claims. 'This matter is subject to a coronial investigation which will consider all aspects of the incident including the police response,' a spokeswoman told Daily Mail Australia. William's shattered family said he should never have died and claim his mother was 'let down' by the justice system. 'This mother needs all the help we can give her so she can grieve for the loss of her child,' Ms Buckingham said. Relative Katie Buckingham (pictured) spoke of details of the family's efforts to protect the pair from William's allegedly abusive father 'This should never have happened! The courts have let her down and not kept the baby's father away from her son! 'Now this beautiful and innocent baby boy has been taken from her by the man who did nothing but make her life hell.' Police said the bodies had been in the car for 'some time'. Daily Mail Australia understands a witness told investigators he saw a red Holden parked in the same spot on Tuesday. Detective Inspector Dave Drinnen said council employees made the grisly discovery while they were working in the remote forrest. The bodies of baby William and his father, 46, were found in a red Commodore on Wednesday 'It's extremely distressing, it's a very tragic incident. The mother was distraught, as you can imagine,' he said. Det Insp Drinnen said the baby was reported missing on Monday and that the mother and father had recently separated. The baby's father was due to hand the child over to his mother as part of a custody arrangement, but never arrived at the allocated time. 'The father and the child failed to turn up as a result of some custody arrangements,' Det Insp Drinnen said. Council workers made the grisly discovery on an isolated track in the Beerwah State Forest 'The mother was concerned... so [police did] welfare checks initially, before this was reported as a missing person investigation. 'This was treated as a high-risk missing person investigation ... to try and locate the missing person and child.' Det Insp Drinnen also confirmed that no amber alert was issued, despite the fact the child was missing for more than 36 hours. Police are now investigating why the alert - which urgently broadcasts a photo of a missing child to media outlets - was never issued. Police are now investigating why the alert - which urgently broadcasts a photo of a missing child to media outlets - was never issued. The bodies were found inside a car on Roys Road (pictured) on Wednesday morning 'There is always an internal review on those issues, but more importantly, the coroner will look at that in detail,' Assistant commissioner Bob Gee said.. 'I can't say any more than that because it's still a live investigation but I have great faith in the coroner and their recommendations.' Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk described William's death as 'an absolute tragedy.' No weapons were found in the car and the cause of the deaths is yet to be established. Lifeline - 13 11 14 Officials at Los Angeles' City Hall are considering ripping all of the building's carpets up, as rats and fleas are said to be running riot in its halls. A motion was filed by Council President Herb Wesson on Wednesday to enact the much needed makeover amid a typhus outbreak in the downtown area. Wesson said a city employee had contracted the deadly bacterial disease at work, and now he's urging officials to investigate the 'scope' of the long-running pest problem at the council building. 'Employees shouldnt have to come to work worried about rodents,' Wesson said to the LA Times. 'I intend to do whatever it is we need.' Councillor Monica Rodriguez captured one of many pest sightings at the City Hall building, this week. A rodent can be seen currying away from workers as they try to trap it The 91-year-old building has been subjected to an increase of rodent and pest sightings over the last few months. A number of workers have even contracted typhus in the building WHAT IS TYPHUS? Typhus is a bacterial disease that causes fever, headache, rash, muscle ache, and fever and chills. In severe cases, patients can require hospitalisation due to hepatitis or internal bleeding. It is caused by the bacteria Rickettsia typhi and possibly Rickettsia felis, which are carried by fleas, lice, mites or ticks. The pests live on animals, particularly feral and stray cats, rats and opossums, but do not make their host animals unwell. Flea-borne typhus is endemic in parts of LA and Orange County. The disease also often occurs in Texas and Hawaii. Around 200 cases occur every year throughout the US, particularly in coastal regions. Bacteria spread when faeces from an infected insect contaminate a person's cut or graze while the insect is sucking their blood. If the person scratches the bite area, the bacteria from the faeces can enter their bloodstream. Bacteria can also be rubbed into a person's eyes, or, in rare cases, inhaled. Symptoms then appear six-to-14 days later. Typhus can be treated via antibiotics, with most people recovering within a few days. Between two and four per cent of people who do not receive treatment die worldwide. Typhus can be prevented by avoiding contact with fleas, mites, ticks and lice via: Discouraging wild animals around the home Keeping rubbish covered Using flea control on pets Advertisement After one of his staff members was bitten by a flea late last year, Wesson closed the entire fourth floor office and had all the rugs removed. But after learning an employee on another floor has suffered the same fate, he's asked officials to examine how much it would cost to re-carpet the whole of the 91-year-old building. The demand has come after health officials in the downtown area announced the district is in the midst of a typhus outbreak. Officials have not managed to explain why typhus is suddenly spreading in the area as nine cases have been recorded in downtown LA in the past two months. They are investigating the issue. Several homeless people who live near City Hall have also contracted the diseases as human waste and trash litters the nearby sidewalks. The disease flourishes in unsanitary conditions and is often spread by flea-infested rats. Symptoms include high fever, migraines, aches, rashes and even internal bleeding. Wesson says he's yet to see one scurrying around in his office but a number of his colleagues have shared stories and even capture videos of their encounters with the creatures. One such encounter was filmed by Councillor Monica Rodriguez this week, showing her and a number of her colleagues scrambling to catch a scuttling intruder. 'We had an employee or two mention they heard something in the ceiling,' Wesson said. 'Then we had an employee spot what she believed to be paw prints. 'You shouldn't be worried about coming to work and catching some virus.' In November, deputy city attorney Elizabeth Greenwood said she contracted the illness in the east-wing of the building, experiencing high-fever and vertigo. Los Angeles City Council President Herb Wesson filed a motion on Wednesday, urging officials to take action and prioritize worker safety Liz Greenwood does not want to return to City Hall until it has been fumigated of typhus-carrying rats and fleas 'I was in shock. Who thinks of Typhus?' Greenwood said to KTLA 5. 'I thought of Typhus as something I read about in history books.' Greenwood says she was so severely ill she thought she was going to die. 'It is terrifying to me that going from my car, up an elevator to my office, I can get this disease from a flea bite.' She's refusing to return to work until the building is properly fumigated. The body of a woman has been found outside a famous Gold Coast high-rise. Police and paramedics were called to the scene near the Surfers Paradise Q1 building in Queensland at 7am on Friday. Four paramedic crews, including a couple of senior operations supervisors were also on the scene. Police and paramedics were called to the scene near the Surfers Paradise Q1 building in Queensland at 7am on Friday (pictured, Q1 building in the Surfers Paradise landscape) The woman also gave no indication that she was driving the vehicle at the time, according to the report (stock picture) Gold Coast Bulletin reported the woman may have suffered a medical episode inside a van parked on Hamilton Avenue. The woman also gave no indication that she was driving the vehicle at the time, according to the report. A police spokesperson reiterated the woman suffered a medical episode and the death was not being treated as suspicious. The former chief of staff to the boss of National Australia Bank has had $7.5million of her assets frozen by police as she is investigated for alleged fraud. Rosemary Rogers, who resigned after nine years at NAB in December, is accused of defrauding the bank of $500,000 to fund a lavish family holiday overseas. Police have frozen her assets, which reportedly include a $6.2million property portfolio, two speed boats, a Range Rover and a cheque for $1million. The freezing order was imposed by the NSW and Victoria supreme courts on November 30, court documents seen by Daily Mail Australia show. Rosemary Rogers (pictured), who resigned after nine years at NAB in December, is accused of defrauding the bank of $500,000 to fund a lavish family holiday overseas The banker's frozen empire: NAB chief of staff's $7.5million assets Four-bedroom family home at 40 Power Street in Williamstown, Victoria, bought for $3,800,000 on January 10, 2018 Sprawling property at 7 Cunningham Drive, Bellrae, bought for $995,000 on December 6, 2013 Two-bedroom luxury flat at 47 Nelson Place, Williamstown bought for $701,300 on June 19, 2017 Large flat at 140 Swann Street, Cremorne in Melbourne bought for $735,000 on May 19, 2015 2016 Range Rover with an estimated price of $150,000 (stock image; not actual) 2016 Chaparral 224 Sunesta motorboat with estimated price of $75,000 (stock image; not actual) 2017 Anglapro Sniper motorboat with estimated price of $35,000 (stock image; not actual) 2015 Mackay Boat Trailer with estimated price of $5,000 Cheque for $1million Total: $7,496,300 Source: Sydney Morning Herald Advertisement Mrs Rogers, who lives with her husband Anthony, built up her property portfolio between 2013 and 2017, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. The portfolio includes a sprawling rural house in Bellbrae, Victoria which she bought for $1million in 2013. She also owns a four-bedroom family home in Williamstown, Victoria and a two-luxury apartment worth $700,000 in the same city, according to the publication. The fourth property that has been frozen is reportedly a flat in the Melbourne suburb of Cremorne, near NAB's offices. Other assets frozen reportedly include a 2016 Range Rover, a 2016 Chaparral Sunesta motorboat and an Anglapro Sniper motorboat. The Williamstown home was raided in 2018 as part of an ongoing police investigation which has not brought any arrests or charges. The fourth property that has been frozen is reportedly a flat (pictured) in the Melbourne suburb of Cremorne, near NAB's offices The Williamstown home (pictured) was raided in 2018 as part of an ongoing police investigation which has not brought any charges The portfolio includes a sprawling rural house (pictured) in Bellbrae, Victoria which she bought for $1million in 2013 Rogers is accused of conspiring with a corporate event contractor to inflate invoices to claim extra money from NAB in a suspected multi-million-dollar fraud. An NAB spokesman said a whistleblower had first reported the alleged fraud. 'NAB responded and acted immediately on CEO Andrew Thorburn's direction, investigated matters and reported them to police,' he said. 'If the alleged fraud is proven, it represents a most serious breach of trust by a former employee. 'We continue to cooperate fully with police, who have asked us to provide no further comment on the alleged fraud and the investigation.' The matter is next listed for directions in court on 18 March. NAB was singled out in the banking royal commission's report release on Monday. Commissioner Kenneth Hayne's report revealed greed and misconduct in the Australian financial sector at the expense of consumers and businesses. 'NAB also stands apart from the other three major banks,' Mr Hayne wrote. 'Having heard from both the CEO, Mr [Andrew] Thorburn, and the chair, Dr [Ken] Henry, I am not as confident as I would wish to be that the lessons of the past have been learned.' There is no suggestion Mr Thorburn or Dr Henry did anything wrong or were aware of the alleged fraud. A government minister who called himself an 'idiot' for inappropriate conduct towards a female soldier has revealed he doesn't know how many properties he is listed as owning. Assistant Minister for Roads Scott Buchholz faces new accusations he failed to declare his extensive property portfolio to the government. Mr Buchholz said he was investigating the ownership of five Queensland properties with his accountant, The New Daily reported. Assistant Minister for Roads Scott Buchholz (pictured) faces new accusations he failed to declare his property portfolio to the government Mr Buchholz and his former wife paid $850,000 for this four-bedroom home in Dugandan in 2015 The Liberal minister has two properties in Boonah and Blackwater, Queensland, declared on his register of interests in the House of Representatives but a search on RP Data suggests he is the owner of a number of other properties with his former wife Lynn. Four Queensland houses appear on the database as belonging to Mr Buchholz, including one of the houses that was declared. 'I have always kept my register of interests up to date with amendments provided as required,' he told Daily Mail Australia. 'I'm currently going through a property settlement as the result of a divorce and will keep my members register of interests up to date within the required timeframe.' Mr Buchholz and his former wife paid $850,000 for a four-bedroom home in Dugandan in 2015, documents suggest. He solely bought a second property in the same suburb for $417,000 in 2017, according to a CoreLogic listing. This home, also located in Dugandan, is listed under Mr Buchholz's name. He is said to have bought it for $417,000 in 2017 Both Mr Buchholz and his former wife are listed as owners for this Dalby, QLD, property. They appear to have paid $187,000 in 2007 The former married couple acquired a three-bedroom Dalby home in 2007 for $187,000, listings show. Mr Buchholz and his former wife's longest owned property on the database appears to be one of the residences declared with Parliament. The Blackwater home was bought in 1993 for a slim $53,000. Mr Buchholz was in the firing line on Thursday when he labelled himself an 'idiot' for misconduct during a military exchange trip in Darwin. A Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) member lodged a formal complaint about Mr Buchholz's conduct. Mr Buchholz (centre), with Liberal Ian Goodenough (left) and Labor's Luke Gosling (right), was forced to apologise for inappropriate conduct towards a female soldier 'I behaved like an idiot on a parliamentary exchange last year and I recognise how inappropriate my actions were,' the Queensland Liberal said. 'I apologised for my conduct and the offence I caused, and I reiterate my deep respect for the ADF (Australian Defence Force) and its members.' The incident occurred while Mr Buchholz, who was a backbencher at the time, and the RAAF member were on a military exchange program in August 2018. Mr Buchholz was promoted as the Assistant Roads and Transport Minister by the newly installed Prime Minister Scott Morrison weeks after the incident. The misconduct reportedly involved 'hugging'. The building that helped Donald Trump make a name for himself in his first big deal in Manhattan is being sold to developers who plan to tear it down. The Grand Hyatt, which Trump bought for a reported $10million and spent $70million refurbishing it into the glassy midtown icon it is now known as before selling his stake in 1996. Developer TF Cornerstone and billionaire Michael Dell's investment firm MSD have agreed to buy the property next to Grand Central Terminal and replace it with a mixed-used tower that will include office and retail space and a smaller hotel. No price has been confirmed on the looming deal. The Grand Hyatt hotel next to Manhattan's Grand Central Station is to be sold to a developed who plans to rip it down and turn it into offices, retail space and a smaller version of the iconic hotel Donald Trump and New York Governor Hugh Carey are pictured outside the site of what was the Commodore hotel in 1978 after buying it and ripping it down to build the Grand Hyatt in its place Trump partnered with the Hyatt Corp. to buy what was then the Commodore Hotel in the late 1970s in his first splash in Manhattan real estate. He refurbished it into a sleek glass tower and used its success as a stepping stone to his next big gamble a few years later, the Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue. Trump sold his stake in the Grand Hyatt in 1996. Neither the White House nor the Trump Organization responded to requests for comment. When Trump struck a deal to buy the Commodore from the bankrupt Penn Central Corp., the city itself was on the verge of bankruptcy and most other developers were not interested. As Trump tells it, he realized there was something special about the Commodore after a walk by the hotel early one morning. 'The lobby was so dingy it looked like a welfare hotel,' he wrote in 'The Art of the Deal,' but then his eye caught a hopeful sign. 'There were thousands of well-dressed Connecticut and Westchester commuters flooding onto the streets from Grand Central Terminal and the subway stations below. 'The city was on the verge of bankruptcy, but what I saw was a superb location.' Eager to make his mark in Manhattan, Trump took the plunge, using guaranteed loans from his father and generous tax abatements from the city. The Commodore Hotel, circa 1927, is shown. Trump and his partners bought it for $10million and spent $70million refurbishing it, according to reports at the time Inside the hotel's glassy lobby. Trump bought the hotel in the 1970s and refurbished it into the sleek Manhattan icon it is today A doorman waits outside the hotel as a guest passes. Hotel workers could receive payouts of up to $200,000 from the deal, according to sources, but no price has been put on the property sale Within a few years, he transformed the tired, old Commodore into a gleaming, reflective-glass tower. His timing was near perfect, too. He opened the hotel just before the start of 1980s boom and was soon able to rent rooms for as much as $1,100 a night. In the latest deal, the new building will cover 2 million square feet and include a new Grand Hyatt with 500 rooms. The current hotel has 1,298 rooms. The deal still requires local and state approval. The New York Hotel and Motel Trades Council secured a deal with the Hyatt for $165million, according to The Wall Street Journal. It means a hotel worker with 30 years experience could walk away with a payout of $214,000 in cash plus pension and additional benefits. The land under the Grand Hyatt is owned by the Empire State Development Corp., the state's business-development arm. TF Cornerstone's partner in the deal is MSD Partners, which invests assets owned by Dell and his family. Dell is the founder of Dell Technologies and is estimated by Forbes to be worth $34 billion. Two Queensland police officers have been filmed riding on the back of a council truck driving down a highway at 60km/h. The footage shows two cops in the back of large truck on a Townsville highway heading towards Ross River Dam. The video was shot from a car as it passed the large truck, and the cars occupants can be heard questioning the legality of the unorthodox ride. Dont know how the f*** this is legal, said one of the passengers. Another simply comments: A***holes. Two Queensland police officers (pictured) can be seen riding on the back of a truck on the Townsville highway on February 5 The police officers involved look unperturbed by their means of transport, and one of the officers simply stares at the camera as the car drives past. Contrary to what the witnesses may have thought, the two officers who were responding to the devastating floods in northern Queensland were well within their rights. A spokesman for Queensland Police said the truck had been commandeered under two different disaster acts declared in response to the situation in Townsville. Under these circumstances police officers may take control of any resource necessary for the purpose of protecting the safety and lives of the public, the spokesperson said. The footage of the truck riding police (pictured) was filmed by the occupants of a passing car and uploaded to YouTube The truck was one of a number of council vehicles which officers used to ferry members of the public to safety during the monsoons heavy rainfall. Far from a joy-ride, the police were operating under the reasonable expectation that in time of crisis police will go to great lengths to protect the community.' Even without the floods, the two men in the car would still be wrong about how 'legal' the highway truck ride was. The spokesman said: 'Outside of a disaster declaration, the Transport Operations Act 1995 states police officers are exempt from the traffic laws while they are performing their duties.' Townsville has been battered by monsoon rains over the last week, setting record flood levels and destroying homes. The northern Queensland city has received a years worth of rainfall in nine days, and hundreds of its residents have had to be evacuated. The floods have now subsided and a mammoth clean up of the damage caused has begun. Centre may also ban these officers for a certain period from serving on a Central deputation. In addition, the home ministry has already asked the West Bengal government to initiate disciplinary proceedings against Kolkata police chief Rajeev Kumar for participating in Ms Banerjees dharna claiming it to be a violation of All India Service Rules. New Delhi: The Union home ministry is expected to initiate disciplinary action, ranging from stripping off meritorious awards and removing the officers from the list of seniority, against five senior police officers of West Bengal, including the state police chief Virendra Kumar, on charges of participating in the dharna of chief minister Mamata Banerjee. Apart from Mr Kumar, action is also expected against four other IPS officers : ADG-Security Vineet Kumar Goyal, ADG-Law and Order Anuj Sharma, Commissioner of Police (Bidhan Nagar) Gyanwant Singh and additional commissi-oner of Kolkata police Supratim Sarkar. In addition, the home ministry has already asked the West Bengal government to initiate disciplinary proceedings against Kolkata police chief Rajeev Kumar for participating in Ms Banerjees dharna claiming it to be a violation of All India Service Rules. Sources claimed home ministry action against the five delinquent officers include withdrawing medals or decorations had been conferred on them for meritorious services as well as removing their names from Centres empanelled or seniority list. Centre may also ban these officers for a certain period from serving on a Central deputation. In addition, the Centre is also planning to issue an advisory to all states to ensure that officers of uniformed forces strictly follow all service rules and maintain decorum. The home ministry had on Tuesday asked the state government to initiate disciplinary proceedings against Rajeev Kumar on grounds of indiscipline and violation of services rules. Though sources claimed it was unlikely that the state government may initiate any action against any of the police officers. The ministry in its communication had claimed that every member of the service shall at all times maintain absolute integrity and devotion to duty and shall do nothing which is unbecoming of a member of the service, no member of the service shall be a member of, or be otherwise associated with, any political party or any organisation which takes part in politics, nor shall he take part in, or subscribe in aid of, or assistant in any other manner, any political movement or political party. Newly released footage from Roger's Stone surveillance camera shows FBI agents with guns drawn raiding the home of Trump's longtime ally. Stone, 66, was arrested in an early morning raid of his Florida home on January 25 shown in footage obtained by Sinclair, and was indicted on several charges related to Robert Mueller's prob into Russian meddling during the 2016 presidential election. The surveillance camera mounted above Stone's front door shows several agents in bullet proof vests, holding assault weapons and flashlights approaching the door right before 7am. Moments later, Stone opens the door wearing a t-shirt that reads 'Roger Stone did nothing wrong' and is handcuffed and escorted out of his home barefoot. Surveillance footage from a camera above Stone's front door shows the moment FBI agents approached him home on January 25 Stone is seen answering the door and being arrested by officers President Donald Trump vouched for Stone and said he was 'very disappointed' in the way the FBI conducted the raid. The president in an interview echoed Stone's own argument that he is not a violent person and doesn't own a gun, making the dramatic raid on his home last Friday by a team of armed agents unnecessary. 'Roger is not a person that they would have to worry about from that standpoint. And I thought it was sad to see it. Very sad,' Trump told the Daily Caller in an interview. Asked about the FBI's show of force in making the arrest in a 'white collar case' Stone is charged with obstruction, lying to Congress, and witness tampering Trump responded that he was 'speaking for a lot of people that were very disappointed to see that go down that way.' Stone was released hours after his arrested and insisted that he is innocent of a string of criminal charges brought by Mueller and said he would never turn on the president. Stone was sprung from jail on a $250,000 bond. He emerged from the federal court building flashing a V-for victory with both hands raised, Richard Nixon-style. FBI agents who conducted raids on his home and office scooped up 'multiple hard drives containing several terabytes of information' in a case Robert Mueller has designated as complex. The trove of electronic information was obtained under a warrant as the feds charged the longtime Trump advisor with lying to Congress, obstructing the Russia probe, and witness tampering. But the breadth of information and a new government filing indicate an additional charge or charges could be in the cards. The evidence is 'both voluminous and complex,' according to Mueller. He is facing seven charges including making false statements to Congress and witness tampering Stone was released on $250,000 bail after appearing in a Florida federal court, and said he would fight the charges and never turn against the president Trump defended his longtime ally and said he was 'very disappointed' with the way the FBI conducted the raid Mueller has charged six former aides of Trump, including his lawyer Michael Cohen, campaign chair Paul Manafort, and national security advisor Michael Flynn, in the 20 month old investigation into whether the 2016 Trump campaign colluded with Russians. All have been accused of lying to investigators, and some also of financial and tax-related charges. But none has yet been charged with any crime involving collusion with Russia, and Mueller has given no indication on whether or not any such charges could be forthcoming. The Stone case is the closest Mueller has gotten to suggesting there was an illegal conspiracy to collude -- yet that was not among the charges. Stone allegedly lied about contacts with WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy website that published embarrassing documents from Trump's election rival Hillary Clinton that were allegedly hacked by Russian intelligence. In a news conference Thursday, Stone said his alleged lies were simply memory lapses and were immaterial to the Russia collusion investigation. 'I'm not accused of collaboration, I'm not accused of conspiracy,' he said. 'There is no underlying crime.' This is the stomach churning moment a Pennsylvania law enforcement officer was seen dragging a teenage girl to the ground by her hair before seemingly pinning her to the road with his body weight. In the minute-long clip from Wednesday afternoon after cops began banging on the windows of a car she was in with friend Khalil Harvin, the black woman can be heard telling the Philadelphia Police Department officer: 'Get the f**k off me. When the cop responds 'No', Na-sha Lockett, 18, tells him: 'I'm about to spit on you.' The white officer then fires back, 'Oh yeah?' and pulls her head first to an area behind the law enforcement vehicle that obstructs the view of the person filming. On the way down he appears to kick her leg to make her fall. He decides on the action despite already having control of her arms behind her back in handcuffs. Na-sha Lockett was seen being dragged to the ground by her hair Wednesday. The 18-year-old was pulled by her hair by a cop in Philadelphia Throughout the rest of the uncomfortable-to-watch video, the teen is heard wailing for the man to release her from the awkward position. She is seen struggling to kick her legs as she shouts: 'Get off me!' a number of times. Another woman in the frame is seen on the phone during the incident, at the same time she calls for others in the North Philadelphia street to come to the woman's aide. Shouting for the cop to 'mind pulling her hair like that' and asking 'Why are you on her like that?', she tells a second officer: 'Don't touch me' as she seemingly tries to evade possible similar treatment by walking back and forth. However it seems others assisting in getting her help were reluctant to come to close for fear it may not end well for them. One witness is seen slinking away out of the camera frame as another walks over the check on Lockett. A man behind the camera also shows support from a distance by yelling: 'Call for a sergeant' and 'I got y'all'. He also reluctantly calls for officers to calm down, yelling repeatedly: 'That ain't necessary man.' It's something Lockett agrees with too. Before the aggressive action she tells him: 'F**k off. I'm about to spit on you'. Teen says she asked for the policemen to get off her and told him she has asthma 'I was trying to get up, I was trying to use my knees to get up. Then he got on top of me and I started saying I have asthma and started crying,' Lockett told NBC10. '[The officers] were being disrespectful the whole time. They could have done a little more. They could have asked questions.' For viewers it may evoke an emotional reaction after the choke hold death of African-American man Eric Garner who died at the hands of New York police in Staten Island July 2014. The PPD would not give a reason for the original stop but Lockett's friend Harvin, who owns the vehicle they were in, said it could be because it was previously reported stolen. She said she was wrong for threatening to spit on the policeman but mentioned that his behavior was still too aggressive for the situation which was so far only verbal. Lockett was jailed overnight but her disorderly conduct charges were dropped. Internal investigators were looking into the incident 'You dragged me to the ground. You slammed me, pulled my hair. You did too much,' she said. An investigation from the PPD reps Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5 is pending and it seems they could agree in their outcome. Lockett was jailed for the night but her disorderly conduct charges were dropped. 'We won't second-guess officers out in the street doing a difficult job. We'll have more to say when the investigation is complete,' union president John McNesby said. The PPD added that the probe into the aggressive incident was being looked into with great concern. 'We take all matters involving the application of force seriously. Accordingly, the incident is being investigated by the Department's Office of Professional Responsibility / Internal Affairs Division,' they said in a statement. House Intelligence chair Rep. Adam Schiff is pushing back against President Trump's explosive charge that he is 'stealing' people from the White House as he staffs up for a two-year investigative onslaught of the administration. The president used Twitter to accuse Democrats of going 'nuts' and continuing a 'witch hunt' by taking staff from the White House. On Thursday, Schiff, a California Democrat who has been on a hiring spree armed with a beefed up majority budget, defended his latest staff acquisition after it was revealed a former White House national security staffer was now on his payroll. 'We have a long tradition of hiring out of the intelligence community, the National Security Council," Schiff said. "And if the president is worried about our hiring any former administration people, maybe he should work on being a better employer,' he quipped, the Hill reported. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, cited the 'long tradition' of hiring from the National Security Council, after President Trump accused a Democratic chairman of 'stealing' staff Bloomberg reported Thursday that Schiff's panel has already hired former security aide Abigail Grace and that a second career official detailed to the Trump White House was under consideration. Her online bio at the Center for New American Security lists her as a former Research Associate in the Asia-Pacific Security Program there. She served on the NSC under Presidents Obama and Trump from 2016-2018, focusing on US-China relations and Indo-Pacific strategy as well as North Korea. After days of back-and-forth with Trump, Schiff announced this week his panel would probe any foreign nations that may have influence over Trump and would examine his corporate and personal financials. Democrats are on a hiring spree, as the Intelligence, Judiciary, and Oversight panels beef up on investigators and lawyers, and House Democratic leaders on which probes to prioritize. President Trump and Schiff have been in a war of words after Trump warned Democrats not to investigate his administration Trump once referred to Schiff, who now chairs a powerful committee, as 'Adam Schitt' online Abigail Grace, a former Research Associate, Asia-Pacific Security Program, has signed on with the House Intelligence Committee. She previously worked at the NSC On Thursday the House Ways and Means Committee held a hearing that could be the first step in a fight to get hold of Trump's tax returns. Amid the coming investigative onslaught, Trump slammed Democrats for what he called 'unlimited presidential harassment' Thursday on Twitter. Facing chairman Adam Schiff's threat of an investigation that presses the president far beyond Special Counsel Robert Mueller's search for evidence of election-year collusion with Russia, Trump blasted what he called the 'continuation of [a] Witch Hunt!' that Republicans 'never did to President Obama.' President Trump slammed the Democrats as 'nuts' and said they were continuing their 'Witch Hunt' after the House Intelligence Committee said it would investigate both his financial and personal life Schiff hit back at Trump after his State of the Union threat 'So now Congressman Adam Schiff announces, after having found zero Russian Collusion, that he is going to be looking at every aspect of my life, both financial and personal, even though there is no reason to be doing so,' Trump wrote. 'Never happened before! Unlimited Presidential Harassment.' 'PRESIDENTIAL HARASSMENT! It should never be allowed to happen again!' Trump blasted in another tweet. 'The Dems and their committees are going nuts. The Republicans never did this to President Obama, there would be no time left to run government,' Trump added on Twitter. 'I hear other committee heads will do the same thing. Even stealing people who work at White House! A continuation of Witch Hunt!' Trump referred to Schiff on Wednesday as a 'political hack' who was harassing him to get his name in the news, as the men stepped up their attacks on one another. At an event with reporters Wednesday, Trump pretended not to be familiar with the politician he has slammed online as Adam 'Schitt', before telling a reporter who asked about the probe: 'On what basis would he do that? He has no basis to do that.' 'Hes just a political hack, whos trying to build a name for himself. And I think thats fine, because thats what they do,' Trump said. 'But there would be no reason do that. No other politician has to go through that. Its called presidential harassment. And its unfortunate, it really does hurt our country.' An hour later, Schiff responded on Twitter: 'I can understand why the idea of meaningful oversight terrifies the President.' 'Several of his close associates are going to jail, others await trial, and criminal investigations continue. Were going to do our job and wont be distracted or intimidated by threats or attacks.' Trump angered congressional Democrats on Tuesday night when he complained in his State of the Union address about 'ridiculous partisan investigations' that are diluting bipartisan sentiments. 'If there is going to be peace in legislation, there cannot be war and investigation. It just does not work that way,' he lectured. A taxi driver was left reeling after a woman allegedly bit him on the arm before making off with his money and phone on New Year's Day. The woman is believed to have got into the man's taxi on Elizabeth Street at Richmond in Melbourne at 11.15am on January 1. Police released CCTV footage of the brawl ahead of the alleged robbery in the hope that it will prompt witnesses to come forward. Scroll down for video A taxi driver was left reeling after a woman allegedly bit him on the arm before making off with his money and phone on New Years Day The woman is said to have stepped into the taxi on Elizabeth Street at Richmond in Melbourne's CBD at 11.15am on January 1 The woman can be seen sitting in the front seat with while two other passengers are sitting in the back seat. The taxi driver firmly holds the arm of the woman as she repeatedly tries to break free. She abruptly swings back and forth but the taxi driver firms takes hold of both her arms. Footage cuts out as the wrestle continues, though the woman is said to have bitten the man on his forearm before she allegedly fled with his mobile phone and money. Police describe the woman as African in appearance, of medium build with long black hair. She was also wearing a green dress at the time. Melbourne Embona detectives are investigating the robbery. A British 'gypsy' who went on the run in New Zealand after being charged with assaulting a woman with his car was named for the first time yesterday as he failed to appear in court for the second time. James Anthony Nolan, 26, is accused of driving his car at a young woman who filmed him and his extended family when they left piles of rubbish at a Auckland beach last month. Krista Curnow, whose video of the picnic scene, featuring an aggressive young boy in a sunhat, went global, aglleged a man had driven at her as she tried to film the car's number plate. Scroll down for video James Anthony Nolan (pictured), 26, has been named after he failed to appear in court for the second time Mr Nolan, 26, is accused of driving his car at a young woman after she filmed his family who trashed an Auckland beach (The scene is pictured) Nolan also faces charges of reckless driving and fraud but has not been seen since he ran away from Auckland District Court when he was given bail on January 25. A lawyer for Nolan, whose wife and children are still believed to be in the country, told the court yesterday he had no explanation for his client's whereabouts. Barrister Sam Galler said after the hearing: 'I can't discuss the case any further.' Two other associates of the group, Tommy Ward and William Donohue, are also being hunted by police after a series of alleged cases of elderly people in the Auckland area being defrauded off thousands of pounds they handed over for roof repairs. The family (some members pictured) were faced with claims that they had wreaked havoc across the country Krista Curnow, whose video of the picnic scene, featuring an aggressive young boy in a sunhat (pictured) A pair of brothers, who cannot be named for legal reasons, remain on remand in jail charged with similar offences. Mr Nolan's failed court appearance comes shortly after his extended family were accused of wreaking havoc across the country by locals. The tourists were faced with claims that they left a cafe without paying, damaged their apartment and allegedly stole a journalist's phone. Krista Curnow's video of the picnic scene at Takapuna beach (pictured) went viral last month Their stint of mayhem across New Zealand led to the group being labelled 'a*******' and 'trash' by the mayor of Auckland, Phil Goff. A petition to have the Brits removed from the country amassed more than 2,500 signatures. In a radio interview, Goff said: 'I've asked the council to follow up because I want to see them loaded with an infringement fine for trashing our country. They shouldn't even be here.' Four adults in the group were served with 28-day deportation liability notices by New Zealand's immigration service before they left to return to the UK last month. A petition to have the British group (some members pictured) removed from the country amassed more than 2,500 signatures A glamorous sales representative claimed she had permission to use her boss's credit card after she went on a thousand dollar spending spree to buy jewellery and designer clothing. Tara Randell, 22, pleaded not guilty to 14 counts of credit card fraud following a massive spending spree in western Sydney in 2017, St George Shire Standard reported. Randell allegedly used the credit card to go on a $1,000 splurge, purchasing luxury items at Westpoint Blacktown in western Sydney in November. Tara Randell, 22 (pictured), pleaded not guilty to 14 counts of credit card fraud following a massive spending spree in western Sydney in 2017 The court heard Randell used the credit card to go on a $1,000 splurge and purchased luxury items at Westpoint Blacktown in western Sydney in November (pictured) Over six hours, she allegedly blew $142.95 on clothes from Urban Equipment, $157 on makeup from Napoleon Perdis and $99 on a ring at jewellery store Pandora among other purchases elsewhere. The following day Randell allegedly continued to spend money, this time at Designer Factory Outlets at Homebush in western Sydney. She allegedly spent $97.93 at Glue Store, $167 at Ralph Lauren and $58.90 at Peter Alexander and $7.60 at Muffin Break. CCTV footage captured Randell visiting both shopping outlets, the court heard. At the time, Randell was working at gym-chain Anytime Fitness at Wolli Creek in southern Sydney. Her boss had given her the credit card with the intention she use it to pay for coffee for future customers at the gym, located at Ropes Crossing. 'A verbal agreement took place with the victim, his business partner and the Wolli Creek club manager where the accused was told that she could only use the credit card to purchase coffees for potential customers,' police facts sheet tendered in court last year stated. Police allege Randell made more than a dozen illegal purchases between November 18 and 19, 2017. Over six hours, Randell (pictured) allegedly blew $142.95 on clothes from Urban Equipment, $157 on makeup from Napoleon Perdis and $99 on a ring at jewellery store Pandora among other purchases elsewhere The 22-year-old openly admitted to police she had made use of the credit card, though with the permission of her boss. 'The accused stated that she was permitted to use the credit card if she did not tell the victims wife about the sexual comments made towards her,' police facts sheet stated. The police facts sheet further stated the victim told police Randell had threatened to make sexual harassment allegations against him if he told authorities of the fraud. Randell will front Sutherland Local Court again on June 27 to answer the fraud charges as well as three charges of common assault, assault causing actual bodily harm and reckless wounding after an alleged incident involving a woman in Brighton Le Sands on December 4. The following day Randell allegedly continued to splurge money, this time at Designer Factory Outlets at Homebush in western Sydney (pictured) A woman was horrified after she almost sat on top of a deadly brown snake hidden under the rim of her toilet bowl. Aaliyah Tuhakaraina from Laverton, in Western Australia, is urging other locals to keep an eye on their lavatories after she made the 'nightmarish' discovery last Friday. The make-up artist said she noticed her toilet hadn't been flushing properly for two days and thought nothing of it, until she uncovered the metre-long western brown snake concealed under the toilet rim. Thankfully, Ms Tuhakaraina caught a glimpse of the dangerous reptile, known to have a deadly bite, before she sat down on the lavatory. 'When I first saw [the snake], I thought it was frog because we get them all the time where I live. 'But when I got a closer look at it I saw scales and it was 100% not a frog, I knew it was a snake straight away! And that is literally my worst nightmare,' Ms Tuhakaraina told Daily Mail Australia. Admittedly Ms Tuhakaraina was 'freaked out' but she managed to compose herself enough to call snake catcher Tiffany Farlow. Aaliyah Tuhakaraina from Laverton, in Western Australia, is urging other locals to keep an eye on their lavatories after she almost sat on a deadly brown snake (pictured) Ms Tuhakaraina called local snake catcher Tiffany Farlow who removed the deadly snake (pictured) from the toilet bowl 'I freaked out! So first thing I do? [I called] my mum and she knew of a lady in our town, Tiffany Farlow who is a trained snake catcher. 'I gave Tiffany a call, and she was over within 5 minutes.' Shortly after, Ms Farlow removed the snake from the toilet bowl. 'While [Ms Farlow] worked her magic I was standing behind her watching, and recording the whole ordeal. I was so interested to see how big it was going to be. 'And I'm so glad I [recorded] it because stuff like this never happens out here so I'm glad I could alert the community, and others. 'This nightmare was my reality and could be theirs too,' Ms Tuhakaraina said. Since her near-death experience Ms Tuhakaraina has taken to her Facebook page to share a video of the snake being removed, and warned other residents to be cautious when approaching their toilets. A western brown snake is highly venomous and is known to be very aggressive when disturbed or threatened. Police have been accused of revenue raising after handing out hundreds of jaywalking fines in a major crackdown on the rarely-enforced crime. Officers were spotted slapping pedestrians with $75 infringement notices across Sydney's ritzy eastern suburbs this week - including at Bondi and Coogee. Locals were seen scratching their heads and pleading their case to officers, who were in uniform and highly visible on the corner of Coogee Bay Road and Arden Street on Thursday. 'It's revenue raising,' one Coogee man, who did not wish to be named, told Daily Mail Australia, adding police resources should be spent fighting 'real crime'. Police previously billed the crackdown as a response to a spate of fatal and serious crashes in Sydney involving pedestrians. But in the five years to June 2018, just four pedestrians were involved in crashes at the intersection of Coogee Bay Rd and Arden St. Three of those received minor injuries, while the fourth was 'moderately injured'. Officers were spotted slapping pedestrians with $75 infringement notices across Sydney's ritzy eastern suburbs this week - including at Coogee (pictured) In NSW, it is illegal to cross a road while a pedestrian light is red and you must wait for the green man to appear - but it remains a contentious law. 'Why don't they busy themselves with real criminals instead of revenue raising at the expense of the innocent,' one Bondi local said. 'There are real crimes happening in Sydney too, if I'm not mistaken,' another noted. A third said in jest: 'NSW police spending their time efficiently, fixing the real problems in this nanny state.' Others said the 'law is the law' and noted the visibility of the officers involved. 'If you're dumb enough to cross on the red man in front of cops in high vis vests I'd consider it more of a ''stupid tax'' then [sic] a fine,' one said. Furious locals were seen scratching their heads as they pleaded their case to officers, who were in uniform and highly visible Another agreed: 'They're standing there in bright yellow. If you break the law in front of them then that's on you.' Earlier this week, Bondi Beach and Bondi Junction residents accused police of wasting taxpayers' money after handing out fines to jaywalkers. Andrew Greer was on his way to work in the CBD on Wednesday morning when he spotted a handful of officers standing outside the Westfield at Bondi Junction. 'I counted five police officers. Basically they were all just standing and waiting,' he told Daily Mail Australia. Mr Greer said the officers were communicating back and forth on radio and nabbing anyone who jaywalked across the busy Grosvenor and Oxford streets intersection. 'I noticed on the 25th of January they were doing the same thing at Bondi Beach,' he said. Police were seen in Bondi Junction this week, stopping pedestrians who crossed when the light was red Mr Greer claimed officers fined a surfer after he jaywalked across the road - as well as a woman. 'I went and spoke to the girl and asked her what happened. She said she had got a $75 fine,' he said. Mr Greer was pushed to breaking point on Wednesday and said he decided to give his 'two cents worth' to the officers. 'I told them this a waste of taxpayers' money, which is what it is. Police should be chasing after people for more serious crimes.' A NSW Police spokesman said this week operations were routinely conducted across the city over police concerns for the number of incidents involving pedestrians. Earlier this week, Bondi Beach and Bondi Junction (pictured) residents accused police of wasting taxpayers' money after handing out fines to jaywalkers 'NSW Police has been doing them for many years and the point [of the operations] is to raise awareness of pedestrian safety,' they said. Traffic and Highway Patrol Command Assistant Commissioner Michael Corboy told Daily Mail Australia 14 pedestrians died in Sydney during 2018. Nine of those were considered to be at fault. 'The operation was devised to reduce the high number of pedestrian fatalities and serious collisions throughout the region by way of education and enforcement,' Assistant Commissioner Corboy said. So far this year, 667 people have been fined over pedestrian related offences in Sydney - while 23 were handed cautions. NRMA road safety expert Dimitra Vlahomitros said while widely unpopular, the jaywalking offence was in place to save lives. Earlier this week, Bondi Beach residents were up in arms and accused police of wasting taxpayers' money after handing out fines to jaywalkers 'We've got a situation where last year road toll was falling but pedestrian fatalities were higher - that's quite a concern for us,' Ms Vlahomitros told Daily Mail Australia. 'What we saw in 2018 was 67 pedestrians lost their lives on our roads in NSW - and that's up from 54 the previous year. That's quite alarming. 'We know what works in changing people's behaviour is enforcement... We've got to make sure that everybody is doing the right thing and being safe.' A NSW transport spokesman told Daily Mail Australia the laws were in place to safeguard pedestrians because 'they have no protection in a crash'. 'Pedestrians need to always cross at the lights, obey traffic signals, look both ways before crossing and not get distracted by phones or music,' the spokesman said. 'Drivers also play a vital role in keeping pedestrians safe. Its important that drivers slow down and comply with traffic lights, especially in areas where pedestrians are out and about.' Stanford University has started a review of interactions that some faculty members had with He Jiankui, the Chinese scientist who claims to have helped make gene-edited babies. Several Stanford professors have said they knew or strongly suspected He wanted to try gene editing on embryos intended for pregnancy. The work has been widely criticised since November, when He revealed the births of twins whose DNA he said he altered to try to help them resist possible future infection with the AIDS virus. He Jiankui speaks during the Human Genome Editing Conference in Hong Kong on November 28. The official Xinhua News Agency said Monday that investigators in the southern province of Guangdong determined Dr He Jiankui organised and handled funding for the experiment without outside assistance in violation of national guidelines An embryo receives a small dose of Cas9 protein and PCSK9 sgRNA in a sperm injection microscope in a laboratory in Shenzhen in southern China's Guangdong province Most scientists think gene editing for reproductive purposes is too risky to be tried yet because of the danger of harming other genes and because the DNA changes may be passed to future generations. He did postdoctoral research at Stanford and began the gene editing project after returning to his homeland for a job at Southern University of Science and Technology of China in Shenzhen. Several Stanford professors including He's former adviser, Stephen Quake; bioethicist Dr. William Hurlbut and genetics expert Dr. Matthew Porteus have said they were in contact with He over the last year. Hurlbut and Porteus said they disapproved of and discouraged any such experiment. Quake said he only discussed the matter in broad, general terms with He. This image shows a microplate containing embryos that have been injected with Cas9 protein using the controversial gene editing tool Crispr. The image was taken at Dr He's laboratory in Shenzhen last month After He's work was revealed, Rice University in Houston announced an investigation into interactions between He and his former adviser at that school, Michael Deem. On Thursday, Stanford spokesman E.J. Miranda said in an email that Stanford is reviewing 'the circumstances around Dr. He's interactions with researchers at the university.' Miranda said he had no additional information on questions about who would do the review, what would be examined and how long it would take. Hurlbut said Thursday that university officials suggested that he refer inquiries to them instead of responding himself. Porteus declined to comment. Quake did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Zhou Xiaoqin, left, and Qin Jinzhou, an embryologist who were part of the team working with scientist He Jiankui, view a time lapse image of embryos on a computer screen at a lab in Shenzhen in south China's Guangdong province This graphic reveals how, theoretically, an embryo could be 'edited' using the powerful tool Crispr-Cas9 to defend humans against HIV infection Last month, Chinese investigators said He had evaded supervision of his work and violated research norms because he wanted to be famous. He was said to have organised and handled funding for the experiment without outside assistance in violation of national guidelines. Between March 2017 and November 2018, He forged ethical review papers and recruited eight couples to participate in his experiment, resulting in two pregnancies. Five others did not result in fertilisation while one opted to leave the experiment. One of the mothers gave birth to twins nicknamed 'Lulu' and 'Nana', the investigators said. Another woman is still carrying a gene-edited fetus. The Xinhua report said all three would remain under observation. The report said He could face consequences, although it didn't say which regulations he may have broken. Andres Lopez Elore, 39, was sentenced to six years in prison Thursday in New York. He was a fugitive for 10 years until 2015 A veterinarian student who surgically implanted liquid heroin in puppies on behalf of Colombian drug traffickers was sentenced to six years in prison Thursday. The sentence for Andres Lopez Elorez, 39, was announced in Brooklyn by U.S. Attorney Richard P. Donoghue and other law enforcement officials, after he pleaded guilty in September to conspiring to import heroin into the United States. It was part of a scheme that turned dogs into drug couriers by stitching packets of the drug into their stomachs and while at least nine had the cruel procedure done, three of the animals died after contracting viruses. The U.S. government said Colombian-born Elorez leased a farm in Medellin, Colombia, where he secretly raised dogs for narcotics importation. On January 1, 2005, law enforcement searched the farm and seized 17 bags of liquid heroin, including 10 bags that were removed from puppies and other waiting to be implanted. This 2005 photo provided by U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration officials shows puppies rescued from a farm in Colombia destined for use by a U.S. veterinarian working for a Colombian drug trafficking ring Three of the puppies died after contracting viruses following the surgeries by Elorez Veterinarian Andres Lopez Elorez used the puppies to smuggle packets of liquid heroin on commercial flights to New York City, where the heroin packets were eventually cut out of the puppies, who died in the process, officials said Elorez, who pleaded guilty in September to conspiring to import heroin into the United States, received a six-year sentence on Thursday But he was on the run for 10 years before cops caught up with him. Elorez was a fugitive until he was arrested in Spain in 2015. He was extradited to the United States in May 2018 for his 'calculated and aberrant' actions. 'As a veterinarian-in-training, the defendant had a duty to do no harm to animals,' prosecutors wrote for the sentencing. 'He betrayed that duty when he used his veterinary skills as part of a scheme to implant liquid heroin into dogs so that Colombian narcotics traffickers could surreptitiously import heroin into the United States.' One of the puppies went on to become a drug-detection dog named Heroina. The Rottweiler, was trained by Colombian police The man, who teachers described as one of the best in his class at vet school, admitted Thursday that his actions were a complete betrayal of his pledge to do what he can to prevent animal abuse. Speaking about how he 'conspired with an experienced veterinarian', he said in court: 'I did this even though I knew I was doing wrong and I was committing a crime.' At least two of the puppies went on to a better existence. One of the puppies went on to become a drug-detection dog named Heroina. The Rottweiler, was trained by Colombian police. Donna, a beagle, was adopted by a Colombian police officer and his family. United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York said Elorez had got his comeuppance. 'Every dog has its day, and with todays sentence, Elorez has been held responsible for the reprehensible use of his veterinary skills to conceal heroin inside puppies as part of a scheme to import dangerous narcotics into the United States,' Richard Donoghue said. Kumaraswamy is set to present the state budget on Friday at 12:32 pm, which is considered an auspicious time. Karnataka CM HD Kumaraswamy releases an audio clip of a conversation allegedly between BJP State Chief BS Yeddyurappa and JDS MLA Naganagowda Kandkur's son Sharana where Yeddyurappa made an offer Rs 25 lakh and ministerial post for his father. (Photo: ANI | Twitter) Bengaluru: Ahead of presenting the Karnataka budget for 2019-20, chief minister HD Kumaraswamy has released an audio clip allegedly of BJP leader BS Yeddyurappa trying to poach his MLAs. Kumaraswamy is set to present the state budget on Friday at 12:32 pm, which is considered an auspicious time. It will be the second budget of the Congress-JD(S) coalition government and is set to be along the lines of the one presented in July, in which the CM announced the farmer loan waiver scheme. However, the budget is set to be read out amid protest by the BJP, having ensured on Wednesday that Governor Vajubhai Vala cut short his address to the joint sitting of both Houses. BJP leader R Ashok said, They have chosen to present the budget at 12.32 pm because they are afraid this government is set to collapse. That is why they have reposed faith in astrology. In regard to the absence of four rebel Congress MLAs, BJP claimed that the government did not enjoy a majority. The Congress MLAs -Ramesh Jarkiholi, Mahesh Kumathahalli, Umesh Jadhav and B Nagendraand MLA J N Ganesh, who is absconding after a brawl with a colleague at a Bengaluru resort. At present, the alliance enjoys the support of 117 MLAs- 79 of the Congress, 37 of JD(S) and onelegislator of the BSP. Meanwhile, BJP has the support of 104 MLAs. Former chief minister and Congress Legislature Party chief Siddaramaiah condemned the behaviour of BJP. The BJP doesnt believe in democracy, if it did its MLAs wouldnt have disrupted the governors speech, he said. Siddaramaiah also challenged BJP leaders to move a no-confidence motion. The former chief minister said the Congress would take a decision on the rebels after the CLP meeting at 9 am on Friday. However, former chief minister and state BJP chief B S Yeddyurappa, stuck to the partys claim that the government did not enjoy a majority. This government doesnt have a moral right to present the budget. The people of the state dont have confidence in this government because Congress leaders keep saying Siddaramaiah is their chief minister, he said. Brazil's president Jair Bolsonaro has been hospitalised with pneumonia a week after an operation to remove a colostomy bag. The country's leader was struck down with a fever during his hospital stay, but a tweet on his account yesterday said he was 'well'. Bolsonaro, 63, had an operation on January 28 to remove a colostomy bag that was put in place after he was stabbed while campaigning ahead of Brazil's election last year. He had originally been expected to stay in hospital for 10 days, but this week his spokesman said he would remain hospitalized at least until February 11 because of a fever and other complications. Brazil's president Jair Bolsonaro has been hospitalised with pneumonia a week after an operation to remove a colostomy bag that was put in place after he was stabbed while campaigning last year A tweet on Bolsonaro's Twitter profile said: 'Be careful not to be sensationalist. We are very relaxed, well and remain steady.' The Albert Einstein hospital in Sao Paulo said in a statement on Thursday that doctors had adjusted his antibiotics dose after a fever late on Wednesday. Presidential spokesman Otavio Rego Barros said at a news conference that the president was in semi-intensive care. He said Bolsonaro had a 38C (100.4F) fever on Wednesday and bacterial pneumonia. If the president is unable to carry out his duties, then Vice President Hamilton Mourao, a retired general who has already clashed with Bolsonaro over a number of issues, would take charge. Millions of Venezuelan families have been torn apart by the ongoing crisis in their country and live apart, not knowing if they will see each other again. As the troubled state runs out of medicine, food and money, those who can afford to leave, but not everyone can go. More than three million Venezuelans who have fled the country some with just the clothes on their backs and a small rucksack. Thousands pass through the borders to Colombia and Brazil in buses and on foot every day, joining the exodus of desperate people looking for a new life in other Latin American states such as Panama, Ecuador, Peru and Chile. Andriana Medoza (left) an industrial engineer who lives in London, last visited Venezuala in February 2015 - with her mum and dad (pictured) both living in Mexico having fled the country Families have told how they have been ripped apart by Venezuela's crisis as more than three million have fled the country some with just the clothes on their backs and a small rucksack Others, who have more money, have taken planes to the Argentina, Mexico and the USA and Caribbean states in huge numbers. There are now some 200,000 Venezuelans living in Miami alone while thousands more have made the longer journey to countries such as the UK. Among them is Adriana Mendoza, who lives in the UK with her husband and three children, while her parents live in Mexico and her grandmother remains in Caracas. The 38-year-old always intended to return home but is terrified that it is not safe for her children or her mother, who can no longer find medicines she needs for her Type 1 diabetes. 'I grew up in a typical Venezuelan family,' she told MailOnline. 'We all lived in Caracas and that's where we would, most probably, live our whole lives. 'There was never an intention to immigrate, we lived in paradise. Weekends would be spent in family BBQs at my grandparents' or sleep overs at my cousins. 'In a family of more than 40 close relatives, there was always something to celebrate. We would spend most summers either by the beach for weeks at a time, or at the farm of my Godmother in the plains of Venezuela, 'El Llano'. 'The first election I could vote was Chavez' first historic win. That event changed the destiny of Venezuela and of its very intimately woven families forever. Adriana (left), 38, remembers idyllic weekends back home in Caracas, before she left for London and now hasn't been able to see her sister (right) for three years Adriana and her husband Richard pictured with her grandmother, who has been left behind in Caracas. Adriana said: 'My Mima, how we used to call her, is 92 today, struggling to find medicines, food, and becoming more and more frail by the day' Adriana took her family back to see relatives in Venezuela in 2015 telling MailOnline: 'We decided to have a flash visit as things were starting to get more and more difficult there.' Adriana (in black and white) says the situation in her home country has meant that she doesn't know when she will be reunited with her mother (left) and grandmother (right) once again 'The same close family now lives in seven countries across Americas and Europe.' Adriana, an industrial engineer who lives in west London, last visited Venezuala in February 2015, when her eldest son, now five, was a toddler and she was pregnant with her daughter. Her grandma 'Mimi' enjoys precious time with Adriana's son Andrew the last time she saw him before the economy collapsed 'We decided to have a flash visit as things were starting to get more and more difficult in Venezuela. 'With little children on tow, we knew it could be the last visit in a while. Insecurity, shortages of medicines, food, electricity or water were starting to be the norm. 'I haven't seen my sister in more than three years. She has not met my baby boy Santiago. I haven't seen my grandmother since that last visit to Venezuela. 'I made sure we spent time together and that she met Andrew, my big boy. I took photos everywhere. I even made a photo-album of his 'first visit to Venezuela'. 'My Mima, how we used to call her, is 92 today, struggling to find medicines, food, and becoming more and more frail by the day. 'It breaks my heart, that I might not be able to say the big goodbye, or that she wont get to meet her granddaughter, Valentina. 'My parents are currently living in Mexico, my mum has diabetes type I and my dad suffers hypertension. They both need specific medicines to survive, they can't afford the risk of not finding them 'on time' in Caracas. 'My mum is also afraid, she won't be able to hug my grandma one last time.' Thousands of Venezuelans pass through the borders to Colombia and Brazil in buses and on foot every day, joining the exodus of desperate people looking for a new life in other Latin American states such as Panama, Ecuador, Peru and Chile and other parts of the world In Caracas, Eva Tavarez choked back tears as she told that her three grown-up children have been forced to move abroad due to the lack of medical care, the uncontrolled violence and the unaffordable cost of living. Mrs Tavarez, 53, a hairdresser, from Caracas, said: 'I am a typical Latin American mother, my children are my life. I'm like a mother hen, I want all my children and my grand-children around me. It breaks my heart that they are so far away.' Her sons Juan-Andres, 29, and Javier, 23, have been forced to live with relatives in the Dominican Republic after they could no longer stand living in Venezuela. And her daughter Katherine has set up home on the border with Colombia and must cross the border for almost thing she needs - food and healthcare. Mrs Tavarez told MailOnline told how her grand-daughter Antonella almost died because the hospital did not have the medicines to treat her. She said: 'Juan-Andres' baby daughter was born prematurely but the doctors could do nothing to help her. 'She was born eight weeks too early and weighed just one kilogram. In Caracas, Eva Tavarez has seen her three grown-up children - including daughter Katherine (pictured) - move abroad due to the lack of medical care, violence and the cost of living Her sons Juan-Andres and Javier (pictured with their sister Krissy) have been forced to live with relatives in the Dominican Republic as they could no longer stand living in Venezuela Mrs Tavarez, 53, a hairdresser (pictured) said: 'I am a typical Latin American mum, my children are my life. I'm like a mother hen, I want all my children and my grandchildren around me' 'Antonella was in an incubator for two weeks and she needed drugs to help her lungs grow. 'But the doctors did not have any. The hospital did not even have any milk formula to give her. 'Her mother Yanely had to go to the hospital every day to breast-feed her baby because they did not have any formula milk. Luckily she survived the first few weeks. Mother Yanely had a well-paid job as a in a pharmaceutical company and Juan-Andres worked in a clinic but still they could not find the drugs their baby daughter needed. They could not even find any nappies for sale. 'For my son that was the last straw and they packed up and moved to the Dominican Republic.' The couple sold their car and all their possessions to buy three plane tickets and fled Venezuela with little Antonella when she was just eight weeks old. Mrs Tavarez younger son Javier, 23, was employed in a restaurant kitchen and worked hard to make ends meet as his wages became worthless. But the final straw for him was when he was held up at gun and robbed of his meagre possessions in a terrifying daylight robbery in the centre of Caracas. His mother told MailOnline: 'My little Javier was terrified. He thought he was going to die. Mrs Tavarez's eldest son Juan-Andres (right with his brother) had a baby daughter born prematurely but the doctors could do nothing to help her. They could find no drugs or nappies to help her, which was the final straw, so he moved to the Dominican Republic. Her younger son Javier, 23, (left) was robbed of his meagre possessions so he too left the country Mrs Tavarez has seen all three of her grown-up children leave socialist leader Nicolas Maduro's crumbling socialist ideal, leaving only her youngest daughter who is studying to be a nurse 'The thug put a gun to his head and told him he would kill him if he did not give him his rucksack which contained held everything he owned his phone, his work tools, his work uniform and some money. 'That's when I decided to buy him a plane ticket for him and his wife to leave the leave the country before he got killed.' Mrs Tavarez daughter Katherine was made to take part in a life-or-death lottery for medicine when her baby was born prematurely. 'My daughter had her baby Andrea when she was seven months pregnant and the infant was very sick. She needed medicine to help her lungs grow. 'But the hospital had only ten doses for 30 children. 'The doctors made the mothers take a ticket to see which of the children would get the medicine. 'Luckily Katherine picked a winning ticket and her daughter survived. But a lot of the other babies died.' The mother of four told MailOnline: Her mother added: 'Kissy is the only child I have left. I will die from a broken heart if she leaves too.' Katherine now lives in Puerto Santander, a town on the border with Colombia, and crosses the border for everything she needs for her family. Mrs Tavarez said: 'Katherine has to cross the border to buy everything she needs. 'She goes to Colombia for food, for medicine and for healthcare. There is nothing in Venezuela.' Mrs Tavarez's youngest daughter Kissy is studying to be an Emergency Room nurse. The 17-year-old hopes to study medicine and get a job in Spain. Her mother added: 'Kissy is the only child I have left. I will die from a broken heart if she leaves too.' Royal Mail have released their designs for a new set of stamps to celebrate the work of Leonardo da Vinci Advertisement A new set of stamps is being published featuring drawings by Leonardo da Vinci to mark 500 years since the artist's death. The 12 stamps feature drawings from exhibitions being held across the UK this year. They include a drawing of St Philip, a preparatory work for Leonardo's masterpiece, The Last Supper, and a pen and ink drawing of sleeping cats. Martin Clayton, head of prints and drawings at the Royal Collection Trust, said: 'Alongside an ambitious programme of 12 exhibitions around the UK, then exhibitions at The Queen's Galleries in London and Edinburgh, we are thrilled to be working with Royal Mail on this special 12-stamp set, which invites everyone to join the celebration of Leonardo and his work in 2019.' Philip Parker, of Royal Mail, said: '500 years after his death, Leonardo's drawings continue to inspire and intrigue us. 'We are delighted to feature 12 of the finest examples from the Royal Collection on these stamps.' The artist's Equestrian monument was supposed to be a blueprint for the world's largest statue of a horse. Leonardo da Vinci was tasked by a Duke to build the model, but only made a small clay prototype, which was later destroyed This drawing of the Guelder-rose shows the early study and sketching of plants, flowers and wildlife by Leonardo da Vinci in the early 1500s. The drawing shows the rose surrounded by berries This drawing of Star of Bethlehem was painted in the early 1500s. The drawing shows the flowers blooming in intricate detail. A Royal Mail spokesman said Leonardo's drawings still 'inspire and intrigue' the public today The skull drawing by Leonardo da Vinci shows two halves of a human skull in proportion. The drawings, pictured as part of a 12-piece Royal Mail stamp set, will also be displayed in exhibitions across the UK to mark 500 years since the artist died The stamp set includes a drawing of St Philip, pictured above. The drawing was preparatory work for Leonardo's masterpiece, The Last Supper The new stamp collection also includes a drawing of Head of Leda. Leda is the fictional queen of Sparta, who fell in love with Jupiter while he was in the form of a swan, according to Greek myth The 12 stamps feature drawings from exhibitions being held across the UK this year. They include a pen and ink drawing of sleeping cats, pictured above The new set of stamps will be published to feature drawings by Leonardo da Vinci to mark 500 years since the artist's death. He was born in 1452 and lived to age 67 Leonardo da Vinci's work also included anatomy of the human body, with intricate detail of the human muscles and bone structure. The detailed drawings give a fascinating insight into the science of the Middle Ages This stamp shows the human rib structure, the arm and leg joints and an overview of the spine. The fascinating drawings, alongside detailed medical notes, gives insight into how medicine was administered at the time This bearded man is another fascinating drawing created by Leonardo da Vinci. The Royal Mail is working in partnership with the Royal Collection Trust to produce the special 12-piece stamp set. The stamps will mark the artist's death 500 years ago this year A 36-year-old Danish woman has been sentenced to four years in jail for having drained more than a pint of blood from her young son as often as once a week over a five-year period. The mother performed 110 drains using a catheter on the boy between the ages of one and six, and told hospital doctors that his low blood count was due to a rare bone marrow disease. Doctors got suspicious and alerted police, who installed a hidden camera in her flat in Skjern, on the Jutland peninsula in western Denmark, and caught her in the act. The 36-year-old trained nurse from Skjern, western Denmark, drained blood from her son, then told doctors that his low blood count was due to a rare bone marrow disease During questioning in court in Herning, Jutland, the 36-year-old - a trained nurse - was asked about her frequent social media updates about her son's 'illness' and reaching out to the local press. 'I really wanted to share his story,' she said according to TV2 Nyheter. 'I think, I felt, that it helped us. It was a statement. You can feel a bit alone. Both as a mother, but also as a mother with a sick child.' When the prosecutor pointed out that she had been the cause of her child's illness, she said she hadn't seen it that way at the time. A court-ordered psychiatric report said the woman, who has not identified, suffers from Munchausen syndrome by proxy. Guilty: The court in Herning, Denmark, found that the woman suffered from Munchhausen by proxy and sentenced her to four years in jail Munchausen by proxy is a condition where an adult will invent medical conditions for his or her child so that they can get attention or sympathy. A dangerous facet of this is how they will often induce symptoms in the child to better illustrate the lie. Munchausen by Proxy is typically considered a severe form of child abuse. The boy, now seven, lives with his father and two other siblings and while being slightly physically underdeveloped compared to other children his age, he has made a full recovery. A car dealership answered a plea for help on social media and adopted two abandoned dogs and also gave them a new job. Staffers at Volkswagen City Chetumal in Chetumal, Mexico, were quickly lauded for saving the abandoned dogs on February 1 from a shelter after a plea on social media to find them new homes. The dealership not only gave them a new home but also provided them with jobs complete with ID cards. 'We are proud to introduce our new employees,' the car dealer's Facebook post read as it shared photos of the duo. A Volkswagen dealership in Chetumal, Mexico, adopted two abandoned dogs, Virtus (pictured top center) and Polo (pictured bottom center) from a local shelter Virtus (pictured) was saved by a Volkswagen dealer in Mexico on February 1. He was assigned an identification card similar to his two-legged co-workers Polo (pictured) and his canine pal Virtus will be compensated with unlimited treats, water and they get to work in an air conditioned environment The back of the ID cards with the dog's 'signatures' Just like their two-legged co-workers, the dogs, named Virtus and Polo, were each assigned their own employee identification badges. The back of the plastic covered identification cards featured an image of a paw above the employee signature line. A user on the social media site complained and took a swipe at the company, saying the dogs would be abused because they wouldn't be receiving monetary compensation for their rendered services. But the person was quickly shut down by the folks at Volkswagen City Chetumal. 'Our new workers have croquettes and water every day, and work in air conditioning.' Tributes are flowing for the 15-year-old girl who died after drinking a cocktail made from alcohol and energy drinks where she is being remembered as a 'free-spirited' young woman. Paris Kamper was found unconscious at a semi-rural property in Kenthurst, in Sydney's north-west, on Friday night. Police seized items from the family home, including a bottle of alcohol and energy drinks, after it was discovered the teenager had used an online recipe. Paris Kamper (pictured) died after drinking a cocktail made from alcohol and energy drinks where she is being remembered as a 'free-spirited' young woman A 15-year-old girl (right) was found unconscious at a semi-rural property in Kenthurst, in Sydney's north-west, on Friday night Police seized items from the family home, including a bottle of alcohol and energy drinks, after it was discovered the teenager (right) had used an online recipe Devastated loved ones described the 15-year-old as an 'incredibly talented' and 'amazing' young horse rider with 'a heart of gold'. 'She was gorgeous but even more beautiful on the inside ... she had a heart of gold and would constantly offer help to me if I needed it!,' one person shared online. 'We love you forever,' another loved one wrote in a touching tribute to the girl. The teenager had a blood-alcohol level of 0.4 when she arrived to hospital - a reading which is eight times the legal driving limit. Police said it is believed the teenager was drinking alone at her home at the time. 'This child was not a user of alcohol, she wasn't known to have a drinking issue,' Superintendent Rob Critchlow said. 'I cannot state how pointless and tragic and sad and avoidable the death of a 15-year-old child, drinking alcohol on their own, is in a place that should be a place of safety. 'The information we have is that she was quite a character, quite a free-spirited young girl, who was well respected and well liked. 'She was deeply engaged in her animals, she had chickens and horses and other livestock on her semi rural property.' Devastated loved ones described the 15-year-old as an 'incredibly talented' and 'amazing' young horse rider with 'a heart of gold' who was 'deeply engaged in her animals' 'She was gorgeous but even more beautiful on the inside ... she had a heart of gold and would constantly offer help to me if I needed it!,' one person shared online The girl's older sister marked the devastating event by changing her profile picture and cover photo. 'My angel,' the caption under one of the pictures read, while the other one - a picture of the sisters - was simply labelled: 'Snow Bunny'. The girl was taken to The Children's Hospital at Westmead, in the city's western suburbs, but she died on Monday. The teenager was one of five children. 'Send the strongest warrior angels to look after your beautiful sisters,' one friend wrote. 'Send the fierce one to stand strong for your brothers.' The girl (pictured) has also been remembered for her love of horses and was 'the best rider of her age' according to friends The teenager had a blood-alcohol level of 0.4 when she arrived to hospital - a reading which is eight times the legal driving limit The girl has also been remembered for her love of horses and was 'the best rider of her age' according to friends. Police claimed the young teenager had little experience with alcohol after they seized energy drinks containing high levels of caffeine before paramedics rushed to her family home at 9.30pm last Friday. Superintendent Critchlow, from her local Hills Police Area Command, also said combining alcohol with popular energy drinks containing the guarana stimulant was a toxic brew. 'This investigation is in its infancy but early inquiries indicate this girl sourced an alcoholic drink recipe from an online site, then put that information to the test,' he said. She was taken to The Children's Hospital at Westmead (pictured), in the city's western suburbs, where she died the next day on the Queen's Birthday public holiday 'The consequences have been tragic.' Supt Critchlow said underage drinking was potentially fatal. 'We cannot emphasise more strongly the risk of underage and - more importantly - uninformed alcohol consumption,' he said. 'We have a family devastated by the death of their beloved daughter; they have a lot of questions.' With police investigating the cause of the tragedy, he had a simple message. 'We will endeavour to find answers, but our message has to be: do not risk your health experimenting with high-risk information sourced online,' he said. A post-mortem examination is due to be done this week. A serial dine and dash woman who conned restaurants and hotels out of thousands of dollars went onto leave scathing reviews of the establishments she had scammed. Lois Loder and her boyfriend allegedly dined at lavish restaurants across Perth, racking up bills in their hundreds, before leaving without paying on more than 12 occasions. But their plot came unstuck as photos taken from security vision of thieved restaurants began surfacing online - the public eventually identifying Ms Loder. Lois Loder's (pictured) plot came unstuck as photos taken from security vision of restaurants she and her partner allegedly thieved began surfacing online The alleged serial dine-and-dasher (pictured) has been accused of blackmailing the businesses she and her partner scammed out of thousands of dollars in expensive meals When it came to settling her debt with establishments she scammed, the woman resorted to threatening to plague public platforms with false negative reviews. Terrazza Cafe Applecross claimed Ms Loder and her partner targeted its business in July, leaving without settling a bill of about $200. Photos of the couple were posted to the cafe's Facebook page, with it asking public members who knew the couple to let them know 'they haven't paid for their lunch'. Shortly after, Ms Loder used her alias account 'Lois Lynn' to give the cafe a one star review, writing 'Awful. Really bad. Wouldn't go there unless you like pubic hair in your butter'. The woman (pictured entering a cafe with her partner) resorted to threatening to plague public platforms with false negative reviews if posts about her not paying her bills weren't removed After Terrazza Cafe Applecross shared photos of the woman and stated she left without paying her bill, Ms Loder used her alias account 'Lois Lynn' to give the cafe a one star review Mr Loder (pictured) wrote, 'Awful. Really bad. Wouldn't go there unless you like pubic hair in your butter' in her review of the Applecross cafe This week Elmar's in the Valley restaurant shared photos of who they believed was the same couple which had targeted other Perth businesses. 'This couple came in on Saturday 7th April in a two door white Holden Coupe at 4.58pm to sample some of our food and drinks and forgot to pay their $250 bill,' the business wrote. Elmar's General manager Steffen Hoeer said the pair regularly stepped outside for cigarettes during the evening and fled before finishing their final meal. 'They didn't eat their dessert, they just went outside again but this time they took their belongings and they never came back,' Mr Hoeer told The West Australian. Ms Loder (pictured) and her partner allegedly targeted the business in July, leaving without settling a bill of about $200 Photos of the couple were posted to the cafe's (pictured) Facebook page, with it asking public members who knew the couple to let them know ' they haven't paid for their lunch' This week Elmar's in the Valley restaurant shared photos of who they believed was the same couple which had targeted other Perth businesses (Ms Loder pictured) A receipt showed the couple ordered a $48 bottle of white wine, four cocktails at a cost of $18 each, a soup dish, an antipasti platter, barramundi, a pasta and desert. 'I'm disgusted, it's just not fair. You receive the service, you receive the product, you pay for it. The staff still need to be paid,' Mr Hoeer said. In a message allegedly sent to a restaurant, which opted not to be named, Ms Loder appeared to threaten to tarnish the business's name unless it removed its post about her. 'I strongly suggest you remove the posts from the website or I will give you that many bad reviews it will make your head spin,' she wrote. Ms Loder appeared to threaten to tarnish a business's name unless it removed its post about her Elmar's General manager Steffen Hoeer said the pair (pictured inside Terrazza cafe) regularly stepped outside for cigarettes during the evening and fled before finishing their final meal A receipt showed the couple ordered a $48 bottle of white wine, four cocktails at a cost of $18 each, a soup dish, an antipasti platter, barramundi, a pasta and desert (pictured inside cafe) Mr Loder (pictured) threatened to write so many bad reviews about a particular restaurant it would force a restaurant owner's head to spin 'I will inbox you my visa details and as soon as your childish rubbish is removed I will go on every sight (sic) and say terriable (sic) about your over prices (sic) for basic watered down drinks.' Hillary's restaurant, 3Sheets, was allegedly fleeced on two separate occasions to a total amount of $250 per visit, according to owner Toby Evans. 'When we got done I made it my mission to get them caught, so as soon as I saw Elmar's had got done I got in touch with them and said it was the same MO,' Mr Evans told Perth Now. 'She's abusing the staff and saying 'oh I meant to pay, I meant to pay', so she's trying to dig herself out of a massive hole which she can't.' This week Elmar's in the Valley restaurant staff released CCTV images of the pair and tried to convince them to settle the bill before the matter was taken any further The couple (pictured) have allegedly performed the same stunt at 12 other businesses in Perth Elmar's General manager Steffen Hoeer said the pair arrived at around 5pm and regularly stepped outside for cigarettes during the evening Staff at Elmar's claimed the couple tucked into a three-course meal, drank cocktails and wine over the weekend before driving away in a Holden (pictured) Anoop Nair, The Royal on East Perth's Waterfront general manager, claimed the same couple visited his establishment and fled after racking up a bill of $240. 'It's definitely the same couple,' he told the West Australian. 'They seemed fine. They were talking to staff normally and then the male got up to go to the toilet. She did the same a minute after and they never returned,' he said. Supervisor Matt Janin said the restaurant received a strange phone call from a woman following media reports it had been a victim of the dine-and-dashers. 'One of our staff members picked up the phone and a lady said 'I've just seen myself on TV and your venue says that we've been doing runners.' Mr Loder (pictured) has been accused of calling Elmar's and abusing staff while claiming she 'meant to pay' Hillary's restaurant, 3Sheets, was allegedly fleeced on two separate occasions to a total amount of $250 per visit, according to owner Toby Evans (Ms Loder pictured) 'Then that staff member said, just hold on a minute I'll give you to my venue manager and then I ... heard a few swear words coming out of the phone,' Mr Janin told Perth Now. The Floreat Hotel filed a police report after the man and woman allegedly fled a $290 bill in February, the West Australian reported. The woman was also accused of leaving a hotel $2000 out-of-pocket across two separate stays in 2016, allegedly using a stolen credit card to make her bookings. She allegedly charged expensive meals to her room, and claimed she had left her ID in the car to avoid being caught out. Lloyd McAuley, the former franchisee of the West Perth hotel, filed a police report after her first visit, and went to the police station after her second. The Floreat Hotel filed a police report after the man and woman (pictured) allegedly fled a $290 bill in February Ms Loder (pictured) was allegedly the same woman to have left a hotel $2000 out-of-pocket across two separate stays in 2016, allegedly using a stolen credit card to make her bookings 'She'd say her ID was out in her car, can she just go up to her room and she'll bring it the next time she goes past the desk,' Mr McAuley told Perth Now. 'The hotel gets busy ... and before you know it she's been in your hotel for days.' The businessman said the woman eventually left his establishment after being confronted by him during her second stay. Mr McAuley believed the same woman had conducted a similar scam at another hotel in the city along with her male partner. Police confirmed they were investigating reports. More than 1 billion has been wiped off the value of Ocado after a fire savaged its warehouse in Hampshire on Tuesday night. The online grocer's share price fell 14 per cent in just two days as it warned the blaze would hit full-year sales. Co-founder and chief executive Tim Steiner has lost 22.5m from his fortune following the share price fall. Inferno: Ocado packs and delivers more than 30,000 customer orders a week at the warehouse in Andover But the 49-year-old still owns more than 15m shares in the company, worth 134m. Shares plunged 9.8 per cent or 94.6p, to 873.8p yesterday. Ocado packs and delivers more than 30,000 customer orders a week at the warehouse in Andover which is powered by robots. Neil Odin, chief fire officer at Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service, said firefighters were forced to cut holes in the roof of the warehouse to tackle the blaze because it was not designed for humans to work in. The cause has not been determined but Ocado has been forced to cancel thousands of customer orders. Four firefighters have been treated for minor smoke inhalation. Twitter shares plunged by more than 7 per cent despite the social network finally turning an annual profit. The US tech group said it made more than 920m in 2018 its first ever year in the black. Annual revenues rose by a quarter to 2.3 billion. But it spooked investors with figures showing that it continued to lose millions of users. Sign of the times: Twitter spooked investors with figures showing that it continued to lose millions of users Twitter said it had 321m active users at the end of 2018, down from 330m a year earlier. It also faces growing costs to police its platform, which are set to run to hundreds of millions of pounds this year. Twitter said expenses were set to surge 20 per cent because of its efforts to stamp out violent, abusive and extremist content. The cost of this could rise to as much as 462m this year, the firm added. Twitter also said it expected revenues of between 551m and 597m for the first quarter of 2019 slightly worse than analyst expectations. Clement Thibault, analyst at global financial platform Investing, said: 'Higher operating expenses are a bigger problem, as I anticipate Twitter's margins and profits to shrink considerably in 2019.' Some analysts said it was time for Twitter to show the results of efforts to safeguard its platform. Wall Street analysts at TD Ameritrade said: 'The street is just about done giving them a break about it.' Twitter boss Jack Dorsey vowed to overhaul content last year amid pressure from governments. He said: 'We aren't proud of how people have taken advantage of our service, or our inability to address it fast enough.' Superdry founder Julian Dunkerton fired more flak at the fashion chain's directors accusing them of presiding over the 'weakest' performance in its 34-year history. Dunkerton, 53, who left the business last year, declared 'action must be taken' after Superdry posted a 1.5 per cent drop in sales to 269.3m for the 13 weeks to January 27. Sales at Superdry's stores tumbled 8.5 per cent to 126.8m, while its internet business fell 0.7 per cent to 69m. Its wholesale operations recorded a 12.7 per cent jump to 73.5m. War of words: Chief executive Euan Sutherland, left, is under fire from founder Julian Dunkerton, right The figures pile further pressure on chief executive Euan Sutherland and chairman Peter Bamford amid a public spat with Dunkerton. The entrepreneur, who is married to 32-year-old designer Jade Holland Cooper, said the latest figures proved that Superdry's strategy is 'failing dismally'. Since taking over in December 2012, Sutherland, 42, has reduced the number of products it stocks and is diversifying from jackets and coats which Superdry has historically relied upon to drive sales. But Dunkerton, Superdry's largest shareholder, is unhappy with the change of direction and wants to return to the business and reverse management's decisions. He said: 'These numbers, the weakest in the company's history, are a damning indictment of Superdry's misguided strategy. 'The current strategy is failing dismally, as I predicted it would. Compared with the group's peers, who have been exposed to the same external factors, these numbers are very disappointing. 'As shareholders, we continue to suffer unnecessary value destruction and I am absolutely committed to restoring the business and brand back to strength. How bad does it need to get? Action must be taken now.' Wayne Brown, an analyst at Liberum, also attacked the firm over its performance. 'Superdry's performance is by far the worst in the branded clothing segment,' he said. Sutherland blamed the strategic overhaul for the latest sales decline, adding that mild weather dented sales due to a lack of demand for heavy winter coats. Dunkerton co-founded Superdry in 1985 from a market stall in Cheltenham. He has an estimated net worth of 441m, despite having to sell 48m of his stock two years ago to fund his divorce from the mother of his two children. He was chief executive of Superdry until 2015 when he stepped aside to oversee the firm's product and design. He left last year to focus on other business interests including his cider company and The Lucky Onion, an upmarket chain of hotels and pubs in the Cotswolds. Amy Higginbotham, retail analyst at Global Data, said: 'The board has responded to the lack of product creativity which Julian Dunkerton blames for the poor performance, by appointing Phil Dickinson, former Nike and Umbro executive, as creative director. 'But it is likely to see more disruption from Dunkerton over the next few days, as he pushes for investors to vote on his reinstatement, in an attempt to turn the retailer's fortunes around.' Guru Nanak had spent the last years of his life at the Gurudwara in the first half of the 16th century AD. It remains to be seen whether the expected agreement between the two sides is announced at the meeting in India or Pakistan. New Delhi/Islamabad: India and Pakistan are finally all set to start discussions on the Kartarpur draft agreement, with Pakistan on Thursday deciding to send a team to India on March 13, and New Delhi welcoming the move. Pakistan also proposed that an Indian team visit Pakistan on March 28 to finalise the draft agreement, to which New Delhi said that the follow-up meeting could be held in Pakistan as required. India, in turn, proposed technical level discussions between engineers on both sides without waiting for discussion on the modalities, adding that it hoped Pakistan would positively respond and confirm coordinates of the crossing point as well. The two countries are expected to hammer out an agreement on the modalities that will enable Indian Sikh pilgrims to travel on a special corridor on both the Indian and Pakistani sides to attend the 550th birth anniversary celebrations in November this year of the founder of Sikhism and the first Guru of the Sikhs Guru Nanak at the historic Kartarpur Sahib Gurudwara close to the Indo-Pak border in Pakistani Punjab. Guru Nanak had spent the last years of his life at the Gurudwara in the first half of the 16th century AD. Pakistan had last month announced that it had shared the draft agreement with India to facilitate the visit of the Sikh pilgrims, to which India had said it had shared the proposed coordinates of the crossing point of the corridor along the border with Pakistan. It remains to be seen whether the expected agreement between the two sides is announced at the meeting in India or Pakistan. In a tweet on Thursday, Pakistan Foreign Office spokesperson Dr Mohammad Faisal said, In a spirit of constructive engagement, Pakistan has proposed to India that the Pakistan delegation may visit India on 13 March followed by the return visit of the Indian delegation to Pakistan on 28 March to finalise the draft agreement for the Kartarpur corridor. We look forward to positive reciprocity from India. Welcoming the move swiftly, New Delhi said, We welcome the visit of the Pakistan team to discuss and finalise modalities. New Delhi had earlier said it had proposed two possible dates of February 26 and March 7 for the visit of the Pakistani delegation to New Delhi to finalise the modalities for use of the corridor by the pilgrims. The Police and Crime Commissioner for the West Midlands says he is so angry at the apparent ease at which criminals are stealing cars that he has taken it upon himself to name and shame manufacturers whose vehicles are easy to steal. David Jamieson has promised to publish car theft data for the region every six months so motorists in the area can make informed decisions about which vehicles to buy based on the likelihood of them targeted by criminal gangs. The recent figures provided by Mr Jamieson show vehicle thefts in the area had risen 196 per cent in the last three years - especially due to the spike in keyless vehicle crime - and suggests that Fords are most often earmarked as easy targets by thieves. Theft spike: The number of stolen vehicles reported in the West Midlands is up by 196% in just 3 years, new data released by the Police and Crime Commissioner, David Jamieson, shows Car crime is unquestionably on the rise in the UK. This is Money reported in January that a vehicle is stolen every five minutes in Britain, with thefts up by 50 per cent in the last five years. The latest statistics revealed by West Midlands Police show that 7,452 cars were stolen in the region last year - up from 2,521 in 2015, while separate data last year named Birmingham third as car theft hotspot of Britain. It's one of the UK's best-selling brands, Fords, that are targeted most frequently in the area, which have risen disproportionately in the last three years, Mr Jamieson said. In fact, the figures state that Ford thefts in the area were up a staggering 399 per cent, rising from 489 in 2015 to 2,438 in 2018. Premium brands, including Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz. were next on the list as the most often stolen cars, followed by Vauxhall. Audi and BMW have both seen more than a threefold increase in theft of their vehicles in the region while cases of stolen Mercedes models is up a whopping 428 per cent, the commissioner's data revealed. Most stolen cars in West Midlands in 2018 - and how much vehicle crime for each brand has risen in 3 years BRAND 2015 2016 2017 2018 % INCREASE FROM 2015-18 Ford 489 992 1,695 2,438 399% Audi 199 298 455 663 233% BMW 193 273 380 622 222% Mercedes 114 168 244 602 428% Vauxhall 318 327 488 525 65% Volkswagen 170 209 309 415 144% Land Rover/Range Rover 99 95 190 396 300% Nissan 81 90 171 267 230% Peugeot 145 123 154 208 43% Renault 105 102 128 165 57% Fiat 43 39 95 157 265% Toyota 82 73 122 140 71% Citroen 68 68 76 116 71% Seat 54 50 84 92 70% Honda 55 56 75 84 53% Skoda 21 33 38 56 167% Hyundai 32 25 46 49 53% Mini 27 31 40 42 56% Kia 14 12 38 40 186% Volvo 21 21 35 32 52% All manufacturers 2,521 3,284 5,170 7,452 196% Ford is the brand that most criminal gangs are going after using remote theft tactics Experts within West Midlands Police say that whilst keyless technology has made life more convenient for the motorist it has also made stealing vehicles easier for criminals. Some vehicles are being stolen by criminals in less than a minute. The data I am publishing will allow consumers to see how secure the cars they are buying really are David Jamieson, Police & Crime Commissioner, West Midlands In a statement made on Friday, West Midlands Police said: 'The PCC took the decision to publish the statistics, despite opposition from motor manufacturers, after growing increasingly concerned that not enough was being done to make cars secure. 'The statistics, which have been supplied by West Midlands Police, will continue to be published every six months until thefts return to the relatively low levels seen in 2015.' Mr Jamieson is now leading a national campaign calling on motor manufacturers to close security loopholes in their technology to better protect owners. Audi thefts in the West Midlands are up by 233%, the new figures show BMW is another of the premium brands being targeted by gangs, who either sell the vehicle to export markets or break them down into spare parts for sale Owners of Mercedes-Benz cars have seen the biggest spike in thefts in the region, up a staggering 428% between 2015 and 2018 In 2018 he met with BMW, Honda, Ford, Nissan, Audi and Jaguar Land Rover to demand they do more to prevent cars from being taken by crooks. Of the six firms contacted, it appears Jaguar Land Rover has taken real action to solve the issue. Consumer magazine Which? recently reported that JLRs Discovery, Range Rover and Jaguar i-Pace vehicles were the only cars found to be completely secure out of 237 models tested. The tests involved attempts to trick the keyless cars into thinking its key was closer than it really was, enabling thieves to unlock and or start the car. Encouragingly, we are seeing some new technologies starting to emerge from car makers such as Mercedes and Jaguar Land Rover to prevent specific types of theft Richard Billyeald, Thatcham Research Keyless cars are increasingly being targeted by organised gangs who are taking advantage of weaknesses in vehicle security systems. Once stolen the vehicles are often shipped abroad or cut up and sold for parts in illegal garages. West Midlands Police said it has been doubling its efforts to clampdown on vehicle crime, with a recent drive against thefts leading to almost 1,000 arrests and 600 cars being recovered. Mr Jamieson said: 'It is no longer a secret that most manufacturers have taken their eye off the ball when it comes to vehicle security. 'As keyless technology has grown in popularity more and more cars have vanished from driveways as their owners sleep. Some vehicles are being stolen by criminals in less than a minute. 'The data I am publishing will allow consumers to see how secure the cars they are buying really are.' He added: 'I am pleased to see that local firm JLR are tackling the problem head on. It is an example to the rest of the industry. 'West Midlands Police know I expect it to do more too. However, in recent months the force has netted 1,000 suspects and recovered hundreds of vehicles. 'This is vital work, but often very dangerous. These criminals are not only taking what doesnt belong to them, but putting lives at risk.' Keyless car crime has become a real issue for manufacturers, though some are taking measures in an attempt to block it UK vehicle security experts Thatcham Research echoed Mr Jamieson's concerns and said vehicle manufacturers need to do more to protect owners from organised crime rings. Richard Billyeald, chief technical officer at Thatcham Research said: 'Unfortunately, we are seeing an increase in car thefts over the past 18 months, and our intelligence suggests that it is being driven by organised crime gangs. 'These gangs can be quite resourceful so car makers need to react. 'Encouragingly, we are seeing some new technologies starting to emerge from car makers such as Mercedes and Jaguar Land Rover to prevent specific types of theft. 'An example is car keys that essentially go to sleep and don't give out a signal unless they are moving, but it can take time for this new technology to be developed and rolled out.' Policing minister, Nick Hurd, last month chaired a new taskforce to tackle vehicle theft in the country Thatcham Research said there is action being taken. 'To help speed up adoption of these types of technologies, the mandatory security assessments that are given to all new cars, NVSA, have been updated for 2019, and are centred on securing cars against the growing threat presented by digital compromise, Mr Billyyeald said. The NVSA is the security standard against which all new cars are assessed as part of insurance Group Rating and will be updated in 2019 giving carmakers the opportunity to bring in fresh measures to address the challenges presented by digital theft techniques. The new criteria are designed to shut down the Keyless Entry vulnerability, while anticipating other potential methods of digital and cyber-compromise. However, the security experts say a more holistic approach is needed to go head-to-head with criminal gangs. Mike Hawes, chief executive of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, refuted the suggestion that cars are easier to steal. 'Industry takes vehicle crime extremely seriously and is investing billions in ever more sophisticated security features ahead of any regulation. 'However, we continue to call for action to stop the open sale of equipment which helps criminals steal cars equipment which has no legal purpose and have joined both the West Midlands Police and West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioners representatives in a new Home Office taskforce to see how this can be addressed.' The policing minister, Nick Hurd, last month chaired this new taskforce to tackle vehicle theft. The taskforce replicates the successful model used to reduce moped-related crime in London, which fell by a third in the period from January to October 2018 compared with the same period in 2017. It's made up of a combination of automotive industry insiders, government departments and police forces who will drive forward action to reduce and prevent vehicle crime and promote best practice. The group will meet every six months and publish an action plan with new measures to disrupt these criminal networks centred around car crime. A JULY 28 feature about a Paris suburb which was the subject of a French parliamentary report said that up to 300,000 illegal immigrants lived there and referred to it throughout as Saint Denis. In fact, the suburb is called Seine-Saint-Denis, in which the smaller commune of Saint Denis is situated, and the report referred to estimates of 150-400,000 illegal immigrants. The article also said 1,700 jihadists are believed to have returned after fighting for IS. This is in fact the number of people understood to have left France not Seine-Saint-Denis to join IS. The claim that the suburb is home to '350 known jihadis' was based on comments of an anonymous official who told another publication that there are about '30 possible terrorists living in this area and about 300 extremists who would support them', and there are no official figures for the number of jihadis there. We are also happy to clarify that the reference to 160 'mosques' should have been to 'mosques and prayer rooms'; the French veil ban was introduced for reasons of security as well as integration; Mireille Knoll was murdered in a different part of Paris; Yasser Louati no longer works at French anti-Islamophobia group CCIF; and Christian de Moliner is a teacher, not a professor. We apologise for any confusion. To report an inaccuracy, please email corrections@mailonline.co.uk. To make a formal complaint under IPSO rules please go to www.mailonline.co.uk/readerseditor where you will find an easy-to-use complaints form. You can also write to Readers Editor, MailOnline, Northcliffe House, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TT or contact IPSO directly at ipso.co.uk A patient has died in California after surgeons at Mercy Medical Center Redding left a sponge in their abdomen, a California Department of Public Health report reveals. The patient - whose name and gender are unidentified in the report - underwent surgery to bypass a blocked blood vessel in his lower abdomen. It's a fairly low-risk, although serious procedure, but for this patient, a miscount of surgical sponges proved fatal. The forgotten sponge caused an infection in the patient's abdomen and they suffered a heart attack before dying of the infection 10 days after the operation. A medical team at Mercy Medical Center Redding in California could lose their licences after they left a surgical patient inside a patient to become infected and kill them (file image) Surgical sponges are the most common items to be left in patients' body cavities during operations. In fact, surgical objects are left inside some 1,500 patients, according to a 2007 study - and about two thirds of those are surgical sponges. As was the California patient's case, sponges are most commonly dropped, lost, forgotten or abandoned in the abdomen. Sponges are important tools for surgery, as they allow the operating team to soak up blood and other bodily fluids to keep their field of vision clear and as clean a possible while they work. Sold in different sizes depending on where and how they are intended to be used, surgical sponges are typically made out of cotton gauze, or sometimes gelatin foam. They come in sterile packaging, but left in a body cavity, soaked in blood and other bodily fluids, sponges quickly become fertile breeding grounds for all manner of bacteria. For this reason, if you were to stand in an operating room, you would hear at various points before during and after the surgery, the circulating nurse - who assists with the surgery but stays out of the sterile area - and the surgical tech (who directly assists the operating physician) will sound off in rounds of counting. Before surgery begins, they and the surgeon decide how many of each sterile tool and object will be required, and as they use, remove and dispose of these, the pair has to count them out and make sure that all items are accounted for at all times. The final number of sponges, sharp objects and other surgical tools accounted for in the end must be exactly the same as they were at the beginning. At Mercy Medical Center Redding, the guidelines also hold the surgeon responsible for overseeing this process, according to the surgical center's guidelines. The chart from the the procedure showed that the count of sponges had matched at its beginning and end. The scrub nurse who was half responsible for the count swore that all of the lap band sponges they'd started surgery with had been there, a fact she confirmed with the circulating nurse. Mercy Medical Center uses bags with 'holder pockets' for each sponge to make sure they're properly counted and disposed of. According to the case report, the doctor in the operating room is supposed to verify the number of sponges in the pocketed bags. But in this case, the surgeon did not, and the surgical tech noted that the center divider on the bag could tear and 'the only thing she could think of was, that this happened, and one sponge covered two slots and looked like two sponges instead of one.' This was not how the bag was meant to be used, and, however it happened, one of the 10 sponges wound up inside the patient, and the autopsy determined that this was the cause of their death. The California Health and Human Services Agency Department of Public Health is holding the entire surgical term responsible for failing to adhere to the hospital's protocols, and ultimately for causing the patient's death. This places Mercy in 'immediate jeopardy,' and it make significant corrections to its policies and procedures to ensure something so disastrous doesn't happen again - or risk losing its license. An NHS plan to hire at least 2,000 international GPs by 2020 has so far failed spectacularly and managed to entice just 34 doctors since 2015. According to reports 76 GPs have joined the scheme in total but 42 of them don't yet work with patients. The plan was made as part of former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt's pledge to hire an extra 5,000 GPs between 2015 and 2020. Mr Hunt admitted last year he was 'struggling' to make good on the promise, and figures now show only two per cent of the international posts have been filled. And there are concerns Brexit will make it harder to recruit doctors because the UK will become 'a less appealing place' for EU medics. The NHS has pushed back its target and now says it will try to hire more international doctors by 2023/24, going back on its pledge to boost recruitment before next year (stock image) 'It is disappointing to see schemes like this attract such low numbers,' the British Medical Association's Dr Krishna Kasaraneni told GP Online. 'Like the extra 5,000 GPs promised by the government in 2015, it was overly ambitious to think that this programme would result in such a large number of recruits.' Among the total 76 recruits, 22 are expected to relocate 'in the coming months', while 20 are already in the UK but are doing observational placements. NHS England said around 1,200 doctors had applied from overseas but many had dropped out because of high standards. The scheme has now been extended to aim for completion in 2024 and will include a wider range of countries, including Australia. The revelation comes after the NHS announced in October it would pay doctors from Down Under 18,500 to come and work in Britain. But the Royal College of General Practitioners has warned more than 700 GP practices could close by 2023 because of an ageing workforce which isn't being replaced. At the time the health service's director of care, Dominic Hardy, said the NHS would 'pull out all the stops' to bring in more high-quality doctors. Although the initiative appears to have floundered so far, the NHS insists it is 'beginning to gain momentum'. It said more than 700 doctors have joined schemes to either work in the NHS for the first time or return after leaving, some of whom are from other countries. Dr Kasaraneni added: 'While our colleagues from overseas have much to offer in terms of skill and experience, this scheme is just one part of long-term workforce planning and was never going to be the magic solution to the recruitment crisis. 'As Brexit day approaches, this will become more of an issue, as Britain becomes a less appealing place for EU doctors, and may influence the desire of those doctors from outside Europe to come and work in the NHS.' Last year the Royal College of General Practitioners, the professional body for family doctors, revealed concerns about the international scheme. The RCGP said money to be used for the scheme should be spent elsewhere in the NHS is the 'expected pipeline' of new doctors never arrives. NHS England told GP Online: 'In total, NHS England has now recruited over 70 doctors to the programme through both the pilots and the extended national programme.' Washington State is proposing a bill to ban vaccine exemptions amid a growing measles outbreak. There are 18 states, including Washington, that allow families to skip the protective shots for philosophical or personal reasons. But health officials say the spread - with 56 cases confirmed in the Pacific Northwest - have reached epidemic levels that warrant declaring a state of emergency. Now, Monica Stonier, state representative of Clark County, which has 51 cases and 13 more suspected cases alone, is sponsoring a bipartisan bill that she hopes will curb rates. The bill would have 'every child at every public and private school in the state and licensed day care center' receive the mumps, measles and rubella vaccine unless they have a legitimate medical or religious reason not to. Health officials say the spread - with 56 cases confirmed in the Pacific Northwest - have reached epidemic levels that warrant declaring a state of emergency 'Right now, my city is the hotbed for this outbreak,' Stonier told CBS. 'It certainly has reached a critical state in my county.' Stonier said 78 percent of under 18-year-olds are vaccinated in Clark County, which neighbors Portland, Oregon - at least 10 percent lower than the ideal. Anti-vaccination movements have grown across the country in the last decade, prompting panic from the medical community and fiery hit-backs from parents who say they do not trust the medicine. People infected with the virus have visited several locations in the Portland-Vancouver area including elementary and high schools, parks, churches, urgent care facilities, a Costco and an IKEA. Measles is a highly contagious infection caused by the measles virus. When someone with measles coughs, sneezes or talks, infected droplets are sprayed into the air, where other people can inhale them and are then infected. Symptoms present themselves between 10 to 14 days after infection and include fever, cough, runny nose and a total-body skin rash. STATES THAT ALLOW PARENTS TO OPT OUT OF VACCINES BASED ON PHILOSOPHICAL BELIEFS Arkansas Arizona Colorado Idaho Louisiana ( except no religious exemptions ) Maine Michigan Minnesota ( except no religious exemptions ) Missouri ( only for daycare, not public school ) North Dakota Ohio Oklahoka Oregon Pennsylvania Texas Utah Washington Wisconsin STATES THAT RECENTLY REVOKED THIS ALLOWANCE: Vermont California Missouri West Virginia Advertisement Once common, the disease is now rare due to the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends children receive the first dose at 12 to 15 months old and the second dose at four to six years old. The vaccine is about 97 percent effective. But those who are unvaccinated have a 90 percent chance of catching measles if they breathe the virus in, the CDC says. Before the measles vaccine was available, more than 500,000 cases were diagnosed in the US every year, with about 500 annual deaths. In 2018, 349 cases of measles were confirmed in 26 states and the District of Columbia, the CDC reported. It is the second-greatest number since measles was considered eliminated in the US in 2000. A report published by the World Health Organization (WHO) last month said measles has seen a 30 percent increase in cases around the world. Between September 2017 and August 2018, WHO reported more than 41,000 cases with 40 deaths in EU member states. Experts say the Portland-area and southwest Washington have become a 'hotspot' of the anti-vaccine movement. State data shows that 85.7 percent of students received all their vaccines for the 2017-18 school year, down from 89.8 percent in the 1999-2000 school year. Additionally, nearly eight percent of children in Clark County were exempt from getting vaccines required for kindergarten for the 2017-18 school year, according to The Oregonian. A mere 1.2 percent were for medical reasons, while the rest were for 'conscientious objector' or 'philosophical/personal beliefs'. Washington is far from the only state to be battling a measles outbreak with cases reported in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Oregon and Pennsylvania since January 1. New York has seen some of the highest numbers with 64 children in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and 130 children and adults in Rockland County falling ill since October 2018 - all in Orthodox Jewish communities. 'The benefits of the vaccine greatly outweigh the risks,' said Dan Solmon, the former director of vaccine safety for the Department of Health and Human Services, told CBS. 'It can cause common problems like otitis media or ear infections, so, you know, measles is a pretty big deal for young children.' A five-year old girl was left nodding her head non-stop for two years because of a rare brain condition. The unnamed child, from India, was diagnosed with 'bobble-head doll syndrome', a phenomenon triggered by a growth in her brain. A cyst was found to be putting pressure on nerves inside her brain and causing the tremor which went untreated for years. It left her uncontrollably nodding her head. Doctors released footage of her bizarre condition, showing her head bobbing. Surgeons carefully drained the cyst and, six weeks later, the girl's tremor became less regular and not as pronounced. The unnamed girl had a 'two-year history of excessive head nodding' which doctors discovered had been caused by a cyst putting pressure on nerves in her brain Doctors revealed the girl's plight in a case report in the New England Journal of Medicine. Neurologists at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi examined the girl and noted her mental state was not affected. They said she had 'continuous, rhythmic, anteroposterior [front-to-back] head-bobbing movements'. Bobble-head doll syndrome (BHDS) is rare and tends to develop in young children it is unclear how many children develop the disorder. The girl's nodding became less severe when she was doing something else, such as talking, the doctors said, and also stopped when she was sleeping. Doctors discovered the girl's bobble-head doll syndrome was caused by a cyst in her brain which had triggered a permanent tremor it was likely to have been there her whole life Her BHDS was found to have been caused by a cyst obstructing one of the brain's ventricles a part of the organ filled with spinal fluid. A cyst can grow to put pressure on nerves in the brain which control movement, and cause them not to work properly and, in this case, cause a tremor. The tremor got worse over time as the cyst grew and the neurosurgeons said the girl had a 'two-year history of excessive head nodding'. She was likely born with the cyst, the diagnosis suggested, and doctors operated to drain it and relieve pressure on her brain. 'At follow-up six weeks after the procedure, she had partial resolution of her symptoms,' the doctors wrote, 'with a reduction in both the frequency and intensity of head movements.' A recording has been released of the moment a mother gives birth at home while on the phone to a 999 call handler. Lucy Knight, 29, of Ilminster, Somerset, was shocked when she could feel Eli's head while going to the toilet, three months before her due date. She and her partner, Dean Glover, 27, with the help of the 999 call handler, Lydia Gardiner, successfully delivered the 'miracle baby' within minutes. Ms Knight can be heard saying, 'Hello, I've had him. He's breathing but struggling', after her nerve-wrecking delivery. Eli, barely bigger than the size of his mother's palm, was rushed to hospital where he stayed in intensive care for 76 days. Lucy Knight, 29, of Ilminster, Somerset, delivered her baby, Eli, three months premature with her partner, Dean Glover, 27, on her bathroom floor on July 12, 2018 Eli was barely bigger than the size of his mother's palm, and was in intensive care for 76 days where he suffered two bleeds on the brain and a partially collapsed lung In the call on July 12, 2018, Ms Knight tells South Western Ambulance Service call handler Ms Gardiner: 'I went to the toilet and I was pushing and it felt like something was coming out. 'I can feel something, it looks like the top of the head. 'Hello I've had him. He's breathing; he's struggling though', before the baby cries. Ms Knight said she couldn't bring herself to look at Eli when he was born in fear that wouldn't be breathing due to the sudden and unexpected nature of his arrival. She said: 'When Eli was born, I didn't want to look because I didn't think he would be alive. WHAT WAS SAID IN THE PHONECALL? Lydia Gardiner, 999 call handler: Is the patient breathing? Lucy Knight: I'm calling for myself. I'm 27 weeks pregnant and I just went to the toilet and I was pushing and it felt like something was coming out. Gardiner: So you're 27 weeks pregnant and you felt like something was coming out? Can you feel or touch any part of the baby now? Knight: I thought I could feel something, yeah. It looks like the top of the head. *Break in recording* Knight: I've had him! Gardiner: Is the baby breathing? Knight: Yeah he is breathing but he is struggling though. He's struggling to breathe. *Baby cries* Gardiner: Is he still breathing? Is he doing okay? Knight: Yeah Gardiner: Okay well done you've done a really good job there. Gently wipe off the baby's mouth and nose. Dry the baby off with a clean towel. Cover the baby's head but not its face, okay? Knight: Okay. The ambulance is here. Gardiner: Let me know when they're with you in the room... You've done a really good job Lucy, congratulations. I'll leave you with the crew. Advertisement 'But he was breathing and crying which was a huge relief. 'I remember noticing how tiny he was.' Eli weighed just 1lb and 14oz (846g), and being born at 27 weeks, would be classified as 'extremely preterm'. Around eight per cent of births in the UK are premature, and 10 per cent in the US. Of the births that were premature in the UK, five per cent are 'extremely preterm', which is born before 28 weeks. Most often it is unknown why a baby is born early, and it is unclear why Ms Knight went into labour so early. Ms Knight said: 'I was in such a state of shock that I couldn't really feel anything. I was like an empty shell with no emotion. 'We're so grateful to the call handler for keeping me calm, and for helping us to keep Eli stable and safe until the paramedics arrived.' Ms Gardiner can be heard telling Ms Knight: 'Gently wipe off the baby's mouth and nose... cover the baby's head but not its face, okay?'. Ms Gardiner said: 'It's always a privilege to help deliver a baby over the phone, and this call is one I won't forget. 'I knew Lucy needed help when she said she was only 27 weeks pregnant but was pushing and felt like she could see the baby's head. 'My priority was to make sure he was breathing and was kept warm. 'Even though the baby was struggling to breathe, the paramedics soon arrived and I handed over to them. So I had no idea if Eli was going to survive.' Paramedics drove Eli to the neonatal intensive care unit at Musgrove Park Hospital in Taunton, Somerset. They had the heating on despite it being a hot summer's day. Paramedic Aaron Doolan explained: 'Heat loss is extremely detrimental to a newborn. 'So when we're travelling to the hospital in this situation, we always turn the vehicle's heating on, as well as wrapping a newborn in a baby blanket.' Eli suffered two bleeds on the brain and a partially collapsed lung while in intensive care. Ms Knight and Mr Glover have thanked Lydia Gardiner, the 999 call handler, and the paramedic team who rushed the baby to hospital on the day of Eli's birth Eli was allowed home at the end of September - two weeks before he was due. Ms Gardiner said: 'I was delighted to hear Eli is doing so well, and it's such a privilege to meet him and his family. 'We don't always know the outcome of calls we take, let alone have the opportunity to meet patients. 'Lucy did exceptionally well and kept really calm in what must have been such a scary situation. I feel proud to have been able to help her when she was most in need.' Eli is now a healthy seven-month-old living at home, where he had been delivered on the bathroom floor. Ms Knight said: 'The crew were absolutely amazing. We cannot thank them enough for getting me and Eli to the hospital safely. 'The outcome could have been very different. But so many people played a part in saving my baby's life, and we are forever grateful to them all. 'Eli is a little miracle - we're so delighted he's alive and at home with us.' A nurse was diagnosed with two tumours after her midriff swelled up so much people thought she was pregnant. Carla Nicholas, 45, went from a slim size 12 to a size 16 in just two weeks, which doctors initially dismissed as bloating due to constipation. The mother-of-one, of Shrewsbury, Shropshire, even endured cruel stares and comments from strangers as they accused her of drinking while pregnant at the pub. After finally being given a scan, Ms Nicholas - who lives with her 36-year-old partner Wes - discovered she had the tumours, one of which grew to 22cm across. Although she underwent a hysterectomy to remove the growths, medics later discovered the disease started in her cervix and had spread to her ovaries. Now incurable, Ms Nicholas has been given just five years to live. Carla Nicholas was diagnosed with two cancerous tumours after her midriff swelled up so much people thought she was pregnant. Pictured left with her partner Wes, the nurse went from a slim size 12 to a size 16 in just two weeks. Despite doctors at first dismissing it as wind, she was finally diagnosed and forced to have a hysterectomy (pictured right after the surgery) Ms Nicholas swollen abdomen (pictured) attracted cruel stares from strangers who thought she was drinking while expecting. At first the mother-of-one thought it was due to stress or her pre-existing condition Peutz Jeghers Syndrome - which causes polyps to form in the gut Ms Nicholas initially put her swollen abdomen down to stress when it started in November 2017. And when she became unable to fasten her jeans, she thought it must be due to her pre-existing condition Peutz Jeghers syndrome - which causes polyps to form in the gut. But when the swelling failed to go down, Ms Nicholas phoned her GP who said it sounded like wind. She soon developed a sore back and had people increasingly asking if she was expecting. 'A lot of people also started staring at my stomach whilst I was at work and out socialising,' Ms Nicholas said. 'I wanted to scream, "no, I am not pregnant!" 'I was in the pub drinking before Christmas and people were asking me why I was drinking when I was pregnant. 'People were looking at me in disgust.' Deciding it had to be checked out, Ms Nicholas went to a walk-in centre, where doctors referred her for a CT scan at the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford. Doctors then told Ms Nicholas she had a 10cm and a 6cm growth on her cervix - but is was unclear whether they were cancerous. Just two weeks later, one of the masses had grown to an astonishing 22cm. Hoping they were just cysts, Ms Nicholas had a hysterectomy on January 17 and went back to work while she nervously waited for the test results. She the began to experience severe flatulence and abdominal pain - both signs of ovarian cancer. '[The flatulence was] so bad, [it was] enough to knock out a room with,' Ms Nicholas said. When her bloating (pictured right) failed to go down, Ms Nicholas (pictured left) took herself to a walk-in centre where she was referred for a CT scan. The scan revealed growths on both her ovaries, however, it was unclear if these were just cysts or cancerous tumours Ms Nicholas (pictured left with Wes after chemo) received the devastating news she had cervical cancer that has spread to her ovaries. Treatment aims just to extend her life. The nurse (pictured right before her hysterectomy) has been given five years left to live After what felt like a long wait, Ms Nicholas was devastated to discover she had stage 4B cervical adenocarcinoma - a form of cervical cancer. 'The gynaecology consultant looked me in the eyes, and she started with the words, "I am so sorry",' Ms Nicholas said 'I could feel tears sting my eyes and I was squeezing Wes' hand like my life depended on it. 'You hear the word "cancer" and you don't know what to think about. All of sudden I had gone from "nurse" to "patient".' Ms Nicholas then received another crushing blow when medics told her it had spread and there was little they could do. 'I was told cancer was not curable and would have up to five years to live,' she said. 'All I could hope for now was to go into partial remission to try and get it under control.' Ms Nicholas has endured several rounds of palliative chemo in the hope it will extend her life. 'I am going to be positive and fight this cancer, even though it feels like a ticking time bomb inside,' she said. Ms Nicholas is speaking out to warn others of the symptoms of cervical cancer. 'If you have the same symptoms as me, it is best to go and get them checked by your doctor earlier rather than later,' she said. Pictured with Wes on a camping trip after her diagnosis, Ms Nicholas is determined to stay positive despite 'fighting a ticking time bomb' and wants others to know the signs of cancer A mother-of-two who felt she had lost her identity due to alopecia has shaved her head to embrace her beauty. Chloe Heaton, 28, of Lancashire, first saw signs of losing her hair in 2017, when a bald patch started off the size of a pound coin. The youth worker felt 'ruined' and wanted to 'disappear' as she lost her long locks, wearing headscarves for nearly two years to cover bald patches. But with the strength of her family, including husband Ben, Mrs Heaton shaved her head to boost her confidence, raising almost 2,000 for charity. Chloe Heaton, 28, of Lancashire, shaved her hair off to boost her confidence after she suffered from alopecia Mrs Heaton, pictured when her alopecia was at its worst, said she felt 'ruined' and wanted to 'disappear' due to the hair loss condition Mrs Heaton said her husband, Ben, is her biggest fan and told her she looked beautiful Mrs Heaton was at a race event in 2017 with her husband, a motorcycle racer, when she felt a soft patch on the back of her head and began to panic. She felt devastated when she was diagnosed with the incurable alopecia - a general term for hair loss. Alopecia can sometimes be hereditary, and some types are believed to be an autoimmune disease. 'My world stopped and I wanted to disappear,' Mrs Heaton said. 'This had an effect on everything, as you can imagine.' WHAT IS ALOPECIA AREATA? Alopecia areata a patchy version of alopecia is an autoimmune condition in which the immune system causes hair to fall out. It can affect hair on any part of the body and can happen to anyone at any age it can be triggered by stress. The hair usually begins to fall out in patches and leave bald, smooth areas. It is not possible for doctors to predict how much hair someone will lose, nor can they tell if the hair will ever grow back. Alopecia areata cannot be cured but if only patches of hair are lost there is an approximately 60 to 80 per cent chance of it growing back within a year. However, there is no guarantee it will grow back and doctors cannot predict whether it will, nor how much hair will be lost. If hair does grow back, it can take months or years and usually starts as sparse white hairs in the bald patches which can eventually thicken and regain their colour. Regrowth is less likely if all someone's hair falls out. Source: British Skin Foundation Advertisement Mrs Heaton took pride in her hair and had deliberately decided to grow a long length to cut it and donate it to charity. She said: 'I was twenty-seven-years-old at a race event when I ran my fingers through my hair; I felt the most bizarre soft patch on the back of my head... It started out as the size of a pound coin. 'I was absolutely devastated and felt like my world had come to a stop. I've always looked after my hair and took pride in it. 'So, for something to sneak in the night and rob me of, what I thought was my identity, I felt ruined.' Mrs Heaton didn't tell anyone for at least a year and a half to avoid embarrassment. She said: 'Nobody knew or even realised. I was a master at covering it up whilst I could. I still didn't tell people, even when wearing a headscarf until they asked (which wasn't often). 'All I wanted to do was hide in my house and not leave. I had constant support off my husband and two girls all the time.' The mother to Miya, eight, and Daisy, one-years-old, decided to turn a negative situation into a positive one by shaving the rest of her hair off to help raise money for Alopecia UK and raise awareness of the condition. She said: 'They [her family] always told me how beautiful I was. The mother to Miya, eight, and Daisy, one-years-old, decided to turn a negative situation into a positive one by shaving the rest of her hair off to help raise money for Alopecia UK at Aintree Racecourse, York, in August 2018. The mother to Miya, eight, and Daisy, one-years-old, decided to turn a negative situation into a positive one by shaving the rest of her hair off to help raise money for Alopecia UK Mrs Heaton, pictured with Ben, first noticed a pound-coin-sized bald patch in 2017 Mrs Heaton said she felt 'quite numb' the night before her head shave 'I originally wanted to grow my hair long, so I could donate it. Unfortunately, my hair didn't meet the criteria, so I have decided to keep it and frame it. 'I needed reassurance when it came to the big shave day at Aintree. I had to ask close family and friends to make sure I was doing the right thing. 'Of course, I was, I just needed the confirmation. 'I was quite numb at the idea and didn't think about it really until the night before.' With a target of 500, Mrs Heaton ended up raising over 1,860 in just a couple of months. She said: 'After I exceeded my target I was absolutely astounded. I couldn't believe the support I had received. I only wanted to raise 500 so to now be just shy of 2,000 I'm blown away.' Mrs Heaton, pictured when she first started wearing headscarves to hide her alopecia, said no one other than her family knew about her condition for a year and a half Mrs Heaton had been growing her hair to cut off and donate to charity before it began to fall out 'I still get self-conscious and feel everyone's eyes on me. 'The other issue I had was doing the school run or food shop; well just going out altogether.. Before I shaved my head, I used to wear headscarves all the time. I felt I could hide behind them.' But Mrs Heaton has made it her mission to embrace her beauty on social media to inspire others to love their look. She said: 'I wanted to turn the negative into a positive. Plus, I wanted to raise money for Alopecia UK as they aren't government supported and don't receive much help. 'The only donations they receive are from the public. I wanted to raise as much as possible for them and also bring awareness to a taboo illness.' 'I had a lot of support and advice too from a lady called Amy at Alopecia UK. We spoke a lot through email and she was amazing.' But Mrs Heaton said she owes most of her confidence to her husband. 'Ben is my number one fan and I am his,' she said. 'My family and friends think it's great that I'm fully embracing myself. They all tell me how much I suit it and that I can "pull it off". I was even told I had a nice shaped head. 'Be strong! Embrace as much positivity as you can and let go of the negative. No one can make you do any better, only you as you do everything in your own time.' A woman's who battled an 'unbearable itch' for two years actually had cancer and is now desperately raising 120,000 to 'save her own life'. Jade Whiston, 36, started itching uncontrollably in 2015, which would drive her to 'dig holes in herself' and leave her body covered in sores from her incessant scratching. After doctors dismissed her symptoms as a skin infection for two years, she was finally diagnosed with stage four Hodgkin's lymphoma in February 2017 after the skin on her chest started to swell. With the disease already in her lungs and liver, Mrs Whiston - of Pitsea, Essex - immediately started chemotherapy but her cancer continued to spread. Having exhausted all treatments options on the NHS, Mrs Whiston - who married her husband Vince, 38, last November - is now trying to pay for the drug panobinostat, which is only available for patients with the blood cancer multiple myeloma. Jade Whiston (pictured left in hospital) battled an 'unbearable itch' for two years - which turned out to be cancer. After scratching her skin until it left sores, she was finally diagnosed with stage four Hodgkin's lymphoma in February 2017. She is pictured right after chemo Pictured after she was diagnosed alongside her husband Vince - who she married last November - Mrs Whiston's itching was dismissed as an infection. She finally had a scan when the skin on her chest swelled. By this time, the cancer was already in her lungs and liver 'I'm fundraising 120,000 to try and save my own life,' Mrs Whiston said. 'My only option on the NHS is to accept my illness is terminal and to have palliative care. 'I have so far raised enough for my first cycle of the drug called panobinostat which is 18 tablets. 'I will have a PET scan after my second cycle mid-March to determine whether this new drug is working.' WHAT IS PANOBINOSTAT? Panobinostat is an anti-cancer drug that stops tumour cells multiplying and triggers their 'suicide'. It is approved on the NHS for the treatment of relapsed multiple myeloma - a form of blood cancer - in patients who have failed at least two other treatments. These patients must also take the cancer drugs bortezomib and dexamethasone alongside panobinostat. Common side effects of panobinostat include anaemia, reduced appetite, diarrhoea, nausea, vomiting, weight loss, sepsis and urinary incontinence. Panobinostat is given as an oral drug on days one, three, five, eight, ten and 12 of a three week cycle, including one week rest. Most patients require eight cycles. Source: Myeloma UK Advertisement Speaking of when she was told she had cancer, Mrs Whiston said: 'I was diagnosed at stage four and it had already spread to my lungs and liver back in 2017. 'I had no idea my itchy skin was a symptom of cancer.' Mrs Whiston first developed itching and extreme fatigue in 2015. 'I was scratching so much it was affecting my day-to-day life, I was covered in sores and was digging holes in myself,' she said. 'It was unbearable but doctors kept brushing me off and said I must have a skin infection. 'After being referred to a dermatologist it wasn't until two years later when the skin on my chest became inflamed that I was given an ultrasound which detected my lympnodes were swollen. 'Following a biopsy I was finally diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma, at first I felt relieved after going back and forth for so many years with crippling symptoms.' Mrs Whiston (pictured left in hospital and right after chemo) immediately started treatment but several rounds of different types of therapy failed to stop her cancer spreading. She is now fundraising 120,000 for the drug panobinostat, which is not on the NHS for her cancer Finally armed with a diagnosis, Mrs Whiston endured several rounds of chemo but the treatment did little to stem the spread of her disease. A scan six months later revealed her cancer was now in her spine, ribs, hip and lymph nodes. CAN ITCHY SKIN BE A SIGN OF CANCER? Itchiness usually occurs due to dry skin, an infection or an allergic reaction. However, it can also be a sign of cancer. Although it is unclear how some forms of the disease cause itchiness, medics believe it may be due to substances released by the tumour or how the body reacts to the growth. This itching tends to be all over the body but worse on the legs and chest. It usually goes away once cancer treatment starts. But cancer drugs themselves can also cause itchiness, which can be a sign they are working. Certain anti-depressants, steroid creams and complementary therapies - like foot massages - can help ease the irritation. To cope - people should limit the numbers of baths they have, apply unscented moisturisers, wear natural fabrics and keep rooms cool. Keeping nails short also reduces the damage scratching the skin can cause. Source: Cancer Research UK Advertisement 'Every time it seemed I was making progress, scans showed the cancer had multiplied,' she said. 'I have only been in remission once in the past two years but I won't give up.' Mrs Whiston was referred to the University College Hospital Cancer Centre in London where she was put on a trial comparing a new drug to one already being used by the NHS. To her despair, she was randomly allocated to receive the drug that was already around, which she failed to respond to. Mrs Whiston then began yet another round of chemo, which she describes as 'horrific'. 'I was in hospital for nine days, and it resulted in me collapsing and having problems with my kidneys,' she said. After two days at home, Mrs Whiston was then rushed back to hospital when she developed sepsis. A scan then revealed the cancer had spread to her liver, abdomen and more areas of her lungs. Despite all she endured, Mrs Whiston and her now-husband decided to go ahead with their wedding after being in a relationship for 12 years. 'Vince has supported me at every stage of my cancer journey, we decided to use our savings and get married last year as that's something we'd always wanted to do,' she said. 'We just had close family and friends but it was perfect for us.' Mrs Whiston - pictured after chemo as a bridesmaid - is desperate to avoid palliative care, and is therefore fundraising 'to save her own life'. Despite everything, she refuses to give up Mrs Whiston has launched a fundraising page to help her pay for the expensive treatment and has raised more than 47,000 so far. She claims she was offered a palliative care package before a nurse she had befriended recommended she try panobinostat. 'I want to have finished all six cycles of the new drug by mid-March,' she said. 'If it doesn't work I'll have no choice but to start palliative cancer treatment. 'I've been blown away by the generosity of people so far as we've already hit a third of our required total.' Mrs Whiston is also speaking out to encourage people not ignore warning signs that something may be wrong. 'I dismissed my awful itchiness as the doctors didn't think it was anything serious,' she said. 'It's not a usual symptom of Hodgkin's lymphoma but as it had spread to my liver that's what caused the itchy skin.' Intense itching can be a sign of liver problems due to bile ducts becoming blocked, causing bile products to enter the bloodstream and be deposited in the skin. Mrs Whiston added: 'I don't know whether things would have been different if my cancer was diagnosed earlier but I won't give up, I want to live.' Donate towards Mrs Whiston's fundraising efforts here. Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said, 'It is very dangerousIs he trying to provoke the defence forces?' Sitharaman also objected to the 'language' used by Gandhi. 'I honestly expected more from the Congress party,' she said. (Photo: ANI | Twitter) New Delhi: Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday launched a counter-attack on Congress chief Rahul Gandhi over the Rafale deal. Sitharaman said raising the Rafale deal issue on the basis of a media report is flogging a dead horse. She questioned Rahul Gandhi over his criticism that the Prime Minister diverted Rs 30,000crore to his industrialist friend Anil Ambani which could have been used for defence forces. Sitharaman said, It is very dangerousIs he trying to provoke the defence forces? Earlier, the defence minister defended the Rafale deal in Lok Sabha, where she made a statement after the opposition members disrupted the proceedings in the house and demanded clarification from the government over The Hindu report. The media report claimed that at height of the Rafale negotiation, ministry officials objected to parallel parleys by the PMO with the French authorities. In a press conference on Friday, Rahul Gandhi read out portions from the report and said the report has confirmed what we have been saying for a year. Gandhi said it is crystal clear that PM Modi bypassed the defence ministry in signing Rafale deal. Gandhi repeated his charge against PM Modi saying, Chowkidar chor hai (the watchman is a thief. In her response, Sitharaman also objected to the language used by Gandhi. I honestly expected more from the Congress party, she said. The defence minister also questioned the journalistic ethics of the newspaper that published a defence ministry note selectively. Sitharaman said, Then Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar ji replied to that MoD note that remain calm. There is nothing to worry about. Everything is going alright. Now, do you call the NAC (the national advisory council during the Manmohan Singh government) led by Sonia Gandhi as interference in earlier the PMO? What was that? Responding to the defence ministers reply in the Lok Sabha, Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge said, We demand a joint parliamentary committee, everything will be revealed then, we dont want any explanation now, have heard many explanations, from PM also, he said. The Hindu report has created fresh controversy over Rafale deal as it claimed that senior defence ministry officials objected to what they termed parallel parleys by the PMO officials with the French authorities while the Indian Negotiating Team was handling the talks for procuring fighter jets for the Indian Air Force. The deal was signed between India and France at the inter-governmental level in 2016 for the purchase of 36 fighter jets. The family of an entrepreneur with terminal brain cancer claim the NHS is 'inhumane' for not giving him cannabis oil to reduce side effects of his cancer treatment. George Gannon, 29, flew back to the UK from his home of four years in Koh Phangang, Thailand, after being diagnosed with a frontal lobe malignant tumour in October. The social media consultant and DJ was told that his cancer was terminal in December 2018. In palliative care, Mr Gannon is taking cancer drugs including steroids, which give him severe side effects which he says are alleviated by cannabis oil. He and his girlfriend, Canadian-born Natalie Hobbs, 29, currently have to buy it online for 1,200 a month and claim the NHS have been dismissive. The family of George Gannon, 29, claim the 'inhumane' NHS is denying him access to 'life-saving' cannabis oil which he claims alleviates his medication side effects Mr Gannon flew back to UK from his home of four years in Koh Phangang, Thailand, where he had been diagnosed with a frontal lobe malignant tumour in October. Pictured with a bandage on his head after surgery in Thailand, beside his girlfriend, Natalie Hobbs, 29, who is currently caring for him Mr Gannon, pictured in hospital in his home of Stone, Staffordshire, was given the news that he had 12 brain tumours and that his cancer was terminal in December 2018 Mr Gannon, originally from Basingstoke, Hampshire, but now living in Stone, Staffordshire said: 'It's unfortunate how difficult it has been to get this prescription from the NHS. 'It's hard for me to communicate my wishes to my doctors. 'The people who need these oils most are often the people that can't speak up for themselves. 'The oil definitely helps with my symptoms, which is a tall order because I experience many side effects from my prescriptions even on the best of days.' CBD oil is legal to buy and widely available but cannabis oil containing the psychoactive chemical THC is still illegal in the UK. WHO CAN RECEIVE A PRESCRIPTION OF CANNABIS OIL ON THE NHS? Very few people in England are likely to get a prescription for medical cannabis. Currently, it is only likely to be prescribed for the following conditions: children and adults with rare, severe forms of epilepsy adults with vomiting or nausea caused by chemotherapy It would only be considered when other treatments weren't suitable or hadn't helped. Some cannabis-based products are available to buy over the internet without a prescription. It's likely most of these products even those called 'CBD oils' will be illegal to possess or supply and there's a good chance they will contain THC - the chemical which makes you high. The risks of using cannabis products containing THC (the chemical that gets you high) are not currently clear. That's why clinical trials are needed before they can be used. You cannot get cannabis-based medicine from your GP it can only be prescribed by a specialist hospital doctor. Source: NHS Advertisement At the end of 2018, Mr Gannon was due to have immunotherapy to boost his body's natural defences against the cancer. He had one round, but then his condition became worse and he was told the cancer was terminal. This meant the only treatment he was able to have is growth-blocking drugs debrafinib and tremetinib, and a steroid called dexamethasone. His medication causes him a host of aggressive side effects, with debrafinib known to cause fatigue, sickness, diarrhoea and anaemia. Mr Gannon and his family say the drugs have only made his condition worse, and if he can have access to cannabis oil, he could gain strength to have 'life-saving' immunotherapy. In October last year Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, said that medical cannabis would become available for prescription from November 1 in England, Wales and Scotland. Only specialist doctors can prescribe the oils and there are strict criteria for who can have it namely people with rare forms of epilepsy, with muscle stiffness because of multiple sclerosis, or vomiting because of chemotherapy. Patients will usually be required to have exhausted other potential treatments before being considered for cannabis. There is some evidence medical cannabis can help certain types of pain, though it is not yet strong enough to recommend it for pain relief, according to the NHS. According to Macmillan Cancer Support, there is no solid evidence to prove cannabis oil can improve cancer treatment. Mr Gannon's relatives claim doctors are ignoring their request for him to access the cannabis oil which they say reduces his grogginess. Mr Gannon's girlfriend, Ms Hobbs, said: 'I think the NHS is being inhumane in denying him access to the oil. 'We're professional people, not a pair of stoned hippies, and this oil has made a huge difference to George. Mr Gannon and Ms Hobbs have been buying cannabis oil online for 1,200 a month Mr Gannon said: 'The oil definitely helps with my symptoms, which is a tall order because I experience many side effects from my prescriptions even on the best of days' Ms Hobbs said the cannabis oil could save his life as he would be well enough to receive immunotherapy - which he had one round of before being told his cancer was terminal 'We're not naive and don't think that it'll cure everything but I do think it could mitigate some of the symptoms. 'We see immediate benefits from the oils but also long term benefits. Within the last two weeks he's regained some movement.' Ms Hobbs, who currently cares for Mr Gannon, said staff at Royal Stoke University Hospital in Stoke-on-Trent, where Mr Gannon has been treated, have been reluctant to back an application for him to use medical cannabis. Mr Gannon's mother, Sarah Evison, 53, said: 'It's pretty awful that he's being denied this... cannabis oil. 'I appreciate that there are always people who require funding but if there's a chance that the oil could help him then he shouldn't be denied it.' Ms Hobbs is frustrated that there is a 'stigma' around cannabis oil. She said: 'I can't tell how much he's improved since he's started taking the oil, it's like he's his old self. 'If he can get off the steroids then he could have immunotherapy and that could save him. 'It's just taken underground, there's a huge stigma. 'No one in the hospital has given us any info on how to apply, the GP said he was going to give us some literature on the oil but nothing has arrived, they've been quite dismissive about the idea.' Mother of Mr Gannon, pictured in hospital, Sarah Evison, 53, said 'it's pretty awful' that Mr Gannon is being denied 'life-saving cannabis oil' Ms Hobbs and Mr Gannon, pictured in hospital with a friend, said they are 'not hippies' but the NHS have been dismissive of their pleas Mr Gannon, a social media consultant and DJ, is said to have had skin cancer in 2013 before moving to Thailand She said: 'The prescription would take the stress off us. We're not asking for handouts, George needs help. 'I think there's always hope, we won't take no for an answer, there are always options but we're running out of time.' On the GoFundMe page, Ms Hobbs recalls the first signs of Mr Gannon's brain cancer while they were 'living their dreams' on Thailand's islands. Mr Gannon was rushed to a local hospital on a motorbike when he woke up in the night covered in sweat and 'unable to process his own thoughts in to words or make sense of anything that was happening to him'. Ms Hobbs said: 'What happened in those next few hours, I couldnt tell you, but the fear, sadness and heartbreak took over when we learned that George had several tumours in his brain.' The couple are trying to raise $25,000 Canadian dollars to pay for the cannabis oil Doctors believe Mr Gannon's tumour could have been a reoccurrence of a skin cancer he battled in 2013 before moving to Thailand. He paid 3,500 for a major operation to remove the tumour at a hospital in Koh Samui, before fundraising 100,000 for a 'medically-assisted flight' back to the UK. Once back in the UK, George underwent a second biopsy surgery as well as ten rounds of full-head radiotherapy and one round of immunotherapy. But on December 20, 2018, Mr Gannon was given the heartbreaking news that his cancer was terminal and he would be referred for end-of-life-care. A University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust spokesperson said: 'Medicinal cannabis would only be prescribed when there is clear published evidence of benefit for patients and where there is a clinical need which cannot be met by a licensed medicine.' More than 1,300 people raced to join the organ donor register after watching a 'heart-breaking' episode of Hospital last night. On Twitter viewers said they were struggling to get onto an overloaded NHS Blood and Transplant website during the BBC Two documentary. Only 60 people registered to join the register the day before, suggesting 23 times more people (a 2,218 per cent rise) signed up because of the show. The series's penultimate episode told the stories of patients due to have transplant surgery and of a mother who wanted to donate tissue from her terminally ill baby. People watching the programme said they had 'tears in their eyes' and were immediately moved to sign up to be donors themselves. Lauren, 27, wanted to donate tissues from one of her twins who would die shortly after he was born because of a development problem, but in the end it wasn't possible NHS Blood and Transplant said it saw a 'huge increase' in people signing up to be donors between 9pm and 11pm last night. 'Were delighted that BBC Hospital inspired so many people to sign up as organ donors,' said Andrea Ttofa, head of organ donation marketing. 'We know personal stories of donation and transplantation are extremely powerful and prompt people to sign up to save lives. 'Around 6,000 people in the UK are currently waiting for a transplant and last year more than 400 people died in the UK [while] waiting.' Last night's episode, the fifth in the series, followed doctors and patients at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital and Liverpool Women's Hospital. It followed Pamela, Collette and Michael, and Lauren and Gary, who were all waiting to have transplant surgery of some kind. Pamela, in her mid-fifties, was given just 24 hours to prepare for a kidney transplant she had been waiting for for six months because her own only had five per cent of their original function. Collette, 33, donated a kidney to her 36-year-old brother whose own had stopped working. Collette, 33, donated a kidney to her brother Michael who was suffering from end-stage kidney failure and had to spend four hours on dialysis four times a week And Lauren, 27, was pregnant with twins wanted to donate tissues from one of the babies Albi who had a genetic disease meaning he would die shortly after birth. As the programme highlighted the small number of organs available to a lot of waiting donors, people on Twitter said they were moved to try and make a difference. The credits revealed that, while 80 per cent of adults in the UK support organ donation, only 38 per cent of them have signed up to the register. But scores of Hospital viewers did their part last night and got #organdonation trending on Twitter. Dave Doran tweeted: 'While watching #Hospital this evening, even I had a tear in my eye for the baby that only lived for 2.5 hours. I am now registered as an organ donor.' User Sian said: 'After watching #Hospital tonight I felt I had to sign up straight away'. Dave Doran tweeted: 'While watching #Hospital this evening, even I had a tear in my eye for the baby that only lived for 2.5 hours. I am now registered as an organ donor' User Sian said: 'After watching #Hospital tonight I felt I had to sign up straight away' Ian Fearnley said: 'Let's share and get the ball rolling... I've signed up to be an organ donor' Andrew Harwood added: 'After watching tonight's #Hospital I've been inspired to sign up' Michael Tomlinson said: 'Heartbreaking watching #Hospital tonight. Had a positive effect,' alongside a photo confirming he had signed up Ian Fearnley said: 'Let's share and get the ball rolling... I've signed up to be an organ donor'. Andrew Harwood added: 'After watching tonight's #Hospital I've been inspired to sign up.' Michael Tomlinson said: 'Heartbreaking watching #Hospital tonight. Had a positive effect,' alongside a photo confirming he had signed up. There were even reports of people struggling to get onto the NHS Blood and Transplant website, with some claiming it had 'crashed'. Karen Cousins tweeted: 'I can't get on to the organ donation site to sign up that's a great sign!' Julie Bartlett said: '#Organdonation is trending thanks to #Hospital & apparently the @NHSOrganDonor website has crashed!' Michael, 38, had a successful kidney transplant from his sister, Collette, on the programme, after relying on dialysis (pictured) to keep him alive during kidney failure Julie Bartlett said: '#Organdonation is trending thanks to #Hospital & apparently the @NHSOrganDonor website has crashed!' Karen Cousins tweeted: 'I can't get on to the organ donation site to sign up that's a great sign!' Another account run by Ms Bartlett to raise awareness of organ donation, Waiting for the Call, added: 'Heaps of love to all those that were moved by last nights #Hospital to not only get #OrganDonation trending but to crash the @NHSOrganDonor website' ENGLAND WITHIN ARM'S REACH OF OPT-OUT ORGAN DONATION An opt-out system for organ donation will soon become law in England after it passed its final hurdle in Parliament. Adults will be presumed to be organ donors unless they have explicitly asked not to have them taken after they die. Experts say the move could save 700 lives a year. The House of Lords this month gave its approval to the law, which is now in its final Parliamentary stages after it cleared the Commons last year. In 2017, some 411 Britons died before the right donor could be found and more than 5,000 are currently on the waiting list in England alone. Wales introduced an opt-out system in 2015, while the Scottish government has also tabled legislation on the issue. The new legislation is set to be called Max and Keiras Law, after heart transplant patient Max Johnson, 11, and his donor Keira Ball, who saved his life after dying in a car crash aged nine in 2017. Tory frontbencher Baroness Manzoor told peers: Even if one life is saved as a result of this change in culture then it must be surely worth it. Sign up to be an organ donor here. Advertisement Another account run by Ms Bartlett to raise awareness of organ donation, Waiting for the Call, added: 'Heaps of love to all those that were moved by last nights #Hospital to not only get #OrganDonation trending but to crash the @NHSOrganDonor website.' A spokesperson for NHS Blood and Transplant this morning denied the website had gone down overnight. As well as being moved to become organ donors, people on Twitter voiced their sympathy for Lauren, whose son, Albi, died just hours after being born. Amanda Nadin said: '#Hospital heartbreaking tonight. Knowing for most of your pregnancy that one twin will die shortly after birth must be unbearable. 'Wanting to donate their baby's organs to help others, such an amazing gift to offer even if in the end it wasn't to be'. And Jo added: 'Wow, how heartbreaking. Lauren you are so brave and so unbelievably selfless. My heart goes out to you and your family.' Sign up to be an organ donor on the NHS website. Amanda Nadin tweeted: '#Hospital heartbreaking tonight. Knowing for most of your pregnancy that one twin will die shortly after birth must be unbearable. Plastic surgeons are seeing a spike in people getting second nose jobs after being unsatisfied with their previous operation. They say many patients return to their offices seeking a rhinoplasty to fix a new or uncorrected defect - almost the same reasons for why they had their first surgery. Some have functional reasons due to botched operations, such as their nasal valve collapsing leaving them unable to breathe or their nose becoming crooked. But surgeons say a surprising number are requesting procedures due to a mix of correcting procedures they got because they were trends a long time ago and influence from celebrities and social media. According to the American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, 94 percent of surgeons performed a revision in 2018. 'The number of consults I see for revision rhinoplasties has at least tripled over the last five years,' Dr Deepak Dugar, a board-certified plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills, California, told DailyMail.com. 'Five years ago I used to see about five to seven a day. Now sometimes I'll see between 10 and 15 a day.' Dr Dugar and his colleagues, who are fielding more and more clients, warn that getting a revision rhinoplasty could potentially send patients down a spiral of wanting more and more surgeries to reach an unattainable perfection. Plastic surgeons say they are seeing a rise in patients coming in for a revision rhinoplasty after being unsatisfied with their previous operation. Pictured: Rhinoplasty performed by New York-based surgeon Dr Norman Rowe Experts warn that many patients are trying to emulate celebrities they seen social media. Some stars have openly praised their nose job including Jillian Michaels (left) and Lisa Kudrow (right) Rhinoplasties are among the most challenging plastic surgery procedures performed. It's often referred to as the 'procedure of millimeters' because changing just one millimeter of the nose can impact its appearance. 'The nose is one of the most complex areas of the face due to anatomy and blood supply,' Dr Lara Devgan, a board-certified plastic surgeon based in New York City, told DailyMail.com. 'The nose is in the center of your face, it's closer to the selfie lens than any part of face, and it compromises parts of your identify and heritage. 'People underestimate the complexity of surgical rhinoplasties. It seems like a triangle on a smiley face but, in fact, it hosts a whole bone support network.' Therefore, it's not surprising the satisfaction rates of patients after rhinoplasties are lower than the rates after other procedures. A 2015 study from The Ohio State Wexner Medical Center found that 83.6 percent of people were happy with their results. But a 2013 study from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons found that 98 percent of women were happy with their results. 'You can't put makeup it on like an imperfection on your eyes, or like you let your hair grow long to cover a scar,' Dr Norman Rowe, a board-certified plastic surgeon in New York City, told DailyMail.com 'It's the hardest surgery to get right.' But the operations are still done in droves. The satisfaction rates of patients after rhinoplasties are lower than the rates after other procedures. But, in 2018, rhinoplasties were the most popular procedure, performed by 96 percent of plastic surgeons, followed by revision surgery, which 94 percent performed. Pictured: Kylie Jenner in December 2012, left, and in April 2017, right One surgeon told DailyMail.com the number of rhinoplasty revision consultations he's seen has tripled from five years ago. Pictured: Iggy Azalea in December 2012 TODAY'S MOST POPULAR SURGERIES OVERALL: LESS-INVASIVE Procedures such as laser treatments to tighten or 'rejuvenate' skin, toxin injections to paralyze face muscles and ease frown lines, chemical peels, and freezing and killing unwanted fat, are fast overtaking traditional surgery. More and more clients opt for procedures that require no anesthesia, less recovery time, and present fewer risks. 'The growth of non-surgicals is pretty much exponential,' ISAPS president Renato Saltz said. 'The technology, the money invested in research and development, is just mind boggling. If you look at the industry, they don't make money with a scalpel, but they do make money with machines.' MOST POPULAR: BOTOX OR SIMILAR In 2015, Botox injections were the most popular procedure with 4.6 million performed by plastic surgeons, followed by hyaluronic acid injections (2.9 million) to iron out wrinkles and plump up lips. STILL THRIVING: BOOB JOBS Surgical breast augmentation was in third place with 1.5 million procedures, followed by liposuction with 1.4 million and operations to lift and shape eyelids at 1.3 million. ON THE RISE: OPERATIONS 'DOWN THERE' Genital resculpting is another wide open field. 'The demand is not there yet, but 10/15 years ago there was also no demand for female genital rejuvenation,' said Bernard Mole, a Paris-based plastic surgeon. Today it is among the most popular procedures, 'and I believe that in five to ten years we will see the same trend in men.' Advertisement According to 2018 statistics from the American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, rhinoplasties were the most popular procedure, performed by 96 percent of plastic surgeons, followed by revision surgery, which 94 percent performed. According to Dr Dugar, most rhinoplasties that need revisions are being done by people who are not rhinoplasty experts or by ear, nose and throat doctors. 'I would say 90 percent of people who end up with revisions didn't do enough their homework the first time,' he said. 'When they come to see me and ask for a revision, and I ask who they went to, it wasn't the best rhinoplasty surgeon in town. 'It's sad because revisions are so much more complicated.' Dr Rowe says patients not doing adequate research on their surgeon the first time around is more common than wanting a revision rhinoplasty because trends have changed - and the numbers are rising. 'From about five years ago, the number of revisions I see has increased by 25 to 30 percent,' he said. Dr Rowe added that years ago the 'diamond tip' - or pinched tip - noses was popular, but now he gets women coming in to see him who want to reverse it. Surgeons have noted that many clients see celebrity selfies online - images of ageless stars with noses that seem perfect. There are also those who admit to their plastic surgery and describe the process as life-changing. Friends star Lisa Kudrow admitted to getting a nose job in an interview with The Saturday Evening Post. 'I went from, in my mind, hideous to not hideous,' she said. 'That was a good, good, good change.' And fitness legend Jillian Michaels told PEOPLE that she had a nose job when she was 16 years old after she was bullied over her appearance. 'I'll be honest, it did change my life,' she said. 'Not to say you should let your physicality define you, but there are some things that can make people feel really insecure. But the doctors say they want to discourage patients from visiting their offices in the hopes of seeking surgery to look like a celebrity. 'Patients often want to emulate somebody's nose whether it's someone they see on Instagram, YouTube or another social media outfit,' Dr Stuart Linder, a board-certified plastic surgeon based in Beverly Hills, California, who focuses on body work, told DailyMail.com 'Creating a nose like a celebrity's nose is not impossible but it's difficult. People have different facial proportions, different orbit of the eyes. The nose on one patient might not fit another. 'A good rhinoplasty surgeon will tell [a patient] what looks good on their face.' Dr Dugar says the other problem celebrities face is that they often influence their followers to not make the best choices. 'Social media has given anyone a voice but people are trusting followers more than they're trustign medical degrees,' he said. 'A celebrity will say: "This person is the best" and, because they have five million followers, they'll agree with even if that's not the case.' Doctors say they want to discourage patients from visiting their offices in the hopes of seeking surgery to look like a celebrity. They add that a nose on one celebrity will not necessarily look good on a patient due to different facial proportions. Pictured: Kim Kardashian, left in September 2006, and right in June 2018 All the surgeons told DailyMail.com that if women aren't having problems breathing following their nose job, they probably don't need a revision (file image) The doctors say there are a number of things to consider before someone undergoes a revision rhinoplasty. The first is to wait at least 12 months or one year before having another operation. 'The nose swells, which lasts for many months. It could take a year or longer to heal completely' said Dr Linder. 'The last thing a patient should do is say: "I'm going to go have another [rhinoplasty] in a short amount of time." And a doctor willing to do it is very negligent.' They also say to look for a board-certified, well-respected plastic surgeon. Currently, 48 states legally allow doctors to perform plastic surgery even if they are not credited by the American Board of Plastic Surgery. That means a dentist or an ophthalmologist in these states could legally perform a nose job. Additionally, if you can't or don't want to go back to your original surgeon, they say go see somebody who specializes in revisions. 'You should go to a revisionist,' said Dr Linder. 'You don't want to just go to a fixer but a fixer of fixers.' Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, the doctors say that if you are breathing well after your original rhinoplasty, you likely don't need a revision. 'Patients should expect improvement but not perfection with a rhinoplasty,' said Dr Dugar. 'I try to talk them out of [a revision] if it's not as bad as they think. Otherwise, they're on a crazy path of three, four, five, six surgeries changing some unattainable perfection they'll never reach.' The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is slapping Walgreens with a 30-ban on tobacco sales after the retailer repeatedly sold tobacco products to minors, the agency said Thursday. Walgreens is among several store chains that the FDA has filed claims against for breaching its rules on tobacco sales. But the pharmacy giant's violations far outstrip those made by other retailers. In 22 percent of its stores that the FDA inspected, Walgreens had sold cigarettes, cigars or e-cigarettes to underage people. The FDA's latest move against Walgreens comes after the store chain was among the top offenders fined for selling e-cigarettes to minors last year. Walgreens sold tobacco to minors in 22 percent of the stores that the FDA investigated Walgreens is currently the top violator among pharmacies that sell tobacco products, racking up 1,800 violations for selling tobacco to young people, a rap sheet FDA Commissioner Dr Scott Gottlieb said 'astonished' him. 'I will be writing (to) the corporate management of Walgreens and requesting a meeting with them to discuss whether there is a corporate-wide issue related to their stores' non-compliance,' Commissioner Gottlieb said. The FDA has been ramping up a campaign against what Commissioner Gottlieb has dubbed an 'epidemic' of teen vaping. Health officials worry that vaping will lead teens to smoking. Though the brunt of officials' ire has fallen on Juul, the trendy, easily hidden device beloved by teens for for its poppy marketing and sweet e-liquid pods, the FDA is cracking down on retailers, too. Walgreens did not immediately respond to request for comment. The FDA filed complaints seeking to bar a Walgreens store in Miami, Florida and a Circle K store in Charleston, South Carolina, owned by Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc, from selling tobacco products for 30 days. Alimentation Couche-Tard also did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Thursday's action against Walgreens follows over 1,550 warning letters and 240 civil money penalty actions against its stores nationwide for unlawful tobacco product sales to minors, the agency said. The FDA has rolled out a Youth Tobacco Prevention Plan as part of its push to discourage teens from smoking. Last year, the agency announced sweeping restrictions on flavored tobacco products, including electronic cigarettes. It also plans to seek a ban on menthol cigarettes, a longtime goal of public health advocates, as well as flavored cigars. An epidemic-level rise in the popularity of e-cigarettes lately has led to a 38 percent increase in overall tobacco product use among high school students and 29 percent among middle school students last year, reversing the declines seen in the last few years, the FDA said. (Reporting by Tamara Mathias; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli) Patients will be offered lung cancer scans in supermarket car parks across the country in a bid to improve disease detection rates. Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to be screened over the next four years as part of an NHS drive to catch the disease early and improve chances of survival. The 70million drive involving ten cancer vans will target areas recording the highest death rates for lung cancer including Newcastle, Blackpool and Southampton. Trucks in supermarket car parks will offer lung cancer checks under a new scheme (stock) High-risk patients who smoke or have been smokers, aged 55 to 75, will be sent letters urging them to be checked out at one of the stores. Around 600,000 people are expected to be invited over the next four years with an estimated 3,400 cancers detected as a result, NHS England said. Cally Palmer, national cancer director at NHS England, said the roll out was a key part of the long-term plan. Prime Minister Theresa May revealed that under it, three-quarters of cancer patients will be diagnosed early within the next decade. Catching more cancers early is a cornerstone of the NHS Long Term Plan to save a further 55,000 lives a year and targeted lung health checks is one of the first projects to roll out following publication, she said. These new projects will save lives - early diagnosis for cancer is crucial as it is easier to treat, not only saving lives, but it will also mean thousands of patients will avoid life-changing treatments. CHEMO MAY CAUSE BREAST CANCER TO SPREAD TO THE LUNGS Chemotherapy may cause breast cancer to spread, alarming research suggests. The commonly prescribed chemo drugs paclitaxel and doxorubicin cause breast tumours to release proteins that then circulate in the blood until they reach the lungs, triggering the disease's onset in a new part of the body. When scientists - from the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research - blocked this protein in a lab model, the cancer did not spread. They hope their findings - released last December - will help make chemotherapy more effective. Advertisement There are 46,400 cases of lung cancer in Britain each year and 35,500 deaths - most patients who get the disease are smokers or former smokers. Only one in ten patients is still alive five years after their diagnosis because the illness has often spread elsewhere. Health bosses believe locating the scanners near supermarkets makes them more convenient for patients and makes appointment less intimidating than in hospitals. The expansion follows successful pilots in Manchester and Liverpool which improved early detection rates. Mobile scanning units at Tesco and Asda led to a four-fold increase in tumours diagnosed early, from 20 per cent to 80 per cent. In Manchester, 2,541 patients were screened with 65 lung cancers found as well as other heart and lung conditions, including Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). Four in five cancers were detected early, during stages one and two, while one in five were found to have a previously undiagnosed lung condition. Paula Chadwick, chief executive of Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation, welcomed the announcement. She said: Given our own first-hand knowledge of these programmes, coupled with the staggering results from the NELSON trial which saw a 26 per cent reduction in mortality when high-risk patients had a CT scan, this is a big step forward in improving the early detection of lung cancer. NHS trusts could save up to 100million a year by cutting down on agency staff for administrative posts, a review has found. Filling temporary vacancies using an internal pool of staff rather than expensive agencies would reduce the wage bill by a fifth, according to hospital regulators. Hospitals have repeatedly been told to stop using costly temporary doctors and nurses to fill staffing gaps on wards. Now NHS Improvement has urged trusts to extend this policy to administration or estates workers. Staff should only be hired from external agencies for short-term special projects and not to plug gaps or fill vacancies, it said. NHS trusts could save up to 100million a year by cutting down on agency staff for administrative posts, a review by hospital regulators found (stock) Analysis found NHS trusts spent 223million between April 2017 and March 2018 on non-clinical agency staff, who work in areas such as administration, IT and HR. This was nine per cent of the NHS trust sectors overall spending on agency workers in 2017-18. Ian Dalton, chief executive of NHS Improvement, said: The NHS has made great progress in reducing its spending on non-clinical agency workers in recent years but there is more to do to make every pound count. Cutting unnecessary expenditure on agency administrative staff allows money to be freed up for patient care and supports a more stable NHS workforce. HEALTH SECRETARY VOWS TO CRACK DOWN ON NHS AGENCY STAFF The Health and Social Care Secretary vowed to clamp down on agency spending in the NHS last October, saying the use of such staff can be 'demoralising' for workers. Matt Hancock said he was 'shocked' by how the use of agency staff varies across the health service. He added while a lot of work has been done to cut the use of agency staff,he would crack down even further, saying 'boy there is going to be a whole lot more'. Mr Hancock said the NHS' own bank system in which workers are kept on the payroll and do casual shifts works well and is better value for money. It is unfair for staff nurses to work alongside agency workers who may be doing the same or less work but being paid more, the MP added. Advertisement Since a cap on spending on agency workers was introduced in 2015, NHS Improvement has supported trusts to cut agency spending by over a third from 3.6bn in 2015-16 to 2.4bn in 2017/18. The Health Secretary last year announced a crackdown on the use of agency staff, saying it was both costly for hospitals and demoralising for staff. Matt Hancock said he was frustrated by vacancy levels and urged hospitals with workforce gaps to reduce costs by using internal pools of doctors and nurses, known as bank staff. The latest proposals, which have gone out for consultation and could be introduced in spring, propose that NHS trusts only hire temporary workers from a list of approved agencies. Even then, they should only be used for roles such as healthcare assistants, clerical support and some allied health professionals. Minister for Health Stephen Hammond said agencies should be seen as a last resort. He said: We want every Trust to continue prioritising their existing NHS employees when filling shifts, which not only saves the NHS money, but creates a more flexible working environment for hardworking staff. Their romance is truly a love story for the Gen Z set: Dylan Sprouse and Barbara Palvin got together after the former Suite Life of Zack and Cody star slid into the Victoria's Secret model's DMs. Still, there's more to the story that makes this couple's relationship even cuter: According to 26-year-old Dylan, he sent his now-girlfriend, 25, his number and she didn't answer for six months. In a new interview with W magazine for the publication's digital Instazine, the couple dishes on their Hollywood romance, sharing details about the unlikely things they've bonded over and the fact that Barbara has actually yet to meet Dylan's twin brother Cole. Ooh-la-la! Dylan Sprouse and Barbara Palvin cover the newest digital issue of W Making it official: It's the couple's first photoshoot together 'She followed me [on Instagram], so I was like, I guess Ill give her something,' Dylan said. 'And I slid into her DMs. I was like, "Hey, I dont know if youre in New York for very long, but we should hang out if you want to. Heres my number."' 'And she didnt message me for six months.' Barbara said she 'wasnt in a good mind-set' when Dylan first sent that Instagram message, and 'maybe deep inside I knew that it could be something more.' 'Im not one to chase,' Dylan added. 'If I get left on read after putting out my number, f*** that. Im crying internally, but outwardly' He ended up filming a movie in China for six months. While he was there, Barbara came up in conversation and her ears must have been ringing. Romantic: Dylan said that they got together after he slid into her DMs on Instagram Uh-oh! Barbara took six months to message him back, and the two have now been together for eight months 'I thought, I wish I had time to take this girl on a date. Ten minutes later, Barbara texts me for the first time in six months,' he said. Barbara ended up flying to China, and the two have now been together for eight months. The day after talking to W, they moved in together, so things are moving fast though Barbara revealed that while she has met the rest of Dylan's family, she hasn't actually met his twin brother Cole yet. Cole is currently living in Vancouver and filming Riverdale, while Barbara and Dylan live in New York. When they're hanging out, Barbara said, 'We watch anime pretty much exclusively.' Bonding: Both the young stars said they love watching anime together No way! Barbara has yet to meet Dylan's brother Cole, who is currently in Vancouver filming Riverdale 'I was hiding it,' she admitted of keeping her love of anime private when they first got together. 'Well, not hiding it, but I wouldnt start off a conversation with that. 'In high school, I had a friend who would watch Naruto with me, but that faded away. When [Dylan] came into my life, I was like, Im home, baby.' In addition to participating in the joint interview, the couple also posed for a photoshoot together. While the two model designer brands like Alexander McQueen and Calvin Klein in some shots, others show them half naked, intimately posing topless together. Though they have been photographed together on the red carpet, this was their first joint photoshoot. Meghan Markle's best friend Jessica Mulroney cut a stylish figure in a wool coat with a luxe fur collar as she braved the morning rain in New York City on Friday. The 38-year-old Canadian stylist appeared to be showing off a plumper pout as she pursed her lips while making her way through the city streets following her appearance on Good Morning America. Despite the dreary weather, Jessica bared her legs in a striped dress that featuring a thigh-grazing slit that opened when she walked and had a $2,980 green Gucci handbag with a bamboo handle slung over her shoulder. Out and about: Jessica Mulroney seen walking through the New York City streets in a wool coat with a luxe fur collar and a $2,980 green Gucci handbag slung over her shoulder on Friday Plump pout: The 38-year-old Canadian stylist appeared to be sporting fuller lips, which she pursed as she braved the dreary weather in the Big Apple The fashion star wore her long, highlighted brown hair pulled back, but a few tendrils escaped her loose ponytail and blew in the wind. Jessica topped off her outfit with a pair of pale gray pumps and her large diamond engagement ring that sparkled on her finger. She was sporting dark nail polish, a color similar to the shade Meghan sported on her toes to attend a charity gala performance of Cirque du Soleil's Totem in London last month. The busy stylist may have been waiting for a text or phone call, as she opted to carry her cellphone in her hand, with the screen facing her body. Jessica, who lives in Toronto with her husband, Ben Mulroney, and their three children, often travels to New York City for work. In October, she was named Good Morning America's newest fashion contributor and made her debut appearance on the morning show. Earlier in the day, she wore her button-down striped dress on GMA to discuss how she helped a group of women refresh their style. 'It's so easy to get into a fashion rut,' Jessica explained. 'It happens to me all the time. If I could live in yoga pants every day I would.' Although she was dressed to the nines on the show, she enjoyed a comfy night in the day before. Jessica took to Instagram on Thursday to share a photo of herself dining in her hotel room in comfy Calvin Klein sweats while promoting her upcoming GMA segment. Pucker up! Jessica pulled her hair back off her face, and her lips appeared to be free from any kind of color or gloss Best friends: The GMA correspondent, pictured with Meghan in 2015, seemed to be modeling a plumper pout on Friday than she has in the past 'My kinda Wild NYC Night: breakfast in bed at 5 pm, nothing cooler,' she captioned the image. 'Catch me tomorrow on @goodmorningamerica at 8:45 am. 'I got to work with real women (incredible women) who needed a little spark in their wardrobe and we had the best time,' she added. 'Whos feeling like they are in a fashion rut these days? Let me know if I can help and hope you tune in. (not seen in pic is a tall and well deserved Tequila Soda)' With her glasses and long brown hair, Jessica bears a striking resemblance to her close pal the Duchess of Sussex as she poses with her arm in the air and gazes down at her salad and French fries. She also shared Instagram Stories photos to promote her appearance, including a close-up snapshot that was taken on set on Friday. Jessica's trip to the Big Apple comes just days after People published an interview with five of Meghan's 'close friends,' who asked to remain anonymous in order to protect their relationship with the Duchess of Sussex. According to the female friends, who are reported to be in the 37-year-old royal's innermost circle, Meghan was so upset by her estranged father's repeated attacks in the media that she wrote him a letter begging him to stop 'victimizing' her. The confidantes revealed that Meghan penned the letter to her father, Thomas Markle, shortly after her wedding to Prince Harry. Earlier in the day, the Good Morning America fashion contributor appeared on the show for a segment about women refreshing their style Outfit of the day: Jessica looked chic in a striped button-down dress, cinching her waist with a thick black belt 'Dad, I'm so heartbroken. I love you. I have one father. Please stop victimizing me through the media so we can repair our relationship,' she is said to have written to Thomas after he gave a flurry of negative press interviews about her. The friends said Thomas responded with a long letter of his own, in which he asked his daughter for a photo shoot. 'She feels like, "That's the opposite of what I'm saying. I'm telling you I don't want to communicate through the media, and you're asking me to communicate through the media. Did you hear anything I said?"' they told the magazine. 'I think she will always feel genuinely devastated by what he has done,' they added. The group of unnamed friends also voiced their concerns that the strain of her ongoing estrangement with her father, and the stress of dealing with his public rants about her, could well be taking its toll on Meghan and Prince Harry's unborn child. 'We worry about what this is doing to her and the baby,' they said. 'It's wrong to put anyone under this level of emotional trauma, let alone when they're pregnant.' The friends also insisted that, despite his claims about his daughter rejecting his attempts to get in touch, Thomas knows exactly how to reach his daughter and has never actually tried to get in contact with her. Ready to go! Jessica shared an image of herself showing off a very smooth complexion as she sat in the green room backstage Fashion correspondent: She also took to Instagram Stories to promote the segment Throwback: Jessica, who is pictured with her best friend Meghan Markle back in 2016, seemed to be showing off a plumper pout on GMA on Friday 'He knows how to get in touch with her,' said one longtime friend, who noted that Meghan's phone number has remained the same, despite Thomas insisting previously that her contact information had been changed. 'He's never called; he's never texted. It's super painful because Meg was always so dutiful. And at the same time, because she's a daughter, she has a lot of sympathy for him.' According to one friend, Thomas's claims about how his daughter and Prince Harry responded to his staged paparazzi pictures, which happened six days before the wedding, are also untrue. They say that Meghan reached out to her dad the Saturday before the wedding, after hearing that the story was about to come that he had staged pictures with the paparazzi. 'So Meg calls Tom and asks him, and he's swearing up and down that it's not true,' the source said. 'The next day the pictures came out. Even with all that, Meg and Harry were still so focused on getting him to London.' The images the photographer took in exchange for money showed him being fitted for the suit he planned to wear to his daughter's wedding as well as holding a book about the royals to show he was 'researching' the future in-laws. One friend told People that even after Thomas's staged paparazzi photos came out, Meghan was still adamant about having her father at her wedding and claimed that when a car arrived to take the 74-year-old to the airport for the wedding, he refused to get in. Comfy as can be: Jessica took to Instagram on Thursday to share a photo of herself dining in her hotel room in comfy Calvin Klein sweats while promoting her upcoming GMA segment Tell-all: Jessica's visit to New York comes just days after an anonymous interview with five of the Duchess of Sussex's 'close friends' was published A short time later, the former actress heard he'd suffered a heart attack. Thomas reportedly underwent surgery the Wednesday before the wedding on Saturday to repair the damage. Meghan then released a statement through Kensington Palace on that Thursday to further explain the situation with her father. 'Sadly, my father will not be attending our wedding,' the statement read at the time. 'I have always cared for my father and hope he can be given the space he needs to focus on his health.' 'She's calling and texting, even up to the night before the wedding,' Meghan's friend told People. 'It was like, 'Please pick up. I love you, and I'm scared.' It was endless.' A former colleague said it was a 'shame' that Meghan was being portrayed as someone who didn't care about her own dad. 'She [took care of her father] with such incredible generosity. The fact that this could be flipped around, that she was acting out, or not caring for him, is preposterous.' The friends also noted Meghan had never really had a relationship with her half-brother Thomas Markle Jr. and half-sister Samantha Markle who has been particularly critical of Meghan in the press. The anonymous friends said they were furious about the diva claims that have trailed Meghan since her engagement to Harry and that she has become 'difficult' since moving to the palace. Claims: The friends said Meghan, pictured with Prince Harry on February 1) was so upset by her estranged father's attacks in the media that she begged him to stop 'victimizing' her Opening up: The anonymous pals said that even after Thomas Markle's staged paparazzi photos came out, Meghan was still adamant about having her father at her wedding on May 19 The former Suits star was accused by royal insiders of demanding that the 14th century St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle be sprayed with air freshener to mask the 'musky smell.' 'She didn't throw a fit about the tiara or ask for fragrance to be sprayed in the church,' a close confidant said. 'These are outrageous claims and 100 per cent untrue.' Another branded the claim 'ridiculous' saying that Meghan has a close relationship with God, which she took very seriously, and would never disrespect the church with such demands. The Duchess also came under fire after her PA quit just six months into the role, as it was revealed she would email staff instructions as early as 5 a.m. 'The email thing is such a weird slant on someone who is actually an incredibly organized, diligent, focused, hardworking person,' her former colleague said. 'She was always that way. She showed up on set more prepared that anyone else.' Another friend added: 'There will be these stories about the turnover in their offices, and the fact is they're all natural courses of employment nothing to do with Meg or Harry or their style.' Worried: The friends admittedly had concerns about what the stress of the negative press, often stirred up by Meghan's own estranged family, was doing to her and the baby False: The unnamed pals also rejected rumors that Meghan was feuding with her sister-in-law Kate Middleton, whom she is pictured with on Christmas Day Friends also rejected rumors of any feuding between Meghan and her sister-in-law Kate, which started when she and Harry announced they were moving away from Kensington Palace in London to instead live in Frogmore Cottage in Windsor. A friend and former costar from Los Angeles said Meghan preferred a fairly simple life, and described visiting Meghan and Harry's cottage, where the former actress was more than happy to get her hands dirty. 'We had a couple of days together recently,' they told the magazine. 'Her husband was out of town on work. In the room she made up for me, there was a candle lit by the bed, slippers, and a robe. We were the only two in the house. It was our time. 'She made the most lovely meals. She made tea every day. It was raining and muddy outside, so the dogs got all dirty, and she's wiping them off with towels. How much she loves her animals, how much she loves her friends, how much she loves feeding you, taking care of you none of that has changed.' The friends added that the caring Meghan seen chatting to the public on royal engagements really was the real deal. 'When you see her at walkabouts, when she crouches down to talk to the kids and genuinely has real conversations with people, that's Meg. 'That's how she crouches down with our kids at home. That's how she plays with them. That's how she engages with people and how she always has.' A couple whose fateful meeting took place at a 9/11 shelter in Canada has opened up about finding love amid a horrific tragedy, just months after celebrating 17 years together. On September 11, 2001, Nick and Diane Marson were living on opposite sides of the Atlantic when they both boarded the same plane traveling from England to Houston, Texas. Speaking with Sky News, Nick, 70, and Diane, 77, recalled how their aircraft was one of the thousands that were diverted that day following the terrorist attacks on the U.S. that changed the world as they knew it. Fate: Nick and Diane Marson fell in love at a 9/11 shelter in Canada after their plane was diverted to Gander, Newfoundland, following the terror attacks in the U.S. Long-distance romance: The two spent five days getting to know each other in Gander, where they slept side-by-side in a shelter Nick, who was working as a product engineer in England at the time, was traveling to Houston for work, while Diane was returning to her home city after visiting family in the U.K. The two were among the more than 6,600 passengers and crew members who were forced to land in Gander, Newfoundland, that Tuesday. 'First, they told us that we were landing in Canada because of a problem with American airspace and I thought maybe it was a computer problem,' Diane told Sky News. 'Who would have thought what the real story was.' You knew you were safe and you were thankful for that because that could have been your plane Nick recalled the flight attendants seeming 'very, very nervous,' to the point that they were 'almost shaking.' It wasn't until they landed that they were told four planes had gone down, and Nick realized the flight attendant he watched walk up and down the aisles was trying to see if anyone on their plane looked like a terrorist. After they landed, they spent nearly 30 hours on the plane as the people of Gander, which had a population of 9,000 at the time, set up shelters for nearly 7,000 stranded passengers. The first shelter Diane was taken to was overcrowded, and she was transferred to a different one that was 25 miles away. As fate would have it, that is where she met Nick. Memories: Nick and Diane took part in a 'screech-in' ceremony to become honorary Newfoundlanders while in Gander Pucker up: As part of the local tradition, they each took a shot of screech (a Newfoundland rum), sang a song about where they came from, and then kissed a cod At the shelter, they watched the news footage of the attacks for the first time, feeling both horror and gratitude for their safety. 'It was like watching a movie. Wow, did that really happen? It was unimaginable,' Diane said, adding: 'You really didn't know what to think. You knew you were safe and you were thankful for that because that could have been your plane.' In the wake of one of the darkest days in modern history, the two divorcees started talking in the line for bed linens and bonded over their covers smelling like mothballs. When asked if it was love at first sight, Diane told Sky News: 'It was interest.' The next day, Nick and Diane went for a walk to try and escape the news coverage that was playing on a loop. The two stopped to buy some snacks, and while Nick was getting out his wallet, Diane surprised him by paying for both of them. Bonding amid tragedy: Nick laughed when it was Diane's turn to kiss the cod It was love: Diane realized Nick was interested in her after he asked her to stay in the frame of his photo (pictured) during an organized trip to Dover Fault in Newfoundland 'I had a reason for it,' she recalled. 'If I bought it then he would almost feel obliged to sit down in the park and . . . talk some more. If he had bought it, he could have said okay, bye!' Later that night, they took part in a 'screech-in' ceremony to become honorary Newfoundlanders. As part of the local tradition, they each took a shot of screech (a Newfoundland rum), sang a song about where they came from, and then kissed a cod. Although they had only known each other for a short time, the man running the ceremony assumed that Nick and Diane were married. When he found out they weren't, he offered to make them husband and wife. 'Why not!' Diane told Nick, but they never actually took the man up on his offer. The two didn't have access to their luggage during their courtship, and they spent their first five days together wearing the same clothes they had traveled in. Diane made the best of their situation and woke up early to put on the makeup that she had with her before Nick got up. Beating the odds: After leaving the shelter, they continued their courtship in Diane's home city of Houston, Texas, before Nick returned to England Memories: Nick proposed to Diane two months after they met and moved to Houston to be with her 'Every morning when I woke up, I'd look over and there'd be this really good looking American lady and she'd have all this make-up on and I was thinking, "Golly, I bet she wakes up like this every morning,"' Nick recalled. Nick and Diane's mutual attraction was realized during a day trip that locals organized to show the stranded passengers Dover Fault, a major break in the Earth's crust. When Nick went to take a photo of the view, Diane tried to move out of the way to avoid blocking her shot, but he told her to stay right where she was. Home away from home: They traveled to Gander for their honeymoon. They are pictured in Dover in 2017 'That's when I knew he was interested in me and not the scenery,' she recalled. 'That was our stop the world moment.' The two left Gander the Saturday after the attacks, and Diane recalled crying on the school bus that drove them to the airport. 'We sat together on the plane going back, you can rest assured,' Nick said. 'We were canoodling. You can imagine this, two bloody 50-year-olds canoodling.' While Nick was in Houston for work, they met up on several occasions before he returned to England. Despite the six-hour time distance between them, they continued their romance with a long-distance relationship. In November, just two months after their first meeting, Nick called Diane and proposed. Within weeks, she bought a house in Texas for them to move to. After months of splitting his time between Texas and England, he permanently relocated to Houston that May. The two said 'I do' on September 7, 2002, four days before the anniversary of 9/11 and their first meeting. They traveled to Gander for their honeymoon to meet with the friends they had made in the days following the terror attacks, and they were surprised with a wedding reception. For the 10th anniversary of 9/11 in 2011, they returned to Gander to thank the people of Newfoundland for their hospitality during the tragedy. Love story: The two have been married for 16 years and often visit Newfoundland Incredible: Their love story has been immortalized in the musical Come From Away. They are pictured with actor James Earl Jones II at the play's opening night in Los Angeles in November Old friends: At the show's Broadway opening in 2017, Nick and Diane posed for photos with Kevin Tuerff, Tom Stawicki, Beverley Bass (L to R) who inspired the musical's characters 'A single journey for each one of us changed the course of the rest of our lives,' Diane told The Canadian Press at the time. In September, the two celebrated 16 years of marriage, and according to Sanya Burgess, the Sky News writer who spoke to the couple via FaceTime, the two 'seem as madly in love as two lovestruck teens.' 'A single journey for each one of us changed the course of the rest of our lives And unlike most couples, Nick and Diane's love story has been immortalized in the Tony-award winning musical Come From Away, which was inspired by the real people and actual events that occurred in Gander on 9/11 and the days that followed. The musical opened on Broadway in 2017 following a world premiere at La Jolla Playhouse as well as productions in Seattle, Washington, D.C., and Toronto. The couple told Sky News they have seen the show nearly 90 times, and they plan on seeing the fifth stage versions of 'Nick and Diane' when a new cast takes on the story during the show's arrival in London this month. 'The first time we saw the show, we had no idea. Wed given this young couple [writers David Hein and Irene Sankoff] our story . . . and we had no idea what theyd do to us, but they did us well, they did us proud,' Nick told The Star last February. 'It really did happen the way you see it.' 'Its like renewing your vows in the theatre every night,' his wife added. A nurse who lost her leg after it was crushed beneath a dump truck has taken up rock climbing after her life-changing accident. Lauren Pine, 51, from New York City, New York, found herself pinned beneath the 20ft-long truck after she was struck while crossing a Manhattan street in November 2017. The nurse was dragged along the street before the truck came to a stop, but her left leg was pinned beneath the vehicle's front wheel for several minutes. Terrifying: Lauren Pine, 51, from New York City, New York, was hit by a dump truck while crossing the street in November 2017 On the mend: She was taken to the hospital where doctors decided her left leg, which was pinned under the truck, needed to be amputated up to the hip Difficult: Besides the amputation, Lauren's other leg had to be treated for burn marks along her right leg after she was dragged down the street by the truck Debilitating: Skin grafts were needed to heal the burn marks on the right leg. Pictured left and right is how badly the leg was damaged to need skin grafts Painful: 'I had been dragged along the street by the truck and my wounds on my right leg were so bad, they were like burns,' Lauren said 'I thought I was going to die,' Lauren said. 'I was screaming and I went into shock. When he stopped the truck the wheel was right on my leg. Everyone was screaming at him to back up. 'I knew at that point my leg was a goner.' Hurt: The skin grafts came from Lauren's back, which was protected by a backpack as she was dragged along the street Lauren was rushed to hospital where doctors had no choice but to amputate her crushed limb and hip bone during three intense surgeries. 'I don't remember much, but I woke up a few days later in a fog and my leg was gone,' she said. The New Yorker's remaining leg was so damaged from being pulled along the pavement she was later admitted to the William Randolph Hearst Burn Center at New York-Presbyterian Hospital & Weill Cornell Medicine. 'I had been dragged along the street by the truck and my wounds on my right leg were so bad, they were like burns, so I was admitted to the burn unit a week later,' she said. 'From my knee to my thigh, I have skin grafts. Lauren spent two months in the unit and underwent seven painful surgeries to graft the skin from her back onto the open wounds on her right leg. Moving forward: 'I don't have a hip joint which makes everything so much more difficult but luckily I was able to be fitted for a prosthetic,' she said Standing strong: Sixteen months after her accident Lauren has been fitted with a prosthetic but uses a walker and crutches to get around Working hard: 'Only two per cent of amputees have this type of amputation,' she said Positive: Despite her disability Lauren has taken up rock climbing once a week in an effort to improve her mobility Focused: 'I started top rope climbing last year after I met Kareemah Batts, who runs Adaptive Climbing Group,' she said She continued: 'My back was protected by a backpack I was wearing but now, much of my back has been used as a graft for my leg.' Sixteen months after her accident Lauren has been fitted with a prosthetic but uses a walker and crutches to get around. Proud: 'I now climb about once a week and I love it,' Lauren said 'Only two per cent of amputees have this type of amputation,' she said. 'I don't have a hip joint which makes everything so much more difficult but luckily I was able to be fitted for a prosthetic.' Despite her disability Lauren has taken up rock climbing once a week in an effort to improve her mobility. 'I started top rope climbing last year after I met Kareemah Batts, who runs Adaptive Climbing Group,' she said. 'I now climb about once a week and I love it. It is a wonderful program, it is something that's affordable for amputees. 'I don't use my prosthetic for this. It has been really great for my mobility and for my foot. I had never climbed before but I've always been active. 'I'm even traveling to Columbus, Ohio, to take part in a non-competitive climbing event in March. It's been really great for me.' The amputee also spends time with her horse Kainoa, who is stabled in New Jersey, and hopes to get a special saddle so she can return to horse riding. Incredible: 'I'm even traveling to Columbus, Ohio, to take part in a non-competitive climbing event in March,' she said. 'It's been really great for me' Hopeful: Lauren hopes to return to her career as a nurse in the future, but right now she's learning to tackle some of the hurdles that come with an amputation Before: Prior to the accident, Lauren used to horseback ride. It took her a while to get back on the horse after the accident After: 'I have sat on my horse but I have been unable to ride her yet. I'm hoping to get a special saddle in the future, but it's expensive,' she said 'I have sat on my horse but I have been unable to ride her yet. I'm hoping to get a special saddle in the future, but it's expensive.' Lauren said she has had difficult days since her accident, but says her career as a nurse has really helped her to remain positive. 'Although traumatic, I think it was a little easier for me because I am a nurse,' she said. 'My medical experience made me feel like I was going to be okay. 'I worked as a nurse with post-operative cancer patients and through that I saw so many people get through really terrible experiences. It kept me positive. 'I also went to a therapist and joined an amputee support group to help me. 'I used to tell this joke that the reason I kept so positive was because of all the blood transfusions I had - that I had the blood of young positive people pumping through my veins.' Lauren hopes to return to her career as a nurse in the future, but right now she's learning to tackle some of the hurdles that come with an amputation. 'As an amputee you have to just accept the loss of a lot of things. Spare time: The amputee also spends time with her horse Kainoa, who is stabled in New Jersey, and hopes to get a special saddle so she can return to horse riding. Bonding: 'Although traumatic, I think it was a little easier for me because I am a nurse,' she said Therapeutic: Lauren hopes to return to her career as a nurse in the future, but right now she's learning to tackle some of the hurdles that come with an amputation. Powerful: She said her disability has been hardest to deal with while living in New York City Lounging: Lauren is currently working as a volunteer until she can return to nursing 'My apartment in downtown Manhattan has four steps and I can't get up and down without help.With my prosthetic I can't walk very far and if it's wet or cold or icy I can't leave my apartment. 'If it snows I'm confined to my house. Living in New York is really hard for someone with a disability. 'The sidewalks are designed to drain into the gutters which makes it impossible for wheelchair users and getting around the city is really difficult, even with services like Access a Ride. She continued: 'There's also the financial pressure of being an amputee. 'My insurance has been wonderful for a lot of things, but there are things that haven't been covered, and of course I'm not working. 'I would love to get back to work as a nurse one day and I hope that will happen. But for the moment I'm hoping to volunteer, hopefully in the burns unit where I was treated. 'They cared for me so well and were so supportive I would love to give something back.' A team of three ED officials, including the investigating officer of the case, has put across about two dozen questions to Mr Vadra over two days. New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday questioned Robert Vadra for more than eight hours for the second consecutive day in connection with a money laundering case. Sources said that Mr Vadra was required to rejoin the probe as he needed to answer more questions on allegedly acquiring immovable assets in the United Kingdom. Mr Vadra, they said, was confronted with documents that the agency has collected, including some allegedly linked to absconding defence dealer Sanjay Bhandari. Mr Vadra is expected to be questioned again on either Friday or Saturday. Mr Vadra also shared documents with the investigating officer of the case and assured that more will be provided as and when he gets them, sources said. While Mr Vadras interrogation was on, the Bharatiya Janata Partys national spokesperson Sambit Patra addressed the press about nine emails allegedly exchanged between Mr Vadra and Sumit Chadha, a relative of Mr Bhandari, between March 8, 2010 and April 17, 2010 regarding properties in London. Alleging that the Gandhi family owns five properties in London, Mr Patra said, The address of five properties have come before us through media... One is on Wellington Road at St Johns Wood in London. This propertys cost is around Rs 37 crore. Second property has flat numbers 18, 20, 22, 24, 26 and 28 on Saratoga Road in London. It looks like there is a property of the Gandhi family on each road of London. Gandhi family will also have to bow down in front of law. The law wont bow to them... The accused have to come before the law and we are seeing that they are coming every day before ED now, he said. Mr Vadra arrived at the ED office in Jamnagar House, central Delhi, in an SUV at about 11.25 am, about an hour after his team of lawyers reached there. After two hours of questioning, he left for lunch and returned about an hour later. His questioning continued till 8.45 pm, sources said, adding that he may be called for questioning again on Saturday. After his questioning ended, his wife and Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra picked him up. The ED case against Vadra relates to allegations of money laundering in the purchase of a London-based property located at 12, Bryanston Square and worth 1.9 million, which is allegedly owned by him. The agency told a Delhi court that it has received information about various other properties in London which belong to Mr Vadra. These include two houses, one worth 5 million and the other valued at 4 million, and six flats, among others. Mr Vadra has denied the allegations of possessing illegal foreign assets and has termed the probe a political witch-hunt. He said he was being hounded and harassed to serve political ends. Mr Vadras lawyer, K.T.S. Tulsi, told reporters outside the ED office Thursday his client has not committed any wrongdoing. A team of three ED officials, including the investigating officer of the case, has put across about two dozen questions to Mr Vadra over two days. His statement is being recorded under Section 50 (powers of authorities regarding summons, production of documents and to give evidence) of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, as was done on Wednesday, sources said. Mr Vadras appearance before the ED acquired political overtones after his wife, Priyanka Gandhi, appointed Congress general secretary in-charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh, accompanied him to the investigating agencys office on Wednesday. She took charge of her new post at the Congress national headquarters on Akbar Road shortly after that. He is my husband, he is my family. I support my family, Ms Gandhi said in a show of support. As Mr Vadras questioning continued for the second day, Mr Patra quoted another email he said was sent by Mr Vadra on April 15, 2010, in which he allegedly wrote, Hi, was not aware that nothing has reached you. Will look into it at the morning and let Manoj sort it out. Will be in London soon too. You take care. Mr Patra claimed, Vadra is explaining that he didnt know that the money has not reached Chadha, so he would ask Manoj to immediately sort this out... Who is this Manoj? Mr Patra claimed that Mr Vadra has accepted that Manoj is his employee who used to write emails for him, which establishes a trail between Mr B, Deltabhandari, Manoj and Robert Vadra. Mr Patra alleged that some mails were marked to an email ID deltabhandari@hotmail.com, and said Congress president Rahul Gandhi needs to answer who Mr M, Mr B and Deltabhandari were. The Duchess of York put on an elegant display during a visit to Sierra Leone this week. Sarah Ferguson, also known as Fergie, 59, looked understated in a coordinated khaki skirt and blazer as she met children in Porto Loko on Thursday. Fergie, who is mother to Princess Beatrice, 30, and Princess Eugenie, 28, but divorced their father Prince Andrew, Duke of York, in 1996, was visiting the village as part of her work for her charity Street Child. The mother-of-two is currently working on a project which aims to raise money to help disadvantaged children across 10 countries get into education, and admitted that their lack of access to classrooms left her heartbroken. Scroll down for video The Duchess of York, 59, looked understated in a coordinated khaki skirt and blazer as she met children in Porto Loko as part of her charity visit to make education more accessible, on Thursday The duchess opted for a sand-coloured loose skirt with a matching tailored jacket for the occasion. Teaming it with a dark top and patterned scarf which perfectly set off her vibrant hair, she accessorised with a delicate gold medallion-style necklace. Completing the relaxed look, the mother-of-two wore a pair of black velvet loafers as met the local community. Other pictures show her being swamped by excited school children, before she joins them in the classroom. Sarah Ferguson, who is mother to Princess Beatrice, 30, and Princess Eugenie, 28, but divorced their father Prince Andrew, Duke of York, in 1996, was visiting the village as part of her work for her charity Street Child The mother-of-two is currently working on a project which aims to raise money to help disadvantaged children across 10 countries get into education, and admitted that their lack of access to classrooms left her heartbroken. She is seen visiting a classroom Posting an array of pictures showing her visit to her Instagram account, which boasts 169,000 followers, Fergie wrote: 'Such a privilege to be welcomed so warmly by children at this school in Port Loko, Sierra Leone, which has been helped by my charity. 'It breaks my heart that 121m children dont have a chance to go to school which is why I am here to launch Street Childs campaign to build or renovate 1,000 schools and give an education to 100,000 children.' She added: 'All public donations to Street Child before Feb 21 will be matched by the UK Government so please support this brilliant initiative'. Street Child was formed by a merger of an organisation of the same name founded by Tom Dannatt, son of Lord Dannatt, former head of the British Army, and Sarahs Children in Crisis organisation. Fergie was seen being swamped by excited school children during her visit to Sierra Leone this week, and was keen to raise awareness at the number of children who don't have access to education The Duchess is promoting the Street Child Count Me In appeal, which will use funds to buy school uniforms, train teachers and build classrooms for disadvantaged youngsters in 10 countries from Sierra Leone to Afghanistan. Donations to the campaign made before 21 February will be matched by the UK Government. On Thursday the duchess appeared on GMB via a video link from Sierra Leone, and admitted to Ben Shephard and Susanna Reid that she found bullying on social media 'very frightening' and that it was a concern for herself and her daughters. She said: 'I find the whole of social media bullying really frightening for myself, let alone for my girls Beatrice and Eugenie.... You go on social media and that's where the pressure comes on. 'That's why I am so convinced we must start very young - in kindergarten, in primary school - to teach children about not losing their way.' A woman has criticised online retailer PrettyLittleThing for its sizing after being sent a dress that barely covers her modesty. Size 12 shopper Bethanie Moore, 21, from Wolverhampton, ordered the black wrap dress in a size 14, just in case it came up a little small. However she was left shocked when she put the dress on and found the fabric didn't pull across her midriff properly, leaving her underwear on show. The disappointed student tweeted the clothing brand and asked it to explain. Size 12 shopper Bethanie Moore, 21, from Wolverhampton, ordered the black wrap dress from PrettyLittleThing in a size 14, just in case it came up a little small but she was shocked when she tried it on at home and found there was not enough fabric to cover her underwear, pictured The customer tweeted side-by-side photos of herself and the PrettyLittleThing model, pictured, to highlight how different the dress looked online Bethanie Moore criticised online retailer PrettyLittleThing for their sizing, after being sent a dress that barely covered her modesty She claims she has yet to receive any comment from the online retailer. Bethanie posted a side-by-side photo of herself in the dress alongside the image of a model from the website, and tweeted: 'Explain this please'. The shopper ordered a size 16 dress at the same time but claims she 'couldn't get it over her shoulders'. Bethanie posted a side-by-side photo of herself in the dress alongside the image of a model from the website, and tweeted: 'Explain this please' The black Long sleeve wrap midi jersey tea dress is 10 on the site, but Bethanie said it looks nothing like it does on the site She later said: 'I think it really knocks a girls confidence having to go up to a size bigger. Even though the average UK size for females is 12 we're constantly seeing models wearing a size 6-8.' 'I think it's important sizing is accurate and girls aren't made to feel any bigger than they are - when we already feel pressure to be slim!' And the disappointed customer said that the design wasn't even the same as it was on the website. Bethanie complained about shoppers needing to order a larger size to fit the retailer's clothes 'The dress was a totally different design to what was displayed online, and as you can see from my picture the sizing is way off,' 'I even sized up when ordering, to a 14, as I knew PrettyLittleThing and other brands are known for having dodgy sizing - but it was still awful!' One of her followers commented on her tweet, jokingly saying: 'I like it'. Bethanie joked back saying 'Trendsetter' but added: 'had to use a lil [little] emoji to cover my dignity (what is left of it)'. Bethanie returned the dress but didn't reorder it in a different size. PrettyLittleThing has been contacted for comment. Her due date is getting closer and closer with Meghan expected to welcome her first child with Prince Harry in April, but the mother-to-be shows no sign of putting her feet up. Kensington Palace has today announced that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex will visit Morocco later this month. The royal couple will visit the African country from Saturday 23rd February to Monday 25th February and are expected to undertake two days of engagements. It is thought that Meghan will be around 30 -32 weeks pregnant when she travels as while she has not revealed her exact due date she previously told fans she was due between late April and the beginning of May. According to the NHS, Meghan will be safe to fly as most airlines allow expectant mothers to travel up until the 37 week mark. The Duke and Duchess of Susssex will head to Morocco for a two day visit in two weeks time. Pictured: Meghan and Harry on Bondi beach during their tour of Australia Their visit comes almost four decades after the Queen had what has been described as her 'tour from hell' in the country. In 1980 the monarch, then 53, visited Morocco for the first and last time as part of her two-week-long tour of Italy and North Africa. King Hassan II was in power at the time and royal biographer Robert Hardman previously claimed that the king had been overly cautious following two attempted assassinations, resulting in various last minute changes. IS IT SAFE FOR MEGHAN TO FLY DURING PREGNANCY? The NHS states it is 'usually safe' for pregnant women to fly. However, most airlines will not let women who are 37 weeks pregnant fly. The cut-off is earlier for women carrying twins. Meghan is believed to be two months from her due date, so is likely to be around the 30-week mark. Leila Hanna, a consultant gynaecologist and obstetrician at Queen Mary's Hospital in London, said there is no evidence to suggest flying while pregnant is harmful. But she told MailOnline last year that all pregnant women should take precautions to reduce their risk of deep vein thrombosis. Deep vein thrombosis, or DVT, is more likely to occur to passengers on long-haul flights and pregnant women have an even higher risk. Miss Hanna revealed a low dose of aspirin can help to keep the blood thin for those making short flights. Meghan's flight to Morocco is just over three hours so she shouldn't have to take any extra precautions. Advertisement A Foreign Official at the time said of the trip: 'It was a unique state visit in that nothing that had previously been arranged actually took place as arranged'. At one point the Queen is reported to have been left alone 'sitting in the sun for most of the afternoon' by the King the Express reported last year. Several other engagements did also almost not go ahead, but the monarch had insisted attending in order not to disappoint the public. Despite the hiccups on the tour, the 92-year-old monarch was said to be 'fond' of King Hassan, and even wrote him a letter of thanks. We will next see Harry and Meghan on February 12 when they will visit the Natural History Museum. The Duke and Duchess were last seen on Thursday night when they attended the Endeavor Fund Awards in London's Drapers Hall. Meghan, 37, dressed her baby bump in almost head-to-toe bespoke Givenchy, pairing a crisp white shirt with a side-split skirt and box clutch by the designer, which she teamed with 530 Aquazzura 'Rendez Vous' pumps. As they moved around the pre-awards party at Draper's hall, Harry was heard to tell one invitee: 'There's a heavy baby in here.' For her part, Meghan told one guest: 'He's going to be the best dad.' The engagement comes in the wake of an explosive People magazine article published this week in which five 'close friends' of the pregnant Duchess spoke out on the 'emotional trauma' she has experienced as the result of abusive comments on social media and the ongoing public feud with her father Thomas Markle. One gave an account of how Meghan had done her utmost to support her father, despite him betraying her by co-operating with a paparazzi photographer over staged photoshoots. Their visit comes 39 years after the Queen visited the country for the first and last time in what has since been described as the 'tour from hell' Meghan and Harry last night attended the Endeavor Fund Awards in London where the mother-to-be said Harry would be 'the best dad' After the wedding she reportedly wrote him an emotional letter which was given almost verbatim to the magazine asking him to stop victimising me through the media so we can repair our relationship. He replied, apparently, requesting a photo opportunity. The group of unnamed friends also voiced their concerns about the effects the strain could well be taking its toll on Meghan and Prince Harry's unborn child. 'We worry about what this is doing to her and the baby,' they said. 'It's wrong to put anyone under this level of emotional trauma, let alone when they're pregnant.' Another voiced concerns over the 'global bullying' Meghan is facing, saying: 'We want to stand up against the global bullying were seeing (against Meghan). Meg has silently sat back and endured the lies and untruths.' Several members of the Swedish royal family donned their finest clothes to attend a glitzy charity dinner last night. Princess Madeleine, who stunned in an elaborate sequinned gown, happily kissed her parents King Carl Gustaf and Queen Silvia, after she bumped into them on the red carpet. The Royal Family of Sweden attended the charity dinner of the World Childhood Foundation's 20th anniversary, at Tivoli Grona Lund, Stockholm, Sweden, last night. Princess Madeleine, who stunned in an elaborate sequinned gown, happily kissed her parents King Carl Gustaf and Queen Silvia, after she bumped into them on the red carpet Brother and sister Prince Carl Phillip and Princess Madeleine smile on the red carpet The princess held a matching sequinned clutch bag and black and gold stiletto heels. Her hair was swept into a loose bun with flyaways softening the otherwise high-glamour look. Her makeup featured tanned, glowing skin and a pretty smoky eye. She was accompanied to the event by her brother, Prince Carl Phillip. The royal siblings appeared to have both opted to leave their other halves at home with their children. Earlier in the day, Princess Madeleine, 36, who flew out from her home in Miami, Florida, for the event joined her mother Queen Silvia at the charity's executive meeting. Her hair was swept into a loose bun with flyaways softening the otherwise high-glamour look The Royal Family of Sweden attend the charity dinner held by the World Childhood Foundation She wrote on Instagram: 'Happy to be home and attending [the] Executive Committee Meeting at Childhood #worldchildhoodfoundation.' Before the charity dinner, Paula Guillet de Monthoux, Secretary General of the World Childhood Foundation said: 'It is amazing to see what impression our organization has made in two decades, and how the issue of sexual abuse against children has gone from being a taboo to something we are talking about openly and jointly wanting to solve. 'That we pay attention to this with a dinner at Tyrol where money is collected for Childhood's activities means that we can really take the initiative and do even more in the future.' Queen Silvia founded the World Childhood Foundation in 1999 with the aim of supporting at-risk children around the globe. The organisation has offices in Brazil, Germany, Sweden, and the United States. Princess Madeleine has worked with the organisation for the past decade. She was accompanied to the event by her brother, Prince Carl Phillip. The royal siblings appeared to have both opted to leave their other halves at home with their children The princess held a matching sequinned clutch bag and black and gold stiletto heels The husband of late BBC radio presenter Rachael Bland has revealed that they were trying for a second baby when she was diagnosed with cancer. Steve Bland, from Cheshire, lost Rachael in September 2018, aged just 40, following a two-year battle with primary triple-negative breast cancer. The presenter of award-winning podcast You, Me and The Big C, which documented her journey, left behind their three-year-old son Freddie. And Steve, 38, who has given up his job to become a full-time father to the little boy, has now revealed that Rachael was keen to expand their family so he wouldn't be an only child. Scroll down for video Steve Bland, 38, from Cheshire, revealed he and late wife, BBC presenter Rachael Bland, were trying for a sibling for their three-year-old son Freddie when she was diagnosed with cancer in 2016.. They are pictured together a few months after her death in September The presenter of award-winning podcast You, Me and The Big C, which documented her journey, left behind their three-year-old son Freddie. Rachael is seen with husband Steve and their son Freddie However the devastating diagnosis came soon after the couple had started trying for a sibling for Freddie. Speaking to The Sun, Steve said: 'We were trying for a second baby when Rachael was diagnosed'. And in a heart-wrenching book due to be released later this month, a memoir written by Rachael to preserve her memory for Freddie, the mother-of-one touches on her pain at leaving him as an only child. She wrote: 'I would have loved to have had three children altogether, as I always think there is safety in numbers. 'And I'm so sorry, Fred, that I wasn't able to give you a sibling.' Steve Bland took to Instagram in November to announce he had found a publisher for his late wife and BBC radio presenter Rachael Bland's memoir, and it would be turned into a book in February Just six weeks after she passed away, Rachael's podcast won the Best New Show award at the Audio, Radio and Industry Awards (ARIAs). Throughout her journey Rachael had been keeping a memoir including letters for her young son to open on milestone days such as his eighteenth birthday. In November Steve took to Instagram to share a picture of Rachael raising a glass of champagne, revealing her memoir would be published in February 2019. He wrote: 'Hi folks, its Steve. Just wanted to share some wonderful news with you all. 'Were raising a glass to our beautiful girl today because we have found a fantastic publisher for her book.' Rachael, Steve and Freddie seen inset bottom celebrating Christmas 2017. This was Steve and Freddie's first Christmas without her after she lost her battle with cancer in September 2018 Alongside friends Deborah James and Lauren Mahon, Bland (seen)documented her cancer from first discovery, to being told it was incurable in May of this year, to finally being warned there were just days left The show following the trio's journey won the Best New Show award at Thursday nights Audio, Radio and Industry Awards (ARIAs) Expressing his joy and sadness, he added: 'She worked so so hard on it before she died and while were beyond heartbroken that shell never get to see it in print, were sure the brilliant team at Omara Books will do her proud. The book will be published by independent publishing house Michael O'Mara Books. Steve concluded: 'Keep an eye out for it in Feb 2019! Steve'. Shortly before her death Bland poignantly revealed she had wrapped 18 years worth of birthday presents for three-year-old son Freddie so he had a gift from her until he was 21. 'Putting the Can in Cancer': Rachael Bland's battle with deadly disease November 22 2016: Rachael Bland is diagnosed with primary triple-negative breast cancer that had spread to four lymph nodes under her right arm December 28 2016: She begins four and a half months of chemotherapy May 2017: She has a lumpectomy and auxillary node clearance July 2017: The mother-of-one undergoes a mastectomy August 2017: Bland has a re-excision of her lumpectomy and starts 15 sessions of radiotherapy October 2017: CT and biopsy shows cancer had spread to the lymph nodes under her arm on the opposite side to the primary cancer May 2018: She is told the cancer is terminal and she has 'less than a year to live' September 2018: Bland announces she has just days to live in a poignant social media post. She died today. Advertisement The BBC 5 Live newsreader had also built up a collection of handwritten notebooks, perfume and other personal items so the little boy would grow up knowing how his mother wrote, smelled and sounded once she was gone. Alongside friends Deborah James and Lauren Mahon, Bland documented her cancer from first discovery, to being told it was incurable in May, to finally being warned there were just days left. She spoke to HuffPost UK before her announcement at the beginning of September which confirmed she only had a few days to live. In a heartbreaking interview, she said: 'It is as a mother that I have to employ my strongest skills of denial. 'I'm too scared to ask the doctors how long I've got left it would be a guesstimate number that would hang over me. So we make plans, knowing it's not very long. 'I have a Whatsapp group with Steve's sister where I send her things I want for Freddie and his future. The things that might overwhelm and upset Steve now but she will make sure happens. 'The main thing is that, while he's so young, I want him to remember me in some way.' Rachael died at the beginning of September aged 40, following an inspirational two-year public battle with cancer. The mother from Cheshire, who had triple negative breast cancer, moved thousands of people who hailed her bravery and dignity as she fought terminal illness. If you find yourself single on Valentine's Day then one brave man might be the Prince Charming you've been looking for all along. Peter Wilding, from Taupo in New Zealand, is offering one lucky lady the chance to go on a date with him - at a cost - next Thursday. The date will be organised by Mr Wilding and include a range of fun activities, including hand-holding, eating chocolates and taking photos to share on Facebook. Peter Wilding, from Taupo in New Zealand, is offering one lucky lady the chance to go on a date with him - at a small cost - on Valentine's Day next Thursday 'I'd rather do this than spend my nights in the club trying to talk to people,' he told Stuff. The brunette told the publication that his sense of humour would make him ideal 'boyfriend material' - and his 'rocking beach body' wouldn't go unnoticed. Ultimately if the date is successful Mr Wilding said he could see himself moving to Australia and raising Pomeranian dogs as a source of income. Ultimately if the date is successful Mr Wilding said he could see himself moving to Australia and raising Pomeranian dogs as a source of income What kind of dating options are available for the woman? The Friend Zone basic package $15, including a friendly hangout The We Dating Primary School Edition $30, including chocolates and holding hands in private The Romantic Dinner $45, including a classy McDonald's medium combo with a photo for Facebook The OMG They Are Dating combo $95, including a $30 meal, albums for Facebook, kiss in front of friends and family, and an updated relationship status on Facebook for two weeks after Valentine's Day The Overnight Combo $150, including pickup, dinner and camping overnight in his Nissan Bassara. This package also includes snuggles and a kiss but excludes extras. Advertisement So what's on offer come February 14? The cheapest package - also called the 'Friend Zone Basic' - costs just $15 and includes a friendly hangout with the other person. Then you might want to progress to the 'We Dating Primary School Edition' for $30 which - not unlike children 'in love' at the age of 12, includes chocolates and holding hands. Finally, one of the most elaborate offerings is the 'Overnight Combo' for $150 which will include dinner and camping overnight in the back of his Nissan Bassara. The handsome brunette told the publication that his sense of humour would make him ideal 'boyfriend material' - and his 'rocking beach body' wouldn't go unnoticed. Kisses may come complimentary but there aren't any 'extras'. Sadly there is a heartbreaking reason why Mr Wilding has struggled to find a partner in the past. He suffered a brain bleed at the age of 12 that forced him to re-learn everything as a teenager. This meant he's only really been on the dating scene for the past few years. He's hoping his lighthearted attempt at finding love will appeal to the masses and land him a relationship by the end of February. Over the past few months, Japanese organisation queen Marie Kondo has soared back into popularity with her world famous KonMari tidying method. And while searches for the method are up by a staggering 701 per cent on Pinterest, a number of Australian women are using the platform to share their own ingenious ways to keep households tidy too. From using natural products to clean their shower heads to following the 'Swedish death cleaning' method, the obscure - but effective - ideas have taken social media by storm in recent months. This DIY blogger and aesthetics-minded cleaner has opened up about how she keeps her produce storage in the fridge looking crisp and fresh for weeks (Iryna Federico pictured) What is the KonMari method? Commit yourself to tidying up. Imagine your ideal lifestyle. Finish discarding first. Tidy by category, not by location. Follow the right order. Ask yourself if it sparks joy. KonMari was created by Japanese woman Marie Kondo and is about throwing away the things that no longer bring you joy and reorganising your home in order to create a better life. Source: KonMari Advertisement Iryna Federico - From Great Beginnings This DIY blogger and aesthetics-minded cleaner has opened up about how she keeps her produce storage in the fridge looking crisp and fresh for weeks. 'I keep everything in clear, BPA free plastic or glass containers and organise produce accordingly,' she wrote on her website. 'Anything that I use regularly I keep in OXO Greensavers; these things are amazing; they keep your produce fresh for weeks and come with removable drainage baskets.' She and her husband plan their meals for the week before they head to the supermarket and choose proteins and vegetables. 'I keep everything in clear, BPA free plastic or glass containers and organise produce accordingly,' she wrote on her website The perks of using containers means that if one thing spoils the surrounding fruit and vegetables won't necessarily go 'off' as well How do OXO Greensaver containers work? They have a replaceable coconut husk carbon filter sits inside the lid of the Greensaver, absorbing ethylene gas which causes produce to spoil. Inside the container, an elevated basket keeps produce away from the bottom and sides, allowing air to flow freely to prevent moisture build up. It also doubles as a colander for rinsing. They can be purchased from Peter's of Kensington and occasionally online. Advertisement Using a chalk pen, Iryna writes the name of the product on the containers and the expiry date so she can keep track of everything. The perks of using containers means that if one thing spoils the surrounding fruit and vegetables won't necessarily go 'off' as well. She employs the same strategy with her dry goods and keeps them in her pantry, labelled and ready to be used. Every few weeks she will empty the containers, wash them in the dishwasher, and then place their contents back in for safe keeping. 'I actually picked which pantry containers we were going to use well before our builder even laid a foundation. I literally built shelves which would specifically fit my containers,' she said. Her ethos maintains that if something looks appealing to the eye, you're more likely to use it, so Iryna ensures she makes custom name tags for everything. But she does shop around for all of her materials, using discount stores like Costco to cut back on how much she spends reorganising. Her ethos maintains that if something looks appealing to the eye, you're more likely to use it, so Iryna ensures she makes custom name tags for everything What are Iryna's other favourite tips to help tidy a house? Use acrylic organisers to house your makeup all in the one place. Kmart frames can double as jewellery holders so you can see what necklaces and rings are on offer Put a diffuser in your linen cupboard so your towels soak in the scent - it will give you a welcome surprise when you're using it in the bathroom Keep a consistent colour theme in all of your rooms so that things don't look chaotic or disorganised Advertisement Kat Springer - The Organised Housewife Most people don't think about the ramifications of failing to clean your kids toys properly, but this Australian mother has a genuine obsession with it. 'From such a young age children are eager to learn about the world around them; new colours, shapes, textures and of course taste (everything goes in their little mouths), hence my desire to not only keep my children's toys tidy but also clean so they aren't picking up bacteria and germs from the toys,' she wrote on her website. She keeps high quality batteries (her favourite are the EVEREADY Gold ones) on hand at all times and a screwdriver to quickly be able to change them. Kat also uses a toy rotation system to reduce toy clutter, and keeps all horizontal spaces around them clear because that's what they tend to play on - table tops and benches She keeps high quality batteries (her favourite are the EVEREADY Gold ones) on hand at all times and a screwdriver to quickly be able to change them Kat also uses a toy rotation system to reduce toy clutter, and keeps all horizontal spaces around them clear because that's what they tend to play on - table tops and benches. When it's time to clean them, she has a simple solution. 'To naturally disinfect the toys, fill your sink with warm water and add one cup of vinegar, dip a clean cloth into solution and wring out as much as you can, wipe over toys. Air dry on a dish rack,' she said. Her general method for cleaning objects and furniture in the bathroom is just as simple. For a shower head she uses Dettol Healthy Clean Bathroom Rapid Foam and a toothbrush to scrub around the edges. For a shower head she uses Dettol Healthy Clean Bathroom Rapid Foam and a toothbrush to scrub around the edges Kat's best practice for cleaning a bathtub: 1. Wet the entire surface of the bathtub. 2. Sprinkle bicarb over the bottom of the tub. 3. Make a paste of baking soda and water (1/2 cup baking soda and 1-2 tablespoons water). 4. Use a cloth to apply paste to the dirt ring around bathtub, sit for 10 minutes. 5. Spray the entire tub with vinegar, watch it fizz! 6. Use a cloth to scrub away the dirt, working in a circular motion to remove the stubborn stains, use an old toothbrush to get into hard spots. 7. Rinse tub, and use a clean cloth to wipe over. Advertisement Jane - Organised Pretty Home This Aussie mother-of-three shared Sloely's 'Swedish Death Cleaning' method on her Pinterest account, which explains how to declutter not only yours - but other people's - mess. In Sweden there is a kind of decluttering called dostadning, do meaning death and stadning meaning cleaning. It essentially encourages people to clear their homes so that when they die their closest kin won't be left with the task of removing all of their things. In Sweden there is a kind of decluttering called dostadning, do meaning death and stadning meaning cleaning What other tips does Jane swear by? Follow the container concept. If you bought a clear, white container and put everything in it - would it fit? That will help you decide what's important. Start with visible clutter so that when it's away you'll feel motivated to continue. Pulling things out of cupboards and starting that way will make it seem like a harder task. Don't put things aside in keep piles or keep boxes to deal with later. It just makes the house messier. Advertisement You sort through clothes in a similar way to the KonMari method, and remove things that you won't need long-term. The Organised Pretty Home founder also pinned ways to tidy your home with a toddler and small child in tow, saying that the main things to focus on getting done are meals, dishes, floors and laundry where possible. Everything else can be slotted in when the children are asleep or napping. 'Do a load of laundry or two every day rather than leaving it for a big washing day. Small tasks throughout every day are more practical than finding a hour or so to get housework done,' she said. Kimberly Guilfoyle insists that the white dress she wore to the State of the Union this week wasn't a sneaky show of support for Democrats. On Tuesday, the 49-year-old turned up to watch the President's speech wearing a $2,090 ivory Tom Ford dress and matching pumps an interesting choice, given that Democratic members of Congress wore white en masse to the event in solidarity with the women's movement. But Kimberly insists she's still a Trump supporter, tweeting on Thursday: 'Memo to Democrats: You dont own the votes of all women and you dont own wearing the color white!' No story: Kimberly Guilfoyle insists that the white dress she wore to the State of the Union this week wasn't a sneaky show of support for Democrats White on white: Donald Trump Jr's girlfriend picked a Tom Ford dress for the occasion, pairing it with white heels On Thursday, she retweeted a DailyMail.com story about her outfit and wrote, 'Memo to Democrats: You dont own the votes of all women and you dont own wearing the color white!' A message: Many Democratic women in Congress wore white to the SOTU in a show of condemnation of Trump Kimberly retweeted a DailyMail.com story that reported on the outfits she and first daughter Tiffany Trump, 25, wore on Tuesday. After denying that they were standing in solidarity with the Democratic Congresswomen who wore suffragette white she cast aside any more doubt by sharing more support for Trump. '@realDonaldTrump is fighting everyday to advance the interests of women across the country and Im proud to stand with him. #WGDP' she wrote. She's also previously retweeted a comment from Eric Trump about the SOTU, writing: 'Promises made and promises exceeded! #TrumpEconomy #SOTU.' The response comes after Kimberly and Tiffany raised eyebrows with their interesting outfit choices earlier this week. The two women, who attended the political event as part of 'Team Trump' alongside Ivanka, Donald Jr., and Eric, both wore all-white outfits, inadvertently matching the women of the Democratic Party, who chose the same color to unite in a show of strength against Trump. They certainly stood out dramatically from the rest of Team Trump, all of whom picked dark ensembles, including first lady Melania, who chose an all-black military-inspired outfit in stark contrast to the Democratic women. Approval: Kimberly had also tweeted supportive words of Trump's address Missed the memo? Kimberly and Tiffany certainly stood out by wearing all white on Tuesday Just them: They were the only two to wear white, as the rest of the Trump group picked dark colors Dressed up: Tiffany chose a $955 white Roland Mouret skirt and a $573 peplum blouse by the same designer Striking: Tiffany and her stepmother could not have looked more different as they stood alongside one another in the first lady's box at the event Tiffany chose a $955 white Roland Mouret skirt and a $573 peplum blouse by the same designer, which her sister Ivanka has actually previously worn. Kimberly's more fitted Tom Ford dress was teamed with heels from Manolo Blahnik. There was some suggestion that the two women chose white in order to upstage the female Democrats, which Kimberly at least has now denied. Tiffany, however, has not commented on the color coincidence. This year, Melania, 48, made a similar sartorial statement, wearing a black $2,390 coat from Burberry as well as a pair of black leather gloves, which she removed before taking her seat. Interestingly, while Kimberly chose to support an American designer by wearing Tom Ford, both the first lady and the eldest first daughter chose British designers for the event. Ivanka, 37, followed in her stepmother's footsteps by wearing a black $5,000 blazer by Alexander McQueen, which she paired with a black skirt that had a flash of red down the sides. Group look: The women of the Democratic Party, as well as several men, purposefully wore white in support of women's rights, as the suffragettes are believed to have done in the 1900s Together: The sartorial statement was initiated by Florida Representative Lois Frankel, who is chairwoman of the Democratic Women's Working Group House speaker Nancy Pelosi said the choice in dress was also a stand against the president Lara Trump, 36, who is married to Ivanka's brother Eric, also chose a dark ensemble, and attended the State of the Union in a chic long-sleeved belted black dress that had a white geometric pattern across the fabric. Meanwhile the men of Team Trump Don Jr,, Eric, and Ivanka's husband Jared Kushner all wore dark suits. Don Jr. and Jared appear to have taken their style cues from the president himself, who chose a dark suit, a white shirt, and a bold red tie for the evening. The Democrats' all-white dress code for this year's State of the Union was initially implemented by Florida Representative Lois Frankel, who is the chairwoman of the House Democratic Womens Working Group. She told CNN: 'Wearing suffragette white is a respectful message of solidarity with women across the country, and a declaration that we will not go back on our hard-earned rights.' House Speaker Nancy Pelosi echoed that sentiment on Twitter, writing: 'Tonight, our Democratic #WomenWearWhite in support of of women's rights - in spite of [President Trump] who doesn't!' Pelosi also shared a photo of the Democratic women posing proudly together in their all-white looks. The concept of wearing white as a form of protest for women's rights is thought to stem back to the early 1900s, when suffragettes wore the color so that it could be seen in black and white photographs. Cat owners will know how strange their feline friend can be, from running around the house for no reason to sleeping in some very uncomfortable positions. Some of the most bizarre acts by our pets have luckily been caught on camera - and social media users from around the world have been posting them on Twitter. Twitter star Heloisa, who comes from Brazil and uses the handle @poorlycatdraw, sparked an avalanche of replies after asking what the weirdest thing their followers' cats had done. Dr Maureen Berg, who lives in Berkeley, California, shared a strange snap of her cat cuddling up to a skeleton, and Agatha Phillips, a student at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania, revealed her kitty likes hiding in the dryer. Here, Femail reveals some of the funniest antics of mischievous moggies. Kate's cat escaped from its carrier on the way to the vet - and proceeded to jump up on her head rest Dr Maureen Berg, who lives in Berkeley, California, shared this strange snap of her cat cuddling up to a skeleton Don't touch! Kaitlyn's cat Gus likes to arrange his toys in a triangle shape and then stare at them Dancing on the ceiling! Maik, from Buenos Aires, Argentina, shared this snap of her cat hanging from a beam overhead Don't add water! Rose Green's cat Laika, who lives in London, gets worried when any one takes a bath, but loves to sit in the tub herself That's one way of channel hogging: Zorro, who lives in the Netherlands with his owner Anka, loves to climb on top of the TV They'll never find me here: Agatha Phillips, a student at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania, shared this snap of her kitty hiding in the dryer Anna's cat Misty drinks water by dipping her paw into the bowl and lifting the droplets to her mouth, while Holly's cat loves staring at herself in the mirror (right) Another user, from Michigan, shared this snap of his cat sleeping in a very strange position on top of a scratching post Another user shared this snap of their cat with its tongue out, seemingly for no reason Alex Reddicks' cat Wally 'loves to defy physics' by making his way up to the ceiling of his garage Long before the green beauty movement took hold, Jose Bryce Smith was struck by the spark of an idea, that it would be possible to create salon-grade hair products using natural formulations. It's a business concept the Bondi-based mum ran with and now eighteen years later, Original & Mineral (O&M) can proudly declare it turns over millions of dollars every year. 'I took the biggest risks of my life with O&M and always believed in what I was doing,' the 43-year-old told FEMAIL. As well as revealing the secrets to her incredible success, the hair care guru also shares her top hair care tips for creating shiny, healthy and luscious-looking locks. Jose Bryce Smith (pictured) is the founder of organic hair care brand Original & Mineral (O&M) Jose revealed her 'light bulb' moment struck in 2000 after seeing the effect some chemicals found in colouring products had on her ex-partner's dermatitis. It was then she started to research organic chemical alternatives and in the process discovered monoethanolaminemine, an organic alkaline that worked as well as the colour processing chemical ammonia. 'We had clients with scalp sensitives, pregnant women who were looking for alternatives, and people going through chemotherapy looking for natural products,' she said. 'I took the biggest risk of my life with O&M and always believed in what I was doing,' Jose said Initially, she imported colouring products which contained this chemical into Australia from London and as well as being able to offer clients this in-salon alternative, Jose said she also started supplying other salons. We bought a container load over and put it in our garage. I was selling it to anyone who rang the salon and we were packing it between clients 'Hairdressers did not believe that ammonia free would cover grey or give blond. It was received with doubt by everyone but then the product worked so the uptake was fast.' Jose added her salon - the first organic salon in Sydney - was given a lot of positive press. It was media coverage, she says, which helped push sales. 'We bought a container load over and put it in our garage. I was selling it to anyone who rang the salon and we were packing it between clients.' Although she ran her business alongside her day job, the entrepreneur knew she had a winning venture on her hands when sales figures started to top $25,000 a month. Research into organic chemical alternatives led Jose to discover monoethanolaminemine, a gentler alkaline compound Despite this, it would take another seven years of selling imported products from her salon before she'd strike out on her own. 'Our vision was to bring nature and luxury together in a line of Australian-born hair colour, care and styling products that are safe, effective and beautiful to use,' Jose said. 'There are lots of great hair care brands which I admire, but I think we pioneered the healthy hair message. 'We've spent years researching ways to reduce harsh chemicals in hair colour and hair care without compromising on results.' Jose worked tirelessly to build the brand, packing and selling products from her garage at night while working the front desk during the day What is PPD? PPD (or paraphenylenediamine) is a chemical substance that is widely used as a permanent hair dye. Darker shades of hair dye products contain higher concentrations of PPD than lighter shades. Advertisement Today, all of O&M's hair care is made in Sydney, and the brand can boast the first original five free formula: no sulphates, parabens, propylene glycol, philates or tricolsan. Over the years, the brand has also become a front-runner in the world of natural colour formulations. 'Science has recently confirmed what we always believed, that PPD is thought to be linked to cancer,' she told Hair Expo Australia. 'Science has recently confirmed what we always believed, that PPD is thought to be linked to cancer,' Jose said 'O&M is PPD-free and has been for many years - PPD is particularly high in dark hair colours.' COR Color - ammonia, ppd, resorcinol free hair colouring product - is the brand's third generation of hair colour and according to Jose, their best-performing yet. 'COR Color has set a new benchmark for performance,' she said. We are focused on performance and results for hairdressers and we know that COR colour performs like conventional hair colour but has no smell or fumes.' The brand is stocked by a raft of luxury retailers and also boasts a flagship New York salon Despite the business' incredible success over the past 18 years, Jose admits there were times when fear almost got the better of her The O&M brand isn't just a firm favourite among Australian beauty aficionados - it's also stocked by luxury retailers such as Net-A-Porter, Selfridges, Neiman Marcus and Sephora. There's also a flagship New York salon academy which the brand uses for their global training. Despite the business' incredible success over the past 18 years, Jose admits there were times when fear almost got the better of her and put paid to her dream. 'I had a lot of fears for managing on my own and it could have stopped me but I told myself to get a grip,' the savvy entrepreneur said 'My greatest fear was not to live life to the fullest or reach my highest potential, and that always made me want to do my best,' she said. She's also had to contend with being a single mother to two, a son, aged seven and a daughter aged 12, for the past five years. 'I had a lot of fears for managing on my own and it could have stopped me but I told myself to get a grip and go day by day and focus on the outcome I wanted. 'I took the biggest risks of my life with O&M and always believed in what I was doing.' The 43-year-old might be at the top of her game, but for now, there are no plans to slow down. This year the brand has a planned expansion into new regions including the UAE and Russia. What are Jose's tops tips for healthy, luscious locks? Jose believes it's better to only wash your hair just three times a week if you can * When washing your hair avoid shampoos and conditioners which are formulated with sulphates, parabens and alcohol. Sulfates strip your hair of natural oils and also dry out your hair. * Also limit your hair washing schedule to three times a week. Washing daily strips the hair of natural oils. * Rinse conditioner from your hair in cool water. Cold water helps seal the ends and locks in shine. * If you're swimming a lot during summer apply a mask or conditioner pre dip. This dramatically helps with your hair from drying out in the sun or ocean. * Try limiting your use of heated styling tools to three times a week instead of seven. Also make sure you use correct styling product to help protect hair from the heat * Sleep on a silk pillowcase as the natural properties of silk, including its smooth surface, can help reduce friction on your hair which often causes damage, like spilt ends. Advertisement She reveals her attitude toward business and life is one of 'backing yourself and having a go' as well as being willing to take the knocks. 'People are going to doubt you, but be your own best friend. Smile politely and thank them for their input and then follow your instincts. 'There are times that you will definitely need to re-strategise but the challenges are where some of the greatest learnings come from so don't be afraid of the lows. 'The universe is sending you something you need to learn,' she said. Mahila Congress chief Sushmita Dev alleged the Triple Talaq Bill is yet another tool of PM Narendra Modi to put Muslim men behind the bars. New Delhi: Bringing back memories of the mid-1980s Shah Bano case, when the Rajiv Gandhi government was accused of failing Muslim women, Congress womens wing chief Sushmita Dev declared on Thursday that the party would scrap the new triple talaq law if it was voted to power. A lot of people told us that women will be empowered if the Triple Talaq Bill is passed. But we opposed that law because it is a weapon Narendra Modiji has prepared to put Muslim men in jail and make them stand in police stations, Ms Dev said. Addressing the Congress minority wing convention here, the Congress MP from Silchar alleged that Prime Minister Modi had created an atmosphere where Muslim women were being pitted against Muslim men through the triple talaq law. Claiming that Muslim women from all parts of the country had written crores of letters, carrying out signature campaigns and rebelling against the law, she said: The Congress Party stood up and opposed it in Parliament. I promise you that the Congress government will come in 2019 and we will scrap this law. But it is also certain that whatever law is brought for womens empowerment, by whichever government, the Congress will support it. Attacking the Congress and its president Rahul Gandhi for its appeasement politics, the BJP on Thursday accused it of having no regard for the Supreme Court, and also hit out at Mr Gandhi for using inappropriate words against Mr Modi, saying it showed the Congress presidents mentality and nervousness. Launching a scathing attack on the PM, the Congress president had called him a darpok (coward), and dared him to a five-minute face-to-face debate on issues like Rafale and national security. He also said the RSS was trying to capture the countrys institutions and said that his partys governments in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh would remove the Sanghs loyalists from the system. It may be recalled that Shah Bano was a controversial maintenance lawsuit in which the Supreme Court delivered an order favouring maintenance given to an aggrieved divorced Muslim woman. The then Congress government, led by Rajiv Gandhi, gave into the pressure of Muslim orthodoxy and enacted a law with its most controversial aspect being the right to maintenance for the period of iddat after the divorce, and shifting the onus of maintaining her to her relatives or the waqf board. The nations K-12 schools experienced 122 publicly reported cybersecurity incidents in 2018, more than half of which were caused or carried out by staff or students, and nearly 60 percent resulted in students personal data being compromised. And thats likely just the tip of the iceberg, according to a report released Thursday by the K-12 Cybersecurity Resource Center, which noted that many more such breaches and attacks likely went undetected or unreported. Many of these incidents were significant, resulting in the theft of millions of taxpayer dollars, stolen identities, tax fraud, and altered student records, reads a press release accompanying the report. Ultimately, the goal of policymakers, technologists, and school leaders must be to reduce and better manage the cybersecurity risks facing increasingly technologically dependent schools. Over the past two years, a steady stream of breaches and attacks have highlighted public schools struggles to secure their networks and protect the sensitive personal information of students and staff. In 2017, Education Week and the Consortium for School Networking jointly surveyed the nations K-12 school technology leaders , finding that they underestimated cyber threats and were often failing to take even basic precautionary measures. The results of that dynamic have been evident in headline-generating incidents, such as a case of two Michigan middle schoolers hacking their school district for more than two years, which was first reported by the K-12 Cybersecurity Resource Center. And the groups year-in-review summary data now start to quantify the scope of the problem. Among the key findings in the new report: Unauthorized disclosures, breaches, or hacks resulting in the disclosure of personal data were the most prevalent type of incident experienced by K-12 schools accounting for 46.7 percent of the 122 publicly reported incidents catalogued by the K-12 Cybersecurity Resource Center. These incidents included improper disclosures by school staff, vendors, and partners, often the result of human error. Other prevalent incident categories included phishing attacks (15.6 percent of all publicly reported incidents) and ransomware attacks (9 percent.) While students and school staff were the primary perpetrators/cause of such incidents, 23 percent were caused by the loss of control of data by vendors or outside partners, and 23 percent were conducted by unknown actors external to the school community. In 46 percent of the catalogued incidents, staff data (such as payroll and personnel records) were compromised. While the size and location of districts didnt seem to directly correlate to their likelihood of falling victim to a cyber breach, there were signs that school districts serving fewer students in poverty were more likely to be affected. And the report also highlights a top 10" list of K-12 cybersecurity incidents over the past year, including: In Pennsylvania, the state education department suffered a potential breach with its Teacher Information Management System, risking the personal information of 330,000 professional school staff. The Florida Virtual School unwittingly published unencrypted personal information of students and staff, some of which ended up on the unregulated dark web. Roughly 368,000 current and formers students, staff, and families were affected. A Massachusetts school district paid a $10,000 ransom, in Bitcoin, after it was hit by a ransomware attack and was unable to access its own email services, school lunch payment services, and website. A Texas school district was scammed out of $2 million in school construction funds, one of numerous incidents (in states also including Idaho, Louisiana, and New Jersey) in which school business officials were targeted in successful phishing attacks leading to district payments being improperly directed to fraudulent accounts. Chicago Public Schools disclosed three data breaches in 2018 alone. The problem is severe enough that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has issued a warning to schools. It wont be solved solely by an infusion of money, new technologies, new policies and regulations, or a cybersecurity awareness campaign, the new report concludes. All are likely necessary, but how they are implemented and evolve over time to meet the specific and idiosyncratic needs and constraints facing public K-12 schools will matter most of all. Image: Getty See also: for the latest news on ed-tech policies, practices, and trends. While many think that young women are turning to Sugar Daddies to fund their elaborate lifestyles and shopping habits, this isn't always the case. Instead, with student debt in Australia now reaching more than 20 billion dollars, many women are becoming Sugar Babies to fund their education while enjoying a higher quality lifestyle on the side. Sydney-based law student, Tricia, signed up to Sugar Baby/Sugar Daddy dating site, Seeking Arrangement, six months ago and hasn't looked back. 'I was in a couple of groups on Facebook and they gave me the idea to sign up to the site to help me fund my university degree,' the 28-year-old told Daily Mail Australia. Sydney-based law student, Tricia (pictured), 28, signed up to Sugar Baby/Sugar Daddy dating site Seeking Arrangement six months ago and hasn't looked back With her first Sugar Daddy, Tricia would enjoy lavish $200 seafood platters (pictured) and dinners out at expensive restaurants 'When I signed up I was really sceptical but I did think it would be a quicker process at the same time. It took a while to weed through all the men. 'I met someone after a month and he was just lovely.' Tricia decided to meet up with the man who she described as '50 and working in finance'. 'It was nerve wracking meeting up for the first time but it was really nice. We had a couple of drinks and chatted and talked about our arrangement.' Tricia, who was getting $2,400 per month, met up with her Sugar Daddy once or twice a week where they would enjoy lingerie shopping sprees (pictured), lavish dinners and drinks What are Sugar Babies and Sugar Daddies? Sugar Baby: Attractive people looking for the finer things in life. They appreciate exotic trips and gifts. Sugar Babies get to experience a luxurious lifestyle, and meet wealthy people on a regular basis. Sugar Daddy: Successful men who know what they want. Theyre driven, and enjoy attractive company by their side. Money isnt an issue, thus they are generous when it comes to supporting a Sugar Baby. Advertisement Tricia said her Sugar Daddy decided to pay her $600 per week for regular dinners and 'walks along the beach'. 'It's always best to talk about the arrangement in person as it can get a bit funny talking about it online,' she said. 'You don't know whether they're for real or not until you meet them. We call a lot of them "Salt Daddies" - you need to work out whether they're salty or not before you meet.' Tricia, who was getting $2,400 per month, met up with her Sugar Daddy once or twice a week where they would enjoy shopping sprees, lavish dinners and drinks. Tricia said her Sugar Daddy decided to pay her $600 per week for regular dinners and 'walks along the beach' 'We would go out for dinner and go for walks along the beach at night but we would also shop for everything like text books and stationery for uni and regular shopping,' Tricia said 'We would go out for dinner and go for walks along the beach at night but we would also shop for everything like text books and stationery for uni and regular shopping,' Tricia said. 'We would also go on lingerie shopping sprees at really nice places and we'd go out for these amazing dinners where we'd get these $200 seafood platters which were amazing.' And despite misconceptions, Tricia said there was no pressure to enter into an intimate relationship. 'People always assume that we are on the site to sleep with everybody but we are not,' she said. And despite misconceptions, Tricia said there was no pressure to enter into an intimate relationship 'Many of the men are just lonely or in these high flying high profile careers and just want companionship short term. 'At the same time, a lot of the girls do enter into intimate relationships with their Sugar Daddies and they're happy to do so.' Tricia was always careful when she met up with potential Daddies and always told friends where and when she was going. The young student also said that while she has been lucky with her success so far, there are other women who have more lucrative deals with their Sugar Daddies. 'Many of the men are just lonely or in these high flying high profile careers and just want companionship short term,' Tricia said (not pictured) 'I know one girl who doesn't work at all and she's at uni and she gets everything paid for like shopping trips and new clothes and just everything,' Tricia said. 'She is getting $1,500 per meet with her Sugar Daddy and they meet up a couple of times per week - that would be my ideal situation if I'm honest, who wouldn't want that?' Tricia, who is now in Sydney and in search of a new Sugar Daddy, says that while she plans to stay on the site for a long while, she is always careful not to reveal her identity until she trusts a potential Sugar Daddy. 'Most of them are in the same boat with photos and things because they have high flying careers,' Tricia said. 'I know one girl who doesn't work at all and she's at uni and she gets everything paid for like shopping trips and new clothes and just everything,' Tricia said (not pictured) 'I don't put my photo up because I don't want it connected to my career, I want to get to know them first, and I don't have my phone number out there for just anyone to see. 'Any girls who want to do this I recommend doing the same thing. It's so good but you just need to be careful and take the time to make sure the person you're speaking to is genuine.' Tricia is one of many Australian women on Seeking Arrangement who are turning to wealthy benefactors to help fund their lifestyles. A new study found that women studying business are the most likely to turn to a Sugar Daddy followed by nursing students and those majoring in communications. Some of the most niche and highly regarded majors also made the list, with women studying psychology, biology/biological sciences and political science also taking out places four to six. A study conducted by sugar baby dating site Seeking Arrangement found that Australian women studying business are the most likely to turn to a generous and wealthy benefactor to lean on Using keyword data from profiles on the site, it was also found the nursing students were the second most common followed closely by those majoring in communications The final three majors in the top 10 were visual and performing arts, education and philosophy. More students are turning to sugar daddies every day for financial assistance, with 42 per cent of sugar babies on the site currently at university - the decision described by the site as a 'proactive' one. 'With the global economy shifting, we are seeing an increase in young innovators who want to study business,' Founder and CEO, Brandon Wade, said. 'To relieve some of the associated financial burdens, a staggering number of these students look to sugar daddies. Some of the most niche and highly regarded majors also made the list, with women studying psychology, biology/biological sciences and political science also taking out places four to six More students are turning to sugar daddies every day for financial assistance, with 42 per cent of sugar babies on the site currently at university - the decision described by the site as a 'proactive' one Top 10 majors of Australian sugar babies 1. Business 2. Nursing 3. Communications Studies 4. Psychology 5. Biology/ Biological Sciences 6. Political Science 7. English Language & Literature 8. Visual & Performing Arts 9. Education 10. Philosophy Advertisement 'Just like operating a business, education doesn't come free.' Earlier this year, it was found that about 100,000 Australian university students were paying for shopping trips, beauty treatments and nights out with the help of sugar daddies they'd connect with online. It was revealed at the time that the number of women signing up to be a sugar baby grew in 2016, with Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology leading the way with 92 new members. The site allows sugar babies to be financially compensated for spending time with older men who have an income of over $200,000. It insists there is no pressure for the women to have sex with their Sugar Daddy. The charity behind a memorial to British troops killed during D-Day and the Battle of Normandy received a substantial boost last night with the news that the Prince of Wales is to become its royal patron. The Prince described the proposed memorial, supported by the Daily Mail and its readers, as long overdue. It would be a fitting tribute, he said, to the selflessness and resolve of all who fell in the ferocious conflict to liberate France during the summer of 1944. George Batts, centre, with fellow D-Day veterans yesterday including, far right, Field Marshal Lord Bramall at last nights London reception to mark the formal start of the Normandy Memorial Trusts fundraising campaign The news came as veterans and relatives of the D-Day generation joined diplomats and representatives of all the Services at last nights London reception to mark the formal start of the Normandy Memorial Trusts fundraising campaign. Organisers voiced their profound gratitude for the overwhelming response from Mail readers. In a video message recorded specially for the gathering at the Army Museum, Prince Charles explained why he had been keen to lend his support to a memorial which will correct a 75-year oversight. While all the other allied nations involved in the invasion of France have a national memorial in Normandy, Britain does not. Above, one of the figures that will form part of the memorial. A 50-acre site for the memorial has already been acquired at Ver-Sur-Mer overlooking Gold Beach where thousands of British troops came ashore on June 6th 1944 The indefatigable spirit of the surviving Normandy veterans is a reminder to us all of the immense debt we owe to all those brave men and women who took part in the D-Day landings and in the subsequent Battle of Normandy, the Prince said last night. I have long been concerned that the memory of these remarkable individuals should be preserved for generations to come as an example of personal courage and sacrifice, for the benefit of the wider national and, indeed, international community. I was therefore delighted to learn of the plans by the Normandy Memorial Trust to create what I believe is a long overdue British Memorial in northern France to the 22,500 service personnel under British command who gave their lives in Normandy in the summer of 1944. A 50-acre site for the memorial has already been acquired at Ver-Sur-Mer overlooking Gold Beach where thousands of British troops came ashore on June 6th 1944. The Normandy Memorial Trust is now seeking 9million to complete the project which will be engraved with the names of all who gave their lives during three months of intense fighting. The first phase of the project will take shape this summer with the unveiling of the central statue during commemorations for the 75th anniversary of D-Day itself. Last night, the Prince expressed his enthusiasm for the designs by memorial architect, Liam OConnor. He said: The memorial on its evocative site overlooking Gold Beach will provide a place of private and perpetual contemplation where visitors will be able to reflect on what we owe to all those who so gallantly carried out their duty with such extraordinary selflessness and resolve. The Prince described the proposed memorial, supported by the Daily Mail and its readers, as long overdue. It would be a fitting tribute, he said, to the selflessness and resolve of all who fell in the ferocious conflict to liberate France during the summer of 1944 [File photo] The Prince added: I take great pride in offering my wholehearted support and I hope that others who cherish the memory of those gallant men and women, and who value the freedoms for which so many of them gave their lives, may also wish to offer the project their support. At last nights gathering, the chairman of the trustees, Lord Ricketts, former ambassador to Paris, voiced his appreciation for the generous support of our readers since the Mail began its campaign for the memorial last weekend. Their response has been overwhelming and extremely encouraging, he said. We are extremely grateful to each and every one. Among those present last night was George Batts, a former National Secretary of the Normandy Veterans Association and one of the original campaigners for the memorial. Now 93, Mr Batts, formerly of the Royal Engineers, was among the first British troops to land on Gold Beach in 1944 where his job was to clear a path through the minefields. I saw many of my mates die on that beach, Mr Batts said. It has never seemed right that Britain does not have a memorial in Normandy which records the names of all those who lost their lives fighting to rid Europe of tyranny. Student essay Why Trump shouldnt have pulled out of the Iranian Nuclear Deal. Student essay Unjustified presence of U.S. troops In Syria The Bishop Shanahan High School STEM Team won the Pennsylvania Governors STEM Regional Competition on Tuesday. Pictured is the entire BSHS STEM team, including auxiliary members and the official presentation team. In the front row are: David Carangan, Michael Gomba, Alana Pappas, Alexis Campo, Carlo Ursal and Julia Hirs; Back row: Brendan Pappas, Greta Barnes, Ethan Xydis, Bryce Alexis and Brian Whiteford. Bill Rettew is a weekly columnist and Chester County native. He just loves the sound of wheels spinning. Read his travel book, Chasing the American Dream, with a free Kindle download on www.amazon.com. You may contact him at brettew@dailylocal.com. The Supreme Court also pulled up the CBI for transferring its former joint director A.K. Sharma, who was probing the shelter home cases. New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday ordered that the Muzaffarpur shelter home sexual assault case be transferred from Bihar to a New Delhi court to conclude the trial within six months, saying enough is enough, the children cannot be treated like this. The court also pulled up the CBIs former interim director, M. Nageswar Rao, for transferring an official who was probing the shelter home cases. Is this the way you treat the children at shelter homes. You cannot let the officers treat the children the way they are treating them right now... The questions will get enlarged now, said a three-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi. The bench was irked over the inadequate response of the Bihar governments counsel on issues like number of shelter homes, their management and the administrative control over them. Enough is enough. Children cannot be treated like this. You cannot let your officers to treat children this way. Spare the children, said the bench, which included Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna. The matter will now be heard at a court in Saket in New Delhi within two weeks. The Supreme Court also pulled up the CBI for transferring its former joint director A.K. Sharma, who was probing the shelter home cases. Taking a serious view of the CBIs decision to transfer of Mr Sharma, the court summoned Mr Rao to appear in court on February 12. The bench took serious note of violation of two earlier orders of the apex court and issued contempt notice to Mr Rao for transferring Mr Sharma to the CRPF on January 17 without the courts permission. The bench was apprised by lawyer Aparna Bhat, who is assisting the court as an amicus curiae, that the CBI has filed the charge sheet in the Muzaffarpur case on December 19 last year and the trial was yet to begin. Several girls were allegedly raped and sexually abused at an NGO-run shelter home in Muzaffarpur and the issue had come to light following a report by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS). An FIR was lodged on May 31, 2018, against 11 people following the TISS report. The probe was later taken over by the CBI and so far 17 people have been arrested. The amicus curiae had told the court that there were 1,028 shelter homes across India where instances of sexual and physical abuse have been reported. Glo Stidham Whitt of South Charleston, WV, formerly of Catlettsburg KY passed away on June 19, 2021. She is survived by her children, Judson Whitt, Lee Jones, Daniel Whitt, and Robin Whitt, five grandchildren and four grandsons. As requested there will not be a public service. The following items are based on information provided by officials in law enforcement and the criminal justice system. Diane Pineiro-Zucker has been a reporter at the Daily Freeman since April 2013. Pineiro-Zucker worked as a reporter in the Freemans Rhinebeck bureau in the early 1980s, left to become executive editor at Taconic Newspapers in Dutchess County. TOWN OF ULSTER, N.Y. Ceres Technologies has dropped its request for up to $100,000 from th NEW YORK The much-anticipated sale of tickets for this summer's Woodstock 50 anniversary concerts has been put on hold for now. According to Mr Awasthi, at least 336 Maoists were killed and 3141 ultras arrested in counterinsurgency operations in Bastar in 2016-18. As many as 151 security personnel were martyred in the anti-Naxal operations during the period. Bhopal: At least 10 Maoists were on Thursday gunned down in an encounter with security forces in Chhattisgarhs south Bastar district of Bijapur. This was the biggest counter-insurgency operation undertaken in Naxal-infested Bastar after the new Congress government in Chhattisgarh took charge on December 17, 2018. The encounter took place at around 11.30 in the morning when a joint search party comprising district reserve group and Special Task Force was attacked by armed Maoists at Bare-ga under Bhairamgarh police station, a senior police officer posted in Bastar said. The encounter lasted nearly one-and-half hours. Bodies of 10 Naxals have been recovered so far. Besides, 11 weapons and a large number of improvised explosive devices were also seized at the encounter site, Chhattisgarh director general of police (DGP) D.M. Awasthi said. According to him, acting on a tip off on movement of ultras in forests of Takilod on the river bank of Indravati, the joint combat team was dispatched to the area, considered a Maoist-str-onghold, on Wednesday evening to launch search operation. The search party of security personnel came under attack by Naxals in the morning when they were passing by Barega hills. An encounter ensued leading to death of 10 ultras. According to Mr Awasthi, at least 336 Maoists were killed and 3141 ultras arrested in counterinsurgency operations in Bastar in 2016-18. As many as 151 security personnel were martyred in the anti-Naxal operations during the period. While 818 Naxal weapons were seized, 59 arms of security forces were looted by Maoists following encounters between them in last three years. Ulster County Executive Mike Hein is resigning effective 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 10. The last date for the county to hold a special election for the position is May 21. Ethos is a nationally recognized, award-winning independent student publication. Our mission is to elevate the voices of marginalized people who are underrepresented in the media landscape, and to write in-depth, human-focused stories about the issues affecting them. We also strive to support our diverse student staff and to help them find future success. Ethos produces a quarterly free print magazine full of well-reported and powerful feature stories, innovative photography, creative illustrations and eye-catching design. On our website, we also produce compelling written and multimedia stories. Ethos is part of Emerald Media Group, a non-profit organization thats fully independent of the University of Oregon. Students maintain complete editorial control over Ethos, and work tirelessly to produce the magazine. Since our inception as Korean Ducks Magazine in 2005, weve worked hard to share a multicultural spirit with our readership. We embrace diversity in our stories, in our student staff and in our readers. We want every part of the magazine to reflect the diversity of our world. Sydney is arts and culture editor at the Emerald. She likes to read books and write about them. She's also a Virgo, so take that as you will. Follow Sydney Dauphinais Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today The filmmaker reveals that the main reason for painting walls is to fill in the cracks that are seen as the symbol of prosperity. Rang Mahal (Palace of Colours) inspired from the Santhali folktales of Thakur Jivi and Marang Buru will be screened this Saturday at the ongoing 69th Berlinale Shorts International Competition. For Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) alumni Prantik Basu filmmaking is not just a means of showing the complexities of human emotions but it is about how a story can be told in different ways. Prantik, whose style doesnt fall under the conventional school of filmmaking, in his career has made around six short films, all inspired by various folklore. One of his latest ventures, Rang Mahal (Palace of Colours) inspired from the Santhali folktales of Thakur Jivi and Marang Buru will be screened this Saturday at the ongoing 69th Berlinale Shorts International Competition. Folktales excite me a lot. These are like capsules that contain a microcosm of worldviews. All mainstream stories have genesis in these narratives, yet folktales are seldom represented. They take us a bit closer to the older times on how life used to be lived even though we have moved away from this way of living, says Prantik. Among the likes of Zoya Akhtars Gully Boy and Ritesh Batras Photograph, Prantiks 26 minute short film produced by Public Service Broadcasting Trust (PSBT) is the first Santhali language film to have made to the international festival. In the backdrop of sedimentary rocks, as a woman in Santhali narrates the tale of the origin of creation and how their first house was built, the camera slowly pans out to the rocky slopes. In the beginning, there was only water, deep endless ocean. Half asleep Thakur Jivi had a dream, it was a vision of what Earth would look like, she says. Shot in a remote hill on the Bengal-Jharkhand border, around seven hours train journey from Kolkata, the filmmakers encounter with the Santhali tribe was incidental. I have been making a feature-length documentary in Purulia for the past three years now. It was during that shoot, I came across the colourful chalk stone hill, whose rocks are used by the local Santhali community to make murals and paintings on their house walls for their annual festival of Sohra. My films take a micro look at this unique correlation of nature and culture, and attempts to present a parable-like tale of an existing ecological art at the threshold of extinction, says Prantik. The filmmaker reveals that the main reason for painting walls is to fill in the cracks that are seen as the symbol of prosperity. According to Prantik, he has left subtle traces of Purulia, which deals with gender politics, in Rang Mahal where one can see men out on the hills collecting mud while women stay back at home. The tribe, which until recently didnt have its own written language, has preserved stories and myths that have been passed on verbally through generations. Each narration has a different form much like the rocks that come in various hues. There are many different versions of the Santhali creation myth. I asked some people from the community and they revealed that since these myths pass on orally, they vary in their telling and retelling. I was fascinated by this idea of having multiple versions of the same story. While this became the aural layer, I started to build upon the image layer with rocks, hills, trees and the village. Sometimes in direct relation to the story, and sometimes leaving it open-ended for the viewer to interpret their own version, he smiles. Someone who has been encapsulating lore of far off areas, Prantik always finds it more challenging to shoot in cities like Mumbai and Kolkata, where he lives. The challenge in shooting in such remote spaces is more internal. At every step, I have to be cautious that I do not exotify or romanticise what I see, shares the 32-year-old. But, at the same time, he finds it problematic when city people shoot in rural areas projecting an upper-class gaze of empathy towards their lives of poverty and deprivations. Prantik, who has gradually moved from classical storytelling depicting the intense human drama to showing the appropriate tonality to render a particular narrative, believes one can do many things in short format than longer. Currently in Germany under the weather, the filmmakers next is a feature film called Dengue for which he has received funds from The Netherlands. It is a subaltern romance set in a rain-drenched Calcutta. It will be an international co-production as I have got some funds for script development from the Hubert Bals Fund. We are talking with some French and German co-producers as well, he says. Elated at the selection, Prantik hopes that his work reaches out to a wider audience, as there isnt much exposure for short films. It is even lesser for the ones which are more experimental in form. Festival selections can help in creating awareness about the kind of work I do, he concludes. MATTHEW TOTH mtoth@dailyamerican.com In the shadow of one of Johnstowns most notorious buildings, Gov. Tom Wolf issued a call Wednesday to fund a multibillion-dollar plan to combat blight, expand broadband internet access and ease the effects of localized flooding. Wolf came to the Crown American corporate headquarters, across from the historic but dilapidated Conrad Building, to discuss his new Restore Pennsylvania initiative. The governor has called for a four-year, $4.5 billion investment in local infrastructure. Money for these projects would come from a severance tax on the natural gas industry. Wolf said this is right in line with what other states are doing, adding that 80 percent of these funds would be paid by non-Pennsylvanians. This is not going into the general fund, Wolf said. This is a pool of money that is devoted exclusively to addressing issues that matter clearly to local folks all around Pennsylvania. The National Conference of State Legislatures reports that 34 states have enacted fees or taxes on oil and gas production. Over the last 40 years, Johnstowns population has declined from 70,000 to 20,000 people. In 2018, city officials planned to start tearing down an estimated 1,400 blighted buildings. The city currently allocates 30 percent of its Community Development Block Grant funding to combat blight. Melissa Komar, Johnstown Redevelopment Authority executive director, said blighted buildings give rise to crime, arson and repetitive maintenance, in addition to being eyesores for neighboring property owners. Locally weve been fighting blight for some time now, and we just dont have the funding available to deal with population decline, she said. Komar added its not just about demolishing buildings but being proactive in rehabilitating the properties into new buildings and community projects. If we can rehabilitate the property before it gets to the point of demolition, were all better off, she said. This is the fifth time the governors office has proposed a severance tax, which has been rejected by the Legislature each time. Wolf said hes taking a new approach by offering the tax as a bill outside of his budget proposal. Doing it this way separating it from the budget, separating it from the general fund, and saying this goes directly to you it helps you avoid what you are going to do otherwise, which is to pay a local tax to mitigate what the flood damage has been, he said. This is something that does not force you to do that. In a press release, Dan Weaver, president of the Pennsylvania Independent Oil & Gas Association, said a severance tax aimed at natural gas producers is preposterous to demand. The association represents around 500 members that include oil and natural gas producers. Placing another tax on top of the existing taxes paid by natural gas producers not by out-of-state consumers means energy production will decrease, taking jobs, new revenue and economic activity along with it, he said. Some officials expressed concern Wednesday about how funding from this new initiative would be distributed. In a phone call with the Daily American, Somerset County Redevelopment Authority Executive Director Steve Spochart said more funding will help, but a lack of details can make it harder for municipalities to tap into those funds. Theres state money out there, and weve been fortunate enough to get some in Somerset County, but some of those grants are really difficult, he said. How does little, rural Somerset Borough, township or the county get that money when you are competing against other areas? A press release Wednesday from the governors office said that projects identified by local stakeholders will be evaluated through a competitive process to ensure that high priority, high impact projects are funded. The Daily American called the governors office for details about the fund distribution but did not receive a reply Wednesday. Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who was also at Wolfs press conference, called Restore Pennsylvania a proposal that goes beyond party lines and will benefit all counties in Pennsylvania. A dilapidated building looks the same in a red county or a blue county, he said. This is a very unifying proposal to bring the resources that are needed to the table in a very commonsensical way that is being implemented in every other state that extracts natural gas. We've launched a new site for events and entertainment all along the Flight 93 Memorial Highway. Read the latest articles and buzz around town. Keep up to date on upcoming events and submit your own. Visit What's NXT 219 Staff reports The Daily American Transcending opportunity I have lived in the region for my entire life, but I have never considered myself passionate about my community. In the summer after my senior year, I completed the Youth Philanthropy Internship through the Community Foundation for the Alleghenies. I came into the internship looking to gain experience and occupy my time. However, after just one day on the job, I quickly realized this would transcend all of my expectations and mean much more to me than any summer employment ever would. Through just a few weeks, I gained a deep passion for my hometown and an appreciation for community revitalization. Through this internship, I have gained professional experience, lifelong friendships, and reinvigorated passion. Not many recent high school graduates can say they have awarded $25,000 to a local nonprofit or produced a radio documentary. This opportunity is a shining example of powerful initiatives happening within our community for youth from across Somerset, Bedford, Indiana, and Cambria counties. After my time at the Youth Philanthropy Internship, I departed for the next chapter of my life: college at Penn State University. Coming from a small town, I was nervous about stepping out onto the world stage and being outshined by students coming from large cities with large opportunities. I quickly learned that the credentials I had acquired at the Community Foundation far exceeded work experiences my classmates had listed on their resumes. Can you believe it? A girl from such a small town had already completed a work opportunity that students from cities such as Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, or New York would have loved to have on their resumes entering college. At a career fair, I started a casual conversation with a recruiter from a large distribution company, and I started sharing some of my favorite parts of my previous summer with the Youth Philanthropy Internship. She was amazed, stopped me in the middle of my sentence and asked, Wait, you said you were how old? In that moment, I realized how proud I am to be from a small town. Not only a small town, but a small town that invests in its youth and prepares them for the real world. I am so enthusiastic about this community and its future. I am so enthusiastic about exploring new opportunities that present themselves right in my backyard. So, here is my message to the next generation of youth in our area: No, you dont need to be from a big city to have a big impact. Apply for the Youth Philanthropy Internship. Engage in a region that has been waiting to engage with you. Adeline Mishler 2018 Senior CFA Youth Philanthropy Intern The Daily American History is being targeted in Berlin historic buildings, specifically. During a borough council meeting Thursday night, State Historic Preservation Office community preservation coordinator Bill Callihan spoke to the council about designating historic districts in town. The visit came in the wake of Councilman Tom Jones inquiring about designating a historic district at recent meetings. The towns history includes involvement in the Whiskey Rebellion from the late 1700s. Callihan, who is based in Pittsburgh, said that the council could create an ordinance under the Historic District Act that allows officials to designate historic status. He said that the council could tailor the ordinance to be as restrictive or open as it wants. Bedford is a really good example, he said. They have a locally designated historic district. He said that he has visited Berlin before and is aware of the towns history. Now, he said, would be a good time for officials to start preparing to apply for state grant funding in 2020 to help with historic designation. He said that local leaders should join together to come up with a plan, and that he is willing to come back and talk to the group as many times as needed. You all know what is historic in this town, he said. We just have to pull all of this together. Councilman Tom Fisher said that for the group, people from council, the Berlin Lions Club and the Berlin Area Historical Society should be reached. I think we need to get together on this, Fisher said. Former council Vice President Roger Clarke, who has long pushed for historic measures, said that he believes there are still seven to eight historic log cabins left in town. Clarke said that he feels action is overdue. It should have happened years ago, he said. Berlin people dont realize how far we go back. Thursdays meeting was the last for borough Executive Secretary Tom Jones. Secretary Jones has accepted a management job in the private sector in Cambria County. He said that hes excited about his opportunity and that his first day starts Monday. He has agreed to stay on in Berlin in an advisory position for at least the next month. The goal is by the end of March to have someone in here who is comfortable, he said before Thursdays meeting. I feel real good that Ill be able to help them out. Council had not hired Jones replacement by press deadline Thursday night, in which the council meeting had yet to adjourn. The actor, who was at an event of her latest "Manikarnika", was asked about the lack of support to her during the film's promotions. Mumbai: Actor Kangana Ranaut on Thursday said people from the Hindi film industry have ganged up against her for calling them out on "nepotism". The actor, who was at an event of her latest "Manikarnika", was asked about the lack of support to her during the film's promotions. "How will it benefit me? I've already won 3-4 national awards. At the age of 31, I am a filmmaker. Khud ko he promote kar le bohot badi baat hai (it would be a big deal if they can promote themselves). "Is Rani of Jhansi my aunt? She's as much mine as she's yours. Then why are these people scared? They are worried just because I spoke on nepotism? They have formed a gang: 'Why did she speak on nepotism?" The actor had sparked a debate on nepotism when she appeared on Karan Johar's chat show two years ago and started a war of words with the filmmaker after she called him the "torchbearer of nepotism" in the industry for launching star kids. "They have all gathered together, like a classroom where 59 have ganged up against one, trying to bully one. How will you feel if someone did that? Aren't they ashamed? Some of them are my grandfather's age. "They are after me. Don't they feel ashamed that it's not about me. I don't even want to work with them and I've said that often," she said. The actor said "Manikarnika" was for the next generation and the film wasn't about Kangana. "What Bollywood is doing, the planning and plotting, one thing is for sure, earlier I used to call them out for sexism, nepotism or pay disparity, but now I'll be after them. 'Inki vaat laga dugi'. I'll expose each and every one. They have asked for trouble by ganging up against me," she added. Eugene Crow, age 91, of Cullman, went home to be with his Lord on Saturday, June 19, 2021. He was born June 13, 1930 to Felix and Pearl Stowe Crowe. He was preceded in death by his loving wife Irene, his parents, two brothers and a sister. Mr. Crow served his country and is a veteran of The The convergence of tough economic times, waning trust in banks and the rapid advancement of mobile technology has given life to a fintech Cambrian explosion in the areas of reloadable prepaid debit cards, digital-only checking and savings account products, personal financial management (PFM) tools, fractional share investment providers and fast, easy, short-term, small-balance loans. With the emergence of these new disruptive players, we welcome a new buzzword to our industry vocabulary: neobank. This term describes a collection of early-stage companies that presumably make it easier for consumers to manage their money in a highly mobile age on a platform separate from their primary financial institution. Even though credit unions should be the low-cost leaders for serving the underbanked and financially challenged, these neobanks are positioning their brands as caring more and charging less than the big banks. While this certainly isnt always true, credit unions and banks face daunting new competition for the business of Gen Z, millennials, tech-savvy boomers and cost-conscious or financially challenged consumers who will otherwise consider one of these providers. Most neobanks are providing some combination of basic banking features for free or for very low monthly fees, including: Checking and/or savings accounts Reloadable, prepaid debit cards Direct deposit of some (or all) of a paycheck Remote deposit check capture Free withdrawals at massive ATM networks Bill payment capabilities Importantly, these startups are also differentiating and capturing more relationship value with PFM, micro-credit and micro-investing features baked into their platforms: Paychecks as many as two days early with direct deposit Small dollar wealth building through roundups and fractional share investing AI-powered budgeting and financial advice tools P2P money transfers Account aggregation Short-term, small-balance borrowing at zero percent APR (or significantly less than traditional credit) At neobanks, all of this is made possible by eliminating physical branches and providing everything via digital channels. They can do this in part because most neobanks are not banks themselves. They work with chartered specialty banks like Bancorp or Evolve to offer FDIC deposit insurance, manage debit card fulfillment and infrastructure, and offer other services such as P2P money transfers and wealth building in conjunction with an existing bank or credit union account. With scores of players in categories like prepaid debit, lending, investing and personal finance management, many of the top companies are converging to cover multiple categories and, in some cases, even morphing into fully chartered banks now termed: challenger banks. Some of the largest U.S. banks are already rolling out their own all-digital banks with sub-brands, like Finn by Chase and Greenhouse by Wells Fargo. It is important to distinguish between neobanks that dont have a bank charter versus challenger banks and beta banks that do have a bank charter or are newly chartered greenfield banks (subsidiaries or joint ventures where banks are central owners). Leading neobank brands include: Chime, MoneyLion, Acorns, Moven, Empower, Aspiration and Zero. Examples of challenger and beta banks are: Simple; GoBank; Bankmobile, a division of Customers Bank; Finn by Chase; Greenhouse by Wells Fargo; Marcus by Goldman Sachs; and Citizens Access from Citizens Bank. Consider some of the brand promises of the larger neobanks: Chime: Banking that has your back. Say goodbye to ridiculous bank fees. Get paid up to 2 days early with direct deposit. Grow your savings automatically. MoneyLion: Americas most popular financial membership. Join millions of Americans who are changing the way they bank, invest and grow. GoBank and Walmart Money Card, powered by Green Dot Bank: ASAP Direct Deposit. No Overdraft fees. 5% cash back. Reload at the Register at 100,000+ retailers. Green Dot Bank has its own mobile banking solution and empowers many of the neobanks with reloadable prepaid debit cards that include the following features: Five percent Cash Back Visa Debit Card up to $250 annually with instant alerts reminding the cardholder of dollars saved immediately after each purchase ASAP Direct Deposit to deposit some or all of a paycheck up to 2 days early or up to 4 days early for government benefits Reload at the Register in conjunction with 100,000+ retailers including pharmacies on every corner and some that are open 24/7. A $4.95 fee is charged for this convenience Free ATM withdrawals within their 32,000 ATM network Fair and simple fee plan that touts no overdraft or bounced check fees and no penalty fees of any kind. (In reality, there is a $9.95 monthly fee, $2.50 ATM or bank teller withdrawal fee, $0.50 ATM balance inquiry fee and $4.95 cash reload fee at retailers.) The convergence of products and services for the underbanked with mobile offerings targeting millennials and speed-conscious consumers gives way to this expanding group of neobanks that are primarily funded with private venture capital. Make no mistake, they want to be banks and make money doing it, but if they cant evolve into challenger banks, they will be content monetizing a mobile platform that makes banking faster, cheaper and more convenient. All of this is enough to make credit union leaders heads spin. With most larger credit unions experiencing robust membership, deposit and loan growth, many may not worry about these new competitors right now. But despite the many innovations being pursued through CUSOs and by credit unions individually, one has to wonder, where are the neo-credit unions? Why havent they sprung up yet? Digital banking startups like Cogni, a New York-based firm, wants to be a one-stop shop for lifestyle banking. It is counting on curation of features like personal financial management tools and platform features that have proven successful in eastern hemisphere super apps like WeChat and Paytm. Cogni believes that special features in bank mobile apps will be the ultimate differentiator. Last year, CU Solutions Group launched its LifeSteps Wallet app that helps credit unions create a one-app, Mobile Banking Plus strategy for members. Platforms like Paytm provided a concept that we set out to emulate for credit unions. While the initial product builds in features and functionality related to shopping, auto and home ownership and financial wellness, all in conjunction with the credit unions core mobile banking features for account management and P2P money transfers, our future vision for the product is to help credit unions align with these neobank offerings in more compelling ways in order to help members with important life decisions. Millennials and the underbanked are the primary target, but a much broader group of consumers will also benefit from LifeSteps Wallet features. We hope to add features that help credit unions with reloadable debit cards similar to Green Dots product, and features that will enhance a credit unions existing debit card offering. This will enable credit unions to offer and promote such products and features through the LifeSteps Wallet app. Also on the drawing board is an expanded suite of personal financial management tools, fractional share investing products and even fast and easy borrowing tools like QCash and Lending Club. For the two-thirds of the population not yet benefitting from credit unions, wouldnt it be intriguing to explore the creation of a neo-credit union that would establish an all-mobile product relationship as a means of transitioning consumers to full-service, mainstream credit unions? Of course, this would have to be limited to those not yet aligned with a credit union to avoid competitive friction. Whether enabling neobank functionality for credit unions or finding ways to help onboard more consumers to the benefits of credit unions, CUSG is on a mission to find creative ways to help credit unions serve and compete in a world of next generation banking. Logic will get you from A to B, Albert Einstein once said. Imagination will take you everywhere. Credit union leaders are very good at applying the practical logic of fair and affordable financial services with an emphasis on value and service, and many are extremely innovative. But to compete against the growing number of neobanks and challenger banks, and to match their appeal to millennials and tech-savvy members of all ages, credit unions will need more imagination and risk-taking to find the solutions of the future. CUSG looks forward to playing a role by offering great products and mobile banking feature enhancements that help credit unions bring imaginative banking services to their current and future members. Jacom Stephens / Getty Images Police in Naugatuck and Windsor Locks are urging caution after two separate incidents Thursday that involved possible abduction attempts. A 15-year-old reported to Naugatuck police that a man asked her to go for a ride with him over the bridge at about 2:30 p.m. while she was in the driveway of her home on North Church Street, police said. A 28-year-old Naugatuck man was arrested after police said he threatened to shoot patrons in a restaurants bar. Jonathan Figueroa, of Rubber Avenue, is also accused of slugging a bar patron in Santos Restaurant on Church Street in Naugatuck. After he was told to leave the bar, police said, Figueroa returned while threatening to shoot patrons and gesturing with his hands that he was carrying a pistol, according to the arrest report. Police were called to the Portuguese restaurant just before midnight Wednesday after the alleged threat. Police initiated a traffic stop of Figueroas vehicle a short distance from Santos on Maple Street. Figueroa was found to be operating the vehicle while under the influence. The investigation did not recover a firearm. Figueroa was charged with first-degree threatening, breach of peace and DUI. He was released on bond and is scheduled to appear at Waterbury Superior Court on Feb. 20. Plans to regionalize municipal services in Connecticut lack two things: One, a plan; two, the realization that its already occurred. Regionalization is often held out as a way for the state and towns to save money. The problem is the people who make this suggestion never offer actual plans. We all want to save money but that takes more than saying regionalization over and over. The RBI has aligned the risk weights for bank exposures to all categories of NBFCs other than Core Investment Companies with their credit ratings. Chennai: The borrowing rates for NBFCs may come down and the credit flow will improve with the RBI deciding to link risk weight with the credit ratings for most non-banking finance companies. The RBI has also tried to lower the complexities concerning different types of NBFCs. Overall, the positive sentiments is expected to support the troubled NBFC sector. The RBI has aligned the risk weights for bank exposures to all categories of NBFCs other than Core Investment Companies with their credit ratings. This will facilitate credit flow to better rated NBFCs, lowering their cost of bank borrowings and, in turn, for end-consumers, particularly borrowers of micro finance institutions. Reduction in risk weights for NBFCs is good for both banks and NBFCs. It is expected to free up the equity capital of banks against their exposures to NBFCs, which can be used for incremental credit growth or improvement in their capital ratios. While this can also result in reduced borrowing rates and incremental credit supply for NBFCs, it will depend on banks willingness to do so, said A M Karthik, Assistant Vice President, Icra Earlier, risk weight based on external credit rating was applicable for housing finance companies, asset finance companies and infrastructure lending companies. While lending to other NBFCs, risk weight had to be 100 per cent, said Karthik Srinivasan, Group Head-Financial Sector Rating, Icra. Banks' exposure to NBFCs is estimated at Rs 5.7 lakh crore, and of this if 50 per cent exposure of banks is to NBFCs in other categories, a 50 per cent reduction in their risk-weights will release Rs 12,500 crore from banks capital requirements. This in turn can be used for incremental lending or improvement of their capital ratios, said Karthik. This may improve credit flow from the banking sector to better-rated NBFCs, said Bekxy Kuriakose, HeadFixed Income, Principal Mutual Fund. The NBFCs also hope that the repo rate reduction will be transmitted by the banks. The rate cut comes as a much-needed shot in the arm for Indias NBFCs. While the cut in policy rate will benefit business and industry across the board, the proposal to reduce risk weights on bank exposure to better rated NBFCs will help reduce their cost of funds even further, said V P Nandakumar, MD and CEO, Manappuram Finance The RBI has also decided to harmonise the three separate categories of NBFCs ---Asset Finance Companies, Loan Companies and Investment Companies, which together constitute almost 99 per cent of NBFCs in terms of numbers--by creating a merged category called NBFC-Investment and Credit Company (NBFC-ICC). WEST HAVEN An 18-year-old has been arrested for her alleged involvement with bomb threats at West Haven High School. Late Thursday afternoon, the West Haven Police Detective Division located and arrested Mariah Donovan, 18, of Brown Street in West Haven, after two separate warrants for her arrest were approved by state Superior Court in Milford. Donovan was charged with three counts of breach of peace in the first degree for her involvement in bomb threats directed at the West Haven school system. Sgt. Charles Young said in the first incident, which occurred Dec. 20, two West Haven high school students reported they had received text messages from an unknown caller referencing blowing the school up, and the second occurrence on the morning of Jan. 15, was a bomb threat which was left on the West Haven High Schools voice messaging system. At the time the incidents occurred, Donovan was enrolled as a student in the West Haven school system. The collaboration and planning between the West Haven Police Department, school security, school superintendent as well as the West Haven High School administration allows for us to respond to and investigate these types of threats/security issues quickly and proactively, Young said in a release. Also, be advised that each incident detailed above was taken seriously and investigated to the fullest, resulting in the above noted arrest. With assistance from the Board of Education, school resource officers and WHHS students, the detective division was able to identify the origin of the call as well as the identity of the suspected caller Donovan. It should be noted that at no time were the students or administration in any danger as a result of this incident, Young said. The Ohio Tenth is finally for sale in the Buckeye State. Voters in Ohio approved the sale of medical marijuana in the state in 2016. In January, the first four dispensaries opened. Under state law, the weed is sold in $50 packages that contain 2.93 grams. Growers have nicknamed it the Ohio Tenth because thats one-tenth of an ounce. State regulations also allow residents to buy 295 milligrams of THC in a patch, lotion or ointment, as well as 110 milligrams of THC in an oil, tincture, capsule or edible. A doctor must recommend marijuana as part of their treatment before they can legally purchase cannabis. While the law change is a big deal for the 11.6 million people in Ohio -- and may help slow opioid use -- its also a big deal for the United States. Related: More Seniors Are Using Marijuana and It May Decrease Their Opioid Use A majority of Americans live where pot is legal. Ohio is the seventh most populous state in the country. With sales beginning there while Florida is expanding its medical marijuana laws, about 63 percent of the country lives in a place where medical marijuana is legal (which is almost exactly the percentage of Americans that favors legalizing marijuana). Keep in the mind, only five states had legal medical marijuana at the start of the century -- California (which was first), Oregon, Alaska, Washington and Maine. According to research from PolitiFact, about 207 million out of 325 million Americans live where medical marijuana is legal. Of the largest states, California, Florida and Ohio are joined by New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Michigan as states where medical marijuana is legal. Only three of the 10 biggest U.S. states have not legalized cannabis for medical use: Texas, Georgia and North Carolina. While laws differ, most allow medical marijuana to treat epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, chronic pain, nausea and loss of appetite (such as that experienced by those undergoing cancer treatments). Some states allow cannabis treatment for sleep issues or anxiety. Related: Silver Lining: Mature Cannabis Consumers Are a Fast Growing Market Marijuana and Opioids Many hope medical marijuana slows down the opioid crisis that is growing in Ohio, which is among the top five states in the nation for opioid-related deaths. The thought is that some may choose to manage pain with cannabis rather than opioids. Most state officials have not taken a stance on the issue. But Ohio State University law professor Douglas Berman told NBC, when asked if medical marijuana could help curb the opioid crisis in the state: The simple answer is yes, I think it will help. Ohio could use it. According to numbers from the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA), Ohio in 2016 had 3,613 opioid-related overdose deaths. Thats 32.9 deaths per 100,000 persons, more than double the national rate of 13.3 deaths per 100,000. Whats more, that number has tripled in Ohio since 2010. The NIDA also notes that Ohio doctors prescribe opioids at a much higher rate than the national average (85.8 prescriptions per 100 persons, compared to 70 per 100 people nationally). To stay up to date on the latest marijuana-related news make sure to like dispensaries.com on Facebook Related: Sales Have Begun in Ohio and Now A Big Majority of Americans Has Access to Medical Marijuana The States Planning to Legalize Cannabis Should Avoid These 7 Big Mistakes More Seniors Are Using Marijuana and It May Decrease Their Opioid Use Copyright 2019 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved WASHINGTON - Republicans are moving aggressively to force Democrats to answer for legislation to ease restrictions on late-term abortions and the recent controversial comments by Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, sensing a new opening on a divisive issue that could be a factor in the 2020 elections. President Donald Trump criticized New York Democrats and the embattled Virginia governor in his State of the Union address this week, accusing lawmakers of allowing "a baby to be ripped from the mother's womb moments before birth" and Northam, D, of basically stating that "he would execute a baby after birth." While the president's descriptions were misleading, they underscored the GOP's determination to capitalize on what it sees as Democrats' unforced errors in the way they have addressed abortion. "To hear it described by the governor of Virginia in the way he described it was grisly and alarming, I think, to most people, and it woke a sleeping giant," House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., said of Northam's comments in a recent radio interview in which he described what would happen if a third-trimester abortion resulted in a live birth. Republicans said it implied infanticide; Northam later said he was discussing medical care that would ensue. Every day since Trump's State of the Union speech, House Republicans have unsuccessfully sought unanimous consent for a bill that would require medical care for babies who survive attempted abortions. They have promised to try again in the Democratic-led House on Friday. In the Republican-controlled Senate, GOP leaders have rallied around a similar proposal. The push is a part of a broader argument the party is advancing ahead of the 2020 election, with control of the White House and Congress at stake. Republicans are seeking to paint Democrats as a party out of step with the mainstream on several issues, including taxes, health care and abortion rights. "One of the sadder realizations during the State of the Union was just how extreme the modern Democratic Party has gotten on every issue," said Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who mentioned abortion in his criticism. Republicans are also playing to their political base of evangelical Christians, a key voting bloc that has embraced Trump despite his past support for abortion rights and was crucial to his election in 2016. GOP efforts to oppose abortion and confirm like-minded judges to the federal bench has heartened them. At a closed-door luncheon on Wednesday, Cruz told his colleagues the Senate needed to vote on a bill that Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., put forward Monday that closely resembled the House measure, according to two Republicans familiar with the meeting. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., with whom Cruz has clashed in the past, responded that he agreed on moving ahead on the legislation the Republicans said. McConnell has vowed publicly to revisit the bill. The Republicans spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a conversation that was not publicized. Representatives for McConnell and Cruz did not comment on the discussion. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., had blocked the bill Monday. In a statement provided by Murray's office, the senator said that "all this bill does is give Republican politicians more ways to try to interfere with decisions that are between a woman and her doctor." As the Virginia legislature failed to pass a bill to reduce restrictions on late-term abortions, Northam was asked in a WTOP radio interview about abortions up to the point of delivery in instances when the mother's life or health was at serious risk, which are permitted under current law. Northam said that the procedures are "done in cases where there may be severe deformities. There may be a fetus that's not viable. So in this particular example, if a mother's in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen. The infant would be delivered, the infant would be kept comfortable, the infant would be resuscitated if that's what the mother and the family desired. And then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother." His office later clarified that he was talking about prognosis and medical treatment, not ending the life of a delivered baby. His remarks triggered an uproar from politicians across the political spectrum. "I've only read about it, but yes, I was troubled," Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said of Northam's remarks. Collins is one of two Republican senators who favor abortion rights. "He clearly misspoke," said Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va. "I mean, Democrats are not for infanticide." Other Democrats dodged questions about Northam's remarks. "I'm not doing Virginia," Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., said when asked about them. Northam has also faced widespread calls to resign over a racist photo in his medical school yearbook. At the same time, other top Virginia Democrats have faced criticism over their pasts. Asked if she was troubled by Northam's comments, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., who recently launched a campaign for president, told a reporter to set up an interview to discuss it, and an aide provided a business card. In response to a follow-up inquiry, the aide pointed to a comment Gillibrand had previously made stating that there is "zero place for politicians to be involved in these very complicated medical decisions" and "any bill restricting access to medical care and safe abortion services is an attack on women's rights." The New York measure, signed into law by the governor last month, loosens the rules on late-term abortions. It includes a section that allows abortions after 24 weeks when the "life or health" of the mother is threatened. The previous law barred the procedure unless the "life" of the mother was in jeopardy. The new measure also decriminalized abortions, moving the regulations from the criminal code to the health code. Late-term abortions are generally considered those performed during or after the 21st to 24th week of gestation, although there is no precise medical or legal definition. That gestational period, which is late in the second trimester, roughly corresponds to the point at which a fetus might be able to survive outside the womb. A pregnancy is considered "full-term" at 37 weeks. A Gallup poll conducted in May 2018 showed that 60 percent of Americans think abortion should be legal in the first trimester. Support fell to 13 percent when participants were asked about terminations in the third trimester. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 1.3 percent of abortions were performed at or later than 21 weeks of gestation in 2015. The CDC said 91.1 percent were performed at or before 13 weeks and 7.6 percent at 14 to 20 weeks. Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion nationwide in 1973, emphasizes the concept of fetal viability, giving states the right to restrict abortions after that point as long as there are exceptions to protect a woman's life or health. "Every life is sacred, and every soul is a precious gift from heaven," Trump said Thursday in remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast that were among the strongest of his presidency on abortion. The president also recounted the story of a Virginia couple whose year-old son was born prematurely, at 24 weeks. The boy, Grayson Watkinson, survived birth in the family car during a snowstorm, Trump said. "He was born four months premature and weighed only 1 pound and 11 ounces. But he let out little, tiny cries, and he made it to the hospital alive," said Trump. Almost before it was announced, a plan to force the regionalization of schools in Connecticut was declared dead in the water. The bill came from the state Senate president, New Haven Democrat Martin Looney, and it would create a commission to combine districts with a population of less than 40,000, somewhat in line with the states probate court system. Since it would apply to almost every town and city in Connecticut, the backlash was fierce, and predictable. I chose to move here 31 years ago, specifically for Wilton schools and not for Norwalk, one letter writer stated. Please tell Sen. Looney to fix his district and towns and not to steal quality education, educators and money from our towns due to the mismanagement within his District 11 and other large districts, a Weston public official said in another letter. The outrage came from both parties, including some newly elected Democrats in Fairfield County. The wording of the legislation is vague, but the point was not to combine classrooms and bus routes or send suburban kids into the cities, or vice versa. Looney said the bills intention was to reduce the number of administrators. Its to try to focus more resources on the children and the needs of the children rather than expensive bureaucracies, Looney said. We have too many small-town central bureaucracies. As is often noted, Connecticut is the third-smallest state in the nation and yet we have 169 towns and cities and many have individual, overlapping services that defy logic. A separate animal shelter and police chief and schools superintendent in each town doesnt always make sense. But getting anyone to give up home rule is usually doomed from the start. In the abstract, consolidation is a popular way to save money and increase efficiency, but its not that simple. As Adam Dunsby, the first selectman of Easton, argued, many services are already regionalized, including smaller school districts, as well as police under the resident state trooper program, regional planning agencies and more. Those who think there are more savings to be had have the responsibility to put forward specific plans, not just catchphrases, Dunsby said. So heres something beyond a catchphrase. The state should enact Looneys bill, but go beyond back-office functions. Combine the districts, city into suburb, Bridgeport into Easton, with far-flung districts staying mostly as they are. Set a geographic limit, maybe, but Connecticut is a closely packed state and plenty of intratown bus routes are often an hour or more anyway. As one of the few lawmakers to point out the obvious, New Haven Rep. Roland Lemar, said, A lot of communities have benefited greatly by the structural inequities that are inherent in our system today. He added that to move ahead, We have to have conversations that are hard and challenging. Connecticut doesnt like to think of itself this way, but schools here and around the Northeast are as segregated as any in the country. City schools frequently have 90 percent or more nonwhite students, while many suburban districts are the opposite. But because these enrollments are based on where people live, rather than policies barring people from attending, they dont fit what most people imagine segregation to mean. There is voluminous research showing the benefits from integrated classrooms to disadvantaged students kids in cities, mostly without causing harm to well-off students. It has seen success in other parts of the country. It is a true win-win. Integration not magnet schools, funding formulas or interdistrict partnerships is the key to helping the most children do as well as they can in school. Without integrating schools, the state is perpetuating a system that in effect writes off thousands of students every year in disadvantaged urban areas. Its not impossible to succeed in an underfunded segregated school, but it is much harder. We can start to solve that problem. The problem isnt that Looneys bill is too radical, its that it doesnt go far enough. hbailey@hearstmediact.com As eco-minded residents of California, Farzan and Jennifer Dehmoubed were thrilled when the state banned single-use plastic bags in 2016. But soon their home was packed with a new kind of waste: heavy-duty totes that, despite their intended reusability, were often forgotten, susceptible to mold and bacteria, and ultimately destined for the landfill. The couple saw this as an opportunity and created the Lotus Trolley Bag, a compact set of four machine-washable, mold-resistant grocery bags that hang inside a shopping cart, suspended by rods that help you easily move items from cart to car to home. Then came the big question: What size does it need to be to fit inside most carts? RELATED: This Stylish Duffle Bag Took 18 Months to Perfect The couple thought the answer would be easy; they visited their local grocer, Ralphs, to measure carts. But then they visited Walmart and found ones that were totally different sizes. We started going to every chain we could to take measurements, pulling up to parking lots with our empty bags like crazy people, Jennifer says. After each visit, theyd tweak their prototype. We had to consider the widest part of the cart, the narrow part at the front, the depth -- we made a big spreadsheet, Farzan says. They ultimately visited 50 stores across four different states in 40 days, and they enlisted far-flung friends and family to send shopping cart dimensions from across the country. The Lotus Trolley launched in 2017, and Farzan says it fits 80 percent of all American grocery carts. Recently they came out with a Club Cart version for the extra-large carts for stores like Costco and Sams Club. Next up: international markets. No ones carts are as big as Americas, Farzan says, laughing. We just launched in Australia -- thanks to the help of two fans who offered to send us their stores cart measurements. Related: How One Bag Fits Every Shopping Cart How Luxurious! 5 Tips for Creating High-Quality Cannabis Products. A Rajputana Touch to Bike Customization Copyright 2019 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved Interestingly, most of these dealerships are enticing buyers with a minimum discount of Rs 15,000-Rs 20,000 on the 2018 inventory. The Mumbai-headquartered auto majors dealerships across the country confirmed that the Tata Nano hatchback has been taken off from production. (Photo:File/AP) Pune: Tata Motor, which launched its ambitious car Nano, nearly a decade ago, is no longer dispatching it to its dealerships, but the worlds cheapest car is being offered at discounts to cut down inventory level ahead of April deadline to discontinue production. The Mumbai-headquartered auto majors dealerships across the country confirmed that the Tata Nano hatchback has been taken off from production. Interestingly, most of these dealerships are enticing buyers with a minimum discount of Rs 15,000-Rs 20,000 on the 2018 inventory. Auto analysts said with anti-lock breaking system or ABS to be mandatory on all cars sold from April 1, 2019, production of Tatas iconic small car, which lacks this key safety feature, will finally end. With no demand for the model, it makes no financial sense for Tata Motors to invest in upgrading the Nano and giving it ABS at the end of its life cycle. Therefore, the mandatory ABS will be the final blow for the Nano, and the car will be discontinued in April 2019, analysts pointed out. They pointed out that Tata Nano will die on its own death because it will not meet safety regulations. Analysts also pointed out that from July 1, 2019 all cars sold in India will have to be equipped with at least a driver airbag, a speed warning system, a seatbelt reminder for driver and co-driver, and rear parking sensors as standard. This will be followed by more stringent crash test norms by October 2019. And finally, from April 1, 2020 onward, all cars sold in Asias third biggest car mart will have to meet the stringent BS VI fuel emission norms. As mentioned before, the Nano in its current form will not meet the new safety and emission norms and may need infusion of fresh investments. No decision has been made yet in this regard. We continue to produce Nano catering to customer demands, the Tata Motors spokesperson told Financial Chronicle. Sales of the Nano model hit a new low in June 2018, when the company sold just three units, according to Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers, a top lobby body. Also, during the entire month of June 2018, only one Nano was produced whereas the Sanand factory has a capacity to produce 2.4 lakh units a month. Between July and December 2018, the company found only 310 buyers whereas the dream was to sell it in thousands every month. The company in January did not produce nor sell even a single unit of the small car, which was once dubbed as the peoples car. Tata Nano is emotionally attached to all the Indian engineers and auto enthusiasts of Indian auto industry. It is a sad thing to hear that the brand is not making any fresh investment to revive Nano car and also Nano to be discontinued is a sad chapter for the entire Indian automobile industry, Gaurav Vangaal, country lead, LVP forecasting with IHS Markit told Financial Chronicle. The iconic Nano was launched in 2008 but the trend of declining sales of the Nano was seen in 2018 when the company sold 65 units in mid-2018 which then dropped to a mere three units. Decisions on product life cycle is a holistic view taken after considering the market developments, regulations and emerging competitive landscape, the Tata Motors spokesperson said. Last year, Cyrus Mistry, the former chairman at Tata Group, had stated that Tata Motors had already lost Rs 1,000 crores in keeping the Nano alive. He had also decided to discontinue Nano, but the Tata Group board members did not allow him to. BRIDGEPORT Joe Tiago, the deputy public facilities director fired Friday amid an FBI probe of city government, has hired a prominent local criminal defense attorney. John R. Gulash confirmed Thursday that he is representing Tiago in connection with the federal investigation, which is focused on the illicit sale of scrap metal, missing money from those transactions, and municipal contracting. But Gulash declined to provide any more information. It would be inappropriate to comment at this time, Gulash said. Some of Gulashs more recent clients include ex-Bridgeport Police Lt. Steven Shuck, who was arrested last year and charged with stealing overtime; former Fairfield Detective Stephen Rilling, the son of Norwalks mayor, who pleaded guilty to stealing drugs from the Fairfield Police Department; Kimberly Brown, a state Department of Motor Vehicles worker who stole $80,000 from her employer; and Raymond Neuberger, an ex-Fairfield politician and one-time candidate for state representative imprisoned for abusing two dogs. Tiago was terminated last week by Mayor Joe Ganim following an internal review by the citys labor relations and law departments of his involvement in the ongoing scrap metal and contracting scandal. Ganim has not made public his specific reasons for firing Tiago, but has noted any alleged criminal activities are being handled by the FBI. Federal agents have at least twice on Jan. 17 and again Tuesday visited the downtown government center and, specifically, the Public Facilities, Finance and Law departments. All of the above was triggered by an anonymous letter sent to City Council members and obtained by Hearst Connecticut Media in November, targeting the Public Facilities Department. Tiago, a former contractor and the owner of the recently shuttered Tiagos restaurant across the street from the government center, was hired in spring, 2014 by then-Mayor Bill Finch as a project manager in Public Facilities. Tiago was one of the few Finch staffers who Ganim kept on the payroll after he defeated Finch in the 2015 Democratic primary and was elected mayor that November. Tiago is also close with powerful Democratic Town Chairman Mario Testa and in a relationship with Testas niece. Several sources this week said that Testa is angry with Ganim for taking action against Tiago without personally notifying the town chairman. It is unclear on how long the rift between Testa and Ganim, who are like family, will last, and its impact on Ganims re-election fundraiser. That event was tentatively scheduled for March 22 at the town chairmans North End restaurant and catering hall, Testos. Testa could not immediately be reached for comment. Some sources said he called the fundraiser off, forcing Ganim to look for another venue. Others believe that the chairman and mayor will make up. Some say our proud Yankee mentality in the land of steady habits is to blame for our lack of regional school districts. But a look at current education law suggests otherwise: local voters are more likely rejecting an overly rigid state regionalization law that requires small towns to cede all local fiscal and policy decisions to neighboring larger towns, with no way of ever getting out of the arrangement. And in some cases some towns could end up paying more while neighboring towns pay less. What voter would support that? To date, 17 regional school districts exist including my home district of Region 4 that covers the towns of Chester, Deep River, and Essex. While Region 4 towns operate a single high school and middle school, we maintain separate elementary schools in each town for grades K-6. Enrollment over the decades supports having the three schools. It never made sense to abandon perfectly good buildings and spend more to construct a larger regional space to accommodate students. This concept of a neighborhood elementary school is one shared by districts large and small throughout the state and one that we feel is important for our young people. For 70 years, Region 4 towns have been doing everything right when it comes to finding efficiencies with this arrangement. This includes employing a single Superintendent and central office for grades K-12 along with consolidating many shared services between all of our schools. But it requires us to have five (yes five) school boards for the three towns with 33 members in order to comply with draconian state laws. This is because the state wont allow our unique regional arrangement to be recognized as a school district. Instead we have to maintain separate boards for each elementary school plus a fourth for the regional schools. And if thats not enough, we have that fifth board that allows for cost sharing between all of these entities. More on that below. Past attempts to form a single, state-sanctioned regional school district for K-12 have failed many times over the last several decades. Voters did not want to cede decision-making authority over school closures to neighboring towns, nor did they want to shoulder the burden of subsidizing schools in the neighboring towns if one of those schools got too small. And of course theres the issue of giving up local financial control of education spending. Unlike local town education budgets that have the scrutiny and oversight of a Board of Finance, regional school district budgets are brought directly to voters without any oversight beyond the regional Board of Education. But there are additional financial disincentives, too. A big roadblock for us in Region 4 is the reliance on a single, state-mandated funding methodology: average daily membership, or ADM. The ADM is derived by taking the total school budget and dividing it by the number of students from each town. ADM works when students attend the same school, but it doesnt work for towns that wish to maintain neighborhood schools. This is because fluctuations in per-pupil costs in each building have to be averaged across all three communities. A recent analysis found that if Region 4 towns were to bring elementary schools into a single regional district, one town would see a budget increase of $500,000 as a result of that averaging, quite the opposite of the cost savings voters expect from regional agreements. And thats where school board No. 5 comes into play. We call that board the Supervision District and it operates under Connecticuts cooperative agreement statute 10-158(a). The Supervision District membership is comprised of representatives from the other four boards of education. The Supervision District is where we employ our superintendent of schools for the district and other central office employees. It also is how we share special education costs, teachers who work in more than one building, transportation, and many other common expenses. Cooperative agreements under 10-158(a) do not have the same funding methodology restrictions of regional school districts. In our Supervision District some costs are shared using an ADM formula, but others are billed based on each towns usage. This allows member towns to decide whats appropriate for their students without impacting costs in neighboring communities or creating staff redundancies. These shared services form the basis of the neighborhood school budgets that are approved by a local board of education, board of finance, and voters in each community. Most importantly its a flexible agreement. We can change the terms of the agreement and any town can choose to leave if its no longer working for them. If one town wants something the others dont have, they pay for it without burdening the partnering towns. Despite this flexibility, the state doesnt see us as a single district. Even though were managing everything through a single central office and operating like a regional school district, were still forced to maintain five separate budgets, five sets of collective bargaining agreements, and endless paperwork to tediously de-regionalize every shared program for reporting back to the state to comply with mandates. Innovative programs weve tried to develop to consolidate special education costs were shut down by state regulators who saw us as three separate elementary school districts. We were also denied an opportunity to convert our successful school-to-work manufacturing program into a magnet school that would have benefited the regional economy. So how do we fix this? A good start is to expand the definition of what a school district is. Give towns the authority to create flexible cooperative agreements under 10-158(a) and recognize such agreements as a school district. This keeps the local boards of education intact (although they could be made smaller), maintains local fiscal controls, and gives all towns in the partnership an equal voice as to the direction of their school district. If circumstances change, the partners will have the flexibility to adjust something they dont have the authority to do in a traditional regional school district as defined by the state. Legislators need to recognize that red tape, unfunded mandates, and archaic laws are preventing us from achieving the kind of innovation and regionalism they want to see. Empowering local boards of education to design flexible regional governance models that are fair to the taxpayers they serve will go a long way toward bringing down the cost of education. Senate Bill 572 offers an opportunity to move in this direction and something I hope legislators will take under consideration this session. Lon Seidman is the chairman of the Essex Board of Education and the Region 4 Supervision District. The Senate Democratic caucus is picking up where it left off last year with a bill that would strengthen Connecticuts sexual assault and harassment laws. A bill that would eliminate the statute of limitations for forced rape or rape by drugs passed the state Senate last year with bipartisan support, but never got called in the House. I think part of the obstacle last year was time and it not being prioritized by people who make decisions in another chamber, said Sen. Mae Flexer, D-Killingly. The elimination of the statute of limitations was the sticking point for lawmakers in the House. The Office of the Public Defender complained it would increase their workload, but Flexer and proponents of the bill care less about their workload and more about the fact that criminal rapists are getting away with it if a victim does not bring their case within five years of the assault. Compared with other states and the District of Columbia, Connecticuts statute of limitations for rape is one of the five shortest in the country. Twenty-five state have no statute of limitations and 20 states have a limit that exceeds Connecticuts five-year limit. Flexer said there are new people this year in the legislature and shes hopeful the bill will pass. She said victims report sexual assault crimes less than other crimes because they are fearful of retaliation and no not think the police will believe them. She said thats why Connecticut needs this legislation. She said in the year thats past theyve seen more victims in other parts of the country come forward to tell their story who wouldnt be able to get justice because of our antiquated statutes here in the state of Connecticut. She said she thinks theres a better understanding this year of why this law needs to be changed. The bill also includes a provision that would require every employer with three or more employees to give them all sexual harassment training. Currently employers with 50 or more employees are required to provide at least two hours of training to supervisory employees within six months of their employment. It also extends the deadline for workplace complaints to be filed with the Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities from 180 days to 300 days. Another bill the Senate Democratic caucus is supporting is one that would require diaper changing tables to be installed in any newly constructed male and female bathrooms that are accessible to the public. A federal law passed in 2016 requires diaper-changing tables in all restrooms in federal buildings like courthouses and post offices. There are no diaper changing tables in the male restrooms at the Connecticut Legislative Office Building or state Capitol. All we have to do is get agreement to spend the money, said Senate President Martin Looney, D-New Haven. There are no plans to add changing tables to the public restrooms in those two buildings managed by the General Assembly. Sen. Will Haskell, D-Wilton, said they are seeing a move towards more equitable access to diaper changing tables in new construction. This isnt hugely burdensome, Haskell said. He said research shows males are taking on a larger role in parenting and they need access to changing tables too. Without access to a changing table these men are forced to change their child on unsanitary restroom floors or counters and even delay changing a diaper which can lead to rashes and infections for the child. Sen. Heather Somers, R-Groton, said shes not a big fan of mandates. I think its a nice thought, Somers said. If youre building a new restroom and you want to put in a changing table for a child, I think you should go ahead and do that. She said its not a priority for her. Other bills the Senate Democratic caucus is supporting include, a bill concerning discrimination against LGBTQ community, another regarding advertising of pregnancy services, and an act concerning non-disclosure agreements in the workplace. The race to find a Westchester County woman suddenly turned from a missing persons case to a murder investigation in a matter of days. The body of Valerie Reyes, 24, of New Rochelle, N.Y., was discovered Tuesday. She was bound, stuffed in a suitcase and dumped on the side of a Greenwich road. Family members reported Reyes missing on Jan. 30. In the days after she disappeared, family and friends posted information about her on Facebook. New Rochelle police circulated flyers on social media. Reyes was also entered into the Missing Persons Clearinghouse maintained by the New York Division of Criminal Justice Services, a spokeswoman for the agency said. The system is far different and less organized in Connecticut, where 6,000 to 7,000 people are reported missing each year. While most of them re-emerge on their own unharmed, according to data supplied by the State Police Crime Analysis Unit, others can easily slip through the cracks. Unlike New York, which by law has a well-defined clearinghouse system that has data available to the public, Connecticut relies on a patchwork of alerts from local and state police, and the database from the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, called NamUs. The State Police are sort of the clearinghouse, Connecticut Chief States Attorney Kevin Kane said. There is no clearinghouse, but state and local police have protocols theyve worked on and POST (Police Officer Standards and Training Council) has a well-established protocol. Local Connecticut police departments can request assistance from the State Police to send out alerts for missing children, adults over the age of 65 or adults over 18 who are cognitively or otherwise impaired, Trooper First Class Tanya Compagnone said. Right now, we have the missing persons clearinghouse, but not everybody is on it, she said. The State Police database includes all the Amber and Silver alerts and the cases they are investigating, Compagnone said. But there is no central location for Connecticut information unless the local agency supplies NamUs with the data on the missing person. NamUs has about 200 Connecticut missing persons cases dating back decades, including a 10-year-old Bridgeport girl who hasnt been seen since leaving school with a man in 2001. NamUs can be searched by name, state, gender or a variety of other categories. Each profile usually has a short summary of the disappearance, a description of the person and contact information for the investigating agency. NamUs is a great tool, Compagnone said. But the system is as good as what is put into it. The information is supposed to be supplied within 24 hours of receiving a missing persons report. Its up to the individual towns to do that. The reality is the number of missing persons is fluid, since many are teen runaways who return home after a few hours. Its also up to the local police departments to cancel Amber or Silver alerts when a person is found, Compagnone said. The number of missing persons will never be exact, because some people return but their information isnt canceled, she said. The State Police Crime Analysis Unit obtains its information from the State Police Bureau of Identification, which relies on a number of sources, including the National Crime Information Center and reporting by local departments, to determine the number of missing persons each year. In 2017, there were 6,359 people reported missing and 6,289 missing persons reports canceled or closed in Connecticut, according to State Police data. The investigations vary, depending on where the person was reported missing, Compagnone said. Missing persons cases in Connecticut are typically investigated by the agency where the report was filed. Some cases are escalated to the Major Crimes Unit. Local police investigate and publicize their own missing persons cases based on a protocol revamped by POST in 2010. Compagnone was a member of the State Police Missing Persons Unit formed in 2012. The work of the unit, however, has been mostly focused on special cases for the past few years, she said. The medical examiner had many unidentified bodies and we were able to clear a lot of those, she said. Members of the team have since assisted on critical missing persons cases, but otherwise no longer work as a unit. In New York, cases are also investigated by the agency where the report was filed. But each agency is required by law to submit the information to the Missing Persons Clearinghouse, which also transmits the information to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and NamUs, said Janine Kava, director of public information for the New York Division of Criminal Justice Services, which maintains the clearinghouse. The clearinghouse provides alerts for missing children, missing college students, the elderly and cognitively impaired adults over 18, Kava said. The agency also provides posters and support to law enforcement agencies and the families of missing persons, she said. Todd Matthews, director of case management and communications for NamUs, said states particularly those like Connecticut without a clearinghouse can use his company for their database. "Until we all use this, it's not going to be effective," Matthews said. "I encourage families, if your loved one is not on NamUs, we can change that." Lisa Backus is a freelance reporter. She can be reached at lbackus102@aol.com. BRIDGEPORT Police are using pieces of the departments new technology to help combat some of the gun violence the city has seen in recent weeks, Police Chief Armando Perez said Thursday. Bridgeport has seen four homicides since Jan. 1 Razzie Hancock, 39; Eugene Rogers, 50; Eric Salters, 28; and Sujata Lee Edwards, 36. Hancock was stabbed to death; Rogers, Salters and Edwards were killed by bullets. Police have charged suspects in the deaths of Hancock and Rogers. The chief said detectives are hard at work to solve the two remaining open homicide cases. Through ShotSpotter, and our camera system the Fusion Center were able to make these arrests, Perez said. In January, seven people were shot in Bridgeport, one fatally, according to Capt. Brian Fitzgerald. Salters was shot in January but died in February. For the first week of February, two people have been shot, Fitzgerald said: On Feb. 2, a 34-year-old man was shot multiple times. Edwards was killed Tuesday. Between Oct. 31, 2018 and Thursday, nine people have been murdered in Bridgeport, eight by gunfire. To compare, in that same roughly 14-week time-frame last year from Oct. 31, 2017, through Feb. 7, 2018 the city had three homicides. In January and February of 2018, three people were killed by gunfire Jawaun Green, 21; Eric Heard, 19; and Alfanso Anderson, 48. Also in that time, 15-year-old Francine Nyanzanika was stabbed to death. By the end of February two years ago, three people were dead by bullets in Bridgeport Alexander Davis, 23; Elianna Cruz, 26; and Michael Watkins, 26. There were two additional homicides in that time Nidia Gonzalez, 26; and Robert Jones, 61; Gonzalez was stabbed to death and Jones was killed in an assault. Its awful when you lose any life, Perez said of the violence that has plagued the city. Its devastating, despicable. So far in 2019, Perez said, the Bridgeport Police Department has gotten 35 guns off the streets, which he said has helped deter at least some gun violence. A lot of these guns are coming from down South, he said. Its a big problem. The chief said the citys police force has worked with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to arrest several people allegedly responsible for bringing some of the weapons to the Bridgeport area. Its a challenge, but its something, Perez said. Violence, guns and youth Perez said gun use by juveniles has been one of the drivers of street violence. The chief said late December of last year that minors who get their hands on guns in the city dont care what kind of damage they do. The problem is that theres no consequences to their actions, Perez said Thursday. But Capt. Roderick Porter, who oversees the citys School Resource Officers, said theres a bigger picture when it comes to youth violence. We point out guns, but whether its guns, fist fighting or whatever, we have issues with just violence among youth, Porter said. The gun is just a tool to commit the violence. Porter continued, The children in a city like Bridgeport have been overexposed to violent situations and it preys on their thinking and they become numb to a lot of it and think that thats the way they resolve the issues they have with other people. Thursday morning, an event at the Margaret E. Morton Government Center addressed youth gun violence in the city. Perez said there was a discussion about the juvenile justice system and how police are hoping to change how juvenile offenders are treated in the eyes of the law. Later Thursday, Perez gave some context on juveniles caught up in gun violence: He said one of the unidentified minors charged in connection with the murder of 12-year-old Clinton Howell in December 2018 only faces 19 months of house arrest. Thats one of the hardest things how do you explain to somebodys family that one of the perpetrators is not going to do any time? Perez said. Another example, he said, is if a juvenile is caught with a gun in a stolen car, the judge they are brought before often wont detain them. What happens is they get a summons, go to court and are set free on the spot, Perez said. And we need to change that. He said going forward, the citys police department needs to open up more of a dialogue about the juvenile aspect of gun violence with the community, prosecutors, Connecticut State Police and federal authorities. We want to change things, Perez said. We need to take care of our kids. Porter, who said he was unable to attend Thursday mornings discussion, said the SROs have undergone extensive training to understand the root of violence among the students in Bridgeport. In partnership with the citys Board of Education, Porter said, school security guards have also been introduced to the training. I think one of the things we need to do with dealing with youth, is we need to teach our kids more about conflict resolution and de-escalating situations, Porter said. These efforts, Porter said, have helped significantly reduce crime in and around the schools and arrests of school-aged youth. Were working to introduce some after-school programs to engage some of the kids, Porter said. All of it goes a long way with reducing some of the violence associated with youth. He said the citys D.A.R.E. program focuses on proper and smart decision making when dealing with behavior that could end in violence. There are underlying root causes, of violence, Porter said. Obviously guns, and easy access to guns, are a huge problem in places like Bridgeport and other communities. But the weapon is just a tool that inflicts the violence. HAMDEN A Hamden shopping center is adding two new tenants later this year. Ulta Health and Beauty Products and Orangetheory Fitness are expected to move into The Marketplace at Hamden in late summer or early fall, said Dale Kroop, Hamdens director of economic and neighborhood development. The beauty products chain is relocating its store from the North Haven Commons shopping center on Universal Drive into the space formerly occupied by Modells sporting goods in the Hamden retail center, Kroop said. Orangetheory Fitness is moving into another space in The Marketplace at Hamden that already was vacant, between TJ Maxx and Platos Closet, he said. The retail center is located at the intersection of Dixwell Avenue and Skiff Street. When Orangetheory Fitness opens in Hamden, it will become the health club chains 13th Connecticut location and the fourth in the New Haven area; other locations are in Milford, Guilford and Shelton. Hamden Mayor Curt Balzano Leng said the new stores moving into the retail center are a great sign for the Hamden economy. Were seeing an unquestionable spark of interest in our community, bringing a diverse range of commercial choices to our residents, Leng said. Its good for our tax base and our neighborhoods. Other Marketplace tenants include Staples, Stop & Shop, Pier 1 Imports and Old Navy. The Marketplace was developed in the early 1990s. The shopping center was purchased by Boston-based Wilder Companies in 2016 for more than $52 million. Kroop said with the new retailers moving into The Marketplace, it is another one of our 5 main centers that is now 100 percent occupied. We are really pleased about the strength of the retail market in our primary shopping district. he said. luther.turmelle@hearstmediact.com The current loan book of OakNorth is Rs 21,390 crore and the bank has no delinquencies as on date. Shares of Indiabulls Housing Finance were trading 4.98 per cent lower at Rs 620.25 apiece on BSE. New Delhi: Indiabulls Housing Finance on Friday said Japan's Softbank is investing Rs 2,800 crore of equity capital in its associate OakNorth, a commercial bank in the UK. "With this investment, the total equity capital in the bank will be Rs 7,000 crore," Indiabulls Housing Finance said in a regulatory filing. Indiabulls Housing Finance said OakNorth is the fastest growing new bank in Europe, leveraging technology tools for fast and efficient disbursals to the small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) sector. The bank has no physical branches. "The current loan book of OakNorth is Rs 21,390 crore and the bank has no delinquencies as on date," the company added. OakNorth was seeded by Indiabulls Housing in October 2015 with Rs 650 crore to own a 40 per cent controlling stake in the bank. Last year, Indiabulls sold a part of its holding to the government of Singapore for Rs 900 crore. Shares of Indiabulls Housing Finance were trading 4.98 per cent lower at Rs 620.25 apiece on BSE. Edward "Ed" G. Day, 76, of Fairfield Glade, passed away June 11, 2021, at Cumberland Medical Center in Crossville. He was born Aug. 29, 1944, in Detroit, MI, son of Marie (Stalski) Weber. Ed worked as a photocopy salesman and retired from Panasonic in 2001. He was a member of Shepherd of the At a value of $8.3 billionan increase of 11% over the previous yearBASF is the most valuable chemical brand in the world, according to Brand Finances Chemicals 10 2019 report. BASFs brand value was bolstered by a newly adopted strategy, including updated targets and more focus on organic growth and expansion in Asia, particularly across China. The company has also been recognized for its corporate climate action and water security efforts, such as the initiative to go carbon dioxide neutral by 2030 and to keep greenhouse gasses flat between 2018 and 2030. Additionally, it is digitizing its chemical plants, including 600,000 networked sensors which are being used at its production site in Ludwigshafen on the Rhine. Money Makers DowDuPontStill operating under Dow and DuPont since merging in 2017, earnings of the combined brands, worth $6.8 billion and $3.3 billion, respectively, actually surpasses that of BASF. Over the last year the companys brand value has increased 21%, the third highest across the sector. DuPont, which will front the companys specialty chemicals division, unveiled its rebranding in Fall 2018. SABICA new entrant to the rankings, the Saudi Arabian petrochemicals company grew 18% to achieve a brand value of $4 billion. Its continued expansion of investment across China, as well as increasing presence in Africa, drove growth. LG ChemThe South Korean brand grew faster than any other, its brand value rising 38% to $3.3 billion. It has increased its visibility in Asia, largely due to increased sales and expansion of battery plants in China. LyondellbasellAnother new entry, the U.S.-based companys brand value grew 32% to $3.1 billion a year after a major rebranding. It claimed the second highest rate of improvement across the sector, with its public image bolstered by a commitment to help end plastic waste. Brand Strength Standouts Brand Finance also evaluates the relative strength of brands through a scorecard of metrics on marketing investment, stakeholder equity and business performance. The top performers in brand strength, and their Brand Strength Index (BSI) scores out of 100, were: CEW recently hosted State of the Beauty Industry Report 2018-2019, featuring insights and data from Larissa Jensen, executive director, beauty industry analyst, The NPD Group; Flynn Matthews, head of insights + measurement, consumer packaged goods, Google; Karen Wolfe, vice president, client consulting, Nielsen; and Lauren Goodsitt, global beauty analyst, Mintel Group Ltd. Look for our full report in the April 2019 issue of Global Cosmetic Industry, including top trending ingredients, the role of emotions in marketing and more; sign up for your free copy by subscribing at www.gcimagazine.com/magazine. Previously: The State of Beauty, 2018 Log in or Subscribe for FREE to read the full story. In 2018, prestige beauty achieved sales in the United States of $19 billion, according to NPD, a steady year-over-year gain of $1 billion, representing a 6% rise in North America. Latin America, by contrast, grew 10%. The fastest-growing markets were Argentina (35%), Brazil (12%) and Peru (8%). The United Kingdom and France posted sales declines of 1% and 2%, respectively. Travel Prestige travel retail was worth $25.6 billion in 2018, according to NPD data, representing 19.3% year-over-year growth. Impulse purchases represent a significant portion of the market opportunity in Spain, Italy and Germany. What about the holidays? As reported, hair was the only U.S. category to grow during December, rising by 11%, compared to losses in all other major sectors. Larissa Jensen, executive director, beauty industry analyst, NPD, explained that calendar shifts made December numbers look artificially low, with Cyber Monday hitting outside of the month, as well as the inclusion of the first week of January in overall results. Weekly data for the period showed bright spots, as well as significant spikes from self-gifting. Jensen also explained that sales begin well before December, so results are spread across a wider timeline. Self-gifting was evident in a number of the holiday sales standouts, which included multipurpose primer, perfume, hair gift sets and false eyelashes. 2019 and beyond Looking to the remainder of 2019, prestige beauty sales growth will slow, but not go away, said Jensen. Small brands driving growth NPD tracks about 6,500 companies, 1,000 of which have emerged in just the last three years. This astonishing growth has had a significant impact on legacy companies. The top five beauty companies command 59% of the prestige beauty market, but generated just 1% in dollar growth in 2018, according to NPD data. 80% of prestige beauty sales are happening in the physical retail channel. Online brands thrived, with digital natives posting 6% growth year-over-year. This figure conceals highly varied performance among brands. Larissa Jensen, executive director, beauty industry analyst, The NPD Group, noted that some brands declines, while others expanded by almost 150%. The big decliners among online brands were those that expanded into major retailers. 2018 prestige beauty sales Fragrance sales Prestige fragrance grew 5% in 2018, according to NPD data7% online and 4% in brick-and-mortar. However, brands outside the top five brand rankings generated 14% growth in the period, signaling continuing strong interest in smaller, indie brands. Department store sales in the sector grew 1%. NPD found that fragrance managed to grow by 1% in the challenged U.K. market, while Argentina posted 30% growth and Brazil rose 20%. Notably, the top-selling product in the worlds major markets were all fragrances, with the single standout of Canada, where Estee Lauder Double Wear Foundation dominated. 19% of millennials want body care products scented with natural ingredients The U.S. prestige fragrance category in 2018 was topped by a masculine scent, Acqua Di Gio Absolu ($24.6 million), followed by Coco Mademoiselle Intense ($21.7 million) and Marc Jacobs Daisy Love ($18.4 million). Joy by Dior was the top prestige seller during the 2018 holiday, per NPD data. Among mens fragrances, YSL Y Homme jumped from the 23rd spot in 2017 to the number 5 spot in 2018. Jensen noted that natural, sustainable and ethical scents can power brands with younger consumers, as shown by NPDs data: 19% of millennials want body care products scented with natural ingredients 50% of consumers age 18-24 say the top natural benefit is fragrances that are sustainable and eco-friendly 45% of these consumers expect natural scents to be cruelty-free Makeup sales Prestige makeup sales rose just 1% in the United States in 2018, according to NPD datarepresenting a loss of 1% in physical retail and a 13% jump in online retail. Sales fell 7% in the United Kingdom and 4% in France. According to NPD data, Benefit was only top 10 prestige brand that grew in the double digits last year. The top five prestige makeup brands in 2018 were: MAC IT Cosmetics Urban Decay Clinique Lancome The top prestige launch of the year in the U.S. market was Anastasia Beverly Hills Soft Glam Eye Shadow Palette. Notable launches for the year included the Benefit Gimme Brow+ Volumizing Eyebrow Gel and MAC x Aaliyah Lipglass. The category, which has been hit by slowing sales, has experienced rising rates of discounts. Face, eye and lip categories all saw roughly 3-4% rises in sales attributed to discounts between 2017 and 2018 (see Beware the Discount below). Brands have countered discounts by focusing on increasingly popular makeup minis category, which posted 29% dollar growth in 2018. These products account for just 5% of the market but are responsible for 83% of dollar gains in the category. Jensen noted that minis present consumers with high value for a lower price. Brands are also finding ways to grow by broadening shade ranges. Hair care sales Prestige hair care had explosive growth in 2018, expanding by 26%22% physical retail and 48% online, per NPD data. Department store sales for the period rose 23%. Results were driven by sub-segments, said Jensen, including hair masks like Drybars Mudslide Nourishing Hair Mask and daily rinse shampoos like the Olaplex No. 4 Bond Maintenance Shampoo. The top five prestige hair care brands in 2018 were: Living Proof DevaCurl Bumble and bumble (up from number 8 in 2017) Drybar Oribe The top prestige hair care launch by dollar volume was Living Proofs No Frizz Instant De-Frizzer. Skin care sales U.S. prestige skin care sales rose 13% in 2018, according to NPD8% in physical retail and 33% online. Department store sales rose 8%. Skin care grew in the heavily challenged U.K. market and expanded by 51% in Argentina and 13% in Brazil. The top five prestige skin care brands were relatively unchanged year-over year: Clinique Estee Lauder Lancome La Mer Shiseido The top prestige skin care launch in 2018, by dollar volume sales was Estee Lauders Advanced Night Repair Eye Supercharged Complex. Notable launches for the period included Shiseido Ultimune Powder Infusing Concentrate and Supergoop! Glowstick Sunscreen SPF 50. Brick-and-mortar dominate Karen Wolfe, vice president, client consulting, Nielsen, noted that physical retail has been impacted by space contraction and SKU optimization. She added that brands need to help their retailers to find reasons to come into the store. However, NPD data shows that while online prestige beauty sales rose 21% in 2018, compared to 3% in physical retail, 80% of prestige beauty sales are happening in the physical retail channel. Critically, physical retail achieved dollar sales increases in each of the last three years. Department stores such as Nordstrom have reinvented themselves with open-sell spaces that carry unique indie brands. This channel had massive same store sales growthdollars per day, per doorthat more than doubled the overall brick-and-mortar category. Whats happening in e-commerce? Online sales penetration varies among the top categories, according to NPD data, with hair leading, followed close behind by skin care, while makeup and fragrance are experiencing much slower online migration, with fragrance nearly flat between 2017 and 2018. Gen Z and millennials are, no surprise, are the most likely shoppers to have purchased from a digital-native brand. Brands overwhelmingly supported by women under 18 include Jeffree Star, KKW and The Ordinary, while unquestionably Gen Z-dominated brands include Peach & Lily, Beauty Counter and Agent Nateur. Further reading: Brands Democratizing Beauty and Why Gen Z is Here For It Brands that lean more toward millennials include Morphe, Kylie Cosmetics and Huda Beauty. Notably, Glossier has almost equal sales growth driven by millennials and Gen Z. 33% of consumers only purchase makeup products that are on sale or come with a free gift. While direct online sales offer growth, expansion isnt distributed equally. Direct-to-consumer brands with the biggest 2017-2018 growth, according to NPD, were Curology (147%), Glossier (69%) and Beautycounter (27%). Three brands with brick-and-mortar expansionsKylie Cosmetics, ColourPop and Jeffree Starhad declines of 8-39%. Previously: Kylie Cosmetics is Heading to Ulta Beware the discount Jensen noted that 33% of consumers only purchase makeup products that are on sale or come with a free gift. This accounts for the industrys sales spikes around events like Black Friday, Sephoras ViB Insider or Ultas 21 Days of Beauty. At the same time, the market has witnessed the rise of price-transparent brands like Brandless, A.N.Other, Beauty Pie and Stowaway Cosmetics, which openly discuss how much products cost to manufacture and how much added cost is derived from marketing expenses. Further reading: How Beauty Pie Works As a result, discounting is widespread in beauty. This, said Jensen, is concerning, not least of all because once a brand heads down that path it is difficult to reverse course. David Langham Horace, 44, passed away June 9, 2021 in Lufkin. Viewing will be held on Friday, June 18, 2021 at Emanuel Funeral Home of Crockett from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Funeral will be held on Saturday, June 19, 2021 at Antioch Baptist Church in Pennington at 12 p.m. with burial to follow in A 62% Website qualityreplica.co uses latest and advanced technologies like: JQuery. It supports HTTPS. The main html page has a size of 149480 bytes (145.98 kb uncompressed). This CoolSocial report was updated on 2019-09-29, you can refresh this analysis whenever you want. We are analyzing the site. Please wait a few seconds.. Iain Dale presents the evening show on LBC Radio and is a commentator for CNN. I spent much of Monday afternoon in the Commons catching up with a few MPs. Ok, Ok it was a massive gossip session. Very useful for getting some background info on what the next Brexit developments are likely to be. I did have one rather disconcerting experience, though. I was walking past the tables reserved for MPs when I spied one who I have known for years and always enjoyed sharing a few words with. The MP looked up, I smiled in acknowledgement and went to start a conversation, but the MP immediately looked down at their phone without any sign of acknowledgement at all. I was officially blanked. Im sure the fact that this MP is the archest of arch-remainers and no doubt sees me as the Brexit-supporting enemy had nothing to do with itwhat a state of affairs. Like many in Westminster, I was delighted to hear that Beth Rigby has been appointed to succeed Faisal Islam as political editor of Sky News. Shes a brilliant story-getter and has adapted to a broadcast role incredibly quickly, having been a print journalist for many years. She wont be starting her new job until May because, I gather, Islam is on a very long notice period which Sky News has decided to enforce. She beat off a lot of competition for the role, including two very well-known names in political journalism. I think shell be excellent in the role. At some point in the not-too-distant future everyone in the political media is going to start to obsess about the date on which Theresa May will announce shes quitting. So let me get ahead of the pack. I have always thought that she would go fairly soon after we (ostensibly) leave the EU on March 29th. But since Conservative backbenchers cant now force her departure until the end of the year, its highly possible that she many stay on quite a bit longer than that. One senior Tory told me he expects herr to announce her departure at this years Party conference, with the leadership contest concluding in January 2020. Its a reasonable prediction but, if that is truly the plan, may I suggest that in early April she conducts a Cabinet reshuffle to enable all the potential contenders to test themselves properly? This would entail Penny Mordaunt being given a big department, Philip Hammond being replaced by Michael Gove and Dominic Raab being brought back into the Cabinet. That last one might be a stretch, but the Party needs to be given a wide choice of candidates. I could argue the same thing about Boris Johnson, but its difficult to see how he could be brought back in any position which he would accept. Why do some people pronounce Brexit as Brecksit and others Breggsit? Im in the former camp, but there seems to be no rhyme nor reason as to which camp someone falls into. Any explanation? I doubt whether anyone believes that the prospects of a deal with the EU in advance of March 29th have been enhanced this week. Donald Tusks merry little jape on Wednesday was clearly calculated to spook Theresa May on the day before she arrived for several hours of apparently fruitless talks with the Commission. Despite pressure from several member states, the Commission shows now sign of budging on the backstop and, if that continues, I can see no way for anything to pass through the Commons. ERGers were also spooked by Mays words in Belfast, where she said that she is trying to amend the backstop rather than abolish it altogether. Cue Mark Francois almost self-combusting. As of today, there are 48 days to go until we are supposed to formally leave the EU. The odds on that happening reduce by the day. Just as Brussels has planned Ashley Fox is an MEP for South West England, and is the leader of Britains Conservative MEPs. It is an oft-repeated truism about the European Union that deals are not done in Brussels until the coffee goes cold and the final deadline looms large. Sleep deprivation, and a fear of being blamed for the consequences of failure, can sometimes be the only way of securing the agreement of 28 member states and MEPs from across the political spectrum. Hence, parliament budgets and council conclusions are frequently not settled until the early hours. If you apply this principle to the Brexit negotiations, we could be some way off achieving a compromise on the Withdrawal Agreement. After all, March 29th is 49 days away, and the coffee is tepid but still drinkable. That means the Prime Minister may have little new to present to the House of Commons when she makes her promised statement on February 13, ahead of votes on another slew of amendments on Valentines Day. I urge MPs to see that for what it is a tried and tested EU negotiating ploy and not play into Brussels hands by losing their nerve and restricting Theresa Mays room for manoeuvre in the more substantive negotiations that will inevitably take place as the deadline nears. I am certain that the EU has a further offer to make as it attempts to avert a no-deal Brexit. But if MPs take the possibility of a no deal off the table on 14 February, that concession might never leave Michel Barniers briefcase. Why should he produce it? The EU would have no need to invest the political capital required to reach a compromise if it believed that by simply sitting tight it might force the UK Government to accept a customs union or call a second referendum in order to break the deadlock. MPs votes against the Government embolden the EU in its approach. There are plenty of signs that the EU is preparing the ground for a compromise. First came the unexpected comment by Margaritas Schinas, a senior Commission spokesman, who told journalists: If you push me on what might happen in a no deal, I think it is pretty obvious that you will have a hard border. This was intended to make clear to the Irish Government that a softening of its stance might be required. It was not until 24 hours later, after much huffing and puffing in Dublin, that Michel Barnier issued a clarification. We will have to find an operational way to carry out checks and controls without putting back in place a border, he said. That sounds to me like a potential starting point for the post-14 February talks with the UK. Separately, member states are beginning to exert influence. Jacek Czaputowicz, the Polish Foreign Minister, believes that courageous actions are needed to find an agreement and avoid a no deal. He said: If Ireland turned to the EU about changing the agreement with Britain with regard to the provisions on the backstop so that it would apply only temporarily lets say five years the matter would be resolved. Meanwhile, in Germany political voices are growing louder for the EU to do a deal. These culminated on Monday with the strongest comment yet by Angela Merkel, who expressed her hope that a compromise could be found. She said: To solve this point you have to be creative and listen to each other, and such discussions can and must be conducted. We can still use the time to come to an agreement over the things that are standing in our way if everyone shows goodwill. It is becoming clear not least to the Irish Government, whose citizens and businesses would be hardest hit by a no deal that the backstop, which was conceived to avoid a hard border, is in danger of causing precisely that outcome. The EU cannot allow that to happen and will, as March 29th approaches, either begin to flesh out Michel Barniers alternative operational way to carry checks or explore other options. For that to happen, MPs must understand what is playing out in Brussels and be mindful when they pass through the lobby next Thursday. The temperature may be rising again in Westminster, but on this side of the Channel the coffee is not yet cold. Cllr Thomas Kerr represents Shettleston Ward on Glasgow City Council. It wont be a surprise to many of you reading this today that times are tough, especially for local government. As budgets get tighter our services get strained and in Glasgow that is the position we find ourselves in as we draw ever closer to the councils budget on 21st February. So what are the options facing our city and how did we get here. The story begins as all major economic failures do with a previous Labour administration and, while normally that saying is used to pivot the blame, this time the finger is pointed and extremely accurate. In 2006 Glasgow took the decision to bring in a new pay and grading scheme a scheme I may add which was supported by officers, unions and the opposition parties. Its introduction however, created more problems than it solved and to cut a long story short we ended up in a position where the new system disproportionately penalised female workers. The council and trade unions fought this in the courts for years and while Labour, the beacon of equality that it claims to be, refused to settle it was left to the new intake of 2017 councillors to sort out their mess. Glasgows budget this year and for years to come must find a way of paying out around 500 million in equal pay settlements, money which these women are entitled to but which will leave us having to face many tough decisions in the years ahead. The Scottish Government would love nothing more than to be able to blame Glasgows financial problems on the previous Labour Administration for as we know there is nothing the SNP like more than to engage in grievance politics and play the blame game. This time however they cant. Despite their claim that Tory Austerity is the cause of all of Scotlands problems, the reality is that the SNP mismanagement of Scotlands public purse is endangering the public services upon which my constituents rely. Nicola Sturgeon and Derek Mackay have decimated local government budgets throughout the country and the blame for this lays squarely at their door. Combined with the equal pay bill, these cuts are set to devastate local services. Scotlands block grant has been rising in recent years but the SNP are still cutting council budgets, why? Its because they have no respect for the services that councils like Glasgow deal with. Enough is enough, this isnt the Westminster Tory Governments fault this is yours First Minister and it is about time you and your Government accept some responsibility. This Scottish Government should hang its head in shame for the complete contempt in which they hold Scotlands local authorities. As a Glasgow MSP, Nicola Sturgeons apathy towards the city is evident on a daily basis and her cohort of councillors are scarcely any better. Glaswegians expect their governing party in the City Chambers to be fighting our corner but in this administration, we see the exact opposite. The Council Leader, Cllr Susan Aitken, is not Glasgows voice in the SNP and she never has been. Rather she is the SNPs cheerleader in Glasgow and that must change. That brings me to the now Glasgow is facing a 50.9 million shortfall to makeup and the options we are now seeing include higher council tax for fewer services that just isnt on. The makeup of Glasgow City Council means two parties need to come together to agree on a budget. Glasgow Conservatives were elected to oppose the SNPs obsession with Scottish Independence and we will continue to do so every step of the way. Given the financial circumstances that have been imposed on Glasgow, weve made clear five key priorities for any budget that we would need to see in any budget for us to consider supporting. These are: Safeguarding addiction/homelessness services: We believe in protecting the most vulnerable in our society and that includes those suffering from addiction and those who find themselves homeless. We are therefore asking the administration to protect and enhance funding towards these vital services. We believe in protecting the most vulnerable in our society and that includes those suffering from addiction and those who find themselves homeless. We are therefore asking the administration to protect and enhance funding towards these vital services. More investment in our roads/pavements: Our city is heavily reliant on roads and pavements to ensure not only that Glaswegians can get to work and live their lives but also to make sure that visitors to Glasgow enjoy the transport links that a world class city deserves. The Conservatives are therefore calling on the Administration to use capital funding to bring our road network up to a standard fit for the modern age. Our city is heavily reliant on roads and pavements to ensure not only that Glaswegians can get to work and live their lives but also to make sure that visitors to Glasgow enjoy the transport links that a world class city deserves. The Conservatives are therefore calling on the Administration to use capital funding to bring our road network up to a standard fit for the modern age. Taking the non-residential parking levy off the table : Removing the current threat of the administration introducing a non-residential parking levy. Such a proposal would hurt business, workers and commuters and is completely unacceptable. For any talks to be serious the SNP administration must take this proposal off the table. : Removing the current threat of the administration introducing a non-residential parking levy. Such a proposal would hurt business, workers and commuters and is completely unacceptable. For any talks to be serious the SNP administration must take this proposal off the table. More support for small businesses: Small businesses are the backbone of any economy especially Glasgows. However, under Susan Aitkens leadership, small businesses have not had a champion within the city chambers. We are offering the administration a chance to reverse this record by supporting small businesses and changing a culture that is driving investment away from our city. Small businesses are the backbone of any economy especially Glasgows. However, under Susan Aitkens leadership, small businesses have not had a champion within the city chambers. We are offering the administration a chance to reverse this record by supporting small businesses and changing a culture that is driving investment away from our city. A council tax freeze: Over the past couple of years Glaswegians have seen their income and council tax bills rise. We say enough is enough. No more should Glasgows taxpayers have to foot the bill for SNP spending cuts to local government. Our constituents have seen increases in their taxes but no improvement in local services. This is why Conservatives are standing up for hard-working families by opposing any further increase in council tax at Februarys budget. Glasgow Conservatives are showing the SNP, Labour and Green Parties what effective opposition looks like. For too long Glasgow politicians have been ducking the hard decisions. Our five priorities are common sense and realistic and we would urge the administration to take them seriously and engage constructively. We as a party believe in a common sense approach to dealing with our citys problems that is why we are willing to find common ground on issues for the greater benefit of all Glaswegians. Singapore ranks 10th out of 50 nations in International IP Index Singapore ranked 10th out of 50 global economies in the latest US Chamber International Intellectual Property Index. The #2019IPindex proves strong IP systems are becoming more widespread as governments around the world recognize the value of IP https://t.co/MYDyLrIsRi pic.twitter.com/tpdCzLckb7 The Global IP Center (@globalIPcenter) February 7, 2019 The index, which analyses the IP climate in 50 global economies, is brought out by the US Chamber of Commerce's Global Innovation Policy Center (GIPC). The US maintained its top spot, followed by UK and Sweden. Indias rank moved up to 36 among 50 economies. The report applauded the strong performance of smaller economies such as Singapore and Switzerland which it said stands out. Despite their relatively small sizein terms of both population and economic outputthese economies are highly integrated into the global economy and benefit from high rates of in-licensing, it added. Singapore maintained its global leadership in online copyright enforcement. Photo courtesy: Wikimedia Under category 1, which measures the strength of an economys environment for Patents, Related Rights, and Limitations, Singapore is ranked number 1 narrowly ahead of a group of EU member states, Switzerland, Japan, South Korea and US, all of which are tied for 2nd place. THE INDEX IS LIVE! Check out the #2019IPIndex NOW at https://t.co/HBUSHvOhGP @USChamber The Global IP Center (@globalIPcenter) February 7, 2019 Singapore maintained its global leadership in online copyright enforcement. The report mentioned how in 2014, Singapore passed amendments to its Copyright Act strengthening rights holders recourse mechanisms against online piracy. 2018 also saw further developments relating to this law as the High Court ordered internet service providers to disable access to another 53 websites after a new request from the Motion Picture Association of America. As per the report, Singapores overall score has decreased from 83.63% in the 6th edition to 82.49% in the 7th edition. The report highlighted that this reflected a mixed performance on the new indicators included in the index of which Singapore underperformed. The new indicators included barriers to technology transfer, registration and disclosure of licensing deals, criminal sanctions and tax incentives for creating IP assets. On the other hand, Singapore saw a score increase on indicator 10 as a result of stronger copyright enforcement. Investing in #IP means medical progress countries who invest in #IP see far more early-phase clinical trials. See which countries made strides in innovative healthcare over the past year in the #2019IPIndex this Thursday! pic.twitter.com/QT2zWumdkv The Global IP Center (@globalIPcenter) February 6, 2019 The report also noted how Singaporean tax law offers a generous capped R&D tax credit of up to 400% on qualifying R&D expenditure. Likewise, the government also has an angel investors tax deduction program that provides a tax deduction for 50% of the qualifying investment amount. Singapore is an active participant in efforts to accelerate patent prosecution but lack of transparency and data on customs seizures of IP-infringing goods dragged the citys score, the report added. Apple believes in your right to privacy. Here is some advice on how to use the tools it has given you to protect your privacy on an iOS device. Use a better passcode You probably already use a 4-digit passcode, but you can improve that with a 6-digit or alphanumeric code. You change this in Settings>Touch ID/Face ID & Passcode, select Change Passcode and then tap the small Passcode Options dialog. Alphanumeric codes are harder to decipher, just make sure you remember the code. Once you have protected your device with a solid passcode, it makes more sense to use Touch ID or Face ID, unless security policy forbids you doing so. Erase Data What happens if someone gets their hands on your device and wants to get at the data it contains? Given there are just 10,000 combinations for a 4-digit code (and many more passcodes start with 1, rather than any other number), it makes sense to at least reduce the number of chances a miscreant has of guessing your number. To so, open Face/Touch ID & Passcode and ensure the Erase Data option is on (Toggle to green). This will erase all the data on your device after 10 failed passcode attempts. What can you see when you are locked? Privacy isnt just about what people can see when you are online; its also about protecting your device when its alone, visible to others, or unprotected. One of the big bugbears here is the habit of allowing people to access Siri from the Home screen or allowing message previews to appear on the lock screen. You can control this behavior in Settings>Face ID & Passcode, in the Allow Access When Locked section. If your iPhone does not have Face ID, the section is labeled Touch ID & Passcode. Here youll find controls for the following: Today View Notification Centre Control Centre Siri Reply with Message Home Control Return Missed Call USB Accessories: (Set this to off, and USB devices including black box hacking systems used by criminal entities will be unable to work with your device when it has been over an hour since your device was locked.) For maximum protection you should disable all of these, but that is a trade-off between convenience and privacy. I keep Notification Centre, Control Centre and Return Missed Call active myself. I do limit the number of apps that can send me Lockscreen Notifications. Maximize privacy by disabling Show Previews for any app notifications so your communications wont appear on the lock screen. Finally, why not reduce the auto-lock time to 30 seconds in Settings>Display & Brightness>Auto-Lock? Always use a VPN You should always use a VPN (virtual private network), as this makes it much harder for others to monitor, track, or intercept your internet traffic. Your company may provide you with one of these, and you should use it. If they dont, then be sure to reach for reputable services, as a VPN service provider will actually have access to all your traffic and many free services cannot be trusted. Reputable services include NordVPN, CyberGhost, and ExpressVPN. Both Windscribe and TunnelBear seem to be respected. Some of these services can be accessed using the built-in VPN inside your device, while others rely on apps. In general, the built-in VPN is the most reliable approach. What is browser fingerprinting? Browser fingerprinting is a process that uses publicly shared information about your device to identify and track what that device does online. This is information such as platform, screen resolution, browser even fonts or accelerometer info. (It is worth noting that the more browser plug-ins and extensions you use, the easier you make it for fingerprinting systems to identify you.) Combined, this lets unaccountable analytics firms develop an extremely accurate picture about site visitors and what they do. So, how much information are you giving away right now? These two sites will show you: AmIUnique.org and Panopticlick.eff.org I think youll be surprised. Apple is taking action to prevent this kind of activity. Privatize Safari Safari has a range of privacy settings you can access in Settings>Safari>Privacy & Security. They include: Prevent Cross-Site Tracking: A feature that tries to stop websites and services from tracking you. Block All Cookies: (Some web services you use may require you to enable cookies, but you should remember to disable them in between times.) Ask Websites Not to Track Me: The Do Not Track feature has been removed, as explained here. Fraudulent Website Warning: This provides useful protection against Spoof websites. Motion & Orientation Access: This tool (off by default) prevents sites from being able to access a devices accelerometer and gyroscope. This is a trade-off: On the one hand youll find it harder to access VR experiences online, while on the other it is a feature abused by tracking firms who use it to "fingerprint" your device. (Fingerprinting is explained below.) Camera & Microphone Access: Turn this off to prevent sites from accessing either your camera or your microphone without expressed permission. Check for Apple Pay: Keep this active if you want to be able to pay for items using Apple Pay. Change your search engine Apple still insists on making Google the default search engine for Safari on iOS. You dont need to wait for Apple to change this; you can do it yourself in Settings>Safari>Search Engine and change this to DuckDuckGo, a website search engine that does not collect information about you. Use password auditing iOS now has a very useful password auditing feature that you can use to ensure that all the passwords you use are different across all your services and devices. The feature is very easy to use. In brief: OpenSettings>Passwords & Accounts and choose Website & App Passwords. If you see a small grey triangle beside one of the items on the list, this means you have used the same password in multiple locations. Tap a flagged item to find out what password youve used and where else you have used it. Choose Change Password on Website and Apple will try to take you to the relevant page to replace your password with a more secure version. Just say no If you care about online privacy, youll migrate to more private alternatives to Google. Apple provides lots of these across its ecosystem. Replace Google Docs with Pages, and dump Gmail for Mail, for example. You can also use other secure email providers, such as Mailfence. Use Private Browsing mode One good way to prevent rogue apps from uploading data they find about you in your Safari History is to use Private Browsing mode whenever possible. Access this mode in Safari as follows: Tap the square icon at the bottom right of your browser. Tap Private at bottom left of the carousel view that appears. Tap the Plus button to open a new browser window. What about website data? Another Safari feature worth taking control of is its collection of website-related data. Open Settings>Safari>Advanced>Website Data and you will find a list of all the sites that are gathering such data. This information includes history, cookies, and other browsing data. You can delete this information one item at a time, or tap "Clear" at the bottom of the window. Alternatively, you can tap Clear History and Website Data on the Settings>Safari screen. NB: This will delete information across all your signed in devices. Limit Ad Tracking Go to Settings>Privacy>Advertising and turn on Limit Ad Tracking in order to make uniquely identification of your iOS device more difficult for location trackers. You should then tap the Reset Advertising Identifier tool to anonymize you all over again. Take control of Significant Locations Apples mobile operating system does gather some information about you, including your Significant Locations. This data is used to provide you with useful location-related information in Maps, Calendar, Photos and more. Apple does stress that this information is encrypted and cannot be read by the company. Despite this reassurance, you can limit this activity in Settings>Privacy>Location Services>System Services and then Significant Locations, which you can turn off. You can get rid of historically collected data by tapping the Clear History button. You can also take a look at which Apple system services track your location in Settings>Privacy>Location Services>System Services. Here you can review those able to get this data and disable those you dont wish to use but dont disable Find My iPhone. Limit app access to Location data There are so many apps that want to know where you are. Some of these offer features you may want to use that require this information; other apps have less of an excuse. You are not the product, and you can choose to limit such access whenever you choose. You can review what permissions youve given and to which apps in Settings>Privacy>Location Services, where you can assign location permission access to each app. Ask yourself questions as you do so. For example, do you ever use Facebooks Check-in feature? If not, then why are you enabling what many call a surveillance capitalist with access to where you are? Limiting access to this data may limit what some apps can do, but the trade-off is privacy you can always change it again when you want to use your app. Understand Messages encryption You know that iMessage conversations in Messages are encrypted, right? SMS conversations are not. How do you tell the difference? A blue message window means the conversation is encrypted, while green means it is not. Of course, just because a conversation is encrypted doesnt mean someone with access to your device is completely unable to get at it. You can reduce this risk in Settings>Messages where you can change Message History so the communication is deleted after 30 days. Apple also offers a Messages in iCloud feature. If enabled, your messages will be stored in iCloud, protected by your iCloud password. However, if you also use iCloud Backup your stored messages can be accessed by anyone who gets access to your iCloud account, so if increasing your communication security matters to you, then you should disable Messages in iCloud in Settings>iCloud toggle to off. Audit which apps can access camera, microphone and more Some apps like to access your camera and microphone, as well as Photos and other personal items. Its pretty clear why this is useful some of the time, but youd be surprised how many apps request such access even though theres no clear reason for them to do so. You can check which apps are collecting information for no good purpose in Settings>Privacy, where youll find sections for Contacts Calendars Reminders Photos Bluetooth Sharing Microphone Speech Recognition Camera Health Homekit Media & Apple Music Motion & Fitness Its good practice to go through each of these sections and check which apps have access. If you dont want/need to use that app, then disable their access. How many apps? Most iOS users end up with dozens of apps on their iPhone, many of which they never make use of. We keep hearing more and more horror stories concerning apps quietly monitoring what we do without overtly asking for permission including the recent screen recording surveillance scam the originators of which claim is for your convenience. To protect against such apps that surreptitiously grab data about you without you knowing they are doing so, it makes sense to limit which apps you carry with you. There are two ways to achieve this: If you never use an app and never will : Tap and hold the app icon until it begins to wriggle and a cross appears, tap the cross to delete the app. : Tap and hold the app icon until it begins to wriggle and a cross appears, tap the cross to delete the app. If you seldom use an app but may in future: Open General>iPhone/iPad Storage and review the apps there. Apps you seldom use but may use again can be offloaded. Tap the app name and in the next page tap Offload App. The app will be deleted from your device, but its data will be retained. That way when you use the app again it should continue to work as well as it did before. Not only have you now reduced your attack vulnerability, but youve also saved yourself a bunch of space which you can fill with your favorite Sneaker Pimps albums. What apps should you avoid? Some apps exist almost entirely to monitor you and your data. To maximize privacy protection you should at the least avoid installing social media apps such as Facebook or Twitter. Not only can you access both services more securely via your browser, but a look inside Settings>Battery Health should show you how much energy those apps are using. Why? The rather excellent Restore Privacy website recommends that you remove so many categories of app its a little ridiculous; however, if privacy matters to you, its possible you will follow that advice. What about ad blockers? You know what I have to say: I recommend use of Ad Blockers, but I implore readers to consider that ads sales models are the only way most of the publications you read stay in business. So I urge you to find a way to support the titles and authors you enjoy. I guess everyone needs to eat from time to time. Danville, IL (61832) Today Becoming partly cloudy after some morning rain. High 79F. Winds S at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall around a quarter of an inch.. Tonight Mainly clear skies. Low 61F. Winds SSE at 10 to 20 mph. This site provides information about genealogy-related online meetings, classes, hangouts, seminars and webinars, where there is a visual slide share, website or software demo. There are currently over 35 hosts and speakers with posting access to this calendar and blog, and over 200 hours of scheduled instruction for genealogists wishing to hone their research skills during the coming year. If you'd like to join the calendar to post your organization's events, contact to this calendar and blog, and over 200 hours of scheduled instruction for genealogists wishing to hone their research skills during the coming year. If you'd like to join the calendar to post your organization's events, contact Myrt@DearMYRTLE.com , add this feed code, without the square brackets: [http://blog.geneawebinars.com/feeds/8104658385246233799/comments/default] of Google Calendars, click the "+Google" button in the lower right portion of the calendar. including Adobe Connect, AnyMeeting, Captera, Google Hangouts, GoToMeeting, GoToWebinar, Live Meeting, Skype, Web-Ex, and Wiggio, to name a few. The Missourians Opinion section is a public forum for the discussion of ideas. The views presented in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Missourian or the University of Missouri. If you would like to contribute to the Opinion page with a response or an original topic of your own, visit our submission form Types of obituaries The Missourian publishes two types of obituaries family obituaries and life stories. A family obituary is the version submitted by a funeral home or family. Please see the submission form for details on cost and deadlines. Family obituaries A life story is a closer look at a person's life and involves a reporter contacting family and friends. Life stories are based on newsworthiness and consent of the family. Life stories. It's no secret that college is expensive. In some instances, tuition costs coupled with taking out the necessary loans to pay it off can make attending college cripplingly or prohibitively expensive. Penn State is aware of this and has announced the university will study efforts to make college more affordable. But, beyond academia, businesses are also taking note of just how much college costs and one business. An insurance company called the Unum Group is reportedly giving its employees the option of putting money toward their student loans in exchange for giving up five days of paid vacation. This is a nice perk for company employees, but it underscores the major problem of college affordability in this country. This also highlights the fact that Unum is in tune with what's going on in this country regarding the student debt crisis and is listening to its employees about what matters. And credit where it's due, it appears Unum is genuinely trying to make a difference in its employees lives and alleviate some of the stress by proposing this option. It's a smart business decision on the company's part as well because it's easier said than done that new employees would start saving for student loans and chipping away at the debt, given the other expenses they incur and the fact that someone might be more inclined to use their salary for groceries or medical care, and student debt might not be a top priority. It also shows the company values the education its employees received and the hard work they put in to get to that point and is rewarding them for that. Then theres the issue of needing to sacrifice vacation days in order to receive this benefit. Many American workers are overworked and underpaid as it is, and to take away vacation days that the company felt were necessary in the first place, doesn't seem like the best way to boost morale. In addition, this could speed up the burnout that's endured by these workers, especially if they were given minimal vacation time to begin with after all, there's a big difference between losing five days of your two weeks of vacation compared to five days of six weeks of vacation. That said, whether it's through vacation days or debt relief, Unum is helping to alleviate stress from its employees and is helping to lessen the burden placed on students. Now, if only the most advanced and industrialized nation, that prides itself on ingenuity, had enough foresight and business acumen to defray the costs of college and make it cheaper, or to forgive student loan debt, then there wouldn't be a need for businesses to take these measures. Opinions Editor Jake Aferiat can be reached by email at jxa5415@psu.edu. Follow him on Twitter at @Jake_Aferiat51. SHOWS February 22, 2021 10.00 am Bazaar Corporate Radar Bazaar Corporate Radar is your window into the minds of top CEOs, Boardrooms, global economists, fund managers and sector analysts. If it?s making news, you?ll find it on Bazaar Corporate Radar. Amid a deluge of complaints that paychecks and other direct deposits weren't going through to customer accounts, Wells Fargo on Friday said it has corrected the issue and transactions should now be reflected in customer balances. The bank also said it was extending branch hours and adding staff in call centers. Tim Sloan, Wells' CEO, issued his first public comments on the matter Friday afternoon: "I apologize to our customers and team members for the inconvenience caused by yesterday's system issues," he said. "While we restored operations throughout the day and continue to address customer concerns, our recovery from these issues was not as rapid as we or our customers would have expected. The bank is still scrambling to restore normal service after customers were shut out of mobile and online banking services on Thursday. ATM services have since been restored and branches are operational, but the effects of the system outage have spilled into a second day. "As a result of the process to restore systems yesterday, some transactions and balances were not visible in online banking or ATMs" as of Friday morning, Wells Fargo said in a statement earlier on Friday. "The transactions were processed normally, and customers can use their accounts with confidence. This issue has now been corrected, and all transactions are now visible. We are experiencing higher than normal volumes so there still may be delays in online banking and contact center response times." Some Wells Fargo employees were affected. "Some team members were not able to see the payroll deposits in their online banking accounts for a short period of time. Wells Fargo payroll was processed normally. This issue has now been corrected," the bank said in a separate statement. The outage is putting stress on employees of companies that use Wells Fargo for payroll processing. Vanessa Alonso, who works in the accounting department of a small printing company called Nuvo Group in New York City, said she had tried to put payroll through for the company's two dozen or so employees but was unable. She tried several times to reach Wells Fargo about the problem only to hear an automated message that the bank was experiencing high call volumes. Eventually, she connected with a Wells representative who processed the payroll over the phone and told her the direct deposits would be available to her company's employees on Monday. "Fingers crossed!" she said. On social media, Wells was responding to complaints, telling some people their cards might not work until all systems are back up and running. In a tweet on Friday, the bank said "We know this has created difficulty for our customers, and we are sorry to have let you down." The San Francisco-based bank said that mobile and online banking systems were operational except for some features such as consumer credit card and mortgage balances, and added that it was working to restore them. Contact centers are up and running, Wells Fargo said, but people might have to wait longer than normal if they are calling in. The complaints piled up on social media, however. Wells Fargo, the fourth-largest U.S. bank with a sprawling coast-to-coast branch operation, made several posts on Twitter, most recently saying, "We want our customers to know that this is a contained issue affecting one of our facilities, and not due to any cybersecurity event." Tweet Earlier Thursday the bank said the system issues were due to a power shutdown at one of its facilities after smoke was detected after routine maintenance. On Friday, the company said system issues were caused by an automatic power shutdown at one of its main data center facilities, triggered by a smoke condition. When the power shutdown, applications were re-routed to back up data centers throughout the day Thursday, the bank added. By the end of the day, critical systems were recovered but the bank continues to restore services. It's not clear if that incident was connected to one at a data center Wells Fargo keeps in Minnesota, where a fire suppression system was accidentally tripped early Thursday morning, prompting a visit from the local fire department. That incident happened at 5 a.m., and the bank called the fire department at 9 a.m. The fire department told CNBC on Thursday that there was no fire. WATCH: Here's why you should think twice before using your debit card U.S. government debt yields fell on Friday as global growth fears continued to weight on equity markets and buoy safe-haven assets. At around 11:30 a.m. ET, the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves inversely to price, was lower at around 2.627 percent, while the yield on the 30-year Treasury bond was also lower at 2.98 percent. The Federal Reserve's Jerome Powell said Wednesday that the biggest challenges to the U.S. economy are sluggish productivity and a widening wealth gap. The chair of the Fed spoke at a town hall in Washington D.C. and asked for more political action to address income inequality. Market participants are likely to monitor remarks from Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco President Mary Daly later in the session. Behind closed doors, Rosenstein complained about having to create the document used to justify the former FBI chief's ouster in May 2017, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe writes, according to the Guardian . Trump's removal of Comey, which came during the bureau's probe into Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election and whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Kremlin, is part of a probe into whether the president obstructed justice. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein did not choose to write the heavily scrutinized memo explaining former FBI Director James Comey's firing, but did it under order from President Donald Trump, an upcoming book says. "He said it wasn't his idea. The president had ordered him to write the memo justifying the firing," McCabe wrote of remarks Rosenstein made at a May 2017 meeting, according to the Guardian. The newspaper obtained a copy of the former FBI official's book, "The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump." The president has repeatedly slammed McCabe, who was fired from the FBI just before his retirement last year. Trump has often raged about the Russia investigation and asserted that he did not collude with Russia or obstruct justice. He did so again in tweets Friday morning, calling the probe a "GIANT AND ILLEGAL HOAX." Trump hoax tweet Rosenstein appointed Robert Mueller, himself a former FBI director, as special counsel for the Russia probe not long after Trump fired Comey. The Justice Department, special counsel's office and White House declined to comment. The FBI directed CNBC to the Justice Department. WATCH: Bannon says firing Comey a 'historic mistake' People walk by a 5G stand at the Mobile World Congress (MWC), the world's biggest mobile fair, on February 26, 2018 in Barcelona. President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order next week that would ban Chinese telecommunication equipment from U.S. wireless networks, Politico reported late Thursday, citing three sources. Those sources said the Trump administration plans to release the directive before a major industry conference, MWC Barcelona, which starts on Feb. 25, to signal the importance of cybersecurity in future high-end technology contracts. As infrastructure for the next generation of ultra-high speed internet, known as 5G, is being developed, U.S. officials want "to move the needle" on security, a source close to the administration told Politico. The White House, which Politico said declined to comment for its story, did not immediately respond to CNBC's emailed request for comment sent outside regular office hours. President Donald Trump's administration plans to reopen an anti-dumping investigation into Mexican tomatoes and exit a 2013 agreement that has been criticized by U.S. growers, the Commerce Department announced Thursday. Florida tomato growers and a group of U.S. lawmakers have accused Mexico of unfair trade practices and said the nearly 6-year-old "suspension agreement" wasn't working the way it should. The 2013 agreement suspended an outstanding anti-dumping investigation of fresh tomatoes from Mexico. "We have heard the concerns of the American tomato producing industry and are taking action today to ensure they are protected from unfair trading practices," Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in a release. "The Trump Administration will continue to use every tool in our toolbox to ensure trade is free, fair, and reciprocal." The 2013 agreement is described on a Commerce website as a commitment by Mexican producers and exporters to sell tomatoes "at or above the reference price, which will eliminate completely the injurious effects of exports of fresh tomatoes to the United States." In explaining its action, Commerce said the Florida Tomato Exchange a growers lobbying group last November requested the agency end what's known as the 2013 Suspension Agreement on Fresh Tomatoes from Mexico and restart an "anti-dumping investigation of fresh tomatoes from Mexico." "Commerce finds at this stage that it is appropriate to notify the Mexican signatories of our intent to withdraw, terminate the agreement, and resume the investigation," the department said. In addition, a group of U.S. lawmakers led by Florida GOP Sen. Marco Rubio sent a letter last week to Ross urging him to "immediately terminate the current agreement suspending the outstanding anti-dumping investigation on fresh tomatoes from Mexico." That bipartisan letter was signed by nearly 50 members of Congress. According to the letter, "Suspension agreements negotiated by past administrations have not worked, and Mexican tomato exporters have used successive suspension agreements as cover for their continued use of unfair trade practices to gain U.S. market share at the expense of the domestic tomato industry." Last year, Florida specialty crop producers urged the administration to negotiate a special anti-dumping provision in the new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) that would have allowed anti-dumping and so-called countervailing duty cases to be filed. The Southeast growers argued that the anti-dumping provision in a new trade deal would give U.S. farmers more leverage to hold Mexico accountable for not playing by the rules. However, some producer groups in California and in other U.S. Western states cautioned against including anti-dumping provisions in the replacement trade pact for NAFTA. They warned it could be used by Canada or Mexico to make a "dumping" case against U.S.-grown seasonal crops such as apples. A view of Huawei phones, seen in the shopping street in the Old Town of Amman on Jan. 30, 2019. Thailand on Friday launched a Huawei Technologies 5G test bed, even as the United States urges its allies to bar the Chinese telecoms giant from building next-generation mobile networks. Huawei, the world's top producer of telecoms equipment and second-biggest maker of smartphones, has been facing mounting international scrutiny amid fears China could use its equipment for espionage, a concern the company says is unfounded. The 5G test bed in Thailand, the United States' oldest ally in Asia, will be Huawei's first in Southeast Asia. Thailand's cooperation with Huawei on the test bed does not mean it is not concerned about security issues, Minister of Digital Economy Pichet Durongkaveroj told Reuters at the launch. "We keep a close watch on the allegations worldwide. However, this 5G test bed project is a testing period for the country," Pichet added. "We can make observations which will be useful to either confirm or disconfirm the allegations." Pichet was speaking at the test site in Chonburi, the heart of the Thai military government's $45 billion economic project the Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC) about 90 km southeast of Bangkok. Vendors like Nokia, Ericsson and Thai telecoms operators have also set up 5G labs at the site. Seattle-based Starbucks, the world's largest coffee chain, has been building its presence in the world's second-biggest economy for the past couple of decades, while Luckin only launched at the beginning of last year, expanding rapidly with a focus on technology and heavy discounting even at the cost of mounting losses. Starbucks Corp is unlikely to cede its leading position in China, the company's fastest-growing major market, to Chinese startup Luckin in 2019, Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson said in an interview on Thursday. "I think it's unlikely," said Johnson when asked if Luckin might overtake Starbucks in China by the end of 2019, pointing to the 18 percent growth in new Chinese stores the company racked up in the fourth quarter. "Just this last quarter we entered 10 new cities in China," he said, adding that each of those cites is larger than Los Angeles, the sprawling southern California metropolis with a population of around 4 million. Luckin has said it is targeting a total of more than 4,500 stores in China by the end of 2019, which would take it past Starbucks, which has long dominated the Chinese coffee market and currently has over 3,600 stores in the country. Many Luckin units are much smaller "points of presence" and not comparable to full-service Starbucks cafes, Johnson said. Johnson, who replaced Howard Schultz as Starbucks chief executive in April 2017, said he expects the company to be able to repeat last quarter's growth in China due to what he described as "a first-mover advantage" in the Asian giant. "I think we will simply because much of that growth, it's about building new stores," he said, noting that Starbucks opens a new store every 15 hours on average in China. Johnson added that "thus far" U.S-China trade tensions has not affected the company's bottom line. "We haven't seen much impact," he said. Sprint is suing AT&T for what it calls a "deceptive 5G E campaign" in which AT&T seeks to "mislead customers into believing that it currently offers a coveted and highly anticipated fifth-generation wireless network, known as 5G." The complaint is a step toward legal standard in the burgeoning 5G space, and could trigger an embarrassing rollback for AT&T in its marketing if the judge rules in Sprint's favor. Tech news site Engadget first reported the lawsuit. According to the lawsuit: The significance of AT&T's deception cannot be overstated. Following years of tremendous growth in both the number of data users and in the amount of data being consumed, consumers are now demanding wireless service with faster speeds, lower latency (i.e., faster connectivity), and greater capacity (i.e., the ability to accommodate more users) than current 4G LTE wireless service can deliver. ... By making the false claim that it is offering a 5G wireless network where it offers only a 4G LTE Advanced network, AT&T is attempting to secure an unfair advantage in the saturated wireless market. The complaint, filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York, seeks to stop AT&T from using the terms "5GE," "5G E," or "5G Evolution," or any designation containing "5G" for its current wireless network offerings. It also includes the possibility that AT&T could pay out damages of an amount to be determined by the court. "We feel very comfortable with how we've characterized the new service that we're launching," AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson told CNBC's "Squawk Box" Friday. "We've obviously done our homework. We've done a lot of work around how we characterize this and we're being very clear with our customers that this is an evolutionary step." All four major U.S. wireless carriers have been rushing to claim the first 5G network in the U.S., which has caused confusion for customers. Some of this had led to carriers like AT&T using 5G marketing in areas where 5G will eventually be available, but isn't yet. "I fully understand why our competitors might be upset with this," Stephenson said. "It's not a play everybody can run. It's a play that we really like, and it's a play that's going to differentiate us in the marketplace as we begin to roll this out over the course of this year." Some AT&T phones now show a "5G E" indicator where they used to say LTE, for example. This means a customer is in a 5G Evolution market where AT&T has deployed network technology that has peak theoretical speeds of 400 megabits per second, or what AT&T considers the foundation for 5G. But this doesn't mean the customer is actually connected to a 5G network. In fact, customers can't even buy true 5G phones yet. 5G Evolution isn't the same as 5G+, which is what AT&T has named the faster lower-band 5G "mmWave" network. That's the network that will compete with offerings from Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile, and it's only available in a dozen markets in the U.S. right now. "The reality is that this network isn't 'new' and '5G E' is a false and misleading term," a spokesperson for Sprint said in a statement. "AT&T is just like Sprint and all the other major wireless carriers currently operating a nationwide 4G LTE network." AT&T tried to clear up this confusion in a statement to CNBC Wednesday, but it doesn't address why AT&T is suggesting there's actual 5G available when there is not. "We've brought the '5G E' indicator to some of our most popular and capable smartphones simply to help customers know when they are in an area where the enhanced wireless experience may be available," a spokesperson said. "Customers with a 5G capable device will see a '5G+' indicator when in our mmWave spectrum area. Later this year we'll offer 5G over low-band spectrum, and customers with a capable device will see '5G' in those areas." The company said in a statement Friday it's been upfront about 5G Evolution as a step toward "standards-based 5G." "We will fight this lawsuit while continuing to deploy 5G Evolution in addition to standards-based mobile 5G. Customers want and deserve to know when they are getting better speeds," a spokesperson for AT&T said. "Sprint will have to reconcile its arguments to the FCC that it cannot deploy a widespread 5G network without T-Mobile while simultaneously claiming in this suit to be launching 'legitimate 5G technology imminently.'" When asked for comment, Verizon pointed CNBC to a tweet by Verizon spokesperson Jeffrey Nelson. "5Ge. It's pretend, it's fake, it's the kind of BS that gives marketers, communicators businesses and the wireless industry a black eye," Nelson said. tweet Read the full lawsuit: Swedish builder Skanska reported on Friday a smaller rise than expected in fourth-quarter operating profit and proposed a lower dividend than expected. Operating profit at the Nordic region's biggest builder, and one of the biggest in the United States, was 2.38 billion crowns ($257 million) against a mean forecast in a Reuters poll of analysts for 2.64 billion. A year earlier, the profit was 738 million. "We can see still a big demand going forward. If you look at the U.S., the maintenance and the investment in infrastructure is incredibly large going forward," Anders Danielsson, CEO of Skanska, told CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe" on Friday. "So, we don't really see a slowdown within the market that we are active in the U.S.," he added. Skanska proposed a dividend of 6.00 crowns per share, down from 8.25 crowns and below the 8.35 crowns seen by analysts. Virginia Lt. Governor Justin Fairfax presides over the Senate at the Virginia State Capitol, February 7, 2019 in Richmond, Virginia. A woman said Friday that Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax had raped her nearly two decades ago. Lawyers for that woman, Meredith Watson, made the accusation in a statement that also called on Fairfax to resign from office. Another woman, California university professor Vanessa Tyson, had recently accused Fairfax of sexual assault in an incident nearly 15 years earlier. Fairfax has unequivocally denied Tyson's accusation, and denied the new accusation from Watson in a statement. "I deny this latest unsubstantiated allegation. It is demonstrably false. I have never forced myself on anyone ever," Fairfax said. "I demand a full investigation into these unsubstantiated and false allegations," he said. "Such an investigation will confirm my account because I am telling the truth." "I will clear my good name and I have nothing to hide. I have passed two full field background checks by the FBI and run for office in two highly contested elections with nothing like this being raised before," he said. "It is obvious that a vicious and coordinated smear campaign is being orchestrated against me," Fairfax said, adding, "I will not resign." Former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe called for Fairfax to resign in a tweet Friday afternoon. McAuliffe TWEET The allegations against Justin Fairfax are serious and credible. It is clear to me that he can no longer effectively serve the people of Virginia as Lieutenant Governor. I call for his immediate resignation. Watson's statement claims she was raped by Fairfax in 2000 in a "premeditated and aggressive" attack while they were both students at Duke University. The two were friends, but had never been romantically involved, according to the statement. Watson's decision to come forward was spurred by "a strong sense of civic duty and her belief that those seeking or serving in public office should be of the highest character," her lawyers said in the document. She is not seeking any money in damages, the statement claims. A New York Times reporter said in a tweet that Watson has been employed as a "fundraising consultant." Joanthan Martin TWEET Watson was a year below Fairfax at Duke. She has worked as a fund-raising consultant. Kessler, her spokesperson, has done a good bit of work with Watson's attorney, Nancy Erika Smith, on sexual misconduct cases. Tyson, a politics professor at Scripps College in California, alleged that Fairfax had forced her to engage in oral sex with him in 2004, after they first engaged in "consensual kissing" in his hotel room in Boston. Fairfax has said the encounter was consensual a claim Tyson rejects and that her accusation "simply is not true." The accusations against Fairfax are far from the only scandal roiling Virginia's Democratic leadership. The state's governor, Ralph Northam, was hit with calls for his resignation from Republicans and Democrats alike after it was revealed that Northam's 1984 medical school yearbook page included a racist photo of a person in blackface next to another person wearing a KKK hood. Northam reportedly told his staff Friday that he will not resign over the controversy. If he did resign from office, Fairfax would be next in the line of succession to fill his spot. The next person in the line of succession after Fairfax, Attorney General Mark Herring, admitted that he, too, wore blackface at a college party in 1980. "Honest conversations and discussions will make it clear whether I can or should continue to serve as attorney general," Herring said Wednesday. If all three Democratic leaders resigned, then Republican Kirk Cox, the speaker of the House of Delegates, would become governor. Read the full statement from Meredith Watson here. The National Enquirer should have known better than to approach Jeff Bezos over sexual photos and messages texted to his mistress, Lauren Sanchez, says Stu Zakim, a former spokesman for the tabloid media empire owned by David Pecker, a longtime friend of President Donald Trump. "Oh my God, have these guys not learned anything? Because common sense alone would say, 'You're going after Jeff Bezos, and you're putting it in writing?' There's nothing private anymore. It's going to be a public document. So what is their motive?" Zakim said on CNBC Friday. Zakim appeared on "Squawk Box" just before a statement was issued by National Enquirer parent American Media Inc. denying Bezos' claims that he is being blackmailed. "American Media believes fervently that it acted lawfully in the reporting of the story of Mr. Bezos," said AMI's statement adding, however, the board determined "it should promptly and thoroughly investigate the claims." The AMI board consists of four people, including Pecker and David R. Hughes, a former Trump casino executive. In a Thursday blog post headlined, "No thank you, Mr. Pecker," Bezos says that AMI asked him to publicly deny any political motivation in its coverage of his divorce in exchange for not publishing photos he texted to Sanchez, including a "below the belt selfie." Bezos and his wife, MacKenzie, announced their divorce on Jan. 9. Later that day, the Enquirer broke news about Bezos' affair with Sanchez. "I think Pecker did it not because necessarily to help Trump but he knew it was going to sell a lot of copies of the Enquirer and gain a lot of publicity, because here we are talking about it. It's the top story everywhere," said Zakim, corporate communications chief from 2004-2006 at Pecker's American Media, which also owns Men's Journal and other publications. Zakim referenced Trump because the president has been friends with Pecker for years, and the president has been a frequent critic of Bezos, founder of Amazon and the owner of The Washington Post. He's the world's richest man, with a fortune in excess of $133 billion. "The 'catch and kill' is not a new concept [for tabloids]. This has been going on long before it got broken with Trump," said Zakim, now president of Bridge Strategic Communications. "There was a falling out, we thought, between Pecker and Trump when all of a sudden the National Enquirer stopped covering him as lovingly as they did" and then when Pecker agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. White House Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley, when asked about the Bezos matter, told CNBC, "I'm not sure [the president is] aware of it. And I'm not going to get into a conversation about something between Jeff Bezos and a tabloid magazine." Amazon has not responded to CNBC's requests for comment. CNBC's Eugene Kim and Reuters contributed to this report. American Media insisted on Friday that it "acted lawfully" in reporting about Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' extramarital affair, but said it will "promptly and thoroughly investigate the claims." In a bombshell blog post Thursday, Bezos accused the National Enquirer's publisher of threatening to post sexual pictures that the billionaire had texted to his mistress, accusing AMI of blackmail and extortion. AMI's denial follows an immunity deal struck in December with federal prosecutors investigating President Donald Trump's former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, requiring the supermarket tabloid publisher to commit no crimes. AMI's board of directors has four people, including its chairman, David Pecker, a longtime friend of Trump. Later Friday, news outlets reported that federal prosecutors for the Southern District of New York are reviewing the Enquirer's handling of Bezos' affair to determine whether the tabloid had breached its immunity agreement. AMI claimed that when Bezos accused it of blackmail, it was already "in good faith negotiations to resolve all matters with him." The statement, provided by a company spokesman to CNBC, continued: "Nonetheless, in light of the nature of the allegations published by Mr. Bezos, the Board has convened and determined that it should promptly and thoroughly investigate the claims." Bezos wrote that "Of course I don't want personal photos published, but I also won't participate in their well-known practice of blackmail, political favors, political attacks, and corruption." "I prefer to stand up, roll this log over, and see what crawls out." AMI's assertion that it violated no laws in its reporting matters beyond the Bezos affair. In December, the tabloid publisher struck an immunity deal with federal prosecutors in connection with the $150,000 hush-money payment the supermarket tabloid gave to a Playboy model who claims she had an affair with Trump. That agreement requires that AMI "shall commit no crimes whatsoever." If it turns out that Bezos' blackmail allegations are confirmed, AMI could lose its immunity. Federal prosecutors in New York declined CNBC's request for comment on Bezos' accusations against AMI. White House spokesman Hogan Gidley told reporters Friday he's "not sure" if Trump is aware of the dispute between AMI and Bezos. "We're not going to get into a conversation between Jeff Bezos and a tabloid magazine," Gidley added. John Dingell, a gruff Michigan Democrat who entered the U.S. House of Representatives in 1955 to finish his late father's term and became a legislative heavyweight and longest-serving member of Congress, died on Thursday. He was 92. "Today the great State of Michigan said farewell to one of our greatest leaders. John Dingell will forever be remembered as 'The Dean' of Congress not simply for the length of his service, but for his unparalleled record of legislative accomplishments," Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer wrote in a post on Twitter. Whitmer tweet Dingell served 59 years in the House before retiring in 2015 because, as he said to a Michigan business group at the time, he could no longer "live up to my own personal standard" for serving in Congress. On Wednesday, Dingell's wife, Debbie Dingell, who was elected to succeed him, said on Twitter that she skipped Tuesday's State of the Union address in Washington to be with him as his health declined. The Detroit News reported he was in hospice care after being diagnosed with prostate cancer, which he had decided not to treat. On Wednesday, Dingell dictated a tweet for his wife to write: "I want to thank you all for your incredibly kind words and prayers. You're not done with me just yet." Dingell tweet Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow wrote in a post on Twitter: "We have been incredibly lucky to have you and will miss you dearly." American Media, the National Enquirer's parent company, was granted immunity last year in connection with its assistance on an investigation into Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's former personal lawyer. That agreement required the company to agree to "commit no crimes whatsoever." Federal prosecutors are reviewing the National Enquirer's handling of a story involving Jeff Bezos' affair, a source familiar with the matter told NBC News. Prosecutors are seeking to determine whether the tabloid violated an earlier immunity agreement. In an extraordinary blog post published Thursday, Bezos detailed allegations of blackmail and extortion against the publisher. American Media could lose its immunity deal if Bezos' accusations are substantiated. In the post, Bezos said that he "engaged investigators" to figure out how the National Enquirer obtained his text messages that it published in its story about his marital infidelity. "As it turns out, there are now several independent investigations looking into this matter," he wrote, somewhat cryptically. Bezos is founder and CEO of Amazon and the owner of The Washington Post. American Media said in a statement Friday that it believed it had "acted lawfully in the reporting of the story of Mr. Bezos." The company said it would look into the allegations and take "whatever appropriate action is necessary." The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York declined to comment. The news of prosecutors' actions was first published by Bloomberg News. French President Emmanuel Macron answers a question from student in the audience during a town hall meeting at George Washington University in Washington, April 25, 2018. Brian Snyder | Reuters France has now recalled its ambassador to Italy following months of escalating tension, but why has it got so heated between the two normally cordial European neighbors? The latest verbal skirmish between the European countries came after Italian Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio crossed the border to meet with the French anti-government protesters known as the "gilet jaunes" (yellow vests) just outside Paris. Di Maio took to Twitter to say the "winds of change had crossed the Alps" before inviting the protesters to a follow-up meeting in Rome. The 32-year-old is the leader of the Italian populist Five Star Movement (M5S) and sees the French protests, with its rural and working-class roots, as a natural ally to his own party's cause in Italy. Italian Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio Andrea Ronchini | NurPhoto | Getty Images That foray into French politics incensed Paris with some describing it as the lowest point in their relationship since World War II. Then on Thursday, the French government ordered the immediate return to Paris of its Rome ambassador. The French foreign office said in a statement: "For several months, France has been the target of repeated, baseless attacks and outrageous statements. Having disagreements is one thing but manipulating the relationship for electoral aims is another." Populism spreading 'like leprosy' The French and Italian relationship has deteriorated markedly since the formation of the Italian coalition government in June 2018. French President Emmanuel Macron is also at odds with the Italian government's other coalition deputy, Matteo Salvini who heads the right-wing Lega party. Macron was sharply critical when Salvini blocked ports to prevent the landing of a stranded migrant ship and has previously said that populism in Europe was spreading like "leprosy," a comment seized on by Rome as a direct insult. In January, at the height of Gilet Jaunes protests, Salvini said he hoped the French people would soon be able to "free themselves of a terrible president," encouraging voters to favor French far-right politician Marine Le Pen. The petulance has even spread to a major doubt over whether Italy will loan France some works by the artist Leonardo Da Vinci for a commemorative exhibition. Da Vinci, an Italian, moved to France where he died. What does France say? The French government claim that both Salvini and Di Maio are simply canvassing support ahead of the European Parliament elections in May. Referencing Di Maio's visit to the Gilet Jaunes, the French foreign affairs ministry said the new provocation was "unacceptable between neighboring countries" and threatened to "undermine our bilateral relations." Additionally, the French Europe minister, Nathalie Loiseau, told France Inter radio that Italy should stick to their own affairs. "Everyone should prioritize the chief concern of dealing with their own country's affairs and ensuring good relations with neighbors," she said. And Italy? For his part Di Maio has argued that it is Macron who is in campaign mode ahead of the European elections and that he has every right to meet with French protesters. "My meeting as the political leader of the Five Star Movement with members of the 'yellow vests' was fully legitimate. I claim the right to talk with other political forces that represent the French people." ROME, ITALY - NOVEMBER 29: The Vice President of the Council and Minister of the Interior Matteo Salvini attends the television show 'L'aria che tira'. Simona Granati - Corbis | Corbis News | Getty Images Signage for Tata Motors displayed at the company's headquarters in Mumbai, India, on Jan. 27, 2018. Indian automaker Tata Motors lowered its profit margin guidance for the Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) unit for the current fiscal year after it posted its biggest quarterly loss on Thursday, hurt by a one-time impairment charge. Tata Motors expects the EBIT (earnings before interest and tax) margin for JLR for the fiscal year 2018-19 ending March 31 to be "marginally negative" compared with an earlier guidance of breaking even, Chief Financial Officer, PB Balaji said. On Friday, Tata Motors shares dived as much as 29.5 percent to 129 rupees, their lowest since Feb. 8, 2010. The stock posted its biggest intraday fall since July 8, 2003, and was down more than 18 percent in mid-afternoon trade in India on Friday. Troubles at the JLR unit, which has been hit hard by U.S.-China trade tensions, low demand for diesel cars in Europe and Brexit worries, had tipped Tata Motors into its first loss in three years in the quarter ended June 2018. While Tata Motors has announced plans to turn around JLR, the slide in the unit's sales has continued for now with retail sales in China falling nearly 50 percent during the quarter ending Dec. 31. "We are now taking clear and decisive actions in JLR to step up its competitiveness, reduce costs and improve cash flows and make the business fit for the future," Balaji told reporters on a conference call. The carmaker has taken steps to address the slide in sales in China by changing its strategy to focus on profits of dealers instead of sales and incentivizing retail sales over wholesale, Balaji said. "We see a gradual improvement in China going forward. We are happy to see our numbers stabilize now in terms of off take," he said. Tata Motors' loss came at 269.93 billion rupees ($3.78 billion) for the three months ended Dec. 31, compared with a profit of 11.99 billion rupees in the year-ago period. Revenue rose 5.8 percent to 762.65 billion rupees. The company took a non-cash charge of 278.38 billion rupees ($3.9 billion) to cover the impairment at JLR in the three months to Dec. 31. Changes in market conditions, especially in China, technology disruptions and rising cost of debt resulted in the charge. JLR, Britain's biggest carmaker, is also facing disruption due to uncertainty over a Brexit deal and has decided to halt production for a couple of weeks in April. British Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit deal was rejected in parliament last month and the government is trying to make changes to win the support of lawmakers even as the divorce date for Britain's departure from the European Union looms less than two months away. Tata Motors has also embarked on a plan to deliver cash savings of 2.5 billion pounds over 18 months to March 2020. Balaji said it has already achieved savings of 500 million pounds and is well on course to achieve the target. Tata Motors has faced a decline in sales in India as well. WATCH: How automakers sell a $71,000 version of a $27,000 car For a small country, Estonia has made a big impression on the global stage. The Baltic nation of just 1.3 million people has attracted the attention of world leaders, academics and venture capitalists thanks to its high-tech digital society. The numbers speak for themselves: Taxes are completed online in under 5 minutes, 99 percent of the Estonia's public services are available on the web 24 hours a day and nearly one-third of citizens vote via the internet. "We have a generation who has grown up knowing that you communicate digitally with your school because we have an e-school system, with your doctor because of e-health," Estonia's president Kersti Kaljulaid told CNBC in an interview in Tallinn in August. "You could say the Estonian government offers what normally only the private sector can offer to people." As governments around the world wrestle with challenges from technology including data collection, artificial intelligence and cyber threats, Estonia might offer a blueprint for how to build a digital society. We did it straight away digitally Kersti Kaljulaid President of Estonia When Estonia gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, the country embarked on a series of fast-track reforms to modernize the economy. From the start, it took a digital approach. "Estonia was a relatively poor country," Kaljulaid said. "Our public sector, our government and our civil servants wanted to offer our people good quality services. We did it straight away digitally because it was simply cheaper, easy." A key initiative started in education as Estonia pledged to put computers in every classroom and by 2000, every school in the country was online. The government also offered free computer training to 10 percent of the adult population. The effort helped raise the percentage of Estonians who use the internet from 29 percent in 2000 to 91 percent in 2016. In 2002, Estonia launched a high-tech national ID system. Physical ID cards are paired with digital signatures that Estonians use to pay taxes, vote, do online banking and access their health care records. "Estonians realized because they embraced internet and technology, business, and everything, is going to move to the internet," said Tobias Koch, a business engagement manager at the e-Estonia showroom, a center in Tallinn that showcases Estonia's digital solutions. "Instead of just having an offline ID card, you need something that works online." Another key feature of Estonia's digital society is e-Residency, a first-of-its-kind initiative that allows individuals to start businesses in the country without living there. The program serves as a launching pad for companies looking to do business in the European Union (EU) and benefit from the EU's single market. More than 50,000 people from around the world have applied for e-Residency since it launched in 2014. "People who have global businesses, have a global lifestyle, they want to be served, and we want to be the best ones in that area," Taavi Kotka, Estonia's first-ever chief information officer who helped create the program, told CNBC. Digital nomad visa Estonia is now building on its success with e-Residency to launch a visa for digital nomads; employees who work remotely around the world. The visa is an example of a public-private partnership at work between the Estonian government and Jobbatical, a cross-border hiring firm. Karoli Hindriks, CEO of Jobbatical, is working with the Estonian Interior Ministry to launch a digital nomad visa. Benjamin Hall | CNBC "What we are doing with the digital nomad visa it really reflects what our whole immigration policy is about," said Killu Vantsi, a legal migration adviser at the Estonian Ministry of the Interior, in an interview with CNBC. "We want to attract the talented people, entrepreneurs that are beneficial to our society to our economy." Karoli Hindriks, CEO of Jobbatical, said other countries should follow Estonia's lead as they face aging populations and a lack of skilled workers. "The countries that are closing down and not thinking about it, I'm very curious to see where they will be in 10, 15 years," she said. The unicorn king Efforts like e-Residency and the digital nomad visa, along with business-friendly tax rates, have helped encourage a start-up culture in the tiny Baltic nation. Skype, the video chatting service that was bought by Microsoft, was launched in Estonia in 2003. Skype was founded in Estonia in 2003. Benjamin Hall | CNBC Today, the government boasts it is home to more tech unicorns, private companies valued at more than $1 billion, per capita than any other small country in the world. Its recent unicorns include payments firm TransferWise and Uber competitor Taxify. Other companies focusing on everything from blockchain to organic food are now vying to be the next Estonian success. "The environment they set up right now is really friendly," said Gregory Lu, co-founder of Natufia Labs, a start-up that created a machine to grow organic produce indoors. "I hope they keep it this way." Roadblocks Greece risks not getting a fresh batch of funding in the coming months with a series of promised reforms yet to be competed. The country is no longer in an official bailout program. But in June it agreed to keep implementing certain reforms in exchange for some debt relief. This package included guarantees that Greece wouldn't have to pay any of its debt until 2032 which would be a 10-year extension on what it previously had. It was also agreed that Greece would receive profits that central banks made when buying Greek sovereign bonds. These are known as SMP-ANFA profits and would allow Greece to invest back into its economy. European technical experts have been monitoring what the Greek government has been implementing. This is in case its measures deviate from a sound fiscal path, meaning creditors might not approve certain debt relief measures if Greece strays from the suggested track. "They are behind schedule on what they need to deliver," an EU official with knowledge of the situation but who preferred to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the situation, told CNBC over the phone. A spokesperson for the Greek finance ministry was not immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC. Greece ended its third bailout program in August. Since then, its European creditors published an initial post-program report in November, stating there were "delays in the sixteen specific reform commitments due for end-2018." These delays included arrears clearance, privatizations and the roll-out of the primary health-care system. These need to be completed by the end of February, which is when the European technical teams are due to publish a second post-program report. This second report will be critical for euro zone finance ministers who need to decide at a meeting in March whether to approve a tranche of 750 million euros for Greece. The cash Greece will receive will come from the profits that the European Central Bank makes for buying its sovereign debt. The 750 million euros is the first of two equal tranches that Athens could receive between 2018 and 2022. "In March, there will be a Eurogroup (the group of euro zone finance ministers) discussion (on) whether they get the first tranche of the central bank profits. (The decision) is connected to this (second) report, so if they are too far behind in the eyes of the Eurogroup, this cannot be done in March," the same official told CNBC. A spokesperson for the European Commission told CNBC that technical teams were in Athens between January 21 and 25. They mostly assessed the fiscal situation after the government adopted its 2019 budget plan. President Donald Trump listens to Director of Oval Office Operations Keith Schiller as he prepares to leave after welcoming the Clemson Tigers, the 2016 NCAA Football National Champions, at the White House in Washington, DC, on June 12, 2017. Nicholas Kamm | AFP | Getty Images A company owned by Keith Schiller, President Donald Trump's former longtime bodyguard, has received $225,000 from the Republican National Committee for security consulting since he left his job as White House director of Oval Office operations in September 2017, according to interviews and newly released campaign filings. Schiller was originally hired by the RNC to help select a site for the 2020 convention. But once the city of Charlotte, North Carolina, was announced in July, Schiller's firm was kept on to "work on other security needs for the committee," a party official told CNBC, speaking on the condition of anonymity. The official declined to go into detail about what the committee's security needs might be but confirmed that the work is ongoing. The RNC's characterization of Schiller is different from how the committee described his work a year ago, when CNBC first inquired about it. In February 2018, an RNC official told CNBC that the committee had hired Schiller's firm, KS Global Group, for a very specific purpose: "To provide security consultation for the RNC 2020 convention site selection process, which is currently underway." The official also took pains to emphasize that Schiller's $15,000 a month fee was not coming out of the same funds the party was using to help elect Republicans to office in the 2018 midterms. Instead, the official said, Schiller's firm was being paid out of a special fund set aside for convention expenses. It is unclear whether Schiller has any other clients besides the RNC, and if so, what type of work he does for them. Likewise, details about KS Global Group are not readily available. According to state records, KS Global Group was created in 2015 by an anonymous Delaware corporate agent, and it does not appear to have a website or any publicly available contact information. As of 2017, the firm was registered at a virtual office address in Boca Raton, Florida, where Schiller lives. A filing with the Florida secretary of State's office lists Schiller as the principal of the company. Attempts to reach Schiller were unsuccessful. His White House email account is no longer in service and a listed phone number could not be located. But the unique position that Schiller occupies in Trump's orbit could be seen in the RNC's careful effort last year to compartmentalize Schiller's relationship to the committee, even as it hired him just days after he left the White House, and paid him nearly a quarter of a million dollars in consulting fees over 15 months. According to RNC records, Schiller's contract is all that remains of three unusual expenses the committee abruptly began paying in the fall of 2017, during a time in which it sought to help the Trump campaign defray the costs of the president's legal bills in special counsel Robert Mueller's probe. Prior to joining the White House, Schiller had been paid by the Trump campaign. Schiller is one of several former White House aides who left their government jobs and were quickly hired by Trump-allied political groups. In March 2018, Trump's personal aide Johnny McEntee was fired from the White House for online gaming. Trump's reelection campaign announced that it had hired McEntee as a senior adviser the very next day. President Donald Trump and Keith Schiller (R) react as a lamp is bumped by press before a meeting with South Korea'ss President Moon Jae-in in the Oval Office of the White House June 30, 2017 in Washington, DC. Brendan Smialowski | AFP | Getty Images McEntee and Schiller sat together in a side room off the Oval Office, closer to the president than anyone else in the West Wing. But Schiller's place in Trump's orbit is unique. No employee has been as close to Trump personally as Schiller was during the 15 years he spent working for the president and his companies. As former White House aide Cliff Sims writes in "Team of Vipers," his recently released memoir, "Keith Schiller was the most important person on Trump's staff. His official title was director of Oval Office operations, but he may have been more accurately described as First Friend." The White House declined to comment on whether Trump still talks to his longtime bodyguard, or how often. But the president is known to spend hours in the White House residence calling friends and associates, often seeking their opinions on political and policy matters. Moving money around In late summer 2017, after eight months at the White House with Trump, Schiller was ready to move to Florida, make more money and get outside the Beltway, according to former White House aides. Inside the West Wing, Schiller also reportedly chafed under the newly imposed, top-down leadership style of then-chief of staff Gen. John Kelly. At the same time, on Capitol Hill, the Republican National Committee was coming under pressure from Trump allies who wanted it to use its specially designated legal fund to help pay personal attorney fees for the president and his eldest son, Donald Jr., who were caught up in the early stages of the special counsel's Russia probe. As former Trump campaign aide Michael Caputo told CNN at the time, "I think it's a responsibility of everyone in the Republican Party to take care of the president and his family first. They didn't sign up for this bogus investigation and it's our responsibility to protect him as much as we can." The RNC agreed to tap the fund. In August and September 2017, it spent more than $427,000 on lawyers for both men. But an uproar ensued when the RNC later reported the payments on its mandatory monthly campaign filings. Even within the RNC, many staffers reportedly believed that the legal fund, originally created to pay for things like vote recounts, was never intended to pay anyone's personal legal bills related to a criminal proceeding. The last legal bill the committee paid for the Trumps was on Sept. 18, 2017, for Don Jr. Yet within days, the RNC quietly started paying three other Trump-related expenses, according to committee filings with the Federal Election Commission. The first was a salary for John Pence, nephew of Vice President Mike Pence, who was earning around $12,000 a month from Trump's re-election campaign. Next came $37,500 a month in rent payable to the Trump Organization for office space in Trump Tower, which was used by the president's re-election campaign. Schiller officially left his job at the White House on Sept. 20. But unlike McEntee, he did not immediately return to the Trump campaign, where his most recent job outside of government had been. Instead, he landed at the RNC. On October 4, 2017, one week after the Trump Tower rent payments started, the RNC cut its first check for $15,000 to Schiller's KS Global Group for what it called "security services." The expense was disclosed by the committee on its next campaign filing in October, as required by law. But it went unnoticed by reporters for another three months. One month after he was retained by the RNC, Schiller sat for an interview with the House Intelligence Committee, which had launched its own investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election. There, on November 7, 2017, Schiller reportedly denied a salacious allegation that Trump interacted with prostitutes during a 2013 trip to Moscow, on which Schiller had accompanied him. At the time of Schiller's testimony, records show that KS Global Group had already collected $30,000 in fees from the RNC. Schiller had also moved to Boca Raton, Florida, full time, according to Florida state corporation filings. One week before he testified on Capitol Hill, Schiller had registered KS Global Group in Florida, and listed his home address as an apartment in Boca Raton. The RNC wasn't the only pro-Trump group helping Schiller to make ends meet, however. Also not yet reported at the time was the fact that Schiller's lawyers were being paid, at least in part, by the Trump campaign. Between January and April 2018, the campaign paid more than $94,500 to Schiller's attorney's law firm, according to campaign finance reports. Stephen Miller, senior policy advisor for the Trump campaign, and Keith Schiller, chief of security for the Trump campaign, check the podium before Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during an event at Trump SoHo Hotel, June 22, 2016 in New York City. Drew Angerer | Getty Images While the role of the RNC and the Trump campaign in Schiller's finances may not have been known in late 2017, Schiller's own involvement in several key events of interest to the special counsel, including Trump's 2013 trip to Russia and former FBI Director James Comey's 2017 firing, were already widely known. Blurred boundaries Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb is upping the pressure on Juul and Marlboro-maker Altria, accusing executives of reneging on promises they made to help combat teen vaping in light of Altria's $12.8 billion investment in the e-cigarette maker late last year. Gottlieb is calling the company's CEOs to the agency's headquarters to explain their strategy and, once again, threatened to pull e-cigarettes off the market if more isn't done to reduce "epidemic" levels of teen use. The deal makes Gottlieb question whether the cigarette manufacturer is truly committed to reducing teen vaping, he said in an interview Thursday. Gottlieb in September ordered the five largest e-cigarette manufacturers, including Juul and Altria, to submit plans outlining how they planned to curb youth vaping. Altria was one of the industry's strongest voices in siding with the FDA's assessment of e-cigarettes last fall, publicly saying that nicotine pods and fruity flavors attracted kids to the products. Altria said it planned to pull its own versions from shelves. Altria's comments after investing in Juul in December were very different. Juul's nicotine pods and fruity flavors have become so wildly popular among teens, "Juuling" has become a verb synonymous with vaping. When it announced the deal, Altria told investors it planned to use its distribution experience to get Juul into more stores and onto better shelves. "I'm concerned," Gottlieb told CNBC in a phone interview. "Did something change? Do they have new data? Do they have a new understanding? Because they just made a very big commitment to support the expansion of pod-based products, which they said contributes to the youth epidemic." Gottlieb is calling Altria CEO Howard Willard and Juul CEO Kevin Burns to the agency's headquarters outside of Washington to explain their strategy. Juul said it was suspending sales of its fruity flavors to retailers in November. At the time, Juul outlined a new policy that stores would need to follow if they wanted to again sell Juul's flavors. However, Juul stressed it would keep flavors out of stores until the FDA issued guidance on where companies could sell flavors. Gottlieb in November announced that the agency would limit sales of flavors to age-restricted stores like vape shops. The FDA still hasn't issued formal guidance on the policy, though Gottlieb on Thursday said the agency should publish it within the next 30 days. Gottlieb said he walked away from his initial meeting with Juul thinking he and the company shared the view that flavors were contributing to the products' appeal to kids. "If my understanding is wrong, then I need to be re-educated," he said. Juul spokesman Matt David said the company is "committed as ever to preventing underage use of e-cigarettes." Altria's Willard sent a letter to Gottlieb last month saying he wanted to meet with Gottlieb to discuss Altria's investment and how it can help get more adult smokers to quit by switching to Juul's nicotine pods. "At the same time, we know that preventing youth usage of e-vapor products remains a critical priority to preserve the long-term viability of e-vapor products for adult smokers who cannot or will not quit," Willard said. Altria said it still agrees with Gottlieb that "underage vaping has to be addressed" and is "committed to being part of the solution," according to a statement Thursday. "We look forward to meeting with the commissioner," Altria spokesman Steve Callahan said. Gottlieb also noted that the FDA can always remove Juul's products from the market. All e-cigarettes were supposed to come off shelves last year while the agency reviewed their safety, but Gottlieb gave manufacturers a reprieve until Aug. 8, 2022. He threatened Thursday to reverse that decision. While Gottlieb said he hopes that's not necessary, the agency will "absolutely" need to if teen vaping trends don't reverse their course. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Youth Tobacco Survey showed the number of high school students using e-cigarettes increased 78 percent in just one year. The number of middle school students using e-cigarettes increased 48 percent in the same period. Gottlieb said he understands vaping is a cultural phenomenon that's not just going to go away immediately. However, the agency "can't accept" another huge increase on top of the ones it saw last year. Correction: Altria invested in Juul last year. An earlier version misstated the relationship. WATCH: How Juul made vaping cool and became a $15 billion e-cigarette giant David Pecker, chairman and CEO of American Media Inc., used the National Enquirer story on Jeff Bezos' affair as a way to make amends with longtime friend President Donald Trump, a former senior editor for the tabloid claims. The relationship between AMI, owner of the Enquirer, and Trump has been tense ever since the media company agreed last year to cooperate with New York federal prosecutors, according to Jerry George, who spent 28 years at the tabloid, including as senior editor and Los Angeles bureau chief. The AMI agreement in connection with a hush-money payment given to Karen McDougal, the Playboy model who claims to have had an affair with Trump, caused a "falling out" between Pecker and the president, George told CNBC on Friday. "The Bezos divorce ordinarily wouldn't be registered on the Enquirer 'Richter scale' other than that he is the archenemy of President Trump," George said in a "Squawk on the Street" interview. "I think American Media and David Pecker tried to make amends and brought this divorce story to the president as a means of kissing and making up." The pan-European Stoxx 600 closed provisionally off by 0.54 percent with most sectors and major bourses in the red. Autos were the worst-performing sector down 2.19 percent on growing fears that U.S.-Sino trade relations will deteriorate. President Donald Trump said Thursday that he would not meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping before the self-imposed March 2 deadline to reach a Chinese-U.S. trade deal. Failing to reach a compromise by the March 2. deadline would mean additional tariffs on Chinese goods straight away. Furthermore, fresh reports on Friday indicated that Trump could sign an order next week banning Chinese telecommunication equipment from U.S. wireless networks. Fears around slowing global economic growth also impacted sentiment after both the European Commission and the Bank of England slashed growth forecasts on Thursday. The Commission said it now saw growth in the euro zone coming in at 1.3 percent in 2019, down from a previously forecast 1.9 percent. The BOE, meanwhile, said it saw its worst outlook for the U.K. economy this year since 2009. Looking at individual stocks, Wirecard slumped to the bottom of the Stoxx 600 after police in Singapore said they had raided the German payments firm's premises in the city state. Wirecard has been dogged by developing reports of an accounting scandal at its Singapore office. Shares sank 12.31 percent. Ubi Banca had a tough trading session. The Italian bank reported fourth-quarter results which came in below expectations. Shares were suspended from trading after they fell more than 5 percent in early deals, Reuters reported. The stock closed out the day 4.23 percent lower. Moody's warned Thursday that there will be further pressure on Italian banks, if the economic recession drags on for "a few more quarters." In other stock news, Ocado shares jumped nearly 4 percent, close to the top of the European benchmark after a devastating fire at its flagship packing and distribution complex was extinguished. The firm had said earlier this week that the blaze would hit sales growth. On Wall Street, stocks fell as traders also fretted over lingering U.S.-China trade fears and slowing global growth. WATCH: Twelve US execs explain how Trump's trade war affects their bottom lines Democratic Sen. Chris Coons said Friday that President Donald Trump's proposed wall along the Mexican border isn't immoral, contrary to what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats have said. Rather, the border wall is "a piece of infrastructure," the Delaware Democrat told CNBC's "Squawk Box." "We've already got more than 600, almost 700 miles of border fencing, so-called Normandy barriers, that I think have made a difference." Coons said he and his Democratic colleagues have previously voted for billions of dollars more in border security as part of broader immigration reform. He said his party's concerns this time surround whether Trump's $5.7 billion vision for a wall will be effective. "The larger question is how should we most efficiently and effectively spend billions of dollars more," Coons said. Coons joined CNBC as lawmakers work to strike an immigration agreement and extend government funding beyond next Friday. Trump signed legislation on Jan. 25 to temporarily end a record long shutdown following a stalemate with Democrats over whether to fund a wall along the southern U.S. border. Trump has threatened to let funding lapse again or declare a national emergency if Congress doesn't craft an immigration deal he likes. Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby, the top Republican negotiator on a conference committee trying to keep government running, said Thursday he expects a deal on border security funding by Monday. Coons said the U.S. should invest more in border security and hopes a deal can be reached and the nation "frankly really needs one." "Shutting down the government for 35 days and getting nothing out of it in terms of greater investment in modern border security did not help us either with China, domestically or with the rest of the world," he said. CNBC's Jacob Pramuk contributed to this report. European banks are finding it hard to recruit the right people due to new regulations and intense competition from some of their U.S. peers, industry insiders have told CNBC. "It is a vicious circle, isn't it?" a senior executive at a European bank told CNBC who preferred to remain anonymous due to the sensitive nature of the topic. "You want to hire the right talent because you can see the business is suffering, but you don't get approvals for the headcount and when you finally do, you aren't able to match the salaries," they told CNBC. Pay in the banking sector is generally higher compared to other industries. A junior-level analyst in a trading role at a European bank can start at anything between $50,000 to $60,000 for a base salary. On top of this they would receive allowances and a bonus, which can sometimes be given in the form of company shares. This is where U.S. banks differ as they tend to stick to cash bonuses, taking the overall compensation of a junior analyst to somewhere between $80,000 to $100,000. This gap starts to widen more as employees go up the ladder. You want to hire the right talent because you can see the business is suffering, but you don't get approvals for the headcount and when you finally do, you aren't able to match the salaries. a senior executive at a European bank told CNBC People outside the industry have often found these figures to be shocking, especially as the world economy is undergoing uncertainty and still reeling from the effects of the financial crisis of 2008. Banks are often criticized for big payouts and new rules on salary caps in Europe hasn't stopped that. "I think we are seeing some incentive systems in some corners of the financial sector, yet again, moving in the direction that I find not exactly aligned with the sense of purpose that I hope banks actually have," Christine Lagarde, the managing director of International Monetary Fund, said at a CNBC-moderated panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos last month. She also advised the financial sector to work with a sense of purpose and not "single-mindedly" for the pursuit of profits. monkeybusinessimages | iStock | Getty Images EU-wide bonus cap European banks have to adhere to an EU-wide bonus cap that was put in practice in early 2014. The regulation limits bonuses paid to senior managers and other "material risk takers" to no more than 100 percent of their fixed pay generally, or 200 percent of their fixed pay with shareholders' approval. While this limit may have calmed an uproar over the large sums of money that executives take home, it has also led to banks increasing basic salaries as a way to compensate for the bonus restrictions. "One consequence of the regulation of remuneration, particularly the introduction in the EU of the bonus cap, has been an increase in fixed remuneration as a proportion of total remuneration," a Bank of England report published in December 2015 found. In 2015, the Bank of England and the Prudential Regulation Authority, also made changes around bonus buyouts, where banks compensate new employees for any remuneration foregone when they change jobs. As part of the new rules, banks can claw back some or all of the bonus already paid to an employee for up to seven years, if the employee is found to have committed wrongdoing in their previous job. Morale affected? The EU-wide bonus cap saw an impact not just on employee morale but also on hiring. Big European banks found it difficult to hire executives, especially when compared to U.S. banks where bonuses and fixed salaries can be higher. European banks are suffering from years of weak profits, massive fines, ultra-low monetary policy and uncertainty surrounding the U.K.'s exit from the European Union. The U.S. banks, on the other hand, especially the big ones like J.P. Morgan and Citi have very strong retail operations that have kept these banks resilient in the face of economic headwinds. This makes them better paymasters and a more conducive place to work. One recruitment consultant told CNBC, on condition of anonymity due to their relationship with large banks, that lenders like Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan see strong bonus payouts for front of office roles executives such as in the trading room and were up to 30 to 40 percent better when compared to European banks such as Barclays, Deutsche Bank and UBS. Spokespersons for Goldman Sachs, Barclays and Deutsche Bank were not immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC. Meanwhile, J.P. Morgan and UBS declined to comment. "There is no comparison. A vice-president or a director level executive in a trading function at a U.S. bank will easily see a 100 percent cash bonus component as compared to a European bank where these are generally given as deferred, or in stocks," the consultant said. Laurie Noble | Stone | Getty Images Banks pay out bonuses in various ways. While some banks, especially the U.S. banks, pay out a 100 percent cash bonus, several European banks pay out bonuses as a mix of cash and stocks. The cash component of the bonus, in many cases, is deferred and is paid out over a longer period an incentive for the employee to stay with the company and a way for the institution to deal with costs. "I think that was the case three or four years ago, but we started to see the stronger European banks catch up last year to pay market levels," Joseph Leung, the founder and managing partner at recruitment firm Aubreck Leung, told CNBC last week. "Keep in mind many of them exited unprofitable businesses a few years ago and redistributed their capital to performing areas enabling them to pay their good people," Leung added. He, however, warned that this could change in 2019 since none of the European banks have announced their compensations yet. I think that was the case three or four years ago, but we started to see the stronger European banks catch up last year to pay market levels. Joseph Leung founder and managing partner at recruitment firm Aubreck Leung New talent bearing the brunt Amid all the uncertainty currently surrounding the banking sector, it is the new talent that is bearing the brunt. Young people joining banks often find themselves witnessing a massive income divide when compared with their senior peers who have climbed up the ladder pre-crisis and bonus-cap era. Getty Images Bloomberg/Getty Images Activist investors are turning their attention to the U.S. banking industry, which many see as ripe for a new merger wave as lenders struggle to distinguish themselves amid intensifying competition. Funds from veteran Jeffrey Ubben's ValueAct to first-time agitators like Dallas-based Blue Lion Capital have been turning up the heat on banks over the past year, seeking everything from investments in digital banking platforms to outright sales. Activist investors, who take big stakes in companies and pressure them to break up or shift strategy, often steer clear of heavily regulated banks. But with the Trump administration and a GOP-controlled Senate trying to ease some of the industry's oversight, the possibility of big bank deals has resurfaced across Wall Street. "We've been seeing activity and clients looking into the banks space for a number of years now," said Schulte Roth & Zabel Shareholder Activism co-chair Ele Klein. "We've been waiting for more activism for a while now: There are too many banks in the U.S. right now and the industry needs consolidation." According to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation's latest numbers, there were 703 federally backed savings institutions and 4,774 federally backed commercial banks in the U.S. at the end of Sept. 2018. The logjam broke Thursday, when BB&T and SunTrust announced their $28 billion all-stock merger, the first big bank deal in a decade. The combination will create the sixth-largest lender in the United States with around $443 billion of assets. The deal is expected to result in annual cost savings of around $1.6 billion by 2022, the companies said. "The competition is for our clients and making sure that we're relevant," SunTrust CEO William Rogers said. "The good news is we come in with really good strength. We had great performance on our digital platforms, we've been making investments to date. So what we get to do is double down on that, so we view the competitive environment as anyone who's trying to acquire clients." Activists may be inspired to push other banks. Already ValueAct has amassed a stake in Citigroup, saying last year that banks are lower risk "than at any time in our investing lifetimes." Though ValueAct hasn't made public calls for changes to Citi's board or management, the bank has agreed to give the activist investor greater insight into its strategy and operations. The company said last month it entered into an information-sharing deal with ValueAct, giving Ubben's fund access to confidential data. Many are looking to see combinations of other large regional banks including Citizens Financial Group, KeyCorp and PNC Financial, said Blue Lion partner Johnny Guerry, who joined the firm earlier this year to assist in its activist practice. While shares of these banks are up so far this year, each are down more than 18 percent over the past 12 months and are trading around a price-to-book value around 1, typically a sign of an undervalued bank. "A vibrant M&A market leaves underperforming banks with few excuses to not explore strategic alternatives," Guerry told CNBC on Thursday. "Comerica has been pressured by activists over the past few years, and the success of these transactions only augments the legitimacy of the activists' calls to find a partner." Blue Lion, though small compared with the likes of ValueAct, tried its luck in bank activism in 2018. The first-time activist tried to initiate a proxy fight at HomeStreet, a small regional bank with business in Washington, Oregon, California and Hawaii. The fund botched its filing, according to regulators, and had to resort to pleading with fellow shareholders to register protest votes against the bank's incumbent directors. The fund did not comment on its future plans at HomeStreet. Bill Rogers, CEO, SunTrust Source: CNBC Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker testified before lawmakers Friday that he hasn't discussed special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe with President Donald Trump. After the firing of Jeff Sessions, Whitaker has overseen Mueller's investigation into Russia's meddling in the 2016 election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign. Democrats have expressed concern with Trump's appointment of Whitaker, citing his criticisms of the special counsel in an op-ed and on television. The interim appointment without Senate confirmation raised fears that the Mueller's ongoing probe, which Trump has frequently excoriated as a "witch hunt," could be undermined. "I have not talked to the president of the United States about the special counsel investigation," Whitaker told the House Judiciary Committee in response to a question by committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y. The hearing was marked by high tensions even before it began. In a party-line vote Thursday morning, the Democrat-majority committee gave Nadler the power to subpoena Whitaker if he refused to answer questions, including during his testimony. "I hope and expect that this subpoena will not be necessary but unfortunately, a series of troubling events over the past few months suggest that we should be prepared," Nadler said in a statement before the vote. In justifying the need for the threat of a subpoena, Nadler's statement said that Justice Department staff had attempted to walk back Whitaker's promise to Nadler in November that he would appear for an oversight hearing. The statement added that other Trump administration witnesses have "often been allowed" to avoid answering questions, citing the "ridiculous" excuse used by Sessions that he could not answer certain questions because Trump might want to invoke "executive privilege." Whitaker responded harshly, saying he would refuse to appear for the hearing unless he received assurances that he would not be subpoenaed. "I remain willing to appear to testify tomorrow, provided that the chairman assures me that the committee will not issue a subpoena today or tomorrow, and that the committee will engage in good faith negotiations before taking such a step down the road," Whitaker said in a statement reported by The Washington Post. The committee has "deviated from historic practice and protocol and taken the unnecessary and premature step of authorizing a subpoena to me, the acting attorney general, even though I had agreed to voluntarily appear," Whitaker said. "Political theater is not the purpose of an oversight hearing, and I will not allow that to be the case." Whitaker had criticized the Mueller probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election before he was tapped to become acting attorney general in November. Yet he did not recuse himself from overseeing that investigation as Sessions had done despite a Justice Department ethics official suggesting that he do so. Secretary General of OPEC, Mohammed Barkindo (R), Russia Energy Minister Alexander Novak (L), Saudi Arabia's Minister of Energy, Industry and Mineral Resources, Khalid Al-Falih (C) hold a joint press conference during the 173rd Ordinary Meeting of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in Vienna, Austria on November 30, 2017. Omar Marques | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images Democrats and Republicans don't agree on much these days, but a bipartisan group of lawmakers is finding common cause in legislation that would make life very difficult for the oil producer group OPEC. Legislation that aims to prevent the 14-nation OPEC from coordinating production and influencing oil prices is once again advancing on Capitol Hill. On Friday, at least one senior Trump administration official expressed support for the legislation, signaling a potential chip in White House opposition to the measure, which has held firm for the last two decades. On Thursday, the House Judiciary Committee passed the No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels Act, commonly known as NOPEC, clearing the bill for a vote before the full House of Representatives. The same day, Democrats Patrick Leahy and Amy Klobuchar and Republicans Chuck Grassley and Mike Lee introduced NOPEC legislation in the Senate. The bills would essentially make it illegal for foreign nations to work together to limit fossil fuel supplies and set prices. They would authorize the U.S. Justice Department to sue oil producers for antitrust violations by stripping foreign actors of sovereign immunity protections. Leahy first introduced a similar bill in 2000, and Congress has revived it several times since then most recently in the last Congress, where it stalled after getting House Judiciary Committee approval. The full House and Senate passed NOPEC legislation in 2007. The House passed it again in 2008, the same year oil prices hit an all-time high at nearly $150 a barrel. However, the bill languished under threat of veto from former President George W. Bush. Former President Barack Obama also opposed NOPEC, but analysts have speculated the measure could find support in the Trump White House. President Donald Trump repeatedly blamed OPEC on Twitter last year for driving up the price of oil. At the U.N. General Assembly in September, he told world leaders the group was ripping them off. Asked about the NOPEC bill on Friday, a senior Trump administration official told Reuters, "The United States is firmly committed to open, fair, and competitive markets for global energy trade. We do not support market-distorting behavior, including cartels." The White House did not immediately return a request for comment. It is not uncommon for a Trump official to express a view, only to be undercut by another administration member. NOPEC would likely face opposition in some corners of the administration because it would threaten Trump's close relationship with top OPEC producer Saudi Arabia. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, and US Senator Ed Markey (R), Democrat of Massachusetts, speak during a press conference to announce Green New Deal legislation to promote clean energy programs outside the US Capitol in Washington, DC, February 7, 2019. The "Green New Deal," unveiled Thursday, sets sky-high goals to cut greenhouse gases to nearly zilch but it's not committed to getting rid of "farting cows" just yet. That's according to an initial outline of the ambitious new resolution put forward by freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., which aims to fundamentally reimagine the U.S. economy with the environment at top of mind. Markey and Ocasio-Cortez, the 29-year-old democratic socialist, called for completely ditching fossil fuels, upgrading or replacing "every building" in the country and "totally overhaul transportation" to the point where "air travel stops becoming necessary." They also aimed to have the U.S. creating "net-zero" greenhouse gases in 10 years. Why "net zero"? The lawmakers explained: "We set a goal to get to net-zero, rather than zero emissions, in 10 years because we aren't sure that we'll be able to fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes that fast." At the time this story was published, the FAQ page with the phrase "farting cows" appeared to have been removed from Ocasio-Cortez's website. Fox News' John Roberts reported that the language was tweaked to "emissions from cows" in an update, which also appears to have been deleted. John Roberts' tweet: latest version of FAQ's on her blog has removed the "f" word in favor of "emissions from cows" Holy cow Language notwithstanding, greenhouse gas emissions from cows have a bigger environmental impact than one might expect. Methane gas produced by bovine flatulence contributes a significant portion of the greenhouse gases contributing to global warming, according to the United Nations. Livestock farming produces about 18 percent of all those environmentally damaging gases and about a quarter of that chunk comes from cow farts and burps, the U.N. says. The lawmakers appear to recognize this. One of the Green New Deal's 14 infrastructure and industrial proposals is to "work with farmers and ranchers to create a sustainable, pollution and greenhouse gas free, food system that ensures universal access to healthy food and expands independent family farming." Spokespersons for Markey and Ocasio-Cortez did not immediately respond to CNBC's questions about the reference to cow farts in the summary of their Green New Deal. In the meantime, America's nearly 100 million cows can look forward to years of munching grass and passing gas still ahead of them. Clinton, IA (52732) Today Cloudy with light rain this morning...then becoming partly cloudy. High 82F. Winds S at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 90%.. Tonight Partly cloudy this evening, then becoming cloudy after midnight. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 67F. Winds S at 10 to 15 mph. Jewish Community Board of Akron CEO Todd Polikoff said the quality of Jewish life offered in Akron is among one of the best kept secrets in Ohio. Polikoff took the reins Dec. 3 at the Schultz Campus for Jewish Life in Akron, replacing David Koch, who retired after 11 years in the position. Since then, hes set out to let others know theres more than a gym on the 55-acre campus and living an affordable Jewish life in Akron is possible with programs like J-Ticket, which reduces costs of JCC membership and school tuition. After nearly 10 weeks on the job, Polikoff sat down with the Cleveland Jewish News to discuss his plans for Akrons Jewish community, how hell use his experience in his new role and what changes hes already making. CJN: How will your past experience as CEO of the Jewish Federation of Nevada, director of donor stewardship and senior development officer at the Jewish Federation of Cleveland and director with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in Houston and Las Vegas help you in this role? Polikoff: Everybodys career is a book, every chapter teaches you something different. I think, certainly, my experience with AIPAC is all about the pace of the work every five minutes there was something new. You had to really delegate amongst your staff. ... Certainly through Cleveland, it was an understanding of, what more can federation be? Cleveland isnt just a federation, its much more than the general community than the Jewish community and really learning from (former Jewish Federation of Cleveland President) Steve Hoffman, there are things a federation can do and there are things a federation cant do, and you have to figure out what the difference is. There are things you do as an organization, and there are things you may fund that somebody else does, but really, what the role of the federation is and our job is to project Jewish life through agencies and synagogues. (In Las Vegas), you have to go out and speak to everyone, and you have to create a closeness that doesnt exist because there are no facilities. Theres no JCC in Las Vegas, the federation is in a business park. ... In a place like Nevada, you have to create an environment to bring everyone together because there is no central place. CJN: The theme of your letter to the community in the Akron Jewish News focused on affiliation or engagement. Why are these words on your mind? Polikoff: Because I think we utilize an old definition. I think the old way of saying someone was engaged or affiliated was that they pay dues. If you didnt pay dues to a synagogue, youre not affiliated. ... You always have the person in the synagogue board meeting (talking) about people who have left the synagogue. Theres always the one or two people at the end of the table who say, They didnt want to pay dues. I would always argue, No, we didnt show them what their money was worth. We didnt give them a value proposition because all we think they are to us is paying dues or not. And we need them more than they need us, lets be honest. We have to show that we are valuing their engagement, their affiliation, at whatever level they choose. Its our job as professionals and as community leaders to cultivate them to do more in the community, both philanthropically and in human capital. CJN: What plans are there to remodel the Schultz Campus for Jewish Life? Polikoff: If we want to grow The Lippman School and the Mandel (Early Childhood Education Center), theres an understanding if youre going to bring more kids under the canvas, part of bringing them is that we provide meals for them. If were going to provide meals for them, were going to need a kitchen that can keep up with that growth. Part of our strategy is to re-evaluate the kitchen structure and to make sure our kitchen is able to keep up with the capacity of the schools. We have a camp building out back and we have a day camp in the summer. Theres a big push these days for retreat business. There are thoughts of what do we do with the camp building that may create an environment that we can have people on campus year-round, using that building. Obviously, it would be a revenue source for the campus. CJN: Have you made any changes since taking on the role? Polikoff: Its not a change that Ive made, its more of a change that I was brought here to implement. The structure changed over the years of the organization, the corporate structure where the JCBA, the federation, is the umbrella of the campus and the JCC director, John Keverkamp, and (The Lippman School) director, Sam Chestnut, are vice presidents of JCBA, technically, and the three of us are the management team for the campus. ... A lot of it is around language. If you notice, I dont talk about the JCC, or the school or the federation I talk about the campus. Its changing that mindset among the professionals that we cant talk about ourselves as separate entities. The point Ive been making recently is we cant compete with Planet Fitness as a gym. They have a marketing budget, they have this huge gym. They have all that stuff. There are certain schools we cant compete with because they have a lot more money ... And we cant compete as an outdoor pool everybody may have a pool. But no one can compete with us as a campus. If we look at ourselves as a campus, Planet Fitness cant compete with us as a campus, the schools cant compete with us as a campus. So, our strongest position is as a campus. If Im making any changes, its the way I speak about this place. CJN: What has surprised you most since taking on the role? Polikoff: Ive asked people, everyone I meet here, Where are you from? Akron. ... People in Akron either grew up in Akron, went to The University of Akron and never left Akron. Or, they grew up in Akron, went to school somewhere, then moved back. I dont know why Im surprised by it because Ive come to really understand how great it is to live here, but it is one of the things that surprises me. CJN: What drew you to Akron? Polikoff: On a personal side was the proximity to my kids. But on a professional side ... the No. 1 issue facing the Jewish community is anti-Semitism, which is always No. 1 youd be foolish to think its not. If No. 2 is affordability of Jewish life, again, Akron has a program that alleviates a lot of that issue. You have this great campus, you have terrific professional staff thats here, you have terrific lay leadership that are here, and again, we have a lot of space to grow. We have a lot more room in this building to put people, the synagogues have a lot more room to put people, so as a professional and someone who tends to work more entrepreneurial ... theres a lot to attract someone like me to a place like Akron. CJN: Are there plans to partner with the Jewish Federation of Cleveland? Polikoff: Absolutely and these are just thoughts that we have (but) Im meeting with some of the people who direct these programs this week and next week. We have a pretty good understanding that we have a relatively large interfaith family population in Summit County. It would be foolish for us to reinvent the wheel and look for an interfaith family program when (Rabbi) Melinda Mersack in Cleveland is running the jHUB program. Ive reached out to Melinda and were going to sit and talk and see what that looks like. We should also understand that Im sure there are interfaith families from Summit County who are participating in Clevelands jHUB program. OK, lets not reinvent the wheel, lets talk about what does it look like if we extended the curriculum down here and lets say we hire a coordinator, so its things like that. The security apparatus in Cleveland, Jim Hartnett (Jewish Federation of Cleveland director of community wide security) has done a phenomenal job in Cleveland with just setting up an entire security piece for the community. We have a 55-acre physical campus, and I believe that we should always look to experts. Fortunately for us, we have an expert in Cleveland. So, Jim is coming down in two weeks with his team and were going to walk around campus and get some input from Jim, and the local FBI is going to come because Jim has those contacts. CJN: Are there any concerns about partnering with the Jewish Federation of Cleveland? Polikoff: When people hear us partnering or cooperating with Cleveland, for some reason, theres this instant thought that, Oh they want to take us (over). There are a lot more ways to partner than just talking about us becoming part of them, thats never entered into the conversation. The initial conversations Ive had with Erika (B. Rudin-Luria, Jewish Federation of Cleveland president), if there are resources there, we can partner or buy in, whatever it might look like. Wed be foolish to create a whole new dynamic when it already exists up there, and we are all a Jewish community here. CJN: Theres room for people in the Schultz building. How are you going to fill it? Polikoff: One is we have to work with the general community, the civic community (and) the local government, and there are attraction strategies that have been put together for Akron, for Summit County. We at this campus, having what we have here, we have to be a part of that. When they list the organizations involved in growing Akron and growing Summit County, its important for us to be there. Part of it is us making sure we have a way to partner with those non-Jewish entities in the area and work with them on those attraction strategies, or on those growth strategies. I think in the Jewish community, its working with the local clergy, working with the agencies that are both on this campus and elsewhere, and projecting the richness of Jewish life here because, again, I think we are one of the best-kept secrets. ISTANBUL - Turkey is once again calling on Saudi Arabia to extradite the suspected assassins of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, following statements by UN Special Rapporteur Agnes Callamard on extrajudicial executions. The head of presidential communications in Ankara highlighted that "Turkey's conclusions are in line with those" of UN experts. Callamard said the killing of Khashoggi, which took place last October at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, was "brutal and premeditated" by Saudi officials. "The total lack of transparency on the case is deeply worrying and harmful for the credibility" of Riyadh, said the Ankara spokesperson, Fahrettin Altun. He said the eventual extradition would be "proof of the will to serve the cause of justice". Until now, however, Saudi Arabia has firmly denied Turkey's request. Callamard also denounced the lack of transparency on the part of Riyadh in the Khashoggi case. She revealed that on January 31 in Saudi Arabia, unknown to the international community, the second hearing took place in the trial of the 11 defendants accused of involvement in Khashoggi's killing. She said she was informed of the hearing by "credible" sources during her visit last week to Turkey. The lack of transparency with regard to the trial strengthens international perplexity on the credibility of the Saudi justice system, she said. The people of Iran were again subjected June 18 to the farce that befalls them every four years, when the Islamist regime calls for mass participation in its presidential election. Ten hours after the polls opened, a CBS News team in Tehran reported that less than 25% of eligible voters had bothered to turn out, providing early confirmation of what was widely suspected before the ballot that Iranians at large would shun the risible attempt of their rulers to persuade the outside world that their corrupt, bloodstained theocracy is a respectable form of government. In a rich irony, U.S. Rep. Dave Joyce, a longtime Geauga County prosecutor, is now co-leading the Congressional Cannabis Caucus, founded in 2017 by four lawmakers from states where marijuana had been legalized. It seeks to harmonize federal law with emerging state law, in part to allow for more research on weed use. In one recent example, Ohios 2016 legalization of medical marijuana could put those who use it in jeopardy of losing their concealed carry permits, cleveland.com reported this week, because of a requirement permit-holders attest to not violating federal drug laws -- which outlaw marijuana use. In her story about Joyces co-chairmanship of the Cannabis Caucus, cleveland.com reporter Sabrina Eaton had some fun with Joyces This Buds for you beer preferences. Joyces office says 47 of the 50 states have legalized cannabis in some form if CBD oil legalization is counted in the total. Joyce also is co-sponsoring the Strengthening the Tenth Amendment Through Entrusting States (STATES)" bill, introduced last year, that Eaton reports would ensure that each state has the right to determine for itself the best approach to marijuana within its borders, and respect their voters decisions on cannabis use. Joyce told Eaton he does not agree with concerns that marijuana is a gateway drug, and said that as a prosecutor his office focused on drugs like opioids and cocaine that "destroy lives and affect families on a greater basis than marijuana. So what does our Editorial Board Roundtable think of Joyces new role? Should there be a Cannabis Caucus? If so, what should it seek to accomplish? And is this co-chair role good or bad for Joyce and his standing in the Republican-leaning 14th Congressional District in suburban Cleveland? Read on -- and add your views in the comments. Thomas Suddes, editorial writer: Theres nothing wrong with this, and it wont hurt Joyce politically. But the list of congressional cause caucuses is so lengthy that its hard to assume much impact. Ted Diadiun, editorial board member: Ive got no objection to the medical use of cannabis, but the idea of encouraging the spread of its hallucinogenic properties through legalization and government sponsorship is just crazy and dangerous. Maintaining that it is not a gateway drug is self-delusional rationalization, and Im surprised that my congressman with whom I usually agree would come within miles of this committee, let alone assume a leadership position. Lisa Garvin, editorial board member: Marijuanas time has come, both medicinal and recreational, and states must get on the bus or get left behind. Its refreshing to see some Republicans let go of discounted theories about marijuana that have kept it illegal and stymied clinical research for so long. States should be free from federal interference to choose or not a lucrative industry that provides jobs, tax revenue, and non-opioid treatment alternatives. Mary Cay Doherty: Disband the Cannabis Caucus. Congress should legalize medical marijuana, but prohibit recreational marijuana. State support statistics are exaggerated. Beyond the 10 states with fully legalized marijuana, only 13 states have decriminalized it. Marijuana remains illegal in 17 states, while 23 states permit only medical marijuana. Have we learned nothing from alcohol and opioid abuse? Drugs used appropriately to relieve pain are medicinal. Drugs used to disconnect from life are poison. Victor Ruiz, editorial board member: Now Republicans see this green as good? For decades, black and brown people have paid dearly for even the smallest of offenses. I hope that this caucus decriminalizes marijuana, makes up for past injustices, and ensures equal access to prosperity for people of color. Eric Foster, editorial board member: Is the Cannabis Caucus a good thing? Absolutely. More research is necessary and the perception about marijuana has obviously changed among the general public. The Justice Departments decision under President Donald Trump to roll back federal guidance is what created the problem that Joyces bill tries to solve. But now Trump is willing to sign Joyces bill, according to one of the other co-sponsors. Kudos to the president for cleaning up his own mess. Elizabeth Sullivan, director of opinion, cleveland.com: Its time Congress took the blinders off about marijuana legalization and aligned federal law with whats going on in the states. Thats the only way to ensure that adequate research, oversight and regulation can occur, particularly as drug-abuse experts warn of the potentially dangerous increased potency in todays weed. Editors note: This roundtable was updated at 3:43 p.m. to note that one of the other co-sponsors of Joyces STATES legislation says that President Trump is willing to sign it. Have something to say about this topic? * Use the comments to share your thoughts. Then, stay informed when readers reply to your comments by using the "Follow" option at the top of the comments, and look for updates via the small blue bell in the lower right as you look at more stories on cleveland.com. * Send a letter to the editor, which will be considered for print publication. * Email general questions about our editorial board or comments on this editorial board roundtable to Elizabeth Sullivan, director of opinion, at esullivan@cleveland.com CLEVELAND -- Ohio is the belle of the ball no more. In next years presidential election, itll have to settle for merely being one of many asked to the dance. Even receiving an invitation isnt yet a given. Its possible to imagine a political scenario where Ohio is a flyover state, a place geography requires the candidate to cross on the way to far more important places in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Past elections have spoiled us rotten. In some, candidates spent so much time here they almost qualified for residency. Since 2000, Florida and Ohio have routinely been considered, in that order, the most important stops on the map for the presidential hunt for 270 electoral votes. Ohios historic position still makes it unique. No Republican has won the White House without carrying the state. And it has voted for the national winner in every election since 1960. But Ohio has paid a political price for its stagnant population and lack of economic growth slipping from 25 electoral votes in 1972, to 18 in 2012, and almost certainly 17 in 2024. As of today, theres zero chance Ohio will be one of the three or four most important states in next years campaign. And the only thing capable of changing that is the presence of Sen. Sherrod Brown on the ticket. Thats because some battleground states President Donald Trump won in 2016 will be a whole lot easier to flip from red to blue in 2020 than Ohio. And at the top of that list are Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, three states that will dwarf Ohio in importance because they are blue-leaning places that handed Trump the presidency in 2016. That doesnt mean Trump or some other Republican candidate is guaranteed to win Ohio. This is a state thats turned bright red in off-year elections, but only leans red in presidential years, when the turnout model changes. But its delusional to think Ohio may still emerge as an essential battleground state next year. Because if Ohio is in play, it will only be because the presidency is almost certainly lost for Trump. Few people understand Ohio politics as well as Kyle Kondik, the Cleveland native, communications director for the University of Virginias Center for Politics, and author of The Bellwether: Why Ohio Picks the President. Kondik noted that in 2016 the disparity between the Ohio and nationwide vote was greater than at any time since 1932. Trump lost the popular vote to Democrat Hillary Clinton, while Trump beat her here by eight points. States that seem to be trending more Republican are the ones where the population is stagnant, said Kondik. As long as Trump is on the ballot in 2020, we should expect Ohio to be more Republican than the national average. Kondik doesnt rule out Ohio being a place where Democrats barely try to compete, saying, It may be that the Democratic candidate believes money is better spent in an Arizona, North Carolina, or maybe even Texas. A Brookings Institution study of the 2018 midterm concluded the 2020 election will probably be decided by how voters in states like Pennsylvania and the upper Midwest feel about the economy. The Brookings report noted that Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan all elected Democratic governors in 2018. Ohio, which wasnt even mentioned in what was essentially a piece about Midwest battleground states, elected a Republican. Democrats seized control of the House in the 2018 midterms by winning in districts with high median household incomes and a large percentage of educated voters. Over time, the Republican Partys reliance on uneducated white males to win elections will prove its undoing. The party has to be bigger than white men who didnt graduate from college, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told The New York Times. And you look at what happened to the House of Representatives [in the 2018 election]. Look at the suburbs. ... We were losing women. ... And thats not a sustainable position, politically, if you want to be a competitive party. McConnells diagnosis explains why Ohio wont matter much in 2020, and why its a state facing an uncertain future. One cause, two results both bad for a state headed the wrong way. Brent Larkin was The Plain Dealer's editorial director from 1991 until his retirement in 2009. To reach Brent Larkin: blarkin@cleveland.com Have something to say about this topic? Use the comments to share your thoughts. Then, stay informed when readers reply to your comments by using the Follow option at the top of the comments, and look for updates via the small blue bell in the lower right as you look at more stories on cleveland.com. BEACHWOOD, Ohio New Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose said Thursday that he doesnt think Ohios congressional lines should be changed before the 2020 election, something a pending federal lawsuit aims to do. LaRose, a Republican, said Ohios current congressional maps are flawed, but said changing them in the middle of an election cycle would cause confusion and possible lower turnout as a result. He said Ohio should wait until 2021, when the state will draw the maps using a new process approved by voters last year that was designed to help fix Ohios gerrymandered congressional districts. Those maps, if they meet meet new requirements to get minority-party approval, would remain in place for 10 years. This idea that we run to the courthouse steps and get a judges order and draw new lines is not the best thing for the health of our democracy, LaRose said. LaRose was asked about the lawsuit, filed in May 2018 on behalf of the Ohio League of Women Voters and others, during a LWV-sponsored voter-rights forum in Beachwood. LaRose was a state senator from Hudson when he was elected Secretary of State in November. His comments Thursday were his first on the lawsuit, in which hes now a defendant, since he took office in January. Last month, new Republican state Attorney General Dave Yost asked the federal judge hearing the case to delay acting until a pair of gerrymandering cases work their way through the U.S. Supreme Court, something thats viewed as likely to happen in June. Attorneys who filed the case have argued that waiting that long could effectively run out the clock on their effort to change the lines in time for the 2020 election. Michael Li, an elections attorney with the Brennan Center for Justice, a left-leaning think-tank, said during the Thursday forum that waiting until June doesnt mean a federal judge wont order new Ohio congressional maps before the 2020 election. He said some judges in other states have even delayed primary elections to fix maps they felt were unfair enough to merit doing so. LaRose, Li and Camille Wimbish, the director of the Ohio Voter Rights Coalition, participated in the Thursday night forum. LaRose also was asked whether he would continue the controversial process Ohio uses to purge voting rolls that was upheld last year by the U.S. Supreme Court. LaRose gently criticized the process during the 2018 election campaign. But hes said since assuming office that he wont completely end the policy, which removes voters if they dont vote for six years, or respond to mailed notices asking them to confirm their address. LaRose said Thursday the voter-purging process was designed to ensure that people who move away or die are removed from voting rolls. But, he said that doesnt mean it cant be updated. For example, LaRose said Ohioans voting addresses could be updated if they file state taxes, apply for a fishing license, or receive state benefits like food stamps or disability payments. This is something where we have to maintain accurate lists to the extent that we can, but we can do better than what we have right now, LaRose said. LaRose also said Thursday that hed like to see Ohioans be able to request absentee ballots online which he said likely would require a change in state law and expressed support for automatic voter registration The Thursday night forum was co-sponsored by the Case Western Reserve University Siegal Lifelong Learning Program and cleveland.com. It was moderated by Rich Exner, cleveland.coms data analysis editor. CINCINNATI, Ohio - A three-judge federal panel on Friday rejected a request from the state of Ohio to delay a gerrymandering lawsuit that aims to put a new Ohio congressional district map in place in time for the 2020 election. The state wanted to delay the trial, scheduled to start March 4, until after rulings are released this summer in two gerrymandering cases before the U.S. Supreme Court - one brought by Republicans in Maryland and one brought by Democrats in North Carolina. But the judges in their Friday ruling cited time considerations. The state has said any changes to a map must be in place by Sept. 20, 2019, to get ready for the 2020 election. Given these tight time constraints, a stay could pose a potentially severe hardship for the Plaintiffs (and Ohio voters generally) that is, an unremedied constitutional violation, the ruling said. Moreover, the litigants and voters would benefit from a timely resolution of this trial, no matter the outcome, because as the September deadline approaches, the risk of confusion and uncertainty increases. The trial could last two weeks. Either party would have the option to appeal directly to the U.S. Supreme Court, taking up more time. The lawsuit was filed in May 2018 on behalf of the Ohio League of Women Voters and others. The state of Ohio is arguing to keep things as they are. The court has powerfully struck down the defendants delay tactic. ... and recognized that if our allegations are proven at trial, than a new map will need to be drawn quickly, Freda Levenson, lead attorney in the case for the ACLU of Ohio, said in a statement Friday. Ohio voters in May overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment to limit how much the majority party could control the process of drawing congressional lines, beginning in 2022 after results of the next census are available. The lawsuit attempts to force changes two years earlier. The Supreme Court is to hear arguments on the North Carolina and Maryland cases on March 26. Cleveland.com federal courts reporter Eric Heisig contributed to this report. CLEVELAND, Ohio A newly hired Cleveland police officer is on restricted duty after officials found out he served prison time for a felony conviction in Norway, officials said. Patrol officer Shawn Simmons, 38, was placed on restricted duty after officials found out about an overseas felony conviction. Sgt. Jennifer Ciaccia said overseas convictions dont immediately show up on the departments background checks. She was unable to say how the department learned of his convictions, or what that conviction was for. Cleveland Police Patrolmens Association President Jeff Follmer said the conviction was extortion-related from more than a decade ago, but was unsure of the exact charge or circumstances. Follmer said the FBI notified the police department about the prior conviction. Simmons did not disclose the conviction in his application, the city said. Simmons graduated from the police academy on Jan. 18. He was on probationary status on basic patrol until Friday, when Internal Affairs launched an investigation into Simmons background, the city said. If youd like to comment on this story, visit Fridays crime and courts comments section. CLEVELAND, Ohio A Cleveland man is accused of being part of a group that opened fire on a home, shooting a sleeping 10-year-old boy in the chest. That shooting happened three hours after an 18-year-old woman was shot in the face in front of a grocery store in the same neighborhood. The man charged in the shooting, Greg Darby, 25, was arrested five days later after someone called police and said the person who shot the young boy was sitting in a car on East 89th Street, according to police reports. Officers arrested Darby and charged him with pandering obscenity involving a minor after finding an explicit video in Darbys phone of the 18-year-old woman who was shot, according to police reports and court records. The woman was 17 at the time the video was recorded, according to court records. That charge was later dismissed. Police on Wednesday charged Darby with felonious assault in connection with the May 3 shooting of the 10-year-old boy. Darby is not in police custody and a warrant was issued for his arrest. Those shootings came amid a string of shootings that continued in the Hough neighborhood for several weeks and that started with the double shooting of two of the 10-year-old boys uncles, police and prosecutors said. The two men charged in that shooting suspected members of the Wade Park gang Devaughn Taylor and Leslie Robinson shot up a home with a 69-year-old woman and several children inside, then drove back and fired at police officers investigating the shooting, according to prosecutors. The 18-year-old girl was shot May 2 as she walked out of the M&A Food Mart in the 9300 block of Wade Park Avenue. Someone standing across the street fired at least nine gunshots at the woman, hitting her in the nose. No one has been arrested in connection with that shooting. Three hours later, Taylor, who pleaded guilty to his role in the shooting of the 10-year-old, and Darby drove by the boys house on East 93rd Street near Edmunds and fired some 30 gunshots, including at least 11 that ripped through the home. Bullets went through the second floor of the home, hitting the sleeping 10-year-old boy in the in his jaw and the left side of his chest, near his heart. He was in critical condition for weeks, but survived. Police said at the time they were investigating the 10-year-old boy in connection with several of the violent crimes in the neighborhood, but no charges were filed. Several homes in the Hough neighborhood were shot up during that month that police said were likely retaliation shootings in which no one was injured. If youd like to comment on this story, visit Fridays crime and courts comments section. CLEVELAND, Ohio A 32-year-old man is accused of accidental shooting and killing a husband and father of six outside New Tech West High School. Carlos Diaz-Reyes of Cleveland is charged with involuntary manslaughter in the Aug. 30 fatal shooting of Edwin Rios. Diaz-Reyes is not in police custody and a warrant was issued Friday for his arrest. The shooting happened about 8 p.m. outside the school on Worthington Road near West 117th Street, police reports say. Diaz-Reyes was holding a gun that went off, hitting Rios in the chest, according to police and court records. Someone saw Rios holding his chest outside the school, put him in their car and drove Rios to the nearby Sunoco gas station, where they flagged down a Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority officer. Rios was taken to MetroHealth, where he died. Diaz-Reyes fled after the shooting, according to court records. Diaz-Reyes was sentenced in 2012 to three years in prison for aggravated burglary and domestic violence. He has also been convicted of carrying concealed weapons and unauthorized use of a car. If youd like to comment on this story, visit Fridays crime and courts comments section. Salvini invites French counterpart for talks Castaner should come to Rome, 'strong relations between us' (ANSAmed) - ROME, FEBRUARY 8 - Italian Deputy Premier and Interior Minister Matteo Salvini on Friday wrote a letter to his French counterpart Cristophe Castaner to invite him to Rome for talks and a ''fruitful exchange on open dossiers'' and to ''confirm the concrete will for collaboration''. Italy and France, Salvini wrote, ''have always shared strong bilateral relations, with particular reference to the fields of security, terrorism and immigration''. Such relations ''can and must be further developed in the strategic interest'' of both countries. In the letter, Salvini expressed Italy's ''keen interest'' in the cooperation offered by France ''regarding the repatriation of economic migrants''. The minister concluded saying that he was waiting to meet Castaner ''at a date to be agreed by our offices'', offering assurances of ''esteem'' and ''warmest regards'' at the end of the letter.(ANSAmed). AKRON, Ohio A 19-year-old girl was wounded in the back in a shooting outside her home late Wednesday night in the Kenmore neighborhood, police say. The shots were reported just before midnight on the 900 block of Ella Court. Officers who arrived at the scene found several shell casings on the street. While police were investigating, the teen walked into the Cleveland Clinic Akron General Hospital seeking treatment for her wound, police say. The teen tells officers she was shot while standing outside her home on Ella Court. Her vehicle, a Hyudai Santa Fe, also was hit by bullets, police say. There is no description of a suspect but the teen tells police she did notice a blue Chevrolet in the area at the time of the shooting. Anyone with information can contact detectives at 330-375-2490 or 330-375-2TIP, or the Summit County Crimestoppers Inc. at 330-434-COPS. Tips can be sent texted to TIPSCO to 274637 (Crimes). Callers can remain anonymous. To comment on this story, visit the crime and courts comments page. CLEVELAND, Ohio -- I See You, the upcoming filmed-in-Cleveland indie horror movie starring Helen Hunt, will have its world premiere at the SXSW film festival in Austin, Texas in March. The film, which was shot entirely in Cleveland over three weeks last spring, snagged a coveted spot in the buzzworthy Midnighters category, a showcase for the festivals darkest, scariest and most offbeat movies. SXSW is one of the four or five best festivals in the world and securing one of the ten Midnighter slots out of several thousand applicants provides industry wide validation for the film as well as the filmmakers, says producer Matt Waldeck of Cleveland-based Zodiac Features. The movie also stars Jon Tenney (The Closer) and Judah Lewis (Demolition). Adam Randall (iBoy) directs from a script by Devon Graye. Waldeck describes I See You as a supernatural child-abduction film in the vein of elevated genre films like The Quiet Place and Blumhouses Get Out and Happy Death Day. The films tagline sums it up this way: Strange occurrences plague a small town detective and his family as he investigates the disappearance of a young boy. I feel weve produced a twisty and crowd pleasing genre-bender starring an Oscar winner in a role audiences arent used to seeing her in, and for me that was the goal we set out to accomplish back in summer of 2015 when the script was acquired, the producer says. Though the story takes place in the fictional town of Edgecliff, Ohio, the setting is unmistakably Cleveland. Every frame of the film was shot here, Waldeck says. I wanted to showcase Cleveland in the way I grew up loving it. Much of the film was shot in Lakewoods Edgewater neighborhood, but audiences will also recognize Linwood Park in Vermillion, Quarry Rock in Solon, the steel mills along I-77, and Sirnas Farm in Auburn. But his aspirations for the film, the Bainbridge natives first, go beyond Austin and Cleveland. Hes already locked down deals to distribute the film globally, from Latin America and Europe to the Middle East and Southeast Asia. Anticipating a positive reception at SXSW, hes eyeing a domestic release of 1,200 or more screens. Its commercial potential both at home and abroad has a high ceiling, Waldeck says. I See You will be screened three times at SXSW, on March 11, 13 and 15. The festival opens March 8 with the premiere of Us, Jordan Peeles highly anticipated follow up to Get Out. The new reboot of Stephen Kings Pet Sematary starring Jason Clarke wraps things up on March 16. Scandals may keep Virginia's lieutenant governor and attorney general from succeeding governor Ralph Northam should he resign over a blackface-kkk photo scandal. AKRON, Ohio -- A Summit County Court of Common Pleas judge sentenced a 50-year-old Coventry Township woman on Friday to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 20 years in connection with the June 2017 death and dismembering of her husband in their home. Judge Kelly McLaughlin sentenced Marcia Eubank, 50, who pleaded guilty Dec. 21 to a special felony of murder with a firearm specification, a third-degree felony of tampering with evidence and a fifth-degree felony of abuse of a corpse, Summit County Court of Common Pleas records show. Prosecutors had asked McLaughlin to impose a life sentence with parole eligibility after 22 years, based on the vicious manner in which [Marcia Eubank] murdered Howard Eubank, the horrific steps she took after the murder, the deceitful actions she took after the crime to conceal her actions, and the great pain that she caused the family, court documents say. Eubanks defense attorneys asked for the lightest possible sentence of life with parole eligibility after 18 years. LIVE IN AKRON: A Coventry Township woman is being sentenced after she pleaded guilty to killing and dismembering her husband. Marcia Eubank stored her husbands remains in plastic storage bins in their home for months after the murder, prosecutors say. Posted by cleveland.com on Friday, February 8, 2019 Eubank shot 54-year-old Howard Eubank in his head June 13, 2017, before she cut up his body and placed his remains in storage bins throughout the home, court records show. Howard Eubanks son, also named Howard Eubank, found the remains Dec. 9, 2017, at his parents home on Linda Drive in Coventry Township when he forgot his keys and climbed into a window to get into the house. He found a crate covered in maggots and flies and took it outside, police said. The son texted Marcia Eubank a photo of the rubber tote and asked what was inside, according to court documents. Eubank replied, It is part of your fathers body. The other parts are in the basement under two boxes in crates. Call the police and tell them I killed dad and stored his body. Dont dig crates out let police do that. I killed him on June 13. The son called 911 and investigators arrested Marcia Eubank later that day in a parking lot outside a nearby Walmart, according to the Summit County Sheriffs Department. During an interview at the Summit County Sheriffs Office, Eubank said she and her husband were arguing in the office of their home when she grabbed a gun and shot him several times in the back of the head, court documents say. Eubank said she planned to turn herself in, but panicked and decided to dismember her husbands body using hand tools and a grinder, according to prosecutors. She used bleach in an attempt to clean the office and to keep the odor down. Her son told investigators that he received a text message from his father some time during the summer indicating he had left town and was moving to Texas, prosecutors said. Eubanks son said it would not be unusual for his father to leave town. Marcia Eubank admitted to taking her husbands cellphone and sending texts to his family members and employer saying he was sick, quitting his job and leaving town, prosecutors said. Eubank also exchanged messages with family members who wished Howard Eubank a happy Fathers Day, to keep up with the facade that Howard Eubank was doing well and living in Houston, Texas, court documents say. You lied to me, Howard Eubanks sister told Marcia Eubank during her victim impact statement at Fridays sentencing. Investigators learned she bought a .22 caliber handgun on June 9, four days before the murder. A search of the computer in the homes office revealed several searches conducted about two months before the killing regarding how to murder, what to murder people with, what poisons kill, and the effects of lye, prosecutors said. Emails show Eubank bought lye on Amazon on June 18, six days after the the killing. Investigators also learned through email records that Eubank tried to cash in on her husbands 401 K retirement account. Detectives learned Eubank went to a job interview a few hours after she killed her husband, according to prosecutors. Eubank told detectives she killed him because he was abusive and threatened to kill her, court documents show. Family members reported their relationship was tumultuous and extremely verbally abusive, prosecutors said. They indicated Marcia Eubank was often the aggressor and they never observed Howard Eubank physically assault her, court records show. Her former co-workers told detectives she never complained of abuse or appeared to be injured. Eubank expressed a willingness to accept responsibility for her actions, according to both the prosecution and defense. The Eubank family and prosecutors approved of a plea deal that dropped Eubanks aggravated murder charge, to spare Howard Eubank (son) from having to testify and relive the horrible day he found his fathers remains, court documents say. Howard Eubank, the son, spoke briefly at Fridays hearing, saying the trauma from finding his fathers body in the home has greatly affected [him]. To comment on this story, visit Fridays crime and courts comment section. CLEVELAND -- If this is how the Cleveland Orchestra makes up for being gone two weeks, maybe it ought to travel more. Indeed, the concert it gave Thursday night at Severance Hall, its first in Cleveland after two weeks in Indiana and South Florida, wasnt just memorable. It was historic. Not every measure of Busonis epic, rarely heard Piano Concerto will linger in the mind, but the performance as a whole given by pianist Garrick Ohlsson was one of those musical experiences that will go down on everyones permanent mental record. The evening wasnt just a homecoming for the Cleveland Orchestra, either. It was also a sort of orchestra family reunion. Some in attendance Thursday were present for Ohlssons first performance of the Busoni Concerto here, in 1989, and on the podium was Alan Gilbert, the former director of the New York Philharmonic and a former Cleveland assistant conductor. Few pianists on Earth have the desire, talent, and sheer fortitude to perform the Busoni, a titanic, grandly virtuosic work from 1904 spanning some 70 minutes and concluding with an ode for male chorus. Ohlsson, though, is in that elite group. To the extent its possible to make sense of such an abstruse, panoramic work, a collection of five movements that could have been penned by as many different composers, Ohlsson did so. He saw right past the musics length and daunting technical demands and simply enjoyed its raucous flights of fancy and seemingly endless twists and turns. In lesser hands, those reams of knuckle-busting passage-work would have sounded like bluster. With Ohlsson, however, they sounded purposeful and expressive. Ohlssons virtually peerless keyboard muscle was another asset in Busoni. To each of the concertos many varied peaks, he brought a level of thunder few pianists can conjure, yielding high points that almost literally rocked the house. The orchestra played no small role. Busoni may not have been the most inspired of orchestral composers, but the Cleveland Orchestra with Gilbert displayed nothing but brilliance from front to back, reveling in the musics enormous palette of moods, textures, and colors. The men of the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus also made a significant contribution. More than merely solemn and profound, they made the finales text by Adam Gottlieb Oehlenschlager sound otherworldly, like the channeled voice of some ancient oracle. Neither Ohlsson nor the audience could have asked for anything more. Same goes for the Haydn at the outset of the program. By way of contrast to the wild world of Busoni, Gilbert opened the evening with a distinctly lithe, refined account of the Military Symphony No. 100, so named for the battle imagery in its second movement. Under Gilbert, the orchestra sounded exceptionally clear and articulate, as if every phrase had been carefully sculpted, and the marches and clashes in the battle scene were nothing short of thrilling. The Busoni Concerto, in other words, may have been the highlight of the evening, but it wasnt the only piece worth waiting for. REVIEW Cleveland Orchestra What: Alan Gilbert conducts Haydn and Busoni When: 8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 9. Where: Severance Hall, 11001 Euclid Ave., Cleveland. Tickets: $41-$165. Go to clevelandorchestra.com or call 216-231-1111. AKRON, Ohio - The city of Akron expects all publicly accessible digital and online systems to be up and running, in the wake of a malware attack on the citys network in late January. The citys 3-1-1- information line, online bill pay systems in all departments and city email are fully functional, city spokeswoman Ellen Lander-Nischt wrote in an email. Those system were voluntarily taken offline in late January to prevent the malware from infecting other areas of the citys network. The criminal investigation is still ongoing and we don't have any new details to share on that aspect at this point, Lander-Nischt stated. The malware attack was first noticed the week of Jan. 21, when IT employees detected suspicious activity on the network and notified the Akron Police Department. The malware targeted the citys accounts to steal money. When the networks cyber security system prevented the theft of money, the hackers unsuccessfully tried to coerce the city to pay to have the system unlocked, the city reported The citys systems were shut down - including the citys 3-1-1 information line - to protect the infrastructure. The city has been working with state and federal authorities to mitigate the attack and track down the origin of the malware. Gov. Mike DeWine deployed an Ohio National Guard cyber security team to assist. Want more Akron news? Sign up for cleveland.coms Rubber City Daily, an email newsletter delivered at 5:30 a.m. Monday through Friday. William Russell Allton was born in Dewey, Oklahoma on April 25, 1931 to Russell Frank and Alice Mae (Steffens) Allton. He attended school in Claremore and graduated with the class of 1948. On August 26, 1949 Bill married Jimmie Louise Reed and the couple made Tulsa home for the first 25 year TEL AVIV - The Palestinian foreign ministry said the Middle East conference planned for February 13 and 14 in Warsaw, Poland, is an "American conspiracy". US President Donald Trump's special envoy, Jared Kushner, is set to unveil some guidelines of the US peace plan at the conference. The Palestinian foreign ministry said the conference is aimed at pushing its participants to adopt American positions. It said it will not follow any points that come out of the conference and it will continue to maintain its current policy condemning the positions of the US, which it no longer considers a mediator for peace. Prior to Warsaw, Kushner will travel with US peace envoy Jason Greenblatt to Oman, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar, to discuss the economic part of the plan, according to Israeli media. A gas explosion in a San Francisco, Calif., neighborhood shot flames into the air for hours Wednesday and burned five buildings, sending panicked residents and workers fleeing into the streets. It took utility crews more than two hours to put out the fire after private construction workers cut a natural gas line, igniting the towering flames, Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White said. Authorities initially said five workers were missing, but the entire construction crew was found safe, and no other injuries were reported. Officials evacuated several nearby buildings, including a medical clinic and apartment buildings, Hayes-White said. Vehicles on a busy street got rerouted as authorities cordoned off the bustling retail and residential neighborhood. The fire damaged a building housing Hong Kong Lounge II, a popular dim sum restaurant frequented by tourists and students at the University of San Francisco that made many best of lists. Caroline Gasparini, 24, who lives catty-corner from where the fire ignited, said she and her housemate were in their living room when the windows started rattling. She looked up to see flames reflected in the glass. We went into crisis mode, Gasparini said. We grabbed our shoes, grabbed our laptops and grabbed our passports and just left. Gasparini said they saw employees of the burning restaurant run out the back door and people fleeing down the block. Nick Jalali, 28, was cooking at home when the electricity cut out. We didnt hear anything, he said. We just felt the shaking, and the next thing we knew, people were banging on the door to tell people its time to start evacuating. Firefighters worked to keep the fire from spreading while Pacific Gas & Electric crews tried to shut off the natural gas line. PG&E spokeswoman Melissa Subbotin said state excavation rules required crews to dig by hand around other pipelines before they were eventually able to squeeze a 4-inch (10-centimeter) plastic line. She said that because the fire was contained to a limited area, the utility had to weigh the threat from the fire with the risk of more drastic action. Had we turned the gas off to a transmission system, we would have shut off gas to nearly the entire city of San Francisco, she said. The objective of this was to turn the gas off safely and as quickly as possible. In an earthquake, Subbotin said PG&E would shut off a transmission line. The company stressed that the workers who cut the gas line are not affiliated with the nations largest utility. The fire began around 1:20 p.m., apparently by crews working on fiber-optic wires, Hayes-White said. Joseph Feusi lives four blocks away and said he was awoken by what sounded like a jet engine. Feusi, who works nights and sleeps in the afternoon, said he could see the towering flames from his home. I think the eight guys are really lucky they didnt get blown to bits, he said. PG&E is under heightened scrutiny over its natural gas pipelines after one exploded under a neighborhood south of San Francisco in 2010, killing eight people and wiping out a neighborhood in suburban San Bruno. A U.S. judge PG&E $3 million for a conviction on six felony charges of failing to properly maintain the pipeline, and the utility remains under a federal judges watch in that case. (Associated Press writers Paul Elias, Olga R. Rodriguez and Juliet Williams in San Francisco contributed to this report.) Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Hundreds of Northern California wildfire victims desperate for housing and living in recreational vehicles on their burned-out lots were ordered off their properties Monday after federal authorities threatened to cut off funding for the states biggest natural disaster cleanup. The Paradise Town Council unanimously rescinded a two-month-old law allowing residents to live in temporary shelters on their burned out properties before the lots are cleared and certified safe for habitation. The unanimous vote Monday occurred after an emotional and tense meeting that was the first in Paradise city hall since the Nov. 8 fire destroyed most of the city of 27,000 people. Our town is struggling already and this adds more hurt, said Councilwoman Melissa Schuster, who lost her home in the fire and is living with her husband in an RV on their property. The council reversed itself after a top Federal Emergency Management Agency official warned the city that $1.7 billion in federal cleanup funds could be withheld if it allowed residents to live on burned-out properties before they are cleared of debris and certified safe. Cleanup crews began the gargantuan task of clearing 15,000 destroyed homes last week in a process expected to take a year. Im asking you not to throw the people of this town into the cold in the middle of winter, Paradise resident Ben Walker told the city council. If the option is to choose federal money to rebuild the town, or the people to rebuild the town choose the people. Butte County supervisors took the same action later in the day, ordering dozens of residents living in temporary shelters to leave their properties until theyre cleared of fire debris. David Samaniego, the FEMA official in charge of the agencys wildfire response, told local authorities on Jan. 24 that allowing the RVs into Paradise jeopardized public health and safety. In November, Butte County Health Officer Dr. Andy Miller warned residents that fire debris is hazardous and advised them to stay away from their properties until cleared. Butte County and Paradise allowing its residents to re-occupy their property prior to fire debris and hazardous materials being removed from their property is in contrast to Dr. Millers warning, Samaniego wrote on Jan. 24, warning state and local officials that federal cleanup funding was in jeopardy. Schuster said the city council passed the ordinance in December allowing residents to live in RVs out of desperation. Thousands of residents remain without long-term temporary housing while the region tries to rebuild. Schuster and her husband purchased an RV after the ordinance passed and moved out of their daughters house and into the RV on their Paradise property. Schuster said she hired a contractor to clear her debris rather than waiting for government-supported crews to get to her property. She said her property is mostly cleared and she and her husband are awaiting inspection and certification, so shes hopeful they wont have to leave. Schuster and other Paradise officials said they dont know how the change back to the old rules will be enforced, but said authorities are trying to schedule crews to clear those properties as soon as possible. It takes about two days to clear debris from a lot but up two weeks to complete an inspection and certify the property safe, Schuster said. Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. A bill that would curtail Mississippi property owners liability to be sued for some acts on their property is advancing despite frayed tempers. House Judiciary A Committee Chairman Mark Baker, a Brandon Republican, pushed House Bill 337 aka The Landowners Protection Act, through his committee Tuesday, even though Democratic opponents demanded to speak against the bill. Lawmakers are customarily allowed to speak for or against a bill before a committee vote. The language within the bill would eliminate lawsuits against landowners in situations where injury was caused by a third party, unless claimants can prove: (a) The conduct of said third party occurred on the property; (b) The conduct of the person who owns, leases, operates, maintains or manages the property actively and affirmatively, with a degree of conscious decision-making, impelled the conduct of said third party; and (c) The third partys conduct proximately caused the economic and noneconomic damages suffered by the injured party. The measure is pushed by business and real estate interests who say theyre unfairly held liable for bad acts by other people on their property. But opponents say the bill erects an impossibly high standard to sue landowners for hazards on their property. In addition, the legislation proposes several liability rather than joint and several in situations where two or more parties are deemed to have caused the damage or injury. The bill goes to the House for more debate. Senate Bill 2901, which is identical, awaits Senate debate. Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Johnson & Johnson, the worlds largest maker of healthcare products, has agreed to settle the bulk of consumers lawsuits alleging it sold defective artificial hips and misled patients about their dangers, according to a lawyer for the plaintiffs. The parties have reached an agreement that hopefully will resolve most, if not all, of the litigation, said attorney Mark Lanier, one of the leaders of the consolidated 10,000-suit litigation against J&J and its DePuy unit, maker of Pinnacle hip replacement devices. He declined to provide details of the settlement. After the deal was disclosed, a federal jury in Dallas that had been hearing testimony in damage claims brought by five Pinnacle hip recipients was dismissed Monday, Lanier said. Court officials confirmed the trial had ended and the jury was released. The settlement comes two weeks after J&J agreed to pay $120 million to resolve claims by state attorneys general of deceptive marketing in the metal-on-metal version of its Pinnacle inserts and nearly a month after Bloomberg News reported the manufacturer might be willing to pay more than $400 million to settle 3,300 hip cases. Mindy Tinsley, a DePuy spokeswoman, said Monday the company wouldnt comment on a global Pinnacle settlement. Lanier said the plaintiffs had no further comment. In the earlier settlement, J&J agreed to pay an average of about $125,000 per case to resolve about a third of pending Pinnacle-hip suits, people familiar with the deal said. That settlement involved 20 law firms cases, according to court filings. Its unclear if the settlement Monday would cover all remaining hip suits or just certain lawyers case inventories. Lanier, for example, has 450 hip clients, according to court filings. Hip patients have been suing J&J and DePuy since 2010, alleging the devices failed prematurely or gave them metal poisoning. J&J took the metal-on-metal version of Pinnacle off the market in 2013. Consumers, along with state attorneys general, accused the companies of misleading them about how long the devices would last. Both groups alleged DePuy officials marketed the devices as having a five-year survival rate of more than 90 percent, when European health regulators found the rates were around 5 percent. Over the past two years, Dallas juries have ordered the company to pay a total of at least $1.7 billion in damages over hip claims. Several verdicts have been thrown out on appeal or reduced by a judge, including a $1 billion award to hip recipients that was slashed by more than half. The Pinnacle suits were consolidated before U.S. District Judge Ed Kinkeade in Dallas for pre-trial information exchanges and test trials. J&J won the first case and then lost the next two, one of which featured the $1 billion verdict. The Pinnacle devices werent covered by New Brunswick, New Jersey-based J&Js more than $3 billion 2013 settlement covering its ASR line of artificial hips. In 2010 J&J recalled 93,000 of those implants worldwide, saying 12 percent failed within five years. With legal fees, the cost of the settlement to J&J may have climbed to more than $4 billion. The Pinnacle case is In Re DePuy Orthopaedics Inc. Pinnacle Hip Implant Products Liability Litigation, 11-md-2244, U.S District Court, Northern District of Texas (Dallas). Copyright 2021 Bloomberg. New Jersey Man Fakes Fall for Insurance Money Police have arrested a New Jersey man who they say faked a slip and fall at a business to get insurance money. Prosecutors say the 57-year-old Randolph man was subcontracted to work at a company in Woodbridge when he faked the fall in 2018. Authorities say surveillance video captured the man grabbing ice and throwing it on the floor before lying down. They say the man waited until he was discovered, and then he filed an insurance claim for hospital treatment. The man was arrested Jan. 15 and charged with insurance fraud and theft by deception. Pennsylvania Woman Convicted of 6 Counts in Insurance Fraud Case A suburban Philadelphia, Pa., woman has been convicted of most charges in a multi-million-dollar insurance fraud case following fires at her Bucks County property. Jurors in Bucks County deliberated for 41/2 hours before convicting 71-year-old Claire Risoldi on six of nine counts including theft by deception and insurance fraud. The case related to insurance claims following a 2013 fire at her Buckingham estate, known as Clairemont. She was acquitted of receiving stolen property related to claims from earlier fires or burglary reports. Risoldi has maintained her innocence since her 2015 indictment and alleges that $10 million in jewelry was gone following the last fire. Houston Firm Found Guilty of Misrepresenting Payroll Texas Mutual Insurance Company reported that Alpha Mar, doing business as Industrial Machine Works, pleaded guilty to a first-degree felony on workers compensation fraud-related charges. A Travis County district court ordered the company to pay $250,000 in restitution to Texas Mutual. The Texas Department of Insurance, Division of Workers Compensation prosecutor in Travis County obtained the conviction. Alpha Mar, a vessel repair and marine service business located in Houston, obtained workers compensation coverage through Texas Mutual. From 2008 to 2012, owner John Stergiou made misrepresentations to Texas Mutual regarding the payroll and operations of Alpha Mar and other related companies. Kemper Announces Resignation of Director Thomas Goldstein Kemper Corporation announced that Thomas M. Goldstein has resigned from the companys Board of Directors, effective immediately, to focus on his health and family. Goldstein joined the Kemper Board of Directors in August 2016 after a distinguished career in the financial services industry that included senior leadership roles at Allstate Corporation, The GRG Group LLC, Madison Dearborn Partners, and LaSalle Bank. He is also a director of Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation. The Hartford Announces New Operating Model for Specialty Commercial, Middle Market Businesses Following Navigators Acquisition The Hartford announced the new operating model and organizational structure that will be effective upon the closing of its pending acquisition of The Navigators Group, Inc. Navigators operations, along with The Hartfords current Specialty Commercial and Middle Market businesses, will be aligned around two new market-facing businesses Global Specialty and Middle & Large Commercial. The acquisition is subject to regulatory approval and expected to close in late March or April. A. Morris Mo Tooker, currently head of Middle Market at The Hartford, will lead Middle & Large Commercial, which will include national accounts, and continue to report to Elliot. This business will focus on delivering workers compensation, general liability, auto liability and property insurance to mid-size and large businesses through retail agents and brokers. Included in this organization are: industry verticals; program and captive businesses; and umbrella, excess and high-hazard general liability offerings. Middle & Large Commercial will comprise approximately $2.7 billion of net written premiums on a pro forma basis. Vincent C. Tizzio, currently president of Navigators U.S. Insurance operation, will lead Global Specialty and report to Elliot. This business will focus on delivering a broad array of specialty products through retail and wholesale channels, and will include U.S. specialty insurance and international teams. The surety and financial products businesses of The Hartford will become a part of Global Specialty. Global Specialty will represent approximately $1.9 billion in net written premiums on a pro forma basis. M. Ross Fisher, currently head of Specialty Commercial at The Hartford, will take on the new role of property and casualty global chief underwriting officer and continue to report to Elliot. H. Clay Bassett, Jr., will continue to lead Navigators Reinsurance in the new organization and report to Fisher. Stanley A. Galanski, who has served as Navigators CEO since 2003, will continue to serve as president and CEO through the completion of the acquisition. Upon closing of the transaction, he will assume an executive advisory role during a transition period. Under Galanskis leadership, Navigators grew to become a global specialty insurer with strong positions in the global marine, specialty casualty, and management and professional liability markets. The Hartford announced the signing of a definitive agreement to acquire all outstanding shares of The Navigators Group, Inc. on Aug. 22, 2018. Approximately 800 Navigators employees globally will join The Hartford upon closing. Aon, Claim Central Establish Strategic Alliance Aon plc, a global professional services firm providing a broad range of risk, retirement and health solutions and global InsurTech firm Claim Central have established a strategic alliance focused on digitizing and streamlining claim management capabilities and enhancing the customer experience using transformative technology and services developed specifically for property and casualty (P&C) insurance organizations. Critical to this alliance is Claim Centrals successful track record implementing digital ecosystems for property claims adjusting and repairs for insurance organizations around the world notably following Hurricanes Harvey and Irma when loss adjuster resources were scarce in Florida. Claim Centrals technology digitizes the property claims process with modern features and functionality, including live video streaming, aerial imagery, real-time chat, customer sentiment measures, and digital payments. This means assessors do not need to be physically on the ground, making the process more efficient and ultimately improving the policyholder experience. Claim Central is also opening an Innovation Center in Jacksonville, Fla., to further support the alliance by taking the heavy lifting of technology implementations out of the equation to enhance Aons re/insurer clients claims processes. The Innovation Center will run Claim Centrals single platform claims solution, and will include modernized workflows with desk examiners, field adjusters, and a connection to a credentialed contractor repair network to support loss mitigation and faster property repairs. The alliance offers opportunities for insurers to swiftly streamline the claims process, while the Innovation Center provides a live insurance environment in which new-to-market features and functionality can be tested, and special projects for insurer clients can be conducted without any regular business interruption. No thank you, Mr. Pecker. With those words, addressed to David Pecker, the chief executive of American Media Inc., Jeff Bezos, the owner of Amazon and The Washington Post, launched into an extraordinary story last night on Medium, outlining an extortion and blackmail attempt against him by the National Enquirer, which is owned by AMI. The Enquirer threatened to publish explicit images of Bezos (please, read the details for yourselves) unless he publicly renounced the finding, reached by a team of private investigators hed hired to look into the Enquirer, that its coverage of him had been politically motivated. How did we get here? Last month, the Enquirer published an expose on Bezoss love life, boasting that it had tracked him across five states and 40,000 miles to reveal an alleged affair with Lauren Sanchez, a former TV news anchor in LA. (Bezos and his wife, MacKenzie Bezos, said they were divorcing after a long period of trial separation.) Bezos swiftly retained Gavin de Becker, security guru to the stars, to find out who had leaked incriminating texts to the Enquirer. Last week, The Daily Beast reported that investigators suspected a political game was afoot: Pecker is a long-time ally of Donald Trump, who has, in turn, volubly assailed Bezos, including over the Posts coverage of the White House. (Trump certainly revelled in the story of the affair once it published; So sorry to hear the news about Jeff Bozo, he tweeted.) Last night, in his Medium post, Bezos also alluded to a Saudi angle involving an AMI tabloid called The New Kingdom. He wrote that Pecker was apoplectic about the private investigation. ICYMI: In the crosshairs of Roger Stones pathological attack machine As details of the bosss affair have came to light, journalists at the Post have grappled with how best to cover them. (Despite its persistent assertion of editorial independence, missing a Bezos story will raise questions.) Last month, Post sources told Vanity Fairs Joe Pompeo that tabloid-style extramarital affairs arent typically in their wheelhouse and yet they dont want to appear to be ignoring the story. On Tuesday, the Post finally published a detailed reportbylined by Marc Fisher, a senior editor; Manuel Roig-Franzia, a features writer; and Sarah Ellison, a media reporteron the Enquirer expose, asking whether it was just juicy gossip or a political hit job. The Post had no hesitation reporting on Bezoss Medium post; an article covering it sits high up on the papers homepage and above the fold of its print edition this morning. Indeed, Bezos using a blog to allege media extortion is newsworthy, especially when he ties his treatment to the Enquirers role in the investigations surrounding Trump and his associates. Bezos lays out a (very) explicit example of the dirty tricks the Enquirer plays to manipulate targetsechoing, in some way, the catch and kill tactics it used during the 2016 campaign to buy, then bury, sleazy stories about Trump. In exchange for immunity from prosecution, AMI has been cooperating with federal prosecutors investigating Michael Cohen, Trumps former fixer, for his possibly illegal role in coordinating those hush payments. Bezoss revelations about AMIs more recent conduct cast new doubt on that cooperation (though at least one lawyer doubts the Bezos blackmail constitutes a crime). In other words, the stories that appear in the Enquirer are often far less newsworthy than the stories that dont. As the Bezos episode has evolved, the Post seems to have struck an appropriate balance in covering AMIs salacious tabloid gossip (less important) and shady business strategy (more so). Getting caught in the crossfire of the stuff very rich people do is an occupational hazard when your owner is a very rich person. Given all Bezos has done for the Post, perhaps its a price well worth paying. Sign up for CJR 's daily email Below, more on Bezos, the Enquirer, and the Post: Well ruin you: After Bezos hit publish, journalists who have investigated AMIs dodgy tactics said they, too, had been threatened by the company. Ronan Farrow, of The New Yorker, tweeted that he was told to stop digging or well ruin you. And Lachlan Markay, of The Daily Beast, reported recent legal threats from AMIs attorneys. After Bezos hit publish, journalists who have investigated AMIs dodgy tactics said they, too, had been threatened by the company. Ronan Farrow, of The New Yorker, tweeted that he was told to stop digging or well ruin you. And Lachlan Markay, of The Daily Beast, reported recent legal threats from AMIs attorneys. Scared and alone: While Bezos won widespread plaudits on media Twitter last night, HuffPosts Maxwell Strachan sounded a different note. I would urge you to think of people much less wealthy than Bezos who found themselves in a similar situation with a tabloidthey are left feeling scared, alone and like they have no other choice but to capitulate to the demands, whatever they are, he wrote. While Bezos won widespread plaudits on media Twitter last night, HuffPosts Maxwell Strachan sounded a different note. I would urge you to think of people much less wealthy than Bezos who found themselves in a similar situation with a tabloidthey are left feeling scared, alone and like they have no other choice but to capitulate to the demands, whatever they are, he wrote. Mistaken identity: @JeffBezos make it stop pls, @Enquirer tweeted last night. @Enquirer is the handle of The Cincinnati Enquirer, the Pulitzer-winning newspaper in Ohio, not the National Enquirer. @JeffBezos make it stop pls, @Enquirer tweeted last night. @Enquirer is the handle of The Cincinnati Enquirer, the Pulitzer-winning newspaper in Ohio, not the National Enquirer. Pleasing Mr. Postman? In December, CJRs Mathew Ingram evaluated the Posts coverage of Amazons relationship with the US Postal Service. A newspapers ownership can influence coverage in more subtle ways than outright calls for censorship, including self-censorship, Ingram writes. And the price of being owned by one of the worlds richest men is that some will inevitably see bias even where it might not exist. Other notable stories: ICYMI: McClatchy upgrades CEOs housing stipend to $35K a month amid buyouts Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today Jon Allsop is a freelance journalist. He writes CJRs newsletter The Media Today. Find him on Twitter @Jon_Allsop. On January 23, throngs of cheering supporters greeted an Iranian state television anchor in Tehran after she spent 10 contentious days in American custodya period marked by vocal outcry, criticism from press freedom organizations, and coverage from prominent news outlets. Marzieh Hashemis employer, the state-run English-language network PressTV, carried her airport arrival live. In footage, schoolgirls wave paper Iranian flags. The arrest of Hashemi, 59, in St. Louis struck many as mysterious from its outset. Hashemi, who is black, was born Melanie Franklin in New Orleans. She took her Iranian husbands last name, converted to Islam, and became a dual citizen through marriage. Prior to her arrest, Hashemi was in the US filming a documentary about Black Lives Matter. Little was known about the reason for her arrest until a judge unsealed Hashemis federal court order, revealing she was arrested to be deposed as a material witness in an unspecified criminal case. In coverage of Hashemis arrest, which did not involve criminal charges against the reporter, legal scholars and Muslim civil rights activists said such material-witness laws are constitutionally questionable and have been abused. Hashemi, during a press conference after her return, said such laws are used against blacks and Muslims across the West. From the archives: Filmmaker on FBI surveillance of her neighborhood Iranian-American journalists have been detained at length in Iran without cause repeatedly in the past. Hashemis arrest, however, marks the first time an Iranian-American journalist has faced detention in the US. What happened to me tells the story of both Iran and the West, Hashemi said during the press conference. What we need to do together is to push for human rights and respect for people, but not through the false narrative of America. Asked whether her work as a journalist was respected in the US, Hashemi said, What I saw was a campaign of disrespect and intimidation. The Iranian government is using Hashemis arrest to highlight unfair targeting of Muslims and African-Americans by American law enforcement, Johns Hopkins University professor Narges Bajoghli says, essentially by identifying an ideological thread between policies like stop-and-frisk and the travel ban. Such arguments, made repeatedlynot only in Iranian media, but also in Muslim organizations in the West, Bajoghli sayshelped develop visible public support for Hashemi. Sign up for CJR 's daily email Her release leaves experts to wonder how her arrest might shape US-Iran relations, which have been nil since Irans 1979 Islamic Revolution, and whether journalists, used by hardline factions within Iranian government as negotiating chips, might be more vulnerable as a result. The Trump administration asserts that it is working to secure the release of Americans held in Iran, and the arrest of Ms. Hashemi could be connected to this, Barbara Slavin, an Iran expert and director of the Atlantic Councils Future of Iran initiative, says. At the same time, Ive seen no indication that the US has opened a channel to Iran to secure the release of American detainees. So this may be a kind of psychological warfare. Slavin adds that its too soon to know how the motivations behind Hashemis arrest in the US compare to Irans detention of dual national journalists, often on bogus charges. Hashemis detention put the Committee to Protect Journalists in the rare position of calling on American officials to explain the arrest. Jason Rezaian, a Washington Post reporter and Iranian-American dual citizen, told the Committee to Protect Journalists last year that Iran arrests dual nationals as Iranians, denies them all their rightsand then dangles them as trade bait to the governments of their other nationality. Rezaian, whose new book details his 544 days of captivity in an Iranian prison, says such arrests are the height of hypocrisy and literally no one is fooled by it. Rezaians 2016 release occurred the same day as the Iran nuclear deal was implemented. He has sued the Iranian government for millions of dollars in damages, alleging that he was taken hostage and psychologically tortured by the Iranian government to extract U.S. concessions, per The Washington Post. Coverage of Hashemis arrest carried a similar whiff of international intrigue; as the Times noted, it closely followed official word that Iran had detained an American since July 2018, and came as European leaders scrambled to salvage the nuclear deal. Other dual-national journalists have experienced lengthy detentions in the country. Maziar Bahari, an Iranian-Canadian and former Newsweek journalist was imprisoned for 118 days before reuniting with family in London and has since launched a news site called Iranwire. Baharis complaints that PressTV, where Hashemi works, aired his forced confession led British officials to ban the station from broadcast in 2012. Founded in 2007, PressTV was still a fledgling network when protests over the disputed 2009 presidential election roiled Iran and gave rise to the reformist Green Movement. At that time, says Bajoghli, whose research focuses on media and powerful political factions, the station took the regimes line in not reporting on the suppression of the movement and attributing the protests to foreign agents. This editorial direction, she adds, caused a minor exodus of Western journalists and pundits who appeared on PressTV in its early days. Hashemi was among those who defended the expulsion of media during a violent state crackdown on protests following the disputed 2009 presidential election, during an interview with NPR. Accusations of anti-Semitism and flawed coverage have dogged the station for years. Attempts to reach Hashemi and PressTV officials in Tehran were unsuccessful. Hashemis detention put the Committee to Protect Journalists in the rare position of calling on American officials to explain the arrest. According to CPJ, not one of the 251 journalists imprisoned around the world last year were locked up in the US; by comparison, Iran imprisoned eight. In a statement, CPJs Alexandra Ellerbeck expressed the committees concern over the incident, and urged the Justice Department to immediately disclose the basis for her detention. During her detention, Hashemis colleagues took to the streets to demand her freedom, outside the United Nations building in Tehran. Employees of Iranian state news organizations IRIB and PressTV, who face censorship and strict rules for news production under the Iranian regime, rallied in the streets to call on American officials to release their colleague. Prior to her release, one hardline Iranian newspaper went so far as to compare Hashemis arrest with the execution of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi of The Washington Post. Ahead of Hashemis return, official response from Tehran was ample and vocal. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif took to airwaves and Twitter to demand Hashemis release, dubbing her arrest a political ploy in an interview with state news and calling out American racism. The US govt needs to explain how Marzieh Hashemia journalist and grandmotheris such a flight risk that she must be incarcerated until she finishes her testimony to a grand jury. 50 years after MLK assassination, US still violates the civil rights of black men and women. Javad Zarif (@JZarif) January 21, 2019 Taken with barbs like Zarifs comments, it wont be lost on Iranian audiences that Hashemis Black Lives Matter documentary will, if true to life, end with her own arrest. From the archives: Hannah Allam on covering Muslim life in America Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today Shaya Tayefe Mohajer teaches journalism at the University of Southern California and works as a freelance journalist in Los Angeles. Previously, she was the news editor for TakePart.com and a reporter for The Associated Press. She is a graduate of New York University's masters program in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @Shaya_in_LA. Castaner says also ready to welcome Salvini Says 'constant dialogue' with Italy but must be 'respectful' (ANSAmed) - PARIS, FEBRUARY 8 - French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said Friday that dialogue with Italy "is constant" but that it must be "respectful". Responding to a question on BFMTV regarding the 'convocation' of Italian Interior Minister Salvini, Castaner said, "I'm also ready to welcome him". "I think diplomatic missions don't have to work hidden but in an official way," he said. "Yesterday, I was with Salvini's secretary of state in a European forum and we had a discussion, including about migratory questions. Dialogue is constant between us, but it must be in a respectful way. I invite everyone to join in this framework," he said. "Yesterday the exchanges with the Italian secretary of state went well, in a European forum, where there were many of us working on questions linked to international migration," he said.(ANSAmed). You will receive 5-day a week delivery of the Citizen Tribune newspaper to your home or business, plus full, ad-free access to CitizenTribune.com as well as full access to the Electronic Edition of the newspaper. ONLY $13.99 per month for the first 3 months! Only $16.00 per month after promotional period. Or ONLY $169.99 for a full year Only $198.95 per year after promotional period. TUNIS - A difficult negotiation between the government and the General union of Tunisian workers Ugtt on the salary increase requested by some 700,000 State employees has ended with the signature of an agreement. A two-say general strike originally scheduled on February 20-21 has been cancelled as a consequence. The minister for social affairs, Mohamed Trabelsi, described the agreement signed by the prime minister, Youssef Chahed, and the secretary general of Ugtt, Noureddine Tabboubi, as ''historic'', considering it a ''new victory'' in the negotiating process between the two sides. Cabinet secretary, Riadh Mouhaker, said it enables to improve the spending power of public workers while safeguarding the State budget, taking into consideration the current difficult economic situation. For his part, Tabboubi said the accord is a victory of the sense of responsibility and reflects the importance of political negotiation and social dialogue in Tunisia. Talks with unions representing teachers in secondary schools were also successful. https://patch.com/new-york/astoria-long-island-city/amazon-reconsiders-nyc-headquarters-after-backlash-report LONG ISLAND CITY, QUEENS Executives at Amazon have discussed pulling out of a deal to bring a new headquarters to New York City, according to a report. Amazon has soured on the prospects of a campus in Long Island City, Queens following intense backlash from local politicians, the Washington Post first reported. Two sources "familiar with the company's thinking" spoke to the Post with anonymity in order to "speak candidly about the company's perspective." "The question is whether it's worth it if the politicians in New York don't want the project," one person familiar with Amazon's plans told the Post. Pulling out may not be difficult for Amazon, according to the report. Amazon hasn't struck any land deals in Long Island City, which means the company stands to lose little if it ditches New York. In Virginia, the chosen site for the retail giant's other HQ2, officials quickly passed an incentive package, the Post reported. But final approval from New York state isn't expected until 2020. "Can everyday people come together and effectively organize against creeping overreach of one of the world's biggest corporations? Yes, they can." Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who represents Queens, tweeted in response to the Post's report. But one person familiar with the company's thinking told The New York Times that the retail giant has no plans to abandon its Long Island City proposal. "I think that's a bit far in my opinion," the person said. PrimedOut NYC, a grassroots group that opposes the Amazon deal, called the report a "fake out" on Twitter. "We will continue to organize and push back even more," the group wrote. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced in November that the company will bring 25,000 jobs to its new Long Island City campus. The company will get nearly $3 billion in tax breaks and other incentives as part of a deal between Amazon and the government. Critics of the plan immediately zeroed in on the tax breaks Amazon will receive as part of the deal. Opponents argued that the $3 billion would be better spent on issues such as improving public schools, fixing the subways and funding repairs at public housing developments. State Sen. Michael Gianaris, a vocal critic of the deal, was recently chosen to sit on the Public Authorities Control Board, which will be voting on Amazon's development plans for the Queens campus. Any member on the board has the power to block developments proposed by Empire State Development, which is spearheading the Amazon deal. Officials in favor of the deal called Amazon's project the biggest economic development initiative in city and state history, as it is expected to create at least 25,000 high-paying jobs and generate $27.5 billion in tax revenue for the city and state over 25 years. Amazon also pledged to invest about $2.5 billion into the Long Island City neighborhood through initiatives such as a new public school, a 3.5-acre waterfront esplanade and park and services such as job fairs for residents of the nearby Queensbridge Houses public housing development. Sixty percent of Queens voters said they support Amazon coming to Long Island City, according to a Quinnipiac University poll in December. Only 26 percent of Queens voters were opposed to the plan. The numbers in support of the $3 million incentive package dipped to 55 percent among Queens voters, with 39 percent opposing the package. Patch reporter Maya Kaufman contributed to this report. Read the full Washington Post report here. (Lead image: Officials and advocates, including Sen. Michael Gianaris (center right), rallied on Nov. 14 against Amazon's plans to open a new headquarters in Long Island City. Photo by Noah Manskar/Patch) Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton now says he is not prepared to investigate the 58,000 potential non-citizen voters that the Secretary of State has flagged. In a letter to a key state senator, Paxton said he does not have enough staff to divert from other tasks to investigate each of those voters. The Texas Secretary of State sent his office the list two weeks ago, when it notified counties of a total of 95,000 suspected non-citizens registered to vote, 58,000 of whom have cast a ballot in a past election. It is a felony for a non-citizen to vote in Texas. Instead, Paxton said he will wait to see what county voter registrars discover as they analyze the data. Already, county elections officials have discovered that more than 20,000 voters on the states purge list that are in fact citizens and eligible to vote. Simply put, even utilizing every resource we have, it would not be possible to investigate tens of thousands of SOS matters before the voter registrars should be able to complete their list maintenance activity, Paxton said in a letter to State Sen. Dawn Buckingham, R-Lakeway. Buckingham is the chair of the Senate Nominations Committee, which is weighing whether to confirm the appointment of Texas Secretary of State David Whitley. Gov. Greg Abbott appointed Whitley in December, but he must be confirmed by the Texas Senate to retain the job. Whitleys confirmation process began Thursday when Senators peppered him with questions about the list of potential non-citizen voters his office identified. On Jan. 25, Whitley put out a press release saying the 95,000 voters identified by his office had previously supplied information to the Department of Public Safety that indicated they were not citizens. At that time, Paxton announced he stood ready to open a criminal investigation. While non-citizens can still get a driver license, they are ineligible to vote. Whitleys office at the time said there were 58,000 people on the list who had previously voted and his staff was forwarding those names to the Texas Attorney General. On Thursday, Senators asked Whitley to call on Paxton to hold off on investigating people until the lists have been better vetted by county officials to assure legal citizens arent being drawn into an investigation unnecessarily. In his letter to Buckingham, Paxton said the secretary of states office has asked him to refrain from starting those investigations. The effort to pinpoint voters who are not U.S. citizens has brought praise from Republicans as high up as President Donald Trump, who have called it part of the fight against voter fraud. But it also has resulted in lawsuits from civil rights groups who say the analysis Whitleys office conducted is riddled with errors, and discriminates against immigrants. They say the purge is calculated to dissuade them from voting. A naval battle just might be on the horizon in one of Houstons most competitive congressional districts. On Thursday, Navy veteran and science teacher Elisa Cardnell, a Democrat, filed papers with the Federal Election Commission to challenge newly elected U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, a Houston Republican who is a former Navy SEAL. Cardnell said she has been considering a congressional bid for more than a month. In January, she told her social media followers she was getting ready for the race. Before 2016, I tried to stay out of politics, especially since as a member of the military I viewed my role as necessarily nonpartisan at least in public life, Cardnell said. But now I feel that I have to do something, and my entire career of serving my country and my community has led me to this point. The 32-year-old Cardnell, who holds bachelors and masters degrees from Rice University, spent five years on active duty in the Navy and nearly six years in the Navy reserves. While on active duty, she rose to the rank of lieutenant, serving as an anti-submarine warfare officer and an officer in charge of port operations in Yorktown, Va. Cardnell said after leaving the Navy reserves last year, she started looking for other ways to serve the country. Crenshaw, a retired lieutenant commander, spent 10 years in the Navy SEALS that included tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Crenshaw nearly lost his vision when an IED blast in Afghanistan put him into a coma for five days. He survived but lost his right eye. Crenshaw, 34, was elected in November to a two-year term in the 2nd Congressional District, which runs from portions of Montrose, the Rice University area and the Heights to west Houston and north to the Montgomery County border, and includes Atascocita and Humble. Crenshaw defeated Democrat Todd Litton, 53 percent to 46 percent. Crenshaw has fast become a budding star in the GOP. Hes made appearances on various national Fox News Channel shows every week since he was elected. More Information A competitive 2nd District Republicans have held the 2nd Congressional District for years, but the margins continue to tighten. 2018 Election Dan Crenshaw, Republican, 53 percent Todd Litton, Democrat, 46 percent 2016 Election Ted Poe, Republican, 60 percent Pat Bryan, Democrat, 36 percent 2014 Election Ted Poe, Republican, 68 percent Niko Letsos, Democrat, 30 percent SOURCE: Texas Division of Elections See More Collapse He filed paperwork for his re-election campaign with the FEC on Dec. 5, 2018. Cardnell is the only challenger to emerge so far. While the district has been considered safe Republican territory for years, Democrats have spied trends they believe has the district shifting more toward them. In 2012, then-Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney won 60 percent of the vote in the areas within the 2nd Congressional District. But four years later, President Donald Trump won just 52 percent in the district, which has seen increasing diversity and a growth in college-educated voters, two demographics that favor Democrats. AUSTIN In July 2016, Denali Wilson was on her way home from work in El Paso when a stranger followed her home and grabbed her crotch. When she reported the incident to police, Wilson was surprised to learn that under Texas law, the officers could not arrest the man who assaulted her much less launch an investigation to find him. Groping is the lowest-level criminal offense in the state penal code, punishable by a $500 fine at most. After that, I ended up entering into a process of an internal affairs complaint with the officers because I was under the impression that this couldnt be true, that the officers must be misrepresenting the Texas Penal Code, Wilson told lawmakers at a hearing in 2017, when she testified for a bill to change that law. How could it be true that this could happen to me and theres very little responding officers could do to help me, to protect me? Experts on sexual assault laws say Texas which puts groping an adult under the category of assault by offensive contact is one of six states with such a light penalty. Two Texas lawmakers, one a Republican and one a Democrat, want to put more teeth into the law and have filed bills to raise the maximum penalty for groping to a year in jail and a $4,000 fine. At present, its basically a speeding ticket, said Chris Kaiser, director of public policy for the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault. Its on par with traffic violations or petty theft under $100. Typically, you dont get arrested. Youll get fined, if anything, and then go on your way. Mike Fisher By contrast, punching someone in the arm could result in jail time if it leaves a bruise or causes an injury, Kaiser said. The current law is really just designed for something like a couple of drunk people outside a bar, pushing and shoving, but nobody really gets hurt, Kaiser said. Its not designed to address a serious sexual assault. Texas Take: Get political headlines from across the state sent directly to your inbox Reached by telephone Friday, Wilson, now 26 and in law school, said she no longer supports harsher punishments as a means of criminal reform. But her story prompted state Rep. Joe Moody, D-El Paso to file a bill in 2017 that would reclassify groping as indecent assault and elevate penalties. It didnt pass, so this year Moody and state Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock filed identical legislation that would make groping a Class A misdemeanor instead of a Class C misdemeanor. Groping someone is more serious than that, and so we need to right-size the penalty, said Moody, who filed House Bill 309. Right now, there is a huge gap in this law. Beverly Mathews, Assistant District Attorney for Travis County, said if the law passes, it would give prosecutors more leeway to file charges in cases of unwanted sexual contact against an adult that do not involve penetration. Its more than offensive contact, but we cant make the case because legally, it doesnt fit the parameters, Matthews said. If these bills were to pass, wed have a middle ground for prosecuting offenses that are above a Class C misdemeanor but below a second degree felony. The new classification should also deter future offenders, said Perry, who filed Senate Bill 194. The $500 fine doesnt seem to be getting peoples attention, so moving it to possible jail time of zero to one years and a $4000 fine will be a pretty effective deterrent, we hope, Perry said. If it isnt, we will come back and readdress the penalty. If passed, Kaiser said the legislation will send an important message to survivors in Texas: We believe you. Its a real slap in the face [to survivors] to say this traumatic event, this sexual assault, just doesnt really matter under Texas law, Kaiser said. Were hoping that by elevating the seriousness to reflect what it actually is - a traumatic sexual assault - that there will be some affirmation and some acknowledgment of what victims have gone through. Moody said the legislation failed to pass in 2017 because any bill related to sexual assault was thought to be a potential vehicle for the bathroom bill. This session, with support in both chambers and on both sides of the isle, Moody said he is confident the legislation will be signed into law. This bill, in no uncertain terms, was derailed by the bathroom bill last session, Moody said. Now that that conversation is behind us and more rational minds seem to be operating this session, I think well be able to move this bill fairly quickly through the process. Perry said Texas is slow to enhance penalties in general, but a heightened awareness toward sexual assault issues this session may help. We like to get it right when we do it, Perry said. And we will get it right when we get this done. More than 20 Houston-area Catholic parishes were found to have at least three priests who have been accused of sexual abuse of children over the last 70 years, according to information released by the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston. INTERACTIVE LIST: Search the "credibly accused" list by priest, church or diocese The list includes the names of 42 local Catholic priests who have been accused of sexually abusing children, 10 of which served at a single church in Houston, according to a Houston Chronicle analysis. The slideshow above includes a ranked list of churches where the highest number of "credibly accused" priests worked. The Galveston-Houston diocese joined 15 others across the state when it decided to publish the list of accused priests on its websites last Thursday. The Houston Chronicle has since compiled an interactive database where readers can search the list by priest, church or name. The Chronicle also published all available information we have on each priest on the list, 20 of whom of have since died. Click through the slideshow above to see which church had the most "credibly accused" priests... Julian Gill is a digital reporter in Houston. Read him on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and on our subscriber site, houstonchronicle.com. | julian.gill@chron.com | NEWS WHEN YOU NEED IT: Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message | Sign up for breaking news alerts delivered to your email here. UPDATE: Anthony Terrell was a 28-year-old black man who died February 8 from a gunshot wound at 11201 Veterans Memorial, Houston. ORIGINAL STORY: Deputies found a man shot dead outside a car with a 2-year-old inside Friday morning in north Harris County, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said. The shooting happened around 12:30 a.m. in the 11200 block of Veterans Memorial Drive, just north of the Sam Houston Tollway, Gonzalez said. When deputies arrived, they found the body near the car and the child still seated inside. BREAKING NEWS UPDATES: Get your Houston breaking alerts delivered to you. Initial reports indicate the man may be in his 20's and is related to the child. The child has since been reunited with the mother. This story will be updated as more information becomes available. NEWS WHEN YOU NEED IT: Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message | Sign up for breaking news alerts delivered to your email here. A Harris County Sheriffs deputy on Friday was one vote away from being cleared of wrongdoing after being accused of beating a speeding motorist after an early morning traffic chase in 2015. Jurors deliberated almost seven hours before saying they were hopelessly deadlocked, with 11 jurors voting for not guilty in the aggravated assault case case of Harris County SheriffSgt. Marco Carrizales. State District Judge Josh Hill then declared a mistrial because of the jurys inability to reach a unanimous verdict. The deputy, who was working an off-duty job in uniform, is accused of smashing Ismael Garza Jr. in the face, fracturing his eye socket. Bequita Pegram, a 45-year-old middle-school history teacher from Cypress, was the only juror who insisted that Carrizales was guilty. I felt like it was beyond a reasonable doubt that he was acting outside of the law, she explained. It was a very difficult case, because of the evidence. Ten other jurors declined to comment and one, who declined to give her name, said jurors thought both men were in the wrong. But because Garza initiated the chase by running a stop sign, she said, Carrizales should not be the only one held responsible. I couldnt convict Mr. Carrizales because of the behavior Mr. Garza, she said. They were both guilty. Carrizales still faces a maximum of life in prison if convicted of the offense. The deputy can be retried, the case could be dismissed, or both sides could reach a plea deal. Prosecutors Michael Harrison and Gavin Ellis left the courtroom without commenting or indicating their plans. Defense attorney Cordt Akers said Carrizales is not guilty and is ready to go back to trial. Marcos Carrizales is a good man and a good cop, which is something our city sorely needs right now, he said. If the DAs office decides to retry him, Ill be proud to stand with him again. Through the weeklong trial, prosecutors worked to show that Carrizales was acting outside the law when he pursued Garza at speeds of up to 100 mph, and then injured him. Garza, a 30-year-old carpenter, ran a stop sign outside a La Porte refinery during shift change. It was about 5 a.m. when Garza, who was driving home from a late-night barbecue, sped through the stop sign without stopping, he acknowledged on the witness stand. Carrizales, who was directing traffic as a side job with another officer, then pursued Garza in his personal truck, without lights and sirens. Garza testified he thought the pursuing officer was a robber intent on stealing his truck. Defense lawyers for Carrizales have tried to prove to the jury that the deputy, who was in uniform, identified himself as a police officer when trying to arrest Garza. Carrizales testified that Garza stopped his pickup twice during the chase. The deputy said Garza pulled over the first time and yelled to the officer that he could not go back to jail before fleeing again. When Carrizales caught up to Garza again and pulled him over, the two struggled as the officer tried to get Garza out of his pickup truck. During that fight, Carrizales testified, he got Garza out of the truck, then used a used a leg sweep to take Garza to the ground. The officer testified that the injury happened when Garza fell. The defense also brought evidence to show that Garza had a history of running from police and fighting officers while resisting arrest. Garza was on probation in Hidalgo County when he was pulled over by Carrizales. The trial began Monday. The jury deliberated for an hour Thursday before deliberating about six hours Friday. If Carrizales had been convicted, the case would have moved to a second phase in which jurors decided punishment. The case is reminiscent of the high-profile trial of Terry Thompson, the husband of a sheriffs deputy whose first trial, for murder, ended in a mistrial after jurors heard evidence about the 24 year-old victims behavior. Prosecutors later re-tried Thompson and successfully limited a new jury from hearing about the victims conduct during a midnight encounter outside a popular Dennys restaurant. In a re-trial, Thompson was convicted of murder in the strangulation death of John Hernandez. brian.rogers@chron.com twitter.com/brianjrogers (ANSA) - Rome, February 8 - French government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux told Europe 1 on Friday that Paris's decision to recall its ambassador to Rome for consultations "is not permanent". "But it was important to give a signal," Griveaux added. On Thursday the French foreign ministry said the recall was related to "groundless attacks by Italy without precedent since the end of the war" and "outrageous statements" by the Italian government. Tension between Rome and Paris has been high in recent months over several issues, including the management of asylum seekers and the TAV Turin-Lyon high-speed rail link. But it was the support of Italian Deputy Premier Luigi Di Maio's 5-Star Movement (M5S) for the Yellow Vests protestors in France that triggered the diplomatic move. Medical cannabis for all Texans could come to the state if a pair of bills put forth by State Rep. Ron Reynolds becomes law. Reynolds (D-District 27) has submitted House Bill 209 and House Joint Resolution 21 for consideration during the 86th Legislature regular session. I am proud to announce the filing of House Bill 209 and HJR 21, which seeks to make access to medical cannabis available for more patients with debilitating medical conditions, instead of it being reserved only for patients with epilepsy, Reynolds said in a news release. In making the budgetary case for HB 209, Reynolds pointed to a 2017 Legislative Budget Board study which projected the bill to have a $9,288,521 positive impact on our state economy within two years of implementation. HIGHER PAY: State Rep. Ron Reynolds introduces bill to increase state minimum wage HB 209 would authorize parents to administer medical cannabis to children with debilitating medical conditions if the treatment is recommended by their physician. The bill would also authorize establishing licensed cannabis testing facilities to analyze the safety and potency of medical cannabis. Its time for Texas to join the other 33 states, the District of Columbia, Guam and Puerto Rico, whom all have comprehensive public marijuana/cannabis programs, Reynold said. We should not be afraid or reluctant to explore new ways to provide compassionate care, cure diseases, and ease the pain and suffering of Texans, especially our veterans, critical care patients, and the elderly. If HB 2019 passes, it will go into effect immediately if two-thirds of both houses pass the legislation. Otherwise, it will go into effect on Sept. 1. POT HISTORY: New class in Houston teaches how to cultivate medical marijuana All states which border Texas New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana have legalized medical marijuana. According to a recent University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll, only 16 percent of Texans said possession of marijuana should remain illegal under any circumstances, Reynolds said. This is why I filed HJR 21, which proposes a constitutional amendment to allow Texas voters to decide if medical cannabis should be legal. If HJR 21 passes, it will be put before Texas voters on Nov. 5. Reynolds represents Texas House District 27, which encompasses communities of Fort Bend County. Representative Reynolds currently serves as a member of the House Committees on Defense and Veterans Affairs and Environmental Regulations. rkent@hcnonline.com One thing is evident in the strong financial position, local business uptick and vision for the future: Montgomery County and The Woodlands have been experiencing growth and it doesnt seem to be stopping. That was one of the messages transmitted to hundreds of attendees on Friday at the 33rd Economic Outlook Conference at The Woodlands Waterway Marriott Hotel and Convention Center. The event attracted hundreds of business and community leaders who filled the center in anticipation of a day filled with speeches and seminars detailing the sustainable growth in the community, region and state. After a welcome from officials with The Woodlands Area Chamber of Commerce, who created and produced the event, and recognition of the events presenting underwriters Stibbs & Co. Attorneys and Petroleum Wholesale the attendees took their seats and the speakers jumped right in. State Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, discussed the current legislative session and detailed both the advantages and challenges facing the region and state this year. If Texas were a nation, Creighton said, it would be ranked in the top 10 economies in the world. For 14 years in a row, Texas has been the best state in which to start a business. Texas is leading in technology and innovation, but is also the top state for industries such as cattle, cotton and sheep, Creighton added. We want to lead, we dont want to follow, Creighton said. That growth and success is balanced by the challenge of protecting the residents economic freedoms while determining the way forward in tax reform, legislation regarding government spending and recovery from Hurricane Harvey, he explained. I welcome your opinions; I welcome your requests. Let me tell you, it makes a difference. We want to make sure we have the policies in place that you expect, and were listening, Creighton said, noting that it is important to plan well, work together and lean on each other for support to navigate differences during this process. U.S. Rep. Kevin Brady, R-The Woodlands, then joined the conference by video stream to address attendees. While first touching on his hope that both parties can come to an agreement before another possible partial government shutdown at the end of next week, Brady zeroed in on economy issues, such as building the workforce. Our economy is being held back because we dont have the size of workforce and we dont have the match of skills of workforce, Brady said, which he added is an issue throughout the country. While experts predict growth in investments returning to the country, they also predict that the economy will slow down in the years to come because of a lack of workers. We need to dramatically scale up all the workforce training programs we have today if were going to create the workforce we need for the future, Brady said, citing the training being done in this area at Conroe Independent School District, the Education for Tomorrow Alliance, the John Cooper School, The Woodlands Christian Academy and the Lone Star College System. Brady said immigration policy and welfare system reform were also important to build the workforce for the future as he works as the top Republican on the influential House Ways and Means Committee. We are going to work very hard to stop bad ideas, but were going to work equally hard to find common groundto address the economy, our workers, our trade, our customers and our health care, Brady said. Local impacts: growth in the township Hyper-local issues were discussed by Gordy Bunch, chairman of The Woodlands Township Board of Directors, who shared with the crowd what achievements and initiatives the township accomplished in 2018, including bring swan boats to The Woodlands Waterway, the conveyance of the Band Shell and Boardwalk at Hughes Landing from the Howard Hughes Corp. to township ownership, renovations at Bear Branch Park and the construction of Texas Treeventures, a high-trees, adventure-style ropes course being constructed in Rob Fleming Park. With a taxable value around $20 billion, a comparably low tax rate of 22.73 cents per $100 of valuation and a 23 percent growth of the hotel occupancy tax in the last five years, Bunch said the combination of factors gives the township a strong financial position. We still maintain excellent ratings, and more importantly we maintain excellent reserves, Bunch said, which includes reducing the townships debt simultaneously. Looking ahead to 2019, Bunch focused on the townships ongoing incorporation study. He said township officials have a lot left to do in regard to incorporation, such as further planning and community meetings to understand the pros and cons, but that theres no rush to get a proposition on the ballot. Its a complicated issue that takes a lot of interaction with our community, Bunch said. Bunch then touched on the tourism initiatives spearheaded by Visit The Woodlands that are intended to bring more visitors to the area, as well as how attendees at the half-day-long event can stay informed on township activities. Laura Lea Palmer, the vice president of business retention and expansion for The Woodlands Area Economic Development Partnership, continued the discussion, focusing on the upward trends in the areas job growth. Palmer shared a 15-year comparison of the business sectors found in The Woodlands, Shenandoah and Oak Ridge North. In 2004, there were 47 companies who provided about 17,200 jobs with the largest percentage comprised of professional services and energy sectors. Jumping ahead to 2019, there are now 73 companies allotting for about 38,000 jobs with health care jumping on the board alongside energy as the largest sectors. This shows you what sustainable growth looks like in our community. We will see that growth continue into the future, Palmer said. jane.stueckemann@chron.com Lots of news and happenings are going on around The Woodlands, and here are some brief snapshots of recent activities, events and issues. MUD, WJPA officials honor Roe According to a press release, officials and board members from Montgomery County Municipal Utility District 47, the Woodlands Joint Powers Agency staff and family members of Rosemary Roe met at Shadowbend Park for the dedication of a bench commemorating Roes public service. Rosemary served on the MUD 47 Board for more than 30 years. She also served many years as the MUD 47 trustee to the WJPA board. During her service to the MUD and WJPA, she held numerous officer positions, which included president of MUD 47 of the WJPA, the release stated. Rosemary Roe was one of the great driving forces for water in The Woodlands, said James M. Stinson, the general manager of the WJPA. She emphasized the importance of quality customer service and was passionate about water conservation and setting an example for others to follow. Under Rosemarys leadership, The WJPA received the Texas Water Development Board Blue Legacy award for a very successful conservation program driven by Rosemary as the WJPA president. Boy Scouts collect food for charity Stuart Schroeder, vice-chairman Tall Timbers District, BSA, reported that numerous scouts from the Tall Timbers District, Sam Houston Area Council, BSA collected almost 9,000 pounds of food in south Montgomery County this past Saturday during the 2019 Scouting for Food / Souper Bowl of Caring drive to benefit the food pantry at Interfaith of The Woodlands. Local RDRC, village association elections are Feb. 16 Candidates for contested local positions in The Woodlands, including on two Residential Design Review Committees and for one village association boards, will be vying for office this week. Convenience voting for the lower-level elected positions throughout the township begins at 9 a.m. Monday, Feb. 11 and continued to 5 p.m. each day of the week until Friday, Feb. 15. The official voting day for the elections is Saturday, Feb. 16, from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. According to a press release, voting is open to any township resident or property owner age 18 or older. Voting takes place at the township offices, located at 2801 Technology Forest Blvd. Of the nine village associations and nine RDRCs, only three races have contested positions: the Cochrans Crossing RDRC, the Creekside Park RDRC, and the Panther Creek Village Association. For a list of candidates, voters can visit www.thewoodlandstownship-tx.gov/februaryelection or call 281-210-3800. jeff.forward@chron.com A bouquet of flowers and a nice dinner for your valentine are so last year. This Valentines Day, one group is switching things up in The Woodlands and beyond with the delivery of singing valentines. Yes, you read that right. For a fee, quartets from The Woodlands Show Chorus will show up at your loved ones home or place of work and serenade them with standard Valentines Day songs such as Elvis Love Me Tender or Bing Crosbys Let Me Call You Sweetheart. So many people dont expect it when you walk in, so its surprising for many people. We really enjoy doing that, said Linda Knight, who is the singing valentine coordinator for the group. When someone orders a valentine, they share a little bit about the relationship with the group so that the quartet can pick an appropriate song to sing. Were trying to acknowledge whatever their relationship is and make it happy time, Knight said. When the quartet delivers the songs, some people will cry, some people will laugh and some will act shy but, Knight said, members of the chorus can see that in their hearts the recipients are happy to know their sweetheart cares about them. Its sharing joy and love through song. That emotion, its a gift, Knight said. Interested in sending a singing valentine? Visit the group's website to learn more. See More Collapse Each valentine also receives a box of Godiva chocolates and a message from their sweetheart along with the romantic tunes. The all-women group started delivering singing valentines as a fundraiser last year. They did about 25 visits in The Woodlands, downtown Houston and Katy area, but this year theyre hoping to have at least 10 visits each for the four quartets that will be singing across the greater Houston region. Their goal is to raise about $2,000 through the endeavor. Chorus member Alice Haageen has delivered singing valentines before, and said shes excited to do it again. One of the most beautiful moments she said she witnessed was when a man, who had been married to his wife for 50 years, enlisted a quartet to deliver a love song. (The wife) was so emotionally excited, tears were pouring out of her eyes. She said, I didnt know you loved me so much after 50 years, Haageen said. For those who are less romantically inclined, the quartets will also sing anti-Valentines Day songs. The chorus currently has more than 70 members and are part of the Sweet Adelines International organization that facilitates choruses in barbershop-style performances. They practice in Conroe. jane.stueckemann@chron.com Michael Minasi, Staff Photographer / Houston Chronicle The Oak Ridge North City Council agenda for the Monday, Feb. 11, meeting does not have much on tap, but several important issues are scheduled for discussion. The council will consider raising the speed limit along a porting of Robinson Road to 30 mph, keeping it constant with the rest of the 3,000-foot stretch of road between Interstate 45 and Hanna Road. Robinson Road in front of the Sojourn Baptist Church is held to a school zone speed limit of 20 mph, according to a staff report, but since its no longer being used as a school, theres no reason for the slowdown. Creating pathways to help students succeed at Houston-area community colleges and four-year institutions through strategies developed by the Houston Guided Pathways to Success (GPS) Alliance was the focus of discussion at the Fort Bend Chamber of Commerce membership luncheon held Feb. 7. The Houston GPS Alliance includes 11 community colleges and four-year universities in the greater Houston area that are working together to increase graduation rates and improve outcomes for students, Dr. Teri Longacre, Vice Provost and Dean of Undergraduate Student Success for the University of Houston said. One of the really important aspects of this work is to make sure when a student is transferring from a two-year (community college) to a four-year (university) within Houston GPS, they do so without any wasted credit. So, we made some really important changes. Longacre said. By bringing people together from each department, we made an impact in ensuring students are taking courses that are going to apply to their degrees. Partner schools, who once saw each other as competitors for students, now work together toward common goals, Dr. Betty Fortune, Executive Director of Success and Completion for Houston Community College said. For me at the community college, one of the most remarkable things about this whole initiative was the fact that educators in higher education began to understand that we were no longer competing, but that we ought to be partners, Fortune said. Institutions members of Houston GPS Alliance include the University of Houston, University of Houston-Clear Lake, University of Houston-Downtown, University of Houston-Victoria, Houston Community College System, Texas Southern University, College of the Mainland, Lone Star College System, San Jacinto College District, Victoria College and Wharton County Junior College. The concept for the alliance was created in 2015 when Tom Sugar, former president of Complete College America and now vice president at EAB, an educational technology services company, met and collaborated with Paula Short, senior vice chancellor for academic affairs for the University of Houston System, to develop new initiatives to help students succeed. After years of planning and developing these strategies, Sugar said his company was hoping to expand on the success created in the Houston area to pursue even-more ambitious educational goals. As we approach the 50th anniversary of the lunar landing, I see the equivalent of reaching the moon as permanently eliminating equity gaps in higher education, Sugar said. For so long weve looked at the achievement gaps by race, income and first generation stats and said Thats a bridge too far. But, thats not true anymore. We have the technology, the leadership wherewithal. We know the best practices. We are owning the metrics and we can bring these forces together, if we want to, to eliminate equity gaps within a decade. To accomplish this goal, Sugar said his company was planning to invest $25 million into educational initiatives facilitated via partnerships with Houston GPS and similar programs in other cities to eliminate equity gaps within ten years. For more information about the Fort Bend Chamber of Commerce and information about upcoming events, visit www.fortbendchamber.com Before the culinary arts class can begin, the students of Fortis Academy in change into chefs jackets and put on caps to work in the kitchen. Omar Lopez, 18, measured and mixed ingredients before moving on to the stove to make and flip crepes. This is more like a home thing, he said of learning to cook as he spread Nutella and strawberry jam the crepe he had just made. Lopez arrived at Fortis Academy after completing another rehabilitation program for substance abuse at his previous high school. Located in north Houston, Fortis officially opened in August for the 2018-2019 year, as the first rehabilitation high school in Harris County to help students like Lopez with their recovery. It provides youngsters a second opportunity. It allows us to support kids with their sobriety, said Principal Anthony Moten. The school has capacity for up to 90 students and so far has had seven students enrolled during its inaugural school year. Parents can start the process of enrolling students online on the Harris County Department of Education website, which is followed by in-person interviews. Students can also arrive if their home school districts or other recovery programs send them to Fortis, Moten said. Educators have traditionally punished misbehaving students instead of addressing root causes, such as drug or alcohol addiction. (Were) trying to get educators to really buy into (the idea) that theres a different way than trying to punish children out of having substance abuse issues. Its just moving the educators from the discipline model to the restorative model, Moten said. The school features both a traditional curriculum of science, math, history and other subjects, along with a therapeutic component. The only elective it currently offers is the culinary arts course. When the culinary class began in the fall, students started by learning about safety and sanitation before moving on to baking, pastry, knife skills and cooking meals. Quindetta Thomas, who teaches the class, said that cooking can be both therapeutic as well as teach students new skills. I get to see a different side of the kids. I get to help them learn a different way of coping with their drug addiction or alcohol or substance abuse or whatever because thats the whole point of the culinary facility is to get them to learn something else to do with their hands. Thats my main goalif I can get you a skill, if I can get you to work, to be productive, she said. Roberta Vasquez, 17, said she enjoyed the class and wanted to keep learning new recipes. At the school, shes currently the only female student, but she felt more at ease than at her previous school where her classmates tended to dismiss her when she wanted to open up. At Fortis, her fellow classmates feel like family members. I can actually get along with them and I can actually talk to them about stuff, Vasquez said. At his previous school, Lopez said he found it hard to focus and called the environment rowdy. After completing a private rehabilitation program at Archway Academy, he returned to his zoned high school, but didnt like being exposed to peers and friends who were not sober. I had so much anxiety from all the kids around, he said. His father, also named Omar Lopez, said hes seen positive changes once he committed to his sobriety. The elder Lopez said that investing in programs like Fortis Academy would help students who were seeking to get over substance abuse problems by treating their addictions as diseases. These kids really want to get better, he said. Eventually, the younger Lopez said he is looking forward to graduating so he can major in mechanical engineering and attend a college that offers a sobriety component. So far, being around his current classmates and faculty has made him feel better about attending classes. You know, the people here understand the situation that youre in. Were here for the same reason, so its easier to relate to, he said. mayra.cruz@chron.com Some Pearland and Alvin area residents are taking matters into their own hands and killing the stray bobcats and coyotes that have started showing up in their neighborhoods. Several bobcats and coyotes were spotted in a Pearland neighborhood near Dixie Farm Road and Westfield Lane earlier this week, KHOU reported. Early Wednesday morning, Pearland residents Stephen and Tanya Green spotted the wild animals in a neighbor's front yard near Clear Creek, just a few miles from the Dixie Farm Road sighting. Pearland resident Gary Binnicker said the coyotes and bobcats that have many residents on guard are actually common for this time of year. The Chronicle previously reported local sheriff's office officials said it is mating season for the animals, which is why they have become so prevalent in some Houston area suburban neighborhoods like Sugar Land, Fulshear and the Woodlands. Binnicker said he uses a device that issues distress calls to reel in coyotes looking for female companions during the mating seasons. While some nay-sayers may disagree with his hunting style, he thinks killing the wild animals will help keep them from roaming into nearby neighborhoods and will help protect livestock. "They are all over the place," Binnicker said. "That area where Pearland, Friendswood and Alvin all kind of meet - there are so many coyotes in that area." Stephen Green said he is used to spotting wildlife alongside Clear Creek in Pearland that backs up to his neighborhood, but the recent sightings have caused him to be more on edge. PERCHED ON A FENCE: Bobcat spotted in Sugar Land neighborhood, residents reminded it's mating season for the critters "I was concerned with how comfortable it was being near that amount of human activity. It was around 10 a.m. so that bothered me," Stephen Green said. "We have small children that play on the street and yards and people who walk their dogs in the morning and evenings. Hopefully, it doesn't consider our neighborhood a good food source." For residents like Binnicker, who have livestock to protect, taking matters into his own hands is a necessity. Binnicker said he has killed several coyotes near his property and on the border of Pearland and Alvin, where he has spotted more of the animals. "I got permission to hunt on one of the cattle owner's properties in that area and you can't even put a dent in their population," Binnicker said. " The bobcats, a lot of people do not think that they are common or that they are endangered. [But] there are bobcats everywhere, they are just very secretive animals." Alvin resident Ryan Autrey has also tried protecting his livestock from the influx of coyotes on his property. He said he shot a 65-pound male coyote just last Saturday, in broad daylight. "Biggest one I've ever killed," Autrey said. "If I go out and call, one will show up in less than 10 minutes normally." GOOD BOY: Fulshear police captain's German Shepherd rescues 10-year-old mutt from coyotes According to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, bobcats and coyotes are considered non-game animals. Anyone with a hunting license is able to hunt nongame animals on private property. Killing a nongame animal on a public road or right of way is not legal, according to the website. "There are no closed seasons, bag limits or possession limits; and, they may be hunted at any time by any lawful means or methods on private property," the website states. Binnicker said other residents he knows that hunt the animals will sometimes hire licensed companies to place cyanide traps throughout their properties. "When a coyote goes up there and sticks its nose on it, it will shoot a little bitty puff of cyanide in their nostrils and it kills them, almost instantaneously," Binnicker said. "But they are marked where humans won't touch them." An experienced hunter, Binnicker said Pearland area residents that encounter the wild animals should stay away from them and keep their pets inside. "They will get your pets....One of bobcats' favorite foods is house cats." Rebecca Hennes covers community news. Read her on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and on our subscriber site, houstonchronicle.com. | rebecca.hennes@chron.com | Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message (ANSA) - Rome, February 8 - The nephew of a brigadier killed by a far-left terrorist group in 1977 has written to the French ambassador to Italy to launch an appeal to extradite former terrorists living in France. Potito Perruggini Ciotta, nephew of Giuseppe Ciotta, killed by the Fighting Communist Brigades, said "your excellency, when and if you should decide to come back to Rome, please take into consideration the possibility of bringing with you to Italy the fugitive Italian terrorists hosted in your country forever. "Not only the relatives of the victims but all the Italian people would be grateful and happy". France recalled its envoy in a diplomatic spat on Thursday. photo: then president Carlo Azeglio Ciampi with Ciotta's widow Michelina Carbonara in 2004 Violent offenders, rapists and gang members top the lists of Texas' most wanted. To be named on the Top 10 Most Wanted Fugitives list, suspects must be wanted for a violent, aggravated or sexual crimes. >>>See the most wanted sex offenders and fugitives in the gallery above. However, other factors are also considered: suspects with ties to gangs or cartels, especially criminally active groups along the border. Recidivism is another factor authorities consider when compiling the notorious list: suspects wanted for parole violations can also be bumped onto the roster. Beyond those placed on the Top 10 Most Wanted Fugitives list are "Featured Fugitives" which change each month. During that time, the reward offered for anyone who can lead to the arrest of a featured offender will increase significantly. GANG CRACKDOWN: HPD chief calls for border funds to go to local law enforcement instead, details on his plan available at HoustonChronicle.com. For August 2019, the Featured Fugitive is 48-year-old Leonard Dee Taylor, a 5'11", 170-pound male with tattoos on top of both hands. He is wanted for terroristic threat, aggravated sexual assault of a child, failure to comply with sex offender registration requirement and parole violation. According to the Department of Public Safety, Taylor's last known address was 10950 Beaumont Highway. This month, the reward for Langley is $8,000. (Please note that he is considered armed and dangerous.) Per DPS: "Leonard Dee TAYLOR is a convicted sex offender with ties to Houston, Texarkana, and parts of Louisiana. In 2003, TAYLOR was convicted in Bowie County of two counts of Aggravated Sexual Assault of a Child after incidents involving a 4-year-old girl and a 9-year-old girl. He was subsequently sentenced to 20 years in TDCJ prison.TAYLOR was released on parole in March 2015 and is required to register as a sex offender every three months for life. In early 2018, TAYLOR absconded from his last known address in Houston.On April 4, 2018, a parole violation warrant for TAYLOR's arrest was issued by the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles. An additional warrant has since been issued by the Harris County Sheriff's Office for TAYLOR's arrest for Failure to Comply with Sex Offender Registration Requirements." NEWS WHEN YOU NEED IT: Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message | Sign up for breaking news alerts delivered to your email here. Several apartment homes were charred and others were damaged in a three-alarm fire in Houston's Galleria area Friday. The fire sparked around 11:20 a.m. at The Plaza on Westheimer near Hillcroft Avenue, according to Houston Fire Department Assistant Chief Michael Mire. Callers to 911 said there was a fire in a second-story unit that spread to the top floor just above. Firefighters from HFD Stations 60 and 28 arrived minutes after the call and started to tackle the blaze, but cold northerly winds and the layout of the complex made fighting the fire difficult, Mire said. Authorities pulled a second alarm on the fire, and then a third within minutes to have more firefighters respond and help. In all, close to 75 firefighters were on scene assisting in some way, Mire said. "There are quite a few challenges, however all of our crews on scene are working very hard," Mire said. "The city will be proud of the effort they're putting out today." Flames could be seen shooting nearly 20 feet into the air from the three-story building. IN-DEPTH: Get the day's best news, analysis and story-telling delivered straight to your email at HoustonChronicle.com Three of HFD's ladder trucks helped firefighters get on the apartment's roof to cut holes through the attic, alleviating smoke and pressure from inside the building. Firefighters also fought the fire from inside the building. Roberto Ramirez, who lives in an apartment home in the same building as the fire, woke up to people screaming in the small courtyard as firefighters pulled up. Ramirez, who had returned from a business trip earlier Friday morning, yelled to his wife that she and the couple's 4-year-old son needed to gather important documents and evacuate. The couple went through savings to make their home special but fear the fire damaged their stuff. "I'm glad I was here for my wife," he said. "We'll just have to save up again and buy everything again." Mykeba King was working nearby when her daughter called her saying that her building was on fire. When she spoke with Chron.com, she didn't know if her apartment home was saved. "I'm a single parent," King said. "This is our home. I don't know what we're going to do right now. We work very hard for what we have. It's hard to leave it behind. We have to start all over." Arson investigators are working to determine how it started. Jay R. Jordan covers breaking news in the Houston area. Read him on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and our subscriber site, HoustonChronicle.com | Follow him on Twitter at @JayRJordan | Email him at jay.jordan@chron.com | Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message Members of the Greater Houston Coalition for Justice have called for Houston Police Officers Union President Joe Gamaldi to resign after they felt comments he made on national television last week threatened activists. At a news conference Jan. 29 that followed a botched drug raid which left five HPD officers injured and two residents dead, Gamaldi said "we're going to be keeping track of y'all," saying critics were spreading negative rhetoric about police officers. He also said, "we've all got your number now." "This man went on not only local TV, but national TV to try to use this very particular instance to put a target on activists' backs," said Cesar Espinosa, executive director of FIEL Houston at a news conference in front of City Hall Thursday afternoon. "We do not need this in our city." Gamaldi had no comment on the call for him to resign. LATEST DEVELOPMENT: HPD officer connected to deadly raid, shootout relieved of duty The members have asked for a Department of Justice investigation to determine if HPD has any files on activists. FIEL Houston, Kallinen Law, Amnesty Houston and Houston Peace and Justice Center made up part of the Greater Houston Coalition for Justice that asked for Gamaldi to resign. Organizers also responded to news Thursday that a veteran HPD narcotics officer involved in the Jan. 28 drug raid was relieved of duty and was being questioned. Authorities, including Gamaldi and HPD Chief Art Acevedo, said earlier Thursday that "ongoing questions" surround the role the undercover officer had in the raid, but did not offer further detail. The officer has not been identified. "It's good that someone was relieved of duty, but Chief Acevedo should tell the public why he was relieved of duty," said civil rights lawyer Randall Kallinen. NEWS WHEN YOU NEED IT: Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message | Sign up for breaking news alerts delivered to your email here. After tabling action to close dozens of open positions within the county, Montgomery County commissioners will revisit the issue Tuesday during their regular meeting. The court will meet Tuesday at 9:30 a.m. on the fourth floor of the Alan B. Sadler Commissioners Court Building, 501 N. Thompson St. During the courts Jan. 29 meeting the court agreed to give county department heads about a week to fill vacant position before sweeping the funds from those positions into the countys contingency fund. However, the final warning does not apply to any law enforcement positions. The court agreed those funds should stay within their budgets for new personnel. Budget Officer Amanda Carter presented an analysis of the first quarter vacancies to the court and according to her information, for the period of Oct. 1 through Dec. 14, the county had 27 vacant positions. Four of those positions, Carter noted, were created during the countys budget workshops in July. By Dec. 14, some of the position had been vacant more than 90 days. The longest vacancy, Carter said, is 289 days. Following Carters presentation, Precinct 3 Commissioner James Noack motioned to close all the vacant positions but got little support from fellow court members. His motion died for lack of a second. If you cant hire someone in 90 days, you probably dont need to have the position open, Noack said. This has been a problem since I have been on this court. Elected officials keeping positions in perpetuity then coming to this court and allocating those monies as raises in the middle of the year. Its not acceptable. After some discussion, Noack conceded and motioned to revisit the issue during the courts Feb. 12 meeting. The agenda includes several items regarding the closing and opening of positions in several county departments including the Justice of the Peace Precinct 4 office, Information Technology and District Clerk In other business: Incorporation - The court will hear a presentation from The Woodlands Township regarding possible future incorporation of the community. Annual report - Larry Foerster, chairman for the Montgomery County Historical Commission will present the 2018 annual report to the commissioners. Property tax reform - The court will consider a resolution supporting legislative efforts on property tax reform. cdominguez@hcnonline.com Craig Moseley, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer After serving Crosby and Huffman since December 1979, the Kroger located on 105 Kennings Road, will officially close its doors in April. Krogers Houston Division Corporate Affairs Manager Sparkle Anderson said Kroger officials have attempted to increase sales, profitability and the shopping experience at the Crosby location for years. However, it has not worked, she said. Mary Austin Holley landed at Galveston on Feb. 6, 1843 on her fifth and final visit to her dead cousins former colony. When Stephen F. Austin was 11 years old, his father Moses sent him back east to stay with relatives the boy barely knew. From 1804 until 1807, the future Father of Texas studied at an academy in New Haven, Connecticut and got acquainted with his kinfolks. One of many cousins was Mary Austin Holley, daughter of Moses brother. At that point in their lives, Stephen and Mary had little in common. She was five or nine years older historians disagree on her birthday and already married to a man of the cloth who would be her husband for the next two decades. When the time came for higher education, Stephen passed up prestigious Yale for Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky. Mary must have thought her cousin a fool for turning his back on the hometown college she would have given her eyeteeth to attend. She had the brains but the wrong gender for Yale, which did not admit women until 1969. After nine happy years in Boston, Marys husband was elected president of cousin Stephens alma mater. She reluctantly moved to Kentucky, but religious differences with the trustees of the university ultimately culminated in Horaces resignation. On a ship voyage from New Orleans to New York in 1827, husband and wife both came down with yellow fever. Mary survived the scourge, but Horace succumbed and his body was dumped overboard, a common practice called burial at sea. A middle-aged widow with a young son to support, Mary went back to Louisiana to look for work. She found it as a governess on a plantation not far from New Orleans. For several years, Mary had closely followed the progress of Stephen F. Austin as he seemed almost singlehandedly to open Mexican Texas to Anglo-American settlement. A prolific letter-writer, she corresponded regularly with her cousin and her brother Henry, also a resident of Texas, both of whom urged her to see the promised land for herself. In October 1831, Mary did just that sailing from New Orleans to the mouth of the Brazos River and then upstream to Brazoria. A second ship brought Henrys wife and six children, ranging in age from four to 16, ten days later. It was a tight fit in the log cabin, but Mary did not mind so long as the person she most wanted to see did not disappoint her. Stephen kept his promise even though he had to crawl out of a sickbed and ride 60 miles on horseback through a blue norther. The rare family reunion was reason enough, but Marys desire to write a book about Texas made the difficult trip mandatory. The normally close-mouthed empressario found it surprisingly easy to talk to his cousin. Long into the night, Stephen poured out his heart to Mary telling her things no one else had ever heard before nor ever would again. The accomplished author turned their rambling conversations into coherent prose. In ten days she had the manuscript for Texas: Observations, Historical, Geographical, and Descriptive, in a Series of Letters Written during a Visit to Austins Colony, with a View to a Permanent Settlement in That Country in the Autumn of 1831. The title was a mouthful, but the book, published in 1833, was just what Austin needed. Marys glowing description of his frontier paradise was directly responsible for the immigration of hundreds if not thousands of Americans and Europeans to Texas. But, according to Marys biographers, something else also happened at Henry Austins place in 1831. Two lonely people overcame the daunting difference in their ages and the uncomfortably close proximity of their branches on the same family tree and fell in love. They determined, claimed one chronicler, that they would marry when Austin had settled affairs between his Texas colony and Mexico. But that was not what fate had in store for the alleged lovebirds. A family crisis delayed Marys return trip for three and a half years. Following the sudden death of her sister-in-law, brother Henry begged her to take three of his children. She could not say no and generously made a home for them in Lexington. The star-crossed cousins met for the last time on Mar. 12, 1836, six days after the fall of the Alamo. Stephen stopped for two days in Lexington on his five-month canvass of the United States for money and volunteers for the Texas Revolution. When not drumming up support for the heroic struggle, Mary put the finishing touches on Texas, the first English-language history of the soon-to-be sovereign land. Published in November 1836, it sold like hot cakes. Stephen never got a chance to read the best-seller. Exhausted by his travels and a lingering bout with malaria, he caught pneumonia and died on Dec. 27, 1836. Her romantic biographer observed sadly, Once again Mary lost the man she loved. Mary Austin Holley visited Texas on three more occasions but never made the Lone Star Republic her permanent home. She was living in New Orleans and working on a biography of cousin Stephen, when yellow fever, the scourge she had once escaped, cut short her life in August 1846. Bartees four books Texas Depression-Era Desperadoes, Murder Most Texan, Texas Boomtowns: A History of Blood and Oil and Unforgettable Texans available for purchase at barteehaile.com or by mail at P.O. Box 130011, Spring, TX 77393. Forty-four million Americans live in counties with a shortage of primary care physicians, according to a discouraging new report from UnitedHealth Group. This shortage will grow worse as our population ages and thus requires more medical care. Doctors educated abroad including many American citizens who have gone to medical school overseas are eager to fill the gaps in the U.S. physician workforce. And theyre doing so in increasing numbers. Given the depth of the doctor shortage, the country will need even more of them. The average wait to get a first-time appointment with a family medicine physician increased by 50 percent between 2014 and 2016, according to a study of 15 large metropolitan areas. The study found that people in Los Angeles wait an average of 42 days. Bostonians, an alarming 109 days. Theyre waiting because most doctors 80 percent, per one survey of nearly 9,000 doctors are overextended or operating at full capacity. Things arent slated to get easier for patients, or doctors. By 2030, the U.S. population will increase by 27 million. The number of Americans over 75 will jump 55 percent. Seniors need more medical care than younger Americans; about four in five people above the age of 75 suffer from multiple chronic diseases. In total, the United States could be short 49,000 primary care physicians by 2030. U.S. medical schools cant fix this shortfall on their own. Last year, less than 40 percent of their graduates chose residencies in primary care. Doctors trained at international medical schools are more likely to enter primary care specialties. About seven in 10 internationally trained doctors selected residencies in family medicine, internal medicine, and pediatrics in 2018. Thats an increase from 2017. International medical graduates are also more likely to practice in minority communities, where the physician shortage is most severe. Nationally, about one in four doctors was educated at an international med school. But in areas where at least 75 percent of the population is non-white, international medical graduates account for more than one-third of physicians. Many international medical graduates are actually U.S. citizens intent on returning home to practice. Three in four students from the school I lead St. Georges University in Grenada are from the United States. Last year, international medical graduates matched for U.S. residencies at the highest rate in 25 years. Thats good news. But America needs even more of them. Funding more residencies would be a start. The Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act would expand the number of federally funded residencies, especially in areas suffering from severe primary care shortages. States ought to contemplate similar initiatives. It stands to reason that doctors will stick around to practice after theyve spent years building their professional networks and communities where theyve done their residencies. Medical schools could also recruit more students from rural and low-income areas. Most med students come from the upper end of the income distribution and from urban or suburban areas. Theyre more likely than not to return to their communities, or ones like them, when they settle down to practice. At St. Georges, weve partnered with several U.S. universities that have a history of educating students from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds to offer qualified undergraduates guaranteed admission to our medical school. America faces a shortfall of primary care doctors. To fill that shortfall, state and national leaders must look abroad to graduates of international medical schools. G. Richard Olds, M.D., is President of St. Georges University. The latest bill filed by State Rep. Gina Calanni could help local law enforcement take action when overweight vehicles travel city limits. Calanni (D-District 132) filed House Bill 1308 would allow Katy police officers, among others, to apply for certification to enforce commercial vehicle standards for overweight trucks that pass through city limits. Similar legislation has passed in previous sessions. Im proud to file this bill for the safety of Katy residents, Calanni said in a news release. Under HB 1308, Katy police officers will be able to carry out the same functions as DPS officers to enforce state safety standards for large, overweight trucks. The Texas Department of Public Safety is currently the only law enforcement agency in the area authorized to enforce overweight commercial vehicle safety standards, but they do not have the resources to continually police downtown Katy. In the most recent city budget, Calanni reported, the cost of the scales and training was already budgeted. No fiscal implication to state government would be anticipated. After Katy City Council voted unanimously last summer to support this type of legislation, we are grateful to Rep. Calanni for her efforts to make Katy roads safe for our residents and allow our officers to target enforcement at overweight trucks that damage our citys infrastructure, said Katy Council Member At-Large Chris Harris in a news release. The bill carves out many conditions in which a city may qualify to apply for certification. In Katys case, it reads: a municipality with a population of less than 75,000 that is located in three counties, at least one of which has a population greater than 3.3 million. Katy is located in Harris, Fort Bend and Waller counties. While its population is estimated about 18,000, Harris Countys population is about 4.6 million. According to the Texas Transportation Code, fines for overweight trucks ranges from $100 to $10,000, depending on how many pounds overweight a truck may be. Overweight trucks also could damage roads, causing potholes or cracks. Calanni added, We have an obligation to give our local police every tool at their disposal to protect motorists on our roads and prevent road damage and potholes caused by overweight trucks. The goal of this bill is plain and simple: keep our roads safe. rkent@hcnonline.com (ANSA) - Genoa, February 8 - France should apologise for the French-led airstrikes on Libya that helped topple dictator Muammar Gheddafi in 2011, the consequences of which Italy is still paying for in terms of migrant flows, Transport Minister Danilo Toninelli said Friday. Toninelli is a senior member of the anti-establishment populist 5-Star Movement (M5S), whose leaders met with Yellow Vests members in Paris Tuesday and sparked a diplomatic crisis in which France recalled its ambassador. "France committed a serious mistake in 2011 and we are still paying the consequences of it, we Italians principally," said Toninelli. "It's a pity they don't say sorry," he said while adding "there is no clash with France...it's a friendly people". Legislation that would allow the U.S. government to sue OPEC for inflating oil prices cleared a key hurdle in the new session of Congress. The House Judiciary Committee, now led by Democrats, advanced the No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels Act" Thursday. That sets the bipartisan "NOPEC" bill, which would subject the cartel to possible antitrust action by the Department of Justice, up for a possible House vote. A similar bill targeting OPEC was introduced in the Senate on Thursday. OPECs members deliberately collude to limit crude oil production as a means of fixing prices, unfairly driving up the price of crude oil," House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler said before voting in favor of the legislation. The law would amend the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, the law used more than a century ago to break up the oil empire of John Rockefeller. RELATED: OPEC seeking legal strategy as U.S. pushes anti-cartel bill Various iterations of the bill have been proposed in the past, and former presidents have threatened to use their veto power to scupper the legislation. But President Donald Trump could be more amenable, given his frequent twitter attacks accusing the group of keeping oil prices artificially high. Im not going to predict it will get passed and enacted into law, but I think its prospects are pretty good, said Seth Bloom, former general counsel of the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee. OPEC doesnt have too many friends right now and the legislation may likely have a friend in the White House given Trump has written favorably about it in the past." U.S. Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim told members of a House subcommittee in December the administration continues to study the legislation. If OPEC members conducted the same manipulation in the United States that they practice in Vienna, they could be prosecuted, said Robbie Diamond, who heads up Securing Americas Future Energy. Their actions have a profound impact on U.S. consumers, businesses and our military, and our government can no longer allow that. 2019 Bloomberg L.P. Jared Sine has never swiped right on Tinder, but he is making all the right legal moves for Match.com. During his 30 months as general counsel and corporate secretary at Dallas-based Match, Sine has tripled the size of the legal department, unveiled a major data privacy effort, successfully litigated a major patent infringement claim against its main competitor, managed congressional cybersecurity inquiries and convinced California officials to require online dating sites to meet minimum safety standards for customers. Match, during those same 30 months, has seen its market cap quadruple - from $3 billion to $12 billion. The company employs close to 500 people and operates more than 45 brands - Match, Tinder, OKCupid and PlentyOfFish, for example - that have been translated into nearly 40 languages and are available in more than 200 countries across five continents. Business leaders and lawyers alike say they see Sines fingerprints throughout Matchs business operations. In just two short years, Jared has transformed the Match legal department into a world-class operation, says Sidley Austin partner Angela Zambrano. Jared innately understands where to put his focus and when his very capable team can handle difficult issues with minimal supervision. Jared is a master of being a counselor to the business, Zambrano says. In a company as dynamic and creative as Match, that personality is critical to his success. The Texas Lawbook and the DFW Chapter of the Association of Corporate Counsel announced Thursday night that Sine is the winner of the 2018 Outstanding Corporate Counsels General Counsel of the Year Award for a Large Legal Department. IN THE GENES: Genetic-based dating app works to find true love using your DNA Jared is really, really smart and has the horsepower to play at the highest levels of corporate law and business, says Caldwell Cassady Curry partner Brad Caldwell, who represents Match and Tinder in its intellectual property disputes with Bumble. Even though Jared is not a trial lawyer, he has a genuine curiosity about cases and litigation. He is very hands-on and interacts with us, but he doesnt meddle. I love it that he takes the time to talk with even the most junior of associates working on our matters, Caldwell says. Growing Up in Salt Lake City Sine grew up in Salt Lake City and is a devoted member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His father was a lawyer-turned-businessman. My dads business didnt do well, he says. If he had been given better legal advice and counsel, his business might very well have turned out differently. Sines mother grew up poor. She had no college education, but she took on three jobs and taught me to work hard, he says. She is now president of the Utah Restaurant Association. Mormon church leaders strongly encourage its teenaged boys to do two years of missionary service that combines community and humanitarian outreach programs with faith-based efforts. Sine was assigned to go to the Philippines. Its a very difficult thing to do - train for service and learn culture and the Tagoloan language in three months, he says. You are allowed two calls home a year to talk with your family. You learn to grow up quickly. It requires that you rely on a higher power. Sine was 19 and landed in Manila in September 1998. As he and others packed into an old retrofitted school bus, the worst typhoon in 30 years hit the island. The downpour caused the roads to flood and water literally rose to the level of the buss headlights. Sine survived the storm and his mission service - Only by the grace of God, he says - and went to Brigham Young University, where he received his bachelors degree in economics in 2004. Three years later, he received his law degree from BYU. In 2007, Cravath, Swaine & Moore hired Sine as an associate in its M&A practice, where he worked side-by-side on transactions with then-partner Ron Cami, who later became general counsel at TPG Capital and is now the GC at Waypoint Capital Group. Cravath was a great place to learn to be a lawyer, he says. They had this great rotation system where young lawyers are forced to work in different practice groups. HOOKUPS: Research: Dating app Tinder brings infidelity for some college couples In 2010, Sine jumped to Latham & Watkins, where he spent two years in its corporate transactions section. After two years at Latham, he was offered the position of corporate counsel at Seattle-based Expedia, which he found too good to pass up. Between 2012 and 2016, Sine worked on nearly a dozen M&A deals with a combined value of nearly $10 billion. It was so much fun to be a part of such an explosive growth in a business, he says. It was such an adrenaline rush. I probably worked more at Expedia than I did at Cravath and Latham combined, and that is really saying something. During Sines time at Expedia, he led the acquisitions of HomeAway, Orbitz, Travelocity and a majority stake in Trivago. In July 2016, Match named Sine its new general counsel. He immediately made some significant changes. The legal department was woefully understaffed and we realized that we needed to build a world class team of attorneys and paralegals, he says. We had about 10 lawyers. We now have 35, including attorneys in Japan, Dublin, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. After a multi-month internal review, Sine identified three issues the company needed to address immediately: data privacy, subscription services and platform liability. Sine and the legal team led an 18-month effort that involved hundreds of employees, several millions of dollars in expenses and more than 100,000 man hours to develop a global privacy program that meets or exceeds the standards set under General Data Protection Regulation for all of the companys businesses across the globe. Jared led a legal team that spearheaded a massive overhaul of the privacy practices, procedures and protocols across Match Groups 45 different brands and multiple technology platforms, Zambrano wrote in nominating Sine for the GC of the Year Award. As part of this process, the legal team evaluated each and every brands data processing features, protocols and policies for handling user information, developed a comprehensive privacy strategy and remediated any gaps between prior practices and the requirements under their new privacy program. Sine says he has advice for young business lawyers. It is critical that you never cut corners on ethics, he says. It doesnt matter how little experience you have or how much experience the opposing counsel has, you must always act ethically and you must always stand up for the best interest of your client. Sheppard Mullen partner Jason Mueller says Sine has an amazing legal mind. He thinks through every possible issue and scenario, whether its litigation, regulatory or transactional, Mueller says. Texaslawbook.net In a 2013 recorded video, Jack K. Telford admits that sawmill life was a hard life, but they still loved that life in Fostoria, Texas. Telford was born in the small sawmill community of Fostoria that existed in East Montgomery County from 1904 to 1957. In a recorded interview on Sept. 26, 2013, Telford relayed what it was like to grow up in Fostoria to Heritage Museum of Montgomery County Executive Director Sally Copley. The DVD is a part of an oral history project sponsored by the Heritage Museum. A variety of longtime residents have been interviewed for the project and DVDs may be purchased for $15 each at the museum. In Telfords 2013 interview, he tells about what it was like to grow up in Fostoria with the Santa Fe depot in front of his familys home. Early life Jack K. Telford was born in January 1926 in his familys home in Fostoria with Dr. Leggett and the nurse from next door bringing him into this world. His parents were John Leonce Pat Telford and Oyce Garner Telford. They had moved to Fostoria in November 1918. Telford said his father attended barber college in Dallas and was looking for a place to set up his business. Either Mr. Foster or one of the managers from the Fostoria mill was able to convince him to come to Fostoria. The family lived in a company home and Telfords father did a variety of jobs to support the family. He was the community barber, justice of the peace, night watchman at the mill, did notary work, was a deputy sheriff and later became a Texas Ranger. Telford recalls that there was talk of Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker and their gang coming through the Fostoria area. He went to the end of the road, thinking they were going to come there. He was armed and ready for them, Telford said. Fortunately they did not pass through the area. Telford also remembers his father talking about how the men who came to get haircuts could never hit the spittoon in the barbershop. Telford said his father would have to use medicated sawdust on the floor of the barbershop. Ill never forget Mr. Bill Dunham (the mill manager), he was a good man, but he loved his tobacco, Telford said. Life in Fostoria John McCullough Foster established his first retail lumberyard at Randolph, Kansas in 1879, but the Foster family owned 24 lumber yards across the country, according to research by East Montgomery County historian Kay Mayer Dawes. She put all of her research together in the book Fostoria: The Rise & Fall of Texas Mill Town. Montgomery Countys plentiful timbers caught the Fosters eye and by 1894, the company acquired land in Montgomery County. According to Dawes, Foster established a planing mill right next to a mill that was already in existence opened by Mr. Oliphant and Mr. Cline and the area at the time was called Clinesburg. However the Clineburg mill fell on hard times around 1904 and Foster bought it in a bankruptcy sale. Construction on a new mill began in the spring of 1905 and was finished the following January, according to Dawes research. One of McCulloughs sons, Benjamin Butler Foster, oversaw the Montgomery County operations. Telford grew up during the Depression era and he was certain that everyone else was poor also. The Santa Fe depot was just in front of the Telford house and the train used to come during the evening and everyone would go meet the train at the depot. There were people who traveled on these trains looking for jobs, at the time they called them hobos. Those people were hungry. Theyd get off the train and come to peoples houses looking for food, he said. Theyd offer to do a little work for a meal. You could rent a room for $1 and there was also a hotel on the south side of the tracks. In this time of segregation, the black and white sections of Fostoria were divided by the railroad tracks with each section having its own amenities. Telford remembers that as a respected lawmen of the community, his father had no trouble on either side of the tracks. Roads were dirt, but he does recall his parents going to Austin to vote to have Texas 105 paved. And the residents there lived their life by the blow of the mill whistle. During the Depression, there was a hard times whistle. At times, the mill wouldnt operate every day of the week. The hard times whistle would signal to workers not to come to work that day. Mill workers were paid with a red punch card. When it was cashed a hole was punched in it. They also were paid in brass currency that was only good in the towns commissary. If you wanted to use the money outside of Fostoria, it had to be exchanged for US currency. Life for a youngster in Fostoria For the young people, Telford said there wasnt a whole lot to do outside of little parties at the various homes. They would at times go to a show in nearby Cleveland. It was 10 cents to see a show. You could take a quarter and buy admission to a show and popcorn and still have money left over, Telford said. Some of his best friends were Tommy, whose dad worked at the mill, and Leon, whose dad worked at the planer. There was also his brother, John Leeonce Telford Jr., sister, Louella and adopted sister Patsy. He also remembers being barefoot a lot of the time. He had one suit and one pair of dress shoes and those were both reserved for Sunday church. The school was next to the cemetery in Fostoria. It only went through the ninth grade. Past the ninth grade, students transferred to Splendora or Cleveland high schools. Telford finished high school in Splendora. There was a Gulf Gas Station on a corner in Fostoria. When you pumped gas, it was 19 cents a gallon Telford said. He said this Gulf Station had a drinking fountain that had the best water youd ever drink that came from a deep, deep well. Even after the mill closed, people would go by and get a drink of that water, Telford said. Telford went on to work for the Fostoria mill, and later Humble Oil Company and Exxon before retiring to the Tarkington Prairie area. Fate of Fostoria Norman Dunham, the mill manager, was advised of the shutdown of the Fostoria mill in April 1957 by officers of the company in Kansas. Upgrading to an electric mill and the threat of a workers union lead to the mills demise. The mill closed in June 1957, and because the town ran with the support of the mill, it dwindled as well. We are grieved over the situation, but we must face it, Dunham said in an article in the June 13, 1957 Cleveland Advocate. He pointed out that most of the employees are over 50 and have never worked anywhere else. He said they found work elsewhere, started to draw social security or continued to grope for an answer to why the mill was closing. An iconic photo shot by Cleveland photographer Moon Young on the cover of Dawes book shows the post master, Guyler Hamblen, who was a good friend of Telfords father, taking down the sign at the Fostoria post office in the summer of 1957. Her book, full of pictures, documents and stories related to the former mill town, is on sale at the Cleveland Historical Museum at 203 E Boothe St, Cleveland, Texas and the Humble Museum, 219 E. Main Street, Humble, Texas. The book is $25 and 231 pages. Also visit more about East Montgomery County history at the East Montgomery County Heritage Society at www.emchs.org. DVDs on sale at the Heritage Museum Copies of the Heritage Museums oral history project are available for sale at the Heritage Museum of Montgomery County, 1506 I-45 North, Conroe. Call 936-539-6873 or visit http://heritagemuseum.us/ The DVD copies are $15 each. Longtime residents interviewed include: Floyd Baker, Barbara Bateman, Morris Bateman, Don Buckalew, Gary Calfee, Edith Clanton, Joe Corley, Lecretia G. Chatham, Mickey Deison, Seth Dorbandt, Whitson Etheridge, Martha Gandy, Don Granger, Celeste Graves, Roy Harris, Herbert Kix Lamp, Foster Madeley and Gerald Creighton, Mary McCoy, Margaret McCullough, Robin Montgomery, Anne Moore, Charlie Patterson, Rigby Owen Jr., Bob Peel, Sue Ann Powell, Toby Powell, Barb Sadler, Bob Shephard and Eddie Stephan, Gertie Spencer, George Strake Jr., Fostoria as remembered by Jack Telford, Coulson Tough and Dr. Wally Wilkerson. Nearly all U.S. kids spend too much time in front of a screen and too little time sleeping and exercising, according to a Houston study. The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, found just 1 in 20 adolescents are meeting national recommendations for the three health habits. The numbers were worse in girls than boys. "I expected the percentage of adolescents meeting all three requirements concurrently to be low, but not this low," Gregory Knell, a research fellow with the UT School of Public Health, said in a statement. "The results are a wake-up call for everyone who wants to make sure our children have a healthy future." Knell said that though there's lots of evidence showing teenagers don't exercise or sleep enough or keep their screen time in check, this is the first analysis of the three factors together among a nationally representative sample. Knell's team analyzed 2011-2017 survey data from nearly 60,000 high school students, of whom 56 percent were white, 22 percent were Hispanic, 14 percent were black and 3 percent were Asian. The responses were compared with guidelines that 14- to 18-year-olds daily get at least eight hours of sleep and an hour of moderate or vigorous physical activity and limit leisure time spent online and watching television to less than two hours. RELATED: More area high school students overweight, report shows Only three percent of girls met all three recommendations. Seven percent of boys did. The study also showed that older teenagers, blacks, Asians, those classified as obese and those who showed signs of depression were the least likely to meet the recommendations when compared to counterparts. Knell said the findings scratch the surface and demonstrate a need to learn more about the roles that parenting style and home environment may play in increasing or curtailing the behaviors. He called for further research about what can be done to reverse the trend. An abstract of the study, published this week in JAMA Pediatrics, is available here. Todd Ackerman covers medicine for the Houston Chronicle. He can be reached at todd.ackerman@chron.com or twitter.com/ChronMed. The governor's wife, Cecilia Abbott, was slated to attend Arrow's Freedom Place's seventh annual "Freedom to Fly" luncheon as an honoree. As first lady of Texas, she's a big draw for obvious reasons. So when organizers announced that her office had canceled the appearance due to unforeseen circumstances, an audible sigh swelled through River Oaks Country Club's ballroom. But it didn't last long. Plenty of surprises and powerful moments filled Thursday's program. Thanks to the generosity of underwriting co-chairs Amanda Boffone, Jo Lynn Falgout and Christine Falgout Gutknecht, some 320 attendees raised more than $325,000 toward healing and restoration programs for local victims of child sex trafficking. FOR HOUSTONCHRONICLE.COM SUBSCRIBERS: Chloe and Halle Bailey, who call Beyonce mentor, up for Grammys After special guest speaker and trafficking survivor Sarah Issac-Samuel shared her testimony -the mother of four has fostered 35 children, 15 of whom are victims of sexual abuse - a former Arrow's Freedom Place client also spoke. A first for the organization and event. Ashley, 20, sat onstage alongside Debi Tengler, Arrow Child & Family Ministries' chief relations officer, and explained why she was let go from her job at Sonic Drive-In due to lack of transportation. The young woman worried that asking God to answer her prayer was too big of a request. Little did Ashley know that six weeks prior, a former volunteer donated a Mini Cooper; yet another first for the non-profit. She was overcome with emotion when Tengler presented her with car keys to her new ride. Later, co-chairs Kristy Bradshaw, Stephanie Pai Fleck, Melissa Juneau and Laura Ward shocked the crowd with two more bombshells: a Dodge Grand Caravan presented by Houston Children's Charity and the Helfman family-owned River Oaks Chrysler Jeep Dodge Ram, plus an enhanced security and protection system for Arrow's Freedom Place's 115-acre property, partially underwritten by Jana and Richard Fant. SOUND ADVICE: Growing, arranging and photography tips from 'The Flower Expert' Sans first lady, Arena Energy Foundation and Josh Benson were both honored for their contributions and support. And lunch-goers answered several prayers. PREVIEW: Find fun things to do and see around Houston in our weekly Preview newsletter. Subscribe here. Women at the beginning of their career in the energy industry are flocking to renewables, a new survey by a Houston-based recruitment agency found. Based on a survey of 1,200 female professionals working in the energy industry, of women working in renewables, 63 percent are less than five years into their career. However, the NES Global Talent's survey found, of the women surveyed, oil and gas had the most people working in the sector, indicating the prevalence of oil and gas in the energy industry. But oil and gas may soon have problems recruiting young talent, the results suggest: Only 28 percent of women in oil and gas are less than five years into their career. Survey analysts wrote that the renewable energy sector was likely attracting young people due to its modern approach and environmental conscience, "resonating" with women early in their career. Over half of women working in the energy industry are less than a decade into their career; the most experienced women tended to be in oil and gas, the survey found. About 63 percent of those surveyed were the bread-winners in their household. RELATED: Millennial business women to watch in Houston this year All sectors of the energy industry are behind in closing the gender gap, survey analysts write, and inclusivity has been a challenge for years. In Houston, the "energy capital of the world," 27.8 percent of the oil and gas extraction and mining industry is made up of women. The city's female labor force participation rate is 68.7 percent, about four percentage points behind the national rate, according to the U.S. Census. Respondents said that more flexible working hours and better communication could make their company culture more welcoming and encouraging to women and that enhanced benefits, maternity leave and remote access to work would attract more women to the sector. The biggest challenges the energy industry faces, those surveyed said, are a lack of suitable roles for women and a lack of mentorship in their field. Hart Energy, an energy research and publishing firm based in Houston, will host a luncheon Feb. 12 at the Hilton Americas in Houston for women working in the energy sector. The event will celebrate 25 influential women working in the oil and gas industry. Houston oil field service company Baker Hughes has landed an equipment deal for Exxon Mobil and Qatar Petroleum's $10 billion Golden Pass LNG export terminal. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed but Baker Hughes confirmed on Thursday that the company will supply six heavy-duty gas turbines 12 centrifugal compressors to the liquefied natural gas export terminal. With construction expected to start over the next few weeks, Baker Hughes reported that Golden Pass LNG will be using six of the company's MS7001 EA turbines, which are already in use at 77 LNG production units in 13 nations. "We are proud to be working with Golden Pass on this innovative LNG project," Baker Hughes Turbomachinery & Process Solutions President & CEO Rod Christie said in a statement. "Today's announcement builds on our 30-year-plus track record of delivering high-availability and reliable LNG technology, with low total cost of operations." Business Moves: JV lands 'mega contract' to build Golden Pass LNG export terminal Located near the mouth of the Sabine River about 10 miles south of Port Arthur, the Golden Pass LNG export terminal will include three production units, known as trains, that will produce a combined 16 million metric tons of LNG per year. Golden Pass LNG is the latest liquefied natural gas export project to reach a final investment decision. U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry hosted a Tuesday morning signing ceremony in Washington D.C. for executives with Exxon Mobil and Qatar Petroleum. Fuel Fix: Get daily energy news headlines in your inbox Originally developed as an LNG import terminal in October 2010, record natural gas production in U.S. shale plays prompted Exxon Mobil to move forward with plans to add an export terminal to the facility. A joint venture between Houston's McDermott International, San Antonio's Zachry Group and Japan's Chiyoda International will serve as general contractors for the export terminal project. Construction is expected to begin over the next few weeks and be completed in 2024. The project is expected to generate 9,000 construction jobs over five years. Once in operation, the facility is will employ 200 people full-time. Houston's Apache Corp. said it will cut its 2019 capital spending by 20 percent from its previous plans for the new year. In the face of lower-than-expected crude prices, the oil and gas exploration and production firm opted to decrease its annual capital budget from a planned $3 billion down to $2.4 billion. Even its original plans were down from $3.1 billion last year. Zimbabwe churches try to broker dialogue after opposition snubs Mnangagwa talks Zimbabwe's churches on Thursday sought to broker talks between the government and its opponents over a political and economic crisis they said had left the country 'angry and traumatised', after the main opposition snubbed a meeting with the president. The southern African nation had hoped to shake off its divided past after a 2017 coup forced long time leader Robert Mugabe from power, but last year's disputed election won by President Emmerson Mnangagwa only deepened political rifts. A security crackdown on post-election bloodshed in August and another one last month against violent protests has critics saying that under Mnangagwa, Zimbabwe is revisiting the authoritarianism that was the hallmark of Mugabe's regime. Mnangagwa skipped Thursday's meeting after initially indicating he would attend. He was represented by Defence Minister Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri. Main opposition leader Nelson Chamisa, politicians from smaller parties, diplomats, business leaders and several cabinet ministers attended Thursday's meeting, the first such gathering since Mnangagwa first came to power in November 2017. Church leaders said they had stepped forward to mediate and reconcile political parties, which would lay the basis for the recovery of an economy battling a severe dollar shortage that has sapped supplies of fuel and medicines. 'Zimbabwe is clearly a hurting, angry and traumatised nation,' Bishop Ambrose Moyo, who heads the Ecumenical Church Leaders Forum, said during a prayer meeting with politicians. 'Such a dialogue as initiated by the churches will help us to do some serious introspection as we speak to one another. We stand committed to this process, set up by the united church to build peace, unity and prosperity.' Some ruling party officials have accused Chamisa and his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) of only seeking talks to be accommodated in government, which the opposition denies. The last time the MDC held talks with the ruling ZANU-PF in 2008 resulted in the formation of a unity government that ushered a period of political and economic stability. Striking a defiant tone, Chamisa said Zimbabwe's political and economic problems would not be fixed until the issue of Mnangagwa's legitimacy was resolved. He backed the church initiative, saying the clergy were independent mediators. Chamisa said any dialogue that did not involve Mnangagwa and himself would not succeed. He repeated demands for the removal of the military from the streets and release of hundreds of people jailed during the mid-January protests. e can't have dialogue while other people are in prison on account of politics. As I come to you I am a leader to members of parliament who cannot even sleep in their houses on account of politics, on account of accusations," said Chamisa.Chamisa, who sat with two cabinet ministers, snubbed Wednesday's talks with Mnangagwa, saying the dialogue must be brokered by an independent outside mediator. In a speech read for him by Muchinguri-Kashiri, Mnangagwa said his doors would remain open for dialogue. Valentine blues: What does God have to say about finding love? Earlier this week I went to buy my friend a birthday card. The choice was rather limited because there were rows and rows of cards for Valentine's Day. I love love. I don't think we need Valentine's Day to remind us to celebrate love, because love in all its wonderful shapes and sizes is worth celebrating every day. However, when you are single, which I was for many years, days like Valentine's Day can loom ominously and highlight what you don't have and what you yearn to celebrate. My first marriage ended and after I was divorced and had gone through a reasonable period of adjusting to my new single status, I decided I was ready to find love again. I knew myself well enough to know that I was better in a relationship than on my own. Not everyone feels like that, and as someone who loves diversity, I am thankful that some of us want to be married and some of us want to be single. I was challenged by a lot of well-meaning people during my search for love, who questioned my motives and hinted that it would be better to remain single. I was told that 'God wanted me for himself, he was a jealous God and didn't want to share me with anyone'. That wasn't the God that I knew and loved. I was challenged with, 'When you're happy being single, God will give you a partner.' But I knew that I was never going to be content or happy being single. I was also asked, 'Why isn't God enough for you?' I looked at the person asking the question and had to stop myself bursting out with the accusation, "Why isn't he enough for you? You're married!' Another person told me I should be married to Jesus. I was made to feel so guilty about wanting to be married again that I prayed for God to take my desire for a partner away. I pleaded with him to be enough, as people had told me he should be, but the desire didn't go. So I made a deal with myself: I would keep on looking for a husband and if I died single I would admit all those people were right. But where was I to look? Pubs, clubs, gyms none of those particularly appealed. Sadly I was also unlikely to find love in my local church as there was a distinct lack of Christian single men. So, with reservations, I started to explore the world of internet dating. My experiences have been somewhat varied. Some have been surprising, some have been a little scary and some have been downright odd, but there have also been some that have been perfectly lovely. The surprising ones are usually the ones that occur when you arrive at the agreed meeting place and hear your name being called. You glance around the room looking for the guy, with whom you have shared numerous photos, to discover he isn't in the room because either he posted photos that are 15 years old or he posted one of his cousin. Really? Did he think I wouldn't notice? The scary ones have been unsettling but not quite to the point that I have had to pepper-spray them or call the police. The downright odd have been the most interesting. The most striking was the one who thought it was OK to bring his mother she was lonely and didn't like being left on her own. I've tried the world of internet dating on and off throughout the past years and on the whole it's been an enjoyable experience, I have made some lovely friends along the way and there are a lot of people looking for love who simply find it difficult to meet someone in more conventional ways. These are some of the lessons I learned. 1. Pray. 2. Hope for everything but expect nothing. It's very easy to get carried away on the internet; emotions and feelings grow very quickly and it can be very intense. When you actually meet, those feelings are not always there in person. Be circumspect in what you share and what you give of yourself. Keep conversations light, warm and friendly but hold something back until you meet someone and the relationship develops. 3. Don't take it too seriously. If someone sees your profile but doesn't reply to your message, they are rejecting a photo and a few written words. They don't know you and are not rejecting you. If you take every non-reply as a rejection, you'll be crushed. Proverbs 4:23 tells us to 'Guard your heart for it is the wellspring of life'. When you are entering the world of internet dating, appreciate the wisdom and truth of those words. 4. Be open to those outside your specifications ie shorter, taller, older, younger, closer or further away. You may be surprised at how someone who didn't meet your criteria can light up your life with their sense of humour and emotional intelligence. 5. Be honest about who you are. We all want someone to fall in love with the real us, not a false impression. Write a realistic profile, don't say you love climbing mountains, when all you do is walk up the hill to the local take-away. Post current photos, otherwise when you meet it will quickly become obvious that you posted a 20-year-old photo of yourself when you were 30 lbs lighter and had all your hair. 6. Be wise, be safe. Always tell someone where you are going and who you are meeting, even if you feel embarrassed. If you don't want to tell your family or friends, tell your minister. I can smile at my internet dating experiences but there was real pain during those years. At times it felt as if my life had stopped. I felt I couldn't function unless there was a significant other in my life. I needed a soul mate. Paul Tournier, a doctor and pastoral counsellor, said: 'Most people spend their whole lives indefinitely preparing to live.' When I read that quote I realised that I had been living a half-life. I had been waiting for someone to come into my life to make my life complete. I began to understand that there is no one human person who can fulfil us completely, who can fulfil that deep intimate connection within us that we need and desire. I believe that God created us for relationship, with a desire for deep, intimate connection. We were shaped to be loved and to love. And God doesn't create that need within us and leave us wanting. He provides a way to meet that need. In the Celtic tradition there is an expression describing a unique friendship,anam cara. Anam is the Irish word for soul and cara is the word for friend. Your 'anam cara' is your 'soul friend', to whom you are joined in a bond that nothing can break. The anam cara provides a satisfaction for longings of the human heart, but there exists a longing within us which can never be completely met by any one person. I recognise now the longing I had was the longing that only the Creator God can fill. He is our true anam cara, our true soul mate, and it is our deep intimate connection with him that will give us the love we need to live life in all its fullness and to thrive. It is God's love that completes us. A couple of years ago I was married. We met on a dating sight. Internet dating worked for us and we thank God it did, we love being married. But what also works for us is that we both recognise that our anam cara is not each other but the God who is love and that is what fulfils us and gives us life. Mandy Bayton is The Cinnamon Network adviser for Wales and a freelance writer. Follow her on Twitter @mandyebayton Maduro needs to go, says Hispanic Christian leader The head of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference (NHCLC) has added his voice to calls for Nicolas Maduro to step down as president of Venezuela. Maduro has come under international pressure to relinquish power, with the US, UK, Canada, Brazil and Colombia among the countries that have recognised his political rival Juan Guaido as interim president. A statement from the British Foreign Office this week said: 'The oppression of the illegitimate, kleptocratic Maduro regime must end.' President of the NHCLC, the Rev Samuel Rodriguez, said Guaido represented the 'last-best hope' to restore prosperity and the rule of law to Venezuela. 'The time has come, and indeed is long overdue, for Nicolas Maduro to acknowledge what's already true, that he is now illegitimate and must step down as president of Venezuela,' he said. 'The charge of the nation must be placed back into the capable hands of the National Assembly, the last remaining internationally recognized political body in Venezuela, and the assembly's choice of new interim president, Juan Guaido.' He said it was time for Venezuela to move on from corruption, oppression and poverty and 'return their nation's future to one filled with hope and promise'. 'We at the NHCLC stand with Venezuelan people as we pray that their beautiful country will avoid any further violence even civil war and that its next chapter would be marked by a peaceful transition of power,' he said. Pressure has mounted on Maduro after it emerged that troops barricaded a bridge to stop humanitarian aid from coming into the country. Tearfund said that partner churches in Colombia are stepping in to help the thousands of people fleeing economic hardship in Venezuela. The churches have been assisting families arriving 'tired and hungry' by providing food, healthcare and childcare. 'There's nothing to eat or drink in the places they stay, and no electricity,' the development agency said. Pastor Samuel Olson, president of the Evangelical Council of Venezuela, has appealed to Venezuela's Christians to pray 'together as a family, asking God that through His Holy Spirit cares, directs and blesses our nation in this critical hour of its history', Evangelical Focus reports. Tearfund has released this prayer for Christians to use for Venezuela: Father God, We ask you to bring a peaceful resolution to the crisis in Venezuela. For the thousands who have fled to get help would you keep them safe, healthy and hopeful. And for the friends and family they've had to leave behind, may they also have your protection and provision. Let there be a quick and peaceful solution to the political conflict, without military intervention. And may Tearfund's partners continue to be able to support Venezuelans in Colombia. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. In defence of the gentle man I'm currently recovering from a trip to New Orleans. I was there on business and while I fooled myself into thinking that I'd managed to escape the lag on the way home, in truth I'm still not quite in the same time zone. The problem started over there. A six-hour time difference and midday flight to the city put my body clock out of sync, meaning I woke each morning at 4 am and was up for the day (something I hoped the last five years living with a child might have given me some defence against). At the weekend this was nice, I could FaceTime home and chat to my wife and son, catching up on what I'd missed and finding out their plans for the day. But by the time Monday rolled around it wasn't so useful. With nothing else on offer I switched on the TV in my hotel room and discovered that the wonder of American TV extends into its paid-for advertising spots. My favourite was a man dressed in white robes, he sang to a drawing of Jesus ominously hovering in the corner of the screen. I often recognised the words but never the tune, which is to be applauded. He moved onto the spoken word and it was all fairly standard until he turned to the subject of 'men'. Most of what he said is lost in a mixture of bewilderment and jet-lag but I wrote down one thing that I knew I wouldn't believe had happened if I'd didn't capture it. He was mid-rant about men and found himself talking about our 'feminine side'. His take on this was: 'If you got a feminine side you must be a bisexual.' It's a remarkably stupid comment but he isn't alone in this type of nonsense thinking. A recent article on Desiring God (the online resource platform of John Piper) written by staff writer Greg Morse, Play The Man You Are: Will Effeminacy Keep Anyone from Heaven? caught my eye. The article begins by invoking the recent controversial Gillette commercial alongside some scaremongering tales about teachers banned from saying 'girls and boys' or grown men entering female changing rooms (none of which are backed up with any proof). Having alerted the reader to how petrifying the world he has just created is, he goes on to help by pointing out some of the traits of effeminacy. Things like, 'lispy sentences, light gestures, soft mannerisms, and flamboyant jokes'. He continues, 'So, am I questioning every man with a high voice? Of course not. Such men do not deny their manhood by speaking with the voice God gave them. Am I questioning gentleness? Not in the least; it is a fruit of the Spirit found in all mature godly men. Am I questioning wearing floral shirts and tight jeans? Perhaps.' Greg Morse is just the latest in a growing list of men who want to explain how Christian men should behave. Don't wear tight jeans. Don't drink lemon tea. Don't forget to grow a beard. Don't cook inside. Don't eat anything that wasn't alive before you barbecued it outside. Don't cry. Don't tell me how you feel. Don't let a woman hold authority over you. Don't look uninterested in motorbikes. Don't drive an electric car. Don't neglect the beard. They want us to know that God is like The Rock, smashing weights, wearing smart suits and then making a million at the office before the day even begins. They want us to know that Jesus is your 'bro' who loves shooting stuff and kicking stuff and setting fire to stuff. They want us to know how terrible it is that the church has become feminine (ironic for a bride and certainly not an indication of any progressive leaning). And when it comes to women, of course we're faithful to our wives, but if weren't married...well let's just say we would lead all those ladies to the Lord (wink wink, nudge nudge #lads) The 'soft' become a punchline and the 'effeminate' become a punchbag. So while the world progresses, while we try harder to make every space safer, smash every glass ceiling, right the wrongs of the past and usher in an age of greater equality, there emerge these last enclaves of sexism and homophobia masquerading as ministry for a breed of man masquerading as underrepresented and oppressed. Let me be clear, not everyone who leads or engages in these ministries is sexist or homophobic, far from it. But you can be sure that every sexist and homophobic man in the church is drawn to them. And every time they jokingly ban quinoa. Every time they snigger at a pink shirt. Every time they make a joke about 'the wife's spending'. Every time they tell us that 'feminism is okay but...', every time they tell us that they 'respect women but...' Every time they tell us to 'man up', every time they laud strength and belittle weakness. Every time they point us to Paul rather than listen to the Christ: they push us further and further from the men God calls us to be and closer to the men they want us to be. Men just like them. Greg Morse and I do agree on one thing (I'm sure we agree on more and I'm trying not to caricature a brother in Christ too hard). He describes Jesus as 'the model of God-honoring masculinity'. I couldn't agree more. I just wonder if the 1st-century, 30-year-old unmarried man who rejected gender stereotypes, cried when his friend died, took time to be gentle with children, welcomed the outcast, refused to accept the religiously enforced norms of his day and then surrendered to the government without so much as swinging a punch would be all that welcome in one of these places where only 'real men' need apply. Maybe it's time that Christian men asked themselves the toughest question of all is there's really that much space for the man Christ in their masculinity? Matt White is a Northern Irish TV producer living in Essex and working in London. Follow him on Twitter @mattgwhite British Pregnancy Advisory Service chief thinks UK should copy New York's radical late-term abortion law The head of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) has said she wants to see the radical late-term abortion law passed in New York state become reality in the UK too. The Reproductive Health Act (RHA) signed by governor Andrew Cuomo horrified pro-lifers by moving abortion from the penal code to the health code and allowing abortion up to the point of birth if the mother's life or health is at risk. It also removes the requirement in some cases for the abortion to be carried out by a doctor. The Catholic Church, evangelist Franklin Graham and Hillsong pastor Carl Lentz were among those who strongly criticised the bill. But writing in Spiked, BPAS chief executive Ann Furedi hailed the RHA as a 'breakthrough for choice' and said it was 'pretty much' what BPAS and other pro-choice organisations in the UK are campaigning for. 'It seems a sensible ask,' she wrote. 'Abortion is safe and nurses and midwives are well placed to provide it. If we respect women and respect their decisions about 'family planning', it seems insane to make an abortion that a woman requests criminal. 'What we'd like in Britain is for politicians to accept what policymakers in New York have agreed.' Under current law, abortions in England, Wales and Scotland can be legally carried out before 24 weeks of pregnancy, but there is no time limit if the mother's life is deemed to be at risk or if the child is expected to be born with a severe disability. A parliamentary question asked by Sir John Hayes last December revealed that late-term abortions are on the rise in the UK. The answer from Jackie Doyle-Price revealed that the number of abortions after 20 weeks rose by 30 per cent from 2,753 in 2013 to 3,564 in 2017. The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children was critical of any attempts to further relax UK abortion laws in light of the statistics. 'The RHA in New York has rightly caused outrage,' it said. 'However, it also serves as a reminder that the provision that has sparked the most heated debate - late-term abortions - already happens on a large scale here in the UK. 'As for the other provisions in the bill, Ann Furedi and her allies in Parliament have made it clear that they are determined to go to any lengths (including hijacking a domestic abuse bill) to impose an equally extreme abortion regime here.' Weekly briefing: Christian student group, Trump defends unborn, pope in UAE Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment We've compiled the top stories of the week. Here's what you need to know: University cant ban Christian group A federal judge ruled in favor of Business Leaders in Christ, saying that the University of Iowa cannot selectively enforce its nondiscrimination policy. The Christian student group requires that its leaders agree to a set of beliefs and was thus banned from campus for violating the schools human rights policy. She really made a ruling that should have an impact across the country for university officials who think it is OK to discriminate against religious groups because of their beliefs. attorney Eric Baxter of the legal nonprofit Becket Trump defends the unborn in State of Union, Prayer Breakfast speeches In response to New Yorks new expansive abortion law and comments by Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam that some interpreted as support for infanticide, President Donald Trump called on Congress during the State of the Union to reaffirm a fundamental truth that all children born and unborn are made in the holy image of God. He echoed his remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast. His comments came just after Senate Democrats rejected a bill meant to protect the life of babies who survive an abortion. Supreme Court blocks Louisiana abortion law A Louisiana law requiring abortion providers to have admitting privileges at a hospital was put on hold by the Supreme Court on Thursday, a day before it was slated to go into effect. Chief Justice John Roberts joined the liberal justices in the 5-4 vote. Newly confirmed Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote the dissent, arguing that it would have been better if the three doctors who currently perform abortions in the state filed a motion after they actually made attempts to obtain admitting privileges so as to determine the actual effect of the law. First papal mass on Arabian Peninsula Pope Francis became the first pontiff to visit the Arabian Peninsula this week. He delivered a mass in the United Arab Emirates, which proclaimed 2019 as the Year of Tolerance, that was attended by nearly 200,000 people. Some believe the invitation to the pope served as a cover for the Islamic countrys poor human rights and religious freedom record. Christian worship can be done in private but not in public. Nevertheless, the public mass proved to be historic and with the event splashed all over the front pages of Arabic newspapers, Johnnie Moore, who serves on the U.S. Commission for International Religious Freedom, believes it makes a profound statement to the broader Islamic world. Misconceptions about missions to the unreached Read our feature piece about how missions to the unreached has evolved and what many get wrong about it. Pray for The family of Pastor Tun Nu, who was kidnapped and killed in Myanmar Nigerians who have endured massacres at the hands of the military and security forces New releases Album: The Work, Vol. I by Elias Dummer (Feb. 8) Songs of the House (Live) by Corey Voss & Madison Street Worship (Feb. 8) Books: The Theft of Americas Soul: Blowing the Lid Off the Lies That Are Destroying Our Country by Phil Robertson (Feb. 5) The Truth About Men: What Men and Women Need to Know by DeVon Franklin (Feb. 5) Email Whatsapp Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment The settlers and the founders of this country spoke a lot about their posterity the generations that would follow them. For example, the Constitution begins, We the People of the United States, in Order tosecure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution (emphasis added). Long before the Constitution was written, Rev. John Winthrop, the founder of Boston and leader of the first major migration of the Puritans from England, told his followers in the famous City on a Hill speech (actually called, A Model of Christian Charity): Now the only way to avoid shipwreck and to provide for our posterity, is to follow the counsel of Micah, to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God. That was in 1630. When the Puritans founded Harvard in 1636 for the sake of ministerial training and later named it in honor of Rev. John Harvard because of his generous donations, they mentioned posterity as part of their raison detre. Their goal was to advance Learning and to perpetuate it to Posterity; dreading to leave an illiterate Ministry to the Churches, when our present Ministers shall lie in the Dust. The Massachusetts Congress in 1775 declared, Resistance to tyranny becomes the Christian and social duty of each individual. Fleets, troops, and every implement of war are sent into the province, to wrest from you that freedom which it is your duty, even at the risk of your lives, to hand inviolate to posterity. On December 16, 1796, President George Washington wrote to Congress about the need to secure to ourselves and to posterity that liberty which is to all of us so dear. Posterity. Posterity. Posterity. But now liberalized abortion laws are taking aim at our posterity. New York just passed a law that out-Roes Roe v. Wade. The 1973 abortion ruling from the Supreme Court stated explicitly that it was legalizing abortion for the first trimester. On the same day, the Court also issued the companion ruling, Doe v. Bolton, which allows for later term abortions if a doctor approves. The law New York recently passed will allow for abortion right up to the moment of birth. Lawmakers in Virginia tried to pass a similar law---essentially sanctioning infanticide---allowing for an abortion after birth. Cheryl Sullenger of Operation Rescue told me, The recent discussion on late-term abortions and even the killing of newborns is a tough discussion that Americans must have in order to help us face the brutal reality of what abortion does to an innocent and living baby. This discussion is waking up people and may help to finally bring this barbaric practice to an end. We could say that on January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court declared war on our posterity. And now, 60 million abortions later---we are still suffering as a nation. No wonder we cannot keep up with our social security payments. We have killed off 60 million of our posterity, many of whom would be paying in by now. How will future generations judge this one? We now have 4D sonograms. We can see the humanity of the unborn. There, in color, is our posterity---just waiting to come out---but too often he or she (and its always a he or she, never an it) meets a violent, premature end. Future generations will look back at us and our barbarism toward our posterity in the way we today look back at slave-owners. One commentator noted, Whats the most dangerous place in America? Its in your mothers womb. It should be the safest place in America. Abortion clinics are often asked by scared women (the vast majority of whom feel that they are forced to abort), Is it a baby? The facility personnel tell them its just a clump of tissue, its just a bunch of cells. Its not really a baby. Then in many cases they carefully perform the abortions in such a way so they can save the kidneys, the liver, the lungs, the heart, the brains. Why? So they can sell these to laboratories for research for monetary profit. All of this is documented by David Daleiden and his undercover videos. Apparently, our posterity can fetch a good price in the marketplace. Posterity, declared John Adams in a letter to his wife (4/26/1777), "You will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it. If you do not, I shall repent it in Heaven that I ever took half the pains to preserve it." Forget our posterity, say the modern humanists---only we the born have value today. Our forefathers sacrificed for their posterity---us. But we the born today sacrifice our posterity for our own (perceived) well-being, to our everlasting shame. Jerry Newcombe, D.Min., is an on-air host/senior producer for D. James Kennedy Ministries. He has written/co-written 28 books, e.g., The Unstoppable Jesus Christ, Doubting Thomas (w/ Mark Beliles, on Jefferson), and What If Jesus Had Never Been Born? (w/ D. James Kennedy) & the bestseller, George Washington's Sacred Fire (w/ Peter Lillback) djkm.org @newcombejerry www.jerrynewcombe.com Email Whatsapp Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Officially, the Netherlands is a safer country to live in than the United States. Its gun homicide rate is about 4 percent that of the United States, and its official murder rate is less than one-fourth that of the United States. The key word in that statement is official. Because, as a recent report in the Guardian tells us, theres a lot of killing going on in the Netherlands that doesnt involve a gun and isnt classified as murder, although it should be. An article in the January 18 edition of Britains Guardian newspaper asked the question Death on demand: has euthanasia gone too far? Now to be clear, the Guardian is the British Lefts paper of record. Its a far more liberal publication than any mainstream American newspaper. So for the Guardian to ask whether euthanasia has gone too far suggests that things could be a lot worse than the public has been led to believe. And the area of focus for the piece was The Netherlands. The Guardian found that in 2017 well over a quarter of all deaths in the Netherlands were induced. Induced means that the person died at his or someone elses hand, instead of by illness or accident. By way of comparison, during the same period in the United States approximately 65,000 deaths out of more than 2.7 million were induced. This includes approximately 17,000 homicides, 45,000 suicides, and 1,300 deaths via physician-assisted suicide. Thats only 2.5 percent. So, which one is the more dangerous country again? As I noted, the Netherlands official homicide rate is one-fifth that of the United States, and its suicide rate is about a third lower. So, whos inducing all these deaths? The troubling answer is doctors. Weve talked a lot on BreakPoint about the ever-expanding euthanasia-industrial complex. We have told you about how the so-called right to die eventually becomes, in effect, the duty to die. Weve also told the stories of doctors so eager to end life that it isnt clear in some instances if it was what the patient actually wanted. Still, even in the context of all of those realities, what the Guardian found was shocking. For example, Dutch doctors commonly practice whats known as terminal sedation. This is a slow-motion euthanasia wherein patients not in the active stage of dying are put into artificial comas and denied all sustenance until they dehydrate to death. This is different from palliative sedation, which is a rarely required procedure in which patients near death are sedated to control pain or other symptoms such as severe agitation or air hunger that cannot be alleviated in any other manner. While approximately 6,600 Dutch were officially euthanized and another 1,950 people killed themselves in 2017, the Guardian found that the number of people who died under palliative sedation in theory, succumbing to their illness while cocooned from physical discomfort, but in practice often dying of dehydration while unconscious [that is, terminal sedation] hit an astonishing 32,000. Add it all up, and in 2017 more than 40,000 of the 150,000 deaths in the Netherlands were induced. While the Guardian was astonished, Wesley J. Smith wasnt. Hes among those telling anyone who will listen that in places like the Netherlands the line between palliative sedation and terminal sedation has been blurred for some time. As he wrote in the National Review, Since euthanasia was first decriminalized in the Netherlands, the countrys doctors have traveled a very dark road. The category of people deemed candidates for induced death has steadily grown. And while a theoretical line has been crossed, Dutch officials do nothing. It could hardly be otherwise. As Smith put it, the Dutch arent horrible, ghoulish people. But they are logical. Once they accepted the premise that killing is an acceptable answer to suffering, theyre now simply taking that belief precisely where it leads. Which makes the Netherlands a lot more dangerous than official stats suggest. And which makes me ask, Americans, is this what we really want? Resources Doctors Induce Twenty-Five Percent of Dutch Deaths, Wesley J. Smith | National Review | January 21, 2019 How Physician-Assisted Suicide Endangers the Weak, Corrupts Medicine, Compromises the Family, and Violates Human Dignity and Equality, Ryan T. Anderson | Heritage Foundation | March 24, 2015 When Is It Right to Die? A Comforting and Surprising Look at Death and Dying, Joni Eareckson Tada | Zondervan | 2018 Originally published at Breakpoint. Email Whatsapp Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment To learn Biblical answers to your financial questions, you can #AskChuck @AskCrown your questions by clicking here. Questions used may be lightly edited for length or clarity. Dear Chuck, The most recent New York abortion legislation is appalling; but besides being morally wrong, wont a population decline hurt our economy? This seems like a bad direction for us all. Concerned American Dear Concerned, Your concern is well placed. Yes, the long-term economic consequences of abortion are bad for everyone. New York States Reproductive Health Act, which allows late-term abortions performed by health-care practitioners when the patient is within 24 weeks from the commencement of pregnancy, or there is an absence of fetal viability or the abortion is necessary to protect the patients life or health is a tragic legislative decision. Not only is it a moral disaster, but the collective consequences will also have far-reaching effects on our national economy. And it is coming at the worst possible time. Falling Birthrates Birth rates are falling around the world and not just because of abortion. Fertility rates around the world have been dropping and The World Bank and others are becoming acutely aware of the troubling trends. Birth rates in Asia, Europe, Russia and Latin America have been plummeting. The "total fertility rate" (TFR) in the United States, the number of children the average woman will have in her lifetime, dropped from 2.12 in 2007 to an estimated 1.76 in 2017. That is less than the replacement level of 2.1 and less than half of the 1960s number of 3.7. We are approaching the birth rate of the Chinese where they are currently experiencing a 60 year low in TFR. They are concerned too: China should not only fully relax the family planning policy, but also introduce policies to encourage births, said demographer He Yafu. Long-term low fertility rates will bring a series of negative effects on the economy and society, leading to the increasingly serious aging of the population, a decreasing labor force and a higher dependency ratio. Economic Consequences My friend, Jerry Bowyer, wrote an article for Townhall Finance notes a similar concern: A very low birth rate is economic death in the long run, but a country can run an economy without babies pretty well (not counting toy makers) for a while. Debt is a big long-term problem. Japan is brittle because of debt. Eventually there will likely be a reckoning, a horrible one, with a full-blown debt crisis and a nation filled with nursing homes unable to work its way out of it. Jerry and other experts see the writing on the wall. Analysis from Thomas Lee, at Fundstrat.com reveals that America is expected to have a shortage of 8.2 million workers over the next decade. With too few people adding to the GDP, who is going to fund pension plans, pay into Social Security, support the elderly population, or work in the healthcare industry? The diaper industry will be spared immediate pain by reducing the production of baby sizes and increasing production of adult sizes. Toys R Us closed reportedly due to debt, rising labor costs, and the inability to compete with Amazon, Walmart, and Target. But, they also offered this chilling reason: Most of our end-customers are newborns and children, the company explained in a recent financial filing, and as a result, our revenues are dependent on the birth rates in countries where we operate. In recent years, many countries birth rates have dropped or stagnatedA continued and significant decline in the number of newborns and children in these countries could have a material adverse effect on our operating results. Andrew Van Dam, of the Washington Post, commented, And thats why the companys demise should worry the rest of us. Toys R Us focuses on kids, so its feeling the crunch from declining birth rates long before the rest of the economy. But its just a matter of time before the trends that toppled the troubled toy maker put the squeeze on businesses that cater to consumers of all ages. Interestingly, Toys R Us donated money to Planned Parenthood, an organization that may have helped put them out of business. When Jerusalem was taken into Babylonian exile, the people were troubled and confused. As refugees, their circumstances were dire: no money, no job, and no hope for the future. But, Jeremiah directed: Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. (Jeremiah 29:6 ESV) God gave them clear instructions to marry and have children, knowing that their lives would be blessed by trusting Him and faithfully following His plan. The Scripture records that they were able to prosper greatly, even in captivity, while increasing and multiplying the size of their families. True Riches In the past one hundred years, our culture has flipped from one of large families in small houses to small families in large houses. It requires faith to trust Him when the world constantly bombards us with contrary information. Overpopulation, mass starvation, and the terrible expense of raising a child are all lies against Gods plan to bless us as we raise the next generation of stewards to care for the Earth and its vast resources. Without people, there is no economy. The cries for the freedom to abort a child - right up to weeks before birth - is a prime example of man doing what is right in their own eyes (Judges 17:6). It is time for us to speak out about the love and joy the true riches that money cannot buy that we experience within our families. Children are the future ambassadors for Christ and believers have the awesome privilege of raising them for His glory. Parents, if you are weary, humbly seek help. Grandparents, aunts, and uncles, come alongside and assist as you are able. Its a difficult world to navigate, and your wisdom and experience are needed and treasured. We must give what we can to help Gods people be fruitful and multiply. When families grow and are strengthened, we are all beneficiaries of Gods true riches. University accused of creating watch list for faith groups, denies clubs are on probation Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment A conservative religious freedom law group claims that the University of Iowa has created a watch list highlighting religious student groups that have what the school claims are discriminatory leadership policies. Becket, a non-profit legal group that works to defend First Amendment rights, announced in a press release Tuesday that the University of Iowa admitted in court last Friday that it has a list in which over 30 religious student groups are singled out for leadership policies that are said to violate the schools human rights code and the Iowa Civil Rights Act. The universitys human rights policy bars discrimination on the basis of religion, sexual orientation, gender identity and gender among other identifiers. Becket explains that the schools disclosure was made in response to a federal courts demand that the university identifies all of the student groups that it de-registered last year because of their leadership policies. In the case of Christian groups that were de-registered, they hold policies that require leaders in the group to be Christian and affirm and live in accordance with the groups statements of faith. Student groups of other faiths and even some secular groups with certain leadership criteria were also impacted. The issue was driven to the forefront of the universitys attention when a gay student was denied a leadership position in the group Business Leaders in Christ after he failed to accept the groups statement of faith opposing homosexuality. After being de-recognized as an official student group, Business Leaders in Christ filed a lawsuit claiming that the policy had been unfairly applied and was not being applied evenly to other campus groups, including other religious student groups. After de-recognizing other student groups with similar policies, those students groups were temporarily reinstated last August after InterVarsity Graduate Christian Fellowship threatened to file its own lawsuit. The groups are temporarily reinstated until litigation involving these matters are settled. According to Becket, the religious groups listed on what it calls a watch list are placed on probationary status. However, the university denies that the groups are in probationary status and stresses that the groups are still granted full access as registered groups. The list in question technically lists all 579 registered student groups at the university, however, Becket objects to the fact that the only groups highlighted in blue on the list are Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Christian and other religious student clubs. The list also indicates whether or not such groups are in compliance with the university human rights policy. As in the case of the groups highlighted in blue, the list indicates that the university has stopped its review of those organizations policies pending litigation. Becket, which represents Business Leaders in Christ and InterVarsity, claims that the watch list is the latest evidence confirming that the university has been singling out religious groups and discriminating against them. For a public institution to single out religious student groups and threaten their expulsion is textbook Big Brother, Eric Baxter, vice president and senior counsel at Becket, said in a statement. The universitys blatant double-standard and its desire to target and track religious groups in the name of nondiscrimination, while ignoring dozens of other bigger groups who engage in more so-called discrimination, is doublethink that would make the Ministry of Truth blush. However, the university claims that Baxter has blatantly misrepresented the facts and documentation submitted to the court by the University of Iowa. All religious organizations remain in registered status while the court decides, and ultimately directs, the university on how it should address the conflict that currently exists between the First Amendment and the Iowa Civil Rights Act, the university's statement shared with The Christian Post reads. The university agreed with counsel for BLinC and InterVarsity to place the review of religious organization constitutions on hold once the InterVarsity lawsuit was filed against the university with the understanding that plaintiffs counsel would not file any further lawsuits pertaining to this issue pending the decision by the court in BLinC. The university maintains that the registered religious and faith-based student groups continue to have full access to all benefits, funding, facilities, and resources that are offered to all other student organizations on campus. Therefore, the university has not placed any religious student organization on probationary status as insinuated by BLinCs legal counsel, the statement assures. The universitys statement concluded that the University of Iowa does not tolerate discrimination of any kind in accordance with federal and state law. Becket Media Relations Manager Ryan Colby hit back at the universitys response. "The document filed by the university on Friday only underscores its discrimination," Colby told Fox News in a statement. "It shows that if the university wins, religious organizations will be subject to deregistration for requiring their leaders to be [adherents]. It also shows that all other organizations dozens of which screen their leaders based on sex or other categories [protected by] the Human Rights Policy are not being subjected to any review, and will not be even after the lawsuits are over. If that is not religious discrimination, we eagerly await for the university to tell us what it is. Indeed, two years already, and still waiting." Pro-life activists plan Day of Mourning, call for repentance after revolting NY abortion law Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment NEW YORK Pro-life activists are calling for a repentance a week after the New York state Legislature passed a bill making it legal for abortionists and other health care professionals to perform abortions up to birth for any reason that might threaten a womans mental or physical health. On February 23, theres going to be a national day of mourning. What will happen on that day is nationwide we are encouraging people to do what we did here. Shut your business down, dont collect sales tax that day, wear black, repent for our own apathy on this issue of abortion overall, Jon Speed, owner of the Jon Speed: The Book Scout in Syracuse told The Christian Post Friday. The controversial Reproductive Health Act that abortion advocates have been trying to get passed for 12 years and has been vehemently opposed by religious and conservative groups, passed with a 38-28 vote and thunderous applause in the state Senate chamber on Jan. 22. The bill codifies federal abortion rights guaranteed under the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision and removes abortion from the state's criminal code. Speed, who calls the RHA revolting, is also pastor of Christ Is King Baptist Church. He has been in mourning since Jan. 22 and drew the attention of pro-life supporters when he shut down his business in protest on Jan. 23. The book store is closed today. It is a day of mourning in New York. In honor of the thousands of babies that will die in the years to come, we shall not be collecting sales tax for this tyrannical government today. We will on other days, under duress, but not today, Speed declared in a viral tweet. Speeds protest has since launched a campaign called the Day of Mourning, supported by high profile pro-life figures such as David and Jason Benham. The state of New York just voted to expand abortion access right up to the birth of the baby! To celebrate this unbelievable depravity they lit the One World Trade Center in pink! Women used to celebrate motherhood and find joy in their children. Today, in places like New York City, they are taking joy in destroying their children. N.Y. State has crossed a line of inhumanity that should drive us to our knees, a summary on the campaigns website said. Forty-six years of the state sanctioned killing of our most helpless and defenseless children should cause us to weep, to mourn, and to take action. What is to be thought of a society that kills her own children? What will the future be of such a heartless society that celebrates such barbaric inhumanity? the campaign asked. Along with encouraging pro-life business owners to wear black, repent for abortion and closing down their businesses in protest, the group is also asking pro-lifers to refrain from shopping. The Day of Mourning will culminate in with a rally at the Empire State Plaza Convention Center in Albany, New York, from 1 p.m. 3 p.m. on Feb. 23. Speed, who will be speaking at the event, said the organizers of the rally are looking to make a difference beyond the appearance of a pep rally. The focus is New York state, we want the citizens of New York to express their displeasure with this thing and do more than just say, go to a March for Life rally or do more than give $5 to a pro-life lobbyist, but actually be involved in something thats not just a pep rally. "Unfortunately, some of these large scale pro-life things come across like pep rally look at all the good things weve done and were losing the battle, Speed said. Its time for a reassessment. I think thats the goal, to get people to reassess this thing and really repent over this and not just see it as a voting issue among many others. The pastor said that there's also talk among organizers to maybe make the Day of Mourning an event on the 23rd of each month. Its really pathetic. There comes a point where you gotta say enough bloods been shed. In this case its the Democrats, but Im not even looking at this as a political issue. Republicans have plenty of blood on their hands. Theyve tried to regulate abortion and in the process of regulation, theyve created a completely other economy or business for abortifacients. They are trying to regulate surgical abortions out of existence and in the meantime they have created a whole other market for chemical abortions, Speed explained. I dont really see how thats pro-life. Its not just Democrats, theres repentance that needs to go around for everybody. There is enough blood on all of our hands that we all need to repent. Speed argued that Christians need to start looking to Scripture to change peoples hearts on the issue of abortion instead of trying to force people to protect life through legislation. Weve gotta look to the Gospel to change peoples hearts. Preaching it, living it, it will affect legislation, he said. Its time, those of us who have been blindly voting for Republicans in order to get something done about this, [to] hold them accountable for what theyve done or not done in this case. Since he shut down his store in protest, Speed said he has received many heartbreaking messages from women who regretted having abortions. We had a volunteer here going through the voicemails and she finally said I cant listen to it anymore. And we asked her why and she said because people are calling and about half-way through their messages they start weeping, Speed said. It was emotionally draining. There are a lot of heartbroken people out there. Sister Magdalene Teresa of the Sisters of Life, a Catholic order in the Bronx dedicated to enhance the sacredness of human life, also told CP this week that she felt sorrow after the passage of the RHA on Jan. 22. Very much sorrow, she said. We know that its been, it seems like 10 years theyve been trying [to get it passed] and every time we would just pray and pray and pray and pray. And we had a lot of victories but of course on Tuesday (Jan. 22nd) it didnt go the way we hoped, she said. My instant reaction is for all the women I know pretty well who are so tempted, for whatever reason. It can be big and it can be not so big. The pregnancy, lets just say she heroically is choosing life but then a new circumstance comes like a death in the family. Or extra violent pressure from the father of the baby and he loses his temper, but she happens to be further along like six months, seven months. Now that woman wont have the extra protection that she had before. So I just instantly thought of all the babies that would have been born which I have photos of. So its just really sad about that, she said. Teresa, who agrees that the scope of how the law can be applied based on how it is written is very broad, said as her order continues to fight to help women continue to choose life, they will now have to make room for women going through a longer period of crisis. I think our mission, our stance will remain the same, she said when asked how the RHA will impact their work. What I foresee is a much longer period of what I would call crisis. Not that we ever back off, but at 24 weeks we could just breathe a sigh of relief knowing that at least if a big change happens in her life she probably wont have an abortion but we can just walk her through that. But now theres such an added pressure all the way through. How many Christians believe in evolution? Depends on how you ask Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment If you ask white evangelical Protestants whether they believe humans have evolved over time, 32 percent agree that they have, according to the Pew Research Center. But thats only the case when the question is split into two parts. After the first question (of whether humans have evolved or existed in their present form since the beginning), those who agree are then asked if they believe evolution occurred due to natural selection or if God had a role in it. When posed with only one question (rather than a two-step approach), white evangelical Protestants are more likely to say evolution occurred and less likely to hold a creationist stance. In fact, the percentage jumps from 32 percent to 62 percent who agree that humans evolved over time. In the single question approach, respondents are asked: Which statement comes closest to your view? Humans have evolved over time due to processes such as natural selection; God or a high power had no role in this process. OR Humans have evolved over time due to processes that were guided or allowed by God or a higher power. OR Humans have existed in their present form since the beginning of time. A similar pattern is seen among black Protestants and Catholics. When given the two-step question, 41 percent of black Protestants believe humans have evolved over time as opposed to having existed in their present form since the beginning of time. But that percentage increases to 71 when given the single question. Among Catholics, 71 percent believe humans evolved over time when asked in two questions, and 87 percent believe the same when asked in a single question. Pew noted that for the past decade-and-a-half, it has been asking Americans about their views on the origins of humankind mostly in a two-step process. But last spring, the research center decided to ask the question in two different ways. Half of the respondents were asked in a two-step process while the other half were asked a single question. When respondents are immediately given the opportunity to say God played a role in human evolution, the percentage of those who reject evolution drops considerably. Essentially, those who respond differently are those who primarily believe that God or a higher power had a role in human evolution, Pew noted. Religious people who believe both that evolution has occurred and that God played a role in it might nevertheless when asked cold choose the creationist option simply as a way of registering their belief that God exists, and not because they truly reject evolution. Without having first been given the chance to stipulate that they believe God exists and played a role in the creation of life on Earth, some respondents may have seen it as socially undesirable to say they believe humans have evolved over time. Moving forward, Pew said it plans to ask about evolution using the single question approach, maintaining that it allows for more nuance in the views of respondents. The only Christians who were consistent in their responses to both question formats were white mainline Protestants, many of whom believe in evolution due to natural selection. In response to both approaches, a majority (at least 83 percent) agree with evolution. Overall, among U.S. adults, 68 percent agree that humans evolved when responding to the two-step question, while 81 percent agree when posed with the single question. The survey was conducted April 23May 6, 2018, among 2,537 respondents. The margin of error is plus or minus 2.8 percentage points. Gallup has documented a decline in Americans who believe God created man in present form. While 44 percent held that view in 1981, 38 percent (a new low) supported that view in 2017. Meanwhile, the share of those who believe human beings developed and that God had no part in the process increased from 9 percent to 19 percent over the past three decades. Some black Christians who once supported Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam want him to resign Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Although embattled Virginia Gov. Ralph Northams predominantly black home church and pastor say they are willing to give him another chance to show he has repented for wearing blackface in the past, some black Christians who once supported him say the only path to redemption is to resign. Shortly after Northam became the subject of national headlines last week for expressing support for a now tabled proposal in the Virginia legislature that would allow abortions up to 40 weeks of pregnancy, he began facing a bipartisan call to resign. A 1984 yearbook page had surfaced bearing photos of Northam. The page also included a photo of a person wearing blackface next to another individual wearing a Ku Klux Klan hood and robe. Northam initially admitted he was in the racist photo and apologized for it. At a press conference on Saturday however, he said it wasnt him at all, but confessed to wearing blackface for a dance contest in San Antonio, Texas where he pretended to be Michael Jackson. "I had the shoes, I had a glove and I used just a little bit of shoe polish to put under, or on my cheeks," Northam told reporters. "The reason I used a very little bit is because, I don't know if anybody has ever tried that, but you cannot get shoe polish off." Attendees at Jerusalem Baptist, a predominantly black church in a small town outside Richmond, expressed shock over the photo and concern over Northams changing statements, in an NPR report. "Thirty-some years ago is a long time, but it was in '84," church member Wendy Hobbs said. "It was a post-civil rights era. No one should've been making fun [of] another race or trying to make a joke out of people's fears of the Ku Klux Klan or the blackface." Jeroline Harris, another churchgoer who voted for Northam, said she watched his press conference on Saturday and dismissed it as a big mess. "I think that he'd made a really big mess of the whole situation," she said. "He really should not have had that press conference. ... What he said Friday in his apology should have just stood," she said. "He admit it. So how can you rethink less than 24 hours later, 'Well, that wasn't me'? So how the people going to really accept this? "We all have a past, and we all can be forgiven for our past," he said. "But the question is, when it comes to leadership, is it your past or is it your present? And I think that's the question that we don't really know." The churchs pastor, Emanuel Harris, said while he believes Northam can be forgiven for his racist behavior, he is not certain he should be allowed to continue to lead. "We all have a past, and we all can be forgiven for our past," he said. "But the question is, when it comes to leadership, is it your past or is it your present? And I think that's the question that we don't really know." A press statement from the Social Action Commission of the African Methodist Episcopal Church on Tuesday called on Northam to step down if he is sorry for his past actions and allow Justin E. Fairfax, the lieutenant governor, to replace him. Fairfax, however, is facing allegations that he sexually assaulted a woman in 2004. He has characterized those allegations as a well-timed act of political skullduggery, according to The New York Times. There is no excuse for Governor Northam not releasing this information himself and then publicly repenting for this demeaning and offensive act. He should have done this before, during or immediately after the Democratic gubernatorial primary or the statewide election, the AME group argued. If Governor Northam is genuinely sorry and wants to move forward with integrity, it is time for him to step down as Governor of Virginia and allow the citizens of Virginia to begin the healing process under the leadership of the Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, the group added. On Wednesday, Fairfax who is a descendant of a Virginia slave named Simon Fairfax, who was emancipated in 1798, posted a photo on Facebook of him praying and quoting Genesis 50:20. But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive, the Scripture says. President Trump rebukes late-term abortion in SOTU, draws praise from pro-life groups Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment President Donald Trump rebuked supporters of late term abortion and urged Congress to ban the practice in his State of the Union speech Tuesday night as conservatives and pro-life activists cheered the move. Calling out recent decisions by lawmakers in New York and a proposal in Virginia, supported by the states embattled Gov. Ralph Northam, to allow abortions up to birth, Trump stressed the importance of protecting the life of all children born and unborn who are expressions of the holy image of God. There could be no greater contrast to the beautiful image of a mother holding her infant child than the chilling displays our nation saw in recent days. Lawmakers in New York cheered with delight upon the passage of legislation that would allow a baby to be ripped from the mother's womb moments before birth, the president said to much applause. These are living, feeling, beautiful babies who will never get the chance to share their love and dreams with the world. And then, we had the case of the governor of Virginia where he stated he would execute a baby after birth. To defend the dignity of every person, I am asking Congress to pass legislation to prohibit the late-term abortion of children who can feel pain in the mother's womb, he continued. Let us work together to build a culture that cherishes innocent life. And let us reaffirm a fundamental truth all children born and unborn are made in the holy image of God. The presidents remarks came as Dr. Leana Wen, president of abortion giant Planned Parenthood, sat in the audience as a guest of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Responding to the president calling out his state, New Yorks Democrat Gov. Andrew Cuomo dismissed Trump as a liar, pointing to a report in The Washington Post arguing that New York legislation would not have allowed a baby to be ripped from the mothers womb moments before birth. The lies that we heard tonight are nothing new. The only thing new is that it is the President pushing these falsehoods, Cuomo tweeted. Pro-life organizations such as March for Life, which seeks to end abortion by uniting, educating, and mobilizing pro-life people in the public square, applauded the president for condemning extreme abortion. We applaud the President for condemning the extremist abortion propositions out of New York and Virginia and for calling on Congress to ban late-term abortion during his State of the Union Address. The American consensus opposes abortion after the first trimester, yet some politicians continue to embrace and perpetuate an unprecedentedly radical pro-abortion agenda, said March for Life Action President Tom McClusky. He then named Northam and Pelosi for her support of Planned Parenthood and said they were out of touch with Americas current view of abortion. While politicians like these are in step with a powerful abortion lobby, they are out of touch with the American people. We ask Congress to heed President Trumps call to pass legislation prohibiting late-term abortion as well for a quick floor vote in the Senate on the Born-Alive bill so that Governor Northams infanticide fantasy may never be reality. It is time for politicians, regardless of party, to stand up in favor of protecting innocent life, he added. On Monday, a bill meant to preserve the life of babies who survive an abortion attempt was rejected by Senate Democrats after Nebraska Republican Sen. Ben Sasse pleaded with them to unanimously pass the measure. The bill sought to require "any health care practitioner present" at the time of a birth to "exercise the same degree of professional skill, care, and diligence to preserve the life and health of the child as a reasonably diligent and conscientious health care practitioner would render to any other child born alive at the same gestational age." It exempted mothers involved from prosecution, and proposed requiring practitioners to "ensure that the child born alive is immediately transported and admitted to a hospital." A possible term of imprisonment of up to five years for violations, not including penalties for first-degree murder that could also apply was also proposed. The U.S. House passed a similar bill in January, 2018. A similar bill, the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, was signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2002, but that legislation didn't contain any penalties or enforcement mechanisms. This isnt about Republicans or Democrats. We're way beyond that. Everyone in the Senate ought to be able to say unequivocally that the little baby deserves life. That she has rights, and that killing her is wrong, Sasse declared in remarks seeking unanimous consent on the rejected Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. 10 Christian reactions to Trump's State of the Union address Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment President Donald Trumps wide-ranging second State of the Union address Tuesday night, his first before a divided Congress, has drawn mixed responses from Christian leaders. Trumps remarks lasted nearly 90 minutes and touched on a range of political topics: reinforced his call for a border wall, defended his plans in the Middle East, honored various special guests, slammed what he called partisan investigations and provided an overview of the political accomplishments of the last year. Trump even announced that he would have another meeting with North Koreas Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un later this month in Vietnam. As a faction has emerged on the political left that has embraced the idea of democratic socialism, Trump boldly declared in his speech that the U.S. will never be a socialist nation. At times, the president praised bipartisan accomplishments such as the passage of the criminal justice reform bill FIRST STEP Act. In an appeal to the new Democrat-led House of Representatives, Trump even praised the fact that there are more women in the workplace (and in Congress) than ever before. While some conservative Christian leaders praised Trump for affirming the dignity of unborn children and calling for Congress to pass a ban on late-term abortions, left-leaning Christian leaders were not happy with the defense he provided of his administrations staunch immigration policies. As the government could be in danger of another government shutdown stemming from Trumps desire for a barrier on the U.S. southern border in the coming days, Trump asserted in his speech that walls work and walls save lives. In the following pages, are 10 Christian reactions to Trumps State of the Union address. Supreme Court blocks Louisiana law regulating abortionists Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday temporarily blocked Louisiana from implementing an abortion clinic regulation that was enacted four years ago but has been mired in a court battle since. In a 5-4 decision, with Chief Justice John Roberts as the swing vote, the justices granted the appeal in June Medical Services, LLC v. Gee, which prohibits Louisiana from implementing Act 620, the Unsafe Abortion Protection Act, that requires abortion providers to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of where they perform abortions. The law would have gone into effect on Monday. Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas, and Brett Kavanaugh formed the minority that would have denied the appeal to keep the law from going into effect. In his dissent, Kavanaugh wrote that the abortionists challenging the law have not sufficiently shown that they would be denied admitting privileges if the law took effect. In order to resolve the factual uncertainties presented in the stay application about the three doctors ability to obtain admitting privileges, I would deny the stay without prejudice to the plaintiffs ability to bring a later as applied complaint and motion for preliminary injunction at the conclusion of the 45-day regulatory transition period, wrote Kavanaugh. The court adopts an approach granting the stay and presumably then granting certiorari for plenary review next term of the plaintiffs pre-enforcement facial challenge that will take far longer and be no more beneficial than the approach suggested here. Pro-life activists, including Americans United for Life President Catherine Glenn Foster, expressed disappointment in the Supreme Courts decision. Americans United for Life is disappointed that a bare majority of Supreme Court Justices continued to stay the enforcement of a commonsense safety measure that will protect Louisianas women from substandard abortion practitioners, said Foster in an email to supporters. We look forward to a closer look at the real facts of this case by the Court, and were confident that on doing so, the Justices will vote to uphold it. The Center for Reproductive Rights, a pro-choice organization that filed the June Medical Services lawsuit in 2017, took to social media to celebrate the court's decision. The Supreme Court stepped in to protect our rights by blocking a clinic shutdown law just hours before taking effect in Louisiana. Next, we will ask it to hear our case and strike down the law for good, tweeted the Center on Thursday. Last September, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld the Louisiana law and then the full court declined to reverse the decision, leading the plaintiffs to file an appeal to the Supreme Court. Religious colleges fear higher education becoming more hostile to faith Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Religious colleges are attempting to re-write the narrative that exists today about faith in education before societal hostility mobilizes to one day push faith-based institutions out of the mainstream of higher education. Presidents from colleges representing traditions of Protestant Christianity, Islam, Catholicism, Judaism and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints gathered last week to discuss the challenges they face as secular society continues to grow more hostile to principles of Abrahamic morality. Just days after the media hysteria surrounding second lady Karen Pence's job as an art teacher at a Christian private school in Virginia that adheres to biblical doctrine, presidents from the five religious colleges participated in a discussion just a few miles down the road in Washington, D.C., about the misunderstandings people have about faith in higher education. The discussion capped off the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities Presidents Conference that took place at the Washington Court Hotel on Capitol Hill. CCCU is a network of over 180 Christian colleges worldwide. "Todays discussion invites us to reimagine this narrative that [characterizes] so much of the modern period and to rewrite this story going forward, to rewrite this story that persists so much in the world of higher education," Shirley Mullen, the president of Houghton College, a Christian liberal arts school in Western New York, said during the panel. This standard western narrative of progress has assumed that deeply-held religious beliefs, especially when there is diversity in those beliefs, result in intolerance, conflict, violence, oppression." Mullen, who serves as vice chair of CCCUs board of directors, contended that a new narrative must be crafted regarding the relationship between religion, society, higher education and human flourishing. One of the great misperceptions out there today, particularly within higher education, is that our institutions would be the ones that are very monolithic internally and that students come here to learn how to think like Muslims or think like Roman Catholics or whatever, Mullen said. In fact, what you have heard illustrated here today is that these are the institutions where it is often really tough-minded, thoughtful dialogue going on among our students, she continued. [Those conversations] are passionate and they are deep because they are grounded in those fundamental moral and theological commitments. As a historian, Mullen stressed that people dont realize that science actually grew up in the context of a religious framework that assumed a universal order that the world was a creation of a rational being. She added that faith has also been the motivation for various social reform movements and the expansion of human rights in the modern period. John Fitzgibbons, president of the Jesuit-aligned Regis University in Colorado, suggested that students at religious colleges are able to have a dialogue on their campuses about controversial topics of the day. But on many secular college campuses, people who advocate certain religious views on topics like sexuality and marriage might find themselves shut out from the conversation. Instead of safe spaces, Fitzgibbons argued that colleges really need sacred spaces. The university is the place where the consummately personal and the structural are examined together. It is an enormous mistake to excise or cutout faith from public conversation, Fitzgibbons said. It is simply misguided. It doesnt matter what the faith articulation is. ... The point is if you dont bring the deepest parts of your being to the conversation with others that is rigorous, challenging and profoundly difficult, the deepest part of what it means to be human is not in the conversation. Hamza Yusuf, co-founder of Zaytuna College, the first accredited Muslim college in the U.S., said that there is increasing hostility toward deeply-held religious beliefs at many secular colleges. Where I am up on Holy Hill [in Berkely, California], the most intolerant college is up there [University of California, Berkeley] and is the one that claims to be the most tolerant, Yusuf said. Because if you are not completely on board with all of their beliefs, then you are unacceptable, you are a bigot. I am just saying that I dont want to see any persecution but I also feel that we should not be persecuted for adhering to Abrahamic morality. It is just not really fair. During a press lunch following the panel, the presidents expressed their concerns with proposed changes to standards for accreditation issued by one of the nations regional college accrediting agencies, Higher Learning Commission, which oversees 1,300 post-secondary schools in the central U.S. Last year, the HLC issued a draft rule proposal that removed language that instructed accreditors to take into account an institutions specific and diverse mission when assessing a schools commitment to diversity. The rule drew concerns from leaders within Christian higher education who fear that policies reflecting traditional Christian belief in marriage and sexuality could be questioned. They fear that such a rule would give the accrediting body the ability to decide whether a school ensures inclusive and equitable treatment of diverse populations. As a number of Christian schools have statements of faith that oppose homosexuality, the fear is that the accrediting agency wields power to impact an institutions abilities to receive federal student loans and federal grants if they are noncompliant. It is noteworthy that this is really a plea for diversity from a group of universities that are sometimes viewed as not very tolerant in their viewpoint, Kevin Worthen, president of Brigham Young University in Utah, explained. One reporter pushed back during the conversation and noted that the HLC rule proposal being objected to by religious schools is supposed to ensure the inclusivity in the viewpoint of the colleges. The reporter asked if the universities simply dont want to be forced to accept diversity. There is one way in which you say everyone will be diverse in exactly the same way, Worthen replied. Mullen agreed. There is some tension between that and sort of institutional diversity that comes as a seedbed for ultimate diversity, Mullen said. There is some tension there. That is a very good point. Yusuf weighed in and said that if religious colleges are supposed to take their religious traditions seriously, then the demand that they abandon a set of core principles of the religions for the zeitgeist is not fair. One reporter brought up the public outrage surrounding Karen Pences decision to teach at a Christian school in Northern Virginia that has clearly outlined beliefs opposing homosexuality. It is interesting that someone mentioned earlier that she was out of step with 67 percent of the country, Yusuf said. So suddenly morality is determined by a poll? That is like saying that Abraham Lincoln is out of touch with reality because 67 percent of Americans are pro-slavery. It is a little crazy. Yusuf said that in the future, he can see things getting much worse and difficult for Christian, Orthodox Jewish and Muslim colleges to adhere to basic Abrahamic morality without being considered bigots or preaching hate or something like that. While religious colleges are guaranteed the freedom to hold religious beliefs by the U.S. Constitution, one reporter asserted that the Constitution doesnt guarantee religious colleges federal funding. Mullen responded by stating that it has always been understood that federal dollars are tied to individual students who have the freedom to choose where they spend those federal dollars. There are still many, many students in this society that want to choose an education that accords with their fundamental moral and spiritual roots, Mullen explained. No students arrive at one of our institutions not knowing what they are getting into. They are choosing to go to those institutions because of the values of those institutions. I believe there is also a social good in American society for these institutions to remain places that these students can spend that money. Mullen believes that civil society would be worse off if religious colleges were not granted access to federal funding. Most of these institutions are going to turn out people of faith who have thought much more deeply about the links between reason and faith than most of the people in American society, Mullen stressed. These graduates can be the bridge builder in a society that has many people who have nothing to do with religion and people of faith. The larger culture would be worse off if federal dollars cannot continue to support the branch of higher education which is doing the most to produce people who understand [how to speak across the religious and political spectrum]. Mullen asserted that religious colleges are committed to being within the mainstream of American higher education. That is really what we are arguing for right now is the right to remain within the mainstream of higher education rather than be segregated off, she concluded. Leith Anderson to retire from NAE, praised for shaping evangelical mov't in complex times Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Faith leaders on both sides of the political aisle are commenting on the retirement of National Association of Evangelicals President Leith Anderson who has shaped and stewarded the evangelical movement in recent decades as something not to be defined by politics. NAE, an influential coalition of over 40 evangelical denominations, 45,000 churches, schools and nonprofits that seeks to honor God by connecting and representing evangelical Christians in the United States, announced last week that it has begun the search for a new president as the 74-year-old Anderson plans to retire by the end of the year. Anderson has served as the organizations president since 2006 and previously served for 35 years as the senior pastor of Wooddale Church, a megachurch in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. Anderson has also written over 20 books. Under his leadership, the NAE has strived to get the wider society to view the terms evangelicalism and evangelicals through the lens of their theological meaning, not through the lens of political preferences held by conservative evangelicals. During his time with NAE, Anderson has used his platform to address concerns of the evangelical community with public officials and provided commentary to mainstream news outlets. Anderson has been one of the most vocal evangelical advocates calling for things like immigration reform, prison and criminal justice reform, the continued resettling of refugees in the U.S. and the continued provision of aid to impoverished communities at home and around the world. As NAE president, Anderson has also been one of the more influential voices included in the Evangelical Immigration Table, a coalition of evangelical organizations that advocate for immigration reform and regularly issue statements reflecting on the immigration debate of the day. "I have worked with Leith over many years and rarely have I observed such a depth of wisdom, integrity, skill and grace combined in one person, Scott Arbeiter, the president of NAEs humanitarian arm World Relief, said in a statement provided to The Christian Post. He has both shaped and stewarded the evangelical movement, walking into the most intractable challenges yet emerging with consensus and principled solutions. I greatly admire this man and am deeply grateful for his leadership and legacy. Shirley Hoogstra, president of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, a fellow member of the Evangelical Immigration Table, told CP that it has been an honor to work alongside such a wise leader. Leith has a passion for the church to be a witness to the goodness and hope of the Gospel, Hoogstra, who heads a network of over 180 Christian colleges around the world, explained. He works tirelessly on behalf of the NAE, and they could not have had a better leader for this season in the nations and churchs history. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference and pastor of New Season Christian Worship Center in Sacramento, California, told CP in a statement that Andersons contributions as an unwavering advocate of biblical immigration reform will be greatly missed. Johnnie Moore, an evangelical public relations executive who is seen as an informal spokesperson for the group of evangelical leaders who interact with the Trump administration, said that Anderson is one of the most extraordinary leaders he has ever been around. While too often boiled down into stereotypes, the evangelical community is actually an incredibly complex and diverse movement, in every way imaginable, Moore, who is also an NAE board member, wrote in an email. And across evangelicalism, we generally embrace a vibrant bottom-up polity and a bias against hierarchy for the purpose of keeping Christ as our leader and His Kingdom as our focus. It also sometimes makes our community a loud and unwieldy bunch. It isnt easy to lead evangelicals and it is impossible over the long haul unless that leader is a servant leader. Having observed Anderson for over a decade, Moore says that Anderson has served every end of evangelicalism with wisdom, sensitivity, theological conviction, patience and care. [H]e has consistently done so in some incredibly complex and difficult moments, Moore explained. His leadership will leave the NAE stronger than ever in its history. We will miss him. As there has been much confusion in the media and society about what the term evangelical means in the context of todays political discussions and public polling, NAE worked with LifeWay Research in 2015 to come up with a theological definition of what it means to be evangelical. While many in todays wide society may view evangelicals as another term for white social conservatives, NAE and LifeWay maintain that evangelicals are people who believe in four basic statements of faith regardless of their color, ethnicity and political leaning. Leiths years of service to the NAE, have not only strengthened the organization, but they have contributed invaluably to evangelicalism at a time in history when our community has grown to become at least the third largest segment of Christianity in the globe, and maybe soon, the second, Moore stressed. Leith is probably too humble to ever acknowledge it, but many of us recognize clearly that God himself entrusted to his servant leadership a critical moment in 2000 years of Christian history in a nation that has played an indispensable role in the advance of Gods mission. We will miss his wise, convictional and steady hand and as a board, we are praying intensely for God to guide us to whomever it is he would have lead the NAE next, Moore concluded. That person will have huge shoes to fill. On Twitter, several other Christian leaders offered their praises of Anderson. One of them is Melissa Rogers, a Baptist who served as director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnership during the Barack Obama administration. Thanks to @leithanderson for his many years of distinguished ministry [and] service, Rogers tweeted. Leith's compassionate & courageous leadership has made a huge difference on a wide range of issues. Best wishes to @NAEvangelicals and to Leith for their next chapters. S. Carter McNeese, a pastor at Fairmont First Baptist Church, Fairmont, NC, praised Anderson for helping him reclaim his evangelical identity. @NAEvangelicals, under his leadership, has consistently tried to get others to define evangelicalism theologically and not politically or culturally, McNeese wrote on Twitter. I give thanks to God for his leadership. Ralph Northam more interested in wearing blackface than saving black babies: black pastor says Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment RICHMOND, Va. A conservative African-American pastor and former U.S. Senate candidate has denounced Virginia Democrats like Gov. Ralph Northam for their views on abortion, declaring that they are more interested in wearing blackface than they are interested in saving black babies. Northam has had many calls for his resignation for admittedly wearing blackface in a talent competition where he posed as Michael Jackson and did the moon walk. That revelation was proceeded by his comments last week in support of abortion and apparent support for allowing unwanted babies to die after being born. Soon after, Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring, a fellow pro-choice Democrat, also admitted to wearing blackface at a college party. Pastor E.W. Jackson was one of several speakers at a pro-life rally held Thursday morning outside the state capitol building in response to Northams recent comments on abortion. During his remarks before a large crowd of pro-life activists, Jackson declared that the mask is off, the hypocrisy has been revealed, now we know who they really are. Anybody who is prepared to allow a child to die after that child has been born alive in order to fulfill the plans and purposes of the abortion industry does not deserve to be called a pediatrician, said Jackson, referencing Northams professional background. In fact, you dont deserve to be a governor, either. You deserve to be called a monster. Jackson called for Northam to resign from being governor, receiving loud cheers from the audience in response. To every black voter in the Commonwealth of Virginia: stop voting for these Democrats who are more interested in wearing blackface than they are interested in saving black babies, Jackson continued. In an interview with The Christian Post, Jackson said that he felt obligated to speak at the rally because he was appalled by the governors statement on abortion. Im pro-life and I wanted to be here to take a stand with others who are pro-life, said Jackson, who called Northams comments beyond the pale. Jackson also told CP that he believed although Northam has, for the time being, refused to resign, the governors standing is ruined. I think hes done politically. He may decide just to hold on because there is no constitutional mechanism to getting rid of him. But either way, I think he has shifted the political landscape in Virginia, continued Jackson. I think theyve lost a large swath of black voters who are appalled by the blackface and the racism and now theyre opening up to the fact that abortion disproportionately affects black people and black women. Northams comments came in defense of a proposed bill named Virginia House Bill 2491, which among other things would remove various state-level regulations of abortion, such as removing a 24-hour waiting period and the mandate that second trimester abortions take place in a hospital setting. Democrat Delegate Kathy Tran, who introduced the bill, garnered controversy of her own when, during a committee hearing earlier last week, said her bill would allow an abortion up the moment of birth. Republican state Sen. Mark Peake, who came to the rally in support of the pro-life cause, told CP that Tran's bill was not passing. The Republicans have ended that bill, explained Peake, adding that the comments that Northam made in support of that bill were inexcusable. I think thats why youre seeing the outpouring of people here today; to show that in Virginia we still support life and we will defend human life. Republican state Sen. Amanda Chase gave an opening prayer at the rally, saying in her supplication that the recent actions of the states leadership have hurt the very heart of God. Father God, I ask You to heal our land. Forgive us, she said, eventually leading the rally attendees in a reciting of the Lords Prayer. In addition to Chase and Jackson, other speakers included several state legislators, clergy, and pro-life activists, among them Sen. Dick Black; Hugh Brown of the American Life League; Leslie Davis Blackwell of the Silent No More Campaign; and the Rev. Dean Nelson; Frederick Douglas of the Leadership Institute; Victoria Cobb of The Family Foundation of Virginia, and Delegate Nick Freitas. A couple of the speakers talked about their experiences of having an abortion, explaining to those gathered their regrets over their decision. Attendees held signs with such statements as Thou Shalt Not Kill, Defund Planned Parenthood, Virginia Will Not Stand for Infanticide, Save the Children, and Abortion is not of God. Diana Shores, a pro-life activist who helped organize the event, told CP that it wasnt challenging to organize the event because the people were ready to do something in response to the governors statements. People in Virginia are Christian, theyre pro-life. You go across this Commonwealth and youll see that there are Judeo-Christian values still alive and well here, said Shores. It all came together. Everyone had something to say and we were willing to give them a mic to say it. And I believe that this is not going to be the last rally like this across the Commonwealth because are hungry for leaders to rise up and to eradicate abortion in Virginia. The Christian Post reached out to the office of Gov. Ralph Northam for comment but a response was not received. Davey Blackburn reveals he knew Resonate Church would close before he resigned Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment A week after his surprise resignation from the now defunct Resonate Church he founded with his late wife, Amanda, Indiana Pastor Davey Blackburn said he knew the church was going to close before his resignation but he didn't reveal that to the congregants. Blackburn revealed in a post on his blog shortly after The Christian Post asked him about how the closure was handled that he was heartbroken about the church having to shut down and took responsibility for it. When Amanda and I launched out eight years ago with a vision and a dream to build a life-giving church in Indianapolis, we certainly did not think that eight years into the journey Resonate would no longer be in existence, he wrote. As the leader of Resonate for the past eight years, I take responsibility for the organization not being in a place where it could continue forward beyond our departure. If I was given the opportunity to start the church all over again there are many leadership decisions I would make differently, he said. John Berry, who took over as interim pastor for Resonate Church after Blackburns resignation, told CP that the church was closed because they could not find a successor. He also noted that poor stewardship of church finances and dwindling membership also contributed to the death of the ministry. It was only a year ago that Berry, who formerly pastored at Liberty Baptist Church in Spring Lake, North Carolina, told friends and family on Facebook that he was moving to Indiana to be Gods answer to Blackburns prayers. Many of you have heard our family is moving to Indianapolis this week. Some have asked why? Some have asked, 'Why would you move to Indiana where its so cold? Where youre so far away from family? Where youve never been before?' Heres why! Take some time and listen to why we are trusting God in this, Berry said in January 2018. About two years ago Pepper (Berrys wife) and I began praying he would use our family to make a difference in His kingdom on Earth no matter where we are. We positioned ourselves with open hands, knowing this could be life changing but hoping it wouldnt mean we had to leave. Then God. Then God heard the prayers of a pastor in Indianapolis and began making a way for the Berrys to be the answer." But staying at Resonate Church, Blackburn said, was not Gods will for his life. Its with a heavy heart, a nervous apprehension, a trusting spirit, and yet an excited anticipation for the future that I must announce that Kristi and I are stepping away as the leaders of Resonate Church. We are doing this in order to answer a call God has placed on our lives to help people from all over the world find purpose in their pain through Nothing is Wasted, he revealed in his resignation message to the congregation where he named Berry as the interim pastor. If you consider Resonate Church your home church and youre wondering whats next for Resonate as an organization, I would urge you to attend next week. John Berry, the interim lead pastor, will be sharing what the future will look like for Resonate Church and the spiritual community there, he added without any discussion about the sustainability of the church. A dissolution plan presented to the church by Berry showed that a week after Blackburn resigned the church had liabilities of $73,817.97 and cash totaling $38,154.48. To offset the deficit of $35,663.97 the church said the worship, production, and other valuable equipment owned by the ministry would be sold. Any funds remaining from the sale was expected to be donated to a church or nonprofit that is yet to be determined. In his latest statement on the closure Blackburn admitted that he knew the church would have to be shut down but didn't respond to questions from CP about whether he had personally discussed this with the churchs membership. Reports from persons present at the dissolution meeting said members were shocked and angry to learn that the church was being closed. The reality that Resonate Church would not be able to move forward in ministry was discussed by this (churchs) team and everyone agreed we would labor to finish well the good work that was started. This meant making relational, pastoral, and financial decisions to (1) take care of any of Resonates outstanding balances, (2) take care of the remaining staff families the Berrys and the Shilts specifically by providing a generous severance so that these families can transition into their next season of life and ministry, and (3) take care of the people of Resonate by pointing them to other congregations they can worship with, serve in, give to, and join in small groups, Blackburn wrote. Barely a week after Blackburns claim about taking care of his staff and former congregants, Pepper Berry, John Berrys wife, revealed on Instagram Wednesday that her family was in dire straits. Currently we have no job (and no that WAS NOT our choice dont believe everything you hear). We have no idea whats next for our family of six, no back up plan, no next destination, no home. Who would choose that for their family of six? No one. We also have a car that now has engine problems and a tremendous amount of unknowns, Pepper Berry wrote. We have kids who are frustrated and angry about why we are moving and we have zero explanations that make any sense. Nothing I repeat nothing is clear, she continued. Despite her familys struggles however, Pepper Berry said she was trusting in God to see her family through. Pastor Berry did not respond to questions from CP on whether he was informed by Blackburn when he was hired in 2018, that he had planned on following Gods call elsewhere. I know the buttoning up process of any organization is not easy and Im thankful to the Berry's (sic) and Shilts for leaning into these arduous details. Both John Berry and Emily Shilts are very capable of carrying out the remainder of the process well. Kristi and I are grateful that this new season of ministry allows our family to remain in Indianapolis and continue doing ministry with many of the folks who once called Resonate Church their home, Blackburn wrote. Blackburn and his late wife, Amanda Blackburn, moved to Indianapolis in January 2012 to plant Resonate Church. Before that, he had spent four years on staff at NewSpring Church in Anderson, South Carolina, under then Pastor Perry Noble. On the morning of Nov. 10, 2015, while Blackburn was away at the gym, police said his late wife was shot three times, including once in the head, during a home invasion. She succumbed to her injuries the following day along with her 13-week-old unborn daughter, Everette "Evie" Grace Blackburn. He found love again with his second wife, Kristi, less than a year later and wed at the end of 2017. After Amandas death, Blackburn recast the vision of Resonate Church, saying: We're on a mission to turn Indianapolis upside-down for Jesus and we believe it is only just the beginning of our story. Our story is played out in the light of a greater Story Jesus Story. Scripture tells us in Jesus story that Nothing is Wasted, even the most tragic of situations." About half of millennial Christians think it's wrong to evangelize, Barna finds Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment New research from Barna reveals that a about half of millennial Christians believe it's "wrong" to evangelize. The new report, "Reviving Evangelism," commissioned by Alpha USA, examines the experiences of persons who share their faith and their attitudes toward evangelizing. Nearly every practicing Christian believes that part of their faith is being a witness about Jesus and that the best thing that could occur for someone is to receive Christ, survey results in the study show. Millennial Christians, those born between 1984 and 1998, say they feel equipped to share their faith with other people with nearly three quarters responding that they both know how to respond when someone asks faith-related questions and are gifted at sharing their faith. Such confidence is considerably higher than older generations, the survey found. However, millennials may not be doing that much evangelism. A significant percentage regard it as at least somewhat "wrong." This despite evangelism being a central aspect of what is known as the Great Commission, where Jesus charged his followers in Matthew 28 to "go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. " "Almost half of Millennials (47%) agree at least somewhat that it is wrong to share ones personal beliefs with someone of a different faith in hopes that they will one day share the same faith. This is compared to a little over one-quarter of Gen X (27%), and one in five Boomers (19%) and Elders (20%)," the report reads. "Younger Christians tend to be more personally aware of the cultural temperature around spiritual conversations. Among practicing Christians, Millennials report an average (median) of four close friends or family members who practice a faith other than Christianity; most of their Boomer parents and grandparents, by comparison, have just one." Increased cultural hostility to the gospel and conversations that bring people's differences into focus make evangelism more difficult today than in previous decades, the analysis shows, as many older Christians do not appreciate the negative forces in society that demean sharing ones faith. With regard to faith-sharing, 40 percent of millennial practicing Christians strongly or somewhat agreed with the statement, "If someone disagrees with you, it means they are judging you," which was the highest by far compared to the other generations studied. Only 22 percent of generation X, 9 percent of baby boomers, and 11 percent of "elders" agreed. The study was conducted in May of last year, surveying just under 1000 practicing Christians and 1,001 American adults who do not meet the criteria for "practicing Christians," including lapsed Christians and non-Christians. For the purposes of the research "practicing Christians" was defined as those who "identify as Christian, agree strongly that faith is very important in their lives and have attended church within the past month." To start, we must pass on resilient faith to Christian young people (this is also a form of evangelism), planning especially for the pivot point of the high school and college-age years, said David Kinnaman, president of Barna Group. The dropout problem is real, and it has a chilling effect on the overall evangelistic environment. It is impossible to exactly trace the impact of lapsed Christians on non-Christians, but sobering to consider the de-evangelistic clout of those who leave the faith." The data shows "enormous ambivalence" among millennials about sharing ones faith among millennials, he continued, emphasizing that Christians must persuade younger believers that evangelism is essential. Cultivating deep, steady, resilient Christian conviction, Kinnaman concluded, is difficult in a world of you do you and dont criticize anyones life choices and emotivism, the feelings-first priority that our culture makes a way of life. As much as ever, evangelism isnt just about saving the unsaved, but reminding ourselves that this stuff matters, that the Bible is trustworthy and that Jesus changes everything. Image: Intervarsity This years theme will be Preoccupied with Love and will feature key leaders today such as CJ Rhodes, Alan Hirsch, Colin Smith, Trillia Newbell, Jenny Yang, R. York Moore, Sam Owusu, and more. James Choung, Vice President of Strategy & Innovation at InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, will be presenting on Discipleship: What kind of lived life integrates evangelism into each day? Below is an interview I had with James. This summer we will be hosting the Amplify North American Evangelism Conference from June 25-26 at Wheaton College in Wheaton, IL. Amplify has become the largest evangelism conference in North America and one that I am proud to host.This years theme will be Preoccupied with Love and will feature key leaders today such as CJ Rhodes, Alan Hirsch, Colin Smith, Trillia Newbell, Jenny Yang, R. York Moore, Sam Owusu, and more. James Choung, Vice President of Strategy & Innovation at InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, will be presenting on Discipleship: What kind of lived life integrates evangelism into each day? Below is an interview I had with James. Ed: Its hard to deny that we are living in challenging times culturally. The churchs influence is fading, and we are struggling to find answers to some hard questions. Whats your take on the health of the church today, especially as it relates to our witness? James: Can I respond with a story? Just trying to be like Jesus, right? I was invited to speak at a large student conference in Michigan, and they came from all over the state. As I took the elevator up to my room, I struck up a conversation with a student who told me that he was not a Christian, but that he was at the conference to explore the faith. As he talked, I sensed that he was bothered by Christian political engagement. So I said, The point of this conference isnt so that you can become a Christian, but its so that you can learn how to become a follower of Jesus. Im so glad you said that, he said, obviously relieved. I thought that if I became a Christian, Id have to vote a certain way. Before the conference was over, he responded to an invitation to faith, and had given his life to Jesus as Lord and Savior. Of course, I want him to own his identity as a Christian. But for people who dont yet follow Jesus, the term Christian comes with so much political baggage that its just easier to call people to follow Jesus instead. On campuses in some parts of our country, when skeptics find out that were Christians, we are often asked who we voted for. Thats new. It has become the new litmus test: Are these the kind of people I want to be connected to?These are, albeit anecdotal, data points that show that politics has become the new religion. This story is a roundabout way to get back to your question. The church is beautiful and loved by God. There is much goodness and generosity in it, and the Holy Spirit still dwells within her. But I do wonder if our moral or spiritual standing gets compromised by the churchs political alignments real or perceived. In 1835, French diplomat and historian De Tocqueville was struck by Americas diversity and zeal in religion, concluding that any alliance with any political power whatsoever is bound to be burdensome for religion. Although written almost two centuries ago, that still seems to hold true. Politics has certainly muddied the spiritual waters on college campuses, so much so that at a recent invitation to faith, I had to clarify that Im not asking them to become Democrat or a Republican, that neither party can rightfully claim to be the party of Jesus or the Kingdom of God. I told them to be politically active, informed by faith, but dont place your hope in it. Politicians will let you down. Place your hope in Jesus. Ed: Evangelism has especially fallen on hard times. It seems that everything elseeven good things like discipleshiphas overwhelmed our passion for sharing the love of Jesus with others. What does evangelism look like today, and how can we begin to develop a passion for showing and sharing the love of Jesus on a daily basis? James: Dallas Willard wrote that we live at the mercy of our ideas. So, if we arent helping skeptics and seekers understand Jesus and His Kingdom, I wonder if our vision of evangelism is too small. If we reduce evangelism to a strategy or a script even one like the Big Story(a gospel presentation that InterVarsity uses) then it wont be compelling. Only actors like scripts. And if we put evangelism in opposition to everything else that happens in the Kingdom, then were really creating false dichotomies that arent helpful either. We shouldnt condemn anyone for their passion for discipleship, justice, spiritual formation, racial reconciliation, prayer, speaking in tongues, intercession, healing, care for the environment, or applying how their faith intersects their work. All of these things are good things of the Kingdom. Evangelism, then, can include explaining why you do the things you do in Jesus name. Another mentor of mine used to say, Our actions are not self-explanatory. He was just saying that if you lend someone else your car or you march in a protest, you have an opportunity to let people know why. Your words will help others understand why you do the things you do. So instead of putting these other Kingdom values in opposition with evangelism, perhaps we can help people share the faith reasons of why they do the things they do, and share other ways that God intersects with their lives. Then, if given the chance, we could share about what Jesus came to do, and invite them into the same story that were living out. Ed: You are a plenary speaker at our 2019 Amplify North American Evangelism Conference next summer, and you are talking about Discipleship: What kind of lived life integrates evangelism into each day? Tell me about the intersection of discipleship and evangelism for all believers. James: Discipleship and evangelism shouldnt be set against each other. Theyre a part of the same spiritual journey. What if evangelism was merely discipling skeptics and seekers, while discipleship is merely evangelizing believers to move more deeply into the Kingdom? In this way, we could help everyone through a trajectory: from skeptic to seeker to follower to leader to world-changer. And although the goal of each stage might be different, the process is to help people hear God, respond to what they heard, and then debrief what they hear and experience through the community of faith. In that way, we could help seekers hear from God for the first time, respond by giving their lives to Jesus, and then have a community to help them debrief their experiences. And at the same time, we want our leaders to have such an intimacy with Christ that they hear him through Scripture and prayer then respond, and then debrief what they hear through community. Another faith community asks people to end their small groups with this question: What is God saying to you, and what are you going to do about it? Its a great last question because it gets to the same discipleship process hear, respond, debrief while acknowledging that we could all be at different stages in our walk with Jesus, whether we follow him yet or not. Summit Ministries: Two Weeks that Last a Lifetime Share Tweet Millennials have a pretty bad reputation these days. Some of its undeserved, of course, but there are also plenty of stories of perpetual adolescence, entitlement, and refusing to take on the responsibilities of adulthood. That description may be true of many young people today, but its usually not true of graduates of Summit Ministries, graduates like Haley Halverson. Haley is the Vice-President of Advocacy and Outreach at the National Center on Sexual Exploitation. This 25-year-old dynamo develops and executes national campaigns to change policies and raise awareness related to child exploitation and human trafficking. A list of her accomplishments would have us here all day, but here are a few: She is a member of the Washington, D.C, Mayors Advisory Committee on Child Abuse and Neglect. She regularly speaks and writes on topics including child sexual abuse, sex trafficking, prostitution, sexual objectification, and more. Her articles have appeared in the Washington Post, the Huffington Post, and other publications, and shes been quoted or appeared in dozens of other media outlets, including the New York Times, NBCs The Today Show, and USA Today. The message that drives her work is clear and distinctly Christian: Because all humans have dignity, even the least among us, justice demands that we do everything in our power to protect them. Where did Haley Halverson learn these ideas? How did she develop this passion for serving others? If you ask her, she will say that one of the formative experiences in her life was the two-weeks she spent at Summit Ministries in Manitou Springs, Colorado back in 2010, just before her senior year in high school. The most powerful thing that Summit taught me, she told my colleague Warren Smith, is that ideas have consequences. She said learning that simple phrase was a life-changer for her. It directly correlates to my work combatting all forms of sexual exploitation, she explained. Because at the National Center on Sexual Exploitation we not only address sex trafficking and sexual violence, but we also address forms of sexual abuse and harm that our culture often fails to acknowledge, such as prostitution, pornography, and even sexual objectification in company advertisements or magazines. Haleys training at Summit allowed her to connect the dots between ideas and actions. As she told Warren Smith, All of these forms of sexual exploitation stem from the ideas that someone can use another person as an object, or that someone is entitled to cross anothers sexual boundaries. Summit taught me to think critically about the core ideas or worldviews that motivate both actions and policies, and thats a lesson for which Ill always be grateful. Ive got to admit that Im not objective about Summit. Before coming to the Colson Center, I helped lead Summits summer programs, and I still speak there every summer. I hear stories like Haley Halvorsons all the time. For example, Lila Rose, a recent guest on our podcast who is, according to the Atlantic, leading the millennial pro-life movement, is a Summit grad. Federal prosecutor Brian Skaret, who led a team of prosecutors that put away dozens of gang members that terrorized the border town of Juarez, Mexico, is also a Summit grad who points to his two-week experience as among the most formative in his life as well. Summit has been shaping students for more than 50 years. Tens of thousands of young people like Haley and Lila and Brian have been through Summits two-week worldview training. Today, theyre making a difference in the world. The process often starts with a mom, dad, grandparent, or mentor seeing a trip to the Summit as an investment in the future. Haley said she had never heard of Summit until her parents brought the idea to her. So if youd like to make a lasting investment in the future of a student, aged 16 and up, send them to a Summit Ministries two-week conference. Chuck Colson called it the gold standard for training young people in worldview. Conferences are being held in Colorado, Tennessee, and Pennsylvania this summer. Learn more at Summit.org. Or come to BreakPoint.org and click on this commentary. Well link you to Summit. BreakPoint is a Christian worldview ministry that seeks to build and resource a movement of Christians committed to living and defending Christian worldview in all areas of life. Begun by Chuck Colson in 1991 as a daily radio broadcast, BreakPoint provides a Christian perspective on todays news and trends via radio, interactive media, and print. Today BreakPoint commentaries, co-hosted by Eric Metaxas and John Stonestreet, air daily on more than 1,200 outlets with an estimated weekly listening audience of eight million people. Feel free to contact us at BreakPoint.org where you can read and search answers to common questions. John Stonestreet, the host of The Point, a daily national radio program, provides thought-provoking commentaries on current events and life issues from a biblical worldview. John holds degrees from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (IL) and Bryan College (TN), and is the co-author of Making Sense of Your World: A Biblical Worldview. Publication date: February 8, 2019 Photo courtesy: Sammie Vasquez/Unsplash Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds pose | Blake Lively via Instagram They are considered to be one of Hollywoods most beloved couples, with chemistry, talent, and beauty to spare. Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively are true couple goals and have been together for over eight years. Their love for each other is matched only by their obvious love for their adorable children, and while they generally keep the youngsters well away from the spotlight, fans have been able to catch a glimpse or two of the children in the past several years. How did Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds meet? While Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds first met way back in 2010, while they were both still involved with other people (Lively with her Gossip Girl co-star Penn Badgley and Reynolds married to fellow A-list actor Scarlett Johansson.) Later that same year, both Lively and Reynolds split with their respective partners, and by early 2011, both stars were single. The first rumors of them as a couple began swirling in the summer of 2011, and things moved quickly after that. In September 2012, Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds tied the knot in a stunning surprise ceremony in South Carolina. While they enjoyed several years of togetherness before beginning their family, they both admitted that they were excited to have children together. By October 2014, the pair were expecting their first child. How old are their children? Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds welcomed their daughter James, named after Reynolds father, in December 2014, and another daughter, Inez, in September 2016. Whether or not they will have more children than the two they currently have has not been publicly discussed by either Reynolds or Lively, but both of them come from larger families, and its quite possible that they will want to recreate that busy, loving experience in their own family. There are certainly challenges to being parents, and Lively in particular has been open about how hard she worked to lose the baby weight that she had gained and to get back to her pre-pregnancy body. What type of parents are they? I cant tell if my daughters smashing plates all over the kitchen floor or singing the theme song to Paw Patrol. Ryan Reynolds (@VancityReynolds) December 27, 2018 Reynolds and Lively prefer to keep their two children away from the glare of the paparazzi and social media. However, like any proud parents, there are certain special moments where fans get to receive a glimpse of the adorable little girls. One such moment was when Ryan Reynolds received his very own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Blake Lively and both children were in attendance at the ceremony, with James, who was two at the time, stealing the spotlight by running around, stealing the microphone, and babbling adorably. Fans loved how little James seems to be the spitting image of Blake Lively, with bouncing golden curls and a sassy attitude. Baby Inez was revealed in photographs to be chunky and cute, wearing a simple blue outfit. Reynolds also enjoys sharing anecdotes about the cute things his children do on his Twitter, much to their fans delight. However, Lively and Reynolds have both admitted that in general, they dont want their kids growing up in the Hollywood scene. In an interview with Fatherly, Reynolds said that he doesnt even want his daughters to consider a career in show business. He compared putting young children through the paces of a child star is comparable to child abuse, and thinks that Hollywood is much too crazy for children to experience. So while fans of Reynolds and Lively cant expect to see young James or Inez co-starring with their parents in films anytime soon, they can continue to follow their favorite couple on social media for those rare glimpses of their cute, blond children. | Chris Jackson WPA Pool/Getty Images Each time Meghan Markle makes an appearance, her outfit sends the fashion world into a complete frenzy! The Duchess of Sussex always looks stunning, whether she chooses to wear wide-cut black pants and a blue and white striped button-down shirt, or a one-shouldered black dress. However, it seems that some of the outfits that the Duchess is seen wearing portray more than just her lovely taste in clothes. Could it be that Meghan Markle is sending messages with her choice of outfits? Does Meghan Markle send messages to fans with her outfit choices? Meghan Markle gives little hints with her clothes | Chris Jackson/Getty Images for the Invictus Games Foundation It would appear that sending messages is exactly what Meghan is trying to do! Just before she and Harry announced their engagement, Meghan was pictured wearing a Misha Nonoo Husband shirt, prompting fans to speculate that she would soon be sporting a new ring on her finger. Again, after announcing her pregnancy, Meghan chose a dress with the name Blessed, which is symbolic because that is exactly how she and Harry were feeling. Even her wedding gown may have had a hidden meaning Meghan Markle on her wedding day | Jonathan Brady-WPA Pool/Getty Images On the day of Meghan and Harrys wedding, fans were sitting on the edge of their seats just waiting to catch a glimpse of the bride in her dress. She did not disappoint when she stepped out of the car in a crisp white gown featuring a high neckline and three-quarter length sleeves. The dress seemed perfectly appropriate for the royal bride, and its modest cut seemed to tell the world that Meghan was ready to take on the formal role of Duchess of Sussex. The royal family is known for their conservative style, and while Meghan chose a dress that could not have flattered her more, she seemed to embrace the beliefs of her new family perfectly. Did Meghan copy a design? For one engagement, Meghan donned a lovely black dress that fans worldwide expressed their admiration for. However, it is a well-known fact in the fashion world that there were some designers that were not happy they were not asked to design the iconic dress Meghan wore for her wedding. One particular designer felt that the black dress Meghan wore was a copy of one of her styles and that Meghan was wearing the dress due to a disagreement over the designer of her wedding gown. Who are Meghans favorite designers? Almost everything that Meghan is seen wearing sells out immediately! So, which designers does the Duchess turn to when she needs to be outfitted for Royal engagements, or even for date nights with Prince Harry? She seems to be a fan of Carolina Herrera, famously wearing one of her pale pink designs to Trooping the Colour. Also by the same designer, Meghan looked absolutely stunning in a tailored denim dress when she cheered Harry on at a polo match. The Duchess is also known to wear pieces by Theory, Strathberry, Mackage, Mother Denim, and of course, Givenchy. Meghans best style moments Meghan Markle British Fashion Awards | E! News via Instagram In the months since Meghan has joined the royal family, she has had some exceptional style moments. Never one to shy away from taking a fashion risk, Meghan beautifully showcased her growing baby bump in a fitted floral dress in December 2018. That same month, she made a surprise appearance at the Royal Albert Hall in a bespoke black dress with a thigh-high slit and bold statement jewelry. When visiting Wellington, New Zealand, Meghan looked stunning in a sleeveless tuxedo dress by Maggie Marilyn, that hit above the knee and showed off her enviable figure. With so many great fashion moments and so many opportunities for more, we can wait to see what outfits the Duchess of Sussex will be wearing in upcoming months! HGTVs new home renovation series, Windy City Rehab follows designer extraordinaire Alison Victoria as she sets out to upgrade homes in Chicagos most historic neighborhoods. But, despite her efforts to bring some of these vintage homes into the 21st-century (while paying tribute to their classic charm), some Chicago residents are angry with the home renovator and her projects. Find out why, ahead. Who is Alison Victoria? Chicago residents are upset with Alison Victoria. | HGTV Windy City Rehab might be a new show for HGTV, but Alison Victoria has made a name for herself with past television projects such as Kitchen Crashers. The HGTV alumni whose full name is Alison Victoria Gramenos is a Chicago native who says it is her dream to upgrade homes in her hometown. That said, flipping houses in Chicago is quite a challenge with a side of financial risk. Its my dream to flip houses in my hometown of Chicago, she once told HGTV. But renovating homes in this price point leaves a ton of money on the line. These are high-stakes projects that could spiral out of control at any minute. Its big risks and big rewards, she added. In addition to Windy City Rehab, Alison owns her own design firm called Alison Victoria Interiors. The firm serves both the Chicago and Las Vegas area, where she went to college at University of Nevada Las Vegas and still splits her time. In Las Vegas, much of her work focuses on hotels and she has completed projects in the Silverton Hotel and Casino among others. Despite her growing career and impressive restoration projects, Alison has had some issues with Chicago residents. Chicago vs. Windy City Rehab Alison Victoria might be upgrading some of Chicagos most historic neighborhoods (think: Lincoln Park and Bucktown), but the citys residents are not happy with the Windy City Rehab star. Residents living next door to one of her projects complained about the size of an addition added to one location. They told Block Club Chicago that the addition was ruining the character of the block. Not everyone is upset about the change. Other neighbors have complained about Alisons lack of community outreach and hazardous construction sites on one of her Thomas Street locations. We were not notified when they worked on the roof. This created hazardous conditions for not just us and our dog, but anyone in our yard. They routinely threw debris from the roof without letting us know or out of the front of the house. The debris included nails, old beam straps made of iron, wood, and metal shrapnel, one Ukranian Village resident told Chicago Tribune. The resident even went so far as to create a petition and received over two dozen signatures from neighbors. Despite the drama, Alison seems confident that she can win some of her toughest critics over. I think if everybody not if when everybody sees what our finished project is, like, for instance this [renovation] on Thomas, were getting people coming up saying how beautiful it is and wow, instead of eight, nine months ago where they were signing a petition, she explained, adding that the neighbors are so sweet to us now. Check out The Cheat Sheet on Facebook! An opportunity for parents, staff and the community to share their thoughts for the future of Hamilton County Schools starts next week with two listening sessions scheduled for Monday and Tuesday. The sessions will be the first of five total sessions, one in each Learning Community, across the district. Red Bank Middle School in the Rock Point Learning Community will host the Monday session at 6 p.m. The Tuesday session will be at Loftis Middle School in the North River Learning Community. Listening Sessions schedule: Monday, Feb. 11 at 6 p.m. at Red Bank Middle School (Rock Point Learning Community) Tuesday, Feb. 12 at 6 p.m. at Loftis Middle School (North River Learning Community) Tuesday, Feb. 26 at 6 p.m. at East Brainerd Elementary (Missionary Ridge Learning Community) Monday, March 4 at 6 p.m. at Wallace A. Smith Elementary (Harrison Bay Learning Community) Tuesday, March 5 at 6 p.m. at Orchard Knob Elementary (Opportunity Zone) "The listening sessions were planned in each learning community this year to make attendance easier for families," officials said. "If you cant attend the session in your area, all sessions are open to the community. To reach the promise Superintendent Dr. Bryan Johnson outlined in the State of the System address last night, everyone in the community needs to be a part of improving our schools for the children of Hamilton County." For Hamilton County Schools to achieve our goal of becoming the fastest improving school district in Tennessee, we need parent, community and staff participation and support, said Dr. Johnson. Your thoughts on what we are doing well and areas we could seek improvement will be vital to the success of Hamilton County Schools and our children. Listening sessions were held last year across the community, and the responses from the participants were instrumental in the development of the five-year action plan for Hamilton County Schools called Future Ready 2023. Davids life was a roller coaster ride if there ever was one. He lived a quiet life away from the crowds as a shepherd boy. He saved his nations army from embarrassment and the nation from destruction by slaying Goliath. The resulting adulation of his countrymen caused a jealous King Saul to hunt him for years as if he were a dangerous criminal. David eventually became not only king but a very successful and blessed king, who greatly enlarged the countrys borders and presided over a time of great peace and prosperity. But David refused to be satisfied. All was well with David until one spring he did not go out to battle with his men as he should have. His wandering eye lingered on a prize that was not his and never should be his. He took another mans wife and had that man killed in order to cover up the crime. Nathan, the prophet, creatively and deliberately led David to see that his crimes were not only heinous but also not the secret that David thought they were. The Lord spoke to David through Nathan saying, It is I who anointed you king over Israel and it is I who delivered you from the hand of Saul. 'I also gave you your master's house and your master's wives into your care, and I gave you the house of Israel and Judah; and if that had been too little, I would have added to you many more things like these! 'Why have you despised the word of the Lord by doing evil in His sight? (2 Samuel 12:7-9, NASU) Just how did David despise the word of the Lord? God makes it plain in the next verse. We despise Gods word by disobeying it or by simply ignoring it. Why David despised the word of the Lord is a great question. An even better question is: why do you and I despise the word of the Lord? God wants to bless us. God wants to provide for us just like He provided for David. God wants only the best for us. He wants us to trust Him. He has given us His Word, which is divinely written to lead us into the best possible life. When we disobey or ignore His Word, we fail to have that great and abundant life that He desires for us. We, like David, try to gain abundant life in some other manner than that which God has ordained. The avenues or methods that we use are as varied as our personalities, but they all involve sin. We believe we know how to bring pleasure, satisfaction, and joy to our lives by following our own selfish desires. That is proof of our lack of faith in our Creator. Following your Makers manual will cause you to stay in tip-top condition just like following the manual for your automobile will keep your automobile in tip-top condition. Showing your faith in Him by trusting and obeying His Word will cause Him to further bless you. God says to you and me like He said to David, if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more. Please do not despise His word, follow it. Will the blessing be financial? Maybe. Will the blessing be health? Maybe. Will the blessing be spiritual? Of course. Will you regret your obedience? Never. Will you be disappointed? Certainly not. Psalms 19:8 sums it up, The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. (NASU) The months of February, March and April are primetime for prescribed fires across the Tennessee Valley. Hugh Standridge, senior manager, Natural Resources Management explains how TVA uses fire to improve our regions wildlife habitat. Wildfires, like the devastating fires that have swept California in late 2018, are always a threat to forested land. But TVA takes careful steps throughout the year to care for its forests, including prescribed burns that are done on purpose. The months of March and April are prime time for prescribed fires across the Valley because of moisture levels left by winter rains. But unlike deadly wildfires that were seen in the Valley in 2016 and California in 2018, this fire is a prescribed burn on TVA land designed to promote wildlife habitat and recreation. Fire is beneficial to the environment if it is managed properly, says Hugh Standridge, senior manager, TVA Natural Resources Management. Mr. Standridge leads a team of TVA natural resources professionals that helps to manage 293,000 acres of public lands across seven states. Burning for Benefits Over the next two months, TVA employees will join with various state and federal agency partners to conduct about 20 prescribed fires on its public lands across the Valley. TVA estimates that it will burn about 2,000 acres this spring. As a result, the fires will prepare sites for seeding of native grasses, control invasive plant species, improve habitat and enhance the aesthetics and access for recreation. Safety is our primary focus and theres a lot that goes into the process before we conduct a prescribed fire, says Mr. Standridge. While wildfire prevention is not the primary goal of prescribed fires, controlled burning reduces underbrush, fallen limbs, and other flammable material in wooded areas, which reduces some of the quick-burning fuel that can feed wildfires. Mr. Standridge explains that like other state and federal agencies that use fire to manage public lands, TVA develops an extensive safety plan and habitat management objectives for each parcel or groups of parcels that would benefit from a prescribed fire. Then TVA submits the plan to the appropriate State Division of Forestry for review and to obtain a fire permit. Finally, the prescribed fire area is prepared to ensure all the safeguards and necessary controls are in placesuch as fire breaksto protect the public and property. Conditions must be perfect, he explains. If conditions arent rightthe ground is too dry, too wet, or if its too windywe stop everything until its perfect. Nurturing Wildlife Some land management practices have suppressed fire which allows invasive plants to out-compete native grasses. But TVA believes that fire is a natural component in an ecosystem, and uses fire strategically to maximize the benefits for wildlife habitat and recreation. Each year TVA conducts prescribed fires on public lands to maintain, create and protect some of the most diverse habitats in the Tennessee Valley, like rare prairies and glades, and native pine forests. According to Mr. Standridge prescribed fires rejuvenate the land to support a healthy functioning natural habitat here in the Tennessee Valley. If left unchecked, invasive species can choke-out native plant species harming the Valleys ecosystem, Mr. Standridge said. Warm-season grasses are one of the foundations for the food chainbirds eat the seeds, bats eat the insects and deer graze in the open fields. Fire promotes the growth of these grasses and a healthy food chain. Prescribed fires also have benefits for recreation. Fire improves habitat for game animals (deer, turkey, quail, etc.,) as well as non-game animals, such as songbirds, for birdwatching enthusiasts. Fire also improves the lands aesthetic value by promoting flowering annuals and biennials and creates open spaces for vistas such as a park like setting. Each year TVA conducts prescribed fires on different parcels of land to ensure each area is properly managed for wildlife habitat and recreational activities. TVAs mission is to protect the environment, and its rewarding to go back after a prescribed fire to see native plants and animals thrive once again, Mr. Standridge says. Safety First All prescribed fires are permitted by the appropriate State Division of Forestry. The local fire department is notified before a prescribed fire begins. If you see a fire and are not sure if has been prescribed, immediately report it to your local fire department. If it is happening on TVA land, call the TVA Police at 855-476-2489. Dalton Police said they found "dozens of animals in poor health suffering from apparent neglect and living in horrible conditions" at the home of an animal trainer who took his own life in Cleveland on Thursday. Dalton Police said they "found the house in deplorable condition. There were 16 dogs in the residence, along with two baby goats, two turtles, a snake, and in the back yard there were nine ducks. There was also a dead turtle and also several dead snakes. The animals were malnourished and living in filth, with the dogs all in kennels and many of them covered in their own waste." Stephen Kinder, 42, shot himself after being charged with animal abuse in Cleveland, where he had a business. Friends said he was depressed over the charges and threats against him on social media. Dalton Police said, "As part of an investigation into a report of animal cruelty, the Dalton Police Department served a search warrant at a residence at 810 Mattie St.on Thursday. Investigators found dozens of animals in poor health suffering from apparent neglect and living in horrible conditions. The animals were rescued from the home and were taken to be cared for. "Last Sunday, a Dalton Police Department officer was dispatched to meet a complainant in the parking lot of the Red Lobster at 901 West Bridge. The complainant had agreed to meet there with Kinder to pick up her dog which she had sent to Kinders dog training business in Cleveland, Tennessee. "When Kinder returned the dog to the complainant, the dog had lost a significant amount of weight and was vomiting. Kinder told the officer that the dog had lost weight because it had been exercising more than it was used to. Because the apparent neglect had taken place in Cleveland, Tennessee at the Kinder Dog Training business, the officer completed an information report and referred the complainant to authorities in Bradley County, Tennessee to investigate the case there. That investigation led to Bradley County authorities arresting Stephen Kinder and charging him with four counts of animal cruelty. "The Dalton Police Department received information that some of the animals from the Tennessee business were being housed in Dalton. After investigating further, Dalton detectives obtained a search warrant for Kinders residence on Mattie Street. Investigators arrived at the residence and served the warrant at approximately 11:30 a.m. on Thursday." Dalton Police said while they were at the Mattie Street residence, Dalton investigators "were contacted by the Bradley County Sheriffs Office who reported they had been contacted by one of Stephen Kinders friends who said that Kinder was making suicidal statements. Bradley County asked the DPD to perform a welfare check on Kinder. Dalton investigators on scene were able to make contact with Kinder by phone at approximately 12:10 p.m. Kinder denied being suicidal and told a Dalton detective that he was on his way back to Dalton and that he would meet with investigators at his residence. Dalton investigators at the scene were contacted again by Bradley County at approximately 1:30 and learned that Kinder had apparently killed himself with a self-inflicted gunshot. "A representative of the Whitfield County Animal Shelter responded to the Mattie Street scene to assist with rescuing the animals. The shelter coordinated with various animal rescue groups to find housing for the animals. They have all been safely placed with shelters or homes in Georgia. "This case is still being investigated. At this time, the Dalton Police Department has not filed any charges against any individuals." A joint investigation by special agents with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and the Knox County Sheriffs Office has resulted in the arrest of two men accused of trafficking women for the purposes of commercial sex. Last week, working alongside the Knox County Sheriffs Office, TBI agents conducted an undercover human trafficking operation. The focus of the operation was to identify individuals seeking to engage in commercial sex acts with females under the age of 18, and those engaged in trafficking others for commercial sex acts. During the course of the investigation, Zachery Felton, 33, and Kejuan J. Chapman, 38, were identified as potential traffickers. On Feb. 1, authorities arrested both Chapman and Felton. Chapman is charged with one count of promoting prostitution and driving on a suspended license. He was booked into the Knox County Jail on a $3,000 bond. Felton is charged with one count of promoting prostitution. He was booked into the Knox County Jail on a $2,000 bond. At this time, the investigation remains active and ongoing, with the possibility of additional arrests and charges. Information about human trafficking and TBIs efforts to address this type of crime can be found online at www.ITHasToStop.com. Federal inspectors said they want to get inside the Weekly Fig on Arlington Avenue to check out its process for handling meat and poultry, but has thus far been blocked. The Department of Agriculture has now filed suit against the Weekly Fig, which describes itself as "a private membership association for local sustainable food." It delivers food to members throughout the Chattanooga area. A government food inspector said in an affidavit that he learned about the Weekly Fig through an advertisement in early 2017. He said it is operated by Nate Wilson, Anju Wilson and Michele Reneau. He said the firm operates as a limited liability corporation, but he said he checked with the state and found that its LLC had been terminated. The inspector said he and a fellow inspector went to the Weekly Fig on April 18, 2017, and spoke with Ms. Reneau. He said she went inside to make a call. She returned with Nate Wilson. He said they advised that the Weekly Fig facilitates the transfer of food from farms to consumers and handles meat and poultry. But he said they told him that it is a private group that is exempt from state and federal regulation. He said Mr. Wilson stated they had no more right to enter the business than to go into his home. Afterward, he said he exchanged correspondence for about a year with officials of the Weekly Fig. He said a subpoena was issued to the Weekly Fig on June 7, 2018, demanding access to the firm's facilities and business records. He said he and four other government officials showed up at the Weekly Fig on June 12, 2018. He said Kylie Turner, Weekly Fig's operations coordinator, declined them access. He said when they returned later that day that Ms. Reneau gave them "notice" about why they did not have the right to enter the property. The inspector said a second subpoena was issued and he returned to the business on Nov. 7. He said no one answered a knock on the door, but someone raised a small curtain and said "No" loudly enough for him to hear. He said it is the responsibility of his agency to inspect such operations to make sure that the handling of meat and poultry are safe for the public. I dare say that Ive changed a good bit in the past 40 years, some for the good and some for the bad. I have also watched my friends, as well as some talking faces on TV, politicians, church preachers, and many, many more of oft-heralded The Legion of Fellow Strugglers. All of us change. Dont believe you have changed? Sit on the sofa with your mom and the family scrapbook and you may go into shock. Just as we have changed, those who live in the rainbow-colored fantasy world have greatly changed in 40 years. For the good? For the bad? Who is to say without evidence and a lack of trust. Three of the top Democrats in the state of Virginia are enduring a nations wrath for what may or may not have happened 40 years ago. The fact these are Democrats doesnt faze me in the slightest. They are being scorned by little people without proof. Republican Democrat, Jew or Hindu that is secondary to the truth each is an America citizen. In my files you will find Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax has been a fine man for most of his life, a dutiful servant of the people. But earlier this week we saw him trying to be the same steady steward of the Commonwealth when an alleged victim stepped toward to say Fairfax sexually mauled her during the Democratic National Convention when it was held in Chicago back in July 2004. I am not judge but after what surfaced in the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh for a seat on the Supreme Court, it is obvious his fellow Dems still like to loudly scream. They are hoping their cries drown out common sense, and they love a brawl, using rumor and innuendo before the truth can stand alone. By the time all is done, some judge will dismiss charges on the same rabble that shows up time after time In yesterdays Washington Post, its quite liberal editorial board demanded Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam resign. It was explained Northam had appeared in some sort of dance and showed up wearing some type of black face. Their proof? A grainy copy of an amateur joke showed up in Northams 1980 medical-school yearbook. I am willing to bet $500, that Northam has done more for African-American children than any other person in the state but why is it our ears are deaf to all but the idiots? What trash wants to confront a mans integrity and go against every principle of fair law we have? The woman behind the Fairfax allegations is Vanessa Tyson, who kept quiet for 40 years, until she read Fairfax was stumping to become the states next Lt. Governor. Tyson lawyered up, hired the same firm in D.C. that represented Christine Blasey Ford, the fallen accuser of Justice Kavanaugh. Reading Dr. Tysons account is painful. I have never done anything like what she suggests, she said. And heres some irony: if Northam were to succumb to the haters wishes, and resign, the law demands that the Lt. Governor become his successor. On Wednesday Virginias Attorney General, Mark R. Herring, issued a statement that, yes, he had donned black face, too, during college. Yesterday Senate Majority Leader Thomas K. Norment Jr. (R-James City) added his name to the scandal, saying he was the was managing editor of the VMI yearbook in 1968. The edition included racial photography and racial slurs. Other admissions are expected to be added in the next week or two but, mind you, there was hardly as much sympathy in our nation back then. While todays sensitivity and heightened awareness is wonderful, it is clearly apparent the longer we whip a dead mule, rehashing the bad things from a previous generation gives us far less time to deal with the more-pressing issues of today. royexum@aol.com Lee University will open its spring U-Church series with Ballet Magnificat! on Sunday, Feb. 17, at 7:30 p.m. in the Conn Center. The troupe will perform an original ballet, titled Prodigals Journey, which is the company's interpretation of the biblical parable of the prodigal son found in Luke 15. This touching tale of forgiveness and restoration is told through classical ballet, jazz, modern, and swing dance. Ballet Magnificat! is a professional ballet company that tours the United States and other countries around the world. The Mississippi-based company was founded in 1986 by Keith and Kathy Thibodeaux. Their mission is to magnify the Lord through dance. The Washington Post states, There's no denying the emotional power of this company. These dancers have the kind of lit-from-within presence rarely seen outside the premier companies. Since its foundation, Ballet Magnificat! has performed in over 35 countries, presenting shows such as Hope of Israel and The Hiding Place, a ballet based on Corrie Ten Booms experiences during the Holocaust. During its 30-year existence, Ballet Magnificat! has expanded from a single company to three companies and has opened a variety of educational programs. In 1989, the company opened School of the Arts, which offers dance classes to students throughout the area. The students are frequently invited to perform in local nursing homes, schools, and churches. The spring U-Church series will continue on March 17 at 7:30 p.m. with An Evening of Worship, featuring LeeU Worship. On April 5, in conjunction with Lees preview weekend, Lee Day, the university will host the final U-Church of the semester, which will open with a performance by illusionist Justin Flom, followed by a time of worship led by The Belonging Co. U-Church is a free, non-ticketed event open to students, alumni, and the community. Seating is first come, first served. Childcare is available for all who attend. Contact Jill Barnett at jillbarnett@leeuniversity.edu for more information. For more information about U-Church, contact Joyce Lane at jlane@leeuniversity.edu or 614-8347. For updates and announcements about U-Church events, stay connected by following U-Church on Twitter: @LeeUChurch, on Instagram: @leeuchurch, or on Facebook: LeeUChurch. House Republicans Introduce Legislation To Create Balance Within Community Oversight Boards This week in Nashville, House Republicans introduced legislation aimed at creating balance within community oversight boards across Tennessee. Backed by Republican leadership, this legislation balances both the interests of our citizens to voice their opinion while also protecting the fundamental rights of officers and their families from malicious or politically focused persecution. Community oversight boards have existed since the 1950s, and there are presently no guidelines outlined in Tennessee state law that defines how they are created, who can serve on them, and what their specific function is. This measure provides much-needed structure to all current and future community oversight boards in Tennessee, which is critical to their overall success, as well as overall safety. House Bill 658 places guardrails on community oversight boards statewide in three significant ways: it removes subpoena power, requires reporting to the General Assembly, and limits the board to registered voters from the jurisdiction for which it serves. Additionally, the legislation promotes diversity among board members by ensuring membership is not restricted or limited based upon demographics, economic status, or employment history. Republican leaders support the brave men and women in uniform who risk their lives and make tremendous sacrifices as they serve their communities. At the same time, we understand the need for transparency and appreciate the desire of our citizens to hold our officers to a higher standard of conduct. Lee Administration Unveils Investment In Vocational Education Initiative Governor Lees first legislative initiative builds public-private partnerships and doubles dual enrollment offerings This week, Governor Bill Lee rolled out his first legislative initiative, the Governors Investment in Vocational Education (GIVE) to expand access to vocational and technical training for Tennessee students. According to the Governors press release, the GIVE initiative is a two-pronged approach that utilizes regional partnerships to develop work-based learning and apprenticeship opportunities. Communities will now have the funding and flexibility to build programs that best reflect local needs and work directly with private industry to structure programming. GIVE also provides funding for high school juniors and seniors to utilize four, fully-funded dual enrollment credits for trade and technical programs. Previously, high school students only had access to two fully-funded dual enrollment credits. With access to four credits, students will now be better prepared for entry into the workforce within two years of graduation. Two grant programs will fund the initiative: GIVE Community Grants and GIVE Student Grants. Using the framework of the states Labor Education Alignment Program (LEAP), the governor will recommend new funding in support of work-based learning through GIVE Community Grants. These competitive grants will go to regional partnerships between TCATs, industry, and K-12 to build new programs in work-based learning and apprenticeships, market-driven dual-credit opportunities, and the expansion of industry-informed CTE offerings at local high schools. GIVE Student Grants will be funded via the Tennessee Lottery and support expanded access to dual enrollment. Committee Conversations: House Transportation Committee Discusses REAL ID Act Of 2005 This week, members of the House Transportation Committee met with the Department of Safety to discuss changes to Tennessee drivers licenses under the REAL ID Act of 2005. The federal measure was created in 2005 and was designed to increase security following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on our nation. Its goal is to ensure people are not using false forms of identification when it comes to air travel, entering federal buildings, or accessing nuclear power plants. Funding is allocated to states through federal grants to be used for additional security components like information technology, cameras, and key codes, special features on drivers licenses, as well the implementation of an age verification system. Currently, 43 states including Tennessee are in compliance. An additional five states are expected to reach this classification later this year. All are required to comply by October 1, 2022. Tennessee State Fire Marshals Office Reminds Tennesseans That Candles Must Be Held With Care Ahead of Valentines Day, the Tennessee State Fire Marshals Office wanted to remind consumers that candles must be handled with care to avoid the potential loss of life, injury, and property damage from an accidental fire. According to the Department of Commerce and Insurance, Tennessee fire departments responded to 71 residential structure fires that were started by candles in 2018 alone. These fires caused two civilian fatalities, four civilian injuries, two firefighter injuries, and more than $1.8 million in property damage. The SFMO offers the following tips to help keep Tennesseans safe from candle fires: When using candles, place them in sturdy, safe candleholders that will not burn or tip over. Never leave a burning candle unattended. Extinguish candles when you leave a room or the home or go to bed. Keep children and pets away from burning candles. Never leave a child unattended in a room with a candle. Never use a candle where medical oxygen is being used. The two can combine to create a large, unexpected fire. Medical oxygen can cause materials to ignite more easily and burn at a faster rate than normal. It can make an existing fire burn faster and hotter. Lit candles should not be placed in windows, where blinds and curtains can close over them, causing a fire. The YMCA of Metropolitan Chattanooga will kick off its annual Community Support Campaign on Thursday at 6 p.m. at the Hamilton Family YMCA. Last year, nearly 200 people attended the kickoff and learned about the many ways the YMCA helps individuals, families and communities through programs supported by its annual campaign. The Y offers a place of healthy community that is not available in many places in our society, said Rev. Janice Keebler, YMCA of Metropolitan Chattanooga chaplain. The Annual Campaign, which runs for the next 5 weeks, is the YMCAs yearly fundraising initiative that helps to support programs like financial assistance, healthy living programs, the Ys free community-wide Safety Around Water program, food programs, youth development programs and much more. Seeing programs that have so much impact Ill do whatever it takes to make that successful, said Rodney Thompson, North Georgia Community YMCAs board chair. Last year, the YMCA of Metropolitan Chattanooga contributed a total of $1.1 million back to the community. In 2019, the Y is on track to prepare and deliver its one millionth meal, in addition to exceeding its financial contribution to the community. It is part of the Y mission that we never turn away someone for inability to pay, said Tripp McCallie, YMCA of Metropolitan Chattanooga chief development officer. Not only do we not turn away individuals, but we also continually seek to offer programs that address community needs. To that end, funds raised annually through this campaign help us continue to meet needs and be a positive community leader. To date, the Y is nearly 75 percent of its goal with approximately $608,000 raised. To learn more about the YMCA of Metropolitan Chattanoogas Communtiy Support Campaign, visit www.ymcachattanooga.org/support-y/donate or email tmccallie@ymcachttanooga.org. All funds raised stay in the community. The owner of a dog training business in Cleveland who was arrested after four dog owners filed complaints against him has taken his own life. Cleveland Police said Stephen Kinder, owner of Kinder Dog Training in Cleveland, shot himself around 12:30 p.m. at James Ashbury Drive. He had been charged with four counts of animal cruelty. Friends said he had been despondent since the charges were filed and threatening messages posted on social media. An officer had gone to Kinder Dog Training at 3575 Adkisson Dr. early Monday morning. A woman from Atlanta said when she picked up the dog in Georgia seven weeks after leaving him at the center, the dog appeared malnourished, injured, and had sores on its body. Two other dog owners said they tried to pick up their dogs, but were told they would not be ready for another week. One who was later able to get her dog said it appeared malnourished with ribs and leg bones protruding through the skin. Cleveland Police said, "On 2-4-2018, Sasha Eastburn filed a report with the Cleveland Police Department in reference to her daughter's dog being neglected at a dog training facility in Cleveland. Mrs. Eastburn stated that her daughter, Abigail Eastburn, arranged a four week training session with Kinder Dog Training for basic obedience training. She stated the arrangement was to include boarding and caring for the dog for the duration of the training. The arrangement was made with Stephen Kinder, the owner of Kinder Dog Training. The dog was dropped off at Kinder Dog Training at 3575 Adkisson Drive on 12-17-2018. Mrs. Eastburn stated at the end of the four weeks, Abigail was contacted by Mr. Kinder stating that he was trying to work through some issues with the dog and would like to extend the training for an additional week at no charge. She stated the training was then continued for two more weeks making the training a total of seven weeks. She stated at the end of the seven weeks, Mr. Kinder tried to extend again, but they did not agree to the extension. She stated Mr. Kinder then agreed to meet her at his home in Dalton Georgia to return the dog to her. Mrs. Eastburn stated when the dog was returned, he appeared to be very malnourished. She also stated the fur on his feet and legs were stained from laying in feces and urine. She stated the dog also had several sores on his legs that had not been there before. She stated the dog was then taken to VCA RIVER in Chattanooga for veterinary treatment. While transporting the dog to the vet, Mrs. Eastburn stated he had episodes of vomiting and diarrhea. "During the vet assessment, the veterinarian noted concerns of poor nutrition, parasite infection, bacterial/viral infection, maldigestion, and inflammatory bowel disease. It was also noted that there was staining of the dogs feet and legs that appeared to be from feces and urine. The vet also listed the dogs weight at 64 lbs. Abigail advised me that when she dropped the dog off, he weighed approximately 95 lbs. She also provided me with photographs of her dog before and after being left in the care of Kinder Dog Training. In the photos, it is apparent that the dog has lost a great deal of weight. His bone structure is very pronounced through his skin. You can also see staining on his feet and legs as well as open sores. The dog has since been transferred to his regular vet in Atlanta Georgia. Due to the condition of the dog after being in the care of Stephen Kinder, Mr. Kinder is being charged with four counts of cruelty to animals, once for each time he extended the training." Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription, or activate your access, to continue reading. Photo: The Canadian Press Stephane Perrault, Chief Electoral Officer of Canada, centre. Canada's chief electoral officer says there's not much his independent agency can do to counter fake news circulated about a candidate in the midst of an election. Stephane Perrault says if the fake information appears in an advertisement, there are some "minimal rules" that cover impersonation of parties, candidates or Elections Canada officials and some forms of disinformation. But a lie spread through social media is not something that can be regulated by Elections Canada. In an appearance Thursday before a House of Commons committee, Perrault refused to comment specifically on an ad that falsely suggests NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, who is in the midst of a byelection contest in British Columbia's Burnaby South, owns a luxurious mansion. The NDP has asked the commissioner of elections, Yves Cote, to investigate that matter. But in general, Perrault says there's no "silver bullet" to eliminate lies spread about a candidate or party; it requires a "whole of society" response, including government, political parties and social media platforms. The Heritage Council has announced details of a public meeting to support the Governments public consultation on the future of Irelands heritage. The meeting will be held on Wednesday, February 13 at 6.30pm in the Newpark Hotel, Kilkenny and will offer those living in Carlow, Kilkenny, Laois, Tipperary South, Waterford and Wexford, an opportunity to contribute to the Governments new national heritage plan, Heritage Ireland 2030. The plan will outline how the countrys natural and built heritage will be managed, valued and protected over the next decade, and its implementation will be led by the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. The public meeting will centre on three key questions, which prospective attendees are encouraged to consider in advance. These are: What, do you think, is our heritage? Why is heritage important to you? (What interests you most about our heritage? How do you engage with it?) What changes could take place to better protect and promote our heritage? Speaking ahead of the meeting, Chief Executive of the Heritage Council, Virginia Teehan said Irelands heritage spans the natural, built and cultural; and it is preserved, promoted and enjoyed by individuals and communities the length and breadth of the country. "This public meeting is an opportunity for anyone who takes an active interest in our heritage to have their voices heard and to feed into a timely national conversation about what our heritage is and what we want it to be," she said. Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Josepha Madigan T.D. said: "Our heritage is a priceless and irreplaceable national asset which belongs to us all. "The natural and built heritage around us enriches our lives, inspires our achievements and gives life to our communities. It underpins our culture, our economy and our society." The Minister added: "The Heritage Council is playing a key role in engaging at a community level to facilitate this public consultation, and I would like to thank the Council for its tremendous support which will help us reach many more people across the country. "I would encourage everyone to make their voice heard as part of this consultation, and help to shape our strategy for the next decade." Do you have an athlete in mind that contributes to the team or sport, holds sportsmanship and team spirit, has epic playmaker moments and/or in general makes the the sports fun? If yes, please make your nominations for our edition of Athlete Spotlight. CLICK TO NOMINATE * Username This is the name that will be used to identify you within the system. Choose wisely! * First name * Last name Your real name will be displayed next to your photo for comments, blog posts, and more! * Email Your e-mail address will be used to confirm your account. We won't share it with anyone else. * Password Create a password that only you will remember. If you forget it, you'll be able to recover it using your email address. remaining of Thank you for reading! This is your last free article before you will be asked to subscribe. Already have a paid subscription? Sign in Yes No Keep to the plan Should have never closed Vote View Results news, latest-news Cannabis use is viewed by some in our community as harmless, and they often confuse the positive effects of medical cannabis with the potentially very harmful effects of illicit cannabis with its high concentrations of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC. ACT Labor and the Greens desire to legalise cannabis and make it more accessible fails to consider the harm this may cause to vulnerable cannabis users who could develop mental illness as a result. According to the ACT Government, cannabis was the primary cause of death in 19 drug related fatalities in the ACT from 2014 to 2018, making it six times more deadly than cocaine, MDMA and ecstasy combined over the same period. Cause of deaths data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics found cannabis was the second most common drug identified at toxicology for transport accident deaths. What is also of great concern is the long-term hidden damage where people have died or become critically ill as a result of psychosis triggered by cannabis use. According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, ongoing and regular use of cannabis is associated with a number of negative long-term effects. Regular users of cannabis can become dependent and commonly reported symptoms of withdrawal include anxiety, sleep difficulties, appetite disturbance and depression. The 2016 National Drugs Strategy Household Survey found a, significant increase in the proportion of past month and past 12-month cannabis users that reported mental illness and high to very high levels of psychological distress. The Australian Medical Association does not support the legalisation of cannabis. It found cannabis can cause a five-fold increase in users developing psychosis and that maternal and paternal use can lead to similar risks for unborn children. The AMA also points to the negative impact on vulnerable groups such as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. A traumatised mother who saw her sons life destroyed by cannabis contacted me recently pleading that we do not see cannabis made legal and more available. She said, I have a son aged 38. He was an excellent student, a high achiever, with good prospects for a successful life. At the age of 19, he and his friends thought it was cool, and became cannabis users. After one particular time my son over indulged, and became psychotic, developing schizophrenia. That is almost 20 years ago. Since 1999, he has been incapable of working, has no friends, and has a very poor quality of life. His psychiatrist told us that one in 10 cannabis users were likely to develop short term psychotic illness, many going on to develop schizophrenia. In the recently released book Tell Your Children: The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness and Violence, Alex Berenson exposes the high incidence of violent behaviour caused by cannabis. He cites numerous studies which all point to cannabis as contributing to increased violence - including domestic violence. Given such alarming statistics and evidence, why would we want to increase the availability of such a potentially harmful substance? ACT Labor argues cannabis users are still being caught up in the criminal justice system. However, very few people are actually being penalised for personal cannabis use in the ACT and most of those who faced penalties were facing other charges. For example, they may have been found in possession of cannabis when being arrested for assault. I suspect that more young people and vulnerable groups will be caught up in the justice system as they mistakenly believe cannabis use now to be legal and will be less cautious about using it. Good drug strategy involves the three elements of supply, demand and harm minimisation. The legalisation of cannabis will lead to increased supply and demand and ultimately cause more harm in the form of mental illness. Our current laws strike the right balance in deterring cannabis use, particularly among younger people, without destroying lives with overly harsh penalties. Jeremy Hanson is the ACT shadow attorney-general /images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/da29f70d-686a-4db9-878f-e320cdbcc37d/r0_102_2000_1232_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg news, latest-news The police union says ACT Policing should be part of the proposed National Integrity Commission, continuing its calls to keep local police separate from the territory scheme. Police officers in the ACT are already subject to three oversight bodies, the Australian Federal Police Association says, making it both unnecessary and unfair for them to also be subject to the ACT's new integrity commission. Throughout last year's debate in the lead up to the commission's introduction, both ACT Policing and the association that represents its officers argued they should not be subject to the new local watchdog. Chief Minister Andrew Barr wrote to both Prime Minister Scott Morrison and former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, requesting for changes to federal laws to allow local police to be included. ACT Policing is a branch of the Australian Federal Police, contracted to the ACT government for local law enforcement, which means its officers can't answer to the territory's commission. The bill for the commission passed in November with an amendment that would allow ACT Policing to be included a year after the commission starts operating in July this year, to give time for the federal government to get on board. Now Australian Federal Police Association president Angela Smith has called for ACT Policing to be overseen by the new National Integrity Commission, in the same way the local force is covered by the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity (ACLEI). "The National Integrity Commission, the federal body, will probably expand the remit of ACLEI and it should boost that, so ACT Policing will still come under the National Integrity Commission. We're federal government employees, we're not ACT government public servants," Ms Smith said. She said if ACT police officers were covered by the ACT commission, while other AFP officers were covered by its national counterpart, it would create a double standard for officers with the same employer. "There could be multiple investigations on foot for ACT Policing which is putting them under an extra level that the rest of the AFP is not under and that's really unfair," she said. "ACT Policing are not employed by the ACT government, they are all employed by the AFP. They're federal government employees, you can't carve out ACT Policing just for the benefits of an ACT integrity commission." The union also dismissed claims from Chief Minister Andrew Barr that the federal law enforcement commission currently watching over Canberra's police wasn't communicating enough with the territory government. "It's a contracted service, they're AFP officers, they're employed by the federal government. That's almost like it's dipping into the detail it doesn't really need to dip into," she said. ACT Policing currently provides reports on complaints to the ACT government twice a year, in line with the purchase agreement. The next report to go to Minister for Police Mick Gentleman is due next month. A spokesman for ACT Policing said verbal briefings are provided from time to time, as well as a professional standards summary provided to the minister periodically, noting any trends or developments. In 2017, ACT Policing promised to share more details of misconduct and corruption investigations to head off the government's attempts to include the force in the new watchdog's remit. Corruption allegations rose steeply in ACT Policing in 2017-18, with 19 complaints made compared to nine in the year before, according to the force's annual report. Three corruption complaints were found not to be established, two weren't proceeded with under discretionary powers and 27 complaints are yet to be finalised, including those brought forward from previous years. /images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/54254b20-274f-429e-9383-e0542214af23/r0_116_2000_1246_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg news, latest-news West Basin is likely to be home to at least 2000 apartments, the ACT government has revealed, while the entire precinct is currently under review. And theres still the possibility of Parkes Way being lowered to make way for better access to the lakefront, with several other options still on the table. The City Renewal Authority is currently reviewing its ambitious West Basin masterplan, and is preparing to implement the second stage of the project - extending the boardwalk another 500m from the recently opened Stage One, Henry Rolland Park. Authority board member and prominent landscape architect Ken Maher said the review was a chance to refine the masterplan to better reflect changes that are still taking place in the city. It's not trying to wipe it out and start again, but it's just looking at how that now needs to be developed, he said. [What we have now is] very much a kind of outline master plan, and all the key principles that underpin it are really important, and robust. Authority chief executive Malcolm Snow said previous modelling for the area showed a much larger proportion of the precinct would be residential, with maximum apartment numbers based on a high level of residential redevelopment. But the authority is now looking a much broader mix of development that includes substantial public space, commercial, retail and community facilities. But there was likely to be at least 2000 apartments in the area, many of them of 100 square metres or more. We're hoping that we will set the parameters for them such that they will be particular to this place, and hopefully there'll be a big range of types of apartments, as opposed to just a cookie-cutter approach, Professor Maher said. There will be family apartments, there will be affordable apartments, it will be about the diversity of the city that should be in place. He said the tallest apartment buildings would be set further away from the lakefront, behind Parkes Way, and the heights would then be staggered, from two storeys on the waterfront for smaller buildings in the park area, four storeys along the facing edge, to six storeys in the area backing up to Parkes Way. And because of the broad public park and promenade directly on the waterfront, which will be built initially, there would be no apartments directly on the waterfront. It will be scaled to the lake, and there'll be very generous public realms, streets and landscapes that will make it, importantly, feel part of what Canberra can have, as opposed to what other cities might have, he said. So this notion that it embraces and connects to the landscape will be important. The authority is now waiting for a land-swap to take place between the National Capital Authority and the ACT government, which will free up the lakefront land for development. Professor Maher, who was awarded the Australian Institute of Architects gold medal in 2010, is part of the team guiding the design of West Basin. He has a long-term connection to Canberra; he designed the Canberra Playhouse, and once had an office in the city. He said the West Basin project was an opportunity that other cities would cry out for, and that leaving the area untouched would be a poor outcome. For those who value the naturalesque parts of the lake - and it is an artificial lake - there's 40km of natural foreshore around it, he said. This is the one part where you can make it more vital and interesting and connected to the city. It's a wonderful opportunity. He said it was important the waterfront park and boulevard be established first, to set the tone for the rest of the precinct, and that the final designs for the precinct would take time. We have to be patient and we have to get it right, and I think the benefits will flow, but it's over a five-to-10 year timeframe as opposed to a one-to-two year timeframe. The best neighbourhoods happen when you establish a really good public realm framework and then you in-fill it progressively. He this was also a way of future-proofing the area, in which 5000 or more people could one day be living and working. It's not just a residential enclave; most great cities have these really interesting mixed-use precincts and neighbourhoods around their centre, and that's really our challenge, he said. And while Parkes Way presented a very real barrier to the lakefront meeting its full potential, Professor Maher said there were ways to heal the incision, including more overpasses, or lowering it below ground. Authority director Malcolm Snow said while the freeway was beyond the authoritys remit as a piece of infrastructure, it would provide input to how it was approached. Professor Maher said that regardless of the eventual outcome for the road itself is, the authority would settle on a design outcome to bridge Parkes Way that removes it as a physical and mental barrier between Civic and West Basin. We know that there are people who highly value that (lakefront), and we would hope that we can convince people over time that what we're doing here is very much part of Canberra, very much respecting the experience of the lake, very much respecting Canberra as a landscape city, very much building on the kind of intent of Griffin, which makes it very particular, he said. /images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/791a25cc-7e7c-404b-b1b4-79347c8a7be7/r0_276_5388_3320_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg news, latest-news On an unremarkable hill outside Fyshwick is one of only four sites in the world where the Ginninderra peppercress exists. It's not the prettiest plant, but it was assumed to be extinct up until 1989, when a small batch was found in Belconnen. Since then, three more sites have been found, with ecologist Alison Rowell discovering the most recent one near Symonston in January. Ms Rowell said the herb's reduced population was a sign of the human hand's effect on Canberra's native landscape, and as we changed the environment more and more, we risked losing all our native flora and fauna. "It's like Jenga," Ms Rowell said. "How many can you pull out before the whole thing collapses?" Ironically, the fourth site near Symonston was discovered when Ms Rowell was mapping the habitat of another critically endangered species native to the Canberra region, the golden sun moth. "I was very excited," Ms Rowell said. It was while doing that mapping that Ms Rowell stumbled upon the tiny herbs of peppercress, scatter-shot in the dirt and each less than eight centimetres tall. She said it was lucky the plant was found in land marked for conservation, and now researchers could work to discover more about the plant. ACT Parks ecologist Brett Howland visited the third peppercress site, which was discovered near Jerrabomberra in February last year, with Ms Rowell on Wednesday. The former paddock is home to some 300 species of plant, though only half of them are native species. But in some small spots the peppercress, which resembles a rougher thyme, has managed to survive. "It's one of those classic cases for endangered species; where we find them now is not where they used to be," he said. Dr Howland said the small piece of land behind the Alexander Maconochie Centre is one of the largest connected grasslands in south-east Australia. It is home to plants like the blue devil, the button wrinklewort and a plant related to the ACT emblem, the royal bluebell, as well as animals like the rare striped legless lizard and the endangered earless dragon. The peppercress would have favoured flood plains and riverbanks, but it had seen habitat loss from exotic grasses and agriculture. Dr Howland said a renewed sense of the importance of managing Canberra's natural environments had been sparked by Ms Rowell's fluke discovery. "We've been walking this land for ten years and could never find it," he said. /images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/b47e6edf-b186-4fe4-a89b-993ddd761c6f/r0_298_5568_3444_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg news, latest-news The ACT government needs to slow down in creating new mixed use precincts with retail and hospitality, or risk drawing more customers away from small businesses in existing areas, a leading small business advocate has urged. The head of the national Council of Small Business in Australia, and a former long-time bookshop owner in Canberra, Peter Strong, made the call during hearings of an Assembly into commercial rates this week. Mr Strong told the inquiry that beyond the problems of rising rates and taxes affecting small business in the capital, was the proliferation of new precincts dragging vital foot traffic away from existing retail and hospitality outlets. His warning comes as the government sets out creating new mixed use precincts - with apartments above retail and cafes and restaurants on the ground floor - along the light rail route, as part of the government's wider push to redevelop the city. Those areas were highlighted in the government's city and urban gateway strategy released last year that aimed to have some 37,000 extra dwellings built along the light rail route from the city to the land surrounding Exhibition Park. Outside of the inquiry, Mr Strong said while new precincts such as New Acton, the Kingston Foreshore and the gentrified Lonsdale Street were good for consumers, creating yet more would likely hit the long-term small businesses hard. Until 2013, Mr Strong owned Smith's Alternative bookshop in the city, and while he said he drew new customers by diversifying with a bar and live music before he sold it, he found New Acton, a lack of nearby carparks and the expanded Canberra Centre drew foot traffic away from the Melbourne Building shop. He said new centres like Kingston Foreshore had a big effect on the main Kingston shops and restaurants, putting extra strain on small businesses already struggling with rising rates and other costs. "I think we've got enough, competition is good and any small business has to keep an eye out and change when it needs to, but there's only so many customers - let's take the time to enjoy what we have before we start creating new precincts" he said. "Every closed shop I see, I think of employees out of a job and a small business owner who could be losing their home." Mr Strong said he believed the government did not understand small business, citing the failure to provide a light rail stop at Mitchell - the only industrial area along the stage one route - as a clear example. He also said the characteristics of Braddon's 'organic' transformation from an industrial area to a hospitality-dominated strip were at risk if the government went too far in trying to manufacture such precincts. City Renewal Authority chief executive Malcolm Snow has said he wanted developers to create new precincts along the route, particularly for the former large public housing sites on Northbourne Avenue in Braddon and Turner. Despite that, a government spokesman said on Friday the government was not planning any major new commercial precincts along Northbourne Avenue, though it was encouraging more mixed use developments along the corridor. He said those developments would add population and more demand for local business and be well-connected to the city centre, while all new developments would be subject to community consultation and the usual planning process. "The City Renewal Authoritys priority is improving the public experience in our existing retail and hospitality centres in Civic, Braddon, Dickson and New Acton to increase the number of people who use these places and encourage them to spend more time there," he said. /images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/3f1c5d99-23b0-4918-aab4-a4ce547a916e/r0_354_6720_4151_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg Despite the slurry of news and negativity oozing up from the US, the fact remains that the circus we have a first-row seat to happens to also contain hundreds of vibrant housing markets propelled by surging job growth and home prices that are still recovering from the financial Armageddon of 2008. That was actually the best opportunity to start making money in the United States, says Keith Perrin who, along with his wife Linda, is one of the co-founders of All-Ternative Solutions. The reason why we are in the states that we are in is because they are some of the later ones to be recovering. Were still able to get returns of 15% or more. In the States you can buy a fully renovated house for $35,000 that rents for up to $1,000 a month, adds Linda. For Canadian investors accustomed to celebrating when they achieve a 3% cap rate on a $600,000 condo, it may sound like Lindas speaking an alien language. But through her and Keiths dealings in states such as Ohio, Tennessee, Missouri and New Jersey over the last four years, those kinds of deals have become common place. Why go it alone? The properties in the US may be cheap, but that doesnt mean theyre any easier to source, finance or manage for someone unfamiliar with the US markets unique demands. Thats why the Perrins have assembled their considerable knowledge, amassed over the course of almost 80 deals, into a training/mentoring package for a wide range of investors: novices needing a grip on US-specific terminology and strategies; students who are hopelessly priced out of the Canadian market; and experienced investors who want to replicate the Perrins success in the US. Its not only affordable the three-day outreach training session is only $2,500 but by limiting the number of attendees to a maximum of 10 per seminar, personalized attention and valuable one-on-one time is guaranteed. We give them the information they need to get started and we hold their hand through the entire process, Linda says. We teach people enough information so they can purchase their own properties, but everyone learns at a different speed. If someone needs more help to be comfortable with investing, were here for them. From combing through the fine print on an offer to answering questions about what the best investment neighborhoods are in, for example, Dayton, Ohio, investors who align themselves with the Perrins are granted access to a wealth of expertise built over the course of thirty years of flipping and house-hacking (Linda) and decades of commercial property sourcing and team-building (Keith). The Perrins have also built an extensive list of contacts which has proven to be a lifesaver for more than a few clients and teach investors how they, too, can build their own valuable network of professionals. Competing training programs that attempt to offer the same level of value often cost two, three or four times the price of an All-Ternative Solutions seminar. That discrepancy is no accident. You learn a little bit at those big, flashy events, but then you have to go back to the next level to get the next piece, and you have to go to the next level so you actually have enough useful information to work with, says Linda. But youre not supposed to be investing in a course. Youre supposed to be investing in houses. Clients who nab an attractive US property but are still working their way toward 100% confidence can avail themselves of the Perrins ongoing post-seminar mentoring program for only $300 a month. Its a small price to pay for the kind of personalized advice that has helped dozens of the Perrins investor partners prosper and progress in their search for financial independence. I have found too many people out there trying to make investors follow their path, says Linda. We walk beside people and help them develop their own path. There has been a dramatic rise in the demand for baristas in Ireland, according to new figures released by job site, Indeed. Vacancies for roles posted on jobs website Indeed are up 79% in the past 3 years, and up 25% in the past year. Indeeds research also showed that Irelands restaurant sector was also searching for new staff with postings of vacancies for chefs up 71% in the past 3 years. Indeed has warned that the enthusiastic embrace of cafe culture among Irish consumers also comes with a note of caution in 2019 - this year could be a tougher year for the cafe and restaurant trade with the increase in the VAT rate for the hospitality sector to 13.5% kicking in from the 1st January 2019. Increases in the prices of commuters morning flat whites and lunchtime sandwiches have already been registered. Speaking this week, VP EMEA at global job site Indeed, Chris McDonald said, "The rise of hipster cafe culture in Ireland is a clear trend with booming recruitment for baristas to fulfil our love affair with our daily caffeine jolt. Our research also suggests that the recovery in the Irish economy is supporting increasing recruitment in the restaurant sector. With unemployment at an 11-year low there is now intense competition between employers for recruits, meaning more attractive pay packets and employee perks are increasingly likely to be on offer." Source: www.businessworld.ie France would oppose any British request to delay Brexit if London was simply delaying making a decision, but could agree if London presented a credible political solution, a French government official said on Thursday. The warning came as British Prime Minister Theresa May held talks in Brussels with European Union leaders to plead for a change to the divorce deal she negotiated last year in the hope of getting it through the British parliament. French President Emmanuel Macron has vocally championed an EU refusal to reopen the agreement and water down a provision designed to ensure there is never a hard border between Ireland and the British province of Northern Ireland. If Britain does not must reach a deal acceptable to the EU and its own parliament in the next 50 days, it will crash out of the bloc with few measures to cushion the economic shock. Extending the withdrawal period would need the approval of all 27 remaining EU members. Paris would be willing to grant an extension of up to a year if Britain called an election or a second referendum, or presented a new plan that was acceptable to all sides but needed more time to be finalised. "Fundamentally, we oppose an extension without a plan. That's clear. We won't accept it," the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters. "If, however, the British told us: 'To build a new political solution, we need an extra three months, six months or even a year', we would be open to that." French officials believe Britain is running down the clock in the expectation that the EU will cave in on the Irish backstop. The official said this was a fundamental mistake and underestimated the EU's resolve to protect Ireland and its own credibility. "The exhaustion strategy will not work," the official said. "It would be much worse for us to give an impression of weakness and indecision than to have a no-deal." Buckling on the Irish backstop would send a signal of weakness to smaller EU members and also foreign leaders such as U.S. President Donald Trump, who might feel they could bully the bloc on issues such as trade, the official said. "It's not a question of misplaced pride or technocratic rigour. It's becoming a credibility issue." The official said EU countries were less and less worried about a possible no-deal Brexit, and that markets were pricing in such an outcome and weakening Britain's leverage. "For many banks and investors, it is becoming the baseline scenario. As they say on the markets, it's priced in. And even politically, it's getting more and more priced in." (Reuters) Source: www.businessworld.ie Vivo has disclosed that V15 Pro will feature a pop-up selfie camera with a 32MP sensor. Such a high-powered selfie camera will be seen for the first time on a mechanical pop-up mechanism. It also means there will be no camera cutouts encroaching on the screen space. Notably, Vivo was the first ever manufacturer to release a smartphone with a pop-up front camera. The teaser shows the Vivo V15 Pro with the similar mechanical contraption that we have seen in prior offerings by the Chinese smartphone maker. The front of the device is completely covered by the screen, with only a slight chin at the bottom. The device will come with an under-screen fingerprint reader, which Vivo claims is a more refined iteration of the biometric sensor. The back of the Vivo V15 Pro houses a triple-camera setup with three lenses arranged in a vertical fashion. This line-up is likely to include a 48MP quad pixel primary sensor, with effective capabilities of a 12MP sensor. One 8MP sensor and another 5MP sensor are also likely to be in the mix. The LED flash has been placed between the first and second lens. In the teaser, the V15 Pro shows a gradient back panel done in blue, but we can safely assume a lot more colour options. We might even see the recently-launched Qualcomm Snapdragon 675 processor, which will replace the Snapdragon 660, but is arguably more powerful than the Snapdragon 710. It will be coupled with the 6GB RAM and 128GB internal storage. The device will draw power from a 3,700mAh battery which is expected to come with dual engine fast charging capabilities. The company has confirmed that Vivo V15 Pro will be launched on February 20. The device has already been teased on Amazon and is most likely be available on Vivo's own online store. As for the price, the Vivo V15 Pro is expected to be priced close to Rs 33,000. ALSO READ:Oppo K1 with 25 MP selfie camera launched; check out price, specifications ALSO READ:Xiaomi to launch budget smartphones Redmi Note 7, Redmi Go in India soon Loading the player... Bengal Global Business Summit 2019: Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries to invest Rs 10,000 crore in state After facing another round of interrogation, Rahul Gandhi's brother-in-law Robert Vadra left the Enforcement Directorate office after nine hours of questioning. Vadra, who was questioned in connection with a money laundering case, left ED office at around 9 pm after which his wife Priyanka Gandhi Vadra picked him up. The businessman was asked questions for the second consecutive day in connection with his alleged links to defence and petroleum kickbacks.The Delhi Development Authority (DDA) is set to launch new housing scheme 2019 by the end of this month. The scheme will mostly have one-bedroom flats and majority of them would be located in Narela and Bawana. The authority will launch around 10,000 flats for the economically weaker section groups as flats for HIG (High Income Group) and MIG (Middle Income Group) are not yet complete, according to a Times of India report.The overall air quality of Delhi was 'moderate' on Thursday, a significant improvement due to western disturbances, scattered rain and high wind speed, authorities said. According to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) data, the overall air quality index (AQI) of the city was at 171, which falls in the 'moderate' category, a significant drop from the AQI of 349 recorded on Wednesday, which falls in the 'very poor' category.Domestic airlines owed dues worth Rs 2,448 crore to the Airports Authority of India (AAI) as on January 15, the civil aviation ministry said On Thursday.Dues against foreign scheduled and non-scheduled airline operators stood at Rs 312.27 crore. However, specific date regarding the dues to be paid to the AAI was not disclosed.Karti Chidambaram, son of former finance minister P Chidambaram, appeared before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday in connection with a money laundering probe against him. Officials said Karti Chidambaram was summoned to record his statement under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). It is understood that he would be questioned in the INX Media case, officials said. The agency has alleged that Karti received money from INX Media, using his influence to manipulate a tax probe against it in a case of violation of Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) conditions to receive investment from Mauritius.Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director, Reliance Industries has said that he plans to further invest Rs 10,000 crore in the digital space of West Bengal. Speaking at the fifth edition of The Bengal Global Business Summit 2019, Ambani said that they are the biggest investors in the digital space of West Bengal with Rs 28,000 crore so far. The company's investments in the state already account for one-tenth of the total investments in the country so far, he added. The plan to invest Rs 10,000 crore more is already under implementation. He added that in 2016 when he first attended the summit, Reliance's investment in the state was to the tune of Rs 4,500 crore.The US has agreed to sell two state-of-the-art missile defence systems to Air India One for an estimated cost of USD 190 million, a move that will enhance the security of planes flying the prime minister and the president. According to the Pentagon, the sale will support the foreign policy and national security of the US by helping to strengthen the US-Indian strategic relationship. When reports of Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd, or HAL, using an overdraft of Rs 926 crore to pay salaries to staff came out, all hell broke loose. The financial health of HAL - already under media glare due to the controversy over the alleged Rafale scam - became a new battleground between the government and the Opposition which, along with the employee unions, criticised the government for stripping the strategically important company of resources at a time its capability to make cutting-edge defence equipment was being questioned. They were not far off the mark. In 2017/18, HAL had paid the government, which holds a 90 per cent stake in the company, a dividend of Rs 1,165 crore and bought back shares worth Rs 1,126 crore. The employee union was particularly critical of the government for making the company pay around Rs 6,400 crore through share buybacks over two years (Rs 5,265 crore in 2016/17 and Rs 1,128 crore in 2017/18), apart from the Rs 9,000 crore dividend the company has paid the government since 2003/04. S. Chandrasekhar, the General Secretary of the HAL Employees Association, said while there was nothing wrong with buybacks, it should not have been done when the company's resources were under strain. HAL is not an isolated case. The story is, in fact, playing out in almost all big PSUs - the government, far from selling stake as part of its economic reforms agenda, is depending more and more on these companies to meet its revenue targets. The Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs), despite calls for strategic sale and divestment of government stake, have time and again bailed out the government in times of dire need. Though experts say there is nothing wrong with the government, the largest shareholder in these companies, demanding some cash, they question the way it is treating these as cash cows. They point to the fact that while profits of CPSEs have grown at a paltry 2.2 per cent CAGR from 2011/12 to 2017/18 (from Rs 1.15 lakh crore to Rs 1.28 lakh crore), dividend payouts have grown at a 9 per cent CAGR (from Rs 49,700 crore to Rs 76,500 crore) over the period. Add to this the money from buybacks that the government has been directing some of these companies to do over the past couple of years. The government has shortlisted 11 CPSEs for buyback in 2018/19. Chintan Haria, Head of Product Development, ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund, says: "In general, the push for dividend is only from profits which are unutilised. A dividend causing a cash flow crunch seems too far-fetched to me." ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund manages Bharat 22 ETF - an exchange-traded fund comprising government-owned companies. HAL is not part of the ETF. Cash on Tap According to the Department of Public Enterprises, in 2017/18, there were 264 public sector enterprises, of which 184 were profit making and 71 loss making. Out of their Rs 1.28 lakh crore profit, they paid Rs 76,600 crore, or 60 per cent, as dividend. The government, the largest shareholder, received Rs 55,000 crore (provisional data as per Budget 2018/19), almost 72 per cent of the dividend disbursed. In 2016/17, the government had received Rs 52,000 crore out of the Rs 78,000 crore dividend paid by CPSEs from the Rs 1.25 lakh crore net profit earned by them. In the last 10 years, these public sector enterprises, which include the likes of ONGC, Coal India, BPCL, NTPC and NHPC, have paid over Rs 3 lakh crore as dividend to the government. In the current financial year, the government has budgeted for a Rs 52,500 crore dividend from its companies, less than the last year's payout by a couple of thousand crores. One reason for the rise in CPSE payouts is that government-owned banks (except SBI) have been barely paying dividends for the last few years due to high NPAs and, therefore, the government has been dependent on CPSEs and the Reserve Bank of India, or RBI, for most of its non-tax revenues. Dividend and profits from government-owned enterprises, banks and financial institutions, a part of the non-tax revenue source of the government, were Rs 1.23 lakh crore in 2016/17 and Rs 1.06 lakh crore in 2017/18. This year, these two are estimated to generate Rs 1.07 lakh crore for the government. Till November 2018, only 51 per cent of this target had been achieved. While a lot was made of the government's push for additional payouts (dividend and additional payment from reserves) from the RBI - which resisted attempts to dip into its reserves - the government usually faces less resistance from CPSEs and PSU banks. It is the majority shareholder in all these companies which, according to D.K. Srivastava, Chief Policy Advisor, EY, and a former member of the 12th Finance Commission, allows a 'degree of flexibility' in terms of the amount of dividend that can be 'accessed'. The central government holds almost 90 per cent in HAL, 78 per cent in Coal India, 67 per cent in ONGC, 63 per cent in BHEL, 65 per cent in PFC and 61 per cent in NTPC. Dividends are not the only way to raise money from CPSEs. The government also uses financially strong public sector companies to buy stake in loss-making enterprises or enterprises where it plans to disinvest its stake. The government has a target of raising Rs 80,000 crore through disinvestment in the current financial year. So far, it has raised around Rs 35,000 crore. Last year, it had, for first time, managed to mop up Rs 1 lakh crore through this route as against the Budget target of Rs 46,500 crore. This was possible due to one of the biggest disinvestments - oil marketing company HPCL. Here, the government prompted ONGC, another PSU, to buy its 51 per cent stake for around Rs 37,000 crore. Many disinvestments are done through buybacks. The government, being the largest shareholder, 'makes' these companies buy back its shares to achieve disinvestment targets. In 2017/18, it had raised around Rs 5,000 crore through 13 buybacks, the largest being from Oil India Ltd, which bought back shares worth Rs 1,135 crore. This year, it has so far raised Rs 2,600 crore through five buybacks. Flexibility or Pressure? Are these dividend payouts or buybacks done under pressure from the government, which often finds itself short of funds? Is it the power it wields over these companies which decides how much it gets from them? What is the 'degree of flexibility' D.K. Srivastava talked about? Is he alluding to the pressure the government exerts over its companies? To this, Srivastava says, 'pressurise' is too strong a word to use. Ranen Banerjee, Leader, Public Finance, PwC, says, "Being the majority stakeholder, the government can influence decisions." This, he says, is true even in case of private companies. But equity analysts say regular dividends and buybacks are signs of good corporate governance. "If you are not doing capex, don't keep cash because cash reduces RoE (return on equity) and RoCE (return on capital employed). If a company is sitting on cash, there is a likelihood it may do some capex or acquisition that may not fit in well and it may end up burning the cash. So, if you are not doing any capex, it is better to return cash to shareholders," says Haria of ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund. On buybacks, he says they are common in the US also. "Private sector players have accepted it (buyback) as the best practice," says Chintan. Experts say dividends are not bad if they are paid from earned profit and future growth is not impacted. That might not always be the case. In 2016, the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management, the government arm that looks after disinvestment policies, came out with dividend and share buyback guidelines for CPSEs. According to the guidelines, every CPSE must pay a minimum dividend of 30 per cent of the net profit or 5 per cent of the net worth, whichever is higher, unless it has a justifiable reason for not doing so. On buybacks, the guidelines say that CPSEs must look into merit-based capital restructuring through share buybacks if they are not deploying the cash in balance with the company. The guidelines say that any CPSE with a net worth of at least Rs 2,000 crore and cash balance of over Rs 1,000 crore should exercise the buyback option. Fiscal Planning The government has been using public sector companies to raise revenues and make minor adjustments to keep its fiscal goals on track - whether it is through dividends, disinvestment targets or off-balance sheet financing of certain expenses. The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), in a report published recently, said "the government has increasingly resorted to off-Budget financing for revenue as well as capital spending. Such off-Budget financing is not part of the calculation of the fiscal indicators despite fiscal implications." These off-balance sheet expenditures are done through public sector enterprises, which issue bonds to raise money; this is reported in their books. This year, in particular, with both direct and indirect tax collections looking off target, it is tapping every resource in hand, including dividends from public sector enterprises and buybacks, to get close to the target of 3.3 per cent fiscal deficit - expenses exceeding total receipts. It has achieved just 51 per cent non-tax revenue (which include dividends and profits from public sector companies) target and 43 per cent of the disinvestment target so far; it is unlikely to be able to squeeze more out of these companies. @dipak_journo The facts don't add up. While the government claims its creating more women entrepreneurs, data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) suggests the opposite. The Interim Budget did its bit to encourage women entrepreneurs. Sourcing 3 per cent material from women owned SMEs is mandatory for the government now. Like last year, women comprise 70 per cent of MUDRA Yojana beneficiaries getting loans for new ventures. Data from the CMIE, however, says womens participation in the labour workforce fell dramatically after 2016. In rural India it was 14.4 per cent in end 2016, 12 per cent in 2017, and 11 per cent in 2018. The drop-outs were mostly women from the lowest end of the spectrum - informal rural workers. There's a clear contradiction in the numbers and the government needs to figure it out soon. A Supreme Court bench said that it is of the tentative view that former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and BSP head Mayawati should deposit the public money utilised for building stautes of her and elephants, her party's symbol, to the exchequer. Several staues of Mayawati and BSP's elephants were erected in parks around Lucknow and Noida during her tenure. The apex court bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi made these remarks on Friday while hearing a petition which contended that public money cannot be used by someone for building their statues and publicising their political party. The bench, also comprising justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjeev Khanna, made it clear the tentative view was expressed by it as the matter would take some time for hearing. The final hearing in the matter will happen on April 2. "We are of the tentative view that Mayawati has to deposit the public money spent on her statues and party symbol to the state exchequer," the chief justice bench said. The petition on the issue was filed by advocate Ravi Kant in 2009 and on Friday the matter came after quite a long time. Earlier, the apex court had passed various interim orders and directions in which the issue of environmental concern was also raised. Further, there was also a direction to the Election Commission that during the election the elephants built in the park have to be covered. The petitioner has alleged that crores of rupees was used from the state budget for 2008-09 to glorify Mayawati who was then the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh. The Supreme Court Friday imposed Rs 50,000 fine on former Bihar deputy Chief Minister and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav and dismissed his plea challenging Patna high court's order directing him to vacate the government bungalow meant for the deputy chief minister directing him to shift to an accommodation for the leader of opposition. A three judge bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, justice Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna imposed a fine of Rs. 50,000 on the RJD leader for challenging the decision. The sprawling bungalow at 5, Deshratan Marg was allotted to Yadav in 2015 upon his appointment as the deputy chief minister of the then 'grand alliance' government headed by Nitish Kumar. Even after RJD lost power in the state, Tejashwi continues to stay in the same bungalow. On January 7, the three judge bench had rejected the RJD leader's appeal challenging a single order on October 6, 2018 turning down his petition against the state government's direction imposing a fine of Rs. 50,000 on the RJD leader for pursuing litigation up to the top court even after two benches of the high court dismissed his plea. The petitioner has been allotted a bungalow, matching his status as a minister in the government at 1, polo road, Patna. He cannot raise objection on the decision so taken, simply because the present bungalow is more suited to him, the single-judge order stated that Tejashwi Yadav occupies the 5,Desh Ratna Marg bungalow at stone's throw from the Raj Bhavan and the chief minister's official residence. Tejashwi, however decided to move an appeal to the Supreme Court against the order. (Edited by Sameer Gaur; with PTI inputs) Also read: GoM proposes 5% GST for under-construction homes, 3% for affordable housing: Report The intense two-day questioning of Robert Vadra by Enforcement Directorate (ED) focusing mainly on his assets abroad, especially in London and UAE has opened a can of worms for the brother-in-law of Congress President Rahul Gandhi. ED grilled Vadra for over eight hours on Thursday on the "ultimate beneficiary" of London residencies and six flats which it alleged were bought by his associates through a web of companies, some of which are allegedly owned by absconding arms dealer Sanjay Bhandari and the UAE-based businessman CC Thampi. The agency has alleged that many of these properties were used for "routing kickbacks" and "round-tripping illegal wealth". The properties in London and UAE were bought with the money of the suspect companies, some of which are owned by Bhandari and Thampi who are closely associated with Vadra. The complicit companies include Vortex, allegedly owned by Bhandari, and Sky Light, a Sharjah-based company controlled by Thampi. Another company named "Syntac" is also under ED's radar as Bhandari bought the London mansion from this company for 1.9 million pounds. Another company registered at Park View is also under ED's scanner as this company was involved in the property dealings for Vadra in London. ED is scrutinising Bhandari and Thampi for allegedly violating the FEMA Act. It has also written to authorities in London and UAE to collate more information about the said companies which includes their ownership details. Below are some of the other cases against Robert Vadra: Money laundering: This is not the first time Vadra has come under the sharp lens of enforcement agencies. ED had last year filed a case of money laundering against him for the purchase of a property at Bryanston Square in London worth 1.9 million pounds. Besides this, there were two more properties estimated at around 4 million pounds and 5 million pounds apart from other flats. All these properties were allegedly bought between 2005 and 2010. ED alleged that Vadra and his associates received kickbacks in a petroleum deal inked in 2009 during the UPA regime. The proceeds from this deal were allegedly used by Vadra to buy the plush properties in London. Haryana land deal case: In September last year an FIR was lodged against Vadra and Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda under the Prevention of Corruption Act and multiple sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Skylight Hospitality owned by Vadra allegedly bought land in various places in Gurgaon and sold them at much higher rates than the prevalent market rates. Bikaner money laundering case: ED in 2015 had registered a money laundering case against Sky Light Hospitality owned by Vadra. The company had bought land in Kolayat, Bikaner at dirt cheap prices and sold it to Allegenery Finlease for Rs 5.15 crore allegedly. The land was meant for rehabilitating poor villagers but was bought by Vadra through illegal transactions. ED also claimed that Allengenery Finlease was a fictitious company and had no real business. CBI had in August 2017 registered 18 cases of fraud against companies including an entity owned by Vadra on the recommendation of the then Rajasthan government. Out of these 18 cases, four were registered against his company. ALSO READ:Probe Robert Vadra, Chidambaram but give answers on Rafale: Rahul Gandhi to PM Modi ALSO WATCH: After Congress President Rahul Gandhi launched a scathing attack on PM Modi on the Rafale deal, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said then defence minister Manohar Parrikar tried to assuage the concerns of the defence secretary. Earlier, Rahul Gandhi had accused the Prime Minister's Office of holding parallel discussions with the French side over the Rafale deal despite the Ministry of Defence's (MoD) clear opposition to it. Retorting on the accusation, Nirmala Sitharaman, making a suo motu statement in Parliament said: "Then Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar ji replied to that MoD note that 'remain calm', 'nothing to worry', everything is going alright." "They are flogging a dead horse. Periodical enquiries by the PMO cannot be construed as interference," the minister said during the Zero Hour. Accusing the Congress of not working in the interests of the Indian Air Force, she said the Opposition was playing into the hands of multinational companies and vested interests. Also read: Businesses fear Rahul Gandhi's guaranteed income plan, see higher taxes Throwing the ball in the Congress' court, Sitharaman accused the Congress- formed NAC, led by former party president Sonia Gandhi, of "interference". "Now, what do you call the NAC led by Sonia Gandhi's interference in earlier PMO? What was that?" she asked. "Was that not interference?" Then Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar's reply to the MoD, a document accessed by news agency ANI, states that "Defence Secretary (G Mohan) may resolve the matter in consultation with Principal Secretary to PM". The reply further says that "it appears the PMO and the French President office are monitoring the progress of the issue which was an outcome of the summit meeting. Para 5 appears to be an overreaction". ANI accesses the then Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar's reply to MoD dissent note on #Rafale negotiations."It appears PMO and French President office are monitoring the progress of the issue which was an outcome of the summit meeting. Para 5 appears to be an over reaction" pic.twitter.com/3dbGB9xF4Z - ANI (@ANI) February 8, 2019 On The Hindu report claiming to have access to the dissenting letter by the MoD, Sitharaman said: "A newspaper published a file noting written by Defence Secretary. If a newspaper publishes a noting then the ethics of journalism will demand that the newspaper publishes the then Defence Minister's reply as well." Earlier, Congress president said that PM Modi "himself robbed Air Force's Rs 30,000 crore and gave it to Anil Ambani". "We have been raising this since 1 year. Now a report has come where Defence Ministry officials say that the PM was holding parallel negotiations with France government," said Rahul Gandhi. He also shared a letter, duly signed by Deputy Secretary (Air-II), SK Sharma, claiming the PMO was holding parallel discussions with the French team. "It is, therefore, clear that such parallel discussions by the PMO have weakened the negotiating positions of MoD and Indian Negotiating Team. We may advise PMO that any officers who are not part of Indian Negotiating Team may refrain from having parallel parlays with the officers of the French government," says the letter. Edited by Manoj Sharma Also read: Rahul Gandhi's fresh attack: 'PM Modi bypassed Rafale talks despite defence ministry's opposition' National Conference leader Omar Abdullah Friday said he would like to see how those aligned with the BJP would explain reports that the Defence Ministry had protested over the mechanism being adopted by the PMO for the Rafale deal. He had tagged a document, purportedly of the Defence Ministry, which was published as part of a news report by The Hindu. According to the article, the ministry had raised strong objections to "parallel negotiations" conducted by the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) with the French side. I'd like to see how this one is explained by the talking heads aligned to the BJP. @PMOIndia "weakened the negotiating position of the Ministry of Defence & the Indian Negotiating Team" as per this note in a MOD file that went up the the Defence Minister. pic.twitter.com/xnqXM4s8Mr - Omar Abdullah (@OmarAbdullah) 8 February 2019 "I'd like to see how this one is explained by the talking heads aligned to the BJP. @PMOIndia 'weakened the negotiating position of the Ministry of Defence & the Indian Negotiating Team' as per this note in a MOD file that went up the the Defence Minister," the former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister claimed. The National Conference was an ally of NDA when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the prime minister but shifted to UPA-II in 2009. The Enforcement Directorate interrogated former Finance Minister P Chidambaram over charges of money laundering in the INX Media case. The senior Congress leader appeared before the probe agency on Friday morning at 11:00am and answered question for five hours, with only a one-hour lunch break in between. Chidambaram still maintains that this is an instance of political vendetta against him. P Chidambaram's son Karti had faced ED questions in the INX Media money laundering case a day before, on Thursday. During the interrogation, he denied meeting Indrani and Peter Mukherjea, the prime accused in the money laundering case, in relation to the INX Media deal. He said he met Indrani only once in Byculla Jail when he was taken there to meet her in CBI custody. In its FIR dated May 15, 2017, the Central Bureau of Investigation had alleged irregularities in the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearance given to INX Media for receiving foreign funds to the tune of Rs 305 crore in 2007. During this time, P Chidambaram held the office of Finance Minister in the UPA government and Karti allegedly secured the clearances in lieu of kickbacks. The probe agencies are also investigating the link between Karti Chidambaram and INX Media through a transaction worth Rs 10 lakh made by INX media to Advantage Strategic Consulting Pvt Ltd, a firm that was indirectly linked to Karti. The allegations suggest Karti took money from INX Media to stop a probe against INX Media for violating FIPB conditions to get investment from Mauritius, and to stop probe against INX Media during the time when Congress-led government was in power. Earlier Indrani had also given a statement to the probe agencies under Section 164 of the CrPC, claiming that Karti demanded Rs 10 lakh from her and her husband to stop probe in the case. The ED had last year attached Karti's assets worth Rs 54 crore, both in India and abroad. ALSO READ:Probe Robert Vadra, Chidambaram but give answers on Rafale: Rahul Gandhi to PM Modi ALSO READ:INX Media case: Indrani Mukerjea seeks lawyer for plea to turn approver Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot announced on Thursday that the monthly pension for freedom fighters would be increased to Rs 25,000 and the medical allowance to Rs 5,000 per month. Gehlot said the pension for soldiers and war widows of World War II would be more than doubled, from Rs 4,000 per month to Rs 10,000. The chief minister made the announcement at a function here to mark the birth anniversary of social worker and Gandhian thinker S N Subba Rao. Gehlot said freedom fighters would get a pension of Rs 25,000 per month instead of Rs 20,000 earlier. The medical allowance would be increased by Rs 1,000 per month to Rs 5,000. The Congress leader ruled out the possibility of a complete ban on liquor in the state, saying it was not practical. Also read: PM Modi addresses the nation; says Budget 2019 was only a trailer of the 'new India' to come Citing the example of Gujarat where liquor is banned, Gehlot said alcohol was being smuggled and consumed in that state. He was reacting to some suggestions at the event for a ban on liquor. The chief minister said a museum on Mahatma Gandhi would be set up to promote the principals and teachings of the Father of the Nation, conducting research on him and for other similar activities. Speaking on the present situation in the country, Gehlot alleged that the Constitution and democracy was in danger. "Some people use the name of Mahatma Gandhi to come to power, but they are not ready to follow his ideology." Gehlot also pointed out to the state government's decision to give wheat to 1.74-crore families, who are below the poverty line, at Re 1 per kg. Social activist Medha Patkar and others also attended the programme. Also read: Budget 2019: Govt may increase Rs 500 per month cash support scheme to farmers in future, says Arun Jaitley Digital platform helps Maharashtra save Rs 12,000 crore in farm loan waiver: CM Fadnavis Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee-led West Bengal government has secured investment proposals worth over Rs 40,000 crore on the first day of the flagship business summit which started on Thursday. At least ten partner countries, over 32 nation across the globe and big delegations from India participated in the summit that got underway Thursday, suggested media reports. According to media report, the state government, in the fourth edition of the event in 2018, had secured investment commitment worth USD 145.93 billion. Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director, Reliance Industries has proposed to make an additional investment of Rs 10,000 crore in the digital space of the state for expansion of his Reliance Jio's 4G network. His company has already invested Rs 28,000 crore in the state, which is the biggest investment in the digital space of West Bengal so far. Speaking at the Summit, Ambani said that the plan to invest Rs 10,000 crore more is already under implementation. He added that in 2016 when he first attended the summit, Reliance's investment in the state was to the tune of Rs 4,500 crore. Also Read: Bengal Global Business Summit 2019: Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries to invest Rs 10,000 crore in state Sanjiv Puri, MD, ITC, said the group will invest Rs 1,700 crore to set up a new personal care products plant and upgrade its current facilities in the state. Sajjan Jindal, chairman and managing director of the JSW Group, said the group is planning to double the capacity of cement plant in West Bengal and is considering to set up a steel plant worth Rs 50,000 crore, but could not fanalise it due to lack of raw material. Great Eastern Energy Corporation Ltd. (GEECL) has proposed to invest Rs 15,000 crore in West Bengal over the next five years. Among other Indian companies, Hiranandani Group has announced to make fresh investment of Rs 2000 crore in the state. Karan Adani, Chief Executive Officer, Adani Ports and Special Economic Zones has said group will set up a port and logistics park in Bengal. Among the global delegates, Coca Cola has announced to invest Rs 500 crore and UAE-based DP World proposes to develop Kulpi Port at an investment of Rs 3,000 crore. Edited by Chitranjan Kumar Tata Steel on Friday reported 54.31 per cent year-on-year (YoY) growth in its consolidated net profit at Rs 1,753 crore for the third quarter ended December 31, 2018, despite a sharp drop in international steel prices. "The steel major had posted a consolidated net profit of Rs 1,135.92 crore for the same quarter a year ago," Tata Steel said in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange. Consolidated total income of the company soared 23 per cent to Rs 41,431.37 crore during October-December 2018, from Rs 33,672.48 crore in the year-ago quarter. Consolidated adjusted EBITDA grew 27 per cent Y-o-Y to Rs 7,225 crore as compared to Rs 5,671 crore in 3QFY18. Commenting on Q3, CEO & Managing Director TV Narendran said: "Despite a sharp drop in international steel prices, we were able to maintain our overall realisations and increase our volumes significantly in India. The integration of Tata Steel BSL continues and our 5 MTPA expansion at Kalinganagar is also making good progress. We are also looking forward to enhancing our long products and downstream capability through the acquisition of the 1 mtpa steel business of Usha Martin." During the quarter under review, India' steel production surged 34 per cent to 4.38 million tons while deliveries grew 18 per cent YoY to 3.89 million tons from 3.30 million tons in 3QFY18. The company said that the liquidity position of the group remains robust at Rs 19,320 crore comprising of Rs 8,549 crore in cash and cash equivalents and Rs10,771 crore in undrawn bank lines. Gross debt decreased by Rs 9,083 crore during the quarter. Tata Steel which acquired Bhushan Steel (BSL) through its wholly-owned subsidiary Bamnipal Steel Ltd (BNPL), said that Tata Steel BSL integration is progressing smoothly and the focus continues to be on ramping up production and realizing synergies. Tata Steel BSL EBITDA for the quarter was Rs 1,008 crores and the EBITDA margin was 20.6 per cent. In October-December quarter, Tata Steel divested its remaining 26.62 per cent equity stake in TRL Krosaki, for Rs 305 crore. The divestment is in line with stated strategic priorities of divestment of non-core assets and the proceeds will be used for deleveraging, it added. Ahead of the announcement, shares of the company fell 3.70 percent to close at Rs 469.55 apiece on BSE. (Edited by Chitranjan Kumar) Also read: Tata Motors share price falls 29% after Rs 26,960-crore loss in Q3; Time to sell or hold the stock? Japanese conglomerate SoftBank has said that it will invest Rs 2,800 crore in Indiabulls Housing Finance's associate OakNorth bank, a commercial bank based in United Kingdom. "Softbank is investing Rs 2,800 crores of equity capital in its associate OakNorth bank, a commercial bank in UK," Indiabulls Housing Finance said in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange. With this investment the total equity capital in the bank will be Rs 7,000 crores, Indiabulls Housing Finance said in the exchange filing. OakNorth bank is a new bank in Europe leveraging technology tools for fast and efficient disbursals to the SME sector wherein the entire deposits for the bank come by way of digital channels, the company said. According to the company, the bank has no physical branches. Also Read: Mahindra and Mahindra Q3 net profit slips 11% to Rs 1,076 crore, revenue up 15% "The current loan book of OakNorth bank is Rs 21,390 crores and the bank has no delinquencies as on date." In September last year, OakNorth had closed a USD 100 million funding round, which valued it at USD 2.3 billion at the time. OakNorth was seeded by Indiabulls Housing in October 2015 with Rs 650 crores to own a 40 per cent controlling stake in the bank. Last year, Indiabulls sold a part of its holding to Government of Singapore for Rs 900 crores. The remaining value of Indiabulls stake in the bank is Rs 3,000 crore, if we go by the price at which SoftBank is investing. Following the development, shares of Indiabulls Housing Finance closed at Rs 614.15 apiece, down 5.91 per cent, on the BSE. Also Read: Bengal business summit 2019: Indian Inc promises to invest over 40,000 crore Edited by Chitranjan Kumar (Reuters) - Tata Steel Ltd reported an 83.6 percent surge in third-quarter standalone net profit on Friday, aided by robust domestic production.Standalone profit came in at 24.56 billion rupees ($344.94 million) compared with 13.38 billion rupees in the same period a year earlier, the steelmaker said.According to I/B/E/S data from Refinitiv, analysts on average had expected a profit of 25.40 billion rupees. On a consolidated basis, the company posted a net profit of 22.84 billion rupees. However, the numbers were not comparable due to its recent acquisition of Tata Steel BSL Limited (formerly ... By Herbert LashNEW YORK (Reuters) - The firm that sold Chelsea Market to Google for $2.4 billion has joined three large brokerages, among others, to back software designed to meet the growing demands of a millennial workforce that is changing how office space is leased and managed. Office workers now interact online or through smartphones and landlords who ignore this trend will lose clients, said Michael Phillips, president of Jamestown LP, a real estate investment firm that mixed off-beat food and retail at Chelsea Market to make it a major Manhattan destination.Landlords looking to ... LONDON (Reuters) - Germany doesn't want to get embroiled in a trade war with the United States, the country's Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said on Friday."I think increasing tariffs is not a good idea," Scholz said at an event at Bloomberg, in response to speculation that the U.S. could apply tariffs to car imports from Europe in the coming weeks. "I hope things like this could be avoided," he added saying he also hoped the issue wouldn't get confrontational. "The best thing we can do for growth and wealth is rules-based free trade. I hope that we will have a better situation so that we can ... By Teis JensenCOPENHAGEN (Reuters) - The European Union needs tougher anti-fraud controls including a central body able to enforce laws against money laundering, European lawmakers said on Friday, describing financial crime as a security problem for the continent.Curbs should be more uniform across the EU and its framework for swapping financial intelligence is inadequate and must improve, the European Parliament's tax crime committee added.Europe has been hit by money laundering scandals in recent months, including a major one at Danske Bank's, the collapse of Latvia's ABLV Bank, the ... By Huw Jones and Marc JonesLONDON (Reuters) - German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said on Friday he was in talks with banks about their future and called reports of a merger of Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank "speculation".Media reports have said Germany would want a merger of its two main banks to go through before European Parliament elections in May.Scholz said he couldn't imagine what the elections have to do with the banking sector and was speculation that he could not understand."The truth is we are discussing the situation of the financial industry in Germany, it's the task of our ... (Image source from: Twitter.com/ANI) Kumaraswamy Exploded Alleging Rs 50 Cr Bribe Offer From BJP:- The BJP MLAs disrupted the Karnataka state's Assembly for the second day in a row accusing the the government that they have no complete majority in the house. The state's Chief Minister Kumaraswamy exploded and made sensational comments on BJP leaders along with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He called that Modi is trying hard to destroy the democracy and he clarified that the BJP leaders tried to bribe the Speaker. Before presenting the state's budget, Kumaraswamy arranged a press meet at his residence and made some sensational comments. "BJP is all in plans to bribe Assembly Speaker KR Ramesh Kumar by paying Rs 50 crores. After demonetisation, where are you getting money from? We have the audio file of BJP luring our MLA through his son. Gurmitkal MLA Nandangouda Kankur's son Sharan Gouda had received calls from Yeddyurappa during the early hours of Friday" said Kumaraswamy. He said that he would pen a letter to the Speaker about how BJP brought shame to Assembly. BEIJING (Reuters) - New bank loans in China are expected to have surged to a one-year high in the first month of 2019, a Reuters poll showed, as authorities continued to spur commercial lenders to extend more credit to cash-strapped companies in a slowing economy. Chinese banks were expected to have extended 2.8 trillion yuan ($415 billion) in net new loans in January, a median estimate in a Reuters survey of 19 economists showed, up from 1.08 trillion yuan given out in December. That would be the highest since the record 2.9 trillion yuan in January last year.For the whole of 2018, Chinese ... By Belen CarrenoMADRID (Reuters) - One of banking's most wanted whistleblowers, Frenchman Herve Falciani, has picked unlikely new weapons to fight money-laundering and fraud - cryptocurrency and the blockchain technology behind it. Living in self-imposed exile in Spain, the former HSBC systems engineer whose leaks of client data triggered a series of high-profile tax investigations is working with Spanish academics and fintech experts on a cryptocurrency he thinks regulators could embrace.He plans to launch an "ethical" crypto-token, called Tabu, making it traceable thanks to a ... Zee Media Corporation Ltd. has filed a criminal complaint against the publishers and editors of online portal The Wire for allegedly defaming it by attributing wrongdoing on its part in relation to black money and demonetisation deposits. The complaint, filed before Metropolitan Magistrate Sumeet Anand, alleged that two articles published by the online portal "caused serious harm to the reputation of the complainant by imputing behaviour incompatible with proper conduct and suggestions of involvement in improper activity". The court has put up the matter for consideration on March 28. The complaint, filed through advocate Vijay Aggarwal, has sought the prosecution of The Wire's publisher, Foundation of Independent Journalism, directors and founding editors, Siddharth Vardarajan and Sidharth Roshanlal Bhatia, its director M K Venu and the authors of the articles, Gulam Shaik Budan and Anuj Srivas. The complaint has been filed under sections 499 and 500 (defamation) of the IPC and if held guilty, the accused persons may get a maximum punishment of two-year jail term. The complaint alleged that the articles "falsely" "linked the complainant company with the allegations of black money and alleged suspect demonetisation deposits and have conveyed to the world at large that the complainant company is being investigated by the SFIO (Serious Fraud Investigation Office)." It alleged that articles were incorrect, having no factual base and that they were "motivated and malicious, twisting the facts and the truth". "The offences have been committed under the accused persons' active and direct directions, instigation and to fulfil their malafide intentions; And in order to malign and defame the image of the complainant, a false and defamatory story has been published, not only by twisting and manipulating various facts but also by making absolutely false and fabricated allegations. "The aim and objective behind these illegal and reckless acts to broadcasting without any research or authentication and without any caveats is to only grab eyeballs with an eye on viewership and in effect revenue of the channel," it said. The complainant claimed that it was not involved in any illegal activity and despite the same, the accused dragged it in unsubstantiated allegations. "The contents were specifically designed by liberal use of innuendos and suggestive words to be mischievous and malicious and to cause the general public and even media at large to believe that there was truth in the allegations made against the Complainant, though there was none," it said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The World Bank has evaluated the Tamil Nadu Shelter Fund for attracting investments in the affordable housing segment and is likely to provide seed investment, deputy chief minister O Panneerselvam said Friday. The state government has registered the Fund with market regulator SEBI to attract domestic and global investors. "The fund would be deployed to create environment friendly, quality affordable houses for sale to the poor and middle class families," Panneerselvam said, while presenting the budget for 2019-20, here. In 2018, the government had received the nod from Securities and Exchange Board of India to launch the fund. Panneerselvam, who holds the finance ministry portfolio, said, the fund would also be used to set up affordable hostel facilities for working women to address their needs and also to senior citizens and the differently abled. "The World Bank has evaluted this fund and is likely to provide seed investment. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) An NGO, which advocates for effective formulation and implementation of gender-sensitive population and health, held a workshop about emerging dimensions of India's population in Parliament. The workshop was held by Population Foundation of India (PFI), on an invitation by Speaker Research Initiative, on "India's Population: Emerging Dimensions" on Thursday. The PFI presented evidence from two recently-concluded studies that analysed health and economic implications of investing in family planning and budgeting and expenditure of family planning activities under the National Health Mission. Speaking at the workshop, Poonam Muttreja, Executive Director of PFI, said, "Family Planning directly and indirectly impacts all 17 of the sustainable development goals. Advancing and investing in family planning will be one of the primary drivers for translating the development goals of the nation and impacting SDGs." The workshop was attended by lawmakers, government representatives and academic scholars. Participants also highlighted the importance of increasing access and availability of family planning methods and shifting focus from terminal methods of contraception to spacing methods. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Facing heat over allegations of political bias in the country, Friday said the microblogging platform is committed to remain unbiased and that its product, as well as policies, are never based on political ideology. Twitter, which counts India among its biggest markets, asserted that the company "does not take any actions based upon political views or viewpoints", neither does it use political ideology to rank content on its service. The statement comes against the backdrop of the Parliamentary panel on information technology asking officials to appear before it on February 11 over the issue of safeguarding citizens' rights on platforms. "There has been a lot of discussion about and political bias in India in recent weeks and the global real-time communication platform today set the record straight... Twitter is a platform where voices from across the spectrum can be seen and heard. It is committed to the principles of openness, transparency, and impartiality," Twitter said in a statement. ALSO READ: Twitter to bring new dashboard for political ad transparency ahead of polls The giant has been summoned days after the members of Youth for Democracy, a right-wing group, protested outside its office alleging that Twitter has acquired an "anti-right-wing attitude" and has been blocking their accounts. In its statement Friday, Twitter argued that the content that appears in users' timelines, or the manner in which the company enforces its policies are impartial and said that it is "committed to remain unbiased with public interest in mind". "Twitter's product and policies are never developed nor evolved on the basis of political ideology... Abuse and hateful conduct comes from accounts across the ideological spectrum and Twitter will continue to take action when its rules are broken," it added. The US-based company said it has a specialised, global team that enforces its rules with impartiality and that its India employees do not make enforcement decisions - which "by design" ensures fairness and objectivity. "Twitter does not review, prioritise, or enforce its policies on the basis of political ideology. Every Tweet and every account is treated impartially. We apply our policies fairly and judiciously for all. If there are 'false positive' decisions, these are not political statements of intent; they are the basic human error rate of running the fastest, most open conversational tool in history," Twitter Global VP (Public Policy) Colin Crowell said. The company stated that the public verification process on its platform is currently closed. Twitter said it is working with Indian political parties to verify candidates, elected officials, and relevant party officials whose accounts will be active in the public conversation. "To be clear, the parties themselves select the accounts for verification and then Twitter reviews these accounts to ensure they meet the company's verification standards," it said. Twitter emphasised that it verifies these accounts to "empower healthy election conversations" and to "provide confidence that these public figures are whom they claim to be". "India is the world's largest democracy, and one of our fastest-growing audience markets globally. Twitter's real-time and open nature facilitates robust civic engagement on topics of national and local interest during elections. We are committed to surfacing all sides of the conversation as we enter the election season in this extraordinarily diverse cultural, political and social climate," Crowell said. He added that the company endeavours to be "even more transparent in how we develop and enforce our policies to dispel conspiracy theories and mistrust". With ensuing general elections, the Indian government had warned social media platforms of strong action if any attempt was made to influence the country's electoral process through undesirable means. The Government is also proposing to amend IT rules, wherein social media, online platforms and messaging apps will be made more accountable and be mandated to deploy tools to identify and curb unlawful content as well as follow stricter due diligence practices. Over the last few months, social media players like Facebook, Twitter, and Google have promised to infuse more transparency into political advertisements on their platform, and have since announced a slew of measures as part of election integrity efforts. Union minister Nitin Gadkari said Friday that waterways would be developed in the Saryu river that would facilitate smooth travel to Bangladesh via Varanasi. The Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways, Shipping and Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation laid the foundations of several projects worth Rs 7,195 crore, including the construction of 632 kilometres of national highway in eastern Uttar Pradesh, here. "I am bringing an airboat from Australia that can land in water. Next time when I will come I will come in airboat. This airboat will operate from Varanasi to Allahabad. We also have plans to operate double-decker buses that can fly," he said. Addressing Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya, who was present on the dais, Gadkari said, "Maurya-ji you also start such air buses in Uttar Pradesh. It will solve your problem of traffic jam and this double-decker air busses are much cheaper than Metro." The minister also said river ports are also being developed that will help in smooth movement of goods to Myanmar and Bangladesh. He claimed the department of River Development and Ganga Conservation has cleaned 30 per cent of the Ganga river and announced that by next March, the river will be 100 per cent clean and one can drink water from the river directly. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Telecom firm Verizon India Friday said it has been awarded a unified licence for virtual network operator that will allow it to retail services of other telcos. "We are grateful to the Department of Telecommunications for the license which will allow our customers to speed up their network deployments by allowing us to offer a full end-to-end managed service experience which includes internet connectivity," Robert Le Busque, Managing Director of Verizon's Australia, New Zealand and India, said in a statement. The Indian arm of the US telecom major already offers national and international long distance (NLD/ILD) services and has an internet services provider (ISP) licence. It also provides services to enterprise customers. "The VNO licence gives us agility and brings in cost control for our customers specially those who want to deploy software defined networks. We can now partner other ISPs and telecom operators to resell their service. As of now, the service is only focussed at enterprise customers," Anjali Amar, country manager, Verizon Enterprise Solutions said. VNOs are entities authorised to provide telecom services like mobile, landline and internet, but only as retailers for full-fledged telecom operators such as BSNL, MTNL, Airtel and the like. India allowed VNO services in 2016. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Valencia staged another late Cup comeback as Kevin Gameiro's injury-time strike snatched a 2-2 draw with Real Betis in the first leg of their Copa del Rey semi-final at the Benito Villamarin. Betis, playing in the last four for the first time since lifting the trophy in 2005, grabbed the lead in the semi-final, first leg when Loren nodded home after a short corner routine on the stroke of half-time on Thursday. The Seville outfit looked to be closing in on a home final against either Barcelona or Real Madrid when 37-year-old former Spain winger Joaquin scored directly from a corner, but Denis Cheryshev pulled one back for Valencia with 20 minutes to play. Visitors Valencia, having scored twice in injury time to edge out Getafe in the quarters, levelled in the 92nd minute as substitute Gameiro diverted in Rodrigo's low cross. The two teams will meet again at the Mestalla on February 28. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The United States is hoping Afghanistan can strike a peace agreement including the Taliban before elections scheduled for July, US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad has said. "It will be better for Afghanistan if we could a get peace agreement before the election, which is scheduled before July," the US negotiator told a Washington conference on Friday, adding that there remained "a lot of work" to do. Ashraf Ghani, who was elected in a fraud-tainted poll in 2014, is seeking a second term in conflict-riven Afghanistan's delayed presidential ballot. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Assyrians Commemorate Historic Leader Naum Faiq. ( AINA) (AINA) -- Each year and worldwide, Assyrians commemorate the death of Naum Faiq (February 5, 1930), an outstanding Assyrian national figure, intellectual, poet, journalist, and author. His lifelong efforts were marked by his commitment to the cross-denominational unity of the Assyrians belonging to different Churches of Syriac tradition (Syriac Orthodox, Church of the East, Chaldean Church, Syriac Catholic, and Protestant Churches). He challenged sectarianism and encouraged his community to depart from "tribal mentality." Naum Faik Palakh was born in Diyarbakir (as an Orthodox) in February of 1868 and in a time of extreme difficulties with respect to social and political live in the Ottoman Empire. His father was Elias bar Yakob Palakh. In a school in Diyarbakir, led by Hanna Sirri Ceqqi, he learned different languages, among them Arabic, Old-Turkish (Osmanlica), Persian, Armenian and later also French and English. In 1888, he became a teacher at the Assyrian school in Diyarbakir, but taught also temporarily in the Monastery of Deyrul-Zafaran near Mardin, in Urfa, in Adiyaman and in Homs (Syria). He was a founder the literary Society called Intibah Cemiyeti (Renaissance Society) in 1908 and editor of the Eastern Star (Kawkab Madinho) Newspaper which was published from 1910 until 1912, supported by Besar Hilmi. As a newspaper widely distributed in Ottoman Turkey, it became a research topic for Turkish scholars in recent years. As a gesture of recognition for an "important man of literature" and emphasis of the multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, and multi-religious face of the city, the municipality of Diyarbakir in 2009 named the street where Faiq's house is located after his name. Because of the increasing oppression and actions against the non-Muslim people after the Adana massacres of April 1909, which spread to the entire province, many Assyrians started to migrate from their homeland. The pressure increased in 1911 with the Committee of Union and Progress (Ittihat ve Terakki Cemiyeti) strengthening its power, and initiating a campaign to silence and intimidate the opposition in the country by implementing the new association law (dernek yasasi). In 1912, Naum Faiq too was forced to migrate to the United States where he started his magazine Beth Nahrin (Mesopoatamia) -- The Assyrian Paper in New Jersey, which he published till his death in 1930. Between 1921-1922 he became the chief editor of the journal Huyodo (Union), the official organ of the Assyro-Chaldean National Organization of America. Naum Faiq died in New York on February 5, 1930. The anniversary of his death was commemorated since the 1940s in Qamishly and Aleppo, Syria. With the establishment of the Assyrian Democratic Organization, the first Assyrian political Party in 1957 in Syria, the February 5th was formally declared a national commemoration day. This year's commemoration of the Assyrian Mesopotamian Cultural Association in Wiesbaden, Germany, on February 3rd, took place in a special format with a lecture and the reading of Naum Faik's poems, accompanied by selected pieces of music and songs. Speaker of the evening was Abboud Zeitoune, himself author of two books on modern Assyrian music. In his presentation, Zeitoune spoke also about his current research project focused on a new biography of Naum Faiq. On this occasion I was able to conduct the following short interview with Abboud Zeitoune about his current work on this historical topic. Abboud Zeitoune. ( AINA) Abdulmesih BarAbraham (AB): As announced on your website, you are currently conducting research with the intention to write a new biography of Malfono Naum Faiq. One would assume that enough information should be available about a person whose death anniversary is commemorated each year. What are your motives to embark on such a work? Abboud Zeitoune (AZ): Indeed, this is one of the most astonishing aspects in this context. As an activist in the national movement for at least 28 years, I have been attending Malfono Naum Faik's commemorations almost every year. There has been always talks around his great personality, though very little has been presented related to his extensive writings. Our memory of Malfono has been reduced to his biography and the reading of one or two of his poems -- most famous among them of course 'Awaken Son of Assur' (Etcir bar Othur). The memory of Malfono Faiq was kept alive mainly by a collection of poems and short articles edited in 1936 by Murad Cheqqe. So far, no extensive research of Malfono's works has been conducted. With the scattered source material collected so far -- many works were lost or dispersed in private ownership worldwide -- a new evaluation of his life seems possible. AB: Where did your research take you so far? AZ: First and foremost, the collection effort of the Modern Assyrian Research Archive needs to be mentioned. This organization has managed to locate and digitize numerous disappeared works (books, magazines, etc.) within a short time. I would particularly like to thank my friend Tomas Beth-Abdalla who manages MARA. The large collection there inspired me to delve deeper into the works of Naum Faik and his time. In fact, I came across Naum Faiq during my research for my two books on Assyrian music. Thanks to him we have the very first record in classical Assyrian from 1929. Two of Naum Faiq's poems were vocalized by Elias Boyajy: Etcir bar Othur and B-motho Shbihbto d Beth-Nahrin (The Holy Nation Beth-Nahrin). My last trip to the East Coast of the U.S. was very successful. There, I was able to visit Harvard University's Widener Library. In addition, I was happy to get hold of important personal materials of Naum Faik in New Jersey. ( AINA) AB: You've also been in the United States recently, where you've lectured in several states on your two books on Assyrian music. How was the reception? AZ: I've been to the U.S. twice before. My trip in 2017 took me to the Assyrian communities in California (San Jose, Los Angeles) and Arizona (Phoenix). I gave three lectures on our modern music at Assyrian associations. My last tour to the East Coast was in autumn of 2018 where I made stops at the Assyrian American Association of Massachusetts (Grafton), Harvard University, and New Jersey. Invited by Mishael & Lillie Naby Assyrian Lecture Fund and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, I gave a lecture at the Harvard University on the "Influence of Neighboring Cultures and Languages on Modern Assyrian Music." At the invitation of his Eminence Mor Dionysius John Kawak, Archbishop of the Syriac Orthodox Church for the Eastern United States, I gave another lecture at Mor Aphrem Center in Paramus, which is the Episcopal seat of the bishop in New Jersey. On the whole, I am satisfied with my lectures on my music books; the acceptance by the readers gives me courage to start new projects. AB: What are the most important new discoveries regarding life of the great nationalist Naum Faiq? AZ: The literary legacy of Naum Faiq has been forgotten and almost disappeared over the years. A first task will be to identify and locate his edited magazines, books, poems and articles in order to archive them (at least digitally) at a single repository. Meanwhile, we have been able to collect a large part of those. Today we have about 180 issues of his Bethnahrin Magazine, and all issues of Kawkab Madenho and Huyodo at our disposal. The most precious discovery for me personally was receiving personal writings and manuscripts from the private property of Malfono Naum Faiq. This material was handed over to the Church in West New York after his death - later moved to Paramus in 1967. It contains some books and previously unknown manuscripts with the signature of Malfono Naum Faiq. Working with the writings of Malfono Naum Faiq requires you to master multiple languages in order to comprehend his writings published in Garshuni-Turkish (Old Turkish), Garshuni-Arabic and Assyrian. I also came across writings by or about Naum Faiq written in the Armenian language.The "deciphering" of this wealth of material in different languages requires a support network of experts that I was able to establish. I am currently collaborating with several people from various continents for my research. Naum Faiq published his writings at a critical time period in the history of our people. He witnessed the massacres of 1895 of the Assyrians and Armenians in his hometown Diyarbakir and wrote a long poem about the events in Bethnahrin. Few years after his escape to the U.S. the genocide (Seyfo) against his people in the homeland took place. He was a witness to the post-war events and negotiations like the Paris Peace Conference. His point of view on these events can be rediscovered in articles published in the Bethnahrin and Huyodo magazines. Through my work, I would also like to highlight the work of many important personalities of his time. Among them are Joel Werda, Sanherib Bally or Charles Dartley; they too don't deserve to be forgotten. AB: To my knowledge, there is a special collection dedicated to Naum Faiq's publications at Harvard University. Are there any new documents that have not been published yet? AZ: Unfortunately, little of Naum Faiq's original writings has been published so far. I could occasionally find articles from Bethnahrin Magazine in some books. There was no focused and comprehensive research on this topic yet. At Harvard University's Widener Library, there is a special section dedicated to Assyrians. There, I found numerous original editions of Bethnahrin. A "Naum Faik Assyrian Book Fund" was established at the Columbia University in New York back in 2000. To my knowledge, there is little material from Naum Faiq there. AB: Were you also able to get in touch with any descendants of Malfono Naum Faiq? AZ: It was difficult to get in touch with descendants of Naum Faiq. After various attempts (especially via Facebook) I was able to establish contact with his great-granddaughter who lives in Florida. She was helpful to me in creating a family tree of Naum Faik starting from his immigration to the U.S. I hope to get hold of more material as we go. His family seems to be less aware of his celebrity role as a leading national figure. Like many descendants of the first migrant generation, this family too is largely Americanized. AB: When I was stayed or few months in Princeton in 1986 for business, I was able to visit the tomb of Malfono Naum Faiq in New Jersey. I was saddened to find his tomb without care and the tombstone broken. To me, this reflected somehow the state of our nation. Is there any effort by the Assyrian community in the U.S. to restore his tomb? AZ: I too visited his tomb in October 2018 and could not notice any change to the pictures I've seen before. I am not aware of any restoration initiative. I remember a discussion from the 1990s about reburying and transferring his tomb to Syria. Evidently, this did not happen. AB: When and in what language will your new book be published? AZ: My focus for the audience of my books is the readership in the diaspora. For me, the English language provides an essential bridge between the old and new generations. With my language skills in Arabic and Assyrian, I try to serve as a bridge builder and pass on the lost believed literature and history of our forefathers to the generations born in the diaspora. For my Naum Faiq project, I plan two books. A German and an English version. Based on the material currenly available and not fully studied yet, I would say that the publication could be in approx. two years from now. I intend to include a lot of original source material in these books. In fact, the currently available material would justify the publication of several books on the topic. Tomas Beth-Abdalla is currently working on the publication of a collection of articles from Bethnahrin Magazine. AB: Abboud, thank you for this interview and the insight into your project. All the best for your work! AZ: I would like to thank you Abdulmesih for your attention and time - and AINA for publishing this exchange. The US has called for tougher sanctions against the Iranian regime following the reported second failed space launch by Tehran in defiance to the international community and the Security Council resolutions. Images released by the Colorado-based company DigitalGlobe have showed a rocket at the Imam Khomeini Space Center in Iran's Semnan province on Tuesday. Industry experts have suggested the launch failed just after liftoff. The US stated that Iran's attempted launch is an ability to eventually build ballistic missiles to threaten America's allies. "In defiance of the international community, the Iranian regime continues to develop and test ballistic missiles, including a reported second failed space launch in less than a month," Robert Palladino, State Department Deputy Spokesperson, said. He said that space launch vehicles use technologies that are virtually identical and interchangeable with those used in ballistic missiles, including in the Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs). "This attempted launch furthers Iran's ability to eventually build such a weapon that threatens our allies," he said. Accusing the Iranian regime of continously defying Security Council resolutions in its quest for a robust ballistic missile force, Palladino said: "Iran continues to increase its investment in missile testing and missile proliferation even as its economy crumbles and its people suffer". Iran continues to brazenly defy the UNSCR 2231 that calls for endorsing the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on the nuclear program of Iran, he said. Stating that Iran is working to enhance missile capabilities that threaten American allies, the State Department official said that Iran's blatant disregard for international norms must be addressed. The US State Department said that Iran has the largest ballistic missile force in the Middle East. "Iran has also exported ballistic missile systems to malign actors in the region, threatening innocent civilians," he said. He said the US will continue to impose sufficient pressure on the regime so that it changes its malign behaviour - including by fully implementing all of American sanctions. In 2015, a nuclear deal was negotiated and agreed to by Iran and the P5+1 (the US, UK, France, China, Russia, and Germany), granting Iran sanctions relief and returning frozen assets in exchange for restrictions on its nuclear programme and international inspections. However, the US President Donald Trump announced withdrawal of the US from the deal in May last year. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Uttar Pradesh government on Friday said it has purchased a total of 82825.55 million units of power from various sources till November 2018 to meet its demand. "UP Power Corporation has purchased 82,825.55 million units of electricity from various sources till Nov 2018 to meet your demands. Previous year (2017-18), the corporation had purchased 119,051.44 million units," UP Energy minister Shrikant Sharma said while replying to a qustion in the state assembly. The question was raised by SP members Sanjay Garg and Parasnath Yadav. The minister said everyday power demand is between 11,000-14500 MW and there is availability of 14,250 MW from different sources. Replying to a separate question, Sharma said there is no provision of lodging FIRs to recover power bill payments. "There is no provision for lodging FIRs to realise pending power bills. FIRs were registered in cases of power theft and restoring of connections snapped due to power dues. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Saudi Arabia quietly held a second court hearing for 11 people facing charges over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, an independent UN human rights expert said, criticising the kingdom for its lack of transparency in the proceedings over the grisly slaying. Agnes Callamard, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, said she learned of the hearing during her first visit to Turkey last week to investigate the murder. Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist who wrote critically about Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was killed and dismembered inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul last October. His remains have not been found. The brutal killing described by Turkish and US officials as an elaborate plot has drawn an international outcry about press freedom and Saudi government tactics to quell criticism. Turkey, which is carrying out its own investigation into Khashoggi's murder, has been frustrated by what Ankara says is a lack of cooperation by Riyadh. It has also called for an international inquiry. Khashoggi, a Saudi writer, had gone to the consulate on October 2 to obtain documents for his upcoming wedding to his Turkish fiancee. After denying for weeks that Khashoggi was killed in the consulate, Saudi Arabia late last year indicted 11 people in the killing, including members from the crown prince's entourage, and is seeking the death penalty against five of them. Callamard told The Associated Press over the phone Thursday that the second hearing in Saudi Arabia took place on January 31. She criticised the fact that there is "insufficient public attention placed on the proceedings" and that the media are not present at the hearings Trials in Saudi Arabia can be shrouded in secrecy, she noted, insisting that Khashoggi case should be open to public scrutiny. "Given the importance of the case, we should be expecting a greater presence of representatives of the media, of civil society, of a range of other governments, not just those hand-picked by the Saudi authorities," said Callamard, a French national who is director of Columbia Global Freedom of Expression at Columbia University in New York. The revelation of a second hearing highlights the closed-door nature of trials in Saudi Arabia, where international media and independent monitors are not typically given access to witness court proceedings. Callamard declined to specify who told her about the hearing, but cited "reliable" sources about information "that I have been able to cross-check." Saudi Arabia has not revealed the defendants' names or the names of their lawyers. The kingdom's chief prosecutor, Saud Al-Mojeb, has said that of 21 people taken into custody in the case, 11 have been indicted and referred to trial. It's unclear if they remain detained during the trial or where they're being held. Turkey has sought the extradition of the Saudi suspects but the kingdom has rejected any notion they could be tried abroad and has not allowed Turkey access to them. Callamard said she was still waiting for a response from Saudi authorities to a request she made three weeks ago for an invitation to visit the kingdom. She said the next phase of her investigation will take her to Washington to speak with officials from countries that have "taken a deep interest in the case" and have been in touch with Saudi and Turkish officials. Earlier on Thursday, Callamard issued a statement through the UN office in Geneva, saying that Saudi Arabia had undermined Turkey's efforts to investigate Khashoggi's death, calling it a "premeditated killing" planned and carried out by Saudi officials. During her January 28-February 3 trip to Turkey, Callamard and her four-member team met with the Turkish foreign and justice ministers, the country's intelligence chief and the prosecutor leading the case. She concluded that Turkey's efforts have been "seriously curtailed and undermined by Saudi Arabia," the statement said. Callamard plans to present her final report to the UN-backed Human Rights Council in June. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The UK India Business Council (UKIBC) on Friday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the West Bengal government to enhance its commitment to deliver UK business, investment and economic growth in the state. The MoU was signed at the Bengal Global Business Summit-2019 by UKIBC Group Chief Executive Richard Heald and West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC) Managing Director Vandana Yadav. Bruce Bucknell, British Deputy High Commissioner in Kolkata said, "In signing an MoU, I am delighted that UKIBC has recognised the growth potential in the East and North East of India. Bengal means business. So does Britain". He said the pact will step up UK's commitment to facilitate trade and investment through collaboration, sharing information, promoting ease of doing business and making easy investor interactions. The UK is an official partner of the summit and this year brought its biggest delegation ever, showcasing UK businesses ready to invest and grow in West Bengal. After the MoU was signed in the presence of West Bengal Finance Minister Amit Mitra, Richard Heald said, "West Bengal is increasingly turning heads for UK businesses looking towards India and this pays testament to the enormous efforts taken by the government of West Bengal towards meaningful ease of doing business reform in recent years." This was the second MoU that UKIBC signed with state governments. The first was with the Maharashtra government last month. UK companies employ nearly 30,000 people in Kolkata alone, representing 11 per cent of all those employed by British companies operating in India. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The UK's prestigious University of Strathclyde has signed new agreements with the West Bengal government to tackle challenges of urban growth and development in Kolkata. The Scottish university's Institute of Future Cities, based in Glasgow, said its work focuses on cities as home to an ever-growing proportion of the world's population, which puts pressure on transport infrastructure, the and quality of life. The institute announced that it has signed agreements at the Bengal Global Business Summit with the University of Calcutta; the Department of Environment, West Bengal government; and Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCC&I) to look at the opportunities and challenges created by urban living. "We are delighted to be working in partnership with key government departments, influential businesses and leading academics to develop innovative solutions for the key issues for cities in India," said Richard Bellingham, Director of the Institute for Future Cities. Bellingham explained: "Rapid urbanisation, and the opportunities and challenges that come with that are affecting cities around the world, not just in India. "Each city has its own particular set of circumstances, opportunities, challenges so tailored solutions for each city need to be developed through a deep understanding of the city in question and those solutions need to be capable of delivery at a city-wide scale". The Institute for Future Cities said its Bengal partnership sets out to understand the specific challenges and opportunities for Kolkata and develop solutions that will be relevant to many cities across the world. "That is why we are tackling air pollution an issue that has huge impacts on millions of lives across the world. Delivering effective solutions needs partnership so we are interested in hearing from potential partner organisations with interest in city issues across India," Bellingham said. The new partnership is aimed at identifying barriers and solutions to sustainable economic growth; resilience of critical urban systems and infrastructure; environmental sustainability; and health, wellbeing and quality of life for the citizens of Kolkata and West Bengal. The Department has a key role in coordinating action on sustainable development, environmental management and climate change for the whole of the state of West Bengal. The five-year agreements will see the exchange of ideas, data and expertise and the creation of joint funding bids for research and consultancy, scholarships, a joint Masters programme, joint workshops and conferences and reciprocal visits. In the first year of the agreement, the partners will work together to create projects on the development of low-carbon energy for Kolkata, strategies for future city development, optimisation of urban systems such as transport and health, and pollution and noise reduction. Improving air quality has been identified as a key priority. The University of Strathclyde said it has also created new scholarships to assist Indian students to join its MSc in Global Sustainable Cities, with support from the Scottish government. Bruce Bucknell, the UK's Deputy High Commissioner in Kolkata said: "Great to see the beginning. Look forward to some fantastic work between the UK and West Bengal on cleaner air and better environment". Kolkata, with more than 14 million citizens, is the third-most populous urban area in India after New Delhi and Mumbai and is among the largest and most populous cities on earth. "The Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry in partnership with the Institute of Future Cities at Strathclyde hopes to add value by addressing the urban challenges that beset a densely populous city like Kolkata and help deliver on our promises for a Sustainable 2030 Kolkata," said Deb Mukherjee, Senior Vice President of BCC&I. University of Strathclyde's work in Kolkata is financed jointly by the Scottish government and the UK government's Global Challenges Research Fund. The Institute for future cities at the university brings together governments, businesses, academics and citizens to imagine and engage with the future of cities, and explore how to make cities more successful, healthier, safer and more sustainable for all. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) London-based Laureti Automotive Corporation has evinced interest to set up its unit here to make electric SUV vehicles. Puducherry Industries and Transport Minister M O H F Shah Jahan announced this Friday while inaugurating a one-day workshop on 'Smart Mobility: Puducherry Forward' organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) here. The London company would have an initial capacity to manufacture 10,000 electric SUV vehicles per annum with an investment of around Rs 2,800 crore, he said. Laureti would expand production in the next stages, he said. Puducherry government has at its disposal around 350-acre site in Karaikal region, which could be made available to the company, the Minister said. The initiative of Laureti would be of help for Puducherry to meet the current challenges in the traffic and mobility sector, he said. Soon, a delegation of the UK company would hold talks with the territorial administration, the Minister said. Traffic management was a big challenge for the government, as there were around nine lakh vehicles on road in the Union Territory, he said. All strategies drawn up to manage the traffic were not cutting ice, and even the proposal to make helmet-wearing compulsory was meeting with resistance, he said. "We should go in for an effective masterplan to manage the traffic," he said. Officials of CII also spoke on the occasion. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Two Palestinian teenagers were killed by Israeli fire on Friday during clashes along the Gaza border, the health ministry in the Hamas-run enclave said. Hassan Shalabi, 14, was killed by "live fire to the chest east of Khan Yunis" during protests along the frontier with Israel in the southern Gaza Strip, the ministry said. It announced the death of 18-year-old Hamza Ishtawi shortly after, saying he was shot in the neck during similar clashes east of Gaza City. Another 17 Palestinians were shot and wounded at different protest sites along the border, the ministry added. The Israeli army declined to comment on the deaths, but said 8,200 "rioters and demonstrators" had been protesting along the frontier. "They are hurling rocks at (Israeli) troops and towards the security fence, as well as a number of explosive devices that did not cross the fence," a spokesman said, adding that they had heard grenade explosions. Israeli troops "responded with riot dispersal means and fired according to standard operating procedures", he added. Palestinians in Gaza have for nearly a year gathered at least weekly along the border for often-violent protests, calling on Israel to end its blockade of the enclave. Israel says it is protecting its borders and accuses Hamas of orchestrating the protests. At least 249 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since then, the majority shot during clashes, though others have been hit by tank fire or air strikes. Two Israeli soldiers have been killed over the same period. Protests have dwindled in recent months after an informal agreement between Israel and Hamas. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Two men have been arrested by customs officials at Delhi airport for allegedly trying to smuggle into the country 12 air guns, according to an official statement issued on Friday. The accused were intercepted on their arrival from Dubai on Wednesday. A detailed baggage and personal search resulted in the recovery of 52 disassembled parts of 12 air guns of foreign origin kept in their checked-in baggage, the customs department said in the statement. The duo were arrested and the air guns seized, it said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Two German nationals were arrested with a satellite phone in a joint operation by police and military intelligence here, officials said on Friday. Robert and Rainer were arrested from Khudi police station area Thursday night, Superintendent of Police, Jaisalmer, Kiran Kang said. She said that the two were staying in camps of a hotel. Military intelligence informed police after detecting signals of the satellite phone. The Germans are being interrogated by intelligence agencies, she added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Trump administration has announced that it will launch two projects in India in partnership with the private sector as part of its historic initiative to empower 50 million women globally to tap their economic potential. The initiative will be led by Ivanka Trump, the senior adviser and daughter to President Trump. US President Donald Trump signed a memorandum to launch the Women's Global Development and Prosperity (W-GDP) Initiativea first-of-its-kind, whole-of-government approach to women's economic empowerment One of the programmes will be launched in West Bengal. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in partnership with PepsiCo in West Bengal will scale women's economic empowerment throughout PepsiCo's agriculture supply chains, he White House said. "The OPIC (The Overseas Private Investment Corporation) USD100 million loan will expand IndusInd's microfinance lending to women in India," it added. Further the USAID-UPS Memorandum of Understanding is aimed at improving the ability of women entrepreneurs to export their goods to markets, with an initial focus in Africa, Asia, and Central America. The Department of State's Office of Global Women's Issues will launch 'WE RISE' to work with microfinance civil society organizations to reduce barriers faced by women entrepreneurs. It also announced creation of a W-GDP Fund which with an initial USD 50 million fund at USAID will support innovative and effective programs that advance women's economic empowerment. "Our goal is to reach 50 million women and maybe more, and it looks like it is probably going to be substantially more than that, substantially more than 50 million women, in the developing world, and that will be done, Ivanka, by 2025, has said," Trump told reporters at the White House as he signed the memorandum in this regard. "Our goal is to empower women to help their home countries become self-reliant and to allow a lot of families, millions of families throughout the world to become self-reliant. And also in the United States, very importantly," he said. "As my national security strategy says, investing in women helps achieve greater peace and prosperity between nations, not only our nation, this is all nations, all over the world, we're getting together, we've developed a lot of really tremendous relationships because of what we're doing right here, Trump said. Earlier in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, Ivanka said this new initiative will for the first time coordinate America's commitment to one of the most undervalued resources in the developing worldthe talent, ambition and genius of women. This initiative aims to help 50 million women in developing countries realize their economic potential by 2025. Observing that expanding women's economic participation has the potential to boost global economic output by an additional USD12 trillion by 2025, Ivanka said this number represents far more than an economic boomit represents millions of lives full of promise: mothers who could provide for their children, daughters who could be the first to graduate from high school, and young women who could start businesses and create jobs. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Former minister and senior CPI leader Manindra Riyan has joined the Janata Dal (United), alleging that that the CPI (M)-led Left Front, during its rule in the state, never practiced what they preached. Riyan, who served as minister for home (prisons) during the Left Front rule, claimed that that he was inspired by the principles of JD(U) chief Nitish Kumar. "The CPI (M) and other Left parties talk of equal distribution of wealth, but they never practice the policy. I have joined the JD(U) as I believe in the principles of Nitish Kumar," he told reporters Thursday at Shantirbazaar in South Tripura district, about 90 km from here. Riyan also alleged that about one year had passed since 2018 assembly elections, but no one from the Left Front has bothered to enquire about him. At a press meet here later in the day, CPI state secretary Ranjit Majumder said that the disgruntled leader has been expelled for "anti-party activities". "We had information that Manindra Riyan was maintaining close contact with anti-Left political parties. His defection to Janata Dal (United) is an act of treachery against the Left democratic movement and the people of Shantirbazaar assembly constituency, which he had once represented," Majumder added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Tamil Nadu government proposed to unveil a new farmer producer organisation policy shortly, aimed at promoting agro-processing industries, deputy chief minister O Panneerselvam said Friday. The new policy was in line with the food processing policy unveiled by the government recently, he said, while presenting the budget for 2019-20. "The Tamil Nadu Farmer Producer Organisation Policy is proposed to be unveiled shortly and will strengthen the promotion of agro-processing industries," he said. Works for setting up 10 Food Processing Parks across Tamil Nadu were "in progress", he said, adding "..private investors are also keen to invest in the agro-processing sector." "A French company has signed a memorandum of understanding to invest Rs 2,000 crore to set up an integrated food processing park near Chennai," he said. The government would continue to promote setting up of mega agro-processing parks to generate more non-farm employment opportunities for people who are living in rural areas, he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Opposition parties in Tamil Nadu, Friday launched a scathing attack on the AIADMK government over aspects such as rising debt burden and fiscal deficit in the budget. "The budget has no use for the poor and common people and the government is not bothered about farmers," DMK president M K Stalin said. Rather than being growth oriented, the financial statement was focused on debt servicing, he told reporters. Dubbing the budget as "shadow," and not real, he said it was disappointing that there was "no announcement to generate employment opportunities," when there were one crore unemployed graduates who have registered themselves in exployment exchanges. "Approximately there is a debt of abour Rs 4 lakh crore. There is, however, no announcement for revenue generation," the DMK chief said. The fiscal management scenario was tantamout to facing a bad failure in view of the mounting government debt, revenue and fiscal deficits, he said. During Chief Minsiter K Palaniswami's rule alone loans to the tune of Rs 1,45,064 has been secured pushing the fiscal situation to an "emergency" and putting Tamil Nadu's economic growth clock behind by 25 years, he alleged. CPI (M) State Secretary K Balakrishnan alleged the budget showed that the state economy has become "bankrupt." The top Marxist party leader said the budget was shorn of vision and schemes for growth. "The budget is a mere compilation of words...it offers no solution for shrinking job opportunities and farm distress." The allocations made for poverty alleviation, upgrading urban infrastructure, electricity and irrigation only appeared to be eyewash, he claimed. No new relief measures have been announced for those hit by cyclone Gaja, and no answers for problems -including debt and absence of renumerative price- faced by farmers. Not disclosing the government's action on key issues like Hydrocarbon extraction proposals in Cauvery delta region and Mekedatur dam is a "betrayal" of Tamil Nadu people, Balakrishnan said. CPI State Secretary R Mutharasan said the budget did not reflect any of the expectations of the people,adding it was not aimed at either welfare or growth of the people. There was no debt relief for farmers and no plan to ensure the rehabilitation of people affected by cyclone Gaja. While the "debt touched Rs 4 lakh crore...the government has not clarified as to how it is going to tackle the revene deficit of Rs 44,176 crore." PMK founder leader S Ramadoss said some projects like the Athikadavu Avinasi for which fund allocation has been made were welcome while the rest were contrary to the people's expectations and hence disappointing. AIADMK's rival and Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam leader TTV Dhinakaran hit out at the government for its alleged administrative inefficiency. "Now, the government's debt has jumped to Rs 3,97,000 crore for which the interest alone is over Rs 30,000 crore per annum. The increasing debt and skyrocketing interest is an indicator of administrative inefficiency," Dhinakaran, who is also an MLA representing RK Nagar here, said. MDMK chief Vaiko wondered how the budget will lead the State towards growth when allocation for key sectors have been downsized. Manithaneya Makkal Katchi said the allocation of Rs 10,559 crore for agriculture was grossly inadequate and claimed that the budget had no utility for the poor and common people. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Tamil Nadu government Friday presented the state budget for financial year 2019-20 with no new taxes and said the revenue deficit will reduce in the coming year. In the budget presented by Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam, who holds the finance portfolio, the government proposed no new taxes but said the revenue deficit was estimated to be around Rs 14,300 crore. "With higher SOTR (state's own tax revenue) growth, coupled with the phasing out of the impact of Ujwal Discom Assurance Yojana (Uday) and pay revision, the state expects to bring down the revenue deficit in the coming years," he said. The government also announced a number of initiatives in various sectors including implementing a Rs 2,000 crore comprehensive parking management project here. It will have underground parking facilities, multilevel parking facilities and on-lane smart parking to accommodate two lakh four-wheelers and an equal number of two-wheelers, Panneerselvam said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A court here Friday cancelled the bail granted to two key accused in the 2017 Kodanad heist, nearly a month after they alleged the involvement of Tamil Nadu chief minister K Palaniswami in the case in a video released by a journalist. Nilgiris District Judge P Vadamalai passed the order, allowing a petition by the state government which had contended that the two prime accused -- K V Sayan and K C Manoj -- were hampering the investigation and intimidating witnesses by making such public statements. He dismissed a petition by Sayan offering to record a confessional statement about the crime, saying it was not in proper format. A guard of Kodanad estate was found dead on April 23, 2017 in the robbery attempt. Later police arrested 10 people, including Sayan and Manoj. Kanagaraj, a former driver of Jayalalithaa and accused of a key role in the heist, and Sayan's wife and daughter were killed in separate road accidents during the probe. Another employee of the estate was found dead in a case of suspected suicide later. The judge had on February 2 reserved orders on the plea for cancelling the bail and directed all the 10 accused to appear before him Friday. When the matter came up for hearing in the morning, four accused, including Sayan and Manoj, were not present. After the lawyers of Sayan and Manoj sought time for their clients to appear, the Judge adjourned the hearing to 2 pm. However, none of them turned up in the afternoon. The judge then delivered his order cancelling the bail to Sayan and Manoj and directed the police to arrest and lodge them in judicial custody. He also issued arrest warrants against the other two -- Dipu and Vigin (accused no. 4 and 6) and posted the case to February 18 for further hearing. Judge Vadamalai dismissed a discharge petition filed by eight accused barring Sayan and Manoj. The eight had contended that they did not have any role in the murder and the heist at the Kodanad estate, the retreat of late chief minister Jayalalithaa in Nilgiris district. In the video released by former Tehelka editor Mathew Samuel in New Delhi on January 11, Sayan and Manoj had linked the name of Palaniswami in the case, a charge denied by the chief minister. Sayan and Manoj were arrested on January 14 in connection with the video and had been released on bail by a Chennai court, while the high court had stayed the FIR against them and four others, including Samuel. The FIR was filed under IPC sections 153A (promoting enmity between different groups) and 505 (statements conducing to public mischief). (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Tamil Nadu budget Friday proposed one lakh concrete houses at an estimated Rs 1,700 crore to replace huts damaged in last year's cyclone besides expanding the crop insurance ambit to include more factors that damage the farm produce. Presenting the fourth budget of the AIADMK government in the assembly, Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam said no new taxes were proposed for the 2019-20 fiscal and assured the revenue deficit will come down in the coming years. Panneerselvam, who holds the Finance portfolio, pegged the state's revenue deficit at around Rs 14,300 crore for the coming financial year. The state's net outstanding debt by March 31, 2020 will be Rs 3,97,495.96 crore with a debt to GSDP ratio of 23.02 per cent, which he said was well within the debt-GSDP norm of 25 per cent. Amongst the proposals, the governmnent will procure 2,000 new electric buses, besides 12,000 new BS-VI vehicles, at an outlay of Rs 5,890 crore with loan assistance from the German firm KfW, he said. He said that as announced by Chief Minister by K Palaniswami earlier, the government will take up construction of one lakh concrete houses in cyclone Gaja hit districts, such as Nagapattinam and Thanjavur. "The government will take up the construction of one lakh concrete houses with a unit cost of Rs 1.70 lakh to replace damaged huts in districts affected by Gaja cyclone at a total cost of Rs 1,700 crore," he said. Of this, the Centre was expected to share about Rs 720 crore while the state government will bear the rest Rs 980 crore, he said. The state's share will be met from debt to be raised through the Tamil Nadu Rural Housing and Infrastructure Development Corporation. For the farm sector, the government said it will notify more crops and expand the coverage under crop insurance in the next fiscal. Farmers face frequent crop failures due to drought or flood, he said, adding crop insurance scheme, the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana, was being implemented since 2016 to mitigate weather risk. "During 2019-20, this government will notify more crops and expand the coverage under crop insurance." "Further, cloud burst and natural fire will also be included in localised calamities in addition to hailstorm, landslide and inundation," among others, Panneerselvam said. Despite the 'adverse' impact of 'reduced' inter-se share in devolution due to 14th Finance Commission recommendations, the state could implement the Ujjawal Discom Assurance Yojana (UDAY) scheme and pay revision for its employees, he said. The growth in State's Own Tax Revenue (SOTR) in 2017-18 was 9.07 per cent and this was expected to exceed 14 per cent during the current fiscal. "Due to the positive trends in tax receipts, the revenue deficit for the year 2019-20 is expected to come down to Rs 14,315 crore as against the projected revenue deficit of Rs 19,319 crore in Revised Estimates 2018-19," he said. "With higher SOTR growth, coupled with the phasing out of the impact of UDAY and pay revision, the state expects to bring down the revenue deficit in the coming years," Panneerselvam said. The per capita income of the state has increased from Rs 1.03 lakh in 2011-12 to Rs 1.42 lakh in 2017-18 in real terms, he added. The government also announced a number of initiatives in various sectors including implementing a Rs 2,000 crore comprehensive parking management project for Chennai city. It will have underground parking facilities, multilevel parking facilities and on-lane smart parking to accommodate two lakh four-wheelers and an equal number of two-wheelers, Panneerselvam said. On the ambitious Athikadavu-Avinashi water scheme, that would benefit people in parts of western Tamil Nadu, he said the government will commence it "soon," adding, a sum of Rs 1,000 crore has been provided in the next year's budget estimates for the purpose. A comprehensive solid waste management project and a housing scheme for urban poor to construct 38,000 tenements for Chennai were also proposed by Panneerselvam. On the energy front, the state-run TANGEDCO will be establishing floating solar power projects in Theni, Salem and Erdoe with a capacity of 250 MW at an estimated Rs 1,125 crore, he said. The recently unveiled Tamil Nadu Solar Energy Policy 2019 will increase the solar power generation capacity to 9,000 MW by 2023, the deputy chief minister said. Touching upon the Chennai Metro Rail, he said Phase-I of the project covering two corridors running to 45 km will be fully commissioned by this month while its extension was expected to be on stream next June. Feasibility study was being taken up for the extension of Metro rail line from Meenambakkam Airport to Kilambakkam metro bus terminus in the southern suburbs, he added. In the tourism sector, the government will launch a 'massive' promotion project by identifying specific circuits for western, Asian and domestic tourists with quality amenities and infrastructure. Tourism-centric infrastructure like logistics and hotels will be upgraded under the Private-Public-Partnership mode, Panneerselvam informed. Talking about liquor sales, Panneerselvam mentioned that the number of retail Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IFML) shops run by Tamil Nadu Marketing State Marketing Corporation (TASMAC) has been reduced from 7,896 to 5,198. It may be recalled that closure of liquor shops in a phased manner was the AIADMK's poll promise in the 2016 Assembly elections. Incidentally, sale of liquor through such state-run outlets is a huge revenue grosser for the government. The government would roll out 500 electric vehicles in Chennai, Coimbatore and Madurai, in the first phase. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) ; Over 2,500 police personnel will provide tight security during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Perumanallur in Tirupur district, some 55 km from here on February 10. During his visit, Modi will lay the foundation stone for a 100-bedded ESIC Hospital and other welfare schemes. Two platforms are being erected, one for a state government function and another to address party workers from Tirupur, Erode, Salem, Karur, Namakkal and Nilgiris districts, police said. Work was also in progress to construct a helipad, they said. Checks are also being conducted at lodges in and around Tirupur to flush out any 'anti-socials,' police said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Telangana High Court Friday issued bailable warrants against the state's law secretary and the secretary to the legislature, returnable by February 15, in connection with the expulsion of two Congress MLAs during the previous assembly for alleged unruly behaviour. Justice B Sivasankara Rao directed both the secretaries to be present before the court on that day. The order was passed while adjudicating a contempt application of former MLAs Komatireddy Venkat Reddy and Sampath Kumar, who submitted that the earlier order of the Hyderabad High Court to restore full membership of the state legislative assembly to them was not honoured and they were not paid the salary for that particular period. When the matter came up for hearing Friday, Additional Advocate General J Ramachandra Rao produced before the court a division bench order, which stated that after the dissolution of the assembly, all issues concerning the expulsion of the two MLAs had become redundant and vacated the earlier orders granted by the single judge for their appearance. The court directed the city police commissioner to execute the bailable warrants and to release the officials if they furnish a surety for Rs 10,000 and for the commissioner to ensure their presence in court. The two MLAs were expelled from the Assembly in May last year for alleged unruly behaviour during the Governor's address to the joint sitting of the legislature. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The BJP in Telangana Friday found fault with the ruling TRS for not forming a full Cabinet even over 50 days after the government assumed office, claiming that principles of the Constitution emphasise on putting in place a council of ministers. "The government is being run by officials, there is no cabinet. It's not a delay of one or two days... After four days, it is going to be two months since KCR (Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao) assumed office," BJP spokesperson Krishna Saagar Rao told reporters. After his party's spectacular victory in the December 7 assembly elections, Chandrasekhar Rao took over as Chief Minister for a second term on December 13. Mohd Mehmood Ali was the only minister to take oath of office along with him. It is a "new record in India" that there has been no full Cabinet in close to two months and a "matter of shame" for Telangana, he claimed. The BJP spokesperson said Article 163 of Constitution talks about council of ministers to be in place to aid the Chief Minister and the Governor. "Government means council of ministers. Assembly means council of ministers. CM is the Head of the council of ministers. There are no ministers and you are Head of what," he said. This attitude amounted to an insult to democracy, he claimed. BJP would submit representations to the President and the Governor if a full cabinet is not formed soon, he said. The Governor should summon the Chief Minister and advise him to form a full cabinet, he said. Rejecting the opposition charges of delay in forming a full cabinet, TRS spokesperson Abid Rasool Khan had earlier said the government appointed a committee of senior IAS officers to streamline the entire administration. There are about 60 departments in the government and the state can have a maximum of 17 ministers as per the constitutional cap of 15 per cent of the assembly strength, he had said. The Telangana Assembly has 119 members. The Congress has also been attacking the government over the delay in the formation of the full cabinet. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A day after a row erupted over its stand on entry of young women at the Sabarimala temple, Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) President A Padmakumar Friday said it stood with the Kerala government and denied that he had any plans to quit. The TDB chief also dismissed reports that he had sought an explanation from Devaswom Commissioner N Vasu for reversing the board's stand over the September 28 Supreme Court verdict, allowing women of all ages into the Ayyappa shrine. Padmakumar said the TDB stands by the government which protects Sabarimala, other temples and the Board. "It's not possible for the Devaswom Board and its employees to stand by those who urge devotees not to donate funds in temple hundies under the board, thus destroying it. "The LDF government has allotted Rs 100 crore for the Sabarimala temple in the budget to make up for the losses during the recent floods and protests," he said speaking at a function here. Padmakumar's response on the women's entry issue Friday is significant as he had earlier opposed the entry of women of menstruating age into the Ayyappa shrine, a stand different from that of the CPI(M)-led LDF government and other board members. The board chief also stated that he had not asked for any explanation from the Devaswom Commissioner and had merely said that he was "waiting for the report". Padmakumar also said he would not resign and would continue as TDB chief till the end of his tenure in November this year. "My words (on the Devaswom Commissioner) have been misinterpreted by the media," TDB president said. A row erupted in Kerala when in a U-turn on Wednesday, the board, which manages the Ayyappa shrine,supported the apex court's order, joining the Kerala government to oppose a batch of pleas seeking review of the Supreme Court verdict. The temple board, in the earlier round of litigation, had opposed the PIL by the Indian Young Lawyers Association, seeking to throw open the shrine for all women. Padmakumar Thursday said the board had actually submitted a plea,seeking extension of time to implement the September 28 verdict. "The Devaswom Commissioner was the one who was sent to New Delhi in connection with the case. He knows the things... I have sought an explanation from him in this regard," the TDB chief had said. Vasu, who had met CPI(M) state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishanan Thursday, maintained that the board had not sought any explanation from him. Balakrishnan said in Delhi that the TDB chief had spoken to him and that the media had 'tweaked' Padmakumar's words. Devaswom Minister Kadakampally Surendran Friday said that there was now no relevance for TDB's plea in the apex court, seeking extension of time to implement its September 28 order. He said the plea was filed during two month-long Sabarimala pilgrim season as there was not much basic facilities for women devotees reaching there in large numbers. "Since the pilgrim season is over, there is no relevance for such a plea now," he told reporters in Kochi. The Minister claimed that the TDB had accepted the Supreme Court order. "Don't forget the fact that TDB had accepted the Supreme Court verdict," he said when asked about the U-turn Wednesday by the board which manages the Ayyappa shrine when the apex court Wednesday heard pleas, seeking review of its verdict. He said the TDB took a stand in line with the Supreme Court order during the hearing of pleas seeking review on Wednesday. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Even assuming lawmakers do conform with or without the offset with lower income tax rates that Ducey finds unacceptable that law might not take effect until sometime this summer. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was "not involved" in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and blaming him would be crossing "a red line," Saudi Arabia's minister of state for foreign affairs said Friday. "For anyone to think that they can dictate what we should do, what our leadership should do, is preposterous," Minister Adel al-Jubeir told reporters in Washington, where many US lawmakers have stated they believe Prince Mohammed is responsible for Khashoggi's killing last year at a Saudi consulate in Istanbul. "Our leadership is a red line," al-Jubeir added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) FMCG major Britannia Industries Friday announced appointment of Tanya Dubash as an additional director of the company. The board of the company in a meeting held on Thursday "approved the appointment of Tanya Arvind Dubash", Britannia Industries said in a regulatory filing. "Tanya Arvind Dubash is appointed as an additional director in the category of non-executive, independent director on the board of the company," it said. Dubash (51), eldest daughter daughter of industrialist Adi Godrej, serves as the executive director and chief brand officer of Godrej Industries and is responsible for Godrej Group's brand and communications function, including guiding the Godrej Masterbrand. She is also the chairperson of Godrej Nature's Basket and a director on the board of Godrej Industries, Godrej Consumer Products and Godrej Agrovet. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Swine flu has so far claimed over 250 lives in the country this year so far with 30 more deaths due to the disease being reported in last three days till Thursday. Rajasthan has recorded the maximum 96 deaths and 2,706 H1N1 virus cases till Thursday, followed by Gujarat which recorded 54 deaths and 1,187 cases, according to a Union health ministry data. Punjab has reported 30 deaths and 301 cases while Madhya Pradesh reported 16 deaths and 81 cases. Maharashtra has recorded 13 deaths and 197 swine flu cases. Delhi, which till January 28 was third in the number of swine flu cases recorded after Rajasthan and Gujarat, is now in the second position in terms of cases registering 1,409 cases and six deaths so far. According to a report of the Directorate General of Health Services, Delhi, six people died of swine flu in the national capital this year and of them one belonged to the national capital and the rest from other places. Haryana and Telangana recorded 589 and 390 swine flu cases and both reported two deaths due to the disease. With the number of swine flu cases going up, the health ministry has asked the states to bolster their surveillance for early detection of the disease and also keep beds reserved in hospitals to deal with acute cases which require ventilator facility. States have also been advised to involve district collectors in enhancing public awareness and outbreak response, a health ministry statement said. The guidelines for influenza vaccination and the details of manufacturers of vaccine provided by Drug Controller General of India have been shared with all states. Communication material for preventive measures has also been shared. Video conferences are being held regularly to monitor the situation. Advisory for preparedness to seasonal influenza A (H1N1) was issued and the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP) and its state units have enhanced surveillance for Influenza like Illness (ILI) and Severe Acute Respiratory Infections (SARI). The Drug Controller General of India has been asked to coordinate with drug manufacturers and monitor the availability of Oseltamivir, the medicine recommended by WHO, in various states. The health ministry has recommended vaccination for healthcare workers and other priority groups. The guidelines for influenza vaccination have been shared with all states. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Swine flu has claimed 15 lives in Punjab and eight in neighbouring Haryana this year, officials said Friday. More than 270 patients were found affected by the flu in Punjab this year, said Dr Gagandeep Singh Grover, the state nodal officer for swine flu. "Fifteen people have died due to H1N1 infection from January 1 until Thursday," Grover said. He said 15 others swine flu patients from across Punjab have died, but due to other ailments. Amid the mounting cases of the H1N1 infections in the state, the Punjab government has set up isolation wards at three government medical colleges, 22 district hospitals and 41 sub-divisional hospitals. It has also announced free treatment for all suspected and confirmed cases. Health minister Brahm Mohindra, who had recently held a high-level meeting with the senior officers of the health department to review the state's preparedness, has been constantly monitoring the situation. Grover said awareness drives are being carried out and health officials are visiting various schools to educate students. In neighbouring Haryana, eight persons have succumbed to swine flu so far this season. "All the patients died in private hospitals," Haryana Health Minister Anil Vij said Friday. Seasonal Influenza (H1N1) is a self-limiting viral, air-borne disease spread from person-to-person, through large droplets generated through coughing and sneezing, indirect contact by touching a contaminated object or surface (fomite transmission like telephone, cell phones, computers, door handles, door bells, pens, toys etc) and close contact (including hand shaking, hugging, kissing), the advisory said. The symptoms are fever, cough, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, difficulty in breathing. Other symptoms may include body ache, headache, fatigue, chills, diarrhoea and vomiting and blood-stained sputum. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The AAP government on Friday told the Delhi High Court that the practice of deducting 25 per cent of salaries of prisoners towards a victim compensation fund has been stopped. The submission was made before a bench of Chief Justice Rajendra Menon and Justice V K Rao by the Delhi government during hearing of a PIL opposing the practice. "The deduction has been stopped pursuant to the high court's order," Delhi government additional standing counsel Gautam Narayan told the bench, which had on December 3 last put on hold the deductions. Advocate Ajay Verma, appearing for petitioner Katyayini, told the court that of the funds collected till date from the prisoners' wages, more than Rs 14 crore was lying unutilised and it has to be decided whether the amount would be refunded or transferred to another scheme. Taking note of the submission, the bench listed the matter for hearing on May 13 by when the Delhi government has to file an affidavit indicating what it intends to do with the unutilised amount. Katyayini, a lawyer, in her plea has sought quashing of an August 2006 notification and the Delhi Prison Rules of 1988 which mandate the deduction. The Delhi State Legal Services Authority (DSLSA) has also opposed the deduction for creating a victim compensation fund, saying it was "not reasonable or justified" as the AAP government has now created a scheme for victims. The DSLSA had earlier told the court that the rule for deducting 25 per cent of wages of prisoners was inserted in the Delhi Prison Rules when there was no provision for compensating victims under the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC). However, in 2009, a provision was inserted in CrPC for putting in place a scheme for compensating victims or their dependants, the DSLSA had said and added that subsequently the Delhi Victims Compensation Scheme came into force. No purpose would be served by maintaining a separate victim welfare fund with the jails, it had said. With regard to utilisation of the money presently lying unused in the victim welfare fund in the jail, the DSLSA had said it could either be transferred to the Delhi Victim Compensation Fund or be moved into the corpus created in 2014 for providing financial sustenance, education and welfare of children of incarcerated parents. The authority, however, was not in favour of reimbursing the amounts to the prisoners, saying it would be a "highly tedious task and may not be called for in absence of any prisoner having come forward for the same". The court had questioned the practice of 25 per cent deduction from prisoners wages for a victim welfare fund, saying it was the government's obligation to set up such a corpus. It had said the Director General of Prisons of the Delhi government "cannot do something which was not permissible under the law". The PIL has claimed that of the over Rs 15 crore collected since 2006 from wages of convicts lodged in the Tihar Jail, approximately Rs 80.73 lakh has been disbursed to 194 eligible victims and the remaining over Rs 14 crore lay unused. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Strongly disapproving of Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi's attempt to disrupt BJD MP Tathagata Satpathy's speech in Lok Sabha, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan on Friday said not allowing members to speak is akin to killing democracy. After the House met post-lunch, Satpathy began the discussion on the interim Budget in the absence of Congress' Veerappa Moily who was to speak first. The Congress members, however, started protesting on the Rafale issue, demanding a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe into the fighter jet deal. Congress members Gogoi, Rajeev Satav, Sushmita Dev and others trooped into the Well shouting slogans. Gogoi, with a placard in his hand, walked up to Sathpathy's seat and started raising slogans as the BJD member's microphone was on and the camera usually focuses on the person who is making the speech. "Gaurav Gogoi, don't go there. Please stay in your limit," an upset Speaker said. Gogoi immediately stepped back. In the past, Mahajan had reprimanded Dev for similar actions. Mallikarjun Kharge, Leader of the Congress in the House, said unless the Rafale issue is addressed, the protests will continue. The Congress later staged a walkout in protest. After Sathpathy's speech was over, BJD leader Bhartuhari Mahtab objected to Gogoi'a act. "Walking up to the Speaker (the person delivering the speech) and not allowing him to speak has become a regular practice in the House," Mahtab said. To this, Mahajan said she named Gogoi and reprimanded him for his behaviour. "But what to do? They are people's representatives," she said. "So even Satpathy is a people's representative," Mahtab said. "This is very irresponsible behaviour. This is wrong and should not happen. We are proving that we are killing democracy. If members are not allowed to speak in Lok Sabha then it is an anti-democratic act," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Sierra Leone's president has declared a national emergency over rape and sexual violence, saying perpetrators are getting younger and their acts more violent. In a keynote address on Thursday, President Julius Maada Bio said hundreds of cases of rape and sexual assault are reported each month in the West African nation against women, girls and babies as young as three months old. Those who sexually assault minors will face life in imprison, the president declared, saying that some 70 percent of victims are under age 15. The current law carries a maximum penalty of 15 years, and very few cases have been prosecuted. "With this declaration, I have also directed the following: that all government hospitals must provide free medical treatment and certificate to every victim of rape and sexual abuse," he said. Bio's declaration comes after months of campaigning by activists. Thousands of cases are unreported because of a culture of silence or indifference, leaving victims traumatized, he said, adding that he wants to increase awareness. The government will engage communities and civil society in dialogue to end the scourge that is slowly wrecking the nation, the president said. That will involve addressing gaps in the Sexual Offences Act of 2012, he said. Bio also ordered the creation of a special police division for rape and sexual violence against minors. Dr. Olabisi Claudius Cole, head of the Rainbo Initiative that provides free medical and psychosocial services for survivors of gender-based violence, called the president's declaration a landmark in tackling such violence in Sierra Leone. It had been made possible by the tireless voices of survivors and activists, she said. First Lady Fatima Bio said all forms of sexual violence are unacceptable and menaces to society. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) National Conference leader Omar Abdullah Friday said he will grant status of division to Chenab valley and Pir Panjal region if his party was voted to power in the Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir later this year. The former chief minister was reacting to state government's decision to grant status of Division to Ladakh region, consisting of Leh and Kargil districts. "After the elections of 2019, should the people of J&K repose faith in @JKNC_ , our government will grant division status to Chenab valley & Pir Panchal regions as already laid out in our regional autonomy promise," Omar tweeted. In a major decision, the Jammu and Kashmir administration Friday created a separate division for Ladakh, which was part of the Kashmir division till now. Ladakh will now have a separate divisional commissioner and an inspector general of Police (IG) with a full administrative and revenue division at par with Kashmir and Jammu divisions, an order issued by the administration said. PDP president Mehbooba Mufti welcomed the decision but said she failed to understand the government's intention of ignoring Chenab Valley and Pir Panjal regions which are equally remote and have much larger population than Ladakh. "Although Leh and Kargil already have Hill Development Councils, we welcome the decision to grant division status to Ladakh. But I fail to understand what is the intention behind ignoring Chenab Valley and Pir Panjal regions. These are remote areas, the terrain is hilly and population is much larger," she said. Mehbooba alleged that Governor Satya Pal Malik was peddling BJP agenda by not granting the division status to Chenab valley and Pir Panjal region. "As far as I remember (during PDP-BJP coalition govenrment), we were talking about granting division status to Chenab valley, Pir Panjal and Ladakh but BJP had opposed it," she added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court on Friday refused to entertain a plea by sacked Gujarat cadre IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt seeking security for his family after his wife met with an accident recently. A bench of Justices A K Sikri and S Abdul Nazeer asked Bhatt to approach the Gujarat High Court with his plea for the necessary relief. The bench said that it is not expressing any opinion on the merit of the case. Bhatt has sought security for his family after his wife Shweta Bhatt, who was travelling with their son, met with an accident on January 7. The two had sustained minor injuries in the incident in which their car was also damaged but they refused to lodge FIR. On October 4 last year, the apex court had dismissed Shweta's plea challenging the police probe and his judicial custody in a 22-year-old case of alleged planting of drugs to arrest an advocate, and said he could approach an "appropriate forum" for relief. The apex court had held it was not appropriate for it to interfere in the ongoing investigation. Bhatt was suspended in 2011 on charges of remaining absent from duty without permission and misuse of official vehicles and later sacked in August 2015. Bhatt and seven others, including some former policemen attached with the Banaskantha Police, were initially detained for questioning in the case. Bhat was Banaskantha district superintendent of police in 1996. According to the police, Banaskantha Police under Bhatt arrested an advocate called Sumersingh Rajpurohit in 1996 on charges of possessing around 1 kg of drugs. At the time, Banaskantha Police claimed that drugs were found in a hotel room occupied by Rajpurohit in the district's Palanpur town. However, a probe by Rajasthan Police concluded that Rajpurohit was allegedly falsely implicated by Banaskantha Police to compel him to transfer a disputed property at Pali in Rajasthan. It also claimed to have found that Rajpurohit was allegedly abducted by Banaskantha Police from his residence at Pali. Following the Rajasthan Police investigation, former inspector of Banaskantha I B Vyas moved the Gujarat High Court in 1999 demanding a thorough inquiry into the matter. In June last year, the high court handed over the probe in the case to the CID while hearing the petition and had asked it to complete the probe in three months. Bhatt's wife Shweta had unsuccessfully contested assembly election as a Congress party candidate against Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Maninagar constituency in Ahmedabad in 2012. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court Friday dismissed former Bihar deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav's plea, challenging the Patna High Court order asking him to vacate a government bungalow meant for the deputy chief minister, and ordered him to shift to an accommodation for the leader of the opposition. A bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna also imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 on the RJD leader for challenging the government decision. Yadav, who is currently the leader of the opposition in the state assembly, had filed an appeal against the Patna High Court judgement turning down his petition challenging the Bihar government order to vacate his bungalow to make way for Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Surely they joust, three times a day, at the festival, which runs Feb. 9 through March 31. Jousting is among the top attractions. The Supreme Court Friday dismissed RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav's plea challenging a Patna High Court order asking him to vacate the bungalow meant for the deputy chief minister and imposed Rs 50,000 fine on him for wasting "judicial time". The apex court did not find fault with the two orders passed by the single judge and the division bench of the high court dismissing the pleas of the former deputy chief minister against the state government's decision asking Tejashwi to vacate the bungalow for his successor Sushil Modi. The high court had asked Tejashwi, who is now holding the post of leader of opposition (LoP) in the assembly, to swap bungalow with the present deputy chief minister. "What is this luxury of litigation? Precious judicial time has been wasted," a bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said when Tejashwi's counsel, senior advocate A M Singhvi, attempted to establish that the post of a minister and that of the LoP was similar in protocol. Moreover, there is no separate class like deputy chief minister in law, Singhvi said. He said there is chief minister and the council of ministers, but the state government has created a new category of deputy chief minister for the purposes of accommodation and other benefits. "Was there no deputy chief ministers elsewhere? ...You see, two benches of the high court have held against you," said the bench, which also comprised Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna. "Heard counsel for the petitioner and perused the relevant material. We are not inclined to interfere with the order impugned in the special leave petition. "The same is dismissed with cost of Rs 50,000 to be deposited within a period of four weeks from today with the Supreme Court Legal Services Committee," the court noted in the order. On January 7, a division bench of the high court rejected the RJD leader's appeal challenging a single judge order on October 6, 2018 turning down his petition against the state government's direction. "The petitioner has been allotted a bungalow, matching his status as a minister in the government, at 1, Polo Road, Patna. He cannot raise complaint on the decision so taken, simply because the present bungalow is more suited to him," the single-judge order stated. Yadav occupies the 5, Desh Ratna Marg bungalow, a stone's throw from the Raj Bhavan and the chief minister's official residence. It was allotted to Yadav in 2015 when he was appointed deputy chief minister of the then 'Grand Alliance' government headed by Nitish Kumar. The RJD lost power in the state and Kumar now heads a NDA government. The Nitish Kumar government had asked Yadav to swap residences with Modi. "We find that this squabble over the allotment of a bungalow should not have been made a cause of dispute, as if it was a division of some private property. The rights which are being agitated upon are not such rights so as to place them on the pedestal of legally enforceable, indefeasible rights," the high court had remarked. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court on Friday issued notice to the owner of a coal mine in Meghalaya where 15 people have been trapped for nearly two months saying he was responsible for the illegal mining due to which the mishap took place. The top court directed that the owner of the mine be made party in the pending petition seeking urgent steps for rescuing the miners trapped in the rat-hole mine since December 13 last year. The illegal mine is located at Ksan in East Jaintia Hills district, about 3.7 km deep inside a forest and can be accessed after crossing three streams. It was flooded when water from the nearby Letein river gushed into it. "The mishappening has taken place because of illegal mining in the concerned mines for which, obviously, the mine owner is responsible. It is, therefore, directed that notice be issued to the mine owner also, namely, Jrin Chullet @ Krip Chullet, R/O Village Narwan of District Khliehriat, East Jaintia Hills District, Meghalaya," the bench said. The top court sought the mine owner's reply by February 22 and directed the Meghalaya and Coal India Ltd. to furnish details of other illegal mines operating in the area. It posted the matter for further hearing on February 22. Senior advocate Anand Grover, appearing for petitioner Aditya N Prasad, said that the problem of de-watering the mines still persists. He said that Kirloskar company has sufficient number of 100 Horsepower capacity pumps and is even ready to supply the same. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for Centre said that it these pumps would be airlifted to the nearest point of the site and with the help of the Army authorities, they will be installed at the earliest. Advocate Karan Singh Bhati, appearing for Coal India Ltd. said he wants to file status report on behalf of the company. On January 28, the apex court was informed that the body of a person, among the 15 miners trapped has been retrieved while another body was spotted by the Indian Navy. The Centre had told the apex court that a body was recovered on January 24 during the rescue operation and on January 26, the Navy personnel spotted the second body at about 280 feet. The petitioner's counsel had argued that 14 to 15 high-powered water pumps were required to de-water the mines. The Centre had said that Army personnel were already involved in rescue operation along with officials of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), Indian Navy and other agencies. Rat-hole mining involves digging of narrow tunnels, usually three-four feet high, for workers to enter and extract coal. The horizontal tunnels are often termed "rat holes" as each just about fits one person. In its status report filed in the top court, the Centre had said that crores of litres of water have been pumped out from the mine and remotely operated vehicles of the Indian Navy were already working in the rescue operation. It had said Indian Air Force aircraft were also deployed for rescue operation. The status report said that Meghalaya government is undertaking search and rescue operations and the Centre is supplementing the efforts by providing all necessary logistic support. On January 16, remotely operated vehicles of Indian Navy detected a body at a depth of 210 feet in the flooded mine and efforts were made to retrieve it but the operation could not be completed as the body parts started disintegrating. Earlier, the Centre had told the court that it has to "believe in miracles" for the 15 miners to come out alive. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court Friday admitted the appeal filed by Delhi Police against a high court order that acquitted former TV anchor and producer Suhaib Ilyasi of the charge of killing his wife 19 years ago. Ilyasi, who had shot into limelight after hosting TV crime show, India's Most Wanted, was acquitted of the murder charges by the Delhi High Court on October 5, last year saying that the prosecution's case was not established. A Delhi court had on December 20, 2017 sentenced Ilyasi to life term for stabbing his wife to death, saying he "committed murder and gave it a colour of suicide". A bench of Justices L Nageswara Rao and M R Shah said they have already admitted a similar appeal filed by complainant Rukma Singh, mother of the victim Anju Singh. "Leave granted," the bench said in its order and tagged it along with Rukma's plea, admitted for hearing on January 28. The high court held that there was nothing to suggest that 52-year old Ilyasi deliberately delayed medical assistance for his wife Anju, who was first taken to a private hospital and then to the AIIMS, where she was declared dead. The incident had taken place on the intervening night of January 10-11, 2000 when Anju was rushed to a hospital with stab wounds she received at her East Delhi residence. The high court had said that merely because the victim was found to be in good spirits around two hours prior to the incident, it would not rule out the possibility of her committing suicide by stabbing herself as a result of her quarrel with her husband. The report of the five-member medical board, it said, contained no specific reasons for the conclusion that the preponderance of evidence in this case points towards "commission of homicide". The trial court had also imposed a fine of Rs 2 lakh on him and directed that Rs 10 lakh be paid as compensation to Anju's parents. Earlier, Ilyasi was charged under 304 B (dowry death) of the IPC. However, Rukma Singh and Anju's sister Rashmi had moved the Delhi High Court which in August 2014 ruled that the former TV producer would be tried under Section 302 of the IPC for the offence of murder. Ilyasi was arrested on March 28, 2000. Charges were framed against him in the case after his sister-in-law and mother-in-law alleged that he used to torture Anju for dowry. He was later granted bail. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Former AIADMK leader V K Sasikala and her relative V Bhaskaran on Friday moved the Madras High Court, seeking quashing of an order of the Appellate Tribunal, New Delhi whereby it dismissed their appeal in FERA cases on the grounds of delay. A division bench of justices M M Sundresh and C Saravanan issued notice to the Enforcement Directorate, returnable within two weeks, on the pleas by Sasikala and Bhaskaran who sought that their cases be restored with the Tribunal. The notice was accepted by Special Public Prosecutor of the Enforcement Directorate Hema Babu. The Enforcement Directorate had initiated prosecution proceedings against Sasikala and her relative V Bhaskaran in the case relating to import of transponders to the now defunct JJ TV in which the court had slapped a Rs 18 crore penalty on them for allegedly violating foreign exchange rules. They challenged it before Appelate Tribunal in Delhi, which dismissed the petitions on the grounds that the appeal was not filed in time. Sasikala and Bhaskaran then moved the Madras High Court by filing civil miscellaneous appeals. Sasikala, who was former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa's close aide, is serving a four-year prison term at Parapanna Agrahara jail in Bangalore since February 2017 after the Supreme Court upheld her conviction in a disproportionate assets case. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) South African rescuers said Friday that they had been forced to halt an operation to rescue about 20 people trapped in a disused mine, blaming disruption from workers who had not been paid. Six people died after trespassing into the Gloria coal mine near the town of Middelburg in the eastern province of Mpumalanga, police told AFP, updating the earlier death toll of five. The group went underground between Sunday and Wednesday to allegedly steal copper cables in the mine, which had been closed for several months. "We have been prevented from continuing with the recovery operations by a disgruntled group of people who have not been paid their salaries," Mike Elliot, who represents the administrators of the mine, told local media. "They refuse to allow us to continue with the recovery operations and that includes repairing the power to the mine, restoring the power to the fans so that we can put fresh air underground." He said some locals had attempted their own rescue operations. Police say there was a gas explosion in the disused shaft on Monday. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) on Friday removed its leader Nagmani from the post of national working president for allegedly indulging in anti-party activities. The party also asked the former union minister to explain within three days as why his primary membership of the party should not be terminated. Nagmani, however, denied receiving any such letter from the RLSP and claimed he did not speak a single word against the party. Notably, Nagmani shared dais with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar twice within a week, probably the reason why party chief Upendra Kushwaha felt peeved and removed him from the post of the party's national working president. Keeping in mind your indulgence in anti-party activities, the national president has relieved you (Nagmani) of your responsibility with immediate effect. You should also explain within three days as why partys primary membership be not terminated, partys national general secretary Fazal Imam Mallik said in a letter addressed to Nagmani. Earlier in the day, a host of party leaders and office-bearers led by its Bihar unit secretary general Satyanand Prasad Dangi had demanded the RLSP chief to remove Nagmani from the post over anti-party activities and had also passed a resolution to this effect. It may be noted that Nagmani had shared the dais with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar first on February 2 during a state level function held to celebrate birth anniversary of his father late Jagdeo Prasad. For the second time on Friday, he was again with Kumar at a function to unveil the statue of Jagdeo Prasad in the state capital. Talking to a private channel, Nagmani said that he has not received any letter removing him from the party post. I have not received any such notice. I can be able to say anything after getting any such letter, Nagmani said and added that he was not in on anyones mercy (kripa). Asked why he praised Kumar, Nagmani denied doing so and said he only stated that Kumar had performed quite well on carrying out development work in his first term as chief minister when he and Upendra Kushwaha were with him. However, when both (Nagmani and Kushwaha) broke away from his party, his (Kumars) work for development deteriorated, he remarked. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Government Friday said it will bring an ordinance or a Bill if the Supreme Court reject its review petition on reservation mechanism for faculties in universities. With proceedings being washed away earlier this week over protests from opposition parties over the issue, HRD Minister made a brief statement in the House saying till such time no recruitment will be allowed in universities. Soon after listed official papers were presented to the House, Javadekar rose to say that a study has been conducted on how department-wise reservations to faculties will affect SC, ST and OBCs in 30 universities. "The government has decided to bring an ordinance or a Bill should the review petition be rejected by the Supreme Court," he said. "Till then no recruitment will be allowed." The SP and BSP had on Thursday not allowed the House to function over their demand that the government bring a Bill to protect the interest of scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and OBC. The government will file a review petition in the Supreme Court after its Special Leave Petition on faculty reservation mechanism for universities was rejected by the apex court. The University Grants Commission (UGC) had announced in March last year that an individual department should be considered as the base unit to calculate the number of teaching posts to be reserved for Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) candidates following an order by the Allahabad High Court in April in 2017. The response from the government came as several opposition members gave notices under Rule 267 seeking setting aside of the business of the day to take up the issue. Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu said the issue in these notices has been addressed by Javadekar. Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik Friday demanded that the Centre immediately release food subsidy bills amounting of Rs 3,654 crore payable to the state to protect farmers' interest. "It is a matter of concern that the subsidy bills amounting to Rs 3654.41 crore (which includes the advance subsidy up to March 2019) relating to Odisha are pending," Patnaik said in a letter to Union Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution Ram Vilas Paswan. "Such a huge pendency is causing shortage of funds at OSCSC (Odisha State Civil Supplies Corporation), which may become a major road block for ensuring timely payment to farmers," the chief minister said. Patnaik wrote the letter to the Union minister seeking early release of subsidy money ahead of the Lok Sabha polls which is likely to be held along with the state assembly elections. The chief minister said the OSCSC, a state PSU, has been procuring paddy since 2003-04 on behalf of the state government and funds for the operations are borrowed by the Corporation from banks. Due to an effective and transparent Paddy Procurement Automation System (P-Pas) put in place by the government, the quantum of procurement has grown manifold and the cost of paddy is being directly transferred to the accounts of farmers, he said. Last year, Rs 7600 crore were transferred directly to the accounts of paddy farmers, Patnaik said. "This year, we have already procured more than 40,00,000 MT of paddy and more than Rs 6000 crore has already been transferred to accounts of farmers. Due to procurement of such huge quantity, the OSCSC is almost on the verge of reaching its cash credit limit," the chief minister said. In order to ensure that adequate funds are available with the OSCSC for payment to the farmers, it is necessary that the food subsidy is regularly released by the Centre to the government of Odisha, Patnaik said in his letter, copy of which was released here. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Reserve Bank has imposed a cumulative penalty of Rs 3.5 crore on state-owned lenders Corporation Bank and Allahabad Bank for violation of various norms. "This is to inform that Reserve Bank of India...has imposed an aggregate penalty of Rs 20 million on our bank due to some lapses in monitoring of end use of funds and exchange of information with other banks in respect of one borrower along with some other banks," Corporation Bank said in a regulatory filing Friday. The bank has already taken necessary preventive measures to avoid such recurrence, it added. Allahabad Bank said the RBI has imposed a penalty of Rs 1.5 crore for not monitoring end use of funds, among other violations. "We have to inform you that the Reserve Bank of India...has imposed a penalty of Rs 1.5 crore on the bank for not monitoring the end use of funds, delay in classification and reporting of fraud and non-adherence with RBI guidelines during restructuring of accounts in respect of one of its borrowers," the bank said in a regulatory filing. The amount of penalty is not material considering the size of the bank, it added. The Kolkata-headquartered lender said it has taken necessary preventive measures to strengthen internal controls to avoid such recurrence. Earlier this week, the regulator had imposed penalties on Axis Bank, UCO Bank and Syndicate Bank for violation of various norms. The gross penalties on these three lenders amounted to Rs 5.20 crore. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Vaani Kapoor will soon begin her extensive shoot with Ranbir Kapoor for "Shamshera" and says she finds the actor extremely cooperative and humble. Vaani, who was last seen in "Befikre", will feature in the Karan Malhotra-project, which is set in the 1800s and chronicles the story of a dacoit tribe fighting for their right and independence from the British. "I've barely shot for the film, as of now but Ranbir is very cooperative, sweet, humble and so normal! That sense of normalcy is very hard to find," Vaani told PTI. "I come from a non-film background, so in your head also you build apprehensions about people you've heard of. This ice, that one needs to break, I'm very bad at it. But Ranbir has been so kind and welcoming to me," she added. "Shamshera" features Sanjay Dutt as the antagonist. When asked if she will be seen doing action sequences in the film, Vaani said it is a "possibility". "There is a very different, cool, quirky sense of this character that, of course, I've never played before, but also you don't get to see too often. There could be a possibility of you seeing me do action but I believe there's a lot more to the character that you'll be seeing," she said. Vaani was speaking at the launch of Marks & Spencer's new spring summer collection on Thursday. The actor walked the ramp for the brand, which has come out with a "Rethink" philosophy for style. When asked if she's had to rethink the kind of films she would want to feature in, Vaani said "enough thought" has already gone into what she wants to do and feels glad of her lineup of films. Apart from "Shamshera", the actor also has Siddharth Anand's untitled action-thriller featuring Hrithik Roshan and Tiger Shroff. "I feel I'm blessed. I'm grateful to the directors who have cast me in big films like these, the magnum opus that they are being called. I'm so fortunate to work with such talented co-actors at such an early stage of my career. "I'm yet to shoot a lot with Ranbir but I've shot extensively with Hrithik and he's extremely kind, nice and too wonderful," she added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Ram temple issue is about "faith" and Sabarimala is about "customs" and the two should not be mixed, senior Congress leader P Chidambaram said Friday. His comments came during the launch of his new book "Undaunted: Saving the Idea of India", a collection of his essays published last year, at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library here. "Ram temple is not an issue of customs, it is an issue of faith. While Sabarimala is a matter of customs which are opposed to modern constitutional values," the former Union minister of finance and home said in response to a question on the two issues. In Ayodhya, and not to trivialise the faith of those who believe in Lord Ram and his birthplace, it is a matter of faith, he said. "And, it is because of that, a group of people are claiming the land. Others are saying a mosque existed several hundred years ago." The question is whether the Supreme Court would resolve issues raised by the Allahabad High Court," the Rajya Sabha member said. Many issues are amenable to judicial resolution "but I don't think we can mix up customs and faith", he said. As far as Sabarimala is concerned, it is an issue on which one can't take a categorical view, he added. "I as an individual accept the SC judgement, but how can I stop ordinary men, women and party workers to express those views," Chidambaram said. The Congress took a view, saying "we accept the SC judgement, but we can't tell our party workers, you can't have other views". "Our president (Rahul Gandhi) did not say he has changed his stand (on Sabarimala)," the former minister added. On September 28, a five-judge Constitution bench, headed by the then chief justice Dipak Misra, lifted the ban on the entry of women of menstrual age into the shrine. Kerala Congress activists, including several women have protested on the verdict, and even demonstrated in front of an office of the Travancore Devaswom Board, that manages the hill shrine, with the slogan of 'Protect Sabarimala Temple'. On the Ram temple issue, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his party BJP, have been alleging that Congress was trying to impede the judicial process for resolution of the matter. The book was launched in the presence of former vice president Hamid Ansari, former union ministers Salman Khurshid and Dinesh Trivedi and Congress leader Ahmed Patel. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Congress Chief Rahul Gandhi said Friday that the 'minimum income guarantee' which his party is promising would not be like Narendra Modi government's Kisan Saman Nidhi scheme, under which farmers will get only "Rs 17 per day". Addressing a 'Kisan Aabhar Sammelan' (thanksgiving rally) here, Gandhi also alleged that the Prime Minister's Office was directly involved in conducting negotiations with the French side for Rafale fighter jets and this had weakened the Ministry of Defence's (MoD) negotiations on the same deal. "This is historic. No other country has done this. India is going to be the first country to do this. The Congress (if elected to power) will give a minimum income guarantee to the poor," he said. "We are not going to insult you by giving Rs 17 per day," Gandhi said, pooh-poohing the Centre's recent budget announcement of Rs 6,000 per year cash support for farmers under the Kisan Samman Nidhi scheme. "When we (Congress governments) decided to waive farm loan in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan within ten days (of coming to power), Narendra Modi got scared. (One can) Get any work done by Narendra Modi by frightening him. "Modi (in the Lok Sabha) said that he also works for farmers....BJP MPs thumped the table for five minutes. I was surprised, asking what happened. Then we came to know that they have decided to give Rs 17 per day to farmers," he said. "On one hand, the Modi government wrote off Rs 3.50 lakh crore debt of top 15 rich people, but gives a paltry Rs 17 per day, which means Rs 3.50 per person per day, to farmers. "Clap, clap, what a wonderful job," the Congress chief said, mocking the Modi government's announcement. Reiterating his allegations on the Rafale deal, Gandhi said, "You must have read it in the newspapers this morning that the Defence Ministry officials said that Narendra Modi was directly involved in Rafale deal with France, without their knowledge." The prime minister Thursday evening spoke for an hour and 45 minutes in the Lok Sabha, but did not speak about Rafale deal, he pointed out. "The Defence secretary wrote on the file that Narendra Modi conducted parallel negotiations and weakened the negotiation of Defence Ministry, cancelled their (Ministry's) deal. The Chowkidar (Modi) doesn't speak a word about this but truth can't be concealed," he said. Speaking at the rally, organised to thank the Congress chief for implementing farm loan waiver in Madhya Pradesh, Gandhi also said that food processing units would be set up across the state. The BJP ran the state government through bureaucrats but the Congress regime would run through Panchayati Raj, he said. "This is not the government of an organisation, this is not a government of (RSS chief) Mohan Bhagwat, this belongs of every citizen," Gandhi said. The Congress chief also said that the state would compete with China in providing jobs to the youth, and people will soon see things such as mobile phones and shirts with tags Made in MP, Made in Bhopal or Indore, instead of Made in China. Congress chief ministers and ministers in states must work for people and party workers and should be easily accessible to them, otherwise "there would be a new chief minister", he warned. Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath and Congress general secretary Jyotiraditya Scindia also addressed the gathering. Former BJP minister and five-time MP Ramkrishna Kusumaria and RPI leader and former minister Doman Singh Nagpure joined the Congress during the event. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The BJP Friday described Rahul Gandhi's allegations against Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Rafale deal as "yet another lie from his lie-manufacturing factory" and accused the Congress president of working at the behest of foreign forces for the cancellation of the fighter aircraft deal. The Prime Minister's Office was directly involved in negotiations with the French on the Rafale deal and Modi was guilty in the scam, Congress president Rahul Gandhi said on Friday in a fresh attack on the government over the fighter jet agreement. It is an open and shut case, Gandhi declared, citing a report in The Hindu newspaper claiming the Defence ministry raised strong objections to "parallel discussions" conducted by the PMO during the negotiations over the Rs 59,000 crore Rafale deal between India and France. A number of Union ministers from the BJP hit out at Gandhi after he cited the Hinndu report to launch a fresh attack on Modi. "The lie-manufacturing factory of Rahul Gandhi continues to operate and he has served us yet another lie. We absolutely reject his allegations," Union minister Prakash Javadekar told reporters. He demanded Gandhi should tell them as to which aircraft company officials he had met during his recent visit to Europe. "Rahul Gandhi and the Congress are working to get the Rafale deal scrapped. They are playing in the hands of foreign forces and companies with vested interest," Javadekar alleged. He said the Congress-led UPA government had finalised the Rafale deal in 2011 but did not go ahead with it because "it had not got any commission." There cannot be a deal in a Congress government without any commission, Javadekar alleged. "The Supreme Court has said there is no scam in the Rafale deal. Gandhi does not accept it. Repeating a lie would not make it true," he said. The BJP leader asserted the Modi's credibility among people is high as they believe that he will put national interest first while they know that "the Congress is all about corruption". Referring to the media report that said the Defence ministry had raised strong objections to "parallel discussions" by the Prime Minister's Office on the Rafale deal, he said the story did not refer to the response of the then defence minister Manohar Parrikar on the file. It is the job of the the PMO to monitor works of different ministries, Javadekar said. Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman Friday also dismissed the media report on the Rafale jet deal as "flogging a dead horse" and accused the opposition of playing into the hands of multinational companies and vested interests. "They are flogging a dead horse. Periodical enquiries by the PMO cannot be construed as interference," the minister said during the Zero Hour in Lok Sabha. Union minister Giriraj Singh claimed Gandhi keeps lying on the Rafale deal and took a dig at the Congress chief, saying he now needs to see a psychiatrist as the government has answered all questions raised on the issue and even the Supreme Court has rejected charges of corruption. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Friday demanded answers to questions raised by a media report that the PMO conducted parallel negotiations on the Rafale deal, saying it is now crystal clear that the "watchman" is the "thief" as he ramped up his attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It is an open and shut case, Gandhi declared, citing a report in The Hindu newspaper claiming the Defence ministry raised strong objections to "parallel discussions" conducted by the Prime Minister's Office during the negotiations over the Rs 59,000 crore Rafale fighter jet deal between India and France. As the report drew fresh battle-lines with the BJP and its ministers terming Gandhi's allegations another "lie from his lie manufacturing factory" and opposition leaders speaking out against the deal, the Congress president brought in his brother-in-law Robert Vadra and senior leader P Chidambaram to make his point. "Whatever inquiry you want to do, you do it. You implement the law. Robert Vadra, P Chidambaram - you implement the law on everyone. No problem. But you also give answers on the Rafale matter," he said at a press conference, using the report to give his offensive on the Rafale deal a fillip. He was responding to a question on the Enforcement Directorate interrogating Vadra in a money laundering case and the government's sanction to prosecute Chidambaram in the INX MEDIA case. A day after the prime minister alleged that the Congress did not want the Indian Air Force to be strong, Gandhi said he wanted to address every member of the armed forces. "It is absolutely clear that the prime minister has stolen Rs 30,000 crore of your money, bypassed a process, and given it to his friend Mr. Anil Ambani," he said. The government, as well as Ambani, have strongly denied any wrongdoing in the fighter jet agreement with France. "We have been saying for more than a year that the prime minister is directly involved in the Rafale scam. Now, today, in The Hindu newspaper, it is black and white... that the prime minister himself was carrying out a parallel negotiation with the French," Gandhi said. "It has been proven now that the watchman (chowkidar) is the thief (chor). What can be more clear than this?" he asked, reiterating epithets he has used several times earlier. Holding up the documents quoted in the newspaper, he said the Defence ministry was clearly objecting to the interference. Gandhi also read out from a 2015 note, purportedly from the Defence ministry, published in the newspaper. "Now, it is crystal clear that the ministry itself has said, and I will read it to you, 'It is therefore clear that the parallel discussions by the PMO has weakened the negotiation of the MOD and the Indian negotiating team. We may advise PMO that any officers who are not part of the negotiation team may refrain from having parallel parleys with the officer of the French government'," Gandhi said. The Congress president also reiterated his demand for a joint parliamentary committee to probe the Rafale deal. Defending the government in the Lok Sabha, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman dismissed the media report, saying it was "flogging a dead horse", and accused the opposition of playing into the hands of multinational companies and vested interests. "They are flogging a dead horse. Periodical enquiries by the PMO cannot be construed as interference," the minister said in the Lok Sabha. She said then defence minister Manohar Parrikar had replied to the letter asking the official to remain "calm" as everything was "alright". Her party colleague Prakash Javadekar also rejected the allegations. "The lie-manufacturing factory of Rahul Gandhi continues to operate and he has served us yet another lie," he said, demanding that Gandhi should tell them which aircraft company officials he met during his recent visit to Europe. Former defence minister and senior Congress A K Antony said it was "shocking" that the PMO was conducting parallel negotiations and alleged it had "special interests to protect". "In defence negotiations, only the defence ministry is involved," the senior Congress leader told reporters. Other opposition leaders backed the Congress' stance. Reacting to the report, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury alleged that Modi had consistently undermined the Air Force and the Defence Ministry to benefit his "cronies" in the Rafale deal. "His actions have hurt the public exchequer & damaged national security. These facts have been hidden from Supreme Court where a review petition is pending," Yechury tweeted. National Conference leader Omar Abdullah added that the purported Defence ministry note indicated that then defence minister Parrikar had no knowledge of the progress in negotiations for the deal. "He had no direct knowledge of progress & passed the buck back to the PMO," Abdullah said on Twitter. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Friday expressed condolences over the deaths of several people by consuming spurious liquor in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. "It is very unfortunate. My deepest condolences to the families of the victims who succumbed to it. I pray for (the) speedy recovery of those fighting for life in hospitals," Gandhi said in a Facebook post. At least 23 people have died and eight others were battling for life after allegedly consuming spurious liquor at a village in Uttarakhand's Haridwar district, prompting the administration to order a magisterial probe and suspend 17 personnel of the excise and police departments. In Uttar Pradesh, 16 people have died in Saharanpur and Kushinagar districts over the past few days and the toll might rise, official sources said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Attacking the Prime Minister's Office for alleged "parallel negotiations" in the Rafale deal, opposition leaders on Friday asked the government to come clean on objections raised by the defence ministry at that time with AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal going to the extent of demanding an "independent" CBI raid to seize all related files and arrest everyone involved. Latching on to an article in The Hindu newspaper, which claimed that the Defence Ministry had raised strong objections to "parallel discussions" conducted by the PMO during negotiations for the Rs 59,000-crore fighter jet deal between India and France, the opposition leaders also raised questions on the role of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, however, dismissed the media report as "flogging a dead horse" and accused the opposition of playing into the hands of multinational companies and vested interests. She also said that periodical enquiries by the PMO cannot be construed as interference. Reacting to the report, former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah tweeted, "I'd like to see how this one is explained by the talking heads aligned to the BJP. @PMOIndia 'weakened the negotiating position of the Ministry of Defence & the Indian Negotiating Team' as per this note in a MOD file that went up the the Defence Minister." Abdullah's National Conference was an ally of NDA when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the prime minister, but shifted to UPA-II in 2009. CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury alleged that Prime Minister Modi has consistently undermined the Air Force and the Defence Ministry to benefit his "cronies" in the Rafale deal. "Modi has consistently undermined the Air Force & Defence Ministry in the Rafale deal for corruption, to benefit his cronies. His actions have hurt the public exchequer & damaged national security. These facts have been hidden from Supreme Court where a review petition is pending," Yechury tweeted. "The PM must take responsibility for the loss to the exchequer, violation of procedure to get far fewer fighter jets than what Air Force wanted. All just to help cronies," the Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader said. AAP supremo and Delhi Chief Minister Kejriwal demanded CBI raid on PMO and arrests in connection with Rafale fighter jet deal. "In the light of today's expose on Rafale, "independent" CBI should raid PMO, seize all the files related to Rafale and make arrests just like they raided my office and residence and Kolkatta police commissioner," he tweeted. Congress President Rahul Gandhi also used the media report, quoting notes in an MoD file, to fire a fresh salvo at the prime minister and alleged the PMO was directly involved in negotiations with the French side on the Rafale deal and that it was guilty in the alleged scam. "I want to speak to every member of the armed forces of this nation... Here, it is absolutely clear that the prime minister has stolen Rs 30,000 crore of your money, bypassed a process, and given it to his friend Mr Anil Ambani," Gandhi said at a press conference calling the deal as an "open and shut case". The BJP, howe3ver, described Gandhi's allegations against Modi as "yet another lie from his lie-manufacturing factory" and accused the Congress president of working at the behest of foreign forces for cancellation of the fighter aircraft deal. Gandhi and his party have often alleged that Ambani's Reliance Group got benefits from the Rafale deal by being made an offset partner. However, the business house has these denied allegations. Another senior Congress leader Anand Sharma demanded that a JPC be formed to look into the deal and it should submit its report before the general elections, which are expected to take place in April-May. "Not one aircraft has come to India and this is for the first time in history that the process of defence acquisition has been bypassed and a parallel negotiation has taken place," he alleged. DMK President MK Stalin told reporters that Modi's actions in the deal was akin to contempt of court. "PM Modi has come under the Supreme Court's contempt. In its sealed envelope to SC, centre never mentioned PMO's negotiations. Never ever in independent India, a Prime Minister was caught in such serious allegations," he alleged. In a cryptic tweet, Samajwadi Party Chief Akhilesh Yadav brought all the concerns of the opposition parties -- from farmer deaths to the Rafale deal. "Let us vow that we will #NeverAgain let people die waiting in line to withdraw money from a bank, fall for the 15 lakh rupee lie, allow farmers to kill themselves, let national security enrich the famous few, let people be killed for their beliefs, let two and half men rule us. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Rajya Sabha Friday witnessed opposition uproar over the Rafale jet deal issue, leading to adjournment of the proceedings for the day. The Congress sought to raise the Rafale controversy, citing a report which claimed the Defence Ministry had raised strong objections to "parallel negotiations" conducted by the PMO with France, which "weakened negotiating position of the Ministry of Defence and Indian Negotiating Team". Leader of the Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad sought to raise the issue but Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu disallowed him, saying he has reserved a final judgement on the notice by Congress members under Rule 267 on the issue. Rule 267 provide for setting aside the business of the day to discuss the issue being raised. Naidu said nobody can speak on the issue that has been reserved by the chair. He ordered that nothing will go on record. However, Azad continued to speak and other opposition members joined in. Congress member shouted slogans like "Chowkidar chor hai", which met with strong resistance from treasury benches. Naidu said he cannot allow this and adjourned the proceedings till Monday. Rajya Sabha has not witnessed any official work since Parliament met for the Budget session on January 31. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) By granting reservation to the Maratha community, the Maharashtra government has given them permanent crutches which they will never be able to shed, anti-quota petitioners argued in the Bombay High Court on Friday. The government has destroyed the concept of equality by setting up a special category - Socially and Educationally Backward Class (SEBC)- for the Maratha community, the petitioners argued. A division bench of justices Ranjit More and Bharati Dangre heard arguments for the third day on a bunch of petitions challenging the state government's decision granting 16 per cent reservation to the Maratha community in government jobs and educational institutions. "Reservation cannot be mistaken for a privilege. The state government by trying to bring the community up has given it permanent crutches. At some point, they need to shed the crutches," senior counsel Shrihari Aney, appearing for one of the petitioners Uday Dhople, argued. He added that through this decision, the government has destroyed the concept of equality in the society. "The Constitution of India has a golden thread by way of Article 14, which speaks of right to equality. Maharashtra government's decision is an attempt to assault and destroy this Article," Aney said. "The government cannot divide the nation/society into small fragments. This decision of the state is a prime example of erecting narrow silos that shuts doors for people to have equal opportunities at jobs and education," the senior counsel, who was formerly state advocate general, argued. He added that as per the Maharashtra State Backward Class Commission report, Marathas and Kunbis are one and the same caste. "Kunbis are already included in the Other Backward Class (OBC) and hence even Marathas should have been included in the same category of OBC instead of creating a special category of SEBC," Aney said. To this, Justice Dangre said, "Presently, only the Marathas may be included in the SEBC category. However, in future if the government feels that some other caste or community is also backward, then that caste or community could also be included in the SEBC." Aney argued that the state government cannot go beyond the 50 per cent rule for reservation. "All other states have been very careful to not exceed the 50 per cent cap for reservation. Maharashtra presently has 78 per cent reservation. On this basic principle itself the decision of the government should be quashed and set aside," Aney said. The government cannot encroach upon the 50 per cent earmarked for the open category. He also questioned the commission's report on the basis of which the government took the decision. He claimed the commission's data collection was contradictory to its conclusion that the Maratha community was educationally backward. "The data collected by the commission by way of survey has no reference to the educational backwardness of the community. In its final conclusion, the commission has said that the community is socially as well as educationally backward," Aney said. Arguments in the case will continue next week. On November 30, 2018, the Maharashtra Legislature had passed a bill proposing 16 per cent reservation in education and government jobs for the Marathas, declared as socially and educationally backward class by the government. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A 29-year-old Canadian who perpetrated the worst attack on Muslims in the West, when he shot dead six worshippers at a mosque in Quebec City in 2017, was sentenced to life in prison. Alexandre Bissonnette, however, will have to wait 40 years -- longer than usual -- before he can apply for parole. Judge Francois Huot rejected a prosecution request for a 150-year sentence, which would have the longest ever in Canada, but also noted the killer's "visceral hatred of Muslim immigrants" in his decision. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) National Conference leader Omar Abdullah Friday said a purported Ministry of Defence note on Rafale indicated that then defence minister Manohar Parrikar had no knowledge of the progress in negotiations for the fighter jet deal. He was reacting to a report in The Hindu which claimed the Defence Ministry had raised strong objections to "parallel discussions" conducted by the PMO during the negotiations over the Rs 59,000 crore Rafale deal between India and France. The purported note claimed it was clear that such parallel discussions had "weakened the negotiating position of MoD and Indian Negotiating Team". "The then Defence Minister @manoharparrikar was clueless about the progress of negotiations. All he could say was 'IT APPEARS that @PMOIndia & French President's office are monitoring the progress'. He had no direct knowledge of progress & passed the buck back to the PMO," Abdullah said. "How can he claim that 'para 5 is an over-reaction' when he had no direct knowledge of the status or content of the negotiations? His act of passing the matter for the Def Sec to resolve with PMO clearly shows he had no grounds on which to base his 'over-reaction' assessment," he said in a series of tweets. Earlier, the former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir had said he would like to see how those aligned with the BJP would explain the fresh report on the deal. "I'd like to see how this one is explained by the talking heads aligned to the BJP. @PMOIndia 'weakened the negotiating position of the Ministry of Defence & the Indian Negotiating Team' as per this note in a MOD file that went up the the Defence Minister," he claimed. The National Conference was an ally of NDA when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the prime minister but shifted to UPA-II in 2009. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Punjab government on Friday approved a proposal to make it mandatory for all the 117 MLAs to declare their immovable properties in January of every year. A decision to this effect was taken at a cabinet meeting held here under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, an official spokesman said. He said the cabinet approved the necessary amendment in The Punjab Legislative Assembly (Salaries and Allowances of Members) Act, 1942 for this purpose, in line with the desire of the Speaker Punjab Vidhan Sabha (assembly). The proposal would now be sent to Legal Remembrancer (LR) to prepare the draft of the bill, which the cabinet has authorised the chief minister to approve, the spokesman said. The Council of Ministers had on March 18, 2017, decided that all MLAs and MPs shall be required to declare their immovable properties as on January 1 every year. The cabinet, the spokesman said, also approved The Punjab One-Time Voluntary Disclosure and Settlement of Violations of the Buildings Bill-2019 for enactment in the budget session of the state assembly next week. The bill had been drafted following the cabinet's approval on January 2, 2019, for all buildings constructed in violation of the building bylaws in municipal areas up to June 30, 2018, he said. The enactment is aimed at ensuring that the unauthorised buildings that have come up over the years are aligned to the parking, fire and safety standards across the state since it is not feasible to demolish the same, the spokesman said. This decision, he said, would also provide one-time opportunity to the violators within the municipal areas, who have made non-compoundable violations in the buildings, for regularisation without compromising on public safety or security and convenience. In another decision, the cabinet provided a one-time opportunity for regularisation of unauthorised commercial establishments in Galiara in Amritsar, the spokesman said. In view of this, effective from March 1, 2019, applicants would require to submit details of violations in the walled city of Amritsar for one-time settlement, he said. The cabinet, the spokesman said, also gave its nod to the creation of 4,521 new posts for the Bureau of Investigation. The Supreme Court had in July 2014 directed separation of investigative and law and order functions of the police to reduce the burden on the men and bring greater efficiency into their working. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Punjab government Friday announced a 6 per cent dearness allowance (DA) for its employees and pensioners, with effect from February 1. The decision, which will benefit nearly 3.25 lakh employees and three lakh pensioners, was announced by Chief Minister Amarinder Singh during the cabinet meeting after informal discussions on the issue, an official statement said. The decision would entail an additional annual financial liability of Rs 720 crore for the state exchequer. Amarinder, who presided over the cabinet meeting, reiterated his government's firm commitment to ensure welfare of the employees and pensioners despite financial constraints. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) As many as 54 overseas operations were identified for rationalisation, while 29 have been rationalised for cost efficiencies, as of January 15, this year, the Parliament was informed Friday. Banks pursue rightsizing and rationalisation of their branch network and other operations for cost efficiency and synergy benefits, and invest in and monetise non-core assets as per business strategy, Minister of State for Finance Shiv Pratap Shukla told the Lok Sabha in a written reply. The minister said a reforms agenda based on recommendations by whole time directors and senior executives of public sector banks (PSBs) was referred by government to PSBs in January 2018 for appropriate action as per approval of bank boards. "As per information furnished by PSBs, 54 overseas operations were identified for rationalisation and as of January 15, 2019, 29 overseas operations have been rationalised for cost efficiencies and synergies in overseas markets," the minister said. The reform process includes rationalisation of overseas operations for cost efficiencies and monetisation of non-core assets to strengthen the bank and focus on core business, Shukla informed the lower house. As on January 31, 2018, PSBs had about 165 overseas branches, besides subsidiaries, joint ventures and representative offices. All PSBs such as Allahabad Bank, Bank of Baroda, Bank of India, Canara Bank, IDBI Bank, Indian Overseas Bank, Punjab National Bank, SBI and Union Bank of India that have foreign branches have jointly taken the initiative to prepare a note in mutual consultation for rationalisation of their foreign branches. State Bank of India (SBI) has the largest number of overseas branches (52) followed by Bank of Baroda (50) and Bank of India (29). The state-owned banks have the largest number of branches in the UK (32) followed by Hong Kong and the UAE (13 each) and Singapore (12). As many as 41 branches were in losses in 2016-17. SBI led the pack with nine of its overseas branches in the red. It was followed by Bank of India and Bank of Baroda with eight and seven branches, respectively. According to the banking sector agenda, approved at the PSB Manthan November 2017, banks have to undertake rationalisation of overseas operations. In reply to a separate question on ATM frauds, Shukla said specific information was not available, however, for state-wise data for amounts involving Rs 1 lakh and more during last three financial years are there. During 2017-18, there were incidents of 911 automated teller machine (ATM) frauds for amount involving Rs 1 lakh and more, Shukla said. In 2016-17, a total of 724 cases came to light while there were 563 such instances were there in 2015-16 (for amounts Rs 1 lakh and more), the minister added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Congress launched a frontal attack on the Modi government on Monday, alleging the prime minister's office (PMO) "almost behaved like a middleman" by having "parallel negotiations" with the French government on the Rafale fighter jet deal. A note of the Defence Ministry and then defence minister Manohar Parrikar's remarks have "nailed the PMO to the wall" telling the most dynamic story of "maleficence and rot" at "the highest echelons" of the NDA government, said Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari. "I have great respect for the august office of the PMO. But, I would regretfully say, the PMO almost behaved like a middleman in this defence transaction. They must answer to our direct charge," Tiwari told reporters. He also alleged that Parrikar "avoided responsibility" and "washed his hands off" when the concerns were expressed over the PMO's role in the negotiations. "Parrikar is a wise man. He knew that there is something rotten and stinking out here and tried to distance himself and he nailed the Prime Minister," Tewari claimed. There could be no greater "indictment" of the "unwarranted, excessive, indiscreet interference of the PMO" in the deal than what Parrikar's noting brings out, Tewari said. He said that government's defence in the form of letter of comfort from the French government is also an "indictment" of involvement of the PMO in negotiations for Rafale deal. "When do the comfort letters with regard to a procurement process get written to the Prime Minister of India. If the French PM has written to the PM of India, he has again squarely nailed him because what this letter implies is that in the minds of the French it is the PM of India who is negotiating the deal, not the Defence ministry," Tewari stated. The 2015 Defence Ministry note, cited in a media report, had expressed strong objections to the "parallel" negotiations by the PMO. Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who dismissed the report in 'The Hindu' newspaper on the internal note, said it ignored the then defence minister Manohar Parrikar's reply to file notings of officials. She said Parrikar had made a note asking officials to remain "calm" as everything was "alright". Parrikar's handwritten remarks at the bottom of the note said "it appears that PMO and French President's Office are monitoring the progress of the issue which was an outcome of the summit meeting (between Modi and French President Francois Hollande in April 2015)". Para 5, which referred to "parallel discussions" by the PMO, "appears to be an over-reaction", Parrikar wrote, adding Defence Secretary may resolve the matter in consultation with Principal Secretary to PM. The Congress leader also took a dig at Sitharaman, saying she was trying to defend a "bad case", by trying to protect the PMO on the issue. "She has that weird, hunted look on her face that is when a person is cornered. Actually, I sympathise with her plight -- it's a bad lawyer trying to defend a bad case," he stated. He said since the Modi government has filed a statement that will be listed at some point of time in the Supreme Court, it was hoped by the Congress that the court will take cognizance of the "fact" that there was "parallel negotiation" that was being "pursued" by the PMO and that it was "deliberately hidden" from the apex court. Tewari sought answer from the PMO over an alleged input given to the French government regarding bank guarantee and seat of arbitration concerning the Rafale deal. "Ministry of Defence did not give this input. Officials of PMO conveyed to some gentleman in French government that bank guarantee is not necessary and not having seat of arbitration in India. If the defence ministry did not give this input to PMO then on what basis these assurances were given to whosever in the French government," he asked. The Congress spokesperson challenged the BJP government at the Centre to produce any documentary evidence to show that any Prime Minister of the country was ever involved in defence procurement negotiations. "No amount of spin or propaganda will change the fact that this prime minister's office has done something that has never happened in the last 70 years -- that is negotiating a defence deal behind the back of their own defence ministry, with a foreign government," he charged. Tiwari also questioned the role of the then defence secretary, saying he has a lot to answer for regarding the deal. He accused the NDA government of telling "incessant lies" over the Rafale deal and said the Congress would not let the matter go away. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi will serve food to schoolchildren from underprivileged background in Vrindavan on Monday, marking the "three billionth meal" offered by an NGO that works with the government on mid-day meal schemes. Akshaya Patra, which is a Bengaluru-based not-for-profit organisation, said that Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Union HRD minister Prakash Javadekar are also likely to join the prime minister at the event to be held at its Vrindavan campus. "Prime Minister Modi will serve food to a few school children underprivileged from background in the facility at Vrindavan where Akshaya Patra's kitchen is located. A couple of children, who have been beneficiaries of the programme, will also share their experiences," a spokesperson of the foundation told PTI. The event will commemorate the NGO's serving of cumulative three billion meals since its inception in 2000. BJP's Mathura MP Hema Malini, ministers of the Uttar Pradesh government, including Anupma Jaiswal, minister of state (independent charge) for basic education, child development and nutrition, local MLAs and Mukesh Arya Bandhu, Mayor - Mathura-Vrindavan Nagar Nigam, are also expected to be present on the occasion, the official said. In 2012, Akshaya Patra reached its first major milestone of serving one billion cumulative meals since the inception of the programme in 2000, the NGO claimed. "By 2016, the organisation had already served cumulative two billion meals. This milestone was commemorated in the presence of Pranab Mukherjee, the then President, on August 27 that year in Bengaluru," the foundation said. As the implementing partner of the Mid-Day Meal Programme, Akshaya Patra has received the support and encouragement of the Ministry of Human Resource Development and various state governments all along its journey. "It strives to address classroom hunger and bring children to school by implementing the Mid-Day Meal Scheme in government and government-aided schools. Since the year 2000, Akshaya Patra has worked towards reaching more children with wholesome food on every single school day," the spokesperson said. The NGO's state-of-the-art kitchens have become a subject of study and have attracted curious visitors from around the world. "Our partnership with the Centre and various state governments, along with the persistent support from the corporate sector, individual donors, and well-wishers have helped us to grow from serving just 1,500 children in five schools in 2000 to serving 1.7 million children," the foundation said. "Today, Akshaya Patra is the world's largest (not-for-profit run) mid-day meal programme serving wholesome food every school day to over 1.76 million children from 14,702 schools across 12 states in India," according to its website. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi Friday inaugurated the long-awaited circuit bench of the Calcutta High Court and said it would help in providing speedy justice to the people of north Bengal. Pressing a button to unveil the plaque of the circuit bench, he said, "The long-term demand of the people of north Bengal has been met with the inauguration of the circuit bench as they will not have to travel to Kolkata for litigations." The bench will provide speedy justice to people of Darjeeling, Kalimpong, Jalpaiguri and Cooch Behar in north Bengal, he said. Residents of these four districts will now have to travel less than 100 km instead of 600 km, he said. Modi also laid the foundation stone for the four-laning of the Falakata-Salsalabari section of National Highway-31 D. The 41.7 km-long section of National Highway falls in Jalpaiguri district and will be constructed at a cost of about Rs 1938 crore, he said. The project will reduce the distance from Salsalabari and Alipurduar to Siliguri by nearly 50 km and will boost tourism in the region, he said. The four-laning of the national highway will facilitate better movement of tea and other agricultural produce from the region to markets. These will provide a major boost to socio-economic activity in north Bengal, opening up employment opportunities for the local people, Modi said. The highway will have three railway over bridges, two flyovers, three vehicular underpasses, eight major bridges and 17 minor bridges on this section of the highway. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A plea was filed in the Supreme Court on Friday seeking a direction that political parties should comply with the 'two-child norm' and not field candidates having more than two children. The plea, which is likely to be listed for hearing in the next week, sought declaration of the 'two-child norm' as a mandatory criteria for government jobs, aids and subsidies and urged that the law, dealing with the "condition for recognition of a state or national party" be suitably amended. The plea, filed by BJP leader and lawyer Ashwini Upadhyay, said that non-compliance of the norm should lead to withdrawal of citizens' statutory rights including right to vote and contest elections. It also sought declaring of first Sunday of every month as 'health day' to spread awareness against population explosion and providing contraceptive pills, condoms, vaccines to economically-weaker sections and families below poverty line. The petition sought directions to the Centre for setting 21 years as the minimum marriageable age for all citizens and for implementing the 24th recommendation of the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution (NCRWC) which proposes to control population by means of education and implementation of small family norms. It further said that the two-child norm for contesting local body elections has been adopted by some states like Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Odisha, Rajasthan and Haryana, which has yielded very positive results in reducing the population growth in those states. "Such two child norm should be adopted by all the states to implement the population control policy to bring fruitful results. People representatives are not only public servants but also law maker. Hence they should set an example for others for adopting two child norms so that common people of the country can be encouraged to emulate two-child norm," the plea said. It said that India was the first country in the world to have a population policy, but it has not achieved much in terms of population control due to negligence of governments. "India was projected to have one billion people in 2011, 15 per cent of the world's population on 2 per cent of the globe's land area. But, now we are around 152 crore and the most populous country in the world. It is pertinent to note that China is three times bigger than India. While global population has increased threefold during the previous century, the population of India has increased nearly five times. Current annual increase in population of 17.5 million is large enough to neutralize efforts to conserve the natural resources and endowment and environment," the petition said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi Friday said Pakistan would provide all the evidence of "sabotage activities" by former Indian naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on February 19. Jadhav, 48, was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court on spying charges in April 2017. India moved the ICJ in May the same year against the verdict. The world court has halted Jadhav's execution on India's appeal pending the final verdict by it. Both India and Pakistan have already submitted their detailed pleas and responses in the world court and it has decided to hold hearings in the Jadhav case from February 18-21, 2019. India denies all the charges and maintains that Jadhav was kidnapped from Iran where he had business interests after retiring from the Navy and that he has no links with the government. In its written pleadings, India had accused Pakistan of violating the Vienna Convention by not giving consular access to Jadhav. In response, Pakistan through its counter memorial told the ICJ that the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations 1963 applied only to legitimate visitors and did not cover clandestine operations. India has been maintaining that the trial of Jadhav by a military court in Pakistan was farcical". Qureshi, who is on a visit to the UK, said that Pakistan has all the evidence against Jadhav. "Pakistan has all the evidence against Jadhav of sabotage activities inside Pakistan. Jadhav has admitted to being involved in such activities. Pakistan's legal team will present its stance in the case at The Hague on the 19th of this month, the Geo quoted Qureshi as saying at a reception in Manchester. "Pakistan's legal team will present its stance in the case that the Indian spy has already confessed of being involved in terrorist activities carried out in Pakistan," another paper, the Express Tribune quoted him as saying. Pakistan says its security forces arrested Jadhav from Balochistan province in March 2016 after he reportedly entered the country from Iran. In its submission to the ICJ, Pakistan had stated that Jadhav is not an ordinary person as he had entered the country with the intent of spying and carrying out sabotage activities. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Pakistan's Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry Friday acknowledged his government's failure in reducing the economic burden on the country's middle class. Addressing an event here, Chaudhry said that Prime Minister Imran Khan was aware about the role the country's middle class played in propelling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf to power in last year's general elections. "Our biggest regret is that we cannot provide immediate relief to the middle class that voted for us. Taxes are levied on the salaried class, and gas and electricity rates have increased for them," he said. The minister said that the government succeeded to shield the poorest segments from the financial burden but it could not do so in case of the middle class due to lack of money. He blamed the economic woes, which the current government inherited, for the failure to live up to the expectation of the people during the first six months. "Our total income is approximately Rs 5.5 trillion, of which Rs 2 trillion goes to debt servicing, Rs 1.7 trillion towards our defence budget, and then for the every 10 rupees, six go to the provinces," Chaudhry said. The minister said that the federal government starts budget making process from deficit. He said the interest was paid on loans taken by the previous two successive governments which shook the foundation of the country. Chaudhry also defended the 126 day sit-in by Imran Khan in 2014, saying it laid the foundation of 'Naya (new) Pakistan'. The minister also accused former prime minister Nawaz Sharif's government for misusing fund and spending too much on mega projects like the Orange Line Rail project in Lahore which costs USD 3 billion. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial government has closed a primary school being run in an old Hindu temple, paving the way for the minority community to worship at the site. The students of the school will be enrolled into nearby schools, the department said. Officials said that the temple has been handed over to the Hindu community. The Hindus have now been allowed to worship at the temple, the officials said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Former finance minister appeared before the Enforcement Directorate in connection with a probe related to INX Media. The Congress leader, who was summoned to record his statement under the Prevention of Act (PMLA), arrived at the agency's office in central Delhi at about 11 am. Chidambaram has been grilled a number of times in this case in the past. His son Karti was questioned by the agency in the same case on Thursday for about six hours. The ED attached Karti's assets worth an estimated Rs 54 crore, located in India and abroad, in the case last year. The central probe agency registered the case on the basis of a FIR and had alleged irregularities in the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearance to INX Media for receiving overseas funds to the tune of Rs 305 crore in 2007, when was the finance minister. It registered an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR), the ED's equivalent of a police FIR, against the accused named in the complaint, including Karti, INX Media and its directors -- Peter and Karti was arrested on February 28 last year by the CBI, the other central agency investigating the case, for allegedly taking money to facilitate the FIPB clearance to INX Media in 2007. He was granted bail subsequently. The agency has alleged that Karti received money from INX Media, using his influence to manipulate a tax probe against it in a case of violation of FIPB conditions to receive investments from Mauritius. India and the US are cooperating across the board in practically every sector and opportunities between the two nations remain significant to take the relationship forward not just incrementally but exponentially, India's Ambassador to the US Harsh V Shringla has said. Shringla said the two nations have reached this stage in bilateral relations very fast. "In the last decade or two, we have broken this mould, we have established a partnership that today is really a paradigm relationship between states," Shringla told an audience of business executives and entrepreneurs at the Indian Consulate here Wednesday. Shringla visited New York on his first official visit after taking up his new responsibilities as Indian Ambassador on January 9. He had presented his credentials to US President Donald Trump on January 11. At the Consulate, Shringla addressed members of the Indian Professionals and Investors Network (iPIN). "We are cooperating across the board in practically every sector. The best part of it is that we are forging ahead very very quickly and the opportunities remain significant to take this relationship forward not just incrementally but exponentially," he said. He underscored that there are opportunities and challenges on both, stressing "we have to understand this". Shringla noted that the India-US trade relationship is a two-way relationship and "it is not that investments are one way. they are two way," stressing that trade between the two countries increased 18 per cent last year and Indian economic involvement in the US is quite significant. He emphasised that in the India-US bilateral relationship, trade, investments and economic activity play a very important role "because this is the basis on which the entire relationship can rest, whether it is people-to-people contacts." He said that even the political front and area of defense cooperation "we have does to some extent both contribute to and depend on the trade between our countries". During his day-long visit to the city, Shringla interacted with several business leaders and members of prominent think tanks. He participated in a forum with business leaders including Mastercard CEO Ajay Banga, Chairman of Global Commercial & Investment Banking, Bank of America Merrill Lynch Purna Saggurti and Co-Chief Executive Officer of Warburg Pincus Charles Kaye among others. In his interactions with the business community, he noted that new items including oil, gas and agricultural products have been added to the India-US trade basket. The US India Strategic Partnership Forum also hosted a reception in his honor. Shringla also had discussions with President of Council on Foreign Relations Richard Haass and former American Ambassador in India Frank Wisner. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) / -- OPPO, a leading global smartphone brand in a mix of different smartphone players in the market, has been a pioneer in dishing out cutting-edge innovations aimed at improving the overall user experience. Since the company is also well versed with Indian customers' expectations from new gadgets, OPPO has set a benchmark in terms of futuristic technology and disruptions such as camera revolution, fast charging technology and stunning designs. Smartphones have evolved extensively over the last decade. From less storage and basic cameras, they have now moved to massive storage and cameras that can compete with a DSLR. These smartphones are not just communication devices, but they have become digital companions for everyday tasks. The extensive investment in R&D combined with their deep understanding of the Indian market allows them to curate products, which give them the pole position in this highly competitive landscape. As an innovative smartphone brand, OPPO has made some interesting announcements in India in the year 2018 such as VOOC technology, Gradient Design, Waterdrop screen and the Motorized camera. In the coming weeks also at MWC, OPPO is planning to focus on offering next-gen cameras. Remember its recent announcement about the 10X zoom? It is expected to provide a zoom range of 15.9mm to 159mm and will use a primary camera, a periscope style telephoto lens and ultra wide cameras. OPPO Global Product Manager Chuck Wang had also confirmed in the past that the brand might launch its foldable smartphone at the upcoming event. But that's not all, the company could also launch a 5G smartphone at the event, as a recent tweet suggests. Back home in India, the brand has marked its presence for five years now. With the launch of the R&D centre in India, it is safe to say that OPPO will continue pushing boundaries for smartphone innovation at its home ground. If sources are to be believed, with Mobile World Congress (MWC) scheduled in Barcelona just a couple of weeks away, it looks like the company is not only planning to take things up a notch at an international level but in India too. One can expect OPPO to unveil some major groundbreaking technological innovation for the Indian consumers very soon. What will be that innovation? Eagerly waiting for the announcement from OPPO. About OPPO OPPO is a leading global smartphone brand, dedicated to providing products infused with art and innovative technology. Based on the brand elements of young, trend-setting and beauty, OPPO brings consumers delighted experience of digital life. For the last 10 years, OPPO has been focusing on manufacturing camera phones, while innovating mobile photography technology breakthroughs. OPPO started the era of Selfie beautification and was the first brand to launch smartphones with 5MP and 16MP front cameras. OPPO was also the first brand to introduce the motorized rotating camera, the Ultra HD feature, 5x Dual Camera Zoom technology. OPPO's Selfie Expert F series launched in 2016 drove a Selfie trend in the smartphone industry. In 2017, OPPO was ranked as the number 4 smartphone brand globally, according to IDC. More than 200 million consumers are using OPPO smartphones. OPPO's business has covered 35 countries and regions, with over 400,000 stores and has 4 research centres worldwide, providing excellent smartphone photography experience to more and more young people around the world. In 2018, with the launch of Find X, OPPO introduced panoramic arc design with a screen ratio of 93.8%, the largest screen-to-body ratio in the mobile phone market today. In addition to this, OPPO recently introduced SuperVOOC flash charging technology with the launch of R17 PRO. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The impasse over various issues, including chit fund scam, which paralysed the Odisha Assembly for five days on the trot, was resolved Friday after an all-party meeting. The meeting, convened by Speaker P K Amat, resolved to bring back normalcy in the House and allow passing of the The Odisha Appropriation (Vote on Account) Bill, 2019. Earlier, Amat had adjourned the Assembly thrice owing to pandemonium. The opposition Congress and BJP members were agitating in the well of the House for five consecutive days. The uproar began in the House as soon it assembled at 10.30 am. While the BJD MLAs shouted slogans against the Centre for its "gross apathy" towards Odisha, the opposition Congress and BJP members demanded a discussion on the farmers' issue as well as sexual assault of minor girls in the state. Leader of Opposition Narasingha Mishra told reporters that the Congress had urged the Speaker to initiate discussion on unemployment and farmers issues. "The government did not allow discussion on the farmers' issue. Had the government been keen on listening to the grievances of the farmers, there would have been no stalemate in the Assembly," Mishra said. BJP members also raised slogans accusing the state government of failing to provide jobs to youths and alleged police brutality on those agitating against liquor trade in the state. While the opposition members staged a demonstration in the well of the House, the BJD MLAs marched to the Raj Bhavan and submitted a memorandum addressed to the President of India over the unemployment issue and the BJP-led central governments "neglect" towards Odisha. Senior BJD MLA Sanjay Das Burma said, "In 2014 poll manifesto, PM Narendra Modi had promised to provide employment to two crore unemployed youths of the country every year. Accordingly, Odishas share is proportionately 36 lakh unemployed youths in five years. Hence, we are submitting today a memorandum to the President of India through the Governor." The BJD MLAs asked the Centre to publish the list of 36 lakh youths of Odisha who have been employed in MCL, NALCO, IOCL and others public sector units. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Kerala government Friday said there was now no relevance for the Travancore Devaswom Board's plea in the Supreme Court, seeking extension of time to implement its September 28 verdict, permitting women of all age groups entry into the Lord Ayyappa temple in Sabarimala. Devaswom Minister Kadakampally Surendran said the plea was filed during the two-month-long Sabarimala pilgrim season as there was not much basic facilities for women devotees reaching there in large numbers. "Since the pilgrim season is over, there is no relevance for such a plea now," he told reporters here. The minister claimed the Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) had accepted the Supreme Court order. "Don't forget the fact that TDB had accepted the Supreme Court verdict," he said, referring to the U-turn made by the board when the apex court Wednesday heard pleas, seeking review of its verdict. He said the board took a stand in line with the Supreme Court order during the hearing of pleas seeking review on Wednesday. During the earlier round of litigation, the TDB had opposed the PIL by the Indian Young Lawyers Association seeking to throw open the shrine for all women. However on Wednesday, it supported the apex court's order, joining the Kerala government to oppose a batch of pleas seeking review of the Supreme Court verdict. The minister also dismissed as "media creation" reports of differences between TDB president A Padmakumar and Devaswom Commissioner A Vasu over the stand taken by the board in the apex court on Wednesday. Surendran's statement comes a day after a row broke out in the TDB after its president A Padmakumar sought an explanation from the Devaswom Commissioner for reversing its stand on the Supreme Court's verdict. Padmakumar had said Thursday that the board had actually submitted a plea seeking extension of time to implement the September 28 order. "Our counsel got only three minutes when the review petitions were taken up (in the Supreme Court) on Wednesday. When the court asked whether the board was accepting the verdict permitting women's entry, he naturally replied in the affirmative. We are yet to know what had actually happened in the court," Padmakumar had told reporters in Pathanamthitta. "The Devaswom commissioner (N Vasu) was the one who was sent to New Delhi in connection with the case. He knows what happened. I have sought an explanation from him in this regard," the TDB chief had said. The board's changed stand had invited strong protests from various quarters, including the Pandalam royal family, attached to the Sabarimala Temple. The temple body had told a five-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, that it was high time that a particular class not be discriminated on the ground of "biological attributes". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Tamil Nadu government Friday proposed no new taxes in the state budget for the financial year 2019-20 and an assurance that the revenue deficit will come down in the coming years. In the budget presented by Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam, who holds the Finance portfolio, the government proposed a revenue deficit estimated at around Rs 14,300 crore. Despite the 'adverse' impact of 'reduced' inter-se share in devolution due to 14th Finance Commission recommendations, the state could implement the Ujjawal Discom Assurance Yojana (UDAY) scheme and pay revision, he said. The growth in State's Own Tax Revenue (SOTR) in 2017-18 was 9.07 per cent and this was expected to exceed 14 per cent during the current fiscal. "Due to the positive trends in tax receipts, the revenue deficit for the year 2019-20 is expected to come down to Rs 14,315 crore as against the projected revenue deficit of Rs 19,319 crore in Revised Estimates 2018-19," he said. "With higher SOTR growth, coupled with the phasing out of the impact of UDAY and pay revision, the state expects to bring down the revenue deficit in the coming years," Panneerselvam said. The per capita income of the state has increased from Rs 1.03 lakh in 2011-12 to Rs 1.42 lakh in 2017-18 in real terms, he added. The government also announced a number of initiatives in various sectors including implementing a Rs 2,000 crore comprehensive parking management project in Chennai city. It will have underground parking facilities, multilevel parking facilities and on-lane smart parking to accommodate two lakh four-wheelers and an equal number of two-wheelers, Panneerselvam said. The government will take up construction of one lakh concrete houses to replace huts damaged in the Gaja cyclone in November last year, at an estimated Rs 1,700 crore with a central share of Rs 720 crore. For the farm sector, the government said it will during 2019-20, notify more crops and expand the coverage under crop insurance. "Further, cloud burst and natural fire will also be included in localised calamities in addition to hailstorm, landslide and inundation," among others, Panneerselvam said. On the ambitious Athikadavu-Avinashi water scheme, he said the government will commence it "soon," adding, a sum of Rs 1,000 crore has been provided in the next year's Budget estimates for the purpose. A comprehensive solid waste management project and a housing scheme for urban poor to construct 38,000 tenements for Chennai were also proposed by Panneerselvam. On the energy front, the state-run TANGEDCO will be establishing floating solar power projects in Theni, Salem and Erdoe with a capacity of 250 MW at an estimated Rs 1,125 crore, he said. The recently unveiled Tamil Nadu Solar Energy Policy 2019 will increase the solar power generation capacity to 9,000 MW by 2023, the deputy chief minister said. Touching upon the Chennai Metro Rail, he said Phase-I of the project covering two corridors running to 45 km will be fully commissioned by this month while its extension was expected to be on stream next June. Feasibility study was being taken up for the extension of Metro rail line from Meenambakkam Airport to Kilambakkam metro bus terminus in the southern suburbs, he added. In the tourism sector, the government will launch a 'massive' promotion project by identifying specific circuits for western, Asian and domestic tourists with quality amenities and infrastructure. Tourism-centric infrastructure like logistics and hotels will be upgraded under the Private-Public-Partnership mode, Panneerselvam informed. Talking about liquor sales, Panneerselvam mentioned that the number of retail Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IFML) shops run by Tamil Nadu Marketing State Marketing Corporation (TASMAC) has been reduced from 7,896 to 5,198. It may be recalled that closure of liquor shops in a phased manner was the AIADMK's poll promise in the 2016 Assembly elections. Incidentally, sale of liquor through such state-run outlets is a huge revenue grosser for the government. The government will procure 2,000 new electric buses, besides 12,000 new BS-VI vehicles, at an outlay of Rs 5,890 crore with KfW loan assistance, he said. The government will introduce 2,000 BS-VI buses in the state, besides rolling out 500 electric vehicles in Chennai, Coimbatore and Madurai, in the first phase. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Nine Indians have been arrested in Sri Lanka's Uva province for allegedly staying in the country without a visa, according to a media report. The accused, who are mostly in the their late 20s, were arrested after the police received information of their illegal stay in the island nation, the Daily reported. The suspects will be produced before the Nuwara Eliya Magistrate's Court today, the report said quoting a police official. In another incident, an Indian national was arrested from the national capital's Bandaranaike International Airport with1 kg of cocaine worth Rs15 million in the international market, the Colombo Gazette reported. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The National Green Tribunal Friday rapped the Ghaziabad Municipal Corporation over encroachments in the green belts under its jurisdiction and directed the corporation to immediately restore the area. A bench headed by Justice Raghuvendra S Rathore said when the green belt area was handed over to the Ghaziabad Municipal Corporation, it was their duty to maintain it in the same condition. "Strangely, not only the municipal corporation, Ghaziabad had himself made the encroachment but it did not take any steps against those who had also encroached the same. "We dispose of this application with the direction to the Municipal Corporation, Ghaziabad to take immediate steps for removal of encroachment on the green belt. The said area be restored to its original form, at the cost of the encroachers. However, the Municipal Corporation, Ghaziabad shall submit a compliance report of this order within one month. Registry is directed that on receipt of the report, the same be registered separately and be placed before the court," the bench said. The tribunal was hearing a plea filed by advocate Shariq Abbas Zaidi and others seeking action against the encroachments in the green belt area and reckless dumping of waste by the municipal bodies. "Ghaziabad Nagar Nigam has illegally allotted parking on the metallic road in front of 'Pacific Mall' situated at Sahibabad. As per the provisions and laws of NGT, parking is not allowed on the metallic roads," it had said. The plea had alleged that Hotel Radisson Blu which is located at Kaushambi has destroyed the entire green belt situated along with the road solely for their parking purposes and even converted the area into a party lawn. "The green belts of Kaushambi are either destroyed or occupied by the big hotels, malls, hospitals for their parking purpose or they have been converted into dumping zone. This activity is causing a serious threat to the environment (and) people residing nearby are being deprived of fresh air," the petition had said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A novel machine-learning framework that distinguishes between low- and high-risk prostate cancer with more precision than ever before has been developed by researchers, including one of Indian origin. The framework, described in the journal Scientific Reports, is intended to help physicians -- in particular, radiologists -- more accurately identify treatment options for prostate cancer patients, lessening the chance of unnecessary clinical intervention. "By rigorously and systematically combining machine learning with radiomics, our goal is to provide radiologists and clinical personnel with a sound prediction tool that can eventually translate to more effective and personalised patient care," said Gaurav Pandey, an assistant professor at the Icahn School of Medicine in the US. "The pathway to predicting prostate cancer progression with high accuracy is ever improving, and we believe our objective framework is a much-needed advancement," Pandey said. Prostate cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer death in American men, second only to lung cancer, said researchers, including those from the University of Southern California (USC) in the US. While recent advances in prostate cancer research have saved many lives, objective prediction tools have, until now, remained an unmet need, they said. Presently, the standard methods used to assess prostate cancer risk are multiparametric magnetic resonance imaging (mpMRI), which detects prostate lesions, and the Prostate Imaging Reporting and Data System, version 2 (PI-RADS v2), a five-point scoring system that classifies lesions found on the mpMRI. Together, these tools are intended to soundly predict the likelihood of clinically significant prostate cancer. However, PI-RADS v2 scoring is subjective and does not distinguish clearly between intermediate and malignant cancer levels (scores 3, 4, and 5), often leading to differing interpretations among clinicians. Combining machine learning with radiomics -- a branch of medicine that uses algorithms to extract large amounts of quantitative characteristics from medical images -- has been proposed as an approach to remedy this drawback. However, other studies have only tested a limited number of machine learning methods to address this limitation. In contrast, the researchers developed a predictive framework that rigorously and systematically assessed many such methods to identify the best-performing one. The framework also leverages larger training and validation data sets than previous studies did. As a result, researchers were able to classify patients' prostate cancer with high sensitivity and an even higher predictive value. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The National Commission for Women on Friday wrote to the Delhi Police, seeking a speedy probe into the suicide of a woman doctor of the Centre-run Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital. In a letter addressed to Delhi Police Commissioner Amulya Patnaik, the women's commission expressed its serious concern over the suicide. Three doctors of the hospital were booked on Thursday for allegedly abetting the suicide of their colleague. Dr Poonam Vohra, 52, allegedly committed suicide on Wednesday by hanging herself from a ceiling fan at her residence in North Avenue area. In a suicide note, Vohra alleged she had been harassed by three of her colleagues. Following the incident, the RML Hospital had initiated an inquiry. The Health Ministry had also ordered a probe into the matter. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The NCP Friday attacked the BJP over audio clips in which its Karnataka chief BS Yeddyurappa is purportedly heard wooing a JD(S) MLA with a "Rs 50 crore" offer in an alleged bid to topple the HD Kumaraswamy government in the southern state. Karnataka CM Kumaraswamy Friday released two audio clips purportedly of Yeddyurappa trying to lure JD(S) MLA Nagan Gouda, claiming the BJP was trying to topple his government. Yeddyurappa has already trashed Kumaraswamy's charges, dubbing the clip as "fake". NCP national spokesperson Nawab Malik Friday said 11 Congress and JD(S) legislators were lodged at hotels in Mumbai and demanded that Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis clarify from where he was going to arrange for the money. "#Karnataka CM @hd_kumaraswamy has revealed a recording that exposes @BSYBJP (#BSYeddyurappa) where he assures a MLA that they will receive 50 Cr in #Mumbai. @Dev_Fadnavis cabinet colleague had said that there will be no @INCIndia government in Karnataka," Malik said on Twitter. "This means that @Dev_Fadnavis will fund 11 MLAs the 50 Cr rupees. Mr. Fadnavis must clarify, from where he is going to arrange this money? #CorruptBJP #CorruptFadnavis," Malik charged in his tweet. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The National Company Law Tribunal has closed the insolvency resolution process against a Parsvnath Developers' subsidiary after homebuyers 'amicably settled' their dispute with the realty firm. Parsvnath Developers' arm Parsvnath Landmark is constructing a housing project, comprising 500 units, at Civil Lines in the national capital. In its order dated January 11, the NCLT had allowed insolvency proceedings against Parsvnath Landmark after three home buyers approached the tribunal complaining about delay in completion of the project. However, a two-member bench of the NCLT stopped the insolvency proceeding in an order dated February 1, after the financial creditors of the company (homebuyers) informed about the settlement with Parsvnath Landmark. The three flat buyers along with the company filed their affidavits before the tribunal informing the decision. "As a sequel to the above discussion, the order dated January 11, 2019 initiating Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process against the Corporate Debtor is closed and naturally the order would not be given effect any further," said the NCLT. The tribunal has also directed the interim resolution professional appointed for Parsvnath Landmark to not "conduct any proceedings". It further said: "We hope and trust that the parties will abide by the terms of the settlement and avoid another petition with a prayer for triggering of Corporate Insolvency and Bankruptcy Process". However, the IRP informed the tribunal that the committee of creditors has not yet been constituted. The IRP also said that 300 claims have been received against the company after a public notice was issued to invite the same. On this NCLT observed: "We find that this application is covered, however we constrained to observe that the 300 claims which have been received by the IRP may result in to a spat of the other petitions under Section 7 or 9 of the Code, 2016". On January 11, passing an order, the NCLT had admitted an insolvency petition filed by three homebuyers against the subsidiary firm - Parsvnath Landmark Developers - for inordinate delay in the development of this project and non-refund of their payment. The tribunal had also appointed Yash Jeet Basrar as an interim resolution professional (IRP) to run the corporate insolvency resolution process of Parsvnath Landmark Developers. The tribunal direction had come over a petition filed by Alka Agarwal and two others, who had booked flat at La Tropicana project of Parsvnath Landmark Developers at Khyber Pass in Delhi for a consideration of Rs 10.93 crore. According to the flat buyer agreement executed between the parties on 1 October 2009, Parsvnath Landmark Developers was to hand over the possession within 36 months from the date of commencement of construction with grace period of six months. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The NHRC Friday sent a notice to the Delhi Police chief in connection with the murder of a woman by a man despite she earlier complaining to the police about being harassed by him. The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) in a statement said it has also asked its the Director General (Investigation) to depute a team from its investigation division to conduct a fact-finding on-the-spot investigation. "The team is directed to examine all the stakeholders and to obtain necessary records including relevant portion of the general diary of the police station," it said. The NHRC said it has taken suo motu cognisance of media reports that despite having lodged a complaint with the police about her harassment and blackmailing by the contractor of a shoe factory, a woman worker was stabbed to death by him in front of her house in Nagloi on February 6. It has observed that the contents of the media reports, if true, amount to gross violation of her human rights. Accordingly, it has issued a notice to the Commissioner of Police, seeking a detailed report in four weeks. The police authorities are also directed to provide copies of the general diary of the police station pertaining to the dates when the accused was allegedly kept for two-three days in police lock-up, the rights panels said. The commission has further observed that going by the contents of the media report, it appears that the victim had "apprehended threat to her life and had approached the police authorities" but instead of taking legal action against the accused by filing an FIR, the police authorities allegedly allowed him to roam freely after giving some verbal warning. "This act of the police might have encouraged the accused to eliminate the victim without any fear of law. Due to reckless attitude of the police authorities, the victim has been killed by the accused in spite of law enforcing agencies having prior information," the NHRC said quoting reports. According to reports, carried Friday, the accused contractor was arrested on Thursday morning and a case under IPC Section 302 (murder) was registered against him. A police officer said the woman had resisted the accused's advances, so he began harassing her at work, on the phone, and near her house. The Additional DCP (Outer District Delhi) has reportedly said that he had come to know about this complaint now and would conduct an inquiry, if any negligence on the part of any police officer is found, action would be taken, the NHRC said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Asserting that political commitment and enhanced funds for the health sector has helped India rein in diseases such as HIV, TB and malaria, Union Health Minister J P Nadda Friday urged countries with high burden of such diseases to enhance budgetary allocations for health. Addressing a preparatory meeting for the Sixth Global Fund Replenishment conference, Nadda said, "India has set an example globally by increasing its domestic financial allocations for health." India has been consistently exhibiting successes in the arena of health as an outcome of focussed policies, strategies and programmes, he said. "We are now in a position, where we are talking of elimination of these diseases. In fact, our Prime Minister Narendra Modiji has fixed a target for us to end TB by 2025, five years ahead of the Sustainable Development Goals of 2030," he said. The Global Fund is seeking to raise at least USD 14 billion for the next three years to help save 16 million lives, cut the mortality rate from HIV, tuberculosis and malaria in half, and build stronger health systems by 2023. Hosted by the Ministry of Health, the preparatory meeting has brought together governments, donors, technical partners and civil society groups in a demonstration of global solidarity to pursue Sustainable Development Goal 3 -- "health and well-being for all". Nadda said the Global Fund has helped in scaling up ART (anti-retroviral therapy) treatment for people living with HIV, transition to viral load testing to monitor treatment outcomes, expand counselling and testing services, especially for the marginalised and key populations as well as move towards elimination of parent to child transmission of HIV. He also appreciated the support of the Global Fund in providing long lasting insecticidal nets (LLIN) to the endemic areas and implement other elimination strategies. "The impact of these interventions has been well demonstrated in the World Malaria Report 2018, where India has been the only high burden country to show a significant 24 per cent decline in incidence," Nadda said. He said investments will come, provided the high-burden countries also take ownership and accountability. He stated that the Government of India has significantly increased the budgetary allocations for health. "India has demonstrated that, if there is a will and political commitment, we can do it. I urge all my fellow countries here to also lead by example," he mentioned. Piyush Goyal, Union Minister of Finance, Corporate Affairs, Railways and Coal, who was present at the event, stressed that India is committed to increasing its domestic financial resources against the three diseases of Malaria, TB and HIV/AIDS. "India is committed to improving the health of its people. We are stepping up our national domestic spending to end TB and other infectious diseases. By building affordable, accessible and quality health services for all our people, we are not only making a case for better health,we are also making an argument for faster and more inclusive growth," Goyal said. French Health Minister Agns Buzyn stated that it is time to step up the fight to end the three epidemics by 2030. She urged all stakeholders to make this conference a success. "More than ever, we all need to come together for global health. France will carry this powerful message throughout 2019, notably through our presidency of the G7 and at the Ministerial Health Meeting which I will host in May 16-17 in Paris," she said. Peter Sands, Executive Director of the Global Fund, commended Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership in global health and said commitment and resources from national government is essential to meeting the SDGs. "Reaching the Sustainable Development Goals requires the kind of global solidarity we have seen in New Delhi. With India's leadership, we can take a massive step towards ridding the world from these epidemics," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) IPS officer Mohmmad Mustafa Friday asked the Punjab government to relieve him as the chief of the anti-drug Special Task Force as he is "senior" to newly appointed police chief Dinkar Gupta. Mustafa, a 1985-batch officer, said he has requested the Chief Minister's office to give me the charge of the state Human Rights Commission. Notably, the Director General of Police (STF) reports to the DGP Punjab. Mustafa, who was left out of the panel sent by the UPSC, said he will approach the Supreme Court for being "ignored" in the panel while alleging that there was a conspiracy to keep his name out. "I will move the Supreme Court for my rights," Mustafa said, asserting that he fulfilled all the parameters as per the top court guidelines for judging the suitability of the person to head the state police. "My name was not in the panel (sent by UPSC) despite fulfilling all the parameters," said Mustafa, whose wife Razia Sultana is a minister in Amarinder Singh cabinet. In the UPSC meeting held in Delhi to discuss the panels sent by the state government for the selection of the next DGP of Punjab on February 4, the state was represented by Punjab Chief Secretary Karan Avtar Singh and DGP Suresh Arora. On Thursday, Gupta was appointed as the Director General of the Punjab Police. He succeeded Suresh Arora, who had been on an extension after his retirement on September 30 last year. Gupta became the new Punjab DGP after superseding five officers who are Smant Goel (who is on central deputation), DGP (STF) Mohd Mustafa, DGP (Law & Order) Hardeep Dhillon, DGP (Internal Vigilance Cell) Jasminder Singh and DGP (PSPCL) S Chattopadhayaya. Dhillon and Jasminder are going to retire this year. Gupta was chosen as the new DGP from the panel of three officers sent by the Union Public Service Commission. The other two officers were DGP (Admin) M K Tiwari and DGP (Provisioning) V K Bhawra. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A poster depicting Rahul Gandhi as Ram shooting arrows at Prime Minister Narendra Modi as Ravana appeared in the city Friday ahead of a rally of the Congress president here. While the BJP took exception to the poster, the Madhya Pradesh Congress distanced itself from it. The poster was put up by Bhopal district Youth Congress president Rohit Rajoriya and others on Chetak Bridge here. Showing Rahul as Ram and Modi as demon king Ravana of the epic Ramayana, it also carried a slogan: "choro tumhari khair nahi, hum Ram bhakt hain, choron ke alawa kisise bair nahi" (Thieves, you will not be spared. We are devotees of Ram. We don't have enmity with anyone other than thieves)." Rahul Gandhi, while alleging corruption in the Rafale fighter jet deal, has often used the slogan "Chowkidar Chor Hai" to target the prime minister. A state Congress spokesperson, however, said the party did not approve of such posters. "The poster was put up by some over-enthusiastic party workers. We respect the PM. We are not in favour of portraying any leader as Ravana. This is not our culture. It is up to the people to decide who is Ravana," Congress spokesperson Pankaj Chaturvedi said. Taking objection to the poster, state BJP spokesperson Rahul Kothari said, "It is objectionable and shameful to portray a person holding a constitutional post in such a way. It would have been better if Rahul Gandhi had been shown as Ravana for making baseless allegations to save his family from corruption charges." Modi did not want to be portrayed as Ram or Krishna but only as a servant of the people, he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Escalating his face-off with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Prime Minister Friday accused her of trying to protect those involved in chit fund scams and warned neither the perpetrators nor those shielding them will be spared. said Banerjee's ruling TMC had inherited the legacy of "violence and atrocity" from the previous Communist government, and had "defamed" the soil of Attacking Banerjee, who is at the forefront of efforts to stitch together a broad-based anti-BJP coalition of opposition parties ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, said the proposed 'Mahagathbandhan' (grand alliance) was 'Maha Milawat' (a grand adulderation) of people who were without any ideology or vision for the country. "Never in the history of our country have we seen a chief minister sitting on a dharna to save the corrupt. The poor want to know why did you sit on dharna to save those who are accused of negligence in probing the chit fund scam. "This chowkidar (watchman) will not spare them. Whether it is the perpetrators or their protectors, nobody will be allowed to go scot free," Modi declared while addressing a BJP rally in Jalpaiguri district. Ministers in the Union government and Banerjee are locked in a bitter exchange of words ever since the chief minister dramatically launched a dharna to protest the CBI's bid to question Kolkata police commissioner Rajeev Kumar in the Saradha chit fund scam in which lakhs of investors were swindled of their money with the promise of astronomical returns. Modi alleged that the Trinamool Congress dispensation had taken after its predecessor Left Front government in adopting the culture of bloodshed. "Those you gave power to in Bengal in the name of 'maa, maati, manush (mother, motherland and man--the TMC's poll slogan) have followed the culture of bloodshed of their Communist predecessors," he said, branding the TMC government "Communist part 2". Recalling Bengal's rich cultural heritage, Modi said, "Today, law and order is in a shambles, industries and businesses are in ruins and young people are migrating to other states for jobs. This government has defamed 'maati' of Bengal and rendered its people 'majboor' (helpless)." He said though 'Didi' (elder sister as Mamata is fondly addressed) was at the helm of the government, it was an "extortionist syndicate" that was virtually running the administration. "We are bringing back the corrupt from other countries and they are bent upon saving the corrupt here. Everybody who is corrupt is afraid of Modi," the prime minister said in an apparent reference to the government's efforts to bring back fugitive tycoon Vijay Mallya. Highlighting the contradictions among the probable constituents of the proposed opposition alliance, Modi said while Congress leaders in West Bengal accused the TMC government of being undemocratic, "in Delhi, the brother-in- law of Robert Vadra is calling up to extend his support". He berated the state government for thwarting rallies of BJP leaders by denying permission for their helicopters to land. "The government here welcomes even infiltrators, but leaders of the BJP who follow the ideals of Vivekananda and have the resolve of Syama Prasad Mookerjee (founder of BJP's forerunner Jana Sangh) are being prevented from holding rallies. This shows that the ground is slipping from under Didi's feet," he said. The prime minister attacked the Congress over its women's wing chief Sushmita Dev's assertion that the law against instant triple talaq will be scrapped if the party was voted to power. "The Congress's agenda of appeasement stands exposed. Just like it committed the mistake in Shah Bano case (when Rajiv Gandhi was the PM), it is committing another mistake now. "They don't have any regard for the Supreme Court which has outlawed the practice. They want Muslim women to be ruined. They say they will scrap the law. I assure Muslim women that nobody will be allowed to scrap the law," he said. The Shah Bano case related to a controversial maintenance lawsuit on which the apex court delivered a judgment favouring maintenance for a divorced Muslim woman. However, the then Congress government gave in to the Muslim clergy and enacted a law that placed the burden of maintenance on the woman's relatives or the Wakf Board. Predicting the downfall of the TMC government in the next elections, Modi said BJP's performance in neighbouring Tripura will be replicated in West Bengal. "Nobody dared to take on the TMC goons in the past. We are determined to rid Bengal of them. BJP workers are not afraid of anybody. If it were so, BJP wouldn't have gained strength and risen from having just two MPs to forming its government," he asserted. Modi also launched a 'rath' (chariot) that would tour every part of the state and seek views of people on providing better governance. NCP chief Sharad Pawar said Friday that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's speech in Parliament went against the tradition of making "decent, cultured speeches". Speaking during reply to the motion of thanks to the President's address, Modi, in his speech in the last session of Parliament before the elections, tore into Opposition. "I had the opportunity to listen to the last speeches in Parliament of former prime ministers such as Manmohan Singh, PV Narasimha Rao....In their speeches, there was 'sabhyata' (decency) and there was respect for Parliament, political parties and their representatives," Pawar said, speaking to the media here. "The reason for it was they had certain 'sanskar' (values)," said the former Union minister. He did not listen to Modi's speech as it was made in the Lok Sabha, Pawar, a Rajya Sabha member, said. "(From) Whatever I read in the newspapers about the speech, I could only tell that it has dented the tradition of making decent and cultured speech...," he said. "If a person has a certain ideology and 'sanskar', he will make a speech accordingly and here the same thing has happened. So I would not like to comment on it," Pawar added. Asked about the possibility of simultaneous Lok Sabha and Assembly elections in Maharashtra, Pawar said if that happened, the state would be freed from "the clutches of this (BJP-led state) government seven to eight months early" and people will be happy. The prime minister in the Lok Sabha Thursday mocked Opposition's proposed grand alliance as "maha-milawat", while blasting the Congress for "intimidating" judiciary, targeting the EC and "betraying" the nation by neglecting the armed forces. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi Friday inaugurated the Jalpaiguri circuit bench of Calcutta High Court but West Bengal Chief Minister took objection to it claiming that her government as well as the court were kept in the dark. "Land is ours, circuit bench is of the high court. Neither the groom nor the bride is there but the band wala has come," Banerjee said about the inauguration of the circuit bench, accusing Modi of hijacking it. A Calcutta High Court official said there was no communication from the Centre or the state government regarding the inauguration of the bench. Pressing a button, Modi unveiled the plaque of the circuit bench from a stage near his public meeting ground at Churabhandar in Jalpaiguri district and said a long-term demand of the people of north Bengal has been met and they won't have to travel to Kolkata any more for litigations. A circuit bench is for territories which are far-flung but do not have too many matters to justify a full-fledged permanent bench. Modi said that despite the sanction given by the union cabinet 13 to 14 years ago, "the insensitive government in the state has not been able to start the circuit bench for so long". Denying the charge, Banerjee claimed she and the then Calcutta High Court chief justice had planned to inaugurate the circuit bench four months ago but the Centre did not issue any notification. But now the announcement was suddenly made to facilitate the inauguration by Modi to win some "political brownie points", she alleged. "Who has given land for the new building and funds for the circuit bench? Rs 300 crore has been spent by us (West Bengal government), the land was given by us," Banerjee said. "Was anyone from the high court present? Neither the state nor the high court was informed ... Modi babu did not inform the high court or the state. He inaugurated it only because Lok Sabha elections are approaching. It is a matter of great shame," she said. The inauguration ceremony was not attended by the Acting Chief Justice or any other judge of the high court. A high court official said that there was no question of any of its judges attending the inauguration ceremony since there was no communication from the Centre or the state government. "I am writing to the Supreme Court about it," the official said. Inaugurating the bench, the prime minister said it will provide speedy justice to the people of Darjeeling, Kalimpong, Jalpaiguri and Cooch Behar in north Bengal. Residents of these four districts will now have to travel less than 100 km instead of 600 km, he said. The circuit bench will function from a refurbished zilla parishad bungalow till a new building is constructed for it. Modi also laid the foundation stone for the four-laning of the Falakata-Salsalabari section of National Highway-31 D. The 41.7 km-long section of National Highway falls in Jalpaiguri district and will be constructed at a cost of about Rs 1938 crore, he said. The project will reduce the distance from Salsalabari and Alipurduar to Siliguri by nearly 50 km and will boost tourism in the region, he said. The four-laning of the national highway will facilitate better movement of tea and other agricultural produce from the region to markets. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In a blistering attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Trinamool supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee Friday called him "Maddy babu", who has transformed from a "chaiwala (tea-seller) to Rafalewala", and said she supported the views of the Congress on the fighter jet deal. She also termed the Rafale deal "one of the biggest scam of the country". Banerjee's no-holds-barred attack on Modi came after the latter, at a rally in Jalpaiguri in West Bengal, accused her of trying to protect those involved in chit fund scams and warned neither the perpetrators nor those shielding them will be spared. Riled up over the prime minister's snide remarks over her holding a dharna against CBI action against the Kolkata police chief and allegation of prevalence of "syndicate raj" under TMC rule, Banerjee said, "The less we talk about this man (Modi) the better it is... Maddy babu is the master of corruption. He is the master of arrogance and is a shame for the country." "His standard is so low that we have never expected such a man to be the prime minister... We have respect for the chair but not for this man. He is the most corrupt man in the history of India," she told reporters after conclusion of the Bengal Global Business Summit here. Over the Congress' allegations on the Rafale deal, Banerjee said, "I do not know how much money changed hands or what had happened. But certainly there must be something behind the curtains. Rafale deal is a big scam and I fully support the Congress' views on it because they have detailed papers with them," Banerjee said. Earlier in the day, Congress president Rahul Gandhi had alleged that "the prime minister has stolen Rs 30,000 crore of your money, bypassed a process, and given it to his friend Mr Anil Ambani". He demanded answers to questions raised by a media report that the PMO conducted parallel negotiations on the Rafale deal, saying it is now "crystal clear" that the "watchman" is the "thief". On Modi describing her dharna at the heart of Kolkata an unprecedented event by any chief minister "guarding the corrupts", she said the prime minister was "scared" seeing the entire country uniting to drive him out of power. "It (dharna) was a non-political forum... a satyagraha. He is very scared because India is united now and that is why he is talking nonsense. He is spending sleepless nights. Our one-point agenda is 'Modi hatao desh banchao'," the TMC supremo said. "He was never a chaiwala (tea-seller) and does not know how to prepare tea. From chaiwala he has now become Rafalewala. He (Modi) is most corrupt man in the Rafale deal. He is the master of demonetisation. He lies," she quipped. Banerjee, who had organised a rally of the opposition parties at the Brigade Parade ground here on January 19, claimed that Modi was scared as 23 major parties in the country have united against him. She also made objections to the prime minister inaugurating the Jalpaiguri circuit bench of the Calcutta High Court, keeping her government as well as the court "in the dark". "The land is ours, the circuit bench is of the high court. Neither the groom nor the bride is there but the bandwala has arrived," Banerjee said, adding only one month is left for the Narendra Modi government to "expire". "Since only a month is left for the general elections, the prime minister is bluffing," she alleged. "What has he been doing all these five years. He (Modi) has completed five years in the government. Now they are doing all these to suppress our political voice. 'Maddy' babu is bluffing... people have turned away from them (the BJP) and they will not be able to withstand this blow of the common people of the country," Banerjee said. The Trinamool Congress supremo also asked why so many BJP leaders, whose name surfaced in the Saradha chit fund scam, were not arrested. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Escalating his face-off with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Prime Minister Narendra Modi Friday accused her of trying to protect those involved in chit fund scams and warned neither the perpetrators nor those shielding them will be spared. The stormy TMC boss quickly returned the fire, calling Modi "master of corruption" and a "shame" for the country. Addressing his third rally in the state in a week, Modi said Banerjee's ruling TMC had inherited the legacy of "bloodshed, violence and atrocity" from the previous Communist government, and "defamed" the soil of West Bengal. Attacking Banerjee, who is at the forefront of efforts to stitch together a broad-based anti-BJP coalition of opposition parties ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, Modi said the proposed 'Mahagathbandhan' (grand alliance) was 'Maha Milawat' (a grand adulderation) of people who had no ideology or vision for the country. "Never in the history of our country have we seen a chief minister sitting on a dharna to save the corrupt. The poor want to know why did you sit on dharna to save those who are accused of negligence in probing the chit fund scam. "This chowkidar (watchman) will not spare them. Whether it is the perpetrators or their protectors, nobody will be allowed to go scot free," Modi declared while addressing a BJP rally in Jalpaiguri district. Banerjee reacted quickly and sharply to Modi's fulminations, referring to him as "Mr Maddy". "The less we talk about this man the better. Mr Maddy is the master of corruption. He is master of arrogance and a shame for the country. I have no words to describe him. His standard is so low that we never expected such a man to be the prime minister. We have respect for the chair but not for this man," she told journalists in Kolkata. She accused Modi of complicity in the alleged Rafale scam. "He (Modi) is the most corrupt man in the Rafale deal. He is the master of notebandi (demonetisation). Devil chants mantra. He was never a 'chaiwala' and doesn't know how to prepare tea. From chaiwala he has now become Rafalewala. He speaks a bunch of lies," the West Bengal chief minister said, hitting back at Modi. Ministers in the Union government and Banerjee are locked in a bitter exchange of words ever since the West Bengal chief minister dramatically launched a dharna to protest the CBI's bid to question Kolkata police commissioner Rajeev Kumar in the Saradha chit fund scam in which lakhs of investors were swindled of their money with the promise of astronomical returns. Modi alleged that the Trinamool Congress dispensation had taken after its predecessor Left Front government in adopting the culture of bloodshed. "Those you gave power to in Bengal in the name of 'maa, maati, manush (mother, motherland and man--the TMC's poll slogan) have followed the culture of bloodshed, violence and atrocity of their Communist predecessors," he said, branding the TMC government "Communist part 2". Recalling Bengal's rich cultural heritage, Modi said, "Today, law and order is in a shambles, industries and businesses are in ruins and young people are migrating to other states for jobs. This government has defamed 'maati' of Bengal and rendered its people 'majboor' (helpless)." He said though 'Didi' (elder sister as Mamata is fondly addressed) was at the helm of the government, it was an "extortionist syndicate" that was virtually running the administration. "We are bringing back the corrupt from other countries and they are bent upon saving the corrupt here. Everybody who is corrupt is afraid of Modi," the prime minister said in an apparent reference to the government's efforts to bring back fugitive tycoon Vijay Mallya. Highlighting the contradictions among the probable constituents of the proposed opposition alliance, Modi said while Congress leaders in West Bengal accused the TMC government of being undemocratic, "in Delhi, the brother-in- law of Robert Vadra is calling up Mamata Banerjee to extend his support". He berated the state government for thwarting rallies of BJP leaders by denying permission for their helicopters to land. "The government here welcomes even infiltrators, but leaders of the BJP who follow the ideals of Vivekananda and have the resolve of Syama Prasad Mookerjee (founder of BJP's forerunner Jana Sangh) are being prevented from holding rallies. This shows that the ground is slipping from under Didi's feet," he said. The prime minister attacked the Congress over its women's wing chief Sushmita Dev's assertion that the law against instant triple talaq will be scrapped if the party was voted to power. "The Congress's agenda of appeasement stands exposed. Just like it committed the mistake in Shah Bano case (when Rajiv Gandhi was the PM), it is committing another mistake now. "They don't have any regard for the Supreme Court which has outlawed the practice. They want Muslim women to be ruined. They say they will scrap the law. I assure Muslim women that nobody will be allowed to scrap the law," he said. The Shah Bano case related to a controversial maintenance lawsuit on which the apex court delivered a judgment favouring maintenance for a divorced Muslim woman. However, the then Congress government gave in to the Muslim clergy and enacted a law that placed the burden of maintenance on the woman's relatives or the Wakf Board. Predicting the downfall of the TMC government in the next elections, Modi said BJP's performance in neighbouring Tripura will be replicated in West Bengal. "Nobody dared to take on the TMC goons in the past. We are determined to rid Bengal of them. BJP workers are not afraid of anybody. If it weren't so, BJP wouldn't have gained strength and risen from having just two MPs to forming its government," he asserted. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court Friday dismissed a plea of controversial Uttar Pradesh politician D P Yadav, serving life imprisonment in a murder case, seeking bail on medical grounds. The apex court, however, directed the Dehradun Jail authorities to "take all steps" to ensure that his medical condition is taken care of. Yadav, who was earlier granted interim bail to undergo a spinal surgery at the Yashoda Hospital and Research Centre in Ghaziabad, surrendered back to jail on December 6 last year after the procedure on the order of the apex court. The fresh plea said Yadav has been facing post-operative complications and he be granted bail in view of the fact that even the jail authorities have suggested his treatment at All India Medical Sciences (AIIMS). A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said it would not grant him the bail and rather ask the Nainital High Court to expedite the hearing on his appeal against the conviction in the murder case. "Heard counsel for the petitioner and perused the relevant material. We are not inclined to entertain this special leave petition. The same is, accordingly, dismissed. "However, we direct the jail authorities to take all steps that may be required in accordance with law to ensure that the medical needs of the petitioner, Dharampal Singh Yadav alias D P Yadav, who is stated to be suffering from serious post-operative ailments, is adequately taken care of," the bench, also comprising justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna, said. Yadav was awarded life imprisonment by a CBI court in Dehradun in 2015 for his role in the murder of Mahendra Singh Bhati, an MLA from Ghaziabad's Dadri area. The lawmaker was shot dead at Dadri railway crossing in December 1992. Earlier, the apex court had extended the interim bail of Yadav and had asked him to surrender before Dehradun jail authorities on December 6 last year to serve the remainder of his life sentence. Yadav's appeal against the 2015 trial court verdict is pending in the high court. Besides Yadav, the trial court had also convicted Pal Singh, Karan Yadav and Praneet Bhati for offences of murder, attempt to murder and criminal conspiracy of the IPC in the case. The case was transferred to the CBI court in Dehradun in 2000 on the direction of the Supreme Court after doubts were expressed about a fair trial in the case in Uttar Pradesh as Yadav was an influential politician in the state. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Former Union minister and senior journalist Arun Shourie said Friday that the report published by 'The Hindu' newspaper confirms the allegation that the Prime Minister's Office was interfering in the Rafale negotiations. The Narendra Modi government was rocked Friday by a 2015 Defence Ministry note cited in a report in The Hindu expressing objections to "parallel" negotiations by the PMO. Speaking to the media here at a journalism awards function, Shourie said, "It confirms everything said by people like us that the Defence Ministry and others had no say in the (Rafale purchase) matter. "Air Force had no say in the matter. The original proposal which was worked out after five years of work was that 126 planes will be taken, of which only 18 will be procured in fly-away condition and the rest will be made by HAL, and to make them, technology will be fully transferred by Dassault," Shourie said. Now, as The Hindu report informed, the defence secretary himself wrote that the PMO was interfering in the whole matter, the former BJP leader said. Shourie also claimed that then defence minister Manohar Parrikar was completely unaware of the new deal which Prime Minister Narendra Modi struck with the French government as "he (Parrikar) was opening a fish festival in Goa" then. Even in his statement, Parrikar was cautious as he only said that it was the prime minister's decision which he supported, claimed the veteran journalist-turned-politician. "The whole procedure" was discarded while carrying out new negotiations for the fighter aircraft, Shourie alleged. "We have filed a review petition in great detail, if the Supreme Court accepts, we will argue on it and we hope they will give us opportunity to present our case fully," said Shourie, who along with lawyer Prashant Bhushan had moved the apex court earlier seeking a probe into the Rafale deal. The SC had then rejected the demand. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Commander Pakistan Fleet, Vice Admiral Amjad Khan Niazi has insisted that maritime security should be quintessentially cooperative instead of being competitive. Niazi had on Friday inaugurated a five-day multinational maritime exercise 'Aman-19', in which 46 nations are taking part, and stressed that maritime security was pivotal for national security and protection of maritime routes was necessary for the economy. He had earlier said at a media briefing that maritime security should be quintessentially cooperative instead of being competitive. Speaking about the naval exercise, the vice admiral said Aman-2019 would enable the participating countries to understand each others maritime concepts and operational cultures and come up with ways and means to combat common threats at sea. Conducted every two years since its initiation in 2007, the exercise will be conducted in two phases. The harbour phase from Friday to Sunday will be followed by a sea phase on February 11 and 12, Niazi said. Harbour activities will include seminars, discussions and demonstrations along with a three-day international maritime conference on 'Global geopolitics in transition: rethinking maritime dynamics in the Indian Ocean region'. The Pakistan Navy's ships, submarines, boats, marines and special forces will all take part in the exercise, along with the Pakistan Air Force, Pakistan Army and Pakistan Rangers. The exercise also provided participating countries the chance to foster friendship, which could lead them to develop and practice common tactics, procedures and mechanics to deal with the maritime threats that affected them all, Niazi said. "Overall, the Aman Exercise is about bridging gaps and making it possible to operate together in pursuance of shared objectives," Niazi said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A hardcore Maoist was arrested from Odisha's Koraput district on Friday in connection with the killing of two TDP leaders in Andhra Pradesh in 2018, police said. The Maoist identified as Dambaru Khila was arrested from Kodikhal village, Koraput Superintendent of Police, Kanwar Vishal Singh, said. The Koraput police picked up Khila from his house following a tip-off. Two mobile phones were seized from him, the SP said. Telugu Desam Party (TDP) MLA of Araku constituency, Kidari Sarveswara Rao and former TDP MLA Siveri Soma were killed by the outlawed CPI (Maoist) near Livitiputta in Andhra Pradesh on September 23 last year, he said. Steps are being taken to hand over Khila to the National Investigation Agency (NIA), which is probing the murder case, Singh said. During investigation, the NIA had gathered information about the alleged role of Khila in the killing of the TDP leaders and was trying to nab him, the police said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Begusarai court on Friday transferred the case of former Bihar minister Manju Verma, who in jail in an Arms Act case that surfaced during a probe into the Muzaffarpur shelter-home sex scandal, to a special court for trial. Acting Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate (ACJM) Santosh Kumar transferred the case to a special court of Additional District Judge (III) for trial. The court of ADJ (III) has been designated as a special court to try cases against MPs and MLAs. Verma and her husband Chandrashekhar are named in a case lodged at Cheria Bariarpur police station following the recovery of a large quantity of ammunition from their residence in Arjun Tola locality. The ammunition was recovered by a CBI team which raided their premises in connection with the Muzaffarpur shelter home sex scandal. Verma, who was the minister for social welfare, had stepped down in August last year following media reports which alleged that her husband had close links with Brajesh Thakur, the prime accused in the Muzaffarpur shelter home sex scandal. Chandrashekhar had surrendered before a court in Begusarai on October 29 last year, while Verma surrendered on November 20 in connection with the Arms Act case. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh Friday said the state government's stand on the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill is not different from that of the people. He said he had made his stand clear that he was against the proposed legislation despite being the chief minister of a government led by the BJP, which backs it nationally. "We share the same apprehension on the bill just as the people feel," Singh said at a programme here. The bill seeks to provide Indian citizenship to religious minorities from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan after six years of residence in India, instead of 12 years, which is the norm currently, even if they do not possess any document. The northeastern states have expressed apprehension that if it is enacted, indigenous people of the region would be affected. The bill was passed by Lok Sabha on January 8 and is awaiting the nod of Rajya Sabha. Singh, however, urged the people to refrain from making any statement that can hurt the sentiment of other communities, and not to use terms that are against the country's democratic system. Protesters many times used slogans which signals that they demanded independence, Singh said. The case could take a different turn if legal actions are initiated against those who voice separatism, he said. The government works for the interest of the people and have been discussing steps that can be taken and is constantly putting pressure on the Centre to exempt the state from the bill. "We are fighting for the people," Singh added. Meanwhile, protests against the bill continued in the state. A group of people under the Manipur People Against Citizenship (Amendment) Bill (MANPAC) organised torch procession and blocked roads, including national highways, at pockets of Imphal town and other areas of the state, police said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Maharashtra Congress chief Ashok Chavan said Friday that they were hopeful that newly-appointed party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi-Vadra will campaign in the state during the Lok sabha elections. Chavan was addressing a press conference here. When asked if the Maharashtra Congress would bring Gandhi-Vadra to Maharashtra for the campaign, Chavan said she has been given the responsibility of Uttar Pradesh. "However, Maharashtra Congress Committee is hoping to rope her in for campaign in the state," he said. Party leaders are holding a meeting in Delhi Saturday and they will request that Priyanka Gandhi-Vadra should hold some rallies in Maharashtra, Chavan added. He also claimed that he had "inside information" that simultaneous Assembly and Lok Sabha polls will be held in Maharashtra. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Veteran BJP leader and former Madhya Pradesh minister Dr Ramkrishna Kusumaria Friday joined the Congress in the presence of party president Rahul Gandhi. The senior leader joined the ruling party in the state at 'Aabhar rally', attended by farmers who benefited from the loan waiver scheme announced by the newly-elected Congress government. Kusumaria was formally inducted into the party by Congress general secretary in-charge of the state Deepak Babaria, who offered him a 'soot ki mala' (garland of handspun). In his speech, Kusumaria accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of "ignoring and disrespecting its senior leaders". He won assembly election for the first time from Hatta in Damoh district in 1977. Later he won Lok Sabha election from Damoh four times and once from Khajuraho. Kusumaria was a minister in Shivraj Singh Chouhan-led BJP government in 2008. Praising Rahul Gandhi and chief minister Kamal Nath, he said the country and the state would prosper under their leadership and "good days" will come. Kusumaria was denied ticket by the BJP in 2018 assembly polls. He contested as independent from Damoh but secured only 1,133 votes and lost his deposit. Besides Kusumaria, RPI leader Doman Singh Nagpure, who was a minister in Digvijay Singh government, also joined the Congress during the event. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Delhi court on Friday sought response from Enforcement Directorate on a bail application of lawyer Gautam Khaitan who was sent to judicial custody in a fresh case of alleged possession and laundering of black money. Khaitan, who is also an accused in AgustaWestland VVIP chopper scam, was produced before Special Judge Arvind Kumar on expiry of his custodial interrogation in the money laundering case and the ED requested the court to send him to judicial custody (JC). The ED said that if left free, Khaitan may flee from justice and hamper the probe after which the court sent him to JC till February 20. After the court passed the order, Khaitan's advocate P K Dubey moved an application seeking bail for his client on the grounds that he was not required for probe any further. Dubey told the court that Khaitan was practising as a lawyer for more than 25 years and that he had deep roots in society. The court, thereafter, directed the ED's public prosecutors D P Singh and N K Matta to file a response to the bail application by February 15. Khaitan had earlier claimed before the court that ED was forcing him to falsely implicate someone influential in "any defence deal" which happened during the UPA regime. Khaitan's lawyer had said: "They asked me (Khaitan) to give any name involved in any defence deal (of UPA period). They asked to give any name, that they needed it within these two months. They are constantly forcing me to give name and I will be absolved. "When Michel (middleman recently extradited from Dubai) came, you (ED) said he had taken my name and I was required to be confronted. But nothing came out of that case. Now you have come up with this case." The agency, through advocate Samvedna Verma, had earlier told the court, "Khaitan knows all the persons related to arms deals other than AgustaWestland and other deals. There are many more information where people who handle other deals were in his contact." The ED has maintained that the present case had nothing to do with the alleged AgustaWestland scam and that the accused was operating and holding a number of foreign accounts illegally and thereby possessing black money and stashing assets. The present case under the PMLA was filed by the ED against Khaitan on the basis of a case filed by the Income Tax Department against him under Section 51 of the Black Money (Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets) and Imposition of Tax Act, 2015. The ED has said that it had the knowledge of Khaitan's unidentified assets which value more than Rs 500 crore. Khaitan was placed under arrest on January 25 by the agency under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). The Income Tax Department had earlier carried out searches against Khaitan in this new case filed under the anti-black money law. Khaitan had been arrested by the ED and the CBI a few years ago in connection with their probe in the Rs 3,600-crore AgustaWestland case. A charge sheet was also filed against him by the two agencies and he was currently out on bail. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Birthday wishes Call 281-422-8302 or email david.bloom@baytownsun.com to wish someone a happy birthday. We will print your birthday wish on Page 2 of The Sun. Happy Birthday Wishes RJD national president Lalu Prasad has flayed his arch rival and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar over Supreme Court's order to transfer Muzaffarpur sex scandal to a POCSO court in Delhi. The apex court Thursday came down heavily on the Bihar government for its management of 16 shelter homes in the state, other than that at Muzaffarpur, and warned that unsatisfactory response of its queries will force it to summon the chief secretary. A bench, headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, directed the Bihar government to render all assistance in smooth transfer of the Muzaffarpur case within two weeks. Prasad, who is serving sentences in a number of fodder scam cases and lodged in a Ranchi hospital for his ailments, came out with tweets offering his take on the embarrassment caused to the Bihar government. In the first such tweet, he said in the rustic dialect Bhojpuri "ka ho Nitish, kuchh sharm bachal ba ki naahi" (Nitish, are you left with any shame). His Twitter handle is managed by people close to him. In another tweet, the RJD supremo came out with an acerbic one-liner "habitual protectors of rapists of Bihar will keep quiet. Chupppp". Kumar has been accused by opposition leaders, especially Prasad's younger son Tejashwi Yadav, of keeping silent over allegations against the accused in the scandal. The case had come to light last year when a report of social audit conducted by Mumbai-based Tata Institute of Social Sciences flagged sexual abuse of inmates at the Muzaffarpur shelter home. An FIR was lodged in May last year and a number of persons, including Brajesh Thakur, the owner of the NGO running the shelter home, were arrested by police in connection with the scandal. The matter was handed over to the CBI in July. Shortly afterwards, state social welfare minister Manju Verma stepped down after media reported that her husband had close links with Thakur. Thakur has been shifted to a jail in Patiala following the order of the Supreme Court even as other accused, including his close aides and some government officials, are lodged in jails at Patna and Muzaffarpur. The apex court had recently also directed the CBI to take over the probe into allegations of sexual abuse at all such shelter homes across the state. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In a dramatic move hours before presenting the state budget, Karnataka chief minister H D Kumaraswamy Friday released an audio clip of an alleged conversation of state BJP chief B S Yeddyurappa to lure a JDS MLA to destabilise the coalition government in the state. Yeddyurappa described the clip as "fake" and a "concocted story". In sudden twists and turns, the Congress also decided to crack the whip and initiate action against four rebel MLAs under the Anti- Defection law after the legislature party meeting here just before the session commenced its sitting. Briefing reporters, CLP leader Siddaramaiah said he would meet the assembly speaker Ramesh Kumar and urge him to take action against Ramesh Jarkiholi, Umesh Jadhav, Mahesh Kumathali and B Nagendra. He said barring the four and J N Ganesh, all other lawmakers attended the CLP meet. Two MLAs Roshan Baig and B C Patil, who also did not participate, had taken prior permission, he said. Ganesh is declared absconding after an alleged brawl with a colleague lawmaker at a resort recently. Siddaramaiah said the four MLAs had sent letters to him, saying they could not attend the entire budget session of the assembly. Adding a new element to the political turmoil, Kumaraswamy dropped the audio bomb at a press conference, to back his claim about BJP's alleged toppling game. He alleged such an attempt was being carried out with the "permission" of prime minister Narendra Modi and Amit Shah. "Without the knowledge of the prime minister, is it possible to do all this," Kumaraswamy said, as he lashed out at Modi and asked him to come clean on the issue. Modi and Amit Shah are doing all this". The chief minister said he would send the audio clips to the prime minister who, he said, claims about being "the only saviour of this country. "Come out with your real face," Kumaraswamy said pointing out at Modi. Kumaraswamy alleged there were two audio clips which had recorded the telephonic conversation between Yeddyurappa and Sharan Gouda, son of JDS lawmaker Naganagouda, whom the BJP leader was trying to woo with money and other offers. Sharan Gouda, who was present with the chief minister, spoke about how Yeddyurappa allegedly tried to reach out to him over phone and asked him to meet him at Devadurga in his attempt to lure his father. Only part of one unclear audio clip was played at the press conference. In the clip, a male voice is heard offering money and ministerial berth, besides assuring Sharan Gouda about "taking care" of the speaker and the judges in case of the Anti- Defection Law being invoked. Hitting back, Yeddyurappa dismissed the audio clips as "fake" and "a concocted story" and said he had not met anyone to woo Nagana Gouda as alleged. Yeddyurappa said he went to Devadurga to visit a temple and flew back to the city. Kumaraswamy had "concocted" the story to hide his failures and inability to keep the JD(S) and Congress flock together, Yeddyurappa told reporters here. "It is a fake audio. I have not met anyone. Kumaraswamy is trying to hide his failures. This is a drama," Yeddyurappa said. He said the Kumaraswamy government had lost the trust of the people and had "no moral right" to continue in office. The Chief Minister said during the purported conversation Yeddyurappa had also spoken about a "Rs 50 crore offer to book" the Assembly speaker. He said Modi was mouthing platitudes about the political system but on the other hand, his party colleagues were "demolishing" it. "Your friends (BJP in Karnataka) have exposed the real picture of your face. If you have any morality...I demand that the prime minister should take appropriate action," Kumaraswamy said. Yeddyurappa dismissed a claim by the chief minister that hehad spoken in the audio about a "Rs 50 crore" offer to the assembly speaker. "I will retire from if it (the allegation) is proved. If I had spoken like this (about the speaker), if it is proved, I will resign as an MLA and quit Karnataka has been reeling under political turmoil for the past few weeks that also saw the resort play out with both BJP and Congress sequestering their MLAs to shield them poaching bid. Both Congress and JDS have been accusing the BJP of making "desparate" attempts to dethrone the Kumaraswamy government with allurements and even intimidation, and challenged the saffron party to move a no confidence motion. BJP, on other hand, has dismissed the charge, saying the party was being blamed for the inability of the two coalition partners to keep their flock together. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) With focus on agrarian economy, Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy Friday proposed allocation of Rs 12,650 crore in the state 2019-2020 budget for the Congress-JDS coalition government's flagship crop loan waiver scheme. Aimed at striking urban-rural balance, Kumaraswamy, who has doled out several projects for Bengaluru, also increased additional exercise duty on beer, draught beer, beer manufactured in micro brewery and low alcoholic beverages. Kumaraswamy, who holds the finance portfolio, presented his government's second budget, amid high octanepolitical drama that saw the opposition BJP boycotting it. The budget presentation was overshadowed by heightened political developments since morning with Kumaraswamy releasing at a press meet an audio clip of an alleged conversation of state BJP chief B S Yeddyurappa luring a JD(S) MLA to destabilise the coalition government in the state. However, Yeddyurappa, who is the leader of opposition in the assembly, dismissed it as "fake" and a "concocted story." The day also saw the Congress deciding to crack the whip and initiate action against four rebel MLAs under the Anti-Defection law after the legislature party meeting here. "In 2019-20, a budget provision of Rs 6,500 crore for commercial bank crop loans and Rs 6,150 crore for co-operative bank crop loans has been made," Kumaraswamy said as members of the treasury benches welcomed it by thumping of desks. The co-operative loan waiver process is scheduled to be completed by June 2019, he said, adding that it is expectedthat the commercial bank loan waiver would also be completedduring fiscal 2019-20. During his coalition government's first budget Kumaraswamy, fulfilling his pre-election promise, had last year announced Rs 46,000 crore waiver of crop loans borrowed by nearly 42 lakh farmers. Kumaraswamy said, under the Loan Waiver scheme, Rs 5,450 crore has been released to about 12 lakh loan accounts of commercial banks. Opposition BJP led by Yeddyurappa, who have been disrupting proceedings since the budget session began on Wednesday alleging that the government lacked majority, stageda walkout. At the press meet earlier, Kumaraswamy said during the purported conversation Yeddyurappa had also spoken about a "Rs 50 crore offer to book" the assembly speaker. Objecting to the Chief Minister's comment, BJP wanted clarification on the matter, and also demanded that the budgetcopies be distributed to the legislators. Contrary to the usual practice, budget copies were not distributed toMLAs and the media present inside the House, citing the method being followed in Parliament. The government which plans to achieve the target of Rs20,950 crore fixed for excise department for fiscal 2019-20, has proposed to increase excise duty on beer. "I propose to increase additional excise duty on Beer from 150 per cent to 175 per cent, additional excise duty on draught beer from 115 per cent to 150 per cent, excise duty onbeer manufactured in Micro Brewery from existing Rs 5 per Bulk litre (BL) to Rs 10 per BL, and additional excise duty from existing Rs 12.50 per BL to Rs 25 per BL," Kumaraswamy said. "I also propose to increase excise duty on Low Alcoholic Beverages (LAB) from existing Rs 5 per BL to Rs 10 per BL and additional excise duty from 122 per cent to 150 percent," he added. Taking a dig at the Centre's "Pradhnamanthri Fasal Bheema Yojana", the Chief Minister in his budget speech noted that in the last two years, this scheme seemed to have benefited the insurance companies more than the farmers, as he hinted at state's own new crop insurance scheme. "Many farmer leaders have expressed this view in the meetings. In this background, our government has proposed to consider the pros and cons of implementing a new crop insurance scheme," he said. A total grant of Rs 17,212 crore has been provided to Water Resources Department during 2019-20 in the budget that proposes for various irrigation schemes, tank filling projects, comprehensive developmental works, canal modernisation-development works, Bridge and Barrage construction works, among other things. One thousand Karnataka Public Schools will be established in Hobli headquarters in the next 4 years, Kumaraswamy said. Education will be provided underone roof from pre-primary level to the 12th class, he said. The budget also proposes the establishment of Christian Development Corporation in 2019-20, and said comprehensive development programmes for the Christian Community will be taken up at a cost of Rs 200 crore. The Chief Minister also proposed Group Insurance scheme to all Auto and Taxi drivers, as he announced that Drivers Day will be observed by the government in all the districts of the State to identify the good services of the drivers of various sectors. He said Karnataka has been at the forefrontof implementation of GST since its launch in July 2017. However, a number of factors including technological glitches, changes envisaged in the return filingsystem, non-realtime matching of input tax credit, division of tax payers for administration and frequent reduction of GSTrates, have contributed to the loss of revenue to the State. Thus, Karnataka demands adequatecompensation in the manner as envisaged in the Compensation toStates Act, up to 2025 if the revenue gap is not bridgedinspite of the best efforts of the State to effectively implement GST, he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Actor Juliette Binoche has defended embattled Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, saying the courts should decided whether he is guilty of the allegations against him. It was the allegations against the media mogul, first reported by the New York Times and New Yorker, that gave birth to worldwide movement of #MeToo against the workplace sexual harassment and misbehaviour. Weinstein, the then chief of powerful production banner, The Weinstein Company, has been accused of sexual harassment and assault by more than 70 women. He has denied all the allegations. According to Variety, Binoche, who is currently serving as the jury head of Berlin Film Festival, said at a press conference in the German capital that Weinstein always behaved professionally with her. "I never had problems with him, but I could see that he had problems. As a producer, he was wonderful, most of the time. I think he was a great producer. We shouldn't forget (that), even though it has been difficult for some directors and actors, and especially actresses," she said. She said Weinstein has experienced enough trial by people and added that it is time to let "justice" prevail. "I almost want to say peace to his mind and heart, that's all. I'm trying to put my feet in his shoes. He's had enough, I think. A lot of people have expressed themselves. Now justice has to do its work," Binoche said. The French star has worked with Weinstein on two films -- "Chocolat" (2000) and "The English Patient" (1996). (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) President Ram Nath Kovind Friday said the judiciary is guarding against attempts by people with vested interests to misuse public interest litigations (PILs) so as to obstruct legitimate decision making. He also expressed concern over "frequent adjournments often sought only to delay cases" which causes inconvenience in form of "justice tax on poor and less well of litigants". Speaking at the release of a Festschrift "Law, Justice and Judicial Power: Justice P N Bhagwati's Approach", Kovind said PIL tradition is an Indian contribution to the practice of law and process of justice delivery and for this "we owe Justice Bhagwati a degree of gratitude". He said it is not without reason that Justice Bhagwati, who was the chief justice of India from July 12, 1985 to December 20, 1986, is called the father of public interest litigation in India. The President said the idealism and simplicity of the highest court in the country responding to even a petition filed on a postcard is worthy of appreciation. "This practice had far reaching implications. It unshackled the courts from the narrow definition of locus standi and allowed a friend of affected person or any other concerned individual or institution to approach the court on behalf of citizen who has been denied justice," he said. Though Kovind expressed concern over the misuse of PIL by people of vested interests, he said attempts have been guarded by the judiciary. "There are occasions when PIL professionals may misuse such provisions for their vested ends or to obstruct legitimate decision making. I am happy that the judiciary is guarding against such attempts," he said. He said that Justice Bhagwati strived to expand the concept of justice and make justice that much more accessible to common people and belonged to a generation of eminent jurists who reconceived and reimagined the role of the judiciary in a developing democracy such as India. Kovind spoke after Attorney General K K Venugopal also expressed concern over misuse of PILs and said "public interest litigation was brought as a weapon for the poor for unfortunately today it is being used by the rich and powerful and also often they set up who are proxy for the purpose of getting benefits." Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi said Justice Bhagwati was a legal stalwart who utilised his long tenure in the Supreme Court into an opportunity to give shape to the aspirations of the Indian constitution. "Justice Bhagwati was one of the harbingers of environmental jurisprudence in the country. It was his compassionate legal mind that made possible a reading of environmental rights as an integral part of human rights. "He, a true judicial statesman, could envisage the necessity of a specialised environment court in the case. it led to the establishment of the National Green Tribunal almost two decades later... For Justice Bhagwati judging was more about justice and access to justice than being about legal theatrics," Gogoi said. The President further said that Justice Bhagwati was a part of an exciting phase in the judiciary. "In the aftermath of lessons learnt during the Emergency, judiciary focused attention on the upholding of human rights and civil liberties as enshrined in our Constitution. Justice Bhagwati was a part of the bench which in ADM Jabalpur case delivered a majority verdict holding that fundamental right to life and liberty can be curtailed during the emergency. Kovind said as democracy has deepened in our society, the infrastructure of and approach to justice must continue to keep pace. "The ever stronger urgings of democracy, equal-access and egalitarianism among our people must find reflection in the institutions of state," he said. "In its representation, our judiciary must strive to reflect the diversity of our nation and the depth of our society. This will take forward the work and philosophy of Justice Bhagwati and his generation of jurists," Kovind said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Jammu and Kashmir Governor Satya Pal Malik on Friday expressed grief over the loss of lives during an avalanche near Jawahar Tunnel in Kulgam district. The governor has prayed for eternal peace to the departed souls and strength to the bereaved families. Bodies of seven policemen were on Friday extricated from a police post hit by the avalanche near the tunnel Thursday evening. While two cops were rescued, another was missing, a police official said. Heavy snowfall across Kashmir over the past two days has triggered avalanches and snowslides in many places in the hilly areas of the valley. The authorities have issued an avalanche warning for 16 of the 22 districts of Jammu and Kashmir Kulgam district in south Kashmir received maximum precipitation in the past 24 hours. Some places in the district have received as much as five feet of snow, they said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Justice R Shankar of the Jharkhand High Court Friday referred the CBI's plea to increase the prison term of jailed RJD chief Lalu Prasad and others in a fodder scam case to the chief justice for listing it in the appropriate bench. The petition was listed for hearing by the bench of Justice Shankar, but during the hearing, the judge said he is referring it to the chief justice for sending it to a suitable bench. The central probe agency has moved the high court after a special CBI court awarded three-year imprisonment to Prasad and three others - former IAS officers Beck Julius and Mahesh Prasad, and RJD leader R K Rana - last year. It had also sentenced former MP Jagdish Sharma to seven years in jail the case pertaining to fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 89.27 lakh from Deoghar treasury in the early 1990s. The CBI petition urged the high court to enhance the prison term of Prasad and the three others, as they had been booked for higher conspiracy charges. Prasad is serving varying prison sentences after being convicted in four fodder scam cases by separate special CBI courts in Ranchi, and he is facing trial in a fifth fodder scam case. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Town planning authority MMRDA Friday said the second phase of the much-delayed Jacob Circle-Wadala-Chembur monorail project is likely to commence operations from March 1. The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), which is implementing the 19.5 km long corridor, has received spare parts required to repair the rakes that were gutted in a fire accident in 2017. "The much awaited monorail parts worth over Rs 3 crore have arrived in the city from Malaysia which will now help MMRDA begin the phase-2 of the project. We are hopeful to commence operations on the Jacob Circle-Wadala corridor from March 1 this year," MMRDA Joint Project Director Dilip Kawathkar said in a statement issued here. He said the parts will enable MMRDA refurbish four more mono trains into the service of Mumbaikars. "This means the entire monorail corridor will operate with seven trains. Once commissioned, the entire route will attract many more commuters," Kawathkar added. The MMRDA has also decided to increase the fares to Rs 10 to Rs 40 for the entire corridor from the current Rs 5 to Rs 11 for the first phase. MMRDA took over the operations and maintenance of the monorail from Scomi Engineering in the month of December 2018, after it failed to supply the contracted rakes and other operational materials, including the signalling equipment and maintaining the quality of monorail services despite many extensions. On December 14, town planning authority MMRDA had terminated its contract with the LTSE consortium, which had the contract to build the country's first and only monorail in the megapolis. Last year one rake went up in flames, while on service, and it forced shutting of the services for many months. The L&T-Scomi consortium won the Rs 2,460-crore contract in 2009 to build and operate the 19.5-km monorail network on the Chembur-Wadala-Jacob Circle corridor connecting the eastern periphery of the island city to the central parts. The 8.9-km-long first phase of the monorail from Chembur to Wadala was opened to the public in February 2014, almost four years after the original deadline. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) President Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka said Friday that she is not worried about any threat that the Mueller Russia meddling investigation might pose to her family. The senior White House advisor, who is married to Jared Kushner, another of the president's closest advisors, told ABC that there is "nothing" of substance in the 21-month-old probe by Special Counsel Robert Mueller into possible collusion between Moscow and President Trump's 2016 election campaign. Mueller has already charged six former Trump aides and associates with various crimes. Given that the investigation could nearly be over, ABC interviewer Abby Huntsman asked Ivanka Trump in an interview, "Are you concerned about anyone in your life that you love being involved?" "No. There's nothing there," Trump answered. "Yet it's created weeks and weeks and months of headlines. I'm not. I'm really not" concerned, she said. The rare interview with the president's 37-year-old-daughter came in conjunction with the launch of her new "Women's Global Development and Prosperity Initiative" to help boost women in developing countries. She has said little about the Mueller probe, which is believed to be honing in on her father, husband and brother Donald Trump Jr over their involvement in contacts with Russia during the 2016 presidential race. Mueller has revealed very little about his interests, but court documents and lawyers have suggested he is focused both on possible collusion and obstruction allegations against members of the Trump family. ABC asked Ivanka about her own involvement in a Moscow real estate project that recently-revealed documents and court filings showed the Trump family pursued right up to the time of the 2016 election, despite President Trump's previous claims that the project was given up at the beginning of 2016. Documents showed President Trump had personally signed an initial letter of intent on the deal with the Russian developer. While she was deeply involved in the Trump Organization, the president's real estate business, Ivanka said she knew "literally almost nothing" about the Moscow Trump Tower project. "There was never a binding contract," she said. "We could have had 40 or 50 deals like that, that were floating around, that somebody was looking at. Nobody visited it to see if it was worth our time. So this was not exactly like an advanced project. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Noida and Greater Noida on Friday officially accepted an invitation to participate in the prestigious Global Sustainable Cities 2025 Initiative, according to a statement. An acceptance letter was formally handed over to UNGSII chief Roland Schatz in the presence of UN Director General Michael Moller and leaders of other cities participating in the flagship programme at SDG Lab in Davos, Switzerland, the official statement said. On November 25, 2018, Noida and Greater Noida were invited to participate in this showcase 'race to sustainability' held in Noida. The twin cities are among the 25 global cities to become fully compliant with the sustainable development goals by 2025 under the UN Global Sustainable Goals (SDG) Cities initiative. The twin-cities, the only from India, will be competing in the University City's category. "The decision of the government of Uttar Pradesh was conveyed by B N Singh, the district magistrate of Gautam Buddh Nagar, after getting approval on the proposal by the government," the district administration said in the statement. Representing Noida and Greater Noida at the Davos SDG lab were Shubhro Sen, the principal advisor India for UNGSII, and Ajay Davesar, a senior advisor for UNGSII India, it said. The district magistrate pledged his full support to the programme as an "exciting global showcase". "We thank Dr (Shubro) Sen for originally nominating Noida and successfully presenting its credentials in Heidelberg in March last year and Scahtz for honouring us with a visit to our city to personally invite us," Singh said. At the session in Davos, Schatz highlighted that the SDG Cities initiative will lead to an unprecedented inflow of global knowledge, resources and capacity-building into Noida and Greater Noida via various UN agencies, partners and corporate supporters, the statement said. "The overarching goal is to work together with other participating cities to create sustainability, innovation and research hubs and think for the long term. Ultimately the SDG cities platform is about our children and their children; it's about enhanced quality of life and nature of the world we leave behind for them," Schatz said. Sen said it is a very proud moment for all of India that the twin cities were the first to be selected in the "University City" category. "The cities are now part of a global platform to bring advance know-how, best practices and shared learning from global experts, best-in-class corporate partners and multiple UN agencies," he said. "The large positive multiplier from this programme will also pave the way for many other cities in India to adapt and emulate best global practices," Davesar said. The Uttar Pradesh government had on January 15 permitted the Gautam Buddh Nagar administration to participate in the global initiative. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A US court has ruled that the Indian-American foster parents of Sherin Mathews, accused in the death of their 3-year-old special needs daughter, will face separate trials, according to a media report. Sherin, who was adopted by Wesley Mathews and Sini Mathews in 2016, was found dead in a culvert near the family's home in Richardson, Texas, on October 22, 2017, two weeks after her family reported her missing. Wesley initially told the police that his daughter had gone missing from outside the house. He had made her stand outside the house at 3 am as punishment for not finishing her milk. Sherin was missing when he went back for her, Wesley had contended. He changed his story later and told investigators that Sherin died after choking on milk. He admitted to putting her body in the culvert near their home in Richardson in suburban Dallas. There will be separate trials for the parents accused in the death of Sherin, Fox4News.com reported, quoting a ruling by the Dallas County Court on February 4. Sini, who was 35 at the time of her arrest, is charged with child abonnement after allegedly leaving Sherin home alone on the night of her death. She faces a sentence that ranges from two to 20 years in prison with a fine of up to USD 10,000. Her husband, Wesley, 38, at the time of his arrest, is accused of killing the Indian girl, who was adopted from an orphanage in Bihar. Wesley charged with felony injury to a child, which carries a sentence of up to life in prison. Wesley's trial is now set for April 5 while Sini's trial has been moved up to March 15, the report said. The Dallas County Medical Examiner's Office which released Sherin' autopsy report listed the cause of death as homicide and the manner as homicidal violence. Defense attorneys for Wesley wanted both parents tried together. But Sini's attorneys convinced the judge that they should be tried separately, the report said. Both Wesley and Sini are currently lodged in the Dallas County jail. Their four-year-old biological daughter is staying with relatives in Houston. Last month, the court denied Sini's plea to further slash her bail amount from USD 100,000 to USD 2,500. Initially, her bond was set at USD 250,000. Her legal team requested the USD 100,000 bond amount to be lowered to USD 2,500, the amount typically recommended for someone without a criminal record who is charged with child abandonment. Wesley' bail was also lowered from USD 1 million to USD 500,000 for the capital murder charge, from USD 250,000 to USD 100,000 for tampering with physical evidence, and from USD 1 million to USD 500,000 for injury to a child with serious bodily injury. The story of Sherin's whereabouts and her tragic death in 2017 made headlines worldwide. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) An Indian-origin man in Singapore was on Friday sentenced to 10 months of jail, along with six strokes of the cane and a fine of 3,000 dollars for attacking a cook at a stall here last year after being asked to pay for the food he ordered, according to a media report. At the court, Murugan Joseph, 45, pleaded guilty to five charges, including voluntarily causing hurt with a weapon, possessing a weapon, using insulting words, mischief and theft. The incident happened last year when jobless Murugan and two of his Indian friends went to a food stall and ordered rotis (chapatis), Channel Asia reported. Murugan has also been fined of 3,000 Singapore dollars. Once the food was ready the three were asked to pay by the stall assistant, but he was informed that they did not have any money to pay for the order they placed. Infuriated that the assistant did not give them any food, Murugan and his friends confronted him for more than 10 minutes, the report quoted the Deputy Public Prosecutor Shenna Tjoa as saying in the court. Following the altercation, Murugan and his friend left the stall but returned again to ask for the food. But they were refused. Hearing the loud argument, the cook, Revi Jose Vibin, stepped in. As the altercation grew, Murugan took a knife and slashed the cook on the left side of his head, leaving a deep cut. Following the incident, the three men were arrested and booked for the crime. A blood sample taken from Murugan showed that was intoxicated at the time of the attack. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) India will train 1,800 civil servants from Bangladesh in ethics in administration and public policy among other areas of governance, officials said. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed on Friday between the National Centre for Good Governance (NCGG), an institute under the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG), and the Ministry of Public Administration, Government of Bangladesh, in this regard, they said. K V Eapen, Secretary DARPG and Director General of NCGG, said the collaboration represents a historic milestone in training and capacity building programmes between India and Bangladesh. He said that Bangladesh civil servants will be trained in e-governance and service delivery, public policy and implementation, information technology, decentralization, urban development and planning, ethics in Administration and challenges in implementation of sustainable development goals (SDGs). This is the second time that the NCGG has signed an MOU for a training programme for Bangladesh civil servants. Under the first MOU signed five years ago, 1,500 Bangladesh civil servants were trained by the NCGG. The participants of the training programme will be selected among from deputy commissioners/additional district magistrates, upazila nirbahi officers, deputy director local government, senior assistant secretaries, senior assistant commissioners, assistant commissioners (land) and officers of equivalent rank in the ministries from Bangladesh civil service (administration) cadre. The NCGG is planning to conduct 15 training programmes this year, each of two weeks duration. The trainee officers will undergo training at the NCGG Mussoorie centre and in Delhi where they would visit Government of India establishments. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) India's exports to China has reached USD 12.7 billion during April-December 2018 on account of growth in shipments of marine products, chemicals, plastics, petroleum products, grapes and rice, the commerce ministry said Friday. It said that the ministry has identified and shared with Indian exporters and other stakeholders, specific items where the US would lose competitiveness in China and where India had an export potential and encouraged the exporters to seize this opportunity. Several B2B meetings with Chinese buyers were facilitated through the Indian embassy in Beijing, it said in a statement. "India's exports to China have grown after several years. India is poised to achieve its highest ever exports to China this fiscal. Between April-December 2018, exports were USD 12.7 billion which is closer to last year's exports of USD 13.33 billion," it added. It said the growth in the exports has been driven by marine products, organic chemicals, plastics, petroleum products, grapes and rice. It also said that while some of India's concerns have been addressed, more efforts are required for greater market penetration in China. "India is hopeful of soon signing protocols for export of Indian soybean meals, cakes and pomegranates to China in the near future, as these are in advanced stages of discussion," it said. It added that discussions are on with the Chinese side for early announcement of Chinese import quotas for sugar and rice for 2019 so that Indian exporters are able to plan their exports well in time. "In light of US duties on Chinese products, similar steps have been taken with regard to Indian exports to the US also," the ministry said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The powerful Congressional India caucus, both in the House and the Senate, has played a sterling role in strengthening and deepening of bilateral relationship between the two largest democracies of the world, the Indian Ambassador to the US, Harsh V Shringla, has said. Addressing a gathering of top US lawmakers at a reception co-hosted in his honour by the co-Chairs of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian-Americans, Shringla said India has counted every step of the way. A record number of 60 members of the US House of Representatives and Senators attended the reception held at the US Capitol on Thursday evening. Prominent among them were Senators John Cornyn and Mark Warner, who are co-chairs of the Senate India Caucus; Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard among others. Indian American Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi and Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, were also present at the event. Praising the "understanding" of US lawmakers to steer the countries "ever closer together", the Indian diplomat said: "Many in this room will recall the sterling role played by the India caucus in getting us past the finish line on the landmark civil nuclear agreement." The designation of India as a Major Defense Partner was also codified into law by the US Congress, thanks to the unstinting support by members of the India Caucus. Referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's address to the joint session of the US Congress that the Indo-US ties have "overcome the hesitations of history", Shringla said he was looking forward to the same comfort, convergence and candour while working closely with members of Congress, particularly the India Caucus. "Our synergies and similarities are immense. Our values and love of freedom identical. The spirit of entrepreneurship, innovation, and high regard to family and community define the best of both of our peoples," Shringla said. Senator Cornyn said the bipartisan group of more than 30 Senators who form the Senate India Caucus were working to promote India-US relationship. India and US have a "unique relationship" which is based on shared values and opportunities that are presented in this very dangerous world. It was in 2004 that the Cornyn and the then Senator Hillary Clinton founded the Senate India caucus. It is the largest bilateral caucus in the US Senate, Senator Warner said. "We look forward to the continued success of the caucus and continue growing friendship between India and the United States," he said. India is an important ally of the United States and the Indian American community has played a very important role in this, said Congressman Steny Hoyer. "The contribution that the Indian community has made to America is immense," he said. Gabbard, who this month launched her 2020 presidential campaign, called for building on the momentum of the relationship between the two countries. "There are so many areas of common interest, so many areas of potential. So I have no doubt that with this bipartisan group that's gathered here from both the house and the Senate, we will continue to do that work," she said. Referring to his recent meeting with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Congressman George Holding said in the last two years the India Caucus was able to work successfully in strengthening the military to military relationship. "I think we're going to have a good opportunity to sell more US military equipment to India," he said. "I think we can look forward to great US companies furthering their relationship than India, such as Raytheon, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and many others. And with that more Indian companies strengthening their relationship here in the United States," he added. "We look forward to building our alliances and the Indo Pacific region and there's no ally that we have in the region that better mirrors the similar values of a strong democracy and freedom," Holding said. Congressman Brad Sherman, who is now also chairman of the Asia subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee said he was a strong supporter of strenthening India-US relationship. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Foreign Ministers of India and Bangladesh held talks on Friday to further intensify ties between the two countries as they called for expediting safe and sustainable repatriation of the Rohingya refugees, according to a statement from the Ministry of External Affairs. During the fifth meeting of the India-Bangladesh Joint Consultative Commission (JCC), External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj assured her Bangladeshi counterpart A K Abdul Momen India's continued support for safe, speedy and sustainable return of the displaced persons to Myanmar. The two sides also inked three pacts, including in the areas of health services and training of civil servants. The ministers discussed the gamut of bilateral issues of mutual interest and reviewed ongoing cooperation, including the implementation of decisions taken during the visits of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, the statement said. They also expressed satisfaction that both countries are working closer than ever before in every sector, ranging from security and border management to mutually-beneficial trade and investment flows, power and energy, river water sharing, development partnership, transport connectivity, culture and people-to-people contacts. They also welcomed the broadening of ties in areas such as space, nuclear energy, IT and electronics. "Foreign Minister A K Abdul Momen conveyed the gratitude of Government of Bangladesh for the humanitarian assistance provided by India in four tranches since September 2017 to help meet the requirements of the displaced persons from Myanmar. The two ministers agreed on the need to expedite safe and sustainable repatriation of the displaced people from Rakhine State of Myanmar," the statement said. India has been calling on Myanmar to implement the accord it signed with Bangladesh -- Rohingya repatriation agreement -- that involves return of the refugees to Myanmar. India has been sending assistance to Bangladesh, which has been hosting over seven million Rohingya refugees from neighbouring Myanmar. It started 'Operation Insaniyat' to help the Rohingya refugees in September2017. In December 2018, India sent the 4th tranche of relief assistance to Rohingya refugees camping in Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar as part of operation. The three MoUs signed were on mid-career training of 1,800 Bangladeshi civil servants, another between AYUSH Ministry and the Ministry of Health of Bangladesh on cooperation in the field of medicinal plants and the third between the Anti-Corruption Commission of Bangladesh and Central Bureau of Investigation of India. An MoU was also signed between Hiranandani Group and Bangladesh Economic Zones Authority to facilitate investments in the Indian Economic Zone in Mongla. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) An "independent" CBI should raid the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), seize files and make arrests in connection with the Rafale fighter jet deal, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said Friday. His party colleague and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh said he will file a case against Prime Minister Narendra Modi in light of the new "expose" on Rafale deal. "In the light of today's expose on Rafale, 'independent' CBI shud raid PMO, seize all the files related to Rafale and make arrests just like they raided my office and residence and Kolkatta police commissioner(sic)," Kejriwal tweeted. The AAP's attack came after a report was published by The Hindu newspaper on Friday which claimed the Defence Ministry raised strong objections to "parallel discussions" conducted by the PMO during the negotiations over the Rs 59,000 crore Rafale deal between India and France. Singh maintained that his party was the first to flag Rafale deal "scam" as he cited a letter written by him to the Chief Vigilance Commissioner(CVC), the Central Bureau Investigation (CBI) and the CAG last year. "The truth that has come to the fore now has exposed real the face of Modi. We have been saying from day first that there is a scam of Rs 36,000 crore," Singh alleged at a press conference. Singh said he will file a complain at the North Avenue police station against Modi in connection with the emerging "facts" in the matter. "If police does not register a case, we will approach the court," he said. Singh was one of the petitioners before the Supreme Court, seeking a probe in the alleged "scam" in the Rafale deal. AAP's Rajya Sabha MP ND Gupta demanded seizure of all documents quoted by The Hindu newspaper by the CBI so that no "tampering" is done to "dilute the seriousness" of the matter. Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Friday alleged that the PMO was directly involved in negotiations with the French on the Rafale deal and the prime minister was guilty in the "scam". The Rafale deal issue rocked the Lok Sabha as well, with Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman dismissing the media report as "flogging a dead horse" and slamming the opposition for playing into the hands of vested interests. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Budget airline IndiGo has approached the Reserve Bank seeking relaxation in foreign exchange norms regarding use of Indian rupees for onboard sales in international flights. Union Minister Pon Radhakrishnan Friday told the Lok Sabha that an appropriate decision on the matter would be taken by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) after due process. IndiGo is the country's largest airline in terms of domestic market share and also flies to more than 15 international destinations. In a written reply, the Minister of State for Finance said that the RBI has received an application from IndiGo to effect in-flight sales in Indian rupees on its international flights. Approval has been sought "to export currency notes up to Rs 1,50,000 to enable them to provide the change to passengers making purchases onboard in Indian rupees on its international flights", he said. According to the minister, the airline has also sought permission to import "without any limit", currency notes in rupees that are collected from the passengers making in-flight purchases in domestic currencies on its overseas flights. Currently, airlines are free to accept Indian rupees from a passenger towards goods and services offered onboard, subject to provisions under the Foreign Exchange Management (Export and Import of Currency) Regulations. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) More than 450 Indians have confirmed their British citizenship under the government's 'Windrush Scheme', set up in the wake of an immigration scandal last year. The 'Windrush Generation' refers to citizens of former British colonies who arrived in the UK before 1973, when the rights of such Commonwealth citizens to live and work in Britain were substantially curtailed. While a large proportion of them were of Jamaican/Caribbean descent, they also included Indians and other South Asians, said Rob McNeil, Deputy Director of the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford. Indians emerged as one of the largest groups affected, after Caribbean nationals, in the scandal involving Commonwealth nationals wrongly denied their citizenship rights in Britain. In an update to Parliament Thursday, Home Secretary Sajid Javid said at least 455 Indians were able to confirm their nationality as British under the scheme. A majority of them (367) arrived in the UK before 1973, when the immigration rules changed, while others either arrived later or were a family member of the so-called 'Windrush Generation'. "On May 24, 2018, I issued a Written Ministerial Statement to the House setting out the 'Windrush Scheme', which ensures that members of this generation, their children born in the UK and those who arrived in the UK as minors will be able to apply for citizenship, or various other immigration products, free of charge," Javid, the UK's senior-most Pakistani-origin minister, said in a letter addressed to the Chair of the Commons' Home Affairs Select Committee (HASC). "These are the individuals who approached the Taskforce to request confirmation of their status and were issued with a document to confirm the British nationality they already possessed," he said. The immigrants referred to under the bracket of 'Windrush Generation' relates to a ship named 'Windrush', which brought Jamaican workers to the UK shores in 1948. The scandal emerged last year as many, including Indians, who arrived as children around that period were struggling to access state services or even threatened with deportation because they did not possess any documents to prove they arrived in Britain before 1973. The UK Home Office set up a 'Windrush Taskforce' in April last year to deal with a backlog of thousands of such cases, with the home secretary providing regular updates to HASC Chair Yvette Cooper on the progress of the scheme. In the latest update, the minister confirmed that as of the end of December 2018, a total of 3,406 people have been granted citizenship under the scheme. The UK government has already made a formal apology amid uproar over the scandal last year, with a compensation scheme planned for those affected by a failure to have their citizenship rights recognised. "I can reassure members that my department remains entirely focused on righting the wrongs experienced by the 'Windrush Generation'," Javid said in his latest update. It also emerged that of the 83 individuals found to have been wrongly removed from the UK, 10 have since died. The UK Home Office has made contact with 52 but have been unable to contact a further 21. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Delhi High Court on Friday reserved its verdict on TTV Dhinakaran and VK Sasikala's pleas challenging the Election Commission's (EC) decision to recognise the group led by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister E K Palaniswami as the real AIADMK party and allotting it the 'two leaves' symbol. A bench of Justices G S Sistani and Sangita Dhingra Sehgal asked all the sides, including the two leaders and the Palaniswami faction, to file their statements within three days so that it can write the judgement and deliver it within four weeks. The bench said it was giving three days to file the written statements as it wants to pronounce the verdict within four weeks in view of the Supreme Court order of Thursday that EC can decide Dhinakaran's plea for an interim poll symbol, if the high court's decision does not come within four weeks. Dinakaran had floated Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK) after he and Sasikala were expelled from the Palaniswami-led AIADMK. The apex court had also vacated its order of abeyance on the high court's interim decision of March 9, 2018 which directed the EC to allot a common symbol, preferably that of a 'pressure cooker', and a name to the then AIADMK (Amma) faction led by Dhinakaran. The top court had said that since the matter was pending before the high court for final adjudication, there was no just reason as to why the interim arrangement of allotting 'pressure cooker' symbol by the poll panel ought not continue. "If the writ petition is not finally disposed of by the division bench of the High Court within four weeks from today, the ECI shall process the application of the group represented by respondent No.1 (Dhinakaran) in terms of the directions given by the High Court vide interim order dated March 9, 2018 and issue appropriate directions within two weeks there from (i.e., four weeks plus two weeks, from today)," it had said. It had also said, that if before the expiry of six weeks period the EC issues any notification for bypolls for vacant assembly seats in Tamil Nadu or parliamentary elections, the poll panel shall pass appropriate directions as per the high court's order. The apex court's order had come on an application filed by Dhinakaran for a direction to the EC for allocating his group a common symbol, preferably 'pressure cooker', as a by-election to fill the vacant assembly seat of Thiruvarur in Tamil Nadu had been announced and the date of polling had been fixed as January 28. Later, the by-election to Thiruvarur seat was rescinded by a notification issued by the EC on January 6. The 'pressure cooker' symbol was allotted, as an interim measure, to Dinakaran faction last year during the bypolls of the R K Nagar constituency in the state which he had won with a margin of over 40,000 votes. During the brief arguments on Friday, senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing Dhinakaran, told the high court that his client's faction was backed by majority of AIADMK members, but the poll panel had not considered the fact. The EC on November 23, 2017 had allotted the 'two leaves' symbol to the group headed by Palaniswami and his deputy O Panneerselvam. The EC in March 2017 had given the 'hat' symbol to the Sasikala-Dhinakaran group after it froze the use of the 'two-leaves' symbol to which the group led by Palaniswami and Panneerselvam had also staked claim. The Palaniswami-Panneerselvam faction had at the same time been granted the 'electric pole' symbol. However, on November 23, 2017, the poll panel had ruled in favour of the Palaniswami-Panneerselvam faction by allotting the 'two-leaves' symbol to them. The symbol issue has been lingering since April 2017 in the aftermath of the announcement of the by-poll to Radha Krishnan Nagar constituency in Tamil Nadu following the death of AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaa in December 2016. Earlier, rival factions led by Sasikala and Panneerselvam had staked claim over the symbol. Palaniswami was then in the Sasikala camp. Later, a large number of legislators led by Palaniswami revolted against Sasikala. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Delhi High Court Friday granted exemption to TV journalist Arnab Goswami from personal appearance before a trial court till March 15 in a criminal libel complaint filed by an advocate for allegedly making defamatory remarks on a channel. Justice R K Gauba, before whom the matter was listed, also transferred it to a coordinate bench before whom other pleas connected to the incident are pending. The court was hearing the scribe's plea challenging the summons issued to him by a magistrate in the defamation complaint in which advocate Vikram Singh Chauhan had claimed that he was deliberately and wilfully defamed by Goswami and others on a TV channel. The alleged remarks were made during the broadcast of a programme relating to the violence that took place at the Patiala House court, following the 2016 Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) incident where anti-India slogans were allegedly raised. The connected matters are listed for hearing before the coordinate bench on March 15, in which the court has granted interim relief to those who have filed the pleas. During the day, when the high court was informed by the journalist's counsel that the matter is scheduled to come for hearing before the trial court on February 11, the judge said "the petitioner (Goswami) shall have exemption from personal appearance before the trial court till March 15. Be listed on March 15, subject to the order of the Chief Justice". Advocate Vijay Aggarwal, representing Chauhan, and advocate Siddharth Aggarwal, who was appearing for Goswami, agreed that this plea ought to be heard by the same bench and it be transferred to the coordinate bench. In his complaint, the advocate had submitted that during the programme on February 19, 2016, Goswami had levelled "baseless and humiliating" allegations against him. He had said the defamatory allegations were levelled against him with the motive to tarnish his reputation and to wreak vengeance against him with a view to destroy his career. The magistrate had said the imputations against the lawyer were prima facie against his reputation and there was sufficient material to summon the scribe and others for the alleged offence of defamation. The offence of defamation under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) entails a maximum of two-year imprisonment or fine or both. On February 15, 2016, when accused Kanhaiya Kumar was brought before the Patiala House Court for his remand, a mob which included several lawyers allegedly beat up Kumar and several journalists. The situation continued on February 17, 2016 when the concerned magistrate was forced to conduct the proceedings in his chamber due to security concerns. The incident, caught on camera, allegedly showed Chauhan being part of the mob. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Delhi High Court has granted one-day parole to a suspected Indian Mujahideen (IM) operative, serving life term for killing a police officer in the Batla House encounter, to attend his sister's wedding in Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh, but directed that he will go there in police custody. A bench of Justices Hima Kohli and Vinod Goel said the convict, Shahzad Ahmad, shall be taken on Saturday in "proper police escort" to attend the marriage of his sister. The court also said that, if required, the in-charge of the escorting police party can keep the convict overnight in a lock-up at the local police station during the course of the journey. The bench, in its order of February 5, also said that expenses of the journey, including his and the police party's train tickets, shall be initially borne by the jail authorities and would be reimbursed by the petitioner before the next date of hearing in the trial court on February 16. Delhi government additional standing counsel (criminal) Rajesh Mahajan, during the hearing, opposed the grant of parole, saying that five criminal cases are registered against Ahmad in respect of the 2008 serial blasts in various parts of Delhi which had resulted in the death of 26 persons and injured 135 others. The lawyer said that Ahmad was sentenced to life imprisonment for the killing of Inspector M C Sharma in the Batla House encounter of 2008. Mahajan also said if parole was to be granted to the petitioner then he should be sent in police custody as was done in 2017 when the trial court had allowed him to attend the wedding of his other sister, but under a police escort. The high court's order came on Ahmad's plea seeking parole for a week to attend his sister's wedding scheduled to be held on February 9 evening. The trial court had in 2013 convicted Ahmad for murder, attempt to murder, obstructing and assaulting public servants and grievously injuring the police officers to deter them from performing their duty. The encounter had taken place at flat no. L-18, Batla House in Jamia Nagar locality of South Delhi on September 19, 2008, six days after serial bomb blasts rocked the national capital. According to the police, Ahmad had fled the scene after firing at the officers who had raided the flat. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Gujjar leader and his supporters Friday began a sit-in on the rail tracks in Rajasthan's Sawai Madhopur district, forcing authorities to divert trains. The protesters are demanding five per cent to Gujjars, Raika-Rebari, Gadia Luhar, Banjara and Gadaria in government jobs and educational institutions. Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot appealed to the people to maintain peace. Train movement was affected due to the dharna at Malarna Doongar tehsil -- around 125 km southeast of Jaipur. Seven trains were diverted in the Sawai Madhopur-Bayana section in Kota division, said Abhay Sharma, chief public relations officer of the North Western Railway. "Things are changing fast. I have not come here, but the crowd has brought me on the railway tracks. People cannot be fooled all the time. It is a fight to do or die. The state government should stand on its promise. It will be a peaceful protest. I will lead the protest and the youths will support," Bainsla, who heads the Gujjar Arakshan Sangharsh Samiti, told reporters. Additional police forces have been deployed in Bharatpur police range -- under which Sawai Madhopur falls -- to tackle any law-and-order situation. "Seventeen RAC (Rajasthan Armed Constabulary) companies, including a special task force, have been deployed in the range," Bhupendra Sahu, inspector general of Bharatpur Range, said. "Senior police officers, who have experience of working in the area, have been assigned duties. The situation is completely under control," Sahu added. Gehlot said the government was ready to hold talks. "The government is serious in resolving the issue and ready to hold talks. The Congress government had heard the issues in the previous tenure and made efforts at the state level. I appeal people to maintain peace." Congress sources said a committee, comprising Health Minister Raghu Sharma, Tourism Minister Vishvendra Singh, Social Justice Minister Master Bhanwar Lal and senior government officials, had been constituted to hold talks with the agitators. Bainsla had last month gave a 20-day ultimatum to the state government to clear its stand on over the demand, failing which he threatened of reviving the quota agitation. As the deadline lapsed on Friday, Bainsla held a 'maha panchayat' at Malarna Doongar and started the sit-in. Currently, the five communities are getting one-per cent separate under the most-backward category in addition to the Other Backward Class (OBC) quota. The Gujarat High Court Friday granted anticipatory bail to social activist Teesta Setalvad and her husband Javed Anand in the Rs 1.4 crore alleged fund embezzlement case related to their NGO Sabrang Trust. While allowing their anticipatory bail plea, Justice J B Pardiwala directed Setalvad and Anand to cooperate with the probe and appear before the investigating agency, the city crime branch, on February 15. In a word of caution, the judge said the state government can approach the court to get their bail cancelled if the couple does not cooperate in the investigation. The activist couple had moved the high court in May last year after a lower court rejected their anticipatory bail plea in the alleged fund embezzlement case. The duo had moved the lower court following an FIR lodged against them on March 30 last year by the complainant Raees Khan Pathan, a former aide of Setalvad. Pathan had lodged a complaint against the duo and some unidentified officials of the HRD Ministry, following which they had been booked under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. It is alleged that both the accused had misused the funds to pay witnesses to make false deposition in some of the post-Godhra riot cases of 2002. In its earlier submissions, the Gujarat Police had said that the HRD Ministry had granted Rs 1.4 crore between 2010 and 2013 to their NGO for a scheme under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. According to police, the couple had misused the funds, meant for education, for their "personal and political cause". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Guantanamo Bay detention center would receive new prisoners for the first time in more than a decade under one option being considered as the US withdraws its forces from Syria and works to resolve the fate of hundreds of captured suspected Islamic State fighters, officials say. US-backed Syrian fighters have custody of nearly 1,000 suspected IS fighters who the State Department said should be sent back to their home countries and prosecuted. The Syrian fighters have warned they may not be able to continue to hold the IS fighters after the withdrawal of American forces from Syria ordered by President Donald Trump in December. If they can't be repatriated, though, the detention centre on the US base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, could be used to hold them "where lawful and appropriate," the State Department said Thursday. "The Administration's National Strategy for Counterterrorism makes very clear that Law of Armed Conflict detention, including at Guantanamo, remains an important and effective counterterrorism tool," it said in a statement to The Associated Press in response to questions about the prisoners. Trump had said in his first State of the Union last year that he would use Guantanamo "in many cases" to detain prisoners as part of the fight against Islamic State and al-Qaida. As a candidate, when asked about what he would do with the controversial detention centre, he said he would "load it up with some bad dudes." But the administration has not added any prisoners to the detention centre that President Barack Obama sought to close and officials say that sending suspected Islamic State fighters back to their homelands remains the preferred choice. "Repatriating foreign terrorist fighters to their countries of origin and ensuring they are prosecuted and detained is the best solution to prevent them from returning to the battlefield," the State Department said. A US official, said Guantanamo is the "option of last resort." The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the US has identified about 50 people among the more than 900 held by Syrian forces as "high value" suspects that could be transported to Guantanamo if they are not repatriated. Sending Islamic State prisoners to Guantanamo would open up new legal challenges, according to experts. The US is allowed to detain al-Qaida and "associated forces" at Guantanamo under the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force. But whether Islamic State group fighters meets that criteria is an untested question, said Robert Chesney, a national security law professor at the University of Texas. "No court has ever once had the case and the executive branch for many years has really not wanted the court to answer that question," Chesney said. The US began holding prisoners suspected of links to al-Qaida and the Taliban in January 2002, drawing intense international criticism for holding men indefinitely without charge amid reports of mistreatment at the isolated base on the southeastern tip of Cuba. Guantanamo held nearly 700 prisoners at its peak in the summer of 2003. Amid legal challenges and international pressure, more than 500 were released under President George W Bush. Obama viewed the detention centre as a waste of money that damaged America's reputation and ordered it closed but was blocked by Congress. There are now 40 prisoners held, including nine who have been charged and are facing trial by military commission in proceedings that have dragged on for years. From a purely practical standpoint, US military officials have said they could accommodate additional prisoners at the base. The forces overseeing Guantanamo prison say the prison can hold 40 more people "with no additional staffing" and the facility could accommodate 200 more inmates total, "with minimal adjustments to current infrastructure and manpower," said Navy Cdr. Adam Bashaw, a spokesman for the military task force that runs the detention centre. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Greek lawmakers have approved Macedonia's NATO accession bid, putting the final touches on a historic deal to end a 27-year name row between the two countries. A majority of 153 lawmakers supported the legislation, while 140 voted against. "Today's vote closes the most important round of obligations involving Greece," Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras told parliament ahead of the vote on Friday. "I'd like to welcome North Macedonia, a country friendly to Greece, a country that must be an ally in efforts to establish security, stability and peace in the region. "History will judge us. I feel we have carried out our patriotic duty," Tsipras said. The ratification was part of a deal signed in June to change Macedonia's name to the Republic of North Macedonia, and lift Greek objections to its EU and NATO membership bids. Tsipras on Friday said the deal had "upgraded" Greece's international standing. Skopje must adopt the new name "in the public discourse, in addition to all street signs and official documents," he added. Since 1991, Athens has objected to its neighbour being called Macedonia because Greece has a northern province of the same name. In ancient times it was the cradle of Alexander the Great's empire, a source of intense pride for Greeks. On Wednesday, Skopje signed NATO accession papers in Brussels that will lead to Macedonia becoming the alliance's 30th member once the bid has been ratified by all members. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has said Macedonia may now take part in NATO ministerial meetings as an invitee, starting with a gathering of defence ministers in Brussels next week. For Skopje to achieve full membership, NATO'S 29 current members must ratify the accession protocol. When Montenegro joined in 2017 that process took about a year. NATO and the EU believe Macedonia's membership will enhance stability in the Balkans, while the alliance's expansion into the region has been opposed by Russia. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A video clip of a teacher of a government school in Katihar district refusing to recite national song Vande Mataram after flag hoisting ceremony on the Republic Day has gone viral on social media, prompting the department to order a probe, official sources said Friday. The man, who refused to recite Vande Mataram, has been identified as Afzal Hussain, a teacher at government primary school at Abdullapur village under Manihari block of the district. Vande Mataram, the national song, was written by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay in 1870s. District Officer (DEO) Dinesh Chandra Dev took note of the matter after video of the episode hogged the limelight in the social media and directed Manihari Block Officer (BEO) to probe the matter. BEO Ashok Kumar, who went to the school to probe the incident, said that the incident prima facie seems to be true and the said teacher continue to justify his act. Some parents and teachers of the school have demanded disciplinary action against Hussain. DEO said Friday that he would take necessary action as per the rules once he gets the probe report. Afzal Hussain, the teacher, however, said that reciting Vande Mataram is against his religious belief. We believe in Allah only and can not bow my head to anyone as it is against our religious belief. It is nowhere mentioned in the Constitution that one has to recite Vande Mataram, Hussain said adding that I still hold the same view of not reciting Vande Mataram nor would ask children to do so. The villagers seemed angry with teachers view on the national song. The person does not have any right to stay in the country if he/she refuses to say Vande Mataram, a villager Deo Narayan Ojha said. The teacher has shown disrespect to the national song by not reciting it and hence such teacher needs to be given strict punishment, Suchit Narayan Ojha, another villager, said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy Friday saidthat his government was examining the viability and pros and cons of establishing Metro Rail projects in Mysuru, Mangaluru and Hubballi-Dharawad. He also announced that by adopting certain modifications in the Suburban Rail Policy-2018, suburban rail services in Bengaluru would be implemented at a total estimated cost of Rs 23,093 crore, by establishing a Special Purpose Vehicle called Bengaluru Rail Infrastructure Development Entity (B-RIDE) under State and Central Government partnership. "Generally, across the world, the Metro Rail System can be found in cities having more than 20 lakh population. This is economically useful also. However, certain demands have been received from Mysuru, Mangaluru and Hubballi- Dharawad to establish the Metro Rail System in these cities," Kumaraswamy said. Presenting his government's second budget in the legislative assembly, he said that in this background, they were examining the viability and pros and cons of establishing Metro Rail Project in these cities. The existing operationalised Bengaluru Metro has 42.3 KM network,carrying an average of 3.75 lakh passengers every day. Also, 'Parking Rules and Implementation Programme' would be prepared in Tier-II cities, the chief minister said, adding that a study would be conducted on reformed traffic information and maintenance system. To provide facilities to passengers and reduce traffic congestion in Bengaluru, a design and action plan report would be prepared for Multi Modal Transport Hub at Hebbal, Byappannahalli, K.R.Puram, Kadugodi, Challaghatta and Peenya areas, he said. There were plans to develop necessary infrastructure to provide seamless integration between Metro, Rail and TTMC at its strategically located transit infrastructure sites to facilitate Inter-Modal Integration design in Bengaluru, Kumaraswamy said. He also said that he intended to launch a comprehensive scheme for the mobility of Bengaluru,adding that an important aspect of it was to decrease movement of private vehicles by concentrating on well established public transport. This year, for the benefit of pedestrians, footpaths coming within a 50 km radius of the city would be developed, for which a grant of Rs 50 crore would be provided. The budget proposed that the about five lakh street lights in Bengaluru be converted to LED in the next three years. Action would be initiatedto upgrade these lights into smart LED using the latest technology, he said. Also, the prime commercial streets in Bengaluru like Church Street, Commercial Street and Brigade Road would be converted into pedestrian roads, the chief minister said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Facebook is pushing back against a German ruling that could make it harder for the company to combine data from all the services it runs in order to target ads even more precisely. Thursday's ruling, though aimed at current practices, hints at potential troubles ahead if Facebook follows through with plans to integrate the messaging functions of WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger as early as next year. German antitrust authorities ruled Thursday that Facebook was exploiting its dominance in social media to force users to share data from other Facebook-owned services like WhatsApp and Instagram, as well as third-party websites through the "Like" and "Share" buttons. The Federal Cartel Office, or Bundeskartellamt, isn't contesting Facebook's use of customer data to target ads on the main Facebook service. Rather, the ruling said Facebook should have to get permission separately before using customer data from other apps and websites to do so. Facebook said it would appeal. The company currently collects data on users' activities on Facebook and the other apps it owns, along with third-party websites. So, what someone views, likes or shares on Instagram or the broader web could be used to show that person an ad on Facebook. Facebook also has been moving to further integrate WhatsApp and Instagram into its main service after initially promising to keep both as stand-alone companies when it bought them. Although Facebook hasn't given many details on its plans to integrate messaging, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said recently that the idea is to help users message one another more easily, without having to worry about who's on which service. The company also said it would encrypt all the messaging services, something it does by default only with WhatsApp. But critics have raised another possible reason the threat of antitrust crackdowns. Essentially, if Facebook combines its messaging services so that they are different in name and design only, it will be much more difficult, if not impossible, to then separate out and spin off Instagram and WhatsApp as separate companies. Combining the three services also lets Facebook build more complete data profiles on all of its users. Already, businesses can already target Facebook and Instagram users together with the same ad campaign, and ads are likely coming to WhatsApp eventually. Then there's competition from other messaging services, such as Apple's or Google's. Users are more likely to stay within Facebook's properties if they can easily message their friends across different services, rather than having to switch between Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram. Privacy attorney Scott Vernick said he expects the integration plans to draw regulatory scrutiny, particularly in Europe. That's because of Facebook's promises that it would keep the companies separate when it bought Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014. WhatsApp's founders quit the company over disagreements about user privacy. "There is a high chance for antitrust concerns, as well as those over how user data is collected and used," Vernick said. There are also worries that Facebook could build deeper profiles, such as by linking phone numbers to real-life identities, he added. Facebook doesn't require users to add their phone number, but WhatsApp is generally used with phone numbers. Between the two, Facebook gets more data. In ruling that Facebook was a "dominant company," the Cartel Office said it was subject to "special obligations under competition law" and "must take into account that Facebook users practically cannot switch to other social networks." "The only choice the user has is either to accept the comprehensive combination of data or to refrain from using the social network," it said in its judgment. "In such a difficult situation the user's choice cannot be referred to as voluntary consent." The office said many users were not aware that Facebook is able to "collect an almost unlimited amount of any type of user data from third-party sources."Facebook said German authorities underestimated the competition Facebook has in Germany from YouTube, Snapchat, Twitter and others. The company said it had been cooperating with the Cartel Office since 2016 and would "defend these important arguments in court." Regardless of whether the German ruling which would only apply in Germany sticks, Vernick said the European data protection commission is already looking closely at Facebook's integration plans and the data it collects across all its services and beyond. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Notorious gangster Ankit Bhadu, who was killed in an encounter with the Punjab Police in Mohali district, was using sophisticated weapons to carry out his criminal activities, a senior police official said Friday. The Punjab Police neutralised Bhadu of the dreaded Lawrence Bishnoi gang and arrested his accomplices Jarmanpreet Singh and Gurvinder Singh during an encounter in a residential locality near Zirakpur in Mohali on Thursday night, IGP Intelligence, Organised Crime Control Unit (OCCU), Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh told reporters here. Bhadu's both accomplices belong to Tarn Taran district, he added. The official said Bhadu, who hailed from Siriey Wala village in Abhor, Punjab, and the two accomplices were wanted in over two dozen cases pertaining to murder, contract killing, extortion and other heinous crimes. Bhadu's arrested accomplices, who did not belong to any particular gang, had taken the flat on rent, "which they were basically using as a hideout", he said. Not paying heed to repeated warnings by the police asking him to surrender, Bhadu had jumped inside a nearby flat where he held hostage two minor children of the family, the IGP said. "Bhadu fired on the police team and assistant sub-inspector Sukhwinder Singh got injured during the crossfire when a bullet pierced through his left thigh. While two of his main accomplices were arrested during the encounter, Bhadu died on the way to the hospital," he said. The official said the hostages were freed by the police. The IGP said three pistols, including one sophisticated smuggled weapon, and 43 live cartridges were recovered from the encounter site. Bhadu was using these weapons to carry out his criminal activities, he added. "Some of the weapons are of foreign make. Further investigations are going on to get more information on that," the officer said. The IGP further said Bhadu was wanted by the police of several states. The Rajasthan and Haryana Police had kept a reward of Rs 1 lakh each on his head, while the Punjab Police 2 lakh, he added. "Bhadu was involved in numerous cases of extortion and murder in Punjab, Rajasthan, Haryana, Delhi, UP, HP and other neighbouring states. "He was accused in seven murder cases: killing of one person in Ganganagar, Rajasthan, besides murdering Daljit Singh, husband of a councillor in Banur, Punjab, murdering a jeweller and a brother of a police inspector and killing of a rival gang member in Haryana's Bahadurgarh," the IGP said. He said a team of the Punjab Police had been camping in Delhi and nearby areas in search of Bhadu. After getting specific inputs following the Bahadurgarh gang war incident on February 6, police tracked him down and carried out the operation, he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Jharkhand High Court Friday granted bail to former Jharkhand chief secretary Sajal Chakraborty in a fodder scam case. Justice Awadhesh Kumar Singh accepted the bail plea of Chakraborty in the case. He, however, will have to stay in the jail as he has not secured bail in another case of the fodder scam. Chakraborty was convicted in the two cases along with former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad, other political leaders, bureaucrats and fodder suppliers. The multi-crore fodder scam was unearthed in the early 1990s when Prasad was the chief minister of undivided Bihar. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Five people were killed in a fire at a camp for those displaced by Boko Haram violence in northeast Nigeria, an eyewitness and a humanitarian source said on Friday. The blaze broke out on Thursday at the camp housing some 7,500 internally displaced persons in the garrison town of Monguno, in Borno state. The displaced people were preparing breakfast when the fire broke out, gutting makeshift tents. "Five people were killed in the fire -- three children and two women," an aid worker with a humanitarian agency in the town told AFP. "The fire started from the kitchen around 11:30 am (1030 GMT) and spread all over the camp," added the worker, who did not want to be identified. Witness Adam Sheriff said firefighters tried in vain to put out the inferno which gutted the camp in 40 minutes. Monguno is some 140 kilometres northeast of the Borno state capital, Maiduguri, and houses tens of thousands of displaced people in sprawling camps. Most of them had fled their homes in northern Borno and moved to Monguno to protect themselves against Boko Haram attacks. The town has seen an influx of internally displaced people from the fishing town of Baga on the shores of Lake Chad 60 km away, following attacks last December against a naval base and another for regional forces. Last month, the UN said more than 30,000 people fled to seek refuge around Maiduguri. Boko Haram's decade-long insurgency has killed 27,000 people and displaced some 1.8 million in northeast Nigeria alone. The violence has also spilled into neighbouring Niger, Chad and Cameroon, creating a dire humanitarian crisis. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Armed men have killed five civilians and attacked a military position in the eastern DR Congo city of Beni, the army's regional spokesman told AFP Friday. The attackers raided the city's southern district of Rwangoma overnight, said spokesman Major Mak Hazukay. "We pushed them back, we are continuing to hunt them," he said, adding that the group had yet to be identified. Local resident Kizito Bin Hangi said that the assailants had wielded machetes and guns and that residents, outraged by the killings, demonstrated afterwards. More than a hundred armed groups, both local and foreign, are active in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Hundreds of civilians have died in the Beni area alone in the last five years. Newly-elected President Felix Tshisekedi promised while on the campaign trail to restore security to the troubled region. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A special Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) court in Gandhinagar Friday issued a bailable warrant against Gujarat minister Purshottam Solanki after he failed to appear before the court in the alleged Rs 400-crore fisheries scam. Special court judge R M Vora issued the warrant against Solanki and kept the matter for hearing on March 2, before which, the BJP leader is required to approach the court to get the warrant cancelled. Apart from Solanki, who is Minister of State for Fisheries in the BJP government in Gujarat, the ACB court had also initiated proceedings against former minister Dileep Sanghani and issued summons to both of them in the past. Sanghani's lawyer was present in the court on Friday. However, as neither Solanki nor his lawyer were present, the court issued a warrant against him. In December last year, the Gujarat High Court had rejected Solanki and Sanghani's petitions challenging proceedings initiated against them by the special court. Both of them had moved the high court after the ACB court in Gandhinagar issued summons to them, taking into account an ACB inquiry report about the alleged irregularities in awarding fishing contracts. The case dates back to 2008 when Solanki was MoS Fisheries and Sanghani the cabinet minister for agriculture. At that time, Palanpur-based businessman Ishaq Maradia had moved the high court alleging that Solanki flouted the rules by allotting contracts without following the tendering process. Maradia had alleged that Solanki was involved in a "scam" as he illegally granted contracts for fishing in 58 reservoirs across the state. In 2013, Maradia filed an application in the ACB court demanding criminal prosecution of Solanki and Sanghani under the Prevention of Corruption Act. After the case was lodged against Solanki and Sanghani in 2013, the Gandhinagar court had asked the ACB to conduct an inquiry into the allegations and asked the officials to submit a report. A report in this regard was submitted before the ACB court in 2015, which had indicated irregularities while awarding the contracts for fisheries. Following these findings, suggesting irregularities, the special ACB court had issued proceedings against the two under the Prevention of Corruption Act and issued summons to them. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A day before Kolkata Police commissioner Rajeev Kumar's scheduled questioning by CBI sleuths, the city police Friday conducted raids on two properties of a non-banking finance company, allegedly linked to the agency's former interim director Nageswara Rao's wife, a senior police officer said. The raids were conducted in two offices of Angela Mercantiles Pvt. Ltd. -- one in the city and the other in adjoining Salt Lake -- as part of the city police's probe into an old complaint lodged at the Bowbazar Police Station, the officer said. A team of around 30 police officers raided the two offices, allegedly linked to Rao's wife Mannem Sandhya, he said. "There have been a series of transactions between the company and Mannem Sandhya. We are looking into the matter," the police officer said. In a statement, Rao, who is currently the additional director of CBI, said, "I deny the linkage of this firm with my family members as reported by some media outlets today." "In light of certain reporting appearing in some media outlets, including some TV channels today linking my family members with a company on which Kolkata Police has carried out raids, I want to state that I had already clarified regarding this issue through a signed press statement on 30th October, 2018. "Further, complete details of all property of my family and mine have already been submitted in my annual property return submitted to the government which are available on Ministry of Home Affairs' website," the statement said. According to a Kolkata Police source, the owner of the company might be called for questioning on Saturday. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Congress leader and former MLA Mukesh has said that Thursday's hailstorm "severely destroyed" crops in Delhi and has sought compensation for farmers from the government. The four-time legislator said areas in outer Delhi, such as Najafgarh and Bawana blocks, faced heavy brunt of the hailstorm. "Crops of lakhs of farmers have been completely destroyed, especially mustard crop. I appeal to the Delhi government and the Lt Governor to award compensation to these affected farmers," he said. The senior leader added that the compensation was needed all the more as it was a wedding season, and so farmers would be even more financially stricken. "It is a humanitarian issue, and both the Delhi government and the Lt Governor should look into it," Sharma said. Heavy rains and hailstorm accompanied by strong winds lashed the city on Thursday and brought the mercury down by four to five notches. Hailstorms hit several parts of Delhi and its adjacent areas, throwing life out of gear. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis Friday ruled out the possibility of simultaneous Lok Sabha and Assembly polls in Maharashtra. His comments come a day after state Congress president Ashok Chavan predicted that elections would be held simultaneously, and asked party workers to be prepared to face the polls. Fadnavis said his government did not intend to prepone the Assembly polls and added the two elections will be held as per their respective schedules. Making light of Chavan's remarks, the chief minister said the Congress leader had "developed" the habit of predicting future as he was "left with no work" in his party. "Ashokrao should not hurry into occupying Opposition benches again. We are going to hold the elections on (their respective) time. We do not intend to prepone (the Assembly) polls," Fadnavis told reporters in Palghar district after an event. Addressing a Congress rally in Aurangabad Thursday, Chavan had claimed that Fadnavis would dissolve the state Assembly on February 28 when its session concludes. Chavan reiterated it while speaking to reporters in Pune on Friday. The Lok Sabha polls are due in April-May, while the Assembly polls are likely to be held in October this year. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Meghalaya Deputy Chief Minister Prestone Tynsong on Friday admitted the prevalence of child labour in the state but said a mechanism has been put in place to ensure that the state is completely free of the social malaise. Tynsong also hit out at an NGO for its claim to have detected 70,000 cases of child labour in the coal mines of the northeastern state. "The government does not say that there is no child labour here. We do have. But the fact is that a mechanism is now in place. "We have constituted district task forces headed by deputy commissioners and there is enough manpower. Labour inspectors are posted in each of the 46 blocks and we hope that the state will be a child labour free state," he said. The deputy chief minister was addressing a workshop, jointly organized by the National Human Rights Commission and the states labour department, on the eradication of bonded labour and child labour. During 2010-11, the Planning Commission had asked for a clarification from the state government on a report of a city-based NGO, which claimed to have detected over 70,000 children working in the coal mines, the deputy chief minister said. He said the cabinet had taken up the matter and a report was sought within a week. "When the report came, it was found to be untrue. I do not know how they (NGO) collected the information," he said. Labour Commissioner B Mawlong said the NGO report was "far-fetched" but admitted that instances of child labour have been detected from time to time in Jaintia Hills district. Labour inspectors have conducted over 31,600 inspections and a state protocol on child labour has been published on how to prevent, rescue children from getting forced into labour and also to assist the victims, Mawlong said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) "Don't force us to take coercive action against you," the Supreme Court on Friday told the Rajasthan government, which sought time for completing the ground truthing exercise of illegal mining in Aravalli areas. The ground truthing exercise is conducted to ascertain the empirical evidence at the actual site. The top court said there has been lethargy on part of concerned authorities in completing the task in compliance with the apex court order. It restrained mining from Modha Pahad area of Jhunjhunu district in Rajasthan and directed the authorities to forthwith stop all the excavations going on. A bench of Justices Arun Mishra and Deepak Gupta asked the Rajasthan government to furnish all the relevant details of operational leases for mining and names of persons responsible for the destruction of environment by February 15. "Don't force us to take any coercive action against you. You have not completed the work as directed by the court. Earlier, you have said that ground truthing exercise will be completed within three months. There is lethargy on part of concerned authorities. This work needs to be completed by March 4 otherwise we will hold chief secretary for sheer contempt," the bench told the Rajasthan chief secretary who was present in the court room. The top court is dealing with a matter related to alleged illegal mining activities in the Aravalli range. The court asked senior advocate C S Vaidyanathan, appearing for the state government to file compliance report by March 13 and listed the matter for further hearing on March 21. Vaidyanathan said that due to Assembly elections in state, the work was not completed and now Lok Sabha polls were also approaching. "We want each and every detail of mining. When were the leases granted and by what time these leases are expiring. Which leases are operational and which are closed," the bench said. Vaidyanathan said 24 leases were granted in the area and out of them five were closed for violation of norms and 13 were operational. The bench after perusing the status report said that the leases which are operational have also been found to be violating the environmental norms. "Under the guise of mining, illegal activities are taking place and encroachments are made," the bench said. The senior advocate said leases are being cancelled, if anyone is found to be breaching the conditions. To this, the bench expressed unhappiness with the functioning of the state government and said when the illegal mining was going on in violation of the court's order, then why were they not stopped. The court also pulled up an advocate appearing for the state government for a gesture he made and said "this also amounts to contempt". On February 4, the apex court had pulled up the Rajasthan government and said the entire government machinery was rotten and it seemed the officials were hand in glove with those who have been indulging in illegal mining in Aravalli area of the state. It had expressed anguish over destruction of flora and fauna in the area. The apex court had come down heavily on the Rajasthan government after it cited the recent Assembly elections and the upcoming Lok Sabha polls as the reasons for not completing ground truthing exercise to ascertain the area where illegal mining had allegedly been conducted. The court had directed the chief secretary of the state to appear before it for an explanation. The bench had referred to last year's October 29 order of the apex court which had noted the submissions of Rajasthan's chief secretary that approximately 27 per cent ground truthing of the area was complete and remaining work would be done within three months. Referring to the order, the court had said, "Three-month period is over now. What have you done? You already knew that elections will be there. Why have you not completed the work? Call your chief secretary". The Rajasthan government had last year told the apex court that no illegal mining was going on in 115.34 hectares of land in Aravalli area of the state The court had in October last year expressed shock over 31 "vanished" hills in the Aravalli area and had asked the state to stop illegal mining in the 115.34-hectare area. The court had referred to a report by central empowered committee (CEC) which had said that out of 128 samples taken by the Forest Survey of India (FSI), as many as 31 hills or hillocks have vanished. The state had earlier told the court that all the government departments concerned in Rajasthan were "on the job" to stop illegal mining. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) : DMK president M K Stalin Friday strongly condemned the killing of a PMK functionary who questioned an alleged bid by a group to convert people to Islam. Following the arrest of five people, suspected to be associated with an Islamic outfit for the killing, Stalin in his tweets demanded that the government expeditiously secure punishment for them. The leader of the opposition in the Assembly asked the government to end such violence. "The AIADMK government should come forward to guard communal harmony that traditionally prevails in Tamil Nadu by taking stern action against the perpetrators, whichever religion they may belong to," he said. Ramalingam, a PMK functionary and resident of Thirubuvanam near the temple town of Kumbakonam in central Tamil Nadu, was killed on Feb 5 after he questioned a group of men allegedly engaged in proselytising. On Thursday, police said five people -S Nijam Ali, Sarbudeen, Rizwan, Mohamed Azarudeen and Mohamed Raiyaz- were arrested in connection with the PMK functionary's killing. PMK founder S Ramadoss had sought constitution of a Special Investigation Team to probe the case, besides seeking financial compensation to the bereaved family from the central and state governments. BJP leaders, including its Tamil Nadu president Tamilisai Soundararajan had condemned the killing and demanded justice. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A clearer picture is emerging of the young CEO at the centre of the mysterious demise of one of Canada's largest cryptocurrency exchanges, who died while on a visit to India, a Canadian media report said Friday. Gerald Cotten, a Nova Scotia resident originally from Ontario died suddenly while in Rajasthan on December 9, leaving his virtual company, QuadrigaCX, without access to USD 145 million in Bitcoins and other digital assets. His widow, Jennifer Robertson, has said in court documents that Cotten, 30, was the only person with access to his laptop, which is thought to contain the digital keys to the so-called cold wallets containing the missing cryptocurrency. The circumstances surrounding Cotten's death and the way he conducted his business from the couple's home in Fall River, Nova Scotia has led to a flurry of speculation and allegations in internet chat rooms, The Canadian Press reported. It said some former QuadrigaCX users have come forward to raise questions about the 250 million dollars in cash and cryptocurrency owed to 115,000 of them. Cotten signed his will on November 27, 2018 less than two weeks before he died at a private hospital in Jaipur, the report noted. In an application to probate the will, filed on December 21, 2018, Robertson confirmed that the gross value of Cotten's personal property all of which was left to her was 9.6 million dollars. She was granted the right to administer his estate as executor on January 2, the report said. The will specifically states that Robertson was authorised to access his digital assets and "obtain, access, modify, delete and control (his) passwords and other electronic credentials." Robertson, in an affidavit filed January 31, said she was not involved in the business, and she insisted Cotten as QuadrigaCX's CEO and sole director was the only person with access to the private digital keys. The will includes a few details about Cotten's assets, but those items are limited to a section dealing with property that would have been bequeathed to friends and relatives should Robertson die within 30 days of his death, the report said. There was also a plan in place to provide 100,000 dollars to Cotten's in-laws to help them cover the costs of caring for the couple's pet Chihuahuas, Nitro and Gully. Court documents attached to the will include a statement of death from the J.A. Snow Funeral Home in Halifax, dated December 12, which says Cotten died in Jaipur on December 9. The cause of death is not listed. In her affidavit, Robertson says she has been subjected to online threats, slanderous comments and speculation about Cotten's death, "including whether he is really dead." Robertson said Cotten was diagnosed with Crohn's disease at the age of 24, about a year after he co-founded QuadrigaCX with his partner Mike Patryn. She said Cotten died from complications linked to the disease, which disrupts digestion by causing inflammation of the bowels. Fortis Escorts hospital in Jaipur issued a statement on Thursday confirming that Cotten was admitted on December 8, 2018, and that he died from a cardiac arrest the next night. Meanwhile, industry critics have come forward to say the QuadrigaCX debacle has proven to be a major embarrassment for Canada's cryptocurrency industry, which includes more than a dozen exchanges across the country. The British Columbia Securities Commission issued a statement Thursday saying it has been aware of QuadrigaCX's operations since 2017. The agency said QuadrigaCX was not subject to regulation because it did not operate as a marketplace or exchange under securities laws of the province. On Tuesday, the Nova Scotia Supreme Court granted QuadrigaCX protection from its creditors and a 30-day stay of proceedings to given the insolvent company time to find the missing currency and draft a plan to restructure or sell the business. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) An officer of the Delhi Police was shot at allegedly by two men on their bike near Vijay Ghat in Delhi, police said Friday. Assistant Sub Inspector Bedi Ram (50), who is posted at Nizamuddin police station, was heading home after his duty on Thursday night when he was attacked by the men, who were yet to identified. On his way home, when Bedi Ram reached the underpass behind Vijay Ghat, two men who were apparently chasing him stopped his vehicle and shot at him. He was shot at in the left side of his lower abdomen. Soon, the two men fled from the spot, Harendra Kumar Singh, Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (north) said. The officer was rushed to AIIMS Trauma Centre where he is undergoing treatment. He was operated and is now said to be out of danger, Singh said. Whether the officer was robbed of his valuables will be clear only after he gives a statement to police, he added. A case has been registered at Kotwali police station and the matter is being probed, the officer said. Prima facie it appears to be a case of robbery. However, police are probing all angles since they suspect it be a case of personal enmity or rivalry, he said. The area where the incident took place is secluded, not frequented by many and no footage of the incident has been found from CCTV cameras installed in the area, he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Delhi court has ordered registration of an FIR against channel Republic TV and its editor Arnab Goswami on a complaint of Congress leader Shashi Tharoor alleging theft of confidential documents pertaining to the probe into his wife Sunanda Pushakar's death. Metropolitan Magistrate Dharmender Singh, in his January 21 order that was uploaded Friday, directed the SHO concerned to lodge the FIR and investigate the matter which required probe as it is not clear that how the material came in the possession of the accused persons. "This court is of the considered view that in view of allegations levelled by Tharoor and material produced on record in the form of RTI replies and other material, matter discloses commission of cognizable offence and in view of this court, matter requires investigation by police as it is not clear that how said material came in the possession of proposed accused persons. "This court is of the further view that number of persons are to be examined in this matter. In these circumstances, SHO concerned is directed to register FIR in this matter and investigate the same as per law," the court said and posted the matter for further hearing on April 4," the court said. Senior advocate Vikas Pahwa, appearing for Tharoor, had told the court that during the investigation of the death case, police collected a number of items or materials of the deceased and recorded statement of complainant and one of his aides Narain Singh. All those documents and materials were part of confidential record and within the sole possession of the investigation team. It added that the accused persons "in an attempt to increase the viewership of their channel deliberately made malicious and defamatory remarks against complainant". The court noted that Tharoor has already started legal action against the channel and Goswami before the Delhi High Court for alleged defamatory accusation. "It is alleged that during several broadcast on said news channel, which was conducted by proposed accused persons, certain documents were shown on news channel which were stated to be documents related to investigation of the death of complainant's wife. "Such documents are copy of internal file notings of Delhi Police, copy of statement of complainant given to Delhi Police, copy of statement of complainant's aide Narain Singh, pictures of deceased which were taken during autopsy," the complaint said. It alleged that these confidential documents were "illegally accessed" and "shown/broadcast on their news channel". "It is alleged that accused persons accessed the complainant's email account without his authority or consent and shared the personal emails on their news channel. It is submitted that accused persons even filed said materials/ documents as part of their reply in civil suit before high court," the complaint said. The complainant cited the RTI queries received from the Delhi Police, which said "it is not permissible to share the information/ documents related to any investigation to any public member/media till the case is pending investigation." "It is submitted that above said RTI replies by Public Information Officer of Police authorities clearly shows that proposed accused persons accessed the above mentioned documents illegally. It is submitted that complainant filed the complaint with police regarding theft of those documents/ materials and regarding hacking of his e-mail account. "However, no action has been taken by police. So, present application was filed with request to pass direction for registration of FIR and investigation of this matter," the complaint said. Tharoor, former Union minister and Pushkar's husband, has been charged under sections 498-A (husband or his relative subjecting a woman to cruelty) and 306 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), but has not been arrested in the case. Pushkar was found dead in a suite of a luxury hotel in the city on the night of January 17, 2014. The couple were staying in the hotel as the official bungalow of Tharoor was being renovated at that time. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Modi government was on Friday rocked by a 2015 Defence Ministry note cited in a media report expressing strong objections to the "parallel" negotiations by the PMO in the controversial Rafale jet deal and came under fresh attack from Congress chief Rahul Gandhi. Stepping up his offensive on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Gandhi demanded answers to questions raised in the media report, saying it is now crystal clear that the "watchman" is the "thief", an apparent reference to Modi's alleged cronyism in the Rafale deal. Gandhi's offensive drew a counter-attack from Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman who dismissed the report in 'The Hindu' newspaper on the internal note in the Ministry of Defence(MoD) dated November 24, 2015 as "flogging a dead horse" and alleged that the opposition was playing into the hands of multinational companies and vested interests. As the MoD note led to a ruckus in the Lok Sabha and sparked a fresh confrontation between opposition parties led by the Congress and the Centre, Sitharaman also maintained that "periodical enquiries" by the Prime Minister's Office(PMO) cannot be construed as interference." Sitharaman, who also spoke to reporters, criticised the report for raising issues "selectively" and ignoring the then defence minister Manohar Parrikar's reply to file notings of officials. She said Parrikar had made a note asking officials to remain "calm" as everything was "alright". Parrikar's handwritten remarks at the bottom of the note said "it appears that PMO and French President's Office are monitoring the progress of the issue which was an outcome of the summit meeting(between Modi and French President Francois Hollande in April 2015)". Para 5, which referred to"parallel discussions" by the PMO, "appears to be an over-reaction", the minister wrote, adding Defence Secretary may resolve the matter in consultation with Principal Secretary to PM. Gandhi declared at a conference that the Rafale deal was an "open and shut" case, citing the report claiming the Defence ministry raised strong objections to "parallel discussions" conducted by the PMO during the negotiations over the Rs 59,000 crore Rafale fighter jet deal between India and France. Gandhi also brought in his brother-in-law Robert Vadra and senior Congress leader P Chidambaram to make his point in the escalating Rafale row with the BJP terming his allegations another "lie from his lie manufacturing factory". Former Defence minister A K Antony said it was "shocking" that the PMO was conducting parallel negotiations. "Whatever inquiry you want to do, you do it. You implement the law. Robert Vadra, P Chidambaram - you implement the law on everyone. No problem. But you also give answers on the Rafale matter," he said using the report for a fresh offensive on Modi over the Rafale deal. Both Chidambaram and Vadra are facing probes by the Enforcement Directorate(ED) in separate cases. "We have been saying for more than a year that the prime minister is directly involved in the Rafale scam. Now, today, in 'The Hindu' newspaper, it is black and white... that the prime minister himself was carrying out a parallel negotiation with the French," Gandhi said. "It has been proven now that the watchman (chowkidar) is the thief (chor). What can be more clear than this?" he asked, reiterating epithets he has used several times earlier. Holding up the documents quoted in the newspaper, he said the then Defence Secretary G Mohan Kumar clearly objected to the interference by the PMO as it "undermined out negotiating position seriously" going by the official notation in his own hand. Gandhi also read out from the Defence ministry note, published in the newspaper. "Now, it is crystal clear that the ministry itself has said, and I will read it to you, 'It is therefore clear that the parallel discussions by the PMO has weakened the negotiation of the MOD and the Indian negotiating team. We may advise PMO that any officers who are not part of the negotiation team may refrain from having parallel parleys with the officer of the French government'," Gandhi said. Gandhi also alleged that the Centre has lied to the Supreme Court. "If Supreme Court had this paperwork, do you think that the Supreme Court would have given the judgement that they give? This was withheld from the Supreme Court. Of course. So that entire judgement is also in question." The apex court in December dismissed the pleas challenging the deal between India and France for procurement of 36 Rafale jets, saying there was no occasion to "really doubt the decision making process" warranting setting aside of the contract. Addressing a 'Kisan Aabhar Sammelan' (thanksgiving rally) in Bhopal Gandhi cited the media report and alleged that the PMO was directly involved in conducting parleys with the French side and this had weakened the MoD negotiations on the same deal. Air Marshal SBP Sinha (retd), who was leading the Indian negotiating team for the Rafale deal, rejected the charge that the PMO was holding parallel negotiations, a view endorsed by Mohan Kumar during whose tenure the Rafale deal was signed. The comments of Sinha and Kumar were sought by PTI after the controversy over the MoD note broke out. Kumar said the matter refers to sovereign guarantee and not the price. There were several unsettled issues that were being sorted out and sovereign guarantee was one of it, he said, adding," All the price negotiations were conducted by the (negotiating) committee." In the Lok Sabha, members from the Congress, TMC and TDP jumped in the well shouting slogans and showing placards referring to the media report. Mallikarjun Kharge of the Congress alleged that the defence ministry and the PMO were fighting on the issue and the matter has come out in the newspaper also. Amid the opposition uproar over the Rafale matter, Sitharaman made a suo motu statement defending the government. Several opposition leaders backed the Congress' stance and asked the government to come clean on objections raised by the defence ministry at that time with AAP leader and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal going to the extent of demanding an "independent" CBI raid to seize all related files and arrest everyone involved. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee accused Modi of being "the master of corruption" and said she supported the views of the Congress on the Rafale deal. "Modi is chaiwala for polls, later he is Rafalewala," Banerjee told reporters in Kolkata. CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury alleged Modi had consistently undermined the Air Force and the Defence Ministry to benefit his "cronies" in the Rafale deal. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) has alleged involvement of some Odisha Police personnel in the kidnap and trafficking of a 16-year-old girl, who was recently rescued from Rajasthan, and demanded action against erring officials and traffickers. On February 5, the DCW, along with Rajasthan Police, rescued the girl from Jhunjhunu. She was allegedly kidnapped and trafficked from Rourkela in Odisha in 2017. In a letter to Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, DCW chairperson Swati Maliwal claimed that the girl's father, who is a retired railway officer, has alleged that soon after her disappearance, he had approached the Odisha Police, whose personnel had traced the girl and brought her back to Odisha from Rajasthan. "The concerned Child Welfare Committee directed the police to hand over the girl to the father. However, he has alleged that instead of handing over his daughter, the police officials in connivance with the traffickers facilitated the return of the girl to Rajasthan. "Thereafter, over the last one year, he approached several authorities in Odisha..., but to no avail," Maliwal said in the letter. Maliwal said the girl was subjected to rape and abuse for over a year and somehow managed to contact her father, recently. They then informed the DCW and she was rescued. Currently, she has been housed in a shelter home in Delhi. The DCW chairperson said that the alleged "connivance of Odisha Police in the trafficking of the girl is extremely serious". "While the Delhi Commission for Women was able to rescue the girl within a short span of receiving the information, I fail to understand why the Odisha Police failed to do so for over a year. Due to the alleged negligence and connivance of the police, the girl and her father have undergone immeasurable suffering and the girl is deeply traumatised. "At an age when she was supposed to be studying in school, she has been now been impregnated and brutally abused for over a year," she said. Maliwal has sought Patnaik's intervention in the matter and urged him to ensure that the alleged traffickers as well as the police officials concerned are immediately arrested. She also asked the chief minister to provide for the rehabilitation, protection and welfare of the girl. According to a DCW official, the girl was kidnapped, sold and forced into a marriage with a 40-year-old man, who has been raping her over the past one year. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) / -- The Consortium led by Datamatics Global Services Limited (DGSL) and AEP Ticketing solutions S.R.L, Italy (AEP), have been issued the Letter of Acceptance (LOA) for implementing Automatic Fare Collection (AFC) system for 52 stations of Mumbai Metro Line 2A (Dahisar to DN Nagar Metro), 2B (DN Nagar to Mankhurd Metro) and 7 (Andheri (E) to Dahisar) of the Mumbai Metro Rail project. The LOA was issued by Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) to the Consortium for approximately Rs. 160 crores. The LOA between the Consortium and MMRDA was signed in the presence of Shri. R. A. Rajeev, IAS, Metropolitan Commissioner, MMRDA; Shri. Sanjay Waghmare Director(Systems), Metro PIU, MMRDA, Mr. O. P. Nebhnani, Officer on Special Duty(S&T), Metro PIU MMRDA, Dr. Lalit Kanodia, Chairman, DGSL, Shri Rahul Kanodia, Vice Chairman & CEO - DGSL; Shri Sanjeev Subhedar, EVP and Global Head Engineering Services and other top officials from MMRDA and DGSL. On the occasion, Shri. R. A. Rajeev, IAS, Metropolitan Commissioner, MMRDA, said, "The ticketing system for the Mumbai Metro should be implemented taking into consideration ease of use for the commuters of the city of Mumbai. At the same time it should be state of art supporting future of the growing metro network and supporting upcoming fare media technologies." Commenting on the occasion, Dr. Lalit S. Kanodia, Chairman, Datamatics, said, "Over the years, Datamatics has invested and built expertise in Automated Fare Collection technology and has been a part of large global AFC mandates. We are headquartered in Mumbai and therefore winning Mumbai Metro project is special and a very proud moment for us." Automated Fare Collection (AFC) has been a focus area for Datamatics and over the last 25 years, the company has been instrumental in successfully executing over 25 marquee projects in the tier 1 metropolitan cities across the globe including Sydney, Hong Kong, London, Chicago, Melbourne, etc. Rahul L. Kanodia, Vice Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, Datamatics, said, "Datamatics is the only Indian company to have AFC solution. We have put in our best efforts for making the Lucknow Metro a successful project and we are delighted to be a part of prestigious Mumbai Metro Line 2 and 7 projects." In India, Datamatics is also implementing AFC system for Lucknow Metro Project which includes design, supply, installation and end-to-end testing of the ticketing, gates, servers, hardware networks and software components. The first phase of this project has already gone live with 8 stations. This is the fastest rolled-out AFC system in India till date. Sanjeev Subhedar, EVP & Head - Engineering Solutions, Datamatics, said, "Datamatics is committed to Indian customers to provide most advanced AFC solution suitable for Indian conditions within project timelines. Datamatics assures its customer of continued upgrades and long term support to protect the investment made by our customers." To know more about Datamatics' and offerings for the Transport vertical, please visit: https://www.datamatics.com/industries/transportation About Datamatics Global Services Datamatics ( BSE: 532528) (NSE: DATAMATICS) provides Intelligent Solutions for data driven businesses to increase productivity and enhance customer experience. The company's portfolio of service offerings spans across Information Technology Services, Business Process Management, Engineering Services and Big Data & Analytics all powered by Artificial Intelligence. It has established products in Robotics Process Automation, Advanced Analytics, Business Intelligence and Automated Fare Collection. Datamatics services over 500 customers globally across Banking & Financial Services, Insurance, Healthcare, Manufacturing, International Organizations and Media & Publishing. Headquartered in Mumbai, the Company has presence across 4 continents with major delivery centers in the USA, India and Philippines with an employee base of 10,000. To know more about Datamatics, visit https://www.datamatics.com. Safe Harbour Some of the statements in this update that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements include our financial and growth projections as well as statements concerning our plans, strategies, intentions and beliefs concerning our business and the markets in which we operate. These statements are based on information currently available to us, and we assume no obligation to update these statements as circumstances change. There are risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events to differ materially from these forward-looking statements. These risks include, but are not limited to, the level of market demand for our services, the highly-competitive market for the types of services that we offer, market conditions that could cause our customers to reduce their spending for our services, our ability to create, acquire and build new businesses and to grow our existing businesses, our ability to attract and retain qualified personnel, currency fluctuations and market conditions in India and elsewhere around the world, and other risks not specifically mentioned herein but those that are common to industry. Source: Datamatics Global Services Ltd. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Delhi court has summoned senior advocate and BJD MP Pinaki Misra on March 5 in connection with a criminal defamation complaint filed by another lawyer for allegedly making objectionable remarks against him in an interview last year. Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal passed the order after examining the complainant as a part of pre summoning evidence. In his complaint, advocate Siddhartha Singh has sought Misra's prosecution under sections 499 and 500 of the Indian Penal Code for alleged defamatory remarks against him in an interview to a newspaper in August last year. He said the remarks made by Misra "diminished his public image and severally affected his professional life". The court said, "Let fresh summons be issued to the accused to face trial on March 5." In his complaint, Singh claimed that Misra made the remarks after he had filed a complaint before the Bar Council of Delhi against him over "unprofessional" conduct for representing discoms before the National Green Tribunal. He submitted that Misra was the chairperson of a parliamentary standing committee set up in relation to violation of e-waste management rules by the discom companies and the committee submitted a report claiming that power companies were at fault and had violated e-waste management rules. The committee report had recommended punitive actions against those companies, the complaint said. However, Misra started representing the same power companies before the NGT against whom the report had recommended punitive actions, it claimed. Singh had filed a petition before the NGT on behalf of a Delhi resident against power companies in relation to alleged violation of e-waste management rules, whereas Misra started appearing as advocate to defend the discom companies. Singh, thereafter, filed the complaint before the Bar Council of Delhi accusing Misra of "severe misconduct", following which the alleged defamatory remarks were made, the complaint said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The anti-corruption squad arrested a contractor allegedly involved in a Rs 42-crore scam in the Madhya Pradesh Excise Department, police said. Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP) Amrendra Singh told reporters here that on a tip-off, contractor Vijay Kumar Shrivastav (49) was arrested from Uttar Pradesh's capital Lucknow. The contractor was carrying a reward of Rs 20,000 on information leading to his arrest. Singh said that Shrivastava had secured the contract of a liquor shop in Indore's MG Road area in lieu of Rs 7.30 crore during financial year 2016-17. But he did not deposit this amount. He said, "The liquor contractor deposited fake bank challans to the excise department against the payment of this amount, which led to loss to the state exchequer." The officer said that the police have been investigating 16 liquor contracts given by the Excise Department. So far, 12 people, including Shrivastava, have been arrested and some of the accused are still on the run. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Cracking the whip, the Congress Legislature Party Friday decided to initiate action against four party rebel MLAs under the Anti-Defection Law, CLP leader Siddaramaiah said. Briefing reporters after the CLP meet, Siddaramaiah said he would meet the Assembly Speaker Ramesh Kumar and urge him to take action against Ramesh Jarkiholi, Umesh Jadhav, Mahesh Kumathali and B Nagendra. He said barring the four and J N Ganesh, all other lawmakers attended the CLP meet. Two MLAs Roshan Baig and B C Patil, who also did not participate, had taken prior permission, he said. Ganesh is declared absconding after an alleged brawl with a lawmaker colleague at a resort recently. Siddaramaiah said the four MLAs had sent letters to him, saying they could not attend the entire budget session of the assembly. "It is the unanimous decision of the CLP that I should go ahead with further action against them under the Anti-Defection Law," Siddaramaiah said. He said sufficient opportunity was given to the four rebel MLAs after the January 18 CLP meet, which they skipped. The January 18 meeting was convened as a show of strength against the BJP's alleged bid to topple the Congress-JD(S) coalition government. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A platform of tribal student bodies of the north east Friday claimed that it had the support of different political parties, including the Congress, the JD(U), who have promised to vote against Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 in the Rajya Sabha. The bill, which is being opposed by majority of the student bodies and state governments in the region, had been passed in Lok Sabha on January 8. North East Students Organisation (NESO) joint secretary Upendra Debbarma said that a 15-member NESO delegation, led by its chairman Samuel Jirwa, met Congress president Rahul Gandhi, Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma, Janata Dal (United) leader Prashant Kishor, Trinamool Congress MP Saugata Roy, Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Rawat among others during a visit to New Delhi early this month to garner support against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill. "All of them have assured us that they are with the indigenous people of Tripura and the north east... They have assured us that they will not allow the assault on the interests of the people of north east India. Some of them will go against the bill when it is tabled in the Rajya Sabha," Debbarma told newsmen here. The delegation, he said, had also met Shiva Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray at Mumbai. "Thackeray assured us that he will talk to leaders of NCP, TRS and few other political parties and try to convince them to be present in the Rajya Sabha session and vote against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill when it is tabled," the NESO leader said. The bill seeks to provide Indian citizenship to non-Muslims from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan after six years of residence in India instead of 12 years which is the norm currently, even if they do not possess any document. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on Friday said his government was committed to depoliticising and insulating the country's bureaucracy from "all kinds of political pressures". His statement came days after the Supreme Court, in a rare rebuke to Pakistan's powerful military, prohibited them from engaging in political activities. Chairing a meeting of Task Force on Civil Service Reforms here, Khan said he regretted that bureaucracy was heavily politicised during the past ten years which resulted in its inefficiency and created fear amongst the bureaucrats. Khan said the government is firmly committed to undertaking structural reforms of bureaucracy to make it efficient and responsive to the need of the hour. "Bureaucracy will be depoliticised and insulated from all kinds of political pressures," he said. "During the 60s and 70s, Pakistan's civil service was one of the best in the region and countries from the region would come to us and learn from us," Khan was quoted as saying by Geo "Unfortunately political interference has destroyed the civil service," the prime minister said. He said accountability and merit were the only way the system can be made better and it is the government's mission to depoliticise the bureaucracy. "No system can sustain or deliver if accountability and merit are missing. We need to restructure and reform our bureaucracy to make it progressive and innovative," he said. "We are committed to protecting the integrity and security of tenure of bureaucrats so that they could devote their energies towards translating political vision into reality. We have to attract the best minds to serve the country," Khan said. Delivering a landmark verdict on the 2017 Faizabad sit-in by the hardline Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) and other smaller groups, a two-member Supreme Court bench on Wednesday directed all government agencies and departments, including those run by the army like spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to operate within the limits defined by the law. The bench ordered that members of the Armed Forces were prohibited from engaging in any kind of political activity, which includes supporting a party, faction or individual. Media reports last year suggested that Prime Minister Khan was quietly backed by the country's powerful military in the 2018 general election. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The political war over charges of horsetrading escalated in Karnataka Friday with chief minister H D Kumaraswamy releasing an audio clip in which state BJP chief B S Yeddyurappa is puportedly trying to lure a JDSMLA for destabilising the coalition government. Yeddyurappa, who is at the vortex of the row over his alleged bid to poach the ruling coalition MLAs for the past few weeks, was quick to dismiss the clip as "fake" and a "concocted story". On a day of sudden twists and turns, the Congress decided to crack the whip and initiate action against four rebel MLAs of the party under the anti-defection law after they skipped a legislature party meeting here. Lawmakers Ramesh Jarkiholi, Umesh Jadhav, Mahesh Kumathali and B Nagendra, who have remained defiant and skipped the CLP meetings on January 18 and Friday despite a whip, would face action, CLP leader Siddaramaiah told reporters. They were also among those absent from the assembly since the budget session began Wednesday. Besides the four, two MLAs had sought permission for their absence while suspended legislator J N Ganesh, booked on attempt to murder charge after a brawl with a lawmaker colleague recently, is absconding. Siddaramaiah said he would write to assembly Speaker Ramesh Kumar seeking action against the four errant MLAs under the anti-defection law. The four MLAs had sent letters to him, saying they could not attend the entire budget session of the assembly, he said. The absence of several Congress MLAs had kept the ruling Congress-JDS coalition on the edge in the backdrop of BJP's reported aggressive moves to poach on the rival legislators. The BJP has been denying the reports and asked the coalition partners to keep their flock intact instead of attacking it. Hours before presenting the state budget amid coalition discord and BJP's alleged toppling game, Kumaraswamy dropped the audio bomb at a hurriedly called press conference here, targeting prime minister Narendra Modi in his attack. Kumaraswamy alleged that destabilisation efforts were being carried out with the "permission" of Modi and BJP president Amit Shah. "Without the knowledge of the prime minister, is it possible to do all this," an angry Kumaraswamy asked and said Modi should come clean on the issue. "Modi and Amit Shah are doing all this", he alleged. The chief minister said he would send the audio clips to Modi who, he said, claims about being "the only saviour" of this country. "Come out with your real face. Your friends (BJP in Karnataka) have exposed the real picture of your face. If you have any morality...," he told Modi and demanded the prime minister take appropriate action. Kumaraswamy said that during the purported conversation Yeddyurappa had also spoken about a "Rs 50 crore offer to book" the assembly speaker. He claimed there were two audio clips of recorded telephonic conversation between Yeddyurappa and Sharan Gouda, son of JDS lawmaker Naganagouda. He alleged that the BJP leader was trying to woo Naganagouda with money and other offers. Sharan Gouda, who was present with the chief minister, alleged Yeddyurappa reached out to him over phone for meeting him at Devadurga in his attempt to lure his father. Only part of one audio clip, which was unclear, was played at the press conference. In the clip, a male voice is heard offering money and ministerial berth, besides assuring Sharan Gouda about "taking care" of the speaker and the judges in case of the anti- defection law being invoked. "We have evidence to say it is Yeddyurappa's voice. We will send the audio clips to the laboratory," Siddaramaiah claimed. Hitting back, an unfazed Yeddyurappa said Kumaraswamy had "concocted" the story to hide his failures and inability to keep the JD(S) and Congress flock together. "It is a fake audio. I have not met anyone. Kumaraswamy is trying to hide his failures. This is a drama," the former chief minister said. Yeddyurappa said he went to Devadurga to visit a temple and flew back to the city. He claimed the Kumaraswamy government had lost the trust of the people and had "no moral right" to continue in office. Yeddyurappa dismissed a claim by the chief minister that he had spoken in the audio about a "Rs 50 crore" offer to the assembly speaker. "I will retire from if it (the allegation) is proved. If I had spoken like this (about the speaker), if it is proved, I will resign as an MLA and quit politics," he said. In his media briefing after the CLP, Siddaramaiah said besides the four rebel MLAs, Ganesh was absent and two others -- Roshan Baig and B C Patil -- had taken permission to skip the meeting. Karnataka has been reeling under political turmoil for the past few weeks that also saw the resort play out with both BJP and Congress sequestering their MLAs to shield them poaching bid. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) All Assam Students Union (AASU) members shouted slogans against the contentious Citizenship (Amendment) Bill and waved black flags at Prime Minister Narendra Modi who arrived here Friday evening on a two-day visit to the Northeast. The prime minister witnessed the protests when he travelled to the Raj Bhavan here, where he will spend the night, from Lokopriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport. A large number of AASU members were seen waving black flags to the prime minister and shouting slogans as his convoy crossed the gates of the Gauhati University at around 6.30 pm and a few minutes later as he crossed the premises of the AASU headquarters on M G Road. Slogans like 'Modi go back', 'Scrap Citizenship Amendment Bill', 'Joi Aai Asom (Glory to Mother Assam)' was heard. A large group of BJP supporters and ministers Sidhartha Bhattacharya(Education) and Pijush Hazarika (Health) were seen standing near the AASU protesters, waving placards and shouting slogans welcoming the prime minister. The demonstrators were restricted as the gates to the AASU office was locked by the police, the students union's chief advisor Sammujal Bhattacharya claimed. "The government with its machinery can show its power and strength...No matter how much the government tries to quell the protests, the agitation against the Citizenship Amendment Bill will continue. The government has proven that it is a protector of the Bangladeshi infiltrators and is against the indigenous people of Assam," he said. Modi arrived at the Guwahati airport from Jalpaiguri in West Bengal in a special Indian Air Force plane and was received by Governor Jagdish Mukhi, Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and senior government officials. "The pain of the indigenous people will be seen across Assam tomorrow...Effigies of the prime minister will be burnt in every corner of the state," said AASU president Dipanka Nath. Peasant organisation Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS) too showed black flag to the prime minister at Adabari and Fancy Bazar areas of the city which fell on his route. KMSS chief Akhil Gogoi said on Friday that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would be shown black flags by 70 organisations protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Bill on Saturday. "Modi has come here to seek votes from the people of Assam. The bill has been brought in to give citizenship to Hindu Bengalis from Bangladesh and get their votes in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls," he alleged. "We demand the prime minister announces tomorrow that the money taken by BJP leaders Mukul Roy (West Bengal) and Himanta Boswa Sarma in the Saradha ponzi scam be returned to the people," he added. This is Modi's third visit to Assam since December 25, 2018 when he inaugurated the Bogibeel bridge. In his second visit on January 4 this year, the prime minister had told a rally in Silchar that the Citizenship Bill would be passed by Parliament soon, triggering widespread protests in the state. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Members of the All Assam Students Union (AASU) showed black flags to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and shouted slogans against the Citizenship Bill as he travelled to Raj Bhavan from the airport after he arrived in the city on Friday evening. Modi is on a two-day visit to the Northeast. AASU members were seen waving black flags to the prime minister at Gauhati University gates as he passed the area on his way to the Raj Bhavan around 6.30 pm from Lokopriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport. Another group of AASU members waved black flags as Modi's carcade whizzed past several minutes later at its headquarters on M G Road. Slogans like 'Modi go back', 'Scrap Citizenship Amendment Bill', 'Joi Aai Asom' (Glory to Mother Assam) were raised. The demonstrators were restricted to the AASU office compound by the police who locked its gates, claimed AASU chief advisor Sammujal Bhattacharya. The bill has been passed by the Lok Sabha on January 8 and is awaiting nod from the Rajya Sabha. It is being opposed by majority of the Northeastern states. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Seven members of a caste panchayat in Maharashtra's Jalna district have been booked for allegedly ordering the social boycott of a woman and her family in connection with a marital dispute. Sonali Pandirkant Shivkar, a resident of Rajur in Bhokardan tehsil here, had filed a case against her husband, Dnayeshwar Anna Raje, and his family for allegedly torturing her for money, Inspector Pratap Singh of Rajur police station said Friday. The Vaid community panchayat, to which the couple belong, however decided to socially ostracise the Shivkar family as their daughter had gone to court against her husband's family instead of solving the dispute at the panchayat, he added. "After a meeting in Pune, the caste panchayat ordered the boycott of Sonali Shivkar and her family. They were even turned away from a marriage they had gone to attend in Ahmednagar on January 25. Following this, Shivkar filed a complaint. We have booked seven members of the caste panchayat," the official said. He said a case has been registered under relevant sections of the Maharashtra Prohibition of People from Social Boycott (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act and further probe was underway. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Director Joe Russo has said he and his brother, Anthony, were initially concerned about how to handle the incredibly powerful Captain Marvel in their upcoming directorial "Avengers: Endgame" but they have found a "sensible" way to present the character in the film. The part of Carol Danvers aka Captain Marvel is set to make her Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) debut with the upcoming Brie Larson-fronted film, "Captain Marvel". Marvel Studios honcho Kevin Feige had previously described Captain Marvel as "the most powerful superhero that we've ever introduced". In an interview with Cinema Blend, Joe was asked about how they handled the character, whose powers far eclipses those of the likes of her MCU counterparts -- Captain America, Black Widow and many others. "It's always a concern of ours about overpowering characters, because the reason that people relate to these characters is their humanity, and that they're flawed," the director said. The director duo, popularly known as The Russo Brother, made their MCU directorial debut with 2014 Chris Evans-starrer "Captain America: The Winter Soldier". He said they wanted to explore the humanity of Captain America and that is the reason why they started making superhero films. "The reason we love working so much with Captain America was that he was limited, and his heart was his superpower, you know? So we're all acutely aware of the dangers of having an overly powerful character. (But) we like sensitive storytelling, so... we found a thoughtful way through it," he added. Anthony said good storytelling is what matters to them the most because with powerful characters, it becomes "harder to find their vulnerabilities and complexities". "Actually, that makes for great drama, and you run in that direction. As storytellers, that's been one of the most fun things we've had working with these characters is figuring out ways into them where they are vulnerable and they aren't all powerful," he said. "Endgame", which is said to be the final movie in the "Avengers" franchise, will release on April 26. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The British and Irish leaders are meeting to discuss the Irish border and mend fences amid a tense UK-EU standoff over Brexit. UK Prime Minister Theresa May will dine with Irish premier Leo Varadkar in Dublin to press her case for changes to Britain's divorce deal with the EU. Britain's Parliament rejected the agreement last month, largely over concerns about a provision designed to ensure an open border between the UK's Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland. Britain is due to leave the bloc on March 29. The bid for last-minute changes has exasperated EU leaders. But the parties have at least agreed to keep talking. The British and Irish attorneys general are holding talks Friday to see if there is any common ground on the border. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The BJP's youth wing has demanded land to construct a temple on the AMU campus, saying Hindu students were facing problems in performing prayers. In a letter to AMU Vice Chancellor Tariq Mansoor, Mukesh Singh Lodhi, the district president of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM), said if the university doesn't fulfil their demand within 15 days, they would install an idol and begin constructing the temple at a suitable site. Leaders of AMU Students' Union said the BJP youth wing leader's threat was an attempt to disturb peace in the city and polarize voters in the run-up to the general elections. Former AMUSU president Faizul Hasan told PTI, "This is not a question of religious piety because there are a number of temples in the vicinity and there has never been any such issue since the university was established." "We fully respect the religious sentiments of all students and are always sensitive to their genuine demands. However, anybody who has been following AMU affairs for four years will confirm that this threat is yet another attempt to malign our secular traditions merely for spreading ill will and strengthening divisive forces," he alleged. Two days ago, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had targeted the AMU authorities, accusing them of not providing Dalit quota for admission to the university. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Opposing the controversial Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2016, a tribal forum in Arunachal Pradesh on Friday demanded that the state be exempted from its purview as it is contrary to the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation Act 1873. The Arunachal Indigenous Tribal Forum (AITF), a conglomerate of various community-based organisations of the state, termed the Bill as "anti-tribal, anti-Arunachalee and monstrous" which would "eat up" the indigenous population of the state in the long run. "The state is already plagued with the Chakma-Hajong refugee issue. The implementation of the Citizenship Bill in the state will pave way for automatic citizenship to the refugees besides increasing influx," AITF President Bengia Tolum told reporters here. The Chakmas, Buddhist by faith and the Hajongs, Hindus by faith, were originally residents of the Chittagong Hill Tracts of former East Pakistan, who fled to India following religious persecution in the 1960s. A large number of Chakma and Hajong refugees who are staying in Arunachal Pradesh for over 50 years, are likely to get Indian citizenship if the Bill is enacted. The All Arunachal Pradesh Students Union, the state's largest student body, has been demanding their ouster from the state since 1990. The AITF had organised a peaceful car rally here against the controversial bill on February 2. Tolum said that a AITF delegation had held a detailed discussion with Chief Minister Pema Khandu on Thursday and explained to him the overall impact of the Bill in the state with reference to the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation Act 1873. Arunachal Pradesh is protected under the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation Act 1873, and all Indian citizens need to obtain inner line permit to visit the state. The chief minister has assured that the state government will convey the sentiments of the people to the Centre, Tolum said adding the union home ministry has called for a joint meeting of all the chief ministers of the north east states on February 11 for consultation on the Bill. The AITF also opposed the granting of Permanent Residence Certificate (PRC) to six non-Arunachalee communities residing in the state and suggested that the on-going updation of the National Register of Citizens be first completed in Assam before grant it. The NRC, it said, would legally segregate the floating population of non-Arunachalees in the state, it said and suggested that detailed discussion on the PRC issue be held with all community based organisations of the state before taking any decision. The non-indigenous should not be granted Arunachal Pradesh Scheduled Tribe status, not allowed to purchase land, continue to have ILP under the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation 1873. Proper legislation to this effect should be made in the state assembly for protection of the indigenous population, Tolum demanded. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Steel giant ArcelorMittal's South African subsidiary AMSA has registered its first profit in nearly a decade, largely due to cost-cutting measures, higher international steel prices and higher sales volumes. ArcelorMittal SA (AMSA), which was born out of ArcelorMittal Chairman and CEO Lakshmi N Mittal's buyout of state steel manufacturer Iscor nearly two decades ago after the steel magnate first rescued it from total collapse, last made a profit eight years ago. In the past, AMSA faced several years of crises during which it even faced possible closure without government intervention on tariffs. Results showed that AMSA made a net profit of 1.3 billion rand (over USD 90 million) from a loss of 5 billion rand a year earlier, largely due to to cost-cutting measures, higher international steel prices and higher sales volumes. Embattled by falling global demand for steel, low infrastructure development in South Africa and cheaper Chinese imports, AMSA saw its share price take a 98 per cent drop since a peak in 2001. In 2017, the South African government intervened after the threat of an entire town facing unemployment at the original Iscor production facility in Vanderbjlpark. Mittal flew into South Africa for urgent talks with senior government officials to attempt a rescue. AMSA chief executive Kobus Verster said the group's 2018 results were due to stronger international prices and higher sales volume despite the weakness of the South African economy. Various initiatives were also taken to ensure the sustainability of the company, including a business transformation programme that was initiated to address cost reduction, improve efficiencies, debottleneck steel production at all sites and optimise procurement contracts. Verster added that markets on the African continent, including South Africa, still faced the prospects of cheaper Chinese steel imports, but held out hope for positive developments in the rail, road and energy sector in the west and east sub-Saharan regions. Ian Cruickshanks, the chief economist at the South African Institute of Race Relations, commended AMSA for cutting costs. "They have cut costs to the bone; you have to give them credit for that. "However, there is no market. You have to have someone to sell the steel too. If you have no buyer, you have no business. Selling to Africa is good, but Amsa is competing with China in those markets," Cruickshanks told the daily Business Day Friday. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Quarterly Investor Update Melbourne, Feb 8, 2019 AEST (ABN Newswire) - iSignthis Ltd ( ASX:ISX ) ( FRA:TA8 ) is a leading business focused neobank, with payments, eMoney, deposit taking and identity capabilities, publicly listed on the Australian Securities and Frankfurt Stock Exchange.As a neobank, we are authorised as a EEA authorised Monetary Financial and Payment Institution, with license to accept deposits, issue emoney, bank accounts, and operate transactional banking services across Europe and, soon, Australia.We provide services to cross border, regulated and high value businesses, that includes a complete customer onboarding solution, from remote identity verification, credit scoring to payment processing, settlement, spot FX and deposit taking services.Our patented Paydentity(TM), Probanx(R) and ISXPay(R) platforms, built inhouse, make all this possible, and we have identified more than 1.5m consumers to a full AML KYC standard.Probanx.com supplies core banking software to more than 15 banks in North America, Asia Pacific and the EU/EEA, and to ISX in Australia.To view the presentation, please visit:About iSignthis Ltd iSignthis Ltd (ASX:ISX) (FRA:TA8) is a hybrid monetary financial institution and also a RegTech leader in remote identity verification, payment authentication with deposit taking, transactional banking and payment processing capability. iSignthis provides an end-to-end on-boarding service for merchants, with a unified payment, electronic money and identity service via our Paydentity(TM) and ISXPay(R) solutions. By converging payments and identity, iSignthis delivers regulatory compliance to an enhanced customer due diligence standard, offering global reach to any of the world's 4.2Bn 'bank verified' card or account holders, that can be remotely on-boarded to meet the Customer Due Diligence requirements of AML regulated merchants in as little as 3 to 5 minutes. Paydentity(TM) has now onboarded and verified more than 1.5m persons to an AML KYC standard. iSignthis Paydentity(TM) service is the trusted back office solution for regulated entities, allowing merchants to stay ahead of the regulatory curve, and focus on growing their core business. iSignthis' subsidiary, iSignthis eMoney Ltd, trades as ISXPay(R), and is an EEA authorised eMoney Monetary Financial Institution, offering card acquiring in the EEA, and Australia. ISXPay(R) is a principal member of Mastercard Inc, Diners, Discover, (China) Union Pay International and JCB International, an American Express aggregator, and provides merchants with access to payments via alternative methods including SEPA, Poli Payments, Sofort, PRZ24 and others. Probanx Solutions Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of iSignthis Ltd, provides API based access to CORE Banking solutions, SEPA Core, SEPA Instant and SEPA business scheme, for neobanks, banks, credit unions and emoney institutions, and provides a bridge to the Eurosystem's Central Bank of Lithuania's CENTROLink service. ArcelorMittal said Friday it had evacuated a community of 200 people living near a reservoir of mining waste in Brazil as a precautionary measure following a disaster in the country that has claimed more than 150 lives. The world's largest steel firm said that "after very careful consideration" it had taken the decision to put in practice an evacuation plan related to its dormant Serra Azul tailing dam in Brazil's southeastern Minas Gerais state. A community of 200 people living nearby was evacuated "as a precautionary measure". On January 25, a tailings dam broke apart in Minas Gerais state at an iron ore mine operated by Vale, unleashing an avalanche of muddy mining waste on a cafeteria and main administrative area located blow. Authorities said 157 people have been confirmed dead and 182 are still missing. The evacuation decision was taken together with local authorities as a precautionary measure while further tests are conducted even though the community is located five kilometres (three miles) from the dam, said ArcelorMittal. The community's residents have been moved into temporary accommodation. ArcelorMittal said it "concluded that absolutely no risk can be taken and, despite the obvious disruption to the community, this is the right decision." The tailing dam has not received new waste since 2012. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has announced the names of the American private sector members of the US-India CEO Forum, among whom are MasterCard CEO Ajay Banga and Qualcomm CEO Steve Mollenkopf. The first meeting of the forum under the Trump Administration will be held in New Delhi on February 14. It will be co-chaired by Ross and Minister of Commerce and Industry and Civil Aviation Suresh Prabhu. James Taiclet, chairman, president, and CEO, American Tower Corporation will be the US private sector co-chair of the forum. "The US-India CEO Forum is critical to the fruitful commercial relationship and strong economic ties between our two great nations," Ross said. "The incoming US CEOs will bring fresh perspectives to the forum and help us consider new opportunities to further deepen our cooperation," he added. Sanjay Bhatnagar, president and CEO, WaterHealth International; John Chambers, founder and CEO, JC2 Ventures LLC and Chairman Emeritus, Cisco Systems; Douglas DeVos, Co-Chairman, Amway and D. James Umpleby III, Chairman and CEO, Caterpillar among others are the prominent members of the forum. The US CEOs serve two-year terms and are selected from respondents to a Federal Register Notice calling for CEO-level applicants to the US Section of the Forum. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The All Assam Students' Union (AASU) and 70 social organisations announced on Friday that they would show black flags and hold stir against Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit in protest against the citizenship bill. Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS) chief Akhil Gogoi, who is at the forefront of the protests against the controversial bill, said Modi's visit here on Saturday would be observed as a 'Black Day' across the state and members of 70 organisations would show black flags to him. "The bill has been brought in to give citizenship to the Hindu Bengalis from Bangladesh and get their votes in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls", Gogoi said. The KMSS leader said the Bharatiya Janata Party's position in the country was not good and their strategy was to get maximum seats from West Bengal and the Northeast. That is why, he added, that the saffron party had taken the route of the citizenship bill. Gogoi was among the three against whom sedition cases were registered by the Assam police for their remarks against the citizenship bill. Two others who faced sedition charges were Assamese litterateur Hiren Gohain and senior journalist Manjit Mahanta. The AASU burnt effigies of Modi in different parts of the state on Friday, said Samujjal Bhattacharya, the organisation's chief adviser. Modi is visiting Assam for the first time after the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019, was passed in the Lok Sabha on January 8. The controversial bill seeks to provide citizenship after six years of residence in India to non-Muslims who had fled religious persecution in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan and entered the country before December 31, 2014. The legislation awaits clearance from the Rajya Sabha, where the National Democratic Alliance is short of majority. Modi is scheduled to arrive here on Friday night and spend the night at the Raj Bhawan before leaving for Aruncahal Pradesh the next morning to inaugurate various projects. The prime minister will return to Guwahati in the afternoon and proceed to Amingaon in North Guwahati, where he will lay the foundation stone of the North East Gas Grid and the city gas distribution networks of Kamrup, Cachar, Hailakandi and Karimganj districts. He will also inaugurate the Hollong Modular Gas Processing Plant in Tinsukia. Modi will also lay the foundation stone of a biorefinery in Numaligarh and a 729-km Barauni-Guwahati gas pipeline that will pass through Bihar, West Bengal, Sikkim and Assam. The prime minister is also scheduled to address a rally in Amingaon, which falls under the Jalukbari assembly constituency of state Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The will contest in Maharashtra and would also seek alliances with regional parties, the party's state chief Brigadier (retired) Sudhir Sawant said. The party's formula on seat-sharing would be finalised by February 15, he added. "We will fight all seats in Mumbai and on a few seats in the rest of Maharashtra after forging alliance with like minded parties. We are working on a seat sharing formula and it will be finalised by February 15," Sawant told PTI. After a meeting with five regional parties, Sawant said would campaign in the state on the "Delhi development model". He said the party's government in Delhi had focused in a major way on the education and health sectors. The party had earlier announced that it would contest in Delhi, Punjab, Haryana and Goa only. "We are not desperate to fight the election, but will definitely fight in those seats where we can play a role in defeating BJP candidates. Our main objective is to stop BJP from winning," he further said. Sawant informed that Independent MLA from Achalpur, Bacchu Kadu, would be entering into an alliance with the He said Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal would campaign in Maharashtra. Sawant added that his own candidature would be decided by the leadership. The party had drawn a blank in the 2014 in the state. In another development, Samajwadi Party's Maharashtra unit chief Abu Asim Azmi announced that his party would fight Maharashtra Lok Sabha polls alone. The Congress and Nationalist Congress Party, which are in talks for 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra, had not offered SP a single seat. The ruling AAP Friday alleged an attack on Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's official vehicle in Narela by BJP workers, a charge denied by the opposition party in Delhi. A blame game ensued with the BJP claiming its workers waved black flags at the chief minister for not expanding the metro line in rural pockets and "neglecting" development works in the area. A group of about 100 men tried to stop Kejriwal's car and attacked it with sticks at Narela in outer Delhi where he had gone to inaugurate development works in 25 unauthorised colonies, said a government statement. "(The) Delhi government strongly condemns the BJP attack on the chief minister's vehicle at Narela. The attack took place in (the) presence of police on the route cleared by area's deputy commissioner of police. This is the fifth such attack on the chief minister in the last three years," said a Delhi government statement. The AAP government alleged that the Delhi police "deliberately allowed" the attacks on Kejriwal under "political pressure" from the BJP government at the Centre. The police denied any attack on the chief minister's vehicle, saying a former BJP MLA along with his associates raised slogans, who were removed immediately from the spot. "Former BJP MLA Neel Daman Khatri along with associates raised slogans. They were immediately removed from the spot and ACP Narela and his staff escorted the chief minister to the venue of the function. There was no incident of attack and no complaint has been received in this regard," said a senior Delhi police officer. The government in its statement called the incident "shocking" and wondered how could the chief minister be attacked on the route which was cleared by the deputy commissioner of police of the area. The government further charged that the BJP workers were allowed to surround the chief minister's vehicle, block it and bang window panes with sticks in the presence of the police. Khatri, who is BJP's district president of north west Delhi, alleged AAP volunteers accompanying Kejriwal had misbehaved with his associates and he himself had been shoved by them. "We were only expressing resentment over metro network not expanding in rural Delhi and neglect of development works by the AAP government. Black flags were shown and slogans were raised but there was no attack on Kejriwal's vehicle. Instead, AAP volunteers misbehaved with me and I was shoved onto the ground by them, they also tore buttons of my jacket," Khatri alleged. However the AAP government persisted with its allegation, saying Friday's incident was at least the fifth such attack on the chief minister in the last three years. "The partial attitude of the Delhi police is clear from the fact that it has not filed chargesheet in any of these cases. The accused are booked under compoundable sections of criminal law just for public consumption and the cases are then forgotten," the government statement charged. The government categorically stated that "under political pressure and directions", the Delhi Police has "ignored" the chief minister's security and the people of Delhi are watching all these "conspiracies". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Seven people have been arrested for allegedly robbing a fish trader of Rs 5 lakh at the railway station here, police said Friday. The arrest was made Thursday. The victim Mohammed Nakwa from Ratnagiri, Maharashtra, was relieved of the money when he arrived at the station February 5, the police said. The accused snatched the bag with the money he was carrying and fled, they said. A case was registered and investigations led the police team to Bhatkal in Uttara Kannada district, where all the accused were apprehended, they said. A car and mobile phones were also seized from the gang, they added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Nearly 180 Kashmiri students, who are scheduled to write Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) examination in Jammu on Sunday, were airlifted from here in a special Indian Air Force (IAF) plane on Friday, officials said. "Due to heavy snowfall, the valley was cut off from the rest of world due to closure of national highway and cancellation of flights. In view of above, state authorities in coordination with Indian Air Force arranged an aircraft to airlift the students appearing for GATE examination," one of the officials said. They said 179 students left for Jammu Friday afternoon by C-17 aircraft from the Srinagar airport. "All arrangements were made for these students by the authorities of Srinagar airport," the official added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) As many as 179 GATE aspirants were flown to Jammu from Srinagar and 180 Kashmiri pilgrims stranded in Delhi have been airlifted to the Summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir as the current spell of snow, rain and inclement weather in the state disrupted road and air services. The Graduate Aptitude Test Exam (GATE) aspirants were not being able to travel to Jammu due to cancellation of fights and the national highway was also blocked due to heavy snowfall, an official spokesperson said. Similarly, the Kashmiri pilgrims, who had reached Delhi after performing Umrah in Saudi Arabia, could not travel further because of cancellation of flights to Srinagar. Taking cognizance of the matter, Governor Satya Pal Malik directed the administration for making alternative travel arrangements for all such people stranded at Srinagar and Delhi. "Due to heavy snowfall, the Valley was cut off from the rest of world due to closure of national highway and cancellation of flights. In view of above, state authorities in coordination with Indian Air Force arranged an aircraft to airlift the students appearing for GATE examination," one of the officials said. The Civil Aviation Ministry's help was sought in taking the pilgrims stranded in Delhi to Srinagar. On the request made by the state government, 180 passengers have been flown to Srinagar by an Air India fight. The remaining passengers are scheduled to fly back to Srinagar on Saturday, the spokesperson said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The United States military says targeted airstrikes against suspected extremists in Somalia have killed 15 fighters. A US Africa Command statement says the airstrikes occurred in the vicinity of Gandarshe, Lower Shabelle region, on Wednesday and in the vicinity of Bariire in the same region on Thursday. The airstrikes killed 11 and four people, respectively, after Somali troops engaged the extremists. The statement says no civilians were harmed. These are the latest in a dramatic uptick in US airstrikes in the Horn of Africa nation since President Donald Trump took office. The al-Qaida-affiliated al-Shabab extremist group once controlled large swathes of Somalia. African Union forces have succeeded in pushing it from major cities. Al-Shabab, the deadliest Islamic extremist group in Africa, continues with attacks in Somalia and neighbouring Kenya. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) She is called Mamata Banerjee. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI (M)] became the only political party across the opposition spectrum to side with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in supporting the raid by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officials on West Bengal top cop, Rajeev Kumar last week. At least two senior leaders from the Forward Bloc, an alliance partner of the Left Front in Bengal, have joined the Trinamool Congress (TMC) in the last eight months. ... Dear Reader, Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance. We, however, have a request. As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed. Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard. Digital Editor Sushant Singh, actor and General Secretary of the Cine And TV Artistes' Association (CINTAA), on Friday said the actors' community lacks unity and this needs to change for everyone to get equal rights. Sushant spoke at a press conference for ActFest, an 'actors only festival' being organised by CINTAA and 48 Hour Film Project. Asked about lack of unity among actors in the fraternity, Sushant said: "Yes, we do need unity here because of various reasons... I mean it is also required all over the world. This is a freelance field... anyone takes your job easily. You are not a permanent employee with anyone, so if you don't agree with employers' conditions, there is someone else ready to take your job. "So there is a love-hate relationship among us. We do appreciate each others' performances but we are fearful as well. So yes, there is lack of unity and we are trying to unify the actors so that everyone gets equal rights." ActFest will feature international delegates, industry stalwarts, and more than a thousand artists and aspiring actors. Sushant said the event will also honour senior actors, who aren't necessarily deemed stars or superstars. "CINTAA would like to establish Guild Awards dedicated solely to our community... To actors from television, web, mini-series, films, theatre. We're hoping that within a year or so, we will be able to move in that direction." They will also present a Hall of Fame Award. "We do have numerous senior actors here whose contribution is unparalleled towards the industry -- in cinema, television, and theatre, but they haven't been deemed as so-called stars or superstars. These actors have done hundreds of films but never been honoured or given any lifetime achievement recognition anywhere. "We will honour 15 senior veteran actors this year and we are so proud of it." The event will also have a panel discussion and speeches that will feature eminent Bollywood personalities such as Bobby Deol, Manoj Bajpayee, Rasika Dugal, Swara Bhaskar, Gajraj Rao, Raveena Tandon, Kubbra Sait, Shikha Talsania, Makarand Deshpande, Dilip Joshi, Kamya Punjabi, Manoj Joshi, Renuka Shahane, Sachin Khedekar, Satish Kaushik, Sumeet Vyas, Neena Gupta and Jimmy Shergill. --IANS iv/rb/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Telangana High Court on Friday issued bailable warrants against Assembly Secretary and Law Secretary in a contempt of court case filed by former Congress legislators Komatireddy Venkat Reddy and S.A. Sampath Kumar over their suspension from Assembly last year. Taking serious note of non-implementation of the earlier court orders revoking the suspension, Justice Siva Sankara Rao directed Assembly Secretary V. Narasimha Charyulu and Law Secretary V. Niranjan Rao to appear before the court on February 15. Venkat Reddy and Sampath had filed the contempt of court petition after their membership was not restored by the officials despite the court orders. The Congress legislators were suspended from the Telangana Assembly by then Speaker for indulging in unruly activities during the Governor's address to the joint sitting of the state legislature in March last year. The Legislature Secretary subsequently notified the vacancies for the two constituencies. On a petition challenging their expulsion, the Congress legislators had moved the High Court, which on April 17 restored their Assembly membership and set aside the state government's gazette notification to declare vacancies for Nalgonda and Alampur (SC) constituencies. The Congress legislators' contempt petition was pending when Telangana Assembly was dissolved in September last year. In the Assembly elections held on December 7, both Venkat Reddy and Sampath were defeated. --IANS ms/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The US is not pursuing action against the Sentinelese tribe members who killed an American missionary trying to enter their forbidden island, according to the top State Department official for religious freedom. "The US government has not asked or pursued any sort of sanctions that the Indian government would take against the tribal people in this case," said Samuel Brownback, the Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom, on Thursday. "It's a tragic situation and a tragic case of what's happened, but that's not something that's been asked," he said, answering a reporter's question during a news video conference if he would require the Indian government to take action against the Sentinelese tribe or recommend US sanctions on them. American fundamentalist Christian missionary John Allen Chau was killed in November by tribespeople when he illegally went to the North Sentinel Island in the Andamans to convert them. The Sentinelese do not allow outsiders on their island and kill visitors. The Indian government also does not permit visits to the island in deference to their desire to be isolated and also to protect their fragile immune systems from diseases, the simplest of which could be deadly to them. Officials said Chau was most likely killed by arrows. He had also written in a journal that a tribesperson shot an arrow into his bible on an earlier attempt to visit the island. His body has not been recovered and fishermen who had taken him to a point near the island from where he approached it on a kayak said that later they saw some tribespeople dragging his body on the beach. Brownback's statement was in contrast to the usual strong protests by Washington against attacks on missionaries. The US would normally have criticised the refusal of the Indian government to take action against the tribe as a case of impunity. In last year's report, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) headed by Brownback, which backs proselytisation and missionary activities, criticised India asserting that in the case of religion-based attacks, "there has not been accountability for the killings due to ineffective prosecutions". Brownback's reaction could be tempered by the fact that Chau threatened the very existence of the North Sentinelese, who are estimated to number between 50 and 200, by exposing them to diseases that their isolation has not prepared them to face. Survival International, a Britain-based organisation that works to protect isolated tribes, warned that Chau's incursion could have led to infections by "deadly pathogens to which they have no immunity, with the potential to wipe out the entire tribe". Given their total opposition to outsiders entering the island, any police action could lead to retaliation that could result in the annihilation of the Sentinelese. The USICRF report's recommendation to the US government to deny visas and seize US assets of Indians responsible for violations of religious freedom also would have no relevance to the Sentinelese. Surveying the state of religious freedom around the world, Brownback said that although it has declined over the last 10 years, "I am optimistic and I think it's on the upswing." He said that in the past year he had observed politicians and governments realising that manipulating religion for their own benefit was not good. "If we're going to grow our economy, if we're going to have security, we need to have religious tolerance and religious freedom guaranteed for everybody," he added. Brownback said that he saw the start of non-violent effort at interaction among religions, particularly among the Abrahamic faiths - Judaism, Christianity and Islam - "where there is a growing sense that we're in this together, that we need to figure out how to work together". He said the visit of Pope Francis to the United Arab Emirates - said to be the first by a Catholic pontiff to the Arab Peninsula - was a "really milestone event". (Arul Louis can be reached at arul.l@ians.in and followed on Twitter @arulouis) --IANS al/soni/ab (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) India's FDI policy on e-commerce and mandatory data localisation for global card payment companies seems to have rubbed Donald Trump on the wrong side as the US is thinking about withdrawing zero tariffs for India, sources said. The US Trade Representative is reviewing the preferential arrangement for India wherein the US charges no tariff on certain exports from India to the US under the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) and may soon withdraw the benefit, said an official. The move is seen as a retaliation by US President Donald Trump after India revised its FDI policy on e-commerce banning online retailers like Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart from selling products of companies in which they have stakes from February 1. The online retail firms (e-commerce marketplace entity) were also prohibited from mandating any company to sell its products exclusively on its platform only, as per the revised policy. Trump, who is working towards reducing trade deficits with major economies and asking US manufacturing companies to return home as part of his Make America Great Again campaign, is also not happy with the data localisation policy of India, the official said. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) guidelines say that all foreign payment companies such as MasterCard and Visa must store data locally for their businesses in the country. US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross is likely to raise the issues of e-commerce norms and data localisation in his visit to India next week. Currently, about $6 billion of exports from India get the special treatment of zero tariffs under the GSP. The GSP is a US trade programme designed to promote economic growth in the developing world by providing preferential duty-free entry for up to 4,800 products from 129 designated beneficiary countries and territories. --IANS mg/nir (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Seattle-headquartered Avalara, a provider of tax compliance automation software for businesses, on Friday said it had acquired Indix's Artificial Intelligence (AI)technology and the team that created it for an undisclosed sum. Sanjay Parthasarathy, CEO of US-based Indix, said Avalara and Indix share a similar global vision. "From day one, we built Indix to collect, organise, and structure the world's product information using Artificial Intelligence," Parthasarathy said in a statement. "With the addition of the Indix expertise, Avalara will be able to efficiently and rapidly refine its content to meet the expanding and evolving needs of its customers," he added. With the acquisition, Avalara will be able to use Indix's product descriptions for more than one billion products sold and shipped worldwide. Avalara said it intends to use the Indix AI to maintain and expand its massive tax content database, which includes international product codes and classifications, taxability rules, exemption conditions, tax holidays, jurisdictions, boundaries, tax rates, thresholds and registration, compliance, and return preparation and filing requirements. --IANS gb/ab/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a plea by RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav challenging the Bihar government's decision asking him to vacate a bungalow in Patna that was allotted to him when he was Deputy Chief Minister. A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi also imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 for wasting the court's "precious" time. Yadav, currently Leader of Opposition in the Bihar Assembly, had moved the top court challenging a Patna High Court order upholding the Nitish Kumar government's decision asking him to vacate the bungalow. Tejashwi Yadav became Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar on November 20, 2015, after the RJD-JD(U) alliance won the Assembly elections and came to power. He was Deputy Chief Minister till July 2017. After calling an end to an uneasy relationship, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar joined hands with the BJP. Ever since Yadav is the Leader of Opposition in the Assembly. --IANS pk/nir (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told a top aide in 2017 that he would use "a bullet" on Jamal Khashoggi, a journalist who was murdered last October, if the latter did not return to the Kingdom and end his criticism of the Saudi government, a New York Times report said. The conversation, intercepted by American intelligence agencies, is the most detailed evidence to date that the Crown Prince considered killing Khashoggi, a columnist for The Washington post, long before a team of Saudi operatives murdered him inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018, and dismembered his body using a bone saw, the report said on Thursday. According to informed officials, the conversation that took place between Prince Mohammed and the aide, Turki Aldakhil in September 2017, has been transcribed and analysed as part of an effort by intelligence agencies to find proof of who was responsible for Khashoggi's death. The National Security Agency (NSA) and other American intelligence agencies are now sifting through years of the Crown Prince's voice and text communications that the NSA routinely intercepted and stored, The New York Times quoted the officials as saying. Also in September 2017, Khashoggi began writing opinion columns for The Washington Post, and top Saudi officials discussed ways to lure him back to the country, the officials said. In the conversation, Prince Mohammed said that if Khashoggi could not be enticed back to Saudi Arabia, then he should be returned by force. If neither of those methods worked, the Crown Prince said, then he would go after the slain journalist "with a bullet". At the time of the conversation, Prince Mohammed was in the midst of consolidating power in the Kingdom, The New York Times said. Just months earlier, his father, King Salman, elevated him to second in line to the throne. Later that year, Prince Mohammed ordered hundreds of influential businessmen and Saudi royals, some who had been considered contenders to the throne, locked up at the Ritz Carlton hotel in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, where they were interrogated. ALSO READ: Trump faces heat ahead of US Congress deadline for Khashoggi murder probe Days before the conversation with Aldakhil, according to the informed officials, Prince Mohammed complained to another aide, Saud al-Qahtani, that Khashoggi had grown too influential. The Crown Prince Mohammed said that Khashoggi's articles and Twitter posts were tarnishing the his image as a forward-thinking reformer. Responding to the report, Aldakhil said on Thursday night: "These allegations are categorically false. They appear to be a continuation of various efforts by different parties to connect His Royal Highness Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to this horrific crime. These efforts will prove futile." A Saudi official also issued a statement saying: "We again deny any involvement on the part of the Crown Prince in the heinous murder of " Meanwhile, UN rapporteur Agnes Callamard presented preliminary findings on Thursday saying that Khashoggi's murder was the consequence of a plan hatched by officials of the Kingdom. "Evidence collected during my mission to Turkey shows prime facie case that Khashoggi was the victim of a brutal and premeditated killing, planned and perpetrated by officials of the State of Saudi Arabia," Callamard said. Callamard, who travelled to Turkey with a team that included a serious-crime investigator and a forensics expert, said she found that Saudi Arabia was hindering and undermining Turkish authorities' efforts to elucidate the circumstances of the journalist's death. She said her team will continue their investigation in the upcoming weeks and she urged anyone with any information about the assassination to come forward. The team's final report will be presented in June to the UN Human Rights Council. Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi has said that his country will present a strong case against alleged Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at a hearing scheduled for later this month. Addressing a reception in Manchester on Thursday, Qureshi said: "Pakistan has all the evidence against Jadhav of sabotage activities inside Pakistan. Jadhav has admitted to being involved in such activities." "Pakistan's legal team will present its stance in the case at The Hague on the 19th of this month," he was quoted as saying by Geo News. The ICJ, the principal judicial organ of the UN, will hold public hearings in the Jadhav case from February 18 to 21 at the Peace Palace in The Hague. Jadhav was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court for espionage in April 2017 following which India moved the ICJ. A 10-member ICJ bench restrained Pakistan from executing Jadhav till the case was adjudicated on. Pakistan had stated that "Jadhav was not an ordinary person as he had entered the country with the intent of spying and carrying out sabotage activities" in Balochistan. India denies all the charges. Jadhav was apprehended on March 3, 2016 after illegally crossing into Pakistan from Iran, according to Pakistani officials. Indian officials say he was abducted from Iran and taken to Pakistan against his will. --IANS soni/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Feb 8, 2019 | By Thomas Iconic printer and photocopier manufacturer Xerox announced during its 2019 Investor Day that it has acquired Vader Systems, a Getzville, New York-based metal Additive Manufacturing company. The company stated that this acquisition will enable it to offer its customers access to low-cost metal AM with more metals. Details of the acquisition were not disclosed. Buffalo, New York based Vader, which was founded in 2013, developed the first commercial liquid metal 3D printer with its patented Magnet-o-Jet technology, which can be used in high-volume metal manufacturing. Its offerings include the Vader Polaris liquid metal AM system, the Magnet-o-Jet Subsystem for hybrid manufacturing equipment integration, and the Ares Microsphere Production System for the production of spherical metal powders. Manufacturing customers want to use 3-D printing, but the current offerings only serve the prototyping market well, not broad manufacturing, Xerox said in a statement announcing the acquisition. Xerox developed, acquired and partnered printing software and material technologies are expected to deliver the productivity, materials range and cost and design tools to enable part manufacturing. Vader Systems home page is now redirected to Xerox's site. Xerox states: Xerox is constantly looking for new ways to deliver more value to our customers. We are leveraging our experience and expertise in digital printing to polymer and metal 3D printing technologies and will introduce new equipment, materials, services and design tools to the market. Posted in 3D Printer Company Maybe you also like: Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has requested the Centre for release of food subsidy to the state for timely payment to farmers. In a letter to Union Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan, Patnaik wrote that Odisha's food subsidy bill of Rs 3,654.41 crore was pending with the Department of Food and Public Distribution (DFPD). "It is a matter of concern that Odisha's subsidy bill amounting to Rs 3,654.41 crore (which includes the advance subsidy up to March 2019) is pending with the DFPD. Such a huge pendency is causing shortage of funds at the Odisha State Civil Supplies Corporation (OSCSC), which may hinder timely payment to farmers," he said. The OSCSC, a state PSU, procures paddy on behalf of the government. It borrows money from banks to pay the cost of the paddy directly to the farmers. While Rs 7,600 crore was paid to farmers last year, the payments this year have already crossed more than Rs 6,000 crore, informed Patnaik. OSCSC is on the verge of reaching its credit limit, he added. "To ensure adequate funds with the OSCSC for payment to farmers, it is essential that the DFPD regularly releases the food subsidy to the government of Odisha," said the Chief Minister. --IANS cd/rtp/ab (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) As BJP toms toms the budget's direct income support scheme for farmers, former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram calls it a "whimper" instead of being a trump card that leaves out an overwhelming majority of the poor and benefits only the land-owner class. He also rejects criticism of Congress President Rahul Gandhi's announcement of loan waivers to farmers across the nation if his party comes to power, saying it was necessary to revive the agriculture sector "which is in the ICU" as a one-time measure. The former finance minister defended the Congress' announcement of ensuring a minimum income guarantee for the poor if it is voted to power as "an implementable scheme" saying the Congress manifesto will explain the contours of the scheme justifying how it will be implemented. Calling the Modi government's scheme of direct income support to farmers "a whimper", he said people were no longer calling it as Rs 6,000 but Rs 17 a day. "It (government's farmer relief scheme) is a whimper. It's not a trump card, to say that I will give you Rs 6,000 per family. Who will get these Rs 6,000? The land owner gets it. The land owner could be an owner-cultivator. But in many cases, it is an absentee landlord sitting in some capital city of the state," Chidambaram told IANS in an interview coinciding with the release of his book "Undaunted - Saving the Idea of India". "The tenant farmer does not get the money. The farm worker does not get the money. The non-farm poor - goldsmith, carpenter, blacksmith, shopkeeper, tailor - in rural areas does not get the money. And no urban poor gets the money," he said. The Congress leader said if the government was talking about helping the poor, it was leaving the overwhelming majority of the poor and giving it only to the land-owner class, "among whom there may be poor land owners, but there are also absentee land-owners". "So this does not benefit the poor. It has already become a whimper," he said. Rejecting criticism of loan waivers, including by Chief Economic Adviser Krishnamurthy Subramanian who called it "a moral hazard", Chidambaram said it was the duty of the government to help those in extreme debt. "I laugh at the criticism that loan waivers are immoral. Then what do you call haircuts taken by banks for industrialists? So let's keep the morality argument out of it and look at the simple economics and the human problem behind agriculture," he said. He said the average debt of agricultural families was Rs 90,000 to Rs 1 lakh. "How can an indebted farmer ever repay Rs 90,000 to Rs 1 lakh? He is in the ICU. You have to first save his life, revive him. This is what loan waiver does If people are deep in debt due to drought or flood or some other reason, how can a government say I won't relieve you of your debt? "But I agree this is not a complete solution. After that, you have to ensure there is an increase in productivity, increase in production and the farmer gets fair price. If you fail to do that, ten years later you will face the same problem," the Congress leader said. He also defended Rahul Gandhi's announcement of a minimum guarantee scheme for the poor as implementable and said liberal economists like Arvind Subramanian to right-wing conservative economists like Surjit Bhalla had said it was implementable. "We have consulted a large number of economists of international repute. They say it's implementable provided it is carefully-designed, progressively rolled out. And it will be progressively rolled out," he said. Chidambaram said while the contours of the scheme will be revealed in the party manifesto, the details would be fleshed out only if and when the Congress is voted to power. Asked how much of an amount it was looking at, considering it called Rs 6,000 support to farmers - which translates to around Rs 17 a day - a "cruel joke", he said: "Obviously it has to be a minimum income into which every family will be brought so that the family can afford food, clothing, shelter, healthcare and education". He also attacked the government on lack of jobs and said Congress knew how to create jobs and would show it if it comes to power. "Congress knows how to create jobs. We know which are the job-creating sectors. Our manifesto will spell out how jobs can be created through the well-known job-creating sectors. "Had we not created jobs (during UPA government), there would have been a huge outcry. Have you ever seen an outcry in earlier period equal to the outcry you hear today? People don't cry out for the sake of crying out. They cry out because of their anguish, their suffering," he said. Asked how the Congress planned to create jobs, he said: "I believe that high growth will create jobs. And since we had high growth for the first seven years of the UPA government, I believe that a large number of jobs were created". Chidambaram, however, admitted that while the UPA did create jobs, they were not enough to take care of the number that was entering the labour force. --IANS vv-and/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Online platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and others are not required to obtain licences from the government to run their programmes, the Central government told the Delhi High Court on Friday. "Online platforms are not required to obtain any licences from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and the content on online platforms is not being regulated by this Ministry," the Centre told a bench of Chief Justice Rajendra Menon and Justice V. Kameswar Rao. The court was hearing an NGO, Justice for Rights Foundation, plea filed by advocate Harpreet S. Hora who has sought laws or guidelines for regulating vulgar and sexually explicit content available on these platforms. The petitioner told the court that a complaint with the police has already been filed but no action has been taken. The court asked the petitioner to seek appropriate remedies on his complaint. The court also dismissed the plea which has sought removal of vulgar and sexually explicit content from online platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and others. The petitioner said online platforms offered vulgar, sexually explicit, pornographic, profane, virulent, religiously forbidden and morally unethical contents in order to attract more subscribers and generate profit. The NGO alleged that most of the content available was in violation of the Indian Penal Code and the Information Technology Act. --IANS akk/oeb/ab (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) 'Modi go back' slogans rent the air in a Tirupati university on Friday, two days before Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to address a rally at Guntur. The Joint Action Committee of various student groups staged a sit-in on the campus of Sri Venkateswara University in the temple town of Tirupati even as the ruling Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and some mass organisations are gearing up for black flag protests against Modi's visit on Sunday. Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu has already asked TDP cadres to hold protests during Modi's visit against his 'betrayal' of Andhra Pradesh. The students who staged the protest in Tirupati on Friday recalled that it was at the same university that Modi, while addressing an election rally in 2014, had promised Special Category status to the state. They alleged that Modi has gone back on the promise made in front of Lord Venkateswara. "How can he come to the state after this betrayal," asked a protestor holding a banner with the slogan of 'Andhra drohi (betrayer) Modi go back'. The student leaders said they would hold innovative protests against Modi's visit from Saturday. This would be Modi's first visit to Andhra Pradesh since the TDP pulled out of the BJP-led NDA government to protest its failure to accord the Special Category status and to fulfil other commitments made in the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act 2014. During a video conference with BJP workers of Andhra Pradesh last month, Modi had targeted Chandrababu Naidu for corruption. At the Guntur rally, Modi is likely to target Naidu again and explain what his government had done for the state during the last four-and-a-half years. A day after Modi's visit to Andhra Pradesh, Naidu is scheduled to stage a day-long sit-in in New Delhi to protest against the Centre's 'unjust' attitude towards the state. Leaders of various non-BJP parties are likely to join Naidu in this protest. Simultaneous elections to the Andhra Pradesh Assembly and the Lok Sabha are likely to be held in April. --IANS ms/rs/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee exchanged a flurry of verbal punches on Friday, as he accused her of trying to save those involved in ponzi scheme scams, alleging that opposition parties were coming together to protect fraudsters, touts and criminals. Banerjee hit back by calling him the "master of corruption". Launching a scathing attack on Banerjee, the Prime Minister wondered why she was so scared of the probe into the scam, and charged her with inviting leaders from all over the country against whom there are either serious allegations of graft or those who were trying to protect the "corrupt" and said none of the offenders will be spared. "It has happened for the first time in the history of the nation that a Chief Minister sat in a dharna in support of those who looted thousands of poor people. She is trying to protect the looters and those who ruined the lives of the poor," Modi said while addressing a public rally at Churabhandar in the state's Jalpaiguri district. Banerjee held a 45-hour sit-in protest in the hub of Kolkata following an ugly face-off between the Central Bureau of Investigation officers and personnel of the Kolkata police, when the federal probe agency had shown up near the residence of the Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev kumar to quiz him in the ponzi scheme scam case. Kumar had headed the Special Investigation Team (SIT) formed by Banerjee to probe the multi-billion-rupee financial scandal before the CBI took over the investigation following a Supreme Court order. "The people of Bengal want to ask her why she is so scared of the probe into the chit fund scam. Why is she holding dharna for those who are accused of callousness in probing the scandal?" Modi questioned. "I want to assure all the families who suffered in the Saradha, Narada and Rose Valley scams that the 'chowkidaar' (guard) will not spare anybody -- be it the looters or their protectors, no one will be spared," Modi said. Refering to the January 19 rally of opposition leaders in Kolkata, Modi said: "These leaders came together to protect the fraudsters, touts and criminals... They can assemble as many people as they want to hold dharnas, and gather as many leaders as possible, the people who looted the poor will be punished". Upping his ante against the Banerjee government, the Prime Minister said the situation in Bengal is such that infiltrators are welcome, but there is a bar on BJP leaders. "Obstructing rallies, refusing to allow helicopters to land and attacks on BJP functionarie are signals that the land is slipping from under the Trinamool's feet," Modi said, evoking cheers from thousands of party activists present at the rally ground. In Kolkata, Banerjee minced no words in returning the fire, as she called Modi "master of corruption and arrogance", and one "used to blaring out a bunch of lies". "Country has not seen any person as corrupt as Modi. From Rafale to the scheme of 59 minutes loans for MSMEs, to demonetisation, Jan Dhan -- these are all scams. All the institutions have been destroyed. "He is a master of corruption, arrogance and used to blaring out a bunch of lies. His standard is so below par, we cannot imagine it even. We respect the chair but not Maddy babu," Banerjee said, distorting Modi's name. Describing the Centre's plan to take action against five senior police officers who were involved in the face-off between the Kolkata Police and CBI officials as part of "campaign" before polls, Banerjee said the Centre cannot take action against them, as they were state officers. Banerjee also found fault with Modi for inaugurating the circuit bench of the Calcutta High Court in north Bengal's Jalpaiguri, alleging he was "doing politics" by inguarating projects "hurriedly" ahead of the polls. "I am ashamed to talk about this man. The circuit bench is under the Calcutta High Court. Was anyone from the Calcutta High Court present at the inauguration? Neither state government (officials) nor anyone from high court was present there," Banerjee said. She alleged that the Central government did not spend a single penny on the circuit bench project in which about Rs 300 crore were spent by the state. --IANS ssp/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Eight years after the sensational rackets of illegal sex determination tests and female feticide shook the state, the Beed Sessions Court sentenced a medico couple to 10 years rigorous imprisonment, here on Friday. The couple, (Drs) Sudam Munde, 61 and his wife Saraswati, 58 were among 17 accused of carrying out illegal sex determination tests and performing selective abortions of female fetuses. Besides the Munde couple, another accused Mahadev Patekar has also been found guilty and slapped with a 10-year sentence. Ten others were acquitted for insufficient evidence against them and four accused died during the pendency of the trial. All have been found guilty and convicted under various sections of the stringent Pre-Conception & Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, 1994 and the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971. It was in May 2012 that the death of a woman, Vijaymala Patekar, a mother of four young girls, died while performing an illegal abortion of her fifth pregnancy, reportedly a female child. One of the convicts is her husband (Mahadev), who allegedly pressured her to undergo the illegal operation. Her death blew the lid off a massive multi-state racket being blatantly perpetrated by the Munde couple in connivance with middlemen and associates, with patients pouring in from Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka and other places, at their private hospital in Parli. They charged Rs 20,000 per illegal abortions of female fetuses from young couples who wanted a male child owing to various social-economic factors. Over the years, the son of a poor farmer, Sudam Munde amassed a huge fortune, including over 350 acres of properties worth crores in and around Beed, through the illegal practices in his hospital. The convicted trio has also been fined Rs 450,000 which will be kept in deposit in a nationalized bank for the Patekars' four minor daughters' upkeep and education, the court ordered. The Munde couple and others involved were arrested by the police and investigations exposed a massive racket going on in the illegal hospital with 120-beds, against the permitted 10 beds. Later, as the case ramifications surfaced, the Maharashtra Medical Council cancelled the medical licences of the Munde couple. During the long trial lasting over nearly six years, among the prime prosecution witnesses were the government and civil doctors, medical experts, the coroner and police officials, which proved crucial to the case, resulting in conviction. --IANS qn/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) John Dingell, the longest serving member of the US Congress on record and a politician whose voice loomed large even after he left Capitol Hill, has died. He was 92. "It is with a heavy heart that we announce the passing of John David Dingell, Jr., former Michigan Congressman and longest-serving member of the US Congress," CNN quoted the office of his wife, Representative Debbie Dingell, as saying in a statement on Thursday. "Congressman Dingell died peacefully today at his home in Dearborn, surrounded by his wife Deborah... "He will be remembered for his decades of public service to the people of Southeast Michigan, his razor sharp wit and a lifetime of dedication to improving the lives of all who walk this earth," the statement added. The Michigan Democrat in more recent years, came to be known for his witty Twitter account and criticism of President Donald Trump's administration. "John Dingell was a giant legislator on behalf of the people," said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. He described Dingell as a "tireless advocate" who fought for clean air, clean water, consumer protections and financial regulations throughout his nearly six decades in Congress. Dingell served in the House of Representatives for 59 years and 22 days, from 1955 to 2015. According to the House historian's office, he served with 11 Presidents and cast 28,551 votes. Of that time, he served on the Energy and Commerce Committee for nearly 58 years, making Dingell the longest serving member on any congressional committee. He also served as chairman of the committee for more than 15 years. Dingell became known for his commentary on current events through snarky and sometimes hard-hitting tweets that often went viral. He built a following of more than 250,000 users, dwarfing that of many current members of Congress. John David Dingell Jr. was born July 8, 1926 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He was exposed to at an early age when his father was elected to the House in 1932, reports CNN. When he was 18, Dingell enlisted into the US Army, almost three years after he watched former President Theodore Roosevelt deliver his famous "Day of Infamy" address to Congress. After his father died while in office 1955, Dingell was elected to the seat in a special election at the age of 29. He was then re-elected to 29 more congressional sessions, until he decided not to run for re-election in 2014. His wife, Debbie, succeeded him and remains in the seat today. Dingell's service, combined with that of his father and his wife, marks the longest consecutive service in Congress for a single family: nearly 86 years. --IANS ksk (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The big brotherly attitude of the RJD and the Congress is not going down well with the Left parties including the CPI, the CPI(M) and the CPI(ML), keen though they are to be a part of the Grand Alliance in Bihar for the upcoming elections. As the RJD and the Congress bargain with each other for their seat share in the Grand Alliance, the Left has been left guessing about the number of seats it will get. State RJD chief Ramchandra Purbe has already made it clear that his party will contest 20 to 22 of the 40 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar and leave the rest for its allies. Congress leaders stake claim to 12-15 seats followed by the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP), which wants to contest five-six seats; the Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM-S) and the fledgling Vikassheel Insan Party (VIP), which are asking for three and one seat each. Between them the three Left parties are eyeing at least 10 of the 40 Lok Sabha seats in the state, but have little chance of getting these. Sources say that both the RJD and the Congress want to keep the Left parties in the Grand Alliance in view of their pockets of influence in over a dozen districts of the state but are not willing to give them more than 3-4 seats. Sensing this, the CPI(ML), which is considered a strong political force with three legislators in the state assembly and a huge support base across several districts, particularly in the rural areas, has made it clear that the Left must not be neglected. While the party has announced fielding candidates in at least six seats including Arah, Siwan, Karakat, Jehanabad, Patliputra and Valmikinagar, CPI(ML) general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya has warned the RJD and the Congress that the Left and the Socialist parties would go to the polls together if they're not given a respectable seat share. "We, the Left parties are united and have a formidable support base," he said. Similarly, the CPI is ready to contest at least three seats including its traditional strongholds of Begusarai and Madhubani. Former JNU students' union president Kanhaiya Kumar is likely to be a CPI candidate from Begusarai. "Kanhaiya Kumar has been visiting villages and semi-urban pockets in Begusarai since last December to meet people and seek their support," a CPI leader said. CPI state secretary Satyanarayan Singh said talks for seat sharing were on with leaders of the Grand Alliance and it will be finalised soon. "One thing is certain. The CPI will contest from Begusarai," he said. Singh was the only Left leader who shared the stage with Congress president Rahul Gandhi at his February 3 rally in Patna and even addressed it. CPI(M) state secretary Avadhesh Kumar said the Left parties will contest the next Lok Sabha polls, with or without the Grand Alliance. "The Left parties have their own strong support base and influence in a numbers of seats. We have to contest from all such seats." In the 2014 general elections, the RJD won only four seats and the Congress two. The NCP won one seat. The JD-U, which contested separately, also won only two seats. The BJP-led NDA won 31 seats, with the BJP tally being 22. --IANS ik/rtp/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Releasing a purported audio tape, Karnataka Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy on Friday accused BJP leader B.S. Yeddyurappa of luring a legislator of his ruling Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S). Yeddyurappa, however, vehemently denied the charge and termed the audio tape fake as its voice was not his. Quoting Sharanagouda, son of JD-S Gurmitkal legislator Naganagouda Kandakur, Kumaraswamy told reporters here that Yeddyurappa had called the former and asked him to go to Devadurga from Yadgir, which is in the state's northwest region, about 500 km from Bengaluru. "Yeddyurappa asked me to leave for Mumbai where his son (B.Y. Vijayendra) was present and would make payment to me. But I told him (Yeddyurappa) that I would consult my father (Kandakur) and get back to him," Sharanagouda, who was also present with the Chief Minister, told the media. Playing the audio tape, Sharanagouda said in Kumaraswamy's presence that Yeddyurappa told him that he had booked the state legislative Assembly Speaker (K.R. Ramesh Kumar) by paying him Rs 50 crore. "Yeddyurappa told me that he had also booked the legislative Assembly Speaker himself by paying him Rs 50 crore," he said. Sharanagouda said JD-S Hassan MLA Preetham Gowda and Devadurga MLA Shivanagouda Naik were also present with him when Yeddyurappa called on him. "Yeddyurappa also offered me a plum ministerial portfolio if I could convince my father (Kandakur) to switch over to the BJP. 'Do not worry, BJP National President Amit Shah has even booked Supreme Court judges'," added Sharangouda, quoting Yeddyurappa again. Accusing Kumaraswamy of concocting the audio tape to hide his failures and inability to keep the legislators of the ruling allies (JD-S and Congress) together, Yeddurappa told reporters that it was a fake tape as he did not meet anyone. "This is a drama, enacted by the ruling JD-S alliance, as Kumaraswamy lost the people's trust and hence had no right to continue in the office," Yeddurappa said after the unverified tape went public and was played up by local news channels, hours before Kumaraswamy presented the state budget for fiscal 2019-20 in the state legislative Assembly amid ruckus by the BJP members. Refuting the charge, the former BJP Chief Minister also denied meeting anyone to woo Kandakur. "I did go to Devadurga recently to visit a temple and returned to Bengaluru without meeting anyone as it was a personal visit," added Yeddyurappa. On the charge of paying Rs 50 crore to the Assembly Speaker, Yeddyurappa said he would resign as an MLA and quit if the voice in the tape and the charge was proved. "I will retire from if the charge is proved. If I had spoken as heard in the tape about the Speaker and if it is proved... I will resign as an MLA and quit politics," added Yeddyurappa. --IANS fb/arm/ab (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Accredited journalists in Punjab will now get a monthly pension of Rs 12,000. Chief Minister Amarinder Singh gave approval to grant a monthly pension of Rs 12,000 to veteran accredited journalists in the state, conceding a long-pending demand of the journalist fraternity. A journalist to be eligible under the scheme should not be less than 60 years of age and should be accredited by the state Information and Public Relations Department for a qualifying period of not less than 20 years, a government statement said. --IANS vg/rs/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Actor Albert Finney Dies at 82 By The Associated Press LONDON - Albert Finney, the charismatic Academy Award-nominated British actor who starred in films from "Tom Jones" to "Skyfall," has died. He was 82.Finney's family said Friday that he "passed away peacefully after a short illness with those closest to him by his side." He died Thursday from a chest infection at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London.Finney was a rare star who managed to avoid the Hollywood limelight for more than five decades after bursting to international fame in 1963 in the title role of "Tom Jones."The film gained him the first of five Oscar nominations. Others followed for "Murder on the Orient Express," ''The Dresser," ''Under the Volcano" and "Erin Brockovich."In later years he brought authority to action movies, including the James Bond thriller "Skyfall" and two of the Bourne films.Displaying the versatility of a virtuoso, Finney portrayed Winston Churchill, Pope John Paul II, a southern American lawyer, an Irish gangster and an 18th-century rogue, among dozens of other roles over the years. There was no "Albert Finney"-type character that he returned to again and again.In one of his final roles, as the gruff Scotsman Kincade in "Skyfall," he shared significant screen time with Daniel Craig as Bond and Judi Dench as M, turning the film's final scenes into a master class of character acting.Although Finney rarely discussed his personal life, he told the Manchester Evening News in 2012 that he had been treated for kidney cancer for five years, undergoing surgery and chemotherapy.He also explained why he had not attended the Academy Awards in Los Angeles even when he was nominated for the film world's top prize."It seems silly to go over there and beg for an award," he told the paper.The son of a bookmaker, Finney was born May 9, 1936, and grew up in northern England on the outskirts of Manchester. He took to the stage at an early age, doing a number of school plays and despite his lack of connections and his working-class roots earning a place at London's prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts.He credited the headmaster of his local school, Eric Simms, for recommending that he attend the renowned drama school."He's the reason I am an actor," Finney said in 2012.Finney made his first professional turn at 19 and appeared in several TV movies, including "She Stoops to Conquer" in 1956 and "The Claverdon Road Job" the following year.Soon some critics were hailing him as "the next Laurence Olivier" a commanding presence who would light up the British stage. Britain's pre-eminent theater critic, Kenneth Tynan, called the young Finney a "smoldering young Spencer Tracy" and warned established star Richard Burton about his prowess. In London, Finney excelled both in Shakespeare's plays and in more contemporary offerings.Still, the young man seemed determined not to pursue conventional Hollywood stardom. After an extensive screen test, he turned down the chance to play the title role in director David Lean's epic "Lawrence of Arabia," clearing the way for fellow RADA graduate Peter O'Toole to take what became a career-defining role.But stardom came to Finney anyway in "Tom Jones" where he won over audiences worldwide with his good-natured, funny and sensual portrayal of an 18th-century English rogue.That was the role that introduced Finney to American audiences, and few would forget the lusty, blue-eyed leading man who helped the film win a Best Picture Oscar. Finney also earned his first Best Actor nomination for his efforts and the smash hit turned him into a Hollywood leading man.Director Tony Richardson said his goal for "Tom Jones" was simply to produce an enjoyable romp."No social significance for once," he said. "No contemporary problems to lay bare. Just a lot of colorful, sexy fun."Finney had the good fortune to receive a healthy percentage of the profits from the surprise hit, giving him financial security while he was still in his 20s."This is a man from very humble origins who became rich when he was very young," said Quentin Falk, author of an unauthorized biography of Finney. "It brought him a lot of side benefits. He's a man who likes to live as well as to act. He enjoys his fine wine and cigars. He's his own man. I find that rather admirable."The actor maintained a healthy skepticism about the British establishment and even turned down a knighthood when it was offered, declining to become Sir Albert. Finney once said he didn't believe in such honors."Maybe people in America think being a 'Sir' is a big deal," he said. "But I think we should all be misters together. I think the 'Sir' thing slightly perpetuates one of our diseases in England, which is snobbery. And it also helps keep us 'quaint,' which I'm not a great fan of."Instead of cashing in by taking lucrative film roles after "Tom Jones," Finney took a long sabbatical, traveling slowly through the United States, Mexico and the Pacific islands, then returned to the London stage to act in Shakespeare productions and other plays. He won wide acclaim and many awards before returning to film in 1967 to co-star with Audrey Hepburn in "Two for the Road."This was to be a familiar pattern, with Finney alternating between film work and stage productions in London and New York.Finney tackled Charles Dickens in "Scrooge" in 1970, then played Agatha Christie's super-sleuth Hercule Poirot in "Murder on the Orient Express" earning his second Best Actor nomination and even played a werewolf hunter in the cult film "Wolfen" in 1981.He earned more Best Actor Oscar nominations for his roles in the searing marital drama "Shoot the Moon" in 1982, co-starring with Diane Keaton, and "The Dresser" in 1983. He was nominated again in 1984 for his role as a self-destructive alcoholic in director John Huston's "Under the Volcano."Even during this extraordinary run of great roles, and his critically acclaimed television portrayal of the pope, Finney's life was not chronicled in People Weekly or other magazines, although the British press was fascinated with his marriage to the sultry French film star Anouk Aimee.He played in a series of smaller, independent films for a number of years before returning to prominence in 2000 as a southern lawyer in the film "Erin Brockovich," which starred Julia Roberts. The film helped introduce Finney to a new generation of moviegoers, and the chemistry between the aging lawyer and his young, aggressive assistant earned him yet another Oscar nomination, this time for Best Supporting Actor.His work also helped propel Roberts to her first Best Actress Oscar. Still, Finney declined to attend the Academy Awards ceremony possibly damaging his chances at future wins by snubbing Hollywood's elite.He went on to star in director Tim Burton's "Big Fish" and portrayed Britain's wartime leader, Winston Churchill, in "The Gathering Storm."Finney also tried his hand at directing and producing and played a vital role in sustaining British theater.The Old Vic theater said after Finney's death that his "performances in plays by Shakespeare, Chekhov and other iconic playwrights throughout the '60s, '70s and '80s stand apart as some of the greatest in our 200-year history."Finney is survived by his third wife, Pene Delmage, son Simon and two grandchildren. Funeral arrangements weren't immediately known. Financially stressed Jet Airways' stocks fell by around 5 per cent on Friday a day after the airline said that four of its aircraft have been grounded for non-payment of dues to lessors. The company's scrip at the BSE on Friday fell by 4.78 per cent or Rs 11.30 to Rs 225.30 from its previous close. In another development, the company in a separate regulatory filing said that its Board will meet on February 14, 2019 to approve the unaudited financial statements for the third quarter and nine months ended 31 December 2018. On the issue of grounding of aircraft, the airline on Thursday said that it is actively engaged with all its aircraft lessors and "regularly provides them with updates on efforts undertaken by the company to improve its liquidity". "The company is making all efforts to minimise disruption to its network...and is proactively informing and re-accommodating its affected guests," it said in the filing on Thursday. "The company also continues to provide required and periodic updates to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation in this regard." The airline on Thursday also said that three aircraft that were grounded for engine normalisation are back in commercial operations. Lately, Jet Airways has been in a tight spot financially as a rescue plan is being stitched between its partner Etihad and a consortium of banks. The airline has a loan burden of over Rs 8,000 crore and it could see some of that amount being converted into equity by the banks. Last month in a filing, Jet Airways said an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) of the company would be held on February 21 where a special resolution would be put forth to consider and "approve conversion of loan into shares or convertible instruments or other securities". The question about the financial health of Jet Airways has also been raised in the Lok Sabha. Replying to a question on the airline, Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha in a written reply informed the Parliament that efficient operations and financial performance is the responsibility of each airline and their shareholders. --IANS rv/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) India on Friday assured Bangladesh of its continued support for "safe, speedy and sustainable" return of Rohingyas to Rakhine region of Myanmar and expressed its appreciation for the humanitarian gesture of Bangladesh in supporting a large number of such displaced persons. The assurance was given by External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj at the Fifth Joint Consultative Commission (JCC) meeting co-chaired by her and her Bangladesh counterpart A.K. Abdul Momen here. The two Ministers reaffirmed that the relationship between India and Bangladesh, forged in the 1971 Liberation War, goes far beyond a strategic partnership and it today anchored in history, culture, language and shared values of democracy, secularism, development cooperation and other commonalities. The two countries signed three MoUs including on mid-career training of 1800 Bangladesh civil servants, on cooperation in the field of medicinal plants between AYUSH and the Ministry of Health of Bangladesh. A MoU was also signed between CBI and Anti-Corruption Commission of Bangladesh. Momen, who had called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday, conveyed the greetings of Sheikh Hasina, and her appreciation for Modi being the first foreign leader to congratulate her upon the victory of the Awami League in Bangladesh's parliamentary elections in December 2018. Modi reaffirmed "India's abiding commitment to remain Bangladesh's most committed partner for security and development." Modi also conveyed his good wishes to his Bangladeshi counterpart for her success in this third consecutive term in office. During the JCC meeting, Sushma Swaraj and Momen also expressed satisfaction that both countries were "working closer than ever before" in every sector, from security and border management to mutually-beneficial trade and investment flows, power and energy, river water sharing, development partnership, transport connectivity, culture, people-to-people contacts. "The External Affairs Minister expressed appreciation for the humanitarian gesture of Bangladesh in supporting a large number of displaced persons from the Rakhine region of Myanmar and assured the Foreign Minister of India's continued support for safe, speedy and sustainable return of the displaced persons to Myanmar," said a joint press release issued after the meeting. Momen conveyed gratitude of Bangladesh government for the humanitarian assistance provided by India in four tranches since September 2017 to help meet the requirements of the displaced persons from Myanmar. "The two ministers agreed on the need to expedite safe and sustainable repatriation of the displaced people from Rakhine State of Myanmar," the release said. The ministers tasked their accompanying officials to develop a forward looking roadmap for bilateral cooperation "to make the partnership irreversible." They said that partnership-building efforts should be enhanced in a manner commensurate with commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Bangladesh's Liberation. The ministers discussed the gamut of bilateral issues of mutual interest and implementation of decisions taken earlier. They said the relationship was now broadening to include new and high technology areas for partnership, such as space, nuclear energy, IT and electronics. An MoU was also signed between Hiranandani Group and Bangladesh Economic Zones Authority to facilitate investments in the Indian Economic Zone in Mongla. --IANS ps/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Senior Congress leader and former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram on Friday said his party will spell out clearly the roadmap on how to create jobs in the country. "Wait for our manifesto. We will tell you how we are going to create jobs," Chidambaram said in response to a query during the release of his book "Undaunted - Saving the idea of India". He slammed the Narendra Modi government for suppressing the data on the jobs as also on the ouster of successive RBI Governors Raghuram Rajan and Urijit Patel, saying both left in "utter frustration and disgust". In his opening remarks, Chidambaram said that what was happening "to India" could be irreparable if it was not stopped now. "Let alone what is happening in India, I am concerned about what is happening to India. Fear is dominating the country and institutions are being compromised," he said. On the question of EVMs, he said that political parties trust the assurances given by the Chief Election Commissioners on the credibility of EVMs but at least 50 per cent VVPAT slips should be counted in each booth "to be doubly sure". "The EC has not answered it clearly as to why not 50 per cent paper slip counting, why just 5 per cent? If the excuse is that it would delay the result, so what if result is delayed?" he said. Defending his party's "equivocal" position on the Sabarimala issue he said that it was such a matter on which the other side's point of view could not be ignored. "As far as Sabarimala is concerned, do you have a clear cut answer? At least I don't. I am not a very religious person. I swear by Article 14, 15 and 16 of the Constitution. But are these issues amenable to a judicial solution?" he said. "I personally support the Supreme Court judgement. But millions of people, including Congress workers, think that that judgement was over the top. And that it should be left to Devasam Board, the tantris and the customs. Now, who am I to tell them that they are wrong? They will turn around and say ayou are wrong'. "How can I stop ordinary men and women from expressing their views? Within a family there can be views, within a community there can be views, within a village there can be views. This is not an issue on which you and I can take such a categorical position that no other view is acceptable," he said. The Supreme Court has allowed the entry of women of all ages in the Sabarimala temple. As per the custom, women of menstrual age were not allowed inside the temple. Asked if this was not exactly the position of the Hindutva groups on Ayodhya Ram temple issue, the senior Congress leader said the two issues were different. "Ayodhya is not an issue of custom, it's an issue of faith. Don't mix up custom with faith. In Sabarimala it is custom opposed to modern constitutional values. In Ayodhya, we are talking about the birthplace of somebody, centuries ago. Because of that faith, a group is claiming the land. "The other group says a mosque has existed there for several hundreds of years. So the question that Supreme Court will resolve is framed by the Allahabad High Court," he said. --IANS mak/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The concessionaire for the Delhi-Gurugram Expressway and the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) on Friday blocked the connectivity between the Northern Peripheral Road (NPR) and the National Highway 48 near Kherki Daula toll plaza by erecting steel grills. The Delhi-Gurugram Expressway concessionaire, the Millennium City Expressway Private Ltd (MCEPL), had been threatening to close the NPR (also called Dwarka Expressway) and the Southern Peripheral Road (SPR) after getting an affirmative order from the Delhi High Court to erect a temporary structure to block the way. Residents of the developing sectors of New Gurugram (mainly from Sectors 80 to 95) said that they would launch a protest On Friday evening against the move of the MCEPL and the NHAI. The 300-metre-long and two-metre-high wall, which was built by MCEPL in 2016 to prevent traffic from bypassing the toll plaza, was razed by the Haryana government authorities after Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar visited the spot along with Gurugram Deputy Commissioner (DC) Vinay Pratap Singh on January 23. Khattar directed the Haryana Shahari Vikas Pradhikaran (HSVP) to remove it and the wall was demolished on the same day. The district administration appointed tehsildar Manesar Hitender Sharma as duty magistrate and issued directions to officials to implement the Delhi High Court order to erect a temporary structure. According to an agreement, signed between NHAI and MCEPL, the latter has the right to collect toll till January 2023. The NHAI on Tuesday had written a letter to the Deputy Commissioner seeking help on behalf of MCEPL, asking for closure of this road citing the agreement. MCEPL' CEO S. Raghuraman said that they have been seeking help from the district administration after getting relief from the High Court on January 25. The next hearing is on February 19. "Opening the NPR has caused us heavy revenue loss and it is against the agreement and this is what we submitted to the court," Raghuraman said. On January 29, when the toll operator and MCEPL tried to erect steel grills, the move was met with protests by residents. The Gurugram police then did not intervene in the matter as no directions had been issued by the district administration in this regard. On Friday, heavy police force was deployed at the erecting site. --IANS pradeep/oeb/ab (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Blocking the tracks on the Delhi-Mumbai rail route, the Gujjar community on Friday began its agitation for five per cent reservation in state jobs and educational institutions. Members of the Gujjar Sangharsh Samiti (GSS) had called a mahapanchayat earlier in the day. Soon after, the GSS members went to the Malarna Dungar railway station near Sawai Madhopur and started blocking the railway tracks. Till the time of filing this report, the Awadh Express and several goods trains had been stopped at Sawai Madhopur. GSS leader Col Kirori Singh Bainsla said, "We want five per cent for our community, the way the Centre has given 10 per cent to the Economically Backward Classes. The government did not respond to our demand, neither did anyone come to talk to us, so we were forced to take this step." He asked the protesters to remain disciplined and avoid damage to the railway tracks, electric poles and other railway and public property. "The next blockade would be on the Tonk-Niwai route followed by blockades on the Ajmer-Bhilwara and Hadoti-Shekhawati rail routes," he said. The GSS members said that the Congress government had come to power with their support and must now fulfil their demand or face the consequences. --IANS arc/rtp/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Gujarat High Court on Friday granted anticipatory bail to Mumbai-based human rights activists Teesta Setalvad and her husband Javed Anand in a case of embezzlement of Central government funds. Allowing the bail application, Justice J.B. Pardiwala strongly stated, "I am giving the applicants (Setalvad and Anand) last chance despite all odds. I reserve the right of the state to summon them whenever required. And, the state can seek remand if custodial interrogation is required." He ordered them to remain present before the Ahmedabad Detection of Crime Branch (DCB), which is looking into the case, on February 11. The court granted the request by the defendants' lawyer Mihir Thakor that the couple would present themselves on February 15 since they had pressing family matters to look after. According to the FIR lodged by Setalvad's former close associate, Raees Khan Pathan, the NGO, Sabrang Trust, that Setalvad and Javed Anand run, had received Rs 1.4 crore fund from the Union Ministry of Human Resources Development for the trust's 'Khoj project' for education. It was alleged that the grant, which was received under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan on the union ministry was transferred to the personal bank accounts of the activists and was used for personal and political purposes as well as on paying witnesses in 2002 riots cases to make false depositions. The couple has maintained that the Khoj project was launched in 2010 and wrapped up before January 2014 when the bank accounts were frozen due to another fabricated case against them. They had approached the high court after their March 2018 anticipatory bail application was rejected by a special sessions court. --IANS desai/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Facing the flak from lawmakers and experts, Facebook has decided not to build a new app called "LOL" to let children share and post humorous meme content. Instead, the social media giant said it would focus more on its "Messenger Kids" aimed at those under 13 years of age. According to a report in CNET on Thursday, the company is restructuring a "youth team" of more than 100 employees. "The youth team has restructured in order to match top business priorities, including increasing our investment in Messenger Kids," a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement. Facebook last month said it was experimenting with the "LOL" hub. "'LOL' is currently in private beta with around 100 high school students who signed non-disclosure agreements with parental consent to do focus groups and one-on-one testing with Facebook staff," media reports said. Social media experts had warned that this was yet another attempt by Facebook -- embroiled in several data breach and privacy violation cases -- to woo young people and boost its stalled user growth. Despite call for withdrawal by experts, Facebook has also decided to expand the reach of its Messenger Kids by introducing the video calling and messaging app. It was launched in the US in 2017. Earlier on Thursday, Senators Richard Blumenthal, Ed Markey and Josh Hawley sent a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, expressing concern about its practice of paying teenagers and young adults for access to their mobile phone and browsing data. Facebook last month was found to be secretly paying teenagers $20 each, asking them to install a "Facebook Research" app that lets the company access personal data to know how they use their smartphones. The company defended, saying it was only a research app. The senators also sent letters to Google and Apple inquiring about their app store policies, asking for responses by March 1. --IANS na/ksk (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) DMK President M.K. Stalin has requested the Election Commission of India (ECI) to hold the by-elections to the 21 vacant Assembly seats in Tamil Nadu along with the Lok Sabha polls. In a letter to Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora and Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa on Thursday, Stalin said as per media reports the poll body plans to notify the general elections in seven stages sometime in April. "We, therefore, request the ECI to hold elections to the 21 Assembly seats along with election to the 39 parliamentary seats in Tamil Nadu, since it would save valuable time of the voters, the ECI and government staff and also ease the burden on the public exchequer," Stalin said in his letter. "Since the 21 Assembly seats form part of some of the 39 parliamentary constituencies, it would be easy to enforce election related guidelines including the model code of conduct and staff deployed for the parliamentary elections can be utilised without wastage of resources," he added. In another letter to Tamil Nadu Governor Banwarilal Purohit, Tamil Nadu Assembly Speaker P. Dhanapal and Chief Election Commissioner Arora, the DMK leader urged them to declare the Hosur Assembly constituency as vacant. Stalin said P.Balakrishna Reddy who was elected to the Assembly from Hosur was convicted by a special court in an arson and causing damage to public property case. Reddy was sentenced to three years imprisonment. The DMK President added that the Tamil Nadu Assembly Speaker has not taken any steps to formally notify the Hosur constituency as vacant and intimate the ECI. --IANS vj/ksk/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) US House Democrats and Republicans on Thursday clashed with each other over a bid to release President Donald Trump's tax returns. "Every president should release his or her returns to the public as a matter of course," Democratic lawmaker Bill Pascrell told a Ways and Means Subcommittee on Oversight hearing. "And when we have cause for concern over conflicts or tax violations we have every reason to use the authority given to this committee," he said. "The law is on our side." Pascrell was referring to a 1924 law that allows the chairs of Congress's tax committees to look into anyone's confidential returns, Xinhua news agency reported. Republican lawmaker Mike Kelly argued the move would set a dangerous precedent, saying "an abuse of power would open a Pandora's box that would be tough to get a lid back on." "There is no end in sight for those whose tax information may be in jeopardy," Kelly said. Several tax experts were also called upon to testify. The hearing was part of House Democrats' effort to push an ethics legislation, which would require presidents and vice presidents as well as candidates for those posts to release their tax returns in previous 10 years. That legislation, however, is likely to be dead on the arrival in the Senate as Republicans control the upper chamber. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, meanwhile, urged patience from Democrats in going after Trump's tax returns. "It's not a question of just sending a letter," Pelosi told reporters on Thursday. "You have to do it in a very careful way." Trump has rejected a decades-old tradition that presidents and White House hopefuls would make their tax returns public. Democrats have claimed that Trump's business dealings present a host of potential conflicts of interest that they can't understand without his tax information. --IANS vc (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Delhi High Court on Friday dismissed a plea seeking to regulate content of online platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and others. A bench of Chief Justice Rajendra Menon and Justice V. Kameswar Rao rejected the plea filed by an NGO, Justice for Rights Foundation through advocate Harpreet S. Hora who has sought laws or guidelines for regulating vulgar and sexually explicit content available on these platforms. The court order came after the Central government told it that online platforms are not required to obtain licences from the government to run their programmes. "Online platforms are not required to obtain any licences from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and the content on online platforms is not being regulated by this Ministry," the Centre told a bench of Chief Justice Rajendra Menon and Justice V. Kameswar Rao. The court was hearing an NGO, Justice for Rights Foundation, plea filed by advocate Harpreet S. Hora who has sought laws or guidelines for regulating vulgar and sexually explicit content available on these platforms. The petitioner told the court that a complaint with the police has already been filed but no action has been taken. The court asked the petitioner to seek appropriate remedies on his complaint. The plea has also sought removal of vulgar and sexually explicit content from online platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and others. The petitioner said online platforms offered vulgar, sexually explicit, pornographic, profane, virulent, religiously forbidden and morally unethical contents in order to attract more subscribers and generate profit. The NGO alleged that most of the content available was in violation of the Indian Penal Code and the Information Technology Act. --IANS akk/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Shanghai (Gasgoo)- Nissan saw its China sales in 2018 grew 2.9% over a year ago to 1,563,986 units, making it the champion among all Japanese automakers. Gasgoo hereby summarizes the Japanese automaker's top stories that happened in China last year as below. Dongfeng Nissan to roll out 15 new models from 2018 to 2022 Dongfeng Nissan plans to roll out 15 new models in total from 2018 to 2022 and increase the number of dealers to 1,000 from 750, a Chinese media outlet reported in early February. The all-new Nissan Leaf BEV was unveiled at the Auto China 2018 in April, which is expected to be introduced to China by Dongfeng Nissan. Nissan announces senior management change for China operation Nissan announced on March 14 that Chief Performance Officer Jose Munoz would assume the responsibility as head of Nissan's China operations. Makoto Uchida, incumbent head of purchasing, would be promoted to Senior Vice President (SVP) of Nissan Motor and President of Dongfeng Motor Company Limited (DFL). Besides, Jun Seki, would be promoted to SVP of Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance from President of DFL and SVP of Nissan Motor, taking charge of manufacturing technique and process management. All personnel changes announced above would come into effect on April 1, 2018. JV between Renault-Nissan Alliance and Dongfeng focuses on NEV R&D The Renault-Nissan Alliance and Dongfeng Motor Group Co., Ltd. (Dongfeng) announced on August 29, 2017 a new joint venture to co-develop and sell electric vehicles (EV) in China. The new joint venture, eGT New Energy Automotive Co., Ltd. (eGT), will focus on the core competencies of each partner and will harness the full potential of the Renault-Nissan Alliance electric vehicle leadership, as well as the resources of Dongfeng in the new energy industry, to meet the expectations of the Chinese market. The first model of eGT, based on an A-segment SUV platform of the Alliance, will be manufactured at Dongfeng Motor's plant in Shiyan, Hubei Province from 2019, according to reports delivered in early April. Nissan agrees to sell car battery unit to China's Envision Group Nissan said on August 3 it agreed to sell its electric car battery unit to Chinese renewable energy firm Envision Group for an undisclosed sum. Under the agreement, Nissan would retain a 25% of equity interest in the entity newly formed by Envision. The deal, which covers battery plants in Tennessee and in England, is expected to be completed in March this year. Nissan said in a statement that the workforce at all facilities involved in the deal would continue to be employed. Dongfeng Nissan sees 10,000,000th vehicle roll off production line Dongfeng Nissan witnessed its 10,000,000th vehicle officially roll off the production line on August 27. The milestone vehicle is a Nissan Sylphy Zero Emission, which is also the first Nissan electric car made for China. The Sylphy Zero Emission hit China's market on September 25. Prices of two variants after subsidies range between RMB159,000 and RMB166,000. The EV model measures 4,677mm long, 1,760mm wide and 1,520mm tall with a wheelbase that spans 2,700mm. Based on Nissan's E-Platform, the Sylphy Zero Emission is powered by a TZ200XS5UR permanent magnet synchronous motor that pumps out 80kW and peak torque of 254 Nm. Nissan to produce EV batteries and motors in China Nissan would manufacture key auto parts like batteries and motors for its China-made EVs beginning in December, Nikkei Asian Review reported on November 16. Dongfeng Nissan began producing the Sylphy Zero Emission EV in August. The Japanese automaker aims to roll out 40 or more new models in China by 2022, with half of them EVs or HEVs. It has earmarked RMB60 billion of investment for the world's largest auto market over the next five years to fulfill the goal. Nissan plans to decrease vehicle production in China Nissan will slash vehicle outputs in China to survive the step-down economy, according to the statement from people with the knowledge of this matter cited by Reuter on December 28. Over three-month period starting in December 2018, the automaker is likely to reduce the vehicle capacity in China by 30,000 units. However, the initial production target for the three months still remains unknown yet. From December 2017 to February 2018, Nissan output nearly 400,000 vehicles in this country. South Africa: SA exporters urged to take advantage of German opportunities South African exporters should take advantage of new initiatives introduced by Germany. South Africas Foreign Economic Representative in Germany, Jacob Moatshe, urged local companies to take advantage of new initiatives which the western European country has introduced for Africa. The initiatives are geared towards stimulating business, trade and economic development. This as local companies through the Department of Trade and Industry (dti) are participating in the Fruit Logistica Trade Fair in the capital Berlin. Speaking at the official launch of the South African pavilion at the fair which got underway on Wednesday, Moatshe said South Africa is the largest and most strategic partner through which various German companies can expand into the African region. The biggest challenge for ourselves is to optimally utilise some of these initiatives that Germany has established for our benefit, said Moatshe also referring to the Marshall Plan with Africa which highlights the objectives of increasing trade and development on the continent. The Fruit Logistica Berlin is regarded as the worlds leading international trade fair for the fresh fruit and vegetable industry and covers every sector of the international fruit and vegetable supply chain from production, distribution and marketing, through to the point of sale including global players as well as small and medium sized suppliers from all around the world. This years three-day showcase follows on the heels of a successful showing last year. At last years event, the South African pavilion raked in more than R372 million in export sales and secured almost 100 trade leads. SAnews.gov.za This story has been published on: 2019-02-08. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. British national Christian Michel, the middleman accused in the Rs 3,600-crore AgustaWestland VVIP chopper deal case, on Friday moved his bail plea in a Delhi court. Special Judge Arvind Kumar, asking the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to file response on his bail plea, listed the matter for next hearing on February 12. Michel has sought bail saying he has been in custody from December 4 2018, and in terms of Section 167(2) of the Code of Criminal procedure, the probe was supposed to be completed by February 3. However, the charge sheet was not filed against him within the stipulated 60-day period, so he should be released on bail, the defence counsel told the court. Michel was extradited to India on December 4 from the United Arab Emiratesm (UAE). He is one of the three middlemen being investigated by the CBI and the ED in the VVIP chopper deal. ED arrested him on December 22, 2018. In January 2018, the ED had lodged a request with the UAE authorities seeking extradition of Michel. Both the ED and the CBI had filed charge sheets in bribery cases in Indian courts and non-bailable warrants had been issued against the accused. In its charge sheet, the CBI had named former Indian Air Force chief S.P. Tyagi, his cousin Sanjeev Tyagi alias Julie, then IAF Vice Chief J.S. Gujral and advocate Gautam Khaitan as the four Indians involved in the scam. Others named in the charge sheet included Giuseppe Orsi, the former chief of Italian defence and aerospace major Finmeccanica, and Bruno Spagnolini, former CEO of AgustaWestland, apart from middlemen Michel, Haschke and Gerosa. --IANS akk/in/ab (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) With the aim to protect and conserve the worlds last ranging free population of Asiatic Lions, the Ministry of on Friday launched a three-year Asiatic Lion Conservation Project in collaboration with the state of Gujarat. The project, at an estimated cost of Rs 98 crore, for which the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) has allocated Rs 59 crore to Gujarat's Gir sanctuary, will span over three financial years -- 2018-2019, 2019-2020 and 2020-2021. It will focus on the scientific management of the lion habitat with the involvement of communities, disease control and veterinary care for the overall conservation of Asiatic Lions. During the launch of the project, Union Minister Harsh Vardhan handed over an amount of Rs 17 crore to Ramanlal Nanubhai Patkar, Gujarat Minister of State for Forest and Tribal Development, for the implementation of activities in the state's Gir sanctuary during the first year of the project. Expressing happiness about the collaboration, Patkar said presently there were about 700 lions in Gir National Park and that they are increasing in number. Vardhan assured the Gujarat minister that this project will be a "model scheme in the times to come and would not be like a routine affair." The Asiatic Lion in Gir is one of the 21 critically endangered species identified by the Ministry for taking up recovery programmes. It is being listed in Schedule-I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, to be accorded the highest degree of protection. Speaking on the occasion, Additional Chief Secretary of Gujarat Rajiv Kumar Gupta said that the state government will spend an additional amount for a hospital and ambulances for the lions. The project, Vardhan's office said, will use modern information and communication technology (ICT) for conservation, protection and development efforts of the Greater Gir region, including GPS based tracking, surveillance, animal and vehicle tracking, magnetic and movement sensors, infra-red heat sensors, night vision capability enhancement, GIS-based real-time monitoring, analysis and report generation. --IANS sd/arm/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Goa BJP president Vinay Tendulkar on Friday urged the beneficiaries of central and state government schemes, including One Rank One Pension, to light lamps outside their homes on February 26 to celebrate Kamal Jyoti Utsav, a pre-poll programme organised by the Bharatiya Janata Party on the lines of Diwali. Addressing a press conference at the party's state headquarters in Panaji, Tendulkar said, "Those who have benefitted from state and central schemes will celebrate Deepotsav by lighting a small lamp outside their homes. It will be like celebrating Diwali when our workers would also visit people's homes to convey to them the benefits of schemes like Ujjwala Yojana, One Rank One Pension, Dayanand Social Security (DSS), Mahila Griha Aadhar launched by the Modi government and seek their support for the future." Asked if the party would force people to light lamps, Tendulkar said: "No, we won't force anyone, but we expect people to do it on their own to reflect their love for our party. BJP workers will provide them with lamps." Tendulkar also said that BJP national president Amit Shah would address 30,000 party booth workers on Saturday to prep them for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar's presence at the meeting was not confirmed, he added. --IANS maya/rtp/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) BJP activists across Rajasthan on Friday launched 'jail bharo' agitation at all party district headquarters protesting the delayed implementation of farm loan waiver by the ruling Congress government as promised in its election manifesto. Several party workers, along with state party president Madanlal Saini courted arrest. A woman BJP activist, Anju Mishra, got her arm fractured when she climbed a barricade put up by the police. Party spokesperson Laxmikant Bhardwaj and Prem Singh also sustained injuries in the protest. Saini said, "Congress has fooled innocent farmers by promising them a loan waiver within 10 days of coming to power. It's been over 50 days and still no clarity exists on their announcement," he said. We will not sit quiet till the party gives a complete loan waiver to all farmers as promised, he said. The protest was addressed by party general secretary Bhajanlal Sharma, state secretary Mukesh Dhadeech, state spokesperson Satish Puniya among others. A huge police force was deployed outside the BJP office in the state capital Jaipur since morning in the wake of the protest. --IANS arc/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Australia's parliament had to reset all the passwords on its computer network after an unknown attacker tried to hack into the system, an official statement said on Friday. In the statement, the legislature's presiding officers said "a number of measures" had been taken to protect the network following a "security incident on the parliamentary computing network", reports CNN. "There is no evidence that any data has been accessed or taken at this time, however this will remain subject to ongoing investigation," it said. The officers said they had no evidence as yet that the hack was an attempt to influence or disrupt parliament. The incident comes just a month after German politicians were hit by a massive data leak including credit card details, phone numbers and email addresses. Opposition Labor Party leader Bill Shorten said on Friday the attack should be a "wake up call". "The internet's fantastic, but there are people out there in the cyber world who want to do Australians, and Australian business, and Australian security, harm," he told the media. Local media said a foreign government could be behind the hack, but the parliamentary statement said only that "relevant agencies" were investigating it. --IANS ksk (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) US authorities have confiscated almost a billion dollars' worth of methamphetamine bound for Australia in the largest-ever seizure of the drug on American soil, Australian police announced on Friday after a joint operation. Around 1.7 tonnes of meth was seized in California on January 9, along with smaller amounts of cocaine and heroin, CNN quoted the Australian Federal Police (AFP) as saying. The estimated street value of the meth was A$1.29 billion ($911 million) and was also the largest-ever shipment intended for Australia. On Thursday, six people were arrested in the states of Victoria and New South Wales allegedly involved with the US-based crime syndicate believed behind the record-breaking shipment. "Hundreds of thousands of dollars of proceeds of crime was located during the search warrant in Woodstock, and about 6.5 kg of (meth) was found at a property in Keilor Downs," the AFP said in a statement. Three of those arrested in Australia will appear at Melbourne Magistrates Court later on Friday. "By stopping this, we have ensured criminals will not profit from the immense pain these drugs would have caused our community," said Bruce Hill, a spokesman for the AFP organised crime unit. James Carouso, the US acting ambassador to Australia, said that "this historic seizure highlights just how important the US-Australian partnership is in protecting Americans and Australians alike. Every day, US and Australian law enforcement officers work together to keep us all safe". Last month, police in Australia arrested cabin crew for Malaysia-based carrier Malindo Air on accusations they helped smuggle heroin and meth worth millions of dollars from Asia to Australian cities, as part of a multinational syndicate. --IANS ksk (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Andhra Pradesh government on Friday decided to allot 500 acres of land for the proposed Greenfield international airport at Bhogapuram in Vijayanagaram district. The decision was taken in a cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu. The land is spread over six acres of land. In 2005, the government had issued notification to acquire 2,004 acres of land for the project at Bhogapuram, 40 km from the port city of Visakhapatnam, where the existing airport belongs to the Indian Navy. To be developed on 2,703 acres under public-private partnership mode, it will be an integrated airport with Aerocity, Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) facility and Aviation Academy. The cabinet also decided to allot 70 acres of land for Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (APIIC) at Bhogapuram for developing a mega food park. As this was possibly the last cabinet meeting before the elections, it took many key decisions, especially with regard to land allotments. Information and Public Relations Minister K. Srinivasulu and Human Resources Development Minister G. Srinivasa Rao briefed media about the cabinet decisions. The cabinet agreed to allot 140 acres of land for Accord University in Visakhapatnam district. Accord University propose to set up multi-stream university with multi superspeciality hospital. The university proposes to invest Rs.5,000 crore in 10 years. The cabinet decided to set up Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University (JNTU) Amaravati. Srinivasa Rao said this would be a model university. ATwenty acres of land was allotted at Ibrahimpatnam in Krishna district for Amaravati American Institute of Medical Sciences. To meet the future water requirements of state capital Amaravati, it was decided to build a barrage across Krishna River at an estimated cost of Rs.3,278 crore. The cabinet also gave its nod for 20 percent interim relief to state government employees with effect from July 1, 2018. --IANS ms/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Geared up to face a 31-member Parliamentary panel hearing on February 11, Twitter on Friday said it is proactively working with the political parties to verify candidates, elected officials and relevant party officials whose accounts will be active in the public conversation. According to Colin Crowell, Global Vice President, Public Policy at Twitter, India is one of its fastest-growing audience markets globally. "We are committed to surfacing all sides of the conversation as we enter the election season in this extraordinarily diverse cultural, political and social climate," Crowell said in a statement. "We have never been more passionate about our mission to serve our Indian customers and to protect and enhance the national conversation," he added. According to him, Twitter does not review, prioritise or enforce its policies on the basis of political ideology. "Every Tweet and every account is treated impartially. We apply our policies fairly and judiciously for all," said Crowell. The House panel has summoned Twitter India along with representatives from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Meity) for the meeting on February 11 at 3 p.m. in the Parliament complex to examine the issue of "safeguarding citizens rights on social media/online news platforms". The Parliament's Standing Committee on Information Technology, headed by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Anurag Thakur, is tasked with examining several aspects related to data security and privacy. According to the company, political parties themselves select the accounts for verification and then Twitter reviews these accounts to ensure they meet the company's verification standards. "Twitter verifies these accounts to empower healthy election conversations and to provide confidence that these public figures are whom they claim to be," the company added. Globally, Twitter has made more than 70 product, policy and operational changes since the beginning of 2018, with the aim of making people feel safe expressing themselves on the service. Crowell said that Twitter will endeavour to be even more transparent in how it develops and enforces its policies to "dispel conspiracy theories and mistrust". The Twitter hearing comes at a time when the Indian government has also formulated new IT guidelines where social media platforms have to remove within 24 hours any unlawful content that can affect the "sovereignty and integrity of India". --IANS na/ab (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) They may not have Anna Hazare's charisma, but Puntamba's Jadhav girls are high on resolve. Just a day before Anna Hazare ended his high-profile week-long fast in Ralegan Siddhi on Tuesday, Nikita, Shubhangi and Poonam launched their own indefinite hunger strike to press for farmers' demands in Puntamba village here. Hailing from farming families -- Nikita Jadhav (20), Shubhangi Jadhav and Poonam Jadhav (both 19) -- are friends. While Nikita is a law student in Pune, Shubhangi and Poonam are studying science in Ahmednagar. "On February 3, we held a day-long token fast. From February 4, we are on an indefinite hunger strike till the farmers' demands are conceded," a determined Nikita told IANS. She said the demands include full waiver of all farm loans, minimum support price for farm produce, pension for all farmers above 60 years of age, free power for agricultural purposes, GST waiver on all farm equipment and machinery, raising procurement prices of milk which are now lower than soft drinks available in the market. The trio's fast has garnered widespread support with Puntamba observing a voluntary shutdown on Wednesday, schools and villagers taking out protest marches and neighbouring villages expressing solidarity. On Thursday, the villagers launched a begging drive, collected Rs 460 and sent it to Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, and now similar drives are being organised in Nashik and Aurangabad districts. A rattled district administration swung into action on Friday and shifted Shubhangi to a hospital claiming her condition had deteriorated. "She spoke to us from the hospital and said she is being virtually held captive there though her condition is okay," said Nikita, even as officials built up 'pressure' through relatives and friends to make the Jadhav trio call off their strike. On Friday afternoon, Minister of State for Home Ram Shinde visited the fasting girls, but left without any settlement as he had "no concrete proposals. Incidentally, Friday was also the day when 25 years ago activist Kishore Tiwari formally raised the Maharashtra farmers' issues and suicides in the Yavatmal district. To mark the occasion, a dozen odd girls -- all daughters of farmers -- also met the Jadhavs requesting them to join their protest. Both the Congress and the Shiv Sena have expressed their support for the girls, and Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray is also likely to visit them in a day or two. Nobody from Anna Hazare's side has contacted or met them so far, though they are in the same district, barely two hours away. "We have demanded that unless all our demands are conceded, we shall continue with our agitation since the farmers have been deprived of their rights for too long," a grim Nikita said. --IANS qn/rtp/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A court in Malaysia on Friday charged former Prime Minister Najib Razak with three more counts of money laundering linked to a corruption scandal involving state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad. Najib, 66, was accused of accepting 47 million ringgit ($11.5 million) in 2014, according to the Bernama agency. The former Prime Minister had pleaded not guilty to the new accusations, which took the total number of charges filed against him to 42, since he was voted out of power in May last year, Efe news reported. The trial over the first seven charges is scheduled to begin on Tuesday next week. Malaysians are following this case closely as this is for the first time that a top national leader will be defending himself against criminal charges even as Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's campaign against corruption gathered steam. The 93-year-old had vowed to crackdown on corruption and punish the guilty in the 1MDB scandal. He had also launched a National Anti-Corruption Plan on January 29, urging citizens and officials to stay away from corruption and promising graft-free governance. Najib, who had repeatedly denied any role in the scandal, had lost the May 9 elections last year against an opposition coalition headed by Mahathir. Najib was the Prime Minister of Malaysia since 2009, the year he created 1MDB as a state investment fund dedicated to attract investment projects and beneficial developments for the country. The 1MDB corruption scandal was revealed in 2015 by an investigation carried out by The Wall Street Journal and the Sarawak Report that revealed the diversion of 2.6 billion ringgit ($681 million at the time) to his private accounts. Najib claimed that the money was a donation from a Saudi prince, and the prosecution, the Anti-Corruption Commission along with the fund exonerated him of any crime. The US Department of Justice estimates that about $4.5 billion was diverted from 1MDB, $1 billion of which may have been laundered in the country with the purchase of real estate, yachts, jewellery and works of art among other goods. --IANS soni/ab (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Friday ordered a crackdown on the illicit liquor mafia in the state after 14 reported deaths on account of spurious liquor consumption in Saharanpur and Kushinagar. A state government spokesman said that Rs 2 lakh each would be given to the dependents of the deceased and Rs 50,000 each to those taken ill after consuming the countrymade liquor. Additional Chief Secretary (Information) Avaneesh Awasthi told IANS that nine deaths had been reported from Ataryasujan village in Kushinagar and five from Umahi village in Saharanpur. The Chief Minister, he added, had also ordered strict action against the local excise officials and a crackdown on the people behind the manufacture and sale of illicit liquor. The Director General of Police (DGP) has also been asked to coordinate between the local police and the excise department to identify the hooch makers and act against them. Meanwhile, Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav alleged that the BJP was encouraging people to drink as it would bring in money in the name of cow cess and people, in absence of adequate knowledge, were consuming such liquor. He also accused the state's BJP government of protecting and patronising the liquor mafia. --IANS md/rtp/ab (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Zee Media Corporation Ltd is quoting at Rs 13.75, up 4.96% on the day as on 12:49 IST on the NSE. The stock is down 69.48% in last one year as compared to a 5.14% fall in NIFTY and a 34.26% fall in the Nifty Media index. Zee Media Corporation Ltd is up for a third straight session in a row. The stock is quoting at Rs 13.75, up 4.96% on the day as on 12:49 IST on the NSE. The benchmark NIFTY is down around 0.7% on the day, quoting at 10992.3. The Sensex is at 36691.05, down 0.76%. Zee Media Corporation Ltd has dropped around 43.3% in last one month. Meanwhile, Nifty Media index of which Zee Media Corporation Ltd is a constituent, has dropped around 10.96% in last one month and is currently quoting at 2256.65, down 1.56% on the day. The volume in the stock stood at 4.37 lakh shares today, compared to the daily average of 38.11 lakh shares in last one month. The PE of the stock is 11.67 based on TTM earnings ending December 18. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) FAO Food Price Index rises 1.8% in January 2019 The FAO Food Price Index (FFPI) increased 1.8% from December 2018, but still remained 2.2% below the corresponding month last year. After three successive months of relatively stable levels, the increase in January was largely driven by a sharp rebound in dairy price quotations as well as firmer prices of vegetable oils and sugar. The FAO Cereal Price Index averaged rose marginally from December 2018 and moved up 7.3% above its January 2018 level. Except for rice, the prices of other major cereals remained generally firm, supported by the decline in global production in 2018, tightening export supplies and robust world demand. January, however, was a particularly quiet month for wheat and maize markets, in part due to the absence of several key reports in the United States because of the US Government shutdown. Nonetheless, grain prices were up during the month, with maize values rising the most, in reaction to adverse weather conditions in South America. International rice prices also increased, primarily owing to upbeat demand for Japonica supplies and a firmer Thai Baht. The FAO Vegetable Oil Price Index averaged increased 4.3%) from the previous month and marking the second consecutive increase after a protracted fall. The rise mainly reflects additional gains in palm oil values, underpinned by a seasonal decline of production in the major producing countries and a firm global import demand. International soyoil prices also rose, largely reflecting robust demand for South American supplies. The FAO Meat Price Index was almost unchanged from December 2018. In view of the non-availability of data from official sources in the United States because of the Government shutdown, the January value of the Index was calculated assuming stable prices for meat products in the United States. Elsewhere, international price quotations for bovine, pig and poultry meat remained steady. However, ovine meat prices declined by as much as 8.4% month-on-month, pressured by ample exportable supplies in Oceania. The FAO Dairy Price Index surged 7.2% from December 2018. The sharp rebound followed seven months of falling prices. All dairy products represented in the index registered higher prices in January, with Skim Milk Powder (SMP) quotations rising by as much as 16.5% month-on-month. The sharp increase resulted from limited export supplies from Europe, due to strong internal demand, and expectations of a seasonal tightening of export availability from Oceania in the coming months. Notwithstanding this price rise, the Index is only slightly above its level in the corresponding month last year. The FAO Sugar Price Index rose 1.3% from December 2018. International sugar prices were largely influenced by movements in the Brazilian currency (Real), which gained strength against the United States dollar. A stronger Real supports sugar prices because it limits the supply of Brazilian sugar to the world market, as domestic producers process sugarcane into ethanol for local sale. Firmer crude oil prices lent further support to international sugar price quotations. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd is quoting at Rs 343.7, up 1.27% on the day as on 12:49 IST on the NSE. The stock is down 27.7% in last one year as compared to a 5.14% spurt in NIFTY and a 10.89% spurt in the Nifty Energy index. Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd gained for a third straight session today. The stock is quoting at Rs 343.7, up 1.27% on the day as on 12:49 IST on the NSE. The benchmark NIFTY is down around 0.7% on the day, quoting at 10992.3. The Sensex is at 36691.05, down 0.76%. Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd has risen around 1.07% in last one month. Meanwhile, Nifty Energy index of which Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd is a constituent, has risen around 7.56% in last one month and is currently quoting at 15225.1, down 0.66% on the day. The volume in the stock stood at 17.29 lakh shares today, compared to the daily average of 29.56 lakh shares in last one month. The benchmark February futures contract for the stock is quoting at Rs 332.4, up 0.18% on the day. Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd is down 27.7% in last one year as compared to a 5.14% spurt in NIFTY and a 10.89% spurt in the Nifty Energy index. The PE of the stock is 8.85 based on TTM earnings ending September 18. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Bharti Airtel announced the signing of an agreement by its subsidiary, Airtel Networks Kenya (Airtel Kenya) with Telkom Kenya for merging their respective Mobile, Enterprise and Carrier Services businesses in Kenya to operate as - 'Airtel- Telkom'. The finalisation and closure of the transaction is subject to approval by the relevant authorities. As per the agreement, both the partners will combine their operations in Kenya and establish an entity with enhanced scale, operational efficiency and strategic brand presence. The entity will invest in networks to further accelerate roll out of future technologies. The Enterprise and Carrier Services businesses should benefit from a larger fibre footprint and an increased number of enterprise customers - including both large corporations and SMEs who would have access to a diverse portfolio of world-class solutions. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Once arch rivals and now politicians, Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan met in Chennai on Thursday. Both the actors-turned-politicians wished and hugged each other. According to reports, superstar Rajinikanth also invited founder of Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM), Kamal Haasan for his daughter Soundarya Rajinikanth's wedding. Filmmaker Soundarya Rajinikanth will wed businessman-actor Vishagan Vanangamudi on February 11 in Chennai. The preparations of the grand wedding are on in full swing. Thalaivar, who entered into politics in December 2017, is yet to launch his political party and is uncertain about contesting the Lok Sabha polls. Meanwhile, Haasan, on Thursday, said that his party is gearing up for contesting all 40 Lok Sabha seats in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry in the coming Parliamentary polls. Though the actor didn't disclose from where is he likely to contest the election, he clearly indicated that he would not form an alliance with any 'tainted' group. "Our aim is to not go with any tainted group. We are preparing to contest 40 seats in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. I cannot say at this moment from where I will contest," Haasan told media persons. cleared the air with the announcement that his party MNM gearing up for contesting all 40 Lok Sabha seats in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry in the coming Parliamentary polls. Haasan had earlier said that his party would contest the Lok Sabha polls in alliance with like-minded parties. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Venezuelan embassy in Moscow on Thursday reported that the websites of Venezuelan Foreign Ministry in various countries across the globe were under threat of cyber attacks. According to Sputnik, the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry has closed the operations of its websites everywhere until proper security measures are restored. "The hacker attack and the interference in the operation of the websites is an international cybercrime aimed at continuing attacks on Venezuela," the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry was quoted as saying. The website of the Venezuelan embassy in Russia went offline on Thursday, after the websites of the Venezuelan embassies in Argentina, Belgium, Chile, Mexico, the United Kingdom and a number of other states got disconnected too. Following the cyber attack on the websites of the Venezuelan embassy in Argentina and Mexico, a statement supporting Venezuela's self-proclaimed interim president and Opposition leader Juan Guaido was published in the two Latin countries. However, Venezuelan diplomats in Mexico and Argentina subsequently reiterated their allegiance to President Nicolas Maduro. Venezuela is currently reeling from an ongoing political as well as a humanitarian crisis, especially after Guaido declared himself to be the interim President of the nation, last month, in the Venezuelan National Assembly. Guaido's recognition as the legitimate Head of the State by the US and the European Union has further sparked controversies from the side of Maduro, who allege that the former has been acting upon the orders of Washington. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) BJP General Secretary Muralidhar Rao on Thursday hit out at the Congress-JD(S) alliance claiming that there were problems in the same since the very beginning. Rao told ANI, "There have been conflicts between Congress and its alliance in Karnataka since the beginning. People of Karnataka are aware of all the incidents that have occurred." Intensifying his attack at the state government, Rao alleged that the current government is an opportunist and will not work in the longer run. "BJP who won 104 seats is sitting in the opposition. We have always said that this government has been formed on the basis of opportunity and this will not work for long," he added. Hitting out at the government for blaming BJP, Rao stated, "Our responsibility as the opposition is to tell the government about its weaknesses. They cannot run this government and in future also they will not be able to do so. We are not responsible for making their government. Blames put on us are baseless." Congress members on Thursday night staged a torchlight protest against BJP, for not letting Karnataka Assembly function. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Untied States will halt the process of selling the Patriot systems if Ankara proceeds with the purchase of Russia's S-400 anti-aircraft missile systems, a senior U.S. official said. "We will not proceed as the condition of the congressional authorisation to make the offer to Turkey, were not in a condition to proceed with the Patriot sale if the S-400 sale goes forward," the source said. "We are very concerned that the Turkish purchase of S-400 missiles will endanger Turkish participation in the F-35 programme and will likely result through our legislation in some sort of sanctions coming through the legislations called CAATSA," Hurriyet Daily cited the official as saying. Earlier, Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin reaffirmed that Ankara would purchase Russian S-400 air defence systems regardless of a potential deal with the United States on the acquisition of Patriot surface-to-air missile systems. New Delhi (India), Feb 8 (ANI): At a time when the government is facing backlash for not getting sovereign guarantee from France in the Rafale jet deal, it is emerging that the then French prime minister had written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying that their government would fully back the obligations made by their firms in the contract. "I hereby confirm that the government of the French republic is fully committed in doing whatever is necessary to make sure that Dassault Aviation and MBDA of France, each in their own respect, do their utmost to fully respect their obligations in accordance with aforesaid inter-governmental agreement and annexed supporting protocols," said the letter in possession of ANI. The letter was written by the then French Prime Minister Manuel Valls on September 8, 2016. "The contacts between our two governments defined in particular the terms of the inter-governmental agreement which determines to our mutual satisfaction the framework and modalities of our respective commitments," the French prime .inister said. The Congress and the opposition have been attacking the government on the issue of not taking a sovereign guarantee from the French side. A document has also been cited in media reports which suggested that some members of the negotiating team had expressed reservations on the issue in writing. "As agreed between our negotiating teams and then between our two defence ministers, I wish to specify the full extent of the French government's commitments particularly in respect of the execution of the French industrialists' obligations," the French prime minister had stated. The deal was signed in September 2016 in which India agreed to pay more than Rs 59,000 crore for 36 Rafale combat aircraft. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Tamil Nadu government on Friday presented the state budget for fiscal year 2019-20 with revenue deficit expected to come down to Rs 14,315 crore as against the projected figure of Rs 19,319 crore. The budget, presented by Deputy Chief Minister O Panneer Selvam who holds the finance portfolio, announced an allocation of Rs 28,757 crore for school and education department. A new arts and science college will be established at Rameswaram named after former President A P J Abdul Kalam. To strengthen state infrastructure, a sum of Rs 13,606 crore has been allocated for the development of highways and ports. At the same time, Rs 6,256 crore has been earmarked for housing and urban development. A project for sustainable housing for the urban poor has been proposed to the Asian Development Bank at a cost of Rs 5,000 crore. Along with the World Bank, the state government will launch a new initiative to provide accommodation for 38,000 poor people living in Chennai along river banks at a cost of Rs 4,647 crore. A comprehensive integrated parking management project will be implemented in Chennai at a cost of Rs 2,000 crore to accommodate two lakh four-wheelers and two lakh two-wheelers. Besides, Rs 25 crore has been allocated for concrete fencing to protect forest reserves around Chennai. For the fisheries sector, a sum of Rs 928 crore has been provided in the budget estimates. The government also proposes to distribute 240 units of Navic and 160 units of Navtex instruments to 80 clusters of deep sea fishing boats. A new frozen semen station with the pedigree country and crossbreed bulls will be established at a cost of Rs 100 crore. In addition, an amount of Rs 1,252 crore has been allocated for animal husbandry and Rs 258 crore for the dairy sector. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Lance Naik Nazir Ahmad Wani, who is a recipient of Ashok Chakra, the nation's highest peacetime award, was on Thursday posthumously presented with Bar to Sena Medal (Gallantry) by the General Officer Commanding in Chief of Northern Command Lieutenant General Ranbir Singh. The award was received by his wife on his behalf in an event held here. Along with Bar to Sena Medal, 76 Sena Gallantry Medals, 7 Sena Medals (Distinguished) and 8 Vishisht Seva Medals were also presented to the officials. The 'unit appreciation' to 20 units was also awarded for their overall outstanding performance in the Command Theatre in the year 2018. While specially complimenting the parents and families of award winners for having supported them in their endeavours, the Army Commander also commended all ranks of the Northern Command for their steadfastness, devotion and patriotic fervour. Regional President of Army Wives Welfare Association (AWWA), Northern Command felicitated the Next of Kin of posthumous awardees, reassuring them of the unstinted organisational support. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Ruby Rose, known for her role in 'The Meg', who is currently shooting 'Batwoman' for The CW, is now all set to star in 'Doorman.' The action thriller is being directed by award-winning Japanese director Ryuhei Kitamura ('Midnight Meat Train,' 'Azumi,' 'Lupin the 3rd'), revealed The Hollywood Reporter. The film is being produced by Harry Winer of Smash Media, Jason Moring of DDI, Michael Philip, Phin Glynn, Sara Shaak and Shayne Putzlocher. Mark Padilla and Stanley Preschutti of DDI will executive produce. The film will tell the story an officer in the Marines who encountered traumatic events while serving her country and returns home looking for an opportunity to heal. Rose's character seeks refuge as a doorman at a historic, New York apartment building. However, here she encounters mercenary's intent upon destroying everything in their way to retrieve precious art hidden in the walls of building. The screenplay is written by Lior Chefetz, Joe Swanson and Winer, from a story by Greg Williams and Matt McAllester. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) India defeated New Zealand by seven wickets in the second T20I, levelling the series 1-1 in style at the Eden Park in Auckland on Friday. Opener and stand-in-captain Rohit Sharma along with Shikhar Dhawan (30) gave a solid start to the touring side, India in the run-chase. The Hitman scored a quick fifty off 29 balls, becoming the leading run-scorer in the format along the way before giving a catch to Tim Southee off Ish Sodhi's delivery. Not letting go off the momentum set by the Hitman, former skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Rishabh Pant chased down the target with their unbeaten cameo of 20 and 40 respectively. With an unchanged team, the host New Zealand managed to put up a moderate score of 158 for the loss of eight wickets after opting to bat. New Zealand had a floppy start as their openers were dismissed in quick succession. Injecting some momentum, Colin de Grandhomme top-scored with his 28-ball 50, including four sixes and a boundary. While Ross Taylor missed out on his half-century as he was dismissed for 42. For India, spinner Krunal Pandya claimed three wickets, while Khaleel Ahmed chipped in with two scalps in the final over. India and New Zealand will next meet for the third and final T20I which will be a tie-breaker at the Seddon Park in Hamilton. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Congress leader was addressing a press conference on the fighter aircraft deal after a report in The Hindu newspaper quoted a Defence Ministry report that expressed strong reservations on the "parallel negotiations". "PM Modi himself robbed Air Force's Rs 30,000 crore and gave it to his friend Anil Ambani. We have been raising this since one year. Now a report has come where Defence Ministry officials say that PM was holding parallel negotiations with France government," Gandhi said. "The Prime Minister should explain to the armed forces, the Air force, why he is interfering with the negotiations?," he said, alleging Modi was looking rattled. "It is a corporate warfare and the Prime Minister is representing Anil Ambani. The PM is talking about himself does he have a dual personality chowkidar and the chor," he said. "Ulta chor, chowkidaar ko daante. He's talking about himself? He has got a dual personality? He's now viewing himself as 'chowkidaar & 'chor'. He talks to himself at night. One day he becomes 'chowkidaar' & one day he becomes 'chor'? Schizophrenia?," Gandhi said. He also claimed that the Supreme Court judgement had become questionable. "You do whatever enquiry and investigation whatever you want... investigate P Chidambaram and (Robert) Vadra, but also investigate Rafale," the Congress leader said, referring to the questioning of his brother-in-law Vadra by the Enforcement Directorate in a money laundering case. "The entire Supreme Court judgement on Rafale becomes questionable now... because information was withheld by the government," the Congress chief alleged. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) New Delhi, Feb 8 (ANI) A combative Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday termed as "incomplete" and "distorted" the news item published by a newspaper about "parallel negotiations" by the PMO in the Rafale fighter deal and wondered whether "doubts" were being deliberated created in the minds of people because of some "corporate warfare". In an exclusive interview to ANI here, Sitharaman slammed Congress President Rahul Gandhi for constantly raising questions over the Rafale deal, equating him to a "parrot" and asked what "moral authority" he has to do so when he, along with his mother Sonia Gandhi and brother-in-law Robert Vadra are on bail. She asserted that it is the duty of the Prime Minister to monitor progress in any deal or project and if the PMO checks on these, it cannot be termed as "interference". Referring to the news item which appeared in a newspaper on Friday, Sitharaman alleged that it was "half truth, with the intention ... to create doubt in the minds of the reader." The minister questioned whether it was not the "responsibility" of the journalist to try to get complete details or get response from the ministry before publishing the item. Even if there was no response, an attempt could have been made, she added. She said that while publishing the file notings of an officer of the Defence Ministry, the journalist should have looked for the response of the Defence Minister "But what they have done in publishing the item is not a complete job," Sitharaman said. She said it was her "suspicion and I have reason to suspect" that publication of the news item was "an attempt by some people, either by doing themselves, or whether because of corporate warfare that is going on." Rejecting the contention about "interference" by the PMO, the Defence Minister said any PMO, not just under Narendra Modi, would "naturally monitor" the progress of any deal or even programmes like Ayushman Bharat. "The Prime Minister is the first among equals (in a Cabinet) and if PMO checks on a ministry, it is not interference.... If the PMO is asking what is the status (of a project), it is not interference," Sitharaman underlined. She then went on to attack the Congress, questioning the role of Advisory Council (NAC) headed by UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi when Manmohan Singh was the Prime Minister. "If this (PMO asking about progress of a project) is seen as interference, I ask the Congress, what was the NAC under Sonia Gandhi.... What was its role? They were not under PMO or Cabinet Secretariat?.. Did it have any statutory status.... It was remote-controlling the PM. Was it not interference?" To a question, he equated Gandhi to a "parrot" which keeps repeating something and said "You can wake up someone who is sleeping but not someone who pretends to sleep." Targeting Gandhi, she asked, "Why is he on bail? Why is his mother on bail? Why is his brother-in-law on bail? How has he moral authority to question the PM?" Referring to the Congress President's press conference held this morning, Sitharaman said, "See how he is provoking the armed forces.... What was his language at the press conference. Nobody asked him what kind of language are you using? ... Are you provoking the armed forces?" She said Modi monitors projects even at district level, earlier as Gujarat Chief Minister and now as Prime Minister. "Otherwise, you think progress could have been made at this speed, without corruption, without middlemen? ...He monitors and ensures implementation of decisions," Sitharaman said. Asked whether she, as Defence Minister, was worried as letters about Rafale deal were getting leaked. In response, she said, "I am not worried about Rafale or any other decision we have taken, because we have gone on merit... But through selective leaking, distorted versions, false impression is created. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy on Friday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of "systemically demolishing the country's democracy" and misleading the people. "He (Prime Minister) is systemically demolishing this country's democracy, misleading the people, I request all the opposition parties to rise. They must expose the truth of the Prime Minister in the Parliament," Kumaraswamy said ahead of the budget session of the Karnataka assembly. "On one side Prime Minister Narendra Modi is preaching to the country and politicians. On the other side, he is encouraging his friends to demolish democracy through black money. I will expose this now, I have the proof to back my charge," he added. Kumaraswamy later released an audio clip of a conversation allegedly between BJP State Chief BS Yeddyurappa and JDS MLA Naganagowda Kandkur's son Sharana where Yeddyurappa allegedly made an offer of Rs 25 lakh and a ministerial post for his father. "The lies he (Prime Minister Modi) has spoken, in my view he is destroying democracy. I am asking the opposition to raise the dual role of the Prime Minister. Yeddyurappa is senior to me, if he has info that we don't have majority why did not he move no-confidence motion instead of disrupting the house," Kumaraswamy said. "This kind of was started by Yeddyurappa in 2008. It is in his DNA. In Parliament, Prime Minister Modi said they have not used black money, but Yeddyurappa has shown that they say one thing and do something else," he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi will on Saturday make a whirlwind tour of northeastern states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, and Tripura during which he will lay the foundation stone of new greenfield airport and Sela tunnel, launch of DD Arun Prabha channel and will unveil various other development projects. Prime Minister Modi will lay the foundation stone of northeast gas grid foundation in Guwahati, and will inaugurate Garjee-Belonia railway line in Tripura, said a statement from the PMO on Friday. As per the official statement, PM Modi will reach Itanagar from Guwahati on Saturday morning and will unveil a series of development projects at IG Park in Itanagar. He will lay the foundation stone for the construction of greenfield airport at Hollongi. At present, the nearest airport to Itanagar is at Lilabari in Assam at a distance of 80 km. Airport at Hollongi will reduce the distance by a fourth. In addition to providing better connectivity to the region, the airport will also unravel the tourism potential of the state. The airport will boost the economic growth of the region and will be of strategically important to the nation. The airport will have various sustainability features like a green belt along approach road to act as a noise barrier, rainwater harvesting, use of energy efficient equipment, and so on. Prime Minister Modi will lay the foundation stone of Sela tunnel in Arunachal Pradesh, which will provide all-weather connectivity to Tawang Valley for civilians as well as security forces throughout the year. The tunnel will reduce travel time to Tawang by an hour and boost tourism and related economic activities in the region. A new dedicated DD Channel for Arunachal Pradesh-DD Arun Prabha will be launched by PM Modi at IG Park, Itanagar. The channel will be the 24th channel operated by Doordarshan. He will also dedicate 110 MW Pare Hydroelectric Plant in Arunachal Pradesh to the nation. The project constructed by NEEPCO will harness hydropower potential of the river Dikrong, a tributary of Brahmaputra, and provide cheap hydroelectric power to the North Eastern states, thereby improving power availability in the region. Foundation stone for a permanent campus of Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) at Jote, Arunachal Pradesh will be laid by the laid by PM Modi on this occasion. It will cater to film students especially those from the North Eastern states. PM Modi will inaugurate the upgraded Tezu Airport in Arunachal Pradesh. The airport has been retrofitted and a new terminal constructed for making it fit for commercial operations under UDAN scheme. From Itanagar, PM Modi will return to Guwahati, where he will lay the foundation stone of North East Gas Grid which will ensure uninterrupted availability of natural gas across the region and boost industrial growth in the region. The grid is part of the government's plan to provide cheap and quality gas to the entire North East Region. He will also inaugurate a Hollong modular gas processing plant in Tinsukia, Assam. Once inaugurated this facility will deliver 15 per cent of the total gas produced in Assam. He will also inaugurate LPG capacity augmentation of mounted storage vessel in north Guwahati. The foundation stone of NRL biorefinery at Numaligarh and a 729-km gas pipeline from Barauni-Guwahati passing through Bihar, West Bengal, Sikkim, and Assam will be laid by PM Modi on this occasion. The last leg of PM Modi's visit will be in Agartala, where he will dedicate to the nation Garjee - Belonia railway line through the unveiling of a plaque at Swami Vivekananda stadium here. This line will boost Tripura as the gateway to South and Southeast Asia. He will also inaugurate the new complex of Tripura Institute of Technology at Narsingarh. Prime Minister will unveil the statue of Maharaja Bir Bikram Kishore Manikya Bahadur at Maharaja Bir Bikram Airport, Agartala. Maharaja Bir Bikram Kishore Manikya Bahadur is widely regarded as the creator of modern Tripura. He is credited with the planning of Agartala city. The unveiling of his statue is in line with the Union Government's policy of honouring the unsung heroes of India, who have contributed greatly to nation-building. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday slammed Mamata Banerjee for her recent dharna, saying that it was for the first time that a Chief Minister had taken such a step to "defend" those accused of corruption. "In the history of India, it is for the first time that a Chief Minister is holding a dharna to defend those accused of corruption and looting the poor people's money. However, this will not continue for long as the way the BJP uprooted the red flag in Tripura, our party will uproot the TMC from West Bengal too. I will not spare those who protect scamster," he said. "I want to tell you that this 'Chowkidar' will spare neither the perpetrators of chit fund scam nor those protecting them. Mamata has developed fear not because of me but because of the people of Bengal. The people of Bengal are our inspiration, energy, and strength," said Prime Minister Modi while addressing a mammoth gathering here at Mainaguri after inaugurating the new circuit bench of the Calcutta High Court. West Bengal Chief Minister Banerjee had organised a 'dharna' in Kolkata recently called 'Dharna to Save the Constitution' after a team of CBI came to arrest Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar in connection with Saradha chit fund scam, but the state police personnel did not allow them to enter his residence. Banerjee has now announced to sit on a 'dharna' in the capital on February 13 and 14. Prime Minister Modi said Mamata was willing to become the Prime Minister but has left the people of Bengal suffocated with syndicates. "The West Bengal Chief Minister, who is willing to become the Prime Minister, has left the people of Bengal at the mercy of the alliance of syndicates," he said. "Mahamilawat is a kind of group, where people have come together with no vision," he said. "North Bengal is famous for its three Ts-tea, timber, and tourism. However, all these three Ts were neglected by all the previous state governments. No state government paid attention to the sustained development of this region," the Prime Minister said. Taking a dig at Mamata for allowing infiltrators in the state and preventing BJP leaders from holding rallies, Prime Minister Modi said: "Didi's government welcomes infiltrators with an open heart but stops BJP leaders from holding Rath Yatras and rallies. Such attempts by West Bengal government to stop BJP leaders are a clear sign that the TMC is frustrated." Talking about the Congress, Prime Minister Modi said: "This party has no respect for the Supreme Court. The apex court has declared instant triple talaq as invalid. The Congress is not only opposing the Bill to ban triple talaq in Parliament, but is also making efforts to destroy the Bill altogether." Praising the efforts of his government for launching various welfare schemes for the middle class and poor people, Prime Minister Modi said: "Tea plantation workers will now be entitled to a pension thanks to the scheme announced in the recent Central budget. The new scheme will benefit around 42 crore workers in the unorganised sector. All the workers will get a pension after attaining the age of 60." "Our government is making all efforts to provide the best facilities to the poor. I request all of you to enjoy these facilities being provided through the Central government schemes," he said. Striking an emotional chord with the locals at his hugely attended public meeting, Prime Minister Modi said: "You people grow tea...I make tea. And I wonder why Didi (Mamata Banerjee) is not fond of chaiwallahs." Prime Minister Modi said: "I share a strong bond with the people of north Bengal. You people grow tea...I make tea. And I wonder why Didi (Mamata Banerjee) is not fond of 'chaiwallahs.' TMC is the Communist part two." Stating that Jalpaiguri circuit bench of the Calcutta High Court would benefit the local population, Prime Minister Modi said: "Brothers and sisters, 20 years ago this project was initiated but your demand for ages has finally been fulfilled today." "Now the people of Jalpaiguri will get justice in Jalpaiguri itself. They won't have to go to Calcutta High Court for legal help. You will now get those facilities right here only," he said. Prime Minister Modi also laid the foundation stone for the four-laning of the Falakata-Salsalabari section of NH-31 D. This 41.7-km long section of the highway will be constructed at a cost of about Rs 1,938 crore within 2.5 years. He also paid homage to Rajbanshi reformer Panchanan Verma and Nepali poet Bhanu Bhakt and then mentioned how this NH upgradation project will make travel easier. Talking about law and order situation in north Bengal, Prime Minister Modi said: "The law and order situation here has worsened over the years. Youths are migrating due to rising unemployment. Industries were not developed, and projects are stalled. All this doesn't bother the government of West Bengal," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The United States' concerns over Ankara's purchase of Russias S-400 missile defense system are "political", Vice President of Turkeys Undersecretariat for Defense Industries Celal Sami Tufekci said. "Our work on the S-400 goes back," before this proposal, Tufekci said following a think tank panel in Washington. "We talked not only with Russia and the U.S. but also with many European countries. I believe that the United States expresses its concerns in terms of politics. I think they are the arguments that have been generated against Turkey," Anadolu Agency cited him as saying. Tufekci rejected the allegation that information on the fighter jets software would be obtained by the Russian missile system and said American and Israeli F-35 jets were easily flying over Syria where Russian radars are active. "Technically, everything is possible, but Turkey will use its domestic software. We are a friendly country with the U.S.," he said, pledging that Turkey would not allow any information on the F-35 jets to go anywhere. The Congress on Friday said that former Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar "washed his hands off the deal" in order to save his neck. Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari made the statement after the Centre today dismissed a media report that claimed that Defence Ministry officials had raised concerns over the direct involvement of the Prime Minister's Office in the Rafale deal The Congress asserted that Parrikar had sensed that the deal might land into controversy in near future and hence kept him-self out of it. Congress spokesperson Manish Tiwari cited the noting by the then Defence Minister Parrikar which read, "It appears that the PMO and the French president Office are monitoring the progress of the issue which was the outcomes of the summit meetings and Para (5) appears to be an over-reaction. Defence secretary may resolve the issue in the matter in consultation with Principal Secretary to PM." "What Manohar Parrikar has done is that he has washed his hands off the matter. He is like 'see boss I am out of it' and if tomorrow there is going to be a problem I am not going to be a part of it," he added. Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday rejected Congress President Rahul Gandhi's allegation based on a media report that claimed the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) ran parallel negotiations with France on the multi-billion Rafale fighter jet deal. "A newspaper published a file noting written by Defence Secretary. If a newspaper publishes a noting, then the ethics of journalism will demand that the newspaper publishes the then Defence Minister's reply as well," Sitharaman said. "Then Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar replied to that MoD note saying 'remain calm, nothing to worry, everything is going alright.' Now, what do you call the NAC led by Sonia Gandhi's interference in earlier PMO? What was that," the Defence Minister asked in the Lok Sabha. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) General Secretary for (UP)-East Vadra and General Secretary for UP-West Jyotiraditya Scindia will visit on February 11 along with The tour is expected to last for four days. This will be Priyanka's first visit after being appointed as the general secretary. As per information, the leaders are expected to carry out a 12-kilometre long road show. Senior KC Venugopal, on Thursday, informed that after the road show the leaders are expected to interact with the party workers at the Congress office in the city. According to officials, the party office in the state has been revamped and preparations are on in full swing to welcome the newly-appointed general secretaries. Meanwhile, the Congress Committee (UPCC) is preparing to give Priyanka a grand welcome who will be on her first visit to the state and the UPCC headquarters after her appointment as general secretary. Several rooms of the UPCC headquarters have been refurbished and a newly-built media hall will also be inaugurated by Priyanka. During a meeting here on Thursday, she had said that she will eradicate divisive politics in the state and will work towards uniting people. Moreover, Priyanka also assured people that she would leave no stone unturned to ensure that the party benefits in the state. Hollywood Actor Michelle Rodriguez does not think Liam Neeson is racist, and is standing by him. Rodriguez, who is known for her striking role in fast and the furious series, said that Neeson can't be racist because he made out with a black person. "It's all f**king bulls**t. Dude, have you watched Widows? His tongue was so far down Viola Davis' throat. You can't call him a racist ever. Racists don't make out with the race that they hate. I don't care how good of an actor you are. Ignore it. He's not a racist. He's a loving man. It's all lies," US Weekly quoted Rodriguez saying. The 'Avatar' actor is not the only one to have taken a stand on the matter. Whoopi Goldberg also took Neeson's side and said, "I've known him a pretty long time. I think I would have recognized. I've been around a lot of real bigots. I can say this man is not one. You can't be surprised that somebody whose loved one is attacked is angry and wants to go out and attack." Liam Neeson recently came under fire for admitting that he once wanted to kill a black person for revenge. "I went up and down areas with a cosh (a club), hoping I'd be approached by somebody, I'm ashamed to say that, and I did it for maybe a week, hoping some 'black bastard' would come out of a pub and have a go at me about something, you know? So that I could kill him," he said in an interview with a leading British newspaper. Shortly after the interview was released, the 'The Commuter' actor faced strong criticism on social media with people calling him racist. Following the backlash, the Irish actor, on Tuesday, featured on ABC's Good Morning America to address the issue and clarified that he is not a racist. "I was trying to show honor, to stand up for my dear friend in this terrible, medieval fashion. I am a fairly intelligent guy and that's why it kind of shocked me when I came down to earth after having these horrible feelings," he asserted. (ANI) Neeson also mentioned that following the incident, he decided to seek the counsel of a priest and exercise helped him get rid of the anger. Neeson starrer 'Cold Pursuit' is all set to hit the big screens on February 8. In the film, Neeson's character will be seen seeking violent revenge after his son dies mysteriously. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Setting a new tempo for brand expression, Mastercard debuts its sonic brand identity, a comprehensive sound architecture that signifies the latest advancement for the brand. Wherever consumers engage with Mastercard across the globe - be it physical, digital or voice environments - the distinct and memorable Mastercard melody will provide simple, seamless familiarity. The news comes on the heels of the company's recent transition to a symbol brand and is part of its continued brand transformation. "Sound adds a powerful new dimension to our brand identity and a critical component to how people recognize Mastercard today and in the future," said Raja Rajamannar, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, Mastercard. "We set out an ambitious goal to produce the Mastercard melody in a way that's distinct and authentic, yet adaptable globally and across genres. It is important that our sonic brand not only reinforces our presence, but also resonates seamlessly around the world." Global Resonance, Local Relevance To ensure the Mastercard melody would resonate with people the world over, Mastercard tapped musicians, artists and agencies from across the globe, including musical innovator Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park. The result, a distinct and memorable melody with adaptations across genres and cultures, making it locally relevant while maintaining a consistent global brand voice. In addition, the use of varying instruments and tempos help to deliver the Mastercard melody in several unique styles such as operatic, cinematic and playful as well as a number of regional interpretations. The Mastercard melody is the foundation of the company's sound architecture and will extend to many assets, from musical scores, sound logos and ringtones, to hold music and point-of-sale acceptance sounds. "What I love most about the Mastercard melody, is just how flexible and adaptable it is across genres and cultures," said Mike Shinoda. "It's great to see a big brand expressing themselves through music to strengthen their connection with people." A Digital Brand for a Digital Consumer With voice shopping set to hit $40 billion by 2022, audio identities not only connect brands with consumers on a new dimension, they are tools enabling consumers to shop, live, and pay in an increasingly digital and mobile world. "Audio makes people feel things, and that's what makes it such a powerful medium for brands," said Matt Lieber, Co-founder and President, Gimlet. "With the explosion of podcasts, music streaming, and smart speakers, an audio strategy is no longer a "nice-to-have" for brands - it's a necessity. A sonic identity - the audio calling card for a brand - is now just as important as a brand's visual identity." Melody comes to life during GRAMMY Week In the lead up to the 61st GRAMMY Awards, Mastercard will launch a new multi-channel marketing program starring GRAMMY-nominated artist Camila Cabello, which will be the first creative output to feature the brand's sound logo. "I am so excited to be partnering with Mastercard and being able to offer new opportunities to fans," said Cabello. In addition, the company will showcase its new sonic brand at the Mastercard Sensory Lab at Fred Segal, a one-of-a-kind space filled with interactive experiences and exclusive merchandise from Joe Freshgoods and KYLE that will engage visitors' senses and bring the brand to life in an entirely new way. "Fred Segal Sunset is Los Angeles' premier destination for new and innovative retail experiences, which is why we are thrilled to be the first retailer that will feature the new Mastercard sonic brand at the point of sale in our store," said John Frierson, president, Fred Segal. "The Sensory Lab will be a uniquely fun and engaging kickoff for the many things Fred Segal and Mastercard are collaborating on this year." At the Mastercard Sensory Lab visitors can - Hear the new Mastercard transaction sound when they checkout at Fred Segal- Get a sneak peek of the new Priceless Cities skill for voice-enabled assistants- Shop exclusive merchandise by Joe Freshgoods x Super Duper Kyle, available for purchase only with a Mastercard This article has been issued by News Voir. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Maoist by the name of Damburu Khila has been arrested by Odisha police in connection with the killings of TDP leaders Kidari Sarveswara Rao and Siveri Soma. The two leaders were murdered in September last year. Khila is being handed over to the Investigation Agency (NIA), Hyderabad, which is investigating the killing of the two leaders. In October last year, the Andhra Pradesh police had arrested four people in connection with the murder case of the TDP leaders. Rao and Soma were shot dead by Naxals in Dumbriguda Mandal of Andhra Pradesh's Visakhapatnam district on September 23 while they were on their way to participate in Gramadarsini program. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Government on Friday dismissed a media report that claimed that Defence Ministry officials had raised concerns over the direct involvement of Prime Minister's Office in the Rafale deal and said that the report failed to publish response of the former minister Manohar Parrikar's response to the note by the MoD over negotiations over the Rafale deal. According to the document accessed by ANI, the media report had given half picture of the full story as it did not highlight the file noting of the former Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar who had dismissed concerns raised by the officials of his ministry in the Rafale aircraft negotiations saying that the fear was an "over reaction." He also called for further consultations to clarify any points. A media report published on Friday claimed that the Defence Ministry officials had raised concerns over the direct involvement of prime Minister's Office in the Rafale deal saying "parallel discussion by the PMO had weakened the negotiating position of MoD and Indian Negotiating Team." However, Parrikar in the same file noted at the end: "It appears that PMO and French President office are monitoring the progress of the issue which was an outcome of the summit meeting. Para 5 appears to be an overreaction" Parrikar further tasked Defence Secretary G. Mohan Kumar to resolve the matter in consultation with Principal Secretary to Prime Minister. Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Friday displayed the file noting in a press conference to indicate that all was not well in the government during the Rafale deal negotiations. Endorsing the document with ANI, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said outside Parliament: "A newspaper published a file noting written by Defence Secretary, If a newspaper publishes a noting then the ethics of journalism will demand that the newspaper publishes the then Defence Minister's reply as well." Earlier, speaking in the Lok Sabha, Sitharaman said: "Then Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar ji replied to that MoD note that remain calm, nothing to worry, everything is going alright. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A day after All India Trinamool Congress called West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee as the new-age 'Jansi ki Rani,' Union Minister Giriraj Singh on Friday compared her with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. In the Lok Sabha on Thursday, TMC leader Dinesh Trivedi drew a parallel between the Central government and the pre-independence British regime and called Banerjee as today's 'Jhansi ki Rani'. Singh told ANI, "Maybe this is an abusive remark towards 'Jhansi ki Rani.' She can be a Putana (demon), who has destroyed the whole West Bengal. She can become Kim Jong-un, who can kill those who speak against her." "She does not have the power to become 'Jhansi ki Rani' or 'Padmavaat.' She can support Rohingya infiltrators and talks about distributing India. 'Jhansi ki Rani' fought to save the country. She is fighting to divide it." Recently a full-blown face-off between West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee-led TMC government and the Centre erupted after a CBI team moved to arrest Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar on Sunday night. The central investigative agency officials were denied entry to the top cop's residence and were detained briefly too. Escalating her confrontation with the Centre, Banerjee started her 'Save the Constitution' dharna on Sunday night to protest against what the TMC called a 'coup' by Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led NDA government at the Centre. On Tuesday, Chief Minister Banerjee ended her sit-in protest, saying that she would take her fight against the Central government to Delhi next week. The Supreme Court has directed Kumar to appear before the CBI in connection with Saradha chit fund scam probe. The bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said that no coercive step should be taken against Kumar, who will appear before the CBI in Shillong, Meghalaya. The top court, which posted further hearing in the case to February 20, also issued a contempt notice to West Bengal Chief Secretary, the DGP and the Kolkata Police Commissioner on a plea which said that the CBI team was detained when it went to question Kumar on Sunday. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Goswami has refused to be intimidated by the "machinery" of Mamata Banerjee government and expressed readiness "to take them on". In a letter sent to Goswami yesterday, Additional Commissioner of Kolkata Police said a news item aired by the Republic TV channel on February 2 contended that Kumar "had been missing and absconding for last three days". "Nothing can be farther from truth. Not only was the CP Kolkata available in the city, but had also been attending office on a regular, with the exception of 31.1.19, when he was on leave for a day," the letter said. "We condemn this misinformation and feel that your channel had aired it with ulterior motives to malign both the Commissioner of Police as an individual and Kolkata Police as an organisation," the Additional CP wrote. He said this had "defamed the reputation of both the CP and the Kolkata Police" and asked Goswami to "respond to this correspondence within three days of its receipt as to under what circumstances you had aired the news item and why a defamation suit should not be filed against you." Goswami, while commenting on the letter, said, "I am ready to be arrested by Mamata and her henchmen in the Kolkata Police. Mamata should not think she can browbeat me using her stooges in the Kolkata Police." Justifying the news item, he said he was "proud we exposed details of the alleged role of her police officers in concealing the Saradha scam. And if she (Mamata) thinks her lawyers and state government machinery can be used to attack us, then let Mamata know that me and the Republic media network is ready to take them on. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Congress members on Thursday staged a torchlight protest against BJP, for not letting Karnataka Assembly function. Making Karnataka's fluid political situation more slippery, seven MLAs of Congress and three of BJP on Thursday abstained from the Assembly's Budget Session, fuelling speculation of defection. To tame the tide, Congress has called its legislature party (CLP) meeting on Friday. According to sources, the CLP meeting has been called by Siddaramaiah at 9 am in the Vidhan Sabha. "Three of BJP MLAs too abstained from the Session on Thursday," said sources, which has prompted the BJP to initiate the exercise to keep its flock of MLAs intact. Sources did not disclose the name of these three MLAs. In the 224-member Assembly, Janata Dal-Secular (JDS) has 37 MLAs, while Congress has 80 members. Ever since the Congress-JDS jointly formed the government in Karnataka in May last year, there have been murmurs of resentment among them. Before the start of the session, Congress had issued a whip to all its legislators to attend the first day of the session. Despite this, several legislators didn't turn up in the assembly. "It is a minority government," said the BJP. The Congress MLAs who have abstained from the Assembly's Budget Session are Ramesh Jarkiholi, Mahesh Kumathalli, Dr Umesh Jadhav, Dr Sudhakar, BC Patil, Nagendra B, and JN Ganesh. Sources said that Nagendra B, Ramesh Jarkiholi, Umesh Jadhav and Mahesh Kumathalli are said to be in touch with the BJP leadership. Talking to media persons, Siddaramaiah on Thursday alleged on the second day of the session that BJP was offering more than Rs 30 crore to some of their MLAs. "I got evidence to reveal that but will release the evidence at an appropriate time," he said. Speaker Ramesh Kumar said, "I am ready to accept not only four but also 40 resignations if given to me. The coalition government is ready to pass a Finance Bill but if 12 legislators remain absent on Friday, then the bill can't be passed." At present, the main concern of the coalition government led by Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy, who also holds the finance portfolio, is to pass the Finance Bill. Till now the BJP hasn't cleared if the party will move a no-confidence motion or they will meet Governor Vajubhai Wala to request him to disqualify this government. The Congress-JDS coalition, however, is confident to face the floor test. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Hatice Cengiz, fiancee of deceased scribe Jamal Khashoggi, on Friday (local time) called for the remains of the body of the former Washington Post columnist, while complaining that the deceased has not even received any proper burial where his loved ones can grieve and pray. "It is important for us that the body is found, that we have a place at which his beloved ones could say prayers," Al Jazeera quoted Cengiz as saying. The remarks by Cengiz came during the release of the book, 'Jamal Khashoggi: His Life, Struggles and Secrets in Istanbul' on Friday. The book consists of 228 pages and is written by two Turkish journalists, based on interviews with Cengiz, who described it as "emotional" as it portrays a side of Khashoggi which was only witnessed by those who were closest to him. Cengiz in her statement further added that she is hopeful that Khashoggi's killers will be punished and has appealed to the European Union and the US to closely follow the case. "I would like to take this opportunity to say that we would welcome in a very nice way in the event he (US President Donald Trump) takes a new stance regarding this subject," she added. In addition, Cengiz noted that Saudi King Salman "has a conscience" and will support the probe in this case. Khashoggi was assassinated in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on October 2 last year, where he had gone to obtain paperwork certifying his divorce with the ex-wife in order to be able to re-marry his Turkish fiance Cengiz. Meanwhile, the United Nation's special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, Agnes Callamard, leading the investigations into Khashoggi's death, on Thursday confirmed that evidence showed the latter to be a victim of "a brutal and premeditated killing, planned and perpetrated by officials of the state of Saudi Arabia". According to the US intelligence agencies, the murder of Khashoggi was enacted upon orders by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Russian Paralympic athletes will have the chance to compete at the Paralympic games of 2020 and 2022 under the Russian flag if meet specific requirements, President of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) Andrew Parsons said, according to the IPC press release. "Up until 31 December 2022, Russian Para athletes will only be entitled to participate in certain competitions (including the Tokyo 2020 and Beijing 2022 Paralympic Games) if they have met the specified testing requirements," Sputnik cited Parsons as sating. The Committee announced earlier on Friday that the Russian Paralympic Committee (RPC) would be conditionally reinstated starting 15 March. According to the IPC President, the Russian Paralympic Committee has implemented 69 criteria that give grounds to believe that the organisation has undergone significant changes since the Rio 2016 Games. Russian athletes, however, will still be most frequently checked and the Russian Paralympic Committee will have to compensate the IPC for doping test expenses, Parsons added. Citing former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's decision to overturn the Supreme Court's judgment on Shah Bano case, Union Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday said the Congress president Rahul Gandhi's electoral promise to withdraw the Triple Talaq Bill will be a repetition of history. "The AICC President Rahul Gandhi and his coterie, while addressing a minority convention promised to withdraw the Bill pending in the Parliament, penalising Triple Talaq. History has repeated itself, neither as a satire nor as a tragedy. It has repeated itself with a mindset of cruelty," Jaitley wrote on his blog. "The late Rajiv Gandhi committed a monumental mistake in legislatively overturning the Shah Bano judgment of the Supreme Court which guaranteed maintenance to all Muslim women. He allowed deserted women to be driven to poverty and destitution. Thirty-two years later his son has taken another retrograde step to drive them not merely into destitution but also to live a life which is an antithesis of human existence," he added. His statement comes a day after Congress spokesperson Sushmita Dev assured that the Congress party will scrap the Triple Talaq Bill if voted to power in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections. Dev said the Triple Talaq Bill is yet another tool of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to put Muslim men behind the bars. "Lately a triple talaq law was brought in and through this Prime Minister Narendra Modi has created an atmosphere of confrontation between Muslim men and women," she said while addressing the AICC minority wing convention. "A lot of people opined that if the Triple Talaq Bill is passed it will contribute to the empowerment of women. However, we opposed it because this is another tool by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to put Muslim men behind the bars. I am proud that crores of Muslim women wrote letters and campaigned to oppose it. Congress opposed it in parliament and I promise you that Congress government will come in 2019 and we will scrap this law," she added. On December 27, the Lok Sabha passed the Triple Talaq bill which makes the practice of giving instant divorce a criminal offence with a provision of three-year jail term for the erring husband. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Punjab Police special intelligence team during an encounter in the wee hours of Friday shot dead a dreaded gangster of Lawrence Bishnoi's gang in Peer Muchalla area of Zirakpur in Punjab. The encounter began when the police came to know about the presence of three Lawrence Bishnoi gang members at Maha Laxmi Aparments in the area. Immediately Senior Superintendent of Police, Mohali, Kuldeep Singh Chahal, along with other policemen reached the spot to handle the situation. Investigations into the matter revealed that the gangsters had held a girl as a hostage in order to avoid their arrest by the police. But the police personnel were able to kill one of the gangsters, identified as Ankit Bhadu, whose body was later shifted to hospital. A reward of rupees one lakh was announced by the Rajasthan police for arresting Bhadu who was in the list of most wanted criminals. In order to nab the gangsters, the entire Peer Mushalla area was sealed by the police. Shri Ganganagar police were also present at the spot. More details into the matter are awaited. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) European Union (EU) has once again warned British Prime Minister Theresa May that it will not renegotiate the Brexit agreement as she reached Brussels in an attempt to persuade EU leaders to agree to make important changes as per UK Parliament's demands. According to CNN, European Commission's president, Jean-Claude Juncker, on Thursday stated that the EU could only "add wording" to the Political Declaration about what they aim for in their future relationship. The president of the European Council, Donald Tusk, mulled what a "special place in hell looks like" for those who promoted Brexit, "without even a sketch of a plan guiding, how to carry it out safely". Tusk made these remarks after meeting with Ireland's Prime Minister, or Taoiseach, LeoVaradkar on Wednesday. Last year, British lawmakers voted in favour of an amendment that seeks to reopen negotiations with the European Union over the Northern Ireland backstop, an insurance policy to avoid a hard border with Ireland, in case the UK fails to secure a comprehensive Brexit deal with the EU. The stakes are high, as the UK is slated to leave the EU on March 29 with no deal in sight due to the British parliament rejecting the previously negotiated treaty with the EU by a large margin. In 2016, over 50 per cent of the UK electorate had voted to leave the EU, following which the British government had triggered Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, beginning the country's process of exiting from the bloc. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Defence Ministry had not objected to involvement of the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) over sovereign guarantee aspect of the negotiations in the Rafale fighter deal, the then Defence Secretary G Mohan Kumar said on Friday, clarifying that the dissent note had nothing to do with pricing issue. "It was about sovereign guarantees and general terms and conditions," Kumar told ANI when asked if he remembered the context of the note. "The context is there in the newspaper. Whatever has been brought out (in the newspaper), it has nothing to do with pricing. Negotiations are not just for pricing but other things also. It was about sovereign guarantees and general terms and conditions," he elaborated. Kumar, who was the Defence Secretary from 2015 to 2017, spoke shortly after Congress President Rahul Gandhi cited the media report to contend that the PMO and the Defence Ministry were not on the same page on Rafale negotiations. Gandhi has been alleging that the pricing of the fighter plane, under the deal for procuring 36 aircraft from French company Dassault, was changed at the behest of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Modi as well as Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman have rubbished the allegations and accused Gandhi of trying to mislead the nation. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) "A newspaper published a file noting written by Defence Secretary. If a newspaper publishes a noting, then the ethics of journalism will demand that the newspaper publishes the then Defence Minister's reply as well," Sitharaman said. "Then Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar ji replied to that MoD note saying 'remain calm, nothing to worry, everything is going alright.' Now, what do you call the NAC led by Sonia Gandhi's interference in earlier PMO? What was that," the Defence Minister asked in the Lok Sabha. Several opposition leaders also commented on the issue and there was an uproar in the House. The Congress and Trinamool Congress called for a probe by Joint Parliamentary Committee and criticised the prime minister. Trinamool MP Saugata Roy said "the Modi-Shah duo is destroying defence backbone of the country." Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress leader in the Lok Sabha, also reiterated Rahul's demand for a joint parliamentary committee. "Everything will be revealed then. We don't want any explanation now. We have heard many explanations from PM." . (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) has demanded the construction of a temple for Hindu students on premises of the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU). Mukesh Singh Lodhi, the district president of the BJYM, wrote a letter to vice-chancellor Tariq Mansoor on Thursday, stating that he had 15 days to reply, failing which thousands of BJYM workers will enter the campus to place the idol for worship. "We are giving AMU Vice Chancellor 15 days to reply, or we will go with thousand of our workers for murti sthapana," Lodhi told ANI. "AMU founder Sir Syed Ahmad Khan had stated that both Hindu and Muslims are like two eyes of a bride (India). So, a temple can be built with a mosque on the varsity campus. I don't think VC will have a problem with this," Lodhi added. The demand for the construction of a temple for the Hindu students of the university has come close on the heels of the AMU administration blocking the entry of some BJYM workers into the campus on the Republic Day. The youths were carrying the Indian flag and tried to enter the campus for tiranga yatra without permission from the AMU authorities to carry out the rally inside the campus. However, the varsity maintained that the mass gathering of students for a rally would have disturbed the classes ahead of exams. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) BJP president Amit Shah on Friday asserted that his party is committed to constructing the Ram temple in Ayodhya. He has asked Congress, Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) to clear their stand on the issue, which is currently sub judice. Shah said at a booth level rally of party workers: "BJP is committed to making the Ram Temple at the same place in Ayodhya... As soon as the case of Ram temple came up, the Congress party said this should be done after 2019. Why? It is the oldest case in India. Why do you want to delay this case? He added, "I want to ask Akhilesh Yadav, Mayawati and Rahul Gandhi, what's your stand on the Ram temple? Whether you agree or not, BJP will make sure that Ram temple is constructed at that place." The Centre had on Tuesday approached the Supreme Court for permission to restore the "excess" land surrounding the disputed portion in Ayodhya to Ram Janambhoomi Nyas. The government, in a petition, sought directions for releasing the 67 acres which it had acquired about two-and-a-half decades back, leaving untouched the 0.313 acres of disputed land. The Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute has been pending before the apex court for the last eight years. For a long time, parties in the case and various right-wing organisations have been asking for an early or day-to-day hearing in the matter. Meanwhile, speaking at the rally, Shah said that "BJP does not function on basis of the dynasty but on democracy." "When our government is formed, there is development. During 'Bua-Bhatija' (Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav) reign, Purvanchal was going through menace of mosquitoes and mafia. After BJP government was formed mafia disappeared, encephalitis cases are going down." Citing an example of the NRC draft in Assam, Shah further stated that "from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, Assam to Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh to Uttarakhand, BJP will remove all infiltrate if it comes back to power again in 2019. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In a major technological breakthrough, Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) has successfully developed a state-of-the-art regeneration system through in-house research and development efforts for Indian Railways' fleet of conventional electric locomotives. The country's first such regenerative 5000 HP WAG-7 electric locomotive was flagged-off by Ghanshyam Singh, Member Traction and Ex-Officio Secretary at the Ministry of Railways, in the presence of BHEL Chairman and Managing Director Atul Sobti. Directors on the board of BHEL and senior officials from Indian Railways were also present on this occasion at the company's Jhansi plant, said the company in a statement issued on Friday. The idea of developing the energy efficient regeneration system was mooted by Indian Railways and BHEL responded to it by successfully developing the technology in-house, giving an impetus to the 'Make in India' initiative. With this, a new line of has opened for BHEL and the company has expanded its footprint in the transportation sector. At present, Indian Railways' electric locomotives have a dynamic braking system where the energy generated during application of brakes gets wasted in the form of heat. BHEL has developed a system introducing the regenerative braking concept in these locomotives, that will feed the energy back to the overhead power lines. This will result in significant saving in energy consumption. BHEL is the first organisation to successfully demonstrate the concept of regenerative braking system for DC traction motor driven conventional electric locomotives. BHEL has embarked upon a transformation journey for 'Creating a BHEL of Tomorrow' and is pursuing various diversification initiatives for increasing non-coal . (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address a public meeting titled "Praja Chaitanya Sabha" at Etukuru bypass road near Guntur city on February 10. The arrangements for the meeting will be done by Saturday, informed BJP's Shyam Kishore. He said that the ground is now under the supervision of Special Protection Group (SPG). A group of 40 SPG personnel is providing security coverage. Guntur Urban SP Ch Vijaya Rao also assured that appropriate security measures are being made by the police to ensure Prime Minister Narendra Modi's security. BJP's state general secretary J Syam Kishore told ANI, "The Prime Minister will conduct two more in the state, one of them will be held in Visakhapatnam on February 27." Prime Minister Narendra Modi was expected to visit Guntur on January 6 after a meeting in Kerala's Trivandrum but was unable to make it due to his tight schedule. However, BJP state President Kanna Lakshmi Narayana, alleged that TDP is trying to create hurdles for Prime Minister's event. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged to restore tougher international restrictions to deter Irans missile program. According to him, Irans latest missile launch again proves the nuclear deal is doing nothing to stop Tehrans missile program. "Iran is defying the UN Security Council as it advances its ballistic missile capabilities. We must restore tougher international restrictions to deter Irans missile program," Pompeo wrote on his Twitter page. Irans Revolutionary Guards unveiled a new ballistic missile with a range of 1,000 kilometres, their official news agency Sepah News reported. Experts are of the opinion that this move will provide operational ease for both the regulator and the NBFCs but will not have any larger impact on the sector. It may get easier for the central bank to operationally monitor these NBFCs after the harmonisation, said Karthik Srinivasan of ICRA. But he said the move is ... Dear Reader, Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance. We, however, have a request. As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed. Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard. Digital Editor A multimodal transit terminal has opened in Georgias Black Sea Batumi port today, the Georgian Ministry of Economy reported. The new logistics facility, located on two hectares of land, was set up by the joint efforts of Batumi International Container Terminal and Medlog Georgia. Georgian Economy Minister Giorgi Kobulia, who participated in the opening ceremony of the multimodal transit terminal, said that this is another wonderful project, which will contribute to the development Georgias transit potential, Agenda.ge reported. Kobulia said that this project will help Georgian exporter companies have better access to international markets. Sometime last November, Byju Raveendran, while waiting for his connecting flight, walked into a store in Dubai airport. What struck his eyes were the gaming products of Osmo, a US-based educational gaming company. The products were displayed prominently at the store, but no one was buying them. It was probably because the products were new, and typically people dont want to try out new things in public places, he says, as they fear that they may be seen as technologically challenged. For the next couple of hours, he did turned into a sales person. I stayed there ... Facebook Inc is toughening up the rules governing political advertisements in India to create more transparency ahead of the country's general elections due before May, the social media giant said late on Thursday. Users will see political advertisements with "published by" and "paid by" disclaimers, the Menlo Park, California-headquartered company said in a statement. The move comes weeks after Facebook told Reuters it would extend some of its political advertising rules and tools for curbing election interference to India, Nigeria, Ukraine and the European Union ... The presidents of Russia, Iran and Turkey - Vladimir Putin, Hassan Rouhani and Recep Tayyip Erdogan - will discuss Washingtons plans to withdraw troops from Syria at their meeting in Sochi on February 14, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Vershinin said. "I think the focus will be on ways to prevent destabilization and chaos and retaining control of the situation if U.S. troops leave the country," the diplomat noted. "I would put it this way - there is a need to ensure the security of all countries and all parties," TASS cited Vershinin as saying. "The presidents will outline the agenda themselves. However, it clearly will include the assessment of developments on the ground and further steps the three guarantor countries of the Astana process can take to stabilize the situation and prevent terrorist activities across Syria," the diplomat added. Dear Reader, Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance. We, however, have a request. As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed. Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard. Digital Editor Sign up for our PoliticsNY newsletter for the latest coverage and to stay informed about the 2021 elections in your district and across NYC City and state leaders must revoke their approvals for a new outpatient substance-abuse recovery center in Coney Island, and instead help area addicts by shuttering booze vendors in the neighborhood, according to a local who panned the center at a recent community board meeting. Im not really for it, said Jeff Sanoff. Lets get rid of liquor stores. Sanoff and fellow Coney Islanders voiced their concerns about the LSA Recovery facility during a Feb. 4 meeting of Community Board 13s Health Committee, where other locals argued the center could bring undesirable characters to the neighborhood. Its not a good attraction, said CB13 member Pat Brown. Six Health Committee members unanimously voted against the panel issuing a letter of support for the center a formal missive LSA Recovery program director Ertuania Jorge requested to show community backing for the facility, which the state office of Alcohol and Substance Abuse and the city office of Mental Health and Hygiene already approved applications for. Jorge, however, still hopes CB13s full board will ultimately vote in favor of issuing the letter at its Feb. 27 general meeting, because she wants to work in tandem with the community where the centers services are urgently needed, she said. Im very surprised [that they rejected it], with the opioid epidemic and everything thats going on, and the services were going to provide, she said. In 2017, 1,487 city residents died from unintentional drug overdoses and Coney Island, together with Brighton Beach, Manhattan Beach, and Sheepshead Bay, racked up higher-than-average overdose deaths that year, with an average of 22.3 fatal incidents occurring among every 100,000 residents of those neighborhoods, compared to an average of 21.2 deaths among every 100,000 residents of other neighborhoods citywide, statistics show. LSA Recoverys Coney center is slated to fill two floors of an eight-story building on Stillwell Avenue between Mermaid and Neptune avenues. It would be similar to the firms existing Midwood outpost, which currently employs about 20 staffers and serves about 150 clients, who spend an average of between six months and a year receiving regular treatment at the facility, including counseling sessions, medication-assisted treatment, and substance-abuse education, according to Jorge. And the center would not use the controversial opiate methadone to wean patients off of other addictive drugs, she said. This is the least intensive substance abuse program there is, she said. But the committee members questioned the need for LSA to open another location so close to its Midwood site especially in Coney, where locals can already seek treatment at two existing outpatient centers, Coney Island Hospitals Ida G. Israel Community Health Center, and the Merryland Health Center on Mermaid Avenue at W. 17th Street. What makes you different from the facilities that are in the neighborhood? asked CB13 Health Committee chairman Alex Chadaev. Jorge explained the center could serve even more residents because its counselors speak seven languages, including Russian, Hebrew, Ukrainian, and Farsi. But the committee members said cultural competency wasnt good enough, and demanded she hand over data supporting the necessity of another recovery center in the neighborhood which she allegedly promised to provide at a previous meeting with the board, according to its chairwoman. I dont know why she has to come in here when we have the same facility that people in the neighborhood are [already] using, said JoAnn Weiss. She still hasnt given us the numbers that we asked for at the last meeting, the numbers that prove that this is needed in the neighborhood. Weiss also raised concerns about security at the new facility, especially if it will serve people from beyond Coney Island. Im worried about security, you have to have some sort of security there because you never know whats going to happen, she said. Are they local patients or are you people bringing people in from the outside? The center would prioritize catering to Coney Islanders, but treat patients from across the city if necessary, according to Jorge, who said there is no security plan currently in place because the Midwood center has operated without incident since it opened 10 years ago. And she promised to bring data supporting the need for the center to the boards upcoming general meeting at the New York Aquariums Education Hall, claiming she misunderstood the boards previous request for that information. Russia's Pension Fund has published recommendations for residents of the country how to boost their pension, according to the Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper. "The first rule is official employment," the article says. However, the department advised the employees to personally control whether their employers make contributions to the pension fund. Second, the Pension Fund clarified that the retirement pension will be higher if the employee makes voluntary contributions in the framework of mandatory pension insurance. In addition, Russians have the opportunity to save for retirement through the state program of co-financing of pension savings. If a person has already retired or it will do it n the near future, then it makes sense to get an earnings record for any five years until 2002, when he had the highest incomes. Women can recalculate the rate of a retirement pension for childcare periods. Recalculation is also made when the number of disabled family members changes. If a person, having retired, moves to the Far North or equivalent areas to work there, his employment period increases, which leads to an increase in pension. The Pension Fund also added that if a person approaches the retirement age, but he decided to postpone its registration for several years, his pension will be higher. The Deputy Director of the Institute for Social Analysis and Forecasting at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economics and Public Administration, Yuri Gorlin, speaking with Vestnik Kavkaza, did not rule out situations when the employer pays a salary without paying personal income tax and insurance premiums. According to him, such a situation can be extremely unpleasant for both the employee and the employer. The situation is different if the employee is officially hired. "If an employee is officially hired, but his employer does not pay contributions for some reason, then the employer faces risks associated with the tax service. Or another situation is possible. Everything is official, the assessment was made, but not paid. It causes tax debts. The employees pension will still be formed, as if this money is paid, and then the state will compensate this difference," Gorlin explained. Head of the Scientific Research Financial Institute of the Ministry of Finance of Russia Vladimir Nazarov also confirmed the potential risk of bad faith on the part of the employee. "There are cases when a citizen was paid a salary, but in fact his employer did not pay insurance contributions to the Pension Fund," the expert said. At the same time, Nazarov noted that he sees no threat that such incidents will happen more often due to the completion of the pension reform. "This happens sometimes when the business goes bankrupt. But such incidents are immediately visible, especially since there are constant checks," the expert concluded. Sign up for our PoliticsNY newsletter for the latest coverage and to stay informed about the 2021 elections in your district and across NYC The Feds will investigate how officials at a federal Sunset Park prison handled a week-long power outage, during which more than 1,600 inmates endured freezing temperatures and allegedly could not speak with their lawyers, leaders of the Department of Justice announced. The federal agencys Office of the Inspector General, an internal watchdog arm, will find out whether officials with the federal Bureau of Prisons responded appropriately to the heat and electricity failures caused by a Jan. 27 electrical fire at the Metropolitan Detention Center, reps for the Justice Department said on Wednesday. The probe will also determine if prison officials have adequate contingency plans for such an incident, according to the reps. And a separate investigation conducted by leaders of the Prisons Bureau an agency within the Justice Department that operates the 29th Street prison between Second and Third avenues will evaluate the facilitys infrastructure and emergency-response protocol. The announcement of the investigations came hours after nearly 30 pols including Rep. Nydia Velazquez (DSunset Park), Rep. Jerrold Nadler (DRed Hook), Rep. Max Rose (DBay Ridge), Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (DConey Island), Rep. Yvette Clarke (DFlatbush), and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (DNew York) sent letters to the Justice Departments Inspector General, Michael Horowitz, and the Prisons Bureaus acting director, Hugh Hurwitz, demanding they investigate how the prison is managed, among other requests. The Bureau [of Prisons] is responsible for providing the humane detention of these detainees not subjecting them to third-world conditions, read the pols missive to Hurwitz, which also claimed prison employees arguably abusive practices resulted in the recent unacceptable conditions there. And Justice Department officials only took action to improve those conditions after the press reported on the outage, sparking several days of protests outside the prison, the electeds alleged in their letter to Horowitz, Instead of offering proactive solutions and executing its emergency plan, MDC Brooklyn failed in its duties until public pressure and demands for answers reached a tipping point, they wrote. The Feds investigations must also provide more details about inmates treatment during the outage when prison staff allegedly barred them from receiving medical care, clean clothes, and hot meals on some of the coldest days of the year and uncover whether contractors worked as quickly as possible to restore power sooner than it came back on Feb. 3, the pols wrote. And the letter to the Prisons Bureau additionally demanded responses to seven multi-part questions about the prisons infrastructure, allegations against its staffers, why management barred the incarcerated men from meeting with their lawyers, and how the agency would re-establish the communitys trust and prevent similar incidents in the future. The Justice Department announced its investigations of the Metropolitan Detention Center two days after a group of lawyers sued the Feds and the prisons warden on Monday for violating the inmates constitutional rights during the power loss, and a day after a Prisons Bureau rep told this newspaper that heat was operational despite the electrical outage. The rep, however, did not respond to repeated inquiries about the bureaus definition of operational, and if prison staffers were manually turning down the heat. Prisons Bureau reps also did not immediately respond when asked if its leaders will publicly answer the questions the pols posed in their letters. Sign up for our PoliticsNY newsletter for the latest coverage and to stay informed about the 2021 elections in your district and across NYC Its a giant show with an intimate feel. An expansive new exhibit on iconic Mexican painter Frida Kahlo offers an amazingly personal look into the artists life. Frida Kahlo: Appearances Can Be Deceiving, which opens today at the Brooklyn Museum, brings a host of her private items to the United States for the first time, including her clothes, jewelry, cosmetics, medicines, and orthopedic corsets, which she wore after a bus accident broke her spine at age 18. The exhibit demonstrates how Kahlo meticulously fashioned her public persona, both in her appearance and in her artwork, according to one of the shows curators. The show expands our understanding of Kahlo by revealing the unique power behind the ways she presented herself in the world and depicted herself in art, said Catherine Morris. Among the objects on display are two of the plaster corsets Kahlo wore while in the hospital after her accident. She used a mirror to draw the communist symbol of the hammer and sickle on the front of the casts, integrating them into her wardrobe and making the bulky items seem like deliberately chosen pieces. The exhibit also shows how she used her sartorial choices to champion the indigenous cultural renaissance known as Mexicanidad, by publicly wearing Tehuana dresses she bought from indigenous vendors in Mexico City. The curators sourced Kahlos belongings from her lifelong Mexico City home Casa Azul, or Blue House, which is now a museum dedicated to the artist. At the Brooklyn Museum, the artifacts are arranged to focus on different themes in Kahlos life, including her communist politics, her turbulent marriage to fellow painter Diego Rivera, and her visits to the United States. Kahlo visited New York several times, first in 1931 when her husband was commissioned to paint a mural at Rockefeller Center, and again in 1937 when she returned to exhibit her own work. She immediately fell in love with the city, but the disparity of wealth she saw reaffirmed her political convictions, according to the exhibit. The show also features a surprising connection between Kahlo and the Bard of Brooklyn. A collection of Walt Whitmans poems, translated into Spanish, was found on her bedside table when she died in 1954. The curators of the show hope that the display of Kahlos work and her life can help to offset negative portrayals of Mexico that are common in American politics, and that it can offer visitors a more accurate picture of Mexicos vibrant cultural heritage, according to the museums director. As we see how our neighbors and friends in Mexico are being portrayed here in the United States, the time is now to spotlight more dignified and truthful and celebratory portraits of Mexicos great history, great traditions, and great culture, said Anne Pasternak. Frida Kahlo: Appearances Can Be Deceiving at Brooklyn Museum [200 Eastern Pkwy., at Washington Avenue in Prospect Heights, www.brook lynmu seum.org , (718) 638-5000]. Running through May 12. Timed tickets $20$25, untimed $35. Sign up for our PoliticsNY newsletter for the latest coverage and to stay informed about the 2021 elections in your district and across NYC New York-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital is helping women in the fight against heart disease. The Park Slope medical centers cardiologists work to prevent the condition in local women several ways, starting with educational initiatives for city doctors to ensure those healers understand exactly how to treat heart disease in women. Every year we host a symposium, invite doctors, and educate them as to what makes women different when they go into surgery, or with a cardiac event, so they can approach the patient appropriately, said Dr. Gioia Turitto, director of Cardiac Electrophysiology Services at Methodist Hospital. Turitto said the hospital educates physicians on a regular basis about the different approaches to treating heart disease in men and women, as some doctors who have not been properly trained in the particular symptoms displayed by women could miss them, or treat them the same as their male patients. The next step, Turitto said, is to educate the patients. Most women still believe that breast cancer is the worst thing that can happen to them, but its actually heart disease that kills more women than breast cancer, the doctor said. We speak to women and say, you do have to be afraid of breast cancer, but also take into consideration cardiovascular disease. Hospital leaders strive to get women the help they need, and those efforts include making the medical center a more welcoming and comfortable place for its female patients. Currently, five out the hospitals 13 cardiologists are women, an unusually high number, according to Turitto. I dont think you can find another place in Brooklyn or Manhattan with five female cardiologists, she said. And Methodist Hospital is always looking to recruit more female physicians, so that women who would rather be seen by someone of the same sex feel comfortable seeking treatment there. The doctors also focus their education initiatives towards younger women, as it can be more effective to prevent heart disease than to treat it after someone gets sick. And medical-center leaders are working to make cardiac-health information available in the hospitals obstetrics department, where they can reach thousands of Brooklynites who visit for prenatal services and to give birth, according to Turitto, who said pregnant women are among those who can benefit the most from such awareness. If you develop high blood pressure when youre pregnant, its something that can come back 10 or 20 years later. They forget about it, but its a future risk factor, she said. It they know from the outset it can lead to high blood pressure or diabetes, they can implement lifestyle changes to prevent a full-blown problem. Take steps to better understand your heart health by participating in and donating to the American Heart Associations Go Red For Women campaign, which raises awareness about heart disease and stroke in women. Spread the word and encourage others to participate by sharing #WearRedandGive on social media. There were dramatic scenes at a controversial public inquiry into Labor's franking credits policy on Friday after a man yelling "this process is a sham" was forcibly removed by fellow attendees at the beginning of the hearing. Liberal MP Tim Wilson - whose running of the committee has come under intense scrutiny as he leads the roadshow around the country - was forced to remind the packed room on Sydney's north shore that "nobody should attack other people who are here". An attendee speaks out against changes to franking credits at the public hearing at Chatswood, Sydney. Credit:James Brickwood More than 200 people, mostly older retirees, crammed into an upstairs hall at The Chatswood Club to voice their displeasure with Labor's plan to abolish refundable franking credits to save nearly $6 billion a year. Over two hours of three-minute speeches, only one person spoke in favour of Labor's policy, while dozens said they would not vote Labor at the expected May election because of the dividend imputation policy. National security agencies are continuing to scour the Parliament's computer network for threats to MPs' data after what is being described as a "sophisticated" hack attack that could be the work of a foreign government. Alastair MacGibbon, head of the Australian Cyber Security Centre, said the government's cyber experts would work over coming days and weeks to make sure all the breaches had been detected and the hackers' presence removed. The hacking comes just three months ahead of the federal election, prompting fears that if MPs emails or data were stolen they could be used to cause political interference of the style Russia perpetrated against the United States in the 2016 presidential campaign. Sources said the fact that Parliament had significantly upgraded its cyber defences since an attack by Chinese intelligence agencies in 2011 suggested the latest hackers were highly skilled, potentially pointing to a foreign government. Loading They also included that severe FASD be separately recognised as a disability within the National Disability Insurance Scheme, that the government consider covering FASD treatment under Medicare and that GPs in burdened areas get support to improve diagnosis and services. Professor Carapetis said the stories of the children, told in the report, were heartbreaking. He commended the coroner for the comprehensive recommendations that recognised the complexity of the causes of these tragic stories, and the urgency of the issues with FASD. 'A system that typecasts them as criminal kids and isnt equipped to deal with them' Alcohol is a toxin, Professor Carapetis said. Its a particular toxin to your brain cells. If a baby in the womb is exposed to alcohol that damages the growing brain. In severe cases if a pregnant woman drinks a lot the baby is born with essentially a severe impairment to their ability to learn and in some cases it affects the way they look: thats Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder recognises that even lesser amounts can do damage, so the baby may look normal but end up with subtle problems in the biology of their brains. You are dealing with someone without the capacity to learn from their own mistakes and with an impaired ability to benefit from education. Messages about being a good person, about the consequences of bad behaviour, arent easily comprehended by someone with FASD. Professor Carapetis said this led to difficult behaviours, poor impulse control and children seeming argumentative or bad. This led to typecasting at school, then disengagement and tendency to get into trouble. Loading They were more likely to struggle with anxiety and depression and at higher risk of suicide. Professor Carapetis said the Coroner had outlined the incredible problems with alcohol and drugs as likely contributors to suicides and the recommendations for universal streaming, diagnosis and care, diagnostic capacity were all within this states power. We have the tools to diagnose and manage FASD. We are ready to help ... we have been partnering with Aboriginal communities for a while in this space, he said. While in the long term, the solution was prevention of drinking during pregnancy, and the Institute was trying to raise awareness and help local elders support young women not to drink, if children were being born with FASD right now it was crucial they be diagnosed early and supported. If they were, they could do much better and live with their FASD as productive members of society not get left to a system that typecasts them as criminal kids and isnt equipped to deal with them. How this time, things could be different Professor Carapetis said numerous previous reports had recommended changes in the same vein as this report, including previous reports on FASD from the Telethon Kids Institute itself. In every study we have done, we have recommended the things in this report and by and large they havent been implemented. Always, the first question is how much is it going to cost. You will not deal with a FASD problem for free. Loading It should be not an issue of how much it costs, but how much benefit you get. If you get in early, diagnose these kids, provide support, give them a better education, keep them out of child protection and the justice system, in the long term you will save money. If you want to drop the incarceration rate, tackle FASD properly. He said the Coroners report was a potential game-changer in its sheer comprehensiveness. If there is ever a report that is a blueprint for change its this one, he said. It recognises this will not be solved in Perth. The Kimberly people must be empowered to implement these recommendations. They must be front and centre and asked to do things, not just advise. He said the solutions were not easy and they were not cheap, but how difficult or expensive they were shouldnt be the first concern. To properly support a young person with FASD you need a lot of support services; and every young person born with FASD deserves those, he said. 'An almost unparalleled opportunity' for change: if the government will make it "Despite the affluence of many doing well in the Kimberley, despite affirmative actions and investments in infrastructure in the Kimberley, the reality is that the Kimberley also has the second highest homelessness rate in the nation. "More than six per cent of its total population is homeless and nearly 100 per cent of that are Aboriginal people which then translates to almost 12 per cent or one in eight of all Aboriginal people in the Kimberley living with some form of homelessness." Almost all Aboriginal suicides are committed by people living below the poverty line, Mr Georgatos said. "The elevated risk groups are people who've been incarcerated and come out of prison with little hope on the horizon who are Aboriginal, people who are homeless and Aboriginal, people who have been evicted from their public housing rentals who are Aboriginal," he said. "Within that poverty other sad factors become much more pronounced. "That's where you get the family violence, various sexual predations and that sort of behaviour that become tipping points." Coroner inquires into Aboriginal suicides in the Kimberley WA Coroner Ros Fogliani launched an inquest into the suicides of 13 young Aboriginal people in the Kimberley in 2017 (her findings are yet to be released). The children died between November 2012 and March 2016, roughly the same timeframe covered by the latest figures released by the government. Mr Georgatos said there had been six Aboriginal suicides last financial year in the Kimberley and, even though this was about half the number of the previous year, five were teenagers aged 15 to 17. "That's a disturbing and increasing trend, but despite the suicide toll decreasing in the last year and pray that continues that doesn't reflect in hospital admissions for self-harm, attempted suicide and police call-outs for aberrant behaviour, which have continued at the same rates," he said. The coroner heard harrowing details at inquest hearings in Perth and across the Kimberley, including the story of a 10-year-old girl her took her own life on the same day she was struck by a relative with a stick. She was last seen walking away in tears. She had been exposed to alcohol abuse and domestic violence and did not have any contact with mental health or counselling services, according to counsel assisting Philip Urquhart. Overall, there had been more than 700 recommendations arising from 40 inquiries into Aboriginal youth suicide and related factors since the early 2000s. Mr Georgatos said he wasn't hopeful another inquest would change things. "They all come back with a limited remit of responses and unless they come back actually focusing in on the crushing poverty, then you're going nowhere fast," he said. The Kimberley region of Western Australia. Credit:Fairfax Media "Everybody can argue 'mental health', everybody can argue 'more responders', everybody can argue everything they want under the sun. "Obviously, it all helps in some way to some extent, but how can you give people hope and ask them to adjust their behaviour, and for how long and how far, without a path leading to something better on the horizon?" Governments direct resources into North West suicide prevention Both the state and federal governments say they are concerned about suicide rates in the Kimberley. A 2016 WA parliamentary inquiry flayed WA governments of both political persuasions, finding they had "failed to respond to recommendations made by previous inquiries for more than 15 years". Commonwealth Indigenous Affairs Minister Ken Wyatt said he had been working closely with community and health groups from across the region since early last year. "I am saddened by the profound impact that suicide has on individuals, their families and communities," he said. "Through the Kimberley Suicide Prevention Trial, the Turnbull Government is committed to suicide prevention, with a focus on strong community engagement and respect for locally endorsed solutions. "In May and August 2017, and February 2018, I have chaired two meetings of the Kimberley Suicide Prevention Working Group and have another planned for October. Importantly, the initiative is being locally led, with strong youth involvement." Loading The trial will target suicide in Broome, Bidyadanga, Dampier Peninsula, Derby, Fitzroy Crossing, Halls Creek, Kununurra, Wyndham and the Kutjunka region. Today is a difficult day for the Kimberley and the families of those who passed away. After nearly three years, State Coroner Ros Fogliani has delivered her findings in a significant inquiry into the deaths of 13 Aboriginal children and young persons in the Kimberley region between 2012 and 2016. Professor Patrick Dodson Credit:Photo: Karleen Minney The Coroners findings were handed down in Perth, and live-streamed to the Regional Courts of Broome, Kununurra, Fitzroy Crossing and Halls Creek. I sat in the Broome Court and it was crowded with a good cross-section of the community. A major Mexican drug cartels $1.3 billion drugs haul bound for Australia was seized by US authorities in a major operation sparked by a police officer in country Victoria pulling over a small-time drug dealer. Australian Federal Police and Victoria Police say the record haul, the largest found in either country, demonstrates a clear link between local outlaw motorcycle gangs and extremely sophisticated Mexican drug cartels. The 1.7-tonne seizure was revealed by Australian Federal Police on Friday morning, following the arrest of six people in Victoria and NSW on Thursday. In early 2018 a policeman in a small regional Victorian town pulled over a driver, finding a small quantity of drugs in the mans car. The arrest led police to a house where two tonnes of precursor was used to cook methamphetamine. A once-senior Australian diplomat has admitted using a messaging app to seek out an underage boy for sex. John Cornelius Finnin, 63, believed he was talking to a 14-year-old boy on Kik Messenger but was actually in contact with an undercover police officer for two weeks in September last year. John Finnin leaves the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Friday. Credit:AAP Finnin established that the "boy" was underage within the first few days of the conversation, police claimed in court documents released in January. "I understand you're nervous. So am I, as you are underage," one message to the undercover officer said. Combat teams of an S-400 air defense missile battalion from the Southern Military Districts Air Force and Air Defense Army conducted drills in Crimea to deploy advanced S-400 missile systems, the Black Sea Fleets press office reported. "The launchers performed a march on their own to the designated positioning area where the military hardware was readied from its travel to its combat position. After that, the combat crews checked the position of the surface-to-air missile systems on the ground," TASS cited the press office as saying. The combat crews searched for and engaged a controlling target simulated by an unmanned aerial vehicle. During the subsequent stages of the drills, the crews will make electronic launches of missiles against notional air targets, the press office added. Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size Just a few months ago, many parts of northern Queensland were in the grip of a severe drought, which in some places had lasted for nearly a decade. Cattle had to be specially fed with hay drops and many had to be put down. Meanwhile, the city of Townsville had to introduce water restrictions as the supply in its main dam dwindled. Then the rain came. More than a metre of it in many areas, dumping down on the region from Townsville inland to Mt Isa. Huge amounts of rain, obscene amounts, as if the heavens were making up for all the dry years by paying back the debt with interest. Anthony Andersen, who owns and runs Eddington Station near Julia Creek in north-west Queensland, said at first he was happy to see the rain. The area has officially been in drought for seven years, and Anthony said when the first rain started on January 31, he had no idea of what was to come. Id had just over two inches (51 millimetres) of rain and I thought if we could get five or six inches out of it wed be doing okay, he said. Advertisement Once we got to 10 inches (254 millimetres) we said thats good but then we had 15 inches (381 millimetres) in 24 hours and then another seven (177 millimetres) on top of that. Probably three days in I thought we were getting enough rain that it might start to do something and got a bit excited, but after a couple of days of happiness it went to the next level. As the rain came down the water went up, covering paddocks and forcing the cattle there to scramble for ridgelines and other elevated positions which are unfortunately in short supply in the broad, flat country. Cattle killed by flooding on Eddington station 20km West of Julia Creek, Queensland Credit:Anthony Andersen In a grim irony, after years of drought and in the middle of one of the hottest Australian summers on record, some cattle started to freeze to death. It got so wet and the wind just howled and the cattle started to weaken, Anthony said. They were all right for the first couple of days, but then the weather started to take a toll. Advertisement Cattle that were trying to get out of the wind headed down into the low country, and some were even going into the floodwaters to get out of the wind that was hitting them at about 50km/h He estimates at least half of his 4500-head herd died in the rain event, but still hasnt been able to get out and properly count. That number doesnt include the many dozens of calves that were with their mothers, almost all of which would have died, Anthony said. Calves have got no chance in this weather mate, if you came out of it with a five per cent calving rate, youd be doing good, he said. Flooding in northern Queensland by the numbers 800 insurance claims in Townsville alone, amounting to $147 million 300,000 cattle estimated to have been killed, worth $300 million 1303 mm rain in Townsville since January 27 more than a year's worth. Almost all of the 17,000-hectare station was covered in waist-deep mud, meaning cattle which had survived the water were trapped and slowly starving to death. Efforts were being made to get feed to them, but while there was plenty of hay available, there were not enough helicopters, either private or charter, to cope with the number of property owners who needed them. Advertisement Compounding the problem was a shortage of aviation fuel, meaning what choppers there were were limited in the number of jobs they could do. Overall its estimated up to 300,000 cattle have been killed by the rain event, with the cost to farmers predicted to be at least $300 million. Other graziers have spoken of a "sea" of dead cattle as far as they could see on some properties. Cattle at Eddington Station in northwest Queensland already emaciated by drought now huddle on high ground due to devastating flooding Credit:Anthony Andersen At the very least the homestead at Eddington is high and dry, with Anthony saying it has never gone under in any flood. The same cant be said for large parts of the city of Townsville, which saw widespread inundation of its low-lying areas after the rain compounded with emergency releases from the Ross River Dam. As of Friday, more than 11,000 insurance claims had been lodged, with the damage bill predicted to be nearly $150 million. Advertisement One of the worst-hit suburbs was the community of Oonoonba in Townsvilles east, nestled in a bend of the Ross River. The suburb was right in the firing line as the dams floodgates were opened at the height of the crisis, with the extra water flowing almost directly through the area, before tidal flows pushed it back again, exacerbating the disaster. Local resident Elise Eggerstedts house was spared somewhat because it was raised, but it still had 10 centimetres of water through it, which was enough. A large pile of water-damaged items in front of a flooded house in the Townsville suburb of Hermit Park on Wednesday. Credit:AAP For the first 48 hours it looked okay but within the next couple of days all the paint was bubbling from the botton of the skirting to the top of the walls, she said. All the doors and cupboards are all busted because theyre swollen, even in the kitchen which was hardwood its all swollen and warped. Something which looked so small has just destroyed walls, skirting, I dont even know what the bathroom is like behind all the tiles. Advertisement Exasperated residents of Brisbane, Redlands, Ipswich, Gold and Sunshine coasts say the community voice has been lost in Queensland's local planning process. They have now formed an alliance calling for an overhaul of planning legislation in Queensland. The protest held in King George Square against the zipline project saw about 150 people attend. Credit:Lucy Stone/Brisbane Times Changes to Queenslands planning legislation were tabled in State Parliament as a bill in September 2018. However the South-East Queensland Alliance claims many areas in the south-east are still being over-developed and councils are regularly approving developments that are more intensive and far taller than their own planning allows. A home-made cannon, a machine gun and drugs worth $260,000 have been seized during police raids in southern Queensland. Officers targeted 16 properties in the Tara and Millmerran areas over the past three days. Queensland police unearthed firearms and discovered a cannabis plantation. Credit:Queensland Police Service They found methylamphetamine worth more than $260,000, a cannabis plantation and 12 illegal weapons, including some which had been buried. Police have charged 17 people with 56 drug and weapon offences. Queensland Rail fears a stowed Pacific National freight train tipped over by the force of the flood in the state's north-west has leaked chemical cargo into the water. A helicopter crew conducting an aerial inspection of the flood impact on the Mount Isa line spotted the train on Thursday afternoon, which had been stowed on high ground. The flood was still impacting the train on Friday with no access available to the site. QR chief executive Nick Easy said the 80-wagon train left at Nelia in Julia Creek on January 31 was carrying a mixture of chemicals including zinc, lead and copper anode. Former military man Jacob Ingold was among five security guards who averted the danger of the knife-wielding man who forced the evacuation of the Brisbane Airport's international terminal. A 50-year-old Surfers Paradise man was charged with multiple offences, including stalking with a weapon, contravening a domestic violence order and a bomb hoax after he allegedly threatened a woman with a knife on Friday, February 1. There was panic and shock among travellers when the man began making threats to blow up the airport, aiming his weapons at security guards and placing a device on a table in the food court. The Brisbane International Airport terminal was evacuated on Saturday. Credit:Michelle Smith Mr Ingold said he was alerted to the danger when he heard screams of terror among airport guests. Members of the Rebels bikie gang have been arrested after a machete-wielding man was shot in the leg with a high-calibre pistol at Logan Hyperdome on Monday. It will be alleged seven bikies from the Rebels' Logan-based chapter met with two other people in the car park at the shopping centre on Leda Drive in Loganholme about 4.30pm. One of the seven alleged Logan Rebels members arrested during the Friday morning raids. Credit:Queensland Police Service Police said the meeting turned sour and one of the two non-bikies pulled out a machete, which resulted in a Rebels member shooting him in the leg with a .45 calibre pistol. It will also be alleged that after the shot was fired, a steel grate was used to smash the windscreen of a silver 2005 Mazda Tribute SUV in the car park. Two Sydney men have been swept up in a $1.3b global ice bust that Australian and US authorities say links sophisticated Mexican cartels and local bikie groups. Australian nationals Vu Dang Le, 25, and Cui Chong Vu, 31, were arrested at their south-western Sydney homes on Thursday as part of a global taskforce that disrupted 1.7 tonnes of ice, cocaine and heroin destined for Australia. The 1.7 tonnes of methamphetamine could have resulted in more than 17 million drug deals, police said. Credit:Nine Mr Le and Mr Vu briefly faced Central Local Court on Friday, where magistrate Robert Williams granted an application to extradite the pair to Victoria to face court in Melbourne Magistrates Court on Monday. Both men are facing charges of importing a commercial quantity of a border controlled drug. Within hours, Fire and Rescue HAZMAT crews recorded toxic and "extremely hazardous" levels of hydrogen sulphide on the vessel; a suspected gaseous byproduct that can occur from sewage waste in the holding tanks of a cruise boat. The Lady Rose is among a fleet of boats owned by All Occasion Cruises, of which Mr Elias is the sole shareholder and a co-director. The Lady Rose party boat. Credit:Seven News Sources have told the Herald the woman may have been overcome by the toxic gas while she was in the toilet cubicle. Police investigations are continuing and a report will be prepared for the coroner. HAZMAT crews arrive at the All Occasion Cruises moorings to conduct further testing on Tuesday. Credit:Lucy Cormack It prompted a raid by Roads and Maritime Services compliance officers on Tuesday, on five other vessels moored at 37 Bank Street, Pyrmont. It is understood they identified issues with "sewage disposals" on some of the vessels, giving the company two weeks to rectify the problems. A spokesperson for All Occasion Cruises declined to comment until all facts are known. There is no suggestion Mr Elias had any involvement in the operation of the boat on the day or was responsible for the womans death. Both events have sparked fresh calls from residents for the state government to reconsider the approved proposal for Mr Elias' Blackwattle Bay Marina Pty Ltd (All Occasion Cruises) to relocate to 5-11 Bank Street. It was the one topic on the lips of locals in Pyrmont's pubs this week. "They're basically saying the marina at Bank Street cannot go ahead," said Mary Mortimer, Pyrmont local and convenor of the Ultimo and Pyrmont associations and community group Save Blackwattle Foreshore. "The minister for planning has to overturn the decision to allocate that space to Blackwattle Bay Marina Pty Ltd (All Occasion Cruises) for a commercial marina." The history behind the proposed marina dates back to 2009, when All Occasion Cruises was controversially awarded a $15-20 million tender to build a marina at 100 Pyrmont Bridge Rd, Blackwattle Bay, by then-Labor ports minister Joe Tripodi. Clockwise from top ... The Wildboys Afloat website, Joe Tripodi and Joe Elias. Credit:Andrew Quilty, Dallas Kilponen Mr Elias, a friend of Mr Obeid's son Eddie Obeid jnr, had grand plans for the site, including a large function centre. He won what should have been a two-stage tender at the first hurdle, when NSW Maritime's then-chief executive Steve Dunn (since found to have acted corruptly on an unrelated matter) dismissed all other bidders. But the development never happened and by 2016 Mr Elias had a windfall in his sights. A $250 million redevelopment of the new Sydney Fish Market was announced, forcing Mr Elias, who held both a lease and a tender over the Blackwattle Bay site to find a new home, and 5-11 Bank Street quickly became the offering. As a local Ms Mortimer spent 11 years working on plans for a promised community parkland area at the very same Bank Street site. Then in 2014 plans were approved for a publicly accessible foreshore walkway and a marina at the site, to be used by the Sydney Heritage Fleet. An artist's impression of the eastern entrance of the new Sydney Fish Market. "But the boats were to be small, used infrequently and only during the day. Then, because the government had already approved the water base part of the development ... they simply extended that approval for All Occasion Cruises," Ms Mortimer said. The deadline for All Occasion Cruises to leave the Pyrmont Bridge Road site was June 30 last year. Since then the companys fleet has been moored at 37 Bank Street, after its owner offered to take them in, due to a shortage of commercial berths. Another Pyrmont resident, Neville Monk, said the community felt the decision "was orchestrated just to get Joe Elias out of Blackwattle Bay ... to make way for the new fish market". "When it was the heritage fleet it was an advantage, it was to have a museum, and the boats rarely left the dock ... this is an entirely different proposal, done on the basis of a modification rather than a new development application." NSW Planning and Environment finalised the approval for the development, subject to conditions, shortly before Christmas last year. Under the agreement All Occasion Cruises would have exclusive use of the site for five years. Should it go ahead, Ms Mortimer said the community would be robbed of the parkland it was promised, only to be left with "noise, traffic and excessive waste". "Large boats so close to the Glebe Island Bridge would endanger other shipping and passive boats, particularly dragon boat racers," she said. Chair of The Glebe Society environment committee Asa Wahlquist said locals only needed to remember the company's former site at 100 Pyrmont Bridge Road. The original 100 Pyrmont Bridge Road site where All Occasion Cruises was based. "It was an absolute tip. [Mr Elias] made all these promises ... he never delivered. And yet the government runs around and asks us to help the company relocate to a place where the community does not want them," she said. "Is this the sort of company that deserves that kind of patronage from the government?" Di Montague, a member of Groundswell Gloucester, told fellow anti-mine campaigners, "we've won, we've won". Gloucester residents are jubilant after their win in the Land and Environment Court. Credit:Janie Barrett The result should "reverberate across every community fighting coal and coal seam gas in Australia", Ms Montague told the Sydney Morning Herald ahead of the result. "It's a very strong judgment," David Morris, EDO NSW's chief executive, said after the judgment was released to a packed court room. Planning Minister Anthony Roberts declined to comment on the judgment's wider importance, saying only: "Thats the legal process and we respect the courts decision. A spokesman later added that Mr Roberts was "gratified that the Land and Environment Court agreed with his original decision to refuse a mining licence on the grounds that the proposal did not meet environmental and social requirements. These decisions are made on a case-by-case basis." Loading Brian Clifford, chief operating officer for Gloucester Resources said the company was disappointed by the court's decision after the mine had "met all the non-discretionary criteria". "Gloucester Resources Limited will assess the implications of todays decision and consider its next steps," Mr Clifford said. Stephen Galilee, chief executive of the NSW Minerals Council, said his organisation did not accept that the verdict amounted to a "landmark case" because the Planning Department had already recommended against the project's approval. "Well take a close look at the judgment, including what appears to be a range of different reasons for the outcome," Mr Galilee said. 'Shutting the door' The result was being watched with interest internationally. Climate litigation, particularly in the US and European nations such as the Netherlands, is growing as climate campaigners frustrated by insufficient political action seek alternative routes to cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Hunter Valley coal mines: will it be harder to expand or dig new ones after NSW court ruling? Will Steffen, an adjunct professor at the Australian National University who gave evidence in court about the climate impacts of coal, welcomed the result. "It is absolutely clear that the Paris climate targets cannot be met if we continue to open up new fossil fuel reserves," Professor Steffen said. Loading "This landmark decision sends a clear message to the fossil fuel industry that it cannot continue to expand if we are serious about tackling climate change." "Shutting the door on new fossil fuel developments will be a major turning point in the battle to stabilise the climate system - and will add further momentum to the shift to clean, reliable renewable energy systems," he said. 'All emissions contribute' Justice Preston elaborated on his judgment, noting that "all of the direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions of the Rocky Hill Coal Project will impact on the environment". "All anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions contribute to climate change," he said. In aggregate, the mine would have contributed 37.8 million tonnes of carbon-dioxide equivalent, "a sizeable individual source" of such emissions, Justice Preston concluded. "It matters not that the aggregate of the Project's greenhouse gas emissions may represent a small fraction of the global total", he said. "The global problem of climate change needs to be addressed by multiple local actions to mitigate emissions by sources and remove greenhouse gases by sinks." 'Wrong place, wrong time' In summarising, Justice Preston said an open-cut coal mine in "this part of the Gloucester valley would be in the wrong place at the wrong time". It was the wrong place because of "this scenic and cultural landscape", including indigenous ones, and its proximity to home. However, it was also the "wrong time because the greenhouse gas emissions of the coal mine and its coal product will increase global total concentrations of [those gases] at a time when what is now urgently needed, in order to meet generally agreed climate targets is a rapid and deep decrease" in those emissions, Justice Preston concluded. Such a judgment "will be generally applicable to any coal mine in Australia", Mr Morris from the EDO said. Mr Morris also drew attention to Justice Preston's recognition and apparent acceptance of the need for a carbon budget to keep global average temperatures from rising more than 1.5-2 degrees compared to pre-industrial times, as agreed in the Paris climate accord. That budget meant "most fossil fuel reserves will need to remain in the ground unburned", Justice Preston wrote. Justin Field, a NSW Greens MP, said the decision put the government and miners "on notice". "NSW's contribution to climate change from the burning of fossil fuels mined here has been recognised by the court's decision and should rightly be a consideration in any proposed developments," he said. Long battles The town of Gloucester and its campaigners are no strangers to the spotlight. Groundswell Gloucester successfully saw off energy giant AGL and its plans to develop at least 330 coal seam gas wells in the valley, with the anniversary of that result three years ago last Monday. Loading "There's been so much angst" over the CSG and coal mines in the region, Julie Lyford, president of Groundswell Gloucester and a former mayor of the town, said. Licences, including for coal and CSG exploration near Gloucester, "had been handed out like confetti" by the previous state Labor government, Ms Lyford said. "The Gloucester community has been living with the results of that disgraceful period" for more than a decade. It was now important for the planning, environment and resources departments to "take a serious look" at how they have colluded to promote mining over other interests, she said. When photographer Paul Harmon first began piecing together the more than 100 individual images that make up each of his vast aerial landscapes, he was "blown away" by what he saw. Photographer Paul Harmon with one of his striking aerial images. Shot from a drone, the 2.4-metre wide images of the Murray-Darling basin in north-western NSW bear an uncanny resemblance to Aboriginal dot paintings. "The thing that first struck me was how powerful the images [were] and then how some of the images had such a presence of First People in them," says Harmon. "I was astounded by that. Russian President Vladimir Putin will deliver his annual address to the Federal Assembly on February 20, Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. "The president will deliver his address to the Federal Assembly on February 20," TASS cited the Kremlin spokesman as saying. Peskov added that the accreditation of journalists to cover the event will last on February 15-17. Putins previous address to the Federal Assembly was delivered on March 1, 2018. This practice was introduced by President Boris Yeltsin, who first addressed the parliament on February 24, 1994. All in all, he delivered six addresses to the Federal Assembly. President Putin addressed the Federal Assembly 14 times, while Dmitry Medvedev delivered four addresses as President. by Mathias Hariyadi The two sides sign deal to regulate legal assistance to track down, freeze, seize and take assets resulting from criminal activities, tax fraud included, even retroactively. Jakarta (AsiaNews) - The governments of Indonesia and Switzerland have signed an important agreement on mutual legal assistance (MLA). Thanks to the deal, Jakarta will be able to trace more effectively illicit wealth deposited by Indonesian nationals in Swiss banks, the Embassy of Indonesia in Bern announced. The agreement follows two rounds of negotiations in Indonesia (Bali) in 2015 and Switzerland (Bern) in 2017. Indonesian Law and Human Rights Minister Yasonna Laoly and Swiss Justice Minister Karin Keller-Sutter represented the two governments. The agreement will, among other things, regulate legal assistance how assets resulting from criminal acts can be trace, frozen, seized and taken. The MLA deal is a key part to the legal process in the requester country, and can be applied to tax fraud cases, Laoly said. "The agreement is part of the government`s efforts to ensure that citizens or institutions would adhere to tax regulations in Indonesia," he explained. However, Jakarta is not going to lodge any request to Bern to return secret Indonesian financial assets any time soon, said Indonesian General Attorney Agung M Prasetyo because more practical steps [need] to be prepared. For instance, according to Yusfifli Adhyaksana from the Indonesian Attorney General Office, one issue that must be dealt with is a legal ruling by a Swiss court citing tax law obstructions by certain individual or business entities. This is Indonesias tenth agreement of its kind following MLA deals with the ASEAN, Australia, Hong Kong, China, South Korea, India, Vietnam, the United Arab Emirates, and Iran. In the case of Switzerland, it is the fourteenth agreement with a non-European country. Call it the Masayoshi Son mathematical distortion field. The founder of SoftBank Group added about 1.94 trillion yen ($25 billion) to the market value of his company Thursday - by unveiling a plan to buy back shares worth around 600 billion yen - less than a third of that amount. Based on his own stake, Son's net worth rose by about $US5 billion ($7 billion). SoftBank chief Masayoshi son Credit:Bloomberg The billionaire is no stranger to funny math. Yesterday, he opened his earnings presentation with a riddle: "25 - 4 = 9?" The formula is the 25 trillion yen value of SoftBank's assets minus 4 trillion yen in debt, far from being equal to its market capitalisation of 9 trillion yen. It was designed to capture Son's longstanding argument that SoftBank's share price doesn't reflect the value of its business and investments, a gap he's been trying to close for years. Even after today's boost, SoftBank's total value is a long way from Son's goal. Here's what's at play. The influence of women at the top rungs of corporate Australia has received a boost, with miner South32 making current board member Karen Wood its next chairperson. South32 said Ms Wood, who had a lengthy executive career at BHP, would succeed chairman David Crawford in April. Mr Crawford said Ms Wood was "an excellent choice" to lead the board. Karen Wood, chairperson-elect of the board of mining company South32 The election of Ms Wood, who joined South32's board as an independent non-executive director in November 2017, further swells the number of women at the top echelon of Australian mining companies. The chief executive of Fortescue Metals Group is Elizabeth Gaines, who succeeded the highly-regarded Nev Power as CEO in February 2018. And in January last year Julie Shuttleworth became Fortescue's deputy CEO. Want to praise someone or get something off your chest? Darts and Pats is the place to do it. Graeme McDowell leads the Irish challenge heading into the second day of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in California. The Ulster man, playing at Pebble Beach where he won the US Open in 2010, lies three shots off the lead following a four-under par opening round of 68. Shane Lowry is one-under. The American pair of Brian Gay and Scott Langley share the top of the leaderboard. Gay produced an impressive birdie run to take a share of the first-round lead at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in California. The American got to five under at the turn thanks to five straight birdies from the fifth on the Monterey Peninsula course and had just one blemish on the back nine to fire a seven-under-par 64. Countryman Langley, starting on the back nine, birdied half his holes on the same course, including one on the par-three ninth, to join Gay at the top of the leaderboard. Five-time major champion Phil Mickelson sits one shot off the lead after making five birdies on the back nine for a 65 as he hit every fairway in a PGA Tour round for the first time since 1998. He was matched by former world number one Jason Day, who had just one bogey on the par-four 15th before recovering with three birdies in a row. The tournament is played over three courses - Monterey, Pebble Beach and Spyglass Hill - before the final round at Pebble Beach on Sunday. Englishman Tommy Fleetwood finished two over after a triple-bogey on the 13th at Monterey, while Ryder Cup team-mate Paul Casey mixed four birdies and a bogey at Pebble Beach to card a 69. A woman who claimed she signed an overdraft agreement in relation to the purchase of a pub with her late husband, under undue influence, is entitled to a full hearing of a fund's claim for judgment against her of around 1.4m, the High Court ruled. Mary McCormack, from Balbriggan, Dublin, said she signed the guarantee documentation with her husband John because he was due to attend a kidney dialysis appointment that day. He had become agitated when she questioned whether she should sign it because she had no financial interest in the deal, she said. Her husband told a bank official and a solicitor at the meeting that they would both sign it, she said. "He asked that I sign it and I acknowledge I felt pressurised to do so and I did so", she said. She was conscious her husband was upset and likely to become more distressed if the meeting was not concluded. This would "potentially have a negative impact on both his physical condition and on his capacity to undergo the dialysis treatment that was to take place immediately after the meeting", she said. She also said that though the solicitor, who was there for the bank at the meeting, told her she should not sign until she got her own legal advice, she remained unaware as to why she was being asked to execute a guarantee on the loan. Mr McCormack died a few months later. The case related to a loan guarantee agreement for an overdraft advanced in 2011 and 2012 by Ulster Bank to a company called White Hart Inn Ltd, owners of a pub in Balbriggan, Co Dublin, of which Ms McCormack was a director and secretary. It was part of a 2006 agreement in which the couple agreed to pay the bank all monies at the time or in the future owed by the company for an amount not exceeding 2.9m. Mr McCormack had been a publican since the 1960s and owned the Balrothery Inn, just outside Balbriggan. In 1999, Mr McCormack acquired a second pub, the White Hart Inn in Balbriggan. The company, White Hart Inn Ltd, incurred substantial loan liabilities relating to that acquisition and in 2011/12 the overdraft agreement was signed in the McCormacks' kitchen with the solicitor and bank official present and their son Brendan McCormack arrived later on. The Ulster Bank loans were later sold to Coney Investments DAC which sought repayment of 1.46m. It was not forthcoming and proceedings were then brought for judgment by Coney against her. Mrs McCormack claimed, among other things, she was entitled to a full plenary hearing of the claim because the agreement was signed under undue influence. Coney disputed her claim. Mr Justice Charles Meenan said she was entitled to a plenary hearing. There were a number of significant features of this case so entitling her including that her husband was clearly in poor health. He also became agitated during the meeting and she felt pressurised because she feared the distress would have a negative impact on his health, the judge said. The events she alleges give rise to a defence of undue influence, he said. Baku will host the first meeting of the working group for implementation of the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea on February 19-20 with the participation of representatives of the Caspian littoral states, according to the press service of Azerbaijans Foreign Ministry. A number of issues arising from the Convention, as well as the results of the 5th Summit of the Heads of the Caspian littoral States in Aktau, are expected to be discussed at the meeting, Trend reports. At the event, Azerbaijan will be represented by the delegation led by the chief of the Staff of the Cabinet of Ministers of Azerbaijan and the representative of Azerbaijan in the High-Level Working Group for the Caspian Sea, Khalaf Khalafov. Update: Tanaiste Simon Coveney has defended the Health Minister Simon Harris' version of events around the cost overruns of the National Children's Hospital: It comes after Fianna Fail accused the Minister of misleading the Dail about the issue. Mr Coveney said: "I have absolute confidence in Simon Harris. The costs have increased, he had some of that information in August, but it wasn't complete information and he wanted complete information before he could go back to the Government to make a decision." Earlier: Simon Harris 'clearly misled' the Dail about children' hospital - Fianna Fail Fianna Fails spokesperson on Education and Skills, Thomas Byrne has claimed that Minister for Health Simon Harris has clearly misled Fianna Fail and the Dail. He said that details of the overrun on the cost of the national childrens hospital would not have been revealed if Fianna Fail TDs had not asked questions. We have been doing our jobs. My colleagues have been getting the information out all week. It is outrageous and shocking. He told RTEs Today with Sean ORourke show: we want to find out exactly whats been happening. Mr Byrne said he agreed with his party colleague Barry Cowen and leader Micheal Martin that only for Brexit there would be a general election. We want to make sure that nothing damages the countrys interests in terms of Brexit. He warned that there is lots more information to come out that we dont know. It is hard to know what was happening, there is conflicting and new information coming out all the time. Simon Harris, Paschal Donohoe and Leo Varadkar have not given a proper explanation of what happened, he added. He also said that Sinn Fein were playing games with their call for a vote of no confidence in the Minister for Health. Theyre irrelevant to this. We dont need Sinn Fein or other parties, were dealing with this very carefully. Were the ones gathering information. We will do what is in the national interest. Simon Harris had shown reckless disregard for the money of the people of Ireland. While this was going on he was pushing for a general election. Was there a plan to cover this up and to move on? Fine Gael backbencher Peter Burke defended the Minister for Health saying that he had to first establish the facts. He could not bring woolly memos to Cabinet. Once he had solid information, he shared it with the Cabinet. Simon Harris has a responsibility to come to Cabinet with the exact facts and figures. He said there were too many people in the current Dail rushing to be judge, jury and executioner. Talks are underway at the Labour Court in a bid to avert next weeks strike action by nurses. The Court has invited nursing unions, and HSE and government officials to outline if their position on pay has in any way changed since the sides last met 11 days ago. Around 37,000 INMO members and 6,000 psychiatric nurses belonging to the PNA will stage three consecutive days of industrial action next Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. This could mean over 80,000 patients would have planned medical appointments cancelled. Speaking on her way into the talks, General Secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, Patricia King, said she is disappointed with the Governments approach so far. She said: "We want to do everything we can to ensure that the clients of the HSE, of all hospitals and care centres, are not in any way further disrupted - that's why we're trying to make every effort we can. "I have to say I am disappointed with the reaction to any of the inroads I have tried to make on this. "It will very much depend on what the position of the employer is when we go in here." Meanwhile, nurses, midwives, friends, patients and supporters will march through Dublin from 12:30pm tomorrow in support of striking nurses and midwives. The marchers are calling the Government to make serious proposals to resolve the dispute. The march intends to feature student nurses and midwives with suitcases asking the Government to "give them a reason to stay and work in Ireland." INMO President Martina Harkin-Kelly said: We have been deeply humbled by the public support for us during this strike. None of us want to be on strike, but its heartening to know that the public have our backs when we do. Im asking anyone whose lives have been touched by nurses and midwives to stand with us on Saturday." Labour Court to examine nurses strike in effort to avert further widespread disruption The Labour Court is to examine the nurses strike this morning, in an effort to avert widespread disruption to the health service next week. Three strike days are due to take place, with over 80,000 patients potentially having their medical appointments cancelled. Government sources say they understand the Labour Court will review this dispute again this morning. Given that the same court 10 days ago said the sides were too far apart for it to intervene, this would be a significant move. While this is potentially good news, both the nursing unions and the Government have not changed their stance on the issue of pay. 43,000 members of the INMO and PNA want a 12% pay increase. The government says this would cost 300m and with the threat of Brexit and economic uncertainty it's simply not affordable. It could be that the Labour Court is making one last attempt to try and prevent what the HSE worries would be huge disruption across the health sector next week. Strike days, next Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday by nurses and midwives could see over 80,000 patients potentially having their medical appointments cancelled. A retired surgeon has been found guilty of groping seven boys in his care over a period of three decades. Michael Shine, 86, of Ballsbridge, Dublin had pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to 13 charges of indecent assault committed during medical examinations at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda, Co Louth and at two private clinics in Drogheda on dates between 1971 to 1992. On day 17 of the trial, a jury of two women and eight men returned guilty verdicts, having deliberated for after just over six hours. Judge Martin Nolan adjourned the matter until February 22 next for sentencing and remanded Shine on bail until that date. During the trial, the first complainant told the court that Shine groped his genitals during two appointments in 1988 following surgery on his finger when he was aged 15. He said that during the first examination Shine rested his head on his chest and that his breathing became more intense and creepy, to be honest. Another man said that Shine prevented his father from being present for an examination following surgery on his testicles in 1985 when he was aged 13. He said that Shine placed his hand on his genitals during the examination. A third witness said he attended hospital due to injuring his genitals during sexual intercourse when he was aged 15. The man said that during an examination on his injury, Shine began to masturbate him for five to 10 minutes. The fourth complainant in the case said that he was hit by a car during the summer of 1972 when he was aged 14 and that he required surgery on his right knee. He said that Shine would come to his room in the evening to play chess with him during his stay in hospital. The man said that during a follow-up appointment Shine began playing with and fondling his genitals, telling him that you could tell a lot this way. He said he did not think that Shine ever examined his knee. A fifth man said that Shine inserted a gloved finger into his anus and his other hand began palpating his genitals during an examination in 1974 when he was aged around 11. He said that afterwards Shine patted him on the head and told him he was a good boy. The man said that during a later stay in hospital Shine would examine his wound from surgery and that every time he did so he would go on to palpate his genitals. He said that Shine did this every day up until the day he was discharged from hospital. A sixth man said that Shine performed surgery on his appendix at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in 1971 when he was aged 13. He said that during a follow-up examination Shine began fondling his genitals, saying that he needed to check that nothing was damaged. The final complainant in the case said that Shine took his genitals in his hand and began to masturbate him during an examination in 1975 when he was aged 13. He said that this continued for around 10 to 15 minutes. Shine denied doing anything improper during examinations with any of the complainants and said he has no memory whatsoever of ever treating any of them. He also said that he never played chess. Judge Nolan thanked the jury for their attendance and for doing their duty. With no Brexit breakthrough in sight, British prime minister Theresa May takes her whirlwind tour of Europe to Dublin today for talks with Taoiseach Leo Varadkar. After what were described as robust but constructive discussions in Brussels, Ms May has vowed to deliver Brexit on time on March 29, but her confidence is not shared by European leaders. European Council president Donald Tusk said there is no breakthrough in sight. In talks with Ms May, European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker underlined that the withdrawal agreement thrashed out last November would not be redrawn, but held open the possibility of adding more ambitious wording to a document setting out plans for the future relationship. European Parliament president Antonio Tajani said: We are open to being more ambitious on our future relations, including looking at the Irish situation again if the UKs red lines change. The parliaments Brexit co-ordinator, Guy Verhofstadt, raised concerns among eurosceptics in the UK by saying Ms May had assured him there will be a backstop in any final deal. A joint statement issued after talks between Ms May and Mr Juncker read: Despite the challenges, the two leaders agreed that their teams should hold talks as to whether a way through can be found that would gain the broadest possible support in the UK parliament and respect the guidelines agreed by the European Council. Meeting PM @theresa_may on how to overcome impasse on #brexit. Still no breakthrough in sight. Talks will continue. pic.twitter.com/vn2CVybc1j Charles Michel (@eucopresident) February 7, 2019 While Ms May set out MPs demands for a legally binding change to the terms of the backstop, Mr Juncker underlined that the EU27 will not reopen the withdrawal agreement. The impasse is set to be discussed during talks between Mr Varadkar and Ms May at a dinner at Farmleigh House, Dublin, this evening, with just 49 days until the EU-UK divorce date. While the meeting will be focused on the Northern Ireland Stormont stalemate and the Good Friday Agreement because no bilateral Brexit talks can take place between Ireland and Britain, it is understood Brexit will be raised. Mr Varadkar will separately meet with all Northern Ireland parties at Notting Hill in Belfast this afternoon. He will not be bringing any message to Ms May, according to a Government source but will have a lets see approach to Brexit suggestions. In a speech to the Dublin Chamber of Commerce AGM last night, Mr Varadkar said while Ireland wants the best solution, we are preparing ourselves for the worst. He said the Government will see emergency EU aid for the agri-food sector if a no-deal Brexit hits because of the potential for serious market disturbances. He said the support was used for the Baltic states when the Russian market was closed to them and can be used for us too. Latest: A 39-year-old man who died after being shot in north Dublin this morning has been named as John Lawless. Mr Lawless died after he was shot a number of times at 6.25am after leaving his home in Darndale, Coolock. He had been walking along Marigold Crescent on his way to work. Forensic investigators at the scene in Marigold Crescent in the Darndale, Dublin after a man was shot dead on Friday.(Brian Lawless/PA Wire) He was critically injured and removed by ambulance to Beaumont Hospital where he was pronounced dead. Shortly after the shooting, a silver Ford Focus car registration number 132-D was found partially burnt out at Greenwood Avenue off Blunden Drive, Coolock. Gardai believe that this car may have been used in the shooting and was stolen from the Santry area during a burglary on January 1. They say a motive for the shooting has not been established as yet, and there is nothing to suggest that it has any connection with gangland crime or any major feud. Mr Lawless was not known to gardai for involvement in serious criminal activity. The two scenes at Marigold Crescent and Greenwood Avenue have been examined by a team from the Garda Technical Bureau. The Coroner and State Pathologist Offices have been informed and Mr Lawless' body has been taken to the Dublin City Mortuary. A post mortem examination is currently taking place and is being performed by the Deputy State Pathologist Dr Michael Curtis. Gardai are appealing for information from anybody who may have witnessed the shooting at Marigold Crescent, who may have observed the silver Ford Focus car prior to or after the shooting while travelling from the Darndale area across Malahide Road towards Blunden Drive and Greenwood Avenue, They are also appealing to anyone who may have noticed anything suspicious in the vicinity of the Resource Centre in Darndale, Marigold Crescent or Greenwood Avenue, or a motorist who may have travelled the areas mentioned with dashcam footage to check the recordings. Anyone with information is asked to contact Coolock Garda Station on 01- 6664200; Garda Confidential Telephone line 1-800- 666-111 or any Garda Station. Earlier: Man killed in Dublin gun attack not considered serious criminal by gardai - sources By Cormac O'Keeffe, Security Correspondent The man fatally injured in this morning's gun attack in north Dublin was not considered a serious criminal, garda sources suggest. The man, aged 39, was shot at a number of times outside a house on Marigold Crescent in Darndale at around 6.30am. The deceased, who has been named locally, did not live outside the house where he was shot but was a resident of Darndale. Ambulance staff were called and tried to save his life at the scene before removing him to Beaumont Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. A Ford Focus car was found partially burned out on nearby Blunden Drive off the Malahide Road. The two crimes scenes have been sealed off and are being technically examined. Garda sources said the victim had limited engagement with gardai and that his past convictions, including for drugs, were at a relatively low level. Detectives stress the investigation is at a very early stage, but that they will examine if the deceased had any linkages to well-known criminals or feuds in the area. Gardai are appealing for anyone with information or anyone who may have witnessed the incident to contact the incident room at Coolock Garda Station on 01- 6664200, the Garda Confidential Line 1 800 666 111 or any Garda Station. The murder comes almost a year since the fatal shooting of serious criminal Kenneth Finn at Moatview Gardens, Priorswood, a short walk from Marigold Crescent. Finn, aged 36, died on February 27, 2018, three days after he was shot. Finn, a senior lieutenant for a major north Dublin crime boss, is believed to have been killed by a notorious local criminal. Labour Senator Aodhan O Riordain said that the latest shooting incident is a "wake-up call" for the Minister for Justice, Charlie Flanagan. Mr O Riordain said: "This morning's shooting incident in Darndale shows once again that the Government is out of touch with the realities of life on the ground across the north side. This latest killing must receive the attention it deserves. "Consistently I have raised through Seanad commencement debates the need for increased garda resources on the north side. Another life has now been lost. "Sadly the Minister for Justice has refused to engage. Every debate results in the same answer - resources are a matter for the Garda Commissioner (Drew Harris). "It is time to take on the escalating number of gun shootings by committing the resources to tackle this once and for all. "Dismissing these incidents as being an operational matter for the gardai is insulting to the communities who need protection." Man who was shot multiple times in Dublin has died By Digital Desk staff A man has died after he was shot in an early morning attack in Dublin. The incident occurred at Marigold Crescent in the Darndale area at around 6.30am on Friday. The man, thought to be aged in his 30s, was shot a number of times and taken to Beaumont Hospital where he was later pronounced dead. The scene has been preserved for technical examination. They can be contacted at Coolock Garda Station on 01- 6664200, the Garda Confidential Line 1 800 666 111 or any Garda Station. The leader of the so called New IRA in Dublin was today jailed for life for the murder of another dissident republican almost six years ago. Kevin Braney (44), of Glenshane Crescent, Tallaght, Dublin 24 was found guilty by the Special Criminal Court last Monday of the premeditated" murder of Peter Butterly (35). Mr Butterly, was chased and shot dead outside The Huntsman Inn, Gormanston, Co Meath in view of students waiting for their school bus on the afternoon of March 6, 2013 in what the three-judge court said was not "a spontaneous act". The father-of-three died from gun shots wounds to his neck and upper back. Braney had pleaded not guilty to murdering Mr Butterly. Delivering judgment last Monday at the non-jury court following an 11-week trial which ended in December, Mr Justice Paul Coffey, presiding, said the court was driven "irresistibly" to the conclusion that Braney was involved in the organisation and planning of Mr Butterly's murder beyond a reasonable doubt. In his opening address on October 4 last, prosecuting counsel Paul OHiggins SC told the court that Braney is said in effect to have been the man who gave the orders...and is shown to have had an extensive involvement. Inspector Liam Archbold, who headed the investigation, today told prosecuting counsel Caroline Cummings BL that Braney had one previous conviction. In 2018, Braney was sentenced to four years and six months after he was found guilty of IRA membership by the Special Criminal Court. He had threatened an accident victim that he was in the IRA and would shoot him if he did not withdraw a claim against a former employer. Braney had denied membership of an unlawful organisation, styling itself the Irish Republican Army, otherwise Oglaigh na hEireann, otherwise the IRA on August 2, 2017. An impact statement was read to the non-jury court by the victim's wife, Eithne Butterly, during Braneys sentence hearing this morning. Mrs Butterly took the stand and said: As we come close to Peters sixth anniversary here I am before the courts with yet another victim statement." Kevin Braney, you have no concept, nor do you really care how we feel but I am going to tell you regardless. Peter was an excellent, loving and proud father to our three children and their lives without him to protect and nurture them have been horrific to say the least. Our two daughters were his princesses and he absolutely adored the two of them. He participated in so many ways in their childhood and their love of sports was an enormous bond between them. Peter attended and supported the girls in so many of their activities and was always the proudest daddy of their many achievements, she said. Mrs Butterly said her son was only six years of age when she had to tell him that his daddy was shot dead and that he was never coming home. His scream is a scream that I will never forget and still haunts me to this day. He was only a baby. The widow said her son has very few memories of his daddy, thanks to you, but a few are still vivid and poignant to him. He remembers Peter giving him the forklift to bed every night and the two of them going through the Find Stig book. Sharif Kelly Addressing Braney, she said that he had denied Peter participating in his many sporting activities and her son gets so angry about this. Can you blame him, she added. Peter was a loving and devoted husband as well as my best friend and our lives without him are literally a living nightmare. And thankfully we have so many wonderful memories that you can never take from us, she concluded. Mr Justice Coffey, presiding, sitting with Judge Martin Nolan and Judge James Faughnan, then sentenced Braney to the mandatory term of life imprisonment, backdated to when he first went into custody for this matter on September 14, 2017. Ms Cummings asked the court that a nolle prosequi be entered on the outstanding count of membership. This means the State will not be proceeding with the prosecution in relation to this count. Following sentencing Braney gave little reaction before he was led away by prison officers. Edward McGrath (37), of Land Dale Lawns, Springfield, Tallaght, Sharif Kelly (49), of Pinewood Green Road, Balbriggan and Dean Evans (27), of Grange Park Rise, Raheny, Dublin have all received life sentences at the Special Criminal Court after they were convicted of Mr Butterly's murder. JUDGMENT GIVEN LAST MONDAY Giving the court's verdict last Monday, Mr Justice Paul Coffey said the prosecution's case was that Braney was part of a common design to procure the murder of Mr Butterly. Convicting Braney four days ago, the judge said the circumstantial evidence connected the defendant with Mr Butterlys killers Dean Evans and Edward McGrath as well as with The Huntsman Inn. The court considered it highly significant that Braney drove to The Huntsman Inn following a meeting at David Cullens flat in Balbriggan on the night prior to the shooting. The judge added that the circumstantial evidence also connected the defendant with a meeting that took place the day after the murder. There was also evidence that Braney met Mr Butterlys murderers two days before the killing. The court was also satisfied, Mr Justice Coffey said, that Braney was at a meeting at KFC restaurant at Charlestown Shopping Centre in Finglas on March 7 where "audible utterances" suggested that the six men present were concerned as to why the Huntsman Inn had been saturated with gardai the previous day and why every move they made was followed. This meeting was "so proximate" in time that the court could not dismiss it as unconnected, he said. In its judgement, the court found that former murder accused-turned States witness David Cullen underwent a withering cross-examination by the defence and Cullen accepted that dishonesty did not bother him. He agreed he would perjure himself to avoid being convicted of murder, said the judge. The trial heard evidence from Cullen, who described his role in the shooting of Mr Butterly. Cullen was originally charged with Mr Butterlys murder but he subsequently pleaded guilty to the unlawful possession of a semi-automatic pistol at the Huntsman Inn on the day of the shooting. His plea was accepted by the DPP, he turned State's witness over a year after the shooting and this murder charge was dropped. During the trial, the protected witness testified that Braney came to his Balbriggan apartment with other men on March 5, the evening before the shooting. Dean Evans Cullen gave evidence that men arrived to his flat on the evening with a black sports bag but he did not remember who carried it into his apartment. The men were talking amongst themselves about what was going to happen the next day. Cullen said he remembered Braney saying: Make sure this is done right and he [Butterly] doesnt get away." Mr Justice Coffey said the court accepted Cullens evidence that his role in the shooting had been to dispose of a gun in the grounds of Gormanston College and that there was a meeting of conspirators in his flat on the night before the murder. The judge said Braney was at this meeting and whilst there he discussed how the shooting was to be carried out the following day. Cullens evidence that Braney was at his flat is corroborated by the considerable body of circumstantial evidence in the case, he added. The judge said that the court had given careful consideration to an argument put forward by the defence that Braney was not in Cullens flat that night. Such is the force of the circumstantial evidence against the accused that we cannot accept this is reasonably possible, outlined the judge. In conclusion, Mr Justice Coffey said the court found that Braney had been involved and participated in Mr Butterlys murder. OPENING Paul OHiggins SC, prosecuting, opened the trial on October 4 last year, telling the judges that it was an unusual case because gardai were already keeping an eye on movements in the area that day as a result of certain suspicions. He said that Mr Butterly had driven into the carpark of the Huntsman Inn around 1.55pm. He had parked and remained in his car. He said that a black Peugeot 206 then drove into the carpark and parked for a few minutes. It left shortly after 2pm and was followed by an unmarked garda car. It was around this time that a stolen Toyota Corolla was driven into the car park, he said. The car (Toyota) then stops in front of Mr Butterlys car and two shots are fired, one through the windscreen and one through the bonnet, said Mr OHiggins. Mr Butterly, who's on his own in the car, runs..., but he doesnt get very far. Mr OHiggins explained that two witnesses, who were waiting for their school buses, had stated that he was chased across the carpark and shot three times as he ran. The court heard that he fell and died almost immediately. Kevin Braney: Background on New IRA Leader jailed for life by Diarmaid Mac Dermott Kevin Braney was the leader in Dublin of the so-called New IRA - the most dangerous terrorist organisation in Ireland since the Provisional IRA The New IRA was behind last months car bomb in Derry and is regarded by the gardai and the PSNI as the biggest terrorist threat north and south. Security sources said they believe the terrorist group is gearing up for an offensive in the event of a hard Brexit. It was formed in 2012 by the remnants of the Real IRA, Republican Action Against Drugs, former Provisional IRA activists and criminal elements in Dublin. Braneys conviction for the murder of another dissident republican Peter Butterly followed painstaking garda operations involving the Special Detective Unit, Garda Security and Intelligence and the highly secretive National Surveillance Unit. Although Braney had no previous convictions for terrorist offences he was kept under surveillance by gardai for years. Members of the NSU gave evidence against Braney during his trial but the public were excluded from the court during their evidence and they could only be identified by the media by initials. NSU members watched Braney as he met two of Mr Butterlys killers two days before the shooting and as he drove to the Huntsman Inn the day before the murder and at a meeting the day after the murder. The NSU was also closely observing the events of the afternoon of March 6th, 2013 when Mr Butterly drove into the car park of The Huntsman Inn, another car arrived and Mr Butterly was chased down and shot dead. Gardai were unable to prevent the shooting but an officer who arrived on the scene within minutes said an Act of Contrition into Mr Butterlys ear. Other gardai stopped and arrested the killers in their stolen car a short distance away within minutes. Braney was present at a debriefing the day after the murder, held at a KFC branch, where discussion centred on why so many gardai were present at The Huntsman Inn and why the killers had been arrested. Crucial evidence against Braney was given by Dave Cullen, a member of the gang who turned States witness and who is now serving a sentence for possession of a firearm on the day of the murder. Cullen told the court that Braney came to his Balbriggan apartment with other men the evening before the shooting and Braney was heard to say: "Make sure this is done right and he (Butterly) doesnt get away." Cullens role had been to dispose of the murder weapon in the grounds of Gormanston College but he was arrested shortly after the shooting. A murder charge against him was dropped and entered the Witness Protection Programme. Braney was convicted of IRA membership last year after an incident following an accident in Co Meath. He received a four years sentence for that offence and is currently on the New IRA landing in Portlaoise Prison. The New IRA is the main target for Garda Security and Intelligence and the Special Detective Unit. It is believed to have around 50 active members and several hundred sympathisers north and south. It is thought to be strongest in Derry City, Lurgan and parts of Belfast and south Armagh. In the Republic, the group has attracted the remnants of the Real IRA and criminal elements and its activities are centred around providing logistical support for attacks in the north and fundraising through robberies and extortion. Gardai have seized drugs worth 200,000 in Co Longford. As part of an intelligence-led operation targeting a west Dublin organised crime gang, Gardai stopped a vehicle in Edgeworthstown yesterday - where officers discovered cannabis herb. An international conference 'Argus Fertilizer 2019. Production and Logistics in the Caspian and Black Sea Region' will be held on 14-15 March in Baku. The event will focus on challenges and prospects of SOCAR Carbamide Plant in Sumgayit, Azerbaijans entry into the international fertilizer market, ammonia and urea markets in the Caspian and Black Sea region, premium export routes for Caspian fertilizer producers, requirement for new transshipment capacities, Azerbaijans agricultural industry and others, AzerTAc reported. The conference will bring together fertilizer producers from Azerbaijan, Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, international trading companies and distributors from Turkey, Ukraine and Eastern Europe, as well as transport and logistics companies. The event will also feature a visit to the production site of SOCAR Carbamide Plant. Businessman Denis OBrien has told a High Court jury his spokesman contacted the Sunday Independent following an article published in that newspaper in 2012 concerning borrowings of himself and others from Anglo Irish Bank. In his continuing action alleging defamation in Sunday Business Post articles published in March 2015, Mr OBrien, who remains under cross-examination, said today he wanted to correct evidence given by him the previous day when asked about the Sunday Independent article. That article was written by journalists Tom Lyons and Nick Webb and published in the Sunday Independent in April 2012 with a strapline, 'Anglos Top 13 Buccaneer Borrowers'. Mr OBrien had given evidence on Thursday to the effect he believed he took no action over that. Today, he told Michael McDowell SC, for the SBP, he had checked that matter overnight and wanted to correct the record. After long correspondence between his spokesman James Morrissey and the Sunday Independent, he believed he ultimately got an apology from group managing editor Michael Denieffe over the coverage, he said. After further exchanges with Mr McDowell, Paul OHiggins SC, for Mr OBrien, said he wanted to raise an issue in the absence of the jury. Legal discussions ensued and when the jury returned to court about 3pm, Mr Justice Bernard Barton said he was sending them away to Tuesday. Noting one juror has a holiday planned for next weekend, he said that juror would be able to go on holiday even if the case, which was fixed for six days, has not concluded by Friday next. Today was the fourth day of Mr OBriens action against Post Publications Ltd, publishers of the SBP, in which he is seeking substantial damages over the SBP articles, run over six pages. Their focus was what the SBP referred to as a "secret" report concerning exposure in 2008 of Ireland's banks, compiled by Price WaterhouseCoopers (PWC). The report was provided to the government in November 2008 and obtained in 2015 by the newspaper but destroyed shortly after publication of the articles to protect the source who provided it. The SBP articles, written by journalists Tom Lyons, Gavin Sheridan and others, include a front-page article headlined "22 men and 26 billion" with a subheading: "The secret report that convinced Cowen the banks weren't bust." Mr O'Brien claims the various articles wrongly meant he was among 22 borrowers identified with the downfall of Ireland and the bankruptcy of its banking system and injured his reputation. The defendant denies defamation, denies the words complained of mean what Mr O'Brien says and denies malicious publication. It has also pleaded "fair and reasonable publication on a matter of public interest". Today, Mr OBrien said he did not have with him in court the correspondence between Mr Morrissey and the Sunday Independent concerning the 2012 article, apart from an email from Mr Morrissey to somebody in the Sunday Independent. He said he was shocked by the Sunday Independent article but there were articles every week at that time in that newspaper and when he gave the answer he had on Thursday, he believed it to be true but had checked the matter overnight. Mr McDowell said the court was now in an unsatisfactory position where Mr OBrien had said he read an article that shocked him and was now saying there was long correspondence with the Sunday Independent and he ultimately got an apology. Mr McDowell asked Mr OBrien whether the correspondence between Mr Morrissey and the Sunday Independent was before or after the Sunday Business Post articles. Mr OBrien said Mr Morrissey had told him overnight there was an apology and he took him at his word. At that stage, Mr OHiggins asked that the jury go out. A man in his 50s who was found to be in possession of 2,120 images of child pornography received a two year suspended sentence at Cork Circuit Criminal Court today. Det Garda Aonghus Cotter said that the home of Des Breen of Calderwood Road, Donnybrook, Douglas, Cork was searched on August 3rd, 2012 and his computer seized after he had been flagged by Interpol. Although Mr Breen was found to be in possession of over 2,000 images the court heard that there was a duplication of a number of the same images. Garda Cotter said that the case involved what he called 195 "unique images." The images included nineteen images of girls under the age of 17 engaged in sexual activity, 71 images of girls under the age of seventeen exposing themselves sexually and 105 images of adult females with minors in photographs of a sexual nature. Mr Breen (52) had pleaded guilty to a count of possession of child pornography contrary to Section 6 (1) of the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act of 1998. The particulars of the offence stated that on dates between and inclusive of the 6th of December 2011 and the 3rd of August 2012 at Calderwood Road Mr Breen knowingly had in his possession 2,120 images of child pornography. The court heard that Mr Breen was arrested and detained at Togher Garda Station on the 20th of June 2017. He failed to make any admissions. In August of 2017 he voluntarily presented to gardai and made full admissions about his downloading of child pornography. He told gardai that he was ashamed of his actions. Defence counsel, Sinead Behan, said that Mr Breen had co operated fully with gardai. She stated that her client suffers with a number of health issues including Parkinson's disease. He also has depression, anxiety and rheumatoid arthritis. Mr Breen was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease a month after the items were seized from his house and the probe launched. Ms Behan said her client was deeply remorseful for his actions. There was no suggestion that he shared the images. She said her client was on suspension from work and that the case had taken a toll on his health. Mr Breen is a sub editor with Examiner Publications and is Books Editor with the Evening Echo. Ms Behan also stressed that he had taken appropriate steps in terms of psychological intervention and recognised that it wasn't a victimless crime. In sentencing Judge Sean O'Donnabhain described the offence as "serious." Taking the early guilty plea into account and the low risk of re-offending he jailed Mr Breen for two years suspending the entirety of the sentence. A Cork GP has told of how she had to get a private scan for her father after two public scans were cancelled last week. He was subsequently diagnosed with lung cancer. Dr Doireann OLeary spoke on both the Pat Kenny show on Newstalk and RTEs Today with Sean ORourke show to explain how she was so concerned about her father that she pushed him to have a scan in a private hospital. Her father had been treated for pneumonia over Christmas, but after reading his X ray, and consulting with his treating doctor, it was felt that a CT scan was needed. A scan scheduled for Wednesday of the week before last was cancelled and rescheduled for Tuesday of this week, but it too was cancelled prompting Dr OLeary to contact the Affidea Medical Scan Clinic in Cork where her father was seen within 24 hours. That scan confirmed her fear that it could be lung cancer and he was immediately scheduled for a camera check which will take place at the Mercy Hospital in Cork today. He was squeezed onto todays list, but theres only so much reshuffling they can do. The service is stretched to capacity. Dr OLeary said she was concerned about the proposed three day nurses strike next week. Im really concerned. I do believe people will die because of this. If I didnt follow up, he would be sitting at home dying from cancer. I absolutely feel people are going to die. Im so worried and upset for people who are suffering as a result of this, they dont know where to turn. So many people dont know who to ask or were to turn. It doesnt hit home until its on your doorstep. Dr OLeary said she felt bad for speaking for her father who is still in shock. She said she fully supported nurses and understands their case having worked in Irish hospitals since 2011. The nurses are right. The nurse-to-patient ratio is very unsafe at times. What they put up with is extraordinarily stressful. The Government just doesnt seem to be listening to those on the ground. All of our cries for help from nurses, doctors and patients, are going unheard. The trial of a doctor accused of sexually assaulting a teenage patient over 20 years ago has heard the complainant suffered from acute delusional psychotic disorder at one point. Kevin Mulcahy (aged 61) of Creggane, Lombardstown, Mallow, Co Cork has pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to sexually assaulting a woman in his surgery in Mallow, Co. Cork, on a date in February 1995. He also denies a second count of sexual assault at the same location on a date between May 8, 1996, and December 31, 1996. On day three of the trial, Dr Bobby Burns told Maddie Grant BL, prosecuting, that he worked in adult psychiatry and was based in St Stephen's psychiatric hospital in Cork. He said he first met the complainant in August 2005 when she was transferred from the UK to the hospital suffering from acute delusional psychotic disorder. Dr Burns said that later that year the woman disclosed allegations against Dr Mulcahy. Dr Burns said he knew the defendant and accordingly he advised the patient to speak to another member of the team about her allegations. He said he continued to treat the woman and diagnosed her with bipolar disorder. He said this is now managed by medication which she takes appropriately. He said when she takes her medication she is well and her condition doesn't impact on her. He said her illness did not contribute to her allegations and said they are not a result of mental illness. Under cross-examination by Blaise O'Carroll SC, defending, he agreed that at one point the complainant had immaculate conception delusions that she was carrying the baby Jesus. He told counsel that she was unwell at this time and that these delusions disappeared when she became well. The trial continues before Judge Pauline Codd and a jury. A stunned taxi driver has won 1m after checking his Daily Million ticket he purchased last month. The Dublin taxi driver regularly saves his tickets and scans them at the head office reception. The winning ticket was sold at Tesco in the Phibsboro Shopping Centre, Dublin 7 on January 14. The driver returned to driving passengers around the city despite his winnings to keep focused and said he wants to buy a house by the beach. He said: About once a month I gather all of my lottery tickets from the car and get them checked behind the desk at the National Lottery office in Dublin city centre. The receptionist was checking my tickets one by one when all of a sudden, she hands me back this particular ticket, smiled at me and calmly whispered, congratulations, youve won a million euro. "I was absolutely stunned, I just didnt know what to do! He also admitted it will take him some time to fully comprehend his massive lottery windfall. This is just unbelievable. I think its going to take a lot of time for this to properly sink in. "Im heading straight back to work for the day because I think its the best thing for me to focus the mind. "I have always dreamed of having a brand new house beside the beach so its definitely something Ill be thinking about as I drive around the city for the rest of the day." A National Lottery spokesperson said: This was a magical moment in Lotto HQ. Our winner had no idea he had a golden Daily Millions ticket and we are delighted for him. "This shows how important it is to check lottery tickets. Many people often forget them and leave them in a car, a handbag, or a coat pocket." Irish Ferries is being accused of using foreign crews to pay below the minimum wage. SIPTU said the company's vessels it fly foreign flags and does not pay Irish minimum wage rates to foreign workers. A High Court judge hopes to rule next week on a financial services company's application for an injunction preventing EBS terminating an agency agreement to operate branches of the building society. The injunction has been sought by Betty Martin Financial Services Ltd, which claims its agency agreement to operate EBS branches in Athlone Longford and Lucan was terminated over a refusal to engage in the alleged mis-selling of financial products. It has brought proceedings over EBS's decision to terminate their agreement, which the Court heard will result in another financial services entity taking over the operation of the EBS branches later this month. BMFS seeks an injunction preventing EBS DAC from terminating the agency agreement, known as a Tied agreement, between the parties that the plaintiff to operate the three branches. BMFS wants the injunction to be put in place until the full hearing of the dispute has been determined. At the conclusion of a three-day hearing, Mr Justice John Jordan said he was conscious that the proposed date of the termination of the agreement is fast approaching. While there were many issues in the case to consider the Judge said he would give his decision some day next week. BMFS, represented by Declan McGrath SC and Keith Farry Bl, claims the purported termination is invalid, was done for no good reason, and will result in the collapse of the firm's business. BMFS claims that it was pressurised into mis-selling financial products to EBS customers. However, it refused to undertake commercial activities that were unprofessional, unethical and against Central Bank Rules and guidelines, which it says resulted in EBS's decision to terminate the agency agreement. EBS, represented in court by Ciaran Lewis SC and Mark Dunne Bl, denies all of BMFS's claims, says it entitled to terminate the agreement, and opposes BMFS's application for an injunction. It claims the complaints of alleged mis-selling was only made by BMFS after EBS decided in 2017 to terminate the agreement with the firm. EBS claims that claims of mis-selling were investigated and no evidence was found to support the claims. EBS also claims that BMFS's case is flawed due to the delay in bringing the proceedings. The sentencing Friday of Alexandre Bissonnette in Quebec City and Bruce McArthur in Toronto in two horrific multiple murder cases has again shone light on a provision of the Criminal Code allowing killers to receive consecutive life sentences in Canada. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 8/2/2019 (865 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. The sentencing Friday of Alexandre Bissonnette in Quebec City and Bruce McArthur in Toronto in two horrific multiple murder cases has again shone light on a provision of the Criminal Code allowing killers to receive consecutive life sentences in Canada. A Quebec Superior Court justice sentenced Bissonnette to life in prison without any possibility of parole for 40 years for killing six men in a Quebec City mosque. In the case of McArthur, who killed eight men from Toronto's gay village, the Crown had sought a sentence of 50 years without parole eligibility; the judge ruled he can apply for parole after 25 years, when he is 91 years old. In 2011, the Conservative federal government amended the Criminal Code to allow for consecutive sentences in the case of multiple murders, allowing for parole eligibility to be "stacked" 25 years for each murder conviction. The government said the change was needed to bring an end to "discount sentences" for mass murderers. But Justice Francois Huot made clear he thought the changes infringed Bissonnette's Charter rights. The longest sentences to date in Canada is 75 years without parole, which has been handed down in five cases all involving triple murders. Here are some cases where the provision has been used: December 2018 Notorious triple killer Dellen Millard is sentenced to a third consecutive life sentence for murder in the death of his father, Wayne Millard. The sentence means Millard must serve 75 years in prison before he can apply for parole. Millard was previously convicted along with his friend, Mark Smich, in the murders of Laura Babcock and Tim Bosma. February 2018 Benjamin Hudon-Barbeau is handed consecutive terms following a conviction by a jury last November on four counts: first-degree murder, second-degree murder and two of attempted murder. He was sentenced to 35 years in prison before becoming eligible for parole. It was the first time consecutive sentences were imposed in Quebec. December 2017 Basil Borutski, convicted of killing three women during an hour-long rampage in the Ottawa Valley in September 2015, is sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 70 years. Borutski was found guilty of first-degree murder in the slayings of Anastasia Kuzyk, 36 and Nathalie Warmerdam, 48, and of second-degree murder in the slaying of Carol Culleton, 66. August 2017 Derek Saretzky is sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 75 years for killing a father, daughter and a senior in 2015. Saretzky will be 97 when he first qualifies for parole. A jury convicted the 24-year-old of three counts of first-degree murder in the September 2015 deaths of Terry Blanchette, Blanchettes two-year-old daughter Hailey Dunbar-Blanchette and 69-year-old Hanne Meketech in June 2017. February 2017 Douglas Garland is sentenced to life in prison without parole for 75 years for killing Alvin and Kathy Liknes and their five-year-old grandson Nathan OBrien. Court heard Garland attacked the three victims in their home, then took them to his farm near Calgary, where he killed and dismembered them, burning their remains. June 2016 John Ostamas, a homeless man who brutally beat three other transient men to death in separate attacks, is sent to prison for life with no chance of parole for 75 years. Ostamas pleaded guilty to three counts of second-degree murder for the April 2015 killings that prompted police to warn Winnipegs homeless population to be careful. October 2014 A judge in Moncton, N.B., sentences Mountie killer Justin Bourque to serve at least 75 years before he can request parole. Bourque shot and killed three RCMP officers and wounded two others in June 2014. He pleaded guilty to three counts of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder. September 2013 A judge in Edmonton sentences Travis Baumgartner, an armoured-car guard, to life in prison with no chance of parole for 40 years for killing three colleagues during a robbery in a mall at the University of Alberta in June 2012. A fourth guard was badly hurt, but survived. Baumgartner pleaded guilty to one count of first-degree murder, two counts of second-degree murder and attempted murder. This year marks 85th anniversary of the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Foreign Ministry - one of the leading educational institutions, specialized in training specialists in the field of international relations. "The Diplomatic Academy was founded in 1934, and over these 85 years it trained over 30 thousand specialists in the field of international relations, international law and international economy. Of these 30 thousand, over 8 thousand became diplomats. Of these 8 thousand, around 800 people have reached highest level in their diplomatic career - received rank of Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador, Yevgeny Bazhanov, former rector the Diplomatic Academy, said. "Some of our graduates have reached even greater heights. Valentina Matviyenko, head of the Russian Senate, was our graduate. Kassym-Zhomart Tokayev, who graduated in 1992, first became Deputy Foreign Minister of Kazakhstan, then Foreign Minister of Kazakhstan, then Prime Minister, then head of the Kazakh Senate, then deputy Secretary General of the UN, and he heads the Kazakh Senate again. Another example is South Korean citizen Kim Dae-jung, who graduated from the Diplomatic Academy and was elected president of South Korea, led his country at the beginning of 2000, and received Nobel Peace Prize for rapprochement with North Korea. Situation on the Korean Peninsula has improved significantly during his term. Many years of confrontation followed after that, since South Korea had another party in power, which was much more aggressive towards North Korea. Now Kim Dae Jung's party has returned, and we can see progress once again. Even relationship between North Korea and the United States has improved. Moreover, thanks to Kim Dae-jung, who gave such a good advertisement for our Academy, there are a lot of Koreans studying here now. 14 ambassadors of South Korea in different countries are our graduates," Bazhanov said. "Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan, former and present Foreign Ministers of Moldova, former Foreign Minister of Kyrgyzstan, ambassadors of various countries have graduated from here. Even if you look at the Moscow diplomatic corps, 10-12 ambassadors are our graduates," Bazhanov noted. Speaking about main directions of the Diplomatic Academy's work, acting rector Mikhail Troyansky said: Every year up to 500 people pass the Diplomatic Academy's advanced training courses. All of this takes place as part of mandatory professional development program of of the Russian Foreign Ministry under civil service law. It's an essential part of career growth, since these courses allow people to qualify for promotion." Mikhail Troyansky called the work of the Professional Retraining Center an important part of the Diplomatic Academy's work: These courses are available for everyone - employees of presidential administration, ministries, various government departments, state corporations and businesses. Regional governors and representatives of international departments can also attend them. Topics concerning diplomatic etiquette, protocol and organization of negotiations are in demand." According to him, another important direction of the Diplomatic Academy's work is teaching foreign diplomats at request of other counries' Foreign Ministries: "There are a lot of different requests. Right now we have requests from over 30 countries. Asian countries are widely represented, as well as countries of the Arab East, African countries. Teachers of the Diplomatic Academy work with foreign diplomats in various languages, including English, French, Spanish, Arabic and Turkish. Highly qualified mid-level and young diplomats come to us from Turkey and listened to our lectures with great interest. We hope that these exchanges will continue." REGINA - Debbie Baptiste says she was hopeful when she went into the trial of the man accused of killing her son. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 8/2/2019 (866 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. REGINA - Debbie Baptiste says she was hopeful when she went into the trial of the man accused of killing her son. Hopeful that she would find justice for Colten Boushie, a 22-year-old Cree man who was shot and killed on a farm near Biggar, Sask., in August 2016. Debbie Baptiste, mother of Colten Boushie, holds a photo of her son during a press conference on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on February 14, 2018. Debbie Baptiste says she went into the trial of the man accused of killing her son with hope. Hope that she would find justice for Colten Boushie, a 22-year-old Cree man who was shot and killed on a farm near Biggar, Sask., in August 2016. But after two weeks of court proceedings and 13 hours of jury deliberation, she left angry. A jury found the farmer who fired the gun that day, Gerald Stanley, not guilty of second-degree. The man who admitted killing her son walked from the courthouse a free man. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang But after two weeks in court and 13 hours of jury deliberation, she left angry. Farmer Gerald Stanley, who admitted he fired the gun on the day her son died, was found not guilty of second-degree murder. He walked away a free man. "I just have to keep living a nightmare over and over again," Baptiste said in an interview this week. "It doesn't get better. Time did not heal." Saturday marks the one-year anniversary of the controversial, high-profile verdict in the Stanley trial. A pipe ceremony and candlelight vigil are planned in North Battleford, Sask., and Boushie's family members are expected to share their thoughts about the last year. Stanley took the stand at his trial and testified that his gun had gone off accidentally. He said he was firing to scare off some young people he thought were stealing from him after they drove onto his property. Boushie was sitting in the drivers seat of a Ford Escape when he was shot in the back of the head. Public reaction to the acquittal was immediate and intense. While some rural property owners, fed up with high crime rates, saw justice in the verdict, social media also lit up with rage and grief. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted that he empathized with the pain felt by Boushie's family. Jody Wilson-Raybould, federal justice minister at the time, pledged that Canada "can and must do better." The next day, rallies were held from coast to coast. A protest camp quietly set up on the lawn of the Saskatchewan legislature and stayed there for more than six months. Within two months of the verdict, the federal government brought forward legislation that proposes to abolish peremptory challenges, which allow lawyers to reject potential jurors without having to provide a reason. Such challenges were criticized during the Stanley trial for allowing the defence to exclude visibly Indigenous people during jury selection. "If they go through, these are probably the most fundamental changes to the jury system that I've seen in 30 years of teaching criminal justice," said Kent Roach, a law professor at the University of Toronto. "Just like the case was extremely polarizing for the public, it's also been very polarizing for the legal community." Roach, who recently published a book about the Stanley case and its racial and historical context, said the trial received worldwide media attention because of the push by Boushie's family for change. "They've had to grieve in public," said family lawyer Eleanore Sunchild. Roach believes there ought to have been a coroner's inquest into Boushie's death. It could have examined what happened against the backdrop of racism, rural crime, policing and treaties, he said. "What I fear is that we will continue to have polarized opinions about this case and that, with the exception of these controversial Criminal Code amendments, it may actually fade into history as just ... another example of where Canadian justice has failed Indigenous people." One year after the acquittal, Baptiste has lost hope she will ever have justice for her son, but is still looking for "change in the justice system that we have equal rights in that courtroom." She wants a public inquiry. The provincial government, saying the trial laid bare the facts of the case, has rejected that. Saskatchewan Justice Minister Don Morgan who, along with Premier Scott Moe, met with Boushie's family after the verdict, said the province wants to expand restorative justice and culturally sensitive programs. "We should never forget the tragic death of Colten Boushie and how it changed the lives of two Saskatchewan families forever," Morgan said in a statement. Alvin Baptiste, Colten's uncle, wants a law firm established that would be devoted to helping Indigenous people through the justice system. He also wants a museum in North Battleford to teach people about First Nations history in the region. Beside seeing more Indigenous peoples on juries, Debbie Baptiste wants more Aboriginal judges and Crown prosecutors. Of the 88 judges currently serving in Saskatchewan, four have self-declared as Indigenous. But no matter what changes may come, Baptiste knows she faces one unending reality. "I still miss my son," she said. "That will never change." OTTAWA - Former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould was involved in extensive, internal government discussions last fall about whether SNC-Lavalin should be allowed to avoid criminal prosecution and government officials maintain there's nothing wrong with that. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 8/2/2019 (866 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau address attendees at the Liberal fundraising event at the Delta hotel in Toronto, Ont., on Thursday, February 7, 2019. NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh is calling for an ethics investigation into allegations that the Prime Minister's Office pressured former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould to help SNC-Lavalin avoid a criminal prosecution. THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Tijana Martin OTTAWA - Former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould was involved in extensive, internal government discussions last fall about whether SNC-Lavalin should be allowed to avoid criminal prosecution and government officials maintain there's nothing wrong with that. They argue the discussions were all perfectly within the law and, indeed, the government would have been remiss not to deliberate over the fate of the Quebec engineering and construction giant given that a prosecution could bankrupt the company and put thousands of Canadians out of work. The officials spoke on background Friday to The Canadian Press on condition that their names not be used, even as Conservatives and New Democrats demanded investigations by a House of Commons committee and the federal ethics commissioner into allegations that Wilson-Raybould was pressured by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's office to help SNC-Lavalin avoid prosecution. Wilson-Raybould's continued refusal to comment on the allegations added fuel to the political fire, started Thursday by a Globe and Mail report that she was demoted in a cabinet shuffle early last month because she refused to intervene in the SNC-Lavalin case. In a statement Friday morning, Wilson-Raybould, now veterans-affairs minister, said she is bound as the former attorney general by solicitor-client privilege and cannot publicly talk about aspects of the case. The company has been charged with bribery and corruption over its efforts to secure government business in Libya and wants a deal, allowed under the law, to pay reparations rather than be prosecuted. Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer holds a press conference on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Friday, Feb. 8, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick Toronto Liberal MP Arif Virani, the parliamentary secretary to current Justice Minister David Lametti, issued the most sweeping public denial of the story the government has issued so far. "At no point has the current minister of justice or the former minister of justice been directed or pressured by the prime minister or the Prime Minister's Office to make any decision on this or any other matter," Virani told the House of Commons on Friday. "The attorney general of Canada is the chief law officer of the Crown and provides legal advice to the government with the responsibility to act in the public interest. He takes those responsibilities very seriously." But no pressure does not mean there were no discussions about the issue, officials said. And the fact that the attorney general is supposed to be above political considerations does not mean he or she can't be involved in those discussions. In part, that's because the attorney general in Canada wears a second hat as justice minister and, in that role, is expected to fully take part in all public-policy discussions around the cabinet table. Moreover, as justice minister, Wilson-Raybould was responsible for a 2018 Criminal Code amendment at the heart of the current controversy which specifically allowed for what's known as deferred prosecutions or remediation agreements to be negotiated rather than pursue criminal prosecutions against corporations. The amendment was intended to bring Canada in line with its other major allies, including the United States, the United Kingdom and France, which all have similar provisions in their laws. The idea behind it is that a corporation should be held to account for wrongdoing without facing a prosecution that could bankrupt the company and make innocent employees pay the price for the actions of some unethical executives. A guilty verdict on bribery and corruption charges would result in SNC-Lavalin being barred from government contracts in Canada for 10 years. In turn, officials said that would likely cause foreign government contracts to dry up as well, potentially putting SNC-Lavalin out of business. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau address attendees at the Liberal fundraising event at the Delta Hotel in Toronto, Ont., on Thursday, February 7, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Tijana Martin Consequently, they said, it was natural that internal discussions would have taken place after the director of public prosecutions, Kathleen Roussel, informed SNC-Lavalin last October that a remediation agreement would be inappropriate in this case. The company is challenging her decision in court. SNC-Lavalin has taken out newspaper ads and heavily lobbied ministers, government officials and even Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh to make its case for avoiding a prosecution. Quebec Premier Francois Legault has also pressured Trudeau directly to intervene on the company's behalf. Under the law, the attorney general may issue a directive to the director of public prosecutions on how to handle a specific case, provided the directive is in writing and made public. Given the jobs at stake, officials said, the government would have failed in its duty had there not been discussion about whether to intervene in the SNC-Lavalin case. As justice minister, Wilson-Raybould would have been involved in those discussions. And even in her role as attorney general, she was not precluded from consulting her colleagues on whether to instruct the public prosecutor to negotiate a remediation agreement. Officials pointed to a document entitled "Open and Accountable Government" on the PMO website, which spells out the conduct expected of ministers, including a lengthy section on the dual role of the justice minister and attorney general. On the matter of issuing directives to the director of public prosecutions (or "DPP"), the document says: "It is appropriate for the attorney general to consult with cabinet colleagues before exercising his or her powers under the DPP Act in respect of any criminal proceedings, in order to fully assess the public policy considerations relevant to specific prosecutorial decisions." (A check of an Internet archive showed that the passage has been in the document since it was first posted in 2015.) None of that is likely to matter with opposition politicians, who maintain the whole affair smells like obstruction of justice. The Conservatives' Scheer and the New Democrats' Singh both called Friday for an ethics probe into the allegations. Conservatives and New Democrats on the Commons justice committee are also joining forces to get an emergency meeting next week to consider a motion calling on nine high-ranking government officials to testify, including Wilson-Raybould herself. The list includes Lametti, the prime minister's chief of staff Katie Telford, and his principal secretary Gerald Butts. "If the prime minister has nothing to hide, as he has suggested, then he should have no reason to fear these individuals appearing before the justice committee," Scheer said in a Friday morning news conference on Parliament Hill. "MPs have a duty to determine what exactly happened here and Justin Trudeau and his office must be forthcoming." Singh similarly argued that the prime minister should have nothing to fear from an independent investigation by the federal ethics commissioner. "All this cries out for some serious investigation," he said in a telephone interview from Burnaby, B.C., where he's campaigning for a seat in the House of Commons in a Feb. 25 byelection. "If he truly wants to clear this up and believes there's been no wrongdoing, he should welcome an investigation from the ethics commissioner. ... Tell us what happened, be transparent, invite the ethics commissioner to investigate and tell us that this is not the case or, if it is the case, then there's a serious reckoning that needs to happen." Both Scheer and Singh argue the issue cuts to the heart of our democracy and independent system of justice. "The allegations that we are hearing in the last 24 hours are unprecedented," Scheer said. Singh accused the government of sacrificing justice in the interests of a multinational corporation. He said the allegations suggest there may have been possible violations of three sections of the federal Conflict of Interest Act: the prohibitions against public office holders giving preferential treatment to any individual or organization, using insider information to improperly further a person's private interests or seeking to influence a decision to further another person's private interests. TORONTO - Serial killer Bruce McArthur murdered eight men from Toronto's gay village for "his own warped and sick gratification," an Ontario judge said Friday as he sentenced the 67-year-old to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 8/2/2019 (866 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. ADDS IDS In this artist's sketch, serial killer Bruce McArthur (centre) attends his sentencing hearing in Toronto on Monday, Feb.4, 2019. From left, Detective Hank Idsinga, (a photo of Andrew Kinsman ), Lawrence Parasram of police forensics, McArthur, Justice John McMahon, Greg Dunn (friend of Kinsman), Dunn's friend for support, and friends and family of the victims.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Alexandra Newbould TORONTO - Serial killer Bruce McArthur murdered eight men from Toronto's gay village for "his own warped and sick gratification," an Ontario judge said Friday as he sentenced the 67-year-old to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years. The ruling means McArthur will be 91 before he can apply for any form of release, which the judge said he was highly unlikely to receive. Bruce McArthur is shown in a Facebook photo. A serial killer who murdered eight men from Toronto's gay village won't be able to apply for parole for 25 years. Bruce McArthur, 67, pleaded guilty last week to committing the crimes between 2010 and 2017. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-Facebook *MANDATORY CREDIT* "Although Mr. McArthur has taken responsibility by pleading guilty, there has been no evidence I can see of remorse," said Justice John McMahon. "Mr. McArthur would have no doubt continued to kill if he wasn't caught." McArthur, a self-employed landscaper, pleaded guilty last week to eight counts of first-degree murder for men he killed between 2010 and 2017. His victims were Andrew Kinsman, Selim Esen, Majeed Kayhan, Dean Lisowick, Soroush Mahmudi, Skandaraj Navaratnam, Abdulbasir Faizi and Kirushna Kanagaratnam. The judge found McArthur strangled all of them and then took photographs of their bodies in various states of undress, keeping the images on his computer and viewing them long after his crimes. McArthur then dismembered his victims and hid their remains in planters at a Toronto residential property where he stored his landscaping equipment, and in a ravine behind the home. "Bruce McArthur is a sexual predator and killer who lured his victims on the pretext of consensual sex and he ended up killing them for his own warped and sick gratification," McMahon said. "The ability to decapitate and dismember his victims and do it repeatedly is pure evil." Parole eligibility was the only question for McMahon to settle as first-degree murder carries an automatic life sentence. The judge said McArthur's age and guilty plea were factors in his decision. "The accused has saved the family, friends and community at large from enduring a graphic public trial that would have been a nightmare for everyone," he said. "The law is clear: a guilty plea is a mitigating factor. The second factor is the age of accused when he could apply for parole." The sentence wasn't harsh enough for Nicole Borthwick, who was friends with Kinsman, Lisowick and Esen. She said the punishment failed to either fit the crime or soothe the wounds of the community impacted by the men's deaths. "I don't think that's enough comfort for the families or the community or the people that he's killed," Borthwick said outside court. "I think that if you're going to do a maximum crime, you deserve the maximum sentence." Toronto's police Chief Mark Saunders was satisfied with the sentence, saying McArthur will never see daylight again. "I do not see him in a public setting ever again," he said. "In this case life will mean life." Saunders also defended the work of his investigators, who have been criticized for not acting sooner on concerns from the LGBTQ community that a serial killer was responsible for the disappearances of several men from the gay village. The chief said officers had launched an investigation into the disappearances of McArthur's first three victims, but simply never had enough evidence to proceed further until 2017. "This was not a case of police didn't think anything was going on," Saunders said. "We knew something stunk and we did everything we could to find it. We just didn't." Court heard that many of McArthur's victims were immigrants and of South Asian or Middle Eastern descent. Some lived parts of their life in secret because of their sexual orientation. All of them had ties to the city's LGBTQ community. "This is a crime of stark horror," prosecutor Michael Cantlon said in a statement. "Although there can be no closure from a crime of this magnitude, we hope that these eight convictions for first-degree murder will assist our community in beginning a new chapter of healing." At a two-day sentencing hearing earlier this week, loved ones of McArthur's victims spoke about the devastation, anger and struggles they experienced as a result of his crimes. Many said they had long grappled with the disappearance of a son, father, brother or friend only to learn last year that their loved one had been killed. A friend of Kanagaratnam said the man's family still has many questions that haven't been answered. Kanagaratnam came to Canada aboard the MV Sun Sea after fleeing Sri Lanka in 2010 and went into hiding in 2015 after his refugee claim was rejected, his loved ones said. "Police have no evidence how he connected with a serial killer the family still wants to know the how they connected," said Piranavan Thangavel, who came over on the Sun Sea with Kanagaratnam. Court did not hear details about how Kanagaratnam knew McArthur. Toronto Mayor John Tory said McArthur's victims should "never be forgotten." "It is my hope that he will never again know freedom and that this sentence begins the difficult journey of delivering justice to the victims of these crimes, their friends and families, our LGBTQ community, and our entire city," Tory said. Police are still reviewing a series of cold cases to see if they can find any links to McArthur but have said that so far, they believe he didn't kill anyone else. with files from Nicole Thompson and Michelle McQuigge. HALIFAX - The federal government awarded U.S. defence giant Lockheed Martin a long-awaited contract to design its $60-billion fleet of warships despite lingering questions about the selection process and a legal challenge from a rival bidder. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 8/2/2019 (865 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. The Irving Shipbuilding facility is seen in Halifax on June 14, 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan HALIFAX - The federal government awarded U.S. defence giant Lockheed Martin a long-awaited contract to design its $60-billion fleet of warships despite lingering questions about the selection process and a legal challenge from a rival bidder. Procurement Minister Carla Qualtrough announced the deal in Halifax early Friday, saying the Royal Canadian Navy's 15 new warships will be built by Irving and based on the British-designed Type 26 frigate. The initial contract with Irving Shipbuilding is valued at $185 million including taxes and will increase as design work progresses, the government said Friday, adding a policy will apply to ensure every dollar put into the contract will result in a dollar back into the economy. Qualtrough made the announcement at Irving's Halifax Shipyard surrounded by hundreds of applauding workers, and touched on the persistent suggestions it wasn't a fair and balanced fight for the contract. "Our government is providing the Royal Canadian Navy with the ships it needs to do its important work of protecting Canadians," she said in a statement. Shipbuilders and Irving employees attend the announcement of Lockheed Martin Canada as the designer of 15 new Canadian Surface Combatants to be built at Irving Shipbuilding's Halifax shipyard in Halifax on Friday, February 8, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darren Calabrese "This procurement process for Canada's future fleet of Canadian Surface Combatants was conducted in an open, fair and transparent manner that yielded the best ship design, and design team, to meet our needs for many years to come." Lockheed's design had been selected as the best last October, beating out submissions from Alion Science and Technology of Virginia and Spanish firm Navantia to replace Canada's existing frigates and destroyers. In a statement, Lockheed Martin Canada's vice-president praised the decision. "This award is true validation of our Canadian capability," Gary Fudge said. "Our team is honoured, knowing that we offered the right solution for Canada and a proven ability to perform on complex defence programs." Defence Department officials will now sit down with Irving and Lockheed to figure out what changes need to be made to the company's design, along with the navy's requirements to make sure they fit. The department's top procurement official, Patrick Finn, has said the plan is to keep changes to a minimum to keep costs and schedule under control. Qualtrough said Friday the design work is expected to take three to four years to complete, with construction set to begin in the early 2020s. The selection comes after difficult negotiations that saw Alion ask the Canadian International Trade Tribunal to quash the decision, saying Lockheed's design did not meet the navy's requirements and should have been disqualified. The tribunal initially ordered the government not to award a contract to Lockheed until it could investigate Alion's complaint, but later rescinded that decision and then tossed the case entirely last week. Alion has also challenged Lockheed's selection at the Federal Court, though that case is expected to drag on. Alion alleges that the Type 26 did not meet the navy's requirements for speed and crew accommodations. The bid by Lockheed, which also builds the F-35 stealth fighter and other military equipment, was contentious from the moment the design competition was launched in October 2016. The federal government had originally said it wanted a "mature design" for its new warship fleet, which was widely interpreted as meaning a vessel that has already been built and used by another navy. But the first Type 26 frigates are only now being built by the British government and the design has not yet been tested in full operation. There were also complaints from industry that the deck was stacked in the Type 26's favour because of Irving's connections with British shipbuilder BAE, which originally designed the Type 26 and partnered with Lockheed to offer the ship to Canada. Irving also partnered with BAE in 2016 on an ultimately unsuccessful bid to maintain the navy's new Arctic patrol vessels and supply ships. That 35-year contract went to another company. Irving and the federal government rejected such complaints, saying they conducted numerous consultations with industry and used corporate firewalls and safeguards to ensure the selection process was completely fair and unbiased. OTTAWA - Indigenous Services Minister Seamus O'Regan says he will visit a northern Ontario First Nation to see its housing situation at the request of the community's chief. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 8/2/2019 (865 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Indigenous Services Minister Seamus O'Regan addresses the media following a swearing in ceremony at Rideau Hall in Ottawa on January 14, 2019. Indigenous Services Minister Seamus O'Regan says he will visit a northern Ontario First Nation to examine its housing situation at the request of the community's chief. O'Regan spoke to the chief of Cat Lake First Nation earlier Friday and the two agreed on an action plan that includes speeding up the delivery of materials to complete a seven-unit housing complex and for other repairs and new construction. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld OTTAWA - Indigenous Services Minister Seamus O'Regan says he will visit a northern Ontario First Nation to see its housing situation at the request of the community's chief. O'Regan spoke to the chief of Cat Lake First Nation Friday and the two agreed on a plan that includes speeding up the delivery of materials to complete a seven-unit housing complex, for other repairs, and for new construction. His department also says the plan includes a commitment to ensure a winter road is maintained regularly to maintain access to the remote community for as long as possible this season. Cat Lake is about 400 kilometres north of Thunder Bay. Before going to the community, O'Regan says he will take up a request from Assembly of First Nations National Chief Perry Bellegarde to meet in Thunder Bay with Cat Lake's chief. Ontario NDP MP Charlie Angus recently went to the community with provincial legislator Sol Mamakwa. Angus said what they witnessed was a total breakdown of public health, with families living amid toxic levels of mould. He also says they saw children living with chronic medical conditions like bronchitis, rashes and pneumonia. O'Regan says he will remain in close contact with the chief, adding it will be good to see the conditions in the community first-hand during his upcoming visit. "We both agreed I should head up to Cat Lake when we've got some definite progress happening on the ground that he and I can look at together and if we need to tweak it to make sure it meets the needs of the community, then we can do that," he said in an interview. He also says his department will support an independent community medical assessment of health issues, if the chief and council wish to have one. OTTAWA - As a federal election approaches, Microsoft is offering advanced online threat-detection tools to Canadian political candidates and parties to shore up their cyberdefences. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 8/2/2019 (865 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. People walk near a Microsoft office in New York on November 10, 2016. As a federal election approaches, Microsoft is offering advanced online threat-detection tools to Canadian political candidates and parties to shore up defences against malicious attacks. Microsoft's AccountGuard, designed to warn customers about cyberthreats -- including attacks by nation states -- will be provided free to registered parties at the federal and provincial level, think-tanks and democracy advocacy organizations that already use the company's Office 365, Outlook.com and Hotmail products. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP, Swayne B. Hall OTTAWA - As a federal election approaches, Microsoft is offering advanced online threat-detection tools to Canadian political candidates and parties to shore up their cyberdefences. Microsoft's AccountGuard, designed to warn customers about cyberthreats including attacks by nation-states will be provided free to registered parties at the federal and provincial level, think-tanks and democracy advocacy organizations that already use the company's Office 365, Outlook.com and Hotmail products. The company is also offering political officials, campaigns and related organizations practical guidance to help make their networks and email systems more secure from proper log-in procedures to recognizing attempts to steal information. In providing the tools, the company is mindful that Russian intelligence agents stand accused of hacking Democratic party emails and computers during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. Jan Neutze, global director for cybersecurity policy at Microsoft, said one of the favoured techniques of cybercriminals and state-sponsored hackers remains the spear-phishing email an innocent-looking message that can lure those who click on it into giving up their private credentials or other vital details. That can open the door to data theft or stolen emails that may be used for damaging leaks or extortion. Microsoft's monitoring team will help detect malicious activity against accounts, try to determine the source of the attempted intrusion and inform customers of threats. Many organizations in politics have small staffs and modest budgets, Neutze noted. "Yet they're facing nation-state adversaries. And so it's a total mismatch in terms of their capabilities to defend themselves versus the threats that they're facing." Some, but not all, larger organizations such as political parties have started to take more protective measures, he said. "I think there's a recognition that oftentimes organizations aren't necessarily able to defend against these threats by themselves." The Liberal government recently announced that an impartial group of senior bureaucrats would warn Canadians if malicious actors try to distort the outcome of the October election through serious cyberattacks or orchestrated disinformation campaigns via social media. The protocol is part of a series of measures aimed at preventing interference in the election. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 7/2/2019 (866 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau address attendees at the Liberal fundraising event at the Delta hotel in Toronto, Ont., on Thursday, February 7, 2019. NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh is calling for an ethics investigation into allegations that the Prime Minister's Office pressured former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould to help SNC-Lavalin avoid a criminal prosecution. THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Tijana Martin Six stories in the news for Friday, Feb. 8 SINGH WANTS INVESTIGATION INTO SNC-LAVALIN CASE NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh is calling for an ethics investigation into allegations that the Prime Minister's Office pressured former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould to help SNC-Lavalin avoid a criminal prosecution. If, as Justin Trudeau insists, the allegations are not true, Singh said the prime minister should have nothing to fear from an independent investigation by the federal ethics commissioner. Singh's call comes in the wake of a report Thursday in The Globe and Mail alleging Wilson-Raybould was demoted in a cabinet shuffle early last month because she refused to succumb to pressure from prime ministerial aides to intervene in the case of SNC-Lavalin. QUEBEC MOSQUE SHOOTER TO BE SENTENCED TODAY The man who murdered six worshippers in a Quebec City mosque in January 2017 will learn today whether he'll spend the rest of his life behind bars. Quebec Superior Court Justice Francois Huot is set to decide how long Alexandre Bissonnette will spend in custody before he is eligible for parole. Bissonnette, 29, pleaded guilty last March to six counts of first-degree murder and six of attempted murder after he walked into the mosque during evening prayers on Jan. 29, 2017, and opened fire. The Crown has recommended that Bissonnette serve six consecutive sentences totalling 150 years, while the defence has argued he should be eligible for parole after 25 years. BRUCE McARTHUR TO BE SENTENCED TODAY Serial killer Bruce McArthur is set to be sentenced today. The 67-year-old self-employed landscaper pleaded guilty last week to murdering eight men with ties to Toronto's gay village. The Crown is seeking a life sentence with no chance of parole for 50 years. The defence has asked that sentences for all eight first-degree murder counts be served concurrently, which would make McArthur eligible for parole in 25 years. First-degree murder carries an automatic life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years, but when there are several convictions, the court can impose consecutive periods of parole ineligibility. NIGHTMARE STILL NOT OVER, BOUSHIE'S MOTHER SAYS The mother of an Indigenous man who was shot and killed on a Saskatchewan farm says her nightmare is not over. Debbie Baptiste says she has lost hope in finding justice for her son Colten Boushie, who was killed in August 2016. Farmer Gerald Stanley admitted that he fired the gun on the day Boushie died, but he was found not guilty of second-degree murder. He testified his gun went off accidentally and that he was firing his gun to scare off some young people he thought were stealing from him after they drove onto his property. Members of Boushie's family will spend the anniversary of the not-guilty verdict on Saturday participating in a candlelight vigil and pipe ceremony. COUPLE GUILTY IN BABY'S DEATH FACE SENTENCING A sentencing hearing is to begin today for a Calgary couple who delayed taking their gravely ill son to hospital until it was too late. A jury found Jennifer and Jeromie Clark guilty last fall of criminal negligence causing death and failing to provide the necessaries of life. The trial heard 14-month-old John didn't see a doctor until the day before he died of a staph infection in November 2013. Jurors were shown photos of the child after he died and he had blackened toes and a red rash covering three quarters of his body. The couple's lawyers suggested doctors at the Alberta Children's Hospital were to blame because they raised the boy's sodium and fluid levels too aggressively. WINTER A 'MAJOR CHALLENGE' FOR RAILROADS The Calgary-based railway involved in this week's deadly train derailment in B.C. says frigid temperatures have a big impact on operations. Canadian Pacific Railway detailed the challenges of harsh weather in a white paper last year. It says cold can cause air to leak from a train's brake system, causing it to run shorter trains than usual. It also says trains must travel at slower speeds when it gets colder than -25 C. The train that derailed was carrying 112 grain hoppers and three locomotives. An engineer, a conductor and a trainee died. ALSO IN THE NEWS: Matthew Vincent Raymond, accused of killing four people including two city police officers, is due back in court. The court is expected to get the results of an assessment to determine criminal responsibility. Statistics Canada will release its labour force survey for January. Federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau will be in conversation with Catherine Holt, CEO Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce. VICTORIA - Money laundering in British Columbia has become a top issue for the federal and provincial governments with federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau vowing a "crack down" Friday, while the province considers a public inquiry. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 8/2/2019 (865 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau takes questions from the media during an announcement for Freedom Mobile at a press conference at the Delta Ocean Pointe in Victoria, B.C., on Friday, February 8, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chad Hipolito VICTORIA - Money laundering in British Columbia has become a top issue for the federal and provincial governments with federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau vowing a "crack down" Friday, while the province considers a public inquiry. "The importance of dealing with money laundering concerns is something that is clearly on our agenda," said Morneau at a news conference in Victoria. "We need to be very clear, we crack down on any issues around money laundering." Last year, an international anti-money laundering organization said in a report that up to $1 billion annually was being filtered through some B.C. casinos by organized crime groups. The B.C. government also cited an RCMP intelligence report that estimated up to $1 billion from the proceeds of crime was used to purchase expensive Metro Vancouver homes. An RCMP official said Friday the Mounties are searching their data bases to find the report the government has cited. Former RCMP deputy commissioner Peter German's review last year of money laundering at some B.C. gaming outlets found casinos served as laundromats that siphoned the money to organized crime groups. B.C. Attorney General David Eby said Morneau's comments add support to recent commitments by the federal government to fight money laundering. Eby and Minister of Organized Crime Reduction Bill Blair met last month to work together and share information to combat money laundering. "I've seen a real shift in the interest from the federal government on this issue," Eby said. Two B.C. government money laundering reviews are underway and are due in March. One probe will look to identify and close regulatory gaps that could be used by money launderers in the real estate and financial services sectors. The second review will focus on identifying the scale and scope of illicit activity in the real estate market and whether money laundering is linked to horse racing and the sale of luxury vehicles. Eby said the findings of those reviews, collaborations with the federal government on legal issues and public concern about money laundering will help the government decide if a public inquiry on money laundering is warranted. "The premier hasn't ruled out a public inquiry," said Eby. "He is actively monitoring the situation and I'm doing my best to keep him and cabinet informed on this quick-moving file." Morneau said the federal government's focus on money laundering spreads beyond Canada's borders where there are global concerns with dirty money funding terrorist organizations. "We worry more broadly with issues like terrorist financing, which is what the global community is looking at when they think about money laundering," he said. But Eby said many in the global community are looking at B.C. as a jurisdiction where money laundering by organized crime has flourished. "To some extent international concern is focusing on what's happening in B.C.," he said. "We really need the feds on board here." He said it's difficult to fully determine the extent of money laundering in B.C., other than to conclude the numbers are increasing. "It's really important that whether it's $100 million, or a billion dollars, or $2 billion, whatever it ends up being, that the issue and the need to address it remains the same and ... it is only growing in urgency," Eby said. Michelle Klyne was 16 years old when she was forced into human trafficking. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 8/2/2019 (866 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Advertisement Advertise With Us Michelle Klyne was 16 years old when she was forced into human trafficking. Raised in Dauphin, the now 33-year-old told her story at Brandon University on Thursday. Her hope was that by sharing her experience she might help others going through a challenging situation. Michelle Klyne "I want to be that champion that leads and can make change for a lot of people," Klyne said. At a young age, she was put into Child and Family Services care. As a transgender two-spirit Indigenous woman, she was rejected by the system, said Klyne, whose two-spirited name is Landed Hummingbird. "CFS stuck me in a hotel room and said that they didnt have any LGBTQ foster families, or didnt have anywhere to put me because I was problematic," Klyne said. "They basically left me in Dauphin at the Highland Motel, paid for my hotel room, and transferred me around from group home to group home." She grew up without a father, and her mother was an alcoholic, so she was missing an important support network, she said. At a very young age, she started to view herself as someone who wasnt worthy of anything, including love, so she turned to men to get affection. She was getting trafficked when she was 16, 17 and 18 years of age, she said. She didnt realize she was being trafficked she was told to go to a hotel room, and guys would make money off of her. They would get paid upward of $100, and she was left with $20. It seemed like a never-ending cycle. "I was sent everywhere," she said. "I was doing a lot of sexual favours for different guys, whether it be policemen, or firefighters, or guys in limos with money or lawyers, there was just every guy that had a position, it seemed." In 2009, she decided to try to turn her life around. "I felt like I wasnt going to live any longer," she said. "I was skinny, I was malnourished and I felt like the spirit inside of me was going the light inside of me was dimming." She went to see an elder at Circle of Life Thunderbird House in Winnipeg, where she talked about issues and problems she had and went on a five-day vision quest where she didnt eat for five days. She also participated in numerous sweats a cleansing and healing ritual, most often done in a sweat lodge. Doing this helped her to release her anger, trauma, sexual abuse, mental and physical abuse and everything that was going on when she was trafficked, she said. "Things started to feel easier, and things started to get better. I felt like my head was a little clearer and a little better." So, she went back to school and got her Grade 12, then enrolled at Red River College. When she was in college, she worked hard and said she started to see her own potential. She won the volunteerism award and courage award and became top of her class. "I turned my life around on my own," she said. Before she was even finished college, she was getting multiple job offers. She took a temporary position with the Manitoba Metis Federation, and now, as a college graduate, she has moved on to a position with the Clan Mothers Healing Lodge as project manager. Theyre working on co-ordinating three gatherings between sexually exploited women, and helping to create resources for them, she said. After her talk at Brandon University, she hoped people would feel more confident to speak out. "No matter what youre going through in life, no matter what obstacles youre facing, you can beat those obstacles," she said. "I am an example of having every single obstacle, stemming from child abuse in every form, being visibly Indigenous and visibly a trans woman, having addictions and being trafficked (and here I am)." Its important for students to hear because its a first-hand account, said Serena Petrella, who works as a sociology and gender and womens studies professor at Brandon University. "(They can) hear first-hand what can happen when a First Nations, trans individual is treated so badly," Petrella said. "Its a kind of lesson that resonates strongly with them, and hopefully changes their mentality." Having people share their own experiences is a way to keep the conversation going, said Stefon Irvine, chairperson of Brandon Pride and member of the Brandon University LGBTTQ Collective. "(Its important to) provide more context to whats happening for queer people of Brandon," Irvine said. "Its good to see those campaigns come to light and have that action." mverge@brandonsun.com Twitter: @Melverge5 The implementation of the roadmap for ridding Syrian northern town Manbij of the YPG militants has accelerated as the U.S. changed its attitude towards it, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Feb. 6. "There has been an acceleration when compared to the past... In particular, the U.S. administration and Secretary of State [Mike] Pompeo are asking for immediate implementation of this [roadmap] he told members of the Turkish press in Washington DC, Hurriyet Daily News writes in the article Turkey, US accelerate work on Manbij roadmap: Turkish FM. Despite the progress, however, Cavusoglu said the roadmap must be fully and immediately implemented, holding the U.S. responsible for the slowdown in the roadmap. Turkey deems the YPG as an offshoot of the illegal PKK, which is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and the European Union. However, the U.S. has supported and armed the YPG in the fight against the ISIL in northern and eastern Syrian territories. On a possible safe zone in northern Syria, Cavusoglu said concrete ideas have yet to emerge on the issue and Turkey has been holding talks with Russia and working to coordinate with the U.S. It is important what we understand about a safe zone. That is, if a buffer zone that will safeguard terrorists is envisaged or desired, we are against that, Turkish state-run Anadolu Agency quoted Cavusoglu as saying. Turkey is aware that some countries had financially encouraged radical groups in Syria to breach an agreement signed by Ankara and Moscow last year to establish a demilitarized zone in the countrys last opposition stronghold of Idlib, he added. Turkish Foreign Minister also said Ankara and Washington were carrying out joint efforts regarding the U.S. withdrawal of troops from Syria and Turkeys security concerns. A joint mission force has been formed between Ankara and Washington to coordinate the latters pullout from the war-torn country, he said. Earlier in the day, in his speech at a meeting of foreign ministers from member countries of the U.S.-led coalition to defeat the ISIL, Cavusoglu called for a coordinated effort to eliminate the remnants of the terror group in Syria and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the region. Avoidance of power vacuums that could be exploited by terrorists to undermine Syrias territorial integrity and neighbors national security will be essential, he told the meeting. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo emphasized to the coalition the U.S. will also continue to work toward stability in Iraq and Syria. President Trumps announcement that U.S. troops will be withdrawing from Syria is not the end of Americas fight. We will continue to wage alongside of you, he told coalition members. It simply represents a new stage in an old fight. The 79-member coalition was founded in 2014 to reduce the threat the ISIL posed to international security. Iraq will not be part of the sanctions regime against Iran, Prime Minister Adil Abdul Mahdi stressed on Wednesday. Abdul Mahdi made the comment during a meeting with the head of Irans Central Bank, Abdul Naser Hemmati, Governor of the Central Bank of Iraq Ali al-Allaq and the accompanying delegations. As Asharq Al-Awsat writes in the article Iraq PM: We Will not be Part of Iran Sanctions Regime, the Iraqi people have suffered from embargo and realize the damage that peoples incur from its consequences, according to a statement from the PMs office. Iraq wont be part of the sanctions system against Iran or any other people. However, a source familiar with the meeting between Hemmati and Allaq said that the latter rejected the Iranian request to pay Iraqi debts in US dollars because of US sanctions. He told Asharq al-Awsat that the Iranian delegation came to agree on Iraqi debts to Iran of over one billion dollars. He added that Iraq suggested paying the debts in any way within the framework of what is approved by the US sanctions. Economic expert Zuhair al-Hasani told Asharq Al-Awsat that every dollar transfer is subject to the approval of the US Federal Reserve, saying any violation leads to undesirable results for Iraq. But he explained that Iraq could pay off the Iranian debt using Euro or Chinese yuan. Hasani concluded that Iraq and Iran need to establish other methods to avoid US anger. Meanwhile, according to Tasnim news agency, Tehran and Baghdad agreed to no longer use the US currency in the bilateral trade. From now on, the Central Bank of Iran should have accounts in euro and dinars for the relevant trade settlements. These accounts will be used in the oil and gas deals. In addition to the Iranian delegation, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and Jordanian Speaker Atef Tarawneh visited Baghdad Wednesday. According to analysts, the repeated visits to Baghdad in recent weeks indicate the growing regional and international interest in the Iraqi market, especially after improved security conditions. However, economic visits, especially from Iran and Jordan, were subject to criticism namely in the southern province of Basra, the countrys only marine crossing. Border Crossings Committee in Basra Council expressed concern about the possible negative effects of the facilities Iraq provides to Jordan on the activity of the southern border crossings. Head of the Committee Murtada Karim al-Shahmani reported that the Iraqi agreement with Jordan will have negative effects. Al-Sumaria News reported that Shahmani also indicated that some traders and importers could use Trebil port instead. Tomato growers in Basra rejected the government's recent agreement with Jordan and accused Iran of "killing Iraq's food basket." The growers told local media that Iran continues to send its crops illegally to Iraq, and instead of lifting the embargo on local market, the Iraqi government agreed with Jordan on exporting 400 tax-exempted goods. Experts believe Jordan does not pose a direct threat to Basra ports, since the volume of annual trade with Iraq is modest, around $400,000, compared to the volume of exchange with Turkey and Iran. But economic expert Alaa al-Fahd thinks Jordan is planning to increase its trade exchange with Iraq to $8 billion, and this will affect the rest of the ports. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is considered as a possible candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize. Perhaps paired with his Macedonian colleague Zoran Zaev. Such an idea arose after the parties managed to resolve the Macedonia naming dispute - the former Yugoslav Republic. It was the name that prevented the Balkan state from joining NATO, since it coincided with the name of the Greek historical province, which caused some conflict. Last summer, Tsipras and Zaev held a cycle of negotiations, and the Greek side agreed that the former Yugoslav Republic would be called North Macedonia. In January 2019, the parliaments of both countries approved the amendment. After which NATO member countries signed the Accession Protocol with North Macedonia. "I look forward to the day when 30 flags will fly outside NATO headquarters," the Alliance Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said. Now all 29 member states of the North Atlantic Alliance should ratify the Accession Protocol with North Macedonia, and before it Skopje will continue to be the alliance aspiring member. The perspective of joining the ranks of "great peacemakers" has become more tangible after Tsipras held talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara. Perhaps, it was the first time when the leaders of the two countries having a complicated relationship made a strong statement about their desire to resolve bilateral problems, which had soured interstate relations for many years. Athens and Ankara announced their decision to address the main problems - Cyprus dispute and Aegean dispute. Another problem is that Greece granted political asylum to eight Turkish soldiers who fled after a failed coup attempt in 2016. Erdogan said at the meeting that he hopes for more constructive cooperation with Greece on this issue. In other words, the Turkish leader would like to watch violators of the oath on trial. However, according to analysts, words may not match with deeds in this case - a much more serious matter than punishing eight ordinary executors of outside will is at stake, therefore the Turkish leader was obliged to fix his position, which he did, but he will not derail the normalization of bilateral relations. Especially if something happens, Tsipras can lodge a counterclaim - almost 50 thousand illegal migrants have moved to Greece from Turkey. According to most analysts, if the parties continue the straightforward, honest conversation staying cool, without emotions, then a positive breakthrough between Athens and Ankara is possible. And then Tsiprass claim to the Nobel Prize will be pretty weighty. Especially considering the current global situation, when many decided to use the language of ultimatums and blackmail, pressure and threats. However, Alexis Tsipras' actions in the Macedonian direction are regarded in Greece as extremely contradictory. It is significant that in the parliament ratified the Prespa Agreement on the Balkan state's name with 153 votes against 146. Obviously, in the absence of consensus between the government and society on renaming of the neighboring state, the number of problems only increases, instead of being resolved, political scientist Konstantinos Andronikou writes. The crisis is about to flare up in parliament, deputies change one faction for another, the ruling party attempts to find a common language with opponents as soon as possible, the two key ministers - the heads of defense and foreign affairs ministries - recently resigned. Protest sentiments are fueled by the Republic of Northern Macedonia, which interests in integration processes with the West were promoted by Tsipras. Accoridng to Konstantinos, it looks like Zoran Zayev specifically avoids his homeland's new name and deliberately mentions its former name - Macedonia "in every public appearance, in every post on Twitter". With such a "prudent" approach of Skopje, Greek society will become increasingly angry with the situation. According to the analyst, Greece's actions can add its own contradictions to tension with those European countries, which have their own views on the name of the former Yugoslav republic - these are Serbia, Bulgaria and Cyprus. Philosophy professor and international journalist Dimitrios Liatsos said that the possibility of awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Alexis Tsipras is questionable. According to him, at least half of Greek society did not approve the ratification of the Prespa Agreement by the Parliament. "Not because they dont want to resolve the issue, but because the wrong tools were used at the talks. Many find it inconvenient to admit it and stand on a par with our nationalists, but PM Tsipras himself said that its impossible to consider all who opposed this decision as nationalists. The solution to this complex issue had to be sought when Yugoslavia collapsed, but Tsipras predecessors didnt undertake it, although everyone understood that the "spice" was in the name of the state," Dimitrios Liatsos told Vestnik Kavkaza. According to him, another nuance that confuses Greek society is that the so-called 'Macedonian issue' was not on the political agenda of Alexis Tsipras and his party. "They offered the population something completely different during the election period. Why did the Macedonian issue' become dominant on their agenda once they came to power? Because it was an initiative of the U.S, not of Skopje or Athens. Washington had to quickly solve the problem with Macedonia's name and quickly integrate it into NATO. We know that the U.S. also put pressure on Skopje - its ambassador did not leave the parliament controlling the situation. And the U.S. succeed. If we proceed from NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg's statements, then essentially Macedonia already joined NATO. Where did Tsipras' promise to resist the pressure of the West - the U.S. and the EU - go? It turns out to be the opposite - he is increasingly losing ground," Liatsos said. According to the respondent, as a Greek, he should be proud of the fact that his country's leader is claiming the Nobel Peace Prize. "However, the wording is embarrassing - for solving the problem peacefully. Was the war between Greece and Macedonia possible? Not at all, if only because of the incompatibility of military power. Neither we, nor they would do it. Another factor - I think that the Nobel Prize should be awarded to people who have provided some kind of breakthroughs with the support of their societies. What kind of breakthrough did Tsipras and Zayev achieve, not to mention that local societies are far from enthusiastic about what happened?! If the award reflected the reality and was objective, I would be proud of my prime minister, but when every second my compatriot does not support the parliament's actions, no joy is possible. In general, the process of awarding the Nobel Prize and the choice of laureates over the past 10 years seriously devalued this prestigious award," Dimitrios Liatsos believes. He also assesses a 'Turkish breakthrough' of Tsipras without much enthusiasm. "Recep Tayyip Erdogan is an experienced and strong politician with whom we should resolve issues and improve interstate relations. But, according to my data, they did not touch upon serious issues at the talks in Ankara, but only fixed a desire to solve them. Of course, its good, but in fact nothing has changed so far," the source told Vestnik Kavkaza. Frances foreign ministry has reacted with anger after Italys populist deputy prime minister Luigi Di Maio met with French Yellow Vests, calling the gathering an unacceptable provocation. As Breitbart writes in the article Unacceptable Provocation: Italian Populists Troll French Establishment by Meeting Yellow Vests, Di Maio, whose anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S) party governs Italy in coalition with the right-populist League, met with Yellow Vest leader Christophe Chalencon as well as candidates for European Parliament from the anti-government movement on Tuesday. The deputy prime minister shared a photograph on Instagram of the encounter, writing, Today with Alessandro Di Battista [fellow M5S politician], we made a trip to France and we met the leader of the Yellow Vests Cristophe Chalencon and the candidates in the European elections This is the souvenir photo of this beautiful meeting, the first of many, in which we talked about our countries, social rights, environment, and direct democracy. The winds of change have crossed the Alps. I repeat. The winds of change have crossed the Alps. The meeting comes after Di Maio reached out to the Yellow Vests, writing on his blog in January, Yellow Vests, do not weaken! In France, as in Italy, politics has become deaf to the needs of citizens who have been kept out of the most important decisions affecting the people. The cry that rises strongly from the French squares is ultimately: let us participate! he wrote. Frances foreign ministry spokesman said Wednesday, This new provocation is not acceptable between neighbouring countries and partners in the European Union. Mr Di Maio, who holds government responsibilities, must take care not to undermine, through his repeated interferences, our bilateral relations, in the interest of both France and Italy, he added. France and Italy have been trading barbs in recent months over migration and budgets. While not directly mentioning Italy, Frances globalist French President Emmanuel Macron said in a speech in June that populism and anti-mass migration sentiment was spreading across Europe like leprosy. League party leader Matteo Salvini, who is also the countrys deputy prime minister and interior minister, responded by calling Macron a hypocrite for rejecting migrants in his own country, and saying, We may be leper populists, but I will take lessons when he welcomes tens of thousands of migrants, then we can talk. The insults of Macron do not affect me, they make me strong. While he speaks, I am working today to stop the trafficking of illegal immigrants in the Mediterranean and to restore the villas seized from the mafia to the Italian people, he added. In 2014, Georgia signed an Association Agreement with the EU to implement the blocs policies for sustainable energy development. By signing the Agreement and joining the Energy Community, Georgia took on the obligation to implement a reform package in the energy sector and lay the foundation for its approximation to the European energy market. New Europe in the article The future of Georgias energy policy writes, that during the many High-level Energy Cooperation Meetings Georgia introduced, in detail, the ongoing and scheduled reforms in Georgias energy sector, discussed international cooperation, and highlighted Georgias interest to become an energy hub in the Caucasus/Black Sea region. Within that framework of ongoing reforms in Georgias energy sector, and under the commitments of the Energy Community Agreement, Georgian officials held a meeting with Energy Community Secretariat, Janez Kopac at the end of 2018, which resulted in the government of Georgia submitting to the European Parliament a draft law on reforms in the Georgian energy market as well as the development and implementation of renewable energy sources, energy efficiency, and the energy performance of buildings. This new regulation will significantly contribute to the establishment of international business rules on the local energy market as well as the inflow of new investments. The final target is the harmonisation of the Georgian energy system with European norms and requirements. as noted by Georgias Deputy Minister of Economy and Sustainable Development Natia Turnava shortly after her December 2018 meeting with Kopac. While introducing the current Georgian governments energy sector development strategy under the Economic and Development Ministrys new head, George Kobulia, Tarnava emphasised in late January that, According to IMF, Georgia will have one of the most dynamic and fastest growing economies during the next 10-15 years. Of course, this is an excellent result, but at the same time it is a huge challenge for our energy sector the growth of the economy will further increase the demand on the already high demand on the electricity. We have a very clear vision and a very effective, active, and aggressive plan to support local energy development on the one hand and on the other hand, to promote more active trade between the countries of our region and to offer our customers a choice between our own electricity and the possibly cheaper foreign energy. We also have a plan to make our consumption more energy efficient, said Tarnava. Georgia is considered one of the main transit countries of hydrocarbons from the Caspian region to Europe. Over the past decade pipelines such as the South Caucasus Gas Pipeline (SCP), Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) and Baku-Tbilisi-Supsa pipelines have been successfully delivering Caspian hydrocarbon resources to Europe. During the last Ministerial Meeting of South Gas Corridor Advisory Council in Baku, which was held in February 2018, the Georgian delegation paid special attention to the issue of transporting Azerbaijans hydrocarbons to the European market via Georgia and Turkey. The importance of the Southern Gas Corridor is for the diversification of gas supply, as well as the further enhancement of the energy security of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey and the EU countries. The crux of the meeting in Baku was a conversation that also covered the trans-Caspian pipeline project, which aims to deliver Turkmen gas to the EU using the transit capacities of Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Turkey. The development of the South Gas Corridor, as well as the expansion of the South Caucasia Pipeline and the completion of the Shah-Deniz 2 (in Azerbaijan), is of the utmost importance for our country, ex-Development and Economy Minister Kumsishvili said during his visit to the Azeri capital last year. Georgia is remarkably rich in hydropower resources, and also has potential when it comes to wind, solar, biomass and geothermal resources. This would allow for the creation of additional capacity by means of domestic and foreign investment. Georgia cooperates with one of the leading energy Companies in Turkey, Calk Enerji, with the two having completed negotiations on the construction of a wind power plant with a capacity of 50 MW and an investment of $75 million that will be built in Georgias Shida Kartli region. This is, of course, a very important investment that will result in another new source of renewable energy in the electric power system of our country, said Kumsishvili on February 20, 2018. The most recent South Caucasus Energy Summit was held in Tbilisi in May 2018. The forum focused on the development of energy infrastructure and connectivity within the South Caucasus region as well as ways of improving the regional energy ties, strengthen energy security and the sustainability of the natural gas and electricity supply. At the time of the Energy Summit, a meeting was held with high-ranking US and Georgian officials from the economic sector that included the American Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross and Kumsishvili, who was still serving as Georgias Sustainable Development Minister. The officials discussed the development of the transit corridor that passes through Georgia and the involvement of both the US government and private American firms in the continued development of the transit process. Chief among the topics covered, all of which are considered fundamental to enhancing Georgias transit capability, were the transit corridors (TRACECA, Trans Caucasia International Transport Corridor or so-called middle corridor; Lapis Lazuli; Persian Gulf Black Sea corridor, etc.) that pass through Georgia and to the efforts of the Georgian Government which aim to develop the transit corridors. The meeting also focused on the development status of significant projects such as the Anaklia Deep Sea Port, the East-West Highway, the Railway Modernization Project that will allow for the total amount of cargo turnover on the the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway line to triple in the coming years and the need for US Conti Group to continue participating in the project. The attendees also discussed the development of transit lines of petrol and gas from Asia to EU via Georgia and reiterated that the success of the Anaklia Port hinges on having the worlds largest operator of container terminals SSA Marine from the United States. Following up on last years discussions with US officials about the development of sea and port links, the first High Level Transport Dialogue with the EU was held in January in the hope that it would help facilitate expanded cooperation between the European Union and Georgia. The two sides discussed strategic issues such as the development of the trans-European transport network in the Eastern Partnership countries of which Georgia is a member and the EUs strategy towards linking Europe, the Near East, and Asia through the continued construction of roads, railways, and seaports that are capable of delivering both energy resources and consumer goods, This bilateral strategy, according to the European delegation, remains key due to the fact that Georgias position as a regional player, in terms of road network logistics, grows every year. The Ibex has suffered heavy losses for the second consecutive day. After dropping 1.79% yesterday, the selective fell 0.91% this Friday and has already placed below the 8,900 points (8,856). In the week as a whole, which started above 9,000 integers, it has lost 1.8%. The rest of European stock exchanges have also closed the session in red and prolong the falls they suffered yesterday, as a result of the uncertainty surrounding the Brexit. On the other side of the Atlantic, the situation is not much better, as Wall Street accumulated falls of 1% yesterday and today is on the same path, due to doubts about the negotiations between the United States and China. Larry Kudlow, economic adviser to President Donald Trump, yesterday showed his pessimism about the talks. "There is a considerable distance" before we reach a solution, he told Fox Business. US President Donald Trump said later that he will not meet with Xi Jinping before March 1, as scheduled. This could lead to a hike in tariffs on Chinese products that will be increased from 10% to 25% on that date. In view of all these events, the Asian markets registered their biggest drop in one month this morning. "The Chinese markets are closed for the Chinese New Year and will reopen on Monday, but Hong Kong merchants are returning to their desks and we are beginning to see volumes increase, the reaction we are seeing responses to the fear of deterioration of economic prospects, as well as growing concern about the fragile trade relationship between the United States and China, "said Jasper Lawler, chief strategist at London Capital Group. MORE DIA DIA has announced this Friday a loss of 352m in 2018 against the positive profit of 101.20m in 2017. The company has announced, as part of its Strategic Plan 2018-2023, the dismissal of 2,100 workers in Spain after analyzing their situation and that of its subsidiary. Even so, their shares, totally conditioned by the takeover bid that the company has received this week, have added 0.28% Net debt amounts to 1,452 million compared to 945 million at the end of 2017. The company explained that this increase of 506 million in debt is due to the 259 million worsening of working capital derived from the reduction of the payment term to suppliers. "Our estimate is confirmed that the group would close 2018 with losses, although these have been more bulky than we expected (-31 million euros) and more than what the consensus forecast, which estimated a net attributable profit of +62, 5 million euros ", explain the Bankinter analysts. Within the Ibex, practically all the values have closed in red, with ArcelorMittal (-4.74%) as the most punished, after presenting its results yesterday. It is followed by Grifols, that has yielded 2.93% following a Berenberg report. On the earnings side, only Viscofan (+ 1.86%), Melia Hotels (+ 1.16%), Sabadell (0.23%) and Mapfre (0.17%) were located. In the commodity market, the barrel of Brent crude, a benchmark in Europe, has rebounded 0.42% at the close of the Spanish market, to $ 61.94. For its part, in the currency market, the euro has been changed to $ 1,1326. TECHNICAL ANALYSIS "Although the correction was expected, I must admit that it is being fast, violent, although at the moment it does not change anything." "Jose Maria points out. Rodriguez, analyst at Bolsamania. "We understand that the correction can / should find ground in the area of 8,650 (61.8% retracement) -8,750 points (50%) if we want to leave the door open to the possibility that the next rebound movement brings it closer to the all-important resistance of 9,260 points, "he adds. "In fact, in the last sessions / weeks we have repeated again and again that to think that the Ibex was facing more than a simple rebound it had to break above the November and December highs: the 9.260 The maximums at the end of January were marked at 9,225 points ", concludes the analyst. PR Newswire KENOSHA, Wis., Feb. 8, 2019 KENOSHA, Wis., Feb. 8, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The RoomPlace will hold a grand opening ceremony today to commemorate the newest showroom located in Kenosha, WI at 7014-B Green Bay Road. This location is the first in the Wisconsin market and will be a part of a multi-state expansion for the furniture retailer. The newest storefront marks The RoomPlace's 28th store, with existing locations across Illinois and Indiana, and brings the company's employee total to 750. The store will be the first in Kenosha and will take over the space previous occupied by Sentry Foods. "We are so excited to be entering into Wisconsin and provide the Kenosha market a differentiated retail experience," said Paul Adams, Chief Executive Officer at The RoomPlace. "Not only can we offer the Kenosha community an expanded assortment of name-brand furniture and mattresses, but we are proud to offer a variety of financing options to help make furniture shopping more affordable for everyone." With the opening of this newest location, The RoomPlace will continue its strategic multi-state expansion into new markets, adding new jobs and helping to revitalize underserved areas. "As a family owned company, we take pride in supporting the communities where our employees live and work. This newest store in Kenosha will bring new retail and an additional 25 jobs into the community, for which we are very proud," said Bruce Berman, Chairman of The RoomPlace. For more than 100 years, The RoomPlace has been proudly serving the Illinois, Indiana and now Wisconsin communities with a commitment to creating a shopping experience unlike any other, all while offering excellent services, great selection of quality furniture, name brand mattresses and financing offers that allow customers to "Get It All." For more information about The RoomPlace, visit TheRoomPlace.com. About The RoomPlaceThe RoomPlace is headquartered in Lombard, Illinois and has served Chicago and greater Indianapolis communities since 1912. With 28 stores across Chicago, Indianapolis, and Wisconsin, The RoomPlace allows customers to experience a total-room concept when furniture shopping. Sam Berman founded Harlem Furniture by first selling furniture door-to-door. He then opened and ran a single Harlem Furniture store until 1985, when Harlem Furniture began its expansion. Harlem was changed to "The RoomPlace" to reflect the company's strength in room packaging. Since that time The RoomPlace has continued to open new stores throughout Chicagoland and Indiana. The RoomPlace continues to succeed in Chicago's highly competitive furniture market by offering the value-conscious consumer excellent service and selection at affordable prices. View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-roomplace-celebrates-the-grand-opening-of-28th-store-and-first-in-kenosha-wi-300791516.html SOURCE The RoomPlace Here are the excerpts: Tell us about the history of Juveniles cases in Kashmir. After the uprising in the wake of Burhan Wanis encounter in 2016, the actual functioning of the Juvenile system became more prominent in Public discourse. One reason for this was that a large number of cases involving Juveniles came to be registered as there were protests all over the Valley on large scale. Previously also, during the mass uprising of 2008 and 2010, a number of cases involving Juveniles relating to street protests came to be registered in various Police Stations. However, that time the number was not that high primarily for the reason that up to 2013 children below the age of 16 years were treated as Juveniles, which post 2013 amendment was raised to 18 years. After more and more Juvenile cases came to be registered, the functioning of Juvenile justice system became more and more active. Juvenile homes were established in 2013; Juvenile justice board was established in each district in 2018. What are the things that people outside Kashmir need to know about Juvenile justice in the state? Juvenile Justice Act is sufficient to deal with the person in conflict with the law. But those so-called offenders which mostly form the Juvenile cases in the valley are the result of street protests and the root cause of the same is the dispute which they have inherited from one generation to the other. The problem does not lie with the Juvenile justice system but continued non-settlement of the basic issue which the State of J&K has been facing since 1947. How are Juveniles being treated in Kashmir? In textbooks, he may be Juvenile, but in reality once he gets implicated in a case he is believed to be criminal by the concerned police agency and he is treated as criminal by the system. How does the Public Safety Act (PSA) work in or against the case of a Juvenile? There is no concept of Juvenile in Preventive Detention field as laid down by the Public Safety Act itself. A person who is under the age of 18 Years cannot be detained under PSA provided he is not a foreigner. Hence, Juveniles cannot be detained under PSA. But in reality, it is the police which is the final authority in deciding the age of a person while recommending his detention under PSA. There is no mechanism in place for the detaining authority to verify or determine the age of the person against whom he passes detention order. This is because the person against whom the detaining authority passes order is never produced before the authority for examination before passing the detention order. The detaining authority relies on the material provided by police so wherever the police is interested in detaining a person under PSA they project him as an adult even though he maybe a minor. What is your legal experience in working with Juveniles in Kashmir? As far as the Juveniles in Kashmir are concerned, most of the cases relate to street protests and alleged stone pelting. There are very few cases involving Juveniles involving other crimes like theft, robbery, murder etc. I will share my experience of dealing with Juveniles, many times when I asked these kids why they are protesting, their views are very clear: they are well aware of the Kashmir issue and the betrayal on the part of India. They know everything about the resolutions of UN on J&K issue. Does the mistreatment of the Juvenile have a negative impact on their psyche and attitude? The establishment of a Juvenile Justice System system separate from normal criminal Justice system is based on the consideration that a Juvenile should not undergo the same treatment as under the normal criminal justice system. The mistreatment of his parents when they visit him in the police station and restrictions like not being able to go outside state or country has an adverse impact on their psyche. Their life cycle changes as they have to mark their presence in police stations whenever any VIP has to visit Kashmir and on days like 26 January and 15 August. Do you think that this can be one of the reasons for minor militancy? Well, prudence demands that it should not be ruled out. Do you think they get proper counselling in Juvenile homes? They are not thieves and drug addicts who need counselling. They are there for a cause and due to the current movement. The state has to understand that there is an issue since last three decades and that need to be addressed. What can be done to improve Juvenile justice in Kashmir? Since almost all Juvenile cases in Kashmir arise out of the incidents of street protests, Juvenile Justice System cannot address the same unless the root cause i.e the political issue is addressed. This is not just my observation; history stands testimony to that. As far as the prevailing Juvenile Justice system is concerned, it has improved to a large extent, however, a lot is to be done yet. What I will suggest is that like the Judicial System there must be a separate Police wing meant for dealing with the cases involving Juveniles otherwise the very object of the Juvenile Justice System will be far from realisation. Reporter Aubrey Wieber: aubrey@salemreporter.com or 503-575-1251. Wieber is a reporter for Salem Reporter who works for the Oregon Capital Bureau, a collaboration of EO Media Group, the Pamplin Media Group, and Salem Reporter. By Kashif-ul-Huda, TwoCircles.net Cambridge, MA: With online petitions, phone calls to MITs Presidents Office, and now a letter signed by the faculty members, pressure is mounting on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to disinvite Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy from the MIT India Conference 2019 scheduled to be held here on Sunday, February 16, 2019. Swamy was barred in 2011 from teaching at another Cambridge-based institution, Harvard University, for his Islamophobic views. He has always been in the news for his controversial views on various topics including Muslims, homosexuality, and recently alleging that Priyanka Gandhi has bipolar disorder. MIT Presidents office has been inundated with calls from people concerned about having Subramanian Swamy at MIT means giving him legitimacy. New Jersey-based Mohammad Jawad was one of the callers to MIT. Speaking to TwoCircles.net, Jawad characterised Swamy as one of the most divisive and venom-spreading Indian politicians. Jawad called MIT office to say that he is disappointed that MIT is providing a platform to such a politician who is known for marginalising minorities. Support TwoCircles When TwoCircles.net contacted MIT, the press office didnt have any comment to make but at the Presidents Office acknowledged that they have received a number of calls regarding this issue. They are fully aware of what Mr. Swamy has said in the past and they are looking into the matter. The calls were part of an action alert issued on February 4th by Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC), a US-based advocacy organization. Meanwhile, an online petition on Change.org https://www.change.org/p/mit-president-reif-disinvite-subramanian-swamy-an-islamophobe-and-a-casteist/u/24139218 started on February 1st has already garnered 650 signatures. The petition characterizes Mr. Swamy as an Islamophobic, Homophobic and Casteist political operative from India who has made a career out of demonizing and vilifying marginalised communities especially religious and sexual minorities. The same petition has published an update today which carries a letter signed by nine members of MIT Faculty urging MIT President L. Rafael Reif and Provost Martin A. Schmidt asking them to disinvite Swamy. Vatican City (AsiaNews) While understanding and even at times sharing the perplexity expressed by many over the difficulties that still remain, the provisional China-Holy See agreement, signed last September 22, is of historical significance for the Church in China, states Card. Fernando Filoni, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, in a long interview with the Osservatore Romano, published yesterday and reproduced in full below. The Prefect of Propaganda Fide defends the agreement that will allow the Church in China to keep up with the "supersonic" times with which the Middle Empire moves, offering "spiritual and human values that give solid hope to people's lives and true cohesion to society ". At the same time he often repeats that he understands "the doubts" expressed on the agreement by the members of the underground community who feel "abandoned" and "almost betrayed". "I understand the perplexities; sometimes I share them ", says Card. Filoni, but "only with a superficial spirit or in bad faith could one imagine that Pope Francis and the Holy See would abandon the flock of Christ". The Cardinal, often citing the papal message to the Chinese and universal Church, published on the occasion of the agreement, pushes the two communities, official and underground, to reconciliation and evangelization of the country. With two very important underlining: at a certain point, in front of the underground communitys fear of "disappearing", Card. Filoni states that "The underground status will fade away, but not the people involved. Their faith, their traditions, and their spirituality remain, which are enjoyed by the entire Diocesan community". A second point is when he states that membership in the Patriotic Association (AP) is not mandatory: " I hope, therefore, not to hear or read about local situations in which the Agreement is exploited to compel people to do what is not even required by Chinese law, such as joining the Patriotic Association.". In reality, since the signing of the agreement, members of the United Front and the PA force and indoctrinate bishops, priests and underground faithful to join the PA, "because the Pope is with us". The interview does not deal with the question of belonging to the PA, whose statutes are - according to Benedict XVI - "incompatible" with Catholic doctrine. But the cardinal states that while the Church says no says no to a patriotism that would signify egoism, close-mindedness or control, it says says yes to a love of country meaning respect for ones roots, knowledge of the culture, protection of the common good, and the faithfulness of institutions towards its own Citizens. In the text there is never the word "persecution", but at a certain point when addressing what is holding back the proclamation of the Gospel mention is made of the "lack of true freedom" and "the temptations of comfort", perhaps referring to those that Benedict XVI defined as "opportunist" bishops. (BC) On the Catholic Church in China Cardinal Fernando Filoni, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, has followed the delicate and complex journey of the Catholic Church in China since 1992, the year of his arrival in Hong Kong. In those years a diplomatic thaw began between the Peoples Republic of China and the Holy See, when initial contacts were made between representatives of the Secretariat of State and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing. 1) Q. Your Eminence, for several years now you have led the Dicastery of the Holy See responsible for evangelization, with particular reference to the so-called mission territories. What do you see as the pastoral significance of the Provisional Agreement on the Appointment of Bishops signed by the Holy See and the Chinese Government on 22 September 2018? A. Since the Dicastery that I oversee has a particular responsibility for accompanying the Church in China, I feel particularly called upon to speak about the pastoral significance of the Provisional Agreement. But I think Pope Francis said it best when, in his Message to the Catholics of China last September, he wrote: the Provisional Agreement [] is the result of a lengthy and complex institutional dialogue between the Holy See and the Chinese authorities initiated by Saint John Paul II and continued by Pope Benedict XVI. Through this process, the Holy See has desired and continues to desire only to attain the Churchs specific spiritual and pastoral aims, namely, to support and advance the preaching of the Gospel, and to reestablish and preserve the full and visible unity of the Catholic community in China (2). Furthermore, The Provisional Agreement signed with the Chinese authorities, while limited to certain aspects of the Churchs life and necessarily capable of improvement, can contribute for its part to writing this new chapter of the Catholic Church in China. For the first time, the Agreement sets out stable elements of cooperation between the state authorities and the Apostolic See, in the hope of providing the Catholic community with good shepherds (5). Ultimately, while sharing some of the concerns expressed by many parties because of the difficulties that still remain and of those that may arise on the journey, I feel that within the Catholic Church in China there is a great expectation of reconciliation, unity, and renewal for a more decisive revival of the work of evangelization. We cannot stay still in a world that, from many perspectives, is running at a supersonic pace, yet, at the same time, experiences the urgent need to rediscover the spiritual and human values that give firm hope to peoples lives and create a more cohesive society. In a word, this is what Christianity can offer to present-day China. I should add that in receiving much correspondence from Chinese clergy, as well meeting bishops, priests, religious women, and the laity, I have always observed their desire that the Church in China might return to a sense of normality within the Catholic Church. 2) Q. Your Eminence, you quoted the Message of Pope Francis to the Catholics of China and to the Universal Church of 26 September 2018. What differences or similarities are there between this Message and the Letter of Pope Benedict XVI to the Catholics of China of 27 May 2007? And what has changed in the meantime? A. - Well, in the Letter of Pope Benedict XVI, which you appropriately mentioned, in addition to many other valuable teachings, two essential things are affirmed. The first is that the underground situation is justified in so far as the protection of life and the defense of the faith in adverse circumstances require it; for example, when attempts are made to impose ideologies that are not reconcilable with conscience and Catholic doctrine. The second is that in difficult and complex situations, decisions and choices can only be made to the extent that they do not diminish the capacity for pastoral discernment, which is the responsibility of the Bishop in view of the greater good of the diocesan community. In the Letter of Benedict XVI there is already the insight that history proceeds and evolves, and that, within the changing historical contexts in which individuals and groups interact amongst themselves, the organization of thought, the elaboration of concepts, and the interpretation of social formulations, which are at the basis of our life, also develop. Perhaps what the Message of Pope Francis adds to this still valid teaching of Benedict XVI is the attention to the healing of memory in order to move on. This is a view decisively directed to the future in order to inspire a pastoral vision for the Church in China. Obviously, none of this can be realized without the heartfelt unity of the Bishops and the full involvement of Chinese Catholics on the one hand, and the trust of the civil Authorities on the other, which is also carried out in dialogue with the Apostolic See. In order to arrive at this, precisely for the sake of supporting and promoting the preaching of the Gospel in China and reestablishing full and visible unity in the Church, it was essential, before all else, to deal with the issue of the appointment of bishops (3). Many things can be said about the Provisional Agreement on the Appointment of Bishops signed last September, but one cannot deny its historical significance for the Church in China. In light of the Agreement that recognizes the specific role of the Pope, the so-called principle of independence now needs to be reinterpreted in view of the relationship between the legitimate pastoral autonomy of the Church in China and the indispensable communion with the Successor of Peter. I hope, therefore, not to hear or read about local situations in which the Agreement is exploited to compel people to do what is not even required by Chinese law, such as joining the Patriotic Association. In fact, the Church says no to a patriotism that would signify egoism, close-mindedness or control, and says yes to a love of country meaning respect for ones roots, knowledge of the culture, protection of the common good, and the faithfulness of institutions towards its own citizens. We are working concretely and respectfully with the Chinese Authorities, and we are hopeful about what will take place from this point on and the good that may develop with Gods help and the contribution of everyone. 3) Q. Your Eminence, someone wrote that entrusting the Dioceses to previously excommunicated official Bishops will deprive the so-called underground communities in China of their Shepherds and force them to submit and adapt themselves to ideas, rules, and impositions that they cannot accept in conscience. Whereas others say that the fate of underground Catholics will be that they are absorbed into the official Community and disappear. What do you think about this? A. In Chinese culture, there is a love of employing images. I will try to offer a descriptive one, as I see it. The Church was born in China from a unique evangelization; a source of fresh water flowed and clearly left its mark. Then, because of historic events, it was as if a large boulder fell from a mountain and stopped the flow of water; one part of the water flowed underground, while the other part continued to twist and turn on the surface. In these past twenty-five to thirty years, we have begun to speak of a journey that could help us rediscover the unity of the two currents. Work has been done, prayers have been offered and there have been many initiatives and gestures that have contributed up to now, with various ups and downs, to promoting this unity. It was not easy and it is still not easy. The years of conflict and misunderstandings cannot be ignored. There is above-all the need to rebuild trust, perhaps the most difficult aspect, toward ecclesiastical and civil authorities entrusted with religious matters, as well as between the socalled official and unofficial Ecclesial currents. It is not about establishing who wins or who loses, who is right or wrong. In the sixty years since the creation of the Patriotic Association, everyone, in perhaps an unequal and dramatic way, has suffered, both in a physical and moral sense. Nor can we ignore the interior anguish of those who had adhered to or had been bound by the principle of independence and therefore brought about a rupturing of relations with the Apostolic See. How many times, when I was in Hong Kong, did I listen to clergy who spoke to me about their sufferings. It was in order to deal with such situations that John Paul II, after careful consideration, welcomed the cries of those who were seeking mercy and asking for their canonical recognition as Bishops in the Catholic Church. The Holy Sees position was different with regard to priests, towards whom the principle that the People of God have a right to the Sacraments prevailed. There was no talk of the illegitimacy of priests, but it was always recommended that ordinations be carried out by legitimate or legitimized Bishops. I realize that someone could think that, in this phase, the Apostolic See seems to be asking for a unilateral sacrifice, that is, only from the members of the underground community, who should, one might say, be made official, while nothing is requested of the official members. The issue should not be put in these terms; in fact, it is not about the underground surrendering to the official or to the civil authorities, regardless of the appearance, nor of a victory over the non-official community. From a more ecclesial perspective, we cannot speak about competition or who is right, but of brothers and sisters in the faith, who all find themselves in a common House. What the Holy See has strived to do for thirty years has been to foster reconciliation between the two communities by rediscovering and reinvigorating their properly Christian and Catholic identity through a common journey toward a greater realization of what it means to be Christs Church in China today. In the Holy Sees view, it has always been held that in China there are not two Churches, a patriotic Church and a faithful Church (as used in common parlance). In China the Church is one, and the wounds that were inflicted upon her come both from within and without. The sensus fidei of the People of God has saved the Church in China from schism. In the current context, we can say that efforts have been made to alleviate the sufferings. It is a challenging task and will require everyones contribution to achieve it fully. I continue to be struck by some of the recent expressions of Bishop Wei Jingyi (a Bishop not recognized by the civil authorities until now). He said in an interview: We must use concrete actions to heal the wounds that have for many years injured and divided the Mystical Body of Christ, which is the Church. He then added, No one is lost or abandoned on the Churchs journey. We all walk, hand in hand, with Mary. [] We also see that the many sufferings along the way have not been in vain. This journey will require some concessions and sacrifices from everyone, as well as the adoption of new and concrete responsibilities, as Pope Francis requests of all Christians without distinction. There is now the need for gestures of reconciliation and of communion in truth and trusting that the Holy Spirit accompanies the Church and does not abandon her. 4) Q. May we return to the initial question? A. Yes, since it is of the utmost importance to provide an answer. That is, what would be the fate of the so-called underground community? This is a question that is particularly close to the heart of the Holy See. I would like to be clear: first, there are only two Dioceses that have seen changes in their leadership thus far (Mindong and Shantou). The aim needs to be unity, which I hope is not only a formal unity, but also a real unity, yet without being forced. The underground status will fade away, but not the people involved. Their faith, their traditions, and their spirituality remain, which are enjoyed by the entire Diocesan community. The same Bishops will wisely take care of and be responsible for such a soul. They will do this as diocesan Bishops of the entire people of God, without giving preference to one or another community base d upon its origin. I understand that in the Diocese of Mindong they are working for unity. I hope that the local civil authorities will understand the need to act gradually, without forcing the matter. As the aforementioned Bishop Wei Jingyi wisely states, all (both the civil and ecclesiastical authorities, inside and outside of China) need to be psychologically prepared [] and walk step by step towards reconciliation with joy and gratitude. This is what our faith asks us to do. It is necessary to have a spirit of welcome, moderation, ecclesial inclusivity, and forgiveness in order not to lose the authentic and transcendent dimension of the life of the Church. This primarily involves the Bishops since, as Pope Francis stated, We are in great need of Pastors who embrace life with the vastness of Gods heart, who do not yield to earthly satisfactions, []; Pastors who are heralds of the Almighty, free from the temptation of staying under the radar, free from the restrictive measures of a lukewarm and habitual life; Pastors who are poor, not attached to money and luxury; in the midst of poor, suffering people, and consistent proclaimers of Paschal hope (Address of His Holiness Pope Francis to the Synod Assembly of the Greek-Melkite Catholic Church, 12 February 2018). I repeat that we must not see this phase in terms of winners and losers. It would be mistaken and misleading! Look, putting things into perspective, without deceiving myself that this will happen in an automatic or easy way, nor ignoring the difficulties that will always be there, I see, it seems to me, a Church more united, more aware, more prepared, and more attentive to the world that she is called to serve by witnessing to the Gospel. I would also like to see a Church more in harmony with the times in which she lives, as well as freer and in a Country that wisely continues to update itself. In his Message, Pope Francis also spoke of the prophetic and constructive contribution, drawn from Gods plan for human life, that Chinese Catholics must know how to offer: this may also require of them the effort to offer a word of criticism, not out of sterile opposition, but for the sake of building a society that is more just, humane and respectful of the dignity of each person (6). 5) Q. Your Eminence, in China there are Catholics that, after having suffered greatly by remaining faithful to the Supreme Pontiff, now feel confused and, above all, experience the bitter sensation of having been practically betrayed and abandoned by the Holy See. What would you like to say to them? A. - To the Catholics who have witnessed to the faith, first of all, I would like to call to mind the consolation of Jesus who says: Well done, my good and faithful servant [] enter into your masters joy (Mt 25:23); this consolation is invaluable, it has no price! It is the most beautiful consolation that one can hear the Master say. In any case, on behalf of both the Holy See and myself personally, I would like to express sentiments of heartfelt thanks and admiration for your faithfulness and perseverance in trial and for your trust in Divine Providence even in the midst of difficulties and adversities. Many, over the course of these years, have been true martyrs or confessors of the faith! Only with a superficial spirit or in bad faith could one imagine that Pope Francis and the Holy See would abandon the flock of Christ, wherever or in whatever condition it finds itself in the world. Therefore, we must continue to work to improve the perception of the faithful, who are often influenced by media messages that are not altogether correct or balanced and find it difficult to understand the due discretion that surrounded the dialogue between the Holy See and the Peoples Republic of China. Greater respect is needed toward these brothers and sisters; nobody should take advantage of their situation. Nevertheless, I understand the doubts, I understand the perplexity, and at times, I even share them. However, I do not share the attitude of those who, while having their legitimate reservations, not only do not strive to understand others views, but most importantly run the risk of rowing out of sync within the ship of Peter. The Pope, together with his coworkers, has done, is doing, and will do all that is possible to be close to the Church in China. Our methods are not infallible, but we truly love the Church and the Chinese people. Work has been ongoing for many years and all of the circumstances are being studied. How many prayers have been offered in order to provide comfort with spiritual tenderness, to illuminate with the word of God, to encourage by means of stable guidance, and also to find solutions on the diplomatic level! I invite all possible collaborators to bring these sentiments and words to those who need them and feel abandoned. For the rest, what the Psalmist proclaimed will always remain true: He who sows in tears will reap in joy (Ps 126:5). 6) Q. Your Eminence, what are the plans for the Catholic Church in China? As you see it, what is the future of Christianity in that Country? A. I would distinguish between two aspects. About the first, the plan for the Church in China, I would say that she must seek to be even more aligned with the essence of the Church, always growing in the direction of faith, hope and charity, constantly working for the youth, new vocations, ecumenism and interreligious dialogue, the formation of clergy and remaining attentive to the needs of those who remain on the margins and are in need of growth. Additionally , she must work to discover and give shape to how this is done, adapting her means and methods, which is especially incumbent upon all Chinese Catholics. Even if the Church in China is still onlya small flock, the way forward is one of faithfulness which accompanies the sower who sows the good seed in the field: Fear not, little flock, for it is your Fathers good pleasure to give you the kingdom (Lk 12:32). The plan, therefore, is that which Jesus entrusts to the apostles: Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven (Mt 5:16). In all this, then, a more profound view of the Documents of the Second Vatican Council and the Papal Magisterium that applied it and enriched it until the present day would certainly help. Regarding the second aspect, that is the future of Christianity in China, even though one may be pessimistic, I would say that the history of the Church in China speaks for itself. Here I would call to mind Xu Guangqi (Mandarin, appointed Minister of Rites of the Imperial Court at the time of Matteo Ricci), who described the richness of Gospel values and their divine origin to the emperor, who questioned him about becoming Christian. A faith that proclaims the forgiveness of ones enemies must have this divine origin. I am, therefore, realistically confident in the proclamation of the Gospel. I hold that only the lack of a true freedom and the temptation of comfort can suffocate a good part of that seed sown many centuries ago. In any case, the present situation charges us with the responsibility of proclaiming the Gospel and overcoming the temptations of our difficult times. 7) Q. Your Eminence, are there any particular wishes that you would like to extend, in this context, to the Catholics living in China and to the Chinese Catholics, who for various reasons of work or life circumstances are spread throughout the world. A. Yes. It is the Lord who guides history. Therefore, I would hope that, first of all, in dealing with any possible dilemmas, they would know always how to see the other with trust, even if some aspects of the current situation are perceived as injustices and with difficulty. I repeat, none should see an enemy in a reconciled brother, but rather a brother in whom to rejoice. The Lord has overwhelmed us with his forgiveness. As we know, the Chinese like images. To complete my thought, I would like to give them yet another one: In order to give stability to a tripod, three supports are needed. A tripod, in fact, does not rest upon two legs, that is, on the arrangement between the Holy See and the Chinese government. There needs to be a third support, namely the participation and the contribution of the faithful in China, as well as that of the Catholic community in the diaspora. Only with the contribution of all can the Church of tomorrow be built up, while respecting freedoms, also on the part of the civil Authorities, after sixty years of suffering, division, and misunderstandings within the Catholic community. The Church, therefore, needs the free and fruitful participation of all in order to construct civil, social, and religious harmony, as well as for the proclamation of the Gospel. God needs the Catholic Community in China! Never let us allow this opportunity to be taken from us, as Pope Francis might say in one of his happy expressions from Evangelii Gaudium. ___________________ SIGN UP TO GET BLACKLISTED NEWS DELIVERED RIGHT TO YOUR INBOX Enter your email address: South Africans are among the most at risk for exposure to negative behaviour online according to Microsoft's 2019 Digital Civility Index (DCI) which was released. in line with Safer Internet Day on 5 February 2019. Millennials experienced the most risks Risks were harder on girls than boys Introducing the Council for Digital Good The annual study examines the online behaviour of internet users in 22 countries and its release coincides with international Safer Internet Day (5 February); a call to action for all stakeholders to join together in creating a better internet for everyone especially younger users.It gauges the attitudes and perceptions of teens between 13 and 17 and adults between 18 and 74, about the state of digital civility today and also measures peoples safety online and exposure to risks such as cyberbullying, unwanted contact and harassment as well as exposure to hoaxes and scams.This year South Africa ranked 21st out of 22 countries surveyed for exposure to online risks.South Africans in general were found to suffer significant pain from online risks, with the most common hazards being unwanted contact from sources attempting to collect personal information, internet hoaxes and fake news, bullying and offensive name-calling and receiving unwanted sexual imagery all of which were more prevalent in South Africa than the rest of the world, says Kethan Parbhoo, Chief Marketing and Operations Office at Microsoft South Africa.South African millennials and teenagers particularly teenage girls are most affected by online risks such as receiving offensive or obscene content, internet hoaxes and fake news, and bullying and offensive name-calling.South African teenage girls suffer more than their global peers, with 68% reporting moderate to severe pain from online risks compared to 61% in the rest of the world. There has, however, been an increase in South African teens asking for help: 54% say they will ask a parent for help as opposed to 42% globally, while 37% will approach another adult for assistance compared to the global average of 28%.Globally, 73% of millennials reported having been exposed to online risk. They also reported the highest levels of stress, pain, loss of online trust, sleep deprivation and depression as a result of online risk exposure compared to other age groups.In contrast, millennials self-identified as the most confident of all age groups in their ability to handle risks, however, 60% of millennials admitted they were unsure where to find help should they be exposed to online risk.The level of risk exposure and their follow-on consequences was higher for girls than boys, the global study found. Pain from risks was also stronger and sustained longer for girls, and incidents were more emotionally burdensome when compared to boys.Though girls reported less confidence in dealing with risks, they took more mitigating actions following them, including blocking or unfriending the perpetrator, reducing their amount of information shared online, and using tighter privacy settings on social media.Sixty-two percent of girls reported that gender was the reason they were targeted, compared to 39% for boys. The gap was highest for sexual and personal/intrusive risks.There was also a higher incidence of South Africans being called offensive names, with 56% having experienced this as opposed to 51% globally.Perhaps the biggest risk that emerged, though, was receiving unwanted and unsolicited sexual images or messages. Seventy-eight percent of South Africans have been sent these types of images or messages, which is markedly higher than the 67% global average.Interestingly, these risks do not just emanate from strangers with 30% of South African internet users facing risks from family and friends. This was an increase of nine percent in just a year.South Africa experienced more consequences from risks, but showed mixed results in taking positive action, says Parbhoo. Over half of South Africans surveyed (55%) became less trusting of people online, and 34% said they were less likely to participate in social media, blogs and online forums.In January 2017, Microsoft launched its inaugural Council for Digital Good, a pilot programme where young people and their parents can engage in fruitful discussions with Microsoft and other industry experts, nongovernmental organisations and policymakers.The longer-term vision was to assemble young people from various regions to create local and regional councils of Digital Civility Ambassadors to help raise awareness of digital safety and to offer insights to stakeholders from young people in each region.Microsoft launched its African Council for Digital Good, as well as an Arab Council for Digital Good. After receiving more than 750 applications from across the Middle East and Africa, 23 candidates were chosen to become ambassadors of digital civility for their region.The members of each council along with their parents will come together for the first time at the African Council Summit on 23 and 24 February in Johannesburg, and at the Arab Council Summit on 2 and 3 March in Cairo. Here, Microsoft will look to build their capacity and raise their awareness around topics relating to digital civility and internet safety, to better equip them to be ambassadors themselves.Following the event, monthly virtual calls and webinars will be scheduled to provide council members with further knowledge on the topic, as well as suggest activities and events that they can run in their schools and communities.Download findings of the localised Digital Civility Survey Primedia Broadcasting, the operating company for four of South Africa's premier radio stations, 702, 947, CapeTalk and Kfm, is the first South African broadcast media company to effectively use the Amazon Alexa as part of bringing the future of radio to listeners. Eric DOliveira Amazons Alexa-controlled Echo speaker, continues to expand its music, smart-home, and digital-assistant abilities. Its a voice assistant but capable of much more. Using nothing but the sound of your voice, you can play music, search the Web, create to-do and shopping lists, shop online, get instant weather reports, and control popular smart-home productsall while your smartphone stays in your pocket.The Amazon Echo and other smart speakers are changing the way consumers digest media and ask Google questions. Primedia Broadcasting places significant emphasis in growing digital capabilities and continue looking at the future of how radio will be consumed.It is with this in mind that the media company has invested research and digital design time to develop appropriate tech (Alexa Skills) so that South Africans (and interested international users) using Amazon Echo speakers can now sample podcasts and live audio from the radio in real time.CapeTalk:947:Kfm:702:Alexa has flash briefings - a short-format audio roundup which is a new frontier in the realm of voice search and streaming. Alexa Flash Briefing also allows the user to pick and choose what they want to hear about, whether its news, pop culture, weather, sports, technology, social media information, or more.Tech forecasters predict that consuming news and information via Flash Briefing will be one of the primary ways people will receive information.Primedia Broadcastings news arm Eyewitness News (EWN) - EWN is currently the only South African news service available via an Alexa Flash Briefing:Allan Kent and Karl Gostner, the team at Primedia Broadcasting, who pioneered the project share their thoughts: Technology shifts have had a significant effect on consumer behaviour. Time spent listening has been limited with the influx of streaming services - quite simply audiences are spoilt for choice with what to choose and how to listen to audio. Amazon Alexa and the Echo represent a new class of audio devices that are reclaiming a position of prominence in the home and car. Audiences are forming new habits and as a broadcast business we can benefit from the changes in user behaviour prompted by these new voice interactive audio devices. Consumers now ask for the weather from Alexa instead of checking their mobile phone. They get news headlines from Alexa while making coffee instead of from their tablet. They are asking Alexa to play music. We want to see consumers asking Alexa to start up their favourite local radio station from the Primedia Broadcasting stable.Radios big challenge is finding its way in this new digital world. This thinking is at the forefront of everything we do. Primedia Broadcasting continues to lead the evolution of radio in South Africa. First through its creation of some of South Africas biggest mass participation events, then through launching EWN that has grown to be one of the countrys leading news services to innovations in digital content and podcasts. This is the next phase in our commitment to championing modernization in this sector, said Eric DOliveira, Chief Executive Officer, Primedia Broadcasting.For more information on Primedia Broadcasting visit: www.primediabroadcasting.co.za Maharashtra has been operating the biggest public healthcare scheme in India since the year 2012 under which 2.25 crore families have been covered. India is called as the pharmacy of the world with every 3rd tablet sold in the world is by an Indian manufacturer and every 5th patient treated by an Indian doctor. However it is also ironic that it is only 40 percent of the Indian population who has access to basic healthcare facilities. This is all set to change now with the launch of Ayushman Bharat- Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana, stated Ms Malti Jaswal, Sr Consultant, World Bank at the CII Healthcare, Pharma and Medtech Conclave 2019- Making Healthcare Accessible Affordable and Sustainable at Mumbai. Ms Jaswal mentioned that under the scheme, primary health centers from the most rural areas in the country would be converted to health and wellness centers (HWC) which would be well equipped for universally screening of common non communicable diseases such as diabetes, hypertension and three common cancers. The idea is set up 150, 000 HWC by December 2022. Almost 10 lakh people have already benefitted under the scheme since its launch and Rs 1456 crores have been spent, she informed. In the first year, the scheme is expected to generate a demand for 43000 additional hospital beds and 5000 more doctors. The scheme is believed to result in 1.7 crore hospitalizations in the first year. Out of the total spending almost 40 percent or Rs 5260 crore would go to the public sector hospitals and Rs 7250 crore or 60 percent would go to the private sector, she added. Maharashtra has been operating the biggest public healthcare scheme in India since the year 2012 under which 2.25 crore families have been covered. Nearly 90 percent of the families with ration card have been covered under the scheme whereby an insurance cover of Rs 1.5 lakh is offered to the families. The government pays an insurance premium of almost Rs 2000 crore in premium. The entitlement under the scheme is based on the colour of ration card, Dr Sudhakar Shinde,CEO of Jeevan Dayee Yojana Maharashtra explained. There are three ration card schemes like yellow, orange and white based on their income limit. According to Dr Shinde, almost 22 lakh Indians have been benefitted under the scheme. For every Rs 100 of amount claimed, nearly Rs 96-97 is disbursed. 90 percent of all the claims are paid within just 10 days of it getting posted on our website, He added that the scheme has been extended to 2 lakh additional families last year. UK has a well-developed healthcare ecosystem and has been collaborating with the government of India in the Healthcare space. Realizing the potential of artificial intelligence in the field of healthcare, both the prime ministers of UK and India did have collaborative agreements in the month of April 2018 for best solutions in primary healthcare which are a priority for the government of India, Mr Crispin Simon, British Deputy High Commissioner Western India, Her Majesty's Trade Commissioner South Asia said. Joy Chakraborty, Chairman- CII WR Healthcare, Pharma and Medtech Conclave and Expo 2019 and Chairman CII WR taskforce on Healthcare emphasized that an unprecedented regulatory framework has been developed in the healthcare sector in the last two years in the country. Government programs like the Ayushman Bharat would be a game changer with even the underprivileged getting access to quality healthcare. Due to these programs, there would be a demand for at least one million doctors and 2.5 million medical workers by the year 2025, he added. Sudarshan Jain, Former MD, Abbott Healthcare and senior Advisor, APAX Partners explains that in India there is too much focus on the cost rather than value driven. There is too much focus on the affordability. This does not help in creating infrastructure. There are five S that is very important to develop the healthcare sector. They are Supply driven model, Stability, Scaling up of operation, Sustainability and Synergy. King Abdullah Port, Saudi Arabia's first fully privately owned, developed and operated port, for the second consecutive year will extend its support to Breakbulk Middle East 2019, to be held next week in Dubai, UAE. The port is located in King Abdullah Economic City, near Jeddah. The two-day conference and exhibition will take place on February 11 and 12, at the Dubai World Trade Centre. For the first time, the upcoming fourth annual edition will be held under the patronage of Dr Abdullah Belhaif Al Nuaimi, the UAE Minister of Infrastructure Development and the chairman of Federal Transport Authority for Land and Maritime, a remarkable feat which aligns with the events aim to further solidify its stance as the leading GCC event for the project cargo and breakbulk industry. The event will tackle topics to aid project cargo specialists in seizing regional opportunities and constructing effective project plans. Furthermore, the expo will play a crucial role in enhancing maritime and all related industry sectors as global leaders and top-level experts will gather to discuss existing issues and potential solutions. Rayan Qutub, chief executive officer, King Abdullah Port, said: The maritime and shipping industries account for 90 per cent of the entire global trade market, which makes Breakbulk Middle East crucial to our regions continued development. The port has proved particularly successful in attracting a larger portion of the breakbulk sector of the industry, which provides us with further opportunity to grow and solidifies our global maritime competitiveness. We are estimating a further 15 per cent increase in future volume, particularly involving steel, timber and cement cargo, and our partnership with specialist port operators and steel handlers AMSteel has already seen us increase our one-day cargo record to an impressive 27,000 tonnes, he said. Qutub continued: The efficiency of our port has also helped create an extremely vibrant hub which has stimulated export rates in Saudi Arabia. This is already making a positive impact on our national economy and will continue to do so for many decades ahead. We take great pride in our current global standing, which compliments the kingdom's many achievements and recognizes the port's outstanding location. This makes the port capable of attracting an even larger portion of the global maritime transportation industry as we develop further, added. Our continuing success in increasing the annual volume of sea freight aligns perfectly with the ambitious objectives of Saudi Vision 2030 and highlights the ports worth in acting as a catalyst for the countrys economic diversification, Qutub concluded. Ben Blamire, commercial Director, Breakbulk Middle East, said: Our event is known for being the go-to event for breakbulk and project cargo. Our aim is to continue that trend while diversifying to help boost the regional economy. The strategic location of the UAE and GCC ports being at the heart of Gulf has enabled these markets to acquire a largest share of total container and cargo movement in the region, and our intent is to help increase their shares even further. Having the support of a regional key player such as King Abdullah Port is an honour which enables industry growth by attracting more attention to Breakbulk Middle East and by extension more investment into the region, he said. Given that the outlook for the coming five years in terms of gross domestic product development and the growth of imports and exports is considerably better than it was during the 2012-2016 period, its the time to capitalize on this positive projection. The UAE seems to be aware of this matter as they have been a key player in driving offshore investment in the Middle East region, securing an approximate $66 billion in regional maritime sector investments. Leslie Meredith, marketing director, Breabulk Events & Media, said: The breakbulk industry is undoubtedly benefitting from the global recovery and enjoying an uptick in volumes. In the meantime, we encourage the rest of the maritime sector to strike while the iron is hot and register for Breakbulk Middle East as it acts as an essential platform to facilitate necessary discussions and connect key decision makers. With King Abdullah Port being among the unique participants who have offered rave reviews regarding our event, we are confident in the quality we are providing to the industry and the entire value chain, Meredith added. TradeArabia News Service Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Chairperson and Managing Director, Biocon Ltd has been elected as a member of the prestigious U.S.-based National Academy of Engineering (NAE) for her contribution to the development of affordable biopharmaceuticals and the biotechnology industry in India. She is the first woman from India to get this prestigious global honour. Election to the NAE is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer. Academy membership honors those who have made outstanding contributions to engineering research, practice, or education, and to the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of engineering, or developing/implementing innovative approaches to engineering education. The NAE elected 86 new members and 18 foreign members to its 2019 class. Individuals in the newly elected class will be formally inducted during a ceremony at the NAE's annual meeting in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 6, 2019. Commenting on her election, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw said: This is a huge honour. I am humbled to be elected to an institution that provides the leadership and expertise for numerous projects focused on the relationships between engineering, technology, and the quality of life. Science and Technology are fundamental to solving some of the biggest challenges facing the world today and the NAE is playing a pivotal role in encouraging the kind of research and innovation that can make a global impact by pushing the boundaries of science and engineering. Mazumdar-Shaw is a well-regarded global influencer and has been named among TIME magazines 100 most influential people in the world. Her pioneering efforts in biotechnology have drawn global recognition for both the Indian industry and Biocon, Asias premier biopharmaceutical company. She was elected full-term member of the Board of Trustees of the MIT, U.S. in 2018. She has been given the AWSM Award for Excellence in 2017 by the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research and the Chemical Heritage Foundation conferred her with the Othmer Gold Medal in 2014. She has received the highest French distinction, Knight of the Legion of Honour, in 2016 and the Global Economy Prize for Business in 2014 from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, Germany, for her outstanding contribution and dedication to the biosciences and research field globally. She is the proud recipient of Indias two highest civilian honours - Padma Shri in 1989 and Padma Bhushan in 2005. She has featured in the Forbes list of Worlds 100 Most Powerful Women; Scientific Americans The Worldview 100 List of most influential visionaries; and Fortunes Top 25 Most Powerful Women in Asia-Pacific. She was ranked No. 1 in the Business Captains category in the Medicine Maker Power List 2018, an index of the 100 most influential people across the globe in the field of medicine. The Finance Minister announced that a National Artificial Intelligence Portal will be developed soon as a part of the National Programme on 'Artificial Intelligence'. Interim Budget 2019-20 has been presented in the Parliament by the Union Minister for Finance, Corporate Affairs, Railways & Coal, Piyush Goyal. He said through the worlds largest healthcare programme, Ayushman Bharat, to provide medical treatment to nearly 50 crore people in the country, around 10 lakh patients have already benefited through free treatment for medical treatment which would have otherwise cost them Rs. 3,000 crore. Lakhs of poor and middle class people are also benefiting from reduction in the prices of essential medicines, cardiac stents and knee implants, and availability of medicines at affordable prices through Pradhan Mantri Jan Aushadhi Kendras, the Finance Minister added. Goyal also said that 14 of the 21 AIIMS operating or being established in the country presently have been announced since 2014. He also announced setting up of a new - the 22nd AIIMS in Haryana. The Finance Minister announced that a National Artificial Intelligence Portal will also be developed soon as a part of the National Programme on 'Artificial Intelligence'. The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion will now be renamed as the Department for Promotion of Industries and Internal Trade. Industry reacts to the Interim Budget 2019- An 'election year' Budget that expectedly has something for everyone, from farmers to traders, workers in unorganized sector to the salaried middle class. The income tax relief will boost urban demand and the assured income support program for small farmers will lead to revival in rural consumption, both of which augur well for overall economic revival. The pension scheme for the unorganized sector workers is a welcome move as it will provide a social security net for nearly 10 crore Indians and will bring them under a registered jobs database. The government also did well to balance the populist tone of the Budget by signalling its commitment to stick to the road of fiscal discipline. It was however disappointing to see the absence of any additional allocation for healthcare or incentives for Science & Technology. For the startups sector, Angel tax holiday for 10 years was expected but it did not happen. Kiran Mazumdar- Shaw, CMD, Biocon The interim budget threw light on the Governments dedication to a healthy India with a distress-free healthcare system. The budget mentioned the Governments aim to bridge the urban rural divide and provide benefits that people in a city have to those staying in villages. Healthcare should be a critical component of these efforts. We must not lose this opportunity to address the urban-rural imbalance in health infrastructure and ensure specific policies to encourage private sector to invest in the same. The announcement of a National Centre on Artificial Intelligence is also a big positive. AI today has great potential in transforming and designing new tools which will equip doctors in the fight against non-communicable diseases. At Apollo, we have already taken the first step with an Intelligent Platform designed to predict cardiovascular disease risk score for Indians. Sangita Reddy, Joint Managing Director, Apollo Hospitals Group The Union Budget 2019 speech this morning clearly spelled out the Central Government's scale-up in healthcare initiatives over the past few years. This is encouraging as this focus helps augment and strengthen health access across India. While establishing access through healthcare infrastructures like hospitals and medical colleges is great, focused and planned expenditure on improving participation from the public in preventive healthcare at these hospitals through awareness programmes is important. With the announcement of ambitious projects like Ayushman Bharat last year, expectations were high for the 2019 Budgetary recommendations on healthcare. Some inclusions on outpatient care and diagnostics would have been great. We would have liked to see in this Budget a roadmap for healthcare development programmes announced last year to be implemented seamlessly across the country. Dr Shravan Subramanyam, Managing Director, India and Neighbouring Markets, Roche Diagnostics India Now that the Interim Budget is announced, people of the country will look forward to how best the policies are implemented. In terms of healthcare, the citizens of India, will look forward to even better facilities and more infrastructural developments in deeper pockets and hinterlands. Upgrading the national health mechanism should always be a primary agenda for any government to come. We can see significant measures to help poor and marginal population of our country in this interim budget. Dr. Alok Roy, Chairman Medica Group of Hospitals We welcome the Central Governments announcement to open the 22nd All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Haryana. A world-class medical facility like AIIMS in Haryana will further the cause of providing comprehensive healthcare to all in the state. In November 2018, it was announced that Ayurveda departments will be opened in all the new 19 AIIMS, such initiative will further the governments mission of Ayurveda for Public Health. A few months ago, the Ministry of AYUSH took the pioneering step of publishing the guidelines for insurance coverage to Ayurvedic treatment and settlement of claims on the basis of benchmark rates for various interventions. Following this the Insurance Regulatory Development Authority (IRDA) issued clarifications to general and health insurance companies and Third Party Administrators (TPAs) to provide coverage to Ayurveda and other systems of medicines under AYUSH. We hope in coming years Ayurvedic treatment will also be covered under Ayushman Bharat, the worlds largest healthcare programme. Dr Partap Chauhan, Director, Jiva Ayurveda While it is good that they were able to find funds for the defense sector, there was nothing pathbreaking for the healthcare. In fact, the gap between the rich and the poor only seems to be getting wider.'' In fact, not just for healthcare, there should have been more resources for dealing with rising unemployment, quality of education and rural poor. All the three -- health, education and unemployment -- are linked, but instead of creating new opportunities that generate employment, the focus seems to have been on doling out freebies such as those for farmers and on LPG connections. Dr. BS Ajaikumar, Chairman and CEO, Healthcare Global Enterprises Ltd. Read More Media Advisory, February 7, 2019 Contact: Roger Peet, (503) 753-7027, toosphexy@gmail.com Laiken Jordahl, (928) 525-4433, ljordahl@biologicaldiversity.org Endangered Species Mural to Be Celebrated Feb. 11 in Yuma Sonoran Desert Species Featured in National Project YUMA, Ariz. The Center for Biological Diversity and Arizona Western College will celebrate the unveiling Monday of the 20th installment in the Centers national Endangered Species Mural Project. The 76-foot by 22-foot mural features two Sonoran Desert species, the Sonoran pronghorn and the Yuma clapper rail. The mural is being painted on the wall of the colleges theater building by artist Roger Peet and Phoenix-based muralist Lucinda Hinojos, with help from students at the college. These desert-dwelling animals are as beautiful as they are resilient, said artist Roger Peet, project coordinator. But they face the mounting threats of global warming and habitat loss, and they need our help. Its our hope that a huge mural at this respected school will inspire people to protect these incredible animals and their desert habitat, before its too late. We feel really fortunate that local art supporters the McKivergan family chose AWC as the host site when they decided to bring this public art series to Yuma. This project echoes the multi-faceted service a comprehensive community college tries to provide. Its a fine arts interpretation of a critical issue in environmental science that impacts the larger world, said Dr. Daniel P. Corr, Arizona Western College president. What: Endangered Species Mural Project public celebration. Artists will be available for interviews at the site this week and at the celebration. Center and college staff also will be available for interviews. When: Monday, Feb. 11, 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. Where: Arizona Western College, 2020 S. Ave. 8 E, Yuma, east side of the Theatre Building Species Background The fastest land animal on the continent, the Sonoran pronghorn once roamed freely in vast herds. Due to severe drought, habitat degradation and other disturbances, the U.S. population dwindled to a mere 25 individuals in 2002. Thanks to protection under the Endangered Species Act and collaboration between the Center, other conservation groups and federal agencies, there are more than 160 Sonoran pronghorn and the population appears to be increasing. The Yuma clapper rail, a small cattail-dwelling marsh bird, is a bellwether for the health of desert waterways. Protected in 1967 by the Endangered Species Act, this shy water bird nests in freshwater marshes along the Colorado and Gila rivers in Arizona and the Salton Sea in California. Threats to the Yuma clapper rail include drought and water scarcity, exacerbated by climate change, and habitat loss from development. Mural Project Background The Endangered Species Mural Project has installed 19 murals in public spaces around the country. The project collaborates with artists, scientists, and organizers to celebrate local endangered species and encourage the public to make connections between conservation and community strength. Other murals already in place include borderland species such as the Mexican wolf and ocelot in El Paso, Texas; a blue whale in Los Angeles; a monarch butterfly in Minneapolis; a jaguar in Tucson, Ariz.; and grizzly bears in Oakland, Calif. Learn more on our website. It is disturbing and incredible that Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is publicly calling for the abolishment of ICE, the federal agency that polices security threats. Yet unlike most in the media, I understand the Congresswoman. She wants attention, she wants to be a rock star. Nancy Pelosi knows this too, understanding that Cortezs extreme positions are hurting the Democrat party. Ms. Pelosi is icy toward the 29-year-old. But far away from the publicity Ms. Cortez is now addicted to is a genuine threat. Within the far left precincts of the Democrat party there is a move to have open borders in the USA. The intent is to smash American traditions and change the country forever. Tens of millions of dollars are being secretly donated to the open border cause. There are two websites you should examine if you dont believe me. First is influencewatch.org. The second is opensecrets.org. At this point, I do not believe open borders will happen. But that movement is doing a lot of damage to the country and now has a star spokesperson in Ocasio-Cortez. The national media ignores the story but honest Americans should not. Tonight we will post No Spin News highlights for the week. Thanks for checking in today. The Bible is the Word of God written for His people, spanning 66 books in the Old and New Testaments combined. It is the best selling book of all time with over 50 billion copies sold and distributed. According to Wycliffe Global Alliance, at least one portion of Scripture has been translated for 3,350 of the 7,099 existing languages; the Bible in its entirety has been translated in 683 languages. Is the Bible like every other sacred text in world religions then? The answer must be an indelible, no. Of course, you would say that, some might respond skeptically, All religions make the same boast. All of their books are written by their respective deities? Right? Well, actually, no. There is a dramatic difference between the Bible and other collections of holy writings. The Holy Bible Was Written by God C.S. Lewis was not only the extraordinarily gifted writer of now-classic works such as Mere Christianity but one of the greatest medieval English literature scholars of his time, serving at both Oxford and Cambridge. In one of his essays, he wrote that the Bible was different from all the other books in the world. The other sacred texts that we read and theres no reason that we shouldnt read them to learn more about what others believe come off as something more akin to mythology. Mythology was a considered study of Dr. Lewis. In fact, the Chronicles of Narnia come out of C.S. Lewis command of the mythological genre, as well as C.S. Lewis faith. Lewis told the reader to consider the Bible alongside other sacred texts and folklore. The Bible reads nothing at all like mythology. To be sure some of those books called the Apocrypha have a decided ring of fable. There is important historical content to be considered but the Apocrypha lacks the authenticity of the sixty-six books of the Bible. Thus, that collection of 15 books did not make it into the Canon of Scripture, recognized by the Church as divinely inspired. And that last phrase, divinely inspired, leads us to answer the question, Who Wrote the Bible. We are back to the original answer and that reply that you assumed I would give: the Holy Bible, containing sixty-six books was written by God. Indeed, the celebrated, late Scottish Bible scholar, John Murray, of Westminster Theological Seminary, began his essay on the subject with a brilliantly simple but carefully crafted summary: CHRISTIANS of varied and diverse theological standpoints aver that the Bible is the Word of God, that it is inspired by the Holy Spirit and that it occupies a unique place as the norm of Christian faith and life.1 But as the Lord God ordains whatsoever comes to pass (or He couldnt rightfully be the Almighty), He does so by means: secondary forces orchestrated by God to bring about His will. Thus, it is with the Bible. God wrote the Bible through 40 writers, possibly fewer or more depending on how one views the authorship identification in respective books (e.g., The Epistle to the Hebrews), in 66 books, across at least 1,500 years, and in both Near Eastern Ancient culture and the Greco-Roman culture of the first century. The singular message, the scarlet thread of truth that binds each of the books together as one, the witness of Jesus of Nazareth, and the witness of the Holy Spirit all converge to make the Bible, alone against all other revered texts, a revelation of God to Man. The Scriptures Self-Attest that the Bible is the Word of God The Bible attests to the authorship of the Almighty in numerous places. Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, (Heb 1:1). In fact, biblical writers write unequivocally that the Bible is divine over 3,000 times!2 Dr. Michael J. Kruger, a noted New Testament scholar, rightly affirmed, the Bible bears evidence within itself of its own divine origins.3 One of those places of self-attestation is in the Psalms. Psalm 19 is one of the better-known Psalms of King David. The Psalmist composes a sacred song to the glory of Gods revelation to humankind. Psalm 19 is divided into two parts. The first part of the song says that we know God from (what theologians call) General Revelation. Consider verse one as it describes how we know God through creation: The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. For six verses, David extols God for having revealed himself through creation. The second half of Psalm 19, beginning with verse seven, begins with these words: The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. Theologians call this way of knowing God as Special Revelation. In summary, Psalm 19 teaches that while we can know God through creation standing in an open field and looking into the incomprehensibly deep and dark night-sky studded with innumerable stars, a million suns illuminating other unseen galaxies, twinkling like diamonds against black velvet but we do not know God personally through this observable form of revelation. When David writes that the Lord is perfect converting the soul, he is saying that we recognize there is a God in general creation, but we come to know this God and His will for our lives through special revelation. This special revelation is the Word of God, the law of the Lord that is perfect, converting the soul: that is, the Holy Bible. So, the Bible self identifies as a supernatural word from another world.4 But how do we know that the Bible is the Word of God? Did God Write the Bible through Humans? Yes, the Lord used human instrumentality to bring forth his own word. Of course, God could have spoken directly or immediately, but he chose to do so immediately that is, through human agents. Therefore, we must recognize that these writers prophets and priests, kings and servants, lawyers and fishermen, scholars and uneducated wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. What Does it Mean to Be Inspired by the Holy Spirit? Peter, Paul, and the New Testament writers agree with Jesus: The Bible is the Word of God by virtue of His ministry through chosen vessels to reveal His intent. First, Peter says, For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21 ESV). Then, Paul writes unequivocally: All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16). Does inspired mean that God mechanically directed the hand of each biblical author to record Gods own voice? Absolutely not. What is so marvelous about the Bible is that Gods Word comes to us through the personalities, the circumstances, the challenges, the joys and sorrows with people just like us. Just as God sent His only begotten Son to live the life we could never live and die the death that should have been ours, who rose from the grave on the third day, so God wrote the Bible. He revealed His Word to us in a way that we could understand, in a way that is accessible, and a way that is both beautiful and unified. It is important to say that there is a difference between inspiration and illumination. The Word of God is inspired by the Holy Spirit God breathed out (2 Timothy 3:16) through the instrument of human beings. Illumination is the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives that helps us to understand and apply Gods Word. Faithful gospel preachers, therefore, were not inspired themselves or of their own accord. But it was the Holy Spirit illuminating their minds so that they could proclaim the inspired Word of God. Those of us who listen to the Word of God expounded, also, should pray for the illumination of the Holy Spirit: that we may hear, receive, and inwardly digest the inspired word of the Lord (Collect [a gathering prayer] from the Book of Common Prayer). Jesus Declared that the Bible is the Word of God Jesus knew the Word of the Lord from infancy. The doctrine of His nature, fully God and fully Man, yet never mixed or confused, let us recognize that as God in the flesh, the Lord Jesus knew that the Triune God wrote the Bible. But as a human being, from infancy, Jesus received the Holy Scriptures as the Word of God. Each Shabbat Jesus gathered with his family at the synagogue to hear the lectionary readings. He learned the Bible at home. He sat under others. We know that at 12 years of age He was instructing the rabbis and the priests. But there are clear instances in our Lords life when He declared the authorship of the Bible, its inerrancy, infallibility, and intent. While each of them should be considered, none is more explicit that the resurrected Saviors attestation of the Bible concerning His being raised from the dead: Then he said to them, These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled. Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things (Luke 24:44-48). Who Were the Old Testament Authors? There are 39 books or collected documents in the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, written mostly by Moses, and then, prophets, Kings David and Solomon, priests, and scriveners or scribes. The Tanakh (an acronym based upon the division of the ancient Hebrew Scriptures by genre: Torah [five books of Moses], Nevim [the Prophets, their books named after the respective prophet], and the Ketuuvin [the Writings, comprised of the Poetry and Wisdom books, e.g., Job, Psalms, Proverbs; Ecclesiastes; as well as historical accounts like Ezra-Nehemiah, Daniel, 1 and 2 Chronicles]. Old Testament Authors Listed: Moses Joshua Jeremiah Ezra David Solomon Isaiah Ezekiel Daniel Hosea Joel Amos Obadiah Jonah Micah Nahum Habakkuk Zephaniah Haggai Zechariah Malachi other psalmists and proverb writers unknown authors possible authors: Samuel, Nehemiah, Mordecai Who Compiled the Old Testament? Compiling and ascribing divine inspiration of the Old Covenant Scriptures occurred over time, by consensus, by evidences of unity, self-attestation, personal spiritual devotion, and by liturgical usage in communities. There are theories of canonization of selected books by councils (e.g., the General Assembly of rabbis and scholars in 450 BC). However, much of this is reliant upon commentary (i.e., Midrash). The sacred texts, preserved by Israel as Gods Word to them, were more formally recognized, particularly, after the Babylonian Captivity. By the time of Jesus, the texts that Jesus affirmed as being the Word of God were complete. God is sovereign over all things including His Word. Who Were the New Testament authors? The New Testament authors were a mix of unparalleled scholars (e.g., St. Paul) and businessmen (St. Peter, a fisherman), medical doctors (St. Luke), and clergy (St. John). Eight men, some Apostles (those with a direct commission from Jesus Christ to minister in His name and to lead the mission of the Early Church), wrote the epistles of the New Testament over a course of about seventy years, with the Apostle John being the final author (Revelation written in c. 80-85, under Domitian according to a second-century bishop, Irenaeus). New Testament Authors Listed: Matthew John Mark Luke John Paul James Peter Jude *unknown (Hebrews) Who Compiled the New Testament? One of the great New Testament scholars of our time was Bruce Metzger of Princeton Theological Seminary. In his now classic book, The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance, this erudite and godly pastor-scholar wrote, The recognition of the canonical status of the several books of the New Testament was the result of a long and gradual process, in the course of which certain writings, regarded as authoritative, were separated from a much larger body of early Christian literature.6 The Apostle Paul wrote, "For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you..." (1 Cor. 11:23). Not only did Paul recognize his writings as inspired (God breathed), but Peter, with whom Paul had an obvious undulated relationship, nevertheless, taught the Church that Pauls writings were on the same inspirational canonical level as the Old Testament: Bear in mind that our Lords patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction (2 Peter 3:15-16). Like the Old Testament, the New Testament was not compiled by a committee or council. Rather, it was recognized as divinely inspired by the Early Church. To understand this process one can examine the letters of the Early Church leaders, like Clement of Rome, Papias of Hierapolis, Polycarp of Smyrna, Hermas; as well as documents like the Didache. Who Compiled the Bible as a Whole? The late New Testament scholar, F.F. Bruce, wrote convincingly, The Bible is not simply an anthology; there is a unity which binds the whole together. Thus, the Early Church recognized the ancient Hebrew Scriptures that by then were canonized. They also recognized a singularity of purpose, of voice, and of redemptive history in the Old and New Testaments. An old guide to the continuity between Old and New Testaments remains true and helpful, The Old Testament is the New Testament concealed; and the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed. God wrote the Bible. As the Westminster Confession of Faith puts it with faithful brevity: The supreme Judge, by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence, we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the scripture. The Holy Spirit Witnesses to Us that the Bible is the Word of God When we read the Bible, it is unlike any other book. Gods Spirit breathed out His Word. And the Holy Spirit in the Word recognizes the activity of the Holy Spirit in you and brings the two together. When I was in seminary, many years ago, I inquired of my professor, the late, great Dr. Laird Harris, How do we know the Apocrypha is not inspired? He answered by telling me that one of the ways we know the Bible is inspired is the witness of the Holy Spirit. Mike, this weekend I want you to read two books in the Apocrypha. Then, immediately read the Gospel of John. Lets talk on Monday. I did as the master scholar directed. On Monday, he asked me, Well, Mike, what is the answer? How do you know the Bible is inspired? I answered, Dr. Harris, I know because the Lord attends the reading of His own Word. He spoke to me through the words of John. Very good! Now, did you have that same reaction from reading the Apocrypha? I smiled at Dr. Harris. My smile communicated that No, I didnt recognize God attesting to His own Word in the reading of the non-canonical books. Something is different. Dr. Harris turned to the entire class to make the point: Now, you know. God speaks to us in His Word. Never forget that after all of the other evidences are considered, which they should be, the greatest proof remains the lives that have been transformed by the Spirit of the Living God brooding over His own Word and applying it, with divine intent, to the hearts and minds of those who read.5 The Bible is Sufficient The Holy Bible is not only inspired. The Bible is sufficient. The Bible is sufficient for all things in faith and life. No revival of true religion was ever released in mass-converting power unless there was a rise in the teaching and preaching of the Word of God. So, let us attend to these important questions about who wrote the Bible with a humble, teachable heart, that says, Lord, write Your Word upon my heart. Thus, the Book of Common Prayers wonderful petition: BLESSED Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning; Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace, and ever hold fast, the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen (The Book of Common Prayer). After all is said and done, the question remains, Not merely who wrote the Bible, but who will listen? And who will follow the living Word of the Bible, Jesus Christ? Michael A. Milton,PhD (University of Wales; MPA, UNC Chapel Hill; MDiv, Knox Seminary), Dr. Milton is a retired seminary chancellor and currently serves as the James Ragsdale Chair of Missions at Erskine Theological Seminary. He is the President of Faith for Living and the D. James Kennedy Institute a long-time Presbyterian minister, and Chaplain (Colonel) USA-R. Dr. Milton is the author of more than thirty books and a musician with five albums released. Mike and his wife, Mae, reside in North Carolina. Notes: 1. John Murray, The Attestation of Scripture, The Infallible Word (1946): 154. 2. Claims of Divine Authorship, Answers in Genesis. 3. What Do We Mean When We Say the Bible Is Self-Authenticating?, Canon Fodder. 4. See part one of Robert L. Reymond, A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith (Nashville: T. Nelson, 1998). 5. Dr. Laird Harris, personal notes from Knox Theological Seminary, 1991. 6. Bruce M. Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance(Oxford University Press on Demand, 1997). 7. Gerald Irvin Williamson, The Westminster Confession of Faith: For Study Classes (Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing Company, 1964). Additional Reference Geisler, Norman L., and William C. Roach. Defending Inerrancy: Affirming the Accuracy of Scripture for a New Generation. Baker Books, 2012. Photo credit: Thinkstock/Vladimir Zapletin A child receives an immunization at a health center in Dagupan City, in northern Luzon island, on Feb 7, 2019. The Philippines health department on Thursday declared an outbreak of measles in the capital Manila and nearby areas, after the disease left dozens dead. Officials said the unusual spike in the number of deaths was due to a dengue vaccination scare in 2017 that prompted many parents to take their children out of the state immunization program. Health Secretary Francisco Duque said 55 children, aged three months to four years old, had died of measles in an outbreak of the disease in Manila and nearby suburban areas. He attributed the deaths to low vaccine coverage because of the Dengvaxia scare. We are declaring an outbreak, as cases have increased in the past weeks and to strengthen surveillance of new cases and alert mothers and caregivers to be more vigilant, Duque said in a statement. The Department of Health (DOH) cited a 550 percent rise in the number of patients infected with the disease from Jan. 1 to Feb. 6, from the same period last year, and said the figure was likely to rise. Gundo Weiler, country representative of the UNs World Health Organization, said that officials needed to convince families to return to vaccination programs. We are very concerned [about] the situation because there are many cases of measles that could have been avoided if we had achieved higher vaccination coverage, Weiler said. I think it is important that we rebuild trust and pass on the message very clearly that Dengvaxia is unrelated to the very well-established vaccination programs that have been running in the country for many years and without any doubt has generated huge benefits for those who received vaccination, he added. Fear In December 2017, the government announced it had suspended the Dengvaxia vaccination program, which was meant to address dengue. It also ordered a halt to the marketing and selling of Dengvaxia after the French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi Pasteur admitted those injected with it risked having severe dengue if they had no prior infections. The Philippines, a tropical Southeast Asian country, became the first country in the region where Dengvaxia was publicly released. Then-president Benigno Aquino approved its release before he stepped down in 2016 and the vaccine was administered to children in public elementary schools. The health department recently said that 830,000 school children aged 9 and older were given the drug, a revision from an earlier estimate of 740,000. The DOH earlier admitted that their vaccination coverage rate had dropped to 60 percent following the controversy surrounding Dengvaxia with parents refusing to have their children vaccinated for fear that they would suffer adverse side effects. This was largely blamed on the governments public attorney, Persida Acosta, who said she was preparing legal action against Aquino and Duque for dozens of deaths she attributed to Dengvaxia use. But her assertions were widely criticized and later discredited by the government. Lawmakers on Wednesday recommended the filing of criminal and administrative charges against Aquino and other officials for the Dengvaxia mess. The move was welcomed by presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo Thursday, even as he acknowledged that Acosta may have scared the public from getting immunized. Let the legal process take its course and those found responsible be held administratively, criminally, and civilly liable, Panelo said. We reiterate the policy of the administration that whoever transgresses the law will have to account for it regardless of the social status and the political affiliation of the transgressor, Panelo stressed. Ibrahim Haron is among ordinary Malaysians who had doubted the day would come when Najib Razak, an ex-prime minister and titan who seemed untouchable to many during his nine years in power, would stand trial over allegations of massive corruption. The prospect is just days away with Najib expected to sit in the dock, starting Tuesday at the Kuala Lumpur High Court, over a raft of money-laundering, abuse of power and breach of public trust charges. These stem from a financial scandal in which billions of dollars were allegedly looted from 1MDB, a sovereign wealth fund established by Najib a decade ago through his dual role as PM and finance minister. He faces up to 42 charges in all. For years, we have been hearing that Najib did this and that. But now, finally, we will get to hear in the court of law what actually transpired, Ibrahim, a bus driver, told BenarNews. The trial is expected to unfold over 31 days, from Feb. 12 to March 29, officials said, but Najibs legal defense team filed a last-minute application on Friday with the Court of Appeal seeking to postpone the trial, local media reports quoted his lawyer as saying. Whether the courtroom proceedings begin on Tuesday or later, it will mark the first time in the nations 61-year history that a former prime minister will go on trial over criminal charges. Ever since Najibs name was first tied to the 1MDB affair in 2015, and after he was first charged in connection with the scandal in July 2018, he has maintained his innocence, assuring Malaysian citizens that he never stole any of the peoples money. In Ibrahims eyes, the trial of the former prime minister, 65, will be the biggest story in Malaysia in 2019. Ibrahim said it would be seared into the public conscience for the foreseeable future. It will be like what happened to Anwar Ibrahim back in 1998 the talk of the town, he said. He was referring to the Malaysian political icon and prime minister in waiting, who was twice tried and convicted on sodomy charges before being released from jail within days after last years general election. Najib is expected to stand trial nearly nine months after the leader and his UMNO party which had controlled Malaysian government since the nation was born in 1957 was swept out of power in the May 9 polls. Najibs ruling coalition lost to the Pakatan Harapan (Alliance of Hope) opposition bloc, led by Mahathir Mohamad, a longtime former UMNO fixture who had previously served as PM for 22 years and who vowed to remove Najib from office and clean up corruption in government. The U.S. Justice Department, which has filed court cases over the 1MDB affair, described it as the worst kleptocracy scandal in recent times. The department alleged that high-level officials of the fund and associates had embezzled and laundered almost $4.5 billion (18.7 billion ringgit) in 1MDB money through real estate and other assets, between 2009 and 2014. Image makeover Since UMNO crashed out at the polls and Najib fell from his perch as party chief, other senior former government officials and his wife have also been charged over the 1MDB scandal. Within weeks of the election, Malaysians were shocked to see videotaped images of police seizing suitcases containing millions of dollars in cash, and boxes of jewelry and high-priced handbags from Kuala Lumpur area residences linked to Najibs family. On July 3, the day he was first charged, Najib accused the new ruling coalition of being out to get him, telling reporters at the courthouse that it was what the new government wants. If this is the price I have to pay after 42 years of service to the Malaysian people, I accept it. What I hope is that the judicial process is a process that is truly fair, following the rule of law. Im confident in my innocence; this is the best chance I have to clear my name, he said then. However, as the days have counted down to his trial becoming a reality, the former minister has attempted to re-brand his image in the public eye as a more easy going, fun-loving and cool guy, according to reports. For instance, he has been engaging with the public through social media and has used the Malay hashtag #MaluApaBossku in his rebranding effort. In English, it translates to What is there to be ashamed of, man? As a result, young Malaysians like Fadhli Tahar say they have warmed up to the ex-PM. Despite the dozens of criminal charges against Najib, the new style that the former leader has projected, in which he embraces the street culture of the ethnic Malay majority, was hard to ignore and was even addictive, Fadhli said. He used to be uptight, very formal. But now, the way he engages feels very close to the masses, which we dont often see in politicians, Fadhli, a 31-year-old entrepreneur, told BenarNews. If he had been like this when he was prime minister, perhaps he would still be prime minister. But Najibs new hashtag does not sit well with some other Malaysians, who have criticized him for trying to play down the serious allegations leveled against him. Fahimah Abu Bakar, 55, said it was appalling to see Najib brazenly taking on the role of an internet troll and attacking the government through social media, while facing those criminal charges. It is unbecoming of him to stoop down to this level to appeal to the crowd to garner support, said the retired architect. Regardless of whether he is innocent or guilty, I feel that it is best for him to lay low for a while. Calls for fair trial Meanwhile, a prominent legal activist said that, no matter how passionately Malaysians felt about Najibs culpability and his upcoming trial, it was important to allow the law to take its course and ensure that he be treated fairly while in the dock. We may have our personal views about whether he is guilty or otherwise, but the law should treat him as an innocent person unless the charges are proven against him, Syahredzan Johan said. The rule of law, espoused frequently by this government should mean that an accused person be allowed to defend himself against a criminal charge in a fair trial before an impartial judge, he said. A Sharia police official canes a young woman convicted of violating Sharia law in a mosque yard as spectators look on, Banda Aceh, Indonesia, July 13, 2018. Plans by the government of Indonesias Aceh province to administer canings for violators of Islamic law in prisons, instead of in public, have faced bureaucratic and technical roadblocks, and have yet to be implemented a year after the change was announced. Last year, Aceh Governor Irwandi Yusuf issued a gubernatorial regulation on procedures for the implementation of sharia law, including a clause requiring canings to be carried out in prisons. Two months later, in April, the governor signed an agreement with the local office of the Ministry of Law and Human Rights on the use of prisons for caning venues. "Technical instructions on canings in prisons are still being discussed by various parties involved," the head of the Aceh Islamic Sharia Office, Alidar, told BenarNews on Thursday. Under current practice, convicted sharia offenders have to endure public flogging, a spectacle that attracts hundreds of camera-wielding people, including children, despite a rule prohibiting people under 18 to watch. Irwandi said at the time that moving canings indoors would reduce international uproar over the practice and Islamophobia as an unwanted byproduct of the implementation of Islamic law in Aceh. In addition, he said he wanted to avoid children seeing the corporal punishment being meted out. Aceh residents film a man being caned for violating Sharia law, outside a mosque in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, July 13, 2018. (Nurdin Hasan/BenarNews) 'Where does the money come from?' Canings are held almost every Friday across Aceh. But only seven of its 23 prisons have yards that are suitable as locations for canings, according to Agus Toyib, the head of the provincial law and human rights office. A convict was whipped at one of them, in Meulaboh, West Aceh, in May 2018, he said. Officials from institutions involved in the Sharia law enforcement the Wilayatul Hisbah (WH, the Sharia police), prosecutors, police, courts, and the ministry of law and human rights have met several times to draft the technical instructions and iron out problems, Alidar said. "For example, there are convicts in Simeulue Regency, but because the prison there cannot be used as a caning venue, they must be taken to Meulaboh, which of course requires money," Alidar said. "Where does the money come from? Also the judge must accompany him. If the judge joins, what happens if there is a hearing in Simeulue? he said. Likewise, the prosecutor and executioner from the WH must participate. Can they be represented by those in West Aceh? Technical things like that need to be regulated," he added. Arrangements in the prison during a caning session also needed to be regulated, said Marzuki, the head of investigations for the Sharia police. "Who will be there? Who can enter to watch? Can other prisoners watch?" he said. Zulfikar Muhammad, executive director of the Aceh Human Rights NGO Coalition, said he was not surprised that it had taken so long to draft the technical instructions, because several other regulations had met a similar fate. "Maybe if Mr. Irwandi were here, it would not have dragged on, because he issued the rules," he said. Irwandi was arrested by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) in July last year for allegedly accepting bribes in a case linked to a development project using Aceh provinces special autonomy fund. He is currently on trial in Jakarta. Islamic Sharia in Aceh regulates khalwat (a man and a woman who are not related or married being alone together), gambling, drinking and selling liquor, sex outside marriage, rape, sexual harassment, and homosexual sex. Opposition The plan to move canings into prisons has sparked controversy. While human rights activists support the move, conservative Muslim groups have voiced their opposition. Hendra Saputra of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) in Aceh said his group was opposed to caning as a form of punishment but if it had to be done, it should not be done in public. Caning degrades human dignity, especially with people watching and mocking the offenders, he said. However, Teungku Faisal Ali, chairman of the Aceh branch of the Islamic organization Nahdlatul Ulama, said caning should be carried out in public so that convicts can learn a lesson from the experience. The local government should focus on other matters, he suggested. "There are still many problems that require serious attention from the Aceh government such as education and improving the economy," he said. According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, Aceh is ranked as the poorest province in Sumatra, with nearly 16 percent of its 5.2 million people living in poverty. The chairman of the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) in Aceh, Muslim At-Thahiri, also opposed indoor caning and suggested that Irwandis legal trouble was a form of divine punishment. "Because he made the regulation, he was arrested by the KPK," he said. "If later Irwandi is convicted and jailed, we will urge the new Aceh governor to revoke the regulation." Muslim added that his party and Islamic organizations continued to push Acehs local legislature to introduce clauses on corruption and theft in the sharia law. "Actually, in Aceh there must be a qanun (law) that regulates corruption because this corruption is immoral and is detrimental to society." Alidar stated that Islamic law in Aceh was being introduced in stages and it was possible that one day harsher punishment including chopping the hands of thieves could be applied when the people were ready. Security forces chase rioters (unseen) during an army-enforced curfew imposed following deadly clashes between Hindus and Muslims at Muzaffarnagar in Indias Uttar Pradesh state, Sept. 9, 2013. An Indian court sentenced seven Muslim men to life in prison on Friday for killing two members of the Hindu community over a motorcycle accident that sparked large-scale riots, which claimed dozens of lives in north Indias Uttar Pradesh state almost six years ago. The Muzaffarnagar district sessions court handed down the sentence after finding the seven men guilty of killing Gaurav Singh and Sachin Singh on Aug. 27, 2013, following a minor altercation. Authorities believe the incident led to the monthlong riots in Muzaffarnagar, 130 km (81 miles) north of the capital New Delhi, and adjoining districts, leaving 62 people dead a majority of them Muslims and more than 40,000 homeless. We were fighting to get the death penalty [for the accused]," Ravindra Singh, Gauravs father, told BenarNews after the sentences were announced. "But we are happy that, now, six years after Gaurav and Sachin were brutally killed by these boys, we finally have some closure. Gaurav and Sachin belonged to the Hindu Jat community. According to police records, Gaurav and Sachin stabbed to death a resident of Kawal village in Muzaffarnagar, over a motorcycle accident. A Muslim mob, including the seven accused, then beat the two boys to death with sticks, bricks and iron rods. More than a week after the incident, a group of Hindus returning from a village council meeting was attacked, kick-starting a full-fledged riot that subsequently spread to adjoining areas. About 1,480 people were arrested for their alleged role in the violence, of whom some 430 were acquitted, according to prosecutors. In a bid to quell the rioting, India deployed its army in the state for the first time in 20 years. Easy targets Naseem Ahmed, father of two of those sentenced on Friday, claimed his sons and the five others who have been convicted were innocent and being framed as they were easy targets. The police and district authorities have dragged them (the accused) in a fabricated case, he told BenarNews. We are easy targets because we belong to the Muslim community. He said he would appeal the verdict to the High Court. Numbering about 180 million, Muslims make up the largest religious minority in Hindu-majority India, which has a population of nearly 1.3 billion. Deliberate provocation In 2016, a government-sponsored inquiry commission blamed laxity on the part of the police and top officials for the Muzaffarnagar violence. Another independent fact-finding team, composed of three academics and a senior journalist, found that Muslims were the most affected by the communal orgy that swept Muzaffarnagar. There were accounts of Hindu Jats raising provocative slogans as they passed by Muslim habitations shouting slogans such as Muslims have two homes: Pakistan or the graveyard, the team said in its report seen by BenarNews. Jats who died were killed in reaction to this deliberate provocation, the report said. The restoration of the Policing Board following an absence of two years, after the Secretary of State introduced new legislation to allow it to operate again, is a welcome development. However, the information revealed at yesterday's meeting will make uncomfortable reading for whoever takes over as Chief Constable from present incumbent George Hamilton. The PSNI is a force under considerable strain in terms of resources and finances, and is faced with an ever lengthening list of policing imperatives. Read More It is not just business leaders and farmers who are deeply concerned about the uncertainty over what sort of Brexit will take place on March 29. A special team has been set up to plan for various eventualities and the implications of those for the force. As the Chief Constable said, Brexit could affect operational policing, not only guarding the border in the event of a no-deal exit, but also continuing cooperation with other police forces, exchange of intelligence and dealing with European Arrest Warrants. Already the force has delayed the decommissioning of a number of police stations along the border. Then there is the ongoing dissident republican threat, including punishment beatings and shootings and the recent planting of a car bomb in Londonderry, showing the determination of the terrorists to continue their nihilistic campaign. Loyalist paramilitaries continue to flex their muscles in an exercise of control over the areas in which they operate, most recently resulting in the barbaric murder of Ian Ogle in east Belfast. All these challenges come on top of policing the present and investigating the past, at a time when the PSNI has much diminished resources. The policing budget has been reduced by 150m in the past five years and 366 officers and 124 staff have left the force in the past year. It will be autumn before new recruits will join the force. The austerity measures the force has endured have meant a less visible presence, particularly in rural areas. This newspaper revealed last year that the number of police stations in the province had been reduced by two thirds in the last 20 years. Even allowing for the more peaceful environment, that is a huge reduction, and an early restoration of devolution would help give the PSNI at least some of the additional funding it requires to become a more effective force. The controversial remark by European Council president Donald Tusk that there's a "special place in Hell" for those who embarked on Brexit without the faintest idea how to deliver it drew a stinging response from former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis. He has his own painful experience of dealing with European Union negotiators, who forced Athens to adopt a crippling austerity programme in return for financial help. After hearing Tusk's latest remarks, Varoufakis took to Twitter to comment that the same place in Hell might well be reserved for those at the helm of the EU project who embarked on monetary union without sufficient planning and then imposed huge banking losses on the weakest members of the community. Rejoinders don't come much more savage than that. It also illustrated, though, the danger of embarking on this form of megaphone diplomacy. It's all too easy to get into a tit-for-tat spiral of sniping. International diplomacy should not be turned into an epic rap battle, with both sides trading insults in an effort to metaphorically knock the other out. That this is where negotiations over Brexit have ended up, a mere seven weeks before Britain is set to leave the EU, tells its own tale. It wasn't just Tusk, either. Guy Verhofstadt, the EU's chief Brexit co-ordinator, declared that Lucifer himself wouldn't welcome Brexiteers because "they'd even manage to divide Hell". Then there was the sight of European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker showing Taoiseach Leo Varadkar a card which he'd received from a well-wisher in Dublin, thanking the EU for its support and declaring, provocatively, that "Britain does not care about peace in Northern Ireland". And all that was in just one day. It was probably as well that the British Government didn't respond in kind, or the situation may have escalated to the mutual expulsion of ambassadors by now. Some backbench MPs and commentators got merrily stuck in to the fray, but the only Cabinet ministers to rise to the bait contented themselves with chiding Tusk for his bad manners, rather than joining in. Leo Varadkar should watch and learn. He certainly ought to know better than to get dragged into this schoolyard spat. It was at a joint Press conference with the Taoiseach that Tusk uttered those words about Brexiteers going to Hell. Perhaps thinking that the microphones were off, Varadkar chortled breezily: "They will give you terrible trouble in the British Press for this, but you're right." To which Tusk, following the tradition that a man will rarely disagree if told that he's right, reportedly "smirked" and said: "I know." It's astonishing that anyone who purports to care about the possible consequences for peace on this island should an agreement not be reached in the next few weeks would ever consider such pettiness appropriate, or that they wouldn't immediately have tried to calm troubled waters by apologising. Right now, what cool headedness exists is not coming from the leaders of the Irish government, or the EU, but from different sources. Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin responded to Tusk's remark on BBC's Newsnight by warning: "It's time for people to cool the jets. We need calm, reflective engagement. The stakes are too high." With anti-British sentiment in Ireland riding so high at the moment - an online poll found that 78% of people thought Tusk was right to say what he did, with just 18% saying he was not - his interview demonstrated an admirable willingness to take some punches for the greater good. Sure enough, users on social media were soon accusing Martin of siding with the Brexiteers. "The days of forelock-tugging are over," railed one self-described Sinn Fein aide. "The Croppies aren't lying down." It would be comical if it wasn't so serious. DUP leader Arlene Foster added her own voice to those urging calm, saying: "Rather than cast insults, now is the time to concentrate on genuine diplomacy and solutions." She also - rightly - criticised those who've indulged of late in loose talk about a return of barbed wire, watchtowers and soldiers to the border. This is the great contradiction at the heart of the debate about the Withdrawal Agreement. Those most supportive of the backstop insist that their biggest priority is not letting a hard border threaten peace, but, by insisting on a demand that may not be deliverable, they could end up bringing about the very hard border which the backstop is meant to avoid. An even greater irony is that those who warn most loudly about a return to violence post-Brexit seem quite happy to dial up the Troubles-era rhetoric in order to do so. Have they never heard of self-fulfilling prophecies? Sinn Fein's ludicrous antics at the border, with actors dressed as British squaddies, and Mary Lou McDonald and Michelle O'Neill taking up sledgehammers to knock down a section of hastily-constructed wall, might have been expected; but what excuse do the whited sepulchres in more moderate parties have for turning up the temperature with war talk? It's cynical at best and downright irresponsible at worst, especially with some influential MEPs admitting to German newspaper Der Spiegel this week that the protection of the EU's single market was their foremost concern and that, if peace in Ireland was the price to pay to protect it, so be it. As she ups the stakes by denouncing the DUP as "wreckers", Sinn Fein deputy leader Michelle O'Neill would do well to remember that there are plenty of other forces whose obstinacy could take a wrecking ball to peace. There are too many ways that things can still go wrong to put them in further jeopardy with self-indulgent stunts. The failure to restart Stormont should have taught everyone that. It's particularly telling that Donald Tusk was prepared to take the risk of souring the atmosphere this week. The former Polish PM has always been regarded as one of the least anglophobic of the eurocrats and, asked whether it was possible to see the UK staying in Europe, once quoted John Lennon: "You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one". This week would seem to suggest that he's no longer dreaming. As in all divorces, sometimes the mutual recrimination just gets too messy and there's no chance of reconciliation. It's still important to keep things civil for the sake of the children. Whatever the eventual outcome on March 29, from "no deal" to May's deal to no Brexit, there's nothing to be gained from allowing relations to deteriorate so badly that figuratively consigning one's opponents to Hell is considered an appropriate negotiating tactic. Greeces parliament has approved a measure for Macedonia to join Nato, ending a decades-old dispute. Politicians late on Friday voted 153-140 to back the Nato protocol that must now also be approved by all other alliance members. The Greek vote means the former Yugoslav republic will now formally change its name to North Macedonia. Expand Close Macedonias prime minister Zoran Zaev (Ronald Zak/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Macedonias prime minister Zoran Zaev (Ronald Zak/AP) That settles a dispute of the countrys name which Greece saw as a potential threat to its own northern region of Macedonia. Greek opposition parties said the agreement made too many concessions to Macedonia. I would like to again welcome North Macedonia, a country that is friendly toward Greece, a country that must be a supporter, and not an opponent, of our efforts to establish safety, stability, and cooperation in the wider region, Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras told parliament shortly before the vote. Today is a historic day. All #NATO Allies have signed the Accession Protocol with , which will bring more security & prosperity to the whole region. I look forward to the day when 30 flags will fly outside NATO HQ. pic.twitter.com/trPtvsn3MD Jens Stoltenberg (@jensstoltenberg) February 6, 2019 Western countries strongly backed the deal between Greece and Macedonia, after the countrys bid to join Nato had been shelved for a decade and amid European concerns over Russias vocal opposition to the alliances expansion further into the Balkans. Clearly it is in Greeces interest to promote a European course for all its neighbours, not just for North Macedonia and not (back) the influence of third forces in the neighbourhood, with different aspirations and pursuits, Mr Tsipras said. Old Plateau Cemetery, the final resting place for many who spent their lives in Africatown (Julie Bennett/AP) Descendants of the last Africans abducted and shipped to the United States into slavery will gather this weekend on the US Gulf Coast. The event will be held on Saturday in Mobile, Alabama, at Africatown, a once-thriving community settled by freed blacks from Africa after the Civil War. The area is now economically depressed with a dwindling population, and there are few remnants of the original settlers. Expand Close Joycelyn Davis, a direct descendant of survivor Charlie Lewis (Julie Bennett/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Joycelyn Davis, a direct descendant of survivor Charlie Lewis (Julie Bennett/AP) The Africans were illegally smuggled into Alabama for a bet in 1860 on board the Clotilda, decades after the Atlantic slave trade was outlawed. Some of the people settled on old plantation land after the war, purchasing property and establishing a society that included leaders and courts. Relatives of the 110 people who were kidnapped in west Africa are organising the Spirit of Our Ancestors festival. Five families were involved in the initial planning, and organiser Joycelyn Davis said interest mushroomed once word got out. She said people who once were ashamed to say their ancestors were sold into slavery are finding new pride in their heritage that could breathe new life into Africatown. I am so proud to say I am a descendant. That wasnt a word that I used maybe 10, 15 years ago, said Davis, 42, a sixth-generation granddaughter of African captive Charlie Lewis. It was shameful as a child. Alabama plantation owner Timothy Meaher made a bet that he could bring a shipload of Africans across the ocean, said historian Natalie S. Robertson. The schooner Clotilda sailed from Mobile to what is now Benin in western Africa, where it picked up captives and returned them to Alabama, evading authorities during a tortuous, weeks-long voyage. They were smuggling people as much for defiance as for sport, said Robertson. The Clotilda arrived in Mobile in 1860 and was quickly burned and scuttled in delta waters north of Mobile Bay. Expand Close Homes line Richardson Drive in Africatown (Julie Bennett/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Homes line Richardson Drive in Africatown (Julie Bennett/AP) The Africans spent the next five years as slaves, Robertson said, freed only after the Civil War ended. Unable to return home to Africa, about 30 of them used money earned working in fields, homes and vessels to purchase land from the Meaher family and settle Africatown. Africatowns peak population was estimated at more than 10,000. Today, lying about three miles north of Mobile, the area has about 1,800 residents. Meaher was charged with smuggling and faced a possible death penalty, but he was never prosecuted and his family remains prominent. A state park in Mobile bears the family name and Meaher Avenue runs through Africatown. However, few signs of the original residents of Africatown remain just graves and a chimney from the home of Peter Lee, or Gumpa, who was appointed chief after its founding. In front of a church founded by the freed slaves sits a bust of Cudjo Lewis, who was the last surviving African from the last slave ship voyage to America when he died in 1935. An apple grower has gone viral with images which show ghostly ice fruits hanging from a tree in freezing cold weather. Andrew Sietsema, from Sparta, Michigan, said the unusual images were the result of rotting Jonagold apples being covered in ice thanks to the freezing rain. I guess it was just cold enough that the ice covering the apple hadnt melted yet, but it was warm enough that the apple inside turned to complete mush, Andrew told the Press Association. With no ice formed around the bottom of the apple, the mushy fruit had somewhere to escape when the tree was disturbed. When I pruned a tree it would be shaken in the process, and the mush would slip out of the bottom of the ghost apple, Andrew said. Most apples just fell off, ice and all. But quite a few would leave a cool ghost apple behind. The Press Association contacted a range of horticulture experts to attempt to verify the images, and while some expressed scepticism, others were convinced of their veracity. Amy Irish-Brown, tree fruit educator at Michigan State University, said: Ive seen pieces of the shell left behind, but never the whole apple shell. What a rare event to capture. Peter Jentsch, an expert in pest management around fruit and vegetables from Cornell University, said he had witnessed the phenomenon in orchards in the Hudson Valley in New York. Andrews original images were shared more than 10,000 times on Facebook while the pictures earned 75,000 upvotes on Reddit. Im sure you could find them at any orchard on the Ridge near Sparta, or at least any that still had a few unpicked apples hanging on the trees, he said. Jonagolds are one of my favourite apple varieties, but well call these Jonaghosts. A boyfriends video phonecall with his sleepy girlfriend has delivered him to viral stardom, after she fell asleep and her dog took over the conversation. Sam Stine was on FaceTime with Brookelyn Bilski, whose dog Leo walked over into the view of the camera after she had drifted off. my girlfriend fell asleep and me n the dog jus been talkin... pic.twitter.com/ZDqsx69syb subliminal messenger (@4ftrnoon) February 6, 2019 I watched Leo walk over to the phone and stare directly into my eyes, Mr Stine, from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, told the Press Association. The post of four-year-old Leo on the phone call has been shared tens of thousands of times on Twitter and inspired others to share similar moments with their remote animals. Im really surprised by the amount of attention the post got, added Mr Stine. Really glad people appreciate Leo as much as we do. Mr Stine said he had a deep conversation about mental health and our feelings with Leo. Desmond OBeirne died six months after he was assaulted in Trafalgar Square (Metropolitan Police/PA) Two men who admitted their part in the fatal attack on a homeless man in Trafalgar Square will be sentenced today. Agency workers Lucas Antunes and Luis Abella had finished shifts at Harrods when they attacked 51-year-old Desmond OBeirne at around midnight on June 3 2017. The victim was seen in CCTV footage to be walking away when Antunes, 22, landed a punch to the head, sending him to the ground, and Abella, 22, appeared to kick him. Expand Close CCTV of the two men attacking Desmond OBeirne in Trafalgar Square, London. (Metropolitan Police/PA) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp CCTV of the two men attacking Desmond OBeirne in Trafalgar Square, London. (Metropolitan Police/PA) Mr OBeirne never recovered consciousness and died from a brain injury on December 20 2017. Last year, police offered 20,000 to anyone who could help track down the culprits. In April, Mr OBeirnes sister Vivienne Folan said: My brother Desmond was hard-working and larger than life. He was on a night out in Trafalgar Square when he was brutally and viciously attacked by two cowards who then calmly walked away and left him for dead. Following the appeal, Antunes, of Tottenham, north London, was tracked down by authorities in the United States and returned to face justice in Britain. He pleaded guilty to manslaughter while Abella, from Lambeth, south London, admitted attempted assault occasioning actual bodily harm. Expand Close Lucas Antunes pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of 51-year-old Desmond OBeirne (Metropolitan Police/PA). Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Lucas Antunes pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of 51-year-old Desmond OBeirne (Metropolitan Police/PA). The victim, originally from Ireland, was said to have had an itinerant lifestyle and had a sister living in Wales. Abella originally faced a manslaughter charge but it changed to the lesser charge following a review. The defendants will be sentenced by Judge Paul Dodgson at the Old Bailey. Expand Close Agency worker Luis Abella is facing jail after he was caught on film attacking a homeless man (Metropolitan Police/PA) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Agency worker Luis Abella is facing jail after he was caught on film attacking a homeless man (Metropolitan Police/PA) A Harrods spokesman has said the defendants were not members of staff but were employed by Buzz Retail, which provides workers for demonstrations within Harrods, both for less than a year, in 2017. Undated UK Parliament file photo of Christopher Chope MP, who has been awarded Knighthood for political and public service in the New Year Honours list. A senior Tory has been condemned by Health Secretary Matt Hancock and Home Secretary Sajid Javid after he blocked child protection proposals linked to female genital mutilation (FGM). Veteran MP Sir Christopher Chope shouted object when the title of the Children Act 1989 (Amendment) (Female Genital Mutilation) Bill was read out in the Commons. Mr Hancock said he was outraged by Sir Christophers actions, saying they were wrong, pure and simple. Outraged Chris Chope has blocked the FGM safeguarding Bill in Parliament today. His actions are wrong, pure & simple. Matt Hancock (@MattHancock) February 8, 2019 Mr Javid said he was very disappointed, adding that FGM is child abuse. Very disappointed by this. FGM is child abuse. I am determined to stamp out this despicable and medieval practice. We will do all we can protect girls at risk https://t.co/1ArrhD9tXG Sajid Javid (@sajidjavid) February 8, 2019 Sir Christopher defended his actions and accused his critics of virtue signalling. Tory Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park), who sponsored the backbench bill, said Sir Christopher had been begged by FGM campaigners not to block the proposal at second reading. After the draft legislation was blocked, Mr Goldsmith added: As anticipated, Chope objected to the FGM Bill. Just appalling. Tory Simon Hoare said his fellow Dorset MP Sir Christopher was out of tune, wrong and an embarrassment and should quit. Its time he considered his position and frankly buggered off, Mr Hoare said. Chope has been scrutinised by Parliament and by the country. Yet again heas out of tune, wrong and an embarrassment. Itas time he considered his position and frankly buggered off #ivehadenough https://t.co/yLXB75IKZI Simon Hoare MP (@Simon4NDorset) February 8, 2019 The Bill seeks to allow courts to make interim care orders under the Children Act 1989 in cases relating to FGM. Such an order could be made if a court was satisfied there were reasonable grounds for believing the child is suffering or likely to suffer significant harm. A local authority would have shared parental responsibility for the child until a final hearing. The Bill has previously cleared the House of Lords. Former minister Sir Christopher is known for objecting in principle to bills getting rubber-stamped on Friday sessions, arguing they should be subject to detailed scrutiny. He has previously come under fire for objecting to a backbench Bill to make upskirting a criminal offence. Sir Christopher told the Daily Telegraph he objected to legislation going through without a debate. Responding to the criticism he faced, he said: It is a pity they are indulging in virtue-signalling rather than looking at the substance. He added: My constituents know what I am doing. We are having letters saying what is Parliamentary democracy all about? I object to Bills going through undebated at second reading. People are muddling up the substance of the matter. You could virtue signal. We could do all of our law by emotion rather than by debate. But Treasury Chief Secretary Liz Truss, who branded his actions a complete disgrace said: Can I encourage more colleagues to do some virtue-signalling so we can legislate and deal with this vile practice. Private members bills (PMBs) are considered on Friday sittings, which run until 2.30pm. Any PMBs listed for second reading but not debated can be blocked if just one MP shouts object when the title is read out. Tory and Labour MPs also blocked other bills after they were read out in the chamber. Labour called for Sir Christopher to lose the Tory whip. Shadow women and equalities minister Dawn Butler said: Its unacceptable that this dinosaur of a Tory MP consistently gets away with blocking new laws to protect the safety and rights of women. This makes it even more shocking that he was given a knighthood by Theresa May last year. An international agreement to grow and sustain social enterprises in Scotland and Canada has been announced by Nicola Sturgeon on a visit to Toronto. The Social Enterprise Academy (SEA), which provides learning and development for the sector in Scotland, has launched a new partnership with the Canadian Community Economic Development Network (CCEDNet) supported by Torontos Learning Enrichment Foundation and the Scottish Government. The collaboration will involve sharing expertise and skills relating to social enterprises businesses focused on creating positive change by reinvesting profits and finding innovative new business models. Ms Sturgeon announced the partnership on a visit to West Neighbourhood House, a community organisation in downtown Toronto, on Friday, the second day of her two-day visit to Canada. She said: Scotland and Canada are already known worldwide as social enterprise nations. Through this exciting partnership, we will be able to share our collective skills and expertise to support people tackling social and environmental challenges in communities at home and around the globe. In Scotland, our expertise has been developed through a series of initiatives such as hosting the Social Enterprise World Forum, our 10-year Social Enterprise Strategy, and funding for a specialist business support service for social enterprises. By working together to exchange knowledge and promote business models that contribute to the common good, we can take further steps to improve the lives of those in our countries and further afield. Claire Wilson, head of the SEA Global Learning Lab, said CCEDNet is an exciting new addition to our international network of partners. She added: We look forward to seeing how we can work together to support communities across Canada. Mike Toye, executive director for CCEDNet, said: We are pleased to partner with SEA International to accelerate the growth of inclusive and sustainable organisations and communities across Canada and around the world. On Thursday evening Ms Sturgeon officially opened the new Scottish Government office in Ottawa, as she hosted a Scotland is Now reception in the Canadian capital. During her two-day visit to Canada she has been carrying out trade and culture engagements in Ottawa and Toronto, which included opening the Toronto Stock Exchange. Earlier in the week she carried out engagements in the USA on a tour which started on Monday. Stephen Waterson and Adrian Hoare with Alfie Lamb on a shopping trip on the day he died (Metropolitan Police/PA) A young mother has been accused at the Old Bailey of putting her boyfriend first after he allegedly crushed her little boy with his car seat because he was annoyed. Adrian Hoare, 23, allegedly failed to prevent Stephen Waterson from twice pushing the chair into Alfie Lamb, saying: I will not be told what to do by a three-year-old. Afterwards, Hoare did not blame him straight away because her relationship with 25-year-old Waterson was just too important, Duncan Atkinson QC claimed. Expand Close Alfie Lamb (Family Handout/PA) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Alfie Lamb (Family Handout/PA) Alfie collapsed in Watersons Audi convertible on the way home to Croydon from a shopping trip to Sutton, south London, on February 1 last year. There were four adults in the car as well as two children who were forced to sit in the footwell. Jurors were shown CCTV of 3ft tall Alfie appearing to run to keep up as the group set out from Halfords car park and later returned with their shopping. Cross-examining Hoare, Mr Atkinson asked: Whose pace are you walking at? What allowances were you making for Alfies little legs? Why is Alfie having to run? Expand Close Video grab taken from CCTV of Stephen Waterson and Adrian Hoare, left, with Alfie Lamb, right, returning from a shopping trip on the day Alfie died (Metropolitan Police/PA) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Video grab taken from CCTV of Stephen Waterson and Adrian Hoare, left, with Alfie Lamb, right, returning from a shopping trip on the day Alfie died (Metropolitan Police/PA) The defendant replied: Its just the way I walk even if its just me and Alfie. Alfie always runs. Mr Atkinson went on: Until he got into that car on the way back from Sutton, he was fine wasnt he? And by the time that the car reached Adams Way he was very far from fine, wasnt he? Something had to have happened in that journey? So when doctors and police start saying something happened to Alfie, you knew it had to have happened in the car. Were you not thinking it must have been Stephen? Hoare replied: Not straight away. The prosecutor asserted: What Stephen had done with his seat he had done deliberately. He was annoyed the second time he moved his chair back? Hoare agreed, but added: To begin with I did not blame anyone for what happened. Mr Atkinson said: Was it your relationship with Stephen was just too important? Wasnt the reality you just put what Stephen wanted first? The defendant denied it. Expand Close The Audi convertible (Metropolitan Police/PA) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The Audi convertible (Metropolitan Police/PA) Earlier, Watersons lawyer Tana Adkin QC suggested Watersons chair had nothing to do with Alfies injuries, saying Hoare must have done something. She asked Hoare: Are you trying to cover up something you did in the back of the car, and now trying to say it was Stephen that moved the seat and you knew what happened? The defendant replied: No. Hoare told the court that Alfie had travelled in the footwell of a car before. Mr Atkinson said: On this journey from Sutton to Croydon he was saying he did not have enough room and you had responded by slapping him? She denied it. The lawyer asked: Hes crying, hes unhappy, hes calling for his mum. Why not pick him up and comfort him, Miss Hoare? When Stephen moves the car seat back a second time why didnt you pick him up then? Alfie was crying, he was screaming, he was coughing. Hoare replied: I would not have been able to get Alfie out of the space because he had not moved his chair. Mr Atkinson said: Wasnt it obvious that he did not have enough room? The defendant said: I would have found a way of moving Alfie out of the space if I thought there was a serious problem and Alfie couldnt breathe. Mr Atkinson said: On February 1 last year, looking back on it now, do you feel you let Alfie down? Hoare replied: Yes. The prosecutor said: You could have kept your son out of that footwell, couldnt you? The defendant said: Yes, but Stephen said we was all going together. Mr Atkinson observed: Its all about Stephen. Hoare, who is originally from Gravesend in Kent, denies manslaughter, child cruelty and common assault on Emilie Williams, who was in the car. Waterson has pleaded not guilty to manslaughter and intimidation of the driver Marcus Lamb. The couple and Williams have pleaded guilty to conspiring to pervert the course of justice by making false statements to police. CABs Derek Mitchell said the proposed funding cut could lead to the loss of jobs (Rui Vieira/PA) The chief executive of Citizens Advice Scotland (CAS) has written to bureau managers warning of job losses after a cut of more than 600,000 in legal aid board funding. In a letter sent on Wednesday, Derek Mitchell indicated that the proposed cut would have a direct impact on the loss of at least 25 staff positions in 15 bureaus across the country. Mr Mitchell wrote that after CAS was informed about a cut of 626,717 to funding by the Scottish Government at the start of January, he had arranged a meeting with the Minister for Business, Fair Work and Skills Jamie Hepburn. He also stated confidence that the figure would be significantly higher, having spoken to bureaus regarding their funding positions. Having met the minister shortly before his letter to managers, Mr Mitchell said that he had been told the funding decision would not be reversed. The First Minister should step in and reverse these cutsScottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie The CAS chief executive outlined that he was extremely disappointed by the decision. The letter indicated that Mr Hepburn would be open to supporting an exploration of alternative funding options, according to CAS. Scottish Liberal leader Willie Rennie raised concern that the cut would have a significant impact on people using the service. These Scottish Government cuts pose a direct threat to services which people desperately rely upon for sound, free and independent advice, said Mr Rennie. Housing, employment law and benefits can be enormously complex and Citizens Advice services are vital to helping people navigate such processes. The loss of dozens of staff would be devastating. The Minister for Business, Fair Work and Skills has shown casual indifference to the fate of the CABs. When it comes to protecting services which help people in difficult situations, he has proven himself to be no better than the Conservatives. The First Minister should step in and reverse these cuts. Labour MSP Neil Findlay said: These cuts are appalling. The budget awards Scottish ministers a 140 tax cut and slashes funding for services like these that help the poorest people the most. No progressive government should be making cuts like this and they must be reversed before Stage 3 of the budget. Q What happened at yesterday's meeting? A. Following a "robust but constructive" meeting with European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker, the two sides agreed their teams would hold further talks to see whether it was possible to agree a way forward that could command a majority in Parliament while respecting the EU's negotiating guidelines. Read More Q. What happens next? A. Mrs May travels to Dublin today for talks with Irish premier Leo Varadkar focused on the backstop, which remains the key sticking point in the negotiations. Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay will then meet the EU's chief negotiator Michel Barnier on Monday to open discussions on possible solutions to end the impasse. The Prime Minister and Mr Juncker have also agreed to meet again before the end of the month to take stock of the situation. Q. What about Parliament? A. The Prime Minister is expected to make a statement to MPs on Wednesday setting out the latest situation. Then on Thursday there will be another debate on a "neutral" motion, with an opportunity for MPs to put down amendments which can then be voted on. Q. After that? A. Focus may shift to an EU-Arab League summit on February 24 and 25 in the Egyptian resort of Sharm El Sheikh. If Mrs May is to get the legally binding changes she wants, it will require the unanimous support of the other 27 leaders - and this is the next occasion on which they are scheduled to meet together under the same roof. After the Commons defeated her original Brexit plan last month, Mrs May is also required to stage a further "meaningful vote" but reports suggest she will wait to the end of the month. In the meantime, the clock ticks towards March 29 - the day Mrs May says Britain will finally leave the European Union. European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker, Prime Minister Theresa May and European Union chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier walk to their meeting at the European Commission headquarters in Brussels (Geert Vanden Wijngaert/AP) As the countdown continues to the scheduled date of Brexit on March 29, here is what has been happening over the past week. Days to go 49 What happened this week? Theresa May returned to Brussels on a mission to persuade EU leaders they must accept changes to the Withdrawal Agreement to have any hope of getting it through the House of Commons. Before her visit, the Prime Minister sought to reassure Northern Ireland she will protect its interests with a high-profile speech in Belfast and talks with politicians and businesses. But the trip was overshadowed by European Council president Donald Tusks remark that there was a special place in hell for Brexiteers without a plan and his comment as talks concluded that there was still no breakthrough in sight. Expand Close Theresa May met European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker for the first time since their Withdrawal Agreement was rejected by MPs (Harriet Line/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Theresa May met European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker for the first time since their Withdrawal Agreement was rejected by MPs (Harriet Line/PA) Meanwhile, Jeremy Corbyn made an offer to back the PMs Brexit plan if she accepted five demands, including a customs union, close links with the single market and ongoing alignment with EU workplace and environmental protections. What happens next? Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay will hold talks with EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier on Monday, as each sides teams of officials re-engage in the search for a breakthrough. If no deal has been reached by Wednesday as seems overwhelmingly likely Mrs May will address MPs on progress made and table a neutral motion for debate the following day. This motion is expected to attract a swathe of amendments on anything from the removal of the controversial Irish backstop to delaying Brexit day beyond March 29 or holding a fresh public vote. Expand Close PA Graphics Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp PA Graphics Valentines Day will see a succession of votes which will not be binding on the Government but will hold significant political weight as an indication of what the House of Commons will support. However, it is not expected to be the final opportunity for critics of the Brexit deal to rebel or resign, as the PM is promising another meaningful vote in the coming weeks. Good week Leo Varadkar. The Irish Taoiseach won firm commitments from EU leaders that they will not leave the Republic to stand alone, with European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker assuring him: The Irish border is the European border. Mr Juncker showed Mr Varadkar a huge card sent by an Irish woman to thank him for his support. But the womans message was awkward for the Taoiseach as it included the claim that Britain does not care about peace in Northern Ireland. Expand Close Taoiseach Leo Varadkar (left) and EU Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker discusses no-deal Brexit plans in Brussels on Wednesday. (Michelle Devane/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Taoiseach Leo Varadkar (left) and EU Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker discusses no-deal Brexit plans in Brussels on Wednesday. (Michelle Devane/PA) Bad week Supporters of a second referendum. Hopes that Mr Corbyn would throw Labours weight behind the campaign for a Peoples Vote appeared to recede as he wrote to Mrs May offering his partys help to secure a Brexit deal. Expand Close Jeremy Corbyn signs a letter he wrote to Theresa May laying out Labours five Brexit demands (Stefan Rousseau/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Jeremy Corbyn signs a letter he wrote to Theresa May laying out Labours five Brexit demands (Stefan Rousseau/PA) Shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer insisted the move did not take the option of a referendum off the table, but Chuka Umunna said that EU-backing voters would feel they had been sold down the river and former leadership contender Owen Smith said he and others would be considering their future in the party. Quote of the week Ive been wondering what that special place in hell looks like for those who promoted Brexit without even a sketch of a plan how to carry it out safely. European Council president Donald Tusk. Tweet of the week Well, I doubt Lucifer would welcome them, as after what they did to Britain, they would even manage to divide hell. European Parliament Brexit co-ordinator Guy Verhofstadts response to Mr Tusk. Well, I doubt Lucifer would welcome them, as after what they did to Britain, they would even manage to divide hell https://t.co/AS367egjZP Guy Verhofstadt (@guyverhofstadt) February 6, 2019 Word of the week Hell It was the place where Mr Tusk wanted to consign Brexiteers with no plans, and the place where many of his critics thought he should be sent for poisoning the atmosphere ahead of Mrs Mays visit. Unguarded comments to Mr Varadkar, caught by a microphone moments before he spoke, made clear the Council chief was all too aware that he would stir up a hornets nest in the UK. One Twitter wag appeared to be thinking of Brexit-backing pub chain boss Tim Martin when he responded to Tusks query about where the special place in hell was located with the single word: Wetherspoons. Health Minister Simon Harris is under pressure over the rising costs of the hospital (Niall Carson/PA Wire) Sinn Fein has threatened to table a motion of no confidence in the health minister over the spiralling costs of the new National Childrens Hospital. Mary Lou McDonald has written to Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin challenging him to stop protecting Simon Harris by way of the confidence and supply agreement, and asking him if he will move or support a no confidence motion in the minister. The Sinn Fein leader said: Sinn Fein has no confidence in Minister Harris. His position is untenable in the face of mounting crises in our health services. He must be removed from office. The move comes after Leo Varadkar said he had total confidence in Mr Harris. But Ms McDonald said the Taoiseachs confidence that the health minister had acted correctly has no credibility. What has been revealed amounts to failures of governance and accountability at all levels of government.Mary Lou McDonald The opposition has called for Mr Harris to resign after Department of Health memos from August 2018 showed there was a 391 million euro overrun at the hospital. Mr Harris did not tell his Cabinet colleagues about the overrun until November. A spokeswoman for Mr Harris said on Thursday night it remains the position that Mr Harris did not know about the final figures until November 9, and he informed the Taoiseach and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform on that date. The estimated cost for the new hospital which will be located on the campus of St Jamess Hospital in Dublin has risen from an original estimate of 650 million euro to more than 1.7 billion euro. Speaking in Belfast on Friday afternoon, Mr Varadkar reiterated his absolute confidence in Mr Harris, saying he had delivered as a minister. Mr Varadkar said: All the controversy now is about who told what to whom when rather than matters of substance or outcome, they are matters of process. If Simon Harris had told the government earlier about the emerging overrun I would have told him to do exactly what he did, which was get to the bottom of it, to minimise any overrun and find out what the reasons were and come back to government with options. That is exactly what he did. He added that it would not have impacted on the Budget Day package in any way. What is happening is that the politics of press releases and the politics of the photo with the hi-vis jacket has taken over and theres not much governance going on in its traditional wayThomas Byrne, Fianna Fail In a statement earlier on Friday, Mr Varadkar said: The impact on Budget 2019 is a red herring. It would have had no impact on the Budget Day package. Capital infrastructure spending profiles are now multi-annual and were announced in February 2018, not on Budget Day. He added that the increase in the capital budget for 2019 was 1.5 billion euro and 100 million euro would have to be taken from this for the NCH overrun. Its manageable, he said. But Ms McDonald said: The Taoiseach has described budgetary concerns arising from the overspend as red herrings. The truth is that this overspend will impact on vital community health projects and other infrastructure which will now be delayed or cancelled as a consequence. What has been revealed amounts to failures of governance and accountability at all levels of government. Speaking on the Sean ORourke show, Fianna Fails Thomas Byrne accused Mr Harris of misleading the Dail. He said: Theres a Government here who have lost two ministers, Frances Fitzgerald and Denis Naughten, and its an absolute shambles the way Government is happening. What is happening is that the politics of press releases and the politics of the photo with the hi-vis jacket has taken over and theres not much governance going on in its traditional way. He added: Only for Brexit there would be an election. Let's build the National Children's Hospital! Delighted to press go! Thanks Anthony for being there - this is for him and all children pic.twitter.com/X4UDkISVDQ Simon Harris TD (@SimonHarrisTD) April 26, 2017 An independent review by PwC is under way into the overspending. It is scheduled to be completed next month. A new chairman of the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board was appointed this week after the previous chairman Tom Costello resigned over the rising costs. Speaking in Belfast, Sinn Feins Pearse Doherty called for Mr Harris to apologise. He added: This clearly paints a picture of a minister who is out of his depth as Minister for Health, who is lacking incompetence in relation to getting a grip on this crisis. We have called for the Taoiseach to remove him from office. There is a responsibility on the Opposition, but we are mindful of the numbers in Leinster House and thats why Mary Lou McDonald has written to Micheal Martin asking him to stop protecting Minister Harris and indicate whether he still has confidence in the Minister for Health and whether he is willing to support or move in his own right a motion of no confidence. If he indicates, or indeed if a number of his parliamentary party indicate to us they would support a motion, we would table one as soon as next week. A vote on a united Ireland is becoming a "very real" possibility according to government ministers. Several government ministers have warned that there is a very real chance of an Irish unity poll in the event of a no-deal Brexit. The BBC has reported that a senior minister told the news organisation that the prospect of a border poll is "very real" and on Prime Minister Theresa May's mind. Read More Another cabinet member said that that the government was risking "sleepwalking into a border poll", while another acknowledged that a vote would be a "realistic possibility" if the UK leaves the EU without a deal on March 29. After meeting the Taoiseach on Friday, DUP leader Arlene Foster was asked to comment on the reports. "There are many people engaging in project fear at this point in time and we all have to recognise that," Mrs Foster said. "The Belfast Agreement sets out the criteria for a border poll and it hasn't been satisfied and therefore will not be called." Under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Karen Bradley) can call a border poll if she believes it is likely to pass in favour of a united Ireland. Expand Close Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald (Niall Carson/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald (Niall Carson/PA) Last month it was reported that Mrs Bradley warned a border poll on the reunification of Ireland was "far more likely" if the United Kingdom crashes out of the European Union without a withdrawal agreement. A Sky Data poll released on Friday found that 64% of people in the Republic of Ireland would back Irish unity, with 34% of them "strongly" backing it. The poll found that 16% of people were opposed to unity (6% strongly), with 18% answering neither and 4% saying they didn't know. Sinn Fein has repeatedly called for a border poll throughout the Brexit negotiations. Party President Mary Lou McDonald said that a border poll must be called in the event of a no-deal Brexit. "We also know from polling data north and south that public sentiment is of a view that in the event of a crash Brexit, that people's preference would be for Irish unity," she said. "The only way that anyone can act in a democratic fashion is to respect consent, to respect the democratic wishes of the people of the north of Ireland and to use the Good Friday Agreement, its provisions, to guide us in the time ahead. "So if there is a Tory crash, and Mrs May has conceded as much on the floor of the House of Commons, in that event, not only will there be pressure for a referendum on Irish unity, there will be absolute democratic imperative to call such a referendum." However, the UK Government rejected Sinn Fein's call, saying the criteria set out in the Good Friday Agreement "are not satisfied". The Taoiseach will meet the local political parties for talks today with Brexit and the stalemate at Stormont likely to feature prominently. While Dublin has made it clear that Leo Varadkar isn't here for Brexit negotiations - which can be conducted only by the EU and the Government - local political sources say Brexit will be raised in the discussions. The Taoiseach will meet delegations from the DUP, Sinn Fein, SDLP, Ulster Unionists and Alliance in Belfast. He arrives after the Prime Minister yesterday vowed to deliver Brexit on time on March 29 and secured agreement for a fresh round of talks with the EU to try to get her withdrawal agreement over the line. Read More Mrs May described discussions with EU leaders in Brussels as "robust but constructive" and insisted she was determined to "negotiate hard" over the coming days to secure legally-binding changes to the agreement which would make it acceptable to Parliament. She will hold talks with European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker later this month. The European Parliament's Brexit co-ordinator Guy Verhofstadt said the Prime Minister had assured him "there will be a backstop" in any final deal. European Council president Donald Tusk insisted there was "no breakthrough in sight". Mrs May took Mr Tusk to task for his comment earlier this week that a "special place in Hell" was reserved for those who promoted Brexit with no plan to deliver it. She told him that his remark was "not helpful and caused widespread dismay in the United Kingdom". A joint statement issued after talks from Mrs May and Mr Juncker said: "Despite the challenges, the two leaders agreed that their teams should hold talks as to whether a way through can be found that would gain the broadest possible support in the UK Parliament and respect the guidelines agreed by the European Council." DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds said he wasn't surprised there wasn't immediate movement in Brussels yesterday and he called on EU negotiators to be realistic. "We want to see a deal but we need people to be in deal-making mode. We need to see genuine diplomatic language rather than the offensive rhetoric of recent days," he said. "Both Simon Coveney and Michel Barnier have recognised there are ways to avoid a hard border even in a no-deal scenario. "Therefore, those suggesting there are no alternatives are fooling no one but themselves." He urged the Prime Minister to focus on seeking legally binding changes to the draft withdrawal agreement. "She must stand by her commitments to the House of Commons," he added. Sinn Fein president Mary Lou McDonald claimed Mrs May's "clear priority is to appease and placate the DUP and hard-Brexiteers who are driving towards a catastrophic no-deal crash". Ms McDonald said it was welcome that the EU had "reiterated the position that the withdrawal agreement and backstop are not up for renegotiation". She said: "The backstop is an insurance policy. It is the bare minimum required to prevent a hard British border in Ireland. It is supported by the majority of citizens, businesses and other key sectors of our society and people. Any attempt to scrap the backstop must not be entertained. "The British Prime Minister is aware that a crash Brexit will precipitate a referendum on Irish unity as per the Good Friday Agreement." Ulster Unionist MEP Jim Nicholson repeated his party's opposition to the backstop and called for a "serious refocusing of minds" to avoid a no-deal Brexit. "If the EU is serious about achieving a deal, it needs to take a pragmatic approach in its discussions with the Prime Minister which has hitherto been lacking," he said. "The EU asked for a position from Parliament, and now they have it. Negotiations should be done away from the cameras and microphones, so it is now up to the Prime Minister and the EU to work constructively in order to reach a deal acceptable to both the UK and EU." Alliance deputy leader Stephen Farry said: "We need to be conscious there are now under 50 days to the scheduled Brexit point. There have already been 30 months in which to sort this out. "So while it is positive dialogue is happening, nothing can be achieved unless the UK is prepared to be realistic. "Businesses and other stakeholders cannot afford the clock to be run down with a cliff edge approaching. More and more decisions will have to be made which will impact on jobs and livelihoods." The TUV said Mrs May seemed "intent on tinkering with the backstop" rather than removing it. "Such a proposal is totally unacceptable to all unionists as it would be fatal to the economic unity of the nation," a party spokesman said. "The idea that the backstop is essential to avoid a hard border is a hoax. The core question, which remains unanswered is: 'who would build this hard border?' "Ireland says not it. The UK says the same. It won't happen, unless the EU makes the Dublin government physically partition Ireland. How likely is that?" Policing Board chair Anne Connolly admitted her organisation was caught unawares when Chief Constable George Hamilton announced his decision to retire last week. "It was genuinely a shock to us that the Chief Constable did not want to take on another three years," she said as the Policing Board met for the first time in two years yesterday. "We are very quickly moving away from thinking about the temporary posts that are currently there - a deputy and three assistant chief constables - and are now prioritising the Chief Constable position. That will be the first post to be filled." And Ms Connolly said there are "most definitely" people in senior positions within the PSNI who are eligible to apply. "There is no dispute about the criteria," she said. "People who apply have to have completed the Strategic Command Course. "Any officer in any jurisdiction is eligible to do it. "Another criteria, which was changed by the Minister for Justice in 2014, is that it is 'desirable' for the applicant to have worked in another jurisdiction, that's 'desirable', not 'essential'." Meanwhile, the Chief Constable said it has been "an immense honour" to serve in the role for the past five years. George Hamilton will retire at the end of June. "There have been many challenges but I feel that I've given it my best for five years," he said. "I'm not pretending otherwise, it's been hugely challenging. I just feel it was time for me to think about doing other things. "Policing is in a better place now than it ever has been. We have confidence at an all-time high, crime at an all-time low, we're more diverse than we've ever been, we have less complaints against us than we've had since records began. "I feel I've got to the end of my five-year contract and the organisation is in not too bad a place." The party's high-profile South Belfast MLA Claire Hanna's future in the SDLP would be uncertain if it linked up with Fianna Fail An SDLP special conference tomorrow to debate a motion for a new partnership with Fianna Fail will also discuss proposals to build closer relations with Fine Gael and the Irish Labour Party. If accepted as an amendment to the original motion, the second proposal from SDLP branches in Fermanagh, Upper Bann, and Balmoral would effectively prevent the party leadership developing its partnership with Fianna Fail into a merger. But the Belfast Telegraph understands that it will instead be debated as a separate motion at the Newry conference. Party insiders predict the Fianna Fail motion will be approved despite SDLP Youth, women's and LGBT groups coming out strongly against it. Support for the partnership with Fianna Fail is particularly strong in rural and border areas with the greatest opposition in Belfast. The party's high-profile South Belfast MLA Claire Hanna's future in the SDLP would be uncertain if it linked up with Fianna Fail. Ms Hanna has said she is not convinced of the benefits of such a move which would not reflect her politics. She is the only one of the SDLP's MLAs who have not endorsed the proposal. A letter from the other 11 supporting the move has been sent to party members in advance of tomorrow's conference. It says: "We write collectively as your public representatives to inform you of our support for the proposal of a policy partnership between the SDLP and Fianna Fail. "People right across our constituencies, not least those most disadvantaged and marginalised, are being let down and left behind. The unprecedented challenges from Brexit and the continued stalemate at Stormont means that business as usual is no longer an option. "To continue to do what we have always done at such a crucial juncture in our politics and history is to fail to fulfil the duty we hold dear, to serve people and present solutions that will transform their lives." The letter says the SDLP has a "proud legacy" but it's job now is to "deliver fully on our vision of a reconciled people living in a united, just and prosperous new Ireland". It claims the partnership with Fianna Fail will offer the party "for the first time an all-island platform to meet the all-island challenges facing all our people". Meanwhile, former SDLP Stormont minister Carmel Hanna, Claire Hanna's mother, has voiced her opposition to the proposed Fianna Fail partnership. She has been a party member since 1972. Writing in yesterday's Irish News, she stated: "In its nearly 49 years SDLP has built up significant international respect and unique political capital in a deeply polarised society, where extremism pays electoral dividends. We should accentuate the positive and address our deficiencies. We shouldn't put our eggs in any one basket, but work with all Irish democrats, including Fianna Fail." Ms Hanna spoke of the party's financial difficulties in the early years. "Then, as now, the SDLP was broke. We drew multi-party support from Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and Irish Labour and those with no party affiliation," she said. "I can testify that those in the group with Fine Gael connections raised more money than anyone else." The SDLP veteran acknowledged the party's declining vote but added: "The SDLP must get out more on the doorsteps and re-learn to compete. The SDLP's salvation lies within itself." SDLP leader Colum Eastwood and SDLP South Down MLA Sinead Bradley speaking to reporters after meeting Taoiseach Leo Varadkar at Notting Hill (Liam McBurney/PA) The leader of SDLP has expressed confidence a proposed link-up with Fianna Fail will be endorsed by the party faithful without the loss of any dissenting members. Colum Eastwood insisted the democratic foundations of the SDLP meant there was space for healthy disagreement and debate. His comments came as Taoiseach Leo Varadkar expressed hope the SDLPs relationship with his Fine Gael party would not suffer as a consequence of the potential Fianna Fail partnership. Expand Close Taoiseach Leo Varadkar ahead of the talks (Liam McBurney/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Taoiseach Leo Varadkar ahead of the talks (Liam McBurney/PA) SDLP members will gather in Newry, Co Down, on Saturday to vote on Mr Eastwoods proposal for a link-up with Irelands main opposition party. Another proposal, put forward by members opposed to the Fianna Fail deal, will instead advocate the SDLP adopt a non-exclusive approach to cross-party cooperation. Under these terms, it would seek to forge better links with a broader range of political parties in the Irish Republic. Many founding grandees of the party favour the latter option. Mr Eastwood, who met the Taoiseach in Belfast on Friday to discuss Brexit, said he was confident members would back his plan. Whats going to happen tomorrow is there are two different proposals, one from the leadership and another proposal I think the one from the leadership will get support. I hope it will, he said. The bottom line in this is we are a very democratic party, we can have a discussion, we can even disagree, we can debate and then we can come out united together and I think thats whats going to happen tomorrow. We understand very well that politics has changed here, Brexit has changed everything and it is important that the SDLP are involved in that change. I believe that the proposal that I will be putting to the membership tomorrow is one that can get support, not just in the room but, more importantly, with the public out there, and we need to show that our values can survive and thrive in the next decade and I think thats what this is all about. Brexit has changed the world and if the SDLP are serious about being a player in the future we have to change, tooSDLP leader Colum Eastwood Asked if he was concerned some members would quit with party if the Fianna Fail link-up is agreed, he said: No, I think this is a democratic party. There have been things in the past in the SDLP that I have disagreed with. You have to stay in and make your arguments and then move on if you are not successful. The bottom line in this is the SDLP brand remains, our integrity remains, our independence remains, what we are talking about is a partnership to work together to meet the big challenges of today. Brexit has changed the world and if the SDLP are serious about being a player in the future we have to change, too. Mr Varadkar, the leader of Fine Gael, was asked about the prospective link-up during his visit to Belfast. I think primarily that is a decision for the SDLP and I totally respect their right to make whatever decision they think is best for their party, he said. The only thing I would say is the Irish government has always had a very close relationship with the SDLP for decades now and my party Fine Gael has had a good relationship with the SDLP, too. I just hope that anything they decide to do with Fianna Fail doesnt jeopardise that into the future. Desheawn Hitlal, another teenager to have been shot to death in Trinidad and Tobago. (Photo Source: Trinidad Newsday) Police in the twin island Republic of Trinidad and Tobago are investigating the murder of a Sangre Grande teenager who was shot and killed during a drive-by shooting on Saturday night. Reports are that 17-year-old Desheawn Hitlal, of Ramoutar Extension, was standing at the corner of Jacob Coat and Sixth Streets, in Northeastern Settlement, Sangre Grande, at around 7.45 p.m., when a white Nissan AD Wagon pulled up next to him. A person got out of the back seat and shot Hitlal several times, and calmly returned to the car. Persons in the vicinity of the shooting said that Hitlal ran but collapsed and died where he fell. Police confirmed that Hitlal was arrested for marijuana possession, but were yet to establish a motive for the killing. Since Hitlals death, one other person was killed in another drive-by shooting. (Source: Trinidad Newsday) Rawling Williams, 40, was shot dead after a drive-by shooting in Sea Lots. The Police Ombudsman's Office is investigating the police handling of a threat made against a man murdered outside a Belfast school. News of the threat to Jim Donegan emerged as detectives investigating the murder arrested a 63-year-old man yesterday. He was later released unconditionally. Mr Donegan (43) was shot as he waited in his Porsche Panamera to collect his 13-year-old son from St Mary's Christian Brothers Grammar School in west Belfast. The suspect was arrested in Belfast yesterday morning, and an address was also searched. Yesterday, the BBC reported that there will be a probe into how PSNI dealt with information on a "potential threat" to Mr Donegan. The Ombudsman's Office said it was looking into whether the information received before his murder was properly processed. Meanwhile, the PSNI released an image of what the suspected gunman may look like. Mr Donegan was gunned down in front of schoolchildren and parents on Tuesday December 4. Detective Chief Inspector Pete Montgomery, from the PSNI's major investigation team, said: "I have released an EvoFit image of what the suspected gunman may look like in the hope that someone may have seen this person who murdered Jim and put the lives of countless children at risk. "I am appealing to the community to help me put this extremely dangerous individual behind bars. "If anyone recognises this person or has any information that could assist with the investigation, please contact 101 and ask for the detectives in Seapark investigating Jim Donegan's murder. "If someone would prefer to provide information without giving their details, they can contact the independent charity Crimestoppers and speak to them anonymously on 0800 555111." A Co Down woman has paid tribute to her best friend for saving her life after she insisted she have a smear test. Now ` The legal secretary from Saintfield only discovered she had the disease thanks to the persistence of her best friend and colleague Nicola Campbell. Nicola (34) from Newtownbreda was concerned that her pal was experiencing irregular bleeding but wasn't getting herself checked out - so she made an appointment for her. Marianne (42) said: "I kept putting off going for my smear. "I was supposed to go for one a year before, but I hated them so I didn't go. I was having irregular bleeding but it never entered my mind that it could be something serious. "I thought it was because of the pill I was on. I kept forgetting to take it at the right time and I thought that's what was causing the bleeding. "But Nicola wasn't convinced - she kept nagging at me to make an appointment for a smear and when I didn't, she made an appointment for us both to go along and have one done on the same evening." Nicola subsequently received a letter telling her she was healthy, while Marianne was called back for a colposcopy, a procedure used to examine the cervix. Marianne was diagnosed with cervical cancer on July 18, 2017, and had a radical hysterectomy. "They also had to remove some lymph nodes from my leg to make sure the cancer hadn't spread, which it hadn't, so I was lucky in that respect," said Marianne. "I also didn't need radiotherapy or chemotherapy either, so that was another positive. "I cried and cried when I found out I had cancer, I was so cross with myself that I hadn't gone for my smear, I was convinced I was going to die. "I am fortunate I found out when I did and that's simply down to Nicola. If she hadn't made that appointment I probably wouldn't be here today." Marianne was speaking out as it emerged that there has been a drop in the uptake of smear tests here among women aged between 25 and 29. Five years ago, 71.5% of women in the age bracket went for a smear test, but that figure dropped to 67.9% last year. GP Dr Laura Ringland from Kingsbridge Private Hospital said there are a number of reasons why younger women avoid going for a smear test. "There can be that embarrassment factor but it is done in as dignified way as possible so the woman only undresses from the waist down, they have a screen around them and a blanket over their legs," she said. "It isn't painful either, there is a myth that we are scraping cells away but we actually only use a small brush and that part of the smear only takes a few seconds." Naomi Thompson from Cancer Focus Northern Ireland also encouraged women to ensure they attend their smear test. "A smear test is designed to spot any unusual changes before cancer develops," she said. Hans Nagar, a consultant gynaecological oncologist at the Belfast Trust, said women are putting their lives at risk by avoiding having smear tests. Cervical cancer mainly affects women between 30 and 45, but by having smear tests done when they are younger, women can reduce their risk of developing the disease. Mr Nagar said: "We know that half of all women who develop cervical cancer have never been for a smear or haven't had one in the last 10 years. "The awful reality of cervical cancer is that it tends to affect younger women, meaning a lot these women have young children and that makes it even more devastating. "The procedures to deal with pre-cancerous cells that are picked up in a smear are very simple and effective. "The sad fact is that cervical cancer is largely preventable and it is so important that women attend their appointments for smear tests." The Chief Constable has told the Policing Board there was "absolutely no GB security services involvement before, during or after" when quizzed on the investigation into the suspected theft of documents from the Police Ombudsman. George Hamilton admitted he was uncomfortable with arresting journalists Barry McCaffrey and Trevor Birney, who were detained by an outside force in a bid to boost public confidence. The confidential documents concerned a police investigation into the Loughinisland massacre by loyalists of six men in 1994. The two journalists produced No Stone Unturned, a documentary about the UVF atrocity examining claims of state collusion. In reply to a question from Sinn Fein MLA Gerry Kelly, the Chief Constable denied any involvement by MI5 in the police investigation. He also said he had read a statement of complaint from the Police Ombudsman's Office about the theft, after the Ombudsman had said that none was made. "I want to bust the myth that there was no statement of complaint," he said. "We had a report of what was quite a serious offence in terms of theft of the documents. "I have read the statement, unequivocally, I'm clear in my own mind, 100%. "The office of the Ombudsman reported the theft of documents on October 4, 2017. After that the documents appeared in a documentary film which we were aware of before its release. That was a definite starting point. "It was our responsibility to investigate, once we had reasonable cause to believe an offence had been committed. "It is not a comfortable place to arrest journalists, but we have an obligation under the law. "We as a police force were aware of the challenges attached. "Sometimes these things are difficult and sensitive and we are not looking to discredit journalists, but our actions have been lawful and proportionate." Mr Hamilton said he had asked Durham Constabulary to carry out the investigation in a bid to boost public confidence, and said the Durham Chief Constable Michael Barton had indicated a willingness to answer questions about the arrests at a future meeting of the Policing Board. Theresa May leaves after her meeting with European Council President Donald Tusk at the European Council headquarters in Brussels (Francisco Seco/AP) Theresa May has vowed to deliver Brexit on time on March 29, after agreeing a fresh round of talks to try to get her Withdrawal Agreement over the line. Mrs May described discussions with EU leaders in Brussels as robust but constructive and insisted she was determined to negotiate hard over the coming days to secure legally-binding changes to the Agreement which will render it acceptable to Parliament. Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay and EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier will meet next Monday, while Mrs May and European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker will have another meeting before the end of the month to take stock of the situation. But European Council president Donald Tusk poured cold water on any expectation of an imminent end to the current impasse, saying there was no breakthrough in sight. Meeting PM @theresa_may on how to overcome impasse on #brexit. Still no breakthrough in sight. Talks will continue. pic.twitter.com/vn2CVybc1j Charles Michel (@eucopresident) February 7, 2019 Mrs May took Mr Tusk to task for his comment on Wednesday that a special place in hell was reserved for those who promoted Brexit with no plan to deliver it. She told the council president his remark was not helpful and caused widespread dismay in the United Kingdom. The PMs meetings with Mr Juncker, Mr Tusk, Mr Barnier and senior representatives of the European Parliament took place as Jeremy Corbyn offered Labours help to secure a Norway-style Brexit. In an initiative which sparked howls of outrage among Labour Remainers, Mr Corbyn wrote to Mrs May setting out five demands, including joining a customs union, that would need to be met for his party to back the Government. Meanwhile, Bank of England governor Mark Carney issued a stark warning of the mounting risk of a recession in the event of the negative shock of a no-deal Brexit. With 50 days to go to the scheduled date of Brexit, Mr Carney said uncertainty about the outcome of negotiations was weighing more heavily on business activity, as he slashed growth forecasts to their weakest for 10 years. In talks with the PM, Mr Juncker underlined that the Withdrawal Agreement thrashed out last November would not be redrawn, but held open the possibility of adding more ambitious wording to a document setting out plans for the future relationship. And European Parliament president Antonio Tajani said: We are open to being more ambitious on our future relations, including looking at the Irish situation again if the UKs red lines change. The Parliaments Brexit co-ordinator Guy Verhofstadt raised concerns among eurosceptics in the UK by saying that Mrs May had assured him that there will be a backstop in any final deal. Open discussion w/ @theresa_may. Backstop non negotiable. We'll never abandon Ireland. I welcome @jeremycorbyn letter making a cross-party approach for the first time possible. From the hell we're in today, there is at last hope of a heavenly solution even if it won't be Paradise pic.twitter.com/2yEzINJQdb Guy Verhofstadt (@guyverhofstadt) February 7, 2019 The controversial backstop, which offers an insurance policy to avoid a hard Irish border after Brexit, is the biggest obstacle to securing parliamentary backing for Mrs Mays deal. MPs last week backed an amendment calling for it to be replaced with alternative arrangements. A joint statement issued after talks between Mrs May and Mr Juncker said: Despite the challenges, the two leaders agreed that their teams should hold talks as to whether a way through can be found that would gain the broadest possible support in the UK Parliament and respect the guidelines agreed by the European Council. Mrs May set out MPs demands for a legally binding change to the terms of the backstop, while Mr Juncker underlined that the EU27 will not reopen the Withdrawal Agreement. Theresa May is greeted by European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker as she arrives in Brussels for crunch Brexit talks - her first visit since her deal was defeated by the Commons pic.twitter.com/jo2nVWuKJX Harriet Line (@HarriLine) February 7, 2019 But he expressed his openness to add wording to the Political Declaration to be more ambitious in terms of content and speed when it comes to the future relationship. The PM later said: I have set out very clearly the position from Parliament that we must have legally binding changes to the Withdrawal Agreement in order to deal with Parliaments concerns over the backstop. What I see and hear from leaders is a desire for us to work together to ensure that we can deliver the UK leaving the European Union with a deal. My work is to deliver Brexit, to deliver it on time and I am going to be negotiating hard in the coming days to do just that. I'm clear that I am going to deliver Brexit, I'm going to deliver it on time, that's what I'm going to do for the British public - I'll be negotiating hard in the coming days to do just that. pic.twitter.com/kaMJ8YtY4Q Theresa May (@theresa_may) February 7, 2019 Mrs May was offered a chink of light by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who again ruled out reopening the Withdrawal Agreement, but said she believed solutions could be found. Speaking during a visit to Slovakia, Mrs Merkel said: I think we can find solutions without reopening the Withdrawal Agreement. That is not on the agenda for us. Expand Close (PA Graphics) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp (PA Graphics) In diplomatic statements, the description robust often indicates a heated row. European Commission spokesman Margaritis Schinas said that the word was something that both sides agreed was an accurate way to describe the tonality of the meeting. As Mrs May arrived in Brussels a protester waving a placard reading Dont crash out leaped in front of the PMs convoy as it arrived at the Commissions Berlaymont HQ but was quickly whisked away. The possibility of a disruptive Brexit is causing economic uncertainty in the EU, commission vice-president Valdis Dombrovskis said, as Brussels revealed its latest economic forecast. The EU economy is expected to grow 1.5% in 2019, with the UKs forecast at 1.3% although this is a purely technical assumption based on a status quo relationship with Brussels. Mr Dombrovskis said: The possibility of a disruptive Brexit creates additional uncertainty. Meanwhile, the Daily Telegraph reported that Mrs May is seeking to delay another Commons meaningful vote on the Governments Brexit stance until the end of February just a month before the UK is scheduled to quit the EU on March 29. Theresa May is to hold talks with Irish premier Leo Varadkar as she continues her shuttle-diplomacy to try to break the deadlock in the Brexit negotiations. After spending Thursday in talks in Brussels, the Prime Minister flies to Dublin in an effort to resolve the dispute over the Irish backstop which remains the main stumbling block to an agreement. Ahead of her meeting with the Taoiseach over dinner, Attorney General Geoffrey Cox will hold talks in the Irish capital with his Irish counterpart, Seamus Woulfe. Mr Cox has been leading work within Whitehall on providing either a time limit on the backstop or giving the UK an exit mechanism from it. Expand Close Attorney General Geoffrey Cox will meet his Irish counterpart for Brexit talks (Jonathan Brady/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Attorney General Geoffrey Cox will meet his Irish counterpart for Brexit talks (Jonathan Brady/PA) Both proposals have received a dusty response from Dublin, which insists the backstop cannot be time limited if it is to provide an effective insurance policy against the return of a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic. Mrs May, however, has warned she needs legally-binding assurances the UK will not be tied to EU rules indefinitely through the backstop if she is to get her Brexit deal through the House of Commons. Setting out the PMs approach to the dinner with Mr Varadkar, Downing Street said: This is about building on the discussions she had in Northern Ireland and in Brussels yesterday. She will be emphasising what we are looking for, seeking the legally-binding changes to the Withdrawal Agreement that Parliament said it needs to approve the deal. Ahead of their talks, Mr Varadkar will travel to Belfast for talks on Friday with the main Northern Ireland parties. Expand Close (PA Graphics) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp (PA Graphics) Meanwhile Downing Street has said ministers are looking with interest at a letter from Jeremy Corbyn setting out the terms on which Labour would support a deal in Parliament. The move provoked a furious outcry from Labour Remainers who fear the plan effectively kills off their hopes of the party backing a second referendum with warnings from some MPs they could quit the party altogether. Shadow chancellor John McDonnell said Mrs May had to accept that the partys proposals were the only way of getting a Brexit deal through Parliament. We believe a deal like this, put before Parliament again, could secure a majority and what youre seeing here is, yes, Parliament asserting control, and the Prime Minister has to accept that the only way shell get something through Parliament is a compromise like this, he told BBC Radio 4s Today programme. Mr McDonnell said the Prime Minister would have a secure parliamentary majority if she backed the plans, which he described as a traditional British compromise, but said a second referendum was still on the table if an agreement could not be reached. Expand Close Cabinet Secretary Sir Mark Sedwill is said to have been looking at emergency economic measures (PA) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Cabinet Secretary Sir Mark Sedwill is said to have been looking at emergency economic measures (PA) Number 10 sources acknowledged there were still very considerable points of difference with Labour over the blueprint which includes a customs union with the EU, something the Prime Minister has repeatedly ruled out. However, they may hope the threat Parliament could swing behind a softer Norway-style Brexit if there is no agreement on Mrs Mays deal will convince some Tory Brexiteer rebels to fall into line behind her plan. It comes as the Financial Times reported that a secret group at the heart of Whitehall has been working on emergency plans to kick-start the economy in the event of a no-deal Brexit. The Project After group, is said to have been put together by the Cabinet Secretary and head of the Civil Service, Sir Mark Sedwill, with senior figures from the Treasury, Cabinet Office, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and the Department for International Trade. Meeting PM @theresa_may on how to overcome impasse on #brexit. Still no breakthrough in sight. Talks will continue. pic.twitter.com/vn2CVybc1j Charles Michel (@eucopresident) February 7, 2019 The options said to have been considered by the group which has been working since the summer and is in close contact with the Bank of England range from cutting taxes and boosting investment to slashing tariffs. Its basically a Doomsday list of economic levers we could pull if the economy is about to tank, one Whitehall source is quoted as saying. Expand Close (PA Graphics) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp (PA Graphics) In her meetings in Brussels on Thursday, Mrs May won a commitment from European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker that their teams will carry on talking in an effort to find an agreed solution that can command support in the Commons. Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay will hold talks with the EUs chief negotiator Michel Barnier on Monday and Mrs May and Mr Juncker have agreed to meet again before the end of the month to take stock of the situation. I am looking forward to meeting @SteveBarclay in Brussels on Mon evening. I will listen to how the UK sees the way through. The EU will not reopen the Withdrawal Agreement. But I will reaffirm our openness to rework the Political Declaration in full respect of #EUCO guidelines. Michel Barnier (@MichelBarnier) February 8, 2019 Mr Barnier said he was looking forward to the meeting in Brussels, but restated the EUs position that the Withdrawal Agreement cannot be reopened. I will listen to how the UK sees the way through, said the EU negotiator. The EU will not reopen the Withdrawal Agreement. But I will reaffirm our openness to rework the Political Declaration in full respect of European Council guidelines. The PSNI confirmed a 33-year-old suspect was detained on Wednesday (Niall Carson/PA) A man has been charged with murder after a loyalist community worker was stabbed 11 times in East Belfast. Ian Ogle, 45, was attacked at Cluan Place on January 27. A 33 year old man has been charged with murder. He is due to appear at Belfast Magistrates Court tomorrow. Police Service NI (@PoliceServiceNI) February 7, 2019 A suspect, aged 33, was detained on suspicion of murder on Wednesday at Heathrow Airport, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) confirmed. He was charged with the killing on Thursday and will appear at Belfast Magistrates Court on Friday morning, detectives said. The husband and father-of-two was viciously attacked by a gang of at least five men and later died from his horrific injuries, police said. A man has been charged with murder after a loyalist community worker was stabbed 11 times in east Belfast by the UVF. Ian Ogle (45) was attacked at Cluan Place on January 27. The suspect, aged 33, was detained on suspicion of murder on Wednesday at Heathrow Airport, the PSNI said. He was charged with the killing last night and will appear at Belfast Magistrates Court this morning, detectives said. The husband and father-of-two was viciously attacked by a gang of at least five men and died from his horrific injuries, police said. Detective Chief Inspector Peter McKenna said yesterday: "Following excellent partnership working with UK and international partners, a 33-year-old man was detained in Heathrow Airport last night, arrested and conveyed to Northern Ireland. "He has now been taken to Musgrave Police Station where he is currently in custody being questioned by detectives. "I would like to renew my appeal for witnesses to this horrific murder." Mr McKenna added: "His skull was fractured and he was savagely stabbed 11 times in the back before being left to die on the street." He said an "altercation" took place outside a fast food outlet on the Beersbridge Road in Belfast earlier in the evening. Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close Funeral of murder victim Ian Ogle at Covenant Love Church on the Albertbridge Road in east Belfast. The 45-year-old died after being assaulted by several people at Cluan Place area of east Belfast last week. The funeral of Ian Ogle take place in east Belfast on February 4th 2019 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph) Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph The funeral of Ian Ogle take place in east Belfast on February 4th 2019 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph) Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph The funeral of Ian Ogle take place in east Belfast on February 4th 2019 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph) Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph Vera, Ryan and Toni Ogle as The funeral of Ian Ogle take place in east Belfast on February 4th 2019 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph) Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph The funeral of Ian Ogle take place in east Belfast on February 4th 2019 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph) Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph Funeral of murder victim Ian Ogle at Covenant Love Church on the Albertbridge Road in east Belfast. The 45-year-old died after being assaulted by several people at Cluan Place area of east Belfast last week. Ian Olge's family including his son Ryan and daughter Toni pictured at the funeral. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye Funeral of murder victim Ian Ogle at Covenant Love Church on the Albertbridge Road in east Belfast. The 45-year-old died after being assaulted by several people at Cluan Place area of east Belfast last week. Funeral of murder victim Ian Ogle at Covenant Love Church on the Albertbridge Road in east Belfast. The 45-year-old died after being assaulted by several people at Cluan Place area of east Belfast last week. Funeral in east Belfast for murdered loyalist Ian Ogle. Mr Ogle was murdered by a loyalist gang close to his house in Cluan Place last Sunday night. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press Funeral in east Belfast for murdered loyalist Ian Ogle. Mr Ogle was murdered by a loyalist gang close to his house in Cluan Place last Sunday night. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press Ian Ogle's children Ryan and Toni during the Funeral in east Belfast for murdered loyalist Ian Ogle. Mr Ogle was murdered by a loyalist gang close to his house in Cluan Place last Sunday night. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press Funeral in east Belfast for murdered loyalist Ian Ogle. Mr Ogle was murdered by a loyalist gang close to his house in Cluan Place last Sunday night. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press Ian Ogle's daughter Toni during the Funeral in east Belfast for murdered loyalist Ian Ogle. Mr Ogle was murdered by a loyalist gang close to his house in Cluan Place last Sunday night. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press Funeral in east Belfast for murdered loyalist Ian Ogle. Mr Ogle was murdered by a loyalist gang close to his house in Cluan Place last Sunday night. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press Funeral in east Belfast for murdered loyalist Ian Ogle. Mr Ogle was murdered by a loyalist gang close to his house in Cluan Place last Sunday night. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press Funeral in east Belfast for murdered loyalist Ian Ogle. Mr Ogle was murdered by a loyalist gang close to his house in Cluan Place last Sunday night. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press Funeral in east Belfast for murdered loyalist Ian Ogle. Mr Ogle was murdered by a loyalist gang close to his house in Cluan Place last Sunday night. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press Funeral in east Belfast for murdered loyalist Ian Ogle. Mr Ogle was murdered by a loyalist gang close to his house in Cluan Place last Sunday night. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press Funeral in east Belfast for murdered loyalist Ian Ogle. Mr Ogle was murdered by a loyalist gang close to his house in Cluan Place last Sunday night. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press Funeral of murder victim Ian Ogle at Covenant Love Church on the Albertbridge Road in east Belfast. The 45-year-old died after being assaulted by several people at Cluan Place area of east Belfast last week. Funeral of murder victim Ian Ogle at Covenant Love Church on the Albertbridge Road in east Belfast. The 45-year-old died after being assaulted by several people at Cluan Place area of east Belfast last week. The funeral of Ian Ogle takes place in east Belfast on February 4th 2019 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph) Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph The funeral of Ian Ogle takes place in east Belfast on February 4th 2019 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph) Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph The funeral of Ian Ogle takes place in east Belfast on February 4th 2019 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph) Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph The funeral of Ian Ogle takes place in east Belfast on February 4th 2019 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph) Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph The funeral of Ian Ogle takes place in east Belfast on February 4th 2019 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph) Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph MP Gavin Robinson as The funeral of Ian Ogle takes place in east Belfast on February 4th 2019 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph) Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph Toni Ogle as The funeral of Ian Ogle takes place in east Belfast on February 4th 2019 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph) Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph The funeral of Ian Ogle takes place in east Belfast on February 4th 2019 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph) Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph Toni Ogle as The funeral of Ian Ogle takes place in east Belfast on February 4th 2019 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph) Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph Toni Ogle as The funeral of Ian Ogle takes place in east Belfast on February 4th 2019 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph) Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph The funeral of Ian Ogle takes place in east Belfast on February 4th 2019 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph) Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph Toni Ogle as The funeral of Ian Ogle takes place in east Belfast on February 4th 2019 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph) Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph The funeral of Ian Ogle takes place in east Belfast on February 4th 2019 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph) Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph Vera, Toni and Ryan Ogle as The funeral of Ian Ogle takes place in east Belfast on February 4th 2019 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph) Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph Vera, Toni and Ryan Ogle as The funeral of Ian Ogle takes place in east Belfast on February 4th 2019 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph) Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph Vera and Ryan Ogle as The funeral of Ian Ogle takes place in east Belfast on February 4th 2019 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph) Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph The funeral of Ian Ogle takes place in east Belfast on February 4th 2019 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph) Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph The funeral of Ian Ogle takes place in east Belfast on February 4th 2019 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph) Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph The funeral of Ian Ogle takes place in east Belfast on February 4th 2019 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph) Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph Vera and Toni Ogle as The funeral of Ian Ogle takes place in east Belfast on February 4th 2019 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph) Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph Funeral of murder victim Ian Ogle at Covenant Love Church on the Albertbridge Road in east Belfast. Ian Ogle Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph Floral tributes placed at the scene where father-of-two Ian Ogle was murdered by UVF thugs last week Freddie Parkinson Ian Ogle Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Funeral of murder victim Ian Ogle at Covenant Love Church on the Albertbridge Road in east Belfast. The 45-year-old died after being assaulted by several people at Cluan Place area of east Belfast last week. "Then, shortly before 9.30pm, Ian's killers parked a black Seat Leon, registration number JGZ 7406 in Langtry Court, just off Templemore Avenue," he said. "They walked the short distance to Cluan Place, via Templemore Avenue and the Albertbridge Road. After the attack, they returned to Templemore Avenue - some of the killers got into the car and others dispersed on foot from Langtry Court, through the houses. "The car was driven along Templemore Avenue, into Major Street and onto the lower Newtownards Road, before being left at Pitt Place." The senior officer said he wanted to hear from anyone who saw a fight on the Beersbridge Road, a group of at least five men walking or running to and from Cluan Place, and a black Seat Leon car at Langtry Court. Three Vincentians have graduated as Chartered Professional Accountants (CPA), Canada. CPA Vice President mindful of global changes Vice President of CPA Canada International, Nancy Foran, speaking at the event, said of the graduates: "Their achievements are nothing short of exemplary, and they should be proud of owning a globally respected business and accounting designation. She welcomed the three graduates to a special cohort of 6163 candidates who passed the September 2018 Common Final exam a three-day affair, no easy game. PM recognises graduates Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves was on hand to recognize the graduates. He said that he was happy to see CPA operating and that he knew a number of outstanding persons who possess certificates from CPA. "I am hopeful that I would see more young Vincentians following in the footsteps of the graduates, said Gonsalves. Persons participating in CPA do not need to go to Canada to do the programme since all the exams are done online. A series of workshops in Barbados is said to be the only time when Vincentian students are required to travel overseas. Speaking with THE VINCENTIAN, Da Silva said that he was pursuing the programme under Certified General Accountants of Canada (CGA-Canada) before it was integrated with CPA Canada. The three are Jorge Da Silva, Bijorn Bullock and Mylz Williams. Williams and Bullock are out of the state, but Da Silva was present at a ceremony at Beachcombers Hotel last Tuesday, held in their honour.Foran was mindful that global changes, including technology, have affected the accounting profession and will influence the future of CPA and the business community. In light of such knowledge, CPA, she said, has introduced an initiative known as "CPA Foresight, which will help shape where the profession is going in the future.He recognized the CPA course as more enduring than CGA. "They (CPA) ensure that you know your work, said Da Silva, adding that more recognition should be given to persons who completed the course because of its challenging nature. A man in his 50s has died. (stock picture) A man has died following a house fire in the St Brigid's Hill area of Armagh. Credit: Newraypics.com A man in his 50s has died in a house fire in Armagh. The Northern Ireland Fire & Rescue Service (NIFRS) received a call at 4.10pm on Thursday about a fire at an end terrace house in the St Brigid Hill area. One appliance from Armagh Fire Station attended the scene. A small fire in the living room had burnt itself out before the arrival of firefigters. The fire appeared to have occurred earlier in the day. The man was confirmed dead at the scene. A Northern Ireland Fire & Rescue Service (NIFRS) Spokesperson said:No action was taken by Firefighters. The fire has been confirmed as accidental. The incident was dealt with at 5.55pm. We are reminding everyone that the risk of accidental house fires increases in winter as extra fire hazards are introduced into the home. "We are appealing for people to be vigilant about fire safety at this time of year and to look out for older family and friends in particular those living alone in our community. Local Firefighters will be in the St Brigids Hill and neighbouring areas of Armagh early next week providing fire safety advice to people in the local community. "If you are concerned about your fire safety or that of an older family member or friend visit www.nifrs.org for more information or to arrange a free home fire safety check. Police at the scene after a bomb was found under the car of a PSNI officer in Eglinton in 2015 Police at the scene of the murder attempt in Eglinton, Co Londonderry A Co Armagh man has been found guilty of the attempted murder of a police officer at his home using a booby-trap car bomb. Sean McVeigh (38), of Victoria Street in Lurgan, had been on trial in August last year over the terrorist murder bid. He denied the attempted murder of a police officer at his Glenrandel home in Eglinton, Co Londonderry on June 18, 2015 during his non-jury trial at Belfast Crown Court. McVeigh also denied possession of the under vehicle improvised explosive device (UNVIED). Giving his lengthy ruling on Friday, Judge Stephen Fowler QC said he was "satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt'' that McVeigh was the man who planted the device under the PSNI officer's car. He rejected defence arguments during the trial that traces of RDX explosives found on McVeigh's clothing were from an "innocent contamination''. Judge Fowler said he also drew an inference from McVeigh's refusal to give evidence at his trial and said he was satisfied the defendant was a front seat passenger in the car which took him to and from the scene of the planned attack. He also rejected defence submissions that the device was not capable of detonation and could have been an elaborate hoax device. The trial judge said it was a fully functioning device, containing 322 grammes of Semtex explosives with RDX being the main component. Contained inside a black box, measuring 20cms x 15 cms x 20cms, he said the device was equipped with detonator, battery, circuit board, timer unit, mercury tilt switch, two toggles and a copper cone. The copper cone was designed that "on detonation it was deformed by the blast into a 'slug' or rod shaped projectile". In a subsequent field test conducted on a similar model of car as that of the policeman, it "showed that anyone sitting on the driving seat would have sustained serious and possibly fatal injuries". Said Judge Fowler: "I am satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that this was a viable device. "I am also satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that this device was constructed and planted under the car with the intent to kill the driver once the vehicle was moved. "I find the defendant guilty on both counts one and two on the Bill of Indicmtment.'' Judge Fowler remanded the defendant into custody and McVeigh will be sentenced on a date to be fixed. It was the prosecution case that McVeigh was part of a joint enterprise with others to try and kill the police officer by planting the device under his Ford Mondeo car which was parked in the driveway of his home. His wife, who was a serving police officer at the time, had told detectives that she was asleep but woke up and looked out of her bedroom window. Now retired from the PSNI, she spoke of her "sheer disbelief" on seeing a "skinny man" attaching to her husband's car what turned out to be a new type of improvised under-car explosive device. She said that she was also "so shocked" she rapped so hard on the bedroom window of her bungalow home in that it "bruised" her knuckles. The would-be bomber, her statement added, "must have croaked himself" because he immediately "legged it ... took to his heels" down the driveway, turned right and into a waiting dark car. The court heard she immediately rang police and call handlers at Maydown PSNI dispatched three response vehicles to the scene. The court heard evidence from a number of police officers who said they spotted two cars "travelling in convoy'' from the Waterside towards the cityside of Derry. During the trial, the judge heard evidence from another police officer who said he was on patrol in the early hours of June 18, 2015, in the cityside of Derry when he received a message over his radio to go to the Foyle Bridge and set up a checkpoint. The constable said that he and another patrol vehicle went onto the bridge and pulled up on the inside lane and "we put our blue lights on'' and were in the process of setting up the checkpoint. "I stepped out of my vehicle and I could hear vehicles approaching from the Waterside area of Derry. "I turned around and there was a brow of a hill. I could see the headlights of a car approaching. "I stepped out into the middle of the road with my torch. I then realised the vehicles were travelling at a really, really excessive speed and I wasn't going to be able to stop them so I stepped off the road''. He confirmed to the court that both vehicles made no attempt to slow down. The officer said the vehicles were "travelling so fast'' he and his colleagues were unable to set up the vehicle checkpoint. He told the court that one of the cars was a "saloon type vehicle with a southern registration'' and said he was able to identify that in the saloon vehicle was a driver who was wearing a hat and a front seat passenger. The constable said the second vehicle was "extremely close'' to the saloon car. "There was only a short distance between the two vehicles.'' He added that he believed the car then headed in the direction of the Madam's Bank Road and radioed this into PSNI Maydown. The two vehicles were subsequently identified from Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) and CCTV cameras as a black Volkswagen Passat and a Toyota Verso, both with Republic of Ireland registration and both had been stolen. As a result, police at PSNI Maydown alerted colleagues in An Garda Siochana based in Letterkenny. The vehicles travelled to Lifford where the Toyota was abandoned. The trial heard that as the Passat drove towards Ballybofey, Co Donegal, it was spotted by a specialist Garda armed response unit who gave chase, stopping the car by blocking its path about a mile outside the village of Killygordon. Along with the driver, and a rear seat passenger, McVeigh was found sitting in the front passenger seat. In a follow-up search of the route taken by the Passat, Garda found three pairs of Tesco Marigold type gloves, later found to have traces of explosives residue. In addition RDX explosive traces were also found on McVeigh's black outer jacket and tracksuit bottoms. Further traces of RDX were also found on swabs taken from the front seat of the VW car, the interior door handles and from the rear seat. Similar explosive traces were found on the Toyota car located six days later in the car park where it had been left that night. Following his arrest under Section 30 of the Republic's Offences Against the State Act, the court heard McVeigh gave his name and date of birth but refused to answer any Garda questions. He was subsequently released on bail by Garda detectives. The trial heard that McVeigh was finally arrested over the murder bid in Eglinton by the PSNI detectives on a Lurgan bound train almost a year later in May 2016. A convicted fraudster who helped himself to his family's inheritance to fund his gambling addiction was yesterday jailed for a year A convicted fraudster who helped himself to his family's inheritance to fund his gambling addiction was yesterday jailed for a year. David Frederick Elliott, from Derrychara Park in Enniskillen, had been the legal controller of his grandmother's financial affairs when he took 45,000 over a two-year period up to May 2017. Judge Neil Rafferty QC described his breach of trust as a "serious matter by anyone's stretch of the imagination which unfortunately had an almost Dickensian effect on his brothers and sister in that their legacy has been spent on his addiction". Elliott (53) has previous convictions for fraud, including one last year when, as a former Poppy Day Appeal organiser, he stole 4,000 from his local branch of the British Legion. He was given 12 months suspended for two years. Given these past frauds, the Dungannon Crown Court judge said that Elliott "was a bad person to be chosen as a controller", although this was "no fault" on the part of those who appointed him. However, Judge Rafferty added that Elliott was "a gentleman who would have benefited from someone looking over his shoulder". "The fact he has an addiction is a reason (behind his offending), but not an excuse," said the judge. Earlier, prosecutor Michael McAleer said Elliott's offending came to light when one of his brothers reported financial irregularities regarding the accounts of their grandmother, who was in a nursing home. Mr McAleer said Elliott's culpability in the breach of trust, although more opportunistic, was nevertheless all the more serious given it was committed over a sustained period of time. Defence barrister Ian Turkington revealed that "a devoted" Elliott was chosen as controller because of his close relationship with his grandmother, saying "he was her favourite". However, the defence lawyer, who said that Elliott and his siblings would have been the principal beneficiaries of their grandmother's estate, conceded that what he had done was "a mean and unsavoury offence". Judge Rafferty commented that such behaviour "does not make the basis for a happy family gathering", to which Mr Turkington said "it has driven a massive wedge between the siblings". The defence lawyer explained that Elliott had cared for his grandmother, and he was her most regular visitor who often took her to lunch, which he paid for through her credit card. Unfortunately Elliott, whose "gambling had taken a grip with him", would also use the card to fund his addiction, he said. Elliott will serve 12 months in jail, followed by a year on licence for his breach of trust, meaning that he will be subject to recall to prison during that period if the authorities deem it necessary. The amount of awarded to the Ulster Orchestra has fallen by 100,000 The arts sector is facing further cutbacks after it emerged that audiences for performances and exhibitions are dwindling. The Arts Council of Northern Ireland said it has been advised by Stormont officials that its budget will be slashed again. The decline in attendances, revealed in a review of the Arts Council's five year strategic plan, took place as funding fell by almost 40%. Government investment in the sector fell from 14.1m in 2012 to 9.8m in 2017. The study by Annabel Jackson Associates Ltd said that the "absence of a functioning Assembly Executive at Stormont has weakened public accountability in decision-making". The Arts Council financed 108 organisations in 2014/15 and 106 in 2016/2017, but funding to arts groups decreased by some 38% during this period. Small organisations with a turnover of less than 200,000 were the hardest hit, with funding decreasing from around 3.12m in 2014/15 to 2.43m by 2016/17, a drop of 685,785. The report said that this was "in part due to the desire to maintain the critical mass of flagship large organisations, which might be called the orchestra effect". The amount awarded to the Ulster Orchestra fell by 100,000, from 1.88m in 2014/15 to 1.78m in 2016/17. Total Arts Council funding to organisations declined from 15.77m in 2014/15 to 13.92m in 2016/17. The report warned that "annually funded organisations are showing signs of financial stress". It pointed out that spending on publicity, marketing and promotion is falling, which "would be expected to have a long-term effect on audiences". It added: "Building maintenance seems low across the whole portfolio, which might be storing up problems for the future." Funding cuts could also have negative consequences for audiences, the report said. While the number of performances and exhibitions rose from 2014/15 to 2016/17, attendances have declined. Audience numbers at performances dropped from 3,219,332 in 2014/15 to 2,334,042 in 2016/17 - a decrease of 27%. The number of exhibition visitors almost halved from 1,240,657 to 628,340 over the same period. The report said that "annually funded arts organisations have worked hard to maintain their level of activity" but that "audience numbers have fallen, perhaps because of the low level of marketing/publicity/promotion and cuts in other overheads". The report added that "damage to long-term sustainability is evident". The Arts Council said the loss of more than 4m in funding between 2012 and 2017/18 meant that it "inevitably had to reduce its grant-in-aid to arts organisations". It described the decrease in exhibition visits and performance attendances as "a worrying trend". It also said it had asked arts organisations to demonstrate the impact of both a 5% and 10% cut for the incoming year, "as we have been advised by the Department For Communities that further cuts will be forthcoming". "Government announced earlier this year that public sector funding is likely to fall by a further 4% in 2019/20," the Arts Council added. It said that such cuts would be "worrying indeed" for its annually funded organisations and "could result in a smaller arts sector here, one which is under increasing pressure to survive". The Department for Communities said it had not yet finalised the Arts Council budget for 2019/20 but had advised it to plan based on a 4% reduction in its opening allocation that exceeded 10m in 2018/19. It added: "Alongside the department's funding, the Arts Council receives an additional 8m from Lottery funding. "The department has yet to have its 2019/20 budget confirmed by the Department of Finance. "When this process is complete, all departmental arm's-length bodies will be informed accordingly." Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has labelled Sinn Fein's call for a border poll as little more than "stunt politics" aimed at shoring up their base. Sinn Fein president Mary Lou McDonald pressed the Prime Minister for a referendum on Irish unity during her two-day visit to Belfast. However, Downing Street later rejected Ms McDonald's call. DUP Lagan Valley MP Sir Jeffrey said that "Sinn Fein is more focused on a border poll than on securing a sensible deal between the European Union and the United Kingdom". "Like amateur dramatics on the border, this is careless and nothing but stunt politics," he said. "Playing on people's fears by spinning tall tales about checkpoints, walls and barbed wire is all designed to build support for a united Ireland rather than reach any consensus. "Indeed, judging by their hard border rhetoric, Sinn Fein seem to be cheerleaders for a 'no-deal' exit. This is downright careless and reckless. Chaos suits that agenda. None of us need it. "This is not unusual or out of character. Sinn Fein collapsed Stormont because the DUP stood up to their shopping list of narrow republican demands. "Despite a growing list of problems in our schools and hospitals, Sinn Fein continue the careless politics of ransom by blocking the restoration of Stormont." The Milltown Road, Belfast is blocked in both directions near the junction with Belvoir Road following a tree having fallen on to a car. Picture By: Arthur Allison. A driver had a narrow escape after a tree fell on a car in south Belfast. The tree fell on the Milltown Road near Belvour as Storm Erik brought gale force winds to Northern Ireland. Today's weather forecast for your area A Northern Ireland Ambulance Service spokesman said they received a report of a road traffic collision at 11.40am and sent a rapid response paramedic, an emergency crew and an ambulance officer to the scene. No one was taken to hospital. Read More Police said the road remained closed and advised motorist to seek an alternative route. Earlier, live electricity wires came down on the Movilla Road in Newtownards due to a road traffic accident and the Foyle Bridge was closed to certain vehicles for a time. Despite the strong winds Police 45 responded to a request from our colleagues @PSNIABC in attempting to locate a vulnerable elderly gentleman in the Lurgan area.Thankfully the male was located by a member of the public and was returned home safe and well. Con D. @PoliceServiceNI pic.twitter.com/g1D4b7SOMx PSNI Air Support (@PSNIAirSupport) February 8, 2019 Storm Erik will continue to bring strong winds to Northern Ireland into the weekend. Meteorologist Nicola Maxey said: "On Friday we've got a named storm passing through the north of the country. "We're looking at winds of 50 to 60mph in Northern Ireland and the west of Scotland. "But Erik could bring the possibility of 70mph gusts along more exposed coasts. "Even away from the strongest gusts we could still have gale-force winds." The Met Office has issued two weather warnings for Friday for strong winds across Northern Ireland and western Scotland until the evening, and for heavy rain in Scotland until Saturday afternoon. Saturday will see a mix of sunny spells and blustery showers, with the most persistent rain in the north of the country and the possible risk of hail and thunder in the west. There will be frost and the chance of some snow in the north of the country towards the end of the weekend when falling rain meets cold air. Forecasting Sunday's weather, Ms Maxey said: "There is the chance of patchy rain and this could be heavy in places. "Because of the cold air, this could fall as snow on higher ground in Scotland and England on Sunday. "We're expecting a widespread frost on Sunday night and into Monday, and the unsettled weather will continue into the start of next week." Storm Erik was named by Irish forecaster Met Eireann on Thursday. Councillor Padraig McShane's lawyers confirmed he is ready to release anything relevant to a case. A councillor who claims he recorded conversations with officials connected to a legal challenge over a planned 20m hotel and leisure complex on the north coast is prepared to disclose the material, the High Court has heard. Padraig McShane's newly installed lawyers confirmed he is ready to release anything relevant to a case described by the judge as "unprecedented". Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council have been seeking an order for disclosure of any tapes connected to proceedings. But barrister David Scoffield QC, who is now representing Mr McShane, confirmed: "I don't understand there to be any difficulty with the recorded material being provided as soon as that is possible." He told the court arrangements could be made for the recordings to be transcribed, with the independent councillor helping to identify what is being said on them. The development came as the council's bid to have Mr McShane compelled to hand over any tapes was put back for a week. Stressing there will be no further adjournment, Mr Justice McCloskey said: "The case has become extremely stagnant for a variety of reasons which I have described more than once as unprecedented." Proceedings mounted by TUV leader Jim Allister have been on hold since Mr McShane dramatically intervened to claim he had recorded conversations with council officials. Mr Allister is judicially reviewing the local authority for giving the green light to the luxury accommodation facilities in Portstewart. The North Antrim MLA, who has a home overlooking the development site, claims the planning decision was unlawful. Mr McShane was a member of the planning committee who approved the proposed resort at the heart of the North West 200 race route last year. Plans include a 120-bedroom hotel, spa, holiday cottages, conference facilities and restaurant being built on the Ballyreagh Road. Mr McShane, who also chairs the council's audit committee, previously the court that he has "hours" of recorded material. He had been seeking whistleblower status, and has only now secured a solicitor and two barristers to represent him in the case. Stewart Beattie QC, for the council, said: "The release of the tapes as quickly as possible is critical." The scene after last Sundays accident on the main road between Dungannon and Moy The funeral of one of the men killed in a weekend road crash in Co Tyrone will take place today. Alaedin (Alinko) Fejzula (21) and 27-year-old Patrick (Pa) Kemenczei died in Sunday's horrific three-car collision involving a silver Skoda Octavia, a grey Toyota and a black Volvo on the A29 Dungannon Road near Moy. The two men, originally from Slovakia, were travelling in the Skoda along with Mr Fejzula's girlfriend, who remains critically ill in the Royal Victoria Hospital. A woman who was travelling in one of the other cars died from her injuries on Tuesday. She has been named locally as Brigid McKenna from Emyvale in Co Monaghan. Mrs McKenna had been travelling with her husband, who is still in hospital with serious injuries. Mr Fejzula had been living with his mother and stepfather in Dungannon. His funeral will take place in St Patrick's Church in Dungannon at 10am this morning. The remains of Mr Kemenczei are to be flown back to Slovakia, where he will be laid to rest. He had no family living locally and only moved here around 18 months ago to join Mr Fejzula. The Slovakian embassy in London has been providing consular assistance to the families of the two men. A GoFundMe page has also been set up to help with funeral arrangements, which has so far raised almost 6,000. Family and friends of the deceased held a vigil at the scene of the crash on Tuesday night. Mr Kemenczei had worked with Wills Wheels car dismantlers in Dungannon but had recently moved to a new job, while his friend had been with the company for only four months prior to his death. Wills Wheels manager Will Kullas paid tribute to the "two brilliant young men". He told the Belfast Telegraph: "You just couldn't have found two nicer guys. "They were childhood friends and almost like brothers who would have done anything for anybody, day or night. "Both were friendly and full of life and always brightened up everyone's day. "They came to Northern Ireland to find work and had got to know the local community. "They lived in the countryside and had been heading into Dungannon to go shopping on Sunday when the crash happened." Mr Kullas said his business has been closed all week as a mark of respect to his two former employees. "It is very difficult news to take in and has been very tough for their family and friends," he added. "We were all so sad to hear that the other lady passed away this week after the crash and are praying that those still in hospital make a full recovery." Construction of the AIA continued to completion, with monies still outstanding for land acquired to facilitate that construction. Government still owes some EC$33,109,354 for lands acquired for the construction of the Argyle International Airport. Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Camillo Gonsalves made this disclosure in response to a question posed by Parliamentary Representative for East Kingstown, Arnhim Eustace, during Parliaments Sitting of Tuesday January 29. Continuing his answer, Gonsalves explained that there were 125 parcels of land for which payment remains outstanding. These lands were divided into two categories, he explained lands with deeds and land without, with EC$19.5 million being the outstanding amount owed for lands with deeds, inclusive of interest, and EC$13.7 million the amount owed for lands without. "The government and the IADC (International Airport Development Company) are currently completing a plan to address the settlements of these amounts owed to the remaining land owners, he said. The finance minister said that the government was also working to try to resolve the land ownership issues since the majority of the money owed is for land without deeds, even though that number has been decreasing. Eustace wanted to know how much is still owed for lands used for the construction of the international airport.As of November 30, 2017, all 142 home owners had been compensated for their property to the tune of EC$60,136,672 with EC$53,825,827 being paid by the IADC for vacant lots of land, Gonsalves told Parliament. PSNI Chief Constable George Hamilton has warned the ongoing uncertainty over Brexit has become a major distraction to policing in Northern Ireland. Speaking yesterday as the Policing Board met in Belfast for the first time in two years, he revealed his diary had been ripped up earlier this week to allow for five hours of meetings on the challenges posed by the exit process. As a result he had to cut short talks with his Irish counterpart, Garda Commissioner Drew Harris - Mr Hamilton's former PSNI deputy - to instead deal with Brexit issues. Read More The Brexit distractions come at a time when the PSNI is struggling to cope with budget cuts and fewer officers. In the past year, 366 police officers and 124 members of staff have left the service, and it will be autumn this year before any new appointments are made following last October's recruitment drive, in which 6,243 applications were received. "Similar to many public services, the PSNI continues to operate in an environment of continually shrinking budgets, and over the past five years I have witnessed a reduction of 150m," the chief constable said. "We have no certainty about the budget for 2019/20 and this lack of clarity leaves the PSNI in a difficult position when making decisions about the allocation of resources." The chief constable said that preparing for Brexit has been "hugely challenging". A special team has been established to plan for a hard Irish border as the PSNI addresses the complexities of policing the 310-mile frontier without certainty about the future. "It's a hugely complex issue. We certainly will stay out of the political analysis, but whatever happens will have implications for policing, relationships with other countries around law enforcement, exchange of information, European Arrest Warrants and lots of things that are relevant to operational policing issues," Mr Hamilton said, "We have to be engaged. The trick is actually navigating through the politics without being political, and we do that by firmly asking, 'What are the implications and what are the consequences against the various options?' "Managing ambiguity is a key requirement for people in senior leadership. I'm not looking any sympathy around this. It is hugely challenging, but I think our planning around this is good. "I think we're in the best place that we can be, and our work with our partners, other countries, other law enforcement agencies is in a really good place, so that whatever the political agreement or conclusion is on this, we will stand ready and be responsive so we can continue to keep people safe." Mr Hamilton said there had been "limited additional funding to do the preparations". "We got a small amount of money which helped create a very small team of three or four people, but the whole Brexit planning requires quite a bit of energy right across the organisation," he stressed. "It's an opportunity lost and perhaps it's a distraction, but it's the reality of where we are. "There's been a referendum, there's been a result, the politicians are now charged with working out how they're going to do this EU exit and we need to stand ready against the number of scenarios and working assumptions to ensure that policing can continue to function. "We're planning for both deal and no deal and, actually, from a policing point of view, whatever happens there will be implications and consequences for policing. "We can't get too focused on any one scenario. The trick for us will be to remain agile and dynamic and try to pre-empt as much of the challenge as possible and get workarounds wherever possible. "We need to be responsible in making sure we are equipped to handle the implications. Many people live and work across the border and we will continue to work to ensure we're in the best possible position to protect and serve our communities, whatever the outcome of the exit process." The backstop is designed to prevent a hard border on the island of Ireland. A Belfast Telegraph poll has found that readers are narrowly against the Brexit backstop. Our unscientific Facebook poll asked readers to vote on if they were for or against the backstop. Read More Over 4,600 people have taken part in the vote with 53% saying they were against the backstop and 47% voting in favour of keeping it. The controversial backstop proposal is intended to prevent a hard border on the island of Ireland. It has become a sticking point of the Brexit negotiations with hardline Conservatives and the DUP opposing the plan, which led to the defeat of Prime Minister Theresa May's withdrawal agreement in the House of Commons last month. The DUP has said that they believe the backstop plan would create a trade border in the Irish Sea and could leave Northern Ireland tied to the EU indenfinetly. It would only come into effect if a trade deal has not been reached between the EU and UK during the 21-month Brexit transition period. Expand Close (PA Graphics) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp (PA Graphics) Under the plan the UK would effectively remain inside the EU's customs union with Northern Ireland retaining some elements of the EU single market until a deal is reached. The Irish Government and EU have remained steadfast in their view that the backstop is the best way of preventing a hard border in Ireland. MPs voted to replace the backstop with "alternative arrangements" in the House of Commons last week, with Prime Minister Theresa May returning to Brussels on Thursday in an attempt to renegotiate her deal. Mrs May described discussions with EU leaders in Brussels as robust but constructive and insisted she was determined to negotiate hard over the coming days to secure legally-binding changes to the Agreement However, European Council president Donald Tusk said there was no breakthrough in sight in the negotiations. Mrs May set out MPs demands for a legally binding change to the terms of the backstop, while European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker underlined that the EU27 will not reopen the Withdrawal Agreement. But he expressed his openness to add wording to the Political Declaration to be more ambitious in terms of content and speed when it comes to the future relationship. The Prime Minister said that my work is to deliver Brexit, to deliver it on time and I am going to be negotiating hard in the coming days to do just that ahead of the UK leaving the EU on March 29. Mrs May will meet Taoiseach Leo Varadkar in Dublin on Friday to discuss the withdrawal deal. You can still vote in our poll here. The DUP leader has dismissed as project fear reports of Cabinet concern about an Irish unity poll in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Arlene Foster said the criteria for calling a referendum on Northern Irelands constitutional future had not been met. Mrs Fosters remarks came after the BBC quoted three unnamed Cabinet ministers talking about the increased likelihood of a poll if the UK leaves the European Union without a deal. The Belfast Agreement sets out the criteria for a border poll and it hasn't been satisfied and therefore will not be calledArlene Foster Under the terms of the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement, the incumbent secretary of state is obliged to call a vote on the constitutional issue if there is evidence of a change in public opinion in Northern Ireland in favour of Irish reunification. Last month, it was reported that Northern Ireland Secretary Karen Bradley warned Cabinet colleagues that a poll on a united Ireland would be much more likely in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Asked about the latest reported Cabinet concern on the matter, Mrs Foster said: There are many people engaging in project fear at this point in time and we all have to recognise that. The DUP leader added: The Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement sets out the criteria for a border poll and it hasnt been satisfied and therefore will not be called. Mrs Foster was asked about the issue after she met Taoiseach Leo Varadkar in Belfast. Sinn Fein vice president Michelle ONeill also met Mr Varadkar during his round of engagements with the Stormont parties. Expand Close Sinn Fein leader at Stormont Michelle ONeill speaks to the media after meeting Leo Varadkar at the Irish Goverment residence in Belfast (Liam McBurney/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Sinn Fein leader at Stormont Michelle ONeill speaks to the media after meeting Leo Varadkar at the Irish Goverment residence in Belfast (Liam McBurney/PA) Mrs ONeill said she raised the issue of a referendum with the Irish premier. We have put the issue of a unity referendum to the Taoiseach, to the British Prime Minister on every occasion on which we would meet them, she said. Remember the unity referendum is built into the Good Friday Agreement, it will be for the people of this island to decide the constitutional future. Clearly we want to see a deal, we do not want to see a crash out Brexit but if we do find ourselves in the scenario where there is a crash out Brexit, then the tools which the British Prime Minister and Taoiseach must look to are actually written into the Good Friday Agreement and that is the unity referendum. The republican leader said a referendum did not need to be rancorous. People often talk about fear, there is an absolutely massive opportunity for a new Ireland and agreed Ireland which we all can design and plan together, she said. Mrs ONeill said there was also a need to clarify the grey area in the Good Friday Agreement around the criteria for calling a referendum, claiming it currently was left to the whim of the Secretary of State. Survivors of institutional abuse have said the Stormont impasse can no longer be used to delay compensation. Margaret McGuckin, of Survivors and Victims of Institutional Abuse (Savia), was abused as a young child in Nazareth House, a children's home in Belfast run by the Sisters of Nazareth. She said she was "broken-hearted" by the delays faced by hundreds of victims. The group has written to Northern Ireland Secretary Karen Bradley, telling her that elderly and vulnerable victims are running out of time. It said the Scottish Government had agreed 10m in compensation after the Scottish Child Abuse inquiry without the need for new legislation. Stormont collapsed shortly after the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry (HIA) delivered a report in January 2017. As no ministers were in place, the civil service made draft legislation which was put out to consultation. That process was due to end on Sunday night, but it is understood it has now been pushed back to April. "It's a stalling tactic," said Ms McGuckin. "I'm afraid to tell our people about this extension because their mental health is suffering terribly. They'll be devastated, especially our elderly. "Will it be pushed back again to the autumn or winter now? "The Secretary of State is just using the excuse of the Stormont impasse again and again. "I can read between the lines now about their stalling tactics and it's a disgrace and a shame that so many people have passed away before getting compensation." Ms McGuckin said she knew of older survivors who could have been eligible for compensation of up to 80,000 but who had accepted much lower payments of around 5,000. "Many of our people just want to reward their families in some way before they die, or just pay for their funerals - that's the reality," she stressed. "Look at Scotland, they fast-tracked their compensation with no legislation at all. "The delay makes me feel broken-hearted. It's like, 'Did this really happen, and who cares? Are we ever going to be believed?' "Yet again, it feels like people are sweeping it under the carpet, like the church did. "Now the state's doing the very same thing. Your mind goes crazy, making you imagine if these things did even happen. "Karen Bradley can't keep using this excuse of Stormont. "How many people are going to die or just give up on their lives before she puts it right?" Ms McGuckin said that, at present, the very institutions that carried out the abuse were doing more to help victims. The letter to Mrs Bradley from Savia said the group was "extremely unhappy" at the latest delay and also complained the consultation was "poorly constructed" and developed without survivor input. With a new Northern Ireland budget being prepared, the organisation urged Mrs Bradley to follow the "can-do" attitude of the Scottish Government because many survivors would not live to see the resolution of the "sorry mess" of Stormont. A UK Government spokesperson said: "If the Executive has not been restored by the time the consultation process ends, we will consider next steps in the absence of ministers. " Nearly a million passengers use the cross-border Enterprise every year Cross-border rail passenger services will face disruption at the height of this year's tourist season as an extensive 25m rail upgrade scheme at Lurgan gets under way. Commuters have also been told to expect delays as work begins on the massive infrastructure job. The Lurgan Area Track Renewal Project will see 1.7km of track replaced. It is hoped the scheme will improve safety and efficiency for rail users. Three level crossings are also to be replaced and Lurgan station upgraded. The month-long closure of the station and level crossings will take place between Friday, July 26, and Friday, August 23. Substitution services will be put in place for the duration of the works. SDLP infrastructure spokeswoman Sinead Bradley said she was concerned about the timing of the upgrade. "News that rail services will be limited or stopped during the peak summer period undermines the good work carried out to date aimed at encouraging people out of their private vehicles and onto public transport," the Assembly member explained. "The SDLP is also concerned that tourists travelling on cross-border services may simply choose not to take a North-bound trip if ease of access to transport is in question. "Translink has been very open in its communications with us that ongoing maintenance of the rail network is of paramount importance. "The safety of passengers and staff, of course, must remain the number one priority. "It is critically important, however, to follow that with dependable regular services that encourages public usage. "We will continue to meet with Translink in a bid to ensure all efforts are made to maintain passenger numbers and minimise disruption to travel while these network upgrades are under way." John Glass, Translink's director of infrastructure and projects, said the investment was being made in response to a steady increase in rail passengers in recent years. "Lurgan is now a key station for commuters, with over 4.5m passengers using the Portadown line every year, and nearly 1m passengers using the cross-border Belfast to Dublin Enterprise service annually," he said. "This work will see us remove current speed restrictions, providing more efficient journeys while maintaining overall performance and high safety standards. Representing a significant capital investment, the works will also help contribute to the continued economic growth of the town and to the surrounding area. "We will be working closely with our contractors to complete the works as quickly as possible and keep disruption to a minimum." Transport expert Wesley Johnston said temporary closure of the Lurgan level crossings would inconvenience rail passengers. However, he stressed it would be welcomed by car commuters frustrated by delays caused by the crossings. "It's a silver lining of sorts," he added. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar speaking to the media ahead of talks with Northern Irelands five main political parties at the Irish Government residence in Belfast. (Liam McBurney/PA) Irish premier Leo Varadkar has said he will not be negotiating Brexit when he meets Theresa May for dinner in Dublin on Friday evening. After holding talks in Brussels on Thursday, the Prime Minister was flying to Dublin in an effort to resolve the dispute over the Irish backstop, which remains the main stumbling block to an agreement. She will be joined for the private dinner at official state guesthouse Farmleigh House by the UKs Brexit negotiator Olly Robbins and her chief of staff Gavin Barwell. Mr Varadkar said while the meal presented an opportunity to share perspectives on Brexit, actual negotiations can only be between the European Union and the United Kingdom. Speaking during a visit to Belfast for talks with Northern Irish parties, the Taoiseach said: I think everybody wants to avoid no-deal, everybody wants to avoid a hard border and everybody wants to continue to have a very close political and economic relationship between Britain and Ireland no matter want happens. There is much more that unites us than divides us and time is running short, and we need to get to an agreement really as soon as possible, and Ill be working very hard and redoubling my efforts, along with government, to do that. Expand Close Taoiseach Leo Varadkar speaking to the media ahead of talks with Northern Irelands five main political parties at the Irish Government residence in Belfast. (Liam McBurney/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Taoiseach Leo Varadkar speaking to the media ahead of talks with Northern Irelands five main political parties at the Irish Government residence in Belfast. (Liam McBurney/PA) He added: I believe ultimately we are going to have to get this deal over the line and I am determined to do that. Downing Street said Mrs May would be emphasising what we are looking for, seeking the legally binding changes to the Withdrawal Agreement that Parliament said it needs to approve the deal. Meanwhile, Attorney General Geoffrey Cox held talks in Dublin with his Irish counterpart, Seamus Woulfe. Mr Cox has been leading work within Whitehall on providing either a time limit on the backstop or giving the UK an exit mechanism from it. Expand Close Attorney General Geoffrey Cox met his Irish counterpart (Jonathan Brady/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Attorney General Geoffrey Cox met his Irish counterpart (Jonathan Brady/PA) Both proposals have received a dusty response from Dublin, which insists the backstop cannot be time-limited if it is to provide an effective insurance policy against the return of a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic. Mrs May, however, has warned she needs legally binding assurances the UK will not be tied to EU rules indefinitely through the backstop if she is to get her Brexit deal through the House of Commons. Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay will hold talks with the EUs chief negotiator Michel Barnier on Monday. Meanwhile, Mrs May and European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker have agreed to meet again before the end of the month to take stock of the situation. I am looking forward to meeting @SteveBarclay in Brussels on Mon evening. I will listen to how the UK sees the way through. The EU will not reopen the Withdrawal Agreement. But I will reaffirm our openness to rework the Political Declaration in full respect of #EUCO guidelines. Michel Barnier (@MichelBarnier) February 8, 2019 Mr Barnier said he was looking forward to the meeting in Brussels but restated the EUs position that the Withdrawal Agreement cannot be reopened. I will listen to how the UK sees the way through, the EU negotiator said. The EU will not reopen the Withdrawal Agreement. But I will reaffirm our openness to rework the Political Declaration in full respect of European Council guidelines. Expand Close (PA Graphics) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp (PA Graphics) Meanwhile, Downing Street has said ministers are looking with interest at a letter from Jeremy Corbyn setting out the terms on which Labour would support a deal in Parliament. The move provoked a furious outcry from Labour Remainers who fear the plan effectively kills off their hopes of the party backing a second referendum with warnings from some MPs they could quit the party altogether. Shadow chancellor John McDonnell said Mrs May had to accept his partys proposals were the only way of getting a Brexit deal through Parliament. We believe a deal like this, put before Parliament again, could secure a majority and what youre seeing here is, yes, Parliament asserting control, and the Prime Minister has to accept that the only way shell get something through Parliament is a compromise like this, he told BBC Radio 4s Today programme. I don't believe Theresa May is going to split her party in order to reach out to a Jeremy Corbyn who is going to find it very difficult to bring his own party along and who can't be relied upon to deliver the Brexit which the Prime Minister believes people voted for in the referendumNigel Dodds, DUP Mr McDonnell said the Prime Minister would have a secure parliamentary majority if she backed the plans, which he described as a traditional British compromise, but said a second referendum was still on the table if an agreement could not be reached. Number 10 sources acknowledged there were still very considerable points of difference with Labour over the blueprint which includes a customs union with the EU, something the Prime Minister has repeatedly ruled out. They may hope the threat Parliament could swing behind a softer Norway-style Brexit if there is no agreement on Mrs Mays deal will convince some Tory Brexiteer rebels to fall into line behind her plan. Mr Varadkar described the Corbyn proposals as very interesting. A sensible deal with Europe can win the support of parliament and bring the country together. pic.twitter.com/8MHqrXwE9Q Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) February 7, 2019 I think what Jeremy Corbyn has done is fleshed out a potential future relationship which is one that would mean a future relationship that is very close between the European Union and the United Kingdom, and I think in that regard they are very interesting, he said. But ultimately when dealing with these matters I deal with the democratically elected Government of the United Kingdom and that is headed by Prime Minister May. Speaking in Belfast, Democratic Unionist Party deputy leader Nigel Dodds said Mr Corbyns plan doesnt have the support of his own party, obviously. Mr Dodds said: The way to a majority for a deal in the United Kingdom is with the Conservative Party and the DUP. I dont believe Theresa May is going to split her party in order to reach out to a Jeremy Corbyn who is going to find it very difficult to bring his own party along and who cant be relied upon to deliver the Brexit which the Prime Minister believes people voted for in the referendum. Tenants and homeowners in Northern Ireland are feeling more comfortable about the future than those in the Republic, according to a report. Business advisory firm RSM carried out a survey in which 61% of people in the Republic said they were concerned about the risk of a housing downturn in future, compared to just 37% of those surveyed in Northern Ireland. Around 60% of people surveyed in the Republic also expected the value of their house to increase in the next few years, compared to just 33% here. And just under 30% of people in the Republic reported being in negative equity, compared to 17% in Northern Ireland. Of those surveyed, adults in Northern Ireland are more likely than those in Republic to be home owners, with 52% of those surveyed homeowners, compared with 38% in the Republic of Ireland. Nearly three-quarters of people in the Republic said affordability would put them off buying a house, compared to 60% of those surveyed in Northern Ireland. Paddy O' Connell, construction lead at RSM, said: "The results of the survey verify that people are feeling uncertain about their circumstances in the Republic, whether they are renting or homeowners. While respondents in the Republic are more concerned about a downturn, this is likely to be as a result of their past experiences. Respondents also have expectations that the value of their homes is going to continue at the pace that it has, which in itself is creating a block in activity. These issues are fuelled by the ongoing mismatch between supply and demand." Luzette King (3rd from right) surrounded by well-wishers and members of the FrontLine after her release from the Questelles Police Station. Social activist Luzette King said that she does not want her recent arrest to distract from the real issue at hand, i.e. governments lack of accountability and transparency. King walked out of the Questelles Police Station on Saturday 2nd February, more defiant and determined than when she entered a day earlier. She had been arrested the day before as per a bench warrant issued against her for failing to attend a court hearing, February 01. In an interview with THE VINCENTIAN upon her release, King said that she has never missed a court date (before), but after failing to show up on Friday, a bench warrant was issued within hours. According to King, there were occasions when she and her legal team had to rely on word of mouth from police officers to find out her court date. "The first time the hearing was transferred to Mesopotamia, it was a police officer who met me on the street and told me, King asserted. Recounting what transpired on Friday that led to her detention, King said that she had attended a meeting and after it concluded, she received a call from her brother informing her that there was a bench warrant out for her arrest. "And I thought, Gosh, I forget the date, said King. She said that she tried making her way to Mesopotamia to attend the hearing, but she was informed that she had already missed the time. At about midday, King went to the Kingstown (Central) Police Station because she didnt want the police to come looking for her, and "secondly, I thought if I had gone to the police station, they would arrest me if there was a warrant out and take me to the court. This was not to be, for after confirming that there was a warrant out for her, the police detained her at the station and subsequently transferred her to the Questelles Police Station. King was of the view that, had the DPPs office complied with the Court of Appeal order for Disclosure (of evidence by the Crown in the matter against her), "..they would have had to serve these things to my lawyers, and they in turn would have let me know they received it and find out where the matter was and my not turning up in court could have been avoided. She spent Friday night in a cell at the Questelles Police Station. Magistrate Bertie Pompey turned up on Saturday and revoked the bench warrant he had issued the day before, citing Kings interest in the matter and her cooperation with the police as the basis for his decision. "And I think it is a travesty; this thing has been going on since 2016, (and) not once have I missed an appearance, not once, said King, adding, "Now the Magistrate is telling me that he is revoking the warrant because I showed an interest, the police didnt have to go looking for me. So, I asked him, "But have I ever missed a hearing?. Members of the FrontLine Movement were on hand to welcome King after her release, and others turned up to show support, this after there had been many postings on social media calling for her release. "The outpouring of support is something I didnt quite expect. In fact, I had people threatening to come here to protest, and I said to them hold on. At the same time I feel humble. We are against this regime spending our money and giving no accountability. We are against their wickedness, we want them out. We want to get to the bottom of the stolen election. Those are the issues that we must continue with, not the locking up of Luzette King, said the defiant activist. The matter in question dated back to 2016 when King was charged with causing inconvenience to the public during a protest action in Kingstown. The protest action challenged the 2015 general election results.King is expected to be back in court Friday 15th February. Belfast-based tech firm Cloudsmith has closed a "significant" investment round from equity funder Techstart Ventures. The company said the undisclosed sum will support its product and 'ecosystem development' plans. Cloudsmith offers secure digital online storage locations to help developers and firms automate and improve their software development pipelines. It operates in 17 territories, working with some of the world's leading developer tools and cyber security businesses to support responsive and resilient software pipelines. The owners of a pizza restaurant on Belfast's Castle Street have said they are looking for new premises and cutting opening hours in response to a continued slump in trade following the Primark fire last year. Another trader on the street next to Primark's burnt-out building accused the retailer and city council of not doing enough to support businesses. While work takes place to secure and restore Bank Buildings after the August fire, the retailer has opened another store on the same street. It plans to open a second at Donegall Place in April. Michael Connor, of Conway Opticians on Castle Street, called on Primark to make another contribution to traders affected by a cordon put in place after the blaze. Last year the firm made a donation of 500,000. James Neilly said he would be reducing opening hours at Pizza Boutique by around 30%, with the store set to close on Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays. He said trade was "not a scratch on what it was" following the fire. "We've tracked sales compared to labour midweek. We were just going to cut to Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, but we were worried we'd lose half our team," Mr Neilly explained. "We used to open up Monday and Tuesday, and it's a direct result of the fire that we're not opening any more. "We're currently looking for a new location. There are a lot of expensive properties out there. "Brexit is around the corner, wages are up, costs are rising and this time around we need to get it right." Michael Connor, of Conway Opticians, said businesses deserved more support. "I think there should be another donation from Primark," he added. "The trouble the last time was that the council was given responsibility for giving it out and decided to give it to 90 businesses. "But, for me, that meant 5,000 would cover wages for my six staff, but the same amount was also going to a one-man band barber. Perhaps it should have been distributed on rateable value or something." However, Primark and Belfast City Council said they had already made direct contributions to traders. Primark added: "We are committed to the business and wider community in Belfast and made a 500,000 donation to Belfast City Council's City Recovery Investment Programme. "This fund has been allocated by the council to local businesses impacted by the fire." The city council said it had agreed a total package of 1.69m for a wide-ranging programme of activities and improvements to increase footfall. A spokesman for the Department of Finance added: "Properties within the Bank Buildings cordon had their rate liability reduced to zero. "When the cordon was reduced in size, for those properties that could then be reoccupied, rate liability was restored. "Properties remaining within the reduced cordon area continue to have zero-rate liability. "Land and Property Services wrote to 1,349 ratepayers in the vicinity of the fire in early December advising of the rates support measures available." The above editorial was published Feb. 4 by the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Its views are its own. Copyright 2019 Dick Polman, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. Dick Polman is the national political columnist at WHYY in Philadelphia and a Writer in Residence at the University of Pennsylvania. Email him at dickpolman7@gmail.com. Manhattan (Kan.) Surgical Hospital partnered with Topeka, Kan.-based Stormont Vail Health to improve healthcare services in Manhattan, according to The Topeka Capital-Journal. Three notes: 1. Currently, Manhattan Surgical Hospital struggles recruiting spine surgeons. The partnership with Stormont will allow the hospital to offer spine services. 2. Stormont has two spine surgeons on staff who will provide services to the Manhattan community. 3. Through the partnership, Stormont will provide support for its various organizations at Manhattan Surgical Hospital. Stormont already has 18 physicians offering services at the Manhattan hospital. New York City-based Hospital for Special Surgery installed virtual reality surgical training software to assist with orthopedic surgery residency training, according to ABC affiliate WABC. Four notes: 1. The Osso VR system is designed to allow orthopedic surgeons to practice knee, hip and spinal procedures. 2. Hospital for Special Surgery's 45 orthopedic surgery residents are using the VR system in the hospital's simulation lab to practice before operating on cadavers. 3. The $3,000 technology also provides a numerical score at the end of an individual's training session. 4. "[The technology] lets [residents] practice in a very safe environment," said Mathias P. Bostrom, MD, orthopedic surgeon at HSS and vice chairman of education and academic affairs. "It lets us assess their performance and lets them assess how they're doing as well. And they can do it over and over again." Cleveland-based University Hospitals and Kent (Ohio) State University revealed Feb. 5 they are teaming up on an initiative to address Northeast Ohio's nursing shortage. The nursing education initiative will focus on boosting the number of nurses with bachelor's degrees who enter the workforce annually, both parties said in a news release. It involves introducing another cohort of 80 students in Kent State's BSN program to be admitted annually. Of those 80 students, 20 will be chosen to receive financial assistance through the University Hospitals Nursing Scholars program for their senior year at Kent State, according to the health system and university. In exchange, those 20 students will agree to work at UH for at least two years after graduation. As part of the initiative, Kent State also plans to have experienced University Hospitals nurses serve as clinical instructors. Additionally, the health system plans to offer additional clinical rotations for Kent State nursing students. The education initiative comes as the Nursing Forecaster of the Center for Health Affairs projects that Northeast Ohio will have a shortage of 2,850 registered nurses by 2020. More articles on workforce: Beaumont Health has 500 openings for laid-off GM workers California task force reveals $3B plan to address looming shortage of healthcare workers Atrium Health bumps pay for 15,000 employees The California Department of Public Health collectively issued $258,025 in fines to five California hospitals for licensing compliance issues that caused or were likely to cause serious injury or death to patients. The incidents all occurred in 2017. Here is a breakdown of the penalties: 1. Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage incurred a $49,500 fine for failing to ensure the health and safety of a patient with atrial fibrillation. 2. Fresno Heart and Surgical Hospital received a $42,750 fine for retention of a foreign object in a patient after surgery. 3. The health department also fined Mercy Medical Center in Redding $47,500 for retention of a surgical object in a patient after surgery. 4. Saddleback Memorial Medical Center in Laguna Hills incurred a $71,250 fine for failing to provide adequate nursing care for a psychiatric patient in the emergency department. 5. The health department fined University of California Irvine Medical Center in Orange $47,025 for a fatal medication error. It's been 15 years since Facebook launched on Feb. 4, 2004. Facebook has since amassed 2.3 billion monthly active users, and serves as the parent company of two other popular social media companies: Instagram and WhatsApp. But it's more than a social network: Facebook is one of what many today refer to as the 21st century's "big five" tech companies, going head-to-head with traditional technology vendors like Alphabet, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft. Mark Zuckerberg, the company's founder, chairman and CEO, has made healthcare one of his personal initiatives. Mr. Zuckerberg launched the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative with his wife, pediatrician Priscilla Chan, MD, in 2015 with the mission to cure, prevent or manage all diseases by the end of the century. In late 2018, Mr. Zuckerberg announced plans to sell $13 billion in Facebook stock to fund the initiative. In the past 15 years, Facebook as a company has made its own moves into the healthcare space though not all have been successful. Five aspects of healthcare Facebook has tried to tackle: 1. Radiology. Facebook's artificial intelligence research division is working with the radiology department at New York University School of Medicine in New York City on fastMRI, a collaborative research project applying AI to MRI scans. The fastMRI project aims to change the way an MRI machine creates an image by using AI to generate high-quality images from limited data. In late 2018, NYU School of Medicine published what it called the largest public release of raw MRI data to date as part of the project. 2. Suicide prevention. In 2017, Facebook unveiled plans to roll out an AI suicide-prevention program. Since then, the social network has faced criticism from public health experts, who question the tech company's use of "black box medicine." Facebook's AI uses pattern recognition to scan nearly every post on its platform for those containing suicidal thoughts and in cases where the algorithm flags a user as high-risk for suicide it connects them with mental-health resources and may contact law enforcement. 3. Addiction treatment. In August 2018, Facebook said it would crack down on advertisements marketing addiction treatment services that the company deemed "predatory." It's a notable move, since ads account for 98.5 percent of Facebook's revenue, according to its 2018 earning results. In a statement announcing the decision, Facebook expressed concern that some addiction treatment centers "keep people in a cycle of addiction with unproven treatment methods." 4. Opioid misuse. During 2018, Facebook released multiple policies aimed at curbing the way its users might use its services to obtain or promote opioids. In April, Facebook opted to shut down or control the use of hashtags related to opioids such as #fentanyl, #oxycontin and #opioids on Instagram. Two months later, Facebook said users flagged as seeking to purchase opioids on its platform would be redirected to information about a federal crisis help line, as part of an effort to cut down on illicit drug sales. 5. Hospital data. In a move that prompted significant backlash, CNBC in April 2018 reported that Facebook had asked several large U.S. hospitals to share anonymized patient data for a research project. At the time, Facebook said it was contemplating a project to match patient data with Facebook's data on users' social and economic demographics, which might help hospitals determine which patients require extra care. However, the company "paused" the exploratory effort amid the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The bodies of two men were fished from the Dallas River in St Andrew, Jamaica, on Sunday. They were identified as 25-year-olds Akiele Davis of Lydford Housing Scheme in St Ann, and Reynold Kerr of an Arcadia address in St Andrew. According to the police, Davis was a student of the University of Technology (UTech), and Kerr a student of the Caribbean Maritime University (CMU). While investigators said that they were following several leads behind the deaths of the men, one lead that seemed to have taken some extra attention was that the men were victims of a carjacking. "We believe the victims were travelling in a car that belongs to one of their family members, when they were ambushed, killed and the vehicle (was) stolen, a police source told Loop News. The police said they have since found the car abandoned in a remote section of the August Town community. Investigators said the bodies were found floating in the Dallas River. A release from the polices Corporate Communications Unit (CCU) late on Sunday, labelled the development as a Double Murder. (Source: Loop News Jamaica) Reports are that about 7:00 a.m. on Sunday, citizens stumbled upon the bodies partially submerged in the water, and summoned the police who removed the bodies from the water. The FDA is putting Walgreens "on notice" for allegedly selling tobacco products to minors at 1,397 of its stores. The agency already is working to block some Walgreens locations from selling tobacco products to minors for 30 days as a result of repeat violations. Walgreens is the top violator among pharmacies that sell tobacco products, according to the FDA. About 22 percent of the 6,350 stores it inspected caught employees illegally selling tobacco products to minors. In total, including repeat offenses, Walgreens had 1,800 violations for selling products to minors. "I will be writing the corporate management of Walgreens and requesting a meeting with them to discuss whether there is a corporatewide issue related to their stores' noncompliance and put them on notice that the FDA is considering additional enforcement avenues to address their record of violative tobacco sales to youth," said FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, MD. Walgreens told CNBC that it takes the matter "very seriously" and has taken a number of steps to address the agency's concerns. Auburndale, Mass.-based Atrius Health, a provider with 32 medical practices, signed a seven-year global payment agreement with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts. Four things to know: 1. Under an advanced alternative payment model, Atrius will receive a global budget for more than 130,000 BCBS of Massachusetts members in commercial, preferred provider organization, health maintenance organization and Medicare plans. 2. This is Atrius Health's and BCBS of Massachusetts' first payment contract featuring full risk for the cost and quality of healthcare for PPO members. 3. The model will focus on developing ways to make care more convenient and accessible for members, offer more population health programs, use more technologies and simplify administrative tasks. 4. Atrius Health and BCBS of Massachusetts began their partnership 10 years ago when Atrius was one of the first providers to join the insurer's Alternative Quality Contract. A man was fatally shot while arguing with an individual he knew in the parking lot of Carolinas HealthCare System NorthEast in Concord, N.C., Feb. 6, according to The Charlotte Observer. Police said the victim, Damon Bruce, was shot around 1 p.m. near the hospital's emergency room entrance. Paramedics in the hospital's ambulance bay brought Mr. Bruce into the hospital for care. Investigators said he later died at the facility, the report states. In a Feb. 6 news release obtained by the publication, police said they were "still reviewing all available evidence in this case and interviewing witnesses." To access the full report, click here. Phoenix-based Hacienda HealthCare will close its 60-bed intermediate care facility where a patient in a vegetative state gave birth, according to Az Central. Seven things to know: 1. A 29-year-old patient who had been in a vegetative state for 14 years gave birth to a healthy baby boy Dec. 29. Several reports claimed the patient had been raped several times. 2. The decision to close the unit came after the reports of sexual assault. 3. The board of directors "after a great deal of consideration, has come to understand that it is simply not sustainable to continue to operate the facility." 4. The board of directors voted on the closure Feb. 1. 5. Hacienda HealthCare has 37 patients at the facility and will transfer them to other sites. 6. Earlier this week, the former Hacienda HealthCare nurse accused of sexual assault in the case pleaded not guilty. The nurse, Nathan Sutherland, surrendered his state practical nurse license Jan. 24. 7. Hacienda HealthCare also operates a 74-bed skilled nursing facility for infants, teens and young adults. That facility is not affected. Patient safety and infection control are critical for hospitals and healthcare providers to produce the best possible outcomes for patients and avoid preventable infections and errors. This list examines technology and products designed to disinfect medical instruments and operating rooms, reduce preventable complications, stop the spread of germs and make surgery safer for patients. The products featured here include UV disinfectants, catheters and central lines, disinfectants and detergents, hand hygiene products, health technology, reprocessing, products for surgical procedures and textiles among other items designed for infection control. The Becker's Healthcare editorial team developed this list based on nominations and internal research. Companies do not pay and cannot pay for inclusion on this list. Products are listed in alphabetical order by category. Contact Laura Dyrda at ldyrda@beckershealthcare.com with questions or comments on this list. UV disinfection AUVS Small Device Disinfection (Advanced Ultra-Violet Systems). The UV Box uses Advanced Ultra-Violet Systems' Pentagon-selected Photon Trap Technology to disinfect small mobile and portable devices in less than a minute. The AUVS UV box is top rated by ECRI Institute, has proven efficacy and is lab tested. This affordable device is easy to use and can be implemented anywhere as part of any facility's infection prevention strategy. Germicidal UV-C lighting (Steril-Aire). Germicidal UV-C lighting is installed in the air handling units of HVAC systems and kills 99.9 percent of biofilm on the coil lighting. As a result, the air flowing through the hospital is 99.9 percent germ free and eliminates healthcare-acquired infections. Sterile-Aire's emitters are good for 9,000 hours, meaning they must be changed annually. HealthySole (Detecto). HealthySole is a UV-C product designed to kill 99.99 percent of exposed microorganisms on the bottom of healthcare workers' shoes. The device can kill microorganisms such as bacterial and viral pathogens in eight seconds and is effective against fungi and bacterial spores. Helios (Surfacide). Helios is a patented automated triple-emitter UV-C hard-surface detection solution. The system is designed to eradicate multidrug-resistant organisms including C. difficile, MRSA and Acinetobacter with a single cycle. Klaran (Crystal IS). Klaran UV-C LEDs use aluminum nitrate technology to emit germicidal energy that kills pathogenic bacteria, viruses and microorganisms. The technology is available as portable and handheld devices to help automate and standardize manual disinfection tasks. LightStrike Germ-Zapping Robots (Xenex). Xenex's LightStrike Germ-Zapping Robots use pulsed xenon, an inert gas, to produce germicidal UV-C light. The robots, which can be operated by a hospital's cleaning team, eliminate microscopic pathogens that may be left in a patient room after manual cleaning. Optimum-UV Enlight System (Clorox Healthcare). The Clorox Healthcare Optimum-UV Enlight System is an all-in-one solution providing surface treatment enhanced by UV-C technology to kill more than 30 pathogens, including C. difficile spores and MRSA. The user-friendly system was designed with advanced data collection and reporting capabilities to help healthcare facilities maximize device usage and gain process efficiency. PathO3Gen Footwear Sanitizing Station (Green Earth Medical Solutions). PathO3Gen Footwear Sanitizing Station is the first and only UV-C footwear sanitizing system that utilizes its patented disruptive and proactive Solestice 3/15 Technology to kill pathogens by penetrating and destroying the outer walls and DNA of 99.9 percent of the most deadly pathogens and superbugs. UV Cleaning Systems (UV Cleaning Systems Inc.). UV Cleaning Systems is the next generation of economically priced UV-C devices. The system delivers an automatic, calculated dose of UV-C energy to the treatment area using technology to measure the efficiency of the emitter output and administer a lethal level of germ-killing ultraviolet C that allows the M20 to disinfect large areas in less time. Catheters and central lines 3M Curos Tips Disinfecting Cap Strip for Male Luers (3M). 3M's Curos Tips Disinfecting Cap Strip for Male Luers is intended to decrease contamination of the IV line, disinfecting in one minute and protecting male luers for up to seven days. The product meets the 2016 Infusion Therapy Standards of Practice for add-on devices. 3M Curos Stopper Disinfecting Cap for Open Female Luers. Containing 70 percent isopropyl alcohol, 3M's Curos Stopper Disinfecting Cap for Open Female Luers is intended to protect against microorganisms often associated with CLABSI. The Curos Stopper cap's red color supports compliance verification and measurement. 3M Curos Disinfecting Port Protectors (3M). The 3M Curos Disinfecting Port Protectors achieved a 99.99 percent reduction of six microbes often connected with a central line-associated bloodstream infection. The port protectors, which each hold a 70 percent isopropyl alcohol solution, are designed to disinfect needleless connectors, male luers and open female luers. 3M Tegaderm CHG Chlorhexidine Gluconate IV Securement Dressing (3M). 3M's Tegaderm CHG Chlorhexidine Gluconate IV Securement Dressing decreases catheter-related bloodstream infections and vascular catheter colonization. The dressing offers continuous antimicrobial protection via the integrated chlorhexidine gluconate gel pad. 3M PICC / CVC Securement Device + Tegaderm CHG Chlorhexidine Gluconate IV Securement Dressing (3M). 3M's PICC / CVC Securement Device secures an IV without sutures using silicone adhesives. The Tegaderm CHG Chlorhexidine Gluconate IV Securement Dressing is the sole cleared transparent dressing that decreases catheter-related bloodstream infections and offers up to 10 days of antimicrobial protection. Antimicrobial PICC Line Covers (Care+Wear). Care+Wear's stretchy, antimicrobial fabric covers help keep peripherally inserted central catheter lines secure and prevent dislodgement, which is a leading cause of infection in patients with PICC lines. The covers also contain a mesh window, which allows healthcare providers to monitor the site for leakage or infection. ClearGuard HD Antimicrobial Barrier Cap (Pursuit Vascular). The ClearGuard HD Antimicrobial Barrier Cap is clinically shown to significantly reduce catheter-related bloodstream infections in hemodialysis patients using central venous catheters. The device is designed to kill infection-causing bacteria inside a long-term hemodialysis catheter. Duette Dual Balloon Urinary Catheter (Poiesis Medical). The Duette indwelling urinary catheter is the first catheter clinically designed to reduce bladder wall damage and increase fluid removal. Two peer-reviewed clinical trials demonstrated the catheter's superiority over other devices and found it sustained lower CAUTI rates during a two-year period. POWERWAND (Access Scientific). The WAND family of products is designed to prevent hospital-acquired infections and protect both patients and providers. The Powerwand midline with Chronoflex C has more than 23,000 catheter days of published usage with no bloodstream infections, which outperforms other midlines on the market. Readycleanse (Medline Industries). Readycleanse is specially designed for comprehensive metal and perineal care to reduce the risk of developing a CAUTI. Medline's five-cloth cleansing protocol follows nursing best practices for a compliance-driven, standardized approach for daily care of the Foley catheterized patient. Disinfectants and detergents 3M C. diff Solution Tablets (3M). 3M C. diff Solution Tablets, intended to be dissolved in water, serve as an alternative disinfecting method to bleach and peracetic acid disinfectants. The tablets are EPA-registered to be effective against norovirus and kill C. diff spores. AP-4 (Altapure). Altapure's AP-4 high-level disinfection system is a high performance device designed to meet the terminal cleaning demands of the critical care hospital environment. AP-4 achieves a true 6 Log elimination of pathogenic bioburden and includes Altapure's patented ultrasonically generated aerosol delivery. No post wipe-down is necessary and the room is available for immediate occupation after applying the system. BioBlast Disinfectant (Aquaox; BioBlasting). BioBlast Disinfectant is a 275 ppm hypochlorous acid product. The nontoxic disinfectant is designed to eliminate bacteria, viruses, fungi and mold, and has EPA-registered kill claims for a variety of single-celled microorganisms. Bleach Germicidal Wipes (Clorox Healthcare). Clorox Healthcare Bleach Germicidal Wipes kill 58 microorganisms, including C. difficile spores, in three minutes or less. The product also has claims for MERS-CoV, SARS-CoV and other common causes of healthcare-associated infections. Extended use in healthcare facilities can improve surface capability, and the wipes leave less residue than other disinfectant wipes. BruTabs (BHC). BruTabs are effervescent disinfectant sanitizer tablets, effective against C. difficile spores, hepatitis B, norovirus and Canine parvovirus. The tablets sanitize common areas and surfaces in medical, dental and long-term care environments. EM360 Electrostatic Spray System (E-Mist Innovations). E-Mist is dedicated to infection prevention and control. Founded on a legacy of electrostatic science and technology, the E-Mist Infection Control System and Process complements existing disinfection application methods. It is a mobile, touchless, cordless and environmentally friendly surface disinfectant. Fuzion Cleaner Disinfectant (Clorox Healthcare). Fuzion is a next-generation bleach disinfectant that is effective against tough-to-kill pathogens like C. difficile spores. The low-residue formula kills 53 microorganisms in two minutes or less. Halo Total-Room Disinfection System (Halosil International). The Halo Disinfection System is a total-room disinfection system designed to kill 99.9999 percent of C. difficile spores throughout the entire room. The product uses proprietary 5 percent hydrogen peroxide solution with 0.01 percent ionic silver processed through the fogging system to create a dry mist that disinfects all surfaces and is effective against viruses, bacteria, mold and fungi. Hydrogen Peroxide Cleaner Disinfectants (Clorox Healthcare). Clorox Healthcare Hydrogen Peroxide Cleaner Disinfectant offers the fastest non-bleach disinfecting times available for 40-plus microorganisms, including 13 antibiotic-resistant ones. The non-corrosive disinfectant is formulated for superior patient and staff comfort with no harsh chemical fumes or odors. Indigo-Clean (Indigo-Clean). Indigo-Clean is a continuous environmental disinfection technology which is patented and proven to kill harmful bacteria linked to hospital acquired infections, such as MRSA and C. difficile. Indigo-Clean is a ceiling light fixture that uses a wavelength of 405nm to kill harmful bacteria in the air and on hard and soft surfaces. Micro-Kill One Germicidal Alcohol Wipes (Medline Industries). Micro-Kill One Germicidal Alcohol Wipes are durable, low-lint polypropylene cloths that include a quaternary ammonium and alcohol solution. The wipes are designed to kill 25 microorganisms within one minute, including gram-positive, gram-negative and multidrug-resistant bacteria. NOROxyCdiff (PreVasive). NOROxyCdiff is an EPA-registered C. difficile sporicide with a two-minute contact time to eliminate C. diff spores. The device can be applied on all surfaces without risking damage, bleaching or corrosion. People can be in the room without personal protection equipment when using the spray, and when applied with the Xcel Disposable MicroFiber Cloths, it requires 25 to 30 percent less liquid to fully saturate a canister. Oxivir TB (Diversey). Oxivir TB cleans, disinfects and deodorizes hard, nonporous inanimate hospital or medical surfaces in one step without rinsing. The disinfectant works in 60 seconds and is designed to kill MRSA and norovirus. Sani-Cloth HB (PDI). The Sani-Cloth HB Germicidal Disposable Wipe is intended to clean and disinfect nonporous environmental surfaces in healthcare facilities. The product, which is an EPA-registered low-level disinfectant, has proven effective against 100-plus microorganisms in 10 minutes. Sani-Cloth Bleach (PDI). Designed to disinfect areas rife with C. difficile spores and norovirus, the Sani-Cloth Bleach Germicidal Disposable Wipe is effective against 50 microorganisms in four minutes. The product's formula is an EPA-registered intermediate-level disinfectant (1:10 sodium hypochlorite). Sani-Cloth Plus (PDI). The Sani-Cloth Plus Germicidal Disposable Wipe is intended for use in alternate care settings, such as a physician's office. The wipes are effective against 16 microorganisms in three minutes and are offered in various sizes and formats dependent on facility need. Hand Hygiene AeroScout (Stanley Healthcare). The AeroScout solution features electronic devices embedded in a facility's soap or hand sanitizer dispensers that wirelessly connect with radiofrequency identification badges worn by staff members. The system automatically tracks when staff members wash their hands and collects the information via the hospital's Wi-Fi network, allowing leaders to review hand hygiene compliance data in real time. Alcare Plus Antiseptic Handrub (SC Johnson Professional). Alcare Plus Antiseptic Handrub is a foamed, alcohol-based surgical scrub and hand rinse for healthcare personnel. The rub has a broad spectrum of antimicrobial action to fight against pathogenic microorganisms. The formulation has emollients for high-frequency professional use. BioVigil Solution (BioVigil). BioVigil aims to ensure healthcare providers reach and maintain hand hygiene compliance with its patented technology, which helps hospitals sustain 97 percent compliance and reduce healthcare-acquired infections. The BioVigil Data Suite gives hospital administrators actionable insights for optimizing workflow and improving outcomes. DebMed Electronic Hand Hygiene Monitoring System (SC Johnson Professional). The DebMed Monitoring System is designed to monitor hand hygiene compliance based on the WHO 5 Moments for hand hygiene and CDC guidelines. This monitoring system provides clinicians with real-time data 24/7/365 and is able to capture 100% of all hand hygiene activities through wireless technology inside SC Johnson Professionals dispensers, at the point of care, or next to any existing dispenser. The DebMed Electronic Hand Hygiene Compliance System has been peer-reviewed in several studies, and is proven to be as accurate as video monitoring and significantly more accurate than direct observation. The solution also provides clinicians with resources to help educate staff on hand hygiene best practices and patient safety. Fully Textured Single-Use Gloves (SW Safety Solutions). SW Safety Solutions' fully textured single-use gloves are designed to improve handling of smooth or slippery surfaces and small components. The gloves include ActivAloe, an exclusive form of aloe manufactured with a patented process to help retain the skin's natural health benefits. The gloves also include Hydrex, a moisture management technology. HyGreen (HyGreen). The HyGreen Hand Hygiene Recording and Reminding System is a comprehensive tool to monitor hand hygiene protocol adherence. The system is designed to remind healthcare workers to wash their hands between every patient and produce comprehensive hand hygiene reporting. Marly Skin Guard (Marly Products). Offered through Sanitis Global, Medline and Safety Basics, Marly Skin Guard is a long-lasting protective skin barrier that resides in the top layer of the skin to provide four hours of continuous protection against chemicals and irritants, including solvents, acids, surgical cement and pesticides. Purell Healthy Soap with Clean Release (Gojo). The Clean Release technology is designed to boost soap performance with a surfactant system that reaches deep into the skin's cracks and crevices to remove more dirt and germs than regular soap. Formulated for dry and sensitive skin, the soaps are the greenest Gojo offers. Their 90 percent bio-based content is well above the 64 percent standard for bio-based handwashes. SafeHands Sanitizer (safeHands). Founded by physicians, safeHands is an alcohol-free foaming hand sanitizer with benzalkonium chloride as the main active ingredient. The sanitizer is designed to kill 99.99 percent of germs and moisturize the skin while sanitizing. Sani-Hands (PDI). Sani-Hands is a hand hygiene solution designed for those who are unable to get out of bed to wash their hands. Composed of 70 percent ethyl alcohol, the product is clinically proven to kill 99.99 percent of germs and is offered in various formats dependent on facility preferences. SemperShield Nitrile (Sempermed). SemperShield Nitrile powder-free exam gloves are used in high-risk situations, with an extended cuff to protect the wrist and lower forearm. The textured surface promotes grip security without compromising sensitivity of touch, and the gloves are safe for use with chemotherapy drugs. SwipeSense Platform (SwipeSense). SwipeSense Platform is designed to monitor core hand hygiene metrics in one centralized location. The technology collects data points and delivers insights to clinicians, administrators and staff about hand hygiene in an effort to eliminate preventable medical errors. Zylast (Innovative BioDefense). Sanitis Global distributes Innovative BioDefense's Zylast products are clinically proven to provide efficacy against germs that ordinary hand sanitizers don't, with six hours of persistence. Zylast is a foaming soap, antiseptic lotion, alcohol-based antiseptic and surgical scrub. Health technology ATP Cleaning Verification System (Hygiena). Hygiena's ATP cleaning verification system delivers instant feedback on surface cleanliness to improve cleaning programs and reduce environmental contamination. CenTrak Enterprise Location Services (CenTrak). CenTrak aims to improve operational efficiency and quality of care with its Enterprise Location Services product, which supports high-velocity updates across a healthcare enterprise. Alongside the company's Clinical-Grade Visibility technology, CenTrak Enterprise Location Services has 850 healthcare installations, providing hospital leaders with big data to make smart decisions for patients and staff to improve care quality. Disposable protective covers (Healthmark). Healthmark's disposable protective covers are designed to keep personal devices safe and germ-free. The company offers disposable zip-lock plastic sleeves for phones and tablets, as well as hygienic keyboard covers to protect against pollution or contamination from germs and bacteria. LifeShield Screen Protector (Spyder Digital Research). The LifeShield Screen Protector is the only EPA-registered and FDA-listed antimicrobial screen protector with Clorox certification as a bleach- and peroxide-resistant product. The screen protector features an embedded antimicrobial agent maintaining full four-log efficiency for at least 10 years. Medigenic Medical Mice and Keyboards (Cycom). Medigenic Medical Mice and Keyboards are designed to prevent and control hospital-acquired infections. The equipment is designed with smooth, tight-fitting, easy-to-clean surfaces and includes antibacterial plastic housing. The mice and keyboards can be cleaned with hospital-grade disinfectant. MedMined Surveillance Advisor (BD). BD's MedMined Surveillance Advisor is a patented data mining surveillance solution. The system identifies statistically significant and clinically relevant pathogen changes to pinpoint emerging infection trends within a hospital or specific unit and facilitate the early detection of possible clusters and outbreaks. RAPID Reader System (PathogenALERT). PathogenALERT's RAPID Reader System is an onsite, automated, rapid airborne pathogen detection system, continuously sampling and monitoring air. The system can produce more than 1,000 air samples per week for specific pathogens and provides real-time, cloud-based, laboratory quality results via text alerts or emails. POC Advisor (Wolters Kluwer Health). POC Advisor is a clinical intelligence platform from Wolters Kluwer that aggregates, normalizes and analyzes patient data from disparate clinical systems. The technology is designed to drive early detection with predictive accuracy. There are hundreds of rules built into the platform to account for comorbidities and medication abnormalities. Robotic IV Insourcing Solution (Omnicell). Omnicell's Robotic IV Insourcing Solution is an automated compounding robot that prepares ready-to-administer medication doses. The system eliminates the need for manual compounding, thereby preventing common forms of contamination. The Rothman Index (PeraHealth). The Rothman Index translates EHR data into a health score that represents a patient's overall condition. The index provides score updates in real time throughout the patient's entire hospital stay. TheraDoc Infection Control Assistant (TheraDoc). TheraDoc Infection Control Assistant is designed to help healthcare organizations prevent hospital-acquired infections. The technology's customizable application can help providers identify and confirm HAIs in real time, speed up interventions, track organism resistance, and provide continuous surveillance, alerts and timely analysis of infections. PeraAnalytics (PeraHealth). PeraAnalytics is a retrospective analytics platform that provides data visualizations to track health outcomes over time. The platform contains insights into unexpected events and root cause analysis capabilities for more than 20 predetermined patient populations. PeraTrend (PeraHealth). PeraTrend is powered by PeraHealth's Rothman Index and offers a visual dashboard of a patient's condition in real time. The technology can be integrated into a provider's EHR or accessed online. PURELL SMARTLINK Electronic Monitoring Solutions (GOJO). PURELL SMARTLINK Electronic Monitoring Solutions includes five platforms that automate and standardize hand hygiene monitoring. The Activity Monitoring System tracks soap and sanitizer dispenser activations for real-time performance metrics, while the Technology Partner Network platform allows healthcare facilities to leverage their existing real-time locating systems for person-specific hand hygiene monitoring. The solution also provides clinician-based support and a mobile application for electronic collation of hand hygiene and personal protective equipment observations. Sentri7 (Wolters Kluwer). A real-time clinical surveillance platform, Sentri7 is designed to improve infection prevention workflows. The platform offers automated EMR data aggregation, sends clinicians evidence-based alerts and assesses outcomes to deliver continuous care delivery improvement. VigiLanz Platform (VigiLanz). The VigiLanz Dynamic Infection Control Monitor is a real-time automated monitoring system that works with a healthcare organization's EHR to alert decision-makers of potential infections, drug mismatches, organism clusters, and conditions of concern and reportable infections. With customizable rule engines, the technology constantly monitors all patient records to send alerts in real time. The technology earned 2019 Category Leader designation from KLAS Research, alongside VigiLanz's Dynamic PharmacoVigilance and Antimicrobial Stewardship products. Reprocessing CartWashCheck (Healthmark). CartWashCheck is a test administered in the area of a room that is the most difficult to clean to determine whether the cart washers are effective. The test is placed on a surface furthest from the washer jets, and its black ink will wash away if water makes contact, which indicates proper mechanical action. The test can also gauge whether the water reaches target temperatures. Endozime AW Triple Plus with APA (Ruhof). Endozime AW Triple Plus is a formulation of protease, amylase, lipase, carbohydrase and proprietary enzymes with advanced proteolytic action designed to remove bioburden from surgical instruments. The product is also a rust inhibitor and is recommended for reprocessing of all instruments, including delicate instruments and those with hard-to-reach surfaces. Pinnacle Monitor for Automated Enzymatic Cleaning (Serim Research). The Pinnacle Monitor for Automated Enzymatic Cleaning is a cleaning verification test designed to monitor all factors critical to medical instrument cleaning, including enzymatic concentration and activity, wash cycle time, wash cycle temperature and mechanical action. The test can be used in both washer-disinfectors and ultrasonic cleaners. ProEZ Foam Ready-to-Use Foaming Enzymatic Spray (Certol International). The ProEZ foam ready-to-use foaming enzymatic spray starts the cleaning process at the point of use to prevent dried soils on surgical tools. Product testing shows anti-corrosive protection and wetting power during overnight application in areas such as labor and delivery, and its four-enzyme formula dissolves tough soils, including those in orthopedic cases. Pure LandingPad Protective Surface Liner (Pure Processing). The Pure LandingPad provides a soft surface to cushion endoscopes and other delicate devices in preparation for pre-cleaning. The pads don't absorb liquids and have perforations for easy drainage. Single-Use / Disposable Cleaning Brushes (PriMed). PriMed's single-use disposable cleaning brushes were developed to optimize scrubbing action for endoscopes. The brush is designed with a distal end to minimize wear on the endoscope's channel and can brush in a push or pull cleaning mode. Surgistain (Ruhof). Surgistain is a revitalizing solution for removing rust, pitting, stains and corrosion from stainless steel surgical instruments. Surgistain can help maintain the life and efficiency of surgical instruments with routine use. When used in conjunction with Ruhof enzymatic cleaners, the solution can restore an instrument's original finish as well as loosen box-locks and joints. TOSI (Healthmark). TOSI washer test is designed as a repeatable and reliable method for evaluating an automated instrument washer's cleaning effectiveness. The routine test can help healthcare providers make sure instrument washers are performing consistently and effectively. Tray Belts (Cygnus Medical). The Tray Belts are designed to protect wrapped trays from external damage during sterilization, storage and transportation. The belts provide a cushioned barrier from sharp edges that could rip or tear the sterile wrapping, and they can prevent abrasion marks and damage from dragging the wrapped tray. Surgical Alexis O Wound Protector/Retractor (Applied Medical). Alexis wound protractor/retractors provide 360 degrees of circumferential, atraumatic retraction. The protractor/retractors maintain moisture at the incision site and reduce superficial surgical site infections after colorectal surgeries. With its self-retaining design, Alexis allows hands-free access to the operative site to facilitate specimen removal. Clinical evidence published in 2018 showed the Alexis wound protector/retractor lowered incisional surgical site infection in pancreaticoduodenectomy procedures by 52 percent. Dermabond Mini Topical Skin Adhesive (Ethicon). Dermabond Mini is a topical skin adhesive designed for healthcare professionals. The product helps maintain barrier and wound closure integrity through a microbial barrier with 99 percent effectiveness for 72 hours in vitro. Prevantics (PDI). Prevantics is a skin antiseptic comprising chlorhexidine gluconate and isopropyl alcohol. The product, available as a swab, swabstick or maxi swabstick, is also compliant with evidence-based recommendations from numerous healthcare organizations, including the Joint Commission, CDC and Infectious Diseases Society of America. Situate Detection System (Medtronic). The Situate Detection System eliminates retained sponge incidents in the operating room. The system is a proprietary, clinically proven detection technology developed as an adjunct to manual counting to overcome the difficulty of finding surgical sponges in vivo and in the surrounding OR. SurgiCount Safety-Sponge System (Stryker). Stryker's SurgiCount Safety-Sponge System helps clinicians automatically track surgical sponge use in the OR to reduce the chance of a retained surgical item. The SurgiCount Tablet electronically accounts for every surgical sponge, which each contains a uniquely coded tag for tracking purposes. The SurgiCount has now been implemented at more than 550 hospitals in the U.S. OR Turnover Kits (Xodus Medical). The prepackaged OR Turnover Kits include arm board covers, arm board straps, a patient lift sheet, an absorbent table cover, a mop head and bags, including a biohazard bag. The kits are designed to prevent cross contamination in the operating room. Steriset Sterilization Containers (Medline). The full Steriset Sterilization Containers have colored lids with customized handles and ID labels to organization instruments by procedure to promote best-practice standards and improve efficiency. The containers can handle full instrumentation for major cases. Textiles CleanPatch (Surface Medical). CleanPatch is a medical surface repair patch for hospital beds and stretchers that restores damaged mattresses to a hygienic state. The patch has been proven effective by independent infection prevention professionals and can be cleaned by a variety of hospital disinfectants. Cupron Medical Textiles (Cupron). Cupron Medical Textiles embed copper compounds in polymers, preventing the technology from rubbing off. The product has shown reduced hospital-associated infections and HAI-related events, and has been in use for more than 1 million patient days as of September 2017. A November 2018 study published in the Journal of Hospital Infection found Cupron's copper-infused patient gowns, pillowcases and other materials helped decrease infection rates at six hospitals owned by Norfolk, Va.-based Sentara Healthcare. Fantex Disposable Curtains (Statina). Statina's Fantex Disposable Curtains offer an alternative to reusable curtains that require washing. Made from non-oven polypropylene and treated with Hydro4, disposable curtains are proven to kill bacteria and improve infection control at healthcare facilities and reduce MRSA and C. difficile spores. IsoDoorCaddy (Isolation Door Caddy). The IsoDoorCaddy is designed to help reduce healthcare-acquired infections. The durable mesh, over-the-door isolation caddy accommodates personal protective equipment storage, and its material is infused with Microban to prevent the spread of germs and bacteria. LifeThreads Antimicrobial Textiles-Classic Collection (LifeThreads). LifeThreads scrubs are engineered with advanced technologies designed to inhibit the growth of unwanted bacteria directly on the fabric surface. The fabrics are treated with an EPA-registered antimicrobial active ingredient and binding agents to protect the fabric from pathogens found in clinical settings while at the same time blocking fluids and suppressing unwanted odors. LifeThreads was awarded a three-year group purchasing agreement with Premier in March 2018. On The Right Track Systems from On The Right Track (New York City). On The Right Track Systems is the only manufacturer of replaceable cubicle curtains that offers a 100 percent fully recyclable chemical-free curtain. Safer for the patient and the hospital staff, On The Right Track is the only replaceable curtain that is certified by the Healthier Hospitals organization. The entire curtain can be installed or removed in seconds. PurThread (PurThread Technologies). PurThread Technologies embeds a proprietary blend of EPA-registered recycled silver salts into its core fiber to protect fabric from microbial contamination and reduce odor-causing bacteria, mold, mildew and fungus. The fabric's benefits don't wear off or wash away, and are designed to look and feel like cotton. In early 2018, PurThread secured a distribution agreement with Mitsui USA in Japan and forged a collaboration with Cotton Inc. SilvaClean (Applied Silver). SilvaClean is a smart patented technology platform that infuses textiles with EPA-approved silver ion based SilvaClean chemistry during the laundry rinse cycle. SilvaCleans silver ions bond with fabrics to residually kill pathogens, mold and mildew and reduce post-laundry contamination (e.g. in storage, during handling and in use). The product is in use in multiple locations as a practical inexpensive way to aid in Infection Control efforts and requires no additional training or change in linen inventory. A 2016 study published in the American Journal of Infection Control demonstrated that SilvaClean treated linens had reduced microbial bioburden by over 85% in three community hospitals. Medline is the exclusive distributor of Applied Silvers SilvaClean service to healthcare facilities in the United States and Canada. Surgical Light Drape (American Surgical Specialties Company). The Surgical Light Drape is an inexpensive, crystal clear, single patient use, disposable sterile barrier drape for the overhead surgical lights in the operating room. This sterile barrier protection prevents contamination of the sterile field should any body fluids or debris fly up, strike the lights and fall back onto the sterile field. Also, because the lights are covered, patient to patient cross contamination is prevented so there is never a question "are these lights clean?" X-Static (Noble Biomaterials). X-Static antimicrobial technology aims to provide healthcare professionals with comfortable and wearable fabrics that also reduce bacteria and keep garments odor free. The fabric has 99.9 percent metallic silver bonded to the surface for performance-enhancing benefits. X-Static products include lab coats, scrubs and other soft surfaces. The International Organization for Standardization granted Noble accreditation for its updated 2015 standards. Other Baxdela (Melinta Therapeutics). Baxdela is an anionic fluoroquinolone antibiotic. The drug demonstrates in vitro and clinical activity against gram-positive and gram-negative pathogens, including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. In a phase III clinical trial completed in 2018, Baxdela met all key primary and secondary endpoints and successfully eradicated key respiratory pathogens at rates comparable to moxifloxacin. Bio Oxygen (Bio Oxygen Australia). Bio Oxygen is an all-natural air treatment system that sterilizes the air and every surface the air touches. Laboratory evidence proves Bio Oxygen eliminates 99 percent of bacteria, viruses and odors. The Bio Oxygen process kills the organisms that cause odors, such as bacteria, fungus, mold, mildew, spores and viruses. BIOlogical (HealthFirst). BIOlogical is a spores-testing kit allowing healthcare providers to mail in tests weekly for results. The system is combined with a cloud-based process management technology to send reminders about testing to remain compliant. Its OnTraq smart automation tracking and reporting system gives access to a paperless archive and sends results via email. CareBag (Cleanis). CareBag is a bedpan liner with an absorbent GelMax pad designed to trap liquids upon first contact. When the pad is sealed, it reduces the risk of spills, splashes and odors as well as protects the bedpan and avoids soiling and contamination. Cupron Enhanced EOS Surfaces (EOScu). EOScu's Cupron Enhanced EOS Surfaces are Preventive|Biocidal Surfaces, serving as the only synthetic hard surface with EPA registration for public health claims. The product, featuring Cupron's copper technology, continuously kills more than 99.9 percent of gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria within two hours of exposure, and has reduced HAIs and HAI-related events. CuVerro Bactericidal Copper Products (Olin Brass). CuVerro is a solid surface with a unique class of copper that can kill 99.9 percent of harmful bacteria when cleaned regularly. CuVerro is the only class of solid surface materials registered with the EPA to actively cure bacteria, and its properties work 24/7, making it well-suited for commonly touched surfaces where bacteria is a concern. DynaTrap (Dynamic Solutions Worldwide). DynaTrap emits UV light and carbon dioxide to attract disease-carrying mosquitoes and other predatory insects. The device uses a strong yet silent fan vacuum to pull insects into the trap. DynaTrap added three new products to its insect trap portfolio in 2018, and the Flylight trap for indoor use was named among the most innovative consumer products of the year. Florajen Digestion (Clarion Brands). Florajen Digestion is a capsule containing three probiotic cultures to help restore gut health and support the immune system. The probiotic also lowers toxin production caused by C. diff by 90 percent. Florajen Digestion, formerly Florajen3, was added to Walgreens' "Ask Your Pharmacist" area in 2018, which has around 9,800 U.S. locations. NexTemp Ultra (Medical Indicators). Medical Indicators' NexTemp Ultra is a clinically accurate, single-use disposable thermometer that circumvents cross-infection by throwing away the germs. The thermometer can take oral and axillary temperatures and is innovatively simple to use, cost-effective and maintenance-free. Nephros DSU-H (Nephros). The FDA-cleared Nephros ultrafilter produces patient washing and drinking water, as well as suitable water for wound cleansing and equipment cleaning. The filter is designed for use on sinks, showers and ice machines to filter EPA-quality drinking water. NexTemp (Medical Indicators). NexTemp is a multiple-use, single-patient clinically accurate thermometer that helps reduce healthcare-acquired infections by limiting patient-to-patient and patient-to-nurse infections. The product is for oral, axillary or rectal use and is available with an extended read time. Nozin (Global Life Technologies Corp.). Nozin is the recognized leader in nasal decolonization with proprietary protocols designed to improve care, increase patient safety, lower infection risk and reduce costs in the healthcare community. These include protocols for ICU, OR and high risk patients utilizing Nozin Nasal Sanitizer antiseptic, an alcohol-based nasal decolonizing agent to safely reduce nasal carriage of pathogens, without using antibiotics. Nozin Infection Prevention Programs are clinically supported solutions for healthcare facilities, their patients and the providers who care for them. Steripath Initial Specimen Diversion Device (Magnolia Medical Technologies). The proprietary Steripath Initial Specimen Diversion Device for preventing blood culture contamination enables accurate sepsis testing. It is a preassembled vein-to-bottle closed system that mechanically diverts and sequesters the initial 1.5 to 2 mL of blood into a proprietary isolation chamber. In early 2018, Magnolia Medical Technologies launched the second-generation Steripath Initial Specimen Diversion Device, which achieved an 83 percent reduction in blood culture contamination. Pure-Light bulbs and spray coating (Pure-Light Technologies). Formed in 2014, Pure-Light Technologies helped develop a way to seal a transparent coating of TiO2 on light emitting devices that will last 10 or more years. The Pure-Light formula properly introduced will significantly reduce viruses pathogens, and hospital acquired Infections and conditions. Timestrip Irreversible Blood Temperature Indicators (Timestrip). Timestrip Blood Temperature Indicators can help healthcare providers improve compliance and promote accountability during storage and transport. The Timestrip Blood Temp indicators can be stored at ambient temperatures and are activated when needed. VioSafe White Light Disinfection (Vital Vio). VioSafe White Light Disinfection technology kills bacteria and harmful organisms on indoor surfaces with the help of illumination. By using Vital Vio's LED technology, which is safe for continuous human exposure, with traditional cleaning, hospitals are able to decrease contamination and infection risk. The product was awarded a patent for its single-diode disinfection technology in April 2018, marking its fourth patent overall. Coryell Memorial Hospital in Gatesville, Texas, seeks $9.1 million in a lawsuit filed against the general contractor and insurance company involved in a June natural gas explosion, according to a Killeen Daily Herald report. The lawsuit, filed against Adolfson & Peterson and Zurich American, is related to the central utility plant explosion that killed three construction workers and injured 13 others. At issue is a project that began in 2016 at the utility plant building. The project, which Adolfson & Peterson worked on, is intended to include new operating rooms, a new 25-bed hospital portion, a 16-bed rehab center and new administrative offices. The complaint alleges that the insurance company paid Adolfson & Peterson $2 million that should be owed to the hospital as part of a $9.1 million settlement from the builder's risk insurance policy. The hospital also claims that it was not notified of the $2 million payment. "In December 2018, Zurich presented AP and Coryell an 'undisputed settlement offer' of $9,139,966.58 for the [utility plant] remediation and reconstruction work," the complaint says, according to the Herald. "In doing so, it reflected the 'net' amount of this offer as $7.1 million predicated on the unsubstantiated prior advance to AP of $2 million. Both Zurich and AP again failed to provide any material details or information to Coryell concerning this purported advance." The complaint states that the hospital "will suffer imminent and irreparable harm" without a temporary injunction in place to prevent the contractor and Zurich from negotiating a settlement amount. Overall, the hospital seeks the full $9.1 million settlement amount so rebuilding of the impacted area can take place and the expansion project can move forward. The contractor expressed disappointment about the lawsuit in a news release obtained by the Herald. "We are surprised and disappointed Coryell suddenly changed course and opted to pursue a litigation strategy instead," said Corbett Nichter, president of the Gulf States Region for Adolfson & Peterson. "AP disagrees with Coryell's allegation that our team breached any of its contractual duties." Hospital officials told Becker's that Coryell "took this action to protect the interests of the hospital and community we serve. Rebuilding the CUP is the first step to completing Coryell Health's expansion, which will allow us to better serve the health needs of the community." Zurich did not immediately respond to the Herald's request for comment. More articles on legal and regulatory issues: Ex-pharmacy director pleads guilty to defrauding Nebraska hospital of $4.6M Judge pauses Optum's suit seeking to protect trade secrets Specialty pharmacy pays $17M to settle Medicare billing fraud lawsuit Union General Hospital in Blairsville, Ga., agreed to pay $5 million to resolve allegations that it violated the False Claims Act and Stark Law, according to the Department of Justice. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Georgia launched a civil healthcare fraud investigation into Union General Hospital in 2016 after several of the hospital's employees were arrested for alleged criminal misconduct regarding controlled substances. The hospital replaced most of its executive team and began an internal investigation after the arrests. Hospital officials also disclosed information regarding physician pay to federal prosecutors. The settlement resolves allegations that Union General Hospital violated Stark Law by having improper financial relationships with several physicians between 2012 and 2016. The government alleged the hospital compensated physicians in amounts that were above fair market value. The hospital also allegedly took into account the volume of some physicians' referrals when determining their compensation, according to the Justice Department. "We are glad to have reached a settlement so we can continue to focus fully on what we do best: providing the highest level of healthcare for the families in Union County and the surrounding areas," Myron Turner, chairman of the board of Union General, said in a press release. "Our number one priority is quality care for our community." More articles on legal and regulatory issues: Ex-pharmacy director pleads guilty to defrauding Nebraska hospital of $4.6M Judge pauses Optum's suit seeking to protect trade secrets Specialty pharmacy pays $17M to settle Medicare billing fraud lawsuit From a Georgia hospital paying $5 million to settle false claims allegations to patients filing a class-action lawsuit against Anthem, here are the latest healthcare industry lawsuits and settlements making headlines. 1. Pennsylvania attorney general takes legal action against UPMC over patient access The Pennsylvania Attorney General's office filed a petition against UPMC, arguing the Pittsburgh-based health system is not in compliance with the state's Public Charity law. 2. Georgia hospital enters $5M settlement with feds to resolve false claims case Union General Hospital in Blairsville, Ga., agreed to pay $5 million to resolve allegations that it violated the False Claims Act and Stark Law. 3. Patients file class-action lawsuit against Anthem over WellStar dispute Anthem policyholders are filing a class-action lawsuit against the insurer after it did not tell members it planned to go out of network with Marietta, Ga.-based WellStar Health System before they locked into individual health plans for the year. 4. Ex-pharmacy director pleads guilty to defrauding Nebraska hospital of $4.6M The former pharmacy director for Omaha, Neb.-based Children's Hospital & Medical Center accused of embezzling more than $4.6 million from the hospital pleaded guilty to wire fraud Feb. 4. 5. Federal judge denies Oscar's motion to stop Florida Blue broker policy A federal district court judge denied Oscar's preliminary injunction to stop Florida Blue from enforcing a policy that Oscar said bars Orlando insurance brokers from selling any other insurance if they sell Florida Blue policies. 6. Judge pauses Optum's suit seeking to protect trade secrets A Massachusetts federal judge paused a lawsuit filed by UnitedHealth subsidiary Optum seeking to protect its trade secrets from the healthcare venture launched by Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase. 7. Specialty pharmacy pays $17M to settle Medicare billing fraud lawsuit Glen Mills, Pa.-based Pentec Health, which provides drug compounding services, agreed to pay $17 million to resolve False Claims Act allegations. 8. Medical diagnostic test can't be patented, appeals court rules: 6 things to know A U.S. appeals court ruled that a diagnostic test licensed to Quest Diagnostics' Athena unit that's used to diagnose a severe neurological disorder can't be patented. 9. Walgreens pays nearly $2M to settle claims with MassHealth Walgreens will pay about $2 million to resolve two lawsuits alleging it overcharged the Massachusetts Medicaid program and falsified information on some of the reimbursement claims. 10. Greenway Health to pay $57M to resolve False Claims Act allegations Tampa, Fla.-based EHR company Greenway Health will pay $57.25 million to resolve allegations that it misrepresented the capabilities of its software, causing clients to submit false claims to the government in violation of the False Claims Act. 11. Ex-California hospital employee charged with grand theft for allegedly stealing supplies A former employee of Riverside (Calif.) Community Hospital was charged Feb. 4 with seven counts of grand theft for allegedly stealing surgical equipment from the hospital. 12. CHS reaches settlement with 4.5M patients affected by data breach Franklin, Tenn.-based Community Health Systems reached a settlement, which must be approved by the judge, in a class-action lawsuit over a 2014 data breach that affected 4.5 million people. 13. Pathology lab strikes $63M deal in physician kickback case Inform Diagnostics, an Irving, Texas-based pathology laboratory company, agreed to pay $63.5 million to resolve allegations it violated the False Claims Act, Stark Law and the Anti-Kickback Statute. 14. Judge dismisses Maryland lawsuit to protect ACA: No evidence 'sky is falling' A federal judge dismissed Maryland's legal efforts to protect the ACA. 15. New York hospital settlement ends improper billing of rape survivors, reimburses them BronxCare Health System in New York agreed to pay restitution to rape survivors and revise billing procedures as part of a legal settlement. More articles on legal and regulatory issues: New details on Amazon-Berkshire-JPMorgan health venture emerge: 5 things to know New York hospital let woman end life support for stranger, lawsuit claims Lawsuit alleges age discrimination at Texas Children's Hospital A federal labor board has dismissed objections filed by New Bedford, Mass.-based St. Luke's Hospital alleging voter fraud in a Nov. 29 unionization election, according to WBSM radio station. The hospital filed the objections with the National Labor Relations Board in December after registered nurses voted to join the Massachusetts Nurses Association. Patricia Giramma, spokesperson for the hospital's owner, New Bedford-based Southcoast Health, previously told Becker's the filing was "because at least one vote was cast fraudulently by someone posing as an eligible voter," and the union "distributed election propaganda which misrepresented [and disclosed] how nurses intended to vote." She said the hospital believes the actions violated federal law and "tainted the election process." But Debra Falk, an emergency department nurse who was active in the unionization effort, attributed the vote in question to a "clerical issue," WBSM reported. "One of the nurses had voted. [The election officials] thought she already had, but it turned out there were four other nurses with a similar name. It wasn't mistaken identity. It was just a clerical issue. But it didn't affect the vote in any way," she told the TV station. She indicated in a news release that union officials will now work to negotiate a fair contract with hospital management. Southcoast Health did not immediately return WBSM's request for comment. More articles on human capital and risk: Nurses at California community hospital give strike OK Hospital unionization effort falls short in California Marin General engineers, imaging technicians set to strike Feb. 1 Three of the largest for-profit hospital operators entered into several transactions in recent months. Some of the companies are selling off facilities to strengthen their hospital portfolios, while others are exploring ways to expand their reach. Below is a breakdown of the transactions the for-profit hospital companies have entered into since Oct. 1. Community Health Systems Franklin, Tenn.-based Community Health Systems announced in late 2017 that it intends to sell a group of hospitals with combined revenue of $2 billion. The company has made significant progress toward that goal, including multiple deals in the past four months. On Oct. 1, CHS sold AllianceHealth Deaconess in Oklahoma City to a subsidiary of Oklahoma City-based Integris Health. The company sold two Arkansas hospitals to Little Rock, Ark.-based Baptist Health on Nov. 1, and signed a definitive agreement on Nov. 19 to divest four South Carolina hospitals. On Jan. 1, CHS completed the sale of a two-hospital system based in Spartanburg, S.C. The company sold a New Jersey hospital on Jan. 31. The hospital divestitures have helped CHS reduce its debt load. The company's long-term debt totaled $13.54 billion as of Sept. 30, down from $13.88 billion at the end of 2017. HCA Healthcare Nashville, Tenn.-based HCA Healthcare has entered into a few deals in recent months. In January, HCA signed a letter of intent to take over Frisbie Memorial Hospital in Rochester, N.H. If the deal closes, Frisbie Memorial will be HCA's third hospital in New Hampshire. On Feb. 1, HCA completed its acquisition of Mission Health, a six-hospital system based in Asheville, N.C. The $1.5 billion deal closed five months after HCA and Mission signed a definitive agreement. Tenet Healthcare Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare divested several hospitals in 2018. Over the past four months, the company has completed one deal. In July, Tenet announced plans to sell its three remaining hospitals in the Chicago area: Weiss Memorial Hospital in Chicago; Westlake Hospital in Melrose Park, Ill.; and West Suburban Medical Center in Oak Park, Ill. The company completed the deal in January. Tenet sold the three hospitals to Pipeline Health, a privately held hospital ownership and management company based in Los Angeles. More articles on healthcare industry transactions: Baylor Scott & White, Memorial Hermann end merger talks Dignity Health, CHI merge into $29B system OhioHealth to add 12th hospital Persons involved in marijuana cultivation here are being encouraged to make use of the provisions of the Amnesty Act, and to consider the benefits of involvement in the medicinal marijuana industry. An appeal has been made to those farmers already involved in the informal cannabis cultivation and the cannabis trade generally, to take advantage of the amnesty provisions as outlined under the (Amnesty) Bill recently passed in Parliament. They have also been urged to made themselves ready to participate in and benefit from the Medciainal Marijuana industry that is expected to take root here. Such farmers, he said, should remain open minded about the possibilities of the legitimate production and eventual legal exportation of medicinal cannabis. The Amnesty Bill passed in Parliament late last year, gives those involved in the illegal cultivation of marijuana an opportunity to give up their involvement without being prosecuted. A date for the commencement of this amnesty period was previously set, but scrapped and revised, so as it now stands, a date is to be determined by the Minister of Legal Affairs, Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves. The Act provides for the crop to be turned over, and once it meets the required standard and quality, it will be exported as medical marijuana. As a result, Minister Gonsalves stated that a decision had been taken to remain conservative in determining the projected revenue for the fiscal year 2019. "This year, we have taken into account the time required to establish and operationalize the Authority (Medicinal Marijuana; the steps involved in conducting due diligence of applicants; the licensing and the establishment of cultivation and production facilities that can meet necessary legal and technical requirements; and the actual production and export of medicinal products, Gonsalves said. It was cited that revenues generated under the sector will be derived primarily from licensing fees. St Vincent and the Grenadines became the second CARICOM member country, behind Jamaica, to establish the legal framework for a medicinal marijuana industry. The appeal came from Minister of Finance Camillo Gonsalves on Monday in the 2019 Budget address.But there were a number of challenges - international treaty compliance, correspondent banking relations, logistical hurdles, new burdens on local education and health care apparatuses, Gonsalves said. Trip Report: Computers, Privacy & Data Protection 2019 Feb 6, 2019 evan's Blog I recently traveled to Brussels, Belgium for the CPDP 2019 conference. Privacy and data protection are important for MIT App Inventor, not only because we support educational outreach around the world, but because we want to ensure that people who build apps with MIT App Inventor can be compliant with local, provincial/state, national, and international law, such as the General Data Privacy Regulation (GDPR) and the Childrens Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). While attending this conference, I had an opportunity to discuss MIT App Inventor as a platform both as a computer science education platform and as a platform for developers to build mobile apps. The conference also raised a lot of questions too around some of the areas that we are looking into building extensions for, including health data and artificial intelligence. Internet of Things (IOT) was also a hot topic at this event, with many concerns raised about how these technologies can be used to monitor peoples behaviors and potentially used against them in unsavory ways. At MIT, we have built our own suite of IOT extensions for App Inventor, released under the Apache Software License 2.0, to encourage people to interact with IOT in an open, transparent way. It will be great to see how app inventors around the world benefit from this approach versus a closed approach currently championed by tech companies. With warm regards, Evan W. Patton, Ph.D. On behalf of the MIT App Inventor team A longtime orthopedic surgeon announced his decision to leave Fort Bragg, Calif.-based Mendocino Coast District Hospital after the board fired CEO Bob Edwards in January despite renewing his contract last year, according to the Fort Bragg Advocate-News. Five things to know: 1. The Mendocino Coast District Hospital board of directors abruptly fired Mr. Edwards during its Jan. 24 meeting. Officials said he was not terminated for cause and is entitled to the terms of his contract under those circumstances. 2. During the board's Jan. 31 meeting, surgeon Jack Bellah, MD, accused select board members of being "hostile" to hospital administration and medical staff. He said those individuals acted on the urges of a "vocal community group" and had "preconceived agendas and biases" that led to the hasty decision to fire Mr. Edwards. 3. Dr. Bellah said he plans to leave the hospital after 10 years "much earlier than expected," but said he could be convinced to stay if Mr. Edwards were brought back and the three board members that motioned to remove him were fired, according to the report. 4. The hospital's chief of medical staff said at the meeting that he believed the board's decision to fire Mr. Edwards was not meant to be an attack on the medical staff, but that the decision was made quickly without much consultation. He also said Dr. Bellah's departure would create a significant hole in hospital services and revenue, as the orthopedic surgeon is the hospital's "main moneymaker," according to the report. 5. Board President Karen Arnold said the goal of the Jan. 31 meeting was "to start rebuilding the hospital's relationship with the community," and that she and the board take their decisions seriously. To access the report, click here. Microsoft debuted three new tools for hospitals and health systems that combine cloud and artificial intelligence capabilities, GeekWire reports. "We recognize that we are not a healthcare company," Peter Lee, corporate vice president at Microsoft Healthcare, told GeekWire. "Our goal is to understand what our cloud and the services delivered in our cloud need to be like in order to support the success of as many startups, innovators, incumbents, big companies and small companies as possible." The three new products: 1. Microsoft 365 for hospital teams. The company added features to Microsoft Teams that allow healthcare organizations to securely and compliantly communicate health data. The platform is also integratable with EHR systems. 2. Azure API for health-record sharing. Microsoft has created an Azure application programming interface that uses the FHIR format. FHIR, which stands for Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources, is a standardized data format designed to enable seamless data sharing. "By creating a secure cloud API platform that uses the FHIR format, Microsoft aims to unleash a wave of healthcare data services built on Azure. One pilot program was a service to monitor chemotherapy patient data across several hospitals, which was developed by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research in Seattle," GeekWire reports. 3. Microsoft Healthcare Bot. The company has moved its healthcare chatbot from research project to reality. The bot, which is both an off-the-shelf service and a platform, includes a symptom checker and is able to understand medical terminology. The bot may be used to help triage patients, GeekWire notes. Revenue cycle management company R1 RCM is joining forces with Intermountain Healthcare to build a 30,000-square-foot innovation and technology center in Salt Lake City. The R1 Technology and Innovation Center, scheduled to open in May, will be used to develop RCM solutions and adopt artificial intelligence, robotic process automation and other technologies that can be used for revenue cycle improvement at healthcare organizations. The center will include a virtual revenue cycle model office, serve as a client experience center and support Utah's technology community. R1 President and CEO Joe Flanagan said the center "leverages R1's technology investments, Intermountain's leadership role in healthcare and the rich pool of talent available in the Salt Lake City area. We are committed to investing in technologies that help providers address these and other challenges which may arise as payment models evolve." Intermountain Executive Vice President and CFO Bert Zimmerli said the center "will position Intermountain Healthcare, R1 and Salt Lake City at the forefront of the healthcare industry's financial transformation." Colorado lawmakers have introduced legislation that seeks to protect patients from high, unexpected medical bills, according to KDVR, a Fox-affiliated TV station. Five things to know: 1. Patients often face surprise medical bills when they're referred by in-network providers to providers who are not in their insurance company's network. 2. Colorado lawmakers hope to limit the amount patients could be charged in these situations, according to KDVR. 3. Proposed legislation would apply to state-regulated insurance plans but not when patients seek out-of-network care. 4. Under the bill, charges would reportedly be limited to 125 percent the Medicare payment rate, the average in-network rate for the geographical area, or the average in-network rate based on the "All Payer Claims Database." 5. The Colorado Hospital Association has expressed concerns about the proposed bill. Katherine Mulready, senior vice president and chief strategy officer of the association, told KDVR: We are concerned that the bill as introduced falls short. Setting a 'default' payment rate for hospitals that are not in an insurer's provider network will have ripple effects in the market if the default rate is too low. In particular, hospitals may not be able to negotiate as effectively with insurance carriers to ensure fair payments for all of the essential services they provide." More articles on healthcare finance: Medical debt a factor in two-thirds of bankruptcies in survey RCM tip of the day: 3 factors to consider before outsourcing revenue cycle Baseball-style arbitration on the table as potential surprise billing solution The following hospital and health system credit rating and outlook changes or affirmations occurred in the last two weeks, beginning with the most recent: 1. S&P revises outlook for Baptist Memorial Health Care to negative S&P Global Ratings revised its outlook for Memphis, Tenn.-based Baptist Memorial Health Care from stable to negative. 2. Moody's affirms 'A2' rating for HealthPartners Moody's Investors Service affirmed its "A2" rating for Bloomington, Minn.-based HealthPartners, affecting $488 million of rated debt. 3. Moody's affirms 'Aa3' rating for Cedars-Sinai Medical Center Moody's Investors Service affirmed its "Aa3" rating for Los Angeles-based Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, affecting $1.1 billion of outstanding debt. 4. Moody's affirms 'A2' rating for Concord Hospital Moody's Investors Service affirmed its "A2" rating for Concord (N.H.) Hospital, affecting $126 million of debt. 5. Moody's downgrades Holy Redeemer Health System to "Ba1" Moody's Investors Service has downgraded Meadowbrook, Pa.-based Holy Redeemer Health System's rating from "Baa3" to "Ba1," affecting $45.8 million in rated debt. 6. Moody's affirms 'Baa3' rating for Cullman Regional Medical Center Moody's Investors Service has affirmed its "Baa3" rating for Cullman (Ala.) Regional Medical Center. 7. Moody's upgrades Novant Health rating to 'Aa3' Moody's Investors Service has upgraded the rating of Winston-Salem, N.C.-based Novant Health from "A1" to "Aa3," affecting $1.3 billion of rated debt. Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare has extended a long-term agreement with Cerner. Under the agreement, Tenet Healthcare will work with Cerner to make information systems more efficient across the health system. The organizations will focus on automation, user experience, interoperability and cloud infrastructure. "With our expanded Cerner collaboration, we are able to enhance the functionality of our systems and provide our clinicians with greater visibility into patients' most recent, relevant information," Paola Arbour, CIO of Tenet Healthcare, said in a news release. Buffalo, N.Y.-based Catholic Health is planning to implement an Epic EHR system, investing more than $100 million in the project. The implementation will take around 18 months, and the health system plans to lease 20,000 square feet of space from Canisius College in Buffalo, where it will place around 150 team members to work on the implementation. The partnership with Canisius College will also include internship opportunities in IT, data analytics and healthcare, among others. Additionally, Catholic Health will recruit 40 new IT, clinical and business specialists for its 150-member implementation team. The health system spent over two years assessing EHR platforms before deciding on Epic to replace its current system. More than 1,000 Catholic Health employees, including physicians and nurses, participated in its selection. "We wanted this to be an inclusive process and Epic was the clear choice among our physicians, nurses, and associates for its ease of use, functionality, and the integration it will give us across our system and for patients throughout the community," said Michael Galang, DO, senior vice president and CIO at Catholic Health. "There is a reason the top hospitals and medical schools in the country use Epic, and we look forward to harnessing this technology to attract the best medical talent to our health system and give area patients another reason to choose Catholic Health to improve and manage their health." Epic is the most widely used EHR system in the country, and deploying it across its five hospital campuses and other facilities will allow Catholic Health access to a library of analytics and best practices. It offers Catholic Health's clinicians an integrated, single source of patient information that can be shared easily across the system. Additionally, Catholic Health clinicians can share patient information with other Epic users across the country using its interoperability platform, Care Everywhere. Patients receiving care at Catholic Health will have access to Epic's MyChart patient portal, through which they can access their health data, schedule and cancel appointments, and get in touch with providers. Boston-based Brigham Health and South Weymouth, Mass.-based South Shore Health System are collaborating on a medical building development as part of a $1.6 billion redevelopment in Quincy, Mass., according to the Boston Business Journal. The key details to know: 1. The center would offer some outpatient surgical services and ambulatory care. 2. Brigham health and South Shore will jointly operate the building. 3. Brigham Health President Betsy Nabel, MD, told the Boston Business Journal, "This collaboration builds on our longstanding clinical partnership with South Shore Health System to ensure that the expert specialty care we provide in oncology, neurology, surgery and women's health is accessible in the community." Tamir Ben-Menachem, MD, is Berkeley Heights, N.J.-based Summit Medical Group 's gastroenterology department chairman. Dr. Ben-Menachem is also a professor at the New Brunswick-based University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, and has privileges at Summit, N.J.-based Overlook Medical Center. Dr. Ben-Menachem treats pancreatic and bile duct diseases, as well as digestive tract cancer. He has extensive experience in endoscopic ultrasound, endoscopic removal of early digestive tract cancers and Barrett's esophagus treatment. Dr. Ben-Menachem has received over 24 awards and honors, including being listed as one of New Jersey Monthly's "Top Doctors." Dr. Brian O Toole, the Director of the School of Nations, a private school in Guyana, was this week, still recovering after he was shot outside his home, during the late night hours of Sunday, January 27, 2019. A statement from the school said that Dr. OToole had met, that Sunday, with parents of the students attending the private school, after a Facebook post surfaced earlier in the day with a person threatening to open fire on students of the school. The previous Friday, a student was expelled after posting a Whatsapp message, threatening to shoot-up the school. The student had said he was just joking, but that did not save him. Meanwhile, the School has assured that Dr. OToole is stable and well, as he recovers from bullet wounds to both hands, inflicted by a single gunman. The school was closed on Monday, January 28, "as we assess our current security measures with an objective to ensuring that our students, staff and premises are safe and secured, the statement said. (Source: Caribbean News Service) According to the School of Nations website, the school is one of the few private parochial schools in Guyana. Its religious affiliation is with the Bahai religion. It enrolls students from nursery school through secondary school and sixth form. Planning for Thursdays Sabine Pass community meeting started with school district Superintendent Kristi Heids complaints about raw sewage in her front yard. It ended after more than two hours of tense conversations and an explanation as to why things arent working. The dozens of attendees also left with promises from members of the Port Arthur City Council and a consultant they hired that things will change. But they dont plan to take those promises and quiet down. Several of them said their concerns have been building since Sabine Pass was annexed by Port Arthur in 1978 a controversial move that residents fought to the end and mourned with flags at half-staff in the days after the annexation. And because Sabine Pass is home, theyve been here this long and plan to see those problems fixed. The city says it has a plan to stop operating at a loss and fix ailing infrastructure, said consultant Hani Tohme. The city also plans to replace sewer pipes and manholes in Sabine Pass in the next three years and plans to repair or replace at least 12 more streets in all of Port Arthur by the end of 2019. Im not going to sit here and make promises I know I cant keep, Tohme said. I know I can keep these promises because I have the city forces today that can do that. But the residents attending the meeting who say they have sewage in their front yards, sinkholes so big people can fall into them and drainage that keeps the area under water after heavy rains maintain they dont have three years to wait. Im having a hard time believing you, sir, because weve been told this how many times before, resident Kellie Brown said to the areas City Council member, Raymond Scott Jr. Quite frankly, the frustration is building. Council members said past concerns were passed on to city leadership that did nothing. That leadership has since been removed, said council member Charlotte Moses. If you would all just give us an opportunity, Moses said. Were working in the right direction. Were making changes. The group plans to meet again in the next month to speak further about drainage and check up on progress being made on other projects. Tense relations between cities that annexed other land isnt unique to Port Arthur and Sabine Pass. Residents at the meeting said they hadnt seen improvements to the city in 10, 20 or even 40 years. Port Arthur annexed Sabine Pass years ago for the offshore tax dollars they could take, Heid said. But they havent put things back into this community. If youre not going to fix the streets or keep the infrastructure in working order, then let us go. There may be some hope moving forward for cities in or approaching Sabine Passs situation. James Quintero, director of the Center for Local Governance, said last year the Legislature passed a bill that effectively eliminated forced annexation, just like Sabine Pass experienced, for cities in counties with 500,000 or more people. For everyone else, it put in an opt-in election provision where residents could petition for a vote when annexation is pending. Most people recognize the current annexation system has problems and needs reform, he said. When it comes to forced annexation, there are two main problems redirecting money from revenue-rich areas to the urban core and effectively disenfranchising rural and suburban voters. Thats un-American and un-Texan, he said. Both the fiscal and voting rights aspect are two powerful problems were hoping to fix, Quintero said. But that still doesnt provide a solution for cities that were already annexed. Quintero said the law currently leans toward cities and annexed cities have to show, with much documentation, that the city has been failing to provide services. Its a costly and lengthy process that more likely than not fails to protect property owners, he said. There seems to be an appetite in the statehouse to change the laws, he said, but its unclear what that change could entail. kaitlin.bain@beaumont enterprise.com Ashely Glover attended the community meeting at Fehl-Price Elementary Thursday night to learn about the changes to the school her 10-year-old daughter attends the school Glover says has failed the fourth-grade student repeatedly in the past. The last couple years, it has been bad, and my child is a student that is failing, so Im hoping that it will make a change, she said. She said if things dont improve drastically, she plans on moving her daughter to a school where her needs will be better met. Shes been failed by the system, Glover said. She has been voicing her concerns to the Fehl-Price for the last two years, but said she hasnt seen improvement. The nonprofit charter school system ResponsiveEd has partnered with Beaumont ISD to take over Fehl-Price Elementary School, which has been in improvement-needed status for four consecutive years. The in-district charter will allow BISD to maintain ownership of the campus and provide all of the same services, like transportation and meal-assistance programs, while ResponsiveEd takes control of the curriculum and educational approach in the hopes of meeting the standards set by the Texas Education Agency. Glover said if the partnership leads to the changes she feels are needed in the school, she would keep her daughter at Fehl-Price. Two other similar meetings took place at Smith Middle School and Jones Clark Elementary School, which will be run by the Phalen Leadership Academy. Assistant Superintendent Anita Frank said in a previous interview with the Enterprise that both Phalen Leadership Academy and ResponsiveEd have agreed to allow other BISD schools to adopt successful practices and policies implemented in the in-district charter schools. Like Phalan Leadership Academy, ResponsiveEd has three years to earn a C rating from the Texas Education Agency. The school currently has an F on the agencys A-through-F grading system. If ResponsiveEd fails to achieve this goal, BISD can terminate the contract. With a 20-year history, the Lewisville-based nonprofit organization has more than 70 campuses across Texas and Arkansas. Their mission, according to their website is, to provide hope for students through educational options that promote a free society and cultivate moral and academic excellence. If the charter companys name sounds familiar, that may be because RepsonsiveEd runs Beaumont Classical Academy inside of Triumph Church, which functions as a traditional charter school outside of BISDs control. haley.bruyn@beaumontenterprise.com twitter.com/HaleyWrites_BE A spokesperson for Beaumont ISD announced BISD police are investigating alleged mismanagement of Parent Teacher Association funds at Amelia Elementary School. This is a developing story. Check back for more information Dear Aspirants, Current Affairs for NIACL AO Main 2018-19: Knowledge of current news also helps you deal with the PI (Personal Interview) more efficiently so you do not give a mumble jumble answer to the interviewees simple questions. Here is a quiz on Current Affairs to let you assess your Current Affairs Knowledge. The General Awareness Section of Banking Exams covers numerous sections in it like Banking Awareness, Static GK, and Current Affairs. Most of the questions in GA appear from Current Affairs section. So it becomes important for you all to cover this particular section with sincerity and seriousness. The questions on Static and Banking Awareness are related to the countries, events or anything that has been in news for a while.Here is a quiz on Current Affairs to let you assess your Current Affairs Knowledge. Q1. Which of the following player hammered the fastest fifty for India in Womens T20Is? Mithali Raj Smriti Mandhana Poonam Raut Latika Kumari Harmanpreet Kaur Solution: Indian opener Smriti Mandhana hammered the fastest fifty for India in Womens T20Is. The left-handed batswoman struck a half-century in just 24 balls in the 1st T20I against New Zealand at Westpac Stadium in Wellington. Q2. Who among the following has been honored with the Freedom of the City Of London by the city of London Corporation? Shobna Gulati Gurinder Chadha Sarita Choudhury Samir Bhamra Sanjiv Chadha Solution: The State Bank of Indias Uk chief Mr. Sanjiv Chadha has been honored with the Freedom of the City Of London by the city of London Corporation in recognition of his contribution to promoting the bilateral relations. Q3. Indian Banking Association has issued advisory requesting banks to waive off the processing, documentation, inspection and all other service charges for Kisan Credit Card and crop loans up to INR ______. 1 lakh 2 lakh 3 lakh 5 lakh 8 lakh Solution: Indian Banking Association has issued advisory requesting banks to waive off the processing, documentation, inspection and all other service charges for Kisan Credit Card and crop loans up to 3 lakh rupees. Q4. As per the government data, the national sanitation coverage is now _______ compared to 39% in 2014. 78% 92% 84% 90% 98% Solution: As per the government data, over 50 crore people stopped defecating in the open since the launch of the Swachh Bharat Mission and with over 5.5 lakh villages have been declared Open Defecation Free (ODF) and the national sanitation coverage is now 98% compared to 39% in 2014. Q5. 2019 Asia LPG summit was organised at _______. Vienna New Delhi Sochi Ranchi London Solution: Mr. Dharmendra Pradhan, Union Minister for petroleum and natural gas, inaugurated the 2019 Asia LPG summit in New Delhi. The summit has been organized jointly by the major Indian oil marketing companies (OMCs) Indian Oil, Hindustan Petroleum and Bharat Petroleum together with the World LPG Association (WLPGA) at the Taj Palace Hotel in New Delhi. Q6. Which of the following country signed an accord to join NATO to become the 30th member of the US-led alliance? Romania Cameroon Montenegro Macedonia Croatia Solution: Macedonia signed an accord to join NATO to become the 30th member of the US-led alliance. At a formal signing of the NATO accession protocol, Macedonias Foreign Minister Nikola Dimitrov hailed the moment as showing that the country will never walk alone once in the alliance. Q7. India and __________have joined hands for cooperation on Water and Waste Management. Turkey Poland Bulgaria Germany Italy Solution: India and Germany have joined hands for cooperation on Water and Waste Management. During the meeting of 3rd Indo-German Working Group for cooperation on water and waste management which concluded in New Delhi, both sides discussed potential cooperation in this area. Q8. Which of the following state has set up a committee to review various schemes being implemented for the welfare of tribals in the state? Uttarakhand Karnataka Maharashtra Madhya Pradesh Goa Solution: The Maharashtra government has set up a committee to review various schemes being implemented for the welfare of tribals in the state. The 17-member committee, headed by former MLA and Shramjeevi Sanghatna president Vivek Pandit, will undertake the study of various works done for providing employment opportunities, minimum wages and proper livelihood to tribals. Q9. Shobha Koser won Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards 2017. She is a noted _________-. flute player Kathak dancer Sattriya dancer Veena player Kathakali dancer Solution: Shobha Koser won Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards 2017. She is a noted kathak dancer. Q10. The Reserve Bank of India has slapped a ________ penalty on Syndicate Bank and ______ on Axis Bank for violating norms. Rs1-crore, Rs20 lakh Rs20 lakh, Rs50 lakh Rs1-crore, Rs50 lakh Rs50 lakh, Rs1-crore Rs50 lakh, Rs 10 lakh Solution: The Reserve Bank of India has slapped a Rs1-crore penalty on Syndicate Bank and Rs20 lakh on Axis Bank for violating norms. The penalty on Syndicate Bank is due to non-compliance with the directions regarding frauds and risk management systems. Q11. Ayushman Bharat Yojana or Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY) App was launched on Google play store. Who is the CEO of PM-JAY? Indu Bhushan Indu Malhotra Induja Kumari Bharat Bhushan Ravneet Kumar Gill Solution: Indu Bhushan is the CEO of PM-JAY. Ayushman Bharat Yojana or Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY) is a centrally sponsored scheme; which was launched in the year 2018, under the Ayushman Bharat Mission of MoHFW in the country. Q12. Which of the following payments bank has announced the launch of a sweep account facility in association with Suryoday Small Finance Bank (SSFB)? Airtel Payments Bank Paytm Payments Bank Fino Payments Bank EU Small Finance Bank Aditya Birla Payments Bank Solution: Fino Payments Bank (FPB) has announced the launch of a sweep account facility in association with Suryoday Small Finance Bank (SSFB). This partnership will help FPB address the issue of deposit limits that all the payment banks face at the moment. Q13. Who among the following has been appointed as the new secretary of the Ministry of Civil Aviation? Kuldeep Singh Barola Pradeep Singh Kharola Prakash Kumar Badola Roshan Dixit Kamalkant Das Solution: The government appointed Air India chief managing director and Chairperson Pradeep Singh Kharola the secretary of the Ministry of Civil Aviation. Kharola will take over from Rajiv Nayan Choubey. Q14. What is the policy repo rate after 6th Bi-Monthly Monetary Policy Committee meeting? 7.25% 6.75% 6.50% 6.25% 7.00% Solution: The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) decided to reduce the policy repo rate under the liquidity adjustment facility (LAF) by 25 basis points from 6.5% to 6.25% with immediate effect. Q15. What is the marginal standing facility (MSF) rate after 6th Bi-Monthly Monetary Policy Committee meeting? 6.5% 7.25% 6.75% 6.25% 7.00% John Cox can be reached at 661-395-7404. Follow him on Twitter: @TheThirdGraf. Sign up at Bakersfield.com to receive free newsletters about local business. In this file photo, Michelle Lujan Grisham speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. House Democrats held a news conference to express their frustration after their meeting with ICE Acting Director Thomas Homan on the recent ICE raids. Global rates of suicide death have fallen by a third since 1990, study finds Joint Interagency Task Force South is located at Naval Air Station Key West. A 20-year-old Chinese student was sentenced to a year in federal prison after he pleaded guilty to illegally taking pictures at a key US defense intelligence facility in Florida. The best bang for your buck! This option enables you to purchase online 24/7 access and receive the Sunday, Tuesday & Thursday print edition at no additional cost * Print edition only available in our carrier delivery area. Allow up to 72 hours for delivery of your print edition to begin. Print edition not available for Day Pass option. By Abdul Kerimkhanov The production capacity of Iran in the field of petrochemistry has increased by 8.58 million tons. Since 2013, when Hassan Rouhani took office, 16 new projects entered into operation. These projects in the amount of $ 6.47 billion include the Kurdistan petrochemical plant, the Ilam petrochemical complex, the Lurestan petrochemical complex, the Urmia sulfuric acid complex, the Mahabad petrochemical complex, petrochemical complex "Shiraz", petrochemical company "Karun", petrochemical company "Takht-e Jamshid", phase II of the petrochemical complex "Cavian", petrochemical project "Takht Jamshid Pars", polystyrene project "Entekhab", project "Morvarid", manufacturing plant urea and ammonia "Pardis", petrochemical project "Mardzhan" and two utility companies. These complexes, in addition to the petrochemical industry sector development and the completion of the value chain in this sector, have created new export markets, jobs and value added in the country. Under the leadership of President Rouhani, the share of the petrochemical industry in Iran in terms of production capacity of the main petrochemical products in the Middle East region increased from 22.2 percent to 23.5 percent from 2013 to 2018. In addition, over this period, the share of Iran in the global production of petrochemical products increased from 2.26 to 2.50 percent since 2013. The number of operating petrochemical facilities operating in Iran has also increased by 26 percent from 43 to 54, and the installed capacity of the country's petrochemical enterprises has increased by 14 percent since 2013. Petrochemical products make up the largest volume in the statistical tablet of Iranian non-oil products export, which is more than 40 percent of the total non-oil export of the country. Iran exports its petrochemical products to several dozen countries in different parts of the world. As many as 13 percent of products are exported to the Indian subcontinent, 23 percent to the Southeast Asia countries, 22 percent to the China, 18 percent to the countries of the Far East, 5 percent to Europe and 19 percent to the Middle East. Despite the sanctions imposed against the export of Iranian oil, and consistently, the decline in oil exports, the sanctions imposed did not affect the export of petrochemical products. During the period of sanctions, one of the resources of Irans foreign exchange earnings was the petrochemical industry. The Iranian petrochemical industry has a variety of properties that attract Iranian and foreign investors. The most important feature of the industry is the presence of rich oil and gas resources to provide the necessary raw materials from the petrochemicals production. Iran ranks 4th in the world in terms of oil resources and uses the second largest gas reserves in the world. An important feature of Irans petrochemical industry is country's excellent geographical location and good access to Asian and European markets, as well as free seas, which makes it easier and cheaper to export and transport. Iran is the only state in the Middle East that produces a large amount of necessary equipment for the petrochemical industry on its territory. --- Abdul Kerimkhanov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AbdulKerim94 Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend Turkmen Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Rashid Meredov will visit Tunisia Feb. 7- 9, 2019 to conduct political consultations, Trend reports referring to the presidents decree. The sides will also discuss the issues of bilateral cooperation. The Turkmen and Tunisian foreign ministers will exchange views on current spheres of partnership within the UN and other authoritative international structures. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend The German-Turkmen business forum is scheduled to be held in Berlin on February 12-13, 2019, Trend reports referring to a source in the Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs of Turkmenistan. The management of the board of the Committee on Eastern European Economic Relations intends to visit Turkmenistan in March 2019. The events will be held following the recent visit of the Turkmen delegation headed by Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Rashid Meredov to Hamburg and Berlin. Several meetings were held during the visit, including one with Chairman of Committee on Eastern European Economic Relations Wolfgang Buechele. The prospects for cooperation in such spheres as energy, gas chemical industry, transport and communications, banking sector were discussed during the meeting. In May, it was reported that the Turkmen delegation headed by Deputy Prime Minister Chary Gylyjov held talks at the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. The sides discussed the issues of expanding the ties in such spheres as energy, finance, health care, agriculture, infrastructure and tourism. The German companies make a significant contribution to the implementation of long-term projects in Turkmenistan. Among them are such companies as Siemens, Daimler, Claas, Rohde & Schwarz, Dresser-Rand. In 2016, 167 investment projects and contracts with German capital worth $540 million and about 555 million euros were registered in Turkmenistan. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend An official ceremony was held in Akorda (Presidential palace in Kazakhstan) with the participation of five new ambassadors from Japan, Vietnam, the Czech Republic, Croatia and Tajikistan, who also presented their credentials to the president of Kazakhstan, Trend reports citing the Kapital.kz business information center. "I would like to congratulate you all on the beginning of the diplomatic mission in the country. The start of your time as ambassadors here has coincided with important reforms which will be implemented in Kazakhstan. We have a strategic program till 2050. Now we are carrying out comprehensive work. As an independent state, we wish to be among the 30 developed countries. The future of Kazakhstan depends on the young generation, which knows modern technologies," said President Nursultan Nazarbayev. According to the head of state, Kazakhstan is focused on the flow of investment into the economy, and noted a special approach taken towards technologically advanced countries such as Japan. "We are ready to support cooperation. The development of a comprehensive dialogue with Japan is one of the important tasks of the foreign policy. Our detailed talks with the prime minister, several of our meetings over the years suggest that the countries are ready for cooperation. We are waiting for large Japanese companies that I met in Tokyo. Kazakhstan will create all possible conditions for work," Nazarbayev emphasized. The president said that the bilateral trade relations of the countries increased by 30 percent in 2018, the trade turnover reached $2 billion. "The prospects are still huge," the president added. As a token of respect, Tatsuhiko Kasai, the Japanese ambassador to Kazakhstan, addressed President Nazarbayev in the Kazakh language. "It is a great honor for me today to present my credentials to your Excellency," he said in Kazakh. Later he explained to journalists that, having arrived in Kazakhstan, he is ready to master the Kazakh language. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend Foreign construction companies are showing particular interest in construction of the shipping channel in Istanbul, the Turkish Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure told Trend Feb. 7. The preparation of the shipping channel construction project in Istanbul has been completed, according to the ministry. The Istanbul shipping channel construction project is one of the most important projects, the ministry said. The intention to implement the project of construction of the Istanbul shipping channel was announced for the first time in 2011 by the current President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The length of the shipping channel in Istanbul will be 43 kilometers, and in the framework of the construction project, a special authority will also be created in order to control the operation of the channel after its commissioning. The purpose of the construction of the Istanbul channel is to reduce the burden of shipping on the Bosphorus Strait, as well as to prevent the threat of environmental and man-made disasters on one of the most intense sea routes in the world, the ministry said. The width of the Istanbul channel, according to plans, will be 400 meters, and its depth - 25 meters. The channel will be able to let pass 150-160 vessels per day. Currently, the Bosphorus is used by an average of 150 vessels per day, of which about 30 are oil tankers. Annually about 150 million tons of oil and oil products are transported through the Black Sea Straits, while the throughput capacity of the Bosphorus is estimated at 200 million tons. The Istanbul channel will run parallel to the Bosphorus and will actually make the European part of Istanbul an island and finally separate it from Europe. The channel will pass from the Black Sea to the Marmara Sea through the Kucukcekmece Lake. On the banks of the artificial channel, it is planned to build new residential complexes, which will be connected with other areas of the 15 million metropolis thanks to modern transport infrastructure, including metro and high-speed trains, as well as with the third airport in Istanbul. As part of this project, the construction of a new port is also expected. It will be possible to use tankers with a length of 275 meters, a width of 48 meters and a capacity of 14,500 DWT on the Istanbul shipping channel, which is being built as part of the governments Vision 2023 plan. The construction of the navigable channel will continue for five years and the minimum service life of the canal will be 100 years. The official exchange rate for Feb. 7 is 5.2183 TRY/USD. -- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend A representative of the Turkmen Ministry of Finance and Economy will take part in an expert group meeting of the CIS Executive Committee, to be held in Minsk Feb. 12-13, Trend reports with reference to the Belarus Embassy in Turkmenistan. Turkmenistan is represented by Galina Romanova, head of the State Finances and Economic Policy Department of the Turkmen Ministry of Finance and Economy. The expert group will work to adapt the 2007 Concept to modern realities within the evolutionary improvement of the CIS. Turkmenistan is chairing the CIS this year. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend Iraqi minister of electricity announced the signing of an electricity agreement between Iran and Iraq. On Dec. 27, 2018, Iranian Energy Minister Reza Ardakanian and Iraqi Minister of Electricity Luay al-Khatteeb signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for energy cooperation after two days of intensive talks in Baghdad. A memorandum of understanding was signed, which became a contract today, Minister Luay al-Khatteeb said on the sidelines of a meeting with the Iranian minister of energy in Tehran, Trend reports citing ILNA. The Iraqi minister said the MOU envisages cooperation in new energy technologies and sharing technical know-how and experience with the Iranian side. Governors of the central banks of Iran and Iraq on Tuesday signed an agreement to facilitate the settlement of Baghdads debts to Tehran. Iraqs due debts to Iran, worth $2 billion, are for imports of electricity and gas as well as other goods over the past years. Iraq imported 1,000 megawatts of electricity from Iran for years to cope with energy shortages. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Abdul Kerimkhanov The Council of the Eurasian Fund for Stabilization and Development (EFSD) approved the provision of an investment loan from the EFSD in the amount of $ 40 million to finance the project Rehabilitation of the Nurek HPP. Phase 1, Tajik media reports. The project envisages the purchase, supply, installation and commissioning of six single-phase autotransformers instead of similar equipment installed at the transformer substation of this hydro power plant more than 40 years ago. It has developed a service life and is in unsatisfactory technical condition. According to the press service of the Eurasian Development Bank (EDB), financing is provided for 20 years, including eight years of the grace period for the principal debt payment. The project will improve the safety and reliability of the hydro power plant, ensure uninterrupted power supply of Tajikistan and reduce the cost of operating and repairing autotransformers. The project is part of a large reconstruction project of the Nurek HPP, consisting of two phases, with a total amount of funding of up to $ 700 million. Currently, the first phase of the station reconstruction is being implemented, which is financed by the International Development Association (World Bank group) and the Asian infrastructure investment bank. The project Rehabilitation of Nurek HPP. Phase 1 is the first EFSD investment project in Tajikistan. It is expected that a loan agreement between the EFSD and the Tajik Government will be signed in the near future and the project will be launched this year. The objectives of the First Phase of Nurek Hydropower Rehabilitation Project for Tajikistan are to rehabilitate and restore the generating capacity of three power generating units of Nurek HPP, improve their efficiency, and strengthen the safety of the Nurek dam. There are three components to the project, the first component being a rehabilitation of the three generating units, the key infrastructural components of the plant, and replacement of autotransformers. This component will consist of two sub-components: replacement and refurbishment of mechanical, electrical, and electromechanical equipment; and replacement of six autotransformers. The second component is the enhancement of dam safety. This component will finance activities to improve the safety of the operation of the Nurek HPP. The cost estimate for this component includes a provision for the possible mitigation measures that may be required. The cost of this component was estimated taking into account the maximum scope of activities, which may need to be implemented based on the results from ongoing seismic hazard assessment work. Therefore, the cost estimate includes a margin sufficient to implement all of the dam safety enhancement related activities, which will be required. Finally, the third component is technical assistance. This component will support the implementation of the project. --- Abdul Kerimkhanov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AbdulKerim94 Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Abdul Kerimkhanov Instead of Venezuela, Algeria and Oman, the inclusion of the United Arab Emirates, Iraq and Kazakhstan into the committee is being discussed, three sources in the Middle East delegations of OPEC + and the OPEC Secretariat said. The new composition of the ministerial committee on monitoring OPEC+ deal implementation on the eve of its meeting in Baku on March 17-18 has not yet been approved. According to the sources, Venezuela, Algeria and Oman, previously included in the monitoring committee, "are no longer members of the committee," and the ministers of Algeria and Oman will not come to Baku. At the same time, the UAE and Iraq, which are supposed to replace Algeria and Venezuela in the committee, can take part in the meeting. The issue of electing new members is likely to be discussed at an extraordinary meeting of OPEC + ministers in April, the agency said. Saudi Arabia and Russia, which act as chairman and co-chairman of the monitoring committee, retain their status. At the same time, instead of Oman, who participated in the work of the committee from non-OPEC countries, it is proposed to nominate Kazakhstan, which had previously confirmed its willingness to work as a member of the committee. Venezuela is expected to take part in the meeting in Baku, however, not as a member of the committee, but as an OPEC conference president, which it was elected for 2019. According to TASS sources, the agenda of the upcoming committee meeting in Baku has not yet been approved. It is not clear whether the issue of extending the deal to reduce production or increase the quotas of the participating countries will be discussed. The main issue on the agenda is likely to be a discussion of the charter on cooperation between OPEC + countries, one of the agencys interlocutors believes. The monitoring committee includes ministers from six countries - Russia, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Venezuela, Algeria and Oman. The committee reviews market development scenarios and, on the basis of this analysis, makes recommendations to OPEC+ countries on the necessary actions. The work of the committee is supported by the technical monitoring committee, which presents to the ministers the current market analysis and options for its development in the implementation of a particular scenario. Thus, at the January meeting, experts considered two scenarios: what the market would be if the agreement was terminated in June and if production continued to decline until the end of 2019. According to their forecast, which TASS has familiarized with, in the first variant, the commercial oil reserves of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries will exceed the average five-year rate by 170 million barrels by the end of the year. The second scenario assumes that the agreeement will be extended until the end of 2019. In this case, the oil reserves in OECD countries by the end of the year should be 50 million barrels below the average for five years level. In accordance with its Statute, the mission of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is to coordinate and unify the petroleum policies of its Member Countries. In addition, it ensures the stabilization of oil markets in order to secure an efficient, economic and regular supply of petroleum to consumers, a steady income to producers and a fair return on capital for those investing in the petroleum industry. OPEC+ refers to OPECs cooperation with non-OPEC oil producers to effect production cuts. In an attempt to cut production and raise oil prices, OPEC came together and agreed on a production cut where each member country would cut production by a small amount, a couple percent in most cases. OPEC was able to reach a consensus for production cuts not just between OPEC members but also for a handful of non-OPEC nations just increasing the total amount of oil production being cut and presumably making their efforts more effective. Whether these non-OPEC countries will follow through with their agreement or work with OPEC in the future remains to be seen. --- Abdul Kerimkhanov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AbdulKerim94 Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend Speaking at a press conference held on February 8, the Iranian ambassador to Azerbaijan Javad Jahangirzadeh expressed his hope for the further development of military cooperation between the two countries, Trend reports. According to Jahangirzadeh, Iran considers Azerbaijan as a friendly and brotherly country, therefore the military cooperation is at a high level. Jahangirzadeh said that the visit of the Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Major General Mohammad Hossein Bagheri to Azerbaijan for the military cooperation between Azerbaijan and Iran can be especially highlighted. The Iranian ambassador added that General Bagheri rarely makes visits to foreign countries, so far having been to Turkey, Pakistan and Russia. "The 4th visit of Chief of the General Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces was precisely to Azerbaijan," he said, adding that this is a clear marker of the military cooperation between the two countries being at a high level. The Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Major General Mohammad Hossein Bagheri visited Azerbaijan on January 16-17. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend Freedom House organizations report is ridiculous and meaningless, member of the political council of the New Azerbaijan Party, editor-in-chief of Azerbaijans Iki Sahil newspaper Vugar Rahimzade told Trend on Feb. 8. Therefore, the reports of such organizations must not be taken seriously, he said. All documents prepared by such organizations are biased. Some Western organizations are engaged in political trade, Rahimzade said. They are professional scammers and are engaged in fraud. Such non-governmental organizations, under the guise of protecting human rights and freedoms, pursue other goals, in particular, put pressure on different countries and dictate their conditions. Freedom Houses report is regrettable, he said. To state that Azerbaijan and Turkey are lagging behind, but Armenia is developing, is absurd. Freedom House considers the countries proceeding from their political preferences. Armenia is a criminal, terrorist country, Rahimzade added. The Armenians committed terrorist attacks not only in Azerbaijan, but also in Georgia, Turkey, the US and Europe. Everyone knows the assassinations and killings committed by ASALA terrorist organization. To mention such a country as a model for developed countries is a very ridiculous and meaningless approach. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyevs trip to quake-affected Shamakhi testifies that the president is always close to people, Azerbaijani MP Ilham Mammadov told Trend. The MP stressed that the presidents activity is to be near people, consider peoples problems and rapidly solve them. "We have always witnessed that the president is close to people, Mammadov said. This time the president also visited the quake-affected region to consider the problems of the population caused by the earthquake and rapidly solve them." The MP stressed that the earthquake is a natural phenomenon from which no one can be insured. "President Aliyev and First Vice-President Mehriban Aliyeva once again demonstrated that they are close to people, Mammadov added. The volunteers of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation also visited the quake-affected zone immediately after the earthquake. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend In 2018, Azerbaijan prevented sabotage and terrorist activities of the Armenian intelligence agencies and special services as a result of the taken operational and investigative measures, Prosecutor General Zakir Garalov said, Trend reports with reference to the General Prosecutors Office of Azerbaijan. He was speaking at an expanded board meeting dedicated to the work implemented by the prosecution authorities in 2018 and the future objectives. The meeting was attended by senior officials of the Central Office of the Prosecutor Generals Office, the Republican Military Prosecutors Office, the Prosecutors Office of the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, the Military Prosecutors Office of the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, the Baku City Prosecutors Office, city and district military prosecutors. At the meeting, it was noted that last year a criminal case was launched for high treason and under other articles of the Criminal Code of Azerbaijan against a group of military personnel and civilians involved in secret cooperation with intelligence agencies and special services of the Armenian Armed Forces. At the meeting, it was said that as a result of operational and investigative measures, sabotage and terrorist activities of the Armenian intelligence agencies and special services were prevented. The successful investigation into a number of big criminal cases was noted. Preventive measures were taken in the form of arrest against 29 people for committing a terror attack against the head of the Ganja City Executive Power, for attempting to change the constitutional order of Azerbaijan by using force, for terrorism and other particularly serious crimes. Eleven of these people were put on the international wanted list. Presently, operational and investigation activities continue. The prosecutor general said more effective work was done to strengthen the law and order. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Kamila Aliyeva Azernews' interview with His Excellency ISESCO Director General Abdulaziz Othman Altwaijri. Question: Azerbaijan with a majority of Muslim population is also a home to people of various religions, beliefs and nationalities. How do you assess Bakus efforts in promoting intercultural dialogue? Answer: The Republic of Azerbaijan deploys great efforts in the field of promoting dialogue among cultures and coexistence among followers of different religions through civilizational initiatives including the annual organization of the World Forum on Intercultural Dialogue, the establishment of the National Center for Tolerance, which translates the principles of tolerance, harmony and coexistence into real-life practices and executive measures which all embody the fruitful cooperation and active partnership between the Ministry of Culture and the national commission in charge of the relations with the religious institutions in the Republic of Azerbaijan, UNESCO and ISESCO. On this occasion, I am pleased to reiterate my great appreciation of the distinguished efforts and the civilizational mission undertaken by the Government of Azerbaijan under the leadership of His Excellency Mr Ilham Aliyev, President of the Republic, to disseminate the culture of peace and values of tolerance; promote dialogue among cultures, alliance between civilizations and coexistence among nations and peoples; deepen larger human cooperation and jointly and continuously work to build a new world order on the solid bases of mutual respect of creative spiritual, cultural and civilizational diversity. I strongly believe that saving human communities from the serious problems that emanate from religious bigotry and ethnic cleansing is one of the major goals of promoting the philosophy of dialogue, renew its contents and modernize its methods and styles in such a way as to make of dialogue a tool for promoting harmony, understanding and rapprochement between the followers of religions and people belonging to different cultures. I also believe that dialogue is the method of wise people who make peace, and that the cultural and intellectual elites as well as the religious and scientific leaderships are at the forefront of those wise people who assume starring roles in the fight against destructive trends which aim to undermine the foundations of dialogue and cooperation between religions, cultures and civilizations and discredit the value of dialogue and the importance of cooperation. Q.: What are the biggest threats that the Islamic world faces today and how to address them? What should be in particular done to promote the Islamic solidarity? A.: The Islamic world is facing many challenges; some of them have accumulated over recent decades, some are caused by the upheavals currently occurring in the world, and some others are the result of subjective factors occasioned by the major problems linked to the polices followed up to now to address these challenges. Indeed such problems have exacerbated to such an extent that they have become an issue of concern given the failure to adequately address them with strong determination, clear vision and rational method that deals with the realities with pragmatic thought likely to reach the heart of truth while avoiding to fall prey to illusions and pipe dreams that emanate from lack of civilizational awareness and deficit in scientific understanding of the nature of those challenges. Amidst the numerous crises faced by the Islamic world, especially the ones occurring now in many parts of the world, including the sectarian wars and conflicts, division, extremism and terrorism, any keen and attentive observer may understand that the challenges besieging the Islamic world at this critical period may not be addressed from a narrow perspective with such limited efforts and means that fail to fully comprehend the developmental dimensions of the battle that the Islamic world must fight and win to move to the battle of renewing the civilizational construction that comprises the political, economic, social, scientific, technological, cultural and intellectual construction. Illiteracy is by far the most serious of all the challenges that besiege the Islamic world and undermine its capabilities. Indeed, it is the source of all the illnesses that have infected the Islamic societies and affected their level of education, as well as all of the other fields of sustainable development in their cultural, economic and social dimensions. Sectarian conflicts are one of the highly serious challenges that are tearing apart the Islamic world. Over the recent period, they have exacerbated because of foreign interference, which seeks to spread destructive anarchy, pit Muslims against each other, incite religious sects to wreak havoc and destabilize the Islamic world. Sectarian conflict is a dangerous threat to the Islamic world for Muslims are one Ummah with one religion, one prophet and one Qibla, and have lived for a long time in harmony, brotherhood and peace. It is only through embracing again the teachings of our noble religion, sticking to the Islamic brotherhood, rejecting all forms of bigotry, intellectual and behavioral aberration, and entrenching Islamic solidarity in the Islamic world that it is possible to eliminate sectarian strife. Q.: What is your Organizations general plan on promoting mutual understanding among people of different religions and cultures in an effort to prevent conflicts on the religious ground? A.: ISESCO is concerned with fostering the values of dialogue among followers of religions, cultures and civilizations, both in Islamic countries and in the world. ISESCO is an active player in the international action in the field of intercultural dialogue. It participates in international conferences on dialogue issues, publicizes the vision of the Islamic civilization to the issues addressed at such international events. Moreover, ISESCO contributes to promoting the values of dialogue, tolerance, coexistence, harmony, understanding, mutual respect, and the dissemination of culture of peace and justice through the conferences and symposia it organizes and the studies and books it publishes. It also does so by calling for the incorporation of these concepts in Member States educational curricula, while entrenching the values of moderation and middle stance, sound understanding and judicious religious awareness, with a view to eradicate fanaticism, extremism and denial of the Other. This is an established approach and an adopted policy in all the successive three-year action plans. I have stressed, on many occasion, that upgrading dialogue to a level of comprehensive cooperation can consolidate Islamic and human solidarity to build global peace and disseminate the values of religious harmony on the basis of mutual respect. This constitutes an efficient method to fight all forms and degrees of terrorism and hate; and counter all aspects of extremism, violence, fanaticism and identitarian closure. The more we follow this path and continue working with this spirit, the more we can contribute to enlightening future generations of the truths about religions, good morals, and the noble deeds that incentivize Muslims to work for the good of humanity, more openness to other religions and cultures, and for the service of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which contribute to the stability, prosperity, development and progress of societies and maintenance of security, peace and harmony between nations and peoples. Q.: ISESCO proclaimed 2019 a year of heritage in the Islamic world. How do you evaluate Azerbaijans efforts in preserving Islamic culture and architecture? A.: To give effect to the resolution of the 10th Islamic Conference of Culture Ministers, held in Khartoum in 2017, ISESCO proclaimed 2019 a year of Heritage in the Islamic World and released a statement urging Member States to take measures necessary for marking this milestone event, strive to showcase the importance of tangible and intangible cultural and civilizational heritage in preserving collective memory, protecting the identities of peoples and nations, raising the awareness of parties concerned of the urgent need to protect and preserve heritage and ensure its sustainability. In addition, this initiative aims to consolidate the gains which the Organization scored in the Islamic world and give strong impetus to its programmes and projects in this respect, amid special regional and international circumstances, marked, on the one hand, by the growing interest in heritage as a mechanism for the preservation of nations collective memory and civilizational and cultural identity and a lever for development, and on the other, by the exacerbating challenges it faces, namely conflicts, globalization, extremism, sectarianism and terrorism, especially in unstable areas of the world. The proclamation of the 2019 as a year of Islamic cultural heritage concurs with the 50th Anniversary of the Arson Attack against Al-Aqsa Mosque. This is a call to governmental and non-governmental bodies inside and outside the Islamic world to seize this sorrowful occasion to contribute to the publicizing, protection and development of Al-Quds heritage, and celebrate Al-Quds Al-Sharif as the Arab regions Capital of Islamic Culture for 2019 and a Permanent Capital of Islamic Culture. The civilizational and cultural heritage of the Republic of Azerbaijan is known for its richness and diversity thanks to its openness and interaction with multi-source human cultures and the innovations of Azerbaijani intellectuals, scholars, writers, poets, artists, architects, and craftsmen. Such richness and diversity are also owed to the outreach of heritage schools and its cultural and scientific institutions and their abundant production in all fields of knowledge, architecture and artistic expression. In Azerbaijan, various cultures, successive civilizations, multi-source arts and literature have interplayed to turn the country into an abode of tolerant coexistence and true civilizational and cultural dialogue in its deepest sense. Therefore, the Republic of Azerbaijan is one of ISESCO Member States that pay close attention to its cultural and civilizational heritage, both tangible and intangible, as it is a key symbol of their Islamic civilizational identity and a considerable opportunity to showcase its cultural diversity. To this end, Azerbaijan set up prestigious museums, accorded interest to developing cultural tourism, and organized various art and cultural festivals. For these considerations, two of Azerbaijans cities were selected as Asian regions capitals of Islamic culture: the first is Baku in 2009 and the second Nakhchivan in 2018. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend Iran is interested in the rapid settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Iran's Ambassador to Azerbaijan Javad Jahangirzadeh said, Trend reports. Jahangirzadeh made the remarks at a press conference in Baku on Feb. 8. "Iran believes the negotiations between the conflict parties are important," he noted. "Meetings of the heads of Azerbaijan and Armenia, as well as meetings of foreign ministers may play a big role in resolving the conflict." Of course, the OSCE Minsk Group is also trying to resolve this conflict, the ambassador said, adding that Iran supports a peaceful settlement of the conflict through negotiations. The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Mirsaid Ibrahimzade Azerbaijan and Iran will establish joint production of 84 medicines at a pharmaceutical plant in Pirallahi district of Baku. In this connection, certain changes were made to the memorandum signed between Iran and Azerbaijan in the field of pharmaceuticals. There have been some changes in the pharmacy memorandum signed between Iran and Azerbaijan, Javad Jahangirzadeh, Iran's ambassador to Azerbaijan, said at a press conference, Trend reports. According to Jahangirzadeh, the change is due to production of 84 medicines in the pharmaceutical plant. The ambassador also added that it is necessary to issue a license for the general production and wholesale of drugs. As such, discussions should be held with the relevant authorities in Azerbaijan, including the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Economy for issuance of a separate license for each drug, he said, adding that this would require some time, as Azerbaijan wants to produce high-quality medicines. According to Jahangirzadeh, negotiations were held with pharmaceutical companies in Europe, India and other countries. "These companies have been presented to the Azerbaijani side. Now it is up to Azerbaijan to decide which license to work with." "Soon, representatives of a company will visit Azerbaijan and negotiations on production of medicines will be held," he said. The opening ceremony for the joint Azerbaijan-Iran pharmaceutical plant, Caspian Pharmed, was held in the Pirallahi District of Baku in January 2017. The shareholders of the plant, which will be built in the Pirallahi industrial park, are the Iranian company Tamin Pharmaceutical Investment Company with a 49 percent share, the Azerbaijan Investment Company (25 percent) and Azersun Holding (26 percent). At this stage, the enterprise will produce 84 medicines in 54 active ingredients. Among them - painkillers, vitamins, anti-inflammatory drugs and antibiotics, cardiovascular, antihistamine, anti-allergic and anti-fungal drugs, drugs to solve problems with blood pressure, drugs used in gastroenterology, as well as for the treatment of diseases of the nervous system. The Memorandum of Understanding on the construction of a joint pharmaceutical factory was signed on April 21, 2016. At present, there are four residents in the Pirallahi industrial park - the joint Azerbaijani-Russian plant Hayat Pharm, the Azerbaijani-Iranian plant Caspian Pharmed, the plant of Diamed Co, and the plant of IFFA. The construction of these plants is still ongoing. Note that this year Azerbaijan plans to produce pharmaceutical products worth 1.3 million manats. In subsequent years, the production of this product will be expanded. Thus, in 2020, the volume of production will reach 38.8 million manats, in 2021 - 39.5 million manats, in 2022 - 40.2 million manats. The sharp increase in production is due to the fact that pharmaceutical plants in the Pirallahi industrial park will start operating in the country next year. In addition, Pirallahi Industrial Park of Azerbaijan may become an important center for the local production of pharmaceuticals and therefore German pharmaceutical companies are interested in this sector and watch the Azerbaijani market, considering possible market entry in 2019-2020. Its great possibility, taking into account that Germany, together with Switzerland and Turkey, are considered the most important medicine supplying countries in the world. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Leman Mammadova Azerbaijan and Iran share common values, history and traditions that bound them. The two countries are eager to develop their non-oil economy, integrate regional transport networks and boost mutually advantageous business projects in order to stimulate trade volume. Iran is planning to bring its trade turnover with Azerbaijan to $5 billion, Iran's Ambassador to Azerbaijan Javad Jahangirzadeh said at a press conference, Trend reports. The envoy noted that that the countries will increase the turnover in long term perspective. As the first stage, there have been efforts to hit $1 billion milestone in the current Iranian year, the ambassador said. On this matter, suitcase trade and trade transactions carried through customs are in the focus of attention, Jahangirzadeh said. The ambassador further added that Iran and Azerbaijan cooperate in energy, oil - gas and electricity sectors. The trade turnover between the two countries is planned to reach $2 billion in short term perspective, he said. Reaching $2 billion milestone in trade turnover within 7-8 years can be seen as success for both countries, Jahangirzadeh said, adding that much work needs to be done. Iran sees Azerbaijan as a hub to reach larger regional markets. The cooperation on transportation between Iran and Russia through Azerbaijan is crucial in the realization of the International North-South Transport Corridor project. In 2017, the increase in cargo transportation through the territory of Azerbaijan between Russia and Iran was 68 percent. The North-South transport corridor envisages connecting India with the Middle East and the Caucasus, Central Asia and Europe. The purpose of the corridor is to reduce the delivery time to three weeks from India to Russia, as well as to North and Western Europe as the current route takes more than six weeks. In the framework of the North-South transport corridor, Azerbaijan, Iran and Russia signed an agreement in 2005 on the construction of 375 km long Astara-Resht-Qazvin railway. It envisages the construction of a new railway line in Iran, which will connect Astara, Azerbaijan to the Iranian cities of Astara, Rasht and Qazvin as well as the reconstruction of an existing railway in Azerbaijan. The railway between Astara regions of Azerbaijan and Iran has been already completed. The Qazvin-Rasht railway has been launched in November 2018. The Iranian ambassador pointed out that the foundation of the Rasht-Astara railway is not yet laid. "The Qazvin-Rasht railway project has recently been completed. The Iranian president will attend its opening ceremony. It is possible that the foundation of the Rasht-Astara railway can be laid around the same time," he said. He also added that Iran will use Azerbaijani specialists to lay the Rasht-Astara railroad. The ambassador noted that the Rasht-Astara railway will be built with the joint investments of Iran and Azerbaijan. "Both Iran and Azerbaijan are interested in the earliest completion of this railway," he said, adding that this project is one that is unmatched by any other one in the region and even in the world, and will greatly benefit both Iran and Azerbaijan. The ambassador also remarked that the work on connecting the Parsabad railroad to Azerbaijan is being done. One of the necessary initial steps is to sketch the map of the planned route. The project is not expected to be completed soon. The Azerbaijani-Iranian relations have developed and reached a new stage over the past 4 years as a result of mutual efforts. Azerbaijans trade turnover with Iran amounted to $395.1 million in January-November 2018, according to the Azerbaijani State Customs Committee. Iran's investment in Azerbaijan reached $ 3.1 billion. There are more than 700 companies with Iranian investments in various sectors in Azerbaijan. The functioning of the Intergovernmental Joint Commission gives a special impetus to the development of relations. Iranian companies successfully operate in Azerbaijan. Two countries cooperate within the Joint Car Production Plant at Neftchala Industrial Zone, Joint Pharmaceutical Plant Caspian Pharmed in Pirallahi Industrial Park, Hydro Power Plants in the Energy Sector "Khudaferin / Maiden Tower". Expansion of cooperation between Azerbaijani port of Alat and Iranian ports of Anzali and Amirabad is crucial in terms of development of transport and transit relations between our countries. Cooperation between Azerbaijan and Iran in the field of telecommunications and postal cooperation, cyber security, space industry, Iranian use of satellite resources, mobile communications and internet services is on the agenda. --- Leman Mammadova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @leman_888 Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend The Azerbaijani National Confederation of Entrepreneurs (Employers) Organizations has prepared a big plan of events for 2019, head of the Confederation Mammad Musayev told Trend on Feb. 8. The main goal of the organization is to expand the partnership between the country and the private sector, he added. "The action plan includes joint work with the Ministry of Economy in the districts and close work with the Agency for the Development of small- and medium-sized businesses, he said. He said that a Cooperation Council which serves as a platform for discussions between the Ministry of Taxes and the State Customs Committee operates in the country today. Our plans also include the intensification of the Councils activity and the expansion of international cooperation," Musayev said. Presently, the Confederation cooperates with similar structures in about 50 countries. "The Uzbekistan-Azerbaijan Cooperation Council has been recently established and we intend to expand its activity this year, he said. Our goal is to support the export of Azerbaijani products to the world market. The plan of measures which we have prepared for the current year will be implemented in stages. Over 900,000 legal entities and individuals involved in the field of entrepreneurship have been registered in Azerbaijan, which testifies that today the procedure of registering entrepreneurs takes minimal time, he added. -- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Leman Mammadova Automative sector is currently developing fast in Azerbaijan, as more plants engaged in the production of cars are being launched across the country. Production of Peugeot cars under the brand name Khazar has been launched in the Neftchala industrial park, spokesperson of the AzerMash company Gunay Namidar told Trend on Thursday. Namidar noted that currently, several Peugeot cars have been manufactured at the plants production facilities. "The cars have been equipped with an automatic transmission, Namidar said. The mass production of cars will be launched in March. Car parts are supplied from Iran. The cars will be initially sold in the domestic market. The cars are planned to be exported to the markets of the regional countries in the future. Production of cars was organized by AzerMash together with the Iranian automobile company Iran Khodro Industrial Group (IKCO). She added that the price of the Peugeot Khazar car will vary from 19,500 to 21,000 manats depending on the engine size. As previously reported, the main focus of the enterprise will be on increasing the model range, and the next stage provides for the production of two more models - Peugeot 206 and Peugeot 207. In the future, the model range will be increased to nine. Azerbaijan, which is currently working to develop its car industry and encouraging interior purchases, is developing its own automobile manufacturing market. As many as 969 cars were produced in 2018, which is 32.4 times more than in 2017. Such a sharp increase in the production of cars in the country was achieved by opening a joint Azerbaijani-Iranian plant Khazar in the Neftchala industrial park on March 29, 2018, during a two-day visit of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to Azerbaijan.. AzerMash-IKCO, with an annual production of 10,000 vehicles, will produce 6,000 vehicles at the first stage, such as Runna, Samand, Soren, Dena, Peugeot, Reno, by the end of 2019. The enterprise is expected to export 2,000 vehicles annually. Khazar cars are expected to be exported, first of all to the Russian market, then to be delivered also to Ukraine and Central Asian countries in the future. A major Iranian automaker Iran Khodro and Azerbaijani company Azeurocar, a subsidiary of AzerMash, signed an agreement on August 6, 2016 to establish a joint automobile plant in the Neftchala Industrial Zone. The total cost of the project is estimated at $ 14.08 million. Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan holds 75 percent share while 25 percent belongs to Iran. Regarding the quality, brand received a quality certificate of "Euro 5". Cars have been sold since summer 2018. --- Leman Mammadova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @leman_888 Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend Azerpoct LLC, Azerbaijans postal operator, has connected to the Russian Payment System Sendy, the company told Trend. A memorandum of cooperation was signed with Digital Pay LLC. The partnership of Azerpoct LLC and Digital Pay LLC will allow using local currency when paying in Russia, China and other Asian countries. Low interest fee for non-cash transactions will become the advantage for the trade and services facilities. The Payment System Sendy has more than five million users, and over 70,000 of them are legal entities. Sendy is a nationally recognized payment system for performing transactions using a mobile device, based on the technology of payment via QR-code. The operator of the Payment System Sendy is Digital Pay LLC which also serves as a payment and clearing operational center. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend Over the past 24 hours, Armenian armed forces have 28 times violated the ceasefire along the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said Feb. 8, Trend reports. The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz Armenias Ministry of Health has called for a blanket ban on smoking in cafes, restaurants and all other indoor public places in the country. A relevant bill drafted by the ministry was sent to the Armenian government for discussion and approval earlier this week. Health Minister Arsen Torosian is actively promoting the initiative on his Twitter page. The time has come!!! Torosian wrote on Wednesday. Choice must be made now!!! Move to healthier world or stay in sick world? From now on I wont visit any restaurant or cafe in Armenia that allows indoor smoking until our new tobacco control law is adopted, he tweeted in English on Thursday. I will also promote all restaurants that voluntarily prohibit smoking NOW! Torosian attached to that tweet a selfie with Environment Minister Erik Grigorian. The two men were pictured in a rare smoke-free restaurant in Yerevan. Armenia is a nation of heavy smokers with few restrictions on tobacco sales and use. According to Ministry of Health estimates, 55 percent of Armenian men are regular smokers. Medics blame this for a high incidence of lung cancer among them. The smoking rate among Armenian women is much lower: 3 percent. But in Yerevan an estimated 10 percent of women aged between 30 and 40 are tobacco addicts. Armenian authorities have already attempted to curb smoking in the past. A law that came into force in 2005 banned tobacco in hospitals, cultural and educational institutions and public buses. Additional restrictions introduced a year later required other entities, including bars and restaurants, to allow smoking only in special secluded areas. But with no legal sanctions put in place against their violation, those measures proved largely ineffectual. In January 2018, the Ministry of Health put forward a bill that would heavily fine people smoking in indoor public places. The then Armenian government did not send the bill to the parliament before being brought down by mass protests in May. Torosian, who was appointed as health minister in May, is behind the ministrys latest attempt to ban indoor smoking. It is not yet clear when Prime Minister Nikol Pashinians cabinet will discuss the measure. Aleksandr Bazarchian, the director of the government-funded National Institute of Healthcare, welcomed the bill. He said it would help to create an environment where non-smokers dont become smokers and encourage tobacco addicts to kick the habit. Arusik Mkrtchian, a Yerevan-based DJ and civic activist, also hailed it, dismissing concerns already voiced by some smokers. There is no such thing as a right to smoke [in indoor public places,] she told RFE/RLs Armenian service. There is a right to health enshrined in the constitution." But Hrach Davidian, who owns a popular night club in downtown Yerevan, objected to the proposed ban, saying that the government should seek to restrict smoking more gradually. He claimed that the ban would force many of his customers to smoke outdoors late at night and thus disturb residents of nearby buildings. Armenias government formally approved its five-year policy program on Friday, with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian saying that it marks the beginning of an economic revolution promised by him. We have declared the concept of an economic revolution and with this program are announcing the start of the economic revolution, Pashinian told a cabinet meeting in Yerevan. The program was submitted to the Armenian parliament later in the day. Its almost certain approval by the National Assembly will amount to a vote of confidence in Pashinians cabinet reappointed after the December 9 parliamentary elections. Opposition politicians and commentators have already criticized the 70-page action plan, saying that it is short on specifics. They point to few socioeconomic targets that have been set by the government for the next five years. Pashinian mentioned certain reactions to the program. He insisted that the document fully corresponds to his vision for the countrys future which was backed by the majority of voters in the recent elections. Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigorian indicated that the government will set more detailed targets for various spheres after the program is approved by the parliament. For his part, Economic Development Minister Tigran Khachatrian said that the program already commits the government to achieving a number of key economic indicators. He singled out a government pledge to increase the share of exports in Armenias Gross Domestic Product from 38 percent to at least 43 percent by 2023. That can happen if our exports grow by 8-10 percent annually, Khachatrian told reporters. This is a fairly high and ambitious target. The program also says that the Armenian economy will grow by at least 5 percent annually thanks to government efforts to improve the business environment, spur exports and attract more foreign investment. It promises substantial decreases in poverty and unemployment but sets no concrete targets. Pashinian announced later on Friday that he has made a final decision on the new structure of his government. In particular, he said, the number of government ministries will be reduced as planned from 17 to 12. In what it described as a humanitarian mission requested by the Syrian government, Armenia sent 83 medics, demining experts and other military personnel to Syria on Friday. The Armenian Defense Ministry said they were deployed in and around the war-torn city of Aleppo to help civilians and clear landmines left behind from the continuing bloody conflict in the Arab state. It stressed that these humanitarian activities will be carried out only in areas that are free from hostilities. In a statement, the ministry also said that the servicemen were transported to Syria and will serve there with the assistance of the Russian side. Armenias plans for such a deployment in Syria were first announced by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian in September following his talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin held in Moscow. John Bolton, U.S. President Donald Trumps national security adviser, discussed the issue with Pashinian and Defense Minister Davit Tonoyan when he visited Yerevan in October. Bolton warned them against sending combat troops to aid Syrian government forces or their allies. The prime minister said this was not going to be military assistance, it would be purely humanitarian, Bolton said after the talks. I think thats important. Russia has been trying to legitimize its strong military presence in Syria, criticized by the West, by getting other countries allied to it to also deploy troops there. The former Armenian government was reluctant to do that. Speaking at the UN General Assembly in September 2017, then President Serzh Sarkisian said Armenian deployment in Syria requires a UN mandate. The Defense Ministry statement announcing the dispatch of Armenian servicemen cited two UN Security Council resolutions on Syria adopted in 2017 and 2018, the severe humanitarian situation in Aleppo and written requests from the Syrian side. It also pointed to the existence of an Armenian community in Aleppo. An estimated 80,000 ethnic Armenians lived in Syria and Aleppo in particular before the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011. Most of them have since fled the country. Thousands of Syrian Armenians have taken refuge in Armenia. A senior representative of Sarkisians Republican Party of Armenia (HHK), Armen Ashotian, denounced the deployment, saying that under Armenian law troop deployments abroad cannot be carried out without international treaties signed by Yerevan. For the sake of his political interests, Pashinian has blatantly violated the law, Ashotian charged in a Facebook post. Some commentators and critics of the Armenian government have suggested that Pashinian decided to send military personnel to Syria in a bid to mitigate Russias discontent with some of his decisions and statements. Pashinian allies have dismissed such speculation. Ever since he came to power in May 2018, Pashinian has repeatedly ruled out major changes in Armenias traditional foreign policy. He has specifically backed his countrys continued membership in Russian-led military and trade blocs. The Armenian medics, sappers and other servicemen tasked with protecting them were flown to Syria one day after Defense Minister Tonoyan began a fresh working visit to Moscow. He met on Friday with Russias Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu and Dmitry Shugayev, the head of a Russian government agency overseeing arms deals with foreign states. Shoygu thanked Armenia for its humanitarian assistance to Syria. You were the first to respond to our calls for helping the Syrian people, he told Tonoyan. For his part, Tonoyan was reported to praise Russias role in the post-conflict reconstruction of Syria. And I think that our participation in this humanitarian operation is very important, he added, according to the Russian Defense Ministry. BB&T agreed to buy SunTrust Banks for $28.2 billion in stock, creating the country's sixth largest bank by assets and deposits. If approved, it would be the biggest U.S. bank merger since the 2008 financial crisis. By the numbers: The merged bank will have $442 billion in assets, with BB&T contributing a little more than $225 billion and SunTrust contributing the rest, WSJ's Justin Lahart writes: "A bank relief law passed last year raised the threshold for stricter oversight by the Federal Reserve to $250 billion in assets from $50 billion. With both banks on the verge of reaching that higher threshold, why not join forces and reap the cost savings of a merged entity?" Go deeper: Regional banks BB&T and SunTrust to merge in $66 billion deal. Part 3: EU and what army? President Trump erupted in November over what he called a "very insulting" proposal from Macron for a "real European army." Between the lines: When it comes to the EU army, or calls from Merkel and Macron for greater "strategic autonomy in response to an unpredictable U.S., many in Europe are on Trump's side. I sat down with Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics yesterday in Washington, and he told me that "very dangerous rhetoric" is "fueling this sense that something is changing fundamentally." "Lets face it. The United States plays an extremely important role in European security through NATO, through the decades-long presence of its military on European soil even more after Crimea and Ukraine. "Of course that kind of rhetoric ... on both sides of the Atlantic 'well, you are not spending enough,' and all the issues that are related to the trade do complicate relations. But I wouldnt say those relations are changing in a way that one can already say, We cant rely anymore on the United States and now we need a European army. Not only would a European army be virtually impossible for practical reasons, Rinkevics argued, "There would be very legitimate questions from the United States: 'If you need your own army ... then we can go home.' Thats exactly what we dont want. Why it matters: Rinkevics said he's confident Latvia doesn't face "immediate military risks or threats" from Russia, largely because there are now NATO troops on the ground, but the Baltics are not "somewhere in the Middle of Europe where the notion of invasion is just a fairytale." Between the lines: Stelzenmuller says there is genuine momentum in Europe on collective defense, and areas in which it makes sense: crisis response, humanitarian aid, cybersecurity. She says the "European army" rhetoric "suggests a capability and intent" far beyond reality and is "part of their attempt to respond to their voters' concerns about Trump." 1 big thing: Ice sheets run AMOC Sea level rise isn't the only thing we have to worry about as the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets melt. A fascinating new modeling study finds that runoff from these ice sheets could significantly alter crucial ocean currents in ways that disrupt the Gulf Stream and accelerate ice loss in West Antarctica. The big picture: Scientists are racing to better understand and anticipate the pace, extent and impacts of melting ice sheets, both in Greenland and Antarctica. Since the last report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2014, sea level rise estimates have increased, but uncertainties remain high. The new study, published in the journal Nature on Wednesday by an international research team, is one of the first to pair a climate model with an ice sheet model fed with the latest observational data on ice loss to see how ice melt might alter the planet's climate. It finds that the influences may be profound. The threat: If the Greenland or Antarctic ice sheets melt quickly and significantly enough, they could pour cold, relatively light freshwater into adjacent areas of the ocean that can disrupt global ocean circulation, the study finds. In particular, the study adds to the growing concern in the scientific community about a slowdown in a current known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC. This current is a component of the global conveyor belt, or thermohaline circulation, carrying heat and oxygen from the bottom of the world to the far north, and back again. There are clear signs that part of this current is already slowing down, due to freshwater inputs from Greenland. The new study says this could lessen the heat transported to Europe and may make weather more variable in the northeastern U.S., among many other areas. Worse yet, in the Antarctic, adding freshwater to the surface ocean would serve to reduce the amount of mixing between ocean layers, the study says. This would trap salty and warm water well below a film of cool freshwater on the surface. Such warm, salty waters are melting marine-terminating glaciers in West Antarctica by eating away at their floating ice shelves and infiltrating the ice bed in areas where the bedrock is below sea level. What's missing: The study assumes that the ocean is not playing a large role in melting Greenland's glaciers, which is at odds with observations, according to Eric Rignot, a professor of Earth system science at UC Irvine, who was not involved in the new study. Rignot says Greenland will melt faster and more extensively than the study's models show. What they're saying: Luke Trusel, a study co-author and geology professor at Rowan University, told Axios that melting ice sheets will have effects far beyond sea level rise. "Ice sheets aren't passive bodies of ice, they're dynamic, interactive components of the Earth system. They change in response to climate, and climate then responds to their change." Luke Trusel, Rowan University, Glassboro, New Jersey Study co-author Kaitlin Naughten of the British Antarctic Survey, tells Axios that glacial runoff "affects deep ocean circulation, surface ocean currents and weather patterns across the globe." Go deeper: Read the full story. 1 big thing: Out of nothing, a new petro-state On the coast of South America, just north of Brazil, lies the obscure and impoverished former British colony of Guyana, distantly remembered for a bizarre mass suicide four decades ago that begot the term "drinking the Kool-Aid." But today, the discovery of a massive trove of oil off its shores, including two finds just this week, put Guyana on the cusp of becoming one of the world's wealthiest nations, in the league of petro-states like Qatar. What's worrying the experts: Guyana seems wholly unprepared for the avalanche of cash coming its way. It's in political turmoil, with no plan in place for how to marshal and distribute the money among a population of just 780,000 people. for the avalanche of cash coming its way. It's in political turmoil, with no plan in place for how to marshal and distribute the money among a population of just 780,000 people. The exploration and production deal with ExxonMobil is one of the most one-sided in frontier oil, heavily favoring the company with about a 50-50 split. That makes it rife for future political discontent and local demands for renegotiation. (In the former Soviet Union arguably a wilder and more costly frontier the typical split is 80-20, favoring the country.) "There is no way the explosion of money will be managed properly," says Amy Myers Jaffe, director of energy security at the Council on Foreign Relations. "Here you take this poverty-stricken country and make them Qatar in three years." What's happening: Since 2016, Exxon has made a dozen discoveries in Guyana that now total more than 5 billion barrels of recoverable reserves. This is enormous for perspective, the industry calls a 1-billion-barrel field a "supergiant." Exxon plans to begin producing 120,000 barrels per day next year, and to bump that up six times to 750,000 by 2025. next year, and to bump that up six times to 750,000 by 2025. At $60 a barrel, and a roughly 50-50 split of profits with Exxon, Guyana could receive a bonanza of more than $5 billion a year in revenue. and a roughly 50-50 split of profits with Exxon, Guyana could receive a bonanza of more than $5 billion a year in revenue. Given how fast energy is changing and an industrywide push to pull as much oil out of the ground as possible as fast as possible, experts think the company is likely to push production to 1 million barrels per day. and an industrywide push to pull as much oil out of the ground as possible as fast as possible, experts think the company is likely to push production to 1 million barrels per day. Exxon did not respond to requests for comment. At that production or larger, Guyana could receive $10 billion a year: "The big picture is getting bigger," Riyad Insanally, the Guyanese ambassador to the U.S., tells Axios. "It's the most recent but rare incident of a brand new petro-state out of nothing." Bob McNally, president of the Rapidan Energy Group But, with all that cash on the horizon, Guyana has barely gotten organized for what, in other countries, has triggered a free-for-all of chaos, corruption and war. The country has been in political turmoil since last year. In December, the Parliament ousted the government of President David Granger in a vote of no confidence. That set in motion new elections within 90 days, but the government is challenging the move in court. since last year. In December, the Parliament ousted the government of President David Granger in a vote of no confidence. That set in motion new elections within 90 days, but the government is challenging the move in court. No plan has been devised for how to begin to build and upgrade the country's roads, communications and institutions. Neither is there a plan for building up the capital of Georgetown. to begin to build and upgrade the country's roads, communications and institutions. Neither is there a plan for building up the capital of Georgetown. No one has determined how to both husband the wealth, and to share it. Insanally said the reaction in Guyana runs the gamut: "There are people who are excited, people who are apprehensive, and people who think oil should be avoided as a curse altogether." Former House Speaker John Boehner this morning will announce the National Cannabis Roundtable, an industry-funded group to lobby for cannabis reform, including changes affecting medical research, banking and taxes. "As the cannabis industry grows and matures, its vital that we work together for a common-sense legal framework for cannabis policy, Boehner says in a forthcoming release. The group has seven founding companies, including Acreage Holdings, where he's on the board. Chinese President Xi Jinping has "China 2025." Now Peter Altmaier, Germany's economy minister, has introduced "National Industrial Strategy 2030." The backdrop: European regulators yesterday blocked a mega rail merger between Germany's Siemens and France's Alstom despite strong support for the deal from leaders in Berlin and Paris who said it was necessary to fight off competition from China's state-owned rail giant, CRCC. Regulators said the deal would give the new giant a near-monopoly in European markets, where CRCC isn't even a major player at present. However, critics say European "champions" are needed to compete globally in the coming decades. As the FT's Ben Hall framed things on the World Weekly podcast: "[Altmaier] warned Germany and Europe risked being mere bystanders in the next industrial revolution unless states were able to protect technologically important companies or subsidize research and innovation. But is this protectionism in a 21st century high-tech disguise? One of Altmaier's proposals a state investment fund to block takeovers of critical tech companies "goes against many of the principals Germany has espoused up until now: a completely open free-market economy," the FT's Guy Chazan in Berlin pointed out on the podcast. a state investment fund to block takeovers of critical tech companies "goes against many of the principals Germany has espoused up until now: a completely open free-market economy," the FT's Guy Chazan in Berlin pointed out on the podcast. German political and business leaders were stunned by the 2016 purchase of German robotics firm Kuka by a Chinese company, Chazan said. They're also "absolutely paranoid about losing their global leadership in cars" as the market shifts toward electric vehicles. Thus, Altmaier is calling for a major battery cell factory in Europe. were stunned by the 2016 purchase of German robotics firm Kuka by a Chinese company, Chazan said. They're also "absolutely paranoid about losing their global leadership in cars" as the market shifts toward electric vehicles. Thus, Altmaier is calling for a major battery cell factory in Europe. Altmaier's fear: Europe, the "development laboratory of the world," will become the "workbench of our competitors." What to watch: Axios Future Editor Steve LeVine points out that just as this debate is taking place, European antitrust regulators are taking aim at American tech giants, most notably Facebook. "Here you have the tension between the antitrust impulse and the champions impulse," he says. Go deeper ... Monopolies vs. China: Europe debates which presents a greater threat France today recalled its ambassador to Italy after the populist government in Rome publicly aligned itself with the protesters attempting to topple President Emmanuel Macron. Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios Catch up quick: Luigi Di Maio, Italy's deputy prime minister and leader of the Five Star movement, met Tuesday with leaders of the gilets jaunes (yellow vests), praising them and declaring "the wind of change has crossed the Alps." The French response was swift and furious. It culminated in today's announcement and a statement lamenting "a serious situation which is raising questions about the Italian governments intentions towards France. Between the lines: Constanze Stelzenmuller of Brookings says the Italians have a "genuinely divergent view" about the future of Europe, "but also a disruptive intent. They're also very close to the Russians and are disruptive on things like sanctions as well. In my view, they're out to make trouble." of Brookings says the Italians have a "genuinely divergent view" about the future of Europe, "but also a disruptive intent. They're also very close to the Russians and are disruptive on things like sanctions as well. In my view, they're out to make trouble." Erik Brattberg of Carnegie points to "a bigger rift taking place across Europe not just Italy but also Hungary, Poland with populists wanting not necessarily to destroy the European Union, but to change it" in fundamental ways. The big picture: On the other side of those battle lines stand the multilateralist powers, France and Germany. Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel heralded a "new chapter" in relations and pledged to tie themselves and Europe ever closer together last month as they signed a (mostly symbolic) treaty. Yes, but: France today backed a review that could threaten the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which would deliver Russian gas to Germany. Macron also canceled a trip to the Munich Security Conference to focus on domestic concerns. France today backed a review that could threaten the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which would deliver Russian gas to Germany. Macron also canceled a trip to the Munich Security Conference to focus on domestic concerns. There are big divides on more fundamental issues, like the pace of European integration. Thus, Macron and Merkel tend to make bold statements on the areas they do agree the "European army," for example and in so doing "create false expectations and unnecessary suspicions" elsewhere in Europe, Brattberg says. Why it matters: Europe faces massive challenges in the economy, in security and in identity. Shocks to the system like Brexit make them more urgent still. Those challenges aren't just dividing nationalists and multilateralists cracks are showing within the opposing camps. President Trump erupted in November over what he called a "very insulting" proposal from Macron for a "real European army." Macron parades down the Champs-Elysees on Bastille Day. Photo: Thierry Chesnot/Getty Images. Between the lines: When it comes to the EU army, or calls from Merkel and Macron for greater "strategic autonomy in response to an unpredictable U.S., many in Europe are on Trump's side. I sat down with Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics yesterday in Washington, and he told me that "very dangerous rhetoric" is "fueling this sense that something is changing fundamentally." "Lets face it. The United States plays an extremely important role in European security through NATO, through the decades-long presence of its military on European soil even more after Crimea and Ukraine. "Of course that kind of rhetoric ... on both sides of the Atlantic 'well, you are not spending enough,' and all the issues that are related to the trade do complicate relations. But I wouldnt say those relations are changing in a way that one can already say, We cant rely anymore on the United States and now we need a European army. Not only would a European army be virtually impossible for practical reasons, Rinkevics argued, "There would be very legitimate questions from the United States: 'If you need your own army ... then we can go home.' Thats exactly what we dont want. Why it matters: Rinkevics said he's confident Latvia doesn't face "immediate military risks or threats" from Russia, largely because there are now NATO troops on the ground, but the Baltics are not "somewhere in the Middle of Europe where the notion of invasion is just a fairytale." Between the lines: Brookings' Constanze Stelzenmuller says there is genuine momentum in Europe on collective defense, and areas in which it makes sense: crisis response, humanitarian aid, cybersecurity. She says the "European army" rhetoric "suggests a capability and intent" far beyond reality and is "part of their attempt to respond to their voters' concerns about Trump." Copyright 2020 by Mountain Times Publications. Digital or printed dissemination of this content without prior written consent is a violation of federal law and may be subject to legal action. A post shared by Badr Bin Saud (@b14) on Feb 5, 2019 at 11:50am PST The collector showcased the 1,500 horsepower hybrid via social media, with the spec being the one we saw at the said Swiss event. And, as you'll get to notice in the Instagram post at the bottom of the page, the aficionado's garage holds plenty of other special contraptions (more on this below).Keep in mind that the Ghost Package adds a lip spoiler, aero elements on the sides of the front apron, along with posterior-mounted winglets. According to Koenigsegg, this pack boosts the downforce of the gas-electric hypercar by a meaty 20 percent.As for the owner of the velocity tool, we're referring to Prince Badr bin Saud, who earned plenty of social media fame after sharing a selfie he had taken with his grandfather, Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah (the monarch passed away one year after the pic was snapped). And yes, this is yet another occasion for us to mention that Forbes had estimated the King's fortune at $21 billion back in 2015, with this also including close family members.Since we mentioned the Prince's car collection, we'll remind you of some tales we previously discussed that involve the aficionado. For instance, the royal figure recently showed us an Agera RS1 (this belongs to a collector known as Whitesse), which had been caught on camera alongside a Pagani Zonda Riviera - tthe Prince reportedly sold this San Cesario sul Panaro toy.In fact, we had previously talked about the gear head's collection when he received the keys to a pair of Bugattis, namely the world premiere Chiron and the Vision GT Concept. New Perimeter, the non-profit affiliate of global law firm DLA Piper, recently conducted its fourth week-long training seminar for graduate law students in Zambia. New Perimeter regularly partners with DLA Piper lawyers to provide long-term pro bono legal assistance in under-served regions around the world. From 21 to 25 January, DLA Piper lawyers joined lawyers from General Electric and DLA Piper's Zambian affiliate firm, Chibesakunda & Co., to deliver a training course on legal writing skills and techniques at the Zambia Institute of Advanced Legal Education (ZIALE) in Lusaka, Zambia. The team led interactive workshops designed to provide legal drafting skills and practical drafting techniques for approximately 360 law students. The curriculum covered the principles of effective writing and drafting, negotiating and drafting dispute resolution clauses, and drafting agreements related to sales and purchases, joint ventures and loans. Two long-time incumbents of Athens City Council will not be seeking re-election for the next term. Local Magazine is here! The summer 2021 issue of Local Magazine is out. Pick up a copy of your favorite local magazine around town or peruse our e-edition below. Because the best things in life are local. Dating Around Is Netflixs First Original Reality Dating Series Trending News: Netflix Launches Its First Original Reality Dating Series Think your last first date was awkward? Well, just imagine having to meet a potential love interest with a camera crew in tow. Netflix is dipping its toes in the love pond with its new series, Dating Around. The show is Netflixs first original reality dating series and takes an honest and compelling look at the real world of dating, according to the streaming platform. RELATED: The Ultimate First Date Guide (You're on Your Own for the Second) The premise is simple: Singles will go on five blind dates. Afterwards, theyll decide if they want to go out again, or move onto the next. Based off the first trailers footage, the show, while diverse with its choices of who they selected to take part, still delivers on that juicy drama you expect from a dating-themed series.. We see both heterosexual and homosexual couples taking a swing at love, but like in real life, some of their interactions turn squirm-in-your-seat uncomfortable. At one point, a woman says, Im a goodie girl, Ive never experimented with drugs, Have you? In an unexpected twist, the man across the table replies with the contrary, Oh yeah, I love them. Different footage shows a guy asking his date if she likes it big, to which she responds, Oh my god, youre a headache. Netflix Thats not to say Dating Around wont have its moments that tug at the heartstrings. One couple locks lips after their date while another proposes the question of, When do we do this again? The show has a similar vibe to the First Dates, an NBC show narrated by Drew Barrymore and produced by Ellen DeGeneres back in 2017. That show followed blind first dates held at the now-closed MK Restaurant in Chicago. However, as the powerhouse streaming service we know it to be, Netflixs series will probably fair better than the single seasoned First Dates. Vicariously date through the lives of others when Dating Around hits Netflix on February 14. You Might Also Dig: In todaysdrama column, I review a Rhode Island production of. Heres an excerpt. * * * Even in our present age of proud cultural illiteracy, Macbeth has managed to remain ubiquitous. It is, with Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet, one of the three Shakespeare plays whose name is still universally known to people who dont go to the theater, and it gets produced with consistent regularity, with good reason. Not only is it Shakespeares shortest tragedy, but Macbeth is as clear as it is compact, a tale of ambition run rampant whose plot and characters are so firmly rooted in the dark side of human nature as to be archetypical Still, Shakespeares plays do fluctuate in popularity from season to season. When I read that Trinity Repertory Company was putting on what the press release calls a contemporary telling of Shakespeares so-called Scottish play staged by Curt Columbus, the artistic director, I checked my records and was surprised to discover that five years had gone by since Id last seen Macbeth. Inspired to make a field trip, I drove up to Rhode Island, where I sawnot at all to my surprisea very satisfying Macbeth. While Mr. Columbus production is contemporary, its not conceptual. Shakespeares text, though trimmed a bit and fitted out with whats-past-is-present trappingsMacbeth is first seen running on a treadmillhas not been obscured by a skein of lets-do-Macbeth-in-a-zoo notions that are at least as likely to obscure its meaning as they are to illuminate it. At least to my eye, Mr. Columbus means for us to see Ms. Atwoods Lady Macbeth as noticeably younger than her hapless spouse (which would explain the treadmill, not to mention his trendy buzzcut). Indeed, Mr. Hantmans deliberately ineffectual Macbeth comes off as a film-noir chump, a natural fall guy who cant help but succumb to the wiles of the blond femme fatale. Ms. Atwood plays her part exceptionally well: Her Lady Macbeth is a doe-eyed millennial in leggings and running shoeslater on she dons a blood-red dresswhose pretty face is a mask that hides her viperine will to power. * * * Read the whole thing Laypersons and academics alike have largely viewed creativity as a positive force, a notion challenged by the philosopher and educator Robert McLaren of California State University, Fullerton in 1993. McLaren proposed that creativity had a dark side, and that viewing it without a social or moral lens would lead to limited understanding. As time went on, newer concepts negative and malevolent creativity included conceiving original ways to cheat on tests or doing purposeful harm to others, for instance, innovating new ways to execute terrorist attacks. Aeon Online Access for Print Subscribers. Do you have a print subscription with the Argus-Press? If yes, then click here to enjoy complimentary access to our Online Content! Three Pell City High School seniors recently attended a fundraiser for the Amelia Earhart Birthplace Museum. Pictured, from left, Anna Shaddix, Aly Heath and Catherine Costello, along with Kellie Miller, gifted specialist for Pell City Schools, and Ninety-Nine/Zontian Nancy Miller-Borg from Steele. Purchase an online subscription to our website for $7.99 a month with automatic renewal. Each online subscription gives you full access to all of our newspaper websites and mobile applications. To cancel you may contact Customer Service @ 256-235-9253 or email JPAYNE@ANNISTONSTAR.COM For a limited time, for NEW SUBSCRIBERS ONLY a NEW ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION is just $59.99 for the first year. Existing customers do not qualify for the specials! After the first year, well automatically renew your subscription to continue your access at the regular price of $69.99 per year. Please note *Your Subscription will Automatically Renew unless you contact Customer Service To Cancel* Posted on: February 8, 2019 10:22 AM The renowned evangelist, theologian and apologist Dr Michael Green, who once served as senior evangelism advisor to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, has died in hospital at the age of 88. It is with great sadness that I pass on the news that Michael Green went to be with the Lord yesterday Wednesday 6th February at around 3pm at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, the Director of Ministerial Training at Wycliffe Hall theological college, Greg Downes, said in a statement on Thursday. His passing was peaceful and he was surrounded by Rosemary and his immediate family. . . Ive just spoken to Rosemary on the phone and prayed with her and she is feeling at peace and grateful for the many messages of support and love that she has received from around the world. Downes added: As we grieve with hope (1 Thess 4:13) we give thanks to the Lord for the privilege of being associated with such an amazing man of God and for his incredible legacy. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, said that Dr Greens legacy was still having an impact on the Church of England. Later this month the General Synod of the Church of England are meeting at what has been subtitled a Synod for Evangelism, he said. That evangelism is now being established as a prime priority for every church is partly due to the life and ministry of Michael Green. Im told that from his hospital bed Michael had let his close friends know that, whilst things were complicated medically, God was giving him lots of opportunities to share the gospel. Michael was a compelling and consummate evangelist, an example and model to all of the joy and energy that living and loving the gospel bring to proclaimer and listener. He served the church locally, nationally and internationally through his ministry of communication in speech and writing. As the church we are deeply grateful for his tenacious ministry. Beyond telling, however, will be the gratitude of all those that Michael introduced to Jesus Christ the Lord in whose presence he now knows joy beyond our imagination. The Bishop of Oxford, Dr Steven Croft, said: Michael was a giant of his generation, known and loved by many around the world and an evangelist to the last. He inspired and encouraged several generations of clergy and bishops including me. I first heard him preach on my first Sunday as an undergraduate in St Aldates over 40 years ago. Michaels words then were: I only have one life and I want to live it all for God have stayed with me through the years. May he rest in peace and rise in glory. The evangelist J John said that Dr Green had led a life that was so innovative, varied and dynamic that its hard to summarise what he did. He was often at the same time vicar, evangelist, writer and theologian. He added: One curious observation of longevity is that you can end up outliving not only your contemporaries but also your achievements. Something of this applies here. Throughout his ministry Michael played a significant part in shaping what is modern evangelicalism in the UK. Yet precisely because many of the battles he heroically fought occurred so long ago, there are many today who are unaware of the role Michael played in creating a culture that they now take for granted. Particularly important was the way that, in two key areas, Michael was able to dispel prejudices. One was the belief, widely held until into the 70s, that you couldnt be a scholar and an evangelical, and certainly not one who was passionate for evangelism. Michael had an extraordinarily sharp mind and accumulated academic honours indeed, had he chosen to be purely a scholar he could have been a professor in any of the great universities but he remained openly and enthusiastically committed to sharing the good news of Jesus. The second widespread preconception was that the only people who believed that the Holy Spirit might be a powerful and active force in the world today were those who were uneducated and knew no theology. Yet by giving early and outspoken support for the Charismatic Movement when it emerged onto the global scene in the 1960s, Michael demonstrated that to believe in the Holy Spirit did not demand that you ignored theology. The fact that today we take it for granted that you can be spiritual and scholarly and clever and charismatic owes much to his labours. Ordained a Deacon in 1957, Dr Michael Green served his curacy in Holy Trinity, Eastbourne before becoming lecturer at the London College of Divinity in 1960. In 1969 he became principal at St Johns College, Nottingham, an evangelical Anglican theological college; a post he held alongside that of Canon Theologian at Coventry Cathedral. He also served as a member of the C of Es Doctrine Commission, between 1968 and 1977. In 1975 he became Rector of St Aldates in Oxford; before moving to Canada to serve as Professor of Evangelism at Regent College, Vancouver in 1987. In 1992 he returned to the UK to serve as the Archbishops Advisor on Evangelism during the Decade of Evangelism. He retired in 1996 and became Honorary Fellow at Wycliffe Hall. From 2005 to 2007 he served as Co-Rector of Holy Trinity, Raleigh, a church in North Carolina that was formed by people who left the US-based Episcopal Church following the consecration of Bishop Gene Robinson. Writing on the website of Premier Christianity magazine, Evangelist Matthew Fearon, who works with Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, said: Michaels gift of distilling the complex into the memorable made him one of the most exceptional and accessible evangelists of the last 60 years. His sense of humour, his infectious joy allowed him to get away with more than most, found deep expression in You Must Be Joking: Popular Excuses for Avoiding Jesus Christ (1976). While in books including Man Alive (1967), and Who is this Jesus? (1998), his lightness of theological touch and intimacy with Christ saw him reach an audience far beyond the Christian community, as well as equipping lay Christian believers in their grasp of the Gospel. Posted on: February 8, 2019 1:09 PM The Primate of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, Archbishop Thabo Makgoba, has called on Anglican bishops to attend the next Lambeth Conference despite differences within the Anglican Communion. Archbishop Thabo chairs the international Design Group, brought together by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, to plan the once-in-a-decade gathering of Anglican bishops, which will take place in Canterbury, Kent, in 2020. I know people talk about the fabric of the communion as torn, he said, but we are all fallible human beings in need of Gods love and grace, and we need each other. Archbishop Thabo made his comments in a video on the Lambeth Conference website. In it, he says: As said in Sepedi [the language of Northern Sotho]: one bangle doesnt ring, two bangles will make a beautiful noise. So we are never alone in this journey. Whether you agree with where the communion is, whether you dont agree, come and express your difference in this beautiful space which is a gift from God. Dont just stay at home and say Im not going. We want to hear that voice. Its not a conference of like-minded people; it is a conference of Anglicans. I mean, for Gods sake, Anglicans, from our inceptions, weve always had push and pull. So push and pull should not be a distraction, but it should be celebrated. Its what I call at home, celebrating the gift of difference. So I encourage all bishops and their spouses to make every possible effort to come and see what God is doing through us in his world. Speaking about the shape of the Conference, Archbishop Thabo said that it would begin with a spiritual retreat, a time to say to bishops and their spouses hey, shut up . . . and listen to God; and listen to one another in silence. He said that after the retreat, we will worship together; we will walk together; we will talk together; we will love together; we will wrestle together; break bread together; reflect theologically and in mission bring ourselves and bring our dioceses and provinces into that space. And then, as my predecessor but one used to say, God is not finished with us; and God will actually continue his work in us and through us for the Anglican Communion. In a separate video on the website, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, spoke of how bishops can prepare for the Lambeth Conference, beginning with prayer. My vision for this conference is that, if nothing else, we emerge as a Communion that is visibly more deeply committed to prayer and the reading of scripture. So pray, and read scripture together; get into the swing of it in a new and fresh way. For example, between Ascension and Pentecost, there will be the fourth 10-days of Thy Kingdom Come. . . Get involved in that. Its a time for prayer for mission; prayer for God to warm the hearts of those who need to hear the good news of Jesus. He continued: Pray for those you disagree with and resist the urge to be swayed by gossip and rumour. So when you hear something, dont necessarily believe it, turn to God and say if thats true, I pray for him or her. But also, try and find out the truth. Posted on: February 8, 2019 10:46 AM The Anglican Communions Director for Communications, Adrian Butcher, is stepping down after three years. Adrian, who worked for BBC News for 25 years before coming to the Anglican Communion Office (ACO), took up the post just before the last meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC-16) in Zambia. He will leave in May after ACC-17 in Hong Kong. Its been an interesting and challenging time and I believe considerable progress has been made, he said. We have refreshed the ACO website, introduced weekly news in French, Spanish and Portuguese, dramatically increased our video and blog output and beefed up our social media presence although there is always more to do. I have been fortunate to have a talented and highly committed team and I am very proud of the work they have done. For example, our daily news service, ACNS, has gone from strength to strength in spite of the challenges of gathering news from around the world. Adrian also launched a 12-month internship programme, which is now in its second year. Under the scheme, interns from across the Communion have the opportunity of spending a year working and training with the communications team. It has been a memorable three years, Adrian continued. I have had the privilege of attending some extraordinary events and have met many wonderful people all over the world. But I feel the time has come for me to move on to fresh opportunities. The former Moderator of the united Church of Bangladesh, Bishop Paul Sarker, reflects on 32 years of ordained ministry including more than 10 years as Primate from 2007 until he stood down in December, ahead of his retirement this month as Bishop of Dhaka. It is not easy to speak in brief about a 32 years ministry as a Priest, Bishop and Moderator of the Church of Bangladesh. I was the youngest son of a primary school teacher and Reader of the former Anglican Church and brought up on the premises of the Oxford Mission monastery. However, it did not influence me to join the priesthood. In the 1970s, I was actively involved with the Student Christian Movement as a young student and I got immensely influenced by the Liberation Theology through many activities of that time. After completing my university degree, I went through a cracking struggle within myself in choosing my work and livelihoods, and finally decided to join the pastoral ministry with our Church for three reasons: first, to study theology; second, to serve the poor and vulnerable; and three, to bring transformation in the life of ongoing customary Church. The Church of Bangladesh was a rural-based small and fully dependent church nurtured by the missionaries since the colonial time. The Church was involved in rendering basic services like education, health and other charities targeting the poor. After independence under Bengali leadership, the Church started a few development programmes supported by foreign grants. It helped the congregations with better education and improving their socio-economic condition, and thereby it also played a considerable role to witness Christ in our pluralistic society. But in the growing demands of the people the Church became more dependent on foreign aid from pastoral and development ministries. Truly speaking, the Church was not careful about the development of quality leaders and professional skilled people; and it had no plan to acquire solvency for a sustainable pastoral ministry. As a result, the total management of the Church has been remaining weak and is staying much behind the time. There are many challenges for the small Church in pluralistic and developing countries. Congregations expect a lot from the Church. To me the main challenge is to be a self-reliant Church. Spiritual development is hardly possible for a dependent Church. Congregations should understand that along with their roles and responsibilities to meet that challenges. When I took the responsibility as moderator of the Church, I started to suffer from financial crisis. Foreign donation declined, bank interests went down, but all sort of expenses increased. Despite all these limitations during my tenure we tried to continue the regular programme for the children, youth and women. Church planting was carried out among the tribal people in north and south-east part of Bangladesh. School programmes improved well, and a new mode in generating income from schools was established against quality education. A reorganisation was undertaken for the social development programme in consultation with the partners. It was found any reformation was very tough for a Church to undertake. A third Diocese of Barisal has been created to revive the pastoral works in south-west area of Bangladesh and to bring a stronger management to look after the properties of the Church. With all our limited ability, I tried to respond to the needs of the poor in their crises in country and abroad. We tried to ensure proper use of our properties that we inherited. I tried to mobilise lay professionals in support of Church needs. But in many cases, that have rather created problems because of the vested interests of a few. I am not worthy to be a priest and leader of a Church; but by Gods grace I got this opportunity. I am unfortunate that because of the internal conflicts the image of our Church has been damaged, though we have experienced this type of problems before. I became a victim of it mainly to protect the interests of the Church and its property. It might be because of my plain dealing and for the administrative weakness, and some sort of non-cooperation from my colleagues. Thus, I cant say I am a successful leader as such; but I tried my best to embrace the Christian values with my honesty and sincerity, and tried to find ways to look forward. I am fortunate as a leader of a small poor Church, and to come in touch with the distinguish scholars and talented persons who enriched and influenced my life a lot. Among them I should remember Pope Francis, Archbishop Rowan Williams, Archbishop Justin Welby, the General Secretary of the World Council of Churches, the Revd Dr Olav Fykes Tveit, the former General Secretary of the Council for World Mission, the Revd Dr Desmond Vander Water, and many others. I am delighted to recollect my memories of many events and meetings during my ministry such as Lambeth Conference 2008, the 50th anniversary of the Anglican Centre in Rome, Standing Committee meetings and Primates Meetings of the Anglican Communion, Conferences of SMS and USPG, participation in the inter-faith meetings with al-Azhar in Abu Dhabi and London. I also remember the Assembly of the Church of Scotland and my sharing about climate change in a workshop, representing to the Council for World Mission and taking part in its leadership, attending assemblies of CCA and WCC etc. It was a special moment when I took part in the civic reception of Pope Francis in Bangladesh and prayed an inter-faith prayer. It was a wonderful time and experience for me and for my wife to staying couple of months in Adelaide, Australia at the beginning of my pastoral ministry. I enjoyed studying for my Masters of Theology at Louisville Presbyterian Seminary, Kentucky, USA after 10 years of my pastoral life. Thank God for all these opportunities and privileges in my pastoral life. I am grateful to all the friends in Bangladesh and in abroad those who have given and still are giving their moral support and praying for me and my family. To me, stepping up and stepping down from any leadership both are equally important. There are hardship, joy and enormous Gods blessings in both of the processes. As I am going to retire soon, I am encouraged by the words of psalmist: The righteous will flourish like a palm tree . . . they will flourish in the courts of our God. They will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green (Psalm 92: 13-14). I pray that God will pardon my weaknesses and will lead me to a new horizon. Wishing you blessings. Shalom! Toyota has been staying away from using Android Auto in its vehicles, as it saw Google as a competitor. It was kept this stance until this week at the Chicago Auto Show where Toyota announced that it was bringing Android Auto to five vehicles by the 2020 model year. Included in this first round of Android Auto compatible vehicles are: 2020 4Runner, 2018 Aygo, 2020 Sequoia, 2020 Tacoma, and the 2020 Tundra. In Europe, it will also be the 2019 Yaris technically making it six. Theres no word yet about whether or not Toyota will bring Android Auto to older models as well, or if it will only be available on newer cars. That will likely be answered when Android Auto does begin to roll out in the next year or so. Advertisement With Android Auto on-board, Android users are going to be able to plug in their smartphone while they are in the car and get an Android operating system on their dashboard. This brings Google Maps and Waze for navigation, as well as being able to make phone calls and stream music. You can also reply to messages and see your messages on the screen. Its a projection, similar to plugging in your laptop to your monitor. In most cases, Android Auto is a much better experience than the built-in infotainment system both in looks and in functionality. Toyota steered away from Google, as it did see it as a competitor. This was because of Waymo formerly the Google Self-Driving Car Project. Toyota felt that it would essentially be giving the keys to Google, by allowing it to have Android Auto built into its cars. Google does collect some data when you are using Android Auto, but this is really only data that is used to make Android Auto better. Advertisement By giving Google all of this data, Toyota felt that it was being put at an unfair advantage. But now that Google has said it is not going to be building cars for Waymo, instead it is focusing on self-driving hardware not manufacturing vehicles, it likely softened Toyotas stance a bit. Ford was in the same position, but eventually decided to let Android Auto into its vehicles. Now that Toyota does support Android Auto on some of its vehicles, that means that Google does have just about every major car maker out there with Android Auto either available or coming soon. Now Toyota has not yet gone all in with Android Auto, but that should be coming in the next couple of years. It likely wants to iron out the kinks on this small selection of vehicles first, before expanding it to other vehicles. If your car is not on this list that will be getting Android Auto, you can still use it via your smartphone. If you dock it in your vehicle, you can open the Android Auto app and use it. You also have the ability to install an aftermarket head unit and get a large display in your car that would support Android Auto. Which is also a pretty cool thing. Over the last few weeks, rumors about an upcoming Samsung watch thought to be the Galaxy Sport has been doing rounds and the folks over at XDA Developers have now reported that the watch would actually be called the Samsung Galaxy Watch Active, thanks to their tipster deadman96385. Along with revealing the name of the wearable, the publication also fiddled with the firmware of the smartwatch and has revealed some key details about its specifications. It is also being claimed that the said watch would not be an upgrade over the Galaxy Watch released last year, rather it would be a successor to the 2017 Gear Sport. The press renders of the supposed Galaxy Watch Active have leaked already and now most of its alleged specifications and features have also been unearthed. Like other Samsung smartwatches, the Galaxy Watch Active is also expected to be Tizen OS-based. It is expected to come pre-installed with the Tizen 4 software, or more specifically Tizen 4.0.0.3. The watch is apparently codenamed Pulse, and this code name has also been spotted before in various reports. The wearable bears the model number SM-R500, which puts it in the same league as the 2017 Gear Sport, which had the model number SM-R600. The firmware files have also revealed that the watch will sport a 1.3-inch display, which makes its screen a hair larger than that of the 2017 Samsung Gear Sport but at 360360 pixels, the resolution stays the same. If previously leaked images are to go by, the upcoming watch will feature a round display, chrome chassis, and two circular buttons. The watch will reportedly be available in four colors: silver, black, blue, and rose gold. Advertisement The Galaxy Watch Active will seemingly be fueled by the Exynos 9110 chipset, the same silicon that underpins the last years Galaxy Watch. When it comes to battery capacity, the new wearable seems to have taken a step back, as the firmware files indicate that it will pack in a small 230mAh battery. This is rather surprising as the Gear Sport comes with a 300mAh battery. However, it could be that the firmware files belong to a smaller version of the watch. Even if thats not the case, the small battery capacity is nothing to sweat over as the Exynos 9110 is known to be power efficient. Samsung is also expected to release an LTE model of the watch, as well as one which supports GPS, but in all likelihood, this could turn out to be one model, i.e. an LTE model that comes with GPS. Furthermore, it is also believed that Samsung will release a dual eSIM variant of the Galaxy Watch Active. The upcoming watch will also seemingly feature a heart rate monitor but no concrete evidence was found in the firmware files that indicates the presence of the rumored blood pressure monitor. Other than that, the wearable will also sport NFC for Samsung Pay. Advertisement Samsung might reveal the Galaxy Watch Active during its Unpacked event thats scheduled to take place on February 20 at San Francisco or it may choose to launch it during the upcoming Mobile World Congress that will take place in Barcelona towards the end of the month. Samsung is planning to introduce a new wireless charger along with the Galaxy S10 it seems, as the device has been certified in Taiwan by the National Communications Commission (NCC). This charger comes with the EP-P5200 model number, and it was actually certified by the FCC earlier this month as well. According to the NCC listing, this charger will be rated at 12V/2.1A input, which means it can output around 15W of power. This charger will almost certainly be presented as an accessory to the Galaxy S10, but it will be your regular wireless charger which uses Qi technology, which means it will be compatible with all phones that support Qi charging. The listing also reveals that this charger consists out of two flat-discharge charging plates which can charge two devices at the same time, and the wireless output power supply can reach DC5V~12V. So, as you can see, this charger actually differs from the EP-N6100 wireless charger which was announced alongside the Galaxy Note9. Advertisement It has not been confirmed just yet, but its highly possible that the Samsung EP-P5200 wireless charger will get announced on February 20 in San Francisco, during the Galaxy S10s launch event. We still do not know what will this wireless charger look like, but chances are it will be your regular charging plate, nothing out of the ordinary, though considering it will be able to charge two devices at the same time, it will probably be larger than the EP-N6100. The big day is almost here Samsung will announce its Galaxy S10 series on February 20, and in addition to that, well probably see some accessories as well, like the EP-P5200 wireless charger. Speaking of charging, it was recently revealed that the Galaxy S10 will support reverse wireless charging, so it will basically be able to act as a wireless charger on its own. Advertisement Samsung will announce three Galaxy S10 smartphones on February 20, the Galaxy S10e, S10, and S10+, though it is worth noting that the top-of-the-line Galaxy S10+ handset will support 5G, ceramic backplate, and will be more powerful than the rest of the bunch, so it can be considered a completely separate phone. Its also quite likely that the 5G variant of the Galaxy S10 will not go on sale as soon as the rest of the lineup. The Galaxy S10e will be the most affordable Galaxy S10 variant, it will sport two cameras on the back, one camera on the front, flat 5.8-inch display, and a side-facing fingerprint scanner. The Galaxy S10 and S10+ will include three cameras on the back, two cameras on the front, curved 6.1 and 6.4-inch displays, respectively, and they will be made out of metal and glass. Android 9 Pie will come pre-installed on all Galaxy S10 variants, while all variants will be fueled by the same processor (two SoC variants). European and Indian Galaxy S10 variants will include the Exynos 9820 SoC, while the US and Chinese unit will ship with the Snapdragon 855. Both of those are 64-bit octa-core processors, and the best processors Samsung and Qualcomm, respectively, have to offer. Samsung Galaxy S10 pre-orders might be accompanied by a pair of free Galaxy Buds wireless earphones in some regions. This is according to details found by GalaxyClub within the source code of the Galaxy S10 teaser website in Russia. It contains a string of text that labels the Galaxy Buds as a pre-order gift for customers in that particular market. Additionally, the source code also confirms that the Samsung Galaxy S10 series will be available for pre-order in Russia on February 20 the same day on which the smartphones unveiling will take place. Likewise, pre-orders will end on March 7, lending more weight to the already-strong possibility that the flagship phone series will hit the shelves on March 8. It was only earlier this week when a leaked render supposedly obtained from Samsungs own servers depicted the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Buds on top of the Galaxy S10+ flagship phone. At that time the image only seemed to confirm that both products will be unveiled on the same date and that both might feature two-way wireless charging. However, in light of the new bits of information gathered from the Russian teaser website, it would seem that another reason why these two products were featured in the same render may have been Samsungs pre-order strategy. These plans remain subject to change, of course, at least until Samsung sets them in stone with an official announcement. But the evidence so far suggests that customers who will be willing to pre-order the Samsung Galaxy S10, at least in certain regions, will also be gifted a product which will likely sell on its own for $200 or more. Whether this pre-order bonus will apply to other markets outside of Russia remains to be seen. Advertisement Samsung remains the top smartphone vendor in the world but the companys progress has been slowing down noticeably over the last years. The release of the Galaxy S9 series a year ago had disappointed the OEM due to poor market performance initially, at least compared to its predecessor, so perhaps Samsung is willing to advertise the Galaxy S10 lineup much more aggressively and entice potential buyers with bonuses in order to boost the smartphones sales figures in its first two quarters of market availability. On the other hand, although prices have not yet been confirmed, rumors suggest that the standard Samsung Galaxy S10 will be priced around $800, while its larger counterpart could cross the $1,000 mark. Theres also a third variant rumored to be unveiled on February 20, which was recently confirmed to carry the Galaxy S10e brand. This model should be priced below $800 but according to all of the leaks so far, this model will feature two main cameras instead of three, and will possibly suffer from other downgrades or corner cuts. As for the Galaxy Buds, despite their new moniker, these wireless headphones should be a direct successor to the Samsung Gear IconX. Exactly how they will differ from the IconX remains to be seen, but one of the ways could be the inclusion of two-way wireless charging. A recently approved patent application filed with the World Intellectual Property Office last summer suggests that Samsung is looking to strengthen its position in the emerging augmented reality market and might be developing AR glasses designed to show holographic images. Specifically, the patent revolves around a method of coordinating a mixed-reality HMD with a separate media device for the purpose of syncing media between the devices and providing appropriate controls for the HMD through a holographic user interface. The patent application includes a number of sketches detailing the syncing process along with examples of a holographic UI interacting with a smart TV. The holographic content is shown through a pair of smart AR goggles but the syncing method is the focus of the patent, rather than the HMD itself. However, even if the hardware is not specifically detailed, it looks like Samsungs solution to establish its position in the AR market is to create a device similar in function to the Microsoft HoloLens. The idea here is to project virtual objects, images, and media controls for synced devices into real 3D space, or rather onto the HMDs screen in a way that they would blend in with the users surroundings from his or her point of view. Samsungs intentions to invest more into the AR market in the near future became more evident last December when another application aimed to trademark the AR World moniker along with the slogans Fully Integrated to Fully Immersive and No Boundaries, Endless Possibilities. Judging by the latest patent, it would seem that the OEMs first steps towards establishing its AR World brand or whatever the companys mixed reality product line will eventually be known as could be the release of AR/MR goggles. Advertisement Up until now, the OEMs involvement with AR technologies only led to the creation of animated emojis which havent really left a noticeable mark on the industry. But with a transition from simple AR-based applications and software features to fully-fledged hardware, Samsung could potentially become a bigger name in the AR field. Furthermore, while solutions such as the Microsoft HoloLens are primarily targeting the enterprise segment, Samsungs patent application suggests that the OEMs first AR HMD could be designed for the consumer market. Samsung has some experience with HMDs but only on the Virtual Reality front. While companies such as Oculus and Valve/HTC have fueled the early days of consumer VR with premium-grade virtual reality headsets, Samsung took a different route with the Gear VR HMD and wanted to give mobile users a virtual reality experience for a lower budget. Likewise, the OEM could adopt a similar strategy in the AR space with the launch of consumer-grade solutions. Samsung seems to have abandoned the VR market as no new Gear VR models have been released since 2017, and the companys marketing push towards this particular segment has seemingly been halted. But as time goes by it looks like the OEM might redirect its resources into the AR segment which many believe will have a higher chance of success in the coming years compared to VR, due to the technology offering more potential applications. The Polish division of Huawei offered to build a cybersecurity center in the European country as its proposed resolution of a spying scandal that emerged last month after one of its employees was arrested on spying charges. While speaking to reporters earlier this week, Huawei Poland CEO Tonny Bao said the firm is prepared for such an investment so long as Warsaw accepts it as a trusted solution to the problem at hand. The Spy Who Worked For Me Advertisement Last month, the companys Polish unit fired sales manager Wang Weijing after he was arrested on spying charges, having made the move even before the defendant appeared in front of a competent judge and pleaded not guilty. He was detained by local authorities together with a state security official suspected of collusion with the first accused. The firing was a clear signal that Huawei is distancing itself from the incident but Warsaw is still understood to be considering a formal warning against working with the Chinese firm to Polish companies. Poland will also almost certainly exclude Huawei from its efforts to build 5G infrastructure, according to new reports. Other European countries such as the United Kingdom, Germany, and the Czech Republic are currently pondering the same move, industry sources said in recent weeks. Beyond the Old Continent, Huawei-made equipment is already banned for federal use in the United States which is currently pressuring its allies into following suit. Australia did precisely that last summer, whereas many other countries such as Canada, Japan, and South Korea are reportedly close to doing the same. Huawei remains the worlds largest telecom equipment maker but spying concerns may create a significant dent in its business; without access to some of the worlds richest markets, the company could eventually cede its leadership to one of Nokia or Ericsson. Advertisement Financial remedies Over in the UK, Huawei is planning a $2 billion cybersecurity investment after a government report raised numerous issues with its wireless equipment, though the conglomerate only did so following months of heavy public pressure, having originally downplayed the findings. The British division of Huawei estimates London will see palpable results of its investment within five years, according to recent media reports citing a company letter to the UK government. The growing Western distrust toward Huawei is twofold. First, its based on a long history of issues the company had with foreign governments and entities, particularly in the United States. Secondly, it stems from a piece of legislation called the National Intelligence Law that China passed in 2017. Advertisement The bill compels all private entities and citizens in the Far Eastern country to be fully cooperative when in state-sponsored intelligence activities. Many current and former diplomats, cybersecurity experts, and politicians are pointing to the said legislation as evidence that Beijing can force Huawei to spy on its customers whenever it pleases, even assuming the firm never indulged in any shady activity in support of China in the past. Due to that state of affairs and the fact that Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou is still at the center of an international scandal that left her fighting a U.S. extradition request in Canada over charges concerning fraud and conspiracy to violate Washington-issued embargoes, its unlikely that many Western countries will embrace its products and 5G technologies solely due to extra cybersecurity investments. Google Fiber has announced via a blog post that it is officially saying goodbye to its Louisville gigabit internet rollout, following unforeseen problems with a new micro trenching method that would require the company to effectively start over. The company says that rebuilding the network from the ground up would not be the correct business decision to make but that the networks current condition doesnt meet the high standards it has set for itself elsewhere. One of the problems in the companys methods, disrupting residents services according to the tech giant, involved fiber lines not being sealed properly into roadways. The materials used to secure the lines proved ineffective for the region, forcing the company to relay lines with the more typically used asphalt instead. Services will continue through until April 15 and no other Google Fiber regions will be affected. Advertisement A testing ground left behind The company also took a moment to reach out and thank the City of Louisville as well as residents who participated in the service and Mayor Greg Fischer for the partnership, which started toward the latter half of 2017. In particular, the company points to the mayors defense of a One Touch Make Ready (OTMR) rule passed in the city. That rule allowed a single crew to make changes to lines on utility poles without waiting on another company to move its own lines. AT&T had contested the OTMR rule, suing the city to maintain control over lines and utility poles it managed. The carrier was working to roll out a competing service at the time. The mayor came out in support of the rule citing its importance in keeping a high level of competitiveness for gigabit internet access services. Advertisement The lessons learned in Googles Fiber deployment for Louisville, including refinements to the micro-trenching method have proven to be successful in other Fiber cities, the company says. In short, micro-trenching is a method that speeds up a fiber rollout using specialized machinery to dig comparatively shallow trenches for the fiber optic lines. Those are then sealed in place. Offsetting a business-first decision The fact that Google is pulling out of Louisville rather than fixing the problems, despite that the methods and other lessons learned are reportedly working in other cities is likely to result in some backlash for the search giant. Its bid to unleash gigabit internet nationwide has already been fraught with trouble almost across the board, forcing it to pull out of project cities and seek out new ways to deliver its product over the past several years. Advertisement The call also doesnt seem to have been made lightly. The company points out that a lot of analysis that went into the final decision and promising some compensation to customers. Google also promised to work with both customers and partners in order to reduce disruption and to do the right thing by the community. To that end, the company says it has reached out to those consumers on February 7 to inform them of the impending end of service and to offer those customers remaining months at no cost. A new feature called Never-Slow Mode is currently being tested for Googles Chrome that would theoretically make the browser much faster on resource-intensive websites, based on a recently spotted change in the Chromium repository. While the code is marked as a prototype for internal use only and subsequently hasnt been committed to any of Chromes Channels yet, it adds a flag to set budgets for items loading on a given web page. From Googles perspective, it makes sense that the budgets would be tested internally first since those budgets could ultimately break some websites for end users. In its current iteration, Never-Slow Mode acts on a per-interaction basis to block certain items from the main thread. The budgets are set at 1MiB per image with a total image size limitation per load of 2MiB. Stylesheets are similarly limited at 200KiB and 200KiB for a single stylesheet or total, respectively. Scripts are limited only on a per-script basis to 50KiB. Advertisement With current budget caps in place, that means that with the exception of Service Worker Cache Storage and service workers themselves, items exceeding the budget limitations simply wont be loaded in the main loading process. In effect, the Never-Slow Mode will block blocks large scripts from running, as well as preventing the loading of fonts, CSS, or images that overextend in a bid to make the entire browser faster for users who enable the mode. Not quite Lite Regardless of how much faster the changes might make Chrome, they arent going to save users in terms of data usage and cant fairly be compared to a Lite mode for the browser. Advertisement The associated Chromium change notes that the change turns off certain elements such as document.write() and sync XHR, enables client hints pervasively, and buffers resources without `Content-Length` set. Scripts that take longer to load are basically disabled until a user interaction enables them, allowing the page to load much more quickly. It also seems to work from top to bottom, loading elements the user sees first and loading elements later on, with budgets being reset as the user scrolls down a given web page. Aside from scrolling, the budgets are reset on taps or clicks, too suggesting the feature could eventually work with mobile devices and touch-enabled Chromebooks. Lazy loading improved Advertisement On its surface, the new feature wouldnt be exceptionally different from a previously introduced feature called lazy loading and seems to actually build on the concept. Offering as much as an 18-percent and 35-percent gain in performance and speed, according to Google, lazy loading forestalls the loading of large images and similar page elements on large pages that require scrolling. By delaying the load time until a user is set to see the objects, the page can keep the appearance of, for all intents and purposes, loading up faster. The elements that still remain to be loaded as the user scrolls will load more quickly too since theyre essentially loaded on an as-needed basis. On faster internet connections, the load time wouldnt necessarily even be noticeable. The new feature builds on that by setting strict limits for item sizes and cutting back on other clutter. At the same time, because service workers arent impacted, sites meant to function as web apps such as Googles Squoosh image compression tool or Canvas drawing tool will still load up normally. This is what will happen when the polar ice melts and sea level rises. Well, not really. Its just a continuation of a prank that started forty years ago. In 1978, a student party named Pail and Shovel swept the students election at the University of Wisconsin. During their campaign, the party made absurd promises that included installing escalators on Bascom Hill, painting the curbs fluorescent so drunk students could find their way home from the bars, flooding Camp Randall for faux naval battles and having all deans stuffed and mounted. None of these ever materialized, of course. The party itself was named after its campaign promise to convert the UWs budget into pennies for students to collect on Library Mall with pails and shovels. One of their promises they did make good on was bringing the Statue of Liberty to Wisconsin. The following winter, in 1979, Pail and Shovel erected a gigantic replica of the Statue of Libertys head and torch on the frozen surface of Lake Mendota, in Madison city, creating the illusion that Lady Liberty was emerging from the lakes bottom. Party leaders Leon Varjian and Jim Mallon spent $4,000 on the Styrofoam structure, a stunt that nearly got them kicked out of office. The sculpture became an instant hit, but arsonist burned it down within the first year. The original structure in 1979. The next year, 1980, a fireproof version was installed and the year next as well. But then state regulators demanded the structure be removed from the ice. It continued to appear on the lake occasionally through 2010, after which it stopped. This year, Wisconsin Union brought Lady Liberty back to Lake Mendota to kick off its annual Winter Carnival, after two decades continuing a tradition that started forty years ago. This time, the structure is made of inflatable plastic. Plastic requires less space to store, compared to the Styrofoam version, and could be inflated and installed faster. Officials hope to bring her back next year as well as part of the annual Winter Carnival tradition. In another stunt, the Pail and Shovel Party put a flock of one thousand pink plastic flamingos on Bascom Hill in the fall of 1979. Within hours most of the birds were stolen and appeared on lawns throughout the city. Although many students were amused at Pail and Shovel pranks, some were angered at the misuse of student fees. Some sixty students demanded their student fees be returned, and Pail and Shovel responded by issuing sixty checks for ten cents each. Though the Pail and Shovel Party werent re-elected for a third term, their pranks live on in stories passed down from students at UW-Madison. The Statue of Liberty in 2009. The Statue of Liberty this year, 2019. On February 1869, two British prospectors, John Deason and Richard Oates, were digging for gold in central Victoria, Australia, when their pickaxe struck something hard very near the surface. When Deason bent down to examine the large stone he thought was on the way, he discovered an enormous gold nuggetthe largest anybody had ever seen, and will ever see. The nugget measured two feet in length and almost a feet in width. Miners and their wives posing with the finders of the worlds biggest gold nugget, Welcome Stranger . Deason and Oates discussed the find excitedly, but in hushed tones. The nugget had to be safely put away before word got out. They waited until sunset, and under the cover of darkness, Deason and Oates dug out the gold and carried it to Deason's hut where it was placed in the fire to burn away the debris and break the black quartz that coated the gold. The nugget was fired all weekend, and on Monday morning, about 70 lbs. of the black quartz that had broken away from the main nugget was taken to be treated at a local stamper, and 60 ounces of gold was recovered from this crushing. The remaining nugget was taken to Dunolly, 9 miles away, on a cart hidden under Mrs. Deasons skirt. In Dunolly, Deason and Oates took the nugget straight to the bank; they wanted to get it off their hands as soon as possible before they got robbed by bushrangers. Unfortunately, the nuggetnow called Welcome Stranger was too large to weigh on the banks scales, and had to taken in a wheelbarrow to the local blacksmith where it was broken down into three manageable chunks. Sixty-six kilograms were sold to the bank, and the rest Deason and Oates kept for themselves. There are different reports on the nuggets actual weight, but the most commonly citied figure is 72 kg. A replica of Welcome Stranger. The bank paid 9,563 pounds for the nugget, which according to John Tully, president of the Goldfields Historical and Arts Society at Dunolly, was equivalent to an average working mans wages for 43 years. After the find, Deason continued with gold mining and eventually became a store keeper at Moliagal. He lost most of his wealth due to bad investment. He bought a small farm near Moliagal, and spent his last days as a farmer. Oates, meanwhile, returned to England and got married. He came back to Australia, had four children, and passed the rest of his life in his 800-acre farm until his death. The memory of the find is kept alive by a granite obelisk at the spot where Welcome Stranger was discovered in 1869. The memorial is located near Moliagul. There is another memorial in Dunolly, and a statue depicting two miners digging up Welcome Stranger in the middle of a parking lot in Redruth, England. Monument marking the spot where the Welcome Stranger nugget was found. Photo credit: Mattinbgn/Wikimedia The statue in Redruth, England. Photo credit: dunollymuseumsite.wordpress.com On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the find, descendants of Deason and Oates gathered at Moliagul on February 5, 2019, and reenacted the photos taken by the finders along with their family members. John Tully, president of the Goldfields Historical and Arts Society at Dunolly, holds a replica of the 72-kilogram Welcome Stranger. Photo credit: Darren Howe During the Victorian gold rush, Moliagul was a booming town with a population of 16,000 and eleven pubs. Nowadays it is largely a farming community, with only a handful of houses, but gold speculators are still drawn to the area, known as the Golden Triangle. This region, encompassing 9,400 square kilometers, has produced some of the greatest alluvial gold nugget finds in the world. In a place called Canadian Gully, in Ballarat, miners found three large nuggets weighing 61 kg, 42 kg, and 38 kg, in 1853. Eighteen months later, a group of nine miners found Lady Hotham, weighing 44 kg. Then, in 1858, a 69-kg nugget, dubbed Welcome Nugget was discovered, also in Ballarat. It remains the second largest gold nugget ever found. Official records show that over 1,300 nuggets of 20 ounces (500 grams) or more were taken from Victorian gold fields. Of these, 400 exceeded 100 ounces (2.8 kg). Realistically, one can assume that the true figure is at least twice that of official figures because large finds are never declared publicly. Even today, large nuggets turn up inside this Golden Triangle. Only three years ago, a massive 4.1 kg nugget was unearthed. Fabricated structural steel market participants and analysts in the United States hold mixed views on a trade case filed this past week against imports of the product from Canada, Mexico and China. The case, filed by the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) on Monday February 4, seeks countervailing and anti-dumping duties for a wide variety of fabricated carbon, alloy and stainless structural steel products primarily consumed in building and infrastructure construction markets. If US producers duties against the targeted countries, "and assuming typical yield loss associated with fabrication operations, we believe this would translate into incremental steel consumption of 1-2 million tons collectively of beams, merchants, plate and sheet steel mill products. This of course assumes other countries do not work to fill this gap," Cowen analysts Matthew Barry and Tyler Kenyon said in a research note. I think in the intermediate term theres a benefit to demand for upstream steel and for fabricated products, but I think over the longer term manufacturing cost competitiveness wins out, Kenyon told Fastmarkets. The US protectionist measures will ultimately encourage "domestic manufacturers to source more of a downstream component or product overseas or move their operations, to the extent that its feasible, outside the US to produce it more cost effectively, he added. The alleged anti-dumping duties are 31.46% for Canada, 41.39% for Mexico and 218.95% for China, with alleged subsidies for the three countries in excess of zero, the Cowen analysts said in the report. The AISC estimated total domestic consumption of fabricated structural steel at 4.7 million tons, with 75% of consumption (3.4 million tons) serviced by domestic fabricators. The remaining 25% (1.3 million tons) are sourced from imports, Cowen said. The countries targeted in the petition accounted for an estimated 20% of overall consumption (950,000 tons) in 2017, or 75-80% of total imports. Still, in the past five years offshore fabricated steel imports have more than doubled, far exceeding the growth of the US construction market, Jeff Sterner, president and chief operating officer of structural steel fabricator High Industries, said in testimony supporting the trade case. US imports of fabricated structural sections surged from 2015-17 and remained elevated last year, the AISC said in its petition, pegging 2018 imports from the targeted countries at 1,038,424 short tons compared with 949,578 tons in 2017 and 783,641 tons in 2015. AISC claimed in its petition that domestic fabricators can't compete with low-priced fabricated steel from other countries, citing the loss of one of the Hudson Yards projects in New York City to a subject fabricator. Fastmarkets AMMs latest monthly assessment of domestic W 8- x 8-inch steel beams put it at $41.75 per hundredweight ($835 per ton) on January 24, down by 4% from the more than six-year high of $43.50 per cwt reached in June 2018 but still up 16% from $36 per cwt on January 25, 2018. Fastmarkets AMM's weekly assessment for cut-to-length plate was at $48 per cwt on February 1, down by 3% from a more than seven-year high of $49.50 per cwt in November but up by 23.1% from $39 per cwt on February 2, 2018. Fastmarkets AMM assessed US domestic A500 hollow structural sections at $1,020-1,040 per ton ($51-52 per cwt) fob mill on February 7, down by 14.7% from a high of $1,190-1,225 per ton in August and up by 6.7% from $950-980 per ton one year ago. The domestic industry lost a project for 3.6 million square feet of commercial construction, which \would have supported 1.3 million man hours of production, AISC said of the Hudson Yards project. "To put that in perspective, this single [Hudson Yards] project could have supported more than 600 American workers, full time for an entire year." One buyer, whose company does fabrication jobs throughout the US Northeast, told Fastmarkets AMM that about 100,000 tons of material for the project came from Canada, Mexico and Italy, with a large amount of steel also claimed to have been purchased in China by the owner of the Hudson Yards project. It affected the domestic market by the fact that domestic fabricators had to go find work elsewhere instead of doing it there [in New York], this buyer said. Were in favor of this [trade case] just from a level-playing field perspective, we just want fair competition and at this point we havent had that. The Canadian Institute of Steel Construction (CISC), which represents the interests of Canadian steel fabricators, criticized the AISC's trade case. AISCs allegations that these products from Canada are unfairly traded and cause injury to US producers of fabricated steel products are baseless. The negative effects of the Section 232 steel tariffs are the more likely cause of injury for the US downstream steel sector, not Canada. Canada and the US have been in each others markets for generations, CISC president and chief executive officer Ed Whalen said. One domestic trader of beams agreed. We [in the US] are building barriers for ourselves by filing this trade case, this trader told Fastmarkets AMM. The US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) was hard enough to negotiate with Canada and Mexico to begin with, this trader added. The USMCA took much longer than people expected and it still has not been fully implemented, as far as I know, because the Section 232 tariffs have not been removed yet, a removal that both Mexico and Canada expected, the trader said. This new trade case just gives Mexico and Canada more ammunition to go against our government in ongoing trade negotiations. I think our trade relations with these three countries are currently in flux, Kenyon told Fastmarkets AMM. We have the USMCA agreement, which is still pending - including a number of pieces and parts - where all sides still need to come to the table. Patrick Fitzgerald in New York and Nat Rudarakanchana in Chicago contributed to this report. Chances are strong that it will. Nancy says that as the negotiations continue, "left to their own devices," an agreement will be reached as early as Friday. Democratic rep from N.Y. Nina Lowey, who leads the conference committee, told reporters negotiations are happening and could be settled in enough time for the House and Senate to vote on new appropriation bills before the February 15 deadline. On Wednesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told the press "there will not be another shutdown" over the proposed border wall. She also said she will fully support any resolution that the bipartisan committee in charge of the negotiations come up with, even if it includes full wall funding. In the Washington Post article, Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin, who is also on this committee, said he believes that the "highest funding priority should be technology to intercept drugs at the border not physical barriers." Durbin also stated that border experts explained in a meeting why a wall is necessary and, technically, itself technology that will stop drugs, but Democrats still want to cling to their idea that it's not. When reporters asked Lowey whether the "needle was moved" in response to President Trump's successful State of the Union address, she responded with "no comment." Polls showed overwhelming support for the president's SOTU, which included a passionate pitch for a border wall. During his speech, the president made it clear that the wall will be built, one way or another. Though he really wants to fund the construction through legislation, he has not ruled out using an emergency proclamation to bypass Congress to do so. However, Trump knows that a move like that would instantly be tied up in courts and give Democrats the opportunity to continue to obstruct the process. With the latest discussions happening, despite Nancy Pelosi's and Chuck Schumer's previous resolve that they wouldn't, Democrats could finally be weighing their optics on the situation. By supporting this barrier build, even if they fought it in the past, Democrats will be able to ride the coattails of its inevitable success. As an example of their caving while trying to keep up appearances, this CNN headline from Thursday reads, "New Mexico governor withdraws state's National Guard troops from southern border." Yet the actual article exposes the headline as flat-out wrong and more sensationalized clickbait: "We will deploy our men and women in uniform only where there is a need, and where their presence can make a genuine difference in ensuring public safety and an easing of the humanitarian concerns at our southern border," Lujan Grisham said Tuesday." ... She did direct 11 to 15 National Guard personnel to remain in the southwestern part of the state to help with humanitarian needs. "I recognize and appreciate the legitimate concerns of residents and officials in southwestern New Mexico, particularly Hidalgo County, who have asked for our assistance, as migrants and asylum-seekers continue to appear at their doorstep," she said. Half a dozen state police officers will also be temporarily deployed to Hidalgo County to help the local law enforcement. Hence, Democrats are fully aware that the crisis at the southern border is real even if they use different language to explain it. They just cannot risk being seen looking openhandedly toward the president. They want to be recorded as the party of resistance, but they know that their mantra of "get Trump at any cost" is starting to get too expensive politically. Expect the resolution that the committee delivers to Congress and the president to be full of earmarks and ridiculous proposals, like granting asylum to anyone within five miles of the border wall or full amnesty for all illegal aliens already here. However, that Democrats are even negotiating is a good sign that they are finally recognizing that resisting the wall is a losing battle. Making their concessions for the wall as quietly as possible helps avoid a public battle that Trump will benefit from if he is forced to use a national emergency to get it done. Connect with Taylor Day on Twitter @TABYTCHI. It was an over-the-top shouting match, with Breitbart finally being hauled away to safety by hotel security. A few weeks before he died on March 1, 2012, Andrew Breitbart, fed up with Occupy D.C. protesters disrupting the CPAC conference at the Wardman Marriott in D.C., emerged from the hotel and confronted the occupiers. "Behave yourself," he repeated over and over. "You are freaks and animals. Stop raping people." "You filthy, filthy, raping, murdering freaks." Two years earlier, Breitbart went to war with the NAACP president, who had called the Tea Party "racist." In a radio interview, he let it be known that the "racist" cudgel was not going to work on the Tea Party. "You can go to hell," he said. "I have tapes, a tape of racism, and it's an NAACP dinner. You want to play with fire, I have evidence of racism and it's coming from the NAACP." Breitbart always did what conservatives could not do for themselves. He got in the hypocrites' faces and dared to say what Americans were speaking and writing about in the privacy of their own homes. While Breitbart's outrage was directed at those in the Occupy camps accused of rape, sexual harassment, and even murder, and the race-baiting liars who, as he once noted, could find a stalk of broccoli racist, he very well could have been describing elected officials in the Democratic Party. In less than a week, Virginia's three top Democrats were hit with charges of supporting infanticide, sex crimes, and racism. From Del. Kathy Tran's admission that her bill covers baby-killing to Gov. Ralph Northam's fondness for infanticide and black shoe polish to Lt. Gov Fairfax's alleged sex crime to A.G. Mark Herring's own blackface admission, Breitbart's label of "murdering, raping freaks" is dead on. The political freak show in Virginia would be a real treat if the three abortion-loving degenerates ended up on the ash heap. But no one knows what will happen next. Will Republican speaker of the House of Delegates Kirk Cox become governor? Will Northam resign now that A.G. Herring has come forward in solidarity with his own blackface incident? In an article on blackface in America, USA Today's headline reads, "Ralph Northam was far from alone." Strange how Northam volunteering a little too much information about Virginia's third-trimester abortion bill specifically, that born babies could also be killed if the mother and physician both agreed, was quickly replaced by the scandalous history of blackface. Will Fairfax resign? Or will his accuser fade into oblivion like Democratic Minnesota A.G. Keith Ellison's victims? Will a GoFundMe account or hush money be enough to quiet Fairfax's alleged victim, shut down media coverage, and catapult Fairfax to a run for governor in 2021? The complicit media and their Democrats will gladly hush up and #notbelieveher if the perpetrator has a "D" after his name. Virginia congressman Bobby Scott (D-3rd) and the Washington Post acknowledged that Vanessa Tyson, Fairfax's accuser, contacted them before the 2017 election. They chose not to air the lt. governor's dirty laundry until after voters cast their ballots in November 2018. When Nancy Pelosi and her Democratic posse were questioned last week about Gov. Northam's infanticide remarks, each one denied knowing anything about the viral radio interview. Yesterday, head race-baiter in charge of racism Al Sharpton, speaking to students at Virginia Union University in Richmond, said the two white guys, Northam and Herring, should resign for wearing blackface decades ago, while the black alleged sex criminal, Justin Fairfax, should be given the benefit of the doubt. We've seen this movie so many times before that we know every line. William Jefferson Clinton was credibly accused of rape and sexual assault by many women, and the media turned him into a hero. Ted Kennedy fooled around and killed a woman and was hailed as a liberal "lion" of the Senate. Sitting Senator Tom Carper (D-Del.) admitted to giving his ex-wife a black eye in the past. Minnesota A.G. Keith Ellison was accused by a former female partner of domestic abuse before his recent victory, and in 2006, a Democratic activist said Ellison was physically abusive toward her as well. Ellison, a friend of Lt. Gov Justin Fairfax (see video), will most likely advise Fairfax on how to shut his accuser up. With friends like Ellison, how surprising is it that an irate Fairfax, anticipating the #MeToo mob descending on him, told members of his staff at a secret meeting, "F--- the b----"? Breitbart would have had a field day with the Democrats Northam, Fairfax, and Herring, making a disaster of a state that gave us four of the first five presidents. The specter of Breitbart can almost be heard in the Old Dominion, screaming, "Behave yourself, you baby-killing, raping freaks." Image: Mark Taylor via Flickr. So what are "the media" anyway? The simple answer is that there is no such entity as "media." Once, many decades ago, we had something like the semblance of a media establishment in municipal newspapers, which carried on the front page more information than an entire thirty-minute news program. All politicians have to rely upon "the media" to get their message to Americans. Giving speeches reaches few people, and those it reaches nearly all favor the politician giving the speech anyway. All federal politicians live in that surreal Land of Oz on the Potomac, which is utterly disconnected with the lives of those they purport to represent. These media were connected to geographical community, so their bias had to be tempered with the interests and demands of a town or a city. These newspapers could not simply parrot the party line and hope to succeed commercially. Cities and towns valued genuine objectivity or at least neutrality, with real facts reported. There were a handful of newspapers like the New York Times and Washington Post that had the luxury of a national audience, but most had to cater to the genuinely diverse interests and needs of a metropolitan readership. There were also a handful of national news magazines, but these had only modest impact on opinion. Broadcasting changed all that, and the internet has changed it even more. Now what we call "the media" are simply appendages of rich corporations or ideologically specific news outlets in cyberspace. The vast majority of Americans ignore those media outlets that offend their values or politics, and this, in turn, means that these media outlets ignore those who disagree with them. What makes this even more myopic is that nearly all the national news outlets are geographically located close to each other and close to Washington, D.C. or New York City and so have the same points of reference even when these media outlets have different philosophical viewpoints. Flyover Country, in this respect, seems more like a system of colonial possessions than an integral part of the nation. The incestuous relationship between federal politicians and national news media outlets makes these outlets even more narrow-minded, lazy, and corrupt. Most Americans sense this, even if using terms like "the media" sometimes prevents them from seeing clearly that "the media" are simply a collection of rich corporations who represent the true makers and controllers of wealth: the federal government. Recognizing the meaninglessness of "the media" also means that conservatives ought to understand how the left gets its message to America. Leftists infest public school systems; universities (particularly the soft pseudo-sciences like sociology); government bureaucracies, which churn out "facts" that are nothing more than shopworn nostrums of leftism from fifty years ago; vast nonprofit organizations; and, increasingly, the bureaucracies of large corporations whose executives were brainwashed in academia and whose board members invariably seek the easy way out of conflicts (i.e., surrendering quietly to the left for peace and quiet). What does this mean for conservatives trying to restore honesty, seriousness, and freedom to the thinking and the deliberations of our nation, its government, and its citizens? Here are a few ideas. Conservatives ought to stop complaining about "the media" and state instead that all of us constitute a part of the flow of ideas, facts, values, and opinions that form our national discussion of issues and policies. The term "Malefactors of Great Wealth," a Progressive phrase of a century ago, might well be used to attack the monopoly these few great corporations have as a stranglehold on the national discussion. Conservatives ought to decry the use of publicly funded institutions like educational and governmental offices to enter into this national discussion, because these exist to serve and not to govern us. Indeed, these all have an enormous vested interest in leftist dogma, which invariably proposes more money and power to these institutions out of the public trough as a solution to social problems. Conservatives ought to attack "Capitolism," or the geographical domination that tiny bits of the map of America exercise over the rest of us. Propose moving the Federal District to the Midwest or South or Rocky Mountains, and then suggest that periodically moving the nation's capital would be a healthy step toward returning the federal government back to the governed. When these lines of attack are seriously pursued, we will begin to win back America. Until there is a bold charge like this, we can never win. President Trump's SOTU Affirmed Liberty to Unresponsive Subversives An hour before Pres. Donald Trump's State of the Union Address, I opened my mail. It included a thank-you note regarding a contribution I had made to a right-wing organization. The author of the note quoted Nikita Khrushchev, who said, "You Americans are so gullible. No, you won't accept communism outright, but we'll keep feeding you small doses of socialism until you finally wake up and find you already have communism." The author of the thank-you note was revolted by this remark by N.K. and knew I would be as well. I grew up during the Cold War and understood that communism was not merely an alternative theory of politics and economics to that held by most Americans, but was a living and breathing threat to our freedom emanating 24-7 from the USSR, the PRC, and a determined fifth column of traitorous leftists living in these United States. Our conflict with communism was not a mere academic or drawing room debate between gentleman-scholars. Rather, the ardent supporters of communism wished to extract the essence of our freedom and opportunities from our society. In the name of curbing the rich, they wish to curb us all, grab power, assert governmental force over every area of our lives, and make themselves arbiters of every life decision we make where we live, what kind of work each of us does, where and when we can and cannot travel, how to heat our homes or even build our homes, where to go to school, how many children to have, how long we live and under what conditions we live, and even the thoughts we think. Almost all that we now consider "private" they would refashion and reconfigure to be seen as "public." Our individual rights would be subsumed under collective rights. As Richard Overy relates in his remarkable volume, The Dictators: Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia, under the Soviet Union system of law, a person could be deemed guilty of a crime simply because he was documented to have had thoughts similar to the thoughts of those who actually plotted and committed a crime even if he had had no part in planning or carrying out the crime. Thus, when I see Bernie Sanders's bespectacled face, I see not just another person with whom I have some differences of opinion, but, behind his college professor visage, a hideous expression of hatred for all that we hold dear. In like manner do I perceive the other leftists of the Democratic Party with their pro-communism agenda despite their attempts to present those views as mainstream or make them sound less threatening by calling them socialistic. Pres. Donald Trump spat in the face of the socialists and socialists in sheep's clothing of the Democratic Party during Tuesday evening's State of the Union address. "America was founded on liberty and independence and not government coercion, domination, and control," he said to Republican applause. He continued, "We are born free and we will stay free. Tonight, we renew our resolve that America will never be a socialist country." These sentences cleared the air. There is no hiding from the truth encapsulated in these words. Fresh air blew through the hall and could be felt over the airwaves. The Democrats should be repudiating the extreme leftists in their party; instead, they are embracing the far left ideology. During the 1930s and 1940s, the Democrats went through a crisis where they had to repudiate the extreme left wing of the party, which roughly can be designated as those led by Henry Wallace. President Harry Truman fired Wallace from his position as secretary of commerce because he perceived Wallace as being too conciliatory toward the Soviet Union. Wallace subsequently formed the Progressive Party and ran for president against Truman and the Republican candidate, Thomas Dewey, in 1948 but garnered only 2.4% of the vote. Here was a case where the Democratic Party's leader repudiated the far-left wing of that party. Nevertheless, it was an ironic and striking reality that a large percentage of the Socialist Party platform of 1912 had been implemented in the U.S., including the graduated income tax, by the time Wallace was rejected. Most of the implementation came during the New Deal under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Only in their program of "Collective Ownership" were the goals of the Socialist Party not met over time. The people of the U.S. decided on regulation instead of ownership. The socialists wanted ownership of all banks, all transportation, all mines, all means of communication, and all land. Similar trends can be seen in the labor movement in the 1940s era. Many unions that had been strongly supportive of Pres. Franklin Roosevelt because of his initiative in getting the Wagner Act through Congress at the same time tried to purge their ranks of communist leadership. My own father was a union activist with the Transport Workers' Union. That union had been formed both by men who were communist unionists and by non-communist unionists. Under the leadership of Michael Quill, whose base was staunchly Irish Catholic and still held many so-called "bourgeois values," repudiated and kicked out the communist wing of the union, also in 1948, as the Cold War picked up a head of steam. Earlier in the century, Eugene V. Debs had run for president three times as leader of the Socialist Party, but his aggressive objection to World War I led to his imprisonment and severely set back the socialist-communist agenda in the U.S. Make no mistake about it: the Socialist Party was adamantly against private ownership of property. One need only read its platform of 1912 to see that. Labeling themselves socialists to distinguish themselves from communists should be taken with a grain of salt. Early on, the socialists realized that the word "communism" had so many negative connotations for Americans that the term "socialism" would be more palatable to the citizenry. However, their desire to control (not merely regulate) all major industries was explicit, with control of smaller industries and businesses implied. By the last presidential election of 2016, the platform of the socialists had morphed into 248 bullet points, a veritable stew of negativism that advocated for intense federal controls to invade almost every area of American life. Today's Democrats are no longer repudiating communist ideas and ideals, but are embracing in ever greater numbers its calls for universal Medicare, universal free higher education, open borders under the rubric of compassion, elimination of the electoral college, and an embrace of worldwide climate change agendas with a massive redistribution of wealth to the Third World and ever increasing government controls over every detail of daily life. These policy themes that would require a tremendous curtailment of freedom are being embraced and advocated by Democrats rather than repudiated. The communist focus of 1948 was repudiated by the Democrats of 1948, but it is being incorporated as the mainstream ideas and ideals of that party today, and individual choice and individual property rights are disparaged. During the State of the Union address, President Trump spoke forcefully and directly into the faces of subversion. Although many on the left were dressed in white, they represented the dark side of humanity. All the purity was in Trump's liberty-loving remarks. Electronic Health Records Give Way to Disasters and Dangerous Intrusions What if your doctor had no clue what he last ordered for you and no ability to order anything else? This is what can happen when an electronic health record (EHR) system crashes. In 2006, the EHR system at a major hospital crashed. One senior internist, reports the Washington Post, walked in to find no records on any patients. He said, It was like being on the moon without oxygen. While doctors struggled to keep patients alive, employees from the EHR vendor ran around with no idea how to work their own equipment. The internist emphasized, I didnt go through all my training to have my ability to take care of patients destroyed by devices that are an impediment to medical care. We explore ways to break our addiction to meat and dairy and eat dishes that are healthy for both people and the planet. Some Yazidi women have found the strength to go back and live in Sinjar, years after ISIL carried out a genocide. Nigerians preparing to head to the polls on February 16 must bear in mind that elections do not make a democracy. On January 25, Nigerias President Muhammadu Buhari suspended the countrys top judge, Walter Onnoghen, and replaced him with an acting chief justice merely weeks before a presidential election in which judiciary can play an important role. Onnoghen, as the head of Nigerias independent judiciary, had helped resolve electoral disputes in past elections, some of which have been marred by violence and vote-rigging. He was similarly expected to preside over any dispute that may arise in the upcoming February 16 election. The judges controversial suspension so close to the election date caused uproar across Nigeria, with the Nigerian Bar Association embarking on a two-day strike and the main opposition candidate, Atiku Abubakar, calling the presidents decision an act of dictatorship. The international community also expressed dismay over the usurpation of the judicial arm of the government by the executive branch, with the US and the EU suggesting the judges removal could cast a pall over the electoral process. Violating judicial independence Only four years ago, following the March 2015 presidential election, former President Goodluck Jonathan conceded his defeat to then-opposition candidate Buhari, becoming the first sitting president in Nigeria to do so. Jonathans voluntary admission of electoral defeat, which was a rarity not only in Nigeria but across the African continent, encouraged Nigerian voters to place their trust in Buhari, an erstwhile dictator who famously labelled himself a reformed democrat, to protect their rights and freedoms. 190207154502591 Democratic governments function on the principle of separation of powers the executive, the legislature and the judiciary which aims to prevent a descent to autocracy by providing for checks and balances. This is why Buharis decision to suspend Onnoghen, an apparent violation of judicial independence, was a cause for disappointment and alarm for many who believed the president would uphold democratic values. However, it needs to be noted that the suspension of the chief justice was hardly the first time the Buhari administration infringed the principle of separation of powers and put the future of Nigerian democracy at risk. Since Buhari took over the presidency, the federal government repeatedly used the fight against corruption one of the cardinal promises of the current administration as a tool to side-step the judiciary and illegally lock away, intimidate and silence its opponents and adversaries. For example, the federal government refused to release former National Security Adviser Sambo Dasuki, who had been arrested on corruption charges in December 2015, even though he has been granted bail by several Nigerian high court judges and the ECOWAS court of justice. He remains behind bars to this day. Moreover, throughout his first term in power, President Buhari openly argued for putting national interests over the rule of law, preparing the ground for authoritarianism and lawless actions. At the 2018 General Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association, for example, the president said, Rule of law must be subject to the supremacy of the nations security and national interest, and maintained that the state should be allowed to waive fundamental rights of alleged offenders when national security and public interest were threatened. Ironically, the suspended Chief Justice Onnoghen was in attendance at the event, but failed to respond to the presidents blatant attack on the rule of law and the integrity of the judiciary. Muzzled media, civil society The judiciary was not the only branch of the government that faced attacks during Buharis presidency. The members of the legislative branch have also been targeted by state operatives for acting against the Buhari administration. In August 2018, armed and masked officers from the Department of State Services (DSS) staged a blockade of the National Assembly. That very same summer, prominent senators who have maintained opposition to the government also had their homes raided. The Senate president, Bukola Saraki, and one of his key allies in the Senate, Dino Melaye, are currently being investigated and harassed by the police over alleged criminal activities. The list can go on. When the institutions that are meant to provide checks and balances, such as the National Assembly and the Supreme Court, are subdued, independent media and civil society are supposed to take over the responsibility of holding corrupt executives to account. Unfortunately, neither the media nor the civil society fared any better in Buharis Nigeria. Nigeria declined three places in RSFs World Press Freedom Index in the last three years, ranking 119th out of 180 countries in 2018. Under the Buhari administration, several journalists and activists have been imprisoned and tried on terrorism charges. A section of the Nigerian Cyberterrorism Act 2015, which was signed into law by former President Jonathan, has also been weaponized against dissenters, especially Nigerian citizens active on social media. Moreover, in 2016 the Nigerian Senate flirted with the Frivolous Petitions Bill, aka the anti-social media law, which included over-reaching provisions for social media regulation. The bill, seen by many as a dangerous encroachment on free expression, was eventually pulled following public outcry. A similar bill that seeks to equate hate speech with terrorism, however, is currently being deliberated in the National Assembly. In the last four years, the Buhari administration erased all the gains we made in the 2015 election and created the perfect environment for autocracy by further weakening our democratic institutions, muzzling our civil society, silencing independent journalists and questioning the supremacy of the rule of law. As Nigerians head to vote in the upcoming polls, we must bear in mind that elections do not make a democracy. The current state of affairs in Nigeria should be a bigger concern for us all than any potential outcome of the upcoming election. The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance. Basra, Iraq With its beautiful canals and centuries-old buildings, Basra was once renowned as the Venice of the Middle East. But the southern Iraqi city is now facing one of the regions worst environmental crises, with its rivers turned into open-air dumping sites. In recent months, some 118,000 people have been hospitalised as a result of water-related illnesses, including high fever, nausea and diarrhoea, according to Choukri al-Hassan, an air and water pollution expert at the University of Basra. The situation has prompted thousands of young people and environmental activists to take to the streets to protest against the lack of drinkable water and the governments failure to fix the crisis. Formed by a confluence of the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers, Shatt al-Arab River runs through the centre of Basra. It is polluted with germs, chemicals and toxic algae, while its high levels of salinity close to that of seawater is believed to have reached its peak last year. The water in Basra is so polluted that you cant even wash your face, al-Hassan said. Fish, turtles and crabs die. The ecosystem is changing, its a catastrophe. The water crisis also affects other areas in Iraq, including the Mesopotamian Marshlands, north of Basra. Despite Basra being one of Iraqs wealthiest cities, thanks to its oil riches, its citizens complain they do not see any of the benefits while also suffering the results of the environmental crisis. People dont want to see a doctor sometimes, Ali Kassem, a 27-year-old activist working in a Basra hospital, said. They are afraid they might discover they have cancer. Stacker explores the 100 top-rated TV shows of all time. The shows with the highest IMDb score are ranked the highest, with #1 being the best TV show of all time, as rated by IMDb users, and with ties broken by the number of votes. Click for more. A lawsuit claims that Buc-ees illegally priced gasoline when it opened its first Alabama travel center last month along Interstate 10 in Baldwin County. The lawsuit, filed in federal court by Oasis Travel Center LLC, alleges that the Lake Jackson, Texas-based company violated the 35-year-old Alabama Motor Fuel Marketing Act, and demands that the company halt its pricing strategies while the case is pending. The law, passed in 1984, prohibits big oil companies from selling gasoline to the public for less than it costs to buy and transport it to a retail outlet. Similar lawsuits, over the years, have been filed in Alabama against big-box retailers like Costco and Murphy Oil Corp., which operates Walmart gas stations. We contend Buc-ees, when it opened up two weeks ago, it opened at prices for regular unleaded and other grades at below costs as defined under the Alabama law, said H. Dean Mooty, a Montgomery-based attorney who has represented smaller-sized convenience stores in similar cases. The lawsuit specifically cites several dates when Buc-ees posted a price of regular gasoline under what state law allows. Among the dates cited is Buc-ees Jan. 21 opener, when regular gasoline was sold at a rounded price of $1.80 per gallon. The price hadnt risen above $1.87, as of Thursday, Jan. 31. The lawsuit was filed Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama, based in Mobile. According to AAA, the average price of regular gasoline in the Daphne-Fairhope-Foley area was at $2.01 per gallon last week, and $1.99 per gallon about one month ago. In Mobile, regular gasoline prices averaged around $2 per gallon last week and $1.91 last month, according to AAA. Buc-ees has 34 locations, 33 of them in Texas. The Alabama location, which was annexed into Loxley last week, is the first travel center opened by the company outside The Lone Star State. Alabama is one of a few states with a law that limits how low a retailer can drop its pump prices. Texas does not have such a law, Mooty said. We do know that Buc-ees was fully aware of the law when they opened up and frankly, we are disappointed they opened up and priced the way they did, he said We hope the filing of the lawsuit will get them to comply with the law. Jeff Nadalo, an attorney with Buc-ees, said the company was aware of the Alabama law. Buc-ees has always provided our customers with the best experience on the highway, from the worlds cleanest bathrooms, to great food, a statement from the company reads. Part of this experience includes high quality fuels, priced fairly and competitively, and we will always strive to be our customers choice in the markets where we operate. Oasis Travel Center is located about four miles east of Buc-ees, and has long been a fixture along I-10 almost halfway between Mobile and Pensacola, Florida. The quirky Oasis is home to the Derailed Diner, which offers Southern-style food inside a dining room that was built to look like a train car that collided with a truck stop. According to Mooty, the fuel prices at Buc-ees are unfair to gas retailers all around. Our plaintiff happens to be Oasis Travel Center, but anyone else would be harmed by it, he said. The lawsuit could put the 1984 state law back into the public spotlight about 15 years after controversy erupted about whether it hurt consumers by restricting competition at a time of record-high pump prices. A bill introduced in the 2004 Legislature to repeal the law failed when the House Commerce Committee shot the effort down. Proponents of the law have long claimed that it protects small and independent gas station owners from being forced out of the market by big-time competitors that can afford to drastically underprice their fuel. State NAACP officials are calling for a full-scale Department of Justice investigation into the fatal shooting of Emantic Fitzgerald EJ Bradford by a Hoover police officer inside the Riverchase Galleria. Alabama NAACP officials, along with the American Civil Liberties Union and other on Thursday held a press conference outside Hoover City Hall, saying they are outraged by Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshalls ruling that the Thanksgiving night shooting of Bradford was deemed justified. A young human being who had barely begun to live was shot three times, all three kill shots, in the back, in the back of the neck and in the head, gunned down worse than an animal, said Patricia Mokolo, the Alabama NAACP communications chair. This was found justified by the top official in Alabama. Even terrorists, like Dylan Roof, who killed nine of Gods innocent people, was captured alive and was taken out to eat at Burger King, Mokolo said. EJ Bradford killed no one. Marshall on Tuesday released his report following a more than two-month SBI investigation into Bradfords death. Marshall had the option to charge the unnamed officer, clear him or take the case to a grand jury for indictment consideration. The 24-page report clearing the officer detailed what investigators believe happened the night Bradford was killed. The AGs Office came to this conclusion: After an extensive investigation and review, the Attorney General has determined Officer 1 did not commit a crime under Alabama law when he shot and killed E.J. Bradford and thus the Alabama Rules of Professional Conduct preclude presentation of this case to a grand jury, Marshalls report states. Benard Simelton, president of the Alabama State Conference of the NAACP, said the organization salutes those in law enforcement who use restraint when confronted with use of deadly force. We come today to ask the police officer who shot and killed EJ, was shooting EJ the only choice you had when you shot and killed EJ? Did you have to shoot him? Simelton said. Alabama has an open carry gun policy that many legislators fought so hard to pass, because many of them believe that a good guy should have the authority to open carry to stop the bad guys with a gun. By all accounts, EJ was a good guy with a gun, but he was shot by aggressive police tactics. Having served 23 years in the United States Air Force in positions that required me to carry weapons at time, I know the training one goes through in order to qualify with a handgun as well as M-16 and other military weapons, he said. We are trained to use appropriate force to eliminate the threat especially in situations where there are civilians involved. I ask those police officerswas EJ a threat to you or others in the crowd? Dillon Nettles, policy analyst for the ACLU in Alabama, echoed Simelton. We hear from our president and from organizations like the NRA and from Alabamas elected leaders like Representative Mo Brooks that the solution to mass shootings is to have more armed citizens so that they can be the good guy with a gun, he said. But here was a good guy with a gun. Only he was black and instead of seeing someone who was running towards gunfire to help, they saw a threat and killed him immediately. Nettles said the ACLU and the NAACP jointly filed public records requests in December and again in January, requesting the Hoover Police Departments use-of-force policies, body camera policies and racial bias training materials. They have ignored our repeated requests and their silence is deafening, he said. The people and communities who are being hurt most by police actions deserve to know what police are being told to do in these situations, he said. Refusing to disclose this information results in withholding the peoples power and ability to demand accountability when wrongdoing occurs, deepening the distrust of law enforcement. Nettles said if they do not receive the records, they will file a lawsuit. Nettles said they also question Marshalls move to assume jurisdiction over the Galleria shooting cases from Jefferson County District Attorney Danny Carr. In December, Marshall announced his office was assuming prosecutorial jurisdiction after the admission by Carr in a letter to Marshall of the presence of potential conflicts between himself and key parties in the case. Carrs potential conflicts appeared to be his relationships with several of the organizers of ongoing protests over Bradfords death. The day after the Nov. 7 election, Carlos Chaverst Jr. posted on Facebook two photos of himself with Carr. Chaverst in 2017 had launched a petition for the governor to keep Carr as district attorney, netting more than 1,500 signatures. Nettles called it questionable logic at best and racist at worst. District Attorney Carr is an elected official; it is normal for him to have relationships with black people in Jefferson County, he said. Simelton said the NAACP is asking for seven things: 1. Full and open disclosure of what happened, release all videos, interviews. 2. Release of standard procedures for use of deadly force by police departments across Alabama. 3. For the Legislature to reverse the open carry policy and implement sensible gun control. 4. A full investigation by the Department of Justice for violation of Bradfords civil rights. 5. A full investigation by the Department of Justice into Bradfords shooting and the shooting of so many other young black men in particular. When you have an epidemic, you allocate resources to try and eradicate the problem, he said. We have an epidemic of young black males being shot to death. 6. The resignation of the police officer who shot and killed Bradford, as well as his service records. 7. For Marshall to meet with the community and explain his decision not to prosecute and answer questions. If not, then AG Marshall should resign as AG for the State of Alabama. We believe that there was more than enough evidence to send this case to a grand jury and he failed to do so, and the NAACP believes it is because the person who was shot was black and the shooter was white, Simelton said. When Marshall failed to find the officer accountable or to send this case to a grand jury, he essentially old the approximately 1.2 million African Americans in Alabama your life does not matter. A Shelby County man who killed his grandmother seven years ago has taken his own life in an Alabama prison. Daniel Scott Gentry, 31, was found hanging in his cell at William Donaldson Correctional Facility on Wednesday, authorities announced Friday. Jefferson County coroners officials said Gentry was found by correctional officers at 10:40 p.m. and pronounced dead on the scene at 10:56 p.m. Gentry was serving a sentence of life without parole for the 2012 death of Carrie Elaine Gentry, a minister who allowed her grandson to live with her after he underwent drug rehabilitation. She had disappeared about a month from her 65th birthday, and divers on April 10, 2012, located her inside her vehicle in about 40 feet of water in a Leeds quarry. According to court records, Daniel Gentry killed his grandmother by possibly stabbing her with a knife, striking her with a hammer, choking her or causing her asphyxiation with his hands or other object. He has pleaded not guilty and not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect but later pleaded guilty to avoid the death penalty. While he was in jail awaiting trial, Gentry wrote multiple letters to the court officials, including one in 2015 seeking the plea agreement. "I cannot explain all of my thoughts at the time of this tragic incident, though a terrible mistake was made," Gentry wrote in the letter. "Even though I know that I was not of sound mind I would like to respectfully request and I will respectfully accept a life sentence with the chance at parole and possible release." In that letter, he wrote, "I cannot except [sic] a life without parole sentence. I am hoping your office will have mercy on me and save my family from a trial." Earlier Friday, lawyers representing state inmates said the suicide rate in Alabama prisons has risen to a level that constitutes an emergency and that it shows the state is not fixing what a federal judge ruled in 2017 was an unconstitutional lack of mental health care for inmates. Lawyers from the Southern Poverty Law Center held a news conference this morning in front of the Alabama State House and were joined by grieving family members of inmates who took their own lives in prison in the last year. The SPLC said 13 inmates have committed suicide in Alabama prisons since December 2017. A man who was shot by Jefferson County sheriffs deputies following a traffic stop and chase in Center Point last weekend is now out of the hospital and behind bars. The Jefferson County Sheriffs Office on Friday announced charges against 27-year-old Nikolas Marteze Levert. He is charged with attempted murder, unlawful possession of marijuana and unlawful possession of a controlled substance. He was booked into the Jefferson County Jail on Wednesday. It all began about 9:48 a.m. Sunday when a deputy tried to pull over a motorist for a traffic violation. Levert refused to stop and fled into the parking lot of The Pointe apartments on Bond Circle, said sheriffs Capt. David Agee. Once at the dead end of the parking lot, the suspect left the car in drive but bailed from the vehicle. Agee said the man got out of the vehicle armed with a gun, and deputies fired on him. His car continued to roll and crashed into the front porch of an apartment. Neighbors said they heard about four shots fired. Center Point Fire and Rescue transported Levert to UAB Hospitals Trauma Center with serious injuries. The deputy was not injured. "Its a danger we face every day,'' Agee said, noting that a traffic violation likely would have yielded only a citation. Its shouldnt come to deadly force for that, and thats the danger law enforcement faces every day. Levert is charged with attempted murder because he exited the vehicle with a gun. "He presented deadly force,'' Agee said. The Alabama Law Enforcement Agencys State Bureau of Investigation continues to investigate the officer-involved shooting, which is standard procedure. Levert remains jailed on $85,000 bond. A 28-year-old Pell City man, angry after he was fired from his job, returned to the company and robbed several people at gunpoint, police say. He was captured after he sought refuge - in the St. Clair County Courthouse, of all places. Pell City police on Thursday announced formal charges against Davin Marquis Swain. Chief Paul Irwin provided this account as to what happened: Officers were dispatched just before 9 a.m. Wednesday to the Temp Force Office at 4798 1st Ave. South on a person in the building with a firearm. Moments later they were told that he had left the building in a black Ford Mustang. Police en route to the scene spotted the Mustang with a black male inside driving at a high rate of speed and running traffic signals, Irwin said. They followed the fleeing suspect, who headed straight to the St. Clair County Courthouse. Once there, he abandoned his vehicle and fled into the building. Officers entered the courthouse and took Swain into custody. Irwin said they learned Swain entered Temp Force Office and became upset with the staff because they did not have his check and he had been terminated. Swain then went outside and got a gun from his Mustang. An employee saw Swain retrieve the gun and alerted the office staff, which began to flee. Thats when, Irwin said, Swain robbed employees of their purses and then fled. The chief said Swain was taken into custody without incident and officers recovered the firearm, which Swain had abandoned. Officers recovered and returned property to the employees at Temp Force. Swain is charged with first-degree robbery, attempting to elude, theft of property and several traffic citations. He is being held in the St. Clair County Jail on bonds totaling $141,000. This is an example of the dangerous and unpredictable behavior from criminals our officers have to face each day, Irwin said. The unpredictable behavior such as this is what causes a danger to police officers and innocent citizens who are just going about their daily activities. We are fortunate that no one was injured or killed during this very dangerous situation. I am proud that this person is off the streets and our officers did an outstanding job apprehending him, he said. They make me proud every day because of the professional services they provide to our community and they are ready to face any situation on a moments notice. Anyone with information on the case is asked to call Pell City police at 205-884-3334. Steve Marshall must have been a scaredy-cat child. You know, the kid easily scared out of their wits when another child sneaked up behind him on the playground or in the hallway and said, Boo! Steve Marshall, our states top cop, must have been that scaredy-cat kid. Because hes a scaredy-cat adult. Scared, perhaps, of his own shadow. Scared, certainly, to look into the eyes of the family of E.J. Bradford, Jr. and tell them why he and his team of investigators decided the Hoover policeman who killed their son last Thanksgiving at the Riverchase Galleria was justified in doing so. That can be the only explanation. The only way to explain why Alabamas state attorney general sent an underling to Birmingham to tell the family about the decision on Tuesday morning. Why he ignored them as they sat outside his office building in Montgomery on Wednesday, understandably angry and pleading for the law enforcement official to speak with them, to meet them, to look them in the eye and explain his decision to them. Family members and supporters repeatedly called Marshall a coward. That word works, too. Full coverage of the Galleria shooting. This is not to debate the findings Marshall exhaustively outlined in the 24-page report of the investigation he and his office headed after taking it from Jefferson County District Attorney Danny Carr last December due to the potential appearance of a conflict of interest. (Though Carr made it clear to Marshall he could be fair and objective.) This is about humanity. This is about compassion. This is about respect. No matter your thoughts on the shooting, on Bradford or Erron Brown, both of whom brought guns into the mall, or on any other aspects of what happenedand whyon that tragic night, E.J. Bradford, Jr.s family, particularly his parents, deserve to sit face-to-face with the man who determined their sons death was justified. They deserve the opportunity to sit there and cry, even scream. They deserve to share their grief and pain. They deserve to ask questions. They deserve to hear from Marshall why he chose not to put the case before a grand jury. Marshall should not be afraid to hear it all. He should not be afraid to tell them. Thats what this is about. Its about a high-ranking public official showing at least a modicum of concern for Alabamians whom he ostensibly represents. Marshall hasnt even publicly expressed the requisite thoughts and prayers for the family. Hasnt mentioned their names. Ironically, the man whose city has been the bullseye of scorn since that deadly night has at least acknowledged the family and their grief. [Our prayers include] the families of Emantic Fitzgerald, EJ Bradford Jr,, Hoover mayor Frank Brocato said during a press conference Wednesday, acknowledging everyone who was injured or in the mall during that chaotic night. They love their son, he continued. They are hurting terribly, and were hurting for them. This has been a long process, and everybodys been waiting on this, and so were glad its over, but its not over for them. They lost a son, and we will never forget that. Marshalls office did not respond to an email asking if he intends to meet with the family. Ever. Why not? Unless its actually the shadow of EJ Bradford Jr. that scares him. Roy S. Johnsons column appears in The Birmingham News, the Huntsville Times, the Mobile Register and AL.com. Hit me up at rjohnson@al.com. Follow me at twitter.com/roysj or on Instagram at instagram.com/roysj/ Lawyers representing state inmates said today the suicide rate in Alabama prisons has risen to a level that constitutes an emergency and that it shows the state is not fixing what a federal judge ruled in 2017 was an unconstitutional lack of mental health care for inmates. Lawyers from the Southern Poverty Law Center held a news conference this morning in front of the Alabama State House and were joined by grieving family members of inmates who took their own lives in prison in the last year. The SPLC said 13 inmates have committed suicide in Alabama prisons since December 2017. The latest is Daniel Scott Gentry, 31, who was found hanging in his cell at William Donaldson Correctional Facility on Wednesday. Those numbers place the suicide rate at four times the national average for prisons, SPLC attorney Maria Morris said. The SPLC and the Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program represent inmates in the federal case. Last month, they asked U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson for an emergency order to block the placement of inmates diagnosed with serious mental illness in segregation, or individual cells, because the isolation causes their conditions to worsen and increases the risk of suicide. Thompson cited the risk of isolating mentally ill inmates in his 2017 ruling that mental health care was horrendously inadequate. But Morris said the practice persists and that ADOC needs to immediately take steps to stop it. They need to step up and treat this like what it is, a life and death emergency, Morris said. ADOC needs to act now to stop this extraordinary loss of life. Alabamas prisons have been overcrowded and understaffed for years. SPLC President Richard Cohen said Gov. Kay Ivey and ADOC Commissioner Jeff Dunn have not confronted the problems and criticized the plan under consideration by the Ivey administration to build three new prisons at an expected cost of about $1 billion. Former Gov. Robert Bentley also proposed building new prisons in 2016 and 2017, but the Legislature would not grant its approval. Now, the governor and her staff behind closed doors are creating a new scheme to get around the wisdom of the people, Cohen said. During her inaugural address last month, Ivey said she would make an announcement soon on prison construction. Today, Cohen called on the Legislature to tackle the prison problems with mental health care, medical care and violence. Everyone knows we cant build our way out of these problems, Cohen said. Everyone knows we need to address the acute problems with mental health care, medical care, prison violence and were not going to be doing by simply building new prisons that may open sometime in the distant future. The governors office declined comment on the remarks from the SPLC officials today. In a statement today, the ADOC said the spike in suicides is an ongoing concern that it will address. Experts retained by the ADOC and the SPLC are scheduled to issue a joint report on suicide prevention recommendations in March, the ADOC said. Dunn has said replacement of aging, outdated facilities is one component of fixing the states prisons, including medical care and mental health care. The ADOC is also asking the Legislature for a $42 million increase in its General Fund appropriation next year, with most of the increase intended to hire 500 additional correctional officers and boost correctional officer pay by 20 percent to help in recruitment and retention. But the ADOC needs to add more than 2,000 additional officers over the next few years according to the ADOC analysis submitted to the court, the SPLC said. Dunn said in the statement today that the ADOC is committed to providing appropriate mental health care. In addition to increasing our mental health staff, we also are developing a prison revitalization plan that will consolidate the delivery of mental and medical health care in a new state-of-the-art health care facility," Dunn said. "More information about the plan will be made public in the coming days. I am focused on solving this problem. Jerri Ford joined the lawyers at todays press conference. Fords husband, Paul Ford, hung himself at the Kilby Correctional Facility in January. Ford was in a segregation cell and had been diagnosed with a serious mental illness, according to the SPLC. He was serving a sentence of life without parole for a 1995 murder conviction in Talladega County. Fords sister, nephew and granddaughter also appeared today. He was a very good person, Jerri Ford said. He thought a lot of other people. He was not selfish, by no means. She said the segregation and limited visitation opportunities took a toll on her husband, as well as she and the rest of the family. He got us through as much as we got him through, the situations that we were in, Jerri Ford said. Without each other, thats just how it goes. Morris said the state cannot ignore the problem of prison suicides. These are our brothers and our sisters, our mothers and fathers, our sons and daughters, Morris said. Theyre in our prisons and they suffer hopelessness and desperation and many of them suffer from mental illness. Alabama needs to address this problem and it needs to do it now. Updated at 6:09 p.m. with statement from the ADOC. This is an opinion column. Imagine the shoe was on the other foot. What if a man committed a foul crime and was, in keeping with the law of his land, sentenced to be hanged? Sure. Got it. What if the man came to find Jesus while imprisoned, as he contemplated life and impending death? What if he was befriended by a Christian pastor, an adviser? What if he came to rely on the Holy Bible for his eternal salvation in the years before the sentence was carried out? What if the state took away his Bible? What if? What if? What if the warden in his prison, and the state that sanctioned it, said his preacher would not be allowed with him when the moment of death came, but a Muslim cleric must be? You know what. Cries of injustice would echo through churches and the town halls. The state would be bashed as barbaric, the warden held up as a symbol of all that is wrong in a godless world. This could not happen in a country that is as free as our own, where our very first amendment bars government from picking one religion over another. But the shoes not on the other foot. It is solidly on Alabamas, where freedom of religion too often means freedom to worship as you are expected to do. There has been a lot of furor over the case and ultimate execution Thursday night of Domineque Ray. Ray, a heinous killer, had sought a stay a last-minute delay arguing that Alabama was wrong to deny him his Muslim spiritual adviser at the time of his death. It was wrong, his lawyers argued, that Alabama initially required that a Christian chaplain had to be there with him, wrong that Alabama took away his Quran in the days leading up to his execution. There was a lot of legal maneuvering in the days and hours leading up to a U.S. Supreme Court decision that allowed his 6 p.m. execution. The prison ultimately gave him back his Quran and the state said it would not force him to have the Christian chaplain present, though it would not let any outsider into the execution chamber for security reasons, even in the name of religious freedom. That protocol, prison officials said, has not changed. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall argued in a filing to the Supreme Court that Ray was a bad guy, which he was, and that he just wanted to delay his death, which he probably did. Marshall argued after a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had sided with Ray, that neither Rays beliefsnor even the Establishment Clause entitle Ray to have the spiritual adviser of his choice present in the chamber. The Supreme Court, on a 5-4 vote, agreed with him, along predictable lines. Justice Elena Kagan wrote in dissent that Alabamas policy goes against the Establishment Clauses core principle of denominational neutrality. Here, Ray has put forward a powerful claim that his religious rights will be violated at the moment the State puts him to death, it went on. The Eleventh Circuit wanted to hear that claim in full. Instead, this Court short-circuits that ordinary process and itself rejects the claim with little briefing and no argument just so the State can meet its preferred execution date. The answer seems pretty simple. If Alabama cant allow an inmate to choose his own religious guide as he exits this earth, maybe they shouldnt let any religious leaders into the execution chamber at all. Easy. But Ray is dead. I do not ask you to grieve him, for grief is more appropriate for his victims Earnest and Reinhard Mabins and Tiffany Harville. But I grieve for the things we do. What if the shoe if the religion were on the other foot? John Archibald, a Pulitzer Prize winner, is a columnist for Reckon by AL.com. His column appears in The Birmingham News, the Huntsville Times, the Mobile Register and AL.com. Write him at jarchibald@al.com. The U.S. Navy is bringing some heavy metal to Mobile as part of its Navy Week presence at the height of Mardi Gras season. The Navy has confirmed that a destroyer, the USS James E. Williams, will dock in Mobile March 1 as part of Navy Week. The ship, designated DDG 95, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer built by Ingalls in Pascagoula. It is named in honor of a South Carolina native who served during the Korean and Vietnam wars, becoming the most highly decorated enlisted man in the history of the U.S. Navy," according to the ships official website. He received the Medal of Honor in 1968 and went on to serve as a U.S. Marshal. Information about the timing of the ship's arrival and possible public tours was not yet available. Another destroyer, the USS Mitscher, was open for tours when it docked in Mobile as part of Navy Week programming in 2017. Navy Week activities will take place Feb. 27 through March 5; March 5 is Fat Tuesday. Events typically featured include appearances by visits by Navy leadership, appearances by sailors assigned to the USS Constitution, demonstrations by Navy divers and Explosive Ordnance Disposal teams, and performances by a Navy band. Navy personnel will visit schools, participate in parades, visit local veterans and take part in community service projects. A schedule of Navy Week activities will be released later this month. Descendants of the captives brought to the United States aboard the Clotilda, the last U.S. slave ship, will hold the Spirit of Our Ancestors festival in Africatown this Saturday from 12 to 4 p.m. The festival will be held in the Mobile County Training School, which originally opened its doors in 1880 as a school for the children of the freed slaves who arrived on the Clotilda. The Clotilda story is a dark one, and involves a bet made in 1858 by Timothy Meaher, a Mobile steamboat captain. Though slavery was still legal in America, it had been illegal since 1808 to import new slaves into the country. Meaher bet that he could bring 100 slaves from Africa and sneak them into the country despite the federal ban. Meaher was successful in his nefarious endeavor. With the end of the Civil War a few years later, all of the African captives were freed. Stranded in this country and unable to afford passage back to Africa, the slaves banded together, bought some land and created Africatown, the only community in the nation founded by people born in Africa. In the modern era, the story of Africatown was almost unknown. The once thriving community has suffered an overwhelming decline in recent decades as businesses, from grocery stores to barbershops and movie theaters, disappeared and some homes fell into disrepair. AL.coms search for the wreck of the Clotilda, which began in January of 2018, has garnered international attention for Africatown and the story of the last slave ship. A second ship found by the news organization in April of 2018 has been determined to be exactly the same size as the Clotilda, according to lead archaeologist Jim Delgado. More scientific work will be required before a positive identification can be made. You can read about the find and the ongoing investigation here. The Spirit of Our Ancestors festival honors the families of Charlie Lewis, Peter Lee, Orsa Keeby, Pollee Allen, and Cudjo Lewis, all Clotilda survivors. The story of Cudjo Lewis, who was the last surviving captive before he died in his nineties, is being brought to the screen by the rapper/actor Common, in an adaptation of Zora Neale Hurstons best-selling book Barracoon. The keynote speaker at the festival, Natalie Robertson, is the author of The Slave Ship Clotilda and the Making of Africatown USA. "My book is a vehicle for the enslaved Africans and descendants to raise their voices and be heard. That was always my goal from the beginning," she said. "This is the charge given to them by the ancestors, and so there is a spiritual responsibility to keep that history alive and preserve it." Festival events includes two ceremonies, Bringing in the Elders by Deborah Ferguson from the University of South Alabama and libations. Other activities include drumming by Wayne Curtis, a quilt display by Charlie Lewis Descendant Lorna Woods (Davis aunt), and an African-themed fashion show by Theola Bright. The Muslim spiritual adviser to an Alabama Death Row inmate executed Thursday night said the condemned man was able to read the Quran and say his required prayers before death. Alabama executed Domineque Hakim Marcelle Ray for the 1995 slaying of a 15-year-old Selma girl, after the U.S. Supreme Court lifted a federal appeals court stay based on the inmates request to have his Muslim spiritual adviser at his side when he died. Yusef Maisonet, imam of Masjid As Salaam in Mobile, said he met with Ray at 4 p.m. and stayed with him about an hour. Ray had been provided his Quran and was able to read it for four to five hours, Maisonet said. Maisonet said he instructed Ray on how to pray, to turn his head to the left toward his spiritual adviser to indicate he was following instructions, and to point his right index finger outward in affirmation as Muslims often do while reciting their core belief. Maisonet instructed Ray to say, in Arabic, There is no God but one God, and Muhammad is his apostle, before he died. Ray pointed his right index finger and appeared to say the words, said Maisonet, who watched from a viewing room through a mirrored window along with Rays attorneys. It was pretty emotional to see anybody die, Maisonet said. Maisonet said he would have preferred to be in the death chamber with Ray, but was able to spend enough time with him to prepare him for a proper Muslim death. The whole situation could have been resolved between me and the warden," Maisonet said of the lawsuit that protested Ray not being able to have his preferred spiritual adviser in the chamber. The prisons staff Christian chaplain would have been allowed in the death chamber, but Ray asked that he not be, and he was not. Maisonet was allowed to see him in a waiting cell prior to Ray being taken to the death chamber. I saw him at 4 p.m., and stayed in there about an hour; we went over all the possibilities, Maisonet said. I explained to him how he needed to conduct himself as a Muslim. He carried out his and my wishes. Maisonet said he wasnt asking for any privilege he wouldnt request for people of other faiths. I would have supported if it was a Jew, to have a rabbi in there; if it were a Christian, to have a pastor; and for a Muslim, to have an imam, Maisonet said. That was the only issue for me. Rays execution came 20 years after being put on death row, and while he was also serving time for the killings of two teenage boys who were slain the year before Tiffany Harville was fatally stabbed. For the boys killings, he was sentenced to life in prison. Maisonet said he was not concerned about discussing Rays crimes or his claims to innocence. I didnt want to get into the legalities of the case, Maisonet said. I know how prisoners talk in a certain manner, for life in the prison. My deepest condolence goes out to the family of the victims. For Muslims, the issue was fair treatment by the state prison system, he said. This is America, Maisonet said. We should be able to grant citizens the right to die according to their religion. Muslim organizations will be more organized in the future to speak for a growing Muslim population in the state prison system, he said. We are going to try to pursue that in the future, form a Muslim advisory board, so we can deal with the imam situation in all of the jails in Alabama, Maisonet said. I guess it was their right to deny me (access to the death chamber), he said. We ask for the right to observe the rituals of an imam to a dying Muslim. Maisonet feels satisfied that happened in this case, as well as it could given the circumstances. He died with his finger stretched out, Maisonet said. He was reciting. I couldnt hear through the glass, but he said, There is no God but one God, Muhammad is his apostle. It is Alabama Department of Corrections policy that only DOC employees can be in the chamber at the time of execution. Maisonet volunteers and is not on the staff of the DOC, which he said has no paid Muslim chaplains on staff. Maisonet said he met Ray six years ago, and at that time Ray was already a Muslim. Maisonet goes to Death Row at Holman Correctional Facility once a month to lead prayer for about eight to 10 Muslims, he said. Maisonet on Friday morning discussed his Thursday visit with Ray in the hours before the execution. When I went in to visit him, Ray showed me the same attitude he always did; he was nice, easy to talk to. This is what he told me: Look, Im Muslim. Ive been making my prayers. He said, Im innocent of this crime. I said, Im not asking you that. I want to make the transition for you to the next life. As far as the legalities, Im not a lawyer. Im trying to fight for his rights and any other Alabamian to die as a Jew, Christian or Muslim. I dont see any difference for any of us. The chaplain is a fine man. I dont have any animosity to him. I dont want his job. Ive got all kind of training. Hes in the gurney strapped down. Im not going to interfere. I wouldnt do that. Maisonet said he read numerous passages of the Quran with Ray, not knowing if the execution would take place or not. We went through with it as if the execution was going through, Maisonet said. We read different passages. Look, he had all the time in the world to read. That was an issue for a couple hours and they allowed him to have a Quran. I saw it myself. He had it for four or five hours. He died according to Islam. I would claim he was my brother in faith. Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird, is having a good year, two years after her death. A play adapted from her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is the hottest ticket on Broadway, and Lee will be inducted into the Alabama Womens Hall of Fame next month. Lee, born in Monroeville in 1926, died on Feb. 19, 2016. The Hall of Fame requires that inductees must have been deceased for two years. Nelle Harper Lee and Milly Francis will be inducted on March 7. The induction ceremony will take place at 10:30 a.m. in Alumnae Auditorium on the Judson College campus in Marion, and will be open to the public at no charge. A luncheon will follow the induction ceremony. Alabama historian Wayne Flynt, professor emeritus at Auburn University and longtime friend of Harper Lee, will give the keynote address at the luncheon. Reservations are required for the luncheon (tickets $50) and must be made by March 1 by calling (334) 683-5109. Here are biographies on the inductees from the Alabama Womens Hall of Fame: Nelle Harper Lee Best known as the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Nelle Harper Lee was born in Monroeville, Alabama, on April 28, 1926. She attended Huntingdon College in 1944-45 and transferred to The University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa in 1945. Pursuing her interest in writing, Lee contributed articles to the Universitys campus newspaper, The Crimson White, and its humor magazine, the Rammer-Jammer, of which she eventually became editor. During her junior year, she was admitted into The University of Alabama School of Law, which at the time allowed undergraduate students to begin their law degrees early. Six months before earning her law degree, Lee made the pivotal decision to move to New York City to pursue her dream of becoming a writer. She published To Kill a Mockingbird in 1960. The novel has remained continuously in print and is a staple of schoolroom reading lists in the United States and abroad. By the 50th anniversary of its publication, To Kill a Mockingbird had been translated into more than forty languages and had sold more than forty million copies worldwide. In 2015, Lee published another novel, Go Set a Watchman, which became an immediate #1 New York Times bestseller. In addition to the Pulitzer Prize, the numerous awards, recognitions, and honors received by Lee during her lifetime for her contributions to literature include the Presidential Medal of Freedom (2007), the National Medal of Arts (2010), and six honorary doctorates from colleges and universities. Lee was a generous benefactor to her church and to many charitable, educational and nonprofit organizations, and privately, to many individuals. She died in Monroeville on February 19, 2016. Lee will be inducted by a personal friend, Joy Williams Brown. Milly Francis Milly Francis was born in 1802 or 1803 in east central Alabama, just below the juncture of the Coosa and Tallapoosa Rivers. Her parents were Josiah and Polly Francis, Creek Indians of both European and American Indian descent. In 1812, a traditionalist Creek faction whose members became known as Red Sticks called for an end to accommodation with the United States, a movement that would lead to the Creek War (1813-1814). Millys father Josiah joined the Red Stick movement as a prophet and began a traditionalist settlement known as Econochaca, or Holy Ground, between what is now Selma and Montgomery. Holy Ground would become the war capital for the Red Sticks and the site of a pivotal Creek defeat during war. After the defeat at Holy Ground, Francis joined his family, who had evacuated to west Florida. In 1818, Milly saved the life of Duncan McKrimmon, a U.S. soldier stationed near her home of present-day St. Marks, Florida. McKrimmon, lost in the forest after a fishing trip, was captured by Creek warriors. As the warriors prepared to execute him, Milly interceded on McKrimmons behalf, and the warriors spared his life. The incident was widely publicized and romanticized throughout the region. In 1819, she settled at Tuckabatchee (a Creek town on the Tallapoosa River near Montgomery) and married an Indian warrior, Cochan Hoboithley, with whom she had eight children. In 1836, she and her children were among the Creeks relocated on the Trail of Tears to Oklahoma. Her husband died in 1837 on his way to join them after fulfilling military obligations in Florida. Years later, while investigating frauds committed against the Indians, Colonel Ethan Allen Hitchcock visited Milly to hear the story of McKrimmons rescue from her own lips. Moved by her story, and seeing her impoverished circumstances, he petitioned Congress to approve a small pension for her. In 1844, Congress passed a bill and approved a pension of $96 per year and the awarding of a medal. Milly died of tuberculosis in 1848 without receiving the pension or medal. Milly Francis will be inducted by Alex Colvin, a doctoral candidate at Auburn University. For more information about the induction ceremony, luncheon, or the Alabama Womens Hall of Fame, contact Beth Poole, Executive Secretary, at bpoole1@judson.edu or 334.683.5109. The Alabama Womens Hall of Fame is located in Marion, Alabama, on the campus of Judson College in A. Howard Bean Hall. The Hall of Fame was established in 1970 to provide a permanent place of honor for Alabamas most outstanding women and a place for visitors to learn about the significant contributions these women have made to the state and nation. Inductees must be deceased for two years and be from or affiliated with Alabama. Women to be inducted are selected by unanimous vote of the board of directors of the AWHF. Birminghams Brasfield & Gorrie has been awarded the contract for a $15.8 million parking garage at the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC) in Jackson. The project calls for a five-level, 517-space parking deck adjoining the UMMC Pediatrics Tower, which B&G is also building. The seven-story, 360,000-square-foot tower, adjacent to Batson Childrens Hospital, is expected to be completed in the fall of 2020. The parking deck should finish the summer of 2020. The hospital expansion includes 88 private neonatal intensive care rooms, additional space for surgery and pediatric intensive care, an imaging center designed for children and an outpatient clinic. The new tower and its components will accommodate 30 to 40 percent more outpatient treatments, 40 percent more surgeries, and double the access to imaging services, meaning a need for more parking. This parking deck will provide important support to the already-busy childrens hospital, Brasfield & Gorrie Vice President and Division Manager Ed Hauser said. As a parent, I know firsthand the importance of making any hospital visit as smooth as possible. Brasfield & Gorries Jackson, Miss., office will manage the construction project. The general contractor has completed other projects in the state, including the new Westin Jackson and the recently completed District at Eastover mixed-use urban revitalization development in downtown Jackson. Brasfield & Gorrie is ranked fourth nationally among top general contracting companies in healthcare construction by Modern Healthcare magazine, based on 2017 revenue. GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip Palestinian women are facing economic and social barriers in business as they attempt to break the male monopoly over leadership roles in commerce. According to a Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics report from December, female participation in the labor force in 2017 amounted to 19.2% of all women age 15 and older, with 1.9% of that figure owning businesses. About 66.4% of the 19.2% held service jobs and 11.9% of them worked in the trade sector. Speaking to Al-Monitor, Palestinian Businesswomen's Association (ASALA) Chairwoman Raja Rantisi said, Female participation in businesses in the Palestinian territories is low, and is mainly centered on small enterprises such as beauty salons and clothing shops. She explained that small businesses willing to grow into big ones face complications, most notably a lack of financial resources, as Palestinian women continue to be denied a key source of money: inheritances. And then there is the wide societal perception that "women belong in the home." Female candidates have been virtually absent in West Bank provincial elections for boards of chambers of commerce and industry. Very few hold positions as business managers, directors or chairwomen. These elections are held every four years, most recently Jan. 20 to Feb. 3. Chambers of commerce and industry seek to care for and protect the interests of business enterprises, enhance cooperation among their members (namely the merchants and businesspeople), help promote local products, encourage investments and serve the local community. Jamal Jawabra, secretary-general of the West Bank Federation of Palestinian Chambers of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture, told Al-Monitor the umbrella organization covers 13 chambers in the West Bank, each with a board of nine to 13. The total membership of 60,000 includes 1,700 women, he said. He noted that only three female candidates participated in the recent race to elect board members for three different chambers. Rantisi explained that most businesswomen are unable to meet the board nomination conditions, particularly since they are required to pay 1,000 Jordanian dinars ($1,400) to gain ballot access, a sum that most women who run small businesses or startups can't afford. Businesswomen are required to have male partners in their businesses from whom they need to obtain an authorization to run in the chambers' board elections. Each enterprise has one electoral vote. Women often end up without said authorization, she said. On Jan. 31, Maryam Abu Ein became one of 13 board members of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry for Ramallah and al-Bireh governorates. On Jan. 26, Fatima Rayan won a seat on the 11-member board of the Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture for Qalqilya. The third female candidate, Azad Abu Shaqdem, was the first businesswoman to run in the Nablus Chamber of Commerce and Industry board election. She competed with 26 male candidates to win seats on the 13-member board. Abu Shaqdem, however, lost the Feb. 2 elections. Abu Shaqdem, a mother of five, has been running her ready-made clothing business for 12 years. Prior to the elections, she held dozens of meetings with merchants to solicit their votes and share her campaign platform, which focused on promoting trade tourism, annual trade shows and exhibitions in the city. Speaking to Al-Monitor, Abu Shaqdem said she ran for the Nablus board to break the male monopoly on trade, encourage women to follow her lead and demonstrate that women can prove themselves. Women should have run in these elections years ago. It's true I didn't win, but the step I made gives hope for women to take part in the next elections, she added. Roubi al-Masrouji, a Palestinian woman running a retail women's clothing business in Jerusalem, told Al-Monitor one reason women typically don't run in chamber elections even when they can meet the eligibility requirements is that they have lost faith in their ability to win, given the vast majority of male voters and candidates. This discourages the women's blocs in these chambers from making strong efforts to promote women candidates "and mobilizing voters to their advantage, she said. "The absence of women in the Palestinian chambers of commerce boards obstructs any genuine advancement in the business environment," she said. Masrouji said a quota system would help the effort by reserving seats for women. Yet she expressed reservations about relying solely on such a system. The goal behind women candidates joining the race isn't limited to them becoming board members. Rather, they need to become partners in the decision-making and in the management of Palestinian trade and industry. ASALA's Rantisi explained that women's blocs in these chambers must develop their visions and goals to create advancement programs for women. Turkey finds itself in an increasingly difficult situation on two fronts in Syria. Its key priorities have boiled down to trying to keep Russian and Syrian regime forces out of Idlib on the one hand and securing the departure of US forces from Manbij and territories east of the Euphrates River on the other. The two topics will continue to drain Turkeys diplomatic energies in the coming weeks and months and require subtle negotiations with the United States and Russia if Ankara is to make any headway in its plans for northern Syria. With Washingtons determination to contain Iran and Russian plans to establish a strong presence in the Middle East by way of Syria, Ankara appears to be caught between two superpowers that it ultimately has little capacity to budge. Despite many rounds of talks with Moscow and Washington, Ankara has still made little progress on both counts so far. Positive statements from the sides about a determination to continue working closely to overcome differences have not changed the picture much. Reflecting his frustration with Washington, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan gave notice to America yet again this week, indicating that a Turkish military operation against the US-backed Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) in Manbij is near. Our patience is not limitless. If the terrorists are not removed from Manbij within a few weeks, our waiting period will end and we will gain the right to put our own plans into action, Erdogan told his parliamentary group on Feb 5. He added that threats of US sanctions would not deter Turkey. Erdogan has been issuing these threats for months now, but little has changed. Turkey says the YPG and its political wing, the Democratic Union Party, are terrorist groups and has vowed to eliminate them from northern Syria. The feeling in Ankara is increasingly that President Donald Trump is under pressure to slow down if not reverse his decision to pull out of Syria. The official Anadolu News Agency reported this week that Washington was still sending heavy equipment to Manbij, despite Trumps decision in December to remove US troops from Syria. It carried footage from Feb. 5 showing 400 trucks laden with electrical generators and high-mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicles entering Manbij, which is currently held by the US-backed YPG. News of the fresh transfer to Manbij broke as Turkish and US officials were meeting in Washington to discuss their differences on multiple issues, including Syria. Little progress appears to have been made in these talks headed by Turkish Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Sedat Onel and his American counterpart, David Hale. The joint statement issued later merely indicated that the sides had expressed determination to continue to work together to achieve further progress on Syria, counterterrorism, defense matters, and judicial and consular issues. Little progress is also being reported between the sides on plans to establish a security zone in northern Syria, which Washington has agreed to in principle and which aims to address Turkeys security needs arising from the YPG threat. The Turkish press is reporting that Washington is pressing for this zone to be policed by an international force, which Ankara finds to be unrealistic. Ankara wants the Turkish military and its Syrian proxy, the Free Syrian Army, to take control of this zone. It also wants to settle hundreds of thousands of the nearly 4 million Syrian refugees in Turkey who have started to pose a heavy social and economic burden on the country in settlements in this zone. Many analysts argue that Ankara is aiming to establish a strong foothold in northern Syria in order to ultimately curb all Kurdish aspirations of some degree of autonomy in the region. The results of Turkeys Operation Euphrates Shield and Operation Olive Branch, launched in 2016 and 2018 respectively, have provided some results for Ankara in this regard. They have, however, not been sufficient to shift the balance of power to Turkeys advantage with regard to its broader objectives in Syria. Those objectives require that Turkey get full military control over Manbij and lands east of the Euphrates. The United States, however, has openly expressed its opposition to a Turkish military presence in the region as well as its determination to protect the YPG against Turkish attacks. It is not expected to change its position soon given the reportedly anti-Turkish climate that is prevalent in Washington. Turkey is also facing serious difficulties in Idlib, where it is trying and failing to prevent Russian-Syrian operations there. Moscow continues to complain that the memorandum agreed upon between Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin in September 2018 for Idlib is not working. According to the memorandum, Turkey which has established a military presence in the province was to neutralize the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group that Moscow and Damascus have vowed to eliminate. In return, Moscow and Damascus agreed not to stage any attacks on the province. While not accusing Turkey directly, Russia has been saying for weeks that the Idlib accord is not being fully implemented. Moscow also says that HTS has taken control of 70% of Idlib province, prompting a resumption of Russian and Syrian strikes there. Aware of the increasing difficulties it faces in Idlib, Ankara has started to accuse the West of supporting HTS in order to undermine the Turkish-Russian memorandum. Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu repeated this accusation first brought up by Erdogan in December 2018 during a meeting with Hurriyet editors last week. I know for a fact that some Western countries are encouraging HTS and even giving it money to commit these violations in order to spoil the Idlib memorandum, Cavusoglu said. A Western diplomat who was asked to comment on this characterized the accusation as defying logic. This reflects Ankaras desperation in the face of the situation in Idlib that is spiraling out of control, said the diplomat, who spoke to Al-Monitor on the condition of anonymity. Hurriyet commentator Sedat Ergin argued that if Cavusoglus accusation was made by a columnist with an inclination for conspiracy theorizing, then one could approach it with suspicion. Whichever way you look at it, this is a strong statement that has to be taken seriously. It is difficult to imagine that a foreign minister would level such a charge without strong intelligence in his hand, Ergin wrote. Cavusoglus claim is also gaining traction among military analysts. Retired Brig. Gen. Naim Baburoglu pointed out that the United States was already cooperating with the YPG, which Turkey labels a terrorist organization linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party. It would not be exaggerating to say that the United States, which has used al-Qaeda and the Islamic State to serve its national interests, would also use the HTS against Turkey and others, Baburoglu wrote. Whatever the merits or demerits of this argument, it contributes little to resolving Ankaras dilemma in Idlib. Meanwhile, Ankara and Moscow also remain at odds over the question of a security zone in northern Syria. During his meeting with Hurriyet editors, Cavusoglu asserted that Russia was not averse in principle to the idea of such a zone. Moscow, however, has declared on multiple occasions in recent days and weeks that Syrian regime forces should move into the region once US forces pull out from there. Cavusoglu added that if regime forces were to take control over northern Syria, this would not eliminate Ankara security concerns because the regime and the YPG could join forces against Turkey. This remark alone highlights Ankaras difficult situation, since Russia is actively trying to encourage an agreement between the regime and the YPG in northern Syria and has also made clear that it is not averse to some rights being granted to the Syrian Kurds. The bottom line appears to be that the lack of a policy on the Syrian Kurds is emerging as one of Ankaras main stumbling blocks in Syria. Ankara says the YPG does not represent the Kurds and it has no quarrel with the Kurds. It has, however, not reached out in any tangible way to the Syrian Kurds, which suggests one of two possibilities: one, that its Kurdish phobia extends to all Syrian Kurds, and two, that there are no Turkey-friendly Kurds left to reach out to in Syria because the majority of Kurds are pro-YPG at this stage. BEIRUT When Daniela Massou answered her phone Jan. 22, she was instructed to come to a meeting the following day at the Lebanese American University (LAU). Massou is one of 29 students from the West Bank and Gaza enrolled at LAU or the American University of Beirut (AUB) thanks to Tomorrows Leaders, a scholarship program of the US-Middle East Partnership Initiative. The scholarships, primarily funded by the US State Department, cover tuition and living expenses for promising young leaders from across the Middle East. On Jan. 23, Massou was informed that the scholarships had been terminated for Palestinians. All [13] of us in the meeting were crying when we heard the news, Massou, a 17-year-old from Bethlehem, told Al-Monitor at a Beirut cafe. One of the students finally asked why this was happening, and we were told that its because of the US Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act. The US Congress passed the Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act on Oct. 3, 2018, to allow American victims of terrorism to sue their attackers if the perpetrators belonged to a foreign entity that receives US funding. The Palestinian Authority (PA) responded Jan. 20 by forgoing all US aid, to avoid costly lawsuits for acts of political violence and terrorism that the Palestine Liberation Organization committed in the 1970s and 1980s. The act took effect Jan. 31, and the assistance the PA relinquished covered the scholarship program. AUB quickly pledged to secure $1.2 million to ensure that the 16 Palestinian students enrolled there through the program would be able to complete their courses and graduate. The university is soliciting donations and exploring other sources of revenue to cover the deficit. LAU has made no promises, but representatives say it is working hard to finance the 13 Palestinian students beyond the spring of this year. If the money is not found, Massou and her peers will be sent home without having completed their studies. Miral Atick, a freshman at LAU from Bethlehem planning to major in political science next year, said she would be devastated to return home at the end of the semester. All my life it was a goal to study abroad to get away from the [Israeli] occupation, Atick told Al-Monitor. I also thought that a scholarship would only be taken away from me if I was a bad student, not because Im Palestinian. Atick is not the first person in her family to have her education interrupted. She said her father had been jailed by Israel in his final semester at Bethlehem University for his support of the first intifada (1987-1993). He was released after a year, but, Atik said, by that time he had lost the motivation to resume his studies, so he never graduated. Atick declined to elaborate further on his case. Mohamad Abumery, an 18-year-old from Gaza, fears a worse fate. He has already survived three wars and the daily hardship of life in Gaza, which rights group have described as an open-air prison due to the land and sea blockade imposed by Israel since 2007. Attending university abroad, he said, was his only dream. He dreads the idea of returning to Gaza if LAU fails to find a solution. I rejected two full scholarships for this one at LAU, and I feel like the whole world is against me right now, Abumery told Al-Monitor by phone. I don't want to return to Gaza. He added, Gaza is a cemetery for dreams. For Abumery, as well as many other Palestinians in Gaza, enrolling in a local university would be impossible because his family cannot afford the fees. In spring 2018, at least one-third of students dropped out of the Islamic University of Gaza because they could not pay tuition. Even if they can cover the cost, those who manage to graduate have little chance of finding jobs. The termination of the Tomorrow's Leaders scholarships also risks leaving Lina Abuzubaida, a sophomore from Gaza, in limbo. She said Israel required her to sign a contract stipulating that she would not return to Gaza for a year, until August 2019. Since February 2016, Israel has required this of Palestinians who, when unable to exit Gaza via the Rafah crossing with Egypt, must travel into and across Israel to exit the Palestinian territories via the King Hussein Bridge into Jordan. With her studies only financed until the spring, Abuzubaida has no idea how to stay on in Lebanon legally or what she will face if she tries to return home early. Abuzubaida has not told her father about the scholarship so as not to worry him. In an effort to resolve her predicament, she is searching desperately for new scholarships. She said Turkey might be an option since it regularly offers Palestinians opportunities to study there. My parents didnt go to university, but they really care about our education, Abuzubaida told Al-Monitor. They told all [my siblings] that we cant just grow up without an education, but after stealing our country, [the United States] is now stealing our education. Massou feels similarly and views the termination of her scholarship as part of a broader US policy designed to force Palestinians to negotiate a surrender to Israel. In August, the United States canceled $200 million in aid for programs in Gaza administered through the US Agency for International Development that assisted thousands of people. The Donald Trump administration then cut all funding to the UN Relief Works Agency, which is tasked with providing schooling and health care to Palestinian refugees. Now, the Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act is denying some of the brightest young Palestinians an opportunity to study. Massou said, Some of us were wondering if cutting our scholarships was even legal since we signed contracts. We all just feel like puppets. We earned a scholarship, and then overnight we didnt have a scholarship anymore. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has launched a Facebook television channel in a bid to fortify his constituency ahead of the critical decision by Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit regarding his possible indictment. Not that Netanyahu lacks media outlets under his control. He has a freebie newspaper with a circulation in the hundreds of thousands (Israel Hayom), a TV station wholly dedicated to right-wing propaganda and Netanyahu support (Channel 20), and he has a loyal cadre of so-called journalists some wholly lacking in skills or experience in major media outlets. All ensure that his messages resonate clearly on all available platforms. Netanyahu, however, wants more. Like his patron, Donald Trump, he can never get enough favorable coverage and flattery. Even if all the real journalists in Israel are silenced, Netanyahu will continue to feel persecuted. On Feb. 2, Netanyahus Likud party launched its own online television channel from its historic Metzudat Zeev headquarters in Tel Aviv. BB-TV, as it has come to be known (the acronym is based on Netanyahus nickname, Bibi), includes a nightly news webcast anchored by a popular reality television survivor with no journalism experience, Eliraz Sade. The point of the webcast, says Netanyahu, is to wipe out the fake news industry directed by Israeli media against him. In fact, BB-TV is the ultimate in fake news. Netanyahu himself is the regular guest almost every evening. Obviously, he does not have to field hardball questions, only softball ones at which he is known to excel. Netanyahus private label webcast is his latest weapon in the campaign against Mandelblit, who has already said he would announce his decision on whether to indict Netanyahu on corruption charges before the April 9 elections, making the coming weeks the most critical for Israeli politics in a very long time. Justice Ministry sources say Mandelblit intends to issue his announcement prior to the Feb. 21 deadline for submitting the names of all candidates running in the elections, meaning within the coming 10 days. Mandelblit appears to have decided to indict Netanyahu on charges stemming from two of the three criminal probes against him. In Case 4000, Mandelblit is leaning toward a charge of bribery over Netanyahus alleged quid-pro-quo relationship with former media and telecom tycoon Shaul Elovitz. In Case 1000, involving gifts Netanyahu received from Hollywood mega-producer Arnon Milchan, Mandelblit is expected to opt for lesser charges of fraud and breach of trust, although the police recommended a charge of bribery. The remaining case, Case 2000, is a particularly explosive time bomb starring, in addition to Netanyahu, Israels most powerful news publisher, Arnon Mozes, owner of the mass-circulation daily Yedioth Ahronoth and the top Israeli news website Ynet. Most of Mandelblits advisers and deputies believe Case 2000 is a bribery affair of tremendous public importance. A minority within his team caution against intervening in the sensitive and explosive domain of relations between politicians and the media. Mandelblit himself is leaning toward indictment but is still grappling with this understandably tough decision. Indicting Netanyahu would almost automatically entail indicting Mozes, which is the last thing Mandelblit needs right now. It would pit him not only against Netanyahu and his followers but against the powerful Yedioth Ahronoth Group. Case 2000 is a ticking time bomb on the attorney general's desk. Almost any decision he makes will generate an unprecedented flood of criticism, and he knows it. The case appears to have solid evidentiary grounding based on recordings of a series of secret meetings between Netanyahu and Mozes during which the two allegedly conspired to carry out what appears to be a classic bribery deal. The alleged deal would have had the Yedioth media outlets scale down their criticism of the prime minister and soften their overall hostile line against him, enabling his re-election. The groups editorial line is the sole prerogative of its publisher, and he is heard on tape promising a shift although he also warned that he would be unable to influence what his top columnists write. Netanyahu, for his part, promised to try to curb the distribution of Yedioths main circulation rival, Israel Hayom, and perhaps even shut down its weekend edition, which is still the main financial anchor of Israels dying print newspaper industry. For Mozes, such a move would be worth hundreds of millions of shekels in revenue. For Netanyahu, a halt to Yedioths attacks would be worth a similar sum, perhaps more. The evidence is not limited to these recorded meetings. The police and prosecution know of a series of further checks by the sides, mainly Netanyahu, in an effort to move ahead with the corrupt deal. From a simple evidentiary point of view, the prospects of obtaining a conviction in this case are quite high. In other words, from a purely professional point of view, this is not a tough dilemma. The dilemma lies in the realm of the media and the public. Is it right to delve into the heart of relationships between the media and politicians? Will a decision to indict in this case not open a Pandoras box that would destroy what is left of public trust in politicians and the media? Whats more, an indictment would raise questions about another case that was never investigated: the relationship between Netanyahu and Israel Hayom, owned by his American benefactor, Sheldon Adelson. People at Yedioth argue that an indictment would constitute outrageous discrimination against the media group, given the relationship between Netanyahu and its rival, Israel Hayom. The paper, they argue, has been distributed without charge since 2007 with the sole goal of extolling and glorifying the prime minister. What he received is clear, but what did he give in return, they ask. He has admitted, they say, that he called snap elections in 2015 because of a proposed bill to curtail the papers free distribution. In other words, he took a dramatic measure (calling elections) only in order to help his court newspaper. They are asking why Mandelblit did not order an investigation into this affair too, as he did into the relationship between Netanyahu and Mozes. True, there are no recordings attesting to the Netanyahu-Adelson ties. Does this vitiate the need for an inquiry? Netanyahu has also accused the chair of the Yesh Atid party, Yair Lapid, of holding a series of secret meetings with Mozes. Should these not be probed? Investigations into all of these relationships would produce a poisonous brew. The claims against Lapid lack any proof, but this does not prevent Netanyahu from creating a false impression as if he is the only one under investigation. Either way, this poisonous brew is currently on the desk of the attorney general, ready to be drunk. Cheers to us all. Accusations are flying about oil smuggling in Iraq's Ninevah province, and many accusers say government officials, armed factions and other powerful parties are involved. Representatives of the province, including parliament member Ahmed al-Jubouri, have said recently that oil is being smuggled from the Ninevah wells. That news coincided with Osama al-Nujaifi, head of the Iraqi Decision Coalition, telling the media Feb. 1, Security forces sent out military vehicles to halt the smuggling operations, but armed parties controlling the wells stood in the way. Jubouri said in a Jan. 26 statement that the Islamic State (IS), which controlled Mosul from mid-2014 until mid-2017, used to smuggle oil from more than 72 oil fields in Qayyarah in south Mosul, but now "armed groups continue smuggling an average of 100 tankers of crude oil per day. He told Al-Monitor by phone that there are smuggling operations, but refused to go into detail or name the parties he suspects. He added, Parliament tasked me with presiding over the fact-checking committee regarding smuggling operations in Mosul. Parliament ordered committee members to suspend media statements until the report is drafted. On Jan. 20, parliament member Ghaleb Mohammad told parliament, the Cabinet and intelligence officials that he has visual proof exposing the oil smuggling operations to Turkey through a secondary pipeline connected to the main one. The allegations from Jubouri and Mohammad made it seem strange when Mohammad Ibrahim, head of the Ninevah Provincial Council's Security Committee, issued a statement Feb. 2 saying oil field supervisors tell investigators there are no smuggling operations in the area. Victory Alliance party member Ali al-Suneid isn't surprised that some parties deny there is smuggling. He told Al-Monitor, The most dangerous problem facing attempts to halt the smuggling operations is that the armed groups and political parties implicated deny these accusations. He accused political blocs, families and armed groups affiliated with powerful parties of stealing oil. He added, "Powerful armed groups in oil regions are stronger than the power of the law, and they smuggle oil to Turkey and Iran through various outlets, mainly the Iraqi Kurdistan Region, and using tankers or pipelines" after changing the pipelines' course. A key source in the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, The exchange of accusations ... in oil smuggling operations dates back to the political conflict between Ninevah Gov. Nofal al-Akoub and parliamentarians of the province, in their battle for influence in Sunni areas. The smuggling of Iraqi oil didn't begin overnight. It's been going in southern and northern Iraq since the United States invaded the country in 2003. Hakim al-Zamili, a former head of parliament's Security and Defense Committee and a leader in the Sadrist movement, told Al-Monitor, There is a form of systematic smuggling of oil and its derivatives among Iraqi provinces and outside the country. Some political parties are covering up the operations because they are benefiting. Besides, security authorities guarding the oil areas are implicated in the smuggling. Zamili added, Smuggling is taking place in oil regions in Basra and Amarah in the south, and in the north in Qayara in [Ninevah] and Alas in Salahuddin. His statements align with Ninevah parliament member Hassan al-Alous Facebook posts Jan. 25 that 70 to 100 oil tankers are stolen daily from Qayara fields in Mosul [Ninevah province] and smuggled to neighboring countries, with the knowledge of the security and administrative forces. He added, The administrative forces support smugglers by securing the smuggling route ... with governmental vehicles to facilitate smugglers' passage." The state-owned North Oil Co. published a report Feb. 2 in which it denied oil is being smuggled from Ninevah fields and said all the fields and stations are managed by the company, as per administrative and technical criteria. Oil Ministry spokesman Assem al-Jihad suggested that Al-Monitor contact the Energy Police Directorate, "which has the information and power to talk about the topic, seeming to indicate that the Oil Ministry didn't want to discuss the matter. The Facebook page of the directorate documents the almost daily smuggling operations of oil and its derivatives. Oday Awad, a member of parliament's Oil and Power Committee, told Al-Monitor, The parliament failed recently in forming investigative committees to expose the oil smuggling operations, due to pressure from political parties in the south and north. Suneid said the solution is to form independent and professional committees whose members aren't affiliated with any party or political bloc, to expose those implicated. Iraqi legal expert Tarek Harb, a former judge, told Al-Monitor, Those people [found guilty of smuggling] should be sentenced to jail for life or execution because the law considers oil smuggling a terrorist crime, not just theft. Finally, it seems any step in the war on smuggling mafias wont be successful as long as the authority is weak and the parties and influential figures play a role in these operations, Harb said. Air Senegals first A330neo has touched down at Blaise-Diagne International Airport in Dakar. The A330neo, painted in the livery of Air Senegal and named Casamance, was presented during a ceremony attended by His Excellency Macky Sall, President of the Republic of Senegal, and Philippe Bohn, Chief Executive Officer Air Senegal. Air Senegal, which started operations in 2018, is set to receive its first A330neo in the coming weeks making it the first African airline to receive and operate the newest member of the leading Airbus widebody family. Fitted with a three-class cabin comprising 32 Business class, 21 Premium Plus and 237 Economy class seats, Air Senegal plans to operate its first A330neo on the soon to be opened Dakar-Paris route and develop its medium and long-haul network. The A330neo is a true new generation aircraft building on the A330s success and leveraging on A350 XWB technology. It incorporates highly efficient new generation Rolls-Royce Trent 7000 engines, and a new greater span 3D optimised wing with new Sharklets. Together, these advances bring a significant reduction in fuel consumption of 25% compared with older generation competitor aircraft of a similar size. The A330 is one of the most popular widebody families ever, having received over 1,700 orders from 120 customers. @Airbus #A330neo #AirSenegal Would you like to receive breaking news notifications from The Post and Courier? Sign up to receive news and updates from this site directly to your desktop. Breaking News Columbia Breaking News Greenville Breaking News Myrtle Beach Breaking News Aiken Breaking News Click on the bell icon to manage your notifications at any time. Success! Please click the 'Allow' button in the 'Show Notifcations' alert in your browser if one is available. Thank you for signing up! Please enable notifications in your browser and reload the page. The American Academy of Pediatrics being behind a bill that takes away authority to sign off on the current Connecticut Religious vaccine exemptions from school nurses. Why would you remove the school nurse? And why would doctors be pleased by that? What more needs to be said? ### By Jack Kramer HARTFORD, CT In 2015, in the midst of a measles outbreak in California, Connecticuts legislature passed a law requiring parents to present an annual notarized statement of their vaccine exemption to schools and day cares. That law was only passed after a heated debate of whether government was stepping into an area where it didnt belong religion. Thats because most of the non-medical reasons parents give for opting out of vaccines are based on religion. Before 2015, parents only had to submit the form once upon entrance to a school or day care. The debate is about to repeat itself Thursday when the Childrens Committee holds a public hearing on a new bill that would eliminate a school nurse as one of the people approved to sign off on the forms. Three dozen letters opposed to the bill have been submitted already. The bill does not seek to eliminate the current religious exemption, but opponents dont necessarily believe that. The bill seeks to permit ordained, commissioned and licensed members of the clergy to acknowledge parental statements concerning religious objections to vaccinations required for enrollment in public and nonpublic schools under the jurisdiction of local and regional boards of education, and to prohibit school nurses from acknowledging such statements. Currently, Connecticut allows attorneys, judges, family support magistrates, town clerks, justices of the peace, and school nurses to sign the forms. I have heard from school nurses across the state that parents are coming to them to sign the religious exemption form, to allow their unvaccinated kids to attend school, Rep. Liz Linehan, D-Cheshire, said. Linehan co-chairs the Childrens Committee, which proposed the legislation. Note: Many states, including my state of Connecticut, are going after religious vaccine exemptions as a way to remove parental medical choice. ### ALBANY With measles outbreaks reported in the Hudson Valley and New York City, state lawmakers are considering legislation that would end the ability of parents to get religious exemptions from requirements that their children be vaccinated. Critics of the exemptions contend they amount to a loophole that endangers not only the children who don't get vaccinated but also those with whom they come into contact. "The outbreaks taking place right now in New York underline the importance of making sure that every possible person is vaccinated," said Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, D-Bronx. Dinowitz said he believes that many parents who refrain from having their children vaccinated do it because they have been convinced by "discredited" studies that the immunizations can lead to autism or other disabilities. The best way to prevent an outbreak, the lawmaker said, is to minimize the number of people who have not had a measles shot. The federal Centers for Disease Control says the measles virus is highly contagious. The virus can not only cause a fever and a rash, but infections can also lead to pneumonia and even death. Unvaccinated children are believed to be particularly susceptible. One anti-vaccine activist, Patricia Finn, a Rockland County lawyer who has been involved in legal challenges to mandatory immunizations, contended that the push to end the religious exemption in New York is part of a "scheme" intended to benefit the pharmaceutical industry. She said that opponents of the exemptions have embraced the "herd immunity" premise that suggests prevention of an outbreak can occur if at least 97 percent of the population has been vaccinated. "They want to eliminate exemptions to achieve herd immunity but herd immunity doesn't exist," she maintained. "Vaccines can actually spread measles and that is probably what is happening." But Finn's assertion differs dramatically from the advice provided by state health officials. Read more at TheDailyStar HERE. jmahoney@cnhi.com MSL, Publicis Groupes strategic communications and engagement firm, announced the appointment of Ashwin Dravid as Digital Lead, South of MSL India, reporting to Tushar Bajaj, National Digital Lead of MSL India. Ashwin will lead the operations and business development in the South region and will work closely with teams to drive greater integration across the firm, to transform relationships with existing clients and win new ones. With over 12 years of professional experience across International and Indian markets, his previous stints include tenures in Mindshare, 120 Media Collective, GREY Digital, where he held content and business roles on brands such as Red Bull, Star India, Sony Pictures Networks, Landmark Group and many more. His most recent stint was at Happy mcarrybowen, as Digital Head, where he led work for clients such as MG Motor, Suzuki Motorcycles, Ola, Chai Point, Myntra, Flipkart, Fresh menu etc. Amit Misra, CEO, MSL India, said, We continue to fuel our digital and integrated growth by bringing in the best specialists to understand and cater to our client requirements. With Ashwins experience, we are confident of further strengthening our digital offerings in the South market. I am delighted to welcome Ashwin to the MSL India team and look forward delivering impactful integrated campaigns for our clients in South India. Ashwin Dravid said, Good brand storytelling requires building scalable human experiences to bring about a deeper connection with customers who potentially could become ambassadors for the business. In this marketing age, integration of different communication and media outlets led by mobile and digital will play a major role to drive this connection. I am delighted to come onboard, to partner with clients and the team, which results in good work and business growth for the South India market. Madison Media has just announced that it has won the Marico Media AOR in a competitive multi-agency pitch. Madison Media will be responsible for all media including Digital and will handle the account from April 1, 2019. Marico has been with Madison Media for 14 years from 2003. Last year, in a pitch supervised by ATK, Madison Media had lost the account. This year the account went again on pitch. Says Mr. Vikram Sakhuja, Partner & Group CEO Madison Media & OOH, We are absolutely delighted to win back the prestigious Marico account. We are confident that we will be their true business partner and substantially contribute to their growth story. We are happy that Marico evaluated our cutting edge Digital expertise and found us as the right fit. Koshy George, Chief Marketing Officer, Marico Limited commented, We look forward to this partnership with Madison Media. The agency brings in an expert team whose creative ideas and approach resonate with our ethos. It is critical to have a team combining creativity, expertise and execution excellence in todays fragmented media landscape to drive value. With over 25 years of experience in the beauty and wellness industry and with a presence in chosen emerging markets across Asia and Africa, Marico has emerged as one of India's leading consumer products companies. It has an extensive portfolio spanning haircare, skincare, edible oils, healthy foods, male grooming and fabric care. Marico is a household name in India with brands like Parachute, Parachute Advansed, Saffola, Hair & Care, Nihar Naturals, Livon, Set Wet, Mediker and Revive. Madison Media has been ranked the 2nd Most Admired Media Agency by the Economic Times, Brand Equity Ad Agency Reckoner, 2018. Madison Media has also been voted the Ideal Media Agency, the Most Attractive Media Agency, and No. 1 in Creative Media Thinking, by R3 Scopen Study amongst 59 advertisers in India. Madison Media Group is Indias foremost media agency handling media planning and buying for blue chip clients including Godrej, Asian Paints, Titan, Viacom 18, UBER, TVS, Raymond, Pidilite, Tata Salt, Ceat, Dominos, Lodha, McDonalds, Indiabulls, Timesjobs.com, Crompton, Indian Oil, Snapdeal, Gowardhan Dairy, Piramal Healthcare and many others. Madison Media, is a part of Madison World which through its 11 companies served last year as many as 550 advertisers. Following a competitive multi-agency pitch, 80-dB Mavericks, one of Indias premier Reputation Advisory consultancy, has been awarded the public relations business for Fabindia, a leading lifestyle brand. The appointment will see 80-dB Mavericks roll-out integrated communications solutions for Fabindia, to drive greater engagement with consumers across India. Confirming the appointment, Karan Kumar, Chief Brand & Marketing Officer, Fabindia said, Fabindia is delighted to bring on board 80-dB Mavericks as our strategic PR partner. Their strong team, creative ability and thorough understanding of the brand task gave us the confidence to award them this mandate. At Fabindia, we are very passionate about our unique story one that is anchored on our strong association with artisans and craftspeople and underpins our diverse product range. We believe the team at 80-dB Mavericks shares our passion and will be able to help us communicate our story to a new generation of consumers, making Fabindia their preferred brand as well. We look forward to working with the team at 80dB-Mavericks. On winning the PR mandate, Kiran Ray Chaudhury, Co-Founder & Joint Managing Director, 80 dB Mavericks, said Fabindia is an iconic Brand and a leader in the retail lifestyle space and we are honoured and delighted that they have chosen us as partners to further their business objectives. This partnership is testament to the strength of our diverse offerings and our senior counsel. Given the current communications landscape, we would be employing a multi-channel approach to drive opportunities for brand engagement to ensure that Fabindia remains highly relevant and personal." DNA shows penguin evolution linked to island formation Wednesday, 6 February 2019 New research has improved understanding of penguin evolution, revealing that the origin of many species is linked to island formation. An international team of researchers from Australia including the University of Adelaide New Zealand, USA, UK, and China, analysed genetic data from all 20 living penguin species plus several extinct species and reconstructed the timescale for their evolution. Published in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution and led by the University of Otago in New Zealand, the researchers showed that new penguin species arose at the same time as the islands they breed on. There are 20 living species of penguin, which range from the 45 kilogram emperor penguin to the 1.5 kilogram little penguin (known locally as fairy penguins). While penguins spend most of their lives at sea, they must all return to land to breed. The northern rockhopper penguin evolved at the same time as Gough Island emerged from the Atlantic Ocean, says co-author Dr Kieren Mitchell, postdoctoral researcher at the University of Adelaide. This was the same for the royal penguin on Macquarie Island and the Galapagos penguin in the Galapagos Islands. We suspect this was caused by newly established breeding colonies becoming isolated, which after hundreds of thousands of years formed new species. And, while not necessarily linked directly to island formation, our results also provided additional evidence supporting previous studies that divided the little penguin into two distinct species: one breeding exclusively in New Zealand, and another breeding primarily in Australia, including the colonies on Granite Island and Kangaroo Island in South Australia, Phillip Island in Victoria or Bruny Island in Tasmania. Researchers at the University of Adelaides Australian Centre for Ancient DNA analysed DNA from prehistoric penguin bones found on the Chatham Islands east of New Zealand. Surprisingly, ancient DNA from these bones revealed the existence of two previously unknown penguins: a new species of crested penguin (Eudyptes warhami) and a new dwarf subspecies of yellow-eyed penguin (Megadyptes antipodes richdalei). Finding the new yellow-eyed penguin was the biggest surprise, says Dr Mitchell. The bones were 10 to 20 percent smaller than the yellow-eyed penguin that currently lives in New Zealand, making it more like a rockhopper or macaroni penguin. Sadly, these new penguins became extinct when humans arrived in the Chatham Islands, highlighting the vulnerability of island ecosystems and the disruptive effects of new predators and competitors. Their discovery, however, was key to confirming the link between island formation and penguin evolution: both extinct penguins originally arose following the emergence of the Chatham Islands 23 million years ago. From an evolutionary perspective, its fascinating to understand how and why species evolve, says lead author Theresa Cole, PhD candidate from the University of Otago. We were able to provide a comprehensive framework for exploring these questions about penguins, and demonstrated for the first time that islands may have played a key role in penguin evolution. Contact Details Media Release Camp Fire Fatality Count Drops to 85 The Butte County Sheriff's Office has confirmed that the fatality count for the Camp Fire has dropped from 86 to 85. Investigators say what was initially believed to have been the remains of two people were in fact just one person. Additionally, the number of people unaccounted for has dropped from three to two. A man Sacramento police had been looking for has been located and taken into custody. Butte County Renters Feeling the Pressure After the Camp Fire Butte County renters say they are feeling pressure to make better offers after the Camp Fire, and some are even being forced out. Action News Now spoke with one renter who was told that the home she was renting was being put on the market, and she had the escrow period to move out. FEMA and Cal OES to Close Disaster Recovery Center in Oroville FEMA and Cal OES are set to close the Oroville Disaster Recovery Center at 6 p.m. Friday. The Paradise and Chico centers will remain open. The deadline to register for FEMA assistance is next Friday, Feb. 15. That is the same deadline to turn in right of entry forms as well. Anderson Homicide Suspect Makes Court Appearance Michael Oconnel, accused of shooting and killing his roommate in Anderson Wednesday night, will make his first court appearance Friday. The sheriff's office says he admitted to the shooting his roommate at their home on Happy Valley Road. He will be arraigned in court this Friday morning. Man Sentenced for Assaulting Officer with Car The Shasta County District Attorney said Robert Cronin-Mill will serve seven years in state prison after pleading guilty to assaulting an officer with a car. It happened during a chase in early December, which ended with a crash near the Mount Shasta Mall. Oregon Man Behind Bars for Attempted Murder Andrew Mason of Oregon is behind bars in Yreka for attempted murder. The Siskiyou County Sheriff's Office says he hit someone over the head with a deadly weapon early Thursday morning on Walters Lane. The victim is now being treated for major injuries in Shasta County. Siskiyou County Deputies Arrest Two Men for Robbery, Assault Siskiyou County deputies arrested Blake Day and Steven Shilling for holding a man at gunpoint in his own home. It happened in Macdoel at around 10 a.m. on Monday morning. They are now charged with armed robbery and assault with a deadly weapon. Siskiyou County Deputies Investigating Suspicious Death Siskiyou deputies are investigating a suspicious death. A utility worker found a body at the bottom of an embankment near a county road in the South County area around 11 a.m. on Thursday morning. Investigators say more details will be released once the crime scene is cleared. Oroville Police Still Searching for Suspect in Murder of 86-Year-Old Oroville police continue to search for the person who killed 86-year-old grandmother, Greta Putnam, in her mobile home on the day of the Camp Fire. Family members will hold a memorial service for her this Saturday at 3 p.m. at the Oroville Moose Lodge. Camp Fire Memorial to be Held Friday A community-wide memorial is planned for those who lost their lives in the Camp Fire. It starts at 4 p.m. on Friday in the Paradise Performing Arts Center. Action News Now will broadcast the service live on KNVN NBC Channel 24. OROVILLE, Calif. - Thursday marks the two year anniversary of the beginning of the Oroville Dam Spillway Crisis. On Feb. 7, 2017, chunks of concrete were spotted flying off the spillway, followed days later by a historic mass evacuation. It all started when parts of the spillway started to break apart. At the time, lots of rain made it so that the spillway had to continue to be used so that the lake would not overflow. Days later, and for the first time ever, water flowed over the top of the emergency dam spillway. Less than 48 hours after that, a hole was spotted in the emergency spillway and that's when the entire city of Oroville and all communities downstream were evacuated. Since then, the California Department of Resources and Kiewit Construction have made a huge amount of progress deconstructing and reconstructing the main spillway, and reinforcing the ground of the emergency spillway. The Department of Water Resources says more than 1,000 have worked more than 2 million hours to rebuild both spillways. SISKIYOU COUNTY, Calif. - The Siskiyou County Sheriff's Office says two men are behind bars for holding a man at gunpoint in his own home. Deputies say Blake Hampton Lybrand Day, 38, and Steven Craig Shilling, 38, both of Dorris, broke into a home on Homeland Road in MacDoel at around 10:20 a.m. Monday. The victim says he was held against his will and robbed at gunpoint. The suspects were arrested later that night at homes on Pine Street in Dorris. The victim was treated at the Butte Valley Health Clini, and later at Sky Lake Hospital in Klamath Falls, Oregon. Day and Shilling are charged with armed robbery, criminal threats, and assault with a deadly weapon. They are now behind bars at the Siskiyou County Jail in Yreka. REDDING, Calif. - The Shasta County District Attorney says a known drug dealer has pleaded guilty to trying to hit a police officer with his car during a chase. The District Attorney says Redding Police Officers tried to approach Robert Cronin-Mills at a Downtown Redding motel on Dec. 3, 2018, for suspected drug crimes. Prosecutors say Cronin-Mills sped off, trying to hit several officers as he fled. He later crashed into four cars before police captured him. Police say he was carrying thousands of dollars in cash, and a large amount of heroin. The District Attorney says Cronin-Mills pled guilty to assault with a deadly weapon against a police officer, evading law enforcement with reckless disregard for the safety of others, transportation of cocaine for sale, and resisting arrest. Prosecutors expect Cronin-Mills to be sentenced to seven years in state prison on Feb. 13, 2019. ANDERSON, Calif. - A school aide wearing a "Make America Great Again" hat is causing a stir after he told students at Anderson Middle School that it's the country's national slogan. Several parents we spoke with Thursday said they were upset because it made their children, who are minorities, feel uncomfortable. It is offensive when my child comes home and says a school official made him feel uncomfortable, Jennifer Zapien said. Another parent agreed, saying the man should not have been allowed to wear the hat to school. My children shouldn't feel uncomfortable in the school, Misti Hernandez said. They shouldn't feel uncomfortable in their own skin around teachers because they're wearing that hat. And that's how my children feel. Cascade Union School District superintendent Jason Provence said they do not have a dress code policy for staff, and the man did not violate any rules by wearing the hat. However, the district's policy for students says students should not wear anything that distracts from a conducive learning environment. And student Maleko Sanchez said staff should at least be held to the same standards. Most clothes, we can't wear to school, Sanchez said. And so then why should he be allowed to wear this Donald Trump cap to school when he knows kids are going to get offended by it and maybe even teachers. His mother shared the same sentiment. The kids are not allowed to wear it, Zapien said. The adults should not be allowed to wear it. It is a school environment and politics are not necessary to be discussed on a school playground. Parents said they felt dismissed when they brought up the issue and would really just like to see it addressed. I would like the school to acknowledge it, Hernandez said. I don't think that we should be told as parents, That was two days ago, and there's nothing we can do about it. Superintendent Provence said the employee wearing the hat said he did not mean to offend anyone. They have addressed the issue with the employee, and he will no longer be wearing the hat to school. And they will also be talking with students to make sure they're not uncomfortable. CHICO, Calif. - A Chico resident helped officers detain a wanted felon that he caught trying to burglarize his home. The Chico Police Department received a report of a home burglary around 4:30 a.m. on Friday on Lazy S Lane. The caller reported that her husband was involved in a fight with the suspect. Officers found the resident holding the suspect, Kevin Fraser Govan, 31, on the floor of the garage upon arrival. Another family member had put wrist restraints made out of zip-ties on the suspect. Officers located several knives including a switchblade in and near Govan's possession. He was also in possession of narcotics paraphernalia. Govan received facial injuries during the altercation, but nobody else was injured. He was treated at a local hospital and was then booked into Butte County Jail. He was booked on charges of burglary, theft from an automobile, possession of a switchblade knife, and possession of narcotics paraphernalia. Officers said that Govan is a convicted felon and has outstanding felony arrest warrants from the Sacramento County Sheriff's for: Automobile theft Possession of stolen property Felon in possession of a firearm Felon in possession of ammunition Carrying a concealed firearm He also has outstanding warrants from the Butte County Sheriff's Office for: Instagram Celebrity Lil Baby, whose real name is Dominique Jones, is charged over failure to signal, eluding police and reckless driving. Feb 8, 2019 AceShowbiz - Busted! Rapper Lil Baby was arrested by the Georgia State Patrol in Atlanta, Georgia on Thursday, February 7. He was cuffed on multiple driving-related charges, authorities confirmed. According to TMZ, Lil Baby, whose real name is Dominique Jones, was charged over failure to signal, eluding police and reckless driving. In a photo that circulated online, a cop was seen shoving him down in the middle of the street. His hands were behind his back while the police officer pinned him to the ground. The rapper was snapped in his black-and-red tracksuit. His orange Corvette was also featured in the pic. According to a Georgia State Patrol news that was obtained by AJC.com, Lil Baby was spotted failing to signal when changing lanes on Lee Street near Ralph David Abernathy Boulevard just after 6 P.M. Additionally, he allegedly was "passing vehicles in a reckless manner." He was then taken into custody without incident. He was later photographed walking out of jail following the traffic arrest. Channel 2 reported he bonded out of the Atlanta Detention Ceter later that night, though it remains to been seen how much he had to pay for his bond. Following the news of his arrest, Lil Baby took to his Instagram account to address the incident. "F**k The Police Who Be On That Bulls**t , Shoutout To The Ones Who Get You Thru The Process ASAP ..... ," he captioned a picture of him donning the same tracksuit he wore during the arrest, alluding that he was already off custody. The rapper also wrote on Instagram Stories, "If you go on high speed chase or if they think you running protocol is to approach vehicle guns dawn to Kill. That's Crazyyyyy." Lil Baby is most known for his 2018 hit songs, "Drip Too Hard" and "Yes Indeed", that landed the top 6 of the Billboard Hot 100. The 24-year-old spitter collaborated with Gunna for the former while he enlisted Drake for the latter. Instagram/Twitter/Instagram Celebrity 'I don't think nothing is wrong with children going with their dad 'til their mothers get, you know, better,' Tokyo Toni says of the Lashed Bar owner. Feb 8, 2019 AceShowbiz - Learning about the fight between Blac Chyna and Kid Buu, her mom apparently doesn't think that her children will be safe staying with her. Speaking to TMZ on Thursday, February 7, Tokyo Toni suggested that Dream Kardashian should be in the custody of Rob Kardashian instead of the Lashed Bar owner. "I don't think nothing is wrong with children going with their dad 'til their mothers get, you know, better. It happens in everyday homes out here in America. It just happens," she said to the news outlet, adding that King Cairo, Chyna's son with Tyga, should stay with Rob's famous family as well. Toni went on saying, "I don't know if they should keep them, but I do believe that [they should] for a little while 'til she pulls her thing together. Because it's clear -- very clear, doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out -- that something is terribly wrong." The 47-year-old, whose real name is Shalana Hunter, then proceeds to blast Chyna for dating Buu, who had been booked on child abuse charges. "She's crazy for messing with him," Toni noted. "Second of all, you have him coming around my kids? That's crazy... He has accusations of child abuse My grandson don't need to see than, or my granddaughter for that matter." Recent weeks have been tough for Chyna. Following a police visit over report saying she neglected her children, the vixen got into a fight with Buu during their vacation in Honolulu, Hawaii. Cops confirmed that the case is currently under investigation. "Shortly before 9 A.M. today, a female visitor staying in Waikiki reported being assaulted by a male acquaintance. The victim reported that she and the suspect had escalated to a physical confrontation," so a statement read. "The male left the area after the confrontation and has not been located. This incident has been classified as abuse of a household member. The investigation is continuing, and no further information is being released at this time." WENN/Adriana M. Barraza Celebrity In an article piece for Elle magazine's website, the 'Project Runway' judge explains that she decided to undergo the procedure to stop her having 'scary thoughts' about cancer. Feb 8, 2019 AceShowbiz - Fashionista Nina Garcia is undergoing a double mastectomy to reduce her risk of getting cancer. The Elle editor-in-chief and "Project Runway" judge revealed all in an article published on Elle's website on Thursday, February 07. In the piece, Garcia revealed she was living like under a cloud after discovering she has a BRCA mutation that results in a high-risk level for breast cancer. "I was living in a loop of testing, every day waking up thinking: 'Is this the day I will get cancer?'," she wrote. "I no longer wanted to have these scary thoughts, and I knew the only way they would stop was to schedule the surgery. The answer was clear." A Personal Choice The reason I am getting a preventive double mastectomy. @ELLEmagazine https://t.co/MGvQCycwO7 Nina Garcia (@ninagarcia) February 7, 2019 Nina admits she couldn't decided whether or not to go public with her decision and reached out to friends who had undergone the procedure for their input. "I ultimately decided to write this in hopes that my story might serve as comfort to at least one woman out there who is going through something similar," she added. "For that woman, I want you to know that you are not alone." Garcia has been editor-in-chief of Elle since 2017 and will return for the upcoming 17th season of hit design show "Project Runway" later this year. Instagram Celebrity The 'Keeping Up With the Kardashian' star talks about the impending arrival of her fourth child with husband Kanye West during an appearance on 'The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon'. Feb 8, 2019 AceShowbiz - Kim Kardashian is hoping that the rumours are true - her fourth baby will make her "enlightened and calm". The reality star is expecting her fourth child with husband Kanye West, with the baby the couple's second to be carried by a surrogate. Appearing on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" on Thursday, February 07, Kim opened up about the impending arrival, and revealed she's heard good things about becoming a mother of four. "I was kind of stressing, because my house is so full," Kim began, "but I heard that parents of four are the most enlightened and calm of all parents." When a dubious Jimmy Fallon, who has two children himself, asked "Really?!", Kim replied: "Yes. Yes. I've heard that." She and Kanye are already parents to five-year-old daughter North, three-year-old son Saint and daughter Chicago, who celebrated her first birthday last month (January 2019). Their fourth child is another boy, which Kim is pleased about, as she feels it will "even" things out. "I feel like four is going to be really even though. Because now it's me with two, like always, and Kanye just has one," she smiled. "So he's like still living his life." However, Kim did admit that when she and Kanye welcomed Saint into the world, when North was just two years old, she felt a "huge change" in her life. "From one to two felt like going from one to 20," she mused. "That was harder than two to three, for me." Elsewhere in the interview, host Jimmy asked Kim about a hilarious picture she shared on her social media recently, of North asleep while sitting on dad Kanye's shoulders. And, giggling about the snap, Kim laughed that it proves North is already following in her father's footsteps. "If you know anything about Kanye, you know that he can fall asleep anywhere," she said. "Like, at a doctor's office, I'm getting a sonogram, he's snoring. Any place I take him, he's snoring. He left me in a restaurant once, in a meeting for him in France (and) he falls asleep at the table. So she definitely is him!". WENN/Instagram Celebrity Romantically linked to Brian Hickerson since July 2018, the former 'Heroes' star gushes that she learns 'something new from him every day' and enjoys 'having really in-depth conversations' with him. Feb 8, 2019 AceShowbiz - Hayden Panettiere is ready to wed again just months after splitting from her longtime boxer beau Wladimir Klitschko. The couple ended its nine-year romance last year (18), and the actress' mum confirmed Hayden and Wladimir, who share three-year-old daughter Kaya, had separated in October. The former "Heroes" star has since found love with Brian Hickerson and she tells Us Weekly she hopes to marry him. Asked if wedding bells are in her near future, Panettiere tells the publication, "I think so. I hope so," while gushing about her new man, who she considers a deep thinker and a great conversationalist." "I've lived a big life, I've met a lot of people," she adds, "(but) I learn something new from him every day, and that's something that not many people can provide me with." "I love being low key (with him), being mellow, having experiences, having conversations, really in-depth conversations." Hickerson defended the couple's romance late last year (18) after sources told various outlets that Hayden's friends didn't think he was a good fit for her following reports of an altercation with his father during a trip to South Carolina. According to TMZ, police were called to the scene and questioned the actress, who admitted she had been drinking. But Brian, an aspiring actor, told Access Hollywood everything between himself and the 29-year-old was good. "Just to be clear, Hayden's friends and family are not worried about her at all," he says. "Hayden is happy and healthy and so is our relationship. That is all I will comment on so please respect my privacy." The actress and her new man have been linked since July (18), shortly after her split from her fiance, Klitschko, went public. Hayden and the retired boxer had been dating on and off since 2009, and they became engaged in 2013, a year before welcoming their daughter. WENN/FayesVision/Lia Toby Movie The news of the former 'Gossip Girl' actor's casting comes just three months after he returns to work on the second season of 'White Gold' following the dismissal of rape charges against him. Feb 8, 2019 AceShowbiz - Ed Westwick has landed his first movie role since rape charges against him were dropped. In 2017, Kristina Cohen accused the "Gossip Girl" actor of forcing himself on her when she slept at his house three years earlier. Two other women subsequently came forward with their own allegations, with the Los Angeles Police Department investigating all claims, before prosecutors decided against pressing charges. In November (2018), Ed returned to work on the second season of BBC sitcom "White Gold", and now Deadline is reporting he's been cast in upcoming World War II drama "Enemy Lines". According to the film website, Swedish director Anders Banke will be taking the helm, with John Hannah, Tom Wisdom, Corey Johnson, Pawel Delag, Vladimir Epifantsev and Kirill Pletnyov co-starring. Set in occupied Poland, the plot, based on a true story that took place in 1943 behind enemy lines, centres around allied soldiers who are sent to extract a rocket scientist from the hands of the Nazis. The casting news comes after 31-year-old Ed promised fans he'd be back acting as soon as possible following the dropping of the rape charges. "I'm delighted that everybody got it right, thank you," the English star told TMZ.com. "I'll be back to work very soon." Ed was last seen on screen in "White Gold" in May 2017. He had filmed a lead part in three-part BBC drama "Ordeal by Innocence", which aired in April 2018, but producers decided to reshoot his scenes with "Love, Rosie" actor Christian Cooke after the rape allegations surfaced. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... Copyright 2019 Albuquerque Journal Flanked by flags of the United States and New Mexico, Barcelona Elementary School teacher Shirley Barreto on Friday stood before hundreds of students crammed into a multipurpose room, her hand raised as she repeated the Oath of Allegiance. Mrs. Barreto, you are now Americas newest citizen, Jesse Mendez told her after she had recited the oath. Mendez, the Albuquerque field office director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, then shook her hand. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ Barreto, a first-grade teacher, then led the room in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag her first time as a U.S. citizen. Students, in pre-K through fifth grade, clapped, yelled, waved U.S. flags and held signs. We love you, Mrs. Barreto, they volunteered. Congratulations. Barreto, 45, began teaching in her native Ecuador when she was 20. Since coming to the United States, she has taught in the Albuquerque Public Schools for 10 years, eight of them at Barcelona Elementary School. Her husband and daughter are U.S. citizens. It was important to do this in front of the students, said a tearful Barreto. They are my life. I come every day from Tijeras, because of the love they give me every day, the way they treat me every day and how hard they work for me every day. I have been teaching for 25 years, and these kids remind me why, she said as one child after another lined up to give her a hug. Barreto said she was aware that many of the parents in this far South Valley neighborhood are fearful because of their own immigration status, but I wanted them to see the other side of the coin and know that the immigration officials are not their enemy, she said. If they follow the law and the process, they can also become citizens. Its important for them to learn that they can do it, too. Addressing the students, Mendez explained that to become a citizen, a person must first become a permanent resident, then after waiting three years or five years, depending on circumstances, they can apply for naturalization. They must also be able to speak and understand the English language and pass a civics exam, which consists of questions related to how government works, the history of the United States, American geography, holidays and national symbols. We live in a wonderful country with liberties and freedoms not often found in other countries, Mendez told the students. What makes this country especially great is that its a melting pot of people, ideas and customs from all over the world. And it doesnt matter where you came from or who you are, in the United States. You can aspire to be anything you wish. While many of the younger kids said they werent exactly sure what the swearing-in ceremony was all about, the older kids were clear about its significance. Mrs. Barreto is becoming a full-fledged citizen, so shes a new part of the United States, said 10-year-old fifth-grader Cristian Barjas. I learned you dont have to be born in the United States to be a citizen. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... SANTA FE U.S. House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C., urged New Mexico lawmakers Friday to not give up on our children during their ongoing 60-day session. The veteran congressman, who was invited to speak before a joint session of legislators on African American Day at the state Capitol, recalled being discouraged from pursuing a career in politics as a young boy growing up in South Carolina. Dont throw cold water on anyones dreams, Clyburn said, drawing bipartisan applause from legislators. The third-ranking Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives, Clyburn arrived in New Mexico early Friday and had breakfast with Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a former congresswoman, before giving his speech to legislators. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ He praised the governor in his speech, saying, She was a great congressperson, and I predict she is going to be an even greater governor. Clyburn was first elected to Congress in 1992 and has been re-elected 13 times. He has served two separate stints as House majority whip, along with an 8-year stint as House assistant Democratic leader. During his visit to the Roundhouse, he also visited with reporters and weighed in on the controversy surrounding several Virginia state officials. Clyburn said he would bet my last dollar that Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam was the individual shown wearing blackface in a medical school yearbook picture that recently surfaced. Im very pained by it, (but) Im not surprised by it at all, Clyburn said. Ive been seeing these yearbooks and other things with blackface ever since I can remember. He also described the situation as a teaching moment for the country. Northam initially apologized for the picture but has since denied that he is one of the two individuals in the photo. He has rejected calls to resign. Meanwhile, Clyburn said U.S. House Democrats, who reclaimed a majority in the chamber after last years election cycle, will hold hearings in the coming months on issues including student loan debt and health care access. In his 22-minute speech on the House floor, Clyburn also referred to President Donald Trumps campaign motto: Make America Great Again. The fact of the matter is that does not need to happen America is already great, Clyburn said. The challenge is to make sure this extends equally and equitably to all our citizens. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... CRIPPLE CREEK, Colo. A woman said Friday that she helped thwart an investigation into the disappearance of a Colorado woman who authorities believe was killed by her fiance, but her motive and the nature of her relationship with the suspected killer remains a mystery. She also agreed to testify against him at his murder trial. Krystal Jean Lee Kenney, 32, of Hansen, Idaho, made the admission in court as she pleaded guilty to tampering with evidence connected to the death of Kelsey Berreth, who was last seen on Nov. 22. Berreths fiance, Patrick Frazee, is charged with murder and solicitation of murder in the 29-year-old womans death. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ In a statement in court, Kenney said she learned that Frazee had killed someone around the time Berreth was last seen. I moved the victims cellphone with the intent to impair the phones availability in the investigation. I had no right or authority to move the victims cellphone, she said. According to Kenneys statement, she moved the phone between Nov. 24 and 25. She faces up to three years in prison but prosecutors said Kenney will not be sentenced until all trials related to Berreths disappearance are completed. Judge Scott Sells indicated that could take months or years. She will remain free in the meantime and must attend periodic court hearings. Her agreement with prosecutors also prevents her from speaking with media. Police have not found Berreths body but have said evidence suggests she was killed at her home in Woodland Park, a mountain town near Colorado Springs. Berreth, who worked as a flight instructor, was last seen on surveillance footage at a grocery store near her home on Nov. 22, which was Thanksgiving Day. It shows Berreth entering the store toting a baby carrier holding her 1-year-old daughter. Frazee told police he and Berreth met later that day to exchange their daughter; the couple did not live together. Police said several text messages were sent from Berreths phone in the days following Thanksgiving, including a message sent to her employer asking for a week off of work. Location data suggested that by Nov. 25 the phone was near Gooding, Idaho, nearly 800 miles (1,290 kilometers) from Berreths house and about 40 miles (64 kilometers) from where Kenney lived. Police didnt start searching for Berreth until Dec. 2, when her mother became concerned after several days without hearing from her daughter. Berreths mother called police from her home in Idaho to request that someone check on her daughter. Since Frazees arrest in late December, authorities have released little information about what led to the charges against him. Key court documents have been sealed. Frazee has not entered a plea in the charges of murder and solicitation of murder. He is due back in court on Feb. 19. The state public defenders office, which is representing him, has said its attorneys will not comment on ongoing cases. Prosecutors said Frazee sought to find someone to kill Berreth between September and November. Authorities said in December that additional charges could follow Frazees arrest but there was no public activity until this week when prosecutors charged Kenney. They have not disclosed the nature of the relationship between Kenney and Frazee. Public records show Kenney holds an Idaho license as a registered nurse. A spokeswoman at a Twin Falls hospital previously told local media that Kenney worked at the facility but said this week that she was no longer employed there. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... EAGLE PASS, Texas The U.S. Border Patrol says its agents rescued five Honduran migrants including a 1-year-old and a 3-year-old trying to illegally cross the river separating Mexico from Texas. The rescue occurred at about 8 a.m. Friday in the Rio Grande, between Eagle Pass, Texas, and Piedras Negras, Mexico. A caravan of about 1,600 migrants is waiting in Piedras Negras to try to seek asylum in the U.S. Agency spokesman Rick Pauza says the group of five has no known link to the caravan. Authorities say the adults were struggling against the river current to carry the children, and that one woman was nearly swept away. Agents helped pull the migrants out of the water and transported them to safety by boat. They are now being processed in Eagle Pass. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... NOGALES, Ariz. A U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer shot and wounded a driver who was trying to enter Mexico at a crossing in Arizona, the agency said Friday. The mayor of Nogales, Arizona, told a newspaper Thursday night that the man was killed, but CBP spokeswoman Teresa Small told The Associated Press Friday the man had not died. A CBP statement said he was wounded and taken to a hospital in Mexico. His condition and further details on the incident were not provided. CBP said it would release more information later Friday, but additional details had not been released by mid-afternoon. Nogales Mayor Arturo Garino told the Arizona Daily Star that the shooting occurred after the driver refused to stop and tried to run over the CBP officer. The CBP statement said the vehicle stopped just a few yards into Mexico. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ A woman who answered the phone at Garinos office said the mayor was unavailable, and there was no more information about the shooting. The shooting occurred in the border city where U.S. troops recently installed razor wire along portions of an 18-foot border wall, in some spots reaching nearly ground level. The Nogales City Council condemned the wire and demanded that it be removed over safety concerns for children and pets. Residents and shopkeepers complain that it makes the community look like a war zone. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... The service outage at Wells Fargo, one of the nations largest banks, extended into a second day Friday, which for many people is payday. Despite a statement from the San Francisco-based company late Thursday and another Friday morning that it had restored most services, many customers were reporting on social media that they could not access their accounts, see direct deposits or pay their bills. This is crazy @WellsFargo is still down (despite what they say), customer Ari Mir wrote on Twitter. Another customer, Samantha Dorris, tweeted: Imagine waking up on pay day with no check in your account. Thanks @WellsFargo for sucking!! #wellsfargooutage ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ A Wells Fargo spokeswoman said Friday that all transactions should now be visible, but that because of higher-than-normal volumes, people are still experiencing delays in online banking and in customer-service response times. Transactions were processed normally, and customers can use their accounts with confidence, she said. Wells Fargo said Thursday that a power shutdown at one of its facilities caused the problems, saying on Twitter that it was not due to any cybersecurity event. The bank did not specify where the shutdown occurred, and a company spokeswoman would not comment on it Friday. In its Thursday statement, the bank said ATMs were back up, credit and debit cards were usable, and that mobile and online banking were operational. The bank promised to reverse fees customers may be charged because of the issues. But some customers on Friday accused the bank of lying, enclosing screenshots that showed they were stuck at the log-in screen for mobile banking. Also on Twitter, at least one credit union was trying to take advantage of Wells Fargos woes to woo customers on Thursday. The Texas Dow Employees Credit Union was responding to tweets complaining about Wells Fargo: Hello! Were sorry to see that you are having difficulty with your financial institution. We invite you to discover what TDECU has to offer. 2019 The Mercury News (San Jose, Calif.) Visit The Mercury News (San Jose, Calif.) at www.mercurynews.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. - PHOTO (for help with images, contact 312-222-4194): .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden proposed legislation Friday that would give states a free hand to allow legal cannabis markets without the threat of federal criminal intervention, the latest push in Congress to bolster the nations burgeoning pot industry. The proposal, identical to a bill in the House, aims to ease the longstanding conflict between states where cannabis is legal in some form and the U.S. government, which categorizes marijuana as a dangerous illegal drug, similar to LSD or heroin. The federal prohibition of marijuana is wrong, plain and simple, Wyden, a Democrat, said in a statement. Too many lives have been wasted, and too many economic opportunities have been missed. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ It remains unclear if Wydens bill would have a chance of clearing the Republican-controlled Senate. The Democratic majority in the House appears more open to considering proposals to ease federal restrictions on marijuana. The chamber has set a hearing next week on a bill intended to make banking services more widely available for pot companies. A proposal similar to Wydens previously languished in the Senate and House. However, Rep. Earl Blumenauer, an Oregon Democrat carrying the current bill in the House, said voters have elected the most pro-cannabis Congress in American history. Its tough to see how things will shake out, but there is a very serious chance cannabis policy reform will move in the Senate, said Morgan Fox of the National Cannabis Industry Association. Most Americans live in states where pot can be legally purchased for medical or recreational use, and the move to loosen federal restrictions on marijuana came as the issue has played into the emerging 2020 presidential campaign. The proposal would take marijuana off the federal controlled substances list, and remove federal criminal penalties for individuals and businesses acting in compliance with state marijuana laws. It would also reduce barriers for legal marijuana businesses to get access to banking. The bill is part of a three-bill package: A second would impose a tax on marijuana products similar to federal excise taxes on alcohol, while a third would allow state-legal marijuana businesses to claim tax deductions and credits. Justin Strekal, political director of the pro-legalization group NORML, said in a statement that the proposal is another sign of the growing public support for ending our failed war on cannabis consumers. Former House Speaker John Boehner, who sits on the board of cannabis company Acreage Holdings, on Friday announced the formation of an industry-backed lobbying group that would push for national marijuana reforms. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... GRANTS, N.M. Authorities are investigating after an 11-year-old girl killed herself after allegedly being bullied. Delia Watsons family and friends, who gathered Wednesday night for a vigil, said they believe the suicide was preventable. She died on Friday. Watson reported the bullying to officials at Mount Taylor Elementary School in Grants, said Watsons friend, Malaya Martinez. Me and Delia reached out to many staff members of our school many different times about the bullying but Delias voice was never heard, she said. Grants-Cibola County Schools released a statement Tuesday addressing the unexpected death of Watson. The statement said community health representatives and school counselors are available to anyone who wishes to talk about the students death. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ Martinez said she will speak up for her best friend and will continue talking until someone listens. Im Delias voice and Im reaching out to the community for help, Martinez said. Big, small, tall, has no hair, has hair, has a lot of hair, doesnt matter, they are still human beings. Its not right. A spokesman for the Grants Police Department confirmed the agency is investigating the death, but could not elaborate on details citing an ongoing investigation. Police said they are investigating social media messages that were sent to Watson. Richwood, TX (77531) Today Thunderstorms during the morning will give way to partly cloudy skies this afternoon. High 91F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 70%.. Tonight A few passing clouds. Low near 80F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... LAS CRUCES, N.M. Authorities say four Las Cruces police officers have been cleared in a fatal shooting five months ago. The Third Judicial District Attorneys Office reviewed evidence from the Sept. 27 shooting near a Las Cruces high school and concluded the use of force was justified. They say lapel camera video from the incident shows 32-year-old Juan Angel Pinedo failed to obey at least 11 commands and lunged toward a handgun before being shot by police. Pinedo died from multiple gunshot wounds. Authorities say Pinedo had an active felony warrant for his arrest from a shooting that occurred six days earlier. The shooting was investigated by an incident task force that included investigators from New Mexico State Police, Las Cruces police, Dona Ana County Sheriffs Office and New Mexico State University Police. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... YORBA LINDA, Calif. Four days earlier, they raced to put out the flaming wreckage of a small plane that had pelted their quiet Orange County neighborhood. On Thursday night, they lit candles to remember the four people killed when pieces of the plane came hurtling out of the sky and set their home on fire. About 1,000 people gathered for a vigil at Glenknoll Elementary School in Yorba Linda, a few blocks from the crash site. They mourned Roy Lee Anderson, 85, and Dahlia Marlies Leber Anderson, 68, two residents who died in their home Sunday, along with Stacie Norene Leber, 48, and Donald Paul Elliott, 58, who were visiting the couple. Ron Elenbaas lived across the street from the Andersons for the two decades. Roy Anderson was Elenbaas paper boy, he joked. For 20 years, Anderson picked up the paper at 5 a.m. from Elenbaas driveway, read it, repackaged it and brought it to his door. In the evenings, Elenbaas would cross the street for a drink with his friends on the porch: red wine for Ron, Chardonnay for Dahlia. Josh Anguiano showed up to the vigil in his postal uniform. For two years, Anguiano has delivered mail to the Andersons street. He didnt know them well he exchanged pleasantries with Roy when handing over the mail but felt he needed to be there Thursday. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ Theyre my customers, he said. Mark Jackson, pastor of the Bridge Church in Corona, called Elliott a very, very close friend who attended his church for 20 years. Elliots faith had been strengthened by a near-fatal accident years ago, when a truck he was fixing fell on him and crushed him, Jackson said. On Sunday morning, like most every Sunday, Jackson said, Elliott was worshiping in his church. And that afternoon, we heard he was worshiping God in heaven. About 1:45 p.m. Sunday, with most of the neighborhood readying for the Super Bowl, the Cessna broke apart about 10 minutes after departing Fullerton Municipal Airport. It fell to the ground in pieces a propeller bounced off a driveway, an alternator careened into a bathroom, the fuselage sheared through a tree. The pilot, Antonio Pastini, was also killed. Neighbors believe the planes left wing, equipped with a fuel tank, plunged through the roof of the home. The house was engulfed in flames almost immediately, witnesses said. The victims family said they were reeling from the crash. Our family bond is tight and each member lost in this tragedy represents more than just one role within our family, they said in a statement. The home they called a beacon for so many family and friends is charred and fenced off. Its roof is split open. A blackened SUV sits in the driveway. Investigators have said it could take as long as 18 months to determine what caused the crash. Pastini, a 75-year-old Nevada resident, is an enigma himself. Born Jordan Isaacson, he changed his name sometime in the 1970s. He told Nevada newspapers he was a former Chicago detective. Investigators recovered a Chicago police badge and other credentials at the crash site that led them to identify Pastini as a former Chicago police officer. But two days later, the Chicago police said neither an Antonio Pastini nor a Jordan Isaacson ever worked for them. A spokeswoman said the badge had been reported lost in 1978. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... Voters in Aztec, Bloomfield and Loving joined those in Albuquerque in shooting down mill levy increases in school district mail-in elections, while residents in Ruidoso overwhelmingly approved capital outlay funding and a continuation of a capital improvement tax this week. Aztec Municipal School District Superintendent Kirk Carpenter said it was devastating that voters failed to OK a two-mill levy that would have funded maintenance and technology purchases at the schools. The increase from 1.886 to 2.000 mill failed on a 1,992-to-1,201 vote, according to San Juan County Clerk. Aztec is one of three local school districts that will face reduced funding as a result of Tuesdays special elections. Albuquerque Public Schools voters rejected the entire mill levy/bond package the district had proposed. A measure to extend an existing two-mill levy failed by 70 votes in Bloomfield while the same measure passed by more than 1,500 votes in Central Consolidated School District. The measure would have caused a slight property tax increase in Aztec, but property taxes would have remained the same in both Bloomfield and CCSD. In Loving, voters narrowly turned down a two-mill levy Tuesday, according to Eddy County Clerk Robin Van Natta, who said 102 voted against it and 93 in favor. Had it been approved, the measure would have imposed a $200 per year tax on a $100,000 house. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ Voters in Ruidoso stayed true to their past support of capital outlay funding for its municipal school district and approved continuation of a capital improvements tax. In a mail-in ballot election, they voted 1,233 for and 861 against, according to Lincoln County Clerk Whitney Whittaker. Thirty-six ballots were rejected out of the 2,130 returned. We just want to send a sincere thank you to all district voters for their continued support of our students, Superintendent George Bickert said. As we move forward, we will continue to be fiscally responsible with your tax dollars as we continue to upgrade and maintain the facilities for our students. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... The U.S. Department of Labor recently announced that $85 million in grants will be awarded to YouthBuild programs in 32 states, including $2 million to a pair of organizations in New Mexico. The education and training programs are designed to help at-risk youth complete high school or state equivalency degree programs, earn skills and credentials for in-demand occupations, and learn to build housing for low-income or homeless individuals and families, according to a news release. Help-New Mexico Inc. of Albuquerque will receive a grant of $990,258 while YouthWorks of Santa Fe will receive $1.1 million. This round of grant awards allows recipients to offer training in local in-demand industries not just construction, but in health care, information technology, hospitality and retail services and logistics. The total national grants announced will fund 81 YouthBuild programs, according to the release. The U.S. Department of Labor YouthBuild program boasts a network of more than 200 urban and rural programs in 46 states including New Mexico. To find a nearby YouthBuild grantee, click here. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ We welcome suggestions for the daily Bright Spot. Send to newsroom@abqjournal.com. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... Copyright 2019 Albuquerque Journal SANTA FE Many New Mexicans especially large families with children can expect a bit more pain when they file their state tax returns this year. State economists are projecting about $55 million in new tax revenue this year because of the federal tax overhaul. The 2017 law reduced federal tax rates but also had the effect of broadening the base of whats taxed. Unlike some states, however, New Mexico didnt make corresponding adjustments to offset the federal changes. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ Lots of working people are about to be hit hard, and they dont even realize it, Rep. Micaela Lara Cadena, D-Mesilla, said in an interview. The federal law, for example, eliminated personal exemptions, which can increase the amount of income subject to taxation. But other adjustments in the federal tax code are intended to keep filers from paying more in federal taxes. New Mexico, meanwhile, largely piggybacks off the federal definition of income, so some taxpayers, depending on their circumstances, will pay more in taxes to the state. Lara Cadena is among a few New Mexico lawmakers both Democrats and Republicans working on legislation that would cut state taxes to offset the federal changes, at least for future years. More than half the states enacted tax legislation last year in response to the 2017 federal tax overhaul, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The adjustments varied by state, depending on how their income tax systems interacted with the federal changes. In New Mexico, state economists told lawmakers last year to expect an increase in revenue, unless the state made changes to its own code. Late in the 2018 legislative session, the House overwhelmingly passed a bill aimed at minimizing the impact on taxpayers, but it didnt make it through the Senate in time. Rep. Jason Harper, R-Rio Rancho, said lawmakers simply failed to make the legislation a priority and adjust tax rates in time for this year. It was a mistake, and its embarrassing that we didnt, Harper said. Im expecting there to be outrage when people figure out that, through our inaction, we raised all of their taxes. Harper himself is working on a broad package of tax changes that would include revisions to New Mexicos personal income tax system. Lara Cadenas proposal, House Bill 18, would target the tax relief to low-income families with children. The tax breaks would be on a sliding scale. A family making over $350,000 a year, for example, would get a $25 credit, but a family with income of $25,000 or less would get $175 per qualifying child, which it could receive as cash back. It would help the economy and get money to people who need it, Lara Cadena said. What a lot of evidence shows, she said, is that especially for low-income and working-poor families, that money will be spent quickly, and it will be spent locally. Legislative and executive branch analysts have offered a variety of estimates for how the legislation would affect future state tax revenue ranging from $48 million a year to $76 million. In other words, the bill might be a net tax cut, assuming the federal tax overhaul is generating about $55 million in new state income tax revenue. House Bill 18 co-sponsored by Lara Cadena and fellow first-year Democratic Rep. Christine Chandler of Los Alamos has cleared one committee and must pass at least one more before reaching the House floor. A separate bill introduced in the Senate, meanwhile, would offer a flat $4,000 tax deduction for any dependent. That proposal, Senate Bill 300, is sponsored by Sen. Clemente Meme Sanchez, D-Grants. His proposal would offer the $4,000 deduction for each dependent, regardless of the familys income level or whether the dependent is a child or older relative. It would cost the state about $66 million in revenue, according to legislative analysts. In any case, this years proposals are too late for people filing their 2018 income taxes. Richard Anklam, executive director of the nonpartisan New Mexico Tax Research Institute, said the effects of the federal tax overhaul will vary by household. Some people wont be negatively affected on their state taxes at all, enjoying the full benefit of the federal tax changes. And some filers will pay more in state taxes, but it will be more than offset by the reduction in federal taxes. More specifically, Anklam said, state taxes will increase for single parents who dont itemize and have more than one child and for married couples who dont itemize and have more than two children. The increase gets bigger the more children they have, Anklam said. Some of the effects, Anklam said, have already shown up in peoples paychecks, through changes in how much is withheld for federal and state taxes. Still, he said, there may be an unwelcome surprise when you calculate your income taxes this year. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... After hearing nearly 2 hours of often passionate public comment from dozens of people both for and against a bill that would make it illegal to trap, snare or poison wildlife on public lands, the House Energy, Environment and Natural Resources Committee on Thursday put off a vote on the bill. Rep. Matthew McQueen, D-Galisteo, the committee chairman and co-sponsor of the bill, said the hearing will resume at 9 a.m. Saturday at the Roundhouse. Before the public hearing started, another co-sponsor, Rep. Christine Chandler, D-Los Alamos, gave an overview of the House Bill 366, which she said was meant to provide reasonable and humane management of wildlife and prevent unintended injury or death of domestic animals. Chandler said people should expect to safely enjoy the outdoors without fear of their pets getting caught in a trap. She said the bill is in line with similar laws in Arizona and Colorado that banned trapping on public lands. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ Trapping would still be allowed on private and tribal lands. The proposed bill is being called Roxys Law in honor of an 8-year-old heeler mix that in November was strangled in a neck snare trap just off a trail at federal Santa Cruz Lake Recreation Area near Espanola. Roxys owner, Dave Clark, desperately tried to save the dog. At Thursdays meeting, He was one of several supporters of the bill who made the point that traps dont always catch the animals theyre intended to catch. The trapper who killed my dog was operating illegally, he said. Indiscriminate killing should not be condoned. Clark has said before that Roxy was trapped on a portion of the recreation area that was off-limits to trapping. Others said New Mexicos trapping law is outdated and inhumane and amounts to animal cruelty and is not the way to control the coyote population. This is a barbaric relic of a past age, said Peter Schoenberg, an attorney who is on the board of directors for WildEarth Guradians. We cant trap our way out of the coyote problem. Ranchers blame coyotes and other predators for loss of cattle. A few gave graphic testimony of watching newborn calves being eaten alive. Randell Major of Magdelena called the proposed ban government overreach. This law will prevent ranchers from protecting their livestock, he said. One 43-year-old man said he traps to earn extra money to pursue his dream of owning his own ranch. He said the proposed bill would cripple my dream if it were to pass. He was followed by Shelly Thedford of Dona Ana County, whose family relies on trapping coyotes and bobcats on public land to supplement their income through the sale of pelts. If you take this away from us, youre actually taking food off my table, she said. Both sides argued that public lands are there for all of us. The committee did vote to approve amendments to clear up what McQueen called technical issues. The chairman also signaled that corral traps would likely be removed from the bill. The bill already allows for some exceptions, including traps used to control gophers, moles, rock squirrels, mice and rats. It also allows for state and federal agencies to trap if they are acting to manage the ecosystem. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... SANTA FE New Mexico is the only state that does not pay its legislators a salary. But lawmakers are able to participate in a legislative retirement plan, and they could see their pension benefits go up under a bill filed at the Roundhouse by two top-ranking senators. The measure, Senate Bill 307, would also require that lawmakers pay more into the pension plan $1,000 a year instead of $600 and would allow legislators who initially did not sign up for the plan to opt in. It was introduced by Senate Minority Leader Stuart Ingle, R-Portales, and Senate Majority Leader Peter Wirth, D-Santa Fe. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ In an interview, Ingle said the primary motivation behind the bill was to open the door for legislators to join the pension plan who had previously not signed up. He also said lawmakers should be paying more into the plan, which was more than 137 percent funded as of June 2018. It also gets earmarked funding from certain tax revenues. Ingle said he was not sure whether the bill would actually increase lawmakers pension benefits. I dont know whether it would or not, he said. Specifically, the bill would change the date used to calculate yearly pension benefits from the first day of January to the first day of July. That could matter because the federal per diem rates that are used to calculate benefit levels typically go up in summer months. The per diem rate, which is set by the federal government, is currently set at $161. But its scheduled to jump up to $184 in March and remain at that level through Sept. 30, the end of the federal budget year. Based on those rates, the change proposed by the bill would mean an annual pension benefit of $12,144 up from $10,626 for a lawmaker who has served the minimum requirement of 10 years in the Legislature to qualify for the pension plan. Higher per diem rates will produce higher legislative pensions, producing an unknown actuarial impact to the plan, said Susan Pittard, the chief of staff and general counsel for the Public Employees Retirement Association, which runs the plan. There are currently 120 active members in the legislative retirement plan, a figure that includes current and former lawmakers, according to PERA. First-term lawmakers have 180 days to decide whether to join the retirement plan, and there are currently only four veteran legislators who have not signed up Sens. Sander Rue, R-Albuquerque, Jacob Candelaria, D-Albuquerque, and William Burt, R-Alamogordo; and Rep. Zach Cook, R-Ruidoso. Meanwhile, the average retirement age for a legislator is just over 64 years, and the average annual pension is $10,824, according to PERA. The legislative retirement measure is awaiting its first hearing in the Senate Rules Committee. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... Just like in a Hollywood blockbuster, the suspense around New Mexicos film rebate cap is growing. First, the backlog in state payments to the industry caused by the $50 million cap was reported to be $180 million. Just a few days later the backlog had increased to $250 million, with the potential to hit more than $700 million in four years. That was two months ago. When Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced last week her support for legislation removing the cap, she also supported legislation that would pay off a wait for it $324 million backlog. And that plot twist raises an important question: How can taxpayers afford unlimited rebates when the amount owed keeps going up every few weeks? New Mexico taxpayers, the people who pony up the money for the rebates, need answers before Senate Bill 2, sponsored by Sen. Nancy Rodriguez, D-Santa Fe, eliminates the cap. It makes sense to support the film industry as an important piece of diversifying the states economy. But public money isnt finite, as Louisiana found out the hard way. In 2016 that states film incentives generated $63.2 million in taxes and cost taxpayers $282.6 million. It adopted a cap in 2017. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ New Mexicos cap was instituted under former Gov. Susana Martinez in 2011 to safeguard the states budget during leaner times. Theres little doubt it did what it was supposed to do. But theres also little doubt it left the state a mountain of IOUs. Critics claim the cap led to a slowdown of film productions in the state. Hence the move to lift it. But publications such as MovieMaker ranked Albuquerque and Santa Fe among the best cities for filmmakers in the country. The film cap could not have hurt the industry too much with that type of ranking. Louisianas lessons learned and the growing N.M. IOU present strong arguments in favor of some sort of middle ground with a higher cap on the rebates. It also should include real transparency on what the industry brings to our state. Yes, N.M. has more than $1.1 billion in projected budget surplus, but an education lawsuit ruling, struggling pension funds and deteriorated highways arent leaving a lot of wiggle room for film industry rebates to grow exponentially. Sen. Rodriguez believes the legislation would help wean the state off its reliance on the oil and gas industry. OK, but were not showering oil and gas companies with hundreds of millions in tax rebates, and that industry puts money directly into state coffers. Yes, film productions provide our residents with much needed jobs, albeit many of them temporary. And the industry does pump money into local economies. But how can the public know what kind of return on investment its getting if it doesnt know how much the industry spends in which sectors or what it really owes? How can the state work to attract the right additional projects if it has no idea which ones brought the state the most money? Does anyone have a clue how much New Mexico will be paying out annually once the backlog is paid off? Its great when blockbusters such as Marvels Avengers film here. Television series like Breaking Bad put New Mexico on the Hollywood map. But the public and its public servants need hard numbers to do a real cost-benefit analysis of the industry, and they deserve to have a safeguard in place when the inevitable sequel to the last economic downturn premieres. This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. New Mexico State Police say a two vehicle crash on Interstate 40 claimed the lives of a woman and her young son Thursday morning near Milan, NM. NMSP spokesman Dusty Francisco said Shannon Hosteen, 37, and her 5-year-old son were killed in the crash and a 2-year-old infant was airlifted to University of New Mexico hospital with unknown injuries. Alcohol does not appear to have been a factor in the crash and seatbelts were not properly used, he said. Francisco said the crash happened before noon when Hosteen drove her SUV into the back of a tractor-trailer that was stopped in traffic due to a previous wreck on Interstate 40. He said Hosteen and her son died at the scene and the infant in the SUV was airlifted to UNMH. For the victims privacy the identity of the children will not be released by State Police, Francisco said. The name of the driver of the Commercial Motor vehicle will not be released due to no charges being filed. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ANN ARBOR, Mich. Former Michigan and Los Lunas High running back Omaury Samuels had a misdemeanor count of domestic violence dismissed in Ann Arbors 15th District Court on Thursday as part of a plea agreement at a settlement conference, the Detroit Free Press reported. In exchange, Samuels entered a guilty plea to one misdemeanor count of malicious destruction of property under $200. His plea was made via the Holmes Youthful Trainee Act, which generally allows for any charge to be expunged from an individuals record after the successful completion of a probation period, the Free Press reported. Samuels is scheduled for sentencing later this month. Michigan dismissed Samuels, who has maintained his innocence on the domestic violence charge, from its program on Dec. 12 after the charges were brought against him. The alleged incident that was said to have occurred on Dec. 9 on campus. He appeared in nine games as a freshman in 2017, carrying the ball eight times for 13 yards. In 2018, Samuels carried the ball 13 times for 66 yards in six appearances. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... SANTA FE, N.M. This story has been updated to include comment from electric utility PNM. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham threw her support behind a comprehensive energy bill Thursday that could pave the way to a 100 percent carbon-free electric grid in New Mexico by 2045. Senate Bill 489, co-sponsored by Democratic lawmakers Mimi Stewart and Jacob Candelaria in the Senate and Nathan Small in the House, sets aggressive requirements for public utilities to acquire renewable resources over the next 20 years while eliminating all carbon-emitting generation. It also authorizes the use of bonds for Public Service Co. of New Mexico to pay for costs associated with closing the coal-fired San Juan Generating Station near Farmington by 2022, and for pulling out of the nearby Four Corners Power Plant by 2031. The bonds would be paid for by customers through a surcharge on their bills. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ Overall, SB 489, officially called the Energy Transition Act, creates a pathway for New Mexico to replace coal and other fossil fuel-based generation with a clean energy economy over the next 25 years, the governor said. It also authorizes creation of two new funds for economic development and worker re-training to mitigate the impact of closing the San Juan coal plant and mine. This robust package puts us in the drivers seat, Lujan Grisham said in a prepared statement Thursday. The renewable and zero-carbon standards outlined in this bill are among the strongest in the country. In particular, the bill would require public utilities to derive 50 percent of their electricity from renewable resources by 2030, and 80 percent by 2040. They would completely eliminate carbon-emitting generation by 2045, relying on new technologies such as battery storage systems to make up the difference. Those goals drew broad support from environmental groups. In general, the bill puts us on the same track as California to a 100 percent carbon-free energy economy by 2045, said Camilla Fiebelman, director of the Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter. But in Californias case, thats an aspirational goal. In our case, its a mandate. PNM issued a statement late Thursday saying the bill challenges the company to take bold action. Our new Governor, the sponsors of this bill, and PNM recognizes that these are changing times, its statement said. We all agree that our environmental and economic future for all New Mexicans is at stake. The Energy Transition Act takes PNM out of our comfort zone, and challenges PNM to take bold action during this historic and unprecedented time in this global energy transition. The authorization for PNM to sell bonds to pay for abandoning its coal assets will likely generate opposition from some environmentalists, such as New Energy Economy in Santa Fe. That initiative, known as bond securitization, would allow PNM to recover most or all its investments in San Juan and Four Corners, up to $30 million for plant decommissioning and mine reclamation, and $20 million for severance and re-training for laid-off workers. But NEE says PNM should be required to justify full cost recovery at the state Public Regulation Commission, which could decide to reduce the amount the utility recovers. If it includes a 100 percent bailout for PNM, New Mexicans have spoken and theyre emphatically opposed, said NEE Executive Director Mariel Nanasi in an email to the Journal. Why should all the lost earnings, cleanup costs and worker severance issues be paid by ratepayers without PNM contributing a penny to their bad business decisions? .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. A Santa Fe woman caught in the crossfire when officers shot an attempted carjacker two years ago is suing Albuquerque, alleging the officers were frenzied and undisciplined when they fired. Becky Nottke was shot below her knee. Nottke and her husband, Dan Nottke, filed the lawsuit against the city and the three officers James Ortiz, Mel Acata and Paul Bellgardt in 2nd Judicial District Court on Tuesday. Their attorney, Ray Vargas, did not return requests for comment. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ Gilbert Gallegos, a spokesman for the Albuquerque Police Department, confirmed that Ortiz, Acata and Bellgardt are still with the department. He said there was no discipline related to the shooting. In February 2017, Nottke, chairwoman of the states Manufactured Housing Committee, was at the New Mexico Regulation and Licensing Department, on San Antonio NE, near Interstate 25, for the committees bimonthly meeting. As she left the meeting, a suspect fleeing police tried to take her car at gunpoint. Officers Ortiz, Acata and Bellgardt opened fire, hitting both Nottke and the suspect, 43-year-old Lee Brandenburg. They were both hit in the leg. Investigators later determined a bullet fired by Ortiz hit Nottke. A special prosecutor with the District Attorneys Office found the shooting was justified, and no charges have been filed. Brandenburg was found guilty last spring of attempted robbery, assault on a peace officer, resisting arrest and burglary of a vehicle. He was sentenced to six years and six months in prison, with three years and six months suspended. Nottke alleges that negligence on the part of the city and its officers resulted in her injuries and damaged her personal relationships. According to the lawsuit, Brandenburg was trying to carjack Nottke and she was half in and half out of her SUV when Acata, Ortiz and Bellgardt started shooting. They fired a total of 25 times. In the frenzy of this rapid, undisciplined firing of bullets, defendants Ortiz, Acata, and/or Bellgardt struck the suspect with several bullets and struck Ms. Nottke in her leg with one bullet, the complaint says. Although the suspect had previously brandished a pellet gun, he never fired upon any member of APD or anyone else. The complaint alleges the officers were negligent because they did not de-escalate the situation earlier, they did not deploy less-lethal options and they recklessly opened fire on Nottke and Brandenburg, endangering their lives and the lives of the public on a very busy thoroughfare. It further alleges Ortiz and Acata had a known history of use of force (excessive force) complaints and the city has not disciplined, supervised or retrained the two. The details of those complaints are not clear. Nottke is seeking compensation for her medical expenses, emotional distress, lost earnings, pain and suffering and for the damage the incident caused to her relationship with her husband. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... Kody and Kyle Valentine are at their best when making music. Its a form of art that the brothers have bonded over throughout the years. The duo are the masterminds behind The Holy Knives and will begin their tour in Albuquerque on Feb. 15. The Holy Knives are touring in support of their album Year of the Black Dog. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ The album was about a 10-month process in total, Kody Valentine says in a recent interview. I think it could be also said that making our first EP, Ritual Bloom, was part of making the album. The two releases are brother-and-sister albums. They have a lot of similar ideas and themes. If we included the time spent on the EP, it would be just over a year. The San Antonio, Texas-based brothers headed to Sonic Ranch in Tornillo, Texas, just outside El Paso, to record Year of the Black Dog. They worked with producer Manuel Calderon, who helped shape their desert dreamscapes a mood-driven album with a Western heart. The atmosphere creates a surreal backdrop to Kody Valentines self-exploratory lyrics. The brothers say that when this album was being written, there was no thematic center for its ideas. We write 50/50, Kody Valentine says. Its a lot of collaboration. We write a lot of things, and the best comes out of our sessions writing together. If we are writing solo, well bring it to the other and build it out. The Holy Knives took their name from two of the brothers favorite works of art: the film The Holy Mountain by Alejandro Jodorowsky and the poetry book The Singing Knives by Frank Stanford. The brothers draw musical inspiration from acts such as Timber Timbre, Arctic Monkeys, Beach House and Portishead. Kyle Valentine says working with his brother feels like second nature. The pair dont often find themselves arguing or at an impasse. If we have a stalemate, the producer comes in and is the tiebreaker, Kyle Valentine says. Weve got a mutual understanding that if one person is feeling the idea, then well work on it. We entertain the other persons belief of the song. Theres a trust that weve built. We often find ourselves saying, I dont really see it, but lets try it out. A big part of our success is communication. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... KlezmerQuerque 2019 has been going strong for 17 years. This years theme is Oy! Romanya! Romanya! and is a celebration of Jewish, Yiddish and Romanian connections in dance, music, history and culture, according to an event news release. The event begins on Thursday, Feb. 14, and continues through Feb. 17 at Congregation Nahalat Shalom. Dance and music events will be held Feb. 14 through Feb. 16. Four 90-minute, hands-on workshop sessions in music, dance and culture, featuring the festivals special guest artists, will be held all day on Feb. 17. Composer, violinist and ethnomusicologist Miamon Miller will host a discussion on a film he composed for, perform during a concert and lead music workshops. He composed some music for this puppet theater in Poland and they had this puppet performance, which was filmed, and its called The Black Birds of BiaAystok, and he composed the music for it, said Beth A. Cohen, KlezmerQuerque coordinator. He went out to Poland and worked with the musicians there. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ Accordionist Isaac Sadigursky also will be part of the festival. Sadigursky, who grew up in a Jewish village in Romania, immigrated to the United States many years ago. He and Miller have been playing music together for years in the Los Angeles area and will share a stage during the festival. Dance duo Cristian Florescu of Romania and his wife, Sonia Dion, will conduct dance workshops and perform. Theyll be leading group dances like line and circle dances from Romania, Cohen said. Were trying to do a little because Jewish people for many, many years lived and thrived in Romania. Theres still several communities there. Were trying to do a little crossover of Jewish and Romanian culture. Klezmer dance and music also are a big part of the festival. Klezmer is dance music, Cohen said. Its secular. It grew out of traditional weddings, wedding traditions of the villages in eastern Europe, the Jewish villages, and its dance music, instrumental music, so its not necessarily prayers you would say in a synagogue. Its considered more secular, even though its used in a wedding. But its recreational dancing. The Nahalat Shalom Community Klezmer Band and the Rikud dancers perform on Feb. 15. The der Freylekher Shabes KlezmerQuerque opening MEGA-event starts at 6 p.m. Feb. 15. The festivals main event concert and dance party will be held on Feb. 16. There will be a musical greeting at the door by Di Kavene KapelyeIt. The concert will open with a performance by local klezmer band The Rebbes Orkestra. It will continue with a concert by a klezmer trio made up of Miller, Sadigursky and guest bass player Paul Brown. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... Comedian Keith Baranys shows appeal to a variety of audiences. I play to a lot of country club audiences, a lot of charity fundraisers, and I play to a lot of temples, synagogues and churches, he said. The reason for that is I was raised religious, Orthodox Jewish, in fact, and even though Im now a secular Jew with no religious affiliation, I know the culture enough that I can make it funny to Jewish people who attend the shows at the temples and Jewish community centers, but also because I am living a life in the mainstream it crosses over to peoples who lives arent like that. Baranys comedy style is tasteful, but not quite for children. Im not really a kids comedian, and when you do clean comedy, people think that youre a family-oriented, fun, silly, larger-than-life and wear-a-clown-nose kind of comedian, but I maintain a kind of a realism edge to me, he said. And why, for some reason, thats OK with the churches, I just say kudos to them for keeping an open mind. Keeping his material relatable to audiences is key. I am going to be funny for close to an hour and a half, and Im going to tell stories about my life and Im going to talk about a lot of things, not just the Jewish culture, not just being from New York, Barany said. Im going to talk about jobs, marriage and all sorts of stories and insights because not everybody has had the chance to travel to the degree that I have. Some things they do know, some things they dont know, but we find a way through my stories for people to go, Oh, yeah, OK; this isnt so bizarre to me or unfamiliar and I think by the end of the evening theres a little bit of community. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ Timing is a big part of comedy, which is something Barany learned early. Literally, the unit of measurement that we talk about when we start learning the craft is youre supposed to deliver four or five laughs per minute, he said. And that means if you start with a 60-second premise, if your routine only lasts two minutes, youve got to fit in eight to 10 laughs in the first minute, because one is to get to the second, third, fourth and fifth laugh as quickly as possible, but it also teaches you that its the premise because the premise is just setting up the scene. Getting people laughing is just as important as creating a sense of connection with audiences. Because you are under the lights and you are the unifying force in the room, and youre trying to bond 150 people together who have little to no connection with one another, other than through you, you have to exercise masterful, psychological stuff, Barany said. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... Theres not a dull moment in Max Evans life. Hes best-known for writing The Rounders and The Hi Lo Country both of which have been made into feature films. He was a teenage cowboy and eventually served in World War II and came back to New Mexico, where he struggled as a small-ranch owner. The 94-year-old New Mexico author is the subject of the documentary Ol Max Evans: The First Thousand Years, which will have its broadcast premiere at 8 p.m. Monday, Feb. 11, on New Mexico PBS, Channel 5.1 ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ The broadcast will also be shown on sister stations KENW in Portales and KRWG in Las Cruces. New Mexico PBS will also air an episode of Colores! at 4 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 9, that focuses on the documentary. Its a big deal, says Lorene Mills of the mulitcast premiere. This means the local markets can emphasize the importance of Max. Mills is the co-director of the film, along with David Leach and Paul Barnes. She and Barnes also served as producers on the film. Mills says the impetus for the film happened when her late husband shared a story of Evans in 1993 with her. I was a camerawoman at the time, and when I heard the story, I wanted to tell it, she says. Max has done 1,000 years worth of living. Evans was a renowned bar brawler, drinker and raconteur for most of his life. The success of The Rounders led him to Hollywood, where he developed a lifelong friendship with Sam Peckinpah, acting as a script doctor for him and other Hollywood directors. He later was instrumental in forming the New Mexico Film Commission, the first such state agency in the U.S. As a teenager, Evans was largely untaught and was highly influenced by reading Balzac, Chekhov, Tolstoy and Shakespeare copies of whose work he found on a ranchers bookshelves. His writing is in his mentors humanist, tragicomic style, not the standard Western shoot-em-ups. Mills says the film premiered in October 2017 and then went on a festival run. A couple of years has passed since the premiere, and Mills stays in touch with Evans. He still has wonderful stories that Ive never heard before, she says. I might still come home and write them down. I feel like I could do many more documentaries about Maxs life. We touched on a lot. Hes a fountain of stories. SEND ME YOUR TIPS: If you know of a movie filming in the state, or are curious about one, email film@ABQjournal.com. Follow me on Twitter @agomezART. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... RIO RANCHO, N.M. Radiation wasnt what killed so many people when the U.S. dropped atomic bombs in World War II, according to a retired military officer. In a special presentation at Meadowlark Senior Center on Jan. 17, retired Lt. Col. Gary Hoe told about the Aug. 6, 1945, dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, which soon led to the Japanese surrender, ending World War II. Of course, dropping another devastating bomb on Nagasaki a few days later didnt hurt the Land of the Rising Suns decision, either. But as costly as those bombs were, in terms of deaths, paving the way for those bombs to be dropped was also costly: The U.S. and its allies had to conquer Iwo Jima and Okinawa, both of which stood below the path of the bomber Enola Gay. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ Most folks know New Mexico played a role in the end of the war, with the bombs developed in Los Alamos and an atomic bomb tested at the Trinity Site near White Sands on July 16, 1945. But Hoe was able to complete the story, explaining how the U.S. really didnt need to take those small islands in the Pacific Iwo Jima, which had two air bases on it, and Okinawa had it not been for the flight path of the bombers that summer. In fact, Hoe said, the costs were exorbitant: almost 19,000 American servicemen were killed during the battles for those tiny islands. Other tidbits gleaned from his 90-minute presentation: Although the U.S. had been racing Hitler to build an atomic bomb, Germany surrendered before the bombs were dropped. B-29 pilots in the 509th Composite Group were trained for this mission at Wendover AFB, on the Utah-Nevada border, dropping pumpkin bombs, but not told what they were training for. It took 18 months to collect the critical-mass Uranium 235 material at the Oak Ridge (Tenn.) National Laboratory, during which time, Hoe said, 15 percent of the electrical power in the U.S. was needed for that procedure; The U.S. had only enough uranium for a bomb and a half, but enough plutonium for four bombs and that half uranium bomb was tested on July 16, 1945; There were a dozen men in the crew of the Enola Gay, which was named the night before the bombing raid by pilot Paul Tibbetts, in honor of his mother; The bomb had been delivered on July 26 to Tinian Island, which was a massive B-29 base with four runways, by the cruiser USS Indianapolis, which was sunk July 30 by a Japanese torpedo, resulting in the loss of 879 lives; Days later, when Nagasaki was bombed, Kokura had been the original target, but at the time was socked in by inclement weather; It took the atomic bomb 43 seconds to fall 37,000 feet before it was detonated; The Enola Gay is in the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum at Dulles Airport in Washington, D.C.; You can see a B-29 Superfortress, identical to the Enola Gay, at the National Museum of Nuclear Science & History in Albuquerque, where Hoe spends time as a docent. Dispelling a long-held belief, he said it wasnt radiation that claimed thousands of lives in Hiroshima it was the heat from the bomb. Many of the 75,000 dead Japanese had been virtually vaporized from the heat, if they were under it, he said. The 6-ton atomic bomb had detonated about 1,800 feet over the ground. But for residents about two miles beyond the bombs path, second-degree burns were all that had been suffered, thus survivable. Theres no residual radiation there today, he said. We were lied to by the government. They wanted to scare us, pay taxes to keep us safe in the Cold War. Hoe had some other numbers: The U.S. built 69,000 nuclear weapons, testing about 1,000 of them underground. (Hoe had been a technical director of nuclear tests in Nevada and a chief of the U.S. Air Force Nuclear Safety Office; he later worked at Sandia National Labs, retiring for good in 2010.) The USSR had built about 73,000 nuclear weapons, he added, but thanks to the treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons of 1968, each nation has about 4,500 nukes today. Staff reports Aberdeen News Trucks stop by weekly to deliver safe drinking water 5 gallons per person enough to cook and to sip. An alphabet soup of toxic chemicals mixed in with the tap water turns showers into sealed-mouth ordeals. A few hundred affected residents have been essentially trapped transformed into economic refugees because pollution has made their homes unsaleable. And this is in Box Elder, not Anbar Province. The recent revelation that firefighting foams used at Ellsworth Air Force Base for decades have contaminated local groundwater is more than an inconvenience to affected residents. The Air Force should do everything necessary to make things right. Familiarity with the snail-like pace of federal bureaucracy dims hopes for a quick resolution. The Air Force can neutralize threats in Syria in minutes, but addressing contamination on U.S. soil sometimes takes longer than winning wars. Meanwhile, the worries of affected residents get replenished as frequently as their jugs and bottles. Toxins released in the foam have been linked to cancer, thyroid disease and other health problems. The effects on individuals will depend on length of exposure, toxic concentrations, genetics and lifestyles. There is no satisfactory answer to the burning question: What does it mean for me? Nobody truly knows and wont for decades. Sorry. Try not to worry. Who should be blamed? The Air Force purchased foam systems to protect airmen and airplanes. Pollution was unintended. Notification, however, took too long. In 2011, Ellsworth officials began to investigate whether firefighting foam had contaminated the bases soil and water. In February 2013, the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources sent the base a letter urging the testing of private wells as soon as possible in the current calendar year. Five-and-a-half years later, the base completed the first stage of tests. Its easy to imagine water reports stamped urgent stacked in cardboard boxes and rotating among lost desks deep inside the Pentagon. That wont lessen the legitimate anger of parents whose children unknowingly drank polluted water while government dithered. The Air Force should aim higher. The response has been more urgent since fault was finally acknowledged. The base has delivered water wherever tests reveal contamination above EPA advisory levels. Mid-term solutions are being explored, such as reverse osmosis or granulated active carbon filtering systems. A likely long-term solution will involve hooking into Box Elders municipal water system, but that fix comes with a threatened water bill. If we hook you up to public water, we pay for the tie-in and, Im sorry to say, the water bill then is going to be yours to take care of, Brian Howard of the Air Force Civil Engineering Center told residents in November. We cant be a purveyor of water to the public, Howard said. The Air Force and U.S. government, were not in the position to be purveyors of water. If a private company had caused the contamination, the responsibilities would be clear. A judge would require the injured parties to be restored to pre-contamination conditions as quickly as possible and at no cost to those harmed. Polluters would be required to pay for any and all damages proven to have stemmed from the contamination, with indemnification required for future claims. Payment also could be expected for pain and suffering. Unnecessary delays in rectifying the problem would likely increase awards. The Air Force should be held to no lesser standard. In light of circumstances, agreeing to purvey water in perpetuity while outside the governments normal mission might be considered a real bargain. Champions of World's 2 Billion Unreached People Celebrate Big Step Forward in Fulfilling Great Commission But with much work remaining, organizers of 2019's 4th annual International Day for the Unreached event June 9 make strong appeal for focus on those who have yet to hear the gospel Contact: Gregg Wooding, 972-567-7660 COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo., Feb. 7, 2019 /Standard Newswire/ -- As organizers of the International Day for the Unreached (www.dayfortheunreached.org) prepare for the fourth annual event on Sunday, June 9, they are celebrating a big step forward in the goal of seeing the Gospel of Jesus spread to every corner of the globe, and making an "all hands on deck" appeal to focus on and reach those who have yet to hear the gospel. Photo: A Cambodian woman receives a Bible after participating in a local ministry's literacy program. In December, leaders in the missions community met at the Finishing the Task conference in California to report on progress in sharing the gospel with the world's two billion unreached. Attendees committed to reaching the last people groups with no one currently focused on evangelizing them. "I'm excited to see the engagement level of churches and ministry organizations increasing," said conference participant Larry D. Andrews, President and CEO of Partners International, one of the members of the Alliance for the Unreached, a network of like-minded missions organizations. "It was a significant moment, but there is still much to be done to fully achieve the mission Jesus has for us," Andrews added. "We need all hands on deck. It is going to require every church and every individual Christ follower to play their part in helping us accomplish the Great Commission of Jesus Christ." The Alliance for the Unreached is supporting that effort by focusing attention on the needs of all those who have yet to hear the gospel, and spotlighting the ways different organizations are trying to reach them and how individual Christians can get involved. Central to the group's initiative is the annual global observance of the International Day for the Unreached, to be held on Pentecost Sunday, June 9. The day is chosen because it marks when the Holy Spirit fell on the early church, empowering the disciples to fulfill the Great Commission. The International Day for the Unreached will feature a globally streamed live celebration and challenge for which organizers hope to see 100,000 participants. Millions of people have learned about the Alliance's initiative through social media, over the last three years. Meanwhile, the Alliance has also produced a new Great Commission Action Guide intended to encourage year-round engagement in the task. It tells individuals and churches how they can help and get others involved through prayer, advocacy, sharing and service. "As important as the International Day for the Unreached is, an event is not going to be enough on its own," said Andrews. "Jesus did not just call us to be aware of the Great Commission and the challenge to reach all the peoples of the earth he called us to personally engage." Comprising 14 similarly-focused but diverse organizations, the Alliance reflects the wide range of needs and opportunities in sharing the gospel with the unreached. Founding members include those involved in Bible translation and distribution, broadcasting, children's ministry, church planting, relief and development, and medical help. The Alliance members are: Bibles For The World, DOOR International, FEBC (Far East Broadcasting Company), Frontier Ventures, Joshua Project, Mission Network News, Missio Nexus, Operation Mobilization, Partners International, Reach Beyond, Seed Company, TWR (Trans World Radio), World Mission and ZimZam Global. The Great Commission Action Guide is among the Alliance for the Unreached resources available at dayfortheunreached.org. The International Day for the Unreached (www.dayfortheunreached.org) is an initiative of the Alliance for the Unreached, a group of evangelistic ministries and other organizations: Bibles For The World (www.biblesfortheworld.org), DOOR International (www.doorinternational.org), FEBC (Far East Broadcasting Company, www.febc.org), Frontier Ventures (www.frontierventures.org), Joshua Project (www.joshuaproject.org), Mission Network News (www.mnnonline.org), Missio Nexus (www.missionexus.org), Operation Mobilization (www.omusa.org), Partners International (www.partnersintl.org), Reach Beyond (www.reachbeyond.org), Seed Company (www.seedcompany.com), TTWR (Trans World Radio, www.twr.org), World Mission (www.worldmission.cc), and ZimZam Global (www.zimzamglobal.org). For more information, contact Gregg Wooding (InChrist Communications) @ 972-567-7660 or gwooding@inchristcommunications.com. Aberdeen News Jeremy Atkins knew he wanted a career in which he would make a difference, and he sees his job as prevention counselor as fitting that mold. Atkins, 34, who is originally from Waubay, works at Central High School. Hes midway through his second year on the job, but while he works at the school, hes employed by Avera Health. His position is paid partially by a $15,000 annual allocation from the city of Aberdeen, an agreement that started in 2003. Finance Officer Karl Alberts said that contribution was made to support the schools drug prevention program. The position started through a partnership with Prairie View Prevention Services, according to American News archives. Atkins is one of two prevention counselors in Aberdeen public schools. The other Maggie Coyle provides services part time at Simmons and Holgate middle schools. As prevention counselor, Atkins wears a couple different hats. He spends time in the health classrooms teaching Project Success and Life Skills. The sessions are jointly taught with Aberdeen Police Department Sgt. Keith Theroux, who teaches the DARE program. DARE stands for Drug Abuse Resistance Education. Together they provide information about why teens might turn to substance use or abuse and provide skills to address the topic. But the classes are just part of his job. Atkins said much of his time is spent sitting down with students who are required to meet with him or referred to his office. Its a job that differs from the traditional counseling positions at the high schools that focus on whether students are meeting graduation requirements. The biggest difference, he said, is the knowledge he can offer about substances students might be using and access to programs. As an example, students are required to meet with Atkins if theyve had a tobacco violation. Most of those involve students caught with vaping devices, or electronic cigarettes. Parents can also call and ask him to check on their teen about a recent change in behavior, or students can ask him to counsel a friend. The longer Ive been here, the more I connect with people and the more kids pop in and ask about a friend, Atkins said. When students tell him, You dont know what Im going through, he has an interesting response. Its true he doesnt know what theyre going through, but he knows what their family members are feeling. He grew up hearing eye-opening stories from his father about his struggles with alcohol. His dad, Dennis Atkins, has been sober now for 40 years and went on to be a drug and alcohol counselor. His brother, Zachary Atkins, is also a recovering addict who has been sober for three years. Today, Jeremy Atkins said, his brother helps others as chairman of a local recovery program. As a witness to the path people can go down when addiction takes hold, Atkins said he can empathize with the students and their families. Im not here to judge, he said. Im here to figure out the best options in life. As the new guy on campus last year, he said, he spent much of the time building relationships with students. When he started seeing students making positive decisions, he said thats all the motivation he needed to stick with it. The biggest thing is finding a way to connect, Atkins said. As a prevention counselor and an Avera employee, Atkins said theres a drug screening process he can use. And if more services are needed, he can call the Addiction Care Center. The whole idea, he said, is to be proactive rather than reactive. Hopefully by meeting with students, he can catch them before casual use becomes an addiction. For instance, he said he wants to counsel students about the dangers of vaping before theyve reached the point where they cant go three hours before craving more nicotine. Those cravings, he said, lead students down the path of making decisions they normally wouldnt. Like using a vaping device at school and risking a citation and a $97.50 fine. While most of his counseling sessions deal with drug use, Atkins said the topic of mental health does come up. He said its mostly in the context that a student could be using drugs as a way to mask feelings of depression or anxiety instead of addressing those feelings. While hes comfortable walking the halls at Central today, the job is quite a change from his previous career as a bread-delivery man. That involved long hours and time away from his two young boys. Atkins is also going back to school himself since his new position requires him to complete a certificate program in addiction studies at the University of South Dakota. Aberdeen News A Yankton man will get a second chance at sentencing after the South Dakota Supreme Court vacated his 40-year prison term. In a ruling filed Thursday, justices upheld the 2017 Brown County drug conviction of Richard K. Roedder, 51, but sent it back for resentencing, claiming Judge Jon Flemmer did not properly consider state law that allows for presumptive probation on drug convictions. Roedder pleaded guilty in 2017 to felony possession of methamphetamine, one of six criminal charges he faced. He admitted to being a habitual offender, which means he also had prior felony convictions. The past convictions included felony conspiracy to commit robbery in Arizona in August 2000 and four felony drug convictions in Brown County from May 2011. Those prior convictions mean Roedder is subject to increased penalties with a new felony conviction. Without previous convictions, Roedder would have faced a penalty of up to five years in prison, with the option of the court allowing for probation. But because of the prior convictions, state law allows a maximum sentence of life in prison. In his appeal, Roedder asked the Supreme Court to determine if Flemmer had sufficient evidence to accept his guilty plea and if his past convictions were applied correctly. Justices ruled that the facts of the crime supported his guilty plea, and each charge he admitted to could be considered a separate crime. Roedder also argued that Flemmer erred in not allowing for a sentence of probation, which is allowed for a drug conviction, according to state law. It was that argument that led the Supreme Court to vacate his sentence. In its sentencing analysis, the circuit court stated that Roedders conviction would ordinarily be eligible for a presumptive sentence as a Class 5 felony but as a Class C felony, it would not. This statement indicates the court viewed the sentencing enhancement ... as a means of increasing both the statutory maximum sentence and the grade of the offense, justices ruled. The ruling references another case in which a similar conviction was allowed a more severe maximum penalty, but the actual classification of crime was not changed, allowing the option of probation. In other words, Roedders conviction will remain a Class 5 felony, but the maximum sentence could be more than five years in prison. And probation is an option. The Supreme Court also noted that the record lacks the appropriate notation of aggravating circumstances that would justify a departure from a sentence of probation. Aggravating circumstances can take into account if a persons criminal history includes a crime of violence. Roedder also argued that his 40-year sentence was cruel and unusual punishment. Because his sentence was vacated, the Supreme Court did not address that issue. What to do if you are having trouble with Wells Fargo account access If Brenda Snipes can be removed from her constitutionally elected office for incompetence, then the persons responsible for planning the construction on Wilton Drive can be tarred and feathered. Who in the room has not heard the popular Americanism, I am from the government, and I am here to help you. With friends like that, who needs enemies? Lets deal with reality. Whoever or whatever orchestrated this reconstruction plan should be fired, or at least sent on an indefinite vacation. It is one thing to ask businesses to bear with you during construction to build a better tomorrow. It is quite another to strip them bare in the process so there is no tomorrow. First, we readily acknowledge that the remaking of the Shoppes of Wilton Manors and plaza is a good thing. However, it is an overdue undertaking off to a very bad start. Years down the road, a more pedestrian-friendly drive will enhance businesses while making life more livable for all our residents. We applaud the initiative. Now lets hope the businesses still there are alive to appreciate it when the project is completed. Unfortunately, for everyone from the tenant businesses to the alcoholics standing on the corner asking for loose change, the reconstruction has created a financial nightmare. It is hard to have a Bloody Mary when you must get blood on your body to reach one. The states answer to the businesses strangled with the reconstruction plan has been to post small blue and white signs along the drive reading, Businesses Still Open. Oh, really? Well, not for long, thanks to your piss-poor planning. Despite the states embarrassing outreach and lame notice, ingress and egress to the plaza is strangled. You reasonably should be asking, How did this happen? There are no justifiable excuses. Kids with an Etch a Sketch pad could have planned better. At SFGN, we are newspaper publishers, not design architects. We could lay out what the state could have done better during this transition. That is a task better left to city planning and zoning officials, meeting in conjunction with the state. Even our distribution network has been incredibly compromised by the lack of planning. We had ten red news boxes on the drive that have all had to be removed during the reconstruction process. Our reward for retaining some boxes, thereby salvaging a few spots where you could still find and reach the paper was to have the citys code enforcement inspectors issue us a citation and impose a $150 fine. You gotta be kidding. Still, what is happening to us is nothing compared to what the businesses are going through. Clearly, the re-design plan for businesses and residents was not thought out carefully enough. You have a right to be critical. It could have been done better. As a result, businesses in the shoppes are hurting. Down the road, places like the new Burgers and Beers, along with Smoke and Vape next door to them are currently obstructed, and nearly inaccessible. It did not have to be that way. Temporary parking could have been arranged. This is a good time for customers and consumers to support businesses on the drive. Besides, there is nothing like a great burger while vaping. Anyway, do what you can to support our neighbors today, even if it means negotiating a few military style barricades and blockades. They wont be there much longer. Donald Trump is having them moved to our southern border. Finally, dont be afraid to criticize the state. Administrators and planners could and should have done a better job. Dont blame us. We are the news media; just the legless guys who teach running. We can find a little bad in the best of things. Have a great day, and dont forget to send your comments to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. For the first time in years, Kelsey Grammer, 63, has a big TV-series comeback, as Chicago prosecutor Gore Bellows in Proven Innocent, premiering on Fox on Feb. 15 at 9 p.m. ET. In the courtroom drama, his nemesis is Madeline Scott (Rachelle Lefevre), whom he sent to prison for the murder of a school friend. Turns out, she was wrongly convicted, so when she was freed, after a decade in the slammer, she went to Yale Law. And now she battles Bellows on other people's cases. I honestly thought you were guilty, Bellows tells Scott. In fact, I still do. Grammer is the only actor who ever received Emmy nominations for playing the same character on three shows 13 nominations and four wins for playing Frasier on Cheers, Wings and Frasier. But its high time he had another high-profile series role, and Gore Bellows perfectly suits Grammers magniloquently arrogant TV persona. Its intriguing to see him play a bad guy who, in his own mind, means well. Grammer told AARP a bit about his real life, what hes learned from it so far and his tentative hope to revive Frasier in a new show set anywhere but Seattle, starring as many former castmates as possible. Words to live by Stagger onward rejoicing: That line came to me at age 15 in my little refuge, my bedroom, after my dad was murdered and my grandfather died. Eleven years later, I found the line in Atlantis, a poem by W. H. Auden. He became my touchstone. I named our youngest child Auden. Handling tremendous loss My sister was attacked and killed, and five years later, my two half brothers died in a scuba accident. I just persevered. I cried out to God, and eventually, I heard from him. The basic message was, Im not out to get you. Im here to help. That helped me a lot. Ordinary human unhappiness is life in its natural color. You have a responsibility to keep going. The kindness of others I was in drama school at Juilliard with Robin Williams and Christopher Reeve and had $60 a month in Social Security from my dads death. I slept in Central Park for a while, and Id shower at the school. It wasnt bad. Joe at the Emerald Inn always poured me a free second drink, and a butcher would give me some ground round. There were kindnesses throughout my life. Surf lessons I loved to surf as a young man. Now I paddle-board and snorkel. Water releases the things that are not helping, cleanses off the old concerns. You come out fresh and look at the world with new eyes. I do believe that happens to us even when we take a shower. It helps us face the day with courage. Fourth times a charm Once, when musing about a relationship, I was thinking, How did I get to this spot? Then I thought, I am the mystery guest at a dinner being thrown by my own decisions. I pretty much married the same person three times and finally realized I would not do that again. I had to repeat things to get it. Now Im married to my fourth wife and have seven children and one grandson. Its pretty great. Finding a family on Frasier The device of having Frasier move into the home of his father [John Mahoney] catalyzed the show. He became more of a fleshed-out fulfilled guy. John Mahoney was such a great actor. The greatest gift I got from the show was to understand what it was like to have a father, and a brother [David Hyde Pierce]. These are things I did not actually have. Frasier reboot? Act 3 would be Frasier has his s--t together. Hopefully, we find something we really like and the network likes, and we can explore another few years of life with Frasier. 63 is better than 38 I feel even younger now than when I was 38. I know that there are others out there suffering with aging, and I hope that their lives will find the kind of happiness mine has. Hardships will still occur, but Im so grateful for where I am today. Running on (almost) full There are a million things I still want to know and things I still hunger for. I can't find the right word for it. I'm not fulfilled, but I'm very full. I guess I'm just full of life. Listen up, die-hard romantics and nature lovers. The Bay Area is full of sweet spots for amour, but to our minds, nothing is more romantic than a long, hand-in-hand walk down a winding trail to a secluded beach (especially when someone's packin' some bubbly). Here are our most beloved Bay Area treks for lovebirds. Sunset Hike to Mile Rock Beach This mysterious little beach is tucked in along the Land's End Coastal Trail, making it the perfect destination for a secluded picnic or a mid-hike break. Located 100 or so steps down from the main trail, this rugged beach will make you feel like you've traveled back in time. There are a lot of logs and different places to sit down, so unpack your favorite drinks and snacks and take in the views. Learn more. Insider's tip: There's a narrow trail that takes you up to a lookout above the beach. If you decide to explore up there, you'll be rewarded with the area's famous labyrinth and amazing views of Baker Beach and the Golden Gate Bridge. Above the Clouds on Mt. Tamalpais If your idea of a perfect evening includes a blanket, some wine, amazing company, and being surrounded by golden coastline views, then put this hike at the top of your list. Located less than an hour from San Francisco, this easy 1.2-mile loop is a great way to enjoy a sunset on a clear fall evening. Be sure to pack your camera, because the views will not disappoint. Learn more. Insider's tip: Check the weather forecast and be sure to pack some warm clothes. If you're hungry afterwards, plan on grabbing a bite at the Mountain Home Inn. *UPDATE July 6, 2020: Please note that the inn is currently open only to essential travelers due to Covid-19. Explore the Presidio's Hidden Treasures Grab your loved one and take a stroll through this beautiful oasis of light-filled forests, art installations, beaches, and sweeping views. An especially popular spot for engagements and wedding photos, this easy 2-mile hike will take you past some of the Presidio's most amazing little gems including Lover's Lane, Andy Goldsworthy's Wood Line. and the Inspiration Point Overlook. Learn more. A Beautiful Hike to Abbotts Lagoon This romantic day trip offers you the best of Point Reyes, all packed into an easy 2.3-mile hike. Pick up your picnic supplies in Point Reyes Station, and then head for Abbott's Lagoon Trail. You'll meander through wildflowers, headlands, scenic landscapes, tons of wildlife, and eventually find yourself on a seemingly endless beach. It's a perfect spot for a secluded picnic and a nice walk along the water. Learn more. Insider's tip: Be sure to check the weather forecast. Sunny days here are glorious, but cloudy days (although still beautiful) can be very cold and windy. Pack accordingly. Melissa Benn in The Guardian (about six months ago): Unlikely as it might sound, one of the most electric political meetings I have ever attended was a lecture on the Finnish educational system given by Pasi Sahlberg, the Finnish educator and author, in London in the spring of 2012. Sahlberg, who was speaking to a packed committee room 14 of the House of Commons the most magnificent of a run of grand meeting rooms that directly overlook the Thames has a rather laconic manner of delivery. However, in this particular instance, his flat speaking style proved the perfect vehicle for an unexpectedly radical message. Sahlberg described how Finnish education had evolved, in the postwar period, from a steeply hierarchical one, rather like our own, made up of private, selective and less-well regarded local schools, to become a system in which every child attends the common school. The long march to educational reform was partly initiated to strengthen the Finnish nation after the second world war, and to defend it against Russian incursions in particular. Finlands politicians and educational figures recognised that a profoundly unequal education system did not simply reproduce inequality down the generations, but weakened the fabric of the nation itself. Following a long period of discussion which drew in figures from the political right and left, educators and academics Finland abolished its fee-paying schools and instituted a nationwide comprehensive system from the early 1970s onwards. Not only did such reforms lead to the closing of the attainment gap between the richest and poorest students, it also turned Finland into one of the global educational success stories of the modern era. More here. Eliza Griswold at The New Yorker: Bolz-Weber had flown in from her home in Denver to promote her book Shameless, which was published last week. In it, she calls for a sexual reformation within Christianity, modelled on the arguments of Martin Luther, the theologian who launched the Protestant Reformation by nailing ninety-five theses to a church door in Wittenberg, Germany, in the sixteenth century. (One of the slogans of the church that Bolz-Weber founded in Denver, House for All Sinners and Saints, is Nailing shit to the church door since 1517.) Luther rebelled against the legalism that pervaded the Church during the Middle Ages, arguing that the focus on sinful conduct was unnecessary, because people were already redeemed through Christs sacrifice. Luther saw the harm that the teachings of the Church were doing in the lives of those in his care, Bolz-Weber told me. He decided to be less loyal to the teachings than to their well-being. For all of his faultsamong them, rabid anti-SemitismLuthers theology centered around real life. He talked about farting and drinking and he was kind of like Nadia, the bishop Jim Gonia, who heads the Rocky Mountain Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, told me. Gonia summed up Luthers idea like this: Now that we dont need to worry that were good enough for God, how do we direct our attention to our neighbor? more here. Hannah Jameson in The Guardian: A couple of months ago, Twitter user @emrazz asked women what they would do in a hypothetical 24 hours if there were no men around. The responses were depressingly banal: sleeping with the windows open or finishing drinks in our own time, instead of feeling pressured to down them before heading to the bathroom, lest a man slip something in the glass. Going for walks at night was a common answer, bringing to mind Will Selfs piece ruminating on the joys of midnight walks, an underrated pleasure few women would seriously consider. These answers illustrate that, given a day without men, women would simply conduct themselves as full participants in the world, free from fear. The Office for National Statistics said that one in five women in England and Wales will experience sexual assault in their lifetime; the UNs worldwide estimates say it is more than one in four, with much higher figures for women of colour and refugees. Does this endemic violence a glaring symptom of how a patriarchal society is both formally and informally enforced not fulfil the most basic definitions of a dystopia? People of all marginalised groups are uniquely situated to imagine a dystopian society, because we already inhabit one: a brutal parallel universe, of which only the privileged can remain unaware. Just as male dystopian authors including JG Ballard, George Orwell and Philip K Dick once reflected societal horrors back to their readers, many women writers are exploring current oppressive realities. Vox by Christina Dalcher is set in an America where women are literally silenced, Before She Sleeps by Bina Shah sees women forced to take multiple husbands, while Red Clocks by Leni Zumas explores the consequences of abortion being outlawed completely. More here. Nadia Marzouki in The Immanent Frame: Amid the global rise of the Christian right, some intellectuals and politicians have emphasized the need to affirm a stronger religious left in the United States. The Democrats downfall in 2016, this argument goes, has shown the limits of ideological platforms that ignore matters of faith and belonging and stick to technocratic and secular jargon. From this perspective, in order to win the culture war against right-wing evangelicals, progressives urgently need to include religion in their strategy. Since 2016, various attempts have been made at mobilizing religious progressives against the religious right. Vote Common Good, a group of progressive Christians, has worked toward bringing evangelicals closer to the Democratic Party. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) insistently speaks about his faith and how it inspires his political project. Journalist Jack Jenkins has suggested that Booker could be a candidate for the religious left. It has become quite trendy to blame Democrats and the liberal left for neglecting the importance of religion for the people, and to encourage progressives to try and emulate the political methods of right-wing populists and the religious right. Such sudden injunctions to mobilize religion for political gains ignore the fact that progressive and radical religious movements have been a key part of social and political activism throughout American historyfrom the Social Gospel movement to the civil rights movements, to activists inspired by liberation theology, to Catholic Nuns today advocating for equal access to health care. More specifically, the now fashionable call to speak or act religious for political gains poses at least three problems. More here. Our Fund Foundation, backed by a host of presenting sponsors is presenting the inaugural SouthFlorida LGBT Philanthropy Awards at Fort Lauderdales Tower Club on Saturday, Feb. 9 at 6 p.m. The cocktail reception and awards ceremony will celebrate individuals and families whose generosity of time, talent and resources have had a significant impact on the South Florida's LGBT community. The first-ever class of South Florida LGBT Philanthropy awardees includes: Raising the Bar Award: Jim Stepp and Peter Zimmer. In addition, the couple will be recognized as South Floridas LGBT Philanthropists of the Year for their thoughtful generosity to numerous LGBT agencies and causes throughout the years. Commitment to a Cause Award: Doug Pew. Founder and leader of the Gay Mens Chorus of South Florida, Pew will be honored for his many years of passionate dedication to the non-profit. Next Generation of Philanthropy Award: Chris Caputo. A talented, young and generous leader, Caputo serves as Board Chair of the Pride Center, inspiring his peers to engage with their community as donors and volunteers. In its role of promoting LGBT philanthropy in South Florida, Our Fund Foundation is proud to launch this exciting new initiative, said David Jobin, president and CEO, Our Fund Foundation. We are extremely grateful for the generous support of U.S. Trust and the Tower Club which enables us to honor these remarkable philanthropists who have truly helped make South Florida the most livable and energetic community in the country for LGBT people. Tickets to the cocktail reception and awards ceremony are $60 each, but were selling out at press time. For additional information please email This email address is being protected from spambots. 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go too far Q: What is an address to write Lets Make a Deal? A: Try sending mail to 7915 Haskell Ave., Van Nuys, CA 91406. Q: What is a phone number for the Des Moines Police Department? A: Call (515) 283-4811. Q: On Diagnosis Murder, did Scott Baio really play the keyboard? A: At one point, Baio did have something of a musical career, but we couldnt find out if he really played any instruments. Q: For the deans list, do students have to take certain classes or how are they chosen? A: Its based on grades. At the University of Northern Iowa, for example: To be included on the list, a student must have earned a grade point of 3.5 or higher on a 4.0 scale, while taking at least 12 hours of graded work during the semester. Q: Who is doing the building inspections for the Cedar Falls Fire Department? A: A battalion chief is responsible for inspecting rental property. The fire shifts complete commercial property inspections. Q: Will you be running the recipe for homemade biscuits from scratch that was mentioned in the full page article on Jan. 30? It looks cool throwing boiling water into the air and watching it instantly freeze in super-cold weather but don't do it. The boiling water challenge that has gone viral in the past few weeks as the polar vortex gripped a large part of the United States may be an interesting science experiment, but hospital officials say it's also sending people to the emergency room. Eight people who took part in the challenge have been treated at the burn center of Chicago's Loyola University Medical Center since the deep freeze happened last week, spokeswoman Chris Vicik said. They had injuries to their "feet, arms, hands, face, and varying degrees of burns, as well," she said. One person sought treatment at the University of Iowa Burn Treatment Center in Iowa City, spokesman Tom Moore said, and Hennepin Healthcare in Minneapolis said a "couple" of people were treated there in recent weeks. It's not just the people throwing the water who are getting hurt. Vicik said some of the burn victims in Chicago have been those watching the stunt. That's also what they're finding at Hennepin Healthcare, said Angie Whitley, the clinical care supervisor in the hospital's burn center. "Some of them being parents or adults (who) go outside with their kids to do it, and the kids kind of get excited and step in the way, and the parents end up throwing the water on the children," Whitley said. "Or people throw it in the air just as a gust of wind comes, and (the water) catches the wind and it blows it back on them, so we see some face scald injuries from that," she added. A breakdown in the polar vortex, which normally circulates strong winds around the northern pole, sent that icy blast southward in the past couple of weeks. Nearly three-quarters of the population of the United States experienced temperatures at or below freezing; in Chicago temperatures plunged to minus 21. According to the Associated Press, hundreds of social media users in Russia's Siberia and Urals, where temperatures have also plunged, have been posting photos and videos under the hashtag #dubakchallenge, or "cold challenge," showing people throwing boiling water into the freezing air and it instantly condensing into an elaborate pattern of ice crystals. Having any bare skin in weather that cold is its own problem because it poses a risk of frostbite. "When it's 20 below, it's a bad idea to have uncovered skin," said Dr. Jeff Schaider, chairman of emergency medicine at Cook County Health in Chicago. Even worse is getting water on that bare skin, he said, because it will accelerate the freezing of the skin and increase the risk of a cold injury to the skin. "The gamut runs from essentially being burned from hot liquid to being exposed to the cold air," he said. "If your hand has water on it, that freezes pretty quick. That's a bigger risk, actually." Treatment depends on how severe the burn, he said. While the most common are first- and second-degree burns to the hand, Schaider said, resulting in pain and blisters, the worst cases could involve skin grafts. Bottom line: If you want to be wowed by the science and spectacle of the boiling water challenge, watch a video. But don't try it yourself. "It's tempting to try," Schaider said. "It looks like it's pretty cool, but it's probably a bad idea." The-CNN-Wire & 2019 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 "There are some people that would say that Matthew was a stain on our family's reputation. That's not how we see it at all." DIKE -- Two people were sent to the hospital following a single-vehicle crash Thursday morning near Dike. The Iowa State Patrol identified the injured as Brooklyn Maree Hamilton, 31, of Cedar Falls, the driver of the Chevy Tahoe, and Addison Schiller, no age given, of Cedar Falls. Both were transported to UnityPoint Health-Allen Hospital in Waterloo. Troopers said the vehicle was northbound on County Road T-55 north of 130th Street when the driver lost control about 10:50 a.m. The vehicle went into the east ditch and struck a tree. The crash remains under investigation. Troopers were assisted at the scene by Dike Ambulance and the Dike Fire Department. Love 0 Funny 1 Wow 1 Sad 1 Angry 0 DES MOINES His budget has been cut to the bone over the past decade and any further cuts would be unsustainable, Attorney General Tom Miller told lawmakers Thursday. In his annual appearance before the Justice Systems Appropriations Subcommittee, Miller said the Attorney Generals Office budget has been cut 37 percent from nearly $10 million to almost $6 million since fiscal 2009. You get a sense that were putting all this together with baling wire to some extent so that were able to produce the work you and Iowans want, Miller said. Its very much a makeshift operation that is working so far, but its really tenuous. Any future cuts would be devastating. To illustrate his point, Miller described how the office has with legislative approval transferred money the past two years from the Consumer Education and Litigation Fund to pay for criminal prosecutions, handle appeals and defend the state in litigation. Using restricted funds to pay for core government functions is an unsustainable and irregular budget practice, Miller told lawmakers. That cant go on forever. At some point, general fund dollars should fund criminal prosecutions. WATERLOO The Northeast Iowa Food Bank said it will expand services during February in response to an increased need for food throughout its 16-county service area. With the recent record low weather, school closings and the after effects of the government shutdown, the following services and their schedules for the month of February will be as follows: The Cedar Valley Food Pantry will have three extra Produce and Perishable Giveaway times, where current clients can receive extra food. This extra distribution does not eliminate people coming in on their scheduled times for service in the month. Though the Produce and Perishable Giveaway is normally held every Thursday, the extra giveaways will be held from 4:15 to 5 p.m. Monday and Feb. 25 and March 11. Those interested in receiving food from the Cedar Valley Food Pantry may bring a valid ID and proof of address to apply for a free monthly membership that allows clients to use the pantry once a month upon review of income guidelines and the applicants current situation. The times for new applications are reviewed during these walk-in hours: 12:30 to 4:15 p.m. Mondays through Wednesday, 12:30 to 2:30 p.m. and 5:15 to 6:15 p.m. Thursday and 8:15 to 11:15 a.m. Friday. DECORAH The Decorah Fire Department plans to build a new training facility that will be made available to all the fire departments within the county. The Decorah Volunteer Fire Department and Toppling Goliath are holding a semi-formal gala today to raise awareness and funds for the new state-of-the art training facility. A committee of firefighters has been exploring the idea of a training facility for an extensive period of time, said Chief Mike Ashbacher. The whole thought behind the training center is to have an all-encompassing type of facility to be able to train on multiple aspects of what the fire department encounters, he said. This is really an investment in the future of the public safety services of Decorah and Winneshiek County. The project is expected to cost about $100,000, and Ashbacher is hoping it will be paid for through donations. The Depot Outlet in Decorah recently donated $50,000 for the project. Department fundraisers have paid for technical rope rescue equipment, the department drone, an inflatable raft and water rescue equipment. WATERLOO A Waterloo man involved in a 2015 beating that cost a man an eye has been sentenced to prison on unrelated gun charges. Judge Linda Reade sentenced Brady Lee Morgan, 25, to four years and nine months in prison on a charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm on Friday in U.S. District Court in Cedar Rapids. His prison time will be followed by three years of supervised release. Morgan had been convicted of felony assault charges in a March 2015 attack in downtown Cedar Falls that cost Brett Weichers his eye. He was sentenced to probation, and authorities received a tip about Morgan possessing drugs and a firearm in March of 2018. +4 Prison sentence handed down in Cedar Falls attack (VIDEO/PICTURES) WATERLOO Brett Weichers said the March 2015 attack that left him with only one eye not onl Morgan was found at a Fowler Street home, and officers discovered a stolen .357-caliber Ruger revolver and marijuana in a camouflage bag next to him. The firearm arrest also led to revocation of his probation in the assault case, and he was sentenced to up to five years in prison in state court in April 2018. Love 3 Funny 3 Wow 0 Sad 1 Angry 0 Carson Kressley, gay television celebrity, initially known for his key role in the first Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, and now on Bravo in Get a Room with Carson & Thom, is coming to Fort Lauderdale on Feb. 22, as a personal favor, to present me with an award from Stonewall. Weve never met in person, but when I wrote Carson, and asked him if hed come, he quickly responded that hed be honored. Our lives intersected at an important time nearly forty years ago. In 1983, when I served the Mayor of Boston Kevin White, as his liaison to the gay and lesbian community, my younger brother, Tom, also gay, and also working for the mayor, sent me a newspaper clipping that said Carson Kressley, when asked why he felt comfortable as a gay student at Gettysburg College, replied, When I was a freshman, they had Brian McNaught speak On a whim, I wrote him through his publicist, and got back a very meaningful note about my impact on his life. You just never know whos listening. When the Stonewall National Museum, here in Fort Lauderdale, told me they were giving me their Legacy Award, I asked if theyd like me to see if Carson might come. I really look forward to meeting him face to face. If you dont have plans that night, please join us. None of us know how our words, actions, silence, or inaction impacts others. Ive had the joy throughout my career of hearing how a talk, a book, or a video of mine had a positive impact on another persons life. Ive never gotten a swelled head, but I have gotten a swelled heart from learning this. I dont make it about me. It actually has little to do with me. For me, for Carson, and for everyone else, is that when we positively impact others, were channeled the truth, humor, joy, pride, strength, clarity, and kindness of the Universe. Its the light that seeks to shine through our window. And when we let it, its our legacy to those around us, and to those who will live after us. If Im given time to speak after receiving the award for my legacy, its my intention to talk about the legacy weve created together as a generation of queer people, and our allies. After a talk at Notre Dame many years ago, I was approached by a Residence Advisor who told me that a gay student came out to him, and when he asked the student why he felt he could trust him with this very personal, mostly misunderstood information, the student said, A couple of weeks ago, one of the R.A.s told an anti-gay joke, and you were the only one who didnt laugh. We never know whos listening. Any person who was once heterosexually married with children, and came out, has been a full participant in this extraordinary global awareness that Being gay is not what I do. Its who I am. Any transgender person who transitioned while married, and while on the job, has been a full participant in the legacy of normalizing the fluidity of gender, in identity and in expression. Most older people in our community many years ago mustered the courage to go into a gay bar, risking the loss of a job. We seniors marched in early Pride parades where people threw firecrackers at us. We dared to write letters to the editor, using our real name, to be photographed lying in the street with Act Up, to lobby our congressional representatives, pastors and rabbis, and union bosses, to hold the hand of a stranger with AIDS, to come out in the Armed Forces, to hang the rainbow flag from our front porches, and to put decals and bumper stickers on our cars. We did this not in a welcoming environment because most straight and cisgender people were uninformed, and frightened, and some dangerously hateful. Our vision of living whole, happy, safe lives in which we were valued by our family and friends, and protected by our government, was the evolutionary call of the Universe, and our rising to the occasion is our legacy to all future generations globally. Because, while we were writing, speaking, protesting, coming out, burying our dead, creating our quilt, and getting married, other people, young and old, gay, bisexual and straight, Catholic and Jew, rich and poor, black and white were watching us, listening to us, and discussing us with others. And among them all, there were allies who stepped boldly forward on our behalf, and together, we changed the world forever. Thats our legacy. When my name and face were in newspapers and television news reports in Detroit in 1974, an envelope was left at the door of my home. It was from a 12-year-old boy down the street. The envelope had pictures of naked male statues, cut from a history book or encyclopedia. Im like you, the note read. Seeing me be an openly gay man gave him the courage, like Carson Kressley, to come out. You just never know whos listening. Brian McNaught has been a leading educator on LGBTQ issues globally since 1974. He has made his many books and DVDs available for free at Brian-McNaught.com. The New York Times named him The Godfather of gay diversity training. Check out other stories by Brian McNaught NEWTON Sentencing for a Charles City sex offender convicted of murder in Jasper County has been postponed. In November, jurors found Randy Louis Linderman, 53, guilty in the March 2017 beating death of Jose Louis Ramirez-Berber. He charges carries a mandatory life prison sentence without parole, and sentencing had been scheduled for Feb. 11. Since the trial Linderman has regularly written to the judge maintaining his innocence. He has also changed attorneys, retaining private counsel, and his new defense team has requested trial transcripts to prepare for post-trial motions and sentencing. Linderman also asked the court to delay sentencing. Judge Richard Clogg granted the request, moving sentencing to March. Authorities found Ramirez, 61, dead in his home on March 6, 2017, and investigators located Lindermans DNA on the victim, according to court records. Linderman used to live in the Newton area and had been to Ramirezs home several times. He was arrested in July 2017. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Sydney David Makovec, 21, of 917 W. 23rd St., No. 205, Cedar Falls, was arrested Wednesday at O'Reilly Auto Parts, 2155 Washington St., and charged with second-degree theft. Waterloo Police say Makovec, an employee of the store, stole $2,140.92 in cash from O'Reilly. Police say he did so by making false returns and then pocketing the money in numerous transactions over time, though police didn't know how long it had been going on. WATERLOO The Waterloo-Cedar Falls Coin Club will have its monthly meeting at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Waterloo Center for the Arts, 225 Commercial St., in Schoitz Room III. After the business meeting, there will be a video, Lincoln Cent of 1909, followed by the monthly auction. Visitors are welcome and may bid on the auction lots. Register at the front table. For more information and an auction list, go to www.w-cfcoinclub.com. Worlds Window to offer samples CEDAR FALLS Worlds Window will host a Sample Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday at 214 Main St. People can try a sample of brownie mix, chocolate-covered espresso beans and jelly beans, all from the Womens Bean Project. West High will hold can drive WATERLOO The West High School vocal music department will have its monthly redeemable can drive from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday at the Baltimore Street entrance of the West parking lot. Students will be outside to remove five-cent refundable glass, plastic and aluminum beverage containers from vehicles. Funds raised each month support the West vocal music department. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 There are parts of the market we dont participate in, and were going to be able to migrate into those, Heese said. Right now, we compete mainly above 25 feet and theres a lot of market below 25 feet, so we dont have to go very far down to pick up a lot of potential market. The company now produces 18 models on five production lines. It doesnt plan to add lines but will be able to produce more models more quickly, he said. Speed is important. The company as of late January had a four-month order backlog, marketing director Allison Scharnow said. At first blush, a recreational vehicle manufacturer in Forest City, Iowa, buying a boatmaker in Sarasota, Fla., might not seem like an obvious combination. So why did Winnebago acquire Chris-Craft? The CEOs of both companies say the idea was inspired by thoughts of design and diversification. But first, Chris-Craft, which had moved to Sarasota in 1990, had to become a company worth buying. David Pecker is alleged to have attempted to blackmail and extort Jeff Bezos to get The Washington Post to back off on its efforts to hold the Saudi Crown Prince responsible for the murder of its journalist Jamal Khashoggi. If proven true the U.S. District Court - Southern District of New York is likely to vacate the non-prosecution deal. By James DiGeorgia Under the heading, that didnt take long. Reports that New York federal prosecutors are reviewing Amazon Chairmans Jeff Bezos bombshell accusations that the National Enquirer attempted to leverage embarrassing pictures, texts, and communications connected to an extramarital affair to get him to direct The Washington Post to back off on a number of its current investigations including How many other times the National Enquirer has used blackmail and extortion to force other individuals and organizations to capitulate to its demands. To stop pushing for justice in the murder of The Washington Post Journalist Jamal Khashoggis murder, believed to have been ordered by the ruling Crown prince of Saudi Arabia. To back off on investigations into wrongdoing by President Trump and his administration. It is less than 24 hours since Jeff Bezos accusations have been posted online and prosecutors are already opening an investigation as to whether the National Enquirer and its parent companys Chairman David J. Pecker has violated an immunity deal it received on September 20, 2018, in connection to its involvement in the violation of campaign finance laws committed during the 2016 election according to several press reports on Friday. Several sources are speculating Pecker and American Media Inc. (AMI) were motivated to do everything they could to back The Washington Post off its efforts to hold Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman responsible for the execution-style murder of its journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Many informed observers and journalists have been speculating the Pecker and AMI have been seeking desperately needed financing from Saudi Arabia in recent months, and the attempt to blackmail and extort Jeff Bezos was in part intended to ingratiate themselves with the Saudi prince to obtain the financing theyre looking to secure. Special: Imagine an options trading service that has delivered over 4,872% in winning trade recommendations over 11 years. That's 442% a year in winning trade recommendations. Check it out! Just $49 for the first 60 days! Some journalists are expressing the view that Pecker and American Media Inc. were also looking to further ingratiate themselves with President Trump who has been regularly attacking both Jeff Bezos and The Washington Post because of the papers continuing critical coverage of Trumps and his administrations myriad of scandals. Before the news broke regarding an examination by the U.S. District Court - Southern District of New York into Jeff Bezos claims of blackmail and extortion American Media Inc. the National Enquirers parent company had announced it was opening an investigation into the Jeff Bezos accusations. If American Media Inc. and David J. Pecker lose its immunity deal and is charged with blackmail and extortion, the very survival of the company and its tabloid publication may be at stake, if not Peckers future freedom if he personally found guilty of the crime. With President Trumps March 1, 2019 deadline approaching Secretary of the Treasury Stephen Mnuchin has announced he will join United States Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer traveling next week to Beijing for another round of trade talks with China. By James DiGeorgia With the pressure turned up to maximum, President Trumps March 1, 2019, deadline would increase U.S. tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese imports from 10% to 25% if a deal isn't reached, Treasury Secretary announced on CNBC that hes heading to Beijing Ambassador Lighthizer and myself and a large team are on our way to Beijing next week. We are committed to continue these talks, Were putting in an enormous amount of effort to try to hit this deadline and get a deal. So thats our objective. This next round of trade talks comes after a Chinese delegation led by Chinese Vice Premier Liu that visited Washington last week for negotiations. Mnuchin described that last round of negotiations as very productive. During President Trumps State of the Union address on Tuesday he asserted that any new trade deal with China must include "real, structural change" I have great respect for President Xi, and we are now working on a new trade deal with China, But it must include a real, structural change to end unfair trade practices, reduce our chronic trade deficit, and protect American jobs. President Trump has ruled out any meeting between himself and Chinas President Xi before the March 1 deadline. At which point the U.S. would hike its punitive tariffs and thereby escalating the ongoing trade war despite the good faith efforts to reach a deal by the Chinese and the countrys resumed soybean purchases from the United States. While Mnuchin has been encouraging in his latest comments, the reality of the negotiations is the Chinese may be unable to make the structural concessions the Trump Administration is demanding in a timely enough fashion to prevent a full-scale escalation of the ongoing trade war and the possible downturn of the world economies. Special: Imagine an options trading service that has delivered over 4,872% in winning trade recommendations over 11 years. That's 442% a year in winning trade recommendations. Check it out! Just $49 for the first 60 days! Meanwhile, negotiations with the European Union to end Trumps trade war against those trading partners havent progressed to either countrys satisfaction, and the modified NAFTA agreement has yet to be ratified by Congress. Failure to reach completed deals on all three fronts, much less with the Chinese could negatively impact Wall Street equities in much the same way they were hurt in December, which saw one of the worst sell-offs in the United States financial markets in decades. The Commonwealth of Virginia finds itself in uncharted waters, so to speak. Like most forms of government, Virginia's constitution includes a succession plan for leadership. The highest office in the commonwealth is, like other US states, the governor. In second place is the lieutenant governor, a position that most, but not all, states also have. Virginia starts to differ in its ways, by placing its attorney general as the third-highest office. The line goes on from there, but most have probably not considered it much. However, recent events have made Virginia's line of succession the center of attention. If enacted, the succession plans could have reverberating political effects. Virginia's top three officials could soon resign Democrat Ralph Northam was elected governor in 2017 after serving as lieutenant governor and in the Virginia Senate. A US Army veteran and pediatrician, many had boasted of his strong character. But more recently he has been facing a series of scandals. Already in trouble after horrifying comments on abortion, accusations of racist behavior in his past have surfaced. Northam initially admitted his participation in a photo featuring people in 'blackface' makeup and a KKK outfit. He later denied his involvement but admitted he had used 'blackface' in the past to dress like Michael Jackson. Attention was soon turned to Virginia's African-American lieutenant governor, former federal prosecutor Justin Fairfax. Many had commented on the possibility of an African-American ascending to the governorship due to a racial scandal. But that also quickly came into question. Disturbing allegations of sexual assault were brought against Fairfax. It could be impossible for Fairfax to govern with such accusations against him looming. And so, attention turned to Attorney General Mark Herring. After serving in the Virginia Senate, he was elected attorney general in 2013. He had defeated Justin Fairfax in the Democratic primary. Herring had also called upon Northam to resign amidst the racism scandal. But Herring would soon admit that he had also worn blackface. The three separate scandals could clear out all three. Tensions have grown as others called out the Democratic Party's apparent hypocrisy. Their proclaimed platforms on racism and the treatment of women starkly contrast the given accusations. It's unlikely they would show the same patience to Republicans as they have to the three Democrats. It is worth noting, however, that the recent scandals haven't been limited to Democrats. The Virginia Senate majority leader, Republican Tommy Norment, has also become involved in a similar situation. As the Washington Examiner reports, next in line to the governorship is the speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates. The current speaker would likely have many political differences than the men in line before him. Kirk Cox could be the next governor Kirk Cox was born in Petersburg, Virginia. He attended James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia and Richard Bland College in Prince George, Virginia. A former high school teacher, he was first elected to the House of Delegates in 1989. Cox became majority whip in 2004, majority leader in 2010 and speaker in 2018. He is also a Republican. Considered to be in the 'mainstream', Cox has received bipartisan support in the past. Like the national equivalent, the Virginia house speaker is voted on by the whole body, not just their party. Cox was elected with a vote of 98-0. Cox had previously stated he hoped Northam would resign and that impeachment proceedings could be avoided. In part, he felt that impeachment would be overturning election results. The New York Post reports that Cox also strongly denies ever wearing blackface makeup. While Cox may be a relative moderate, he still differs in policy from the Democrats in many ways. As governor, it's likely that there would be many more changes in Virginia. Airports are not known for evoking tender, heartwarming images that capture acts of kindness. A photo of Carter Jean Armentrout and Joseph Wright waiting out time for a flight, however, provides a shining example of free time bringing two people together. Carter Jean and Joseph could not possibly be more different. An image of the two sharing space and time has touched people. The photo of the duo has gone viral. Poignant airport photo and caption capture peoples hearts Kevin Armentrout shared the photo with a poignant caption of his toddler daughter, Carter Jean, and Joseph on social media on February 2. The image certainly reached a soft spot in people. The photo on Kevins Facebook account has been seen by nearly 420 thousand people, garnering 14 thousand comments over a five-day span. More than 160 thousand people have also shared the photo, which makes a positive and powerful statement in itself. Image evolved organically Coupling the photo with a moving caption opened dialogue between many people, sharing fond memories of others who either extended or accepted unexpected acts of kindness. The photos evolution was organic. Kevin explained that he just put her down, let her walk and followed behind her, WHAS11 (ABC) reported. Along with his wife and daughter, the trio was travelling to San Diego from Las Vegas when the chance encounter between Carter Jean and Joseph happened. The toddler walked to Joseph, who asked the little girl whether she wanted to sit with him, according to Fox News. Little girl and businessman form fast bond over tablet, talking Snoopy Her dad stated that he is conscious of peoples personal space, Yahoo Finance reported. Kevin tried to steer her away. Joseph, who did not mind at all, welcomed the toddler to sit beside him. The two formed a bond. Joseph Wright, who works for Samsung as a field manager in Oklahoma, pulled out his tablet, sharing it with the toddler and allowing her draw. Carter Jean offered him Cheese Puffs. The two also watched Charlie Brown, Yahoo Finance relayed. Additionally, they talked about Snoopy, Fatherly reported. Image conveys the world father wants for daughter Watching them in that moment, Armentrout noted on Facebook that he couldnt help but think, different genders, different races, different generations, and the best of friends. He also stated, This is the world I want for her. His social media post also included a message to Wright, thanking him for examples of kindness and compassion offered to Carter Jean. Additionally, he penned, Continue to shine your light in the world. Kind strangers heart warmed by time with toddler Wright has, since, told Good Morning America that the time spent with the toddler warmed his heart. He further shared, I get a kick out of young kids who are just growing and showing love, according to Fatherly. He additionally stated that he feels proud of the toddlers parents for letting her see the world as it should be. Be a Joseph in this world Among the comments people have shared on Armentrouts Facebook account is a comment by Sam Gillispie, who wrote, Now this is what FB should be about! Be a Joseph in this world! Megan McLaughlin pointed out that Wright sounds like the kind of human being I am honored to share the world with. Linda Taylor, who self- identified as Wrights sister-in-law, stated, Hes a true blessing and your little girl is an Angel herself! Shell have a friend forever in him. FOX NEWS: Photo of toddler, stranger bonding in airport goes viral pic.twitter.com/jYfEFEiCGG Tiamiyu sodiq (@Tiamiyu09788441) February 6, 2019 Armentrout endeavors to give his daughter the best he can offer in a world where, she will one day, navigate as an adult. He shared a photo taken with Carter Jean on September 13, 2018 that depicts father and daughter hand-in-hand, standing on a pier in Oceanside, California. The caption states, It scares me sometimes to think that at some point she will have to let go of my hand and walk her own path. He further noted, We have but one chance. to guide them, not to a destination, but on the importance of the journey. One chance to be the change we want to see in the world. Also in recent news, be sure to check out the ingenuity of Girl Scout Kayla Kiki Paschall, taking an approach to selling cookies that led to her remaking Cardi Bs hit tune Money. The effect led to a complete sell-out of her cookie stock in one day. Also, there is no reason to speculate about the relationship status of Anuel AA and Karol G. Their Secreto" video confirms their love for each other. Be sure to follow Blasting News for the latest information. Boy or girl? Thats a common enough question, if youre an expectant parent. You mightve even wondered it yourself: will you need pink things or blue, and what name will you choose? For generations, its been an exciting decision for prospective parents, but Ann Traversasks in The Trans Generationif its a prudent one. Maybe letting the child decide would be a better choice. Fifty-six years ago, when Travers was born, their mothers doctor unwittingly caused a lifetime of hurt: Its a girl, he said, and Travers spent years trying to untangle what it meant. That, they said, is part of what drives this book. The other part is the desire to improve the lives of trans kids through understanding. Getting to that point is harrowing: Ninety-five percent of transgender kids on one study felt unsafe in their schools. Many report that physicians misunderstand kids who are gender-nonconforming. Trans kids attempt suicide and / or self-harm at very high rates and, says Travers, many grow up hating their bodies Most employ several kinds of coping mechanisms to live their lives. In writing this book, Travers says, they interviewed a wide variety of trans kids from the U.S. and Canada nineteen in all, ages 4 to 20, plus twenty-three parents. The children mostly came from middle-class families, which allowed them privileges such as better access to medical care and chances to change schools if they needed to do so. Other children Travers interviewed lived in poverty, their stories illustrating how being a trans kid can be socially and medically isolating, and how lack of access to needed resources can affect their well-being. Parents, of course, can affect that well-being, too, but it takes a phenomenal amount of care, advocacy, and activism to push back against cisgendered environments, schools, sports, binary-only bathrooms, social activities, medical facilities, and politics. It takes a willingness to learn, listen, and lean in. Not just for parents, but for teachers, advocates, and loved ones, The Trans Generation is one heavy-duty book. Writing with a bit of a scholars voice and occasional, relatively advanced, science and law studies, author Ann Travers also offers readers plenty of eye-opening chats with trans kids, which turn out to be the most helpful, useful, and even entertaining parts of this book. From the mouths of babes, as they say, those interviews give insights that adults will find to be wise and thoughtful, even monumental. Theyre also heartbreaking but considering the kids readers are introduced to, and the singular interview with a 16-year-old who made her own hormone treatments in her high schools laboratory, theyre a good indication of hope for the future. While you could be forgiven for skipping to those case studies, youd be missing out. The thicker parts of The Trans Generation areworth reading and reflection and are deeply instructive on pronouns, on gender fluidity, and on being trans in a cisgender-based society. They are also serious and weighty but that kind of rock-solid information could make this book the right choice. The Trans Generation: How Trans Kids (and Their Parents) are Creating a Gender Revolution by Ann Travers c.2018, New York University Press $25.00 / higher in Canada 261 pages The LA Galaxy that opens the MLS season on March 2nd against the Chicago Fire, needs to cut to three the four Designates Players they have in their roster for the 2019 season. In order to do that, they are trying to convince Giovani dos Santos to renegotiate his contract so he won't count as a Designated Player, but by doing so, the Mexican international will have a salary cut from $6 million to a maximum of $1.5 million. To compensate the salary loss, LA Galaxy will extend dos Santos' contract which expires at the end of this year, but it is not known for how long or if he'll get a raise after the 2019 season under the potential new contract. Giovani Villarreal Delantero Mexico Dennis te Klose GM of LA Galaxy said that the Designated Player situation could be solved in the next couple weeks. LA Galaxy Gio dos Santos has two straight seasons in LA, but the 2018 season was plagued with injuries, recording only three goals and two assists in just 14 appearances. His brother Jonathan has told in the last weeks that Gio without a doubt wants to stay in the club, so a new contract could, in fact, be in the cards for Gio. Uprooted Palestinians are at the heart of the conflict in the M.E Palestinians uprooted by force of arms. Yet faced immense difficulties have survived, kept alive their history and culture, passed keys of family homes in occupied Palestine from one generation to the next. The recent violence means it is unlikely that Zimbabwes president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, will achieve his aim of ending Zimbabwes pariah status, unlocking financial aid. Photograph: Philimon Bulawayo/Reuters Zimbabwes ruling party believes western powers are behind a revolution to bring about regime change in the country, according to documents seen by the Guardian. Briefing papers prepared by Zanu-PF officials blame opposition parties and rogue NGOs for an orgy of violence following a protest against fuel price rises last month, accusing them of following a plan by hostile elements to subvert the state by rendering the country ungovernable. The document is thought to have been produced by Zanu-PF officials for circulation among foreign diplomats at the African Union summit, currently underway in Addis Abbaba. It will concern observers already worried by the increasingly hard line taken by the Zimbabwean authorities. The protests last month led to sporadic incidents of rioting and looting, which prompted a brutal crackdown by the police and the army. The violence came 14 months after the 37-year rule of Robert Mugabe came to an end following a military takeover, and was the worst in Zimbabwe for at least a decade. Police documents seen by the Guardian last week detailed the armys role in a series of killings, rapes and beatings. In a report published earlier this week, a coalition of local NGOs described a de facto state of emergency and a reign of terror by the security forces, which they accused of being responsible for 1,800 human rights violations. They said these included at least 17 extrajudicial killings, 16 rapes, 26 abductions and more than 600 assaults. The violations are systematic, unleashed mainly by male perpetrators whom the victims identified as wearing either military or police attire, armed with AK rifles and or baton sticks, travelling in army and police vehicles. The targets of attack were initially male population in high density suburbs but later become indiscriminate to include women and young girls, the report, by the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, said. More than 1,000 people have been detained in the crackdown, including labour leaders, activists and officials from the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), the main opposition party. Many face lengthy sentences. Seven have been charged with subversion, which could lead to up to 20 years in prison. Story continues Zanu-PF has denied all responsibility for the disorder. The 24-page briefing document, seen by the Guardian, is titled: Brief on the political and security situation in Zimbabwe in the aftermath of the 14th to 16th January violent protests. It is dated 30 January and stamped Government of Zimbabwe. Anti-government protests are an instrument of choice for subversive elements, particularly the MDC, rogue NGOs, hostile [civil society organisations] and Hostile Intelligence Services (sic), keen to effect either regime change in Zimbabwe or force the consummation of a [coalition government of national unity], the document says. The Zanu-PF document describes the security forces response as proportional to the threat posed, though it adds: Unfortunately some misguided elements within the system and the security forces committed excesses and the law is now taking its course. The briefing says reports of abuses are aimed at prompting western intervention in Zimbabwe. Analysts are divided as to whether the more moderate position of the president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, who succeeded Mugabe and won a contested election last year, is genuine or designed to deflect foreign criticism. The recent violence now means it is very unlikely that Mnangagwa, who has said the government regrets the loss of life but has defended the crackdown, will achieve his stated aim of ending Zimbabwes pariah status and unlocking the massive financial aid necessary to avert total economic collapse. On Tuesday the UK said it would not back a bid by Zimbabwe to return to the Commonwealth because of recent human rights abuses and was further from backing any economic assistance package. This suggests that basic commodities such as food, fuel and medicine will remain both scarce and increasingly expensive. On Wednesday, Mnangagwa invited leaders of the more than 20 political parties that participated in last years disputed polls to a post-election dialogue at his State House office. The talks were snubbed by the MDC leader, Nelson Chamisa, who said he wants any dialogue to be independently mediated by the Southern African Development Community (SADC), a regional organisation, and guaranteed by the African Union and the UN. A Zanu-PF spokesman did not respond to requests to comment on the views contained in the leaked briefing. This "IRS Scam" call was left on our voicemail in 2016. PIKESVILLE, Md. (February 8, 2019)Maryland State Police are warning the public about a reported telephone scam in which the caller cloned a state police number and requested personal information from people as part of a criminal investigation. A woman called the Maryland State Police on Thursday morning and reported she had received a call in which the caller ID on her phone showed "Maryland State Government" and the number 301-475-8955, which is the number for the Maryland State Police Leonardtown Barrack. When she answered the call, the person on the other end told her she was a suspect in a drug trafficking investigation and that she needed to provide them her Social Security number and other identifying personal information. This is just one of several phone scams recently reported to Maryland State Police. The Salisbury Barrack reported that some of the scams reported include victims receiving telephone calls where they are threatened with arrest or the continued detention of family members if they do not provide money, account numbers or purchase a re-loadable gift or credit cards. Another telephone scam includes the victim being called by a representative of the Internal Revenue Service and threatened in the same fashion. The Salisbury Barrack reported that other victims have had their computers infected with a computer virus and were prompted to take immediate action in order to salvage the computer, which included purchasing up to $2,000 in gift cards to pay the company to correct the issue. This came after the Maryland State Police Cumberland Barrack was recently inundated with numerous telephone calls regarding a scam in which a man or woman claiming to be from the Social Security Administration requested information and threatened to have the police respond to their address to arrest them. These scammers are using scare tactics and sophisticated technology to attempt to take advantage of the public. If you are a senior citizen, or have a family member that is a senior citizen, please be aware and ensure they are aware of these scams so they do not fall victim to them. The Maryland State Police, along with government agencies like the Social Security Administration or the Internal Revenue Service, would never solicit such information or services over the phone from any citizen. Never give any personal information over the phone, and only allow a qualified reputable computer technician the ability to repair your computer should it become infected with a virus. Many of these telephone scams are disguising themselves by utilizing local telephone number prefixes. Anyone who receives such a phone call should hang up and then contact their local state police barrack. Callers may remain anonymous. Venezuelas Nicolas Maduro says he is prepared to participate in a sovereign and constitutional dialogue process to agree on a national agenda of peace and understanding.Maduro's announcement comes from Thursdays meeting in the Uruguayan capital attended by the European Union, eight other European countries and five Latin American nations.This meeting was an initiative called by Mexico and Uruguay as a neutral countries conference on Venezuela.During the meeting, Maduro announced his support for the four-phase plane as proposed by the Montevideo Group.This initiative has since snowballed into a meeting of a Contact Group that was put together by the EU in late January, later joined by Costa Rica, Bolivia and Ecuador.Although Maduro had rejected an EU ultimatum to organize snap presidential elections, he welcomed todays meeting and expressed support for all steps and initiatives to facilitate dialogue.Maduro has been under increasing pressure as 40 countries to date have accepted opposition leader Juan Guaidos self-proclaimed role as interim president until new elections are called.In an effort ease the growing shortages of food and medicine across Venezuela, Guaido has organized an emergency delivery of humanitarian aid.But with a continued loyalty to Maduro, the army followed his orders to block the entrance of aid, where reportedly soldiers had blocked a key border bridge into the country.He says such delivery of humanitarian aid would only open up the country to a US military invasion.Maduro continues to receive support from China, Russia, Turkey and Cuba. Venezuelas Nicolas Maduro says he is prepared to participate in a sovereign and constitutional dialogue process to agree on a national agenda of peace and understanding. Maduro's announcement comes from Thursdays meeting in the Uruguayan capital attended by the European Union, eight other European countries and five Latin American nations.This meeting was an initiative called by Mexico and Uruguay as a neutral countries conference on Venezuela. During the meeting, Maduro announced his support for the four-phase plane as proposed by the Montevideo Group. This initiative has since snowballed into a meeting of a Contact Group that was put together by the EU in late January, later joined by Costa Rica, Bolivia and Ecuador. Although Maduro had rejected an EU ultimatum to organize snap presidential elections, he welcomed todays meeting and expressed support for all steps and initiatives to facilitate dialogue. Maduro has been under increasing pressure as 40 countries to date have accepted opposition leader Juan Guaidos self-proclaimed role as interim president until new elections are called. In an effort ease the growing shortages of food and medicine across Venezuela, Guaido has organized an emergency delivery of humanitarian aid. But with a continued loyalty to Maduro, the army followed his orders to block the entrance of aid, where reportedly soldiers had blocked a key border bridge into the country. He says such delivery of humanitarian aid would only open up the country to a US military invasion. Maduro continues to receive support from China, Russia, Turkey and Cuba. Trucks carrying US humanitarian aid destined for Venezuela arrived Thursday at the Colombian border, where opposition leaders vowed to bring them into their troubled nation despite objections from embattled President Nicolas Maduro. Two semi-trailers loaded with boxed emergency food and medicine rolled into the Colombian border city of Cucuta, which is just across the river from Venezuela."The United States is prepositioning relief items including food, nutritional supplements, hygiene kits and medical supplies in Colombia so they are available to reach those most in need in Venezuela, as soon as possible," said a US official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the issue.The focus of Venezuela's political fight now hinges on whether Maduro will allow the aid to enter the country, a move anticipated in coming days.Maduro denies a humanitarian crisis exists and says Venezuela is not a country of beggars. The Venezuelan military has barricaded a bridge between the two nations with a tanker and two cargo trailers in an apparent attempt to block the aid.Requested by GuaidoOpposition leader Juan Guaido, who requested the international assistance, said it is necessary in a country racked by shortages of food and medicines.Guaido, who has the backing of some 40 countries, including the United States, is seeking to oust Maduro following a 2018 election that many have denounced as a sham. Long-time allies Russia and China and several other countries continue to support Maduro.About a dozen human rights activists stood at the gated entrance to the Tienditas International Bridge on Colombia's side, demanding Maduro allow the emergency aid to cross into Venezuela. They waved flags while Colombian police trucks carrying armed officers and other authorities drove by throughout the day.Luis Escobar, a Venezuelan who now lives in Colombia after fleeing his crisis-ridden nation, said his wife has advanced breast cancer and urged Maduro to accept the aid.In tears, he described how his wife was unable to get treatment in Venezuela and that by the time they were able to see a doctor in Colombia, her illness had significantly progressed."I am here because, unfortunately, my wife is going to die," Escobar said. "But today I am here for Venezuelans who are suffering the same as my wife. The world has to know about this."Meanwhile, Venezuela's communications minister, Jorge Rodriguez, appeared on state TV claiming Colombian intelligence, the CIA and exiled Venezuelan opposition lawmaker Julio Borges were behind a plot to overthrow Maduro."A murderer like Borges must set aside hypocrisy," Rodriguez said. "There's no democracy, no humanitarian aid. What will he say, now that his own accomplices gave him away?"Rodriguez showed a videotape of what he said was a confession from retired national guard Col. Oswaldo Garcia Palomo as proof of the alleged plot. An outspoken Maduro critic, Palomo has openly spoken of amassing a military force in exile to remove the Venezuelan leader from power. He was arrested last month after he entered Venezuela clandestinely from Colombia.EU countries sign declarationAlso Thursday, a coalition of European and Latin American nations called on Venezuela to hold free and transparent elections to peacefully resolve its crisis.A majority of 14 countries in the "International Contact Group" urged Venezuela to return to the rule of law and respect its constitutional institutions starting with the democratically elected National Assembly.Spain, Italy, Portugal were among European nations signing the declaration with Uruguay, Ecuador and Costa Rica. Mexico and Bolivia participated but didn't sign.EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said that the coalition does not intend to impose a solution but is focused on finding answers to avoid violence or foreign intervention in Venezuela."We can have different points of view and readings about the causes of the crisis," Mogherini earlier told the gathering in the Uruguayan capital, Montevideo. "But we share the same objective, wishing to contribute to a politically peaceful and democratic solution."Puerto Rico's government, meanwhile, said 3,600 pounds (1,633 kilograms) worth of donated supplies are en route to Venezuela. Officials have said the aid is not part of the $20 million in aid pledged by the United States.Puerto Rico Secretary of State Luis Rivera Marin said a plane carrying the supplies left the US territory on Wednesday but has not yet delivered them.Venezuelan community leader Sonia Cosme said the supplies include medication to help treat diabetes, blood pressure, asthma and seizures. There also are items for children including diapers, formula, milk, oral serums and protein drinks.(AP) Trucks carrying US humanitarian aid destined for Venezuela arrived Thursday at the Colombian border, where opposition leaders vowed to bring them into their troubled nation despite objections from embattled President Nicolas Maduro. Two semi-trailers loaded with boxed emergency food and medicine rolled into the Colombian border city of Cucuta, which is just across the river from Venezuela. "The United States is prepositioning relief items including food, nutritional supplements, hygiene kits and medical supplies in Colombia so they are available to reach those most in need in Venezuela, as soon as possible," said a US official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the issue. The focus of Venezuela's political fight now hinges on whether Maduro will allow the aid to enter the country, a move anticipated in coming days. Maduro denies a humanitarian crisis exists and says Venezuela is not a country of beggars. The Venezuelan military has barricaded a bridge between the two nations with a tanker and two cargo trailers in an apparent attempt to block the aid. Requested by Guaido Opposition leader Juan Guaido, who requested the international assistance, said it is necessary in a country racked by shortages of food and medicines. Guaido, who has the backing of some 40 countries, including the United States, is seeking to oust Maduro following a 2018 election that many have denounced as a sham. Long-time allies Russia and China and several other countries continue to support Maduro. About a dozen human rights activists stood at the gated entrance to the Tienditas International Bridge on Colombia's side, demanding Maduro allow the emergency aid to cross into Venezuela. They waved flags while Colombian police trucks carrying armed officers and other authorities drove by throughout the day. Luis Escobar, a Venezuelan who now lives in Colombia after fleeing his crisis-ridden nation, said his wife has advanced breast cancer and urged Maduro to accept the aid. Story continues In tears, he described how his wife was unable to get treatment in Venezuela and that by the time they were able to see a doctor in Colombia, her illness had significantly progressed. "I am here because, unfortunately, my wife is going to die," Escobar said. "But today I am here for Venezuelans who are suffering the same as my wife. The world has to know about this." Meanwhile, Venezuela's communications minister, Jorge Rodriguez, appeared on state TV claiming Colombian intelligence, the CIA and exiled Venezuelan opposition lawmaker Julio Borges were behind a plot to overthrow Maduro. "A murderer like Borges must set aside hypocrisy," Rodriguez said. "There's no democracy, no humanitarian aid. What will he say, now that his own accomplices gave him away?" Rodriguez showed a videotape of what he said was a confession from retired national guard Col. Oswaldo Garcia Palomo as proof of the alleged plot. An outspoken Maduro critic, Palomo has openly spoken of amassing a military force in exile to remove the Venezuelan leader from power. He was arrested last month after he entered Venezuela clandestinely from Colombia. EU countries sign declaration Also Thursday, a coalition of European and Latin American nations called on Venezuela to hold free and transparent elections to peacefully resolve its crisis. A majority of 14 countries in the "International Contact Group" urged Venezuela to return to the rule of law and respect its constitutional institutions starting with the democratically elected National Assembly. Spain, Italy, Portugal were among European nations signing the declaration with Uruguay, Ecuador and Costa Rica. Mexico and Bolivia participated but didn't sign. EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said that the coalition does not intend to impose a solution but is focused on finding answers to avoid violence or foreign intervention in Venezuela. "We can have different points of view and readings about the causes of the crisis," Mogherini earlier told the gathering in the Uruguayan capital, Montevideo. "But we share the same objective, wishing to contribute to a politically peaceful and democratic solution." Puerto Rico's government, meanwhile, said 3,600 pounds (1,633 kilograms) worth of donated supplies are en route to Venezuela. Officials have said the aid is not part of the $20 million in aid pledged by the United States. Puerto Rico Secretary of State Luis Rivera Marin said a plane carrying the supplies left the US territory on Wednesday but has not yet delivered them. Venezuelan community leader Sonia Cosme said the supplies include medication to help treat diabetes, blood pressure, asthma and seizures. There also are items for children including diapers, formula, milk, oral serums and protein drinks. (AP) The man holds the baby upside-down by its ankles, and begins to swing it between his legs, before balancing it above his head and even throwing it up in the air. A crowd is watching, and some record the spectacle with their smartphones. An amateur video shows a Russian couple in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, performing this street act in order to earn money to fund their travelling. The video has been viewed over 67,000 times since it was posted on February 2. According to the BBC, the Russian couple, who are both in their late twenties, are in Malaysia on a month-long tourist visa. The video was taken in Bukit Bintang, a district of the countrys capital.Facebook users were shocked by the video of the street performance. The man who posted the video called it an irresponsible act that can literally cause injury to that poor baby. In the video, a voice says in Malay, This is stupid, how can you do this?WARNING: This video could be distressing for some viewers. This video was originally posted on Facebook here. The Russian couple are an example of the phenomenon known as beg-packing, where tourists from usually developed countries travel to other countries and beg on the street in order to earn money to fund their travelling. In the video, the mother of the four-month-old child sits next to a homemade sign that explains that they are travelling around the world and so are looking for donations.>> READ ON THE OBSERVERS: 'Beg-packers': White tourists who beg in southeast AsiaWe spoke to Ornella Lenoir, a midwife based in Switzerland, who was shocked by the video and said that it was risky for the infants health. Its not right to expose a baby like a fairground attraction> Before the baby is a year old theres always the risk of shaken baby syndrome, which can cause severe brain damage, even death. Essentially, the skull is much larger than the brain is at this age in order to leave space for the brain to grow. So a sudden movement can make the brain hit the inside of the skull and become damaged.> > What make it easier for this to happen is the fact that the muscles in the spine and the head are not yet strong enough to support the head in the first few months of a childs development.> > The other risk that I can see from this video is to the childs limbs, whether its to the arms or the legs. Its the same as for the head: the muscles are still too weak and theres a lot of laxity so depending on the movements or how the child is manipulated, theres also a risk of dislocation. Of course, theres also the risk of them falling.> > But for me, in any case its just scandalous that theyre even doing a show using their baby. Its not right for a baby to be exposed like that, like a fairground attraction, at night, in the middle of a crowd.After the video went viral, Malaysian police arrested the couple while they were in the middle of another performance a few days later on February 4. Police investigated the couple on grounds of endangering their infant daughter. They were released a day later.Criminal investigation police chief Gunalan Muniandy told Malaysian media the New Straits Times that The couple has been granted bail after doctors examined the baby and found nothing was wrong.The video has since been masked by Facebook, but not taken down. Facebook says that it was leaving the video up as it could help with rescuing the child in question.Baby dynamics yoga, or baby gymnastics is a practice that originated in Russia. It remains legal, although is not without its fair share of controversy. Some Russian parents regularly perform these kinds of acrobatics with their infant, believing that it aids in strengthening the childs muscles. The couple in Malaysia told local media that their baby enjoys the exercise. This article was written by Catherine Bennett (cfbennett2). The man holds the baby upside-down by its ankles, and begins to swing it between his legs, before balancing it above his head and even throwing it up in the air. A crowd is watching, and some record the spectacle with their smartphones. An amateur video shows a Russian couple in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, performing this street act in order to earn money to fund their travelling. The video has been viewed over 67,000 times since it was posted on February 2. According to the BBC, the Russian couple, who are both in their late twenties, are in Malaysia on a month-long tourist visa. The video was taken in Bukit Bintang, a district of the countrys capital. Facebook users were shocked by the video of the street performance. The man who posted the video called it an irresponsible act that can literally cause injury to that poor baby. In the video, a voice says in Malay, This is stupid, how can you do this? WARNING: This video could be distressing for some viewers. This video was originally posted on Facebook here. The Russian couple are an example of the phenomenon known as beg-packing, where tourists from usually developed countries travel to other countries and beg on the street in order to earn money to fund their travelling. In the video, the mother of the four-month-old child sits next to a homemade sign that explains that they are travelling around the world and so are looking for donations. >> READ ON THE OBSERVERS: 'Beg-packers': White tourists who beg in southeast Asia We spoke to Ornella Lenoir, a midwife based in Switzerland, who was shocked by the video and said that it was risky for the infants health. Its not right to expose a baby like a fairground attraction Before the baby is a year old theres always the risk of shaken baby syndrome, which can cause severe brain damage, even death. Essentially, the skull is much larger than the brain is at this age in order to leave space for the brain to grow. So a sudden movement can make the brain hit the inside of the skull and become damaged. What make it easier for this to happen is the fact that the muscles in the spine and the head are not yet strong enough to support the head in the first few months of a childs development. The other risk that I can see from this video is to the childs limbs, whether its to the arms or the legs. Its the same as for the head: the muscles are still too weak and theres a lot of laxity so depending on the movements or how the child is manipulated, theres also a risk of dislocation. Of course, theres also the risk of them falling. But for me, in any case its just scandalous that theyre even doing a show using their baby. Its not right for a baby to be exposed like that, like a fairground attraction, at night, in the middle of a crowd. Story continues After the video went viral, Malaysian police arrested the couple while they were in the middle of another performance a few days later on February 4. Police investigated the couple on grounds of endangering their infant daughter. They were released a day later. Criminal investigation police chief Gunalan Muniandy told Malaysian media the New Straits Times that The couple has been granted bail after doctors examined the baby and found nothing was wrong. The video has since been masked by Facebook, but not taken down. Facebook says that it was leaving the video up as it could help with rescuing the child in question. Baby dynamics yoga, or baby gymnastics is a practice that originated in Russia. It remains legal, although is not without its fair share of controversy. Some Russian parents regularly perform these kinds of acrobatics with their infant, believing that it aids in strengthening the childs muscles. The couple in Malaysia told local media that their baby enjoys the exercise. This article was written by Catherine Bennett (cfbennett2). A princess wants to be the next prime minister of Thailand - an unprecedented move in a country where royals traditionally stay out of politics. The general election this March will pit Thailand's royalist-military establishment against the populist movement - led by ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. The simmering conflict between those two sides has resulted in street protests, military coups, and violent clashes for almost 15 years. But, Princess Ubolratana Rajakanya has been declared a candidate for a party loyal to Thaksin's side, something that could shake-up the traditional dynamic of Thai politics. Thaksin and his party have at times been accused by enemies of being opposed to the monarchy, something Thaksin and allies have always rejected. Reuters hasn't been able to independently confirm that her nomination has the approval of the palace. One of her main opponents will be the leader of Thailand's military junta, Prayuth Chan-Ocha, who has been in power since a military coup in 2014. The princess is the older sister of Thailand's King, Maha Vajiralongkorn. She relinquished her royal titles in the 70s when she married an American. But after their divorce she returned home to Thailand, where officials treat her as a member of the royal family. She's starred in several soap operas and movies, she's known for her charity work with young Thais, and is a prominent figure on social media. The carmaker started investigating Carlos Ghosn's past activities following his arrest in Tokyo in November. French carmaker Renault has alerted the countrys authorities to a 50,000 euro (43,777) gift from the chateau of Versailles to its former chairman and chief executive Carlos Ghosn. The gift is reportedly linked to his lavish wedding at the royal estate. Renault said that a company investigation had found Ghosn personally benefited from an exchange worth 50,000 euro in the framework of a philanthropic accord with Versailles. The carmaker said in a statement on Thursday that it was alerting French judicial authorities. Renault started investigating Ghosns past activities after he was arrested in November in Tokyo, where he has been charged with falsifying financial reports and breach of trust. Ghosn, one of the most influential executives in the global car industry, denies wrongdoing. French newspaper Le Figaro reported that Versailles had allowed Ghosn to host his 2016 wedding reception in its grounds in exchange for Renaults donations to the chateau, home to Frances last kings. The chateau said it was given 2.3 million euro (2 million) by Renault to fund renovations in a 2016 philanthropic deal. In exchange, Renault was entitled to benefits from the chateau worth up to 25% of the total donation. As part of the arrangement, Renault asked for permission to rent out space in the Grand Trianon mansion on the Versailles grounds for a dinner on October 8 2016, the chateau said in a statement. It estimated the rental was worth 50,000 euro. Versailles officials would not comment on whether Ghosn himself had made the request, or confirm that the dinner was in fact his wedding reception. Officials in various French prosecutors offices who could investigate the case said on Thursday that they had no information yet from Renault about the gift. Meanwhile, a Renault official said that it and Nissan were also conducting a joint investigation into Ghosns activities as head of the alliance between them, Netherlands-based Renault-Nissan BV. Story continues Ghosn led both Renault and Nissan and championed their alliance as it grew into the worlds biggest-selling car maker. He has faced a stunning downfall since his arrest. Renault initially stood by Ghosn, but named a new CEO and chairman last month to replace him as his Japanese legal case drags on. The Japanese case includes suspicions that Ghosn under-reported his income as chairman of Nissan and falsified financial reports. Ghosn has said fellow executives opposed to forging closer ties between Nissan and Renault schemed against him. When teenage girls get pregnant in Burundi, they are often kicked out of school, rejected by their families and ostracised by their communities, especially if they come from poor families. But a new organisation in the country's capital Bujumbura is helping these young women regain confidence and find a place for themselves in society. Pamella Mubeza had a difficult time after she became a single mother at a young age. She wanted to keep other young women and girls from living the same experience and, so, in 2007, she founded a group called lAssociation des mamans celibataires (the Organisation for Single Mums) in Bujumbura. Her organisation focuses on helping young women in some of the poorest neighbourhoods in the capital, like Kinama and Kinyankonge. Young women in these areas often have little information about sex or reproductive health. "Many teenage girls dont know how their bodies work"> Many teenage girls are completely ignorant, they dont even know how their bodies work. Most girls who become pregnant were manipulated or sometimes even raped by men. > > In Burundi, women who become pregnant outside of marriage are seen as 'loose' women and immoral. They are often kicked out of school and, sometimes, out of their homes. Society turns its back on them. Many of these young women end up living in the streets with their new babies. Some of them have to turn to prostitution in desperation.> > Our organisation brings in psychologists to talk to these young women and help build up their self-esteem. But one of our main aims is to get them back into school.> > > Pamella Mubeza (far right) stands with other single mothers during a workshop on womens rights held in a school in Bujumbura in late 2018. (Photo shared by Pamella Mubeza).> > This year, we were able to get 40 teenage girls back into school. Its an extremely difficult task, because we have to start by convincing the schools to take them. We are constantly organising meetings and workshops with teachers and school authorities to try and show them that just because a single woman or a teenage girl has a child doesnt mean she has bad morals. Having a baby and raising it is any womans right.> > > > > > A single mother speaks about her experience during a class. (Photo shared by Pamella Mubeza).> > I tell them about my own experience. I was a young, single mother, but, in spite of that, I graduated from school and became independent.> > Our work is far from finished. We have about 250 mothers that we want to get back into school.> > No money to buy sanitary napkins> > In the poorest neighbourhoods, most young women dont have the money to buy sanitary napkins. One packet costs about 2,000 Burundian francs [Editors note: equivalent to around one euro]. Some young girls ask their boyfriends for money to buy sanitary napkins and the young men take advantage of this to ask for sexual favours. Our aim is to keep the young women from falling victim to this kind of thing.> > Sanitary napkins are handed out at the headquarters of Pamellas group. > > Every three months, we hand out about 1,500 sanitary napkins at our headquarters. Our aim is to help these young women become independent. > > Its incredibly important because young women who are on their periods are often incredibly ashamed and dont leave their homes, often missing school. Many young girls try to make their own pads from unhygienic materials including plastic bags, rags, paper and grass, which can cause vaginal infections.> > Pamella Mubeza.Mubezas group is also fighting more broadly for equal rights for women in Burundi. In this small country in Africas Great Lakes region, many women do not have access to land ownership. There are no official inheritance laws so land is passed down through traditional customs that only give ownership to men. In another case of discrimination, women were banned from playing the country's traditional instrument, a drum called a tambour, in 2017. Our Observer Ferdinand Bisengi first told us about this initiative. This article was written by Djamel Belayachi. When teenage girls get pregnant in Burundi, they are often kicked out of school, rejected by their families and ostracised by their communities, especially if they come from poor families. But a new organisation in the country's capital Bujumbura is helping these young women regain confidence and find a place for themselves in society. Pamella Mubeza had a difficult time after she became a single mother at a young age. She wanted to keep other young women and girls from living the same experience and, so, in 2007, she founded a group called lAssociation des mamans celibataires (the Organisation for Single Mums) in Bujumbura. Her organisation focuses on helping young women in some of the poorest neighbourhoods in the capital, like Kinama and Kinyankonge. Young women in these areas often have little information about sex or reproductive health. "Many teenage girls dont know how their bodies work" Many teenage girls are completely ignorant, they dont even know how their bodies work. Most girls who become pregnant were manipulated or sometimes even raped by men. In Burundi, women who become pregnant outside of marriage are seen as 'loose' women and immoral. They are often kicked out of school and, sometimes, out of their homes. Society turns its back on them. Many of these young women end up living in the streets with their new babies. Some of them have to turn to prostitution in desperation. Our organisation brings in psychologists to talk to these young women and help build up their self-esteem. But one of our main aims is to get them back into school. Pamella Mubeza (far right) stands with other single mothers during a workshop on womens rights held in a school in Bujumbura in late 2018. (Photo shared by Pamella Mubeza). This year, we were able to get 40 teenage girls back into school. Its an extremely difficult task, because we have to start by convincing the schools to take them. We are constantly organising meetings and workshops with teachers and school authorities to try and show them that just because a single woman or a teenage girl has a child doesnt mean she has bad morals. Having a baby and raising it is any womans right. A single mother speaks about her experience during a class. (Photo shared by Pamella Mubeza). I tell them about my own experience. I was a young, single mother, but, in spite of that, I graduated from school and became independent. Our work is far from finished. We have about 250 mothers that we want to get back into school. No money to buy sanitary napkins In the poorest neighbourhoods, most young women dont have the money to buy sanitary napkins. One packet costs about 2,000 Burundian francs [Editors note: equivalent to around one euro]. Some young girls ask their boyfriends for money to buy sanitary napkins and the young men take advantage of this to ask for sexual favours. Our aim is to keep the young women from falling victim to this kind of thing. Sanitary napkins are handed out at the headquarters of Pamellas group. Every three months, we hand out about 1,500 sanitary napkins at our headquarters. Our aim is to help these young women become independent. Its incredibly important because young women who are on their periods are often incredibly ashamed and dont leave their homes, often missing school. Many young girls try to make their own pads from unhygienic materials including plastic bags, rags, paper and grass, which can cause vaginal infections. Pamella Mubeza. Mubezas group is also fighting more broadly for equal rights for women in Burundi. In this small country in Africas Great Lakes region, many women do not have access to land ownership. There are no official inheritance laws so land is passed down through traditional customs that only give ownership to men. In another case of discrimination, women were banned from playing the country's traditional instrument, a drum called a tambour, in 2017. Our Observer Ferdinand Bisengi first told us about this initiative. This article was written by Djamel Belayachi. Irish premier Leo Varadkar has said he will not be negotiating Brexit when he meets Theresa May for dinner in Dublin on Friday evening. After holding talks in Brussels on Thursday, the Prime Minister was flying to Dublin in an effort to resolve the dispute over the Irish backstop, which remains the main stumbling block to an agreement. She will be joined for the private dinner at official state guesthouse Farmleigh House by the UKs Brexit negotiator Olly Robbins and her chief of staff Gavin Barwell. Mr Varadkar said while the meal presented an opportunity to share perspectives on Brexit, actual negotiations can only be between the European Union and the United Kingdom. Speaking during a visit to Belfast for talks with Northern Irish parties, the Taoiseach said: I think everybody wants to avoid no-deal, everybody wants to avoid a hard border and everybody wants to continue to have a very close political and economic relationship between Britain and Ireland no matter want happens. There is much more that unites us than divides us and time is running short, and we need to get to an agreement really as soon as possible, and Ill be working very hard and redoubling my efforts, along with government, to do that. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar speaking to the media ahead of talks with Northern Irelands five main political parties at the Irish Government residence in Belfast. (Liam McBurney/PA) He added: I believe ultimately we are going to have to get this deal over the line and I am determined to do that. Downing Street said Mrs May would be emphasising what we are looking for, seeking the legally binding changes to the Withdrawal Agreement that Parliament said it needs to approve the deal. Meanwhile, Attorney General Geoffrey Cox held talks in Dublin with his Irish counterpart, Seamus Woulfe. Mr Cox has been leading work within Whitehall on providing either a time limit on the backstop or giving the UK an exit mechanism from it. Attorney General Geoffrey Cox met his Irish counterpart (Jonathan Brady/PA) Both proposals have received a dusty response from Dublin, which insists the backstop cannot be time-limited if it is to provide an effective insurance policy against the return of a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic. Story continues Mrs May, however, has warned she needs legally binding assurances the UK will not be tied to EU rules indefinitely through the backstop if she is to get her Brexit deal through the House of Commons. Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay will hold talks with the EUs chief negotiator Michel Barnier on Monday. Meanwhile, Mrs May and European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker have agreed to meet again before the end of the month to take stock of the situation. To view this content, you'll need to update your privacy settings. Please click here to do so. Mr Barnier said he was looking forward to the meeting in Brussels but restated the EUs position that the Withdrawal Agreement cannot be reopened. I will listen to how the UK sees the way through, the EU negotiator said. The EU will not reopen the Withdrawal Agreement. But I will reaffirm our openness to rework the Political Declaration in full respect of European Council guidelines. (PA Graphics) Meanwhile, Downing Street has said ministers are looking with interest at a letter from Jeremy Corbyn setting out the terms on which Labour would support a deal in Parliament. The move provoked a furious outcry from Labour Remainers who fear the plan effectively kills off their hopes of the party backing a second referendum with warnings from some MPs they could quit the party altogether. Shadow chancellor John McDonnell said Mrs May had to accept his partys proposals were the only way of getting a Brexit deal through Parliament. We believe a deal like this, put before Parliament again, could secure a majority and what youre seeing here is, yes, Parliament asserting control, and the Prime Minister has to accept that the only way shell get something through Parliament is a compromise like this, he told BBC Radio 4s Today programme. Mr McDonnell said the Prime Minister would have a secure parliamentary majority if she backed the plans, which he described as a traditional British compromise, but said a second referendum was still on the table if an agreement could not be reached. Number 10 sources acknowledged there were still very considerable points of difference with Labour over the blueprint which includes a customs union with the EU, something the Prime Minister has repeatedly ruled out. They may hope the threat Parliament could swing behind a softer Norway-style Brexit if there is no agreement on Mrs Mays deal will convince some Tory Brexiteer rebels to fall into line behind her plan. Mr Varadkar described the Corbyn proposals as very interesting. To view this content, you'll need to update your privacy settings. Please click here to do so. I think what Jeremy Corbyn has done is fleshed out a potential future relationship which is one that would mean a future relationship that is very close between the European Union and the United Kingdom, and I think in that regard they are very interesting, he said. But ultimately when dealing with these matters I deal with the democratically elected Government of the United Kingdom and that is headed by Prime Minister May. Speaking in Belfast, Democratic Unionist Party deputy leader Nigel Dodds said Mr Corbyns plan doesnt have the support of his own party, obviously. Mr Dodds said: The way to a majority for a deal in the United Kingdom is with the Conservative Party and the DUP. I dont believe Theresa May is going to split her party in order to reach out to a Jeremy Corbyn who is going to find it very difficult to bring his own party along and who cant be relied upon to deliver the Brexit which the Prime Minister believes people voted for in the referendum. Britain and the EU agreed Thursday to hold more talks to try to avoid a no-deal Brexit after a "robust" meeting between Prime Minister Theresa May and European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker. Juncker reiterated in a joint statement that the EU-UK divorce agreement struck in November cannot be renegotiated, rebuffing May's attempts to change arrangements for the Irish border.But Juncker expressed "openness to add wording" to a parallel political declaration laying out plans for future EU-UK ties, with hopes this could break the deadlock.After his own talks with May, EU President Donald Tusk warned there was "no breakthrough in sight", although the British leader said she had seen willingness from Brussels to find a deal.May has been desperately trying to salvage the withdrawal agreement she spent months negotiating with Brussels, after it was rejected by the British parliament last month.She has been working with her own MPs to find a way through, but an EU official said that in Thursday's meeting with Tusk, she "did not offer any new concrete proposals".Instead, Tusk apparently suggested to May that she study a plan laid out by British opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.May has already rejected the proposal for an EU-UK customs union, but the EU leader said it "might be a promising way out of the impasse", the official told AFP.Talk has been growing that even if MPs finally back the deal, Britain may have to delay Brexit, scheduled for March 29, to get the necessary legislation through parliament.But May vowed: "I'm going to deliver Brexit, I'm going to deliver it on time."Legally-binding changesThe impasse has deepened fears that Britain could crash out of the EU without a deal in 50 days time, disrupting trade and supplies to manufacturing.In a sharp reminder of the urgency of finding a solution, Bank of England governor Mark Carney warned that Britain's economy was "not yet prepared" for a no-deal departure.Speaking to reporters as she left Brussels, May said she had spelled out Britain's "clear position" that legally-binding changes are needed to the so-called backstop plan for the Irish border.Her MPs fear the arrangement, which would keep Britain tied to EU trade rules if and until another way was found to keep the frontier open, is a "trap".Such changes to the Irish question were not forthcoming, but instead May got a fresh round of talks.EU negotiator Michel Barnier will now meet British Brexit Minister Stephen Barclay in Strasbourg on Monday for what an EU official described as "exploratory" negotiations.May herself will meet Juncker again before the end of February.She is also sending her top lawyer, Geoffrey Cox, who has been looking at a possible time limit or exit mechanism on the backstop, to Dublin ahead of her own dinner on Friday night with Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar.Varadkar, whose government has stressed the importance of maintaining an open border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, said recent "instability in British politics" showed why a backstop was essential.'Special place in hell'Expectations for Thursday's visit were already modest when, a day earlier, Tusk and Juncker torched May's prospects of winning changes to the withdrawal agreement.Tusk, who represents EU member leaders as head of the European Council, also triggered outrage across the Channel by damning pro-Brexit politicians."I've been wondering what that special place in hell looks like, for those who promoted Brexit without even a sketch of a plan how to carry it out safely," he said.May said she had raised the incendiary remarks in their meeting, calling them "not helpful" and saying they had caused "widespread dismay" in Britain.She insists that without changes to the backstop, her deal will never pass the British parliament.But May has exasperated EU leaders by repeatedly coming to Brussels without detailed proposals.Labour leader Corbyn wrote to May ahead of her visit suggesting that he would accept the backstop, but saying he wanted changes to the declaration on future ties.These include a customs union, which May opposes because it would not allow Britain to have its own trade policy.(AFP) Britain and the EU agreed Thursday to hold more talks to try to avoid a no-deal Brexit after a "robust" meeting between Prime Minister Theresa May and European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker. Juncker reiterated in a joint statement that the EU-UK divorce agreement struck in November cannot be renegotiated, rebuffing May's attempts to change arrangements for the Irish border. But Juncker expressed "openness to add wording" to a parallel political declaration laying out plans for future EU-UK ties, with hopes this could break the deadlock. After his own talks with May, EU President Donald Tusk warned there was "no breakthrough in sight", although the British leader said she had seen willingness from Brussels to find a deal. May has been desperately trying to salvage the withdrawal agreement she spent months negotiating with Brussels, after it was rejected by the British parliament last month. She has been working with her own MPs to find a way through, but an EU official said that in Thursday's meeting with Tusk, she "did not offer any new concrete proposals". Instead, Tusk apparently suggested to May that she study a plan laid out by British opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. May has already rejected the proposal for an EU-UK customs union, but the EU leader said it "might be a promising way out of the impasse", the official told AFP. Talk has been growing that even if MPs finally back the deal, Britain may have to delay Brexit, scheduled for March 29, to get the necessary legislation through parliament. But May vowed: "I'm going to deliver Brexit, I'm going to deliver it on time." Legally-binding changes The impasse has deepened fears that Britain could crash out of the EU without a deal in 50 days time, disrupting trade and supplies to manufacturing. In a sharp reminder of the urgency of finding a solution, Bank of England governor Mark Carney warned that Britain's economy was "not yet prepared" for a no-deal departure. Story continues Speaking to reporters as she left Brussels, May said she had spelled out Britain's "clear position" that legally-binding changes are needed to the so-called backstop plan for the Irish border. Her MPs fear the arrangement, which would keep Britain tied to EU trade rules if and until another way was found to keep the frontier open, is a "trap". Such changes to the Irish question were not forthcoming, but instead May got a fresh round of talks. EU negotiator Michel Barnier will now meet British Brexit Minister Stephen Barclay in Strasbourg on Monday for what an EU official described as "exploratory" negotiations. May herself will meet Juncker again before the end of February. She is also sending her top lawyer, Geoffrey Cox, who has been looking at a possible time limit or exit mechanism on the backstop, to Dublin ahead of her own dinner on Friday night with Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar. Varadkar, whose government has stressed the importance of maintaining an open border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, said recent "instability in British politics" showed why a backstop was essential. 'Special place in hell' Expectations for Thursday's visit were already modest when, a day earlier, Tusk and Juncker torched May's prospects of winning changes to the withdrawal agreement. Tusk, who represents EU member leaders as head of the European Council, also triggered outrage across the Channel by damning pro-Brexit politicians. "I've been wondering what that special place in hell looks like, for those who promoted Brexit without even a sketch of a plan how to carry it out safely," he said. May said she had raised the incendiary remarks in their meeting, calling them "not helpful" and saying they had caused "widespread dismay" in Britain. She insists that without changes to the backstop, her deal will never pass the British parliament. But May has exasperated EU leaders by repeatedly coming to Brussels without detailed proposals. Labour leader Corbyn wrote to May ahead of her visit suggesting that he would accept the backstop, but saying he wanted changes to the declaration on future ties. These include a customs union, which May opposes because it would not allow Britain to have its own trade policy. (AFP) A "large number" of prisoners are to be pardoned in Iran to mark the 40th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution. Although state TV in Iran has not confirmed the exact figure, previous reports suggested up to 50,000 prisoners would either be released or have their sentences reduced. The ruling was passed by Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who has the final say on all major policies. There are about 240,000 prisoners in Iran. The country is celebrating the anniversary of the 1979 revolution which toppled a Western-backed monarchy and heralded the start of four decades of clerical rule. Iran is holding several dual citizens with Western nationality on allegations of threatening national security - it is unknown if any of these prisoners will be included in the pardon. Among those is Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe , a British mother who is accused of "plotting to overthrow the Iranian regime". She had been in Iran to visit her family for Nowruz, the traditional New Year festival, with her young daughter. French politicians have defended a series of airstrikes in Chad targeting a rebel convoy this week, saying it respected international law and supported a legitimate government. France never intervenes - even if a countrys authorities ask just to target people who are against the government, said Thomas Gassilloud, an MP with the ruling LREM party and member of the commission for national defence and armed forces.We decided on our intervention on the basis of a formal request by the Chadian authorities with strict respect for international law, Gassilloud told RFIs service Afrique.The MP for Rhone said such action would not prevent the French authorities from continuing to encourage the emerging democracy in Chad.A number of airstrikes were carried out this week by French Mirage 2000 fighter jets targeting what the Chadian government originally described as a group of mercenaries and terrorists from Libya. It emerged that the convoy of some 50 vehicles was part of the Union of Forces of Resistance (UFR) rebel group.The UFR has long been opposed to President Deby and it denied that the group had come from southern Libya, saying that France was meddling in Chads internal affairs.French army spokesperson Patrick Sieger said it was not a French affair and airstrikes were carried out following a formal request by Chad. He also did not rule out further airstrikes, saying evaluation of the situation was still in progress, any more comments would just be speculation.President Deby told a cabinet meeting that the column of mercenaries which tried to make an incursion into Chadian territory has been completely destroyed, according to an official account cited by the AFP news agency.Several Chadian opposition politicians criticised the French intervention with some describing it as a serious error, saying that France was supporting Deby against those imposed to him and that France only intervenes because its interests in the country are threatened.If we only intervened with regimes which are models of democracy, we wouldnt have 35,000 men and women in external operations, Christian Cambon, president of the senate commission on foreign affairs, defense and the armed forces, told RFIs Michel Arseneault.Cambon said that the airstrikes were necessary to ensure the security of the French troops based in N'Djamena as part of Operation Barkhane, noting that the Chadian capital has previously come under attack by rebels.However, critics of the French airstrikes question Debys legitimacy and the long term aims of such an intervention.France is at war in Chad, but against who? For what reason? questioned Clement Boursin, head of the Africa programme at ACAT, a Christian non-governmental organisation against torture and the death penalty.Boursin pointed to opposition leader Ibni Oumar Mahamat Saleh who disappeared in February 2008 and Debys own ascension to the presidency through armed means.We intervene militarily to support the regime, but for what reason? Stability? said Boursin, referring to protests against the Chadian government, restrictions on internet access and social media networks.French forces have been stationed in NDjamena as part of Operation Barkhane since 2014. The operation is intended to support the Sahel countries in the fight against armed terrorist groups. French politicians have defended a series of airstrikes in Chad targeting a rebel convoy this week, saying it respected international law and supported a legitimate government. France never intervenes - even if a countrys authorities ask just to target people who are against the government, said Thomas Gassilloud, an MP with the ruling LREM party and member of the commission for national defence and armed forces. We decided on our intervention on the basis of a formal request by the Chadian authorities with strict respect for international law, Gassilloud told RFIs service Afrique. The MP for Rhone said such action would not prevent the French authorities from continuing to encourage the emerging democracy in Chad. A number of airstrikes were carried out this week by French Mirage 2000 fighter jets targeting what the Chadian government originally described as a group of mercenaries and terrorists from Libya. It emerged that the convoy of some 50 vehicles was part of the Union of Forces of Resistance (UFR) rebel group. The UFR has long been opposed to President Deby and it denied that the group had come from southern Libya, saying that France was meddling in Chads internal affairs. French army spokesperson Patrick Sieger said it was not a French affair and airstrikes were carried out following a formal request by Chad. He also did not rule out further airstrikes, saying evaluation of the situation was still in progress, any more comments would just be speculation. President Deby told a cabinet meeting that the column of mercenaries which tried to make an incursion into Chadian territory has been completely destroyed, according to an official account cited by the AFP news agency. Several Chadian opposition politicians criticised the French intervention with some describing it as a serious error, saying that France was supporting Deby against those imposed to him and that France only intervenes because its interests in the country are threatened. Story continues If we only intervened with regimes which are models of democracy, we wouldnt have 35,000 men and women in external operations, Christian Cambon, president of the senate commission on foreign affairs, defense and the armed forces, told RFIs Michel Arseneault. Cambon said that the airstrikes were necessary to ensure the security of the French troops based in N'Djamena as part of Operation Barkhane, noting that the Chadian capital has previously come under attack by rebels. However, critics of the French airstrikes question Debys legitimacy and the long term aims of such an intervention. France is at war in Chad, but against who? For what reason? questioned Clement Boursin, head of the Africa programme at ACAT, a Christian non-governmental organisation against torture and the death penalty. Boursin pointed to opposition leader Ibni Oumar Mahamat Saleh who disappeared in February 2008 and Debys own ascension to the presidency through armed means. We intervene militarily to support the regime, but for what reason? Stability? said Boursin, referring to protests against the Chadian government, restrictions on internet access and social media networks. French forces have been stationed in NDjamena as part of Operation Barkhane since 2014. The operation is intended to support the Sahel countries in the fight against armed terrorist groups. Drivers licenses that comply with federal REAL ID law have a small star in the upper right. (MVA image) COLUMBIA, Md. (February 8, 2019)Maryland drivers are facing longer lines and frustrating revisits to state offices over the next year when they renew their licenses due to tougher requirements for licenses that comply with the federal REAL ID law, legislators heard last week.Sixty percent of Maryland's almost 3 million licensed drivers must submit new documentation to prove age, identity and residence by October 2020, or they will be denied access to federal facilities and to boarding commercial aircraft.The new compliant ID cards have a small star on them, but even hundreds of thousands of Marylanders issued driver's licenses in 2016 and 2017 that have the star must now submit extra documentation to make sure their licenses truly comply with the federal requirements.Wait times and visit times at Motor Vehicle Administration offices have been going down for the past five years from about 35 minutes to 25 minutes, but those times are likely to increase, state transportation officials told senators at a Jan. 31 budget hearing."We're committed to delivering on the governor's promise of customer service," said Transportation Secretary Pete Rahn, "but the processing time takes longer" with the extra federal requirements for documents.These documents include birth certificates, marriage certificates to prove a change of name, a Social Security card or tax forms, and proofs of Maryland residence."This is federal law," Rahn said. "We're ahead of many states," such as Pennsylvania, which has not been issuing compliant licenses.Rather than processing about 10,000 driver license renewals a month, MVA is now processing about 100,000 drivers licenses a month, said MVA Administrator Christine Nizer. "It's quite a challenge" and the agency is adding staff to deal with the increased walk-in transactions.Senators had already seen the consequences of the new requirements. In one case, Sen. Johnny Ray Salling, R-Dundalk, said a woman presented an original birth certificate and an original marriage certificate, and the MVA employee asked for an "official copy" of both.Nizer said that the MVA was not accepting old birth certificates issued by hospitals. But the birth certificate the MVA rejected was actually issued by the Maryland health department, embossed and on paper watermarked with the state seal. (I saw the document.)"They're going to be forced to make copies of things they have the originals of," Salling complained.Sen. Doug Peters, D-Bowie, chair of the subcommittee reviewing the MVA budget, had direct experience of the new REAL ID process. "This is my favorite department because I have six kids," he joked.Getting a learner's permit for one of his sons, Peters said they had to leave the MVA's Largo office to get a birth certificate from an Anne Arundel County health department office, and found eight people in line there for the same reason related to REAL ID. Here is information about getting a Maryland birth certificate."It's just taking a lot longer to get things processed," Peters said. "It's a lot more work. You have to scan all these different documents.""This is probably going to be a big issue for us," Peters said.Drivers, like me, who already have an apparently compliant license with a star on it, are supposed to be notified to bring in the documentation. Or you can check the MVA website and put in your soundex number to see if you must come in. www.mva.maryland.gov/realid/realidlookup.htm A current passport will suffice to prove age and identity, rather than copies of birth certificates and marriage licenses.The MVA website has full information about the documentation required. After the Belgian parliament asked Berlin to stop payments to non-Germans who worked alongside the Nazi regime, France has said it will work to identify the 54 French citizens who receive such ... Secretary of State to the Minister of the Armed Forces, Genevieve Darrieussecq, said she was unaware that 54 people in France had received war pensions from Germany for services rendered to the Nazi regime during World War II."We had no knowledge of this pension," she told Le Parisien on Monday, "but they could have been people who were wounded while serving in the Wehrmacht [unified, armed forces of Nazi Germany].Darrieussecq was called to react after the Belgian parliament passed a resolution last Thursday urging the government to seek more information from Berlin regarding 27 Belgian citizens who allegedy still receive a complementary pension from Germany.Belgian MPs called for the German federal government to put an immediate stop to the payments and publish a full list of the beneficiaries.German authorities have refused to communicate the list of recipients, citing legal concerns around protecting privacy.But on Friday the German labour ministry told French enws agency AFP that 2,033 people living outside the country had received payments in February as war victims and collaborators of the Nazi regime.Three-quarters are in Europe, with the highest number in Poland (573), followed by Slovenia (184), Austria (101), Czech Republic (94), Croatia (71), France (54), Hungary (48), UK (34), Belgium (18).The payments range from 435 euros to close to 1,300 euros per month depending partly on time spent in prison after the war, which was regarded as "working for Germany".Compensation rather than pensionThe pensions are deliverd under the 1951 Law on the Care of the Victims of the War which was passed to compensate war victims of Nazi crimes and includes former collaborators of the Nazi regime, some of whom were forcibly enrolled and recruited.It built on a decree, signed in 1941 by Adolph Hitler, and never abrogated, to compensate those who pledged "allegiance, fidelity, loyalty and obedience" to the Fuhrer in the event they suffered partial or total invalidity as a result of their collaboration in the war.So technically the payments are seen as compensation rather than a pension.The law excludes former members of the SS and perpetrators of war crimes.Calls for pensions to be stoppedOn Saturday, the head of hard-left France Unbowed, Jean-Luc Melenchon, demanded the pensions be stopped and that all sums paid out be handed over to the Charles de Gaulle Foundation.But Genevieve Darrieusecq has called for caution."They could be former soldiers, widows," she told Le Parisien. "We must first of all try to investigate more thoroughly who might be concerned," citing the case of people forced to enroll in the German army."In the case of people in Alsace and Moselle [who were enrolled by force], there were 135,000. Thousands among them were injured or became invalids. Many were seriously impacted, against their will.We must take the time to study the situation calmly and not rush into controversy, she said. "We mustnt be excessive and turn these kind of subjects into caricature.The subject is particularly sensitive in France, which has seen a recent steep rise in anti-Semitic attacks. A Finnish experiment with basic income has come to an end, and results are not good for employment. The experiment by the Social Insurance Institution of Finland, which distributes unemployment benefits, gave 560 a month to 2,000 randomly selected unemployed people. The money was given, no questions asked. The two-year trial came to an end last month, and a report on Friday showed that employment did not increase among the participants, but their general well-being seems to have gone up: recipients reported feeling less stressed, healthier and more confident in the future. France has a basic income for the unemployed and those earning very low incomes, called the RSA, which decreases with the amount of money earned by working. It not automatic, and economist Jean-Eric Hyafil, who has researched the question of universal basic income, says many people who are eligible for the RSA do not ask for it, either because they do not know they can, or they are ashamed. Hyafil sees basic income as a way to address inequality, that many in France are currently protesting against, in the Yellow vest movement. Below is an interview with Hyafil, edited for length and clarity. Hyafil: Its not the basic income that will help people find jobs. Basic income only makes sure they are not in poverty and that they will survive. What will help them find jobs? First, you need to have jobs in the area where they live. If there are no jobs, they wont find anything. Second, they need support and help to find the jobs. Third, they need to be trained if they dont have qualifications. It is a big mistake to think that the basic income will help people find jobs. Q: The Finnish experiment of giving a base amount to unemployed people seems to have been less about a universal basic income, and more along the lines of what France already has: The RSA, a minimum income for the unemployed or the very low-income, even though it is not automatic. Hyafil: Yes. It looks like the RSA. This was not a basic income experiment Story continues Q: In the political and social climate of France, where we are seeing people taking to the streets for questions of inequality, where does the basic income enter into the debate? Hyafil: I think it should be part of it, but it is difficult to do so, because its something that has to be advocated for. Most of the people protesting in France are workers who are not well paid. They started protesting against the increase of petrol taxes. But petrol taxes are necessary if we want to reduce our consumption of oil and greenhouse gas emissions. If we had a basic income, not only for the poorest but also for people in the middle, like workers, it could compensate the increases in oil taxes. Thats one logic: Increase taxes but give it to the workers. This could work, but none of the protesters have had this idea because they dont know about the basic income, and they think its only something for the poorest and those who do not work. Q: Benoit Hammon, the former Socialist candidate for president who ran against Emmanuel Macron, had initially pushed for a a universal basic income, before backtracking. Today, who is publically advocating for a basic income in France? Hyafil: Many people who do it are on the far left, and they say it would bring the end of working. They are idealists, and not very credible. But I would say that it would not be the end of work, but rather a way to improve the redistribution. And the main beneficiaries would be workers with low wages. But because many of them think its for the poorest and idealists, they think, we dont want that. Hundreds of foreign jihadi brides are being held in a Kurdish camp in northern Syria as the war to drive out the Islamic State (IS) group enters its final phase. As the only media to gain access to the camp, FRANCE 24 spoke with some of these women. Almost all of the women in the Kurdish-controlled al-Hol camp in northeastern Syria are foreign nationals who travelled to Syria at the height of the IS groups so-called caliphate. They are held in a fenced-off area away from the other camp residents.These "brides" tell FRANCE 24 that their husbands are either still fighting, dead or in prison.In all, some 500 jihadi brides and their children are at the camp, housed alongside approximately 30,000 refugees many of whom fled the IS group's reign of terror.'We have changed'Since arriving at the camp, most of these women claim to have abandoned the IS groups ideology.Im a Brazilian, from Germany! a burqa-clad woman exclaims, while another says: Im German, German, I have my German passport with me!We have changed. We cant say we were not part of the IS group. We were part of it. When we moved here, we loved it, one of them tells FRANCE 24. However, she goes on to say: The Islam of our Prophet Mohammed, peace be with him, was never about killing children, was never about imposing injustice. It was never about those things.Many of them now want return to their home countries.The punishment is supposed to last our whole life?We are human beings. Sometimes we do fair things. Sometimes we do unfair things. So we did some unjust things, and we regret them. And so the punishment is supposed to last your whole life, or what? one of the detained women says.Kimberley, a 46-year-old Canadian, insists she ended up a jihadi bride simply because she didnt know any better, claiming that in 2015 she decided to join because of humanitarian reasons.I actually didnt know much about what you would refer to as Daesh (an Arabic acronym name for the IS group). I didnt know a lot about the organisation itself, I just knew that they were big and that as an Islamic organisation at the time, they were doing some really good things. I dont think that negates the negatives, but I tried to leave and they put me in prison so I ended up being trapped, she tells FRANCE 24.Yes I knew about Charlie Hebdo (the terrorist attack on the magazines offices in Paris in 2015). But again, wed had an attack on Canadian soil as well. I chalked it up to being a handful of individual lone wolves who were kind of acting on their own.Some are ferociousOne of the camps directors says that although some of the women claim to be innocent of any crime, others are clearly very dangerous.We thought we could put them together with the Syrians and the Iraqis, and that they would adapt. But theyre ferocious, they burned some of the Syrians tents, they would call them cockroaches, infidels. They consider themselves as the only true Muslims. So we had to separate them, he explains.The problem is their intentions, they tell us what we want to hear, but we have no idea about what they really think. Thats a problem that must be addressed by experts. When they gave themselves up, some of them told us that the IS group briefed them, telling them, Surrender, go back to your countries, get your strength back and we will start again.Half a million deadFour years ago, the militants controlled territory the size of Britain and millions of people. Major General Christopher Ghika, the deputy commander of the US coalition fighting the group, on Thursday said that "now less than 1 percent of the original caliphate" remains.The coalition has taken control of Hajin, which was the last IS group town of note.Since then, thousands of suspected IS group fighters have attempted to blend in with civilians fleeing the jihadists' last bastion, including a large number of foreigners.More than half a million people have died in the Syrian conflict since it began in 2011 and half the pre-war population have fled their homes, including more than 5 million who have gone abroad. Hundreds of foreign jihadi brides are being held in a Kurdish camp in northern Syria as the war to drive out the Islamic State (IS) group enters its final phase. As the only media to gain access to the camp, FRANCE 24 spoke with some of these women. Almost all of the women in the Kurdish-controlled al-Hol camp in northeastern Syria are foreign nationals who travelled to Syria at the height of the IS groups so-called caliphate. They are held in a fenced-off area away from the other camp residents. These "brides" tell FRANCE 24 that their husbands are either still fighting, dead or in prison. In all, some 500 jihadi brides and their children are at the camp, housed alongside approximately 30,000 refugees many of whom fled the IS group's reign of terror. 'We have changed' Since arriving at the camp, most of these women claim to have abandoned the IS groups ideology. Im a Brazilian, from Germany! a burqa-clad woman exclaims, while another says: Im German, German, I have my German passport with me! We have changed. We cant say we were not part of the IS group. We were part of it. When we moved here, we loved it, one of them tells FRANCE 24. However, she goes on to say: The Islam of our Prophet Mohammed, peace be with him, was never about killing children, was never about imposing injustice. It was never about those things. Many of them now want return to their home countries. The punishment is supposed to last our whole life? We are human beings. Sometimes we do fair things. Sometimes we do unfair things. So we did some unjust things, and we regret them. And so the punishment is supposed to last your whole life, or what? one of the detained women says. Kimberley, a 46-year-old Canadian, insists she ended up a jihadi bride simply because she didnt know any better, claiming that in 2015 she decided to join because of humanitarian reasons. I actually didnt know much about what you would refer to as Daesh (an Arabic acronym name for the IS group). I didnt know a lot about the organisation itself, I just knew that they were big and that as an Islamic organisation at the time, they were doing some really good things. I dont think that negates the negatives, but I tried to leave and they put me in prison so I ended up being trapped, she tells FRANCE 24. Story continues Yes I knew about Charlie Hebdo (the terrorist attack on the magazines offices in Paris in 2015). But again, wed had an attack on Canadian soil as well. I chalked it up to being a handful of individual lone wolves who were kind of acting on their own. Some are ferocious One of the camps directors says that although some of the women claim to be innocent of any crime, others are clearly very dangerous. We thought we could put them together with the Syrians and the Iraqis, and that they would adapt. But theyre ferocious, they burned some of the Syrians tents, they would call them cockroaches, infidels. They consider themselves as the only true Muslims. So we had to separate them, he explains. The problem is their intentions, they tell us what we want to hear, but we have no idea about what they really think. Thats a problem that must be addressed by experts. When they gave themselves up, some of them told us that the IS group briefed them, telling them, Surrender, go back to your countries, get your strength back and we will start again. Half a million dead Four years ago, the militants controlled territory the size of Britain and millions of people. Major General Christopher Ghika, the deputy commander of the US coalition fighting the group, on Thursday said that "now less than 1 percent of the original caliphate" remains. The coalition has taken control of Hajin, which was the last IS group town of note. Since then, thousands of suspected IS group fighters have attempted to blend in with civilians fleeing the jihadists' last bastion, including a large number of foreigners. More than half a million people have died in the Syrian conflict since it began in 2011 and half the pre-war population have fled their homes, including more than 5 million who have gone abroad. Scottish Secretary David Mundell wants to build on the cultural, academic and economic connections between Scotland and Iceland on a trip to Reykjavik. Mr Mundell will travel to Iceland on Friday aiming to further develop trade links ahead of the UKs departure from the EU. He will visit biotech company Ossur, the HB Grandi Fish processing plant and the University of Iceland, as well as meeting with the Icelandic fishing minister. As the UK prepares to leave the EU, it is vital that we do all we can to promote trade with partners, both old and new, around the world, he said. Scotland and Iceland have strong cultural, academic and economic connections, and I look forward to building on these with my trip this week. I will be promoting Scottish business and skills particularly in fishing and biotech and I hope we will be able to further develop those relationships in the future. The Secretary of State for Scotland will meet with businesses in Reykjavik on Friday (Martin Keane/PA) Trade between the United Kingdom and Iceland was estimated to be worth around 1.5 billion in the year to September 2018. The countries both have strong fishing and fish processing industries. Mr Mundell will also be the guest of honour at an LGBT diversity reception at the British Embassy in Reykjavik, celebrating the UK and Icelands shared commitment to LGBT rights. David Cameron has reportedly finished writing his memoirs on his time as Prime Minister (Picture: Getty) David Cameron has reportedly finished writing his memoirs on his time as Prime Minister. The tell-all book about Mr Camerons time in Number 10 is set to be published at the end of September to coincide with the Conservative Party Conference. According to reports, the book was originally due to be released last year, but the former PM has chosen to wait until after Brexit. Mr Cameron, who reportedly bought a 25,000 shepherds hut as a writing room, has also apparently suffered from writers block. The book, published by William Collins, is said to be a frank and personal account of David Camerons time in power in Number 10 Downing Street. When the deal with William Collins was first announced, it said publication was expected in 2018. The book will apparently address key issues and decisions Mr Cameron made as Prime Minister, including reforms to the economy, welfare and education, the bombing of Libya, and the Parliamentary vote on Syria, as well as the Scottish and European referendum campaigns. MORE: Muslim prisoner executed despite argument over having an Imam present MORE: Angry Devon town which saw off McDonalds now takes on Premier Inn hotels At the time, Mr Cameron said: It was an immense privilege to lead the Conservative Party for more than a decade and the country for over 6 years as Prime Minister. I am looking forward to having the opportunity to explain the decisions I took and why I took them. I will be frank about what worked and what didnt. Watch the latest videos from Yahoo UK A joint US and Australian team in January seized more than 1.7 tonnes of methamphetamine in California, the largest such domestic seizure in US history, Australian Federal Police reported on February 8. Australian police arrested a number of people in Victoria and New South Wales on February 7 and February 8 allegedly connected to the ice smuggling operation. The haul was equal to 17 million drug deals and had an estimated street value of $1.29 billion, police said. Cocaine and heroin were also discovered. The drugs were seized in California on January 9 after they were discovered in an Australian-bound shipment of audio equipment. The footage shows police opening the concealed drugs. Hundreds of thousands in cash was found as well as 6.5 kg of ice. Credit: Australian Federal Police via Storyful The Islamic State (IS) group is far from defeated, and is morphing into an asymmetrical warfare force after the militant group lost almost all of the territory it once controlled in Syria, German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned on Friday. Merkels remarks, which came at the inauguration of the Berlin headquarters of Germanys foreign intelligence agency BND, contradict statements by US President Donald Trump that the Islamist group has been defeated.The so-called Islamic State has been luckily driven out of its territory but this unfortunately doesnt mean that Islamic State has disappeared, Merkel said. It is transforming into an asymmetrical warfare force. And this, of course, is a threat.The conservative chancellor said monitoring events in Syria was one of the BNDs top priorities, noting that: We remain a long way from peace in Syria.Most US troops pulled out by mid-MarchIn December, US President Donald Trump tweeted that the IS group had been defeated in Syria, and followed-up with a statement saying the US would withdraw all of its 2,000 troops there by the end of April. The plan has alarmed European allies who fear the IS group will resurface in Syria in the absence of a credible peace plan to end the countrys civil war.On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal cited current and former US officials as saying that the plan was well underway and that most of the US troops would have been pulled out already by the middle of March. The withdrawal would also include troops deployed at the US military base at Tanf, near the Syrian border with Iraq and Jordan, they said.IS group fighters hiding among civiliansOn Friday, Kurdish-led forces in eastern Syria prepared for a push on the last remaining speck of the IS group's so-called "caliphate, of which just a few scattered hamlets in the Euphrates Valley remain.Four years ago, the militants controlled territory the size of Britain and millions of people, but Major General Christopher Ghika, the deputy commander of the US coalition fighting the group, on Thursday said that "now less than one percent of the original caliphate" remains.The coalition has been training and providing air support to the Syrian Democratic Forces, which launched an offensive on the last pocket of jihadist territory in September 2018.Two months later, they took Hajin, which was the last town of note under IS group control.Since then, thousands of suspected IS group fighters have attempted to blend in with civilians fleeing the jihadists' last bastion, including a large number of foreigners."They are attempting to escape through intermixing with the innocent women and children attempting to flee the fighting," Ghika said.Speaking at the State Department on Wednesday, Trump said that US-led troops and their Kurdish allies should formally announce the end of the "caliphate" some time next week.(FRANCE 24 with AFP, REUTERS) The Islamic State (IS) group is far from defeated, and is morphing into an asymmetrical warfare force after the militant group lost almost all of the territory it once controlled in Syria, German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned on Friday. Merkels remarks, which came at the inauguration of the Berlin headquarters of Germanys foreign intelligence agency BND, contradict statements by US President Donald Trump that the Islamist group has been defeated. The so-called Islamic State has been luckily driven out of its territory but this unfortunately doesnt mean that Islamic State has disappeared, Merkel said. It is transforming into an asymmetrical warfare force. And this, of course, is a threat. The conservative chancellor said monitoring events in Syria was one of the BNDs top priorities, noting that: We remain a long way from peace in Syria. Most US troops pulled out by mid-March In December, US President Donald Trump tweeted that the IS group had been defeated in Syria, and followed-up with a statement saying the US would withdraw all of its 2,000 troops there by the end of April. The plan has alarmed European allies who fear the IS group will resurface in Syria in the absence of a credible peace plan to end the countrys civil war. On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal cited current and former US officials as saying that the plan was well underway and that most of the US troops would have been pulled out already by the middle of March. The withdrawal would also include troops deployed at the US military base at Tanf, near the Syrian border with Iraq and Jordan, they said. IS group fighters hiding among civilians On Friday, Kurdish-led forces in eastern Syria prepared for a push on the last remaining speck of the IS group's so-called "caliphate, of which just a few scattered hamlets in the Euphrates Valley remain. Four years ago, the militants controlled territory the size of Britain and millions of people, but Major General Christopher Ghika, the deputy commander of the US coalition fighting the group, on Thursday said that "now less than one percent of the original caliphate" remains. Story continues The coalition has been training and providing air support to the Syrian Democratic Forces, which launched an offensive on the last pocket of jihadist territory in September 2018. Two months later, they took Hajin, which was the last town of note under IS group control. Since then, thousands of suspected IS group fighters have attempted to blend in with civilians fleeing the jihadists' last bastion, including a large number of foreigners. "They are attempting to escape through intermixing with the innocent women and children attempting to flee the fighting," Ghika said. Speaking at the State Department on Wednesday, Trump said that US-led troops and their Kurdish allies should formally announce the end of the "caliphate" some time next week. (FRANCE 24 with AFP, REUTERS) Algerias Education minister is dealing with a vicious backlash after she supported the move by a teacher to reprimand a student for openly praying on school grounds.It all began with a situation at the Ecole Algerienne de Paris, or the Algerian School of Paris.The director of the school, Nadia Messaci, banned praying on the establishment's grounds.In defiance of the new rule, one student decided to openly pray in the school courtyard.This student was then faced with expulsion if her father refused to sign a document that acknowledged the new ban in the school.During a press conference in Bordj Bou Arreridj on Monday, Nouria Benghebrit, the countrys Education Minister, was asked to weigh in on the issue.Children are at school to study. This is what happened at the school. It was a student who went out to the courtyard to pray in a very ostentatious manner. The school was doing its job. Praying is to be done at home.Secular and francophoneSince her public backing of Massaci, the education minister has been receiving quite a lot of reaction.Benghebrit is known as a somewhat controversial figure in Algeria says Andrew Lebovitch, an Algerian specialist on the European Council on Foreign Relations.She is seen as a secular and francophone figure in the country.Her past efforts to encourage instruction in DArija (Algerian dialect) in early schooling rather than just modern standard Arabic have drawn the ire of some religious leaders, adds Lebovtich.Which is why the negative reaction to her latest comment is not surprising.In fact one school teacher, filmed himself and his students in a blatant act of defiance.The teacher directs his comments to the Education Minister stating he would not contribute to anything that would create an estranged society: one that has no values or principles. He adds that his students do not need science because they say their prayers.Secular versus Islamic AlgeriaThe posting by the teacher sparked a quick response, with many urging authorities to do something to stop the influence of daech (the Arabic term for the Islamic State terror organisation) in the country.Many pointed to the fact that innocent six-year-olds in the video were blatantly being exposed without permission from their parents.The well-known writer and journalist, Kamel Daoud also joined the public outcry on his Facebook page, complaining of the talibanisation of the school, where young girls are veiled and stuck behind the boys. He went on to say that prayer in school is used as an instrument by terrorist apprentices" and that it "signifies to our children that if one day they do not pray, they will be beaten or chased, criminalized.One host on the private television station, Dzair One, accused the minister of failing to respect the law of the Republic. His guest on the show, the coordinator of the Green Algerian Alliance, accused the minister of acting on behalf of foreigners, and of being involved in a plot with the French that seeks to attack the values of the Algerian people, as reported by ObservAlgerie, an Algerian online newpaper.Algeria was the theatre of a civil war from 1991 and 2002 between the government and various Islamic rebel groups.Islamists targeted many thought to have rejected religion.Estimates of fatalities range from 44,000 to 200,000.Since the end of the civil war, the country has tried to distance itself from Islamists, but it hasnt fully recovered and Algeria itself has become more isolated. Algerias Education minister is dealing with a vicious backlash after she supported the move by a teacher to reprimand a student for openly praying on school grounds. It all began with a situation at the Ecole Algerienne de Paris, or the Algerian School of Paris. The director of the school, Nadia Messaci, banned praying on the establishment's grounds. In defiance of the new rule, one student decided to openly pray in the school courtyard. This student was then faced with expulsion if her father refused to sign a document that acknowledged the new ban in the school. During a press conference in Bordj Bou Arreridj on Monday, Nouria Benghebrit, the countrys Education Minister, was asked to weigh in on the issue. Children are at school to study. This is what happened at the school. It was a student who went out to the courtyard to pray in a very ostentatious manner. The school was doing its job. Praying is to be done at home. Secular and francophone Since her public backing of Massaci, the education minister has been receiving quite a lot of reaction. Benghebrit is known as a somewhat controversial figure in Algeria says Andrew Lebovitch, an Algerian specialist on the European Council on Foreign Relations. She is seen as a secular and francophone figure in the country. Her past efforts to encourage instruction in DArija (Algerian dialect) in early schooling rather than just modern standard Arabic have drawn the ire of some religious leaders, adds Lebovtich. Which is why the negative reaction to her latest comment is not surprising. In fact one school teacher, filmed himself and his students in a blatant act of defiance. The teacher directs his comments to the Education Minister stating he would not contribute to anything that would create an estranged society: one that has no values or principles. He adds that his students do not need science because they say their prayers. Secular versus Islamic Algeria The posting by the teacher sparked a quick response, with many urging authorities to do something to stop the influence of daech (the Arabic term for the Islamic State terror organisation) in the country. Story continues Many pointed to the fact that innocent six-year-olds in the video were blatantly being exposed without permission from their parents. The well-known writer and journalist, Kamel Daoud also joined the public outcry on his Facebook page, complaining of the talibanisation of the school, where young girls are veiled and stuck behind the boys. He went on to say that prayer in school is used as an instrument by terrorist apprentices" and that it "signifies to our children that if one day they do not pray, they will be beaten or chased, criminalized. One host on the private television station, Dzair One, accused the minister of failing to respect the law of the Republic. His guest on the show, the coordinator of the Green Algerian Alliance, accused the minister of acting on behalf of foreigners, and of being involved in a plot with the French that seeks to attack the values of the Algerian people, as reported by ObservAlgerie, an Algerian online newpaper. Algeria was the theatre of a civil war from 1991 and 2002 between the government and various Islamic rebel groups. Islamists targeted many thought to have rejected religion. Estimates of fatalities range from 44,000 to 200,000. Since the end of the civil war, the country has tried to distance itself from Islamists, but it hasnt fully recovered and Algeria itself has become more isolated. Nigerians head to the polls on February 16 to choose their next president, wrapping up a two-horse race between incumbent Muhammadu Buhari, representing the All Progressives Congress (APC) party, and Atiku Abubakar, a former vice president with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The contest remains too close to call, typified by two less-than-perfect candidates with numerous vulnerabilities that have impeded their ability to build broad-based support. While the former has been forced to answer questions about his health, defend his handling of the economy and maintains a tenuous hold on a fractious coalition, his challenger is viewed with suspicion and is unable to shake corruption allegations stemming from his previous stint in government. Elections will be held again on March 2 to determine which party controls the National Assembly (the House of Representatives and the Senate) key to implementing the presidents agenda. Until recently, there had been no instances of divided rule in the history of Nigerias civilian governments, until a burst of high profile defections last year by APC politicians fueled by self-interest or disenchantment with Buharis leadership saw the ruling party lose control of the Senate and its majority in the House significantly reduced. The upheaval within the APC is not surprising given the party was only formed six years ago to challenge then-President Goodluck Jonathan and the ruling PDP in the 2015 elections. Formed in February 2013, APC was birthed from an alliance of Nigerias three biggest opposition parties the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), and a subgroup of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA). With the successful realization of its raison detre in 2015, the lack of a common cause to rally behind in peacetime has made it harder for the APC leadership to appease coalition members and keep them in line. Story continues To compound matters, Nigerias economic performance in the first two years of Buharis tenure recession in 2016 (economic activity contracted by 1.6 percent) and anemic 0.8 percent growth in 2017 coupled with an increase in youth unemployment has negatively affected the current governments standing. His administration has also spent significantly on infrastructure projects to ramp up the pace of the countrys development, but with mixed results. Other issues remain unaddressed, such as the sub-standard education and health systems, the lack of reliable sources of industrial inputs such as electricity, the need to upgrade the oil sector, and the fragile health of its banking industry. There are also ongoing frustrations with his handling of the countrys security situation, including the clashes between herdsmen and farmers in central Nigeria last year which claimed thousands of lives. Add in the fact that the 76-year old Buhari has spent a noticeable chunk of his term abroad for medical treatment, meaning doubts about his ability to handle the rigors of another four years in charge continue to bubble. Many believe the defections have handed the advantage to the PDP leading up to the elections, but their flagbearer has been unable to shed accusations about how he built his vast business empire and build on the momentum. Abubakar has been dogged by accusations of corruption for many years, charges which he consistently denies, but his detractors believe the majority of his support is from prominent politicians and businessmen who have been financially damaged by Buharis anti-corruption crusade. His opportunism in throwing his support behind the APC when it was first formed ahead of the 2015 elections, before switching allegiances back to the PDP to become its nominee has done little to enhance his reputation. Atiku Abubakar. PHOTO: @AtikuOrg Abubakar favors free market economic principles in which the economic rebound is fueled by a revitalized private sector, and he has vowed to pursue major reforms such as selling most of the state oil company, Nigerian National Petroleum Corp (NNPC), and allowing the Naira to float freely. However, some view his proposal to sell stakes in NNPC as an example of the real risk of a surge in crony capitalism should Abubakar become president, where any efforts at privatization are geared towards further enriching himself and his inner circle. It remains to be seen how much of his platform is simply election-year bluster, and if Abubakar truly possesses the political bravery to eliminate subsidies on items such fuel, power generation and end its fixed currency policy. Nigerias rigid exchange rate regime is tied to the economys dependence on imported goods there are two official exchange rates, one at which it sells U.S. dollars to local companies to purchase foreign products, and the other for foreign investors in Nigerian bonds and equities. Abubakars campaign should receive a boost from the recent decision by the U.S. State Department to lift a travel ban against him in connection to corruption cases. Being able to now visit the U.S. removes one of the biggest questions about his potential presidency how he could govern effectively and promote Nigerias interests if he remained barred from the worlds largest economy. The post Nigeria: More Questions Than Answers As Election Day Nears appeared first on Emerging Market Views. Multimedia Journalist As a multimedia journalist, nothing makes me happier than capturing the moments that define our community in East Texas. I'm a born-and-raised Texan and proud UT Austin alumna, and am always on the hunt for feature stories and the best tacos in town. Former Seven West Media CEO John Driscoll (pictured right) will become Chair of the Screenwest next month, replacing Janelle Marr. Ms Marr (left) has been a Director of Screenwest since 2013 and Chair since 2015 but retires as she completes the maximum number of years under Screenwests Constitution. It has been an incredible privilege to steer Screenwest through a period of significant development and change, including the transition from Government to become an independent not-for-profit in 2017, securing a new home and expanding funding through the WA Regional Film Fund, she said. During my term, we have focused on growing the relevance and impact of Screenwest and the WA screen community. Over the past six years, it has been pleasing to see the sectors influence grow to become the busiest State in the country for Australian film and screen production. John Driscoll is a founding director of Longreach Consulting, a Council Member of RAC (WA) and deputy chairman of Rebound WA. heis a former CEO of Seven West Media (WA) and is best known in creative circles for his long tenure as Chairman of Marketforce. He is also a past chair of the Rottnest Island Authority; Senior Advisory Board for the Curtin University School of Marketing and of Trinity College. John will bring a breadth of skills to the Screenwest Board, which will be instrumental in enabling it to continue to provide sound governance and support to the team continuing the great work already underway, said Ms Marr. The past few years have been a period of generational change both for Screenwest and for the film industry in Western Australia and I look forward to being able to continue that positive momentum, said Mr Driscoll. Our screen industry has won well deserved national and international acclaim for capturing the essence of Western Australia and for attracting and developing an incredibly talented group of people who now make up an important industry for our State. Our challenge moving forward is to develop a broader community understanding of the importance of this industry and its role, using both traditional and emerging technologies, ensuring its commercial success well into the future. In December Peter Willie Rowe (centre) was appointed as Chief Executive Officer of Screenwest for three years. Related Lawyers for Craig McLachlan are seeking to expedite a trial over indecent assault charges levelled against him. Lawyers told the Melbourne Magistrates Court today they intend to forgo a committal hearing, which would test whether there was enough evidence for the case to go to trial. Barrister Stuart Littlemore QC told Magistrate Andrew Capell, My current thinking is to go straight to trial with a hand up brief. Because we want to expedite this as much as we possibly can. McLachlan, 53, was not required to appear for the first hearing today but will be required to attend on April 5. Magistrate Capell ordered the charge sheets be redacted and refused to release the number of complainants in the case. The only purpose in seeking that would be to prejudice Mr McLachlan, so you wont be getting that, he told reporters. The prosecutor also said particulars of the charges may identify the complainants. The Doctor Blake Mysteries star is also suing Fairfax, the ABC and former co-star Christie Whelan Browne for defamation, seeking $6.5m in special damages but a civil trial has been postponed until the criminal proceedings are finalised. He has denied all allegations. Source: The Australian, ABC Related Adult themes Upcoming UK dramedy Flack will debut on FOX Showcase later this month. The series from writer Oliver Lansley (Whites) stars Anna Paquin as an American PR executive living in London who specialises in clearing up the monumental messes caused by her clients (hmm Ive met a few of those!). The cast also includes Sophie Okonedo. It will screen a week after its UK premiere. Anna Paquin stars as the sharp and witty publicity maven, Robyn, whos an expert at her craft but a complete self saboteur when it comes to her personal life. Robyns work as a crisis PR strategist is fast-paced and unpredictable, as she counsels high-profile personalities in entertainment, fashion and sports. 8.30pm Thursday February 28 on FOX Showcase. Related "Criminal Statutes of Limitation in Massachusetts Learn about Massachusetts' criminal statute of limitation laws and related matters in the sections below. Code Section Ch. 27763 Felonies Murder: none; robbery, intent to rob or murder with dangerous weapon: 10 yrs; rape, assault with intent to rape, rape/abuse/assault of child: 15 yrs.; " ******* ""As I have stated previously, fifteen years ago, when I was an unmarried law student, I had a consensual encounter with the woman who made the allegation," he said of Tyson. "At no time did she express to me any discomfort or concern about our interactions, neither during that encounter, nor during the months following it, when she stayed in touch with me." Tyson has accused Fairfax of sexually assaulting her at the 2004 Democratic Convention, saying that Fairfax forced her to perform fellatio on him. In a tweet posted by NBC News, it is alleged that Fairfax used profanity and insulted Tyson in a private meeting. Fairfax addressed that claim in the statement Wednesday. "I would like to encourage the media, my supporters, and others to treat both the woman who made this allegation and my family with respect for how painful this situation can be for everyone involved. I wish her no harm or humiliation, nor do I seek to denigrate her or diminish her voice," Fairfax said." -------------- By my "back of the envelope" figuring, the statute of limitations in Massachusetts has not run its course as yet for this accusation of rape made by Vanessa Tyson against Justin Fairfax, the Lieutenant Governor of Virginia. The event occurred by mutual admission during the Democratic National Convention 28-29 July 2004 at a hotel in Boston, Massachusetts. The statute of limitations in Massachusetts as quoted above, is 15 years. Five months remain before the statute of limitations expires. Will Lieutenant Governor Fairfax be extradited to Massachusetts to face this felony charge? I doubt it. Massachusetts is perhaps the bluest, most Democratic Party dominated state in the Union. IMO Fairfax will not be prosecuted for this putative crime. It should be noted that Tyson is a tenured Associate Professor of Politics at Scripps College, a private women's liberal arts school that is a member of the Claremont consortium of colleges, an elite collection of schools. She is also a liberal Democrat. IOW, she is fireproof. https://www.wdbj7.com/content/news/Fairfax-denies-charges-says-accusers-must-be-given-voice-505420841.html https://statelaws.findlaw.com/massachusetts-law/massachusetts-criminal-statute-of-limitations-laws.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/06/us/politics/vanessa-tyson-statement.html On the second day of the national holiday to observe Tet, or the Lunar New Year, in Vietnam, a local family chose an unusual venue to throw a picnic party - the shoulder of a major expressway linking Hanoi with a neighboring province, and live-streamed their celebration on Facebook. The live-stream video of the family of four drinking and eating in front of their car, whose license plate is clearly visible, on the hard shoulder of the Noi Bai - Lao Cai Expressway was quick to attract negative comments from Facebook users after it surfaced on Wednesday. Vehicles were seen speeding past the Mitsubishi Jolie with the license plate of BKS 36A 090.48, and the four people, apparently a son and daughter and their parents, picnicking on a carpet laid along the emergency stopping lane of the 265-km expressway. The reckless act of the family has sparked widespread outrage as they did not risk their own lives but also those of other traffic goers on the expressway that connects Hanoi and Lao Cai Province. The management board of the Noi Bai - Lao Cai Expressway said on Thursday they were aware of the exact location where the family threw their picnic party and already notified the local traffic police unit to handle the case. Vietnams National Committee for Traffic Safety has said the act of picnicking on the shoulder of the expressway is a serious traffic law violation. It did not say how the violation would be punished. Also on Thursday, An Toan Giao Thong (Traffic Safety), a news website run by the Ministry of Transport, reported that the father of the family took to Facebook to express his apologies over the incident. Speaking on behalf of [his] family, the man said they did not mean to party on the expressway, adding that what they did was a thoughtless act. The father and husband also sought sympathy and forgiveness for his family through the Facebook post, according to An Toan Giao Thong. In the latest development, Uong Huy Hoang, director of the Vietnam Expressway Operation and Maintenance JSC, told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper on Friday a unit of the Traffic Police Department under the Ministry of Public Security had booked the case and will continue to deal with the violation. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Both of the suspects who broke into a toll station on an expressway in Dong Nai Province and escaped with a huge sum of toll money on Thursday are former attendants at the facility, police said on Friday as they apprehended the men after a 15-hour manhunt. Tran Tuan Anh, 26, and his 29-year-old accomplice Nguyen Vu Hoang Nam were nabbed by Dong Nai police and officers from the Ministry of Public Security at a rent room near the Saigon Railway Station in Ho Chi Minh City early on Friday. Anh and Nam were identified as the suspects of an armed robbery at the Ho Chi Minh City - Long Thanh - Dau Giay Expressway, which connects the southern metropolis and Dong Nai, on Thursday, the second day of the new lunar year, when Vietnam is celebrating a nine-day Tet holiday. The suspects confessed to the police they are both ex-employee at the toll station, adding they had planned to board a train to the north for hiding. Both were taken to Dong Nai for further investigation. Tran Tuan Anh is seen this photo provided by the police. Police previously said the suspects had taken away some VND2 billion (US$86,300) worth of toll money, after knocking down an attendant at the toll booth. The robbery took place at 7:00 am, when employees were changing shifts, with the safe left open. The timing came as no surprise because Nam and Anh, as former employees, knew exactly when the toll money was most accessible. Both confessed that they had plotted the robbery well before the Tet holiday began on February 5. After searching the rent house where the suspects had been hiding, police found and seized around ten gold bullions and more than VND100 million ($4,300) worth of cash. A tael of gold (37.5 gams) fetches VND37.12 million ($1,600) on Friday. Nguyen Vu Hoang Nam is seen this photo provided by the police. Nam told the police he had parked his motorbike at a local hospital and took a taxi to go to Ho Chi Minh City to buy the said gold bars. He then rented a room near the Saigon Railway Station to wait for his accomplice. In the meantime, Anh said he was hurt during the robbery and had to rest until Thursday night to be able to take a taxi to Ho Chi Minh City and meet Nam. The two were arrested only 15 hours after carrying out their robbery. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Here are the leading news stories for today, February 8, the fourth day of the new lunar year. Society -- Ninety-six people were killed while 110 others were injured in 144 traffic accidents over the first five days of the Lunar New Year (Tet) holiday, which began on February 2, the Vietnam News Agency reported on Thursday, citing the Ministry of Public Security. -- A Vietnamese family has live-streamed themselves throwing a picnic party on the shoulder of an expressway in northern Vietnam, in what the National Traffic Safety Committee said Thursday is a serious violation of traffic rules. -- The two armed suspects who stormed into the toll booth of an expressway connecting Ho Chi Minh City with the neighboring province of Dong Nai on Thursday had fled with about VND2 billion (US$86,300) in cash, the Dong Nai police said later the same day. Business -- More than 24,000 tourists spent their Tet travel in Mong Cai, a city in the northern province of Quang Ninh, on the first five days, from February 2 to 6, of the Lunar New Year holiday, the Vietnam News Agency reported on Thursday. -- Hanoi aims to have its economy grow by 7.4-7.6 percent in 2019, according to a set of 22 targets on socio-economic development signed by the capital chairman Nguyen Duc Chung. Lifestyle -- The Spring Book Street kicked off in Hanoi on Thursday, the third day of the new lunar year, in Hanoi, offering a wide range of activities for visitors. -- A festival was held in the central province of Quang Ngai on Thursday, the third day of the first lunar month, as a pray for a new year of favorable weather and bumper harvests when local fishermen started their first sailing of the new lunar year. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! As Vietnam continued to capture the worlds attention with numerous emerging destinations in 2018, Tuoi Tre News introduces some of the most famous places of them, depicted through viral photos on social media and stories from the global press. Some 15.6 million internationals tourists visited Vietnam last year, according to the General Statistics Office of Vietnam. Golden Bridge, Da Nang Viral pictures of Da Nangs Golden Bridge ripped through social media over the past year, sparking wanderlust for its rust feel and stunning views. Located more than 1,400m above sea level at the Ba Na Hills Sun World resort, the 150m-long bridge was a hit amongst local and foreign tourists from the moment it opened in June 2018. Just one month later, the Golden Bridge went viral after Malaysian photographer Jason Goh posted an aerial photo of the bridge to his Instagram account @smashpop. The epic photo was shared by dozens of websites, attracting more than 35,800 likes. Since then, the bridge has been featured in several publications, including a mentioned on Time magazines 2018 list of the Worlds Greatest Places 2018. Tan Dinh Church, Ho Chi Minh City This bright pink church located in Saigons District 1 has been a longstanding member of the must-see list for tourists visiting the Southern Metropolis. Tan Dinh Church in the viral photo of @milesofsmiles._ The hundred-year-old building on Hai Ba Trung Street currently ranks #20 out of 202 things to do in Ho Chi Minh City on TripAdvisor . In mid-November 2018, Instagram handle @voyaged shared a picture of the church from @milesofsmiles._ to its 1.3 million followers with the caption Have you seen these vivid architecture in Vietnam in person?, attracting more than 31,000. Hanois railway through the Old Quarter In October last year, AFP published a story describing the French-built railway running through Hanois Old Quarter as a hotspot for tourists seeking the perfect Instagram selfie, and for cafe owners serving up hot coffee and cold beer. Tourists take pictures when a train goes through the railway in Hanoi's Old Quarter. Photo: AFP The tracks are still in use and most days visitors must scramble for safety as the daily train rumbles through the narrow streets, AFP wrote. "It's got a really weird charm, Hong Kong tourist Edward Tsim shared with the French news agency. You've got flowers from the balcony coming down, you've got buildings which are very old and close to each other. You see people here living close to the train tracks," the tourist added. Tam Coc, Ninh Binh This photo by @selcouth_vagary received nearly 38,000 likes when it is re-posted by @voyaged in August 2018. Tam Coc, Ninh Binh in this photo of @selcouth_vagary The picture of Tam Coc, part of the UNESCO- recognized Trang An Landscape Complex in the northern province of Ninh Binh, has received numerous compliments for its fantastical charm. Son Doong, Quang Binh In June 2018, U.S.-based travel magazine Conde Nast Traveller published a photo essay capturing an expedition to the worlds largest cave in Vietnam by Sam Evans-Butler and David Jaff. Son Doong Cave in a picture in the photo essay by Sam Evans-Butler and David Jaffe Only a thousand people have passed through this cave since its discovery. We were lucky enough to be among them, the duo began the story. Four months later, travel site TheTravel.com with more than 2 million followers on Facebook mentioned Son Doong in its list of 20 images of bizarre places on Earth that look like another planet entirely. Binh Hung, Khanh Hoa Binh Hung Island in a Getty Images picture published on Conde Nast Travellers In November last year, Binh Hung Island in the central province of Khanh Hoa was listed in Conde Nast Travellers Southeast Asian beaches youll want to keep to yourself. From its century-old lighthouse to floating lobster restaurants and rocky-shoreline oyster farms, Binh Hung is sort of like a tropical Nova Scotia, the story read. Cliff of Stone Plates, Phu Yen In a story introducing 30 of Vietnam's most beautiful places published in CNN last April, the Cliff of Stone Plates in the central province of Phu Yen ranked 11th. Along the central coastline, north of Nha Trang, the Ganh Da Dia (meaning the "Cliff of Stone Plates") National Heritage site showcases mysterious basalt rock columns, CNN located the place for its readers. Thousands of years ago, volcanic explosions formed the hardened lava outcrops, which now resemble fish scales, the story added. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! OPINION: "The fact that he kept this small black book for almost nine decades suggests he may have wanted us to learn more about him, even after he was gone," writes Amy Hirshberg Lederman. A Customs and Border Protection officer in Nogales shot a driver trying to flee into Mexico Thursday night, officials say. The shooting happened at around 7 p.m. at the DeConcini Port of Entry, according to a Friday morning CBP press release. According to the Mexican Red Cross, the driver was a man in his early 20s. Spokesperson Rafael Gonzalez Dominguez said the man was shot in the back of the head and taken to a hospital in Nogales, Sonora, in critical condition. He also said the man is a U.S. citizen who lives in Tucson. Arturo Garino, the mayor of Nogales, Ariz., says he was told the following information Thursday night: A vehicle headed south at the port was asked by an officer to stop, but the driver refused and made an attempt to run over the officer. The driver was shot, but the vehicle's momentum carried it over the border onto the Mexican side of the border buffer zone between the two countries. This cumulative economic activity generated nearly $500 million in tax revenue across the state, said Alan Maguire, a study author, during his presentation to the board. Study authors also separately calculated the impact of out-of-state funding sources on Arizona alone. More important to the overall impact on the Arizona economy: $3.8 billion in funding comes from sources outside the state. Thats a net pure gain, Maguire said. This includes out-of-state tuition, fees, financial aid, gifts and contract revenues. The spending created 31,700 jobs along with nearly $172 million in tax revenue statewide. The three schools employ nearly 37,000 full-time and part-time employees, with wages and salaries accounting for nearly $2 billion. Research was another major contributor to overall economic impact, and the University of Arizona led the pack. All three schools collected $1.2 billion in research money, mostly from the federal government. Of that, the UA drew in the most, at $622 million. ASU and NAU attracted $545 million and $46 million in research money, respectively. Research expenditures include spending for salaries and benefits, equipment and supplies and a more. Border Patrol apprehended a group of 325 Central Americans west of Lukeville, Ariz., on Thursday after the group entered the country illegally, say border officials. A Border Patrol press release says the group entered into the country in an area where there are vehicle barriers intended to prevent crossings. Members of the group told officials that buses and trucks dropped them off throughout Wednesday night on Mexico's Highway 2, which is very close to the U.S. border. The group said they crossed together at 8 a.m. to await authorities, according to the press release. The group included 150 children, of which 32 were unaccompanied. Agents transported the group more than 15 miles to a staging area where they'll be transported by bus to a Border Patrol facility for processing, the press release says. Officials said two of the children, a 5-year-old who may have chicken pox and a 12-year-old with a skin infection, were transported to a hospital. Keynote Speech by Assistant Foreign Minister Chen Xiaodong at the Dialogue on the Implementation of China-Africa Peace and Security Initiative 2019/02/08 Addis Ababa, 6 February 2019 Your Excellency Mrs. Minata Samate Cessouma, AU Commissioner for Political Affairs, Your Excellency Mr. Mame Baba Cisse, Representative of the Foreign Minister of Senegal and Secretary General of the Senegalese Foreign Ministry, Honorable Ministers and Colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen, Friends, It is my great pleasure to join you in this beautiful city of Addis Ababa for the Dialogue on the Implementation of China-Africa Peace and Security Initiative. The Dialogue is a pioneering step in strengthening peace and security cooperation between China and Africa and a concrete move to deliver the outcomes of the FOCAC Beijing Summit. Your presence today speaks volumes about the high importance you attach to our cooperation and is a manifestation of your personal commitment and strong support. I also want to take the opportunity to express our sincere thanks to Senegal, the FOCAC co-Chair, and the AU Commission for the great efforts they have put into the preparations of this Dialogue. At the successful FOCAC Beijing Summit last September, China and Africa agreed to jointly build a closer China-Africa community with a shared future. At the Summit, President Xi Jinping announced a host of new measures to strengthen China-Africa peace and security cooperation and reached important consensus with African leaders on launching the peace and security initiative. This is the first year for implementing the Beijing Summit outcomes. Last month, State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited several African countries and the AU Headquarters, during which he reached important common understanding with African leaders on furthering China-Africa cooperation, especially in the field of peace and security. It is the mission of our Dialogue today to create synergy in thinking and action between the two sides, put forward suggestions on how to implement the peace and security initiative and the important consensus reached by our leaders, and build momentum for China-Africa peace and security cooperation. Ladies and Gentlemen, Friends, Being the continent with the largest number of developing countries, Africa's peace and stability bears on the security and development of the whole world. Although the situation has been improving in recent years, risks and challenges facing Africa's peace and security cannot be overlooked. First, African countries are navigating uncharted waters in exploring their own development paths. Some of them are confronted with political and social transitions and shifting gears of growth, which has led to an increase in uncertainty and instability. Second, traditional security threats are entwined with non-traditional ones. Terrorism and other security challenges remain grim in regions such as the Sahel. Third, institution-building of the regional collective security mechanism has been a tortuous process, and the work of the AU and Africa's subregional organizations faces constraints such as insufficient funding. Fourth, the inter-connected nature of Africa's hotspot issues often has spill-over effects and complicates the overall peace and security situation on this continent. Over the years, China has fulfilled its responsibilities as a permanent member of the UN Security Council. Guided by the principles enunciated by President Xi Jinping for China-Africa relations, namely, sincerity, real results, amity and good faith and pursuing the greater good and shared interests, China has played a positive role in Africa's peace and security affairs. Anything that is conducive to Africa's peace and stability would enjoy China's support, and anything that undermines Africa's peace and stability would meet China's opposition. Throughout the process, China has been committed to four principles: playing a fair, impartial and constructive role, helping Africa build up its own peacekeeping capacity, addressing the root causes as well as the symptoms, and pursuing cooperation for win-win results. Action speaks louder than words. China has been the largest contributor of UN peacekeepers among the five permanent members of the Security Council and the second largest contributor of UN peacekeeping funding. Nearly 2,100, or more than 80% of our peacekeepers are stationed in Africa, and 75% of China's peacekeeping financial contributions are used in Africa. Chinese naval vessels have been on escort missions in the Gulf of Aden and waters off the Somali coast since 2009, providing protection to 7,000 Chinese and foreign vessels in nearly 2,000 groups. When attending the summits commemorating the 70th anniversary of the founding of the UN in September 2015, President Xi Jinping announced China's decision to establish a 10-year, US$1-billion China-UN peace and development fund. At China's proposal, the fund has made peace and development initiatives of African countries its priority. Among the 56 projects approved so far by the fund, African countries have been the major beneficiaries, with projects ranging from peacekeeping, counter-terrorism capacity-building, mediation, to sustainable development, migration and refugee affairs. China is actively involved in mediating hotspot issues in Africa, and supports African people in resolving African issues in the African way. China has been enhancing dialogue and coordination with African countries in the UN Security Council, and during its rotating presidency in recent years, China has sponsored open debates on piracy in the Gulf of Guinea, on "Enhancing Africa Capacities in the Areas of Peace and Security", and on "Strengthening Peacekeeping Operations in Africa". China has provided through both bilateral and multilateral channels military assistance and personnel training for the AU and African countries to support their capacity-building on peace and security. Ladies and Gentlemen, Friends, China and Africa enjoy ever greater common language, common aspirations and common interests as new opportunities and challenges emerge under new circumstances. African countries welcome China's deeper involvement in their peace and security issues, and sincerely hope that China would provide more public goods in this area. There are new opportunities for us to step up cooperation on peace and security, which is expected to become an important driver for China-Africa relations. We need to explore new dimensions for dialogue on peace and security policy. To build a community through common endeavors to foster security, China and Africa need to enhance strategic security communication and policy dialogue. We need to take real actions to build a community with a shared future, pursue common security, and ensure that the voice and will of Africa are truly respected. This Dialogue is an opportunity for us to explore new ways to advance dialogue on peace and security. China will keep the momentum of mutual visits between defense and military leaders of our two sides, and take peace and security issues as an important agenda in political and diplomatic dialogues and an important part in the China-AU Strategic Dialogue. China will establish a China-Africa peace and security forum, and invite Chinese and African officials and scholars on peace and security to participate. This will facilitate the sharing of ideas on peace and security and experience on defense and counter-terrorism. We need to take new actions to build capacity on peace and security. China takes Africa's concerns seriously, and focuses on its priority and most urgent needs in peacekeeping capacity building. China will continue to support and cooperate with Africa's efforts in securing financial support from the UN on AU peacekeeping operations. We could demonstrate our common position on such financing and win understanding and support of the international community through thematic consultation or formulating common position papers. China will continue to deliver on its US$100 million military aid to the AU and the additional US$80 million military aid in support of the African Standby Force and the African Capacity for Immediate Response to Crisis. China and the AU have agreed to allocate funds from China's remaining military aid to the AU for counter-terrorism operations and building joint forces in the Sahel region, and China and Africa will discuss and implement this agreement through bilateral and multilateral channels. We need to explore new approaches to facilitate the resolution of hotspot issues. China will continue to make good use of its friendly political relations with Africa to increase communication and mediation, promote dialogue and consultation, and facilitate progress in the political resolution of hotspot issues. Going forward, a more integrated, comprehensive and sustainable approach will be adopted whereby both traditional security issues and non-traditional security threats will be actively addressed, both bilateral channels and multilateral cooperation will be employed and both mediation of conflicts and preventive diplomacy will be strengthened. Ambassador Xia Huang was recently appointed by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres as his Special Envoy for the Great Lakes region, the first Chinese to take up the role as UN Secretary-General's special envoy for hotspot issues. China hopes and trusts that Ambassador Xia Huang will make positive contributions to maintaining peace and stability in the Great Lakes region. We need to implement the new measures of the peace and security initiative. China is formulating a plan for the utilization of the China-Africa Peace and Security Fund. As a new package arrangement on peace and security, the Fund provides military and economic assistance through bilateral and multilateral channels in a whole range of areas, including military, counter-terrorism, intelligence, maintenance of law and order and law enforcement and in multiple forms such as personnel training, material assistance, and infrastructure projects. With a more diverse source of capital and a wider coverage, the Fund features more targeted programs and more streamlined procedures as compared with traditional special funds. China stands ready to work more closely with Africa to design and implement country-specific programs of the peace and security initiative in light of China's capabilities and Africa's needs. We look forward to applications from African countries and the AU Commission. Ladies and Gentlemen, Friends, China-Africa relations now stand at a new starting point. No matter how the regional and international landscape evolves, or whatever noises individual countries may make, China's resolve to follow through on the new peace and security cooperation measures announced by President Xi Jinping at the FOCAC Beijing Summit and relevant consensus reached by Chinese and African leaders remains unchanged. China's efforts to safeguard peace and stability in Africa remain unchanged. And China's actions to participate in the peace and security affairs in Africa remain unchanged. I am confident that, with our concerted efforts, China-Africa relations will enjoy greater development, and China-Africa peace and security cooperation will score fresh progress and scale new heights. Thank you once again for being here today. Let's work together to ensure the success of our Dialogue. Thank you. Roses are red, Cactus can hurt, Here are some Valentines Day options and dont forget dessert! BE MINE FOR DINNER Prices do not include tax or gratuity. Due to limited seating, reservations required. RA Sushi Bar and Restaurant 2905 E. Skyline Drive. Enjoy a romantic and entertaining couples night out designed to teach participants about the power of aphrodisiac ingredients and help them make a little magic of their own. Sake and sushi pairing. Ages 21 and up. For reservations go to tucne.ws/ravalentines. 8-9:30 p.m. Feb. 7. $50. 615-3970. Were worried about the quality of the work, he said. In the past couple of years, weve started doing this. Brennan said he only realized last spring that he would need a license from the groups whose music he was performing. Nobody not only us ever knew about these things. It was sort of this new thing that hit the industry, said Brennan, who has nearly 40 tribute shows that perform throughout North America. Weve been scrambling to try and get these things in place. TSO had sold 3,200 tickets to its Saturday and Sunday Hotel California shows, McKinney said. But within hours of getting the cease and desist order, it canceled the show and replaced it with Jeans n Classics Led Zeppelin show, which Brennan said he has the license for. Azoff said that after consulting with Eagles founding member Don Henley, he called McKinney on Wednesday evening and offered to give the TSO a license for this weekends concerts. But McKinney told him they had already switched gears and notified ticketholders of the program change. They made the decision to pull the plug, not us, Azoff said. Need a quick styling? Or has your do gone flat? State lawmakers are moving to allow you to pay someone who doesnt have a license to take care of your problem. Existing law requires those who want to work in beauty salons to be licensed and regulated by the state, a process that requires at least 1,000 hours of training at a state-licensed school and can cost up to $20,000 at a private school. SB 1401, approved Thursday by the Senate Commerce Committee on a 4-3 vote, would carve out an exception for those who dry, style, curl, hot iron, or shampoo and condition hair as long as theyre not using reactive chemicals to permanently straighten, curl or alter the structure of the hair. Instead, those who want to open a business to do just that would simply have to post a sign spelling out for customers that their practice is not regulated by the state Board of Cosmetology. Christina Sandefur, an attorney for the Goldwater Institute, told members of the Senate Commerce Committee there is no real need for state oversight, as there is no danger to public safety. After all, people shampoo, they blow-dry, they flat-iron their hair in their homes with the exact same products, she said. CHEYENNE Facing the real threat of a ballot initiative in the coming years to expand Medicaid in Wyoming, a House of Representatives committee passed a bill Thursday night to study the potential for statewide expansion in the coming years. Having already passed the Senate, the bill sponsored by Sen. Charlie Scott, R-Casper appropriates $280,000 in funds to create a full-time position in state government to examine the costs, pitfalls and potential benefits of Medicaid expansion, which numerous other states in the West have already undergone. However, many in the committee noted that Wyoming has been down this road before and wondered aloud whether the study would actually uncover any new information they hadnt heard before. They also asked whether the state would actually decide to act if, like previous studies have shown, Medicaid expansion is found to be a viable pathway forward. Some in the committee, like Rep. Tim Hallinan, R-Gillette, noted that the House of Representatives recently voted down a bill the committee had passed proposing Medicaid expansion, and said that a study showing real numbers and benefits could sway the minds of other lawmakers. Its hard to say how many times the ATF agents discharged their weapons, LeBrun said, but it was many. He was not aware of any stray bullets from the ATF agents impacting private property. The Division of Criminal Investigation was charged with investigating the shooting, LeBrun said, and representatives from that agency happened to be in town investigating another matter, so they were able to arrive at the scene shortly after the incident took place. The vehicles were in the same location, (and) all the information was there it just had to be collected by DCI, LeBrun said, adding that the agencys investigation is now complete. He said the DCI agents took measurements, collected shell casings, interviewed the officers involved and interviewed an eye-witness who happened to be driving by at the time of the shooting. In their search of Garcias truck, LeBrun said officers found a .308 PTR semi-automatic rifle containing a full 20-round magazine, with a round in the chamber. Also located was a green tactical vest containing two additional 20-round .308 magazines and an additional 130 rounds of .308 ammunition, he wrote. Garcias 9 millimeter firearm was located in the area near his body, LeBrun said; one full 9 millimeter magazine was removed from his pocket and another 9 millimeter magazine was discovered in the immediate vicinity. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 1 We are satisfied with the verdict, he said. We think the jury correctly analyzed the case. The trial began Monday and featured more than a dozen witnesses, including crash reconstructionists brought by both defense and prosecuting attorneys. Thursday afternoon, Assistant District Attorney Ava Bell told jurors in her 59-minute closing argument that attorneys were in agreement on many of the elements of the charged crimes. Although she said the Wyoming Highway Patrol trooper who handled the states crash reconstruction was more credentialed than the defenses, she went on to say the point was academic. The opinions were the same, Bell said. The defendant was at fault for this crash. She said the wreck was entirely the result of Richardson deciding to drive tired after an approximately 13-hour shift. Use your common sense, the prosecutor told jurors. Who wouldnt be tired at that point? Fuller then took the lectern, implying that first responders testimony was unreliable. He questioned why some statements including one in which Richardson is alleged to have said he typically naps before taking a long drive after work but did not do so on the day in question were not recorded. In a statement, Purdue said it shared the citys concerns about the opioid crisis and would work collaboratively with Casper and the state of Wyoming to bring forward meaningful solutions. However, the company said it vigorously denied the citys allegations and looked forward to the opportunity to defend itself. The city claims Purdue acted improperly by communicating with prescribers about scientific and medical information that FDA has expressly considered and continues to approve, the company said in a statement. We believe it is inappropriate for the city to substitute its judgment for the judgment of the regulatory, scientific and medical experts at FDA. Two-pronged lawsuit Caspers lawsuit is similar to the one filed by Ochs on behalf of Carbon County and to suits filed by hundreds of counties and municipalities across the country in that it takes broad aim at both the manufacturers of opioids like Purdue for allegedly using deceptive marketing and other means to sell the medications and the distributors, which allegedly ignored the lines of defense Ochs described. Its February the month of love. According to every ad well see this month, its the time of red, pink and sweet nothings that mean everything. Its the month where we celebrate the romance in our lives and hope our loved ones never, ever pick up on how many pairs of shoes or hair products or power tools we have. And that can be great and healthy and fun. There is nothing wrong with taking a moment to appreciate the love you might be lucky enough to have in your own life. But its also a good time to remember that love is everywhere. Its not just romance and hand-holding. Its in every gesture we make that helps our neighbors and our community become stronger. Fortunately for us, we live in a place where people are open about the love they have for their hometown and home state. Its the best kind of love, because its more than talk. The people who live in Casper and Wyoming show what is important to them by taking action. Our city and state are bursting with examples of love. Andaman and Nicobar Islands are a dream destination, luring travel lovers with their enchanting natural beauty. Situated in the Bay of Bengal, the islands are termed a 'Mini India' as people hailing from different parts of the country live here together. As a result, several languages including Malayalam, Tamil, Bengali and Punjabi, among others, can be heard on the islands. The people of the islands not only speak different languages but also follow various traditions. This situation has been the result of a momentous chapter in history. During the freedom movement, people from all over India were incarcerated in the prison at Andamans and they chose to continue on the islands even after being freed on India achieving Independence. There are 555 islands under the Andaman and Nicobar Islands administration, of which only 37 have human habitation. These islands now are a favourite among tourists who love the sea and beaches. Andamans highlights include a seamless blend of history and tradition along with enchanting beaches, dense forests and other amazing natural wonders. However, unless some care is taken while undertaking a trip to the islands, the journey may burn a hole in the travellers' pockets. Here are some tips to save money and plan a budget trip to the magical islands. Flight tickets When planning a trip, check the dates when the flight fares are offered at a discount and book. Some money can be saved by this method. The next step is to prepare a list of destinations which are to be visited, especially for a short trip. For stay, search for a place in Port Blair or Havelock Island. Andaman is connected to India by air and sea. A journey by ship also reduces expenses. After reaching the islands, prefer to travel to the local tourist spots by bus. All popular places are connected by bus and this mode of transportation is far cheaper than hiring a taxi. Note down the bus timings to each destination. For a budget stay Avoid hotels in the crowded areas of the Andamans as most of them charge high room tariff. Instead, choose a hotel or guest house on the outskirts and cut costs. After preparing an itinerary, confine the travels to the places on the list. The must-see spots on Andaman and Nicobar Islands include Port Blair, Havelock Island, Baratang Island, Neil Island and Jolly Boy Island. Locate public transport facilities to these places and utilize the facility. This helps slash expenditure. Fun and games The islands of Andaman and Nicobar offer water sports lovers a veritable feast. Most of the rides are available at cheap rates. While at Havelock Island, the chief attraction is kayaking in Bartang island, the trek to the limestone cave would thrill adventure seekers. Other highlights are fishing at Cinque Island, snorkelling on Elephant Beach and scuba diving at Havelock. A feast awaits birdwatchers at Chidiya Tapu while a ride on a boat with a transparent bottom offers a different experience. Andaman and Nicobar Islands are indeed a heaven and its attractions can certainly be experienced on a budget. The US diplomat leading talks with the Taliban was due to appear in Washington on Friday to discuss an ongoing push for a political settlement to the 17-year-old Afghanistan conflict. Zalmay Khalilzad, a former US ambassador to Afghanistan who is now special envoy in the talks, has in recent months held meetings with Taliban officials in Qatar, where the group's senior leaders have an office in the capital Doha. Khalilzad was scheduled to speak at the US Institute of Peace at 2:00 pm (1900 GMT). He has expressed cautious optimism about the prospect of a deal, and even announced a draft framework, but stressed nothing had been finalized. Critics are skeptical about the talks for a number of reasons, primarily because they have not yet included the Afghan government, which the Taliban considers US-backed puppets. Additionally, the Taliban have promised not to provide shelter again to foreign extremists, but experts say they cannot be trusted and even now are helping to hide foreign militants. The talks come as President Donald Trump pushes to end the Afghanistan conflict, where about 14,000 US troops are still deployed and which has seen countless thousands of civilian and military deaths, as well as an infusion of more than $1 trillion in US cash into the country. In his annual State of the Union speech on Tuesday, Trump said the time has come "to at least try for peace." Afghanistan has suffered nearly constant conflict since the Soviet invasion of 1979, which was followed by civil war, the Taliban regime, and the US invasion in late 2001. Khalilzad was a major player in George W. Bush's administration when the United States first invaded Afghanistan after the September 11, 2001 attacks. Countless immigrants are currently waiting for their Portuguese social security documents - without them, they cannot receive their Luxembourgish pension. The Portuguese press is ringing the alarm bells: countless Portuguese nationals residing in Luxembourg find themselves in a bureaucratic deadlock. Having accomplished one part of their career in Portugal, they rely on the Portuguese government's help to receive their pensions. The latter needs to send over a declaration certifying their contribution career in Portugal - without this declaration, the Portuguese employees cannot receive their Luxembourgish pensions. In Luxembourg, any employee who has reached the age of 57 and contributed for 40 years qualifies for early retirement pension at 100%. For Portuguese nationals, however, taking this step may be slightly more difficult. If they have worked in Portugal before emigrating to the Grand Duchy, they need a filled-out E205 PT form, which delineates the paid contributions. Unfortunately, the Portuguese government is allegedly taking its time to send the required documents. "Robbed and abandoned" According to the Portuguese television channel TVI24, some of the affected employees are forced to continue working and therefore "feel robbed and abandoned by the Portuguese state." The origin of the problem is unusual: Portugal does not yet have all all contributory careers saved digitally. In other words, many of the important documents are still stored on microfilm. As the affected people have often worked in Portugal in the 70s and 80s, the research procedures at the social security centers prove to be a difficult enterprise. The problem is not new. Already last year, the issue was addressed during the visit of Jose Luis Carneiro, the secretary of state for Portuguese communities. In early February, socialist MP Paulo Pisco also visited Luxembourg and told officials that the Portuguese government had set up a department for international affairs related to the national pension fund. This department is working on digitizing contributory paths, which remain the most helpful too to retrace professional careers completed in Portugal. The average hospital emergency room patient needs to wait between 40 and 90 minutes before receiving treatment in a Luxembourgish hospital. This number is based on average waiting times across Luxembourg's hospitals, Health Minister Etienne Schneider confirmed in his reply to a parliamentary question. MPs Gast Giberyen and Marc Goergen had enquired about the efficiency of national emergency rooms following the closure of the overnight emergency room at Niederkorn hospital. In his reply, Schneider explained that emergency rooms are always operational in four different hospitals across Luxembourg: CHL in Luxembourg City and on Kirchberg, CHEM in Esch-sur-Alzette and, last but not least, Ettelbruck hospital in the north of the country. Luxembourg's emergency services will routinely transport high-risk patients to one of these four hospitals. However, this does not mean that other hospitals (like Niederkorn, Wiltz, Dudelange and Zithaklinik in Luxembourg City) will refuse patients without appointment, Schneider stressed. Emergency rooms at these smaller hospitals are merely closed between 9pm and 7am. Schneider underlined that emergency rooms at small hospitals had always been poorly frequented at night. In 2018, merely 77 patients were transported to Niederkorn hospital at night. Only 8 patients were rushed to Wiltz's hospital and Zithaklinik at night - starkly contrasting the 90,000 patients treated in CHEM's emergency rooms. Schneider maintained that he would do everything in his power to guarantee efficient and accessible health care. Minister for Energy Claude Turmes responded to a parliamentary question set by ADR MP Jeff Engelen, who wanted to know further details about electric vehicle charging and the electricity network's capacity to deal with this. In his response, Turmes outlined that by the end of 2020, there would be around 800 open electric vehicle charging stations installed by operator Chargy. Turmes specified that these are the free ones, as other public or private actors would also install "Chargy OK" stations. As a result, Luxembourg will belong to the top three countries in Europe with the densest electric vehicle networks. The Chargy network consists of charging stations using green sources of electricity. A given charging station will charge an electric car with up to 22 kilowatts of alternating currents, in turn providing cars with a mileage of up to 150 kilometres. The entire purpose of the free infrastructure is to provide people who leave their cars at Park & Ride car parks with the opportunity to to charge their cars throughout the day. The charging stations are meant to supply at least 10% of the national vehicle fleet, which corresponds to around 40,000 cars. If the demand rises, the infrastructure will be expanded in order to allow 20% of vehicles to charge without issues. In response to Engelen's question about whether the electricity network can cope with this demand, Turmes assured him that the electricity network is more than able to deal with the infrastructure. A government and Luxembourg Regulatory Institute study from 2011 shows that 95% of vehicles are charged at private stations, either at home or in garages. In the future, there will be charging infrastructures built at key major European motorway hubs in order to allow electric cars to travel further. These charging stations will charge vehicles with 150 kilowatts, which in turn will allow cars to travel distances of several hundred kilometres. The government is currently examining how long it will take to install such fast charging stations in Luxembourg. Faster charging stations would be installed near motorway networks and should be compatible with the Chargy system. According to the European Alternative Fuels Observatory, over 6,300 fast charging stations existi in Europe alongside 120,000 ordinary ones. Luxembourg will collaborate with the other Benelux countries to create a charging infrastructure throughout Europe. Turmes ended his response by highlighting the government's key goals of meeting their climate goals and improving air quality in the Grand Duchy. In that sense, further developing the electric vehicle network is an important means to achieve these goals. Luxembourg declared itself ready to accept six migrants rescued from the Mediterranean at the end of December. Following multiple rescue operations, on both 22 and 29 December, the Maltese authorities requested help in resettling the migrants rescued by the Sea-Watch and Sea-Eye vessels. Alongside eight other EU member-states, Luxembourg responded to the call for help and said it would accept six of those rescued. On Thursday, those six refugees, having been granted international protection status, arrived at Luxembourg Airport in Findel. The refugees originate from Eritrea, Somalia, and Sudan. Demonstrators chanting "No war on Venezuela!" descended on the Bank of England in London on Thursday, demanding the release of the country's 31 tons of gold deposited there. Demonstrators chanting "No war on Venezuela!" descended on the Bank of England in London on Thursday, demanding the release of the country's 31 tons of gold deposited there. Almost a hundred protesters gathered outside the central bank headquarters, which was holding its monetary policy meeting at the time, for the event organised by left-wing group "Venezuela Solidarity Campaign". "Bank of England, you've been told, give Venezuela back its gold!" they chanted, as one protester wearing a mask of US President Donald Trump stroked two fake gold bars under a large Venezuelan flag. "Maduro's government is legitimate, it was elected, it's been recognised by most countries of the world," charity worker Robert Miller, 50, told AFP. "Why doesn't the Bank of England take the money from Saudi Arabia or somewhere else," he added, in reference to the human rights justification for not releasing the gold. "You can't have the Bank of England declaring what is oppression." "The gold belongs to the Venezuelan people," said fellow protestor Dominic Hale, a 32-year-old social worker, while his friend Danielle Veal, 30, denounced the pressure exerted by the US, saying it was "about the oil, they are not hiding it." Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro has been trying for several months to repatriate international gold reserves deposited in London. The Latin American country currently has about 31 tons of gold worth $1.3 billion in the Bank of England, according to a report published by Natixis. Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido, recognised as interim president by around 40 countries, wrote to Prime Minister Theresa May in January asking that Britain not return the gold to the Maduro regime. The bank, which operates independently of the government, told AFP it would not confirm whether it had taken a decision on the issue. "Before going ahead with any transaction, the bank needs to be satisfied that the counterparty has the authorisations necessary to request the transaction, that all relevant sanctions are complied with and that there is no evidence that the transaction will involve relevant criminal activity," it said. In our ongoing series on Luxembourg's Royals, RTL Today delves into the history of the Grand Ducal family. Having traced the Grand Ducal lineage down from Grand Duchess Charlotte through Grand Duke Jean, Grand Duke Henri and his children, this week's installment of Luxembourg's Royals brings us neatly to Luxembourg's youngest generation of royal offspring. The Grand Ducal family at Castle Berg. / Grand Ducal Court, Christian Aschman Grand Ducal Court, Christian Aschman Prince Noah showing off his bicylce riding skills to his older brother Prince Gabriel. / Grand Ducal Court, Christian Aschman Prince Noah getting a little help from grandfather Grand Duke Henri and uncle, Hereditary Grand Duke Guillaume. / Grand Ducal Court, Christian Aschman Prince Gabriel practising his football skills at Castle Berg. / Grand Ducal Court, Christian Aschman Grand Ducal Court, Christian Aschman From lfet to right: Hereditary Grand Duke Guillaume, Prince Gabriel and Prince Noah, Prince Sebastien and Prince Felix enjoying a cruise on the royal barge. / Grand Ducal Court, Christian Aschman Grand Duke Henri and Grand Duchess Maria Teresa have four grandchildren: Prince Gabriel and Prince Noah, sons of Prince Louis and his estranged wife Princess Tessy, and Princess Amalia and Prince Liam, the sons of Prince Felix and his wife Princess Claire. Prince Gabriel and Prince Noah The imminent birth of the Grand Ducal couple's first grandchild, Prince Gabriel was announced in September 2005 when it was revealed that Grand Duke Henri and Grand Duchess Maria Teresa's third son Prince Louis was expecting his first child with girlfriend Tessy Antony. Prince Louis and Princess Tessy at the baptism of their youngest son Prince Noah in 2007. / Grand Ducal Court, Carlo Hommel The announcement caused quite a stir at the time, since an unsuspecting Luxembourgish public did not know about Prince Louis' relationship with Tessy Antony and the young couple was still unwed at the time of the announcement. Prince Gabriel (right) with his younger brother Prince Noah. / Grand Ducal Court, Lola Velasco Gabriel Michael Louis Ronny de Nassau was born on 12 March 2006 at the Clinique des Grangettes, a private hospital in Geneva, Switzerland. His parents Prince Louis and Tessy Antony were only 19 and 20 years old respectively when they welcomed their first child. The couple later married and had another son, Prince Noah. Noah Etienne Guillaume Gabriel Matthias Xavier de Nassau was born on 21 September 2007, almost exactly a year after his parent's wedding. Prince Gabriel and Prince Noah climbing the family tree. / Grand Ducal Court Because of the slightly unconventional circumstances surrounding their birth (at least by royal standards), Gabriel and Noah were not given titles until 23 June 2009, when their grandfather Grand Duke Henri made them Princes of Luxembourg on Luxembourg's National Day. On that same day, Tessy Antony was also granted the title of Princess of Luxembourg, a title she will lose when her divorce from Prince Louis is finalised. Princess Amalia and Prince Liam On 15 June 2014, the Grand Ducal couple's third grandchild was born at the Grand Duchess Charlotte maternity ward in Luxembourg City. Princess Amalia enjoying the outdoors, looking very inquisitive. / Grand Ducal Court, Lola Velasco Princess Amalia Gabriela Maria Teresa bears the names of her her two grandmothers: Princess Claire's mother Gabriele and Prince Felix' mother Grand Duchess Maria Teresa. Two years later, Prince Felix, Grand Duke Henri and Grand Duchess Maria Teresa's second son, and Princess Claire (nee Lademacher) welcomed their second child. Young Princess Amalia is clearly protective of her younger brother Prince Liam. / Grand Ducal Court, Lola Velasco He too was named for his grandparents: Grand Duke Henri and Princess Claire's father Hartmut Lademacher. The young Prince's christening was celebrated in the Vatican, close to where his parents studied during their university days. The family took an active role in the celebration, with Hereditary Grand Duke Guillaume accompanying the service on his guitar. Prince Felix with his wife Princess Claire and his daughter Princess Amalia at young Prince Liam's baptism in the Vatican. / Grand Ducal Court, Lola Velasco, 2017 Since Hereditary Grand Duke Guillaume and his wife Hereditary Grand Duchess Stephanie do not have any children yet, Princess Amalia is currently third in line to the Luxembourgish throne, behind her uncle Guillaume and her father Prince Felix. She would be the first female monarch since the reign of Grand Duchess Charlotte (1919-1964). monarchie.lu Sarah Cames is a twentysomething freelance journalist with a keen interest in anything to do with politics, history and pop culture. Weather Alert ...Significant Weather Advisory for Patchy Dense Fog across portions of north central Alabama, northeast Alabama and southern Middle Tennessee... Patchy Dense Fog has developed in the larger river valleys of north central Alabama, northeast Alabama and southern middle Tennessee, including the Paint Rock River Valley, Elk River Valley, Big Wills Valley, and Tennessee River Valley from Bridgeport to Lake Guntersville. Visibility reductions to one quarter of a mile or less will be possible in a few areas. Motorists are urged to drive with extreme caution, as visibilities will vary significantly given the patchy nature of the fog. Use low beams, reduce driving speed, and allow for plenty of room between you and other cars. The fog should begin to burn off between 7 and 8 AM CDT. Stay tuned to NOAA Weather Radio, or a favorite local media outlet, for further statements or updates from the National Weather Service in Huntsville. Ramblings of a badly aged Baby Boomer who went from Rebel Without a Cause to Bozo Without a Clue in, seemingly, the same afternoon. SUMMER SPECIAL!!! - Sign up at 20% OFF for Full Access to all of the online content and E-Editions on the www.thewordlink.com website here! (The charge will appear as "Country Media Inc." on your credit card statement) Issues of concern to people who live in the west: property rights, water rights, endangered species, livestock grazing, energy production, wilderness and western agriculture. Plus a few items on western history, western literature and the sport of rodeo... Frank DuBois served as the NM Secretary of Agriculture from 1988 to 2003. DuBois is a former legislative assistant to a U.S. Senator, a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Interior, and is the founder of the DuBois Rodeo Scholarship. MILFORD, N.H. Two New Hampshire manufacturing companies and Milford High School are unveiling a new program that will help train the next generation of workforce. Hitchiner Manufacturing Co., Inc in Milford; and Spraying Systems Co., in Merrimack; have spent several months working with Milford High School teachers and administrators to develop a course that will provide students with the skills they need to enter a career in advanced manufacturing. The Manufacturing Exploration and Externship program will run for a semester and includes both classroom instruction and a two day a week Externship where students will get hands on experience at one of the sponsoring employers, as well as earn $12.00 an hour for their work. Along with the paid industry experience, students will be able to earn college credits through the Community College System of New Hampshire. While there are other programs in New Hampshire that connect high school students with local companies and provide job training, the length and depth of instruction makes the Manufacturing Exploration and Externship program among the first of its kind in the state. Developing New Hampshires future workforce is something we have always believed is important and worth investing in, said John H. Morison III, Chairman and CEO of Hitchiner Manufacturing. With our planned expansion, there are many opportunities on the horizon for young people seeking a career in manufacturing and this program will help get them there. With unemployment at such low levels, its been a challenge to fill all of our open positions, said Joe Ruelas, Vice President of Operations of Spraying Systems Co. Connecting with high school students so that they can help fill those jobs just makes sense. Once finalized, theManufacturing Exploration and Externship program will be offered to up to 20 upperclassmen beginning in the fall of 2019 and would complement the existing machining and engineering programs already in place at Milford High School. The course will include basic job readiness skills, such as interview skills and resume writing, as well as instruction in three different areas of manufacturing: custom manufacturing, mass production and just-in-time manufacturing. It will also include information used today in most modern manufacturing facilities, such as quality control, safety and robotics. The course will be open to juniors and seniors and the school district expects the course will gain the most interest from students who may be looking for career opportunities that they did not know existed. We are always looking to be innovative in facilitating a students career pathway. Milford High School & Applied Technology Center has always had a long standing relationship with our local industry partners and this just made sense. Collaborating with community stakeholders to enhance career readiness and opportunities for students is a win-win situation. said Richard Paiva, Director of Technical Studies at Milford High School. The manufacturing partners see this program as a way to not only train young workers and hopefully set them on a path for a long career, but to also give students an understanding of the expectations they will face in the working world and to make important connections they can use when looking for a job after graduation. About Hitchiner Manufacturing Co., Inc. Hitchiner has been a part of the New Hampshire business community since 1946, when the privately-held company was established in Manchester, N.H.s Amoskeag Millyard. Today the company employs more than 675 employees in Milford, NH, where it produces investment castings for the aerospace, defense, and automotive industries. It has also become known for its investment in education and workforce development, as well as its collaboration with local charitable organizations, such as the Boys & Girls Club of Souhegan Valley. In 2017, Hitchiner was named the Manufacturing and Business Technology Business of the Year by New Hampshire Business Magazine. About Spraying Systems Co. Spraying Systems is a privately held company based in Chicago that has been in business since 1937. It has had a manufacturing presence in New Hampshire for over 30 years. Previously in Hudson and now in Merrimack where a 120,000 square foot facility was purchased in 2017. Spraying Systems is the worlds largest designer and manufacturer of spray technology and products. It is committed to developing its workforce and the local communitys through education and training opportunities and contributing to the community through its sustainable business practices. The spray equipment produced in New Hampshire enables manufacturers and processors around the world to operate more efficiently and with less impact on our environment. Such response is not rare. Copies of the book are not routinely part of Black History Month displays in Orangeburg. You can find copies in the libraries and purchase them on the internet, but there is no big demand. We believe now as much as then that it is important for Orangeburg to understand the events of 1968 for what they were -- more than a violent confrontation. The segregated and unequal societies that were the formal social order of 1968 had to go -- and incidents such as those in Orangeburg happened as part of the process of tearing down an old order and giving birth to a new. Confrontation was inevitable in 1968. That the confrontation resulted in the shootings was not. That was a horrible tragedy. Henry Smith of Marion, Samuel Hammond Jr. of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and Delano Middleton of Orangeburg did not die in vain. Their families were forever deprived of loved ones and society will never know what their other contributions might have been, but their names are etched on the history of Orangeburg and important social change. He was organizing the travel schedule. He was following Stokely Carmichael on the speaking circuit, Parker stated. Parker stated that it was not farfetched to place Sellers in the realm of well-known and respected civil rights leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} He is among this top tier of civil rights leaders, Parker said. Sellers spoke on his time in 1964 while he was stationed in Mississippi. He was tasked with coordinating Freedom Schools and voter registration, among other duties. Sellers stated that his role as an organizer shifted his worries. When he was on the front line of the protests and demonstrations, he had to worry about his personal safety. As an organizer, Sellers said he would often worry about the safety and well-being those involved in demonstrations. Sellers recalled the many deaths that occurred while he was in Mississippi. Nobody but God alone knows how many black men are in the rivers in Mississippi, he said. Sellers also called for action and justice in the Orangeburg Massacre, which occurred on Feb. 8, 1968. He charged the parents in the audience to become mentors and leaders in any capacity to their young ones who, he said, are the leaders of the next revolution. The youth have to be well-equipped to fight against the institutions that support racial injustice. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} Not with guns and bullets and any other weapons of violent destruction, Crump said, but arm them with education and intellect and diplomacy and strategy and, above all else, courage. He highlighted the important role young college students played in the Civil Rights Movement. The Orangeburg Massacre happened on the universitys campus, where Delano Middleton, Samuel Hammond and Henry Smith were killed by gunfire from state troopers during a protest over segregation at a Russell Street bowling alley. In an interview after the event, Crump said, When you look at how these three young men were killed, it reminds you of what's happening in America today. But he said he the youth today are doing a great job of using technology to create and control content that combats racial injustice. The revolution will be televised, and it will be streamed live. That's what I get from the young people, he said. There was a significant backlog [of complaints] because of the vacancy in the LIGs office, Bourne said, and it was Porters goal to get through the backlog as well as whatever cases came up. Porter did so and, two months later in January 2018, released a report on Rotheimers complaint, finding no wrongdoing on Silversteins part, but admitting he behaved in a manner unbecoming of a legislator. But Rotheimer did not have closure. She claimed Porters appointment lacked proper vetting and research. And she said its a contradiction to have an independent LIG needing approval from the ethics commission to further investigate cases. Bourne said that approval requirement doesnt mean the commission hinders investigations. [The LIG] comes to the commission for approval for investigating claims. Thats something thats happened under both [acting LIG] Porter and the other LIGs weve had previously, Bourne said. But the commission has never denied a request to investigate in the history of its existence. The issue previously, Bourne said, is that for a few years there was no one to ask for the ethics commissions approval in the first place. Changes In a news release, Pritzker said these park improvement projects will make it easier for families to enjoy the states beauty and also create jobs, providing a boost to local economic development efforts. Abell said Metropolis plans to get started with its pool renovation and splash pad as soon as the weather allows this spring. The pool opens the first weekend after school lets out, and she plans to have it ready in time to welcome children to another swim season. The pool is a popular venue in Massac County that draws families from across the broader region. We keep a tally of how many people run through the gates each day. It comes to over 10,000 in a three month period. We draw people from all over, Abell said. We get families from Vienna and Harrisburg, Pope County, Paducah. Part of the draw, she said, is it only costs $1.25 per person to enter (and kids 5 and under can swim for free). The city has purposefully maintained that low cost because many families could not otherwise afford repeat visits for their children throughout the summer if it was more expensive, she said. It was Fullers visits to the Soviet Union that recaptured the interest of the FBI in the mid-1960s. He visited St. Petersburg in August of 1964, then met with President Lyndon Johnson at the White House only months later. By 1965, the FBI was discussing how to interview Fuller without divulging knowledge of his association with Soviet nationals, documents show. It was in the middle of the Cold War, and the fear of spies and subversives cast a pall of suspicion on any contact with the Soviet Union. When agents finally interviewed Bucky at his home in Carbondale, it appears he assuaged their concerns about his Russian contacts. He was forthcoming about his meetings with Soviet officials at conferences and symposiums around the world, and assured the agents he had never been approached by anyone from the USSR or any other country to divulge anything concerning the work performed by him for the United States Government, the report reads. He admitted contact with the subjects of other FBI investigations, whose names appear redacted in the reports. In one case, a meeting with a Russian subject was only playing politics, Fuller said, to gain support for his work. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} I feel very confident that we will pass Senate Bill 1 as the Senate passed it, Guzzardi said. I dont see the need for us to make any further changes to the legislation right here before us. Current details If approved as is, the minimum wage will be phased in over six years, starting with an increase from $8.25 to $9.25 on Jan. 1, 2020, before increasing to $10 on July 1, 2020, and $11 on Jan. 1, 2021. After that, it would increase by $1 every year until it hits $15 in 2025. Kimberly Lightford, a Maywood Democrat and the bills Senate sponsor, said compromise is reflected in the six-year rollout and in a small business tax credit which wont affect Chicago businesses until the wage exceeds Chicagos minimum, which is currently $12. The tax credit is available to businesses with fewer than 50 full-time equivalent employees, which means businesses that pay less than 2,000 employee hours in a one-week period. The credit would start at 25 percent of the difference between the current minimum wage and an employees wage in the final quarter of the previous calendar year. It would decrease by 4 percent each year until it hits 5 percent in the final two years. As a tier-one research institution, we are not configured at Urbana-Champaign to provide a great deal of remedial education for students who are not ready for an advanced college curriculum, said Kevin Pitts, vice provost for Undergraduate Education at U of I. Fortunately, we have a community college and a regional university system in this state that can help in that respect, and as a consequence we take well over 1,000 transfer students a year. Thapedi responded that under his plan schools wouldnt be forced to admit unqualified students. He said the bill provides a two-part test for automatic admission: the students must have graduated in the top 10 percent of their class and they must have ACT or SAT scores that meet the benchmark qualifications for admission to the school where they are applying. So the question that the kids are going to be ill-equipped to be successful, potentially, it just doesnt really catch much muster, in my view, Thapedi said. The bill also provides that, for schools that do not rank their students, officials from that school may instead send a letter or other form of certification explaining where the student would have ranked, if the school did use rankings, a provision that Thapedi said addresses concerns raised in last years bill. Were really looking at the meat side of it, Wolter said. Once we calve these calves and once we sell bulls, we try to buy back as many as we can, with the intent that we are able to finish them and sell certified Angus beef. We finish a lot of animals. Were looking at a large ribeye area and great marbling. Thats our goal here. Weve been able to tap a local market of people who want our beef. The herd is one of the first to participate in an experimental trait related to foot score evaluation. They market the beef as a premium product under the farm name Windy Hill Meadows. But in the end, the operation must be profitable. We know that you have to compete on cost, Bradley said. Its still largely a commodity. Were not the only ones out here selling meat. Ours are selected for growth performance and feed efficiency. The carcass quality justifies the extra costs associated with the herd, such as registration and transportation of the animals from one farm to another. We have the ability to receive a premium on our calves if we market them directly because of the genetics being so similar, Wolter said. There is local consumer demand, and we sell some on the rail, too. I dont have time to do much more than care for my husband, she said. Looking back, Carter said she should have considered shutting down eight years ago after the original Hangar 9 building collapsed under the weight of snow and ice after a big storm. She said it wasnt long after that her husband began needing care. Further reflecting on her legacy in Carbondale, Carter said she hopes to see the city continue down what she called the right track. She hopes to see Southern Illinois University grow and for Carbondale to continue to embrace its roots as a party town. She also said she looks forward to seeing what new blood will do to her business and downtown. Carter also said she hasnt counted out getting more involved with the city in the future. I can see down the road becoming more involved in the city, maybe running for Council at least serving on committees again, Carter said. Carter wrote on Facebook that she has operation of the bar down to a science and added that because of this the workload is minimal for her. She said she has no problem passing on this trove of knowledge to the new owner. I would be willing to stay on to teach a new owner all that I know, she wrote. Seattle Cannabis Blockbuster Set to Double Sales in Next 2 Years! (Ad) Thanks to a recent reorganization, acquisitions, and strategic partnerships, one Seattle cannabis blockbuster is poised for a massive expansion in the coming 24 months. With plans to double its annual sales in the next two years, this companys shares could potentially skyrocket in value. Get all the details on this potential penny stock 1 hour ago | June 23rd | 2021 5:00 AM You Quit Your Job Good for You! But How Does that Impact Your Investments? As companies make plans to return employees back to the office, millions of workers have made a decision not to go back at all. In fact, the number of people who quit their jobs increased to four million in April and increased 2.7%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The largest increases in employees leaving their jobs occurred in retail trade and professional and business services. If you are currently a print subscriber but don't have an online account, select this option. You will need to use your 7 digit subscriber account number (with leading zeros) and your last name (in UPPERCASE). The VB 10,000 crane vessel moved back into position Tuesday morning over the remains of the shipwrecked Golden Ray in the St. Simons Sound, more than a week after cutting operations stopped for maintenance, said U.S. Coast Guardsman Michael Himes, spokesman for Unified Command. The favourite to represent UK in Eurovision 2019 has been revealed ahead of this evening's decision show. The BBC last month confirmed the names of the six acts and songs on the contestants' shortlist to become the UK Eurovision entry 2019. Advertisements They will take to the Eurovision: You Decide stage tonight (February 8) at 7:30PM on BBC Two to compete for the honour of representing the United Kingdom at the Eurovision Song Contest 2019 in Tel Aviv, Israel. This year there is a slight twist: There are six contenders but only three songs. Each song is performed by two different acts in "musically different ways". Ahead of tonight's show, the bookies favourite is Michael Rice with Bigger Than Us. The Hartlepool busker won the BBCs All Together Now last year, and is 5/4 best price, with some bookies going as short as evens, according to Oddschecker Kerrie-Anne is second favourite, with her up-tempo track Sweet Lies. She is a 5/2 shot, with Jordan Clarke (a former Britains Got Talent contestant with The Luminites) completing the top three at 6/1. Since the market has been created, 45% of bets have gone on Rice to win the contest, more than any other act. Whoever wins will be hoping to break the UKs 22-year hoodoo, with Dana International the winning act in 1997. Since then, a second and third place finish has been achieved, as well as the dreaded Nul points in 2003. Oddschecker spokesman George Elek: The fact that Michael Rice is already a familiar face to talent show viewers could well swing the vote in his favour, with his song having a definite Eurovision feel. "At 21, he would be the UKs youngest male Eurovision entrant this century. Advertisements Eurovision 2019: You Decide airs at 7:30PM on BBC Two at February 8. Presented by Mel Giedroyc and Mans Zelmerlow, BBC Musics Eurovision: You Decide will be broadcast live from Dock10, MediaCity UK in Salford as the show comes to the North West of England for the very first time. Eddy said Wednesday her boyfriend reports inmates are encouraged by the prisons response to their concerns. She said prisoners have been told they will have the option to move to different cells to avoid being housed with a sex offender or anyone considered a threat. Changes are being made slowly, she told the Herald. Cold breakfasts boats Breakfasts are a key sticking point, she said. Starting in 2014, the prison began distributing breakfast boats at dinner time for prisoners to eat in the morning. The meal includes a muffin, breakfast bar, peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a packet of oatmeal or cereal and packet of dried milk. The packaged breakfasts are part of a shift to prepackaged food that began in the 1990s as a cost-saving measure. Prisons now buy food from the prison-run Correctional Industries with kitchens in Spokane and Connell, delivering to prisons statewide. Health and medical issues Word of the food strike inspired more than 220 comments on the Tri-City Heralds Facebook page. Most were unsympathetic. Police at Central Washington University searched the school early Wednesday evening after a report of a school shooter led to a campus lockdown, but found nothing. Police had no suspects and had not made any arrests, according to a tweet from CWU, and there are no confirmed reports of shots fired. An active shooter was reported at the Ellensburg campus at about 5:30 p.m. Wednesday and the lockdown followed. University police reported the school was safe and all clear at about 7:15 p.m. Police received the initial 911 call from a student in Ferrell Hall who said she received a text from a friend in Lind Hall, saying it was being evacuated because of a shooter, according to an audio recording of the call. Both CWU Police and the campus student newspaper, the Observer, reported the incident at about 5:30 p.m. Mariah Valles, Observer editor-in-chief, said at about 5:20 p.m., her class in Lind Hall was evacuated to a secure area off campus and 10 minutes later she received the alert about the shooter. Valles heard no gunshots, she said. She could not confirm the reports of the shooter: Ive heard so many different things at this point, she said. The Castle Rock School Board has invited three superintendent candidates to tour the school district, meet with local officials and answer questions at a community forum open to parents and residents. The board is considering Ryan Greene, current principal for Castle Rock High School; Monte Thacker, current principal for Dillingham Middle/High School in Dillingham, Alaska; and Jill Diehl, current director of student services for Longview School District. The school board received five applications for the positions, but narrowed it down to the top three candidates, said board chair Andy Ogden. We went with overall credentials and their background and history on where they have been, Ogden said. We saw certain things that put them a little further ahead of the (applicants) we didnt choose. The board is looking to replace Jim Mabbott, who is retiring as superintendent at the end of the current school year. The candidates will visit Feb. 19-21. Each candidate will spend a full day in the district, followed by a public community forum from 5-6 p.m. in the Castle Rock Elementary School Library (700 Huntington Avenue. S.). The visit date for each candidate is as follows: Drugs Longview police Wednesday arrested Crystal Anne M. Franklin, 37, of Longview on suspicion of methamphetamine possession. Drugs Longview police Wednesday arrested Justice Symone Gaines, 22, of Longview on suspicion of methamphetamine possession. DUI Washington State Patrol troopers Wednesday arrested Michael Scott Johnson, 29, of Vancouver on suspicion of driving under the influence. Assault, kidnapping Longview police Wednesday arrested Nathan Lee Koerner, 42, of Kennewick, Wash., on suspicion of second-degree assault, second-degree kidnapping and felony harassment. Assault Longview police Wednesday arrested Joel Lee Martin, 46, of Kelso on suspicion of fourth-degree domestic violence and violation of a protection order. Drugs Longview police Wednesday arrested Leann Marie Steptoe, 36, of Longview on suspicion of heroin possession and contempt of court. Drugs Longview police Wednesday arrested Joshua Christopher Williams, 31, of Longview on suspicion of heroin possession, obstructing a public servant and resisting arrest. Washington states labor unions welcomed 65,000 new members in 2018 putting the statewide total at 649,000 workers and some local unions say that upward trend has reached Cowlitz County. According to the Washington State Labor Council, union members now make up 20 percent of the states workforce, making Washington the third most unionized state in the country, behind Hawaii and New York. This is great news for all of Washingtons working families, WSLC President Larry Brown said in a news release. Union members earn more money, they boost our state and local economics and they lift working standards for everyone. These numbers show that, despite outdated and hostile labor laws that create obstacles to unionization, working people here in Washington continue to buck national trends and join together to negotiate a fair return for their work. Shawn Nyman, former president of the Cowlitz-Wahkiakum Labor Council and member of SEIU 925, said unions in Cowlitz County are seeing an upward energy after successful strikes and negotiations by teachers, secretaries and other union workers. Nyman said soon after teachers from the Longview School District conducted a strike for higher pay last fall, union members called in to offer their support and some brought their children into the local office to learn more about unions. When you get a raise at work, you can lose state assistance, Carter said, noting that more of a familys income would then have to be directed to paying for services previously subsidized by the state. The net gain is negative for doing a good work at your job. For Linares, adding a second income to the family left them better off overall, but it still wasnt enough to afford quality private childcare, she said. Instead, she feels stuck in the middle of keeping her family financially stable and providing Natalie the highest quality preschool education, she said. I thought about maybe if I quit my job, my husband and I will make less as a household and qualify for the help, but thats not what we want, Linares said. We want to succeed, and we want to do better so that wasnt an option for me. Plus we need the income. Linares said her family has friends and family in Longview who can watch Natalie while she and her husband are at work. But not all families are lucky enough to have that kind of support, she said. Plus babysitters often cant offer the level of education and socialization as ECEAP preschool, setting Natalie behind for kindergarten, Linares said. The Lewis County Sheriffs Office launched an investigation Wednesday after finding a man dead in his car. The car was located on the shoulder of Interstate 5 near Toledo, according to a press release. The Washington State Department of Transportation reported the vehicle to law enforcement Wednesday around 5:15 p.m. It was on the shoulder of southbound I-5 near milepost 60, according to the release. Deputies responded and found the sole occupant of the car appeared to have trauma to the head, the release said. Officials have not yet released the identity of the man. Deputies gained entry to the vehicle and determined the man was dead. The cause and manner of death are still under investigation. The sheriffs office is not seeking any other individuals at this time, according to the release. Anyone with information related to the incident is encouraged to call the Lewis County Sheriffs Office at 360-748-9286 or Lewis County Communications at 360-740-1105. Love 1 Funny 0 Wow 1 Sad 7 Angry 0 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Ryan Ojerio will be the featured speaker at the Feb. 24 annual meeting of the Chinook Trail Association. The event, which includes a catered lunch, begins at noon at the Water Resources Education Center, 4600 S.E. Columbia Way, Vancouver. Ojerio is the program manager for Washington Trails Association. He will share about the work he does with that association and other information. The cost is $25 per person or $40 a couple. Children ages 10 and under are $15. Reservation must be completed by Feb. 17. For information, contact Ted Klump at tedklump@gmail.com. Payment may also be made via PayPal through the associations website, www.chinooktrails.org. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 The women, who originally came from Douma, strangled two of her children, while a third was able to escape and raise the alarm reports Alsouria Net. On Thursday, a Syrian woman killed two of her children and attempted to commit suicide in the city of al-Bab in the Aleppo countryside. Her suicide attempt was stopped because her neighbors were able to gain entry to the house and rescue her. Media activists and news sites said that the woman, who had been displaced from the city of Douma in the Damascus countryside, strangled to death two of her children (a boy and a girl). They were 13 and 15 years old. The third, 16, survived, when he managed to flee from his mother. According to sources, the woman drank a volume of diesel and cut her veins with a sharp object, in an attempt to commit suicide, but the child who managed to escape told the neighbors and they were able to enter the house and rescue her. At the time of publication, it is still unclear why the woman killed her children and tried to commit suicide. Displaced people from the Damascus countryside and other Syrian areas suffer from terrible humanitarian and living conditions after the Assad regime, with Russia support, forced them to leave their homes and expelled them to northern Syria after a years-long siege. This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author. As well as anti-regime slogan, unknown individuals also tore up a picture of Assad that had been hung in the main square reports Damascus Voice. Over last 24 hours, unknown people tore up a picture of Bashar al-Assad in Qudsayas town square, in the Damascus countryside, as well as daubing the citys walls with anti-regime slogans. Damascus Voices corespondent said that a large picture of Assad set up in the town square was torn up and sprayed with white paint. Unknown people also wrote anti-Assad slogans in several districts, most prominent, The people want the downfall of the regime, Leave, and Freedom forever, as well as other slogans. The networks correspondent confirmed that there were major security tensions in the city after these incidents and the Political Security patrolsthe branch responsible for security in the area were put on alert, in addition to the mobilization of the popular committee in the city, which are part of the 101st Brigade in the Republican Guard, who searched for the perpetrators and removed the slogans from the citys walls. Damascus Voices correspondent documented the deployment of a number of patrols in Qudsayas main square and other districts, as well as continuous Political Security patrols, without any arrests or raids. A Damascus Voice source said that major tensions occurred among Political Security officers and popular committee officials, as the committees are blamed for what happened, especially given that they have been repeated in recent months. According to the networks source, Political Security officers have been given strict orders to arrest any person suspected of being involved in the writings on the wall and tearing images of Assad, and they have asked the reconciliation committees not to intervene if someone is arrested, given their inability to find a solution to this issue. Qudsaya in the Damascus countryside saw a similar incident occur in mid-2018 when two young men from the town wrote slogans calling for the downfall of the regime on the walls of the municipal council, a telephone exchange and some government schools. At the end of 2016, the Syrian regime took control of Qudsaya and al-Hemma, after a final agreement to expel more than 3,000 people including civilians and fighters who refused to settle with the regime. This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author. Poor weather conditions and a shortage of flour have caused a scarcity of bread in Hassakeh province reports Zaman Al Wasl . Hamad al-Nada toured all the bakeries of the Hassakeh city, in search of a bundle of bread. His efforts were in vain due to the fact that 30 private bakeries in Hassakeh city stopped working for the second day in a row because they were not supplied with flour by the general mills. Nada, 40, says he left his home in the Nassirah neighborhood early in the morning, to look for bread for his five children and their mother, at the government bakeries, following the closure of the private bakeries. But the bread had disappeared from the bakeries in the neighborhoods of al-Massaken, Goyeran and Tel Hajar, which, during normal conditions, are the main source of the bread for the inhabitants. But not a single loaf of bread could be found. Workers at the Goyeran bakerys said that the flour had didnt arrive on Wednesday. Meanwhile, Nada was told that it was a day off for the al-Massaken bakery, which is under the control of the regime. And he was unable to enter Tel Hajar bakery, because the entrance was restricted to members of the Democratic Union Party and to Salhia, east of the city. The partys armed forces and members of the regime do not hesitate to exploit the inhabitants, especially women, in exchange for a supply of bread, in light of the acute shortages in the province. Over the past week, the price of a bundle of bread on the black market has increased from 200 Syrian pounds to 300 pounds. In the countryside, for over a year government bakeries have stopped distributing bread directly to citizens. But private bakeries have monthly subscriptions solely for the population in their vicinity, and are currently without bread. The Director of the General Mills Company in Qamishli, Girgis Qumi, said in a media statement, that the distribution of the flour for private bakeries has stopped, due to the lack of wheat being received by the storage center in Qamishli, due to rain and poor weather conditions. This article was edited by The Syrian Observer. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author. Six Armenian designers, members of Fashion and Design Chamber of Armenia will participate in the Pitti exhibition in Milan, Pitti Magine reported. The project is supported within the scope of the European Union in Armenia funded SMEDA project under the EU4Business initiative. The exhibition will be held from February 22-25 and Armenian popular brands such as Z.G.EST, Avagyan, Kivera Naynomis, LOOM Weaving, Shabeeg and Vahan Khachatryan will take part in the exhibition. It is not the first trip of the Armenian fashion team to Italy. A group of talented designers under the leadership of Vahan Khachatryan and within the EU SMEDA program last year already managed to conquer the Italian public with their interesting projects. Follow NEWS.am STYLE on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram Subversive elements of the Polisario Front have openly threatened the peacekeepers of the UN mission in Western Sahara, MINURSO, deployed in the region of Guerguarat. Ould Lamghimed, a Sahrawi living in Laayoune, tried on February 2, to immolate himself by fire at the Moroccan border post at Guerguarat, after he failed to block the road for lorries carrying goods that go through this post to join Mauritania. The incident occurred when the Sahrawi protester, who is known for his smuggling activities and who had burned his passport in front of the Moroccan customs few days earlier, was not allowed to enter Mauritania. He sprinkled himself with gasoline and set fire to his body. He was rescued and evacuated to a hospital in Dakhla. Another Polisario activist based in Norrkoping, Sweden, posted Monday (Feb.4) on Futuro Saharaoui, a website close to the Polisario, an appeal to the Sahrawi separatists living in the Sahara provinces to attack the MINURSO blue helmets. An advice to young Sahrawis in Guerguarat: before they think about harming you, take gas and sprinkle MINURSO vehicles, wrote subversive SaId Zarwal, who is known for his close relations with another Sahrawi subversive, Aminatou Haidar. He thus openly encourages the separatists in Guerguarat to attack the UN mission that he accuses of being unable to protect Sahrawis human rights. The MINURSO command, which takes these threats seriously, has reportedly reduced its patrols and the movement of its agents in the buffer areas and in risk zones and asked them to be vigilant. The UN has been informed of these new developments, according to some press reports, which say that the UN would even be considering the need to alert the Swedish government about the threats made by Said Zarwal. Downtown Rowlett will be without one of its staple restaurants for a while following a fire that took place in the early hours of Sunday. Davids legacy here is going to be one that is positive and is never forgotten. - Chief Jimmy Spivey of Richardson PD Chief Jimmy Spivey of Richardson PD You must be logged in to react. Click any reaction to login. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Standardbred Canada is calling for entries for the 2019 International Media Awards competition which is a component of the World Trotting Conference to be held in Sweden this May. No cash prizes are associated with the awards and no entry fees are required. Competition will be held in nine categories, and the programs, advertisements, or photos must have been published, originally broadcast or otherwise distributed between January 1, 2017 and December 31, 2018 on a broadcast station, cable system, website, newspaper or magazine in Canada during that time. A single submission per entrant will be eligible in a category. Entries should be received at Standardbred Canada not later than noon (EST) on Friday, March 8. All entries should include a cover letter with the name, address, phone number, and email address of the producer, author or photographer, and the name of the station, cable system, or publication on or in which it appeared, along with the date of broadcast/publication. Send entries to: Kathy Wade Vlaar Standardbred Canada 2150 Meadowvale Blvd. Mississauga, ON L5N 6R6 Please direct any questions, via email, to [email protected]. The categories are as follows: BEST NEWS ARTICLE For articles written 'on deadline' about 'breaking' events, including reporting about races, racing industry happenings and so forth, and published in daily or weekly newspapers or online publications. Please send an electronic word doc or pdf version of the article. BEST MAGAZINE ARTICLE For 'long-form' articles written as 'features' and published online or in magazines. Please send an electronic word doc or pdf version of the article. BEST PHOTOGRAPHY Photos, not enhanced by any computer-aided special effects, other than those used to clarify the subject matter contained in the photograph; must be submitted as an 8-inch by 10-inch print, and / or a high resolution digital version of the photo (minimum 300 dpi jpeg file). BEST PRINTED OR WEB-BASED ADVERTISEMENT For advertisements promoting races, breeding services and any other product, service or activity related to the sport of harness racing or Standardbred horses. Please send an electronic pdf version of the ad. BEST VIDEO OR FILM (ONLINE VIDEO INCLUDED) ADVERTISEMENT Video or film-based advertisements for racing, breeding or any other product or service related to the standardbred industry. Please send a DVD or provide a link via email to the video/film and provide a short summary of what the submission is about. BEST TELEVISION PROGRAM OR DOCUMENTARY (ONLINE OR BROADCAST) For programs that air on broadcast or the internet, whether long or short-form that do not include advertising content. Please send a DVD or provide a link via email to the program and provide a short summary of what the submission is about. BEST POSTER For printed posters used to promote racing, breeding or any other industry-related activity, product or service. Please mail the actual poster and email an electronic pdf version. BEST WEBSITE For publications, organizations or non-commercial entities that appear on the internet. Please provide the url and jpeg of a screen shot from the home page. BEST SOCIAL MEDIA For demonstrated excellence in social media usage and innovation. Please include date of broadcast / publishing for your countrys entry if not visible on the file. Trainer Richard Nifty Norman has commented on Haveoneforme, the lightly-raced three-year-old daughter of Kadabra that the conditioner expects to be a familiar face around Ontario raceways this coming stakes season. Norman is looking forward to watching his three-year-old female trotters this season and is getting an early look at Haveoneforme, who didnt get to see action on the racetrack last year. Haveoneforme was unraced at age two because of soundness issues. She made her career debut on January 25 and defeated a field of mostly older horses, both male and female, in a conditioned class at the Meadowlands Racetrack. She will return to the same class Friday and is the 9-5 morning line favourite from Post 8 and is scheduled to have Dexter Dunn in her sulky. Haveoneforme is among a group of three-year-old fillies that has Norman feeling hopeful as he looks ahead to stakes season. Others in the stable are returning Grand Circuit winners Evident Beauty and Princess Deo, as well as the lightly-raced Mother Bonnie. Princess Deo and Mother Bonnie were trained previously by Noel Daley, who returned home to Australia to continue his career at the end of last year. Ive got a good group, Norman said. Ive got a couple others that are just maidens but have got some talent I think. Its good to have depth. Anytime youve got depth, youre all right. Haveoneforme adds to that depth, although she might be pointed more toward restricted-stakes action in Ontario. The filly is a daughter of Kadabra out of All Filled Up. Her second dam, Filly At Bigs, and third dam, Mombasa, were OBrien Award winners. The family also includes stakes winners Big Rigs, Miss Tezsla, and Bridger. We trained her down last year and she got a bit sore, said Norman, whose Enzed Racing Stable owns Haveoneforme with Mel Hartman. She went through the July (Tattersalls Summer Mixed) sale and we bought her back. She is pretty good this year; no killer, but handy. Im probably just going to stake her in Ontario. I think she could maybe do well up there. I liked her last year. She was nice enough, but she wasnt sound. We just turned her out and gave her some time, let her grow up. Shes lovely to be around, has got a good head on her, and she is good gaited. Haveoneforme finished second in a qualifier prior to winning her debut in 1:58 on a 30-degree night at the Big M. I wasnt sure if she had enough speed, but she actually showed good speed in her qualifier and her race, Norman said. I liked the way she finished up both times. I just wanted to race her a few times to see if shes good enough to go to the next level. Ill maybe give her three starts and then give her another break and get her ready for Ontario. Racing will begin at 7:15 p.m. (EST) at the Meadowlands on Friday. Six-year-old Trolley, trained by Erv Miller and driven by Marcus Miller, is the 2-1 morning line favourite in the nights Preferred Handicap for trotters. Trolley is two-for-two this year and has won five of his past six races dating back to November. (USTA) Kathmandu, Nepal: The Charge d'Affaires ad interim of Japan to Nepal, Mr. Yuzo Yoshioka has handed over Braille printers to the Nepal Association for the Welfare of the Blind, a Nepali NGO which is located in Tripureshwor, Kathmandu, amid a function on Friday. The Project for the Installation of Braille Printers for the Visually Impaired Students in Nepal is funded under the Grant Assistance for Grassroots Human Security Projects (GGP) of the Government of Japan. The total grant assistance is USD 82,257 (approximately NPR 8.4 million). The project supported the installation of high quality Braille printers in order to enhance the printing capacity and efficiency of Braille textbooks for visually impaired students. Before the implementation of the project, due to the high volume of demand, the organization had difficulty to supply all the required Braille textbooks before the beginning of a new school semester. The new set of equipment has improved printing speed and volume which enables the organization to produce and deliver the braille textbooks on time. These new equipment will also enable the organization to print Braille text books a broad subjects and make them available for senior classes. The NAWB, established in 1992, has been supporting visually impaired students by providing Braille textbooks, trainings and scholarships. These books can enable visually impaired students to study in the same classrooms with other students. The gravity of the existential threat we face from Islamic Jihad is truly of epic proportions. It is essentially a battle pitting free-civilized man against a totalitarian barbarian. What is at stake is the struggle for our very soul - namely who we are and what we represent. The lives that were sacrificed for individual rights and freedoms that we've come to cherish are being chiseled away from right under our noses by the stealth jihadists. And many of us are in denial and totally clueless. The left's appeasement and pandering to evil is nothing new. What makes their utopian delusions so infuriating and unpardonable is that it is not only they who will have to pay the consequences, and deservedly, so, they are thwarting and undermining our best efforts at resistance and are thus dragging us down in the process as well. By Peter Lancz,, the head of the Raoul Wallenberg World Campaign Against Racism. If you enjoy "Solomon's words for the wise", we invite you to become a regular subscriber. We will never charge you to read our website, but if you would like to send a donation for your subscription, you can click on the PAY PAL Button below and enter the amount you would like to send. If you don't have a Pay Pal account, you can use the credit cards below or make checks to Solomon's words, PO Box 250, Roulette, PA 16746. Robert Gilpin, R.I.P. - The Washington Post : His greatest book was written in 1981, but the main theory in it is perhaps more trenchant now... In October, members of the Proud Boys, a group that calls itself a Western chauvinist organization and that the Southern Poverty Law Center calls a hate group, were arrested in Manhattan following a violent brawl. While their nominal leader at the time, Vice co-founder Gavin McInnes, gave a presentation inside the Metropolitan Republican Club, members of the group were captured on film punching, kicking, and stomping on anti-fascist protesters outside of the event. The New York Nine (10 members have now been arrested, actually) face rioting and attempted assault charges, though they say that they didnt start the incident and that theyre not a hate group. To help defray the lawyer bills, they set up a legal defense fund. In a November video (in which he also quit the Proud Boys in order to take some heat off the organization), McInnes promoted the fund, sending viewers to the URL fundthewest.org, which redirects to the site 1776.shop. There, for $25 to $5,000, you can buy a charity bracelet that reads Proud Boy on the front with the hashtag #NYC9 inscribed inside the band. Proceeds will directly fund the NYC9, the site says. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement You can buy a whole lot more at 1776.shop, a freewheeling online emporium for far-right merch. There are T-shirts and hats with all manner of right-wing slogans, from lib-baiting (Roger Stone did nothing wrong) to fascistic (Pinochet did nothing wrong). There is Proud Boys gear in the official section of the site, as well as products from a host of third-party vendors, including Stone, the Donald Trump confidante and longtime political fixer who advertises 1776.shop on his Instagram account. One shirt sold by the vendor Green Dragon refashions the Proud Boys brand in the style of the punk band Bad Brains iconic self-titled album cover. The sites Terms and Conditions page says that its a project of Fund the West LLC, a business registered in Miami by Henry Tarriowho may be the same person as Enrique Tarrio, the current chairman of the Proud Boys who recently told the Daily Beast that he is the business owner of 1776.shop, and who wore the Roger Stone did nothing wrong shirt and a Proud Boys hat when he was photographed visiting Stones house after Stones recent arrest by the FBI. (Henry Tarrio is also the name on a business called Proudboys LLC, registered at the same address as Fund the West, and Enrique is the Spanish cognate of Henry.) While platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook have stripped the Proud Boys of much of their online presence as the organization has racked up a reputation for violence, 1776, an e-commerce site that appears to support the group, remains functional. Advertisement Now the Proud Boys may need a new way to sell their wares. If they can find one. Or, it did. Last week, the payment processing company Square pulled its service from 1776, a source close to the move confirmed to Slate, and while a spokeswoman said Square does not comment on individual accounts, she wrote in a statement, Square does not tolerate our products or our platform being used for hate. When we determine accounts violate our terms of service, we take swift action. JPMorgan Chases Chase Paymentech also previously provided payment processing services for the 1776.shop, and a source close to the decision confirmed it had stopped. By Tuesday of this week, the site had switched to a PayPal button. PayPal then yanked the account used on 1776.shop, a source close to the decision saidnot the first time PayPal has pulled the plug on Proud Boysaffiliated accounts. As of publication, 1776 once again has a field for shoppers to enter a credit card number, but its unclear if it works or if any vendor is powering it. Advertisement When I asked for comment from the 1776 shop email and an email address listed on Henry Tarrios registration of Fund the West LLC, a respondent calling himself Jorge Perez wrote back, There is absolutely nothing that I can tell you that will make the story youre going to write NOT have a leftist bias. So type away. But I warn you if there is an ounce of libel or slander our attorney is extremely gung ho and he is DYING to get to work. So do your homework Advertisement The ability to sell things and collect money online matters a lot to the Proud Boysand it may be part of the reason they strenuously resist being called a hate group, a white nationalist group, or part of the alt-right, despite a history of Islamophobic, anti-Semitic, and misogynistic rhetoric from Proud Boy members and the organizations founder. Groups like the Proud Boys fight against the term hate group because it makes it much harder for them to mobilize resources online, says Joan Donovan, the director of the Technology and Social Change Research Project at Harvard who studies how hate groups mobilize online. They know that if they get labeled as a hate group then online payment processers will not provide services. And in fact, just this week, McInnes, who in 2017 made a video titled 10 Things I Hate About Jews, filed a lawsuit against the SPLC for damages he says the organization caused by designating the Proud Boys a hate group. The suit accuses the SPLC of concerted, obsessive and malicious actions taken to deplatform McInnes, which has led to tortious interference with his economic opportunities. Among the purported harms: The suit says McInnes and the Proud Boys were banned from using PayPal to collect donations or sell merchandise online after the SPLC added the Proud Boys to its list of hate groups in February 2018. Advertisement Advertisement While many far-right personalities and groups that promote hate and violence have either been kicked off or temporarily banned from social media platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and TwitterAlex Jones being the most prominent example of this kind of deplatformingmany have been able to stay afloat thanks to personal donations, paid subscriptions to their websites and podcasts, and merchandise purchased by fans. This usually requires some way of collecting money, such as building an online store with payment processers. Using a prebuilt option like Square or PayPal is most sensible for an online store built with a WordPress template like 1776.shop. Without that, youd have to build your own payment system, which likely means working directly with a bank and figuring out security protocols, not to mention just making sure the system works. It would require a fair amount of expertise. Up to this point, far-right software engineers havent built a successful alternative to Square and PayPal the way they have tried for Twitter, YouTube, and other prominent internet platforms. When the crowdfunding site Patreon canceled the accounts of several far-right figures, including Milo Yiannopoulos, in December, those users couldnt switch to an alternative like Hatreon because that service, created by the pro-gun activist Cody Wilson, was suspended by Visa in November 2017 and remains inactive. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Ever since the 2017 Unite the Right Rally that brought hundreds of white supremacists and members of the alt-right to Charlottesville, Virginiaincluding some Proud Boystechnology platforms have been reconsidering their historically hands-off approach to controversial users. But unlike social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, which host the pages of groups like the Proud Boys and their leaders, payment processers dont host the storesthey just facilitate the movement of money. That makes services like Square, PayPal, or Chase Paymentech more reliant on outside reports that their payment systems are being used by groups that the companies may have a policy against servicing. E-commerce services generally dont host the content on their page, says Donovan. They dont actually see what these creators are doing, and they dont verify who the money goes to or if its applied to the things that are promised in the solicitation. Square, for example, can be adopted easily by an e-commerce store or a vendor but doesnt handle that vendors wares. These companies often just dont know how their payment services are being used. In the case of 1776.shop, these payment processors had been servicing the operators of the main Proud Boys section of the shop as well as all manner of other vendors who used the platform. Now the Proud Boys may need a new way to sell their wares. If they can find one. This piece originally appeared in the Conversation. Blockchain technology isnt as widely used as it could be, largely because blockchain users dont trust one another, as research shows. Business leaders and regular people are also slow to adopt blockchain-based systems because they fear potential government regulations might require them to make expensive or difficult changes in the future. Mistrust and regulatory uncertainty are strange problems for blockchain technology to have, though. The first widely adopted blockchain, bitcoin, was expressly created to allow financial transactions without relying on trust or on governments overseeing the currency. Users who dont trust a bank or other intermediary to accurately track transactions can instead rely on unchangeable mathematical algorithms. Further, the system is decentralized, with data stored on thousandsor moreof internet-connected computers around the world, preventing regulators from shutting down the network as a whole. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As I discuss in my recent book, The Blockchain and the New Architecture of Trust, the contradiction between blockchains allegedly trust-less technology and its trust-needing users arises from a misunderstanding about human nature. Economists often view trust as a cost, because it takes effort to establish. But people actually want to use systems they can trust. They intuitively understand that cultures and companies with strong trust avoid the hidden costs that stem from everyone constantly trying to both cheat the system and avoid being cheated by others. Blockchain, as it turns out, doesnt herald the end of the need for trust. Most people will want laws and regulations to help make blockchain-based systems trustworthy. Bitcoins creator wrote in 2009 that the root problem with conventional currency is all the trust thats required to make it work. With government-issued money, the public must trust central bankers and commercial banks to preserve economic stability and protect users privacy. The blockchain framework that bitcoin introduced was supposed to be a trustless alternative. Sometimes, though, it shouldnt be trusted. Advertisement In 2016, for instance, someone exploited a flaw in the DAO, a decentralized application using the Ethereum blockchain, to withdraw about $60 million worth of cryptocurrency. Fortunately, members of the Ethereum community trusted each other enough to adopt a radical solution: They created a new copy of the entire blockchain to reverse the theft. The process was slow and awkward, though, and almost failed. Advertisement A new type of investment, called initial coin offerings, further illustrates why blockchain-based activity still requires trust. Since 2017, blockchain-based startups have raised more than $20 billion by selling cryptocurrency tokens to supporters around the world. However, a substantial percentage of those companies were out-and-out frauds. In other cases, investors simply had no idea what they were investing in. The blockchain itself doesnt provide the kind of disclosure that regulators require for traditional securities. Advertisement The initial coin offering faucet slowed to a trickle in the second half of 2018 as the predictable abuses of a Wild West environment became clear. As regulators stepped in, the market shifted toward selling digital tokens under the same rules as stocks or other securities, despite the limits those rules impose. The other reason that regulators have a role to play is security. Blockchain networks themselves are typically very secure, and they eliminate the vulnerability of a single company controlling transactions. However, blockchains identify the owner of an account based on its cryptographic private key, a random-seeming string of numbers and letters. Steal the key, and youve got the money. Ten percent of proceeds from initial coin offerings have already been stolen. Advertisement Most users acquire their cryptocurrency through an exchange such as Coinbase, which trades it for dollars or other traditional currencies. They also let the exchanges hold their private keys, because that makes transactions easier and more efficient. However, it also creates a point of vulnerability: If the exchanges records are breached, the private keys arent secret anymore. Advertisement Blockchain, as it turns out, doesnt herald the end of the need for trust Some users hold their own keys, and there are new exchanges being developed that dont require users to give them up. These will never be as convenient, though, because the burden of managing keys and keeping them safe falls on users. Regulation will be needed to protect consumers. Government authorities will also have a role in restricting money laundering, terrorist financing, and other criminal uses of cryptocurrencies. The more decentralized a system is, the harder it will be to identify a responsible party to police illicit conduct. Some users may not care, or may see that as a necessary cost of freedom. But networks optimized for criminals wont ever achieve mainstream success among law-abiding citizens. Ordinary users will be scared off, regulated banks and financial services firms will be prohibited from interacting with them, and law enforcement will find ways to disrupt their activities. Advertisement Regulators around the world are working to balance the flexibility to transact in new ways through cryptocurrencies with appropriate safeguards. They arent all taking the same route, but thats good. When the state of New York adopted rigid registration requirements called the BitLicense that few companies could meet, other jurisdictions saw the implementation problems and took different paths. Wyoming, for example, adopted a series of bills that clarify the legal status of cryptocurrencies while imposing reasonable protections. New York is now re-evaluating the BitLicense, to avoid losing business activity. If people trust blockchain systems, theyll use them. Thats the only way theyll see mass-market adoption. The jurisdictions with the best regulationnot the ones with the leastwill attract activity. Like any technological system, blockchains combine software code and human activity. Its not enough to trust the computerswhich, after all, are built and programmed by people. For the technology to be used widely and wisely, there must be mechanisms to hold the humans accountable, too. Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society. On Thursday, the Virginian-Pilot reported that the states Senate majority leader had overseen the editing of a college yearbook that included a number of offensive slurs and images, including photos of students in blackface. Sen. Tommy Norment, who has served on the state Legislature since 1992, was the third high-ranking Virginia politician to face accusations related to blackface in the past week. It started last Friday, when a photo surfaced of Gov. Ralph Northams 1984 medical school yearbook page featuring a man in blackface and another man in a KKK robe. (After initially apologizing and admitting his mistake, Northam reversed course and denied that he is either of the men). Then, on Wednesday, state Attorney General Mark Herring, who had recently called on Northam to resign, confessed to and apologized for dressing in blackface at a party in 1980 while a student at the University of Virginia. Meanwhile, sexual assault accusations against Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax became public on Sunday. (He has denied the allegations from a 2004 incident.) Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It has been a weeklong dumpster fire for Virginia politics, and it continued on Thursday. Norments 1968 yearbook from the Virginia Military Institute featured a high volume of racist material. Published the same year black students were first allowed to enroll at the school, it included the N-word, according to the Virginian-Pilot, and also featured slurs directed at Asians and anti-Semitic jokes. Norment, who is now 72, said in a statement he was not surprised that those wanting to engulf Republican leaders in the current situations involving the Governor, Lt. Governor, and Attorney General would highlight the yearbook from my graduation a half century ago. He added that blackface is abhorrent in our society and I emphatically condemn it. Advertisement Some observers have theorized about the conditions and demographics that made the practice such a shameless one for so many now-powerful Virginians. Was it the class of the people they ran with, or the location, or just the times? Tim Kaine, a senator from the state, distanced himself in his defense: He told reporters that he wouldnt have ever donned blackface because he grew up in Kansas City, Missouri. At this point, it seems likely that journalists and politicians are scrambling to find old yearbooks, and it seems just as likely that more photos will emerge. The New York Times, in surveying yearbooks from Northams medical school, Eastern Virginia Medical School, found other instances of racist costumes from the 1980s. When the Times asked former students from that time about the blackface incidents, some said it had seemed normal and that it was common at costume parties or at talent shows. It was done as part of a dress up, being somebody youre not, said one man who graduated with Northam. It was not done as some kind of racial thing. A black doctor who graduated around the same time disagreed that it was just a matter of the norms of the time and told the Times that he considered blackface offensive then too. Advertisement Advertisement In 2014, the medical schools president, Richard Homan, ended the publication of yearbooks after learning that the previous years edition had included photos of students wearing Confederate outfits and flags. On Tuesday, Homan apologized for the images appearance in the past and announced an investigation into the campus culture that allowed their publication. For the all the attention this week has placed on Virginia, its clear the issue isnt specific to the state. According to a YouGov poll conducted from Saturday to Tuesday, just more than half of respondents said it was unacceptable for a white person to wear blackface. As the Washington Post reported, 16 percent of respondents called it acceptable, while another 26 percent werent sure. (These numbers also broke down by party lines: 81 percent of Democrats called it unacceptable, while only 44 percent of Republicans said the same.) This problem may be a Virginia one, and it may be a historical one, but its still a decidedly American one. Some time next week, Donald Trump will likely declare that all of the territory once controlled by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria has been liberated. He previewed the announcement during a speech Wednesday to the Ministers of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, saying, It should be formally announced sometime probably next week that we will have 100 percent of the caliphate. But I want to wait for the official word. I dont want to say too early. Advertisement Back in December, when he announced the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria, Trump said that ISIS had been defeated. Since then, he has shifted to talking about ISISs defeat as a territorial entity. Caliphate will soon be destroyed, he declared, when sniping at his own director of national intelligence on Twitter last week. In his State of the Union address, he boasted, When I took office, ISIS controlled more than 20,000 square miles in Iraq and Syria. Today, we have liberated virtually all of that territory from the grip of these bloodthirsty killers. Advertisement Advertisement ISIS is indeed on the verge of losing the last sliver of land it controls in eastern Syria, so the emphasis on territory makes sensebecause ISIS as an organization is very far from defeated. Pentagon and other estimates suggest it has between 20,000 and 30,000 active fighters in Iraq and Syria, roughly the same as at its peak four years ago, and thats not counting its affiliates in Libya, Sinai, Yemen, Afghanistan, the Philippines, and elsewhere. Advertisement In liberated towns in Syria and Iraq, underground ISIS cells are still a threat, the Associated Press reported this week, carrying out assassinations, setting up flying checkpoints and distributing fliers as they lay the groundwork for an insurgency that could gain strength as U.S. forces withdraw. Army Gen. Joseph Votel, commander of U.S. Central Command, told Congress on Tuesday, It is important to understand that even though this territory has been reclaimed, the fight against ISIS and violent extremists is not over and our mission has not changed. Trump is right to want to remove U.S. troops from the Middle East, even if theres plenty of legitimate room for criticism over how hes doing it. But an honest assessment of the situation would have to concede that jihadi terrorism, and the ideology that inspires it, is not going to be defeated by military force. As long as the political conditions that inspire it exist, terrorist groups will fracture and mutate into new forms. And an honest president would concede that the war on terrorism will never have a victory celebration and that there will always be a certain amount of risk. Advertisement Advertisement Trump, however, needs to declare some sort of victory over ISIS so he can take credit for the military strategy pursued over the last two years, claim he fulfilled a campaign promise to utterly destroy the group, and justify his desire to remove U.S. troops from Syriaagainst the advice of many of his own advisers as well as Congress. And to be clear, the destruction of ISIS as a territorial entity is a major milestone because of the brutality with which the group once ruled over some 10 million people, and because the construction of a literal caliphate was a major aspect of the groups propaganda. In his eagerness to declare victory, however, Trump is risking the creation of his own mission accomplished moment that will come back to haunt him. (Trump has literally used that very loaded phrase with reference to Syria.) Advertisement ISIS, formerly known as al-Qaida in Iraq, has already been defeated and has reconstituted itself once before, and can do it again. Contra Barack Obamas Republican critics, the last re-emergence of ISIS wasnt caused only by the removal of U.S. troops from Iraq in 2011it was largely due to the marginalization of Iraqs Sunni population by the countrys Shiite-dominated government. Those conditions exist again today, if not more so, as Iraqs government carries out a bloody campaign of post-ISIS retribution against former ISIS fighters, their families, and Sunni civilians. Advertisement With the killing of four U.S. troops in the Syrian city of Manbij last month, the post-territorial ISIS has already demonstrated the threat it still poses. (It was notable that Trump made no mention of this incident in a State of the Union address that was otherwise heavy on themes of military valor and sacrifice.) Americans have always been less concerned about ISIS as a state than its capacity to launch and inspire terrorist attacks outside that state. If ISIS follows the trajectory of groups like al-Shabaab, it may now put more of an emphasis on traditional acts of terrorism now that its not spending its time collecting taxes and punishing petty theft. Advertisement Trumps claim that ISIS has been defeated will be cited every time the group, or someone acting on its behalf, carries out an attack that makes the news in the U.S. He should know this: When running for president, he attacked Obama after the 2015 Paris attacks for having recently declared ISIS contained. What Obama had meant by that ill-considered remark was that ISIS had stop gaining any more territory, that its growth had been contained. The explanation wasnt any more politically effective than Trumps claims likely will be when he says he means only that ISISs caliphate had been defeated. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos went public Thursday with his ongoing dispute with the owner of the National Enquirers parent company American Media over the tabloids recent publication of Bezos private text messages. The scuffle started when the National Enquirer, owned and run by Trump ally David Pecker, published a 12-page spread on Bezos affair with former TV anchor Lauren Sanchez that included intimate texts between the pair. In a post on Medium on Thursday, Bezos outlined an outrageous and blatant blackmail attempt by AMI, which threatened to publish lewd selfies of Bezos as a reprisal if he didnt disavow the reporting by the paper he owns, the Washington Post, into AMIs politicized hit pieces and political support of the Trump campaign. Advertisement It is still not totally clear how the National Enquirer obtained the texts, but Bezos responded by tasking his longtime private security consultant Gavin de Becker with figuring out how the publication invaded his privacy. Bezos investigation points to Lauren Sanchezs brother, Michael Sanchez, as the likely culprit. The Hollywood operator is vocally pro-Trump and runs in a circle with known Trump associates Roger Stone and Carter Page. Bezos post, however, contains a far more serious charge of extortion by AMI. They said they had more of my text messages and photos that they would publish if we didnt stop our investigation, Bezos wrote. Rather than capitulate to extortion and blackmail, Ive decided to publish exactly what they sent me, despite the personal cost and embarrassment they threaten. If in my position I cant stand up to this kind of extortion, how many people can? Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Bezos then posted damningand personally embarrassingemails from AMIs legal team dated Tuesday describing the racy pictures it has and is willing to publish, unless Bezos is willing to negotiate. [I] the interests of expediating this situation, and with The Washington Post poised to publish unsubstantiated rumors of The National Enquirers initial report, I wanted to describe to you the photos obtained during our newsgathering In addition to the below the belt selfie otherwise colloquially known as a d*ck pick The Enquirer obtained a further nine images. These include: Mr. Bezos face selfie at what appears to be a business meeting. Ms. Sanchez response a photograph of her smoking a cigar in what appears to be a simulated oral sex scene. A shirtless Mr. Bezos holding his phone in his left hand while wearing his wedding ring. Hes wearing either tight black cargo pants or shorts and his semi-erect manhood is penetrating the zipper of said garment. A full-length body selfie of Mr. Bezos wearing just a pair of tight black boxer-briefs or trunks, with his phone in his left hand while wearing his wedding ring. A selfie of Mr. Bezos fully clothed. A full-length scantily-clad body shot with short trunks. A naked selfie in a bathroom while wearing his wedding ring. Mr. Bezos is wearing nothing but a white towel and the top of his pubic region can be seen. Ms. Sanchez wearing a plunging red neckline dress revealing her cleavage and a glimpse of her nether region. Ms. Sanchez wearing a two-piece red bikini with gold detail dress revealing her cleavage. It would give no editor pleasure to send this email. I hope common sense can prevail and quickly. Advertisement Advertisement That email was followed by another the next day from American Medias deputy counsel that listed its proposed terms for not publishing the photos of Bezos. In return for AMI burying the photos, the company demanded [a] public, mutually-agreed upon acknowledgment from the Bezos Parties, released through a mutually-agreeable news outlet, affirming that they have no knowledge or basis for suggesting that AMs coverage was politically motivated or influenced by political forces, and an agreement that they will cease referring to such a possibility. The proposed agreement further stipulated that it was to be confidential and that AMI, should Bezos ever disclose the blackmail attempt, would be free to publish the photos. The result was essentially perpetual blackmail dressed up in legalese. Advertisement Bezos did not agree to the terms and chose to go public with the extortion attempt, which will surely put enormous public pressure on AMI and likely give the National Enquirer pause when deciding whether to publish the images. These communications cement AMIs long-earned reputation for weaponizing journalistic privileges, hiding behind important protections, and ignoring the tenets and purpose of true journalism, he wrote. Of course I dont want personal photos published, but I also wont participate in their well-known practice of blackmail, political favors, political attacks, and corruption. I prefer to stand up, roll this log over, and see what crawls out. Guwahati: Global film personality Angelina Jolie, who is serving as a special envoy to UN Refugee Agency commented that the international community should not turn away from the nearly one million Rohingya refugees, who fled from Myanmar to Bangladesh nearly two years back. Visiting the south Asian country this week, Angelina also urged Dhaka for continued support for those displaced people, until the Myanmar authorities show the genuine commitment needed to end a decades-long cycle of violence and displacement. She met Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in Dhaka and expressed UNHCRs gratitude to the government and people of Bangladesh for their generosity in receiving over 700,000 refugees since August 2017. She reiterated UNHCRs support for collective efforts to enable Rohingya refugees to live dignified lives in Bangladesh and the pursuit of lasting solutions. Angelina visited the Liberation War Museum and the Bangabandhu Memorial Museum in Dhaka and got the glimpse of Bangladeshs history of independence where it also experienced large-scale displacements of people. Michigan Democrat John Dingell, the longest-serving member of Congress in American history, died Thursday at the age of 92. Dingell was reported to be in hospice care this week and the end appeared imminent enough that his wife, Debbi Dingell, said she was with her husband in their Dearborn home in the suburbs of Detroit. Friends and colleagues know me and know I would be in Washington right now unless something was up, Debbi Dingell, who won her husbands seat in 2014, tweeted. I am home with John and we have entered a new phase. He is my love and we have been a team for nearly 40 years. Advertisement Rep. John Dingell was first elected to the House in 1955, when he ran for the southeastern Michigan seat vacated by his father, who represented the district for 22 years. Over the span of nearly 60 years on Capitol Hill, Dingell was witness to a transformative era of American history. He was known as a fierce advocate for the Detroit auto industry, and the old-school Democrat fought to protect the health and environment of Americans. He played a role in the creation of Medicare in 1965 and the Endangered Species Act of 1973, but exerted his influence most directly on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which he served on for the near entirety of his time in the House. After announcing his retirement in 2014, President Obama awarded Dingell the Presidential Medal of Freedom, calling him one of the most influential legislators of all time. Dingell was diagnosed with prostate cancer last year, and this week his family said it had metastasized and the former congressman had chosen to enter hospice care. The Lovely Deborah is insisting I rest and stay off here, but after long negotiations weve worked out a deal where shell keep up with Twitter for me as I dictate the messages, Dingell said in a final tweet Wednesday. I want to thank you all for your incredibly kind words and prayers. Youre not done with me just yet. Domineque Ray died at 10:12 p.m. Thursday night, by lethal injection at the Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama. The execution was allowed to proceed after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to stay it earlier in the day on Thursday. The request for the stay came via a religious argumentthe prisons policy only allowed a Christian chaplain into the execution chamber. Rays attorneys argued this policy violated his religious freedomsRay was Muslim. By a 54 vote, the court vacated the stay. As NPR later reported, the Christian chaplain was not in the execution chamber, at Rays request. He died with his imam, Yusef Maisonet, witnessing from an adjoining chamber. Maisonet said there are prayers required of a Muslim before he dies. Maisonet told AL.com, We want to make sure his last words are, There is no God but God, and Muhammad is his prophet. He was not permitted to so do. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As Mark Joseph Stern noted earlier this week, Rays guilt was not in doubt. He was sentenced to death for the 1995 rape and stabbing of 15-year-old Tiffany Harville. Before that he had received a life sentence for stabbing two brothers, Reinhard and Earnest Mabins, to death. The only reason the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had granted the stay on Wednesday was in response to what the panel deemed a powerful Establishment Clause claim. If the First Amendments Establishment Clause means anything at all, noted the appeals court, it must mean that the state may not create a policy favoring Christian chaplains over those of any other faith. As the appellate court also noted, We can think of no principle more elemental to the Establishment Clause than that the states and the federal government shall not favor one religious denomination over another. Advertisement Time and time again the courts have demanded religious neutrality from the state, whether the context is schools, government programs, or religious displays. Alabama acknowledges that since 1997, the Rev. Chris Summers has witnessed nearly every execution in the state, kneeling and praying with prisoners just before they are killed. But they would not allow Rays imam to do the same. Advertisement As the 11th Circuit noted, this was not a complicated question: The central constitutional problem here is that the state has regularly placed a Christian cleric in the execution room to minister to the needs of Christian inmates, but has refused to provide the same benefit to a devout Muslim and all other non-Christians. The state argued that only the chaplain was allowed to be present because he was a prison employee and a member of the execution team. He was trained in execution protocolsbut prison officials would not explain what such training demands, or why Rays imam could visit him regularly in prison but not be with him at the time of execution. The appeals court was bothered by the paucity of briefing and had ordered a fast-track hearing to better understand the reasons for the policy. The state agreed that the Christian chaplain need not be present and, feeling that it had cured the constitutional defect, asked the high court to vacate the stay. Rays attorneys responded in pleadings that Mr. Ray does not dispute that the state has an interest in enforcing its judgments. But it does not have an interest in doing so unconstitutionally. Advertisement Advertisement Time and time again the courts have demanded religious neutrality from the state, whether the context is schools, government programs, or religious displays. The Supreme Court, in its brief order reversing the stay, disagreed. In Dunn v. Ray, the majority decided that Rays constitutional complaints were just the subject of some really bad timing: On November 6, 2018, the State scheduled Domineque Rays execution date for February 7, 2019. Because Ray waited until January 28, 2019 to seek relief, we grant the States application to vacate the stay. Thats because, as the court tersely notes, A court may consider the last-minute nature of an application to stay execution in deciding whether to grant equitable relief. Justice Elena Kagan wrote a powerful dissent in which she was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, and Sonia Sotomayor. As she notes, given the gravity of the issue presented here, I think that decision profoundly wrong. Advertisement Alabama is, according to Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, the only state where the execution protocol calls for only a Christian chaplain to be present in the chamber. Kagan wrote, echoing the appeals court, that the clearest command of the Establishment Clause is that one religious denomination cannot be officially preferred over another. Nobody disputes that Alabamas policy does this. In order to survive the strict scrutiny such a policy demands, the state needed to show that its policy is narrowly tailored to meet a compelling interest, which the state argued was prison security. Back to Kagan: Advertisement I have no doubt that prison security is an interest of that kind. But the State has offered no evidence to show that its wholesale prohibition on outside spiritual advisers is necessary to achieve that goal. Why couldnt Rays imam receive whatever training in execution protocol the Christian chaplain received? The State has no answer. The only evidence the State has offered is a conclusory affidavit stating that its policy is the least restrictive means of furthering its interest in safety and security. Advertisement Moreover, Kagan rejects the majoritys assertion that Ray should have known on Nov. 6 that he would be denied access to an imam. The Alabama statute in fact provides that both the chaplain of the prison and the inmates spiritual adviser of choice may be present at an execution. The prison refused to give Ray a copy of its own protocolsso he only learned about the Christian chaplain rule on Jan. 28 and petitioned five days later. Too bad, says the court, the states urgent need to carry out the execution overcomes Rays religious freedom. Kagan concludes, pointedly: Ray has put forward a powerful claim that his religious rights will be violated at the moment the State puts him to death. The Eleventh Circuit wanted to hear that claim in full. Instead, this Court short-circuits that ordinary processand itself rejects the claim with little briefing and no argumentjust so the State can meet its preferred execution date. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Religious liberty enthusiasts may claim that this case turned not on the fact that a Muslim man did not want to have his last rites delivered by a Christian, and that instead the only issue is the courts disfavor for last-minute stays of execution. The injury to a death row inmate who may not have the spiritual adviser of his choosing is seemingly lesser than the injury to the state that needs to kill him immediately. This is a court that has staked its moral legitimacy on the proposition that religion, above all, is at the very core of humanity, to be elevated in all instances no matter the competing interests. In so many faiths, there is no more sacred moment than entry and departure from this life. But never mind. For a court that cannot bear the thought of a religious baker forced to frost a cake in violation of his spiritual convictions to be wholly unaffected at the prospect of a man given last rites by a member of another faith borders on staggering. The court that had no problem with a transparently anti-Muslim immigration ban, promised and performed as an anti-religious measure, looks more and more like it has two standards for protecting religious liberty. Thursday night, after Ray died, alone without his spiritual adviser present, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey issued a statement saying, It is my prayer that, with tonights events, Miss Harvilles family can finally have closure. There was really only one person in Alabama prohibited from praying to his creator as he would have sought to do last night. It was arguably the person who needed it the most. In a Medium post Thursday, we learned that Jeff Bezos is apparently getting blackmailed by the owner of the National Enquirer, which sucks. We discovered the Amazon founder enjoys a good nude-selfie exchange with the ladies, which is not something I saw coming, but is his own business. We also learned that owning the Washington Post, in Bezos own words, is a complexifier for one of the worlds richest men. Its unavoidable that certain powerful people who experience Washington Post news coverage will wrongly conclude I am their enemy, Bezos explains. But fear not, he concludes: Even though The Post is a complexifier for me, I do not at all regret my investment. Its a complexifier, not a deal-breaker. Thats a relief. Advertisement But, wait. What exactly is a complexifier? And, more importantly, because we get the gist: Is complexifier a real word? Advertisement Advertisement At first glance, youd think no, this is a gussied-up word that would normally come out of the mouth of Mike Tyson. Someone trying to explainify something. I would be less ashamed of the dick pics than of using the word "complexifier" Daniel Radosh (@danielradosh) February 7, 2019 Advertisement The internet, however, made a pass at approximating correct usage. Jeff Bezos calls his dick the complexifier Noah Hurowitz (@NoahHurowitz) February 7, 2019 Advertisement Gonna be using the word complexifier every day from here on out. The word complexifier is a real complexifier for me. Kumail Nanjiani (@kumailn) February 8, 2019 Advertisement Advertisement Complexifier sounds like a word a Bush official would've invented in a presser about the Iraqi insurgency in 2003. Osita Nwanevu (@OsitaNwanevu) February 8, 2019 But remained skeptical. Advertisement Though I take issue with the use of complexifier Clara Jeffery (@ClaraJeffery) February 7, 2019 so far I've gotten far enough into the Bezos post to see him invent the word "complexifier" Ariel Edwards-Levy (@aedwardslevy) February 7, 2019 Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A quick Google search for the definition informs us the word is, in fact, French for rendre complexe, which Google flips back to English meaning complicating. Thanks, Google. But is it real? A 3-foot deep dive into the first page of the Google Books results nets some hits for complexifier from titles like Modern Canonical Quantum General Relativity, which still seems a bit science-y, and science, a well known complexifier itself, doesnt seem real half the time anyway. Other results like The Simple Art of Greatness: Building, Managing, and Motivating a Kick-Ass Workforce and Rules of the Hunt: Real-World Advice for Entrepreneurial and Business Success seem more Bezos speed. Complexifier, in fact, appears most at home in the canon of self-help business gobbledygook. The Complexifier is well-meaning but annoying, Rules of the Hunt explains. The first words out of the Complexifiers mouth are, Yes, but This is followed by his point out a problem that would arise by taking the action being discussed. Even if told the problem has been considered and a solution found, the next words by the Complexifier are, Yes but Ouch. Sucks to be the Washington Post. But is it actually a word? The answer is: It will be when Mike Tyson uses it. When I first called Melissa Leonard, she asked, Can you call me back? I have Action News here with their cameras and everything. Leonard is the Philadelphia-area Coldwell Banker Realtor whose listing, 50 Shades of Maple Glena lovely brick colonial with five bedrooms, an updated kitchen, and a private adult sexual oasis in the basementhas been viewed more than 500,000 times on Redfin since it went live less than 24 hours ago. Why did she, a real estate professional, decide to stage the house with BDSM gear and a sex swing? Does a viral listing sell more quickly? I talked to Leonard by phone from the eye of the storm, as she drove back to her officethough our call was interrupted by angry neighbors. Advertisement Slate: How was your TV appearance? It sounds crazy right now. Advertisement Advertisement Melissa Leonard: It has been. I did ABC, I did Fox, every magazines calling me. And now Im hearing sites are taking the basement photos down. Whos taking them down? I dont even know if they can do that. We uploaded to a main BrightMLS site, and it goes to all the real estate sites from that, and they took it down. Zillow kept it, Redfin took it down, but now theyre down everywhere because BrightMLS seems to have taken them down. I have to look into it. But I own those photos. So you can keep them on your site. I had Philly police here, and all the TV channels. Advertisement Hold on, now the neighbors are flagging me down. Theyre really upset. You probably want to listen to this. Hello, sir. Male voice: Are you the real estate agent? Leonard: Yes. Im Melissa. Male voice: Were very upset about this whole thing. We do not want something like this in our neighborhood. Take that off the internet. Thats disgusting. We dont want that. Leonard: Sir, if the owner wants those photos on the listing, thats their choice! Male voice: Youve got to take them down! We live next door and we dont want this! Advertisement Leonard: Youre angry at me but youre really angry at the owner. Im trying to sell the house as fast as possible. Advertisement Male voice: People are all over the neighborhood and theyre all saying theyre here to see the sex house! Leonard: Well, theyre just here because of the news trucks. They want to see whats going on. Female voice: Look, I know for a fact people are not here to buy the house. They just want to see the room. Leonard: Were not showing to anyone without a Realtor. Were not letting people just walk in. Male voice: Who is your supervisor? Leonard [to Slate]: Can I call you back? Sure. [Fifteen minutes later.] That seemed intense! Hes cool now. I told him, Look, Im just selling the house as quickly as possible. Advertisement People seem really worked up. I think theyre really angry! Like, Theyre whipping people sexually around in there! Im like, Listen, its a lifestyle. Did you get the sense they had any idea what was going on in that house? I think they were in the dark. I think they didnt know anything until this morning. Hes like, Did you know that house is on Airbnb? Im like, yes, duh. Advertisement How did you react when you first saw this house? The seller called me, saying, I need a Realtor whos outside the box, who can work with something different. I said, OK, Im driving, but send me the photos and Ill look when I get home. Hes like, I need you to pull over. So I pull over and I looked at them and I laughed. I laughed! I called him and Im like, Youve got this whole little sexual oasis. So then I went over and looked at the house. I had a straight face. I said, I can sell this. We can sell this. And here we are! Were on TV, magazines are calling, youre calling me. Advertisement Its a beautiful house in a great neighborhood, a great school district. Someone called me for a client in New York and said they want the house but they dont want the sex stuff. I said, You dont have to have it! You can take it out! Advertisement Advertisement In my experience, Realtors tell clients to depersonalize their houses when staging. Take down family photos, whatever. Why did you decide to stage this house and include this stuff? He wanted to keep it because of the Airbnb business. He told me it had to be what it is. Im cool with it. Thats why people are so interested in the house now. Do viral listings sell faster? Obviously it helps to get more eyes on it, but is there a risk that the house becomes notorious? Will people not like it because it went viral? I think that people are gonna like that it went viral. Its gonna bring more people to the house and its going to sell faster. Advertisement You dont think theres a downside. No, theres no downside. The slideshow really tells a story. When you were creating the listing, how did you decide where in the slideshow to put the basement photos? So I put the whole house up, like 25 photos including every room, the yard. I kept the basement at the end. After the basement theres just duplicate photos. I wanted to grab their attention for the whole house, first. Advertisement Advertisement So the selling point is the house, not the sex room. Yeah, I was trying to do that so we would sell the house for what it is. Its a beautiful house! This is just what makes it different. Did you hope that the listing might go viral? Advertisement I thought it had potential. I contacted Philadelphia magazine last week and told them about it, but I didnt call anyone else. And then today, we had local news stations calling first thing in the morning, and now magazines are calling me. So you know what: It went viral. Advertisement Advertisement Theres not that much equipment hanging on the wall in the basement. Looks like one whip, one flail. Does the basement have ample closet space for bondage equipment? Yes, it does. Good closets in the basement? It it has a lot of stuff going on. Have you read Fifty Shades of Grey? Seen the movies? Did you know this was a whole thing? I saw the first two of the movies. I only read maybe a couple of chapters of the book. That was the first thing that came to mind when I saw it: This guy has Fifty Shades of Grey going on his basement!* But I know that its a way of life for people. Philly has clubs for this. I go out, I know about nightlife, they nickname me Philly Socialite on Instagram, so I go out all the time. Nothing bothered me. Advertisement Maple Glen seems pretty staid. What advice would you give to whoever buys this house to make peace with neighbors who are now up in arms? Itll be fine! It probably will go to a suburban family, because its such a great neighborhood! And whoever buys it, whether that persons into that or not, theyll never know. They never knew until now, until they saw the listing! You know, they have to kind of mind their own business. Maybe youre not into it, but theyre not hurting you. Nothings out in the open. Advertisement Have you taken people in to tour the house already? I have not taken in anybody by myself. But a few Realtors took people in this morning. But Im gonna make sure theyre qualified before I take someone. If youre going to the trouble to go through a Realtor, Im sure that Realtor is not gonna waste their time if youre not serious. Advertisement Melissa, there was one thing in the house that really, truly, shocked me. The island sinks in the master bath. What is the story there? Do people like that? The dual vanity? Yeah, usually theyre next to each other or across. This is a little unusual. But its so spacious in the master bath, with the soaking tub and the private toilet. It really makes sense for the space. So youd buy a house with an island vanity? Yes, definitely. In What Men Want, the gender-flipped reboot of 2000s What Women Want, Taraji P. Hensons character magically gains the power to read mens minds. But if Im reading your mind correctly, the new movies arrival has you curious about how well the original holds upbut not so curious youre willing to sit through a Mel Gibson romantic comedy (eesh), let alone a Mel Gibson rom-com that billed itself as an exploration of the differences between the sexes (double eesh). Never fear, for I rewatched WWW in all its turn-of-the-millennium, cable-TV-staple-of-a-certain-era glory and am prepared to share my findings here, saving your schedule valuable time and your eyes from having to see Gibsons pantyhose-clad gams. Here we go: Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Yes, its super dated. God, when was the year 2000 anyway, the 80s? As with many movies in the pre-cellphone era, crucial plot developments in What Women Want depend on an answering machine. (Gibson does actually pull out an ancient cellphone at one point though, keep your eyes peeled for it.) The film finds Gibson sporting a hideous roster of leather jackets, trench coats, and power suits tailored to their tacky, year-2000 fullest. And most shockingly to me, throughout the movie, Gibson smokes with abandonI couldnt believe I was watching the main character of a big-budget, mainstream rom-com casually smoking without it being remarked upon, even if it was supposed to be in service of his characters cad reputation. Contrast this to 2019, when What Men Want had no problem listing E and crack as ingredients in Erykah Badus psychically powerful tea, but nary a character smokes a cigarette. Advertisement Its gender politics are not great, but theyre not as bad as you might expect. Lets state right off the bat that the premise is condescending: Isnt 2000 a little late to make a movie about how women are an important consumer demographic? That said, this is a movie about a horrible, toxic man learning how horrible and toxic he is, and its somewhat admirably interested in breaking down a few of the more harmful aspects of traditional masculinity. Most of the overt displays of sexism in the movie are coded as bad: The audience understands that Gibsons character, Nick Marshall, is an asshole when he warns a female colleague she might not want to take a bite of that breakfast pastry, or describes a professional acquaintance as a bitch on wheels. Ditto for the characters absentee dad act and treatment of his romantic interests. Advertisement Advertisement Thats not to say things dont get a little muddled sometimes: Marisa Tomeis character asks Gibsons to stop asking her out, but when he starts reading minds, it turns out her no isnt so firm after all. If this was a mixed signal at the time, post-#MeToo, it implies that no can sometimes mean yes, and its icky to watch on screen. Of course, the whole idea of using mind-reading to get a woman into bed is also a pretty clear violation of consent. Pretending to be gay to get out of having to see said woman again is also, obviously, not an ideal way to end a relationship. What was played for laughs at the timeMel Gibson, gay? Pshaw!now just seems cruel and offensive. Advertisement Get Slate Culture in Your Inbox We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try again. Please enable javascript to use form. Email address: Send me updates about Slate special offers. By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms Sign Up Thanks for signing up! You can manage your newsletter subscriptions at any time. Nicks romance with Hunts character, Darcy, is, in typical rom-com fashion, based on a foundation of lies, but that said, he really does seem to gain respect for her in the end, which is nice. Still, its Mel Gibson, and its hard to lose sight of who youre watching enact all the lovey-dovey stuff: someone whos notorious for his 2006 anti-Semitic tirade, sexism, racism, and allegations of domestic abuse. No one would blame you for not wanting to watch that guy put the moves on Tomei and Hunt. Advertisement We also mustnt forget to acknowledge the sexism in the plotline with Nicks teenage daughter. As the 2018 comedy Blockers taught us, its not cool for parents to police their teenage daughters virginity, and the lesson that older boys only want them for one reason is retrograde. Of course, Gibson forgets his daughter exists for much of the movie, so its not a point the film hits too hard. Advertisement This movies cast is bonkers. Notables in What Women Want include Alan Alda, Mark Feuerstein, Sarah Paulson in one of her earliest roles, a brunette Judy Greer, Bette Midler (!), Delta Burke (!!), Lisa Edelstein, Ana Gasteyer, and Loretta Divine. Now thats what I call an ensemble. Seriously, everyone is in this movie. It even has Eric Balfour as Cameron, the boyfriend of Gibsons characters teenage daughter, who you will recognize from playing almost the exact same bad-boy role in Six Feet Under, The O.C., and who knows how many other movies and shows of this period. but its also a little rough to reflect on. Im not just talking about Gibson, who was a major star in 2000. To stay on a serious point for a moment, this movie is an unintentional allegory in how men and womens careers are treated differently in Hollywood. The movies female lead is Helen Hunt, whose career has all but vanished since 2000, and not because of any scandal. Instead, its seemingly just the natural path for a woman in Hollywood. This is in contrast to Gibson, whose luck has shown signs of turning around in recent years, with film roles and awards recognition for Hacksaw Ridge. Meanwhile, there are several other formerly prominent actresses in the movie whose careers seem to have taken a downturn, something that #MeToo has taught me to view with skepticism: In addition to Hollywoods notorious ageism and general mercilessness, weve learned there are countless actresses whose careers have been actively sabotaged by powerful men. So when I think of someone like Lauren Holly, who was everywhere in the 90s, or Ashley Johnson, former child star, I wonder if I just havent been watching the right things, they decided to act less for their own reasons, or, well, something else. Advertisement Advertisement Do jobs like Mel Gibsons in this movie still exist? Did they ever? Gibson, playing a mid-level ad exec, seems to have three assistants in this movie. Two of them, Delta Burke and Valerie Perrine, work just for him (doing what, Im not sure), but then Sarah Paulson also seems to have to do grunt work for him too, which she is very resentful about. And Judy Greers whole job is also something assistant-y having to do with handing out papers and sometimes serving Gibson. Why does this one man, who is not even the creative director, have so many employees dedicated to assisting him? So much excess! I imagine companies like the ad agency where the movie takes place look a lot different post-2008 recession and post-monoculture. Advertisement There is quite a lot of corny music. What Women Want has this awful, Rat Packheavy soundtrack that for some reason people in the year 2000 thought was synonymous with urban, hip New York City.* The few contemporary sound cues provide a welcome break. B*witched! Meredith Brooks! Baby Christina Aguilera! Its not really fair to call this a Nancy Meyers joint. Yes, Nancy Meyers directed What Women Want, her second feature after (the divine) Lindsay Lohan remake of The Parent Trap. But the movie is Meyers lite. It lacks some of the qualities that would come to define her most wild rich-people opuses like Somethings Gotta Give and Its Complicatedextravagant interiors, winning heroineswhich I chalk up to it being the only one of the movies she directed that she didnt also write. (I think Baby Boom and Father of the Bride, both of which she wrote but didnt direct, are more authentically Meyers, for what its worth.) Watching Mel Gibson read womens minds is minorly diverting, but in the end, the mind I really wish I was reading is Meyers. A multibillion-dollar philosophy question is rippling through small-town America. If you build something that is fundamentally useless to anyone but you, should you have to pay property taxes on it? Dozens of big-box stores are arguing the answer is, essentially, no. As the country confronts an epidemic of retail closures, spurred by e-commerce, obsolescence, changing economic geography, and corporate mismanagement, mega-stores are using their shuttered rivals as comps in fights with local appraisers in order to reduce their tax bills. Advertisement In Escanaba, Michigan, for example, the Wisconsin-based home improvement store Menards has spent half a decade fighting the citys property tax assessmentby comparing its shop there to, among other sites, two shuttered Michigan Walmarts that were sold as industrial properties. You can see why the Michigan Tax Tribunal bought that argument, knocking the assessed value of the (operating) Menards down from $8.21 million to $3.66 million. The concept is called dark store theory, because working stores are compared to closed ones, and it makes a kind of intuitive sense: How do you measure value except by what someone else will pay? Advertisement Advertisement That seems like a fine standard for tax assessments until you look at big-box retailers. The unwieldy, windowless hangars are ill-suited for adaptive reuse. Thousands of them lie vacant in malls around the country, depressing the resale market. To make matters more complicated, many big-box companies will not sell their vacant properties without an anti-competitive deed restriction. One reason the Michigan Walmarts ended up as low-rent industrial properties was because the chain had a stipulation in the deed of sale: no big groceries or discount stores allowed. Advertisement Its a bit like if I hired the Kool-Aid Man School of Door Frame Design to design my house with cookie-cutter apertures of my own body between roomsthen forbid the sale to anyone my height. Even though I had spent a bunch of money on those kooky doorways, the low resale value could be used to justify a low tax bill on all my me-shaped projects. City and state governments see dark store theory as a huge threatand are beginning to push back against the scheme. In Wisconsin, new Gov. Tony Evers says his budget proposal will close the dark stores loophole in the state, where the practice was discussed during the campaign. Lawmakers in Indiana are debating a bill on the subject this month. Their peers in Michigan are trying to settle the matter too, based in part on the success of Escanaba in challenging the practiceand convincing a state appeals court to overturn the decision of the Michigan Tax Tribunal. Advertisement Advertisement They are chipping away at what chain store influence has made a massive problem. In City Lab, Laura Bliss reports that the strategy has been deployed in more than 20 states. There are 300 big-box appeals underway in Indiana alone. In Texas, the state comptroller says the state could lose $2.6 billion a year if the model catches on. Hundreds of millions of dollars have already been shaved from the tax rolls nationwide, according to Standard & Poors, forcing cities to raise residential property taxes or cut back on public services. Marquette, Michigan, had to close its library on Sundays to pay Lowes back $755,000 after a successful dark store challenge to its tax bill. Elise Nieshalla, a council member in Boone County, Indiana, argues that her countys dispute with the store Meijerwhich is asking for $250,000 in tax refundshas bigger implications, because dark store theory is contagious. The impact is not just the impact of Meijer, she says. Its the impact of all the other stores that are going to be at our doorstep seeking a significantly reduced assessed value based on the application of dark store theory to their situation. The time to close this loophole is now. Advertisement Advertisement Dark store theory is an economic affirmation of architects long-held view that big-box stores represent throwaway design, as unappealing after use as an old pair of sneakers. Some empty big boxes have evolved into churches, city halls, data centers, and even a shelter for migrant children. But most are worse than useless: With deed restrictions, outgoing retailers salt the earth, banishing prime commercial land to low-rent uses. Were seeing this theory spread all over the United States, says Larry Clark at the International Association of Assessing Officers in Kansas City, Missouri. Especially in a small town where they have one Walmart and thats their entire retail, if the value is significantly reduceddecimating the towns property tax revenuethey may have to think long and hard before giving incentives to big-box stores. Advertisement Escanaba is a city of 12,500 people in the Upper Peninsula, with a pretty downtown that opens onto Lake Michigan. Its such a huge fight, and were a small town, says Patrick Jordan, the city manager. But we are fighting this fight on behalf of every Michigan municipality, and weve passed the hat around and theyre sending money to help us fight. After victory in a Michigan appeals court, Escanaba and Menards will conclude their five-year battle in front of a three-judge panel this spring, with implications for the rest of the state. Advertisement For small towns where property taxes make up most of the budget, the dark store theory challenges conventional assumptions about city planning, in which the attraction of a mall or mega-retailer is seen as a tax base anchor. Its especially damaging in places like Michigan, where a 1994 constitutional amendment ensures that taxable value cant rise by more than 5 percent a year. Under the dark store theory, it would take 16 years for Escanaba to bring Menards assessed value back to its former levels.* Advertisement In cities where property taxes can be raised, a bigger burden is on the way for homeowners and owners of the locally owned, mixed-use properties downtown that have been put out of business by big-box stores. In Escanaba, some of those buildings date from the 19th century and have happily cycled through dozens of uses. (Ironically, the highway subsidies that made big-box commerce viable in the first place were proposed by planners who had declared the older urban environment obsolete and therefore worthless.) The dark store argument is a reminder of the structural power that the countrys consolidated retail giants have over local politics and finances. Real estate developers have been captivated by the idea of obsolescence for more than a century, in part to provide a tax break in addition to run-of-the-mill depreciation. Thats one reason they think it makes sense to preclude future competition at a site, even it means losing money on the property sale. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In 2015, the city of Cottage Grove, Minnesota, sought to buy a vacated Home Depot at the mall. The company would only agree to sell if the city committed to ban any nearby rivalsextending a noncompete clause from Home Depots mall tenure (standard operating procedure) well past the stores demise, ensuring a hardware desert. In response, Cottage Grove Mayor Myron Bailey encouraged residents not to shop at Home Depot. Menards is in my community, he told the Pioneer Press. I am going to shop at Menards. Over in Escanaba, the roles are reversed. I talk smack about them whatever chance I get, Patrick Jordan, the city manager, says of Menards. Ill drive 50 miles to shop at Home Depot before I spend money at Menards. Climate Science Glossary Term Lookup Enter a term in the search box to find its definition. Settings Use the controls in the far right panel to increase or decrease the number of terms automatically displayed (or to completely turn that feature off). Ex-Defense Ministrys auditor charged with bribery to stay detained for two more months RAPSI, Vladimir Burnov 17:39 08/02/2019 MOSCOW, February 8 (RAPSI) Moscows Savelovsky District Court on Friday extended detention of ex-Director of the Russian Defense Ministrys state contract audit department Maxim Kuksin, who stands charged with taking bribes, RAPSI reports from the courtroom. Kuksin will remain jailed until April 17. According to investigators, Kuksin has received at least 11 million rubles ($165,000) in bribes. He could face up to 15 years if convicted. Kuksin has pleaded not guilty. DES MOINES -- Hand-held use of mobile phones while driving would be illegal under a proposal making its way through the Iowa Capitol. A three-member Iowa Senate panel on Thursday approved the legislation, which builds on the 2017 law that made texting while driving an offense for which police could stop drivers. I think our efforts previously have failed and I think its time for stronger measures, said Iowa Sen. Tim Kapucian, a Republican from Keystone who chairs the Senates transportation committee. I think hands-free is probably the only way were going to solve this issue (of distracted driving), or at least pay more attention to it. There are 16 states that ban hand-held mobile phone use while driving. The number of traffic crashes and deaths caused by drivers who were distracted by the use of a phone or other device dropped slightly in 2017, according to state transportation department data. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} Distracted driver crashes involving phone or device use were down 2 percent, and deaths fell from 13 in 2016 to 10 in 2017. The intent of the Legislature (in 2017) was to send a signal, said Sen. Zach Whiting, a Republican from Spirit Lake. Maybe that signal was not received or heard strongly enough. In the INA contest, Butz was honored for her gripping account of a Sioux City woman's methamphetamine addiction and her road to recovery. In the APME contest, Butz was recognized for her story on the growing number of Northwest Iowa women forced to travel long distances to deliver their babies due to some rural hospitals closing their OB units. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} Journal staff writer Nick Hytrek won first place in the APME's Business News category for his story that examined how grain elevators have improved their safety measures but how some risks remain. Hytrek's story was published in the wake of a deadly grain elevator explosion in South Sioux City. The Journal's coverage of the explosion won third place in the APME's spot news reporting category. Journal reporters Mason Dockter, Bret Hayworth, Hytrek and Richardson contributed to the breaking coverage. Hytrek also won second place in the APME's Continuing News Coverage category for a series of stories on the commissioning of the USS Sioux City. Hytrek and Journal visuals editor Tim Hynds traveled to Annapolis, Maryland for the commissioning ceremony on Nov. 17. The Journal also won second place in three INA categories: Best Front Page, Best Coverage of Business and Best Features page. The latter was for Siouxland Life, a quarterly magazine. SIOUX CITY -- A worker at a downtown Sioux City hotel has pleaded not guilty to making more than $32,000 in fraudulent credit card transactions on hotel guests' credit cards. Sandra Lalumendre, 35, of Sioux City, entered her written plea Friday in Woodbury County District Court to single counts of first-degree theft and credit card fraud. According to court documents, from May 14 to Sept. 8, Lalumendre and Ethan Ehlers, who worked at the front desk of the Howard Johnson hotel, 707 Fourth St., fraudulently overcharged guests' credit cards, then forced a refund through the hotel's computer system onto a personal credit card. An investigation discovered the two split $32,703 in fraudulent refunds. Evidence, such as credit card dispute forms mailed to the hotel, were shredded in order to hide their actions, which were discovered and reported by a co-worker, court documents said. Ehlers, 19, of Sioux City, was arrested in December and has pleaded not guilty to first-degree theft and credit card fraud. Copyright 2019 The Sioux City Journal. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Sign up for our Crime & Courts newsletter Get the latest in local public safety news with this weekly email. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. WEST POINT, Neb. -- An Oakland, Nebraska, woman who gave false information to authorities investigating the death of a Rosalie, Nebraska, man was sentenced Thursday to two years in prison. Jenna Merrill, 32, had pleaded guilty in November in Cuming County District Court to one count of accessory to a felony. District Judge Mark Johnson gave Merrill credit for 451 days already spent in jail prior to her sentencing. He sentenced her to 12 months of post-release supervision once she is released from custody. Once released, Merrill will be required to physically appear at the Cuming County Sheriff's Office every Tuesday morning to report where she is living. Johnson gave her permission to live with her grandmother in Sergeant Bluff. Merrill is the second person sentenced to prison in connection with the March 10, 2017, death of Ernest Warnock. Becky Weitzenkamp, 43, of Oakland, was sentenced in October to 18-20 years in prison on one count of accessory to a felony. She pleaded guilty to buying a can of lighter fluid and then driving Derek Olson to Warnock's house to set it on fire. Dear Doctor: My wife read that a man had his legs amputated after he got an infection from being licked by his dog, and now she's freaking out. She's afraid to even touch our dog anymore, lest it somehow get saliva on her. Please talk some sense into her. Dear Reader: We can understand your wife's initial sense of alarm regarding this story and suspect her reaction has been shared by quite a few others. The idea that just a lick from a beloved family pet can have such dire consequences is indeed disturbing. But before we get to the specifics, we're glad to offer your wife reassurance that what happened in this case is extremely rare. According to news reports, a 48-year-old man from Wisconsin was rushed to the hospital after symptoms similar to the flu -- fever, vomiting, and aches and pains -- quickly escalated. His fever spiked high enough that he became delirious, and bruises suddenly began to appear on his limbs, face and torso. The doctors in Wisconsin fought the infection with antibiotics for a week but were unable to stop its progress. In order to save the man's life, parts of his legs and hands had to be amputated. The man was diagnosed with a rare blood infection caused by the bacterium Capnocytophaga canimorsus, which is found in the saliva of many healthy dogs. Prior to becoming ill, the man had contact with several dogs, including the family pet. Midnight Breakfast Grace United Methodist Church, 1735 Morningside Ave., will be serving a free monthly midnight breakfast Friday from 10:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. Grace welcomes college students and those who walk into the fellowship Hall for food and community. For more information, call Jim Shirbroun at 712-276-3452. Lectures The Siouxland International Messianic Fellowship will sponsor a series of lectures titled "The Writings of the Apostle Paul: Under the Law or Not." All lectures will start at 7 p.m. at the Sioux City Public Library Gleeson Room. Lectures will be Feb. 11: The Law: Our Schoolmaster?; Feb. 25: The Law and Gentiles; March 4: Was Paul Christian?; March 11: The Jerusalem Council; and March 25: In God We Trust. For more information call 712-251-6667. Boy Scout Sunday Grace United Methodist Church, 1735 Morningside Ave., will celebrate Boy Scout Sunday at the 10 a.m. worship Sunday. The church has sponsored a troop for 80 years. The monthly children's activity will follow from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the fellowship hall. Children preschool through fifth grade will enjoy lunch, the movie "Incredibles 2," and snacks. Visitors are welcome. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Russian businessman charged with $9 mln land plot fraud extradited from Italy flickr.com / Vaughan Leiberum 15:04 08/02/2019 MOSCOW, February 8 (RAPSI) - Russian businessman Ilya Sherman charged with land plot fraud estimated at about 570 million rubles (about $9 million) was extradited from Italy on Wednesday, the Prosecutor Generals Office announced on its website. Investigators claim that in 2010 Sherman and his accomplices illegally gained a right for acquisition of land plots in the Moscow Region. Under false pretences, they acquired the ownership of two land plots with a total area of 174.5 sq. m worth over 568 million rubles, the spokesperson of the Prosecutor Generals Office told journalists earlier. Following that, Sherman fled Russia and was put on the international wanted list, according to Kurennoy. In April 2018, the businessman was arrested in Italy, and Russia forwarded a request for his extradition. On January 24, Italian authorities approved Shermans extradition to Russia. Why brands fail on e-commerce and what they can do about it The key is in mastering the basics For most businesses, e-commerce is (and has been for some time now) an indispensable topic for C-level executives, strategists, analysts, agencies and more when it comes to crafting growth plans. Beyond all the incredible, exponential figures about e-commerces size, growth and potential, I would like to share some perspectives that could bridge the gap between vision and success. Note: By definition, Brands refers to (mostly) companies with B2C brands that have an e-commerce business, primarily through e-commerce platforms with an Official Store. These Brands can be selling products from any of these categories: FMCG, Consumer Electronics, Fashion, to name a few. Currently, I lead a team at the tip of the spear where we work closely with Brands to convert the shoppers at the end of their customer journey into delivering the sales (GMV). The rigorous interaction and engagement with Brands have taught us that multiple key factors often cause significant gaps between vision (e.g. We want to grow ten times bigger) and success (e.g. How come we only grew twice?). These can be narrowed down to three most frequently observed factors: 1) Lack of effective organizational set-up optimized for E-Commerce For all the amazing things about Digital Commerce, the realization of success (e.g. convert more shoppers to buy, and shoppers to buy more) still depends largely on People & Teams. Any partnership between Brands and e-commerce platforms cannot succeed by solely depending on the biggest exposure, best tools (e.g. search, store decoration, flash sales, etc) and best deals (e.g. free delivery, heavy discounts, vouchers, etc). It still boils down to the People & Teams (both on Brands and E-Commerce Platforms side) who will work together to strategize, plan, execute and ideally, perform real-time optimizations. However, at most Southeast Asian Brands (particularly in Indonesia), a lack of organisational set-up thats designed optimally for e-commerce is a major impediment to true exponential growth. Story continues The first challenge: some Brands lack an e-commerce team. If the same Brand Key Account Manager (KAM) has to prioritise between three to five offline channels (around 90 per cent of national annual sales) and three to five e-commerce platforms (one to 10 per cent of national annual sales), its clear where the attention, effort and resources will go to. The same goes for the Operations role (to manage online stores & product page front-end operations), Graphics role (to develop visuals for mobile-App-optimized presentation to online shopper) and even Supply Chain roles (to manage On-Time-In-Full (OTIF) stock fulfillment for high availability, either through the Brands own warehouses or a third Party like Distributor or Enabler). It is crucial that Brands have a Head of e-commerce and a KAM specially dedicated for e-commerce. The best brands can even take it further by having dedicated KAM per E-commerce platform to increase agility/speed and minimize conflict of interest. The second challenge: some Brands are either not truly committed to or lacking support from the organization, due to poor cross-functional support. The most typical structural setup is the reporting line between the Head of e-commerce and the Sales Director. While this may make sense on the surface, the reality is the Sales Director would inevitably be incentivized to prioritise bigger offline channels again, decreasing the necessary investment of effort and resources into future-proofing the business through e-commerce. Also, to win in e-commerce, Brands need to have the attention, expertise and insights from multiple functions excellence in sales tactics, marketing and supplying. The best practices we see from exponential-growth Brands to combat these two problems include: having the Head of e-commerce report directly to the CEO in the market or to an N-1, equipping the Head of e-commerce with its autonomous e-commerce budget independent from offline channels, and even designing the budget to be complete. This will increase the speed of decision-making, problem-solving and brainstorming so that Brands grow in a more dynamic, real-time manner. 2) Eagerness to shortcut to the cool, sexy stage before mastering fundamentals All e-commerce practitioners know the following basic theory: To sell successfully, one requires a lot of eyeball-traffic which can be exchanged for product page views that can be converted into GMV/Sales through things like compelling content, product availability, competitive prices, other value-enhancing mechanics and multiple payment options. All while being underpinned by a seamless end-to-end experience (no bugs, no crashes, minimal latency, etc). The real challenge is not being unaware of the theory, but knowing how to execute each of these building blocks with quality output, speed and consistency. Also Read: 15 more awesome startups that will be apart of TOP100 APAC 2019 From my experience, Brands often start most discussions by asking these types of questions for e-commerce planning: Whats the big launch for next year? What are the cool stuff we can do (or do more of)? Whats the latest technology that we can leverage on to do cutting-edge stuff? These types of questions are valid and important, but the problem arises when Brands only focus on these questions and neglect other fundamental questions as a result. Also Read: What we learned from almost failing before an Indonesia break through Exponential-growth Brands always work hard to prioritize mastering the fundamentals before moving on to the cool/sexy/awesome topics. They put a high priority on hygiene factors before anything else. Questions to Brands: Do you have your fundamentals in check? Support from top management to work with Supply Chain and Distributor to ensure that stock fulfilment to consumers is On-Time and In-Full for consistent high product availability. Collaboration with marketing teams, creative agencies and graphics team to ensure that all product shots are of high-quality. The same goes for all the Brands key visuals on the e-commerce platform, within their stores and beyond. Clearing weekly and monthly content and promotional plans to refresh key messages to shoppers. Strong channel management practices and pricing strategies to ensure regular competitive prices while not destroying brand value through over-discounting. Most of all, since e-commerce platforms operate by algorithmic ranking, they need to do all of the above consistently to gain traction for their Brands and SKUs in order to stand out from the millions of products on e-commerce. 3) Not driving enough traffic to the Brands official product page A commonly mentioned analogy that e-commerce practitioners have heard of many times goes like this: Imagine the e-commerce platform as the traditional offline Shopping Mall, and your Brands Official Store is one of the many shops in the mall. While the Mall will invest in bringing in total traffic to the building, the shop needs to do its own advertising within and outside the Mall to bring more of its target shoppers to its doorstep. Most Brands that fail to grow as fast as their expectations often have the misconception that The e-commerce market is growing fast and it has a huge quantity of daily active users (DAU), so there is more than enough traffic to give my brand sustained growth in Page Views. Therefore, why do I need to invest in bringing my own traffic? The thing is, just like the offline Mall, all e-commerce platforms want to grow the number of brands, sellers, assortment and product categories and it is not efficient for the platform to invest in hyper-targeted online traffic thats best-suited for every Product Category and every Brand. So while the DAU continues increasing, it may or may not benefit the specific Brand immediately. This means that, while its easy for Brands to tap on the existing platform DAU at the start to gain a fast uptick in Page Views, it will become increasingly difficult to sustain this trajectory. Brands must also remember that on any platforms, there exists a highly dynamic environment. Every Brand wants to stand out and grow fast, and while one of e-commerces advantage is the so-called infinite shelf-space, one must remember that there are limits to online shoppers attention span. The wisest Brands understand this and invest in driving quality traffic consistently to their Official Stores or Product Pages on the e-commerce platform. They have a good mix of re-targeting high-affinity customers and acquiring new relevant customers traffic strategy. They constantly perform optimizations to continuously improve the quality of the traffic. Plus, they dont simply focus on the quantity but equally devote attention to the quality. Finally, these exponential-growth Brands leverage on both their Paid and Owned Media assets to do an always-on traffic strategy instead of just waiting to only drive traffic during the major campaigns by the e-commerce Platform. In reality, it is definitely not easy to immediately implement the above practices. It requires strong willingness & commitment to shift mindsets and make short-term trade-offs and sacrifices, especially from the top-level decision-makers. But, from experience, it is very much possible, and it takes courageous talents & executives in any Brands to start the ball rolling (& keep it so). Rely not on your euphoric vision, but make it your victorious reality. Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash e27 publishes relevant guest contributions from the community. Share your honest opinions and expert knowledge by submitting your content here. The post Why brands fail on e-commerce and what they can do about it appeared first on e27. The US diplomat leading talks with the Taliban said Friday he hoped to see a peace deal in place before Afghanistan's July presidential elections, though he cautioned he did not trust America's long-time adversary. Zalmay Khalilzad, a former ambassador to Afghanistan who has spoken extensively with the Taliban in recent weeks, also stressed that any US troop withdrawal would be dependent on conditions on the ground, and not on any particular timetable. The talks come as President Donald Trump pushes to end the Afghanistan conflict, where about 14,000 US troops are still deployed and which has seen countless thousands of civilian and military deaths. "The timing of a peace settlement from our point of view is the sooner is better," Khalilzad told an audience at the US Institute of Peace in Washington. "There is an election, I know, that makes reaching a peace agreement particularly complicated. But it will be better for Afghanistan if we could get a peace agreement before the election." Elections in Afghanistan had originally been slated for April 20 but were postponed for three months as peace talks progressed. President Ashraf Ghani, who was elected in a fraud-tainted poll in 2014, is seeking a second term. - 'Red line' - Khalilzad last week announced a "draft framework" for a peace deal, though he warned that major hurdles remain. Critics are skeptical for a number of reasons, primarily because talks have not yet included the Afghan government, which the Taliban considers US-backed puppets. Intra-Afghan negotiations are a "key objective" for the US, Khalilzad said, noting the Taliban and the Afghan government "must sit across the table and come to an agreement." Additionally, the Taliban have promised not to shelter foreign extremists, but experts say they cannot be trusted and even now are helping to hide such militants. Khalilzad repeatedly stressed the US would not leave Afghanistan without enforcement mechanisms in place to ensure Afghanistan does not become a jihadist safe haven. "Our vision long term is for an Afghanistan that's entirely sovereign, independent. If they decide that they don't want to have foreign troops, we don't want to stay where we are not wanted -- provided that there is no threat to our national security from Afghanistan," Khalilzad said. "That is a red line, and I think that's a policy of the (US) president as well." Khalilzad has in recent months held multiple meetings with Taliban officials in Qatar, where the group's senior leaders have an office in the capital Doha. The Taliban told him they realize Afghanistan is different from when they were ousted in 2001 -- when the hardline Islamists subjugated women, barred girls from school and wiped out any number of freedoms. "They understand that they cannot go back" to how things were, the US negotiator said. "We do not trust the words of any of the protagonists," Khalilzad added, noting that US-backed values such as press freedom and women's rights "must be respected." "Nothing is agreed to until everything has been agreed to," he said. - Moscow talks - Taliban leaders this week spent two days in talks in Moscow for an extraordinary summit that saw Afghan political figures from outside the government meeting with former sworn enemies. All parties agreed to support the Doha peace talks with US negotiators that Trump on Tuesday described as "constructive." A statement issued on behalf of all parties also agreed on the complete withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan. But such a move is up to the Americans. Khalilzad on Thursday took to Twitter to deny a Taliban claim that a withdrawal timetable was in place. While the US is not seeking permanent military bases in Afghanistan, "our presence is conditions-based, our withdrawal is conditions-based," he told the Washington audience, speaking with a scratchy voice after "42 hours of talking with the Taliban." He added that he welcomed Moscow's role in talks. "I am not seeking to monopolize the diplomacy of peace," he said, and also offered rare praise to Pakistan, which he credited for helping push the Taliban to the negotiating table. Afghanistan has suffered nearly constant conflict since the Soviet invasion of 1979, which was followed by civil war, the Taliban regime, and the US invasion in late 2001. Khalilzad was a major player in George W. Bush's administration when the United States first invaded Afghanistan after the September 11, 2001 attacks. By Panarat Thepgumpanat and Patpicha Tanakasempipat BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand's King Maha Vajiralongkorn on Friday moved to block his his elder sister's surprise bid to run for prime minister in March, calling her candidacy for a populist opposition party "inappropriate" and unconstitutional. Princess Ubolratana Rajakanya Sirivadhana Barnavadi, 67, stunned the nation when she announced on Friday she would be the sole prime ministerial candidate for the party, which is loyal to ousted ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra, in the March election. Her candidacy instantly threatened to upend the first national ballot since a military coup in 2014 that ousted a government loyal to Thaksin, the figure at the centre of years of political turbulence and rival street protests that have riven Thai society. But her foray into politics looked to be short-lived after the public opposition from King Vajiralongkorn, which is likely to lead to the Election Commission disqualifying her or the princess dropping out of the race. Thailand has been a constitutional monarchy since 1932, but the royal family has wielded great influence and commands the devotion of millions. "Involvement of a high-ranking member of the royal family in politics, in whatever way, is an act that conflicts with the country's traditions, customs, and culture, and therefore considered highly inappropriate," the king said in a statement. The statement was issued by the palace and later read on air by a television announcer. King Vajiralongkorn also cited a provision in the constitution that states the monarch stays above politics and maintains political neutrality. "All royal family members adhere to the same principles ... and cannot take any political office, because it contradicts the intention of the constitution." Friday was the last day for parties to declare candidates. The Election Commission declined to comment when contacted by Reuters late on Friday night, with an official saying its members will hold a meeting on Monday. Story continues The princess's nominating party, Thai Raksa Chart - an offshoot of the larger pro-Thaksin party that was ousted from power in the 2014 coup - could not be reached for comment. Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, who was army chief when he led the 2014 coup and now heads the ruling junta, also announced his candidacy on Friday. Ubolratana, who has starred in Thai soap operas and a movie, relinquished most of her royal titles in 1972 when she married an American, a fellow student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Peter Jensen. She lived in the United States for more than 26 years before they divorced in 1998. She had earlier on Friday thanked her supporters in an Instagram post. "I have accepted the Thai Raksa Chart Party nomination for prime minister to show my rights and freedom without any privileges above other fellow Thai citizens under the constitution," she said. Her Instagram account was silent immediately after the king's statement. Nominating a member of the royal family had seemed a potential game-changer for the Thaksin loyalist parties that have been accused by their enemies of being opposed to the monarchy, charges they have always rejected. Rivalry between the Bangkok-centred, royalist elites and Thaksin and his rural-based supporters has brought street protests, military coups, and violent clashes over almost 15 years. Ubolratana's announcement followed a long period of mourning for King Bhumibol, who died in October 2016, and as her brother establishes himself on the throne in preparation for an official coronation in May. BACK-UP PARTY Thai Raksa Chart is an off-shoot of the main pro-Thaksin Pheu Thai party whose government, led by Thaksin's sister Yingluck Shinawatra, was ousted in the 2014 coup. Thaksin himself was overthrown in a 2006 coup and both he and Yingluck now live in exile. Pheu Thai is also fielding candidates in the election, and Thai Raksa Chart was formed by Thaksin loyalists and the core leadership of the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD), or "red shirts" group, as a strategy to help Pheu Thai win seats, or to act as a back-up if the main party was disqualified. Junta leader Prayuth accepted his nomination from the Palang Pracharat Party, a new party set up by his loyalists, in an official statement. "I am not aiming to extend my power but I am doing this for the benefit of the country and the people," he said. Ubolratana, the eldest child of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, was born in Switzerland in 1951. She studied mathematics and bio-chemistry at MIT and earned a master's degree in public health from the University of California at Los Angeles. She returned permanently to Thailand in 2001, performing royal duties but never regaining her full royal titles. She is referred to as "Tunkramom Ying", which means "Daughter to the Queen Regent", and is treated by officials as a member of the royal family. Her 21-year-old son was killed in the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 while vacationing on a Thai island. (Additional reporting by Panu Wongcha-um and Chayut Setboonsarg. Editing by Robert Birsel and John Stonestreet, William Maclean) By Joan Faus MADRID (Reuters) - The Spanish government approved on Friday a decree to hire 1,735 new public workers to deal with the consequences of Brexit, particularly in the areas of border and customs control. The Socialist government wants the majority of these workers to be hired before March 29 regardless of whether or not Britain reaches an agreement with the bloc on leaving the European Union. "The administration currently has the necessary means to deal with the relations' framework after Britain's exit from the European Union, but has to strengthen the availability of public workers in certain sectors," the Madrid government said in a statement after its weekly meeting. Spain aims to have more workers in airports and ports as well as to strengthen phytosanitary controls on imports and exports, and its assistance to the estimated 300,000 Britons living in the Iberian country, including many retirees. There are also 33,000 residents in Gibraltar, the British outpost on the southern tip of Spain. Gibraltarians, whose economy depends on an open border with Spain, voted overwhelmingly to remain in the EU in Britain's 2016 referendum, but are due to leave the bloc anyway. (Reporting by Joan Faus; editing by Axel Bugge and G Crosse) SINGAPORE (Feb 8): Singapore Post (SingPost) says it will be hiring a hundred more postmen and redeploying 35 mail-drop drivers to become full-time postmen as well as increase the number of dedicated counters and staff at post offices, aside from upgrading the skill-set of its postal workers. It will also carry out a broader salary review with incentives for successful deliveries of trackable items to the doorstep; extending mail delivery slots to weekday evenings and on Saturdays with overtime pay for postmen. It also plans to reduce non-core mail businesses, such as advertisement mail, to focus on raising its service levels for its core mail delivery business. SingPost announced the new initiatives after the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) fined SingPost $100,000 for not meeting quality of service (QoS) standards on delivery of local basic letters and registered mail in 2017. Under the Postal QoS framework, SingPost is required to deliver 99% of local basic letters to an address within the Central Business District (CBD) and 98% of local basic letters to destinations outside the CBD areas by the next working day. IMDA says SingPost failed to do so in May 2017, when it failed to meet the standard of 99% delivery of local basic letters within the CBD by the next working day. SingPost is also expected to deliver all local basic letters and registered mail by the second working day. It also failed to meet the requirements for the delivery of local basic letters by the second working day for the months of January, April, May, October and November 2017, as well as the delivery of registered mail by the second working day for the months of January, September and November that year. Paul Coutts, group chief executive officer of SingPost, apologised for the group's service failures. "These are the first steps currently taken to address our customers' immediate pain points and to rebuild the trust we have lost," he said. "Please bear with us as we look into longer-term measures that address other issues that customers have raised. We will continue to explore harnessing new technology and infrastructure to enhance our delivery process - and most importantly, investing in the welfare of our workforce." Story continues In its Thursday filing, SingPost noted that the growth of e-commerce has boosted package volumes, raising the postman's workload "significantly". Over the last few months, a seasonal period where e-commerce typically tends to surge, each postman carried out 50 to 60 doorstep deliveries daily on average. Aileen Chia, IMDA's deputy chief executive and director-general (telecoms & post), says: "IMDA expects SingPost to deliver reliable public postal services to consumers and businesses, in compliance with its licence obligations. IMDA has been closely monitoring the performance of SingPost's postal services, and will take firm action against SingPost for any breaches of the public postal licence requirements and QoS standards." Chia adds: "The recent service lapses by SingPost indicate gaps in SingPost's processes and we require them to implement measures urgently to meet the public's evolving postal needs." IMDA is currently assessing SingPost's QoS for 2018 and will publish the results by mid-year. Separately, IMDA says it is investigating a Jan 29 incident in which a postman discarded mail, which is an offence under the Postal Services Act. The postman was arrested after unopened letters and packages meant for Ang Mo Kio residents were found in a rubbish bin. Shares in SingPost closed 0.5 cent higher at 96 cents on Thursday. Saudi Arabia's crown prince told a senior aide he would go after Jamal Khashoggi "with a bullet" a year before the dissident journalist was killed inside the kingdom's Istanbul consulate, the New York Times reported Thursday quoting US intelligence. US intelligence understood that Mohammed bin Salman, the country's 33-year-old de facto ruler, was ready to kill the journalist, although he may not have literally meant to shoot him, according to the newspaper. After initially denying any knowledge of Khashoggi's disappearance, the kingdom has acknowledged that a team killed him inside the diplomatic mission but described it as a rogue operation that did not involve the crown prince. The conversation was intercepted by US intelligence agencies, as part of routine efforts by the National Security Agency and other agencies to capture and store the communications of global leaders, including allied ones, The Times said. It was only recently transcribed, however, because of mounting efforts by US intelligence to find more conclusive proof linking the prince to the killing. The conversation took place between Prince Mohammed and an aide, Turki Aldakhil, in September 2017 -- around 13 months before the October 2 killing, the paper said. The prince said that if Khashoggi could not be enticed to return to Saudi Arabia, then he should be brought back by force. If neither of those methods worked, then he would go after Mr. Khashoggi "with a bullet," he said. It came as officials in the kingdom were growing increasingly angry about Khashoggi's criticisms -- and the same month he began writing opinion pieces for The Washington Post. Ex-Russian Railways chief settles defamation dispute with Novaya Gazeta RIA Novosti, Ramil Sitdikov 13:01 08/02/2019 MOSCOW, February 8 (RAPSI) - Ex-chief of Russian Railways Vladimir Yakunin has come to an amicable agreement with Russias Novaya Gazeta in a defamation dispute, the spokesperson of Moscows Basmanny District Court Yunona Tsareva has told RAPSI. The court has approved the agreement of Yakunins lawsuit against the newspaper and journalist Irek Murtazin, the courts representative has said. Thus, Novaya Gazeta must delete and refute information published in one of the articles that became a point for the lawsuit. According to the newspapers spokesperson Nadezhda Prusenkova, Yakunin was dissatisfied with journalists wording in a publication concerning the murder of the Interior Ministry Transport Departments major case investigator Yevgeniya Shishkina. He claimed that phrases written in the article about his son and a fund of his friend are false and discredit him, she said. However, the parties have not settled Yakunins claims concerning another publication of the newspaper. The hearing will continue March 1. Issuing a press statement via her personal Facebook account last night, lawyer and activist Siti Kasim is claiming that an Officer-in-Charge of Criminal Investigations (OCCI) from Selangor state has been on a dedicated campaign to put her behind bars, going as far as giving his name as Fazil. Referring to him as an Islamist who hates [her] guts, she added that police are currently pursuing criminal charges against for an incident that occurred nearly three years ago, where she flipped the middle finger at a crowd of rabble-rousers who out, supporting a PAS forum seeking to strengthen Sharia laws. PRESS STATEMENT THE PERSECUTION OF SITI KASIMToday, 7th Feb 2019, I received a phone call from a very nice Siti Kasim 201927 According to her post, she received a phone call from a a very nice Inspector who informed her of the polices intent to charge her under Section 509 of the Penal Code, pertaining to the use of her flipping the bird with intent to insult the modesty of the crowd of hecklers present. Unbeknownst to her at the time, the entire incident was recorded via mobile phone, and later got posted to social media, where it went viral. Elaborating on OCCI Fadzils alleged role in persecuting her, she writes that sources have revealed to her that he was behind a raid on her home last year that saw her charged with kidnapping, something she calls ridiculous and mind-blowing. At the time, one of her clients, a 24-year-old woman Anis Nur Izzaty Ruslan, had taken shelter at Sitis home, claiming that she had been suffering abuse perpetrated by her mother. Siti Kasim has said that subsequent follow-up investigations by the Enforcement Agency Integrity Commission was unsatisfactory, claiming that her client was still being harassed by religious authorities. Ms. Kasim was later charged with obstructing a pubic official from carrying out their duties during the raid on her home. Story continues Pointing a manicured finger at a cabal of nefarious Islamofascists, Siti says that the Islamists are out to get me, by hook, or by crook. As more conservative, religious powers jockey for a political pole position, Sitis brand of outspoken calls for protecting Malaysians rights have made headlines over the years from the encroachment of Sharia laws, to the persecution of transgender citizens, to the side-lining of the native Orang Asli communities, she is never one to shy away from stating her unfiltered opinions. Now, she is taking aim at the Attorney Generals office, asking how in a new Malaysia, they can allow for such a frivolous charge to take precedent over other more serious matters. What is next? Am I going to disappear like Pastor Koh or Amri Che Mat?, referring to two activists who went missing two years ago, and have not been heard from since. Police say they have no new leads in the cases. This country cannot be allowed to be run by people like Skuad Badar or Islamist Gestapo in uniforms, hiding behind draconian laws that need to be abolished. she concludes. The persecution of citizens who fight for a just and fair Malaysia for ALL Malaysians must end now. Believe me, I will fight this to the very end. Islamofascists are not going to shake me. You are making me stronger. This article, The Islamists are out to get me: Lawyer and activist Siti Kasim makes bold claim against senior Selangor officer, originally appeared on Coconuts, Asia's leading alternative media company. Want more Coconuts? Sign up for our newsletters! BOSTON (AP) A young woman who as a teenager encouraged her boyfriend through dozens of text messages to kill himself is responsible for his suicide, Massachusetts' highest court ruled Wednesday in upholding her involuntary manslaughter conviction. The Supreme Judicial Court said in a unanimous decision in the novel case that Michelle Carter's actions caused Conrad Roy III to die in a truck filled with toxic gas in a deserted parking lot nearly five years ago. "After she convinced him to get back into the carbon monoxide filled truck, she did absolutely nothing to help him: she did not call for help or tell him to get out of the truck as she listened to him choke and die," Justice Scott Kafker wrote. Carter's lawyers said in an email they are disappointed in the ruling and will consider appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court, among other legal options. Carter, now 22, was sentenced to 15 months in jail, but has remained free while she pursues her appeals. "Today's decision stretches the law to assign blame for a tragedy that was not a crime. It has very troubling implications, for free speech, due process, and the exercise of prosecutorial discretion, that should concern us all," said Attorney Daniel Marx, who argued the case before the high court. A spokesman for the Bristol County District Attorney's office said it will file a motion in the coming days asking the trial court to impose Carter's jail sentence now that the state high court has ruled. "This case is a tragedy for all of the people impacted by this case," District Attorney Thomas Quinn III said in a statement. "However, as the court found in two separate decisions, her conduct was wanton and reckless, and caused the death of Conrad Roy," he said. Carter and Roy both lived in Massachusetts but met in Florida in 2012 while both were on vacation with their families. Their relationship consisted mainly of texting and other electronic communications. Both teens struggled with depression. Carter had also been treated for anorexia, and Roy had made earlier suicide attempts. Story continues Carter was 17 when Roy, 18, took his own life in Fairhaven, a town on Massachusetts' south coast in July 2014. Her case raised thorny legal questions about free speech and provided a disturbing look at teenage depression and suicide. "I thought you wanted to do this. The time is right and you're ready just do it babe," Carter wrote in one message. "You're finally going to be happy in heaven. No more pain. It's okay to be scared and it's normal. I mean, you're about to die," she wrote in another. The juvenile court judge who convicted Carter in 2017 said she caused Roy's death when she told him to get back in after he climbed out of his truck as it was filling with carbon monoxide, telling her he was scared. The judge said Carter had a duty to call the police or Roy's family when she knew he was killing himself. Carter's lawyers told the Supreme Judicial Court the only evidence Carter instructed Roy to get back in the truck was a long, rambling text she sent to a friend two months later in which she called Roy's death her fault. They also argued she can't be convicted because of her words alone, noting she wasn't with him when he killed himself and didn't provide him with the means to do it. Her attorney said during the hearing in October that there was no evidence it would have made a difference if she had called for help, arguing she didn't even know where his truck was parked. "We can all see from the text messages that Michelle Carter did not force Conrad Roy to kill himself," Marx said at the time. But the court rejected Carter's argument that she's being punished for protected free speech. The justices said Carter preyed upon Roy's "well-known weaknesses, fears, anxieties and promises" and overcame the "mentally ill, vulnerable" young man's will to live. "We are therefore not punishing words alone, as the defendant claims, but reckless or wanton words causing death," Kafker wrote. ___ Alanna Durkin Richer at http://www.twitter.com/aedurkinricher Wisma Putra (the Ministry of Foreign Affairs) has weighed in on a flag-burning incident that gained widespread social media notoriety after the Filipino man at the center of the desecration posted about it on Facebook. Theyve condemned the burning of our sacred, national symbol, and have called his comments offensive and accusations baseless. Although the incident occurred last month, it picked up online steam over recent days. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. Rewind: Elly Pamatong, a Filipino national, and qualified lawyer, is also the founder and leader of a little known organization called the United States of America Freedom Fighters of the East (USAFFE). You can call him President Pamatong, and hed like to add that hes the legitimate President of the Philippines (sorry, Duterte). Taking the freshly formed Bangsamoro Organic Law to task, where a recently held Congress of the Philippines voted to create an autonomous region in majority Muslim Mindanao area, Pamatong argues that hed instead like a new republic created. In fact, were he to be legitimized, his first executive order would be the creation of the Republic of Bangsamoro, consisting of Sulu island and Malaysias very own Sabah. He added that Malaysian presence on Sabahs soil was nothing more than a continuing invasion. His original post shows the elderly Pamatong surrounded by a band of merry supporters, eagerly watching on as he burns Malaysias flag in protest. Calling on the Philippine government to take stern action, Malaysias foreign office wants to ensure that such incidents dont become a trend, saying it could tarnish the good relations shared by the two countries. Manila has assured Putrajaya that they are looking into the matter. Malaysian social media users havent taken the situation too seriously, with many adding their own comments mocking the Presidents preposterous claims. Story continues Interested in what Pamatong has to say? Intrigued by the USAFFE? Lucky you, hes taking new recruits. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. Described as an anti-Communist paramilitary group, Pamatong has made headlines before: In 2014, he was arrested, accused of sedition. That same year, members of his organization were accused of trying to bomb Manilas international airport. Three years later, he was in trouble with authorities again, after a pistol, bullets, and grenades were all allegedly found in his possession, all lacking permits. There was also a contempt charge thrown in, for staking claim to the Philippine presidency. Still interested? Hit him up on FB by the looks of things, hes very active. This article, Filipino self-styled political President desecrates Malaysian flag, posts about it on FB, originally appeared on Coconuts, Asia's leading alternative media company. Want more Coconuts? Sign up for our newsletters! FILE PHOTO: Venezuelan Colonel Jose Luis Silva, Venezuelas Military Attache at its Washington embassy to the United States, is interviewed by Reuters after announcing that he is defecting from the government of President Nicolas Maduro in Washington FILE PHOTO: Venezuelan Colonel Jose Luis Silva, Venezuelas Military Attache at its Washington embassy to the United States, is interviewed by Reuters after announcing that he is defecting from the government of President Nicolas Maduro in Washington, U.S., January 26, 2019. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo By Luc Cohen, Matt Spetalnick and Roberta Rampton WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is holding direct communications with members of Venezuela's military urging them to abandon President Nicolas Maduro and is also preparing new sanctions aimed at increasing pressure on him, a senior White House official said. The Trump administration expects further military defections from Maduro's side, the official told Reuters in an interview, despite only a few senior officers having done so since opposition leader Juan Guaido declared himself interim president last month, earning the recognition of the United States and dozens of other countries. "We believe these to be those first couple pebbles before we start really seeing bigger rocks rolling down the hill," the official said this week, speaking on condition of anonymity. "We're still having conversations with members of the former Maduro regime, with military members, although those conversations are very, very limited." The official declined to provide details on the discussions or the level at which they are being held, and it was unclear whether such contacts could create cracks in the Venezuelan socialist leader's support from the military, which is pivotal to his grip on power. With the Venezuelan military still apparently loyal to Maduro, a source in Washington close to the opposition expressed doubts whether the Trump administration has laid enough groundwork to spur a wider mutiny in the ranks where many officers are suspected of benefiting from corruption and drug trafficking. Members of the South American country's security forces fear they or their families could be targeted by Maduro if they defect, so the U.S. would need to offer them something that could outweigh those concerns, said Eric Farnsworth, vice president of the Council of the Americas think tank in Washington. "It depends on what they're offering," Farnsworth said. "Are there incentives built into these contacts that will at least cause people to question their loyalty to the regime?" Story continues Guaido says the May 2018 vote in which Maduro won a second term as president was a sham and on Jan. 23 invoked a constitutional provision to declare himself president, promising free and fair elections. VENEZUELAN ASSETS The U.S. government also sees European allies as likely to do more to prevent Maduro from transferring or hiding Venezuela government assets held outside the country, the U.S. official said. Major European countries have joined the United States in backing Guaido but they have stopped short of the sweeping oil sanctions and financial measures that Washington has imposed.[nL5N1ZZ27P] At the same time, the Trump administration is readying further possible sanctions on Venezuela, the official said. Previous rounds have targeted dozens of Venezuelan military and government officials, including Maduro himself, and last month finally hit the OPEC member's vital oil sector. But the administration has stopped short of imposing so-called "secondary" sanctions, which would punish non-U.S. companies for doing business with the Venezuela government or the state oil monopoly PDVSA. The U.S. official said that Washington had every tool available to apply pressure on Maduro and his associates "to accept a legitimate democratic transition." The U.S. government is also weighing possible sanctions on Cuban military and intelligence officials whom it says are helping Maduro remain in power, a second U.S. official and person familiar with the deliberations have told Reuters. [nL2N1XW1J7] Maduro's government has accused Guaido, who has galvanized Venezuela's opposition, of attempting to stage a U.S.-directed coup. General Francisco Yanez of the air force's high command became the first active Venezuelan general to recognise Guaido, but he is one of about 2,000 generals. Venezuela's chief military attache to the United States also said he was defecting late last month. Guaido has actively courted members of the military with promises of amnesty and preferential legal treatment if they disavow Maduro and disobey his orders, and Washington this week raised the prospect of dropping sanctions on senior Venezuelan officers if they recognise Guaido. Maduro still has the support of the military high command, and now routinely appears in pre-recorded events at military bases where officers stand behind him and chant triumphal slogans such as "Loyal always, traitors never." (Reporting By Matt Spetalnick, Luc Cohen and Roberta Rampton; additional reporting by Brian Ellsworth in Caracas; Editing by Mary Milliken and Grant McCool) Indonesia's Mount Merapi, one of the world's most active volcanoes, has spewed a plume of grey ash into the sky as fiery red molten lava streamed down from its crater. Authorities did not raise the rumbling volcano's alert status after the eruption on Thursday evening. But any activity at Merapi raises concern and local residents have previously been ordered to stay outside a five-kilometre (three-mile) no-go zone around the crater near Indonesia's cultural capital Yogyakarta. Its last major eruption in 2010 killed more than 300 people and forced some 280,000 others to evacuate. It was Merapi's most powerful eruption since 1930, which killed some 1,300 people, while another explosion in 1994 took about 60 lives. Across the Southeast Asian archipelago, Mount Karangetang on Sulawesi island also erupted this week with more than a hundred nearby residents ordered to evacuate from the remote site. Indonesia has more than 17,000 islands and islets -- and nearly 130 active volcanoes. It sits on the Pacific "Ring of Fire", a vast zone of geological instability where the collision of tectonic plates causes frequent quakes and major volcanic activity. Albert Lucius talks about OVOs partnership with Grab as well as how he dealt with failures and challenges Albert Lucius, Chief Product Officer, OVO Last week, we encouraged members of our Telegram Group to drop their burning questions for OVO Chief Product Officer Albert Lucius for the revived e27 Ask Me Anything (AMA) feature and he has returned with his answers. Find out what Lucius got to say about the companys partnership with Southeast Asian ride-hailing giant Grab and how they plan to bring greater inclusivity through their work. Will Indonesia become a digital-first market for payments? Should it? Kevin M. Currently, digital adoption for payments in Indonesia is still very low. However it is growing rapidly. Digital payments have many benefits, including [the ability to] onboard more unbanked Indonesians into financial inclusion. Whether Indonesia will become a digital-first market depends on many factors: Infrastructure improvements, regulation, and technology enablement. I personally believe Indonesia is heading into the right direction. Indonesia will benefit greatly from digital payments, especially as a fragmented archipelago with physical infrastructure that is far too challenging for a full blown financial and banking service. What exactly is the greatest challenge in promoting cashless payment in Indonesia, that it only began to take off in 2018? Anisa M. The deeply embedded habit of utilising cash and infrastructure are the key challenges in promoting cashless payment. Having an expansive ecosystem also plays a key role in wider acceptance and adoption of cashless payment in Indonesia. Also Read: [Updated] Tokopedia, OVO team up to offer the payment service on the e-commerce platform What are some of your most memorable failures, and what lessons did you learn from it? Hiro Ive personally had many failures in life and I believe thats part of life. The most important part is that we learned from it. Story continues In the context of building a startup, my most memorable failure was when we put business first ahead of customers. I think the pressure to put business growth ahead is very strong in startup environment, especially due to pressure to grow the business for fundraising. Sometimes, when we are chasing growth, we made business decisions that prioritise short term growth instead of focussing on what the customers really need. Fortunately, we realised this very early on as we have open communication channel with our customers. Were here building products ultimately for the customers, so we have to strive to serve them. When you have customers loving your products and services, they will be your supporters for the long term and bring more customers for you. What is the most unknown and counter-intuitive fact about Southeast Asian startup ecosystem? Arnaud Bonzom The Southeast Asia startup ecosystem changed dramatically in the past five years. I remember when I first started hearing about the large Indonesians unicorns (Tokopedia, Traveloka) back then in 2012. No one saw them as a destination to work for. Then I started Kudo in 2014, we had to literally convince people to move from working in large corporations into joining a startup. Now in 2019, everything couldnt be more further apart. Working at large unicorns is suddenly the cool thing to do. What Im trying to say is that Southeast Asia is a VERY dynamic ecosystem, and it changes very fast. This is not only in terms of people hiring, but also regulation, ecosystem, and competitive landscape. So my tips for any potential founders in Southeast Asia: Dont wait, do it now. That six months of wait could mean the difference between youre the head of the train or youre one of the copycats who are always one step behind. Also Read: Indonesian digital payment services platform OVO appoints new CTO, with focus on growth Whats your long-term vision on how the company will change the way Indonesians, Southeast Asians, or even global citizens live? Julien Condamines OVO aims to be the premiere digital wallet for Indonesians. We will be supporting Indonesians as they go about their days, from the moment they wake up until they fall asleep. We want to break the heavy habit of using cash, allowing more people to be part of the financial inclusion, and supporting, in the long run, Indonesias growth as a digital economy powerhouse. What is the biggest reward from your partnership with Grab? And whats the biggest problem? Patera P. Since partnering with Grab, we have seen incredible growth towards our goal of making digital payments something anyone can use anywhere, anytime: Made cashless payments available for millions of Indonesians for the first time! With OVO on the Grab and Tokopedia platform, OVO is now available on more than 115 million devices Our large, shared user base attracts many businesses including many small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) With acceptance across offline retail, online-to-offline services and online commerce, we have become the most widely accepted payments platform As of December 2018, we have onboarded more than 230.000 SMEs into the cashless movement Finally, OVO has now become the e-wallet with the most use-cases Millions of middle class consumers use OVO now to pay cashless for Grab transport, Grab food delivery as well as offline transactions at small and large merchants, from warung stalls to major malls Our value proposition isnt limited to OVO. As we give Indonesians more reasons to use OVO at more places, Im glad that it also means Grab drivers can earn more, as more people top-up their OVO wallets with Grab drivers. Also Read: How coworking space operator UnionSPACE plan to support fintech startups in Indonesia What are your plans to ensure inclusivity moving forward? Prisca A. OVO currently partners with many organisations focusing on financial inclusivity, such as Kudo and Warung Pintar. Through the reach of their agent network, OVO will be able to reach many Indonesians who are still untapped by technology and financial services. In addition to that, OVO will continue to expand its partnership with notable brands in the technology and retail sphere, as well as strengthening OVO financial services to attract more merchants and customers. Ultimately providing significant contribution to the national financial inclusion rate. More payments players will enter in 2019. Whats OVOs user retention and acquisition strategy other than cashback? It seems like payment players are competing in giving bigger cashback percentage nowadays Richard D. We keep expanding our services based on Indonesian most use cases. We want to be their primary wallet where customers can use OVOs financial services from the moment they wake up until they sleep. In the long run, by enabling consumers to pay cashless for things they usually pay for but in a more convenient, more affordable, and safer method thats what going to make cashless win against cash. Weve seen this trend happening in other countries, such as China. I recently visited China, and everyone is using digital payments to pay and send money around because it is the most convenient thing to do. When paying via digital is easier and more convenient than cash, eventually more and more users will create a snowball effect to move to digital payments. Also Read: Aiming to add 4 new startups, Mandiri Capital Indonesia targets insurtech, investment management sectors There are so many cashless services. Whats OVO doing differently, and is it too idealistic to think that mobile payments can solve financial inclusion challenges? Budi Azwar Our open ecosystem makes it super easy to choose cashless: Our strategy is to build trust and value. We open up our ecosystem and create interoperability with the partners people trust enough to spend their money with: Grab, Tokopedia, Hypermart, Matahari Department Stores, even your favourite cendol and satay stalls. Is it too idealistic? I really dont think so. Financial inclusion is all about opening access to the people to begin with, and then providing a product solution that caters to them. Digital payments have far less barrier to entry compared to a full blown banking solution. Digital payments also dont require the heavy investment of infrastructure such as bank branches; it makes digital payment solutions able to expand more rapidly across the archipelago of Indonesia. Image Credit: OVO The post e27 Ask Me Anything: OVO Chief Product Officer Albert Lucius answers your questions! appeared first on e27. Commercial court refuses to seize $200 mln assets belonging to M Bank ex-managers RAPSI, Vladimir Burnov 12:41 08/02/2019 MOSCOW, February 8 (RAPSI) The Moscow District Commercial Court has upheld a lower courts refusal to seize assets of ex-board chair of Mosstroyeconombank (M Bank) Victoria Fialko worth 12.7 billion rubles ($192.5 million) and $6 million, and other nine ex-managers of the financial organization, according to court records. The Moscow Commercial Court dismissed the Deposit Insurance Agencys lawsuit seeking the asset seizure of M Bank ex-managers on August 22, 2018. An appeals court dismissed a complaint against the ruling on November 19, 2018. M Bank was declared bankrupt in October 2015. Earlier, in July 2015, the Central Bank of Russia revoked the banks license as well as the license of several other bank controlled by businessman Anatoly Motylev including Russian Credit, AMB B and Tulsky Industrialist Motylev living abroad is reportedly a defendant in a case on embezzlement at M Bank. Allegedly, over 1 billion rubles were transferred from the bank to phony companies where they were cashed and stolen. Thai Princess Ubolratana was put forward Friday as a candidate for prime minister in the March elections, the first time a royal has entered frontline politics -- a development the palace later condemned as "highly inappropriate". Her game-changing entrance into Thailand's turbulent political scene -- and the displeasure it stirred from her brother, the king -- layers on complexity into the coming poll, the first since a 2014 coup. So what do Friday's astonishing events mean for Thai politics? How is the junta affected? The moment the princess entered the fray, for the Thai Raksa Chart party, junta chief Prayut Chan-O-Cha looked to be on the ropes. He agreed to be a candidate for premier shortly after her, in a move putting him in direct rivalry with a member of the institution he seized power vowing to defend. But the statement late Friday from the palace condemned the move "to bring" Ubolratana into politics as "highly inappropriate" and "unconstitutional", dimming the prospects of her running. That would put Prayut back in the driver's seat. "She supported Thaksin and wanted to participate in politics," said Paul Chambers, a lecturer at Naresuan University. "He (the king) was against regal involvement in elections." Election Authorities have a week to review which candidates are allowed to stand for prime minister after the March 24 vote. How will this affect Thailand's political divides? The kingdom's political schism is broadly between the Shinawatra-aligned rural poor and the Bangkok-based elite, and has resulted in rounds of deadly street protests and two coups since 2006. For the princess, coming out on the side of the Shinawatras will further complicate Thailand's troubled politics, said Pavin Chachavalpongpun, associate professor at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at Kyoto University. "Thai politics has been drawn along the monarchy fault line and the latest move has further deepened that line." The palace statement did not directly criticise the princess but seemed to take aim at the political party bringing her on board, a move described as "against royal traditions and the nation's culture". Thailand has been a constitutional monarchy since 1932. Some initially viewed Ubolratana's entry as deft political strategy by Thaksin and a sign of a backroom deal to revive his political fortunes. But the palace statement casts serious doubt on the efficacy of Thaksin's strategy. Does the princess have a background in politics? Her experience is limited, but the Shinawatras have a deep pool of political know-how. Thaksin and his sister Yingluck were both ousted in military coups, in 2006 and 2014 respectively. Still, their parties have won every election since 2001. Ubolratana is well-known among the Thai public, having appeared in movies, stage performances and maintaining an active, vibrant social media presence. "I feel great. And I think she's a suitable choice," Thai homemaker Nirinsiri Chanboriboon, 41, told AFP after the announcement of her candidacy earlier Friday. But she is still untested politically and Thai social media was full of scepticism over the move -- with many unsure what to make of it. The monarchy is revered in Thailand, and is protected by some of the harshest lese majeste laws in the world. Chinese billionaire Huang Xiangmo slams lies and prejudice behind stripping of his Australian residency over political links Chinese property tycoon Huang Xiangmo, whose permanent residency in Australia has been cancelled by officials there, said on Friday that scrutiny of his prolific political donations in Australia and positions at pro-Beijing organisations was prejudiced and groundless. In his first statement since his residency was revoked, Huang proposed that Australian politicians return his donations to instead be given to charity, and argued the organisations he headed were in line with Canberras political stances on China. It is profoundly disappointing to be treated in such a grotesquely unfair manner, he said, calling the accusations against him baseless allegations and sheer lies. The decision of visa cancellation was made based on unfounded speculations that are prejudiced and groundless. This is not the Australia that I believe in the Australia of freedom, democracy, rule of law and fairness but I keep my faith in law and justice. Huang said he was now living a peaceful and happy life in Hong Kong where he is believed to have permanent residency and was focusing on his investments in the city and others in Thailand, the United States and Britain. Hong Kong Companies Registry records show Huang was once a director of China Resources Recycle Investment Ltd and Pan Tian Investment Company Ltd, both of which were dissolved. As one of Australias top political donors, Huang maintained close ties with many politicians, including funding a Sydney think tank headed by former foreign minister Bob Carr. His political involvement also led to the high-profile downfall of former Labor senator Sam Dastyari, who had his personal legal bills paid by Huang and later appeared at a press conference alongside Huang to echo support for Beijings position in the South China Sea, contradicting Labors policy. The Huang case has highlighted growing suspicion in Australia of Communist Party influence on its domestic politics. Sweeping laws on foreign interference in Australian politics were passed last year. Story continues Huang said on Friday that his donations had been lawful and made at the request of the recipient parties, adding that he had stopped all political donations as of July 1, 2016. The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), the countrys main spy agency, ordered the cancellation of Huangs residency because it found he was amenable to conducting acts of foreign interference and in the past had shown a willingness to do so, the Australian Financial Review reported on Thursday. In particular, the ASIO cited Huangs financial and family connections in his native China, and leadership positions in Chinese organisations with suspected links to Beijing. Huangs long-delayed application for Australian citizenship was also denied, including on character grounds, according to The Sydney Morning Herald. The Chinese billionaire is the chairman of the Oceanic Alliance of Promotion of the Peaceful Reunification of China (OAPPRC) and former chairman of the Australian Council for the Promotion of the Peaceful Reunification of China (ACPPRC), both of which advocate the peaceful unification of mainland China and the self-ruled island of Taiwan. Those groups have been cited by scholars as being part of the United Front Work Department, an arm of the Chinese government that seeks to promote Chinese foreign policy objectives abroad through the Chinese diaspora. But Huang said in his Friday statement that both groups followed the Australian governments political position regarding the one-China policy that recognises Beijings position on Taiwan. If I am penalised for promoting the peaceful reunification of China, such penalty is against Australias own diplomatic position and international commitment as well as Australias fundamental principles of cultural diversity and freedom of speech, he said. OAPPRC and ACPPRC are neither affiliated with nor funded by any foreign governments. No Australian government agency, including ASIO, has ever raised any objections in this regard. Huang said his connections in China were common and normal in the age of globalisation. It will be outright ridiculous to suspect that they are therefore amenable to being manipulated by a certain foreign government, he said. Huang said he no longer held any position or shares at the company he founded in Australia after migrating there in 2011, Yuhu Group Australia, which confirmed he was no longer involved. With his wife and son still living in his Sydney mansion, Huang said he will visit Australia at the appropriate time with the suitable identification. Additional reporting by Kinling Lo This article Chinese billionaire Huang Xiangmo slams lies and prejudice behind stripping of his Australian residency over political links first appeared on South China Morning Post For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2019. Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks during the opening session of the Lima Group meeting in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, February 4, 2019. REUTERS/Chris Wattie By Julie Gordon and Tyler Choi OTTAWA/TORONTO (Reuters) - Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Thursday denied a newspaper report that his office had tried to pressure the former justice minister to intervene in the prosecution of engineering and construction firm SNC-Lavalin Group. "The allegations reported in the story are false," Trudeau told reporters in Toronto. "At no point did we direct the attorney general, current or previous, to take any decision whatsoever in this matter." The Globe and Mail, citing unnamed sources, said Trudeau's office had pressed then-Justice Minister and Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould to intervene in a corruption and fraud case against SNC-Lavalin, but she had refused to ask prosecutors to make a deal with the company to avoid a costly trial. Wilson-Raybould was unexpectedly shuffled out of her role last month and given the more junior post of veterans' affairs minister. The same day she issued a statement saying the justice system must be "free from even the perception of political interference." The matter could become a problem for Trudeau, who faces a tight race against the official opposition Conservatives in an election this October. Conservative Party leader Andrew Scheer said the allegations were "very serious". Reuters has not independently verified the claims. Wilson-Raybould declined to comment on the Globe's story. SNC also declined to comment. Montreal-based SNC-Lavalin is facing fraud and corruption charges related to allegations that former executives paid bribes to win contracts in Libya under Muammar Gaddafi's regime, which fell in 2011. (https://www.reuters.com/article/snc-lavalin-corruption-idUSL1N0VT17R20150219) SNC has argued it should be allowed to avoid a trial because the executives accused of wrongdoing have left the company and it has overhauled ethics and compliance systems. Nathan Cullen, a legislator from the opposition New Democrats, noted SNC-Lavalin admitted in 2016 that some former executives had illegally arranged donations of more than C$80,000 to the Liberals from 2004 to 2011. "SNC-Lavalin was rewarded when they faced corruption and fraud charges. The Liberals leaned on their own justice minister not to go to trial but get a plea deal," he said in the House of Commons. (Reporting by Julie Gordon in Ottawa,; Tyler Choi and Allison Martell in Toronto and Allison Lampert in Montreal; Editing by James Dalgleish) China has been accused of sending a fleet of almost 100 ships to hamper Philippine construction work on a disputed island in the South China Sea. Beijing started sending vessels to Thitu, part of the Spratly chain, according to the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI) run by the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies. The fleet of ships, dispatched from the nearby Subi Reef, includes vessels from the navy and coastguard along with dozens of fishing boats. The report said their presence was part of an effort to coerce the Philippines into stopping the work on the island, which China also claims as its own. Satellite images showed that a Chinese navy Jianghu V-class frigate and Zhaoduan-class coastguard cutter were off Thitu on December 20, when the number of Chinese vessels had peaked at 95. The report said the Chinese warship was just over seven nautical miles away from the Philippine navys frigate, the BRP Ramon Alcaraz, at the time. The Philippine government announced in April 2017 that it would start building a beaching ramp on Thitu, which is known as Pagasa in the Philippines and Zhongye island in Chinese. Once completed, the beaching ramp will allow Philippine ships to bring construction materials to repair and lengthen the runway on the island to accommodate larger aircraft. The work should have been finished by the end of last year, but Philippine officials said it had been delayed by inclement weather and rough seas. But the AMTI suggested that Chinas activities had also contributed to the delay. The Philippine Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana told the Philippine Daily Inquirer on Monday that the ramp was now expected to be finished by the first quarter of this year. The problem with Pagasa is that you have to bring in everything you need for its repair steel bars, sand, gravel, heavy equipment, Lorenzana said. Story continues You need a beaching ramp to bring these in So I believe it should be finished by the first quarter of this year, this beaching ramp. Lorenzana also said his country should protest against Beijings decision to build a rescue centre on Fiery Cross Reef, a Chinese-occupied outpost in the Spratly chain that is also claimed by the Philippines and Vietnam. Citing satellite images, the AMTI said the number of Chinese ships in the area had risen to at least 24 on December 3, before the latest construction work began, and had risen to 95 on December 25. The number had dropped to 42 by January 26. Lorenzana said in November that Chinas ambassador to the Philippines had previously urged him to cancel the planned work. But the drop in the number of Chinese vessels suggests Chinese forces have settled into a pattern of monitoring and intimidation after their initial large deployment failed to convince Manila to halt construction, the AMTI said. But those plans continue to face delays and their scope is much more modest than those undertaken by China or even Vietnam, the report said. Once completed, the Philippines will have reclaimed eight acres of land in the Spratlys in recent years, compared with about 120 acres by Vietnam and 3,200 by China, it added. This article Beijing sends fleet of ships to disputed South China Sea island to stop Philippines building facilities first appeared on South China Morning Post For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2019. More from South China Morning Post: Bangladesh security forces stopped 30 Rohingya refugees from being smuggled to Malaysia by boat, officials said Friday, as fears rise that calmer seas may tempt those living in squalid camps to make the journey to Southeast Asia. Two suspected human traffickers were detained in the operation by Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) forces in Cox's Bazar district late Thursday, the officials said. About 740,000 Rohingya fled Myanmar for Bangladesh following a military clampdown in August 2017. They joined about 300,000 of the Muslim minority already in the country where they are largely confined to camps, which have strained Bangladesh's resources to the limit. The 17 women, six children and seven men were detained on a beach near the coastal town of Teknaf, which borders Myanmar's violence-wracked Rakine state, the BGB said. It is the third time since November that Rohingya have been intercepted while attempting to reach the more prosperous and Muslim-majority Malaysia by boat. Some boats have also been intercepted trying to leave Myanmar. Lieutenant Colonel Asadud Zaman Chowdhury told AFP the 30 Rohingya were lured by human traffickers operating in refugee camps in Cox's Bazar. He said the Rohingya, who had paid about $1,000 each for "safe passage" to Malaysia, would be sent back to the camps. One of the women in the group said she was going to Malaysia "to get married" to a Rohingya man she had never met. "My uncle set me up for the journey and paid for the trip. My husband to be was meant to meet me once I reached Malaysia," she told AFP, refusing to give her name. There are fears that with improving weather more Rohingya may be tempted by traffickers to leave the Bangladesh camps and make the dangerous boat journey to Malaysia. People smugglers sent tens of thousands of Rohingya from the camps to Malaysia before Bangladesh launched a crackdown in 2015. This came after Thai authorities discovered mass graves of refugees and overcrowded boats were intercepted at sea. The Bay of Bengal -- which the boats must cross on their way to Malaysia -- is calmer between November and March. But many of the small boats are critically overcrowded by the owners seeking to make more money. The Singapore-based company raises the round from Singapores Wavemaker Partners Musiio, an AI-based digital music discovery and creation platform, has secured US$1 million seed round from Singapores Wavemaker Partners. Joining the round is Exponential Creativity Ventures from U.S. and angels, as reported by Techcrunch. Musiio focusses on reducing inefficiencies in music curation using artificial intelligence that augments the human curators work. The purpose is to give those who lack the time to scour Spotify the opportunity to automate or partially automate the music search process. Also Read: These are the five startups joining Phandeeyar Accelerator third batch This would be the second deal Musiio secured but the first that is out of its Entrepreneur First (EF) program. The first one was done April 2018 and was worth US$57,000 courtesy of EF. The seven-person operation was founded when Musiio CEO Hazel Savage, whos a former streaming executive, met CTO Aron Pettersson in the Entrepreneur First program in Singapore. Musiios clients include Free Music Archive (FMA), the public music site by independent U.S. radio station WFMU. With FMA, Musiio worked on developing a playlist that raised the profile of a number of songs that had been buried deep in the catalog, allowing fair chances for a track to get more number of plays. Also Read: IOT-based bike-sharing service GOWES launched in Semarang, Indonesia Were expecting two or three commercial announcements as were working with streaming companies and sync companies for now,Savage said. Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash The post AI-based digital music discovery platform Musiio secures US$1M seed round appeared first on e27. Belgium's biggest carrier Brussels Airlines said it had cancelled all of its flights out of the Belgian capital on Wednesday due to a national strike. Brussels Airlines is "eliminating its entire 222-flight schedule. The travel itineraries of more than 16,000 passengers are impacted," the Lufthansa subsidiary said in a statement on Friday. Flights from German carrier TUI fly will also be diverted out of Belgium to airports in neighbouring France and the Netherlands, the company told the Belga news agency. Unions warned De Morgen newspaper that all commercial flights may be forced out of Belgian airspace Wednesday if air traffic controllers joined the action. Several Belgian unions are demanding salary hikes for all sectors of the economy, with the whole country expected to be at a standstill on Wednesday. Brussels, home to NATO, will be hosting a defence ministers meeting that day, with officials from throughout the transatlantic military alliance converging on the city. arp/dc/jh Feb 8 (Reuters) - Axiata Group Bhd: * AXIATA- UPDATES ON WRIT PETITIONS BY NCELL, REYNOLDS AND TWO PILS ON CAPITAL GAINS TAX CLAIM FOLLOWING COMPLETION OF SALE OF REYNOLDS TO UNIT * CLARIFIES NONE OF AXIATA PARTIES TO LITIGATION RECEIVED JUDGMENT & ORDER OF SUPREME COURT OF NEPAL FOLLOWING ITS RULING Source text: bit.ly/2SksDMf Further company coverage: Another review of the bad mess surrounding the "good time" fix in the FIRST STEP Act | Main | Notable new paper on "Race and Prosecution" February 7, 2019 US Supreme Court, voting 5-4, vacates Eleventh Circuit stay of execution in Alabama for Muslim death row prisoner The Supreme Court this evening, voting 5-4 along usual ideological lines, vacated the stay of execution entered yesterday by the Eleventh Circuit to allow the court to hear an Alabama death row defendant's religious liberty claims concerning who could be present at his execution. The opinion of the majority of the court runs these two paragraphs: The application to vacate the stay of execution of sentence of death entered by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit on February 6, 2019, presented to JUSTICE THOMAS and by him referred to the Court, is granted. On November 6, 2018, the State scheduled Domineque Rays execution date for February 7, 2019. Because Ray waited until January 28, 2019 to seek relief, we grant the States application to vacate the stay entered by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. See Gomez v. United States Dist. Court for Northern Dist. of Cal., 503 U.S. 653, 654 (1992) (per curiam) (A court may consider the last-minute nature of an application to stay execution in deciding whether to grant equitable relief.). A two-page dissent, authored by Justice Kagan, and Joined by Justices Ginsburg, Breyer and Sotomayor, gets started and ends this way: Holman Correctional Facility, the Alabama prison where Domineque Ray will be executed tonight, regularly allows a Christian chaplain to be present in the execution chamber. But Ray is Muslim. And the prison refused his request to have an imam attend him in the last moments of his life. Yesterday, the Eleventh Circuit concluded that there was a substantial likelihood that the prisons policy violates the First Amendments Establishment Clause, and stayed Rays execution so it could consider his claim on its merits. Today, this Court reverses that decision as an abuse of discretion and permits Mr. Rays execution to go forward. Given the gravity of the issue presented here, I think that decision profoundly wrong.... This Court is ordinarily reluctant to interfere with the substantial discretion Courts of Appeals have to issue stays when needed. See, e.g., Dugger v. Johnson, 485 U.S. 945, 947 (1988) (OConnor, J., joined by Rehnquist, C. J., dissenting). Here, Ray has put forward a powerful claim that his religious rights will be violated at the moment the State puts him to death. The Eleventh Circuit wanted to hear that claim in full. Instead, this Court short-circuits that ordinary process and itself rejects the claim with little briefing and no argument just so the State can meet its preferred execution date. I respectfully dissent. Prior related posts: February 7, 2019 at 09:43 PM | Permalink Comments This is going to be far from the Court's reasoning. But as a lay person, I wonder if Ray inquired about Tiffany Harville's religious belief as to the appropriateness of being raped and murdered, and whether or not he allowed her a spiritual advisor at her murder. Additionally I am sick and tired of the fact that it takes so long to carry out executions. This murder happened in 1995. On top of all that, I see in the news he was convicted of a separate double murder. Again this likely wouldn't weigh much in his appeals, but as a lay person, that's an additional reason to execute him sooner rather than later. Posted by: William Jockusch | Feb 8, 2019 7:27:24 AM I just want to add -- IMO the focus of the capital appeals process should be the defendant's actual guilt or innocence. That's something lower courts can and do get wrong. The defendant ought to be allowed to appeal on this issue, and a convincing argument that the defendant didn't do it, or even might not have done it, should be a reason to call off the execution, regardless of procedural hurdles. Posted by: William Jockusch | Feb 8, 2019 7:39:53 AM if this dude had been Christian and the prison only offered him an imam I bet the outcome would have been different. Posted by: hgd | Feb 8, 2019 12:37:54 PM Post a comment US Supreme Court, voting 5-4, vacates Eleventh Circuit stay of execution in Alabama for Muslim death row prisoner | Main | Michigan Attorney General files amicus briefs in state Supreme Court supporting challenges to state's sex offender registry February 8, 2019 Notable new paper on "Race and Prosecution" For (too) many years, the work of prosecutors tended to go under-discussed and under-studied in criminal justice reform circles. But in recent years, lots and lots of folks are giving lots and lots more attention to the work of prosecutors. As but one example, the John Jay College of Criminal Justice's Institute for Innovation in Prosecution has a notable new publication from its Executive Session on Reimagining the Role of the Prosecutor in the Community. This new paper, titled simply "Race and Prosecution," is authored by Angela J. Davis, John Chisholm, and David Noble. It gets started this way: The long-standing inequities in the American criminal justice system and society as a whole cannot be blamed solely on prosecutors. However, prosecutors do not operate in a temporal vacuum. Every action that a prosecutors office takes is colored by this countrys historical record of oppressing racial minorities. In its present state the justice system both reflects and exacerbates our societal ills. Prosecutors seeking to address systemic disproportionality and disparity must first come to appreciate how these phenomena came to be. This paper aims to unearth the roots of racial inequality in the United States, discuss how those roots produced racial disparities in the criminal justice system, and provide guidance on how the prosecutors office can transform those disparities into positive change in policy and practice. February 8, 2019 at 11:52 AM | Permalink Comments Post a comment " " Wikimedia Commons/ Wellcome Images Bezoar stones are found in the stomachs and intestines of animals and humans. The stone on the right is 1.77 inches (45 mm) in diameter. The one on the left is from a camel. Remember how Professor Snape explained what a bezoar was in the first Harry Potter movie? A stone from the stomach of a goat that will save a person from most poisons. True enough in that magical realm. What about here in the Muggle world? Snape had it partly right. A bezoar is a lump of hardened, undigested material found in the gastrointestinal tract of deer, antelope, goats, oxen and llamas. It forms when layers of calcium and magnesium phosphate build up around a small bit of plant fiber or a pebble. Stomach contractions squeeze and smooth it into a roughly round shape. Advertisement " " An artificially manufactured version of an Indian goa stone with its case. Wikimedia Commons/ Wellcome Images "Bezoar" comes from pad-zahr, a Persian word that means antidote. These rocklike objects were found in sacrificed animals and believed to be a universal cure for poison as well as leprosy, measles, cholera and depression. A bezoar could be worn as a charm, ground into a powder and consumed or dropped into a drink suspected to contain poison. Arabian doctors had been using bezoars since the 8th century, and brought them into western medicine in the 12th century as an antidote to arsenic, a favorite poison used to assassinate European nobles. By the 16th century, use of bezoars was widespread among the very rich they were valued at 10 times their weight in gold. Queen Elizabeth I even had a bezoar set in a silver ring. People who couldn't get a real bezoar could opt for a knockoff. Jesuit priests in Goa, India formed shells, silt, amber, resin and sometimes bits of actual bezoars and crushed gemstones into hardened balls called Goa stones. These were also believed to counteract poison and cure the plague and were fabulously expensive. In 1575, French surgeon Ambroise Pare carried out an experiment to debunk the curative powers of bezoars. A cook in Pare's house was caught stealing silver and sentenced to be hanged. Pare struck a deal: If the cook agreed to be poisoned, he would be given bezoar immediately. If he lived, he could go free. Unfortunately, the cook died in horrible pain hours later, and Pare had his proof. Now That's Interesting Bezoars are found in humans, too, the most common being trichobezoars made mostly of hair. Rapunzel syndrome is a rare form of trichobezoar that extends from the stomach into the small intestine, like Rapunzel's long tresses trailing down the wall of the tower she was imprisoned in. About eight months ago, former British foreign secretary Boris Johnson went overboard during a diplomatic gathering and used the expletive f..k business to express skepticism over anti-Brexiteers fears that the countrys economy would suffer after it exited the 28-nation bloc without an EU deal. The hardliner pro-Brexit crusader resigned shortly after, but might still have to eat his words with the impact of Brexit on Londons vibrant financial sector now beginning to be acutely felt. A UBS Group AG unit has just won judiciary approval to relocate some of its businesses offshore, becoming the latest multinational to join the ranks of businesses clamoring to pull the plug on their UK operations. The Swiss bank has cited external shocks resulting from Britains exit from the EU and not the usual internal rationalization or commercial advantage on its way to convincing Judge Alastair Norris in London to allow it to shift assets valued at more than 32 billion euros ($36.5 billion) to Germany. UBS goal is to keep its operations going amid the uncertainty about a post-Brexit future, including the nagging question of the fate of passporting of rights, which currently allow any financial company within the bloc to market its products and services in any EU country without having to establish a physical branch there. The banks lawyers had applied for the shift citing fears that the company faced a real and immediate risk of losing its right to conduct some operations within the EU. Hordes more planning to move With Brexit just weeks away, UBS has become the latest bank to seek legal redress for permission to leave the country. UBS will not be going the whole hog though by completely exiting the UK but rather plans to leave some critical operations, including equity trading, at its London offices. Nevertheless, the company plans to relocate high profile businesses such as forex trading and credit as well as corporate client solutions that cover finance, lending, leveraged capital markets, equity capital markets and M&A markets to offshore locations. Related: Return Of The Government Shutdown May Be Inevitable The company says it has diligently assessed the impact of its decisions and found that the benefits outweigh the exigencies of shifting to a new location. The move could happen just a month after Brexits deadline on March 31. Dramatic as it might seem, UBS will merely become a statistic as thousands more plan to take flight after the landmark event. As per The Guardian, a survey of 1,200 firms by the Institute of Directors (IoD) has disclosed that nearly a third of UK businesses plan to relocate their operations to other countries in the event of a no-deal Brexit. And, this is not merely empty rhetoric11 percent have already set up overseas operations as a no-deal Brexit appears like a real possibility amidst a Westminster gridlock. The IoD represents 30,000 firms. (Click to enlarge) Source: The Guardian Large multinationals like Sony and Panasonic have already relocated their UK operations to other countries. According to the IoD, theres a surge of smaller firms that have activated their post-Brexit plans over the past weeks. Worst year since the financial crisis The countrys biggest bank has fired a warning--exiting the bloc sans a proper deal would be economic suicide. The Bank of England has said the country faces the weakest growth in the post-financial crisis era that could even descend into a recession in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Related: Greed Is Ruling The Markets Once Again All is not lost though. The resilience of the Sterling Pound this year after last years massacre suggests that the market believes that a no-deal Brexit can still be avoided. (Click to enlarge) Source: X-Rates As UBS has declared, its decision to exit the country could be deferred if the English unit becomes convinced that suitable arrangements have been made between the UK and the EU before Brexit. Hopefully, many other UK companies feel the same way, too. By Alex Kimani for Safehaven.com More Top Reads From Safehaven.com: A blinding snowstorm in Minnepolis has postponed preliminary activities at the Race to the Sky dogsled race in Lincoln. Race secretary Pam Beckstrom said the 300-mile race veterinary check scheduled for 1-3 p.m. Friday has been postponed until Saturday at the Hi-Country Snack Foods two miles west of Lincoln. Due to a blinding snowstorm in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the Race to the Sky veterinarians wont arrive at the Race to the Sky until after the 300 mile vet check will end, Beckstrom said in a post Thursday evening. Snow in Minneapolis has backed up flights as far as Ohio, which is where several Race to the Sky veterinarians would be coming from. They are scheduled to arrive in Helena, Montana, sometime mid-afternoon on Friday. Beckstrom said the pre-race banquet is still on for Friday at 6 p.m. at the Lincoln Community Hall. Everyone is invited to the free enchilada dinner and to meet the mushers. The vet check, to which the public is invited, will start at 10 a.m. Saturday, followed by the vet check for the 100-mile mushers. The official start of both the 300 and 100-mile races follows at 2 p.m. For updates throughout the race and to follow the teams on GPS, go to racetothesky.org. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Then President Grover Cleveland was not supportive of the rebels. He sent a new U.S. minister to Hawaii to restore Queen Liliuokalani to the throne under the 1887 constitution. However, Dole refused to step aside and instead proclaimed the Republic of Hawaii. Cleveland then appointed James Blount as special commissioner to investigate the situation. Blounts report not only concluded that the United States Hawaiian diplomatic delegation, along with United States Marines and Navy, were directly responsible for the illegal overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii government, but that the United States government violated international laws and the sovereignty of the Hawaiian Kingdom. Even with this report in hand, Cleveland decided to take no action because he did not wish to pit the U.S. military against U.S. citizens. During the Spanish-American War, the United States decided to unilaterally take the Hawaiian Islands by enacting a Congressional resolution in 1898. This resolution allowed America to utilize the Hawaiian Islands as a military base to fight the Spanish in Guam and the Philippines. In 1900, Hawaii was organized into a formal U.S. territory and 59 years later, Hawaii along with Alaska, become 49th and 50th states admitted to the union. So, was Hawaii stolen by the United States. Under international understandings in effect at that time, it was not unusual for a larger country to take control of a smaller country. The only other powers in the Pacific at the time Japan and Great Britain gave their tacit approval of the U.S.s annexation of Hawaii, Britain because it had done its own "annexations" many times in its past and Japan because it had aims of doing the same in the future. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Eight venues will be participating in this month's Culture Crawl in downtown Hamilton, 5-8 p.m., on Feb. 8. The New Year brings a wonderful array of fine arts and events to enjoy. You can pick up a punch card at any of the venues below, then visit five locations and turn your card in for a chance to win a $50 gift certificate from Clay Works. Art Focus, located at 215 Main St., will be celebrating new store owner and manager Michelle Biggins. She was born and raised here, spent eight years in Bozeman, finishing a degree in business management at Montana State University, worked at Big Sky Resort in information technology and is excited to be back in the beautiful Bitterroot Valley. She is very excited to start a new chapter with Art Focus, taking an ownership/management role. She has been active in the local community from an early age with a musical background (playing cello) and has been involved in a number of local music ensembles. She is grateful to have the chance to give back to the community and keep the love of art and music alive in our community. Come by Art Focus, meet Biggins and welcome her to the Hamilton Arts community. The 2019 Fly Fishing Film Tour will come to Rapid City on Feb. 13, and it will feature the sport in South Dakota. The event will start at 7 p.m. at the Elks Theatre, 512 Sixth St. in Rapid City. Doors will open at 6:30 p.m. Advance tickets are $15 at Dakota Angler and Outfitter, 513 Seventh St. in Rapid City, and $17 at elkstheatre.com. One of the films to be presented on the tour is Hank Pattersons Around the World Globe, which was filmed in the Black Hills and focuses on local residents and mining for trout, according to a press release. Other locations that will be featured include Australia, British Columbia, Alaska, Florida, and French Polynesia. There also will be prizes and a raffle during the evening. For more information, go to flyfilmtour.com, call Dakota Angler and Outfitter at 341-2450, or email to flyfish@rapidnet.com. You must be logged in to react. Click any reaction to login. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 The above organizations are recognized by Queens Crap as being beneficial to the city as a whole, by fighting to preserve the history and character of our neighborhoods. They are not connected to this website and the opinions presented here do not necessarily represent the positions of these organizations.The comments left by posters to this site do not necessarily represent the views of the blogger or webmaster.Street or satellite shots used here are from Google Maps or Windows Live Local Nature strip parking fines withdrawn after protest Fines for nature strip parking have been withdrawn after more than 60 people attended a protest on February 6 in Rothwell St, Woy Woy, which saw the intervention of Member for Gosford Ms Liesl Tesch. Ms Tesch announced that fines had been withdrawn after she contacted the Minister for Police Mr Troy Grant and NSW Police. "I spoke to local police commanders the day that fines started arriving and asked them to act fast to fix this situation and that a three week review period wasn't acceptable. "It needed to happen immediately," Ms Tesch said. Ms Tesch thanked the police for their quick work in responding community concern. "I thank the NSW Police Force for seeing the light and making the right decision to withdraw these unfair fines." Protest organiser Mr Iain Russell, who lives in Rothwell St, received two fines of $263 each for two family cars parked on the grass verge outside his home. "I saw a highway patrol vehicle drive along the street, stopping and photographing every car parked on the verge," he said. "From what I understand, he targeted as many as 15 streets in the Woy Woy-Umina area - anyone parked on the nature strip received a fine." Ms Tesch told the crowd she would be acting on their behalf to have every fine revoked. "Let's not turn this into a 'we hate the police thing'," she said. "We live in harmony in this community and have been parking like this for 150 years. "From what I understand, this was not our local police, but a highway patrol officer who issued the fines. "One person I know of received four fines. "Lucky for me I was at work - if I had been home I probably would have been fined too." Tesch urged all those who had received fines not to pay them but to lodge them with her office. Roseanne Antonio lives in Walford St and received two fines. "We had two family cars parked on the grass outside our home, but there are often four. "Luckily two of them were not there," she said. "I have lived here for 20 years and am a ratepayer and these fines just sickened me. "We have parked this way for years with no problem. "I am a single mum, just getting through week by week." Richard Shanks lives in Crown Rd and received three fines. "We received fines for my car, my wife's car and my son's car," he said. "I am a pensioner and I simply can't afford this." Residents made the point that if homeowners parked beside what would be the kerb (most do not have kerbs), there would be hardly any room for traffic to move between parked cars on opposite sides of the very narrow streets. In a media release, Ms Tesch said hundreds of local residents had been issued hefty penalty notices for parking on nature strips outside their own homes. Fines were issued for "Stop on path/strip in built-up area. "Streets across Woy Woy and Umina Beach were targeted. "Some families have been hit with thousands of dollars' worth of fines because of the number of vehicles parked outside their homes, with one family receiving notices for all three generations living in the street,'' she said. "While local police and Central Coast Council rangers don't usually fine residents for parking on the nature strips, acknowledging that many Peninsula residents don't have any other options, it is understood that a non-local Highway Patrol officer issued the fines. "The nature of many residential streets on the Peninsula means there is no kerb or guttering, and streets are narrow with no delineation from nature strip to road. "This means that most people park off the street on the large nature strips, as has been the custom for decades. "We have a lot of pensioners and young families living on the Peninsula. "These people shouldn't have to pay hundreds of dollars in fines for parking outside their own homes. "The timing for this couldn't be worse, with extra cars parked on the Peninsula during the school holidays, and with family budgets already stretched over the Christmas period. "I've written to the Minister for Police and the Minister for Finance to demand an immediate review of these fines and asked that they be withdrawn." After the fines were withdrawn, Ms Tesch congratulated the community for the win. "This shows that people power can still win over bureaucratic decision making," Ms Tesch said. "The Peninsula has a great sense of justice and everyone was so quick to stand together to fight this silly decision. "They knew that coming together and putting pressure on the Minister and the NSW Police was the only way to right this wrong." "We have great local police here on the Coast, and I'd hate for one negative incident to make people lose faith in those who keep us safe." A good Friday to all. It's been a brutal winter so far and its time to write another chapter to that book. We'll start off with a Wind Chill Advisory from the National Weather Service. It's in effect until noon today. According to the weather service: "Cold temperatures combined with northwest winds gusting to around 30 mph will create wind chills as low as 20 below to near 30 below zero this morning. The winds should gradually diminish as the morning progresses and by noon wind chills will range from 5 below to 15 below zero." The cold wind chills could cause frostbite on exposed skin in as little as 30 minutes. A Wind Chill Advisory means that cold air and the wind will combine to create low wind chills. Frostbite and hypothermia can occur if precautions are not taken. Make sure you wear a hat and gloves. 1. Bundle up, it's cold It will be sunny today, but don't let it fool you. It will be cold and breezy out there with a high near 11 degrees and wind-chill values as low as -25 degrees. West winds between 10 to 20 mph will gust as high as 30 mph. So many people are running, or considering a run, for the White House in 2020 that's it's difficult to keep them all straight, much less know what they stand for. But in less than a year on Feb. 3, 2020 Iowa residents will be invited to attend the state's first-in-the-nation caucuses to help decide who will be the presidential nominees from both parties. To help with decision-making, St. Ambrose University, the Quad-City Times and the Quad-Cities Chamber of Commerce will once again host a series of panel interviews to help the public get to know the candidates. Declared candidates who are running credible campaigns in Iowa will be invited to forums on the St. Ambrose campus, although no dates nor the number of events have been set. The format will consist of introductions, and then questions important to the Quad-Cities, Iowa, the nation and higher education posed by a panel of staffers from the Quad-City Times and Dispatch-Argus and a St. Ambrose student journalist. Members of the audience also will have an opportunity to ask questions, and candidates will have time to make their case directly to the audience. Times Editorial Page Editor Ed Tibbetts will moderate each discussion. A vacant, century-old bank building in McCausland could have been left to further deteriorate or meet the wrecking ball had it not been for a state grant program and a community's determination. Built in 1916, the former McCausland Savings Bank was the city's last remaining original commercial building when its residents decided to reinvent it into its city hall. In November, after a three-year renovation, city staff moved in, though some cosmetic work remains. "We've moved up into the 21st century," said City Clerk Sheila Bosworth, whose previous office had been a closet in the community center/fire station across the street. "The people in town decided we wanted to save the building rather than tear it down." She credits the Iowa Department of Natural Resources', or DNR, Derelict Building Grant program with helping kick-start the community project providing $14,000 for critical exterior work to shore up the building. In addition, the project benefited from a $15,000 Riverboat Development Authority grant. "Small towns, their budgets are just really tight. Luckily weve managed money well, but not to take on that (size) project," she said, adding that the city invested its own funds over three years. McCausland has a population of 313, according to 2016 Census estimates. Our SAVE and PPEL combined is a little over $19 million a year, Maloney said. The list of things that need to be done is about $450 million. Were not able to do everything that it would take right now. Bettendorf, on the other hand, just had a general obligation bond referendum fail; across the state, these bond referendum proposals have become more common as the 2029 sunset approaches, said Margaret Buckton, a partner at Iowa School Finance Information Services. It is forcing us to go back and take a hard look at what projects rate the most important for us, Christiansen said. The uncertainty around the SAVE extension is forcing us to look at how long can we wait until we can make a decision. We want to eliminate uncertainty as much as we can," Christiansen said. "Where weve been over the last couple of years, is that the uncertainty of the extension makes it difficult for districts to plan. If Bettendorf wanted to borrow the money against its SAVE revenue, the time frame to borrow will narrow, which could turn off voters. But even if all five counties levy at the maximum, it would generate $9.243 million or about $5 million less than the region's budget last year. "To make up the difference, we're eating away at our fund balance," she said. "That is not good business practice. That is one-time funding. It's like a savings account. It doesn't regenerate itself." At the same time, the region faces new expenditures to expand and add new mental health services as mandated such as Access Centers, intensive residential services and Assertive Community Treatment, or ACT, teams. Beginning April 1, she said Scott County also will launch a new mobile crisis team, peer drop-in center and a new five-bed residential crisis stabilization center operated by Vera French. Another new service will be a "bridge prescriber" program that would allow a patient to see a telehealth professional to receive a 30- or 60-day prescription until they can see their local medical provider. "All of our services have improved significantly, but it's all done at a cost," Elam said. Elam said the legislature needs to consider increasing the $30.78 levy cap, which is based on a formula using the expenditures in fiscal 2015 a year after the region began and before the launch of many of its new services. Davenport Schools finished its on-site visits Thursday with the three finalists Eric Knost, Robert Kobylski and William Schneder for superintendent. There was not a public forum in the process, much to the distress of some parents in the District Wide Davenport PTO group. In Iowa, guidelines for hiring superintendents are not as stringent as in other states. Some states, like Indiana, require a public forum before a candidate can be hired; other states, like Minnesota, require the interviews with the school board to be open to the public under state open meeting laws. According to Iowa Code, the requirements and stipulations for a school boards hiring process are loosely defined, and almost entirely up to the board. Interviews can be and are closed to the public under Iowa Code Section 21.5, to prevent needless and irreparable injury to that individuals reputation, as some candidates already at the helm of school districts would not want their current districts to know theyre applying for a new job. A former Central DeWitt High School teacher who admitted to sending nude photos to a male student in 2016 was given a suspended two-year prison sentence and place on two years of probation Thursday. Ramsey Jayne Hinkle, 32, must complete a sex offender treatment program and register as a sex offender. Judge Mark Fowler also ordered Hinkle to serve a special 10-year sentence similar to parole once she completes probation. The judge also issued a five-year no-contact order. Hinkle pleaded guilty in January to sexual exploitation by a school employee, an aggravated misdemeanor. In September 2016, school officials showed a DeWitt police officer school emails between Hinkle and the student they thought were suspicious. The emails were sent in November and December of 2015 when the student was 17, according to court documents. The officer interviewed the student, who said he and Hinkle began communicating through Snapchat, Twitter, texting and emails around the beginning of his second semester of his junior year. The conversations, he said, were sexual in nature. They also exchanged nude photos and he sent her a video, according to court documents. Davenport police are investigating a vehicle versus train crash Friday morning that occurred when the driver of the car apparently attempted to beat the oncoming train. In a news release, police said Michael Wurzer was driving a 2012 Chevy Cruze northbound in the 500 block of Marquette about 9:50 a.m. when he struck the train operated by Iowa Interstate Railroad. Wurzer was cited for failure to obey a stop sign at a railroad crossing. According to police, Wurzer had a 4-year-old child passenger in the vehicle. The car sustained disabling damage and had to be towed away. There were no injuries as a result of the crash. Police said the crossing's warning devices were functioning properly. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 1 Angry 3 Iowa businesses need 'more of everybody' Whether Iowa jobs are at risk from the growth of automation and use of artificial intelligence is less urgent than the need to get the work done, according to ISU economics professor Peter Orazem. If you look at the labor force, Iowas unemployment rate is 2 percent, Orazem said. Its clear we dont have enough workers. Iowas abundance of unfilled jobs could be propelling automation or even accelerating it. You have to come up with ways of increasing productivity of the workforce you have, and one of the most common ways it to marry labor with capital, Orazem said. Thats human capital in the worker and knowledge of how to use these information technologies effectively. He said Iowa right now needs more of everybody both workers with the skills to handle new technologies, and those without them. If you cant find more of everybody, the people you are going to decide will go away first are going to be ones you can replace with some other input some automatable action, Orazem said. The Inspector General of Police, David Asante-Apeatu, has in another major shake up reassigned 122 of his senior officers of the Ghana police service. In a list sighted by Peacefmonline.com, close to ten officers at the Police Headquarters in Accra have been transferred to other parts of the country. The Public Relations Officer of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), DSP Olivia Turkson, according to the list, has been transferred to the Marine, Ports and Railways, Tema. ASP Patrick Kodjoe Okai, of the National Headquarters, is now heading to the Brong Ahafo region as the Staff Officer at the Brong Ahafo Regional Head office. DSP Henry N. Agyemang, is now the Commander in charge of the Divisional MTTU office at Kibi in the Eastern Region. The reassignments according to two separate lists dated February 6 and February 7, 2019, takes immediate effect and affects mainly senior officers of the police service. This is the IGPs first major reassignments this year. He made several reshuffles in the year 2018. More soon............ Source: Peacefmonline.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Bail, however, should never be treated as an escrow account for fees that may or may not be imposed if or when a defendant is found guilty. Nor should lengthy pretrial detention be allowed to destroy lives, as those charged with -- but not convicted of -- low-level crimes languish in jail until trial, unable to work and pay their bills, or care for their children. It is a recipe for recidivism. Those who remain in jail also are more likely to be punished more severely than those who are released while awaiting trial and have the benefit of counsel from Day 1. That doesn't mean, of course, that the state's current solution to this complex issue is without problems. For example, concerns raised in Rock Island County have included an increased workload and less revenue to pay for it, lack of clarity about the amount of bail that can be set and when the requirements apply, and no way to enforce the new requirements. But we flat out do not believe that pulling the plug on this still-developing experiment, as the proponents of the opt-out plan would essentially do, is the right way to fix them. There are too many important pieces in the act to allow 101 Illinois counties to simply ignore the law. State Comptroller Susana Mendoza is spending most of her time these days running for mayor of Chicago. But back at the office, her worker bees have been reviewing the state's finances, releasing a report last week that lays out the numbers. Those looking for something to cheer them up should skip this horror story. The state's budget picture is a shambles that will get dramatically worse if the strong national economy should take a wrong turn. "Finally, certain uneven indicators measuring national economic trends reveal that state policy makers should be mindful that a downturn in the market is possible in the near future. As highlighted in the January 2019 Comptroller's Quarterly report, Illinois is woefully ill-prepared for an economic downturn given the state's massive liabilities and lack of contingency funds," the comptroller's report states. For starters, the comptroller confirms what those who've been paying attention already knew -- the 2018-19 state budget now in place was a masterpiece of flimflam and gimmickry that was balanced only on paper. Further, Illinois is in deep financial trouble that the hyperpartisan Mendoza, a Democrat, blamed solely on former Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner. Facebook celebrated its 15th anniversary Monday in all-too-familiar fashion: another privacy scandal. This one crosses the line. Since 2016, Facebook has been paying minors as young as 13 to download an app that tracks nearly everything they do on their phones. Taking a cue from tobacco companies, the Menlo Park-based social media company advertised the app on Snapchat and Instagram, where todays teens routinely hang out. The outrageous practice is as creepy as it is greedy. The notion that young teenagers can give informed consent is ludicrous, as any responsible parent or business leader knows. The revelation destroys whatever remaining credibility he had on privacy issues. The fact that Facebook is willing to pay teens $20 a month for access to their private data -- where they go, what web sites they visit and what they purchase -- is another indicator of how much the company is profiting from consumers data. This isnt the first time Zuckerberg has ignored basic business ethics standards. Remember the 2011 Federal Trade Commission investigation that revealed Facebook had falsely promised customers that it would not share their data with advertisers? EAST MOLINE United Township High School history teacher Heather Monson recently learned she has been selected as a finalist for the Golden Apple Award for Excellence in Teaching. Monson, 48, of Colona, became the first Quad-Citian to earn the finalist honor after the organization expanded its eligibility boundaries to include educators from all of Illinois, and not limit the honors to Chicago teachers. Golden Apple, an Illinois nonprofit, was founded in 1985 and is committed to "recognizing exemplary educators and developing future educators," according to press materials. "It's exciting to become the first person in the Quad-Cities to win this," Monson said. Matt Wright, UTHS principal, said the school staff also is excited. "We're obviously honored and excited we have a terrific educator being awarded with a top-place award," Wright said. "We believe UT has an awesome staff that matches and echoes that by this award." Monson and her family, including parents Tom and Zilpha Grooms, East Moline, and Wright plan to attend the Golden Apple Celebration of Excellence Saturday, Feb. 23, at the Tinley Park Convention Center. She and the school each will be given a plaque to mark her selection. A Davenport 17-year-old pleaded guilty Wednesday to shooting a man in the stomach in May. Christian Lee Jessee, who was charged as an adult, pleaded guilty in Scott County District Court to intimidation with a dangerous weapon, willful injury resulting in serious injury and possession of a firearm by a prohibited person. He faces up to 25 years in prison when he is sentenced April 3. In a written plea agreement filed Wednesday, Scott County prosecutors said they will recommend incarceration. Iowa Code states a judge could suspend the sentence in whole or in part, including any mandatory minimum sentence, or could grant him a deferred judgement or sentence and place him on probation because he was under the age of 18 when the offense was committed. At 12:58 a.m. May 14, Davenport police officers responded to the 2600 block of West Central Park Avenue in reference to a call of shots fired and found a man who had been shot in the stomach. He was taken to Genesis Medical Center East, Davenport. The man told officers that he was involved in an argument with Jessee, who pulled out a gun and shot him. Crime Stoppers of the Quad-Cities is offering a reward for information leading to the arrest of a person who killed a "beloved" wild turkey in Moline. According to Crime Stoppers: "Sometime between January 19-21, someone shot a wild turkey with an arrow in the area of 545 Valley View Drive, Moline. The two wild turkeys had become beloved "Moliners" living in this area. "The arrow was found with blood and feathers on it; the hunter apparently took the turkey with him." Anyone with knowledge about who is responsible are asked to call the tip line 309-762-9500 or submit your tip using the free app P3 Tips. All tips are anonymous and you could earn a cash reward. Quad-City Times Love 0 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 3 Angry 8 The backpacks have been distributed to local law enforcements in Rock Island, Moline, East Moline, Milan, Silvis and Davenport, as well as the Rock Island County Sheriffs office and police, fire and sheriffs departments in Muscatine. "If we can all work together, we can have more of an impact in caring for the poor and homeless as Jesus has asked," Msgr. Mark Merdian at St. Pius said. "We started this in the fall of last year and it is a great idea, especially now as who would have known it would turn 23 below just recently. All of the supplies for the backpacks are stored in a room at Sacred Heart rectory. Otts wife, Missy, oversees the assembly of the backpacks. All of the items that go into the backpacks are blessed, as are the completed backpacks. "Presently it is the first responders who hand out the backpacks," Ott said. "But it will be the fire departments that issue the restock for the backpacks. When someone goes through the contents of their backpack, they can take it to the local fire department where it will be restocked." Ott said dropoff boxes where people can donate items for the backpacks are at all parishes in Rock Island County, as well as at Jordan, Seton and Alleman schools and St. Marys Mathias Church in Muscatine. While digital revenue increased nearly 11 percent, Davenport-based publisher Lee Enterprises reported a smaller profit in its first quarter. Lee is the parent company of the Quad-City Times, Dispatch-Argus and the Muscatine Journal. The company on Thursday posted first-quarter earnings of $10.7 million, or 18 cents per share. That's down from $35.3 million, or 63 cents per share, the same quarter last year. Adjusted for the impact of the 2017 federal Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, earnings totaled 18 cents per share in the quarter that ended Dec. 30, compared to 19 cents in the same quarter one year ago. "We're off to a good start in our fiscal year 2019 and are pleased with our performance in the quarter, especially as it relates to digital transformation," Executive Chairman Mary Junck said in a call with analysts Thursday morning. Total revenue dropped 5.3 percent for the quarter to $136.2 million, compared to one year ago. Digital revenue, including digital advertising and services, was up 10.7 percent over-the-year to $30.2 million for the quarter. The boost in digital revenue, president and CEO Kevin Mowbray said, was driven by 8 percent growth in digital advertising revenue and a 27.7 percent jump in digital sales revenue. Posted pro bono: Wild Thoughts by Julia Randall. A three-part series on wilderness ethics and management offers a comprehensive review of wilderness as a legal concept, an ecological condition and as a cultural phenomenon. Click on the following links to access Part I , What is Wilderness; Part II , For Whom Does Wilderness Exist? ; and Part III , Wilderness and a Livable World . Ms. Randall's StoryMap can be found on the Adirondack Councils website at: Ms. Randall'scan be found on the Adirondack Councils website at: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/39efc4883ac348a09fbd03a0f2c6c78f Combating on the job misbehavior: https://www.not-me.com/organizations An app (the #NotMe app) employers can make available to their personnel permitting the easy and timely submission of complaints of alleged supervisor or co-worker misconduct to personnel officers, human resource teams, compliance officers or designated individuals. Click on for information concerning this program. Concerning the viral evolution of COVID-19: Science Magazine e-Letter had posted NYPPL's Science Consultant Robert Michaels' item concerning "Viral evolution may herald new pandemic phase. Click here to read Dr. Michaels' comments. Sexual Harassment is a form of unlawful discrimination : New York State : https://www.ny.gov/programs/combating-sexual-harassment-workplace 's Internet guidelines addressing employer obligations to combat sexual harassment in the workplace is at The Steel Bar is the epic story of the rise and fall and rebirth of the Pittsburgh lawyer, from the earliest days of the Pittsburgh bar to the modern era, against the backdrop of American history." More at https://publicpersonnellaw.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-steel-bar-pittsburgh-lawyers-and_28.html Contaminants of Emergent Concern was discussed by Dr. Robert A. Michaels [bam@ramtrac.com] at the New York State Bar Association, Energy and Environmental Law Section on January 31, 2020. Dr. Michaels' remarks are posted for viewing/downloading at no charge at the following URL: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339055672_Legacy_Contaminants_of_Emergent_Concern. Other articles addressing environmental issues by Dr. Michaels are posted on on the Internet at:https://publicpersonnellaw.blogspot.com/2020/01/articles-by-dr-robert-michaels-nypers.html Ransomware continues assault against cities and businesses - take a look at the most recent attacks, how US and international cities have handled them, and advice for dealing with the aftermath. Keep reading. Social Effects and Outcomes of Identity and ID Programs - Download this impact report that details research, use cases and tips for creating a successful municipal and government ID program to better transact with citizens by clicking here: Government ID Impact Report New technology assists local governments to better serve its residents by using new technologies to save money, communicate with residents and allow taxpayers to make payment. Click here to download a report released on September 16, 2019 by New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli. Governing Daily has posted a link to an item, How to Prevent Job Loss in the Public Sector, noting that when budgets get slashed and hiring comes to a halt, municipalities need a way protect their most valuable resources people and finances. [Content provided by CentralSquare Technologies.] Click here to LEARN MORE Tata Motors' dismal performance in the third quarter of the current fiscal reflected on its share price today. After reporting Rs 26,960.8 crore quarterly loss-biggest in the Indian corporate history, the Tata Motors share price came under intense selling pressure in trade today. Singed by a non-cash charge of Rs 27,838 crore to cover the impairment at Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) in the three months to December 31 and a cut in future profit margin outlook, the Tata Motors share price crashed to a fresh 52-week low of 141.90, down 22.41% or 41 points compared to the previous close of 182.90 on BSE. On NSE, the stock cracked 29%-the most in 10 years-to Rs 129 level. Tata Motors expects the EBIT (earnings before interest and tax) margin for the fiscal year 2018-19 ending March 31 to be "marginally negative" compared with an earlier guidance of breaking even, Chief Financial Officer, PB Balaji said. The Q3 earnings came as a surprise shock for the Tata Motors share price which was attempting a recovery after negative news related to its subsidiary JLR had been trickling in over the last few months. Also read: Tata Motors share price tanks to fresh 52-week low over Q3 net loss, cut in profit margin outlook The Tata Motors share which stood at 277.40 on September 7, 2018 fell to 157.10 on December 10 last year on low sales, crisis in Jaguar Land Rover, downgrade by credit rating agencies and poor earnings performance. The stock attempted a recovery during the next one month hitting 185.75 on January 10 but could not manage the same level since then. Also read: Tata Motors domestic sales fall 8% to 54,915 units in Jan A day before the Q3 earnings were announced, the Tata Motors share price rose up to 2.13% to 182 level compared to the previous close of 178.20. Even as the stock seems to be on a losing spree, we find out whether is it a good time to buy , sell or hold the Tata Motors share at the current level. Rahul Agarwal, Director at Wealth Discovery/EZ Wealth said, "Tata Motors is facing several headwinds mainly due to its luxury car unit JLR that accounts for approximately 70 per cent of its revenue. Outlook for JLR continues to remain weak on the back of multiple challenges, which it continues to face across various geographies. The subdued performance is on the account of uncertainties around Brexit, slowing sales in China, and technological disruptions facing JLR. The outlook is not very positive going forward. Tata Motors management expects FY19 retail sales to be negative although there are expectations that the premium segment may see some rebound in FY20. On the domestic front also, the outlook is sluggish. Therefore, our advice is to stay away from the stock. For investors who are already invested in the stock, we suggest that investors should exit at every relief rally. For Tata Motors stock to do well, the numbers from the JLR unit especially sales figures from China have to stabilize and improve in a meaningful way. Until then, the stock is expected to underperform its peers in the same sector." Emkay on Tata Motors Brokerage Emkay in a note said, "Jaguar Land Rover's EBITDA margin contracted steeply, by 350 bps yoy to 7.3% (Emkay estimate: 10.9%), mainly due to lower volumes in China, higher warranty costs, and destocking expenses. In comparison, standalone margin expanded 80 bps yoy to 8.1% (Emkay estimate: 6.5%), due to a turnaround in the PV division. JLR faces headwinds such as China slowdown and Brexit uncertainties. Weak demand persists in China, and market share losses could continue for JLR, due to structural issues in the distribution network and rising competitive intensity. Moreover, Brexit can have negative implications, due to tariffs and change in manufacturing/sourcing strategies Standalone performance is likely to be impacted, due to a reversal in the MHCV sales cycle, led by surplus capacity with fleet operators, deferment of purchases during elections, increasing cost of ownership, and a high base. In addition, adverse mix and increasing discounts are expected to hit margins. We reduce our FY19/20/21E EPS by 46%/19%/19% to Rs6.2/Rs22.8/Rs24.7, mainly due to lower volume/margin assumptions in JLR's China operations. In the event of a no-deal Brexit, there can be further cuts on volume and margin estimates. We downgrade our rating to Hold from Buy, with a revised target price of Rs 192 ( Rs 256 earlier), based on 1.5 times its enterprise value/earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation for JLR and 8 times enterprise value /EBITDA for standalone operations. Despite the cost-reduction efforts, free cash flows are expected to remain negative over FY19-21, due to the large capex requirements of Jaguar Land Rover. CLSA on Tata Motors The international brokerage has retained its sell call on the Tata Motors share with a target price of Rs 150. JLR's margins declined QoQ despite higher volumes after big asset impairment dragged Tata into a consolidated loss. Demand outlook for Tata Motors has worsened in China and India, the brokerage said. The brokerage cut FY 19-21 earnings per share (EPS) estimate by 2-66% and said the stock will remain weak given insufficient near-term triggers. Deutsche Bank on Tata Motors The investment bank has given a hold call on Tata Motors with its target price cut to Rs 175 from Rs 195. The operating environment for Tata Motors is likely to remain challenged. The brokerage said only positive is performance of India business. Deutsche Bank cut FY19 earnings per share forecast by 38% and FY20/21 earnings per share by -10%/+8%. Deutsche Bank also cut JLR's FY19 estimated earnings estimate by 62%. Motilal Oswal on Tata Motors Brokerage Motilal Oswal has downgraded its rating to neutral and reduced the Tata Motors target price by 9% to Rs 166. Motilal Oswal expects FY19 retails to be negative; growth in FY20-22 to be ahead of premium segment. Motilal Oswal lowered its EBIT margin guidance to 3-6% for FY20-22 (compared to 4-7% earlier), despite 100 basis points boost due to lower depreciation charge. The brokerage in a note said, "We cut our FY20/21 consolidated earnings per share estimate by 21%/13%. Consequently, our net debt estimate is almost doubling, dragging down the equity value." Edited by Aseem Thapliyal WASHINGTON -- RFE/RLs Balkan Service this week is marking 25 years of reporting in one of the worlds most contested regions, celebrating a quarter-century of programming dedicated to pluralism and democracy at a time when political extremism and information warfare are again resurgent. RFE/RLs Balkan Service was created at the height of the Bosnian War with a mission to serve as a daily reminder to the peoples of the former Yugoslavia that conflict was not preordained, and that they could again live in peace. Programming began on January 31, 1994 in the Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian languages, expanding to include Albanian, Montenegrin and Macedonian in 1999, 2000, and 2001 respectively. In a comment on the 25-year anniversary, RFE/RL Vice President and Editor-in-Chief Nenad Pejic, who was the services first director, said, The media situation in the Balkans today is in many ways worse than at the time the Balkan Service was established. Regardless of their ethnic background and mother tongue, the services journalists speak one language of universal values. That is the source of their impact, and it makes them unique. The services illustrious record tracks with the regions recent history. Contemporary polling showed that it was the most listened-to international broadcaster during the 1999 NATO bombing campaign of Serbia. It was the top broadcaster again, surpassing even domestic outlets, during the October 2000 post-election crisis in Yugoslavia that led to the fall of President Slobodan Milosevic. It was the only media to air news of the war-crimes charges filed against Bosnian Serb military leader Ratko Mladic, and the voices of the survivors of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre and siege of Sarajevo. The service has built on this legacy, championing professionalism and moderation in a media landscape that is again sharply divided along ethnic and partisan lines, and in which outlets trying to stay independent lack trained staff and financing. With bureaus in the regions five capital cities, it is relied on foremost for its balanced, local coverage of politics, economic issues, corruption, Russian influence, migration, and minority issues. It has innovated on digital platforms to counter disinformation and engage audiences vulnerable to extremism and propaganda. In 2018 the services website, slobodnaevropa.org, logged a monthly average of over 500,000 visits and 870,000 page views. It has more than 210,000 followers on Facebook and 30,000 subscribers on YouTube. About RFE/RL RFE/RL relies on its networks of local reporters to provide accurate news and information to over 34 million people in 26 languages and 22 countries where media freedom is restricted, or where a professional press has not fully developed. Its videos were viewed over 2.6 billion times on Facebook and YouTube in FY2018. RFE/RL is an editorially independent media company funded by a grant from the U.S. Congress through the U.S. Agency for Global Media. ---- FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT: Joanna Levison in Prague (levisonj@rferl.org, +420.221.122.080) Martins Zvaners in Washington (zvanersm@rferl.org, +1.202.457.6948) While Saratoga Springs Mayor Meg Kelly told the Times-Union she is concerned about two big events overlapping, we know from experience that Saratoga has handled big summer crowds at both venues before. And if there is a strain, were sure local hotels and restaurants will be glad to pick up the slack. The new schedule may only be a one-year thing. NYRA officials said it was precipitated by the building of a new arena for the New York Islanders on the land adjacent to Belmont Park. New Yorks horse racing community is based at Belmont for a spring meeting before moving to Saratoga in July. Dropping the Monday racing should be welcome to all. The crowds are generally light on Mondays, and the racing card tends to be of a lower quality. Without racing on Monday, many businesses that cater to the race track crowd might have an easier time scheduling their staffs. The only negative we can think of is a bit selfish. Some of us tend to avoid the crowds in downtown Saratoga during the meet madness, so this means one more week we will be eating out elsewhere. Post-Star editorials represent the opinion of The Post-Stars editorial board, which consists of Publisher Robert Forcey, Controller/Operations Director Brian Corcoran, Editor Ken Tingley, Projects Editor Will Doolittle and citizen representatives Jean Aurilio, Connie Bosse and Barbara Sealy. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Ocasio-Cortez responded that it was not a critique of GOP women, and she supported Stefaniks efforts to recruit more women to run. Rep. Stefanik, this is not a critique of women across the aisle, but of the serious inability for GOP to elect + support women. You yourself have taken your party to task on this in fact, you called it a crisis. Im happy youre trying to fix it Ocasio-Cortez wrote, linking to an NPR story about Ms. Stefaniks E-PAC, her new organization designed to support Republican women in primaries. Stefanik responded Im glad youve acknowledged the importance of women in both parties in elected office. Im proud my @HouseGOP colleagues applauded the historic number of women elected to Congress last night. We need to work to elevate womens voices across the aisle. Stefaniks office declined to comment further on the exchange. Ocasio-Cortezs office did not respond to a request for additional comment. On the day of the State of the Union, however, Stefanik and Ocasio-Cortez had an accidental moment of unity. Many Democratic women wore white to honor suffragists at the speech, and Stefanik also wore white, which was noted in some news stories. She did not coordinate with the Democrats to wear white, nor did she know they were doing that, wrote Stefaniks spokeswoman Madison Anderson. It was purely coincidental, but of course she is a supporter of womens suffrage! Love 1 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 1 Theres also an amount of unpredictability that Cass thinks gets lost in the discussion about climate change. He still thinks its a problem, but a slow-moving one, not a crisis. Put aside like dinosaur-killing asteroids and nuclear armageddon, just as compared to, you know, global pandemics or cyber warfare, or you know, the kinds of disruptions in financial markets that we could hypothetically see, climate change again happens much slower, which gives us a chance to respond, Cass said. Even when you try to come up with the worst case you can possibly think of, (it) doesnt necessarily end up looking as bad. Revkin took on the crisis question next. I say it is a crisis. Were in a climate crisis, but its a crisis of perception, he said. Its actually bigger and a more fundamental phenomenon than I think many people think it is. In a way, Revkin seemed to agree with Cass about the lack of immediacy with climate change. Looking through some of his old articles, Revkin read a quote from a Harvard scientist who said people can slow the rate of climate change, or close their eyes and pay the bill when its due. When Chris became ill, he wanted nothing more than to be with his mother and family that he loved so much. Our family would like to extend a sincere thank you for all the compassionate care that Chris received from the Oncology staff at Glens Falls Hospital, High Peaks Hospice nurses and his new family from The Haynes House of Hope staff and volunteers, whom are truly angels from above. Throughout his life, Chris was always very spiritual and wanted to thank Father Tom for his many visits, which brought much comfort to him. Chris was always so appreciative of his sweet sister, Val, for her daily care in taking him to appointments and always making sure that Chris needs were met on a daily basis. However, controversy over the bill was focused on changes to the state law governing third-trimester abortions. Those now require the consent of three doctors, and this bill would have allowed one doctor to authorize the procedure. It would have also eliminated language that says an abortion may only be performed if there is substantial and irremediable impairment to the womans health. Harry knew that working with people is not "bean counting." People matter. As a leader, Harry cared for his workers. If you made a mistake, he would do everything he could to make it a teachable moment. If it was a serious infraction, he would do all in he could to assist. He was never vindictive and moved on after any incident. He could have turned his back, but he never did. "Sometimes this stuff can be adhered to in a sort of ignorant kind of way where you subscribe to a generically white identity," Best said. He said some people may think of it as similar to being part of black-pride or Latino-pride movements. Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Friday launched a full-throttle attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying that he was directly involved in the Rafale deal talk process and that the defence ministry letter proved that he clearly opposed "your interference in the Rafale deal and you have single-handedly undermined India's position". The Congress president said PM Modi "himself robbed Air Force's Rs 30,000 crore and gave it to Anil Ambani". "We have been raising this since 1 year. Now a report has come where Defence Ministry officials say that the PM was holding parallel negotiations with France government," said Rahul Gandhi. The Congress party also shared a letter, duly signed by Deputy Secretary (Air-II), SK Sharma, claiming that the PMO was holding parallel discussions with the French team. The letter says: "It is, therefore, clear that such parallel discussions by the PMO have weakened the negotiating positions of MoD and Indian Negotiating Team. We may advise PMO that any officers who are not part of Indian Negotiating Team may refrain from having parallel parlays with the officers of the French government." Signed, sealed & now delivered for the whole country to see. Your lies are out in the open Modiji, the Defence Ministry clearly opposed your interference in the Rafale deal & you have single handedly undermined India's position. #ChowkidarChorHai#PakdaGayaModipic.twitter.com/8nGic1xH4V - Congress (@INCIndia) February 8, 2019 SK Sharma also put forward a serious charge through that "in case the PMO is not confident about the outcome of negotiations being carried out by the MoD, a revised modality of negotiations to be led by PMO at the appropriate level may be adopted in the case". The Congress party on Friday said the letter is "signed, sealed and now delivered for the whole country to see. Your lies are out in the open Modiji, the Defence Ministry clearly opposed your interference in the Rafale deal." During a press conference, Rahul Gandhi said: "For more than a year, we've been saying that PM is directly involved in Rafale scam. Today it is clear that PM himself had been carrying out a parallel negotiation." He added that "we (Congress) been saying that there should be an inquiry through JPC. Now Ministry itself has said 'we may advise PMO that any Officers who are not part of Indian Negotiating Team may refrain from having parallel parlays'." Also read: Anil Ambani left out of Vibrant Gujarat invitees list amid Rafale deal row Rahul Gandhi also accused Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman of lying on the issue. "Former French President has admitted that he was made to choose Anil Ambani by PM Modi himself," said the Congress President, adding the government has lied to the Supreme Court too. Referring to PM Modi's Parliament speech on Thursday, Rahul said: "Yesterday, Modi gave a lengthy sermon, why doesn't he answer these questions? Why doesn't the state the reason for parallel negotiations?" A fresh attack on Prime Minister Modi by the Congress comes in light of a report published by The Hindu that says "at the height of the negotiations over the controversial Euro 7.87 billion Rafale deal between India and France, the Defence Ministry raised strong objections to "parallel negotiations" conducted by the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) with the French side". Defence experts suggest the Defence Secretary may not prove that there was any corruption but it raises a point if India got the best deal in case of Rafale at all. The BJP, meanwhile, has defended the PMO saying that there's no corruption and that the letter did not raise any wrongdoing. Also read: Congress will scrap triple talaq law if voted to power, says Rahul Gandhi Businesses fear Rahul Gandhi's guaranteed income plan, see higher taxes Edited by Manoj Sharma School will be CLOSED for students on Tuesday, 2/5 to deep clean the school and help prevent the spreading of illness. The Office of Catholic Schools feels this is the best way to combat the illness that is going through the school. Stay safe and get well! "It's how we're kicking off our first event of the year," said Bill Edwards-Bodmer, emerging technologies librarian. "It's high technology how it can affect people; how to interact with it, to explore technologies in new ways." Both the House and Senate want the money to go back to taxpayers who face higher state income tax bills as a result of the federal changes. But they don't agree on how that should happen or how much money is involved. The House budget didn't count any of that money, since Jones wants to set up a separate lockbox for it, until the General Assembly enacts some kind of tax relief. The Senate budget sets aside $419 million this year to pay for a $110 tax credit to individual taxpayers and a $220 credit for joint filers, in what Senate Majority Leader Thomas K. Norment Jr., R-James City, called the largest tax break in decades for working Virginians. "I felt like I needed to say something about that racist photo and what it represented," said Oliver, who is black. "And also talk about how we go forward as an agency. ... We can take this as an opportunity to have that difficult discussion about race, racism, our implicit or unconscious biases and learn how to deal with those within an organization." "This award honors the legacy of Dr. King to an individual who has provided outstanding service in keeping his principles/mission. To receive an award associated with an historical figure known for promoting justice and receiving the Noble Peace Prize is priceless to me." He also received the 2018 Torch Award from the Faculty of Florida State University, which "recognized my overall contributions at (the college). An award from a cohort of your peers is an esteemed honor and one that is treasured and respected. "Bell Diamond Manor is 46 percent more energy efficient post-rehabilitation," K.C. Bleile, executive director of Richmond-based Viridiant, stated in the announcement. "The Woda Cooper team is to be commended for the wonderful job it has done in making upgrades to mechanical systems, appliances, and the overall building envelope that reflect a real concern for our environment and for the residents." Congress chief Rahul Gandhi on Friday said he has no problem if the government investigates his brother-in-law Robert Vadra or senior party leader P Chidambaram as long as it also answers questions on the Rafale jet deal. Gandhi launched a fresh broadside against the government on the deal following a report in The Hindu newspaper claiming the Defence ministry raised strong objections to "parallel discussions" conducted by the PMO during the negotiations between India and France. "Whatever inquiry you want to do, you do it. You implement the law. Robert Vadra, P Chidambaram - you implement the law on everyone. No problem. But you also give answers on the Rafale matter," he said at a press conference. Vadra was questioned by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for nine hours on Thursday, the second day of his deposition in connection with a probe into allegations of money laundering to purchase assets abroad. Also Read: Rafale deal: Manohar Parrikar had asked defence ministry not to worry, says Nirmala Sitharaman Karti Chidambaram, son of former finance minister P Chidambaram, was also questioned for about six hours by the ED on Thursday in connection with a money laundering probe against him in the INX Media case. "You do whatever inquiry against Mr. Chidambaram you want. He will face any inquiry. You do inquiry on anybody you want...But please explain to us why the defence ministry is saying that prime minister has carried out parallel negotiations," Gandhi said. Also Read: Rahul Gandhi's fresh attack: 'PM Modi bypassed Rafale talks despite defence ministry's opposition' Describing Rafale as an "open and shut" case, he said, "I am telling you that whatever investigation you want to do, you should do it. You are the one who is in government. But then investigate this (Rafale) too." While it is generally true that almost everyone values diversity, you may have noticed that many in younger generations are very vocal about their values. Moreover, many of them expect diversity and can be very outspoken about how much it matters to them in a workplace. By bringing in a diverse group of people to your organization, you will have access to broader networks which will spur further diversity opportunities and all the benefits it brings. Think of how much more likely it is that diverse people who enjoy working at your company will introduce you and advocate for you in their circles. Lynn Choi, who has owned Jung Ha Oriental Market in Newport News with her husband since 2015, said its too early to tell if the competition will affect her business, but shes hoping for an overflow effect if the stores attract more people who might be unaccustomed to international markets. She is not sure if its because the area is becoming more of a melting pot or if other reasons might be credited for the growth. Ceramics from the Field Museum's Java Sea Shipwreck collection being analyzed by portable X-ray fluorescence. Credit: (c) Field Museum. Photographer Kate Golembiewski. About eight hundred years ago, a ship sank in the Java Sea off the coast of the islands of Java and Sumatra in Indonesia. There are no written records saying where the ship was going or where it came fromthe only clues are the mostly-disintegrated structure of the vessel and its cargo, which was discovered on the seabed in the 1980s. Since the wreck's recovery in the 1990s, researchers have been piecing together the world that the Java Sea Shipwreck was part of. In a new study in the Journal of Archaeological Science, archaeologists have demonstrated a new way to tell where the ceramic cargo of the ship originally came from: by zapping it with an X-ray gun. "It's amazing that we can pinpoint the production area of materials from an 800-year-old shipwreck," says Wenpeng Xu, the study's lead author, a graduate student at the University of Illinois at Chicago, which has a joint graduate program in Anthropology with the Field Museum. "It helps us learn the details of trade relationshipsknowing how people interacted in the past is very important for us to understand the present." The Field Museum is home to an estimated 7,500 pieces of cargo recovered from the wreck, including the 60 ceramic pieces from the shipwreck analyzed in this study: bowls and boxes made of porcelain covered in a bluish-white glaze called qingbai. Based on the style of the ceramics, scientists knew that it came from southeastern China, but style alone isn't enough to pinpoint a piece's origin because many kilns produced similar-looking pieces. By comparing the chemical makeups of ceramics from the wreck and from different kiln sites in China, the researchers were able to more precisely determine where the ceramics were made. Recording the location of the Shimuling kiln site, Dehua. Credit: Kai Li Ceramics from different sites have different chemical compositions because of variations in the elements present in that region's clay or in the recipes that potters used to mix their clay. If a piece of pottery from the shipwreck matches the pottery found at an archaeological site, it's a pretty safe bet that the pottery originated there. "Each kiln site uses its own materials and ingredients for claythat's what makes each sample's fingerprint unique," explains Xu. "If the fingerprint of the sample matches the fingerprint of the kiln site, then it's highly possible that that's where the sample came from." This is where the X-ray gun comes in. "We used a portable X-ray fluorescence detectorit looks a lot like a ray gun," says Lisa Niziolek, Field Museum Boone Research Scientist and co-author of the study. The science behind the compositional analysis is complex, but Niziolek breaks it down: "You're shooting X-rays into a material you're interested in. It excites the material's atoms. Energy goes flying out, and this measures that energy. Different elements have different signatures of energy that comes back out." Knowing the precise origins of cargo on the ship reveals the size and complexity of trade networks at the time. The ceramics in the study were created over 2,000 miles from where the ship sankabout the distance between New York and Las Vegas. Ceramic bowls in situ at the Java Sea Shipwreck site. Credit: (c) Field Museum, Anthropology. Photographer Pacific Sea Resources. "A key that's emerging is that the shipwreck tells us that there were huge trade networks in the 12th and 13th centuries," says Field Museum MacArthur Curator of Anthropology and study co-author Gary Feinman. "We're taught to associate vast trade networks with Europeans like Magellan and Marco Polo, but Europeans weren't a big part of this network that went from Asia to Africa. Globalization isn't just a recent phenomenonit's not just Eurocentric, not just tied to modern capitalism. The ancient world was more interconnected than a lot of people thought." "People often refer to shipwrecks as time capsules, but the Java Sea Wreck is more than just that," says Niziolek. "A time capsule represents a moment frozen in time, but that ignores the way these results reveal these vast and changing socioeconomic networks." Feinman agrees: "It's almost the opposite of a nice, bounded time capsule, it's more like a window that opens up to a wide horizon and tells us how this material came onto this ship before it sank." Shark Bay was hit by a brutal marine heatwave in 2011. Credit: W. Bulach/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA The devastating bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef in 2016 and 2017 rightly captured the world's attention. But what's less widely known is that another World Heritage-listed marine ecosystem in Australia, Shark Bay, was also recently devastated by extreme temperatures, when a brutal marine heatwave struck off Western Australia in 2011. A 2018 workshop convened by the Shark Bay World Heritage Advisory Committee classified Shark Bay as being in the highest category of vulnerability to future climate change. And yet relatively little media attention and research funding has been paid to this World Heritage Site that is on the precipice. Shark Bay, in WA's Gascoyne region, is one of 49 marine World Heritage Sites globally, but one of only four of these sites that meets all four natural criteria for World Heritage listing. The marine ecosystem supports the local economy through tourism and fisheries benefits. Around 100,000 tourists visit Shark Bay each year to interact with turtles, dugongs and dolphins, or to visit the world's most extensive population of stromatolites stump-shaped colonies of microbes that date back billions of years, almost to the dawn of life on Earth. Commercial and recreational fishing is also extremely important for the local economy. The combined Shark Bay invertebrate fishery (crabs, prawns and scallops) is the second most valuable commercial fishery in Western Australia. Under threat However, this iconic and valuable marine ecosystem is under serious threat. Shark Bay is especially vulnerable to future climate change, given that the temperate seagrass that underpins the entire ecosystem is already living at the upper edge of its tolerable temperature range. These seagrasses provide vital habitat for fish and marine mammals, and help the stromatolites survive by regulating the water salinity. Shark Bay was hit by a brutal marine heatwave in 2011. Credit: W. Bulach/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA Shark Bay received the highest rating of vulnerability using the recently developed Climate Change Vulnerability Index, created to provide a method for assessing climate change impacts across all World Heritage Sites. In particular, extreme marine heat events were classified as very likely and predicted to have catastrophic consequences in Shark Bay. By contrast, the capacity to adapt to marine heat events was rated very low, showing the challenges Shark Bay faces in the coming decades. The region is also threatened by increasingly frequent and intense storms, and warming air temperatures. To understand the potential impacts of climatic change on Shark Bay, we can look back to the effects of the most recent marine heatwave in the area. In 2011 Shark Bay was hit by a catastrophic marine heatwave that destroyed 900 square kilometres of seagrass 36% of the total coverage. This in turn harmed endangered species such as turtles, contributed to the temporary closure of the commercial crab and scallop fisheries, and released between 2 million and 9 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent to the annual emissions from 800,000 homes. Some aspects of Shark Bay's ecosystem have never been the same since. Many areas previously covered with large, temperate seagrasses are now bare, or have been colonised by small, tropical seagrasses, which do not provide the same habitat for animals. This mirrors the transition seen on bleached coral reefs, which are taken over by turf algae. We may be witnessing the beginning of Shark Bay's transition from a sub-tropical to a tropical marine ecosystem. This shift would jeopardise Shark Bay's World Heritage values. Although stromatolites have survived for almost the entire history of life on Earth, they are still vulnerable to rapid environmental change. Monitoring changes in the microbial makeup of these communities could even serve as a canary in the coalmine for global ecosystem changes. Stromatolites are a living window to the past. Credit: Matthew Fraser The neglected bay? Despite Shark Bay's significance, and the seriousness of the threats it faces, it has received less media and funding attention than many other high-profile Australian ecosystems. Since 2011, the Australian Research Council has funded 115 research projects on the Great Barrier Reef, and just nine for Shark Bay. Coral reefs rightly receive a lot of attention, particularly given the growing appreciation that climate change threatens the Great Barrier Reef and other corals around the world. The World Heritage Committee has recognised that local efforts alone are no longer enough to save coral reefs, but this logic can be extended to other vulnerable marine ecosystems including the World Heritage values of Shark Bay. Safeguarding Shark Bay from climate change requires a coordinated research and management effort from government, local industry, academic institutions, not-for-profits and local Indigenous groups before any irreversible ecosystem tipping points are reached. The need for such a strategic effort was obvious as long ago as the 2011 heatwave, but it hasn't happened yet. Due to the significant Aboriginal heritage in Shark Bay, including three language groups (Malgana, Nhanda and Yingkarta), it will be vital to incorporate Indigenous knowledge, so as to understand the potential social impacts. And of course, any on-the-ground actions to protect Shark Bay need to be accompanied by dramatic reductions in greenhouse emissions. Without this, Shark Bay will be one of the many marine ecosystems to fundamentally change within our lifetimes. Explore further The presence of people is slowing shark recovery on the Great Barrier Reef This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. This graphic shows the hybrid orbitals in which atoms can share electrons in cobalt borate catalysts, making it a better water-splitting catalyst than cobalt phosphate. Credit: Argonne National Laboratory For many years, scientists have been looking for an effective and efficient way to turn water into energy-storing fuels using solar- and wind-powered electricity, likely by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen. To do this, they have been searching for catalysts to make these water-splitting reactions happen. Researchers have known for some time that oxides of many metals, including the familiar iron oxide called rust, are able to function as water-splitting catalysts, particularly when the atoms of the metal oxides are organized into small clusters. However, the activity of these clusters, or domains, can vary tremendously depending on their structures. In a new study of a related group of cobalt oxides, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory sought to determine why two similar catalysts with somewhat different domain sizes behaved differently. "Our research team really wanted to understand why cobalt oxides that can be controlled to differ only in terms of their domain structure have such different water-splitting activities," said chemist David Tiede, Distinguished Fellow in Argonne's Chemical Sciences and Engineering division. "Understanding this would provide a way to comprehend water-splitting catalysis for metal oxides more generally." In the study, Tiede and his colleagues utilized Argonne's Advanced Photon Source (APS) and Center for Nanoscale Materials (CNM), along with SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory's Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL), all DOE Office of Science User Facilities. They combined a wide range of different X-ray techniques and CNM's electron microscopy capabilities to examine these domains at the atomic scale. "The exciting thing about this research is that we've taken a truly multimodal approach that combines the power of soft and hard X-rays," Tiede said. Tiede and other researchers presented a paper on the study in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, this past summer. "Resonant X-ray techniques are a powerful tool to provide a wealth of structure and electronic information on metal oxide catalysts, particularly when they are structurally ill-defined," added Argonne X-ray physicist Jung Ho Kim, who was among those authors. The research team was able to show that the differences in catalytic activity are controlled by conductivity at the atomic scale. When the cobalt oxide domains formed in the presence of borate, the researchers saw that electrons moved relatively quickly and smoothly throughout the material. When the cobalt oxides formed with phosphate, however, electric charges couldn't migrate as easily. The reason for this difference, Tiede explained, is that the cobalt atoms in the cobalt borate can share electrons with each other in what scientists call hybrid orbitals. "Essentially, you can think of the hybrid orbitals in cobalt borate as being like internet social media, whereas the orbitals in cobalt phosphate are like landline telephones," Tiede said. "Information can travel more quickly through always-on networked connections." The presence of the hybrid orbitals in cobalt borate makes the material a better water-splitting catalyst than cobalt phosphate, even though the latter has more active catalytic sites. "Being able to move the charges to the active sites becomes the key factor in determining the efficiency of the catalyst," Tiede said. In examining the two cobalt oxides, Tiede and his team found something else surprising. Typically, the water-splitting process requires bond-breaking and bond-creating steps that are the most challenging parts of catalysis, but in this case, getting enough charge to the active sites turned out to be the most difficult part. "Getting charges to the sites quickly enough is a key design parameter that we need to learn how to control," Tiede said. Combining charge mobility with water-splitting efficiency will be essential for developing a catalyst that can effectively turn water into electricity. "You can have the world's greatest air conditioner, but if the wiring in your house is terrible, you're not going to get it to work properly," Tiede added. "The water-splitting site is doing a lot of complicated things, but if it's not getting enough current, it's not going to do very much." The paper based on the study, "Resolution of electronic and structural factors underlying oxygen-evolving performance in amorphous cobalt oxide catalysts," appeared in the July 20 issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society. Explore further Scientists maximize the effectiveness of platinum in fuel cells More information: Gihan Kwon et al. Resolution of Electronic and Structural Factors Underlying Oxygen-Evolving Performance in Amorphous Cobalt Oxide Catalysts, Journal of the American Chemical Society (2018). Journal information: Journal of the American Chemical Society Gihan Kwon et al. Resolution of Electronic and Structural Factors Underlying Oxygen-Evolving Performance in Amorphous Cobalt Oxide Catalysts,(2018). DOI: 10.1021/jacs.8b02719 Credit: CC0 Public Domain Facial recognition technology, being trialled by two major police forces in Britain, should be subjected to more rigorous testing and transparency, according to new research from the University of East Anglia (UEA) and Monash University. Facial recognition technology (FRT) involves the identification of an individual based on an analysis of the geometric features of his or her face, and a comparison between the algorithm created from the captured image and one already stored, such as from a custody image or social media account. The technology was first tested in public gatherings in 2014, when Leicestershire Police trialled a 'Neoface' facial recognition system, later using the technology to identify 'known offenders' at a music festival with 90,000 concertgoers. The Leicestershire Police and the other two forces trialling FRTthe Metropolitan Police Service and the South Wales Policeargue the technology is lawful and its use in surveillance operations is proportionate. But researchers from UEA and Monash University in Australia say the technology could violate human rights. They argue there has not been sufficient statistical information about the trials made publically available for scrutiny. The limited outcomes that have been shared, the researchers say, have shown high false-positive identification rates and a low number of positive matches with 'known offenders'. Furthermore, the researchers say the trials are a costly use of public funds: 200,000 for the Met Police trials and 2.6 million for those run by the South Wales Police. The research, led by Dr. Joe Purshouse of the UEA School of Law, and Prof Liz Campbell of Monash University, will be published on February 8, 2019 in the journal Criminal Law Review. Dr. Purshouse, a lecturer in criminal law, said: "These FRT trials have been operating in a legal vacuum. There is currently no legal framework specifically regulating the police use of FRT. "Parliament should set out rules governing the scope of the power of the police to deploy FRT surveillance in public spaces to ensure consistency across police forces. As it currently stands, police forces trialling FRT are left to come up with divergent, and sometimes troubling, policies and practices for the execution of their FRT operations." A key concern of the researchers is around the 'watch list' databases of facial images assembled from lists of wanted suspects and missing persons, but also other 'persons of interest'. There is no legal prohibition of police forces taking images from the internet or social media accounts to populate the 'watch lists'. Dr. Purshouse and Prof Campbell say there is a risk that people with old or minor convictions could be targeted by FRT, as well as those with no convictions whose images are retained and used by police after an arrest that did not lead to a conviction. The accuracy of the technology has been brought into question by the researchers, leading to concerns that some individuals might be disproportionately included on 'watch lists'. The limited independent testing and research into FRT technology indicates that numerous FRT systems misidentify ethnic minorities and women at higher rates than the rest of the population. A disproportionate number of custody images are of black and minority ethnic groups, and as these images are routinely used to populate FRT databases, there is a particular risk that members of the public from black or ethnic minority backgrounds will be mistakenly identified as 'persons of interest'. Dr. Purshouse said: "There appears to be a credible risk that FRT technology will undermine the legitimacy of the police in the eyes of already over-policed groups." The police forces trialling FRT say the technology has been effective in preventing crime and ensuring public safety. The researchers say that currently there is no meaningful way of measuring success, but that the technology might be deterring those who could pose a threat to the public from attending gatherings where FRT surveillance is known to be in use. The researchers say the use of FRT surveillance is on the rise without sufficient reflection on its aims and consequences. The ways in which it has the potential to interfere with citizens' privacy related rights are multifaceted and complex, and without a full understanding of this potential we cannot hope to adequately regulate this form of policing technology. Dr. Purshouse added: "Rather than gradually becoming a pervasive and chilling feature of public life, FRT surveillance should only be targeted against credible and serious threats to public safety." Explore further How facial recognition technology aids police More information: 'Privacy, Crime Control and Police Use of Automated Facial Recognition Technology', by Joe Purshouse and Liz Campbell, is published February 8, 2019 in the journal Criminal Law Review. The dredger MV Mango Tree, tasked with removing water weeds on Lake Victoria and turning them into fertiliser, lands at the Kisumu Port docks. With nets piled onto wooden boats, a group of fishermen joke while gazing out across Lake Victoria and the vast green weed clogging up the waterway. But their laughter has a worried edge as the sun sets. The thick green carpet of water hyacinth is again choking Kisumu bay, floating on the surface and blocking Kenya's main entry to the largest body of water in Africa. Leggy egrets are delighted, high-stepping through the invasive vegetation in search of foodbut the fishermen are downcast as it is unclear when the weed will clear. "If we go fishing now we'll be stuck in the hyacinth," says Maurice Omondi, 40, who heads the Kichinjio Fishermen's Association on one of Kisumu's beaches. "All we can do is wait for the wind to turn and take the hyacinth with it." "In the past we tried to make it through but it's very, very hard and the risk is too great: once, we had to get a helicopter to rescue some fishermen stuck in the hyacinth," he says. Hyacinth is an aquatic floating plant native to South America that has become a global freshwater scourge after being inadvertantly transported worldwide. It is believed to have first reached Lake Victoria in the 1990s, floating down the lake's western tributary, the Kagera. Since then it has seriously complicated the movement of fishing boats and other vessels on Lake Victoria, hitting the local economy hard. The municipal fish market in Kisumu, western Kenya. "Sometimes we go out fishing and can't come back because the hyacinth blocks access to the beach. At other times, the hyacinth takes our nets," says Thomas Ouma, 40, a tall fisherman in a football shirt. Tangled troubles Lake Victoria is shared with Tanzania and Uganda, but on the Kenyan side alone hyacinth covers around 17,000 hectares (42,000 acres)roughly five percent of Kenya's lake water surfacea figure that fluctuates with efforts to control the stubborn weed using insects, machines or manual removal. "The problem is that it is impossible to eradicate the water hyacinth, you can only try to control it," says Christopher Aura from the Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute. "Seeds can hibernate in the lake bed for between 15 to 21 years," he says, adding that the water hyacinth thrives on chemicals including phosphorus which is found in high quantities in Lake Victoria due to fertiliser run-off from nearby farms. Hyacinth also reduces the amount of oxygen absorbed in the water, to the delight of species such as catfish, but to the chagrin of others like the more appetising tilapia which is a mainstay of the region's fishing economy. Owned by a Chinese company, the MV Mango Tree helps to unclog waterways for boats slowed down by silting, pollution and weeds. "I wish hyacinth was our only problem!" says George Otieno, a 34-year-old fisherman in a plaid shirt. "The fishing is not as good as before." Agricultural pollution, illegal fishing in spawning grounds and global warming are all affecting fish reproduction and fishermen are seeing their catches evaporate, Aura said. In 2013, the Kenyan fishery industry in Lake Victoria landed 140,000 tonnes of fish, mostly Nile perch, white bait and tilapia. By 2016, the figure was down to 98,000 tonnes. Chinese fish At the market in Kisumu, the gap between local demand and the lake's supply is filled by frozen tilapia filletsimported from China. The incongruity makes fishmongers cringe. Fishermen on Lake Victoria pull the tangled water hyacinth out of their net by hand. "It's absurd," says Dickson Oduor, 22, as he slices up some locally-caught fish. "But there are poorer people who prefer to buy Chinese tilapia, which is cheaper." President Uhuru Kenyatta announced late last year that imports of frozen Chinese tilapia would be banned. But for Aura the solution is not so simple. Some 500,000 tonnes of fish is required in Kenya, he says, and Kenya fish production cannot meet demand. "That is why Kenya imports fish from neighbouring countries, but also from China," Aura says. "If we want to do without Chinese fish we absolutely need to find other solutions, like changing our feeding habits." On the beach of Kichinjio, 34-year-old boat captain Dismas Odhiambo has returned with his catch, the only one of the fishermen to have made it through the hyacinth and back. Painful for local fishmongers to see, tilapias imported from China are defrosted at Kisumu's Kichinjio beach. "The wind turned during the night and at around 3:30 in the morning, we could go out," he says. The catch is better than nothing, but Odhiambo's nets are full of small fry, not the more valuable big fish, and he cannot hide his disappointment. "To be honest, the fishing has really not been good, I don't think I'll even cover my expenses." Explore further Lake Victoria biodiversity being 'decimated': conservationists 2019 AFP Credit: CC0 Public Domain Oil and gas "boomtowns," such as Ohio's Belmont County, may be bearing the costs of drilling without reaping all of its benefits, according to a newly published paper by Dr. Amanda Weinstein, assistant professor of economics at The University of Akron. Weinstein, along with coauthors Mark Partridge and Alexandra Tsvetkova from The Ohio State University, researched the flow of money in energy boomtowns across the country. They discovered that $1 out of every $5 in earnings leaks out of the counties where boomtowns are seated, as commuting workers take their earnings back home with them or spend it in nearby counties. For example, just a short drive from Belmont County, across the Ohio-West Virginia border, is a casino that draws in some of those earnings. "This limits the ability of this energy boom to lift the living standards of the residents in drilling counties," said Weinstein. "It increases concerns that the counties bearing the brunt of the costs associated with drilling, from higher infrastructure costs to potential environmental costs, are not reaping all of the benefits of drilling." Additionally, Weinstein found that the earnings benefits of drilling vary substantially across the nation. "While some drilling counties, such as Williams County, N.D., are experiencing simultaneous growth in other industries, counties like Belmont are more likely to experience some crowding out of other industries as the energy industry grows," she said. Weinstein's findings were published recently in the Journal of Resource Policy, in a paper titled "Follow the money: Aggregate, sectoral and spatial effects of an energy boom on local earnings." State Rep. Jack Cera, D-Bellaire, who represents the 96th District, which includes Jefferson, Monroe and part of Belmont counties in Ohio, said there is a need for increased investment in drilling counties to ensure their prosperity. "The oil and gas industry has brought much needed economic activity to East Ohio, but it has also brought additional need for infrastructure and services," said Cera. "Using revenues from the severance tax to invest in local governments, improve infrastructure and provide services not only benefits the citizens and communities throughout Eastern Ohio, but it also supports the industry." According to Weinstein, if Ohio doesn't invest in drilling counties, their current economic success might be short-lived. This investment would likely require raising the natural gas severance taxes in Ohio, which are well below other drilling states. "This seems unlikely, as Ohio House Republicans recently scrapped a proposed increase in natural gas severance taxes, which would have brought the natural gas severance tax up to 6.5 percentstill a full percent below drilling states like Texas," she said. Partridge, one of her co-authors, noted, "After the boom of a few years ago, drilling in Ohio remains stuck at the bottom, even as placesespecially Texashave made recoveries." Weinstein further suggested that policymakers also need to ensure severance tax dollars are allocated to drilling counties. "Much of the tax dollars the industry does pay, such as the severance tax, are not local taxes. A portion of gas taxes are local and can help fund some of the much needed road construction projects in drilling counties. But with the projected shortfall in the state transportation budget, current gas taxes in Ohio are not large enough to fund the infrastructure projects across the state let alone allocate more dollars to drilling counties," Weinstein concluded. Explore further New research: Economic impact of oil and natural gas in West Texas Credit: CC0 Public Domain Kenya could soon host the only research-class observatory in equatorial Africa, thanks to a collaboration between the nation and the UK. It is hoped that this UK-supported project will give future generations of African astronomers the chance to access and utilise an observatory in their own country, as well as to participate in knowledge exchange around the world. UK teams are currently working with their Kenyan colleagues to find high-quality locations for an astronomical observatory and associated astronomical research. The project is also exploring the benefits an observatory can bring to capacity building in science, engineering and technology at all levels from primary schools to universities and industry. The initial phase of the project is funded by UK Research and Innovation through the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF), and is led by Dr. Martyn Wells from the UK Astronomy Technology Centre (UK ATC), which is part of the UK's Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). Speaking about the collaboration Dr. Wells said: "The UK team are very happy indeed on the success of the work to date on preparing a case for a definitive equatorial research observatory in Kenya. "I hope that the legacy of this work will lead to future generations of African astronomers having an opportunity to benefit from access to a Kenyan observatory and at astronomy sites around the world." Over the last year, a group from the Technical University of Kenya and Kenyatta University, the Travelling Telescope, the UKATC and the South African Astronomical Observatory have developed the case for an observatory in Kenya. At their latest meeting, held in Nairobi this week, university staff and students are looking at the science case for an observatory, the potential outreach activities from it, and the engineering skills needed and available in Kenya. At the same time a number of small teams are visiting potential sites in Kenya to make initial meteorological measurements as to their quality for astronomy. Weather stations will then be installed at these locations to measure the long term properties of the sites. By the end of March this year, the team will have ground-based instruments feeding weather data to researchers on the project that will allow the team to finalise a site within the next two years. Professor Paul Baki, Head of Physics and Space Science at the Technical University of Kenya, said of the project: "Kenya currently suffers a serious brain drain among graduates in science and technology. This is largely due to lack of facilities within the country for graduates with scientific talent to develop their skills for the benefit of the local economy. The few provinces in which scientific research of an international standard takes place are predictable for a developing country: medicine, veterinary science and agriculture. There are virtually no avenues for research into mathematics, physics or astronomy. This project helps to partly address that issue" Kenya hosts some of the best sites for astronomical research on the African continent thanks to unusally low cloud coverage but does not have its own observatory. Thanks to its position on the equator, it gives access to more than 85% of the sky in both northern and southern celestial hemispheres and there are also several mountain top sites within easy reach of existing roads that offer the prospect of good observing. "Since there exists no local tradition for optical astronomy in the country, the construction of an observatory in Kenya would need to be undertaken with the involvement both of foreign capital and expertise. An observatory in Kenya could thus meet the needs of international research institutions while enabling a local astronomical community to grow over a period of years. It would also act as a focus for Kenyan talent that would otherwise drift abroad," adds Dr. Wells. This project is the latest in a series of astronomy collaborations between the UK and Africa, including the DARA project which aims to develop radio astronomy skills in a number of African countries and the Square Kilometre Array bursary programme, in which 16 Kenyan students have been sponsored so far. Explore further Roaming telescope brings Kenyan kids views of night sky Provided by UK Global Challenges Research Fund HMCS Vancouver, a Royal Canadian Navy frigate, docking in Hong Kong in May 2018: Canada has signed a Can$185 million contract with Lockheed Martin to design a new generation of frigates Canada announced Friday it had partnered with US weapons maker Lockheed Martin on a Can$815 million project to design 15 warships. "Our government is providing the Royal Canadian Navy with the ships it needs to do its important work of protecting Canadians," Procurement Minister Carla Qualtrough said in Halifax, where the ships will be built. Based on the British-designed Type 26 frigate, developed by BAE Systems for the British defense ministry, the ships will measure 492 feet (150 meters) from bow to stern. Armed with sea-to-air missiles and with a range of 8,000 miles (13,000 kilometers) and a top speed of 26 knots (48 kilometers an hour), the ships will carry crews of between 157 and 208 sailors. The design period is expected to last three to four years, with construction due to start in the early 2020s. While the initial contract is for Can$815 million ($613 million), the cost of building all 15 warships will rise to Can$60 billion, according to Radio-Canada, a public news service. "These highly advanced, state-of-the-art warships will enable our navy to monitor and defend our waters here at home, help us support our international allies and keep Canadians safe," said Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan. Since coming to office in 2015, the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has launched an extensive modernization program of Canada's armed forces, updating warplanes and submarines and buying new light armored vehicles and a new generation of precision-guided munitions. The long-term aim is to bolster defense spending from the current one percent of gross domestic product to 1.4 percent by 2027. Explore further Navy wants small warships that pack a bigger punch 2019 AFP A day after his son was grilled by the Enforcement Directorate for six hours, former finance minister P Chidambaram appeared before the Enforcement Directorate in INX Media money laundering case on Friday. Both P Chidambaram and Karti Chidambaram were questioned by the ED under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) for Karti's alleged links with INX Media. As per India Today, Karti denied meting main accused Indrani Mukerjea in connection with the INX Media deal. He also told them he never met her except once when the CBI took him to Byculla Jail in Mumbai for confrontation where Indrani was jailed at that time. He also denied meeting her husband Peter Mukarjea ever in his life, the report added. Both Peter and Indrani Mukerjea are the prime suspects in the money laundering case. The CBI had also arrested Karti in February 2018 after filing an FIR on May 15, 2017, for the alleged irregularities in the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearance to INX Media. As per the allegations, INX Media received foreign funds worth over Rs 305 crore in 2007 when P Chidambaram was the country's finance minister. The probe agencies are also probing the link between Karti Chidambaram and INX Media through a transaction worth Rs 10 lakh made by INX media to Advantage Strategic Consulting Pvt Ltd, a firm that was indirectly linked to Karti. The allegations suggest Karti took money from INX Media to stop a probe against INX Media for violating FIPB conditions to get investment from Mauritius, and to stop probe against INX Media during the time when Congress-led government was in power. Earlier Indrani had also given a statement to the probe agencies under Section 164 of the CrPC, claiming that Karti demanded Rs 10 lakh from her and her husband to stop probe in the case. The ED had last year attached Karti's assets worth Rs 54 crore, both in India and abroad. Also read: ED attaches Karti's assets worth Rs 54 crore; house in UK, tennis club in Spain on list of seizures Edited by Manoj Sharma US lawmakers threatened Thursday to take tougher action against Saudi Arabia over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi amid a new revelation that the kingdom's powerful crown prince spoke of going after him with a "bullet." President Donald Trump faces a Friday deadline set by Congress to determine if Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the assassination of Khashoggi, who was strangled and dismembered after entering the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul on October 2. Special UN rapporteur, Agnes Callamard, said Thursday after a visit to Turkey that the killing of Khashoggi, who had written critical pieces on Saudi Arabia in The Washington Post, had been "planned and perpetrated" by Saudi officials. The New York Times, citing officials who had seen US intelligence, said that Prince Mohammed had warned in an intercepted conversation to an aide in 2017 that he would go after Khashoggi "with a bullet" if he did not return to Saudi Arabia from the United States. US intelligence understood that the ambitious 33-year-old heir apparent was ready to kill the journalist, although he may not have literally meant to shoot him, according to the newspaper. The kingdom, after initially denying any knowledge of Khashoggi's disappearance, has acknowledged that a team killed him inside the embassy but described it as a rogue operation that did not involve the crown prince. In October, the then top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee invoked a law that gave the Trump administration 120 days -- until February 8 -- to determine whether Prince Mohammed ordered Khashoggi's murder and to outline actions against him. - Congress ready to act - Predicting little movement, a bipartisan group of senators on Thursday proposed a bill to cut off some weapons sales to Saudi Arabia including of tanks, long-range fighter jets and ordnance for automatic weapons. The bill would also require sanctions against any Saudis involved in Khashoggi's killing and require State Department reports on human rights in the kingdom and in the conduct of its war in Yemen. "Seeing as the Trump administration has no intention of insisting on full accountability for Mr. Khashoggi's murderers, it is time for Congress to step in and impose real consequences to fundamentally re-examine our relationship with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and with the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen," said Robert Menendez, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The bill enjoys support from top Republicans including Senator Lindsey Graham, usually a close ally of Trump. "While Saudi Arabia is a strategic ally, the behavior of the crown prince in multiple ways has shown disrespect for the relationship and made him, in my view, beyond toxic," Graham said. The Senate already voted in December to end support for the bloody Saudi-led offensive on rebels in Yemen, where millions are on the brink of starvation in what the United Nations calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis. The move is likely to pass the new Democratic-led House of Representatives after a hearing on legislation Wednesday, although Trump could exercise his veto. - Trump supports prince - Secretary of State Mike Pompeo raised Khashoggi's killing among other issues during a meeting Thursday with Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi minister of state for foreign affairs, according to the State Department. But Trump has publicly said that he is not concerned whether Crown Prince Mohammed was involved in Khashoggi's killing, saying the Saudi alliance benefits Washington due to the kingdom's major purchases of weapons and its hostility to regional rival Iran. Asked about Friday's deadline, State Department spokesman Robert Palladino said that the United States had already taken action over Khashoggi's killing, pointing to last year's revocation of visas for nearly two dozen Saudi officials and the freezing of assets of 17 others. "We will continue to consult with the Congress and work to hold accountable those who are responsible for Jamal Khashoggi's killing," Palladino told reporters, declining to say if more action would be forthcoming. In a joint statement accompanied by a rally outside the White House, six advocacy groups including Human Rights Watch, Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists urged Trump to release CIA records on Khashoggi's death, support an independent investigation and press the Saudis to free detained reporters and activists. "Notwithstanding public and congressional outrage and the reported findings of the CIA, the Trump administration appears to be engaged in a cover-up on behalf of the Saudi government," they wrote. Taiwans largest airline has agreed to a Saturday meeting with its pilots union and transport officials after a strike forced the cancellation of 32 flights, including at least 12 to or from Hong Kong. China Airlines scrapped five Hong Kong flights scheduled for Friday three between the city and Taipei, and two between Hong Kong and Kaohsiung, according to the companys website. It also cancelled four Saturday flights between Hong Kong and Kaohsiung and three between Taipei and Hong Kong. Six have been delayed. The airlines branch of the Taoyuan Pilots Union launched industrial action at 6am on Friday. China Airlines reacted on its Facebook page at about 4pm with a statement saying it would respond to the unions demands and meet representatives and government officials on Saturday afternoon. Wang Kwo-tsai, Taiwans deputy minister for transport, said on Friday afternoon that the meeting would start at 3pm on Saturday one day later than a prior suggestion by his boss Lin Chia-lung, who had floated a time of 4pm on Friday. The union said: The strike will go on until China Airlines agrees to meet our demands. It urged all pilots to join the action by handing in their licences, of which 200 had already been received, according to union director Chen Pei-pei. But that number accounted for fewer than one third of the 700 pilots joining the strike. China Airlines has dismissed calls by pilots for extra manpower on long-haul flights to reduce fatigue a stance the union said had left it with no choice but to take action. The pilots had requested three of them be deployed on flights lasting more than eight hours, and four for trips over 12 hours. On Thursday the union said that as of 2pm, a China Airlines reply to the Taoyuan City Governments Department of Labour, which has been involved in negotiations between the two parties, said increasing manpower would raise human resources costs and seriously affect the competitiveness of the company. Story continues But the airline was using so-called company competitiveness as an excuse, and was totally neglecting air safety and overwork, the union argued. Other demands had included more transparency in the companys promotion and training system for co-pilots, and no company pressure or threats being applied against union members. The plans of thousands of travellers were thrown into turmoil on Friday. At Hong Kong International Airport, a flier surnamed Yip said he needed to make a transfer in Taipei. If the two flights are cancelled, then I wont know what to do, he said. A man surnamed Chen said his family of six were told by China Airlines staff that they should switch to a 2pm flight to Kaohsiung because it was unknown whether their 7.40pm flight would be affected. They will tell us by 1pm, he said. We will take the earlier flight if there are seats, but right now we have to wait. The family were wrapping up a four-day trip to Hong Kong for the Lunar New Year festive period. Chen said he did not blame the pilots for the timing of their strike. Everybody needs a holiday, he said. Another family, of five, were able to get seats on a 2pm flight to Taipei hours after their original flight was cancelled. Our relatives in Taiwan told us sometime past 7am this morning that there was a strike and our flight was cancelled, said the mother, surnamed Lin. We called the airline immediately and got transferred to an earlier flight. Her husband said it was not so good of the pilots to stage their industrial action during the festive period. We need to go home, he said. We will transfer our passengers to other airlines and invite other air companies to support our insufficiency in operations Hsieh Shih-chien, China Airlines president Both the union and the airline apologised for the inconvenience. China Airlines said it had set up an urgent task force and would try its best to maintain operations with the available manpower. If there were not enough staff the company would merge flights or deploy alternative aircraft of different sizes, it added. The firm also pledged to arrange flights for affected passengers according to need. No service charge would be imposed for those seeking refunds, it said. China Airlines president Hsieh Shih-chien bowed as he made an apology. We will transfer our passengers to other airlines and invite other air companies to support our insufficiency in operations, he said. Cathay Pacific Airways said it was in close communication with China Airlines. We will endeavour to provide alternative flight arrangements to affected passengers when seats are available, in accordance with the established agreement between the two airlines, Cathay said. As of noon on Friday, nine tour groups from Hong Kong with about 200 travellers in total had been affected by the strike, according to the citys Travel Industry Council. Three groups were originally set to fly to Kaohsiung and three to return to Hong Kong from Taiwan on Friday. One group was due back from Taiwan on Saturday, with another two set to depart for Taipei the same day. The groups bound for Kaohsiung will take flights to Taipei then travel to Kaohsiung by train. The three groups returning on Friday will take earlier flights back to Hong Kong. One of the two groups leaving for Taipei on Saturday was cancelled, and the one flying back on Saturday was being rescheduled, according to the council. Travel agencies are making plans with the airline operator with their best efforts to minimise the impact on tourists, the council said. It urged travellers to pay attention to notifications from their agencies. By 12.25pm on Friday, more than 30 affected passengers had been put on a standby list, the Post learned from the China Airlines counter at Hong Kong airport. Imagine there was a typhoon and it hit only China Airlines this is the situation we are currently in, a member of staff said. For flights coming in and flying out later today, we will have to wait for notifications from Taiwan, because if the pilots havent shown up three to four hours before departure, then we wont have the flights. The Hong Kong Airport Authority said it would closely monitor the situation and called on passengers to check with the airline for updates. On Friday evening four more flights between Hong Kong and Taipei were added for Saturday after China Airlines liaised with Hong Kong Airlines. This article China Airlines agrees to meet pilot union after strike causes travel chaos with cancellations of 12 Hong Kong-Taiwan flights first appeared on South China Morning Post For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2019. More from South China Morning Post: Waste materials from South Korea MANILA, Philippines The South Korean government has begun an investigation into the tons of garbage that were sent to the Philippines from South Korea in July 2018. The 51 containers containing 1,200 tons of waste materials are now back in South Korea after reaching Pyeongtaek Port on Sunday. The smuggled garbage entered the country illegally through Cagayan de Oro Port in Mindanao where it was declared to contain wood, mirrors, plastics and electronic waste. There are still 5,100 tons of waste in Mindanao that are set to be shipped back to South Korea. The Han River Basin Environmental Office said that part of the investigations aim is to prevent a repetition of the incident. UNTV News & Rescue The post South Korean govt begins probe on trash shipped to PH appeared first on UNTV News. El Salvadors president-elect to reassess ties with Beijing less than year after diplomatic switch from Taipei El Salvadors president-elect will assess his countrys diplomatic relations with China, a member of his team said, less than a year after the government abandoned Taipei for Beijing. During the 2019 election campaign, Niyab Bukele who emerged victorious at the polls on Sunday was critical of El Salvadors relationship with Beijing. Federico Anliker, a member of Bukeles inner circle and secretary general of his centre-right New Ideas party, said the incoming administration would look at why the outgoing government of Salvador Sanchez Ceren had chosen to build a relationship with Beijing. With the issue of China, China-Taiwan relations, we have to study them and put them in the balance what is best for the nation, not what is best for a political party, as the [Ceren government] did, Anliker told Salvadoran media on Thursday We were not consulted, nor did they give us the reasons [for establishing] relations with China. Now, we have to investigate in detail. While Bukele voiced scepticism about his countrys ties to Beijing during his election campaign, he said a review will not necessarily break relations. Youthful new president for one of worlds most murderous countries On Friday, the Taiwanese foreign ministry said it was aware of the statement from Bukeles team, and would continue to pay attention to the political situation in El Salvador after the elections. The Central American nation switched ties to Beijing from Taipei in August. Beijing regards Taiwan as a breakaway province to be reunified with mainland China. Beijings efforts to woo Taipeis allies and isolate the island won San Salvador over, with El Salvador following its neighbours the Dominican Republic and Panama into Chinas camp. After ties were established, China offered El Salvador about US$150 million for social projects and 3,000 tonnes of rice to feed thousands of people suffering in the aftermath of a drought last year. The United States was angry when El Salvador recognised Beijing, claiming the decision would affect the economic health and security of the Americas. Story continues Xu Shicheng, a research fellow with the Institute of Latin American Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, said Bukeles diplomatic strategy stood in contrast to that of his predecessor. But there is no need to worry, since they could see for themselves that China is the ally with money and the agricultural technology that El Salvador needs as a developing country, Xu said. Xi reminds diplomatic ally El Salvador: Stick to the one-China principle In January last year, US President Donald Trump was reported by The Washington Post to have denigrated El Salvador, Haiti, and parts of Africa during a meeting. El Salvador should really give it a think will someone like Trump , who called them s***hole countries, really give them more benefits than China? Xu said. Zhang Jiazhe, a researcher at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, said Beijing should watch when Bukele assumed power in June. Small Central American countries like El Salvador, they do not have much political power. The most important thing for them is money and aid, Zhang said. It is almost like going to the market, seeing who gives them the best deal. Zhang said El Salvador would not be the first Central American state to seesaw between Beijing and Taipei. In 1985, Nicaragua under Daniel Ortega broke ties with Taipei and recognised Beijing. It resumed diplomatic links with Taipei five years later, when the government of Violeta Chamorro was elected. With his (possibly racist) words, Trump digs a s***hole for himself Zhang said that although scholars would advise Chinese officials to be wary of investing too much in Central America because of its political volatility, the Chinese investment promised after ties were established with El Salvador would still be at their early stages. El Salvador is too small a country to cost China much, Zhang said. Additional reporting by Reuters This article El Salvadors president-elect to reassess ties with Beijing less than year after diplomatic switch from Taipei first appeared on South China Morning Post For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2019. A pizza delivery man and security guard helped to pursue a motorist who hit two Chinese pedestrians in Makati City on the evening of February 2, Saturday. The two Good Samaritans cornered Christian Roy Luna Marcos, driver of the red Hyundai Tucson that rammed the two Chinese nationals, after a car chase within the Makati Central Business District. The Makati City Police (MCP) said that Marcos drove the red Hyundai Tucson, with plate number NAF 9752, along HV Dela Costa from Makati Avenue when he struck the victims along Tordesillas St. at 9:50 PM and fled the scene of the accident. MCP said the victims, Liu Lei and Bing Ting, both 24 years old, were rushed to the Makati Medical Center for treatment of their injuries. Reporting on the incident, MCP said pizza delivery guy Jomar Gadon Malabja saw the accident and pursued Marcos using is motorcycle. While in pursuit, Malabja crossed paths with security guard Gennefred Macahilo, who was also on a motorcycle patrolling Salcedo Village. Malabja sought Macahilos help in chasing after Marcos, and the two men blocked the car of Marcos upon reaching the corner of Legazpi St. The men accosted Marcos and turned him over to the MCP. Makati City Police The post Delivery Man, Security Guard Take Down Hit-and-Run Driver appeared first on Carmudi Philippines. Australian security agencies have begun using sweeping new powers to access encrypted communications even before a promised review meant to address concerns from the likes of Google, Apple and Facebook. The powers were granted under a new decryption law which was rushed through parliament in December amid fierce debate, and seen as the latest salvo between governments worldwide and tech firms over national security and privacy. Two months later, the Australian Federal Police have revealed that agents have already used it while investigating drug trafficking and child exploitation. Australia is widely seen as a global test case for such laws, with possible applications by other governments seeking to counter the growing use of encrypted messaging, notably Australia's partners in the so-called "Five Eyes" intelligence alliance -- the United States, Britain, Canada and New Zealand. Under the new laws, refusal to grant authorities access to devices is punishable with up to 10 years in prison, and police told a parliamentary inquiry they had used that threat to compel two suspects to hand over their passwords. Citing secrecy provisions in the law, police declined to say if they had used it to force device makers or telecommunications firms -- including global giants such as Apple -- to break or bypass encrypted communications. The same provisions bar companies from disclosing whether they have received such police demands, known as "compulsory notices". The government has argued the law was urgently needed to foil terrorist plots and intercept communications among other serious criminals. But opponents allege it punches a hole in global efforts to keep governments from eavesdropping on secure communications, such as WhatsApp. They also argue it could undermine legitimate uses of encryption for commerce and banking, saying you cannot create vulnerabilities in encryption technologies without opening the door for them to be used by malicious actors. "That is a needle that cannot be threaded -- you cannot break encryption without introducing a vulnerability into the whole system," an alliance of tech giants, including Amazon, Google and Facebook, said in a submission about the legislation before it was adopted in December. - Threat to industry - The legislation was passed only after the conservative government agreed to reopen debate in the new year on amendments that would address widespread concerns among civil liberties advocates and tech industry experts that it was ill-conceived and too broad. The Department of Home Affairs says the law is being progressively implemented and that in January it wrote to tech industry members for assistance in drawing up guidelines on how to use the new powers. But the tech industry appears far from reassured. "There is no doubt there is an extremely broad coalition of stakeholders that are very concerned about the impact of this bill," said John Stanton, chief executive of the Communications Alliance, which represents the Australian communications industry. "It is not just industry, it is civil society and digital rights activists (too)." Stanton warned the new law posed "an enormous threat" to export opportunities for Australian tech firms "because they can no longer provide any assurance that their gear hasn't been tampered with by Australian security". "Even to say, 'no, it hasn't', is an offence" under the law," he added. Industry groups have combined forces to present a joint submission to the latest inquiry proposing a series of amendments. These include a higher threshold for using the law, which can currently be applied in any investigation of an offence carrying a maximum three-year jail term -- a bar critics say is too low. The industry also wants more precision about an element of the law barring authorities from forcing companies to introduce a "system vulnerability" into their products -- a term they say is ambiguous. The tech industry alliance warned the new law as written could force companies to take actions in Australia that violate laws in other nations where they operate or have clients. And they issued a thinly veiled warning that the law could force major global companies to end or restrict their activities in Australia. "Australians may not have access to the best technology, because technology providers may choose not to sell to Australians and submit to this legislation," the alliance said in its submission to parliament. The parliament committee must complete its review by April 3, but any moves to then amend the legislation risk running up against the Australian electoral cycle, with a federal poll due by mid-May. Colombia Hoy Para nunca olvidar Paginas vistas en total 'Parasite' painted on a statue of Queen, Elizabeth in Kent, England Sin palabras La UE le apunta a la paz Cada vez mas solo Follow by Email Precio del Brent To get the BRENT oil price, please enable Javascript. Dolar USA Vs Euro LULA y su Pueblo Bye Bye Homenaje al genial Quino Fueron ellos Una imagen que resume Tan bajo ha caido que se deja tocar el trasero? Porky y el Nene (archiconocido narcotraficante) Ladrones al poder Asi mira el perrito a su amo Crazy Clamor popular La nueva inquisicion Bolivia Chile Hoy Eso es todo amigos! Pinerachet No More Trump Adios Macri, hasta nunca La Marioneta se desinfla Asi o mas cinico Almugre Mexico en 1794 Mas arrastrado imposible La pura verdad Solidaridad con Palestina Serie Capitalismo Espejismos de la clase trabajadora Comerciantes o delincuentes Asi es la vida USA HOY La avaricia no tiene limites Chile Hoy Asi son las cosas Mapa Electoral de Venezuela Patagonia argentina? Un aniversario mas del mayor genocidio de la Humanidad Retrato del franquismo en Espana El Chulo de Madrid Cuando la policia se roba la democracia Una imagen dice mas que mil palabras La purita verdad Asi gobierna la maldita burguesia Mi pobre clase media Como Chavez nadie Comparte La Colmena via twitter Twittear Programa de la MUD Asi o mas clarito Por que Trump no ataco Corea del Norte? Hace 15 anos Por que la OEA no se pronuncio? Una verguenza nacional La luz que nos guia La Union Europea Premio Nobel de la Paz? Feudalismo ayer y hoy Obama, el mentiroso Curiosa coincidencia Un mundo de cerdos No es extrano? La Marioneta Los ricos protestan, los pobres celebran MARICORI Y OBAMA Cuantas muertes este ano? 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Por culpa de Chavez Cerveza Polar Algun dia Colombia volvera a la ideologia de Bolivar Translate LOS REVOLUCIONARIOS NO TOMAN CACA-COLA No se trata solamente de un capricho, sino de una sana actitud en todos los sentidos. Desde la solidaridad con el pueblo colombiano donde la empresa Caca-Cola ha cometido los mas grandes abusos contra sus trabajadores incluyendo el presunto secuestro y asesinato de los dirigentes del sindicato, hasta la proteccion de la salud de nuestros hijos, enviciados por ese jarabe de cola y azucar, que les produce obesidad prematura. Pensemos tambien los revolucionarios, que ese dinero que gastamos en los refrescos es utilizado por esas empresas para financiar el terrorismo en nuestro pais. Es cierto, no se trata solo de la Caca-Cola, sino tambien de la cerveza, de los cigarrillos y todos esos articulos innecesarios y mas que eso, daninos para nuestra salud. Podriamos incluso pensar en un dia de parada para cada uno de ellos. Es cuestion de irnos organizando. Pero para empezar, que tal si dejamos de comprar Caca-Cola y sus similares? Cuando lo extraordinario se vuelve cotidiano... Discurso del Acto de Grado en Barinas en 12 de Febrero del 2005 Queridos Graduandos: Mas que un discurso, quiero dirigirles algunas palabras que escribi anoche, despues de visitar en las clinicas, a los estudiantes heridos, a consecuencia de los enfrentamientos con la policia de hace apenas dos dias. Me ha tocado por razones del destino, ser la persona que les otorgue el titulo que bien merecieron con sus estudios. Y me siento sumamente orgulloso de serlo. Me consta que la Universidad de Los Llanos Occidentales Ezequiel Zamora, a pesar de lo dicho por los enemigos de esta universidad, es una universidad de primera. No tendremos la mejor planta fisica, en los salones hace calor. En el comedor hace calor. Pero no es en lo material que las cosas deben valorarse. El mayor capital es el ser humano. Y en eso, nuestra UNELLEZ, lo digo con conocimiento de causa, esta sobrada. Los llaneros venezolanos son nobles, valientes, de coraje. En la UNELLEZ hacen vida, en este momento, aproximadamente 67000 personas. El 97% de ellas son estudiantes. Jovenes que, como Ustedes hasta el dia de hoy, buscan ese titulo, que constata los anos de dedicacion y de estudio. Los jovenes son el rio de la vida, ustedes graduados deben ser los capitanes de esos barcos que naveguen por el rio de la vida. Nuestra Patria atraviesa momentos muy dificiles porque decidio dejar de ser esa matrona de edad vetusta y complaciente, para ser joven, rebelde y altanera. Nuestra imagen ya no es la de una acaudalada ricachona mayamera. En nuestro rostro brilla ahora la sonrisa del Che Guevara, con su diente delantero torcido, su pelo largo y su boina con la estrella. Entender esto, a mi me ha tomado practicamente toda la vida. Tengo 53 anos, y ya perdi mi oportunidad de derramar sangre joven a causa de un ideal. Ustedes son jovenes, estan en la flor de la vida. No cometan por favor el error de renunciar a su instinto de rebelion. El Che Guevara fue Ministro de a Economia en Cuba. Los billetes y las monedas se adornaban con su rostro. Nada de eso le importo. Primero fue a Angola donde paso un penoso ano de combate. Despues se fue a Bolivia, donde encontro la muerte. El Che era el ultimo que comia, el que cargaba la mochila mas pesada. Siempre se sacrificaba por los demas en un estoicismo que mas parecia fervor religioso que ideologia marxista. Si quieren un modelo de vida. Ahi lo tienen. Dije hace unos momentos que el 97% de la poblacion de la UNELLEZ es estudiante. Se imaginan Ustedes la Universidad que podriamos tener si todos los estudiantes tuvieran la abnegacion, la combatividad del Che? Los momentos que se avecinan van a requerir de una gran unidad del pueblo venezolano. La alternativa de continuar siendo libres o regresar a la pobreza se nos planteara en los proximos dias de forma enmascarada, o quizas peor, desenmascarada, vestida con uniforme de soldado del Imperio. Por nuestra parte podemos esperar lo mejor. La macroeconomia no podria ir mejor, la justicia social ha mejorado notablemente. Las misiones ocupan un papel muy importante en el pago de dicha justicia social. Aqui en Barinas ya hemos cumplido con dos de las misiones, la mision Robinson y la mision Sucre. No hay analfabetismo y no hay exclusion en la educacion superior, en estas tierras de Zamora. Pero ay malhaya! Son precisamente estos exitos los que nos hacen mas antipaticos al Imperio. Para ellos, somos inclusive un mal ejemplo que se esta contagiando al resto del continente y cuidado sino al resto del mundo. Nunca venceremos al Imperio. Estara siempre ahi, acechando. Por lo menos hasta que el mismo no se autodestruya. Porque, sepanlo senores, el neoliberalismo es canibal. Cuando le ataque el hambre, se devorara a si mismo. Ustedes, queridos graduandos, a partir de hoy pasan a conformar la elite profesional que debe sostener este pais en los proximos cuarenta o cincuenta anos. Anos decisivos para el logro de nuestra libertad y del rescate de nuestra Soberania. No se dejen comprar. No se dejen corromper. No se dejen gritar. No se dejen pisar. Que nadie les diga que comer, o que vestirse, o que leer. Sean siempre autenticos, rebeldes, contestatarios. Pero eso si, profundamente patriotas, dignos de ser hijos de Bolivar. Muchas gracias y que Dios los bendiga. Alguna duda? Medio siglo de Holocausto Palestino Oscar Zanartu Nacio en Caracas en 1960. Ha realizado exposiciones individuales en las galerias Minotauro, Clave y San Francisco, y en salas de Coro, estado Falcon, y Puerto Ordaz, estado Bolivar. En Paris su obra ha sido exhibida en el Centro Cultural Tanagra, en la Exposicion Cite Internationale des Arts, en las galerias De Mars y Arver Space, al igual que en la Galeria Municipal Levallois, en Levallois Perret (Francia). En muestras colectivas, su obra se ha expuesto en Belgica, Francia, Estados Unidos y Venezuela; en Caracas intervino en la exposicion "Del genesis a la memoria", 1995, organizada por la Fundacion La Previsora. En 1982 obtuvo el Premio Nacional Critven y en 1990 la Mencion de Honor Jose Antonio Paez, en la Embajada de Venezuela en Paris. En 1991 se le concedio el primer premio de Pintura Itinerante, en Levallois Perret, Francia. OZ1 OZ2 OZ3 OZ4 Homenaje a Jason Galarraga La Victoria de Samotracia Odalisca Mas fotos de la nevada del pasado agosto 2008 La Sierra Nevada de Merida Nuestro precioso Churum Meru Homenaje a Picasso Autoretrato Sabes lo que bebes en una Coca-Cola? La formula de la Pepsi tiene una diferencia basica con la de la Coca-Cola y es intencional, para evitar el proceso judicial. La diferencia es a proposito, pero suficientemente parecida como para atraer a los consumidores de Coca-Cola que prefieren un gusto diferente con menos sal y azucar. Mi profesion? Tuve que aprender quimica, entender todo sobre componentes de gaseosas, conservantes, sales, acidos, cafeina, enlatado, produccion, permisos, aprobaciones y muchas otras cosas. Monte mi propio mini-laboratorio de analisis de productos. Sal en la Coca Cola? A patadas. El Cloruro de Sodio no solo refresca sino da mas sed, como para pedir otra gaseosa. Y no resulta desagradable porque la sal mata literalmente la sensibilidad al dulce... del que por cierto tambien tiene mucho: 39 gramos de azucar. De los 350 gramos de producto liquido, mas del 10% es azucar, o sea que en una lata de Coca-Cola mas de un centimetro y medio es puro azucar en polvo. Aproximadamente tres cucharadas soperas llenas de azucar por lata!!La formula de la Coca Cola es muy sencilla: Concentrado de azucar quemado caramelo- para dar color oscuro y gusto Acido fosforito (para darle el sabor acido) azucar (HFCS-jarabe de maiz de alta fructosa) Extracto de hojas de la planta de Coca (Africa e India) y otros pocos aromatizantes naturales de otras plantas Mucha Cafeina Conservante que puede ser Benzoato de Sodio o Potasio Dioxido de Carbono en cantidad para sentir freir la lengua cuando se bebe Sal para dar la sensacion de refrigeracion El uso del acido fosforito y no del acido citrico como en todas las demas gaseosas, es para dar la sensacion de dientes y boca limpia al beber. El acido fosforito literalmente frie todo y dana el esmalte de los dientes, cosa que el acido citrico lo hace en menor grado.Trate de comprar acido fosforito para ver las mil recomendaciones de seguridad que te dan para su manipulacion (quema el cristalino del ojo, quema la piel, etc...). Esta prohibido usar el acido fosforito en cualquier otra gaseosa; solo la Coca Cola tiene permiso. Porque claro, sin el acido fosforico, la Coca Cola sabria a jabon.El extracto de coca y otras hojas casi no cambia en nada el sabor. Es mas bien un efecto cosmetico. El extracto forma parte de la Coca-Cola porque legalmente tiene que ser asi. Pero sin el, no se nota ninguna diferencia en el gusto, que esta dado basicamente por las cantidades diferentes de azucar, azucar quemada, sales, acidos y conservantes.Sabor a que...? ja, ja, ja. Aqui en Bartow, sur de Orlando, hay una empresa quimica que produce aromatizantes y esencias para zumos. Envian diariamente camionadas de sales concentradas y esencias para las fabricas de helados, gaseosas, jugos, enlatados y comida colorida y aromatizada.Cuando visite por primera vez la fabrica, pedi ver el deposito de concentrados de frutas, que deberia ser inmenso, especialmente los de naranja, pina, fresa y tantos otros. El encargado me miro, se rio y me llevo a visitar los depositos inmensos... pero de colorantes y componentes quimicos. Las gaseosa de naranja no contiene naranja. En los zumos dizque de fresa, hasta los puntitos que quedan en suspension estan hechos de goma (una liga quimica que envuelve un semi-polimero). Pina, es un popurri de acidos y goma. La esencia para helado de aguacate usa peroxido de hidrogeno (agua oxigenada) para dar la sensacion espumosa tipica del aguacate. Bebidas Light? Quieres saber la cantidad de basura que tiene un refresco 'light'? Yo ni siquiera los uso para destapar mi lavaplatos pues temo que danen los tubos de PVC. Los productos endulzantes 'ligth' tienen una vida media muy corta. Por ejemplo el Despues de toda mi experiencia con la produccion de bebidas embasadas, puedo afirmar sin dudar un segundo: la mejor bebida es el agua, como tambien los jugos exprimidos de naranja o limon. Nada mas, cero azucar y cero sal. Publicado por loretahur En realidad, la formula secreta de la Coca-Cola se puede detallar en 18 segundos en cualquier espectrometro optico, y basicamente la conocen hasta los perros. Lo que ocurre es que no se puede fabricar igual, a no ser que uno disponga de unos cuantos millones de dolares para ganarle la demanda que te metera la Coca-Cola ante la justicia (ellos no perderian).La formula de la Pepsi tiene una diferencia basica con la de la Coca-Cola y es intencional, para evitar el proceso judicial. La diferencia es a proposito, pero suficientemente parecida como para atraer a los consumidores de Coca-Cola que prefieren un gusto diferente con menos sal y azucar.Tuve que aprender quimica, entender todo sobre componentes de gaseosas, conservantes, sales, acidos, cafeina, enlatado, produccion, permisos, aprobaciones y muchas otras cosas. Monte mi propio mini-laboratorio de analisis de productos.A patadas. El Cloruro de Sodio no solo refresca sino da mas sed, como para pedir otra gaseosa. Y no resulta desagradable porque la sal mata literalmente la sensibilidad al dulce... del que por cierto tambien tiene mucho: 39 gramos de azucar.De los 350 gramos de producto liquido, mas del 10% es azucar, o sea que en una lata de Coca-Cola mas de un centimetro y medio es puro azucar en polvo. Aproximadamente tres cucharadas soperas llenas de azucar por lata!!La formula de la Coca Cola es muy sencilla:Concentrado de azucar quemado caramelo- para dar color oscuro y gustoAcido fosforito (para darle el sabor acido)azucar (HFCS-jarabe de maiz de alta fructosa)Extracto de hojas de la planta de Coca (Africa e India) y otros pocos aromatizantes naturales de otras plantasMucha CafeinaConservante que puede ser Benzoato de Sodio o PotasioDioxido de Carbono en cantidad para sentir freir la lengua cuando se bebeSal para dar la sensacion de refrigeracionEl uso del acido fosforito y no del acido citrico como en todas las demas gaseosas, es para dar la sensacion de dientes y boca limpia al beber. El acido fosforito literalmente frie todo y dana el esmalte de los dientes, cosa que el acido citrico lo hace en menor grado.Trate de comprar acido fosforito para ver las mil recomendaciones de seguridad que te dan para su manipulacion (quema el cristalino del ojo, quema la piel, etc...). Esta prohibido usar el acido fosforito en cualquier otra gaseosa; solo la Coca Cola tiene permiso. Porque claro, sin el acido fosforico, la Coca Cola sabria a jabon.El extracto de coca y otras hojas casi no cambia en nada el sabor. Es mas bien un efecto cosmetico. El extracto forma parte de la Coca-Cola porque legalmente tiene que ser asi. Pero sin el, no se nota ninguna diferencia en el gusto, que esta dado basicamente por las cantidades diferentes de azucar, azucar quemada, sales, acidos y conservantes.Sabor a que...? ja, ja, ja.Aqui en Bartow, sur de Orlando, hay una empresa quimica que produce aromatizantes y esencias para zumos. Envian diariamente camionadas de sales concentradas y esencias para las fabricas de helados, gaseosas, jugos, enlatados y comida colorida y aromatizada.Cuando visite por primera vez la fabrica, pedi ver el deposito de concentrados de frutas, que deberia ser inmenso, especialmente los de naranja, pina, fresa y tantos otros. El encargado me miro, se rio y me llevo a visitar los depositos inmensos... pero de colorantes y componentes quimicos.Las gaseosa de naranja no contiene naranja.En los zumos dizque de fresa, hasta los puntitos que quedan en suspension estan hechos de goma (una liga quimica que envuelve un semi-polimero).Pina, es un popurri de acidos y goma.La esencia para helado de aguacate usa peroxido de hidrogeno (agua oxigenada) para dar la sensacion espumosa tipica del aguacate.Quieres saber la cantidad de basura que tiene un refresco 'light'? Yo ni siquiera los uso para destapar mi lavaplatos pues temo que danen los tubos de PVC. Los productos endulzantes 'ligth' tienen una vida media muy corta. Por ejemplo el aspartamo , despues de tres semanas mojado, pasa a tener gusto de trapo viejo sucio.Para evitar eso, se agregan una infinidad de otros productos quimicos, uno para alargar la vida del aspartamo, otro para neutralizar el color, otro para mantener el tercer quimico en suspension porque sino el fondo de la gaseosa quedaria oscuro, otro para evitar la cristalizacion del aspartamo, otro para realzar el sabor, dar mas intensidad al acido citrico o fosforito que perderia su sabor por el efecto de los cuatro productos quimicos iniciales... y asi sucesivamente.Un consejo final !!Despues de toda mi experiencia con la produccion de bebidas embasadas, puedo afirmar sin dudar un segundo: la mejor bebida es el agua, como tambien los jugos exprimidos de naranja o limon. Nada mas, cero azucar y cero sal.Publicado por loretahur MARGARINA o MANTEQUILLA La margarina fue producida originalmente para engordar a los pavos; cuandolo que hizo en realidad fue matarlos.Las personas que habian puesto el dinero para la investigacion quisieronrecobrarlo asi que empezaron a pensar en una forma de hacerlo.Tenian una sustancia blanca, que no tenia ningun atractivo como comestible,asi que le anadieron el color amarillo, para venderselo a lagente en lugar de la mantequilla.Que tal esa?... Ahora han sacado algunos nuevos sabores para vender mas alos incautos como usted y yo.CONOCE USTED la diferencia entre la margarina y la mantequilla?Siga leyendo hasta el final... porque se pone bastante interesante!Comparacion entre mantequilla y margarina: 1.- Ambas tienen la misma cantidad de calorias. 2.- La mantequilla es ligeramente mas alta en grasas saturadas: 8 gramos,comparada con los 5 gramos que tiene la margarina. 3.- Comer margarina en vez de mantequilla puede aumentar en 53% el riesgo deenfermedades coronarias en las mujeres, de acuerdo con un estudiomedico reciente de la Universidad de Harvard. 4.- Comer mantequilla aumenta la absorcion de gran cantidad de nutrientesque se encuentran en otros alimentos. 5.- La mantequilla provee beneficios nutricionales propios mientras lamargarina tiene solo los que le hayan sido anadidos al fabricarla. 6.- La mantequilla sabe mucho mejor que la margarina y mejora el sabor deotros alimentos.7.- La mantequilla ha existido durante siglos mientras que la margarinatiene menos de 100 anos. Ahora... sobre la margarina: 1.- Es muy alta en acidos grasos trans. (Si, esos que recien ahora loscientificos descubrieron que son malisimos y los gobiernoscomenzaron a prohibirlos) . 2.- Triple riesgo de enfermedades coronarias. 3.- Aumenta el colesterol total y el LDL (el colesterol malo) y disminuye elHDL (el colesterol bueno). 4.- Aumenta en cinco veces el riesgo de cancer. 5.- Disminuye la calidad de la leche materna. 6.- Disminuye la reaccion inmunologica del organismo. 7.- Disminuye la reaccion a la insulina. Y he aqui el factor mas inquietante (AQUI ESTA LA PARTE MAS INTERESANTE! ):A la margarina le falta UNA MOLECULA para ser PLASTICO...!!Solo este hecho es suficiente para evitar el uso de la margarina de porvida, y de cualquier otra cosa que sea hidrogenada (esto significaque se le anade hidrogeno, lo cual cambia la estructura molecular de lassubstancias).Usted puede ensayar lo siguiente:Compre un poco de margarina y dejela en el garaje o en un sitio sombreado.Dentro de unos dias notara dos cosas: * No habra moscas; ni siquiera esos molestos bichos se le acercaran (esto yale debe decir a usted algo). * No se pudre ni huele mal o diferente porque no tiene valor nutritivo; nadacrece en ella. Ni siquiera los diminutos microorganismos puedencrecer en ella.Por que? Porque es casi plastico!! No a la guerra, Si a la Paz Misterios de la ciencia... Los costos de la guerra medicos y capitalismo... medicos (2) Quien educa a nuestros hijos? Los Medios... Sin Palabras... Chistes feministas - Cual es el problema, Eva? - Se que me has creado, que me has dado este hermoso jardin, todos estos maravillosos animales y esa serpiente con la que me muero de risa... pero no soy del todo feliz... - Como es eso, Eva? - replico Dios desde las alturas. - Me encuentro sola, y ademas estoy harta de comer manzanas... - Bueno Eva, en tal caso, tengo una solucion... creare un hombre para ti. - Que es un hombre? - Un hombre sera una criatura imperfecta, con muchas artimanas. Mentira, hara trampas, sera engreido... vamos, que te va a dar problemas... Pero, va a ser mas fuerte y rapido que tu y le gustara cazar y matar cosas... Tendra un aspecto simple, pero como te estas quejando, le creare de tal forma que satisfaga tus... eh... necesidades fisicas... Y tampoco sera muy listo, y destacara en cosas infantiles como pegarse o dar patadas a un balon... Necesitara tu consejo siempre para actuar cuerdamente. - Suena bien - dijo Eva, mientras levantaba la ceja ironicamente. - Cual es el truco?. - Pues... que lo tendras con una condicion. - Cual? - Como te decia, sera chulo, arrogante y muy narcisista... asi que le tendras que hacer creer que le hice a el primero... recuerda... es nuestro secreto... de mujer a mujer. Por que a los hombres no les puede dar la enfermedad de las vacas locas? Porque todos son unos cerdos Un dia, en el Paraiso, Eva llamo a Dios: Tengo un problema.- Cual es el problema, Eva?- Se que me has creado, que me has dado este hermoso jardin, todos estos maravillosos animales y esa serpiente con la que me muero de risa... pero no soy del todo feliz... - Como es eso, Eva? - replico Dios desde las alturas.- Me encuentro sola, y ademas estoy harta de comer manzanas...- Bueno Eva, en tal caso, tengo una solucion... creare un hombre para ti.- Que es un hombre?- Un hombre sera una criatura imperfecta, con muchas artimanas. Mentira, hara trampas, sera engreido... vamos, que te va a dar problemas... Pero, va a ser mas fuerte y rapido que tu y le gustara cazar y matar cosas... Tendra un aspecto simple, pero como te estas quejando, le creare de tal forma que satisfaga tus... eh... necesidades fisicas... Y tampoco sera muy listo, y destacara en cosas infantiles como pegarse o dar patadas a un balon... Necesitara tu consejo siempre para actuar cuerdamente.- Suena bien - dijo Eva, mientras levantaba la ceja ironicamente.- Cual es el truco?.- Pues... que lo tendras con una condicion.- Cual?- Como te decia, sera chulo, arrogante y muy narcisista... asi que le tendras que hacer creer que le hice a el primero... recuerda... es nuestro secreto... de mujer a mujer.Por que a los hombres no les puede dar la enfermedad de las vacas locas? Porque todos son unos cerdos Ellas (2)... Tres venganzas femeninas VENGANZA NUMERO 1 Hoy mi hija cumple 21 anos y estoy muy contento porque es el ultimo pago de pension alimenticia que le doy, asi que llame a mi hijita para que viniera a mi casa y cuando llego le dije: -Hijita, quiero que lleves este cheque a casa de tu mama y que le digas que: Este es el ultimo maldito cheque que va recibir de mi en todo lo que le queda de su puta vida!!! Quiero que me digas la expresion que pone en su rostro. Asi que mi hija fue a entregar el cheque. Yo estaba ansioso por saber lo que la bruja tenia que decir y que cara pondria. Cuando mi hijita entro, le pregunte inmediatamente: -Que fue lo que te dijo tu madre? -Me dijo que justamente estaba esperando este dia para decirte que no eres mi papa! VENGANZA NUMERO 2 Un hombre que siempre molestaba a su mujer, paso un dia por la casa de unos amigos para que lo acompanaran al aeropuerto a dejar a su esposa que viajaba a Paris. A la salida de inmigracion, frente a todo el mundo, el le desea buen viaje y en tono burlon le grita: - Amor, no te olvides de traerme una hermosa francesita Ja ja ja!! Ella bajo la cabeza y se embarco muy molesta. La mujer paso quince dias en Francia. El marido otra vez pidio a sus amigos que lo acompanasen al aeropuerto a recibirla. Al verla llegar, lo primero que le grita a toda voz es: - Y amor me trajiste mi francesita?? - Hice todo lo posible, - contesta ella - ahora solo tenemos que rezar para que nazca nina. VENGANZA NUMERO 3 El marido, en su lecho de muerte, llama a su mujer. Con voz ronca y ya debil, le dice: - Muy bien, llego mi hora, pero antes quiero hacerte una confesion. - No, no, tranquilo, tu no debes hacer ningun esfuerzo. - Pero, mujer, es preciso - insiste el marido - Es preciso morir en paz. Te quiero confesar algo. - Esta bien, esta bien. Habla! - He tenido relaciones con tu hermana, tu mama y tu mejor amiga. - Lo se, lo se Por eso te envenene, hijo de puta!!! machismo y cibernetica Chiste machista La NASA ha enviado al espacio una mision experimental tripulada por dos monos y una mujer.Apenas abandona la atmosfera, se establece comunicacion con Houston. -Atencion, simio 1, verifique sistemas hidraulicos, controle adecuada presion de los propulsores de arranque. A 60.000 pies disminuya un 25% la velocidad. El simio hace la sena de OK. -Atencion, simio 2, nivele al cruzar la estratosfera y active sistemas anticongelantes. No olvide monitorear sistemas de comunicacion e indicadores de presion. Comprendido?. El simio hace la sena de OK. -Atencion, Houston llamando a mujer: no se olvide. -Mujer: Si, si, ya se! -interrumpe enojada- que no me olvide darles de comer a estos monos de mierda y que no se me vaya a ocurrir tocar nada!. .Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti. Un abogado mantiene un romance con su secretaria.Al poco tiempo, esta queda embarazada y el abogado, que no quiere que su esposa se entere, le da a la secretaria una buena suma de dinero y le pide que se vaya a parir a Italia.Esta pregunta: Y como voy a hacerte saber cuando nazca el bebe ? El abogado responde: Para que mi mujer no se entere, tan solo enviame una postal y escribe por detras: Spaghetti. Y no te preocupes mas, que yo me encargare de todos los gastos. Pasan los meses y una manana la esposa del abogado lo llama al bufete, algo exaltada: Querido, acabo de recibir el correo y hay una postal muy extrana viene desde Italia. La verdad, no entiendo que significa.El abogado, tratando de ocultar sus nervios, contesta:Espera a que llegue a casa, a ver si yo entiendoCuando el hombre llega a casa y lee la postal, cae al suelo fulminado por un infarto.Llega una ambulancia y se lo lleva. Ya en el hospital, el jefe de cardiologia se queda consolando a la esposa y le pregunta cual ha sido el evento que precipito tan masivo ataque cardiaco. Entonces la esposa saca la postal y se la muestra diciendole: No me explico, doctor; el solamente leyo esta postal. Vea usted mismo lo que trae escrito.Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti."Tres con salchicha y albondigas y dos con almejas Gol !!!! Chistes de Borrachos Entra un borracho a su casa todo manchado con lapiz labial por todos lados hecho un desastre, y la mujer le pregunta:-Hombre que te paso?Y el borracho le responde:-No me vas a creer, me pelee con un payaso! Este es un borracho que entra en un bar y le dice al camarero:-Me da cinco copas de whisky?Al rato:-Me da cuatro?Al rato:-Me da tres copas?Despues:-Me da dos copas?Luego le dice:-Me da una copa?Y le dice al camarero:-Ves? Cuanto menos bebo, mas borracho estoy! From Greg Swank, 12-4-2 You are about to read a list of 45 goals that found their way down the halls of our great Capitol back in 1963. As... The long-awaited Green New Deal was unveiled in Washington on Thursday, laying down a marker for 2020 and beyond. If you havent heard of the Green New Deal, you probably live under a rock. The highly-anticipated policy proposal, spearheaded by freshman Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14) and Senator Ed Markey (MA), calls for a World War II-style or Apollo program (pick your historical analogy) mobilization to transition the U.S. economy off of fossil fuels. The Green New Deal has floated around in the past, particularly during the financial crisis over a decade ago, but was really revived as a major concept by environmental groups and Rep. Ocasio-Cortez in recent months. While any legislation cannot pass the current Congress, given Republican control over the Senate and Donald Trump in the White House, it is now very much a litmus test for aspiring Democratic candidates for president in the 2020 election. As such, its contents are important, given that one of these candidates could occupy the White House in two years. Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Markey finally unveiled a resolution on February 7, sketching out the framework of future legislation. The bill was necessarily done in broad strokes for several reasons. The Democrats have to wait until 2021 at the earliest before trying to pass something. Keeping everyone on board, at this stage, requires some finessing, leaving some difficult decisions for later. And, of course, detailing the nitty gritty of a complete transformation of Americas energy system will take time. So, whats in it? The Green New Deal legislation lays out several key principles, calling for net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, the creation of millions of jobs through public investment, an overhaul of U.S. infrastructure, clean air and water, and justice for frontline communities during this transition. Related: China Faces An Uphill Battle For Energy Independence More specifically, it calls for a 10-year program of national mobilization, which will achieve 100 percent of U.S. power demand from clean, renewable and zero-emissions energy sources. It calls for building energy efficient, distributed, and smart power grids. Existing buildings will see an overhaul while new buildings are intended to achieve maximal energy efficiency, water efficiency, safety, affordability, and the like. The GND also calls for massive growth in clean manufacturing. Even the solutions that we have considered big and bold are nowhere near the scale of the actual problem that climate change presents to us, our country, our world, Ocasio-Cortez said on NPRs Morning Edition. For now, the GND did not specifically call for a carbon tax, and perhaps more notably, it avoided explicitly calling for the end of fossil fuel development. Still, the goal is to dramatically slash, if not end, the consumption of oil, gas and coal for U.S. energy use. So far, the concept is popular. A December poll asked people if they supported a proposal to generate 100 percent of U.S. electricity from clean sources within ten years. About 92 percent of Democrats supported the idea, but surprisingly, a very large 64 percent of Republicans also supported it. Of course, its easy to support a vague aspiration and the devil will be in the details. The legislation will surely lose support, particularly from Republicans, when push comes to shove in the months and years ahead. Related: Oil And Gas In Spotlight At State Of The Union But for now, all of the major Democratic candidates for President have endorsed the concept. The point of laying out the framework right now in a congressional resolution, even if it goes nowhere, is to put some more meat on the bones and, crucially, to put the Democratic candidates on record. Its easy for the candidates to nod their heads in agreement to an abstract Green New Deal, but with strong ideas now down on paper, they have to decide whether or not to maintain their support with a clearer vision. As the candidates try to distinguish themselves in the Democratic primary, the pressure will be on them to continue to endorse the GND. So, what does all of that mean? The upshot is that with President Trumps poll numbers in negative territory, whichever candidate emerges from the Democratic primary will have a decent shot at winning the presidency. If that occurs, they will be on record having supported the GND, and will most likely push for some version of it in 2021. That means that oil and gas companies, having enjoyed a deregulatory bonanza under Trump, could see rougher waters ahead. But with the climate debate getting momentum, that pressure is not going away, no matter what happens with the Green New Deal. By Nick Cunningham of Oilprice.com More Top Reads from Oilprice.com: Venezuelas PDVSA has begun mixing its extra heavy crude with locally produced light oil as imported diluents from the United States are now hard to come by, Reuters reports, citing local sources. Normally, PDVSA mixes the heavy crude with U.S. naphtha, which is perhaps the most common heavy crude diluent to make it transportable by pipeline or loadable on tankers, at a rate of 100,000 bpd of naphtha to 400,000 bpd of heavy crude from the Orinoco Belt. However, the latest sanctions that Washington slapped on Caracas include a ban for U.S. refiners to export diluents to the South American country. PDVSA exploits the vast reserves of oil in the Orinoco Belt via several joint ventures, including companies such as Frances Total, Norwegian Equinor, and even a U.S. supermajor, Chevron. Normally, according to Reuters, the joint venture partners would market their production separately, but now, the unnamed source says, the mixed crude is being delivered to PDVSA for exports as a way around U.S. sanctions. Earlier this month, amid the fast-deteriorating political situation in Venezuela, a Wood Mac analyst warned that the countrys production could fall below 1 million barrels daily. We believe production will likely fall to around 900,000 b/d under pressure from sanctions and a lack of materials for workovers, but we expect waivers will ease the full impact of the sanctions until they expire, Anne-Louise Hittle said. Wood Mackenzie analysts believe the situation will require certain flexibility from local oilfield services providers as foreign companies exit the country. If they can maintain current production, the problem could partly be solved. However, its anyones guess what the level of expertise at these local companies is, not to mention their financial and equipment resources. At the moment, Venezuela produces around 1.1 million bpd of crude, which is the lowest in several decades, leading to a slump in exports to a multi-decade low as well. By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Delhi High Court on Thursday directed four individuals and three companies including Swan Telecom promoter Shahid Balwa to plant around 16,000 trees in Delhi's South Ridge forest area on account of failing to reply to CBI and Enforcement Directorate's (ED) appeals in the 2G spectrum case. Hearing ED and CBI's appeal in the case, Justice Najmi Waziri decreed Rajiv Agarwal and Asif Balwa, directors of Kusegaon Fruits and Vegetables, as well as Dynamic Realty, DB Realty and Nihar Constructions to plant 3,000 trees each. Waziri also ordered private secretary to former Union Minister A Raja to plant 300 trees allowing him to file his response in the case as a last opportunity. Agarwal and Balwa were both asked to plant 500 trees each in South Delhi. The court stipulated in its order that the plants should be indigenous, three and a half years of nursery age and six feet in height. Meanwhile, all respondents in the case will have to meet the Deputy Conservator of Forests on February 15 who will allot them the land for planting the trees. They will also have to submit photographic proofs in the court ensuring plants' good health. The last hearing regarding the case was in October 2018. The plantation order came following the CBI and ED's appeals challenging their acquittals in the money laundering case arising out of the 2G scam. Also read: Rafale deal: Manohar Parrikar had asked defence ministry not to worry, says Nirmala Sitharaman Irans oil customers should not expect new U.S. waivers in May, the U.S. Special Representative for Iran, Brian Hook, said this week, urging buyers to stop importing Iranian oil. What we have announced is the policy to get to zero imports of Iranian crude as quickly as possible. We are not looking to grant any future waivers or exceptions to our sanctions regime, whether it is oil or anything else, Hook told Japanese public broadcaster NHK while on a visit to Japan. When it re-imposed sanctions on Iran last November, the U.S. granted waivers to eight countries so they could continue purchasing oil from Iran at reduced rates until early May 2019. Some of those buyers, including the four major Asian buyers of Iranian oilChina, India, Japan, and South Koreahave recently resumed buying limited volumes of Iranian crude oil, after a period of around a month and a half in which they had to clarify how much and under what conditions they would purchase oil from Iran. Earlier this week, Iran criticized Italy and Greece for not buying Iranian oil despite the fact that they had obtained waivers to do so. The U.S. Administration has not officially said that no waivers will be issued, but officials have said that the goal is to drive Iranian exports to zero. Analysts, however, believe that there will be a direct correlation between the U.S. Iran waivers policy and the price of oil at the time Washington decides. Despite the fact that the U.S. is not looking to grant any waivers to Iranian oil customers when the current ones expire in early May, it shouldnt be taken for granted that no waivers will be issued, Hook and analysts hinted last month. We did not want to lift the price of oil, and we were successful doing that. So when the president left the deal it was trading at $74. When our sanctions went back into effect, and we had taken off a million barrels of Iranian crude, oil was at $72, Hook said at Atlantic Councils 2019 Global Energy Forum in Abu Dhabi in mid-January. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: A part of TransCanadas Keystone oil pipeline, the crucial route carrying crude oil from Canadas Alberta province to U.S. refineries, has been shut down for investigation of a possible leak near St. Louis in Missouri, a TransCanada spokesman told Reuters on Thursday. TransCanada shut down the portion of the 590,000-bpd Keystone pipeline between Steele City, Nebraska and Patoka, Illinois, the companys spokesman Terry Cunha told Reuters in an email. TransCanada has sent crews to the site to investigate whats happening and assess the situation, Cunha said, noting that a portion of the pipeline remained shut on Thursday. The Missouri Department of Natural Resources plans to find the leak today and the release of oil has stopped, an official with the department told Reuters yesterday. The shutdown of part of Keystone comes at a time in which Canadian heavy crude is becoming increasingly in demand as refiners look to replace the heavy crude grades from Venezuela after the U.S. slapped sweeping sanctions on the Latin American countrys oil industry and its state oil firm PDVSA. Yet, the pipeline routes for Canadian oil to the U.S. are full to capacity and rising production in Canada last year led to further takeaway capacity constraints that forced Alberta to mandate an oil production cut of 325,000 bpd for three months starting January 2019. Last week, the Alberta province said it was easing the production cuts in February and March to 3.63 million bpd, which is a 75,000-bpd increase from the January limit of 3.56 million bpd, after seeing that the excessive oil storage has started to clear out. According to data from Net Energy Exchange quoted by Reuters, the discount of Western Canadian Select (WCS)the benchmark price of oil from Canadas oil sandsto WTI widened on Thursday morning to US$10.15 a barrel from US$9.40 a barrel earlier. In November 2017, TransCanada shut Keystone down for nearly two weeks after the pipeline leaked 5,000 barrels of crude oil in South Dakota. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Kazakhstan has postponed the listing of its state oil and gas firm KazMunayGas (KMG) until after 2019, due to worsening market conditions and Brexit uncertainty that could dampen investor appetite on Londons stock exchange, Reuters reported on Friday, citing two banking sources. Kazakhstans wealth fund Samruk-Kazyna holds 90 percent in KMG, while the central bank, the National Bank of the Republic of Kazakhstan, owns 10 percent plus 1 share. KazMunayGas produces 28 percent of Kazakhstans total crude oil and gas condensate production and 16 percent of the countrys natural and associated gas. Kazakhstans fund Samruk-Kazyna originally had plans for an initial public offering (IPO) of KazMunayGas at some point after 2018, as part of a government privatization program. Now the listing has been further pushed out to beyond 2019, due to a stalling IPO market on the London Stock Exchange, concerns over the global economy, the U.S.-China trade war, and the uncertainty over Brexit, Reuters reports. According to Reuters sources, work on the listing of KMG has stalled because of the worsening market conditions. In October 2018, people with knowledge of Kazakhstans plans told the Financial Times that KMG was finalizing plans for its IPO that could raise up to US$6.5 billion, which would have made it the biggest listing for a central Asian company ever. In the fall of last year, bankers were pitching for roles in the IPO which was planned to take place on the London Stock Exchange and on a local market in Kazakhstan, Astana or Almaty, FTs sources said, but noted that work had been progressing slowly and a listing could be expected in late 2019. The plans until a few months ago were to list between 20 percent and 25 percent of KMG in an IPO expected to value the entire company at between US$25 billion and US$26 billion, the FT reported at the end of October 2018. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: The U.S. sanctions on Venezuelas oil industry and state oil firm PDVSA are unlikely to have a significant impact on the refinery runs of the U.S. refiners, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in an analysis this week. U.S. imports of crude oil from Venezuela have been falling in recent years, and U.S. refiners have been replacing heavy crude from Venezuela from heavy crude grades from other sources, the EIA said. Last week, the U.S. imposed sanctions on PDVSA to help prevent further diverting of Venezuelas assets by Maduro and preserve these assets for the people of Venezuela, Secretary of the Treasury Steven T. Mnuchin said. Those sanctions will essentially eliminate U.S. imports of Venezuelan crude oil as the full effects of the sanctions emerge, the EIA said, but noted that it doesnt expect any significant decrease in U.S. refinery runs as a result of these sanctions. Imports of crude oil from Venezuela are still a significant portion of the U.S. Gulf Coast imports, but they have been falling in recent years due to the collapsing Venezuelan oil production. Gulf Coast imports of Venezuelan crude oil fell to an average of 498,000 bpd between January and November 2018 from an average of 618,000 bpd in the first 11 months of 2017, the EIA said. Out of the 14 U.S. refineries that imported crude from Venezuela last year12 of which in the Gulf Coastimports in January-November declined by 129,000 bpd compared with the same period in 2017. While imports from Venezuela declined, imports from Canada and Mexico to these refineries rose by 113,000 bpd and 48,000 bpd, respectively, from 2017 levels, the EIA has estimated. Moving forward, refineries may also choose to run lighter crude oils because transportation constraints may limit the availability of heavy crude oils, according to the EIA. Refiners with large capacity to process asphalt and road oils, for which Venezuelas heavy crude is well-suited, may find it harder to procure adequate replacement, but these refiners have also cut imports from Venezuela recently, the EIA noted. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Oil prices failed to break out on Friday, as traders showed themselves cautious, voicing concerns about global economic growth. (Click to enlarge) (Click to enlarge) (Click to enlarge) (Click to enlarge) (Click to enlarge) (Click to enlarge) (Click to enlarge) Friday, February 8th, 2019 Oil prices have been flat for several days, weighed down by concerns about the health of the global economy, plus the potential return of supply from Libya. Growing economic concerns, falling stock markets and emerging doubts that the trade conflict between the US and China will be resolved are putting oil prices under pressure, Commerzbank wrote in a note on Friday. Russia throws a lifeline to Venezuela. U.S. sanctions on Venezuela threaten to shut in a major portion of the countrys oil production. Not only do sanctions bar Venezuelan oil from flowing to the U.S., but crucially, it also prohibits U.S. diluents from heading to Venezuela. Without diluents, Venezuela cannot process its heavy crude and would be forced to shut down output. However, Russias Rosneft is reportedly sending some oil products to Venezuela to keep production from collapsing, according to the New York Times. As a result, Venezuelas oil production may not utterly collapse, which could keep Maduro in power a little while longer. However, U.S. sanctions could still lead to mass starvation, exploding the already terrible humanitarian crisis. Venezuelan oil stranded. More than 20 tankers loaded with 9.6 million barrels of oil from Venezuela are sitting idle in the U.S. Gulf Coast, according to Reuters, unable to make the delivery because of sanctions. There are other cargoes sitting off the coast in Europe and in the Caribbean. Related: How Washington Could Spoil The OPEC+ Alliance Trump rules out Xi meeting, raising trade concerns. President Trump said he would not meet Chinese President Xi Jingping before the March 1 trade deadline. A meeting of the two, experts suggest, would be an indication that the U.S. and China were close to reaching a sweeping trade deal. Trump has promised to hike tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports from 10 to 25 percent. White House economic advisor Larry Kudlow said that there is a pretty sizable distance to go on the trade talks. The Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. business titans are urging Trump to make a deal. U.S. Congress considers NOPEC bill; oil companies warn against it. Legislation that would give the U.S. Justice Department authority to sue OPEC members over antitrust violations is progressing through the U.S. Congress. However, major international oil companies are lobbying against it, fearing blowback on their operations. The legislation has bipartisan support in the Congress, although its not clear where President Trump stands. We are just a tweet away from Nopec becoming law, Bob McNally at consultancy Rapidan Energy told the FT. France backs Nord Stream 2 regulation. France threw its weight behind an EU proposal to regulate the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, potentially threatening its completion, according to Reuters. The move is a blow to Germany, which has backed the project. The proposal calls for extending internal energy market laws to include offshore gas pipelines. The move is also bad for Gazprom and its partners, which includes Germanys Uniper and BASFs (ETR: BASF) Wintershall unit, Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE: RDS.A), Austrias OMV (VIE: OMV) and Frances Engie (EPA: ENGI). ExxonMobil and Qatar greenlight $10 billion LNG project. ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM) and Qatar Petroleum gave the final investment decision on a $10 billion LNG project on the coast of Texas. The Golden Pass LNG project will have a capacity of 16 mtpa and will come online in the early- to mid-2020s. Exxon announces new Guyana discoveries. ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM) continues to make new discoveries off the coast of Guyana. Exxon announced its 12th discovery this week. Glut of frac sand. Frac sand prices are plummeting because of oversupply. West Texas sand could drop 19 percent this year to about $30 per ton, according to Bloomberg and Rystad Energy. New mines in Texas have opened up, adding supply at a time when demand is taking a hit. The losers could be mines in Wisconsin, which once dominated the business. AMLO to announce Pemex support. The debt-laden Pemex could receive significant support from the Mexican state. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said earlier this week that he would unveil a support package, although was vague on specifics. Pemex needs help in order to return to debt markets, which it likely needs to do in order to meet bond payments. Related: 5 Things To Watch In Natural Gas Goldman to slash commodities trading unit. Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) has plans to significantly curtail its commodities trading arm because it isnt as profitable as it used to be. Oil majors outsourcing exploration. In a sign of a changing business, some oil majors are outsourcing exploration to smaller firms. For the smaller companies, it allows them to save on costs while gaining a larger partner. Suncor calls for early end to production cuts. Suncor (NYSE: SU) called on the Alberta government to put an early end to the mandatory production cuts. Libyan National Army seizes Sharara field. The Libyan National Army (LNA), run by General Khalifa Haftar, have reportedly taken control of the countrys largest oil field, the Sharara. The 315,000-bpd field had been offline since December, leading to a significant decline in oil production. The seizure of the Sharara could lead to its reopening. Oil prices saw downward pressure on the news. Total SA makes discovery in South Africa. Total SA (NYSE: TOT) announced a potentially significant oil discovery off the coast of South Africa, the countrys first. Total said that the Brulpadda field could hold 1 billion barrels of oil and gas reserves, although it is mostly gas condensate. It is really transformational, Andrew Latham, vice president of global exploration at consultant Wood MacKenzie Ltd., told Bloomberg. This could be a discovery that kickstarts a bit of a gas strategy for South Africa. GM going electric, but wont make money for a while. GM (NYSE: GM) does not expect its electric vehicles to turn a profit for several more years, but it is pursuing an all-electric lineup over time. Chevron to cut emissions to stave off shareholder resolutions. Chevron (NYSE: CVX) said that it would cut its greenhouse gas emissions to align with the Paris Climate accord, reducing air pollution by 25 to 30 percent by 2023. BP (NYSE: BP) is taking similar steps. The moves could also be viewed as a way of defusing growing shareholder unease. Shareholder activists have been pushing climate resolutions at annual meetings, with increasing success over time. By Tom Kool for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Rival army forcesone loyal to the UN-backed Libyan government and another to a strongman from the eastare fighting for control over Libyas largest oil field, Sharara, which has been shut in for two months after it was occupied by an armed group in early December. Last month, forces loyal to eastern strongman General Khalifa Haftar and his self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA) said that they had started a military operation to secure oil sites and facilities in Libyas south, where Sharara is located. Then earlier this week, a unit of forces loyal to Libyas UN-backed government in Tripoli was sent south to secure the Sharara oil field. A unit of the Petroleum Facilities Guard (PFG) of the Libyan government of national accord, supported by the United Nations, is heading to Sharara, Qatar-based Al Jazeera TV reported on Wednesday. The Sharara oil field has the capacity to pump 340,000 bpd, but has been under force majeure since December 9, 2018 after armed militia and tribesmen seized control and demanded ransom to re-open it. Two months later, Sharara remains offline, and Libyas National Oil Corporation (NOC), which refuses to yield to ransom demands, said in December that Oil production will now only restart at Sharara after alternative security arrangements are put in place. On Wednesday, officials said that General Haftars LNA had taken control over Sharara. NOC issued a statement on Friday, urging all parties to avoid an escalation of hostilities and actions that may endanger staff or infrastructure at Libyas largest and most important field. The Sharara field manager has communicated with all parties in the vicinity of the site, urging restraint, NOC said, while the corporations chairman Mustafa Sanalla added: We urge all parties to avoid conflict and the politicization of key infrastructure. Any damage to the field could have serious consequences for the sector, the environment and the national economy. Obviously, normal operations cannot restart until security is restored. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Crude oil prices fell slightly today in Asia as traders continued with caution amid persistent worries about global economic growth and the chances of the United States and China agreeing on a trade deal. At the time of writing, Brent crude was trading at US$62.01 a barrel, up by 0.62 percent, with West Texas Intermediate up 0.08 percent to US$52.68 per barrel. Bad news about the state of the global economy, this morning, is coming from Europe and China. In Europe, analysts are warning of stock market weakness and growing recession fears as the European Commission cut its economic outlook for the eurozone citing Brexit chaos fears and a slowdown in China. This expected economic slowdown in China is adding its own weight to crude oil prices given that the Asian economy is the second-largest oil consumer in the world. The trade dispute with Washington is certainly not helping reverse the bearish mood, deepened by President Trumps recent announcement that he would not have any meeting with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping until the beginning of March. March 1 is the deadline Washington and Beijing set for themselves for reaching a trade agreement. If no agreement is reached, president Trump will further increase tariffs on Chinese goods, which will lead to retaliation from Beijing and the exchange will as usual hurt oil flows: lets recall that Chinese refiners stopped importing U.S. crude last year when the tension between Washington and Beijing heightened in late summer. There are, however, tailwinds as well, or rather one major tailwind, which is OPECs production cuts. The latest production data for Saudi Arabia, from a survey by S&P Global Platts, shows that the Kingdom cut more than it had agreed to, at 10.21 million bpd, down 400,000 bpd from December. What the OPEC cuts are doing, however, is putting a floor under oil benchmarks, rather than achieving their goal of pushing prices higher. By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: In a new Top 10, Spirit Award nominee Raul Castillo (LOOKING, WE THE ANIMALS) looks back on the films that expanded his idea of what cinema can be and made him want to be an actor. https://t.co/JmGrpeQ9ks pic.twitter.com/mpErFtfWe2 Criterion Collection (@Criterion) February 8, 2019 Criterion invites actors to share their Top 10 and provide a short write-up. Below I shared a few of his selections.2., dir. Alfonso CuaronThis came out right around the time that a new wave of Mexican filmmakers were making a splash on the global cinema market. It was a very exciting time, I think. And no film exemplifies that period to me more than Alfonso Cuarons beautifully intimate Y tu mama tambien. It felt like he really captured Mexico, and the complexities of male friendship and intimacy. And those moments in our lives that change us forever. I just saw Roma at the Savannah Film Festival and was blown away. It feels like hes come full circle. I see an artist really contemplating life, and its very inspiring.6., dir. Spike LeeI would have picked Crooklyn but you guys havent put it out (yet), which I really do believe is one of Spike Lees most undervalued films. But Do the Right Thing had a similar influence on me growing up. Its Brooklyn, its beautiful, its got a cast that is absolutely flawlesstoo many great performances to mentionand it was revolutionary and in-your-face. The cinematography by Ernest Dickerson is stunning and iconic. I felt so alive the first time I saw this film in high school and have in every subsequent viewing.7., dir. Wong Kar-waiMy buddy Cruz Angeles first turned me on to the films of Wong Kar-wai in my early years in New York City. In the Mood for Love is just flawless. The performance are restrained and yet so full of deep internal life. A glance, a gesture, carries so much weight. You can say so much with what you dont say. The performances by Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung are wonderful. And the cinematography, the visual language of the film, is stunning.9., dir. Gus Van SantI guess a running theme for me in this list is the films that made me want to become an actor. This is one of them. River Phoenix, Keanu Reeves, and Gus Van Sant: sign me up. Albert Finney, cinema's original 'angry young man', dies aged 82 https://t.co/YtGeacPMhY The Guardian (@guardian) February 8, 2019 In 2011 Finney disclosed he was suffering from kidney cancer. The legendary actor was nominated for 4 AcademyAwards and had a career spanning almost 6 decades. You might remember him as Erin Brokovitch's cranky boss! Photo: SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images On Thursday, the Supreme Court denied an Alabama Muslim mans request to have an imam present in the room for his execution, vacating the stay of a lower courts order. Domineque Ray, who was convicted of killing a 15-year-old in 1995, was scheduled to be executed on Thursday evening at 7 p.m., before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit granted an emergency stay. With that stay overturned in a 5-4 SCOTUS ruling, Ray, 42, was put to death by lethal injection on Thursday night, without his longtime imam, Yusef Maisonet, at his side. On Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit wrote: The central constitutional problem here is that the state has regularly placed a Christian cleric in the execution room to minister to the needs of Christian inmates, but has refused to provide the same benefit to a devout Muslim and all other non-Christians. The Claim presented by Domineque Ray touches at the heart of the Establishment Clause, a panel of three judges determined, referring to the section of the First Amendment that prohibits the state from establishing preference toward a certain religion. That, it appears to us, is what the Alabama Department of Corrections has done here, wrote the judges. The Supreme Court disagreed, considering the lower courts stay an abuse of discretion. Because Ray had waited until January 28, the week before his execution, to file an appeal, the Supreme Court ruled in Alabamas favor, upholding the states claim that Ray was denied his request to maintain the prisons safety. But, Ray a devout Muslim since 2006 was only informed that an imam would not be allowed in the room on January 23, meaning he had just two full business days to confer with his lawyers and file the appeal. Justice Kagan provided the dissenting opinion, claiming that Raes treatment goes against the Establishment Clauses core principle of denominational neutrality. Kagan, who was joined in the dissent by the Courts liberal judges, asked, Why wouldnt it be sufficient for the imam to pledge, under the penalty of contempt, that he will not interfere with the States ability to perform the execution? The State doesnt say. Though Imam Maisonet was not in the room, the prison did agree to Rays request that a Christian chaplain was not present for his injection, and that Maisonet was with Ray up until he passed into the execution chamber. Ray has been incarcerated at the Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama, for nearly 20 years, following his conviction in 1999 for raping and killing a 15-year-old girl just five and a half months after the then-22-year-old was found guilty in the murders of two teenage boys two hours north in Selma. But, according to a report from ProPublica, Rays lawyers have claimed that the attorney representing their client did not adequately defend him, that prosecutors withheld evidence of other suspects, and that the state withheld evidence casting doubt on the testimony of a critical witness, who was suffering from schizophrenia when he testified. Shortly after the SCOTUS ruling came in around 9 p.m., Ray was executed. He was the 64th inmate executed in Alabama since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. Thank you for Reading! We hope that you continue to enjoy our free content. The US State Department announced Friday that the special US envoy for North Korea will meet again with Pyongyang officials before a second summit between President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un -- hours after he returned to Seoul from talks in the North on the summit's agenda. In a statement, the State Department said talks during Stephen Biegun's three-day trip explored Trump and Kim's "commitments of complete denuclearization, transforming US-DPRK relations and building a lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula" in preparation for the much-anticipated summit in Vietnam on February 27 and 28. Biegun landed at Osan US Air Base Friday evening, foreign ministry spokesman Noh Kyu-duk told AFP. The State Department confirmed Biegun agreed to meet his North Korean counterpart Kim Hyok Chol again before the summit. North Korea has yet to provide any official confirmation of the summit and Kim Jong Un appeared to make no mention of it during a meeting Friday with the top brass of the Korean People?s Army. As reported by state media, the meeting focused on the need to modernise the military while maintaining party discipline in the ranks. Biegun is expected to share details of his Pyongyang meetings with his South Korean counterpart Lee Do-hoon and Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha on Saturday. Attention will focus on whether the US team have offered to lift some economic sanctions in return for Pyongyang taking concrete steps towards denuclearisation. Discussions on declaring an end to the 1950-53 Korean War could also have been on the table, with Biegun last week saying Trump was "ready to end this war". The three-year conflict ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty, leaving the two Koreas still technically at war, with the US keeping 28,500 troops in the South. The US envoy was also likely to have discussed with his counterpart protocol and security matters for the upcoming Trump-Kim summit. At their landmark summit in Singapore last year, the mercurial US and North Korean leaders produced a vaguely worded document in which Kim pledged to work towards "the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula". But progress has since stalled, with the two sides disagreeing over what that means. Experts say tangible progress on Pyongyang's nuclear weapons will be needed for the second summit if it is to avoid being dismissed as "reality TV". Last year's landmark summit in Singapore produced a vaguely-worded document in which Kim pledged to work towards 'the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula' Photo: Tiffany Hagler-Geard/Bloomberg via Getty Images Its hard not to feel some whiplash when reading news about the media business these days. After weeks of grim layoffs at former powerhouses like BuzzFeed and HuffPost, and a growing sense of doom about the industry among journalists, the New York Times came out yesterday and announced digital revenues of $709 million last year an extremely impressive figure and a good indication that it will meet its ambitious goal of $800 million in digital revenue by the end of 2020. The strong figures come largely from the Times thriving digital subscription business, which grew 18 percent to $400 million; in a statement, Times Company CEO Mark Thompson announced the papers goal to grow to 10 million subscriptions by 2025. After hiring 120 newsroom employees last year, the Times now employs 1,600 journalists a figure only slightly under the number of people laid off in January by BuzzFeed, HuffPosts parent company Verizon Media Group, Vice, and Gannett. So what gives? Is the media business tanking or thriving? The answer is, well, both. One business model focused on digital advertising revenue is demonstrating serious weakness, as reflected by the advertising-supported digital powerhouses now cutting costs. Another business model focused on subscription revenue is emerging as a potentially sustainable alternative. Last month, Conde Nast announced that it would put all of its titles behind paywalls, in part because of the apparent success of The New Yorkers subscription model: The New Yorker, which introduced a metered paywall in late 2014, generated about $115 million in paid-subscription revenue in 2018, up 69 percent from 2015. Conde Nast even claims, contrary to longstanding rumor, that The New Yorker is profitable, with a total revenue of $175 million. (New York introduced a paywall last year.) Advertising-backed publishing isnt dead by any means, and even strong subscription businesses like the Times are unlikely to ever stop selling digital advertising. But its also clear that digital advertising wont be the money-printing strategy that it was for much of the 20th century, when most newspapers and magazines made the bulk of their money by selling advertisements. The conventional wisdom upon the arrival of the internet that nobody would ever pay to read online, and that the attractiveness to advertisers of the much larger audiences that publishers could reach online would no doubt make up for whatever losses the latter might incur has not panned out. Instead, a number of tech businesses entered the digital advertising market, and two of them swallowed it: Google and Facebook. The two megaplatforms now administer an effective duopoly, raking in more than 60 percent of all digital advertising spending and 85 percent of all new digital advertising spending and still growing their share last year. This is a reflection of the fact that Google and Facebook, as the worlds largest search engine and the worlds largest social network, respectively, offer enormous audiences, voluminous user data, and (they claim) extremely precise targeting. The other reason that Google and Facebook have managed to dominate the digital advertising sector so thoroughly is that both businesses are software platforms, and software platforms tend to operate in winner-take-all or, at least, highly concentrated markets. There are many definitions of platform, and Im admittedly using it in its broadest sense, cribbed from Boston University professor Andrei Hagiu, author of the 2006 book Invisible Engines: How Software Platforms Drive Innovation and Transform Industries: Businesses, sometimes called multisided marketplaces, that facilitate interactions between various third parties; Uber, for example, connects drivers to riders; Airbnb connects hosts to guests. Google and Facebook dominate the digital advertising market due to factors endemic to software platforms: They both have relatively high fixed costs (the costs of servers, bandwidth, and technology), and extremely low marginal costs (the cost of creating new units for customers in this case, the cost of delivering an ad to a user). Low marginal costs mean its easy to grow and also rewarding: The bigger your search engine or social network is, the more useful it is to its users, and the easier it is in turn for you to attract new users. High fixed costs means its hard for anyone to compete. The result is whats often called a natural monopoly, though in practice it tends to means a small number of highly concentrated, dominant players. Is the New York Times a platform? In the broadest sense of the word, yes: As Hagiu has suggested, a publisher can be seen a two-sided platform, if we count the two sides as being the readers on one side and the advertisers on the other. (Others, including Bill Gates, define platforms more narrowly, and under those definitions neither the Times nor Facebook would qualify.) And, as a platform, the Times has been crowded out of the digital-advertising marketplace by the duopoly. Its turned, therefore, to an older and somewhat more simple model: subscriptions. Its mostly been a welcome change for journalists. Not only is the subscription model demonstrating extremely encouraging early returns, it is a sane and comprehensible form of business: you make something, and then you sell that thing. The problem is that the internet of the 21st century has a funny way of making businesses look like platforms whether they want to be or not. Its a bit unorthodox, but you can see the way even a subscription-based New York Times shares aspects with a platform, one for connecting not just readers with advertisers, but with the people Hagiu calls the third side of publishers multisided marketplace: the writers. After all, subscribers pay for the Times to access writers (even sometimes for access to specific columnists or journalists), and writers in turn join the Times in part to access its large audience of influential readers. You dont have to buy a platform interpretation of the digital subscription business. But if you do, you can begin to pick out possible futures for the digital news media industry. One outcome might be that the general-interest news subscription market will become, like other software-platform markets, winner-take-all, or, at least, highly concentrated. (I specify general-interest news subscription because it seems obvious that publications serving specific markets, like trade magazines, arent directly competing with papers like the Times.) The same kind of network-effect-driven virtuous growth cycle were used to with most software platforms could take hold: More readers will attract more writers; more writers will attract more readers. In a sense, thats the way the paper has always worked. But in a digital world, there is no physical, geographical, or bureaucratic ceiling to growth. Like a software platform, the Times can grow unimpeded, its attractiveness to both readers and writers only increasing while its rivals are left out in the cold. Its true that for now, people seem to be willing to pay for more than one subscription, even for largely overlapping coverage. But if the Times (or one of its rivals) can sufficiently chip away at its competitors, poaching journalists, generating big stories, and attracting larger audiences in that same virtuous cycle, it could potentially crowd other papers out. Why pay for two or more subscriptions if everything you want comes in one paper? If thats the case, the success of the subscription-based model at the Times may only be cause for celebration for the Times and cause for alarm for its competitors. But theres no guarantee that the digital news subscription business will resemble the cab-hailing or apartment-renting businesses that closely. The established tech company that the Times most closely resembles is probably Netflix, which similarly operates like a platform connecting show creators to viewers. Netflix is enormous, and dominates the streaming-service market, but not as a monopoly. Not yet. For the sake of journalism, lets hope the same is true for news subscriptions. Butz To Present NINR Directors Lecture On Thursday, Mar. 7, Dr. Arlene Butz will present Understanding Inner-City Pediatric Asthma: Environment Matters, from 1 to 2 p.m. She will discuss behavioral, home-based interventions for inner-city children with asthma. Her research has an emphasis on environmental exposures and medication adherence. The lecture will take place in Lipsett Amphitheater, Bldg. 10. Butz is a professor of pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, with a secondary appointment in the School of Nursing. For more than 15 years, her primary program of research has focused on inner-city children with asthma. Her current research targets interventions linking emergency care, home-based care and primary care with the goal of improving asthma morbidity in young children with recurrent emergency room visits. Butz served on the research committee for the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners and as research department editor for the Journal of Pediatric Health Care. She works as a pediatric nurse practitioner in an urban primary care clinic and has served as a PNP on pediatric medical missions to Peru. The event is free and open to the public. For more information and to register, visit http://ow.ly/SBdO30nqkYr. Emerging Post-Digital World Provides New Opportunities for Businesses to Deliver Personalized Realities and Experiences, According to Accenture Technology Vision 2019 Successful businesses will take advantage of new set of technologies but prioritize trust, responsibility, privacy and security Accenture Technology Vision 2019: The Post-Digital Era is Upon Us Are You Ready for Whats Next? DARQ Power: Understanding the DNA of DARQ. The technologies of d istributed ledgers, a rtificial intelligence, extended r eality and q uantum computing (DARQ) are catalysts for change, offering extraordinary new capabilities and enabling businesses to reimagine entire industries. When asked to rank which of these will have the greatest impact on their organization over the next three years, 41 percent of executives ranked AI number one more than twice the number of any other DARQ technology. The technologies of istributed ledgers, rtificial intelligence, extended eality and uantum computing (DARQ) are catalysts for change, offering extraordinary new capabilities and enabling businesses to reimagine entire industries. When asked to rank which of these will have the greatest impact on their organization over the next three years, 41 percent of executives ranked AI number one more than twice the number of any other DARQ technology. Get to Know Me: Unlock unique consumers and unique opportunities. Technology-driven interactions are creating an expanding technology identity for every consumer. This living foundation of knowledge will be key to understanding the next generation of consumers and for delivering rich, individualized, experience-based relationships. More than four in five executives (83 percent) said that digital demographics give their organizations a new way to identify market opportunities for unmet customer needs. Technology-driven interactions are creating an expanding technology identity for every consumer. This living foundation of knowledge will be key to understanding the next generation of consumers and for delivering rich, individualized, experience-based relationships. More than four in five executives (83 percent) said that digital demographics give their organizations a new way to identify market opportunities for unmet customer needs. Human+ Worker: Change your workplace or hinder your workforce . As workforces become human+ with each individual worker empowered by their skillsets and knowledge plus a new, growing set of capabilities made possible through technology companies must support a new way of working in the post-digital age. More than two-thirds (71 percent) of executives believe that their employees are more digitally mature than their organization, resulting in a workforce waiting for the organization to catch up. . As workforces become human+ with each individual worker empowered by their skillsets and knowledge plus a new, growing set of capabilities made possible through technology companies must support a new way of working in the post-digital age. More than two-thirds (71 percent) of executives believe that their employees are more digitally mature than their organization, resulting in a workforce waiting for the organization to catch up. Secure Us to Secure Me: Enterprises are not victims, theyre vectors. While ecosystem-driven business depends on interconnectedness, those connections increase companies exposures to risks. Leading businesses recognize that security must play a key role in their efforts as they collaborate with entire ecosystems to deliver best-in-class products, services and experiences. Only 29 percent of executives said they know their ecosystem partners are working diligently to be compliant and resilient with regard to security. While ecosystem-driven business depends on interconnectedness, those connections increase companies exposures to risks. Leading businesses recognize that security must play a key role in their efforts as they collaborate with entire ecosystems to deliver best-in-class products, services and experiences. Only 29 percent of executives said they know their ecosystem partners are working diligently to be compliant and resilient with regard to security. MyMarkets: Meet consumers at the speed of now. Technology is creating a world of intensely customized and on-demand experiences, and companies must reinvent their organizations to find and capture those opportunities. That means viewing each opportunity as if its an individual marketa momentary market. Six in seven executives (85 percent) said that the integration of customization and real-time delivery is the next big wave of competitive advantage. # # # NEW YORK; Feb. 7, 2019 The enterprise is entering a new post-digital era, where success will be based on an organizations ability to master a set of new technologies that can deliver personalized realities and experiences for customers, employees and business partners, according to Accenture Technology Vision 2019 , the annual report from Accenture (NYSE: ACN) that predicts key technology trends that will redefine businesses over the next three years.According to this years report, The Post-Digital Era is Upon Us Are You Ready for Whats Next?, the enterprise is at a turning point. Digital technologies enable companies to understand their customers with a new depth of granularity; give them more channels with which to reach those consumers; and enable them to expand ecosystems with new potential partners. But digital is no longer a differentiating advantage its now the price of admission.In fact, nearly four in five (79 percent) of the more than 6,600 business and IT executives worldwide that Accenture surveyed for the report believe that digital technologies specifically social, mobile, analytics and cloud have moved beyond adoption silos to become part of the core technology foundation for their organization.A post-digital world doesnt mean that digital is over, said Paul Daugherty, Accentures chief technology & innovation officer. On the contrary were posing a new question: As all organizations develop their digital competency, what will set YOU apart? In this era, simply doing digital isnt enough. Our Technology Vision highlights the ways in which organizations must use powerful new technologies to innovate in their business models and personalize experiences for their customers. At the same time, leaders must recognize that human values, such as trust and responsibility, are not just buzzwords but critical enablers of their success.The Technology Vision identifies five emerging technology trends that companies must address if they are to succeed in todays rapidly evolving landscape:According to the report, innovation for organizations in the post-digital era involves figuring out how to shape the world around people and pick the right time to offer their products and services. Theyre taking their first steps in a world that tailors itself to fit every moment where products, services and even peoples surroundings are customized and where businesses cater to the individual in every aspect of their lives and jobs, shaping their realities.One company taking individualization and customization to a new level is Zozotown, Japans biggest e-commerce company. Its skintight spandex Zozosuits pair with the Zozotown app to take customers exact measurements; custom-tailored pieces from the companys in-house clothing line arrive in as few as 10 days. And its not just in the fashion industry where technology is enabling customization previously not possible. U.S. retailer Sams Club developed an app that uses machine learning and data about customers past purchases to auto-fill their shopping lists; the company plans to add a navigation feature to show optimized routes through the store to each item on that list.The report notes that companies still completing their digital transformations are looking for a specific edge, whether its innovative service, higher efficiency or more personalization. But post-digital companies are out to surpass the competition by combining these forces to change the way the market itself works from one market to many custom markets on-demand and in the moment, just as Chinese e-retail platform JD.com is doing with its Toplife platform. The service helps third parties sell through JD by setting up customized stores, providing access to its supply chain with cutting-edge robotics and drone delivery. In partnership with Walmart, a physical store in Shenzhen will offer more than 8,000 products available in person or delivered from the store in under 30 minutes. By offering unprecedented customization and speed, JD is empowering other companies while creating a new market for itself.For almost two decades, Accenture has taken a systematic look across the enterprise landscape to identify emerging technology trends that hold the greatest potential to disrupt businesses and industries. For more information on this years report, visit www.accenture.com/technologyvision or follow the conversation on Twitter with #TechVision2019.The Accenture Technology Vision is developed annually by the Accenture Labs and Accenture Research. For the 2019 report, the research process included gathering input from the Technology Vision External Advisory Board, a group comprising more than two dozen experienced individuals from the public and private sectors, academia, venture capital firms and entrepreneurial companies. In addition, the Technology Vision team conducted interviews with technology luminaries and industry experts, as well as with nearly 100 Accenture business leaders. In parallel, Accenture Research conducted a global online survey of 6,672 business and IT executives to capture insights into the adoption of emerging technologies. The survey helped identify the key issues and priorities for technology adoption and investment. Respondents were C-level executives and directors at companies across 27 countries and 20 industries, with the majority having annual revenues greater than US$6 billion.Accenture is a leading global professional services company, providing a broad range of services and solutions in strategy, consulting, digital, technology and operations. Combining unmatched experience and specialized skills across more than 40 industries and all business functions underpinned by the worlds largest delivery network Accenture works at the intersection of business and technology to help clients improve their performance and create sustainable value for their stakeholders. With 469,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries, Accenture drives innovation to improve the way the world works and lives. Visit us at www.accenture.com Hannah UnkeferAccenture+1 206 839 2172 Want to participate in a short research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! Dividends play a key role in compounding returns over time and can form a large part of our portfolio return. Historically, Charles Taylor plc (LON:CTR) has paid a dividend to shareholders. It currently yields 4.9%. Should it have a place in your portfolio? Lets take a look at Charles Taylor in more detail. See our latest analysis for Charles Taylor 5 checks you should use to assess a dividend stock Whenever I am looking at a potential dividend stock investment, I always check these five metrics: Is it the top 25% annual dividend yield payer? Has it consistently paid a stable dividend without missing a payment or drastically cutting payout? Has dividend per share risen in the past couple of years? Is its earnings sufficient to payout dividend at the current rate? Will it be able to continue to payout at the current rate in the future? LSE:CTR Historical Dividend Yield February 8th 19 How well does Charles Taylor fit our criteria? The company currently pays out more than double of its earnings as a dividend, according to its trailing trailing twelve-month data, meaning that the dividend is predominantly funded by retained earnings. In the near future, analysts are predicting a more sensible payout ratio of 48% which, assuming the share price stays the same, leads to a dividend yield of 5.7%. When considering the sustainability of dividends, it is also worth checking the cash flow of a company. Companies with strong cash flow can sustain a higher payout ratio, while companies with weaker cash flow generally cannot. Reliablity is an important factor for dividend stocks, particularly for income investors who want a strong track record of payment and a positive outlook for future payout. Not only have dividend payouts from Charles Taylor fallen over the past 10 years, it has also been highly volatile during this time, with drops of over 25% in some years. This means that dividend hunters should probably steer clear of the stock, at least for now until the track record improves. Story continues Compared to its peers, Charles Taylor generates a yield of 4.9%, which is high for Insurance stocks but still below the markets top dividend payers. Next Steps: After digging a little deeper into Charles Taylors yield, its easy to see why you should be cautious investing in the company just for the dividend. On the other hand, if you are not strictly just a dividend investor, the stock could still be offering some interesting investment opportunities. Given that this is purely a dividend analysis, I recommend taking sufficient time to understand its core business and determine whether the company and its investment properties suit your overall goals. There are three pertinent aspects you should further examine: Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for CTRs future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for CTRs outlook. Valuation: What is CTR worth today? Even if the stock is a cash cow, its not worth an infinite price. The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether CTR is currently mispriced by the market. Dividend Rockstars: Are there better dividend payers with stronger fundamentals out there? Check out our free list of these great stocks here. To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements. The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. The parents of Eduardo Almendarez, 11, were separated from their son at the Rio Grande entry point under the Trump administrations hardline immigration policy. (Photo: Edgard Garrido/Reuters) Last spring, following threats of violence from local gang members, a teenage girl and her mother fled their home in El Salvador to seek refuge in the United States, only to be forcibly separated from one another shortly after crossing the border. Patricia (whose name has been changed to protect her privacy) was among the thousands of immigrant children who were separated from their parents during the height of the Trump administrations zero tolerance policy the period between approximately April 6 and June 20, 2018, when immigrant families were systematically separated at the border, following an order by Attorney General Jeff Sessions that all adults caught crossing or attempting to illegally cross the southwest border be referred directly for criminal prosecution. Since minor children cannot be held in jail, this required separating them from their parents. Patricia was transferred from Customs and Border Protection to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, the agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human services responsible for the care of unaccompanied immigrant children. Following existing procedure, ORR caseworkers set out to find a suitable adult sponsor in the U.S., preferably a parent or close relative, who could take Patricia for the duration of what was now her own, individual immigration case. Within a few weeks, ORR had secured a sponsor for Patricia: an aunt who lived in California. But on June 26, 2018, while Patricia was still in ORR custody, a federal judge in California issued an injunction ordering the prompt reunification of all adults and children whod been separated as a result of zero tolerance. That date was a crucial turning point in bringing some semblance of order to what immediately proved to be a chaotic and disorganized reunification effort. The judge allowed HHS to narrow its search for separated children to those in detention as of June 26, 2018. That should have covered Patricia, but in the confusion of those weeks, Patricia was released into the custody of her aunt in early July. Though she had yet to even make contact with her mother at that point, Patricia was apparently not included in ORRs initial tally submitted to the court that month of 2,654 children in its care that had been identified as separated and eligible for reunification under the courts order. (That number has since been revised to 2,816.) Story continues I think she would have been subject to the court-ordered reunification (and probably should have been) but the first week of July was right before they started reunifying kids en masse and there was a lot of chaos, said Christie Turner, deputy director of legal services for the Family Separation Project at Kids in Need of Defense, or KIND. Through a broad network of volunteer attorneys, KIND has been providing pro bono legal services to unaccompanied immigrant children across the country since 2009 and, according to their website, now also represents 300 kids separated from their parents under zero tolerance. Patricias case was referred to KIND once she was released to her aunt. Turner suspects that, because Patricias release from ORR was set in motion at the same time HHS and DHS officials were scrambling to track down all of the adults and children that had previously been separated, maybe she fell through the cracks. Instead, Patricia would become part of a different, potentially even larger group of kids who were separated under the same circumstances but had been released from ORR to another adult sponsor before or in Patricias case, right after the Trump administration was ordered to put back together the families it had torn apart. According to a report released last month by HHSs Office of Inspector General, officials and staff at ORR observed a steep increase in the number of children referred to their care whod been separated from a parent or guardian starting in the summer of 2017, well before zero tolerance was officially announced the following April. ORR officials estimated that, during this influx, the agency received and released thousands of separated children before Judge Dana Sabraw issued the reunification order on June 26, 2018. The OIGs report concluded that the total number and current status of all children separated from their parents or guardians by DHS and referred to ORRs care is unknown. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. Turner and other attorneys who work directly with this specific population say that, based on the cases theyve encountered, many of those children who were released to sponsors before the court order still remain separated from their parents to this day. And yet, HHS officials have made clear they have no intention of trying to count or identify, let alone reunify the members of this group with their parents claiming that such an effort would not only be logistically impossible but could also be traumatic to the children. Even if ORR had the authority and resources to intervene in the familial relationship between the sponsor and the child, doing so would be disruptive and harmful to the child (especially if the intervention was contrary to the sponsors or the childs wishes), read part of a declaration submitted in court last week by Jallyn Sualog, deputy director for childrens programs at ORR. Her declaration was part of the governments response to the findings of the OIG report, which had been requested by the American Civil Liberties Union as part of the ongoing class-action lawsuit that led to the initial reunification order. In light of the report, the ACLU is now seeking to expand the class to include separated families whose children were released from ORR custody before June 26. Sualogs child welfare concerns were echoed in a declaration submitted by Jonathan White, a career public health official with HHS. The former deputy director of ORRs Unaccompanied Alien Children Program, White is currently assigned to the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Preparedness and Response, which took the lead on ORRs reunification efforts over the summer. Like Sualog, White inexplicably referred to forcibly transferring separated children from the custody of their sponsors, suggesting that such reunifications would require entering households to remove previously separated minors, bring them back into ORR custody, and reunify them with separated parents. It would destabilize the permanency of their existing home environment, and could be traumatic to the children, White stated. He maintained that the option more consistent with the best interest of the child would be to allow the child to remain with their sponsor. He said the agency should focus instead on the ongoing work of reunifying parents with separated children presently in ORR care, although that work, obviously, doesnt address the needs of the children already placed with sponsors, or their parents. Mothers and their children stand in line at South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas. (Photo: Charles Reed/U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement via AP) Whites claims about the possible trauma of reunifying a child with the parent from whom they were forcibly separated were met with shock and confusion by experts in psychology and child development. Im at a loss for words, said Nim Tottenham, a psychology professor at Columbia University, whose research focuses on the long-term effects of early-life stress on the brain development of children and adolescents. The separation from your primary attachment figure is one of the greatest traumas that a child can experience, Tottenham said, explaining that the stress such separations cause places them at higher risk not just for cognitive, academic and mental health difficulties, but physical disease. In response to Whites point about the risks of disrupting the childrens current home environment, Tottenham said that while a child may initially be upset about leaving a sponsor with whom theyve developed a positive relationship, its unlikely that they wouldve established an attachment to the new home that theyre living in that trumps the initial attachment that they formed with [their parent], regardless of how warm and caring their sponsors may be. If the choice is reunification versus continued separation, I would say the trauma would be more enduring with continued separation, Tottenham said. She added that the effect of the separation on the parents, often overlooked in the debate, could be devastating and last a lifetime. Cristina Muniz de la Pena, is the co-founder and mental health director at Terra Firma, a New York City-based legal and medical services program for unaccompanied immigrant children and, more recently, families separated under zero tolerance. Like Tottenham, Muniz said she was really confused by Whites declaration and in disbelief over his policy recommendations. To the degree possible, a child should be with a parent, she said, noting that statewide child protection agencies have well-established protocols for reuniting parents with children who have been placed in foster care or in the custody of a relative. I can see instances where a sponsor and child are so attached that theres resistance, but thats why theres a process, she said, urging ORR to take the guidelines they already have and adapt them to ease the [reunification] process. Muniz, who testified along with White on Thursday at a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committees Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, told Yahoo News that she understands why officials at HHS and ORR may argue that they are not equipped to fix all the problems caused by a policy that wasnt theirs to begin with. But that doesnt mean psychologically [reunification] would not be recommended, she said. It means the government has to put resources into developing a system to facilitate reunification in the most humane manner possible. U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps Commander Jonathan White testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) Mark Greenberg, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute who previously served as acting assistant secretary for HHSs Administration for Children and Families, which includes ORR, said that White is correct in that its the longstanding HHS view that after a child has been released to a sponsor, ORR doesnt have the authority to go into the sponsors home and remove the child. However, he continued, thats not the issue here. When the government has separated a parent and child and placed the child with someone else, its surely right that the government should tell the parent where their child is, he said. In response to a request for comment, a spokesperson for HHS provided Yahoo News with Whites prepared remarks ahead of Thursdays hearing, which focused mostly on the current state of the Unaccompanied Alien Children Program and the process developed last summer for reuniting separated children and parents under the June 26 court order. Its unclear what kind of relationship, if any, Patricia had with her aunt before she was sent to live with her in July, but Turner said Patricia was still in distress over the separation from her mother, who, she eventually learned, was being held at a detention center in Texas. KINDs team worked with Patricia to help her enroll in school and access basic social services, but it was difficult to begin work on Patricias immigration case while she remained in emotional anguish, desperate to reunite with her mother, said Turner, noting that members of her team kept in constant contact with an attorney in Texas who worked tirelessly to get Patricias mother released. While she said that no particular reason was ever provided for the delayed release, government officials indicated at various points that they felt the obligation to reunify the child with her parent had already been met by having reunified [Patricia] with extended family. It doesnt seem to matter that the child could have been reunified with someone they barely know or have never met, while the parent, meanwhile, languishes in an ICE facility hundreds of miles away, said Turner. Dunia, an asylum seeker from Honduras, is reunited with her 5-year-old son Wilman in Brownsville, Texas. (Photo: Loren Elliott/Reuters) Finally, just after the New Year, Patricias mother was released from detention and flew directly to California for what Turner described as an emotional reunion with Patricia. But an unknown number of children and parents still await their own reunion. Some of the parents have already been deported to their home countries while their children remain with relatives in the U.S. Turner said its hard to keep track of parents whereabouts once theyve been deported. Some who fled out of fear of gang violence go into hiding when they return home. And for those families, and others who were escaping threats to their lives, continued separation may be the best option, said Taylor Levy, legal coordinator for Annunciation House, a migrant shelter in El Paso, Texas. Those parents made the incredibly difficult choice to be deported and have their child stay here with sponsor. They wanted to save their childs lives. Annunciation House was one of a handful of nongovernmental organizations that offered shelter and support to hundreds of previously separated families after they were reunited under the court-imposed deadlines this summer. Levy said the revelation that possibly thousands more families had been separated than were initially counted was not a surprise to a lot of people on the ground. Currently, she said I get about one to two phone calls per week about new separations in the EL Paso area. Levy said she knows of multiple parents suffering ridiculously long periods of separation because their children were released from ORR custody prior to June 26, 2018, including several who she said remain detained 8 months later or longer, some over a year, continuing to fight their cases. Its completely untenable to say that it would be too traumatic for parent and child to be reunified, Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLUs Immigrants Rights Project and the lead attorney in the family separation lawsuit, told Yahoo News. On Feb. 21, Gelernt and his colleagues will return to Judge Sabraws courtroom in Southern California. Though the goal will be to reunify as many of these additional parents and children as possible, Gelernt acknowledged that there may be cases in which the parent decides that, because theyve been deported or for some other reason, their child would be better off with the sponsor and they remain in place. Either way, he argued, the proper decisions cannot be made unless everyone is accounted for. For the government to say its not worth the effort to track the families down rings completely hollow to us, he said. Read more from Yahoo News: Zayo Group (ZAYO) came out with quarterly earnings of $0.13 per share, missing the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $0.15 per share. This compares to earnings of $0.23 per share a year ago. These figures are adjusted for non-recurring items. This quarterly report represents an earnings surprise of -13.33%. A quarter ago, it was expected that this fiber optic bandwidth infrastructure company would post earnings of $0.12 per share when it actually produced earnings of $0.09, delivering a surprise of -25%. Over the last four quarters, the company has surpassed consensus EPS estimates just once. Zayo Group, which belongs to the Zacks Communication - Infrastructure industry, posted revenues of $639.10 million for the quarter ended December 2018, missing the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 0.61%. This compares to year-ago revenues of $653.50 million. The company has topped consensus revenue estimates just once over the last four quarters. The sustainability of the stock's immediate price movement based on the recently-released numbers and future earnings expectations will mostly depend on management's commentary on the earnings call. Zayo Group shares have added about 16.7% since the beginning of the year versus the S&P 500's gain of 9%. What's Next for Zayo Group? While Zayo Group has outperformed the market so far this year, the question that comes to investors' minds is: what's next for the stock? There are no easy answers to this key question, but one reliable measure that can help investors address this is the company's earnings outlook. Not only does this include current consensus earnings expectations for the coming quarter(s), but also how these expectations have changed lately. Empirical research shows a strong correlation between near-term stock movements and trends in earnings estimate revisions. Investors can track such revisions by themselves or rely on a tried-and-tested rating tool like the Zacks Rank, which has an impressive track record of harnessing the power of earnings estimate revisions. Story continues Ahead of this earnings release, the estimate revisions trend for Zayo Group was mixed. While the magnitude and direction of estimate revisions could change following the company's just-released earnings report, the current status translates into a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) for the stock. So, the shares are expected to perform in line with the market in the near future. You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. It will be interesting to see how estimates for the coming quarters and current fiscal year change in the days ahead. The current consensus EPS estimate is $0.15 on $646.15 million in revenues for the coming quarter and $0.53 on $2.58 billion in revenues for the current fiscal year. Investors should be mindful of the fact that the outlook for the industry can have a material impact on the performance of the stock as well. In terms of the Zacks Industry Rank, Communication - Infrastructure is currently in the bottom 33% of the 250 plus Zacks industries. Our research shows that the top 50% of the Zacks-ranked industries outperform the bottom 50% by a factor of more than 2 to 1. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research For Immediate Release Chicago, IL February 8, 2018 Zacks Value Trader is a podcast hosted weekly by Zacks Stock Strategist Tracey Ryniec. Every week, Tracey will be joined by guests to discuss the hottest investing topics in stocks, bonds and ETFs and how it impacts your life. To listen to the podcast, click here: (https://www.zacks.com/stock/news/353059/end-of-an-era-big-tech-stocks-move-from-growth-to-value?art_rec=home-home-top_stories-ID05-txt-353059) End of an Era: Big Tech Stocks Move from Growth to Value Welcome to Episode #128 of the Value Investor Podcast. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. Every week, Tracey Ryniec, the editor of Zacks Value Investor portfolio service , shares some of her top value investing tips and stock picks. Technology continues to be one of the hottest sectors among investors. For the past 30 years these companies have been on the cutting edge of transformations in retail, the Internet, personal computing and, coming soon, artificial intelligence. But even tech titans mature as companies. The days of 20% revenue growth a year fade unless theres a new product or acquisition which can boost growth rates. From Growth Superstar to Value Its not easy going from the big kid on the block that everyone wants to play with to a more mature, lower growth company. It doesnt happen overnight. Take IBM IBM. It had been a big growth story for decades but in this new century, that growth has slowed considerably. Sales are expected to decline by 1.6% in 2019 and another 0.3% in 2020. Investors will be compensated by a healthy dividend for their patience, currently yielding 4.7%. But the Street is clearly valuing IBM as a value stock. It has a forward P/E of just 9.7. Tech Titans Now Value Stocks? 1. Microsoft MSFT was the start-up in the early 1980s when IBM hired it to create an operating system for its PC. But it has evolved beyond its Windows product and now is a cloud and social media player. Is Microsoft in a transition towards a value stock or is there still plenty of growth left on the horizon? Story continues 2. Intel INTC has a forward P/E which indicates it may have already transitioned over to a value stock. Its trading at just 11x. But is that all it takes to be considered a value play? 3. Cisco CSCO had one of the top IPOs of the 1990s. It was included on the list of the tech titans during the dot-com boom. But now, its revenue growth is expected to be in the single digits for 2019 and 2020. Is it a value stock now? 4. Apple AAPL makes one of the most popular products on the planet, the iPhone. But for the first time since it was introduced in 2007, sales of that product are actually on the decline. Is this the end of Apples growth story? The transition from growth over to being a value stock can be shocking for some long-time growth investors. But for value investors, it can provide an opportunity. What else should you know about the future of the big technology stocks? Listen to todays podcast to find out. Looking for Stocks with Skyrocketing Upside? Zacks has just released a Special Report on the booming investment opportunities of legal marijuana. Ignited by new referendums and legislation, this industry is expected to blast from an already robust $6.7 billion to $20.2 billion in 2021. Early investors stand to make a killing, but you have to be ready to act and know just where to look. See the pot trades we're targeting>> Media Contact Zacks Investment Research 800-767-3771 ext. 9339 support@zacks.com https://www.zacks.com/performance Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss. This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit https://www.zacks.com/performance for information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Want to participate in a short research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! Chun Pan Wong became the CEO of UniVision Engineering Limited (LON:UVEL) in 2014. This analysis aims first to contrast CEO compensation with other companies that have similar market capitalization. After that, we will consider the growth in the business. And finally we will reflect on how common stockholders have fared in the last few years, as a secondary measure of performance. This process should give us an idea about how appropriately the CEO is paid. View our latest analysis for UniVision Engineering How Does Chun Pan Wongs Compensation Compare With Similar Sized Companies? According to our data, UniVision Engineering Limited has a market capitalization of UK8.2m, and pays its CEO total annual compensation worth UK81k. (This number is for the twelve months until 2018). While we always look at total compensation first, we note that the salary component is less, at UK73k. We examined a group of similar sized companies, with market capitalizations of below UK154m. The median CEO compensation in that group is UK246k. A first glance this seems like a real positive for shareholders, since Chun Pan Wong is paid less than the average compensation paid by similar sized companies. Though positive, its important we delve into the performance of the actual business. You can see a visual representation of the CEO compensation at UniVision Engineering, below. AIM:UVEL CEO Compensation February 8th 19 Is UniVision Engineering Limited Growing? UniVision Engineering Limited has increased its earnings per share (EPS) by an average of 89% a year, over the last three years (using a line of best fit). It achieved revenue growth of 90% over the last year. This shows that the company has improved itself over the last few years. Good news for shareholders. The combination of strong revenue growth with medium-term earnings per share improvement certainly points to the kind of growth I like to see. Although we dont have analyst forecasts, you could get a better understanding of its growth by checking out this more detailed historical graph of earnings, revenue and cash flow. Story continues Has UniVision Engineering Limited Been A Good Investment? Most shareholders would probably be pleased with UniVision Engineering Limited for providing a total return of 240% over three years. So they may not be at all concerned if the CEO were to be paid more than is normal for companies around the same size. In Summary UniVision Engineering Limited is currently paying its CEO below what is normal for companies of its size. Considering the underlying business is growing earnings, this would suggest the pay is modest. The strong history of shareholder returns might even have some thinking that Chun Pan Wong deserves a raise! It is relatively rare to see a modestly paid CEO when performance is so impressive. It would be even more positive if company insiders are buying shares. CEO compensation is one thing, but it is also interesting to check if the CEO is buying or selling UniVision Engineering (free visualization of insider trades). Arguably, business quality is much more important than CEO compensation levels. So check out this free list of interesting companies, that have HIGH return on equity and low debt. To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements. The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. Republican lawyer William Barr, 68, is Donald Trump's nominee to be the new US attorney-general, replacing the ousted Jeff Sessions. Mr Barr previously held the position under George H W Bush between 1991 and 1993 and looks set to lead the Justice Department once again should his confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee conclude without a hitch. A New Yorker and son to a Jewish father who had converted to Roman Catholicism, Mr Barr attended Columbia University where he completed a bachelors degree in government in 1971 and a masters in government and Chinese studies in 1973. After graduation he worked as an analyst and assistant legislative counsel for the CIA, studying law at night at George Washington University in the capital. Completing his studies, he worked as a clerk for Judge Malcolm Wilkey on the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit between 1977 and 1978 and as an associate with Washington law firm Shaw, Pittman, Potts and Trowbridge. He served on the Ronald Reagan administrations domestic policy staff between May 1982 and September 1983 before returning to his old employer in private practice. In 1989, he was appointed as assistant attorney-general of the US under the first President Bush, advising the Oval Office on the legality of executive decision-making, rising to the position of deputy before becoming acting attorney-general in 1991 when Dick Thornburgh resigned to campaign for a Senate seat in Pennsylvania. Mr Barr developed a reputation as a controversial advocate of presidential power, backing US intervention in Manuel Noriegas Panama and the FBIs right to enter foreign soil without the consent of a host government. He distinguished himself three days into his role as acting attorney-general when a group of 121 Cuban prisoners at a federal prison in Talladega, Alabama, took nine hostages in protest at their imminent deportation. Mr Barr sent in the FBIs Hostage Rescue Team, who resolved the situation without a shot being fired. Story continues Impressed, President Bush nominated William Barr for the job full time. Asked at his November 1991 confirmation hearing about Roe vs Wade, the Supreme Courts landmark decision to legalise abortion, he suggested it should be overturned as it was a legitimate issue for state legislators while declaring he had no fixed or settled views on abortion. Barack Obamas future vice-president Joe Biden was chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee that day and praised Mr Barr for his candid answer, calling him a throwback to the days when we actually had attorneys general that would talk to you, according to The Los Angeles Times. As President Bushs attorney-general, Mr Barr was known for his hardline stance on crime, reassigning 300 FBI agents to rein in gang violence. I believe deeply that the first duty of government is providing for the personal security of its citizens. Therefore I would naturally place the highest priority on strengthening law enforcement, he said in 1992. He had a hand in one of the most controversial uses of the presidential pardon in history, when Bush formally forgave six adminstration officials involved in the Iran-Contra affair, in which weapons were illegally sold to Tehran in defiance of an embargo, notably excusing the former secretary of defence, Caspar Weinberger. Leaving the Justice Department with the arrival of the Bill Clinton administration, Mr Barr has worked in the corporate sector as executive vice president and general counsel to the GTE Corporation, leaving when the telecoms giant merged with Bell Atlantic to become Verizon in 2008. He has undertaken work with the Washington law firm Kirkland and Ellis since 2009. President Trump saw an ally in William Barr when he told The New York Times in November 2017 there was more reason to investigate bribery accusations stemming from the sale of Canadian mining company Uranium One to Rosatom of Russia during Hillary Clinton's tenure as President Obamas secretary of state than there was going after the Trump camp on collusion with the Kremlin. He has since walked back these remarks before the Senate. He also backed the presidents sacking of acting attorney-general Sally Yates in January 2017 over her refusal to enforce his Muslim travel ban and his removal of FBI director James Comey the following May as the right call. Mr Trumps decision to opt for Mr Barr rather than the current acting attorney-general Matthew Whitaker appears to stem from accusations that the president was seeking to install a Justice Department head hostile to special counsel Robert Mueller, Mr Whitaker having been outspoken in his criticism of the Russian election hacking investigation. Despite describing Mr Mueller as a good friend saying he would not be involved in a witch hunt during his confirmation hearings, Mr Barrs earlier criticism of the probe lingers in the memory and, as attorney-general, he would theoretically have the power to have Mr Mueller dismissed. Perhaps of greater concern: William Barr is a keen bagpiper in his leisure time, even playing competitively on tour in Scotland as a youth. Growth stocks are attractive to many investors, as above-average financial growth helps these stocks easily grab the market's attention and produce exceptional returns. However, it isn't easy to find a great growth stock. That's because, these stocks usually carry above-average risk and volatility. In fact, betting on a stock for which the growth story is actually over or nearing its end could lead to significant loss. However, the task of finding cutting-edge growth stocks is made easy with the help of the Zacks Growth Style Score (part of the Zacks Style Scores system), which looks beyond the traditional growth attributes to analyze a company's real growth prospects. WNS (Holdings) Limited (WNS) is one such stock that our proprietary system currently recommends. The company not only has a favorable Growth Score, but also carries a top Zacks Rank. Research shows that stocks carrying the best growth features consistently beat the market. And returns are even better for stocks that possess the combination of a Growth Score of A or B and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) or 2 (Buy). While there are numerous reasons why the stock of this company is a great growth pick right now, we have highlighted three of the most important factors below: Earnings Growth Earnings growth is arguably the most important factor, as stocks exhibiting exceptionally surging profit levels tend to attract the attention of most investors. For growth investors, double-digit earnings growth is highly preferable, as it is often perceived as an indication of strong prospects (and stock price gains) for the company under consideration. While the historical EPS growth rate for WNS (Holdings) Limited is 7.9%, investors should actually focus on the projected growth. The company's EPS is expected to grow 18.7% this year, crushing the industry average, which calls for EPS growth of 16.8%. Cash Flow Growth Cash is the lifeblood of any business, but higher-than-average cash flow growth is more beneficial and important for growth-oriented companies than for mature companies. That's because, high cash accumulation enables these companies to undertake new projects without raising expensive outside funds. Story continues Right now, year-over-year cash flow growth for WNS (Holdings) Limited is 18.3%, which is higher than many of its peers. In fact, the rate compares to the industry average of 11.3%. While investors should actually consider the current cash flow growth, it's worth taking a look at the historical rate too for putting the current reading into proper perspective. The company's annualized cash flow growth rate has been 8.3% over the past 3-5 years versus the industry average of 3.1%. Promising Earnings Estimate Revisions Superiority of a stock in terms of the metrics outlined above can be further validated by looking at the trend in earnings estimate revisions. A positive trend is of course favorable here. Empirical research shows that there is a strong correlation between trends in earnings estimate revisions and near-term stock price movements. The current-year earnings estimates for WNS (Holdings) Limited have been revising upward. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the current year has surged 6.9% over the past month. Bottom Line WNS (Holdings) Limited has not only earned a Growth Score of A based on a number of factors, including the ones discussed above, but it also carries a Zacks Rank #1 because of the positive earnings estimate revisions. You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. This combination indicates that WNS (Holdings) Limited is a potential outperformer and a solid choice for growth investors. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report WNS (Holdings) Limited (WNS) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. One of the hottest automotive brands in China is the one your grandparents may have driven: Buick. Buick's (GM) success in China remains what many industry observers say is key to the survival of the brand, which still seems to be struggling on its home turf in the U.S. just a decade after it was saved from the chopping block during the financial crisis. But a combination of Chinese regulations, increasing competition from Asian automakers and rising trade tensions with the U.S. have some wondering whether Buick's luck in China the world's largest auto market will soon run out. About 80 percent of Buick's global sales last year were in China, and nearly a third of GM's sales in the country came from that brand alone. About 64 percent of Buick's sales in China come from vehicles it doesn't sell in the U.S., such as the Excelle sedan, the GL6 and GL8 minivans, the Velite 5 hybrid and the Verano compact car. There really are a variety of reasons for this, say industry experts. First the Buick name is famous in China. It was the vehicle of choice for many famous Chinese figures in the middle of the 20th century, including some of the country's best-known political leaders. When GM wanted to begin producing vehicles in the China in the 1990s, the Buick name was the one that most resonated with consumers and the country's decision-makers. GM has also had a fruitful relationship with its local manufacturing partner, Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp. That all gives the brand a reputation in China that doesn't exist in the United States. "Buick has a reputation in China as an exclusive, almost elite reputation," said Michael Dunne, CEO of ZoZo Go, a firm that advises automakers on doing business in China. The average age of a Buick driver in China is 32 or 33. "In the U.S., it is something like twice that," he said. "They did a great job of positioning of positioning Buick as a premium brand." Story continues The Chinese auto market is large, selling roughly 28 million vehicles last year compared with about 17 million in the U.S. but relatively young. GM and other foreign automakers didn't started entering the market in the 1990s. "The Chinese have never seen Buick when it wasn't doing everything right," said Doug Betts, head of the automotive division at J.D. Power, a firm that tracks the industry. However, for members of certain generations in the United States, Buicks are among those American brands that lacked the styling, value and quality of competitors coming out of Europe and Japan. "Our data here in the U.S. says that Buick has been doing a really good job on quality and has been for a number of years," Betts said. "All of our quality metrics say they make really good cars. They also have really good service. But at the same time, it is difficult for them to conquest these customers that have an opinion based on older data." The age of the average U.S. buyer is also an issue for the brand, something Buick has been trying to address. While many of those buyers are loyal, Betts said, there simply aren't enough of them for the brand to grow. The vehicles are also priced a bit higher than other brands with the same name power. "When they come back to the used market, that hurts their residual value," he said. Buick spokesman Stuart Fowle told CNBC that it is not really fair to compare the market in China with the United States. "The biggest thing to me about Buick in our two major markets is that it isn't the simple apples-to-apples, big-versus-small comparison other media have made it out to be," Fowle said. "Different market sizes, different brand positioning and different product lines all play big roles." Buick sells not only a greater array of vehicles in China than it does in the United States, it sells at a wider range of price points, including many prices Fowle said are covered by cheaper Chevrolet models here in the United States. Buick also said it does not put much consideration into comparing one market with another. And Fowle said Buick does outsell some other car brands in the United States. "Each year we continue to outsell Acura, Infiniti and Lincoln in the U.S. and globally, and that allows us more resources to develop a strong global lineup moving forward," he said. Still, Buick sales fell 5.6 percent in 2018, a far greater decline than for any other GM brand in the U.S. Three of Buick's six models available in the U.S. saw year-over-year sales declines in 2018. Sales of Buick's Cascada convertible fell 26 percent, sales of the Envision compact SUV fell 26.5 percent and sales of the LaCrosse sedan dropped 23 percent. It is not all bad. Sales of the Encore rose nearly 6 percent, and sales of the Enclave crossover rose just over 2 percent. Buick has had some sales success with its recent crossovers, including the Encore subcompact. And perhaps even more encouraging is that sales of a new line of Regal liftbacks, including a wagon, also rose 22 percent in 2018. The whole Regal lineup is bucking a trend all are in segments that are supposed to be either tiny in market share or in decline. Buick is arguably in better shape than GM's luxury Cadillac brand, but GM recently said it plans to make Cadillac the brand that will lead the automaker's electrification efforts, so the automaker has some sort of plan in place for it. Nevertheless, staking Buick's future on China may not be a smart bet over the long term. Government policy in China has increasingly favored the development of a local automotive industry, and trade tensions with the United States could make business more difficult for foreign automakers in the region. China's auto market also endured its most severe slowdown in roughly two decades in 2018. Furthermore, Chinese firms are learning from more experienced international firms, and J.D. Power data suggests customers are increasingly feeling they do not need to buy a foreign brand to get a good quality product. "It is going to be hard work to continue to work there and succeed," said ZoZo Go senior advisor John Bonnell. "I don't want to say it is going to be a death trap or anything like that, but you have to earn your pay to succeed." Amazon employees might be eating lunch here soon. Or might not. Photo: Christian Heeb/laif/Redux Citing two people familiar with the companys thinking, the Washington Post reports that Amazon is reconsidering its commitment to locate a second headquarters in New York City because of rising political opposition to the subsidy deal set to bring them here. Or maybe not! The New York Times has two people directly familiar with the companys thinking who say that the Post article about Amazons New York plans had gone too far and Amazon had no plans to back out. While Governor Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio have been enthusiastic cheerleaders for their own plan to bring Amazon to Queens with a $3 billion subsidy package, many other New York politicians have been strongly critical. Most ominously, Democrats in the state senate have sought to place an Amazon-deal critic on a board that would have the power to kill much of the subsidy package. This leak about Amazons cold feet could just be a warning shot: Dont try to recut our incentive deal or we may walk away is a message Amazon would surely like to send, whether or not it is actually willing to walk. But its also a reflection of a fundamental weakness of the deal to bring Amazon to New York: Neither party truly needs the other. Unlike some other cities that wrote their HQ2 applications as part of a revitalization strategy, New York doesnt need to be revitalized. Demand for all kinds of real estate is strong here, the job base is strong, and a strategy to subsidize a large new employer is likely to just bid up rents for both office space and apartments rather than raise existing residents standards of living. A Quinnipiac poll from December shows the New York public broadly favors Amazon coming to New York. But when asked about the prospect of paying them $3 billion to come, the response is much more closely divided: 46 percent in favor, 44 percent opposed. Thats not the dismal figure you might expect from the strongly negative reaction to the deal from the press, but its a figure that suggests Amazon cant rely on a groundswell of public support to push politicians to subsidize them. As I wrote back in November, the best arguments for the Amazon subsidy deal were that the company would do two things other similar employers wouldnt: It would site its large campus in Queens instead of Manhattan, allowing the city to develop a new outer-borough office core and better balance subway demand in and out of Manhattan; and it would conceivably form the nucleus of a high-technology cluster, adding yet one more industry whose firms consider New York a leading office destination. Because of those benefits, I dont think the Amazon proposal is quite as indefensible as a lot of people do. But a better geographic balance of office space within the city and a more leading position for New York in the tech industry are nice-to-haves, not necessities, and I dont think they are worth $3 billion. As Amazon is learning, a lot of New York lawmakers feel that way, too. I have seen people comment that Amazon held the HQ2 contest as an auction to bid up subsidies, which is surely true. I have also seen people say that Amazon made the same siting choices one in Washington, where Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos owns a palatial home and a major newspaper; and another in New York, the capital of the world that it would have made, regardless of the size of the subsidy offers. This, I dont think is quite right. You cant be a little bit pregnant, but as Amazon showed by selecting two winners in the HQ2 competition and then continuing to pursue smaller deals with other cities like Nashville, you can be a little bit of a second headquarters. And if the subsidies get trimmed, Amazon could trim its plans to grow in New York without dropping them altogether. Amazon already has a substantial office in New York, and it will likely grow substantially, even without special subsidies for the company. Google is growing its presence in New York, with medium-range plans to have nearly as many employees here as Amazons proposed headquarters would contain, without a special subsidy package. But absent subsidies, Amazon may grow its New York employee base less than it has planned in the HQ2 vision, only putting employees here when there is a strong and specific business case for them to be here, taking account of the added costs that New York entails. More importantly, without the Queens-specific subsidy package, its hard to see whats in it for Amazon to go to Queens. Amazons existing New York office is in Manhattan, and Googles vast New York expansion is occurring in Manhattan, where the employees they are hiring likely prefer to work. Amazon would also have to worry that political objections to its Queens deal are not just about subsidies objecting politicians also dont like the proposed planning process that would allow Amazon to build its dream campus without having to please a bunch of busybodies on the City Council and on community boards. If planning in Queens is going to become a pain, and with many of the subsidies associated with locating in Queens withdrawn, why not just take office space in Manhattan? There happen to be a whole bunch of large office towers in planning and construction right around Amazons existing headquarters on the west side of Manhattan. So, we cant assume Amazon will just come to Queens at any price. But thats okay Amazon doesnt truly need to be there, and Queens doesnt truly need to have Amazon there. A smaller (but still large!) Amazon expansion in Manhattan instead of Queens is an outcome everyone can live with. And thats why its an outcome were likely to get. Value investing is always a very popular strategy, and for good reason. After all, who doesnt want to find stocks that have low PEs, solid outlooks, and decent dividends? Fortunately for investors looking for this combination, we have identified a strong candidate which may be an impressive value; BT Group plc BT. BT Group in Focus BT may be an interesting play thanks to its forward PE of 8.6, its P/S ratio of 0.9, and its decent dividend yield of 3.8%. These factors suggest that BT Group is a pretty good value pick, as investors have to pay a relatively low level for each dollar of earnings, and that BT has decent revenue metrics to back up its earnings. But before you think that BT Group is just a pure value play, it is important to note that it has been seeing solid activity on the earnings estimate front as well. For current year earnings, the consensus has gone up by 4.8% in the past 30 days, thanks to one upward revision in the past one month compared to none lower. This estimate strength is actually enough to push BT to a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy), suggesting it is poised to outperform. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. So really, BT Group is looking great from a number of angles thanks to its PE below 20, a P/S ratio below one, and a strong Zacks Rank, meaning that this company could be a great choice for value investors at this time. The Hottest Tech Mega-Trend of All Last year, it generated $8 billion in global revenues. By 2020, it's predicted to blast through the roof to $47 billion. Famed investor Mark Cuban says it will produce "the world's first trillionaires," but that should still leave plenty of money for regular investors who make the right trades early. See Zacks' 3 Best Stocks to Play This Trend >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report BT Group PLC (BT) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Value investing is always a very popular strategy, and for good reason. After all, who doesnt want to find stocks that have low PEs, solid outlooks, and decent dividends? Fortunately for investors looking for this combination, we have identified a strong candidate which may be an impressive value; American Airlines Group Inc. AAL. American Airlines in Focus AAL may be an interesting play thanks to its forward PE of 6.2, its P/S ratio of 0.4, and its decent dividend yield of 1.1%. These factors suggest that American Airlines is a pretty good value pick, as investors have to pay a relatively low level for each dollar of earnings, and that AAL has decent revenue metrics to back up its earnings. American Airlines Group Inc. PE Ratio (TTM) American Airlines Group Inc. PE Ratio (TTM) | American Airlines Group Inc. Quote But before you think that American Airlines is just a pure value play, it is important to note that it has been seeing solid activity on the earnings estimate front as well. For current year earnings, the consensus has gone up by 8.6% in the past 30 days, thanks to 10 upward revisions in the past one month compared to two lower. This estimate strength is actually enough to push AAL to a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy), suggesting it is poised to outperform. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. So really, American Airlines is looking great from a number of angles thanks to its PE below 20, a P/S ratio below one, and a strong Zacks Rank, meaning that this company could be a great choice for value investors at this time. The Hottest Tech Mega-Trend of All Last year, it generated $8 billion in global revenues. By 2020, it's predicted to blast through the roof to $47 billion. Famed investor Mark Cuban says it will produce "the world's first trillionaires," but that should still leave plenty of money for regular investors who make the right trades early. See Zacks' 3 Best Stocks to Play This Trend >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report American Airlines Group Inc. (AAL) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research The dizzying string of revelations that have rocked Virginia politics and thrust the state into the national spotlight began with a debate about late-term abortion during a Jan. 28 committee hearing. How that morphed into a scandal that jeopardizes the careers of the states top three elected officials serves as a case study in how quickly the political winds can shift at a time of deep polarization in the country. Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, Attorney General Mark Herring and Gov. Ralph Northam in Richmond on Dec. 18, 2017. Heres how we got to the point where Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax and Attorney General Mark Herring all Democrats are being pressured to resign, which would elevate Republican House Speaker Kirk Cox to governor: Jan. 28-Jan. 31 As Virginia Del. Kathy Tran makes a case for a bill shes sponsoring, which would make it easier for women to get third-trimester abortions in the state, Republican lawmaker Todd Gilbert asks if the legislation would allow abortions up to the moment right before birth. Tran says yes, and a clip of the exchange gets promoted by anti-abortionists and soon goes viral on social media, prompting a torrent of criticism of the first-term Democrat. Tran, a mother of four, later says she misspoke. When Northam was asked about the bill on a Jan. 30 radio show, he tries to explain how the decision should be made between the mother and her provider, without governmental interference, but part of his response leaves the pediatric neurologist open to charges that he approves of infanticide. These types of abortions, Northam said, are done in cases where there may be severe deformities. There may be a fetus thats non-viable. So in this particular example, if a mothers in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen. The infant would be delivered, the infant would be kept comfortable, the infant would be resuscitated if thats what the mother and the family desired. And then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother. The storm was just starting to form. Story continues Friday, Feb. 1 A racist photo from Northams 1984 medical school yearbook page, showing one person in blackface alongside another one wearing a Ku Klux Klan outfit, is published by Big League Politics. The far-right web site, which according to the Wall Street Journal is backed by Republican operatives, said a concerned citizen had shared the tip about the offensive photo after hearing Northams comments about late-term abortions. In a statement, Northam says hes one of the two persons in the photo, without specifying which one, and apologizes. Saturday In an odd news conference in which hes dissuaded from moonwalking by his wife, Northam says he actually does not appear in the photo in question, but admits he once darkened his face as part of a Michael Jackson costume for a dance contest. The calls for Northam to resign intensify after that appearance, and he loses the support of much of the Democratic establishment. Both of the states U.S. senators Democrats Mark Warner and Tim Kaine urge him to step aside, as do Herring and the Legislative Black Caucus. Sunday Amid speculation that Fairfax would replace Northam and become the second African American governor in state history, Big League Politics drops another bombshell. Late in the day, the web site publishes a story with accusations that Fairfax sexually assaulted a woman in 2004. Monday Fairfax issues a denial of the accusations, noting that the accuser had reached out to the Washington Post before his inauguration in January 2018 and the newspaper had not run a story after supposedly finding significant red flags and inconsistencies within the allegations. The Post denies any such findings, saying its reporting could not corroborate either sides story. The paper also provides details of the sexual encounter in question, which took place in Fairfaxs hotel room during the 2004 Democratic National Convention and he said was consensual. Tuesday Attention turns to Fairfax as Northam tries to ride out the storm and return to his normal duties, signing a bill to provide $750 million in incentives for e-commerce juggernaut Amazon to establish its second headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. Wednesday A third leading Democrat gets in trouble as Herring, who had called for Northam to step down, publicly acknowledges he wore blackface to look like a rapper during a party at the University of Virginia in 1980, when he was 19. Profusely apologizing and saying the incident has haunted him for decades, Herring said he would consider resigning. "I will say that from the bottom of my heart, I am deeply, deeply sorry for the pain that I cause with this revelation," he said. The outcry over Herrings admission had only started to mount when college professor Vanessa Tyson comes out publicly with disturbing details of her encounter with Fairfax, accusing him of forcing her to perform oral sex and relaying the anguish she felt over the years because of the experience. After the assault, I suffered from both deep humiliation and shame, she said in a statement. Fairfax steadfastly maintains the encounter was consensual. Thursday Democratic leaders, including Senators Kamala Harris and Kirsten Gillibrand both presidential candidates call for an investigation of Tysons allegations. Meanwhile, a Republican gets embroiled in the scandal for the first time as the Virginian-Pilot newspaper runs a story saying state Sen. Thomas Norment oversaw the 1968 Virginia Military Institute yearbook, which included several racist photos and slurs against blacks and Asians. Norment issues a statement denouncing the use of blackface and suggesting the revelation was politically motivated. There's plenty of that going around in embattled Virginia these days. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Blackface, assault allegations: How Virginia's political crisis unfolded Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam came close to announcing his resignation before changing mind amid yearbook scandal: Sources originally appeared on abcnews.go.com One week has passed since photos emerged from Virginian Governor Ralph Northam's medical school yearbook, and three more state leaders are now involved in controversy. Northam apologized for the photo, which depicts two men, one in a Ku Klux Klan robe and another in blackface, on his yearbook page and then denied he was in the picture. He has not been seen in public since Saturday when he made it clear he does not plan to resign. Sources told ABC News the governor had come close to announcing he would resign before changing his mind Saturday. PHOTO: Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, left, accompanied by his wife, Pam, speaks during a news conference in the governor's mansion in Richmond, Va. (Steve Helber/AP) Northam has remained holed up in the governors mansion next to the Capitol, consulting with a small group of advisers daily, according to sources familiar with the meetings. (MORE: Uncertainty reigns in Virginia as Northam remains conflicted, Fairfax denies allegation) The governor said Saturday "as long as I feel that I can lead, I will continue to do that. If I reach a point where I am not comfortable with that, then obviously we will sit down and have that discussion." Blocks away on the other side of the state capitol, Attorney General Mark Herring scurries quickly in and out of his office when he arrives and leaves work for the day, avoiding questions from reporters. His office looks directly across the square from the governors mansion, with the capitol in between. Herring on Wednesday apologized for wearing "brown makeup" to resemble rapper Kurtis Blow at a 1980 college party. PHOTO: Virginia State Attorney General Mark Herring participates in the annual Haymarket Day parade in Haymarket, Va., Oct. 20, 2018. (Alex Wong/Getty Images, FILE) Lt. Governor Justin Fairfax, on the other hand, hasn't remained out of public view and reports to the Capitol for work every day. Reporting to work on Friday, Fairfax told ABC News well have our say, Im confident in truth, when asked about his message to Virginians. (MORE: Rep. Bobby Scott learned of sexual assault allegation against Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax a year ago from the accuser: Aides) Story continues He has denied allegations he sexually assaulted a woman in 2004, calling the allegations against him a smear campaign. and has now taken on the legal team who represented now Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh when he faced accusations of sexual misconduct. PHOTO: Virginia Lt. Governor Justin Fairfax presides over the Senate at the Virginia State Capitol, Feb. 7, 2019, in Richmond, Va. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images, FILE) "I take this situation very seriously and continue to believe Dr. Tyson should be treated with respect. But, I cannot agree to a description of events that simply is not true," Fairfax said in a statement earlier this week. The woman who accused Fairfax, Vanessa Tyson, an associate professor of politics at Scripps College in California, is now represented by the lawyers who litigated for Christine Blasey-Ford, one of Kavanaugh's accusers. And now another Virginia lawmaker is having to explain something in his past. Senate Majority Leader Thomas Norment, a Republican, was managing editor of the 1968 yearbook of the Virginia Military Institute which featured several students in blackface and comments with racial slurs. Norment addressed the matter, saying he was not in any of the photos in question and condemned the use of blackface calling it "abhorrent" saying he advocated for racial integration at VMI. A spokesperson for VMI confirmed to ABC News that Norment was the managing editor and confirmed the photos in question. "In recent years we've improved procedures and the yearbook is more professionally done and we are actively trying to take lessons from the past so that we can do better in the future," VMI's director of communications and marketing, Col. Steven D MacInnis, told ABC News. Several Virginia state senators and delegates heading into the capital Friday morning would not answer questions about the leadership chaos in their state. Specific questions about the calls for an investigation into the allegations against Fairfax were also met with silence, though one delegate said simply not my job as he rushed away from reporters. Multiple lawmakers have said they dont expect Northam to resign. "I don't think anyone's resigning," said Republican Delegate Terry Kilgore. Some delegates told ABC News they wanted to hear from their constituents on the growing scandal as they head home for the weekend. (MORE:2020 Democrats call for investigation as Fairfax allegations rock Virginia) A group of Democratic congressional leaders from Virginia have reiterated their call for Northam to resign. The same group of lawmakers, however, did not say if Herring should resign, despite his admission that he engaged in blackface in his past. We understand that he is currently engaged in in-depth discussions with leaders and others in Virginia. The Attorney General must continue those conversations, and stand ready to answer questions from the public if he is to regain their trust, the release read. The Virginia Legislative Black Caucus has echoed these views late Thursday, saying, While we appreciate the candor of Attorney General Herrings disclosure, we await further action on his part to reassure the citizens of the Commonwealth his fitness for leadership. The group also went on to say that the sexual assault allegations against Fairfax should be investigated. So what happens next? Should all three Northam, Fairfax and Herring decide to step aside, the next in the line of succession is House of Delegates Speaker Kirk Cox, a Republican. Asked by ABC News this morning if he thinks he'll be governor, Cox said. I don't have anything to add to what I've said. Earlier this week, Cox called the revelations by all three leaders "disturbing." "The people should be confident that our work continues unimpeded and that the Commonwealths 100,000 state employees also continue to serve without disruption," Cox said in a statement. And while local and national Democrats are calling for an inquiry into the Fairfax allegations, it's highly unlikely that will be done by the Virginia legislature. One delegate rushing into the Capitol Friday summed up the political chaos. Its a sad day for Virginia, he said. ABC News' Matthew Seyler and Marissa Parra contributed to this report. Embattled Gov. Ralph Northam, Democrat of Virginia. (Yahoo News photo Illustration; photos: AP, Getty) When Ralph Northam was elected Virginias governor a little over a year ago, it marked the first time in almost two decades that the state had a chief executive who was actually from the old commonwealth. Between the last Southern governor, Jim Gilmore, and Northam, Virginia has undergone a massive demographic change. Its rural, whiter southern portions have steadily decreased in population. And the northern Virginia suburbs have exploded with rising numbers of minorities and immigrants, changing the states identity and political outlook. The Virginia Democratic party has risen on this wave of diversity since Mark Warners election as governor in 2001, as has the national party. The state organization has been regarded as one of the strongest in the nation of either party, due in part to the successful governorships of Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, both of whom are now in the U.S. Senate. At the national level, Virginia has voted Democrat in the last three presidential elections after going Republican for 10 straight presidential elections previous to that. But suddenly Virginia Democrats are in disarray over allegations of racism against the current governor, and of their attorney general, Mark Herring. Northam is resisting calls to resign for photos in his medical school yearbook showing one man in blackface and another in the white robes of the Ku Klux Klan. The governor initially said he was in the photo, then shortly after claimed he was not, but also admitted he had worn blackface in his mid-20s. Herring, who went to college at the University of Virginia, admitted to wearing blackface during those years. For decades in Virginia and across the South, casual racism such as wearing blackface provoked laughter rather than outrage. The Confederate flag was everywhere into the 1980s and early 1990s, according to one Virginia Republican operative with deep experience across multiple elections, who asked not to be identified. Story continues You grow up here [and] this stuff is everywhere, the Virginia Republican said. You still have all this furniture in the attic and somebody opened the attic and said, What is all this stuff? Its like, Those are the chairs. Theyve always been here. Former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore. (Photo: Steve Helber/AP) This is our version of the bends, he said. Were rushing into modernity and its gonna hurt. Virginias collision of a racist past with one of the most rapidly diversifying state populations in the country is a reckoning avoided in part by a succession of governors who did not grow up steeped in Confederate-influenced culture. Since Gilmore, a Republican born and raised in Richmond, every Virginia governor but one has grown up in another state. The one governor who had spent much of his childhood in Virginia, Republican Bob McDonnell, was born in Philadelphia to a military family that traveled for part of his childhood and then spent the rest of it in the suburbs outside Washington, D.C. Northam, a 59-year old Democrat, grew up on Virginias rural Eastern Shore in a town that has never had more than 1,800 people. He is a product of the culture in much of Virginia outside the northern suburbs whose history is built on slavery and has deep ties to white supremacy The first men and women enslaved and brought to America arrived in Virginia, at Jamestown, exactly 400 years ago this August. The highest number of enslaved people were always in Virginia by a wide margin from 1790 to 1860, according to Census data. Richmond was the capitol of the Confederacy for most of the Civil War. To this day, Virginia not Mississippi or South Carolina or Georgia or Alabama is the state with the most monuments, statues and other markers dedicated to the Confederate cause. Most of these monuments were erected decades after the Civil War to reassert white supremacy, according to an exhaustive report by the Southern Poverty Law Center. A statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee at the Virginia State Capitol in Richmond. (Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images) When the Supreme Court ordered public schools to be racially integrated in 1954, Virginia lawmakers led by Sen. Harry F. Byrd Sr. launched what became known as a massive resistance to mixing white and black children in taxpayer-funded schools. This resistance lasted through the 1950s and into the 60s. The commonwealth is a far different state now. Since 2000, the white population in the state has dropped from 70 percent to 62 percent, while the Hispanic population has gone from 5 percent to 9 percent of the state, according to Hamilton Lombard at the University of Virginias Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service. The foreign-born population in Virginia has risen from 8 percent to 13 percent over that same period, according to Lombards data. Southern Virginia, meanwhile, has lost population over the past decade, Lombard said. Jobs are harder and harder to come by in those parts of the state, and so many younger people leave. The Democratic party nationally, meanwhile, has become increasingly less tolerant of public figures missteps on race or gender. Northams response to the emergence of his yearbook photo provoked a massive backlash, which has only been blunted somewhat by the revelation that Herring, who is second in line for the governorship, also wore blackface as a young man, and by sexual assault allegations against Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax. Northams bumbling response to the yearbook photo was indicative of his background in the Virginia of the Old South, but also of his lack of political experience. Ralph Northam's infamous page in the 1984 yearbook of Eastern Virginia Medical School. (Photo: Courtesy of the Washington Post via Getty Images) Northam was a U.S. Army officer and pediatric neurologist for much of his life and didnt enter politics until 2007, when he was elected to the state Senate. He won the lieutenant governor position in 2013 and his election as governor in 2017 was driven by an anti-Trump wave in the commonwealth. During that campaign, it emerged that he had voted for Republican George W. Bush for president in 2000 and 2004. The shockwaves going through Virginia are an overdue accounting of the states past at a time when Democrats are targeting institutional racism. It is one thing to codify equality into law, said Shaun Kenney, a former Republican Party of Virginia executive director. It is something else for a white majority to precisely understand how our past legacy steals the intangibles: respect, dignity and so forth. _____ Read more from Yahoo News: A vigil Thursday night honored four family members killed when a small plane broke apart and burned in midair, crashing in a Southern California neighborhood on Sunday. Part of the plane debris ignited a house, destroying it and killing four people inside. The Orange County Sheriff identified the victims as Roy Lee Anderson, 85, Dahlia Marlies Leber Anderson, 68, Stacie Norene Leber, 48 and Donald Paul Elliott, 58. The two oldest victims owned the house and were husband and wife, the Los Angeles Times reported, and the other two were family guests. Relatives of the deceased said they were devastated and asked for privacy in a statement released Wednesday. "Our family bond is tight and each member lost in this tragedy represents more than just one role within our family," the statement read. "We lost parents, grandparents, great-parents, spouses, sisters, brothers, aunts and uncles. The home lost was a beacon for so many family and friends where many celebrations were held." Community members organized a vigil scheduled for Thursday night at a nearby elementary school. Two others inside the house were injured in the fire and the pilot also died. Authorities previously identified the pilot of the small plane, Antonio Pastini, 75, as a retired Chicago police officer, but Chicago police said they have no records of Pastini working for the department. At the crash site, officials found fake retirement papers and a police badge with the same number as one reported lost in 1978, Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said. In this Sunday, Feb. 3, 2019 photo, provided by Kyle Vanderheide, Yorba Linda firefighters rush to a home engulfed in flames after a deadly small plane crash in Yorba Linda, Calif. Pastinis daughter, Julia Ackley, said her father owned a restaurant and regularly flew from his home in Nevada to family in California. Investigators said Pastini was a commercial-grade pilot. Ackley did not comment on the police credentials. My father is exactly who he said he was," Ackley told KABC-TV. Investigators on Monday collected the plane's debris strewn across four blocks, planning to transport them to a Phoenix facility for examination. They will also look into Pastini's medical history, flight experience and maintenance reports, a National Transportation Safety Board spokesperson said. Story continues The Cessna 414A reportedly left the Fullerton Municipal Airport at 1:35 p.m. Sunday, traveling about 10 miles before rapidly descending. Witnesses told investigators the plane's tail and wing broke off while it burning midair. More: What happened? NTSB says tail and wings broke off plane before 'unusual' California crash More: Plane crashes into Southern California residence, killing 5 A preliminary report is expected sometime next week, the safety board said. The full investigation could take up to two years. Contributing: The Associated Press This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Victims of Yorba Linda plane crash remembered amid continuing investigation Desperate Venezuelans have reportedly been driven to sell their hair at the Colombian border as their troubled nation slips further into political crisis. Trucks carrying humanitarian aid arrived in the Colombian border city of Cucuta on Thursday after the countrys embattled president, Nicolas Maduro, ordered his military to barricade a bridge between the two nations with a tanker and two containers. President Maduro, who denies a humanitarian crisis exists and has said Venezuela is not a nation of beggars, rejected the aid convoy as a political show. He has vowed to remain in power, despite dozens of nations around the world disavowing his leadership and recognising opposition leader Juan Guaido as the countrys interim president. It remains to be seen whether Mr Maduro will allow the aid to enter the country, and he is expected to make a decision in the coming days. The so-called humanitarian aid operation is a show, a cheap show, a bad show, Mr Maduro said in interview with Mexican newspaper La Jornada published on Thursday. You can be sure that it wont disturb Venezuela. Mr Guaido, who requested the international assistance, has said it is necessary in a country racked by shortages of food and medicine. The opposition leader, who is backed by around 40 countries, including the US, the UK and its European allies, and several South American nations, is seeking to oust President Maduro following an election last year which many have denounced as a sham. Russia and China are among the most prominent countries to continue to support Mr Maduro. Mr Maduro has overseen an economic collapse in Venezuela that has left millions struggling to eat and led an estimated three million to leave the oil-rich OPEC country since 2015. On Thursday, a coalition of European and Latin American nations urged Venezuela to engage in dialogue and hold fresh elections. EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said the International Contact Group does not intend to impose a solution, but is focused on finding answers to avoid violence or foreign intervention in Venezuela. We can have different points of view and readings about the causes of the crisis, Mr Mogherini told a gathering of nations in the Uruguayan capital, Montevideo. But we share the same objective, wishing to contribute to a politically peaceful and democratic solution. Baker Hughes, a GE company BHGE, declared the rig count for January 2019. In the United States, the total number of rigs fell from December 2018 figure, due to lower number of offshore rigs. North America Rig Count In January 2019, rig count in North America (the United States and Canada) totaled 1,241. The figure was higher than 1,219 in December 2019 and 1,215 a year ago. U.S. rig:Total number of rigs in the United States was 1,065. The figure is lower than 1,078 rigs in last December and higher than 937 a year ago. Of the total count, land rigs were 1,044. This is lower than 1,054 rigs in the prior month, but, higher than 919 rigs in January 2018. The number of U.S. offshore rigs in January 2019 was 21, down from 24 in December 2018 and up from 18 rigs in January 2018. Canada rig: In Canada, the total rig count of 176 was higher than 141 in December 2018 but lower than278 in January 2018. International Rig Count Total international rig count (offshore and land) in the month of January was 1,023. The count declined by 2 in December 2018. Nevertheless, the figure is higher than 960 recorded in January 2018. Offshore rig count in January 2019 was 241, higher than 234 in December 2018 as well as 196 in the prior-year period. Land Rig: The land rig count was 782 compared with 791 in December 2018 and 764 in January 2018. In a separate announcement, Baker Hughes stated that it has received a contract to supply turbomachinery equipment for the construction of the Golden Pass LNG export facility in Sabine Pass, Texas. The company will provide turbomachinery equipment for three LNG trains, comprising six gas turbines and 12 centrifugal compressors. The project is anticipated to produce about 16 million tons per year of LNG. Zacks Rank & Key Picks Baker Hughes carries a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell). A few better-ranked players in the energy space are Evergy, Inc EVRG, Sunoco L.P SUN and Contura Energy CTRA, each sporting a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here. Evergy, through its operating subsidiaries Kansas City Power & Light Company (KCP&L) and Westar Energy, Inc provides clean, safe and reliable energy in Kansas and Missouri. The company reported average negative earnings surprise of 11.1% in the last four quarters. Headquartered in Houston, TX, Sunoco operates as a wholesale fuel distributor. The company is expected to witness year-over-year earnings decline of 38.9% in 2018. Bristol-based Contura Energy is a mining company. The company delivered average negative surprise of 17.9% in the trailing four quarters. The Hottest Tech Mega-Trend of All Last year, it generated $8 billion in global revenues. By 2020, it's predicted to blast through the roof to $47 billion. Famed investor Mark Cuban says it will produce "the world's first trillionaires," but that should still leave plenty of money for regular investors who make the right trades early. See Zacks' 3 Best Stocks to Play This Trend >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Sunoco LP (SUN) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Washington (AFP) - US lawmakers threatened Thursday to take tougher action against Saudi Arabia over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi amid a new revelation that the kingdom's powerful crown prince spoke of going after him with a "bullet." President Donald Trump faces a Friday deadline set by Congress to determine if Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the assassination of Khashoggi, who was strangled and dismembered after entering the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul on October 2. Special UN rapporteur, Agnes Callamard, said Thursday after a visit to Turkey that the killing of Khashoggi, who had written critical pieces on Saudi Arabia in The Washington Post, had been "planned and perpetrated" by Saudi officials. The New York Times, citing officials who had seen US intelligence, said that Prince Mohammed had warned in an intercepted conversation to an aide in 2017 that he would go after Khashoggi "with a bullet" if he did not return to Saudi Arabia from the United States. US intelligence understood that the ambitious 33-year-old heir apparent was ready to kill the journalist, although he may not have literally meant to shoot him, according to the newspaper. The kingdom, after initially denying any knowledge of Khashoggi's disappearance, has acknowledged that a team killed him inside the embassy but described it as a rogue operation that did not involve the crown prince. In October, the then top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee invoked a law that gave the Trump administration 120 days -- until February 8 -- to determine whether Prince Mohammed ordered Khashoggi's murder and to outline actions against him. - Congress ready to act - Predicting little movement, a bipartisan group of senators on Thursday proposed a bill to cut off some weapons sales to Saudi Arabia including of tanks, long-range fighter jets and ordnance for automatic weapons. Story continues The bill would also require sanctions against any Saudis involved in Khashoggi's killing and require State Department reports on human rights in the kingdom and in the conduct of its war in Yemen. "Seeing as the Trump administration has no intention of insisting on full accountability for Mr. Khashoggi's murderers, it is time for Congress to step in and impose real consequences to fundamentally re-examine our relationship with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and with the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen," said Robert Menendez, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The bill enjoys support from top Republicans including Senator Lindsey Graham, usually a close ally of Trump. "While Saudi Arabia is a strategic ally, the behavior of the crown prince in multiple ways has shown disrespect for the relationship and made him, in my view, beyond toxic," Graham said. The Senate already voted in December to end support for the bloody Saudi-led offensive on rebels in Yemen, where millions are on the brink of starvation in what the United Nations calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis. The move is likely to pass the new Democratic-led House of Representatives after a hearing on legislation Wednesday, although Trump could exercise his veto. - Trump supports prince - Secretary of State Mike Pompeo raised Khashoggi's killing among other issues during a meeting Thursday with Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi minister of state for foreign affairs, according to the State Department. But Trump has publicly said that he is not concerned whether Crown Prince Mohammed was involved in Khashoggi's killing, saying the Saudi alliance benefits Washington due to the kingdom's major purchases of weapons and its hostility to regional rival Iran. Asked about Friday's deadline, State Department spokesman Robert Palladino said that the United States had already taken action over Khashoggi's killing, pointing to last year's revocation of visas for nearly two dozen Saudi officials and the freezing of assets of 17 others. "We will continue to consult with the Congress and work to hold accountable those who are responsible for Jamal Khashoggi's killing," Palladino told reporters, declining to say if more action would be forthcoming. In a joint statement accompanied by a rally outside the White House, six advocacy groups including Human Rights Watch, Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists urged Trump to release CIA records on Khashoggi's death, support an independent investigation and press the Saudis to free detained reporters and activists. "Notwithstanding public and congressional outrage and the reported findings of the CIA, the Trump administration appears to be engaged in a cover-up on behalf of the Saudi government," they wrote. Washington (AFP) - The United States is hoping Afghanistan can strike a peace agreement including the Taliban before elections scheduled for July, US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad said on Friday. "It will be better for Afghanistan if we could get a peace agreement before the election, which is scheduled in July," the negotiator said, adding that there remained "a lot of work" to do. Khalilzad, who is leading talks with the Taliban, was at the US Institute of Peace in Washington to discuss an ongoing push for a political settlement to the 17-year-old Afghanistan conflict. A former US ambassador to Afghanistan who is now special envoy in the talks, Khalilzad has in recent months held meetings with Taliban officials in Qatar, where the group's senior leaders have an office in the capital Doha. He has expressed cautious optimism about the prospect of a deal, and even announced a draft framework, but stressed nothing had been finalized. Critics are skeptical about the talks for a number of reasons, primarily because they have not yet included the Afghan government, which the Taliban considers US-backed puppets. Additionally, the Taliban have promised not to provide shelter again to foreign extremists, but experts say they cannot be trusted and even now are helping to hide foreign militants. The talks come as President Donald Trump pushes to end the Afghanistan conflict, where about 14,000 US troops are still deployed and which has seen countless thousands of civilian and military deaths, as well as an infusion of more than $1 trillion in US cash into the country. In his annual State of the Union speech on Tuesday, Trump said the time has come "to at least try for peace." Afghanistan has suffered nearly constant conflict since the Soviet invasion of 1979, which was followed by civil war, the Taliban regime, and the US invasion in late 2001. Khalilzad was a major player in George W. Bush's administration when the United States first invaded Afghanistan after the September 11, 2001 attacks. Jeff Bezos, founder and chief executive officer of Amazon.com Inc., listens during an Economic Club of Washington discussion in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Thursday, Sept. 13, 2018. Photo: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images Jeff Bezos is the richest man in the world. But that doesnt mean hes any different from you and me, the average Joes. Jeff Bezos might command a sprawling retail empire and make more money in a day than youll ever see in your life, but he still sends nudes. The man revealed this himself on Thursday while shining a spotlight on a tabloid publishers alleged attempts of extortion and blackmail. In a Medium post (of course) entitled, No thank you, Mr. Pecker (cool title), Bezos published correspondence between his camp and American Media Inc., the tabloid publisher best known for the National Enquirer. Mr. Pecker, first name David, is the head of AMI, which is currently also under investigation for catch and kill schemes to bury stories about President Donald Trumps extramarital affairs. Bezos has hired investigators to determine how the National Enquirer received text messages between himself and Lauren Sanchez, the woman he had an affair with. As he writes: Several days ago, an AMI leader advised us that Mr. Pecker is apoplectic about our investigation. For reasons still to be better understood, the Saudi angle seems to hit a particularly sensitive nerve. A few days after hearing about Mr. Peckers apoplexy, we were approached, verbally at first, with an offer. They said they had more of my text messages and photos that they would publish if we didnt stop our investigation. Bezos claims that AMI does not have the right to publish copyrighted photos that he does not think are newsworthy, but AMI is apparently holding those damaging images over Bezoss head like the sword of Damocles. To get out ahead of the story, Jeff Bezos published communications between his investigation team and Dylan Howard, AMIs chief content officer. In the email, Howard lists the various photos in the National Enquirers possession. The cache apparently includes: a below the belt selfie otherwise colloquially known as a d*ck pick A shirtless Mr. Bezos holding his phone in his left hand while wearing his wedding ring. Hes wearing either tight black cargo pants or shorts and his semi-erect manhood is penetrating the zipper of said garment. A full-length body selfie of Mr. Bezos wearing just a pair of tight black boxer-briefs or trunks, with his phone in his left hand while wearing his wedding ring. A naked selfie in a bathroom while wearing his wedding ring. Mr. Bezos is wearing nothing but a white towel and the top of his pubic region can be seen. as well as other photos of Sanchez and a selfie of Bezos at (gasp!) what appears to be a business meeting. Bezos continues: In the AMI letters Im making public, you will see the precise details of their extortionate proposal: They will publish the personal photos unless Gavin de Becker [Bezoss lead investigator] and I make the specific false public statement to the press that we have no knowledge or basis for suggesting that AMIs coverage was politically motivated or influenced by political forces. Should Bezos ever renege on the proposed agreement, AMI would then publish the photos. Bezos is navigating a complicated web of relationships here. Not only is he the founder of Amazon, a $177 billion economic juggernaut, but hes also the owner of the Washington Post. Trump has made a special enemy of the Post. In a tweet from last month, he went out of his way to crow over Bezoss divorce, celebrate the National Enquirer reporting which led to it, and hope for the future sale of the Post. So sorry to hear the news about Jeff Bozo being taken down by a competitor whose reporting, I understand, is far more accurate than the reporting in his lobbyist newspaper, the Amazon Washington Post. Hopefully the paper will soon be placed in better & more responsible hands! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 14, 2019 Aside from its arrangement with Trump, AMI also has a business arrangement with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which murdered Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi last year. I dont want personal photos published, but I also wont participate in their well-known practice of blackmail, political favors, political attacks, and corruption, he concluded. I prefer to stand up, roll this log over, and see what crawls out. Seoul (AFP) - The US State Department announced Friday that the special US envoy for North Korea will meet again with Pyongyang officials before a second summit between President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un -- hours after he returned to Seoul from talks in the North on the summit's agenda. In a statement, the State Department said talks during Stephen Biegun's three-day trip explored Trump and Kim's "commitments of complete denuclearization, transforming US-DPRK relations and building a lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula" in preparation for the much-anticipated summit in Vietnam on February 27 and 28. Biegun landed at Osan US Air Base Friday evening, foreign ministry spokesman Noh Kyu-duk told AFP. The State Department confirmed Biegun agreed to meet his North Korean counterpart Kim Hyok Chol again before the summit. North Korea has yet to provide any official confirmation of the summit and Kim Jong Un appeared to make no mention of it during a meeting Friday with the top brass of the Korean Peoples Army. As reported by state media, the meeting focused on the need to modernise the military while maintaining party discipline in the ranks. Biegun is expected to share details of his Pyongyang meetings with his South Korean counterpart Lee Do-hoon and Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha on Saturday. Attention will focus on whether the US team have offered to lift some economic sanctions in return for Pyongyang taking concrete steps towards denuclearisation. Discussions on declaring an end to the 1950-53 Korean War could also have been on the table, with Biegun last week saying Trump was "ready to end this war". The three-year conflict ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty, leaving the two Koreas still technically at war, with the US keeping 28,500 troops in the South. The US envoy was also likely to have discussed with his counterpart protocol and security matters for the upcoming Trump-Kim summit. Story continues At their landmark summit in Singapore last year, the mercurial US and North Korean leaders produced a vaguely worded document in which Kim pledged to work towards "the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula". But progress has since stalled, with the two sides disagreeing over what that means. Experts say tangible progress on Pyongyang's nuclear weapons will be needed for the second summit if it is to avoid being dismissed as "reality TV". A small border city in Arizona is pushing back against Donald Trumps decision to install razor wire along its border, with a proclamation that would officially call the measures irresponsible and inhuman. The city officials in Nogales considered the proclamation on Wednesday, just days after a report indicated the US military installed more concertina wire along the border fence that separates the city from Mexico. The installation of the concertina wire has become one of thee most visible signs of Mr Trumps troop deployment in the US southwest, conjuring images of war zones as the US responds to what the president has called a crisis and tremendous onslaught. Mayor Arturo Garino told local news outlet Nogales International that he asked Senator Martha McSally last month to help the city to get the wiring removed. That wire is lethal, and I really dont know what theyre thinking by putting it all the way down to the ground, Mr Garino said. Nogales sits right along the US-Mexico border, and relies heavily on cross-border commerce with the Mexican city that lies just beyond the fence. Mr Trump announced this week during his second State of the Union that he has instructed the US military to send 3,750 troops to the border in order to provide in a support capacity to local law enforcement and Border Patrol as migrants make they way to the border to request asylum. The US announced in November that some 58km of wiring had been sent to be set up in California, Arizona, and Texas. During that same month, US troops were seen installing the wiring in McAllen, Texas underneath a border bridge on the American side of the border. The city proclamation would note that concertina is typically seen in battlefields, not in areas of peace, and that the deployment of the wiring is not only irresponsible but inhuman. The Associated Press contributed to this report Union Pacific Corporation UNP announced that its board of directors has approved a new share repurchase program to buy up to 150 million of its common stock. The plan, which takes effect from Apr 1, 2019, will expire on Mar 31, 2022. Also, the railroad operator raised its quarterly dividend by 10%. This is the fourth dividend hike by the company since November 2017. Notably, this Omaha, NE-based company has been consistently rewarding its shareholders through dividends and buybacks for quite some time. Evidently, Union Pacific returned around $10.5 billion to its stockholders in 2018. This reflected a 75% year over year increase. Of the $10.5 billion, $8.2 billion and $2.3 billion were returned through buybacks and dividends, respectively. Twin Shareholder-Friendly Moves This Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) company hiked its quarterly dividend to 88 cents per share (annualized $3.52 per share), representing a 10% improvement from the previous payout of 80 cents per share (annualized $3.2 per share). The new dividend, which has been approved by the companys board of directors, will be paid on Mar 29, 2019 to its stockholders of record as of Feb 28. The dividend yield based on the new payout and the Feb 7 closing market price is approximately 2.2%, which compares favorably to its industrys dividend yield of 1.7%. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. We believe that this dividend hike not only highlights Union Pacifics commitment to create value for shareholders but also underlines the carriers healthy financial condition and confidence in its business, going forward. The company intends to maintain a dividend payout ratio between 40% and 45% in the 2018-2020 timeframe. Additionally, it is confident about generating solid free cash flow over the next few years. In fact, this new three-year share buyback program marks another move by Union Pacific to add value to its stockholders. The plan, which permits the repurchase of 21% of outstanding shares, replaces the current buyback program, which ends on Mar 31. The companys shareholder-friendly attitude can be made out from the fact that it has bought back 38% of outstanding shares for approximately $31.9 billion till date, since the announcement of its share repurchase program in January 2007. Story continues Notably, the announcement of the latest repurchase plan is in line with the companys objective to buyback approximately $20 billion of shares between 2018 and 2020. Union Pacific Corporation Price Union Pacific Corporation Price | Union Pacific Corporation Quote Dividend Hikes: Not Uncommon for Railroads The current tax law, which came into force in December 2017, is a boon to railroads as far as investor-oriented activities like dividend payments are concerned. The significant reduction in corporate tax rate under the current law has boosted cash flow as well as earnings of transportation stocks. Owing to the significant cuts in tax bills, more cash remains in the hands of these companies to fund capital expenditures, buybacks and dividends among others. Apart from Union Pacific, other railroad operators to have hiked dividends this year include CSX Corporation CSX, Norfolk Southern Corporation NSC and Canadian National Railway Company CNI. As investors prefer an income generating stock, a high dividend yielding one is much coveted. Needless to say that investors are always on the lookout for companies with a track record of consistent and incremental dividend payments. The Hottest Tech Mega-Trend of All Last year, it generated $8 billion in global revenues. By 2020, it's predicted to blast through the roof to $47 billion. Famed investor Mark Cuban says it will produce "the world's first trillionaires," but that should still leave plenty of money for regular investors who make the right trades early. See Zacks' 3 Best Stocks to Play This Trend >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Canadian National Railway Company (CNI) : Free Stock Analysis Report Union Pacific Corporation (UNP) : Free Stock Analysis Report CSX Corporation (CSX) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Kiev (AFP) - Volodymyr Zelensky has already been elected president of Ukraine once -- in a television series. Now the popular actor with no political experience has confounded his critics to lead opinion polls before the real presidential race. The March 31 vote was supposed to be a battle between two of Ukraine's most experienced politicians: incumbent Petro Poroshenko and former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko. But around 20 percent of Ukrainians now say they plan to vote for comedian and film actor Zelensky, putting him several points ahead of his main rivals in opinion polls last week. The 41-year-old entertainer has tapped into popular discontent with the political class and has largely relied on the internet to get his message across. To some, his approach is reminiscent of the populist strategies that swept US President Donald Trump to power. Supporters, however, see him as an alternative to an old guard that they say has never been able to follow through on promises to tackle corruption and improve living standards. Poroshenko came to power in 2014 on the back of a pro-Europe, anti-graft popular uprising, while Tymoshenko was a face of the Orange Revolution that promised a new, fairer Ukraine -- in 2004. "Zelensky is seen as a 'none of the above' candidate. Also he's fresh, he's modern, he's young, he's trendy," political analyst Vadym Karasyov told AFP. "People are tired of (old) ideas and the usual politicians." But Karasyov said there was a difference between using the actor's candidacy to protest against the political elite, and actually wanting him to take charge of the country. Despite Zelensky's leading position in polls some experts say his bid remains a long shot because many of his supporters are young and will not bother turning out on election day. There are also a record number of candidates in the race, adding to the vote's unpredictability. - 'Servant of the People' - Story continues Zelensky's critics point to the vagueness of his manifesto, the main points of which were chosen following a public vote on social media. They question the ability of a man whose political experience is limited to a role in a show called "Servant of the People". If elected president, Zelensky will be tasked with tackling a conflict with Russia-backed separatists, a hostile Kremlin, as well as widespread poverty and corruption. Foreign diplomats have privately raised questions about his candidacy. "He was too general -- no concrete ideas. It was frightening if you consider that he is a presidential candidate," a Western diplomatic source told AFP following a meeting with Zelensky. "He lacks knowledge, but is very keen to learn," said reformist MP Sergiy Leshchenko, who also attended another briefing. At times in his campaign, fiction and reality have become blurred. "President Servant of the People. Coming soon," read posters on the streets of Kiev -- promoting both his presidential bid and a new series of the show that is coming out in March. "I entered the race for president of Ukraine, after which people called me a clown. I am a clown and I'm very proud of it," he has said in a Facebook message. Like the other frontrunners, Zelensky says he wants the country to maintain a pro-Western trajectory. - 'Puppet' - Zelensky comes from the industrial city of Krivy Rig in central Ukraine. A father-of-two, he has a law degree but made his career on stage. He is artistic director of a studio theatre called Kvartal 95, reportedly part of a business conglomerate that has had business dealings in Russia. An investigative report on Ukrainian television in January accused Zelensky of continued commercial relations with Russia, a highly sensitive topic as tensions flare between the neighbours. Following the TV report, Zelensky confirmed he had shares in a Cypriot company that is owned by a Russian group and promised to sell them. Zelensky's opponents have accused him of being a "puppet" of oligarch Igor Kolomoisky, Poroshenko's billionaire foe though the actor denies this. By Lawrence Hurley WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A divided U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday stopped a Louisiana law imposing strict regulations on abortion clinics from going into effect in its first major test on abortion since the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy last summer. The court on a 5-4 vote granted an emergency application by Shreveport-based abortion provider Hope Medical Group for Women to block the Republican-backed law from going into effect while litigation continues. The four liberal justices were joined by conservative Chief Justice John Roberts in the majority, suggesting that Roberts, as Kennedy used to be, is now the key vote on the issue. Kennedy backed abortion rights in two key cases. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who President Donald Trump appointed to replace Kennedy, joined the court's four other conservatives in dissent. Hope Medical Group challenged the law's requirement that doctors who perform abortions must have an arrangement called "admitting privileges" at a hospital within 30 miles (48 km) of the clinic. Kavanaugh, writing for himself, said it was not clear whether doctors would be unable to obtain the admitting privileges were the law to go into effect. He said that he would have favored allowing them to bring a later legal challenge if their efforts were unsuccessful. The Center for Reproductive Rights, an abortion rights group that represents the challengers, said the law could lead to the closure of two of the three abortion clinics operating in Louisiana, a state of more than 4.6 million people. The law was passed in 2014 but courts had prevented it from going into effect. The Supreme Court itself blocked the law in 2016, two days after hearing another major case involving a similar Texas law that the justices struck down months later. Kennedy, a conservative who retired in July 2018, had voted to preserve abortion rights in 1992 and again in the 2016 Texas case. Roberts was a dissenter in the 2016 case, but his vote on Thursday for now suggests the court is not retreating from that precedent. Story continues Kavanaugh is one of two Trump appointees who are part of the court's 5-4 conservative majority, along with Neil Gorsuch. The Supreme Court recognized a woman's constitutional right to an abortion and legalized the procedure nationwide in the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling. The court on Feb. 1 temporarily blocked the Lousiana law, which was due to go into effect on Feb. 4, while the justices decided how to proceed. (Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Sandra Maler) By Andy Sullivan WASHINGTON, Feb 7 (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday approved President Donald Trump's attorney general nominee, William Barr, and sent his nomination on to the full Senate for a final confirmation vote. The committee voted along party lines. Republicans praised Barr as well qualified, while Democrats who voted against him said they were concerned he might not make public the findings from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation. A corporate lawyer who previously served as attorney general under Republican President George H.W. Bush in the early 1990s, Barr has been praised by lawmakers from both parties as someone who is deeply familiar with the workings of the Justice Department and does not owe his career to Trump. He is expected to win confirmation in the Republican-controlled chamber. RELATED: William Barr throughout the years This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. If he wins the job, Barr's independence could be put to the test when Mueller wraps up his investigation into the Trump campaign's possible ties to Russia during the 2016 election. The Republican president has repeatedly criticized the investigation as a "witch hunt" and denies any collusion with Moscow. Barr criticized the investigation last year in a memo to the Justice Department, but he told the committee in confirmation hearings three weeks ago that he would allow Mueller to conclude his work and said he would make as much of his findings public as possible. But Barr has refused to promise that he will release the report in its entirety, citing Justice Department regulations that encourage prosecutors not to criticize people who they do not end up charging with criminal behavior. (Reporting by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Doina Chiacu and Jonathan Oatis) By Gina Cherelus (Reuters) - Authorities in California have seized a record 1.9 tons of methamphetamine worth some $1.3 billion along with heroin and cocaine, all bound for Australia. The seizure followed an operation by U.S. border officials and Australian law enforcement and took place on Jan. 11 at the Los Angeles/Long Beach seaport, authorities said on Thursday. The drugs were "artfully" hidden in a shipment of loud speakers. Four Australians and two U.S. citizens were arrested on Wednesday by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) on suspicion of involvement in the trafficking, authorities said. "There's no question that the criminal organization behind this scheme has been dealt a significant blow," Joseph Macias, special agent-in-charge for Homeland Security Investigations Los Angeles, said in a statement. The two containers of drugs, hidden inside metal boxes labeled "Single Loud Speakers," contained 3,810 pounds (1,730 kg) of methamphetamine, about 56 pounds (25 kg) of cocaine and 11.5 (5.3 kg) pounds of heroin, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials said. It was the biggest seizure of methamphetamine in the United States and amounted to about 17 million doses, authorities said, adding that if it had reached Australia it would have been worth approximately $1.3 billion. "Someone's in TONNES of trouble!," AFP officials said in a statement posted on Facebook with video footage of the suspects' arrest. "Luckily we worked with our US buddies and were able to stop the shipment before it reached our shores." (Reporting by Gina Cherelus in New York; Editing by Steve Orlofsky) By David Brunnstrom WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. special representative for North Korea held three days of talks in Pyongyang to prepare a second summit to be held this month between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, the State Department said on Friday, while giving no indication of any progress in the meetings. The State Department said Stephen Biegun had agreed with his counterpart Kim Hyok Chol to meet again ahead of the summit, which Washington has said will take place from Feb. 27-28 in Vietnam. In their talks in Pyongyang from Wednesday until Friday Biegun and Kim Hyok Chol "discussed advancing President Trump and Chairman Kim's Singapore summit commitments of complete denuclearization, transforming U.S.-DPRK relations, and building a lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula." the State Department said. Its statement, which referred to North Korea by the acronym for its official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, gave no indication of any progress in the talks. Just weeks ahead of the planned summit to follow on from an unprecedented first meeting between the leaders in Singapore last June, the two sides have appeared far from narrowing differences over U.S. demands for North Korea to give up a nuclear weapons program that threatens the United States. Biegun said last week his Pyongyang talks would be aimed at seeking progress on commitments made in Singapore and mapping out "a set of concrete deliverables" for the second summit. He said Washington was willing to discuss "many actions" to improve ties and entice Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons and that Trump was ready to end the 1950-53 Korean War, which concluded with an armistice, not a peace treaty. Biegun said Kim Jong Un committed during an October visit by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to the dismantling and destruction of plutonium and uranium enrichment facilities and that "corresponding measures" demanded by North Korea would be the subject of his talks. At the same time, he set out an extensive list of demands that North Korea would have to meet eventually, including full disclosure of its nuclear and missile programs, something Pyongyang has rejected for decades. Trump, eager for a foreign policy win to distract from domestic troubles, has been keen for a second summit despite a lack of significant moves by North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program. He and Biegun have stressed the economic benefits to North Korea if it does so. Trump announced the plan for his second meeting with Kim in his annual State of the Union address on Tuesday, but the exact location for the meeting in Vietnam has yet to be revealed. Trump said much work remained to be done in the push for peace with North Korea, but cited the halt in its nuclear testing and no new missile launches in 15 months as proof of progress. The Singapore summit yielded a vague commitment by Kim to work toward the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, where U.S. troops have been stationed since the Korean War. While in the U.S. view North Korea has yet to take concrete steps to give up its nuclear weapons, Pyongyang complains that Washington has done little to reciprocate for its freezing of nuclear and missile testing and dismantling of some facilities. Pyongyang has repeatedly urged a lifting of punishing U.S.-led sanctions, a formal end to the war, and security guarantees. South Korea's Yonhap News agency quoted that country's foreign ministry as saying that Biegun arrived back in Seoul from Pyongyang on Friday evening, Seoul time, and would meet with South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha on Saturday morning to provide a briefing on the results of his talks. (Reporting by David Brunnstrom and Makini Brice; editing by Sandra Maler and James Dalgleish) By David Shepardson WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The commercial drone industry could be torpedoed if there were a serious accident involving a drone and a commercial aircraft, the chairman of the U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee warned on Friday. Representative Peter DeFazio, a Democrat, said at a speech in Washington that regulators had to take the threat seriously. "This is really serious when these things are flying around and it could kill the commercial drone industry," DeFazio said, adding that if a toy drone "takes down a plane" there would be public outcry to ground the devices. The issue of threats by drones to commercial air traffic came to the fore after London's second busiest airport, Gatwick Airport, was severely disrupted in December when drones were sighted on three consecutive days. Last month, 43 flights into New Jersey's Newark Liberty International Airport were required to hold after drone sightings at a nearby airport, while nine flights were diverted. In January, U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao proposed rules that would allow drones to operate over populated areas help speed their commercial use. There are nearly 1.3 million registered drones in the United States and more than 116,000 registered drone operators. Officials say there are hundreds of thousands of additional drones that are not registered. DeFazio added the government should also facilitate the growth of the drone industry, because the benefits are "potentially phenomenal." "We're worried about the 2 million people who bought or got toy drones for Christmas the last couple of years who are regularly flying in violation of the law," DeFazio said. Last week, the FBI said authorities confiscated six drones that violated a temporary order not to fly the devices in the area ahead of the NFLs Super Bowl. Alphabet Inc and Amazon.com Inc are among a growing number of companies hoping to make package delivery by drones a reality. The Federal Aviation Administration is also working on rules to set remote identification requirements for drones for tracking them. The FAA noted last month that some drones can fly at 10,000 feet or more and accelerate from 0 to 60 miles per hour in less than one second and is assessing "possible performance limitations, such as airspeed and altitude, to mitigate potential hazards." Congress last year gave the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security new powers to disable or destroy threatening drones after officials raised concerns about the use of drones as potential weapons. "We're not certain yet what the best technology is," DeFazio said. Weve got to get a handle on those who are operating improperly and then we also have to facilitate the growth of the (commercial drone) industry itself, because the benefits are potentially phenomenal." (Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by David Gregorio) By David Morgan WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats in Congress raised questions on Thursday about the Internal Revenue Service's ability to effectively audit President Donald Trump's tax returns, as they began hearings intended to result in obtaining the documents and making them public. A tax oversight panel in the House of Representatives heard testimony from expert witnesses as it considered a Democratic measure that would require presidential candidates to release their tax returns, codifying a voluntary practice that existed for decades until Trump ran for president in 2016. The legislation is unlikely to become law. But a separate Democratic plan to request Trump's tax returns from Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin under federal law in coming months is fast becoming a political lightning rod for Democrats and Republicans. Trump has cited IRS audits of his personal tax returns as a reason not to release them to the public. He has also retained ownership of extensive hotel interests and other business ventures as president, raising questions about potential ties with Russia and other possible conflicts of interest. Democrats need to decide how to justify seeking Trump's returns, and some lawmaker comments on Thursday appeared to bolster an option being considered that would place such an action within established congressional authority to oversee the IRS. Republicans rejected the need to obtain Trump's tax returns, saying a required annual IRS audit of presidential tax records should provide adequate safeguards without threatening the privacy normally afforded to individual tax data. "But I'm concerned that the IRS may not have the ability to accurately and fairly carry this out, free from political pressure," Democratic Representative Suzan DelBene said. Representative John Lewis, Democratic chairman of the House Ways and Means oversight subcommittee, drew a parallel with the Watergate era, citing an IRS audit of former President Richard Nixon that congressional investigators later discovered had missed nearly $480,000 in owed taxes and interest. Story continues "Should the public know whether the person who is running for the office or who is currently leading our nation paid the correct amount of tax? In the case of Nixon, the answer was 'yes,'" Lewis said. "Is it fair to expect the IRS to enforce federal tax law against the president?" he added. "In the case of Nixon, the answer was 'no.'" House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal is under growing pressure from Democratic liberal progressives to move quickly on Trump's taxes. Some committee Democrats said a request could be two to three months away. Republicans say Democrats would overstep their authority and set a dangerous precedent. "In reality, this is all about weaponizing our tax laws to target a political foe," said Republican Representative Jackie Walorski. "Privacy and civil liberties should still matter in this country." Democracy dies in sunlight? Photo: Jose Luis Magana/AP Every president since Jimmy Carter has allowed the public to inspect his tax returns. The principle behind this practice is simple: Voters deserve to know what their leaders financial interests are, so that they can recognize when said leaders are putting those interests above the public good. No modern president has ever had more potentially compromising financial interests than Donald J. Trump. The mogul owns a business that profits off the commercial value of his own name, which he licenses to real-estate developers the world over, many of whom have direct ties to foreign governments and political parties. And yet, he has nevertheless refused to share his tax returns with voters even though he promised to do so, repeatedly, before they made him their president. Federal law gives the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee the power to request tax information on any filer, and then to release it to the public, if a majority of the committee approves. The statute holds that the Treasury Department shall provide the information upon request (establishing that the request has the legal force of an order). Recent polls have found that upward of 60 percent of Americans want the Democratic Party to use its control over Ways and Means to release the tax returns that their president had promised to show them. All this puts Republican lawmakers in an unenviable position: They must find a way to argue (with righteous indignation) that the presidents finances should be concealed, in defiance of popular opinion and his own campaign promises. At a Ways and Means committee hearing in D.C. Thursday, GOP lawmakers unveiled their case: If Congress gives voters insight into Donald Trumps financial interests, whats to stop it from giving voters insight into the financial interests of all who rule them? The Democratic lawmakers faced stiff objections from congressional Republicans, who accused them of seeking to violate Mr. Trumps privacy, setting a dangerous precedent for political retribution and abusing the power laid out in the law Where does it end? [GOP congressman Mike] Kelly asked. What about the tax returns of the speaker? Members of Congress? Federal employees? Or, for that matter, any political donors? There is no end in sight for those whose tax information may be in jeopardy. There are multiple problems with this argument. One is that two can play at the slippery slope game and the Democrats have a distinct advantage in that kind of contest. If presidential candidates are allowed to conceal their tax information from the public, then one day an infamously shady businessman with globe-spanning financial interests could win the presidency and prioritize his own mercenary interests in ways that sow widespread distrust in the political system is a decidedly more plausible (and alarming) hypothetical than the one Kelly cooked up. But the more fundamental problem with Kellys line of reasoning is that the slippery slope he describes is very much worth sledding down. The case for making the tax records of all elected officials and political donors public is very strong; as is the case for making everyones tax records public. Beyond exposing conflicts of interest, making all tax information publicly available is a cheap and easy way to increase compliance, as individuals who game their taxes will be susceptible to public shame. And such a policy would also help expose wage discrimination, and increase public awareness of inequities in the tax system; as the American peoples ubiquitous fascination with the private lives of celebrities has led them to peruse the finances of the rich and famous, many would notice for the first time just how profoundly regressive various tax loopholes are. These arent new arguments. In fact, they were once conventional wisdom in an obscure little nation called the United States. As the New York Times observed in 2010: According to a 2003 article in the National Tax Journal, privacy for tax filings wasnt required when Congress enacted the federal income tax in 1861It found that from 1861 to 1864, newspapers often published lists of taxpayers and their tax liabilities. In 1870, Congress prohibited the lists publication but allowed public inspection of individual returns. In the first half of the 20th century, Congress twice required tax disclosure. In 1923 and 1924, individual and corporate taxpayers had to make public their tax payments but not entire returns. Proponents of disclosure said the measure would encourage tax compliance and reduce improper business conduct. Secrecy is of the greatest aid to corruption, Robert Howell, a Republican senator from Nebraska, said at the time. Newspapers had a field day, publishing the names of famous people and big corporations, together with their tax liabilities. On Oct. 24, 1924, for example, The New York Times revealed that John D. Rockefeller Jr. topped the list of taxpayers in Manhattan, with more than $7 million in taxes in 1923. In the present day, many foreign nations make all their filers tax returns publicly available. When top earners tax returns are published in Finland, they call it national envy day. In Sweden, one phone call will get you your lawmakers tax bill. Norwegians fascination with each others taxes has been labeled financial porn. Many Scandinavians use openness on taxes to estimate salaries of co-employees, helping with wage negotiations It is obvious that openness is significant, said Stein Reegard, chief economist of the Norwegian Confederation of Trades Unions. At least for a better-informed public debate about the different levels of wages in society, whether its a question of leaders wages or equal pay. Anyhow, there isnt actually any reason to believe that releasing the tax returns of a president who promised to release his tax returns would set a precedent for releasing the tax information of any and all ordinary American citizens. But even if it did, making Americas tax system and distribution of income more transparent would strengthen its democracy; keeping its presidents financial interests obscure, in the name of keeping political donors financial interests obscure, most certainly doesnt. By Mike Spector and Jessica DiNapoli NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. bankruptcy judge on Thursday approved Sears Holdings Corp Chairman Edward Lampert's $5.2 billion takeover of the beleaguered retailer, allowing the department store chain to avert liquidation and preserve tens of thousands of jobs. Judge Robert Drain approved the sale after a hearing spanning several days in a White Plains, N.Y., federal bankruptcy court. He overruled objections, including from an unsecured creditors committee, which said the process for selling Sears was unfair to them and argued for a liquidation. Lampert, who arranged an $11 billion merger between Sears and discounter Kmart in 2005 and tried for years to boost business, wins another chance to try to revive what once was the biggest U.S. retailer. Lampert, the only bidder offering to keep Sears alive through his hedge fund, ESL Investments Inc, agreed to a deal for 425 stores after round-the-clock negotiations in January. The takeover aims to preserve about 45,000 jobs. "I conclude that the process here was proper and appropriate," Drain said in his reasoning for approving the sale. Terms of the sale allow for some litigation to continue against Lampert and ESL. Drain said Lampert was "subject to substantial verbal abuse" during the proceedings, noting that critics had characterized the Sears chairman in ways that evoked a ruthless robber baron and a blowhard sitcom character. "He is a wealthy individual and a big boy and I guess he can take it," Drain said, adding that some of the abuse may have been justified. Sears Chief Restructuring Officer Mohsin Meghji and company directors Bill Transier and Alan Carr were among those questioned on a witness stand during the court hearing on Lampert's offer. Lampert stepped down as CEO when Sears filed for bankruptcy Oct. 15, though he remained the retailer's chairman, largest shareholder and creditor. A restructuring committee of independent directors negotiated with Lampert and his advisers. Story continues Drain grew impatient as the proceedings wore on Thursday. "Give me a break," the judge said, when a creditors committee lawyer argued an objection to the takeover bid. Hoffman Estates, Illinois-based Sears will still face fierce competition from big rivals including Amazon.com Inc and Walmart Inc. Founded in the 19th Century, Sears built itself into an American institution with its famous mail-order catalogs in practically every middle-class home. Its Sears tower in Chicago was once the tallest building in the world. But it failed to adapt to the modern era of online shopping. When Lampert combined Sears and rival chain Kmart, the merged retailer had nearly 3,500 stores and employed more than 300,000 people, a workforce that shrank to 68,000 when it filed for bankruptcy. Lampert's offer came after the retailer had been pushed to the brink of liquidation multiple times. In the end, he boosted his initial offer by $800 million, largely in the assumption of Sears bills for taxes and merchandise. Money owned to lawyers, bankers and other advisers working on the retailer's bankruptcy case also proved contentious as Sears lacked enough money to meet all its obligations. Lampert agreed to take on one of the companys bankruptcy loans, which debtors typically repay, in its entirety. Lampert was allowed to use $1.3 billion Sears owed him as currency in the offer, a maneuver known as a credit bid, which some creditors had opposed. He received a legal release protecting him from litigation regarding money he loaned Sears. Lampert still remains exposed to lawsuits related to certain transactions he engaged in while leading Sears before filing for bankruptcy. Sears directors rejected his request to receive a broader legal release covering those deals, which creditors contend robbed them of value. Sears over the years spun off clothing manufacturer Lands End and parted with 235 of its best stores for $2.7 billion to a company Lampert created called Seritage Growth Properties Drain intervened multiple times to urge Sears advisers and Lampert's negotiators to keep working toward a deal. (Reporting by Mike Spector and Jessica DiNapoli in New York; Editing by Dan Grebler and David Gregorio) By Jonathan Stempel (Reuters) - A federal appeals court has decided to reconsider its recent decision that the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects the right to openly carry guns in self-defense. In an order on Friday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said it will revisit whether Hawaii acted lawfully in denying the plaintiff George Young a permit to openly carry a loaded gun in public. Circuit Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain wrote for a 2-1 majority last July 24 that "we do not take lightly the problem of gun violence, which the State of Hawaii has understandably sought to fight," but that the state nevertheless violated Young's rights. The dissenting judge, Richard Clifton, said the Second Amendment was mainly concerned with "protection of hearth and home," and that disagreement among appeals courts about its reach meant the U.S. Supreme Court might need to weigh in. Friday's order means an 11-judge appeals court panel will rehear the case. A hearing has yet to be scheduled. The 9th Circuit has jurisdiction over nine western U.S. states, including California. It is widely viewed as one of the more liberal federal appeals courts. "The composition of the Supreme Court has changed, and it means the 9th Circuit will have to be very careful in evaluating the merits of Mr. Young's case," Alan Beck, a lawyer for Young, said in a phone interview. "My client has made it clear he wants to keep fighting as long as it takes." Hawaii officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The July 24 decision came two years after another full 9th Circuit panel found no right to carry concealed guns in public, overturning a ruling also written by O'Scannlain. Last month, the Supreme Court said it would review a New York City law imposing strict limits on the ability of handgun owners to transport their guns outside their homes. A ruling, which might not come until 2020, would be the court's first in a Second Amendment case in roughly a decade. It would also be the first since Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined the court in October, likely bolstering its five-member conservative wing. The case is Young v Hawaii et al, 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 12-00336. (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; editing by Sonya Hepinstall and Bill Berkrot) By Ezgi Erkoyun and Orhan Coskun ISTANBUL (Reuters) - The fiancee of murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi said on Friday she would welcome a change in Donald Trump's approach to the killing, and may visit the United States in March, having previously rejected an invitation from the president. Khashoggi, a royal insider who became a critic of Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul by a team of Saudi operatives on Oct. 2, provoking international revulsion. Trump has resisted efforts in the U.S. Congress to rebuke the Saudis, pointing to weapons sales as an important source of U.S. jobs. His administration is also reluctant to disturb the strategic relationship with the kingdom, seen as an important regional counterbalance to Iran, arch-rival of U.S. ally Israel. "I might visit America in March," Khashoggi's fiancee Hatice Cengiz told a news conference to mark the release of her book on Khashoggi. "I would welcome it if he (Trump) has a new approach on following this issue closely, or new actions to take." Trump previously invited Cengiz to the United States but she said she had rejected the invitation as she thought it was aimed at influencing public opinion in his own favour. Earlier on Friday, an aide to President Tayyip Erdogan said Saudi officials' "complete lack of transparency" on the murder investigation is deeply concerning and detrimental to their credibility. "Over the past four months, the Saudi authorities have been less than forthcoming in their dealings with their Turkish counterparts and the international community," said Fahrettin Altun, Erdogan's communications director. "Saudi authorities must extradite Mr. Khashoggi's killers to Turkey, where they committed a premeditated murder, as proof of their willingness to serve the cause of justice," he said in a written statement to Reuters. Story continues After making numerous contradictory statements about Khashoggi's fate, Riyadh said he had been killed and his body dismembered when negotiations to persuade him to return to Saudi Arabia failed. U.S. LAWMAKERS SEEK PENALTIES Republican and Democratic U.S. lawmakers renewed their push on Thursday to penalize Saudi Arabia for the murder ahead of Friday's deadline for Trump's administration to submit a report on whether the crown prince ordered the killing. "The Congress is renewed, the members are changed. I am hopeful. There is still hope. I believe the new Congress would follow this issue closer," Cengiz said. Democrats now control the U.S. House of Representatives. Cengiz, a Turkish researcher, had waited outside the Istanbul consulate for hours on the day Khashoggi was killed and alerted the authorities and media when he did not leave. Saudi Arabia has previously denied Turkey's extradition request for the 11 suspects, five of whom are facing the death penalty in Saudi Arabia. Erdogan has said Khashoggi's killing was ordered by the highest level of Saudi leadership. Riyadh has rejected accusations that the crown prince was involved. On Thursday, a United Nations-led inquiry into the murder said evidence pointed to a brutal crime "planned and perpetrated" by Saudi officials, adding that Saudi officials had "seriously undermined" and delayed Turkey's investigation. "I wish this report will accelerate the process so that more concrete things will be done on this situation," Cengiz said. "I believe the U.N. report would have an international impact. Altun said Turkey's findings on the case were in line with those of the U.N.-led inquiry, adding that Ankara was committed to cooperating in a potential U.N. investigation into the case. Despite Turkey's joint investigation with Saudi officials looking at the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul, the consul's residence and several other locations, the whereabouts of Khashoggi's remains are still unknown. Khashoggi's killing has severely strained ties between Turkey and Saudi Arabia, although Erdogan has good ties with the Saudi monarch, King Salman. In an interview with Turkey's state broadcaster on Sunday, Erdogan said both the crown prince and Saudi's Adel al-Jubeir had lied about the case and pressure from Turkey had led to Jubeir being removed from his post as foreign minister in December. (Writing by Tuvan Gumrukcu and Daren Butler; Editing by Dominic Evans and Frances Kerry) Tunis (AFP) - A Tunisian court has sentenced seven jihadists to life in prison over attacks at a museum and on a beach in 2015 that killed 60 people, many of them British tourists, prosecutors said on Saturday. Dozens of defendants faced two separate trials over the closely linked shootings, which occurred just months apart in Tunis and Sousse, but many were acquitted. Four were sentenced to life in prison for the shooting rampage at a Sousse tourist resort in June 2015, which killed 38 people, mostly British tourists. Five other defendants in the Sousse case were handed jail terms ranging from six months to six years, while 17 were acquitted, prosecution spokesman Sofiene Sliti said. Three were given life sentences for the earlier attack in March 2015 at the capital's Bardo National Museum, in which two gunmen killed 21 foreign tourists and a Tunisian security guard. Others found guilty of links to the Bardo attack were sentenced to prison terms ranging from one to 16 years, and a dozen defendants were acquitted, Sliti said. The prosecution will appeal, he added. One of the lawyers for relatives of French victims in the Bardo attack, Gerard Chemla, expressed "enormous bitterness" that the families had not been given more input into the proceedings. He said a live feed of Friday's hearing had brought some degree of comfort but lamented that the relatives of those killed had not been compensated. Geraldine Berger-Stenger, another of the lawyers, said the hearings had not revealed the full truth of what took place. "A page has turned, but this isn't a trial that can satisfy the victims," she said. "There is a taste of unfinished business." Tunisia retains the death penalty for terrorism offences despite carrying out no executions since the 1990s. - 'Duty to IS' - The court heard that the two attacks, both claimed by the Islamic State group (IS), were closely linked. Several defendants pointed to the fugitive Chamseddine Sandi as mastermind of both. Story continues According to Tunisian media, Sandi was killed in a US air strike in neighbouring Libya in February 2016, although there has been no confirmation. Among those who were facing trial were six security personnel accused of failing to provide assistance to people in danger during the Sousse attack. That shooting was carried out by Seifeddine Rezgui, who opened fire on a beach before rampaging into a high-end hotel, where he continued to fire a kalashnikov and throw grenades until being shot dead by police. Four French nationals, four Italians, three Japanese and two Spaniards were among those killed in the Bardo attack, before the two gunmen, armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles, were themselves shot dead. Investigations showed one of the gunmen, Yassine Laabidi -- who was born in 1990 and was from a poor district near Tunis -- had amphetamines in his body. His fellow attacker Jaber Khachnaoui, born in 1994 and from Tunisia's deprived Kasserine region, had travelled to Syria in December 2014 via Libya. One suspect questioned in court, Tunis labourer Mahmoud Kechouri, said he had helped plan the Bardo attack, including preparing mobile phones for Sandi, a neighbour and longtime friend. Kechouri, 33, said he was driven by a "duty to participate in the emergence of the caliphate", that IS supremo Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed in June 2014 across swathes of territory the jihadists controlled in Iraq and neighbouring Syria. Other defendants accused of helping prepare the attack said they had only discussed ideas with friends. Several alleged they were tortured in detention. - 'Helps turn the page' - Survivors and relatives in France and Belgium, who watched the live feed of Friday's hearing, said it had helped them to turn the page. "It was important for us to see, and especially to hear -- to try to understand the role" of each defendant, said one French survivor. "Arriving at the end of the process will help us to turn the page, even if we can never forget." The Sousse attack, which killed 30 Britons, is also the subject of proceedings in front of the Royal Courts of Justice in London, which is seeking to establish what happened. After holding inquests into the British deaths in January and February 2017, judge Nicholas Loraine-Smith concluded that the response of Tunisian police was "at best shambolic, at worst cowardly". There have been significant improvements in security at Tunisian tourist resorts since the massacre and, in July 2017, Britain lifted its warning against "all but essential travel" to the North African country. The attacks and resulting travel warnings dealt a devastating blow to Tunisia's vital tourism sector from which it has taken time to recover. Since a 2011 uprising that toppled dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, jihadist attacks in Tunisia have killed dozens of members of the security forces. Thousands of Tunisians have also travelled abroad to join jihadist organisations, according to the United Nations. WASHINGTON, Feb 8 (Reuters) - White House senior adviser Kellyanne Conway said she was assaulted at a Maryland restaurant last year by a woman who grabbed and shook her, an accusation the woman has denied, CNN reported on Friday. Conway said in an interview with CNN that the incident took place while she was dining out with her daughter at the Mexican restaurant Uncle Julio's in the Washington suburb of Bethesda, and that the woman grabbed her arms from behind and was "out of control." The accused woman, 63-year-old Mary Elizabeth Inabinett, disputed Conway's account, her lawyer told CNN, saying she did not assault the top White House staffer but expressed her personal opinions to a public figure in a public place. RELATED: Kellyanne Conway in the White House This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. Inabinett faces state charges of second degree assault and disorderly conduct in an Oct. 14 incident, according to Maryland court records. Her lawyer, William Alden McDaniel, told CNN she will plead not guilty. The trial is scheduled for trial on March 29, the records showed. (Writing by Susan Heavey; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe) Want to participate in a short research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! Koninklijke Wessanen N.V. (AMS:WES), which is in the food business, and is based in Netherlands, saw significant share price movement during recent months on the ENXTAM, rising to highs of 10.26 and falling to the lows of 7.95. Some share price movements can give investors a better opportunity to enter into the stock, and potentially buy at a lower price. A question to answer is whether Koninklijke Wessanens current trading price of 7.95 reflective of the actual value of the small-cap? Or is it currently undervalued, providing us with the opportunity to buy? Lets take a look at Koninklijke Wessanens outlook and value based on the most recent financial data to see if there are any catalysts for a price change. See our latest analysis for Koninklijke Wessanen What is Koninklijke Wessanen worth? Koninklijke Wessanen appears to be overvalued by 22.84% at the moment, based on my discounted cash flow valuation. The stock is currently priced at 7.95 on the market compared to my intrinsic value of 6.47. Not the best news for investors looking to buy! In addition to this, it seems like Koninklijke Wessanens share price is quite stable, which could mean two things: firstly, it may take the share price a while to fall back down to an attractive buying range, and secondly, there may be less chances to buy low in the future once it reaches that value. This is because the stock is less volatile than the wider market given its low beta. Can we expect growth from Koninklijke Wessanen? ENXTAM:WES Future Profit February 8th 19 Future outlook is an important aspect when youre looking at buying a stock, especially if you are an investor looking for growth in your portfolio. Buying a great company with a robust outlook at a cheap price is always a good investment, so lets also take a look at the companys future expectations. With profit expected to grow by 22% over the next couple of years, the future seems bright for Koninklijke Wessanen. It looks like higher cash flow is on the cards for the stock, which should feed into a higher share valuation. Story continues What this means for you: Are you a shareholder? WESs optimistic future growth appears to have been factored into the current share price, with shares trading above its fair value. At this current price, shareholders may be asking a different question should I sell? If you believe WES should trade below its current price, selling high and buying it back up again when its price falls towards its real value can be profitable. But before you make this decision, take a look at whether its fundamentals have changed. Are you a potential investor? If youve been keeping an eye on WES for a while, now may not be the best time to enter into the stock. The price has surpassed its true value, which means theres no upside from mispricing. However, the optimistic prospect is encouraging for WES, which means its worth diving deeper into other factors in order to take advantage of the next price drop. Price is just the tip of the iceberg. Dig deeper into what truly matters the fundamentals before you make a decision on Koninklijke Wessanen. You can find everything you need to know about Koninklijke Wessanen in the latest infographic research report. If you are no longer interested in Koninklijke Wessanen, you can use our free platform to see my list of over 50 other stocks with a high growth potential. To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements. The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. Rob Woodalls district used to be a GOP paradise. Now after nearly losing hes hanging it up. Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call,Inc. One sign of Georgias changing political environment occurred on Tuesday night, when 2018 Democratic gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams was tapped to provide the national partys response to Donald Trumps State of the Union Address. Another occurred today when five-term Republican congressman Rob Woodall from the north Atlanta suburban 7th district announced he would retire in 2020, after very nearly losing last year. When I was working in Georgia politics and government in the 1980s and 1990s, Woodalls Gwinnett County base was synonymous with the growth of the Republican Party. I distinctly recall a moment when environmentalists complained about the destruction of trees in the county, and the top local developer responded: Gwinnett is not for trees. It was for massive subdivision and strip mall development, and rapid middle-class (and upper-class) population growth. Woodall was certainly a fixture in Gwinnett GOP politics, serving on the staff of hard-core conservative congressman John Linder for 16 years before succeeding the boss and winning at least 60 percent of the vote in his first four races. He clearly underestimated his 2018 Democratic opponent Carolyn Bordeaux. But he had a bigger problem, as the Cook Political Reports David Wasserman observes: The 7th CD is the epitome of a high-education melting pot. In 2010, when Republicans first drew the seat, it was 50 percent white and in 2012, Mitt Romney carried it by 22 points, 60 percent to 38 percent. But in 2016, President Trump carried the district by just six points, 51 percent to 45 percent. Now, Census estimates peg it at just 47 percent white, 19 percent Hispanic, 19 percent African-American and 13 percent Asian. Among other things, this slice of Gwinnett County is home to Koreatown (or K-Town), an enclave of economically rising Korean-Americans who are very active politically. Woodall and other local Republicans just couldnt keep up; he won by 419 votes, and only after a recount. With Woodall retiring and Bordeaux preparing to run again, Wasserman says of GA-07 that it may be [Democrats] best pickup opportunity in the country. And the whole state of Georgia may represent a serious pickup opportunity in the Senateand for the presidency, too. Want to participate in a short research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! Bang & Olufsen a/s (CPH:BO), which is in the consumer durables business, and is based in Denmark, received a lot of attention from a substantial price movement on the CPSE over the last few months, increasing to DKK145.4 at one point, and dropping to the lows of DKK86. Some share price movements can give investors a better opportunity to enter into the stock, and potentially buy at a lower price. A question to answer is whether Bang & Olufsens current trading price of DKK93.9 reflective of the actual value of the small-cap? Or is it currently undervalued, providing us with the opportunity to buy? Lets take a look at Bang & Olufsens outlook and value based on the most recent financial data to see if there are any catalysts for a price change. Check out our latest analysis for Bang & Olufsen Whats the opportunity in Bang & Olufsen? Great news for investors Bang & Olufsen is still trading at a fairly cheap price. According to my valuation, the intrinsic value for the stock is DKK132.78, but it is currently trading at 93.90 on the share market, meaning that there is still an opportunity to buy now. However, given that Bang & Olufsens share is fairly volatile (i.e. its price movements are magnified relative to the rest of the market) this could mean the price can sink lower, giving us another chance to buy in the future. This is based on its high beta, which is a good indicator for share price volatility. Can we expect growth from Bang & Olufsen? CPSE:BO Future Profit February 8th 19 Future outlook is an important aspect when youre looking at buying a stock, especially if you are an investor looking for growth in your portfolio. Although value investors would argue that its the intrinsic value relative to the price that matter the most, a more compelling investment thesis would be high growth potential at a cheap price. With profit expected to more than double over the next couple of years, the future seems bright for Bang & Olufsen. It looks like higher cash flow is on the cards for the stock, which should feed into a higher share valuation. Story continues What this means for you: Are you a shareholder? Since BO is currently undervalued, it may be a great time to increase your holdings in the stock. With an optimistic outlook on the horizon, it seems like this growth has not yet been fully factored into the share price. However, there are also other factors such as financial health to consider, which could explain the current undervaluation. Are you a potential investor? If youve been keeping an eye on BO for a while, now might be the time to make a leap. Its buoyant future outlook isnt fully reflected in the current share price yet, which means its not too late to buy BO. But before you make any investment decisions, consider other factors such as the track record of its management team, in order to make a well-informed buy. Price is just the tip of the iceberg. Dig deeper into what truly matters the fundamentals before you make a decision on Bang & Olufsen. You can find everything you need to know about Bang & Olufsen in the latest infographic research report. If you are no longer interested in Bang & Olufsen, you can use our free platform to see my list of over 50 other stocks with a high growth potential. To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements. The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. By John Revill ZURICH (Reuters) - Swisscom, Sunrise and Salt have paid a relatively modest 380 million Swiss francs ($379 million) for fifth-generation wireless frequencies that will tighten their grip on the Swiss mobile market. The three were able to secure an attractively priced deal after a fourth company, London-based newcomer Dense Air, dropped out of the process, auction results showed on Friday. The exit of Dense Air -- part of the Airspan Group that hosts 4G and 5G mobile phone networks in Europe, Australia and New Zealand -- also removes a potential rival for the three companies in the already crowded Swiss mobile market. The outcome in Switzerland contrasts with neighbouring Germany, where three big mobile operators face competition from a fourth operator in bidding for a slice of 5G spectrum. And the amount raised in the Swiss auction is also much smaller than Italy's 6.5 billion euros ($7.37 billion) 5G sale last year, while Germany could raise 4 billion to 5 billion euros in its 5G auction, according to a report in Handelsblatt. Telecoms operators are keen for 5G frequencies to gain an edge in new digital services such as powering the Internet of Things - everyday objects which can communicate via the Internet - industrial automation and autonomous vehicles. "It was positive for the companies involved that the prices they paid were pretty low - less than half of the previous auction in 2012 for 4G," said Andreas Mueller, an analyst at Zuercher Kantonalbank. Mueller said the timing of the auction favored Swisscom, which could invest quickly to roll out 5G technology. Swisscom has already successfully tested 5G applications and has test networks in Lausanne, Geneva, Zurich, Bern, Davos and Lucerne. "It was good news for all the companies that no fourth player entered the market because this means less price pressure on them," Mueller said. Analysts at Jefferies said: "The result is a relief on two fronts: there is no new entrant and the prices remained modest despite a fourth bidder." DIVIDENDS SAFE Sunrise shares rose 1 percent and Swisscom 0.5 percent by 1100 GMT. The bidding, which covered blocks of frequencies within the 700 MHz, 1400 MHz, 2.6 GHz and 3.5 GHz ranges, had been expected to raise at least 220 million Swiss francs, with the proceeds going to the Swiss treasury as extraordinary revenue. Swisscom offered 195.5 million francs; Salt 94.5 million francs and Sunrise 89.2 million francs for parts of the frequencies, which will be assigned for 15 years. Privately held Salt said it was "extremely satisfied" with the outcome of the auction. Its acquisition will allow it to provide deeper indoor high-speed coverage and speed up mobile broadband access. State-controlled Swisscom said it bought 46 percent of the frequencies sold and considered the price to be a long-term investment in the future of the mobile market. It said its 196 million franc bid was not included in 2019's projected capital investments of around 2.3 billion francs. Both Swisscom and Sunrise said their bids would have no impact on dividend policy, a key consideration for investors in telecoms companies. Dense Air was not immediately available for comment. Four companies have applied to take part in Germany's auction of 5G licences. Deutsche Telekom , Vodafone , Telefonica Deutschland and 1&1 Drillisch , a unit of United Internet , are expected to bid in the second-half of March. ($1 = 1.0017 Swiss francs) ($1 = 0.8821 euros) (Reporting by John Revill; Editing by Michael Shields/Kirsten Donovan/Jane Merriman) Washington (AFP) - The US Supreme Court on Thursday blocked a Louisiana law that critics say would limit access to abortion in the southern state. The decision was made by a narrow majority -- 5 votes to 4 -- with Chief Justice John Roberts joining the court's progressive justices to block the legislation, which would have taken effect Friday. It was considered a test for the high court, swung to the right under President Donald Trump. The law would require doctors at Louisiana's abortion clinics to have admitting privileges at a hospital less than 50 kilometers (30 miles) away. According to pro-choice advocates, that is too restrictive -- leaving only one doctor able to perform the procedure in the whole state. But the state of Louisiana argued that due to risks of complications, it was vital to be able to transfer patients to neighboring hospitals. That convinced an appeals court, which after years of hearings, allowed the law to finally come into force this week. But those challenging it filed an emergency brief in the Supreme Court asking for it to block the law as they sought an appeal. They argued that even if they were to win later, the impact of the law coming into effect would be irreversible and closed clinics would not be able to reopen. In doing so, they highlighted a similar law in Texas that the Supreme Court in 2016 found to be unconstitutional. The law was backed by conservative judges Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh -- both picked by President Donald Trump. Two years ago, Chief Justice Roberts voted to uphold the law in Texas. But with his vote on Thursday, he brought new balance to the court. Chief Justice John Roberts broke with the Supreme Court's other conservative justices and his own voting record on abortion to block a Louisiana law requiring abortion providers to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. Roberts didn't explain his decision late Thursday to join the court's four liberal justices. But it was the clearest sign yet of the role Roberts intends to play as he guides a more conservative court with two new members appointed by President Donald Trump. Since the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy last summer, Roberts has become the court's new swing vote. He is, by most measures, a very conservative justice, but he seems determined to keep the court from moving too far right too fast and being perceived as just another forum for partisan politics in Washington. "People need to know that we're not doing politics. They need to know that we're doing something different, that we're applying the law," Roberts said during an appearance this week at Tennessee's Belmont University. Roberts' vote in the Louisiana case was the fourth time in recent weeks that he has held the decisive vote on 5-4 outcomes that otherwise split the court's conservative and liberal justices. In late December, Roberts joined the liberals to keep Trump's new asylum policy from taking effect. It would have prevented immigrants from making asylum claims if they didn't enter the United States at a border crossing. Then, in January, Roberts voted with the conservatives to allow restrictions on military service by transgender individuals to be put in place. On Thursday, a half hour before the court acted on the Louisiana law, Roberts voted with the conservatives to deny a Muslim death row inmate's plea to have his imam with him for his execution in Alabama. The federal appeals court in Atlanta had ordered the execution halted, but the Supreme Court lifted the hold and allowed it to proceed. Story continues The final vote was the order to keep Louisiana's admitting privileges law on hold while the court decides whether to add the case to its calendar for the term that begins in October. Louisiana's law is strikingly similar to a Texas measure the justices struck down in 2016. A district court judge had struck down the Louisiana law because he found it would have resulted in the closure of at least one, and perhaps two, of the state's three abortion clinics, and left the state with no more than two doctors who could meet the law's requirements. But the federal appeals court in New Orleans upheld the law, concluding it was not certain that any clinic would have to close. So much of what the court has done in recent weeks has been through emergency appeals, cases that call for temporary, yet often revealing, votes. Unlike in cases that are argued and decided, the votes come with little explanation. When there is an opinion, it usually is a dissent. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote the only dissent in the Louisiana case, arguing that the court should have allowed the law to take effect because it is not clear that doctors would have been unable to obtain hospital privileges during a 45-day transition period. After the ruling, some Democrats seized on Kavanaugh's vote as proof that he was not following through on his assurances at his confirmation hearing to respect past Supreme Court decisions on abortion. But in his dissent he said otherwise. Kavanaugh acknowledged that the court's decision in the Texas case is the guiding precedent and seemed to suggest he might be willing to vote the other way if it turned out that hospitals were unwilling to afford the doctors admitting privileges. The Louisiana clinics had argued that they would have been forced to stop performing abortions immediately and that clinics, once closed, are difficult to reopen. Kavanaugh and Justice Neil Gorsuch, Trump's two high-court appointees, are among six Trump-nominated judges who voted to let the law take effect, a sign that the president is carrying through on a campaign pledge to put abortion-rights opponents on the bench. The other four judges are members of the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which had refused to put the law on hold. The execution aside, the recent votes are not likely to be the court's last word on asylum, military service by transgender people or the abortion clinic legislation. A decision on whether the high court will take on the abortion clinic legislation could come this spring. If it does, as seems likely, a ruling on the constitutionality of the Louisiana law would likely come next year. There's no guarantee that Roberts will be with his liberal colleagues then. In 2007, Roberts voted to uphold a federal ban on an abortion method its opponents call partial-birth abortion. Three years ago, Roberts was in dissent when the court struck down a Texas law that is strikingly similar to the blocked Louisiana measure. Justices often feel bound by a prior decision of the court, even one they disagree with, at least until the court formally takes on a case to consider overruling the earlier decision. If he ends up voting to invalidate the Louisiana law, Roberts wouldn't be the first chief justice to put institutional concerns above his own views. Chief Justice William Rehnquist had been a fierce critic of the Supreme Court decision that requires police officers to advise arrestees of their Miranda rights to remain silent and have a lawyer represent them. Yet, in 2000, he was the author of a 7-2 decision that reaffirmed the Miranda case. There are few high-profile cases on the court's docket this year, seemingly by design, after Kavanaugh's tumultuous confirmation hearings. In March, the justices will consider whether to impose limits on drawing electoral districts for partisan political gain. They also could hear arguments this spring on another controversial Trump administration initiative, to add a question on citizenship to the 2020 census. Already on the calendar for next term is the court's first examination of gun rights in nine years. That decision, as well as the Louisiana case, could come in the spring of 2020, fodder for a presidential campaign in which the court could play an outsized role. ___ Associated Press writer Jessica Gresko contributed to this report. Khartoum (AFP) - Sudanese protesters rallied after Friday prayers in an eastern town against the death in custody of a teacher arrested in connection with anti-government demonstrations sweeping the country, witnesses said. An investigator on Thursday confirmed that teacher Ahmed al-Kheir, 36, had died from wounds sustained while in detention after he was arrested last week by security agents in the eastern town of Khashm el-Girba. Kheir, a member of Sudan's Islamist Popular Congress Party, was detained for allegedly organising anti-government protests, a relative told AFP. On Friday, crowds of protesters in Khashm el-Griba staged a rally after the weekly Muslim prayers to protest his death. "We will sacrifice our soul, our blood for you," chanted the protesters as they converged from several mosques, a witness told AFP by telephone. Kheir was arrested by agents of the country's powerful National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS), his uncle Ahmed Abdelwahad told AFP as the family took his body from a mortuary. Amer Ibrahim, the head of an investigative committee at the prosecutor's office, said Thursday that Kheir "had wounds on the back, legs and other parts of his body that led to his death". The investigator said he had requested the regional NISS boss bring in the security agents who interrogated the teacher. Deadly protests have rocked Sudan since December 19, with demonstrators holding nationwide rallies calling on President Omar al-Bashir to resign. Officials say 30 people have died in the violence, while Human Rights Watch says at least 51 people have been killed. Demonstrators on Friday also staged rallies in a district of Khartoum and in Omdurman, the twin city of the capital, witnesses said. Police fired tear gas as protesters rallied chanting "freedom, freedom" after Friday prayers outside a mosque in Omdurman run by the main opposition Umma party, witnesses said. Police dispersed the protesters but the Umma Party said that tear gas canisters hit the compound of the mosque. Story continues "The security forces of the regime fired tear gas inside the El-Saed Abdelrahman mosque compound and at the cars of Sadiq al-Mahdi," the party said in a statement late on Friday, referring to the head of the party. "Several worshippers have been wounded. We condemn this incident." The party said that security personnel came close to "worshippers and pointed their weapons at their faces". Police and security officials were not available for comment. Umma's head, former premier Mahdi, has thrown his weight behind the protests and called on Bashir to step down. Bashir, who has refused to resign, swept to power in a 1989 Islamist-backed coup that ousted Mahdi's elected government. Protests first erupted after a government decision to triple the price of bread but soon escalated into rallies against Bashir's three-decade-old rule. Many strangers attended the funeral of Holocaust survivor Eddie Ford in Toronto. (Photo: Courtesy of Ronen Israelski) Scores of strangers turned up in below-freezing temperatures to honor the life of a Holocaust survivor at his funeral. Before 85-year-old Eddie Ford of Toronto died last week of cancer, he made a good friend in Rabbi Zale Newman, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. For the better part of a year, Newman visited Ford and listened to stories about his childhood in Budapest, including during the Holocaust, when Ford was reportedly hidden by a Christian family. Fords dying wish was to have a Jewish funeral, having regretted not partaking in particular Jewish traditions. He asked me to teach him certain basics, Newman said, according to the National Post. How could I not? This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. Jewish funerals include a minyan, a tradition of 10 Jewish people required to form a congregation. Believing that Ford had only one surviving relative, Newman invited his Facebook community to the Jan. 31 funeral. Attention Toronto Jewish Community! he wrote. We need to have a minyan present tomorrow at noon for a sweet Holocaust survivor who passed away Can you come escort a Hero of the Holocaust for his final journeyThis is a huge PURE act of kindness. Wont take long but please dress warmly. Only three people RSVPd to Newmans invitation; however, when the rabbi arrived at the service held in freezing temperatures and snowy conditions, there were an estimated 150 people waiting to pay their respects. Friends, last night I faced the very real possibility of performing a funeral for a sweet Hero of the Holocaust all alone, he wrote on Facebook. It would be just Eddie Fordme and our Father Above. When I arrived at the cemetery in a wind chill of -27, far to the north of Toronto, I couldnt get in because of the line of cars. I assumed there was another funeral taking place at the same time and I wondered how we would find Eddies resting place, he said. A Holocaust survivor received a proper memorial service thanks to strangers who connected through a rabbi's Facebook post. #TheMoment Posted by CBC News: The National on Saturday, February 2, 2019 Story continues I stopped people who were walking and they all said they were going to the funeral of Mr. Ford. I had to park far away and walk in the freezing wind to join an estimated 150 people in a huge, warm circle of love, as we gave Eddie a sweet, proper, fitting, loving send off to the Next World. I am in tears just thinking about how humbling and awesome it is to be part of the Jewish People who on very short notice; would drop everything, leave whatever they were planning on doing, drive a long distance, to stand outside in a open field, on a super freezing, blowing, windy day to escort a sweet, little Jew from Budapest, who was unknown to almost all them, on his final journey, Newman wrote. Newman didnt reply to interview requests from Yahoo Lifestyle. Filmmaker Ronen Israelski was at the funeral and interviewed a mourner. Its incredible, heartwarming. I just thought. I had to come to this thing, the guest told Israelski. It doesnt matter what Im doing. This is so much more important than anything. Posted by Ronen Israelski on Thursday, January 31, 2019 Elyse Friedman, who says she is Fords niece, contradicted Newmans statement that roughly 150 strangers showed up to celebrate his life. Friedman wrote on Newmans Facebook page, Everyone in Eddies (admittedly tiny) family were heartened by your post and by the response of the Jewish community. We wouldnt have had a minyan without you. However, these stories in the newspaper and on TV are very inaccurate. My dad, Eddies brother, lived just down Bathurst from him and visited him at least once a week in hospital (and regularly at his apartment before he was hospitalized). I believe he mentioned that to you at the funeral. I also visited my uncle in the hospital and so did his nephews and their kids. It was lovely and heart-warming that approximately 30 to 40 strangers took time out of their day on the coldest day of the year to attend my uncles funeral. I send lots of love and thanks to them, and to you for putting out the post, but can we please be true and accurate with the story? Friedman was not immediately available for comment. Elyse Friedman, a relative of Eddie Ford, denies that hundreds of people attended her uncles funeral. (Screenshot: Facebook/Elyse Friedman) Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle: Follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day. Erin Tomkins (PA) A man has been found guilty of killing his 22-month-old stepdaughter after she was found with bruises on her face and body. Chef Martin Johnson, 20, told police he had been playing with Erin Tomkins at her home when she suddenly collapsed. But prosecutors told a jury of four men and eight women at Sheffield Crown Court that medical experts found a number of bruises on Erins body, including 10 areas of injury to the head and face. A post-mortem found that Erin, who was a few weeks short of her second birthday, had also suffered a broken arm and a number of fractures to her spine in the weeks leading up to her death. Johnson was found guilty after less than two hours of deliberations, along with two counts of causing grievous bodily harm with intent. He is set to be sentenced on Friday afternoon. Erins mother Kira Tomkins was in tears in the public gallery along with members of her family as the verdict was returned. The jury heard how Erin was taken to hospital in May last year after Johnson phoned 999 from Miss Tomkinss home in the Gleadless area of Sheffield. Staff at Sheffield Childrens Hospital found bruises on her face and body, bruising and bleeding to the surface of her brain, which was also swollen, and bleeding to both eyes. South Yorkshire Police Detective Chief Inspector Steve Whittaker (PA) Speaking outside court, Detective Chief Inspector Steve Whittaker said the murder was one of the worst crimes he had dealt with in his 32-year career. This is a man, Martin Johnson, who has shown absolutely no remorse whatsoever and has been in total denial. To make it even worse hes tried to blame Erins mother for this awful, awful crime. He added: This is a man who came into this girls life and five months later she was dead. He moved into the house and three months later she was dead. This is a man who took it on himself to break a little girls arm and at the hospital said shed fallen off the sofa. This is a man who at some stage caused a girl to have four back fractures. This is a man responsible for 27 bruises on that little girl and then went on to kill that little girl. Story continues This is a man whos been quite abhorrent throughout and hes got what he deserves in the end. Watch the latest videos from Yahoo UK AT&T's calling its latest 4G LTE network "5G E" isn't just drawing the ire of tech media and fans. It's now drawing fire from Sprint in the form of a lawsuit. In a lawsuit filed in New York's Southern District, Sprint says it is taking the action as a result of "AT&Ts false advertising and deceptive acts" around 5G E. Since late last year, AT&T has been touting its upgraded 4G LTE network as 5G E in TV ads, ramping up the running of the spots in 2019. AT&T, Sprint alleges, "has sought to gain an unfair advantage in the race to 5G by embarking on a nationwide advertising campaign to deceive consumers into believing that its existing 4G LTE Advanced network is now a 5G network." "This technology is indisputably not 5G," Sprint's suit continues. "Adding an 'E' or the word 'Evolution' to 5G does not mitigate the deception. AT&T is advertising its network as '5G' and consumers wrongly believe that AT&T is offering 5G technology." In addition to its television campaign, AT&T's website also now has a section for "5G E" phones. This includes phones released last year like the Galaxy S9, iPhone XR and iPhone XS as well as older phones like the Galaxy S8, iPhone 8 and iPhone X. AT&T is changing some of its 4G labels to 5G E. In updates to its Android phones, AT&T has already changed some devices to display a 5G E logo. A recent beta of iOS 12.2 shows the company is working with Apple to show the indicator on iPhones as well. In a statement provided to USA TODAY, Sprint says that "AT&T is deliberately deceiving consumers into believing that their existing 4G LTE network operates on a coveted and highly anticipated 5G network." "The reality is that this network isnt new and 5G E is a false and misleading term. AT&T is just like Sprint and all the other major wireless carriers currently operating a nationwide 4G LTE network. AT&Ts deceptive ads have harmed consumers by persuading them to purchase or continue purchasing AT&Ts services based on the lie that they are offering 5G." Story continues "It's clear that no other technique has worked," Sprint's outside counsel, Craig Whitney from the firm Frankfurt, Kurnit, Klein & Selz, tells USA TODAY. "We're talking about tens, if not hundreds of millions, of consumers here are being blatantly deceived into thinking that AT&T's LTE network is 5G, which it's not." In its suit, Sprint says that it reached out to AT&T on Jan. 4 "demanding that AT&T stop its false and misleading activity." On Jan. 16, AT&T responded by "unequivocally denying Sprints request and refusing to alter its deceptive conduct," according to the suit. "We have very extensive evidence to prove that consumers are confused," Whitney says. AT&T remains defiant In a statement provided to USA TODAY, AT&T remained defiant while vowing to fight Sprint's lawsuit. We understand why our competitors dont like what we are doing, but our customers love it. We introduced 5G Evolution more than two years ago, clearly defining it as an evolutionary step to standards-based 5G," the company said. "5G Evolution and the 5GE indicator simply let customers know when their device is in an area where speeds up to twice as fast as standard LTE are available." "We will fight this lawsuit while continuing to deploy 5G Evolution in addition to standards-based mobile 5G. Customers want and deserve to know when they are getting better speeds." AT&T also took a shot at Sprint's pending $26-billion merger with T-Mobile, saying that the company "will have to reconcile its arguments to the FCC that it cannot deploy a widespread 5G network without T-Mobile while simultaneously claiming in this suit to be launching legitimate 5G technology imminently. In a filing last year to the FCC about its need for the merger, caught by industry analyst Walter Piecyk, Sprint shared a map highlighting the deficiencies in its LTE network as well as its overall business. Sprint and T-Mobile have argued, during the merger process, that they need each other in order to build out a nationwide 5G network. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. In response to AT&T's comment, a Sprint spokeswoman told USA TODAY that while "Sprint will launch mobile 5G service in the first half of 2019 in nine markets across the country," without the merger neither Sprint nor T-Mobile "as a standalone will be able to deliver 5G coverage, capacity, speeds or consistency of experience anywhere near what the new T-Mobile can achieve." The "New T-Mobile" is the name T-Mobile and Sprint are calling their combined companies during the merger process. More: AT&T is labeling phones '5G Evolution.' Don't be fooled, they aren't 5G More: AT&T turns on its mobile 5G network on Dec. 21, starting with 12 cities and mobile hotspot More: AT&T launches 5G network: What you need to know as Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint race to catch up Not the first carrier to get angry at AT&T AT&T's other rivals, T-Mobile and Verizon, have each taken exception to AT&T's marketing last month. T-Mobile called out AT&T on Twitter, sharing a video where it pasted a "9G" sticker on an iPhone writing "didn't realize it was this easy, brb updating." Verizon meanwhile took out a full-page ad in several major newspapers, including USA TODAY, to promise that it "wont take an old phone and just change the software to turn the 4 in the status bar into a 5." Sprint says that, by claiming it has this so-called 5G E network in 400 markets when it isn't real 5G, AT&T "seeks to induce consumers to purchase or renew AT&Ts services when they might otherwise have purchased Sprints services." In addition to asking for AT&T to be blocked from using "5G E" or its related terms now and going forward, Sprint is seeking damages from AT&T over the "immediate and irreparable harm" the ads, it says, have caused the company to suffer by making it appear as if AT&T's products and devices are superior to Sprint's. There is no specific dollar figure requested, with Sprint's lawyers requesting for an amount to be "determined at trial." Follow Eli Blumenthal on Twitter @eliblumenthal This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Sprint sues AT&T over the company's use of '5G E,' claims false advertising WASHINGTON (AP) So President Donald Trump blew through House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's customary introduction before his State of the Union speech. Who cares? Not Pelosi, who was the white-clad backdrop to every Trump word uttered during his first address to a joint session of Congress under divided government. With a smirk and an eye-roll , she set the tone for the new lawmakers who flipped the House from Republican control and elected her to lead them. Postponed a week, the evening began without the customary opening of the speaker pounding the gavel, calling the chamber to order and presenting the president. Pelosi stood at the lectern behind Trump, gavel on the desk in front of her, apparently ready to perform the task as her Republican predecessor, Paul Ryan, had done before. But instead of allowing the introduction, Trump began delivering his speech. Pelosi, second in line to the presidency, sat. Had she been offended, asked Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., in a Wednesday meeting? "Who really cares," Pelosi replied, according to an aide in the room granted anonymity to discuss the private session of House Democrats. "I do want to applaud our entire caucus for the decorum. I thought you were very, very respectful of the office that he holds, respectful of the position that we have." But not necessarily the man who occupies that office, a distinction Pelosi has suggested throughout Trump's presidency. A year ago, she privately counseled Democrats to stay out of the way of Trump being "his slobbering self." In the Oval Office in December, she maintained a respectful stance but warned Trump, "Don't characterize the strength that I bring." And afterward in another private meeting, Pelosi said Trump's demand for a southern border wall is a "manhood thing" a comment immediately leaked to the media. Then there was Pelosi's invitation to deliver the speech, her suggestion that he postpone it because of the shutdown, and her formal dis-invitation. When Trump capitulated to a deal that reopened the government until Feb. 15, Pelosi re-issued the invitation to the House chamber, her control of the event established. Story continues Pelosi set the tone even before Trump spoke. When he arrived on the dais, she looked the president in the eye and applauded, pointing her hands at him even as she made them clap. As soon as he looked away, she did, too and smirked. "Oh yes that clap took me back to the teen years," tweeted Pelosi's daughter, Christine. "She knows. And she knows that you know. And frankly she's disappointed that you thought this would work. But here's a clap." The moment signaled Pelosi's example to the Democrats she leads and who helped flip the House from Republican control. It came after she forced him to agree Jan. 25 to reopen the government with zero dollars for his border wall. Throughout the address, she threw her special brand of shade at Trump an eye roll here, a chuckle there even as she raised a hand to shush outbursts of groaning among Democrats. At one point, when Trump saluted the record number of women serving in Congress, Pelosi stood and gestured to the sea of new lawmakers dressed in white on the Democratic side of the aisle. They leapt to their feet, pointed to each other and high-fived. Pelosi stood and reached out with both hands to acknowledge them. Pelosi applauded Trump's mentions of a strong military and creating jobs. When he declared that the "state of our union is strong," she shook her head with a tight smile and stayed seated. Republicans jumped to their feet and chanted, "U-S-A! U-S-A!" But when Trump posited that the nation's "economic miracle" can only be interrupted by "foolish wars, politics or ridiculous partisan investigations," she rolled her eyes. A camera zoomed in on the chairman of the House intelligence committee, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who this week said he would do everything possible to make sure special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian ties to Trump's 2016 campaign is made public. Schiff smiled. "If there is going to be peace and legislation there cannot be war and investigation," Trump said. Democrats on the floor and in the gallery groaned before Trump had finished the sentence. Pelosi held up a hand below shoulder level and threw a glance in their direction to quiet down. ___ AP Congressional Correspondent Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report. ___ Follow Kellman on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/APLaurieKellman ___ This story has been corrected to show Oval Office meeting was December, not January. In Guinea Bissau, the government plans to cut electricity prices by 50 percent, Energy and Industry Minister Antonio Serifo Embalo told reporters recently. According to Embalo, the country has the capacity to support this considerable drop in the cost of electricity. The governments move will be made possible by using fuel oil instead of purchased diesel for the generators of the plant that supplies electricity to Bissau and the surrounding regions, he said. He explained that this change of fuel will allow the state to save more than CFA400 million on the expenses that currently stand at CFA700 million. A solar power plant with a capacity of between 20 and 30 MW is currently under construction in the tiny West African nation with the support of the World Bank. The Washington-based financial institution said the project aims to stabilize power supply in the country and provide additional lower cost generations. Guinea Bissau, which has one of the lowest electrification rates and highest electric service costs in Africa, has, to date, not seen much progress in the field of solar energy. Currently, it covers around 90% of its demand with imported petroleum fuels and power imports from Senegal. Recent reports from the African Development Bank indicate that the country has only 11 MW of installed generation capacity. Madrid (AFP) - Financially troubled Spanish supermarket group Dia said Friday it wanted to cut up to 2,100 jobs as it reported a massive loss. Dia, the target of a public buyout offer by the Russian oligarch who is already its top shareholder, reported a net loss of 352.5 million euros ($399.3 million) for 2018. The discount supermarket chain, which has faced stiff competition from Lidl and Mercadona in Spain, its main market, saw net sales fall nearly 11 percent to 7.3 billion euros. The results were much worse than the expected four-million-euro loss expected by analysts surveyed by data provider Factset. After the announcement Dia's shares slumped 2.2 percent in morning trading in Madrid while the overall market was off 0.3 percent overall, before recovering to a loss of 0.7 percent. "2018 has been a turbulent year for Dia, probably its most difficult since the company was founded more than 40 years ago," the group said in a statement. Dia said it planned "to cut a maximum of 2,100 work contracts," although these still have to be negotiated with trade unions. Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman's LetterOne investment fund, which has become Dia's top shareholder with a 29-percent stake, launched a public share offer to take over the company on Tuesday given its "serious financial difficulties". The company's shares have lost nearly 90 percent of their value since the beginning of 2018 and have lost their place on the Madrid exchange's main Ibex 35 index. Management problems have also plagued the firm. In December, it named its third chief executive in less than six months. The group's debt also increased last year to 1.4 billion euros. Dia has 6,157 supermarkets in four countries -- Spain, Brazil, Argentina and Portugal. According to the latest figures, Dia had just over 42,600 employees at the end of 2017. JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) on Friday urged President Cyril Ramaphosa to reconsider his plan to split state power firm Eskom into three separate entities, saying it would lead to large-scale job losses. "The NUM is going to fight tooth and nail against the unbundling of Eskom," the union, which says it has more than 15,000 members at Eskom, said in a statement. "It is the privatisation of Eskom to enrich the elites." (Reporting by Alexander Winning; Editing by Joe Brock) Sony Japanese conglomerate Sony will kick off a $910 million stock buyback program beginning next week, Reuters reports. The move will result in Sony buying a maximum of 30 million of its own shares. Consequently, the amount of the companys outstanding shares will be reduced by 2.4%. According to a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst, Masahiro Wakasugi, Sonys move was likely driven by the company stocks recent price decline: It seems they were perturbed by the steep stock decline. Theyre watching the stock price, cash flow is strong and they have the financial resources to carry this out. So its a strong message to investors. Sonys Share Buyback Perfectly Timed, Stock Was at a Yearly Low The fall in share price came after the Japanese tech and entertainment giant reported weaker profits. Sony also cut its revenue guidance for the year. Read the full story on CCN.com. Sir Elton John has welcomed Donald Trumps State of the Union commitment to defeat Aids in America within a decade. His announcement followed a campaign by The Independent and Evening Standard to raise awareness about the disease. During his speech to the joint houses of Congress, the president vowed to take on a problem many thought had been defeated decades ago, but which remains an epidemic for some communities. In the US today, one in two gay black men will be diagnosed with HIV during their lifetime, an infection rate that matches those of cities in southern Africa. In the address, Mr Trump said the country had made remarkable progress, but he wanted to do even more. My budget will ask Democrats and Republicans to make the needed commitment to eliminate the HIV epidemic in the United States within 10 years, he said. Together, we will defeat Aids in America. Sir Elton, who has devoted decades to raising awareness about the issue of HIV and the treatments now available, said the presidents words were to be welcomed. The award-winning musician and songwriter established the Elton John AIDS Foundation (EJAF) in 1992, to promote education and awareness, and fight stigma associated with the illness. I applaud President Trumps announcement of a renewed commitment to ending the Aids epidemic in the United States, he said. While we have made tremendous progress in reducing new infections and reaching those who are at risk or HIV positive with lifesaving testing and treatment services, the epidemic in the US is far from over. While early epicenters like San Francisco and New York have seen dramatic declines in the incidence of HIV in recent years, the epidemic in the Southern United States still rages on, particularly among young black men who have sex with men. He added: I saw this first hand when I visited Atlanta recently. Meeting patients and clinicians, city leaders and HIV activists at the Ponce Centre in Atlanta on the eve of World Aids Day last year and hearing their stories was heartbreaking. Story continues At the end of last year, Sir Elton and Evgeny Lebedev, owner of The Independent and the Evening Standard, spearheaded a campaign to highlight the challenges confronting those working to beat HIV and Aids, not just in the US but around the world. As part of a campaign to raise both awareness and funds for Sir Eltons foundation, the two men visited Atlanta, where they spoke with people living with HIV, talked to physicians and community groups, and underwent a HIV test to show how simply the test can be performed. The campaign raised $4.2m (3.26m), and was picked up by media around the world. Carlos del Rio, professor of global health at Atlantas Emory University, which works with the Grady clinic visited by Sir Elton and Mr Lebedev, said he believed the news coverage generated by the visit was one of the factors that helped lead Mr Trump to include in his speech a commitment to end Aids in a decade. Elton John and Evgeny Lebedev travel to the Ponce De Leon centre in Atlanta to support their HIV work as part of The Independents campaign (Jeremy Selwyn) Mr del Rio, a member of the leadership team of Fast-Track Cities, a global, United Nations-backed initiative to tackle HIV, said he had forwarded some of the articles published by The Independent and Evening Standard to senior officials at the department of health and human services (HHS), and the national institutes of health (NIH). In particular, he drew attention to an article that featured two physicians from the Grady clinic, Wendy Armstrong and Jonathan Colasanti, explaining how, for all their efforts, they annually lost 100 patients a year to Aids. The numbers alone are certainly astonishing. For 2016 and 2017, a single hospital in the Atlanta area, we have lost over 100 individuals a year. Mostly young people, said Mr Colasanti, an assistant professor of medicine in infectious diseases. The tragedy is not only do they tend to die very painful, drawn-out physical deaths, but the tougher thing for me to watch, is the emotional aspect. The number of people that we watch die alone, with no one in the room with them, surrounded by no family, is one of the greatest tragedies of our time. Ms Armstrong, who carried out the HIV tests on Sir Elton and Mr Lebdev, said there were many reasons why HIV infection rates among black communities in the American South were so high among them education, poverty and distrust of the medical community. She added: One cannot ignore in the South the legacy of racism and the remaining structural racism that affects our institutions. Mr del Rio said he had taken the reports and forwarded them to some very important people. I think it was among a number of catalysers that resulted in Mr Trumps commitment, he said. He added that he had been working with health officials for the past month and had expected Mr Trump to include the commitment in his address on Tuesday night. In a statement, the HHS department said: This initiative is the result of months of conversations among various HHS leaders, who then took the proposal to President Trump. HHS is in regular contact with leaders of the HIV community, whom we hope to partner with in making this initiative a great success. HHS secretary Alex Azar said the battle to tackle Aids in a decade would focus on three main area increasing investments in geographic hotspots, using data to identify where HIV is spreading most rapidly, and providing funds for the creation of local HIV HealthForce in these areas. We have the tools available to end the HIV epidemic, and most infections are now highly concentrated in certain geographic hotspots, he said. More than 50 per cent of new HIV diagnoses in 2016 and 2017 occurred in 48 counties, Washington DC, and San Juan, Puerto Rico. We also know certain rural areas carry a disproportionately high burden of HIV, especially in the South. Sir Elton said his foundation looked forward to working in coalition with political leaders on both sides of the aisle, private partners, civil society and leading experts to find creative solutions. He also stressed that the presidents commitment to addressing the epidemic in the US, should not be a trade off with the life saving working the US government does in relation to HIV around the world. He added: If we all work together, we can defeat Aids in the 10 year deadline set by President Trump. By Svea Herbst-Bayliss BOSTON (Reuters) - Prominent short seller Carson Block is saying that medical device company Inogen Inc has inflated the size of its markets and expects the stock price to fall. Block, whose research firm Muddy Waters is best known for targeting the shares of China-based companies, has written a new report that asserts that Inogen's management has made overly optimistic growth forecasts. The company's stock fell 6.2 percent Friday morning to $131.07. It had climbed steadily to as high as $282.92 in September. Calls to the company's media relations and investor relations departments seeking comment were not returned. Muddy Waters is short Inogen Inc because it question's Inogen's statements about total addressable market (TAM) size and potential growth, the report seen by Reuters said. Inogen has a market capitalization of $3 billion and makes lightweight portable oxygen concentrators that free its users from being tethered to heavy tanks. While the company has said the U.S. TAM is roughly 3 million users and is growing at 7 percent to 10 percent a year, Block said the real U.S. TAM is far smaller at about 1.3 million, citing Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) data. He also said CMS data shows that the oxygen therapy market has been shrinking. He wrote that Inogen based its estimates on data from Wintergreen Research. "The key to INGN's extreme multiple is its blue sky story," the report said. Block sees more room for it to fall, arguing that "INGN will hit peak sales as soon as this year, and likely no later than next." Block wrote in the report "At our forecast of peak earnings, we value INGN at $46 per share, a 67 percent decrease from its current price." Block ranks among the industry's most closely followed short-sellers, who seek to make money when a stock price falls. Some occasionally publish research reports detailing what they consider to be wrong with a company. Story continues Dedicated short-sellers like Block, whose fund oversees roughly $210 million, tend to manage small amounts of money and often face uphill battles when the stock market is zooming higher. Last year when Block published three reports, including one on Chinese tutoring company TAL Education Group, his fund earned 20 percent after fees. The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 4.4 percent and the activist investors on average lost 11.25 percent. Block, who trained as a lawyer but started his career as an equity analyst, distributed his research for free for years and said it took him years to create his hedge fund, which was launched in 2016. (Reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss; Editing by Steve Orlofsky) San Jose (AFP) - A second woman has accused former Costa Rican president and Nobel Peace laureate Oscar Arias of sexual assault, local press said on Friday. The woman's lawyer filed a criminal complaint on Thursday, according to news website ameliarueda.com, which said she is a former Miss Costa Rica, without giving further details. Arias, 78, had already rejected on Tuesday another allegation of sexual assault made by a peace campaigner. "I deny categorically the accusations made against me," said Arias, who won the Nobel prize in 1987 for efforts to broker an end to Central America's civil wars. Psychiatrist and peace campaigner Alexandra Arce von Herold, who filed a complaint with police, alleged he assaulted her at his home in 2014. She had gone there to enlist his support in a campaign against nuclear weapons. In a complaint to the Costa Rican newspaper Universidad and to The New York Times, she alleged that at the end of the meeting Arias came up behind her and grabbed her breasts and put his hands up her skirt. She said she was so traumatized that she gave up her lobbying for the NGO she had been trying to get him to support. The second incident allegedly took place in 2015, ameliarueda.com said. But the woman also alleges that when she sought legal advice to file a complaint, three lawyers advised her against accusing Arias, the most influential political figure in Costa Rica. After Arce von Herold's accusation, though, she decided to try again. Again she was rebuffed by two lawyers before finding someone to represent her. "When I saw what happened with the new women and the MeToo movement, I thought that I should be brave because I could see that this was habitual behavior," the former Miss Costa Rica said, according to the website. She said the assault took place in Arias's house after he contacted her through social media and invited her there to give her a book. She said he "grabbed" her head and pulled her close to him before "he touched my breasts over my clothes and then gave me a kiss against my will." Arias served as president from 1986-90 and again from 2006-10. He is currently the head of a foundation to promote peace and disarmament that bears his name. A second woman has come forward to allege that Virginias embattled lieutenant governor, Justin Fairfax, sexually assaulted her. Meredith Watsons lawyers put out a statement on Friday detailing her claim that she was raped by Fairfax in 2000 when they were both undergraduates at Duke University. Mr. Fairfaxs attack was premeditated and aggressive, Watsons lawyers said. The two were friends but never dated or had any romantic relationship. Ms. Watson shared her account of the rape with friends in a series of emails and Facebook messages that are now in our possession, the statement continued. Additionally, we have statements from former classmates corroborating that Ms. Watson immediately told friends that Mr. Fairfax had raped her. Earlier this week, college professor Vanessa Tyson alleged in a graphic statement that Fairfax forced her to perform oral sex on him during the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Fairfax has forcefully denied both allegations and refused to resign, saying he has never assaulted anyone. Lt. Governor Fairfax has an outstanding and well-earned reputation for treating people with dignity and respect, read a statement from Fairfaxs chief of staff and communications director. This is part of the sad and dark politics that the Lt. Governor has dedicated himself to helping Virginia and the nation rise above. Fairfax is next in line to take over the governorship from scandal-plagued Democratic governor Ralph Northam, who has so far refused to resign despite calls from his prominent members of his own party to do so. More from National Review Seoul (AFP) - The second summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has raised hopes for the longest ceasefire in history to be replaced by a peace treaty. Seoul and Pyongyang remain technically at war after the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice. Stephen Biegun, the US special envoy for North Korea, said last week that Trump was "ready to end this war", fuelling speculation that the formal end of the conflict may be near, with Trump and Kim meeting in Vietnam this month. But analysts say a full peace treaty poses many complications, and will need extensive negotiations. What is the current situation? The 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice rather than a peace treaty, leaving the two neighbours technically still in a state of conflict. The signatories to the armistice included the US-led United Nations Command, which fought alongside the South's troops, as well as China and North Korea. Declaring an end to the war was one of the agreements at the first summit between Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in last year, but little progress has been made, with the US and the North at loggerheads over Pyongyang's nuclear arsenal. In his New Year's speech, Kim called for "multi-party negotiations for replacing the current ceasefire... with a peace mechanism in close contact with the signatories to the armistice agreement". Who wants a peace treaty, and why? For Pyongyang, a peace treaty is vital to regime survival as it will mean "North Korea and the US are no longer enemies", said Koo Kab-woo, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul. South Korea's dovish Moon -- with a slogan of creating a peninsula "free of war" -- is also a supporter. But Washington has been wary as the treaty could bring into question the justification for its military alliance with Seoul and the 28,500 US troops stationed in South Korea. Story continues "The US fears abrupt changes to the regional order will impact its own interests, which won't be good as China flexes its muscles," Koh Yu-hwan, a professor of North Korean studies at Dongguk University. A peace treaty would be welcome news for Beijing as it seeks a "reduction of the US role" on the peninsula, Koh added. Can it happen at the Vietnam summit? The possibility is very low, given the complexity of the issue. Koo of the University of North Korean Studies says the deal would require "so many world-changing issues", from amending the constitutions of the two Koreas and re-addressing the role of the US troops. Kim Dong-yub, an analyst at the Seoul-based Institute for Far Eastern Studies, added that negotiations for such a treaty may need more than three years. The more likely scenario is for the concerned parties -- North and South Korea, the US, and China -- to declare a formal end to the war as a political statement. "This will pave the way for a peace treaty," said Go Myong-hyun, an analyst at the Seoul-based Asan Institute of Policy Studies. The South China Morning Post reported that Chinese President Xi Jinping will be in Danang -- a potential venue of the Trump-Kim summit -- for meetings with the American president. What would be the impact? Analysts offer differing outlooks but all agree on one aspect: an end to the war will undoubtedly trigger debate about the US troops in South Korea. Chinese forces that fought alongside the North Koreans in the Korean War pulled out of the peninsula in 1956, and with an official end to the conflict, Washington may struggle to justify its military presence in the South. But a peace treaty would also place increased pressure on North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons programme -- which the regime has repeatedly claimed was developed to defend against the United States. "An end-of-war declaration is verbally ending hostile relations," Koh said. "And a peace treaty will finalise it in a legally binding manner." SAN SALVADOR (Reuters) - Salvadoran President-elect Nayib Bukele will assess whether the country should maintain diplomatic relations with China, a member of his team said on Thursday, less than a year after the outgoing government broke ties with Taiwan. During the campaign, Bukele, who emerged victorious at the polls as an outsider candidate on Sunday, was critical of the benefits that El Salvador received after establishing diplomatic relations with China. Federico Anliker, a close member of the Bukele team and secretary general of his New Ideas party, said the incoming administration would investigate why the outgoing government forged ties with China. "With the issue of China, China-Taiwan relations, we have to study them and put them in the balance - what is best for the nation, not what is best for a political party, as the (outgoing administration) did," Anliker told local media on Thursday "We were not consulted, nor did they give us the reasons (for establishing) relations with China. Now we have to investigate in detail," he continued. In August, El Salvador broke ties with Taiwan to establish relations with China, following the Dominican Republic and Panama. China later offered El Salvador about $150 million for social projects and 3,000 tons of rice to feed thousands of Salvadorans struck by a drought. The White House warned in August that China was luring countries with incentives that "facilitate economic dependence and domination, not partnership." Anliker also said that Bukele, a 37-year-old former mayor of the capital, expressed his support for Juan Guaido, who proclaimed himself Venezuela's legitimate head of state in January. Bukele "would not be willing to support a totalitarian government that represses its people and disrespects human rights," he said, referring to the administration of President Nicolas Maduro. (Reporting by Nelson Renteria; Editing by Sandra Maler) (Reuters) - A former business partner of Paul Manafort who has been accused by U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller of having ties to Russian intelligence attended the inauguration of President Donald Trump, according to a court transcript released on Thursday. Russian-Ukrainian political operative Konstantin Kilimnik met with Manafort, who was Trump's presidential campaign chairman, in January 2017 when he was in the U.S. capital for Trump's inauguration, according to the transcript of a Feb. 4 court hearing in a federal court in Washington. The closed hearing was held so the judge could weigh evidence supporting allegations by Mueller's office that Manafort had lied to prosecutors - including about his interactions with Kilimnik - in breach of a plea agreement. According to the transcript, Mueller's team accused Manafort of lying about how many times he had discussed an unspecified topic with Kilimnik. Among other times, they said Manafort and Kilimnik had discussed the topic "in January 2017, in person, in Washington, D.C., when Kilimnik was here for the inauguration." While certain portions of the transcript are redacted, judging by previous court filings the topic at issue appears to be a "Ukrainian peace plan" that Kilimnik and Manafort allegedly discussed at several points in 2016 and 2017. (Reporting by Nathan Layne in New York; Editing by James Dalgleish) A delegation of British businessmen will visit Morocco on March 4-5 to explore cooperation opportunities in the Energy (Renewables & Hydrocarbons), Education and Finance sectors. The trade mission will visit the cities of Rabat and Casablanca, Moroccos political and economic capitals wherein they will meet with key Government officials and representatives from the private sector. In addition to bilateral meetings with senior officials, the UK trade mission will be updated on the Moroccan economy and doing business in the country, a gateway for investment in Africa. The mission program includes meetings with British Ambassador to Morocco, the World Bank Country Representative, Head of British Chamber of Commerce in Casablanca, Chairman of General Confederation of Enterprises (CGEM), CEO of Casablanca Stock Exchange, Director of European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in Morocco and executives of Casablanca Finance City. Members of the UK delegation are also expected to meet officials from Moroccan investment agency, the state-owned National Bureau of Petroleum and Mines (ONHYM), the Moroccan Agency for Sustainable Development (MASEN) Morocco, an important emerging market, is part of a group of fast-growing nations described as African Lions. The North African country is situated in a strategic location for access to Europe. It is also well located as a platform for reaching other international markets, especially North and West Africa. With Africa increasingly seen as a future engine of global growth, Morocco is a potential gateway to the continent for UK companies. Many UK companies are already doing business in Morocco, including G4S, GlaxoSmithKline, Shell Vivo Energy, Unilever, and Marks and Spencer, to name a few. There is also an increasing footprint from UK law firms and oil and gas exploration companies. The Moroccan market is attracting a growing number of foreign investors because of the countrys political stability, strategic geographic location, good communication network and easy global transport connections. The country has signed open Skies Agreement with the European Union (EU), boasts a strong banking & finance sector and advanced status with the EU. It is connected with low cost flights from the UK and offers investors competitive labor costs, tax incentives, no restrictions to capital and ease of repatriation for profits and dividends. The symbolism of aid lorries, halted by barricades on the Venezuela-Colombia border, would have been familiar enough for anyone watching from the Kremlin. It told the story of an outmanoeuvred regime, a default defensive response, and terrible PR. Russia, one of Venezuelas major backers since Hugo Chavez took power in 1998, finds itself holding an increasingly toxic asset. With every week, power seems to be slipping away from Nicolas Maduro, Chavezs hand-picked successor, and towards his rival, the leader of the outlawed National Assembly, Juan Guaido. An overwhelming majority of countries in the west and in Latin America now recognise his presidency. Russia has shown few signs of following suit. At the same time, ever so slightly, its calculations do seem to be tilting away from Mr Maduro and towards protecting the more tangible assets it has left in the country. In interviews with experts and politicians, The Independent recorded a growing resignation that Maduros regime would not endure in the long term. Alongside this was a realisation that Moscow had few cards left to play. There was little expectation of a new cash injection into the crisis economy and less so of staging a major military intervention in a country halfway around the globe. While Russia is far from being the only major backer of Venezuela, it is arguably its most exposed creditor. Chinese investment stands at nearly three times the estimated $20bn-25bn (15bn-19bn) Moscow is said to have ploughed into Venezuela. But Chinese investment has followed a more pragmatic pattern, and is largely repayable in oil. The Russian bet, which includes military deals and controversial, discounted stakes in oil fields, is more vulnerable to politics. The opposition-controlled National Assembly has, for example, called for some of the most recent oil deals with Russias Rosneft to be revisited. The reported appearance of Russian mercenaries at oil installations seems to be a direct response to these threats. Story continues Dmitry Rosenthal, a Latin American expert at the Russian Academy of Sciences, told The Independent he believed Moscow could reach compromise with whatever government is in power. Backchannels were already likely in play, he says. But unease about the oppositions rhetoric remained. The Kremlin has been much more supportive of Maduros regime than the maximally pragmatic China, which has engaged with the opposition to a much greater extent, he said. Unsurprisingly, it sees Maduro as a much more reliable partner when it comes to protecting its interests. As with other matters of foreign policy, Vladimir Putin is said to be taking a leading role in formulating the Russian response to the crisis. There have been few clues as to the presidents thinking. But on Wednesday, Bloomberg claimed some insight by quoting two Kremlin sources, both expressing doubt about the viability of Maduros regime. The report was quickly dismissed by Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov. Yet voices in the outer circle of Russias foreign policy community in parliament and the foreign ministry have toned down earlier, more categorical statements of support. Vladimir Dzhabarov, deputy chair of the international affairs committee of Russias upper house, told The Independent that while Russia would not walk back its support of Maduro, it accepted its ally faced a battle to survive. Russia has never hidden its recognition of Maduro as the countrys only legitimate president, he said. We understand he has led a flawed government and didnt get everything right in the economy or the social arena. But is it really worth taking country to revolution or collapse? We dont think so. Mr Dzhabarov said Venezuelas future could only be resolved around the negotiation table, but said the Guaido opposition was unwilling to enter talks. Half of Venezuela still supported the Maduro regime, he said, and could be provoked to take to the streets if their man was toppled. Fyodor Lukyanov, a foreign expert considered close to the policy elite, also suggested Russia held little hope for the survival of the Maduro regime. But it could continue, he said, for as long as it had the army on its side, which might be much longer than people think. As toxic as things might get with Maduro, what Moscow would not do is convert its support to Guaido, who was an American puppet. As terrible a president as Maduro is, hes loyal and hes a partner, said Lukyanov. For Russia that is important. Duke and Duchess of Cambridge at the EE British Academy Film Awards in London in 2018 The Duchess of Cambridge chose a forest green Jenny Packham dress for the awards night in 2018 and fans believe the velvet bow was in tribute to the all-black #MeToo dress code. [Photo: Getty] Its not just hospital openings and charity visits the British Royal Family carries out. Every so often, the Queen and other members of the monarchy have an A-list moment and don their finest attire for a red carpet event. From film premieres to the BAFTAs, galas and theatre performances, the Royal Family has racked up an impressive number of red carpet appearances between them over the years. The James Bond film franchise premieres have played host to numerous royals. The Queen attended the opening of Die Another Day in 2002 and Casino Royale in 2006. In 2012, Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall walked the red carpet at the premiere of Skyfall. And, three years later in 2015, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry all attended the grand opening of Spectre. Even Princess Diana attended a handful of James Bond premieres back in the day, including A View to Kill, A Licence to Kill and For Your Eyes Only. But thats not all. In 2017, William and Harry were VIP guests at the Star Wars: The Last Jedi premiere in 2017 (for which they filmed cameos as Stormtroopers; parts that were later cut). The same year, Harry walked the red carpet at the Dunkirk opening in London. Its not all film premieres. As part of his responsibilities as BAFTA president, William has attended the film boards annual awards a number of times twice with Kate by his side. The couples also set to attend the 2019 event on 10 February. From the princes dapper tuxedos to Kate, the Queen and Dianas beautiful gowns, scroll to see the best photos of royals on the red carpet. By Angelo Amante and Crispian Balmer ROME (Reuters) - Italy's ruling coalition has hit fierce turbulence for the first time since taking office last June, with diplomatic crises, ideological divisions and daily dust-ups taking their toll as the economy tips into recession. France's decision on Thursday to recall its ambassador from Rome to protest against repeated verbal assaults from Italy's populist leaders has exacerbated a sense of turmoil in Rome and helped further depress already anxious financial markets. Italy is Europe's third largest economy and has its second biggest debt pile in terms of gross domestic product after Greece, making investors highly wary of political risk here. Recent ructions have raised speculation that the government might fall apart even before European parliamentary elections in May, long seen as a litmus test for the two ruling parties - the far-right League and anti-establishment 5-Star Movement. But interviews with more than a dozen coalition lawmakers suggest that despite deep, mutual frustrations, neither side expects an imminent divorce, with the French row likely to reinforce their troubled relationship rather than break it. "We are united in not accepting orders from France, Europe or anyone else," Guglielmo Picchi, a senior member of the League and foreign ministry undersecretary, told Reuters. "What do you expect? We are in an election campaign where everyone has their own interests." Both the League and 5-Star have identified the pro-European French president, Emmanuel Macron, as a natural adversary in their respective EU electoral battles, publicly accusing him of undermining Italy's foreign, economic and immigration policies. Macron's abrupt decision to recall France's envoy, a move not seen since World War Two, alarmed Italian business leaders but could please League and 5-Star voters, thirsty for change after years of old-style, consensus politics. "Potentially, this is something that might help the government parties reconnect," said Lorenzo Pregliasco, a founder of political consultancy YouTrend. "Identifying common enemies always helps bring parties together ... so I don't see this as a major problem." LOOMING HURDLES By its own admission, the coalition faces myriad other problems, starting with the anemic economy. Italy fell into its third recession in a decade at the end of 2018 and the European Commission on Thursday slashed its Italian growth forecast to 0.2 percent this year from a previous estimate of 1.2 percent - the lowest in the 28-nation block. Anxious not to be blamed by voters for the new downturn, coalition parties hope their big-spending 2019 budget, which includes a new income support scheme, will lift the economy. "The economy is at the center of our thoughts. We are waiting to see what impact the budget will have," said Stefano Patuanelli, the 5-Star leader in the Senate, Italy's upper house. The impact of the budget will take months to be felt and the coalition faces many hurdles in the meantime, including a fraught decision on whether to press ahead with building a Franco-Italian Alpine rail link, known as the TAV. 5-Star, which has strong roots amongst environmentalists, wants to kill off the multi-billion-euro project, while the pro-business League is determined to proceed, with no sign that either party is willing to back down. Another divisive issue that must be addressed this month is whether wealthy northern regions in the League heartland should have greater autonomy - something 5-Star fears will suck funds from its southern strongholds. "If regional autonomy doesn't go ahead as we want ... then I will leave the government. There would be no point in staying," said Giancarlo Giorgetti, undersecretary in the prime minister's office and a leading League light. The future of League leader Matteo Salvini, who serves as interior minister, has become an additional flashpoint, with magistrates pressing parliament to strip him of his immunity to let them possibly press kidnapping charges after he refused last year to let a group of migrants disembark from a rescue boat. 5-Star built its support by denouncing parliamentary privilege and it could take a big hit if it moved to protect Salvini. But League lawmakers question how they could continue to work together if they abandon their ally to the courts. "This is the most dangerous issue for us. We are in a lose-lose situation," a 5-Star minister, who declined to be named, told Reuters. ELECTORAL CONSIDERATIONS Such issues would be hard to tackle at any time, but the situation is exacerbated by the fact they are playing out against the backdrop of regional election campaigns and the May 26 EU vote, which gives parties little room to maneuver. The League has doubled its support to around 34 percent in just a year, lifted by Salvini's anti-immigration stance, while 5-Star has dropped to around 24 percent, down about eight points since national elections last March. Should 5-Star backing buckle in May, party leader Luigi Di Maio will face internal pressure to quit the government. Despite all these problems, there is no other viable majority in parliament and voters here often punish parties that bring down coalitions and trigger instability - a compelling reason for 5-Star and the League to cling together. "I don't think either ruling party has any interest in bringing the government down this year, even less so before the European election," YouTrend's Pregliasco said. When Salvini hooked up with 5-Star last year, he uncoupled the League from its old political allies, the nationalist Brothers of Italy and former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia (Go Italy). The three parties still fight together in local elections and for the first time since last May, Salvini appeared in public with Berlusconi on Thursday ahead of a ballot on Sunday in the Abruzzo region. News of the event triggered gossip that the old center-right bloc might be revived at a national level, but Salvini openly dismissed the idea and, driving the point home, did not put the event on any of his massively followed social media platforms. A poll in La Stampa newspaper this week explained his reticence, predicting he would lose seven percentage points if he returned to Berlusconi, a relic of the political past. "It's clear the situation is a mess right now, but we are moving ahead. The situation is highly fluid ... but we are not yet at a point where the government is at risk," said a League politician and deputy minister, who declined to be named. (Reporting by Crispian Balmer; Editing by Giles Elgood) Ronan Farrow is accustomed to reporting bombshell claims about people in power, but his latest shocker has to do with the issues he's faced while doing so. Farrow said Thursday via Twitter that he and "at least one other prominent journalist" received threats from the National Enquirer's parent company, American Media Inc., after reporting on the tabloid's relationship with President Donald Trump. Farrow's allegations came in response to a post Amazon's Jeff Bezos wrote, in which he accused the National Enquirer of trying to blackmail and extort him with threats to publish intimate photos unless he stopped investigating the publication. Ronan Farrow, a contributing writer for the New Yorker, Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post and is also the world's richest person, started investigating the tabloid after it ran a story that revealed his relationship with former TV anchor Lauren Sanchez. Farrow tweeted: "I and at least one other prominent journalist involved in breaking stories about the National Enquirers arrangement with Trump fielded similar 'stop digging or well ruin you' blackmail efforts from AMI." Farrow said in the tweet that he "did not engage as I dont cut deals with subjects of ongoing reporting." This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. AMI released a statement Friday regarding Bezos' claims. "American Media believes fervently that it acted lawfully in the reporting of the story of Mr. Bezos," the company said in the statement. "Further, at the time of the recent allegations made by Mr. Bezos, it was in good faith negotiations to resolve all matters with him. "Nonetheless, in light of the nature of the allegations published by Mr. Bezos, the Board has convened and determined that it should promptly and thoroughly investigate the claims," the statement reads. "Upon completion of that investigation, the Board will take whatever appropriate action is necessary." This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. AMI did not immediately return a message from USA TODAY about Farrow's allegations. Farrow declined to comment further. Story continues Farrow has reported on stories for the New Yorker about AMI's reported cover-up of a claim from a Trump Organization doorman with information about an alleged Trump affair resulting in a child, as well as about the National Enquirer's relationship with movie mogul Harvey Weinstein. In December, the Washington Post reported that AMI admitted to paying hush money to Karen McDougal, who alleged an affair with Trump, in order to suppress the womans story and prevent it from influencing the [2016] election. Farrow is also the journalist who wrote a bombshell New Yorker story detailing decades of sexual abuse allegations against Weinstein. He also reported on allegations of misconduct relating to former CBS boss Les Moonves, which eventually led to Moonves' ouster. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Ronan Farrow: I received 'blackmail' threat similar to Amazon's Jeff Bezos Washington (AFP) - British billionaire Richard Branson plans to travel to space within the next four or five months aboard his own Virgin Galactic spaceship, he told AFP Thursday. "My wish is to go up on the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, that's what we're working on," the head of the Virgin group said on the sidelines of an event to honor Virgin Galactic at the Air and Space Museum in Washington. The American Apollo 11 mission landed on the moon July 20, 1969. Virgin Galactic is one of two companies, along with Blue Origin, on its way to sending passengers into space -- though just barely, and just for a few minutes. The companies want to send hundreds or thousands of people on these short "suborbital" flights, meaning they wouldn't get high enough to orbit the earth. These missions would be shorter and more affordable than SpaceX's planned project to send a Japanese billionaire to the moon by 2023 at the earliest. Virgin Galactic flew 50 miles (80 km) above the earth, which the US considers the edge of space, for the first time in December (the international consensus is 100 km). Virgin Galactic's spaceship, called SpaceShipTwo, is commanded by two pilots. To take off, it's dropped by a carrier plane like a bomb, then starts its own engine to jet off straight into the sky, eventually climbing high enough to see the curvature of the earth. The craft hovers and descends naturally, gliding back towards its original departure point, Mojave Air and Space Port in California. It will be able to carry six passengers along with its two pilots. Branson has previously announced dates for this first trip into space, though they've always come and gone without the voyage happening. But this time the businessman claims preparations are in their final stages. "By July we should have done enough testing," he said. But he doesn't want to make any promises he can't keep: "I need to wait for our team to say they're 100% happy. I don't want to push them," he said, but thinks they'll be ready for clients by the end of the year. He told AFP Virgin Galactic costs him $35 million a month; previously, he said he had invested more than a billion dollars in the venture since the 2000s. According to Branson, the SpaceShipTwo's next test flight is planned for February 20, depending on weather conditions. Republican Congressman Steven Palazzo of Mississippi told Yahoo Finance he thinks border security negotiators will have something to announce by Monday, Feb. 11. Palazzo is one of the 17 lawmakers tasked with negotiating a border security compromise. Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby, another Republican negotiator in the committee, also said he expects a deal on border security funding by Monday. The conference committee has one week left to avert another government shutdown. President Trump continues to push for money to fund a wall or barrier along the southern border, but Palazzo said lawmakers should not get caught up in political rhetoric about the wall. There will be money for defensive barrier and fencing, and secondary and primary barriers -- whether you want to call it a wall, a fence or some other kind of deterrent, said Palazzo during an appearance on Yahoo Finances The First Trade. The congressman said the committee is still negotiating how much money might go toward barriers. Palazzo said negotiators are also discussing additional border patrol agents, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials and new technology at ports of entry. Palazzo and several other members of the conference committee recently took a tour of the southern border, meeting with Customers and Border Protection and ICE officials. The one thing thats absolutely certain, they say walls work, said Palazzo. The president has warned he could declare a national emergency to build a wall, but administration officials have said Trump would prefer a legislative solution. Palazzo said hes hopeful Congress will pass a bill the president can support before the Feb. 15 deadline. I think theres still that bipartisan good faith effort to find common sense solutions, some common ground, said Palazzo. Jessica Smith is a reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter @JessicaASmith8 PARIS (Reuters) - Renault has found evidence that it paid part of Carlos Ghosn's wedding costs and is preparing to turn the investigation over to prosecutors, two weeks after the French carmaker's scandal-hit chairman and chief executive was forced out. An internal probe established that a 2016 sponsorship deal with the Chateau de Versailles included a 50,000 euro ($57,000) personal benefit to Ghosn, the carmaker said on Thursday, confirming a report in Le Figaro. The carmaker replaced Ghosn on Jan. 24, more than two months after his arrest in Japan over allegations of financial misconduct uncovered by Renault's Japanese affiliate Nissan, which he also chaired. Renault began its own examination of payments to Ghosn within days of his detention but had not flagged any irregularities until now. "The event space at Versailles was made available to him without charge, and Mr Ghosn was unaware that the use of the space would be charged against Renault's allotted usage," Ghosn's French-based lawyer Jean-Yves Leborgne said in an e-mailed statement. "Carlos Ghosn paid for all of his wedding expenses," he added. Renault has discovered that "Mr Ghosn was accorded a personal benefit valued at 50,000 euros under the terms of a sponsorship contract with the Chateau de Versailles", the company said in a statement on Thursday. "Renault has decided to bring these findings to the attention of the judicial authorities." The office of Ghosn's Japanese lawyer, Motonari Otsuru, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Ghosn remains in detention in Tokyo with limited opportunity to respond publicly to allegations against him. Renault had agreed before the wedding to sponsor 2.3 million euros of Versailles renovations in return for a credit granting the carmaker services from the chateau worth 25 percent of that amount, or 575,000 euros, a person with knowledge of the matter told Reuters. Story continues The rental fee was deducted from Renault's credit for use of the Grand Trianon at Versailles on Oct. 8, 2016, when Ghosn and his second wife, Carole, hosted their wedding reception at the 17th-century palace, the source said. The event had already attracted public attention for its opulence and Marie Antoinette-themed costumes. The Renault board was informed about the discovery on Wednesday, as reported by Le Figaro, the source added. (Reporting by Laurence Frost; additional reporting by Tim Kelly in Tokyo; editing by Keith Weir and Stephen Coates) Amnesty International denounced on Thursday the conviction of Algerian activist, Hadj Ghermoul, to six months in prison and a fine for posting a Facebook photo showing him holding a placard opposing a fifth term in office for President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. The conviction of Hadj Ghermoul is a severe blow for freedom of expression in Algeria. It is completely absurd that he is facing six months behind bars simply for peacefully expressing his political views, said Amnestys Director for the Middle East and North Africa Heba Morayef. His arrest and conviction are another signal of the Algerian authorities intolerance of political opposition and a worrying sign that they are stepping up arbitrary arrests and detentions ahead of the countrys presidential elections in April, underlined AI. It called on the Algerian authorities to cancel Hadj Ghermouls conviction and release him immediately and unconditionally. Hadj Ghermoul is member of the Algerian League for the Defense of Human Rights (LADDH) and member of the National Committee for the Defense of the Rights of the Unemployed (CNDDC). In its latest annual report on the situation of human rights in the world, AI decried the continued restrictions imposed by Algerian authorities on the rights to freedom of expression, association, assembly and religion. It condemned the prosecution in Algeria of peaceful critics, including human rights defenders, in unfair trials, and the forced closure of media outlets. While we've been shivering up here, folks in the Southern Hemisphere have been baking in all-time record summertime heat. Records have been set recently in Australia, Chile and Argentina, sparking wildfires and exacerbating droughts. In Australia, the heat was so intense it caused bats to fall from trees and snakes to seek refuge in peoples toilets, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and the Capital Weather Gang. Overall, it was the hottest January in Australia ever recorded, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology reported. The heatwaves there were "unprecedented in their scale and duration," the bureau said. One remarkable record was set in Port Augusta, Australia, which soared to 121 degrees. That's the hottest temperature ever recorded at a coastal location in the Southern Hemisphere, according to Weather Underground meteorologist Bob Henson. An air tanker carrier flies over a forest fire in Galvarino, Chile, on February 8, 2019. Fueled by extreme heat, forest fires in Chile have killed two people, injured another two and burned more thousands of acres. Late in the month, folks in Wanaaring endured Australia's all-time hottest night, when the overnight temperature only dropped to a sweltering 97.9 degrees. The merciless heat has intensified droughts in several parts of Australia, the bureau said. More: 250 dead, $91 billion in damages: 2018 was a catastrophic year for U.S. weather; 4th-warmest for globe More: Global warming predicted to melt massive Himalayan glaciers, disrupt food production Across the Pacific, at the far southern tip South America, the tiny town of Porvenir, Chile, soared to 90.5 degrees earlier this week. This may have been the Earth's most southerly 90-degree temperature on record. Heat this high on the southern tip of South America is unprecedented, wrote Guy Walton, an Atlanta meteorologist who tracks weather records. The heat in Chile sparked a number of wildfires this week. The fires have killed two people and burned thousands of acres, AFP reported. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. Elsewhere in South America, temperatures topped 100 degrees in Perito Morino in Argentina, an all-time record high, the Capital Weather Gang said. Story continues And despite the recent polar vortex invasion up here in the U.S., the global temperature in 2018 was the fourth-hottest on record, scientists announced earlier this week. Overall, the past five years have been the five warmest years since records began in the late 1800s, both NOAA and NASA said. Heat will continue to be the Earth's major weather story in the future, as the globe warms due to human activity: Heatwaves and other extreme weather "are likely" to persist as a "consequence of accelerating climate change," a report from the World Meteorological Organization said last year. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Record-shattering, 'unprecedented' heat scorches Australia, Chile and Argentina By Paola Balsomini GENOA, Italy, (Reuters) - Heavy machinery began winching down a huge slab of concrete in the northern Italian city of Genoa on Friday to clear the way for a new bridge to be built after the old one collapsed six months ago, killing 43 people. Italy's populist government has made the reconstruction of the roadway a priority, with Transport Minister Danilo Toninelli saying at a ceremony marking the start of the demolition that the project would be "the image of Italy's revival". A 200-metre-long section of the bridge gave way in August of last year, sending dozens of vehicles into free-fall and severing part of a motorway linking Italy with southern France. The Morandi bridge, opened in 1967, is also a vital link within the seaside city, and without it the activity of the busy port has been put at risk. The new bridge will be opened next year, Toninelli said, which would be a record-setting pace for construction in Italy, where major infrastructure projects often drag on for years, plagued by corruption and bureaucracy. "This marks the relaunch of Genoa, Liguria and Italy," said Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, who spoke before demolition began. Italy sank into its third recession in a decade in the second half of last year. The reconstruction process, which is expected to cost as much as 230 million euros ($261 million), may provide a welcome economic boost. Famed Genoa-born architect Renzo Piano, who designed the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and The Shard in London, donated a proposal for the new viaduct and has agreed to supervise the works. After the bridge collapse, the Italian government blamedoperator Autostrade per l'Italia, which is controlled by the Benetton family, for poor maintenance and threatened to revoke the group's concessions. Autostrade and its top managers are under judicial investigation, along with transport ministry officials, for culpable homicide. The company denies any wrongdoing. The transport ministry has also said it had no responsibility. The reconstruction contract has been awarded to Italy'sbiggest builder Salini Impregilo and shipbuilderFincantieri. (Reporting by Paola Balsomini, writing by Giselda Vagnoni; Editing by Steve Scherer and Toby Chopra) Photo credit: Ram From Popular Mechanics How much innovation can you pack into the tailgate of a pickup truck? The American auto industry is endeavoring to find out. First, GMC rocked the tailgate world in 2018, giving the Sierra pickup a wacky tailgate-within-a-tailgate. Now it's Ram's turn, with this dual-hinged, 60-40 split tailgate. We live in fascinating tailgate times. Photo credit: RAM In addition to normal drop-down tailgate operation, Ram's creatively-named Multifunction Tailgate opens barn-door style, allowing you to swing open one or both sides of the gate. The side-hinge operation means you don't have to reach across the tailgate to reach items in the bed of the truck; as Ram points out, this configuration also makes it easier to load items from the curb, or even to use a forklift to hoist heavy items into the pickup. Photo credit: RAM Of course, this isn't the first time we've seen a side-hinged tailgate on a pickup: Recall that, way back in 2006, the original Honda Ridgeline offered a two-mode tailgate that could flip down or swing open on hinges on the driver's side of the bed. Ram's design takes that idea one step further. The split tailgate reduces the amount of clear space you need behind the truck to swing the gate open on its side hinges, allowing you to open the gate even if you've got a trailer hitched up. The Multifunction Tailgate also offers an optional drop-down center step to make it easier to clamber into the bed of the truck. Photo credit: RAM Like the conventional tailgate, Ram's split gate is fully damped with an optional remote release, and can support up to 2000 lbs. The Multifunction Tailgate will be optional on all Ram 1500 models beginning in the second quarter of 2019, costing $995 plus an additional $295 for the tailgate step. So, GMC and Ram have shown us what they've got up their tailgates. What do we think Ford will do to upgrade its tailgate game? ('You Might Also Like',) By Jamie Freed SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Australia's Qantas Airways Ltd said on Thursday it formally cancelled a longstanding order for eight Airbus SE A380 superjumbo jets. The decision, which will remove the order placed in 2006 from the Airbus order book, comes as new doubts have been raised about the future of the four-engined A380. Dubai's Emirates is exploring switching some orders for the superjumbo to the smaller A350 in a move that has Airbus looking closely at closing A380 factories sooner than expected, people familiar with the matter told Reuters last week. A Qantas spokesman said the airline had formalised its decision to cancel the order for eight A380s following discussions with Airbus. "These aircraft have not been part of the airline's fleet and network plans for some time," the Qantas spokesman said. Qantas has 12 A380s in its fleet and the spokesman said it would proceed with plans to refurbish the cabins starting in the middle of this year, with the jets set to remain flying with the airline "well into the future". An Airbus spokesman said the manufacturer had agreed to the "contract amendment" announced by Qantas. "This change will be reflected in our end January order and delivery tables," the Airbus spokesman said. The Qantas spokesman declined to comment on the terms of the cancellation. It comes after another order long viewed as doubtful for 10 A380s from Hong Kong Airlines was removed last month from the end-December Airbus order and delivery tables following negotiations. Willie Walsh, the CEO of British Airways parent IAG, said last week that Airbus should lower the price of the A380 if it wanted to sell more of them. The A380 has a list price of $445.6 million, but airlines typically receive significant discounts from manufacturers. (Reporting by Jamie Freed; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman) Patient Kaori Noguchi is wheeled to the operating room ofWomens College Hospital in Toronto. (Toronto Star via Getty Images) Documents leaked earlier this week by Ontarios NDP appear to show that Doug Fords government is working to privatize aspects of the provinces health care system. NDP Leader Andrea Horwath claims the files reveal that services like inspections, laboratories, licencing, devices, and Ornge (a non-profit air ambulance and associated ground transportation service) are expected to be privatized. Health Minister Christine Elliott was quick to shoot down the claims, saying the documents were preliminary drafts and theres no measure in place to privatize such services. She did admit that there were aspects of the plan that her government is considering. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. Toronto-based family doctor Danyaal Raza is an assistant professor at the University of Toronto and board chair for Canadian Doctors for Medicare. He spoke to Yahoo Canada about what Canadians should know when it comes to the privatization health care. Financing vs. delivery Raza says theres some confusion around privatization and health care since theres two things people talk about when they use that word: private financing of healthcare services, versus public financing of healthcare services. There is also the issue of delivery. When you deliver healthcare services, the actual delivery organization can be a not-for-profit organization or a for-profit organization. Theyre not the same thing, he says. You can have public financing of a health care service that can be delivered on a for-profit or not-for-profit basis. You can have private financing that can fund the same sort of thing. Medicare refers to the public financing of hospitals and many health services. Once the government collects tax revenue, the provinces and federal government use it to jointly fund hospital and physician services. Although hospitals are funded by tax dollars, they are private institutions but private not-for-profit institutions. For-profit vs. not-for-profit Not all health facilities work like this. Ontarios nursing home sector, for example, has some public funding, but can run on a for-profit or not-for-profit basis. Story continues Raza says research points to meaningful differences between the two models. Studies have looked at the costs associated with for-profit versus not-for-profit delivery in nursing homes, dialysis centres, and hospitals, analyzing outcomes such as mortality, and morbidity. When you look at the studies that have sought to answer this question, the not-for-profit organizations perform better on both costs and health outcomes than the for-profit institutions, he says. Not-for-profits tend to have lower cost per patients and for-profit ones have higher mortality and higher morbidity. Levels of transparency Theres less research into why that is, though there are theories. One is that theres less transparency for the patient or consumer in the health care sector. Raza uses the example of buying a cell phone and cell phone plan: a consumer can see how much its going to cost and the features theyre going to get and compare one plan to another. With health care facilities like dialysis centres or a nursing home, its more challenging to compare since things are less transparent. You can judge things that dont make a difference in health outcomes, like if it has a nice waiting room or if the magazine subscriptions are up to date, but you cant observe if the instruments are being sterilized appropriately, or if the doctors are overworked. Its harder to judge the quality of care youre getting, says Raza. He adds the theory is that theres increased incentive in for-profit institutions to lower revenues and cut corner for things that might affect patient care, which dont necessarily correlate to customer satisfaction. The wealthiest are the healthiest Raza explains that the patients who are most profitable tend to be the healthiest and the wealthiest. This can be problematic when health care is turned into a profit-generating activity, since the goal is to reduce expenses and maximize revenue. That way, theres an incentive to only tend to the people who are easiest to treat and who facilities can generate the most revenue from. Its a perverse incentive when you introduce the profit motive, he says. Youre not going to necessarily treat the people who are the sickest and often the people who have the most difficulty accessing care. More regarding the future of Ontarios health care system will surely be uncovered in the coming months. Raza says examining its current state is an important thing to consider. Theres this other conversation were having now about whether or not we want to expand for-profit delivery and use public funding to do that, he says. Theres cause for us to pause and think carefully about it. In my opinion, I dont think expanding for-profit delivery for publicly funded services is a good thing. Washington (AFP) - President Donald Trump appeared prepared Friday to ignore the US Congress's deadline to determine who ordered the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi amid new revelations that Saudi Arabia's crown prince spoke of going after the journalist "with a bullet." With pressure mounting in Washington and Riyadh, the US president theoretically had until the end of the day to designate those responsible for the murder of the Washington Post columnist, who was strangled and dismembered by Saudi agents in the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul on October 2. The time limit was imposed by Democratic and Republican senators, who wrote to the president on October 10 calling for an investigation into the killing. Under a human rights accountability law the letter gives the president 120 days to designate and punish those responsible. But no definitive action was expected Friday from the administration. "Consistent with the previous administration's position and the constitutional separation of powers, the president maintains his discretion to decline to act on congressional committee requests when appropriate," a senior administration official said. "The US Government will continue to consult with Congress and work to hold accountable those responsible for Jamal Khashoggi's killing." The State Department said Thursday Washington had already taken action, pointing to last year's revocation of visas for nearly two dozen Saudi officials and the freezing of assets of 17 others. Some members of Congress have publicly stated that they suspect the powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was directly responsible for the killing, based on the CIA's conclusions. Predicting little movement, a bipartisan group of senators on Thursday proposed a bill that would cut off some weapons sales and require sanctions against any Saudis involved in Khashoggi's killing. "Seeing as the Trump administration has no intention of insisting on full accountability for Mr. Khashoggi's murderers, it is time for Congress to step in and impose real consequences to fundamentally re-examine our relationship with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and with the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen," said Robert Menendez, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Story continues The Trump administration claims it has no compelling evidence of the direct involvement of the young and powerful Saudi leader, although the senators -- briefed in private by intelligence leaders -- stressed they remained convinced that the prince known as "MBS" was responsible. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo raised Khashoggi's killing among other issues during a meeting in Washington Thursday with Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi foreign minister, according to the State Department. Al-Jubeir reiterated Friday that the prince was not involved in the murder and blaming him would be crossing a "red line." "For anyone to think that they can dictate what we should do, what our leadership should do, is preposterous," al-Jubeir told reporters. - New revelations - Trump has publicly said he is not concerned whether Prince Mohammed was involved, arguing that the Saudi alliance benefits Washington due to the kingdom's purchases of weapons and its hostility to regional rival Iran. The deadline coincides with new embarrassing developments for the prince. The New York Times, citing officials who had seen US intelligence, said Prince Mohammed had warned in an intercepted conversation with an aide in 2017 that he would go after Khashoggi "with a bullet" if he did not return to Saudi Arabia from the United States. US intelligence understood that the ambitious 33-year-old heir apparent was ready to kill the journalist, although he may not have literally meant to shoot him, according to the newspaper. Special UN rapporteur Agnes Callamard said Thursday after a visit to Turkey that the killing of Khashoggi, who had written critical pieces on Saudi Arabia in the Post, had been "planned and perpetrated" by Saudi officials. In light of the revelations, Khashoggi's Turkish fiancee said Friday she hoped pressure from US lawmakers would encourage the Trump adminstration to take a tougher stance on the killing. Speaking at a news conference in Istanbul, Hatice Cengiz left the door open to a meeting with Trump if certain conditions were met, a softening of her position in December when she rejected an invitation from the US president. "A visit to the United States could take place in March," Cengiz said, adding she hoped Trump would have a change of "attitude" about the murder. In a busy week for the pharma sector, drug giants Merck MRK and Eli Lilly LLY reported fourth-quarter results along with Glaxo GSK and Sanofi SNY. The Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) gave positive recommendations, granting marketing approval to several drugs this week. Meanwhile, Sanofi gained FDA approval for Cablivi to treat a rare blood disorder while Glaxo signed a global immuno-oncology collaboration with Germanys Merck KGaA. Recap of the Weeks Most Important Headlines Inside Q4 Earnings: Mercks fourth-quarter results were strong as the company beat estimates for earnings as well as sales. Importantly, its PD-1 inhibitor, Keytruda continued its robust performance, recording sales of $2.15 billion in the quarter, up around 14% sequentially and 66% year over year. Its 2019 guidance was also in line with expectations. Lillys fourth-quarter results were mixed as it beat estimates for sales but missed the same for earnings. However, Lilly lowered its previously issued earnings and sales guidance for 2019 to account for the costs related to the pending acquisition of Loxo Oncology and the Lartruvo confirmatory study failure. Glaxo beat estimates for earnings as well as sales. It expects earnings per share to decline 5-9% at constant exchange rates (CER) in 2019, which includes the impact of Advair generic launch and costs related to the acquisition of TESARO. It also assumes closure of the joint venture with Pfizer PFE for Consumer Healthcare business and divestment of certain nutrition brands like Horlicks in India and Bangladesh. Sanofis fourth-quarter 2018 results were mixed as it beat estimates for earnings and missed the same for sales. In 2018, Sanofis business earnings grew 5%, at the higher end of its guided range of 4%-5%. Sanofi expects business earnings to grow between 3% and 5% at CER in 2019. CHMP Gives Positive Opinion to Several Drugs: Pfizer gained positive CHMP opinion, which recommended marketing approval for its new lung cancer medicine, Vizimpro (dacomitinib) that was approved in the United States last September. The CHMP also gave nod to AstraZenecas AZN application looking for approval of its type II diabetes medicine, Forxiga for a new indication as an oral adjunct treatment to insulin in adults with type-1 diabetes. Sanofi also gained a positive CHMP opinion to include data from the phase III cardiovascular outcome study (ODYSSEY OUTCOMES) on the label of its anti PCSK9 therapy, Praluent Injection. A similar application is awaiting FDAs decision, which is expected in April. Story continues Roches RHHBY filing for label expansion of Hemlibra for routine prophylaxis to prevent or reduce the frequency of bleeding episodes in patients with haemophilia A without factor VIII inhibitors was also given a positive opinion by the CHMP. Hemlibra is presently marketed for the treatment of haemophilia A patients with factor VIII prophylaxis. In the United States, a similar label expansion was approved in October last year. The CHMP also gave nod to Mercks label expansion filing looking for approval of Keytruda, in combination with chemotherapy, as a first-line treatment for metastatic squamous NSCLC a difficult-to-treat lung cancer patient population - regardless of PD-L1 expression. The filing was based on data from the phase III KEYNOTE-407 study. In the United States, a similar label expansion was approved in early October last year. The final decision by the European Union on these products is expected in the coming months. Glaxos Immunotherapy Deal with Merck KGaA: Glaxo entered into a global immuno-oncology collaboration with Germanys Merck KGaA to jointly develop and commercialize the latters bifunctional fusion protein immunotherapy M7824, which has the potential to treat multiple difficult-to-treat cancers. Eight studies are ongoing or expected to be initiated this year on M7824 including studies in non-small cell lung and biliary tract cancers. M7824 is designed to simultaneously target two immuno-suppressive pathways in the body, TGF- and PD-L1, which are commonly used by cancer cells to evade the immune system. For the deal, Glaxo made an upfront payment of 300 million euros to Merck KGaA, which is also entitled to potential development/commercial milestone payments, taking the potential deal value to up to 3.7 billion euros (($4.2 billion). The partnership is another step in Glaxos efforts to strengthen its oncology pipeline Sanofis Cablivi Gets FDA Approval: The FDA granted approval to Sanofis Cablivi (caplacizumab) for the treatment of a rare blood disorder called acquired thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura. Cablivi was added to Sanofis portfolio with the acquisition of Ablynx last year. In the EU, Cablivi was granted marketing authorization in September last year and was launched in the first market, Germany. Sanofi also announced that a pivotal phase III study evaluating its pipeline candidate, isatuximab in combination with some standard of care medicines met the primary endpoint of prolonging progression free survival in patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma. Sanofi plans to file regulatory applications for isatuximab later in 2019. Lillys Olumiant Meets Endpoint in Eczema Study: Lilly and partner Incyte announced that its oral JAK inhibitor, Olumiant (baricitinib) met the primary endpoint in two late-stage studies evaluating it in a new indication moderate-to-severe atopic dermatitis (AD), a type of eczema. Notably, the top-line results showed that after 16 weeks of treatment, a statistically significant proportion of patients treated with baricitinib monotherapy achieved the primary endpoint compared to those treated with placebo. The primary endpoint was defined by the Investigator's Global Assessment for AD (IGA) score of clear or almost clear. Roche Submits sBLA for Kadcyla: Roche submitted a supplemental biologics license application to the FDA looking for label expansion of its breast cancer drug, Kadcyla for adjuvant (after surgery) treatment of patients with HER2-positive early breast cancer who have residual disease after neoadjuvant (before surgery) treatment. Kadcyla, an antibody-drug conjugate, is approved as monotherapy in second-line setting for treating metastatic breast cancer in patients who have received treatment with Herceptin or/and taxane since 2013 A potential approval will boost the prospects of the drug as it will expand the patient population. FDA Accepts Mercks NDAs for Two Anti-Bacterial Candidates: Merck announced that the FDA has accepted and granted priority review to its regulatory applications for two anti-bacterial candidates. This includes a new drug application for MK-7655A, a fixed combination of relebactam with imipenem/cilastatin and a supplemental NDA for label expansion of its antibacterial medicine, Zerbaxa. While Merck is looking to get MK-7655A approved for the treatment of complicated urinary tract infections (cUTI) and complicated intra-abdominal infections (cIAI) caused by certain susceptible Gram-negative bacteria, the Zerbaxa sNDA has been filed to get FDA nod for nosocomial pneumonia. While FDA action on MK-7655A is expected on Jul 16, that on Zerbaxa sNDA is expected on Jun 3. AstraZenecas Medicines Get FDAs Priority Status: AstraZenecas monoclonal antibody, MEDI8897 was granted "Breakthrough Therapy" and "Prime" designations in the United States and Europe. MEDI8897 is a next-generation medicine being developed for the prevention of lower respiratory tract infection (LRTI) caused by respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in infants. Meanwhile, AstraZenecas new respiratory biologic Fasenra was granted Orphan Drug Designation (ODD) by the FDA for a new indication hypereosinophilic syndrome (HES). Fasenra is presently marketed as an add-on maintenance treatment for severe, eosinophilic asthma The NYSE ARCA Pharmaceutical Index declined 0.1% in the last five trading sessions. Large Cap Pharmaceuticals Industry 5YR % Return Large Cap Pharmaceuticals Industry 5YR % Return Here is how the seven major stocks performed in the last five trading sessions: In the last five trading sessions, while Glaxo recorded the highest gain of 3.5%, Lilly declined the most (2%). In the past six months, Merck has been the biggest gainer (16.4%) while Bristol-Myers declined the most (15.9%). (See the last pharma stock roundup here: Q4 Earnings, Pipeline Updates at PFE, RHHBY) What's Next in the Pharma World? Watch out for pipeline and regulatory updates next week. The Hottest Tech Mega-Trend of All Last year, it generated $8 billion in global revenues. By 2020, it's predicted to blast through the roof to $47 billion. Famed investor Mark Cuban says it will produce ""the world's first trillionaires,"" but that should still leave plenty of money for regular investors who make the right trades early. See Zacks' 3 Best Stocks to Play This Trend >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Eli Lilly and Company (LLY) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research The market expects PepsiCo (PEP) to deliver a year-over-year increase in earnings on lower revenues when it reports results for the quarter ended December 2018. This widely-known consensus outlook is important in assessing the company's earnings picture, but a powerful factor that might influence its near-term stock price is how the actual results compare to these estimates. The stock might move higher if these key numbers top expectations in the upcoming earnings report, which is expected to be released on February 15. On the other hand, if they miss, the stock may move lower. While the sustainability of the immediate price change and future earnings expectations will mostly depend on management's discussion of business conditions on the earnings call, it's worth handicapping the probability of a positive EPS surprise. Zacks Consensus Estimate This food and beverage company is expected to post quarterly earnings of $1.49 per share in its upcoming report, which represents a year-over-year change of +13.7%. Revenues are expected to be $19.51 billion, down 0.1% from the year-ago quarter. Estimate Revisions Trend The consensus EPS estimate for the quarter has been revised 2% lower over the last 30 days to the current level. This is essentially a reflection of how the covering analysts have collectively reassessed their initial estimates over this period. Investors should keep in mind that an aggregate change may not always reflect the direction of estimate revisions by each of the covering analysts. Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise Earnings Whisper Estimate revisions ahead of a company's earnings release offer clues to the business conditions for the period whose results are coming out. This insight is at the core of our proprietary surprise prediction model -- the Zacks Earnings ESP (Expected Surprise Prediction). The Zacks Earnings ESP compares the Most Accurate Estimate to the Zacks Consensus Estimate for the quarter; the Most Accurate Estimate is a more recent version of the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate. The idea here is that analysts revising their estimates right before an earnings release have the latest information, which could potentially be more accurate than what they and others contributing to the consensus had predicted earlier. Story continues Thus, a positive or negative Earnings ESP reading theoretically indicates the likely deviation of the actual earnings from the consensus estimate. However, the model's predictive power is significant for positive ESP readings only. A positive Earnings ESP is a strong predictor of an earnings beat, particularly when combined with a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold). Our research shows that stocks with this combination produce a positive surprise nearly 70% of the time, and a solid Zacks Rank actually increases the predictive power of Earnings ESP. Please note that a negative Earnings ESP reading is not indicative of an earnings miss. Our research shows that it is difficult to predict an earnings beat with any degree of confidence for stocks with negative Earnings ESP readings and/or Zacks Rank of 4 (Sell) or 5 (Strong Sell). How Have the Numbers Shaped Up for PepsiCo? For PepsiCo, the Most Accurate Estimate is lower than the Zacks Consensus Estimate, suggesting that analysts have recently become bearish on the company's earnings prospects. This has resulted in an Earnings ESP of -0.14%. On the other hand, the stock currently carries a Zacks Rank of #4. So, this combination makes it difficult to conclusively predict that PepsiCo will beat the consensus EPS estimate. Does Earnings Surprise History Hold Any Clue? While calculating estimates for a company's future earnings, analysts often consider to what extent it has been able to match past consensus estimates. So, it's worth taking a look at the surprise history for gauging its influence on the upcoming number. For the last reported quarter, it was expected that PepsiCo would post earnings of $1.56 per share when it actually produced earnings of $1.59, delivering a surprise of +1.92%. Over the last four quarters, the company has beaten consensus EPS estimates four times. Bottom Line An earnings beat or miss may not be the sole basis for a stock moving higher or lower. Many stocks end up losing ground despite an earnings beat due to other factors that disappoint investors. Similarly, unforeseen catalysts help a number of stocks gain despite an earnings miss. That said, betting on stocks that are expected to beat earnings expectations does increase the odds of success. This is why it's worth checking a company's Earnings ESP and Zacks Rank ahead of its quarterly release. Make sure to utilize our Earnings ESP Filter to uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they've reported. PepsiCo doesn't appear a compelling earnings-beat candidate. However, investors should pay attention to other factors too for betting on this stock or staying away from it ahead of its earnings release. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Gaza City (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - Two Palestinian teenagers were killed by Israeli fire on Friday during clashes along the Gaza border, the health ministry in the Hamas-run enclave said. Hassan Shalabi, 14, was killed by "live fire to the chest east of Khan Yunis" during protests along the frontier with Israel in the southern Gaza Strip, the ministry said. It announced the death of 18-year-old Hamza Ishtawi shortly after, saying he was shot in the neck during similar clashes east of Gaza City. Another 17 Palestinians were shot and wounded at different protest sites along the border, the ministry added. The Israeli army declined to comment on the deaths, but said 8,200 "rioters and demonstrators" had been protesting along the frontier. "They are hurling rocks at (Israeli) troops and towards the security fence, as well as a number of explosive devices that did not cross the fence," a spokesman said, adding that they had heard grenade explosions. Israeli troops "responded with riot dispersal means and fired according to standard operating procedures", he added. Palestinians in Gaza have for nearly a year gathered at least weekly along the border for often-violent protests, calling on Israel to end its blockade of the enclave. Israel says it is protecting its borders and accuses Hamas of orchestrating the protests. At least 249 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since then, the majority shot during clashes, though others have been hit by tank fire or air strikes. Two Israeli soldiers have been killed over the same period. Protests have dwindled in recent months after an informal agreement between Israel and Hamas. If you ever forget which credit card youve attached your Lyft account to, or worry Amazon's Alexa didn't quite catch your order, Mastercard's got a solution for you. The company is debuting a new, signature melody, that shoppers will eventually hear every time they complete a purchase with Mastercard, whether they're standing at a store counter, clicking and buying online, or placing an order through a voice activated speaker. For ten days, starting Friday, customers visiting the clothing store, Fred Segal Sunset, in West Hollywood will be able to hear the roughly one second sound when they check out. And within the next several months, the melody can be heard when purchases are made through Amazon's voice assistant Alexa. But it will likely be a few years before merchants worldwide have fully adopted and integrated the new sound, says Raja Rajamannar, Mastercard's chief marketing and communications officer. Still, a slightly longer version of the check out sound will immediately become the sign off in Mastercard ads--on TV, social media and online. Those who call Mastercard will hear the musical notes as they wait on hold, and there will even be Mastercard ringtones. "By the time it becomes ubiquitous is probably 3 to 5 years,'' said Rajamannar, speaking of restaurants, stores and other businesses. But "we hope ... that the recognition of our melody happens a lot faster across these different areas.'' Having a distinctive sound can be reassuring to shoppers who are now making purchases across a variety of platforms, often without having to pull out an actual card. "The moment the sound comes, they know theyre in a safe secure environment, and it's a Mastercard transaction,'' he says. More: Sears saved from liquidation: Judge approves bankruptcy sale to ex-CEO Eddie Lampert More: Jeff Bezos accuses National Enquirer parent of 'extortion and blackmail' attempt Story continues More: Mastercard ditches letters for its new logo in iconic brand move It's the latest innovation by the company, which recently announced that it's removing its name from credit cards, putting the focus solely on its iconic red and yellow circles. Rajamannar says that more than 80 percent of people recognize Mastercard based on its symbol alone. And as it tweaks its visual branding, Rajamannar says that an audio signature is also critical at a time when information is increasingly consumed by listening to audiobooks and podcasts. The idea was to come up with a melody that is on the one hand very universal,'' he said. "It should be simple enough to be able to hum. It should be adaptable to wherever you are in the world.'' Though the basic melody will be the same, it can be altered to better reflect a given country, region or the aesthetic of a particular business, the company says. Some merchants may prefer an operatic vibe, for instance, while others may go for a sound that is more pop. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Opera? Pop? Mastercard debuts new melody that will sound whenever, wherever you buy OMAHA, Neb. (AP) The number of new COVID-19 cases continued to decrease in Nebraska last week, and the state currently has one of the lowest rate of new cases in the nation. The Airbus A220 is now in service for Delta Air Lines. Delta completed its first revenue flight on the jet Thursday morning with Delta Flight 744. It departed New York LaGuardia at 6 a.m. and landed in Boston 18 minutes ahead of schedule at 7:02 a.m. Deltas second A220-operated flight departed New York LaGuardia at 7:47 a.m. ET for Dallas/Fort Worth. In Texas, the first A220 departure from Dallas/Fort Worth was scheduled to depart at 8:05 a.m. ET (7:05 a.m. local time), bound for New York LaGuardia. Delta becomes just the fifth airline in the world and the first in North America to fly passengers on the A220, which was previously known as the Bombardier CSeries until Airbus took a stake in the aircraft line. TODAY IN THE SKY: First look: Korean Air shows off its new Bombardier C Series CS300 Deltas A220s seat 109 passengers, including 12 in first class and 15 in Deltas extra-legroom Comfort+ section. The narrowbody planes seem a candidate to become a passenger favorite on the routes theyll fly. Delta's A220s have large overhead bins and feature two-by-three seating in economy, meaning fewer middle seats. All of the plane's seats will be wider than the industry average. The planes have extra-large windows, including one in the lavatory. Delta has ordered two versions of the jet, with the current, smaller version seating 109 passengers and the larger 130. Delta expects all 90 of the A220s it has ordered to be delivered by the end of 2023. TODAY IN THE SKY: Trip report: Reviewing the Delta One Suite with sliding privacy doors Delta is deploying the jets at several of its hubs, using them to fly to markets with high business demand. The passenger-friendly A220 could help give Delta a competitive advantage against rivals using older or more-cramped planes on competing routes. The two routes beginning Thursday Boston-LaGuardia and Dallas/Fort Worth-LaGuardia are among the first routes Delta has targeted for its first A220 flights. Among the others that will soon get A220 flights are Detroit-Dallas/Fort Worth; LaGuardia-Houston Bush Intercontinental; Salt Lake City-Dallas/Fort Worth and New York JFK-Houston Bush Intercontinental. Story continues Deltas A220s had been expected to debut on Jan. 31, but that had to be pushed back after the federal shutdown delayed the Federal Aviation Administration certification needed to put the planes into passenger service. TODAY IN THE SKY: Delta Air Lines shows off its first Airbus A220 in Atlanta VIDEO: Deltas new Airbus A220 takes flight ARCHIVES: Delta Air Lines' Airbus A220 makes its first flight This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Now flying for Delta Air Lines: The Airbus A220 Helsinki (AFP) - A groundbreaking trial providing a guaranteed basic monthly income to 2,000 jobless people has led to improved wellbeing but failed to boost employment, Finnish authorities announced on Friday. Last December the Nordic nation concluded a two-year experiment in which a randomly selected group of unemployed people were paid an unconditional, tax-free 560 euros ($634) a month. Researchers studied whether the no-strings-attached income could better incentivise jobless people to find work than traditional unemployment benefits, which may be docked as soon as the recipient starts earning money. Although the widest such study to be conducted in recent years in Europe, the Finnish trial was limited to participants who were already unemployed. Proponents of a true "universal income" call for a monthly payent, sometimes described as a citizens' wage, to be given to everyone regardless of their wealth, family or work situation. Nevertheless Finnish researchers believe their findings provide important insights for reforming the country's system of welfare payments. "The recipients of a basic income had less stress symptoms as well as less difficulties to concentrate and less health problems than the control group," Minna Ylikanno, lead researcher at Finland's welfare authority Kela, said in a statement. "They were also more confident in their future and in their ability to influence societal issues," she added. Results at this stage are preliminary and relate only to the first year of the study, meaning Friday's findings are far from conclusive. But a hoped-for stiumulus to levels of employment has not yet materialised, the project's researchers said. "The recipients of a basic income were no better or worse than the control group at finding employment in the open labour market", Ohto Kanninen, research coordinator at the Labour Institute for Economic Research, said in a statement. Story continues Finland's social affairs minister, Pirkko Mattila, conceded on Friday that the government has no plans to roll out the scheme across the whole country. "Even though the basic income model developed for the experiment is not likely to be adopted as such for more extensive use, I think the experiment was very successful," Mattila said in a statement. "We can use the data from the experiment to redesign our social security system; that is going to be the next major reform. Similar schemes have been trialled in Canada and Kenya. The experiment has not been without its detractors. Finnish trade unions have called instead for employers to pay living wages that do not need to be subsidised by benefits. The Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has claimed that a basic income programme in Finland would not be economically viable and could leave significant numbers of people in worse poverty than now. In 2017, Swiss voters rejected a proposed universal income in a referendum after critics slammed the idea as rewarding the lazy and the feckless. Eugene ONeills Ah, Wilderness! is a comedy. No, thats not quite right. Eugene ONeills Ah, Wilderness! is a Eugene ONeill comedy, which is to say it doesnt actually make you laugh much. But at least it doesnt make you want to kill yourself. Also, its under four hours long under three, in fact. Still, Thank you for not beating me up again, sir! is the only attitude I can imagine would lead a viewer to detect much merit in this mild, low-conflict, low-impact family drama built around the wheezy theatrical device of a misunderstanding due to a letter. First performed in 1933, the play, which is running at the Sheen Center for Thought & Culture Greenwich Village through February 17, found ONeill in an atypically cheery mood, wondering what it might be like to be a member of a reasonably happy upper-middle-class family in prosperous southern Connecticut. He sketches some plausible characters but cant come up with much for them to do. A romance is briefly disrupted by a misleadingly nasty missive composed under duress by one young lover and sent to another on July 4, 1906, the day on which the entire play is set. Thats it. The teen who receives the note in question is Richard (the likable Peter Atkinson), a dreamy young radical in Connecticut who bathes in subversive polemics and sensuous verse such as The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, the medieval poem that became a sensation in a Victorian translation by Edward FitzGerald. A jug of wine, a loaf of bread and thou is its most famous line, but the very next ones yield ONeills title: Beside me singing in the wilderness ah, wilderness were paradise enow! Richard is a bog-standard young man o passion, on a higher intellectual plane than those around him and welling with artistic urges. Will no one understand his exquisite sensitivity? As if all of this werent enough of a giveaway that he is an ONeill stand-in, his father mocks him as an ally of the Communist Emma Goldman, whom ONeill admired. Under orders from her harrumphing papa, Richards sweetheart, Muriel (Megan McDevitt), sends him a letter breaking things off, which causes him to go binge-drinking with a hooker, though he is far too innocent to sleep with her. Story continues There is a touch of honeyed memory to Richard and Muriels relationship, but we have to wait far too long until the third act to meet her, and the one scene they share, touching though it is, is so idealized that it carries little weight. Their temporary contretemps isnt enough story to sustain a two-and-half-hour drama, in which little else happens except an unresolved subplot about middle-aged ex-lovers who still carry a torch for each other. If ONeill could actually create some laughs in his comedy, that would be different. But for the most part, he doesnt even try, and the single most amusing interlude in the play is droll purely by accident: A fast-talking hepcat appears briefly to lay down a layer of outlandishly dated slang that sounds like Grandpa Simpson reminiscing about how young bucks used to talk in the old days. ONeills finest accomplishment here is Richards kind, understanding father, Nat (Ken Trammell), a sort of Atticus Finch of Connecticut. Hes a principled, honest newspaper owner, fondly ribbing Richard but standing up for him, reasoning his way through all disputes with decency and compassion. When Muriels retailer father, Dave (a blustering Jim Haines), makes false accusations against Richard, Nat wont hear a word of it and ends the encounter even as Dave threatens to pull his advertising from the newspaper. Sorting out the tangle that results from the letter that has Richard in despair, Nat proves the kind of dad who asks for a straight, honest answer and commands so much respect that he gets one, every time. Will Rogers once played him. Credit to ONeill for reining in his usual excesses, but if this play were turned in by an unknown writer today, its author would be ordered to put it back in the oven for a while. Or maybe just stash it in a drawer and try to come up with a more compelling idea. If the standard for success is, This play was so much fun I didnt order a cyanide cocktail at intermission, the standard is too low. More from National Review Jeff Bezos, the Amazon CEO and Washington Post owner - AFP or licensors The owner of the National Enquirer on Friday said it would investigate claims by Jeff Bezos that the tabloid had attempted to blackmail the billionaire by threatening to release sexually explicit photographs. American Media Inc (AMI) said it believed it had acted lawfully after Mr Bezos published emails appearing to show the tabloid asking him to retract suggestions that political motives drove their decision to reveal his extramarital affair, in return for not publishing the images. The emails were included in a remarkable 2,000-word blog post in which the Amazon founder laid out links between the tabloid, President Donald Trump and Saudi Arabia. Federal prosecutors in New York were last night reviewing the incident to determine whether anything criminal had taken place, Bloomberg News and Associated Press reported. AMI has previously admitting paying hush money to a woman who claimed to have had an affair with Mr Trump before the US election. National Enquirer issue published 10th January, 2019, featuring pictures of Jeff Bezos and news anchor Lauren Sanchez. Mr Bezos owns The Washington Post, a newspaper Mr Trump has repeatedly and vehemently criticised. In Mr Bezoss blog post he said certain powerful people including Mr Trump had concluded I am their enemy, and that The Washington Posts criticism of the murder of its columnist, Jamal Khashoggi, by Saudi operatives was undoubtedly unpopular in certain circles. A member of his team has suggested a government entity may have been involved in revealing the affair, according to a Washington Post reporter. Of course I dont want personal photos published, but I also wont participate in their well-known practice of blackmail, political favours, political attacks, and corruption, Mr Bezos wrote. I prefer to stand up, roll this log over, and see what crawls out. The extraordinary row involves people at the very pinnacle of American power the worlds richest man, the countrys most powerful politician and a magazine which helped the latter hide his scandals. This latest standoff began last month when Mr Bezos unexpectedly announced a divorce from his wife, MacKenzie Bezos, vowing to continue our shared lives as friends. The trigger for the statement became clear within days, when the National Enquirer revealed how Mr Bezos, 55, had begun a relationship with Lauren Sanchez, a 49-year-old former Fox presenter who was also married, and published a series of their intimate texts. Story continues Lauren Sanchez is a former Fox presenter Credit: KH1 / WENN Mr Bezos ordered an investigation, led by Gavin de Becker, his longtime security consultant, to see how the text messages had been obtained. Mr de Becker later said he was investigating suggestions that Ms Sanchezs brother Michael Sanchez, a Hollywood talent manager with connections to Trump campaign figures, might be behind the leaks. He also said that strong leads point to political motives. Suggestions that the National Enquirer was acting for political reasons prompted an attempt by figures at the magazine to get a retraction and a promise that they would not be repeated, according to emails published in Mr Bezoss blog. One of the messages detailed 10 as yet unpublished photos of both Mr Bezos and Ms Sanchez. Mr Bezos wrote: Rather than capitulate to extortion and blackmail, Ive decided to publish exactly what they sent me, despite the personal cost and embarrassment they threaten. Donald Trump, left, listens to Jeff Bezos, right, speaking at a White House meeting in June 2017 Credit: AP Photo/Alex Brandon On Friday, AMI put out a statement: American Media believes fervently that it acted lawfully in the reporting of the story of Mr Bezos. Further, at the time of the recent allegations made by Mr Bezos, it was in good faith negotiations to resolve all matters with him. Nonetheless, in light of the nature of the allegations published by Mr Bezos, the board has convened and determined that it should promptly and thoroughly investigate the claims. It later emerged that prosecutors in Manhattan are reviewing whether AMI's actions violated its non-prosecution agreement relating to the $150,000 hush-money payment made to Karen McDougal, the former Playboy model who claims she had an affair Donald Trump. If that cooperation agreement is nullified then AMI, or its executives, could be reopened to prosecution over the hush payment. At the time of the original story revealing Mr Bezoss affair, Mr Trump tweeted: So sorry to hear the news about Jeff Bozo being taken down by a competitor whose reporting, I understand, is far more accurate than the reporting in his lobbyist newspaper, the Amazon Washington Post. Hopefully the paper will soon be placed in better & more responsible hands! Since returning as speaker of the House of Representatives in January, Nancy Pelosi has emerged as the face of a revitalised resistance movement against Donald Trump. Once written-off, the California Democrat, 78, now finds herself the third-most powerful politician in America after a blue wave saw her party win back the House majority during the November midterms. She and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer have already capitalised on their newfound advantage by standing firm to block the presidents demand for $5.7bn in federal funding to build his much-touted Mexico border wall. The Democratic leaders held out for 35 days during the stand-off the longest US government shutdown in history, beginning before Christmas and running well into the new year forcing President Trump to blink first and back down, a retreat that will have pained him personally. All eyes were on Ms Pelosi during the presidents delayed State of the Union address, waiting keenly for her reactions as he inevitably bragged about his administrations legislative achievements, took credit for an economic miracle and stressed the need for the wall to combat the southern immigration crisis he insists poses a growing danger. Her seemingly sarcastic applause at the conclusion was the moment commentators were waiting for and quickly became a meme, just as her exit from the White House in a red winter coat and sunglasses had in December. Or, for that matter, her appearance on TV to rebut the presidents scaremongering early January broadcast from the Oval Office, appearing side-by-side with Mr Schumer like concerned parents after a curfew had passed or the dour rural siblings of Grant Woods American Gothic (1930). Christine Pelosi, one of the speakers five children, joked on Twitter that the State of the Union clap took her back to her teenage years. President Trump might well have felt similarly. Born in Baltimore, Maryland, in March 1940, Nancy Pelosi is the daughter of activist Annunciata Lombardi and Thomas Big Tommy DAlesandro Jr, a congressman and later the port citys mayor. Story continues Acquainted with the Democratic political machine from an early age, Pelosi had a role in the family business as a teenager, helping at her fathers campaign events and answering eight separate phone lines on his behalf. Her brother, Thomas DAlesandro III, would in turn sport Baltimores mayoral chains of office. She attended John F Kennedys inauguration in January 1961 and graduated from the Catholic all-girls high school the Institute of Notre Dame a year later. Before graduating in political science from Trinity College, Washington, she interned with Maryland Senator Daniel Brewster. She married financier Paul Pelosi in September 1963 at Baltimores Cathedral of Mary Our Queen. The couple moved first to Manhattan, then to San Francisco where they settled, Nancy initially a stay at home mother who had five children in six years. Nancy Pelosi poses with her gavel after being sworn-in as Speaker for a second time on 3 January (Getty) By the early 1970s, she returned to politics after befriending California congressman Phillip Burton, working her way up the Democratic Party ranks. In 1976, she helped California governor Jerry Brown win the Maryland primary during an unsuccessful presidential run and was herself elected as the Democratic National Committee member for California, a position she would hold for 20 years. She was chair of the California Democratic Party between 1981 and 1983. That year, Phillip Burton passed away and was succeeded by his wife Sala. She in turn fell ill and decided not to seek re-election in 1988, designating Ms Pelosi as her successor. When Sala Burton died one month into her second term, Ms Pelosi won the special election to replace her and became the 5th Districts new congresswoman. She was one of just 24 women in the 435-seat chamber at the time. In the House of Representatives, she served on the Appropriations and Intelligence committees in the 1990s, campaigning for greater AIDS research funding and for a San Francisco military base abandoned in 1994 to be turned into a national park. She succeeded and the Presido near the the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco Bay was opened to the public in 1996. She was elected House minority whip in 2001, the first woman to hold the post, beating Steny Hoyer, an old contemporary from her intern days. A year later she became her partys minority leader when Dick Gephardt of Missouri stepped down, emerging as an outspoken opponent of George W Bushs War on Terror. Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer and speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi deliver a televised response to President Donald Trump's national address about border security at the US Capitol on 8 January (Chip Somodevilla/Getty) This stood her in good stead in 2006 when the Democrats won back their majority after 12 years in the midterms. She was duly elected the first female speaker of the House in American history on 4 January 2007. She was also the first Italian-American and first California speaker. In accepting the gavel, she spoke of her generation having broken the marble ceiling for their daughters and granddaughters, for whom the sky is the limit. Unfortunately for herself, the triumph would be short lived, the Democrats surrendering their advantage just four years later. Her tenure coincided with the 2008 economic collapse and her chamber pushed through a $840bn stimulus package and legislation backing financial reform and outlawing gender discrimination in pay. She also fought tirelessly for President Obamas Affordable Care Act reforming healthcare, reportedly holding countless meetings and phone calls day and night to secure a yes. In doing so, she became a focal point for Republican outrage and negative campaigning thereafter, making her return to the speakers chair after being unseated in 2011 look entirely unlikely. Close observers credit her subsequent renaissance to a tenacious work ethic and her skill as a fundraiser and organiser. She is said to get up at 5.30am every morning. Her return as speaker came with one major concession, agreeing to eight-year term limits for members of the Democratic leadership. She has said she regards herself as a bridge to the next generation of party leaders at an exciting moment in which 89 of the 235 Democratic members of Congress are women. The fact was celebrated when they all wore white in solidarity with the suffragettes at the State of the Union. This House will be for the people, she promised as she was sworn-in for a second time on 3 January 2019. Pointedly, she also quoted Ronald Reagans final speech as president: If we ever close the door to new Americans, our leadership role in the world will soon be lost. Perhaps her most scorching burn of recent days came when she was asked by a reporter whether Mr Trump had denied her the use of a military plane to take a congressional delegation to Afghanistan as an act of revenge after she had suggested he postpone the State of the Union. I dont think the president would be that petty, do you? The sweltering backwaters of Indonesian Borneo have become the unlikely ground zero for the global production and export of Kratom, a tree leaf hailed by some as a miracle cure for everything from opioid addiction to anxiety. Part of the coffee family, the leaf has been used for centuries in Southeast Asia and Papua New Guinea for its pain-relieving and mildly stimulating effects but it is now sold in powder form and exported worldwide -- alarming some health regulators who have raised concerns about safety. Kratom stimulates the same brain receptors as morphine, although it produces much milder effects. "I take Kratom and have had no problems. Every strain has its benefits some help you relax, others can treat insomnia or treat drug addiction. Some help increase stamina," grower Faisal Perdana told AFP. Fellow farmer Gusti Prabu, who now exports 10 tonnes of the drug a month, agreed. "Our ancestors used Kratom and there were no negative side effects. It can help eliminate drug addiction and help people detox," he explained. But its popularity is causing concern -- the drug is unregulated, and has had little clinical testing to assess its safety or side effects. Kratom is already banned for domestic consumption in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, though the former allows its export in unprocessed form. Health authorities in the United States -- now the drug's top importer -- have linked consumption of the plant and its derivatives to dozens of deaths, warning it could aggravate a deadly opioid epidemic gripping parts of the country. Compounds found in Kratom are opioids, which expose users to the same risks of addiction and death as illicit opiates, according to the US Food and Drug Administration. But for farmers in Kapuas Hulu, West Kalimantan -- the centre of production -- demand for Kratom is such that they have moved away from traditional commodities such as rubber and palm oil to start growing the tree, turning it into a major cash crop. Story continues And at the main post office in Pontianak, the key trading post for this part of Indonesian Borneo, it's clear the health warnings have done little to dampen interest. "Around 90 percent of our shipments from West Kalimantan province are Kratom that's been sold to the United States," post office head Zaenal Hamid said. As many as five million Americans use the drug and that number is growing, according to the American Kratom Association. Data from 2016 showed that the region was shipping some 400 tonnes abroad every month -- worth about $130 million annually at current global prices of some $30 a kilogramme. Most Kratom customers are reached through online platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Chinese e-marketplace Alibaba. The trend for alternative medicine has been credited with increasing interest in Kratom from Europe and America, where it is usually consumed as a tea or in capsules. - Opioid epidemic - The US is struggling with an opioid epidemic, fueled by addiction to prescription painkillers as well as street drugs like heroin and synthetic versions such as fentanyl. Kratom is legal in 43 states, but the FDA is pushing for greater restrictions and has already put an import alert on it, which means shipments entering the US can be confiscated. In a statement, the organisation warned consumers not to use the drug and said it was "concerned that Kratom appears to have properties that expose users to the risks of addiction, abuse, and dependence." Scientists say that while Kratom may have positive attributes, very little research has been done into the drug. "It has great potential as a remedy for pain and opioid addiction given its pharmacology and its potential accessibility," Michael White, head of the department of pharmacy practice at the University of Connecticut, told AFP. "It is promising and not proven," he added. Advocates insist it's a safe alternative to prescription drugs and can actually help opioid addicts. "Of the 44 deaths on record involving Kratom, they all involve poly-drug use," said Ryan Leung, a spokesman from kratom lobby group Botanical Education Alliance (BEA). "The FDA health warnings...(have) proven to be misguided by multiple experts," he added. For now, Indonesian producers are waiting to see how the regulatory battle in the US unfolds. And while bad weather and a salmonella scare dented exports in 2017, provisional data showed Kratom shipments bounced back strongly last year. Kratom farmer Prabu insisted: "The Kratom market has been very good over the past decade and it still has potential in the years ahead." He added: "People will see its usefulness, sooner or later." Belgrade (AFP) - Madagascar meatloaf, Laotian pork neck, Lesotho chicken kebab -- politics, not palate sets the menu at Korcagin, a Serbian restaurant that serves food only from countries that don't recognise Kosovo. One Sunday families filled the Belgrade tavern for a meal not normally associated with the Balkan state's meat-heavy cuisine: black tiger prawns drizzled with a zesty orange sauce. It was billed as the national dish of Palau, a little-known archipelago in the Pacific Ocean that last month became the latest country to revoke recognition of Kosovo, a former Serbian province. "Now everyone in Serbia knows Palau," said Vojin Cucic, the 29-year-old owner of Korcagin, which every Sunday serves a speciality from a country that rejects Kosovo's statehood. Two decades after the ethnic Albanian-majority province broke away from Serbia in a guerrilla war, the neighbours are still locked in a heated recognition battle. Kosovo has been recognised by more than 100 countries, including heavy hitters like the United States and most of Western Europe, since its 2008 independence declaration. But that's only slightly more than half of the UN's 193 member states, with the other camp including powerful nations like Russia and China. Belgrade is also actively fighting to unravel Pristina's gains, with Serbia's foreign minister regularly trumpeting the latest countries to reverse ties. Never mind that many of them are places most would struggle to find on a map -- like the Union of the Comoros, Suriname and most recently Palau. Big or small, they share a fan base at Korcagin, whose walls are plastered with Yugoslavia-era photos, flags and other memorabilia from a time when Serbia and Kosovo were part of one country. So far, the cooks have prepared more than 70 foreign dishes, giving preference to the countries that have rescinded their recognition. Cucic, who inherited the restaurant from his father, says he is motivated by patriotism. Story continues "If the US would withdraw recognition, we would have three days of free drinks," he says with a smile. - Numbers game - Pristina insists it is recognised by 116 nations. "This is nothing but Serbian propaganda," Jetlir Zyberaj, an advisor to Kosovo's foreign minister, told AFP however, without delving into specific numbers. The reality may be somewhere in between. Some of the countries have affirmed their reversals, while others have not contested the announcements or responded to AFP requests for comment. Last June, Serbia was left red-faced after announcing that Liberia had reversed its recognition, only to see the African country later issue a statement correcting the report. It is not clear what other countries gain from their changes of heart. Belgrade, whose foreign ministry refused to comment, often hails intentions to boost cooperation with the small states, but concrete details are hard to come by. When asked what the small southern African nation of Lesotho received for its retraction, its foreign ministry told AFP: "Nothing apart from the normal bilateral cooperation between the two countries." - Domestic audience - "My children ask me often where each country is, but these countries have the same voting rights (in the UN) as does China," Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic recently told local media. Boban Stojanovic, a political analyst in Belgrade, says the recognition game reflects the government's effort "to show the public that Serbia is doing something" about Kosovo. "In terms of international affairs, these countries...don't have any impact on the general (status) of Kosovo," he added. For years Belgrade and Pristina have slogged through EU-led talks aimed at normalising their ties. But broken promises and regular provocations keep derailing progress. In Serbia, Kosovo remains a powerful rallying cry for nationalists who see the former province as the cradle of their culture and Orthodox Christian faith. "Even if every country in the world recognises Kosovo, we still shouldn't. Kosovo is ours," Cucic said. WASHINGTON Members of Congress could have their first and probably only chance to question acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker on Friday, and theres a lot they want to ask: Has the White House tried to interfere in the criminal investigations surrounding the president? Has Whitaker revealed secrets to the White House? And the question that has confounded Washington for months: Is the investigation of Russian election interference that has shadowed the first two years of President Donald Trumps administration really about to end? But first: Will he show up at all? Whitaker is scheduled to appear before the House Judiciary Committee at 9:30 a.m. EST. The committee on Thursday authorized its chairman, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., to serve a subpoena on Whitaker if he declines to answer lawmakers' questions. Thursday, Whitaker told lawmakers that he would appear only if lawmakers promised to withdraw the subpoena threat. "Political theater is not the purpose of an oversight hearing," Whitaker said in a statement. Whitaker has presided over special counsel Robert Muellers investigation since Trump ousted Jeff Sessions as attorney general in November. Whitaker said last month that the investigation was close to being completed, the first time anyone familiar with its inner workings had offered even a hint in public of its likely trajectory. He did not elaborate. Democrats on the panel said theyre eager to know what he meant. By saying this is close to being wrapped up, are those his wishes or the words of the Mueller team? I think those are fair questions, said Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif. He said lawmakers deserve an assurance that the special counsel still has the freedom of movement that it needs to pursue leads. If Muellers work is nearing its end, its giving outward signs of an investigation still gathering evidence. Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker in Kansas City, Missouri, on Dec. 6, 2018. Lawyers for the special counsel are fighting two cases in which witnesses have defied orders to testify before Muellers grand jury. One, involving an unnamed company owned by a foreign government, awaits review in the Supreme Court. Story continues The lawyers confirmed in a court filing that Rick Gates, Trumps former deputy campaign chairman who pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy and lying to investigators, continues to cooperate with respect to several ongoing investigations. Prosecutors and Gates lawyers said it will be at least mid-March before theyre ready to set a date for him to be sentenced. Two weeks ago, FBI agents gathered troves of electronics and other materials from the home, apartment and office of longtime Trump confidant Roger Stone, whom they charged with lying to Congress. Prosecutors said they seized so much information that they might not be ready to bring him to trial until October. From what we can see, Im skeptical that hes close to wrapping up, said Randall Eliason, a George Washington University law professor and former federal prosecutor. Lawmakers said they plan to press Whitaker to explain what he meant. It was inappropriate for him to talk about a timeline for the ending of a criminal investigation, said Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif. The reason that prosecutors dont talk about timelines is with every new witness or new tranche of evidence you uncover, it could lead to additional witnesses, additional leads. Acting US Attorney General Matthew Whitaker Whitaker has been a polarizing figure since he took over the Justice Department. Some Democrats and Republicans in Congress questioned the legality of his appointment, arguing that he needed to be confirmed by the Senate. Not long after he took the job, Whitaker said he disregarded advice from the departments career ethics lawyers that he disqualify himself from overseeing the Russia investigation because of comments hed made questioning the inquiry and suggesting that the department could starve it of funding to bring it to an end. Lawmakers said they plan to press him on that, too. In a letter to lawmakers Thursday, the Justice Department said the White House had not asked Whitaker to make any promises about Mueller's investigation, and he had not made any. Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd wrote that under Whitaker's watch, the department has made its decisions "based upon the facts and law of each individual case" and "independent of any outside interference." More: Attorney General says Mueller investigation 'close to being completed' More: Incoming House committee chairman threatens to subpoena acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker Whitaker has presided over a period in which tandem criminal investigations around the president have intensified. Under his watch, Muellers office arrested Stone, Trumps longtime adviser, on charges of lying to Congress about his efforts to learn about emails the Russian government hacked during the 2016 campaign. A separate team of prosecutors said in a court filing that Trumps former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, made illegal hush-money payments to two women at the direction of Trump. Prosecutors in that case identified Trump with the pseudonym Individual-1. Nadler said in a letter to Whitaker that among the questions he wants answered is how the president reacted to the accusation. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Congress has lots of questions for Matthew Whitaker, including: Will he show up? By Sarah Marsh and Nelson Bocanegra CARACAS/CUCUTA, Colombia (Reuters) - Venezuela's government on Friday said the United States should distribute humanitarian aid in Colombia where it is being stockpiled, while the opposition warned that blocking much-needed food and medicine could constitute crimes against humanity. A day after the aid convoy arrived in the border city of Cucuta, President Nicolas Maduro ridiculed the United States for offering small amounts of assistance while maintaining sanctions that block some $10 billion of offshore assets and revenue. Rival Juan Guaido, who is recognized by dozens of countries as Venezuela's legitimate leader, warned military officers against blocking the arrival of aid amid spiraling disease and malnutrition brought on by a hyperinflationary collapse. "Take all that humanitarian aid and give it to the people of Cucuta, where there is a lot of need," Maduro said in a news conference. "This is a macabre game, you see? They squeeze us by the neck and then make us beg for crumbs." "They offer us toilet paper, like (U.S. President) Donald Trump threw at the people of Puerto Rico," he said at the conference, which experienced technical difficulties including a blackout and a microphone failure. He was referring to Trump's improvised 2018 aid distribution in the U.S. territory following a hurricane, during which he threw rolls of paper towels. Venezuela's dire situation has fueled a political crisis that has peaked over the last month with Guaido invoking a constitutional provision to declare himself the legitimate, interim president. The 35-year-old argues Maduro was re-elected last year in a sham vote and the country must hold new presidential elections. More than 40 nations including the United States, major European powers and most of Latin America have recognized Guaido as the country's rightful head of state. "I want to see how many military officers are willing to commit crimes against humanity by not allowing the lives of the most vulnerable to be saved, 250,000 to 300,000 are at risk of dying if they do not receive immediate attention," Guaido said during a gathering of university students. Officials at a Cucuta warehouse organized staple foods and sanitary products into sacks during an event attended by U.S. Ambassador to Colombia Kevin Whitaker and called on the armed forces to help it across. The aid seems unlikely to move into Venezuela. Humanitarian organizations have warned that attempting to force the aid into the country would be dangerous, and a top U.S. official on Thursday said Washington did not plan to do so. The Red Cross urged Venezuelans not to politicize the aid issue, without saying how or if the aid would arrive. In an ironic twist, a Venezuelan navy ship laden with equipment sent by Maduro's government to help Cuba rebuild after a tornado hit Havana last month arrived in the city's port on Friday, Cuban state media reported. Cuba is one of Venezuela's few remaining allies in the region although the country retains the powerful backing of Russia, China and Turkey too, which have warned others against intervening in its domestic affairs. The Trump administration last week issued sweeping sanctions against state oil company PDVSA, froze profits generated by refining subsidiary Citgo, and has vowed to starve Maduro's government of all revenue. Maduro said blocking the OPEC nation's oil shipments would be economically and socially "catastrophic" for the country, adding that anyone who accepted a nomination from Guaido to posts at PDVSA or Citgo would "face justice." European nations have been broadly critical of Maduro but have sought to strike a counterpoint to the aggressive U.S. stance by urging dialogue. Maduro said he was willing to meet with envoys of the so-called International Contact Group, that is backed by the European Union, but said a statement from its first meeting on Thursday was partisan and ideological. "You're deaf to the reality of a revolution with 20 years of democratic patrimony; you only follow the script written by the extreme right," he said. Critics say three previous rounds of dialogue have allowed the ruling Socialist Party to stall for time without making major concessions on key issues including imprisoned opposition politicians and electoral transparency. Guaido has said the time for dialogue has passed. (Reporting by Sarah Marsh in Caracas and Nelson Bocanegra in Cucuta, Colombia; additional reporting by Helen Murphy, Mayela Armas, Brian Ellsworth, Deisy Buitrago and Shaylim Castro; editing by Brian Ellsworth, Jeffrey Benkoe and James Dalgleish) The Hague (AFP) - French luxury shoe designer Christian Louboutin said Friday he has won a long-running legal battle against a Dutch company that copied his signature red-soled high-heeled shoes. A court in The Hague ruled that Dutch shoe maker Van Haren must stop selling the look-alike footwear, which went on the market in 2012, and pay damages to Paris-based Louboutin. The Dutch court ruling follows a general decision last year by the European Court of Justice that Louboutin could trademark the soles and their use of a red pigment called Pantone 18 1663TP. "Christian Louboutin warmly welcomes this new judgement, which further strengthens the favourable decisions regarding the validity of the red sole trademark already issued in many countries," the company said in a statement. The Hague district court said in an order issued on Wednesday that Van Haren's 2012 shoe model Fifth Avenue by Halle Berry "infringes the trademark rights of the French designer." It ordered the Dutch firm to destroy all existing copies of the shoe and to provide details of all outlets in which they were sold. The Hague court had asked the ECJ, the European Union's highest court, to decide on the principle of whether Louboutin's 2010 trademark for the soles was valid. In a case that vexed the EU's top legal minds, Van Haren had argued that it was impossible to trademark a shape. Louboutin argued, and the ECJ agreed, that the trademark referred mainly to the colour. Louboutin has marketed the red-bottomed shoes for more than a quarter of a century and the glam footwear was featured on the consumerism-worshipping television series "Sex and the City". Louboutin has faced a series of legal battles over the distinctive soles. A Paris appeals court in May 2018 ordered the French shoe company Kesslord to pay Louboutin damages after it sold red-bottomed shoes. In 2012 a US court also said that Louboutin could trademark the red soles, reversing an earlier ruling that would have allowed rival Yves Saint Laurent to paint its outsoles scarlet. But one year before that Louboutin lost a separate case in France against the Spanish clothing chain Zara. Washington (AFP) - John Dingell, an imposing and outspoken Democrat who became a powerful figure in Washington over the course of a record 59 years in Congress, has died at the age of 92. The death of former House member Dingell, who retired in 2015, was announced by his wife Debbie Dingell, who succeeded him in their district in the car-making region of Michigan. In recent years, in retirement, he was known for stinging criticism of President Donald Trump. Dingell was scathing, for instance, towards the end of last month's partial government shutdown prompted by Trump's dispute with Democrat lawmakers over his proposed border wall. "Crooks like Trump will steal a hot stove and come back for the smoke. Theres no bar too low," he wrote on Twitter on January 24. Dingell was an imposing figure. He stood 6-foot-3 (1.9 metres), weighed 200 pounds and had a booming voice. He was a long-serving committee chairman who helped shape US legislation on everything from energy and health care to telecommunications and consumer protection. Dingell served with 11 presidents and cast 28,551 votes, CNN said, quoting the House historian's office. LOS ANGELES It didn't matter whether Jay Brome called for backup during high-speed stolen car pursuits, intense vehicle impoundments or hit-and-run investigations. His fellow officers at the California Highway Patrol would not respond even when situations required him to hold his gun out, putting his life at risk. They made him feel unsafe at work in other ways, too, Brome recalls. Some officers tied hangers in the shape of penises around his locker. They routinely flung homophobic slurs and once carved his name off an award plaque. Brome says the dangerous workplace environment began years ago, when he was attending highway patrol academy and a fellow cadet held a gun to his head. I know you are gay," the cadet said, according to Brome. "Tell me you are gay and I will pull the trigger. Brome filed numerous internal complaints, but nothing happened. Supervisors allowed the hostile treatment to continue, Brome surmised, because he was a gay man. In 2016, Brome sued the California Highway Patrol for 20 years of alleged discrimination and harassment. They refuse to acknowledge theres a problem and they refuse to do anything about it, said Brome, of Vallejo, California. Bromes story is part of a wave of lawsuits alleging anti-gay workplace discrimination filed by gay officers against law enforcement departments across the U.S. in recent years. The lawsuits describe abusive work environments, where being gay or lesbian often meant cruel taunts, hostile work conditions and limited career opportunities. Some officers said they faced different work standards, while others claimed administrators passed them over for promotion or denied them protection all because of their sexual orientation. In all, there were at least 11 such lawsuits filed since 2016, according to a review conducted by USA TODAY of public records and media reports. Experts on law enforcement and civil rights activists noted that the problem of LGBT officers feeling unsafe at work isnt new, but some officers are now heading to the courts to demand accountability after years of internal complaints that were often ignored. Story continues "Usually when there's a lawsuit, a lot of things have been exhausted to get to that point," said Roddrick Colvin, a public affairs associate professor at San Diego State University. "So we get a very, very narrow band of cases that actually make it to the courts." Jay Brome 2018 Lawsuit by on Scribd This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. Many departments refused to comment on the pending litigation and its unclear what really happened on the job. But the lawsuits all paint the same picture of an intolerant law enforcement system that can treat its own people with little regard. The command staff has a problem with your sexuality In New Jersey, Andrew Kara sued the Bergen County Sheriff's Office for sexual harassment, sexual orientation discrimination and wrongful termination in 2017. Officers and supervisors allegedly mocked Kara in person and in work texting groups because he is gay. He endured slurs and questions about whether he had any "AIDS medicine." Once, the lawsuit states, a sergeant mocked Karas sexual preference by insinuating that Kara had choked on a thing or two in his lifetime, as he simulated oral sex. Kara did not comment on the pending case, nor did the sheriff's office. The office requires all employees take annual training on its anti-harassment and discrimination policy, spokesperson Derek Sands said. He added the agency complies with state and federal anti-discrimination laws. In Missouri, Sgt. Keith Wildhaber of the St. Louis County Police has a trial scheduled this April two years after filing his lawsuit. He alleged the agency denied him multiple promotions despite his qualifications. The command staff has a problem with your sexuality," a police commissioners board member allegedly told him. "If you ever want to see a white shirt [get a promotion], you should turn down your gayness. Wildhaber said he has participated in two promotional processes since filing, but still has not been promoted. The St. Louis County Police and County Counselor's Office declined to comment on the pending case or its policies. "Its been a rough two years," Wildhaber said. The Williams Institute, a think tank at the University of California, Los Angeles, that focuses on public policy, tracked lawsuits involving LGBT officers from 2000 to 2013, the biggest study of its kind. It found lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender officers and applicants filed 48 court cases during that time period. I was devastated Officers who filed lawsuits said they worried not just about their career, but also their mental and physical health. The homophobic harassment Brome said he first faced in the academy continued at three different San Francisco Bay Area departments throughout his career until 2015, when his doctor advised him to take medical stress leave because of the discrimination's toll. Doctors diagnosed him with anxiety, depression and PTSD, Brome said, and the stress provoked constant headaches and stomach problems. As he awaits California Highway Patrol's response to his 2018 brief, which is an appeal to a court dismissal of his 2016 lawsuit on the grounds he waited too long to file, Brome said he wants accountability and financial compensation for lost wages. The agency has an internal process to resolve complaints, spokesperson Fran Clader said, and providing equal employment opportunity is department policy. Clader said the agency does not comment on pending litigation. In New Jersey, Sharon Papp left a job she loved at the Princeton Police Department in 2015, two years after filing for sexual orientation and gender discrimination, as well as sexual harassment. Papp, a lesbian, said the litigation barred her from possible promotions. By then, Papp had clocked in 22 years in that New Jersey agency, and nearly six years serving elsewhere. "I hit a dead end and I was devastated," she said. Papp said her police chief at the time, David Dudeck, grabbed and shook his genitals on multiple occasions in front of Papp and other officers, some of whom joined her lawsuit against the department. The former chief also called male officers "p---y" to degrade them, Papp said, disrespecting women, too. Another time, when Papp was on vacation in Rhode Island with her wife, Dudeck asked a subordinate officer, "Do you think she's going up there and eating p----?" while making a "v" with his fingers and putting his tongue out, according to a deposition. In another instance, Papp alleges Dudeck said he would assign an investigation into a sexual assault involving two men, to "the best d--- sucking detective." Sharon Papp 2013 Lawsuit by on Scribd This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. "My biggest stressor was not the job itself, but it was from the chief of police," Papp told USA TODAY. "Really, in this situation, I felt powerless." Her anxiety sometimes manifested as muscle tension, high blood pressure and diarrhea. Along with her colleagues, Papp brought a complaint to their police union in February 2013. The complaint then went to the mayor, City Council and business administrator. But none of the officials spoke to them, Papp said, so they filed the lawsuit a couple months later to seek accountability. The trail was scheduled for Feb. 4, when Papp settled for $1.3 million. Dudeck retired in 2013 and admitted to a list of discriminatory actions, according to a court document. Current Chief of Police Nicholas Sutter said the department strives to maintain an inclusive environment and treat all with dignity and respect. "The Princeton Police department has worked to move the department culture in a direction that concentrates on the wellness of our employees and the tenants of service oriented policing that benefits our residents," Sutter said. "Our recruitment and promotional processes have successfully identified officers that epitomize the backgrounds, professionalism, honor, knowledge, integrity and ideals of service that our community deserves and our department strives to represent." 'Tip of the iceberg' The public is only now learning more about discrimination against LGBT police officers in part because of recent legal changes that allow them to come forward and demand justice, researchers and activists say. Few gay and lesbian officers sued their departments in the 1980s and '90s, said Colvin, who has researched lesbian and gay police. But as more officers came out and local and state governments adopted public employment protections, lawsuits have increased, Colvin said. Sacramento Police Officer Jeff Kuhlmann, left, marches with his boyfriend, Los Angeles Police Officer David Ayala, right, in the San Francisco Gay Pride Parade, June 28, 2015 in San Francisco, California. Most state, county and local law enforcement departments require officers to submit discrimination claims at their respective level of government, Colvin said, sometimes through a union or human relations commissions. Claims may be resolved internally or through negotiation or arbitration. Others facing employment discrimination may leave departments or policing in general, Colvin said. Officers can also miss deadlines for filing complaints or decide to put up with homophobic talk to get along with coworkers. Law enforcement officers who do decide to sue for anti-LGBT discrimination have legal grounds, said Greg Nevins, senior counsel for Lambda Legal, which advocates for LGBT rights. Federal courts recognize protection for public LGBT employees under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment also protects public LGBT employees, especially in claims of irrational sexual orientation discrimination, Nevins said. More: Federal appeals court: Civil rights law covers LGBT workplace bias Related: Nearly half of LGBTQ employees remain closeted at work, rate unchanged in decade, study says Police may also be able to cite state statutes, local ordinances and collective bargaining provisions prohibiting workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, Nevins said. As the legal system continues to adopt more progressive stances on workplace discrimination, lawsuits by other minority groups such as women likewise have also trended upwards, Colvin said, as people are more willing to come forward. A long history of abuse against LGBT people Many law enforcement agencies have mistreated the LGBT community, so its not entirely surprising that some officers harass their gay coworkers, said Chicago-based police misconduct attorney Andrea Ritchie, the author of an Amnesty International report called Stonewalled: Police Abuse And Misconduct Against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual And Transgender People In The U.S. Police departments in the U.S. have a long history of cracking down on same sex sexual activities, arresting gender nonconforming people in public spaces and raiding LGBT establishments. The police raid at New York City's Stonewall Inn in 1969 was a flash point, Ritchie said, but police targeted LGBT gathering places such as bars and bathhouses as early as the 1920s. While researching police misconduct against LGBT people, Ritchie said officers often told her about homophobic and transphobic behavior they or their colleagues experienced within the department. "There's very little nuance in terms of how they treat people who are sitting next to them in the car, who they perceive to be part of a particular community, versus how they treat people outside of the car," Ritchie said. Julie Callahan witnessed police discrimination for most of her nearly 40 years in law enforcement. She says her police colleagues sometimes stopped transgender people just because they were trans. Then, in 1998, she became the first officer at the San Jose Police Department in California to come out as transgender and later in 2001 to transition on the job. After she came out, she said supervisors gave her negative feedback about her "lifestyle." Callahan said coworkers broke into her desk, stole her Palm Pilot with all her contacts and left a note with the word "f----t." One officer in the department was especially vocal about his anti-LGBT attitudes. When Callahan got off work at 3 a.m. one night and walked to her personal car in civilian clothes, she said that officer jumped out from behind a pillar and physically attacked her, using transphobic and homophobic slurs. She told a commanding officer about the incident that can now be considered a hate crime, but Callahan said she did not submit a crime report. The San Jose Police Department did develop a transgender officer policy while she worked there, Callahan said, making it one of the first nation to do so. "I know that transgender officers will have a very different experience in our department today than what Julie experienced," said James Gonzalez, the department LGBTQ community liaison officer. "Today, we are actively recruiting from the LGBTQ community and our chief regularly convenes an LGBTQ advisory board that is constantly working to make SJPD a more inclusive place to work and serve." Callahan has since retired honorably from the agency, but she said former coworkers still intentionally misgender her online and at regional meetings in her capacity as a district attorney investigator. New York City police commissioner Bill Bratton poses for a photo with some his troops, before the NYC Pride March 2016. Since founding and running the support group Transgender Community of Police and Sheriffs (TCOPS) International, Callahan said she has heard from dozens of officers across the country who lost their jobs after coming out as transgender to their administrators. "You will have this employee who's an exemplary employee by all written accounts and personal accounts before their transition," Callahan said. "But after they transition they can do no right. And they get written up and written up and even though the accusations, and the behaviors described are contrived, the officer has been fired." But while police previously may have previously lacked connections with gay people, Colvin said coworkers or patrol partners coming out can sometimes change dynamics for the better. Meanwhile, LGBT police associations, such as Gay Officers Action League (GOAL) chapters, can uplift LGBT officers by providing mentorship and community. In recent years, some police departments have set out to hire LGBT police officers and provide LGBT training to their staffs, some to avoid messy public lawsuits or because they were required by the courts, and some to embrace inclusivity. LGBT awareness training can improve how police treat members of the community inside and outside agencies, said Greg Miralaga, president of Out to Protect, an organization supporting LGBT law enforcement officers. With help from others, including San Jose's police chief, he wrote a California law effective this year that requires LGBT training for law enforcement and 911 operators. "The law requiring training very much is in response to a fairly long history of discrimination and harassment in law enforcement," Miralaga said. "And the good news is we're going to start dealing with it, but it's not gonna change overnight." Thriving after a lawsuit In some cases, officers were able to survive the public scrutiny that comes with suing their police department and even continue advocating for LGBT people. Memphis police officer and LGBTQ liaison for the department, Davin Clemons, who sued for discrimination against the MPD in 2014, is now running for Memphis City Council as he continues to work for the department. Officer Davin Clemons filed suit in 2016 for the sexual orientation discrimination he says he endured at the Memphis Police Department in Tennessee. When he got engaged, Clemons said his colleagues mocked him. No one ever showered in the police departments bathroom while he did, Clemons said, because he is gay. Supervisors allegedly expressed displeasure about the attention Clemons brought to the unit as department LGBTQ liaison. They held him to a different standard, including assigning him mandatory overtime and unfairly disciplining him for a driving accident in inclement weather, his lawsuit alleges. His close-knit, elite law enforcement unit prized hypermasculinity, A-type personalities and conformity, Clemons said. And as a black, gay man with groomed eyebrows and manicured fingernails, he was different. "Anybody who doesn't fit is an outsider," Clemons said. Clemons filed internal complaints, charges with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and eventually his lawsuit citing Memphis's 2014 anti-discrimination ordinance. The city denied his claims and began settling in 2017, agreeing to increase LGBT sensitivity training. The Memphis Police Department declined to comment on Clemons' lawsuit. The police department has actively participated since 2016 in the city's efforts to make Memphis a more inclusive workplace, said Alexandria Smith, the city's chief human resources officer. Today, Memphis has a LGBTQ employee resource group and also recruits officers at Pride fairs. Memphis police officer and LGBTQ liaison for the department, Davin Clemons, who sued for discrimination against the MPD in 2014, chats with attendees during his Memphis City Council run kickoff party in downtown Memphis, Tenn. on Jan. 31, 2019. "We really want to open our doors to a variety of individuals to come and work for us," Smith said. Clemons said that while the lawsuit put stress on everyone involved, he believes suing ended the homophobic harassment and improved his workplace environment. He did not take a leave of absence during the litigation. Months after settling, he transferred to the training academy. He kept his role as LGBTQ community liaison and is running for City Council. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: LGBT police officers say they've faced horrible discrimination, and now they're suing The school does not allow children to use phones during class time (PA) A Leicester school is charging parents 2 to return mobile phones confiscated from their children during class time. South Wigston high school bans phones because it says the devices are a major facilitator for bullying and also a distraction to learning. However, it has now been accused of holding phones to ransom, following the introduction of the charge. Lawyers have also argued that the school could be breaking the law, reports Schools Week. The electronic device policy of the school says mobiles can only be left in the school office at the start of the day by parent request, for emergency reasons. Education Secretary Damian Hinds (PA) South Wigston says that any phone subsequently found will be confiscated, kept in the school safe and then returned to parents. A school policy document adds that: A 2 contribution to the schools charity will be required for return. But although restricting use of the phones is legal, enforcing a charge to get them back may be a step too far, it has been argued. The Department for Education told Schools Week that said parents can only be charged for items they bought from the school. It said schools could not levy compulsory charges unless they were for optional activities or items. Mobiles distract from learning, the school has claimed (PA) One unnamed pupil at the school described the charge as a tax and a ransom. The 2 fee has also been challenged by lawyers. One, Ramona Derbyshire, a partner at Thrings law firm, said schools could confiscate phones, but could not impose a charge as a disciplinary process. She added that the school in question is walking a thin line as a charitable contribution has to be voluntary and not part of a disciplinary process. The South Wigton policy came in the same week as education secretary Damian Hinds said that he would have no trouble in banning phones from schools. Headteachers make these decisions, he told a conference. And as it happens, the great majority of them have made the decision either to ban mobile phones or restrict their use in some way, and I fully support them in doing that. Story continues I dont want kids using mobile phones when theyre in school, clearly. Watch the latest videos from Yahoo UK WASHINGTON (AP) The Latest on William Barr's nomination to be attorney general (all times local): 1 p.m. The Senate Judiciary Committee has approved President Donald Trump's pick for attorney general. William Barr's nomination was approved along party lines Thursday. It now heads to the Senate floor, where Barr is expected to be confirmed. Barr, who served as attorney general between 1991 and 1993, would succeed Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who was pushed out by Trump last year. Democrats have largely opposed Barr's nomination, saying they want a stronger commitment from him to fully release special counsel Robert Mueller's final report. Barr says he will release as much as he can under the law. Opponents have also cited a memo Barr wrote to the Justice Department before his nomination in which he criticized Mueller's investigation for the way it was presumably looking into whether Trump had obstructed justice. __ 12:12 a.m. The Senate Judiciary Committee is poised to approve William Barr's nomination to be attorney general, a vote that is likely to be mostly along party lines as Democrats have questioned how transparent Barr will be once special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation concludes. Once the committee approves the nomination Thursday, it will head to the full Senate, where Barr is expected to be confirmed. That vote could come as soon as next week. Barr would replace Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who was pushed out by Trump last year. Barr previously served as attorney general from 1991 to 1993. Democrats and many Republicans have said Mueller's final report should be fully released. Barr has said he will be as transparent as possible under Justice Department regulations, but many Democrats are skeptical. NOGALES, Ariz. (AP) The Latest on Nogales City Council condemning used of new razor wire on border wall (all times local): 7:20 p.m. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials say the new horizontal layers of razor wire were added to the border wall in Nogales, Arizona at a request for additional support. They did not say who made the request. In a statement Wednesday night, the CBP says the request was for "high-risk urban areas commonly exploited by criminal smuggling organizations." The CBP response came quickly after the Nogales City Council passed a resolution condemning the use of new razor wire that now covers the entirety of a tall border wall through downtown. The council is calling on the federal government to remove all concertina wire installed within the city limits. Otherwise, Nogales Mayor Arturo Garino says it will result in a lawsuit. The CBP says the new wires are on U.S. government property. ____ 6:45 p.m. Elected officials in a small Arizona border city have passed a resolution condemning the use of new razor wire that now covers the entirety of a tall border wall through downtown. The Nogales City Council's resolution Wednesday night calls on the federal government to remove all concertina wire installed within the city limits. Otherwise, Nogales Mayor Arturo Garino says it will result in a lawsuit. City officials say Army troops installed more horizontal layers of the wire along the border wall last weekend. The council's resolution says the razor wire would harm or kill anyone who scales the wall and "is only found in a war, prison or battle setting" and shouldn't be in downtown Nogales. ___ 10:36 a.m. The Nogales City Council is decrying the installation of new razor fencing that now covers a border fence through downtown. The city sits on the border with Nogales, Mexico, and is contemplating a proclamation Wednesday night condemning the use of concertina wire. The vote comes after U.S. military troops installed additional layers of wire along the fence over the weekend, and the day after President Donald Trump highlighted border security in his State of the Union address. Photos published by the Nogales International newspaper show rows of concertina wire stacked along the approximately two-story wall. Nogales, a city of about 20,000 people, is largely reliant on Mexican shoppers and cross-border trade. Illegal crossings in that area have dropped steeply in recent years. Kim Kardashian appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Thursday and discussed the next step in her fight for criminal justice reform. I think theres such a stigma on people hiring formerly incarcerated people, Kardashian told Fallon. Kardashian has been seen as an influential advocate for prison reform since President Trump granted Alice Marie Johnson clemency last June, after Kardashian had advocated on her behalf. During Trumps State of the Union address Tuesday night, Johnson made an emotional cameo as Trump admitted that her story is an example of the disparities and unfairness that can exist in criminal sentencing. Kardashian echoed those sentiments, telling Fallon, Theres so many people that are incarcerated for life. For murder, that maybe they were just next to someone, and there was a group of people, and a fight broke out and somebody unfortunately died. But they didnt even hit the person, didnt even have a weapon and were serving life. Kardashian told Fallon that she believes people who are pardoned deserve a second chance, and she has one idea of how she can help them once they get out. I would love to hire formerly incarcerated people, she said. Kardashian, who is wildly successful in her business ventures, which include her KKW Beauty cosmetics line, Kimoji fragrances and mobile app, is a savvy entrepreneur who can provide opportunities for people who have been in prison, and she hopes that other companies follow suit. The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon airs weeknights at 11:35 on NBC. Watch clips and full episodes of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon for free on Yahoo View. Check out Kim Kardashian confirming details about her fourth child with Kanye West: Read more from Yahoo! Entertainment: Tell us what you think! Hit us up on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, or leave your comments below. And check out our host, Kylie Mar, on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. Pressure is mounting on Saudi authorities over the killing of Jamal Khashoggi and the cases aftermath this week as a deadline for action imposed on President Donald Trump by the US lawmakers last year passed without any response from the White House. A series of rapid-fire developments showed continuing outrage over the murder and dismemberment of The Washington Post columnist at the hands of Saudi spies and security officials dispatched to the Istanbul consulate more than four months ago. A deadline demanding a response on a US Global Magnitsky Act ruling calling for punishment of state human rights abuses came and went this week without a response from the White House on the culpability of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, who has strong ties to Mr Trump and his family. The White House says it is conferring with lawmakers, and contiuing to examine the murder. Hatice Cengiz in Istanbul on Friday introduced a new book about her late fiancee Jamal Khashoggi (AP) But if the Trump administration and its allies in Riyadh were hoping the 2 October killing would fade away, they were wrong. The case exploded into headlines again this week with a report describing the preliminary result of a UN probe, leaks of classified intelligence tying the crown prince, or MBS as he is known, to the murder, and new proposed Senate sanctions on Saudi Arabia, solidifying Khashoggis status as a global icon for press freedom and human rights. The attention to Jamal Khashoggi has exceeded in length and depth the regular killings of other political critics from the region dramatically, said Timothy Kaldas, a fellow at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy. Unlike many of the other victims of brutal authoritarians like MBS, Khashoggi allowed observers and the public to put a face to the murderous violence often visited upon individuals willing to risk their freedom and even lives to shed light on the wrongdoing of their leaders. The UN special rapporteurs preliminary report late Thursday, which followed a visit to Turkey, sharply condemned Saudi actions before and after the murder. Agnes Callamard, leader of the mission, also told the Associated Press she had been informed of a previously undisclosed 31 January court hearing in the case of 11 unnamed suspects that Saudi Arabia claims it is prosecuting for the murder. Story continues The evidence presented to us during the mission to Turkey demonstrates a prima facie case that Mr Khashoggi was the victim of a brutal and premeditated killing, planned and perpetrated by officials of the state of Saudi Arabia and others acting under the direction of these state agents, the report said. The New York Times published leaks that if confirmed would be among the most convincing pieces of evidence tying Mohammed bin Salman to the murder of Khashoggi. Based on accounts of leaked US intelligence intercepts, the young crown prince had told a close aide a year before Khashoggis murder he would like to use a bullet against the journalist. Saudi officials say that the killing was ordered by rogue elements. A group of both Democratic and Republican Party US senators introduced a new bill that if enacted would restrict arms sales to Saudi Arabia as punishment for the killing. Seeing as the Trump administration has no intention of insisting on full accountability for Mr Khashoggis murderers, it is time for congress to step in and impose real consequences to fundamentally re-examine our relationship with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, said US senator Robert Menendez, a Democrat, said in a statement. Agnes Callamard (right), UN special rapporteur on executions, stands in front of the Saudi consulate in Istanbul (EPA) At a bookshop in Istanbul on Friday morning, Hatice Cengiz, the fiancee of the slain journalist, unveiled a new book about his final days. She wept as she described the loss of Khashoggi, and called for UN and US congressional pressure on Saudi Arabia, and offered to meet with Mr Trump if he shifted his stance on the Saudi leadership. Ankara also upped pressure on Saudi, reiterating its demand for the extradition of the suspects it has named for trial in Istanbul. After four months, we are still waiting for answers, Fahrettin Altun, spokesperson for Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, wrote in a Tweet. Where is the body? Who ordered the hit? Was there a local collaborator? The world is watching. The new developments add pressure onto Saudi Arabia just as Riyadh was attempting to leave the high-profile murder behind and resurrect its grand plans to draw foreign investment into the country, and begin a geopolitical gambit to confront Iran. But Mr Kaldas suggested that crown princes reception at the World Economic Forum conference in Davos last month suggested many key global political and economic leaders have already moved on. There is a cynical hypocrisy manifested in many western governments choosing to ultimately ignore MBS crimes and try to get back to business as usual, he said. Its still prominent in the press and there are members of the press who continue to raise the issue. As toxic as MBS is, among the people hes comfortable with so far theres not a sign that theres any kind of material consequences for his actions. Istanbul (AFP) - The Turkish fiancee of murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi said Friday she hoped pressure from the US Congress would encourage the Trump adminstration to take a tougher stance on the killing. Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributor, was killed on October 2 by Saudi agents during a visit to his country's consulate in Istanbul to obtain paperwork ahead of his wedding to Hatice Cengiz. During a press conference in Istanbul for a book on Khashoggi's life, Cengiz left the door open to a meeting with US President Donald Trump if certain conditions were met. The book, titled "Jamal Khashoggi: his life, his fight, his secrets", was written by Turkish journalists Mehmet Akif Ersoy and Sinan Onus with testimony from Cengiz. An English version will be published next week. In the book, Cengiz shares her memories and papers detailing the life of former Saudi insider turned critic Khashoggi "who was a journalist for you, but a man for me". In December, Cengiz rejected an invitation from Trump. But on Friday, she said "a visit to the United States could take place in March". She hoped the US leader would have a change of "attitude" and "follow the case closely". "I have hope, not necessarily regarding Trump, but about the fact that the new Congress will follow this case more closely," she said, struggling with tears as she spoke. Special UN rapporteur, Agnes Callamard, said Thursday after a visit to Turkey that Khashoggi's killing had been "planned and perpetrated" by Saudi officials. Khashoggi had written critical pieces on the Riyadh administration in the Post. Trump faces a Friday deadline set by Congress to determine if Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the assassination of Khashoggi. His murder was met with international outrage and considerably hurt the image of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is accused of having ordered the killing. Story continues While Riyadh denies any involvement of Prince Mohammed, the crown prince has been implicated in the murder by American senators based on the CIA's conclusions. But the Trump administration has said there is no irrefutable evidence of Prince Mohammed's involvement, and has stressed the importance of the strategic partnership between Washington and Riyadh. Cengiz refused to comment on the accusations against the crown prince, saying only that she awaited the completion of Turkey's investigation. However she denounced the fact that Khashoggi's remains still had not been found. In an interview with CNNs Dana Bash, Kellyanne Conway said publicly for the first time that she was assaulted in a Maryland restaurant while there with her middle-school-age daughter, some of her daughters friends and their parents. Somebody was grabbing me from behind, grabbed my arms and was shaking me to the point where I thought maybe somebody was hugging me, one of the other parents coming to pick up his or her daughter, Conway said. And then as I turned around it just felt weird; it felt like thats a little aggressive. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. The alleged assault happened in Bethesda, Md., in October 2018, right after the Brett Kavanaugh hearings when, as Bash put it, tensions in America were very very high. CNN identified the alleged assailant as Mary Elizabeth Inabinett and got a statement from her attorney, who disputed Conways account. Ms. Inabinett saw Kellyanne Conway, a public figure, in a public place, and exercised her First Amendment right to express her personal opinions, read the statement from William Alden McDaniel Jr., Inabinetts lawyer. She did not assault Ms. Conway. Inabinett has been charged with second-degree assault and disorderly conduct, with a trial set for March in Maryland state court. She was just unhinged; she was out of control. I dont even know how to explain her to you. Her whole face was terror and anger, Conway said, later adding: She put her hands on me and was shaking me and was doing it from the front with my daughter right there, who then videotaped her. Conway said the reason she hasnt said anything sooner is because there were other kids and parents involved, and she hopes now that it will become a teachable moment for everyone. When asked if she told President Trump about the assault, she said she did, but it was long after the incident. Conway added that Trump said what he always says, which was asking whether Conway, her daughter and the others were OK. Watch what happened when this high school golfer with Down syndrome teed up at a famous PGA Tour hole: Story continues Read more from Yahoo! Entertainment: Tell us what you think! Hit us up on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, or leave your comments below. The number of those expecting a second vote has fallen dramatically (PA) More than a third of Britons 35% now believe there will be a Brexit deal, according to a survey. Pollsters YouGov found that the highest expectation among Britons is that some sort of deal will emerge because of current negotiations in Westminster and Brussels, despite warnings of a no-deal. However, 33% expect a no-deal Brexit, despite warnings about what might happen to the UK in such an event. Meanwhile the number of those who believe there will be a second Brexit referendum has almost halved in the past few weeks. Theresa May heads to Dublin tonight (PA) The survey found that just 12% of Brits believe there will be a second vote on Britains membership of the European Union. In early December more than a quarter of people, 26%, thought a second vote would take place. Meanwhile, another 20% told YouGov that they did not know what would happen. The findings come as talks continue for Britain to find an acceptable withdrawal deal ahead of the March 29 deadline for it to leave the EU. Theresa May is heading to Dublin on Friday to meet Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, as the British leader seeks to secure changes to the sensitive subject of an Irish border backstop. Brussels has ruled out any legally-binding changes to the backstop, which was agreed last year between the UK and the EU. European Parliament Brexit co-ordinator Guy Verhofstadt, has said the backstop is non-negotiable. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. Mrs May will meet Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar (PA) Elsewhere, Labour shadow chancellor John McDonnell said there would have to be a second vote in the event of a no-deal Brexit, as that would be catastrophic for our economy. In addition, Lord Kerslake has called for a fresh referendum because the government cannot get the backing of parliament. Where else do we go? A huge amount of quite unnecessary fear is being created among the public, he told BBC Radio 4. Pro-Brexit supporters in Westminster (PA) The government can stop this now. In addition, the Guardian reported Friday that the government has started recruiting civilian for a command and control centre in the case of a no-deal Brexit. Watch the latest videos from Yahoo UK Googles senior counsel on civil and human rights, Malika Saada Saar, and John Legend discuss criminal justice reform at the 2019 Makers Conference at Monarch Beach Resort in Dana Point, Calif., on Thursday. (Photo: Vivien Killilea/Getty Images for Makers) On the second night of the 2019 Makers Conference, John Legend took a break from stinky booty duty to lead a powerful criminal justice reform panel featuring Lenore Anderson, president of Alliance for Safety and Justice; Malika Saada Saar, Googles senior counsel on civil and human rights; and Robert Rooks, vice president of Alliance for Safety and Justice. Legend, who recently backed a startup led by former inmates, began with his own story. I have dealt with my mother being incarcerated in local jails in my hometown. I have also dealt with friends in my neighborhood going to prison for years. I have dealt with what it feels like for them to come out of prison, not know if they can get a job or reenter society, he told the Makers audience. It ravages so many communities. It is something we all have to deal with as a nation, because if you want to build a more loving society and community we cant continue to be the leading incarcerator of the world. After revealing his personal connection, Legend zeroed in on women behind bars the fastest-growing prison population in the nation. Most engaged in the discussion was Saar, a human rights lawyer before joining Google, who has spent years interviewing women behind bars. One of the most barbaric things Saar says she witnessed was female inmates behind bars shackled during labor. But worse than this practice, she says, is the separation that happens to mothers afterward. Many of the women who told me their stories are being shackled. They shared with me that they would have had every part of their body shackled if they could have kept their baby afterward, Saar told Legend, adding that the majority of women are in prison as a result of sexual abuse or addiction. Theres very few programs where mothers are allowed to stay with their babies. The research is that babies do better when they are with their mothers. Of the few programs for incarcerated mothers in the nation, none allow inmates to live with their children longer than 24 months. This means, said Saar, the situation ultimately ends in heartbreak either way. The unfortunate thing is that when the program ends, the babies turn 2 years old. They are taken away from their mothers, said Saar. That is traumatizing. Story continues Legend, following this statement, looked out at the audience soberly. Can you imagine? This is America, folks. This is our country, he said. Our leaders do this in our name, with our tax dollars. Just think about that. This is America. The conversation continued with Anderson and Rooks discussing their goal of reinvesting the money used for incarceration on other ways to increase safety. By the end, Legend issued a call to action. We have our marching orders as an audience. I think it is clear from all of these examples that political action is needed to end mass incarceration in America that means changing the laws, said Legend. Be part of the solution, and not part of the problem. Read more from the Makers Conference: Former Democratic U.S. Rep. John Dingell was remembered as a giant by colleagues in Washington and his home state of Michigan. Dingell, who died Thursday, was the longest-serving member of of Congress, having served a record 59 years. His name is linked to some of the most iconic pieces of legislation ever passed by Congress. Here's what people had to say: Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer: "Today the great State of Michigan said farewell to one of our greatest leaders. John Dingell will forever be remembered as The Dean of Congress not simply for the length of his service, but for his unparalleled record of legislative accomplishments. "The Congressmans grit, humility and humor taught us all that we can disagree without being disagreeable, while still finding common ground and working together to get things done. "The people of Michigan owe John Dingell so much, from his brave service in World War II, to his leadership as Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and his crucial role in passing some of the most monumental laws of the past century, including the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act. We are a stronger, safer, healthier nation because of Congressman Dingells 59 years of service, and his work will continue to improve the lives of Michiganders for generations to come. "I extend my deepest and most heartfelt condolences to Congresswoman Debbie Dingell and the entire Dingell family for their loss. In this divisive time, may we all draw wisdom and inspiration from the truly remarkable life of Congressman John Dingell, and may we all continue to learn from his example of selfless public service as we work to build a better future for our state." More: Michigan's John Dingell, longest-serving member in Congress, dies at 92 More: John Dingell was a Twitter superstar. Here are his greatest hits. Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan: "I am deeply saddened at the death of John Dingell. He will he remembered as of the greatest legislators in American history who never forgot about the people he served and the city of Detroit. Story continues "When our workers or automakers needed help, John always answered their call. No one fought harder for working people in Congress than John did. "When the Rouge and Detroit Rivers festered with pollution, John led the effort in Congress to clean them up. "Perhaps most importantly, when his father died, John carried on his legacy of fighting for universal healthcare coverage. He presided over the House when Medicare passed in 1965, and he was there when President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law in 2010. More than 680,000 Michiganders have healthcare today thanks to John never giving up on his fathers dream. "While its hard to imagine a world without John Dingell, his legacy of working to improve peoples lives will last forever. "John was a great personal friend to me for more than 30 years. On behalf of the entire city of Detroit, our hearts and prayers go out to Debbie and the rest of the Dingell family during this difficult time." U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi: Today, we have lost a beloved pillar of the Congress and one of the greatest legislators in American history. Every chapter of Chairman John Dingells life has been lived in service to our country, from his time as a House Page, to his service in the Army during World War II, to his almost six decades serving the people of Michigan in the U.S. Congress. John Dingell leaves a towering legacy of unshakable strength, boundless energy and transformative leadership. Chairman Dingell had a hand in crafting many major legislative accomplishments over the past half-century. Yet, among the vast array of historic legislative achievements, few hold greater meaning than his tireless commitment to the health of the American people. During every Congress since 1955, Chairman Dingell introduced legislation to secure affordable, quality health care for all Americans. Because of his fathers legacy and his own leadership, in 1965, he gaveled Medicare into law. In 2010, it was my privilege to hold that same gavel as we passed the Affordable Care Act. Chairman Dingell was our distinguished Dean and Chairman, our legendary colleague and a beloved friend. His memory will stand as an inspiration to all who worked with him or had the pleasure of knowing him. His leadership will endure in the lives of the millions of American families he touched. We hope it is a comfort to Chairman Dingells beloved wife, Congresswoman Debbie Dingell, and their entire family that so many mourn their loss and pray for them at this sad time. Former Michigan Democratic Party chairman Brandon Dillon: "A giant among men. Such a loss for our country. There will never be another man like John Dingell." Former Lt. Gov. Brian Calley: "John Dingell was a national treasure. His memory and his legacy will be long remembered and celebrated." U.S. Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich.: "John Dingells colleagues and I was proud to be one of them were always educated, inspired, and in fact awed by him. With John you always knew where you stood. If you disagreed you better have a damn good reason why. Simply reverting to rhetoric or the party line would not fly because he knew the issues 'inside and out' and always did his homework. John would outthink, outwork, and outfox nearly everyone. John was enormous in stature, integrity, and accomplishments. When he put his hand on your shoulder and spoke, you listened. Representing the great state of Michigan was truly a labor of love and John Dingell fiercely fought to support and rescue our auto industry in the toughest of times. There is a reason why a Dingell has represented Southeast Michigan for some 86 years. Their constituents know they always put country over everything else. They have all been chiseled from the same block of gold. My wife Amey and I want to express our deep condolences to his family. Especially his wife, and our good friend, Debbie during this difficult time. Speaker of the state House of Representatives Lee Chatfield, R-Levering: "The state of Michigan and United States of America lost a true public servant today with the passing of Congressman John Dingell. His love for his country and fellow man was evident, and I pray his legacy lives on. May God bless the entire Dingell family during this time." Former state House Minority Leader Sam Singh, D-East Lansing: "Rest In Peace, congressman." U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich.: Congressman John Dingell the Dean of the House and my dear friend was not merely a witness to history. He was a maker of it. His original family name, translated into Polish, meant blacksmith. Nothing could be more fitting for a man who hammered out our nations laws, forging a stronger union that could weather the challenges of the future. "John Dingell loved Michigan. He understood the connection our people have to manufacturing, to agriculture, and to the land and the Great Lakes that support our Michigan way of life. "His wife, Debbie, who has been his closest confidant for more than 40 years, is working hard to carry on his legacy. I know that all of us in Michigan are sending her and their family and many friends our love and support at this time. State Senate Minority Leader Jim Ananich, D-Flint: Michigan lost a hero today. Congressman Dingell taught us to do whats right and never be afraid, a lesson he embodied in word and deed. From enlisting in the U.S. Army to defend our nation during World War II, to fighting in the halls of Congress for a better America by championing equal rights, clean air and water, and quality health care for every American, John Dingells story is one of selfless and tireless service to country. The Michigan Senate Democrats offer their support and prayers to Congresswoman Dingell and the entire Dingell family, and we thank them for sharing John with us for 92 years. U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and 2020 presidential candidate: "What a life. As the longest-serving member of Congress, John Dingell helped increase access to health care, defended the auto industry, and was always good for just the right tweet. Sending @RepDebDingell and the rest of her family all my love." U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Mich.: "John Dingell will forever be recognized as one of the most impactful and consequential public leaders of our time. He lived every day of his life with clear moral purpose, incredible humor, a strong work ethic and an unwavering devotion to both Michigan and his family." U.S. Rep. Bill Huizenga, R-Mich.: "John Dingell was a fierce advocate for Michigan and a titan of the House who worked with a servants heart. I will remember John as someone who always fought for the constitutional standing of the House. My heart and prayers go out to Debbie and the entire Dingell family." Ron Bieber, president of the Michigan AFL-CIO: I have known John and Debbie for many years and consider them dear friends. John, the Dean, was a true champion of the people during his tenure in Congress. From healthcare reform, to environmental protection, to civil rights, to protecting the rights of working families, there was not a major piece of progressive legislation that passed without John having some influence on it. There is no doubt that our country is better off because of the work he did. "On behalf of myself and the Michigan AFL-CIO, I express our deepest condolences to Congresswoman Debbie Dingell and the rest of their family. We will always be grateful for the time we spent with John and for his advocacy on behalf of working people. Ronna Romney McDaniel, chairwoman of the Republican National Committee and former chairwoman of the Michigan Republican Party: I am fortunate to have formed a lifelong friendship with Debbie Dingell, and I send my sincerest condolences to her and their family during this time. History will always remember John for his commitment and service to Michigan and his love for Debbie. Chairman and CEO of General Motors Mary Barra: Keeping @RepDebDingell and her family in our thoughts and prayers today as we pay tribute to John Dingell a man of honor and determination. His dedication to the auto industry and Michigan are undisputed and we will miss his unifying voice and wry sense of humor. Kresge Foundation CEO and President Rip Rapson: "The Kresge Foundation mourns alongside all Michiganders the loss of the inimitable Honorable John Dingell, the longest-serving Member of the U.S. House of Representatives. We extend our deepest sympathies to Congresswoman Debbie Dingell and the entire Dingell family." UAW President Gary Jones: "We celebrate the life of a true friend to UAW members tonight. John Dingell's voice filled the halls of Congress with a message of hope for working families in a career spanning nearly 60 years. He was a legend in the halls of Congress. But in Michigan he was that rare accessible hero that would fight for our paychecks, our health care, our labor rights and our civil and human rights. Let the words of history honor his integrity, wit and the impact he still has on our daily lives. And we give thanks to Debbie and his children for sharing such a life well lived in compassionate service to all of us. John Dingell will be missed by all working families." This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: John Dingell recalled as icon: Here's what colleagues, friends are saying Paris (AFP) - Italy's deputy prime minister Friday defended his unannounced trip to France to meet anti-government protesters there -- a move which has sparked fury in Paris and the biggest diplomatic crisis between the allies since World War II. In a letter to French daily Le Monde, Luigi Di Maio accused French governments on both the left and right of pursuing "ultraliberal" policies that have "increased citizens' insecurity and sharply reduced their spending power. "This is why I wanted to meet with 'yellow vest' representatives... because I don't believe that Europe's political future lies with parties on the right or left, or with so-called 'new' parties that in reality follow tradition," he said. The latter reference was a dig at President Emmanuel Macron's Republic on the Move party, formed by the 41-year-old French leader in 2016. "We have never stopped extending a hand to France," Di Maio said at a campaign event later Friday in Roccaraso, Italy. "But if extending a hand means not being able to talk with any political force besides Republic on the Move, then I think this is a mistake." Di Maio's meeting outside Paris with so-called "yellow vest" anti-government protesters -- candidates for upcoming European parliamentary elections -- was the latest in a string of slights in a row between Italy's populist leaders and Macron's centrist government. The surprise trip drew a sharp rebuke from Paris, which on Thursday recalled its ambassador to Rome -- a move not seen between the two neighbours since the war, when Italy invaded. "He will return to Italy. We're not suspending diplomatic relations with Italy," a senior French diplomat told AFP Friday. But he warned "there could still be difficult moments ahead in the French-Italian relationship." - 'Playtime is over' - The escalating war of words began last year after Di Maio's Five Star Movement and Matteo Salvini's far-right League won elections and formed a populist and eurosceptic government with them as deputy prime ministers. Story continues When Italy prevented charity rescue boats with migrants on board from docking at its ports, Macron blasted the government's "cynicism and irresponsibility" and compared the rise of far-right nationalism in Europe to leprosy. With the European Parliament vote looming in May, the Italian leaders have mounted a series of increasingly personal attacks on Macron, with Salvini denouncing him as a "terrible president". They have encouraged the "yellow vest" protests, which emerged in November over fuel taxes before ballooning into a widespread and often violent revolt against Macron and his reformist agenda. France's Europe affairs minister, Nathalie Loiseau, said the decision to recall France's envoy was meant to signal that "playtime is over". Di Maio did seek to play down the spat in his letter, saying "the political and strategic differences between the French and Italian governments should not impact the history of friendly relations that unites our peoples and our nations". Salvini, also Italy's interior minister, said Friday he had invited his French counterpart Christophe Castaner to Rome for talks. He had sent Castaner a letter stating that: "our countries have always had strong bilateral relations, particularly on security, terrorism, and immigration." But in an unguarded moment, Salvini raised Castaner's ire, by stating on the margins of a campaign meeting Friday that: "I am going to summon him (Castaner) because I want to resolve the situation. I do not let myself be had." In response, the French minister told BFM television: "I do not let myself be summoned," adding that "dialogue between us is constant, it must be respectful." - 'The Alps are higher' - Italian newspapers on Friday described the crisis as the most serious since the declaration of war between the two countries in 1940. "From today, the Alps are higher," wrote Lucio Caracciolo, director of the Limes geopolitical review, said in La Repubblica newspaper. "The recall for consultations of the French ambassador to Rome, Christian Masset, is a sign of an unprecedented crisis in Italian-French relations." For La Stampa newspaper, the tensions "could in some ways be expected given how insistent the M5S (Five Star Movement) has been in its approach to the yellow vests". But one columnist in Corriere della Sera wrote: "Italy has a lot to lose over this confrontation, by adopting a policy of proud isolation at a time when relations between Paris and Berlin are ever tighter." By Marc Frank HAVANA (Reuters) - Some foreign businesses in Cuba are scrambling to defend their interests while others are rethinking the risk as the Trump administration bears down on Venezuela and Cuba, according to a dozen experts, diplomats and businessmen. The United States has said it is considering activating a long-dormant law that would expose companies and individuals to lawsuits for trafficking in expropriated Cuban property, as well as placing the country on the list of state sponsors of terrorism. That would undermine efforts by the administration of Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel to foster foreign investment and promote tourism on the Caribbean island. To make matters worse, the fall of Cuban ally President Nicolas Maduro's socialist government in Venezuela would be a serious blow to the Communist-run nation's already fragile economy. "Its Trump going after Cuba that worries investors, as opposed to Venezuela, which has largely been proverbially costed in," said British investor and consultant David Mathew, who has been involved with a number of Cuba projects, including growing and importing coffee. Mathew said he was already receiving "a pre-emptive push back" from some would-be foreign investors. The Trump administration is threatening to allow a law that has been suspended since its creation in 1996 to take effect in March allowing U.S. citizens to sue foreign companies and individuals over property confiscated in the 1960s by the Cuban government. The so-called Title III rule forms part of the Helms-Burton Act, which codified all U.S. sanctions against Cuba into law 23 years ago. It has been waived by every president ever since due to opposition from the international community and fears it could create chaos in the U.S. court system, analysts say. "It is all bad news. The economy is going to get worse than it already is due to the Venezuela crisis and Trumps new threats are already scaring people away," said one commercial attache from a European country with extensive business interests in Cuba. "Our businesses are coming to us asking what we can do about any new U.S. measures," he said. "They are really worried, and so are we." Cuba's economic reliance on Venezuela has diminished in recent years due to a decline in subsidized oil sales from the South American nation. Cuba has begun diversifying its oil supplies from other sources, such as Russia and Algeria. Pavel Vidal, a former Cuban central bank economist who teaches at the Universidad Javeriana Cali in Colombia, said a continued gradual winding down of the economic accords with Venezuela could wipe between 4 and 8 percent off gross domestic product. "If there is regime change and cancellation of all agreements, the impact could be greater," he said. When Venezuela's late President Hugo Chavez launched his Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela in 1999, an increase in trade led to a partial revival of the Cuban economy, which had stalled after the fall of its benefactor, the Soviet Union. But the trade relationship had already weakened from around $7.2 billion in 2014 to $2.3 billion in 2017, according to the Cuban government, due to Venezuelas economic crisis and declining oil exports. This has led to economic stagnation in Cuba, reduced allocations of fuel and electricity to state entities, periodic scarcities of medicines, bread and other goods and increasing debt to suppliers and investors. (Reporting by Marc Frank; additional reporting by Sarah Marsh; Editing by Dan Grebler) Hong Kong: Views on community care sought The Community Care Fund will hold four public consultation sessions to gauge public views on the formulation of assistance programmes. The first session will be held on February 21 at Mei Foo Community Hall, while the second session will be held at Aldrich Bay Community Hall on March 23. The third session will be held on March 29 at Tai Po Community Centre, and the last one will take place on April 6 at Tin Yiu Community Centre. Those who would like to attend the sessions can call the care funds Secretariat at 2835 2279 or complete the registration form online to reserve a seat. This story has been published on: 2019-02-08. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. Townsville (Australia) (AFP) - Hundreds of thousands of cattle weakened from a severe drought are feared to have died in record-breaking floods in northeastern Australia, authorities said Friday, as they stepped up efforts to feed surviving livestock. Incessant rains over an almost two-week period have flooded swathes of Queensland state, with the full scale of the devastation on drought-hit cattle stations becoming clearer as floodwaters recede. "We are expecting hundreds of thousands in terms of stock losses," Prime Minister Scott Morrison told reporters in Sydney. "This will be heartbreaking to these communities that have been experiencing years of drought, only to see that turn into a torrential inundation which threatens now their very livelihoods in the complete other direction." Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk Friday spoke of seeing a "sea of dead cattle" when she toured one region on Thursday. "To see the cattle spread across these yards, not moving, it made you feel sick in the stomach," she told national broadcaster ABC. Bales of hay and fuel have been transported into towns near the disaster zones and are being distributed to farmers so they can carry out airdrops to their stock. Farmer Rachael Anderson and her husband, who manage Eddington cattle station near Julia Creek township, said 800 of their 1500 cattle were still unaccounted for. "The cattle didn't have anywhere else to go... We've got a railway line close to us and the whole railway line is just tangled with dead cattle," Anderson told AFP. "If the floodwater wasn't enough to kill them, then those that got to higher areas were exposed to elements that were not conducive like rain hitting them at 60 kilometres an hour. They can't survive them long term." Anderson -- who had been hand-feeding cattle over the past few months amid the crippling drought -- said there were also many dead kangaroos as well as birds that were falling dead on the ground. Story continues About half of Australia's 25-million strong cattle herd is bred in Queensland state, and graziers say the floods -- described as a once-a-century event -- could devastate their industry. "This will finish a lot of people, there's some people who've lost everything, every beast they own, so there's no income at all," farmer William McMillan told the ABC. Australia's tropical north typically experiences heavy rains during the monsoon season, but the recent downpours have seen some areas get a year's worth of rainfall in just a week. By Gina Cherelus (Reuters) - Houston authorities are investigating a drug raid on a home last week that left two suspects dead and several officers wounded, amid media reports that an undercover detective was temporarily relieved of duty in connection with the probe. Officers raided the southeast Houston home of Dennis Tuttle and Rhogena Nicholas on Jan. 28 to serve a narcotics search warrant. Both Tuttle, 59, and Nicholas, 58, were killed in the shootout that followed, according to authorities. "There is a lot of speculation as to the circumstances regarding this (officer-involved shooting) ... but we urge everyone to let the investigation take its proper course and proceed to conclusion," Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo said in a statement on Thursday. Citing the Houston Police Officer's Union and law enforcement sources, local news channel KHOU11 said the undercover detective was temporarily relieved of duty while investigators probe the "validity of a purported controlled buy of suspected heroin" from the home on Jan. 27 that was reported by officers. A representative from the union did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Friday. A police department spokesman said he could not confirm the media reports. The Harris County District Attorney Office's Civil Rights Division is helping with the investigation, according to the county's district attorney, Kim Ogg, who said on Thursday that it was standard practice for a shooting involving a police officer. Acevedo told reporters last week that no heroin was found during the raid, only marijuana and an unidentified white powder believed to be cocaine or prescription painkiller fentanyl, together with three shotguns and two rifles. A large pit-bull dog that police said tried to attack an officer was also killed during the raid. Five officers were wounded, the police department spokesman said. (Reporting by Gina Cherelus in New York; editing by Daniel Wallis and Leslie Adler) Acting Attorney General Matt Whitakers testimony before the House Judiciary Committee Friday, which was in doubt as late as Thursday evening, featured a number of contentious moments. Whitakers appearance at the 9:30 a.m. hearing ended a subpoena standoff between Democrats and the Justice Department, but he drew a strict line about what questions he would answer. I do not intend to talk about my private conversations with the president nor White House officials, Whitaker said several times as Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., pressed him about his communications with the president concerning the probe by special counsel Robert Mueller. A day before the hearing, the committee voted to authorize Nadler to subpoena Whitaker after the acting attorney general declined to answer certain questions submitted in advance about communications with White House officials and refused to recuse himself from supervising Muellers investigation, contrary to the recommendation of the top Justice Department ethics adviser. Whitaker, who had been appointed last November by President Trump after Attorney General Jeff Sessions resigned under pressure, threatened to not testify before the committee if he was subpoenaed. He finally agreed to appear when Nadler agreed to not issue him with a subpoena, according to a statement by a Justice Department spokesperson. In his opening remarks before Whittakers testimony, ranking member Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., called the hearing a dog and pony show, mockingly suggesting we just set up a popcorn machine in the back. Collins addressed conspiracy claims that the special counsels office had leaked a draft copy of Trumps ally Roger Stones indictment to CNN before Stones arrest in January. CNN camera crews had staked out Stones house in Florida and were able to film his before-dawn arrest. Whitaker said he had no knowledge of leaks to media outlets and that it was deeply concerning to me how CNN found out. Story continues As I sit here today, I dont have any other information that I can talk about regarding Mr. Stone, Whitaker said. Below are more notable exchanges between Whitaker and the Judiciary members questioning him. Mr. Chairman, I see that your five minutes is up Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., responds after acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker tells him that his five minutes for questions had expired. (Photo: J. Scott Applewhite/AP) Whitakers attempt to referee his own hearing was not well received. In your capacity as acting attorney general, have you ever been asked to approve any request or action to be taken by the special counsel? asked Nadler. Mr. Chairman, I see that your five minutes is up, Whitaker said. Nadler, as chairman, has the right to talk as long as he likes. There was laughter and audible ohhhs in the room as Nadler smiled and Whitaker attempted to justify his non-answer by saying, Im here voluntarily, weve agreed to five-minute rounds. Nadler struck the gavel to call the hearing to order and rebuffed Collinss suggestion that it would be a good time to move to the next questioner. The attorney general was in the middle of saying something, said Nadler. Answer the question, please. After Nadler repeated the question a few times to clarify for Whitaker, the acting attorney general said that the special counsel has been dealt with according to law and added, There has been no event and no decision that has required me to take any action, and I have not interfered in any way with the special counsels investigation. Nadler then said his time was expired and recognized Collins to begin his questioning. Were not joking here Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, questions acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker. (Photo: J. Scott Applewhite/AP) Opponents have argued that Whitakers appointment to the role of acting attorney general was unconstitutional, as he was never confirmed by the Senate, and Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee asked Whitaker if hed ever appeared for an oversight hearing. When Whitaker failed to answer with a yes or no, Nadler interjected, asking Whitaker to respond directly. Lee repeated her question, but as Whitaker began to speak, she interrupted him to reclaim her time. I dont know if your times been restored or not, Whitaker quipped to Lee. Whitakers response prompted another round of laughter in the room when a committee member asked for her time to be restored. Mr. Attorney General, were not joking here and your humor is not acceptable, Lee fired back, adding, Now youre here because we have a constitutional duty to ask questions. So I need to ask the question and I need to have my time restored so that you can behave appropriately. Lynch mob Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. (Photo: Joshua Roberts/Reuters) Democratic critics see Whitakers initial hiring by the Justice Department and rise to acting attorney general as a reward for attacking the Mueller investigation, which he did repeatedly in the summer of 2017, prior to coming on as Sessionss chief of staff. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., listed the 37 indictments filed and seven guilty pleas obtained by the special counsels office and asked if Whitaker thought that the investigation was unnecessary. So, despite all of the evidence of criminal wrongdoing thats been uncovered, do you still believe that the Mueller investigation is a lynch mob? asked Jeffries. Congressman, can you tell me specifically where I said that? asked Whitaker. Id be happy to, said Jeffries. In a tweet you issued on August 6 of 2017, you made reference to a note to Trumps lawyer, Do not cooperate with Muellers lynch mob. Do you recall that? I recall that I said that I retweeted an article that was titled that. I did not necessarily agree with that position, but my point was that it was an interesting read for those who want to understand the situation, Whitaker replied, employing the standard social media disclaimer that retweets are not endorsements. Jeffries then pressed Whitaker on his decision to not recuse himself from overseeing the investigation, listing a number of Trump campaign associates whove been indicted. Whitaker replied that after consulting with many people, he decided it was not necessary to recuse. The exchange between Jeffries and Whitaker got off to an adversarial start when the congressman began by saying, This hearing is important because there are many Americans throughout the country who are confused. Im confused, I really am. We are all trying to figure out who are you, where did you come from and how the heck did you become the head of the Department of Justice. So hopefully you can help me work through this confusion. When Whitaker attempted to reply, Jeffries cut him off, stating, Mr. Whitaker, that was a statement not a question. I assume you know the difference. Zero humanity policy Rep. Pramila Jayapal (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., used her five minutes to hammer Whitaker about his role in the Department of Justices zero tolerance policy, by which parents of migrants crossing the U.S. border illegally are taken into custody and separated from their children traveling with them. Most of these women, most of the men, were seeking asylum, and your department, instead of allowing them their legal right to seek asylum, your department instead imposed a zero humanity policy to prosecute them in mass proceedings, said Jayapal. The zero tolerance policy, which went into effect in April 2018, has resulted in approximately 2,000 children being separated from their parents. According to a report from the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General, the exact number of separated children is unknown. Some of these children might never be reunited with their families. Before or after the zero tolerance policy was put into place and I call it the zero humanity policy did the U.S. attorneys track when they were persecuting a parent or legal guardian who had been separated from their child? Jayapal asked Whitaker. I dont believe we were tracking it, Whitaker responded. As the questioning continued, Jayapal grew more exasperated. Do you know what kind of damage has been done to children and families across this country? she pressed. Children who will never get to see their parents again? Do you understand the magnitude of that? Congresswoman, I appreciate your passion for this issue and I know that youve been very involved in the frontline. This is about more than my passion, Jayapal interrupted. This is about the childrens future, Mr. Whitaker. Please answer. The responsibility for the arrest, the detention and together with the custody of the children was handled by DHS and HHS before those people were ever transferred to DOJ custody through U.S. marshals, Whitaker replied. _____ Read more from Yahoo News: New Hampshire's highest court upheld Friday the conviction of three women who were arrested for going topless on a beach, finding their constitutional rights were not violated. In a 3-2 ruling, the court decided that Laconia's ordinance does not discriminate on the basis of gender or violate the women's right to free speech. Citing rulings by several other courts, Associate Justice Anna Barbara Hantz Marconi wrote that courts "generally upheld laws that prohibit women but not men from exposing their breasts against equal protection challenges." "We have found that the ordinance does not violate the defendants' constitutional rights to equal protection or freedom of speech under the State and Federal Constitutions," Marconi wrote. "As such, it does not unduly restrict the defendants' fundamental rights. Accordingly, we agree with the trial court that the City had the authority to enact the ordinance." In a dissenting opinion, Associate Justice James P. Bassett with Senior Associate Justice Gary E. Hicks concluded the ordinance was unconstitutional because it treats men and women differently. Heidi Lilley, Kia Sinclair and Ginger Pierro are part of the Free the Nipple campaign a global campaign advocating for the rights of women to go topless. They were arrested in 2016 after removing their tops at a beach in Laconia and refusing to put them on when beachgoers complained. Pierro was doing yoga, while the two others were sunbathing. The Laconia law on indecent exposure bans sex and nudity in public but singles out women by prohibiting the "showing of female breast with less than a fully opaque covering of any part of the nipple." A lower court judge refused to dismiss the case, and the women appealed to the state Supreme Court. "We are extremely disappointed in the Court's ruling that treating women differently than men does not amount to sex discrimination. The court has effectively condoned making it a crime to be female," the women's lawyer, Dan Hynes, said in a statement. "Since the N.H. Constitution, which prohibits sex discrimination, was not enough to prevent this unequal, and unfair treatment, we are hopeful the New Hampshire legislature steps up to correct this injustice by outlawing Laconia's ordinance." Story continues Hynes said he would have to talk to the women about their next step, including possibly appealing the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court. Gilles Bissonnette, the legal director at the ACLU of New Hampshire, which filed an amicus brief in the case, said he was disappointed with the ruling. "Unlike the Federal Constitution and the cases interpreting its equal protection provision cited by the majority, the New Hampshire Constitution provides even broader protections against gender discrimination," Bissonnette said in a statement. "What is deeply concerning about this decision is that it undermines these broader, unique constitutional protections and, in so doing, minimizes the importance of the New Hampshire Constitution." The attorney general's office, which defended the ordinance in court, said it would have no comment beyond the brief it submitted. It had argued the city was trying to avoid public disturbances and that it narrowly tailored the law to requiring only the covering of nipples not requiring women to wear shirts. It questioned the First Amendment argument The ruling is the latest setback for the movement, which has had mixed success fighting similar ordinances in other parts of the country. A federal judge ruled in October 2017 that a public indecency law in Missouri didn't violate the state constitution by allowing men, but not women, to show their nipples. In 2013, a public nudity ban in San Francisco was also upheld by a federal court. But in February 2017, a federal judge blocked the city of Fort Collins, Colorado, from enforcing a law against women going topless, arguing it was based on gender discrimination. The Hain Celestial Group, Inc. HAIN disappointed investors with second-quarter fiscal 2019 results, wherein both top and bottom lines declined year over year and continued with the negative surprise trend. Moreover, management slashed its top and bottom-line views for fiscal 2019, which was an additional dent on investors sentiments. Notably, shares of this manufacturer, marketer, distributor and seller of organic and natural products lost 9.2% during the trading session on Feb 7. In fact, this Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell) stock has plunged 43.3% in the past six months, wider than the industrys decline of 8.5%. Markedly, Hain Celestial now envisions adjusted earnings per share from continuing operations to be 60-70 cents, reflecting a decline of 40-48% from fiscal 2018. Also, the updated guidance is way below the current Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.10. Q2 in Detail The company posted adjusted earnings of 14 cents a share that came below the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 26 cents, and also declined sharply from 32 cents recorded in the year-ago period. The downside can be attributed to lower net sales, and higher interest and other financing expenses and factors that affected gross margin. The Hain Celestial Group, Inc. Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise The Hain Celestial Group, Inc. Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise | The Hain Celestial Group, Inc. Quote Net sales dropped 5% year over year to $584.2 million, missing the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $612 million, owing to soft performance in the United States, United Kingdom and Rest of World. On a constant-currency basis, net sales dropped 4%. On adjusting for currency fluctuations, buyouts, divestitures and various other items like SKU rationalization, sales dipped 1%. Segment-wise, net sales at the United States segment dropped 4% year over year to $259.2 million, mainly due to decrease registered across Pantry and Better-For-You Baby products. This was partly mitigated by an increase in the Better-For-You Snacks category. Sales were also negatively impacted by the companys decision to shift focus away from various lower margin SKUs. Net sales in the United Kingdom slid 5% to $225.3 million, due to a decline of 4% in Hain Daniels net sales. This was partly offset by sales growth witnessed in Tilda, whereas sales at Ella's Kitchen remained flat year over year. Net sales for the Rest of the World segment tumbled 8% to $99.7 million. Net sales for Hain Celestial Canada and Hain Ventures decreased 12% and 17%, respectively, while net sales for Hain Celestial Europe were flat year over year. Costs & Margins Adjusted gross margin contracted 240 basis points (bps) to 20.3%, owing to increased investments related to trade and promotions along with escalated freight and commodity expenses in the United States. SG&A expenses decreased 1.2% to $85.4 million, due to cost savings from Project Terra, which were somewhat offset by marketing investments in the companys international operations. However, the same increased about 60 bps to 14.6% as percentage of sales. Adjusted operating income tanked close to 40% to $29.9 million, while adjusted operating margin contracted 290 bps to 5.1%. Adjusted EBITDA plunged 33.7% to $44.9 million, while adjusted EBITDA margin shrunk roughly 330 bps to 7.7%. Other Financials The company ended the quarter with cash and cash equivalents of $38.2 million, long-term debt (excluding current portion) of nearly $692.1 million and total shareholders equity of $1,590.9 million. Net cash used in operating activities from continuing operations totaled $14.5 million, while capital expenditure incurred during the three months ended Dec 31, 2018, were close to $19 million, thereby resulting in negative free cash flow of $40.8 million. Management projects capital expenditure of $80-$100 million for fiscal 2019. Outlook While management is skeptical about its near-term performance, the company is seeing some sequential improvements and working toward reverting to growth in the United States. Further, the company is on track to simplify its business and allocate its resources toward areas with higher growth potential. Management expects to see improvements in the second half of fiscal 2019 when compared with the first half, on the back of its Project Terra savings plan. Hain Celestial is well on track with Project Terra, which is aimed at cutting costs and complexity, alongside aiding sales growth. The company generated savings of nearly $21 million from this program in the second quarter. However, management now expects total savings for fiscal 2019 to be at the lower end of its previously guided range of $90-$115 million. This is because some savings are taking time to be generated, owing to the existing complexities in the companys U.S. business. Consequently, management slashed its guidance for fiscal 2019. Hain Celestial now expects net sales from continuing operations in fiscal 2019 to decline 4-6% to $2.32-$2.35 billion. Earlier, management projected the same to increase nearly 2-4% to $2.50-$2.56 billion. Adjusted EBITDA from continuing operations is now expected to tumble 22-28% to $185-$200 million. Management earlier projected the metric to rise about 7-17% to $275-$300 million. Hain Celestial now anticipates adjusted earnings per share from continuing operations to be 60-70 cents, reflecting a decline of 40-48% from fiscal 2018. On the contrary, the company earlier predicted the bottom line to be $1.21-$1.38 per share, reflecting a jump of roughly 4-19% from fiscal 2018. Dont Miss These Food Stocks Greencore Group GNCGY, with long-term earnings per share growth rate of 7.9%, carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. Nomad Foods NOMD, with long-term earnings per share growth rate of 11%, carries a Zacks Rank #2. Lamb Weston LW, with a Zacks Rank #2, has long-term earnings per share growth rate of 12%. The Hottest Tech Mega-Trend of All Last year, it generated $8 billion in global revenues. By 2020, it's predicted to blast through the roof to $47 billion. Famed investor Mark Cuban says it will produce ""the world's first trillionaires,"" but that should still leave plenty of money for regular investors who make the right trades early. See Zacks' 3 Best Stocks to Play This Trend >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Lamb Weston Holdings Inc. (LW) : Free Stock Analysis Report GREENCORE GRP (GNCGY) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Exterior of Hacienda HealthCare, 1402 E. South Mountain Drive in Phoenix. PHOENIX Hacienda HealthCare announced Thursday that it is closing its 60-bed intermediate care facility, where a patient was raped and recently gave birth. The non-profit company said the board of directors, "after a great deal of consideration, has come to understand that it is simply not sustainable to continue to operate" the facility. Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey was quick to criticize the decision, calling the announcement, "concerning" because state agencies have been actively working to increase oversight at the facility to ensure patient safety. "For some patients at the facility, this is the only home they know or remember," Ducey spokesman Patrick Ptak said. "Forcing this medically fragile community to move should be a last resort. Everyone's first priority should be protecting their health and safety." Officials with the Arizona Department of Economic Security were similarly upset by the announcement, calling it "very disturbing news" and imploring Hacienda HealthCare to work with the state moving forward. More: Former Hacienda nurse pleads not guilty More: Hacienda's ex-CEO faced sexual-harassment, bullying complaints More: 'We had no idea this patient was pregnant': Nurse's 911 call details surprise birth "We want to find a path forward that is in the best interests of the patients and this approach is not it," an emailed statement from spokeswoman Tasya Peterson says. "State agencies are exhausting all efforts to bring this to a conclusion that is beneficial to the patients, some of whom have been at this facility nearly their entire lives," she said. "They are the ones who should come first, without question. This approach simply does not meet that test." Hacienda HealthCare says the board voted on the closure last Friday, which is also when the third party manager the company had brought on board as ordered by the state left Hacienda for good. Story continues Indiana-based Benchmark Human Services was on site at Hacienda last week but company officials said that at the end of last week they "reluctantly stopped this very important effort." Ducey's office said it was aware of the board's vote because Hacienda met with state agencies on Monday morning. Though the board's vote was acknowledged, Hacienda did not provide a notice to terminate, nor did it provide a transition plan, Ptak said. "In fact, through today discussions continued around developing an ongoing plan to ensure the care of patients at the facility," he wrote in a message Thursday evening. Hacienda HealthCare officials on Thursday said they will begin to transition clients and eventually will cease to operate the facility. In its most recent federal survey, Hacienda's intermediate care facility had 39 patients ranging in age from 16 to 68. Most were described as "non-ambulatory." "Given what happened recently it's not surprising and I don't think it's going to break too many people's hearts that a facility that did such a poor job of taking care of vulnerable adults is no longer in business," said Jon Meyers, executive director of The Arc of Arizona, a non-profit advocacy organization that represents Arizonans with intellectual disabilities. Myers added, but the problem is that families have no other private alternative in Arizona, which is yet another disservice to the individuals with intellectual disabilities who rely on them for care. All the other intermediate care facilities for people with intellectual disabilities are operated by the state, and most don't have the capacity to handle individuals who live at Hacienda, he said. The state-run facility in Coolidge is likely the only option, and it may not be sized or staffed to handle an influx of individuals, Meyers said The patient who gave birth is a 29-year-old member of the San Carlos Apache Tribe. One of her Hacienda HealthCare providers, licensed practical nurse Nathan Sutherland, was arrested on Jan. 23 and charged with one count of sexual assault and one count of vulnerable-adult abuse. He surrendered his state-licensed practical nurse license on Jan. 24. When the patient gave birth on Dec. 29, an employee who called 911 indicated that the staff did not know she was pregnant. Longtime Hacienda HealthCare CEO William Timmons stepped down Dec. 31 and assumed the role of president, but days later he left the company altogether. On Jan. 7, Arizona's Medicaid program sent a letter to the facility calling for immediate corrective action, including: Sexually transmitted disease testing for all residents. Pregnancy testing for all females of childbearing age. An option for further testing for Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, syphilis and HIV. On Jan. 16, the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System and the Arizona Department of Economic Security sent a letter directing Hacienda HealthCare to have a third-party manager in place to operate its skilled nursing and intermediate care facilities by Jan. 30. The company agreed, but when the deal fell through, the state told Hacienda they needed to submit a plan by the end of this week. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Hacienda HealthCare closing facility where patient was raped and gave birth While Democratic 2020 candidates have rushed to sign on to the Green New Deal, party leaders are extending a more cautious level of support to the landmark carbon-slashing infrastructure plan. The six-page proposal that freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) formally unveiled Thursday outlines plans to cut global greenhouse gas emissions 40 to 60 percent from 2010 levels by 2030 and to reduce human-caused greenhouse gases to net zero by 2050. In the lead-up to the unveiling, after months of calling for lawmakers to get on board, their plan received enthusiastic support from major candidates hoping to take down President Donald Trump in 2020. Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.Y.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) have made strong statements endorsing the Green New Deal. Meanwhile, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), has had a more tempered response, emphasizing that there will be other resolutions on the table to consider. It will be one of several or maybe many suggestions that we receive, she told Politico in an interview Wednesday. The green dream, or whatever they call it, nobody knows what it is, but theyre for it, right? she continued, which may have been a swipe more at 2020 candidates looking to score points than at the resolution itself. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey (right) formally unveiled the Green New Deal, a landmark proposal to cut carbon emissions in the U.S., in Washington on Feb. 7. But can they get Democratic leaders on board? (Photo: Alex Wong via Getty Images) Speaking to reporters at her weekly news conference the next day, Pelosi said she still hadnt viewed the finalized plan but was excited about it. I welcome the Green New Deal and any other proposals, she said. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) struck a similar tone. Im pleased that House Committees began holding hearings on climate change this week, and I look forward to bringing legislation to the House Floor to reduce carbon pollution, help our communities prepare for current and future climate risks, and create clean energy jobs, he told HuffPost in an email. He also called out Republicans for ignoring climate change issues. Story continues Assistant House Speaker Rep. Ben Ray Lujan (D-N.M.), who is on a newly formed select committee on combating climate change, also stopped short of embracing the proposal. Throughout my public service, I have both advocated for and enacted policies that follow the Green New Deal framework that was released this week, he told HuffPost. I appreciate the energy and focus of my colleagues and look forward to working with them to take action. Spokespeople for House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) and House Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) did not return requests for comment on the Green New Deal. Among the chairs of climate-adjacent House panels, Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) of the Natural Resources Committee is the only one to explicitly support the resolution, calling it the right framework for the work we need to do, in Congress and across the nation, to reduce our fossil fuel use, create green jobs, and protect our country and our planet for the long term. As for the Senate, none of the partys leaders have given their support to the Green New Deal or replied to inquiries about it. Among the ranking members of its climate-related committees, none have announced their full support. Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) of the Environment and Public Works Committee sounds the most optimistic so far. Im grateful for Senator Markeys passion and strong voice on these issues, he said in a statement Thursday. Hes introduced this Green New Deal resolution to start a conversation and articulate a vision. I encourage members of our committee to examine the Green New Deal resolution and consider the ways in which we may be able to incorporate its ideas within our work this Congress. Related Coverage New Proposal Aims To Make Legacy FDR Works Project The Flagship Of A Green New Deal Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Unveils Landmark Green New Deal Resolution The Republican Assault On The Green New Deal Begins Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today. This article originally appeared on HuffPost. Republicans and Democrats are increasingly hopeful they can strike a border security deal to avert a fresh US government shutdown, with the GOPs top negotiator saying he believes Donald Trump would back the emerging consensus. Participants in cross-party talks believe a handshake on the agreement may still be several days away, especially given the presidents propensity to change his mind abruptly. However, it is thought a deal would include physical barriers on the USs southwest border with Mexico, but would provide significantly less than the $5.7bn (4.4bn) funding Mr Trump initially demanded for his signature wall project, offering closer to $1.6bn (1.2bn) The president was urging me to try to conclude these negotiations and this is the most positive meeting Ive had in a long time, lead GOP negotiator senator Richard Shelby told reporters after discussing the potential deal with the president in the Oval Office. I gathered today that if we work this out in the context that we were talking today, that I thought was reasonable, very reasonable, that he would sign it. Video: Trump Quiet On Border Emergency Declaration (For Now) For more news videos visit Yahoo View. Congress has until 15 February to approve an agreement before the government runs out of money. Mr Trump had declared a cease-fire on 24 January following a historic 35-day shutdown, sparked when congress refused to sign-off on a government spending plan with billions ring-fenced for the presidents border wall. The dispute, the longest of its kind in US history, saw 800,000 federal workers either furloughed or expected to work for free, with most missing two pay-slips in the process. Mr Trump has been non-committal over the latest negotiations to bring the brusing dispute to a close. I certainly hear that they are working on something and both sides are moving along. We'll see what happens, he said. We need border security. We have to have it, it's not an option. Story continues However, speaking on the condition of anonymity, a senior administration official said the White House is cautiously optimistic about getting a deal they could support. Members of both parties have expressed opposition to Mr Trump bypassing congress by declaring a national emergency at the border, a move that would almost certainly prompt a legal challenge. It was unclear what language the evolving pact would use to describe the barriers, with Democrats vowing repeatedly to block funding for a wall. Also unresolved was Democrat demands to reduce the number of beds for detained migrants operated by the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency. Despite progress in recent days, lawmakers on both sides of the house still fear Mr Trump could scupper any potential deal. Leaders of the two parties previously assumed in December the president would support a bipartisan deal that would have prevented the shutdown, only for him to perform a U-turn after being savaged by conservative media pundits. I remember everybody was optimistic the week before Christmas, said Democratic senator Chris Murphy, adding this time however It sounds like Trump is closer to reality. Theres a small light at the end of the tunnel, Republican senator Pat Roberts said: We just hope it's not a train coming the other way. Additional reporting by AP A Republican congressman accused Democrats of a "concerted effort" aimed at leaving "so help you God" out of oaths when swearing in witnesses. Louisiana Congressman Mike Johnson told the USA TODAY Network on Thursday that he believed that Democratic leadership was purposely attempting to strike God from committee hearings, something he says would upset Americans. Johnson, R-La., confronted House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., on Wednesday after Nadler left off "so help you God" out of an oath to a witness, continuing a skirmish that began last week. Johnson spoke up and asked to be recognized. "We had a conversation on the floor last week and I just noticed you left off 'so help me God'," Johnson said. Nadler quickly responded: "I'm sorry; do you want me to repeat the whole ... I will repeat ..." "I'd love that, thank you," Johnson said, and the oath was repeated with "so help you God" included. The stage for Wednesday's hearing was set last week when Johnson said he and fellow Louisiana Congressman Garret Graves, another Republican, noticed the phrase had been stricken with a red line in the House Natural Resources Committee. More: Republicans warn going after Trump's tax returns could 'open a Pandora's Box' More: Green New Deal: Ocasio-Cortez plan has yet to have Pelosi backing as both emphasize climate change More: GOP Rep. Gaetz calls for border wall at gun hearing, asks for Parkland dads to be removed Johnson ultimately made a speech on the House floor last week and the language was restored immediately in Natural Resources. Johnson said he thought that might be the end of it until Wednesday's hearing. "I believe it has to be a concerted effort by the Democratic leadership," Johnson said in an interview with USA Today Network. "It appears to me to be a strategy by leadership that I believe the vast majority of Americans will oppose once they become aware of it." Story continues The Democrats regained the majority in the House in last fall's election and now control the committees. Johnson, who is the new chairman of the influential Republican Study Committee, said he sent a message Thursday to his 140 members. "It can't be true that all of the chairmen are doing it by mistake, so we have to call them out," said Johnson, who said he has been alerted the phrase is being stricken in other committees. "We can't allow a long-cherished tradition to go by the wayside because of political correctness." Johnson, an evangelical Christian, called the removal of the phrase "absurd." "It's important to me personally as a Christian, but I'm a constitutional attorney and history buff and this isn't controversial," he said. "Everyone who hears about this should be outraged." Last week during the initial dust-up Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., also criticized the move to to Fox News. It is incredible, but not surprising, that the Democrats would try to remove God from committee proceedings in one of their first acts in the majority," she said, saying the Democrats have "become the party of Karl Marx." Greg Hilburn covers state politics for the USA TODAY Network of Louisiana. Follow him on Twitter @GregHilburn1 This article originally appeared on Monroe News Star: GOP congressman accuses Democrats of 'concerted effort' to dismiss 'God' from proceedings The Goldman Sachs Group GS is mulling to enter the Swiss mortgage market, and is in talks with the countrys market regulator, per an article by Reuters. Stefan Bollinger, head of equities department at Goldman, said that the move would be in sync with the banks pan-European strategy. He stated that the company doesnt expect to make a big investment in the Swiss mortgage business at present. He also disclosed that the company does not plan to introduce Marcus Goldmans digital bank in Switzerland. Recently, Goldman was in news for plans to cut back its Commodities trading business, which used to be a major source of revenues for it. However, no final decision has been made by the executives so far. The decision to pull back from commodities came after months of review conducted on Goldmans businesses. The move was proposed by the new chief executive officer David Solomon, with a view to control costs and tap on areas that could generate higher profits. While Goldman is on track to remodel its business into a more profitable organization, it continues to be face investigations over its role in helping to raise funds for the 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB). The Malaysian government has filed corruption and money laundering charges against Goldman and two former employees in connection with the probe. In this regard, the bank disclosed that it has added a new forfeiture provision in its annual compensation plans that would give it the permission to reduce the size of the award prior to payment and/or forfeit the underlying transfer-restricted shares." It plans to hold back distribution of bonuses worth at least $7 million to the top executives until investigations related to the Goldmans role in the 1MDB scandal are completed. Shares of the company have lost around 17% in the past six months compared with the 13.3% decline of the industry. Goldman currently carries a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell). Story continues Stocks to Consider New York Community Bancorp NYCB has witnessed 1.2% upward estimate revisions over the past 30 days. Moreover, the stock has appreciated more than 24% in the past three months. It currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. Popular, Inc. BPOP has witnessed 2.4% upward estimate revisions for the past 30 days. Additionally, the companys shares have rallied 7% in the past six months. It holds a Zacks Rank of 2, at present. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for BankFinancial Corporation BFIN has been revised 3.2% upward over the past 30 days. Also, the companys shares have gained 4.8% in the past three months. It carries a Zacks Rank of 2, currently. The Hottest Tech Mega-Trend of All Last year, it generated $8 billion in global revenues. By 2020, it's predicted to blast through the roof to $47 billion. Famed investor Mark Cuban says it will produce "the world's first trillionaires," but that should still leave plenty of money for regular investors who make the right trades early. See Zacks' 3 Best Stocks to Play This Trend >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Popular, Inc. (BPOP) : Free Stock Analysis Report The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (GS) : Free Stock Analysis Report BankFinancial Corporation (BFIN) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Feminist author and activist Gloria Steinem credits President Donald Trump for the rise of women in politics, including Congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). Steinem, an icon and a champion of womens rights, told Yahoo Finances Jackie DeAngelis at the MAKERS Conference that despite numerous allegations of Trump having several extra-marital affairs, there was a silver lining for women. Hes certainly motivated women by being terrible about women, Steinem said. Hes increased the political participation rate enormously by displaying in the White House pretty much everything thats wrong with this country and all the biases against women. Steinem who at age 84 has spent much of her life fighting for womens rights had declared in 2016 that she rejected Trump as her president and that the presidency is doomed to failure. WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 21: Gloria Steinem speaks onstage during the Women's March on Washington on January 21, 2017 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Theo Wargo/Getty Images) Ocasio-Cortez personifies hope that is coming Three years on, Steinem said that the concern over womens rights has actually motivated several women including Ocasio-Cortez to ascend to power rapidly. Steinem said: I dont know that she would have been in politics if it werent for the emergency we see now.... She is a symbol of the incredible talent and ideas and [the] ability to communicate politics as people experience it. I think shes a great personification of the hope that is coming. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat from New York, center, speaks with demonstrators during the third annual Women's March near Columbus Circle in New York, U.S., on Saturday, Jan. 19, 2019. Photographer: Jeenah Moon/Bloomberg via Getty Images Ocasio-Cortez is the youngest woman to serve in Congress and has been outspoken regarding her support for womens rights. At a rally in January, she said: Last year we brought the power to the polls, and this year we need to make sure we translate that power into policy this is the start of our advocacy because we just captured the House, and now were going to show what were going to do with it. Immigration restrictions drive me crazy Steinem also talked about immigration the fire fueling the border wall debate saying that it drives me crazy that its not viewed as the positive that it is. Story continues Her argument was that the U.S.s low replacement rate demanded more immigrants, who she said are also more law-abiding than non-immigrants. A recent report by WalletHub estimated that immigrants in California contributed the most to the state, followed by New York and New Jersey with immigrants in California ranking first in terms of socio-economic contributions. Read more: Heres where immigrants contribute most in America The government shutdown is hitting these U.S. states the hardest Government shutdown cost U.S. more than Trump's wall demand FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Prosecutors in the German city of Stuttgart are looking into a possible fine for auto supplier Robert Bosch for providing Volkswagen with engine management software that the carmaker used to cheat vehicle emissions tests in 2015. Volkswagen has paid out more than 27 billion euros ($31 billion) in penalties for using illegal software to disguise excessive levels of pollution from its diesel cars, triggering a global regulatory clampdown that has now reached Bosch. "It is correct that the Public Prosecutor's Office of Stuttgart has opened monetary fine proceedings against Robert Bosch GmbH," a spokesman for the company said in a statement on Friday. "The proceedings relate to the investigations against employees of Robert Bosch GmbH in connection with the use of allegedly manipulated software in control units of diesel vehicles," Bosch added. German prosecutors last year fined Volkswagen 1 billion euros and its sister brand Audi 800 million euros for management oversight lapses which allowed polluting cars to hit the road. German weekly magazine Der Spiegel reported on Friday that Volkswagen was reviewing whether to seek damages of up to 1 billion euros from Bosch. Volkswagen declined to comment on the report. Bosch said: "Relationships with customers are kept confidential. The automaker-supplier relationship between Bosch and Volkswagen goes back over decades. We cannot imagine such an action against Bosch." ($1 = 0.8828 euros) (Reporting by Edward Taylor; Editing by Mark Potter) BONN, Germany (Reuters) - Facebook's reported plans to merge the infrastructure of its Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram services would, if implemented, face antitrust scrutiny in Germany, the head of the Federal Cartel Office said on Thursday. Speaking after the watchdog cracked down on the transfer of user data between the apps, Andreas Mundt said such a step would "intensify" the very practices that it is seeking to prevent through its ruling. "This could indeed be relevant in antitrust terms," he told a news conference, adding however that in the absence of any official information it was difficult to assess the issue. Facebook has said that discussions on such a move are at a very early stage. (Reporting by Douglas Busvine; editing by Thomas Seythal) Georgias ethics chief resigned on Friday amid an investigation into improper workplace conduct, including several reports that he watched porn on his state computer. Stefan Ritter, who served as executive secretary of the Georgia State Ethics Commission since 2015, was placed on paid leave in January after several staffers filed complaints against him. The commission has not commented publicly on the contents of those complaints. Jake Evans, chairman of the commission, on Friday thanked Ritter for his service. The Commission thanks Mr. Ritter for his service and wishes him the best in his future endeavors, Evans said in a statement to HuffPost. We will vigorously investigate the pending complaints and will prosecute those having merit. Promptly appointing a qualified replacement Executive Secretary will ensure this is accomplished. Multiple outlets reported in January that at least two ethics department employees had filed complaints against Ritter, including allegations that he had pornography on his work computer. The employees also complained about Ritter allegedly failing to show up to work and maintaining irregular hours. Ritter, a former senior assistant attorney general for the state, called the allegations incorrect. I havent even seen any allegations. Its puzzling to me, he told Fox 5 Atlanta in January. Ritter took the helm of the commission after its previous leader, Holly LaBerge, was sanctioned, fined and fired for failing to turn over documents in a whistleblower lawsuit filed by her predecessor. Ritter was credited with helping to clean up the commission in the wake of that upheaval. After staffers filed complaints against him in December, the commission launched an internal investigation and voted unanimously to put Ritter on paid leave. Evans at the time would only comment to news outlets that the move was based upon allegations of improper workplace conduct against Ritter. As part of his settlement with the commission, Ritter will receive three months of his salary, totaling roughly $45,000, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today. This article originally appeared on HuffPost. Genoa (Italy) (AFP) - Engineers started the delicate task of taking apart Genoa's Morandi motorway bridge on Friday almost six months after its partial collapse during a storm killed 43 people and injured dozens. Thousands of tonnes of steel, concrete and asphalt have already been removed from the spectacularly truncated high-rise bridge in the northern Italian port city to make it lighter before the "deconstruction" operation began. "It's an important day, the first step on a path that we hope will be as short as possible," Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte told journalists at the site. "The new bridge will be up by the end of the year." Four powerful strand-jacks positioned on the bridge by an enormous crane began unhooking and slowly lowering a 36-by-18 metre (118-by-59 foot) concrete slab weighing nearly 1,000 tonnes. The jacks are the same as those used to right the Costa Concordia cruise liner off Tuscany in 2013 after it ran aground and capsized, leaving 32 dead. The operation to slowly lower the vast slab to the ground, some 48 metres below, was to start after a diamond chain saw cut through the entire bridge in two places, possibly only on Saturday. "We are moving around 1,000 tonnes of a structure that is being demolished, with many unknowns," said technical director Vittorio Omini. Once on the ground, the giant slab will be used as a counterweight for removing other pieces before the bridge's towers are demolished with dynamite. - Homage to the victims - The operation will help the city move on from the August disaster which, beyond the human cost, also ripped out one of the city's main transport arteries. Italy's most famous living architect Renzo Piano, a Genoa native who helped design the Pompidou Centre in Paris, has provided the design for the replacement bridge that "will last for 1,000 years". While the new structure has been designed to look different from the old one, opened in 1967, it will contain a homage to the victims of the accident. Story continues It will feature 43 lamp poles in memory of those killed when part of it collapsed on August 14, sending dozens of vehicles and tonnes of concrete tumbling to the ground. The new bridge commission, headed by Genoa Mayor Marco Bucci, noted the new design "rests on pillars, respecting the feeling of psychological aversion in the city (to) other types of bridge with suspended or cable-stayed parts". It will "have elements of a boat because that is something from Genoa," Piano has said, describing a streamlined and luminous white structure. The new bridge is estimated to cost 202 million euros ($229 million), making it one of the most expensive in Europe. It is expected to be open to traffic by April 2020, junior transport minister Edoardo Rixi said on Thursday, with the demolition of the old structure due to take 190 days. - Invisible decay - The old cable-stayed bridge was made from reinforced concrete, with the steel cables linking the bridge's towers also covered in concrete. One theory investigators are looking into is that the steel within the concrete had decayed, although this would not have been visible. There have also been allegations of poor maintenance, poor design and questionable building practices. The eastern side of the bridge, where the structure gave way, still needs to be examined by experts and prosecutors. Autostrade per l'Italia (Aspi) operated the failed bridge and several of its managers could face trial over the collapse. Ahead of the anticipated court proceedings, Aspi is still negotiating compensation payments with bereaved relatives, reportedly for a total of 50 million euros. For the first time in an Italian public works contract, the construction companies face stiff penalties of up to 202,000 euros a day for any delays. Civil engineering expert Pierre Corfdir said planning the demolition of a bridge this size (over 1,180 metres) would normally take around three years. "This is one of the most complex bridge demolitions" because of the built-up environment, said Corfdir, who works at France's Cerema institute. "There's also time pressure: they have to rebuild a bridge that is of vital importance to the citys economy." Baghdad (AFP) - France's defence minister warned Friday in Baghdad that "the work is not over" in the fight against the Islamic State group, despite the jihadists facing the loss of their last scrap of territory. "The territorial caliphate, which has not yet been wiped out, is being defeated," minister Florence Parly said in the Iraqi capital. "We must continue the fight against IS and terrorism in the region because IS is probably in the process of reorganising underground and spreading out." US-backed fighters in neighbouring Syria are gearing up for a final push to oust IS from the sole village it still holds, all that remains of a proto-state that once spanned swathes of both countries. President Donald Trump, who committed late last year to pulling US troops out of Syria, has said he expects a final declaration of victory over IS next week. Parly called for France "to strengthen the relationship of cooperation and partnership with Iraq", both as part of a US-led coalition and bilaterally, to face the "persistent threat" of IS. Trump sparked the ire of Iraqi officials last week when he said he plans to keep American forces in their country to keep an eye on neighbouring Iran, also a major power-broker in Baghdad. Defence ministers from the anti-IS coalition, of which France is a central member, are set to meet soon to determine how it can maintain a regional "presence", Parly said. "It is a proposal that will be made subject to Iraq accepting the conditions of this presence. We are on sovereign territory." Former head of the Civil Service Lord Kerslake said Britain is heading for a blindfold break (Picture: PA) Former head of the Civil Service Lord Kerslake has urged Theresa May to put Brexit on hold, saying it is clear the UK is not ready. Lord Kerslake warned that Britain is heading for a blindfold break which will lead to years of wrangling with Brussels and called for the Article 50 withdrawal process to be put on hold. In a report published by the Peoples Vote campaign for a second referendum, the former head of the Civil Service said there was no clarity about key elements of Britains future relationship with the EU, including regulation of air travel and drugs and sharing of data and criminal records. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. Theresa May is holding talks to try to resolve the issue of the Irish backstop (Picture: AP/Geert Vanden Wijngaert) He said: Britain is divided, directionless and hurtling towards a legal deadline, with no idea where we will end up after we cross it. A responsible government should now acknowledge our predicament: we are not ready to embark on a journey when we do not know where we will end up. We should not leave until and unless we know where we are going. MORE: Changes to meat labelling could see shoppers told whether an animal was stunned before it was slaughtered MORE: Galactic collision will make our galaxys black hole grow huge (and could hurl our solar system into space) If we do, the only certainty is that the resources, energy and talent of our country will be consumed by Brexit for many more years to come. The nightmare will not end. It will simply take on another form. A blindfold Brexit that offers no clarity can never provide closure. It means the arguments about Brexit will just go on and on. His comments come as Theresa May prepares to hold talks with Irish premier Leo Varadkar over the Irish backstop after spending Thursday in talks in Brussels. COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) -- A nationwide experiment with basic income in Finland has not increased employment among those participating in the two-year trial, but their general well-being seems to have increased, a report said Friday. The Social Insurance Institution of Finland, or Kela, said "it was not yet possible to draw any firm conclusions" from the first half of the experiment, where about 2,000 randomly selected, unemployed people aged 25-58 got tax-free income of 560 euros ($636) a month with no questions asked. Finland is looking into ways to reshape its social security system and became in January 2017 the first European country to launch the trial, which will end in 2020. Critics say universal basic income reduces incentives for people to look for work. Proponents say it can empower people to start new businesses, knowing that they would continue to receive monthly income no matter how well their new venture does. It can also encourage people to try a new job without the fear of losing their unemployment checks or having to go through the paperwork of reapplying for benefits. "Earlier, I didn't accept all small jobs out of fear of losing my benefits and having to reapply for them," said writer Tuomas Muraja as he was on his way to a sauna before heading out for an evening at the opera. "I feel much more secure now that short-term jobs no longer reduce my benefits or delay their payment." In the Finnish experiment, the basic income is below what unemployment benefits pay, which is 32.40 euros a day, or almost 1,000 euros ($1,135) a month subject to income tax of about 30 percent. The basic income is tax free, but barely enough to live on for someone paying rent, so it keeps pressure on the recipients to join the work force. Minna Ylikanno, a researcher with Kela, said the basic income recipients appeared less stressed, healthier and more confident in the future than a 5,000-member control group of unemployment benefits recipients. Story continues The report found that those on basic income and the unemployed people in the control group ended up working roughly the same number of days. "The basic income may have a positive effect on the wellbeing of the recipient even though it does not in the short term improve the person's employment prospects," Ylikanno added. The participants in both the trial and the control group were selected randomly among those who received unemployment benefits from Kela in November 2016 , Ylikanno told The Associated Press. The Nordic country's official unemployment rate was 5.4 percent in 2018. The alarm sounded at 4 a.m. and I reluctantly dragged myself out of bed. We had a long drive ahead of us, and my husband, Led, was eager to get on the water. Before too long, our friends Chase and Courtney arrived and we were ready to hit the road. It is about two hours from our home to Lake A Florida city commissioner has resigned after being fined $5,000 by a state ethics commission in the wake of numerous accusations, including that she sexually harassed a former city official and licked his face. A report from The Florida Commission on Ethics dated Dec. 7 says that Madeira Beach City Commissioner Nancy Oakley was issued the fine after the commission heard witness testimony detailing Oakley's "bizarre behavior." The findings particularly highlight an alleged Nov. 2012 incident where Oakley delayed the start of an outdoor city commission meeting, "committed a battery against the city manager by licking his neck and face and groping him" and cursed at and "threw a punch" at another city employee. The Madeira Beach City Commission reprimanded Oakley and accepted her resignation Wednesday, the Tampa Bay Times reported. Oakley was not seeking reelection for her position next month, the publication says. Oakley's resignation letter denied wrongdoing and said she was resigning to put an end to the controversy, the Washington Post reports. While the Commission on Ethics has made their decision, I maintain my innocence and am pursuing the paths of appeals available, she wrote, according to the publication. With that being said, it is time for us all to move on. The Florida Commission on Ethics report detailed witness accounts of a Nov. 2012 incident that occurred at an outdoor city council meeting. The report alleges Oakley had consumed alcohol at a fishing tournament before the meeting and escalated a conflict with city employees over an alleged romantic affair. Feb. 7: Key West, Florida, bans sale of sunscreens that harm coral reefs Jan. 31: Florida man whose mugshot went viral for his 'Wide Neck' back in jail She alleged two employees, a male and a female, were having an affair, the report said. Oakley would allegedly not allow the meeting to proceed with the female taking minutes; Oakley allegedly used profanities in demanding the woman leave and "threw a punch" at her. Story continues "Using her tongue" Oakley licked the male "up the side of his neck and face," the report said, noting that Oakley also allegedly groped the man. It also documented several other alleged examples of unwanted licking by Oakley. The 2012 incident was not reported for five years, as an involved city employee feared for his job, the Post reported, citing ethics commission documents. In a statement emailed to USA TODAY Thursday, a City of Madeira Beach spokesperson confirmed Oakley's resignation. Feb. 4: Please stop pooping on these Florida islands, officials tell tourists Jan. 30: An underground tunnel was found near a Florida bank. The FBI was called in but even they were stumped Following a ruling by an administrative law judge and a final recommendation from the Florida Commission on Ethics, Ms. Oakley decided to resign her position as a City Commissioner so that the community can move forward," said Curt Preisser in the written statement. The board of commissioners accepted the resignation, as their values hold that "no one is above the law," the statement read. Contributing: The Associated Press This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fined for 'bizarre behavior' including unwanted face licking, Florida official resigns In June, Natalee King and her husband, Jonathan, realized a decade-long dream of buying a home in Orange County, California, one of the more expensive housing markets in the country. The couple drained their savings for a down payment to win the fixer-upper. But concerned about the cost of future repairs and compelled to rebuild their savings, they decided to rent out the master bedroom with its own bathroom for $1,250. From September through January, two college students on internships leased the space. That rent money gave the Kings a bit of relief, and they're looking for more. They just signed another renter who is expected to move in at the end of the month. They plan to rent for at least a year to steady their finances as Jonathan goes back to school for a career change. Unless you were gifted money, the only way to own a home if youre middle income is you have to rent," Natalee, 35, said. "We see it all the time. Some people may think its weird, but I feel like, in Orange County, its the norm now to have that American Dream. More money: Where's my paycheck? Wells Fargo customers say direct deposits not showing up after outage Is this normal? The Kings are part of a small, but now seemingly permanent, trend of married couples taking in roommates to defray high housing costs, according to a new study from Trulia given exclusively to USA TODAY. More married couples turned to this arrangement as home prices peaked right before the housing crash. They largely stuck with it through the Great Recession and even as the economy bounced back. Scam alert: Latest Social Security scam call makes you out to be the criminal. How to avoid falling for it. The thing is home prices keep going up and up, while wages remained flat. So, it makes sense that people are having a tough time with housing costs, even as the economy has gotten better, said Cheryl Young, a senior economist at Trulia. The percentage of renting and home-owning married couples with roommates is now 28 percent higher than its historical average between 1995 and 2018, Trulia found. The increase is led by more married homeowners taking on roommates, which is 38 percent higher than its historical average, Trulia found. Story continues The share of married renters with roommates is up just 11 percent over the historical average, but these couples are almost three times more likely to have a roommate. Getting separated? Facebook status: Divorced. Why millennials 'killed' how you decouple in the digital age Trulia found that West Coast markets have a higher share of this unique housing arrangement, likely because they have had some of the fastest home price growth over the last decade. There is clear correlation between high home prices and rates of married couples with roommates, Young said. For every $100,000 increase in median metro home prices, there is a 0.25 percentage point increase in the rate of married couples living with roommates, Trulia found. Owning in Oakland In Oakland, California, Katy Liang, her husband and their two children have been living with a family friend for the past three-and-a-half years since they bought their three-bedroom house for $1 million. We decided to get a roommate because the mortgage is a lot, and we're a house of two teachers, Katy, 34, said. Their roommate a friend of her husband pays $900 each month to rent out the master bedroom with its own bathroom. The rent makes up one-fifth of the total $4,400 monthly mortgage payment. The arrangement has been smooth, Liang said. The roommate doesnt use the kitchen much and instead relies on a hot plate, microwave and mini fridge in his room. But he joins the family sometimes for holiday celebrations and will play with the kids outside. Liang originally thought hed move out after they had their second child, whos 7 months old now. But we feel like we have enough space still for our family, she said. Maybe when the kids need their own room, another three years maybe. Sharing in Seattle When Michelle Hardies switched careers, she and her husband, Don, wanted extra income while she built up her new business as a real estate agent. Don, who had lived with the same boarder for 12 years with his ex-wife, suggested a roommate. Their home a four-bedroom house in Lake Stevens, Washington was big enough and ideally located about a 20-minute drive from Everett, where Boeing has a major facility, and 30 minutes from northern Seattle, where rents are becoming unaffordable. Its not possible for people to rent on one income in Seattle, Don, 58, said. People are being forced to move further and further out of the city to afford to rent or buy. In the past 10 months, theyve had success renting two rooms on a month-to-month basis, largely to shorter-term boarders. There have been some issues. Two roommates were asked to move out, and another unexpectedly passed away while on vacation. Otherwise, the Hardies who married two years ago have been pleased with the arrangement. You have to give up some privacy, Michelle, 50, said. As a couple you might not do some of the things you would normally do as a couple as newlyweds. Wink, wink, nod, nod, Don added. In this case, we dont want anything too long-term, Don continued. We want to go back to no roommates, thats preferred for us. But for now, it makes economic sense. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Help with the mortgage: More married couples bring in roommates to ease cost, study shows By Foo Yun Chee, Andreas Rinke and Leigh Thomas BRUSSELS/BERLIN/PARIS (Reuters) - Germany and France want to overhaul EU mergers rules following the European Commission's veto of efforts by Siemens and Alstom to create a European rail champion to compete with larger foreign rivals. This is why they want change, and the hurdles ahead: WHAT FRANCE WANTS The French want a broader definition of relevant markets, recognition that markets are not set in stone but evolve quickly, and powers for EU ministers to override a Commission decision. Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire says this broader approach would go hand-in-hand with an already planned increase in vetting of foreign investment to protect Europe's key industrial assets, and also with a more muscular trade policy. The aim is to have joint Franco-German proposals by the end of March. Le Maire will discuss the issue with German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier when he visits Germany on Feb. 19. GERMANY'S VIEWS Altmaier set out his National Industry Strategy 2030 on Tuesday, saying a revamp at German and EU level was necessary to allow businesses to compete fairly at an international level. Germany wants regulators to take a global view of markets, take into account rivals backed by state financial and political support and give veto power to the European Council -- that is the leaders of member states. Germany's pivot to a more defensive industrial policy is driven by concerns in Berlin about foreign -- particularly Chinese - companies acquiring its know-how and eroding the manufacturing base on which much of its wealth is built. Altmaier and Le Maire want to work on reforming EU competition law in the coming three months, before European Parliament elections in May. The German government has set up an expert commission which will come up with reforms proposals by autumn. The goal is to push the overhaul during country's EU presidency in the second half of 2020. Story continues WHAT IS THE OBJECTIVE OF EU MERGER RULES? Drafted in 1989 and revised in 2004, the European Commission rules ensure that mergers will not significantly reduce competition and push up consumer prices in the 28-country bloc. Regulators have three options: clear the deal, block it or wave it through with concessions. Complainants can appeal decisions at Europe's top courts in Luxembourg. The EU model has been replicated in a number of Asian countries including China, Africa and parts of South America. EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager points out the Commission has blocked only nine deals http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_STATEMENT-19-889_en.htm over the past decade, giving more than 3,000 the green light. HOW DO RULES DIFFER ELSEWHERE? In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice share the job but the procedures differ from the EU. The principle is to stop deals which substantially lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly. The U.S. model is common in the Americas and several Asian countries such as South Korea. In China, the Anti-Monopoly Bureau at the State Administration of Industry and Commerce is responsible for regulating and enforcing merger control. Critics say China regulates mergers as part of its industrial policy to boost economic growth. WHO HAS TO APPROVE CHANGES TO EU MERGER RULES? All EU countries have to agree to the changes. The European Parliament also has to give its consent. OTHER TOOLS TO DEAL WITH UNFAIR FOREIGN COMPETITION Vestager says beefing up global rules on subsidies and trade defense instruments, controlling foreign investments, strengthening public procurement rules to ensure mutual access to markets and reinforcing data protection and privacy rules should be part of the tool kit. (Additional reporting by Paul Carrel in Berlin; Editing by Keith Weir) By Darya Korsunskaya and Olesya Astakhova MOSCOW (Reuters) - Igor Sechin, head of Russian oil giant Rosneft and one of Vladimir Putin's closest allies, has written to the Russian president saying Moscow's deal with OPEC to cut oil output is a strategic threat and plays into the hands of the United States. The letter did not say whether the agreement in place since 2017 between the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and other large oil producers led by Russia to cut output should be extended or not. But according to two well-placed industry sources, the letter was a clear signal to other senior Russian officials involved in energy policy that Sechin wants the deal to come to an end. There is no guarantee Putin will back Sechin's view because the president sees the pact with OPEC as part of a much bigger puzzle involving dialogue with OPEC's leader Saudi Arabia over Syria and other geopolitical issues. "The letter is a threat to the deal extension. But anyway, Putin is the ultimate decision maker," one of the sources said. Reuters has seen a copy of the letter with no date or header. A government source said it was sent at the end of December. The so-called OPEC+ deal has helped oil prices double to more than $60 per barrel. It has been extended several times and, under the latest deal, participants are cutting output by 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd) until the end of June. OPEC and its allies will meet on April 17-18 in Vienna to review the pact. Should Russia abandon the deal, it would result in a steep oil price crash or force Saudi Arabia to carry most of the burden of cutting output to continue propping up global crude prices. Riyadh has said it will not do this alone. A price crash would deal a severe blow to U.S. oil firms as they operate fields where it is more expensive to extract oil, but would benefit the broader U.S. economy. The United States, which overtook Russia and Saudi Arabia as the world's biggest oil producer last year, is not participating in the output cuts. Story continues U.S. crude oil output is expected to rise to a record of more than 12 million bpd this year and climb to nearly 13 million bpd next year, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said on Tuesday. 'STRATEGIC THREAT' Sechin has been the only Russian official to consistently oppose the OPEC deal since the Kremlin endorsed the plan, saying it has allowed U.S. clout to rise significantly. "The participants of the OPEC+ agreement have actually created a preferential advantage for the USA - that sees raising its own market share and the seizure of target markets as its primary task - which has become a strategic threat to Russia's oil industry development," the letter seen by Reuters says. "The key strategic challenge which the domestic oil industry is faced with today is the further decline in Russia's market share, despite the availability of quality recoverable oil reserves, necessary infrastructure and personnel," it said. Rosneft, Russia's largest oil producer, has been the main contributor to the country's share of cuts. Rosneft has signaled that its oil production may increase by 3 percent to 4.5 percent this year, subject to OPEC agreements. Sechin, who worked closely with Putin in the mayor's office of St. Petersburg in the 1990s, has long been skeptical of OPEC's ability to regulate oil markets and has opposed output cuts before. Former Saudi Energy Minister Ali al-Naimi said in his 2016 book "Out of the Desert" that Sechin told him in a meeting with several oil ministers in Vienna in 2014 that Russia was not in a position to cut production. In the book, Naimi wrote that he then gathered his papers and said, "so I think the meeting is over". The first attempts to forge an OPEC-Russia output deal fell through that year. It took another two years of talks and Saudi Arabia replacing its oil minister to clinch a deal. Sechin's letter also reflects growing tension within Russia's government over the oil production agreement. The head of Russia's sovereign wealth fund, Kirill Dmitriev, one of the main architects of Russia's agreement with OPEC, told Reuters in January that he saw no reason to abandon the pact, despite a steep rise in U.S. output. Dmitriev said U.S. oil output would decline only if prices fell to $40 per barrel but if that happened it would also cause major damage to the Russian economy, which relies on oil and gas exports for more than half its budget revenues. (Writing by Vladimir Soldatkin; editing by Dmitry Zhdannikov and David Clarke) By Phil Stewart, Idrees Ali and Jibran Ahmad WASHINGTON/PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistan, long at odds with the United States over the war in Afghanistan, has begun to play a behind-the-scenes but central role in supporting U.S. peace talks with the Afghan Taliban, including by facilitating travel to negotiations, U.S. officials and Taliban sources told Reuters. The Pakistani assistance, which has not been reported in such detail before, also includes exerting pressure on Taliban leaders who fail to cooperate, including by detaining members of the militants' families, the insurgents say. Pakistan's role in the peace negotiations is a delicate one, with Islamabad seeking to avoid demonstrating the kind of broad influence over the Taliban that Washington has long accused it of having. Sources caution its help could be temporary. The Taliban also do not want to appear beholden to Islamabad, which has long denied U.S. accusations that it provides safe haven and assistance to insurgents as a way to preserve influence in neighboring Afghanistan throughout its more than 17-year-old war. U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly signaled his intention to wind down America's longest conflict, declaring this week in his State of the Union address that "great nations do not fight endless wars." One senior U.S. official, who declined to be identified, said of Pakistan's role in the talks: "We know it just wouldn't be possible without their support." "They've facilitated some movement and travel to the discussions in Doha," the official said. Trump's administration has accelerated talks for a political settlement in Afghanistan. U.S. peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad held six days of talks - perhaps the most productive to date - with the Taliban in Doha last month and is due to meet Taliban representatives again on Feb. 25. Speaking after Reuters reported the shift, Khalilzad confirmed at a forum in Washington that "there is a positive change in recent times" by Islamabad. "Pakistan has tried to facilitate talks between the Taliban and the United States and also favors inter-Afghan dialogue including between the Taliban and the (Afghan) government," he said. Taliban sources said Pakistan's role in bringing the Taliban to the negotiating table was instrumental. In one instance, Islamabad sent a message to the militants through religious leaders that they had to talk to the United States or risk a cut-off in ties. They detained Taliban members' families as a way to pressure them, a Taliban leader told Reuters. "I haven't seen Pakistan so serious before," the senior Taliban leader said. The Taliban leader, who declined to be identified, said Pakistan had kept "unprecedented pressure" on the militants and their close relatives over the past few months. "They made it clear to us that we (Taliban) have to talk to the U.S. and Afghan government," the Taliban leader said. To be sure, current and former U.S. officials still are highly skeptical of Islamabad and do not see any steps by Pakistan that could not be easily reversed. Washington appears for now to be sticking to a total freeze in U.S. assistance to Islamabad imposed over a year ago over its suspected support to the Taliban. Trump at the time accused Islamabad of rewarding past U.S. aid with "nothing but lies & deceit." "There's some self-interest obviously involved here ... I would be wary of taking that and extrapolating off that and saying they're now on board with the peace process," said Jason Campbell, who was the Pentagon's Afghanistan country director until last year and is now at the RAND Corporation think-tank. Afghanistan's envoy to Washington, Roya Rahmani, said that any Pakistani shift in behavior was still not apparent from Kabul, which has yet to participate in the talks. "For us, it still remains to be seen," she told Reuters in an interview. PULLOUT PRESSURE Pakistani sources suggest that the driver behind their country's support for the talks is not U.S. aid but growing concerns over the regional economic shockwaves that could follow an abrupt U.S. pullout from Afghanistan. Those concerns have been strengthened by Trump's surprise decision in December to withdraw completely from Syria, despite objections from the Pentagon. There are only about 14,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, but their presence ensures a continuous flow of U.S. financial assistance to Afghanistan. Islamabad, running short of foreign exchange reserves and in talks with the International Monetary Fund over what would be its 13th bailout since the 1980s, says it cannot afford to see Afghanistan slide into chaos just as Pakistan is trying to attract foreign investors to shore up its own economy. "That is our main worry in all of this," said a senior official who is closely involved in cross-border relations. "We have enough economic issues of our own to deal with already." One of the most notable public signs of Pakistan's willingness to aid the negotiations was the release of Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar. Now the newly appointed chief negotiator, Baradar is expected to fly from Pakistan to attend the next round of negotiations in Doha on Feb. 25. Dan Feldman, a former U.S. special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, said he believed Washington was still hesitant to become too hopeful about Pakistan's change in posture. "There is cautious appreciation for the fact that Pakistan has seemingly done more than before to be helpful," Feldman said, before adding that it did not "suggest a sea change in Pakistan's position." (Reporting by Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali in Washington and Jibran Ahmad in Peshawar, Pakistan; Additional reporting by James Mackenzie in Islamabad and Jonathan Landay and Mohammad Zargham in Washington; Editing by James Dalgleish and Grant McCool) Paris (AFP) - Detained former Renault boss Carlos Ghosn "stands ready" to repay a 50,000-euro ($57,000) bill for his wedding party at the Palace of Versailles, which was waived under a sponsorship deal with the French carmaker, his lawyer said Friday. Renault disclosed this week that the French chateau had waived the usual rental fee for Ghosn as part of a sponsorship deal between Versailles and Renault, signed a few months before the lavish October 2016 wedding. Ghosn's lawyer in France, Jean-Yves Le Borgne, told AFP that the ousted CEO was willing to pay the fee, saying he "was not aware he owed it because he had not been billed". "He thought it was free," Le Borgne said. The waived bill could amount to the misuse of company resources, as well as tax evasion, if the benefit-in-kind was not declared to French authorities. Ghosn's tenure as CEO has come under the microscope since his arrest last November in Japan on charges he under-reported millions of dollars in pay as head of Nissan, Renault's alliance partner. His subsequent indictment on three charges of financial misconduct has led to renewed scrutiny of his management and lifestyle at both companies while he sits in a Tokyo jail awaiting trial. Ghosn and his second wife Carole threw a Marie Antoinette-themed dinner and party at the former royal residence at Versailles, complete with entertainers in period costumes, on October 8, 2016. In a statement, the Chateau de Versailles said Renault had signed a 2.3-million-euro sponsorship deal with the palace in June 2016. Under the terms of the deal, Renault could benefit in return from Versailles access and other services worth a maximum 25 percent of the deal, in this case around 575,000 euros, it said. - Another Versailles party - The prosecutor's office in Nanterre outside Paris said that they met with Renault's lawyers to discuss the matter Friday. "No decision has yet been taken regarding an eventual inquiry," a spokesperson told AFP. Story continues Also on Friday, French financial daily Les Echos and newsmagazine L'Express said Ghosn could be facing new scrutiny over another party at Versailles, a 600,000-euro gala dinner paid for by Renault in 2014. Officially the event was to celebrate the 15th anniversary of Renault's alliance with Nissan, the ambitious project which Ghosn forged into the world's top-selling auto group. But the date, March 9, actually coincided with Ghosn's 60th birthday and not the launch of the alliance, the reports said, adding that most of the guests consisted of Ghosn's friends and associates as opposed to Renault or Nissan executives. "We need to stay calm, people's imaginations are running wild -- the invitations clearly say it was to mark the alliance's 15th anniversary," Le Borgne said. "I was born on June 6, and I deny any role in the glorious D-Day landing on the beaches of Normandy" in 1944, he added. "There are some coincidences that have nothing to do with cause-and-effect relationships." Ghosn was dismissed as chairman of Nissan and the other alliance partner Mitsubishi shortly after his arrest in November, but he relinquished his grip as CEO of Nissan only last month. Also last month Ghosn resigned as chief executive and chairman of Renault. He has staunchly denied the financial misconduct charges against him. BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The EU's chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said he would reiterate on Monday at a planned meeting with Britain's Brexit minister that the EU would not re-open the Brexit deal, but was ready to rework the political declaration that accompanies it. Barnier is to meet British Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union Steven Barclay on Monday. Prime Minister Theresa May heard the same message last Thursday from the head of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker and the chairman of EU leaders Donald Tusk. "I am looking forward to meeting Steve Barclay in Brussels on Monday evening," Barnier said on Twitter on Friday. "I will listen to how the UK sees the way through. The EU will not reopen the Withdrawal Agreement. But I will reaffirm our openness to rework the Political Declaration in full respect of European Council guidelines," he said. (Reporting By Jan Strupczewski) The European Space Agencys new Mars rover will be named after British scientist Rosalind Franklin, who contributed to the discovery of DNAs double-helix. Astronaut Tim Peake launched a campaign in July asking citizens of ESA member states to submit name suggestions online. After receiving nearly 36,000 responses, a panel selected Franklin as the rovers namesake. Being that the roverbuilt at the Airbus factory in Stevenage, Englandwill head to Mars in 2020 to search for life, its fitting that the machinery is named after the scientist who helped discover the shape of what lifes made of. Franklin first used X-ray diffraction methods to study DNA as a research fellow at Kings College, London in 1951. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, she discovered the density of DNA and established that it existed in a helical conformation. Her work laid the foundation for James Watson and Francis Crick to suggest DNAs double-helix structure in 1953. Crick, Watson, and Maurice Wilkins received the 1962 Nobel Prize for their work, but since Franklin died of cancer in 1958 at the age of 37, she could not be considered for the award. This left many to believe she was not given the recognition she deserved, says BBC. In the last year of Rosalinds life, I remember visiting her in hospital on the day when she was excited by the news of the [Soviet Sputnik satellite]the very beginning of space exploration, Franklins sister, Jenifer Glynn, told BBC. She could never have imagined that over 60 years later there would be a rover sent to Mars bearing her name, but somehow that makes this project even more special. The rover, previously known as ExoMars, is scheduled to launch in summer 2020 and land on Mars in March 2021. The six-wheeled robot is equipped with a drill that can reach up to 2 meters underground in its search for evidence of microbial life. Tehran (AFP) - Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Friday that Europe "cannot be trusted", a week after the EU launched a trade mechanism to bypass US sanctions on Tehran. "These days there's talk of the Europeans and their proposals. My advice is that they shouldn't be trusted, just like the Americans," he said at a meeting with air force officials, his website reported. "I'm not saying we shouldn't have relations with them. This is about trust," he added. Britain, France and Germany last week launched a special payment mechanism called INSTEX to help save the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers. It would allow Tehran to keep trading with EU companies in spite of US sanctions renewed after Washington quit the accord last year. Tehran has cautiously welcomed INSTEX as a "first step", but US officials said the new entity would not have any impact on efforts to exert economic pressure on Iran. Khamenei also accused Europe of hypocrisy over human rights, criticising France's treatment of protesters in Paris. "They (anti-riot police) attack protesters in Paris streets and blind them, then they have the audacity to make human rights requests of us," he said. Turning to the United States, Khamenei said Iranians would chant "death to America" as long as Washington kept up its hostile policies, but the slogan was not directed at the American people. "Death to America means death to (President Donald) Trump, (National Security Advisor) John Bolton and (Secretary of State Mike) Pompeo. It means death to America's rulers ... we have nothing against the American people," he said. By Alastair Macdonald and Gabriela Baczynska BRUSSELS (Reuters) - It's a proposal that is not even on the table, and reverses Theresa May's determined position - but EU officials are still urging her to grasp an offer from the Labour opposition to break an impasse over the terms of Britain's EU exit. The Conservative prime minister gave no sign during her visit to Brussels on Thursday of softening her rejection of a permanent EU-UK customs union, as Labour proposes, European Union sources said. But for many in Brussels, the possibility of Labour support for an orderly Brexit that avoids the likely chaos of "no-deal" is the only way out of the deadlock, and justifies an attempt to influence Britain's highly tribal internal politics. "We are still very much in the party politics perspective. The only hope is that, at some point, the threat of 'no-deal' disruptions would mobilize minds in the UK," an EU diplomat briefed on May's talks in Brussels said on Friday. "For now, May is still looking at her own party rather than a nationwide consensus." The EU says London agreeing to closer ties with the bloc after Brexit would largely obviate the need for a contentious "backstop" provision in the future, an insurance policy meant to keep the border between Ireland and the British-run province of Northern Ireland open under any and all circumstances. "We are looking at those proposals with interest but there are obviously very considerable points of difference that exist between us," said a senior official in Mays office. "The PM continues to believe that an independent trade policy is one of the key advantages of Brexit," the person said under condition of anonymity. Staying in a customs union with the EU would limit the UK's ability to seal trade deals with other countries on its own. But the bloc believes that solution might be acceptable to the Northern Irish unionists propping up May's government, as well as to at least some Labour lawmakers, and thus secure a parliamentary majority for the divorce deal before Britain leaves on March 29. Given the EU's opposition to the concessions on the backstop that May is currently demanding, the only alternative appears to Brussels to be a delay to the exit and/or a "no-deal" Brexit, with no transition period to soften the economic rupture. "THE ONLY WAY OUT" "By that time, hopefully, May will have worked with Labour and get Labour votes. It's the only way out. There will be no illusions on what will happen in the last week of March if they don't vote for it," another EU diplomat said. One senior EU diplomat added: "Our leaders cannot understand why she still has not been able to do what they do every day talk to the opposition, build coalitions." The EU's chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, said he would reiterate on Monday at a planned meeting with Britain's Brexit minister that the EU would not re-open the legally binding Brexit deal agreed with Britain over two years, but was ready to rework the political declaration that accompanies it. The bloc rejects London's demands for a time limit to the backstop, saying that would defeat its purpose. But it has given May an olive branch, agreeing that Brexit negotiators from both sides will sit down to talks again. EU diplomats and officials dealing with Brexit expect it to go right down to the wire. While May has refused to rule out a 'no-deal' Brexit, which she believes gives her bargaining power, Brussels hopes that she would come round to requesting at least a short delay if that scenario seemed unavoidable. They juxtapose May's brinkmanship with a somewhat unexpected role model - Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. Long at loggerheads with the EU over Greece's economy and migration, the bloc's former enfant terrible has now won widespread praise in the EU for putting to rest a protracted name dispute with neighboring Macedonia at considerable political cost. "Look at Tsipras and Macedonia a leader who stuck his neck out and risked his own government and premiership to do what he knew was right. We need that type of thinking in the UK," said another EU diplomat. (Additional reporting by Jan Strupczewski in Brussels and Elizabeth Piper in London; Writing by Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Frances Kerry) BERLIN (AP) France and Germany have buried their differences on new European rules that could complicate plans for a gas pipeline from Russia to Germany. After last-minute negotiations Friday between the two European Union powerhouses, ambassadors of EU countries meeting in Brussels gave the go-ahead to a tweaked proposal that will not threaten the politically sensitive project. The agreement, which only Bulgaria voted against, sets the scene for negotiations within the EU for extending the bloc's rules regulating gas deliveries to incoming pipelines, like the Russian-German Nord Stream 2. "It only happened because Germany and France worked very closely together, also with the Romanian presidency (of the EU) and other member states," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in Berlin. The Russian-German pipeline is being built under the Baltic Sea to deliver gas directly to Germany for further distribution across Europe, increasing the route's capacity over what already flows through the first Nord Stream pipeline. Eastern European countries like Poland and Ukraine have vehemently objected to the project because they say it specifically bypasses their territories. The United States, itself a major gas producer, has called the pipeline a form of Russian control over Germany and a threat to European energy security. It has also suggested that companies involved in the pipeline project could be vulnerable to energy-related sanctions against Russia. "The Americans don't want Nord Stream 2 to happen," an adviser to French President Emmanuel Macron said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to be publicly identified, stressing that it was not American pressure that shaped the French position. "What we say is that if Nord Stream 2 happens, we want it to happen in a European framework." Berlin had been against the new EU directive but, after France threatened to use its weight to push it through, agreed to a compromise where German regulatory officials would oversee projects like Nord Stream 2, but with EU regulators having the final say, according to Macron's office. Story continues Germany and France have the eurozone's two biggest economies and are traditionally the drivers of European integration, although the relationship hasn't always run smoothly. Macron's proposals for far-reaching reform of the EU have met with an often-lukewarm response in Berlin. German officials were keen Friday to downplay suggestions of a Franco-German rift, arguing that Paris and Berlin have a strong relationship that allows them to resolve differences. "I think this is a good day and it wouldn't have happened this way without German-French cooperation," Merkel said. The decision ends a two-year impasse, and negotiations are now seen largely as a technical matter that will likely be resolved by this summer. Once the new regulations are finalized, experts say they will subject Russia's Gazprom to EU regulations on the pipeline, and will not allow it to be its sole operator. That will mean charging market prices for gas, rather than Gazprom making its own agreements, and will likely make running the pipeline more expensive in general, said Gustav Gressel, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations think-tank in Berlin. "Gazprom would have to run the pipeline in a much more commercial manner, and there will be much less money left that could be funneled into the private pockets of the regime or other parts of the Russian state," he said. However, an attempt to implement new regulations mid-way through the Nord Stream 2 project are almost certain to run into legal challenges from Russia, said Katja Yafimava, a senior research fellow at Britain's Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. Additionally, if the European Commission sees the directive as giving Europe leverage to secure agreements with Russia about gas transiting Ukraine in other pipelines, it could backfire, and make Moscow less willing to concede to a longer-term agreement on that, she said. "Thus, while the European Commission may believe the amendment would put it into position of strength vis-a-vis Russia/Gazprom, in my view this is an illusion and even if the amendment passes it may well be a pyrrhic victory," she said in an email to The Associated Press. _____ Geir Moulson in Berlin and Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this story. Dozens of Indonesians who served jail time for corruption are running for public office, the electoral agency said Thursday, as the world's third-largest democracy gears up for national polls. The 49 candidates belong to more than half of the 16 political parties contesting April elections, including President Joko Widodo's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle. Half a dozen represent Gerindra, a party lead by former military general Prabowo Subianto, who is challenging Widodo for Indonesia's top job, according to the General Elections Commission. They're among more than 8,000 people vying for seats in parliament and regional councils, with 192 million registered voters eligible to cast a ballot on April 17. The Southeast Asian nation is riddled with corruption at all levels of society and its House of Representatives is widely viewed as one of its most graft-hit institutions. Legislative hopefuls must publicly declare their previous convictions to stand for office, but there are no fixed rules about how they are to reveal those details. "We hope the public can use this information" to avoid electing corruption candidates, Donal Fairz from Indonesian Corruption Watch told AFP. Graft has been endemic in Indonesia since before the world's largest Muslim majority country transitioned into a democracy after the fall of long-ruling dictator Suharto two decades ago. Suharto's son, Tommy, is running for a seat in restive Papua province despite a 2002 conviction for ordering the assassination of a Supreme Court judge who had convicted him of corruption. In 2018, ex-parliamentary speaker Setya Novanto was jailed for 15 years for accepting bribes and millions of dollars in kickbacks. Dina Lohan with daughter Lindsay. (Getty Images) Dina Lohan, mother of actress Lindsay Lohan, has confessed she is in love with a man she has never met, and intends to marry him. The 56-year-old is currently competing on the US version of Celebrity Big Brother, and revealed she has been talking to a special someone on the phone for over five years. Im going to marry him. Its true love, Dina said. However, her fellow housemates were concerned for the former talent manager, and said she may be getting catfished, which is when someone pretends to be someone theyre not to maintain an online relationship. Ive been talking to him for five years, like every day, a lot. I feel like I know him You know when you talk to someone on the phone, like you feel like you know them? she confessed to fellow contestant Kandi Burress. Have you ever met him? asked Kandi. Its not like that I swear to you hes real. Its crazy, but Im gonna marry him. Its really true, she insisted. Dina with model daughter Ali at a fashion show. (Getty Images) But Kandi said he sounded like a straight up Catfish and wondered why they had never video chatted over the last five years. When Dina said he didnt have a camera phone, other contestant Tamar Braxton jumped in and said the unnamed man was lying. Lies! Its 2019. My mother is 71 and she uses it. Thats a lie, thats a lie from the pit of the devil, dont you believe that! said Tamar. Dina said he lives in San Francisco, is unable to travel from the city, and that one day she will fly to meet him. She currently lives in Long Island, New York. Its real. Some guys just dont use iPhones, Dina added. Dina was married to Michael Lohan from 1985-2007. The couple had four children together. Read more Lindsay Lohan says domestic abuse inspired show Katie Price hits back at online trolls Nicole Appleton talks past regrets LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The death toll in California's deadliest and most destructive wildfire was revised down by one, to 85, on Thursday by a sheriff who said that remains initially thought to belong to two people turned out to be from the same individual. Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said the number of people still considered missing or unaccounted for in the aftermath of the Camp Fire had also been reduced by one after a man on that list was taken into custody on an arrest warrant. The Camp Fire broke out on Nov. 8 and quickly incinerated most of the Sierra foothills town of Paradise, about 175 miles (280 km) north of San Francisco, destroying 18,500 homes. Most of the fatalities from the blaze were in Paradise. At 85, the casualty toll from the Camp Fire stands as the greatest loss of life from a single wildfire on record in California, and the highest from any U.S. wildfire during the past century. (Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Robert Birsel) Want to participate in a short research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! A look at the shareholders of Space Hellas S.A. (ATH:SPACE) can tell us which group is most powerful. Generally speaking, as a company grows, institutions will increase their ownership. Conversely, insiders often decrease their ownership over time. I generally like to see some degree of insider ownership, even if only a little. As Nassim Nicholas Taleb said, Dont tell me what you think, tell me what you have in your portfolio. Space Hellas is a smaller company with a market capitalization of 31m, so it may still be flying under the radar of many institutional investors. Taking a look at the our data on the ownership groups (below), its seems that institutions are noticeable on the share registry. Lets take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholder can tell us about SPACE. View our latest analysis for Space Hellas ATSE:SPACE Ownership Summary February 8th 19 What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Space Hellas? Institutional investors commonly compare their own returns to the returns of a commonly followed index. So they generally do consider buying larger companies that are included in the relevant benchmark index. We can see that Space Hellas does have institutional investors; and they hold 15% of the stock. This implies the analysts working for those institutions have looked at the stock and they like it. But just like anyone else, they could be wrong. When multiple institutions own a stock, theres always a risk that they are in a crowded trade. When such a trade goes wrong, multiple parties may compete to sell stock fast. This risk is higher in a company without a history of growth. You can see Space Hellass historic earnings and revenue, below, but keep in mind theres always more to the story. ATSE:SPACE Income Statement Export February 8th 19 Hedge funds dont have many shares in Space Hellas. Were not picking up on any analyst coverage of the stock at the moment, so the company is unlikely to be widely held. Story continues Insider Ownership Of Space Hellas While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. The company management answer to the board; and the latter should represent the interests of shareholders. Notably, sometimes top-level managers are on the board, themselves. Insider ownership is positive when it signals leadership are thinking like the true owners of the company. However, high insider ownership can also give immense power to a small group within the company. This can be negative in some circumstances. It seems insiders own a significant proportion of Space Hellas S.A.. Insiders own 15m worth of shares in the 31m company. This may suggest that the founders still own a lot of shares. You can click here to see if they have been buying or selling. General Public Ownership The general public holds a 37% stake in SPACE. While this size of ownership may not be enough to sway a policy decision in their favour, they can still make a collective impact on company policies. Next Steps: I find it very interesting to look at who exactly owns a company. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too. I like to dive deeper into how a company has performed in the past. You can find historic revenue and earnings in this detailed graph. If you would prefer check out another company one with potentially superior financials then do not miss this free list of interesting companies, backed by strong financial data. NB: Figures in this article are calculated using data from the last twelve months, which refer to the 12-month period ending on the last date of the month the financial statement is dated. This may not be consistent with full year annual report figures. To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements. The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombia's migration office on Friday said it canceled over 300 daily entrance passes for Venezuelan politicians and their families who support President Nicolas Maduro. Colombia has borne the brunt of the exodus of Venezuelans fleeing malnutrition and political turmoil in their once-prosperous nation, with about 800,000 flooding over the border and settling in Colombia. "It doesn't make sense that while (they) migrate by hunger and necessity, supporters of the dictatorship enjoy these benefits and enter our country, using this card, to shop, among other things," Christian Kruger, the head of the migration agency, said in a statement. Trucks carrying humanitarian aid for Venezuela arrived in the Colombian border city of Cucuta on Thursday even as Maduro refused them entry, blocking the Tienditas bridge amid an escalating political crisis. The arrival of the aid convoy, which includes supplies provided by the United States, has increased the pressure on Maduro after Washington as well as nations from across Latin America and Europe recognized opposition leader Juan Guaido as the rightful interim ruler of Venezuela. Maduro has rejected the aid convoy as a "political show" and vowed to remain in office. Kruger said that among those barred from using their entry cards are former Tachira Governor Vielma Mora, Zulia Governor Erika Farias and Caracas Mayor Sandra Oblitas. Estimates of how many Venezuelans have left their home country during the tenures of former President Hugo Chavez and current leader Maduro vary widely, with some opponents and academics putting the figure at 4 million. (Reporting by Helen Murphy; Editing by Daniel Flynn and Chizu Nomiyama) New York Sen. Chuck Schumer addressed President Trumps claims in his State of the Union address that the United States has a moral duty to establish an immigration system that protects the lives and jobs of our citizens. Speaking in an interview with CBS This Morning on Wednesday, Schumer said Trump should stay out of bipartisan negotiations on a funding solution for border security in response to a question about whether Congress and the President can work together to avoid another government shutdown. The President realized that the shutdown that he caused and bragged about was a failure, Schumer said. For this president to seem impervious to whats going on he touched a hot stove and he knows. The real answer for the President: Stay out of it. Weve set it up so that Democrats and Republicans, House and Senate can come to an agreement and keep the government open. If the President stays out of it, theyre very likely to come to a good agreement. A bipartisan group of Congress members is working out a compromise to fund the border. Trump has repeatedly commented on how he thinks lawmakers are wasting their time if negotiations dont include funding for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Have you been paying attention to shares of Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG)? Shares have been on the move with the stock up 14.9% over the past month. The stock hit a new 52-week high of $606 in the previous session. Chipotle Mexican Grill has gained 35.7% since the start of the year compared to the 9% move for the Zacks Retail-Wholesale sector and the 6.1% return for the Zacks Retail - Restaurants industry. What's Driving the Outperformance? The stock has a great record of positive earnings surprises, as it hasn't missed our earnings consensus estimate in any of the last four quarters. In its last earnings report on February 6, 2019, Chipotle reported EPS of $1.72 versus consensus estimate of $1.39 while it beat the consensus revenue estimate by 2.43%. For the current fiscal year, Chipotle is expected to post earnings of $12.09 per share on $5.23 billion in revenues. This represents a 33.44% change in EPS on a 7.53% change in revenues. For the next fiscal year, the company is expected to earn $15.31 per share on $5.77 billion in revenues. This represents a year-over-year change of 26.64% and 10.21%, respectively. Valuation Metrics Chipotle may be at a 52-week high right now, but what might the future hold for the stock? A key aspect of this question is taking a look at valuation metrics in order to determine if the company is due for a pullback from this level. On this front, we can look at the Zacks Style Scores, as they provide investors with an additional way to sort through stocks (beyond looking at the Zacks Rank of a security). These styles are represented by grades running from A to F in the categories of Value, Growth, and Momentum, while there is a combined VGM Score as well. The idea behind the style scores is to help investors pick the most appropriate Zacks Rank stocks based on their individual investment style. Chipotle has a Value Score of D. The stock's Growth and Momentum Scores are A and A, respectively, giving the company a VGM Score of B. Story continues In terms of its value breakdown, the stock currently trades at 48.5X current fiscal year EPS estimates. On a trailing cash flow basis, the stock currently trades at 35.7X versus its peer group's average of 11.8X. Additionally, the stock has a PEG ratio of 2.71. This isn't enough to put the company in the top echelon of all stocks we cover from a value perspective. Zacks Rank We also need to look at the Zacks Rank for the stock, as this supersedes any trend on the style score front. Fortunately, Chipotle currently has a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy) thanks to favorable earnings estimate revisions from covering analysts. Since we recommend that investors select stocks carrying Zacks Rank of 1 (Strong Buy) or 2 (Buy) and Style Scores of A or B, it looks as if Chipotle fits the bill. Thus, it seems as though Chipotle shares could still be poised for more gains ahead. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. (CMG) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research China on Friday denied what it termed "ridiculous" allegations of spying levelled by Lithuania as the Baltic eurozone state joined other western nations in expressing concerns about Chinese telecoms giant Huawei. The company has raised suspicions in the west for its close ties to the Chinese government and generated fears the company may be a tool of China's international espionage capabilities. "It is absurd and ridiculous for the Lithuanian intelligence and security services to rely on conjecture and imagination to make unfounded distortions," the Chinese embassy said in a statement. It said it was "shocked and surprised" by the "totally unacceptable" statements made by Lithuanian intelligence, insisting that "China does not pose any security threat to Lithuania". Earlier this week, two Lithuanian intelligence agencies condemned China for an "increasingly aggressive" spy campaign which it said included "attempts to recruit Lithuanian citizens". Darius Jauniskis, head of Lithuania's State Security Department, said his agency was analysing the potential "threat" posed by Huawei, whose technology is being used to build the EU and NATO state's new 5G telecommunications infrastructure. US officials recently toured EU capitals urging European governments to scrap Huawei technology from their telecom infrastructure plans. The US considers the matter urgent as EU countries prepare to roll out 5G networks that will deliver near-instantaneous connectivity, vast data capacity and new technologies to Europeans. Several other countries, under pressure from the United States, have banned Huawei's 5G equipment. China has limited economic presence in Lithuania, a staunch US ally of 2.8 million people, but talks are underway regarding investments in the Baltic seaport of Klaipeda, according to local officials. Occupied and annexed by Moscow during World War II, Lithuania broke free from the crumbling Soviet Union in 1991 and joined both the European Union and NATO in 2004. The 24-year-old woman and 28-year-old man remain in custody as police investigate the blaze in Stafford on Tuesday. Two people have been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter by gross negligence after a house fire led to the deaths of four children. Riley Holt, eight, Keegan Unitt, six, Olly Unitt, three, and Tilly Rose Unitt, four, died after the blaze in Stafford on Tuesday. Staffordshire Police said a 24-year-old woman and a 28-year-old man were arrested at around 1.30pm on Friday and remain in custody. The Government is facing a backlash for sneaking through a death tax that could see grieving families forced to pay out up to 6,000. Probate, the process of legally securing a deceased relatives estate, currently costs 215 maximum, but the charge is set to increase in proportion to the value of estates. Roughly 280,000 families a year will face increased charges, with 56,000 of them having to pay between 2,500 and 6,000. The actor was best known for roles in Tom Jones and Erin Brockovich. Actor Albert Finney has died at the age of 82. The actor was best known for his roles in Erin Brockovich, Murder On The Orient Express and Annie. A statement from his family said he died peacefully after a short illness with those closest to him by his side. A Devon town which successfully evicted a McDonalds from its high street now wants to stop Premier Inn locating there. Residents in Tavistock dubbed Britains angriest town have vowed to take down the predator chain hotel planned for the picturesque town on the edge of the Dartmoor. Vaporizers are taking on the features of smartphones and using apps to optimize the experience. (Seng-Vital/YouTube) Rolling a joint or packing a pipe are the cannabis equivalents of treating the sick with leeches, or starting a car with a crank, compared to the latest generation of vaporizers hitting the market. Price ceilings and technological limits seem non-existent as a new, sophisticated generation of cannabis users ditch plastic bongs filled with blackened, foul-smelling water for sleek pens that dont look out of place in the breast pocket of a well-tailored suit. For the uninitiated, vaporizers work by heating flower or concentrate to the point where cannabinoids can be extracted through inhaled vapour. Most users find it far less harsh on their lungs than cannabis smoke. For the most part, the challenge for manufacturers has been shrinking high-quality heating elements into a small package while achieving a decent battery life. Thats still the case, but now vaporizers are taking on the features of smartphones and using apps to optimize the experience. Lifespot Health Ltd. (LSH.AX) an Australian medical diagnostic and monitoring technology company, recently released a bluetooth-connected cannabis vaporizer that unlocks with the owners fingerprint, adjusts dose strength on a screen, and shares data with medical professionals in real time. I dont think anyones got the fully-integrated system like we do, Lifespot Healths non-executive chairman Rodney Hannington told Yahoo Finance Canada. As the user vapes, they can enter their pain score and we can track how much they are vaping, and if their pain is being relieved or not. Lifespot Health has connected its BodyTel patient monitoring technology to a suite of medical equipment from heart sensors to blood sugar monitors. The company fully acquired a German vaporizer manufacturer last September called Seng-Vital, which manufactures the Cannamed bluetooth vaping system. Hannington said the Cannamed medical device will be sold through medical clinics for about US$200, plus fees for data services. Lifespot Health is also working with two undisclosed companies in Canada and the U.S. to brand and sell a recreational version for $100 to $150. Story continues Clouds of vape data Allowing doctors to actively monitor cannabis vaping habits, and even shut down the device remotely if they feel its being misused, may sound dystopian. Hannington insists the close communication is warranted, given the lack of rigorous clinical trials on various medical cannabis applications. Privacy is a major concern, given medical and recreational cannabis remains illegal in many parts of the world. Hannington assures that Lifespot Health handles its medical data in a patient compliant manner. Once a sufficient number of users is achieved, the data could provide valuable insight into consumption trends and pain relieve, he said. Many observers believe vaping will become the preferred way to consume medical cannabis. Last October, Aurora Cannabis Inc. (ACB.TO) revealed Aurora Cloud, the first Health Canada compliant vape-ready CBD oil line from a licensed producer. CEO Terry Booth said the new product addresses an unmet need in the market. Dial in your high (Seng-Vital/YouTube) Scores of inexperienced users will test their cannabis tolerance of the first time as more jurisdictions liberalize policy on medical and recreational use. The ability to consistently dial in the right dose is a key feature Lifespot Health and other manufacturers, like Denver-based Gofire Inc., are building into their devices. Finding the right setting could mean the difference between a light buzz or being locked to your couch for hours. The benefits of fingerprint activation are obvious. Kids cant inhale what they cant unlock. Lifespot Health is also looking at developing geolocation functionality that could prevent users from vaping in certain areas, near schools or hospitals, for example. A refill reminder feature is another idea on the drawing board. We can track the users volume, Harrington said. Then we can ping them (on their smartphone) and say, You are going to run out in a couple of days. Do you want to reorder more cannabis? Download the Yahoo Finance app, available for Apple and Android. Rescued: Maia Herman-Kitami and boyfriend Carlos Hernandez were stranded for five days in their car (Jason Logan) A couple survived after being stuck in deep snow their jeep car for five days in a California forest. Maia Herman-Kitami and Carlos Hernandez survived by drinking melted snow and were finally rescued after being spotted by by stranger on on snowmobiles. I just want to say thank you and how grateful both of us are because without them, we wouldnt be here, Herman-Kitami told San Franciscos KGO. The couple got in difficulties after deciding to go camping at the end of last month in Californias Mendocino National Forest. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. But the weather turned quickly and their Jeep Wrangler got stuck due to heavy snow. Even worse they could get a mobile phone service to alert authorities. They decided to stay put in their car to try and keep as warm as possible, ration food and drink the melted snow. The couple survived by drinking melted snow (Jason Logan) Police were alerted by parents a day after they were due to return home but they still had to be found. But they were eventually discovered by Jason Logan and his father-in-law Ron Lovell. They had heard about the missing couple and decided to search for them on their snowmobiles. It was now Monday and the couple had still not been found. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. Logan and Lovell found another group on snowmobiles also looking for Herman-Kitami and Hernandez and they eventually tracked down the missing boyfriend and girlfriend. Sure enough, we come around the turn and theres a Jeep 300 yards away, Logan told another media outlet, KRCR. It was just mind-boggling. However, there were still fears the couple may not have survived until they started blasting their horns. They started laying on the horn, you saw both doors open and they jumped out each side, said Logan. The rescue likely came just in time as a fresh snowstorm hit just hours later. With the weather we had Im fairly convinced the Jeep would have been buried by [Tuesday] morning, said Logan. Watch the latest videos from Yahoo UK Rio de Janeiro (AFP) - An operation by Brazilian military police in Rio de Janeiro on Friday left at least 13 people dead in a number of city center favelas, authorities said. They were among 14 people who sustained gunshot wounds in the operation close to the Santa Teresa neighborhood, health officials said. Firefights often break out in favelas during battles between rival gangs or when the police launch operations to combat drug trafficking. The police said they conducted operations from Friday morning due to "shoot-outs in the area caused by the dispute between rival criminal groups," with local reports indicating that two gangs had been in a turf war since Wednesday. On Twitter police added that they had "shot 12 criminals" during the operation. In the Fallet area, security forces were "met by gunfire and there was a battle," the police said. "After which at least 10 wounded criminals were found in the streets and were taken to the Souza Aguiar hospital," they added. Authorities said they had seized three assault rifles, 12 pistols and six grenades, pictures of which were posted on the military police's Twitter page. A video posted on the website of the local O Dia newspaper showed police loading bodies into the back of a vehicle. A quarter of Rio's population of six million people live in favelas -- informal, poorly-resourced townships populated by low income residents in one of the world's most economically unequal countries. Insecurity has been on the rise since the city hosted the 2016 Summer Olympic Games. Last year, it registered a record 63,800 murders. As well as rising crime, human rights groups have hit out at the security forces for excessive use of force, particularly in favelas. In 2017, 1,127 people died during police operations in Rio state, the Public Security Forum NGO said, representing an increase of 90 percent since 2014. Also in 2017, 104 security agents were killed, mostly when off duty. Insecurity is one of the issues that most worries Brazilians in a country that is already one of the most violent in the world. Far-right President Jair Bolsonaro was swept to victory in elections last year mostly through vowing to get tough on crime. Rio de Janeiro (AFP) - An operation by Brazilian military police in Rio de Janeiro on Friday left at least 13 people dead in three city-center favelas, authorities said. The local health authority told AFP that 14 people were taken to the Souza Aguiar hospital with gunshot wounds following the operation at favelas close to the Santa Teresa neighborhood. One person remained in a serious condition while the other 13 were dead, the health authority said. Firefights often break out in favelas during battles between rival gangs or when the police launch operations to combat drug trafficking. According to local reports, two drug-trafficking gangs had been fighting since Wednesday for control over the favelas close to Santa Teresa. The military police said on Twitter they had "shot 12 criminals" during the operation in the Fallet, Fogueteiro and Coroa favelas. All three are close to the Santa Teresa neighborhood, one of Rio's top tourist attractions. Security forces were "met by gunfire and a battle took place," the police said. "Once the firefight was over, injured criminals were found in the streets and were taken to the Souza Aguiar hospital." Authorities said they had seized three assault rifles, 12 pistols and six grenades, pictures of which were posted on the military police's Twitter page. A video posted on the website of the local O Dia newspaper showed police loading bodies into the back of a vehicle. A quarter of Rio's population of six million people live in favelas -- big city slums. In a competitive hiring environment, you don't want to give employees a reason to look for another job. And even in a more employer-friendly market, you still don't want the hassle of interviewing, hiring, and on-boarding workers. One way to limit employee turnover is with a positive workplace environment. That sounds easy, but creating a workplace (or work culture, if you have remote employees) that the vast majority of your staff will enjoy can be a challenge. Still, if creating a positive culture is important to you, there are two ways to make it happen. Two women huddle over a latpop Communication -- both talking and listening -- is key to creating a positive office culture. Image source: Getty Images. 1. Talk Secrets and a lack of openness can turn into poison in an office. You can't share everything with everyone (maybe a potential new hire has asked for discretion because of that person's current job). But you would be shocked by how much you can actually share. Hold all-hands meetings where you update employees of all levels on how the business is doing. Even when things aren't great, be honest. If you are, then you're making your staff part of the solution. And, yes, sharing that things are going well may result in more people asking for raises, but that can be solved by having a clear procedure for granting pay increases. You should also talk formally and informally with people on a one-on-one basis. Make this a practice up and down the company hierarchy, where managers regularly chat with their direct reports, and everyone works to casually interact with everyone else. In the formal meetings, ask the work questions and find out what issues the employee may have. Make it a safe, open conversation -- without fear of reprisal -- where a worker can share any unhappiness with a boss or any plans to look elsewhere. 2. Listen Besides telling your employees what's going on and making time to meet with them, you also have to make sure you listen. If, for example, employees tell you they want to leave, listen to their reasoning. Ask questions about what you might do differently. Story continues That could lead to learning something that can help you hold on to the employee. In other cases, you'll at least benefit from not being surprised by the departure. Focus on the details. Ask how each person thinks the job can be better; find out what your employees want from their time at the company. Listen and discuss progress when you next meet (and if there's something that's unrealistic or you can't make happen, communicate that, too). It's about communication As the manager, you have to make sure everyone is included. That means making an effort with more-quiet employees or ones who don't trust the idea of sharing. Creating a positive office culture requires commitment and vigilance. Don't just do these things sometimes, but bake them into your company's daily operations. More From The Motley Fool The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Jennifer Lawrence in 2018 Wearing Christian Dior. [Photo: Getty] On Sunday evening, the silver screens starriest names will don their finest attire for the 2019 British Academy Film Awards ceremony. Set to take place at the prestigious Royal Albert Hall in London, the red carpet event is sure to see the the nations cherished A-listers demonstrate their sartorial know-how with the likes of Lady Gaga, Emma Stone and Margot Robbie expected to win big. Ahead of the event, weve decided to take a look back at the most fashionable happenings in years gone by from Liz Hurleys now-famous Versace dress in 1998 to Jennifer Lawrences breathtaking Christian Dior number 20 years later. How many BAFTA red carpet looks can you remember? Bangladesh will Wednesday file a lawsuit in New York against a Philippine bank over its involvement in one of the biggest-ever cyber heists, the country's central bank governor said. Unidentified hackers stole $81 million from the Bangladesh central bank's account with the US Federal Reserve in New York in February 2016. The money was then transferred to a Manila branch of the Rizal Commercial Banking Corp (RCBC), swiftly withdrawn and laundered through local casinos. A case will be filed against RCBC and "all others" involved in the heist to try and retrieve the stolen funds, Bangladesh central bank governor Fazle Kabir told AFP. An agreement between the bank and the US Federal Reserve in New York had been signed to assist Dhaka in the case, he added. Bangladesh has sent a legal team to New York and is prepared to fight for the money to be returned, Kabir told reporters in the capital Dhaka. The Philippines in 2016 imposed a record $21 million fine on RCBC after investigating its role in the audacious cyber heist. The bank has rejected the allegations and in 2017 accused Bangladesh's central bank of a "massive cover-up". This month ex-RCBC manager Maia Deguito was handed a lengthy jail term and $109 million in fines in the first conviction over the massive theft. Deguito, who was a branch manager where the money landed, was accused of coordinating the illegal transfer. She plans to appeal and can remain free on bail until the conviction is finalised. Deguito is the only person who has been convicted in the case, drawing international concern. The theft exposed the Philippines as a haven for dirty money, where some of the world's strictest bank secrecy laws protect account holders from scrutiny The hackers bombarded the US Federal Reserve with dozens of transfer requests, attempting to steal a further $850 million. But the bank's security systems and typing errors in some requests prevented the full theft. The hack took place on a Friday, when Bangladesh's central bank is closed. The Federal Reserve is closed on Saturday and Sunday, slowing the response. The US Federal Reserve, which manages the Bangladesh central bank account, has denied its own systems were breached. On Thursday, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) and Senator Ed Markey (D., Mass.) introduced what many news outlets described as legislation for the Green New Deal, a wildly ambitious plan to eliminate the American fossil-fuel industry within a decade or so. Its worth noting that its not legislation as people normally understand the term. Its a resolution titled Recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal. In other words, even if it passed a considerable if nothing would really happen. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi isnt taking it too seriously. She didnt put Ocasio-Cortez on the new Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, and when asked about the resolution, she was dismissive. It will be one of several or maybe many suggestions that we receive, Pelosi said. The green dream or whatever they call it, nobody knows what it is, but theyre for it, right? I bring this up for the simple reason that a lot of people on the left and the right have every incentive to make this thing a much bigger deal than it is. Still, given that almost everyone running for the Democratic presidential nomination feels obliged to say theyre for it, its worth taking somewhat seriously. This raises the first of several problems: Its not a very serious proposal. The goal is to eliminate the fossil-fuel industry over a decade and, perversely, phase out nuclear power over a slightly longer period. All of the jobs dependent on these industries would be replaced by government-guaranteed jobs. We set a goal to get to net-zero, rather than zero emissions, in 10 years, the backers explain in an outline, because we arent sure that well be able to fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes that fast, but we think we can ramp up renewable manufacturing and power production, retrofit every building in America, build the smart grid, overhaul transportation and agriculture, plant lots of trees and restore our ecosystem to get to net-zero. Story continues Well, at least the plan isnt too ambitious. Retrofitting every building in America can be done in 10 years, but eliminating all the gassy cows will take a bit longer. Maybe well move them all to Hawaii, which with the near-abolition of airplanes will be effectively cut off from America anyway. Even if you take these goals seriously, as a practical matter its a fantasy masquerading as green virtue-signaling. But its a fantasy based on a worldview that should be treated seriously because its so dangerous. NPRs Steve Inskeep asked Ocasio-Cortez whether she was comfortable with the massive government intervention critics say is required by such an undertaking. We have tried their approach for 40 years, Ocasio-Cortez replied. For 40 years we have tried to let the private sector take care of this. They said, We got this, we can do this, the forces of the market are going to force us to innovate. Except for the fact that theres a little thing in economics called externalities. And what that means is that a corporation can dump pollution in the river and they dont have to pay for it, and taxpayers have to pay. The fascinating thing is that Ocasio-Cortez thinks this is actually true. Thanks to the government intervention known as the Clean Water Act and other regulations, corporations cant pollute waterways. Ironically, the only entities that can pollute with impunity are government agencies such as the EPA, which did precisely that in Colorado in 2015. Closer to home, ExxonMobil has spent millions cleaning up Newtown Creek, which happens to run through Ocasio-Cortezs native Brooklyn, close to her district. Ironically, the city of New York is still allowed to pollute the creek whenever theres a heavy rainfall. Even if Ocasio-Cortez was speaking figuratively in her talk of externalities, the larger point remains. The free market hasnt been given free rein, and over the last 40 years the free market and government regulations alike have made laudable environmental progress. In 2017, the U.S. had the largest reductions of CO2 emissions in the world for the ninth time this century. Rather than celebrate and build on that reality, the Green New Dealers would rather embrace their fantasies and waste a lot of time and money in the process. 2019 Tribune Content Agency LLC More from National Review SYDNEY (AP) Australia's leading cybersecurity agency is investigating a breach of the country's federal parliamentary computing network amid speculation of hacking by a foreign nation. Lawmakers and staff in the capital, Canberra, were made to change their passwords on the system after the overnight breach. A joint statement from House of Representatives Speaker Tony Smith and Senate President Scott Ryan says there's no evidence that data had been accessed in the breach, but investigations are continuing. "We have no evidence that this is an attempt to influence the outcome of parliamentary processes or to disrupt or influence electoral or political processes," the statement said. Though Australian officials have not blamed any country, in 2011 it was reported China was suspected of accessing the email system used by lawmakers and parliamentary staff. Cybersecurity expert Fergus Hanson, from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said it's likely a "nation-state" was behind the incident. "There would be lots of juicy correspondence between staffers about who is doing what and dirt files on different politicians," Hanson said. "There might be interesting information about parliamentary perks that are given to politicians that the public may not like. There may be whole email stashes that could damage one party or another party." Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he had been briefed on the matter but could not comment on the source of the attack. "I should stress that there is no suggestion that government departments or agencies have been the target of any such incursion," Morrison told reporters. The cyberbreach follows revelations that parliamentarians in Britain were targeted by an attempt to hack into their email and phone contact lists earlier this week. PHOENIX (AP) Arizona may boost state oversight of long-term care facilities like the one in Phoenix where an incapacitated woman was raped and later gave birth, reversing a decision more than 20 years ago to drop state regulation. Lawmakers are considering legislation that would require intermediate care facilities like Hacienda Healthcare to apply for a state license and conduct background checks of employees that care for clients. Gov. Doug Ducey on Wednesday ordered state agencies to improve protections for people with disabilities. His executive order will require employees at state-funded care facilities to undergo annual training in recognizing and preventing abuse and neglect. He'll also require that group homes and day programs prominently post signs about how to report abuse. A Senate committee was scheduled to consider the licensure legislation on Wednesday but delayed the vote to clarify bill language amid concerns it might inadvertently apply too broadly. Arizona in the 1990s created an exemption from state regulation for intermediate care facilities for individuals with developmental disabilities, leaving the oversight to the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which funds long-term care. State inspectors still visit the facilities about once a year under a contract with the federal government but can only enforce federal regulations in coordination with the agency's regional office in San Francisco. "We're trying to close that loophole that was created decades ago," said Sen. Heather Carter, a Phoenix Republican who is sponsoring the legislation. Many of the people who work in care facilities have individual licenses from the state nursing or medical board, which requires a background check. Carter's legislation would require care facilities to check child and adult abuse databases for anyone who cares for patients, even if they're not doing work that requires them to be personally licensed. Story continues Intermediate care facilities provide more services than assisted living centers and less than nursing homes, both of which must carry state licenses. Arizona has 11 intermediate care facilities. Ducey, a Republican who is usually skeptical of state regulations and has touted his record of rolling them back, is open to expanding state oversight. Ducey on Tuesday asked Attorney General Mark Brnovich to investigate Hacienda for potential violations of the Adult Protective Services Act or civil rights laws. A spokesman for Hacienda did not respond to requests for comment. The lack of state licensing was among the issues noted in a report last week by a state panel calling for policy changes to protect vulnerable adults from sexual abuse. The report by the Arizona Developmental Disabilities Planning Council was in the works before the rape at Hacienda. The report also said people who are required to report abuse but fail to do so should face felony charges; currently, the maximum charge is a misdemeanor if the victim is an adult. It found job protections lacking for people who report violations and said high staff turnover can prevent caregivers from recognizing subtle behavior changes. Authorities say Nathan Sutherland, a licensed practical nurse at Hacienda, raped the 29-year-old victim, who has been in long-term care since age 3. She gave birth to a boy at the facility on Dec. 29. Employees said they had no idea she was pregnant. Investigators say Sutherland's DNA matched a sample from the woman's newborn son, who is being cared for by her family. Sutherland, 36, has pleaded not guilty to charges of sexual abuse. The surprise birth triggered reviews by state agencies, highlighted safety concerns for patients who are severely disabled or incapacitated and prompted the resignations of Hacienda's chief executive and one of the victim's doctors. The state has required Hacienda to hire a management company to handle operations. A young girl who is battling cancer was sworn in as an honorary police officer in Texas, and video of the ceremony is touching hearts on social media. Freeport, Texas police shared the emotional moment in a Thursday Facebook post. It shows Honorary Officer Abigail Rose Arias in uniform, with her right-hand raised. Freeport Police Chief Ray Garivey's voice breaks as he stands in front of Abigail, reading the oath. "I now and forever promise to keep fighting the bad guys," Garivey tearfully says, pausing for Abigail to repeat the words. "Until all of my cancer is gone," the oath concluded. The story has been shared by national news organizations such as CBS News and video of the the ceremony been viewed millions of times. Abigail, 6, has battled the disease before, but this time doctors are telling her family there is no cure, Houston's ABC13 reports. "I have cancer. The bad guys are in my lungs," she reportedly told the station. Her mother, Ilene Arias, told the ABC13 that doctors have told them it's time for Abigail "to enjoy some life." Feb. 8: Police officer buys lunch for man in need Feb. 1: Man saves strangers life not once, but twice Freeport Police said Abigail has been battling Wilms tumor, a type of childhood cancer that starts in the kidneys, for two years. The special ceremony came after Abigail expressed her interest in being an officer; Garivey and other community leaders worked to make the special moment possible. "Well as you can see, dreams come true!" the department posted to Facebook. "Continued prayers for Abigail and God Bless her and her family!" The department said Friday that patches and coins could be sent to Garivey for delivery to "Rookie Officer Abigail Rose Arias #758." The department's address is: Freeport Police Department 430 N Brazosport Blvd Freeport, Texas 77541 This article originally appeared on Corpus Christi Caller Times: 'Keep fighting the bad guys': Girl battling cancer with no cure made honorary police officer WASHINGTON Democrats push for zero tolerance of sexual or racial transgressions forced out popular Minnesota Sen. Al Franken last year. Now it could topple the top three state officials in Virginia, potentially putting a state that Democrats won in a 2017 anti-Trump landslide into Republican hands. "Its a tough situation, especially for a Democratic Party that prides itself in being one of inclusion," Sen. Doug Jones, D-Ala., said about what he called the "crisis" in Virginia. In fact, Democratic congressional leaders were eager to change the subject Thursday. Im not getting into that," Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin told USA TODAY when approached in a Senate hallway. "I have so many things Im working on. Thats not one of them." Gov. Ralph Northam and Attorney General Mark Herring have admitted to wearing blackface in the 1980s and Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax is denying accusations of a 2004 sexual assault. If all resign under pressure, the governorship would go to the speaker of the House of Delegates who is Republican. President Donald Trump threw salt in Democrats wounds, tweeting Thursday: If the three failing pols were Republicans, far stronger action would be taken. In fact, Democrats argue the opposite is true. They believe theyve gone after their own while Republicans stood by Trump through his controversial comments and confirmed Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh after he was accused of sexual assault. "One thing we have done as Democrats is we have not hesitated to hold accountable people who violate our values, whether they're Republicans or Democrats," Democratic National Committee chair Tom Perez told NPR this week. "And that's a big difference between us and the Republican Party." Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, Attorney General Mark Herring and Gov. Ralph Northam in Richmond on Dec. 18, 2017. But now, Democrats are in a no-win situation, said Larry Sabato, head of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. "The Democrats are taking this stand because theyre trying to draw the sharpest contrast with Donald Trump and members of his party," he said. Story continues Also, the party base which marched, knocked on doors, contributed to candidates and went to the polls with extra enthusiasm last year to win the House and make big gains in state offices demands it. "The downside is, any time an allegation is raised, the suggestion is that the individual should resign," Sabato said. More: Virginia Lt. Gov. Fairfax acknowledges 2004 consensual encounter with accuser, denies sexual assault Franken, a major fundraiser and campaigner for the party, stepped down last year after more than a half-dozen women said he had touched them improperly or made unwanted sexual advances. Franken was pressured to resign by more than 30 of his colleagues in a charge led by New York Sen. Kristen Gillibrand. But some prominent Democratic donors were angry at what they saw as a rush to judgment against Franken, telling Politico and other news outlets that they would no longer help Gillibrand, who is now running for the 2020 Democratic nomination for president. "If we set this precedent in the interest of demonstrating our party's solidarity with harassed and abused women, we're only going to drain the swamp of people who, however flawed, still regularly vote to protect women's rights and freedoms," Kate Harding, co-editor of "Nasty Women: Feminism, Resistance, and Revolution in Trump's America," wrote in an opinion piece in The Washington Post. In addition to having called on Northam to resign, both Gillibrand and California Sen. Kamala Harris another 2020 hopeful want an investigation into the sexual assault allegations against the lieutenant governor. His accuser, Vanessa Tyson, says Fairfax forced her to perform oral sex during an encounter at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Fairfax said the accusations against him are false and that the entire encounter was consensual. Gillibrand and Harris called Tyson's account credible. "In this country, institutional bias stacks against survivors, for the powerful," Gillibrand tweeted. "We have to support survivors first so their claims can be fully investigated." This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. In another bit of bad optics for Democrats, Tyson is being represented by the same law firm that helped Christine Blasey Ford when she testified against Kavanaugh. "They only believe, I guess, those accusations if they are against Republicans," White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said of Democrats on Fox News Monday. For now, the pressure to resign is focused on Northam. "I don't believe we can continue to speak forcefully, as we must, against the regular bigotry of Donald Trump ... unless we hold all our officials to a high standard," Texas Rep. Lloyd Doggett said on CNN Monday. Former Virginia Rep. Jim Moran was a rare Democrat arguing that Northam deserves a second chance. "I wish Al Franken had hung in there because I think a strong male voice arguing on behalf of respect of women and their rights might have been more effective," he said on CNN Monday. "I want us to be pragmatic about this." More: 'Tumultuous': Virginia politics in chaos amid Northam, Fairfax and Herring scandals Republicans, who are pounding away at Democrats to oust all three Virginia officials, deny that they're being hypocritical. Ronna McDaniel, head of the Republican National Committee, has pointed to the fact that the party recently stripped Iowa Rep. Steve King of his committee assignments after he asked when the term "white supremacist" had become offensive. And Republicans denounced a Holocaust denier who won the GOP nomination for a House seat in Illinois last year. "We're quick to denounce candidates who say bad things," McDaniel told NPR Monday. But Sabato, the University of Virginia political scientist, said those few exceptions don't make up for the way Republicans have stood behind Trump through his comments degrading women and immigrants while not explicitly condemning white supremacists. "Whether it's sexual misadventures or racism," Sabato said, "Donald Trump is Exhibit A." And with the 2020 presidential election looming, Democrats are eager to maintain the high ground, making the Virginia situation even trickier. When USA TODAY started to ask Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, about the news coming out of Virginia he cut in: Oh Im not talking Virginia, Im from Illinois. He continued to dodge questions about Fairfaxs accuser and her credibility from another reporter. I dont know. I dont know her, a frustrated Durbin said. Several members of the Congressional Black Caucus said Thursday they didnt expect the scandal in Virginia to damage the Democratic party. Thats Virginia and thats Virginias mess that they have to deal with, said Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-La., former chairman of the caucus. Its three individuals. Its not a party. Its not an epidemic. Its three people, one of which (faces) a very serious allegation, but the other two decided to do some really dumb things. Period. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., likewise rejected the suggestion that the controversy in Virginia hurts Democrats' brand. No, no it does not," she told reporters Thursday. But she also appeared eager to stay out of the mess. "Ill leave that up to them," Pelosi said. "I have enough to do out here without getting involved in the affairs of Virginia. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Democratic 2020 hopefuls weigh in on Virginia scandal as others steer clear: 'I'm not getting into that' JERUSALEM (AP) Former military chief Benny Gantz has burst onto Israel's political scene as the great hope of the country's shrinking "peace camp" with a message that is anything but dovish. The retired general, who wants to topple Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in April 9 elections, boasts of killing Palestinian militants and aligns himself with political hard-liners. He fires back at Netanyahu's criticism with scathing counterattacks. In today's Israel, Gantz's ready-to-rumble rhetoric appears to be the only way to bring down the long-serving Netanyahu. That's turning him into an unlikely source of hope for Israelis who view ending their country's rule over the Palestinians, now in its 51st year, as a priority. Yossi Beilin, an architect of the 1993 interim peace accords with the Palestinians, said fear of another Netanyahu term is driving much of the support for Gantz. He called Gantz a "black dove" an imperfect but tolerable alternative to Netanyahu. "Not that I agree with everything he says, but many of the things he is saying are OK from my point of view," Beilin said. Opinion polls forecast victory for Netanyahu's Likud Party. But since Gantz's recent maiden political speech, his new "Israel Resilience" party has emerged as No. 2. The race could swing in the challenger's favor. Netanyahu faces possible indictment in a series of corruption investigations, perhaps before the elections. Meanwhile, Gantz is reportedly exploring mergers with other centrist parties. Gantz appears to be modeling himself after Ehud Barak and the late Yitzhak Rabin former military chiefs-turned-prime ministers. Both used military credentials to lead security-obsessed Israel to peace negotiations with the Palestinians. Wary of being branded a "leftist," considered a put-down by many Israelis, Gantz has said little about his vision of peace with the Palestinians. He dresses his rhetoric in security terms as he tries to win support from Netanyahu's nationalist base. Story continues In his January speech, Gantz bragged about assassinating Ahmed Jabari, a former Hamas military commander whose death in an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip sparked an eight-day war in 2012. "The heads of the terrorist organizations need to know that Ahmed Jabari was not the first, nor may he be the last," Gantz warned. Without giving details, he vowed to "strive for peace" and if that is impossible to shape a "new reality." He said he'd strengthen West Bank settlement blocs and retain control of the Jordan Valley, a strategic section of the occupied West Bank the Palestinians seek as the heartland of a future state. A TV ad for Gantz's party shows aerial footage of the airstrike on Jabari's vehicle. A second ad shows images of Hamas funerals and boasts of killing 1,364 "terrorists" in the 2014 Israel-Hamas war. Another video later deleted from YouTube featured drone footage of a devastated Gaza neighborhood flattened in the same campaign. The ads ran with the slogan: "Only the strong win." The United Nations has said about two-thirds of more than 2,100 Palestinians killed in the 2014 war were civilians. Among the dead were many civilians killed in airstrikes on homes where Israel suspected or determined militants to be hiding. A U.N. report has said Israel's actions may have amounted to war crimes. Gantz and Israel's then-air force chief are being sued by a Palestinian family in a Dutch court. Gantz's campaign and the military referred questions to Israel's Justice Ministry, which did not respond to a request for comment. In an interview published Friday in the Yediot Ahronot newspaper, Gantz said his goal was always to strike the enemy with "as few uninvolved casualties as possible I can't reach zero and with minimum risk to the lives of our soldiers." Gantz said he's currently re-reading Machiavelli's "The Prince." Asked how many militants he had killed, he said: "Personally, quite a few times, and as a commander, many times." In Israel, the 2014 Gaza war is generally seen as having dealt a blow to Hamas, and Gantz's military record an electoral asset. Driving home the point, he appointed Moshe Yaalon, another former military chief with hard-line political views, as his deputy. Opinion polls show Gantz neck and neck with Netanyahu when it comes to fitness for prime minister and handling security. About one quarter of Gantz's supporters formerly backed Likud or the allied Kulanu party. Political scientist Reuven Hazan said Gantz's tactics cater to widely held views among Israelis that internationally recognized Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is too weak to deliver results and that Gaza's Hamas is a terrorist group. Israel's electorate is mostly divided between the right wing that wants to preserve the status quo, a smaller "extreme right" that wants to annex occupied lands, and the center, which wants to find some sort of way to change the situation, Hazan said. "Those who clearly stand up and say 'two-state solution, we have to uproot settlements,' they're not winning elections in Israel these days," he added. During Netanyahu's decade in power, the chasm between him and Abbas has paralyzed peace efforts. Netanyahu has largely ignored the Palestinians and instead courted Sunni Arab leaders, based on a shared enmity toward Iran. Gantz told Yediot Ahronot he wants to end Israeli rule over the Palestinians. "We need to find a way in which we're not controlling other people," he said and also praised the "painful but good manner" of Israel's 2005 pullout from the Gaza Strip, hinting he might consider similar steps in the West Bank. Abbas' spokesman, Nabil Abu Rdeneh, said the comments were "encouraging." Netanyahu's Likud and others immediately branded Gantz a "leftist" who would uproot settlements. Gantz quickly clarified there would be no "unilateral decision" about removing settlements. He noted that Netanyahu as a Cabinet minister in the early 2000s voted in favor of the Gaza withdrawal, though he later resigned in protest. More recently, Netanyahu allowed Qatar funds to flow to Hamas. "You evacuated Jews," he said in comments aimed at Netanyahu. "You paid protection money to Hamas. Your time is up we are moving onwards." WASHINGTON (AP) With a fierce denunciation of late-term abortions, President Donald Trump is making a move to re-energize evangelical voters whose support will be vital in heading off any possible 2020 primary challenge. Trump, at arguably the weakest point of his presidency, seized on abortion during his State of the Union address Tuesday to re-engage on a divisive cultural issue, using both religious rhetoric aimed at conservative Christians and scathing attacks on Democratic lawmakers who support abortion rights in particular, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam. Trump went after Northam by title, not by name in his speech and incorrectly claimed that the governor "stated he would execute a baby after birth." As the speech was being drafted, Trump had wanted to use even harsher language about Northam, and call him out by name, but he was reined in by aides, according to three White House officials and Republicans close to the White House who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss private conversations. The message from Trump, an unlikely champion of the anti-abortion cause, was aimed squarely at evangelicals who play an outsized role in Republican politics. Battered by the fallout from a damaging government shutdown, Trump has seen his poll numbers tumble and support within his own party slip, forcing his campaign to work to ward off any primary foes, including shoring up support among religious conservatives who could be wooed by an intraparty challenger. Ralph Reed, a prominent GOP evangelical strategist, said the White House worked closely with evangelicals during the fight over Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination, but contact dropped off during the midterm elections and the government shutdown. "Now we see it picking up again," Reed said, calling Trump's State of the Union comments "important and deeply appreciated." Religious voters, including Roman Catholics in the industrial Midwest, will be a key constituency in a Trump re-election, Reed said. Story continues "He's got a proven, demonstrable record of performing with (evangelicals)," Reed said. "As with the Bush re-elect in 2004, it could become a building block to a strong re-election." In the days before the speech, White House aides telegraphed that an anti-abortion passage in the address using faith-based language would become a re-election theme. The issue is expected to be in the spotlight again Thursday as the president attends the National Prayer Breakfast. "To defend the dignity of every person, I am asking Congress to pass legislation to prohibit the late-term abortion of children who can feel pain in the mother's womb," Trump said Tuesday. "Let us work together to build a culture that cherishes innocent life. And let us reaffirm a fundamental truth: All children born and unborn are made in the holy image of God." The White House did not immediately reveal if it had a firm plan for federal legislation or supported an existing congressional measure, raising questions about whether Trump's call was concrete or simply early election season rhetoric. A bill passed the House last year but died in the Senate, and prospects of similar legislation being passed by a Democratic-controlled House are remote. Still, Trump's attention to evangelicals during one of the low points in his presidency makes sense, said Jennifer Lawless, a political science professor at the University of Virginia. "If anyone is counting on challenging him in that primary, to the extent that Trump can count on evangelicals, that makes the path that much harder," she said. Lawless noted that Trump has arguably delivered more for evangelicals than for the white populist voters who are often credited with electing him. "We know that evangelicals are reliable voters, and we know that a lot of the white working-class voters who turned out for him haven't voted in the past," she said. According to AP VoteCast, a nationwide survey of the American electorate, 80 percent of white evangelical voters nationwide voted for Republican candidates in the 2018 midterm elections. Fully 79 percent of white evangelical midterm voters also expressed approval of Trump's job as president. For decades, the United States has been deadlocked politically on abortion. The VoteCast poll showed that among all midterm voters, 60 percent said they want abortion to be legal in most or all cases, while 38 percent said it should be illegal in most or all cases. About 8 in 10 Democrats thought the procedure should be legal in all or most cases, and about 6 out of 10 Republicans thought it should be illegal in all or most cases. Trump went on the attack during his national address, blasting New York's Reproductive Health Act, enacted to make sure the state would continue to ensure the right to an abortion if the Supreme Court were to overturn all or part of Roe v. Wade. In Virginia, Northam, a pediatric neurologist, told a radio interviewer last week that he supported state legislation that would allow late-term abortions and noted that the procedures were usually done if the fetus had severe deformities or wasn't viable. Describing a hypothetical situation, he said if a woman were to desire an abortion as she's going into labor, the baby would be "resuscitated if that's what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue" between doctors and the mother. Some Republicans said that showed Northam was supporting infanticide. Ilyse Hogue, head of the abortion-rights group NARAL, said the renewed focus on late-term abortions is a sign of Trump's desperation. "Donald Trump's use of the State of the Union address for little more than using real women's lives as political red meat to rile up his base shows how politically weak he is," Hogue said in a statement. ___ Riccardi reported from Denver. Associated Press writer Emily Swanson in Washington contributed to this report. ___ Follow Lemire on Twitter at http://twitter.com/@JonLemire and Riccardi at http://twitter.com/@NickRiccardi No hotel: Tavistock in Devon (SWNS) A Devon town which successfully evicted a McDonalds from its high street now wants to stop Premier Inn locating there. Residents in Tavistock dubbed Britains angriest town are fuming at plans for a major hotel in the heart of the picturesque town on the edge of the Dartmoor. The locals have vowed to take down the latest predator big name trying to locate in the town. Local authority West Devon Borough Council says it wants the hotel to locate in Tavistock so it can claw back a yearly rent from the major hotelier to plug hole in its budget. Local have labelled the Premier Inn group a predator (SWNS) But critics say a Premier Inn will drive local B&Bs out of business and squeeze out independent traders. The council will meet on February 12 but campaigners are hoping to force a re-think before they give permission to Premier Inn. Andy Coulson, of Tavistock, has launched an online petition to try and stop Premier Inn,. The problem is, we are bringing an apex predator into a chicken coop, he said. Local campaigners Steve Hipsey and Andy Coulson (SWNS) People will say, whats wrong with competition? Whats wrong with competition is when you put an apex predator into a chicken coop? The hotels are mostly all independent, we are very lucky to have that here, and theyre important because they use local suppliers. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. They are owned and operated by a family who has a mortgage with that income. They support a family. They are putting that money back into local suppliers. They spend their money here. Another local Steve Hipsey said: One of the main reasons I am against it is the way its been done. It smacks of arrogance. The picturesque town has already successfully campaigned against a local McDonalds (SWNS) Premier Inn says its keeping all options open as it looks to expand its presence. Nearby Okehampton is another location the company is considering. A Premier Inn spokesperson said: Locations close to Dartmoor National Park are very popular searches on our website and as yet we do not have a big presence in west Devon outside of the major towns and cities. Cllr Philip Sanders, leader of West Devon Borough Council, defended the proposal: We are delighted to have interest in Tavistock from a major UK hotel operator. Story continues With a major hotel chain, one which is renowned for offering good value for money, Tavistock will soon be able to say it boasts a wide range of hotel accommodation for visitors to choose from. Watch the latest videos from Yahoo UK Several people had to evacuate their homes after a creek in West Seneca, near Buffalo, New York, burst its banks on February 4, flooding a residential area and, at one location, causing children to run for their lives. The flood, caused by ice jams in Buffalo Creek, which flows through the town, prompted people to evacuate their homes and swamped a nature center that children were attending, forcing them to flee, WKBW Buffalo reported. The West Seneca Police Department provided this drone footage that shows the floodwater reaching a number of properties in the area. Credit: West Seneca Police Department via Storyful The Daily Beast Screenshot/YouTubeA massive country music festival in Kentucky this past weekend started off on rocky footing: Police found meth, marijuana, and an open bottle of alcohol in the first vehicle they stopped at a traffic checkpoint. One of the people in the car had two active warrants out for their arrest.We were like, Well, this doesnt bode well for the weekend, Edmonson County Sheriff Shane Doyle told the Lexington Herald-Leader.By the end of the five-day bash, dubbed the Redneck Rave, one By David Shepardson and Susan Heavey WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc is exploring alternatives to locating part of its new headquarters in New York in case the plan should fail due to local opposition, a person briefed on the matter told Reuters on Friday. The online retailer has not yet acquired any land for the project, which would make it easy to scrap its plans, the source said. The Washington Post reported the story earlier on Friday. The person briefed on the matter said that Amazon was still working toward winning approval from New York officials and had not given up on the proposal, but was considering potential alternatives to New York. Earlier, the Post, which is owned by Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos, reported that Amazon executives had had internal discussions to reassess the situation in New York and explore alternatives. It cited two unnamed people familiar with the retailer's thinking. In a statement on Friday, Amazon said it was working to engage with New Yorkers, but did not discuss whether it would change its plans. "We're focused on engaging with our new neighbors - small business owners, educators, and community leaders," it said. "Whether it's building a pipeline of local jobs through workforce training or funding computer science classes for thousands of New York City students, we are working hard to demonstrate what kind of neighbor we will be." Amazon shares closed down 1.6 percent on Friday. In November, Amazon said it would branch out from its home base in Seattle with plans to create more than 25,000 jobs in two new developments. The world's largest online retailer plans to spend $5 billion on the developments in Long Island City in New York's Queens borough, and in Arlington, Virginia, near Washington, D.C, and expects to get more than $2 billion in tax credits and incentives with plans to apply for more. Amazon has mailed flyers to Queens residents touting the economic benefits of its New York expansion. But some residents in the rapidly transforming Long Island City neighborhood across the East River from mid town Manhattan's skyscrapers have loudly opposed Amazon's plan. They say they fear more crowded subway stations, an overburdened sewage system and rent increases that would drive out long-time residents. "I would be happy not to have them," said Terri Gloyd, the co-owner of the LIC Corner Cafe. "I think most of the neighborhood hasn't wanted them here." She said her neighbors may have given the prospect of Amazon a warmer welcome had the subsidy package not been so large. A critic of the plan, Queens lawmaker Senator Michael Gianaris, was appointed to a state senate panel that has the power to block Amazon's campus, local media including the New York Times have reported. City council speaker Corey Johnson told local radio he is looking at subsidies for Amazon and that the plan is not yet final. One point of contention could be Amazon's opposition to labor unions. U.S. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose district spans parts of Queens and the Bronx, has also criticized Amazon. Ocasio-Cortez tweeted a link to the Post story on Friday and said: "Can everyday people come together and effectively organize against creeping overreach of one of the worlds biggest corporations? Yes, they can." In one sign of opposition, artists spray-painted Amazon's logo - spelled "AMAZNO" - on streets near the proposed site. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City mayor Bill de Blasio support Amazon's plan. Cuomo defended the deal on Friday as the largest economic development the state had ever won and cited the Post story. "If Amazon does not come to New York, it's because of the political opposition. Because it is so ironic for Amazon, after they spent one year with everyone seducing them, and everyone courting them, we win and then there's political opposition." BIDDING WAR The split second headquarters, which Amazon called HQ2, attracted 238 proposals from across North America in a year-long bidding war. Amazon ended the frenzy by dividing the spoils between the two most powerful U.S. East Coast cities and offering a consolation prize of a 5,000-person center in Nashville, Tennessee. At the outset of its search last year, Amazon said it was looking for a business-friendly environment. The company said it will receive performance-based incentives of $1.525 billion from the state of New York, including an average $48,000 for each job it creates. It can also apply for other tax incentives, such as New York City's Relocation and Employment Assistance Program that offers tax breaks potentially worth $900 million over 12 years. What benefit the company would actually get was unclear. (Reporting by Susan Heavey and David Shepardson in Washington; additional reporting by Jonathan Allen in New York; writing by Nick Zieminski; Editing by Susan Thomas, Meredith Mazzilli and Rosalba O'Brien) Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has used a speech before finance watchdogs to expose the vast conflicts of interest which shape American politics. In just three minutes the Democrat congresswoman laid bare the almost total absence of rules stopping lawmakers from being bought off by wealthy corporations. We have a system with right now which is fundamentally broken, she concluded after her question and answer session with a panel of senior figures from campaign finance watchdog groups. The 29-year-old told the officials she wanted to imagine what she could do within the current rules if she was a bad guy who wanted to enrich myself and advance my interest, even if that means putting that ahead of the American people. Lets say I have some skeletons in my closet that I need to cover up so I can get elected. If I want to run a campaign that is entirely funded by corporate political action committees, is there anything that legally prevents me from doing that? she asked. The panel admitted there were no regulations stopping politicians from pursuing such a course of action. Ms Ocasio-Cortez then went further: So I use my special interest dark money-funded campaign to pay off folks that I need to pay off to get elected. Now Im elected I have the power to draft, lobby and shape the laws that govern the USA. I can be totally funded by oil and gas, by big pharma, and theres no limit to that whatsoever. The congresswoman, who represents New Yorks 14th district, then noted how a corrupt legislator could even buy stocks in a company, then write laws deregulating that industry, causing the share price to soar and pocket a huge profit. You could do that, confirmed one of the officials, adding that even the minor ethics regulations which did apply to members of Congress did not affect the president. So I and every member of this body are being held to a higher ethical standard than the president of the United States, Ms Ocasio-Cortez concluded. Story continues Its already super legal as we have seen for me to be a pretty bad guy. So its even easier for the president to be one. Ms Ocasio-Cortez won her seat in congress by unseating long-time Democrat elder statesmen Joe Crowley, who outspent her in the primary campaign 18 to 1. Almost 75 per cent of her campaign funding came from small individual donations, compared to just 1 per cent for Mr Crowley, who was mostly funded by larger businesses. Wall Street recently saw the best January in nearly 30 years. Both the S&P 500 and Dow advanced more than 7% last month, registering their biggest gains since January 1987 and January 1989, respectively. And it was widely anticipated that the positive earnings season and the Feds dovish stance will provide momentum to stocks in February. However, worries over U.S.-China trade relations and slower global economic growth laid the base for a tumultuous February. In fact, a gauge of stock market gyration, known as Wall Streets fear gauge, recently suggested that the markets are walking a tightrope. With the month expected to be rough, investing in sound dividend paying stocks seems judicious. Such stocks provide steady income and cushion ones portfolio against market risks. Whats Dragging the Market? Trade war concerns arise after National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow said at an interview with Fox Business Network that there is a long way to go before both the United States and China strike a trade agreement. He said that there was a pretty sizable distance before reaching a deal. Kudlow further said that U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchins next visit to China may possibly not result in some of the agreement even being drafted. He added that when those two gentlemen, they are very experienced folks, when they get there, well see. At the moment we have not had the papering of any of these discussions. So as I say, theyre going to be probing and continuing conversations. Trump and Chinas Xi Jinpings meeting, in fact, isnt likely before a Mar 1 deadline and the United States is expected to keep tariffs at 10% rather than increasing it to 25% as scheduled. Nonetheless, trade tensions between the United States and China are raising a lot of concern among investors. After all, tariffs do squeeze corporate profits and hamper growth. Story continues An array of weak global economic data isnt soothing investors nerves as well. Both the Bank of England (BOE) and the European Commission (EC) offered discouraging outlooks, reaffirming growing concerns about the health of Europes economy. Recently, BOE left rates unchanged and has lowered its GDP estimate for 2019 to 1.2% from the earlier 1.7%. The current level, rather, reflects the weakest growth since 2009. The EC also trimmed its forecast for 2019 Eurozone growth to 1.3%, down from the previous forecast of 1.9%. Germanys weaker-than-expected industrial data was cited to be the primary reason behind this dismal forecast. By the way, Italys high debt burden is raising questions over the health of the countrys finances. February Could be Cruel: Buy 5 Top Dividend Stocks Now With so many concerns plaguing investors minds, dividend paying stocks are tempting options at the moment. The best dividend stocks pay out a healthy yield and have strong prospects, and are less susceptible to market gyrations. Their large customer base, sustainable business model, long track of profitability and strong liquidity allow them to offer sizable yields on a regular basis, regardless of market direction. While finding companies that offer these traits isnt easy, they do exist. To help you find these businesses, we have selected five dividend payers with a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) or 2 (Buy) and a VGM Score of A or B. Here V stands for Value, G for Growth and M for Momentum and the score is a weighted combination of these three metrics. Such a score allows you to eliminate the negative aspects of stocks and select winners. American Airlines Group Inc. AAL operates as a network air carrier. The company has a Zacks Rank #2 and a VGM Score of B. American Airlines has a dividend yield of 1.09%, while its five-year average dividend yield is pegged at 0.85%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for its current-year earnings rose 12.3% in the past 60 days. The stocks expected earnings growth rate for the current year is 30.8%, higher than the Transportation - Airline industrys projected return of 4.8%. The company has outperformed the broader industry so far this year (+12.6% vs +10.5%). Allison Transmission Holdings, Inc. ALSN designs, manufactures, and sells commercial and defense fully-automatic transmissions for medium- and heavy-duty commercial vehicles, and medium- and heavy-tactical defense vehicles. The company has a Zacks Rank #2 and a VGM Score of A. Allison Transmission has a dividend yield of 1.24%, while its five-year average dividend yield is pegged at 1.75%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for its current-year earnings rose 0.2% in the past 60 days. The stocks expected earnings growth rate for the current year is 73.7%, higher than the Automotive - Original Equipment industrys projected return of 4.4%. The company has outperformed the broader industry over the last one-year period (+14.7% vs -21.6%). AVX Corporation AVX manufactures, supplies, and resells various electronic components, interconnect devices, sensing and control devices, and related products. The company has a Zacks Rank #1 and a VGM Score of B. AVX has a dividend yield of 2.53%, while its five-year average dividend yield is pegged at 2.88%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for its current-year earnings rose 9.7% in the past 60 days. The stocks expected earnings growth rate for the current year is 97.5%, higher than the Electronics - Miscellaneous Components industrys estimated return of 1.2%. The company has outperformed the broader industry on a year-to-date basis (+16.1% vs +13.0%). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here. CrossAmerica Partners LP CAPL engages in the wholesale distribution of motor fuels, and ownership and leasing of real estate used in the retail distribution of motor fuels. The company has a Zacks Rank #2 and a VGM Score of A. CrossAmerica Partners has a dividend yield of 11.91%, while its five-year average dividend yield is pegged at 9.28%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for its current-year earnings moved up 100% in the past 60 days. The stocks expected earnings growth rate for the current year is 150%, higher than the Oil and Gas - Refining and Marketing - Master Limited Partnerships industrys projected return of 13%. The company has outperformed the broader industry so far this year (+22.5% vs +18.1%). Ennis, Inc. EBF designs, manufactures, and sells business forms and other business products. The company has a Zacks Rank #1 and a VGM Score of B. Ennis has a dividend yield of 4.41%, while its five-year average dividend yield is pegged at 4.26%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for its current-year earnings rose 5% in the past 60 days. The stocks expected earnings growth rate for the current year is 13.9%, higher than the Office Supplies industrys projected return of 6.8%. The company has outperformed the broader industry over the last one-year period (+2.0% vs -7.0%). The Hottest Tech Mega-Trend of All Last year, it generated $8 billion in global revenues. By 2020, it's predicted to blast through the roof to $47 billion. Famed investor Mark Cuban says it will produce ""the world's first trillionaires,"" but that should still leave plenty of money for regular investors who make the right trades early. See Zacks' 3 Best Stocks to Play This Trend >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report American Airlines Group Inc. (AAL) : Free Stock Analysis Report AVX Corporation (AVX) : Free Stock Analysis Report CrossAmerica Partners LP (CAPL) : Free Stock Analysis Report Ennis, Inc. (EBF) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. After having been kidnapped from their villages in what is present-day Angola, forced onto a Portuguese slave ship bound for what Europeans called the New World and stolen from that ship by English pirates in a confrontation off the coast of Mexico, some 20. and odd Negroes landed at Point Comfort in 1619, in the English settlement that would become Virginia. Their arrival was duly noted by the colonys secretary, John Rolfe, famous as the widower of the Native American woman called Pocahontas. The harrowing journey that began with about 350 Africans on board the San Juan Bautista was one of terror, hunger and death even before the encounter with the pirates. About half of the Africans who boarded the Portuguese ship died, some of the millions who perished during the Middle Passage from the 1600s to the 1800s. When the San Juan Bautista docked near what is now Veracruz, Mexico, on Aug. 30, 1619, there were 147 Africans on board. Fifty had been taken by those English pirates aboard two ships, the White Lion and the Treasurer. When the White Lion arrived unheralded in Point Comfort, the captains immediate task was to sell the Africans in exchange for food. Few ships, before or since, have unloaded a more momentous cargo, historian and journalist Lerone Bennett wrote in his 1962 book, "Before the Mayflower: A History of the Negro in America." (The subtitle was changed in later editions to "The History of Black America.") For many black readers, accustomed to being told in myriad ways that blacks had no history, the notion that their ancestors presence in America predated the 1620 arrival of the Pilgrims story was a mind-boggling revelation. Bennett provided an origin story to embrace. The 400th anniversary of the Africans arrival in what is now the USA is being observed this year. The Association for the Study of African American Life and History, the custodian of Black History Month, is taking the lead in paying tribute to perseverance and resilience. Congress established the 400 Years of African-American History Commission. And for more than two years, the Hampton 2019 Commemoration Commission and Virginias 2019 Commemoration, American Evolution have sponsored programs that highlight not just the arrival of Africans but also other significant developments in the states and the nations history, including the establishment of the first representative legislative assembly in the New World. Story continues Why is that 1619 arrival in Virginia so noteworthy when, as Bennett wrote and scholars are still explaining, it was but one of the points of arrival of blacks in the New World? More than a century before, blacks had accompanied Spanish and Portuguese explorers on expeditions in North and South America. Africans may have accompanied Sir Francis Drake when he arrived at Roanoke Island in 1586, attempting but failing to establish a permanent English colony. And while some declare that 1619 marked the beginning of slavery in Englands American colonies, they are off the mark in at least two ways. First, Africans had been imported as slave labor in the English colony of Bermuda before 1619. Second, the status of those 20. and odd Negroes from the White Lion is still a matter of contention. The 1619 story is only important for the people who develop within the nation state that becomes known as the United States, notes Daryl Scott, a professor of history at Howard University in Washington and a past president of Association for the Study of African American Life and History. Its about how you define the history that youre telling. He points out that if one were to consider the migration of Africans from about the 15th century, one could also mark arrivals in Spain, Portugal and Italy, as well as in the Arab world. There is a tendency to simplify our story, to have a definitive start and end date, to say that slavery began on this day, when we actually dont know; to say that black people arrived on this date so that we can mark it, says Karsonya Wise Whitehead, a professor of communication and history at Loyola University Maryland. Thats part of being American. We like to mark things. But our history is more complicated than that. Nothing is more complicated than sorting out who those 20. and odd Negroes were, what their status was in the settlement, and what became of them. We know that the Africans who arrived in 1619 on the White Lion (and, a few days later, the Treasurer) were from Angola, and we know how they came to be captured. We dont have all the names, but we do know that captain William Tucker took two of them into his household, Isabella and Antony, and allowed them to marry. When their child William became the first recorded black birth in what would become the USA, he was baptized into the Anglican faith in 1624. We know that a Negro woman named Angelo in a 1624 census had arrived on the Treasurer in 1619. Archaeologists have recently discovered graves that might include hers. This first group that came survived and created a solid and growing community of people of African descent, with some of them intermingling with English and the Native peoples, says Cassandra Newby-Alexander, a professor of history at Norfolk State University and a member of various commemoration commissions. Over a few decades, she said, the African presence grew with the arrival of more ships as well as with births. This resulted in the emergence of racialized politics, law and a bifurcated society. How the Virginians viewed the Africans is a subject of robust debate. The practice of indentured servitude was longstanding among the English. Thats how many whites began life in the New World, providing labor for a set number of years. At the end of their contracts, they received freedom dues of food, clothing and maybe even a parcel of land. But the Africans? Its rather clear that Virginia did not have a set way of dealing with these folks, and it got worked out over time, Scott says. They had indentured people in Virginia, and some people may have seen Africans just like they saw other indentured people. We know some people became free, so it looks like they were treated like every other indentured person. Other scholars, including Linda Heywood and John Thornton of Boston University, insist that the Africans from the White Lion and the Treasurer were enslaved by the English as they had originally been by the Portuguese slave traders before they were taken by pirates. Whether indentured servants or slaves, Newby-Alexander says, Either way, they were unfree. Some of the early Africans, like Anthony and Mary Johnson, who arrived in 1621 and 1622, respectively, amassed hundreds of acres of land and owned slaves themselves. Some won their freedom in court; others, like John Punch, were sentenced to permanent servitude for daring to run away. By 1705, any ambiguity about the status of blacks free, indentured, enslaved was clarified by a series of so-called racial integrity laws that institutionalized white supremacy. So the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the White Lion is a little bit of a celebration, a little bit of a commemoration, a little bit of reflection and a lot of wrestling with what does this mean? Whitehead says. E.R. Shipp, winner of the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for commentary, is a founding faculty member of the School of Global Journalism and Communication at Morgan State University in Baltimore. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 1619: 400 years ago, a ship arrived in Virginia, bearing human cargo Some of the best national, international independent films ready to hit region by Pete Rosenbery CARBONDALE, Ill. The Big Muddy Film Festival is once again set to bring some of the best of independent international and national films to the region later this month. The Southern Illinois University Carbondale festival, which enters its 41st year as one of the older film festivals affiliated with a university in the nation, will feature 98 films in four categories: animation, documentary, experimental and narrative. Continuing a strong tradition Deborah Tudor, dean of the College of Mass Communication and Media Arts, emphasizes the film festival is a gem for students and the community. This year, we are continuing the tradition of bringing global films and exciting filmmakers to SIU and Carbondale, she said. The festival allows us to introduce our students to filmmakers working across the media industry. Festival runs Feb. 18-24 on campus and Carbondale locations The Varsity Center for the Arts serves as the festivals central location this year, featuring screenings nearly every evening, including the gala opening on Feb. 18 and closing event on Feb. 24. Once again, admission to all festival events is free thanks to the generosity of several local businesses, said Sarah Lewison, an associate professor in the Radio, Television, and Digital Media degree program who is faculty adviser and executive director. We didn't want to exclude students from the chance to see independent films from around the country and the world because of cost, Lewison said. Times have been hard, and the Big Muddy Crew has been working hard getting generous underwriting from local businesses. The complete festival schedule is available on the website. The venues include: Varsity Center for the Arts, 418 S. Illinois Ave., Carbondale. SIU Carbondale Morris Library John C. Guyon Auditorium. Carbondale Community Arts, 304 W. Walnut St., Carbondale. Cristaudos, 209 S. Illinois Ave., Carbondale. Flyover Infoshop, 214 N. Washington St., Carbondale. Global Gourmet, 102 E. Jackson St., Carbondale. Hangar 9, 511 S. Illinois Ave., Carbondale. WDBX Radio, 224 N. Washington, St., Carbondale. Festival to feature several documentary films of note Lewison notes there are three documentaries of particular interest: Feb. 18 7 p.m., Varsity Center for the Arts: Scherzo. Lewison said the verite -style film follows the working process of a group of New York musicians. Along with the music, the film captures the an insight into the artistic process. -style film follows the working process of a group of New York musicians. Along with the music, the film captures the an insight into the artistic process. Feb. 19 7 p.m., Varsity Center for the Arts: Afterward: A look at fascism and its many faces. Lewison notes the protagonist, a New York psychologist born in Israel, returns to Germany where she is confronted by Neo-Nazism presence and then to Israel where she is challenged by Palestinians to redefine her world view. Feb. 21 8 p.m., Hangar 9: Tasteless, a film about the the kind of humor that crosses the line and how it would stand in todays social climate. The film is based on a series of 1980 paperbacks called Truly Tasteless Jokes. Journalism alumna will present her film Jackie Spinner, an award-winning staff writer and war correspondent for The Washington Post from 1995 to 2009, author, and now an associate professor at Columbia College in Chicago, will present her film, Dont Forget Me also at 7 p.m., Feb. 19 at The Varsity Center. The 28-minute documentary examines the challenges Moroccan parents and their children with autism face in that country. The documentary is inspired by Spinners two Moroccan-born adopted children with autism. Spinner graduated from SIU Carbondale in 1992. Festival jurors will each present individual workshops/talks A continuing tradition, the three festival judges will each give juror talks during the week. Its important to remember that students choose these judges, so these are the type of media artists they want to see, Tudor said. I encourage everyone to come to the Fest. Its always a great evening out, and you get to see some fascinating media work that isnt really available elsewhere in the region. Opening reception, birthday celebration among special events The opening reception is from 7 to 9 p.m., Feb. 18, at The Varsity Center for the Arts. A special attraction of Saturday morning cartoons will be from 10:30 a.m. to noon, Feb. 24 at Artspace 304. The closing reception and Best of the Fest Showcase will be at 6 p.m., Feb. 25, at The Varsity Center. The closing program features films authored by local young people who participated in a scriptwriting workshop at Carbondale Community Arts. The Big Muddy Crew has produced these youth written stories to present at the final program of the festival, as a way of cultivating excitement for a new generation of independent filmmakers. On 31 January, Babcock announced that it had successfully completed a capability upgrade on the first of three Estonian Navy minehunter vessels at its Rosyth facilities in Fife, Scotland. This upgrade was finally completed after the Sandown-class EML Admiral Cowan minehunter vessel underwent a five month docking period at the shipyard between July and December 2018. On 31 January, Babcock announced that it had successfully completed a capability upgrade on the first of three Estonian Navy minehunter vessels at its Rosyth facilities in Fife, Scotland. This upgrade was finally completed after the Sandown-class EML Admiral Cowan minehunter vessel underwent a five month docking period at the shipyard between July and December 2018. Docking EML Admiral Cowan, one of the Estonian Navy Sandown-class minehunters (Picture source : Babcock) Now that it has been upgraded, the Sandown-class EML Admiral Cowan minehunter vessel will return to Estonia before undergoing trials in the North Sea in May to demonstrate its full operational capability. As part of the contract, the capability upgrade package includes fitting the Thales Sonar 2193 hull-mounted wideband minehunting sonar (replacing the Sonar 2093 variable depth sonar), the Thales M-CUBE command-and-control system, and an upgraded navigation system on the various Sandown-class minehunters of Estonia. Still as part of the contract, Thales is also delivering a new fleet mine warfare data centre to the Estonian Navy. The second Estonian Navy minehunter vessel, EML Sakala, arrived at the Babcock Rosyth site in December 2018 to undergo the same package of work, which will then be followed by EML Ugandi in late spring 2019. The requested page is currently unavailable on this server. Back to [RTHK News Homepage] At a sold out event, Bill Nye yes, the Science Guy sat before hundreds of University of Miami students, faculty, and staff to discuss climate change. Best known for his syndicated Disney program, the down-to-earth scientist motivated and encouraged the audience to take action. Following opening remarks from Jeffrey L. Duerk, executive vice president for academic affairs and provost; Patricia A. Whitely, vice president for student affairs; and President Julio Frenk, Nye was interviewed by Sam Purkis, chair and professor of marine geosciences at the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, in the first What Matters to Ua series of moderated discussions sponsored by Student Government. Purkis didnt shy away from hard-hitting questions, as Nye has faced criticism for being one of the worlds leading climate change advocates during a time when some question its existence. Climate change denial has been an enormous problem in the United States, said Nye, now the CEO of The Planetary Society, a non-profit organization that promotes the exploration of space through education and advocacy. I will claim that climate change contrarians or deniers, those people are old. And they will not be in charge pretty soon and you guys are going to be running the show. I am excited about that, because you guys are going to go out there and change everything. For decades, Nye has been successful at making complex science topics and issues more fun and engaging. Throughout his discussion with Purkis, he did not deviate from that formulaand even wore his signature bow tie. The student audience cheered him on as he stressed several calls to action. From new construction technology, to new power sources, to minimizing waste, to new zoning laws and more, Nye encouraged students to be the leaders of change to combat climate changespecifically in Florida. It took Student Government and the What Matters to U program committee about nine months to bring Thursday's event in the Shalala Student Center ballroom to fruition. Frenk thanked Evan De Joya, Student Government president, and Keegan Gibson, chair of the committee, for their work. "It's really great to see our students leading this as part of an exchange of ideas," Frenk said. "I am very proud when I see our students so engaged." Gibson said his committee wanted a speaker who would not only teach during a lecture, but would also interact with students. Nye did just that as student moderators, Jack Comaratto and Andrea Candelaria, asked Nye questions from the audience. Jordan Chabot, a junior studying mechanical engineering, said he was surprised but hopeful that Nye focused on major contributions that students his age can make to combat climate change, such as new inventions in solar and electrical power, instead of smaller-scale suggestions about how to improve the environment. As an engineer, I think solar power is very possible and as he said, its not hard to make, but sometimes it is hard to sell. Its interesting that he thinks solar can have such a large-scale use, Chabot added. Celeena Memon, a freshman studying chemistry and psychology, liked the fact that Nye emphasized the importance of voting. Im politically active and a lot of people here dont vote and its ridiculous, Memon said. For [state] elections here, one vote can change who will be governor, so I really liked that. Senior exercise physiology major Tope Abisoye, among other students, said she came to see Nye speak because she spent much of her youth watching his television show. Yet, she also recognized the importance of Nyes message about the importance of decelerating climate change. He had a big impact on my childhood, and the lives of many students, Abisoye said. Because of that, he was able to talk about important issues like climate change in a way where people from both sides of the aisle could understand and have an actual conversation about it. The Science Guy left the audience with this piece of advice: Everything you do effects everybody, so you want to be aware all the time. Chairman of Foreign Affairs Committee of Riigikogu Marko Mihkelson received foreign minister of Armenia Zohrab Mnatsakanyan who arrived in Tallinn on an official visit, the Armenian foreign ministry reported. The parties exchanged views on the perspectives of deepening bilateral relations in the format of parliamentary diplomacy. At the request of the interlocutors, Minister Mnatsakanyan touched upon Armenia's foreign policy priorities and recent domestic political developments in Armenia. In this regard Minister Mnatsakanyan underlined that the government proved its political will by implementing the reforms initiated on the basis of the broad mandate of the people. The Armenian Foreign Minister presented to the members of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Romanian Foreign Ministry the achievements of Armenia in the field of innovation and digital technologies and the development of creative education, highlighting the exchange of bilateral experience and deepening of cooperation in this field. In this regard Minister Mnatsakanyan highly appreciated the meetings and discussions with Estonia's leading hi-tech and digital experts and officials, expressing hope that they will serve as a good basis for initiating practical and mutually beneficial joint projects. Minister Mnatsakanyan and Marko Mihkelson exchanged views on the Armenia-European Union cooperation, underlining the importance of the Eastern Partnership as a useful platform for cooperation with the EU and Member States. A group of seven hardcore suspects is on the loose after escaping from the Makongeni Police Station in Thika on Thursday. Five of the suspects are facing robbery with violence charges while the other two are charged with drug trafficking. According to the police, the suspects cut the cells ventilation grills at around 4 am and jumped out before fleeing on motorcycles. It was reported today by one No 66076 Tom Odhiambo and 101049 Nelson Mandela report office and cells sentry personnel that while they were in the report office at 0420 hours they heard a faint knock on the wall and saw someone running away from the motorcycles parking yard. They raised alarm, police said. At the time of the escape the cells were holding 21 suspects, some of whom raised an alarm during the escape. They found out seven out of the twenty-one prisoners had escaped after other suspects in the remand started shouting that some suspects have run away, added police. The suspects were set to stay in detention until March 5 this year. The robbery with violence suspects include Paul Kitundu Ngui, John Muriithi Wambui, David Karanja Njeri, Benson Kimani Jecinta, and Kelvin Gaitho Wambui. The others are Harun Kibe Njoroge and Josphat Muturi Karanja. The police have opened an inquiry and launched a manhunt for the criminals. The Armenian government summed up the discussion of the draft for the government's new structure, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan wrote on Facebook. Armenia will have 12 ministries. A commissioner on Diaspora affairs at the Prime Minister's staff will be PMs representative in the relations with the Diaspora and will coordinate government's work with the Diaspora on behalf of the prime minister, Pashinyan said after the Cabinet session. During the Fridays special Cabinet session, the government approved its program and sent it to the National Assembly (NA) for approval. PM Pashinyan will present the program in the parliament on February 12. A group of 83 Armenian specialists has arrived in Syria's Aleppo for a humanitarian mission. Armenian experts deminers, doctors and their security personnel will carry out humanitarian activities related to mine clearance, providing medical services in Aleppo, exclusively in the areas where there are no military operations. Russian defense minister Sergey Shoigu thanked his Armenian counterpart Davit Tonoyan for providing humanitarian aid in Syria. Armenias first president Levon Ter-Petrosyan has been questioned as a witness in connection with the March 1 criminal case, his spokesperson Arman Musinyan confirmed said. He said the questioning at Special Investigation Service lasted 1.5 hours. According to earlier media reports, ex-president Serzh Sargsyan was also interrogated as a witness in connection with the same criminal case. However, the investigators did not comment on the reports in both cases. Some media websites said Armenias third president Serzh Sargsyan gave testimonies against second president Robert Kocharyan. However, Sargsyans attorney labeled the reports as slander. In establishing this day of Armenian Genocide commemoration, President Macron is fulfilling his well-known pledge to honor French citizens of Armenian descent, French Foreign Ministrys official said during a daily briefing. Asked whether Turkey had responded to the decision, the MFA representative said: We have had several opportunities to exchange views with the Turkish authorities on this issue. They have been informed of our positions just as we have been informed of theirs. Armenias leadership is not responding to requests for a meeting with Stanislav Zas Belarus candidate for the position of CSTO Secretary General, Zas himself told reporters in Minsk. Vladimir Karapetyan, Spokesperson of the Prime Minister of Armenia, in turn, has expressed his bewilderment over the comment by Stanislav Zas. There was no specific arrangement regarding a possible meeting between Armenias Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Zas, he told NEWS.am. He added that the matter of election of the new CSTO chief cannot be resolved without consensus. Law enforcers in Migori have launched a manhunt for a man who stands accused of defiling and impregnating a 13-year-old in Awendo. The minor, a class one pupil at Kindu primary school said to be mentally unstable, tested positive for pregnancy on Wednesday at a health facility following her grandmothers suspicions. A medical report seen by the area Chief Ezekiel Kokeyo stated the girl is about one month pregnant. According to reports, the victim can positively identify the sex-pest but she cannot give a clear narration of her ordeal. She, however, identified the scene of the alleged attack near a stream in the area. The area chief said they are yet to establish the exact dates the sexual assault occurred. We have launched a manhunt for the suspect and we will move around with the girl to help us identify him so that he can be arrested and charged for defilement, Mr. Kokeyo told Citizen TV. On his part, Migori police boss Joseph Nthenge said they are confident they will catch the attacker. The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has revived the election servers saga, accusing Raila Odingas National Super Alliance (NASA) of lying to Kenyans that they had been denied access. According to IEBC, NASA gained access to the election servers more than any other party. In an internal post-evaluation report, the election body states that NASA accessed the servers 34 times compared to Jubilees 10 times. Nasa accessed the servers through one John Walubengo after making 54 attempts. This was before the August 8, 2017 poll results were released. The report indicates that the ruling Jubilee Party had 10 successful logins from 24 attempts through ex-Energy CS Davis Chirchir. In their submissions during the 2017 election petition, NASA alleged that Chirchir, a former IEBC official and tech expert, had hacked the IEBC servers and helped Jubilee to rig the polls. Other candidates who gained access include Collins Ndindi, an independent candidate, who made 46 attempts and succeeded 6 times. Japheth Kaluyus agent opened the database three times while UDPs Ben Wafuko managed six successful logins. The report indicates that Thirdway Alliances Bildad Kagai had five successful logins. The elections agency also dismissed claims that it defied the orders made by the Supreme Court, affirming that it granted the parties access as ordered. NASA had claimed that they were denied access within the 48 hours provided for by the court to verify claims of data manipulation. Lavrov, Bayramov discuss implementation of agreements reached between Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan Armenia I Have Honor bloc candidate for PM on Artsakh issue: Right of peoples to self-determination is inalienable Armenia state-funded Public Television makes around $829,000 purchase from one person I Have Honor bloc candidate for PM: We can return Armenian captives in Azerbaijan in 2-3 days if we have power China says world chaos caused by one power Armenia I Have Honor bloc candidate for PM: I will go to parliament if decision is made that the bloc goes Judicial farce against Armenian captives continues in Azerbaijan Armenia acting premier appoints 2 new deputy governors to Ararat Province Xi Jinping attaches great importance to development of China-Armenia relations Armenia delegation member to PACE: Azerbaijan media are at forefront of spreading hatred, enmity towards Armenians 100 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia Putin calls Russia contribution "decisive" in Karabakh conflict settlement process Head of Ukraine parliament friendship group with Armenia congratulates Pashinyan Armenias Pashinyan congratulates Luxembourg PM on national holiday US authorities to allocate $ 8 billion to restore airports operation after pandemic Artsakh State Minister clarifies what happened during Stepanakert rally World oil prices going up Biden administration revives plans to build new space station Newspaper: Armenia troops to be taken out from front line Newspaper: Pashinyan is PM of actually just 26.49% of Armenia voters Tarasov: Azerbaijan, Turkey cant resolve matter of road via Armenia without Armenians participation Lawyer: Armenia court on Wednesday will announce decision on motion to arrest physician Armenia Security Council Secretary: Authorities will be guided by 'remedial secession' principle to solve Karabakh issue Armenia 2nd President: Government views Hayastan All-Armenian Fund as additional source of funding Karabakh President: My visit to Armenia's Civil Contract Party office on day of elections was misinterpreted Number of 'Armenia' bloc's votes grows by 10 times after recount in Vanadzor Rally participant: Karabakh President leading confidential negotiations with head of Azerbaijan state security service Head of Armenia's Odzun village submits report to police, case to be forwarded to Special Investigation Service Gagik Tsarukyan: Prosperous Armenia Party won't be in parliament, but will still be involved in politics Belarus President congratulates Armenia's Pashinyan Opposition National-Democratic Axis Party declines offer to meet with Armenia acting PM Armenia Administrative Court renders decision on ex-deputy chief of army's General Staff French MFA: France hopes elections will provide Armenia with opportunity to solve several issues Leader of 5165 Movement Party rejects offer to meet with Armenia acting PM Armenia acting high-tech industry minister introduces Industrial City Plan to US Ambassador Armenia ex-FM on Security Council Secretary's statement on torpedoing issue of POWs' return Armenia Security Council Secretary: Exchange of mine maps and POWs may be ongoing Armenia Security Council Secretary blames ex-FM for 'torpedoing' issue of return of POWs Armenia Security Council Secretary: Negotiations over deployment of Russian border guards in Gegharkunik underway Head of Armenia's Odzun village beaten in building of regional governor's office Armenia Security Council Secretary reminds Levon Ter-Petrosyan about 1996 presidential elections More Russian peacekeepers to be deployed in Armenia, Aliyev speaks on Shushi, Jun 22 digest Armenia Security Council Secretary says former authorities are the capitulators Armen Sarkissian holds phone talks with 'Armenia' bloc's leader Robert Kocharyan Christian-Democratic Party leader to Armenia acting PM: We will support the government 2 Stepanakert residents declare hunger strike at main square of Artsakh capital Citizen's Decision Party leader to Armenia acting PM: Results of elections show that political field is not competitive Principal of school in Armenia's Metsamor and her husband are charged Robert Kocharyan: 'Armenia' bloc is the one calling the shots Holy Etchmiadzin: Acting PMs proposal for dialogue to spiritual leaders is welcome Citizen's Decision Party: No agreement reached with Armenia acting PM Iran MFA congratulates successful holding of snap parliamentary elections in Armenia Armenia President holds phone talk with leader of 'I Have Honor' bloc Artur Vanetsyan Armenia acting PM to political party leader: I thought you would cross electoral threshold and enter parliament Dollar descent continues in Armenia Another body retrieved during search operations in Karabakhs occupied lands Karabakh President intends to hold referendum of confidence Aliyev declares Artsakhs occupied Shushi as cultural capital of Azerbaijan Armenia Ambassador presents credentials to Lithuania President Armenia independent MP to grant letter of recommendation for release of Armen Charchyan from custody Russia envoy: Armenian peoples contribution is invaluable in Great Patriotic War victory Lithuania President: Nikol Pashinyan has been given mandate of Armenian people Armenia President congratulates Nikol Pashinyan on his political party's victory in the elections Leader of Armenian extra-parliamentary force meets with Nikol Pashinyan 'Armenia' bloc member: Authorities will establish dictatorship of Nikol Pashinyan, not of law European Parliament delegation on Armenia elections: We call on all political forces to acknowledge election results Armenia acting MOD pays tribute to fighters who fell in the Great Patriotic War Armenia former President Kocharyan on Erdogan's platform of 6": Hard to talk about what does not exist Russia Federation Council wants to start cooperation with new Armenia parliament as soon as possible Canada MFA congratulates Armenia on concluding successful parliamentary elections Russia ambassador to Armenia: OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs format continues to function International Union of Socialist Youth recognizes Artsakh independence Menendez: No concessions to Erdogan Russia envoy to Armenia: Work to return captives will continue 3 terrorist groups neutralized in Iran Ambassador comments on report on Russia border guards deployment in Armenias Gegharkunik Province EU Delegation to Armenia spokesperson issues statement on snap parliamentary elections 2nd President Kocharyan: Armenia will face another snap election if authorities continues in same spirit Philippine President threatens COVID-19 vaccine protests with arrest Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: I have not yet decided whether to refuse, accept parliamentary mandate Armenia army General Staff: Committee is set up to investigate course of Artsakh war Armenia army General Staff chief: Russian peacekeepers will be deployed in Gegharkunik Province 77 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia Armenia delegation member calls on PACE to freeze Azerbaijan presidents European bank accounts Hand grenade is thrown under Armenia public, political figures car (PHOTOS) Newspaper: What is expected after Armenia snap parliamentary elections? Newspaper: Armenia acting PM to use his "steel mandate" against opponents Russia resumes full-fledged flights with Turkey Another rally demanding Artsakh Presidents resignation to be held in Stepanakert US State Department issues statement on Armenia snap parliamentary elections Armenia ruling party member warns pseudo-lawyers 'Armenia' bloc issues statement on results of snap parliamentary elections and election observation missions US will not warn Russia about cyberattacks, Psaki says Armenia acting PM: Political crisis is resolved and is over Zakharova: Russia hopes to strengthen ties with Armenia based on results of snap parliamentary elections Gunshots heard in Yerevan, city's police chief is at scene of incident Erdogan invites OSCE Minsk Group to Karabakh Armenia President calls on making transition to presidential system again Armenia MFA: Specifics of work with UNSC regarding Azerbaijani invasion of Armenian territory not subject to disclosure Armenia acting minister says he will start using 'steel mandate' tomorrow at 9 am The Order Sons of Italy in America Napa Lodge 2043 is having their annual Crab Feed Fundraiser this Saturday, Feb. 9. The past few years, the Napa Lodge has teamed up with the United States Coast Guard Chief Petty Officers Association out of Petaluma. The men and women of the Coast Guard serve your dinner and assist in any way they can for the event. This year was looking like the men and women of the USCG would not be able to make the trip due to being under the Department of Homeland Security, therefore on furlough, until Cinnamons Wine Tours heard about the dilemma. Cinnamon Williams, the proprietor, volunteered to travel to Petaluma, pick up all of the men and women drive them to the Crab Feed and drive them back to Petaluma after the event. Cinnamons words: Its the least I can do for the men and women that are serving our country The Napa Lodge uses its Crab Feed as a double fundraiser. They pass the hat during dinner for our Coasties. The association, in turn, use the donations for their young recruits who have a family emergency they need to get home for. I suspect I wasn't the only American surprised to learn that God chose Donald Trump to be president of the United States. The Almighty's rooting interest in the 2016 presidential election was so great, apparently, that he was willing to put his thumb on the scale to ensure the outcome (with, perhaps, a little help from the Russians and the vagaries of the electoral college). This according to Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, who apparently enjoys privileged access to both parties -- that is, both God and Trump. "I think God calls all of us to fill different roles at different times," Sanders told David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network, "and I think he wanted Donald Trump to become president and that's why he's there." I have no direct evidence to dispute Sanders' assertion, but I suspect that the Almighty was forced to make a few policy adjustments of his own before endorsing the president and offering up what Sanders assures us is his continuing support. Let's begin with immigration, the cornerstone of Trump's campaign in 2016 and, it would appear, for 2020 too. God is on record pretty consistently for instructing his followers to "welcome the stranger." Even after local governments approve housing construction, there is no guarantee that housing will be built. In fact, new research soon to be released by UCLAs Luskin School of Public Affairs will show that cities and counties have zoned land for the construction of 2.8 million homes. And a 2018 Construction Industry Research Board report listed more than 450,000 new homes under construction or approved. Because of market forces, however, they will not be built for five years. As such, it is reasonable to expect cities to do their part by planning, zoning and approving housing projects, and to minimize delays, costs and barriers to construction. It is not reasonable to penalize cities that are meeting their responsibilities but where builders decide not to build. Recent lawsuits between the state and the city of Huntington Beach are unfortunate. But hopefully they ultimately lead to collaboration and resolution between both sides and a recognition that we can make more progress when cities and the state work together. We can boost housing supply without abandoning the values of public transparency and civic engagement that are central to building strong communities. This housing crisis is indiscriminate, gripping all of our communities. Cities are a part of the solution. Carolyn Coleman is the League of California Cities executive director. She wrote this commentary for CALmatters, a public interest journalism venture committed to explaining how Californias Capitol works and why it matters. There was also the matter of who won these delegate elections. First, the party created two gender categories: self-identified female and male/other than self-identified female. Voters could mark seven in each category, but no matter who got the most votes, the top seven of each would become delegates. So if 14 self-identified other-than-females got more votes than the leading female, seven would be knocked out. This is democracy? This is the type of election system the Democrats want not only for their party, but the entire state and nation, chuckled Republican campaign manager and blogger Stephen Frank, a candidate for his partys state chairmanship in the GOPs state convention starting Feb. 22 in Sacramento. Honesty and integrity is not the hallmark of that party, Frank added. They stuff ballot boxes even against themselves. Responded Democrat Salazar, At least we vote, and were working to make it better. The Republicans have no democracy at all and thats the way they like it. Yes, we need to give more notice of our caucuses. But we cant afford to send everyone a mailer or an email. This excuse comes from the free-spending party that inundated virtually every California mailbox with election flyers last fall. The bottom line: Neither of Californias major parties is really democratic. While Democrats make a token effort, theres little participation in their process, along with huge potential for corruption and cheating. Which goes far toward explaining why wise voters in actual elections pretty much disregard whatever the parties recommend. Thomas D. Elias writes the syndicated California Focus column. He is author of the book, The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Governments Campaign to Squelch It. Listening to the conversation about her son, Drinda broke down and left the room. She sat in the lobby, shaky and crying. Her daughter knelt in her skirt to hold her mothers hand. A Rand Corp. study published in April showed that, while VA mental-health care is generally as good or better than care delivered by private health plans, there is high variation across facilities. There are some VAs that are out of date. They are depressing, said Craig Bryan, a former Air Force psychologist and a University of Utah professor who studies veteran suicides, referring to problems with short staffing and resources. Others are stunning and new, and if you walk into one thats awe-inspiring, it gives you hope. The Murfreesboro VA hospital, where Toombs took his life, was ranked among the worst in the nation for mental health, according to the agencys 2016 internal ratings. It has since improved to two out of a possible five stars. The program, while nurturing in some ways, also has strict rules for picking up medications on time and attending group therapy, said Rosalinde Burch, a nurse who worked closely with Toombs in the VA program. She believes she was transferred and later fired from the program for being outspoken that his death was totally preventable. Since 2010, 150 Napa County teachers have earned or have nearly earned masters degrees in Innovative Learning, focusing on how to use technology and digital environments to engage students and prepare them for future careers, thanks to a program funded by local non-profit NapaLearns. On Wednesday, representatives from NapaLearns and Touro University honored the most recent group of graduates at a reception at the Archer Hotel in Napa. The degree recipients are called NapaLearns Fellows and, according to Executive Director Peg Maddocks, they comprise a third of the teachers in Napa County with masters degrees. The NapaLearns Fellows program is designed to help teachers integrate technology into their teaching practices, Maddocks said. Todays students are very comfortable working in digital environments. However, their teachers have not grown up with the same tools. This degree provides opportunities for teachers to adapt their curricula using innovative technologies for learning to interact with their students on the same playing field. 2014 Fellow Ron Eick, who teaches at American Canyon High School, says he agrees with that assessment. The Napa County District Attorney and Public Defender have partnered to reduce or dismiss 160 cannabis-related charges, spurred by California voters decision to legalize the recreational use of cannabis. Proposition 64, passed by voters in November 2016, provided a framework for a recreational cannabis businesses, and allowed adults 21 years and older to consume, carry and grow limited amounts of the drug. It also allowed courts to reduce or dismiss old cannabis-related offenses with penalties that would be reduced by Prop. 64. District Attorney Allison Haley said in a press release that the office began proactively reviewing cases nine months ago based upon the passage of Proposition 64 and the will of the voters. The DAs office determined 295 cases were eligible for review, according to a DAs statement. Many people affected by those cases had already petitioned for lesser penalties, but of those who had not asked for relief, 93 cases were reduced from felonies to misdemeanors, 57 were dismissed and 10 were reduced to infractions. "When the crew questioned the effectiveness of the work we were doing, (our supervisor) instructed us 'to make it look pretty' and get back to work," Hopkins wrote in his declaration. Another employee, Trevor Hunter, worked on the same crew that year and alleged in a separate declaration that concerns raised about the hasty concrete patches and repairs were met with: "Shut up and get back to work." Hopkins said it was an ongoing problem when employees pointed out safety issues. He said he was regularly told to "keep (his) mouth shut." "I often referred to the DWR as the 'Water Mafia' because they operated more like a corrupt mafia than a state department," Hopkins wrote. The crater formed in Oroville's spillway in 2017 during heavy storms. To try to keep it from expanding, DWR's dam operators let the lake rise to the point where water flowed over the adjacent emergency spillway for the first time since the dam was completed in 1968. The earthen hillside below the emergency spillway started to wash away. Fearing the concrete spillway would crumble and release a "wall of water," officials ordered a frantic evacuation of 188,000 Sacramento Valley residents. We must make it uncomfortable to ... The Huawei P30 and P30 Pro are set to launch in March 2019, according to a report from Polish site Telix.pl, via TechRadar. Huaweis upcoming smartphones are set to be announced at a launch event in Paris, added the report. The Polish news website did not state where it received the information and it has not yet been confirmed. The launch event for Huaweis P20 and P20 Pro flagship smartphones also took place in Paris in March, in 2018. Huawei has not yet revealed anything about the design or features of its new smartphones, and they may include anything from bezel-less displays to powerful new chips with 5G-compatible network hardware. The smartphone manufacturer previously stated that it would launch a 5G-compatible smartphone in 2019, and this may be its P30 and P30 Pro devices. Now read: Pearl White Samsung Galaxy S10 leaked South Africa is currently working on a number of new transport technologies as it slowly moves away from petrol and diesel-based engines. This is according to the Department of Transports recently published Green Strategy document which outlines governments plans to move to these new technologies by the year 2030. Notably, the Department of Transport said that it is currently working with the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the Department of Science and Technology on the introduction of hydrogen fuel-cell driven transport in the public sector. Hydrogen fuel-cell technology is advantageous in that it has a low carbon footprint therefore contributing to cleaner air. It also involves minimal noise when used in fuel cells. However, implementation from scratch of production, distribution, and retail outlets for hydrogen fuel-cells is likely to be expensive. Each fuel-cell vehicle would require $900 to $1,000 (R12,000R13,500) according to 2013 International Energy Agency (IEA) estimations. In addition to plans to introduce the technology to municipal bus fleets, the Department of Transport said that it had also begun trialling hydrogen technology in a number of demonstration projects to showcase how the technology can make an impact in a number of sectors. This includes a new trial of hydrogen-powered scooters at the South African Post Office. Battery electric scooters tend to encounter challenges associated with range limitations, particularly in areas where the terrain is bad, the Department of Transport said. In such instances, hydrogen fuel cells could be used to extend the range of these scooters and increase productivity. A project of this nature is currently underway through a collaboration between HySA and the South African Post Office (SAPO), with funding from the Department of Science and Technology. At least three battery electric scooters will have their range extended using hydrogen fuel cells with the onboard hydrogen stored in containers using metal hydride hydrogen storage material developed through the HySA Programme. The first such scooter has been completed and is currently undergoing performance testing and validation, it said. AMDs Radeon VII officially launched globally yesterday, and it has not been the most impressive rollout for a new graphics card. While AMD previously stated there would be more than enough Radeon VII graphics cards available at launch, global supply tells a different story. Reports from international retailers have stated that stock of AMDs latest graphics cards is incredibly low, with countries like France and Spain reportedly only receiving 20 units each. The AMD Radeon VII is set to compete with Nvidias RTX 20 Series graphics cards, which offer high-end performance, dedicated AI compute cores, and ray-tracing capabilities for improved graphics in supported games. The Radeon VII is built on a 7nm manufacturing process and delivers a big performance increase over AMDs Vega GPUs, thanks to its high clock speeds and 16GB of HBM2 VRAM. South African pricing While stock of the graphics card is a concern, South African PC retailers have listed the new card in their online stores. Wootware has listed several models including ASRock and ASUS variants but no pricing or delivery date is available for these listings as yet. Rebel Tech has not listed delivery dates for the card either, but has published pricing for the MSI and Gigabyte models set to go on sale. MSI Radeon VII R15,999 Gigabyte Radeon VII R14,999 Scarce supply MyBroadband spoke to Wootware and Rebel Tech about the local availability of the Radeon VII, and it does not look good for South African gamers. Rebel Techs Rune Ravnsborg said he had not received information about available stock for South Africa, and expected more updates once international companies returned to work after the Chinese New Year. Wootware founder Rory Magee said the card is in scarce supply, and would subsequently be relatively expensive in South Africa. I cant recall any GPU launch thats been this limited in terms of available stock. Were talking ones and twos being allocated in South Africa. The small number of units allocated to South Africa creates higher shipping costs on an already non-favourably priced card. Vendors have been getting few, if any cards locally, Magee added. The higher shipping costs for the graphics card in addition to its scarcity make it more expensive in South Africa than it would be in the US, for example, and local gamers may be better off purchasing an Nvidia RTX card or an older Vega GPU. Benchmarks from AnandTech show that the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 trades blows with the Radeon VII across the board, and it can be purchased for around R4,000 cheaper than AMDs Radeon VII based on current list prices. It is unclear whether stock of the graphics card will improve in the following months, and Wootware stated that it currently only has confirmed stock of the ASUS Radeon VII at the moment. Prosecutorial Reform Review of System Changes at Onset of 2019 December 2018, after the inauguration of the President of Georgia, marks also a commencement date for the new constitutional amendments. As a result of these changes, Prosecutors Office of Georgia was separated from the Ministry of Justice and became a fully independent agency. The head of the institution is the Prosecutor General, while independence, transparency, and effectiveness of the system are guaranteed by the Prosecutorial Council.At first glance, this reform is one of the most significant achievements for Georgia, as for years international and local organizations were advocating for the reform of the prosecutorial system in this direction. However, the reform may ultimately prove to be disappointing, if in the transitional period the Prosecutors Office fails to demonstrate that it is an institutionally independent, strong and unbiased body whose decisions cannot be influenced by the ruling elite or influential individuals.The events surrounding the uninvestigated murder on the Khorava street in 2018 significantly tarnished the reputation of the Prosecutors Office and damaged already-low public trust in the institution. Due to these events, 2019 will be one of the most significant year for monitoring the institutions activities. However, before doing so, it is essential to understand the amendments in the law and the legal realities at the onset of 2019.Significance of the legally defined independenace of the Prosecutors OfficeIndependence accorded to the Prosecutors Office of Georgia is an unequivocally positive breakthrough. The Prosecutors Office has to ensure impartiality of its activities and impervious nature of the rule of law; otherwise, it wont be able to perform the functions mandated by the Constitution. Due to these risks, independence of this institution, and above all, its deliverance from any influence are of crucial importance.The recent events have demonstrated that the condition of democracy in Georgia is still fragile and the state institutions are often amenable to being affected by the priorities of political agenda. The Prosecutors Office needs to be dissociated from the political process, as political neutrality is one of its foundational principles.The Prosecutors Office is one of the essential institutions in all democratic countries, upholding rule of law, protecting human rights and fighting crime, effects of which are reflected in the stability and development of the country.The problems associated with the Prosecutors Office in Georgia can also be found in some of the Central and Eastern European countries (e.g. Montenegro, Serbia, Cyprus, etc.). Most of these countries have addressed the issue by giving full independence to the institution. Evaluations from the European Union and international organizations demonstrate that through independence Prosecutors Offices in these countries have advanced significantly, in terms of personnel, institutional capacity and accountability.International and local organizations have been expressing concerns for years that the Prosecutors Office of Georgia was not free from political interference. Despite the reforms in 2013 when the Minister of Justice was stripped of prosecutorial powers and could no longer interfere in individual cases and in 2015 when the rules of appointment and dismissal of the Chief Prosecutor were changed and these powers were given to the Prosecutorial Council depoliticization of the Prosecutors office could not be achieved. The issue of freedom from political interference at the institution was repeatedly mentioned in the annual recommendations of international organizations. Thus, the final solution was mandating full independence to this institution. This was the main rationale in giving independence to the Prosecutors Office of Georgia.Will the Prosecutors Office of Georgia develop into a strong, politically neutral institution based on rule of law, that enjoys public trust, protects interests of citizens and doesnt serve political interests? This shall be demonstrated in the near future, however, until then it is important to review the changes in the legislation affecting the body after the acquisition of independence.Legislative reforms strenthening independence of the Prosecutors OfficeThe legislative changes were reflected in the Constitution in 2017 and in the Organic Law on the Prosecutors Office in 2018. The amendment of the organic law was led by the Legal Issues Committee of the Parliament of Georgia, where a special working group on the topic was created. Members of the Parliament and the Government, as well as, non-governmental organizations participated in the working group. However, the Parliament was not able to lead the process with equal participation from all parties, the meetings were conducted in an accelerated manner and as a result, the organic law was also adopted in an accelerated manner. However, this was done with an understanding that the Parliament would review the law during the Spring session, after the publication of Venice Commission conclusion. The non-governmental organizations have presented numerous remarks on the organic law before its adoption. Critical conclusions of the Venice Commission were also published after the adoption of the law and the opinions expressed in them often coincided with those of the non-governmental organizations. The experts of the Commission noted in their conclusion that despite the fact that parliamentary discussions on the Organic Law on the Prosecutors Office were taking place in parallel to their visit, the recommendations from the Commission would be reflected in the future amendments of the law.a) Amendments to the Constitution of Georgia - Provisions on the judiciary branch of the government and Prosecutors Office are under one chapter in the Constitution of Georgia and regulations regarding the Prosecutors Office are all under one article. Independence of the Prosecutors Office is now guaranteed by the Constitution. The Prosecutorial Council became a constitutional body and Chief Prosecutor was substituted by Prosecutor General. General rules on the election of the Prosecutor General were defined in the Constitution, while their dismissal procedure was defined as impeachment only in cases of Constitutional breach and signs of crime in their activity, the Parliament has the right to raise the issue of their dismissal.b) Organic Law of Georgia on the Prosecutors Office - For harmonizing legislation with the Constitution of Georgia, the Parliament adopted the Organic Law on the Prosecutors Office. Main changes regard the Prosecutorial Council and selection procedure for the Prosecutor General. However, these changes in the law are of technical character. These amendments will be reviewed in detail below, however, as has already been mentioned, the Parliament is working on making changes to the law and its correspondence with recommendations of the Venice Commission will be reviewed during the Spring session.Prosecutorial CouncilThe Prosecutorial Council is not a new body. This collegial body exists already for 4 years and its main functions are selection of candidates for the Prosecutor General, review of the conduct of deputy General Prosecutors and review of the report of the Prosecutor General. These limited functions could have been justified in the reality where the Council wasnt a constitutional body and its goals ensuring independence, transparency, and effectiveness of the Prosecutors Office werent constitutionally defined. Preserving this limited authority of the Council in the new legal realities was a subject of harsh criticism from the non-governmental organizations. This issue was also criticized by the Venice Commission.a) Composition - Until the commencement of the constitutional amendments, the Prosecutorial Council consisted of 15 members, the Minister of Justice being an ex officio member and a chairperson. Others included: 8 prosecutors elected by the conference of prosecutors, 2 Members of the Parliament (1 from the parliamentary majority and 1 selected from non-majority group), 2 judges elected by the High Council of Justice and 2 members selected from candidates proposed by the academic community, members of Association of Lawyers and/or non-profit (non-commercial) legal entities.As according to the new Constitution, all members of the Council need to be elected and the Chairperson of the Council is elected by the members, technical changes were made to the Organic Law on the Prosecutors Office. The Minister of Justice will no longer be a member of the Council and its Chairperson, however, he/she will propose his/her own candidate for a member of the Council to the Parliament, as a result, a person proposed by the Minister of Justice will be in the Prosecutorial Council.This is the only change made to the Council composition rules, which became a target of the Venice Commission criticism, raising the issue of the number of prosecutors and low representation of the civil society in the Council and called upon the Parliament to increase the number of the civil society representatives in the Council. At this moment no representative of the civil society is a member of the Council. The non-governmental organizations pointed to the high number of high ranking political officials in the council (Minister of Justice, Members of the Parliament) and criticized inclusion of judges in the Council. However, the Prosecutorial Council is composed based on the current rules of the Organic Law and non-governmental organizations and the Venice Commission await legislative changes.b) Functions - The functions of the Prosecutorial Council havent undergone any significant changes. Its functions previously included approval of the candidate for the Chief Prosecutor, proposed by the Minister of Justice, disciplinary review of the conduct of the Chief Prosecutor and deputy Chief Prosecutors, review of the report of the Chief Prosecutor, development of recommendations and their presentation to the Chief Prosecutor. These functions have undergone only one change instead of reviewing a candidate proposed by the Minister of Justice, the Council will select the Prosecutor General based on consultations. And as, the Prosecutor General can only be removed through an impeachment clause, the disciplinary functions were removed from the Council.The Venice Commission commented on the functions of the Prosecutorial Council, stating that its new constitutional role to ensure independence, transparency, and effectiveness of the Prosecutors Office will be difficult to accomplish through the new law. Just selecting a candidate for the Prosecutor General cannot be considered as an effective mean of fulfilling the Council's constitutional role.Prosecutor GeneralThe authority of the Prosecutor General was expanded and almost all authority that was in the competence of the Minister of Justice was transferred to the Prosecutor General. Among many competencies, the Prosecutor General:- takes decisions regarding the staff of the Prosecutors Office, regarding establishment and elimination of prosecutorial bodies, on defining their territorial authority and competencies of structural units;- can attend meetings of the Prosecutorial Council with a voting right;- approves the guiding principles of the criminal policy; however, the Parliament of Georgia defines criminal policy;- approves the Code of Ethics of the staff of the Prosecutors Office;- reviews appeals and statements.Taking into account such wide authority of the Prosecutor General, the need to expand the authority of the Prosecutorial Council becomes even clearer. Before the adoption of the law, the non-governmental organizations were recommending to the Parliament to divide the functions between the Prosecutor General and the Prosecutorial Council. This position is shared by the Venice Commission which recommends that the Council for Career Management, Ethics, and Incentives be under the Prosecutorial Council and the role of the Council in the career management of the prosecutors be broadened. Additionally, the report on activities of the Prosecutors Office, presented to the Parliament and the Prosecutorial Council by the Prosecutor General, must include a written opinion of the Council and it should be an inseparable part of the report.Advisory bodiesAnother new addition to the Organic Law on the Prosecutors Office is advisory bodies of the Prosecutor General; specifically: the Council for Career Management, Ethics, and Incentives and the Council for Strategic Development and Criminal Policy. Establishment of these bodies is important, as the Prosecutor General takes decisions about the above-mentioned topics based on their communication with these bodies. However, these bodies are mainly of consulting character. Additionally, according to the Venice Commission, taking into account the new constitutional role of the Prosecutorial Council, the Council for Career Management, Ethics, and Incentives should be under the Prosecutorial Council.ConclusionDespite the fact that 2019 started with significant reforms at the Prosecutors Office of Georgia, there are crucial flaws on the legislative level, which could create challenges for the body.To prevent such challenges, it is essential that the composition and functions of the Prosecutorial Council be reviewed. Participation of political subjects (e.g. Members of the Parliament, a representative of the Minister of Justice) in the Council should be minimized. Additionally, the judge members of the Council will undoubtedly encounter conflict of interests in case the issue of expansion of the Council competencies should be raised, therefore they should not be members of the Council. Representation of civil society in the Council must be increased.Without broadening of the Council functions, it wont be able to perform its constitutional role. Therefore, it is essential the issues of staffing be divided between the Council and the Prosecutor General, the role of the Ethics Council be assigned to the Prosecutorial Council, the Prosecutorial Council should be given actionable role in preparing the report on the Prosecutors Office.These are essential legislative changes that are urgent, monitoring of their implementation in practice will be crucial.Analyses has been produced by the Institute for Development of Freedom of Information (IDFI) with the assistance of the European Union(EU). Its contents are the sole responsibility of IDFI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the EU. Road use spending is projected to be around $218,423, while the citys water fund spending is anticipated to be $224,450. Sewer spending is projected to be around $308,581, with an additional $212,945 earmarked for the sewer sinking fund, which is used to pay for construction and other projects. Following the citys normal policy, the water account budget will include a 4 percent hike in water bills. A Mar. 7 public hearing on the budget proposal was set during the councils regular meeting. In other action during the regular meeting, local resident Tim Coleman asked the council to delay any decision on upgrading its social media and website technology until more details on possible options are reviewed. The city has been investigating technology options with consultant Josh Jackson, but has not made any decisions. Coleman, a member of the citys betterment committee, said he had also been talking to Jackson about incorporating county and city demographic information into any technology upgrades. Coleman indicated by assimilating the areas demographics into any upgrades, local governments could provide more focused social media opportunities. Well tread slowly, Mayor Shawn Maine assured Coleman. There are good reasons to consider not moving the time. There is a body of research that suggests that time switching has a negative effect on things like sleep patterns and can be linked to increase headaches. Moreover, the change can be linked to an increase in depression-like symptoms. One of the other benefits was that there was a lower crime rate, which can probably be explained by more people being active during the daylight, and fewer nighttime hours. Originally, Daylight Saving was also thought to save energy by maximizing sunlight. However studies that researched the issue showed that actually more energy was used instead of less. One of the main themes is that humans and their sleep rhythms are disrupted twice a year by the switch. In fact, some studies have linked an increase in heart attack and stroke in the weeks directly following the switch because of the change. While we support the idea of picking a time and staying with that change, we believe staying on Daylight Saving could be an option -- just so that we would keep consistent throughout the year. Abolition of the death penalty will not adversely affect the prosecution of criminal defendants. Indeed, it will not change the landscape of the criminal law at all since for at least the past decade, the criminal justice system has functioned without an effective death penalty. Abolition would remove the ability of county prosecutors to threaten an accused of seeking the death penalty, and that would be a good thing. Such conduct has been challenged as being ethically questionable and given the reality of not having a functioning death penalty, any such threat advanced now would be minimized by any knowledgeable criminal defense counsel. There is no question that the death penalty does not act as a deterrent. The death penalty does not deter homicide. Between 2010 and 2016 the murder rate was 23 percent lower in non-death penalty states compared to death penalty states. Montana has paid the price of having capital offenses on the books without any ability to carry out a death sentence. When county attorneys charge individuals capitally and then have to back down, they have spent substantial public funds to provide the defense required because a capital offense was charged. Life in prison without possibility of parole is the option the majority of citizens support in lieu of the death penalty. It is time that Montana should join close to half of the states in the union and abolish the death penalty. Our capital punishment system is broken. Montana has no functioning death penalty. The Legislature should act and remove from the books a broken set of laws currently incapable of being enforced. Ron Waterman is a Helena attorney. Larry Epstein is an Essex attorney. Love 2 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Last week at the state Capitol, the Joint Select Committee on Healthcare met with some hospital CEOs to discuss Medicaid and Medicaid expansion. Our thanks to the CEOs from St. Peters in Helena, St. James in Butte and the for-profit Community Medical Center in Missoula for attendance at this important meeting. Six of the CEOs from the largest hospitals had "prior commitments." There has been some talk iof having another meeting so all of them could be in attendance. Stay tuned. The committee was comprised of four legislators from the Montana House and four from the Senate of both parties. We asked questions about patient care, hospital board set-up and what the communities see as real needs an assessment required of hospitals by IRS regulations. The following is a short synopsis of what we learned: After expansion was passed into law, uncompensated care by hospitals has declined, in some cases from 7.3% of total hospital care down to 1.6%. One CEO felt the state health clinics were taking patient base away and made it harder for them financially. A 2017 Legislative Audit expressed concerns about the management and oversight of these clinics, which were created by Gov. Schweitzer in 2012 and have cost the taxpayers $26 million in the first 5 years. WASHINGTON His tractor is so noisy that, when driving it, the man who calls himself "just a farmer from Butler County" puts his cellphone under his cap, set on vibrate. Charles Grassley, 85, who has served in the Senate longer than all but 11 of the 1,983 other senators and who still runs 3 miles four mornings a week does not have ample time for farming because he has visited all of Iowa's 99 counties every year for 38 years, and last missed a Senate vote 8,300 votes ago, when Iowa was flooded in 1993. He is a non-lawyer who just left the chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee to become chairman of the Finance Committee. In his 45th year in Congress (he was in the House 1975-1981), he will help this institution recover some of the power it has improvidently and perhaps unconstitutionally delegated to presidents. His committee's purview is vast he intends to address prescription drug prices but trade policy will be at the top of the committee's agenda. There is the revised agreement with Mexico and Canada to approve, and a developing agreement with Japan to partially undo the damage done by the president's scrapping of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. It wasnt until Kaori Fujii began working with musicians in the Congo that she fully understood the adage, music can connect people. I always thought of music as a profession, but at the same time I didnt realize how powerful music can be, said the Tokyo-born flutist who now resides in New York. Fujiis work with the Orchestre Symphonique Kimbanguiste, the only symphony in central Africa, is the center of a short documentary completed recently by Montana filmmaker Jessica Jane Hart. The 11-minute film makes its public debut in Billings Feb. 18 at Art House Cinema. Titled Music Beyond, the documentary may be short, but its packed with stunning images of Congolese musicians who began with nothing, describes Pauleth Masamba in the film. No musicians, no instruments, it was just us, and we started step by step...and today we can say that the foundation on that house is strong, and all that energy came from us. Fujii first traveled to Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, five years ago to see if she would be welcomed as a teacher. It took two years and six trips to convince the musicians that she was actually coming back, said Fujii. They are used to having promises broken, so they dont expect a lot and see a lot of people coming and going, but it never sticks. Hart was inspired to produce her own film after meeting Fujii and learning of the nonprofit, Music Beyond, Inc., that Fujii founded to fund her work in the Congo. They connected through Fujiis husband, Eric Cecil, a guitarist and former Miles City resident Hart knew during high school. In November 2017, Hart and Tarek Fouda, a sound engineer and radio journalist based in San Francisco, joined Fujii in the Congo and spent five days filming "Music Beyond." Music for the soul Fujii's parents were professional musicians, and she was raised in a classical music environment she describes as "almost elitist" and worlds away from the Congolese musicians she now teaches. In that environment, sometimes I think we are too caught up with the self-validation and techniques and so-on, rather than the happiness or passion or the connection that music can bring, Fujii said. Fujii holds some impressive titles. Shes the youngest Japanese flutist to take first place in the Music Competition of Japan, the Japan Wind and Percussion Competition and the Japan Woodwind Competition. At the height of her career, she was playing 200 concerts a year. Shes performed at Carnegie Hall, The John F. Kennedy Center, Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall, the Alte Oper Frankfurt in Germany, to name a few. Yet, this esteem and prestige, the fancy concert halls, the five star hotels and first class flights none of it fulfilled her, she said. "I began to wonder if there was anything I could do as a musician to make even the smallest of difference in a true, meaningful way outside the concert halls and recording studio. In 2014, Fujii founded Music Beyond. Since then, shes visited the Congo three times a year to host intensive clinics, working with ensembles as well as teaching solo lessons. Its a full day, every day, and she does it for a month at a time. Each trip, Fujii sees progress. The sole teacher for the organization, Fujii also mentors musicians so they can teach others after she leaves. Her students are dedicated, some picking up techniques that typically take months to master. Fujii introduced one of her students a night guard at a Kinshasa shopping center to a vibrato technique on the flute. The next day he came to me, and he absolutely nailed it, Fujii recalled. He does it regardless of if he has a teacher or not, or enough money or time, he needs to do it. That is keeping him alive and going, Fujii said. Survival through music Theres a story told about the Orchestre Symphonique Kimbanguiste starting with a single violin. The instrument was shared among 20 people, some traveling on foot for hours to get a chance to play it. That violin launched a symphony in Kinshasa that now has more than 200 choir and orchestra members, many of whom are self-taught and continue to travel long distances to rehearse together. About half the members sing in the choir, and others perform on instruments that they maintain themselves. Founded in 1994 by Congolese conductor Armand Diangienda, the orchestra slowly amassed instruments, some donated or shipped from relatives in Europe and others were built by orchestra members with resources on-hand. A 2010 German documentary and a 2014 spotlight on CBSs 60 Minutes spurred interest and further donations. Life in Kinshasa is a struggle. Its a city with upwards of 12 million residents and growing as people move to the city from other parts of war-torn Africa. This influx has been met with massive housing issues and a lack of basic city services. Electricity and water are sparse and intermittent, and many of the homes are substandard one-room structures. Democratic Republic of Congo is one of the poorest countries in the world, and many residents of Kinshasa earn less than $400 a year, according to Global Finance Magazine. Symphony members are often up before the sun to get to their day jobs, sharing a taxi or walking in the citys staggering congestion, then attending rehearsals at a local Kimbanguiste church in the evenings. Its something that Hart struggles to explain. I just cant imagine being that motivated for something, Hart said. On the outside, it can seem so insignificant, especially for someone who doesnt play music, and even for someone who grew up playing music its just hard to imagine being willing to work that hard to get something that is intangible. While filming in the Congo, Hart was struck with culture shock, not just from the differences in her American life, but also the stark contrasts between the hotel where they stayed an area Hart describes as a safe zone where many NGO and diplomatic workers are stationed and the immense poverty and poor infrastructure across the rest of the city. You cross a line and youre in the real Kinshasa, Hart said. Despite being a country in political unrest with ongoing corruption and violence, the Democratic Republic of the Congo just experienced its first peaceful transfer of power in decades. Democracy is a process, said Fujii, who maintains a delicate relationship with the Congolese government. She enters the country with the blessing of the government under the protection of the Japanese Embassy, which maintains a presence in the DRC. I continue to believe in the Congolese people, who are living day after day with hope in their heart in a place where hope is so hard to come by. Congolese people believe that there will someday be a peaceful Congo, Fujii said. Coming home Hart and Fouda arrived in Kinshasa just after Thanksgiving in 2017. Each carried one small bag with filming gear to avoid attracting attention as they traveled to Ngiri-Ngiri, a municipality in the Funa district where the orchestra practices. Both volunteered their time to film and produce the documentary, and some of their travel expenses were offset by fundraising efforts. They received visas from the Embassy of the DRC, in part due to testimonial letters written by Fujii and members of the symphony. Traveling in a Japanese Embassy vehicle significantly lessened their costs and need for armed security. Hart filmed some of Kinshasa from the vehicle, but at times the driver with would ask her to hide the camera. The slower you move, the more you see, Hart said. A lot of what we experienced we were not able to film. The documentary spends a good deal of time focused on an all-female ensemble, which Fujii started in 2017 to empower women through music. Footage captured on the last day of filming shows the female orchestra members performing and speaking at a center for young mothers many victims of violence and rape and homeless girls up to age 17. In one of the shots, you see a child sitting on a fence, mimicking the movement of playing violin as the ensemble performs. There are 12-year-old mothers just surviving, Hart described. And here we are in this super safe diplomat world. Its just a universe away. Hart returned to Billings at Christmastime, and said she felt extreme disconnection. I just didnt talk about it when I got home. If I would start to talk about it, tears would come out of my eyes," Hart said, but not because she was sad. Its like a physical reaction, which is the only way I can put it. Sharing cuts of the film with Fujii, Hart said they would cry together at this experience. Hart describes Fujii as a humble badass. She bounces between these worlds seemingly effortlessly. I know its not effortless. In going back and forth, Fujii said she no longer experiences culture shock, but probably I became more patient of a person after coming back. Her first experiences in the Congo were shocking. You do see poverty all over the place. You see starving children and people trying to put the next meal on the table, literally, Fujii said. Its hard to see it, but it becomes normal. When you come backits more artificial here. Her recurring thought, upon returning to her life in New York: How could we manage to be so unhappy with everything that we have? Fujii said she doesnt feel bad about her success or her material possessions. If (Congolese) have the choice of having things, they would have things, too, but at the same time I dont complain. If anything, I am more thankful for having things rather than feeling guilty. The guilt is not going to help them. To make her work in the Congo possible, Fujii cut back significantly on live performances. She continues to teach private lessons and picks up gigs to pay the bills. It was the worst decision by far that Ive made financially, but the best decision that Ive ever made as a person, Fujii said. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 The president of a Montana tribal community told Montana legislators Thursday it was critical they pass laws to address the epidemic of missing and murdered Native women. "It is time to act on this crisis. This isn't a reservation problem and this isn't a Native American problem. This is a Montana problem and we must come together and unite as Montanans to address this problem and implement a solution," Andrew Werk Jr., president of the Fort Belknap Tribal Communities, told the state House. Werk is leader of the Assiniboine (Nakoda) and Gros Ventre (Aaniiih) tribes. He told lawmakers that the record number of Natives among them was something to celebrate, and that Native women in particular are pushing forward to find ways to protect American Indian women. "I am humbled to look out and see Native women here today," Werk said. "We must continue to work with them to address the challenges that exist." Data on missing Native women are unreliable, according to a report produced by legislative staff. There are 60 documented cases in Montana between 1979 and 2018, according to a doctoral student at the University of Lethbridge who is studying the topic and collecting data. One local Montana Tech professor, Katie Hailer, and a professor at the University of South Carolina, Suzanne McDermott, have performed studies on Butte that have brought up questions about whats in the air and how is it impacting residents. But such a change would need much more study. Banderob has been going before the council repeatedly for the last few months to request support from the county for various proposals designed to protect the Greeley neighborhood, directly south of MRs active mining operation. One of the Greeley neighborhood groups earlier requests is that the county support their effort to get EPA and DEQ to turn Greeley into a specially designated unit of Buttes larger Superfund site. Banderob has said he thinks this could make money available to better control storm water in the neighborhood. A change in operable units seems relatively unlikely so far down the road of the Superfund process. At one time, it was thought locally that the West Side Soils operable unit of the Superfund site included the Flat. EPA said in 2017 that it did not. Nevertheless, Greene said in his letter to Banderob that he is investigating the areas of Butte around the Butte Hill, and that includes Greeley. EPA said via email Friday that Greene's work on that will begin this spring. Love 1 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 1 Angry 1 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. All on the panel seemed to agree that single-family homes between $130,000 and $200,000 are whats needed for these types of workers and are among the most popular homes. Theres no shortage of very low (priced homes) single-wide trailers, things like that, Willauer said. At the same time, he has seen lots of listings for expensive, riverside properties. But what seems to be lacking are modest homes that a medium-wage worker can afford. Some might look at Butte and Anaconda and wonder how communities with vacant properties could have housing inventory issues. But as the panelists noted, theres a difference between housing in general and quality housing. In other words, if a home buyer has to invest more into upgrades than the value of the home, then the home isnt a very appealing investment. I think in rural Montana there is a lot of available housing, but its not up to par. And doing rehabilitation on housing is really, really hard to do, said Rude. Her organization has tried to partner in the past with communities who wanted to incentivize rehab projects, but there were many challenges, including having to jump through hoops and check all the boxes required by federal financing programs. Thats an area that I think many of us need to think about, she said. How might we approach doing a really significant housing rehabilitation that really addresses people of all income levels? Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Some commissioners have criticized those, saying they benefit companies or developers with deep pockets that would go forward with their projects regardless. Others say they have created new jobs and helped the local economy, which is what hard rock money is for. The countys Hard Rock Mine Trust account gets revenue from a portion of taxes mine operators pay the state. The money can be spent on things that improve or diversify Buttes economy, but it can only be tapped where theres a big mining shutdown or major mine layoffs. When Montana Resources suspended mine operations in Butte in 2000, $4 million in the trust fund became available to spend. The money earns interest, but the last of that will now be spent for the Starbucks project. Tax revenue is still flowing into the trust fund, but it would take another mining shutdown or major mining layoffs to access it. The first $1 million spent from the fund helped MR resume mining operations in 2003, and a few years ago, commissioners steered $1 million toward the new passenger terminal at Bert Mooney Airport. Pizza Ranch got the smallest allocation, $5,000, while the new Copper King developers and owners got two allocations totaling $400,000. Ace Hardware got $200,000 to relocate and build a bigger store in Butte. Dear Editor, Climate change presents the most pressing problems of the 21st century. The fact that voters, regardless of political affiliation, are becoming increasingly concerned about environmental protection is encouraging. It shows that we are no longer willing to sit idly by as our planet deteriorates. The people of Montana are correct the time to act is now. Thankfully, theres a proven, reliable solution to the climate threat: The Baker-Shultz Carbon Dividends plan. Created by former Republican secretaries of state, its a groundbreaking, bipartisan climate change proposal with support from both fossil fuel companies and environmental groups. It was also endorsed by the worlds top economists, including 27 Nobel laureates, through the "Economists Statement in support of Carbon Dividends." The plan would institute a gradually increasing carbon tax on only the largest companies that produce the most CO2 and redistribute the revenue equally to all Americans. A family of four would receive an estimated $2,000/year from these revenues alone. Supportive huckleberries to the five members of the Missoula Redevelopment Agency who voted unanimously last month to allow YWCA Missoula to use nearly $145,000 in Tax Increment Financing toward the construction of a new shelter for families in crisis. Its a small but important piece of the planned $10.9 million facilitys funding, and will go in part toward covering the costs of installing sidewalks and curbs around the shelter property on South Third Street West. It also represents the best possible use of TIF money leveraging property tax increases to boost redevelopment projects that provide a clear community benefit. When the shelter is completed, it will welcome up to 31 homeless families, including children, and offer 13 rooms for families seeking to escape domestic violence. The fee will not be paid by state- or county-owned hospitals. The state's cost of the Medicaid expansion program continues to increase as the federal share drops to 90 percent in 2020. Continuing the program is one of the key issues for the 2019 Legislature and Buttrey has said he wants to do so without increasing the cost to taxpayers. An early draft of Buttrey's bill calls for a tax on health insurance premiums, a work or community benefit requirement for participants and increased premiums for people on Medicaid expansion for more than two years. He also wants to charge additional fees for people with extensive assets, even if they qualify for Medicaid expansion based on their income, and collect from tax-exempt religious corporations the state's share of their members' Medicaid costs a provision aimed at Hutterite colonies. Federal law does not allow direct asset testing. Caferro's bill retains many of the points of the bipartisan bill carried by Buttrey in 2015, while adding the hospital fee and increasing the appropriation for a voluntary workforce training program. Montana's Medicaid expansion program will end on June 30 if lawmakers don't pass a bill to continue it. You must be logged in to react. Click any reaction to login. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 House Bill 14 wraps up $160 million in bonding projects, which Bullock and other Democrats argue is a good way to pay for projects the state can't do in cash. It ties together controversial projects like $32 million for Romney Hall in Bozeman and $32 million for the Montana Historical Society in Helena with the types of water, sewer and wastewater projects that reliably pass each session. It also has $44 million for smaller communities affected by oil, gas and coal projects. Democrats argue these projects should move together so a broad range of interests are represented, but Republicans have said they want to segregate the local projects from the large bonding proposals. Republicans did strip out a plan to transfer up to $17 million from an infrastructure program funded by cash from the state coal trust and use the money in the state's general coffers. Paying for Medicaid expansion Montana hospitals this week indicated they'd be willing to pay an additional fee to help support Medicaid expansion, which lawmakers are debating how to continue. Finish this article for as low as $1 when you purchase a day pass. Just click the sign up button to purchase. If you are already a subscriber, just click log in to continue reading. Les Craig, the managing partner for NFC, said the company decided to open an office in the MonTEC building after recognizing the significant role Missoula is playing in the state's growing venture space. The decision for us to open an office in Missoula is driven by the success of our portfolio companies in Missoula and the great potential we are seeing in early-stage opportunities in the region," he said. "Our goal is to spend more time in Missoula and to be more involved with the start-up community through events such as the Hellgate Venture Network, 1MC Missoula, the EPIC Pitch Competition, and the John Ruffato Start-up Challenge. "We will also be collaborating with MonTEC to offer office hours and host workshops to collaborate with local entrepreneurs who are working towards raising their first round of venture funding. Submittable, a downtown Missoula-based software company, was another tech firm that was able to boost its revenue and workforce through a partnership with Next Frontier Capital. Rogers said a child who ingests asbestos rather than breathes it has still been exposed to the substance. Since that exposure isn't from inhalation, he said it is minimal, but he suggested sharing the information with a pediatrician so it is documented in the child's chart. Mucous can wash the material through a toddler, but he said if fibers lodge in the digestive tract, they can create a lesion. He also said the occupational threshold for asbestos in air applies to adults, but children's respiratory systems are still developing and don't have the same defenses. Rogers said he would provide additional information for parents at a separate meeting the same afternoon, but UM would be "aggressive" in areas that would have children. Generally, he said UM will conduct a cleanup in the building, and he anticipated it would take five to seven days. Although Rogers said he considers UM safe to occupy, UM officials did not immediately confirm a target date to begin cleanup or say whether they planned to reopen McGill before the end of the semester. More than 40 components of diesel exhaust are classified as hazardous air pollutants by the (Environmental Protection Agency) and 15 of those are also listed as known, probable or possible carcinogens, she said. Diesel exhaust also contains ultrafine particles, considered to be the most dangerous of all particulate pollutants because they are small enough to be carried deeply into the lungs when inhaled and can move into the bloodstream and reach any organ in the body. "And lastly, virtually all exhaust from transportation vehicles is emitted at ground level where people work, play and breathe. She said transportation-caused air pollution disproportionately causes respiratory illnesses in children and the elderly, who are more susceptible. And, she added, two-thirds of all transportation-related air pollution comes from diesel engines. So shifting to zero-emissions buses means our communitys health will benefit from less local exposure to carcinogenic diesel exhaust and we locally contribute to reducing our dependence on harmful fossil fuels, she said. Mayor John Engen, who was dealing with a bad cold that he jokingly referred to as the bubonic plague, called the new buses big, cool and expensive. On Thursday, for $20 you'll get a small block that "resembles sandstone, and has a little tile in the center," he said. Then you can carve a design of your choice (remember do it backward). The carving portion runs from 5-7 p.m. in the lobby outside the GVA. Then from 7-8 p.m., head over to the Art Annex yard next to the Grizzly Pool. There, Blumenthal and company will pour iron, and you get a piece of art that despite its small dimensions, weighs around 3 or 4 pounds. People have made numbers for their address, "elaborate paperweights," or tiles that can be incorporated into a larger piece, he said. Adding to the event's color are a few performance-art elements. Audio and visual artist NoJay "will be live-sampling the noises of the pour and then distorting them with pedals and loop machines," he said. They'll also do a vegetarian and carnivore version of an "iron in ice" act. They've frozen beefheart and an artichoke heart into blocks of ice that will then have molten iron poured in them, and you can watch the iron melt out. The metal, in case you're wondering, comes from salvaged radiators "broken by hand with sledgehammers down to the appropriate size," he said, "There is a projection that the Philippines will be among the 20 richest nations in 2050." "There is a projection that the Philippines will be among the 20 richest nations in 2050." Pricewaterhousecoopers, a prestigious multinational professional services network based in London, United Kingdom, and which ranks as the second-largest professional services firm in the world, has very good news for the Philippinesif the country and its people are willing to listen and abide by its prognosis. In the multinationals recent projections for the year 2050, it classed the Philippines among the 20 richest nations on earth just 31 years from now, or a generation hence. By then our country is projected to be ahead of 25. Thailand, with a $2.782 trillion economy; 24. Malaysia$2.815 trillion; 22. Canada$3.1-trillion; 21. Italy$3.115 trillion ; 20. Vietnam$3.176 trillion. The Philippines will be the 19th richest economy just ahead of Vietnam at 20th. By then the US wont even be number 2 but India, just behind China as the richest economy in the world. It is opportune at this time to reflect upon these projections as the country faces its challenges as seen today, the contentious politics that is delaying the national budget and, hence, all the development projects and slowing down growth. There are also ambiguities on the China Sea dispute policies which otherwise pose no problem with unprecedented friendly relations with China, or the vestiges of the Cold War like the Mutual Defense Treaty that Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana has pointed out.If the Philippines is to attain the status of being among the richest countries in the World, which would be a boon to its long impoverished people, it must focus on stabilizing its economy directed unerringly toward development and prosperity. The partnership with the booming economies of Asia today, namely China, and the up-and-coming India, should be top most in the agenda of the Philippines, while good relations with the US. is maintained. President Dutertes scheduled visit to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI, an essential program for global prosperity) Forum in April, in China is also a welcome development. To ensure that the road toward 2050 is clear, enhancement of ASEANs Zone of Peace and Neutrality (ZOPFAN) and the SEANFZA (Southeast Asian Nuclear Free Zone Agreement, also known as the Bangkok Treaty) must be done particularly as the US withdraws from the INF (Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty) that may restart a new arms race. President Rodrigo Dutertes vigorous implementation of the Philippine Constitutions independent foreign policy has come at the most opportune time. The weight of global power is shifting to Asia and the Philippines is rising as one of the major players in ensuring global peace and prosperity and a gatekeeper of peace and security in what is turning out to be the most critical region of the 21st century. When Tampa Electric wanted a $134 million rate hike in 2013, James Ray J.R. Kelly and Floridas Office of Public Counsel fought them down to $57 million. When Florida Power & Light wanted a $1.3 billion rate hike, Kelly was there, too, fighting it down to $811 million. In all, Kelly and the Office of Public Counsel have saved Floridians billions of dollars in potential rate hikes since he took charge of its staff of 15 lawyers and accountants in 2007. But since then, Floridas House and Senate havent reconfirmed him in the job. That could change or not this year. On Thursday, the group thats supposed to choose who leads the office the Legislatures Joint Committee on Public Counsel Oversight met for the first time since 2013. And most of their questions Thursday were about what Kellys office does, and what they were supposed to do. Sen. Bobby Powell, co-chair of the committee, asked Kelly how they were supposed to reappoint him. Kelly responded that he wasnt sure. Since he took the job, the House Speaker and Senate President, who set his budget, have told him, Unless we need something, you keep doing your job, Kelly said. Kellys office has an obscure but important job. When electric, water or gas utilities ask Floridas Public Services Commission for the ability to raise hikes, his office is the one that represents consumers before commissioners. His office, created by the Legislature in the 1970s, negotiates with the utilities and has appealed cases to the state Supreme Court. The office is usually successful in lowering rates, saving Floridians billions over the years. Tempers flare in negotiations, he told lawmakers. But at the end of the day, we always shake hands. We have a very healthy personal and professional respect for each other. Kelly said he isnt asking for more positions. His budget is a meagre $2.3 million, half a million less than when he started 12 years ago. Lawmakers on Thursday seemed willing to reappoint him. Theyll have at least one more meeting to decide, but they said they wanted more details on the offices activities. Kelly said after the meeting that he welcomed the extra scrutiny. Only an ignorant person would say you dont have room to improve, he said. Rep. Monica Stonier, D-Vancouver, lower left, and Rep. Laurie Jenkins, D-Tacoma, right, listen Friday, Feb. 8, 2019, during a public hearing before the House Health Care & Wellness Committee at the Capitol in Olympia, Wash. Amid a measles outbreak that has sickened people in Washington state and Oregon, lawmakers heard public testimony Friday on a bill that would remove parents' ability to claim a philosophical exemption to opt their school-age children out of the combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccine. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren) Amid a measles outbreak that has sickened more than 50 people in the Pacific Northwest, Washington lawmakers heard testimony Friday on a bill that would remove parents' ability to claim a personal or philosophical exemption to opt their school-age children out of the combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccine. Hundreds of people opposed to the measure lined up more than an hour before the start of the hearing before the House Health Care and Wellness Committee, many wearing stickers with the bill number, HB 1638, within a crossed out circle. The bill comes as health officials have reported at least 52 known cases in Washington state and four in Oregon. Most of the Washington cases are concentrated in Clark County, just north of Portland, Oregon. The measure is sponsored by a lawmaker from that region, Republican Rep. Paul Harris of Vancouver, and has the support of the state medical association and Gov. Jay Inslee. Inslee declared a state of emergency last month. Harris said people in his area are "concerned about our community, its immunity and the community safety." The measure does allow proof of disease immunity through laboratory evidence or history of disease to substitute for immunization. Currently, the state allows school-vaccination exemptions for children at public or private schools or licensed day-care centers based on medical, religious and personal or philosophical beliefs. Unless an exemption is claimed, a child is required to be vaccinated against or show proof of acquired immunity of nearly a dozen diseasesincluding polio, whooping cough and mumpsbefore they can attend school or a child care center. John Wiesman, the secretary of the state Department of Health, said the effort to limit exemptions is "about safe schools and protecting vulnerable children." Wiesman told the panel that compared to other outbreaks in the state in the past decade, "the outbreak we are dealing with right now is larger and infecting people faster than recent history." People opposed to a bill that would remove parents' ability to claim a philosophical exemption to opt their school-age children out of the combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccine listen to testimony Friday, Feb. 8, 2019, during a public hearing before the House Health Care & Wellness Committee at the Capitol in Olympia, Wash. Amid a measles outbreak that has sickened people in Washington state and Oregon, lawmakers heard public testimony on the bill Friday. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren) Opponents testifying against the bill included environmental activist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who questioned safety standards around vaccines. Susie Corgan, with Informed Choice Washington, said after the hearing that parents who are worried about their children having adverse reactions to vaccines have a right to philosophical exemptions. "Where there is risk, there must be choice, and there is risk with this vaccine as there is with any other medical procedure," she said. Four percent of Washington secondary school students have non-medical vaccine exemptions, according to the state Department of Health. Of those, 3.7 percent of the exemptions are personal, with the remainder being religious exemptions. In Clark County, 6.7 percent of kindergartners had a non-medical exemption for the 2017-18 school year, according to health officials. Washington is among 17 states, including Oregon, that allow some type of non-medical exemption for vaccines for "personal, moral or other beliefs," according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Legislation introduced in Washington state in 2015 that would have removed the personal or philosophical belief allowance for an exemption to childhood vaccines never made it to the House floor for a vote after it faced stiff opposition. Both the WSMA and Inslee also support a broader bill that was introduced in the Senate earlier this week. That measure, which has not yet been scheduled for a hearing, would not allow personal or philosophical exemptions to be granted for any required school vaccinations. California removed personal belief vaccine exemptions for children in both public and private schools in 2015, after a measles outbreak at Disneyland sickened 147 people and spread across the U.S. and into Canada. Vermont also abandoned its personal exemption in 2015. Explore further Northwest US measles cases prompt look at vaccine exemptions 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. (HealthDay)Time spent on Instagram, Snapchat or Facebook probably isn't driving teenagers to depression, a new study contends. In fact, Canadian researchers found the relationship worked in the opposite directionteenage girls who were already depressed tended to spend more time on social media, to try to feel better. These findings run counter to a series of recent studies that said teens and young adults were more likely to grow depressed if they used social media more often. But those studies only looked at adolescents' depression and social media use at one point in time, taking a single survey "snapshot" that couldn't assess which factor influences the other, explained Pamela Rutledge, director of the Media Psychology Research Center in Santa Barbara, Calif. The new study looked at people over time and tried to make sense of their behaviors over time, said Rutledge, who was not involved in the research. "To me it makes a lot of sense, because we also know that social media can have a lot of benefits," she said. "With anything, there is positive and negative. Social media is this great big thing, and there are all sorts of ways to use it." Beginning in 2017, researchers led by Taylor Heffer from Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario, surveyed nearly 600 sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders in Ontario once a year for two years. They also conducted annual surveys of more than 1,100 college students for six years, beginning in 2010. The investigators used a standard questionnaire to measure symptoms of depression. They also asked participants to estimate their average weekday and weekend use of social media, their regular screen time, and the time they spend on non-screen activities like homework or exercise. They then looked at each participant's responses over time, to see how depressive symptoms or social media use changed from one year to another. Social media use did not predict the development of depression symptoms among school kids or college students, researchers found. Instead, school-age girls with greater symptoms of depression tended to use more social media over time. The researchers did not find the same association among school-age boys or college students. "It's definitely more sophisticated than the prior reports," said John Piacentini, director of the UCLA Center for Child Anxiety Resilience Education and Support. "I believe it. I think it's a nice contribution, and it clarifies this question in an important way." Rutledge said it could be that girls suffering depression might find solace in Snapchat or Instagram. "If their offline life is unpleasant, they're feeling marginalized at school, when you go online and you're in one of these communities it feels good, because you're now a valued member of something," she said. "Maybe they use social media more to connect with people, and if they didn't, maybe they'd be more isolated." It makes sense that children would use social media differently based on their individual characteristics, said Dr. Paul Weigle, a child and adolescent psychiatrist in Mansfield Center, Conn. "We need to take a closer look at groups and what makes young people different in their experiences with social media," he said. For example, teens dealing with depression or anxiety might prefer socializing online because it's easier to control interactions. "They can stop and think before they respond," Weigle said. "They don't have to worry about changes in their voice or how they appear while they are responding." Moderation is important, as it is in all things, he added. "It can lead to a pattern of avoiding," Weigle said. "Some depressed youth use social media and other types of screen media as an escape from their real-world problems. When they avoid their real-world problems, these problems tend to grow rather than shrink." Rutledge suggested parents talk openly with their kids about how they use social media and how they feel, rather than assume Facebook is causing their son or daughter to feel depressed. "What often happens is that parents are so negative about social media that kids won't talk to them about it, because they're afraid they'll take it away," Rutledge said, adding that it's important to understand what's going on with kids and see how all the pieces fit together. "It's possible, on the negative side, they're looking at all these people whose lives look better than theirs and they're feeling inferior," Rutledge said. "Or it's possible that it's an escape from the things that are really bothering them. They're just watching cat videos or watching people on Twitch channels play video games." The new study was published recently in the journal Clinical Psychological Science. Explore further Data show no evidence that teens' social media use predicts depression over time More information: The Mayo Clinic has more about Journal information: Clinical Psychological Science The Mayo Clinic has more about teen depression Copyright 2019 HealthDay. All rights reserved. In search of support? Credit: Shutterstock. Instagram has announced it will ban graphic self-harm images from the platform. The social media company has been under pressure from the UK government and health professionals including Dame Sally Davies, England's chief medical officer, who recently argued that social media companies have a duty of care to keep children safe. There is growing concern that such content "has the effect of grooming people to take their own lives", according to Jackie Doyle-Price, the government's undersecretary for mental health, inequalities and suicide prevention. Much of this concern hinges on the assumption that self-harm content causes, encourages or glorifies acts such as self-cutting and burning. But participants in our ongoing Wellcome Trust study at the University of Birmingham have challenged us to reconsider this. Ignoring their words could lead to politicians or platforms introducing safeguarding measures that unintentionally cause harm. It's key to recognise that young people who search for self-harm discussions and imagery online are likely to be harming themselves already. As this research participant suggests: "I started to self-harm at the age of 14, it began as a nervous habit of mine, when I was stressed. Someone noticed me scratching my hand up, which I didn't know was self-harm at the time, and this person told me that a pencil sharpener blade worked better. I couldn't get it out of my head, so I googled it and it was a spiral from there." Seeking understanding and support for their self-harm is a key reason why a young person may turn to social media, as another participant told us: "As a teenager I spent all my free time searching for help and support online because I just didn't have a healthy outlet or anyone to talk to. I was desperate to find people who could explain what was going on and tell me what I needed to do because I felt so lost and had no idea." For a young person in distress, posting a seemingly "graphic" photograph of their cut or burnt arm can be a way of reaching out for help and understanding. Friends and strangers respond with offers to talk or keep the person company, and with requests for updates on how they are. When young people express a need to harm themselves on social media, this is often met with advice on how to resist such urges, and offers of alternative coping strategies alongside "hugs and love". Participants may also congratulate one another for not self-harming and encourage each other to "remain clean". There is evidence which shows that self-harm functions as a way to cope with ongoing distress. In this case, social media can offer non-judgemental understanding. The darker places Research into mental health has long acknowledged the internet's potential to offer support, including in relation to self-harm. For example, analyses of pro-anorexia websites have explored the complex ways that the internet can be a "sanctuary" for those in distress but it also has the potential to normalise such behaviours, in a way that can stop people from seeking help offline. While this is a clear danger of content about self-harm, it's crucial to distinguish between continuation and causation, as our participant suggests: "I think there's a misconception that people will get into self-harm because they see these pictures But I think it can make it worse There's a lot of things about social media that are really helpful and it's often the only place that people can go to talk about what they're experiencing and to get support for. But there's also some pretty dark places online." It is important to note that both supportive content and "graphic" self-harm content are attached to the same hashtags, or found within the same online spaces. So Instagram's jump to ban such content could be dangerous. For example, Instagram has recently altered its search engine so that it is no longer possible to search for hashtags relating to self-harm. This means that currently searching for #selfharmsupport also returns no results. It's crucial to consider how to improve young people's online safety, without pushing them further towards "darker places" in their search for support. Self-harm content on social media must be considered in context and decision makers need to recognise how it relates to what's going on in society. Seeking support Although our research prompts us to question the assumption that engaging with self-harm imagery or discussions can cause a young person to harm themselves, it does echo other research which suggests that cyberbullying and trolling contribute to the development of mental health problems, including self-harm. If politicians and health professionals adopt a narrow focus on self-harm content, they could lose sight of the more pernicious but widespread dangers of social media. What's more, they risk overlooking the fact that young people can be propelled towards online spaces by encountering stigma and misunderstanding when they attempt to talk about self-harm with people in their lives offline. "I reject the idea that it [social media] holds the blame for self-harm or related behaviour or illnesses. The real responsibility lies with what attitudes, decisions and opinions we put out into society, which we have been doing long before social media." Rather than focusing on shutting down discussion on social media, current and previous research indicates that politicians and health professionals should question what's happening at a societal level to lead young people to self-harm. It's also crucial that across society we respond appropriately and with compassion, so that a young person struggling with self-harm is not compelled to seek support on social media. Explore further Instagram curbs self-harm posts after teen suicide This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Most victims of filicide are under 17 years old. Credit: shutterstock.com A six-month-old baby was killed earlier this week in what is suspected to be a murder-suicide. Police are investigating whether the child was killed by its father, after their bodies were found in a car on the Sunshine Coast. At least one child in Australia is killed by a parent each fortnight, according to a report into filicide released by the Australian Institute of Criminology this week. Filicide is a general term referring to the killing of a child by a parent or parent equivalent which in Australia includes the custodial parent, non-custodial parents and step-parents. The report shows that between 2000-01 and 2011-12 there were 238 recorded incidents of filicide in Australia, with 260 offenders involved in these incidents. Males constituted 52 percent (124) of offenders and females 48 percent (114). As the graph below shows, the rate of filicide offending for males has decreased in Australia in recent years, while the rate for females has increased. Filicide accounts for about 10 percent of all homicides (murders) in Australia. By comparison, a 2014 US study that looked at around 94,000 cases of filicide found it accounted for 15 percent of murders over that period. Between 2002-03 and 2011-12, children accounted for 21 percent of domestic homicide victims, the second most frequent group after intimate partners. The AIC study showed 96 percent of filicide victims were aged 0-17 years. Credit: The Conversation The role of gender in filicides Filicide is one sub-classification of domestic homicides. The others being intimate partner, parricide (killing of a parent) and siblicide (killing of a sibling). Filicide differs from the other sub-classifications in the nature of the gender of offenders. Where the other sub-classifications are generally committed in higher levels by males, the gender of the offenders is equally distributed in filicide. A 2015 AIC report into domestic homicide identified that between 2002-03 and 2011-12 males committed 77 percent of intimate partner homicides, 80 percent of parricides and 89 percent of siblicides. This gender-neutral trend follows the pattern of other child abuse behaviours. A 2018 study into child maltreatment found that females accounted for just over half of those responsible for maltreatment. However, within this, females were more likely to be responsible for neglect, whereas male offenders were responsible for physical, emotional and sexual abuse. In terms of filicide, the recent report found the method of killing varied between genders, with males more likely to use more violent methods. Credit: The Conversation Why do they do it? We often see filicide as an act of an evil person. I spent many years examining the concept of evil and concluded that usually an evil act can be committed by a rather ordinary person. Generally I found one or more of three emotive elements was necessary in the act to allow us to call it evil. These are: the perceived senselessness of the act, the perceived innocence of the victim and the uniqueness of the act. Filicide contains all three. It is useful to try to understand why people may commit filicide. Seeking understanding is not the same as condoning, nor may the reasons appear rational. In a 2016 article, psychiatry professor Phillip Resnick identified five major motivations for filicide, as set out in the table below. We could, perhaps, put one of the worst cases of filicide in Australia into the first category. In 2014, Raina Mersane Ina Thaiday stabbed to death seven of her biological children and a niece. She was eventually found unfit for trial due to suffering a psychotic episode triggered by undiagnosed schizophrenia at the time of the murders. What are the triggers for filicide All the studies mentioned in this article have highlighted notable rates of mental health issues among those who commit filicide. A 2013 study from the UK, which examined filicides in England and Wales between 1997 and 2006, found that 40 percent of filicide offenders had a recorded mental illness. Young age in the offender was also a factor. Other risk factors include acrimonious relationship breakdowns and post-separation parenting disputes. Alcohol, drug use, previous offending, a history of domestic violence and suicidal tendencies all increase the risk of offending. Preventing filicide is difficult as the cause of the offence and relationships between the offender and victim vary. In terms of basic responses, enhanced case management and co-operation and communication between agencies have been suggested as starting blocks to identify and prevent potential filicide. Ultimately, children are the most vulnerable of victims, and as a society we have a duty to ensure we do all in our power to protect them. Explore further Understanding filicide will help prevent it This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Credit: CC0 Public Domain Blood stem cell transplantsalso known as bone-marrow transplantscan cure many blood, immune, autoimmune, and metabolic disorders, from leukemia to sickle-cell disease. But to make sure the healthy blood cells "take," doctors first have to deplete the patient's own, defective blood stem cells using intensive chemotherapy or whole-body radiation. This wipes out the patient's immune system, raising the risk of infection and often causing serious side effects, including anemia, infertility, secondary cancers, organ damage, and even death. "We know that stem cell transplants can cure dozens of blood disorders, including exciting progress with treating autoimmunity," said Professor David Scadden, co-director of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and director of the Center for Regenerative Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. "Yet they are rarely used beyond treating blood cancers because of the extreme rigors the patients must endure." New research led by Scadden and his colleagues at Harvard University has demonstrated in mice an effective alternative to this toxic pretreatment. Published in Nature Communications, the findings pave the way for clinical studies that will show whether the method would work in humans, making blood stem cell transplants safer and available to more patients. "If the principles demonstrated in these studies translate to the clinic, they open the possibility of expanding stem cell transplantation to many more patients who we know would benefit if only it were made more tolerable," said Derrick Rossi, co-senior author of the paper. A promising antibody Previous research showed that a certain antibody blocks a receptor called CD117, which is carried mainly by blood-forming stem cells. When mice with genetically deficient immune systems were treated with the antibody, it selectively targeted those cells to die, making chemotherapy and radiation unnecessary. On its own, the antibody wasn't enough. Clinical trials with a human version of this antibody are now underway in patients with a rare disease called severe combined immunodeficiency. Building on this knowledge, the scientists identified an antibody that targets CD117, but is internalized by cells. Realizing that this could allow them to deliver a toxin directlyand selectivelyinto stem cells that have CD117, they attached it to a drug called saporin. Saporin, which has already been used in cancer patients, inhibits ribosomes, the protein-building structure in all cells. The team hoped that the combination would effectively kill blood-forming stem cells, and only those cells, by stopping their ability to make important proteins. It did. The Nature Communications study showed that a single dose of the antibody-drug combination eliminated more than 99 percent of blood-forming stem cells in mice. This allowed transplanted stem cells to take up residence in the recipient animals, effectively replacing their damaged blood and immune systems. The combination targeted the recipients' stem cells without harming other kinds of blood cells, and without causing clinically significant side effects. The animals' immune cell functions were preserved and responded effectively to pathogens. "We theorized it would be effective, but were both reassured and excited when it worked so well," said first author Agnieszka Czechowicz of Boston Children's Hospital, who was also deeply involved in previous CD117 studies. Future research will evaluate the safety and efficacy of the antibody-drug combination, and explore other promising combinations. Magenta Therapeutics of Cambridge has licensed this technology and is working toward developing and testing the approach in patients. The company presented preclinical data on anti-CD117 and other antibody-drug conjugates at the American Society of Hematology meeting in December 2018. "Collectively, these results are transformative for the field of transplant research. They open up the possibility of transplanting safely and effectively, without putting patients through toxic treatments," said Rahul Palchaudhuri of Harvard's Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, who was co-first author on the paper. "If this approach works in people, we can make a difference for patients suffering from many different diseases," said Scadden. "Patient conversations with their doctors would be more about benefit and cure and less about risk and suffering. That is our goal." Explore further Scientists generate functional, transplantable B cells from mice More information: Agnieszka Czechowicz et al. Selective hematopoietic stem cell ablation using CD117-antibody-drug-conjugates enables safe and effective transplantation with immunity preservation, Nature Communications (2019). Journal information: Nature Communications Agnieszka Czechowicz et al. Selective hematopoietic stem cell ablation using CD117-antibody-drug-conjugates enables safe and effective transplantation with immunity preservation,(2019). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-08201-x This story is published courtesy of the Harvard Gazette, Harvard University's official newspaper. For additional university news, visit Harvard.edu. New University of Otago research is warning doctors to be wary of potential health risks for Maori and Pacific patients taking a common blood thinner. The breakthrough study published in the Journal of Primary Health Care has revealed Maori and Pacific peoples are more likely to be affected by Dabigatran, which is used by 51 per cent of patients who take oral blood thinners and is used to prevent and treat blood clots. Lead author Bryan Simpson, a Ph.D. student with Otago's School of Pharmacy, says the risk of haemorrhages is significantly higher among Maori and Pacific patients. "This study provides real-world evidence that demographic factors, such as ethnicity, deprivation and age directly affect outcomes for people treated with dabigatran," he says. "Maori and Pacific Peoples are at a greater risk of harm with dabigatran etexilate, either having a bleed which can occur from having too much blood thinner, or a stroke from a blood clot." The study is the first of its kind to analyse the outcomes for all people taking the medication throughout the country. Dabigatran has been fully subsidised since July 2011, and this is the first study of its kind to study the outcomes of people taking the medication. It analysed results from more than 52,000 patients who were given the blood thinner between July 2011 and December 2015. While Maori and Pacific Peoples were more likely to experience greater risks of harm, there were also serious risks for those over 80 years of age, and those who lived in the most deprived populations. The paper notes that nearly 75 per cent of Maori and Pacific patients sampled lived in the most deprived quintiles, compared to almost a third of New Zealand European patients. "Doctors need to be aware that some patients are at greater risk of adverse events and may require additional monitoring." While some groups are more vulnerable to risks associated with dabigatran, Mr Simpson is calling on all patients to be vigilant. "It is important to be remember all people prescribed with this medicine should have blood tests once a year, or more frequently in certain situations, to check the kidney function. The kidneys really need to be working well to process this medicine." This study is part of a larger programme of research focusing on dabigatran use within New Zealand with the aim to translate research into improved clinical practice and patient outcomes. Explore further New drug reverses the effects of blood thinner in patients with brain hemorrhage Scanning electromicrograph of an HIV-infected T cell. Credit: NIAID After state and national leaders announced efforts to eliminate the spread of HIV over the next decade, those involved in prevention efforts in Chicago applauded the plan but questioned how it would be carried out, particularly when it comes to reaching those who are disproportionately affected by the disease. Days after Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed an executive order that re-establishes funding for HIV prevention and treatment programs, federal health officials announced an endeavor they say could slash new HIV diagnoses nationally by 90 percent by the year 2030. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services planmentioned by President Donald Trump in Tuesday night's State of the Union addresscalls for increased funding for existing treatment programs and the creation of a new program to provide medicine to high-risk communities. The federal plan targets "geographic hot spots" across the country that accounted for about half of all new HIV diagnoses in 2017. Cook County is among the designated hot spots, and those on the front lines of HIV prevention and treatment in Chicago say they share the Trump administration's goal, which they call a realistic one. But some question if and how the plan will be implemented, given the administration's track record on other public health issues, and say challenges remain in reaching at-risk communities, including gay and bisexual men of color, and low-income populations without access to health care. "We actually do have the tools currently to eliminate infections ... through the incredible amount of scientific development we've seen in the last 15 years," said David Ernesto Munar, president and CEO at Howard Brown Health, a health center that, in part, specializes in HIV treatment and prevention. "Though there's not a cure, there are very powerful medications ... that can really render HIV as a chronic, manageable condition." But Munar said he's discouraged by the Trump administration's efforts in the past two years to scale back parts of the Affordable Care Act and cut funding to social service programs. Combating HIV "requires targeted funding, access to health care, access to these medications, and a social safety net," he said. "It doesn't mean it won't happen; we're so glad the commitment is there," Munar added. "But we really need to see the backup." Although HHS Secretary Alex Azar released a lengthy statement Tuesday calling for funding of the national plan, he did not say how much money would be allocated. Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, released a statement Wednesday pledging to form HIV elimination teams for "boots on the ground support" for state and local health departments in those communities vulnerable to HIV. In addition to medications that treat those already infectedproviding them with a "normal life span" and reducing their chances of spreading the virusMunar said there is also a drug that can prevent those who are not infected from contracting HIV, Munar said. Part of the challenge lies not only in the cost of medication, but also in awareness of HIV testing and treatment as a whole, including a newer, preventive drug Pre-exposure prophylaxis, known as PrEP, and marketed as Truvada. "There's about 70,000 Americans on PrEP right now, but probably a million could be," Munar said. "We need to be making sure we're reaching out to the populations who are most at risk," Munar added. "The challenges are for some folks who are marginalized, this is fourth or sixth on their list of needs. Housing and economic security are first and second." Munar said he's optimistic about the state's "Getting to Zero" plan, which aims to have fewer than 100 new HIV cases in Illinois per year by 2030 through testing and treatment at state and local health departments and other community health providers. But he also questions if enough funding will be available, given the state's constant fiscal woes. Brian Mustanski, director of the Institute for Sexual and Gender Minority Health and Wellbeing at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, said there's a need for better understanding of how to provide treatment access to young, gay and bisexual men of color, who are disproportionately affected by HIV. In addition to targeting geographic hot spots, he said, prevention efforts also have to focus on "demographic hot spots." Mustanski said his research has shown that it's not that young gay and bisexual men of color engage in risky behaviors. Instead, it's an issue of access to health care and medication, and awareness. Any successful plan will need to target this group with comprehensive sex-education programs, along with the funds to carry it out, Mustanski said. And researchers must continue to look for ways to reach at-risk communities. "There are particular communities that are severely and disproportionately impacted by HIV," he said. "If we're going to get to zero, we're going to have to address it in Cook County." 2019 Chicago Tribune Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. "The Trump administrations move is unprecedented." "The Trump administrations move is unprecedented." The decision by the Trump administration to impose an economic embargo on Venezuela and recognizing a lackey, Juan Guiado, as president is unprecedented in the conduct of international relations. It does not only violate the United Nations Charter, international law, the Five Principles of Peace laid down in the Bandung Conference, but destroyed the very image of the US as the promoter of freedom and democracy. Ignoring that peace is an essential precondition to what it implants in Venezuela. Some political analysts say the US is invoking the so-called Monroe Doctrine, a policy laid down by President James Monroe in 1823, and addressed to the European powers not to intervene in the politics of the Americas, otherwise it will be considered by the US as a hostile act against it. Notably, the threat of European intervention looms, for it was the height of colonialism. Today, there is no threat of any foreign power, except from the US that has unilaterally taken the cudgels as the protector of the countries in the Western Hemisphere. Its role has become paradoxical for it readily exercises a free hand to invade, arm mercenaries, attack any country whose government and/or president refuses to kowtow to its policy. The situation in Venezuela is much worse than the Monroe Doctrine. The political turmoil there is one where President Nicolas Maduro is bracing his country against possible invasion by a country that has staunchly declared itself as the promoter of freedom and democracy. Demagoguery prevails that Trump feels he has the license to openly intervene, if necessary to invade, any country that does not conform to its yardstick of freedom and democracy. The US has an impeccable record of interference in Latin America often by invasion, assassination, kidnapping of leaders oppose to its policy, sabotage, destruction of infrastructures, farmlands, downing of civilian airlines, and hiring mercenaries to fight a proxy guerrilla war. It has opened an Army School of the America, Panama (SOA) in 1946 where graduates learned about counter-insurgency, weapons training, psychological warfare, interrogation techniques, and sabotage. Many Filipino soldiers have been trained there often ending up overthrowing their own government. Since 1946, the US participated in numerous acts denigrating the sovereignty and independence of states. It overthrew the government of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954 to protect United Fruit Company, a large US banana plantation firm which reason why politically unstable countries in Central America gained the moniker of being called banana republics. In 1959, US marines invaded Haiti to prop up Francois Papa Doc Duvalier. In 1960, the US engineered the ouster of the President Jose Maria Velasco Ibarra of Ecuador for refusing to cut off diplomatic ties with Cuba. He was replaced by Carlos Julio Arosemana, a paid employee of the CIA. In 1960, US-exile mercenaries invaded Cuba known as the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. In 1962, it overthrew the government of Joao Goulart, a millionaire landowner. He was promptly replaced by General Castelo Branco who created the first death squad in Latin America. In 1965, the US invaded the Dominican Republic. The US had to dispatch 20,000 troops to quell the resistance, killing 59 Americans and wounding 174. Beginning 1966, the US waged a relentless war in Guatemala to contain the spread of communism. The US installed a colonel, Enrique Peralta Azurdia to replace an elected politician. Untold reign of terror and atrocities then swept the country. By the 70s, it was estimated that more the 30,000 Guatemalans were slaughtered in the name of freedom and democracy.In 1966, the US waged a war to hunt down leftist guerrillas that led to the capture of Ernesto Che Guevarra until the remaining insurgents were rooted out in Bolivia. The CIA, that same year, financed and assisted General Jose Alberto Medrano of El Salvador to organize the Orden paramilitary force. That resulted in an orgy of killings that made the country famous worldwide. Turmoil continued in Bolivia that in 1971, the CIA backed a violent military coup to install General Hugo Banzer. He ruled for seven years as dictator. The US finally eliminated the Tupamaros guerrillas in Uruguay in 1972 but only to institute a military government. In 1983, the first democratically elected President of Chile, Salvador Allende was killed in a coup that brought to power General Augusto Pinochet, a ruthless dictator who carried out a bloody cleansing in Chile, characterized by torture, killings and disappearance of thousands. In 1979, the US furiously fought to stave off defeat of its long time puppet by the Marxist Sandinistas. The defeat of the Somoza government was promptly replaced by their creation of so-called Contas US to oust the victorious government of Carlos Ortega. The war against US hegemonism, imperialism and oppression continued to spread and was equally met with greater ferocity such that in 1980, the right-wing government of Roberto DAubuisson carried out a rampage of murder that did not even spare Archbishop Oscar Romero who was shot while celebrating mass. The combined forces of the CIA, US military advisers, and paramilitary units all in all slaughtered about 63,000 Salvadorians with the disoriented people ending up as notorious gangsters or joining in caravan to reach the US via Mexico. In 1982, General Efrain Rios Montt, after launching a coup d etat, declared a state of emergency and suspended the rule of law. Within the first six months, 2,600 Indians were massacred. US President Reagan called him a man totally dedicated to democracy. That same year, the US invaded Grenada. The invading U.S. troops were declared heroes of the republic, after killing socialist leader Maurice Bishop. In 1989, US invaded Panama in the guise of wanting to secure the Canal. The US sent 10,000 troops to arrest President Manuel Noriega and indicted him for his alleged involvement in the drug cartel. He spends the rest of his life in US federal prison. The US finally got rid of Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004 claiming he was corrupt and withheld $500 million of humanitarian aid for Haiti. Some Haitians greeted the Americans with cheers of Liberty! while others marched past the U.S. embassy denouncing Yankee imperialism. In 2008, Bolivian President Evo Morales expelled US ambassador Philip Goldberg, who was reassigned to the Philippines, accusing him of fomenting the civil unrest that threatens the unity of the nation, the same reason that antagonized President Duterte. Finally, in 2013, US Secretary of State John Kerry declared that the era of the Monroe Doctrine is over. But rightly after the exiting of the Obama administration, President Donald Trump pursued with much greater vigour the same jingoistic policy under the banner of America first. Trump revived hegemonism that requires the placing of US military outpost in every Latin American state to ensure that states remain in line to US economic interest which national security advisor John Bolton now admits is all about Venezuela oil, and not about democracy. [email protected] Credit: CC0 Public Domain A recent study found that people of Mexican background are more likely to be at risk for Type 2 diabetes than other Hispanic/Latino background groups. The study, which was led by Bertha Hidalgo, Ph.D., a professor of epidemiology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Public Health, examined variantsalterations to the DNA sequenceof the SLC16A11 gene in six different Hispanic and Latino background groups: Mexican, South American, Central American, Dominican, Puerto Rican and Cuban. The study was published in Scientific Reports. The researchers analyzed data from the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos (HCHS/SOL), which is a multicenter, community-based cohort study of Hispanic/Latino populations in the United States. The cohort collected data from approximately 16,000 people. "Traditionally, large studies of Hispanic/Latinos have grouped several subgroups into a single category, ignoring the ancestral diversity that exists within this heterogenous population," Hidalgo said. "The data from the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos allows us to better understand the similarities and differences within and across these different subgroups." Previous studies have shown that variants of the SLC16A11 gene put people of Mexican descent at higher risk for developing Type 2 diabetes. However, this is the first study to look at the genetic risk in the other five subgroups. While researchers confirmed the increased risk for the Mexican background group, they found there was not an increased risk in the South and Central American, Dominican, Puerto Rican, and Cuban background groups of HCHS/SOL. "These findings confirm the heterogeneity of the population; however, additional work will be needed to better understand the lack of replication of SLC16A11 variants in the non-Mexican background groups of HCHS/SOL," Hidalgo explained. "The current literature suggests that SLC16A11 may be a therapeutic target for Type 2 diabetes, and our study adds evidence to further explore that hypothesis." Confirming the findings from previous studies and discovering that the gene may not lead to an increased risk of developing Type 2 diabetes in the five other subgroups in the HCHS/SOL study means more work needs to be done to explain the risk factors of involved in developing Type 2 diabetes in other populations. "The findings from this paper suggest we may have to take a more careful look at the role of the gene and what this means in terms of its generalizability as a therapeutic target for Type 2 diabetes," Hidalgo said. "Variants of the gene were identified and replicated in the Mexican background group of HCHS/SOL. We now need to do additional work to better understand the risk of Type 2 diabetes in other non-Mexican background groups." Hidalgo plans to continue to research to identify risk factors for Type 2 diabetes in diverse populations, including Hispanic/Latinos. Explore further Study finds gene variant predisposes people to both Type 2 diabetes and low body weight More information: Bertha A. Hidalgo et al. Associations between SLC16A11 variants and diabetes in the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos (HCHS/SOL), Scientific Reports (2019). Journal information: Scientific Reports Bertha A. Hidalgo et al. Associations between SLC16A11 variants and diabetes in the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos (HCHS/SOL),(2019). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-35707-7 President Donald Trump is proposing a congressional ban on late-term abortions as he seeks to expand his conservative support ahead of the 2020 election. In a State of the Union speech that had been billed as promoting unity, Trump seized upon one of the most sensitive and divisive issues in the country. The president condemned a New York state law that he asserted would "allow a baby to be ripped from the mother's womb moments before birth." "To defend the dignity of every person, I am asking the Congress to pass legislation to prohibit the late-term abortion of children who can feel pain in the mother's womb," Trump said. Such a law would have little chance of passage in the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives. That did not prevent the Republican president from raising the abortion issue again on Thursday during a National Prayer Breakfast. "All children, born and unborn, are made in the holy image of God," he told the religious leaders at the event. The law passed by New York's Democratic-controlled legislature would allow for an abortion in the third trimester in rare casesonly if the health of the mother was in danger or the fetus was not viable. Democrats are promoting a similar law in the state of Virginia. 'Spreading falsehoods' Anti-abortion activists argue that the laws would allow for abortions up until the moment of birth, likening it to "infanticide." Defenders of the laws say this is not the case. "Mr. Trump and the religious right are spreading falsehoods about New York's law to inflame their base," New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, wrote in The New York Times. "The Reproductive Health Act guarantees a woman's right to abortion in the first 24 weeks of a pregnancy or when the fetus is not viable, and permits it afterward only when a woman's life or health is threatened or at risk," Cuomo said. "Activists on the far right continue to mislead with the ridiculous claim that the act will allow abortions up to a minute before birth," he said. Cuomo said he signed the law to "protect against Republicans' efforts to pack the Supreme Court with extreme conservatives" to overturn Roe vs Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision allowing abortion. Trump has managed to tilt the balance on the Supreme Court with the nominations of two conservative justices, giving rise to fears in the pro-choice camp that Roe vs Wade could be at risk. Roe vs Wade permits abortions as long as the fetus is not viable outside the wombusually until 24 weeks. Some states have restricted abortion after 20 weeks. Late-term abortions are actually quite rare. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 90 percent of the abortions performed in 2015 took place before 13 weeks and only 1.3 percent after 21 weeks. 'Excites the base' Dr. Daniel Grossman, writing in Rewire.News, said there are "many, often intersecting reasons" for a woman to seek an abortion after 20 weeks. Medical complications to the mother or the fetus can be a reason but other contributing factors may be the growing shortage of abortion clinics or "unnecessary waiting perods," Grossman said. According to a Gallup poll, 60 percent of Americans believe abortion should be legal during the first trimester, but only 28 percent believe so for the second trimester and only 13 percent for the third trimester. Jo-Renee Formicola, a professor of political science at Seton Hall University, said the abortion issue is one that resonates with Trump's supporters. "He has tremendous support among evangelicals, significant support with Catholics," Formicola said. "This is something that appeals to Middle America and that's where his strenghth is," she said. "This is the beginning of a narrative about dignity, the worth of the individual, for the Republicans for 2020," Formicola added. Trump also seized upon abortion during the 2016 presidential election against Democrat Hillary Clinton. "If you go with what Hillary is saying, in the ninth month, you can take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb of the mother just prior to the birth of the baby," Trump alleged during their final debate. "It excites the base," said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics. "A giant proportion of the Trump base and the GOP base can be sent climbing up the wall by the subject of abortion," Sabato said. "Nothing gets them angrier, nothing makes them work harder." 2019 AFP T cells attacking cancer. Credit: royaltystockphoto When telling the story of immunotherapy and cancer and how the two battle it out, it's awfully challenging not to pull out the old A Tale of Two Cities cliche. Because everyone agrees: It is the best of times in cancer research and treatment. Over the past five years, the standard of care for treatment of many cancers has made a decided shift toward marshalling a patient's own immune system to attack the disease. The full spectrum of immunotherapies available are administered at the University of Chicago Medicine Comprehensive Cancer Center. Researchers here are shaping the future of cancer treatment from every corner. Work on the role of the human microbiome has entered a phase 1 clinical trial. The search for biomarkers, also in clinical trials, is designed to better target patients who will respond to specific therapies. Precisely engineered molecules, still in the first stages of development, could enable therapies to be delivered directly to tumors, rather than systemically, reducing toxic or autoimmune side effects. A new understanding of the basic biology of the lymphatic system has the potential, farther down the road, to bring immunotherapies to more patients. This work, and far more, comes out of the network of labs that constitute the Comprehensive Cancer Center, one of only two National Cancer Institutedesignated cancer centers in Illinois. Founded on good old-fashioned UChicago interdisciplinarity, the Cancer Center brings together faculty members from UChicago Medicine, the Biological Sciences Division, and the Physical Sciences Division. Some are also members of the two-year-old Microbiome Center and the seven-year-old Institute for Molecular Engineering. With so many minds at work, the effort is moving fast, and findings rapidly build upon each other. And yet, for so many cancer patients still, it is the worst of times. Immunotherapy is available for only some types of cancer. Last year, in an editorial in STAT, two oncologists at Oregon Health & Science University estimated that "two-thirds (68.8 percent) of Americans predicted to die of cancer will die of one that currently has no FDA-approved immunotherapy options." Many patients' immune systems do not respond to treatment. Some patients experience toxic side effects that may end the therapy or be fatal. Advanced clinical trials can fail; UChicago was part of one multinational phase 3 trial that failed this past year. The cost of treatment can be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and insurance coverage is not certain. In 2013 Science heralded immunotherapy as the Breakthrough of the Year. By spring 2016 the cover of Time called immunotherapy clinical trialsthe main means of access to the therapy"brutally selective, hugely expensive, lifesaving." Wisdom, foolishness; belief, incredulity; light, darkness; hope, despair. Cancer still beats us too much of the time. For the UChicago Medicine physician-clinician making rounds and researching treatments, cancer will also inspire redoubled efforts to beat it back. And so we enter our story, well underway. The mice have played their parts. A promising immunotherapy has left the lab. Late-stage cancer patients enroll in clinical trials under the watchful eyes of the nation's oncologists. These physicians await whichever therapies will achieve endpoints, gain FDA approval, and help care for their long lists of patients: those whose disease they have barely staved off for years, and those whom the oncologists hope not to need to tell that they have an advanced case and may not have long to live. Chicago, June 4, 2018, in the early morning hours. Two of our main characters are onstage among a group of eight. It's dark, and the crowd is swaying and whooping. "Baby, don't you know it's a damn crying shame?" Buddy Guyyes, that Buddy Guygrowls into his microphone. To Guy's right, the lead guitarist, an unassuming white man in glasses, jeans, and a maroon polo, grinds out an accompanying riff. The oncological twittersphere lights up. "It's midnight at #ASCO and do you know where some of the world's most famous #immunotherapists are?" comes the tweet from Bernard A. Fox, a cancer immunotherapist and academic researcher from Oregon. It is the end of day three of the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago, and some of the world's most famous immunotherapists are up on stage with Buddy Guy. The unassuming lead guitarist? Thomas Gajewski, AB'84, Ph.D.'89, MD'91, the AbbVie Foundation Professor of Cancer Immunotherapy. Gajewski has published more than 200 papers on the basic science of T-cell biology, antitumor immunity, and melanoma therapya vast contribution to the development of today's immunotherapy treatments. He is also a clinical researcher, studying patients' responses to cancer therapy. Gajewski received a 2016 Outstanding Investigator Award from the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health, and he was named a 2017 Giant of Cancer Care by OncLive, the website of the Oncology Specialty Group, a national peer group for oncologists. The grinning dark-haired man, slightly behind Gajewski and Guy, trumpet at the ready? Jason Luke, assistant professor of medicine. It was Gajewski's work on T cells in cancer that led Luke to join UChicago in 2014 from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Harvard Medical School faculty. Luke works with Gajewski to manage clinical trials of novel immunotherapies, including new combinations of drugs, and just opened a phase 3 melanoma trial for stage 2 disease. Gajewski, like Luke, specializes in melanoma, but the trials also seek to bring immunotherapies to patients with other types of cancer tumors. They have built a "bIObank" (bank of ImmunoOncology samples) of patients' tissues, tumor biopsies, and complex blood tests, which are packed with information about patients' immune responses to the therapiesor, most likely, lack thereof. Information from the bIObank feeds back into the basic science research conducted in Gajewski's lab and by other researchers, including those at the Institute for Molecular Engineering. The rest of the musicians performing with Guy are renowned oncologists from cancer centers and academic institutions across the country. Sax, trombone, drums, another guitar, a harmonica, vocalsto the crowd recording the scene with raised smartphones, these are the stars of their field. "You know it's a crying shame," Guy sings, bemoaning a two-timing woman while Gajewski's guitar whines. Thomas Gajewski, AB84, PhD89, MD91, has made vast contributions to the development of immunotherapy treatments. Credit: Nancy Wong For Luke, the crying shame is the two-timing immune system. He and his bandmates named themselves the CheckPoints after a critical mechanism in the human body's immune response. The basic idea is as follows: The body depends on the immune system generally to remain in default mode, recognizing normal cells and leaving them be. Checkpoints are the proteins on cells that keep the immune system in check in the presence of healthy cells. (PD-1, PD-L1, and CTLA-4 are among the main proteins involved in current immunotherapies.) When the immune system detects an antigenany molecular structure it can identify as foreignit goes on the attack. T cells, the white blood cells that drive the body's adaptive immune response, lead the way. But in the complex game of hide-and-seek that occurs within a cancer patient's tumor cells, the cancer can use these very same checkpoints to make the T cells stand down, allowing the cancer cells to mutate and multiply. If unchecked, the tumors may spread, and the cancer could metastasize. Checkpoint inhibitor drugs, the largest and most studied category of available immunotherapies, suppress the checkpoint proteins on cancer cells that enable those cells to fool the immune system into leaving them alone. In addition to checkpoint inhibitors, other forms of immunotherapy in use include CAR T-cell therapy, a process by which T cells are removed, supercharged, cloned, and reintroduced into the body. (UChicago Medicine was the first site in the country to be certified to treat both adult and pediatric patients with FDA-approved CAR T-cell therapies for specific blood cancers; see "Supercharged," page 34.) There are also cancer vaccines. While these therapies, and combinations of them, are currently FDA approved or in clinical trials available for late-stage patients, in the lab researchers have moved beyond them and are seeking the next wave of immune-boosting treatments. Cancer patients, Luke explained a few days before the ASCO meeting, are divided into two subsets. There are those fortunate few whose immune systems recognize cancer and have an immune responsewhich cannot beat cancer on its own, but is a response just the same. These patients have what's called a "hot," or "T-cell inflamed," tumor microenvironment. Their tumors are populated by T cells that are suppressed but that, if given support by immunotherapies, might fight the cancer cells. But most patients' tumors are "cold," or devoid of T cells, a situation that Gajewski calls a "failure to recruit," making the tumor far less likely to respond to immunotherapy. "We try not to use the c-word," Luke says, referring to the pursuit of a cure, "because we don't want to overpromise what we're talking about, but certainly we have patients who got immunotherapy five years out, 10 years, and longer, with no recurrence and not needing any more treatment. It's sort of like a vaccine, in the fact that if the immune system figures it out, you don't need any more treatment program." On a midday break during his Friday rounds, Luke wears a white lab coat and has the youthful appearance of an assistant professor. He makes rounds every day, tending to melanoma patients on Tuesdays. His name regularly pops up on melanoma.org's "find support" message boards. ("If I was in the Chicago area this is who I would seek out," wrote one patient to another in May.) To understand why immunotherapy does not work for the majority of patients, researchers must keep going back to the minority for whom it does. Patients who respond to immunotherapy are "paradigm," Luke says. What is it about these patients, their immune systems, their cells, their geneswhatever it might bethat prompts an immune response? One clue could be biomarkers, internal biological molecules whose presence predicts particular clinical outcomes, and for Luke and Gajewski's purposes might indicate which type of immunotherapy would be most effective in an individual cancer patient. Both are among the researchers now working in the lab to understand biomarkers, comparing tissue samples and blood tests of patients who don't respond to immunotherapy with those of responsive patients to understand what's different. Pinpointing biomarkers is the primary focus of a new UChicago clinical trial, begun this past March with Luke as the principal investigator. Examples of biomarkers include oncogenes, genes that under certain circumstances may transform a cell into a cancerous tumor cell. Another biomarker could be the mutation rate within tumors and its effect on how a patient responds to immunotherapy. "Extrinsic" biomarkers include the presence or absence of certain bacteria in a patient's gut microbiome. Gajewski and his team were among the early discoverers of one extrinsic biomarker, a healthy bacteria strain known as Bifidobacterium. In 2015 the team discovered that mice procured for their lab from one supplier tended to have a robust spontaneous immune response to melanoma tumors implanted under the skin. Mice from a different supplier had a much weaker response. When the researchers mixed the mice from both cages together, they found that both sets of mice had a robust response. The team traced the change to Bifidobacterium, which was present in the intestines of the immune-responding mice who shared it with their new neighbors. The anticancer effects of the gut bacteria were comparable to treatment with checkpoint inhibitors. A similar human study from Gajewski's group that transplanted stool samples in patients was "quite compelling," Gajewski told UChicago Medicine's publication Medicine on the Midway last fall. Gajewski worked with the University's Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation to file patent applications and the University licensed the technology to Evelo Biosciences, a biotech company in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The next step, Gajewski said in Medicine on the Midway, are microbes "that could boost antitumor immunity in patients." In October 2018 Luke started a clinical trial to assess the effects of the capsule form of an Evelo microbial drug in patients with melanoma. The drug is also being tested in other cancer types. The patent-to-pill path of that bacteria strain is an example of "translational" science, taking research and turning it into drug therapies eventually bound for clinical trials, with FDA approval as the endgame. Gajewski is an inventor on 46 patents and has contributed inventive discoveries to at least four immunotherapies. Three of his patent portfolios are licensed to companies developing immunotherapies, and he's been at work with the University on a start-up company, launching in 2019, that will build immunotherapies based on new discoveries in his lab. In addition, Gajewski worked with scientists at Aduro Biotech to understand how STING agonists (the name stands for "stimulator of interferon genes," a protein complex that helps detect tumor cells and promotes an aggressive antitumor response) can be used to stimulate an immune response. The therapy is now in phase 1 trials. His work to determine that immune-boosting compounds that block an enzyme called indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO) can work in combination with checkpoint inhibitors was key to the development of a class of drugs known as IDO inhibitors. But, like any road to discovery, this one is fraught with obstacles: Gajewski's IDO collaborator, the biotech company Incyte, was among three companies to cancel major multinational phase 3 clinical trials of IDO inhibitors this past year. In a May 2018 article, Science magazine called the cancellations a "surprising failure" that "quickly reverberated across the pharmaceutical industry." That setback explains why Luke is careful about using the c-word. Just when it looks like a cure might be at hand, the prospect can just as likely slip away. Best of times, worst of times. "That was supposed to be the next big thing in melanoma, and it was just an absolute bust," says Luke. "That really set the field to take a step back, and that was probably a good thing." Another take on the trial result comes from Thelma Tennant, Ph.D.'03, the oncology innovations and ventures lead at Polsky. "Cancer drug development is high risk, high reward," says Tennant, who has worked with Gajewski for more than 10 years to translate his research into patents, licenses, and partnerships that bring drugs to trial. The risk, she says, must be offset by sound planning, from the inception of the idea to the design and implementation of the clinical trial. Credit: Daniel Hertzberg "Jason and Tom are among many clinician-researchers doing a lot of deep thinking on what happened with Epacadostat" she says, referring to Incyte's canceled IDO inhibitor trial. "One problem was that they didn't have a clear biomarker." The next crucial work is to trace the line from the trial failure back to the lab, where Gajewski and Luke are now pursuing biomarkers. Even the setbacks in cancer immunotherapy furnish precious information that will be critical to making the next leap. "We have a collection of clinical researchers who excel at both clinical research and bench research," Tennant says. "They see what's happening in patients and take it back to the lab and make new discoveries that can rationalize what's happening in the clinic or, better yet, revolutionize the field." Partnering with clinical researchers like Gajewski and Luke are molecular engineers, who look for leaks and systemic problems and set to work on fabricating solutions. They peer into the tumor microenvironment, which may be hotor, more likely, cold, lacking T cellsand has all kinds of other characteristics. In 2014 the husband-wife team of Jeffrey Hubbell, the inaugural Eugene Bell Professor in Tissue Engineering, and Melody Swartz, the William B. Ogden Professor in Molecular Engineering, came from the Institute of Bioengineering in Lausanne, Switzerland, to lead the immunoengineering and cancer effort at the Institute for Molecular Engineering (IME). Their labs are in the bright and airy William Eckhardt Research Center on Ellis Avenue. Hubbell and Swartz keep a close eye on the published outcomes of immunotherapy, Hubbell says, constantly asking, "Can we improve them?" One challenge for oncologists is recognizing and managing side effects of immunotherapy, which tend to be autoimmune responses, where the immune system attacks healthy tissue. Most common are skin rashes (dermatitis), but more dangerous side effects include autoimmune inflammation in the organs, such as the colon (signaled by diarrhea) and lungs (indicated by shortness of breath), as well as acutely serious conditions such as inflammation of the thyroid, heart, or liver. Autoimmune responses occur because current immunotherapies are systemic, "leaking" into the rest of the body. "With the existing drugs," Hubbell says, "the purpose is to induce immune responses to the tumor, but the side effect is inducing immune responses to the self. They go hand-in-hand. It's very difficult to have one without the other." So Hubbell's group seeks alternatives to systemic treatment. Much of their work takes place in the body's "interstices," the small spaces between cells, particularly in the rapidly changing and unpredictable microenvironment of a tumor. The physiology of a tumor is determined by its own particular mutations, with their own cellular structures, which can affect how the body's fluids flow in and through it. Where tumors present physiological and flow-related "interstitial barriers," Hubbell's group builds nanomaterials for drug delivery. The goal is to make the nanomaterials small enough to penetrate the interstitial barriers, but not so small that they'll get lost in the ebb and flow of bodily fluids. Hubbell also builds nanoplatforms able to deliver drug molecules directly to tumors. Right now the research is in mouse models; the aim is to translate it to the clinic and humans. In these projects, Hubbell works with existing drugs, which he reengineers for higher efficacy and lower toxicity. Why work with existing drugs? Because new drugs present the risk of unknown biological interactions. "If a molecule has already been in use then you know a lot about it," he explains. "You're less likely to be surprised in an untoward way." The inherent "leakiness" of the tumor structure raises the question, "How would I make the drugs stay in the tumor?'" Hubbell says. His group has figured out how to build into the drug molecule an affinity for the extracellular matrix of the tumor. The molecule binds to the matrix, and the drug leaks into the tumor, not into healthy tissues. "We use the tumor as a depot for the drugs," he says. "We can target it and keep [the drug] around for a long time. So an extremely simple idea: The tumor is leaky. That exposes matrix. I can bind to that matrix. That's it. Very simple." Not really simple, of course. The University has patented the intellectual property that goes into reengineering the drugs to add the binding characteristic. It's one of 77 patents on which Hubbell's an inventor. His group is also "trying to take a known molecule that wasn't druggable and turn it into a drug" that might draw an immune response to cold tumors. They look at biological molecules with a known mechanism of action such as cytokinessmall proteins involved in the interactions and communications between immune cellsand chemokines, which direct immune cells to sites of inflammation. Hubbell's group is now at work on a tumor-targeting cytokine, as well as classes of chemokines, which only works as a drug "if you can localize them to the tumor," he says. "If you deliver the chemokine in the blood you just induce inflammation everywhere, as opposed to [only] in the tumor." Working with known drugs and molecules significantly shortens the time from conception to clinical testing, Hubbell says, compared to that of a new drug, which is close to a decade. He estimates it takes three to four years "from conception to company founding" for a known drug, then an additional two years to a phase 1 clinical trial. From there to approval "is a long path," he says. "But if it were a totally new target then it might be longer, because there's a lot more toxicology" to do. Hubbell is all about translation, unabashed about his focus on "applied" work in an institution that, for much of its history, proudly stuck to basic science. Over at the Polsky Center, Tennant thinks of Hubbell as "a type of serial innovator that we love to help support and grow more of at the University." Tennant, who was the very first Ph.D. student in UChicago's Committee on Cancer Biology, recalls a faculty member saying, "You're that kid in cancer biology. I don't understand why you're studying a disease rather than basic mechanisms of biology." Her reply was that no other disease was as "relevant to biology" as cancer, so in effect, she was doing exactly that. "I've seen this place go from, 'I can't believe you're studying something so applied as a disease,' to faculty starting their own companies," she says. "It's a huge cultural shift." Indeed, Hubbell is quick to support students heading out of academia and into industry. "I try to disabuse my group from the idea that the academic path is the high path, and the industry path is the low path. I think that's a backwards way of thinking," he says. "There's a great deal of glory that comes with implementing. And even in industry there is a tremendous amount of innovation and invention that precedes implementation. I'm just as proud of the trainees who are going into industry as those who are at academic centers." For the past decade, molecular engineer Melody Swartz has been studying the lymphatic system and its role in metastasis. Credit: John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Tennant agrees. "Discovery for the sake of discovery is important but so is discovery for the sake of translation," she says, an effort aimed squarely at enriching human life, as the University motto would have it. "We have to remember that part of our goal is to make discoveries useful in everyday life." Crescat scientia; vita excolatur, the motto reads. Let knowledge grow from more to more; and so be human life enriched. At her IME lab Swartz is at work in the tumor microenvironment. Hot or cold and potentially leaky, for better or worse, the tumor is linked to the rest of the body via the lymphatic system. The lymphatic system, which Swartz has studied for a decade, is a part of circulation within the body, draining fluid and other items from the body's interstitial space and returning the "cleaned" fluid back to the blood. It is a critical component of the immune system. Immune cells travel through lymphatic vessels and reside in lymph nodes, where they communicate with each other and can become activated. For most of cancer research history, the lymphatic system has been considered one major means of metastasisa superhighway by which tumors spread to distant sites throughout the body, likely via interstitial flow. "Despite its importance, the regulatory biology of lymphatic function is poorly understood," Swartz's research profile reads. In particular, Swartz wants to understand tumor-associated lymphangiogenesisthe process by which lymphatics expand around and into a tumor. In 2017 she published a surprising twist on the role that the genesis of new lymphatic vessels plays in cancer immunology. "What we realized is not that we were wrong before, but that it's more complex," she says. Initially, Swartz's group set out on a series of mouse studies to understand why lymphangiogenesis promotes immune suppression and allows tumor spreading. But along the way, her group noticed that tumors where lymphangiogenesis occurs were full of T cells. It turns out that lymphatic vessels play on both teams, Swartz says, enabling both damaging metastasis and helpful T-cell infiltration. So lymphangiogenesis is yet another biomarker that may predict immunotherapy success. Circling back to Luke and Gajewski's first subset of patients, whose tumor microenvironments are hot with T-cell infiltration, these are the patients most likely to respond to immunotherapy. Yet these therapies still have problems, says Swartz, who talks quickly, interrupting herself frequently to expand on a previous point and then jump to the next, painting a landscape with a lot going on all at once. Sitting at a round table in her second-floor office, where the high walls of windows show blue sky, Swartz begins reeling off statistics and rapidly working her way through a cartoonthe name researchers give to their schematics of what's happening inside tumors. But she pauses now, and tells about a family friend who lives in Arizona and came to stay with her for three months last fall while participating in a clinical trial. It's an all-too-familiar story, and yet every time it's told, its gravity can dim even the most light-filled room. "At first it looked like it was really great," Swartz says. "She thought she was cured, and then a few months later tumors everywhere." And then Swartz's lab technician's son, who was only 25 and was receiving checkpoint inhibitor therapy, died of liver toxicity. "This all happened a few months ago. So it's really raw," she says. "There's a lot that's been done, and there's so much promise, and it's so exciting, but there's still so much that doesn't work." This is where engineering can partner with biomedical research, Swartz says, "because we can try to identify where are these problems and make immunotherapies better." Swartz's group is now undertaking studies using Hubbell's matrix-binding structure, where a leaky tumor allows itself to become a drug depot. They load Hubbell's nanoplatform with a high dose of drug moleculesmuch higher than would be possible with a systemic doseand target the tumor-draining lymph node. Swartz believes the tumor-draining lymph node is the most "interesting and important" place to target immunotherapies because "it already has information from the tumor." And she sees even another layer of possibility in the lymph node: it is the training ground for T cells, the very place where T cells learn to fight specific antigens, taught by a specialized group of dendritic cells that have the capacity to prime a tailored T-cell response. Returning to her cartoon, she maps out the process her group is modeling in the lab with mice: Start with a strong dose of current immunotherapy drugs, reengineered, loaded onto a nanoplatform, and delivered directly to the tumor. The drug wakes up the immune system, and T cells go on attack. But just when the cancer cells begin mutating and fooling the immune system againwhich is exactly what happened with Swartz's friendthe adaptive dendritic cells can teach the T cells to respond in kind, in effect learning from the cancer how to fight the cancer. It's executed not in a test tube, but in the body's own lymph nodes. Swartz looks up from her drawing, eyes flashing with anticipation. By training the T cells to adapt to the battle at hand, the body really might be able to heal itself. Swartz sits in silence for a moment, savoring the thought. Truly, it is both the best and worst of times in cancer research. At UChicago Medicine, Gajewski, Luke, and their colleagues will go about caring for patients in the most recent round of clinical trials, watchful, hopeful, adding valuable samples to their bIObank to feed into future research. And at IME, the mice will play their roles, the research will be framed toward translation into its own clinical trials with humans. And then we will see about the times to come. Explore further New findings may help oncologists determine effectiveness of checkpoint inhibitors Hispanic and Latino youth are more likely to drink alcohol at a younger age than their African-American and non-Hispanic Caucasian peers, but they are less likely to receive treatment for substance abuse. African-American youth show more symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder than their Caucasian peers, but they are less likely to receive appropriate treatment for disruptive behaviors. The suicide rate among Native Americans has been outpacing the rest of the country since 2003. Suicide is the second leading cause of death among Native American adolescents, and there are very few effective interventions. A research team made up of experts from Arizona State University, DePaul University and the University of Southern California has evaluated the effectiveness of interventions for mental health problems like substance use, disruptive behaviors and suicide prevention in ethnic minority American youth. The study, which was commissioned by Division 53 of the American Psychological Association, will be published February 12 in the Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology. "This careful study provides a benchmark for evidence-based interventions in minority youth, which is central to providing effective care to the diverse youth population and will be very useful to funders of research, payers of healthcare and family members," said Margarita Alegria, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and Chief of the Disparities Research Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital. Alegria was not involved in the study. "This evaluation also sets the groundwork for the future, by identifying the need to focus on the development and evaluation of more interventions for minority groups that have not yet been addressed, like Asian Americans, Native Americans and youth who do not speak English." Ten years ago, there were zero evidence-based interventions for American ethnic minority youth that met the strongest criteria and were considered well-established. Now there are four. Well-established and evidence-based To evaluate the effectiveness of mental health interventions for ethnic minority youth, ASU's Armando Pina, associate professor of psychology, worked with Antonio Polo, associate professor of clinical psychology at DePaul University, and Stanley Huey, associate professor of psychology and American studies and ethnicity at the University of Southern California. The trio rated evidence-based interventions designed to target problems like anxiety, depression, disruptive behavior, substance use, trauma and stress reactions and self-harm or suicide. In total, the team evaluated 65 interventions that had either analyzed the impact on ethnic minority participants or been tested on a participant group that was at least 75% ethnic minority youth. The highest rating was "well-established" and included interventions that were tested using randomized controlled experimental designs, had been replicated by more than one research group and demonstrated benefits to the youth that were statistically significant. Armando Pina, of the Arizona State University Department of Psychology, describes an upcoming study in the Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology. Pina, Antonio Polo from DePaul University, and Stanley Huey from the University of Southern California analyzed how effective evidence-based mental health intervention programs were for ethnic minority youth in the United States. Four treatment programs met the criteria of "well-established." These treatments addressed substance abuse, disruptive behavior and anxiety in Hispanic/Latino and African-American youth. Native-American and Asian-American youth were underrepresented or absent from research studies on mental health intervention programs. A Spanish language version of this video is available upon request. Credit: Robert Ewing, ASU Department of Psychology The four interventions that met the well-established criteria were designed to treat anxiety, disruptive behaviors and substance use in ethnic minority youth. The team found cognitive behavioral interventions were effective at helping Hispanic and Latino youths experiencing anxiety. These interventions teach strategies to change problem thinking patterns and behaviors and often include social skills training. Interventions that involved parents, called family therapy, helped African American youth struggling with disruptive behaviors and Hispanic and Latino youth with drug or alcohol use problems. Including the family, school system or peer networks in therapy to address disruptive behaviors was also effective in helping African American youth. "Parents and caregivers need to know that for some of the most common problems children and adolescents face, there are well-established treatments that have been systematically tested," said Pina, who was the lead author on the study. "They should demand children get these empirically-supported treatments and interventions." From bench to bedside On top of the four well-established interventions, the researchers identified other treatment programs that met less-stringent rating criteria and could be considered best practices in the future. The analysis also determined which mental health problems did not yet have effective interventions for ethnic minority youth and which minority groups were underrepresented. There were no well-established interventions for depression, trauma and stress reactions, self-harm, suicide or the co-occurrence of more than one problem, like anxiety and disruptive behaviors. And, none of the 65 studies analyzed by the research team included enough Asian American or Native American participants to evaluate whether any of the interventions were robust for these populations. "Including Native American youth in research studies is important and requires working directly with Tribal nations because they regulate research within their communities. Researchers must invest considerable time to build relationships and establish trust to gain Tribal approval for a research study," said Monica Tsethlikai, assistant professor in ASU's T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics and an affiliate faculty member of the university's American Indian Studies program. Tsethlikai was not involved in the study. "Native Americans also have a unique worldview that includes a metaphysical perspective of health and well-being that does not fit within Western interventions, so effective interventions would need to originate from a foundation of respect and reciprocity and would have to be congruent with the lived experiences of Native American youth." The team advocated for more research that includes underrepresented ethnic minority populations. Because the trajectory of an evidence-based treatment program from a research setting into the real world takes 17 years on average, the researchers also suggested future work should focus on the development of streamlined methods to develop interventions and test how well they work. "Research should move outside of the lab and into the community," Pina said. "Intervention scientists need to increase collaborations with established systems of care and real-world providers, who are under real-world constraints." Explore further New suicide prevention strategies for homosexual and transgender youth Credit: CC0 Public Domain After Mary Moore was diagnosed with bladder cancer in 2016, she kept smoking, defying her doctors' advice and her sons' pleas. "I liked smoking," recalled the Northeast Philadelphia resident, who is now 61. "I tried quitting before. I just didn't think I could quit." Fortunately, she joined a clinical trial that proved her wrong. The study, run by the University of Pennsylvania and Northwestern University, gave 207 smokers with various cancers either 24 weeks of the smoking cessation drug Chantix, or 12 weeks of the drug, which was then standard. Both groups also received counseling sessions. "It definitely was a struggle, but the medication was helpful," said Moore, who was in the 24-week treatment group and has not smoked for more than two years. Unfortunately, Moore's success was unusual. Contrary to the researchers' hypothesis, extended treatment with Chantix, or varenicline, did not improve overall quit rates at six months or a yearproviding yet more evidence of the deadly grip of nicotine addiction. Smoking has been shown to interfere with the effectiveness of cancer treatment and worsen patients' long-term prognosis. Yet only about 16 percent of patients in both treatment groups were tobacco-free at one yearworse than the rate seen in the general population of smokers, according to the study, published recently in the journal Psycho-Oncology. "Personally, I'm not surprised," said lead researcher Robert Schnoll, a psychologist at Penn. "I've been working in nicotine dependence research for 20 years. The brain chemistry is affected by decades of exposure to nicotine. Some patients view [smoking] as critical to managing the stress in their lives." Chantix curbs the compulsion to light up by binding to nicotine receptors in the brain. The drug blocks inhaled nicotine, and partly activates the receptors, prompting a mild release of pleasure-signaling dopamine. Chantix also has common side effects of nausea, headache, and abnormal dreams that deter some patients from sticking to treatment. (Early concerns that the drug could trigger serious psychiatric events were allayed by a global trial.) The new study found that sticking to treatment improved abstinencetemporarily. After 24 weeks, 44 percent of adherent patients in the extended treatment group had not smoked at all, compared with 28 percent who stuck with the 12-week Chantix regimen. But at a year, "there were no significant treatment effects on risk for relapse ... or recovery." For smokers in general, Chantix is now prescribed for 12 weeks, then extended for 12 more weeks if patients are having success with it. The study enrolled patients who had malignancies with well-known and not-so-well-known links to smoking, including lung, urinary, kidney, pancreas, breast and skin cancers. About 20 percent of them had early-stage cancers, 20 percent had advanced cancers, and the rest were in remission after treatment. Moore was still getting chemotherapy when she got a letter about the Chantix study three months after her bladder cancer diagnosis. "It was scary, but we caught it in time. The tumor had not penetrated the bladder wall," said Moore, an identity protection analyst. "I was lucky." How does a life-threatening illness affect the will to quit? "I think it made me look at my health," said Moore, who began smoking at age 16. "Even though I didn't believe smoking alone caused my cancer, it's not good for your body." Schnoll said research shows that more than half of cancer patients quit immediately upon diagnosis, but many relapse. Those facing a grim outlook may see no point in kicking a habit that helps them cope with anxiety and stress. "We not only see that attitude among patients, but also among clinicians," Schnoll said. "When we talk to oncologists about integrating smoking-cessation treatment, we often hear ideas that are fatalistic." Given the remarkable advances in cancer care, both advocacy and research groups have called for adding quit-smoking support. The National Cancer Institute, for example, recently launched an effort to get the nation's NCI-designated cancer centers to begin or expand quit-smoking programs. The key, Schnoll said, is to offer help without being "dogmatic." "Patients have to be committed and willing. We have to be respectful of that," he said. Moore agreed. "It was a combination of the medication and them telling me, if you slip up, it's not a failure," she said. "I didn't feel pressure." Explore further Cancer patients can quit smoking through lengthened medication time, counseling support 2019 Philly.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. I recently saw an op-ed letter in which the writer said laws would be better than a wall to keep out illegal immigrants. My take would be that we dont need more laws but rather enforcement of those already on the books. Not only is it illegal to cross our borders without the proper paperwork and vetting, those who have built a political fiefdom on purity and fairness seem to have conveniently forgotten that theyre not being fair to the millions of immigrants who have paid the price to enter this country legally. But then, to recognize that would take much of the wind from their self-serving sails, wouldnt it? So many laws in our country are often ignored out-of-hand. Take, for instance, the speed limit in the Salt Lake City area, which has proven to be nothing more than a suggestion. To the wealthy software engineer or lawyer who wants to help you beat your illegal drug-use charge, a speeding ticket means next to nothing. But what if that ticket landed you in jail for a few days? With time being money, Ill bet the word could get around to all those who think the law was meant for everyone but them. Theodore Roosevelt said, Speak softly, but carry a big stick. I say, If you carry a big enough stick and people know you will use it you wont have to waste your breath. President George W. Bush jumped into a disastrous war in Iraq based on cooked up intelligence. The CIA tried on several occasions to convince the administration that Saddam Hussein posed no threat to the United States, but was ignored. After unrelenting pressure brought to bear on the agency by Vice President Cheney, the CIA gave in and said Iraq probably possessed weapons of mass destruction. So, we went to war on faulty intel. The present obfuscation by President Trump is every bit as troubling and dangerous to Americas national security. The President has rejected the intelligence communitys assessment of the serious threats posed to the U.S. by Russia, North Korea and the Islamic State. Instead, he has ridiculed the Director of National Intelligence and the heads of the CIA and FBI for speaking truthfully to him. It is no secret that North Korea does not intend to give up its nuclear weapons and the intel chiefs made that clear to Trump. His rejection of their assessment puts Kim Jong-un in the drivers seat. Knowing he has the Presidents trust, Kim can continue to lead Trump down the primrose path to more concessions. TWIN FALLS The National Weather Service has issued a winter weather advisory for the Treasure Valley and western Magic Valley from 11 p.m. Saturday to 5 p.m. Sunday. The service said a storm in eastern Oregon will move into Idaho Friday afternoon, bringing steady snow Saturday that will become heavy at times and continue into Sunday. Snow accumulation from the storm will be between 2 to 4 inches for the Treasure Valley and western Magic Valley, while the eastern Magic Valley and Raft River area will get 1 to 3 inches, the weather service said. For Twin Falls, there is a chance of snow before 11 a.m. with snow showers more likely into the evening and accumulation of 1 to 2 inches possible Saturday night. Sunday has a 70 percent chance of snow, the service said. Drivers should expect wind gusts up to 30 mph and blowing snow will make travel more difficult, the weather service said. Love 2 Funny 1 Wow 4 Sad 7 Angry 4 BOISE Two Republican lawmakers on Thursday introduced a bill in the Idaho Legislature that would outlaw all genital mutilation of children. A federal law passed in 1996 outlawing female genital mutilation nationwide, but it did not provide any enforcement mechanism, said Rep. Priscilla Giddings, R-White Bird, during the House Judiciary, Rules and Administration Committee. A federal judge in Michigan last year found that the federal law was unconstitutional, ruling that Congress did not have the authority to pass the law. The court determined that it must be up to the states to regulate the practice, according to a report from The New York Times. The judges decision voided the convictions of two Michigan doctors accused of mutilating several girls whose families were from a small sect of Shiite Muslims who enabled the ritual. The bill introduced Thursday would make it a felony to commit the act in Idaho. Rep. Caroline Nilsson Troy, R-Genesee, co-sponsored the bill with Giddings, who said that there are now 28 states with anti-female genital mutilation laws. Giddings said the bill mimics the federal law but extends the statute of limitations to three years after the victim speaks to law enforcement, rather than three years after the act occurred. SydneyAustralian and US authorities on Friday announced they had seized around a billion dollars worth of methylamphetamineor icein a bust that revealed new ties between Mexican cartels and Aussie biker gangs. The Australian Federal Police said that a joint investigation led the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to uncover 1.7 tonnes of drugs in California last month. US authorities said the illicit cargo -- with a street value of AUS$1.29 billion, or US$900 million -- was hidden in two shipping containers carrying audio equipment bound for Australia. After a series of raids this month, two US nationals and four Australians were arrested this week in the Melbourne and Sydney areas. They face various charges, including attempting to import illegal drugs, and face maximum sentences of life in prison in Australia if convicted. The investigation appeared to reveal cooperation between Mexican cartels and Australian biker gangs, developing what authorities say is a worrying new vector for drugs to arrive to Australia. This is a serious warning, we now believe the Mexican cartels are actively targeting Australia, said Assistant Commissioner Bruce Hill of the Australian Federal Police.They have been sending smaller amounts over the years, this is now flagging their intent. Australia is now being targeted, he said. The cartel is one of the most powerful and violent drug trafficking syndicates in the world, he said, without naming the cartel involved. Hill pointed to high Australian street prices and prevalent drug use as a drawcard for organized crime. Colombian and Mexican cartels have long looked to local partners to open new markets for their produce and shift legal risk. Australian police indicated that the countrys biker gangs, with deep involvement in organized crime, were willing interlocutors. Lakey said at the rally that Marsys Law is and has always been about giving victims an effective voice. Buckner-Webb also spoke at the rally, saying she wanted to see everyone in the state treated with respect, including crime victims. We work for you, she told rally supporters. Speak for the voices of those who cannot speak for themselves, and lets get this legislation passed. Supporters of Marsys Law stress that they are not trying to outweigh the rights of defendants who are not yet convicted, but defense attorneys have questioned the proposed changes. Last year, opponents raised concerns about victims being able to speak at court hearings before a suspect is convicted. Additionally, advocates for sexual assault survivors raised concern last year about how a victim was defined. The legislation pitched this year has narrowed the scope to no longer include an entity as a victim, but only an individual who suffers direct or threatened physical, financial or emotional harm. A date for the resolutions next hearing has not been set. It still must go before the Senate State Affairs Committee, where public testimony will be taken, before it can advance to the floor. BOISE Bringing her fourth version of a legislative change for sexual assault victims, Rep. Melissa Wintrow, D-Boise, pitched a bill on Thursday to test almost all sexual assault kits, with only rare exemptions. Wintrow introduced the bill Thursday afternoon in the House Judiciary, Rules and Administration Committee, and received unanimous approval to move it forward. Wintrow has been responsible for heading multiple pieces of legislation that cover the tracking and testing of sexual assault kits, commonly called rape kits, all of which have moved forward and brought reform to testing in the state. Thursdays bill would remove the exemption of not testing a bill per a victims request, because Wintrow said it has resulted in DNA not being tested and entered into the national database, called CODIS, which can stop serial rapists. She said victims do still maintain the right to tell prosecutors if they no longer want to proceed with a prosecution. This change would allow law enforcement to enter the DNA into the national database to see whether it matches any other cases. BOISE The Idaho STEM Action Center has awarded 70 grants worth $266,000 statewide to schools, districts, libraries and out-of-school and youth-enrichment programs to advance science, technology, engineering and math education. Magic Valley and Wood River Valley schools and organizations earned 10 of the grants worth more than $53,000. Magic Valley Computer Science Grant recipients are Buhl Middle School, Heritage Academy of Jerome, South Hills Middle School of Twin Falls and West Minico Middle School of Paul. Magic and Wood River valleys innovative STEM Project Grant recipients are Bellevue Elementary School of Hailey, Buhl Middle School, Ernest Hemingway STEAM School of Ketchum, Gooding Public Library and West Minico Middle School of Paul. The Computer Science Grants will fund hardware and software primarily used for coding tablets, laptop and desktop computers, drones and TC-AYS aircraft and robots and gear that support platforms like ALICE, Arduino, Blocksmith, CAD, Code.org and VR. Students will use these devices to learn coding, software-development tools, and such languages as Java, C++, Python and Scratch. Applicants could request up to $10,000. The Innovative STEM Project Grants will fund creative science, technology, engineering, mathematics and computer-science programs that are hands-on or project-based. The grant dollars will go toward 3D-printing initiatives, cybersecurity exercises, robotics and drone programs, stop-motion animation classes, BrickLAB design challenges, aquaponics and meteorological projects and STEM-related field trips to state parks. Applicants could request up to $2,500. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 BOISE The Rev. William Thomas Faucher is trying to appeal the 25-year prison sentence imposed on him by 4th District Judge Jason Scott in December, but he has failed to pay required fees or to get a court waiver. So his appeal was conditionally dismissed Feb. 8, according to Idaho Supreme Court documents. The proceedings associated with the appeal are suspended for 21 days, giving Faucher time to pay the fees or obtain an order waiving them. If Faucher doesnt meet that deadline, the appeal will be dismissed without further notice. The fees are for preparation of the court clerks record and court transcripts. The 73-year-old retired priest was charged with 24 crimes: 21 counts of sexual exploitation of a child (possession and distribution of child pornography) and three counts of drug possession (marijuana, LSD, ecstasy). He pleaded guilty to five felonies. Scott sentenced Faucher to 25 years in prison, without the possibility of parole. CRIPPLE CREEK, Colo. A Magic Valley woman said Feb. 8 that she helped thwart an investigation into the disappearance of a Colorado woman who authorities believe was killed by her fiance, but her motive and the nature of her relationship with the suspected killer remains a mystery. She also agreed to testify against him at his murder trial. Krystal Jean Kenney, 32, of Hansen, made the admission in court as she pleaded guilty to tampering with evidence connected to the death of Kelsey Berreth, who was last seen on Nov. 22. Berreths fiance, Patrick Frazee, is charged with murder and solicitation of murder in the 29-year-old womans death. In a statement in court, Kenney said she learned that Frazee had killed someone around the time Berreth was last seen. I moved the victims cellphone with the intent to impair the phones availability in the investigation. I had no right or authority to move the victims cellphone, she said. According to Kenneys statement, she moved the phone between Nov. 24 and 25. The tense standoff in Venezuela between Nicolas Maduro and Juan Guaido has morphed into something far larger than a contest for power between a failed leader still supported by parts of the army and die-hard leftists, and a young legislator propelled to the front by popular demonstrations. In part because of the Trump administrations all-in support for regime change, the crisis has become a dangerous global power struggle. Thats the last thing Venezuelans need. President Maduro must go, and the sooner the better. Heir to the socialist rule of Hugo Chavez, he has led his oil-rich country into utter ruin. Its currency is useless, basic foods and medicines have disappeared, and more than 3 million people have fled, fomenting refugee crises in Colombia, Brazil and Ecuador. The only solution is an interim government under Guaido, who as the head of the National Assembly has a legitimate claim to the presidency under the Venezuelan Constitution. It would lead to new presidential elections and a flood of emergency aid. Pope Francis said Tuesday he was willing to help mediate an end to the conflict if both sides agreed. He said he had received a plea from Maduro to help start a new dialogue. Much of what was treated by some members of the Senate Judiciary Committee as the closest thing to evidence against Kavanaugh came from his high school yearbook page. Did he or didnt he drink a lot of beer? became an essential question of his character among Democrats on the committee. And, in some twist of logic, his answer some 40 years later was supposed to be correlative to his guilt or innocence of sexual assault. Obviously sexual assault is a horrific crime, but without conclusive evidence or corroborating testimony, theres no basis for a prosecution. In Northams case, a photo on his personal page in his yearbook featured two individuals one wearing blackface and the other dressed as a member of the Ku Klux Klan. The image isnt just offensive; its appalling. Even way back in 1984, most would have found it so. Did the young individuals think they were just goofing around? Most likely, but again, the image is too hurtful in the glare of history. Klansmen were and are terrorists who murdered, raped and lynched African-Americans and burned communities during a reign of terror that affected multiple generations. Horror, not humor, is the only appropriate response both to this history and to those who would mock it. Fitzgerald said raising the gas tax wouldnt be enough. I dont see how any state solves the issue without some sort of open-road tolling, he said. Now youre talking about generating billions of dollars instead of millions. Even with a 10-cent gas tax increase, thats not going to get it done. Vos told reporters after Wednesdays event that he wants to complete the study that Walker vetoed to see how much revenue tolling could raise, but that he believes tolls could be set up across an awful lot of Wisconsin. New Democratic Gov. Tony Evers is considering raising the gas tax and other fees to pay for transportation needs. Last month, Evers formed a task force to study transportation funding. Vos ridiculed that move Wednesday as cute, saying they wont come up with anything new and Evers should be talking directly to Republican leaders about solutions. Hintz warned the WCA audience that lawmakers cant solve the problem and can only hope to manage it. The study, done at the request of La Crosse County, is hypothetical and doesnt address technological challenges. The impetus for this whole study was just to figure out whether producing our energy in-state would be beneficial to the economy and people and the environment of Wisconsin, said David Abel, a UW energy researcher and lead author of the study. What we find is that it really is beneficial to all three. Thats consistent with the mission of COWS, which promotes environmental sustainability and social fairness. There are solutions that dont actually involve these traditional things we think of as trade-offs between the economy or the people or the environment, Abel said. The study comes just as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., released an outline of the Green New Deal, a plan for juicing the U.S. economy while eliminating carbon emissions. Abel said the lack of detail in the plan makes it difficult to assess, but he said it could be a boon for Wisconsin. We may stand the most to gain because of our lack of fossil resources, he said. PASSENGER SAFETY. NCRPO chief Guillermo Eleazar (not in photo) leads the inspection Friday at the Central Terminal Station in Ermita, Manila to ensure the safety of passengers. Norman Cruz The Metro Rail Transit Line 3 on Friday confirmed it received abefore the deadly explosions in Jolo in late January, saying this was the reason it tightened the security checks at its train stations.The bomb threat was sent via e-mail and received last January 3, MRT 3 told reporters in a Viber group message. It was already coordinated with the authorities, PNP-CIDG [Philippine National Police-Criminal Investigation and Detection Group] for them to track down the e-mail sender, the company said. MRT 3 also said some liquid items may be allowed inside its train stations amid the implementation of the ban on liquids as part of the heightened security there. The bomb threat was among the reasons MRT 3 tightened its security, particularly the prohibition of several liquids inside the trains. Thats one reason why we tightened security following the recent attacks in Mindanao, MRT 3 said. MRT 3 recently earned the ire of commuters after it banned bottled drinks, water and any liquid substance as these could be mixed with other substances to form a liquid bomb.The additional security measure was recommended by thelast week. Nevertheless, MRT 3 said the following liquids may be permitted on the trains upon validation and approval from security personnel: Baby formula/breast milk in bottles, if the passenger is travelling with a baby or small child; Drinking water to be used by the baby or small child; All prescription and over-the-counter medications; Liquids including water, juice or liquid nutrition or gels for passenger with a disability or life condition; Life-support and life-sustaining liquids such as bone marrow, blood products, and transplant organs; Items used to augment the body and for medical and cosmetics reasons such as mastectomy products, prosthetics breast, bras or shells containing gels, saline solution, or other liquids; and gels or frozen liquids needed to cool disability or medical-related items used by persons with disabilities or medical conditions. The MRT 3 said the emailed threat was now under investigation. We just wanted to be cautious, since we have thousands of passengers daily. We do not want to compromise the safety and security of our passengers and personnel, we will not lax and we will implement a more effective security measures in our trains and stations, MRT 3 said. "When you hear sheriff's offices and weathermen saying 'Stay off the road, stay off the road,' it just makes no sense to me. It's children and teachers at risk, and those teachers are willing to make up the time to not have their lives at risk," McBain, 67, said. While she no longer had kids in the district, McBain said her daughter teaches at a Madison school but commutes from Sun Prairie. Wiese said the five canceled school days for Madison students over the past two weeks did not come up during a conversation Thursday morning about whether to call off school. "The safety of our students is our first priority when we make a decision like this," he said. Wiese said longer commutes for some staff members during inclement weather is part of the consideration, but like parents who chose to keep their children home, he said employees are able to use paid leave time if they do not feel comfortable making it to school. The Madison School District did cancel evening activities Thursday in anticipation of lowering temperatures that would nullify the effects of road salt on ice, Wiese said. Want to see more like this? Get our local education coverage delivered directly to your inbox. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Its unclear what prompted the attack, Koval said. Winslow and the victim dont appear to have known each other, Koval said. Just before the victim was beaten, Koval said, security camera footage shows Winslow apparently had intended to attack another young woman in the area before the would-be victim made it home. Two witnesses found the victim just minutes after the attack, he said. All hands on deck Police made solving the rare stranger attack a top priority, bringing in detectives and officers from across the city and other units to help in the investigation. Police also increased patrols in the area, and the UW-Madison campus community was told of the attack via email Sunday. Koval said police showed true grit and relentless resolve to make an arrest. Everybody was all hands on deck. And I mean everybody, he said. It was such a coordinated and comprehensive team response. Security camera video, showing Winslow in the area throughout the night, was vital to investigators, Koval said. Officers who had interacted with Winslow in the past recognized him in the video footage. At the request of prosecutors, a Dane County judge on Thursday dismissed a first-degree murder charge against a Madison man and other charges against his alleged accomplice, but will allow charges to be refiled if more evidence comes to light. Circuit Judge Jill Karofsky dismissed a charge of first-degree intentional homicide against Jordan Sharlow, 27, who was charged last year for the shooting death of David D. Edwards, 31, on Madisons East Side. She also dismissed a charge of harboring a felon against Dontae Collins, 32, of Madison. Collins was released from custody. But Sharlow will be sent to Chicago to face a first-degree murder charge with his brother, Justin Sharlow, and another man, Melvin Dotson. The three are charged with the Oct. 15, 2017, shooting death of 22-year-old Devon Caffie. Assistant District Attorney Gerise Laspisa sought the dismissals last week after informing Karofsky that Collins, who had previously given police a statement implicating Sharlow and himself in Edwards death, had stopped cooperating with prosecutors. Collins lawyer, David Makovec, had filed a motion to bar the use of Collins statement to police because he had not been provided a lawyer when he asked for one. The Madison area is flush with thrift stores and thanks to a decline in cats that are eligible for adoption, another thrift store has opened. The Dane County Humane Society has converted its adoption center on Grand Canyon Drive into a thrift store. Located between Kitchen & Bath Solutions and Martingilio Martial Arts, the store has a room dedicated to pet supplies but the vast majority of the store sells typical thrift store items, including clothing, shoes, toys and housewares. Officials are hoping for $100,000 in sales in the first year and will evaluate the stores success in 2020 when the five year lease expires, said Laurie Ringquist, the Humane Societys customer service manager. The store is located in the same strip mall as Ultra-Zone laser tag. We really didnt have enough cats to send over here to keep it full, Ringquist said. We count it as a success that our adoptions are doing so well, that our efforts in the community for spay/neuter have brought our population down so we feel like we really didnt need it for an adoption center. The 2,300-square-foot store, which is actively seeking donations, opened Jan. 21 and has one full-time employee and four part-time clerks. The two supervisors believe the ethics complaint was political payback for ending Supervisor Marty Krueger of Reedsburgs 12-year reign as chairman. Peterson alleged Berlin violated the countys ethics code by claiming mileage reimbursement for meetings she had been driven to by Wenzel. Berlin said the 50-mile reimbursement she claimed was actually less than the 60-mile round trip she made to and from Wenzels home so that they could carpool. She said she got rides to the evening meetings because she does not like driving at night. During Wednesdays hearing, Peterson cited a state law that says board members shall receive mileage for the most usual traveled route to meetings. He argued that detours for the purposes of carpooling were not permissible. However, Sauk County Corporation Counsel Daniel Olson said the county did not adopt the state laws language into its own ordinance. He said nothing in the countys own rules prohibited what Berlin did. Berlins attorney, Diane Welsh of Madison, said none of the instructional materials or training that Berlin received as a new supervisor informed her that she could not be reimbursed for miles driven prior to carpooling. Prosecutors allege a Poynette man broke into his former residence and took money from his landlords and former employer. Marcus Edward Nummerdor, 30, appeared in Columbia County Circuit Court via video feed with defense attorney Claire M. Edwards to face a felony burglary charge. According to a criminal complaint, Nummerdor broke the deadbolt on a door at a town of Dekorra residence. He allegedly took $200 from from a small wooden box in the kitchen area and left an apology letter for the owners. Nummerdor rented an apartment at the property and was served an eviction notice, the complaint said. He also worked at a restaurant owned by the landlords from July to September 2018. He was released on a $5,000 signature bond Tuesday and ordered to have no contact with the property owners. If convicted, Nummerdor faces up 12 years in prison and $25,000 in fines. He is scheduled to return to court April 3. Follow Brad on Twitter @BradMikeAllen or call him at 608-745-3510. "Amtrak believes that if it gets the funding, it can replicate that kind of passenger traffic in the Midwest and other parts of the country." The "world's greatest fighter pilot" has flown his last mission. Word arrived this week that Ray Matera, who loved nothing more than to be called a fighter pilot, has passed away at the age of 94. While he experienced health problems the past couple of years, he will long be remembered for his vigorous leadership as Wisconsin's adjutant general from 1979 to 1989, a time in which the Wisconsin Guard was rebuilt into a modern, well-equipped military force "the tops in the country," he'd insist. I had the good fortune to serve under Maj. Gen. Matera for 10 of the 26 years I was in the Guard. Fact is, though, those of us in the Army Guard weren't so sure about him at first. He was, after all, the first non-Army adjutant general in Wisconsin Guard history. Besides, the Army Guard represented three-fourths of the Wisconsin Guard, the Air Guard the rest. Matera wasn't a "ground pounder" like we Army people. He had spent his early military days with the Marines as an aerial gunner during World War II and when the war was over joined the newly created U.S. Air Force as a flight commander, a post that soon took him to Madison's Truax Field. After he was discharged he joined the local Air Guard here, but quickly was activated again to fly fighter jets in yet another war, Korea. READ: Measles outbreak in Metro Manila, Luzon As it scrambles to deal with an, the Department of Health is expected to see P14 billion cut from its budget for 2019, Health Secretary Francisco Duque said Friday. In an interview on radio dzMM, Duque said the Budget department had first sought a P31-billion cut because the DOH still had many pending projects, but this was lowered to P14 billion. We cant blame DBM for making the budget cut because the condition is to clean up all those pending projects before adding to the budget, he said. The department came under scrutiny last year after Duque found that only 270 of the 5,700 barangay health stations had been completed under the P8.1-billion Barangay Health Station project. A DOH epidemiologist said Fridayin Central Luzon spiked significantly as 96 percent of the affected children in the region were unvaccinated. More children suffered the disease because their parents refused to bring them to health centers to avail of free vaccines, Dr. Jesse Fantone, head of DOHs Regional Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit said. Data from the DOH-RESU showed a total of 437 cases and six deaths reported in Central Luzon from January 1 to February 7 this year, compared to only 32 cases with no death during the same period last year. Of the seven provinces in Central Luzon, Bulacan has the highest number of measles cases with 144, followed by Pampanga with 136; Tarlac with 89; Bataan with 27; Zambales with 23; and Nueva Ecija with 18. The province of Aurora had no measles case. Of the six deaths, three were from Pampanga and one each in Bulacan, Bataan, and Zambales. Regional health officials declared a measles outbreak in Central Luzon on Thursday. Fantone said the Dengvaxia scare is a minor reason parents have failed to participate in the immunization program. The health official said that the DOH has been conducting an outbreak response immunization in areas in the region where clustering of measles cases were reported since April last year. He said this is aside from the measles routine immunization being conducted every Wednesday in all health centers of the region. I am appealing to parents to have their children vaccinated against this infectious disease, Fantone said, adding that the DOH regional office has a sufficient supply of vaccines that can be had for free. He asked the local government officials and other stakeholders to help them in this campaign. This measles outbreak can be controlled. Let us stand to protect our children. Please help us inform the public that measles can be prevented through vaccination, he added.Babies from six to eight months old are immunized with the measles and rubella vaccine, while children nine months to four years old are given the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine. Measles is a highly infectious and communicable disease caused by a virus. Symptoms include high fever, cough, conjunctivitis and colds. If not properly managed, it can lead to complications, such as blindness, encephalitis, pneumonia, diarrhea and even death. Senator Risa Hontiveros on Friday blamed Public Attorney Office (PAO) chief Persida Rueda Acostas statements on Dengvaxia for the outbreak of measles. Persida Acostas lies have slain children, Hontiveros said. She stood at the gravesides of poor dead children to wage a vicious campaign of disinformation, pseudo-science and politically motivated witch-hunts. Her lies and hysterics contributed directly to the erosion of public trust in our vaccination programs, she added. She accused Acosta of scaremongering and conducting politically motivated investigations on the Dengvaxia issue.She said the faith in the advice of vaccine experts and doctors declined because of Acostas criticisms on the vaccine. When there was an opportunity to clarify, she instead created confusion. A responsible public servant would have called for calm. Instead she sowed panic, Hontiveros said. The Palace has defended Acosta against such accusations, saying she was only doing her job in representing the families of children who died after they were administered the Dengvaxia vaccine. Dr. Ferdinand de Guzman, a spokesman for the San Lazaro Hospital, said they expect the number of measles patients to increase in the following days. He said the number of measles cases at the San Lazaro Hospital in early 2019 has increased by 300 to 400 percent compared to the number of such cases reported for the same period last year. Urban Milwaukee's data wonk Bruce Thompson says it's a mystery why the state's two main Republicans, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and state Sen. Scott Fitzgerald, continue to want to abolish Obamacare when Wisconsin people clearly want to keep it. He presents the data showing how state citizens have moved from originally opposing the health care law to strongly supporting it now, and cites evidence that the issue may have hurt Scott Walker during the last election. The MacIver Institute, the conservative think tank funded by the Bradley Foundation, highlights a guest blog today by Dan O'Donnell contending that Democrats have no desire to compromise on anything. He says this was evident at the State of the Union. Their only goal, he maintains, is to defeat Donald Trump. Ongoing problems and police calls at Tree Lane Family Apartments have left the city and Heartland Housing, developer and manager of the project, searching for solutions. Now, the city is seeking a chronic nuisance action against Heartland while also proposing a major increase of $275,250 in support services funding for the development. These are the citys latest efforts to stabilize the development and rebuild support for the citys dedication to house the homeless. "I understand your concerns," Mayor Paul Soglin said in a letter Monday to worried constituents who had contacted him directly. "Neither city staff nor I are satisfied with the current situation." Tree Lane Family Apartments, 7933 Tree Lane, opened in June 2018 and has 45 units designated for formerly homeless families. Its a permanent supportive development with on-site services and case management. Complaints and police calls about behavior in Tree Lanes parking lot and nearby parking lots began coming in soon after the apartments opened. The development has since been scrutinized for behavior including fighting, partying, drinking and a non-fatal shooting. The apartments had the most calls for service of any property in the West District for the months of July, August and September. There have also been problems at a Heartland development for homeless individuals, Rethke Terrace at 715 Rethke Ave. That led to concerns about the amount of funding for supportive services and prompted an increase in the countys contribution. A proposal for a third permanent supportive housing site at 1202 S. Park St. would include 58 units for homeless adults and 1,200 square feet of commercial space. The city has committed $1.9 million from its Affordable Housing Fund to the project, and it was awarded $8.1 million in federal tax credits earlier this year. Soglin has previously said the issues at Tree Lane would likely provide obstacles for the Park Street proposal. "Many of those who write to me support the goals of Housing First but are concerned about its implementation at the (Tree Lane Family Apartments)," Soglin said in the letter. "We are working hard, and as quickly as possible, to make the necessary changes to fix the issues that have arisen and we are making the systemic changes necessary to improve results now, and to ensure this does not happen in the future." ABATEMENT ACTION The alder for the district, Paul Skidmore, said in December he wanted the city to pursue a chronic nuisance action against the apartment complex and Heartland Housing. Soglin said at the time he was hopeful corrective measures implemented by Heartland and the city would improve the situation. Yet on Friday, the city issued a chronic nuisance premises declaration to Heartland. This is a tool the city can use to compel owners to resolve problems at their properties. "Mistakes were made," Soglin said in the letter. "I have and I will continue to direct staff to fix those mistakes as quickly as possible and to make it clear to Heartland that they have an obligation to the tenants, the neighborhood, and the city to take responsibility for their end of our agreement." The city is requiring Heartland to create a plan to resolve problems at the property and notify the city of it. Heartland must respond to a meeting or appeal the declaration within 10 days of receiving the letter, Assistant City Attorney Jennifer Zilavy said. After meeting with the city, Heartland has 15 days to "get it together," Zilavy said. The city would be able to bill Heartland for police time at the property if nuisance actions occur after the 15 days or prosecute in municipal court. If Heartland does not meet with the city, the company could face fines of $1,000 and up to $5,000 for future violations of the ordinance. "The goal is for Heartland to get proper control of the property, so that the issues abate," Zilavy said. If Heartland's plan is successfully implemented, Zilavy said Heartland would remain under the "umbrella" of a chronic nuisance declaration and would have to be free of any nuisance actions for a period of six months. Three or more significant incidents involving enforcement occurring within 90 days is the standard for filing a nuisance action against a property owner. Nuisance activities can include a number of behaviors including disorderly conduct, violence, and damage to property. "This action is necessary to send the message to Heartland," Skidmore said. As of mid-December, Madison Police Department officers had responded to a total of 90 calls for service in the previous 90 days. West District MPD Capt. Tim Patton said he hopes the end result will be a reduction in calls for service to the property and that additional security and support services will "go a long way." "Overall, the calls for service, safety and security are not at an acceptable level," Patton said. "I am optimistic in terms of the collaboration and the partnerships that are in place to work on this." Community Development Director Jim O'Keefe said the nuisance abatement action is another approach meant to stabilize the environment at Tree Lane. "The nuisance abatement is a continuation of the effort that has been ongoing since November," O'Keefe said. "Its an attempt to bring more focus to elicit a better response, a strong response." Friday afternoon, Heartland spokesman Joe Dutra said, "we have yet to receive any letter from the city and therefore cannot respond to any actions." SUPPORT SERVICES The YWCA provides support services for Tree Lane, which are currently funded by $90,000 from Heartland, $50,000 from the city and $25,000 from the United Way. The YWCA provides two case managers and a supervisor to Tree Lane. But the YWCA informed Heartland at the end of 2018 that it would withdraw from its role as support service provider. YWCA CEO Vanessa McDowell did not comment on why the YWCA chose to end its relationship with Heartland. At a City-County Homeless Issues Committee meeting Monday, Michael Goldberg, executive director of Heartland Housing, said that Heartland would generally use more funding for support services anytime its offered, and has long been actively fundraising for more support services funding on its own. The city wants the $275,250 in additional funds to provide more comprehensive services. Linette Rhodes, the citys interim community development grants supervisor, said at Mondays meeting that the city is working to create a team approach, with youth and mental health services, in addition to case management. The proposed resolution would transfer $275,250 from the city's contingent reserve. If approved, the remaining balance of the reserves would be $1.5 million. Under the resolution, the Road Home, Lussier Community Education Center and Wisconsin Youth Company - Elver Park Neighborhood Center would provide interim case management services and youth programming at Tree Lane. The Road Home has said they can offer interim case management services for up to six months, after the YWCA pulls out March 15. The city will then issue a request for proposals for a new permanent service provider, O'Keefe said. That RFP is just beginning to be prepared but thats what I envision: that we would have a request for proposals that would invite partnerships or collaborative responses as opposed to a single agency trying to do everything, OKeefe said. The RFP process would identify an on-site team, which would include two full-time case managers, a youth services coordinator, a lead worker or supervisor and provide the means to offer supportive mental health services, youth programming and other assistance necessary to help residents achieve long-term housing stability. The city is also considering $165,000 in additional security at Tree Lane. The citys Finance Committee has approved the measure, which would fund one security officer on site after work hours and on weekends for 2019. The Finance Committee will consider the proposed funding for support services at its meeting Monday. The City Council will take up both resolutions for support services and security funding Feb. 26. Soglin has said that security is meant to be a short-term fix. At Mondays meeting, Kandyse McCoy Cunningham, director of property development for Heartland, said that while its not ideal, to dedicate many resources to security, its sometimes necessary in a stabilization period, especially to keep people out that are constantly trying to prey on residents. Additionally, in November, Soglin assigned Deputy Mayor Gloria Reyes to Tree Lane. Rhodes explained on Monday that Reyes is an open resource for residents to come down and talk to, and has helped bridge the neighborhood and Tree Lane residents, Rhodes said. Reyes also takes part in weekly meetings with the YWCA, Heartland, private security, MPD and the citys Community Development Division to talk about calls for service and the safety of the building, and problem solve as we go forward, Rhodes said. UPS AND DOWNS On Monday, Heartland's Goldberg pointed out that in the housing first model, housing individuals is a success, and everyone, except for some recent transitions out of the building has remained housed. Thats good news for kids who get to stay in their same school, he said, and some residents have gotten jobs within walking distance. McCoy Cunningham said seven Tree Lane families had gone through the eviction process, and only one resulted in an actual eviction on their court record. She called evictions absolutely the very last resort, and said an eviction means theyve exhausted all other options, including an attempt to mutually terminate the lease so that the tenant wont have an eviction on their record. The online Wisconsin Circuit Court Access database shows eight eviction actions from Tree Lane. Kimberly Gaddis was the only tenant with a judgement for eviction. She had been living in a hotel and spending time in shelters in the year before moving into Tree Lane, and was excited to find a home for her four children and four-year-old granddaughter. She says she witnessed violence on the property, once when her kids were attacked by another tenant in the parking lot. Now, shes staying at hotels when she can afford it, but is basically sleeping out of our car. Tree Lane Apartments provides housing to 104 children, according to Soglin. "For many, this is the first time they have had a roof over their heads and a stable home," Soglin said in the letter. "Madison is a compassionate, caring city. Our commitment to Housing First a proven method to eliminate homelessness and build secure, well-functioning families will strengthen Madison." LESSONS LEARNED On Monday, Heartland officials reflected on where they could improve on their management of Tree Lane. McCoy Cunningham said Heartland should have reached out to clients with support services before they moved in, to market the services as a benefit so residents wouldnt view support services either as something mandatory or extra. Because the building was delivered late to us, all families had to move in in a span of about two weeks, but ideally, McCoy Cunningham would have liked to move in five or 10 families at a time to build relationships and trust, she said. Goldberg said that Heartland should have spent more time early on with the YWCA to make sure we were on the same page on all those details. Share your opinion on this topic by sending a letter to the editor to tctvoice@madison.com. Include your full name, hometown and phone number. Your name and town will be published. The phone number is for verification purposes only. Please keep your letter to 250 words or less. Lisa Speckhard Pasque | The Capital Times Follow Lisa Speckhard Pasque | The Capital Times Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today There will be a lion dance, a traditional Chinese New Year performance to represent good luck and fortune where dancers wear costumes, said Deborah Liu, co-president of CHASA. I think its really cool to see people from different countries, China, Taiwan, come together to celebrate this one event, Liu said. Liu said that at last years celebration, the coolest thing was seeing people from the public come, and express interest in their culture. The UW-Madison Vietnamese Student Association is celebrating Lunar New Year, known as Tet Holiday in Vietnam, on Sunday, Feb. 17, from noon to 4 p.m. at the Memorial Union, 800 Langdon St. There will be food, performances, games and prizes and a fashion show at the end of the free event. Matcha Tea Company is hosting Chinese & Lunar New Year Brunch this Saturday and Sunday, Feb. 9 and 10, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The menu includes miso soup, Dan Dan pork sausage, and a tofu and mushroom dish. Share your opinion on this topic by sending a letter to the editor to tctvoice@madison.com. Include your full name, hometown and phone number. Your name and town will be published. The phone number is for verification purposes only. Please keep your letter to 250 words or less. A Dane County judge on Friday ordered the state Department of Public Instruction to immediately release records requested by a conservative law firm or to appear before him in court on Feb. 26 to explain why it cannot. The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty sued DPI late Thursday, arguing the agency has illegally delayed its response to an open records request related to the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which requires the agency to create an education accountability system. The WILL lawsuit also alleges DPI sent "illegally embargoed" ESSA reports to school districts. A DPI spokesman said the agency is following the open records law and will continue to do so. The records WILL has requested require redaction and staff time to prepare, said DPI spokesman Tom McCarthy in a statement, adding that the agency has fulfilled the organization's records requests "time and time again." "Our staff are in the process of completing that work, but have other duties beyond WILL's requests. We cannot change that fact no matter how many lawsuits they file. Today's ruling and WILL's media campaign changes nothing about how we plan to respond," McCarthy said. remaining of SUPPORT LOCAL JOURNALISM! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading. Creighton University announced Wednesday that it will no longer include Joe Ricketts in a university event honoring accomplished alumni, citing personal emails by Ricketts that became public earlier this week. The university uninvited the 77-year-old TD Ameritrade founder and billionaire a 1968 Creighton graduate from its first-ever Evening of Honors event, scheduled for Friday. In an email to Creighton alumni, the Rev. Daniel Hendrickson, the school president, said that he spoke with Ricketts Tuesday and that he wont receive the award. Mr. Ricketts comments in personal emails do not reflect the values of our Jesuit, Catholic mission, including our focus on inclusiveness and diversity, Hendrickson wrote. Ricketts has apologized for the emails, sent between 2009 and 2013. They include racist jokes, conspiracy theories about former President Barack Obamas faith and life, and references to Islam as a cult and not a religion. Ricketts said he has deep regret and that the emails dont reflect his values. LISTEN, SIR. President Rodrigo Duterte lends an ear to Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana on the sidelines of the joint Armed Forces of the Philippines-Philippine National Police Command Conference in Malacanang on Thursday. Malacanang Photo Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana on Friday urged the countrys giant neighborand other countries to respect the Philippines sovereignty over thein the, where the Philippine government is having construction projects.Lorenzanas statement followed reportsnear the Spratly Islands after the construction projects on Pagasa Island began. The presence of militia on the Chinese man-made structures is no surprise to us as they have been there since 2012, said the Defense chief. But Lorenzana stressed: We expect other countries to respect Philippine sovereignty, and to conduct themselves in a civilized manner befitting members of the global community. According to Lorenzana, improving all existing facilities in Kalayaan was the governments constitutional mandate. In his statement, Lorenzana said: Improving the safety, welfare, livelihood, and personal security of Filipinos in the municipality of Kalayaan, a distinct and separate town under the province of Palawan, is the governments Constitutional mandate. Kalayaan has been part of the sovereignty of the Philippines since 1978, by virtue of Presidential Decree No. 1596 and international laws. He also emphasized that the DND had always been open and transparent in conveying and fulfilling the governments desire to improve the living conditions of both the civilian and military citizens in the community of Barangay Pag-asa, the largest of the nine islands in the municipality comprising the Kalayaan Island Group.The presence of militia on the Chinese man-made structures is no surprise to us as they have been there since 2012. We expect other countries to respect Philippine sovereignty, and to conduct themselves in a civilized manner befitting members of the global community, Lorenzana said. The other islands in the KIG are Kota Island, Parola Cay, Patag Reef, Likas Island, Lawak Island, Panata Cay, Rizal Reef, and Ayungin Shoal. Among the facilities being constructed or upgraded in Pag-asa are the beaching ramp that will be completed by the first quarter of this year, air strip (Rancudo Airfield), better barracks for soldiers, desalination facilities, sewage disposal system, conventional and renewable power generators, lighthouses, shelters, and storage facilities for fishermen. These planned modest improvements are basic but nonetheless highly essential in delivering social services to raise the standard of living and improve the quality of life of Filipino citizens on the island, Lorenzana added. The DND chief also bared these improvements had undergone careful planning and consideration, with full respect to international law and rules-based order governing civilized states. Implementing these improvements is a legitimate undertaking, and well within our rights as a sovereign nation, he added. READ: 95 China ships all over WPS LaRae Lou Hammond, 61, died Feb. 7, 2019 at Good Samaritan Society St. Johns in Kearney. Funeral services will be on Monday, Feb. 11, 2019 at 10:00 a.m. at Trinity Lutheran Church in Lexington with Pastor Rob Kuefner, officiating. Burial will be at the Greenwood Cemetery in Lexington. Visitation will be held one hour prior to the service at Trinity Lutheran Church. LaRae was born March 21, 1957, in Lexington to Lee Hammond and Elvera Pat (Schnakenberg) Hammond. Her parents divorced and her mother married John Racek who became her father in every way for the rest of his life. When LaRae was born, doctors told her parents she would never talk or walk. Shed never go to school or have a job. Her mother said otherwise and the little baby with Down Syndrome began a lifetime of achievements -- starting with her cheerful chatter. At age 7, she attended school at the Nebraska School for Trainable Children in Cozad where she learned reading, writing and math, as well as independent living skills. She participated in Special Olympics and arts and crafts excelling in ceramics. She loved music early in life and it remained a constant joy. She was the schools first official graduate complete with cap and gown in May 1975. Cold air from Canada is moving into the Pacific Northwest and bringing the possibility of more snow to the mid-Willamette Valley through much of next week, according to the National Weather Service. We are looking at the potential for multiple lowland snow events this weekend and early next week. For people who like snow, its really great. For people who dont like snow, its probably concerning, added Amanda Bowen, Weather Service meteorologist. At least a slight chance of snow is predicted for Linn and Benton counties through Thursday, according to the Weather Service forecast. And residents of communities in the Cascade foothills and the Coast Range should be more concerned than on the valley floor, as significant amounts of snow could accumulate at higher elevations. The agency has issued a winter storm watch for the Sweet Home area for Friday night through Saturday afternoon, and 3 to 8 inches of snow are possible. Snow levels are forecast to drop to the valley floor on Saturday afternoon. At that point, however, theres going to be limited moisture in the area, so there shouldnt be much accumulation for the Albany and Corvallis areas, Bowen said. June 17, 1936 February 2, 2019 Wilmer Hafford Post, 82, passed away Saturday, February 2, 2019. He is survived by his wife of 58 years, Jenelle Post; and daughter, Paige (Post) Clark; son-in-law, Jim Clark; and two grandchildren, Evan Sterling Clark and Liza Caprielle Clark. Wil was proud of his roots in Toledo, Oregon, where he was raised and graduated from high school, going on to attend Oregon State University where he served as student body president in 1959-1960. He then attended Cal-Berkley where he received his MBA. Wil was a veteran. His professional life centered around higher education as faculty in the College of Business in his early career, as the Executive Assistant to the President of Oregon State University and the Vice Chancellor of Higher Education in Oregon 1983-1988. In addition to his career in higher education, Wil held significant corporate positions and excelled in his private business ventures. Wil enjoyed a life encompassing construction, hunting, fishing, farming Christmas trees, harvesting timber, and business ownership in Corvallis. The family is planning a private service. The Bangsamoro won additional territory in Cotabato, with the yes vote winning in 63 out of 67 villages that petitioned to join the new region, Rappler.com reported on Friday. This was based on the final unofficial results monitored by the United Bangsamoro Party or UBP of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, executive director Naguib Sinarimbo said on Friday. The Commission on Elections was expected to start canvassing the votes in Manila on Friday to make the results official. The affirmative vote won in all villages in Midsayap (13), Pigkawayan (12), Kabacan (7) and Carmen (7). It also won in 22 villages in Pikit and in two villages in Aleosan. All these villages, as well as Cotabato City, will join the provinces of the current Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao to establish a new autonomous region with wider powers and control over resources. It will be called the Bangsamoro Region in Muslim Mindanao or BARMM. Sinarimbo said the plebiscite was lost in two villages in Aleosan, one in Pikit, and the lone village that petitioned for inclusion in Tulunan.The Bangsamoro Organic Law or BOL was ratified after the Jan. 21 vote with a landslide victory in the ARMM provinces and a majority win in Cotabato City. The plebiscite was lost in Isabela City. The ratification triggered the Feb. 6 vote to allow other areas to join BARMM. The vote was also held in Lanao del Norte for six towns that wanted to join BARMM. The yes vote won in all six towns, but the majority of the voters in the rest of the province voted no to losing these towns. They will stay within the jurisdiction of Lanao del Norte, a victory of the ruling Dimaporo clan that aggressively campaigned for the no vote. The members of the Bangsamoro Transition Authority that will govern the new region until the next elections in 2022 are expected to be appointed this week. LEBANON A 53-year-old Albany woman was charged with first-degree aggravated theft and two counts of first-degree theft in Linn County Circuit Court on Wednesday. Sherrie Tate was arrested by the Lebanon Police Department at about 10 a.m. Tuesday and lodged at the Linn County Jail until Wednesday. According to police reports, Tate had been hired by Cascade Mechanical at 1340 Airway Road through a temporary employment agency in November 2017. After six months, she was put on staff as a bookkeeper. On Jan. 26, company officials contacted the police and reported that it had found discrepancies on its bank statements after researching tax documents. The company staff believed more than $8,000 had been stolen. After an investigation by the Lebanon Police Department, it is believed some 55 checks had been written fraudulently, amounting to nearly $28,000 in missing funds. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 1 Sad 0 Angry 7 You have permission to edit this collection. Edit Close The company also created the Canadian sketch comedy show SCTV (Second City Television) that ran between 1976 and 1984. Griggs started taking improv classes at The Second City in 1996. He said among his favorite alumni were Fey, Rachel Dratch, and Scott Adsit (30 Rock), the ones who performed Chicago's main stage shows at the time. Griggs, who has directed the Chicago touring company's shows for nearly three years, said each touring company performs almost 200 shows a year around the country. The director and ensemble cast spends a few months on the creation of every new show. They take what's happening in the world, news and society as topics to use in improv performances every night in Chicago, along with audience suggestions, and eventually turn those ideas into a script, Griggs said. Company performers went through this process for the sketches they will feature in Tuesday night's show. "It's a mixture of new material, as well as 'best of' material,'" Griggs said. Politics has always been a hot topic audiences have suggested during The Second City improv performances. "Every show we get someone shouting out 'Trump!'" Griggs said. President Donald Trump has nominated David Malpass to lead the World Bank. Malpass is currently an official with the United States Treasury Department. Trump called him the right person to take on thisimportant job. Malpass has been a sharp critic of the 189-nation World Bank. He has said that the bank has worked too much on its own growth and not enough on its main duties, like fighting poverty. On Wednesday, Trump spoke to White House reporters about his nominee. He has fought to ensure financing is (for) the places and projects that truly need assistance, including people living in extreme poverty, the U.S. president said. Malpass was an economic adviser to Trumps presidential election campaign in 2016. The nomination shows that the Trump administration wants more control over the World Bank. The bank is an international lending organization that assists developing countries. Its most recent president, Jim Yong Kim, left the position in January, three years before his term was to end. Malpass has said that he will work at the World Bank to push the Trump administrations goals for developing countries. One goal, he said, would be to make changes to the bank that he and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin helped negotiate. Malpass also said he would work to improve the standing of women around the world. An important goal will be to ensure that women achieve full participation in developing economies, he said. Criticism of international lending agencies On Wednesday, the nominee met with reporters to explain his longtime criticism of the bank and its sister lending organization, the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Malpass said his efforts dating back more than 30 years have been aimed at reforming both organizations. He noted the work he had done in the Trump administration to get approval for a $13 billion capital increase for the World Bank. It was the banks first increase in eight years, and it included several lending reforms. Malpass said he hopes to carry out other reforms, including enacting restrictions on loans to major developing nations, such as China and India. Malpass said he believes these countries are too wealthy to receive economic aid. He said the banks loans to those countries took money that should be going to poorer nations. I am looking forward to working with China and others to get repayment on their loans," Malpass said. The World Bank and IMF were created in the 1940s. Since then, the bank has always been led by an American and the IMF has always been led by a European. The United States is the largest shareholder in both organizations. Malpass served in Treasury and State Department jobs during the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. He also worked at investment bank Bear Stearns, where he was chief economist before its 2008 collapse. I'm Susan Shand. The Associated Press and the Reuters news agency reported on this story. Susan Shand adapted the report for VOA Learning English. George Grow was the editor. Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page. ________________________________________________________________ Words in This Story achieve v. to meet a goal participation n. joining in A tall, powerful antenna looks up to the sky from the Patagonia desert in Argentina. It is part of a Chinese space station built there over 200 hectares. A 2.5-meter high fence surrounds the area. The space station came with a promise of a visitors center to explain its purpose. Chinas space program, including the space station, is run by its military, the Peoples Liberation Army. The Chinese foreign ministry says the station in Patagonia is for civilian use only and is open to the public and media. The station became operational in April. Chinese media have presented the station as a peaceful space observation and exploration tool. They also say it played a key role in Chinas landing of a spacecraft on the dark side of the moon in January. The space station operates with little oversight by the Argentine authorities. That is the conclusion of international law experts who reviewed hundreds of pages of Argentine government documents obtained by the Reuters news agency. Visits to the station are by appointment only. Experts say the United States is concerned about the stations true purpose. That secrecy also has worried those who live near the area. The agreement with China The agreement to build the space station came in 2015, during the presidency of Cristina Fernandez. Opposition lawmakers questioned why there was nothing within the agreement that required the station to be for civilian use only. But, the Argentine Congress approved the deal. Former Foreign Minister Susana Malcorra said in 2016 that Argentina has no control over the stations operations. That year, she negotiated a new deal that required it to be for civilian use only. But international law experts say the deal does not provide a process for Argentina to make sure the station is not being used for military purposes. Argentinas space agency CONAE told Reuters it has no workers based at the station but CONAE members do make periodic visits and listen to radio transmissions. But experts agree that the Chinese could easily hide data in these transmissions. Juan Uriburu is an Argentine lawyer who worked on two major Argentina-China joint projects. He asked, How do you make sure they play by the rules? Concerns over spying Garrett Marquis is a spokesman for the White House National Security Council. He said the deal was another example of opaque and predatory Chinese dealings. Some radio astronomy experts say the concerns of the United States have been overblown. Tony Beasley is director of the U.S. National Radio Astronomy Observatory. He said the Patagonian station could, in theory, listen to other governments satellites to gather data. But he added that could be done with other equipment, too. Anyone can do that. I can do that with a dish in my back yard Beasley said. Argentine officials have defended the Chinese station. They have said the agreement with China is similar to the one it signed with the European Space Agency (ESA). However, the law experts who examined the documents said there is one notable difference: ESA is a civilian agency. All of the ESA governments play by democratic rules, Uriburu said. The party is not the state. But thats not the case in China. The party is the state. Reuters asked CONAE, the local government and Chinas embassy for permission to visit the station. CONAE said it was not able to approve the visit, but said it was planning a media day. They dont let you see The space station is a 40 minutes away by car from Las Lajas, a town of 7,000 people. Maria Espinosa, the mayor of Las Lajas, said 30 Chinese employees work and live on the station. It employs no local people. Espinosa said she rented her house to Chinese space station workers before they moved to the base. She said she had visited the site herself at least eight times. Other than Espinosa, Reuters could not find anyone else in the town who had visited the station. One local said his sister was among a group of students who visited last year. They saw an eating room and a game room, he said. Others in Las Lajas said they rarely see anyone from the station. Alfredo Garrido is a shop owner in the town. He said, These people dont allow you access, they dont let you see. He says he believes the station is not a scientific research base, but rather a Chinese military base. Im Jonathan Evans. And I'm Ashley Thompson. Hai Do adapted this story for Learning English based on Reuters news report. Ashley Thompson was the editor. Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page. _______________________________________________________________ Words in This Story oversight - n. the act or job of directing work that is being done transmission - n. the act or process of sending signals opaque - adj. difficult to understand or explain predatory - adj. wrongly harming or using others overblown - adj. made to seem very important province - n. a large part of a country Workers at the Pedrosa & Rodrigues clothing factory in Portugal are worried that something 2,000 kilometers away could endanger their jobs. Sales to Britain make up about half of this family businesss yearly earnings of about 14 million euros. But a British withdrawal from the European Union could make products from Portugal more costly. The factory could possibly lose up to 7 million euros a year, says Ana Pedrosa Rodrigues, who works with buyers of the companys products. It would be extremely worrying. Businesses like Pedrosa & Rodrigues fear they could be hurt by Brexit Britains exit from the EUs single market. The single market ensures that there are no tariffs on trade and free movement for goods, workers and money. As Brexit-related economic changes hit Europe, small countries like Portugal could be badly hurt. But no one is sure about the exact effects because the terms of Brexit have yet to be decided. Some economic predictions are worrisome. Portugal says Brexit could destroy up to 26 percent of Portuguese exports of goods and services and take 1 percentage point off the countrys Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) serves as a policy adviser to developed economies. It estimates that if Britain leaves without an agreement on new trade terms with the EU, it could reduce the EUs GDP by about 1 percentage point by 2020. That represents more than half a years economic growth at current rates. It could be three times worse for Britain, the OECD says. The organization also said that some countries and businesses across the EU will feel more pain than others. Last year, the European Committee of the Regions said Ireland would be greatly hurt by Brexit because it is so close to Britain. That closeness has tied their economies. Cities like Stuttgart, in Germany, could also have economic problems, it said. The automobile industry in and around Stuttgart earns a lot from exports to Britain. Chemical and plastics companies in Belgium and the Netherlands also are at risk, the committee said. Portugal has had close ties with Britain since the Treaty of Windsor in 1386. The Portuguese textile industries could be badly hurt. Its factories are based in one of the poorest areas in Portugal and Western Europe. The textile companies have already experienced problems. Sales to Britain have fallen by more than 3 percent since the 2016 Brexit decision, according to Paulo Vaz. He is the director-general of the Portuguese Textile and Clothing Association, which represents about 500 textile companies. Vaz noted that one reason for the drop in sales is weakness in the value of British money, the pound. This makes purchases from countries like Portugal that use the euro more costly. It is also because of worried British businesses and citizens who are cutting back on purchases as Brexit nears. The Pedrosa & Rodrigues factory sits on the end of a small town in Portugals industrial center, where textile companies make about 130,000 jobs. Ana Pedrosa Rodrigues remembers when her parents started the company with five employees in 1982. She and her two older brothers recently joined their parents at the company. The other employees include husbands and their wives, fathers and sons, brothers and sisters. Almost all of the workers live in town. A loss of British business would create job losses. Sofia Cardoso and her husband both work at the company. She is not afraid. Weve been through crises before and weve survived, she said. I think well get through this one, too. The Associated Press' Barry Hatton reported this story. Susan Shand adapted it for VOA Learning English. George Grow was the editor. Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page. ___________________________________________________________ Words in This Story tariffs n. a tax on goods coming into or leaving a country Gross Domestic Product n. the value of goods manufactured and services provided in a country during a year textile n. a fabric that is woven or knit according adv. as stated by or in Friday, February 8, 2019 For the past several years, tort reform advocates in Missouri have filed bills to restrict mass tort filings. One of those bills has been filed again. The Houston Herald explains: Now a Senate bill, sponsored by Sen. Ed Emery, R-Lamar, once again seeks to change what are known as joinder rules in Missouri. Currently, someone can join someone elses lawsuit over a tort or harm as long as they are suing over the same facts, about the same product or service and out of the same series of transactions. Joint cases can be tried in any Missouri court as long as one of the plaintiffs has standing to sue in that court meaning that they live there, that the incident occurred there or that the company is located there. If Senate Bill 7 were to pass, chances for plaintiffs to join cases would shrink. Most cases could only be joined and tried in a court where all plaintiffs are allowed to sue. Courts in St. Louis are especially exploited due to plaintiff-friendly juries. This dispute has shades of the medical malpractice venue controversy in Pennsylvania, in which tort reform advocates attempt to keep med mal cases out of Philadelphia. The full story is here. https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/tortsprof/2019/02/mo-joinder-tort-reform-bills-filed-again.html Thursday, February 7, 2019 California Attorney General Xavier Becerra recently announced that his office had settled a case it had brought against charity Giving Children Hope alleging that the charity had overvalued in-kind donations it had received in order to inflate the value of the contributions it received and therefore its claimed direct aid. Here is the AG's description of what the charity did: Giving Children Hope provides international assistance in the form of food, clothing, and medical supplies. The Attorney Generals investigation revealed that between July 1, 2012 and June 30, 2016, GCH inaccurately claimed, in its public financial reporting and on its website, that 99 percent of all contributions provided direct aid. This was misleading and the result of deceptive reporting of Gift-in-Kind donations. GCH created two subsidiaries, Giving Hope International and International Clinic Aid, which purchased pharmaceuticals from a wholesaler in the Netherlands for less than $225,000. The two subsidiaries then donated the same pharmaceuticals to GCH. GCH reported the total value for these pharmaceuticals as being over $34.9 million using U.S. prices of drugs rather than the actual purchase price paid by its affiliated charity. GCH should not have reported $34.9 million in revenue and donations when the pharmaceuticals cost less than $225,000. Also since GCH failed to submit any documentation showing that the pharmaceuticals were, in fact, distributed in furtherance of Giving Children Hopes charitable purpose, the actual value for those pharmaceuticals should have been zero. For previous coverage of the California AG's other enforcement actions in this area, see this earlier blog post. Lloyd Mayer https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/nonprofit/2019/02/california-ag-announces-410000-settlement-of-overvaluing-in-kind-donations-case.html Professor Nikki Chamberlain (University of Auckland) has posted her article, Class Actions in New Zealand: An Empirical Study, 24 New Zealand Bus. L. Q. 132 (2018). Here is the abstract: This article contains the first empirical study on opt-in class actions, which are referred to as representative actions, filed under r 4.24 of the High Court Rules 2016 in the New Zealand High Court and the New Zealand Employment Court. The findings of this study reveal that opt-in class actions are now part of the New Zealand legal landscape in substance, if not in name. In particular, the data reflects the rise of consumer class actions in New Zealand, which, in part, have been assisted by litigation funders entering into the market. However, despite an increase in opt-in class actions, New Zealands civil procedure mechanism for managing class action litigation is inefficient, uneconomic and creates significant uncertainty for all class action stakeholders. This article examines the empirical data, the trends in the data, and the reasons for those trends. It concludes by discussing why reform is required against the backdrop of this study and New Zealands procedural process values as contained in the High Court Rules. Friday, February 8, 2019 The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has approved a year and a day suspension of a former elected District Attorney as proposed by its Disciplinary Board. The board reports contains extensive findings that the DA (who had been an Assistant in Clearfield County before her 2009 election in Centre County) engaged in a series of ex parte contacts with judges in criminal matters. In response to a recusal motion brought in light of a close relationship with a particular judge, both the DA and judge falsely denied the allegations. But the more interesting misconduct findings were that she had "created, disseminated and used a fictitious Facebook page." The story involved pending legislation to make the sale of bath salts illegal. The judges of Centre County had declared such sales a public nuisance and enjoined sales at three stores. In order to monitor these stores, Respondent created a phony Facebook page in the name of Britney Bella, who was given a false backstory. The page attracted "likes" and friend requests presumably from the pro-bath salts crowd. The page was friended by defendants who were being prosecuted by the DA's office. The DA had the page adorned with images of "young female individuals to enhance the page's allure." She also emailed her staff telling them that she had "made a Facebook page that is false for us to befriend people and snoop." The information led to a raid of the three stores. Notably, the DA had not sought ethics advice on the Facebook idea. The board found that the Facebook conduct violated a number of disciplinary rules . The Centre Daily Times reported on the bar charges with an update here. (Mike Frisch) https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/legal_profession/2019/02/the-pennsylvania-supreme-court-has-approved-a-year-and-a-day-suspension-of-a-former-elected-district-attorney-as-proposed-by.html Indonesia will ask the Philippines to explain its claim that an Indonesian couple was behind the Jan. 27 bomb attack on a Catholic church in Jolo, Sulu, that killed 23 people, and why Jakarta was not notified before the announcement. In a report on the Indonesian-language news site BeritaSatu, Indonesian Ambassador Sinyo Harry Sarundajang revealed that his government intends to send a note verbale seeking clarification from Interior Secretary Eduardo Ano and Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. Earlier, Ano said the incident was a case of suicide bombing involving an Indonesian couple, but said it would take time to identify them. Ano said the couple, who reportedly left behind a 10-year-old child in the Philippines, received assistance from the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group. Sarundajang was also quoted in a separate report saying that the Indonesian embassy in Manila and the Indonesian consulate general in Davao contacted the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency (NICA), which reportedly said it did not know the basis for Anos claim. When contacted by the Indonesian Embassy in Manila, the NICA informally expressed its openness to conduct an investigation together with the Indonesian government, Sarundajang was quoted as saying. In the BeritaSatu report, Sarundajang lamented that the Philippine government has repeatedly linked Indonesians to terrorist attacks, like the one in Lamitan City, Basilan, on July 31, 2018, and the New Years Eve blast in Cotabato City last year, without proof. However, the results of the investigation show that there was no involvement of Indonesian citizens in the two bombings, as stated by the officials and the media reports, the report quoted the ambassador as saying. Sarundajang also reportedly said that residents and families of the Jolo bombing victims refuse to believe that the attack was perpetrated by Indonesian suicide bombers. Indonesias Minister of Foreign Affairs Retno Marsudi also said there is no evidence yet that the perpetrators of the bomb attack were Indonesians, Sarundajang said. Until now, the investigation process is still ongoing, so it cannot be ascertained that the perpetrators are Indonesian citizens, Indonesias top diplomat said. The Department of National Defense, meanwhile, was quiet on a statement by Ano that Abu Sayyaf Group leader Hajan Sawadjaan, who allegedly masterminded the Jolo, Sulu bomb attack, is now the new Islamic State (ISIS) emir in the Philippines, saying the information needed to be verified. The DND and Armed Forces of the Philippines [AFP] have our own validation method independent of the PNP and other government agencies, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said. It would be inappropriate to issue further comments on this until we have received verification and confirmation from our own sources. In a separate message, AFP spokesperson Brig. Gen. Edgard Arevalo said the terrorist group has its own selection process. The AFP is not privy to it and will not issue any confirmation. But whoever they recognize as such, we assure our people that the AFPs desire to neutralize him and his terrorist cohorts is consistent and undiminished, he added. Arevalo also said AFP Chief-of-Staff Gen. Benjamin Madrigal is determined to employ all the capabilities of the military and apply the full force of the law against the terrorists. We will not stop until justice is served for the hapless civilians who were victims of their vicious attacks, he added. The AFP spokesman also said they are still confirming reports that ASG leader Idang Susukan was killed during recent military operations in Jolo.He was previously reported to be seriously wounded during the fierce encounter between the ASG and the AFPs 41st Infantry Battalion, Arevalo said. Progress reports from various sources on the ground indicate that he eventually died due to the severe injuries he sustained in that firefight. Notwithstanding these reports that tend to confirm each other, our troops in the area endeavor to locate his remains for us to conclusively report through DNA test that he indeed is dead, he added. He said if the death is confirmed, this would be yet another serious blow to the leadership of the Abu Sayyaf. On Friday, Ano congratulated the police and the military for their prompt action in solving the Jolo church attack. As far as the government is concerned, the Jolo bombing case is already solved. We have already identified the perpetrators of the bombing and they are now under police custody. As to the other conspirators, an intensive manhunt is now under way and we will continue to pursue them until all those involved are brought to the bar of justice, he said in a statement issued Thursday. Citing intelligence reports, survivors statements and post-blast and forensic investigation, the DILG chief reiterated that an unidentified Indonesian couple was behind the blast. Investigators said the Indonesian woman was the one who set of the bomb inside the church, while the man rushed to the church entrance to detonate his explosives just as churchgoers were rushing out and police were responding to the attack. Ano said the man was known by his alias, Abu Huda and had been in the Philippines for a long time while the woman arrived in the country just days before the bomb attack. He said the government was working with the help of Indonesian security and intelligence agencies. Over the weekend, five suspects linked to the bomb attack at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Cathedral surrendered to authorities. They were identified by PNP Chief, Director General Oscar Albayalde, as Kammah Pae alias Kammah, from Abu Sayyaf Group-affiliated Ajang-Ajang; Albaji Kisae alias Awag, his sons Rajan Bakil alias Radjan, and Kaisar Bakil alias Isal; and Salit Alih alias Papong. Our security forces, particularly the PNP with the help of the AFP [Armed Forces of the Philippines], are conducting an intensified operation to track down and arrest the 14 other accomplices who are involved in the bombing. The long arm of the law will catch up with them sooner than later, he said. Ano said charges for 23 counts of murder, 95 counts of frustrated murder, and damage to property have been filed by state lawyers before the Jolo Regional Trial Court against the five suspects. Other respondents are Sawadjaan, Usman Absarah, Barak Ingog, Makrim Abisi, Bapah Absara, one alias Ebing, and several John and Jane Does. The DILG chief, however, said that law enforcers should not let their guard down, and must remain alert, and intensify security measures in places with high volume of people. He also urged the public to report to the police or their barangay of any suspicious activity of groups or individuals in their communities. Police said Friday that DNA from some body parts found at the crime scene were now with the PNP Crime Laboratory for testing. Friday, February 8, 2019 The New Hampshire Supreme Court has affirmed three public nudity ordinance violations. Defendant Pierro The following facts are drawn from the trial courts order on the defendants motion to dismiss or are otherwise supported by the record. On May 28, 2016, Pierro went to Endicott Park Beach in Laconia. At the hearing on the defendants motion to dismiss, Pierro testified that she was topless and was there to enjoy the beach. She agreed with defense counsel that she was performing yoga on the beach. She stated that she was violently harassed by [s]everal citizens, but that out of everybody on the beach, there were only actually a handful that were upset. Sergeant Black of the Laconia Police Department testified that, on that same day, he and Officer Callanan responded to the beach because the department had received several calls about a female . . . doing nude yoga. Callanan testified that they approached a woman, later identified as Pierro, who was not wearing any shirt and her breasts, as well as her nipples, were both exposed. Callanan stated that she made attempts to speak to Pierro, but that Pierro continued to do her yoga poses. She explained that after about a minute or so, [Pierro] looked up and acknowledged that we were, in fact, trying to speak to her. She testified that they explained to [Pierro] that the reason [they] were making contact with her was in reference to a Laconia City Ordinance, since her nipples were exposed on the beach in a public place. Callanan stated that they asked Pierro multiple times to cover up, to put her bathing suit top back on, or put her shirt back on, but that Pierro refused. Defendants Sinclair and Libbey In 2015, Sinclair became involved in the Free the Nipple movement. Sinclair testified that she was one of the people who started the movement in New Hampshire after having her son and realizing that there was a very big stigma on breastfeeding. She explained that she believed that breasts, specifically nipples, are hypersexualize[d] and consider[ed] pornographic and taboo, which she stated results in that stigma and contributes to the low breastfeeding rates that the United States has compared to the rest of the world. Sinclair told Lilley about the movement, which Lilley then joined. Lilley testified that she is a feminist and joined the movement because she believe[s] in the equality of the male and female. On May 31, 2016, Sinclair and Lilley went topless to Weirs Beach in Laconia. While at the beach, they were arrested for violating the ordinance. Sinclair testified that she purposely engaged in civil disobedience knowing that the City of Laconia has an ordinance against the exposure of the female nipple and areola. She stated that she was protesting [Pierros] case where she had been arrested a few days prior. Lilley testified that she was also protesting Pierros arrest and that she announced to the arresting police officer that [she] was acting in a protest and that [she] did not believe that [she] could be arrested for protesting. She further agreed with the prosecutor that, on that day, she chose to take it upon [herself] to violate the ordinance to give attention to [her] cause. The court majority rejected both Constitutional and state claims raised by the defendants. LYNN, C.J., and DONOVAN, J., concurred; BASSETT, J., with whom HICKS, J., joined, concurred in part and dissented in part. We agree with our colleagues in most respects: Laconias ordinance does not violate the defendants rights to freedom of speech and expression; it falls within the regulatory authority of the City of Laconia; it is not preempted by statute; and it does not violate RSA chapter 354-A. However, we part company with the majority when it rejects the defendants equal protection claim. We strongly disagree that rational basis is the lens through which the defendants equal protection challenge should be analyzed. Laconias ordinance facially classifies on the basis of gender: if a woman and a man wear the exact same clothing on the beach, on Laconias main street, or in a backyard visible to the public, the woman is engaging in unlawful behavior but the man is not... We agree with the reasoning of the Seventh Circuit. Public nudity ordinances such as the ordinances in Chicago and Laconia i.e., those that use explicit, gendered language to make it unlawful for a female to engage in certain behavior, while the same behavior is lawful for a male clearly classify by gender. The majority asserts that such reasoning is flawed and deceptively simple. We fail to see the flaw or deception in our simple reasoning: when a law uses the word female to classify between those who can violate the ordinance females and those who cannot males it contains a gender-based classification. We freely acknowledge that the question of whether basic physiological differences between the sexes justify disparate treatment of men and women is a more nuanced and complicated question. But classification and justification present different questions. Respectfully, we find the reasoning of the majority which obscures the simple threshold question needlessly convoluted and artificially complex. Indeed, a court upends the safeguards of equal protection if it reasons that, because a law is premised upon physiological or anatomical differences between the sexes, the law does not classify by gender and therefore it need not be analyzed under strict scrutiny. For example, because women have a longer life expectancy than men, by the majoritys reasoning, a hypothetical law that mandates that women work four years longer than men in order to qualify for a pension, or prevents women from retiring until age 70 as opposed to age 66 for men, or reduces a womans social security benefits if she retires at the same age as a man, does not classify on the basis of gender. Such a law would be constitutional so long as it was rationally related to a legitimate government interest. Boulders, 153 N.H. at 641. Analyzing whether a law comports with equal protection does not require that the court be blind to basic physiological or anatomical differences. In some cases, applying the constitutionally required level of scrutiny, this court might conclude that such differences justify disparate treatment under the law. However, a court subverts the basic guarantee of equal protection if it concludes that, because men and women have physiological or anatomical differences, a law that classifies on the basis of those differences does not trigger strict scrutiny. Thus A court would no longer say, as a Supreme Court Justice did over 100 years ago, that a woman did not have a right to practice law because the civil law, as well as nature herself, has always recognized a wide difference in the respective spheres and destinies of man and woman. . . . This is the law of the Creator. . . . [T]he rules of civil society must be adapted to the general constitution of things . . . . Bradwell v. The State, 83 U.S. 130, 141-42 (1872) (Bradley, J., concurring). We revisit that bygone era, and thwart the very protections the Equal Rights Amendment was enacted to provide, if we allow stereotypical notions about womens bodies to alter our analysis of the straightforward question of whether Laconias ordinance classifies on the basis of gender. This is precisely why the New Hampshire Constitution requires that legislation which discriminates on the basis of a suspect classification be subject to strict scrutiny. The law has often been used to perpetuate discrimination based on public sensibilities or common understandings about individuals on the basis of immutable characteristics however misinformed or ill-motivated those understandings might be. One of the most important purposes to be served by the Equal Protection Clause is to ensure that public sensibilities grounded in prejudice and unexamined stereotypes do not become enshrined as part of the official policy of government. The ordinance does not withstand strict scrutiny applying the strict scrutiny standard required by Part I, Article 2, we conclude that the State has not carried its burden to prove that its asserted interests are compelling and that Laconias ordinance is necessary and narrowly tailored. ...over four decades, we have fashioned an analytical framework which subjects laws that distinguish on the basis of gender to the highest level of constitutional scrutiny: strict scrutiny. See Holbrook, 140 N.H. at 189; Sandra H., 150 N.H. at 637; LeClair, 137 N.H. at 222. However, perhaps mindful of the States obvious failure to present evidence sufficient to meet the exacting burden of strict scrutiny in this case, the majority strains to conclude that an ordinance that prohibits women but not men from engaging in certain behavior does not discriminate on the basis of sex, but is, in fact, gender-neutral. Such an approach is not in service of our constitutional role: it is an abdication of it. The Laconia Daily Sun covered the controversy. (Mike Frisch) https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/legal_profession/2019/02/the-new-hampshire-supreme-court-has-affirmed-a-public-nudity-conviction-the-following-facts-are-drawn-from-the-trial-court.html Friday, February 8, 2019 The Nebraska Supreme Court has disbarred an attorney This is an attorney discipline case against Jeremy C. Jorgenson stemming from violations occurring after Jorgenson was administratively suspended from the practice of law in Nebraska for failing to satisfy mandatory continuing legal education (MCLE) reporting requirements... Jorgenson admitted the charges, a judgment on the pleadings was entered, and a hearing on the question of appropriate sanctions was held before an appointed referee. The referees report following this hearing recommended Jorgenson be disbarred. Upon our de novo review and for the reasons set forth herein, we agree with the referees recommendation and conclude that disbarment is the proper sanction. He admitted continuing to practice in several matters and explained Jorgenson also testified to his remorse and embarrassment for the violations. Jorgenson testified that his life was in disarray both personally and professionally after being involved in a highly publicized murder trial and his decision to thereafter move to Illinois. Additionally, Jorgenson was undergoing marital discord when his wife moved to another state with their children, precipitating an ensuing custody battle. Jorgenson testified that he was severely depressed and drinking a lot, which attributed to the acts and omissions leading to the violations. The court noted This matter represents the third disciplinary case in Nebraska to which Jorgenson has been a party. Here The facts alleged in the formal charges of this case and admitted to by Jorgenson display an ongoing neglect of Jorgensons duties to his clients and the judiciary. After admitting he received notice that he was administratively suspended, Jorgenson continued to practice law in violation of the suspension, failed to adequately notify clients that he could no longer represent them, failed to assist clients in obtaining new representation, failed to return client funds and provide an accounting thereof, held himself out as a member of a law firm in emails, and made filings on behalf of clients in court. And In addition, Jorgenson has repeatedly failed to cooperate with the Counsel for Discipline. Repeatedly ignoring requests for information from the Counsel for Discipline indicates a disrespect for our disciplinary jurisdiction and a lack of concern for the protection of the public, the profession, and the administration of justice. We consider an attorneys failure to respond to inquiries and requests for information from the Counsel for Discipline as an important matter and as a threat to the credibility of attorney disciplinary proceedings. His purported mitigation Jorgenson did not present any evidence beyond his own testimony that he had depression and alcohol abuse issues and that he participated in group meetings. There was no medical evidence presented that Jorgenson suffered from depression, and there was no evidence presented that the depression was a direct and substantial contributing cause of his misconduct and that its treatment would substantially reduce the risk of further misconduct. Similarly, Jorgenson did not present any supporting evidence to establish that his use of alcohol was a direct and substantial contributing cause of his misconduct and that he is participating in treatment and ceased abusing alcohol so as not to make it an issue going forward. State ex rel. Disciplinary Counsel v. Jorgenson can be accessed here. The Omaha World-Herald reported on the aforementioned murder case. The World-Herald also covered recent criminal matters involving the attorney. A former attorney for quadruple-killer Anthony Garcia pleaded no contest Monday to four misdemeanors after a February ordeal in which he fractured his stepsons arm. Jeremy Jorgenson, 43, will be sentenced in December. He faces probation or up to a year in jail for each misdemeanor: two counts of child neglect and two counts of attempted tampering with a witness. Jorgenson had been charged with felony child abuse and felony witness tampering. Those charges were reduced in return for his pleas to the four misdemeanors. According to prosecutor Amy Schuchman, a deputy Douglas County attorney: On Feb. 18, Jorgenson and wife Vicki Jorgenson were at their home near 30th Street and Poppleton Avenue in Omaha. The couple were arguing when Vickis 7-year-old son came into the room and threw a toy at Jeremy, striking him. Jeremy Jorgenson chased after the boy and picked him up by the shirt collar. The 7-year-old boy told investigators at Project Harmony a center that investigates child abuse that the defendant got angry, grabbed him by the back of the shirt, held him in the air ... making it hard to breathe and then dropped him on the stairs, which resulted in his wrist being broken, Schuchman recounted. Soon after, Vicki Jorgenson came running out of the residence, yelling: He hurt him. He hurt him. Jeremy Jorgenson followed her out of the house saying, We cant go to the ER. The couple then got into a car to take the boy to urgent care. While in the motor vehicle ... the defendant had told them to get their story straight or hed go to prison or kill himself, Schuchman said. All three told doctors that the boy had fallen while playing with a toy gun. After the doctor visit, Jorgenson and his wife took the boy to a Don & Millies restaurant to get a cheeseburger and ice cream, according to court documents. Jorgenson shook his head through parts of the prosecutors account Monday. Outside court, he alleged that the 7-year-old never said those things to investigators. Asked by Judge Patricia Lamberty how far he had gone in school, Jorgenson said he had obtained a juris doctorate. Jorgenson was indefinitely suspended from practicing law after he skipped oral arguments on behalf of a defendant in a federal drug case. That discipline followed another disciplinary case in which Jorgenson came under scrutiny for his handling of civil cases and was assigned an attorney mentor. Toward the end of the Garcia case, Jorgenson jumped on board to help Chicago attorneys Robert Motta Jr. and Robert Motta Sr. defend the man who eventually was convicted of killing four Omahans as revenge for his firing from Creighton University. Jorgenson handled much of the questioning of DNA experts in the Garcia case. (Mike Frisch) https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/legal_profession/2019/02/the-nebraska-supreme-court-has-disbarred-an-attorney-this-is-an-attorney-discipline-case-against-jeremy-c-jorgenson-stemmin.html Legal careers interrupted. Marjorie Knoller and her husband Robert Noel, both attorneys, were sentenced to prison in the complex case of a deadly dog mauling in San Francisco. The victim was 33-year-old Diane Whipple. The year was 2001. Here are more details the LA Times. Knoller fared the worst. Originally she was sentenced to 15 years to life for second degree murder. She was found to have done little to prevent or stop the attack. At the time she was on the premises where the attack took place. Then a court reduced that to involuntary manslaughter and she was given parole. However another court threw that out and she returned to prison. Yesterday, the California commissioners denied her parole. The husband Robert Noel, who was not on the premises at the time, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and not exercising the attack dog. His sentence was four years but he did receive parole. How did the couple wind up with an attack dog? They were providing a form of foster care while the owner was in prison. Now, with both landlords and insurance companies so wary of certain breeds, the couple probably wouldn't have been able to keep the attack dog in their apartment. Social media, such as Twitter, buzzed with amazement at and praise for SCOTUS chief justice John Roberts' objectivity. Thanks to his vote, as reports The Guardian: "The US supreme court is stopping Louisiana from enforcing new regulations on abortion clinics, in a test of the conservative court's views on abortion rights." The vote was 5-4. One might put it this way: Roberts was the swing vote. The four other conservatives on the court such as Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh would have permitted the new regulations to be legal. Instead, through Roberts' vote the law is being placed on hold and there will be a comprehensive review of the case. Essentially the new regulations would mandate that those performing abortions have admitting privileges at hospitals that are nearby. In 2015, Roberts also delivered a stunner when he voted on the legality of Obamacare. Conservatives felt betrayed. Here is coverage from back then. If this kind of behavior continues, Roberts could evolve into as much a loved cult figure as Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Eventually there could be Roberts' dolls, mugs, tee shirts, calendars, and jewelry. U.S. Hits Ghana with Visa Sanctions in Spat Over Deportees The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and State Department say they will no longer issue visas for certain Ghanaians owing to a lack of cooperation by the West African nation namely its refusal to accept 7,000 Ghanaian nationals that the U.S. wants to deport. Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen said Ghana has denied or unreasonably delayed accepting their nationals ordered removed from the United States. But Foreign Affairs Minister Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey hotly disputed the charge, calling the allegations unfounded. ADVERTISEMENT The sanctions imposed on Ghana are without any justification whatsoever, the ministry said, adding that it had always cooperated with the US authorities in the processing and removal of Ghanaian citizens who have been cited for deportation. The spat blew up when the U.S. announced its intention to deport several hundred persons to Ghana for various infractions. Ghana refused to accept the group, saying they lacked documentation to prove Ghanaian citizenship. Plus, they said, there has not been any confirmation by the US authorities of a final court order for their removal in accordance with the US own laws. It is therefore surprising that US authorities would ignore the international protocols that need to be observed in matters of deportation and make allegations of lack of cooperation by Ghana. Two years ago, in another mass deportation to Ghana, human rights abuses were claimed by the deportees who said they were handcuffed and forced aboard the plane to Ghana, though the US Embassy denied that any inhumane treatment took place. U.S. Ambassador Stephanie S. Sullivan said that efforts to obtain passports for the Ghanaians at the embassy in Washington were unsuccessful after two years. Without passports, the U.S. has to arrange charter flights or in some cases, release those under final orders of removal back into the U.S. The Government of Ghana has consistently not met in a timely way this internationally mandated standard of the UN Convention on International Civil Aviation. ADVERTISEMENT Current visa holders, student visa applicants, Ghanaian government officials travelling for official duties as well as participants in official US government exchange programs, are not currently affected. According to the latest published report of the immigration service, 305 Ghanaians were removed in 2017 and 235 in 2018. Among the top five crimes that led to deportation in 2018 were traffic offenses (DUI) at 80,730 (includes charges and convictions), followed by dangerous drugs (76,585), other traffic offenses (76, 204), illegal entry, alien smuggling, false claim to U.N. citizenship (63,166) and assault (50,753). Key Figure in Divestment Campaign That Halted U.S. Investments in South Africa Passes In an interview for the book No Easy Victories: African Liberation and American Activists Over a Half Century, Dumisani Kumalo recalled the struggle to cut off the U.S. funds that were sustaining the apartheid government of South Africa. I spoke to more than 1,000 campuses all over the country in all 50 states, Mr. Kumalo recalled. A particular triumph came in 1986, when the U.S. Congress, overriding a veto by President Ronald Reagan, passed the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act. The keys to such successes, Mr. Kumalo often said, was grassroots support of the civil resistance movement and the coming together of disparate groups to agree on the wrongs of apartheid. ADVERTISEMENT After White minority rule ended in the 1990s, Kumalo spent a decade as the countrys representative to the United Nations. He died on Jan. 20 at his home in the Johannesburg suburb Midrand. He was 71. Kumalo began working in the U.S. in 1977 after police wrecked his home and threatened him. He was soon working for the American Committee on Africa and the Africa Fund, promoting divestment. He often opposed the powerful, including the United States. He objected to American eagerness to go to war in Iraq in 2003. Later in that decade, when he was sitting on the United Nations Security Council, he drew considerable criticism for opposing sanctions that were intended to counter President Robert Mugabes human rights abuses in Zimbabwe. We didnt want human rights to be used as a tool: If I dont like you I trot out human rights violations that you may have, he told Voice of America in 2009, explaining this and other controversial stands, but when it is Guantanamo Bay, they keep quiet, and you know when it is Gaza, they keep quiet. We didnt do things the way the British and the Americans wanted us to do them, he added, and if you dont do it like the big ones, the French and the Americans and the British, the way they want to do them, then you are a cheeky African. Well, I am happy being a cheeky African. Mr. Kumalos survivors include his wife, Ntombikayise Kumalo; a brother, Henry; two sons; and several grandchildren. Cosbys Publicist Blames National Enquirer for Drone It wasnt exactly an unidentified object that flew over the prison that houses Bill Cosby this week. Not, according to Cosbys spokesman Andrew Wyatt, who noted the timing of the drone that was discovered above the Pennsylvania State Correctional Institute Phoenix in Collegeville, Penn. Wyatt told NNPA Newswire that Cosby was walking across the yard for his daily exercise and prison officials were also escorting the blind comedian to his new quarters, in a veterans wing of the new prison, when the drone was spotted. ADVERTISEMENT Someone had to have been tipped off that Mr. Cosby would be out there and was being moved, Wyatt said, noting that he plans to visit Cosby later this week because the prison was shut down after the incident and Camille Cosby wasnt able to hear from her husband during that time. Wyatt said he believes American Media Inc.s premiere publication, The National Enquirer, was behind the drone. Its my opinion that it was The National Enquirer, Wyatt said. I believe theyve done it before when he was at home and I had to complain because its illegal to fly drones in Pennsylvania near power lines, he said. They were trying to get film of Mr. Cosby, Wyatt continued. Cosby is serving a three- to ten-year prison sentence after being convicted last year of aggravated indecent assault in a controversial trial that seemingly lacked any evidence and a judge who made what many legal experts said were questionable-at-best rulings against him. Cosby has maintained his innocence and is currently appealing both his conviction and sentencing. ADVERTISEMENT Dylan Howard, American Media Inc.s Chief Content Officer, didnt return messages left for him Tuesday. Department of Corrections officials told USA Today the department does not discuss security matters but acknowledged the agency has installed drone detection systems as part of its enhanced security measures. California Victim Compensation Board Receives More Than $8.3 Million Federal Grant To Support Services For Survivors of Las Vegas Shooting The California Victim Compensation Board (CalVCB) received a grant for more than $8.3 million from the U.S. Department of Justice Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) Antiterrorism and Emergency Assistance Program (AEAP). The funding will assist victims and family members of the attack that occurred at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas on October 1, 2017. Among the approximately 24,000 ticket holders, sixty-five percent were California residents. More than six-hundred were injured in the attack. Thirty-five of the 58 killed were from California. As soon as the attack occurred, CalVCB began working with the Nevada Victims of Crime Program and the federal Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) to address the immediate and long-term needs of the victims. To date, CalVCB has received nearly 3,500 applications for assistance and paid out over $4.5 million in benefits for mental health treatment, income loss, burial costs and other crime-related expenses. ADVERTISEMENT A portion of the funds awarded through this federal grant will reimburse CalVCB for benefits already paid to Route 91 victims and benefits that will be paid to survivors in the future. In addition, the award will fund support groups for survivors throughout California as well as anniversary and memorial events. This tragic event affected so many people from both California and Nevada. From the beginning weve worked hand-in-hand with Nevada officials, and with our state, county and community partners to provide assistance to survivors, said CalVCB Executive Officer Julie Nauman. We encourage survivors and their family members who are struggling to recover to contact us. Help is available for survivors of those who were killed, anyone who was injured and anyone in attendance at the concert as well as their immediate family members. Californians have until October 1, 2020 to apply. CalVCB can help pay for funeral expenses, medical bills, mental health treatment, income loss and more. Applications are available on CalVCBs website at https://victims.ca.gov/lasvegas/ Black Lawmakers Protest Judicial Elections in South Carolina Members of the South Carolina Black Legislative Caucus discuss their concerns with judicial elections in the General Assembly on Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2019, in Columbia, S.C. The caucus was upset that two black women lost the only contested races to white candidates. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Collins) COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) A number of black lawmakers in South Carolina briefly walked out of judicial elections Wednesday after the Legislature elected a white attorney who has never been a judge to the state Court of Appeals over an African-American woman who has been on the bench 20 years. ADVERTISEMENT Only one other race among the 44 judgeships was contested, and in that race a white woman defeated an African-American woman for a Family Court seat. You made a statement that qualifications dont count, said Democratic Sen. Margie Bright Matthews of Waterboro after the vote. She said lawmakers needed to do better. Members of the House and Senate in a joint session voted 87-73 to put Conway lawyer Blake Hewitt on South Carolinas second- highest court. Hewitt defeated Circuit Court Judge Alison Renee Lee of Columbia, who has been on the bench since 1999. Lee is black, and Hewitt is white. South Carolina legislators elect the states judges. Only Virginia has a similar system. Bright Matthews said Hewitt wasnt completely unqualified, but his lack of judicial experience compared to Lees two decades on the bench should have made the difference. What I see is a lot of cronyism, Bright Matthews, who is African-American, said in a news conference with about 20 fellow members of the Black Legislative Caucus after the joint session ended. ADVERTISEMENT Supporters of Hewitt pointed out he is one of the most respected appellate lawyers in the state and was a law clerk for both former South Carolina Chief Justice Jean Toal and federal judge Joe Anderson. Lee was nominated for a federal judgeship under President Barack Obama, but South Carolinas U.S. senators withdrew their support after Lee reduced the bond of two defendants who later were charged with murders after they got out of jail. The bond issue was not raised during her screening for the state bench. In the other race for a Family Court seat in the Greenville area, Jessica Ann Salvini, who is white, defeated Kim Nichols-Graham, who is black. Bright Matthews said she will call for changes in the screening commission that determines if candidates are qualified in an effort to get more female, minority and gay judges in state courts. Not all black lawmakers walked out. Sen. Gerald Malloy stayed even though he supported Lee and said it made eyebrows go up when both African-American candidates lost. Malloy pointed out that Chief Justice Don Beatty is the only black judge on the states five-member highest court and will have to retire in five years and there are no minority female judges on the nine-seat Court of Appeals. Tomorrows another day. We need to continue to bring forth qualified candidates, the Democratic senator from Hartsville said. Judicial Merit Selection Commission Vice Chairman Rep. Murrell Smith noted that several Democrats voted for Hewitt. It was a tough choice between two highly qualified people, said Smith, a Republican attorney from Sumter. Wednesdays judicial election session was unusually testy. It took more than 90 minutes even though just two of the 44 judgeships were contested. The process slowed as legislators called for several unsuccessful roll call votes to dump several unopposed candidates. In roll call votes, clerks call the name of all 124 House members and all 46 senators. House members typically vote on an electronic board in just a few minutes. The longest-ever government shutdown wont enter its second round next week, U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey and U.S. Rep. Lloyd Smucker predicted in Lancaster on Friday. But no matter what happens at next Fridays deadline, theyre intent on preventing full-scale shutdowns from ever happening again. Their plan an idea that has been introduced but come up short repeatedly for decades would allow federal agencies to remain funded if Congress fails to meet its deadlines. We shouldn't actually be in this situation, and there's an easy way to avoid it, Toomey said at Lancaster County government offices on North Queen Street. It would not affect the next immediate deadline on Feb. 15, which, if passed without a deal, would trigger another phase of the 35-day stalemate that ended Jan. 25 with a temporary spending plan. Smucker and Toomey said theyre optimistic for a compromise. Both support President Donald Trumps $5.7 billion request for a border wall, though Toomey emphasized he believes that number ought to be negotiable. The number was not handed down to Moses on Mount Sinai, the two-term Republican senator said. Shutdown bill The House and Senate legislation Toomey and Smucker promoted Friday are similar bills that would require federal agencies to remain funded if a spending plan isnt passed on time though there are some differences in approach. The plan Toomey co-sponsored would keep agencies funded at their current level for 120 days. After those first four months, funding would decrease by 1 percent and then another 1 percent after every other 90-day period that passes without an approved budget. Smuckers version would continue funding levels, for the first 60 days, that are 5 percent less than what they had been before. After that, funding would be reduced by another 2 percent in each 60-day period without an enacted budget. He said that would put more of an incentive on lawmakers to find a deal in the case of a lapsed budget. Full funding could allow Congress to just let funding continue automatically without any changes. Other variations with different funding levels are also floating around Capitol Hill from lawmakers like U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle, a Philadelphia Democrat, and U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican. None of us, having just gone through what we went through with this shutdown, believe that it is the right thing to hold federal workers, 800,000 federal workers in this case hostage when we can't agree on priorities and we cant agree on a budget, Smucker said. More fed up than ever before Similar bills have appeared in Congress to no avail for at least two decades, going back to when the late U.S. Sen. John McCain introduced legislation in 1996. That was after the stalemates between President Bill Clinton and House Speaker Newt Gingrich that led to the longest shutdown in history a record that was surpassed just last month. Bills aiming to ban or end government shutdowns were routinely introduced in almost every session afterward to no avail, according to congressional records. Smucker took up the cause during his first term in 2017, when he introduced the same language that had appeared in some of the prior bills. How might this session be different? It's not going to be us, Toomey said, while noting Smucker has been leading the charge in the House. It's the fact that the public I think is just more fed up than ever before. It's a heightened level of public dissatisfaction with this dysfunction. Both Republican and Democratic members of Congress said meetings this week featured productive discussions and they hope that a deal can be reached as soon as this weekend, according to The Associated Press. NUDE AND NAKED. The Alpha Phi Omega International Collegiate Service Fraternity (APO) in UP Diliman holds its annual Oblation Run event during the week of the founding anniversary of ETA, the AP chapter in UPs flagship campus and originator of the naked protest run, which has spawned different versions by other APO chapters nationwide. Manny Palmero Departing from tradition, around 30 masked yet naked members of the Alpha Phi Omega (APO) fraternity on Friday ran around the Diliman campus of the University of the Philippines for the 41st annual Oblation Run, their mouths taped over and carrying blank protest signs.They did so to call for an end to the attacks on the media and press freedom, even as they urged the public to invoke their right to free expression. Usually held around late November to early December, this years Oblation Run was moved to the same week as the founding anniversary of the APO chapter in the state universitys flagship campus. We stand behind every Filipino who wants to say their piecebe it for themselves, their own sector, or for all of society. We support everyone who seeks to chart their own path out of historical injustice and structural prejudice plaguing their communities. We open the Oblation Run to everyone who wants to express themselves, APO said in a statement.Ultimately, our exercise in free expressionrunning naked for a causewill be done in deference to all sectors of society who want to be heard, the fraternity added. Running naked in the Oblation Run is an homage to the UP Oblation statue, a spread-eagled male statue in the buff except for a leaf on its genital area. This years run carried the theme, Sa Aming Sariling Landas: Takbo Para sa Kalayaan ng Pamamahayag at Pansariling Determinasyon (On Our Own Path: An Oblation Run for Freedom of Expression and Self-determination). Police have made another arrest in the case of five males charged in an alleged December robbery and assault of three boys staying overnight on a Manheim Township property. Two males are still wanted. Brandon Cesar Bencosme, 19, of Lititz, was arrested Jan. 8 on charges of burglary, robbery, simple assault and criminal conspiracy to each, according to a release from Manheim Township police. Bencosme and four other males were charged in the Dec. 16 robbery at a home in the 400 block of Haverhill Road. The males allegedly forced their way into a shed where three boys were having a sleepover and physically assaulted them, according to police. Arrest warrants are active for two of the other males: Luis Berlingeri, 18, and a male, 17, both of Lancaster. Two others males have been arrested, according to police. A 17-year-old from Columbia surrendered to police and was released to his parents after a detention hearing Dec. 26. Darrin Michael Ortiz, 20, of Columbia, was arraigned Jan. 5 and released on $25,000 unsecured bail, according to court documents. Police did not give the ages of the victims but said that they all had "fresh injuries to their faces and heads" when officers responded around 3:30 a.m. Two Xbox video games were also taken, police said. Police ask anyone with information to call 717-569-6401 or submit a tip online. A Lancaster woman was charged with charging an ex-boyfriend in the groin outside an East Lampeter Township motel Monday night, police said. Police were called to the 1722 Motor Lodge on Old Philadelphia Pike around 11:30 p.m. and found a 25-year-old man who said he had been stabbed in the groin by his former girlfriend. Kimberly Gillett, 25, of the 100 block of North Broad Street, was taken into custody at her home, according to police. The man said she confronted him in the parking lot upset about him seeing another female, according to police. Gillett allegedly stabbed the man with a knife and fled, police said. The man was taken to a local hospital and treated for serious but not life-threatening injuries, according to police. Gillett was charged with aggravated assault. She was arraigned before District Judge Raymond Sheller, who set bail at $250,000. Gillett posted bail and was released, police said. Several Lancaster County municipal leaders werent surprised when Gov. Tom Wolf proposed a per-capita fee for places that rely on state police coverage. What they did not expect was a new, graduated scale that would cost nine county municipalities anywhere from 25 percent to 70 percent more than his prior proposals of $25 per person. Wow, that would be a tough pill to swallow, said Brecknock Township Supervisor Jerry Long when he learned about the scaled rate Wednesday. The fee would start at $8 per person in municipalities with fewer than 1,000 residents and increase to $125 per person in places with more than 15,000 people. State police are currently funded through the Motor License Fund. Wolfs per-capita proposals would not cover the cost of state police, but it would reduce the amount of money taken from the fund. In Lancaster County, 19 municipalities exclusively use state police. Click on a municipality to see what the per-capita fee would amount to in municipalities that use state police exclusively. Not requiring that much Municipal leaders said Wednesday that there isnt room in their budgets, so any kind of rate would mean more cost to taxpayers. Thats a road the governor has to face, Les Houck, supervisor of Salisbury Township, said. With a 2017 population estimate from the U.S. Census Bureau of 11,472 people, the township would have to pay $91 per person under Wolfs proposed scale, or a total of $1,043,952. Under the $25-per-person proposal, the cost would have been $286,800. I think hes all wrong in his thinking, Houck said. Houck pointed out that about 60 percent of township residents and most of the property owners are Plain sect. They use state police services the least but would end up paying the most, he said. Houck also said that every municipality, even ones with local police forces, rely on state police for their crime labs and for assistance in major investigations. Long cited local police forces use of state police resources. Were a rural township. Were not requiring that much. What would we get for the per-capita fee? he said. Pressure on legislators A spokesman for Wolf said the fees would apply only to municipalities with full-time state police coverage. Quarryville and Christiana boroughs use state police part-time. In that case, it would be cheaper for Brecknock to start a $200,000 contract with a part-time officer instead, Long said. Providence Township Manager Vicki Eldridge said shes looked at the cost of joining a regional department. But still, that would be a significant price, she said. We will put pressure on our legislators this time. Thats a huge amount of money to hit our budget, Eldridge said. State Sen. Scott Martin, who represents most of the southern part of Lancaster County, told LNP after Wolf's address that he remains opposed to the idea of municipalities paying for state police coverage. Lancaster Democratic Rep. Mike Sturla continues to support a fee and told LNP he hopes the Legislature takes on the issue this year. Lancaster County schools would get $4.79 million in additional basic education funding under the governors proposed budget. Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf on Tuesday requested from the Republican-controlled legislature $6.5 billion in basic education funding for Pennsylvanias 500 school districts. Thats $200 million, or 3.3 percent, more than last years appropriation. Nearly $705 million of that would be distributed through the basic education funding formula enacted in 2016. Currently, $539 million, or 8.8 percent, flows through the formula, which considers factors such as poverty, English language learners and charter school enrollment when funding schools. Schools here would get increases anywhere from 1.9 percent to 6.3 percent. Conestoga Valley is the countys biggest winner under Wolfs proposal, which calls for a 6.3 percent increase, from $4.85 million to $5.15 million, for the 4,265-student district. Manheim Township is also among the greatest beneficiaries, with a 4.3 percent increase, from $6.33 million to $6.59 million. According to an analysis by the state House Appropriations Committee last year, those two districts are the countys most underfunded. Basic education funding per student is $1,048 and $1,018 at Conestoga Valley and Manheim Township, respectively. Thats compared to, say, Solanco, which receives $2,869 per student one of the county's highest. Conestoga Valley Superintendent Dave Zuilkoski said in an email that the state is taking small steps to rectify inequities in the funding formula, hence the larger increase than my Lancaster counterparts. School District of Lancaster is also among the most underfunded schools in the county, the analysis says, but it would get the lowest percent basic education funding increase under Wolfs budget. Funding for SDL would go up 1.9 percent, from $64.93 million to $66.15 million. "I am encouraged that the governor proposes greater investment in public education, but I again call on lawmakers to fund our schools fully and in an equitable way, Lancaster Superintendent Damaris Rau said. "Districts like ours, with large numbers of students living in poverty, need significant resources to close opportunity gaps for our students." Ready to Learn, teacher salaries Wolfs proposed funding, provided by the Pennsylvania Department of Education, includes about $242 million from Ready to Learn block grants, which in previous years was a separate funding stream for districts. For an accurate comparison to last year, LNP included block grant funding for both 2019-20 and 2018-19. For one county district, the allocation also includes money to bump up its teacher salaries. In his budget address, Wolf proposed a fully funded mandate that would raise the statewide minimum starting salary for public school teachers from $18,500 to $45,000. Columbia Borough currently employs teachers making less than $45,000. The state data, therefore, includes about $19,000 to raise those salaries. Columbia, however, is hiking its minimum salary for teachers up to $47,059 from $44,700 this year so it would not receive that additional funding. Related coverage Piccola Italian Bistro has opened in Kinzers at the former Kinzers Station Tavern. Nicholl Thompson, whose mother and stepfather owned the former restaurant and bar at 3572 Lincoln Highway, has totally revamped it and changed the menu. Before opening Piccola Italian Bistro last month, Thompson oversaw more than $100,000 in renovations. The work included taking out pool tables, shortening the bar and completely redoing the kitchen. Smoking is also now banned. Thompson says the new restaurant is very different from the Station Tavern, describing Piccola Italian Bistro as having a small batch, scratch kitchen that features fresh-made pasta and sauce as well as sandwiches, pizza, soups and appetizers. A charcuterie board and calamari are among the featured appetizers. Entrees include New York strip steak and a variety of Italian pasta dishes. A pie made with a cauliflower crust is among the pizza options while the Italian wedding soup is made with a recipe from Thompsons grandmother. Piccola Italian Bistro also operates as a tasting room for Hillside Spirits, a small distillery in Paradise that makes vodka and rum, among other things. In addition to products from Hillside Spirits, the new restaurant offers a selection of Pennsylvania-made beer and wine. Piccola Italian Bistro has seating for around 90, including space for about 20 at the bar and at a variety of high-topped tables and booths. Thompsons mother and stepfather, Judie and Michael Narducci, who had opened the Kinzers Station Tavern in 1992, closed it at the end of 2016. Piccola Italian Bistro now open in Kinzers in the former location of Kinzers Station House. pic.twitter.com/WDAlhs5Ntx Chad Umble (@ChadUmbleLNP) February 7, 2019 You can power our reporters and help keep us independent with a donation today during our June Member drive. Start your day with LAist Sign up for the Morning Brief, delivered weekdays. Subscribe The Chinatown parade is an L.A. institution, one of the oldest and most popular events of its kind in the country. Every Lunar New Year, tens of thousands of people squeeze into the neighborhood to watch dragon dancers and to see Miss Chinatowns (past and present) and celebrity grand marshals. Bruce Lee and Hugh Hefner (Year of the Rabbit, natch) are among the household names to do those honors. But the first time Chinese paraded before other Angelenos 125 years ago, it was a very different picture. The parade was not for Lunar New Year, nor was it organized by Chinese people. It was called La Fiesta de Los Angeles and its Anglo planners were looking for a way in 1894 to advertise the city as a land of progress and bounty. Such festivities could also be a chance to repair damage to L.A's image, which had been tainted by racist violence towards Chinese immigrants. Only a couple decades earlier, a mob had killed an estimated 18 Chinese males by hanging or shooting -- an atrocity covered by newspapers around the world to the chagrin of city boosters. The site of the 1871 massacre: Calle de los negros in Chinatown, at the junction of Los Angeles, Arcadia and Aliso streets. (Courtesy of The California Historical Society and University of Southern California Digital Library) In a move both forward-thinking and exploitative, the parade organizers decided to showcase the city's multiculturalism as a sign of its uniqueness -- hence the Spanish name -- and invited Chinese immigrants to take part. MORE: How The Destruction Of LA's Original Chinatown Led To The One We Have Today After decades of discrimination, the Chinese community was eager to improve its public standing, said Eugene Moy of the Chinese Historical Society of Southern California. "By marching out there with dragons and lions and historic costumes, you're sharing your history, your heritage," Moy said. "You weren't just a second-class citizen but rather an active and productive member of society." But some parade planners didn't want them there. SETBACK AFTER SETBACK At the time La Fiesta was being planned, anti-Chinese sentiment in Los Angeles was running high. That anger was directed towards the mostly-male group of laborers who had come to the region to work on the San Fernando Tunnel and Southern Pacific Railroad. Native-born workers saw them as job threats, while popular culture painted them as backwards, depraved or inscrutable. In 1882, Congress clamped down on immigration passing the Chinese Exclusion Act. The act prevented more Chinese workers from coming to the U.S. and it also barred the Chinese from becoming citizens. Local and state authorities found ways to marginalize the Chinese further with rules that prevented them from owning property. Despite the constant setbacks, Chinese immigrants set down roots in Los Angeles, moving out of railroad work and into farming and small businesses such as laundries, shops and restaurants. And what had started as a largely bachelor society of Chinese men gave way to more families. Four schoolchildren in Los Angeles, circa 1890 (Courtesy of The California Historical Society and University of Southern California Digital Library) By 1890, the immigrants had built a community that was around 2,000 people, and growing fast. PACKAGING L.A.'s DIVERSITY Around this time, L.A.'s boosters were looking for a way to herald the city as a major metropolis -- something Chicago pulled off with the World's Fair in 1893, and neighboring Pasadena was attempting with the Tournament of Roses, which got its start in 1890. Max Meyberg, an electrical fixtures merchant, led the charge to hold La Fiesta de Los Angeles. Historian William Deverell said the multi-day event was intended to "announce L.A.'s ambition for the 20th century." Deverell said the decision to invite the Chinese "was a way for the organizers to clap themselves on the back and say, 'We sure have some spectacle.'" "This is not a multicultural perspective that we would recognize nor celebrate today," said Deverell, who directs the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West. The head of the Chinese dragon costume at the La Fiesta de Los Angeles parade, circa 1900. (Courtesy of The California Historical Society and University of Southern California Digital Library) But not all of the organizers were on board. In his book Whitewashed Adobe: The Rise of Los Angeles and the Remaking of Its Mexican Past, Deverell recounts how some Fiesta planners, felt that "the mere idea of having the Chinese in the parade indicated failure, that their presence would lend nothing to the celebration and might result in a serious disturbance." A "lengthy and heated debate" among organizers resulted in the decision to invite the Chinese only if "all representatives of other nations in the city" such as Mexicans and Native Americans were also included. The Chinese merchants working with the organizers bristled at their treatment, Deverell wrote, but in the end, they decided to put on a show. A "BARBARIC" HIT On April 10, 1894, marching bands and horse-drawn buggies paraded up and down Hill, Broadway, Spring and Main streets in downtown Los Angeles. But that was nothing new to spectators. Then they saw the Chinese contingent of the parade. And it was riveting. Spectators enjoy the Chinese display at the La Fiesta de Los Angeles parade in 1901. (Courtesy of The California Historical Society and University of Southern California Digital Library) The Los Angeles Herald raved about the "gorgeous banners," "strange and striking costumes" and "weird and ear-splitting music from their gongs and drums and wind instruments." The Chinese paraders had captured the American Orientalist imagination, and at the same time gained wider acceptance. One Herald writer noted that Chinese immigrants have "always been ostracized from public recognition in our gala festivities until they made their gorgeous and barbaric appearance" in the parade. Another writer in the L.A. Times delivered a backhanded compliment, calling the Chinese part of the parade a surprise because "no one expected the Celestials to take such a great interest in the affair as they did." When it came time to plan the second La Fiesta in 1895, the Chinese considered bowing out given the initial controversy surrounding their participation. But the planners, recognizing how popular the Chinese display had been, visited Chinatown leaders and urged them to stick with it. An artist's rendering of the Chinese section of the La Fiesta parade published in the April 23, 1896 edition of the Los Angeles Herald (Los Angeles Herald ) The dragon, a symbol of good luck, came to be a hallmark of the Chinese procession. The first dragon used in the parade had to be borrowed from the Chinese community in Marysville, north of Sacramento. The next year, L.A. community members bought a new dragon from China. An L.A. Times reporter praised the Chinese for "going to so much trouble and expense to give this gorgeous attraction to the fiesta parades." THE PARADE'S EVOLUTION The Chinese community continued to participate in the parade, which was rebranded La Fiesta de Los Flores in 1901. After a few hiatuses, La Fiesta was brought to a close in the 1940s. (It would be revived in the 1970s and morph into the present-day Fiesta Broadway, the city's Cinquo de Mayo celebration. By the end of La Fiesta's run, the Chinese community didn't need help drawing crowds. Parades to celebrate events like Lunar New Year or the mid-Autumn Festival in Chinatown had become stand-alone spectacles and covered in the press. After the Chinese Chamber of Commerce formed in the mid-1950s, it took over parade planning. The result was the version spectators know today with celebrity grand marshals and Miss Chinatown and her court. The 2018 Miss Chinatown queen and her court at the Golden Dragon Parade. (Lisa Xie) Now most of L.A.'s Chinese diaspora lives outside of Chinatown. Esther Ho, a Cal Poly Pomona student who has volunteered at the parade with her family for about a decade, said the parade now plays the role of bringing Chinese-Americans together in one place. "I personally know a lot of people who come to the parade every single year to really experience and see other Chinese and Chinese-Americans," Ho said. "You can see exactly how big the Chinese community is because you see them in the parade, on the streets watching the parade, at the grandstand and alongside all the Chinese mom-and-pop shops and restaurants." Dragon dancers may be the top draw, but Moy said the parade is no longer just promoting Chinese culture. He notes that Chinatown has a large Latino population and borders the predominantly Latino neighborhoods of Cypress Park and Lincoln Heights. L.A.'s diversity is reflected in the parade which last year also featured Mexican folk dancers and school bands from all over the city. In that sense, the parade has achieved the multiculturalism that La Fiesta planners worked to sell to the world over a century ago. "You have people who represent the whole cross-section of society," Moy said. "It's a community parade." The 120th Golden Dragon Parade begins Saturday at 1 p.m. Details here. You can power our reporters and help keep us independent with a donation today during our June Member drive. Start your day with LAist Sign up for the Morning Brief, delivered weekdays. Subscribe How do you convey the power of someone who has indestructible skin? Bullets. Luke Cage was the first widely popular African-American superhero from Marvel, and his superpower is skin that can't be broken. It's an amazing ability -- but it also plays into the mythology that black people have tougher skin and can be worked harder, part of the narrative that was used to justify the physical abuses of slavery in the U.S. In 2015, Luke Cage made the move from blaxploitation-inspired Marvel Comics character to Netflix superstar. "Black Harlem Matters," digital mixed media, from the exhibition Uncaged: Hero for Higher at UC Riverside. (Courtesy Black Kirby) Now, he's being brought to life in the exhibition Uncaged: Hero for Higher at UC Riverside, a title that plays on the character's history as a "Hero for Hire," charging for his services. The art show features the work of Black Kirby, a duo comprised of artists/professors John Jennings and Stacey Robinson. It includes digital mixed media images of Cage, from his classic form to his Netflix incarnation. Pieces explore how Cage's skin-based power is depicted and how black skin has been seen through history. Because the Netflix series needs to show off Cage's powers, they're regularly showing a black man getting shot at, Jennings pointed out. "He's essentially like Shaft with superpowers, right?" Jennings said. "But when you have a black showrunner who understands all of this stuff, especially in the Black Lives Matter moment, what does it mean -- how empowering, or disempowering -- is it to see a black superhero who can't be hurt by bullets?" Inside art installation Uncaged: Hero for Higher at UC Riverside. (Courtesy UCR Arts) Jennings, a UC Riverside professor, wants Black Kirby's work here to form an "illabus" -- an illustrated syllabus that uses the Uncaged exhibition as a jumping off point for more learning. Jennings sees the images on the wall as visual texts, and the exhibition has a shelf of books along with 10 prompts that form the backbone of a 10-week class around the material. He encourages teachers to visit, take pictures of the books and use them as a reading list. Each week in the illabus is named after a song by rapper Mos Def. It's a concept pulled from the show, which uses rap songs as episode titles. Listen to the playlist here: Luke Cage's character includes many elements that reflect African-American history. He's an ex-con who acquires his powers after he is experimented on, a reflection of how African-Americans were subjected to medical experiments. He's a preacher's kid living in New York, representing the Great Migration of African-Americans who moved north. For a long time, he also represented black people in the Marvel Universe. While Black Panther was a king in Africa, other African-American heroes, like Cage and the Falcon, were ex-cons, Jennings noted. "You're looking at, 'Well, how do we create a black character that doesn't make mainly white readers, honestly, uncomfortable,'" Jennings said. Inside art installation Uncaged: Hero for Higher at UC Riverside. (Courtesy UCR Arts) During the 1970s, black comic book characters evolved, as America moved from the civil rights movement into the black power movement. "All along this time, blaxploitation is jumping off too," Jennings said. "All these characters are coming out because, lo and behold, black people like watching movies. Who'd-a thunk it?" "CruSCI-FIction of Black Joy," digital mixed media, by artists Black Kirby. (Courtesy Black Kirby) Jennings knows his stuff. He has been teaching graphic design and illustration for approximately 20 years, along with creating his own comic books and art. Black Kirby got its start thanks to the Avengers movie. "We were like, 'Man, that made a billion dollars worldwide -- a billion dollars,'" Jennings said. At the same time, they saw that Jack Kirby, who co-created many of the biggest Marvel characters, didn't get his due. Disney initially didn't give Kirby's family royalties. These characters were created as work-for-hire, which means Kirby didn't have any rights to them or a financial stake in their immense success. "We were like, 'Man, that is messed up. They're treating that cat like he's black,'" Jennings said. They were inspired to create art as if it came from an alternate universe where Kirby was black. They started to remix Kirby's aesthetic into what they felt would represent him as an artist in that universe. "Instead of using Norse mythology, or Jewish folklore, Greek mythology to create these heroes, he uses West African mythology, black power politics," Jennings said. "The Mighty Thor became Mighty Shango." Their work has an Afrofuturism feel, something Jennings has been studying as a scholar for a decade. He was excited to see Afrofuturism hit the mainstream with Black Panther. "When they announced the Black Panther film, I was like, 'Oh, here we go! If they do a good job at it, they're not going to be ready for it,'" Jennings said. He compared this coming out for Afrofuturism and black sci-fi/fantasy more broadly to the way hip-hop bubbled up in the culture, with academics spending decades trying to catch up to the phenomenon in their studies. "Funkage" by Black Kirby, depicting Luke Cage in his classic superhero persona Power Man in the style of Funko Pop figures. (Courtesy Black Kirby) While he has an appreciation for Luke Cage, particularly as a signifier of larger issues, Jennings' own favorite superhero is Daredevil. "I came up black and poor in Mississippi. [Daredevil] Matt Murdock is white and poor in Hell's Kitchen," Jennings said. Jennings connected with Daredevil as a hero because he just wouldn't quit. "That character to me is what it means to have everything against you, and still come out on top -- or at least succeed, in spite of the fact that you come from this oppressed space," Jennings said. "Blackness, whiteness ... they're not for real. So how do you work through those issues -- and it's about storytelling." Jennings himself has continued working to teach and raise up others in the world of academia. "Coming from not only a financially oppressed base, but also a culturally oppressed base, I think I've always wanted to use storytelling to elevate myself and others," Jennings said. "We got here by storytelling, and we can get out of it by storytelling." That's the hidden power of comics, Jennings said. "People still kind of frown on comics as a storytelling mechanism -- and that's their secret," Jennings said. "Because you can get across so many things with a symbol, with a cartoon, that you could never say in one word." The exhibition is open now and runs at UC Riverside's Culver Center of the Arts through March 31. Im inclined to chalk up Northams decision to obliviousness rather than racism, particularly in light of his public record on race in the intervening 35 years, which even most of his African-American critics concede has been exemplary. It is an obliviousness rooted in white privilege conferred by systemic racism, to be sure. And it often manifests itself as insensitivity hence the ongoing need for cultural-awareness initiatives. Those who do not live as African-Americans, American Indians, Asian-Americans, Hispanics, LGBTQ people or other minorities can be poor judges of whats amusing to them or what they will take as compliments. And ask any woman you know about manifestations of male privilege. Entertainers in blackface ridiculed and often infantilized African-Americans and perpetuated their subjugation. This history is so toxic that intent can never justify its use, as actor Ted Danson learned when he was widely vilified for attempting to honor his then-girlfriend, African-American star Whoopi Goldberg, by wearing blackface for a skit in 1993. But Danson has been allowed to return to respectability, as has Billy Crystal, who came under fire for darkening his face to imitate Sammy Davis Jr. for a bit at the 2012 Academy Awards show. The recent collapse of a mine tailings dam in southeastern Brazil has already resulted in 134 fatalities, leaving an estimated 300 people still missing, according to rescue workers. The spill flooded nearby homes, submerging cars and buses under a river of reddish-brown sludge. This environmental disaster should raise red flags for Michigan regulators and the communities downstream from Aquila Resources proposed open-pit metallic sulfide mine and tailings dam next to the Menominee River on the Wisconsin-Michigan border. On Jan. 25, a 40-year-old, 280-foot high tailings dam failed in Brumadinho, Brazil, releasing almost 12 million cubic meters of mine waste. The dam is owned by the mining giant Vale, the same company responsible for a tailings dam failure three years earlier in Mariana that buried three communities, killed 19 people, leaving hundreds homeless and contaminating hundreds of miles of river valleys with toxic sludge. It was one of the worst environmental disasters in Brazils history. Tailings dams are some of the largest human-made structures on earth. A Mauston man faces criminal charges after police say he burglarized a home and pointed a gun at a woman. Matthew Testa, 27, is charged with burglary of a dwelling, possession of a firearm by a felon, theft, pointing firearm at another and two counts of felony bail jumping. He faces up to 15 years imprisonment for the first charge. According to the criminal complaint: A Mauston Police officer working Dec. 6, 2014 was dispatched to a Tremont Street house in Mauston after receiving a report of a burglary taking place. Two males were reported on the premise wearing dark clothing who left in an SUV and were travelling on Elm Street. Upon arriving at the residence, the officer met with the reporting party, an adult female. The female stated she witnessed the individuals taking firearms from a bedroom in the home. She said she argued and fought with the males until the ran from the house. The officer went upstairs and observed a wooden gun cabinet that had the glass broken out of it, as well as two rifles laying on the bed with multiple other items. The female stated she asked the individuals what they were doing in her house and one of them, identified as having a tattoo near his eye, pointed a gun at her in reply. Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono will visit the Philippines starting today, Saturday, the Department of Foreign Affairs announced Friday. Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. had invited Kono for an official visit to the country from Feb. 9 to 11. Foreign Affairs spokesman Elmer Cato said Kono will meet with Locsin in Davao on Sunday for a bilateral discussion on the areas of mutual interest including political, economic and people-to-people engagement. Cato said the two officials will also tackle Japans support for infrastructure development in Mindanao in the wake of the ratification of the Bangsamoro Organic Law. While in Davao, Kono will call on President Rodrigo Duterte and meet with Cabinet officials. He will also grace the inauguration of the Japanese Consulate General in Davao. Japan played an active role in the construction of the recently-inaugurated Bohol-Panglao Airport and the Metro Manila Subway System project.In Mindanao, Tokyo plans to modify its support for the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao for the establishment of the new Bangsamoro Transition Authority, a governing body that will be in place during the transition period toward the Bangsamoro governments creation in 2022. In a statement, Cato said Konos trip to Davao was a testament to the strengthened strategic partnership between the Philippines and Japan, and an affirmation of our long-standing bilateral friendship. Kono had his international debut as Japans foreign minister at the 50th Asean Foreign Ministers Meeting in Manila in August 2017. During his first trip to the Philippines as a ranking ministry official, Kono called on Duterte at the Philippine International Convention Center. Justin Johnson, CEO/founder of Sustainable Kitchens, will be the guest speaker at the Inventors and Entrepreneurs Club meeting, Wednesday, Feb. 13. The meeting will be held at the Food Enterprise Center, 1201 N. Main St., Viroqua. Networking starts at 5:30 p.m., the program begins at 6 p.m. Johnson will talk about how he launched his scratch-food focused consulting firm in his home office in 48 hours, with no capital and no plan. A 20-year restaurant veteran, Johnson had an idea he thought would change the way institutional operators approached food service. Today, just four years later, Sustainable Kitchens is a million dollar company and has executed projects all over Wisconsin with hospitals, schools, restaurants, retirement homes and the Milwaukee Brewers. Johnson will share his experience building a new category, scaling a business from nothing, recovering from mistakes and bad decisions, as well as, his biggest victories and most crushing failures along the rocky road to revolutionize institutional food service. The I&E Club is organized jointly by Vernon Economic Development Association and Viroqua Chamber Main Street. For more information, contact Sue Noble at snoble@veda-wi.org or 638-8332, or Nora Roughen-Schmidt at nrschmidt@viroqua-wisconsin.com or 637-2575. The meetings are free and no reservations are required. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 As a result, the theme of the forum was Dairy Consolidation: New Perspectives for Americas Dairyland. Several of the speakers discussed the fact that farms are consolidating, and partnerships are forming to weather and capitalize on the new normal for agriculture. Dr. Marin Bozic from the University of Minnesota challenged us to consider why we are lamenting consolidation because it is an idea as old as civilization itself. Bozic pointed toward production efficiency and higher yields. He said that even though the number of farms are declining, production is still strong. If we look at the history of ancient Egypt, we see a similar response to technological improvements and efficiency. When traditional farmers could produce more and better, some of them could turn their attention to other societal contributions. The Wisconsin Historical Society is traveling around the state to hear from local communities about what they would like to see in a new, modern state history museum on Wisconsins Capitol Square in Madison, and on Monday, Feb. 11 Historical Society staff will conduct a listening session in Mauston at the Hatch Public Library, 111 W. State St. The meeting runs from 6-7:30 p.m. with doors opening at 5:30 p.m. and will be conducted in partnership with the Juneau County Historical Society and the Hatch Public Library. The evening will start with an introduction to the new museum project. Guests will then hear from Alicia Goehring, director of special projects and then participate in two workshops. For pre-event tickets visit, http://bit.ly/2FhPQXM. The new museum will be about more than bricks and mortar, said Christian Overland, director of the Wisconsin Historical Society. The new museum will reach all 72 counties and represent all Wisconsinites. Communities will be able to share their stories in this new museum network and because of that we want to hear from people all across the state. Guests will have the opportunity to share feedback on current design concepts, share their thoughts on What makes Wisconsin, Wisconsin and how they would like a state history museum to serve their community. - Senator Risa Hontiveros has called out Persida Acosta of Public Attorneys Office for her lies - The senator also urged Acosta to resign from her post - Acosta is being blamed for the increasing cases of measles in the country PAY ATTENTION: Click "See First" under the "Following" tab to see KAMI news on your News Feed Senator Risa Hontiveros breaks her silence over the issue of measles happening across the Philippines. KAMI learned that Persida Acosta of Public Attorneys Office (PAO), is being blamed for increasing cases of measles. Through a social media post, Hontiveros shared her opinion regarding the connection of Acosta with the measles outbreak. According to the senator, Acostas lies and hysterics over the Dengvaxia controversy contributed to the distrust of Filipinos in the governments vaccination programs. Her lies and hysterics contributed directly to the erosion of public trust in our vaccination programs. And because of this, 55 children have lost their lives to measles, and an outbreak now threatens four regions of our country, Hontiveros stated. Hontiveros also urges Acosta to resign from her post. The senator said that Acosta is no longer eligible serve as chief of PAO. I call on Acosta: resign your post. An important agency like the Public Attorneys Office (PAO) cannot be left in the hands of a person with such a track record of lies, negligence and hyper-partisanship, said the senator. According to the DOH, there have been 55 deaths recorded due to the measles outbreak. At least 1,500 Filipinos have been infected by measles and most of them are children and teenagers. PAY ATTENTION: Using free basics app to access internet for free? Now you can read KAMI news there too. Use the search option to find us. Read KAMI news while saving your data! Ang aking dalangin, sana naman, wala nang bata o kahit sino pa ang magkasakit, masaktan o mabawian ng buhay dahil sa kasinungalingan ng iilan, Hontiveros said. In a previous report by KAMI, the Department of Health (DOH) has declared a measles outbreak in National Capital Region, other parts of Luzon, and Visayas, due to the increasing number of patients being admitted. The health department said that the outbreak can be attributed to the lower coverage of vaccine due to the Dengvaxia scare. POPULAR: Read more news about Senator Risa Hontiveros! Enjoyed reading our story? Download KAMI's news app on Google Play now and stay up-to-date with major Filipino news! "I want to buy alcohol for my 10-year-old nephew because it's his birthday and he wants to chill," that's what we told alcohol sellers and the results of this experiment are so wrong and so disappointing. on KAMI HumanMeter YouTube channel! Source: Kami.com.ph We continue to make good progress on all fronts related to the Wisconn Valley Science and Technology Park, while simultaneously broadening our investment across Wisconsin far beyond our original plans to ensure the company, our workforce, the local community, and the state of Wisconsin will be positioned for long-term success, according to the statement. Other reports on Foxconn This report comes on the heels of a fast paced week which started when Reuters reported last Wednesday that Louis Woo, special assistant to Foxconn CEO Terry Gou, said the company cannot compete making TVs in the United States. Foxconn did confirm that it was adjusting its plans for the development in Wisconsin and cites global market environment as one of the main focuses for the change. But Foxconn stated it is still committed to its goals of 13,000 jobs and $10 billion of investment in Wisconsin. Then, last Thursday, the Nikkei Asian Review reported that Foxconn was planning to scale back on its operations in Wisconsin and blames Gov. Tony Evers for the reduction. RACINE A Horlick High School student is facing a felony sexual assault charge after he allegedly groped one of his female classmates late last year. Kavon M. Hogue, 18, of the 4000 block of Marquette Drive, is charged with first-degree sexual assault of a child, with use or threat of force of violence. If convicted, the sentence carries a maximum sentence of up to 60 years in prison and a minimum five-year prison sentence. According to the criminal complaint: On Dec. 10, a 15-year-old female student told a Racine Police officer that she had been assaulted by Hogue at Horlick, 2119 Rapids Drive. The girl said that she and Hogue dropped off a friend at her fourth-block class and were running late and were heading to get a hall pass when they entered a back stairwell landing. In the stairwell, the student said Hogue allegedly pushed her up against the wall, kissed her, grabbed her buttocks and touched her genital area over her clothes. He then reportedly said he loved her. A school video shows the two dropping off their mutual friend, but did not capture the alleged assault. Hogue remained in custody as of Thursday night at the County Jail. Court records indicate he has been assigned a competency hearing for March 1. Agrarian Reform Secretary John Castriciones on Friday vowed to investigate the delay in the awarding of certificates of land ownership award to farmer-beneficiaries in some parts of Luzon. He ordered the creation of a task force to look into the reported irregularities in a regional office of the Department of Agrarian Reform. Pyra Lucas, Volunteer Against Crime and Corruption regional head, accompanied the farmers from Tarlac and Pampanga, to bring up the issue of anomalies in the regional office over the delayed awarding of the farmers land titles for a number of years. The landholdings in conflict were in Tarlacs barangay Malonzo in Bamban and Barangay Concepcion, and Pampangas Barangay Gutad in Florida and Clark in Cabcom. Castriciones ordered the task group to come up with immediate resolutions into the matter. While we are investigating this case, we will re-survey the problematic lands, process your land titles and attend to your other concerns so that there will be no wasted time, he promised. Castriciones on Thursday met with the concerned farmers in a dialogue at the departments central office in Quezon City. Undersecretary for field operations Karlo Bello, Undersecretary for legal affairs Luis Pangulayan, regional director Homer Tobias and other agrarian reform officials took part in the dialogue. Castriciones gave the farmers and VACC the assurance that the Duterte administration would exhaust its resources to resolve all land problems, including those from the past administrations. (RIO) Meanwhile, Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles said that President Rodrigo Duterte still has full trust in Castriciones even after the chief executive expressed his frustration over the delayed processing of land conversion documents at the agency. In several past speeches, the president had said that he may fire at least two DAR executives over the delay which he said was even attended by corruption. I believe DAR Secretary Castriciones still enjoys the trust and confidence of the President. In fact the President said something to that effect, Nograles said.On Thursday, Duterte walked out of the Cabinet meeting on Wednesday when he learned that it takes 25 years for an application process to be fully accomplished at the National Economic Development Authority and two-processing of conversion cases at the DAR. The President then repeatedly threatened to fire and file charges against the officials allegedly involved in the delay. Though no fault of anybody, I discovered very late that there are some applications which have been pending in NEDA [National Economic and Development Authority] for 25 years, Duterte said in a speech in Malacanang on Thursday. So yon namang sa [land] conversion, it took them about two years? And two years that includes verily corruption, he added. Nograles said Castriciones had told the Cabinet that there was an urgent need to streamline the current process for land conversion to address pending applications and to expedite the approval and/or disapproval of new applications. Nograles added that several agencies will draft a joint memorandum circular aimed at streamlining the process of approval/disapproval of land conversion applications, from 24 to 36 months, to 30 days. These agencies include the DAR, Department of the Interior and Local Government, Department of Energy, Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council, National Commission on Indigenous Peoples, National Housing Authority, Land Registration Authority, Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board and the Social Housing Finance Corporation. This memorandum circular will be finalized and presented to the President for his approval within 30 days or on or before the next Cabinet meeting, Nograles said. At least 140 conversion cases remain pending with the agrarian reform department as of 2018, according to Nograles. At present, classification and conversion of land from agriculture to other uses are handled by the DA and DAR, respectively, using criteria and regulations specific to these departments. Then theres the DENR which issues environmental clearances, Nograles said on January 30. The challenge is to get everyone on the same page so that we can identify the choke points in the process and handle these appropriately, he added. The bill also would have eliminated requirements for voluntary and informed consent before an abortion and it eliminated a prohibition on coverage of abortions by qualified health plans offered in the state. Radical legislation Vos called the bill radical legislation, and said if this legislation was introduced again, I have every confidence that it would not pass. We know that if the radical left in the Assembly Democratic Caucus decides to introduce this proposal it will create the same kind of outcry, the same kind of concern that we see all across the country, Vos said. We want to make sure that legislation, similar to the one that was introduced last time, is guaranteed to not see the light of day. It wouldnt be worth our time and we certainly hope our colleagues will respect the fact that that bill is not going to move. Instead of legislation on abortion, Vos said he would like to focus on adoption legislation with Evers and Democrats. The most dangerous place for black people to live is in white people's imagination. So says comedian D.L. Hughley. And surely Tamir Rice and Trayvon Martin would concur if they were alive to do so. But if white people's imagination is the most dangerous place for black people, it is also the most denigrating. Fresh but superfluous evidence of that arrived last Friday in the form of a photo on the med school yearbook page of Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam. The image, taken in 1984, the year Northam turned 25, depicts two young men, one wearing a KKK hood, the other painted in blackface. Northam, a Democrat who attends a black church, has trotted out shifting explanations. First, he apologized, though he failed to say which man in the picture was him. Then, he said neither man in the picture was him. Then he admitted that he did once darken his skin -- to imitate Michael Jackson in a dance contest. By now, it's immaterial whether either man in the picture is Northam. The very fact that he thought it could have been, never mind that he admits to having worn blackface at least once, speaks to how ubiquitous this sort of thing -- white people pretending themselves black -- must have been in his circle. Legislation sponsored by Sens. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, and Doug Jones, D-Ala., would require the Defense Department, not Commerce, to argue any national security rationale for Section 232 tariffs, and would empower Congress to disapprove Section 232 actions concerning tariffs on any products. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., proposes even better legislation that would require Congress to approve a presidential act under Section 232. Because 41 senators could filibuster a resolution of approval, that number could block Section 232 tariffs. And Toomey's bill is retroactive to require congressional approval of Trump's metals tariffs. Grassley, who thinks Congress has delegated too much power over trade, probably will be decisive regarding measures to narrow the scope of presidential discretion, thereby reclaiming some of Congress' powers. Having served in Congress during eight presidencies, Grassley knows that they come and go, while Congress endures, although it has not always been conscientious regarding its responsibilities. The arguments for term limits on members of Congress are convincing, but Grassley, who in seven terms has developed a stronger attachment to the prerogatives of his institution than to any president, illustrates a benefit of long careers. When Daniel Patrick Moynihan -- a New York chauvinist, and properly so -- came to the Senate in 1977, he sought, and got, a seat on the Finance Committee. He considered it scandalous that no senator from the capital of American finance had been on the panel in 50 years. But Moynihan would be content that the committee is now chaired by the man on the tractor. George Will writes for the Washington Post. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. TransCanada Corp. believes its Keystone pipeline is likely the source of an oil leak near St. Louis that Missouri officials have estimated at 1,800 gallons, a spokesman for the company said Friday. Sections of both the Keystone pipeline and Enbridge's Platte pipeline were closed as crews sought to find the source of the leak, which was discovered Wednesday in St. Charles County. "Following overnight activity and excavation, preliminary investigation has led TransCanada to believe that the oil discovered in St. Charles County likely originates from the Keystone Pipeline system and we will continue to conduct our activities accordingly," TransCanada spokesman Terry Cunha said. Enbridge spokesman Devin Hotzel said the company is "highly confident" that the Platte pipeline is not the source. Missouri Department of Natural Resources spokesman Brian Quinn said in an email that if Keystone is confirmed to be the source, "it will remain closed until the cause is determined and necessary repairs or corrections can be made and verified." Cunha said there's no estimated time for the Keystone pipeline from Steele City, Nebraska, to Patoka, Illinois, to return to service. OMAHA Omaha police say a man wanted in the shooting death of another man over the weekend has turned himself in to authorities. Police say 25-year-old Wallace Hubbard turned himself in Thursday morning to Omaha Police Central Headquarters. Hubbard was booked on suspicion of first-degree murder and a weapons count in the Sunday night shooting death of 28-year-old Robert Williams Jr. Police were called to Creighton University Medical Center-University Campus a little before 10 p.m. Sunday after Williams arrived at the hospital. Police say he died after he was transferred to another hospital in Omaha. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 1 Angry 0 Newell said what happened in Harris' case was roughly akin to someone being acquitted at trial, which the state cannot appeal. O'Brien said if the Nebraska Supreme Court were to disagree with the decision, Harris still would face the possibility of a life sentence and present a danger to the community if he were released and intermingling with potential witnesses. In the end, Nelson said it was a little troubling to her that OBrien asked her to enter a stay based on an appeal that he hadnt yet filed. A little bit 'cart before the horse,'" she told OBrien. But she said she took O'Brien at his word that he would file it Friday. And I mean today, Nelson said. OBrien said he was just waiting for a certification to come from Douglas County and hes ready to file. Nelson said if he needed something to be certified in Douglas County, its just 60 miles up the road. It seems to me that you can accomplish that without sitting around waiting for something to happen, she said. A Lincoln woman who fatally shot her abusive husband in self-defense cannot collect under Nebraska's Wrongful Conviction and Imprisonment Act, the state's highest court ruled in an opinion Friday. Charlene Marie, then Charlene Oldenburg, was seeking $500,000. Attorney Herb Friedman said she was wrongfully convicted and served nearly two years in prison for shooting her husband, Kurt Oldenburg, with a .22-caliber handgun when he drunkenly charged at her at the couple's rural Gordon farmhouse on July 30, 1998. The bullet struck him in the neck, leaving him partially paralyzed. A Sheridan County District Court jury later found Charlene Marie, now 67, not guilty of first-degree assault, but guilty of making terroristic threats and use of a weapon. She appealed after she got four to 20 years in prison for it, and in 2001, the Nebraska Court of Appeals reduced her sentence to two years. Marie was released three months later and subsequently was given a full pardon. LA VISTA An Omaha-area bakery that has been helping fund a luxury religious retreat founded by billionaire Joe Ricketts said it is considering ending the relationship in light of emails that surfaced showing Ricketts making Islamophobic comments and spreading conspiracies about former President Barack Obama. Rotella's Italian Bakery in La Vista told the Omaha World-Herald that it's reevaluating whether to continue selling a roughly $3 loaf that benefits The Cloisters on the Platte near Gretna. Jim Rotella, the bakery's vice president of sales, said the move comes in light of emails published this week by Splinter News that feature Ricketts, who founded TD Ameritrade and is the father of Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts. Joe Ricketts opened the luxurious retreat center, which resembles a country club and lake resort, in July. The weekend retreats held at the sprawling campus are geared toward Catholics but are open to anyone of any faith. They're also free of charge, and Ricketts had hoped the bakery's bread sales would supplement donations to pay the center's bills. The bakery has been selling the loaves since June, with a portion of the revenue going to the retreat. The original batches didn't come out quite right, though. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} "They were far too runny and didn't stick together," Takahashi said. "But even when I messed up, I still had chocolate." Eventually, he struck the right balance between fresh cream and chocolate and was able to start experimenting with different flavors. Nama Choco currently stocks five different flavors at three of The Mill's locations around town: dark chocolate, sea salt, sea salt caramel, raspberry and mint. "I'm not getting rich or anything, and it's hard to make a lot of money off chocolate outside of the holidays and winter months," said Takahashi, an associate professor of nutrition and health science at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. "But it's a nice bit of money, and occasionally I get special orders from customers." Takahashi has also been experimenting with a matcha flavor, but "it's very hard to strike a balance between the tea flavor and the chocolate." His chocolates already a hit with friends and family, Takahashi in 2014 set up a booth at the annual Chocolate Lovers Fantasy festival in Lincoln to see what the general public would think of his unique confections. British Ambassador Daniel Pruce The British Ambassador to the Philippines and the British Embassy took a stand on the ongoing persecution of media organizations calling on local media people to support the British Embassys global campaign on press freedom. In the coming months, you will see us in the Embassy very active on this issue. We will be working with the government, business and civil society. You will see us standing up for media freedom where we see it under threat. You will see us sharing our experience of how a free media is an essential element of any genuine democracy. Because the freedom of the media is under threat, said the new British Ambassador Daniel Pruce during the Embassys annual media reception, Thursday night at the Ambassadors residence.The Embassy will be launching activities to foster improved media literacy, support professional journalism and ecourage the exchange of views on media regulation. Pruce noted that the previous year, 2018, was the deadliest years ever for journalists. This year, 80 media people were killed worldwide, six were Filipino journalists, and about 348 were injured. He said his country was cognizant of the fact that many media people were often harassed and persecuted through a lopsided due process. He and the Embassy noticed that the media are prevented from going about their legitimate work as legislative and practical barriers increased due to the influence of wealthy political people.Media institutions are increasingly vulnerable to political and economic influences that limit their capacity to work independently and in the public interest, he said. A free media is an essential ingredient to a well-functioning democracy and the rules-based international system. Without it theres no accountability. A free press is bound up with good governance, democracy, equality and poverty reduction, Pruce added. He admitted that supporting the media from fake news and propaganda means countering the incoming tides of disinformation. While it has never been easier to publish and receive information, it has also never been easy to spread lies and conspiracy theories. The UK is committed to media freedom and the protection of journalists across the world. Throughout the year, the UK government will shine a spotlight on media freedom issues and increase the costs on governments that impinge on those freedoms, Pruce said. In July, the British government will host a conference in London yo bring together countries and individuals to mobilize a consensus behind the protection of journalists. This is just the beginning. In the longer term, we want to see a reduction in state barriers to a free media, countries living up to their commitments and the taboo on attacks against journalists regaining widespread acceptance, Pruce said. Seven nurses are seeking class-action status in a lawsuit filed this week against CHI Health alleging the hospital is violating state and federal wage laws by not paying enough for on-call work and overtime for work they perform while on call. They all work as registered nurses or staff nurses in the Interventional Radiology department at CHI St. Elizabeth, according to the complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Lincoln. In it, attorney Kathleen Neary alleges CHI Health is violating the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Nebraska Wage Payment and Collection Act and the Nebraska Wage Act. The suit specifically focuses on pay for on-call work and overtime. In an emailed statement from CHI Health, a company based in Englewood, Colorado, a spokesperson said Friday it hasn't yet been served with the complaint, but is aware of the allegations raised in it. "CHI Health is looking into all matters raised in that complaint and will handle all appropriately. Because this involves litigation, CHI Health cannot comment on any facts of the matter. CHI Health takes serious the allegations raised in this complaint, and is committed to full compliance with the law and fair treatment for all of its employees," the spokesperson said. A Nebraska murderer who walked away from his prison work-release job in Lincoln two weeks ago was living on the streets in Las Vegas before U.S. marshals arrested him there Thursday night, according to an agency news release. Interviews with his associates and analysis of Anthony Gafford's habits and past prison visitors helped the Metro Fugitive Task Force in Lincoln lead the Marshals Service in Las Vegas to him, said Supervisory Deputy U.S. Marshal William W. Iverson, who oversees the task force. Gafford was contacted on the street in eastern Las Vegas and taken into custody by marshals and Las Vegas police without incident, he said. The 40-year-old is serving a 30- to 50-year prison sentence for fatally shooting Jacque Holbert in September 1997. Prison records say Gaffords scheduled release date is Dec. 11, 2022. He had been on parole twice, a Nebraska prisons spokeswoman said, but had it revoked. Another parole hearing was scheduled for April. Gafford has been at the Community Corrections Center-Lincoln, a minimum-security prison where inmates have work-release assignments and sleep in dormitory settings. Sen. Steve Erdman of Bayard on Thursday urged the Legislature's Revenue Committee to give voters an opportunity to mandate a $1.3 billion reduction in property taxes. Erdman's proposal (LR3CA) would allow Nebraskans to vote on a constitutional amendment providing for a refundable state income tax credit equal to 35 percent of a property owner's local property tax bill. The property tax is "the most hated tax in the world," Erdman told the committee, and approval of his proposal would "make a million or so people happy" in Nebraska. The Erdman plan is perhaps the most dramatic option that the Legislature has on its plate as senators tackle the vexing issue of property taxes as the major item on a full menu of proposed tax reform. "We've been talking about this for a minimum of 40 years," Erdman said, "and we nibble at it," now with periodic increases in the state's property tax credit fund. "Whether you're 18 or 80, whether you live in Omaha or Scottsbluff, property tax is the No. 1 problem," he said. "And it's time we give the people an opportunity to speak." Jackson organizes his canvas as Before, During and After. At the outset, images of recruiting posters of the day blend with shots of long, long lines of British volunteers, many as young as 14 or 15. (The official age minimum for recruits was 19.) The film works best in its most acutely observed details of daily life in the trenches. Many details are grotesquely harsh, if fleetingly observed: the men's memories of the smells of the dead, the gangrenous wounds, the spilled entrails. Where no tight shots existed in the original, grainy, scratchy black-and-white footage, Jackson opts to bring his own camera in closer, if only for an arresting second or two. The faces make the movie. Middle-distance shots of dozens of anonymous soldiers here become probing, intimate, screen-filling close-ups. On the soundtrack, the WWI veterans recorded decades later recall the general chin-up, get-on-with-it spirit so many brought with them to war. But the costs ran high. By the end, after Armistice Day, many were shattered, bereft, dreading a return to civilian life. And many returned to England only to be met with "help wanted" signs stipulating "no servicemen need apply." If you've ever watched TV's hugely entertaining "Jane the Virgin," you'll know that its star, Gina Rodriguez, is one of the most engaging, charismatic and relatable actresses out there. It was only a matter of time before she headlined a big-studio movie a truly welcome development. But Rodriguez and her fans deserve better than "Miss Bala," a disappointingly bland and formulaic Hollywood remake of a much grittier and bleaker Mexican thriller. No discredit to Rodriguez, of course, who remains genuine and appealing in scene after scene where her character, a Mexican-American makeup artist, is tasked with finding her way out of the most terrifying jams. And it's undeniably satisfying, in one climactic scene, to watch her saunter in a satiny red, high-slit evening gown, settling scores with the villainous men around her. But if you're looking for a movie with something substantive to say about Mexico and drug wars and, well, anything but a PG-13 "You go, girl!" action film, you won't find it here. Director Catherine Hardwicke ("Twilight") does a fine enough job staging action sequences and keeping the pace; the script has far bigger issues, with lines that are often banal and achingly predictable. Friday, February 08, 2019 Readers Have Final Say On Why APS Property Tax Hike Was So Soundly Rejected By Voters That reasoning including the size of the tax hike--one of the largest--if not the largest--ever requested by APS, the needlessly confusing three question ballot that faced voters, the lack of a positive campaign in favor of the taxes and the public's view that APS has not been fiscally prudent. But, as we said, not all agreed. Foremost among them is the man largely responsible for mapping out the needs of APS that voters on Tuesday decided against funding-- Joe, last time I checked, basic public facility maintenance, replacement of 60 year old school buildings, providing basic classroom equipment such as furniture, technology, and yes, musical instruments is not only prudent but fiscally responsible. Fixing leaking roofs and ensuring that children and teachers are as secure as possible from mass shootings is not prudent, it is necessary. APS did ask for a moon-shot" just the bare necessities, and unlike other metro municipalities we did it transparently and before the fact (remember ART). Call us naive when we carry out exhaustive technical analyses and present options both to our board and the taxpayer to truly decide the important questions of public investment in civic facilities, thats just how we roll. We first dont come up with a dollar amount and then back end it with the how and the when. We as a community cannot constantly wring our hands lamenting on how we are last in everything or how bad our education system is yet when given the chance to truly make a committed difference, we choose to blind ourselves to facts and instead listen to armchair pundits and faux think tanks like the Rio Grande Foundation. Elections have consequences, we reap what we sow, and I assure you, there will be pain, in lost jobs, lost workforce and sadly the suffering of children especially in the neediest of neighborhoods. It took 8 years for the majority to figure out PARC testing was a scam and trickle-down-austerity by state government is a road to ruin. The only hole is the one our community has dug itself in with this election result. Lets hope it does not take eight years to figure out some simple truths, there is no Santa Claus, we have to pay for what we want in education, health care and public safety. These are our children, our teachers, and our educational facilities, APS is us. BLAME IT ON BERRY Joe, I have to take exception to your phrase that the APS voters are tax tired. May I remind you of the last eight years of the conservative Berry and Martinez administrations, coupled with a recession saw no new taxes or investment in the city or state? It was their mantra of no new taxes that carried the day. Voters were sold a bill of goods from the Martinez administration and her Public Education Department that APS was not being accountable, a spending beast, top heavy with administration, and beat up the district and its teachers. Clearly, the Educational climate put forth by Martinez was adversarial toward APS and teachers in general and the populous bought it. There is and has been a general atmosphere of dont tax throughout the state and the nation (except locally for Mayor Kellers recent increase of the GRT for public safety). Many of the voters cannot see beyond their own wallet. All the no voters could see was their own property tax bill and not their neighborhood school falling apart. People hear the word tax and they lose sight of the need for investment in our city and communities. A yes vote for the APS Bond/Mill levy was a vote for our economy, local jobs at all levels of the construction pyramid, enhanced community/neighborhood values with quality, safe and clean school buildings and classrooms. A quality education and sound school district is a foundation for economic growth. Improving the learning environment is so critical in improving the educational process. The no voters did not win; the Albuquerque community lost along with our children, their parents, the neighborhoods in which they reside and the educators who work to educate them, Well said, gentlemen. It wasn't easy disagreeing with you but that's the way we saw it. Now it's time to move forward and find a way to bridge our disagreement and continue to support the thousands of APS employees and students who deserve the best education system possible. This is the home of New Mexico politics. Interested in reaching New Mexico's most informed audience? Advertise here. ( c)NM POLITICS WITH JOE MONAHAN 2019 The resounding voter rejection this week of the ABQ Public Schools property tax increase brought in the reader reaction, many of whom disagreed with our assessment of the outcome.That reasoning including the size of the tax hike--one of the largest--if not the largest--ever requested by APS, the needlessly confusing three question ballot that faced voters, the lack of a positive campaign in favor of the taxes and the public's view that APS has not been fiscally prudent. But, as we said, not all agreed.Foremost among them is the man largely responsible for mapping out the needs of APS that voters on Tuesday decided against funding-- Kizito Wijenje , executive director of the APS Capital Master Plan. While we've seen things from the same perspective in years past, this time we parted ways. Here's his rebuttal to our take:Reader Ken Tabish also disagreed with out analysis:Well said, gentlemen. It wasn't easy disagreeing with you but that's the way we saw it. Now it's time to move forward and find a way to bridge our disagreement and continue to support the thousands of APS employees and students who deserve the best education system possible.This is the home of New Mexico politics. E-mail your news and comments. (jmonahan@ix.netcom.com) Links HOME E-MAIL ME About Joe Google News Real Clear Politics Huffington Post Drudge Report The Politico NM Newspapers NM TV stations Gov. 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12/20/20 12/20/20 - 12/27/20 1/3/21 - 1/10/21 1/10/21 - 1/17/21 1/17/21 - 1/24/21 1/24/21 - 1/31/21 1/31/21 - 2/7/21 2/7/21 - 2/14/21 2/14/21 - 2/21/21 2/21/21 - 2/28/21 2/28/21 - 3/7/21 3/7/21 - 3/14/21 3/14/21 - 3/21/21 3/21/21 - 3/28/21 3/28/21 - 4/4/21 4/4/21 - 4/11/21 4/11/21 - 4/18/21 4/18/21 - 4/25/21 4/25/21 - 5/2/21 5/2/21 - 5/9/21 5/9/21 - 5/16/21 5/16/21 - 5/23/21 5/23/21 - 5/30/21 5/30/21 - 6/6/21 6/6/21 - 6/13/21 6/13/21 - 6/20/21 6/20/21 - 6/27/21 website design by website design by limwebdesign CHICAGO A federal lawsuit accuses a Chicago Public Schools teacher of helping her friend beat a fourth-grade student with thick belts in a West Side school bathroom last fall. Asia Gaines, the mother of the 9-year-old boy, filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court on Thursday morning, alleging his homeroom teacher at Tilton Elementary School helped her friend attack the child on Sept. 20. The attack began before the start of first period when the student entered the classroom. "They physically grabbed him and dragged him down the hallway to the boys bathroom, the lawsuit states. The teacher left the child alone with her friend a distant relative of the boy whom he had never met and returned to the classroom, the lawsuit said. Before leaving, the teacher gave the woman two large belts that she kept stored in the closet of her classroom, the lawsuit said. In the bathroom, the woman beat the child over his clothing with both belts, landing blows on his back, buttocks and legs, breaking the skin and leaving abrasions on his body, according to the lawsuit. The teacher, identified in the lawsuit as Kristen Haynes, was removed from her position as the school district investigated the deeply concerning allegations, CPS spokeswoman Emily Bolton said in a release. Every student deserves a safe learning environment and the district will not tolerate actions that place students in the way of harm." Bolton said the district is working with the school to ensure support is available for the student and the family, but Gaines attorney said officials are not doing enough. Despite the serious risk of re-traumatization, (the boy) has returned to Tilton because CPS refuses to pay for transportation to a new school, a cost his mother cannot afford, attorney Al Hofeld Jr. said in a news release. Since his return, (the boy) continues to feel unsafe, students have bullied him while a teacher laughed, and his new homeroom teacher treats him with impatience. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 CHARLESTON -- Ron Best has a love of history and understands the interest there might be in property that Abraham Lincoln once owned. Best's family ties to Coles County date back about as far as that of Lincoln's. They're bound by 30 acres of farm land that are part of a long and somewhat complicated bit of the county's history. Now, Best is ready to part with that farm ground, along with more land, which his family's owned for 30 years. He knows many people might think of a use based on its historical significance but it's been farmed the entire time. "It's not like Lincoln's stove pipe hat that you can put on a shelf and say this was Lincoln's," he said. The land Lincoln owned will be part of 590 total acres set to be sold at auction on Tuesday, Lincoln's birthday. The sale is scheduled for 10 a.m. that day at the Unique Suites Hotel in Charleston. In all, the story dates to 1841, when Lincoln bought 40 acres of southern Coles County farm ground from his cash-strapped father, Thomas Lincoln. It's said to be the only farm land Abe ever owned, though he let his father continue to farm it. While six acres became part of what's now Lincoln Log Cabin State Historic Site, the rest stayed in private ownership and was eventually inherited by Ray Phipps. Phipps went through promotional plans and legal wranglings before eventually selling it. Best purchased the 30 acres at an auction in 1989 and the last four acres were sold to Rockford businessman Dan Arnold in 2007. Arnold, the founder of the Road Ranger truck stop chain and who died in 2015, had a plan to raise money for charities using the land. He also wanted to develop the site with historical exhibits but his plans never came to fruition. The person who answered a call to Arnold's office in Rockford said his family still owns the property, but attempts by the JG-TC to find out what plans they might have for the it weren't successful. Sitting at his Charleston home recently, Best said Arnold once made an offer to buy his part of the farm land, and there was no interest when it was listed for sale four years ago. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} He recalled that his wanting to buy the land was a "natural desire" because it was adjacent to 125 acres his family already owned. He and his four siblings who make up the corporation that own the property are now older, he noted, and Best retired from farming four years ago. Best said his brothers and sisters -- Brenda Stone of Lerna; Barbara Roberston of Dayton, Ohio; John Best of rural Charleston; and Gary Best of Ventura, Calif. -- have all agreed that it's time to sell the land. The land has been fairly productive and, if it's used for farming, should bring a typical price, Best said. That's not really certain, though. "It's hard to value Lincoln land," he said. Best said he never thought of using the land for anything other than farming, and he has no preference for what the new owner does with it. Still, if that's something connected to its history, Best will likely appreciate it. He has a copy of the original deed for the sale of the land to Abraham Lincoln along with other publications about Lincoln's link to Coles County. He also grew up on a farm near the historic site and said his ancestors moved from northern Kentucky to the Coles County about the same time Thomas Lincoln arrived. His great-grandfather was 12 years old when he was one of the children who got to meet Lincoln during his last visit to the county before leaving for Washington to become president. "I've had a long long connection with history," he said. Celebrating Lincoln: Abraham Lincoln in Mattoon archives Contact Dave Fopay at (217) 238-6858. Follow him on Twitter: @FopayDave Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 CHARLESTON -- Eastern Illinois University saw a larger and better represented population of international students for the spring semester. This time last year, there were 327 enrolled at the university representing 39 countries. This spring, those numbers rose to 332 and 55, respectively. While the difference in the population is small, EIU officials see it as a victory. "Considering the federal challenges all universities have had with visa approvals, seeing our new international numbers increase for the spring was unexpected, but certainly welcome," said Josh Norman, EIUs associate vice president for enrollment management. The university along with other institutions across the country have not been lacking in applicants but lacking in those who can get into the U.S. As previously reported in the JG-TC, visa approvals have been harder to come by under current foreign policy. Although that is still the case, international staffers have been finding other avenues of recruiting students and better communicating with students whose visa applications are pending, said Andy Kabasele, assistant dean for international education. "They are doing an excellent job of diversifying our recruitment efforts to ensure we are attracting the best and brightest students from a broader international scope," Norman said. Kabasele said the international team did not limit themselves to external recruitment in recent months. EIU is looking inward to find its students, notably international students who are already in the country as high school students. The team is also increasing the ways in which they touch base with students, specifically through text. Regarding the visa process: "You can't change that," Kabasele said. So, they are working with what they can change. He noted it is still an issue, though. In fall, 171 international students who would have been accepted hit the visa-denial roadblock. In spring, the number of denied visas was 131. These prospective students are getting stopped during the visa application process, often for one reason: a suspected "intent to immigrate." Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} Although the increase was marginal, EIU officials hailed the diversity in the group of students at Eastern: 55 countries are represented at EIU, among which a handful are first-time representatives of their country, including a student from Serbia. Kabasele said new additions to the international population from last spring come from Belgium, Kenya, South Africa and Ireland. For students, namely international students, diversity among the population is a big deal. Jaismeen Dua, a student from India, said it adds to the experience of studying abroad. "It definitely adds to the richness of the celebrations," Dua said, speaking of some of the international events that take place throughout the year at the university. "You get to learn so much more: the languages, the way they dress, the traditions." For Dua, the whole point is to immerse oneself in other countries' cultures. A dominant country represented on campus is India. So, when more students hail from different regions, it is exciting. "I could not expect to always have Indians by my side," she said. "The whole point of studying in an international country especially in the States is -- you obviously have good quality education-- but also become more open and grow as a person because you meet so many people." Campus-wide, there were more students this spring than this time last year. As previously reported, EIU saw an almost identical increase in spring to spring enrollment as they did in the fall, according to 10th-day enrollment numbers, the nationally accepted standard for tracking university and college enrollments. After reporting a 5 percent increase in spring-to-spring enrollment a year ago, Eastern enrollment has jumped another 7 percent from spring 2018 to spring 2019. Another breakdown Spring 2019 (2018) Male: 3034 (2777) Female: 4469 (4239) The 10-year goal (2027) for EIU officials is to see enrollment between 9,000 and 10,000 students total. "I firmly believe we are on target to meet that goal," Norman said. Contact Jarad Jarmon at (217) 238-6839. Follow him on Twitter: @JJarmonReporter Love 1 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 1 Angry 0 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Introduction In just 50 years, almost a million Jews, whose communities stretch back up to 3,000 years, have been 'ethnically cleansed' from 10 Arab countries. These refugees outnumber the Palestinian refugees two to one, but their narrative has all but been ignored. Unlike Palestinian refugees, they fled not war, but systematic persecution. Seen in this light, Israel, where some 50 percent of the Jewish population descend from these refugees and are now full citizens, is the legitimate expression of the self-determination of an oppressed indigenous, Middle Eastern people. This website is dedicated to preserving the memory of the near-extinct Jewish communities, which can never return to what and where they once were - even if they wanted to. It will attempt to pass on the stories of the Jewish refugees and their current struggle for recognition and restitution. Awareness of the injustice done to these Jews can only advance the cause of peace and reconciliation. (Iran: once an ally of Israel, the Islamic Republic of Iran is now an implacable enemy and numbers of Iranian Jews have fallen drastically from 80,000 to 20,000 since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Their plight - and that of all other communities threatened by Islamism - does therefore fall within the scope of this blog.) The Alliance of Concerned Teachers on Friday appealed to the Court of Appeals to look more into substance than technicality of its petition to stop the Philippine National Police from profiling member-teachers. ACT will file a motion for reconsideration. With truth and reason on our side, so should justice be this time around, ACT secretary general Raymond Basilio said. In a four-page resolution penned by CAs 11th Division, Associate Justice Nina Antonio-Valenzuela junked the Jan. 17 petition filed by ACT, two of its regional groups and the Manila Public School Teachers Association Inc. against the Philippine National Polices order to compile an intelligence list of ACT teachers and affiliates in public schools. While ACT is yet to receive the official copy of the CA decision, we are saddened by the media reports that the honorable court has dismissed outright our petition for prohibition with urgent prayer for the issuance of temporary restraining order and/or writ of preliminary injunction, following the profiling being carried out by the PNP against our members, he said. Since the leakage of the confidential profiling memorandum, teacher-unionists from 10 regions claimed continuing surveillance and aggravating harassment against their leaders and members. According to Basilio, he was threatened by an unidentified person while on his way home. There is reasonable cause for alarm and distress among teachers, especially since state-perpetuated attacks persist despite exposes, legal cases, and local and international outrage, he noted. It is in this context that we fervently urge the CA to take into account and give more weight to substantive considerations over technicality issues. Teachers fundamental rights to association, free expression, and privacy are at stake. Such decision might send the wrong message that illegal profiling of legitimate organizations and common citizens is all right, and it may further embolden the PNP in their illegal surveillance activities against civilians, he added. As this developed, the Philippine National Police (PNP) welcomed the Court of Appeals (CA) dismissal of the ACT petition. The PNP welcomes the denial by the Court of Appeals of the petition filed by the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) seeking court action against the lawful performance of duty by the PNP to protect the state from its enemies, PNP spokesperson Senior Supt. Bernard Banac said in a message sent to reporters on Friday. We maintain that all our activities and operations are well within our lawful mandate and constantly under the presumption of regularity, Banac added.Meanwhile, Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) spokesperson, Assistant Secretary Jonathan Malaya said the ACTs petition against the PNP is based on malicious and groundless accusations. Malaya also expressed dismay over the ACTs move to politicize the issue by going to the courts to attract media mileage and recall as the midterm elections nears. More than pointing out their petitions infirmities that clearly violated the Rules of Court, it becomes clear as day that the petition they submitted to the Court is indeed nothing but propaganda to gain some publicity especially now that we are months away from the partylist elections, Malaya said. In a four-page resolution dated February 4, the CAs 11th Division cited shortcomings in ACTs petition, including its failure to include certified true copies of the memoranda supposedly issued by the PNPs intelligence units. CA Associate Justices Ricardo Rosario, Nina Antonio-Valenzuela and Perpetua Atal-Pano explained that the petition failed to meet the requirement under Rule 65, Section 2 in relation to Rule 46, Section 3 of the Rules of Court. These rules require that the petition shall likewise be accompanied by a certified true copy of the judgment, order or resolution subject thereof, copies of all pleadings and documents relevant and pertinent thereto. The court also cited the failure of ACT to state material dates in their petition, specifically the dates when the petitioners received the various assailed PNP memoranda. It stressed that the petition likewise did not include the current date of issuance of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines membership number of the petitioners counsel and the current date of issuance of the Professional Tax Number of the petitioners counsel in violation of Bar Matter No. 287 dated Sept. 26, 2000 and Bar Matter No. 1132 dated Nov. 12, 2002, respectively. The ACT filed a petition for prohibition, citing alleged violations of their members right to association and right to assembly by PNP personnel. The petitioners were asking the government for redress of grievances, freedom of expression, and their members right to privacy. On February 8, thousands of Iranians rallied and marched in Paris to mark the 40th anniversary of the Iranian peoples uprising against the Shahs dictatorship. The march started in Pariss Denfert Rochereau Square and ended at Les Invalides in front of the French National Assembly. The protesters condemned the continuing human rights violations in Iran, increasing terrorist plots of the regime, and the regimes continuing missile and nuclear programs. They supported the social movements and protests by the Iranian people against the mullahs dictatorship. A message from Maryam Rajavi, to the demonstrations was shown on the widescreen. She said, with the overthrow of the Shahs corrupt dictatorship and his regime of torture, his true successors, namely Khomeini and Khamenei, took over the helms. Now is the turn of the mullahs to be overthrown. She added, our nation has started a new era, a new phase, in her battle to bring down the mullahs theocratic rule. Therefore, they expect the international community to respect their struggle and recognize their high goal of liberating Iran and the entire world from the evil and mischief of the mullahs religious fascism. Western governments bear double responsibility in this regard because they have had a role in preserving this regime particularly in the past two decades. The gathering was supported by a large number of Iranian communities in Europe, human rights organizations, trade unions, and parliamentary committees and mayors from Pariss districts and the Ile-de-France region. Personalities who addressed the event included: Gilbert Mitterrand, President of France Libertes Fondation Danielle-Mitterrand; Michele de Vaucouleurs, member of Frances National Assembly and President of the French Parliamentary Committee for a Democratic Iran; Sid Ahmed Ghozali, former Prime Minister of Algeria; Alejo Vidal Quadras, former Vice President of the European Parliament and President of the International Committee In Search of Justice; George Sabra, prominent representative of the Syrian opposition; Jean-Francois Legaret, Mayor of Paris 1st District; Gerard Lauton, representative of Frances National Union of Higher Education; Jean-Pierre Michel, former Senator and founder of the French Committee for a Democratic Iran; Francois Colcombet, President of the Foundation for Middle Eastern Studies (FEMO); and Pierre Bercis, President of Nouveaux Droits de lHomme. In his address, Gilbert Mitterrand referred to a recent report by Amnesty International which called 2018 the year of shame for Iran during which 7,000 people were arrested for protesting against the regime. He went on to conclude that the Iranian Resistance is the alternative to mullahs. Dr. Alejo Vidal-Quadras said, I call on the EU to take a hard line with this theocratic and terrorist regime which has no future. The EU must stop its appeasement policies and support the Iranian opposition instead of the mullahs. Appeasement only encourages the mullahs to commit more crimes in Iran and more terrorism in Europe. The EU has to put the entire Iranian Intelligence Ministry and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on its terrorism blacklist. Michele de Vaucouleurs said, I am here today to testify that as a Member of Parliament, I find the human rights situation in Iran truly regrettable, and I hope this year will be the last year that you have to endure these sufferings. Senator Jean-Pierre Michel said, I want to call upon our governments, European governments, Mr. Jean-Yves Le Drian and Mrs. Federica Mogherini, do not fear the Iranian Resistance. Open your eyes and ears. Retake the dignity that the status of Europe brings upon you, take back the dignity of the Europeans. Support the Iranian Resistance. The powerful march that swept through the streets of Paris in the cold weather with the rhythms of the drums and passionate slogans reflected the strength of the spirit of resistance among Iranians and the participating demonstrators. It reflected the voices of the Iranian people who never stopped their protests and strikes over the past year. At the end of the march, the final statement of the rally was announced. It condemned the terrorist acts of the mullahs against the opposition in Europe, the continued proliferation of dangerous missiles and nuclear weapons, the continuing repression and killings in Iran, and in the regional wars. It further urged the international community to decisively confront the regime and to recognize the right of the Iranian people and Resistance to overthrow the clerical regime. Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran February 8, 2019 1. Rajinikanth Meets Kamal Haasan, Invites Him for Daughters Wedding Rajinikanth meets Kamal Haasan, invites him for daughters wedding. Veteran actor Rajinikanth met with actor and founder of Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) Kamal Haasan in Chennai on Thursday, 7 February, to invite him for his daughter Soundarya Rajinikanth's wedding, that is expected to take place on 11 February. The 34-year-old had earlier confirmed her wedding to businessman and actor Vishagan Vanangamudi on Twitter. When Rajinikanth met Kamal on Thursday, other MNM members - Vice President Dr R Mahendran and State Executive Committee member Kameela Nasser were also present. The 2.0 star reportedly visited DMK President MK Stalin, Tamil Nadu Congress Chief Thirunavukkarasar as well as the President of Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi, Thol Thirumavalavan, and asked them to attend the celebrations. Read the full story here. Also Read: #BrideMode: Soundarya Rajinikanth Teases One Week to Wedding 2. Kamal Haasans Party MNM Preparing to Contest Lok Sabha Polls Kamal Hassan has announced that his party Makkal Needhi Maiam is preparing to contest in all seats for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. Kamal Hassan has announced that his party Makkal Needhi Maiam is preparing to contest in all seats for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. He told reporters at the Chennai airport, Our aim is to not go with any tainted group. We are preparing to contest on all 40 seats (in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry). I cannot say at this moment from where I will contest. He has clarified that his party will not work in alliance with any other party, but has definitely been in conversation with several national and state parties. Kamal Haasan has been touring different districts of Tamil Nadu in order to reach out to people and listen to their grievances. Read the full story here. Also Read: Kamal Haasan welcomes Prakash's entry into politics 3. Five Held in Connection with PMK Man Ramalingams Murder in TN Five persons have been arrested in connection with the murder of Ramalingam, a Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) functionary in Thirubuvanam, Kumbakonam. Even as tension prevails in Kumbakonam town, Tamil Nadu, over the murder of a PMK functionary on Tuesday night, five persons have been arrested in connection with the case. Ramalingam, a Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) functionary in Thirubuvanam, Kumbakonam town, was attacked on Tuesday, 5 February, evening, after which he succumbed to his injuries. The attack happened after he was seen in a video having an altercation with a couple of Muslim men who were allegedly in the area to proselytise. Story continues Thanjavur Superintendent of Police Maheshwaran told that three special teams have been formed to nab other suspects in the murder. He added that investigations were on and that the assailants would soon be nabbed. Read the full story here. 4. 12 Kg Gold, 626 Carats of Diamonds Seized During Saravana Stores Raids; Tax Evasion Worth Rs 433 Crore Popular retail outlet Saravana Stores was searched by IT officials on the suspicion of tax evasion. The recent raids by Income Tax Department on retail giant Saravana Stores, Revathi Stores, a retailer based in Perambur, and real estate firms G Square and Lotus Group has resulted in the seizure of 12.53 kg of gold and 626 carats worth diamonds, according to an Income Tax official. The raids which were conducted at 74 locations, 72 in Chennai and 2 in Coimbatore have revealed that the tax evasion was worth Rs 433.13 crore. The raids also revealed that money was being paid in real estate aggregation through the real estate firms. The alleged role of these realty companies G Square and Lotus Group was to amass land parcels for Saravana stores Sources indicated that total cash seizure during the raids was Rs 24.36 crore. (Source: The New Indian Express) Also Read: I-T Raids At Saravana Bhavan, Grand Sweets, Anjappar in Chennai 5. All Except DMK, AMMK Welcome to Join Us: Jayakumar Tamil Nadu Fisheries Minister D Jayakumar said he did not foresee any announcement on any tie-up as not even once had the seat sharing committee met since its formation. On the eve of a crucial meeting of the AIADMKs district secretaries and senior party functionaries, the party organising secretary and Fisheries Minister D Jayakumar on Thursday reiterated that all parties other than the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and the Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK) were welcome to join a front headed by the AIADMK. Answering a question whether the Pattali Makkal Katchi would be part of the proposed front, Jayakumar said, All others are not my partys enemies. They are all friends. All those who want to be part of the front headed by us are welcome to join us. We have an open mind. (Source: The Hindu) . Read more on Politics by The Quint.RSS & BJPs Nehru-Netaji Cosplay: Irony Dies a Thousand DeathsKarnataka Budget | 10-11 Cong MLAs Will Skip Session: Yeddyurappa . Read more on Politics by The Quint. Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee at her dharna (Express photo by Partha Paul) In what could intensify the face-off between the Centre and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, the Union Home Ministry Thursday asked the West Bengal Chief Secretary to take action against five IPS officers, who shared the stage with Banerjee during her sit-in protest against the CBI. Home Ministry sources said that it is also considering punitive action, including stripping meritorious awards or barring them from central deputation, against the police officers. The move comes two days after Banerjee ended her three-day dharna in Kolkata against the recent attempt of CBI officials to raid Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar's residence in connection with a chit fund case probe. She ended the protest after the Supreme Court directed Kumar to appear before the CBI in Shillong, the Meghalaya capital, and ordered no coercive steps, including his arrest, will take place during the course of the probe. Writing to the Bengal Chief Secretary, Malay Kumar De, the Home Ministry sought action against DGP Virendra Kumar, who was earlier in charge of Banerjee's security, Vineet Goyal, heading security, Anuj Sharma, additional DGP (law and order), Gyanwant Singh, Commissioner Bidhannagar and Supratim Sarkar, Additional Commissioner of Police, Kolkata. Besides Kolkata Commissioner Kumar, the five IPS officers named by the MHA were said to be part of the sit-in-protest by Banerjee and received a commendation from the Chief Minister during a ceremony. When contacted, the IPS officers refused to comment and said the matter is between the central and state governments. "The central government has taken a dim view of serving officers of uniformed forces allegedly taking part in sit-in protests and dharnas of the Chief Minister in Kolkata on February 4," said a home ministry official. The Home Ministry is the cadre-controlling authority of the IPS. In its communication, the MHA has directed the West Bengal government to take action against the IPS officers for alleged violation of All India Service Rules. Story continues "In addition, a number of measures are also being considered to be initiated against defaulting officers, such as withdrawing medals or decorations which were conferred on them, like meritorious service etc. The Centre may also remove names of the delinquent officers from the empanelled list and bar them for a certain period from serving in the Central government," said the official. According to the Home Ministry, they are also contemplating issuing an advisory to all states to ensure that officers of uniformed forces adhere to conduct rules and maintain decorum, and refrain from taking part in such protests. The Centre had earlier asked the West Bengal government to initiate disciplinary proceedings against Rajeev Kumar for "indiscipline" and violation of services rules. The action, sources said, is based on a report from West Bengal Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi. The Illinois States Attorney Appellate Prosecutors office has cleared Lakeisha Purchase, a Springfield aldermanic candidate who was the subject of a complaint alleging that she had omitted information from a statement of economic interest. The agency thoroughly reviewed it, Pat Delfino, director of the state prosecutors office said. From this review, there was a clear decision that there was no criminal offense that we were going to prosecute. Simple as that. The Sangamon County state's attorney's office referred the case to the state agency last month. Stephen Hughes, who lives in the same Enos Park neighborhood as Purchase and incumbent Andrew Proctor, filed the complaint in December. In his complaint, Hughes accused Purchase of trying to hide business interests by not listing rental properties she owns on her statement of economic interest, a form that candidates for office, office holders and high-ranking government officials must fill out. Hughes also complained that Purchase did not disclose that she is a sales director for the Momentum Society, an organization that advertises itself as credit repair organization that can help clients remove inaccurate and derogatory information, including bankruptcies, foreclosures, tax lien, and judgments, from credit profiles. Hughes could not be reached for comment. Proctor, the incumbent, has acknowledged that Hughes is a supporter who has also done work on his house. Proctor, also, could not be reached for comment, nor could Purchase. Filers of economic interest forms can be fined as much as $1,000, jailed for as long as a year, or both for filing false information. Hughes complained that Purchase wrongly omitted her affiliation with the credit-repair organization by checking not applicable for a question that requires filers to list the nature of professional services if filers have been paid more than $5,000 for such services. The form that Purchase filed out by hand doesnt define professional services. Filers can check law, engineering, accounting medicine, architecture or other. An online form on the Sangamon County Clerks website defines professional services as the practice of law, accounting, engineering, medicine, architecture, dentistry or clinical psychology. As for rental property, several public officials who fill out economic benefit statements havent included rental property. City Clerk Frank Lesko, for example, has listed neither rental properties nor a commercial parcel he owns. Corporation Counsel Jim Zerkle owns farm land, a commercial parcel and a home in addition to the home where he lives but has listed no real estate on his economic benefit statement. Ward 7 Ald. Joe McMenamin also owns rental property that doesnt appear on his statement of economic interest. Zerkle could not be reached for comment. Lesko said hes always believed that rental property and commercial real estate dont have to be listed. He noted that it isnt hard to look up what real estate is owned by a public official. Its not difficult at all to find out, Lesko said. Its not something anyone would hide. McMenamin said he believes the requirement to list real estate applies only if property is sold and a capital gain of at least $5,000 is realized. He points to the question itself: List the identity (including the address or legal description of real estate) of any capital asset from which a gain of $5,000 or more was realized during the preceding calendar year. It doesnt use the term income, it uses the term gain, McMenamin, a lawyer, said. Sangamon County Clerk Don Gray, however, lists rental property on his statement of economic benefit. He says that his office tells filers to consult their lawyers for advice on how to fill out the forms, which he says can be confusing. I would definitely draft something a little more understandable, Gray said. People interpret it differently all the time. We only advise that you are required by law to fill out this form. Contact Bruce Rushton at brushton@illinoistimes.com. The Sinaloa Cartel has entered the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte said on Friday, warning that he will kill Filipinos who will associate themselves with the infamous Mexico-based drug trafficking syndicate. In his speech during the Peace and Order Summit for Barangay Officials in Legazpi City, Albay, the President said the international drug syndicate has entered the country, expressing frustration anew over the illegal drug trade. Shabu is the commodity for the poor. Cocaine, which is for rich people, also enters the scene. The Golden Triangle is here, the Sinaloa of Mexico is here. They are establishing ties worldwide, Duterte said. I dont really have a choice, except to declare war and kill them. Dont let your guard down when we see each other, he added. The President then warned possible Filipino associates of the drug cartel. If you are a Filipino associate, just carry your business well. If I found out about it, say goodbye to your family. You will die, I will assure you, he said. I will stalk you and find the opportunity to make you happy.In July 2018, Duterte confirmed the active existence of Sinaloas presence in the country. I believe, I have to confirm it that the Sinaloa Cartel from Mexico has entered our country because theres plenty of cocaine and its being sold at an affordable rate. Now theres shabu, and shabu is just P200. Thats what makes it painful, he said. Established during the 1980s, Sinaloa is known for international drug trafficking, money laundering, and committing organized crimes. The cartel, which is primarily based in the city of Culiacan, Sinaloa, has operations in the Mexican states of Baja California, Durango, Sonora, and Chihuahua. Remarks: This came out in 1994, going gold in the US, UK and New Zealand. It is made from her mothers sayings. Desree is a one-hit wonder in the US, but ... 2 days ago Ballot initiatives are not only commonplace in states such as California, but in countries like Switzerland, too. After collecting 100,000 signatures, Swiss dairy farmer Armin Capual forced a nationwide referendum that would have paid farmers to keep horns on cows and goats. During the summer months, the Swiss Alps becomes one of the worlds most admired tourist attractions as farmers take their dairy cows . . . often Brown Swiss . . . to graze the grass-covered mountainside. As part of that tradition, tourists have long come to expect horns on those cows along with vintage cowbells. Armin Capual wanted his fellow dairy farmers to be paid for those efforts. A 45 to 55 percent vote Despite Capuals creative and far-reaching marketing efforts, voters turned down the initiative. It didnt help that the government opposed the subsidies, reported The Wall Street Journal. Swiss leaders did have a sound thought process horns increase the risk of injury to cattle and humans. The total annual cost would have been about $15 million francs ($15.1 million U.S. dollars). That would have been based on payouts of $190 per cow each year, covering roughly 79,000 horned cows and goats. To comment, email your remarks to intel@hoards.com. (c) Hoard's Dairyman Intel 2019 February 4, 2019 Illinois employers notified the state of more than 1,200 layoffs last month, according to the most recent monthly report by the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity. Schneider Logistics Transloading and Distribution, Inc., which operates a warehouse for Walmart in Elwood, reported one of the larger layoffs. The freight company said it would lay off 589 employees in late March. Erin Elliott, a spokesperson for Schneider, said in a statement that Walmart will take over operation of the warehouse and run it internally by April 6. Walmart is also taking over the operation of two California warehouses that Schneider had been running. Walmart is hopes to retain as many of the Schneider employees as possible at the Elwood warehouse, Elliott said. Other employers warning of layoffs were: --PharMEDium Healthcare Corp. warned that it will lay off 41 employees at its Lake Forest location due to a restructuring. --WideOpenWest Illinois, a telecommunications carrier, warned that it will lay off 56 employees at its Warrenville location. --Tavern at the Park, a restaurant on Randolph Street in Chicago, will lay off 80 employees when it closes next month. Other closing that are prompting layoffs include: --Gildan, an apparel manufacturer, warned that it will lay off 60 employees in Chicago next month. --FedEx said it will lay off 83 workers in Effingham next month. --Innovel Solutions, Inc., a freight transportation company, warned that it will lay off 105 employees in Manteno next month. --Harman International Industries, a manufacturer of audio and video equipment, said it will lay off 59 employees in Vernon Hills next month. --Decatur Living Center, a nursing facility, warned that it will lay off 90 employees next month. --O'Charley's, a restaurant, warned that it will lay off 60 employees next month in Springfield. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 1 Sad 0 Angry 2 PEORIA -- In his State of the City address Thursday, Peoria Mayor Jim Ardis said he's more optimistic about some of the many problems at the state level being addressed. Ardis told the 550 people who gathered at the Peoria Civic Center for the luncheon program that the biggest issue facing this city and others is the pension crisis that threatens to devour budgets of communities across the state. "If there's one thing we need help from Springfield on, it's the pension crisis," he said, referring to public safety pensions that cost Illinois municipalities $2.6 billion in 1987 but cost those communities $23.5 billion today. In an effort to close holes in the 2019 budget, the Peoria City Council passed a public safety pension fee that will assess a fee on every parcel of land in the city specifically to help Peoria meet its pension obligation, primarily for members of the police and fire departments. "Cities in Illinois can't reform pensions, cut labor costs or declare bankruptcy. The state sets the rules. Something needs to be done this year," said Ardis, noting that he's part of a group of mayors from across the state working to help legislators find a solution. "I'm encouraged early on. I'm hearing a lot of positives from police and fire organizations who want to come to the table and address these things," he said. At a news conference following his address, Ardis said Peoria's biggest problem was probably being located in Illinois. "If this was Peoria, Wis. or Peoria, Ind., we'd be rocking with all the assets we have here," he said. Ardis listed many of those assets in his address, paying special attention to two innovative ventures in the area: AutonomousStuff in Morton, a fast-growing company focused on developing software for autonomous vehicles, and Natural Fiber Welding, a Peoria firm that seeks to popularize plant-based textiles. Luke Haverhals, the founder of Natural Fiber Welding, who took part in the news conference following the mayor's address, said plans are in the works to set up a mill in Peoria that would serve as a prototype for the textile industry that's been using oil-based technology for years. In his speech, Ardis called for area businesses to get their own message out there. "If you don't define yourself, your business, your endeavors, others will and sometimes not in a positive light," he said. "Neither myself nor the city council or any one group is going to single-handedly change the negative narrative," he said. Ardis emphasized the growth of the city's medical center. "A highly skilled workforce will keep us in the manufacturing mix but it would seem that the opportunities for growing and diversifying in the healthcare space provide us with almost unlimited possibilities," he said. The mayor lauded companies like RLI, Komatsu and Caterpillar, in that order, for their contributions to the community while extolling Bradley University, the Peoria Riverfront Museum and the Gen. Wayne A. Downing International Airport. "It's critical we all support our local airport. As a community, we didn't support nonstop flights to Detroit so we lost them," said Ardis. Along with saluting area Realtors and stressing public broadcasting's contribution to the community, the mayor credited Peoria Civic Center manager Rik Edgar for boosting the activity level at the facility. "More theater concerts are scheduled in fiscal year 2019 than any other year in venue history," said Ardis. As he did last year, Ardis carried a message he received from Civic Center receptionist Vickie King. "She told me this year that a city is only as strong as our weakest neighborhood," he said. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 1 SPRINGFIELD State Rep. Will Davis, a Hazel Crest Democrat, plans to introduce legislation in the next two weeks that would move Illinois toward 100 percent renewable energy. We want to make sure that the future of clean energy is clear; its stable and it ensures equitable participation, and it lifts up all sectors of not only the industry, but all sectors of the state, said Amy Heart, Midwest chair for Solar Energy Industry Association and policy director for Sunrun. David Lundy, spokesman for the Path to 100 Coalition, said the proposal would make this happen by requiring greater private investment in renewable energy production from energy companies. This would be accomplished through the authority of the Illinois Power Agency, which develops electricity procurement plans for large investor-owned electric utilities Ameren, ComEd and MidAmerican. In this way, investment would be ratepayer funded, costing the ratepayer less than a couple bucks a month, Lundy said. It would not require state funding. Currently, the Illinois Power Agency turns away about 90 percent of applicants for green energy projects due to a limited pool of available credits, Lundy said. But by expanding Illinois Renewable Portfolio Standard, the planned legislation would increase the available pool of private grant funding to be disbursed by the Illinois Power Agency. The renewable energy industry is ready to invest billions of dollars in our state and deliver the clean, homegrown energy our citizens want, Davis said. I intend for this Act to benefit our state equitably and spread the economic development dollars to Illinois communities throughout the state and especially those that are most in need of jobs and economic growth. Davis said he plans for the bill to expand upon parameters of the Future Energy Jobs Act, under which several hundred megawatts of wind and solar renewable energy credits were procured. Existing policy requires Illinois to reach 16 percent renewable energy by 2020 and 25 percent by 2025, but Illinois is on pace to hit only 7 percent by 2020. The coalition said Path to 100 legislation will expand Illinois Renewable Portfolio Standard requirement to 40 percent renewables by 2030 and requires the goal be met by new, in-state projects that create jobs in Illinois. Gov. J.B. Pritzker campaigned on a clean energy agenda and signed an executive order in January making Illinois part of the U.S. Climate Alliance, a bipartisan coalition which is committed to upholding the standards of the Paris Climate Accords. We cant sit idly by and do nothing here in the United States when we too have an environment that is at risk, he said during a January news conference. Our industry here is partly responsible to contributing to greenhouse gas emissions, in fact substantially so. Pritzker said the process to environmental justice would be gradual, and a focus would be put on bringing jobs back to coal mining communities which are already seeing job losses because of the changing energy production environment. The Path to 100 coalition said it also plans to include bill language to increase transparency in the cost estimate process for green energy projects, and to create a statewide study to eliminate barriers for energy storage and identify opportunities to pair energy storage with renewable energy development. State Sen. Bill Cunningham, a Chicago Democrat, is expected to file a companion bill in the Senate within two weeks. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 SPRINGFIELD The Illinois Senate voted Thursday to hike the statewide minimum wage to $15 an hour within six years, quickly advancing a top campaign promise of the newly elected Democratic governor in a major industrial state that hasn't raised the pay floor in nearly a decade. Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who in his third week in office has reveled in reversing four years of his Republican predecessor's conservative policies, lauded the Senate's 39-18 party-line action to gradually raise the pay for low-income workers. "If you live in this state and put in a hard day's work, you should be able to afford to put a roof over your head and food on the table," Pritzker told reporters in his Capitol after the vote. The plan by Senate Majority Leader Kimberly Lightford, a Democrat from the Chicago suburb of Maywood, would bump Illinois' $8.25-an-hour minimum to $9.25 on Jan. 1. After a 75-cent increase on July 1, 2020, the wage would increase by $1 each January until 2025. Republicans and key business groups have opposed the hike, fearing increased costs would be prohibitive not only for the private sector. If people think that this is going to be somehow magic beans for downstate Illinois its not, said state Sen. Chapin Rose, R-Mahomet, who voted against the measure. Theres gonna be real consequences to this. At the end of the day, you guys keep talking about whos going to be helped. Im worried about whos going to be hurt. Although Chicago in 2014 imposed its own wage minimum, which increases to $13 this year, the last statewide bump came in 2010. At its current rate, Illinois is $1 higher than the federal minimum wage, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. While 16 states are at the federal level or lower including Pennsylvania and Texas states such as California, Washington, New York, Maine and Arizona are at $11 or more with increases scheduled in a dozen states. The House, also dominated by Democrats, still must sign off before the legislation reaches Pritzker. Rose said he had sent surveys to businesses and organizations in his district, and he read from a number of responses on the Senate floor. Some said they would be forced to lay off employees or increase costs, including tuition costs for universities. A nonprofit in Decatur, which Rose did not name, said the measure would increase its costs by more than $400,000. But for taxpayer-financed institutions such as universities and social-service providers dependent on Medicaid funding, Pritzker promised the budget he'll unveil later this month will cover the added costs. The Illinois Retail Merchants Association is pressing for a tiered scale a top wage for Chicago and less in regions with lower costs of living. New York and Oregon have recently adopted such approaches. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} Pritzker told Democratic lawmakers that he wants to sign a $15 plan into law before he proposes his budget. Standing next to the governor Thursday, Chicago Democratic Rep. Will Guzzardi predicted success as the legislation moves to the House. Pritzker defended claims that the increase would lift low-wage workers out of poverty. Lightford herself quoted statistics that subsistence for a single person in Illinois requires $15 an hour right now and more than $23 to support a child. The governor said wage growth also depends on the economic expansion he promises. "It's not just the minimum wage that raises peoples' wages, you know," Pritzker said. "It's also the competition for labor and making sure that we have more jobs available." The legislation attempts to soften the cost-increase landing with the phased-in approach, which businesses say is still too quick. There's also an employer withholding-tax credit for businesses with 50 or fewer workers which begins at 25 percent and drops until only the smallest businesses can still use it after 2025. As an olive branch to the Illinois Restaurant Association, which became a proponent of the bill, a tip-credit will remain in the law. It allows employers to pay 60 percent of the minimum wage to tipped employees. Businesses would be able to continue paying a lower wage to workers younger than 18 if they work fewer than 650 hours in a year. The minimum wage for younger employees currently $7.75 per hour would increase to $8 on Jan. 1 and peak at $13 per hour in 2025. Republican Sen. Dale Righter of Mattoon said nearly three in five Illinois businesses are near a state line, such as Indiana, where he predicted business flight to a $7.25 minimum wage. He described the move as a political ploy filled with false promises and rife with unintended negative consequences. Just consider the harm this will have on colleges and universities, Righter said in a statement. Were looking at millions of dollars being added to their overhead, potential decreases in enrollment and the elimination of student worker programs Democratic Sen. Andy Manar of Bunker Hill voted for the measure. This is a balanced proposal that phases in a new minimum wage over six years and has a downstate tax credit for small businesses, Manar said in a statement. Sen. Jason Barickman, a Bloomington Republican representing Illinois State University, said the school would face a $600,000 payroll increase for as many as 5,000 students it puts to work. "Those student workers get no benefit from a wage increase if they don't have a job," Barickman said. Capitol News Illinois and the Chicago Tribune contributed to this story. Love 2 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 4 Angry 6 Central Illinois Republican senators were united in their opposition to legislation that would increase the states minimum wage to $15 by 2025, while Democratic Sen. Andy Manar voted in support. The measure now heads to the House. It passed the Senate 39-18. This is a balanced proposal that phases in a new minimum wage over six years and has a downstate tax credit for small businesses, said Manar, of Bunker Hill, in a statement. Republican Sens. Dale Righter of Mattoon and Chapin Rose of Mahomet both spoke in opposition to the measure before the vote. If people think that this is going to be somehow magic beans for downstate Illinois its not, Rose said. Theres gonna be real consequences to this. At the end of the day, you guys keep talking about whos going to be helped. Im worried about whos going to be hurt. Rose said he had sent surveys to businesses and organizations in his district, and he read from a number of responses on the Senate floor. Some said they would be forced to lay off employees or increase costs, including tuition costs for universities. A nonprofit in Decatur, which Rose did not name, said the measure would increase its costs by more than $400,000. Righter said the legislation would force employers into a corner, raise costs for consumers and threaten the business sector. He described the move as a political ploy filled with false promises and rife with unintended negative consequences. Just consider the harm this will have on colleges and universities, Righter said in a statement. Were looking at millions of dollars being added to their overhead, potential decreases in enrollment and the elimination of student worker programs. Click here to see how each member of the Illinois Senate voted. Contact Allison Petty at (217) 421-6986. Follow her on Twitter: @allison0512 Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Get Government & Politics updates in your inbox! Stay up-to-date on the latest in local and national government and political topics with our newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. DECATUR Small business owners in Decatur say a proposal to increase the states minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025 would have dire consequences for them and their employees. The measure, which passed the Illinois Senate on Thursday and now heads to the House, would gradually raise the minimum wage from its current level of $8.25. Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker has said he wants to sign the bill before his Feb. 20 budget address. Several business owners who spoke to the Herald & Review on Thursday said theyre worried about the consequences, which could include increasing their own prices to keep up. Everything will be going up, said Mike Jacobs, co-owner of Dels Popcorn in Mount Zion. Beyond increases for the employees making minimum wage now, employers said, theres a ripple effect at play. For the older employers making more than $15, and then a high schooler comes in, Jacobs said, do you add another $7 the difference between $8.25 and $15? We have to get a better understanding of it. Mirinda Rothrock, president of the Greater Decatur Chamber of Commerce, pointed out that Illinois already has a minimum wage that is a dollar higher than the federal minimum wage. Bordering states like Wisconsin, Indiana and Iowa set their minimum wage at $7.25, Rothrock said. The increase to $15 would not send a good message. If the bill is passed, she said, "Without a doubt, small businesses are going to suffer especially downstate." Rothrock said the Chamber has been watching the statehouse action closely and would continue to advocate for business owners interests with state lawmakers. Giggles owner Chrissy Spurlock said she was hoping the bill becoming law was an if, rather than a when. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} While larger companies could weather the change, she said, she worried for small businesses like her own. "It would just be impossible for me to pay all of my employees," said Spurlock, whose business recently moved into a larger space at 112 N. Merchant St. "I would love to pay my employees more, trust me. It's just not possible. Penelope Boutique manager Paige Roach said it was unfortunate to see the legislation advancing, because it means a lot of small businesses will suffer. The clothing and accessories retailer at 135 E. Prairie Ave. has a small employee count, and Roach said it was hard to imagine being the owner of a business with a larger staff. "What will happen to them?" she said. Not everyone is dreading the potential increase. Pritzker and other advocates say it will help working families climb out of poverty and get off public assistance. You shouldnt have to live in poverty, said Jen McMillin, a member of the Macon County Democratic Party and former candidate for state representative. Some people are working and not making ends meet. It affects child care, food, everything. McMillin said the perception of those working at minimum wage are high school student or others wanting extra money. But the average age of the workers is 35, she said. People deserve a good-paying job. There are a lot working to just get by. A student at Richland Community College, Sophia Scharf takes issue with that idea. Minimum-wage jobs arent supposed to provide a career, she said. They are supposed build up your resume and supplement for school or pay bills, said Scharf, 18. Minimum-wage jobs are necessary, but you should work your way up. The possibility of a bigger paycheck is interesting to Starr Arnold, who has worked at a bank for five months. But the 18-year-old said she didnt expect the pay raise to affect her lifestyle, because other costs would increase at the same time. Youll just have to pay more, she said. Contact Donnette Beckett at (217) 421-6983. Follow her on Twitter: @donnettebHR Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 4 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. SPRINGFIELD The Illinois Supreme Court has reversed an appellate ruling that denied Alan Beaman the right to a trial on his claims against the town and three former Normal police officers involved in an investigation that led to murder charges against him. The ruling issued Thursday sends Beaman's case back to the 4th District Appellate Court in Springfield for more consideration of Beaman's claims against former investigators Tim Freesmeyer, Dave Warner and Frank Zayas, all retired. Beaman was convicted of murder in the 1993 strangulation death of his former girlfriend Jennifer Lockmiller, a 21-year-old Illinois State University student from Decatur. The Illinois Supreme Court reversed Beaman's conviction in 2008 after he had served about 13 years of a 50-year sentence. The state later dismissed the murder charges against Beaman. In 2013, the state issued a certificate of innocence to Beaman and in 2015, then-Gov. Pat Quinn pardoned Beaman "based upon innocence as if no conviction." David Shapiro, one of Beaman's lawyers, said Thursday: "This important precedent is Alans second unanimous victory in the Supreme Court. He will continue his lifelong fight for justice and accountability. Its an honor to represent him." In the decision that revives Beaman's civil lawsuit, the Supreme Court advised the appellate court to review whether the detectives' direct involvement in the case was a proximate cause of criminal charges being filed against Beaman. Attorneys for the town and the officers contend the decision to file charges against Beaman was made by prosecutors and not the officers. Shapiro argued to the Supreme Court in September that the lower court erred when it dismissed Beaman's lawsuit alleging misconduct by the three officers. The appellate court concurred with the lower court decision. Beaman's lawyers contend Freesmeyer lied to a grand jury considering indictments against Beaman by withholding information of a second suspect, a man who had dated Lockmiller and had a history of drug use and domestic violence. The alleged improper influence by the Normal investigators on former prosecutors led to the malicious prosecution of Beaman, his lawyers argued. Federal court actions filed by Beaman against the officers, the town and former State's Attorney Charles Reynard and former prosecutor Jim Souk, who both went on to serve as circuit judges, were unsuccessful. Souk and Reynard were dropped from the lawsuit based on immunity, and claims against other defendants also were dismissed. In 2014, Beaman filed a lawsuit in state court against the three former officers and the town alleging malicious prosecution, emotional distress and civil conspiracy. Beaman resides in Rockford with his wife and two daughters. Contact Edith Brady-Lunny at (309) 820-3276. Follow her on Twitter: @pg_blunny Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 1 US govt lauds BI on drive vs RSOs posted February 08, 2019 at 10:40 pm by Vito Barcelo February 08, 2019 at 10:40 pm The United States government has commended the Bureau of Immigration (BI) for preventing the entry of a large number of American registered sex offenders (RSOs) into the Philippines last year. Immigration Commissioner Jaime Morente disclosed that the BI was recently awarded a certificate of commendation by the US Embassy in Manila for registering the second highest number of excluded American RSOs throughout the world in 2018. The highest number of intercepted RSOs was reportedly posted by Mexico, which is situated right below the US southwestern borders.I commend our officers deployed at our ports of entry for a job well done. Because of your vigilance and alertness, you were able to turn away these sex offenders to protect fellow Filipinos from possible exploitation, Morente said in a statement. The US embassys citation specifically commended the BIs port operations division (POD) as well as the airport operations section (AOS), travel control and enforcement unit (TCEU), and border control and enforcement unit (BCIU), which are all under the POD, for successfully implementing the Angel Watch program in the countrys ports. COMMENT DISCLAIMER: Reader comments posted on this Web site are not in any way endorsed by Manila Standard. Comments are views by manilastandard.net readers who exercise their right to free expression and they do not necessarily represent or reflect the position or viewpoint of manilastandard.net. While reserving this publications right to delete comments that are deemed offensive, indecent or inconsistent with Manila Standard editorial standards, Manila Standard may not be held liable for any false information posted by readers in this comments section. SPRINGFIELD A Central Illinois roofing contractor has been sentenced to three years in federal prison for visa fraud and for harboring and employing illegal aliens. The sentence against Edwin J. Gire, 47, owner of Gire Roofing Inc. of Champaign was handed down Thursday by U.S. District Judge Sue E. Myerscough. In addition, Gire was ordered to pay a $30,000 fine and to remain on supervised release for two years following his prison term. Grayson Enterprises Inc., Gire Roofings parent company, was sentenced to a three-year term of probation and ordered to pay a fine of $250,000. Gire and Grayson Enterprises were convicted in January 2018 of visa fraud (four counts) and harboring illegal aliens (three counts) following a bench trial before Myerscough. Gire had previously entered pleas of guilty to three misdemeanor counts of unlawful employment of aliens. On Thursday, Myerscough found Gire and Greyson Enterprises obstructed justice during the trial by committing perjury and providing false information to the court. The court found that as a result of the fraud, more than 100 fraudulent H-2B worker visas were issued to Gire Roofing from 2011 to 2014. According to the news release, to justify the number of H-2B worker visas requested, Gire provided multiple fraudulent roofing contracts, including contracts for work that customers never agreed to and contracts with forged signatures of the alleged customers or their representatives. At trial, the court found that undisputed evidence proved that Gire knew or recklessly disregarded the fact that illegal aliens were allowed to live in a building owned by his company. According to the news release, Gire did this to make the aliens employment as roofers for Grayson Enterprises attractive despite the fact that Grayson Enterprises was paying them less than the applicable prevailing wage. By giving the aliens a place to live, the court also found that Gire made it more difficult for authorities to locate them. 2019 mug shots from the Herald & Review Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 CHARLESTON Ron Best has a love of history and understands the interest there might be in property that Abraham Lincoln once owned. Best's family ties to Coles County date back about as far as that of Lincoln's. They're bound by 30 acres of farmland that are part of a long and somewhat complicated bit of the county's history. Now, Best is ready to part with that farm ground, along with more land, which his family has owned for 30 years. He knows many people might think of a use based on its historical significance and ties to the 16th president, but it's been farmed the entire time. "It's not like Lincoln's stove pipe hat that you can put on a shelf and say this was Lincoln's," he said. The land Lincoln owned will be part of 590 total acres set to be sold at auction on Tuesday, Lincoln's birthday. The sale is scheduled for 10 a.m. that day at the Unique Suites Hotel in Charleston. In all, the story dates to 1841, when Lincoln bought 40 acres of southern Coles County farm ground from his cash-strapped father, Thomas Lincoln. It's said to be the only farmland Abe, who came to Illinois in 1830 and initially settled in Macon County, ever owned, though he let his father continue to farm it. While six acres became part of what's now Lincoln Log Cabin State Historic Site, the rest stayed in private ownership and was eventually inherited by Ray Phipps. Phipps went through promotional plans and legal wranglings before eventually selling it. Best purchased the 30 acres at an auction in 1989, and the last four acres were sold to Rockford businessman Dan Arnold in 2007. Arnold, the founder of the Road Ranger truck stop chain and who died in 2015, had a plan to raise money for charities using the land. He also wanted to develop the site with historical exhibits, but his plans never came to fruition. The person who answered a call to Arnold's office in Rockford said his family still owns the property, but attempts to find out what plans they might have for it weren't successful. Sitting at his Charleston home recently, Best said Arnold once made an offer to buy his part of the farmland, and there was no interest when it was listed for sale four years ago. He recalled that his wanting to buy the land was a "natural desire" because it was adjacent to 125 acres his family already owned. He and his four siblings who make up the corporation that own the property are now older, he noted, and Best retired from farming four years ago. Best said his brothers and sisters Brenda Stone of Lerna; Barbara Robertson of Dayton, Ohio; John Best of rural Charleston; and Gary Best of Ventura, Calif. have all agreed that it's time to sell the land. The land has been fairly productive and, if it's used for farming, should bring a typical price, Best said. That's not really certain, though. "It's hard to value Lincoln land," he said. Best said he never thought of using the land for anything other than farming, and he has no preference for what a new owner might do with it. Still, if that's something connected to its history, Best will likely appreciate it. He has a copy of the original deed for the sale of the land to Abraham Lincoln along with other publications about Lincoln's link to Coles County. He also grew up on a farm near the historic site and said his ancestors moved from northern Kentucky to the Coles County about the same time Thomas Lincoln arrived. His great-grandfather was 12 years old when he was one of the children who got to meet Lincoln during his last visit to the county before leaving for Washington to become president. "I've had a long long connection with history," he said. Celebrating Abraham Lincoln in our archives Contact Dave Fopay at (217) 238-6858. Follow him on Twitter: @FopayDave Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 ARTHUR Ervin Kauffman visits Yoders Kitchen, a local homestyle restaurant, often. Sometimes he arrives alone. But I get visitors, he said. They just sit down with me. Its not difficult to find company at the popular restaurant. Yoders has built a tasty reputation for its made-from-scratch cooking and equally homey atmosphere. The restaurant recently completed renovations and keeps packing in the patrons. Located in Arthur, a small town of a little more than 2,000 people, the restaurant staff feeds people from all over Central Illinois and beyond with a full menu of comfort food favorites. Groups travel from larger cities, such as Decatur, Champaign and Mattoon, just for Yoders traditional meals. Its not uncommon to walk through the restaurant and not have anyone from Arthur sitting here, said Anna Herschberger, 51, who has owned Yoder's with her family since Aug. 1, 2002. Yoders Kitchen became a staple as an Arthur restaurant in 1994. Herschberger was one of the waitresses. Before the building became recognizable as Yoder's Kitchen, Das Huber Haus served food in the front area and held auctions in the back. Herschberger said she was hesitant when the Yoder family offered to sell her the business more than 15 years ago: Because I was working here and did have a little bit of history, I guess they felt I would be qualified to do it. Yoders Kitchen has an Amish feel the delicious smells of freshly prepared food, the murmur of friendly conversation from all those visitors and a welcoming atmosphere that says make yourself at home. Sandy Dolan of Arthur visits the Yoders Kitchen often with friends and family. Its a very friendly environment, she said. Dolan meets with friends during a weekly breakfast. Idalene Watkins of Arthur joins them, along with her daughter Nancy Snoddy when she visits from Charleston once a week. Yoders is often one of their weekly stops. I like to see people that I know, Snoddy said. The ladies agree Saturdays at Yoders will have visitors from all over the region. Its the buffet, said Betty Trout. Thats what I like best. Another draw is the gift shop located inside the restaurant. Trout said she has purchased books, clothing, picture frames. And a little bit of everything, she said. But I just enjoy looking and browsing around. In a small town; it is a great place to come to if you happen to need a gift, Watkins said. Although she said she no longer follows Amish customs, Anna Herschberger was raised in an Amish family and has kept many of the important beliefs, especially in the kitchen. My mom was an amazing cook and served meals in her home for many years, said Herschberger, who said her mom was known for serving guests on the front and back porches of her home. So when the Herschbergers built a 4,500-square-foot addition to the main restaurant two years ago, they lovingly called the new area "The Porch." Which added 85 more seats, she said. And we added a specific carry-out area and we added catering. Since the restaurant was feeding more people, the staff need more space behind the scenes. One of the favorite additions is the dish room. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} It was just too small, and we couldnt get our dishes done fast enough, said Derrick Herschberger, manager and Herschbergers second son. The special room has an area for dish soaking: Like a Jacuzzi, said manager and Herschbergers oldest son Daren. A power soaker and larger automatic dishwasher are part of the assembly line. In 2006, the restaurant gained its own bakery where cookies, angel food cakes and cinnamon rolls are made. And we make all of our own breads in-house, Daren Herschberger, 31, said. The Herschbergers said the goal of the additions was to make the business more welcoming to the public. When they began the renovations two years ago, they included bathroom improvements, additional dining areas and a large banquet room. We have increased our business,Anna Herschberger said. We are busier, because of it. The food, however, has remained the same. Its all home cooking, Anna Herschberger said. The staff is able to accommodate large groups without prior notice. People just walk in. They have 25 with them, and they dont call ahead, Anna Herschberger said. We have room for them. The family said the food is the draw. And the atmosphere, she said. Our waitresses and staff have been here awhile, too, Derrick Herschberger, 29, said. They get to know them. That brings them back. The Herschbergers said they do little advertising, but reputation travels pretty far. We are doing more on Facebook, Derrick Herschberger said. But its mainly word of mouth. The catering business has grown through the grapevine as well. Holidays and festivals are big business for Arthur, as well as the restaurant. The Arthur fireworks is our busiest day of the year, Herschberger said. Herschberger said she is looking forward to retiring and leaving the business to her sons someday. The two men have been fundamental in the growth of the restaurant. It's been a successful business model: Family will always be important to the Herschbergers, not only their own, but their customers' as well. Its all about family, Anna Herschberger said. 24 Decatur restaurants that take reservations Contact Donnette Beckett at (217) 421-6983. Follow her on Twitter: @donnettebHR Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Satisfy your cravings With our weekly newsletter packed with the latest in everything food. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. DECATUR The operator of a Decatur nursing care facility filed paperwork with the state saying the operation is closing. In the filing, The Decatur Living Center, 444 W. Harrison Ave., warned that 90 workers would be effected starting March 23. An official for the nursing home did not respond to questions. The filing is with the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, which tracks layoffs. The office said Illinois employers notified the state of more than 1,200 layoffs last month. The nursing home was the only Macon County business on the list. It was previously known as Heartland Health Care Center. Decatur-area business openings and closings Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Mourners remember Ron Metzger as 'the ultimate giver' Mourners filled the sanctuary of First United Methodist Church on Saturday to celebrate the life of Ronald C. Ron Metzger, a high school dropout who became a social worker and mental health administrator, a fulltime repairer of hurting humans, a "world-class" maker of cocktails and cookies and the ultimate giver. Metzger died on Tuesday, Jan. 28, at Carolina Village from complications from Alzheimers at age 79. Born in Sabetha, Kansas, he was one 10 children of Bertha and Philip Metzger. After dropping out of high school, he got a job as an apprentice baker, arriving at 1 a.m. to knead the dough, fire up the oven and bake bread, then setting out to deliver the bread, the Rev. Mark Ralls said. Metzer volunteered for the U.S. Army as a conscientious objector, assuming hed be ordered to permanent K.P. After all, he had lots of practice, Ralls said. Instead, the Army made him a medic and assigned him to a psychiatric ward, caring for soldiers struggling with mental illness. One day, walking the down a street, he spotted a sign about getting a G.E.D. And he would say years later it was that moment that changed his life, Ralls said He vowed to become a social worker. After his discharge from the Army, he enrolled at Kansas State, where he met and fell in love with Sherri. When he left for graduate school at the University of Kansas, Ron and Sherri were apart but never separate. Ron and Sherri wrote each other almost every day." Although they could only afford one long distance call a week that was enough. "All those letters and that phone call were enough to keep the fires burning, Ralls said. Sherri saved Rons letters, sealing the more amorous of them in a plastic bag labeled Open at your own risk. Early in their courtship, Ron gave Sherri three roses. One for him, one for her and one for their spirit together, the minister said. He continued the tradition throughout their long and happy marriage. Three roses for every anniversary. Then came their daughter and the three roses represented mom, dad and Emily. When Ron and Sherri moved to Hendersonville in 1974, he started his career as a mental health counselor and later administrator. Over time the small mental health clinic had grown to 250 employees in a building that bears his name, Ralls said. And all through those years of service Ron demonstrated again and again that the greatest gift any of us can give is to give ourselves. In the early days, with space in short supply, Ron the director of the program set up his office in the hallway, a hanging cloth the only means of privacy. Although subordinates protested, Ron insisted it was more important for our clients to have privacy and dignity. Besides his degrees from Kansas State and Kansas, Metzger completed post-graduate work at UNC at Chapel Hill and at the National Institute of Mental Health. After he retired from Trend in 1997, he joined Sherri in real estate sales at Beverly Hanks & Associates. He was a member of the Rotary Club for 40 years and served on the board of the Henderson County Chamber of Commerce among other local boards. His daughter, Emily Freeman, remembered when her dad let her stand on his feet when they danced, when he opened the blinds every morning to wake her up, when he made breakfast every day for her and Sherri and made sure we would all get our day started right as a family, how he would always make Mom and me feel like we were the center of his world. Besides Sherri and Emily, he is survived by his son-in-law, Mark Freeman, and granddaughter, Kinley. Near the end of his career at Trend, Metzger was asked to sum up his philosophy. It is to have and to give and to share with others, he told the gathering. This is not only how he lived, the Rev. Ralls said, this is also how he died. Near the end of his days, as Sherri was leaving his room, Ron absolutely insisted she take a small figurine on the table as a gift from him, a giraffe. Giraffes, you may know, are a symbol of peace. Perhaps Ron knew that in the weeks and months to come Sherri and all the family would need this gift, Ralls said. He said I want you to have it, because when I go to sleep tonight Im not getting out of this bed. He was right. That night he fell and never recovered from the fall. He never got out of that bed. And yet who among us would be surprised to learn, Ralls said, that Ron Metzgers final act was the giving of a gift. * * * * * The family thanked the staff of Carolina Village and particularly thanked Dr. Peggy Noel of Memory Care, who will forever remain in our hearts for her tireless compassion. The family asked that memorial donations be directed to MemoryCare.org through the Community Foundation of Henderson County. Fact must be separated from fiction if we are to have better security along our southern border. Unwarranted fears, fanned by falsehoods and unfounded concerns, have contributed to the deadlock in which our nation is embroiled. The Jan. 31 seizure of a record amount of fentanyl and 395 pounds of methamphetamine, concealed in an 18-wheeler, provides an excellent example of smart border protection. Border officers, aided by a detection dog, apprehended the produce truck and its deadly load of drugs. 1,500 trucks enter at this Nogales, Arizona, crossing daily. Huge quantities of drugs arrive in trucks and through airports and seaports, rather than across miles of remote stretches of unfenced desert. We need state-of-the-art technology and additional, better-trained officers at our border crossings and airports, and increased Coast Guard surveillance along our Gulf of Mexico and Pacific coastlines. Studies in Texas contradict false claims, instead proving that the crime rate among illegal immigrants is a full 50 percent below that of others. Perpetrators in horrific murders in churches, schools, a synagogue, a newspaper office, a music festival and a bank were all American citizens, not illegal immigrants. Migrants seeking asylum here are not our national emergency. Jeanne Welty Southwood Bigfork Love 5 Funny 3 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 5 The fee will not be paid by state- or county-owned hospitals. The state's cost of the Medicaid expansion program continues to increase as the federal share drops to 90 percent in 2020. Continuing the program is one of the key issues for the 2019 Legislature and Buttrey has said he wants to do so without increasing the cost to taxpayers. An early draft of Buttrey's bill calls for a tax on health insurance premiums, a work or community benefit requirement for participants and increased premiums for people on Medicaid expansion for more than two years. He also wants to charge additional fees for people with extensive assets, even if they qualify for Medicaid expansion based on their income, and collect from tax-exempt religious corporations the state's share of their members' Medicaid costs a provision aimed at Hutterite colonies. Federal law does not allow direct asset testing. Caferro's bill retains many of the points of the bipartisan bill carried by Buttrey in 2015, while adding the hospital fee and increasing the appropriation for a voluntary workforce training program. Montana's Medicaid expansion program will end on June 30 if lawmakers don't pass a bill to continue it. Love 3 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 4 A Poplar man has been sentenced to more than six years in federal prison and two years supervised release after he admitted to beating another man to death in 2017 on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation. Errol Wayne Longee, 35, was sentenced Wednesday by Judge Brian Morris in U.S. District Court in Great Falls. Longee is also required to pay $2,816 restitution as part of his sentence. Longee admitted in October to killing 41-year-old Patrick Wayne Mitchell after the two had been drinking into the early hours of July 1, 2017. He was initially charged in federal court with second-degree murder, but pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter as part of a plea deal with prosecutors. After Longee and Mitchell had been drinking for several hours in the backyard of a Poplar residence where Mitchell was staying, they were joined by a woman who accused Mitchell of having sexually abused her when she was younger, according to prosecutors. The woman "became upset and began punching" Mitchell in the face while he was sitting on the ground, court documents state. Longee then approached the victim and began repeatedly hitting, kicking and stomping on him. HOHN, Inez, R., age 94, of Townsend, passed away Saturday, Feb. 2, 2019. Viewing will be held from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 8, at Anderson Stevenson Wilke Funeral Home, 3750 N. Montana Ave. in Helena. Graveside services will be held at 3 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 8, at the Montana State Veterans Cemetery at Fort Harrison. A memorial service celebrating Inez's life will be held at 2 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 9, at the Townsend United Methodist Church, 200 North Cedar St. in Townsend. A reception will follow the service in the fellowship hall of the church. Memorials in Inezs honor may be sent to Special K Ranch, Hohn House Fund, 34 Special K Lane, Columbus, MT. 59019. Please visit www.aswfuneralhome.com to offer a condolence to the family or to share a memory or Inez. The tourism industry is bullish this year, with more Filipinos expected to travel abroad and an increasing number of foreign tourists set to visit the country. The countrys biggest group of tour operators and travel agencies noted that more Filipinos were touring the world as the middle-class continues to expand. International tourists, meanwhile, are also increasing in numbers. I gathered that the Tourism Department is very much on track with its projections. Based on the revised Tourism master plan, the agency will hit all targets by 2022, said Philippine Travel Agencies Association president Ritchie Tuano. Tourist arrivals in 2018 hit an all-time record high of 7.12 million, up 7.6 percent from 6.62 million in 2017. The Philippine tourism growth was cited as higher than the average 6-percent expansion in Asia last year. We are more concerned with the challenges that the sector is facing. The Boracay and Marawi issues were behind us now, but there is this need to ensure that things of the past will not happen anymore, Tuano said.The challenges include improving existing airports and creating more international gateways to decongest Metro Manila. Most of the investments in the tourism sector so far are in the airline industry. They buy new planes for their re-fleeting programs but the facilities housing them are still way below international standards. Landing strips and the tarmac in airports are also inadequate. Tuano added the challenge for travel and tour operators, meanwhile, was keeping fares and tour fees competitive. Ongoing airline promos help the segment keep prices at bay for a limited period of time. The PTTA during the opening of the 4th International Travel Trade Expo Thursday said the group was making sure promos and offering would entice the public to travel more. The tourism landscape is evolving rapidly, the introduction of disruptive technologies require travel agencies to adjust with the times. As an association, we have to provide our members with the tools needed for them to continue growing, said iTTE 2019 president Marlene Jante. Receiving the award after the death of her parents was bittersweet for Tubbs. Its a wonderful recognition for me and my family," Tubbs said. My mom always said Im not good at accepting compliments. But now I finally can be accepting of any compliment because Ive gotten this high honor. Tubbs father, the late author and historian Stephen Ambrose, was a history professor. She says she followed him into education, but not in a traditional sense. She likes her freedom to come and go and adventure to learn and teach along the way. Im an advocate for trails and for getting kids interested in history through play-space education; where you take them to a battlefield or alongside the Lewis and Clark trail to get their senses up, to pay attention to the story and look around and see where it all happened, Tubbs said. It makes a huge impression. Patty Dean, a public history consultant in Helena, nominated Tubbs for her rock star status for people who want to learn, her willingness to share her knowledge, and her commitment to doing so, regardless of the circumstances or context." Stephenie is an exemplary ambassador for the humanities and for Montana, Dean wrote to the selection committee. Growers vote in favor of advisory committee Montana hemp farmers and industry professionals voted 19-1 Thursday in favor of creating a hemp advisory committee within the Montana Department of Agriculture. This followed a Jan. 31 meeting in Sidney, which saw a unanimous vote in favor of the committee, according to Department of Agriculture director Ben Thomas. Thomas said it's very likely that he will move forward with forming a committee. The exact size of the committee is yet to be determined, but the department is floating the idea of a seven member board filled mostly with Montana growers. One seat may be reserved for an industry member from processing or another hemp-related area. Additionally, the seat could go to someone representing hemp consumers. The committee would be responsible for providing active feedback to the Department of Agriculture. Additionally, it would determine any voluntary assessment fee that growers would pay to the department. Terms will be one and two years when the committee starts. As time passes, terms will be adjusted so that they stagger. The department typically limits members to three terms. Montana would be the third state in the United States to have a hemp advisory committee. News_release University of California San Diego, in a collaborative agreement with Leica Microsystems, Inc., has opened a new Leica Microsystems Center of Excellence on the School of Medicine campus to further the application of and accessibility to advanced microscopy technologies in support of the life science and health research communities. The center will support a combined mission to educate the next generation of scientists and drive new scientific discoveries. A signing ceremony, with Steven Garfin, MD, interim dean of the UC San Diego School of Medicine, and Greg Eppink, general manager of Leica Microsystems Americas, took place Thursday, February 7, 2019, at 3:30 p.m. in the Leichtag Family Foundation Biomedical Research Building. Housed in the School of Medicine Microscopy Core, the new center will feature Leica confocal microscopy technology purchased by the department, including FALCON fast lifetime contrast imaging and stimulated emission depletion (STED), multiphoton and confocal super-resolution microscopy systems able to capture dynamic processes at the molecular level. Our core has been serving the microscopy imaging needs of researchers across the campus for more than 15 years, said Binhai Zheng, PhD, professor in the Department of Neurosciences and faculty director of the microscopy core who will also oversee the new center. With the support of our institutional leadership, the new partnership with Leica will boost our ability to provide advanced tools to our researchers for years to come, supporting cross-campus initiatives, such as the new Center for Network Medicine and its mission to enhance human life through innovative, disruptive research. Garfin agreed: The science and practice of medicine are relentlessly more complicated and nuanced, requiring physicians and scientists to understand the workings of the human body in ever-increasing detail. The new Leica center offers another, powerful tool, one that can be used by students and faculty alike. The center will include ongoing collaboration between working researchers and Leica Microsystems engineers, creating valuable dialogue in how to improve and innovate software, systems and workflow. Collaborating with a world class organization like UC San Diego to enable them to push the limits of what is seen is truly exciting for Leica and we look forward to working with UC San Diego today and for many years into the future, said Eppink. Leica Microsystems mission is to provide unrivaled insight for our customers by pushing the limits of what was previously possible and visible. About UC San Diego Health UC San Diego Health, comprising a comprehensive health system throughout San Diego County, UC San Diego School of Medicine and Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, is one of five academic medical systems within the University of California system. We are committed to improving patient care while also researching new treatments and training tomorrows doctors and pharmacists. For more than 50 years, our renowned clinicians and scientists have made advances in numerous fields, including minimally invasive surgeries, personalized cancer therapy, cardiovascular treatment and surgery, transplantation and the early detection of autism. Our specialty patient care is consistently ranked among the nations best by U.S. News & World Report. About Leica Microsystems Leica Microsystems develops and manufactures microscopes and scientific instruments for the analysis of micro and nanostructures, basic research and medical applications. It has seven major manufacturing plants and product development sites around the world and operates in 100 countries. Its headquarters are located in Wetzlar, Germany. Dennis Beaver Practices law in Bakersfield and welcomes comments and questions from readers, which may be faxed to (661) 323-7993, or e-mailed to Lagombeaver1@gmail.com. And be sure to visit dennisbeaver.com. VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (Jan. 31, 2019) Naval aviators participating in a flyover to honor the life and legacy of retired Navy Capt. Rosemary Mariner pose for a photo in a hangar bay at Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach, Virginia, Jan. 31, 2019. The U.S. Navy is scheduled to conduct the first ever all-female flyover Feb. 2 in Maynardville, Tennessee as part of the funeral service for Mariner, a female Naval aviation pioneer. Back row, from left to right: Lt. Christy Talisse (Hanford Native), Lt. Emily Rixey, Lt. Cmdr. Jennifer Hesling, Lt. Kelly Harris, Lt. Amanda Lee. Front row from left to right: Lt. Cmdr. Danielle Thiriot, Cmdr. Stacy Uttecht, Cmdr. Leslie Mintz, and Lt. Cmdr. Paige Blok. Virginia Beach, VA (February 1, 2019) Pilots from Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 34 prepare to fly the F/A-18 Hornet for the final time. The F/A-18 Hornet entered operational service for the fleet in 1984. The aircrafts first combat mission was in 1986 during Operation El Dorado Canyon and the legacy Hornet continued to serve in every major U.S. military operation including the Gulf War, Iraqi War, Enduring Freedom, Iraqi Freedom, Inherent Resolve and most recently served in 2018 from the deck of USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) with Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 34 while conducting navigation patrols in the South China Sea. Grand Old Partisan salutes Abraham Galloway, born into slavery this day of 1837. His master apprenticed him to a bricklayer, in return for his pay. Age twenty, he escaped from North Carolina aboard a ship to Philadelphia. Galloway returned home during the Civil War, to scout landing sites for Union troops. Success there led to being assigned to the area around Vicksburg. He recruited three regiments of African-American volunteers. At his insistence, commanders provided sustenance and schools for their families. In 1864, Galloway and four other African-American leaders met with President Abraham Lincoln. Months later, he attended a National Convention of Colored Citizens in Buffalo. He then organized a state freed people's convention. Galloway delivered speeches on behalf of the Republican Party. This forceful orator was delegate to the 1868 constitutional convention. That year, he won the first of two terms in the state senate. Ratification of the GOP's 14th and 15th Amendments received his vote. Jaundice cut short his life at age thirty-three. Six thousand mourners attended the funeral. Here is a Video Version of this article on YouTube: https://youtu.be/_S-XYOONV3M Michael Zak is author of Back to Basics for the Republican Party, a history of GOP civil rights achievement. Each day, his grandoldpartisan YouTube channel and Grand Old Partisan blog celebrate more than sixteen decades of Republican heritage. And, see Speech Raves for audience feedback from his presentations in thirty-one states so far. He also wrote the 2005 Republican Freedom Calendar. Clarence Thomas cited Back to Basics for the Republican Party in a Supreme Court decision. Buy the book at Amazon See www.youtube.com/q?v=IzxKCiXc5Qc for a brief video of a Texas Republican praising Back to Basics for the Republican Party. "This is the most amazing book about politics that I have ever read. The Overview should be required reading for anyone with even a minor interest in government. The remainder is an enthralling history lesson that I will never forget. For years, we have all been misled about the true nature of the GOP. This is the real deal! Read it and be proud!" "Michael Zak wrote the definitive history of the GOP." "Back to Basics for the Republican Party is the most significant contribution to the Republican Party in the last twenty years apart from Ronald Reagan." "Back to Basics for the Republican Party is more important to our party now than ever before." and "one of the best books I ever read" OTTAWA, Ontario, Feb. 08, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- UrbanGold Minerals Inc. ("UrbanGold" or the "Company | TSXV: UGM) announces that Trevor Richardson has indicated his intention to resign as Chief Executive Officer and a director of the Company, Laurie Meloche has resigned as Vice-President, Corporate Development and a director of the Company, and Peter Cashin has resigned as a director of the Company. Sabino Di Paola, Chief Financial Officer, Secretary and a director of the Company, has been appointed as Interim Chief Executive Officer until such time that a new Chief Executive Officer is appointed. In addition, Dale Burstall has been appointed as a director of the Company. The Company wishes to thank Mr. Richardson, Ms. Meloche and Mr. Cashin for their services, in particular for their efforts in connection with the Company's initial public offering, and wishes them success in their future endeavors. UrbanGold has recently completed an IPO and financing. Of funds raised and following payment of all IPO costs, the Company currently has funds available in the amount of approximately $328,000 to pay administrative costs. Both Laurie and Trevor are entitled to severance payments which will reduce the available funds. The Company has also reserved $1,400,000 for mineral exploration in Quebec. Exploration is under the guidance of Mathieu Stephens, VP Exploration. About UrbanGold UrbanGold is incorporated under the federal laws of Canada and has its principal office in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The Company is engaged in the evaluation, acquisition and exploration of mineral properties in Canada, and its current focus is Quebec. The Company plans to ultimately develop the properties, bring them into production, option or lease the properties to third parties, or sell the properties outright. The Company has not determined whether these properties contain mineral reserves that are economically recoverable, and the Company is considered to be in the exploration stage. Forward Looking Information This press release contains "forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws that is intended to be covered by the safe harbours created by those laws. Forward-looking information includes statements that use forward-looking terminology such as may, will, expect, intend, anticipate, believe, continue, potential or the negative thereof or other variations thereof or comparable terminology. Forward-looking information is not a guarantee of future performance and is based upon a number of estimates and assumptions of management at the date the statements are made. Furthermore, such forward-looking information involves a variety of known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual plans, intentions, activities, results, performance or achievements of the Corporation to be materially different from any future plans, intentions, activities, results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by forward-looking information. See Risk Factors in the Corporations Final Prospectus dated December 13, 2018 filed on SEDAR at www.sedar.com for a discussion of these risks. The Corporation cautions that there can be no assurance that forward-looking information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such information. Accordingly, investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Except as required by law, the Corporation does not assume any obligation to release publicly any revisions to forward-looking information contained in this press release to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof. For further information Sabino Di Paola, Interim Chief Executive Officer, Chief Financial Officer and Secretary sdipaola@urbangoldminerals.com Phone (613) 721-2919 www.urbangoldminerals.com Neither the TSX Venture Exchange, nor its Regulation Service Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSXV, accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Feb. 08, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- East Africa Metals Inc. (TSX-V: EAM) (East Africa, EAM or the Company) is pleased to announce EAM have executed a binding Letter of Intent (LOI) with Tibet Huayu Mining Co., Ltd (Tibet Huayu) for the exploration, development and operation of EAMs Ethiopian Mining Assets; the Terakimti, Mato Bula and Da Tambuk gold projects located in the Tigray National Regional State of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (Ethiopia). Tibet Huayu is a Chinese mining company with its headquarters in Lhasa, China and is publicly listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange. The LOI contemplates EAM transferring its equity interest in its Ethiopian subsidiary companies to Tibet Huayu and the parties entering into Joint Venture Contracts for the purpose of development and operation of EAMs Ethiopian Mining Assets. EAM owns 70% of the Harvest Mining PLC (Harvest) and 100% of the Tigray Resources Incorporated PLC (TRI). Harvest holds the Terakimti oxide gold mining license. EAMs subsidiary, TRI hosts the Mato Bula and Da Tambuk deposits (Adyabo Property) which are in the final process of mine permitting. The transaction defined in the binding LOI includes terms that in exchange for 55% interest of Harvest and 70% interest in TRI, Tibet Huayu will: Provide a cash payment of US$1.7M to EAM; Finance, develop and operate the Terakimti, Da Tambuk and Mato Bula projects. On completion of the proposed transaction: Tibet Huayu will hold the rights (interest) to 55% post tax profits/Government distributions of Harvest and hold the rights (interest) to 70% of the post tax profits/Government distributions of TRI. EAM will hold the rights (interest) to 15% post tax profits/Government distributions of Harvest and hold the rights (interest) to 30% of the post tax profits/Government distributions of TRI. Closing conditions include: Required approvals including and not limited to Board, Regulatory, and Government approvals; Execution of the definitive agreement; and EAM has received the cash payment of US$1.7M. EAM will retain the mineral rights, and all exploration obligations for the prospective targets not incorporated in the three mining licenses (EAM Mineral Resources). EAM shall give Tibet Huayu a right of first refusal of reasonable duration to acquire EAMs Mineral Resources. For consideration of the future Ethiopian Mineral Resources negotiations will be based on i) cash payment and ii) allocated % of post-tax profits of the new mineral resources. Tibet Huayu and EAM will use best efforts to finalize all conditions precedent and finalize the definitive agreement. Andrew Lee Smith, East Africas C.E.O. stated, The signing of the binding LOI with Tibet Huayu marks a significant milestone for EAM and the emerging Ethiopian Mining sector. EAMs board and management look forward to a partnership that will see mine development and exploration agendas advancing parallel with the objective to establish mining operations and grow the current resource base through diamond drilling. The key technical and base case pre-tax and post-tax metrics for each project are presented below (see news release April 30, 2018): PARAMETER(3) PROJECT Units Mato Bula Da Tambuk Terakimti (1) Mine Plan Tonnes 3,335,000 650,000 1,086,000 Grade Gold g/t 3.0 4.9 3.1 Copper % 0.26 % N/A N/A Silver g/t 0.70 2.3 22.9 Metal Recoveries Gold % 86.4 % 93.0 % 65.0 % Copper % 87.4 % N/A N/A Silver % 50.0 % 50.0 % 30.0 % Recovered Metals Gold Ozs 278,000 95,000 71,000 Copper Lbs (x000) 13,353 N/A N/A Silver Ozs 38,300 24,000 229,000 Au Eq(4) Ozs 305,000 95,000 74,000 Capital Cost US$(x000) $ 54,200 $ 34,030 $ 17,180 Sustaining Capital US$(x000) $ 5,600 $ 8,030 $ 1,720 Operating Cost Site - C1 US$/tonne $ 47.53 $ 61.85 $ 34.10 Metal Prices Gold Price US$/oz $ 1,325 $ 1,325 $ 1,325 Copper Price US$/lb $ 3.00 N/A N/A Silver Price US$/oz $ 17.00 $ 17.00 $ 17.00 PRE-TAX Cash Flow US$(x000) $ 139,710 $ 31,160 $ 29,360 NPV @8% US$(x000) $ 83,820 $ 20,670 $ 19,470 IRR % 34.1 % 37.8 % 37.4 % POST-TAX Cash Flow LOM US$ (x000) $ 97,700 $ 20,615 $ 20,890 NPV @8% US$ (x000) $ 56,660 $ 13,020 $ 13,180 IRR % 28.4 % 28.6 % 30.1 % OTHER METRICS Payback Years 3.0 1.9 2.4 C1 Op Cost US$/oz Au $ 412 $ 420 $ 465 AISC US$/oz Au $ 620 $ 642 $ 649 On behalf of the Board of Directors: Andrew Lee Smith, P.Geo., CEO For further information contact: Nick Watters, Business Development Telephone +1 (604) 488-0822 Email investors@eastafricametals.com Website www.eastafricametals.com Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information This news release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Generally, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "anticipate", "believe", "plan", "expect", "intend", "estimate", "forecast", "project", "budget", "schedule", "may", "will", "could", "might", "should", indicate or variations of such words or similar words or expressions. Forward-looking information is based on reasonable assumptions that have been made by East Africa as at the date of such information and is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of East Africa to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information, including but not limited to: timing of receipt of approvals related to the LOI and Definitive Agreement; timing of receipt of mining permits; timing of mining development; projected heap leach recoveries ; engineering study assessments and results, metal and mineral prices; availability of capital; accuracy of East Africa's projections and estimates, including the mineral resources for the Adyabo and Harvest; estimated timing of receipt of the Adyabo mining licence applications and/or exploration licence extensions, interest and exchange rates; mineral exploration and development; accuracy of East Africa's projections and estimates, including the initial mineral resource for the Adyabo and Harvest; interest and exchange rates; competition; stock price fluctuations; availability of drilling equipment and access; actual results of current exploration activities; government regulation; political or economic developments; foreign taxation risks; environmental risks; insurance risks; capital expenditures; operating or technical difficulties in connection with development activities; personnel relations; the speculative nature of strategic metal exploration and development including the risks of diminishing quantities of grades of reserves; contests over title to properties; and changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined, as well as those risk factors set out in East Africas managements discussion and analysis for the three months and nine months ended September 30, 2018 and for the year ended December 31, 2017, and East Africas listing application dated July 8, 2013 Mineral Resources which are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. The contained gold, copper and silver figures shown are in situ. No assurance can be given that the estimated quantities will be produced. Forward-looking statements are based on assumptions management believes to be reasonable, including but not limited to the timely closing of the financing; the timely closing of the Handeni Property definitive agreement; the price of gold, silver, copper and zinc; the demand for gold, silver, copper and zinc; the ability to carry on exploration and development activities; the timely receipt of any required approvals; the ability to obtain qualified personnel, equipment and services in a timely and cost-efficient manner; the ability to operate in a safe, efficient and effective manner; the renewal or extension of exploration Licenses; the regulatory framework regarding environmental matters, and such other assumptions and factors as set out herein. Although East Africa has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such information. The Company does not update or revise forward looking information even if new information becomes available unless legislation requires the Company do so. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information contained herein, except in accordance with applicable securities laws. Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UNITED STATES NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES THUNDER BAY, Ontario, Feb. 08, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- MEXICAN GOLD CORP. (TSX-V: MEX; OTCQB: MEXGF; FRA:4QW1) ("Mexican Gold", MEX or the Company") is pleased to announce that it has engaged Mine Development Associates (MDA) of Reno, Nevada, USA to provide an updated 43-101 Resource on Mexican Golds Las Minas Project in the State of Veracruz, Mexico. Since the initial 43-101 Resource was completed in August 2017, MEX has drilled an additional 6,454 metres in 39 holes, increasing the amount of drilling in the Resource area by approximately 40%. Additionally, higher grade mineralization was encountered in the late 2017 and early 2018 drilling in the El Dorado Dike contact zone. For example, drill hole LM-17-ED-40 encountered 38 metres grading 5.39 g/t Au, 17.1 g/t Ag and 2.20% Cu, while drill hole LM-18-ED-49 intercepted 38 metres of 4.51 g/t Au, 16.2 g/t Ag and 3.33% Cu. The updated Resource will incorporate the new and higher-grade drill results and will also be developed using a newer and more refined geologic, mineral domain model. Dr. Carl Hering, CEO, stated that An updated 43-101 Resource should show significant improvement over the maiden Resource and demonstrate a more realistic understanding of Project potential. The updated Resource is scheduled to be completed in the Spring of 2019 and will be utilized to plan further drilling in mid-2019. The Company previously announced a non-brokered private placement of units in the Company (Units) at $0.20 per Unit for gross proceeds of up to $3,000,000 subject to the Companys option to increase the size of the private placement by 25% (the "Private Placement") (see Companies last updated news release of December 21, 2018). Each Unit offered under the Private Placement consists of one common share of the Company (a Common Share) and one Common Share purchase warrant (each whole warrant, a "Warrant"). Each Warrant is exercisable into a Common Share at the price of $0.30 per Common Share for a period of thirty-six months, subject to the Companys option to accelerate the expiry date of the Warrants on notice to the holders of the Warrants, if at any time after four months and one day from the closing date of the Private Placement, the closing price of its Common Shares on a stock exchange in Canada is greater than $0.45 per Common Share for a period of 20 consecutive trading days. The Company closed the first tranche of the Private Placement for gross proceeds of $2,063,000 on November 22, 2018 and is aiming to close the second tranche of the Private Placement before the end of February 2019. The net proceeds from the Private Placement will be used to continue exploration on the Companys Las Minas project located in the State of Veracruz, Mexico, and for general working capital purposes. Securities issued pursuant to the Private Placement will be subject to a four month and one day statutory hold period. As at the date hereof there is no material fact or material change related to the Company that has not been generally disclosed. The Private Placement is subject to the final approval of the TSX Venture Exchange. Quality Assurance/Quality Control The technical information in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Sonny Bernales, P. Geo., a registered Professional Geoscientist in the Province of British Columbia and a qualified person as defined by NI 43101. Mr. Bernales is responsible for logistics and supervision of all exploration activity conducted by Mexican Gold on the property. About Mexican Gold Corp. Mexican Gold Corp. is a Canadian based mineral exploration company committed to building long-term value through ongoing discoveries and strategic acquisitions of prospective precious metals and copper deposits in North America. Mexican Gold is exploring the Las Minas Project, which is located in the core of the Las Minas mining district in Veracruz State, Mexico, and is host to one of the newest, under-explored skarn systems known in Mexico. For more information, please contact: Carl Hering, PhD Geology, CEO Brian E. Robertson, P. Eng., President Phone: 303-895-5241 or 807-251-1816 Fax: 807-474-4272 E-mail: info@mexicangold.ca Website at www.mexicangold.ca CAUTIONARY STATEMENT REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION: This news release includes certain information that may constitute "forward-looking information" under applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking information can often, but not always, be identified by the use of words such as believes, anticipates, expects, estimates, may, could, would, will, or plan. These statements are based on information currently available to the Company, and the Company provides no assurance that actual results will meet managements expectations. Forward-looking information includes, but is not limited to, statements about the closing of the Private Placement, the future exploration results relating to the Las Minas project, and exploration plans for the Las Minas project and the exploration potential of the Las Minas project. Forward-looking information is necessarily based upon a number of estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable, are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors which may cause the actual results and future events to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information, including the risks identified in the Company's disclosure documents. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such information. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. All forward-looking information contained in this press release is given as of the date hereof and is based upon the opinions and estimates of management and information available to management as at the date hereof. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Toyota bares new RAV4 SUV model posted February 08, 2019 at 08:05 pm by Othel V. Campos February 08, 2019 at 08:05 pm Toyota Motor Philippines on Friday launched the all-new RAV4, a compact SUV model that is expected to boost the annual sales of the company in 2019. RAV4 serves a very niche market and a small share in the overall sales with roughly 30 units in monthly sales last year, but it has a very specific role as it helps out in the personality of the brand, said Toyota senior vice president for marketing Jose Maria Atienza. Toyota expects the fifth generation RAV4 to sell 80 to 100 units monthly, or double the annual sales of 411 units in 2018. The rugged RAV4 has been attracting a lot of female buyers and within the market segment of 32 to 42 years old. Toyota Motor Philippines on Friday launched the all-new RAV4, a compact SUV model that is expected to boost the annual sales of the company in 2019. RAV4 serves a very niche market and a small share in the overall sales with roughly 30 units in monthly sales last year, but it has a very specific role as it helps out in the personality of the brand, said Toyota senior vice president for marketing Jose Maria Atienza. Toyota expects the fifth generation RAV4 to sell 80 to 100 units monthly, or double the annual sales of 411 units in 2018. The rugged RAV4 has been attracting a lot of female buyers and within the market segment of 32 to 42 years old.RAV4 then plays a big role as a legacy SUV brand of Toyota, Atienza said. TMP president Satoru Suzuki said the new RAV4 embodied Toyotas valuessporty design, powerful performance and outstanding safety features. COMMENT DISCLAIMER: Reader comments posted on this Web site are not in any way endorsed by Manila Standard. Comments are views by manilastandard.net readers who exercise their right to free expression and they do not necessarily represent or reflect the position or viewpoint of manilastandard.net. While reserving this publications right to delete comments that are deemed offensive, indecent or inconsistent with Manila Standard editorial standards, Manila Standard may not be held liable for any false information posted by readers in this comments section. VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Feb. 08, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ICC International Cannabis Corp. (CSE: WRLD.U)(FWB: 8K51)(OTC: KNHBF) ("ICC" or International Cannabis or the Company) applauds Wayland Group Corp.s (CSE: WAYL)(FWB: 75M)(OTCQB: MRRCF) (Wayland) recent announcement that it has received both good manufacturing practice and good distribution practice certifications from the national authority in the state of Saxony for the Ebersbach facility (see Wayland news release dated February 7, 2019). The certifications apply to a 50,000 square foot area enclaved within the geometrically larger Ebersbach facility, located just outside of Dresden, Germany. EBERSBACH FACILITY The Ebersbach Facility is equipped with 820,000 square feet of clean room cultivation space. In addition, the Ebersbach Facility is poised to receive EU-GMP certifications for narcotics import and wholesale in Q1 2019. CBD isolate production from the Ebersbach Facility totalled 2,400 kg in 2018. The Ebersbach Facility has a replacement cost of 110M Euro. The Company anticipates that it will be a leading applicant for a German indoor medical THC cultivation license and it will control a 500-hetare outdoor CBD cultivation operation. Of the many applicants for medical THC cultivation licenses, only two have a completed facility and of those that do, the largest is 14,000 square feet or 1.7% the size of the Ebersbach Facility. The German patient population for medical Cannabis is experiencing exponential growth, with over 79,000 patients now active, up from approximately 800 in 20171. Eugene Beukman, Chief Executive Officer and a director of International Cannabis, stated: International Cannabis applauds the Ebersbach facilitys receipt of the prestigious good manufacturing practice and good distribution practice certifications. EU-GMP certifications mark the highest standards of pharmaceutical production in the world. Receipt of EU-GMP certifications by the Ebersbach facility will streamline production processes, resulting in shorter lead times and higher margins. These certifications will also permit the bulk warehousing of medical cannabis on German soil, allowing for direct sales into an underserved marketplace. ICC WAYLAND LOI On January 15, 2019, International Cannabis announced it has entered into a letter of intent (LOI) to acquire 49.9 per cent of Wayland Group Corp.'s international assets and licence portfolio. Pursuant to the LOI, the companies will complete a definitive purchase agreement on or before March 1, 2019. Wayland's international assets and licences will be held in a subsidiary (the International Subsidiary), owned by Wayland and International Cannabis. The International Subsidiary will include key management from Wayland. Upon closing of the transaction, International Cannabis will acquire a 49.9-per-cent interest in the following operations, partnerships, licences and asset exposure: German cannabis import licence, indoor medical cannabis cultivation licence application, 820,000-square-foot facility with 50,000-square-foot certified packaging/distribution centre (replacement cost of 110 million euros), annual production of over 2,400 kilograms of CBD (cannabidiol) isolate and 165 hectares of CBD cultivation operations, as well as a three-year agreement to supply medical cannabis to 2,200 pharmacies; The 820,000-square-foot Ebersbach facility has a replacement cost of 110 million euros; of the many applicants for German medical THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) cultivation licences, only two have a completed facility, and of those that do, the largest is 14,000 square feet or 1.7 per cent the size of the Ebersbach facility; Swiss cannabis cultivation operation, with 60,000-square-foot cultivation facility, proprietary genetics portfolio available for export, THC distillate import capabilities and material revenues from Haxxon AG operations; Leading candidacy for one of seven medical cannabis licences to be issued by the Italian government, as well as an ownership interest in a joint venture to produce cannabis products; Maltese licence to manufacture finished-dose medical cannabis; Colombian licences for THC/CBD production, extraction and export and pending access to a European Union good-manufacturing-practice-certified API facility for cannabis distillate processing; Leading candidacy for United Kingdom-based medical cannabis import licence and Australian late-stage medical cannabis applicant; Leading candidacy for the first Argentine federal medical cannabis licence, approval expected in early 2019 and existing supply agreements for CBD products; Integration of Wayland's European operations teams into the international subsidiary. COMBINED HIGHLIGHTS Upon successful completion of the transaction, International Cannabis and Wayland will jointly hold or have access to the following: Distribution or supply agreements with over 39,000 corporate and independent pharmacies; 30,000 kilograms EU GMP medical cannabis import agreement over a three-year term with Wayland; 16 licences, spanning 12 countries and four continents; 820,000 square feet of clean room cultivation space; 2,400 kg of CBD isolate produced in 2018. ICC International, through its subsidiaries, has operating assets and is developing a world-class platform for cultivation, extraction, formulation and distribution across the globe in the United Kingdom, Denmark, Poland, Switzerland, Germany, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Malta, Colombia, Argentina, Australia, South Africa and Lesotho. ON BEHALF OF THE ICC INTERNATIONAL CANNABIS CORP BOARD OF DIRECTORS Eugene Beukman Eugene Beukman CEO, Director +1 (604) 687-2038 info@intlcannabiscorp.com Learn more about ICC by visiting our website at: https://intlcannabiscorp.com/ Stay up to date with everything happening at ICC by following or liking us on: Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/ICCWRLD/ Twitter - https://twitter.com/ICC_WRLD LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/icc-wrld/ THE CSE HAS NOT REVIEWED AND DOES NOT ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ACCURACY OR ADEQUACY OF THIS RELEASE. Notice Regarding Forward Looking Information: This news release contains certain "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities law. Forward-looking information is frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "continue", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate", "may", "will", "potential", "proposed" and other similar words, or information that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur. This information is only a prediction. Various assumptions were used in drawing the conclusions or making the projections contained in the forward-looking information throughout this news release. Forward-looking information includes, but is not limited to: political changes in Canada and internationally, future legislative and regulatory developments involving cannabis in Canada and internationally, the Companys ability to secure distribution channels in international jurisdictions, competition and other risks affecting the Company in particular and the cannabis industry generally. The forward-looking information contained in this release is expressly qualified by the foregoing cautionary statements and is made as of the date of this release. Except as may be required by applicable securities laws, the Company does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward- looking information to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this release or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, whether as a result of new information, future events or results, or otherwise. ____________________________ San Diego, CA, Feb. 08, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- For 43 years, First Team Real Estate has been in the business of making a difference in the communities they call home. With their Military on the Move program, First Team additionally makes a difference for those who have risked their lives to defend the homes and consumers that create the fabric of our great nation. At the start of 2019, First Team brought its exceptional service, unparalleled marketing tools, and luxury alliances to Sea Coast Exclusive Properties in San Diego County. The merger allowed Sea Coast agents the opportunity to leverage not only First Teams title as the #1 Independent Brokerage in Southern California, but also their extraordinary programs. One of First Teams programs that yielded exceptionally positive resultsand suggests an even more optimistic outlook for clients in San Diego Countyis Military on the Move, a program that provides a financial incentive to active and former military members when they buy or sell a home with First Team Real Estate. Some of the counties that are the most densely populated with military members in the nation are targeted by First Teams outreach program: Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino, Orange, and San Diego counties. Now that First Team holds an even more prominent place in the San Diego market, the brokerage has extended its Military on the Move program to local military base communities, such as Oceansides Camp Pendleton. The program itself was constructed to ensure that local military members found their dream home or sold their home for top-dollar and that they would be recognized for their service to the community and the country. When military members buy or sell through First Teams Military on the Move program, they will receive a credit or cash bonus based on the actual sales price, in addition to the added benefits and programs that many active and veteran U.S. Military clients may qualify for. This program possesses immense possibilities to give back to those who deserve it most, explained Gayle Glew, Director of Global Relocation and Corporate Services at First Team. The brokerage aims to promote the many benefits and discounts that are available to veterans and active military members that could assist them and their families in saving thousands of dollars in the home sale and purchase process. Not only does the Military on the Move program benefit the community as a whole, but it also recognizes and gives back to those who have given so much in defense of the country. First Team is comprised of a close-knit family, stated the President of First Team Real Estate Michael Mahon, and nothing brings family closer together than showing that you care. We are honored to have supported U.S. Military veteran and active duty families in the purchase and sale of over $100,000,000 in real estate home sales in 2018, as each transaction under our Military on the Move program enabled us to contribute and support in making a difference in each of these families lives. Our entire First Team family is excited for difference we feel we can provide in the expansion of our Military on the Move program to the communities that we now serve in San Diego County. Attachments VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Feb. 08, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- New Age Brands Inc. (CSE:NF) (OTC:NWGFF) (FSE:ONF) (New Age Brands or the Company) is pleased to announce that, for their second year, the Company will be attending a number of North Americas largest CBD/cannabis and sporting trade shows including the ASD Market Week Trade Show located in Las Vegas, Nevada, the CHAMPs Trade Show located in Orlando, Florida and the Outdoor Retailer Trade Show in Denver, Colorado. The Company will be focusing on promoting their wholly owned subsidiaries We Are Kured, LLC and Drink Fresh Water, LLC to retailers, wholesalers and distributors from around the world. Benjamin Martch, New Age Brands Chief Marketing Officer and founder and Chief Executive Officer of Kured, stated: Our team believes that these trade shows are an integral part of expanding Kured and Fresh Water to retailers around the world. I cant be more excited to see what new business our sales team will procure through these trade shows in 2019. ABOUT New Age Brands New Age Brands is an innovative Cannabidiol (CBD) lifestyle Company. Through the Companys wholly owned subsidiaries We are Kured and Drink Fresh Water, the Companys main business activities encompass the development, marketing and distribution of CBD products (including vaporizer pens and beverages) throughout the United States and internationally. In addition, New Age Brands has extensive retail and cultivation land investments in Oregon. For further information about New Age Brands, please consult the Companys profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com or visit the Companys website at www.NABrandsInc.com . For further information about We Are Kured, please visit their website at www.wearekured.com . On Behalf of the Board of Directors Joshua Bartch Chief Executive Officer info@newagefarminc.com For Further Information Contact Corporate Communications info@nabrandsinc.com 250-488-6728 We Are Kured Contact: Ben Martch Founder & CEO www.wearekured.com The Canadian Securities Exchange has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this news release and accepts no responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy hereof. This news release contains forward-looking statements, which relate to future events or future performance and reflect managements current expectations and assumptions. Such forward-looking statements reflect managements current beliefs and are based on assumptions made by and information currently available to the Company. Readers are cautioned that these forward looking statements are neither promises nor guarantees, and are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause future results to differ materially from those expected including, but not limited to completion of planned improvements at both the Canadian and US sites on schedule and on budget, the availability of financing needed to complete the Companys planned improvements on commercially reasonable terms, planned occupancy by the tenant-growers, commencement of operations, differences in yield on expected harvests, delays in obtaining statutory approval for marijuana production plans, issues that may arise throughout the grow period, outdoor crops affected by weather, the ability to mitigate the risk of loss through appropriate insurance policies, and the risks presented by federal statutes that may contradict local and state legislation respecting legalized marijuana. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof and the Company does not assume any obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances save as required under applicable securities legislation. This news release does not constitute an offer to sell securities and the Company is not soliciting an offer to buy securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of such jurisdiction. This news release does not constitute an offer of securities for sale in the United States. These securities have not and will not be registered under United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold in the United States or to a U.S. Person unless so registered, or an exemption from registration is relied upon. NEW YORK, Feb. 08, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Delcath Systems, Inc. (OTCQB: DCTH), an interventional oncology company focused on the treatment of primary and metastatic cancers of the liver, announces an abstract from a prospective phase 2 study conducted in the Netherlands of the use of the Delcath Hepatic CHEMOSAT Delivery System to treat patients with metastatic ocular melanoma with liver metastases, has been accepted for oral presentation and as a poster at the European Conference on Interventional Oncology (ECIO) annual meeting. The abstract, Percutaneous hepatic perfusion with melphalan in patients with unresectable liver metastases from ocular melanoma using the Delcath System's second-generation hemofiltration system: a prospective phase II study, will be presented by T.S. Meijer and M.C. Burgmans, et al of the Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands. The ECIO 2019 conference will take place April 8-11 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. About Delcath Systems Delcath Systems, Inc. is an interventional oncology Company focused on the treatment of primary and metastatic liver cancers. Our investigational product Melphalan Hydrochloride for Injection for use with the Delcath Hepatic Delivery System (Melphalan/HDS) is designed to administer high-dose chemotherapy to the liver while controlling systemic exposure and associated side effects. We have been enrolling a global Registration clinical trial for Patients with Hepatic Dominant Ocular Melanoma (OM) called The FOCUS Trial and have initiated a global Phase 3 clinical trial for intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC) called The ALIGN Trial. Melphalan/HDS has not been approved by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) for sale in the U.S. In Europe, our system is marketed under the trade name Delcath Hepatic CHEMOSAT Delivery System for Melphalan (CHEMOSAT) and has been used at major medical centers to treat a wide range of cancers of the liver. Since January 2019 CHEMOSAT is marketed under an exclusive licensing agreement with medac, a privately held multi-national pharmaceutical company headquartered in Germany and specializing in the treatment and diagnosis of oncological, urological and autoimmune diseases. Forward Looking Statements Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 provides a safe harbor for forward-looking statements made by the Company or on its behalf. This news release contains forward-looking statements, which are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that can cause actual results to differ materially from those described. Factors that may cause such differences include, but are not limited to, uncertainties relating to: successful completion of the Companys Rights Offering and related transactions and the amount of gross proceeds, if any; the timing and results of the Companys clinical trials including without limitation the OM and ICC clinical trial programs, timely enrollment and treatment of patients in the global Phase 3 OM and ICC clinical trials, IRB or ethics committee clearance of the Phase 3 OM and ICC Registration trial protocols from participating sites and the timing of site activation and subject enrollment in each trial, the impact of the presentations at major medical conferences and future clinical results consistent with the data presented, approval of Individual Funding Requests for reimbursement of the CHEMOSAT procedure, the impact, if any of ZE reimbursement on potential CHEMOSAT product use and sales in Germany, clinical adoption, use and resulting sales, if any, for the CHEMOSAT system to deliver and filter melphalan in Europe including the key markets of Germany and the UK, the Companys ability to successfully commercialize the Melphalan HDS/CHEMOSAT system and the potential of the Melphalan HDS/CHEMOSAT system as a treatment for patients with primary and metastatic disease in the liver, our ability to obtain reimbursement for the CHEMOSAT system in various markets,, approval of the current or future Melphalan HDS/CHEMOSAT system for delivery and filtration of melphalan or other chemotherapeutic agents for various indications in the U.S. and/or in foreign markets, actions by the FDA or other foreign regulatory agencies, the Companys ability to successfully enter into strategic partnership and distribution arrangements in foreign markets and the timing and revenue, if any, of the same, uncertainties relating to the timing and results of research and development projects, and uncertainties regarding the Companys ability to obtain financial and other resources for any research, development, clinical trials and commercialization activities. These factors, and others, are discussed from time to time in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. You should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date they are made. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date they are made. TORONTO, Feb. 08, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- TAP Air Portugal is putting the world on sale for three days, from today through Sunday at 6:59pm ET. Every seat on every flight departing this month will be half price, to all of TAPs 89 destinations around the world. The sale fare is only available for website bookings, at www.flytap.com , and good for one-way or roundtrip travel commencing by February 28, 2019. Return dates are unrestricted. For more information, see https://www.flytap.com/campaigns/megapromo. Roundtrip economy fares to Lisbon start at $506 CAD with no checked bags, or $551 with a checked bag. Sale fares also include up to five nights Stopover in Lisbon, en route to or from the final destination, for no additional airfare. Beyond fares, to destinations such as Gran Canaria, start from $536 roundtrip. Roundtrip fares to Lisbon in Business Class start from $1876. Why wait for March Madness when you can fly around the world for half price in February, said David Neeleman, a major investor in TAP Air Portugal. Call your Valentine and grab some seats before they sell out! TAP is one of the worlds top 10 fastest growing airlines this year, with 71 brand new Airbus aircraft being delivered by 2025. The airline is the launch carrier for the new Airbus A330neo aircraft. Portugal was voted the World's Best Tourist Destination for the second consecutive year at the 25th Annual World Travel Awards in December. Also in 2018, Virtuoso named Portugal the Hottest Destination of the Year. About TAP Air Portugal TAP is Portugals leading airline and a member of the global airline Star Alliance since 2005. Flying since 1945, TAP celebrated its 70th anniversary on March 14, 2015, before completing its privatization process later that year, now with the Atlantic Gateway Group as private shareholders. TAPs network comprises 89 destinations in 34 countries worldwide. The airline currently operates around 2,500 weekly flights, with a modern fleet of 63 Airbus aircraft. TAP Express, the airlines regional arm, operates an additional 17 aircraft. With TAPs privatization process, it has restructured its network, launched new fare products and is renewing its medium and long-haul fleet. TAP has 71 new Airbus aircraft on order for delivery by 2025 and is launch carrier for the new Airbus A330neo. TAP Express now operates a new fleet of 8 ATR 72 and 9 Embraer 190. TAP is one of Europes most awarded airlines. Global Traveler (USA) named TAP as Best Airline in Europe from 2011 to 2018, and the World Travel Awards named TAP as both Europes Leading Airline to Africa and Europes Leading Airline to South America from 2014 2018. Previously TAP was awarded Worlds Leading Airline to Africa, in 2011 and 2012, and Worlds Leading Airline to South America from 2009 through 2012. TAPs Inflight Magazine, UP, received the World Travel Award as Europes Leading In-flight Magazine for 2015-2018. Media contact: Gareth Edmondson-Jones GEJ, Ink 917 399-9355 GEJink@gmail.com A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/2cf4222f-bc78-4ff5-943f-953918ae4334 English Lithuanian The INVL Baltic Sea Growth Fund, a private equity fund of INVL Asset Management, subsidiary of Invalda INVL, is indirectly buying a controlling equity stake in the metalworking and industrial construction company Montuotojas AB. Completion of the transaction, whose value is not being disclosed, is planned once the permission of the Competition Council is obtained and other terms of the agreement are fulfilled. The agreement for the acquisition of the shares of Montuotojas was signed by BSGF Fortis, which is currently 100% owned by Invalda INVL. It is planned that the ownership of BSGF Fortis will be transferred to the INVL Baltic Sea Growth Fund during February at acquisition cost. Montuotojas is a Lithuanian leader for complex industrial construction work and has huge potential. We recognize how much the management, shareholders and employees of Montuotojas have been able to achieve so far, and will further strengthen the companys positions in Lithuania and abroad, said Vidas Venckus, a partner at the INVL Baltic Sea Growth Fund. In 2017 Montuotojas had revenue of 34.7 million euros. The company and its subsidiaries have about 700 employees. Its biggest clients include Lifosa, Amilina, Bega, Achema, Lietpak, Litesko, Vilniaus Energija, Orlen Lietuva, and others. The company also works outside Lithuania. Annually it undertakes 100-120 projects of various types. Each of us on the team has given 30-40 years to Montuotojas and its clear that the time is coming to hand the company over to those who can take it to an even higher qualitative level. We think we have chosen one of the strongest investors, who will be able to maintain the trust of clients and employees, said Alfonsas Jaras, the CEO of Montuotojas. Having been in operation for 59 years, Montuotojas will continue its activities after the controlling stake changes hands. Launched in June 2018, the INVL Baltic Sea Growth Fund seeks to invest in medium-size companies with an attractive risk-return ratio, providing them with capital for further growth. In its investments, the fund will focus on taking controlling or significant minority stakes and will play an active role in the management of target companies, aiming to significantly increase their value over the long term. The fund is now forming its core portfolio and negotiating on other potential investments. The INVL Baltic Sea Growth Funds overall portfolio is envisaged to comprise 8-12 investments. INVL Asset Management completed a first closing of the INVL Baltic Sea Growth Fund at EUR 106 million on 7 February 2019. The funds anchor investor is the European Investment Fund (EIF), part of the European Investment Bank (EIB) Group, which has committed to invest EUR 30 million, backed by the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI), the heart of the Investment Plan for Europe, or Juncker Plan. The EIF is committing ressources from the Baltic Innovation Fund, a Fund-of-Fund initiative launched with the Governments of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia in order to boost equity investments made into Baltic small and medium businesses with high growth potential. The person authorized to provide additional information: Darius Sulnis President of Invalda INVL E-mail: darius.sulnis@invl.com English Lithuanian INVL Asset Management, one of Lithuanias leading asset management companies, completed a first closing of the INVL Baltic Sea Growth Fund, a closed-end private equity fund intended for professional investors, at EUR 106 million. The INVL Baltic Sea Growth Fund became the largest private equity investment fund in the Baltic countries. We are pleased with the successful completion of the first closing. Its important that investors in the fund include both international financial institutions who see the Baltic regions business potential and local investors who know the market and Invalda INVL well. For our part, were actively working on acquisitions and intend to conduct several transactions already in the next six months, investing in Baltic companies with the potential to become regional leaders or operate successfully on global markets, said Darius Sulnis, the chairman of the board of INVL Asset Management. He said a second and final closing of the fund is also scheduled in 2019, with the intention of reaching the funds target size of EUR 200 million. The funds anchor investor is the European Investment Fund (EIF), part of the European Investment Bank (EIB) Group, which has committed to invest EUR 30 million, backed by the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI), the heart of the Investment Plan for Europe, or Juncker Plan. The EIF is committing ressources from the Baltic Innovation Fund, a Fund-of-Fund initiative launched with the Governments of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia in order to boost equity investments made into Baltic small and medium businesses with high growth potential. EIF Chief Executive, Pier Luigi Gilibert said: We are very pleased to be supporting the first closing of the INVL Baltic Sea Growth Fund. EIFs partnership with the Baltic governments via the Baltic Innovation Fund is crucial for developing this private equity market, giving local independent teams like Invalda INVL an opportunity to set up private equity funds and attract investors for companies in the region. Valdis Dombrovskis, European Commission Vice-President for the Euro and Social Dialogue, also in charge of Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union said: "The INVL Baltic Sea Growth Fund will help Baltic businesses expand beyond their regional market, create value and ultimately, jobs. I congratulate the three Baltic States on being in the top 10 of countries benefiting the most from the Juncker Plan, with almost 4 billion of EFSI-induced additional investments in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania." Also investing in the fund are Estonias LHV pension funds, INVL pension funds and other financial and private investors, with some of them investing through the INVL Baltic Sea Growth Capital Fund intended for informed investors. In order to align the interests of the investors and the asset managers to the maximum extent, Invalda INVL and all the members of the funds investment committee (partners) are investing amounts that are significant to them in the fund in total at least EUR 20 million. After the investment in the INVL Baltic Sea Growth Fund is made, Invalda INVL undertakes not to invest in private equity assets that comply with the funds strategy and to conduct its main investment activity through this fund. The portfolio of INVL Baltic Sea Growth Fund will comprise of 8-12 investments. The fund seeks to invest in medium-size companies with an attractive risk-return profile, providing them with capital for further growth. In its investments, the fund will focus on controlling or significant minority stakes and will play an active role in the management of target companies, aiming to significantly increase their value over the long term. The fund will make investments of EUR 10 million to EUR 30 million (or larger amounts with co-investors) in mature companies that can compete on global markets and have big potential for growth in value. Emphasis will be on transactions bigger than those that private equity players in the Baltic countries undertake, but smaller than those that interest the largest international private equity and strategic investors. We start the funds active investment activity by keeping our promises to the investors in the nearest future it is scheduled to complete the first business acquisition transactions. We also continue negotiations on the other acquisitions of companies that fit the investment strategy. The team is analysing the market and looking for viable businesses that could expand or that are in need of strategic changes, as well as family businesses facing succession issues, said Deimante Korsakaite, the executive partner of the INVL Baltic Sea Growth Fund. She said that the funds team is seeking investments that meet the established criteria and those where the team could contribute to their development not just with monetary means, but also with its accumulated experience. More than half of the capital committed to the fund will be invested in companies based and operating in Lithuania, Latvia or Estonia, whose operations we will seek to expand to the Baltic Sea region through organic growth and add-on acquisitions, following a buy and build strategy, Deimante Korsakaite said. The fund will seek to form a diversified portfolio of the Baltic Sea region companies and will focus on growth capital, buyout, and buy and build investments. The foreseen life of the fund is 10 years from the initial closing. About INVL INVL Asset Management is part of the Invalda INVL group, whose companies manage pension and mutual funds, alternative investments, private equity assets, individual portfolios and other financial instruments. They have assets under management of more than EUR 650 million, entrusted to them by over 190 000 clients in Lithuania and Latvia as well as international investors. About the European Investment Fund The European Investment Fund (EIF) is part of the European Investment Bank group. Its central mission is to support Europe's micro, small and medium-sized businesses by helping them to access finance. EIF designs and develops both venture and growth capital, guarantees and microfinance instruments which specifically target this market segment. In this role, EIF fosters EU objectives in support of innovation, research and development, entrepreneurship, growth and employment. The European Investment Bank (EIB) is the long-term lending institution of the European Union, owned by its Member States. It makes long-term finance available for sound investment in order to contribute towards EU policy goals. About the Investment Plan for Europe The Investment Plan for Europe , or Juncker Plan, is one of the European Commission's top priorities. It focuses on boosting investments to create jobs and growth by making smarter use of new and existing financial resources, removing obstacles to investment and providing visibility and technical assistance to investment projects. The European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) is the central pillar of the Juncker Plan. It provides a first loss guarantee, allowing the EIB Group to invest in more, often riskier, projects. The EFSI is already showing concrete results. The projects and agreements approved for financing under the EFSI so far are expected to mobilise more than EUR 375.5 billion in investments and support around 858,000 SMEs across all 28 Member States. Person authorized to provide additional information: Deimante Korsakaite the Executive Partner of the INVL Baltic Sea Growth Fund E-mail: deimante.korsakaite@invl.com TORONTO, Feb. 07, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- dot.mobile plans to offer affordable connectivity services in Canada in 2020. Operating as an MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator), it will connect consumers and small businesses to existing national LTE networks. The MVNO business model thrives in Europe and the US, driving innovation and competition in a way that existing brands (owned by the big telecoms) do not. Reduced complexity, simple pricing and our unique Data On Tap approach lets us offer affordable, near direct access to mobile networks. The newest digital technologies, like eSIM and machine learning, will allow us to serve the currently underserved - Canadians who want a service that works on their terms. - Algis Akstinas, Founder and CEO of dot.mobile Built as a smartphone application for iOS and Android, dot.mobile will hand over full control of the wireless experience to its users. With no plans for traditional retail stores or call centres, dot.mobile is a completely digital service. Canadians will be able to bring their own phone (BYOD) and get their SIM cards both electronically and through local delivery partners. Conceptual features and pricing are proposed on the website ( www.dotmobile.app ), including pay per gig data with perpetual rollover, no additional roaming fees while travelling in the USA, and a marketplace for buying and selling certified used phones. The big telecoms have fallen behind everyone else when it comes to digital experiences - the banks, insurance companies, online stores and streaming services are the innovators. Our tiny telecom will change all that, and well do it with the help of our members. - Alex Bauman, Founder and CXO of dot.mobile Canadians pay some of the highest rates in the world - the average Canadian spends $64 per month for wireless service. The high prices keep usage low, and Canada was ranked number 28 of 37 developed countries by the OECD. The big telecoms keep pushing prices up, leaving behind many underserved Canadians - seniors, youth, families, visitors to the country, new Canadians, or people operating their own small businesses. Big telecoms are unable to serve these people well because of one simple reason: theyre too big. Tiny telecoms, on the other hand, run on innovative business models and foster competition. The mobile network operators get a fair wholesale rate and continue to invest in network infrastructure, and we offer affordable and awesome service to Canadians. Everybody wins! - Algis Akstinas, Founder and CEO of dot.mobile About Data on Tap Inc. Data on Tap Inc. is building dot.mobile, a smart tiny telecom with a simple goal - to make wireless more affordable and awesome. Conceived by two ex-WIND Mobile product architects, it will offer a fully digital experience powered by its members. Canadians now have a chance to contribute to the development of innovative, affordable wireless service by backing tiny telecoms. More information at www.dotmobile.app. A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/becdbc75-2638-4a13-bf38-45d98cc3cc55 Black Hawk Lake: The winter aeration system in Town Bay is in operation. 14 inches of ice off the boat ramp of Ice House Point. Bluegill - Fair: Use a small jig tipped with waxworm in the rock pile out front of Gunshot Hill. Black Crappie - Fair: Use a small jig tipped with waxworm near the Ice House Point boat ramp. Black Hawk Pits: 10 inches of ice near the boat ramp. Bluegill - Fair: Use waxworms fished near the bottom. Brushy Creek Lake: Anglers are fishing mostly near the north boat ramp, in the northeast arm of the lake, and near the southeast boat ramp near the big island. Bluegill - Fair: Try waxworms fished on a small jig in the northeast arm of the lake. Black Crappie Fair: Use a minnow and spoon in about 20-30 feet of water near submerged structure. Try also waxworms and spikes on a small jig. Yellow Perch - Slow: Anglers are picking up a few yellow perch while fishing for crappie. Last year, Iowas bankers tried to burden consumers with a slight-of-hand that would subject many of the states cooperative, not-for-profit credit unions to an additional tax on top of the current state tax on legally required safety and soundness reserve balances. Ultimately, credit unions prevailed in educating lawmakers on the cooperative difference, and preserved financial choice for Iowans. Growing up on our family farm in Iowa, I learned first-hand the importance of cooperatives to Iowans where like-minded people would come together to support each other with their farming, their small businesses, or personal finances. Unlike other forms of business, cooperatives are owned and controlled by their members. I also learned another difference between Iowas for-profit banks and the cooperative, not-for-profit credit unions. Simply put, at for-profit banks, the income above expenses is given to a select group of investors. But credit unions give that income, all of it, right back to the members because they are the owners. In other words, another tax on Iowas credit unions is another tax on Iowas families who are credit union members. Northwood-Kensett Superintendent Michael Crozier said that the district has an extra 60 hours in the schedule over the 1080 hours that the state requires, which computes to a little more than nine days. "We may make up time even if we are above 1080," Crozier said. "I am not worried. If we have to go into June, we will do that." That sentiment is echoed by Steve Ward, superintendent at Central Springs. According to Ward, the school board could "reduce the days by some of the extra hours we go over the state minimum." Currently, Central Spring has missed seven total days. Right now, students at West Hancock have two days to make up. Superintendent Wayne Kronemann has said that "We scheduled 78 hours or 13 days extra this year, we do not make up the first five days that we miss." Doug Gee, Clear Lake's superintendent, similarly noted the school has extra hours built into the 1080 required and it's "getting close to the number of hours with these last few days." "This will be something the school board will talk about and decide how many or them the students will make-up," Gee said. Ardith M. Wood MASON CITY Ardith M. Wood, 88, of Mason City, went home to be with her Lord and Savior on Wednesday, February 6, 2019 at the I.O.O.F. Home in Mason City. Funeral services will be held 2:00 P.M., Tuesday, February 12, 2019 at First Assembly of God Church in Mason City with Pastor George Ady officiating. Burial will be at Memorial Park Cemetery. Visitation will be held from 4 to 6 P.M., Monday, February 11th at Major Erickson Funeral Home, 111 N. Pennsylvania Ave., in Mason City and will resume one hour prior to services at the church. Arrangements are with Major Erickson Funeral Home and Crematory. 641-423-0924 MASON CITY | For his first campaign stop in Iowa as a candidate for president, Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) had a lot to say on a whole lot of issues. During the course of his two-hour meet and greet in the basement of the First Congregational United Church of Christ, Booker spoke to: farm monopolies, single-payer health care, environmental justice, student debt and old threats from the current President of the United States while offering anecdotes about Martin Luther King Jr., Fredrick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln and folks from his hometown of Newark, New Jersey. Booker mentioned the need to "Rekindle the idea that this is about more than an election, this is about the cause of our country" and often returned to his theme of "radical love." Farming Farm monopolies and the dominance they have of food systems was one such cause that Booker expounded on. He was quick to bring up the 2018 farm bill he introduced that would place an "18-month moratorium on large agribusiness, food and beverage manufacturing, and grocery retail mergers and acquisitions." "Folks are sometimes paying more for a tomato than a Twinkie," Booker remarked to the attentive crowd of 90 or so people. Candace Owens, 29, has not had an easy life. As a Stamford, Conn., high school senior in 2007, she received threatening racist phone calls traced to a car in which the white Democratic mayors son was riding. Racism led her family to successfully sue the Stamford Board of Education in federal court for failing to protect her civil rights. City Editor Tom Roeder is the Gazette's City Editor. In Colorado Springs since 2003, Tom has covered the military at home and overseas and has cover statehouses in Denver and Olympia, Wash. His main job, though, is being dad to two great kids. Colorado Springs, CO (80903) Today Clouds and some sun this morning with more clouds for this afternoon. High 92F. Winds W at 10 to 20 mph.. Tonight Cloudy. Low 67F. Winds WNW at 10 to 15 mph. Gov. Jared Polis will be in Colorado Springs next month to deliver a second State of the State address. Polis, who took office in January, will deliver his address during a Colorado Springs Chamber & EDC luncheon from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. March 22 at The Antlers hotel, 4 S. Cascade Ave. in downtown. Polis is following in the footsteps of Gov. John Hickenlooper, who for the last several years delivered a second State of the State in the Springs after an initial address at the state Capitol in Denver. The luncheon is $55 for Chamber & EDC members and $65 for nonmembers. A table of 10 costs $550. The RSVP deadline is March 19; pre-payment is required and reservations not canceled before 72 hours in advance of the event will be billed. To register, go to www.coloradospringschamberedc.com/events and click on the events calendar for March. More information: 884-2832 or email sseaford@cscedc.com. KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- Days after a U.S. government watchdog questioned providing state-of-the art Black Hawk helicopters to Afghanistan, the countrys fledgling air force says it can use the aircrafts in combat and can even repair and maintain the aircraft. Afghan Air Force Major General Abdul Raziq Shirzai says the capacity of his forces to handle the helicopters has rapidly improved. He says they are supporting ground force operations and attacks in restive southern provinces where skirmishes with the Taliban militants are frequent. We have made unprecedented progress in handling and maintaining these helicopters, he told a February 7 ceremony marking the graduation of 26 Afghan pilots and gunners. They will soon be deployed to handle some of the 16 UH-60 Black Hawks that the United States has delivered to Afghanistan. Shirzai, commander of the Kandahar air wing, says they recently successfully carried out a 2,000-hour overhaul and maintenance of two Russian-built Mi-17 helicopters in the province, where the capital, also called Kandahar, is a major hub for air operations. This is an achievement, and we aim to keep on building our capacities, he said. Our aim is to be self-sufficient. However, in a recent report, the U.S. Special Inspector for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) called on the Pentagon to improve pilot training and create a teaching program for Afghan maintenance crews while also working to improve their English-language skills. SIGAR has urged the U.S. Defense Department to prepare the Afghan Air Force to absorb all 159 UH-60 Black Hawks now slotted to be delivered by 2023. Given concerns that the Afghan Air Force and special mission wing may not be able to fully use all 159 aircraft when delivered, the Department of Defense runs the risk of wasting U.S. taxpayer dollars to purchase aircraft the AAF and SMW cannot fly or maintain, SIGAR said on February 5. The warning came amid a rapidly evolving U.S. approach toward its 17-year war in Afghanistan. In recent months, Washington and the Taliban have made visible progress toward an agreement on ending the war. But the talks also loom large over the future of Afghan security forces. Afghans recently reacted sharply to a senior Taliban official who said they would like to see the Western-backed military dissolved after the departure of U.S. troops. There are mounting fears that in case of a U.S. troop pullout the Afghan military will find itself scrambling for funding and technical support. In Kandahar, the newly trained pilots, however, are focusing on their jobs. We are ready to support our ground forces and take on the enemy day and night, Farid Uddin, one of the Black Hawk pilots, told Radio Free Afghanistan. Shirzai, likewise, is not worrying about the larger geopolitical questions surrounding Afghanistan. He does say, though, that he wants the Afghan president and defense minister to focus on building the countrys security forces so that they can take on the enemy. I expect our young pilots to work hard and do their best in defending their country and fighting our enemies, he said. Abubakar Siddique wrote this story based on reporting by Radio Free Afghanistan correspondent Mohammad Sadiq Rashtinai from Kandahar. Three Rivers Public Health Department is encouraging residents in its three-county district to test their homes for radon. Radon is a cancer-causing natural radioactive gas that is often found in homes throughout Nebraskaas one out of every two radon tests conducted in the state is elevated. Dodge, Saunders and Washington counties are all listed in Zone 1 of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) National Radon Zone Map which indicates the highest estimated levels of radon within the three zone system. Zone 1 includes counties with predicted average indoor radon screening levels greater than 4 picocuries per liter (pCi/L). According to information released by Three Rivers, homes with an annual average radon level at or above 4 pCi/L should be mitigated to reduce radon levels. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} Radon is the leading cause of lung cancer among non-smokers and claims about 20,000 lives annually. It is naturally occurring and you cannot see, smell or taste radon. Radon usually comes from surrounding soil and can enter homes and buildings through cracks and openings on the lower levels of those structures. We feel that if they are doing something simple like bringing lids that theyd otherwise throw awaybut theyre able to give to help children who are sick that it will give them a good feeling in their hearts and show them they can help others even in some small way, Willnerd said. Willnerd has enjoyed seeing how excited the children are about the large number of lids collected each week. Students, whove found lids on the school playground, also have brought to staffers for the collection. It helps keep our playground clean. Its a double bonus, Willnerd said of the opportunity to recycle and help children who are ill. Willnerd once asked the students dad how they were going to get all those bottle caps to Reynosa and he joked that its either lids or luggage. The teacher added that she believes her students family goes to Reynosa a couple times a year. In the meantime, community members whod like to participate in the effort may drop off clean, washed bottle caps in a disposable bag to the schools front office at 735 W. Linden Ave., in Fremont. The project will be continued until the end of the year. A 31-year-old Columbus man died in a one-vehicle accident early Friday morning accident about 5 miles west of North Bend. Jacob W. Schamp was eastbound on U.S. Highway 30 near County Road 2 when the accident occurred, said Dodge County Sheriff Steve Hespen in a press release. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} Sheriffs deputies were dispatched to the scene at 12:38 a.m. An investigation showed that Schamp was driving a 2004 Hyundai Santa Fe, which went off the south side of the highway and rolled. Schamp, who was not wearing a seatbelt, was ejected from the vehicle and was pronounced dead at the scene. Speed is considered a factor in the accident, which remains under investigation, the sheriff said. The North Bend Fire and Rescue Department assisted the sheriffs office. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 7 Angry 0 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. For Immediate Release Chicago, IL February 8, 2019 Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: Apple AAPL, Facebook FB, Alphabet GOOGL and Qualcomm QCOM. Here are highlights from Thursdays Analyst Blog: Apple Roundup: Earnings, Analyst View & More Apple is not recommended now because of the softening in its key product category. But theres huge opportunity for the company to grow in the future, as evident from the commentary from Morgan Stanley's Katy Huberty. It needs to maintain its image as an upholder of security and privacy at this point, which is why both the temporary ban on Facebook and Google and the FaceTime bug are important. These and other stories are covered in this roundup- Earnings Apples first quarter revenue and earnings both managed to edge past the Zacks Consensus Estimate. Revenues from the three important geographies Europe, Greater China and Japan dropped below year-ago levels while the Americas segment grew just 5%. The all-important iPhone category was down 14.9% while the much smaller wearables and services categories grew a respective 33% and 19%. At nearly 13% of revenue and 63% gross margin, the growth in services is beginning to make a difference. And what with the huge installed base (900 million iPhones, according to the CFO) and new service offerings slated to launch this year as well as the promise of better security, growth is unlikely to slow down any time soon. But Apple is still an iPhone company until its other efforts make a bigger contribution to revenue, which explains why the Zacks Consensus Estimates have come tumbling down post earnings (10.9% for the March quarter and 7.6% for June). MS View Morgan Stanley's Katy Huberty is optimistic about Apple, even in the event that iPhone sales remain sluggish. She thinks that the release of new service offerings (video streaming and a new media bundle with video streaming, Apple Music and the Texture news app) launching this year, will be catalysts for the stock. Story continues Shes particularly enthused by the media bundle, which she thinks could add about 2 percentage points annually to services revenue growth through 2025, supporting a 5% growth in revenue and 12% growth in EPS through 2023. But she doesnt think iPhone sales will be sluggish either: "iPhone replacement cycles now stand at mature levels suggesting a stabilization of growth is in the cards over the next year. Management's commentary that demand improved in January is similarly encouraging." Retail Chief Angela Ahrendts Departs The fashion aficionado that joined Apple from Burberry where she was CEO, is now leaving the company for "for new personal and professional pursuits," according to a statement from Apple. She was one of the highest paid employees at the company, drawing $26.5 million in 2018, even more than CEO Tim Cook, who made $15.7 million. Apple is bringing in veteran Deirdre O'Brien who was previously VP of People. She is now taking an expanded role, putting her 3 decades of Apple experience to also head up the teams running its 35 online stores and 506 retail stores across five continents. FaceTime Bug The recently-launched 32-person video conferencing feature for iPhones, iPads and Macs called FaceTime was put to shame by Grant Thompson, a 14-year old from Tucson, Arizona who stumbled upon a bug in it. The bug automatically turned on the audio of a person being called up even if the call wasnt accepted. This could potentially publicize private conversation, making it an important security/privacy flaw. Thompson and his attorney mother said it took 9 days to get through to Apple and the iPhone maker didnt take note of the issue until a letter was issued under the attorneys letterhead and the issue gained mileage on social media. Apple fixed the problem and said it was "committed to improving the process by which we receive and escalate these reports, in order to get them to the right people as fast as possible." Meanwhile, New York Attorney General Letitia James and Gov. Andrew Cuomo are investigating "Apple's failure to warn consumers about the FaceTime bug and slow response to addressing the issue" since it jeopardized the privacy of New Yorkers. Measures Against Facebook, Google Apple temporarily revoked broad approvals in the form of enterprise certificates to Facebook and Alphabet that allowed them to work on app store versions of their apps, including Maps, Hangouts and Gmail in Googles case and Instagram and others in Facebooks case. This also impacted some of their internal-use employee-only apps. Apples action was more like an admonishment of Google and Facebook, which used these broad approvals to side-load other apps for data collection, including from very young teens. Experts say they could have collected information on private messages in social media apps, chats photos and videos from instant messaging apps, emails, web searches, web browsing activity, ongoing location information and any other information that constituted network traffic. Media reports indicate the Facebook data collection was more comprehensive than Googles though both say it was used for research. The companies stopped the practice soon after Tech Crunch reported the matter and the iPhone maker restored access soon thereafter. Smaller developers usually have to go through a stringent approval process for inclusion in Apples app store, so they will be hailing Apples move. But its worth noting that Apple probably cant afford to take a very tough stand against Google anyway because of the billions it earns to keep Google as the default search on its devices. German Court Dismisses Qualcomm Case The regional court in Munich ruled that four out of eight search-related Qualcomm patents had not been infringed by Apple. This is the second Apple victory versus Qualcomm, which has earlier managed to get an injunction from the same court against older iPhone models in Germany and China. Also in January, the regional court in Mannheim ruled that one of two Qualcomm patents had not been infringed by Apple. Qualcomm is in a bit of a legal mess at the moment because the FTC is also investigating it for abusing its dominant position in smartphone technology. Other such cases around the world have not gone well for the American chip maker. Zacks' Top 10 Stocks for 2019 In addition to the stocks discussed above, wouldn't you like to know about our 10 finest buy-and-holds for the year? From more than 4,000 companies covered by the Zacks Rank, these 10 were picked by a process that consistently beats the market. Even during 2018 while the market dropped -5.2%, our Top 10s were up well into double-digits. And during bullish 2012 2017, they soared far above the market's +126.3%, reaching +181.9%. This year, the portfolio features a player that thrives on volatility, an AI comer, and a dynamic tech company that helps doctors deliver better patient outcomes at lower costs. See Stocks Today >> Media Contact Zacks Investment Research 800-767-3771 ext. 9339 support@zacks.com https://www.zacks.com Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss. This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit https://www.zacks.com/performance for information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report QUALCOMM Incorporated (QCOM) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research (Bloomberg) -- Investigations into German payments company Wirecard AG intensified as police in Singapore raided local offices, while Munich prosecutors started a probe into possible market manipulation over reports that caused the shares to tank. The company has denied reports by the Financial Times alleging accounting fraud for more than a week. Singapore police on Friday searched the offices after saying earlier this week they would look into the allegations as German prosecutors opened their probe following a criminal complaint from Wirecard. The latest developments caused the shares to plunge as much as 22 percent in Frankfurt. Chief Executive Officer Markus Braun on Monday said he expects an investigation by an outside law firm to resolve allegations of compliance breaches and validate conclusions already made by an internal probe. Munich authorities said the investigation in Germany is focused on unidentified individuals for market manipulation and that they currently see no evidence to investigate Wirecard employees over accounting fraud allegations. A Wirecard employee in Singapore alleged in April that a member of the companys finance team engaged in potential accounting breaches. There were personal animosities between employees involved, Braun said earlier this week. We think the whole issue is not so much an accounting, compliance or whatever issue, but an issue between people. Such things happen, where there are human beings, there are sometimes emotions. Too Small? The alleged breaches took place between 2015 and 2018 and relate to revenue totaling 6.9 million euros ($7.8 million), costs of 4.1 million euros and intellectual property valued at 2.6 million euros, according to the company. That compares with revenue last year of 2.1 billion euros. Accounting irregularities have to be material to constitute a crime under German law, said Eva Racky, a defense lawyer based in Frankfurt. So if the amount is too small compared with the overall balance sheet to meet the threshold, prosecutors wont investigate. Story continues Wirecard plunged as much as 24.45 euros and traded 19 percent lower of 3:24 p.m. in Frankfurt. Since the FTs first report on the allegations last week, the shares have tumbled 47 percent, slashing the companys market value by about 9.7 billion euros. Wirecard reiterated on Friday that its working with the authorities in both countries. In Singapore, the company said it met with law enforcement officials and provided the police with comprehensive supporting material in regards to their inquiry. Accounting Fraud Wirecard has pledged it will publish the findings of law firm Rajah & Tanns probe into the matter in the near future. The companys internal compliance department determined that the allegations were unfounded. Full stop, Braun said Monday. This is not the first time that the company has had to defend its reputation. The shares also plummeted after past claims were published about accounting irregularities in 2008 and fraud allegations in 2016. --With assistance from Serene Cheong. To contact the reporters on this story: Stefan Nicola in Berlin at snicola2@bloomberg.net;Karin Matussek in Berlin at kmatussek@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Chad Thomas at cthomas16@bloomberg.net, Chris Reiter For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com 2019 Bloomberg L.P. By Robin Emmott BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The United States sees the European Union as its top priority in a global effort to convince allies not to buy Huawei equipment for next-generation mobile networks, a U.S. State Department Official said on Tuesday. After meetings with the European Commission and the Belgian government in Brussels, U.S. officials are set to take a message to other European capitals that the world's biggest telecommunications gear maker poses a security risk, said the official, who declined to be named. "We are saying you need to be very, very cautious and we are urging folks not to rush ahead and sign contracts with untrusted suppliers from countries like China," the official said. The United States fears China could use the equipment for espionage - a concern that Huawei Technologies Co. says is unfounded. The push to sideline Huawei in Europe, one of its biggest markets, is likely to deepen trade frictions between Washington and Beijing. Washington is using "multiple tracks", the U.S. official said, including talks at the U.S.-led NATO alliance in Brussels and at international conferences in Barcelona and Munich: "Europe is definitely where we see this as the top priority." Huawei gear is widely used in Europe but the push is aimed at equipment for the new fifth generation mobile technology, which promises to link up everything from vehicles to factories at far greater speeds. While Washington has largely barred Huawei from supplying its government and contractors, it sees advanced European preparations for 5G networks as a security risk that could also endanger the United States. "Going with an untrusted supplier like Huawei or ZTE will have all sorts of ramifications for your national security and ... since we are military allies with almost all members of the European Union, on our national security as well," the official said. SMOKING GUN? Asked for evidence of intelligence work by Huawei or its rival ZTE, the U.S. official said American alarm stemmed more from China's status as a one-party state, a series of Chinese laws approved in 2017, and counter-terrorism legislation. Story continues The official cited language in the National Intelligence Law that directs individuals and companies to aid China's intelligence-gathering and keep such work secret. "Huawei and ZTE ... are ensconced in a one-party state where they are simply not equipped to resist directions from Beijing." The official also pointed to vulnerabilities found in older networks built by Huawei in Britain, even when they were monitored by a laboratory overseen by British intelligence. Reuters reported exclusively on Jan. 30 that the European Commission, the EU executive, was considering proposals that would ban Huawei from 5G networks, but that work was at an early stage. Concern is also growing in Germany. But France is walking a fine line, with parliament reviewing a provision that would increase government powers to make checks on 5G equipment. "We may not have all the information the United States has. But we take decisions based on what we know. And at this stage, we have not decided to ban Huawei in France," a French official said this week. (Additional reporting by Michel Rose in Paris; Editing by Kevin Liffey) FILE PHOTO - A man fixes a sign with OPEC's logo next to its headquarter's entrance before a meeting of OPEC oil ministers in Vienna, Austria, November 29, 2017. REUTERS/Heinz-Peter Bader By Timothy Gardner WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A senior administration official said on Friday that U.S. national security depends on affordable energy, and slammed cartels when asked if President Donald Trump would support a bill targeting the OPEC production group's oil supply cuts. "The United States is firmly committed to open, fair and competitive markets for global energy trade," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "We do not support market-distorting behavior, including cartels. The House of Representatives' Judiciary Committee on Thursday unanimously passed the No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels, or NOPEC, bill. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, who has supported NOPEC in the past, was reviewing the bill, an aide said, but there was no indication whether a vote in the full House would be scheduled. The legislation would change American antitrust law to revoke the sovereign immunity that has long protected OPEC members from U.S. lawsuits. It allows the U.S. attorney general to sue the oil producers group, any of its members, and countries it works with, on grounds of collusion. A similar bill was introduced in the Senate on Thursday by Senators Chuck Grassley, a Republican backer of the corn-based motor fuel ethanol, and Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat who is expected to announce on Sunday whether she is running for president in 2020. Senator John Cornyn of Texas has opposed NOPEC in the past. Other Texas lawmakers were also unlikely to support the bill as Motiva Enterprises LLC, a subsidiary of Saudi state oil company Saudi Aramco, operates a large refinery in the state, a policy analyst said. The Vienna-based Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, which includes the world's top crude exporter Saudi Arabia, says it is not a cartel but rather a production group. Trump has criticized the group for cutting supplies and urged it to produce more to lower global oil prices. But the president has taken no action on Saudi Arabia, a major buyer of U.S. weapons, even after the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last year. Story continues The bill has appeared in Congress in various forms over the last 20 years, and today's oil prices are low compared to 2008, when the bill passed the House. Oil traded in New York fell 6 cents to $52.58 per barrel on Friday and was down about 4.9 percent for the week, the steepest decline this year, pulled down by worries about a global economic slowdown. The senior official's comments were the furthest the Trump administration has gone in commenting on the bill, which also passed the House committee last year, but did not come up for a vote in the full chamber. Access to affordable and reliable energy underpins global economic growth and U.S. national security, the official added. Trump supported NOPEC in his book "Time to Get Tough" published in 2011 before he became president, but he has not publicly commented on the bill while in office. NO LONGER HELD HOSTAGE Last summer, OPEC cooperated with non-OPEC producer Russia to boost output before Trump reimposed sanctions on oil exports from Iran, Saudi Arabia's archrival. But OPEC's output fell in January by the largest amount in two years as its Gulf members over-delivered on a supply cutting plan to boost prices. The American Petroleum Institute, the top lobbying group for U.S. oil and gas drilling, has opposed the NOPEC bill, saying it could expose diplomatic, business and military interests to retaliation. API President and Chief Executive Mike Sommers said in an interview the bill was "populist" and the group would work with the House and Senate leadership to tell them that the U.S. shale oil revolution, which has helped make the country the world's top oil producer, has helped combat OPEC. "We are no longer held hostage by the oil cartel in Vienna," Sommers said. Barclays analyst Michael Cohen said in a research note that the appetite for advancing the bill was likely subdued while oil prices were low. But if it did pass, the legislation would threaten the sustainability of coordinated supply actions by OPEC, and OPEC plus Russia, and add more volatility to the market. Another analyst said the bill's future depends on the oil price. The higher the price of crude goes, the higher the odds of NOPEC. Its just that simple, said Robert McNally, president of Rapidan Energy, a consultancy. (Reporting by Timothy Gardner; additional reporting by Valerie Volcovici, Richard Cowan and Jessica Resnick-Ault in New York; editing by Phil Berlowitz and Jonathan Oatis) Largest Consumer Survey of Product Innovation Selects Honu as Skin Protection Category Winner Recognizing Companys Dedication to Product Innovation SANTA MONICA, Calif., Feb. 08, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Starco Brands (STCB) proudly announces its innovative sunscreen Honu has been named Product of the Year for 2019. Product of the Year is the worlds largest consumer-voted award for product innovation, where winners are determined by the votes of 40,000 consumers in a national representative survey conducted by research partner Kantar, a global leader in consumer research. Honu has been awarded the top honors for the skin protection category. Starco Brands' Honu Names Product of the Year:Starco Brands' Honu Sunscreen Named Product of the Year for 2019 Backed by the votes of over 40,000 everyday consumers, the distinctive Product of the Year logo helps shoppers identify the best new products in the supermarket, and saves them valuable time and money during the shopping experience, said Mike Nolan, CEO of Product of the Year. In an increasingly competitive and saturated marketplace, the Product of the Year seal of approval gives our winning products a powerful tool proven to increase product trial, consumer awareness, distribution and sales." Honu is the first and only sunscreen with a patented spray wand that allows sunscreen coverage to hard-to-reach spots such as backs, necks and shoulders. The first spray design of its kind, Honu is an ideal sunscreen for anyone including kids who wants the peace of mind knowing they can protect their entire body on their own. Were honored that Honu, one of our cutting-edge, safe and efficacious products, has been selected by consumers as a 2019 Product of the Year Award winner, said Ross Sklar, CEO of Starco Brands. It gives us tremendous pride to enable a healthy and convenient change to an everyday behavior that simply improves peoples lives. Honu was honored at the 2019 Product of the Year awards ceremony at the Edison Ballroom in New York City on February 7, 2019. Honu, powered by air, is a broad-spectrum SPF 50 sunscreen and is water resistant for up to 80 minutes. In addition, Honu contains an antioxidant that helps to reduce the development of free radicals. It also contains aloe vera and coconut oil, providing the skin with hydration, nourishment and soothing properties. Story continues In keeping with Starco Brands interest in consumer and environmentally safe products, Honu doesnt contain oxybenzone or octinoxate, making it 100% Reef Safe. Oxybenzone and octinoxate were recently named banned sunscreen ingredients by the state of Hawaii and Key West, Florida, showcasing a trend toward reef-friendly skin protection products like Honu. Honu has been out in front of product development trends as validated by legislation that started in Hawaii and is now being embraced as far away as Florida, said David Dreyer, EVP of Marketing. We built our company to solve consumer problems with behavior-changing brands and Honu is just the latest example of breakthrough brands in our portfolio. Honus win comes on the heels of another Starco Brands achievement. In December 2018, the companys Breathe household cleaning line was named Partner of the Year by the Environmental Protection Agencys Safer Choice Program. About Starco Brands Starco Brands, born out of The Starco Group is an innovative consumer packaged goods company focused on technological innovation that changes the current landscape. Starco Brands invents cutting edge products that change our behavior. Starco Brands develops products across 10 different categories including: Household Cleaning, Personal Care, Food, Beverage & Spirits, DIY Hardware and Arts & Crafts. For more information about the Breathe product line, please visit www.breathecleaning.com . For more information about Starco Brands, please visit www.starcobrands.com . About Product of the Year Product of the Year is the world's largest consumer-voted award for product innovation. Established over 30 years ago, POY currently operates in over 40 countries with the same purpose: Guide consumers to the best products in their market and reward manufacturers for quality and innovation. Product of the Year winners are backed by the votes of 40,000 consumers in a national representative study conducted by research partner Kantar, a global leader in consumer research. The award is a powerful merchandising program for marketers proven to increase product sales, distribution and awareness. Winning products are announced in February each year and receive the right to use the Product of the Year logo in marketing communications for two years. For more information, visit productoftheyearusa.com . About Kantar Kantar is the worlds leading marketing data, insight and consultancy company. We know more about how people live, feel, shop, vote, watch and post worldwide than any other company. Working across the entire sales and marketing lifecycle, we help brands uncover growth in an extraordinary world. Kantar is part of WPP and its services are employed by over half of the Fortune 500 companies in 100 countries. Cautionary Note on Forward-Looking Statements This press release may include forward-looking information and statements within the meaning of federal securities laws. Except for historical information contained in this release, statements in this release may constitute forward-looking statements regarding assumptions, projections, expectations, targets, intentions or beliefs about future events. Statements containing the words may, could, would, should, believe, expect, anticipate, plan, estimate, target, project, intend and similar expressions constitute forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement. Forward-looking statements are based on managements current belief, as well as assumptions made by, and information currently available to, management. While the Company believes that its expectations are based upon reasonable assumptions, there can be no assurances that its goals and strategy will be realized. Numerous factors, including risks and uncertainties, may affect actual results and may cause results to differ materially from those expressed in forward-looking statements made by the Company or on its behalf. Some of these factors include, but are not limited to, risks related to the Companys liquidity, the substantial uncertainties inherent in the acceptance of existing and future products, the difficulty of commercializing and protecting new technology, the impact of competitive products and pricing, general business and economic conditions, risks associated with the expansion of our business including the implementation of any businesses we acquire, factors discussed in our public filings, including the risk factors included in the Companys most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q and other periodic reports. Except as required by applicable law, including the securities laws of the United States and the rules and regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Company is under no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement after the date of this release whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise. CONTACT: CONSUMER/TRADE PRESS INVESTORS/FINANCIAL PRESS Starco Brands Liolios Lisa Becker Sean McGowan 888.816.1161 949.574.3860 lisa@starcobrands.com smcgowan@liolios.com A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/d6ef38d3-69ab-4663-91da-abc868f2633c Username: Password: or Register Back to Forum Reply to This post Post New Thread Thread Rating: 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average 1 2 3 4 5 EU Won't Block Controversial Nord Stream 2 Pipeline ALADIN * weird wizard1* User ID: 485250 02-08-2019 07:00 PM Posts: 5,426 Post: #1 EU Won't Block Controversial Nord Stream 2 Pipeline Advertisement Update: Following reports that France would effectively kill the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline, EU officials including German Chancellor Angela Merkel affirmed on Friday that an agreement has been reached which will allow construction of the pipeline to move forward - handing a major victory to Germany and Russia (and a stunning defeat for President Trump). At a meeting in Brussels on Friday, EU diplomats advanced a draft gas-market law, initially proposed in late 2017, while greatly cutting back a provision that would have effectively blocked the pipeline. The deal will allow negotiations with the European Parliament on a final version of the legislation to begin. Both sides are aiming for an official agreement as soon as next week, and no later than the end of May. * * * As The European Union and the US struggle to block the controversial international pipeline project Nord Stream 2, a 760-mile pipeline that would allow Russia to export natural gas directly to Germany - depriving Ukraine of badly needed gas transit fees along the current route for Russian supplies - France on Friday officially announced its opposition to the project, revealing that it would vote with a spam of EU nations seeking to torpedo the project. Earlier reports suggested that the opposition in Paris is rooted in the fear that the pipeline would confer too much "strategic power" on Moscow, potentially complicating its relationship with Brussels. Reuters has previously reported that Paris's vote against the project could rob Germany of the blocking minority it needs to move the project forward. But later on Friday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said a deal had been reached on Nord Stream 2. https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-02-0...ng-project It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a ma s k on their nose and mouth ... EU Won't Block Controversial Nord Stream 2 PipelineUpdate: Following reports that France would effectively kill the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline, EU officials including German Chancellor Angela Merkel affirmed on Friday that an agreement has been reached which will allow construction of the pipeline to move forward - handing a major victory to Germany and Russia (and a stunning defeat for President Trump).At a meeting in Brussels on Friday, EU diplomats advanced a draft gas-market law, initially proposed in late 2017, while greatly cutting back a provision that would have effectively blocked the pipeline.The deal will allow negotiations with the European Parliament on a final version of the legislation to begin. Both sides are aiming for an official agreement as soon as next week, and no later than the end of May.* * *As The European Union and the US struggle to block the controversial international pipeline project Nord Stream 2, a 760-mile pipeline that would allow Russia to export natural gas directly to Germany - depriving Ukraine of badly needed gas transit fees along the current route for Russian supplies - France on Friday officially announced its opposition to the project, revealing that it would vote with a spam of EU nations seeking to torpedo the project.Earlier reports suggested that the opposition in Paris is rooted in the fear that the pipeline would confer too much "strategic power" on Moscow, potentially complicating its relationship with Brussels. Reuters has previously reported that Paris's vote against the project could rob Germany of the blocking minority it needs to move the project forward.But later on Friday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said a deal had been reached on Nord Stream 2. LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 487573 02-08-2019 07:03 PM Post: #2 RE: EU Won't Block Controversial Nord Stream 2 Pipeline But but Trump is Russia's stooge? LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 488176 02-08-2019 07:26 PM Post: #3 RE: EU Won't Block Controversial Nord Stream 2 Pipeline Gladio cometh Back to Forum Reply to This post Post New Thread Investing.com - Oil prices took a dip on Friday in Asia despite reports of OPEC output cuts and U.S. sanction on Venezuela, as traders are still worried about the global economic slowdown. The U.S. Crude Oil WTI Futures that dropped by around 2.5% in the previous session kept the downward trend on Friday and were trading at $52.21 per barrel at 11:11 PM EST (4:11 AM GMT), down 0.82%. International Brent Oil Futures were down 0.67%, at $61.22 per barrel after falling 1.7% in the previous session. Dampening the market is the possible negative impact of the unresolved disputes between China and the U.S. on the global economic growth prospect. U.S. President Donald Trump said that there would be no talks between him and Chinese President Xi Jinping before the trade deal deadline on March 1, raising new concerns about the trade tensions between the worlds two biggest economies. Last week, Trump suggested that he would have a face-to-face with Xi in late February but ruled out such a meeting on Thursday. Crude prices returned to the lows of the week as slower growth prospects...could signal a return (of reasons) for inventories to rise, said Edward Moya, market analyst at futures brokerage Oanda, in a Reuters report. Meanwhile, the supply cuts led by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) that were introduced last year were continued to be cited as a tailwind for oil prices, although it was largely overshadowed by the renewed trade concerns this week. Saudi Arabia, the de-facto leader of OPEC, cut its crude output in January by about 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 10.24 million bpd - almost 1.7 million bpd below that of the U.S., Reuters reported according to OPEC sources. The U.S. sanctions implemented in late January have made it harder for Venezuela to export oil, but the impact on international oil markets is still limited at the moment, with some analysts saying oil markets currently "sit on a comfortable cushion of supply." Story continues On Thursday, a U.S. House of Representatives committee approved a bill that would expose OPEC members to U.S. antitrust lawsuits, but the measure is yet to be considered by the full chamber. Related Articles Exclusive: Iran-backed groups corner Iraq's postwar scrap metal market - sources Oil pushed up by deepening OPEC cuts, sanctions on Venezuela Gold Edges Up on Slightly Weaker Dollar; Powells Speech, Trade News in Focus Protesters for and against abortion rallied March 2 outside the Supreme Court as the justices heard argument in Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt. (Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi / ALM) A sharply divided U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday night agreed to temporarily block a Louisiana abortion clinic law that opponents claimed was nearly identical to a Texas law the justices struck down in 2016. In the case June Medical Services v. Gee, the high court approved an emergency request to stay a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which upheld the law's restrictions on abortion providers. The law was set to take effect Feb. 4, but the justices put it on hold through Thursday to review the arguments. Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. joined the court's four liberal justices in staying the Louisiana law. Five votes are required to grant a stay. Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito Jr. and Neil Gorsuch would have allowed the law to take effect. Kavanaugh separately wrote a dissenting opinion. "In order to resolve the factual uncertainties presented in the stay application about the three doctors ability to obtain admitting privileges, I would deny the stay without prejudice to the plaintiffs ability to bring a later as-applied complaint and motion for preliminary injunction at the conclusion of the 45-day regulatory transition period," Kavanaugh wrote. The case was being closely watched for an indication of where the Roberts court, with its newest members, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch, might be headed on the right to abortion, which has been repeatedly reaffirmed since the 1973 landmark decision in Roe v. Wade. Allowing the Louisiana law to take effect would have encouraged lower courts to approve similar state abortion restrictions and further embolden abortion opponents to press for additional restrictions at the state and federal levels. "What is at stake in this case, however, is not just the constitutional rights of Louisiana women to abortion access," counsel for June Medical Services, Julie Rikelman of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in her brief seeking the stay. "The Fifth Circuit panel majoritys decision undermines the rule of law by flouting binding precedent from this Court. Such a ruling has implications for the country and the judicial system as a whole." Louisiana's Unsafe Abortion Protection Act would require physicians performing abortions to have hospital admitting privileges within 30 miles of the procedure. Challengers to the law argued that enforcement would leave one doctor and one clinic available to perform abortions for approximately 10,000 Louisiana women who seek the procedure each year. The case drew parallels to the Texas dispute in Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt. In that case, the Supreme Court, voting 5-3 in 2016, struck down an identical admitting privileges requirement in a Texas law as well as other restrictions, after finding the law provided no medical or safety benefit to women. Justice Stephen Breyer wrote the majority opinion. Justice Anthony Kennedy provided the critical fifth vote in that decision. Kavanaugh, who is more conservative than Kennedy, succeeded Kennedy after his retirement in July. "I am unconvinced that any Justice of the Supreme Court who decided Whole Womans Health would endorse our opinion. The majority would not, and I respectfully suggest that the dissenters might not either," Fifth Circuit Judge Stephen Higginson wrote in a dissent in January. After the high court's Whole Woman's Health decision, courts in Oklahoma and Mississippi blocked admitting privileges requirements in those states, and Tennessee and Alabama chose not to enforce similar laws. The Center for Reproductive Rights, on behalf of three women's health centers, doctors and their patients, originally filed suit in 2014. After a six-day trial, a federal district court concluded the law imposed an unconstitutional undue burden on the abortion right and issued a preliminary injunction preventing its enforcement. In September, a 2-1 panel of the Fifth Circuit reversed the trial judge, and en banc review of the panel decision was denied by a 9-6 vote. In the emergency request to the high court, the center's Rikelman argued that allowing the admitting privileges requirement to take effect would "cripple abortion access" in the state. "By contrast, Louisiana will suffer no harm from a stay of the Fifth Circuit mandate." Rikelman said the Fifth Circuit ruling directly conflicted with the Whole Woman's Health decision. "The panel majority did not disturb the district courts factual finding that the law provides no health or safety benefit to women; it upheld the law despite that finding." Louisiana Solicitor General Elizabeth Murrill countered that the panels opinion "hinged on a close review of a massive record, applying clear-error review to district court fact-finding. Plaintiffs cannot point to obvious errors, and they give no reason why this Court should redo the panels work." The Supreme Court also has pending a petition from Indiana in which the state is appealing decisions blocking enforcement of state requirements for the disposal of fetal remains and restrictions on certain pre-viability abortions. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky challenged the law, signed in 2016 by then-governor of Indiana , now Vice President Mike Pence. The case is Box v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky. Indiana this week filed a second petition in the high court, this one challenging a Seventh Circuit decision striking down the state's requirement that women seeking abortions have an ultrasound performed at least 18 hours before the procedure. Story continues Read the Supreme Court's order below: Read more: Justice Thomas Accuses Colleagues of Sidestepping Abortion-Related Disputes Justice Breyer Joins Conservative Wing to Uphold Tougher Prison Sentence Roberts Aligns With Liberal Wing in Ruling Against Trump's Asylum Ban Anthony Kennedy Walks Through His Secret Retirement Plans Efforts to Unsettle 'Roe' Move Toward SCOTUS, as Kavanaugh Faces Senate Renoworks FastTrack, powered by Geomni, provides design, 3D visualizations, and detailed measurements. CALGARY, Alberta, and LEHI, Utah, February 8, 2019 - Renoworks (RW.V) and Geomni, a Verisk (VRSK) business, announce FastTrack, a roofing contractor`s all-in-one solution for design, visualization, and measurements. Renoworks FastTrack, powered by Geomni, is an easy-to-use project suite that allows roofing contractors to show customers what their homes can look like with proposed materials, enabling contractors to provide more accurate quotes with faster turnaround. Using images from Geomni`s massive aerial imagery library or images captured using the Geomni Mobile app, FastTrack enables customers to see what different options will look like on their own homes through the 3D visualization tool. In addition, contractors will receive the complete measurements and a full report of the selected materials and quantities-all the information needed for faster, more precise quotes. Using FastTrack, contractors can gain a competitive edge and build trust and loyalty with their customers. "Renoworks FastTrack makes things easier for contractors and their customers. It brings an DIY-like experience to customers as they use a 3D model of their home to select finishes and colors," said John Long, VP of business strategy for Geomni. "For contractors, FastTrack vastly simplifies the renovation process so they can spend less time traveling, designing, measuring, and estimating and more time winning jobs and completing projects." FastTrack uses both Renoworks` home visualization software and Geomni`s aerial imagery and measurement technology. Geomni is an industry leader in both aerial imagery and property measurements and offers a suite of complementary roofing solutions, such as Geomni Squares, designed to accelerate the estimating process and help contractors win more bids. Renoworks has been one of the top suppliers for True-to-Life visualization for the last two decades. Story continues "Renoworks visualizers were among the first tools that manufacturers included on their websites to provide digital interactive product experiences to homeowners and contractors," said Doug Vickerson, CEO of Renoworks. "FastTrack takes building product interaction to the next level by empowering contractors and homeowners to measure projects with the manufacturer`s products, in addition to visualizing what the home will look like when it`s complete." Renoworks FastTrack at the International Roofing Expo and Elevate 2019 The International Roofing Expo (IRE), held February 11-13 in Nashville, Tennessee, will feature FastTrack demonstrations in Geomni`s booth #1061 and include the FastTrack solution for top roofing manufacturer TAMKO. Insurance professionals, including carriers, adjusters, and contractors involved in insurance work, will have the opportunity to see FastTrack at Elevate 2019 in Salt Lake City, Utah. The FastTrack breakout session will be held on February 13 at 11 a.m. For more information about FastTrack, visit www.Geomni.net/Fasttrack. See how the process works for yourself by watching this video: FastTrack. About Renoworks Renoworks Software Inc. develops and sells unique digital visualization software and integration solutions for the remodeling and new home construction industry. Renoworks delivers its technology to manufacturers, contractors, builders, and retailers, offering solutions to one of the home improvement industry`s greatest challenges: enabling homeowners to review their product selections in a true-to-life virtual environment before committing to purchases and construction. Renoworks markets its technologies as innovative engagement tools and generates revenues from four main business lines: Renoworks Enterprise, Renoworks PRO, Renoworks Design Services, and Renoworks API (Application Programming Interface). For more information, visit: www.renoworks.com and www.renoworkspro.com. About Geomni Geomni, a Verisk (VRSK) business, is centered around an address- and location-based database of property-related analytics. Using the latest remote sensing and machine learning technologies, Geomni gathers, stores, processes, and delivers geographic and spatially referenced information relating to residential and commercial structures. Property professionals can use the data to help determine scope of damage, discover hazards, assess risk, perform valuations, and much more. Geomni`s property analytics database supports a number of critical tools that protect people, property, and financial assets. Learn more at www.geomni.net. For further information on Renoworks, please contact: Doug Vickerson, CEO Phone: 403-296-3880 E-mail: doug.vickerson@renoworks.com Renoworks Software Inc. 2721 Hopewell Place NE Calgary, Alberta, Canada T1Y 7J7 For further information about Geomni, please contact: Eboni Thomas Edelman (for Geomni) 212-642-7784 eboni.thomas@edelman.com This announcement is distributed by West Corporation on behalf of West Corporation clients. The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the information contained therein. Source: Verisk Analytics Inc. via GlobeNewswire HUG#2234230 Hong Kong Reopens After The Lunar New Year Holiday The Hong Kong Heng Seng Index reopened today after closing for the Lunar New Year Holiday. The first day of trading in the Year of the Pig was a dud, as expected considering the holiday atmosphere. Shares of Tencent led the decline with a loss of -0.52%. Equities markets in mainland China remain closed. The Nikkei posted the largest decline on renewed trade fears. US sources including Larry Kudlow indicate the US and China are still far apart on trade, a meeting between Xi and Trump is not likely before the March 2nd deadline. If no accord is reached in principle or reality before March 2nd 10% tariffs on Chinese imports already in place will double to 20%. Shares of Sony led the market with gains, bucking the bearish trend, driven by a new share buyback program. The program is the first ever in Sonys history and sent shares of the stock up more than 4.0%. The Korean Kospi was also down, about -1.0%, on the trade news while the Australian ASX shed a less severe -0.34%. European Markets Sour On Trade Woe EU indices were moving lower in early Friday trading, led by the DAX. The German index was down about -0.50% at midday and possibly heading lower. The news on trade is a major setback for market sentiment and could weigh on equities in the near-term. Other major indices in the region were down about -0.25%. News from the UK is that Theresa May is headed back to Brussels. She is expected to meet with EU officials to discuss alteration to the wording of the deal she has negotiated. EU officials have agreed to look at wording regarding the Irish-backstop, the major sticking point for Parliamentary approval. In corporate news, shares of Skanska dropped more than -6.0% after announcing a smaller than expected dividend. In Italy, shares of Ubi Banco were halted after it reported weaker than expected revenue and earnings. Shares fell -5.0% in minutes and are not likely to recover if economic activity does not pick up. Story continues US Futures Lower In Early Trading US futures were lower in early trading as trade-related fears drag on sentiment. The S&P 500 was indicated as low as -0.60% in the early hours of pre-market trading but a bottom was formed and some of the losses were recovered by 9 AM. While trade is the cause of concern, it is slowing global growth and the deteriorating outlook for earnings that is weighing on stocks. US equities are expected to post a net-negative earnings growth in the first quarter of 2019, the first decline in growth in two and a half years. Until the trend changes, traders should expect to see the major indices move sideways within their trading ranges. There are no economic reports scheduled for today but there are a few scheduled for next week including the PCE price index. Next weeks data may be delayed because of the recent government shutdown, and possibly by another government shutdown if a spending deal isnt reached in Washington. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: (Bloomberg) -- Masayoshi Sons grand vision for SoftBank Group Corp. has been dealt a setback by an internal power struggle between two of his closest lieutenants. Marcelo Claure was named chief operating officer in May with the goal of improving operations across SoftBank portfolio companies and getting startups such as Uber Technologies Inc. and WeWork Cos Inc. to work together. Yet he clashed from the start with Rajeev Misra, who oversees SoftBanks $100 billion Vision Fund and many of Sons most important investments, according to people familiar with the matter. After months of disagreements, Misra won an important dispute. The staff Claure has been hiring to improve operations were shifted over to work for Misra at the Vision Fund instead, said the people, asking not to be named because the matter is private. The employees, numbering about 40, were notified by email Feb. 1, including some who were hired so recently they hadnt even started work yet. The push for synergies at the Vision Fund will happen under Misras watch, not Claures. The COO now has a reduced mandate. His portfolio will include WeWork, chip-design firm ARM Holdings Plc and asset-manager Fortress Investment Group LLC, according to the email. He will mainly focus on a Latin America investment fund that SoftBank plans to create. Less than two months after moving to Tokyo with his family, he is considering moving back to Miami. Claure and Misra, in a joint interview, downplayed any conflict and said they are working together effectively. Our shared passion for our work should not be misread as tension, Claure said. We will continue to collaborate - as we do everyday - on executing and realizing SoftBanks bold mission for the future. The changes were made because they were the right thing to do for our business. While the shift is a setback for Claure, the real loser may be Son himself. The Japanese billionaire pitched his unprecedented push into technology investments as a strategy for getting the worlds best startups to cooperate. He dubbed this his Cluster of No. 1s strategy, which in Masa-speak means that one plus one would add up to more than two. Now its uncertain that his portfolio companies will get along any better than his lieutenants. Story continues Masa probably finds this whole thing frustrating, said Chris Lane, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. He should be able to go and meddle everywhere, but he doesnt have time for that and wants Marcelo to do it on his behalf. But what he really did was put two peers of equal stature in conflict. Read More: Masayoshi Son Explains the Vision Behind SoftBanks Vision Fund Son already oversees a vast empire with dozens of stakes in startups involved in ride-hailing, satellites, indoor farming, construction, dog-walking and cancer detection. He has said he plans to raise a new $100 billion fund every two or three years. Yet he has struggled to persuade investors of the potential in this push. SoftBank Group shares trade at a discount to the value of its stakes in Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and other public companies, despite a buyback-fueled jump in his shares this week. Claure was supposed to lead the way in closing that gap. Son first teamed up with the Bolivian-American in 2013 when the Japanese company acquired a majority stake in Brightstar, a phone distribution business Claure founded. Son elevated him the next year to run Sprint, where he led a turnaround of the wireless operator and ultimately agreed to sell the business to rival T-Mobile US Inc. He was named SoftBank COO last year, then moved to Japan in December. The entrepreneurs experience made him the perfect candidate to execute Sons vision. Claure set out to create a team of executives versed in building companies, improving performance and managing key support tasks like government relations. The so-called SoftBank Operating Group was slated to have as many as 200 to 500 people, the people said. The Vision Fund businesses are late-stage investments from the venture capital perspective, but they are still very young companies, Lane said. There is a whole process to growing these companies from startups to corporations, and Marcelo has a lot of experience to manage that transition. Inserting himself into the Vision Funds operations proved to be a challenge. Early on, his attempts to join conference calls to discuss deals in process were stymied by scheduling -- they took place in the middle of the night Claures time. A source close to the Vision Fund said there was no attempt to keep Claure out and it was simply the best possible time for the funds teams, split between London and San Carlos, California. Claure convinced Son to hold a weekly strategy call with himself, Misra and Katsunori Sago, a Japanese banker who was named chief strategy officer in June. At first, Claure would lay out his ideas, backed up by detailed presentations, only to find that Misra mostly spoke off the cuff. Claure took it as a sign that Misra was not making an effort to collaborate. Even as the tension between the two men mounted, they maintained an amicable public relationship. At a Vision Fund offsite meeting in Miami late last year, Claure and Misra heaped praise on each other in their keynote speeches. An employee at the Vision Fund said the two were always kind and respectful in public. However in private, their exchanges sometimes escalated into shouting matches, some of the people said. Others characterized it as two outspoken people disagreeing vigorously. Behind the scenes, Son worked to ensure that Claure had a company-wide mandate. But he hit an obstacle at the Vision Fund because any major change in its operations had to be approved by limited partners, led by Saudi Arabia, the biggest investor in the fund. Though the partners understood the business justification in having a team of experts look after the operations, they wanted any such team to be part of the Vision Fund for compliance reasons. That meant reporting to Misra, with whom the Saudi royal family has a relationship that predates their $45 billion contribution to the fund. The parties involved set a deadline for the end of January to come to an agreement. Son traveled to Riyadh at the end of the month, a trip that Claure hoped would allow him to operate independently. Instead, Claure was given the option to follow his team to the Vision Fund, essentially working for Misra. He declined. The lines between the fund and SoftBanks own investments are sometimes murky. Son often cuts deals with an expectation that the investment will eventually be rolled over to the Vision Fund. As of February, there were 71 companies in the Vision Fund portfolio. The list may also soon include Chinas ride-hailing leader Didi Chuxing, which is part of SoftBanks own Delta Fund. The fund also owns a 25 percent stake in ARM, with a majority controlled by SoftBank itself. SoftBanks stake in WeWork has the potential for more conflict. The Japanese company has invested more than $10 billion in the co-working startup, but that is split between SoftBank itself and the Vision Fund. Ron Fischer, a SoftBank veteran, led the deal and sits on its board. There was no mention of the organizational changes when Son addressed investors and media at a quarterly earnings briefing in Tokyo Wednesday. In recent months, he often speaks about the need to create a company that can survive successive waves of technological change for the next 300 years, starting with the looming impact of artificial intelligence. The short-term challenge might be more prosaic: managing an expanding portfolio, along with the egos of his closest aides. --With assistance from Sarah McBride. To contact the reporters on this story: Pavel Alpeyev in Tokyo at palpeyev@bloomberg.net;Selina Wang in San Francisco at swang533@bloomberg.net;Giles Turner in London at gturner35@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Robert Fenner at rfenner@bloomberg.net, Peter Elstrom For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com 2019 Bloomberg L.P. Want to participate in a short research study? Help shape the future of investing tools and you could win a $250 gift card! While some investors are already well versed in financial metrics (hat tip), this article is for those who would like to learn about Return On Equity (ROE) and why it is important. By way of learning-by-doing, well look at ROE to gain a better understanding of Owens-Illinois, Inc. (NYSE:OI). Owens-Illinois has a ROE of 19%, based on the last twelve months. Another way to think of that is that for every $1 worth of equity in the company, it was able to earn $0.19. View our latest analysis for Owens-Illinois How Do I Calculate Return On Equity? The formula for return on equity is: Return on Equity = Net Profit Shareholders Equity Or for Owens-Illinois: 19% = 144 US$900m (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2018.) Its easy to understand the net profit part of that equation, but shareholders equity requires further explanation. It is the capital paid in by shareholders, plus any retained earnings. The easiest way to calculate shareholders equity is to subtract the companys total liabilities from the total assets. What Does Return On Equity Mean? Return on Equity measures a companys profitability against the profit it has kept for the business (plus any capital injections). The return is the profit over the last twelve months. The higher the ROE, the more profit the company is making. So, all else equal, investors should like a high ROE. Clearly, then, one can use ROE to compare different companies. Does Owens-Illinois Have A Good ROE? By comparing a companys ROE with its industry average, we can get a quick measure of how good it is. However, this method is only useful as a rough check, because companies do differ quite a bit within the same industry classification. The image below shows that Owens-Illinois has an ROE that is roughly in line with the Packaging industry average (19%). Story continues NYSE:OI Last Perf February 8th 19 Thats not overly surprising. ROE can give us a view about company quality, but many investors also look to other factors, such as whether there are insiders buying shares. I will like Owens-Illinois better if I see some big insider buys. While we wait, check out this free list of growing companies with considerable, recent, insider buying. How Does Debt Impact Return On Equity? Virtually all companies need money to invest in the business, to grow profits. That cash can come from retained earnings, issuing new shares (equity), or debt. In the first two cases, the ROE will capture this use of capital to grow. In the latter case, the debt used for growth will improve returns, but wont affect the total equity. That will make the ROE look better than if no debt was used. Owens-Illinoiss Debt And Its 19% ROE It appears that Owens-Illinois makes extensive use of debt to improve its returns, because it has a relatively high debt to equity ratio of 5.93. Its ROE is respectable, but its not so impressive once you consider all of the debt. The Bottom Line On ROE Return on equity is useful for comparing the quality of different businesses. In my book the highest quality companies have high return on equity, despite low debt. If two companies have around the same level of debt to equity, and one has a higher ROE, Id generally prefer the one with higher ROE. But ROE is just one piece of a bigger puzzle, since high quality businesses often trade on high multiples of earnings. It is important to consider other factors, such as future profit growth and how much investment is required going forward. So I think it may be worth checking this free report on analyst forecasts for the company. Of course Owens-Illinois may not be the best stock to buy. So you may wish to see this free collection of other companies that have high ROE and low debt. To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements. The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. National Australia Bank chief executive Andrew Thorburn has resigned after a major inquiry into the scandal-plagued banking sector singled out NAB National Australia Bank chief executive Andrew Thorburn has resigned after a major inquiry into the scandal-plagued banking sector singled out NAB (AFP Photo/PETER PARKS) National Australia Bank announced Thursday its chairman and chief executive were stepping down just days after a major inquiry into the country's scandal-plagued finance sector singled out the bank's leadership for criticism. NAB chair Ken Henry said he would soon retire, while CEO Andrew Thorburn announced his resignation, both saying they were "deeply sorry" in the wake of a damning report detailing rampant customer abuse in the industry. "As CEO, I understand accountability. I have always sought to act in the best interests of the bank and customers and I know that I have always acted with integrity," Thorburn, who will leave at the end of the month, said in a statement. "However, I recognise there is a desire for change. As a result, I spoke with the Board and offered to step down as CEO, and they have accepted my offer." On Monday, the Royal Commission in the sector handed down its final report calling for rules to be revised, and for more regulation and oversight of the sector, including Australia's "big four" banks. The year-long investigation, which revealed rampant misconduct and poor treatment of customers, referred more than 20 cases to regulators for possible prosecution. The big banks were sharply criticised, with Henry and Thorburn singled out for being unwilling to acknowledge their organisation's mistakes. "Having heard from both the CEO, Mr Thorburn, and the Chair, Dr Henry, I am not as confident as I would wish to be that the lessons of the past have been learned," said the inquiry's commissioner, former High Court judge Kenneth Hayne. Henry said he would retire from the board when a new CEO is appointed. "I am enormously proud of what the bank has achieved and equally disappointed about what the Royal Commission has brought to light in areas where we have not met customer expectations," he said. "Andrew and I are deeply sorry for this." NAB put a halt on trading about 30 minutes before the ASX closed Thursday. It was up 1.3 percent to 24.93 at the time. (Recasts with results details, adds shares, MEXICO CITY dateline) MEXICO CITY, Feb 7 (Reuters) - Mexican cement producer Cemex on Thursday reported a loss for the fourth-quarter, missing analyst expectations' for a profit and sending shares lower. Monterrey-based Cemex, one of the world's largest cement producers, reported a net loss of $37 million for the quarter, when analysts had expected a profit of $136 million, according to a Reuters poll. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) slipped 3 percent in the quarter. Share in Cemex fell almost 2 percent after the report to 9.99 pesos per share. Revenue rose 4 percent in the quarter, helped by higher prices and volume, and was slightly lower than expected in the poll. Cemex said that it would increase investments in maintenance and strategic assets for 2019 to $850 million. It said it expects consolidated cement volumes to grow up to 2 percent, and concrete to grow between 3 percent and 5 percent. Global demand for cement is seen rising 1.5 percent this year, mainly due to higher demand in China, which consumes more than half of the world's cement. Cemex said in July that it would return cash to shareholders through an annual cash dividend, starting with $150 million in 2019. The company has been cutting costs and selling assets to help it meet investment grade metrics faster. (Reporting by Noe Torres in Mexico City and Ankit Ajmera in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel and Susan Thomas) By Andrius Sytas VILNIUS (Reuters) - About 100 financial companies and start-ups from Britain and elsewhere are applying for a licence in burgeoning fintech hub Lithuania to ensure they have access to the European Union after Brexit, the country's central bank told Reuters. Britain is due to leave the European Union on March 29, but has not yet reached a deal on a post-Brexit relationship, meaning companies with UK-issued licences may no longer have the right to provide some financial services in the EU. The companies, a quarter of which hail from Britain, are looking to get electronic money institution licences, Marius Jurgilas, member of the board at the central bank, told Reuters in an interview. "It seems that the companies, many of which are quite large, are behaving like a student who only starts worrying on the eve of an exam," he said. He said Lithuania can process an electronic money institution licence application in as little as three months, compared to about a year in some EU countries, giving it an advantage over other fintech centres such as Luxembourg, Ireland or Belgium. "It is an onslaught ... We do not have the resources to process all the applicants. We have to pick-and-choose, prioritising the least risky applicants," said Jurgilas, who did not provide names of the companies due to confidentiality rules. Ireland's central bank said in October that it had seen a surge in financial services firms seeking to set up or extend their operations in Ireland as a result of Brexit and is processing over 100 applications. Lithuania began attracting fintech companies a few years ago, and as of January has issued a total of 83 licences to such firms, second only to Britain among European Union countries, according to government figures. The newcomers include a payment arm of Alphabet Inc's Google and Revolut, a British digital-only bank, and Jurgilas said the central bank is ready to step up its oversight capabilities as the sector grows. Story continues Jurgilas dismissed suggestions that firms were drawn to Lithuania by a benign regulatory regime. The "European Union has institutions which make sure that market supervisors in all its countries, including Lithuania, work to the same standard, and if any Lithuanian-registered bank grows into significant size, its supervision will be taken over by the European Central Bank", he said. (Reporting By Andrius Sytas; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle) CLEVELAND, Feb. 08, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Lincoln Electric Holdings, Inc. (LECO) today announced that Vincent K. Petrella, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, will speak at the Barclays Industrial Select Conference being held in Miami on Thursday, February 21, 2019, at 11:30 a.m. Eastern Time. The presentation will be webcast and can be accessed on our Investor Relations web site at http://ir.lincolnelectric.com. A replay will also be accessible on our Investor Relations web site. About Lincoln Electric Lincoln Electric is the world leader in the design, development and manufacture of arc welding products, robotic arc welding systems, plasma and oxyfuel cutting equipment and has a leading global position in the brazing and soldering alloys market. Headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, Lincoln has 56 manufacturing locations, including operations and joint ventures in 20 countries and a worldwide network of distributors and sales offices covering more than 160 countries. For more information about Lincoln Electric and its products and services, visit the Companys website at www.lincolnelectric.com. Contact Amanda Butler Vice President, Investor Relations & Communications Tel: 216.383.2534 Email: Amanda_Butler@lincolnelectric.com If you are looking for a stock that has a solid history of beating earnings estimates and is in a good position to maintain the trend in its next quarterly report, you should consider LGI Homes (LGIH). This company, which is in the Zacks Real Estate - Development industry, shows potential for another earnings beat. This entry-level homebuilder in the Texas, Arizona, Florida and Georgia markets has seen a nice streak of beating earnings estimates, especially when looking at the previous two reports. The average surprise for the last two quarters was 7.55%. For the most recent quarter, LGI Homes was expected to post earnings of $1.49 per share, but it reported $1.52 per share instead, representing a surprise of 2.01%. For the previous quarter, the consensus estimate was $1.68 per share, while it actually produced $1.90 per share, a surprise of 13.10%. Price and EPS Surprise Thanks in part to this history, there has been a favorable change in earnings estimates for LGI Homes lately. In fact, the Zacks Earnings ESP (Expected Surprise Prediction) for the stock is positive, which is a great indicator of an earnings beat, particularly when combined with its solid Zacks Rank. Our research shows that stocks with the combination of a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) or better produce a positive surprise nearly 70% of the time. In other words, if you have 10 stocks with this combination, the number of stocks that beat the consensus estimate could be as high as seven. The Zacks Earnings ESP compares the Most Accurate Estimate to the Zacks Consensus Estimate for the quarter; the Most Accurate Estimate is a version of the Zacks Consensus whose definition is related to change. The idea here is that analysts revising their estimates right before an earnings release have the latest information, which could potentially be more accurate than what they and others contributing to the consensus had predicted earlier. LGI Homes has an Earnings ESP of +6.46% at the moment, suggesting that analysts have grown bullish on its near-term earnings potential. When you combine this positive Earnings ESP with the stock's Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), it shows that another beat is possibly around the corner. The company's next earnings report is expected to be released on February 26, 2019. Story continues With the Earnings ESP metric, it's important to note that a negative value reduces its predictive power; however, a negative Earnings ESP does not indicate an earnings miss. Many companies end up beating the consensus EPS estimate, though this is not the only reason why their shares gain. Additionally, some stocks may remain stable even if they end up missing the consensus estimate. Because of this, it's really important to check a company's Earnings ESP ahead of its quarterly release to increase the odds of success. Make sure to utilize our Earnings ESP Filter to uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they've reported. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report LGI Homes, Inc. (LGIH) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Jeff Bezos, founder and chief executive officer of Amazon.com Inc., listens during an Economic Club of Washington discussion in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 13, 2018.Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg Amazon founder and chief executive officer Jeff Bezos has alleged American Media Inc., which owns the National Enquirer, attempted to extort him by threatening to release personal photos unless he dropped an investigation of the company. Bezos published an alleged exchange with AMI's deputy general counsel Jon Fine in a blog post on Medium on Thursday afternoon. Fine previously worked at Amazon, spending nine years at the company, including nearly than two years as associate general counsel, according to his LinkedIn profile. Fine allegedly emailed Bezos on Feb. 6. In the email, Fine said AMI demanded that Bezos release all claims he and AMI have had against each other. He also requested that Bezos, who owns the Washington Post, release a public, mutually agreed upon statement saying he has no knowledge of AMI's coverage being politically motivated. In exchange, AMI would not publish personal photos of Bezos, including selfies sent to his alleged girlfriend. If either side broke the agreement, Fine said AMI could publish the photos. The National Enquirer had previously published personal texts between Bezos and his alleged girlfriend Lauren Sanchez. Bezos hired investigators to learn how AMI obtained the texts. Last month, Bezos and his wife announced they would divorce after 25 years of marriage. "These communications cement AMIs long-earned reputation for weaponizing journalistic privileges, hiding behind important protections, and ignoring the tenets and purpose of true journalism," Bezos said in his Medium post Thursday. "Of course I dont want personal photos published, but I also wont participate in their well-known practice of blackmail, political favors, political attacks, and corruption. I prefer to stand up, roll this log over, and see what crawls out." Fine joined AMI in November, following the departure of the New York-based company's longtime general counsel Cameron Stracher. He previously served as the general counsel of OptiQly and held in-house roles at Amazon, Random House and NBC. Fine, AMI and Amazon did not immediately respond to request for comment. Read More: American Media Inc. Hires New Top Lawyer as Longtime GC Exits Divorce Attorneys: In-House Counsel Should Stay Out of Executive's Divorce WASHINGTON, Feb 7 (Reuters) - The International Monetary Fund is still awaiting guidance from its member countries on whether to recognize Venezuela's opposition leader Juan Guaido as the country's legitimate head of state, IMF spokesman Gerry Rice said on Thursday. Rice, speaking at a regular news briefing, said that official recognition would be required first step before any IMF financing program to aid Venezuela could be designed. Despite a growing number of countries recognizing Guaido's leadership, he said the IMF was still waiting for a consensus. "I think countries are still establishing their positions in terms of recognition," Rice said. "We're watching that closely and we will be guided by the membership once we feel -- and they feel -- that there's an established view with which they could guide us." (Reporting by David Lawder) The U.S. met a Canadian court deadline Wednesday by filing a request asking Canada to extradite Chinese telecom giant Huawei Technologies Co.s CFO Meng Wanzhou, who has been held in Canada on a provisional warrant since she was arrested in Vancouver on December 1. The request comes on the heels of separate charges filed by federal prosecutors in New York and Washington state against Huawei, unsealed Monday, accusing the company of stealing trade secrets from one of its U.S. business partners, and violating U.S. sanctions against Iran. Meng Wanzhou, Executive Board Director of the Chinese technology giant Huawei, attends a session of the VTB Capital Investment Forum "Russia Calling!" in Moscow, Russia October 2, 2014. Picture taken October 2, 2014. REUTERS/Alexander Bibik Among other considerations in Wanzhous case, the Canadian court will consider provisions of Canadas Extradition Act and treaty with the U.S., which prohibit extradition requests compromised by political motivation. That opens the door for for the court to weigh comments made by President Donald Trump when asked about Mengs arrest, Dr. Gary Botting, a barrister in Vancouver and Canadian extradition law expert told Yahoo Finance. Canada cannot extradite somebody for political purposes Trump told Reuters, Whatevers good for this country, I would do, when asked if he would intervene in the U.S. Justice Departments case. If I think its good for what will be certainly the largest trade deal ever made which is a very important thing whats good for national security I would certainly intervene if I thought it was necessary, Trump reportedly said. A man walks past a Huawei sign in a mall in Beijing, China, January 29, 2019. REUTERS/Thomas Peter Saying that he can use this as a bargaining chip in international relations, trade negotiations, for example, that might be something that impacts the extradition hearing in Canada, Botting said. Botting expects Mengs defense to rely on constitutional and treaty arguments for the bulk of its argument against extradition. You cannot extradite somebody for political purposes. That's a treaty provision that's a much larger and more important provision than whether or not this is criminal in Canada, Botting said. Why single her out as Chief Financial Officer? Why not handle it with a fine, especially when they're saying that she faces up to 30 years in jail? Story continues In its extradition filing, the U.S. is required to perfect what is called a Record of the Case, according to Botting. It has to be a certified Record the Case saying the evidence summarized in the document, witness by witness, in other words what each witnesses expected to say, along with information about the identity of Ms. Meng, Botting said. Once perfected, the matter heads to Canadas Department of Justice, where the Justice Minister has 30 days to determine whether the Department will issue the authority to proceed with an extradition hearing. The Minister of Justice has the right to reject the U.S.s Record of the Case as inadequate, and stop the proceeding. 2 questions before Canadas Department of Justice Bottling said there are two primary questions before the Department: Whether Canadian authorities have arrested the correct person identified in the warrant, and whether the crime alleged is also recognized as a criminal violation in Canada. Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou, who is out on bail and remains under partial house arrest after she was detained Dec. 1 at the behest of American authorities, leaves her home to attend a court appearance regarding her bail conditions, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Tuesday Jan. 29, 2019. (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press via AP) All they are looking at is, is this the right person, and is this a criminal violation in Canada? He said. The authority to proceed may not be issued unless Canadian law recognizes a criminal offense analogous with the criminal offense charged in the U.S. indictment. While Canada is not a party to U.S. sanctions against Iran, and therefore does not recognize a law exactly analogous to the crime the U.S. alleged against Meng, Botting said the underlying law of fraud, which is recognized by both countries, would likely act as enough of a common denominator to issue an authority to proceed. If an authority to proceed is granted, it initiates court proceedings and allows the assigned judge in British Columbia to set an extradition hearing date and preliminary schedule. Under Canadian law, the court is required to preserve a detainees Charter Rights, which are Canadian constitutional protections that guarantee Meng the right not to be deprived of fundamental freedoms. So the question is has [the extradition process] been done in a fair and just way? Botting said. An argument that would trump all In addition to citing Trumps statements, Botting said he anticipates the defense to make the additional, though less weighty claim, that Canadas laws do not specifically provide for sanctions against Iran, as set forth under U.S. law. Even if the U.S. introduces evidence showing that Huawei and Meng committed the crimes alleged, a successful argument by the defense that Mengs constitutional rights were violated, or that the treaty was violated, would trump such evidence. If the extradition is for political purpose, that would trump all, Botting said. In a separate case, United States v. Shulman, Canadas Supreme Court ruled that a prosecutor who publicly threatened a U.S. citizen sought for extradition under the extradition treaty with Canada was equivalent to a price on the alleged detainees head and therefore a violation of Canadas Extradition Act. The Meng matter is adjourned until March 8 to allow the Justice Minister time to determine whether to issue an Authority to Proceed. Huawei has denied that the company committed any of the violations of U.S. law contained in the unsealed indictments. Mengs lawyer has denied the charge that she committed fraud. If she were extradited you can be sure she would be held for a long time, Botting said. Now it could be they decide to go with a big fine. Alexis Keenan is a New York-based reporter for Yahoo Finance. She previously produced live news for CNN and is a former litigation attorney. Follow her on Twitter at @alexiskweed More from Alexis: Disabled San Diego residents sue over e-scooter obstacle course How legalized cannabis changed Colorado in the past five years Legal experts disagree on whether Trump can declare 'emergency' to build his wall Photo credit: Hand Solo - YouTube From Popular Mechanics There are many DIY Lego projects on the internet, but it'd be hard to think of one cooler or more useful than 19-year old David Aguilar's. The bioengineering student has spent years building and evolving a series of Lego-based prosthetic arms. He's currently on his fourth evolution. Calling himself HandSolo on YouTube, Aguilar has been building artificial limbs for himself since he was nine years old, according to a report in Reuters. As a child I was very nervous to be in front of other guys, because I was different, but that didnt stop me believing in my dreams," he tells the news agency. Now a student at Universitat Internacional de Catalunya in Spain, the Andorran national doesn't need to rely on artificial limbs all the time. But as his YouTube channel shows, when he needs one, he wants it to be as custom-built as possible. While there are pictures of Han Solo in the background of many of his videos, Aguilar pays tribute to another famous sci-fi renegade: Tony Stark, the billionaire inventor from Marvel comics and Avengers movies. Stark names his Iron Man suits Mark-1, Mark-2, and Aguilar has followed suit. His Lego arms are named MK-I, MK-II, MK-III, etc., in tribute. The MK-I was built just a year ago, when Aguilar was 18. Since then he's gone through various Lego sets, including jets and construction vehicles, reconstructing them into battery-operated arms. His end goal with the project ties in nicely with his aims in life: building affordable prostheses for people who need them. Currently, studies estimate that the price of a new prosthetic leg can cost between $5,000 and $50,000, not counting the upkeep. Anyone working to bring down the costs would surely find interested buyers. I would try to give them a prosthetic," Aguilar tells Reuters, "even if its for free, to make them feel like a normal person, because what is normal, right? Source: Reuters ('You Might Also Like',) Username: Password: or Register Back to Forum Reply to This post Post New Thread Thread Rating: 1 Vote(s) - 5 Average 1 2 3 4 5 VIDEO: Venezuelan socialism victims send message to American socialists LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 433529 02-08-2019 04:41 PM Post: #1 VIDEO: Venezuelan socialism victims send message to American socialists Advertisement It soon became abundantly clear that the Venezuelans in attendance were horrified by the idea of bringing socialism to the United States. Asking them, What is your message to those who want socialism here, the attendees were in agreement: dont do it. You do not ever want anything close to socialism, one attendee said, while another added, people are eating from trash cans in the streets, so how has socialism helped? Another attendee, whose family is still in Venezuela, said, No Venezuelan can like socialism, because weve seen it put in place very well. What else did they have to say? Watch the full video:" https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=11846 Despite the horrors brought upon the citizens of Veneuzela by Maduro (The Lenin of South America) - cnn wants it's followers to support the dictator - wtf? "Wanting to know if the people who support socialism had ever heard from people whove suffered under it, Campus Reform's Cabot Phillips headed to a Venezuelan Freedom rally in Washington, D.C.It soon became abundantly clear that the Venezuelans in attendance were horrified by the idea of bringing socialism to the United States.Asking them, What is your message to those who want socialism here, the attendees were in agreement: dont do it.You do not ever want anything close to socialism, one attendee said, while another added, people are eating from trash cans in the streets, so how has socialism helped?Another attendee, whose family is still in Venezuela, said, No Venezuelan can like socialism, because weve seen it put in place very well.What else did they have to say? Watch the full video:"Despite the horrors brought upon the citizens of Veneuzela by Maduro (The Lenin of South America) -cnn wants it's followers to support the dictator - wtf? LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 485330 02-08-2019 05:47 PM Post: #2 RE: VIDEO: Venezuelan socialism victims send message to American socialists Keep in mind USA has been "working" on Venez for MANY YEARS to bring about chaos. We have NOT been helping. Natura Naturans Registered User User ID: 480998 02-08-2019 06:58 PM Posts: 13,156 Post: #3 RE: VIDEO: Venezuelan socialism victims send message to American socialists LoP Guest Wrote: (02-08-2019 05:47 PM) Keep in mind USA has been "working" on Venez for MANY YEARS to bring about chaos. We have NOT been helping. Socialists promise workers a paradise, but when they get total power as in Venezuela during Hugo Chavez's regime, he fired all the workers at the state owned oil company: The decline and fall of Venezuelas oil industry essentially begins with its nationalization in 1976, a time of booming crude prices and rising resource nationalism. President Carlos Andres Perez sought a much greater role for the state over the economy and especially wanted to use the countrys fast-growing oil wealth to turbocharge development. That year, to gain full national control over the oil fields, Caracas banished foreign oil firms and created a new, state-run oil monopoly called Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA). The moves marked the capstone to Perez Alfonsos decades-long dream of Venezuela grabbing full control of its destiny. It was also the logical outcome of the widely held belief that the countrys oil, discovered in 1922 on the shores of Lake Maracaibo, was national patrimony. By the mid-1990s, international firms, including Chevron and ConocoPhillips, had moved back into the country and were hard at work unlocking Venezuelas massive heavy oil deposits. But in 1998, the price of oil collapsed again, dipping to $10 a barrel. The impact on Venezuela which, like many oil-rich countries, had never managed to diversify its economy despite a bout of reform efforts in the 1970s was severe, given that petroleum exports then represented about one-third of the states revenues. Then along came Chavez, a former army lieutenant colonel whod served time in prison for an abortive coup attempt in 1992. He won the 1998 presidential election on the promise to reshape and restore Venezuelas reeling economy. In 2001, the former paratrooper pushed through a new energy law that jacked up the royalties foreign oil firms would have to pay the government. It also mandated that PDVSA would lead all new oil exploration and production; foreign firms could only hold minority stakes in whatever partnerships they struck with the national company. In 2002, Chavez took two more steps to turn the once-proud PDVSA into his private preserve. First, he installed a new president, Gaston Parra Luzardo, a leftist economics professor who was a fierce opponent of opening the industry to more private investment. Then, in April, he went on live television to humiliate and fire a handful of PDVSA managers, replacing them with political hacks. Together, the moves sparked violent public protests, which turned into a coup attempt against Chavez. The president survived the putsch, but his popularity plummeted especially inside PDVSA. By the end of 2002, opposition to Chavez had solidified, and big labor groups called for a national strike in hopes of pressuring him to leave office. Oil workers backed the effort, setting the stage for what would turn out to be the critical step in PDVSAs road to ruin. During the two-month work stoppage, PDVSAs output plummeted as field workers stopped pumping and tanker crews refused to leave port. Venezuelas oil production fell from close to 3 million barrels a day before the strike to levels as low as 200,000 barrels a day in December 2002. Crucially for Chavez, however, the international oil companies refused to join the protest. The multinationals kept producing during the strike, said Monaldi of Rice University. That is what saved him, by blunting the economic impact of the protest. Chavez immediately fought back. During the strike, he axed scores of senior executives, including Juan Fernandez, one of the organizers of the protest. In the months that followed, the pink slips kept coming, and by the time the smoke finally cleared, Chavez had fired more than 18,000 workers. With them went most of the managerial expertise and technical know-how PDVSA had managed to preserve during the earlier purges. This evisceration of the PDVSAs human capital would prove the most damaging of Chavezs many moves against the company. Even his own government soon realized the harm it had done. Accidents and spills began to proliferate, and in 2005, a top energy ministry official admitted privately that it would take at least 15 years to rebuild the technical skills lost by the mass firings. Another energy ministry official even asked U.S. diplomats in Caracas to help arrange training in the United States. And in the years since, the situation has only worsened. Conditions at the company (and in the economy) are now so bad that employees take home a pittance just a handful of dollars a month and face political pressure to support the regime. Such treatment has led to the large-scale flight of skilled workers: more than 25,000 since last year, union officials say. According to Reuters, the exodus has grown so big that some PDVSA offices have begun refusing to let their workers resign. Venezuelan oil industry NEVER recovered. https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/07/16/how...gy-chavez/ Socialists promise workers a paradise, but when they get total power as in Venezuela during Hugo Chavez's regime, he fired all the workers at the state owned oil company:The decline and fall of Venezuelas oil industry essentially begins with its nationalization in 1976, a time of booming crude prices and rising resource nationalism. President Carlos Andres Perez sought a much greater role for the state over the economy and especially wanted to use the countrys fast-growing oil wealth to turbocharge development. That year, to gain full national control over the oil fields, Caracas banished foreign oil firms and created a new, state-run oil monopoly called Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA). The moves marked the capstone to Perez Alfonsos decades-long dream of Venezuela grabbing full control of its destiny. It was also the logical outcome of the widely held belief that the countrys oil, discovered in 1922 on the shores of Lake Maracaibo, was national patrimony.By the mid-1990s, international firms, including Chevron and ConocoPhillips, had moved back into the country and were hard at work unlocking Venezuelas massive heavy oil deposits. But in 1998, the price of oil collapsed again, dipping to $10 a barrel. The impact on Venezuela which, like many oil-rich countries, had never managed to diversify its economy despite a bout of reform efforts in the 1970s was severe, given that petroleum exports then represented about one-third of the states revenues. Then along came Chavez, a former army lieutenant colonel whod served time in prison for an abortive coup attempt in 1992. He won the 1998 presidential election on the promise to reshape and restore Venezuelas reeling economy.In 2001, the former paratrooper pushed through a new energy law that jacked up the royalties foreign oil firms would have to pay the government. It also mandated that PDVSA would lead all new oil exploration and production; foreign firms could only hold minority stakes in whatever partnerships they struck with the national company.In 2002, Chavez took two more steps to turn the once-proud PDVSA into his private preserve. First, he installed a new president, Gaston Parra Luzardo, a leftist economics professor who was a fierce opponent of opening the industry to more private investment. Then, in April, he went on live television to humiliate and fire a handful of PDVSA managers, replacing them with political hacks. Together, the moves sparked violent public protests, which turned into a coup attempt against Chavez.The president survived the putsch, but his popularity plummeted especially inside PDVSA. By the end of 2002, opposition to Chavez had solidified, and big labor groups called for a national strike in hopes of pressuring him to leave office. Oil workers backed the effort, setting the stage for what would turn out to be the critical step in PDVSAs road to ruin.During the two-month work stoppage, PDVSAs output plummeted as field workers stopped pumping and tanker crews refused to leave port. Venezuelas oil production fell from close to 3 million barrels a day before the strike to levels as low as 200,000 barrels a day in December 2002.Crucially for Chavez, however, the international oil companies refused to join the protest. The multinationals kept producing during the strike, said Monaldi of Rice University. That is what saved him, by blunting the economic impact of the protest.Chavez immediately fought back. During the strike, he axed scores of senior executives, including Juan Fernandez, one of the organizers of the protest. In the months that followed, the pink slips kept coming, and by the time the smoke finally cleared, Chavez had fired more than 18,000 workers. With them went most of the managerial expertise and technical know-how PDVSA had managed to preserve during the earlier purges.This evisceration of the PDVSAs human capital would prove the most damaging of Chavezs many moves against the company. Even his own government soon realized the harm it had done. Accidents and spills began to proliferate, and in 2005, a top energy ministry official admitted privately that it would take at least 15 years to rebuild the technical skills lost by the mass firings. Another energy ministry official even asked U.S. diplomats in Caracas to help arrange training in the United States. And in the years since, the situation has only worsened. Conditions at the company (and in the economy) are now so bad that employees take home a pittance just a handful of dollars a month and face political pressure to support the regime. Such treatment has led to the large-scale flight of skilled workers: more than 25,000 since last year, union officials say. According to Reuters, the exodus has grown so big that some PDVSA offices have begun refusing to let their workers resign. Venezuelan oil industry NEVER recovered. The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free. --Baruch Spinoza LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 488176 02-08-2019 07:06 PM Post: #4 RE: VIDEO: Venezuelan socialism victims send message to American socialists Lmao..pathetic cia Patsy's..bet it cost tuem less than a hundred bucks to get these people to tell any lie... capitalist filth destroyed that nation and those people along with dozens if other nations...anyone that believes the filth from cia or Pentagon needs to be shot for their stupidity alone LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 488261 02-08-2019 10:39 PM Post: #5 RE: VIDEO: Venezuelan socialism victims send message to American socialists Nicolas Maduro, president of Venezuela "The president of Venezuela demands respect for" the sacred right of the Venezuelan people to self-determination and safeguarding their sovereignty. " "... Nicolas Maduro admits that Venezuelans are willing to" continue being business partners "of the Americans, while" their politicians in Washington "are willing to" send their children to die in an absurd war "instead of respecting "the sacred right" of that Latin American people "to self-determination and safeguarding their sovereignty." "His text ends with a demand:" the cessation of aggression, "which seeks to" suffocate our economy and socially suffocate our people, "as well as the interruption of" the serious and dangerous threats of military intervention against Venezuela. " https://actualidad.rt.com/actualidad/304...ta-abierta "I share the "Open Letter to the People of the United States", which is being signed by the free people of Venezuela and the world. We are going to deliver it to the White House to demand respect for our inalienable right to Peace. 19:23 - Feb 7 2019 https://twitter.com/NicolasMaduro/status...ta-abierta "Your national representatives in Washington want to bring to their borders the same hatred they sent to Vietnam, they want to invade and intervene in Venezuela - they say, as they said then - in the name of democracy and freedom, but it's not like that. of the usurpation of power in Venezuela is as false as the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. "Nicolas Maduro, president of Venezuela"The president of Venezuela demands respect for" the sacred right of the Venezuelan people to self-determination and safeguarding their sovereignty. ""... Nicolas Maduro admits that Venezuelans are willing to" continue being business partners "of the Americans, while" their politicians in Washington "are willing to" send their children to die in an absurd war "instead of respecting "the sacred right" of that Latin American people "to self-determination and safeguarding their sovereignty.""His text ends with a demand:" the cessation of aggression, "which seeks to" suffocate our economy and socially suffocate our people, "as well as the interruption of" the serious and dangerous threats of military intervention against Venezuela. ""I share the "Open Letter to the People of the United States", which is being signed by the free people of Venezuela and the world. We are going to deliver it to the White House to demand respect for our inalienable right to Peace.19:23 - Feb 7 2019 Roddy's Creed Registered User User ID: 467546 02-08-2019 10:42 PM Posts: 5,337 Post: #6 RE: VIDEO: Venezuelan socialism victims send message to American socialists LoP Guest Wrote: (02-08-2019 07:06 PM) Lmao..pathetic cia Patsy's..bet it cost tuem less than a hundred bucks to get these people to tell any lie... capitalist filth destroyed that nation and those people along with dozens if other nations...anyone that believes the filth from cia or Pentagon needs to be shot for their stupidity alone Thank you Thank you I do not label myself. What I stand for is based on my own convictions, and I don't care which box - the left one or the right one - they happen to belong. LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 488261 02-08-2019 10:42 PM Post: #7 RE: VIDEO: Venezuelan socialism victims send message to American socialists "Washington is willing to send his children to die in an absurd war" Nicolas Maduro LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 488261 02-08-2019 10:45 PM Post: #8 RE: VIDEO: Venezuelan socialism victims send message to American socialists He has also insisted on the need to hold constructive talks at the highest level with the argument that "to refuse to dialogue is to choose force as a way" and has endorsed the words of the late former US president, John F. Kennedy: "Never negotiate out of fear, but never be afraid to negotiate" Prince Vegeta Knowledge and Power User ID: 456214 02-09-2019 12:00 AM Posts: 2,726 Post: #9 RE: VIDEO: Venezuelan socialism victims send message to American socialists LoP Guest Wrote: (02-08-2019 07:06 PM) Lmao..pathetic cia Patsy's..bet it cost tuem less than a hundred bucks to get these people to tell any lie... capitalist filth destroyed that nation and those people along with dozens if other nations...anyone that believes the filth from cia or Pentagon needs to be shot for their stupidity alone Complaining about capitalism and yet you still live in America, a capitalist country. Funny you. Complaining about capitalism and yet you still live in America, a capitalist country. Funny you. I have no time for weaklings. LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 423532 02-09-2019 12:03 AM Post: #10 RE: VIDEO: Venezuelan socialism victims send message to American socialists LoP Guest Wrote: (02-08-2019 07:06 PM) Lmao..pathetic cia Patsy's..bet it cost tuem less than a hundred bucks to get these people to tell any lie... capitalist filth destroyed that nation and those people along with dozens if other nations...anyone that believes the filth from cia or Pentagon needs to be shot for their stupidity alone Exactly. Exactly. Back to Forum Reply to This post Post New Thread Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said he's putting pharmacy chain Walgreens "on notice" for allegedly selling tobacco products to minors. Walgreens is currently the top violator among pharmacies that sell tobacco products, the FDA said, with 22 percent of the stores the agency has inspected being found illegally selling tobacco products to minors. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said he's putting pharmacy chain Walgreens WBA "on notice" for allegedly selling tobacco products to minors. The agency has already filed formal complaints seeking to block a Walgreens' location in Miami and a Circle K Store in Charleston, South Carolina, from selling cigarettes or cigars to minors for 30 days, citing "repeated violations." Walgreens, the FDA noted, is currently the top violator among pharmacies that sell tobacco products. Some 22 percent of Walgreens locations inspected by the agency caught employees illegally selling tobacco products to minors, the FDA said in a press release Thursday. "I will be writing the corporate management of Walgreens and requesting a meeting with them to discuss whether there is a corporate-wide issue related to their stores' non-compliance and put them on notice that the FDA is considering additional enforcement avenues to address their record of violative tobacco sales to youth," Gottlieb said in a statement. Gottlieb said he's "deeply disturbed that a single pharmacy chain racked up almost 1,800 violations for selling tobacco products to minors across the country." "I have particular concerns about whether the pharmacy setting is influencing consumer and retailer perceptions around tobacco products in a way that's contributing to these troubling findings," he said. Walgreens did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment. More From CNBC In October 2018, Alex Stamos, whose highest degree is a BS in computer science and electrical engineering, delivered his first academic lecture. It was the Sidney Drell Lecture at Stanford University, named for an august physicist and arms control expert. Its the event of the year at Stanfords Center for International Security and Cooperation. Stamoss four immediate predecessors at that podium were a former director of the National Security Agency, two U.S. Secretaries of Defenseone former, one sittingand Vint Cerf, the co-inventor of the fundamental architecture of the internet. Then 39, Stamos had just stepped down as Facebooks chief security officer in Augustafter having been stripped of most of his authority nine months before that. Though Stamos generally favors jeans, flannel shirts, and Ecco loafers, he looked resplendent that night in a well-tailored, corporate suit, a uniform hes learned to wear credibly at board committee meetings and Congressional hearings. Looking around the room, he said nervously as he began, its pretty clear that there are some differences between this audience and the hacker conferences I feel more comfortable speaking at. Not just in academic credentials, but most obviously in the amount of body piercings. Alex Stamos, then-chief information security officer at Yahoo! Inc. (L) listens as Craig Spiezle (R), executive director, founder and president of the Online Trust Alliance testifies before the Senate Homeland Security Committee May 15, 2014 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images) Despite the incongruities, Stamos was the obvious choice for the speech, says Amy Zegart, a senior fellow at both CISAC and the Hoover Institution. While Drell had devoted himself to averting the national security challenge of his eranuclear warStamos has battled with one of the paramount security threats of ours: cyberwarfare. For that reason, shed wanted to lure Stamos to the university for almost three years, she says. When he became available, Stanford cobbled together an interdisciplinary, policy-cum-research-cum-teaching post just for him, notwithstanding his lack of any advanced-degree parchment to adorn his office wall. (He hangs his five patents there, instead.) Story continues Alex is a unique person in all respects, says Nate Persily, a Stanford law professor who also heads the universitys Project on Democracy and the Internet. There are very few people like him in their deep knowledge of the multiple challenges that technology is posing for society. He gave this incredible talk to my class mapping the information warfare environment. Hed say, this is what this country does. This is what that country does. The entire talk was brand new to me. You realize he is just this repository of information very few people have. Rough around the edges This is a profile of Stamosa complex man we will be hearing about, and from, for years to come. Over the past three months, Yahoo Finance has spoken with 19 people who have known him professionally over the course of his careerat Facebook; during his stormy tenure before that as Yahoos chief information security officer; and, still earlier, as an outside consultant for the likes of Microsoft, Google, and Tesla. (Some requested anonymity, either because of employer policies, non-disclosure agreements, protective orders, or other considerations.) Over that same period Stamos also sat down for three in-depth interviewsat his cramped Stanford office, at a casual, bus-your-own-plate eatery not too far away, and, lastly, at his airy, colonial-eclectic, $3 million home in the hills of a Silicon Valley community he asked Yahoo Finance not to identify. Stamos is no shrinking violet. He publishes op-eds; launches contrarian, pugilistic tweets to a following of nearly 48,000; and now has a gig as an NBC analyst. He is best known, though, for his stint at Facebook during what turned out to be a historic moment of cultural epiphany. He was at ground zero just as the free world began asking itself the urgent question Persily posed in a scholarly article: Can Democracy Survive the Internet? But cyberwarfare, fake news, and internet-based propaganda continue to pummel and menace our culture. That means that Stamos, with his unique skill sets, honed during an unduplicatable career path, will remain in the headlines, too. Stamos also reveals here, more candidly than ever, why he left Facebook, the mistakes he made there, which criticisms of Facebook miss the mark, and what he thinks are the true threats to democracy posed by social media. As well see, he takes aim, in particular, at the opaque hypertargeting of campaign ads. Hes less concerned about what Cambridge Analytica did in the past than about the 20 Cambridge Analyticas that still exist, lawfully buying their data from other sources today. From his colleagues, a picture emerges of an inspiring, but polarizing figure. Theres a reason Facebook nudged Stamos toward the exit door. Some former colleaguesincluding many who still revere himacknowledge that he is impolitic, volatile, dogmatic, a self-promoter, exhausting, rough around the edges, not the greatest manager, short-tempered, and, above all, unfiltered. In fact, these are strengths, some claim, because theyre what give him the cojones to speak truth to power, as one puts it. But they take their toll. In some situations he lacked political skills, so he wasnt as effective as he wanted to be and needed to be, says someone who worked with him at Facebook. Alex is very smart and passionate, says a former senior official at Yahoo, previously Yahoo Finances parent company. (Verizon Media now owns Yahoo properties, including Yahoo Finance.) But he can be so passionateso hyped up, so emotionalthat it could be difficult to distinguish threats that were critical from those that were much less so. That was tough, given the importance of his role. Roughly speaking, Stamos is more admired in information security circles than in traditional corporate ones. Basically, the security people feel they know what hes up against, while corporate people, for whom cybersecurity was just one of many competing concerns, think hes immature and not a team player. The fact that he quit Yahoo in a rage, after just 14 months, and that his rocky stay at Facebook ended unhappily, actually redound to his favor among some infosec types. In January 2017, influential tech writer Cory Doctorow called Stamos a human warrant canary, because, as Doctorow understood matters, hed quit Yahoo rather than countenance unethical conduct. (A warrant canary is an indirect, wink-wink way that an ISP can signal to users that the FBI has obtained a court-order to surveil their accounts, though the order forbids directly alerting the user.) Doctorows view seemed to be reinforced in November, when The New York Times published a deep-dive investigation of Facebooks attempts to downplay Russias exploitation of its platform for election interference. The lede of the story (Delay, Deny, and Deflect) portrays the then-recently-departed Stamos as one of the very few good guys there. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg testifies before a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on foreign influence operations on social media platforms on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., September 5, 2018. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts You threw us under the bus, [Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg] yelled at Mr. Stamos, the article recounts, after Stamos had given the companys audit committee an unexpectedly unvarnished account of the extent of the Russian interference. (Stamos has said that he doesnt remember those words. A Facebook source says executives were frustrated Alex had not shared his conclusions with leadership or even his manager or colleagues before going to the board.) Some corporate types, on the other hand, reacted differently to the article. Hes doing to Sheryl what he did to Marissa, says one corporate consultantnearly shouting over the phone in alluding to former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer. This consultant had advised Yahoo when it was dealing with the fallout from a 2014 state-sponsored intrusion at that companyone of the largest ever. That hack, which occurred during Stamoss watch but wasnt disclosed until September 2016, long after he departed, left the company awash in class-action suits and an assortment of probes led by the Securities and Exchange Commission, Department of Justice, and state attorneys general. Former CEO Mayer testified to Congress in November 2017 that she only learned of the key theft of dataestimated to have impacted 500 million user accountsnearly two years after it occurred. Nevertheless, in April 2018, an SEC inquiry found that Stamos and his team had, in fact, informed Yahoos senior management and legal teams of the key theft within days of finding out, in December 2014. An independent board inquiry reached murkier conclusions, but even it acknowledged, in March 2017, that Stamoss group had provided the legal team sufficient information to warrant substantial further inquiry in 2014, though the legal team did not sufficiently pursue it. Credit: David Foster/Yahoo Finance Though Stamos does see his departure from Yahoo as reflecting matters of principle, he does not see his Facebook exit in the same light. He offers nuanced views about the companys missteps over the past several years, defending the corporation more than he criticizes it. He also describes his departure from Facebook in wistful terms, admitting having misplayed his cards. Facebook declined to comment for this piece, other than to refer Yahoo Finance to a statement COO Sandberg issued when Stamoss departure was first announced last April: Alex has played an important role in how we approach security challenges and helped us build relationships with partners so we can better address the threats we face. We know he will be an enormous asset to the team at Stanford and we look forward to collaborating with him in his new role. (Though Stamoss severance contract contains a non-disparagement clause, Stamos says he has since received written permission from Facebooks general counsel to speak freely of his time there. A research institute he is now launching at Stanfordfocusing on social media and electionsmay eventually seek funding from Facebook, he acknowledges, just as it may solicit funds from other companies and nonprofits.) At Facebook Stamos misplayed the Game-of-Thrones-y stuff, he says. It wasnt so much that he alienated COO Sandberg or CEO Mark Zuckerberg, he says, but that he offended laterally situated people with his lack of guile and tact. Those people, with many more years at the company, had Zuckerbergs ear and loyalty, he believesa view shared by another Facebook employee who was there at the time. Says Stamos: A legitimate criticism that Ive heard is, Alex, you cant just be right. I didnt come up in the corporate world. My job as a consultant was to be 100 percent perfectly honest. These guys in the corporate world learn about how to effect change passive-aggressively, right? Without being in peoples faces. And Ive never learned that skill. So I pissed them off. The letter from the NSA Stamos was born in the Sacramento suburb of Fair Oaks in February 1979. He is the son of an orthodontist and a homemaker. His ethnically Greek grandfather, a goatherders son, immigrated from eastern Cyprus after World War II with a fifth-grade education, Stamos recounts. He got a job as a lineman with AT&T and, by the 1990s, worked his way up to engineering manager in PacTels Sacramento office. Whether in class or in interviews for this article, Stamos speaks quickly, occasionally slipping into burst-fire mode where words become so compacted as to be unintelligible. He speaks of inmationscurty (information security) or yesP devices (USB devices) or the ausraliansigdirectorate (the Australian Signals Directorateits NSA, basically). At the same time he is apt to forget that a lay listener cant instantly process all the acronyms and code names that pepper his narratives: PLA, FSB, SVR, GRU, APT1, ECPA (pronounced Ek-pa), Aurora, Lazarus, and on it goes. So I was seven or eight when wegottacomder64, he narratesi.e., when we got a Commodore 64. He used the familys dial-up modem to access BBSes (bulletin board services). I kind of taught myself from these groups what was early hacking. Just taking over forums, breaking into other peoples BBSes and stuff. Nothing malicious. But as a teenager, he continues, if you were interested in this kind of stuff, you had no legitimate outlet, right? Alex Stamos, at about 8, with his younger brother, Peter. Photo courtesy of Alex Stamos Like most security people of his generation, Stamos is largely self-taught and peer-taught. The security industry is only about 30 years old, with most people dating its origin to the release of the Morris Worm in 1988. When Stamos was growing up, not only did formal courses not exist, but the technology was evolving so fast that books couldnt possibly keep up. By his senior year of high school, Stamoss skills were drawing attention. He received an unsolicited letter from the National Security Agency, he recounts. It was offering him a full college scholarship in exchange for a ROTC-like commitment to work for it afterward. Which is really creepy, he says, because you have no idea how they found you. He turned them down and went to the University of California at Berkeley. Though he also got into Stanford, he adds, he chose Cal because they offered him a full scholarship and, also, because of the atmosphere. While Stanford seemed calm and chill, the Berkeley campus was total chaos, he says. Id grown up in a suburb, so this was it. In college he finally got some formal computer science training. But peer-training from hacker conferences was crucial. Jeff Moss, a/k/a The Dark Tangent, had launched the first DEF CON conference in 1993, with about 100 people in attendance, Moss estimates. As a gauge of how the community has grown, the most recent one, in 2018, drew 28,000. People walk past a floor graphic during the Def Con hacker convention in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S. on July 29, 2017. REUTERS/Steve Marcus In the summer of 1997, just before Stamos started college, his father took him to DEF CON 5Stamoss firstin Las Vegas. Stamos wasnt yet old enough to rent a room. Already by then, though, it wasnt just kids with blue hair showing up. Big companies, like Microsoft, and government agencies had started sending employees there. Seeing an opportunity, Moss started a second, more expensive seriescalled Black Hat Briefingswhich catered to these grownups. Stamos would later attend those, too, once he started drawing an income. (Though Moss sold Black Hat in 2005, he still runs DEF CON. He also holds other positions, which hint at how important these conferences turned out to be. Now 44, Moss serves on the Council on Foreign Relations, the Cyber Statecraft Initiative of the Atlantic Council, and the U.S. Homeland Security Advisory Council.) Hacker lunch and learns Upon graduation in 2001, Stamos got a job doing security at LoudCloud, a pioneering cloud computing company. There Stamos worked with an outside security boutique called @stake, which was one of the two leading such outfits of the era. When LoudCloud split in two in 2002, with Stamoss half being acquired by Electronic Data Systems, Joel Wallenstrom of @stake recruited Stamos to join. To be successful at @stake, Wallenstrom recalls, you needed to be a Swiss Army knife across all layers of computing. Thats what made Alex so successful. He has full-stack understanding of what is happening, from building on bare metal to using any sort of cloud service to you name it. Wallenstrom is now CEO of Wickr, a heavily encrypted messaging app. At @stake, Stamos continued his education. We had lunch and learns, recalls Katie Moussouris, who worked there at the same time as Stamos. Some of the best hacking minds in the country would share their knowledge. Moussouris later moved to Microsoft and now leads her own firm, called Luta Security. She has become a nationally recognized authority on bug bountiesprograms whereby companies or agencies offer rewards to hackers for responsibly reporting vulnerabilities in their infrastructure. Moussouris has set up such programs for the Department of Defense, including Hack the Pentagon. Stamoss biggest client at @stake was Microsoft. It was an amazing experience, he recalls. We got to work on XP SP2 and Windows 2003, which were kind of Microsofts first stabs at fixing the security problems that had accrued over a decade. In 2004 Symantec, which was then embroiled in a legal dispute with Microsoft, acquired @stake. Microsoft kicked my team off campus that day, Stamos recalls, because of potential conflicts. It was a great opportunity. He, Wallenstrom, and three other @stakers split off to found their own boutique, called iSEC, with Microsoft as an anchor client. A second early client was Google, which launched a product it called Gmail that year. Bliss was it in that dawn to be an infosec geek. Interactive e-commerce, or Web 2.0, was in its infancy. So a lot of security issues inherent in that model were just being discovered and researched, says Heather Adkins, who joined Google in 2002 and is now its director of information security and privacy. Alex and the team he built were at the forefront of identifying and battling that. iSEC was a classic startup, composed of 20- and 30-somethings who couldnt even afford an office. Stamos had gotten married in 2003, and his wifes clothes closet doubled as the firms server closet. He remembers draping a shoe rack over the server to dampen the whirring noise at night. (Today, Stamos and his wife, a teacher, have two boys and a girl, ages 11, 9, and 7.) Now directly interacting with clients, Stamos had to master the interpersonal challenges of his job. He was constantly a bearer of bad news. Security consultants had to warn clients of major risks they were running unless they invested large sums of money on fixes. Were kind of in the business of telling people that their babies are ugly, says Wallenstrom. Alex was pretty good at that. Its fitting, Stamos notes to me in an aside, that had he been born a girl, his mother had planned to name him Cassandra. (In Greek mythology, Cassandra was a seer who issued accurate prophecies of doom that no one listened to.) Aurora: A Chinese state-sponsored intrusion Over the years, iSEC picked up more blue-chip clients, including Oracle, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Tesla, and Facebook. Stamoss assignments expanded beyond the nitty-gritty of malware and penetration testing, and brushed up against bigger public policy issues. In 2010, when Google got in trouble with European privacy authorities for its Street View data collection practices, it hired Stamos to oversee the forensic destruction of the offending files. (A shredder that can eat a hard drive is a very scary machine, Stamos observes.) In 2009 he got his first exposure to state-sponsored intrusions. Google discovered that it had been subjected to a series of attacksnow known as Operation Auroraby a team of highly persistent Chinese hackers. (A few years later the security firm Mandiant identified them as having come from two units of the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army.) Google, which publicly revealed the attacks in January 2010, also came to realize that the intruders had infiltrated at least 20 other companies, as well. Googles Adkins referred many of those companies to Stamos for help, she says. These assignments eventually took Stamos to the National Counterterrorism Center in Liberty Crossing, Virginia. We did a briefing for DNI [the office of the Director of National Intelligence] on, basically, this is what weve learned about Chinese tactics from what weve seen. From his discerning perspective, were state-sponsored hackers a marvel to behold? Thats actually a misperception, he responds. They arent necessarily head and shoulders above other adversaries, he explains. The big difference is that the attack doesnt have to be economically viable, or end in monetization. So they can put months and months into breaking into a company with no end in sight. In this photo taken Friday, June 8, 2012 Alex Stamos, then-CTO of Artemis Internet, an NCC Group Company, poses by a domain name poster at their offices in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg, File) In late 2010, iSEC was acquired by the British security firm, NCC Group, but otherwise the group continued operating much as before. Then, in 2012, Stamos launched an ambitious internal startup within NCC called Artemis Internet. He wanted to create a sort of gated community within the internet with heightened security standards. He hoped to win permission to use .secure as a domain name and then require that everyone using it meet demanding security standards. The advantage for participants would be that their customers would be assured that their company was what it claimed to benot a spoof site, for instanceand that it would protect their data as well as possible. The project fizzled, though. Artemis was outbid for the .secure domain and, worse, there was little commercial enthusiasm for the project. People werent that interested, observes Luta Securitys Moussouris, in paying extra for a domain name registrar who could take them off the internet if they failed a compliance test. From Edward Snowden to Aaron Swartz In June 2013, highly classified information from the National Security Agency, leaked by former government contractor Edward Snowden, began to appear in articles in The Guardian, The Washington Post, Der Spiegel, and The New York Times. The revelations roiled the tech world and opened a rift of distrust between Silicon Valley and the U.S. intelligence community. Beyond the civil liberties issues raised by surveillance of U.S. citizens, tech companies were shocked that the NSA had been exploiting vulnerabilities in their infrastructure for years, rather than reporting them promptly, so the companies could fix them. Stamos was among the outraged. The Snowden documents demonstrated that all they cared about was gathering information from Americas enemies. None of their interest was in actually making American technology or companies safer. To be sure, his reactions were nuanced. Its not like I was just anti-cop, he says. As a consultant, he had helped gather evidence that was used to prosecute bad actors. Aaron Swartz poses in a Borderland Books in San Francisco on February 4, 2008. REUTERS/Noah Berger On the other hand, he had also been retained as a defense expert in a couple cause celebres in the hacking world, including the hugely controversial federal criminal prosecution of Aaron Swartz, who helped create Reddit. In January 2013, Swartz, who was facing felony charges for having broken into MITs servers in an attempt to create a free internet archive of scientific journals, had hanged himself. He was 26. Stamos went to Swartzs funeral in Chicago. That was radicalizing, he recounts. In December 2013, wrestling with these emotions and conflicting impulses, he delivered a talk at DEF CON 21, entitled The White Hats Dilemma. In it he talked about the Hippocratic Oath that doctors began adhering to more than 2,000 years ago. [They] were the original scientific priests, right? [They] used observation and knowledge to make people better, and that put them in a super powerful part of society, and so doctors decided . . . that that gave them some kind of responsibility. We are the technological priesthood of the 21st century, or perhaps of the third millennium. Everyone here has fixed their familys computers, he noted in his talk. Every time you do that, it reminds you of the incredible complexity of the world that underlies our day-to-day activities and that the majority of people do not understand. And we do. Maybe that gives us moral obligations just like doctors have always had. At the end of the talk, he posed a series of hypotheticals in which a security official was being asked to betray his ethical convictions, usually by a corporate superior. One example was: Suppose you find, for instance, a secret data collection mechanism in your companys infrastructure, and your boss orders you to drop it. For each hypothetical he then discussed a series of possible responses. Tellingly, the correct response was never to do as you were told. Three months later, he became the chief information security officer of Yahoo. The crumbling aqueducts of Rome By early 2014 Stamos was a prominent figure in the security community. He was a frequent speaker at conferences, had a growing Twitter following, and was writing an influential blog called Unhandled Exception (meaning a software flaw thats not fixed). When Artemis failed to win control of the .secure name, Stamos went looking for a new challenge. He yearned to dirty his hands in the arena. Both as a consultant and commentator, he recalls, Id spent years as somebody who just got to complain about other peoples actions. Oh my god, look how these people screwed up. So stupid. I did start to realize that just complaining is not, in the long run, helpful. Somebodys going to have to take responsibility for making the hard calls. One of the reasons I took the Yahoo job was to finally try to see behind the curtain. When he joined, in March 2014, some in the security community were surprised to see him take it on. An old infrastructureYahoo was founded in 1994is inherently more difficult to secure, and, at the time, Yahoos had been neglected. I thought of it as the crumbling aqueducts of Rome, says Moussouris, of Luta Security. Securing it was going to take years. Then-Yahoo Inc. CEO Marissa Mayer arrives at the White House to attend a meeting of business leaders with President Barack Obama and Vice President Biden at the White House in Washington, Wednesday, Nov. 28, 2012. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) Though Yahoos security team had been highly respected in the early-to-mid 2000swhen members were admiringly dubbed The Paranoidsthose days were passed. The company had gone through contraction, financial hardship, and turmoil. When Marissa Mayer took over in July 2012, she was the companys fifth CEO in three years. Early in her tenure, in January 2013, she fired Yahoos then-CISO and didnt replace him for 14 months, until Stamos was hired. Not having a CISO at the helm was incredibly detrimental, a then-member of its security team, Ramses Martinez, would later testify in litigation that arose from the companys subsequent data breaches. Its security sank to deplorable levels during that period, he said. With no one at the helm, the Paranoids shrank in number from 62 to 43, according to figures that later emerged in litigation. (Martinez, who moved to Apple in August 2015, did not return messages.) In fact, we now know that in August 2013seventh months before Stamos arrivedthe company had been victimized by the largest intrusion ever, with 3 billion accounts compromised. (This was a different intrusion from the earlier-mentioned state-sponsored one in 2014, which is now believed to have involved 500 million accounts.) The attackers responsible for the 2013 hack remain a mystery. The repercussions from the 2013 hack were exacerbated by the fact that personal passwords at the time were then still being encrypted with an outdated technologyan MD5 hashwhich was easily cracked using the processing power available in 2013. (The password encryption was improved shortly thereafter. Indeed, all descriptions of Yahoos security problems in this article are historical. In the years since the intrusions, numerous security upgrades were instituted by both Yahoo and Verizon Media, whose parent company acquired the company in June 2017.) Nevertheless, Stamos was also joining Yahoo at a time of optimism. I joined at what you can call the end of the beginning [of Mayers stint at Yahoo], Stamos says. Marissa brought all this excitement. Part of my deal was, I would be able to invest in hiring good people, he continues. And for several months he did. In September 2014, though, activist investor Starboard Value bought into the company. It demanded that Mayer immediately find a way to monetize value for shareholders. Suddenly everything changed, Stamos says. It became hard to hire, there were stealth layoffs, and he couldnt use his allocated head count. In addition, the technical challenges were proving greater than anticipated. There were parts of the network where nobody knew how it worked anymore, he says. Like the people who built the stuff had left or retired. Most important, there was no intrusion detection system, which he considered basic for protecting a major tech company in 2014. There was no way to see if anyone had broken into any computers or to track bad guys on the network. When he got there, Yahoo was having a big problem with account takeoverssituations where spammers would send ads that appeared to come from users Yahoo mail accounts. (Stamos now believes these takeovers must have stemmed from the 2013 intrusion.) There was statistical evidence that their passwords had been breached, he recounts. There was a cliff on this one graph that indicated to us that that was the point at which access to passwords was cut off to the attackers. But there was no hard evidence. He says he discussed the matter with general counsel Ron Bell at the time, but because Yahoo invoked attorney-client privilege as to those conversations in later litigation, he declines to relate them. Unable to invest in a state-of-the-art intrusion detection system, Stamoss team kind of MacGyvered together a substitute, he says. Using that they poked around the network to see if any attackers had exploited an industry-wide software bug of the time, called Shellshock. They found something weird. By October 9 the incident response team, led by Martinez, identified the issue. There were hackers in the system. They had located and attacked Yahoos Account Management Tool, and were using it to stage surgical raids on the email accounts of specific targetsRussian journalists, Russian government officials, Russian industrialists, and so on. The team code-named the attack Siberia. By November at least 26 accounts had been compromised, in addition to CEO Mayers and Stamoss. Yahoo notified the FBI and, in December, the 26 victims, but there was no wider disclosure. The security team gave numerous debriefings during this period to senior Yahoo officials, which no one contests. Meanwhile, Stamoss team was fighting to get the hackers out. I feel like the work to investigate and stop the breach was probably some of the best work Ive done in my career, he says. Because we were handed a network that had none of the standard protections that you would expect in a production-level network in 2014. Some of the [internal server] passwords had not been changed in 15 years. There was this thing called the Filo password [after Yahoo co-founder David Filo] that the hackers got, which was a backdoor password to enter every single server. There was no network flow data available. The configuration management was horrible. To get them off the network, he continues, we had to change massive parts of the network while it was running. Over one weekend in December we finally were able to put all of these things in place and completely change fundamental parts of how Yahoo worked. I thought there was a decent chance we were going to bring all of Yahoo down doing that, and we didnt. So Im proud of the team. The big exfiltration, Aleksey Belan, and 30 million forged cookies On Wednesday, December 10, 2014, however, a crucial event occurred that altered the gravity of the event. This is the event that Mayer and some other senior officials have claimed they were not told about until two years later, after Stamos was gone. The Paranoids discovered that in early November the attackers had copied and transferred (exfiltrated) to a server outside Yahoo at least a portion of a backup user database (UDB) storing vast quantities of users personal information. That same day, at 5:03 p.m., Stamos emailed an incident presentation to five Yahoo in-house lawyers, including general counsel Bell, according to an email later produced in litigation. The full presentationa slide deck prepared by incident response chief Martinezis still under protective order. But excerpts quoted in unredacted filings are clear and blunt: best case scenario is 108M [million] credentials in UDB compromised, and worst case scenario is all credentials in UDB compromised. Stamos, who had been trying to schedule a face-to-face meeting with Mayer about the intrusion for more than a month, finally met with her the following evening, according to contemporaneous email traffic. After the meeting he emailed general counsel Bellwho was out of townto arrange a call to fill him in and talk about next steps. Bell promised to call him as soon as he reached San Francisco. Stamos says there were a lot of briefings, and he cant remember the specifics of any particular conversation. (He and Martinez also briefed the Yahoo boards audit committee on the intrusion in April and June, according to minutes that relate no details.) Stamos says that senior management, including Mayer, knew everything we knew. We were not hiding anything. Martinezs testimony was to the same effect. Yahoo made no public disclosure of the mammoth exfiltration, nor did it require users (other than the 26 known targets) to change passwords. I disagreed with it, says Stamos, but it was not my decision. And I didnt set myself on fire over it. I considered it my job to actually beat the bad guys. This image provided by the FBI shows the wanted poster for Alexsey Belan. (FBI via AP) Despite his teams best efforts, we now know that he did not succeed in chasing the hackers off the Yahoo network. According to a federal indictment unsealed in March 2018the attackers were actually one very skilled individual: Alexsey Belan, then 27. Born in Riga, Latvia, and a Russian citizen, he had already been indicted twice in absentia in the United States for earlier e-commerce intrusions. He had been on the FBIs most wanted list of hackers and the subject of an Interpol Red Notice since 2012. Belan was acting on the orders of two officers of the Russian FSB (Federal Security Service), a successor to the Soviet KGB. At the same time, according to the indictment, the FSB appears to have been allowing Belan to compensate himself for his intelligence work by also pillaging Yahoos network for personal gain, through assorted digital mayhem, including credit card theft, spamming schemes, and diverting searches to spoof sites. In April 2015, Belanusing log cleaner software to cover his tracksreturned to the network to raid several accounts targeted by the FSB, while also shopping for credit card numbers from others. In June, the month Stamos left Yahoo for Facebook, Belan installed a malicious script on the network that could mint, or forge, cookies in bulk, which he then exfiltrated outside the company. With the cookiessoftware installed on a users browser that indicates someone has visited a site previouslyhe could stealthily enter targeted accounts without a password. In July, he made 17,000 such cookies, and showed his FSB handler how to use them. In August he stole and exfiltrated Yahoos source code for making cookies, enabling him and the FSB to mint cookies off site. Eventually they forged 30 million of them. (The cookies replied on cryptographic data in the exfiltrated user database. Had passwords been changed, the cookies would not have worked, according to the indictment.) Using cookies, Belan continued breaking into the accounts of dozens of FSB targetsan investigative reporter for Kommersant Daily, an International Monetary Fund official, a Nevada gaming officialthrough October 2016, a month after Yahoo disclosed the 2014 intrusion. Often when Belan broke into a Yahoo account he would find information relating to the users other online accounts. The FSB hired a second hacker, a Canadian national named Karim Baratov, to use that information to break into the targets other accountsmostly gmail. Baratov was arrested in Canada in March 2018, extradited to the U.S., and is now serving a five-year prison term. Belan is still at large. Yahoo disclosed the 2014 breach in September 2016 and the 2013 breach in December 2016. (The company had been tipped off by law enforcement, after data from hundreds of millions of accounts was offered for sale on the Darknet.) The SEC fined Yahoo $35 million in April 2018 for not disclosing the 2014 breach earlier, and Yahoo is still in negotiations to settle the last of the resulting class actions, which have already cost it more than $80 million. Yahoos then-general counsel, Bell, resigned in March 2017 with no severance, losing millions. The board denied then-CEO Mayer a cash bonus, worth up to $2 million, and she voluntarily agreed to forego a 2017 equity award, reportedly worth $12 million. Mayer and Bell did not return multiple emails, and an attorney for Bell declined comment. The kernel module In early 2015, less than a year into his stint, Stamos was becoming frustrated at Yahoo. He had still not been able to get an intrusion detection system. In February, he fired off an email to his boss, Jay Rossiter, the companys then-senior vice president for science and technology. He complained that hed lost seven people11% of his headcountdue to belt-tightening. These cuts left his team well below the minimum staffing necessary to protect Yahoo in the current threat environment, he warned in the email, which surfaced in the litigation. We will need to begin passing on future product and vendor security reviews with Paranoids cannot review, please have your L2 accept the risk. L2s were the top officials who answered directly to Mayerlike Rossiter. (Rossiter could not be reached for comment.) At about that time, Stamos says, Facebooks chief security officer, Joe Sullivan, asked him to lunch. Sullivan knew him from when he did consulting work for Facebook while still at iSEC. Sullivan told him he was leaving to take another job, and suggested he apply for his Facebook position. Stamos did have some exploratory discussions, he says, but he wasnt yet ready to jump. The last straw came in May, he says. His team found what he calls a kernel module, or rootkit, on the Yahoo mail serverssoftware that provides access to the computer in a hidden manner. Initially, we thought the Russians had come back. He discovered, however, that the device had been placed there by engineers in the mail unit who were apparently complying with a court surveillance order. The device was searching for a particular character string in emails, according to a later Reuters account. Stamos was furious this had been done behind his back. He asserts that the engineers did it in a way that created a security vulnerability. He suspects he was kept out of the loop because managers feared he would urge them to fight the surveillance order. My understanding is that it was an intentional decision, he says. That Marissa made that decision. On the other hand, one person familiar with the situation provides Yahoos perspective. Yahoo was always diligent about protecting its users privacy, this person maintains. In this particular instance, however, not only did legal requirements seem to be met, but the company was led to believe that the request was uniquely urgent and important. Complying was straightforward, and was handled by the team that always handled such issues, the person asserts. In any case, Stamos gave 30 days notice. It was like, really? he recounts. How can I do this if you dont trust me enough? I wasnt making things better. I wasnt getting anything approved. They were actively making the systems worse without telling me. A backdoor! Whats my point to being here? (Verizon Media declined comment.) He left Yahoo in June and started at Facebook the same month. The most important company in the world Notwithstanding Stamoss fury at Yahoo, the breadth of his experience grew greatly while there. The White House National Security Council and its Office of Science and Technology periodically consulted with him on infrastructure and encryption issues, according to people who served on those bodies. He worked with law enforcement to combat abuses of the technology that were not narrowly cyber at all: child sexual abuse rings, fraud, kidnappings. Then-National Security Agency Director Adm. Michael S. Rogers pauses while testifying on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, May 23, 2017. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) Lay people began to hear about him. In February 2015, he had a live-streamed confrontation with the then-NSA Director, Adm. Michael Rogers, at a security conference in Washington, DC. Rogers was calling for tech companies to build backdoors into encrypted products to permit U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies to penetrate communications between consumers. So it sounds like you agree with [then-FBI] Director [James] Comey that we should be building defects into the encryption in our products so that the U.S. government can decrypt, Stamos began. So that would be your characterization, not mine, Rogers responded. Well, I think all of the best public cryptographers in the world would agree that you cant really build backdoors in crypto, Stamos pressed. That its like drilling a hole in a windshield. The tense back-and-forth, which lasted several minutes, was not just cheered on by the tech pressYahoo exec goes mano a mano with NSA directorbut drew coverage in the Washington Post, the BBC, and CNBC. Upon moving to Facebook, his portfolio and visibility would each expand by another factor of 10. It was perhaps the most important company on the planet, Stamos says. He felt the increased scrutiny immediately. Within two weeks of arriving, he flew into a rage one Sunday morning when his team told him that a flaw in Adobes Flash softwarewidely used on Facebook for social gameswas being exploited by malicious actors in China to threaten students in Hong Kong. Characteristically, he dashed off an angry tweet: Its time for Adobe to announce the end-of-life date for Flash. But this time his fit of pique generated headlines in tech publications: Facebooks CSO wanted to kill a leading software product. The CEO of Adobe actually called executives at Facebook to complain, Stamos recalls. They were supportive of my position, but also asked me to be more careful. (Adobe did not respond to inquiries.) Then came the 2016 presidential election. It placed Stamos in a spotlight the likes of which no other infosec guy had ever found himself before. Candidate Donald Trump was not just a master of social media, but someone many saw as its demonic embodiment. Social media metrics craved and rewarded exactly what Trump dished out. Its algorithms sought engagement above all, which happened to be driven by sensation, outrage, provocation, hate, anger, and lies. When he was elected president of the United States by a razor thin margin, the vanquished wondered: Was it coincidence that just as social media was coming of age, this politically inexperienced reality TV star had pulled off the electoral upset of the century? Facebook came under wave after wave of scrutiny, as people blamed it for Trumps victory. Its algorithms had caused filter bubbles, they theorized. Its failure to protect user data privacy had allowed Republican Super PACs, through Cambridge Analytica, to hypertarget key voters with misleading campaign ads. Its negligence had allowed Russian intelligence agents and internet trolls to run riot across its platform. As Facebooks chief security officer, Stamos was presumed involved, if not guilty. (He actually had nothing to do with its algorithms, or with its evolving data privacy policies, which spawned the Cambridge Analytica controversy.) Its an interesting question, muses professor Persily, the head of Stanfords Project on Democracy, whether, if Hillary Clinton had won, we would have had these years of national and international criticism of the social media platforms and, particularly, Facebook. More Russians: the GRU For Stamos, the world began changing in spring 2016, when a Russia specialist working under him raised a warning. As first reported by The New York Times, he told Stamos that people he believed were Russian government agents were looking at the Facebook accounts of officials involved in the U.S. presidential campaign. They werent doing anything illegal, or even violating Facebooks terms of service (TOS) at the time, but it might have been the type of reconnaissance that could precede a cyber attack. Facebook notified the FBI, but did not close the accounts. We now know that in March 2016, two units of the GRU, the Russian militarys Main Intelligence Directorate, launched a spear-phishing campaign aimed at volunteers and employees of the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and the Hillary Clinton campaign. They were, according to an indictment obtained by Special Counsel Robert Mueller III in July 2018, tricking people into surrendering their password credentials, which could then be used to pry inside their employers networks. On March 21, GRU officers stole 50,000 emails from the account of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. In April they penetrated the DNC network, eventually gaining control of 33 of its servers. In late May they stole thousands of DNC emails. On June 8, purporting to be American hacktivists, they launched the website DCLeaks.com. That same day they also set up a DCLeaks Facebook page (and opened an @dcleaks Twitter account). Soon, the GRU began leaking some of the stolen emails from the DCLeaks.com site. The intelligence officers used the affiliated Facebook page, registered in the phony name of Alice Donovan, to send readers to the leak site. They also set up other fake accounts, using names like Jason Scott and Richard Gingrey, to do the same. Alex Stamos speaks at WIRED25 Festival: WIRED Celebrates 25th Anniversary Day 2 on October 14, 2018 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Phillip Faraone/Getty Images for WIRED25 ) On June 14, the Washington Post reported that the DNC had been hacked by agents of the Russian governmentthe conclusion reached by the DNCs consulting firm, CrowdStrike. (For those keeping score on a different developing story, that happens to be the same day that Michael Cohen, personal attorney to candidate Donald Trump, told hotel developer Felix Sater that he, Cohen, would not be going forward with a trip to Russia theyd been planning for months. The trip related to plans to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.) By August another security boutique had specifically identified DCLeaks as a Russian front. But Facebook still didnt close the account immediately, because it wasnt violating Facebooks TOS of the time. This was a big internal argument, Stamos says. But in the end it didnt really matter. What he means is this. After the CrowdStrike report, the GRU created a persona, dubbed Guccifer 2.0, to contest its conclusion. Claiming to be a lone hacker from Romania, the Guccifer 2.0 persona then reached out to reporters (and to recently indicted Trump campaign adviser Roger Stone) to tell them where to look for damning emailslike those, for instance, suggesting that top Democratic campaign officials had played dirty to undermine Bernie Sanderss primary bid. Wikileaks soon contacted Guccifer 2.0, offering the use of its more renowned conduit for leaking the contraband. So once they got this stuff in the hands of Politico and The Hill and others, says Stamos, those guys wrote the first stories, and then The New York Times, Washington Post, and others amplified it, and with 24-hour cable news, whether we took down their Facebook accounts or not didnt matter. Stamos put it more truculently in a tweet last November: The mass media was completely played by the GRU and wrote the stories they wanted. You could argue that this was much more impactful than the IRA disinfo, and there has been almost no self-reflection by NYT/WaPo/WSJ/TV on their role. (Eventually, in October 2016, after the GRU officers did post some stolen emails on the DCLeaks Facebook pagea violation of the TOSFacebook removed the account.) And still more Russians: the IRA We also now know that there were still other Russians exploiting Facebook during the run-up to the election. As early as April 2014when Stamos was still at Yahoothe Internet Research Agency, a Kremlin-supported troll farm based in St. Petersburg, began preparing to interfere in the 2016 elections, according to yet another Mueller indictment unveiled in February 2018. By September 2015, three months after Stamos got to Facebook, the IRA began placing videos on YouTube, a Google unit, as part of its political influence campaigns, eventually producing 1,107 of them across 17 channels. By early 2016 its members, pretending to Americans, were creating individual and group Facebook pages under names like Secured Borders, Blacktivist, United Muslims of America, and Heart of Texas. (They were opening similar accounts on other social media, including Facebooks Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, Yahoos Tumblr, and Pinterest.) The messages were mainly geared to promote the Trump campaign, but some also supported Bernie Sanders. After Sanders lost the nomination, IRA accounts also lent some support to vote-draining, third-party candidate Jill Stein, while the agencys phony Black and Muslim groups urged their followers not to vote at all. (The most recent reports on IRA activity, published in mid-December by contractors hired by the Senate Intelligence Committee, found that in 2017, as Facebook drew scrutiny, the IRA switched its activity to Instagram, and that misinformation on Instagram may have had wider reach than on Facebook.) If U.S. government authorities knew anything about this influence operation at the time, they werent sharing it with social media companies. And such campaigns werent on anyones radar at Facebook. My responsibility was either governments hacking Facebook or using Facebook to hack others, says Stamos. Ashkan Soltani, a former chief technologist for the Federal Trade Commission and White House adviser, says the whole security community was slow to anticipate this sort of assault. Weve done a decent job at foreseeing platform abuse, he says, but only in terms of hackers getting on our system to take our data. We havent thought so much about how they might get on our systems to hurt people outside of our networks. These people wanted to use our tools to hurt society. They were using technology as it was technically designed to be used, but not as it was philosophically designed to be used, says Moussouris, of Luta Security. Its impossible for technical people to design a philosophically abuse-proof system. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is seen on stage during a town hall at Facebook's headquarters in Menlo Park, California September 27, 2015. Picture taken February 27, 2015. REUTERS/Stephen Lam/File Photo Three days after the election, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made a now-infamous impromptu statement at a conference: Personally I think the idea that fake news on Facebook influenced the election in any way is a pretty crazy idea. (He later apologized.) It was clear to me [then], Stamos says, that he had not been getting briefed on anything we were finding. His team wrote up a memo about what it knew at the time about Russian activitymainly the GRU activitywhich was presented to Zuckerberg and COO Sandberg in December. (The Times has reported that Sandberg was angry that Stamos drew up this report without being asked. Stamos says she never expressed anger to him, but doesnt know if she expressed it to others.) Zuckerberg then ordered the products team to conduct a quantitative evaluation of fake accounts and fake news on the sitea nebulous term at the time. By January, this effort, known as Project P (for propaganda), had found that the vast majority of fake news was actually financially motivated. Facebook took steps to stanch this activitydisabling inauthentic accounts. While Project P was occurring, and in parallel with it, Stamos was becoming aware of Russian (and possibly Iranian) influence operationscoordinated political activity by inauthentic accountson the site. On January 6, 2017, the U.S. Director of National Intelligenceamalgamating the joint assessments of the FBI, CIA and NSAissued a report concluding that Russian president Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. presidential election and that Putin and the Russian government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump. The report mentioned not just the GRU hack-and-leak campaign, but also the Kremlins use of paid social media users, or trolls. With one exception, however, the report never singled out Facebook by name. (The exception was a reference to the fact that the Kremlin-funded quasi-news organization RT America TV had created a Facebook app to connect Occupy Wall Street protesters during the run-up to the 2012 US election.) Stamos decided to have his team write a white-paper about the influence operations on Facebook. Hes an envelope-pusher, and that was an envelope pushing thing to do, says one person who worked with him at the time. Trying to get it out the door was a Herculean feat. Facebooks legal team, policy team, and communications teamall risk-aversehad to sign off. We had like 80 or 90 drafts, says Stamos. The main thing that was taken out were examples of such posts, which the legal team feared would violate various privacy laws or decrees. Weirdly, he says, the Russianseven though they were lying about their identitieswere considered customers of Facebook Ireland, and covered by strong privacy laws. Notoriously, Stamoss final report, which came out April 27, 2017, never used the word Russia. Instead, it said its data did not contradict the DNI report, to which it linked in a footnote. While I lost that battle, Stamos says, in the end I agreed to the compromise. Otherwise, he notes, we were going to be the second organization on the planet to say the Russians helped Trump. And you have to be an idiot to read this and not see that were saying Russia. Without creating the situation where people will be able to directly quote us and turn that into the headline. There were still shoes to drop. Congress was asking Facebook for information on the Russians use of ads. The company performed another massive quantitative analysis. Stamos then authored a post summarizing its findings, which emerged on September 6, 2017. This one revealed that Russians, acting through 470 inauthentic accounts, had spent $100,000 on about 3,000 political ads between June 2015 and May 2017. It was while debriefing Facebooks audit committee on this impending post that committee member and former White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles became enraged, according to the Times report that came out 14 months later. The day after the Bowles debriefing, according to the same article, was when COO Sandberg accused Stamos of throwing [her and Zuckerberg] under the bus. Hypertargeting and one-hundred-million-faced politicians Twitter Acting General Counsel Sean Edgett, Facebook General Counsel Colin Stretch and Google Senior Vice President and General Counsel Kent Walker are sworn in before the House Intelligence Committee to answer questions related to Russian use of social media to influence U.S. elections, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., November 1, 2017. REUTERS/Aaron P. Bernstein The most disturbing statistic was yet to come. General counsel Colin Stretch revealed it in testimony before a Senate committee on October 31, 2017. The company estimated that about 126 million peopleabout 40% of the U.S. populationhad been shown at least one piece of IRA-generated content between January 2015 and August 2017. At the same time, though, Stretch said that the total number of stories Americans were exposed to in their newsfeeds during that period was about 33 trillion. So the Russian content accounted for about four-thousandths of one percent, he testified. If so, was Zuckerbergs notorious, now retracted, statementthat the notion that fake news could have swung the election was a pretty crazy ideaactually right? People are writing books right now about whether the overall Russian activity affected the election, Stamos says. We might never know. Quantitatively, the direct Russian activity is still quite small. Even with everything we know now. The more important issue, he believesand this is characteristic of Stamoss views on a host of Facebook controversiesis one that neither the press nor Congress is adequately focusing on. Almost certainly the thing on Facebook that was most impactful in the election was the fact that the Trump campaign and the Republican PACs were so much better at Facebook ads than the Democratic side. Youre talking about well over 100 times more dollars spent than the Russians did, and not quite twice what the Democrats did. The Russian stuff was not that advanced, he continues. In contrast, the Trump campaign was generating thousands of ads programmatically. They were testing those ads against hundreds of different segments of the population. They were automatically, then, saying, this one tested well, well put our money behind it. This hypertargeting of ads is negative for our democracy, he asserts. Imagine you could afford to send a mailer to every single voter in the country and every single one of them is different. Youre not two-faced; youre one-hundred-million-faced. I wish people had access to the entire database of Trump ads and Hillary ads and all the targeting data. But due to various privacy laws, he says, Facebook cant currently make that data available. Congress should demand it, he proposes, via subpoena or legislation. Hes also frustrated by the medias continuing focus on Cambridge Analytica. They talk about the 50 million [Facebook] profiles that were viewed by [academic Aleksandr Kogan and later passed on to Cambridge Analytica]. The problem is not that he was able to get this data in 2014. It is that today there are twenty Cambridge Analyticas that still exist. Theyre just not dumb enough to steal data from Facebook. They legally buy it from Equifax and Transunion and Acxiom and all these different data brokers. And Facebook and Google create an ecosystem for those to exist by allowing them to then hypertarget ads. The reorganization About three weeks after Stretch testified before Congress, Stamos decided to address a long-festering issue he had relating to lines of reporting at Facebook. In some respects, it was an issue thats bothered him his whole career. Throughout the industry, Stamos contends, security teams are often brought in too late in the game. The goal of people who design products, he says, is to make something that people love and that eventually makes money. These product visionaries come up with these big decisions, and then push the responsibility to make it safe and secure to other folks. But the actual responsibility has to be there when youre making the big design decisions. At a more micro-level, Facebook had some organizational issues specific to it. When Stamos arrived, there were two silos of securityone in the engineering department, which ultimately answered to Zuckerberg, and a separate one, which he was hired to run, which answered to general counsel Stretch, who answered to Sandberg. Stamos wanted to merge the two groups, and have them answer to a vice president of productcloser to the decision-making processwho would then answer to Zuckerberg, he says. He submitted a proposal around Thanksgiving. He imagined that he might be kicking off a six-month, back-and-forth process, with multiple meetings that Stamos would be participating in. Instead, the decision came back about two weeks later, fait accompli. A variant of his proposal had been accepted, but without him in the picture. He could keep his CSO title (and comp package) and continue to do public policy work, or he could do security for Oculuss augmented reality/virtual reality project, or some other alternatives. Stamos suspects the putsch was payback for having alienated people shortly after he arrived at the company, he says. Back then hed done a blunt assessment of the companys then-security needswhat was good, what was badand had stepped on toes. After the reorg, Stamos helped with the transition and worked on security for the upcoming midterm elections while he looked for a new position. I had a couple job offers for CISO jobs, he says, but I wanted to work on bigger picture issues. The challenge of our age At Stanford, he is certainly working on big picture issues. His vision for his Stanford Internet Observatory is so ambitious that it might well prove unworkable. Our goal is to perform a multi-year study across multiple platforms and types of communication networks, to really understand how these attacks on democracy can be stopped, he says. The hurdle is: How will academic researchers ever gain access to the mammoth databases of sensitive, private, social media data in our post-Cambridge Analytica world? Remember, that scandal occurred because an academic allegedly misused data he got from Facebook for research purposes. Last July, a nonprofit called Social Science One was set up to provide privacy protected access to data that Facebook committed to making available last April. SSOs long-term vision is to persuade Google, Twitter, and other social media companies to offer access to their data, too. Youre talking about tens of petabytes of data, says Stamos, for the Facebook data alone. To store that you need something like 1,000 computers. Youre going to have to come up with a model where academics can do the research and the data stays within the companies. SSO is funded by seven big nonprofits, works in conjunction with the Social Science Research Council, and is under the supervision of two professors, Harvards Gary King and Stanfords Persily. This is the challenge of our age, Persily says. Its really unique in human history that these private companies have so much private data on social interaction that is out of reach of academics that might try to study it, or of governments that might try to use it to enforce the law. So far, Persily admits, the process has been frustrating. In a recent update on SSOs blog, he says that progress has been bogged down by legal, technical, organizational, computational, privacy, and security challenges. We havent met our goals, he says in an interview. But were trying to build the space shuttle here. If we do it right, the payoff will be great. Meanwhile, Stamos says hes happy at Stanford. In his spacious, naturally lit kitchen he certainly looks relaxed and content as he strokes his goldendoodle, which has climbed up on the counter where shes not supposed to be. Then Stamoss face suddenly seizes up as he remembers a presentation he gave at Facebook in fall 2017 about the Russian election activity. After that meeting, he recalls, a colleague came up to him and said: The look on your face is the look I had before I had my first heart attack. Stamos says he doesnt want another job like that one. But several years down the road, he admits, he might consider an impactful job in government. The gravitational pull of the arenawhere the white hats perpetually face off against the black hatsis palpable. Correction: This article originally stated that SSO was supervised by two Stanford professors. In fact, its supervised by a Harvard professor and a Stanford professor. The error has been corrected. Roger Parloff is a former editor-at-large at Fortune Magazine, and has been published in Yahoo Finance, Yahoo News, The New York Times, ProPublica, New York Magazine, and NewYorker.com, among others. Facebook is funding independent research that aims to study and help guard against manipulation of social media in elections (AFP Photo/Lionel BONAVENTURE) San Francisco (AFP) - Facebook on Thursday announced it had restructured its team devoted to products or features designed to increase the social network's appeal to younger generations. Nascent projects such as a "LOL" platform for funny memes were taken off the board at the "youth team," which shifted focus to more promising products such as a Messenger Kids app launched more than a year ago, according to the leading social network. "The Youth team has restructured in order to match top business priorities, including increasing our investment in Messenger Kids," Facebook said in response to an AFP inquiry. Facebook in December 2017 introduced a version of its Messenger application designed to let young children connect with others under parental supervision. No in-app purchases are allowed. The social media giant said at the time that it created the app, available in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Peru and Thailand, because many children were going online without safeguards. "We found that there was a need for a video chat and messaging app that lets kids connect with the people they love while putting parents in complete control," product management lead Jennifer Billock said in a blog post marking the app's one year anniversary. "We conducted parent roundtables in each country and have continued gathering feedback from parents and outside experts." Facebook's rules require that children be at least 13 to create an account, but many are believed to get around the restrictions. California-based Facebook has been working to attract and keep young internet users being lured away from the social network by apps such as photo- and video-oriented Snapchat. Facebook said the reorganization of the team was not related to recent controversy regarding a research app that paid users, including teens, to track their smartphone activity as part of an effort to glean more data that could help the social network's competition efforts. The youth team was not involved with the research project nor did it use any of the data collected, according to Facebook. * STOXX 600 down 0.2 pct * Italian banks gain from record demand for bond issue * Alstom rises after EU rejects Siemens deal * Daimler falls after cutting dividend * Dassault rallies as results top expectations (Updates prices, adds details, quotes) By Josephine Mason and Helen Reid LONDON, Feb 6 (Reuters) - European shares inched up to touch 12-week highs on Wednesday, fuelled by strong gains in Italian banks and tech stocks, while Ubisoft sank following a revenue warning from U.S. videogame maker Electronic Arts. Europe's STOXX 600 managed a 0.2 percent gain by the close, having oscillated in and out of negative territory during the day. The regional benchmark hid wide variations at country level: Germany's trade-sensitive DAX was down 0.4 percent and France's CAC 40 fell 0.1 percent while Italy's FTSE MIB jumped 0.8 percent. Bank stocks, which began the day as a drag on the market, reversed course to rise thanks to a rally in Italian lenders after a new 30-year Italian bond drew record demand, a positive sign for government bonds. Intesa Sanpaolo and Unicredit climbed 2.4 and 4.4 percent, helping drive the banks index up 1 percent, the top boost to the STOXX. Strong results from Dutch lender ING also helped lift the mood in bank stocks, which were the worst-performing in Europe last year. ING shares climbed 6.1 percent after it reported stronger-than-expected earnings driven by rising interest income and fees. "ING has reported a strong set of Q4 numbers but we would caution against extrapolating Q4 trends," wrote UBS analysts. BNP Paribas shares recovered after weak results, ending the day up 1.8 percent. The French lender reduced its profit target for 2020 and said weak financial markets hit revenues in the final quarter of 2018. Overall, investors have remained unimpressed with European bank stocks, though. "We're concerned in this cycle that banks are the value trap - it might be you're waiting for a leg up in bank stocks that never occurs," said James Bateman, chief investment officer of multi asset at Fidelity. Story continues Bank aside, M&A developments also drove some moves. Alstom shares climbed 4.1 percent after Brussels rejected the French rail manufacturer's plan to merge with Siemens' rail division, as investors said the decision removed uncertainty and opened the way for potential alternative deals. German carmaker Daimler fell to the bottom of the DAX, down 1.8 percent after saying fourth-quarter operating profit fell 22 percent as trade war and ballooning costs for developing electric and self-driving cars hit profits at Mercedes-Benz autos. Data on Wednesday showed that German industrial orders fell unexpectedly on weak foreign demand in December, another sign that companies in Europe's largest economy are struggling with a slowing world economy and trade disputes. That further dented sentiment for Germany's DAX, which lagged the market. A standout faller was French gaming firm Ubisoft, which sank 9.5 percent after U.S. videogame maker Electronic Arts cut its revenue outlook due to its newest "Battlefield" title selling about a million fewer units than expected. Tech stocks hit a 3-month high thanks to strong results from French software company Dassault Systemes , which shot up 10.1 percent after fourth-quarter revenue topped guidance. "While the company's outlook for 2019 is slightly below our expectations, we want to highlight that the company has a track record to guide conservatively," said Baader Helvea analyst Knut Woller. Finnish engineering firm Metso and Swedish industrial technology group Hexagon rose 5.4 and 8.5 percent after well-received results. Chipmaker AMS was also a top European gainer, jumping 10.1 percent and recovering all the ground it lost on Tuesday when results sent it down 6.9 percent. (Reporting by Josephine Mason, Danilo Masoni, and Helen Reid; editing by Larry King and William Maclean) (Reuters) - The European Commission is planning to name Saudi Arabia and Panama in a list of high-risk countries that fail to fight money laundering, despite resistance from Germany, France and the UK, the Financial Times reported on Friday. The blacklist includes the Gulf kingdom and more than 20 other territories over alleged failures to fight illicit cash flows, the paper said citing European Union officials. (Reporting by Shubham Kalia in Bengaluru; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier) FILE PHOTO: Floating excavators prepare an underwater trench for the North Stream 2 pipeline close to Lubmin, Germany, May 15, 2018. REUTERS/Axel Schmidt/File Photo BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union nations backed a plan to regulate Russia's Nord Stream 2 pipeline on Friday, a move that will likely slow but not rule out its construction. The long-stalled agreement comes after a last-ditch German and French push to amend the draft and give Berlin a greater say in how to ensure the pipeline to carry Russian gas to Europe under the Baltic Sea complies with EU law. Chancellor Angela Merkel hailed the vote as an example of Berlin's close ties with Paris after the two major European powers, which both have firms invested in the project, were publicly at odds ahead of the EU meeting. Nord Stream 2 has divided the EU, with German opposition to the new draft rules stalling discussions since it was proposed by the EU executive in November 2017. Eastern European, Nordic and Baltic Sea countries see the 1,225 km (760 mile) pipeline increasing EU reliance on Moscow, while those in northern Europe, especially Germany, prioritise the economic benefits. EU capitals overcame difference on Friday over shared geopolitical concerns that it would deprive Ukraine of transit fees that are a lifeline of its economy by doubling the amount of gas that could be pumped under the Baltic Sea. Such worries have driven fierce U.S. lobbying against the Russian project. A French official rejected suggestions that Washington's threat to sanction the project led EU nations to break their deadlock. "We don't make decisions based on U.S. bravado," the official said. The draft law will likely require a change in business model for the project, led by Russian state energy firm Gazprom in partnership with five Western firms - Germany's Uniper and BASF's Wintershall unit, Anglo-Dutch firm Shell, Austria's OMV and France's Engie. It calls for all import pipelines to meet EU energy market rules by not being directly owned by gas suppliers; applying non-discriminatory tariffs and transparent reporting; and allowing at least 10 percent of capacity to be made available to third parties. Story continues Berlin worked overnight with Paris to amend the proposed bill when it became clear that it had lost its blocking minority among the 28 nations. The last-minute changes give it greater say because the pipeline would connect with the European gas grid in Germany. EU sources say Berlin may now seek an exemption from the bloc's energy rules, or it may cut a deal with Moscow over how the pipeline is operated, subject to review by the EU executive. The details of the proposal may still shift in talks next week between the EU's three lawmaking institutions to agree the final rules. If adopted, EU diplomats say the rules will not stop the pipeline but are likely to make its completion more costly and lengthy. BUSINESS VS GEOPOLITICS The pipeline plan has become increasingly controversial since Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea in 2014. In an effort to address concerns, Merkel has insisted that gas volumes must continue via Ukraine - the traditional route for supplies that make up over a third of the EU's gas needs. So far EU-mediated talks between Russia and Ukraine have failed to agree the terms of such transits before their current contract expires by year's end. Any delay to Gazprom's push to complete construction of Nord Stream 2 in 2019 could weaken Moscow's hand in those negotiations. Western firms invested in the project have so far each financed 600 million euros (526 million) until year's end in what they say is a sign of faith that it will be continued, sources familiar with the matter said. "It would be fatal, if a fully approved billion-euro project, in which billions have been invested, could suddenly no longer be carried out," OMV CEO Rainer Seele said earlier this week. "That wouldnt necessarily strengthen investor confidence in Europe." EU imports of Russian gas : http://tmsnrt.rs/2nz1ySg (This story corrects to say firms have each invested 600 million, adds sourcing, paragraph 19) (Reporting by Peter Maushagena and Alissa de Carbonnel in Brussels; Additional reporting by Kristi Knolle in Vienna, Gabriela Bacynska in Brussels, Jean-Baptiste Vey in Paris and Joseph Nasr in Berlin; Editing by Jan Harvey) By Susan Mathew Feb 8 (Reuters) - Latin American currencies firmed against a steady dollar on Friday, while shares of top lenders bolstered Brazilian stocks, which were on course to rise for the first time in four VEsessions. Chile's peso rose 0.4 percent and led gains among regional currencies, while the Colombian peso tracked oil prices higher. Christian Lawrence, a senior market strategist at Rabobank, attributed the day's currency moves to a bit of squaring up of positions heading into the weekend. Brazil's real was down slightly after gaining earlier in the session, while the Mexican peso was up 0.2 percent, extending gains from the previous session when it rose after the country's central bank held the benchmark borrowing rate steady. "Overall, the statement did nothing to change our view that Banxico is likely to remain on hold for the remainder of this year before cutting rates in the first half of 2020," Lawrence said, adding that if sustained peso weakness were to emerge, there is potential for one 25 basis points hike this year. But, Lawrence says the rally in regional currencies may not sustain through the day as "we might get a dollar rally and that should result in some weakness in Latam currencies. " "But, its going to be within muted ranges. I don't expect any large currency moves today," he said. Even as markets sagged worldwide amid worries of a global economic slowdown and the unlikelihood of a quick resolution of the U.S.-China trade dispute, Brazil shares were up 0.6 percent. Financial shares drove gains on the Bovespa stock index, which rose for the first time in four sessions. The index, however, was still set for its steepest weekly loss since November, after six consecutive weeks of gains. Lender Itau Unibanco Holding provided the biggest boost, up 2.1 percent. Banco Bradesco rose after its board of directors registered a proposal to raise the bank's capital by 8 billion reais ($2.15 billion) with a stock bonus of two new shares for every 10 held by investors. Key Latin American stock indexes and currencies at 1417 GMT: Stock indexes Latest Daily % change MSCI Emerging Markets 1036.84 -0.49 MSCI LatAm 2860.57 0.53 Brazil Bovespa 95003.54 0.63 Mexico IPC - - Chile IPSA 5396.76 -0.56 Argentina MerVal - - Colombia IGBC - - Currencies Latest Daily % change Brazil real 3.7176 -0.20 Mexico peso 19.0558 0.18 Chile peso 655.65 0.33 Colombia peso 3110.04 0.17 Peru sol - - Argentina peso - - (interbank) ($1 = 3.7125 reais) (Reporting by Susan Mathew in Bengaluru;) Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has said he did not plan to write the memo justifying former FBI Director James Comey's firing and was ordered to do it, ex-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe writes in an upcoming book. Rosenstein complained about having to write the document, which is now part of a probe into whether the president obstructed justice by ousting Comey, McCabe writes, according to The Guardian. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein did not choose to write the heavily scrutinized memo explaining former FBI Director James Comey's firing, but did it under order from President Donald Trump, an upcoming book says. Behind closed doors, Rosenstein complained about having to create the document used to justify the former FBI chief's ouster in May 2017, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe writes, according to the Guardian . Trump's removal of Comey, which came during the bureau's probe into Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election and whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Kremlin, is part of a probe into whether the president obstructed justice. "He said it wasn't his idea. The president had ordered him to write the memo justifying the firing," McCabe wrote of remarks Rosenstein made at a May 2017 meeting, according to the Guardian. The newspaper obtained a copy of the former FBI official's book, "The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump." The president has repeatedly slammed McCabe, who was fired from the FBI just before his retirement last year. Trump has often raged about the Russia investigation and asserted that he did not collude with Russia or obstruct justice. He did so again in tweets Friday morning, calling the probe a "GIANT AND ILLEGAL HOAX." Trump hoax tweet Rosenstein appointed Robert Mueller, himself a former FBI director, as special counsel for the Russia probe not long after Trump fired Comey. The special counsel's office and White House declined to comment. The FBI directed CNBC to the Justice Department. Story continues The Justice Department did not immediately respond to CNBC's requests for comment. Read the full Guardian report here. Subscribe to CNBC on YouTube. More From CNBC Paul Shekoski is not sitting idly by waiting for the U.S.-China trade war to end. Shekoskis company relies on imports of weather-monitoring devices it has made in China. But last year, it paid more in duties than it made in profit because of President Donald Trumps tariffs. Now hes examining every legal option to avoid the duties including relocating his production to Mexico. It has the potential of putting us out of business if we dont do anything, Shekoski, chief executive of the Wisconsin-based Primex Family of Companies, said by phone from Hong Kong, where he was investigating potential changes to his Chinese supply chain. Primex isnt alone in exploring the lost art of avoiding U.S. tariffs, especially after Trump focused on China for what he calls unfair trading practices. The presidents duties on $250 billion of Chinese goods with an increase in tariffs to come unless a trade deal with Beijing is reached by March 1 have affected U.S. companies big and small. Apple Inc. lowered its first-quarter outlook after demand for the iPhone in China slowed more sharply than expected, and the companys suppliers in China are considering shifting production. The general thing were hearing is the frustration at the lack of certainty. Thats whats causing the most anxiety, said Stephen Orava, a trade lawyer at King & Spalding LLP. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin are leading a delegation to Beijing next week for the next round of trade talks before a March 1 deadline. If no deal is reached, the U.S. will increase tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods. Will they bring home the bacon? I dont know, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow told reporters at the White House on Thursday. For companies caught in the trade war, the options for mitigating exposure to tariffs range from a simple change in paperwork to creative tariff engineering and the overhaul of supply chains often developed over decades. Its forced some executives to consider how far they can push the legal boundaries to avoid paying tariffs of as much as 25 percent. Story continues It would almost be something that would be a firing offense if youre in charge of supply-chain management and you dont point out to someone that you could save 25 percent tariffs, said Amanda DeBusk, a former Commerce export enforcement official who now is chair of Dechert LLPs international trade practice. Primex has already tried some first steps that companies often take to mitigate the tariffs: trying to pass on the added costs and checking if their products were properly classified under U.S. tariff codes. Some items incorrectly categorized in the past went unnoticed because no duties were applied, said Randy Rucker, a trade lawyer representing Primex. Economic Harm The company also filed 79 requests with the Office of U.S. Trade Representative for exclusions from the tariffs. Decisions are based on whether a product is available only from China, if duties would cause severe economic harm to the company or U.S. interests, and whether the item is strategically important. All of Primexs requests were denied. We were like, Youre about to put a 75 year-old company out of business?, Shekoski said. Why would it not be economic harm? Other options for avoiding duties involve tariff engineering. That means altering the production of a product to meet the definition of substantial transformation so its country of origin can be changed, or modifying the product so it falls under a different import classification without tariffs. U.S. Customs and Border Protection polices any fraudulent activity, and companies are figuring out how comfortable they are in pushing that line and getting as close to that line as possible, said Melissa Duffy, an international trade lawyer at Dechert. Product Tweaks Some companies are looking at slightly altering their products to avoid tariffs. But Primex doesnt have the ability to change its products and is exploring whether its plastic injection molding process can be moved out of China to change the country of origin, Shekoski said. The best long-term option may be moving production to Mexico, which would shorten the supply chain but also take about two years at a cost of about $5 million, he said. Another option for avoiding tariffs thats not available to Primex is to create or expand a foreign free-trade zone or enroll in the federal duty-drawback program. That allows refunds of duties paid on imported Chinese goods if they are later exported as a comparable product. Companies are looking at every single way that is available to them, and what they are finding is that it takes a patchwork of solutions, DeBusk said. Theres no silver bullet. FILE PHOTO: A man holds a jar full of cannabis buds at an expo in Pretoria FILE PHOTO: A man holds a jar full of cannabis buds at an expo in Pretoria, South Africa, December 13, 2018. REUTERS Siphiwe Sibeko/File Photo By Joe Bavier and Barbara Lewis CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - A boom in cannabis investment is siphoning capital away from mining and hitting junior miners hardest, forcing them to up their game and potentially improving the quality of projects in a sector long rife with cowboy speculators. Canada's relaxation of cannabis laws culminated in legalization for recreational use in October. Other jurisdictions are following suit or liberalizing their laws on medical or health use, creating an industry that has lured a breed of high-risk, high-return investors. The world's top three listed cannabis companies - Canopy Growth, Tilray and Aurora Cannabis - have a combined market value of around $30 billion. And consumers are expected to spend over $7 billion on cannabis products in Canada alone this year, according to Deloitte. In Africa, where miners met this week for Cape Town's African Mining Indaba conference, cannabis companies are setting up projects in Lesotho, while other countries, including Zimbabwe and South Africa, plan to issue license. "Raising money is extremely difficult," said Patrick Downey, head of Canadian junior gold exploration company Orezone Gold, who compared the cannabis boom to the headwinds juniors faced during the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s. "It's a cyclical business, and it will come back," Downey said. "But you have to have a good project." The rise of cannabis comes at a time when investors were already turning away from mining. "The biggest problem in mining is that it destroys shareholder value," said Philip Hopwood, Deloitte's global mining and metals leader. Miners operating in Africa - already viewed by many investors as a particularly risky bet - have been doubly hit. "It's like the straw that broke the camel's back," said one explorer at the Indaba. SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST As early IPOs, once a right of passage for exploration juniors, have slowed to a trickle with cannabis stocks delivering better short-term returns, miners are increasingly turning to private equity. Story continues And as active investors replace passive stockholders, companies are having to sell the merits of their projects to more discerning potential backers. Sebastien de Montessus - chief executive of Endeavour Mining, one of the most successful mid-tier gold players - considers it a process of natural selection. "It's a good thing ... You're going to have to be stronger and better," he told Reuters in an interview at the Indaba. The CEO of Barrick Gold, one of the world's biggest gold companies, said mining's struggles to fend off the challenge from cannabis reflected the poor state of the industry in the eyes of prospective investors. "We should be embarrassed that somebody is prepared to make a choice between those two options," Mark Bristow told Reuters. "(Mining) is just so fundamentally material to our everyday lives, whereas I can't say the same of cannabis." Majors such as Barrick and companies with projects already in production can better weather the storm. The newest juniors in the riskiest areas are racing to adapt. And some are getting creative. Prospect Resources' executive director Harry Greaves on Wednesday won an award at the Indaba for his lithium project in Zimbabwe. He said Australian and Chinese investment had helped. And he was also considering growing cannabis at his lithium site on the outskirts of Zimbabwe's capital Harare. "We don't yet have a marijuana license, but we have the land available," he said. (Editing by Dale Hudson) Bitfury paraguay.jpg Blockchain firm Bitfury will develop a bitcoin mining center in Paraguay. The new mining operation is in partnership with Seoul-based research and development firm Commons Foundation. The collaboration is backed by the government of Paraguay, whose goal is to make the South American country a cryptocurrency mining hub. The new center, which is a part of Commons Foundations Golden Goose project, will help to facilitate the innovation of blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies across Spanish-speaking countries. Bitfury will provide product and technical support for the project. The facilities used for the implementation of the mining center will sit on about 200,000 square meters of real estate, and it will be powered by two hydroelectric power plants Itaipu, one of the largest power plants in South America, and the Yacyreta power plant. Paraguay is known for its supply of cheap and available electricity. At one point, the country generated so much hydropower its factories could barely absorb them, forcing the state to sell the surplus units to neighboring countries at below-market rates. The Golden Goose project is backed by both the government and tax authorities of Paraguay. The mining operations being developed will also benefit from tax relief, an incentive added to encouraging bitcoin mining operations in the country. The site will also be powered by BlackBox AC, a mobile data center owned by Bitfury. The data center provides an amalgamation of efficient design and low cost, which is expected to provide for more effective and affordable bitcoin mining. John Mercurio, chief communications officer at Bitfury, told Bitcoin Magazine that Bitfury's mobile data centers have the capacity needed to operate a bitcoin mining center at scale. "Bitfurys BlockBox AC mobile data centers have the capabilities of a full-size bitcoin mining datacenter, making this the ideal solution for mining bitcoin on a large scale with ease. The efficient design and low operating cost of the BlockBox AC datacenter make bitcoin mining more productive and affordable, and allow for the easy expansion of bitcoin datacenter sites." Story continues The project was also lauded by Sandra Vera, a Paraguay-based attorney who acts as legal counsel to the Commons Foundation. According to Vera, the exploration of emerging digital technologies is a priority of the government of Paraguay, and an alliance with innovative and technologically progressive companies is sure to provide a wide array of economic benefits for the country as well. The total number of mining centers to be opened under this project will be determined by Commons, as the firm is expected to provide further details as time goes on. We are looking forward to our project in Paraguay with the Commons Foundation, and we believe that this site, powered by Bitfurys innovative hardware, will help decentralize and further secure the Bitcoin Blockchain for its users, Mercurio added. This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine. Lunaticoutpost.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program , anaffiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.Amazon, the Amazon logo, MYHABIT, and the MYHABIT logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.Don't be a pest to the forum.No profanity in thread-titles or usernamesNo excessive profanity in postsNo Racism, Antisemitism + HateNo calls for violence against anyone..This website exists for fun and discussion only. The reader is responsible for discerning the validity, factuality or implications of information posted here, be it fictional or based on real events. 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The bitcoin-to-dollar exchange rate (BTC/USD) established a higher high towards $3,710, up 10.38 percent from the Asian session open. It was not a matter of technicals only; the fundamentals also played an important role in catalyzing the ongoing bitcoin bull run. Robert J. Jackson Jr., a commissioner at the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), said in an interview that the regulatory agency would eventually approve a bitcoin ETF. The news, it seems, helped bitcoin revive its bullish sentiment. As of now, BTC/USD is trending inside an overbought territory. The pair expects to correct lower as the market heads out of the US session. Read the full story on CCN.com. (Bloomberg) -- A long-simmering feud between Donald Trump and Jeff Bezos took a bizarre turn after the multibillionaire accused allies of the president of brazenly trying to extort him. In a surprising move that lit up social media feeds worldwide, the Amazon.com Inc. founder and chief executive officer published a blog post on Thursday, alleging that the publisher of the National Enquirer tried to blackmail him with embarrassing photos of Bezos and a woman who wasnt his wife -- including sexually charged selfies. The usually media-shy executive also published explicit email exchanges and descriptions of the photos, saying he would rather be embarrassed than extorted. He also pointed to reports that the Enquirers publisher -- American Media Inc. CEO David Pecker -- has worked on behalf of the president. Pecker, Bezos said in his post, recently entered into an immunity deal with the Department of Justice related to their role in the so-called catch and kill process on behalf of President Trump and his election campaign. Trump in turn has frequently criticized Bezos and his newspaper, the Washington Post, for everything from taxes and shipping fees to printing fake news. On Twitter last month, Trump called the tech executive Jeff Bozo. Its unavoidable that certain powerful people who experience Washington Post news coverage will wrongly conclude I am their enemy, Bezos said in his post. President Trump is one of those people, obvious by his many tweets. Growing Wealth American Media said in a statement Friday that it believes it acted lawfully in reporting the story of Bezos and his extramarital affair, but that it will investigate claims by the CEO of extortion and blackmail. American Media believes fervently that it acted lawfully in the reporting of the story of Mr. Bezos, the company said. Further, at the time of the recent allegations made by Mr. Bezos, it was in good faith negotiations to resolve all matters with him. Nonetheless, in light of the nature of the allegations published by Mr. Bezos, the board has convened and determined that it should promptly and thoroughly investigate the claims. Upon completion of that investigation, the board will take whatever appropriate action is necessary. Story continues Asked if the president was aware of Bezos accusations, White House spokesman Hogan Gidley told reporters, Im not sure if hes aware of it, and were not going to get into a conversation about something between Jeff Bezos and a tabloid. Asked when Trump last spoke with Pecker, Gidley responded, Im not aware of it. Ironically, becoming a Trump nemesis doesnt seem to have hurt the Amazon founders fortunes. Since Trumps election, no one has made more money than Bezos, who became the worlds richest person thanks to a gold rush of e-commerce, web advertising and cloud computing. Bezos wealth currently is valued at $133.9 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Trump has threatened Amazon with antitrust prosecution, but nothing has materialized. The president also pushed the U.S. Postal Service to charge the e-commerce giant more for package delivery, based on his belief Amazon has a sweetheart deal. That led only to a Treasury Department report proposing that the post office increase rates. The report didnt provide explicit instructions on how much more the Postal Service should charge. Divorce Announcement But it hasnt been smooth sailing for Bezos. Last month, he and his wife of 25 years, MacKenzie, announced plans to divorce. Within hours, the Enquirer published an expose on Bezos relationship with former TV anchor Lauren Sanchez. The supermarket tabloids story included racy texts exchanged with Sanchez, calling her Bezos mistress. Bezos, 55, hired investigators to find out how the texts were obtained and whether the story was politically motivated. The executive also said the Posts coverage of Jamal Khashoggis murder -- a columnist for the newspaper who was killed in Istanbul last year -- is undoubtedly unpopular in certain circles. Bezos investigators werent tied to the Washington Post, but he acknowledged that owning the newspaper is a complexifier. When Bezos aired a Super Bowl ad promoting the newspaper on Sunday, one of Trumps sons, Donald Trump Jr., called it an attempt for undeserved credibility. How about report the news and not their leftist BS for a change, he tweeted. Copyright Issue Bezos has portrayed himself as a champion of journalism, but his clash with the Enquirer may put him on some shaky ground. In his exchange with a representative for AMI, he argued that the Enquirer wasnt allowed to publish the compromising images because they belonged to him and are protected by copyright laws. AMI responded that it was allowed to publish the photos out of a public interest, since millions of Americans have a vested interest in the success of Amazon. Gawker made a similar argument when it published a sex tape featuring professional wrestler Hulk Hogan. The website lost its case and ultimately filed for bankruptcy. In Bezos case, the question isnt clear-cut, said Mary Ellen Roy, a lawyer at Phelps Dunbar LLP in New Orleans specializing in First Amendment issues. Any images taken in public are fair game, she said. But if the photos were captured in a private room, they will have to be proven newsworthy. Mr. Bezos is a businessman and not a political figure -- its not necessarily newsworthy that he has a mistress, she said. Fighting Back In the Hulk Hogan case, the legal fight against Gawker was financed by billionaire Peter Thiel. He was outed as gay by a Gawker website in 2007 and told the New York Times he believed it was worth fighting back against the business. The Bezos-Enquirer tussle may be another instance where the legal questions are eclipsed by a broader battle. Lets face it, said Corynne McSherry, legal director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco. Here we have another place where a copyright dispute is serving as a proxy for the real fight. (Updates with White House comments starting in eighth paragraph.) --With assistance from Alyza Sebenius. To contact the reporters on this story: Nick Turner in Los Angeles at nturner7@bloomberg.net;Olga Kharif in Portland at okharif@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Nick Turner at nturner7@bloomberg.net, Brian Bremner For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com 2019 Bloomberg L.P. (Bloomberg) -- Jeff Bezoss allegations that he was blackmailed by American Media Inc. could upend the non-prosecution agreement the publisher of the National Enquirer struck last year with federal prosecutors in New York over its illegal aid to the Trump campaign. Under the Sept. 20 agreement, the tabloid publisher was supposed to refrain from all illegal activity for a three-year period. The agreement says that if New York-based AMI commits any crime, it can be prosecuted for the ones it was granted immunity against, including perjury and obstruction of justice. The disclosure Thursday by Amazon.com Inc.s chief executive officer that AMI threatened to publish revealing photos of him unless he halted an investigation into whether an earlier expose of his relationship with former TV anchor Lauren Sanchez was politically motivated is textbook extortion and could lead to criminal prosecution, according to some legal experts. New York law explicitly makes it a crime to threaten to expose a secret or publicize material that will expose someone to contempt or ridicule, said Zachary Elsea, a litigator with Kinsella Weitzman Iser Kump & Aldisert LLP in Santa Monica, California. The emails from AMI that Bezos posted explicitly threaten to embarrass him, according to Elsea. This could be construed as criminal conduct, Elsea said. A spokesman for AMI didnt respond to a request for comment. Nicholas Biase, a spokesman for Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman, had no comment. Text of Bezos Statement on National Enquirer, Sensitive Pictures The magazine investigated Bezos because his wealth and position make him a newsworthy subject, and its reporting isnt influenced by politics, according to copies of emails allegedly from AMI lawyer Jon Fine that Bezos included in his post on Thursday. Under the deal with federal prosecutors, AMI admitted it worked with the Trump campaign to kill stories about the presidential candidates relationships with women and agreed to cooperate with investigators. As early as August 2015, David Pecker, the companys CEO, agreed to identify any damaging information about Trump that came his way and suppress it by buying the stories and not publishing them -- a practice known as catch and kill. Story continues Bezoss Bombshell Puts Enquirer Allegiances Back in Spotlight AMI may defend against any extortion accusations by claiming that the emails are between lawyers who are simply trying to resolve a dispute, with AMI offering a compromise solution, according to Robert Schwartz, an attorney with Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP in Los Angeles. The Enquirer has a lot of lawyers and wouldnt do this kind of thing without first talking it through with them, Schwartz said. The tabloid could run into trouble, however, if it turns out that it illegally obtained the private pictures of Bezos, according to Schwartz. There are plenty of prosecutors in New York who dont feel beholden to the president and who will want to explore any shady behavior by the National Enquirer, Schwartz said. --With assistance from Bob Van Voris. To contact the reporter on this story: Edvard Pettersson in Los Angeles at epettersson@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Elizabeth Wollman at ewollman@bloomberg.net, Peter Blumberg For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com 2019 Bloomberg L.P. By Aparajita Saxena, Imani Moise and Liana B. Baker (Reuters) - A more permissive regulatory environment culminated on Thursday in the biggest bank merger since the 2007-2009 financial crisis, and more deals are likely, analysts and investors said. U.S. regional lender BB&T Corp said it will buy rival SunTrust Banks Inc for about $28 billion (22 billion) in stock. The banks hope to close the deal later this year. The timetable would have been improbable before the administration of President Donald Trump began easing crisis-era regulations, which had restricted expansion and boosted scrutiny of banks. The merger will pressure other regional banks to consider their own deals, analysts said. "The BB&T/SunTrust merger will open more eyes on the potential for more sizeable bank M&A to occur," Jefferies analyst Ken Usdin wrote in a client note. Bank of America Corp Chief Executive Brian Moynihan this year predicted a new wave of big bank mergers at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Not everybody was pleased about the deal. "This proposed merger between SunTrust and BB&T is a direct consequence of the deregulatory agenda that Trump and Congressional Republicans have advanced," said Maxine Waters, chairwoman of the House Financial Services Committee. "The proposed merger raises many questions and deserves serious scrutiny from banking regulators, Congress and the public to determine its impact and whether it would create a public benefit for consumers." BB&T and SunTrust said the combined bank would produce annual cost savings of around $1.6 billion by 2022. In a CNBC interview, executives said the merger would allow them to invest more heavily in new technology demanded by customers. "The business has been changing and will be changing," SunTrust Chief Executive William Rogers said. "This gives us the opportunity to be absolutely the most competitive bank." The combined company will operate under a new name and have around $442 billion in assets, $301 billion in loans and $324 billion in deposits. It will rival U.S. Bancorp, which has about $467 billion in assets. Story continues Its footprint will cover the U.S. East Coast, with new corporate headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina. The combined company will retain operations in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and Atlanta, Georgia, the home markets for both companies. The two banks have long been considered natural partners and advisers said they do not expect another bank to make a bid. Hostile takeovers are rare in the banking world. 'POWERFUL COMPANY' The banks struck the deal from a position of strength, analysts said. Each reported strong fourth-quarter earnings last month and there were no signs of pressure near to mid-term, said Terry McEvoy, managing director at Stephens. "The end result of the transaction is a very powerful company in some of the best markets in the United States," he said. Analysts largely expect regulators to approve the deal, although it is expected to draw scrutiny from vocal bank critics like Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders as well as from the Democratic-controlled House. "These are both very clean banks. So ultimately, (it) should get done," said Stephen Scouten, analyst at brokerage Sandler O'Neill. The combined company will remain comfortably under the asset threshold that would make it a systematically important financial institution, sparing it increased regulatory scrutiny. Shares of Atlanta-based SunTrust jumped 8.3 percent to $63.62, above the acquisition price, while BB&T rose 2.4 percent to $49.71. McEvoy said he expects the market's positive reaction to the deal to drive similar transactions throughout the year. Regional bank stocks, including KeyCorp, Comerica Inc and Regions Financial rallied on Thursday. Super-regional banks, which typically have between $50 billion and $500 billion in assets, have been grappling with how to grow with fewer resources than the four largest U.S. banks like JPMorgan Chase & Co and Bank of America. The talks between the two banks began in 2018, according to advisers. Even though BB&T shareholders will end up with a majority of shares, a key point for SunTrust was that the deal would treat the banks as equals. The two banks have hundreds of branches within two miles of each other, but they serve different segments of the market. SunTrust has more of a commercial focus and larger clients, while BB&T has a substantial insurance business. WAVE OF DEALMAKING? Deal activity in the banking sector languished after the financial crisis as stricter rules were imposed on lenders with more than $50 billion in assets and regulators barred banks with compliance issues from expanding. Changes in U.S. tax laws have lowered corporate taxes, freeing up capital, and Wall Street has long been expecting a wave of dealmaking in banking. On Dec. 7, the Federal Reserve Board quickly approved two of the largest bank mergers of the year, Cadence Bancorps merger with State Bank Financial Corporation and Synovus Financial Corps merger with FCB Financial Holdings. A Wachtell Lipton memo said the speed of the approvals was evidence of an "increasingly favorable regulatory environment for bank M&A." As part of the deal, SunTrust shareholders will receive 1.295 shares of BB&T for each share they own. The per share deal value of $62.85 is at a 7 percent premium to SunTrust's closing price on Wednesday, according to a Reuters calculation. BB&T shareholders will own 57 percent of the combined company and SunTrust will own the rest. Kelly King, BB&T's chief executive officer, will be CEO until Sept. 12, 2021, after which SunTrust CEO Rogers will take over. The two companies called it a merger of equals, valued at $66 billion. RBC and Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz advised BB&T. Goldman Sachs, along with the investment banking unit of SunTrust and Sullivan & Cromwell, advised SunTrust. (Reporting By Aparajita Saxena in Bengaluru, Imani Moise and Liana B. Baker in New York, additional reporting by Bharath Manjesh and Pete Schroeder; Writing by Neal Templin and Sweta Singh; Editing by Nick Zieminski, Meredith Mazzilli and Sonya Hepinstall) FILE PHOTO - The company logo of the Bank of America and Merrill Lynch is displayed at its office in Hong Kong March 8, 2013. REUTERS/Bobby Yip By Lawrence White LONDON (Reuters) - Bank of America Merrill Lynch has named Sanaz Zaimi as head of its new Paris-based European Union broker-dealer unit BofA Securities Europe, the U.S. bank said on Friday. "We began the relocation of roles to our new Paris office this week. This is a critical milestone in the development of our EU business and our Brexit preparations", Chief Operating Officer Tom Montag told employees in a memo. A spokeswoman for Bank of America confirmed the contents of the memo. Bank of America's announcement is the latest among a series of such moves by international banks as they seek to ensure they can continue serving clients in Europe after Britain leaves the EU on March 29. Although the outcome and timing of Brexit remain clouded by political uncertainty, in the worst-case scenario financial firms will lose the ability to serve EU clients from London and banks are shifting staff and assets to the continent to prepare. Shannon Lilly will relocate from the bank's headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina to Paris to serve as deputy CEO of the new unit, Bank of America said. Zaimi will head the unit in addition to her existing roles as head of Global FICC (fixed income, currencies and commodities) Sales and France country executive, according to the memo. The creation of the new broker-dealer unit follows the establishment in December of the bank's Dublin business as its main European banking entity, Bank of America said. (Reporting by Lawrence White; editing by Jason Neely and Emelia Sithole-Matarise) FILE PHOTO: A ship waiting to be filled with a load of coal can be seen behind a surfer riding a wave at Merewether Beach in Newcastle, located north of Sydney in Australia, August 14, 2018. By Henning Gloystein SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Australian thermal coal prices have fallen to their lowest since April 2018 as a slowdown in Chinese imports dents demand for the commodity. Spot cargo prices for Australian thermal coal exports from the port of Newcastle were last settled at $95.75 per tonne, the lowest since a spike in April 2018 pushed prices above $100 a tonne. The 6 percent slump since the start of the year is a result of a sharp slowdown in Chinese imports of coal. (GRAPHIC: Australian Newcastle coal price - https://tmsnrt.rs/2Bqjibs) Refinitiv ship tracking data on Friday showed dozens of large dry-bulk carriers sitting outside China's major coal import terminals, waiting to unload. "As far as we know, Australian metallurgical and thermal coal vessels still cannot clear customs in China, and there have been reports of customs officers telling customers that the blockage will continue at least until the end of February," said a senior analyst with a coal merchant in Singapore. He declined to be named due to company policy. China has been celebrating the start of the Lunar New Year this week, resulting in an almost complete shutdown of official business. However, customs had already been slow to clear imports in the weeks running up to the holiday, with no official reasons given. Trade data in Refinitiv showed Chinese coal imports to have dropped from 4.67 million tonnes in week four of 2019 to 3.57 million tonnes a week later. Australian coal exports dropped from 8.36 million tonnes to 7.46 million tonnes during that time. (GRAPHIC: Australia coal exports vs China coal imports - https://tmsnrt.rs/2tbt9xa) High inventories could be part of the import slowdown. "Total (coal) stocks at the main Bohai sea ports of Caofeidian, Qinhuangdao and Jingtang in Northern China totalled 16.01 million tonnes as of Feb. 2, 2019, over 5 million tonnes higher year-on-year," said Vishal Thiruvedula, Refinitiv coal analyst, in a report published this week. Story continues Beyond the this, the upcoming end of the peak winter heating seasons would also dent coal demand, two traders said. "Temperatures will moderate across the Northeast (of China) in the 6 to 10 day time frame, while North China remains mild," said Refinitiv weather analyst Ed Whalen. For Japan and South Korea, the region's other main coal importers, "the temperature pattern is fairly similar ... (with) slightly warmer than normal" conditions, which imply relatively low thermal coal demand towards the end of winter. (MAP: China coal congestion - https://tmsnrt.rs/2BsnFCG) (Reporting by Henning Gloystein; editing by Christian Schmollinger) CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) Opposition lawmaker Juan Guaido declared himself Venezuela's interim president last month, vowing to oust President Nicolas Maduro from power and end the once-wealthy nation's deepening political and humanitarian crisis. Millions of Venezuelans have migrated, and those left behind struggle to afford scarce supplies of food and medicine. Guaido called upon the international community for humanitarian aid. The world watches now whether Maduro's government will let the first shipments from United States cross its borders. The Associated Press explains the Venezuela aid standoff: ___ HOW DID WE GET HERE? Despite having the world's largest oil reserves , Venezuela is in a historic crisis after 20 years of socialist rule launched by the late President Hugo Chavez. Dozens of political parties that make up Venezuela's opposition have failed to mount a viable political challenge. Critics accuse Maduro, Chavez's hand-picked successor, of unfairly winning an election last year for a second six-year term by banning his popular rivals from running. Some anti-Maduro leaders are jailed and others have fled Venezuela fearing for their safety. Last month, the 35-year-old Guaido was named leader of the opposition-controlled National Assembly. He's managed to rally masses of Venezuelans into the streets to show their support, and he's won backing from nearly 50 countries worldwide, including the United States. ___ HOW DOES AID FIT IN? Offers of humanitarian assistance are coming in from around the world. The Trump administration offered Guaido's interim presidency an initial $20 million in support and Guaido says the aid will come in through neighboring Colombia, Brazil and as yet unidentified Caribbean islands. The first shipment includes food kits for 5,000 Venezuelans and high-protein nutritional supplements that can treat an estimated 6,700 young children with moderate malnutrition. It arrived at the Colombian border city of Cucuta, where volunteers are bagging them in preparation for attempts to bring them across the border. Story continues The boxes of emergency aid came from the U.S. Agency for International Development, and are marked with USAID labels. ___ WHAT'S MADURO SAYING? Maduro has refused the aid, disavowing any humanitarian crisis and saying Venezuela is not a country of beggars. He's offered to try to resolve the political impasse in a dialogue with opposition leaders, which critics call a stalling tactic that has failed to lead to any changes. More defiantly, the socialist president contends that the aid is part of a U.S.-led coup against him, with a goal to colonize Venezuela and exploit its vast oil resources. The Venezuelan military has barricaded a bridge connecting the two nations with a tanker and two cargo trailers in an apparent attempt to block the aid. ___ WHAT'S THE OPPOSITION'S NEXT MOVE? It's unclear what will break the standoff playing out at the Venezuela-Colombia border. U.S. Ambassador to Colombia Kevin Whitaker said the U.S. will get supplies to the border, and Guaido will take it from there. Guaido has given few details of his strategy, but says the food and supplies will reach Venezuela's most vulnerable people in the next days. Lester Toledo, who represents Guaido in the aid mission in Cucuta, issued a message to Venezuelan troops, telling them the aid contains food and medicine their own families need. Toledo suggested one strategy: A mass mobilization of his countrymen reminiscent of how in 2016 a large group of Venezuelan women dressed in white and intent on crossing the closed border with Colombia made their way through a line of national guardsmen in order to buy food on the other side. (Bloomberg) -- Amazon.com Inc. Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos accused the National Enquirer and its publisher David Pecker of extortion and blackmail, stepping up a war of words between the worlds richest man and a confidant of U.S. President Donald Trump. The magazine, owned by American Media Inc., published an expose on Bezoss relationship with former TV anchor Lauren Sanchez, and Bezos has hired investigators to find out if the story was politically motivated. He owns the Washington Post, which has written critical stories about Trump, who counts Pecker as a close ally. In a surprising move on Thursday, Bezos said the National Enquirer threatened to publish more details and revealing photos if the executive didnt stop the probe. His statement online included vivid descriptions of the images. "Rather than capitulate to extortion and blackmail, Ive decided to publish exactly what they sent me, despite the personal cost and embarrassment they threaten," Bezos wrote in a post on Medium. "Any personal embarrassment AMI could cause me takes a back seat because theres a much more important matter involved here. If in my position I cant stand up to this kind of extortion, how many people can?" Bezos also suggested that the Washington Posts coverage of the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi may have motivated the National Enquirers investigation. "For reasons still to be better understood, the Saudi angle seems to hit a particularly sensitive nerve," the billionaire wrote. https://t.co/G1ykJAPPwy Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) February 7, 2019 American Media said in a statement Friday that it believes it acted lawfully in reporting the story of Bezos and his extramarital affair, but that it will investigate Bezos claims. American Media believes fervently that it acted lawfully in the reporting of the story of Mr. Bezos, the company said. Further, at the time of the recent allegations made by Mr. Bezos, it was in good faith negotiations to resolve all matters with him. Nonetheless, in light of the nature of the allegations published by Mr. Bezos, the Board has convened and determined that it should promptly and thoroughly investigate the claims. Upon completion of that investigation, the Board will take whatever appropriate action is necessary. Story continues The magazine investigated Bezos because his wealth and position made him a newsworthy subject, and its reporting isnt influenced by politics, according to copies of emails allegedly from AMI lawyer Jon Fine that Bezos included in his post on Thursday. In one of those emails, Fine proposed Bezos release a mutually agreed upon statement to a news outlet saying that he had no basis for suggesting AMIs coverage was politically motivated. In exchange, the media group would refrain from publishing other texts and photos featuring Bezos, according to the email released by the Amazon CEO. "This looks like textbook extortion," said Zachary Elsea, a litigator with Kinsella Weitzman Iser Kump & Aldisert LLP in Santa Monica, California. The law defines extortion as, among other things, obtaining something of value through fear, and AMIs very explicit threat to publish the embarrassing pictures unless Bezos complies, fits that description, according to Elsea. Fine, a former executive at Amazon, didnt immediately respond to an email seeking comment. The White House also didnt respond to a request for comment. This is the latest clash between Bezos and the president. Trump has repeatedly vilified Amazons CEO, threatening his company with tax increases, antitrust prosecution and higher shipping fees, while attacking the Washington Post as a scam. In 2015, Bezos offered to blast Trump into space, but has mostly avoided mentioning Trump publicly -- until Thursday. Bezos last month posted a statement on Twitter, signed by him and his wife of 25 years, MacKenzie, announcing their plans to divorce. Hours later, the first Enquirer story on his relationship with Sanchez posted online. The next day, Trump wished Bezos good luck on Twitter and predicted the proceedings would be "a beauty." On Thursday, Bezos noted that Pecker is cooperating with federal prosecutors who are investigating "catch-and-kill" payments the Enquirer made ahead of the 2016 presidential election to at least one woman who alleged she had an affair with Trump. The Enquirer secured the rights to the material, assuring the allegations wouldnt be shared with other media, then never published the story. Bezos is Amazons largest shareholder, with a stake of about 16 percent. An Amazon spokesman has said the CEO and founder remains "focused and engaged in all aspects of Amazon." Bezos and company spokespeople havent addressed whether he will accelerate his periodic sales of Amazon shares. An Amazon spokesman declined to comment on Thursday. The correspondence between Bezos and AMI included legal jousting over the newsworthiness of graphic photos Bezos sent to Sanchez. Bezos argued the images are his and sharing them would violate copyright laws. A representative for AMI responded in one of the emails: "With millions of Americans having a vested interest in the success of Amazon, of which your client remains founder, chairman, CEO, and president, an exploration of Mr. Bezos judgment as reflected by his texts and photos is indeed newsworthy and in the public interest." That argument was questioned by Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter, who has followed Amazon for years. "I dont care about Jeff Bezoss personal life and I dont care if Trumplandia is out to make him look bad," Pachter said. "None of that influences whether people want to shop on Amazon." American Media is backed by Anthony Melchiorre and his hedge fund, Chatham Asset Management. Years before Trump ascended to the White House, Melchiorre threw a financial lifeline to Peckers company and ended up with about an 80 percent stake. Billionaire hedge fund manager Leon Cooperman also has put money into the publisher. He said last year that Chatham executives introduced him to the investment. (Updates with American Media response.) --With assistance from Gerry Smith. To contact the reporters on this story: Matt Day in Seattle at mday63@bloomberg.net;Spencer Soper in Seattle at ssoper@bloomberg.net;Edvard Pettersson in Los Angeles at epettersson@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jillian Ward at jward56@bloomberg.net, Alistair Barr, Andrew Pollack For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com 2019 Bloomberg L.P. Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker tells a House committee he "has not" discussed special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe with President Trump. Whitaker has overseen Mueller's investigation into Russia's meddling in the 2016 election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign. The interim appointment without Senate confirmation raised fears that Mueller's probe, which Trump has frequently excoriated as a "witch hunt," could be undermined. Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker testified before lawmakers Friday that he "has not" discussed special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe with President Donald Trump . Whitaker has overseen Mueller's investigation into Russia's meddling in the 2016 election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign. Democrats have expressed concern with Trump's appointment of Whitaker, citing his criticisms of the special counsel in an op-ed and on television. The interim appointment without Senate confirmation raised fears that the Mueller's ongoing probe, which Trump has frequently excoriated as a "witch hunt," could be undermined. "I have not talked to the president of the United States about the special counsel investigation," Whitaker told the House Judiciary Committee in response to a question by committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y. The hearing was marked by high tensions before it even began. In a party-line vote Thursday morning, the Democrat-majority committee gave Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., the power to issue the subpoena against Whitaker an authority Nadler said he hoped he would not have to use. "I hope and expect that this subpoena will not be necessary but unfortunately, a series of troubling events over the past few months suggest that we should be prepared," Nadler said in a statement before the vote. In justifying the need for the threat of a subpoena, Nadler's statement said that Justice Department staff had attempted to walk back Whitaker's promise to Nadler in November that he would appear for an oversight hearing. Story continues The statement added that other Trump administration witnesses have "often been allowed" to avoid answering questions, citing the "ridiculous" excuse used by Sessions that he could not answer certain questions because Trump might want to invoke "executive privilege." Whitaker, 49, responded harshly, saying he would refuse to appear for the hearing unless he received assurances that he would not be subpoenaed. "I remain willing to appear to testify tomorrow, provided that the chairman assures me that the committee will not issue a subpoena today or tomorrow, and that the committee will engage in good faith negotiations before taking such a step down the road," Whitaker said in a statement reported by The Washington Post. The committee has "deviated from historic practice and protocol and taken the unnecessary and premature step of authorizing a subpoena to me, the acting attorney general, even though I had agreed to voluntarily appear," Whitaker said. "Political theater is not the purpose of an oversight hearing, and I will not allow that to be the case." Whitaker had criticized the Mueller probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election before he was tapped to become acting attorney general in November. Yet he did not recuse himself from overseeing that investigation as Sessions had done despite a Justice Department ethics official suggesting that he do so. More From CNBC US President Donald Trump called for unity among Americans and cross-party cooperation during last Tuesdays State of the Union Address. Trump expressed interest to rebuild the U.S. military by bumping up Pentagons budget. He also plans to reevaluate military alliances and agreements with foreign nations. Trump did approve two defense-friendly budget bills that helped increase the Pentagons budget to $700 billion in 2018 and $717 billion in 2019. Meanwhile, Trump said that for years, the United States was being treated very unfairly by NATO, but now we have secured a $100 billion dollar increase in defense spending from NATO allies. Lest we forget, Trump had earlier threatened to trim U.S. military support if its allies didnt raise defense spending. At the same time, America is looking to develop a state-of-the-art missile defense system. And its only because Russia repeatedly violated the agreement by building banned weapon. Trump announced that the United States is officially withdrawing from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, or INF Treaty. Last but not the least, Trump claimed that American astronauts will go back to space with American rockets. Trump in his speech, by the way, has also asked for a bipartisan infrastructure push. He urged both the parties to come together in rebuilding Americas decaying infrastructure. Trump told Congress and government leaders that I know that Congress is eager to pass an infrastructure bill, and I am eager to work with you on legislation to deliver new and important infrastructure investment. 2 Funds to Benefit With Trump vowing to boost defense budget as well as urging the Congress to rebuild Americas crumbling infrastructure, it seems investing in the following funds with significant exposure to such areas seems judicious. The question here is: why should investors consider mutual funds? Reduced transaction costs and diversification of portfolio without several commission charges that are associated with stock purchases are primarily why one should be parking money in mutual funds (read more: Mutual Funds: Advantages, Disadvantages, and How They Make Investors Money). Story continues Fidelity Select Defense & Aerospace Portfolio FSDAX, a Zacks Ranked #1 (Strong Buy) fund, seeks capital appreciation. The fund invests primarily in common stocks. It invests at least 80% of assets in securities of companies principally engaged in the research, manufacture, or sale of products or services related to the defense or aerospace industries. This Sector-Other fund, as of the last filing, allocates fund in three major groups Large Value, High Yield Bond and Small Growth. Further, as of the last filing, Boeing, Northrop Grumman and United Technologies were the top holdings for FSDAX. The Fidelity Select Defense & Aerospace Portfolio fund, managed by Fidelity, carries an expense ratio of 0.76% versus the category average of 1.19%. Moreover, FSDAX requires a minimal initial investment of $2,500. The fund has three and five-year returns of 21.7% and 12.6%, respectively. Fidelity Select Construction & Housing Portfolio FSHOX, a Zacks Ranked #2 (Buy) fund, seeks capital appreciation. The fund normally invests at least 80% of assets in securities of companies principally engaged in the design and construction of residential, commercial, industrial, and public works facilities. This Sector-Other fund, as of the last filing, allocates fund in three major groups Large Value, Intermediate Bond and Small Growth. As of the last filing, Home Depot, Lowes and Avlonbay Communities were the top holdings for FSHOX. The Fidelity Select Construction & Housing Portfolio fund, managed by Fidelity, carries an expense ratio of 0.79% versus the category average of 1.34%. Moreover, FSHOX requires a minimal initial investment of $2,500. The fund has three and five-year returns of 10.1% and 9.1%, respectively. Want key mutual fund info delivered straight to your inbox? Zacks free Fund Newsletter will brief you on top news and analysis, as well as top-performing mutual funds, each week. Get it free >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research TWEET ME Follow the The Field Negro via e-mail. DISCLAIMER *COMMENTS, LINKS, AND CUT AND PASTE ARTICLES, ARE NOT ALL ENDORSED BY THE PUBLISHER. THIS BLOG claims no credit for any images posted on this site unless otherwise noted. Images on this blog are copyright to its respectful owners. If there is an image appearing on this blog that belongs to you and do not wish for it appear on this site, please E-mail with a link to said image and it will be promptly removed. MORE DISCLAIMERS This is a commercial free blog. Money is nice, but being able to speak my mind is better. "Real talk: Daniel Rubin has a great little piece up wherein he chats with The Field Negro, the Philly-based blogger who sharply ponders all things black on a daily basis. (Seriously, if youve never checked in with TFN, you should: Its author, Wayne Bennett, is a fantastic read who can cut through bullshit like a hot knife through butter, which is a far grosser analogy than I wanted to make, but there you have it.)" ~Philebrity~ "One of the most precocious and hilarious Black political minds on the net. Ive been a long-time fan!" ~Asad Malik~ "..While most of what he writes is tongue-in-cheek, his space is a safe house for candid discussions about race, especially in the comments section, where people of all colors meet." ~~Daniel Rubin, "The Philadelphia Inquirer"~~ "To white people, Bennett's musings are like kitchen-table talk from a kitchen they may otherwise never set foot in. To African Americans, he is part of a growing army of black Internet amateurs who have taken up the work once reserved for ministers and professional activists: the work of setting a black agenda, shaping black opinion and calling attention to the state of the nation's racial affairs." ~~Richard Fausset, "L.A. Times"~~~ ~Erik Hare, "The Twin Cities Daily Planet"~ "That's why I love the blog " Field Negro " so much. Field, as he's known to his fans, has the sense of reality that it takes to call out the ( CowPuckey ) of blame beating by those who are in positions of power and their lackeys. Because of his handle and his unabashed way of writing about racial issues, Field is often cited as a "Black blogger." What he is, however, is a first-class detector of blame deflection and an excellent student of history. If you want to write about the past and future of repression there's really no other perspective to take - which is why everyone should read Field."~Erik Hare, "The Twin Cities Daily Planet"~ 411 On The Field field negro Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States Raised in the house, but field certified. Jamaica is the land of my birth, but I consider myself a citizen of the world. I currently practice law in the city of "brotherly love". View my complete profile "Half a century after Little Rock, the Montgomery bus boycott and the tumultuous dawn of the modern civil rights era, the new face of the movement is Facebook, MySpace and some 150 black blogs united in an Internet alliance they call the AfroSpear. Older, familiar leaders such as Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rev. Al Sharpton and NAACP Chairman Julian Bond, are under challenge by a younger generation of bloggers known by such provocative screen names as Field Negro, thefreeslave and African American Political Pundit. And many of the newest struggles are being waged online." ~Howard Witt-The Chicago Tribune~ "I had no idea, for example, of the extent of the African-American blogging world out there and its collective powers of dissemination.But now, after reading thousands of anguished, thoughtful comments posted on these blogs reflecting on issues of persistent racial discrimination in the nation's schools and courtrooms, what's clear to me is that there's a new, "virtual" civil rights movement out there on the Internet that can reach more people in a few hours than all the protest marches, sit-ins and boycotts of the 1950s and 60s put together." ~Chicago Tribune Reporter, Howard Witt~ A new Tel Aviv University study finds that fibromyalgia syndrome -- a chronic condition characterized by widespread pain, fatigue and cognitive difficulties -- may be a consequence of post-traumatic physical and psychological distress associated with childhood sexual abuse. The research suggests that survivors of childhood sexual abuse who develop fibromyalgia may be effectively treated with hyperbaric oxygen therapy, the application of hyperbaric pressure in conjunction with increased oxygen delivery to oxygen-deprived tissue. The new study is part of an ongoing collaboration between TAU, the University of Haifa and Assaf Harofeh Medical Center investigating new therapeutic strategies with which to treat survivors of childhood sexual abuse. It was conducted by Prof. Shai Efrati of TAU's Sackler School of Medicine and Sagol School of Neuroscience and Director of the Sagol Center for Hyperbaric Medicine and Research at Assaf Harofeh Medical Center and published online in Frontiers in Psychology on December 14, 2018. "We now know that severe emotional stress, such as that caused by sexual abuse, can induce chronic brain injury," says Prof. Efrati. "These non-healing brain wounds may explain certain unremitting long-term physical and psychological disorders like fibromyalgia. "We also now know that fibromyalgia takes root in the part of the brain responsible for pain interpretation. Using novel brain imaging technologies, we have now, for the first time, identified the injured areas of the brain injured by traumatic abuse. "We believe our results serve as an explanation for the often limited results of psychological intervention, which do not provide physiologic repair of the damaged brain tissue," Prof. Efrati continues. "The study shows that when these brain wounds are treated with hyperbaric oxygen therapy, neuroplasticity can be induced and the related clinical symptoms significantly improved." Over two years, 30 women suffering from fibromyalgia and bearing a history of childhood sexual abuse were randomly assigned to one of two treatment groups: 60 hyperbaric oxygen therapy sessions or psychotherapy. After the hyperbaric oxygen therapy sessions, the participants reported a significant improvement in all measures of quality of life, including symptoms of fibromyalgia and post-traumatic stress disorder. The clinical findings were accompanied by an improvement in brain functionality, observed in brain nuclear imaging scans (SPECT) and novel MRI scans (MRI-DTI). "Even though some of the areas of the brain have previously been associated with fibromyalgia and PTSD, the correlation we found also added new knowledge on brain function," says Dr. Amir Hadanny, of TAU, Bar-Ilan University and Assaf Harofeh Medical Center, a co-author of the study. "In the future, we hope to be able to diagnose the so-called 'psychological' disorders through objective brain imaging." According to the study, the ability to recall sexual abuse is by no means a prerequisite for effective treatment of fibromyalgia in cases of childhood sexual abuse. "Lately, we have witnessed women in the #MeToo movement who knew they were sexually harassed and abused but could not recall the details of the attack," says Prof. Rachel Lev-Wiesel of the University of Haifa, a co-author of the study. "Our new approach demonstrates that not being able to remember traumatic events is a biological rather than an emotional limitation. "Repeated exposure to traumatic events creates the need to suppress these events," Prof. Lev-Wiesel continues. "Biologically, that means that the areas of the brain responsible for those memories are actually being shut down in order to cope with reality. This may be the key for the reason why survivors are unable to recall the details or the traumatic event itself." The scientists are now researching novel early interventions for childhood sexual abuse survivors. ### American Friends of Tel Aviv University supports Israel's most influential, comprehensive and sought-after center of higher learning, Tel Aviv University (TAU). TAU is recognized and celebrated internationally for creating an innovative, entrepreneurial culture on campus that generates inventions, startups and economic development in Israel. TAU is ranked ninth in the world, and first in Israel, for producing start-up founders of billion-dollar companies, an achievement that surpassed several Ivy League universities. To date, 2,500 US patents have been filed by Tel Aviv University researchers -- ranking TAU #1 in Israel, #10 outside of the US and #43 in the world. We listen to local police and fire departments scanner traffic, but sometimes miss crimes, wrecks, fires or other incidents, especially if they happen overnight. If you know of something were not covering yet, please let Managing Editor Jeff Pownall know by emailing him at jpownall@lufkindailynews.com, or submit a news tip online by visiting lufkindailynews.com/tips. Tapping into VN supporting industries Over the past decade, Vietnam has attracted a great deal of foreign direct investment into its industrial manufacturing and electronic sectors. Previously, overseas investors had complained about weaknesses in the countrys supporting industries, but recent changes have contributed to attracting fresh investment. Vietnamese supporting industry companies are competing with international counterparts, but are determined to become leading suppliers With an array of facilities nationwide, Samsung has stated that its investment into Vietnam is not simply a short-term vision for immediate benefit, but has long-term goals. We are constantly looking for potential Vietnamese enterprises to participate in our business consulting programmes alongside South Korean experts. This programme can be considered a crucial step for them to strengthen their capacity to compete and join in our global supply chain, said a Samsung statement. The programme was first launched in 2015, and after each session, there has been a significant increase of over 30 per cent in productivity of the enterprises taking part, on average. We will continue to promote this programme on a larger scale throughout Vietnam. Compared to 35 per cent in 2014, Samsungs current localisation rate is 58 per cent. In addition, the number of Vietnamese enterprises which are Samsungs Tier 1 vendors has greatly increased, from four in 2014 to 35 now, which is expected to grow to 50 by 2020. This target is gradually being realised through continuous efforts with the Vietnamese government in the development of supporting industries. Urgent needs and potential market At a recent forum on solutions for promoting the development of supporting industries in Vietnam, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc stressed that the nation should become a production base for multinational corporations (MNCs). The Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) and other government agencies are being encouraged to incorporate this into their development strategies. The MoIT has pointed out that the countrys supporting industries remains weak, having to import nearly 80 per cent of raw materials, spare parts, and components needed for production. This means a low localisation rate, even in industries with great potential, such as automobiles and textiles. Vietnam is aiming to have a highly competitive supporting industry by 2020, meeting 45 per cent of demand for production and local consumption. Suttisak Wilanan, deputy managing director of Reed Tradex, said supporting industries are considered the foundation for major industries through their supply of parts, components, and technical processes. Supporting industries should be considered a key part in national industries in the age of global economic integration. The national industry simply cannot grow without a flourishing supporting industry. They determine the production costs, and enhance the added value and competitiveness of final products, he said. Chairman of the Vietnam Association of Mechanical Industry Nguyen Van Thu said that leading foreign-invested enterprises (FIEs) like Samsung, Intel, and Canon need relevant policies if they are to increase the local content of their products. They should set standards for the products that they need, order supporting industry companies to make them, and then commit to buying those products. By doing so, they will allow the businesses to grow and develop. The countrys electronic industry has moved ahead drastically in the past few years, attracting investment from international giants such as Panasonic, Fujitsu, LG, Bosch, and Nokia. From our point of view, it is critical to have supporting industries such as the electronics components industry in order for manufacturing to flourish. Local supporting industries play a key role in the overall sustainability and competitiveness of the electronics manufacturing sector, Ling Sing Kok, assistant director of Panasonics Sales and Service Division, told VIR. But more importantly, a strong presence of supporting industries such as electrical components would enable us to respond to the needs of our customers with speed and flexibility, thus creating customer value. Panasonic is definitely keen to expand its presence in Vietnam. As to why domestic manufacturers of electronic components are rare, such businesses require substantial technology and investment which at this stage does not seem viable in the Vietnamese market, he added. Getting involved in supply chain Meanwhile, according to FIEs, if supporting industries are not developed, a heavy dependence on material imports is unavoidable, which will weaken its competitiveness and make it hard for the country to sustain economic growth. Vietnamese supporting industry businesses are now competing not only with rivals from South Korea but also other parts of the world. Some manufacturers have taken the bull by the horns and are determined to become suppliers of multinational groups in Vietnam. Chau Ba Long, general director of Minh Nguyen Support Industry JSC, one of Samsungs Tier 1 vendors, said his company was established with a determination of becoming a leading parts supplier as well as growing into a trusted brand in the region. Established in 2015, his company now produces millions of spare parts for home appliance products, digital products, mould making, car parts, refrigerator products, vacuum cleaners, washing machines, and televisions for Samsung. One of the reasons for our success is human resources. The company in recent years has spent a great deal employing highly skilled workers and foreign experts with long-term experience at multinational groups to ensure sustainable development, Long said. Truong Thi Chi Binh, vice chairwoman and general secretary of the Vietnam Association of Supporting Industries, remarked that Samsung has always been open to Vietnamese businesses ready to join their global supply chain. The common characteristics of Samsungs Tier 1 vendors are that they are prepared to invest in improving upon their production and human resources. Vietnams support industries are young but have huge hidden potential. We strongly believe that with the Vietnamese governments practical policies and incentives, FIEs and domestic suppliers will have much more opportunities to learn about each other, discuss, and co-operate to promote supporting industries, commented Wilanan from Reed Tradex. We think that within the next five to 10 years, the nations electronic manufacturing business will continue to grow with more foreign direct investment from the economies such as South Korea, China, and Taiwan. We can already see that corporations are choosing to set up their factories in Vietnam, he added. From the angle of businesses, Binh said local businesses should have long-term strategies in place. We took Vietnamese businesses to the EU and Japan to seek partners and received orders. Small companies which are unable to do big things should do their job well. If they are able to do big things, their orders will increase, she said. Pham Minh Thang, director of P&Q Solutions Co., Ltd., believed that within the next few years there may be an upswing for the countrys supporting industries, and local businesses need to prepare accordingly. According to Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Tuan Anh, in addition to supporting policies for the industry, his ministry would clarify some key sectors which should be prioritised in order to bring about breakthrough developments. Some sectors which have potential include electronics, automobiles, garments and textiles, leather shoes, and energy. The minister said that he had asked the prime minister to allow the establishment of research and development centres for supporting industries. VIR BANGKOK: On Friday, Thailand's royalty made an unprecedented move into politics when the sister of King Maha Vajiralongkorn was declared as a prime ministerial candidate for March 24 elections, registration papers showed. And the nomination of Princess Ubolratana Rajakanya Sirivadhana Barnavadi, 67, the elder sister of King Maha Vajiralongkorn, promised to upend Thailand`s already turbulent politics because it breaks the long-standing tradition of Thai royalty staying out of politics. As of now, Princess Ubolratana will run as a candidate for a party loyal to ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra. One of her leading opponents will be Prayuth Chan-ocha, the leader of Thailand`s military junta, who also announced his candidacy on Friday. Thailand has been a constitutional kingdom since 1932 but the royal family has wielded great influence and commanded the devotion of millions. The election shapes as a battle between Thaksin`s populists and their allies and the royalist-military establishment. However, the nomination of a member of the royal family by the pro-Thaksin Thai Raksa Chart party could change that dynamic. also read Police arrests four men for destroying pillars of World Heritage Site in Hampi Thai Raksa Chart is an off-shoot of the Pheu Thai Party, formed by Thaksin loyalists and the core leadership of the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD), or "red shirts" group, as a strategy to help Pheu Thai win votes. The simmering conflict between the Bangkok-centred elites and the more rural-based populists has resulted in street protests, military coups, and violent clashes over almost 15 years. Princess Ubolratana is known for her "To be Number One" philanthropy campaign, which aims to help young people stay away from drugs, as well as starring in several soap operas and movies. An avid social media user, she recently posted videos eating street food and another complaining about pollution in Bangkok. also read Russia is ready to enter into a nuclear pact with the US New Delhi: The Defence Ministry note that as per the publication that released it 'proved that the Prime Minister's Office had interfered in the negotiations with France' was apparently a selective and cropped version of the real note that exists. In a leading newspaper, only mentioned the bit that had the letter sent by the then Defence Secretary G Mohan Kumar, dated 1 December 2015, to the then Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, where he expressed concerns of the PMO's interference with negotiations in the Rafale deal. However, the report did not have the entire copy of the noting that contained Parrikar's response. It appears that PMO and French President office are monitoring the progress of the issue which was an outcome of the summit meeting. Para 5 appears to be an overreaction. Defence Secretary (G Mohan Kumar) may resolve the matter in consultation with Principal Secretary to PM, Parrikar said in his response to Kumar on 11 January 2016. While documents available to the newspaper stated that the Defence Ministry protested that the position taken by the PMO was contradictory to the stand taken by MoD and the negotiating team. Mohan Kumar made this official notation in his own writing: RM (Raksha Mantri) may pl. see. It is desirable that such discussions be avoided by the PMO as it undermines our negotiating position seriously. also read Google Doodle celebrates a birth anniversary of German analytical chemist Friedlieb Ferdinand Runge Mohan Kumar, however, issued a clarification to ANI today that the dissent was not over the pricing issue. on Friday, Mohan Kumar said thatIt (MoD dissent note on Rafale negotiations) had nothing to do with price. It was about sovereign guarantees and general terms and conditions... Whatever has been brought out has nothing to do with pricing,". also read US Supreme Court imposing strict regulations on abortion UDHAMPUR: Lt Gen Ranbir Singh , The General Officer Commanding-in-Chief (GoC) of the Northern Command has warned that the Pakistani army has been using social media to mobilize support among the youth of Jammu and Kashmir to stir them towards terrorism. He also said that terrorist infrastructure continues to remain intact in PoK and Pakistan. While he said Pakistan is trying to develop narratives to alter public opinion in Kashmir to disrupt peace and stability."It is a matter of concern for us. We are seized of this concern."He further added that the Pakistani army has been exploiting social media platforms to influence the youth of the Valley to join terrorism. also read Mumbai busiest airport remain closed for 1.5 month Lt Gen Singh told to media that "Radicalisation is not only a concern in India but a global concern," However, he added, the Indian Army has developed effective counter-terrorism capabilities and the fight against terrorism has now entered "an important phase". "We are using technology and artificial-based solutions to counter the message, so that youth do not fall prey to the designs of the Pakistan army," he said. While answering a question on America's proposed pullout of troops from Afghanistan, the officer said the Indian Army and all agencies are keeping a close watch on the developments. "We are prepared for any contingency," he said, referring to possible infiltration by Afghan-based terrorists into Jammu and Kashmir. He said options for another "surgical strike" on terrorist bases are open and to it he said that Surgical strikes were a tactical operation to give a strategic message that Indian Army has the capability to do acts which are unpredictable. We were successful in conveying that message," Aurangzeb was abducted by terrorists from Pulwama. His bullet-riddled body was found on June 14 in Srinagar on the eve of Eid-ul-Fitr. also read Andhra Pradesh IAS officer spends Rs. 18000 on his sons wedding On Thursday, The Army said 450 terrorists were operating in Jammu and Kashmir and the terror infrastructure across the Line of Control (LoC) was intact with the full support of Pakistan as 16 terrorist camps were operating in the neighbouring country and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). Northern Army commander Lieutenant General Ranbir Singh told from Udhampur that "The number of terrorists is more on the north of Pir Panjal. Around 350 to 400 terrorists are active in the Kashmir valley. On the south of Pir Panjal (the Jammu region), there are 50 terrorists," He said most of the terrorists on the south of Pir Panjal were dormant. He further added that "The security situation is stable on this side. However, the operations are mostly conducted on the north of Pir Panjal (Kashmir) as more terrorists are present there,". Lt Gen. Singh said the terror infrastructure was intact in PoK and Pakistan, He said that "It is sad that the terrorist infrastructure in PoK is still intact. The Pakistan Army, in its bid to support infiltration of terrorists from across the border, carries out ceasefire violations and certain tactical activities along the LoC,", adding that 16 terrorist training camps were operating in PoK and Pakistan. also read BJP's north Bengal campaign reaches a climax, PM Modi is scheduled to address a public meeting in Jalpaiguri The Northern Army commander said that "They (terrorists) are being trained and then brought to the LoC. Then they infiltrate into Jammu and Kashmir. We are keeping these (activities) under surveillance,". He added that 191 youngsters had joined terrorist groups in the Kashmir valley, but there was a relative decline in the number of people joining such outfits over the last few months. Lt Gen. Singh said "According to reports, 191 youngsters are reported to have joined militancy. Most of the recruitments took place up to the month of August. There was a relative decline in the number of youngsters joining militancy from October till now. The Northern Army commander said "We hope that the youth engagement programmes will pay dividends in the months to come,". However, Lt Gen. Singh added that there was a significant percentage of Pakistani terrorists, who were being used as cannon fodder and pushed into Jammu and Kashmir to cause casualties among Indian citizens. However, the Army was taking action to arrest this trend. also read In Love, misunderstandings can knock your door Geminiknown what is your lucky colour for Today Ahmednagar: Nila Vikhe Patil, a person of Indian descent, has been named political adviser in the Swedish Prime Minister's Office. Patil, 32, daughter of leading educationist Ashok Vikhe Patil, would be working with Stefan Lofven, the Social Democrat leader who was last month elected as Swedish prime minister, leading a Social Democrat-Green Party coalition. "Nila has been appointed as the Political Adviser to the Prime Ministers Office in charge of Finance and will handle taxes, budgets, financial markets and housing," her father told PTI. She has also been elected to the City Council of the Stockholm Municipal Corporation. Also a Political Adviser in the PMO during the previous government, Nila has been active member of the Green Party and is a member of the Election Committee of the Stockholm Green Party, he said. Born in Sweden, Nila spent early years in Ahmednagar in Maharashtra and is the granddaughter of former Union Minister Balasaheb Vikhe Patil and niece of Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, Leader of Opposition in Maharashtra Assembly. She holds a Bachelor's degree and MBA from Gothenburg School of Business, with Economics and Law and also studied MBA in University de Complutense in Madrid. Nila has been a member of the Board of the Green Party, Swedish Young Greens, Green Party Gothenburg, Green students of Sweden, and also a member of the executive committee of the Green Party Stockholm, her father said. Sweden has been on a charm offensive towards India, supporting PM Narendra Modi's 'Make in India' manufacturing summit with Lofven leading a delegation of the Swedish industry leaders to the launch event in 2016. India is also an increasingly important market for Sweden, with over 160 Swedish companies now established in the country, said Ashok Vikhe Patil, chairman of the Vikhe Patil Foundation, which runs 102 educational institutes across Maharashtra. Speaking to PTI, Nila said, "I love India dearly and I feel very connected. I have lots of close Indian friends. "I miss my grandfather a lot. He used to call me almost weekly during his last years. "I also hope that India will make smart ecological choices as it develops to avoid all the environmental problems and further impact on climate change that will now be one of the world's greatest challenges to overcome," she said. New Delhi: When a Malayali woman left her newborn child behind at a hospital years ago, a German couple adopted him turning his fate around miraculously. Life of Niklaus Samuel Gugger or Nick will match the story of any thriller. The boy abandoned by Malayali Brahmin woman Anasuya has now become the Member of Parliament in Switzerland representing the Evangelical Peoples Party. Nick was born at 1.20 at night on May 1, 1970 at Udupis Lombard Memorial Hospital. Give him to a family that will look after him well Anasuya said entrusting him with Dr ED Pflugfelder and walked out of the hospital. That is the only thing he knows about his mother. The German couple Fritz and Elizabeth came to the Lombard hospital at that time for treatment for malaria. Fritz was a teacher at the Nettur Technical Training Foundation (NTTF), Thalasseri. They adopted the kid and waited for the mother to turn up for two years. A newspaper notification for Anasuya returned no results. Nick carries the newspaper clipping even today. He grew up as Niklaus Samuel Gugger, a Protestant and became the MP of the Evangelical Peoples Party. "Look at the evolution of a Brahmin boy", says Nick. He has the telephone number of Fritzs former colleague at NTTF Reghunath Kurup on his mobile phone. The Fritz couple left for Switzerlands Dhoon. They had two more children girls. Nick went on to graduate in mechanical engineering, and higher degrees in psychology and management and innovation. He is an acclaimed entrepreneur and delivers talks on innovation and management. He owns the now famous Ayurvedic ginger drink in Switzerland Zingi. Nick during the release of the commemorative stamps on the occasion of the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. He entered politics in 2002 and went on to become MP in 2017. He was in Delhi on a meeting of world MPs with Indian links when Rajya Sabha MP Achyuta Samantha was astonished to hear his story. The founder of Orissas Kalinga University, Achyuta honoured Nick with a D.Litt from Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology. He is married to Beatrice from Switzerland. Their first girl child was named Anasuya. They have two sons too Le Antro and Mi Harabi. Nick has two wishes bring out a book on his life story and celebrate his 25th wedding anniversary on the backwaters of Kerala. He will be in Kerala this August with family. Switzerlands federal legislature is called the Federal Assembly. Its two chambers are the National Council and the Council of States. It meets in Bern. New Delhi: Congress chief Rahul Gandhi on Friday said he has no problem if the government investigates his brother-in-law Robert Vadra or senior party leader P Chidambaram as long as it also answers questions on the Rafale jet deal. Gandhi launched a fresh broadside against the government on the deal following a report in a newspaper claiming the defence ministry raised strong objections to "parallel discussions" conducted by the PMO during the negotiations between India and France. "Whatever inquiry you want to do, you do it. You implement the law. Robert Vadra, P Chidambaram - you implement the law on everyone. No problem. But you also give answers on the Rafale matter," he said at a press conference. Vadra was questioned by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for nine hours on Thursday, the second day of his deposition in connection with a probe into allegations of money laundering to purchase assets abroad. Karti Chidambaram, son of former finance minister P Chidambaram, was also questioned for about six hours by the ED on Thursday in connection with a money laundering probe against him in the INX Media case. "You do whatever inquiry against Mr. Chidambaram you want. He will face any inquiry. You do inquiry on anybody you want...But please explain to us why the defence ministry is saying that prime minister has carried out parallel negotiations," Gandhi said. Describing Rafale as an "open and shut" case, he said, "I am telling you that whatever investigation you want to do, you should do it. You are the one who is in government. But then investigate this (Rafale) too." The Rafale deal issue rocked the Lok Sabha Friday, with Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman dismissing the media report on the deal as "flogging a dead horse" and slamming the opposition for playing into the hands of vested interests. Amid the opposition uproar over the Rafale matter, Sitharaman made a suo motu statement on the issue in the House. Immediately after the House convened at noon, members from Congress, TMC and TDP jumped in the well shouting slogans and showing placards referring to a media report which claimed that the Prime Minister's Office had interfered in price negotiations in the multi-billion deal to procure Rafale jets. Opposition members were heard shouting slogans demanding resignation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the issue. Opposition parties also demanded constitution of a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) to probe the Rafale jet deal. Lok Sabah Speaker Sumitra Mahajan asked the slogan shouting members to go to their seats as she would allow them to speak on the matter. Referring to the media report, Saugata Roy (TMC) alleged that parallel negotiations were on when the defence ministry's negotiating committee was handling the matter. He also alleged that "notorious" National Security Advisor Ajit Doval was conducting parallel negotiations in Paris, undermining the bargaining power of the government. "It concerns national security...(Prime Minister Narendra) Modi is destroying the defence of the country and undermining negotiations...Why PMO interfered?. Rafale stands out to be a biggest scandal," he charged. Intervening in the matter, Mahajan said a newspaper will write anything and "you are raising the issue". Sticking to the demand for constitution of JPC, Leader of Congress in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge dubbed the government as anti-national. "You (government) are anti-national. You indulged in stealing but are instead blaming us...You are buying only 26 jets as against 126," Kharge said. He alleged that the defence minister and the prime minister's office were fighting on the issue and the matter has come out in newspaper also. "That is why you need to constitute JPC as the reality will come out. All files would come to JPC. We do not want any other explanation...we do not want to listen to anything," he said. On this, the speaker said discussion has already been conducted on the matter. Union Minister Narendra Singh Tomar said the government participated in the discussion and point by point answers were given by the Defence Minister. He said it was not good to stall Lok Sabha proceedings like this and that the media report was not correct. Amid the shouting and sloganeering, Sitharaman entered the House and made a suo motu statement. "They are flogging a dead horse. Periodical enquiries by the PMO cannot be construed as interference," she said during the Zero Hour. The Defence Minister charged the opposition with playing into the the hands of multinational companies and vested interests and not working in the interests of the Indian Air Force. Referring to the report, which claimed that the then Defence Secretary had objected to the PMO allegedly conducting price negotiations with the French company, Sitharaman said the then Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar had replied to the letter asking the official to remain "calm" as everything was "alright". Sitharaman also alleged that the then Chairperson of the National Advisory Council Sonia Gandhi used to run the PMO regularly during the UPA regime. "Was that not interference?," she asked. Bengaluru: Cracking the whip, the Congress Legislature Party Friday decided to initiate action against four party rebel MLAs under the Anti-Defection Law, Congress Legislative Party (CLP) leader Siddaramaiah said. Briefing reporters after the CLP meet, Siddaramaiah said he would meet Assembly Speaker Ramesh Kumar and urge him to take action against Ramesh Jarkiholi, Umesh Jadhav, Mahesh Kumathali and B Nagendra. He said barring the four and J N Ganesh, all other lawmakers attended the CLP meet. Two MLAs Roshan Baig and B C Patil, who also did not participate, had taken prior permission, he said. Ganesh is declared absconding after an alleged brawl with a lawmaker colleague at a resort recently. Siddaramaiah said the four MLAs had sent letters to him, saying they could not attend the entire budget session of the assembly. "It is the unanimous decision of the CLP that I should go ahead with further action against them under the Anti-Defection Law," Siddaramaiah said. He said sufficient opportunity was given to the four rebel MLAs after the January 18 CLP meet, which they skipped. The January 18 meeting was convened as a show of strength against the BJP's alleged bid to topple the Congress-JD(S) coalition government. Kumaraswamy releases audio clips Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy Friday released two audio clips purportedly of BJP leader B S Yeddyurappa trying to lure JD(S) MLA Nagan Gouda, claiming the party was trying to topple his government and it was being done with the knowledge of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. However, Yeddyurappa dismissed the audio clips as "fake". Kumaraswamy released the clips at a hurriedly called press conference hours before the presentation of the state budget in the assembly. He claimed that the clips were purportedly of Yeddyurappa trying to lure JD(S) MLA Nagan Gouda. Kumaraswamy claimed Yeddyurappa called Nagan Gouda's son Sharan Gouda in the early hours of Friday attempting to entice his father. "Without the knowledge of the prime minister, is it possible to do this," he asked, saying Modi should come clean on the issue. The ruling coalition partners Congress and JD(S) have been accusing the BJP of trying to dethrone their nine-month old government with various offers, including bribe in cash and ministerial berths, a charge the saffron party has rejected. New Delhi: The Union government has decided to take stern action against five senior police officers who were involved in the face-off between the Kolkata Police and CBI officials, sources said on Thursday. The police officers face action for participating in a street protest with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, an action that comes on top of an unprecedented stand-off between the state and central governments which lasted over 45 hours starting Sunday. According to Ministry of Home Affairs sources, the government is planning to withdraw the medals given to these police officers for meritorious services. An MHA source said that Director General of Police, Virendra, a 1985 batch IPS officer, Additional DG Vineet Goyal, a 1994 batch IPS officer, Additional DG law and order Anuj Sharma, a 1991 batch IPS officer, Commissioner of Police Gyanwant Singh, a 1993 batch officer and Additional CP Supratim Sarkar, a 1997 batch officer will face action. On Tuesday, MHA sources had said that Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar would face fresh problem with the Centre on Tuesday asking the West Bengal government to initiate disciplinary proceedings against him. The source had said that a letter was written to the West Bengal chief secretary to initiate action against the 1989-batch IPS officer citing "indisciplined behaviour and violation of All India Services (Conduct) Rules 1968/AIS (Discipline and Appeal), Rules 1969 by the officer". Kochi: A court here has sentenced a woman to life imprisonment for killing her husband to live with another man whom she had struck a friendship over phone. Kocheriyil Sajitha (39) of Manakkakadavu, Thengode in Kakkanad was found guilty of murdering her husband Paul Varghese (42). Sajitha was close to Tisson Kuruvila of Pambadikandathil in Pambadi and had carried out the crime to live with him. Though Tisson was the second accused in the case, he was let off owing to lack of evidence. The incident relating to the case took place on February 22, 2011. Sajitha gave her husband supper laced with sleeping pills and after he slept strangulated him with a towel and pressed a pillow against his face to kill him. After Paul died, Sajitha called relatives and said that he had hanged himself. Pauls body was taken to a private hospital in Aluva with the help of neighbours. However, when the postmortem revealed that hanging was not the cause of Pauls death, Sajitha was arrested. The phone calls between Sajitha and Tisson and their contradictory statements helped police solve the crime. Sajithas two children aged 8 and 4 were in the house when the murder took place. The case was investigated by the then Thrikkakara CI Byju Paulose and the charge sheet was filed by DySP V K Sanil Kumar. The judgment was delivered by Paravur additional district and sessions court judge Ahammed Koya. The court found that Sajitha had tried to destroy evidence and make the murder look like a suicide case. The judge allowed Sajithas plea to shift her from Viyyur central jail to Thiruvananthapuram central jail. The crime Sajitha planned to give sleeping pills in food to her husband after their children had slept in another room. But the amount of pills was not sufficient to kill Paul. Following which, she strangulated him with the help of her lover, according to the police. A towel and a pillow were used to choke Paul to death. Tisson left soon after and Sajitha alerted relatives, said the police. Pineapple as gift The police found that Sajitha had presented Tisson with a pineapple from her house premises when he left after the murder. This was revealed to the police by Sajitha. Based on this statement, the police had made Tisson an accused. However, enough evidence could not be produced before the court in this regard and Tisson was exonerated. How they met Sajitha and Tisson met after an advertisement was placed for the marriage of a woman who was a relative of Sajithas husband. They formed a friendship which later turned into an affair. Tisson, who was working in the UK, began contacting Sajitha over phone frequently. After the affair started Sajitha wished to live with Tisson, but did not want to abandon her kids. The plan Tisson had asked Sajitha to join him in the UK and she felt that killing Paul was the only way to be with her lover as well as keep her kids. She planned to shift to the UK after the murder and decided to carry out the crime while Tisson was in Kerala. Hit and run The police learned that Tisson and Sajitha had earlier planned to eliminate Paul in a hit and run incident. They told the police that their premise was that if Paul was given sleeping pills along with his breakfast he would meet with an accident while riding his bike. However, the plan was abandoned as Tisson felt that Paul may only be seriously injured in such an accident. Tisson planned to kill his wife too Tisson also told the police that he also hatched a plan to kill his wife to live with Sajitha. He made preparations to murder her on the premises of Malampuzha Dam when she came to India from the UK. Incidentally, Tisson went to the UK on a family visa of his wife, who was a nurse there. Tisson worked as a salesman in a supermarket. Concealing evidence Contradictory statements by Sajitha to neighbours and relatives regarding Pauls death gave rise to suspicion. She said that it was by hanging as well as due to natural causes. When the body was taken to a private hospital in Aluva, it was found that the death had occurred much earlier. Moreover, there were some marks on Pauls neck and the hospital authorities called the police. An inquest was conducted followed by postmortem before Paul was laid to rest. The police made enquiries with Sajitha and other relatives and kept her under watch. Meanwhile, the postmortem report which said that Pauls death was a murder came out. Sajitha then told the police that Paul had hanged himself and that the rope used for the purpose was burned by her. The police found these statements suspicious and conducted a thorough probe, leading to the arrests of Sajitha and Tisson. Sentencing Sajitha to life term, the court said that she alone was responsible for the murder that took place in her house. Kottayam: The Kerala government Friday said there was now no relevance for the Travancore Devaswom Board's plea in the Supreme Court, seeking extension of time to implement its September 28 verdict, permitting women of all age groups entry into the Lord Ayyappa temple in Sabarimala. Devaswom Minister Kadakampally Surendran said the plea was filed during the two-month-long Sabarimala pilgrim season as there was not much basic facilities for women devotees reaching there in large numbers. "Since the pilgrim season is over, there is no relevance for such a plea now," he told reporters here. The minister claimed the Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) had accepted the Supreme Court order. Devaswom Minister Kadakampally Surendran "Don't forget the fact that TDB had accepted the Supreme Court verdict," he said, referring to the U-turn made by the board when the apex court Wednesday heard pleas, seeking review of its verdict. He said the board took a stand in line with the Supreme Court order during the hearing of pleas seeking review on Wednesday. During the earlier round of litigation, the TDB had opposed the PIL by the Indian Young Lawyers Association seeking to throw open the shrine for all women. However on Wednesday, it supported the apex court's order, joining the Kerala government to oppose a batch of pleas seeking review of the Supreme Court verdict. The minister also dismissed as "media creation" reports of differences between TDB president A Padmakumar and Devaswom Commissioner A Vasu over the stand taken by the board in the apex court on Wednesday. TDB president A Padmakumar Surendran's statement comes a day after a row broke out in the TDB after its president A Padmakumar sought an explanation from the Devaswom Commissioner for reversing its stand on the Supreme Court's verdict. Padmakumar had said Thursday that the board had actually submitted a plea seeking extension of time to implement the September 28 order. "Our counsel got only three minutes when the review petitions were taken up (in the Supreme Court) on Wednesday. When the court asked whether the board was accepting the verdict permitting women's entry, he naturally replied in the affirmative. We are yet to know what had actually happened in the court," Padmakumar had told reporters in Pathanamthitta. "The Devaswom commissioner (N Vasu) was the one who was sent to New Delhi in connection with the case. He knows what happened. I have sought an explanation from him in this regard," the TDB chief had said. The board's changed stand had invited strong protests from various quarters, including the Pandalam royal family, attached to the Sabarimala Temple. The temple body had told a five-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, that it was high time that a particular class not be discriminated on the ground of "biological attributes". New Delhi: The National Ayyappa Devotees' Association on Thursday moved the Supreme Court seeking recall of its order which reserved verdict on pleas seeking review of an earlier judgement, allowing women of all age groups to enter the Sabarimala temple, on the ground that NADA was not allowed to advance arguments in the hearing. A five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi Wednesday reserved its decision on pleas seeking re-consideration of the September 28, 2018 judgement. "I am seeking recall of the yesterday's order by which the verdict was reserved on review pleas, because I was not allowed to advance oral arguments," lawyer Mathews J Nedumpara, appearing for NADA, told the bench. "You file a written arguments within three days and if we are satisfied that it requires oral hearing then we will consider," said the bench, comprising the CJI and Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna. The lawyer alleged that he had raised fundamental questions of law in petition of NADA, but the Constitution Bench did not allow him to argue. As many as 65 petitions -- including 56 review petitions and four fresh writ petitions including that of NADA and five transfer pleas -- were filed in the apex court after its verdict sparked violent protests in Kerala. The apex court on Wednesday told lawyers it would hear only those who are parties to review petitions and did not allow others to argue the case, the lawyer said. The organisation has also sought video-recording of the further proceedings in the case. "The refusal to hear the petitioners' counsel has rendered the review petition wholly redundant, nay, as an exercise in futility, which is sure to result in great injustice. The petitioners say so because the contentions which their counsel sought to urge, but was not allowed, were those which nobody had urged," the plea said. The apex court, by a majority of 4:1 on September 28 last year, lifted the ban that prevented women and girls between the age of 10 and 50 from entering the temple in Kerala and had held that this centuries-old Hindu religious practice was illegal and unconstitutional. India is a country where farmer suicides are rampant. Many of them resort to the extreme step after failing to obtain reasonable prices for their crops. A recent incident in which a farmer who received a mere Rs 1,064 for 750 kg of onion donated that amount to the Prime Ministers National Relief Fund highlighted the plight of agriculturists here. So when an IT engineer in the country decided to quit his lucrative job and a promising career to take up farming, several eyebrows were raised. Especially in view of the fact that he was paid around Rs 6.5 lakh per annum. But Anup Patil from Maharashtra did exactly that two years ago and he earns around Rs 20 lakh from farming now. The 28-year-old farms on around 12 acres of land and employs 15 workers. Anup had worked around four years in the IT sector before turning to tilling the land. He quit his IT job after realizing that the only inspiration was enjoying the weekend off days. The youth then headed to his apartment in Pune and spent three months there making preparations for launching a new life as farmer. He concealed the fact that he was unemployed during this period and went to meet people growing crops on the land in Gujarat, Karnataka and Maharashtra. Alongside, he conducted research on agriculture as well as the market. After this learning period, Anup headed to his native village of Nagrel in Maharashtras Sangli district to pursue his new passion as well as profession. By then, he had prepared a comprehensive plan for the purpose. However, many people tried to dissuade Anup pointing out the travails and troubles faced by agriculturists in the country. But the youth was determined to go ahead with his dream and started with sugarcane, the traditional crop farmed in the area. He applied for subsidy and used a portion of the money to build a poly house in his farm. In the poly house, he planted 7,000 saplings of coloured capsicum. Unfortunately, 1,000 of them wilted, but Anup did not lose heart. He bought another 1,000 saplings and planted them in place of the damaged ones. Anup was the first farmer in that village to try such experiments, but his efforts bore fruit in the first year itself and he reaped a decent profit. Before planting capsicum, Anup had reached a deal with buyers regarding the price and quantity and when the harvest took place, he gave them the A-grade produce. The remaining crop of lower quality was sold in the local market. After sugarcane and capsicum, the new gen farmer tried his hand at flower farming. However, the market crashed during harvest time and Anup suffered a loss. But again that did not deter the youth from trying out other experiments. Chrysanthemum flower was the next crop Anup dabbled with and he earned a good profit this time. Alongside, he grew capsicum and sweet corn. Meanwhile, the IT engineer-turned-farmer noticed that an area in his farm was water-logged always. Utilizing his alert mind, Anup decided to breed fish in the pond. Anup is ably supported by his wife, a post-graduate, in all his ventures. There is something to learn from everyone. Even a small-scale farmer can provide you with a useful tip. It is this thirst for knowledge that is the secret of my success, says Anup. He feels that more educated youngsters need to step into the farming sector and tap its commercial aspects. Anup can be contacted in the e-mail ID mail2patilanup@gmail.com Visakhapatnam: In these days of ostentatious marriages with even the middle-class families spending lakhs of rupees, an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer from Andhra is setting an example for others. Patnala Basanth Kumar, Commissioner, Visakhapatnam Metropolitan Region Development Authority (VMRDA) will be spending just Rs 36,000 on the marriage of his son scheduled here on February 10. The families of bridegroom and bride will bear an expenditure of Rs 18,000 each on the ceremony, including the lunch for the guests. Andhra Pradesh and Telangana Governor ESL Narasimhan will bless the couple at the simple ceremony on Friday. In 2017, Basanth Kumar had also performed his daughter's marriage with equal simplicity by spending just Rs 16,100. Basanth Kumar, who was promoted to IAS cadre in 2012, had earlier served as Officer on Special Duty and Joint Secretary to Governor Narasimhan. People say he is setting an example at a time when many families are wasting huge money on marriages, which have become occasion for vulgar display of wealth. Nature provides us with various signs that give indications about future events. For instance, when the sky becomes overcast and birds fly to their nests, everyone realizes that it would rain soon. There are several such clues in the surroundings that can be studied to foretell upcoming incidents. People of earlier generations in Kerala had noticed that when the bamboos blossom, a drought would be witnessed in the area the following year. Similarly, if the golden shower tree (konna) blooms in February instead of April, it indicates that the hot season has set in and that the mercury would shoot up during the following months. People in Tamil Nadu also follow such beliefs. According to them, if a bumper crop of mango is harvested, a drought would hit the area during the coming year leading to poverty and hunger. However, according to Tamil Nadu natives, if it is tamarind that produces a good yield, prosperity will prevail in the land during the following year. It could be inferred that this knowledge was acquired by the residents of the neighbouring state based on years of experience as both mango as well as tamarind grow abundantly there. At present, mango blossoms have appeared all over Kerala. It is certain that a bumper mango harvest awaits farmers in the state. But one also wonders whether the blooms are not a sign of a severe drought and crop loss during next year. Such premises have no scientific basis, but the people can pray for a normal rainfall and a regular harvest. Authors contact details: Dr P B Rajesh, Rama Nivas, Poovathum Parambil, Near ESI Dispensary, Eloor East, Udyogamandal PO, Ernakulam 683501. email: rajeshastro1963@gmail.com Phone: 9846033337, 0484 2546421. New Delhi: Congress President Rahul Gandhi has set the broad parameters for selecting candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. As news that would be relief to sitting Congress MLAs across the country Rahul has said they need not contest the Lok Sabha polls. Sitting MLAs and Rajya Sabha MPs will be considered in rare cases only. Youth and women have to be given prominence. Newcomers should get their chance and those who have lost twice or more before in polls will not be considered, he told a meeting of AICC general secretaries here on Thursday. Congress leaders who hope to field a few members from their family for the election will have to rethink as the party chief has ordered not many kin of leaders should be given the party ticket to enter the fray. Screening committees have to make a list by February 20 and contestants declared by the end of the month. A central panel will monitor campaigns throughout the country. Requests to employ general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra for national campaigns were not finalised at the meeting. It also decided to make sure that the minimum wage promise by the party reached every voter. Issue of citizenship bill will be made a weapon against the BJP in the northeast. All general secretaries, including Priyanka, reviewed the political climate in every state. She thanked Rahul Gandhi for her induction in to the party and promised to create a strong base in Uttar Pradesh. Oommen Chandy, KC Venugopal and PC Chacko attended the meeting. Priyanka-Rahul road show in UP Priyanka will lead her first road show - from Lucknow airport to the party office - after taking up the responsibility for eastern UP on February 11. She will be present in the region, along with Rahul and general secretary Jyotiraditya Scindia, until the 14th. New Delhi: Newly-appointed Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi will hit the campaign trail with brother and party president Rahul Gandhi in battleground Uttar Pradesh with a roadshow in Lucknow on February 11. Both the Gandhis along with general secretary for west Uttar Pradesh Jyotiraditya Scindia will lead the roadshow from Lucknow airport to the state Congress office where they will interact with the media. Priyanka Gandhi and Scindia will then interact with state leaders and party workers on February 12, 13 and 14, to chalk the strategies for the Lok Sabha elections in the country's most populous state which sends 80 members to parliament. The Congress, not a part of Samajwadi Party-Bahujan Samaj Party alliance in UP, has decided to go it alone but also keep the door open for prospective allies. The party could win only two seats in the state in the 2014 general elections. Priyanka Gandhi, on Thursday attended her maiden party meeting presided by Rahul Gandhi at the Congress headquarters here where all General Secretaries and in-charges of states, brainstormed over the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. Talking to media after the meeting, Rahul Gandhi reiterated his allegation against prime Minster Narendra Modi over the "Rafale scam". "The Prime Minister has helped steal Rs 30,000 crore from the defence forces. He has handed that money to Anil Ambani. He has done this personally," said the Congress chief, with Priyanka Gandhi by his side. Congress general secretary K C Venugopal, later interacting with the media, said the party will finalise the candidate list for the general elections by the end of the month. "The party has decided to expedite the process of candidate sections and finalise alliances in the state wherever possible. All the general secretaries and state in charges have been asked to finalise the candidates by February," he said. He said that preference will be given to women, youth and minorities while selecting the candidates and there will be a fine blend of youth and experience in the final list of candidates. He also said that Rahul Gandhi has asked for setting up a mechanism enabling the central leadership to monitor and supervise the electioneering and campaigning in the states. Badreyah Al-Marshed stands in front of a wave simulation tank used to conduct simulations for her project. | Image: Texas A&M Engineering Seawalls, dikes and sand dunes are single defense alternatives protecting the worlds beaches and coastlines. With nearly 40 percent of the population living along the coastline, it is now more important than ever to better protect our coastal communities. Badreyah Al- Marshed , a doctoral candidate in the Department of Ocean Engineering at Texas A&M University, is working to develop a functional design for a hybrid coastal structure based on the wave-structure interaction during storm events. Al- Marsheds research is centered on building a defense structure for coastlines. By combining a rubble mound dike and a sand dune into one structure, it can widen beaches and provide many benefits including but not limited to flood protection, enhance tourism and also create new habitats for a variety of species. The structures hybrid nature allows for the simultaneous protection and restoration of coastal ecosystems. This design also offers the desired level of infrastructure protection against flooding and storm surge and can be utilized in locations with limited space. Members and some residents wants the council to adopt an ordinance against cooperating with the federal immigration agency. Kennebunk Post "We are trying to tell the narrative of our town as a whole, all the pieces that makes us who we are today." Q: What is electricity distribution? As Johnson described, electricity distribution is the final part of the energy supply chain in which the electricity carried across power lines is delivered to the consumer. Because well-functioning power lines are vital to the process, distributor companies are responsible for overseeing and maintaining them to ensure customers are receiving service. Due to the high cost of construction, it is common for only one distributor to exist in a service area. In the United States, the regulation of this sector is done by state agencies that aim to identify anomalies in distribution and correct companies. If no anomalies are brought to their attention, no initiative is made to evaluate distributor companies. Europe, on the other hand, has a more proactive approach. Johnson explained that each country has a federal regulator who actively studies the performance of distributors and enacts policies to ensure customers are getting fair pricing and arent being taken advantage of by the sole area distributor. Q: What issue(s) does your research address? Thirty or 40 years ago, Johnson said, European electricity distribution services were owned by the federal governments. However, that raised concerns that the government didnt maintain a high quality of service because there wasnt a profit incentive. In order to improve the service level provided, electricity distribution was privatized across Europe, but was still regulated and benchmarked by the federal governments. What we're trying to do with our regulation and technique is push back in the other direction. So now the service level is pretty good, but we want to make sure the companies are providing service at the best cost for the people, Johnson said. A Baltimore high school remains on lockdown after an adult male was shot on Friday, police said in a statement, Trend reported citing Sputnik. Baltimore police earlier said that an adult male was shot at the Frederick Douglass High School. "UPDATE: The school remains on lockdown. All students are safe. Dismissal info will be coming shortly from @BaltCitySchools," the Baltimore Police said in a tweet. Police said a suspect has been taken into custody, but did not release any details about the person's identity. Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 8 By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend: Turkey welcomes New Zealands decision to list the PKK as a terrorist organization, Trend reports referring to a statement of Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Turkey also expects from its other allies that they strengthen their support for Turkey in the fight against the PKK terrorists, the statement reads. The conflict between Turkey and PKK, which demands the creation of an independent Kurdish state, has lasted more than 35 years, claiming more than 40,000 lives. PKK is recognized as a terrorist organization by the UN and the EU. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu Russia and Israel continue to actively communicate in the military sphere, Russias ambassador to Israel Anatoly Viktorov has told TASS in an interview, Trend reports referring to TASS. "Russia and Israel continue active contacts in the military domain. Meetings are being held, the most recent of them took place in late 2018," the diplomat said. When asked about Israels reaction to Russias deployment of S-300 air defense systems in Syria, Viktorov said the news were met "with concern." "Most of all, the Israelis are worried about the prospect of handing over control over the systems to the Syrian military," the diplomat said. On September 17, Russias Ilyushin Il-20 surveillance plane was downed over the Mediterranean Sea when it was flying back to the Russian-operated airbase at Syrias Hmeymim. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the plane was shot down by a missile from a Syrian S-200 air defense system when it was firing at four Israeli F-16 aircraft attacking targets in the Latakia governorate. The Israeli pilots actually hid behind the Russian plane exposing it to Syrian missiles, the ministry stressed. The Russian Defense Ministry stressed that Israel bore full responsibility for the incident, which claimed the lives of 15 Russian military servicemen. Morocco on Thursday officially restored compulsory military service, despite complaints from some young people in the North African country, Trend reports referring to Al Arabiya. King Mohammed VI gave instructions that 10,000 conscripts be called to military service in the current year, before bringing this figure to 15,000 in the next year, a cabinet statement carried by the MAP agency said. Moroccans aged between 19 and 25 look set to be called up for one year, according to the legislation that was unveiled in August, some 12 years after conscription was abolished. The first conscripts will be enrolled in Autumn 2019, government spokesman Mustapha Khalfi said. Draft dodgers face penalties ranging from one month to a year in prison, but exemptions will be made for those who do not meet physical standards and for university students. Military service will be optional for women and dual nationals. Conscripts will be paid between 1,050 dirhams (96 euros) and 2,000 dirhams (185 euros) net per month, according to Khalfi. Moroccans are divided over the return of military service some view it as gainful employment for youths left behind by development, others as a tool to blunt protest movements. The palace said its goal is to improve integration in professional and social life for young people and boost their sense of citizenship. Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 8 By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend: March 15 this year marks exactly eight years since the start of the internal conflict in Syria, which, as a result of the intervention of a number of countries, has led to a series of bloody clashes. Although in the first years of the military conflict Ankara supported the Syrian opposition politically, in the future, Turkey changed its position in favor of Moscow. However, Moscow also made a number of concessions for Ankara in Syria. The Operation Olive Branch, which was successfully carried out by the Turkish Armed Forces, and the Aleppo Agreement became possible as a result of Ankaras negotiations with Moscow. As is known, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin will hold a meeting in Sochi on Feb. 14 this year. The upcoming meeting of the presidents of Turkey and Russia can be considered the most important step that will determine the future course of events in Syria. Against the background of the expected meeting between Erdogan and Putin, the question regarding the start of negotiations between Ankara and Damascus also remains on the agenda. However, at the end of January this year, President Erdogan made a statement that Turkey wont conduct dialogue with Syria at the highest level. He said Bashar al-Assad is responsible for the death of about a million innocent citizens. This is while earlier, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said the absence of diplomatic ties between Ankara and Damascus doesnt mean the intelligence services of the two countries arent in touch with each other. Besides, the consulate of the Syrian Arab Republic still exists in Istanbul. On Feb. 7, Iranian media reported that Tehran is ready to become an intermediary between Ankara and Damascus, and the representatives of the Syrian and Turkish intelligence services held a number of meetings in Damascus. So far, Ankara hasnt commented on these reports, but even if Ankara engages in a dialogue with Damascus, it isnt Iran that will mediate in the talks: that will happen only with the mediation of Russia. It is expected that this issue will be on the agenda during the meeting between Erdogan and Putin. As for Ankaras agreement to start a dialogue with Damascus, much will depend on Russias proposal. If Moscow gives a full guarantee that after the US withdrawal from Syria the PYD/YPG troops will leave the north of Syria and wont pose a threat to Turkey, Ankara may consider this issue. --- Rufiz Hafizoglu, deputy editor-in-chief of Trend Follow him on Twitter: @rhafizoglu Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 8 By Elnur Baghishov Trend: Iran has its own solutions to sanctions, and can import and export the necessary products, Javad Jahangirzadeh, Iran's ambassador to Azerbaijan, said at a press conference, Trend reports. According to the ambassador, the sanctions certainly create difficulties. "For example, there are sanctions on the import of cancer-treating medicines to Iran. Similarly, sanctions on other necessary products have been imposed." However, Iran manages to acquire all products (e.g. meat) and meets the needs of its citizens, the ambassador noted. "Iran has ways to import and export products and chooses not to disclose them so as to prevent the sanctions," the ambassador said, adding that during these times of sanctions, Iran maintains its ties with its partners. The US declared its withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in May 2018 and subsequently imposed sanctions against Iran in November 2018. Baku, Azerbaijan, February 8 Trend: Tashkent Mayor's Office (Uzbekistan) explained that the increase in the rent of state property by averagely 70 percent is due to a gradual transition to market economy, Trend reports via Gazeta.uz. The city administration approved the minimum rental rates for the use of state real estate on January 11. The document states that, the average rental price increased by 70 percent compared to last year, while the size of the indexation was about 20 percent in 2018, in 2017 - 10 percent, in 2016 - 12 percent. The cost of renting public premises was balanced against the rent of private sector premises. For instance, the rent for 1 square meter in the private sector at the moment ranges from $5 to $20 and the rental of state property was much lower, noted the office. Profits from the lease of state property will be directed to local budgets, the funds from which will later serve the development of the investment climate of Tashkent, the city administration stressed. Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 8 Trend: The visit of Federal President of Germany Frank-Walter Steinmeier to Uzbekistan is scheduled for May this year, Trend reports via Uzbek media. This was announced by the Committee for Interethnic Relations and Friendly Ties with Foreign Countries under the Cabinet of Ministers of Uzbekistan. In late January, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev made an official visit to Germany, during which he met with his German counterpart. There, the Uzbek leader invited Steinmeier to visit Uzbekistan. Steinmeier said he was ready to visit Uzbekistan in spring this year. There were more than 80 signed agreements during Mirziyoyevs visit to Germany. The parties agreed to bring the trade to $1 billion in the near future. Moreover, private companies of the sides signed contracts worth over 8 billion euros (or more than $9 billion). Baku, Azerbaijan, February 9 Trend: The US First Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Alice Wells to visit Uzbekistan, Trend reports with reference to the Uzbek Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This was announced after the talks of Uzbek delegation headed by Deputy Prime Minister Tanzila Narbayeva with Alice Wells in Washington. Wells welcomed the intensification and expansion of countrys interaction with international non-governmental organizations. In her opinion, the transparency of reforms that being implemented in Uzbekistan is conducive to strengthening the country's international reputation. "The diplomat highly appreciated the well-established practice of constructive dialogue and exchange of views on all issues of Uzbek-American cooperation and noted that she is looking forward to her visit to Tashkent to participate in the next round of bilateral consultations between two countries," the press service of Uzbek Foreign Ministry stated. The issues of enhancing international cooperation in the field of human rights, expanding the role of Uzbekistan in regional processes, including stabilizing the situation in Afghanistan were touched at a meeting with Deputy Assistant of The US President Lisa Curtis. The representative of the White House highly appreciated the transformations being carried out in the country, especially in promoting the agenda of human rights at the state level. During negotiations with Acting Assistant Secretary of State Michael Kozak, reforms in the agricultural sector, ensuring media freedom and others were discussed. Uzbekistan has improved its position in the reports of the State Department and the US Department of Labor, in the list of countries of particular concern in the field of religious freedom. Baku, Azerbaijan, February 8 Trend: The first round of negotiations on the Expanded Partnership and Cooperation Agreement between Uzbekistan and the EU (EPCA) was held in Tashkent on February 4-7, Trend reports via Uzbek media. Representative delegations of the parties were led by Uzbek Deputy Foreign Minister Dilshod Akhatov and Deputy Managing Director of the European External Action Service Luc Devigne. "The parties divided into three groups and came to a common understanding of the structure of draft Agreement. They discussed in detail all sections of the draft document by identifying possible mutually acceptable provisions," the press service of Uzbek Foreign Ministry said. The meetings of experts on the trade section of draft Agreement with the participation of Uzbek relevant ministries representatives will continue until the end of the week by mutual agreement. The second round of negotiations on the EPCA will take place in Brussels (Belgium). Moreover, consultations were held on preparation of the application of Uzbekistan for the status of General System of Preferences Plus (GSP+) and also a briefing for representatives of Uzbek business community to learn about the benefits of obtaining the GSP + status. The new contract is intended to replace the Agreement on partnership and cooperation between Uzbekistan and the European Communities and their member states that has been in force since July 1, 1999. The document is expected to focus on political cooperation, trade and investment relations, sustainable development and interaction, as well as human rights and governance. Baku, Azerbaijan, February 8 Trend: Uzbekistan has asked Georgia to provide its airlines with the "Fifth freedom of air", Trend reports citing the press service of Uzbek Foreign Ministry. The fifth freedom allows an airline to carry revenue traffic between foreign countries as a part of services connecting the airline's own country. It is the right to carry passengers from one's own country to a second country and from that country to a third country (and so on). This proposal was announced during the 11-th round of political consultations in Tashkent between the foreign ministries of the two countries. Uzbekistan Airways plans to open a flight on the route Tashkent-Tbilisi-Tashkent this year. In this connection, the Uzbek side raised with the Georgian delegation the question of the possible provision of Uzbek Airways with the Fifth freedom of air", the press service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. For instance, Uzbekistan Airways, with hypothetical flights on the route Tashkent-Tbilisi-Baku, will be able to disembark passengers in Tbilisi, as well as take passengers on board to Baku. For passengers, the presence of this agreement with the airline is beneficial due to cheap air tickets, in this case from Tbilisi to Baku and back. Due to the fact that some of the passengers fly only to Tbilisi, the airline always has empty seats on the route from Tbilisi to Baku, which it tries to load as much as possible, using reduced prices. Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 8 Trend: Cyril Muller, Vice-President of the World Bank for Europe and Central Asia, intends to visit Uzbekistan in March this year to discuss the most promising projects, Trend reports via the Uzbek media. Negotiations were held in Washington between a delegation of Uzbekistan, composed of Vice Premier Tanzila Narbayeva, Minister of Employment and Labor Relations Sherzod Kudbiyev and Chairman of the Uztextileprom Association Ilkhom Haydarov with Cyril Muller, where he told about his intentions to visit Uzbekistan. During the negotiations, Muller noted the possibility of cooperation in three main areas. The first is the continuation of the tripartite format between Uzbekistan, the World Bank and the International Labor Organization (ILO). The second is the promotion of employment and the creation of favorable working conditions. The third is the implementation of projects related to gender equality, infrastructure development, increasing energy efficiency, modernizing agriculture and ensuring food security, increasing the countrys trade and export potential. Muller noted two fundamental achievements of Uzbekistan: a steady decline in the number of forced labor cases and the introduction of effective mechanisms for monitoring, feedback and response. Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Feb. 8 By Huseyn Hasanov Trend: Turkmen Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Rashid Meredov will visit Tunisia Feb. 7- 9, 2019 to conduct political consultations, Trend reports referring to the presidents decree. The sides will also discuss the issues of bilateral cooperation. The Turkmen and Tunisian foreign ministers will exchange views on current spheres of partnership within the UN and other authoritative international structures. Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Feb. 8 By Huseyn Hasanov Trend: The German-Turkmen business forum is scheduled to be held in Berlin on February 12-13, 2019, Trend reports referring to a source in the Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs of Turkmenistan. The management of the board of the Committee on Eastern European Economic Relations intends to visit Turkmenistan in March 2019. The events will be held following the recent visit of the Turkmen delegation headed by Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Rashid Meredov to Hamburg and Berlin. Several meetings were held during the visit, including one with Chairman of Committee on Eastern European Economic Relations Wolfgang Buechele. The prospects for cooperation in such spheres as energy, gas chemical industry, transport and communications, banking sector were discussed during the meeting. In May, it was reported that the Turkmen delegation headed by Deputy Prime Minister Chary Gylyjov held talks at the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. The sides discussed the issues of expanding the ties in such spheres as energy, finance, health care, agriculture, infrastructure and tourism. The German companies make a significant contribution to the implementation of long-term projects in Turkmenistan. Among them are such companies as Siemens, Daimler, Claas, Rohde & Schwarz, Dresser-Rand. In 2016, 167 investment projects and contracts with German capital worth $540 million and about 555 million euros were registered in Turkmenistan. Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 8 By Rashid Shirinov Trend: Kazakhstan will take part in a meeting of the OPEC+ Monitoring Committee in Baku as a member of the group, said Deputy Minister of Energy of Kazakhstan Magzum Mirzagaliyev, Trend reports via Kazakh media. "We were invited, we will enter the group from this year. The first meeting is scheduled to be held at the ministerial level in Baku in March. We plan to take part in it. We will take part in the meeting of the Monitoring Committee," Mirzagaliyev told reporters after an expanded meeting of the Energy Ministry's board. The 13th meeting of the OPEC+ Monitoring Committee will be held in Baku on March 18. The Committee was established to monitor compliance with the OPEC+ agreement and make recommendations for its adjustment. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @ShirinovRashid Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 8 By Rashid Shirinov Trend: Kazakhstan will start exporting oil products to Central Asia, Energy Minister Kanat Bozumbayev said, Trend reports via Kazakh media. "In the current half of the year it is planned to start exporting our oil products, mainly to the countries of Central Asia. The legislative base is at the final stage," he said, speaking at an expanded meeting of the board of the Energy Ministry. According to the minister, the volume of oil refining in 2018 increased by 8.6 percent compared to 2017 and amounted to 16.4 million tons. This year it is planned to process 17.2 million tons, which is 5 percent more than in 2018. "The volume of production of the main types of oil products - jet fuel, diesel fuel, gasoline, fuel oil - in 2018 increased by 9.4 percent compared to 2017. The plan for this year is 12.2 million tons, with a 5 percent increase from the 2018 level," Bozumbayev informed. He added that this year the provision of the market with domestic gasoline, diesel fuel and jet fuel will be 100 percent. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @ShirinovRashid Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 8 By Rashid Shirinov Trend: Kazakhstan produced a record amount of oil in 2018, Energy Minister Kanat Bozumbayev said, Trend reports via Kazakh media. "Oil production for the first time in history reached 90.36 million tons, which is 4.8 percent higher than in 2017. This was made possible thanks to the growth of production at the Kashagan, Tengiz and Karachaganak fields," he said, speaking at an expanded meeting of the board of the Energy Ministry. The minister said this year it is planned to produce 89 million tons of oil, mainly due to the reduction of production at old fields. "Particularly, production decreased by 1 million tons from the forecast at the Kumkol field in the Kyzylorda region. It is impossible to stop the natural decline in oil production. Nevertheless, work is being done to keep the production volume at a moderate level," Bozumbayev said. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @ShirinovRashid Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 8 By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend: Natural gas reserves have been discovered in the north-west of Turkey, said Fatih Donmez, minister of energy and natural resources of Turkey, Trend reports with reference to the Turkish media Feb. 8. He said that natural gas reserves were found in the vicinity of Istanbul and in Tekirdag province. He noted that the volumes of natural gas reserves in the mentioned areas are being specified. Donmez added that Turkey will continue conducting oil and gas exploration onshore and offshore. Earlier, the Turkish Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources told Trend that Turkey expanded the territory for oil and gas exploration operations. If earlier, there were problems with oil and gas exploration in several eastern provinces, hydrocarbon fields are now being explored in those provinces, the ministry said. A law permitting oil exploration in forests and national parks came into force in Turkey in April 2014. The ministry said a total of 56 wells have been drilled as part of exploration of new oil and gas fields in Turkey since 2014, of which 54 are onshore and two are offshore. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 8 By Rashid Shirinov Trend: The Hungarian government has allocated about 450 million euros for the development of business projects in Kazakhstan and Hungary, Trend reports via Kazakh media. "These funds are intended for Hungarian businessmen in Kazakhstan and for Kazakh businessmen in Hungary. This is a huge amount that should be used to bring our businesses closer and create interesting joint projects," Kazakh Ambassador to Hungary Nurbakh Rustemov said. It should be noted that the Hungarian oil and gas company MOL invested more than $200 million in the mining sector of Kazakhstan. The company has been present in the Kazakh market for more than 10 years. The main interest of MOL is the Fedorovsky block, which has promising reserves and potential for further exploration. The company is preparing for further exploratory drilling in the block. Another important area of cooperation between the two countries is agriculture. Established In 2015, the Kazakh-Hungarian Investment Fund with the authorized capital of $40 million, continues to work successfully. In 2018, the Fund financed two projects: a greenhouse complex in the Aktobe region with a design capacity of 1,500 tons of vegetables per year, and the creation of new apple orchards on an area of 300 hectares. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @ShirinovRashid Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 8 By Matanat Nasibova - Trend: In 2019, Gilan Gabala Canning Factory LLC plans to increase exports of "Jale" fruit juice to European markets, a source at the factory told Trend. The factory currently exports its products to the French market, according to the source. "Last year, primary deliveries of juices to France were small, but due to increased demand, we will gradually increase the volume," the source said. Presently, the largest share of company's exports of fruit juices falls on the Russian market, according to the source. "We mainly export pomegranate juice to Russia, and fruit puree in small volumes. There is a great demand for pomegranate juice," the source noted. Products of the Gilan Gabala Canning Factory have a certificate of conformity issued by the State Committee for Standardization, Metrology and Patents of Azerbaijan. The factory uses equipment of German, Turkish and Swiss production. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @MatanatNasibova Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 8 By Rashid Shirinov Trend: Kazakhstan is negotiating a free trade zone agreement with five countries, Trend reports via Kazakh media. These are Egypt, Israel, India, Serbia and Singapore, Kazakh National Economy Minister Timur Suleimenov said in the parliament. "Kazakhstan's participation in the EEU creates favorable conditions for access of Kazakh producers to foreign markets. This is being done through preferential trade agreements with third countries. In 2015, we signed an agreement on a free trade zone with Vietnam, and in 2018 with Iran, which opened preferential access for our products to the market with a population of about 180 million people," he said. The minister added that today negotiations are underway to conclude similar agreements with Egypt, Israel, India, Serbia and Singapore. "Such agreements will also allow not only improving the conditions for access of domestic goods to the markets of these countries, but also significantly simplifying the applied trade procedures, increasing transparency and interaction in all areas of trade cooperation," Suleimenov said. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @ShirinovRashid Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 8 By Elnur Baghishov - Trend: Iran is planning to bring its trade turnover with Azerbaijan to $5 billion, Iran's Ambassador to Azerbaijan Javad Jahangirzadeh said at a press conference, Trend reports. The envoy noted that that the countries will increase the turnover in long term perspective. As the first step, there have been efforts to hit $1 billion milestone in the current Iranian year, the ambassador said. On this matter, suitcase trade and trade transactions carried through customs are in the focus of attention, Jahangirzadeh said. The ambassador further added that Iran and Azerbaijan cooperate in energy, oil - gas and electricity sectors. The trade turnover between the two countries is planned to reach $2 billion in short term perspective, he said. Reaching $2 billion milestone in trade turnover within 7-8 years can be seen as success for both countries, Jahangirzadeh said, adding that much work needs to be done. Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 8 By Rashid Shirinov Trend: Kazakhstan and Russia in February intend to sign an agreement with Iran on the supply of wheat, Deputy Agriculture Minister of Kazakhstan Gulmira Isaeva said, Trend reports via Kazakh media. She said this agreement is also aimed at joint export of products to third countries. "It was decided that a document will be prepared, which will be an integral part of the signed agreement [on a free trade zone], which will involve three parties - Russia, Kazakhstan and Iran. This agreement has been prepared, the official signing procedure is scheduled for February 12 in Moscow," Isaeva said. She noted that the document will be signed by the ministries of agriculture of the three countries. "The agreement will be signed not for a year, it will be valid for a period while we are interested in supplying products that is, this is a long-term agreement. If one of the parties wants to revise the agreement, we will be able to do it," Isaeva said. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @ShirinovRashid Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 8 By Huseyn Valiyev Trend: The Azerbaijani National Confederation of Entrepreneurs (Employers) Organizations has prepared a big plan of events for 2019, head of the Confederation Mammad Musayev told Trend on Feb. 8. The main goal of the organization is to expand the partnership between the country and the private sector, he added. "The action plan includes joint work with the Ministry of Economy in the districts and close work with the Agency for the Development of small- and medium-sized businesses, he said. He said that a Cooperation Council which serves as a platform for discussions between the Ministry of Taxes and the State Customs Committee operates in the country today. Our plans also include the intensification of the Councils activity and the expansion of international cooperation," Musayev said. Presently, the Confederation cooperates with similar structures in about 50 countries. "The Uzbekistan-Azerbaijan Cooperation Council has been recently established and we intend to expand its activity this year, he said. Our goal is to support the export of Azerbaijani products to the world market. The plan of measures which we have prepared for the current year will be implemented in stages. Over 900,000 legal entities and individuals involved in the field of entrepreneurship have been registered in Azerbaijan, which testifies that today the procedure of registering entrepreneurs takes minimal time, he added. ----- Follow the author on Twitter: @h_veliyev Tehran, Iran, Feb.8 Trend: After the launch of the INSTEX (Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges), Iran's medicine sector has bounced back a little, with Danish Nordisk company making a direct investment in it. "Given that Iran hasn't violated the nuclear deal, the launch of INSTEX wasn't a special measure, but we must wait and see the realities and assess the current conditions of the country," member of Iran Chamber of Commerce Ali Shariati said, Trend reports citing ILNA. He added that while the United States and some countries, along with some domestic advocates, are seeking to make people's living conditions harder, setting up this mechanism can help a lot of people. "After a series of tensions between Iran and Denmark, the arrest of an Iranian diplomat, and withdrawal of this country's ambassador from Tehran, the direct investments from this country into Iran stopped," said Shariati. However, it seems the situation has changed for the better. "Following the normalization of relations between Iran and Denmark, and return of the ambassador, and now with INSTEX, the investments have returned, and this is a good message to other foreign investors," he said. The EU brought sanctions against Irans Ministry of Intelligence and two Iranian officials in response to claims last year about Iran plot to kill an Iranian opposition leader in Denmark and to bomb a major opposition conference in France. Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb.8 By Sara Israfilbayova - Trend: Italian company Lighthouse (formerly G.A.S. Geological Assistance and Services) has many expansion plans in other countries of the Caspian basin, Alberto Panti, the branch manager of the company, told Trend. "Lighthouse is present in Kazakhstan since the 2004 and has been involved in the main offshore projects, for example the giant Kashagan field," he said. He went on to say that certainly, due to the positive overall working track record in the Caspian Sea, the company is looking forward to achieve more goals during carrying out business activity in this region. "In this regard, Convention on legal status of the Caspian Sea recently signed at the fifth Caspian Summit in Aktau, Kazakhstan, on August 12, 2018 is a positive signal in terms of future cooperation between the states and possible co-shared new development," the branch manager said. Further, he mentioned that in 2018, Lighthouse successfully completed the geophysical and geotechnical survey inside the Pearls Project, in the Kazakh sector of the Caspian Sea. The Pearls Project envisages the development of the Khazar and Auezov fields in the north Caspian Sea. The field is operated by Caspi Meruerty Operating Company (CMOC), the consortium between Shell EP Offshore Ventures Limited (55 percent), KazMunayTeniz OOC JSC (25 percent) and Oman Pearls Company Limited (20 percent). "We are extremely pleased that the offshore activities have been completed smoothly, within the budget and without any lost time injury," Panti underlined. Speaking of the differences in work carried out in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, Panti noted that work conditions are different in these countries. "This also includes certain climate differences, which, of course, affect some tools and techniques that we are using during performance of our work. For example, due to a relatively harsh climate in the northern part of the Caspian Sea, main active operations in that area are conducted between April and October. Also, we combine different types of equipment because the sea depth in the northern Caspian is in many cases not more than 8-9 meters," he underlined. Further, Panti stressed that since 2012, Lighthouse has been involved in survey work for the main offshore activities in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea, such as Absheron, Shah Deniz, Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli projects. Lighthouse currently provides investigation services within the Shah Deniz-2 project. Since 2012, Lighthouse is providing geophysical and geotechnical investigations as well as survey and positioning services for offshore oil & gas projects during construction activities. The main purpose of the investigation activities is to detect any geohazards (any possible constraints and hazards from man-made, natural and geological features which may affect the operational or environmental integrity of a planned drilling operation), which may represent a possible risk during the several execution phases of any offshore oil & gas projects and to carry out appropriate operational preventive measures and practices for mitigating any risks identified. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @IsrafilbekovaS Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 8 Trend: An official ceremony was held in Akorda (Presidential palace in Kazakhstan) with the participation of five new ambassadors from Japan, Vietnam, the Czech Republic, Croatia and Tajikistan, who also presented their credentials to the president of Kazakhstan, Trend reports citing the Kapital.kz business information center. "I would like to congratulate you all on the beginning of the diplomatic mission in the country. The start of your time as ambassadors here has coincided with important reforms which will be implemented in Kazakhstan. We have a strategic program till 2050. Now we are carrying out comprehensive work. As an independent state, we wish to be among the 30 developed countries. The future of Kazakhstan depends on the young generation, which knows modern technologies," said President Nursultan Nazarbayev. According to the head of state, Kazakhstan is focused on the flow of investment into the economy, and noted a special approach taken towards technologically advanced countries such as Japan. "We are ready to support cooperation. The development of a comprehensive dialogue with Japan is one of the important tasks of the foreign policy. Our detailed talks with the prime minister, several of our meetings over the years suggest that the countries are ready for cooperation. We are waiting for large Japanese companies that I met in Tokyo. Kazakhstan will create all possible conditions for work," Nazarbayev emphasized. The president said that the bilateral trade relations of the countries increased by 30 percent in 2018, the trade turnover reached $2 billion. "The prospects are still huge," the president added. As a token of respect, Tatsuhiko Kasai, the Japanese ambassador to Kazakhstan, addressed President Nazarbayev in the Kazakh language. "It is a great honor for me today to present my credentials to your Excellency," he said in Kazakh. Later he explained to journalists that, having arrived in Kazakhstan, he is ready to master the Kazakh language. Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 8 By Samir Ali Trend: The Shamakhi District Executive Power received an appeal on the damage to 1,110 houses and facilities in the district, Rustam Aliyev, chief architect of the Shamakhi District Executive Power, told Trend. According to him, 171 houses were examined based on the said appeal. The commission formed in light of the incident continues inspecting the houses. According to their conclusion, it has been established that 29 of the inspected houses are in a critical condition (destroyed), 63 houses can be rebuilt, and 42 houses are in need of repair works. 37 houses are in a satisfactory condition," Aliyev said. Aliyev said that 12 of the destroyed houses are located in the district center, and 17 in the villages. "Residents of the destroyed houses are temporarily housed in the apartments of their relatives. Right now, the commission continues to evaluate the situation in the earthquake zone," he said. On Feb. 5-6, five earthquakes were recorded in various districts of Azerbaijan. An earthquake was recorded on Feb. 5 at 23:31 (GMT+4), 11 km south-west of the Pirgulu station, in the territory of Ismayilli district. According to data from the Republican Seismic Survey Center, the earthquakes was felt at its epicenter at a magnitude of 6, and 3-5 in its vicinity. Destruction has been mainly reported in the Shamakhi district. A 3-point earthquake was recorded on Feb. 6 at 02:34 (GMT+4), 8 km south-west of the Pirgulu station, in the territory of Ismayilli district, with another being recorded at 04:25 (GMT+4). Victims were provided with first aid, after which they were discharged. No casualties have been reported. Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 8 Trend: Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has signed an Order regarding measures to construct the Mughanli-Ismayilli (30 km)-Tazakand-Aghbulag-Goshakand road in the Ismayilli District. Under the presidential Order, the Azerbaijan Highway State Agency is allocated 3.8 million manats for the construction of the road connecting three residential areas with a total population of 3,000 people. Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 8 By Elchin Mehdiyev - Trend: In a protest against the installation of a bust to the terrorist Mikhail Avagyan in the Georgian town of Akhalkalaki, who participated in the occupation of Azerbaijani lands, the Azerbaijanis living in Georgia are holding a rally in front of the country's parliament, a member of the Georgian parliament Azer Suleymanov told Trend. He noted that speeches at the rally included slogans about friendship between Azerbaijan and Georgia. "The participants - the elderly, youth, representatives of NGOs, as well as our Georgian brothers - noted in their speeches that the installation of this bust is a provocation and it must be demolished," Suleymanov said. The bust of Mikhail Avagyan was installed in Georgia's Akhalkalaki on Jan. 20, a tragic day for the Azerbaijani people, when mourning events were held in Azerbaijan to commemorate hundreds of victims of the Jan. 20, 1990 military operation. He was nicknamed Cobra during the occupation of Azerbaijan's Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding districts. Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 8 By Elnur Baghishov Trend: Speaking at a press conference held on February 8, the Iranian ambassador to Azerbaijan Javad Jahangirzadeh expressed his hope for the further development of military cooperation between the two countries, Trend reports. According to Jahangirzadeh, Iran considers Azerbaijan as a friendly and brotherly country, therefore the military cooperation is at a high level. Jahangirzadeh said that the visit of the Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Major General Mohammad Hossein Bagheri to Azerbaijan for the military cooperation between Azerbaijan and Iran can be especially highlighted. The Iranian ambassador added that General Bagheri rarely makes visits to foreign countries, so far having been to Turkey, Pakistan and Russia. "The 4th visit of Chief of the General Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces was precisely to Azerbaijan," he said, adding that this is a clear marker of the military cooperation between the two countries being at a high level. The Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Major General Mohammad Hossein Bagheri visited Azerbaijan on January 16-17. Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 8 Trend: Baku will host the first meeting of the working group for implementation of the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea to be held Feb. 19-20 with the participation of representatives of the Caspian littoral states, Trend reports with reference to Azerbaijans Foreign Ministry Feb. 8. A number of issues arising from the Convention, as well as the results of the Fifth Summit of the Heads of the Caspian littoral States in Aktau, are expected to be discussed at the meeting. At the event, Azerbaijan will be represented by the delegation led by Khalaf Khalafov, chief of the Staff of the Cabinet of Ministers of Azerbaijan and the representative of Azerbaijan in the High-Level Working Group for the Caspian Sea. On August 12, 2018, the "Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea" was signed in Aktau, Kazakhstan and the Communique of the Fifth Caspian Summit was adopted. Based on these documents, in order to effectively implement the Convention and review cooperation issues in the Caspian Sea, the High-Level Working Group for the Caspian Sea has been established as a regular five-sided consultation mechanism consisting of authorized representatives of the Caspian littoral states. Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 8 By Elchin Mehdiyev Trend: Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyevs trip to quake-affected Shamakhi district testifies that the president is always close to people, Azerbaijani MP Ilham Mammadov told Trend. The MP stressed that the presidents activity is to be near people, consider peoples problems and rapidly solve them. "We have always witnessed that the president is close to people, Mammadov said. This time the president also visited the quake-affected district to consider the problems of the population caused by the earthquake and rapidly solve them." The MP stressed that the earthquake is a natural phenomenon from which no one can be insured. "President Aliyev and First Vice-President Mehriban Aliyeva once again demonstrated that they are close to people, Mammadov added. The volunteers of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation also visited the quake-affected zone immediately after the earthquake. Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 8 By Elchin Mehdiyev Trend: Freedom House organizations report is ridiculous and meaningless, member of the political council of the New Azerbaijan Party, editor-in-chief of Azerbaijans Iki Sahil newspaper Vugar Rahimzade told Trend on Feb. 8. Therefore, the reports of such organizations must not be taken seriously, he said. All documents prepared by such organizations are biased. Some Western organizations are engaged in political trade, Rahimzade said. They are professional scammers and are engaged in fraud. Such non-governmental organizations, under the guise of protecting human rights and freedoms, pursue other goals, in particular, put pressure on different countries and dictate their conditions. Freedom Houses report is regrettable, he said. To state that Azerbaijan and Turkey are lagging behind, but Armenia is developing, is absurd. Freedom House considers the countries proceeding from their political preferences. Armenia is a criminal, terrorist country, Rahimzade added. The Armenians committed terrorist attacks not only in Azerbaijan, but also in Georgia, Turkey, the US and Europe. Everyone knows the assassinations and killings committed by ASALA terrorist organization. To mention such a country as a model for developed countries is a very ridiculous and meaningless approach. Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb.8 By Leman Zeynalova Trend: The Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO) appreciates Azerbaijans efforts under leadership of Ilham Aliyev to disseminate values of tolerance, Director General of ISESCO Abdulaziz Othman Altwaijri said in an interview with Azernews. He pointed out that the Republic of Azerbaijan deploys great efforts in the field of promoting dialogue among cultures and coexistence among followers of different religions through civilizational initiatives including the annual organization of the World Forum on Intercultural Dialogue, the establishment of the National Center for Tolerance, which translates the principles of tolerance, harmony and coexistence into real-life practices and executive measures which all embody the fruitful cooperation and active partnership between the Ministry of Culture and the national commission in charge of the relations with the religious institutions in the Republic of Azerbaijan, UNESCO and ISESCO. On this occasion, I am pleased to reiterate my great appreciation of the distinguished efforts and the civilizational mission undertaken by the Government of Azerbaijan under the leadership of His Excellency Mr Ilham Aliyev, President of the Republic, to disseminate the culture of peace and values of tolerance; promote dialogue among cultures, alliance between civilizations and coexistence among nations and peoples; deepen larger human cooperation and jointly and continuously work to build a new world order on the solid bases of mutual respect of creative spiritual, cultural and civilizational diversity, said Altwaijri. He went on to add that the civilizational and cultural heritage of the Republic of Azerbaijan is known for its richness and diversity thanks to its openness and interaction with multi-source human cultures and the innovations of Azerbaijani intellectuals, scholars, writers, poets, artists, architects, and craftsmen. Such richness and diversity are also owed to the outreach of heritage schools and its cultural and scientific institutions and their abundant production in all fields of knowledge, architecture and artistic expression. In Azerbaijan, various cultures, successive civilizations, multi-source arts and literature have interplayed to turn the country into an abode of tolerant coexistence and true civilizational and cultural dialogue in its deepest sense, noted ISESCO director general. Therefore, the Republic of Azerbaijan is one of ISESCO Member States that pay close attention to its cultural and civilizational heritage, both tangible and intangible, as it is a key symbol of their Islamic civilizational identity and a considerable opportunity to showcase its cultural diversity, said Altwaijri. To this end, Azerbaijan set up prestigious museums, accorded interest to developing cultural tourism, and organized various art and cultural festivals. For these considerations, two of Azerbaijans cities were selected as Asian regions capitals of Islamic culture: the first is Baku in 2009 and the second Nakhchivan in 2018, he added. He further spoke about ISESCOs work on promoting mutual understanding among people of different religions and cultures in an effort to prevent conflicts on the religious ground. ISESCO is concerned with fostering the values of dialogue among followers of religions, cultures and civilizations, both in Islamic countries and in the world. ISESCO is an active player in the international action in the field of intercultural dialogue, noted Altwaijri. I have stressed, on many occasion, that upgrading dialogue to a level of comprehensive cooperation can consolidate Islamic and human solidarity to build global peace and disseminate the values of religious harmony on the basis of mutual respect. This constitutes an efficient method to fight all forms and degrees of terrorism and hate; and counter all aspects of extremism, violence, fanaticism and identitarian closure, he said. The more we follow this path and continue working with this spirit, the more we can contribute to enlightening future generations of the truths about religions, good morals, and the noble deeds that incentivize Muslims to work for the good of humanity, more openness to other religions and cultures, and for the service of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which contribute to the stability, prosperity, development and progress of societies and maintenance of security, peace and harmony between nations and peoples. Details added (first version posted on 12:21) Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 8 By Elnur Baghishov - Trend: Iran is interested in the rapid settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Iran's Ambassador to Azerbaijan Javad Jahangirzadeh said, Trend reports. Jahangirzadeh made the remarks at a press conference in Baku on Feb. 8. "Iran believes the negotiations between the conflict parties are important," he noted. "Meetings of the heads of Azerbaijan and Armenia, as well as meetings of foreign ministers may play a big role in resolving the conflict." Of course, the OSCE Minsk Group is also trying to resolve this conflict, the ambassador said, adding that Iran supports a peaceful settlement of the conflict through negotiations. The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts. Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 8 Trend: Over the past 24 hours, Armenian armed forces have 28 times violated the ceasefire along the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said Feb. 8, Trend reports. The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts. Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 8 By Elnur Baghishov Trend: There have been some changes in the pharmacy memorandum signed between Iran and Azerbaijan, Javad Jahangirzadeh, Iran's ambassador to Azerbaijan, said at a press conference, Trend reports. According to Jahangirzadeh, the change is due to production of 84 medicines in the pharmaceutical plant. Jahangirzadeh added that a production license should be issued for each drug. "As such, discussions should be held with the relevant authorities in Azerbaijan, including the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Economy for issuance of a separate license for each drug," he said, adding that this would require some time, as Azerbaijan wants to produce high-quality medicines. According to Jahangirzadeh, negotiations were held with pharmaceutical companies in Europe, India and other countries. "These companies have been presented to the Azerbaijani side. Now it is up to Azerbaijan to decide which license to work with." "Soon, representatives of a company will visit Azerbaijan and negotiations on production of medicines will be held," he said. The opening ceremony for the joint Azerbaijan-Iran pharmaceutical plant, Caspian Pharmed, was held in the Pirallahi District of Baku in January 2017. Senior U.S. officials are increasingly pointing out Irans and Hezbollahs role in Latin America and Venezuela as a threat to the hemisphere and the United States. On February 7, the commander of U.S. Southern Command, Navy Admiral Craig Faller in his testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee in Washington said, Iran has deepened its anti-U.S. Spanish language media coverage and has exported its state support for terrorism into our hemisphere. This came a day after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in an interview with Fox Business drew attention to the role of Cuba and Iran in Venezuela. People dont recognize that Hezbollah has active cells the Iranians are impacting the people of Venezuela and throughout South America, he said Wednesday. We have an obligation to take down that risk for America. Pompeo added that this issue will be discussed in a Mideast conference scheduled for February 13-14 in Warsaw, Poland, which is aimed at galvanizing support for containing Iran and its influence in the region. One day after Iran's Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh complained that Iraq has not paid billions of dollars for its imports from Iran after the re-imposition of U.S. sanctions, Iran's Central Bank Governor told reporters that he has reached an agreement with his Iraqi counterpart about the payments. The chief banker Abdolnasser Hemmati arrived in Baghdad Tuesday evening for negotiations regarding bilateral banking relations and the payment of Iraq's debts for the electricity and natural gas provided by Tehran. Hemmati told Tasnim news agency on Wednesday that a mechanism for the payments has been finalized thanks to an agreement he signed with his Iraqi counterpart Ali al-Alaq. The agreement, Hemmati said, also covers payments for Iraq's other imports from Iran. He said that based on the arrangements made, payments for natural gas, electricity and other commodities sold to Iraq by Iran will be made based on "payment orders" issued by the Central Bank of Iran. Irans Tasnim news agency quoted Hemmati as saying that the central bank will create accounts in Euros and Iraqi dinars to facilitate payment for exported natural gas and electricity. In addition, Iranian companies can work through Iraqi banks and Iranian banks can open dinar accounts in Iraq. He was quoted as emphasizing that these measures will expand banking cooperation between Iran and Iraq. But no further explanation was provided as to the exact mechanism, if any, of actual fund transfers and a timetable for Iraqi late payments. U.S. sanctions prohibit importers of Iranian products to repatriate cash money. Iran can sell its oil or natural gas but the money stays in the importing country and Iran can only use the funds to buy food and medicine as allowed under the sanctions regime. What will Iran do with Iraqi dinars even if accounts are opened at Iraqi banks and payments made? This remains unclear. Iraq is not known as having surplus food or being a major medicine producer. The Iranian Central Bank governor also said that "The U.S. has waged an economic war against Iran in order to disrupt Iran's economic and political situation," adding that sanctions have created problems for Iranian exporters. On Tuesday, Iran's oil minister Bijan Zanganeh said Iraq imports monthly $200 million worth of natural gas from Iran but Baghdad has not been paying its debts after the United States re-imposed its sanctions on Iran last autumn. Zanganeh added that Iraq owes Iran some two billion dollars but Iraqi officials say Baghdad is unable to pay its debts because of sanctions. Speaking on Iran-Iraq cooperation in developing their shared oil fields, Zanganeh said: "We suggested to Iraqis that we could develop the Khorramshahr and Naftshahr oil fields together but they rejected the offer." He said, "Iraq is not sanctioned and has no limitation for working with international companies," however, he doubted whether Iraq would sign an agreement with Iran as this might subject Baghdad to secondary sanctions. He also said that Iraq has unilaterally terminated its oil swap arrangement with Iran based on which Iraq delivered oil from Erbil to Iran across the border and Iran sold some oil in the Persian Gulf on behalf of Iraq. Iraq's total commercial transactions with various countries are around $190 billion per year, out of which 14 billion dollars is trade with Iran, which includes buying electricity and gas from Tehran. The United States has given a waiver to Baghdad until the end of March, which makes it exempt from the ban on trading with Iran, so that Iraq could purchase its electricity and gas requirements from Iran. However, international energy market experts say Iraq needs a year before stopping its gas purchase from Iran and finding alternative suppliers. The question is that having waiver, why Iraq is not paying Iran. Iraq buys 10 billion cubic meters of natural gas from Iran annually and more than 5 terawatts of electricity (5billion megawatts) for a total of nearly $3 billion a year. Since last March, Iraq has also imported $7.5 billion of Iranian rpoducts. On January 1, the Iranian Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee Chief, Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh criticized Iran's "negative economic performance in Iraq and warned that Iran as a player will be replaced by Turkey and Saudi Arabia in Iraq's market. Referring to the outcomes of a recent committee meeting entitled "Iran's economic strategy in Iraq and Syria," Falahatpisheh said that if Iran loses its economic links in those two countries, whatever Tehran has gained in the political and military arena there will be lost. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine is going to facilitate the activities of the OSCE/ODIHR Election Observation Mission (EOM) to monitor elections in Ukraine and is also interested in the maximum number of observers to be sent to Ukraine, Deputy Foreign Minister Serhiy Kyslytsia has said. "I have confirmed the resoluteness of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine to continue providing assistance to the OSCE/ODIHR EOM during the presidential elections of 2019. The Foreign Ministry of Ukraine is interested in having the ODIHR send a maximum number of observers to Ukraine. The Foreign Ministry isn't also going to impose any limitations on the exact number of observers as was the case in some other OSCE countries, in particular, the Russian Federation," he wrote on his Facebook page, following his conversation with Director of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights Ingibjorg Gisladottir. At the same time, Kyslytsya said he believes that the ODIHR would take into account the law passed by the parliament of Ukraine, according to which citizens of an aggressor country are not allowed to be involved in election monitoring in Ukraine. The diplomat said Ukraine's decision not to allow observers from the aggressor country cannot constitute a precedent for other OSCE participating States that are not victims of aggression and occupation. "Ukraine has always supported the unique mission of the ODIHR, its autonomy and observation methodology. Maintaining the authority of the Office in the eyes of Ukrainian voters and political forces is one of the important conditions for the successful implementation of the ODIHR's mandate," the deputy minister said. As reported earlier, on February 7, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine passed a law banning Russian nationals and persons suggested by the Russian party to serve as official observers in the presidential, parliamentary, and local elections in Ukraine. According to the law, a citizen (subject) of a state, which is recognized by the Verkhovna Rada as an aggressor state or an occupier state cannot serve as an official observer from foreign states and international organizations. In addition, the person suggested by an aggressor state or an occupier state cannot serve as an observer. Earlier, the OSCE/ODIHR sent to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine an electronic list of long-term observers for the March 31 presidential elections, which included two candidates from Russiawomen born in 1990 and 1985. After the law was passed by the Ukrainian parliament, the OSCE/ODIHR said it was disappointed at the decision of the Ukrainian authorities to ban Russian representatives from the accreditation as observers at the presidential election in Ukraine, including as part of the OSCE/ODIHR EOM. Russians to be excluded from list of observers at Ukrainian election over Kyiv's refusal to accredit them Two Russian citizens will be excluded from the list of long-term observers at the Ukrainian election over Kyiv's refusal to accredit them, Thomas Rymer, the spokesperson for the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE ODIHR), told Interfax on Friday. "If, as the Ukrainian authorities have already announced, these two people are not accredited as observers, then there will be 90 long-term observers with the mission," he said, replying to a question whether the OSCE considers replacing these two Russians. Presidential candidates Yulia Tymoshenko, Anatoliy Hrytsenko, Andriy Sadovy, Viktor Bondar, and Oleksandr Shevchenko in the air of 1+1 TV channel on Thursday, February 7 signed a memorandum on fair elections to jointly counter election fraud. Natalia Mosiychuk, the TV host of The Right to Power talk show, announced in the air about the appeal of a number of public organizations that called for proposing presidential candidates participating in a talk show, to join forces to "counter election fraud and protect free and fair expression of the will of Ukrainian citizens." Five presidential candidates expressed their readiness to immediately sign this memorandum live. Mosiychuk noted that this document is open for signing by all candidates for the presidency, and later said that Volodymyr Zelensky had also indicated that he was ready to sign a memorandum on fair elections. The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) is disappointed at the decision of the Ukrainian authorities to ban Russian representatives from the accreditation as observers at the presidential election in Ukraine, OSCE ODIHR Director Ingibjorg Solrun Gisladottir said. "The decision to deny the possibility of accreditation to citizens of one participating State is without precedent and contravenes commitments made by all participating States to invite observers from any other OSCE participating States that may wish to observe election proceedings to the extent permitted by law," she wrote in a letter to Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin, some excerpts from which were quoted in the OSCE ODIHR statement. Gisladottir noted that observers sent to take part in ODIHR election observations missions do not represent their respective countries, but rather the entire OSCE and are bound by the ODIHR's strict code of conduct for election observers. On February 7, the Verkhovna Rada passed a bill, which will deny an accreditation to Russian representatives as observers of the OSCE Election Observation Mission in Ukraine. RA and RF Defense Ministries discuss wide range of cooperation frameworks Armenias Defense Minister Davit Tonoyan and Russias Defense Minister Sergei Shoygu held a meeting today in Russia, the ministry said in a news release. Shoygu congratulated Tonoyan on being appointed Defense Minister of Armenia and emphasized that Armenia is the reliable partner and important colleague of Russia in the South Caucasus. The Russian Defense Minister thanked Tonoyan for the humanitarian aid to Syria, noting that Armenia is the first to respond to Russias call on assisting the peaceful population of Syria. Armenias Defense Minister Davit Tonoyan in turn thanked Russia for cooperation in providing humanitarian aid to Syria. Tonoyan noted that Russias actions in Syria contribute to post-war restoration and attached importance to Armenias participation in the humanitarian action. Our assistance to the Syrian people, a part of whom is the Armenian Diaspora, is important, Tonoyan said. During the meeting the Armenian and Russian defense chiefs also discussed a broad circle of military and military-technical cooperation issues, including issues related to equipping the Armenian Armed Forces will modern and precision armaments ensuring its deterrent superiority. Joint plans aimed at increasing the level of combat readiness were also discussed. Emphasizing that the Armenian-Russian bilateral military and military-technical cooperation is on a high level, the sides expressed conviction that the strategic allied relations will continue to develop, the ministry said in the news release. Armenia: Statement by the Spokesperson on the early parliamentary elections Armenias Parliamentary Elections PRESS STATEMENT COVID19:77 new cases Armenias early parliamentary elections were competitive and well run, but polarized and marred by aggressive rhetoric, international observers say Google Ad International election observers to Armenias early parliamentary elections held press conference Drop Charges Against Rights Defender Sashik Sultanyan The Coronavirus-Related Situation in Armenia The European Union in Armenia calls all parties to contribute to a peaceful Election Day to celebrate democracy 22 ventilators to Armenia PACE to observe the early parliamentary elections in Armenia With Ucom's level up tariff plans subscribers have unlimited access to Tiktok, Spotify and Coursera PACE rapporteur welcomes Azerbaijans release of Armenian captives and Armenias handing over of mine-maps to Azerbaijan Armenia/Azerbaijan: Statement by High Representative Josep Borrell on the latest developments Pashinyan to publicly apology to Khachatryans During EURO 2020 Ucom subscribers to take part in the uMeter voting and draw USA to continue to press for the return of Armenian prisoners of war and detainees: Philip Reeker Google Ad Post-war Prospects for Nagorno-Karabakh: Crisis Groups new report Ucom-1 team was recognised the winner of the 2021 futsal tournament of the Galaxy Group of Companies: The award ceremony took place COVID 19: 11 deaths Statement of the Foreign Ministry of Armenia regarding the criminal prosecution against the Armenian prisoners of war by Azerbaijan The Coronavirus-Related Situation in Armenia UCOM introduced new level up packages of voice service President Michel has discussions with President Aliyev of Azerbaijan and Acting Prime Minister Pashinyan of Armenia COVID19:108 new cases Ucom launches "Hello, summer" offer and presents "U!hoo" kids magazine 182 hearing aids and 2 buses by benefactor Mikayel Vardanyan for students of Special Educational Complex Statement by the Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group What our Homeland, Armenia and Artsakh will be like depends on us. President Armen Sarkissians message on the Republic Day Ucom Digital lab students keep on getting high-quality technical education Armenia: Statement by the Spokesperson on the early parliamentary elections Armenias Parliamentary Elections PRESS STATEMENT COVID19:77 new cases Armenias early parliamentary elections were competitive and well run, but polarized and marred by aggressive rhetoric, international observers say International election observers to Armenias early parliamentary elections held press conference Drop Charges Against Rights Defender Sashik Sultanyan The Coronavirus-Related Situation in Armenia The European Union in Armenia calls all parties to contribute to a peaceful Election Day to celebrate democracy 22 ventilators to Armenia PACE to observe the early parliamentary elections in Armenia With Ucom's level up tariff plans subscribers have unlimited access to Tiktok, Spotify and Coursera PACE rapporteur welcomes Azerbaijans release of Armenian captives and Armenias handing over of mine-maps to Azerbaijan Armenia/Azerbaijan: Statement by High Representative Josep Borrell on the latest developments Pashinyan to publicly apology to Khachatryans During EURO 2020 Ucom subscribers to take part in the uMeter voting and draw USA to continue to press for the return of Armenian prisoners of war and detainees: Philip Reeker Google Ad Post-war Prospects for Nagorno-Karabakh: Crisis Groups new report Ucom-1 team was recognised the winner of the 2021 futsal tournament of the Galaxy Group of Companies: The award ceremony took place COVID 19: 11 deaths Statement of the Foreign Ministry of Armenia regarding the criminal prosecution against the Armenian prisoners of war by Azerbaijan The Coronavirus-Related Situation in Armenia UCOM introduced new level up packages of voice service President Michel has discussions with President Aliyev of Azerbaijan and Acting Prime Minister Pashinyan of Armenia COVID19:108 new cases Ucom launches "Hello, summer" offer and presents "U!hoo" kids magazine 182 hearing aids and 2 buses by benefactor Mikayel Vardanyan for students of Special Educational Complex Statement by the Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group What our Homeland, Armenia and Artsakh will be like depends on us. President Armen Sarkissians message on the Republic Day Ucom Digital lab students keep on getting high-quality technical education Raquel Marin The crucial element in the United Kingdoms Withdrawal Agreement from the European Union and the one that has caused the greatest rejection within the British Conservative party is the so-called backstop. Its the mechanism that prevents Britain from unilaterally repealing a transitional agreement to maintain the absence of border controls, if there is no agreement on an adequate alternative to this lack of a hard border. So far neither the British government nor anybody else has managed to identify any credible alternatives. Maintaining free movement throughout the Common Travel Area (CTA) mentioned in Article 5 of the Withdrawal Agreement is good for the EU, but above all, it is the answer to an unyielding demand from the Irish government. The customs union and the CTA allow the free movement of goods, but above all, of people, and this is a crucial point in order to preserve the legal unity of the island territory, and thus to guarantee the Good Friday Agreement that marked the end of the Troubles in Ulster. The absence of a border between both territories is an essential element to those agreements: EU membership protects this suppression of border controls, and this is highly valued by the various actors involved as an element that helps achieve peace. The Irish cause is fair and important, and the EU has rightly demonstrated solidarity by putting its negotiating clout at the service of the Republic. For now at least, the Irish government categorically refuses to review its corporation tax policies The relevance of this issue reflects the EUs commitment not just to the Republic of Ireland, but also to the UK, and an analysis of this commitment to solidarity must underscore that certain goals, such as maintaining peace, deserve broad concessions from the EU regardless of any possible costs. The mention of the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar in the negotiating mandate, for instance, reflected a similar show of solidarity for Spain (although the final agreement did not reflect such a strong commitment on this matter as with the Irish issue). There are also costs for other states: for instance, if there is a no-deal Brexit (precisely because the EU will not back down on the issue of the backstop), this would very negatively affect states such as Poland. There are a million Poles living in the UK, and the country is the biggest recipient of EU funds, to which Britain is the second-biggest contributor. Thus, the Polish government has floated the idea that there should be a time limit on the backstop, of five years. However, European solidarity is not a one-way street where one side systematically supports the other without reciprocity. Whats more, solidarity as a principle that guides relations among EU states should exclude the temptation to make the most of an advantageous position in order to exploit ones partners. And judging by the actions of successive Irish governments, these seem to be adopting precisely this unilateral and selective vision of European solidarity. This asymmetry in the concept of solidarity is specifically visible on tax matters. Ireland has historically applied a much lower corporate tax rate than other EU member states (around 12.5% compared with the average of 24%). Evidently, this makes the island very attractive for multinationals, with the added advantage of access to the single European market that lets them operate throughout the territory while paying tax only where their headquarters are located. Added to this is a very lenient regime based on certain fiscal artifices. The system is even more attractive for tech companies or those operating in the new economy: a large amount of businesses, such as Amazon, Apple or even the odd Spanish company, have set up their fiscal headquarters there because of the attractive Irish tax scheme. The European Commission has reacted to this situation: in a key decision, it considered that the tax benefits enjoyed by Apple in Ireland could be considered state aid, and ordered Apple to pay 13 billion in taxes plus interest to the Republic of Ireland. In a move that might be viewed as surprising, the Irish government initially refused to demand or collect this payment, thus evidencing its commitment to a tax system that bleeds the other member states: the taxes paid in Ireland are for economic activities across the entire EU, so that the states where these activities take place are in fact collecting very low revenues for it. European solidarity is not a one-way street where one side systematically supports the other without reciprocity For now at least, the Irish government categorically refuses to review its corporation tax policies. The Commission has reacted by proposing a Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Rate (CCCTB), whose adoption Ireland has blocked with support from the so-called New Hanseatic League (which has also made restrictive proposals regarding the euro zone budget). The governments of Germany, Spain, France and Italy have expressed support for the CCCTB. The problem is that these taxes require unanimous approval, and though the Commission has reason to believe that there could be progress in areas such as environmental levies, the plans to end member states veto power over the digital tax has been pushed back to 2025 (from the original goal of 2020). And naturally, this veto power can only be ended by a unanimous decision... The latest Irish governments have also aligned themselves with the hardest positions upheld by the New Hanseatic League on the debate over euro governance reform. The Irish government, in line with the League members, questions the creation of a eurozone budget, the creation of euro-bonds, and above all, it advocates control over national budgets to prevent excessive public spending. There is a great paradox in the fact that while other countries are being subjected to tax vampirism, losing the revenues that go into supporting the welfare state, they are simultaneously being asked for stricter fiscal discipline on spending. The EU should be ready to minimize the impact of Brexit on Ireland (including the economic impact) and it should get involved in the search for imaginative solutions to the border issue, including, if necessary, ways for Northern Ireland to hold semi-membership in the EU. But the Republic of Ireland must also be ready to send a sign of solidarity to other member states, because sponging off others on tax matters is not acceptable in a union based on solidarity. And perhaps this is the right time to send Ireland a clear signal about the limits of a solidarity that is viewed in such a unilateral manner. The Trump we saw tonight is the president we should be seeing every day, not just once a year. He reached across the aisle, appealed to persuadable voters in the center and asked them to consider his reasonable proposals. He made the case for controversial policies in a way designed to win over open-minded skeptics. It worked. A CBS News instant poll found that 76 percent of viewers approved of what they heard in Trumps address, including 72 percent who said they approved of his ideas for immigration. In short, Trump did something he rarely does: work to expand his base. Its a good start, but wooing persuadable voters takes more than one good speech. It requires discipline and sustained effort. Its not too late. Trumps approval rating is 40 percent (up slightly from 37 percent during the government shutdown). Before his third-year State of the Union address, Ronald Reagans approval was just 35 percent and he won a second term in a landslide. Democrats are giving Trump an opening by embracing socialist policies that most Americans know will bankrupt the country. They may go so far left that they will make themselves unelectable in 2020. But Trump cannot count on Democrats to self-destruct. He must actively court the voters they are alienating with their far-left tilt and win over millions of Americans who are benefiting from his policies but still dont support his presidency. In his address, Trump declared that America will never be a socialist country. Whether he is right depends on what he does in the weeks and months ahead. Love 0 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 We looked to see if people who lived in states where it was illegal, but resided next to ones where it became legal, were more likely to have changed their views. But the rate of change has been no different in states that legalized marijuana than in others. Likewise, the pace of change has been similar across political parties, religions, educational levels, racial and ethnic groups and gender. As politically polarized as the country may seem, when it comes to marijuana, Americans have been changing their attitudes together, as a nation. We did find that a small part of the increase in support was related to more people disaffiliating with religion. The proportion of people who do not identify with a religion has increased some, by about 7 percent between 2007 and 2014. People who do not have a religion tend to be more liberal than others. However, this factor accounts for only a small proportion of the change. Media medical framing So whats going on? What has likely made the biggest difference is how the media has portrayed marijuana. Support for legalization began to increase shortly after the news media began to frame marijuana as a medical issue. ELKO The National Weather Service is calling for a snowy weekend ahead and a snowy start to next week. Snow will begin falling Saturday morning as it spreads south and eastward. The biggest snow amounts will be over northern Nevada from about Interstate 80 north, stated a weather advisory. Most of the snow in central and eastern Nevada will be in the mountains. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} The chance of snow in Elko climbs from 30 percent Saturday morning to 70 percent on Sunday, with accumulation of up to 2 inches on Saturday and 3 inches on Sunday. Isolated snow showers could continue into at least the middle of next week. Temperatures will climb to around the freezing mark through Monday. Winds of 10-15 mph on Sunday could cause blowing snow and some travel issues. Call 511 or visit nvroads.com for the latest highway conditions. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 2 Sad 0 Angry 0 ELKO Elko County Commissioners have agreed to support state Senate Bill 48, which would allow counties to impose a tax of up to 5 cents per gallon on diesel fuel for road construction and maintenance. Commissioners unanimously approved a resolution at their Feb. 6 meeting expressing our strong support for Senate Bill 48, introduced in the 2019 Nevada Legislature. The Nevada Association of Counties introduced the bill specifically for road work. This came up at an earlier meeting, and I was questioning whether we could amend it to use the tax for operations instead of building roads, Elko County Commission Chairman Rex Steninger said, explaining that after he learned amending the bill wasnt feasible, he removed his objections. He said he was initially concerned that with the infrastructure sales tax, the county might not need more money for roads. Steninger later suggested maybe a portion of the infrastructure revenues could be shifted to other uses, if SB48 passes. The county approved a quarter-percent sales tax increase in 2015 for road and fire district infrastructure. Pony Bob Haslam was the rider who delivered the news of Lincolns election and he was the rider who delivered the the inaugural address to Fort Churchill where it was telegraphed to Sacramento and San Francisco over a little known newly installed telegraph line called Fred Bees Grapevine. This was on November 14, 1860, just seven days after the news left the east. After the Pony Express ceased operations in November 1861, Pony Bob went to work for Wells Fargo & Company as an express rider on the route between Virginia City and Fridays Station for more than a year. When the Central Pacific Railroad reached Reno, he made the run from from Virginia City to Reno for about six months. He routinely made the 23-mile run in just short of one hour. After telegraph lines were completed connecting these cities, Haslam was transferred to Idaho where he continued working on a route between Queens River and Owyhee River. Pony Bob saw and experienced many tragedies during his career as a Pony Express rider. He had suffered being wounded by Indians and while in Idaho, his route passed by a place where 90 Chinamen had been massacred by Modoc Indians. Their corpses were still on the ground. Bob Haslam resigned and retired from express riding the Idaho Route. Sye Macaulas took over the route and was killed by Indians the first time he covered the route. ELKO As part of its commitment to strengthening the community, Elko Federal Credit Union recently donated $5,000 to the Nevada Department of Wildlife in support of its Lamoille Canyon reseeding project. This initiative aims to rehabilitate and regrow the vegetation lost in last years wildfires. The Owl Creek and Range Two fires burned approximately 10,000 acres in the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest and on private land. With government funding being minimal for projects like this, Elko Federal Credit Union CEO John Kelly said, we knew we needed to step forward and help however we could. This land is deeply ingrained in the identity of our community and being a part of restoring it and the wildlife there is very exciting. NDOW is spreading seeds via helicopter throughout the affected area over the winter to get the seeds established before the spring thaw. Were looking forward to seeing a big transformation, Kelly said. We know it wont happen overnight, but we also know its something that will give immeasurably to our neighbors who love this land as much as we do. Love 2 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 "Generating clean, renewable energy on campus is a priority for Rhode Island College and Ameresco is a valuable partner in achieving that goal," said Rhode Island College President Frank D. Sanchez. "We are committed to creating a greener, more sustainable campus, as evidenced by our 2017 recognition as a Green Ribbon School by the U.S. Department of Education. This project is an important step forward in that work." Ameresco installed a solar PV system on the rooftops of the Donovan Dining Center and the Student Union, utilizing funding from the Rhode Island Office of Energy Resources and Rhode Island Commerce Corporation. The 110.9 kW system will be tied into the college's electric service and is expected to generate 132,502 kWh in the first operating year. Savings will be in the form of direct reduction of kWh usage. "Ameresco is once again honored to be working with Rhode Island College, this time to deliver renewable solar power, an environmental and economic win for the college," said, Executive Vice President of Ameresco David J. Anderson. "This project further demonstrates to students, faculty, staff, and the community that Rhode Island College is committed to clean, renewable energy." The solar facility is expected to reduce carbon emissions by 1,358 metric tons of CO2 annually. That would be equivalent to the CO2 emissions from 163 homes' energy use for one year or greenhouse gas emissions from 288 passenger cars. Emission reductions were estimated using the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator. About Rhode Island College Established in 1854, Rhode Island College serves approximately 8,500 undergraduate and graduate students through its five schools: the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the Feinstein School of Education and Human Development, the School of Business, the School of Nursing and the School of Social Work. For more information, visit www.ric.edu. About Ameresco Founded in 2000, Ameresco, Inc. (NYSE: AMRC) is a leading independent provider of comprehensive services, energy efficiency, infrastructure upgrades, asset sustainability and renewable energy solutions for businesses and organizations throughout North America and Europe. Ameresco's sustainability services include upgrades to a facility's energy infrastructure and the development, construction and operation of renewable energy plants. Ameresco has successfully completed energy saving, environmentally responsible projects with federal, state and local governments, healthcare and educational institutions, housing authorities, and commercial and industrial customers. With its corporate headquarters in Framingham, MA, Ameresco has more than 1,000 employees providing local expertise in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. For more information, visit www.ameresco.com. The announcement of a customer's entry into a project contract is not necessarily indicative of the timing or amount of revenue from such contract, of the company's overall revenue for any particular period or of trends in the company's overall total construction backlog. This project was reported in our contracted backlog as of September 30, 2018. This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 14 years and 30,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going. The pipeline plan has become increasingly controversial since Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea in 2014. European Union nations backed a plan to regulate Russia's Nord Stream 2 pipeline on Friday, a move that will likely slow but not rule out its construction. The long-stalled agreement comes after a last-ditch German and French push to amend the draft and give Berlin a greater say in how to ensure the pipeline to carry Russian gas to Europe under the Baltic Sea complies with EU law, Reuters said. Chancellor Angela Merkel hailed the vote as an example of Berlin's close ties with Paris after the two major European powers, which both have firms invested in the project, were publicly at odds ahead of the EU meeting. Read alsoFrance, Germany reach compromise on Nord Stream 2 Nord Stream 2 has divided the EU, with German opposition to the new draft rules stalling discussions since it was proposed by the EU executive in November 2017. Eastern European, Nordic and Baltic Sea countries see the 1,225 km (760 mile) pipeline, which is already under construction, as increasing EU reliance on Moscow, while those in northern Europe, especially Germany, prioritize the economic benefits. EU capitals overcame differences on Friday over shared geopolitical concerns that the pipeline would deprive Ukraine of transit fees that are a lifeline of its economy by doubling the amount of gas that could be pumped under the Baltic Sea. Such worries have driven fierce U.S. lobbying against the Russian project. A French official rejected suggestions that Washington's threat to sanction the project broke the EU logjam. "We don't make decisions based on U.S. bravado," the official said. France had long raised concerns in private about the pipeline, not wanting to be seen as supporting the U.S. stance, and French President Emmanuel Macron discussed it at least four times with Merkel, said another source familiar with the issue. The draft law will likely require a change in business model for the project, led by Russian state energy firm Gazprom in partnership with five Western firms Germany's Uniper and BASF's Wintershall unit, Anglo-Dutch firm Shell, Austria' OMV and France's Engie. The pipeline plan has become increasingly controversial since Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea in 2014. In an effort to address concerns, Merkel has insisted that gas volumes must continue via Ukraine the traditional route for supplies that make up over a third of the EU's gas needs. So far, EU-mediated talks between Russia and Ukraine have failed to agree the terms of such transits before their current contract expires by year's end. "Russia has been in wait-and-see mode, but this compromise gives the European Commission major leverage," said one of the sources. The support of France is crucial for the adoption of the changes. France and Germany have reached a compromise that will unlock the process of amending the EU Gas Directive, which also concerns the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline built by Russia. "[The] Council [of the European Union] has agreed on a mandate to start talks with the [European Parliament] EP regarding the changes to the gas directive. [The] French-German proposal unlocked the process," Brussels reporter for Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) Rikard Jozwiak wrote on Twitter on February 8. Read alsoGazprom to spend about $806 mln on Nord Stream 2 in 2019 Earlier, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced it was going to support amendments to the EU gas legislation so that it covers Nord Stream 2. The point at issue was the proposal of the European Commission to extend the Gas Directive, part of the EU's Third Energy Package, to gas pipelines that run to the EU from third countries. The European Commission proposed the changes way back in 2017. However, the issue was blocked for a long period of time. On February 4, Romania, which chairs the EU Council, proposed a new version of the changes as a compromise. Germany, Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands are known as the countries that oppose the extension of the EU rules to Nord Stream 2, while more than 10 EU member states support the amendments. Therefore, the support of France is crucial for the adoption of the changes. What do you think about our new website? Share your opinion The changes, which would regulate gas from third-party providers, could eventually make the project less profitable or even cost prohibitive. France's Foreign Ministry has signaled its intention to vote for changes to the EU's Third Energy Package Gas Directive regulating gas imports when the topic comes up for discussion Friday in Brussels. The proposed changes would effectively extend existing rules to cover offshore pipelines. The posture signals a direct confrontation with Germany over the construction and operation of the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline that Berlin is currently building with Russia, DW reported. On Thursday, the Foreign Ministry released a statement saying: "France intends to support the adoption of this directive. Work is continuing with our partners, in particular with Germany, on modifications that could be made to the text." Read alsoNBU: Launch of gas pipelines bypassing Ukraine to halve gas transit revenue The changes, which would regulate gas from third-party providers, could eventually make the project less profitable or even cost prohibitive. Friday's vote, put on the agenda by Romania which currently holds the rotating presidency of the EU will not be binding, but instead move to the European Parliament for negotiation. The European Commission has voiced criticism of the pipeline project as it runs counter to the aims of European energy independence. The European Council, which represents member states, has so far opposed such changes. Russia, for its part, has taken up the issue of EU rules with the World Trade Organization (WTO). Germany has been lobbying EU partners to support the German-Russian project but has made little progress in allaying criticism, mostly from eastern and central European states, as well as Ukraine and more recently and more vocally from the United States. Greece offers its territory for Turkish Stream media The final decision is to be taken by Moscow. If you see a spelling error on our site, select it and press Ctrl+Enter Ukraine, in particular, sees Nord Stream as an existential threat, one that would literally cut it out of the path of Russian exports, potentially leaving it without supplies and depriving it of billions of dollars in much-needed transit fees. The United States has spent years trying to derail a controversial Russian gas pipeline in Europe. France may have just found a way to kill it and possibly strangle Paris's newfound rapprochement with Berlin at the same time. This Friday in Brussels, the Council of the European Union will vote on a seemingly arcane directive meant to apply European Union market rules to energy projects that start in a third country like the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia, Foreign Policy said. In a surprising about-face, first reported in the German press, France has now decided to back the directive. That risks angering Germany which really wanted to build the pipeline with Russia and potentially dooming the $11 billion energy project, a priority for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Read alsoExpert suggests way for Ukraine to undermine Nord Stream 2 The rules change, which has been under discussion in different forms for over a year, could have an impact on far more than just this one project. By ensuring that third countries have to play by EU rules in the energy business, Brussels appears to be taking square aim at one of Moscow's favorite weapons: its use of energy exports to pressure smaller neighbors, especially in Central and Eastern Europe. "If this goes through, Russia couldn't play geopolitical games with pipeline projects," said Alan Riley of the Atlantic Council. The Nord Stream 2 pipeline has been hugely controversial since Russia's Gazprom and a handful of Western companies announced it in 2015. Moscow likes the idea of having a second direct route to its biggest European customer especially a route that bypasses Ukraine, which it sees as a pesky neighbor and unreliable partner in shipping gas. Germany likes the project, because it would double the amount of cheap Russian gas piped straight to Europe's biggest economy one that needs more natural gas as it weans off coal and nuclear power. (Though early last year, Germany started to think about the broader geopolitical, and not just commercial, aspects of the project.) But many countries in Central and Eastern Europe not to mention the United States have hated it since day one, fearing that it would only redouble Europe's reliance on Russia for energy supplies at a time of rising tensions between Moscow and the West. Ukraine, in particular, sees Nord Stream as an existential threat, one that would literally cut it out of the path of Russian exports, potentially leaving it without supplies and depriving it of billions of dollars in much-needed transit fees. Other Eastern European countries also fear that Nord Stream would give Russia even more ability to tamper with gas supplies to Europe, as it has done repeatedly in the last few decades. "Poland views the Nord Stream 2 as a significant threat to the peace and security on the European continent from the point of view of deepening European countries' dependence on Russian energy and the prospects for an escalation of Russian aggression against Ukraine," Polish Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz said late last month. And since the Obama administration, Washington has been opposed to the project. That opposition has only grown after President Donald Trump took office, pushed by a U.S. Congress increasingly inclined to punish Russia for invading Ukraine and meddling in the 2016 U.S. election. Demonstrators dressed as Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and US President Donald Trump pretend to kiss in a demonstration outside the White House in October 2018. Photo by AFP/Jim Watson US lawmakers threatened Thursday to take tougher action against Saudi Arabia over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The move came amid a new revelation that the kingdom's powerful crown prince spoke of going after him with a "bullet." President Donald Trump faces a Friday deadline set by Congress to determine if Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the assassination of Khashoggi, who was strangled and dismembered after entering the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul on October 2. Special UN rapporteur, Agnes Callamard, said Thursday after a visit to Turkey that the killing of Khashoggi, who had written critical pieces on Saudi Arabia in The Washington Post, had been "planned and perpetrated" by Saudi officials. The New York Times, citing officials who had seen US intelligence, said that Prince Mohammed had warned in an intercepted conversation to an aide in 2017 that he would go after Khashoggi "with a bullet" if he did not return to Saudi Arabia from the United States. US intelligence understood that the ambitious 33-year-old heir apparent was ready to kill the journalist, although he may not have literally meant to shoot him, according to the newspaper. The kingdom, after initially denying any knowledge of Khashoggi's disappearance, has acknowledged that a team killed him inside the embassy but described it as a rogue operation that did not involve the crown prince. In October, the then top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee invoked a law that gave the Trump administration 120 days -- until February 8 -- to determine whether Prince Mohammed ordered Khashoggi's murder and to outline actions against him. Congress ready to act Predicting little movement, a bipartisan group of senators on Thursday proposed a bill to cut off some weapons sales to Saudi Arabia including of tanks, long-range fighter jets and ordnance for automatic weapons. The bill would also require sanctions against any Saudis involved in Khashoggi's killing and require State Department reports on human rights in the kingdom and in the conduct of its war in Yemen. "Seeing as the Trump administration has no intention of insisting on full accountability for Mr. Khashoggi's murderers, it is time for Congress to step in and impose real consequences to fundamentally re-examine our relationship with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and with the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen," said Robert Menendez, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The bill enjoys support from top Republicans including Senator Lindsey Graham, usually a close ally of Trump. "While Saudi Arabia is a strategic ally, the behavior of the crown prince in multiple ways has shown disrespect for the relationship and made him, in my view, beyond toxic," Graham said. The Senate already voted in December to end support for the bloody Saudi-led offensive on rebels in Yemen, where millions are on the brink of starvation in what the United Nations calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis. The move is likely to pass the new Democratic-led House of Representatives after a hearing on legislation Wednesday, although Trump could exercise his veto. Trump supports prince Secretary of State Mike Pompeo raised Khashoggi's killing among other issues during a meeting Thursday with Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi minister of state for foreign affairs, according to the State Department. But Trump has publicly said that he is not concerned whether Crown Prince Mohammed was involved in Khashoggi's killing, saying the Saudi alliance benefits Washington due to the kingdom's major purchases of weapons and its hostility to regional rival Iran. Asked about Friday's deadline, State Department spokesman Robert Palladino said that the United States had already taken action over Khashoggi's killing, pointing to last year's revocation of visas for nearly two dozen Saudi officials and the freezing of assets of 17 others. "We will continue to consult with the Congress and work to hold accountable those who are responsible for Jamal Khashoggi's killing," Palladino told reporters, declining to say if more action would be forthcoming. In a joint statement accompanied by a rally outside the White House, six advocacy groups including Human Rights Watch, Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists urged Trump to release CIA records on Khashoggi's death, support an independent investigation and press the Saudis to free detained reporters and activists. "Notwithstanding public and congressional outrage and the reported findings of the CIA, the Trump administration appears to be engaged in a cover-up on behalf of the Saudi government," they wrote. For decades milling rice has been a major vocation in Sa Dec, and the craft is now a tourist attraction. In the fertile land along Nga Bat Canal in Sa Dec town, Dong Thap Province, 162 km west of Saigon, one can see chunks of dough drying in evenly arranged lines. No one knows exactly when this flour village came into being but there are families here who have been in the business of dough and cake making for three or four generations. Nguyen Van Toan, the owner of a flour making facility in Tan Phu Dong Commune, switched on his first furnace in 1986. He says: "It has been my vocation for more than 30 years. My child also does this. The family makes about three to four bags of flour daily, but close to Tet we make 12-15 bags to keep up demand." Many households carry on this traditional occupation along with pig rearing. Nguyen Thi Tu, 58, says: "This work doesn't fetch much profit. We make some profit by using the residue from making dough to feed the pigs." Her family used to work manually, grinding the flour using a stone mortar. "It took all day to go through all the steps. Productivity was not high. Now we work with machines, so it reduces a lot of hard labor. It takes less time and fewer workers." To make flour, millers must go to rice warehouses to buy broken rice, the tips of rice grains that falls off during harvest or when they are dried or milled. The broken grains are put in a crusher with water to create a milky white liquid. The liquid is then put in a centrifugal mortar to remove the water and dried to get white patches of powder. The flour is then placed in a mortar to be smoothened and finally placed in a filter tank. The final step is to beat the flour, put it in a different tank and pump water into it. Workers add to the tank a bucket of hibiscus leaves-infused water. This mixture transforms in a few hours. Impurities settle at the bottom of the tank and the flour floats to the top. The quality of the final product depends on this last process. The residue at the bottom is used to feed pigs, which is also the main source of income for many households in this village. The entire process of making the flour is repeated from 4 a.m. to 1 p.m. every day by the families of Tu and Toan. Fresh flour is often delivered directly to bakeries and noodles and ramen making facilities. Packaged dry flour is sold to big businesses and factories for making noodles but in larger quantities. The fragrant, sweet pieces of rice cakes and aromatic fresh bowls of rice noodles in Sa Dec attract tourists from everywhere. During Tet, the Lunar New Year, the flour village is packed with visitors. For VND50,000 ($2.16), visitors can taste more than 20 different cakes. Both Tu and Toan are passionate about keeping the traditional method of milling alive. Toan says: "This is a traditional craft of not only my family but also of this neighborhood. Everyone wants to preserve and promote it." One Vietnamese worker was killed in the cargo warehouse blaze in Taoyuan City on Wednesday morning. Photo by Shutterstocks/Toa55 Bodies of two Vietnamese workers were found Thursday, raising the casualty at a warehouse fire in Taiwan to three. The fire raged Wednesday through the second floor of the cargo warehouse belonging to Kerry Logistics Company, in Guanyin District in western Taoyuan City at around 10 a.m. Some eyewitnesses said they heard an explosion before the blaze, the Central News Agency reported. Hundreds of firefighters were dispatched to the scene and two Vietnamese migrant workers were pulled out, according to the local fire department. A 30-year-old migrant worker was pronounced dead after being taken to a nearby hospital while another worker in his 30s was badly injured. Two other Vietnamese workers were declared missing and their bodies were only found a day later. Initial information is that some flammable alcohol was being stored on the second floor might have ignited the blaze, but authorities have not confirmed anything. The disaster follows a string of recent accidents in Taiwanese factories, raising questions about safety standards in Taiwan. In April last year, seven people, five firefighters and two workers from Thailand, lost their lives in an electronics factory fire in northern Taiwan. The worst new senator (AZ) and worst new House member (NJ) First the good news: Although there haven't really been enough controversial votes yet to definitively analyze the voting records of the congressional freshman class, there are mostly pretty good signs. With every day that passes, records are beginning to become somewhat clearer, at least at the extremes. According to ProgressivePunch, 38 freshman House members are tied for the #1 spot-- with 100% perfect scores. There are obvious perfect voters like AOC (D-NY), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Joe Neguse (D-CO), the Levin Boys (Mike from California and Andy from Michigan), Debra Haaland (D-NM) and Chuy Garcia (D-IL) but even some of the reactionary candidates have been voting exactly the way the Democrats who entrusted them with high office would have wanted them to vote-- crap candidates who will likely soon start disappointing, like Jason Crow (New Dem-CO) and Susie Lee (New Dem-NV), for example. For now... 100%. But some Democrats have already started slipping over to the Dark Side and finding their comfort zones on the other side of the aisle. Further down the list of freshmen, there are 10 tied for 144th most progressive: Cindy Axne (D-IA), Abby Finkenauer (D-IA), Chrissy Houlahan (New Dem-PA), Andy Kim (D-NJ), Elaine Luria (New Dem-VA), Katie Porter (D-CA), Harley Rouda (New Dem-CA), Mikie Sherrill (Blue Dog-NJ), Elissa Slotkin (New Dem-MI) and Abigail Spanberger (Blue Dog-VA). Republicans are already starting to look at some of these freshman as obvious targets for 2020 since they are already beginning to show signs of disappointing the Democratic base. For example, in Orange County-- CA-48, the coastal district Rouda won from Dana Rohrabacher last year, 157,837 (53.8%) to 136,899 (46.4%)-- Republican businessman James Bradley, who was the top finishing GOP candidate in last year's U.S. Senate race, declared against Rouda, whose congressional office is said to be in utter turmoil and disarray, last week. Right-of-center freshmen like Blue Dog Mikey Sherrill, are going to need all the help they can get if they keep voting against progressive bills and refuse to back popular progressive initiatives like Medicare-For-All and the Green New Deal. History has taught us that Democrats like her will wind up without support from a crucial sector of the electorate: committed progressive activists. In NJ-11, former governor Chris Christie has already started pushing his wife to run against Sherrill . It's a very swingy red-leaning district (R+3) and the only thing Sherrill will be able to count on for reelection is suburban revulsion at Trump at the top of the ticket. The Christies have lived in the district for 25 years and are very popular there. And those ten aren't even the worst problem-children-- not by a loingshot. Tied as the 202nd most progressive (which is not at all progressive) are 7 freshmen who keep finding themselves voting with the GOP an awful lot: Anthony Brindisi (Blue Dog-NY) Sharice Davids (New Dem-KS) Antonio Delgado (D-NY) Jared Golden (D-ME) Kendra Horn (Blue Dog-OK) Max Rose (Blue Dog-NY) Xochitl Torres Small (Blue Dog-NM) Now we're in real stinky garbage territory. Those 7 above will all have tough reelection battles, if not primaries. Xochitl Torres Small already has two declared GOP opponents... as her support from progressives activists evaporates. And that brings us to the 3 worst freshmen Democrats-- tied for the 231st "most progressive" and already with voting records better than only 2 sewer lane Democrats, Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX) and Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN). Tied for the worst freshmen of all and just begging to be one termers: Joe Cunningham (Blue Dog-SC) Ben McAdams (Blue Dog-UT) Jeff Van Drew (Blue Dog-NJ) The DCCC announced their 2020 frontline program yesterday-- 44 Democratic incumbents, mostly shitty freshmen, who are in trouble for reelection. The only non-freshmen on the list are a couple of truly crap Blue Dogs-- Tom O'Halleran (AZ) and Josh Gottheimer (NJ)-- and a progressive, Matt Cartwright (PA) in a Republican-leaning seat. O'Halleran's biggest political problem is a primary from progressive Democrat , Eva Putzova. As for the freshman members, most of them are Republican-lite types who can count on Trump-hatred to get them over the hump next year, although most of them are likely to be defeated in 2022 after Pelosi leads the Democratic Party into disappointing everyone on everything important... But at least she passed her own top priority: Pay-Go. Which of the freshmen on the list deserve some support? So far I'd say Mike Levin (CA)... but I'm holding out some hope that Katie Porter (CA), Jahana Hayes (CT), Jared Golden (ME), Andy Kim (NJ) and Kim Schrier (WA) are on their way to proving themselves worthwhile members of Congress. The rest have already proven themselves the contrary. Most of the good freshmen are not on the DCCC Frontline list of course. Over in the Senate, there are are 4 freshmen tied as the 47th most progressive-- two Democrats and two Republicans. The Republicans are Josh Hawley (MO) and Martha McSally (AZ). The Democrats are the only freshmen in the class, both of whom had very right-wing voting records in the House-- Jacky Rosen (NV) and the worst of the worst, the Democrat who applauded the loudest and most often and with the greatest enthusiasm for Trump Tuesday night, Kyrsten Sinema. All four are rated "F," of course. The four pictured below have nothing to do with these four from the Senate-- and do I mean nothing! "He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone." "Go... And Sin No More." DWT readers that he's had a long, horrible, conservative career in Virginia politics. For starters, he admits he voted for George W. Bush-- both times. In his own 2013 campaign, Northam said "I dont consider myself as a liberal... I think the less government, the better" and said he is "very conservative fiscally." He has a record in the state legislature to back it up. He's also been generally anti-immigrant over the course of his career until very recently. Soon after he was first elected to the state Senate in 2007 he announced he was leaving the Democratic caucus and joining the Republicans, which would have thrown control of the Senate to the GOP. He said the reason he was switching was because of his fiscal conservatism. I don't know what the Democrats promised him-- plenty, no doubt-- but they persuaded him to change his mind." So the offensive picture in the yearbook didn't exactly shock my socks off. But I couldn't bring myself to cast the 3,000th stone. All I really wanted to do was remind Democrats howling for his blood that Biden is worse, Last weekend, I felt I had no choice but to say a few words about the Northam thing in Virginia. I hate his kind of conservative Democrat so I was only too happy to remindreaders that he's had a long, horrible, conservative career in Virginia politics. For starters, he admits he voted for George W. Bush--times. In his own 2013 campaign, Northam said "I dont consider myself as a liberal... I think the less government, the better" and said he is "very conservative fiscally." He has a record in the state legislature to back it up. He's also been generally anti-immigrant over the course of his career until very recently. Soon after he was first elected to the state Senate in 2007 he announced he was leaving the Democratic caucus and joining the Republicans, which would have thrown control of the Senate to the GOP. He said the reason he was switching was because of his fiscal conservatism. I don't know what the Democrats promised him-- plenty, no doubt-- but they persuaded him to change his mind." So the offensive picture in the yearbook didn't exactly shock my socks off. But I couldn't bring myself to cast the 3,000th stone. All I really wanted to do was remind Democrats howling for his blood that Biden is worse, much worse A friend of mine, Dr. Fergie Reid, a prominent African-American civil rights activist from Virginia, called me and was furious about what's happening to Northam. He thinks it's a mistake to demand he resign. He thinks Democrats are dancing to the Republicans' tune and that the Republicans are laughing at them-- or were laughing at them... until they figured out how they stumbled onto a way to get the Democrats to cannibalize themselves and destroy their own party from inside. This morning he dashed off a note about some of the things we talked about and said I can share it here: "Virginia is for Lovers"-- good sales pitch. "Virginia has always been, of, by, and for racists"-- hard truth; not such a good sales pitch. BREAKING NEWS!!!! SHOCKING!!! Two of Virginias favorite sons grew up in racially intolerant Virginia society, and may have engaged in openly racially insensitive displays while they were young adults!! There is Gambling at Ricks Cafe too. This dirty trick operation is effective, because like a virus, it uses the replicating machinery of the host to potentiate its lethality. Dems are doing the dirty work for the originators of this operation. Qui Bono-- Who Benefits? Good question; more folk should be asking and answering this question. The operation hasnt quite worked as planned; Northam hasnt resigned; subsequently, the hit on Fairfax dropped too early; and, after hypocritically calling for Northams resignation, Herring inoculated himself by outing his own blackface "issues." Now, Northam has been given the opportunity to become Virginias most transformative, impactful politician; this includes Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and others. Ralph can start the healing discussion about the true history of Virginia; no one is better suited to be this messenger; he is a product of this culture; he was raised on Virginias Eastern Shore, the birth place of Slavery in America. His ancestors were Slaveowners Ralph grew up in Onancock, Virginia during the 1960s and 70s. He attended VMI a school that remains proud of its Civil War history. He attended Eastern Virginia Medical School-- a school with a long history of racial insensitivity. Eastern Virginia Medical School banned yearbooks in 2013 after students posed in Confederate garb Then Ralph went into the Military. He returned to Virginia, voted twice for George W Bush, changed political parties, and was elected to office four times as a Democrat. He is a walking example of the song Amazing Grace. Virginia has had "cancer" since its founding. Examples of this cancers rampant expression and metastasis can be found throughout the state. There are times when "cutting cancer out," is not an option; its found its way into too many locations. This is Virginia today; "a state of denial" is not a solution; "Projection" and "Displacement" are not solutions. Ralph can start the healing process with a frank, open discussion of the "true history of Virginia." It will be ugly, and difficult, and painful. Effective treatment of difficult problems is rarely easy; but, treatment is necessary if improvement is desired. The Dirty Tricktsers probably never envisioned that. Who remembers Governor and Senator George "Macaca" Allen and all his Confederate memorabilia-- including the Stars and Bars with the noose? You think the Republicans who started the drumbeat for Northam's resignation care one bit that he applied shoe polish to his face? Of course you don't. Otherwise they would be demanding Iowa Nazi Steve King be ousted from Congress. And now what are they going to do about Virginia's state Senate Majority Leader Tommy Norment ? And nearly every other white Virginia male of a certain age? But... they do seem to have come up with a formula-- a formula of divisiveness that no one knows how to use better than Trump-- that will tear the Democratic Party apart. UPDATE: Skip Kaltenheuser Sure, Governor Northam, your handling of the matter while under pressure was ham-handed. But dont resign, or Democrats will go on to eat their old, and there will be a silent backlash. Thirty-five years. Is there no statute of limitations on stupidity and insensitivity, on poorly conceived humor? Because if thats the case, people whove done stupid and decide to enter public service might as well just hang themselves now. Forget medical service. Forget serving your country in the Marines or any other risky endeavor. Your service just isnt wanted. And most of all, forget any ambitions to evolve, to become more aware, to try and square the slate. Any growing awareness and maturity simply isnt wanted. Its inconvenient to those who congratulate themselves on growing up with a different background and who pride themselves on their moral superiority, or whod like to make a political statement by joining the chorus to throw you under the bus. If you did stupid thirty-five years ago, no good deed will go unpunished, not helping felons back into society or expanding Medicaid. Nothing but nothing you do will ever have value again. And so the swirl of opportunistic piranha, including some who surprise me, thickens. You are forever of the lowest caste, forever a political untouchable. And while were following this logic, lets end parole and any other concept of second chances, because people can never be allowed to be anything but what they once were. If you poorly navigated a stilted environment or culture, like a conservative medical school or military academy, thats you, forever frozen like a bug in amber. Meanwhile, those that condemn with a hair trigger, including one who shilled for tobacco companies, (Gillibrand, just for starters), and one who covered up or defended prosecutorial abuses, and gave a pass to bankers who preyed on the poor, (Harris, just for starters)-- talk about harm to minorities-- and in far more recent times, can get a pass. Oh, and please dont bring up LBJ. What a shame he was allowed to achieve his civil rights goals. We should have waited until we had someone that skilled who also had a pristine history. But I dont want to go among mad people," Alice remarked. "Oh, you cant help that," said the Cat: "were all mad here. Im mad. Youre mad." "How do you know Im mad?" said Alice. "You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldnt have come here. Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland With freedom comes responsibility. Eleanor Roosevelt By Benjamin Jumbe. President Museveni has pledged to support boda operators in Northern Uganda. Speaking at the 38th Tarehesita anniversary celebrations in Kitgum, the president pledged to inject 160 Million shillings in their SACCOs. To access it, the president advised them to form organized SACCOs within their districts. The money is to be shared among 8 districts. The president also pledged government commitment to establish more factories in the region which he says will help create jobs for the people America's enemies have a very clear definition of victory. For them, victory comes when we give up the fight before they do. We know this because they have told us so. The 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed told his CIA interrogator "Americans don't realize we do not need to defeat you militarily; we only need to fight long enough for you to defeat yourself by quitting." That is how the terrorists see Obama's withdrawal from Iraq in 2011 and Trump's planned withdrawals from Syria and Afghanistan: America defeating itself by quitting. It is understandable that, after 18 years, Americans want the war to end. But what we want is irrelevant. We don't get to decide unilaterally that the war is over. The enemy gets a vote. Just because we have tired of fighting doesn't mean that they have. Here is the hard truth: We don't get to choose when the war ends, but we do get to choose where it is fought. It can either be fought over there, in the deserts of Syria and the mountains of Afghanistan, or it can be fought over here on American streets and in American cities, as it was on Sept. 11, 2001. It's up to us. Corvallis Friday: A chance of flurries before 10 a.m., then a chance of snow showers until 1 p.m., then a chance of rain. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 40. Calm wind becoming south around 5 mph in the afternoon. Chance of precipitation is 40 percent. Little or no snow accumulation expected. Friday night: Rain and snow before 1 a.m., then rain until 4 .m., then rain and snow. Low around 32. South wind 6 to 9 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90 percent. New snow accumulation of 1 to 3 inches possible. Saturday: Snow showers before 1 p.m., then rain, possibly mixed with snow showers. High near 38. Southeast wind 5 to 9 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90 percent. New snow accumulation of less than 1 inch possible. Lebanon Friday: A chance of snow before 10 a.m., then rain and snow likely until 1 p.m., then rain likely. Cloudy, with a high near 39. Light and variable wind. Chance of precipitation is 60 percent. Little or no snow accumulation expected. Friday night: Rain before 10 p.m., then rain and snow. Low around 33. South southwest wind 7 to 11 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100 percent. New snow accumulation of 1 to 2 inches possible. Saturday: Snow showers before 1 p.m., then rain, possibly mixed with snow showers. High near 37. South southwest wind around 9 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90 percent. New snow accumulation of less than one inch possible. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 1 Sad 0 Angry 1 So it was interesting to hear the consultants from Human Capital Enterprises (both of whom have experience in Oregon schools) talk about the themes they saw surfacing again and again from their conversations and surveys. For example, Hank Harris of Human Capital Enterprises noted that The most salient challenges and issues facing Lebanon Community Schools are centered around organizational culture." That topic came up in every conversation the consultants held. Qualities the community wants to see in its next superintendent, the consultant said, include being "a person of ethics" and an "extremely capable communicator." The community also seeks an innovator who engages parents and community members, and understands how to work with underrepresented and marginalized populations. In Albany, the search is on for "an individual who operates at the highest levels of personal and professional integrity, who builds trust through honesty and following through on commitments and who has experience at multiple levels of education. It will help your job chances in Albany to be a "thoughtful and unafraid leader who does not shy away from challenges" and "a strategic agent of change who plans deliberately with a sense of urgency." If you're wondering about that combination of "deliberate planning" and "urgency," you're not alone. Tamil Nadu: Banned invasive African catfish thrive in Coimbatore lakes, snapped up by gullible buyers February 08,2019 | Source: The Times of India Unlike the other fish displayed by fishmongers at the Ukkadam market in the city, eel-like African catfish that are kept in trays often jump out and crawl like snakes on the floor. Running behind them, a seller hits them with a stick and put them back in the tray, much to the amusement of buyers. African catfish (Clarias gariepinus) are found in abundance in all city lakes, including Periyakulam and Valankulam, the sellers said. A kilogram is sold for Rs 80 to Rs 100. But, the central government had banned breeding, transportation and sale of the invasive species in 2000. In 1997, a committee constituted to regulate the introduction of exotic aquatic organisms in India had directed the state governments and Union territories to initiate steps to destroy catfish, also called exotic magur, that were introduced without permission. After three years, following a high court order, the ban was implemented across the country as the carnivorous fish was posing a threat to indigenous fish varieties. Catfish survive for days when wrapped with wet sacks. As they are alive at the time of sale and taste good, buyers prefer them. They also cost less than rohu and jalebi, fish seller Nagaraj told TOI. We purchase them from fishermen, who catch them from Periyakulam, just opposite to the Ukkadam market. Compared to native fish species, catfish can survive in any water, even in sludge, an environmentalist said. Local fishermen leave catfish hatchlings into lakes as they have a high growth, survival and breeding rate. As they grow faster, the fishers could earn almost double or triple the amount than breeding and selling native varieties. The hatchlings are sourced from Andhra Pradesh, he said. The species disrupts the ecosystem in the lakes and destroys biodiversity, said V Senthil Kumar, assistant professor and head of the Thanjavur Centre for Sustainable Aquaculture. They eat all kinds of native fish. Over a period of time, they will become the dominant variety proliferating in water bodies and native fish would have reached the stage of extinction. Biosafety measures like installing filters on the inlets should be taken to prevent the fish from moving from one lake to another, Kumar said. Fishermen are selling them only because there is a good demand and the input cost is minimum. If people refuse to purchase it, there will be no need for them to breed it. It could be achieved only by creating awareness. However, president of the Covai Fishermens Co-operative Society M Balamurugan refuted the allegation. We did not leave African catfish hatchlings in lakes. They entered the lakes from rivers years ago. In fact, we are affected by them because they eat most of the hatchlings of other fish varieties we leave in the lakes. We bore a huge loss because of them. We want the officials concerned to take steps to destroy them, he said. A fisheries department official said that the department has not received any complaint about the fishermen leaving the banned species in city lakes. If we receive a complaint, we will make sure that the fishermen leave the hatchlings only in the presence of the owner of the lakes, that is, the city corporation. A food safety official in charge of preventing banned species from entering markers promised to investigate. India: Fish waste to be utilized as fish feed by Chander Mohan February 08,2019 | Source: Krishijagran Under the Swachhta Action Plan, a sanction of Rs. 10 lakhs was received by ICAR- CIFT, Cochin for implementing the "Management and commercial utilization of waste in 20 fish markets (10/Year) in urban locations" from the Council. Under the programme, it was envisaged to cover 20 fish markets/fish landing centers located in six states namely Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat along with two markets at Delhi. Procurement of model kit consisting of equipment/tools for a demonstration of the technology on the conversion of fish waste to feed/manure was made. A processing line including meat mincer for preparation of fish silage from fish waste was perfected and tested for field trials. On 30th January 2019, the inaugural function of the programme was held at Thoppumpady fisheries harbor, Ernakulam. Prof. K. V. Thomas the Honble MP of Ernakulam constituency who has agreed to inaugurate the function could not attend due to some unforeseen reasons. The programme started with a welcome address by Dr. V. Geethalakshmi, Principal Scientist and Nodal officer, Swachh Bharat Mission, ICAR-CIFT, Cochin. The Chief Guest of the programme was Shri K.K. Kunjachan, Councilor, Kochi Nagara Sabha. In his Presidential address, Dr. Ravishankar C.N., Director, ICAR-CIFT elaborated the technology interventions made by ICAR-CIFT in the fishing and fish processing industry and highlighted the technology developed for fish waste utilization. He added that the Agri-Business Incubation Centre at ICAR- CIFT supports operations on business projects as a measure of enhancing the foundation for new technology-based industries and establishing a knowledge-based economy. Dr. A.A. Zynudheen, Principal Scientist & I/c QAM Division, ICAR-CIFT, Cochin explained the technical details of the technology on fish waste conversion to feed and how it can be implemented at a larger scale at fish markets and harbours where tons of waste gets generated. Shri K.K. Kunjachan inaugurated the programme and stressed the need for proper waste disposal. He lauded the efforts made by ICAR-CIFT for the initiative in demonstrating a suitable technology for fish waste utilization as fish waste piling up in markets and landing centre are becoming a big challenge for want of suitable disposal mechanism. Shri Noushad, President and Shri Majeed, Secretary, Harbour Management Committee spoke during the occasion and offered their support for the programme. Felicitating the programme, Dr. Saju, Joint Director (Fisheries), Govt. of Kerala expressed his support for the venture and requested that the Institute should organize similar programmes in other parts of the State. Shri Sudhir, Administrator & Chief Engineer, Cochin Fisheries Harbour also spoke on the occasion and promised full support for the venture and explore possibilities to establish a foolproof waste management system based on the ICAR-CIFT technology at the harbor. Smt. Daisy, Manager, MAYSYAFED also graced the occasion and expressed interest for a demonstration on the technology at MATSYAFED unit at Thoppampady. A formal Vote of Thanks was offered by Dr. P.K. Binsi, Scientist, Fish Processing Division, ICAR-CIFT. The programme was well attended by fishermen, market vendors, representatives from the fish processing industry and the general public. The inaugural function has followed a demonstration on the technology on conversion of fish waste to feed. Dr. Zynudheen and Dr. Binsi conducted the demonstration assisted by Shri Ajeesh, Shri N. Sunil, and Shri Rahul Ravindran, Technical Assistants of the Institute. The questions and doubts of the participants were cleared by the scientists of CIFT. Tamil Nadu: Making maps to protect fishing villages around Chennai by Mahima Jain February 08,2019 | Source: Mongabay - Fishing communities across the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu are fighting to protect their traditional lands as the sea rises on one side and residential and industrial development encroaches on the others. - To support these communities, a 35-year-old local fisherman is helping them create maps that document how they use their land. - By creating their own maps, the communities are taking control of a tool that has always belonged to the powerful. - Their maps allow them to speak the language of the state so they can resolve disputes and mount legal challenges against industries and government projects encroaching on their land and fishing grounds. In a small fishing hamlet in Tamil Nadu, a community leader opens his smartphone and searches his contacts for Map Saravanan to make sure the number is saved correctly. Amused at the nickname hes been given in recognition of his skills, Saravanan, who is sitting across the room, laughs: Isnt my name enough? The 35-year-old fisherman is a local legend who uses maptivism to help fishing communities across the state. Saravanan (who uses only his first name) creates maps documenting how fishermen use the land, by means of participatory mapping techniques, government records and historical data. As a coordinator with the advocacy group Coastal Resource Centre in Chennai, Saravanan has mapped around 35 villages across four districts of Tamil Nadu. He aims to eventually cover all of the states 600-odd villages lining the Bay of Bengal and Indian Ocean. Maps, in general, are created by governments and bureaucrats for administrative, economic and military purposes. By creating their own maps, Saravanan and the fisherfolk he works with, are taking control of a tool that has always belonged to the powerful. Their maps allow them to speak the language of the state so they can resolve disputes and mount legal challenges against industries and government projects encroaching on their land and fishing grounds. Saravanan is also acutely aware of the threat posed by sea-level rise. According to one study, nearly 40 million Indians and more than 125,000 fisherfolk along the coast of Chennai, Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur districts would be affected if the sea level rises by 1 metre (3.3 feet) by 2050. This includes the 20,000-plus residents of Urur Olcott Kuppam, a village in Chennai where three generations of Saravanans family have lived. With the Adyar River to its north and the popular Elliots Beach to its south, Urur Olcott Kuppam is conspicuous due to the contrast it presents with its surroundings. Its densely packed shanties and small concrete buildings crowd unpaved roads. At its north end is a complex of public toilets and all along its east-facing beach are boats and nets owned by its residents. To the west, though, are apartment complexes and the gated park of the Theosophical Society. And to the south, cafes and restaurants, large bungalows and tree-lined roads border a popular scenic beach and promenade. In Saravanans grandfathers time, the village didnt even make it onto the citys maps. But the city of Chennai, previously known as Madras, has been expanding every year and fisherfolk like Saravanan have multiple battles to fight as the sea rises on one side of their homes and the city on the others. They have to keep their traditions and common lands safe not just from the wrath of nature (Chennai withstood the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, and more recently severe floods in 2015, Cyclone Vardah in 2016 and a water crisis in 2017 and 2018) but also from residential and industrial encroachment. For now, Saravanan aims to create maps that capture not just the contours of fishing villages, but also their details, colour and vitality. How did you conceive the idea of mapping your villages? Why did you start this? Saravanan: Between 2007 and 2009, there were plans for a project called the Elevated Expressway. It was a six-lane project affecting at least 14 fishing villages. The project feasibility report stated that fishing villages would not be disturbed, and that the project would only utilise beach space that has no other use. But this space is more important for our livelihoods and lives than our villages. It is where we rest our boats and nets. Our catamarans lie there, and we dry fish there. It is in this space where we trade fish and sell it at auction. The beach serves many purposes. This space is associated with our livelihoods, and is intertwined with our lives. But the government could only say that the space is of no use. So I realised that there has been no documentation of how we use this space. We then came into contact with Siddharth Hande, then with [the advocacy group] Transparent Chennai, who suggested we could record our data through mapping and create documents. This got me interested. He first started recording the data in my village and I started learning from him. He did one project in Chennai. After that, I did the documenting in many fishing villages throughout Tamil Nadu. Mapping is not just about documenting our rights. If there is something illegal happening, fishermen send us a GPS point. I will figure out the areas survey number, the zone, how far it is from the high-tide line, whether the activity is legal or not. When I respond with these details, they go ahead and take action on it. So our mapping is not just about tracking the areas where we park our boats and so on. We also use it to stop illegal activities. What kind of legal protection do Indian fishermen have when it comes to their rights over the seas? It is common understanding that the sea and the land along the sea belong to fishermen based on traditional rights that they have had for generations. But there is no legal sanction for such traditional rights. There is no government order saying that the fishermen have rights over the resources of the sea and they cannot be disturbed. There is no court order or even a gazette notification to this effect. However, Annexure 1 of Section 5 of the Coastal Regulation Zone Notification of 2011 describes Coastal Zone Management Plans, which each state is supposed to develop and codify, as recognising the traditional rights of fishermen. Each map in a states Coastal Zone Management Plan is supposed to show a fishing village and its common areas, which are used for parking boats, storing and repairing nets, drying fish, and its fish-breeding grounds and so on. It should also show the social services and infrastructure of the fishing village: the roads, its community hall, hospitals, temples and schools. Keeping in mind the effects of climate change, it also says that long-term plans for housing the fishermen should be considered. So if the notification and management plans are made into law, there would be legal recognition of the traditional rights of fishermen. For now, we use the notification and its subsequent amendments as our weapon to secure our rights. When my father said that the sea and its shore belong to fishermen, he held no rights. But when my son says the same thing, he should have rights. What is your method for the participatory mapping project? What are the tools used? [My colleague Pooja Kumar and I] basically focus on training young people in all the villages. Every fishing hamlet has its own set of problems, and we use the maps to tell them how to handle their problems. It empowers them to find their own solutions. Method is very important in mapping. Our GIS [geographic information system] mapping follows international standards. The maps in Tamil Nadus draft Coastal Zone Management Plan from 1996 were hand-drawn and did not follow GIS standards. The 2011 notification specified that it should be done to international standards and in GIS format. I learned that format and the tools I use open-source software called QGIS. Normally the software costs several lakhs [several thousand dollars], which we cant afford. But using GRASS, a free and open-source GIS software, we can get the physical data. There are other free tools to map land use. Using those, we create maps for built-up areas, agricultural areas, etc. There are many tools in GIS like geo-referencing and so on. Android smartphones have a free app called GPS Essentials that we use to collect data. In mapping it is very important to go to the field and collect data, which we do either through Android phones or GPS devices. How does mapping help your efforts to gain legal recognition of your rights? The economy of the country is dependent on ports, and there are many new harbour projects and projects around the ports. The government is targeting the sea and the places around the sea. So, the Coastal Zone Management Plans become important. We map to identify the spots in the sea that the fishermen frequent most. So if the government plans to bring a project there, we can establish that it is a place our fishermen use. Earlier, there was no evidence to establish this. GIS mapping has helped us achieve this. When it comes to documenting fishing practices and traditions, in prawn-fishing areas, if fishermen from one village fish there it is followed by two days of rest before the fishermen of another village go there and fish in that area. We have documented such systems, practices and areas through mapping. Heres a success story: In 2016, as part of the Ennore Thermal Power Station annex [in Chennai], a conveyor belt was built in an area traditionally used for prawn fishing. The fishermen were able to show the previous management plan maps and tell the government that the construction violated the Coastal Regulation Zone norms, as this was their workplace. The government had to relent and shut down the conveyor belt, restoring the land to the fisherfolk. After we create village-level maps, the respective panchayats [local self-governments] pass a resolution ratifying the maps and plans, which are then passed on to the relevant district and state departments for inclusion in official plans. However, the departments may or may not include them in full in the Coastal Zone Management Plan. So we follow up, requesting they show us proof of the steps theyve taken to include the maps we created. What do you think threatens your seas and shores the most? As fishermen, we are solely dependent on seas and shores for our livelihoods. The threats we face are multifold: natural disasters, man-made mistakes and government and business projects. Projects like Sagarmala [an approximately $120 billion Rs. 8.5 trillion government transport and logistics project launched in 2015] and beach beautifications pose a huge threat. The governments see the seas and shores only through an economic lens. The central government in India neither recognises nor deems it fit to take into account the livelihood of the fishing community. Instead, the government sees the sea as something to fill its coffers. It only sees it as blue economy and focuses on bringing in multinational companies. The threats we face from government projects are huge. It is not just about the projects; they also want to evict us from the shores, as the value of our shores is huge. These days, people are enamoured with living by the sea. People want to build factories and beach-facing properties on the shore. Then there are human activities like discharging industrial effluent and untreated waste into the sea and rivers. There is a deep connection between the rivers and the sea. If the river is polluted, it will affect the sea [and therefore fish and fishing activities]. Another major issue is the construction of seawalls. In Kovalam village, they put up a breakwater that was supposed to save the village. But as a result in nearby villages like Karikattukuppam there is no place to park boats anymore and the buildings have been destroyed because of erosion. We were affected during natural disasters like the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, but it was a natural disaster and fishermen always had a way to cope with these. But to be affected by manmade or government disasters is to live in perpetual fear. How does mapping help you to handle these threats? In 2016-2017, the Indian Institute of Technology Madras released a report on shoreline management. It was about coastal erosion, and assessed how much damage would be caused if the sea rises by 1 metre. The Indian Space Research Organisation had released a similar report in 2012. But the government did not use it, nor has it let the public know about the results. There has been no training on how to handle these issues. For example, Pulicat is a lake and estuary. If sea level rises by 1 metre in the next 50 years, there will be severe consequences for it. We know this because of the mapping and we have reiterated our demand for long-term housing [to relocate vulnerable fishing communities]. The mapping was very useful in that sense. Only when we analysed the Indian Space Research Organisation maps along with satellite imaging did we realise the gravity of the situation. We worked on it and we spread the message to many villages. Mapping is a tool to help us to protect ourselves into the future. By Moses Kyeyune. The Bank of Uganda has confirmed Prof. Benno Ndulu, the former Governor of the Central Bank of Tanzania as the guest speaker at the 26th Annual Joseph Mubiru Memorial Lecture. The occasion slated for February 20, 2019 will run under the theme, the role of Financial Innovations and Inclusion in scaling up growth in Uganda. Prof.Ndulu was appointed Governor of the Central Bank of Tanzania in January 2008 and retired in 2017, and he is hailed for restoring public trust and confidence in Tanzanias central bank. He is also credited with implementing prudent policies and overseeing macro-economic stabilization, in addition to supporting the expansion of financial inclusion by licensing more commercial banks, introducing agent banking and tapping into the mobile financial services. He is currently the chairperson on the Board of Alliance for Financial Inclusion. A blog about life under, and resisting, a dictatorship A few miles outside of Farmington on Route AA in Ste. Genevieve County is an unusual sight that draws the attention of motorists as they drive by. Several elk graze placidly in a pasture along the road surrounded by 8-foot tall fencing. This stands out to local hunters especially compared to the much smaller whitetail deer. Kevin Hinkebein has been breeding elk for the antlers and meat on his ranch for almost three decades. I started raising elk in the fall of 1990, he said. [I] purchased a pair of elk from Rush Johnson, the founding father of the North American Elk Breeders Association. I joined the association in 1990, the year it was formed. This was the beginning of the Hinkebein Elk Ranch, and it has been thriving ever since. His operation has grown to 58 head of elk on roughly 20 acres of fenced-in pasture. In the Farmington area, many people remember Hinkebein when he was working for the USDA Rural Development writing loans and grants as a program specialist. After retirement, his main passion has been helping to develop the elk breeding industry, as well as marketing retail products for consumers. Thailand's king has issued an order stating that no member of the royal family should be involved in politics, quashing a bid by his older sister to run for prime minister in next month's elections.An order issued by King Maha Vajiralongkorn read out on national television late last night said his sister's candidacy was inappropriate and violated the constitution's intent.Princess Ubolratana Mahidol's nomination earlier yesterday by an opposition party had upended politics in Thailand and threatened the palace's decades-long tradition of eschewing political involvement.Many Thais had assumed that the princess would not have sought the nomination without her brother's blessing and were surprised that he would have supported her association with a party that is considered unsympathetic to the monarchy.Princess Ubolratana Mahidol's nomination by the opposition Thai Raksa Chart Party marks a shock realignment of Thai politics.The party is linked to former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who hardcore royalists have long dismissed as opposed in spirit to the monarchy.The nomination pits the princess against current Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, the preferred candidate of the military, considered one of Thailand's most royalist institutions.Prayuth, who led the 2014 military coup that ousted Thailand's last elected government, yesterday also accepted his nomination as candidate for prime minister by the Palang Pracharat Party, widely seen as a proxy for the military.Prayuth had been considered the frontrunner for the March 24 polls because changes in the constitution and election rules implemented by his government make it difficult for political parties without military backing to capture the prime minister's post. A New Zealander held in police custody for several days on suspicion of links to extremist rebels has been freed by a Kenyan court.Sulub Warfaa, 36, said he was pleased to be released, speaking to journalists outside the court in Garissa, Kenya.'Just because I was born in Mogadishu does not mean that I am a terrorist,' he said.'I did not get tortured. The officers they were just doing their jobs, you know, that's what they were doing.'I'm really happy that I am free, and finally justice has been served.'Mr Warfaa was arrested near Kenya's border with Somalia for allegedly possessing two passports with different names.He was detained earlier this week with 10 other people in a sweep on suspected extremists near the Dadaab refugee camp, which houses at least 200,000 Somali refugees.The crackdown followed an attack in January on a hotel complex in Nairobi in which 21 people were killed.The hotel assault was claimed by al-Shabab, Somalia's Islamic extremists who are linked to al-Qaeda. The arrests were not directly linked to that attack. Hector Bellerin has plenty of time on his hands as he continues on the long road to recovery from his long-term knee injury.The Arsenal defender suffered a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament against Chelsea last month and will not play again this season.But he has kept fans entertained by documenting much of his rehabilitation process on social media, and the latest entry is sure to entertain many.The Spaniard has built a stunning Lego replica of Washington DC's Capitol building, proudly showing off the construction in an Instagramstory.It would set you back 85 to build your own Lego versionof the home of the United States Congress.Bellerin appeared to be proud of his effort, writing 'I'm done' as he showed off the transformation from a rubble of Lego bricks to the finished article.It comes after he underwent therapy alongside former Napoli winger Ezequiel Lavezziearlier this week.He has also recently spent time with former Barcelona team-mate Gerard Deulofeu and has appeared as positive as possible on social media despite the prospect of a lengthy lay-off, which could see him sidelined for up to nine months.Bellerin had made 19 Premier League appearances before sustaining the injury to his left knee. He underwent surgery at the end of January.Since joining from Barcelona aged just 16, the Spaniard has racked up 181 games and scored seven goals. Question: Regarding my posts about the terrible perversion of Torah and halacha that Rav Shmuel Kaminetsky has engineered with his prod... Important!! email - yadmoshe@gmail.com Macedonia takes a major step on road to NATO membership. The conflict over the name with Greece had become a damper in its membership to NATO. With the conflict with Greece taken to logical end with the conclusion of Prespa Agreement, Macedonia has signed accession papers with NATO. The signing of accession papers allows Macedonia take part in NATO ministerial meetings as an invitee. To acquire full membership, all 29 current members must ratify the accession protocol. Russia Raises Concerns Russia has raised concerns against Macedonia becoming part of NATO. Russia has accused NATO of destabilising the Balkans by pushing Macedonia and Montenegro to join NATO. Russia sees Balkan nations as its sphere of influence and is against NATO or any other body led by US or EU making inroads to these Balkan countries. NATOs membership provides a guarantee of mutual defence, provides a welcome insurance policy against possible incursions. Russia perceives this as an attempt by the west to contain it by making inroads to the areas which Russia considers its sphere of influence. North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) is a military and political alliance established through the Washington Treaty. NATO aims to promote democratic values and enables members to consult and cooperate on defence and security-related issues to solve problems, build trust and, in the long run, prevent conflict. Article 5 of the Washington Treaty states that an armed attack against one of the member states would be considered as an attack against all members, and other members would assist the attacked member, with armed forces if necessary. The International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation is observed on February 6 every year. It is an annual awareness day celebrated as part of the UNs efforts to eradicate female genital mutilation. It was first introduced in 2003. Why February 6 was Chosen? It was on February 6, 2003, Stella Obasanjo, the First Lady of Nigeria and spokesperson for the Campaign Against Female Genital Mutilation, made the official declaration on Zero Tolerance to FGM in Africa during a conference organized by the Inter-African Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children (IAC). Then the UN Sub-Commission on Human Rights adopted this day as an international awareness day. Female Genital Mutilation Female Genital Mutilation refers to procedures involving partial or total removal of the female external genitalia or other injuries to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons. The practice is widely carried out on young girls between infancy and the age of 15 due to cultural, religious or social reasons. Spotlight Initiative which is a joint project of the European Union and the United Nations aims to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls, specifically targets sexual and gender-based violence, and harmful practices in Sub-Saharan Africa, which include female genital mutilation. Female genital mutilation is a gross violation of the human rights of women and girls. The practice discriminates against women on the basis of sex and compromises the rights to health, physical integrity and life, the right to freedom from torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; and the rights of the child. Hence to abolish this inhumane discriminatory practice, Sustainable Development Goals in 2015 calls for an end to FGM by 2030 under Goal 5 on Gender Equality. In light of the additional duties that have been imposed upon the state police, the PSTA believes it is long overdue for the Legislative Budget and Finance Committee be tasked to update its 2001 study to determine what is the appropriate staffing level needed to properly fulfill the ever-expanding mission of the State Police in 2019. Research will provide Pennsylvania policy leaders critically important data to fully understand, measure and comfortably outline the long-term needs of the Pennsylvania State Police. With more municipalities certainly turning over patrol and investigative duties in the coming years, we simply cannot continue to approach the next 20 years as if it is still 2001. A great deal of discussion is also taking place on the topic of legalizing marijuana for recreational use. While the PSTA hasnt taken a stance on this issue, any discussions must provide a seat at the table for law enforcement. After reviewing a recent report by the Colorado Department of Public Safety, which did a five-year review of recreational marijuana impact, Pennsylvania will have to look at the potential impact this would have on the state police and other affected agencies. While organizing my home office a few weeks ago, I came across a letter my grandfather wrote back in 1924. He wrote that eloquent letter to his best friends wife, consoling her on the loss of her mother. His cursive handwriting was artful perfect penmanship. He wrote the letter when he was 21. Since he died at 34, when my father was only 3, it is among the most cherished items I have from a grandfather I never got to meet. Such is the power of the handwritten letter, an art that has died along with the art of cursive handwriting. You see, many American schools have phased out lessons in cursive. There is a waning need for it in the modern era, some argue, and the classes take too much time. Cursive originated centuries ago. Its the result of technological innovations such as inkwells and quill pens made from goose feathers. Because ink dripped when the quill was lifted from the paper, it made sense to connect letters in words together in one flowing line and the art of cursive writing began. Cursive became less necessary with the invention of the ballpoint pen, which does not leak and, technically, does not require cursive writing. And here we get to the crux of the issue. Conservatives who read the social justice literature can be forgiven for thinking the term is really just a Trojan horse for socialism, and in earlier eras it has been. But while its true that many of todays social justice warriors advocate for socialism, the animating passion stems from identity politics. To put it bluntly, historically oppressed or disadvantaged groups want payback in the name of social justice. Rothman calls this retributive justice. According to this view which obviously has more than a little truth to it whites have historically enjoyed privileges non-whites did not, and therefore non-whites are owed something and white privilege must be overthrown. The argument follows the same form for males, heterosexuals, etc. Among the myriad problems with this worldview is that individual circumstances are boiled away. The white descendant of a Northern abolitionist is as guilty as any other beneficiary of white privilege. Vast abstract categories of human beings are swept up into notions of collective guilt or victimhood. Weve always believed that a level playing field should exist among health insurance companies and health care providers, Holmberg said. A UPMC spokesman said there is no state law that gives the attorney general the authority to force private parties into contracts. The regions insurance marketplace has been changing in recent years, and consumers have benefited, said UPMC vice president Paul Wood. Highmark officials said that if the agreements expire as scheduled on July 1, nearly 70,000 customers in the Pittsburgh area and Erie will find themselves out of network, hit with higher costs for UPMC services or needing to find new doctors. These are hospitals that were built for the community by taxpayer dollars, by community contributions, and the very people who paid for them will not be able to access them, Highmark spokesman Aaron Billger said Thursday. Shapiro said UPMC has not been living up to its obligations as a public charity, a status that gives it protection from taxes. He wants the court to enable open and affordable access to UPMC services through contracts with any health plans, to require arbitration when talks between insurers and providers fail, and to prohibit excessive and unreasonable billing practices by UPMC. Defense attorney Heidi Eakin conceded that the firearm is the gun that was used the kill Harris. However, during her opening statement a day earlier, Eakin said the gun belonged to a Philadelphia man who traveled to Carlisle to sell drugs. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} DNA was recovered from the firearm and compared against a sample collected from Anderson after his arrest. Thomas Frielle, a Shippensburg University professor who compared the two samples, said it was inconclusive if the two were a match. Andersons son, Sadeek Anderson, also made it to the stand, but due to technical issues, his testimony is where Judge Edward Guido broke for the day. Senior Assistant District Attorney Kimberly Metzger questioned Sadeek Anderson about his whereabouts shortly before the shooting and whether he was with his father. Metzger said he told police after the shooting that he had walked down West Penn Street with his father and two other people shortly before the shooting and that the man seen on video running from the American Legion after the shooting was his father. During testimony Thursday, Sadeek Anderson reversed that statement and said he did not remember saying that and if he did, it was because he was being pressured by police and prosecutors to do so. State Police in Harrisburg released an updated time frame for a homicide that took place on Interstate 81 north in Dauphin County Monday night. Investigators now believe Tyrone M. Shaw, 46, of Roselle Park, New Jersey, was killed on I-81 north at mile marker 75.4 in West Hanover Township, Dauphin County, between 7 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Monday. Police said in a news release Friday morning they are looking for additional commercial vehicle recordings of the victims vehicle in the area of I-83 north at Union Deposit to I-81 north at mile marker 75.4 in Dauphin County. Theyre asking trucking companies to check for video from the GPS coordinates of latitude 40.343439 and longitude -76.7438832. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} State Police seek public's help in I-81 shooting investigation in Dauphin County State Police at Harrisburg are asking for the publics assistance in investigating the homicide of a New Jersey man on Interstate 81 Monday in A trooper discovered a 2004 black GMC Yukon pulled off the side of the Interstate with its lights and hazard lights activated with a flat rear tire about 11:13 p.m. Monday night. The trooper found Shaws body lying between the guardrail and his vehicle. Shaw had a gunshot wound to the head. Public tips and several commercial vehicle recordings were obtained by the State Police in Harrisburg to determine the time frame. Nashville police said Friday their investigation showed that prior to the shooting the juveniles were in a stolen Chevrolet pickup driving in the alley behind Yorlets' house. Police said the juveniles interacted with him, took his wallet and demanded his car keys. It is believed that he was fatally shot after he refused. A preliminary investigation revealed Yorlets was shot outside his home. He made it back inside, police said, where he was found by one of his housemates. Yorlets was transported to Vanderbilt University Medical Center where he was pronounced dead. Yorlets graduated from Belmont University in Nashville in May 2017. He was the lead singer for Nashville-based band Carverton, a band he founded with Dillsburg native Michael Curry in the summer of 2014, according to the band's website. Carverton released a statement on Twitter Friday: On Saturday, December 22, 2018, Ruth C. Aubin passed away peacefully in her sleep at Country Meadows Retirement Community in Mechanicsburg, PA. Ruth had just celebrated her 90th birthday on October 25th. Ruthie, as she was known by most, grew up as a child of the great depression on the family farm, just outside of Newville, PA. She graduated from Newville High School and went on to attend the Carlisle Business College. Upon graduating from there, she worked for more than thirty years for the U.S. Army at Carlisle Barracks. At the time of her retirement she was serving as the secretary to the U.S. Army War College Commandant. Of course, she also enjoyed many activities outside of work. Over the years she took up painting, bowling (where she met her deceased husband Jerry) and boating. This led to her second unofficial job as the secretary and commander for her U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary Flotilla 53. Finally, she loved to Polka dance and traveltwo passions that she often was able to combine. Source: iStock/FG Trade Much of the world has found itself in a crypto funk thus far in 2019, but in Latin America, crypto-mania appears to be hitting top gear. Per CoinDance statistics, trading in Venezuela has hit a massive all-time high with well over 8,000 transactions logged since the start of the year. The Venezuelan financial crisis and international sanctions have led scores of citizens to abandon the bolivar in favor of other currencies. However, it seems that rather than turn to foreign currencies, thousands are instead choosing to invest in cryptocurrencies. And it is not just crisis-hit Venezuela cryptocurrency trading is also booming in nearby nations. CoinDance stats show trading has shot up in neighboring Columbia since the start of the year. Traders have also been particularly active in Peru, Chile and Argentina. Weekly LocalBitcoins, a peer-to-peer bitcoin marketplace, volume (in bitcoin) in Venezuela: Source: Coin.dance Argentinian crypto-enthusiasts in particular have much to celebrate this week, as millions of people in the capital and beyond are now able to pay for transport on buses, subways, trains and highway toll booths using cryptocurrencies. Payment platform Alto Viaje, which allows users to charge their SUBE smart cards, says it has partnered with South American blockchain startup Bitex to enable payment in Bitcoin. SUBE cards are predominantly used in Buenos Aires, but transport systems in cities like Mar del Plata and Villa Gesell and some 30 other locations also accept SUBE payment. In Mexico, meanwhile, the co-founder of domestic cryptocurrency exchange Bitso has told El Economista that some 800,000 citizens now actively trade in digital tokens. Bitso says its own average annual growth is a staggering 522%. And elsewhere in South America, new Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaros pick for Central Bank of Brazil (BC) chief, Roberto Campos Neto, has been spelling out his pro-blockchain and digital asset policy ahead of his official appointment. Per Reuters, Campos Neto has sent a letter to the BC, stating that he wants to prepare [the central bank] for technological advancements, making specific mention of blockchain and digital assets. The news agency quotes Campos Neto as saying, One of the contributions I hope to make at the BC is to prepare it for future markets where technology advances exponentially. Campos Neto is likely to be officially appointed sometime next month. His move appears to indicate he is intent on following the pro-fintech policy of his predecessor, the incumbent BC chief Ilan Goldfajn. Moreover, as reported this week, a Brazilian cryptocurrency exchange has won a legal battle with a bank that had hoped to close the exchanges accounts. Walsh said Fish and Wildlife does not have a role in permitting the transmission line itself. There's been considerable interest, she said, in whether NPPD should have applied for a permit that would cover potential deaths or injuries to whooping cranes, which fly through the project area on their spring and fall migrations to and from Wood Buffalo Park in Canada, and their wintering sites at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge in Texas. Fish and Wildlife reviewed the NPPD analysis of the likelihood of whooping cranes striking the power lines, and conducted its own analysis. It also looked at data from the U.S. Geological Survey, obtained from satellite transmitters on 58 whooping cranes. Walsh said the service and others cannot definitively say the cranes will or will not strike the R-Project lines. Fish and Wildlife advises the project proponents they should apply for an incidental take permit if death or injury is reasonably certain to occur. But based on the numerous analyses, it could not conclude it was, she said. "We can't force an applicant to apply for a permit, and NPPD has chosen not to apply for a permit for whooping cranes," Walsh said. "I know there are many strong feelings on all sides about this project and whether it should be built." The reach of 4-H throughout rural Nebraska is undeniable. With agriculture serving as the states No. 1 industry, it makes sense that so many youth ages 5 through 19 participate in the organization its a natural precursor to jumping into ag-related fields later in life. In Platte County alone, local 4-H representatives estimate that 5,000 county youth are touched by 4-H in one way or another. Through clubs, school enrichment programs, after-school programs and camps, thousands feel the effect of 4-H, said Jill Goedeken, extension/youth 4-H development coordinator for Nebraska Extension-Platte County. This month, the organization is celebrating for 28 straight days during Nebraska 4-H Month. The month serves as a way to recognize all of the accomplishments being made in 4-H locally and statewide, as well as operating as a way to recruit more members. Goedeken noted that county 4-H enrollment is booming. I would say that at this point, as of Feb. 7, this is the highest enrollment that weve ever seen this early, Goedeken said, adding that the years final enrollment date is April 1. Theres been much discussion about the 23rd Street corridor revamp project in the last six months, but now the general public has its chance to weigh in. The Nebraska Department of Transportation will host its second information open house about it from 4-6 p.m. Tuesday at the American Legion, 2263 Third Ave. in Columbus. Were getting closer to our final package. What were doing is we want to get public input on what we designed, NDOT District 3 Engineer Kevin Domogalla told The Telegram. The proposed project would reconstruct about 2.69 miles of the existing pavement on 23rd Street starting just east of the north junction of U.S. Highway 81 and 23rd Street, and extending just east of the East 11th Avenue intersection, as previously reported. Work would also include reconstruction of sidewalks, curb ramps, curb inlets and storm sewers. Roadway lighting and traffic signals would be updated. With NDOT updating the roads, the city saw an opportunity to make some enhancements, as well. Money for streetscaping is coming out of the citys general fund, after previously being approved by the Columbus City Council. A bipartisan team of Wisconsin congressmen want to limit the presidents power to unilaterally impose tariffs by claiming the nations security is at risk. Their proposal is a smart and needed check on executive power, given the harm President Donald Trumps tariffs on imported steel and aluminum have caused our states economy. These duties have done more than raise the cost of construction in Wisconsin. They have triggered retaliatory tariffs on all sorts of Wisconsin products sent to Canada, Mexico and overseas. Farmers and manufacturers have been especially hard hit. Thats why U.S. Reps. Mike Gallagher, R-Green Bay, and Ron Kind, D-La Crosse, last week proposed the Bicameral Congressional Trade Authority Act, with U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Oshkosh, sponsoring a similar bill in the Senate. The Trump administration is threatening to slap more tariffs on imports this time on cars and auto parts claiming the fees are needed to protect national security. Thats silly. And under Gallagher and Kinds bill, the U.S. Defense Department would have to agree that a real threat exists, something that isnt required now. Akhtar also writes in his literary works about the financial crisis Americans experienced in 2008. This is an American author who is very concerned with American capitalism and greed without conscience and its effect on average people, Basu said. Akhtar creates complex and flawed protagonists who often fulfill negative stereotypes of misogyny, violence and anti-Americanism, sparking debate in the critical reception of the writer. On one hand, he is seen as pandering to white American Islamophobia and on the other he is viewed as committed to artistic truth rather than political agendas, Basu said. Basu was introduced to Akhtars novel American Dervish when he visited the Chippewa Valley Book Festival in Eau Claire in 2012. She is grateful for the committee that makes the festival possible. She also is grateful to UW-Stout for granting her a one-year sabbatical in 2016-17 to work on the book and reduced teaching time for a semester to help complete it. She also received a UW-Stout Dahlgren professorship from the UW-Stout Foundation to help fund research for the book. Basu teaches a class on After 9/11 addressing the trauma and race relations. Colleagues assess books value Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh. blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. . ..Times of Israel Blog..06 February '19..The Middle East Council of Churches (MECC), which represents beleaguered Christian communities located in Muslim-majority countries throughout the region, recently came to the defense of the World Council of Churches, accusing an unnamed Zionist group of defaming the organizations activists who operate in the Holy Land under the aegis of the Ecumenical Accompaniment Program in Palestine Israel (EAPPI).The communique was issued by the MECCs executive committee, which met in Lebanon in late January. The communique declared that participants condemn the unfair and vicious attack on the Ecumenical Accompaniment Program in Occupied Palestine led by one of the Zionist institutions.The level of contempt the MECC has for Israel and Israelis is pretty obvious. The MECCs executive committee cant even bring itself to name the organization in question, nor can it even mention the Jewish state Israel by name in its communique.Its disgusting. Its as if the bishops and patriarchs in charge of the MECC are taking their cue from Arab extremists in the Middle East who still dream of destroying the Zionist entity in their midst. Somebody needs to tell the folks who run the MECC that the Middle Ages called and they want their antisemitism back.Despite the MECCs refusal to name the Zionist institution in question, its pretty clear that the unnamed Zionist institution is NGO Monitor which recently issued a damning and authoritative report on EAPPI. Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh. blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. . ..07 February '19..I received an email from the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, about Angela Davis receiving a human rights award. In the email it says, "Palestine is a racial justice issue, and Dr. Davis insistence that the Palestinian people be included in that vision of justice qualifies her for the award all the more."There is nothing remotely racial about the conflict between Israel and the Arab world, including Palestinians. After all, half of Israelis have some heritage from northern African and Middle Eastern communities and are indistinguishable from Arabs. (European Jews are genetically closer to Middle Eastern Jews than to other Europeans, as well.)If skin pigmentation is your criterion, there are roughly 100,000 Israelis from Ethiopia who are darker than virtually any Palestinian Arab. Yet they are considered "white" by the bizarre logic of those who want to paint this as a racial justice issue.Of course there is discrimination in Israel, just as there is in every other country on Earth. But the Palestinian Arabs aren't discriminated against based on race. It is a political, religious and cultural conflict but there is no racial component - half of Israelis are the same "color."The people who want to call this a racial conflict are the racists. Against all visual and genetic evidence, they want the world to view Israelis as the evil "white" oppressors and the Palestinian Arabs as the victimized people of color. If racism is the idea that some people are better than others based on skin color, the anti-Israel racists are demanding that the world hate Israelis based on skin color that most don't even have! Prime Minister Justin Trudeau found himself in the opposition's crosshairs Thursday following a report that he pressed former Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould to intervene in the prosecution of construction giant SNC-Lavalin on charges of fraud and corruption. Trudeau denied today that he or his staff "directed" Wilson-Raybould to intervene. At one point, in reply to a journalist's question, he said in French that he never "asked" her to make any decisions in the case. "The allegations in the Globe story this morning are false," Trudeau told reporters during a Toronto-area news conference Thursday morning. "Neither the current nor the previous attorney general was ever directed by me, or by anyone in my office, to take a decision in this matter." However, Trudeau's denial did little to satisfy the opposition Conservatives and New Democrats. The allegations, made by unnamed sources to the Globe and Mail, dominated Thursday's question period. "We have heard the prime minister's very carefully scripted legalistic answer," said Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer. "But the question is, did anyone in the Prime Minister's Office at any time communicate with anyone in the former attorney general's office on the matter of the criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin yes or no?" Guy Caron, parliamentary leader for the New Democratic Party, drew a link between the allegations and illegal political donations the company has made in the past. "SNC-Lavalin illegally gave more than $110,000 to the Liberal Party and its (riding) associations. Today, SNC-Lavalin needs a helping hand because they are in trouble," Caron said, pointing out that the company had lobbied the government more than 50 times in the past two years. "The justice minister was fired and everybody asked why. Was she fired because the bottom line is a friend is a friend?" Story continues Current Justice Minister David Lametti was forced to field question after question, repeating Trudeau's response from earlier in the day and saying he personally had received no pressure or directives to intervene in the case. Meanwhile, the woman at the centre of the storm remained silent. Wilson-Raybould, who was moved out of the prestigious Justice portfolio to Veterans Affairs last month, refused to answer reporters' questions Thursday either to back up her boss or to deny the Globe and Mail's report. The Globe and Mail story said Wilson-Raybould was shuffled from her portfolio after she refused to ask federal prosecutors to make a plea bargain deal with Montreal-based SNC-Lavalin. The newspaper, citing anonymous sources, said Trudeau's office tried to press Wilson-Raybould to intervene in the prosecution of SNC Lavalin. CBC News has not independently verified the allegations. Bill Wilson, Wilson-Raybould's father and a Kwakwaka'wakw hereditary chief in B.C., told CBC News his daughter has an iron will and will emerge from this scandal clean. "If she or I had been purchasable at some point in time in our political career, it never happened, it didn't happen and will never happen," said Wilson. "If this mess comes out as messy as I imagine it might be, she will be one of the few people that won't get any dirt on her." CBC SNC-Lavalin is before a court in Montreal, charged with fraud and corruption in connection with payments of nearly $48 million to public officials in Libya under Moammar Gadhafi's government and allegations it defrauded Libyan organizations of an estimated $130 million. The company is contesting the case and has pleaded not guilty. The case is at the preliminary hearing stage. If convicted, the company could be blocked from competing for federal government contracts for a decade. In 2013, SNC-Lavalin was debarred from competing on any project financed by the World Bank for 10 years following an investigation into allegations of bribery schemes involving the company and officials in Bangladesh. On Friday, former SNC-Lavalin CEO Pierre Duhaime pleaded guilty to helping a public servant commit breach of trust in a deal that resulted in 20 months of house arrest, 240 hours of community service and a $200,000 donation to a fund for victims of crime. In late November, the company's former vice-president Normand Morin pleaded guilty to charges of violating Canada's election financing rules through an elaborate scheme that sent more than $117,000 to the federal Liberal and Conservative parties and to individual candidates. The company maintains that the charges resulted from the actions of former executives and it is under new management. It says it has cleaned up its act. On Thursday, it refused all comment. According to the Globe and Mail's report, SNC-Lavalin lobbied Trudeau's government to agree to a deferred prosecution agreement or remediation agreement. In such cases, the prosecution is set aside; in return, the company admits responsibility and takes remedial steps, such as paying a fine or adopting compliance rules. To date, the Public Prosecution Service has refused to negotiate a deal with SNC-Lavalin. The company has challenged that decision. According to the anonymous sources cited by the Globe and Mail, unidentified officials in Trudeau's office pressed Wilson-Raybould to use her power to intervene. Scheer described the allegations as very troubling and called on Trudeau to tell Canadians what happened. "It is clear that the prime minister is hiding something because he wasn't very transparent, he didn't respond to the other questions and he returned to one line that sounded like it was constructed by lawyers," he told reporters. Scheer said his party will explore all options to pursue the allegation. "All the options are on the table," he said, refusing to spell out what he had in mind. Scheer also didn't say whether a Conservative government would have granted SNC-Lavalin's request for a remediation agreement. "If there is going to be any discussion from very high levels in the government to grant an exemption or an alternative measure to a company when we're talking about very serious prosecutions, that must be done with full transparency and this is not what we're seeing here," he said. "We're talking about allegations the prime minister or his office exerted a great deal of pressure and when they didn't get the answer they liked, they fired the minister of justice." Meanwhile, a former Saskatchewan judge says the RCMP needs to investigate the allegations. Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, currently director of the University of British Columbia's Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre, told CBC News a federal police investigation is necessary to restore public confidence in the administration of justice. Elizabeth Thompson can be reached at elizabeth.thompson@cbc.ca Sixty-five slow lorises, saved from poachers attempting to ship them to China as pets, were released back into the wild in Majalengka, Indonesia, on January 20, International Animal Rescue said. The organization shared photos of some of the slow lorises enjoying their new freedom. This footage was shared on February 8, with IAR writing: There is nothing more beautiful than seeing a rescued animal back in the wild, where they belong! Credit: International Animal Rescue via Storyful Former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould said Friday she would not comment on claims that the Prime Minister's Office tried to pressure her to help SNC-Lavalin avoid criminal prosecution in pending legal action against the construction company."As the former minister of justice and attorney general of Canada, I am bound by solicitor-client privilege in this matter," she said.In her role as attorney general, Wilson-Raybould served as the government's top lawyer and the chief law officer of the Crown nominally representing the government in all of its prosecutions. Under common law, communication between the office of the attorney general and other offices of government typically is privileged under the solicitor-client privilege.But at least one criminal defence lawyer was questioning Wilson-Raybould's privilege argument Friday, saying Prime Minister Justin Trudeau could easily waive it and allow his former justice minister to speak freely and truthfully on the matter."The easiest way out of this is just for the prime minister to say, 'Look Jody, there's some serious questions here and just tell the truth about our conversations and waive the privilege,'" Ottawa-based criminal lawyer Michael Spratt said in an interview."This is a very serious allegation and, if it never happened, there's good rationale for quickly dispelling ... that notion."Even if she's bound by solicitor-client privilege, Spratt said he doesn't believe she would be barred from denying the contents of a news story. "If it's so ludicrous, so fanciful, I don't think there's anything that stops her from saying 'That's not true,'" he said.Wilson-Raybould's 'no comment' came after Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer called for an emergency meeting of the House of Commons justice committee to question high-ranking officials including Wilson-Raybould herself about the matter.Scheer also suggested Friday morning that his party is looking at pursuing unspecified "legal avenues" if the governing Liberals "continue to cover this up."The Globe and Mail reported Thursday that Wilson-Raybould, who was shuffled from her portfolio in January, felt pressured to direct federal prosecutors with the Public Prosecution Service of Canada (PPSC) to make a "deferred prosecution arrangement" a deal akin to a plea bargain with the Montreal-based engineering firm SNC-Lavalin to avoid a trial.Federal prosecutors have so far refused to reach a negotiated settlement with the company.The lack of a settlement probably has cost SNC more than $5 billion in lost revenue and continues to damage its reputation internationally, Chief Executive Officer Neil Bruce told BNN Bloomberg TV in an interview last month."It weakens our position as a business because basically our competition ... use this mercilessly against us and have been doing so for the past six years. We know we've lost out on a number of contracts," Bruce said. "Clients in the end will not take the chance on a picking SNC-Lavalin even though we provide a great service and a great bid."The Globe, citing anonymous sources, said Trudeau's office then tried to press Wilson-Raybould to intervene to press for a negotiated resolution.The lobbyist registry shows representatives of SNC-Lavalin logged more than 50 meetings with federal officials and parliamentarians on subjects that included "justice" and "law enforcement.""It would appear to any reasonable person the prime minister fired Ms. Wilson-Raybould when she refused to give into his demands," Scheer said, referring to Wilson-Raybould's move from the high-profile Justice portfolio to the Veterans Affairs ministry."This matter strikes at the very heart of our rule of law and calls into serious question the ethics and conduct of those at the highest levels of the prime minister's office."SNC-Lavalin has been charged with fraud and corruption in connection with payments of nearly $48 million to public officials in Libya under Moammar Gadhafi's government, and allegations it defrauded Libyan organizations of an estimated $130 million.The company is contesting the case and has pleaded not guilty. The case is at the preliminary hearing stage.If convicted, the company could be blocked from competing for federal government contracts for a decade.This is not the first instance of legal trouble for the publicly traded company. Indeed, its former CEO, Pierre Duhaime, pled guilty last week to a charge of helping a public servant commit breach of trust for his role in a bribery scandal around the construction of a $1.3-billion Montreal hospital.Duhaime left SNC-Lavalin in March 2012 after an independent review found that he had approved $56-million in payments to undisclosed agents.Trudeau calls allegations 'false'On Thursday, Trudeau denied that he or his staff "directed" Wilson-Raybould to intervene. At one point, in reply to a journalist's question, Trudeau said in French that he never "asked" her to make any decisions in the case."The allegations in the Globe story this morning are false," Trudeau said. "Neither the current nor the previous attorney general was ever directed by me, or by anyone in my office, to take a decision in this matter."The Conservative and New Democrat MPs on the House of Commons standing committee on justice and human rights want to meet and demand a session to question members of the PMO and other officials about the allegations, according to Scheer.They say they want to question the following officials: * Wilson-Raybould (former justice minister, now veterans affairs minister). * Minister of Justice and Attorney General David Lametti. * Clerk of the Privy Council Michael Wernick. * Director of Public Prosecutions Kathleen Roussel. * Chief of staff to the prime minister Katie Telford. * Principal secretary to the prime minister Gerald Butts. * Senior adviser to the prime minister Mathieu Bouchard. * Senior adviser to the prime minister Elder Marques. * Chief of staff to the minister of Veterans Affairs Jessica Prince."If the prime minister has nothing to hide, as he has suggested, then he should have no reason to fear these individuals appearing before the justice committee," Scheer told reporters Friday morning.In an interview with CBC Radio's The House, Lametti said that if the justice committee proceeds with such a study, he would agree to appear."I would appear before the committee. Of course I would," he said.NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh is also calling for an ethics investigation into the allegations. Former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould said Friday she would not comment on claims that the Prime Minister's Office tried to pressure her to help SNC-Lavalin avoid criminal prosecution in pending legal action against the construction company. "As the former minister of justice and attorney general of Canada, I am bound by solicitor-client privilege in this matter," she said. In her role as attorney general, Wilson-Raybould served as the government's top lawyer and the chief law officer of the Crown nominally representing the government in all of its prosecutions. Under common law, communication between the office of the attorney general and other offices of government typically is privileged under the solicitor-client privilege. But at least one criminal defence lawyer was questioning Wilson-Raybould's privilege argument Friday, saying Prime Minister Justin Trudeau could easily waive it and allow his former justice minister to speak freely and truthfully on the matter. "The easiest way out of this is just for the prime minister to say, 'Look Jody, there's some serious questions here and just tell the truth about our conversations and waive the privilege,'" Ottawa-based criminal lawyer Michael Spratt said in an interview. "This is a very serious allegation and, if it never happened, there's good rationale for quickly dispelling ... that notion." Even if she's bound by solicitor-client privilege, Spratt said he doesn't believe she would be barred from denying the contents of a news story. "If it's so ludicrous, so fanciful, I don't think there's anything that stops her from saying 'That's not true,'" he said. Wilson-Raybould's 'no comment' came after Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer called for an emergency meeting of the House of Commons justice committee to question high-ranking officials including Wilson-Raybould herself about the matter. Story continues Scheer also suggested Friday morning that his party is looking at pursuing unspecified "legal avenues" if the governing Liberals "continue to cover this up." The Globe and Mail reported Thursday that Wilson-Raybould, who was shuffled from her portfolio in January, felt pressured to direct federal prosecutors with the Public Prosecution Service of Canada (PPSC) to make a "deferred prosecution arrangement" a deal akin to a plea bargain with the Montreal-based engineering firm SNC-Lavalin to avoid a trial. Federal prosecutors have so far refused to reach a negotiated settlement with the company. The lack of a settlement probably has cost SNC more than $5 billion in lost revenue and continues to damage its reputation internationally, Chief Executive Officer Neil Bruce told BNN Bloomberg TV in an interview last month. "It weakens our position as a business because basically our competition ... use this mercilessly against us and have been doing so for the past six years. We know we've lost out on a number of contracts," Bruce said. "Clients in the end will not take the chance on a picking SNC-Lavalin even though we provide a great service and a great bid." Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press The Globe, citing anonymous sources, said Trudeau's office then tried to press Wilson-Raybould to intervene to press for a negotiated resolution. The lobbyist registry shows representatives of SNC-Lavalin logged more than 50 meetings with federal officials and parliamentarians on subjects that included "justice" and "law enforcement." "It would appear to any reasonable person the prime minister fired Ms. Wilson-Raybould when she refused to give into his demands," Scheer said, referring to Wilson-Raybould's move from the high-profile Justice portfolio to the Veterans Affairs ministry. "This matter strikes at the very heart of our rule of law and calls into serious question the ethics and conduct of those at the highest levels of the prime minister's office." SNC-Lavalin has been charged with fraud and corruption in connection with payments of nearly $48 million to public officials in Libya under Moammar Gadhafi's government, and allegations it defrauded Libyan organizations of an estimated $130 million. The company is contesting the case and has pleaded not guilty. The case is at the preliminary hearing stage. If convicted, the company could be blocked from competing for federal government contracts for a decade. This is not the first instance of legal trouble for the publicly traded company. Indeed, its former CEO, Pierre Duhaime, pled guilty last week to a charge of helping a public servant commit breach of trust for his role in a bribery scandal around the construction of a $1.3-billion Montreal hospital. Duhaime left SNC-Lavalin in March 2012 after an independent review found that he had approved $56-million in payments to undisclosed agents. Trudeau calls allegations 'false' On Thursday, Trudeau denied that he or his staff "directed" Wilson-Raybould to intervene. At one point, in reply to a journalist's question, Trudeau said in French that he never "asked" her to make any decisions in the case. "The allegations in the Globe story this morning are false," Trudeau said. "Neither the current nor the previous attorney general was ever directed by me, or by anyone in my office, to take a decision in this matter." The Conservative and New Democrat MPs on the House of Commons standing committee on justice and human rights want to meet and demand a session to question members of the PMO and other officials about the allegations, according to Scheer. They say they want to question the following officials: Wilson-Raybould (former justice minister, now veterans affairs minister). Minister of Justice and Attorney General David Lametti. Clerk of the Privy Council Michael Wernick. Director of Public Prosecutions Kathleen Roussel. Chief of staff to the prime minister Katie Telford. Principal secretary to the prime minister Gerald Butts. Senior adviser to the prime minister Mathieu Bouchard. Senior adviser to the prime minister Elder Marques. Chief of staff to the minister of Veterans Affairs Jessica Prince. "If the prime minister has nothing to hide, as he has suggested, then he should have no reason to fear these individuals appearing before the justice committee," Scheer told reporters Friday morning. In an interview with CBC Radio's The House, Lametti said that if the justice committee proceeds with such a study, he would agree to appear. "I would appear before the committee. Of course I would," he said. NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh is also calling for an ethics investigation into the allegations. MILAN (Reuters) - Italy has denied a report it will ban China's Huawei Technologies and ZTE Corp from playing a role in building its fifth-generation mobile phone network. "We have no intention of adopting any such initiatives," the industry ministry said in a statement. Huawei, the world's biggest producer of telecoms equipment, faces international scrutiny over its ties with the Chinese government and suspicion Beijing could use its technology for spying, something the company has denied. Earlier on Thursday Italian daily La Stampa cited senior government sources as saying Rome was ready to use special powers to terminate contracts involving the Chinese operators. But in a statement the industry ministry said there was no proof of any threat to security in this regard. "National security is a priority and if any critical issues emerged - which to date have not - the ministry would assess whether or not to take measures," it said. Brussels has not taken steps to ban Huawei but operators like the UK's BT Group and France's Orange have said they will not use its 5G equipment in their core national networks. Chancellor Angela Merkel has said Germany needs guarantees that Huawei would not hand data to the Chinese state before it can take part in building fifth-generation networks. Italian phone incumbent Telecom Italia has previously said it will keep working with Huawei until told otherwise by the government. TIM, which is said to use Huawei technology in just over 10 percent of its fixed line fiber network, and Fastweb are part of a consortium with Huawei to test 5G infrastructure in the southern towns of Bari and Matera. Vodafone, which has "paused" deployment of Huawei equipment in its core networks until Western governments give the Chinese firm full security clearance, has Huawei as one of its technology partners in 5G testing in Milan. Broadband infrastructure company Open Fiber and service provider Wind Tre work in a consortium with ZTE in 5G testing in the towns of Prato and l'Aquila. (Reporting by Stephen Jewkes and Giselda Vagnoni; Editing by Giselda Vagnoni) The lives of Alberta's first black settlers, some of whom are still alive, are being showcased in Calgary this week. A documentary, We are the Roots: Black Settlers and Their Experiences of Discrimination on the Canadian Prairies, shines a spotlight on a group of people who helped build the province yet have not had their stories widely the told. The film, which won a Governor General's History Award, was the brainchild of Deborah Dobbins, a descendant of those settlers. Between 1,000 and 1,500 people moved north from the United States at the invitation of government, and left behind oppressive Jim Crow laws that forbade them from owning land. Dobbins's own family settled west of Edmonton in Wildwood, and her aunt went on to become the first black woman to drive an Edmonton Transit bus. The film tracks those settlers' stories and how they overcame discrimination to become successful. You can see it Thursday in Calgary at Mount Royal University or watch it on the production company's website, baileyandsoda.com. Dobbins joined Calgary Eyeopener host David Gray to discuss the documentary. Q: Why did your family and other African-Americans come to the Prairies? A: We were invited by the government. The government put out lots of posters and we answered that call. We were able to own land finally and be part of a country that values our citizenship and our working together with them to build a great country. Q: And when you arrived at the border, did you surprise anyone? A: Oh yes, we did. They didn't expect any black people to come across and so they tried to dissuade us and say, "Oh, it's too cold here. This place is not for you." But we had everything we were supposed to have and they had to let us cross the border and become Canadians. Q: How was your family's experience different from say other European settlers who came here? A: The people that live in the small communities, they were together regardless who they were, where they came from because everyone was in the same boat. When people moved to the city, that's when we really felt the pains of discrimination. Story continues Q: Now I'm told your documentary is an oral history. It features a lot of interviews with the descendants of these early settlers. What kind of stories did you hear during this? A: Many stories of hardship but a pride and of just being happy that they were able to finally own land and raise a family, and there were many incidents. The focus of the documentary and our research was about discrimination, marginalization and prejudice. Those accounts are highlighted somewhat in the documentary. So people couldn't work on any white collar jobs, even blue collar or even less than that, porters, maids, even though they had many, many skills. They weren't able to use a lot of their skills because of the colour of their skin. Q: We talk about this as history, and it is history. One of the joys, I guess, of doing a documentary in Western Canada is that a lot of that history is still alive. Some of those people are still alive. You actually spoke to 99-year-olds? A: Yes, and 101-year-olds. My Aunt Gladys Leffler, she is in the documentary. She since passed at 102 but her words of wisdom are there now forever because we have her voice. Q: What words of wisdom did you hear? What did you learn along the way? A: In spite of all the negativity that you need to stay positive and try to find the good in other people, and not bring other people down but raise them up. And be proud of your roots regardless of where we came from, and remember where we came from because many of us all of us are very high achievers. We have taken the education and ran with it, and we are very successful people. But we have to remember who brought us this far and that foundation that was laid for us so we can be successful today. Q: Why does this matter so much to you? Why do you care so much about collecting and sharing these memories? A: Our people helped develop Alberta, Saskatchewan, the Prairies. Our history is a part of Canada's history, and right now it is not taught in schools, except for a few teachers that will rise up during Black History Month and other months. But it's time that our history be celebrated as part of Canada's history. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Listen to the full interview: With files from the Calgary Eyeopener. The lifetime chief of a First Nation in northern Ontario has gone to the Federal Court of Canada to try to stop the attempt to topple his decades-long rule. The Ojibway Nation of Saugeen, located about 400 kilometres north of Thunder Bay, filed for a judicial review with the Federal Court in Winnipeg on Feb. 1 to quash a move by community members to install new leadership under the band's customary laws. Chief Edward Machimity, who is in his 70s, has held his position since 1986. He became lifetime chief after the band adopted its own custom leadership selection code in 1997. The code calls for a leadership review every 21 years. Machimity has told CBC News he will remain chief of the 242-member community until his death. Band members allege he shares little information about the community's affairs and runs the majority of band services for the benefit of his immediate family and friends. Machimity has also been accused by his opponents of using the band's police to suppress dissent in Saugeen. His son-in-law is the band's police chief. His defenders say he's a staunch defender of his community's treaty rights and always puts members' interests first. New leadership chosen at meeting Opposition band members held a meeting on Dec. 9 at a motel in Savant Lake, Ont., about 20 kilometres south of the Saugeen reserve. They decided to replace the band leadership at a meeting on Feb. 3, when Chief Machimity would be officially due for his 21-year review. When Machimity's opponents gathered at the same hotel on Feb. 3, they selected four new band headmen, or councillors. They also decided a new chief would be selected during a planned community meeting in June, said Darlene Necan, 59, a newly appointed headman and longtime advocate for leadership change. The band members were served with Federal Court papers during the meeting. The filing argues the meeting wasn't "authorized" by the band's custom leadership selection code. The meeting also received a visit from three provincial police officers and a band police constable. Story continues Submitted The Federal Court application also seeks an interim order recognizing Chief Machimity, headmen Eileen Keesic, John Sapay and Gladys Ombash as the "lawfully appointed" leadership of the band until the rendering of a final ruling. Keesic is the chief's daughter. Ombash has relinquished her position and given it to her daughter and band member Betty Necan, who is named in the court action. Betty Necan was confirmed as one of the four new headmen at the meeting on Feb. 3. "The respondents are purporting to remove the customary chief and headmen from 'lifetime' positions without colour or right," the filing says. "The respondents have ... failed to observe principles of natural justice and procedural fairness." The Federal Court referred the matter to case management, where a judge would meet with the parties with the aim of mediating the dispute. A woman who answered the phone at the Saugeen band office said Chief Machimity, Keesic and band manager Violet Machimity, Chief Machimity's wife, were unavailable for comment. Jorge Barrera/CBC Lawyers Robert Watchman and Julia Ryckman of the Winnipeg firm Pitblado LLP, who are representing the band, did not respond to repeated requests for comment. Saugeen's band lawyer, Doug Keshen, said he couldn't comment because he isn't representing the band in the legal proceedings. 'Time to step up' Ottawa rarely intervenes in political disputes involving bands that operate under a custom election code. There are 358 First Nations with their own codes in Canada, according to the Department of Indigenous Services. The headmen selected by Saugeen community members at the Feb. 3 meeting retained a lawyer this week. Jorge Barrera/CBC Ron Machimity, 60, was one of the four members selected as a new headman. His father, Gilbert Machimity, who died in April 2000, was one of the founding members of the band and an original headman. Gilbert Machimity said that under the First Nation's custom rules he should have replaced his father on council. He said his father told him before he died not to fight Chief Machimity if he wasn't appointed successor because it would make things worse and lead to the deterioration of their custom code. "That is why I was keeping quiet," he said. "He told me, 'You will know the time to step up.' And that is what I am doing today." Students, parents, school staff and dignitaries will crowd into the new gym Thursday night to celebrate Edmonton's newest public school building. The community celebration from 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. will feature musical performances by students and tributes by staff and politicians. It's also a chance to tour the new space that features a fitness room, solar panels and the latest teaching technology. "It's awesome! The library, the classrooms, the gym, the music room I like it all," said Andrew McIntosh, a Grade 4 student at Escuela Mill Creek School at 80th Avenue and 97th Street. The opening is the end of a journey worth celebrating, said school principal Ed Charpentier. "Going from almost closure, to a brand new building, to almost full is just amazing." Adrienne Lamb/CBC The $11.6 million building replaces the original school built in 1946 in the leafy Ritchie neighbourhood. It's the old story of declining school enrolment in a mature neighbourhood, talk of closure and reinvention. In an effort to keep afloat back in 2001, Mill Creek School became the International Spanish Academy, the first Spanish bilingual school in Alberta. "It started to increase, little by little the population and now we're full," Charpentier said. The 350 kindergarten to Grade 6 students take subjects like math and science in Spanish in the morning and instruction in English in the afternoon. Adrienne Lamb/CBC Chanel Yu's first language isn't Spanish but she lives a couple of blocks from the new school. "Now I speak English, Spanish and I'm also learning Mandarin," the nine-year-old said. What's the advantage in learning a second language? "You can also visit other places and you can actually talk and you won't be like stuck," Yu said. Like Yu, 60 per cent of the students attending the new school do not speak Spanish at home, Charpentier said, while the remainder travel from across the city to connect to their first language and culture. Story continues Charpentier knows how hard it can be. He moved from Santiago, Chile, to Edmonton when he was four years old and spoke no English. In the end, speaking two languages helped him land his dream job as principal at Escuela Mill Creek School, he said. "It's actually a source of great pride. "I'm here because I'm bilingual. I'm Spanish bilingual and I was able to get a job and open up many doors because of my second language." Adrienne Lamb/CBC You can see more from Escuela Mill Creek this week on Our Edmonton Saturday at 9 a.m. and Monday at 11 a.m. on CBC TV. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. TORONTO (Reuters) - A plane from Canadian carrier Porter Airlines made an emergency landing at a Pennsylvania airport on Thursday due to an engine problem, but no injuries were reported, an airport official told Reuters. The plane carrying 27 passengers and four crew members was traveling from Newark, New Jersey, to Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport, when the crew was alerted to the issue in one of the plane's two engines, Porter Airlines said in a statement. The plane performed an engine shutdown in accordance with standard procedure and the flight landed safely, the statement added. A second aircraft was sent to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport in Pennsylvania to bring the passengers to Toronto, the statement added. (Reporting by Tyler Choi; Editing by Bill Berkrot) Germanys finance minister Olaf Scholz cracked some Brexit-related jokes during his Friday visit to London. Photo: Florian Gaertner/Getty Images Germanys finance minister Olaf Scholz was cracking jokes at the UKs expense on Friday during his first public appearance in Britain, where he outlined how his country was welcoming Brexit-ing businesses with open arms. Regardless of the outcome of Brexit, Germany and the United Kingdom will always be friends and partners We were always very impressed by British pragmatism. We were, he said with a smile, leading to a round of laughs among business attendees at the event in London. Scholz outlined how many businesses, especially in the financial services industry, were moving operations and assets over to Germany in a bid to avoid Brexit-related risks. Germany was doing everything possible to accommodate them, which included helping them set up quickly and confidentially, he said. Many of the companies we [meet] with are now taking parts of their businesses to places in Europe. A huge part of them are [coming] to Frankfurt and Germany They have to be where the market is, outside the United Kingdom, he said. We decided that we will help all the companies [coming] to Germany. Brexit uncertainties have forced financial services companies to move roughly 800bn in assets from the UK into Europe, according to a report last month from EY. About 2,000 new European roles were created in response to Brexit, with Frankfurt among the most popular locations. Scholz said that he was still sad that the UK was leaving the EU and tried to reassure his British audience that European authorities were doing everything in their power to avoid a damaging no-deal Brexit and resolve backstop concerns. It would help a lot if people trust the European Union and its perspectives a little bit more No one is trying to cheat someone here, he said, noting that the controversial backstop issue wasnt designed to trick the UK into staying in the EU. We have to find a solution, he said. READ MORE: What is a no-deal Brexit? British prime minister Theresa May has been tasked with trying to rework her Brexit deal with the EU and rejig the backstop terms to ensure the country doesnt risk being stuck indefinitely in a customs union with the EU after Brexit. Britain remaining in the customs union would mean the country would have to continue abiding by EU rules. Story continues May met European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker on Thursday to discuss a renegotiation. The talks were robust but constructive, according to a written statement from the commission. Juncker said the EU wouldnt renegotiate the nearly 600-page divorce deal, which represents a carefully balanced compromise in which both sides have made significant concessions, according to the statement. However, Juncker was open to adding more ambitious wording to the document that outlines plans for the future UK-EU relationship. Vladimir Filat, former prime minister of Moldova. Photo: Action Press/REX/Shutterstock The student son of a jailed ex-Moldovan prime minister has been ordered to pay back almost 500,000 ($647,000) of suspected dirty money. Vlad Luca Filat, 22, will forfeit a total of 466,321.72 from three separate bank accounts, following investigation by the UKs National Crime Agency. The NCA froze the bank accounts in May 2018, suspecting they contained funds derived from illegal activity by Vlad Lucas father Vladimir Filat, the former prime minister of Moldova. READ MORE: Bankers arrested in Britain over alleged $2bn fraud Vladimir Filat is currently serving a nine-year prison sentence for embezzling 772m from three Moldovan banks. The money equivalent to an eighth of the ex-Soviet republics entire GDP was stolen from Banca de Economii, Unibank and Banca Sociala, and laundered through Latvias financial system. Vlad Luca, who came to London in 2016, led an extravagant lifestyle, the NCA said in a statement on Thursday. READ MORE: Third former Tesco director cleared of fraud over 2014 scandal He spent significant sums of money on luxury goods and services, including a 200,000 Bentley Bentayga bought from a Mayfair dealership, despite having no registered income in the UK. HSBC records showed Vlad Lucas accounts and living expenses were funded by large deposits from overseas companies, mainly based in Turkey and the Cayman Islands. Multiple cash deposits were also identified across the UK branch network, with 98,100 paid in over one three-day period. READ MORE: Patisserie Valerie says devastating fraud was more extensive than first thought At City of London Magistrates Court, district judge Michael Snow granted forfeiture orders on Vlad Lucas three frozen accounts, saying: I am satisfied on the balance of probabilities that the cash was derived from his fathers criminal conduct in Moldova. The NCA also successfully applied for its costs in the sum of 4,079. Rob MacArthur, from the NCAs International Corruption Unit, said: Account Freezing Orders are a valuable tool in the fight against illicit finance in the UK. Story continues READ MORE: Bank branch rapid response scheme halted 38m of fraud in 2018 Where we suspect money in an account is the proceeds of crime, we can apply to the court to freeze and then forfeit the sums. In this case, Vlad Luca Filat was unable to demonstrate a legitimate source for the money and the court determined it to be recoverable. Opinion / Columnist The so called dialogue facilitation meeting called by Mnangagwa this week is not going to help at all because people that attended that meeting cannot by any means possible influence a progressive political outcome that Zimbabwe so dearly needs. The meeting's attendants are obviously people seeking lucrativity in the outcome should there be an inclusive government. When you here names like Professor Madhuku, Madam Khupe, Daniel Shumba, Energy Mutodi and others then you know success will be suppressed in any political endeavour because they have been behaving like jackals on a hunt for a piece of flesh of late. You know that the propaganda machinery has been oiled and everything has been fine tuned for available benefits. Human Rights will be an academic discussion with no serious tools put in place to protect them and zanu pf will be forever in power as it will continue to corruptly facilitate perks. President Mnangagwa needs to take an organized position for the country to try and work for the state not to try to maintain power in a vacuum. He should engage the United Nations, SADC, the African Union, Britain and the Americans in preparation for a really dialogue not some kind of usher to the African Union meeting that is by the corner. Mnangagwa is buying time. He wants the AU to think that he is engaging other political parties to find a solution. The big problem with Mnangagwa is that he is so afraid of the political power that Nelson Chamisa currently possesses that he wants the world to know differently. He is demanding recognition by the MDC leader. No he should be seeking that through us the masses. Do the reforms. Mr President and we will give you the support you are.dying to have. So do not send lies paddlers round the world in the name of 'envoys' to change the mind sets of the African countries before the AU meeting. Do not even bother attending that dictators' club conferemce but be busy reforming big time for a big change that will twist this country's economic path's wayward trajectory.First the president must recognize every life as important as his and I'm sure Chamisa will recognize him then. Arrest all recent murderers, rapists and extortionists in the police force and the army. No life should be lost because Mnangagwa or Chamisa wants to rule unchecked. Secondly, any dialogue that leaves out either zanu pf or Chamisa's MDC is useless and will not achieve anything as these are the two most popular political parties in this country. Thirdly, the facilitation of the dialogue must be by experts selected internationally and should involve UN, the AU and SADC, thus it will be easy to source for funds for it because the world wants to fund seriously transparent endeavours not some shabeen at the state house trying to construct a colloquial agenda for personal benefits.We do not have to be in a GNU. Zanu pf can continue ruling as long as tools for dealing with corruption are put in place, a path to democracy is made and economic and socio political policies are put in place. The army and police are retained by the state not zanu pf, state institutions are reconstructed and the justice system is revamped. Land is retained by the state not war veterans and qualifed personnel are left to deal with agriculture doing away with command farming and command that prior to conducting a real land audit.Clement Moyo+712 708 284/777 662 090clemenmoyo@gmail.com News / Press Release by ARTUZ The teachers' job action has now shaken the corridors of power. The Public Service Commission, PSC, has confirmed that teachers' job action has brought business to a halt in our schools country wide. As we expected the employer further threatened to cease salaries of teachers who are on the legal job action invoking an apartheid like principle of 'No work no pay."The contested legality of the job action.The public service commission, PSC claims that discussions between government and the Apex Council are ongoing under the National Joint Negotiating Council, NJNC and further assets that APEX has not called for a strike.The said discussions between government and APEX have been ongoing from as far back as 2017. These are routine coffee meetings that have no time frames and no clear agenda. The teachers cannot be held at ransom through such informal discussions.The APEX council and the NJNC framework are now illegal establishments after the consummation of the new constitution. Section 65 of the Constitution of the Republic of Zimbabwe provides for Collective Bargaining as a fundamental right of the working people. Collective bargaining is broader and inclusive of a wide section of the working people of Zimbabwe. However, nearly six years after the adoption of the Constitution, government has dragged its feet with regard to establishing this body, opting for maintaining the exclusive, narrow, minimalist and unconstitutional NJNC route.We note that Statutory Instrument 141 of 1997 Public Service (Joint Negotiating Council) Regulations is ultra vires to Section 65 of the Constitution.The teacher Unions have duly notified the employer of the intended job action, ARTUZ notified the employer as early as 31 December 2018. Other Unions did the same latter in January and the 14 days required at law has since lapsed.The ongoing strike is therefore a protected strike. A protected strike is a strike that complies with the requirements in the law, where the subject matter of the strike is legitimate and procedural requirements are complied with prior to the strike commencing. All striking teachers are therefore safe.The No work No pay principle.This principle can only be applied in circumstances where the strike action has been ruled illegal. A job action cannot be ruled to be illegal by the employer, the employer can only approach an impartial court to raise a show cause order. The court will then rule on the legality of the job action. The PSC is thus offside on this one.It should also be noted that a job action can still be sustained outside the legalities of the capitalist legal framework. The recent job action by the doctors is a clear case study. The doctors' job action was sustained way after the courts had ruled the strike as illegal. At the end the doctors got more concessions from the employer.The success of a job action is therefore hinged on the ability of the working class to organize and mobilize all workers to withdraw their labour.ARTUZ urges sister Unions and all teachers to view the PSC threats as a ray of hope. Indeed we have shaken the system, let's mobilize the remaining 18% of the teachers for a complete shutdown.Our legitimate demands.The teachers have been doing, "more work with no pay over the years." In 2012 our salaries were negotiated in United States dollars. The employer has reneged on this agreement by paying us in RTGS currency. The employer has not adjusted the RTGS salaries to match the rates prevailing on the market for the RTGS to United States dollars. Consequently a teacher who is supposed to be earning US$500 is now receiving around US$120 per month.Prices of basic goods and services have soared by a cumulative rate of over 500% and government has responded by awarding an average US$15 as cushioning allowance.We demand our salaries in United States dollars and our 2018 annual bonus in full.Way forward.ARTUZ is now firmly on the ground mobilizing the remaining teachers to leave schools and join the job action. The struggle for a living wage continues unabated. As workers we don't own anything else other than our labor. We cannot volunteer this labor for free. Our labor is our source of livelihood.We once again implore government to come down to the negotiating table.Like new? Join ARTUZ today.ARTUZ INFORMATION DEPARTMENT.+263776129336/714850548 News / National by Staff reporter The Ministry of Health and Child Care has allocated $5 million towards the construction of a new district hospital for Umzingwane under the Public Sector Investment Programme (PSIP).The current facility was an STI clinic established 55 years ago and condemned by the government in 2003.Construction of a new district hospital will enable the institution to perform surgical operations, address the shortage of space and accommodation among other challenges, revealed the provincial medical director Dr Chipo Chikodzore."The hospital has been referring caesarian sections for example to institutions in Bulawayo and what this means is that Esigodini has been losing out on the results based fund programme were health facilities subsidise for deliveries or caesarian sections. These funds help institutions to improve service delivery," she said.Umzingwane constituency legislator Retired Brigadier General Levi Mayihlome said the district will launch fundraising initiatives to aid the speedy implementation of the project for the benefit of the local communities."We are also hoping that the Ministry of Lands will quickly handover the land that has been identified for construction to the Ministry of Local Government because if there are any delays in that process we may end up losing out," he said.Apart from Umzingwane Hospital, the province is also pushing for the construction of a bigger provincial hospital in Gwanda so that the current infrastructure becomes a district hospital.Bulilima district which currently relies on Plumtree hospital is also looking up to government to allot funds towards the establishment of its own health institution. News / National by ZimLive Vice Presidents Constantino Chiwenga was flown by private jet to India on Thursday, accompanied by the Deputy Minister of Health John Mangwiro.Chiwenga was forced to prematurely abandon his treatment in South Africa earlier this week following public protests. After attending a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday where he looked gaunt and pale, he told the state broadcaster ZBC that he was well, and accused the media of wishing him dead.Chiwenga attended Cabinet on Tuesday after which he declared that he was in good health, but a video of him speaking to the ZBC, shared widely on social media, only served to heighten concerns about his health.The retired army general has publicly said he was poisoned in 2017, while leading a military coup that ousted former President Robert Mugabe. A presidential spokesman however said in October last year following Chiwenga's lengthy treatment in Pretoria that he was "exhausted" after working for years without leave and "had a bullet lodged in his lungs from the war period" 40 years ago.In recent public appearances, Chiwenga has looked agitated and sweaty. The top of his hands have been patched with bandages, which medical experts said pointed to on-going treatment with injections.On Wednesday, Chiwenga missed a Zanu PF politburo meeting in the morning. Later in the day when Mnangagwa met his former election rivals for talks aimed at defusing political tensions and building a united front in a desperate push to revive the economy, Chiwenga was conspicuous by his absence. Mohadi attended.Mnangagwa was forced to cancel an appearance at a church-organised breakfast prayer on Thurday, attended by main opposition rival Nelson Chamisa, at which the two men were being brought together for the first time since the Zanu PF leader's disputed election victory in July last year. Owing to the absence of his deputies, Mnangagwa was forced to send Defence Minister Oppah Muchinguri to represent him.The latest health troubles afflicting the country's top leadership, and President Mnangagwa's growing predilection for foreign travel, could not have come at a worse moment with the country's economy tanking as international condemnation of the government's handling of fuel protests last month rings out of Western capitals.Ahead of his Ethiopian trip, Mnangagwa sent emissaries around Africa to give the government's version of a brutal crackdown on protests by security forces which has left at least 17 people dead. The envoys have spread out to countries like Egypt, Kenya, Zambia and South Africa as Mnangagwa seeks to pre-empt any criticism in Addis Ababa.The government turned down requests for a comment. News / National by Staff reporter Vice Presidents Constantino Chiwenga and Kembo Mohadi have been flown to India and South Africa respectively as they battle failing health, ZimLive reported.Chiwenga was forced to prematurely abandon his treatment in South Africa earlier this week following public protests. After attending a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday where he looked gaunt and pale, he told the state broadcaster ZBC that he was well, and accused the media of wishing him dead.The retired army general has publicly said he was poisoned in 2017, while leading a military coup that ousted former President Robert Mugabe. A presidential spokesman however said in October last year following Chiwenga's lengthy treatment in Pretoria that he was "exhausted" after working for years without leave and "had a bullet lodged in his lungs from the war period" 40 years ago.Mohadi, meanwhile, had been in and out of hospital with an undisclosed ailment before he was caught by an exploding grenade at a Zanu PF rally at White City Stadium in Bulawayo last June. He suffered leg injuries which have compelled him to use a crutch to support his right leg.Impeccable government sources told ZimLive that Mohadi is expected in the country on Friday morning, just hours before President Emmerson Mnangagwa flies to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia for an African Union summit.Mohadi will be Acting President in Mnangagwa's absence.Chiwenga, meanwhile, was flown by private jet to India on Thursday, accompanied by the Deputy Minister of Health John Mangwiro.Chiwenga attended Cabinet on Tuesday after which he declared that he was in good health, but a video of him speaking to the ZBC, shared widely on social media, only served to heighten concerns about his health.In recent public appearances, Chiwenga has looked agitated and sweaty. The top of his hands have been patched with bandages, which medical experts said pointed to on-going treatment with injections.On Wednesday, Chiwenga missed a Zanu PF politburo meeting in the morning. Later in the day when Mnangagwa met his former election rivals for talks aimed at defusing political tensions and building a united front in a desperate push to revive the economy, Chiwenga was conspicuous by his absence. Mohadi attended.Mnangagwa was forced to cancel an appearance at a church-organised breakfast prayer on Thurday, attended by main opposition rival Nelson Chamisa, at which the two men were being brought together for the first time since the Zanu PF leader's disputed election victory in July last year. Owing to the absence of his deputies, Mnangagwa was forced to send Defence Minister Oppah Muchinguri to represent him.The latest health troubles afflicting the country's top leadership, and President Mnangagwa's growing predilection for foreign travel, could not have come at a worse moment with the country's economy tanking as international condemnation of the government's handling of fuel protests last month rings out of Western capitals.Ahead of his Ethiopian trip, Mnangagwa sent emissaries around Africa to give the government's version of a brutal crackdown on protests by security forces which has left at least 17 people dead. The envoys have spread out to countries like Egypt, Kenya, Zambia and South Africa as Mnangagwa seeks to pre-empt any criticism in Addis Ababa.The government turned down requests for a comment.(Correcting erroneous Vice President Chiwenga's departure date from Monday' to Thursday, February 7." News / National by Staff reporter A health hazard is looming in Bulawayo as the sewerage system has collapsed and raw effluent is polluting the environment with over half a million dollars needed to contain the challenge.Residents from the breadth and length of the City of Kings and Queens are complaining of the growing problem of raw sewer that is overflowing and causing discomfort to residents who have to endure the pungent smell due to blocked pipes.While Bulawayo is known to be the cleanest city in the country, the collapse of the sewer system has put a dent on that record as the city is now badly polluted.Bulawayo City's director of engineering services, Engineer Simela Dube concurred that indeed the sewer system in the city had collapsed and an investment of over $500 000 is needed for the overhaul of the entire system."It is true that the system has collapsed and this is a situation that needs resources and we need over $500 000 so that we upgrade the whole system for the benefit of the city," he said.Environmental Management Agency (EMA) manager for Bulawayo Mr Decent Ndlovu said the obtaining situation in Bulawayo is of great concern as the effluent is polluting water sources in Umguza and Khami rivers and contaminating underground water sources."The situation is of great concern to us in terms of polluting the environment and the Umguza and Khami rivers are affected and the underground water is also affected where water from a number of boreholes is contaminated and this is a sad situation that demands investment for this to be managed properly," he said.The management of effluent in the city needs the commitment by the city fathers to avert an outbreak of diseases such as cholera and typhoid. News / National by Mandla Ndlovu Top judge Justice Charles Hungwe is in Lesotho as one of the foreign judges who will preside over the politically sensitive criminal cases involving politicians and members of Lesotho's army, police, prisons and intelligence services.He joins fellow Zimbabwean Justice Moses Chinhengo who is already sitting on the bench of Lesotho's highest court, the Court of Appeal.Justice Hungwe was sworn in on 15 January by Lesotho's Acting Chief Justice, Maseforo Mahase, and four more foreign judges drawn from different African countries will soon join him to deal with highly sensitive cases including the murder trial of the former commander of the Lesotho Defence Force (LDF), Lieutenant General Tlali Kamoli.Lesotho's Minister of Justice and Correctional Services, Mokhele Moletsane, says that the decision to engage Justice Hungwe and other foreign judges was taken to protect local judges from possible victimisation and backlash which would come with trying the "politically sensitive cases".Mr Moletsane said while the local judges were competent enough to try the cases, the government and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) still felt it necessary to engage foreign judges because the cases in question were politically sensitive. He further said that the verdicts of the foreign judges were less likely to be viewed as biased."It has never been about the incompetency of local judges as the government believes they are capable enough to preside over the cases."However, the government and SADC agreed that due to the nature of the cases which are said to be politically sensitive, it would be best to source foreign judges because local judges are at risk of being victimised for the verdicts they would give for the cases," Mr Moletsane said.Upon his swearing-in, Justice Hungwe immediately got down to business and presided over two cases including that of eight soldiers who stand accused of murdering former army commander, Lieutenant General Maaparankoe Mahao on 25 June 2015.Lt-Gen Mahao was fatally shot by his erstwhile Lesotho Defence Force (LDF) colleagues on 25 June 2015 just outside Maseru. The LDF claimed Lt-Gen Mahao had resisted arrest for allegedly leading a mutiny when he was killed but that claim was dismissed as a hoax by a regional inquiry into his death.Lt-Gen Mahao's family accused the army of killing him in cold blood basing on the account of his nephews who were with him during the incident.Lt-Gen Mahao was appointed as LDF commander on 29 August 2014 after Prime Minister, Thomas Thabane, fired Lt-Gen Tlali Kamoli for alleged insubordination. However, Lt-Gen Kamoli rejected the dismissal challenging its legitimacy and proceeded to launch state a coup attempt in August 2014. The coup attempt kick started a chain of events that led to snap elections in early 2015.After Dr Thabane relinquished power in the wake of the 28 February 2015 snap elections, the seven-party coalition government led by Pakalitha Mosisili reinstated Lt-Gen Kamoli, arguing that his dismissal and Lt-Gen Mahao's promotion were all illegal.Lt Gen Kamoli was reinstated in a Government Gazette dated 21 May 2015 with another gazette issued on the same day terminating Lt-Gen Mahao's appointment as LDF commander and reverting him to a brigadier.Lt-Gen Mahao challenged his demotion in the High Court with the case not seeing the light of day after he was killed on 25 June 2015 by his LDF colleagues.The LDF claimed that Lt-Gen Mahao had been shot while resisting arrest over an alleged mutiny plot. However, the army's version was dismissed by both the soldier's family and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) commission of inquiry headed by retired Botswana judge, Justice Mphaphi Phumaphi.Lt-Gen Mahao's family accused the army of killing him in cold blood, basing on the account of his nephews who were with him during the incident.Justice Phumaphi's 10-member commission carried out its investigations between 31 August and 23 October 2015 and found that Dr Thabane's appointment of Lt-Gen Mahao as army commander was legal. SADC recommended, among other things, that the government should investigate the killing of Lt-Gen Mahao and prosecute those found to be responsible.The eight soldiers who were arrested and face charges of murdering Lt-Gen Mahao are Captain Litekanyo Nyakane, Captain Haleo Makara, Sergeant Lekhooa Moepi, Sergeant Motsamai Fako, Corporal Marasi Moleli, Corporal Motsoane Machai, Corporal Mohlalefi Seitlheko and Corporal Tsitso Ramoholi.Justice Hungwe postponed their trial to 1 April this year."I have decided to postpone the case to 1 April. The High Court registrar is also directed to write to lawyers proposing three alternative dates for the pre-trial conference between the dates of today (15 January) and the end of February 2019. On the day of the pre-trial conference all issues regarding the trial such as exchange of documents, including witness statements, shall be finalised," Justice Hungwe ordered.During the previous court appearance of the eight soldiers on 6 November 2018, Acting Chief Justice Mahase set 15 to 25 January 2019 as well as 1 to 5 April 2018 as the trial dates for the murder case.Justice Hungwe also presided over another case in which five soldiers, namely, Captain Litekanyo Nyakane, Lance Corporal Khauhelo Makoae, Lance Corporal Sebilo Sebilo, Privates Tsepo Tlakeli and Thebe Tsepe are alleged to have murdered Thabang Mosole, Monyane Matsie and Pakiso Ntala Letatabe in Ha Motanyane in Mafeteng in 2012.Justice Hungwe postponed the case to 19 February 2019 for a pre-trial conference which will in turn determine the date for the commencement of the trial.Justice Hungwe will now turn his attention to setting dates for the hearing of all the politically sensitive criminal cases involving politicians and members of the security agencies.This is being done so that when the other foreign judges arrive, they will get down to the business of hearing the cases.Other cases remanded to 18 to 24 January 2019 include those of former army commander, Lt-Gen Tlali Kamoli, former police commissioner Molahlei Letsoepa and former Defence Minister, Tseliso Mokhosi.Lt-Gen Kamoli faces a murder charge stemming from the 30 August 2014 killing of Police Sub-Inspector, Mokheseng Ramahloko.Sub-Inspector Ramahloko was shot and killed by soldiers during the attempted coup of 30 August 2014 at the Police Headquarters in Maseru. The soldiers who allegedly acted on the instructions of the then army commander, Lt-Gen Kamoli, also raided several other police stations in Maseru and seized an assortment of weapons.Lt-Gen Kamoli also faces 14 counts of attempted murder in connection with the 27 January 2014 simultaneous bombings of the Moshoeshoe II homes of First Lady Maesaiah Thabane and the Ha Abia residence of former police commissioner, Khothatso Tsooana.He is charged alongside Major Ramoepane, Captain Litekanyo Nyakane, Sergeant Heqoa Malefane and Corporal Mohlalefi Seitlheko.Major Ramoepane faces a separate murder charge in connection with the 5 September 2017 assassination of army commander Lt-Gen Khoantle Motsomotso.The cases involving Lt Gen Kamoli have been remanded to 23 January 2019.On 22 January 2019, Justice Hungwe will set a date for the hearing of the murder case involving former Defence minister Tseliso Mokhosi.Mr Mokhosi faces charges of murdering Police Constable (PC) Mokalekale Khetheng. He was charged along with former police commissioner Molahlehi Letsoepa and four other police officers.The other officers are Senior Superintendent Thabo Tsukulu, Superintendent Mothibeli Mofolo, Inspector Mabitle Matona and Police Constable Haleokoe Taasoane who are all currently on suspension from the police service.Messrs Mokhosi and Letsoepa are in exile while the four officers are still detained at the Maseru Maximum Security Prison.On 24 January 2019, Justice Hungwe will set a date for the trial of the 10 soldiers accused of strangling Lekhoele Noko, Molise Pakela and Khothatso Makibinyane at Setibing in rural Maseru on 16 May 2017 and dumped their bodies in the Mohale Dam.The 10 soldiers are Brigadier Rapele Mphaki, Sergeant Lekhooa Moepi, Captain Mahlehle Moeletsi, Lance Corporal Mahlomola Makhoali, Private Nthatakane Motanyane, Motsoane Machai, Tieho Tikiso, Pitso Ramoepana, Liphapang Sefako and Nemase Faso.The soldiers allegedly kidnapped and murdered the three men after the trio had just been released from police custody where they were detained in connection with a shooting incident that occurred at the Maseru border gate on 13 May 2017. (credit to Stephen King for the quote) I have always had the illusion it was more important or as important to be a good man as to be a great... Read more Amazon's plan to bring 25,000 jobs to a NYC campus is under fire from locals, as more details are revealed of what was promised to Jeff Bezos' empire. As New York lawmakers including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) continue to oppose Amazon.com's plans to establish a second headquarters there, Amazon execs have been internally talking about ways to reassess the situation, and explore alternatives for 'HQ2.' "Amazon is thinking of pulling out of New York HQ2 deal because of strong opposition from local politicians," writes Robert McCartney of the Washington Post on his scoop today. "Northern Virginia could get some or all of the jobs slated for NYC." Excerpt from his piece in the Washington Post, which is of course *owned by Bezos* it must be said Amazon executives have had internal discussions recently to reassess the situation in New York and explore alternatives, said the two people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly about the company's perspective. "The question is whether it's worth it if the politicians in New York don't want the project, especially with how people in Virginia and Nashville have been so welcoming," said one person familiar with the company's plans. Hailed as an economic triumph when it was announced by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) and Mayor Bill de Blasio (D), the project in the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens now faces withering criticism from some politicians and advocacy groups appalled at the prospect of giving giant subsidies to the world's most valuable company, led by its richest man. Facing opposition, Amazon reconsiders NY headquarters site, two officials say [WAPO, via TechMeme] Noteworthy tweets from lawmakers, reporters, and other observers, below. Can everyday people come together and effectively organize against creeping overreach of one of the world's biggest corporations? Yes, they can.https://t.co/DqQoL7VH7O Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) February 8, 2019 i mean SPEAKING OF extortion https://t.co/d841q3ZftQ Italian Alex Pareene (@pareene) February 8, 2019 EXCLUSIVE: Amazon is thinking of pulling out of New York HQ2 deal, because of strong opposition from local politicians. Northern Virginia could get some or all of the jobs slated for NYC. https://t.co/hn6ImP5toF Robert McCartney (@McCartneyWP) February 8, 2019 An important missing piece of context in the reporting about Amazon and NY: what is the cash-flow impact of the tax incentives? Giving a company billions out of existing revenue versus forgoing future tax revenues that don't currently exist are totally different things. Alex Stamos (@alexstamos) February 8, 2019 Gov. Cuomo says "We need Amazon."https://t.co/B4nKyVYkoL Hamza Shaban (@hshaban) February 8, 2019 "The state Senate is trying to stop Amazon from coming to Queens," says Cuomo. Nolan Hicks (@ndhapple) February 8, 2019 NEW: @Amazon releases statement on rumors they may not be moving into NYC after previously announcing #HQ2 choice ".we are working hard to demonstrate what kind of neighbor we will be." pic.twitter.com/jcW9GjbDSJ Michael Cappetta (@MCappetta) February 8, 2019 WaPo reporting on Amazon from anonymous sources can't help but think we are all getting played. Greg Knieriemen (@Knieriemen) February 8, 2019 Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos today took the highly unusual step of publishing correspondence with Trump-allied tabloid publisher AMI, which owns the National Enquirer. The Amazon CEO says this correspondence reveals threats made by AMI to publish nude intimate photos of Bezos, unless Bezos stops criticizing AMI's coverage. I've written a post about developments with the National Enquirer and its parent company, AMI. You can find it here: https://t.co/G1ykJAPPwy Yes, that's a lot to digest. We'll give you a moment. Excerpt from the post titled "No thank you, Mr. Pecker," which Jeff Bezos just published on Medium.com: Back to the story: Several days ago, an AMI leader advised us that Mr. Pecker is "apoplectic" about our investigation. For reasons still to be better understood, the Saudi angle seems to hit a particularly sensitive nerve. A few days after hearing about Mr. Pecker's apoplexy, we were approached, verbally at first, with an offer. They said they had more of my text messages and photos that they would publish if we didn't stop our investigation. My lawyers argued that AMI has no right to publish photos since any person holds the copyright to their own photos, and since the photos in themselves don't add anything newsworthy. AMI's claim of newsworthiness is that the photos are necessary to show Amazon shareholders that my business judgment is terrible. I founded Amazon in my garage 24 years ago, and drove all the packages to the post office myself. Today, Amazon employs more than 600,000 people, just finished its most profitable year ever, even while investing heavily in new initiatives, and it's usually somewhere between the #1 and #5 most valuable company in the world. I will let those results speak for themselves. OK, back to their threat to publish intimate photos of me. I guess we (me, my lawyers, and Gavin de Becker) didn't react to the generalized threat with enough fear, so they sent this: From: Howard, Dylan [dhoward@amilink.com] (Chief Content Officer, AMI) Sent: Tuesday, February 5, 2019 3:33 PM To: Martin Singer (litigation counsel for Mr. de Becker) Subject:. Jeff Bezos & Ms. Lauren Sanchez Photos CONFIDENTIAL & NOT FOR DISTRIBIUTION Marty: I am leaving the office for the night. I will be available on my cell 917 XXX-XXXX. However, in the interests of expediating this situation, and with The Washington Post poised to publish unsubstantiated rumors of The National Enquirer's initial report, I wanted to describe to you the photos obtained during our newsgathering. In addition to the "below the belt selfie otherwise colloquially known as a 'd*ck pick'" The Enquirer obtained a further nine images. These include: Mr. Bezos face selfie at what appears to be a business meeting. Ms. Sanchez response a photograph of her smoking a cigar in what appears to be a simulated oral sex scene. A shirtless Mr. Bezos holding his phone in his left hand while wearing his wedding ring. He's wearing either tight black cargo pants or shorts and his semi-erect manhood is penetrating the zipper of said garment. A full-length body selfie of Mr. Bezos wearing just a pair of tight black boxer-briefs or trunks, with his phone in his left hand while wearing his wedding ring. A selfie of Mr. Bezos fully clothed. A full-length scantily-clad body shot with short trunks. A naked selfie in a bathroom while wearing his wedding ring. Mr. Bezos is wearing nothing but a white towel and the top of his pubic region can be seen. Ms. Sanchez wearing a plunging red neckline dress revealing her cleavage and a glimpse of her nether region. Ms. Sanchez wearing a two-piece red bikini with gold detail dress revealing her cleavage. It would give no editor pleasure to send this email. I hope common sense can prevail and quickly. Dylan. Yahoo! JAPAN Yahoo! JAPAN This blog will be used to discuss issues of the day, inspiration-- No Posers, Malcontents or Flaming Trolls allowed. The Sexual State: How Elite Ideologies Are Destroying Lives and Why The Church Was Right All Along. Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D. TAN Books, 2018. 406 pages. Reviewed by Rev. Ben Johnson Keen-eyed analysts have probed every ideological trend threatening liberty from socialism and fascism to the Alt-Right with one glaring exception: the revolt against personal responsibility. Jennifer Roback Morse, the founder of the Ruth Institute, capably fills this void in The Sexual State. Building on her previous book Love and Economics, Morse summarizes the sexual revolution in just a few propositions: It separates children from sexual activity and marriage, and eradicates all differences between men and women. This apparent personal freedom expands government by creating new avenues for regulation, increasing the need for means-tested welfare programs, and breaking down the little society of the family. No public program can care for children as fully, selflessly, or naturally as two parents in a lifelong, committed union. From a social standpoint, Morse writes, the genius of marriage as a social institution is that its extremely minimal legal structure creates a largely self-regulating, voluntary system of long-term cooperation between parents. Thus, we should not be surprised to learn that totalitarians of all stripes have sought to control the family. Inside the family, people develop loyalties to real people, not the Dear Leader. They develop habits that may not further the interests of the totalitarian State, with its all-embracing designs on every person. Inside the family, people may commit to ideas other than the state-sanctioned ideology. The new ideology coopted Marxisms dialectic of inevitability, now known as standing on the right side of history. However, this ideology finds advocates across the political spectrum. Certain factions of the liberty movement embrace the Liberationist Narrative something she calls the Walmart theory of sex which celebrates changes to family life for giving us greater choice and agency. Under a no-fault legal regime, we are freer on the front end of a divorce or paternity settlement, Morse writes. But we are less free on the back end, as the State steps in to manage the consequences. Divorce courts dictate the time and money parents spend on their children, the language spoken in the home, even such mundane decisions as a childs prom dress. This degree of intrusion into an intact family would be unthinkable. Family breakdown, whether through divorce or illegitimacy, strongly harms children and beckons the government to fill the void left by absent parents. Increases in the likelihood of poverty, physical illness, mental illness, poor school performance, and crime have all been associated with being separated from a parent, Morse writes. This elevated risk persists even in nations as committed to egalitarianism and progressive social values as Sweden. Such pathologies usher children into the welfare system where, once inside, a matrix of laws holds them in place. Medicaid, SNAP, TANF, and WIC eligibility guidelines disfavor marriage. The cost of family breakdown to the U.S. government alone totals an estimated $100 to $112 billion, Morse notes, adding that studies show the same phenomenon increases welfare spending in New Zealand, the UK, and Canada. The ordinary tax-paying citizen faces a greater tax burden than otherwise would be the case as a direct result of what, by the Liberationist Narrative, is an increase in sexual freedom, Morse writes. Similarly, gender ideology creates a separation between children and their parents and inserts the State between them, as the State sets itself up as the public enforcer of their new identities. In Minnesota, a school district facilitated a minors gender transition without parental notification. Laws now police the permissible use of pronouns. Civil libertarians, fiscal conservatives, and open-minded liberals should all be troubled by the actual results as opposed to the supposed benefits of this freedom, Morse writes. References to class warfare and class analysis may lead some reviewers to caricature the book as a rejection of a free society. Nothing could be further from the truth. Morse, who highlights her affiliations with all three of the major schools of free market economics, ascribes changed cultural mores to excusing the libidinous excesses of the managerial elite: the nexus of academics, lobbyists, government bureaucrats, thought leaders, and mass media sharing the same narrative. Yet she defines the term by noting: The managerial class goes beyond the purely class designation in this respect: its built upon the idea that society is something that needs to be managed. Seldom have the privileged classes taken it upon themselves to nudge their neighbors and fellow citizens about their eating habits, sex lives, spending habits, personal safety, and even their thoughts. Legal historian Joseph Dellapenna observes that the rise of the managerial class was not unique to the United States in the twentieth century. The managerial class rose to dominance in the U.S. with the New Deal in the 1930s, and has continued to dominate ever since. Evidence of the transition to social domination by a managerial class can be traced back to the nineteenth century, particularly in England. Nor was this transition limited to western or capitalist nations. In a real sense, the rise of Communism and Socialism was nothing more or (less) than a rise of the managerial class. Ponder that last sentence for a while, Morse writes. Somehow, an ahistorical breed of Christian especially Roman Catholic intellectual believes he will capture, sanctify, and redirect the vast apparatus of the State toward theologically approved ends. Assuming an entrenched bureaucracy will simply acknowledge defeat and implement an opposing viewpoint seems naive, albeit less so than the notion that the States coercive power will forever remain in holy hands. Revolutionaries yearn to control the levers of power more than those who believe in natural law, if only because the State need not compel actions that occur naturally. Morse roots her hope for the future in nature and culture. An entire chapter defends the notion that differences between men and women are real, biologically based, and ineradicable. Each section ends by presenting the relevant Catholic teaching, which she describes as the common heritage of all Christians. And she remembers the victims of the sexual revolution in each chapter, showing the very real toll that comes from shunning self-restraint and refusing to deny instant and perpetual gratification. True liberty rests on the foundation of personal responsibility or sinks into the quicksand of the paternal state. Morse concludes with a 15-point Manifesto for the Family, two-thirds of which consists of asking the government to stop doing things it never had any business doing in the first place. Virtually unique in political literature, her last three proposals can be adopted only by individuals. Building a civilization of love literally begins in each human heart. That private sanctuary, the link between the individual conscience and the fiery flame of divine love, kept the spark of civilization alive after the barbarian sack of Rome, times of plague and pestilence, and through the dark night of atheistic Communism. That flame can outshine the strange fires of fallen passions and realign society according to its light again. (Photo credit: Public domain.) What exactly is the Green New Deal? Yesterday Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) released a proposed resolution titled, Recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal. The document is a simple resolution, a proposal that addresses matters entirely within the prerogative of the House of Representatives. It requires neither the approval of the Senate nor the signature of the President, and it does not have the force of law. Simple resolutions concern the rules of one Chamber or express the sentiments of a single Chamber. This resolution would merely express the opinion of the House on the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal. Implementing the policies proposed would require additional legislation. Whats the Green New Deals basis for taking action? The resolution claims that environmental and economic conditions require the federal government to take drastic action. On the environmental side, the resolution cites the Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5oC, which was produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in October 2018, and the Fourth National Climate Assessment, a report released in 2018. Those reports state that human activity is the dominant cause of observed climate change over the past century, and that a changing climate is causing sea levels to rise, an increase in wildfires, severe storms, droughts, and other extreme weather events that threaten human life, healthy communities, and critical infrastructure. On the economic side, the resolution claims a 4-decade trend of economic stagnation, deindustrialization, and antilabor policies has lead to such problems as wage stagnation, reduced socioeconomic mobility, erosion of the earning and bargaining power of workers, and income inequality. Additionally, the resolution claims climate change, pollution, and environmental destruction pose not only a threat to national security but have exacerbated systemic racial, regional, social, environmental, and economic injustices that are disproportionately affecting indigenous communities, communities of color, migrant communities, deindustrialized communities, depopulated rural communities, the poor, low-income workers, women, the elderly, the unhoused, people with disabilities, and youth. The resolution claims that Federal Government-led mobilizations during World War II and the New Deal created the greatest middle class that the United States has ever seen and that there is currently a historic opportunity to counteract the systemic injustices (listed above), create millions of good, high-wage jobs, and provide unprecedented levels of prosperity and economic security. What does the Green New Deal propose as a solution? The resolution proposes to accomplish numerous Green New Deal goals through a 10-year national mobilization (referred to in this resolution as the Green New Deal mobilization), including: Meeting 100 percent of the power demand in the United States through clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources. [The plan calls for a full transition off fossil fuels and would not include creating new nuclear plants.] Upgrading all existing buildings in the United States and building new buildings to achieve maximal energy efficiency, water efficiency, safety, affordability, comfort, and durability, including through electrification. Removing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from manufacturing and industry as much as is technologically feasible, including by expanding renewable energy manufacturing and investing in existing manufacturing and industry. Supporting family farming and investing in sustainable farming and land use practices that increase soil health. Overhauling transportation systems to eliminate pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector, including by developing zero-emission vehicle infrastructure and manufacturing, increasing public transportation, and promoting high-speed rail. What is necessary to implement the Green New Deal goals? The resolution states that to achieve the Green New Deal goals and mobilization, a Green New Deal will require several additional goals and projects, including: Guaranteeing a job with a family-sustaining wage, adequate family and medical leave, paid vacations, and retirement security to all people of the United States. Providing all people of the United States with high-quality health care. Providing all people of the United States with affordable, safe, and adequate housing. Providing resources, training, and high-quality education, including higher education, to all people of the United States. Providing all people of the United States with economic security and access to clean water and clean air. Ensuring that the Green New Deal mobilization creates high-quality union jobs that pay prevailing wages, hires local workers, offers training and advancement opportunities, and guarantees wage and benefit parity for workers affected by the transition. What is the proposal for paying for the Green New Deal? Rep. Ocasio-Cortez proposes paying for by using deficit spending and the Federal Reserves power to inject money into the economic system. In the FAQ issued by her staff, she answers the question, How will you pay for it? by saying: The same way we paid for the New Deal, the 2008 bank bailout and extended quantitative easing programs. The same way we paid for World War II and all our current wars. The Federal Reserve can extend credit to power these projects and investments and new public banks can be created to extend credit. There is also space for the government to take an equity stake in projects to get a return on investment. At the end of the day, this is an investment in our economy that should grow our wealth as a nation, so the question isnt how will we pay for it, but what will we do with our new shared prosperity. Does anyone actually support this proposal? While the resolution is unlikely to gain traction in the Democratic-controlled House, at least six senators who are seeking the Democratic nomination for president have endorsed the proposal: Cory Booker of New Jersey, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Kamala Harris of California, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Bernie Sanders of Vermont, and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota. BLACK REPUBLICAN BLOG - The Republican Party is the party of civil rights and the four Fs: faith, family, freedom and fairness. The Democratic Party is the party of the four Ss: slavery, secession, segregation and socialism (Quote By Author Michael Scheuer). This resource is no longer available This resource is no longer available. Return to previous page. 3. ADHERING TO A TIGHT SCHEDULE Ever heard the phrase "island time"? It applies here. Locals' laid-back attitudes mean nothing happens in a rush. Does that bar claim to open at 5 p.m.? Don't get frustrated if it's 5:30 p.m. and there's no painkiller in sight. In fact, your trip to Puerto Rico will be best spent going with the flow. This isn't New York City, where you'll have a calendar packed with Broadway curtain times and dinner reservations. Instead of stressing about sticking to your itinerary, take a deep breath and give an off-the-beaten-path spot a chance. 4. STAYING ONLY IN SAN JUAN Even though traffic can occasionally slow things down, nothing on the island is more than two hours away. San Juan, with its colorful colonial buildings and rowdy nightlife, is a worthy destination unto itself, but part of Puerto Rico's appeal is its diverse ecosystems. El Yunque National Forest alone offers more than 28,000 acres of hiking, waterfalls and wildlife, while Rincon, on the island's west coast, has famous beaches and great swells for surfers. 5. SPEAKING ONLY ENGLISH Puerto Rico is a United States territory, but Spanish is the primary language written and spoken across the island. English is still widely spoken in many areas, so don't fret if your high school Spanish isn't polished. That being said, your experience will be much richer if you learn at least a few pleasantries in Spanish, such as "please," "thank you," "good morning/evening" and "how are you?" At Oyster.com our special investigators visit, photograph, review and rate each hotel. We uncover the truth, before it's "uh-oh" time. (c)2019 Oyster.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Love 1 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Burgum said his approach focusing on one-time projects allows policymakers to rely on Legacy Fund earnings to shore up agency budgets in the event of a revenue downturn. Headland said his bill could help address the states workforce shortage by attracting new residents. The governor and I disagree on this, he said. How many billions of dollars worth of visionary one-time projects does this state need? North Dakota is projected to raise more than $900 million in income taxes during the biennium that ends June 30. The average individual state income tax liability in North Dakota is $866 per return, according to the tax commissioners office. North Dakotas income tax rates are low compared to other states, but South Dakota doesnt impose them, according to the Tax Foundation. North Dakota lawmakers most recently reduced income taxes in 2015. Burgums spokesman Mike Nowatzki said the governor isnt opposed to cutting income taxes but doesnt support Headlands proposal to buy them down with the Legacy Fund. The governor didnt say he would veto the bill if it reached his desk, saying earlier in the meeting with reporters that it would be illegal for him to threaten such action on any bill. Bismarcks fifth annual Polar Plunge, in support of Special Olympics North Dakota, will take place at 4 p.m. Feb. 16 in the Elks Lodge parking lot, 900 S. Washington St. in Bismarck. Individuals or teams must raise a minimum of $75 to take the plunge into the icy waters. Participants are encouraged to arrive with a creative costume. Prizes are awarded for the whitest legs, youngest plunger, best costume, most money raised by a team, most money raised by an individual, most money raised by a business and most money raised by a law enforcement team. One thing we can count on in North Dakota is having the bragging rights to coping with frigid cold temperatures," said Kathleen Meagher, president and CEO of Special Olympics North Dakota. "The Polar Plunge is even a greater way to expanding those bragging rights and to demonstrate the fun ways to enjoy our weather. It truly is an extreme sport, but the exhilarating feeling you get after you plunge is one to remember. To register, visit www.firstgiving.com/event/sond/2019-Polar-Plunge-Bismarck or call 701-746-0331. Other plunges are scheduled in Fargo, Grand Forks, Minot and Dickinson. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 A proposal to change the state's juvenile justice laws is set to head to the North Dakota House floor next week after members of Judiciary Committee unanimously approved the measure following testimony from parents of juvenile sexual assault victims. Children and parents, including a Fargo family who says their 4-year-old daughter was raped by a 13-year-old boy when they left her in the care of family friends, shared their stories with state lawmakers at the Capitol on Wednesday. "They need to put a face to why all of these parents are here today sharing their story," said Rosa Strubbe, whose daughter stood next to her when she testified. "Unfortunately, (my daughter) is going to be that face." Rosa and Ryan Strubbe of Fargo are among the proposed change's most prominent backers. The couple in January posted a video on Facebook calling for change and describing what happened to their daughter. The eight-minute video has been viewed more than 200,000 times. Juvenile court cases are not public, but according to the Strubbe family, the 13-year-old boy was charged with rape and sentenced to a year of supervised probation and therapy. But counties with wind farms built after 2015 will lose about one-third of their wind tax revenue after those wind farms are 20 years old. Thats the case for Morton County, which receives the highest amount of wind tax revenue in the state. Morton County received about $1.7 million in property tax revenue from wind farms in 2018 that was distributed to the county, local school districts, fire departments, water districts and other entities, said Morton County Auditor Dawn Rhone. Under the bill, when those wind projects are 20 years old, one-third of that revenue would go to the state general fund. Rhone said shes concerned that would shift a greater burden on local taxpayers. Burleigh County received nearly $312,000 in wind tax revenue in 2018, according to Kevin Glatt, county auditor. Because those projects were built before 2015, they are taxed at a lower rate. When the older wind projects have operated for 20 years, they will be taxed at a substantially higher rate, with one-third going to the state general fund. The local tax base actually wont change much, said Sen. Jordan Kannianen, R-Stanley. Members of the North Dakota House voted down a bill to allow collective bargaining for police and professional firefighters with city administrations. The chamber voted 23-64 on House Bill 1463, introduced by Rep. Mary Schneider, D-Fargo. The House Industry, Business and Labor Committee gave the bill an 8-6 do-not-pass recommendation. Bill carrier Rep. Mike Lefor, R-Dickinson, said the committee had several reasons for its recommendation, including collective bargaining for "a select few," time limits on cities' budgeting process and concerns over "an impasse" in negotiations. Rep. Pamela Anderson, D-Fargo, urged support for the bill out of respect for emergency responders and their dangerous duties. Rep. Jim Kasper, R-Fargo, offered his observation that police and firefighters' abilities to talk with their cities' administration may be a problem with one or two departments in the state. Rep. Ron Guggisberg, D-Fargo also a fire captain disputed Kasper's remarks. "I think the people I run into on the street in Fargo, the police officers, they don't think things are fine, and they do think that things could be better and they do want collective bargaining," Guggisberg said. Reach Jack Dura at 701-223-8482 or jack.dura@bismarcktribune.com. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Get Government & Politics updates in your inbox! Stay up-to-date on the latest in local and national government and political topics with our newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. The group also raised concerns about the bill giving sweeping powers to people who are not elected officials, including the state geologist. Chuck Volk, a member of the alliance, said the residents have faith in current leaders, but expressed concern that "leaders change. They propose to add more legislative oversight by adding Senate and House members from both parties to a high-level radioactive waste advisory council that is established by the bill. Since 2016, the alliance has researched issues related to nuclear waste disposal and exploration, including viewing quarterly meetings of the U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board. Leier said members are concerned about an effort on the federal level to reclassify high-level radioactive waste and rapid movement by private corporations to enter the nuclear waste industry. We know about it because were making it our business to keep watching, Leier said. Sen. Jim Roers, R-Fargo, a member of the committee, presented several amendments to the bill that were developed in consultation with the citizen group. The amendments increase permitting fees and bonding requirements, increase notification of community members and extend a comment period. After that, they rescued 25 dogs from Texas, including Serr's furbaby, Roadie, an American Staffordshire terrier mix. Both sisters have full-time jobs. Serr works for an insurance company and Tveito works as a cook. They take only as many dogs as they can place in foster homes or can fit in a portable building they own, Serr said, adding that their parents also help out. Their rescue operates solely on donations, and they often pay expenses, including costly veterinarian bills, out of their own pockets, Serr said. The biggest issue for the rescue is transportation. Serr and Tveito drive their SUV to Texas to pick up the dogs, but the last time they were there they had to borrow a van from the Lamar County Humane Association in Paris, Texas, because they couldn't fit all of the dogs. "Every time we go to Texas, we come back with more than we go down for," Serr said. "You just walk in the shelter and (the dogs) are so sad, and you pull them out and theyre like new dogs. You hate to put them back in that kind of situation, so you just want to bring them with you." ROUNDUP Even now, nearly eight years later, marks of the 2011 flood that left parts of the Busy Bee Cafe and whole sections of town under 8 feet of water are still visible. It's an event Mark and Mary Ann Petrie, owners of the Busy Bee, can't seem to escape. Both are in their 70s and getting to where they'd like to retire. After all, they've been running the Busy Bee for 50 years. The Petries bought the cafe on Feb. 9, 1969, and to mark the milestone, they'll be celebrating at the Busy Bee all weekend with games, food, drawings and prizes. It's the Petries' way of saying thank you to a community that has supported them for decades. "We appreciate our years here," Mary Ann Petrie said. Those years haven't always been easy. Running a restaurant is a physically challenging and mentally demanding job, and the older the Petries get the more difficult it becomes. They had always planned to sell the Busy Bee and use the sale to support their retirement. In fact, they had thought about doing it around the 50-year mark. "We might have to stick it out a little longer," she said. The 2011 flood devastated their restaurant, destroying much of the interior, including fixtures and some equipment, and requiring herculean efforts to clean up; they were closed for months. The Petries invested heavily into reopening. In fact, walking into the restaurant now it's impossible to tell the place was ever underwater. The walls are bright with new paint, and much of the dining room has been remodeled with new furniture the Petries bought after a Wheat Montana restaurant went out of business. In fact, the only remnants of the flood are the glass doors on the cafe's north entrance. The doors are double-pane and flood water got in between the glass, leaving a series of lines printed on the glass as it receded. The Busy Bee sits in the Musselshell River flood plain and requires flood insurance, provided through the Federal Emergency Management Administration. It's expensive and because of the 2011 flood, it's considerably higher than it was. Another flood would totally wipe out the Busy Bee; after 2011, FEMA informed the Petries if the restaurant flooded again FEMA would buy it out. And that makes it really hard to sell the Busy Bee to any prospective buyer, Mark Petrie said. Mary Ann describes it using an analogy more common to a Roundup resident. "If you're a rancher, how can you retire if you can't sell your ranch," she asked. "We invested our lives into this place." The Petries came to Roundup as newlyweds from Chicago. The town 50 years ago was a bustling western outpost supported by a handful of coal mines, large ranches and tourist attractions like the Silver Spur Dude Ranch where Mark landed his first job. Over the years, life in Roundup has receded as most of the coal industry left the area and its workers with it. A number of the storefronts on Roundup's Main Street are empty, and the town's only pharmacy a small corner shop run by ShopKo will close on May 5, following ShopKo's filing for bankruptcy. Occasionally, a new cafe or restaurant will open; a new malt shop recently opened downtown. When that happens, the Busy Bee sees a dip in its business but then the regulars return. "That's our one advantage over a new place that opens," Mark said. The Busy Bee's reputation has made it a destination restaurant for out-of-towners and a local favorite. The Petries like to point out that the vast majority of their menu is still made from scratch. Oftentimes those new restaurants will close almost as quickly as they open, Mark said. Both the Petries acknowledge it's hard to do business in Roundup. "Little merchants just can't make it anymore," he said. And that's made the Petrie's future uncertain. They love Roundup and have poured their lives into the town. But at some point they'll have to retire and they're not sure how that will happen if they can't sell the restaurant. And so they soldier on. They're excited for this weekend and for the 50th anniversary celebration. They hope old friends and regular customers show up, but they're also looking to celebrate with newcomers too. "It's a thank you to all those who have been with us all through the years," Mary Ann said. Photos: Busy Bee Cafe in Roundup celebrates 50 years Love 2 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 7 Angry 0 Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Montana Highway Patrol arrested two people and seized almost 29 pounds of meth during a traffic stop in Custer County in 2017, according to a Thursday press release from the Montana Department of Justice. The stop, which happened Nov. 8, 2017, resulted in a seizure of meth and marijuana, two arrests, and nine federal indictments disbanding a drug smuggling ring from California to North Dakota. John Barnes, a spokesperson for MHP, said it was one of the largest seizures Montana has seen. According to MHP reports, in 2017 almost 69 pounds of meth was seized statewide. That means this one traffic stop accounted for more than 40 percent of the meth seized in the state that year. The number of illegal drug arrests increased 547 percent from 2010 to 2015, according to reports from MHP. Information on the ongoing investigation was not released until Thursday to "preserve the integrity" of the investigation and criminal proceedings, according to the press release. According to the MHP press release: On Nov. 8 2017, an MHP criminal interdiction trooper stopped a Nissan Maxima in Custer County for a traffic violation. Suspicious of criminal activity, the Trooper used a K-9 and determined there were illegal drugs inside the car. The historic Rex restaurant on Montana Avenue, which has been closed two years, is showing signs of life. When the restaurant reopens expected in summer 2019 it'll carry a new name, Buffalo Block at the Rex. Crews have steadily worked inside the building during the past several months, remodeling the interior of the restaurant and getting it ready for the projected summer opening. The building itself is closed off at the sidewalk with chain link fencing. The building was purchased in March by Rick Larson, founder of EBMS, the Billings-based health care service provider, after it had sat vacant for a year following its unexpected closure. In February 2017, signs suddenly appeared on the Rex's entrance announcing it had closed and that a sale was pending. At the time, Gene Burgad, who had owned the Rex for 35 years, said he was selling the business to his assistant manager. Burgad had said he believed the deal would close in a matter of days and the restaurant would then be back open soon thereafter. Instead, no sale was ever finalized, and the Rex sat vacant for more than a year. Burgad has not spoken publicly about it since he announced the closure. It wasnt until Kaori Fujii began working with musicians in the Congo that she fully understood the adage, music can connect people. I always thought of music as a profession, but at the same time I didnt realize how powerful music can be, said the Tokyo-born flutist who now resides in New York. Fujiis work with the Orchestre Symphonique Kimbanguiste, the only symphony in central Africa, is the center of a short documentary completed recently by Montana filmmaker Jessica Jane Hart. The 11-minute film makes its public debut in Billings Feb. 18 at Art House Cinema. Titled Music Beyond, the documentary may be short, but its packed with stunning images of Congolese musicians who began with nothing, describes Pauleth Masamba in the film. No musicians, no instruments, it was just us, and we started step by step...and today we can say that the foundation on that house is strong, and all that energy came from us. Fujii first traveled to Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, five years ago to see if she would be welcomed as a teacher. It took two years and six trips to convince the musicians that she was actually coming back, said Fujii. They are used to having promises broken, so they dont expect a lot and see a lot of people coming and going, but it never sticks. Hart was inspired to produce her own film after meeting Fujii and learning of the nonprofit, Music Beyond, Inc., that Fujii founded to fund her work in the Congo. They connected through Fujiis husband, Eric Cecil, a guitarist and former Miles City resident Hart knew during high school. In November 2017, Hart and Tarek Fouda, a sound engineer and radio journalist based in San Francisco, joined Fujii in the Congo and spent five days filming "Music Beyond." Music for the soul Fujii's parents were professional musicians, and she was raised in a classical music environment she describes as "almost elitist" and worlds away from the Congolese musicians she now teaches. In that environment, sometimes I think we are too caught up with the self-validation and techniques and so-on, rather than the happiness or passion or the connection that music can bring, Fujii said. Fujii holds some impressive titles. Shes the youngest Japanese flutist to take first place in the Music Competition of Japan, the Japan Wind and Percussion Competition and the Japan Woodwind Competition. At the height of her career, she was playing 200 concerts a year. Shes performed at Carnegie Hall, The John F. Kennedy Center, Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall, the Alte Oper Frankfurt in Germany, to name a few. Yet, this esteem and prestige, the fancy concert halls, the five star hotels and first class flights none of it fulfilled her, she said. "I began to wonder if there was anything I could do as a musician to make even the smallest of difference in a true, meaningful way outside the concert halls and recording studio. In 2014, Fujii founded Music Beyond. Since then, shes visited the Congo three times a year to host intensive clinics, working with ensembles as well as teaching solo lessons. Its a full day, every day, and she does it for a month at a time. Each trip, Fujii sees progress. The sole teacher for the organization, Fujii also mentors musicians so they can teach others after she leaves. Her students are dedicated, some picking up techniques that typically take months to master. Fujii introduced one of her students a night guard at a Kinshasa shopping center to a vibrato technique on the flute. The next day he came to me, and he absolutely nailed it, Fujii recalled. He does it regardless of if he has a teacher or not, or enough money or time, he needs to do it. That is keeping him alive and going, Fujii said. Survival through music Theres a story told about the Orchestre Symphonique Kimbanguiste starting with a single violin. The instrument was shared among 20 people, some traveling on foot for hours to get a chance to play it. That violin launched a symphony in Kinshasa that now has more than 200 choir and orchestra members, many of whom are self-taught and continue to travel long distances to rehearse together. About half the members sing in the choir, and others perform on instruments that they maintain themselves. Founded in 1994 by Congolese conductor Armand Diangienda, the orchestra slowly amassed instruments, some donated or shipped from relatives in Europe and others were built by orchestra members with resources on-hand. A 2010 German documentary and a 2014 spotlight on CBSs 60 Minutes spurred interest and further donations. Life in Kinshasa is a struggle. Its a city with upwards of 12 million residents and growing as people move to the city from other parts of war-torn Africa. This influx has been met with massive housing issues and a lack of basic city services. Electricity and water are sparse and intermittent, and many of the homes are substandard one-room structures. Democratic Republic of Congo is one of the poorest countries in the world, and many residents of Kinshasa earn less than $400 a year, according to Global Finance Magazine. Symphony members are often up before the sun to get to their day jobs, sharing a taxi or walking in the citys staggering congestion, then attending rehearsals at a local Kimbanguiste church in the evenings. Its something that Hart struggles to explain. I just cant imagine being that motivated for something, Hart said. On the outside, it can seem so insignificant, especially for someone who doesnt play music, and even for someone who grew up playing music its just hard to imagine being willing to work that hard to get something that is intangible. While filming in the Congo, Hart was struck with culture shock, not just from the differences in her American life, but also the stark contrasts between the hotel where they stayed an area Hart describes as a safe zone where many NGO and diplomatic workers are stationed and the immense poverty and poor infrastructure across the rest of the city. You cross a line and youre in the real Kinshasa, Hart said. Despite being a country in political unrest with ongoing corruption and violence, the Democratic Republic of the Congo just experienced its first peaceful transfer of power in decades. Democracy is a process, said Fujii, who maintains a delicate relationship with the Congolese government. She enters the country with the blessing of the government under the protection of the Japanese Embassy, which maintains a presence in the DRC. I continue to believe in the Congolese people, who are living day after day with hope in their heart in a place where hope is so hard to come by. Congolese people believe that there will someday be a peaceful Congo, Fujii said. Coming home Hart and Fouda arrived in Kinshasa just after Thanksgiving in 2017. Each carried one small bag with filming gear to avoid attracting attention as they traveled to Ngiri-Ngiri, a municipality in the Funa district where the orchestra practices. Both volunteered their time to film and produce the documentary, and some of their travel expenses were offset by fundraising efforts. They received visas from the Embassy of the DRC, in part due to testimonial letters written by Fujii and members of the symphony. Traveling in a Japanese Embassy vehicle significantly lessened their costs and need for armed security. Hart filmed some of Kinshasa from the vehicle, but at times the driver with would ask her to hide the camera. The slower you move, the more you see, Hart said. A lot of what we experienced we were not able to film. The documentary spends a good deal of time focused on an all-female ensemble, which Fujii started in 2017 to empower women through music. Footage captured on the last day of filming shows the female orchestra members performing and speaking at a center for young mothers many victims of violence and rape and homeless girls up to age 17. In one of the shots, you see a child sitting on a fence, mimicking the movement of playing violin as the ensemble performs. There are 12-year-old mothers just surviving, Hart described. And here we are in this super safe diplomat world. Its just a universe away. Hart returned to Billings at Christmastime, and said she felt extreme disconnection. I just didnt talk about it when I got home. If I would start to talk about it, tears would come out of my eyes," Hart said, but not because she was sad. Its like a physical reaction, which is the only way I can put it. Sharing cuts of the film with Fujii, Hart said they would cry together at this experience. Hart describes Fujii as a humble badass. She bounces between these worlds seemingly effortlessly. I know its not effortless. In going back and forth, Fujii said she no longer experiences culture shock, but probably I became more patient of a person after coming back. Her first experiences in the Congo were shocking. You do see poverty all over the place. You see starving children and people trying to put the next meal on the table, literally, Fujii said. Its hard to see it, but it becomes normal. When you come backits more artificial here. Her recurring thought, upon returning to her life in New York: How could we manage to be so unhappy with everything that we have? Fujii said she doesnt feel bad about her success or her material possessions. If (Congolese) have the choice of having things, they would have things, too, but at the same time I dont complain. If anything, I am more thankful for having things rather than feeling guilty. The guilt is not going to help them. To make her work in the Congo possible, Fujii cut back significantly on live performances. She continues to teach private lessons and picks up gigs to pay the bills. It was the worst decision by far that Ive made financially, but the best decision that Ive ever made as a person, Fujii said. Love 4 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 2 Stay up-to-date on what's happening Receive the latest in local entertainment news in your inbox weekly! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. President Trump is moving toward his 2024 candidacy as per all indications from his enlightening address to the NC GOP on June 5, 2021. Considering this political vector as a distinct possibility: What is your electoral pleasure as an integral cog in this Representative Republic? No Vote: Mr. Trump will never be president again as we boldly march toward a Socialist society. Yes Vote: Mr. Trump was the best president since Ronald Reagan, and we need a real leader, who is fully cognitive of that responsibility in these tumultuous times.. Last week, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam was hit with a shocking blast from the past: a photo on his medical school yearbook page of a man in blackface and another man in a Ku Klux Klan outfit. Northam quickly apologized for the photo, then said he wasn't in the photo and then admitted he had once worn blackface and dressed up as Michael Jackson for a dance contest. He nearly moonwalked at a press conference before his wife gave him a look that could curdle milk.For this sin - the sin of an old, disgusting, racially insensitive photo - Northam now finds his political career on the skids. As of this writing, he's hanging on by his fingernails, even as his lieutenant governor struggles with dicey sexual assault allegations.The same week that Northam found himself in hot water, he endorsed a Virginia bill that would have broadened the ability of women to obtain an abortion up to the point of birth. Virginia Delegate Kathy Tran, a sponsor of the bill, stated in defense of her legislation that women would be able to obtain an abortion during labor. Northam then defended the bill, adding that if a baby were born alive during such an abortion - he assumed that the abortion would be due to "severe deformities" or "a fetus that's not viable" - then the baby could be "kept comfortable" while the family and the doctor decide its fate.Even in the least appalling reading of his comments, Northam clearly endorsed infanticide. The only question is whether he endorsed the murder of fully born children.Yet these comments did not merit his ouster. In fact, they didn't even merit an argument inside the Democratic Party about the extremism of the pro-choice position. Last month, Democrats in the state of New York cheered wildly for a law that opened the floodgates to third-trimester abortion, with Gov. Andrew Cuomo ordering state sites to be illuminated in pink in celebration of the potential murder of the unborn. The Democratic governor of Rhode Island endorsed a similar bill; Democrats in Vermont attempted to pass an even more extreme bill that would enshrine abortion as a "fundamental right" for the entirety of the pregnancy period.All of this is apparently less controversial than a three-decades-old photograph showing a medical student in blackface. Endorsing the killing of babies during dilation today - not 30 years ago, not 30 weeks ago - is considered less of a faux pas than racially offensive idiocy during the Reagan presidency.The morality of our nation may be skewed beyond repair. Northam certainly deserves criticism for his yearbook stupidities, and for his even more idiotic response. But if the American people are more consumed with the consequences of insulting costumes from 1984 than the murder of the unborn today, we deserve everything we have coming to us. President Trump is deeply unpopular. According to RealClearPolitics, his favorability ratings now stand at just 41 percent - near-historic lows. This means that Democrats have the upper hand heading into 2020. All they have to do is not be radically insane.And they just can't do it.Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., the media darling of the moment, stated on a CNN town hall this week that she wants to fully abolish private health insurance, ban all semi-automatic weapons and rid the American economy of carbon emissions within a decade.None of these positions are popular. Americans are interested in the idea of Medicare-for-All so long as there are no costs. The minute they're told that there may be delays in receiving care, as there are in nearly all countries with socialized medicine, support plummets to just 26 percent, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll. Only 37 percent support Medicare-for-All if it means merely raising taxes. How about banning all semi-automatic weapons? As of October, 57 percent of Americans opposed banning semi-automatics. And when it comes to abolishing private cars - which would essentially be necessary to achieve the goals of the so-called Green New Deal - that proposal wouldn't even chart.Yet the Democratic primaries will require nearly every Democrat to embrace each of these positions. That's probably why Democrats are quaking in their boots at the possibility of a third-party run by former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz. Schultz has declared nationalized health care an impossibility; he has talked about the dangers of our massive national debt; he has opposed a 70 percent income tax rate. "I respect the Democratic Party," Schultz told CNBC this week. "I no longer feel affiliated because I don't know their views represent the majority of Americans."Now, Schultz may be a boring billionaire, but at least he isn't pushing proposals so loony they alienate vast swaths of the American public. Democrats want to have it both ways: They want to push radical leftist policy, but they don't want the blowback such policies entail. They want to pretend that radical leftism is popular even as they implicitly acknowledge the fact that it's not all that popular.Hence New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg's fulminating over Schultz's candidacy. She writes, "this frustrated executive's politics aren't widely shared by people who haven't been to Davos." Trump's riding in the low 40s. Democrats shouldn't have to sweat out fringe candidacies. Yet that's what they're doing, because they know they've pushed too far to the left.There's an easy answer to the Schultz conundrum for Democrats: Stop embracing the radical id of your own base. But that would involve recognizing that Trump's unpopularity isn't equivalent to support for radicalism. And Democrats will never acknowledge it - not as long as the hope remains that Trump's unpopularity will translate into extreme leftist policy, the likes of which the republic has rarely seen. The Real Jackie Kennedy Her style and grace were legendary, and her image came to define the 1960s. She captured the hearts of world leaders, fashion icons and people all over the planet, who knew her as Jackie Kennedy, Jacqueline Onassis, or simply Jackie O. But who was the real Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy Onassis? Take our quiz and find out. Take The Quiz When towns disband and disappear, its not usually intentional. That isnt the case with Empire, Wyo., which is the focus of Homestead National Monument of Americas current exhibit. Homestead paired with the Center for Great Plains Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to look at five towns that solely had African-American homesteaders. The Homestead Act of 1862, its a time the government gave 160 acres of land to the head of the household, said Susan Cook, interpretation and resource management. You had to build a home, make improvements, and after five years the land was yours." Cook said everyone from the towns in this exhibit was a homesteader. They came as groups, settled, built their community and they all homesteaded, Cook said. A lot of them have disappeared, or their towns have disappeared. At the end of our first year of research, the Center for Great Plains Studies discovered that many of these towns were never meant to last. According to the exhibit, in 1911, the population of Empire stood at 46. By the 1930 federal census in Goshen County, only four people out of a population of 11,754 were black. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} Cook said the towns were a stepping stone to leaving slavery. Prada Group-owned pastry shop Marchesi 1824 is to open a store in Londons Mayfair this year. The site, which will be at 117 Mount Street, marks the pasticceria brands first location outside Milan. Marchesi 1824 will feature a pastry counter, bakery and cafe, offering freshly baked pastries, cakes, biscuits and sweets, as well as chocolates and traditional Italian ice-cream alongside coffee, tea and other refreshments. The Milanese business dates back to 1824, when it earned a reputation for its handmade confections. The original shop in Milan is described as having maintained an authentic atmosphere, preserving original early 20th-century features, and remained faithful to its founding traditions. We are delighted to welcome Marchesi 1824 to Mount Street. This cafe and shop, a new amenity for locals and visitors, will grow the openness and appeal of our London estate, said Keith Bailey, Mayfair director at Grosvenor Britain & Ireland, which manages Mayfair and Belgravia. On top of that, Prada Groups legacy and credentials chime perfectly with Mount Streets boutiques, heritage brands and restaurants. The constellation Ursa Major (the Big Bear) contains one of the skys most well-known groups of stars, the Big Dipper. It also plays host to a galaxy popular with both professional and amateur stargazers, one that is scientifically noteworthy and visually stunning. It is known in these astronomy circles as M81 or, in more personal terms, Bodes Galaxy. M81 is, like our home the Milky Way, a type of galaxy in which its component stars and gasses are clustered along spiral arms, thus the designation spiral galaxies. M81 is some 12 million light years away and spans about 90,000 light years. By comparison, up until last year scientists believed the Milky Way spreads about 105,000 light years but some recent studies indicate it might be 170,000 to 200,000 light years across. Inside M81s nucleus is a supermassive black hole that scientists believe is some 15 times more massive than the black hole at the center of the Milky Way. Thanks to a close encounter with neighboring galaxies, including the starburst galaxy (so-called because of its extremely high rate of star formation) M82, M81 appears to be undergoing its own pulse of star formation. May 8, 1942-February 4, 2019 Philip V. Valdez (Whirlybird) passed away peacefully at home from a long battle with Parkinsons disease. Philip was a loving husband, father, brother etc. He was known for being an entrepreneur, jack of all trades & master of many. He had a lifelong passion for classic cars, music, spending time with his family, watching westerns, fishing, & going to the casino. Philip took pride in everything he did always willing to lend a helping hand to anyone. Philip never stopped working until he was satisfied with the work he had finished. Philip is preceded in death by his first wife Carol Valdez, second wife Mary Frances Lopez-Valdez, Manuelita D Valdez (mother), Reynaldo Valdez (brother), Erma R Hernandez (sister). Philip is survived by his loved ones Loretta Valdez, Philip Valdez Jr. (Faustina), Tim Valdez (Amanda), Roseanna Granado, Benito Valdez (brother), sisters Sally Cruz, Dora Alvarez, grandchildren, great grandchildren, great great grandchildren, many nieces, & nephews. Philip has left his footprints in the sand in this life & has touched many hearts and will be dearly missed. Funeral Arrangements will be on Monday, February 11, 2019 Tristeana Johnson, 28, who was reported missing after leaving Flagstaff for Fossil Creek on Feb. 1, has been found in Phoenix. According to the Yavapai County Sheriff's Office, she received a ride out of Fossil Creek Road after her car became stuck in the mud, and did not have access to her cell phone. Best will now be held in custody without bond until his sentencing hearing, set for March 8. Several continuances had held up Bests trial after the crime occurred in 2016. In court, Best admitted he committed the crime in aggravation, waiving court processes that would have asked the victim to return to the stand and the jury to determine whether he committed the act in aggravation. Aggravation has various meanings according to the Arizona Revised Statutes, but can apply if the victim suffered physical, emotional or financial harm because of the defendants actions. Crimes committed in aggravation allow the judge the option to apply the most severe sentencing limit. Lamm said he and his client had made the decision to avoid that part of the process. [The aggravation hearing] certainly entailed requiring the victim to take the stand again, Lamm said. We made a conscious decision not to put her through that. Ring did not see Bests actions as genuine. There is no chivalry in it, only strategy, Ring said, denying to comment further. On Jan. 29 a male suspect jumped over the counter at The Flaming Wok in the Flagstaff Mall and entered the back office. He waited there until the mall was completely closed and spent several hours burglarizing the business. The design is paired with a matching solid color for the backside of the pillow, to allow space for cardiac anatomy drawings that explain the procedure to patients or for the signatures of the individuals who helped with the procedure. To gather necessary materials, Austin visits craft stores in Flagstaff, Phoenix and online to purchase specific designs and other materials like stuffing and thread. She makes batches of up to 20 pillows at a time, but said if she were to make just one from start to finish, it would take about an hour. Although she uses coupons and often buys in bulk, she expects each pillow costs about $2.25 to $2.50 to make. She said they are not a financial burden to her, though, because she enjoys creating them. It has become one of her hobbies, she explained. Sydow said the pillows are like a badge of honor for many patients proof that they made it through the surgery. It also shows the high level of care in the CVSU. It exemplifies our team and our commitment to our patients. Jill saw a need and knew she could make it better, so she did, Sydow said. Despite everything else she does, she still finds time to make our pillows. What initially drew me to local government was the importance of building relationships and collaborating with diverse groups of people to solve really tough challenges and create opportunities for the generations that come behind us," he said. "My career has been not about party affiliation or party identification on either party, but about keeping my eyes and ears open for opportunities to change lives and impact our communities and neighborhoods." Babbott says he will use the experience he has gathered locally in the state legislature -- especially in the areas of transportation, education, criminal justice and economic development -- to bring together people who would not normally be in the same room. His county biography explains that he has created such partnerships previously by aligning the county with the Flagstaff Extreme Adventure Course, the Pepsi Amphitheater and North Pole Experience at Ft. Tuthill County Park, therefore linking the public and private sectors. Local control and perspective will also be an important piece of his campaign and his work with the legislature. The 12th annual GORE-TEX Kahtoola Uphill Race will take place at Arizona Snowbowl on Saturday, Feb. 9th at 5:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. This is a fun, family-friendly mountain race designed to encourage human-powered movement. Teams are back this year and bigger than ever. Get three of your friends together and form a team of 4. Ranging from fun to challenging, run the Fun Climb, Midway Climb or Agassiz Climb, or hang out at the bottom and cheer on the racers. And dont forget to dress up and enter the costume contest. Kahtoola loans out MICROspikes at racer check-in as needed (first come, first served). Racers, supporters, volunteers, and spectators can enjoy food and festivities at the Arizona Snowbowl Fremont Restaurant & Bar, the new start/finish location. All proceeds from the race and raffles benefits Friends of Camp Colton and supports outdoor education for kids. Visit kahtoolauphill.com to register and for more information. The Next Doors - Riordan Second Sunday Special Tour Riordan Mansions special tour on Sunday, Feb. 10 from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. will take visitors through both the East house (home of Timothy and Caroline East) and the West house, with a focus on the West House family members, their stories and their furniture. There will even be a sneak peek behind the scenes of the upstairs. The history of troubled youth in cinema is a old one. The voyeuristic nature of film is ideal for examining the beauty of the young, whose pulchritude is fixed for all time in celluloid first, and then later (and more permanently) in digital form. But film is also a record of change and eventually of decay. The Kinks Ray Davies once sang celluloid heroes never really die, but in fact they are always dying, 24 frames per second. The 1968 film Pretty Poison, screening this Tuesday at 7 p.m. as part of Northern Arizona Universitys Tuesday night film series, serves as a perfect allegory for this process. The film stars two former 50s idols, Anthony Perkins and Tuesday Weld, as a petty criminal and high school cheerleader who embark on a murder spree in a small New England town. Both actors had attempted for most of the 60s to leave their youthful personas behind them. In Poison, they return to roles that evoke their earlier selves through the lens of rough experience. That they are too old for their parts adds a layer of resonance, pathos and depth to what should have been simple exploitation fare. MONTREAL Transfixed is bringing the glamor in After Hours with Natalie, the third episode of Adult Times original translesbian erotica series starring Riley Reyes and Natalie Mars, available February 8, 2019 at Transfixed.com. Trans lesbians are so rarely portrayed in porn, and this series elevates them and celebrates their womanhood, said Reyes. I hope it will pave the way for a lot more thoughtful and beautiful queer porn. Reyes personally requested that her first Adult Time scene with Mars be a visual mashup of glamorous women in an industrial setting, so writer-producer-director Bree Mills worked with the star to create the scenes surreal location setting and theme. Transfixed was like a dream come true. Theyre doing something truly unique, said Reyes. Bree collaborated with me in creating the vision for my scene, so I actually got a chance to act out my own fantasy. I also loved working with Natalie. We had real chemistry, which made everything so fluid and fun. I can't wait for people to see it!" Mills said, "This has been one of my favorite productions so far. Riley and Natalie not only have amazing chemistry in the scene, but they both look fabulous, as if having stepped out of the pages of a Vogue magazine pictorial!" For Mars, "Shooting for Transfixed was an absolutely wonderful experience. Im excited to see Bree and her crew bring higher production values and a cinematic eye to trans porn, and Im honored I get to be part of it. As for my scene partner, Riley Reyes, she was a total dream to work with, and I hope well have many more chances to work together again in the future." Follow @transfixedcom on Twitter for more info and production news ahead of Transfixed.coms official launch in April 2019. LONDON, U.K.Be A Bimbo, the fashion brand that aims to be sex worker-positive, has announced the launch of its "Bimbo Girls" program, whose objective is to empower and support women who enjoy being ultra-feminine. We want to create a safe haven and supportive family for women around the world who enjoy being bimbos, Be A Bimbo founder Alicia Amira said. Alicia Amira became famous in the summer 2016, when The Sun and Daily Mail newspapers told the story of her remarkable transformation from public relations professional to blonde bombshell. Since then, shes been featured in documentaries for medias like Vice and interviews with various fashion/art magazines like Kaltblut magazine & MEL magazine, starred in adult films by Brazzers, and amassed 289,000 followers on Instagram. The Bimbo Girls will be ambassadors for the Be A Bimbo brand, with exclusive first access to the company's designs. They will represent Be A Bimbo in public and be part of its shoots, parties, promotional events and other occasions. Each month Be A Bimbo will allocate a portion of its products towards helping the Bimbo Girls achieve their own Bimbo potential and assist them with talent management, support and guidance. Being a bimbo can be a lonely experience in today's world, Alicia continued. Its hard to find other women who enjoy the same fashion, body modification and sexual empowerment. There are so many mistakes you can make on the way to embracing your femininity and I have made many of them. Thats why I want to be able to pass my knowledge on to women who are new to the scene and offer them my support." The first Bimbo Girl will be announced on Valentine's Day, and additional details of the program will be released in the following weeks. It's important to me to end the stigma that bimbos are airheads, Alicia said. We are women who are empowered, creative and in charge of our sexuality. Who doesn't want to be a bimbo? Those interested may check out Amiras in-depth interview about what she believes it means to be a Bimbo here. Alicia Amira can be found on Twitter (@aliciaamiraxxx), and Instagram @alicia_amira). When the Republican-led Federal Communications Commission repealed net neutrality rules in June of last year, the Republican-led congress failed to hold hearings or investigate what motivated the decision by FCC Chair Ajit Pai, a Donald Trump appointee. But that changed on Thursday, when the House Energy and Commerce Committeenow chaired by a Democrat, Frank Pallone, Jr. of New Jerseyheld the first hearing on the net neutrality repeal, just one day after Pallone and Communications and Technology Subcommittee Chair Mike Doyle sent an open letter to Pai lambasting the FCC head for having failed repeatedly to act in the public interest and placed the interest of corporations over consumers. Though the hearing featured witnesses including open internet advocates as well as industry representatives, the proceedings also featured Republican committee members throwing out specious arguments that were apparently designed to distract from the discussion of whether net neutrality should have been repealed or not. At least two Republican members of the committee made the argument, complete with props, that the law on which net neutrality regulations were based is too old, according to an account by TechCrunch. The net neutrality regulations, like many telecommunications regs, take their authority from Title II of the Communications Act of 1934 which, as the name implies, was first passed in 1934. The law has been updated repeatedly over the last 85 years, but that did not stop Missouri Rep. Billy Long from arguing that the law was outdated, and even displaying photos of Thomas Rainey, who was Speaker of the House in 1934. Even Speaker Rainey would admit that a bill he passed should not be governing this centurys internet, Long said. Its hard to say, writes TechCrunch reporter Devin Coldeway. Rainey fast-tracked the entire New Deal and then died in office a month after the Act was passed. He likely would have objected to being used as a prop in this fashion. When industry reps testified, including Michael Powell, former FCC chairman who's now head of industry lobbying group The Internet & Television Association, they argued that the real threat to the open internet was not the big telecommunications companies, but Google and Facebook, an argument TechCrunch called a red herring. Net neutrality is about moving bits around without interfering with them, not what businesses like social networks or search providers could or should do with those bits once they have them in their possession, wrote Coldeway. After a witness representing Mozilla asserted that the company, makers of the open-source web browser Firefox, would not exist without net neutrality, Texas Republican Bill Flores responded that Mozilla has actually existed for about 20 years, long before the net neutrality regulations were put into place. But while Flores is technically correct, as Mozilla COO Denelle Dixon later pointed out, net neutrality principles have existed and were part of the internet virtually since the nets widespread adoption in the 1990s. It was only when giant telecommunications providers came to dominate the internet access market did the imposition of written regulations become necessary. Photo By House Energy and Commerce Committee YouTube screen capture NEW YORK CITYCockyBoys has announced the debut of its latest feature, a co-production with Pink TV's Pink X called Le Garcon Scandaleux, shot on location in Paris, France by award-winning CockyBoys director Jake Jaxson. Le Garcon Scandaleux is the story of three models who embark on sexual adventures instigated by the ultra-charming Sean Ford, 'The Scandalous Boy' of the title. Seemingly aloof, Sean is inspired by a visit to a famous gravestone to make the most of their Paris Fashion Week trip by issuing a challenge to his fellow models Cory Kane and Ben Masters. They're all to make old school sexual conquests "fairly and without restrictions, on the street and in the dark." In the first episode, a late afternoon fitting yields a first conquest... for Ben Masters. His head is turned by the arrival of French Twinks star Paul Delay, whose provocative undergarments and flirty look drive Ben crazy. He follows Paul to a bedroom where they make out and end up delivering an A+ sex scene with Ben totally owning the lace-garter-and-stocking-wearing frenchmen's ass. Meanwhile, on his first night in Paris, tourist Carter Dane passes by a gay book store where inside he sees Sean Ford and Cory Kane browsing. Cautiously entering and eavesdropping on the couple, Carter speaks up to chat with Sean, the guy he recognizes. Sean pretends he needs his memory jogged, but soon recalls an "interesting" encounter he had with Carter at a destination wedding... Jake Jaxson said of the brand new feature, "Bonjour! I am thrilled to present the first installment of Le Garcon Scandaleux'The Scandalous Boy'a very special collaboration and co-production with PINK TV in France. There are very few places in the world that hold on to and are imbued with the glorious history of their past. Paris, always the mysterious enchantress, beckons even the most cynical among us, and easily seduces the wide-eyed hopeless romantics like me." He went on to say, "There's a 'sense of place' that has brought me back to Paris again and again, and why CockyBoys has returned to shoot and play there over the yearsbut those trips have been brief and hurried at best. I was beyond thrilled when the team at PinkTV/PinkX asked if I was interested in collaborating with them to create a special project shot in Paris and using and supporting French talent from their gay porn community. The following is a fun and sexy romp through Gay Paris, and I was thrilled to be able to shoot it and feature some of my favorite places in the city: Les Mots A La Bouche, Le Depot, SunCity Spa, Gym Louvre, and I love a good cemeteryso go to Pere Lachaise Cemetery and say hello to Oscar." The first installment of Le Garcon Scandaleux, shot in Paris, France, is now playing only on CockyBoys.com. Once the series has been released in full on CockyBoys, it will then run exclusively on Pink TV, beginning in April, 2019. City Wynter Jean Phillips, 31, 43 Grove St., Auburn, was charged Feb. 5 with second-degree criminal trespassing. Brendon Jeremiah Harvey, 26, 31 Washington St., Apt. 2, Auburn, was charged Feb. 6 with third-degree assault. Kasandra Sumina Layette Copes, 21, 10 Chapman Ave., Auburn, was charged Feb. 5 with third-degree assault. Christopher James Morris, 24, 3 Seminary St. Apt. 1, Auburn, was charged Feb. 5 with first-degree criminal contempt, second-degree aggravated harassment and second-degree criminal contempt. Michael Gene Chappell, 41, 270 Seymour St., Auburn, was charged Feb. 5 with resisting arrest and criminal possession of a hypodermic instrument. Jatiana Davida Polite Garret, 18, 81 Genesee Street St., Apt. 601F, Auburn, was charged Feb. 5 with resisting arrest. Trent M. Goodrich, 18, 119 Cottage St., Apt. 1, Auburn, was picked up on a warrant Jan. 6 and charged with second-degree criminal contempt. Melissa M. Boehmer, 29, 67 Wall St., Auburn, was charged Feb. 6 with second-degree aggravated harassment. Budelmann offered a sentence of five years in prison and five years post-release supervision the lowest allowable sentence if Lewis would plea guilty to his second-degree assault charge. He noted that wasn't the worst felony on his indictment. Leone said if Lewis goes to trial, he'll likely be looking at 15 years on top of what he's already serving. Lewis' earliest release date is August 2051. Even if only convicted of his contraband charges at trial, Leone said Lewis would be facing about seven years in prison. Lewis said the offer was "too much" time for the extent of the injuries and he'd rather take a risk by going to trial. Upon Leone's request, Budelmann allowed the plea-deal offer to stay open one week until 5 p.m. next Thursday. Leone said due to Lewis' "heavy exposure" to prison time he wants him to have time to think about the offer. A tentative trial date was set for June 3. An Auburn man could face up to three years in prison for failing to change his address as a sex offender and possessing a stolen credit card. Allan Laury, 25, pleaded guilty Thursday to both failing to report change in address as a sex offender, a class D felony, and fourth-degree criminal possession of stolen property, a class E felony. The film will depict the life of Tubman, the former slave who led hundreds to freedom on the Underground Railroad, worked with the Union Army during the Civil War and lived the second half of her life in Auburn . It is set to be released sometime in 2019, and also stars fellow Tony winner Leslie Odom Jr., Tony nominee Clarke Peters, Grammy Award-winning musician Janelle Monae, and more. The director is Kasi Lemmons, who co-wrote the screenplay with Gregory Allen Howard. Filming took place in the fall in Virginia. Winner of the 2016 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her role as Celie in "The Color Purple," Erivo most recently starred in the 2018 films "Widows" and "Bad Times at El Royale." She has faced some backlash for portraying the American Tubman due to Erivo being a British actress of Nigerian heritage. In a September 2018 Instagram post, she replied, "My journey to this woman has been long and detailed and one I have not taken lightly. I hope I quell your fears, because I understand that is what it is. I cannot tell how protective I am of this woman and her story. About 130 (out of 150) APD candidates passed the civil service exam in September, but that pool has nearly been exhausted since then. "This issue that has rose in the last several months is a serious issue when it comes to public safety and officer safety," said Auburn City Manager Jeff Dygert before the vote. Dygert added that no one had complained about the police department's previous pay scale. "At no point all did anyone come to me or anybody with the city and say 'the agreement we got isn't fair, it's not enough.' That's never been part of the conversation," he said. "The conversation has been 'the police department doesn't have the people.'" In a council memorandum, Butler cited physical fitness tests, psychological background checks and "constant negativity in the media concerning the policing profession" as reasons for why the officer candidate pool is shrinking. Butler attached to the memo the base pay for the Cayuga County Sheriff's Office and police departments in Geneva and Ithaca. All of the starting salaries are at least $5,000 above Auburn's. Nineteen APD employees will see pay raises in light of the city council's approval, resulting in a total increase of $123,479 to the department's payroll. Retirements and vacant positions have brought an overall salary savings of roughly $92,000, bringing the department's surplus to about $260,000. Staff writer Dan Orzechowski can be reached at (315) 282-2239 or dan.orzechowski@lee.net. Follow him on Twitter @OrzechowskiDan. Love 6 Funny 0 Wow 2 Sad 1 Angry 5 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} Especially for people that lived in upstate New York and on farms and didnt have a lot of money, I think its their story. Its not just the Markhams'. I think its pertinent and relevant to people who dont get a lot of attention. It is remarkable personal history, but it doesnt get a lot of notice. Im very happy to have preserved a bit of it, OHara said. The letters, OHara said, helped shine a light on aspects of both the war and her family itself. For example, several letters deal with the family reacting to the situation of her Uncle Burt. Out of four sons, with two drafted and two that enlisted, Burt, with a wife and child, was the least interested in going to war. But after being drafted and sent to Europe, Burt was captured and put in a prisoner-of-war camp. As he was captured at the very end of the war, Burt was only there for a month. But the situation was so dire for the Germans, OHara said, that they could barely take care of themselves, let alone the prisoners. Burt lost 40 pounds in just that month. Her father, Ted, on the other hand, was eager to enlist and go to war, writing often and excitedly about his attempts to become a pilot. Even washing out of flight school did little to dampen his enthusiasm, as he was still committed to his new assignment as a bombardier, OHara said. To draw Amazon to New York, the city and state offered an incentives package totaling $3 billion. The state would provide $1.7 billion in grants and tax credits to support the project. The city's share would be $1.3 billion in tax incentives. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} Amazon would create at least 25,000 jobs in New York. The headquarters would generate an estimated $27.5 billion in revenues for the state and city over a 25-year period. Before the Washington Post story, Amazon was already hinting that it may consider other sites due to opposition from local officials. There has been criticism of the project because of its potential impact on the housing market in the Long Island City area and gentrification. The possibility of the Amazon deal being rejected increased this week when Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins selected Gianaris to serve on the state Public Authorities Control Board. The board would be tasked with reviewing the Amazon deal. An Ikea framed map of the world appears to be missing something. A picture of the Bjorksta map, which sells for $59 in Australian stores, was uploaded to Reddit where people were quick to point out a mistake. The Bjorksta Ikea world map doesnt have New Zealand on it. Heres one pictured for sale in Washington DC. Source: Reddit/ Jibbles666 It turns out, the map is missing New Zealand. It comes as Ikea last month announced plans to open its first store in New Zealand in the city of Auckland. Wonder if theyre going to sell these maps in the new Auckland store, one Reddit user wrote. The Reddit user said they took a photo of the map in Washington DC, where the item sells for US$29 (AUD$41) . Whats the deal Ikea with forgetting an entire country off the world maps you are selling? New Zealand exists! someone else posted on Twitter. The map is on sale in Australia. Pictured: Ikea at Tempe, Sydney. Source: Getty Images (file pic) However, not everyone was angry about the Land of the Long White Cloud being left off the map. Thats why I love New Zealand its out of this world, one user tweeted. Another added its not only New Zealand left off the map but a number of small island nations as well. Ikea has been contacted for comment. Last year, New Zealands Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern made a hilarious appeal for the country to appear on world maps. Kiwis pictured a number of maps missing New Zealand. Ahead of this years Australia Day celebrations, Australian Lamb launched its annual advertisement jokingly suggesting Australia merge with New Zealand into one country. Do you have a story tip? Email: y7newsroom@yahoo7.com.au. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter and stay up to date with the latest news with Yahoo7s daily newsletter. Sign up here. Madagascar meatloaf, Laotian pork neck, Lesotho chicken kebab -- politics, not palate sets the menu at Korcagin, a Serbian restaurant that serves food only from countries that don't recognise Kosovo. One Sunday families filled the Belgrade tavern for a meal not normally associated with the Balkan state's meat-heavy cuisine: black tiger prawns drizzled with a zesty orange sauce. It was billed as the national dish of Palau, a little-known archipelago in the Pacific Ocean that last month became the latest country to revoke recognition of Kosovo, a former Serbian province. "Now everyone in Serbia knows Palau," said Vojin Cucic, the 29-year-old owner of Korcagin, which every Sunday serves a speciality from a country that rejects Kosovo's statehood. Two decades after the ethnic Albanian-majority province broke away from Serbia in a guerrilla war, the neighbours are still locked in a heated recognition battle. Kosovo has been recognised by more than 100 countries, including heavy hitters like the United States and most of Western Europe, since its 2008 independence declaration. But that's only slightly more than half of the UN's 193 member states, with the other camp including powerful nations like Russia and China. Belgrade is also actively fighting to unravel Pristina's gains, with Serbia's foreign minister regularly trumpeting the latest countries to reverse ties. Never mind that many of them are places most would struggle to find on a map -- like the Union of the Comoros, Suriname and most recently Palau. Big or small, they share a fan base at Korcagin, whose walls are plastered with Yugoslavia-era photos, flags and other memorabilia from a time when Serbia and Kosovo were part of one country. So far, the cooks have prepared more than 70 foreign dishes, giving preference to the countries that have rescinded their recognition. Cucic, who inherited the restaurant from his father, says he is motivated by patriotism. "If the US would withdraw recognition, we would have three days of free drinks," he says with a smile. - Numbers game - Pristina insists it is recognised by 116 nations. "This is nothing but Serbian propaganda," Jetlir Zyberaj, an advisor to Kosovo's foreign minister, told AFP however, without delving into specific numbers. The reality may be somewhere in between. Some of the countries have affirmed their reversals, while others have not contested the announcements or responded to AFP requests for comment. Last June, Serbia was left red-faced after announcing that Liberia had reversed its recognition, only to see the African country later issue a statement correcting the report. It is not clear what other countries gain from their changes of heart. Belgrade, whose foreign ministry refused to comment, often hails intentions to boost cooperation with the small states, but concrete details are hard to come by. When asked what the small southern African nation of Lesotho received for its retraction, its foreign ministry told AFP: "Nothing apart from the normal bilateral cooperation between the two countries." - Domestic audience - "My children ask me often where each country is, but these countries have the same voting rights (in the UN) as does China," Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic recently told local media. Boban Stojanovic, a political analyst in Belgrade, says the recognition game reflects the government's effort "to show the public that Serbia is doing something" about Kosovo. "In terms of international affairs, these countries...don't have any impact on the general (status) of Kosovo," he added. For years Belgrade and Pristina have slogged through EU-led talks aimed at normalising their ties. But broken promises and regular provocations keep derailing progress. In Serbia, Kosovo remains a powerful rallying cry for nationalists who see the former province as the cradle of their culture and Orthodox Christian faith. "Even if every country in the world recognises Kosovo, we still shouldn't. Kosovo is ours," Cucic said. Only food from countries that don't recognise Kosovo are served at Korcagin The walls of the Belgrade eatery are plastered with Yugoslavia-era photos, flags and memorabilia Regulars get to taste dishes from little-known countries such as the Pacific Ocean archipelago Palau Kurdish-led forces in eastern Syria prepared Friday for a push on the last remaining speck of the Islamic State group's "caliphate" where diehard jihadists and their families are holed up. US President Donald Trump predicted that the once-sprawling proto-state's official defeat could be proclaimed as early as next week but operations have been paused for days on the main front line. Four years ago, IS controlled territory the size of Britain and administered millions of people, but the US-led coalition fighting the group says "99.5 percent" of it has been clawed back in successive offensives. The coalition has been training and providing air support to the Syrian Democratic Forces, which launched an offensive on the last pocket of jihadist territory in September 2018. Two months later, they took Hajin, which was the last town of note still under IS control and left the jihadists fighting over a few scattered hamlets in the Euphrates Valley. Thousands of suspected IS fighters have attempted to blend in with civilians fleeing the jihadists' last bastion, including a large number of foreigners. "They are attempting to escape through intermixing with the innocent women and children attempting to flee the fighting," coalition deputy commander Christopher Ghika said on Thursday. - 'Remnants' - The SDF have set up screening centres to process the droves of haggard people streaming out of IS-held territory, often famished and covered in dust. British, French, US and other forces are actively looking for wanted IS operatives among those fleeing the combat zone with civilians. After weeks of advancing steadily, the SDF halted their ground assault on IS's tiny remaining enclave. "There hasn't been any big advance or change on our side over the past five days," an SDF spokesman told AFP on Friday. "Currently, the SDF is advancing very cautiously to ensure the safety of civilians that IS is using as human shields." The Kurds, who have de facto autonomy in northeastern Syria, are also engaged in behind-the-scenes diplomatic talks over the fate of the region. Trump in December ordered a complete troop withdrawal from Syria, a shock announcement that left the Kurds scrambling for new allies. "We are seeking a political solution in Syria, which requires an agreement with the government in Damascus," senior Kurdish official Badran Jia Kurdi told AFP. "We have chosen a political agreement with Damascus because we don't want secession from Syria." Speaking at the State Department on Wednesday, Trump said that US-led troops and their Kurdish allies should formally announce the end of the "caliphate" some time next week. "Remnants -- that's all they have, remnants -- but remnants can be very dangerous," Trump said. His words were echoed Friday by France's defence minister during a visit to neighbouring Iraq. "The territorial caliphate, which has not yet been wiped out, is being defeated," minister Florence Parly said in Baghdad. But "the work is not over", she warned, adding the jihadists were "probably in the process of reorganising underground and spreading out". As IS has been pinned back its surviving fighters have reverted to guerrilla warfare and remain a potent force. The jihadists maintain sleeper cells along the border with Iraq, as well as in cities they once ruled, and have carried out periodic hit-and-run attacks. The SDF said it arrested 63 suspected militants in IS's former Syrian capital Raqa on Thursday during an operation against sleeper cells. At least 48 suspected IS members were among them, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The Observatory says IS sleeper cells are suspected of assassinating at least 50 civilians and 135 SDF fighters in Kurdish-held territory since August. - Fate of jihadists - More than 37,000 people, mostly wives and children of jihadist fighters, have fled IS territory since the SDF, backed by the US-led coalition, intensified its offensive in December, according to the Observatory. The Britain-based war monitor has said that figure includes some 3,200 suspected jihadists. Kurdish authorities say they have in their custody hundreds of foreign male IS members. Suspected jihadists captured by the SDF are usually eager to be sent home, something the Kurdish administration also wants. Governments in the jihadists' countries of origin are often reluctant, although France -- which has one of the largest contingents -- recently said it would consider limited repatriations. But Kurdish officials told AFP on Friday there had been no progress on reaching a deal with Paris. "No French authorities have reached out to us about handing over French nationals," said Abdulkarim Omar, who heads the Kurdish administration's foreign relations commission. Human Rights Watch has warned that any transfers of suspected foreign jihadists and their relatives out of Syria should be transparent. Thousands of haggard women and children have fled the Islamic State's last enclave as the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces ready a final assault on remaining jihadist diehards, maybe as early as next week The hundreds of women and children arriving daily at the Al-Hol camp set up by US-backed forces for civilians fleeing the jihadists' last stand have turned it into a vast tent city US-backed forces have set up screening centres in the desert to process the droves of haggard people streaming out of IS-held territory, seeking to weed out wanted jihadist operatives The Syrian Democratic Forces and their Western supporters have been on the alert for jihadist fighters hiding among the fleeing civilians and it is mainly women, children and the elderly who get through the screening process Most of the more than 37,000 people who have fled IS territory since December are the wives or children of jihadist fighters A firefighter has posted dramatic photos to show the difference between keeping a childs bedroom door open or closed in the event of a fire. Posting to the Facebook page of the Cold Spring Harbor Fire Department in New York, the firefighter made a very convincing case for keeping kids bedroom doors closed at night, even if they beg parents to leave the door ajar. As a parent its hard to convince little kids to sleep with the door closed, they always want it open just a little, the firefighter wrote. I do a lot of fire prevention at schools, so one thing I try and stress to the kids is how important it is to sleep with the doors closed. Two photos show the aftermath of a fire in New Fairfield, Connecticut. One is a photo of a door from the outside, the other from the inside. A firefighter has posted dramatic photos to show the difference between keeping a childs bedroom door open or closed in the event of a fire. Source: Facebook/Cold Spring Harbor Fire Department The outside of the door is blackened and scorched, while apart from some charring around the door frame, the inside of the door is still white and in good condition. The photos below are a great example of the importance of keeping bedroom doors closed while sleeping, the firefighter wrote. The door pictured in both photos is a hollow core door to a bedroom. While the front of the door is severely damaged, the closed door protected the bedroom and its contents. If this were an occupied bedroom, the closed door could have saved a life. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. The post has received more than 600 comments and has been shared more than 5900 times. My mom would come open our doors all the way every night as she went to bed so she could hear us, one person wrote. Ive always closed my childrens doors mostly to keep their room warmer. I never knew it would even matter!! Thank you!! One person said: This is a good thing to show the kids, and get a new night light situation instead. Others suggested working smoke detectors throughout the house would add an additional layer of protection. China on Friday denied what it termed "ridiculous" allegations of spying levelled by Lithuania as the Baltic eurozone state joined other western nations in expressing concerns about Chinese telecoms giant Huawei. The company has raised suspicions in the west for its close ties to the Chinese government and generated fears the company may be a tool of China's international espionage capabilities. "It is absurd and ridiculous for the Lithuanian intelligence and security services to rely on conjecture and imagination to make unfounded distortions," the Chinese embassy said in a statement. It said it was "shocked and surprised" by the "totally unacceptable" statements made by Lithuanian intelligence, insisting that "China does not pose any security threat to Lithuania". Earlier this week, two Lithuanian intelligence agencies condemned China for an "increasingly aggressive" spy campaign which it said included "attempts to recruit Lithuanian citizens". Darius Jauniskis, head of Lithuania's State Security Department, said his agency was analysing the potential "threat" posed by Huawei, whose technology is being used to build the EU and NATO state's new 5G telecommunications infrastructure. US officials recently toured EU capitals urging European governments to scrap Huawei technology from their telecom infrastructure plans. The US considers the matter urgent as EU countries prepare to roll out 5G networks that will deliver near-instantaneous connectivity, vast data capacity and new technologies to Europeans. Several other countries, under pressure from the United States, have banned Huawei's 5G equipment. China has limited economic presence in Lithuania, a staunch US ally of 2.8 million people, but talks are underway regarding investments in the Baltic seaport of Klaipeda, according to local officials. Occupied and annexed by Moscow during World War II, Lithuania broke free from the crumbling Soviet Union in 1991 and joined both the European Union and NATO in 2004. Huawei has raised suspicions in the west for its close ties to the Chinese government and generated fears the company may be a tool of China's international espionage capabilities Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro will visit the United States in March, the country's foreign minister announced Thursday -- hailing the prospect of "very different, much deeper" ties between the two countries. "We're almost settled on a date at the beginning of the second half of March. It should be announced officially very soon," Ernesto Araujo told a press conference in Washington. He added from the Brazilians' point of view, the visit "should entail a new vision of Brazil-US partnership in a very different, much deeper level." Far-right Bolsonaro and US President Donald Trump both favor regime change in Venezuela, and are harsh critics of the Cuban and Nicaraguan governments. On Thursday, Araujo said that Brazil agrees with the US that Cuba is "big part of the problem" in Venezuela, playing an "an unfortunate role in keeping (President Nicolas) Maduro's dictatorship in power." The pair also agree on climate change and China. Bolsonaro, who entered office last month, vowed to forge close ties with Washington after over a decade of leftist rule in Brazil. "I am an admirer of President Trump. He wants a great United States; I want a great Brazil," he told his first press conference after winning the first round of Brazil's presidential election last October. After his inauguration address, Trump tweeted congratulating his "great" speech -- adding "the U.S.A. is with you!" But whether Brazil will -- as Bolsonaro promised last month -- follow in Trump's footsteps and move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem remains under consideration, Araujo said Thursday. "If we do take that decision we want it to be perceived of course positive for Brazil-Israel relations, but also positive and definitely not negative for our relations with Israel's neighbors, with the Arab World, with the Muslim world as a whole," he said. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has vowed to forge close ties with Washington An operation by Brazilian military police in Rio de Janeiro on Friday left at least 13 people dead in three city-center favelas, authorities said. The local health authority told AFP that 14 people were taken to the Souza Aguiar hospital with gunshot wounds following the operation at favelas close to the Santa Teresa neighborhood. One person remained in a serious condition while the other 13 were dead, the health authority said. Firefights often break out in favelas during battles between rival gangs or when the police launch operations to combat drug trafficking. According to local reports, two drug-trafficking gangs had been fighting since Wednesday for control over the favelas close to Santa Teresa. The military police said on Twitter they had "shot 12 criminals" during the operation in the Fallet, Fogueteiro and Coroa favelas. All three are close to the Santa Teresa neighborhood, one of Rio's top tourist attractions. Security forces were "met by gunfire and a battle took place," the police said. "Once the firefight was over, injured criminals were found in the streets and were taken to the Souza Aguiar hospital." Authorities said they had seized three assault rifles, 12 pistols and six grenades, pictures of which were posted on the military police's Twitter page. A video posted on the website of the local O Dia newspaper showed police loading bodies into the back of a vehicle. A quarter of Rio's population of six million people live in favelas -- big city slums. Brazilian military police (similar to the ones pictured June 2018) said they "shot 12 criminals" during an operation to stop a firefight between two drug-trafficking gangs in the Fallet, Fogueteiro and Coroa favelas Kazakhstans Armed Forces show a strong interest in the acquisition of the Belarusian-made T-72BME main battle tank (MBTs), a source from the Belarusian defense industry told TASS. T-72BME at Milex 2017, in Minsk (Picture source: Army Recognition) "Kazakhstan is planning to update its tank inventory and the countrys military has already paid specific attention to the T-72BME MBT. Being an updated variant of the Soviet-age T-72B tank, the vehicle meets Kazakh requirements, especially those in terms of cost and maintenance," said the source. According to him, the T-72BME was showcased to an official delegation of the Kazakh military in April 2018. In fact, the T-72BME is a deep upgrade of the T-72B mod. 1984 MBT. The modernized vehicle has received the ESSA-72U multichannel sight that allows the crew to fire all types of tank ammunition (including anti-tank guided missiles) on the move. The MBT has been fitted with a meteorological sensor and new ballistic computer. The T-72BME can engage targets at a distance of up to 5,000 m by day and up to 3,500 m by night. The vehicle also works in hunter-killer mode. The T-72BME is powered by an 840-hp V-84MS diesel engine and an auxiliary power unit. The tank has received a modern digital radio. YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 8, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan held a consultative meeting to discuss the development trends and the prospects in the field of construction. The meeting was attended by the heads of the agencies concerned and developers representatives, ARMENPRESS was informed from the Office of the Prime Minister of Armenia. Opening the meeting, Prime Minister Pashinyan noted that the Government has many serious projects to implement in the sphere of construction. We can witness serious activity in the field of mortgage lending, which suggests that it should lead to increased investment in construction. We also have many serious projects associated with the operations of water reservoirs in Armenia as it is one of our strategic priorities, and we need to accumulate water resources in order to ensure the countrys sustainable development without drawing on Lake Sevan. We have serious plans in the field of road construction since the quality of domestic infrastructures raises specific concerns, and we are facing a problem as regards the level and quality of infrastructures and highways. I hope that today we will discuss all those issues faced in the field of construction so that we can solve the problem of our future co-operation and synchronization in all these areas, the Prime Minister said. The meeting next focused on the furtherance of public-private partnership, provision of infrastructures by developers, the introduction of an integrated cadastre system, promotion of local companies, legislative and pricing mechanisms in construction, the applicable regulatory framework and a number of other issues. The representatives of developing companies touched upon the prospects of cooperation in the areas mentioned by Prime Minister Pashinyan and expressed readiness to discuss the opportunities. Nikol Pashinyan stressed that the Government is keen to ensure continued improvement of construction, which in turn will boost the development process in our country and will help improve Armenias position in the Doing Business rating list. The Premier told the government officials in charge to discuss the proposals with the developers and stakeholders. The parties agreed to hold similar meetings on a regular basis. Edited and translated by Tigran Sirekanyan YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 8, ARMENPRESS. Third President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan is not charged in the March 1 case, Special Investigative Service spokesperson Marina Ohanjanyan told ARMENPRESS, noting that Sargsyan does not have a status of a defendant. She dismissed media rumors claiming that Sargsyan is charged. Earlier Sargsyans attorney Amram Makinyan confirmed to RFE/RLs Armenian service Azatutyun that Sargsyan has indeed been questioned by authorities, but as a witness. First President of Armenia Levon Ter-Petrosyan too has been questioned in the same case. Second President of Armenia, Robert Kocharyan, is currently jailed pending trial. The March 1 probe is an ongoing investigation into the 2008 post-election unrest in Yerevan when 10 people, including two security personnel, died in clashes. Robert Kocharyan, who was the outgoing president at that time, is under arrest on coup-related charges in the case. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan YEREVAN, 8 FEBUARY, ARMENPRESS. The Central Bank of Armenia informs Armenpress that today, 8 February, USD exchange rate up by 0.50 drams to 489.19 drams. EUR exchange rate down by 0.16 drams to 554.06 drams. Russian Ruble exchange rate up by 0.01 drams to 7.41 drams. GBP exchange rate up by 2.02 drams to 632.67 drams. The Central Bank has set the following prices for precious metals. Gold price down by 16.65 drams to 20603.45 drams. Silver price down by 0.07 drams to 247.08 drams. Platinum price down by 207.02 drams to 12660.9 drams. YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 8, ARMENPRESS. First President of Armenia Levon Ter-Petrosyan has refused to have an attorney present at his questioning, according to Ter-Petrosyans spokesperson Arman Musinyan. Levon Ter-Petrosyan was questioned by the Special Investigative Service as a witness in the March 1 probe. In response to inquiries from the press, I hereby notify that President Ter-Petrosyan has refused from an attorneys help. If the questioning were to have continuation, the public will be informed by us, Musinyan said on Facebook. The March 1 probe is an ongoing investigation into the 2008 post-election unrest in Yerevan when 10 people, including two security personnel, died in clashes. 2nd President of Armenia Robert Kocharyan, who was the outgoing president at that time, is currently under arrest on coup-related charges in the case. Earlier on February 6, the Special Investigative Service refused to comment on unconfirmed reports that Third President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan has been questioned. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 8, ARMENPRESS. Armenias Defense Minister Davit Tonoyan and Russias Defense Minister Sergei Shoygu held a meeting today in Russia, the ministry said in a news release. Shoygu congratulated Tonoyan on being appointed Defense Minister of Armenia and emphasized that Armenia is the reliable partner and important colleague of Russia in the South Caucasus. The Russian Defense Minister thanked Tonoyan for the humanitarian aid to Syria, noting that Armenia is the first to respond to Russias call on assisting the peaceful population of Syria. Armenias Defense Minister Davit Tonoyan in turn thanked Russia for cooperation in providing humanitarian aid to Syria. Tonoyan noted that Russias actions in Syria contribute to post-war restoration and attached importance to Armenias participation in the humanitarian action. Our assistance to the Syrian people, a part of whom is the Armenian Diaspora, is important, Tonoyan said. During the meeting the Armenian and Russian defense chiefs also discussed a broad circle of military and military-technical cooperation issues, including issues related to equipping the Armenian Armed Forces will modern and precision armaments ensuring its deterrent superiority. Joint plans aimed at increasing the level of combat readiness were also discussed. Emphasizing that the Armenian-Russian bilateral military and military-technical cooperation is on a high level, the sides expressed conviction that the strategic allied relations will continue to develop, the ministry said in the news release. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 8, ARMENPRESS. The Jerusalem Post has published an article about the preservation of the Israeli cultural heritage, reports Armenpress. The newspaper writes that Israels cultural heritage is under increasing threat from global antisemitism and regional geopolitical risks, therefore, it is imperative to preserve these assets in UNESCOs Intangible Cultural Heritage list. Among the elements of Israeli Intangible Cultural Heritage that should be considered for inscription by UNESCO are the Shofar, an ancient musical horn typically made of a rams horn, Israeli folk dance, the Armenian pottery of Jerusalem and etc. It is stated that since 1922, handmade Armenian pottery has been a familiar fixture in Jerusalem, with Old City street signs and contemporary earthenware designed with traditional handiwork. The floral and faunal designs of Armenian pottery with predominantly earth tones and blue borders have become a trademark of Jerusalems crafts. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 8, ARMENPRESS. Estonian Prime Minister Juri Ratas says Armenia, as well as the remaining Eastern Partnership countries, such as Georgia, Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine and Azerbaijan, are important partners of the European Union, Armenpress reports citing The Baltic Times. In his remarks at the 6th annual conference on the Eastern Partnership in Tallinn, the Estonian PM said the Eastern Partnership must strive to be even more ambitious in the coming 10 years. According to him, the cooperation with the six eastern neighbors of the European Union is an important foreign policy priority for Estonia. Cooperation with our eastern partners, which is based on common values and mutual interests, has helped achieve a lot. It has helped to improve people's lives in those states -- it has created new jobs, developed the infrastructure, expanded young people's learning opportunities, the Prime Minister said. Juri Ratas said they are ready to share with these countries their experience with establishing e-governance, implementing administrative reforms, strengthening civil society and developing media skills. The Estonian PM also met with foreign minister of Armenia Zohrab Mnatsakanyan and discussed issues relating to the bilateral relations and the cooperation with the EU. He reaffirmed Estonias readiness to assist Armenia in its integration with the EU. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 8, ARMENPRESS. Speaker of Parliament Ararat Mirzoyan received Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Georgia to Armenia George Saganelidze on February 8, the Parliament told Armenpress. The Head of the Parliament, documenting the traditional friendship and historical deep roots of the Armenian and Georgian peoples, has underlined that there are wide opportunities for raising the bilateral relations to a new qualitative level. George Saganelidze conveyed the congratulation and best wishes by the Head of the Georgian Parliament to Ararat Mirzoyan on his being elected President of the RA National Assembly. Highlighting the role of the parliamentary diplomacy, the Ambassador considered necessary the active cooperation, the mutual visits and exchange of experience between the legislative bodies of the two countries. George Saganelidze expressed conviction that the Armenian and Georgian parliamentarians would have their contribution to the further development of bilateral good neighbourly relations. Both sides considered necessary the activation of the parliamentary relations between the two countries not only at the level of Parliamentary Friendship Groups, but also in the international parliamentary institutions. Touching upon the further deepening and rapprochement of the Armenian-Georgian relations, the officials expressed confidence that conditioned by the brotherly relations existing between the two countries and peoples, the parliamentary dialogue would be a firm basis for further strengthening of cooperation. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 8, ARMENPRESS. The group of Armenian de-miners and medics dispatched to Aleppo, Syria for providing humanitarian aid has the goal to help the local population with raising awareness of medical aid, landmine hazard and carry out de-mining, Armenian Center For Humanitarian Demining and Expertise Director Ruben Arakelyan said. On February 8, 83 Armenian de-miners and doctors from the center arrived in Aleppo. The group also includes security personnel for the de-miners and medics. The Armenian Center For Humanitarian Demining and Expertise is a civilian state organization. Works on raising awareness on landmine hazards will be mostly carried out in Armenian schools because of the language barrier, Arakelyan said. Arakelyan said the Armenian Center For Humanitarian Demining and Expertise had offered the Syrian Embassy in Armenia to help and expressed readiness to assist the Syrian population back in 2017. We had first of all offered help in raising awareness on landmine hazards and de-mining issues, he said. Logistical issues related to the group in Syria are carried out with support of Russia. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 8, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian Parliament will debate the governments Action Plan on February 12, Speaker of Parliament Ararat Mirzoyan said on Facebook, Armenpress reports. The session will begin at 10:00. The Armenian government approved its Action Plan during todays extraordinary session and submitted for the Parliaments discussion. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 8, ARMENPRESS. Minister of Economic Development and Investments Tigran Khachatryan argues that an economic revolution is when everyone has the chance to think, create and work freely. The minister made the remarks after todays Cabinet meeting when asked by reporters to elaborate on the 5% economic growth projected in the governments Action Plan, and to specify what exactly is revolutionary about the program. This means that participants of the economic life must carry out the economic revolution, the government is one important organizer and participant in this big game and is obliged to act in a way so that there will be no obstructions on the path of businesses realizing their initiatives, and to provide assistance. This is a very important change and it is a revolution, the minister said. Addressing criticism on the Action Plan being a repetition of the previous one, he said: Perhaps you wont find too many differences in terms of content, but you will indeed find differences of emphases, what matters is what emphases the government is making and what actions it is doing in those directions. Equal competition, free access to markets and freedoms to work arent simply words, but also work, and this must be depended, we dont believe that all issues are solved. Speaking about unemployment he said if growth will be at an average of 5% it will enable 17-18 thousand people to have jobs, even if productivity doesnt increase within the economy. Khachatryan argues that since the growth will be inclusive, ordinary citizens will 30-35 years later have higher income than today. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 8, ARMENPRESS. A fresco by one of the greatest Armenian painters Minas Avetisyan is now on the verge of becoming a victim of inaction. The fresco, titled Night, is still located in its original place a wall of a presently defunct factory in Gyumri, Armenias second largest city. In Soviet times the authorities would hire artists to paint on the walls of various factories or other similar facilities in what appears to have been an effort of promoting culture. Now, Minas Avetisyans son Arman Avetisyan, the director of the Minas Avetisyan Museum in Jajur (hometown of Minas), is trying to save his fathers work. Arman Avetisyan and Azat Tovmasyan, director of the Minas Avetisyan Cultural Charity Foundation, told a news conference today that they are currently making estimates to find out how much money is needed to save the fresco. They said they plan to request the Ministry of Culture to step in and support. Moreover, the fresco is in the list of monuments under state protection. Within the framework of a project of the culture ministry eight frescos by Minas were reinforced and saved. Only Night was remaining, which was in the poorest condition, Arman Avetisyan said, adding that the sponsors dealing with the restoration works were preferring to work with the least damaged frescos first. Minas painted Night in 1973, two years before his death. There are two frescos in this factory. Night and Day, which are facing one another. It is a very interesting solution, unfortunately Day was not saved, Avetisyan said. Restoring Night will require probably around 20-25,000 dollars, he said. Avetisyan also told the story how the other fresco got lost. He said that in 1988 the then-culture ministry had a restoration lab. When Armenian experts had cut and removed a part of the Night fresco to restore it, they got notified that the laboratory has been shut down, and that their work can no longer be funded. The experts left the already removed parts of the fresco under the wall and departed for Yerevan to find out what happened. Upon their return, they saw that these parts had been destroyed. They had managed to already remove entirely the Day fresco, and thats why it has almost not been preserved. Avetisyan said there are two other frescos by Minas in different parts of Armenia that are also in poor conditions. He suggested creating a Monumental Arts Museum for the preservation of frescos. Minas Avetisyan, known simply as Minas, was born in 1928 in the village of Jajur, Armenia. He died at the age of 46 after being hit by a speeding car. Some speculated he was murdered. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 8, ARMENPRESS. The Cabinet has completed the discussions over the new composition of the government of Armenia, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said on Facebook, reports Armenpress. We have completed the discussions over the structure of the government. There will be 12 ministries in Armenia. There will be a position of the Chief Commissioner for Diaspora Affairs in the PMs Office, who will be the PMs representative in the relations with the Diaspora and will coordinate the governments works with the Diaspora on behalf of the PM, Pashinyan said. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 8, ARMENPRESS. Jailed ex-lawmaker Manvel Grigoryan, the retired army general charged with grand theft and embezzlement, has been taken to hospital for examination. The Department of Corrections told ARMENPRESS that Grigoryan has been taken to the Nairi Medical Center in Yerevan. Other details werent immediately clear. Grigoryan, a former Member of Parliament, was stripped of immunity by parliament in June 2018 and placed under arrest in suspicion of illegal possession of firearms and grand theft. At the time of his arrest Grigoryan also served as president of the Yerkrapah Union of Volunteers, but was later ousted by the board of the organization amid highly scandalous accusations. Law enforcement agencies found a private zoo, a car collection, huge amounts of weapons and ammunition, as well as allegedly embezzled military supplies and donations in his compound. Grigoryan, however, denies any wrongdoing. He was released from custody on a 25,000,000 dram bail on December 21, 2018. His release sparked outrage in his hometown of Etchmiatsin. Later in January he was placed under arrest again following a court decision. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 8, ARMENPRESS. Albert Babayan, deputy minister of economic development and investments, says the ministry is going to prepare a proposal on lowering the customs duties of some sensitive goods for Armenia and submit it to the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), the official announced this during the 1st session of the parliamentary standing committee on regional and Eurasian Integration affairs, reports Armenpress. Chairman of the committee Mikayel Melkumyan said Armenia is provided with respective customs duties within the EAEU. Prices of several goods will increase in our country. Are there cases when Armenia has asked the EAEU to lower the customs duties for several goods, he asked. In response the deputy minister said by joining the EAEU Armenia really assumed a series of duties in terms of the customs duties which are higher than the previous ones. We have assumed the duty of the Russian customs duties. As our customs duties increase, nearly 11 of the WTO member states have applied to Armenia so that our country should re-negotiate for the current problem that emerged due to the high customs duties. There may be a decline of customs duties for some products that will be interesting, or for some products these countries are interested in. As for the sensitive goods for Armenia we are going to prepare proposals and submit them to the EAEU. And this is a normal process, other member states as well present such proposals, he said, adding that Armenia has no legislative obstacle for that process. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 8, ARMENPRESS. Armenian minister of economic development and investments Tigran Khachatryan met with the French Sodial company representatives, the ministry told Armenpress. Company representative Anil Bhatt said Sodial is one of the leading dairy productions in France. He said the company wants to observe Armenia to expand its activity. Armenia is interesting for us as it is a window to the major EAEU market, the company representative said, adding that Sodial is ready to share its experience of establishment of corporation and effective activity with the Armenian partners. In the main stage of the program one part of the production chain will be implemented in Armenia. Regional cooperation in the CIS space is also possible. The company delegation has already held several meetings with the Armenian producers. The officials discussed issues relating to the program. Minister Khachatryan assured that he is ready to assist the company during the program and do the utmost to solve all issues. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 8, ARMENPRESS. An extraordinary Cabinet meeting was held on February 8, chaired by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. As ARMENPRESS was informed from the Office of the Prime Minister of Armenia, the Executive approved the program of the Government of the Republic of Armenia, which today will be presented to the National Assembly. Over the next five years, the Governments activities will tend to build a competitive and inclusive economy that will meet the high-tech industry criteria, as well as high environmental and industrial standards. To achieve this goal, it is essential to provide for Armenias internal and external security, the security of Artsakh and its continued enhancement, the national mobilization around the Republic of Armenias development goals, the responsibility and transparency of the government, form a corruption-free society, ensure universal access to economic activity and the separation of politics and business in practice, enhance the attractiveness of the investment climate, promote labor, investments, education and a healthy lifestyle. As Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigoryan noted, some editorial work has been done and the proposals received have been finalized for inclusion in the project. The programs tools and numerical indicators will be reflected in the per-sector programs that will be developed immediately after the approval of the Governments program, the Deputy Prime Minister said. Nikol Pashinyan noted that some feedback had been provided following the publication of the draft program that was discussed in the Government. The discussion has allowed us to see once again that the program is fully compatible with our conceptual ideas. Our key conceptual vision is as follows: we have proclaimed the concept of economic revolution and this program ushers in the launch of the economic revolution, stating that the Governments task is the same as the responsibility assumed on the political platform of the Velvet revolution, namely to create opportunities. I want to make it clear that the government sees itself as one of the most important participants in this process; the coordinator which has the mission of creating opportunities and encouraging the citizens of the Republic of Armenia to take these opportunities. The key role of the government is to ensure that opportunities are applicable in practice, and people can actually see the opportunities that need to be ensured with the right tools, the Prime Minister emphasized. Nikol Pashinyan noted that the draft law on the Governments new structure, the Tax Code, which is extremely important in this context, as well as several legislative initiatives arising from the Tax Code will be submitted to the National Assembly in a near future. Edited and translated by Tigran Sirekanyan YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 8, ARMENPRESS. Armenias minister of transport, communication and information technologies Hakob Arshakyan doesnt comment on the talks between Russia and Georgia over the alternative route to Upper Lars, reports Armenpress. We have been asked this question for many times, but we have tried not to comment and now as well we will not comment. I can only state that it is a very important project for Armenia. However, we avoid making any comment in order not to harm the negotiation processes, given that it is not an Armenia-Georgia or Armenia-Russia bilateral border, but a border of two different partner states. And we want to interfere less and not to comment, the minister told reporters after todays Cabinet session. On February 4 the Russian Kommersant informed that Moscow and Tbilisi have completed the discussions on launching an alternative land route vital for Armenia. The sides have completed the procedures on implementing the provisions of the agreement on Customs administration and Monitoring mechanisms for the trade of goods. The agreement enables to use the territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia for trade and transit. It was signed in Geneva in 2011.Russia joined the World Health Organization in 2012, but the agreement with Georgia, which supposes formation of three trade corridors between the two countries, two of which will pass through Abkhazia and South Ossetia, has not worked. The preparation for this required 7 years from Moscow and Tbilisi, the newspaper says. The source said at the moment there are no obstacles for conducting the agreed upon mechanisms.The Swiss Societe Generale de Surveillance will conduct the monitoring and labeling of the goods flow. The Georgian side has signed a contract with the Swiss company in 2017 and Russia in 2018. The concrete geographic coordinates of the trade corridors are enshrined in the 2011 agreement.According to Kommersant, Armenia is also interested in the launch of the implementation of the agreement. Armenia views the corridor passing through South Ossetia as an alternative to the Lars checkpoint which is often closed in winter due to bad weather conditions. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 8, ARMENPRESS. Foreign minister of Armenia Zohrab Mnatsakanyan on February 7 attended a concert in the Niguliste Church of Tallinn, Estonia, dedicated to the 150th anniversary of birth of Komitas, the Armenian MFA told Armenpress. The event has been initiated by the Armenian Embassy in Estonia. FM Zohrab Mnatsakanyan and Secretary General at the Estonian culture ministry Tarvi Sits delivered welcoming remarks at the event. The contacts between Armenians and Estonians come from the depths of centuries, the two peoples are enjoying mutual respect and share a history of jointly overcoming various problems. But more powerful force is uniting our peoples, and that force is culture, the Armenian FM said in his remarks. He thanked the event organizers for the opportunity to get acquainted with the works of renowned Armenian composer Komitas by presenting the Armenian civilization, culture and trust towards the Armenian identity also with these performances. Komitas solely laid the grounds of an Armenian classical music. A person who loved life so much. A priest who dedicated his whole life to collecting the traditions of the Armenian musical art later turning them into masterpieces. His music is a manifestation of a strong identity that we are so proud of. I am happy that today we had a chance to participate in how music and culture make closer our peoples, he said. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 8, ARMENPRESS. 1 person has been killed and several others are injured in a car crash involving an ambulance. Authorities said they are probing this latest ambulance-related crash that took place February 8, 00:10 outside Yerevan on the highway to Yeraskh. The ambulance, a Chinese-made Jinbei van, and a GAZ 24 Russian-made passenger vehicle slammed into each other. The driver of the passenger vehicle was killed instantly, while his passenger and the driver and passengers of the ambulance have been hospitalized. The Investigative Committee said it has launched an investigation to determine the cause of the crash. This crash is already the third crash this year involving an ambulance. Earlier in late-January, when another ambulance had crashed, Healthcare Minister Arsen Torosyan personally weighed in on the matter, calling it inadmissible. The Jinbei ambulance vehicles were donated to Armenia by China earlier in 2018. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 8, ARMENPRESS. Arman Yeghoyan, MP from the My Step faction of the Armenian Parliament, Chairman of the standing committee on European Integration Affairs, says he understood from the meetings at the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly that the ratification of the Armenia-EU Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement (CEPA) is being held in accordance with the agenda of Parliaments of the European countries. We had several meetings in Brussels. We have received some information about the CEPA ratification process in particular in Belgium and France. In both cases the ratification of the document is being carried out in accordance with the agenda of the national, community parliaments of these countries, Yeghoyan said during the committees first session, reports Armenpress. He reminded that during the meetings in Germany and Davos the Armenian Prime Minister has been assured that there is no political obstacle for the ratification of the Agreement, just some technical problems. Armenia and the European Union signed the CEPA in Brussels on November 24, 2017. The Agreement has been ratified by 10 states Armenia, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, UK, Lithuania, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta and Poland. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 8, ARMENPRESS. A group consisting of humanitarian deminers, doctors and Armenian specialists ensuring their safety, a total of 83 people, arrived in Syrias Aleppo on February 8 aimed at providing professional humanitarian support to the Syrian people, Artsrun Hovhannisyan Armenian defense ministry spokesperson, said on Facebook, Armenpress reports. The Armenian specialists will carry out humanitarian demining, demining awareness of the population and medical services provision activities in the settlements of Aleppo that are free of military operations. The decision on providing professional humanitarian assistance by Armenia to the Syrian people has been made taking into account the current humanitarian crisis in Syria and especially in Aleppo caused by the military operations, the UN resolutions, the written requests of the Syrian side, as well as the presence of large Armenian community in Aleppo, the spokesperson said. The deployment, status, functions and security issues of the Armenian specialists in Syria will be settled in accordance with the Armenian legislation. The transportation and provision issues of the Armenian specialists are being carried out by the assistance of the Russian side. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 8, ARMENPRESS. Soon the government will submit to parliament a bill on its new structure, PM Nikol Pashinyan said at the Cabinet meeting today. He said the bill will be ready today. Pashinyan said soon the government will also submit the new tax code and several related legislative initiatives to parliament. The PM highlighted the importance of the tax code. The new structure of the government is expected to re-organize the Cabinet. According to an earlier released suggestion, the number of ministries was to be reduced, with some current ones merging into one another, or being downgraded into departments under other ministries. The purpose of the amendments is to increase efficiency of public administration. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 8, ARMENPRESS. According to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, by the approval of the governments Action Plan the stage of economic revolution begins in Armenia, reports Armenpress. As the governments Action Plan has been released two days ago, there were some reactions over which we also launched a discussion in the government which helped us to once again record that this Action Plan is in full accordance with our conceptual visions. The following point is very important for our conceptual vision: we have declared the concept of economic revolution, by this Action Plan we announce the launch of economic revolution noting that the governments function is the same as that of the peaceful, velvet revolution in Armenia: that is to create opportunities. Government considers itself one of the key participants of this process and is ready with its steps to encourage the citizens to use these opportunities, the PM said during todays extraordinary session. He added that people must have a chance to see and touch the opportunities provided by the government with the respective tools of use. The Armenian government approved its Action Plan during todays extraordinary session. It will submit the Action Plan to the Parliament as prescribed by law. The Action Plan was presented during the governments February 6 session, but was not approved because new proposals were received. According to the Constitution of Armenia, the Parliament approves the governments Action Plan within seven days by the majority of votes of the total number of MPs. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 8, ARMENPRESS. The traffic department of the Georgian ministry of infrastructures told Armenias ministry of transport, communication and information technologies that today, as of 10:00, the Stepantsminda-Lars highway is open for all types of vehicles, the ministry told Armenpress. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan 1. Yes. Its important for students to stay focused throughout the year. Its a plus. 2. Yes. It would fill the learning gaps caused by COVID and would help cut youth crime. 3. No. Students and teachers deserve a summer break. Year-round school wont work. 4. No. It wouldnt work with the militarys summer PCS schedule. Its a bad idea. 5. Unsure. Its hard to say without knowing how the school calendar would work. Vote View Results YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 8, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian government approved its Action Plan during todays extraordinary session, reports Armenpress. It will submit the Action Plan to the Parliament as prescribed by law. Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigoryan said they have made editorial works, maximally developed the proposals and included in the draft. I think we have a good Action Plan, with right structure and principles. The tools of steps and digital figures in connection with the Action Plan will be reflected in sectoral programs over which we will start working after its the approval, Grigoryan said. The Action Plan was presented during the governments February 6 session, but was not approved because new proposals were received. According to the Constitution of Armenia, the Parliament approves the governments Action Plan within seven days by the majority of votes of the total number of MPs. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 8, ARMENPRESS. One of the most important processes taking place in Armenia in the past months are the signs of rebirth of professional education. By the mediation and encouragement of the government dozens of private companies sign contracts with the state colleges for preparing specialists for them, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said on Facebook, Armenpress reports. He stated that this means that the private sector is interested in making concrete investments in the education system, providing material-technical support to the colleges in order to prepare cadres necessary for these companies. This means that at least majority of the graduates will have a guaranteed job. The happiest part is that this process is also being carried out in the provinces. Currently nearly two dozen contracts have been signed in the fields of textile, tourism, food industry, design and etc. Signing of nearly dozens more contracts is expected in the near future. I call on all private companies to closely cooperate with the ministry of education and science, the government to expand this extremely positive process, Nikol Pashinyan said. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 8, ARMENPRESS. The favorable conditions created for Armenia thanks to the free trade agreement between the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and Iran will be effectively served for ensuring the growth of trade volumes, Armenias Ambassador to Iran Artashes Tumanyan said in an interview to ARMENPRESS, talking about the Armenian-Iranian relations, as well as the upcoming visit of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to Iran. -Mr. Tumanyan, PM Nikol Pashinyan plans to visit Iran in late February. What kind of meetings and agenda of issues are scheduled? -Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan will depart for Tehran on February 27 at the invitation of President of Iran Hassan Rouhani. This is Pashinyans first visit to Iran. The organizational issues of the visit are being discussed at the moment. The agenda of meetings will cover a broad range of bilateral issues. During the talks the officials will touch upon the regional security and bilateral cooperation affairs. -This year marks the 28th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties with Iran. How would you assess the current level of Armenia-Iran relations? -From the time of their formation to this day Armenia and Iran had friendly and partnering relations. However, not all opportunities of both sides have been utilized. -What achievements will you identify in the Armenian-Iranian diplomatic relations in the recent period? -The main achievement is the high level of political component of the bilateral relations. The sides have always managed to avoid lined problems. But as for the recent period, we can mention the facts of distribution of various information about Armenia among the Iranian circles, mutual awareness raising. Many Iranian businessmen visited Armenia to discuss the opportunities of conducting an economic activity. -Iran remains one of Armenias key partners. What prospects do you see for expanding the economic cooperation between the two countries? -Iran is really one of the key partners of Armenia, and the development of the relations derives from Armenias interests. Of course, Armenia also has an important place in Irans foreign policy agenda. The level of bilateral economic relations is far from being enough, and both sides need to take serious actions in this regard. I would like to inform that the Armenia-Iran trade turnover has never crossed 300 million USD (also given the gas-electricity exchange), and the import volumes of goods from Armenia to Iran have always been quite small. Currently the possibilities to serve effectively the favorable conditions created for Armenia thanks to the EAEU-Iran free trade deal for ensuring bilateral trade growth are being discussed. I want to state that serious obstacles emerged here due to the US sanctions, but in order to overcome them certain mechanisms will be needed. -There is quite activeness in tourism sector in the recent years. What development prospects do you see on this direction? -Before the US sanctions and the unfavorable financial-economic developments in Iran, the number of Iranian tourists visiting Armenia was constantly increasing. But now, due to the current situation in Iran, their number is decreasing. Its understandable that under the current circumstances some changes will be needed in the works of this field, at least for preventing the further negative developments. -Mr. Ambassador, the Armenian community plays an important role for strengthening and developing the Armenian-Iranian relations. What are the main activities of Armenians in Iran? In which sectors they are represented and what are the agenda issues relating to the community? -The Armenian community of Iran has passed a great path and enjoys a great respect for the great contribution in Irans life. The community members are represented in different sectors-science, education, culture, economy and etc. According to Irans Constitution, Armenians have a status of a religious minority which allows to have two MPs in the Iranian Parliament. The community structures constantly carry out great works for the preservation of the Armenian identity and cultural values. Interview by Anna Gziryan Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan " " The axolotl, also known as a Mexican salamander or Mexican walking fish, is closely related to the tiger salamander. kevin yulianto/Getty Images The axolotl(pronounced ACK-suh-LAH-tuhl) is a superhero of tissue regeneration. These foot-long creatures, which live in an array of lakes outside of Mexico City, often repair or regrow limbs, tails, hearts, spinal cords, eyes and even parts of their brains. Researchers at the University of Kentucky announced in January 2019 that they'd assembled the axolotl's genome, a major step toward more in-depth studies that could impact human health in years to come. With its smiling countenance and frilly gills, an axolotl's genome (32 billion base pairs) is 10 times larger than a human's (3 billion base pairs), a fact that complicated scientists' efforts to unravel the animal's healing capabilities. However, they were able to do it using a technique called linkage mapping. This is the first time a genome of this size has been mapped and could be a template for other animals with large genomes. Advertisement When human beings experience spinal cord injuries, cells nearest the damage tend to result in scar tissue. In the axolotl (or Mexican salamander or Mexican walking fish), however, those cells often repair much of the worst nerve damage, restoring function in ways that human bodies just can't. But what if the amazing regenerative properties of this animal's physiology could somehow be translated into human medicine? It turns out that salamanders don't have some sort of miraculous healing genes; they actually share many genes with humans. It's just that their bodies control the gene expression to repair injured nerves differently. If scientists can figure out how to manipulate those genes, they may be able to trigger those healing properties in people and find ways to rebuild damaged spinal cords or address any number of other neurodegenerative diseases, like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's that afflict millions of people. The scientists hope that their genome studies will be cause for greater conservation efforts on the part of Mexico's government for the critically endangered axolotl. The amphibian is a close relative of the better-known tiger salamander, though the axolotl lives continuously in the water. It is suffering in the wild due to habitat loss, urban pollution, hunting, invasive species, as well as the effects of climate change. Fortunately, the species tends to thrive in laboratory tanks, but the degradation of wild populations limits genetic diversity and could ultimately impact the breadth of medical research, too. NOW THAT'S INTERESTING A specific type of axolotl called the achoque is found in just one place Mexico's Lake Patzcuaro. These endangered species have found allies in local nuns, who tend to hundreds of them in tanks. The nuns use the creatures' skins to make a natural cough remedy called jarabe. Liverpool welcomed back three players to full training this week to give manager Jurgen Klopp some much-needed options as The Reds prepare to meet Bournemouth at Anfield this weekend. Club captain Jordan Henderson returned along with Gini Wijnaldum, and perhaps most importantly, Trent Alexander-Arnold. The 20-year-old right-back, Alexander-Arnold, hasnt played since Liverpools 1-0 win at Brighton in mid-January. That game was also Liverpools last clean sheet. The return of Wijnaldum and Henderson gives Klopp far greater options in the central third of the pitch and also means Liverpools bench will be of a superior quality than it was for the 1-1 draw at West Ham last Monday. Klopp will have the choice of playing the 4-2-3-1 formation rather than the usual 4-3-3. Naby Keita could be deployed on the left of the line of three behind Mohamed Salah. Roberto Firmino could drop to the 10 role with Sadio Mane switching sides and heading to the right. Wijnaldum and Fabinho would be a solid two-man base to the midfield which would provide much-needed protection for the recently shaky defence. Joe Gomez is still out injured for now so the double-pivot in midfield would be the best option to help Joel Matip out. With Wijnaldums energy and Fabinhos line-breaking passes, there should be easy transitions from the Liverpool defensive third to the attacking quartet of Keita, Firmino, Mane and Salah. Also, Keita is more of an energiser bunny than anyone else in the attacking third so, even though he is slightly out of position, he can remedy that by making himself an extra option in midfield dropping back deeper than the other forwards, especially when Liverpool are out of possession. For the most in-depth tactical and statistical analysis regarding Liverpool FC sign up now! The original home of Pressing Stats, Anfield Index also brings you the latest views from club legends such as Jan Molby. Hear from the UKs top journalists, managers, professionals, sports scientists, physios and sports psychologists as we bring you the ultimate LFC fan experience provided on approximately 30 podcasts every month for our AI:Pro listeners!! Enjoy all this and more for just 4.99 per month at Anfield Index Pro!! 10:58 | Lima, Feb. 8. The study also reveals that 41% of citizens believe the creation of new political groups at Congress is positive, while 46% think the opposite. As for the situation of ex-President Alberto Fujimori, who has been sent back to prison , 59% of respondents think he must be placed under house arrest. However, 48% reject the possibility of granting him another pardon. El canciller @NestorPopolizio sostuvo esta manana una reunion con el Secretario General de la @ComunidadAndina, @JHPedraza, para abordar el futuro trabajo de la CAN y el proximo Consejo Presidencial Andino en el marco del 50 aniversario de esta organizacion. pic.twitter.com/NRv4dcdYMm Use of concrete in ancient temple draws ire from heritage conservationists The Pashupati Area Development Trust has begun reconstruction on the unique Vishwarup temple on the premises of the Pashupatinath temple by digging 12 pits and filling them with concrete, inviting the ire of heritage enthusiasts, locals and the authorities. Many times you might have found the multiple casinos available in the online market but when you are going to... Unknown group detonates three blasts in Arun-III hydropower project site An unidentified group detonated three improvised explosive devices at the powerhouse of under construction Arun III Hydropower Project in Sankhuwasabha district on Thursday. Tourists stranded after snowfall Heavy snowfall in high altitude settlements of mountain districts and rain in other places since Wednesday night have affected life nationwide. Tourism Department to auction Nepal Recreation Centres land The Department of Tourism is preparing to issue an auction notice to sell property belonging to defunct casino operator Nepal Recreation Centre and recover monies owed to the government totalling Rs535 million. The hollow eclipse of Identity Some notes of reflection on #MeToo Patients forced to seek medical attention across the border When Dal Bahadur Saud of Maharuda in Baitadi took his daughter to Baitadi District Hospital to treat the injuries she had sustained in her hands, health workers there advised him to take her to Pithoragarh in India for treatment. Only one doctor in Musikot hospital Locals of Musikot and surrounding villages are deprived of health services due to the absence of doctors at the District Hospital in Rukum (West). Amish Raj Mulmi is a columnist for the Post, and the author of All Roads Lead North: Nepals Turn to China. Millions of students affected by Chand-led Maoist partys strike Millions of studentsfrom pre-primary to university levelwere affected on Thursday as most of the academic institutions remained closed due to a strike called by the student wing of the Netra Bikram Chand-led CPN, demanding release of its leader. Lawmaker Lingden warns of staging hunger strike Rastriya Prajatantra Party lawmaker Rajendra Lingden has warned of staging a hunger strike if the government continues to discriminate against his region. Lawmaker Basnet proposes incentive for returning noodle packets Nepal Communist Party lawmaker Mahesh Basnet has demanded the government introduce a system to return the plastic packets of noodles and Gutkha. Feed tests reveal lower digestibility New seasonal feed quality test results showing the stark differences between wet and dry seasons have underlined the need for end users to measure and know what they are feeding. Governments last-ditch effort to bring back Italian contractor for Melamchi project fails After nearly two months of drama, a series of failed negotiations and the eleventh hour trip to Singapore aimed at bringing the Melamchi project back on track, the government has officially terminated the contract with its Italian builder on Thursday. Fault lines in ruling party exposed as Oli, Dahal spar over Venezuela Venezuela rarely figured in Nepals foreign policy, let alone the domestic political discourse But all of that changed last month after a co-chairman of the ruling party issued a strong statement on the country. Drain or gain? Non-structural initiatives can be a productive way to unleash the diasporas potential Devise criteria for students pursuing medical degrees abroad: Council As the MBBS licensing results of Nepali students who have studied in China and Bangladesh have been disappointing, the Nepal Medical Council has suggested the Ministry of Education implement a set of standards on the colleges that students are being enrolled in, so as to avert such a situation. Bheri Babai tunnel is 92pc complete The Bheri Babai Diversion Multipurpose Project has nearly finished digging a 12-km tunnel using a tunnel boring machine, a first in the country. Proposed illegal gun ban by Pittsburgh's Mayor From Triblive.com Article January 31st, 2019 : (Quote): A Kennedy Township man filed a private criminal complaint Wednesday against Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto, seven members of City Council and the city solicitor over a proposed gun ban, but the Allegheny County District Attorney's Office says it contains no grounds for prosecution.... Val Finnell, 51, filed the complaint and said others would follow his lead, alleging the city officials displayed criminal intent by proposing a ban on certain automatic weapons and firearms accessories. He cited Pennsylvania's preemption statute, which prohibits municipalities from regulating firearms. ....... Pittsburgh is definitely "trying it on" when it comes to wanting to legislate in contravention of Pennsylvania's preemption statute - not the first city to have planned such a move. It is concerning that such attempts at more 'gun control' are happening, using the trusted excuse of "the gun violence epidemic". Perhaps they should also make themselves aware of the influence in modern times of social media that can encourage tragedies, and also the main media's tendency to over expose mass murderers, to the point of almost glamorizing them. These factors combined can be the catalyst for 'copy-cat' events, not to mention the problems of 'gun-free-zones'. "The gun" is not the problem. Complaint File Back to Top * "Most Popular Intellectual Property Law Blawg" of all time according to Justia rankings , May 2021. * "Most Popular Copyright Blawg" of all time according to Justia rankings , May 2021. * PermaKat Eleonora Rosati listed as one of the World Intellectual Property Review's "Influential Women in IP" of 2020. * PermaKat Eleonora Rosati listed as one of the Managing Intellectual Property magazine's "Fifty Most Influential People" of 2018. * IPKat founder and Blogmeister Emeritus Jeremy Phillips listed as one of the Managing Intellectual Property magazine's "Fifty Most Influential People" of 2005, 2011, 2013, and 2014. * Recommended by the European Patent Office as reading material for candidates for the European Qualifying Examinations, 2013. * Listed as "Top Legal Blog" in The Times Online, March 2011. 2010 ABA Journal 100. * One of the only two non-US blogs listed in the Blawg100. * Court Reporter Top Copyright Blog award winner, November 2010. * Number 1 in the 2010 Top Copyright Blog list compiled by the Copyright Litigation Blog, July 2010. * Selected by the United States Library of Congress for inclusion in its historic collections of Internet materials related to Legal Blawgs as of 2010. * Top Patent Blog poll 2009: 3rd out of 50 in the "Favourite Patent Blog" poll and 2nd out of 50 in the "Most-read" poll. Blog of the Year, 20 August 2008. * ComputerWeekly IT Law and Governance, 20 August 2008. Mark Wilson/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- A top prosecutor in the special counsel investigation into 2016 election interference has told a federal judge that a summer 2016 meeting in New York between then-candidate Donald Trumps campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, and a man described as a former Russian intelligence officer strikes at the heart of what the Special Counsel's Office is investigating, a newly released court filing shows. This goes to the larger view of what we think is going on, and what we think the motive here is, top prosecutor Andrew Weissmann told U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson during a closed hearing Monday, according to transcripts made public on Thursday. The relationship between Manafort and one of his business associates, Konstantin Kilimnik, has been a low-profile but persistent element of the Mueller probe. Kilimnik, who was also indicted in the Manafort case but has been beyond the reach of U.S. law enforcement, has been described by prosecutors as someone with ties to Russian intelligence. But this court hearing represents one of the first times special counsel prosecutors have identified his interactions with Manafort as a central element of their case. Weissmann appears to go into greater detail about the significance of the Aug. 2 meeting, which according to the Washington Post took place at the Grand Havana Room in New York City, an upscale cigar lounge just three blocks from Trump Tower. But that portion of Weissmanns testimony is redacted in the public transcripts. Weissmann adds that the special counsel considered the in-person meeting to come at an unusual time for somebody who is the campaign chairman -- especially to be doing it in person. That meeting and what happened at that meeting is of significance to the special counsel. Kilimnik told the Washington Post that his meeting with Manafort on Aug. 2 was in no way related to politics or [the] presidential campaign in the U.S. What is known about Manaforts interactions with Kilimnik came into fuller view in January, when defense attorneys for Manafort inadvertently revealed that their client stands accused of sharing polling data with Kilimnik, a suspected former Russian intelligence officer, according to court documents filed publicly in Washington, D.C. In the same court documents, Manaforts defense counsel wrote that their client discussed a Ukraine peace plan with Mr. Kilimnik on more than one occasion, but details of the alleged plan and the timeframe in which Manafort and Kilimnik discussed it were not described. Muellers prosecutors accused Manafort in November of breaking a plea deal by lying to the special counsels office about his communication with Kilimnik during the campaign, contacts with members of the Trump administration, and a $125,000 loan he received in 2016. A jury in Virginia found Manafort guilty on eight counts of tax and bank-fraud charged against him in August. As part of his plea agreement in September in the Washington, D.C. case, Manafort pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy and agreed to 'broad' cooperation with the special counsel as part of his agreement. Earlier this week, Jackson rescheduled Manaforts sentencing in the Washington, D.C., case for March 13. Copyright 2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. An exhibition of eight, large scale, monoprint collages that convey the interdependency between life and death, human desire bound to great achievement, often in the face of failure and despair. Nicola Lopez: Parasites, Prosthetics, Parallels and Partners is an exhibition of eight, large scale, monoprint collages Nicola Lopez created in the spring of 2017 when she returned to Tamarind for her fourth artist residency with the workshop. Gathering the artists ongoing interest in industry, architecture, and technology into a concentrated grouping, the exhibition conveys the interdependency between life and deathhuman desire bound to great achievement, often in the face of failure and despair. The imagery in Parasites, Prosthetics, Parallels and Partners is informed by an outdoor site-specific installation Lopez created in Southern Austria for which she combined wood in different stages of expirationpieces of cut lumber with a dead apple tree, still teeming with and supporting life such as lichen, moss, and insects. Here, Lopez harnesses the inherent modular characteristics of printmaking to express how the natural world is shaped by human interactions, using mark-making, color, layering, and transparency as a way to revisit her original installation. She hand-printed, cut, and assembled each piece to create two traditional editions in addition to six unique objects, approaching paper sculpture. PLEASE NOTE! Due to the March 23, 2020 NM DOH Public Health Order, These Event Listings Are Not Accurate! All non-essential businesses are closed, public gatherings are prohibited! (One day some of these events will be rescheduled or will resume, but they are not happening now!) Ulyana Suprun told what court forbade her to do. She regards such decision puts at risk the health of the Ukrainians Court banned Suprun from acting within the competence of Health Minister of Ukraine including the authorities of the deputies to sing the documents instead of her, as Ulyana Suprun reported on her Facebook page. Suprun informed that she cannot implement the following authorities: Coordinate and present bills, presidential and governmental enactments, developed by the central executive bodies, the work of which is coordinated by the Minister for the consideration of the Cabinet of Minister; issue orders and assignments concerning the questions within the competence of such establishments compulsory for the central executive authorities; present the Ministry of Health in public-legal relationship in Ukraine and abroad; decide on distribution of budget means (Health Ministry is the chief controller); give instructions compulsory for public servants and workers of Health Ministry; sign the orders of Health Ministry, including agreeing on the bills of other central executive authorities. Moreover, Suprun cannot sign orders on customs clearance of the drugs and treatment abroad. This means that the health of Ukrainians is in danger now. She invites everyone to the court to support her. On February 11, the court would consider this case and decide whether to return Suprun to her work. As we reported, Suprun's role as acting health minister was questioned by MP from the Radical Party of Lyashko Ihor Mosiychuk. The court explained that such a decision was made as Suprun has dual citizenship. Apart from the Ukrainian one, she also has a U.S. passport. The government of Ukraine expressed the support of Suprun, as well as the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, did. Realted video: Russia wants to send two observers to Ukraine so that they could monitor the presidential campaign new rules concerning observing process during elections Open source Within a long-term mission of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) two Russian observers will head to Kyiv to observe the Ukrainian presidential campaign on February 11, as Igor Borysov, the Chairman of the Council of Russian Public Institute of Electoral Law, the member of the Council of Human Rights, said, Interfax reported. An attempt will be taken, if nothing else happens. They are within the ODIHR mission, which does not refuse from the Russian segment within the mission in Ukraine, Igor Bodysov said. He specified that the Russian observers Yelizaveta Borisova from the Russian Public Institute of Electoral Law and Khristina Bogdanova from the Institute of Public Electoral Diplomacy will arrive in Kyiv on February 11 along with their colleagues from the long-term mission. Both our representatives have great experience in the international observation sector, including within the OSCE ODIHR, he added. If tomorrow the director (of OSCE ODIHR, - ed.) says that we cancel Russia, this is a stalemate: like it was in PACE, when we are told to pay contributions without taking part. ODIHR will not do this, but there is a question, will they be insisting on the implementation of the international demands of the rule of law, prevent attempts to bypass it, Borysov thinks. Now, we wait for the decision of OSCE ODIHR, whether it will manage to reach an agreement so that they do not pass the border, and get accredited. Of course, the position of the OSCE ODIHR is rather uncertain, they expressed only concern, Russian Public Institute of Electoral Law informed. The Verkhovna Rada registered the bill No.9524 which calls for ruling out the participation of the observers from the aggressor state in the presidential and parliamentary elections in Ukraine, The Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) of the OSCE offered to include two citizens of Russia to the list of the mission on the observation of the Ukrainian presidential elections on 31 March, 2019, despite the conditions declared by Ukraine. The election campaign has officially started on December 31, 2018. Registration of the candidates was closed on February 4, 2019, and on February 9, the final list of presidential candidates is expected to appear. The candidates would be able to withdraw their candidacy until March 7, 2019. Related video: 232 MPs voted for the law, which prohibits Russian observers to participate in Ukrainian elections The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine prohibited observers from the Russian Federation to participate in the election process in Ukraine. Law #9524 was adopted by 232 votes, as 112 Ukraine reported. The law provides the amendments to the law on the elections of the president, lawmakers, and local elections. It is established that a person, who is a citizen of a state aggressor and a person, whose offer is initiated or submitted by a state aggressor cannot be the observers at the elections (including the representatives of the foreign states). The Chief Scientific Expertise Department noted that there are well-founded grounds in the current conditions that the principle of the political impartiality of the observers from Russia will not be observed. So, the department sees no legal obstacles for the adoption of this law. Foreign Minister of Ukraine Pavlo Klimkin has warned that Ukraine does not intend to approve applications from the Russian OSCE observers at the elections. President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko stated he would issue an order to the State Border Guard Service not to let Russian observers to the presidential elections. The election campaign has officially started on December 31, 2018. Registration of the candidates would last until February 4, 2019, and on February 9, the final list of presidential candidates will appear. The candidates would be able to withdraw his candidacy until March 7, 2019. Earlier it was reported that Within a long-term mission of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) two Russian observers would head to Kyiv to observe the Ukrainian presidential campaign on February 11 Thomas Rymer, the Representative of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights(ODIHR) Open source Two Russians will be excluded from the list of long-term observers at the elections in Ukraine if they are not accredited, as Thomas Rymer, the Representative of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights(ODIHR), said, Interfax reported. If these two persons are not accredited as observers, as the Ukrainian authorities stated, there will be 90 observers in the mission, he said. Within a long-term mission of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) two Russian observers will head to Kyiv to observe the Ukrainian presidential campaign on February 11 - Yelizaveta Borisova from the Russian Public Institute of Electoral Law and Khristina Bogdanova from the Institute of Public Electoral Diplomacy. The Verkhovna Rada registered the bill No.9524 which calls for ruling out the participation of the observers from the aggressor state in the presidential and parliamentary elections in Ukraine. The Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) of the OSCE offered to include two citizens of Russia to the list of the mission on the observation of the Ukrainian presidential elections on 31 March, 2019, despite the conditions declared by Ukraine. The election campaign has officially started on December 31, 2018. Registration of the candidates was closed on February 4, 2019, and on February 9, the final list of presidential candidates is expected to appear. The candidates would be able to withdraw their candidacy until March 7, 2019. Related video: Ukrainian movie Kruty 1918 Open source The Battle of Kruty has been staged for the big screen - for the first time in Ukraine. It's been one of the most important cinema projects, a well-funded one. The Head of the State Cinema Agency Pylyp Illyenko was present at the premiere in Kyiv; he never denied or tried to hide the fact that the movie was filmed not as a high-grossing film, but more like a film that 'is almost a hundred years late'. The team got just exactly what they did: it's something driven by formalism and formaline, which is typical for everything they do in this fashion. The history teachers who don't need to be persuaded about the value of Ukrainian nationalist ideas, will most likely love the film. A history teacher, who thanked the produiction team at a press conference, might not have a slightest idea of how precisely she had described the situation: 'The details don't matter. The key thing is the film that I can finally show to my students'... Kruty 1918 is based on the real events of the fight that took place next to Kruty station, northern Ukraine, in the freezing winter of 1918. The Bolsheviks were advancing on their path to Kyiv, and a handful of volunteer students stepped in to protect the young Ukrainian People's Republic, which the world was ready to recognize by that time. The 18-19-year-old youngsters had their first combat experience in the battle of Kruty, and they managed to repel the assault of the Bolsheviks armed to the teeth for several days straight. The talented Ukrainian actor Vitaliy Saliy portrayed Mikhail Muravyov, the former officer of the Imperial Army who sided with the Reds - and led the assault in that battle. Ukrainian movie Kruty 1918 Open source At that, the production team of Kruty 1918 noted that it is, above all, a motion picture, not the re-enactment of true historical events. Despite the presence of living historical figures (Mykhailo Hrushevsky, Symon Petliura, Averkiy Honcharenko, Mikhail Muravyov and his chief Vladimir Antonov-Ovsienko), the official press release says that the majority of these heroes are a 'collective image'. This is the ground for deployment of the characters who build the plot. The list includes double agent Berg, Ukrainian General Savitsky, and the main characters - Andriy and Oleksiy, Savitsky's two own sons. Andriy was portrayed by Yevhen Lamakh, one of the most promising Ukrainian actors. So, the idea of the production team is that Andriy is a student, the map-maker-to-be. He is a pacifist who refuses to shed a drop of blood - even if it's the enemy blood. He tells his friends that the fact that his father and brother serve with the military does just enough. However, there's also a prototype of the real-life character in this film. It's Hryhoriy Pypsky, a humble and silent student of a gymnasium who performed in a church choir - which is why they called him The Alto. The production team assumes it was him who sang the future national anthem of Ukraine in front of the Bolshevik bayonets. So, all main heroes, Andriy, Oleksiy, Pypsky met in snowed Kyiv at Sofiyivska Square. These guys will also be in the platoon near Kruty (Valerik Oleksandr Piskunov, Volodia Maksym Donetsk, student Kolyunka Mykola Perestyuk). In the same place, a viewer acquaints for the first time with Sofia, a girl, in whom both brothers Savitsky are in love. She is flirting in a conversation with Andriy: where else can I be, than Sofiyivska Square. Sofia is at Sofiyivska Square. The friends listen to the speech of Head of the Ukrainian Central Council Mykhailo Hrushevsky (Serhiy Dzialyk). He urges to stand up for Ukrainian Peoples Republic. Symon Petlyura appears on the podium to deliver a speech. Dmytro Stupka played him in Kruty:1918 and it is worthy to note that after film Secret Diary of Symon Petlyura, in which he is depicted as delicate and quietly unconvincing intellectual, Stupka succeeded to rehabilitate his figure. At least, after his speech, there is no question how Petlyura could lead thousands of the Ukrainians. The friends of Andriy also enter the list of volunteers after the speech of Petlyura. All of this reminds Maidan, during which guys entered the self-defense ranks and went to the east to fight against Russia. However, Andriy remain faithful to his pacifistic belief. He joined friends later. But the reason, which encourages him to take up arms, hardly can be the driving motivation for someone in the real life. Ukrainian movie Kruty 1918 Open source However, the obvious iconization, which is counter by demonization, is much worse than obvious implausibility and excessive theatricality of particular scenes. There are no ideas that we are all people and all of us are sinners: only black vs. white, good vs. bad. There is no hint of nobility or good human features in the images of Berg and Muravyov: they are despicable, depraved, in a word, bad as bourgeois, who tortured Kibalchish in the famous work of the red propaganda. Even plastoons will appear at the side of good in the film. In the best tradition, so to speak. General Savitsky, the father of Pypsky (Yevhen Nishchuk), sister (daughter of director of the movie Masha Shaparyova) are exclusively positive and great characters. The scene of the visit of The Alto by father and Marichka in the barrack is so icky, that mouth is clumped. They pass a scarf, which bears one of the main roles and meaning in the film, to a guy. A fair sotnyk (he held the military training) is not less icky; exactly he harshly suppresses derision of fellow-students over Pypsky due to the scarf. Actually, it is unclear why the same sotnyk tried to discourage Andriy after the fight in his searches of the friends. He persuades him: there are victims in the war. Ukrainian movie Kruty 1918 Open source The characters of Bolsheviks in the movie are disputable. It happened due to the ideological beliefs of the Director Olexiy Shaparev (he made some great works like animated series Esquimau, comedy Kyiv Cake, dramatic series The Fight Rules). The Director decided to avoid personification except from Muravyov, Berga and Antonov-Ovsiyebko so that the role of the negative characters is not overstated. At some point, you might think that there is nobody in an armored train, which reflects a dirty arrack of the red on Kyiv, except from these three and a couple of stokers It looks like the capital of the Ukrainian Peoples Republic is going to defend against a single armored train, where a perverted and self-confident addict rampages. The feeling of implausibility is enhanced after an episode where Muravyov without any help takes students captive on Kruty station Those who believe that the heroes of Kruty died in an uphill battle with weapons in their hands might be surprised that the filmmakers chose the episode where Bolsheviks execute disarmed guys for the end of the movie. Despite the fact that a little evidence about those events, history lovers say that the version with the execution is actually close to historical truth. At the same time, the execution scene in Kruty 1918 was made in such a way that at the moment you suppose to cry, you ask yourself: good gosh, is it a theatre or a circus? The viewers find out about tortures only from the titles (it is well known that Bolsheviks were severely torturing the guys). Bolsheviks are kind in Kruty 1918, they did not even took away sweets, and that important scarf. The romantic line in the movie looks unconvincing as well. Relationships between Sophia and Andriy are more friendly, than romantic. Not a single hint for passion. Erotic scenes and kisses are not presented in the movie. Andriy and Sophia are completely alone in their apartment, the lights go out and this is all the romance. Olexiy wants to propose to Sophia, but he did not take out the ring. There are many questions about the movie itself, the sequence of events and their motivation. It is a bit unclear who and how captured the arsenal of the Bolsheviks and whether the main characters have something to do with it. It is not clear how Andriy, who was earlier with his friends, appears in the train (taking the surviving Ukrainian defenders to the rear), where did the horse he found in the woods come from... It is not clear how he does not get to his comrades, and instead turns out at the station ... where he meets his brother. Throughout the year, while the film was preparing for running, cinematic couloirs rumored that they the film was filmed in the way they cannot assemble it. Shaparev did not deny that there were certain editing problems, but assured that this was a common phenomenon inherent to many projects. The worst thing is that, despite all the delicacies, the value of the heroic act by Kruty fighters remains outside the frame. There is no answer to the question: what was the meaning of their sacrifice? What did this give Ukrainian Peoples Republic? What was significant about the fact that these boys held back the Bolshevik offensive? And most importantly, we will not hear the answers to one of the most acute questions of the Ukrainian nation, which captured Berg poses in the film. He will ask the Ukrainian general Savitsky, the father of Oleksa and Andriy: what is the point of sacrificing so much for a "nation that never existed"? And he does not hear the answer... In general, the picture is beautiful: exemplary scenery, historical reconstruction of the elements of the old interior, perfect costumes and cool camera work. The real pleasure - some scenes with talented actors. There are elements of action, as in Matrix, and spectacular clips. Actually, you get a real pleasure from the movie, if you do not take into account frank propaganda issues, and perceive the film as a collection of cool videos with a wonderful sound. The document will come into force on the next day after its publication The Spokesperson of the Ukrainian Parliament Andriy Parubiy signed the bill on participation ban for Russian election observers. The document was passed to the President for signing. The information about the bill is contained in its card No. 9524. I have signed the bill On amendments to some laws of Ukraine concerning observation of the election process in Ukraine No. 9524 which provides ban from being an observer during elections in Ukraine for the citizens of the aggressor state. We wont let Russia influence our elections! Parubiy wrote on Twitter. Within a long-term mission of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), two Russian observers will head to Kyiv to observe the Ukrainian presidential campaign on February 11 - Yelizaveta Borisova from the Russian Public Institute of Electoral Law and Khristina Bogdanova from the Institute of Public Electoral Diplomacy. The Verkhovna Rada registered the bill No.9524 which calls for ruling out the participation of the observers from the aggressor state in the presidential and parliamentary elections in Ukraine. The Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) of the OSCE offered to include two citizens of Russia to the list of the mission on the observation of the Ukrainian presidential elections on 31 March, 2019, despite the conditions declared by Ukraine. The election campaign has officially started on December 31, 2018. Registration of the candidates was closed on February 4, 2019, and on February 9, the final list of presidential candidates is expected to appear. The candidates would be able to withdraw their candidacy until March 7, 2019. Related video: The judge prolonged the term for two more months Social media Kherson City Court extended detention for RIA News Head Kyrylo Vyshynsky to April 8, as his lawyer Andriy Domansky reported on Facebook. The court granted the appeal of the prosecution and prolonged sentence for Kyrylo Vychynsky for April 8, 2019, Domansky wrote. On May 15, the SBU considered the detention of the head of RIA News Ukraine agencys office. Kremlin has already responded to the incident and called the actions of the SBU outrageous. Besides, Russia promised to assume reciprocal measures. Then, the state sent a protest note over searches at the mass media office. The actions of Vyshynsky were preliminarily qualified as the state treason. The same day the SBU reported that Kyrylo Vyshynsky is now officially suspected of state treason. Recently, there are statements about his exchange for the convicted Ukrainians held in Russia. Today the meeting between PACE delegates and Didier Reynders, the Minister of Foreign Affair of Belgium took place The meeting between PACE delegates and Didier Reynders, the Minister of Foreign Affair of Belgium Volodymyr Ariev Facebook Belgium is ready to sign sanctions against the Russian citizens, involved in the attack on Ukrainian military vessels in Kerch Strait and in capturing the crew. Volodymyr Ariev, the President of PACE Committee for Culture, Education, Science and Media, the MP of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, reported this on Facebook. The meeting between the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) and Didier Reynders, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belgium had lasted for two hours. It was an interesting and frank conversation, during which we found out that Belgium supports the sanctions against the citizens of the Russian Federation, who were involved in the attack on Ukrainian military vessels in Kerch Strait and in capturing the crew, - Ariev wrote. According to Ariev, the Minister of Foreign Affair of Belgium believes that we should not build the wall between Ukraine and Russia. I pointed out that we are building not the wall, but the fortification, and whether we should build or should not depend only on the current situation in the countries. Our country has no other choice, - he added. Didier Reynders said he would be ready to support Ukraines positions in the Council of Europe regarding the problem with Russia and agreed that Russia had to undertake many actions on reintegration of Crimea and to abide by the Minsk agreement in order their delegation could return to PACE without sanctions. As we reported earlier, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) urges Russia to release the detained Ukrainian sailors. It was proposed that PACE should state about the support of the territorial integrity of Ukraine, including Crimea and support the deployment of the international monitoring mission, which would guarantee the free passage of the vessels through Kerch Strait. Germany and France promote this initiative. Open source The amount of TruCam radars will increase to 50 on Ukrainian roads on February, 11. Olexiy Biloshytsky, Deputy Head of Patrol Police Department, published on Facebook. From the beginning of the next Monday 20 new devises will be activated and new measurements sites will appear! 50 radars for speed control will work on our roads from Monday 11.02.2019, - Biloshytsky said. He also outlined that 30 TruCam radars are currently working in Ukraine. According to the Deputy, TruCam radars have registered more than 43 000 violations, the drivers were brought to responsibility, till today. As we reported earlier, the TruCam devices will be set next to the road signs warning of photo and video recording of safety violations, on the certain sections of international highways and in the cities where the high level of road accident hazard is observed. Service transport vehicles with blue flash beacons will be there, too. During a month of use the TruCam surveillance systems, more than 5,000 violations of the traffic rules were spotted. Emelian Gebrev suffered the symptoms of poisoning in April 2015, when Russian GRU agent arrived in Burgas, where Gebrev was staying at the time Sergei and Yulia Skripals were not the first victims of Novichok nerve agent. The Insider and Bellingcat released the respective report based on the conclusions made by their joint investigation team. The investigators found out that Bulgarian businessman Emelian Gebrev suffered the symptoms of poisoning far before the Salisbury incident; the story occurred when Russian GRU agent Sergey Fedotov arrived in Burgas, where Gebrev was staying at the time. The expertise showed that the attack involved the use of Novichok-class substance. The investigation team learned that Fedotov got his alias in 2010, about the same time when his colleagues Petrov and Boshirov did. Recently, we reported that the third Russian special services agent related to the Skripals case stayed in Britain after the assassination attempt. The Russian military intelligence officer - using the false name Sergey Fedotov - traveled to the UK on the same day as two hitmen who carried out the attempted assassination of Sergei Skripal, The Telegraph wrote. Earlier, the Crown Prosecution Service of the U.K. called the names of the suspects in the poisoning of the ex-GRU officer Sergey Skripal and his daughter Yulia. The police suspect Russians Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov. They are accused of the poisoning of Skripals, a police officer who participated in the investigation, and two U.K. citizens in Amesbury. Later it was reported that there could be four more suspects in the Skripal case, apart from Aleksandr Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, whose names were revealed by the British counter-intelligence. At the same time, ex-President of Ukraine does not have any special status The Press Secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov stated that Ukraines ex-President Viktor Yanukovych uses Russias state security, as Interfax reported. Answering the question whether Russia guards Yanukovych, Peskov said: Under the order of the President of Russia he is guarded. State security is provided under the decision of the Head of State, he added. Answering the clarification question whether there is Putins order to provide security for Yanukovych, Peskov stated: Yes, yes, it was issued when he (Yanukovych, - ed.) left (to Russia, - ed.) as the head of (Ukrainian) state, he noted. Peskov did not specify which unit guards Ukraines fugitive president. I cant say that. I dont know. But he has state security, Peskov said. The journalists asked about Yanukovych legal status. Putins Press Secretary replied that he moved to Russia as the President of Ukraine after power in this country was seized. Yanukovych who left Ukraine in such status is in Russia, Peskov noted. For now he is not a President of Ukraine He does not have any special statue, he stated. Peskov also said that Kremlin did not get any promises related to Yanukovych mediation in prisoners exchange issue. Mediation is possible only if both parties agree. No specific promises made for now. I got nothing to say in this regard, Peskov commented. Related video: Russia is the aggressor in Ukraine, so Ukraine's security concerns about Russia are real, the U.S. diplomat added Open source U.S. Special Envoy for Ukraine's Affairs Kurt Volker appears to have changed his position in terms of Russian observers working on the elections of the president of Ukraine scheduled for March 2019. The official admitted that Ukraine's restrictions in this particular case are reasoned. 'Must remember that Russia is the aggressor in Must remember that Russia is the aggressor in Ukraine, so Ukraines security concerns about Russia are real', he wrote. As we reported earlier, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko announced he is going to give an order to the State Border Guard Service not to let Russian observers to the presidential elections on March 31. He explained that this way he wants to physically prevent Russians from coming to Ukraine as observers from the international organizations. The Verkhovna Rada registered the bill No.9524 which calls for ruling out the participation of the observers from the aggressor state in the presidential and parliamentary elections in Ukraine, The Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) of the OSCE offered to include two citizens of Russia to the list of the mission on the observation of the Ukrainian presidential elections on 31 March, 2019, despite the conditions declared by Ukraine The election campaign has officially started on December 31, 2018. Registration of the candidates was closed on February 4, 2019, and on February 9, the final list of presidential candidates is expected to appear. The candidates would be able to withdraw their candidacy until March 7, 2019. The mutual trips of the citizens of Ukraine and Georgia on the basis of inner ID-cards are implemented The renewed agreement between the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and Georgian government on the mutual cancelation of the visa demands, which allows the Ukrainians to travel to Georgia on inner ID-cards, which contain contactless electronic carrier will come into force from March 1, 2019, as Foreign Ministry of Ukraine reported. On March 1, 2019, the renewed agreement between the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and Georgian government on the mutual cancelation of the visa demands, in addition to the current visa-free regime, the mutual trips of the citizens of Ukraine and Georgia on the basis of the inner passports in the form of ID-cards which contain contactless electronic carrier will come into force, the message said. Earlier Ukraine and Georgia agreed to speed up the process of the implementation of trips between countries on inner biometric passports. The proper agreement was reached during the meeting of Oleksandr Saenko, the minister of the Ukrainian Cabinet of Ministers and Mamuka Bakhtadze, the Prime Minister of Georgia that took place in Tbilisi. As we reported Ukraine intends to agree on the mutual cancelation of visa with Uruguay. Thus, the government approved the draft agreement with Uruguay on the mutual cancelation of visa demands and authorized ambassador to Argentine and concurrently to Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay Yury Dyudin to sign it. Medvedchuk was holding the negotiations with the representatives of Luhansk Peoples Republic and Donetsk Peoples Republic on searching of ways of peaceful settlement of Donbas Conflict since May 2014 Representative of Opposition platform For life Viktor Medvedchuk spoke about his meeting with the representatives of occupied Donbas in 2014 during Maga show, which will be broadcasted by 112 Ukraine on February 9. In May 2014, Mr. Turchynov sent a lot of MPs there (to Donbas, - 112.international). A lot of them from there as it is Ukraine. And the task was to meet Gubarev, it was such people's governor. Bolotov was in Luhansk, he is the sergeant of the Soviet Armed Forces, Afghani veteran; besides, there was Borodai, the citizen of Russia. And they had never met any of them. And then Turchynov asked me. I brought along Nestor Shufrych and we went there. It was the middle of May, right after the referendum on independence. Then we flew to Donetsk and Luhansk from Kyiv by plane. I called that I want to meet them. They screwed with my head for two-three days and I called to Moscow, complained and they properly commanded. I arrived there, Borodai came. We were in one of the restaurants of one Donetsk businessman, who lives in Kyiv now. He took out the Makarov pistols. We with Nestor observed it calmly. We did not feel danger. They said: we respect you. But we hate those, Kyiv authority, from whom you came. We will never return, Medvedchuk said. I listened to this tirade and calmly said: You did not want to meet with me? We didnt but we received a call. Who called you? And why did they call, if you say that they support you and you don want to Kyiv? You dont recognize Kyiv authority. And Medvedchuk came not to get to know whether you had breakfast or how you live here; Medvedchuk came from Mr. Turchynov, who is officially acting president of Ukraine, on truce issue, on agreements issue. So, they think differently. It backed them into a corner. And they started to talk, he added. As it is known, Medvedchuk was holding the negotiations with the representatives of Luhansk Peoples Republic and Donetsk Peoples Republic on searching of ways of peaceful settlement of Donbas Conflict since May 2014. The agreement on the beginning of the dialogue between the Trilateral Contact Group (OSCE, Ukraine, Russia) and Luhansk Peoples Republic and Donetsk Peoples Republic became the result of them. On June 23, 27, 2014, two rounds of consultations took place, which resulted in the agreement on the ceasefire regime. As we reported earlier, Viktor Medvedchuk, the politician and the head of 'Ukrainsky Vybir' (Ukrainian Choice) political party faces prosecution in Ukraine. Prosecutor General's Office has opened the case against him under two charges. The case materials will be handed over to the SBU, the State Security Service of Ukraine. Members of the European Parliament condemned the criminal proceeding against Viktor Medvedchuk, the representative of the "Opposition Platform - For Life" political party. Less than two months before Ukraines presidential election, two independent-minded officials are being forced out. On February 5, Kyivs Regional Administrative Court ruled that Detroit born physician Ulana Suprun can no longer serve as the acting minister of health. The court pointed to a regulation that limits an acting ministers term to one month. Suprun has held the post since 2016. On February 1, the supervisory board of Ukraines public broadcaster dismissed CEO Zurab Alasania two years before his contract was set to expire. Suprun has been praised as one of the leading reformers remaining in the cabinet and for championing health care reform, while Alasania received good marks as well. Last June, parliament canned outspoken and reform-minded Finance Minister Oleksandr Danylyuk. By most counts, theres only one reformer left in Ukraines cabinet. UkraineAlert asked a range of experts whats going on? Whats behind the sacking of Suprun and Alasania? Are the motives behind the sackings similar? Is the government trying to remove independent-minded people before the elections, or are there other motives? Taras Berezovets, CEO of Berta Communications, Founder of Free Crimea, and TV host of Pryamyi: The motivation behind the sackings is not the same. After Suprun was attacked, President Poroshenko and Prime Minister Groisman gave her their full support. Anti-reformist factions such as the Opposition Bloc, Batkivshchyna, and Radical Party and some MPs targeted Suprun for her determination to destroy old corruption schemes. But the attack had the opposite effect. Suprun received support from the governing coalition in parliament and is likely to become a minister. Supruns situation is an important reminder that reforms are not irreversible. The attack was possible because judicial reform is incomplete; there are a lot of corrupt judges still in the system. For Zurab Alasania, the biggest problem is the timing. The public broadcaster has very low ratings and his dismissal was a matter of budget spending. If there were reasons to fire him, doing so during the presidential campaign was not the right time. Michael Bociurkiw, global affairs analyst and a former spokesperson for the OSCE: This is another black eye for Ukraines image. The legal ban of Dr. Suprun and the sacking of Alasania will go down as one step forward, two steps backward for Ukraine. No minister has done more than Suprun to introduce reforms that have tangibly improved the lives of ordinary Ukrainians. At great risk to herself, Ministry of Health-led reformsalbeit controversialhave already eased the financial pain of seeking health care, cut out corruption and middlemen in such areas as drug procurement, and made health services more accessible and streamlined. The abrupt firing of Zurab Alasania has the unmistakable fingerprints of the dark side of the administration of President Poroshenko. If nothing else, it demonstrates their inability to allow freedom of speech and transparency at a broadcasting outlet that reaches well over 90 percent of Ukrainians. With Poroshenkos camp strengthening their hold on the public broadcaster, my fear now is that theyll drop such corruption watchdog programs as Schemes (). That, in itself, is a huge loss for a democratic Ukraine. Brian Bonner, chief editor, Kyiv Post: The ruling against Ulana Suprun exposes twin problems: the failure of judicial reform and the ongoing drive by corrupt and vested interests to remove genuine reformers. Since the Euromaidan Revolution, Ukraine has watched reformers get picked off, one by one, slowing or reversing positive changes, until now we see fewer and fewer remaining in government. While I don't know all the details of Zurab Alasania's dismissal, the justifications given so far violate the principle of editorial independence. The establishment of a well-financed, independent, and high-quality news operation on a public television station will be resisted and sabotaged by Ukraine's oligarchs, who still control the Ukrainian airwaves, or their backers in parliament. Oleksandr Danylyuk, former Finance Minister of Ukraine from 2016 to 2018: I dont think the sackings are really connected. Both of them are reform minded and the right people for Ukraine. Alasania was removed for trying to be too independent and not letting the public broadcaster be used by political forces during the election campaign. This was the next step after public funds for the public broadcaster were cut three years in a row. They deliberately cut his financing to make him more flexible and willing to negotiate. So when that didnt work, they just removed him. I think Ulana is being used. I think there is a political game happening. Someone wants to make political dividends around her situation. Potentially one candidate will try to use [the situation] during the political campaign. Overall, I think its much more complicated than just removing her. Removing her isnt a good result for anyone. Artificially creating a crisis and then saving her looks like a political game to me. Its a ridiculous situation. The countrys leadership is expressing support for her (which she deserves) but not calling for reform of the court. Thats the real problem. There are many similar judgments that were done by the same court. But there was much less public outrage. Andrew J. Futey, President of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America: The Ukrainian Congress Committee of America is deeply troubled by yesterdays ruling of the Regional Administrative Court in Kyiv, which bans Dr. Ulana Suprun from carrying out her duties as acting minister of health of Ukraine. Since the governments approval of Dr. Supruns health care reform package in late 2016, which reinforced the countrys overall reform agenda, the Ministry of Health has implemented a host of reforms that not only improve the quality of medical services but also address the entrenched problem of corruption in the medical field. UCCA recognizes the significant accomplishments of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine. We encourage Ukraine to continue down the path of reform, as exemplified by the work of Dr. Ulana Suprun, and not succumb to the political agenda of populist candidates and party leaders to stymie reform. We thank President Poroshenko, Prime Minister Groisman, and Speaker Parubiy for their strong support of Dr. Supruns leadership and reforms, and call upon the parliament of Ukraine to confirm her as minister of health. Sergii Vysotskyi, Member of Parliament, National Front: Lets divide these cases. Supruns case is the fight for money flows. Alasanias is the fight over control for the public broadcaster. Personally, Im not a fan of the policies that he made. But the timing and form were inappropriate. So the motives are different. The government is not the government. There is no such thing as a united government. There is no centralized program of removing such people from positions. Its just how the system works. You can fight it. Or you can make it your ally for keeping power. If you do so, the actors of the system will behave as they are used to. Poroshenko even protected Suprun publicly, which doesnt change the fact that some of the people close to him tried to fire Suprun. And he is the hostage of those people for now. Because he has no other allies and needs to lean on someone in order to keep his position. This is Poroshenkos great dilemma. Volodymyr Yermolenko, editor in chief at Ukraine World Group, senior expert at Internews Ukraine, and journalist at Hromadske.ua: I think sacking of Suprun and Alasania are different. The Suprun case primarily shows that Ukraine's judiciary system remains unreformed and that some courts voluntarily make illegitimate rulings. The complaint against Suprun came from the Radical Party, which is allegedly linked to oligarch Rinat Akhmetov, so one can suspect financial interests are at stake. The fact that Poroshenko and Prime Minister Groysman supported Suprun might show that at least they are not behind this court ruling. Suprun is one of the genuine reformers, and she did a lot to make the Ukrainian healthcare system function. In the case of Alasania, we witness a different phenomenon: the political class is dissatisfied that the public broadcaster under Alasania tried to distance itself from political interests. The public broadcasters supervisory board has representatives from political parties and civil society, but some civil society representatives also hiddenly represent interests of some political players. This explains why a large majority of the supervisory board (9 to 3) voted to fire Alasania. But the important thing is that the decision was made with substantial procedural violations, which will invite legal challenges. And it will test Ukraines judiciary again. Alasania can be criticized for slow managerial progress, for a lack of strategy, low ratings, and the public broadcasters lack of influence on Ukraines social and political agenda, but he is truly committed to making the public broadcaster independent. Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, Head of the Board of Transparency International-Ukraine: Ulana Suprun and Zurab Alasania are not the first independent professional representatives of the government who have been attacked. It is worth mentioning the former head of the National Bank Valery Gontareva, Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko, and Director of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau Artem Sytnik were under constant attack. Politicians of the old system, dependent on oligarchs, are attacking new politicians who are destroying oligarchic schemes. The president and political leaders, in isolation from these processes, support the silence of corrupt officials. And then are forced to justify their actions. Systemic reforms can change this: real judicial reform based on the selection principles of the Anticorruption Court, new electoral rules with more criminal responsibility for those who violate them and a competitive system with open party lists, and the privatization of state support. Unfortunately, there were few chances to put these changes into place before the elections. EU law should govern Russia's new gas pipeline to Germany, France has said, heaping doubt on the project Open source EU law should govern Russia's new gas pipeline to Germany, France has said, heaping doubt on the project. The Nord Stream 2 pipeline was meant to be monopolised by Russian energy firm Gazprom, according to original plans. But the European Commission has tabled a law that would break up Russia's model by imposing EU rules on the offshore structure in the Baltic Sea. "France intends to support the adoption of such a directive. Work is continuing with our partners, in particular with Germany, on possible changes to the [commission] text," French foreign ministry spokeswoman Agnes von der Muhll told press in Paris on Thursday (7 February). She spoke ahead of a vote in the EU Council on the Nord Stream 2 bill on Friday. Germany had counted on France, as well as Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Greece, and the Netherlands to block it. But the French U-turn would see Nord Stream 2 opponents, which include most eastern EU countries, Nordic states, and the UK, push it through. "I would find it irritating if [French] president [Emmanuel] Macron made common cause with Polish nationalists a few days after the friendship meeting in Aachen," Markus Pieper, a German MEP in chancellor Angela Merkel's CDU party, said after the French announcement. His reference to "Polish nationalists" came amid an EU clash with Poland's right-wing government on rule of law. Macron and Merkel recently met in the German town of Aachen to sign a friendship treaty. Merkel herself spoke more softly on Thursday. "Do we become dependent on Russia due to this second gas pipeline? I say 'No', if we diversify at the same time," she said while on a visit to Slovakia. EU rules Nord Stream 2 is already being built, with pipe-laying in the Gulf of Finland. But if the EU commission law gets through, Gazprom will have to sell Nord Stream 2 gas via an independent intermediary. It will also have to let competitors use the pipe, placing a legal bar on potential Russian cut-offs to EU clients. The new legal regime would add to uncertainty around the project, amid US threats of sanctions on EU firms that promised to co-fund it Russia itself walked away from a previous pipeline to Bulgaria, called South Stream, four years ago after the EU imposed similar legal conditions. France did not publicly justify its decision on Thursday. But a French government source had earlier told German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung that Paris might do it due to "strategic problems" with Russia. "We do not want to increase dependence on Russia and thereby harm the interests of EU countries such as Poland and Slovakia," the French source said. Strategic problems Nord Stream 2 opponents fear it will help Russia to "blackmail" eastern EU countries such as Poland with gas cut-offs. They also say it will remove barriers to further Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine by making Ukraine's EU gas transit pipelines obsolete. "Nord Stream 2 would further increase Europe's vulnerability to Russian blackmail in the energy sector," the US ambassadors to Denmark, Germany, and to the EU wrote in an op-ed published by German broadcaster Deutsche Welle on Thursday. "Cancelling the project would send a clear signal that Moscow cannot get away unscathed with its aggression against neighbouring states [Ukraine], and its meddling in our democracies," they added, referring to accusations that Russia had attacked US and French and German elections in recent years. A bipartisan group of US senators tabled a resolution in Washington the same day "calling on European governments to cancel the Nord Stream 2 pipeline". The EU commission and Berlin had in the past jointly urged the US to stay out of Europe's energy policy, despite the commission's own concerns on Nord Stream 2. Self isolation? But US thinking on the pipeline is shared by senior figures in Merkel's party despite the power of the Russo-German business lobby in Berlin. "That France places the good of European unity over solidarity with Germany is correct," Norbert Roettgen, the head of the foreign affairs committee in the German parliament, said on Thursday. "It's not the fault of the French that we've isolated ourselves with Nord Stream 2 at the expense of the security concerns of other Europeans," the MP, from Merkel's CDU party, said. Read the original text at EUobserver. Why dont Poroshenko or Groysman name those enemies of Ulyana Suprun, who declared her war and won it? Perhaps, a situation, when the whole Ukrainian society is sharply divided and takes one of the two sides of the conflict is quite rare. The latest example was the decision of the Kyiv District Court, which has suspended Ulyana Suprun from exercising the power of Ukraines Health Minister. The country's top leadership President Poroshenko, PM Volodymyr Groysman, and Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada Andriy Parubiy has clearly expressed its support. Actually, there is nothing surprising in this position: the removal and dismissal of Suprun is actual recognition of the failure of healthcare reform. The Cabinet of Ministers has even issued an official statement, presenting Suprun a victim of the war between her as the corrupted officials from Ukraines healthcare sphere. Speaking about the fighting corruption in the Healthcare Ministry, it is difficult to assess Supruns contribution. Unless, of course, we consider a powerful blow to the statements about red caviar. Neither the president, nor the prime minister, nor the parliamentary speaker has explained the success of the medical reform, but still, there are several markers that allow us to make a judgment about this. At the same time, this might give an answer to the question: would the doctors support their minister? One of the most frequently used arguments for the healthcare reform, voiced by the Ministry of Health, was the salary increase for the doctors. In particular, the "family doctors" were promised almost 1,250 USD per month (under a range of conditions). The real situation was completely different. Back in January, Kyiv emergency medical care employee, Anna Ruban, posted data on the salaries of healthcare workers: even the doctors of the highest qualification received only 155 USD monthly. After a couple of days, the post was deleted, giving rise to doubts about the success of the healthcare reform. The average salary of physicians is not too high, and you can easily check this by going to the website of Ukraines State Statistics Service. According to it, in December the average salary of the healthcare workers amounted to 210 USD, and from the beginning of the year, it has increased by 17.6%. The average salary in Ukraine was 315 USD in December, while its growth was 24.8%. In addition, low wages cannot deal with another challenge of the domestic healthcare system the lack of personnel. It was assumed that the reform would lead to an increase in wages and the elimination of personnel shortages. Of course, one year is too short a period to eliminate the shortage that has been growing over the years, but the State Statistics Service again clearly indicates that the outflow of medical personnel is increasing. So, in January-September 2018, 90,100 new employees have come to the medical institutions, and 116,700 have left. Audit of Chamber of Ukraine has revealed that the project on improving health care in Ukraines eight regions was implemented by 24%! Back in 2015, Ukraine has borrowed 215 million USD from the International Development and Reconstruction Bank (IBRD) until 2020. However, as the audit showed, only 28% of the total amount reached the local budgets and accounts of healthcare institutions, and the remaining funds remained on the accounts of the IBRD. But even those funds that have reached the regions were not fully used: 7,3 million USD out of almost 53 million USD remain unencumbered. So, the regional project on improving the healthcare system at the expense of an international loan has been failed, the salaries of medical employees are still low, and the outflow of personnel continues. Show me the success of Ukraines new healthcare system, for which Mrs. Suprun is so lauded? Why the president, the prime minister or the speaker do not voice this success? Or at least why dont they name those enemies of Ulyana Suprun, who declared her war and won it? Read the original text at 112.ua. This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or 112.International and its owners. The National Anti-Corruption Bureau said that the company deliberately delayed the completion of investigative actions NABU searches Agrarian Fund, Feb 8, 2019 NABU The National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) holds searches at the PJSC Agrarian Fund of Ukraine in case involving theft by the company's leaders of around 9 million dollars during the purchase of fertilizers. This was stated in the press service of the bureau. "NABU detectives carry out searches at PJSC Agrarian Fund on February 7-8. Investigative action is authorized and takes place within the framework of a pre-trial investigation in a criminal proceeding on the fact that officials of PJSC Agrarian Fund have misused more than around 9 million dollars on purchase, storage and packaging of fertilizers in 2017-2018, "the report said. It is noted that NABU addressed the Agrarian Fund with the requirement to provide temporary access to the documents necessary for investigation. However, Agrarian Fund officials refused to comply with the court's decision and did not provide documents, therefore, to conduct an objective and comprehensive investigation, detectives have to seize them forcefully. It is reported that the company deliberately delayed the completion of the investigative action. Now because of the irresponsibility of the leadership of the Agrarian Fund, about a hundred of its employees are in the open air: the entrance to the building is prohibited until the completion of the investigative action, as the company management were repeatedly warned beforehand. However, employees were not warned about it, and now people are waiting in the cold, the message says. The bureau did not say when the searches would be over. As it was reported earlier, Ukraines National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) opened a criminal proceeding upon a possible organization of illegal persecution of the former First Deputy of the Prosecutor General Renat Kuzmin by Yuriy Lutsenko, the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, and his Deputy Yuriy Stolyarshuk. In his appeal, Kuzmin noted that Cherkasy Court found the decision to put him on a wanted list and suspend the investigation of this case illegal. One enemy soldier was killed, another three wounded Open source On Thursday, February 7, Russian mercenaries attacked Ukrainian positions in Donbas six times. None of the servicemen of the government troops were wounded or killed in action. The enemy used Minsk-banned 120 mm and 82 mm mortars to shell Troitske. In Vodyane, the militants opened fire from grenade launchers, heavy machineguns and small arms. Rocket-propelled grenades hit the outposts near Pyshchevyk. In Krymske, the occupants fired automatic grenade launchers and small arms. The Ukrainian military returned fire to suppress the enemy activity. The intelligence reported that one enemy soldier was killed, and another three were wounded in action. The militants have not opened fire since the beginning of the day. Earlier, Ukraine's State Border Guard reported that the servicemen of the Joint Forces and the boat crews of the Ukrainian Navy held drills in the Sea of Azov on the response to the hostile attack from the sea. According to the legend of the drills, a vessel-violator performed the dangerous maneuvers at high speed and tried to approach the coast for the assumed boarding of the diversion group. The crews successfully repelled the aggressive act. Attacks against journalists, civil society activists, and members of minority groups are frequent and often go unpunished; corruption remains endemic, and initiatives to combat it are only partially implemented freedom of speech gazprom.ru World 2019 report, released by Freedom House on February 4, evaluates the state of freedom in 195 countries and 14 territories during 2018. What is Ukraines place on the map of world democracy? In 2018, Freedom in the World recorded the 13th consecutive year of decline in global freedom. The reversal has spanned a variety of countries in every region, from long-standing democracies like the United States to consolidated authoritarian regimes like China and Russia. The overall losses are still shallow compared with the gains of the late 20th century, but the pattern is consistent and ominous. Democracy is in retreat, says the report. Let's try to examine Freedom in the World 2019 report in more detail. What is Freedom House and why do we need its report There are quite a few international NGOs with a long history that support and study the state of the world democracy, political freedoms and respect for basic human rights on all continents. Freedom House is one of them. It was founded in New York on October 31, 1941, by the wife of the 32nd American Democrat President Franklin Roosevelt Eleanor, as well as his ardent critic of Republican Wendell Willkie. Together, they called on representatives of the main political forces, intellectuals, and businessmen not to stand aside and intervene in the course of the Second World War. Open source They have recruited a sufficient number of supporters into its ranks; Freedom House has got involved in the fight against the threat of the spread of the totalitarian world, in particular, National Socialism and Communism. After the end of World War II, she supported the creation of NATO and the implementation of the Marshall Plan to restore post-war Europe, and in the 70s began active campaigns to promote democracy and protect human rights and freedoms in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. General overview of the situation with freedom in the world In states that were already authoritarian, earning Not Free designations from Freedom House, governments have increasingly shed the thin facade of democratic practice that they established in previous decades when international incentives and pressure for reform were stronger. More authoritarian powers are now banning opposition groups or jailing their leaders, dispensing with term limits, and tightening the screws on any independent media that remain. Meanwhile, many countries that democratized after the end of the Cold War have regressed in the face of rampant corruption, antiliberal populist movements, and breakdowns in the rule of law. Most troublingly, even long-standing democracies have been shaken by populist political forces that reject basic principles like the separation of powers and target minorities for discriminatory treatment. Surprising improvements in individual countriesincluding Malaysia, Armenia, Ethiopia, Angola, and Ecuadorshow that democracy has enduring appeal as a means of holding leaders accountable and creating the conditions for a better life. Even in the countries of Europe and North America where democratic institutions are under pressure, dynamic civic movements for justice and inclusion continue to build on the achievements of their predecessors, expanding the scope of what citizens can and should expect from democracy. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the Soviet Unions collapse in 1991 cleared the way for the formation or restoration of liberal democratic institutions not only in Eastern Europe, but also in the Americas, sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia. Between 1988 and 2005, the percentage of countries ranked Not Free in Freedom in the World dropped by almost 14 points (from 37 to 23 percent), while the share of Free countries grew (from 36 to 46 percent). This surge of progress has now begun to roll back. Between 2005 and 2018, the share of Not Free countries rose to 26 percent, while the share of Free countries declined to 44 percent. 2019 world freedom rating All of the above is reflected in the ranking of world democracy. The level of democracy in the studied countries is estimated from 1 to 7 points, where 1 point is the highest figure and 7 points the lowest one. Thus, states that received an average of 1 to 2.5 points are considered free, from 3 to 5 points are partially free, and from 5.5 to 7 points are not free. In particular, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Canada, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Australia, Uruguay, and Ireland are in the top ten. The top ten are anti-democratic countries are Syria, Tibet, Eritrea, Turkmenistan, South Sudan, North Korea, Western Sahara, Equatorial Guinea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Somalia. The top ten partially democratic are Seychelles, Hungary, Albania, Dominican Republic, Serbia, Bolivia, Colombia, Montenegro, Sierra Leone, and Paraguay. Ukraine on the map of the world democracy Ukraine has enacted a number of positive reforms since the protest-driven ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014. However, corruption remains endemic, and initiatives to combat it are only partially implemented. Attacks against journalists, civil society activists, and members of minority groups are frequent and often go unpunished. Russia occupies the autonomous Ukrainian region of Crimea, which it invaded in the aftermath of Yanukovychs ouster, and its military supports armed separatists in the eastern Donbas area, where skirmishes continue to endanger civilians, the report says. Key Developments in 2018: Rights groups documented more than 50 attacks on activists and human rights defenders in the first nine months of the year. There were also a number of severe assaults by nationalist groups against the Romany minority. Investigations into these incidents generally took place only after significant pressure from civil society. Lawmakers and President Petro Poroshenko approved legislation to establish a long-awaited anticorruption court. However, domestic and international observers expressed concerns about the selection process for the 39 judges who would sit on the court. Intermittent fighting continued in Donbas. The United Nations reported that over 3,000 civilians have been killed since the outbreak of the conflict in 2014. In November, martial law was imposed in 10 Ukrainian regions for 30 days after Russian forces captured 24 Ukrainian sailors near Crimea. Provisions of the martial law decree allowed restrictions on free speech and assembly, but these were not invoked in practice. Freedom House has elaborated Recommendations for Democracies Open source Respect human rights at home; Invest in civic education; Strengthen laws that guard against foreign influence over government officials; Invest in elections infrastructure to guard against foreign interference in balloting; Require social media companies to report foreign efforts to spread online disinformation and propaganda. Defending and Expanding Democracy around the World Invest in alliances with other democracies, and in multilateral institutions; Encourage and protect journalists and freedom of the press; Be prepared to promptly challenge preelection rights abuses; Impose targeted sanctions on individuals and entities involved in human rights abuses and acts of corruption; Emphasize democracy-strengthening programs in foreign assistance; Focus on countries at critical junctures. Read the original text at 112.ua. Jessica Pegula, a treia favorita, invinsa in optimi la Bad Homburg (WTA) Jucatoarea americana de tenis Jessica Pegula, a treia favorita, a fost invinsa de Katerina Siniakova (Cehia), cu 6-3, 5-7, 6-4, marti, in optimile de finala ale turneului WTA pe iarba de la Bad Homburg (Germania), dotat cu premii totale de 189.708 [citeste mai departe] Posted Thursday, February 7, 2019 7:05 am Students reached the midway point of the school year last week with many wonderful achievement points to celebrate. We are most excited for the preliminary results of our elementary math adoption. Students have shown strong growth from fall to winter and teachers are working so hard on getting students to demonstrate their knowledge of math. This year we put strong emphasis on the power of strong attendance. We know the devastating impact that poor attendance has on students. The results have been outstanding. Our average daily attendance has grown by 2 percent, which is significant. The other data we track measures chronic absenteeism, or the percent of students who miss more than 10 percent of the school year. During first semester, the Yelm Cinemas partnered to recognize students with strong attendance. More than 700 students had perfect attendance and earned a free movie. An additional 2,200 had two or fewer absences. One of the strongest indicators of success after graduation is attending school kindergarten through 12th grade over 90 percent of the time. We also have to cel-ebrate successes within our performing arts programs. The first half of the year included an outstanding play, Almost Maine, and there were so many strong concerts throughout the district. We also invite you to the spring musical, Urinetown which will also be at Yelm High School, Feb. 21-24. I hope everyone will attend our district choral festival on March 4 or 5 at Yelm High School. This event showcases our entire district choir program. It is a great opportunity to see the growth students make from elementary to middle to high school. I would be remiss without mentioning the annual Dollars for Scholars Auction on March 2 at Yelm High School starting at 4 p.m. It is a truly fun event that raises incredible amounts of money for student scholarships. I cannot imagine another community that comes together so strongly to support its graduates. Mill Pond Elementary was recently notified that it was accepted into the No Excuses University Network of Schools. Mill Pond joins Lackamas, McKenna and Yelm Middle School in the network. It is an outstanding tribute to the work those schools have done to build systems of success. We are really proud of our district and have so many great sources of celebration. Please stay informed with all the wonderful things happening in the district through our website, electronic newsletters and Facebook page. Brian Wharton is superintendent for Yelm Community Schools. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 05:19:36|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close by Wang Zichen BRUSSELS, Feb. 7 (Xinhua) -- In one of the strongest public remarks ever, a senior representative of China's tech company Huawei on Thursday night rebutted fear-mongering against the company. In a ballroom in Brussels packed with well over 100 guests, mostly Europeans, Huawei's envoy to the European Union institutions launched into a robust defense of the Chinese technology giant. "Recently, Huawei has been under constant attack by some countries and politicians. We are shocked, or sometimes feel amused, by those ungrounded and senseless allegations," said Abraham Liu, Huawei's vice president for the European region and chief representative to the EU institutions. "For example, yesterday, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, Mr. (Gordon) Sondland, said (that) someone in Beijing (could) remotely run a certain car off the road on 5G network and kill the person that's in it. This is an insult to people's intelligence, let alone the technological experts across the world," Liu said. "Excluding Huawei from the market doesn't mean the network is safe. For example, since Huawei's equipment is not used in the U.S. networks, is the U.S. having the most secure network? The answer is no," Liu said. The company has an excellent cyber security record, Liu said, with its devices being approved by strict reviews by multiple regulators and operators. Huawei's partners in Europe include big-name telecoms operators such as Deutsche Telekom, British Telecom, Vodafone, Orange, Proximus and others. These partners "have publicly endorsed their trust in Huawei. I applaud these sensible approaches," Liu said. "Cyber security should remain a technical issue, instead of an ideological issue. Because technical issues can always be resolved through the right solutions, while an ideological issue can not," he said. Certain Western governments and media outlets have consistently cast doubt over Huawei's ownership and governance. Liu made it crystal clear that "Huawei is a 100 percent employee-owned private enterprise," adding that "if we want to pursue our commercial success, we must follow our own business ethics. We have never harmed the interests of any customer or nation." Huawei has more than 12,000 employees in Europe, over 70 percent of whom are hired locally, Liu said. In 2018, the company procured goods and services worth 6.3 billion U.S. dollars from Europe. "For Huawei, Europe has become our second home," he said, adding that "our success is Europe's success. Our loss would be Europe's loss." "We are always willing to accept the supervision and suggestions of all European governments, customers and partners. Although Huawei has never had any serious cyber security incidents in the past, there is still room for improvement with our software engineering capabilities for example," Liu said. Huawei has put forward an enhancement program to strengthen software engineering which will allocate 2 billion U.S. dollars within the five coming years. In addition, the company will open a cyber security center in Brussels next month. Huawei hopes to demonstrate a more transparent way that "we are part of the solution, not part of the problem," Liu said. "In the past 18 years, Huawei has been bringing the latest technologies, investment, research and development, partnership as well as healthy competition to Europe," he said. "There is a famous saying that 'I never knew an early-rising, hardworking, prudent, and strictly honest man who complained of bad luck.' In Huawei, we believe the same. Complaints will not solve the issue. By working closely with our European partners, we are creating a better future for all of us," Liu said at the end of his speech, to a round of applause from the audience. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-09 06:49:29|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close DUBLIN, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- British Prime Minister Theresa May arrived here on Friday night for talks with her Irish counterpart Leo Varadkar, local media RTE reported. According to the report, May arrived at Farmleigh House, an official Irish state guest house in the western part of Dublin, at about 8:30 p.m. local time where she will hold a two-hour talk with Varadkar over a private dinner. There will be no joint press conference after their meeting, noted the report. Prior to May's arrival, local media quoted Varadkar as saying that he will not be negotiating Brexit when he meets with May. During a visit to Belfast, capital of Britain's Northern Ireland, for meetings with all the major political parties there earlier in the day, Varadkar said the actual negotiations "can only be between the European Union and the United Kingdom" though the dinner would present an opportunity to share perspectives on Brexit. But local media quoted sources from Downing Street as saying that during the Dublin meeting May "would be emphasizing what we are looking for, seeking the legally binding changes to the Withdrawal Agreement that Parliament said it needs to approve the deal." Earlier in the day, Britain's Attorney General Geoffrey Cox also arrived in Dublin for talks with his Irish counterpart Seamus Woulfe, according to local media reports. Cox intended to seek a time limit on the backstop during the talks whereas the Irish government insisted that the backstop can not be time limited if it is to provide an effective "insurance policy" against the return of a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland after Brexit, said local media. Earlier last month, the House of Commons or the lower house of the British parliament voted down May's Brexit deal with the EU, demanding her to renegotiate with the latter. But the EU has clearly said that it will not reopen negotiations with Britain over the Withdrawal Agreement reached between the two sides. The backstop, a temporary arrangement to avoid a hard border or physical infrastructure such as customs houses and checkpoints along the Ireland-Northern Ireland border after Brexit, has become a main stumbling block to an agreement between the EU and Britain. The EU insists that the backstop should remain in place until and unless a better solution is found to avoid a hard border after Brexit whereas most of the members of the British parliament are afraid that the backstop could tie Britain to the EU rules indefinitely through the backstop without a time limit. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-09 06:44:29|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close BRUSSELS, Feb. 8 (Xinhua)-- Belgium's Federal Minister for Agriculture Denis Ducarme announced on Friday that the country's pig farming sector is now in crisis due to the outbreak of African swine fever. Recognising that the pig farming sector is in crisis will allow the sector to obtain a reduction of the temporary social contributions, an exemption from the social contributions or a postponement of one year of payment of these contributions. After a meeting with the agricultural trade unions, the minister also signed, in agreement with the Federal Agency for the Safety of the Food Chain (FASFC) and the European authorities, a ministerial order softening the rules on the transport of pigs, which will reduce the costs affecting farmers. Two cases of African swine fever were detected in mid-September in 2018 in wild boars found dead in Wallonia in the province of Luxembourg, south of Belgium. Field-monitoring measures have been well implemented, and the 63,000 hectares defined after the outbreak of an African swine fever epidemic in the southern part of the province of Luxembourg are still in force. A new vigilance zone of 28,000 ha has been created since last November. The Walloon Minister of Agriculture, Rene Collin, said that by Feb. 1 this year, 406 boars have been tested positive for African swine fever virus and 1,229 animals have been slaughtered, of which just over 1,000 were culled in the infected perimeter. African swine fever is of no danger to humans, but deadly to the pig farming sector, an area that includes more than 4,000 pig farms and represents more than 15,000 jobs. The annual turnover of the sector amounts to 1.5 billion euros. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-09 06:14:20|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close WASHINGTON, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump will meet with Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz in the White House on Feb. 20, the White House said Tuesday in a statement. Trump and Kurz, Europe's youngest head of government look forward to revitalizing the bilateral relationship, and exploring new avenues for transatlantic cooperation, according to the statement. The statement also said that Washington and Vienna look to address both global conflicts and those in the European neighborhood, promote economic prosperity, and strengthen energy security. Despite robust economic relations between the two countries, the central European country did not share U.S. recent unilateral diplomatic moves, such as U.S. withdrawal from Iran Nuclear Deal last May and the suspension of its compliance of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty early this month. Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl said last Friday that the U.S. decision to withdraw from the INF Treaty was regrettable, urging Washington and Moscow to work harder to preserve the treaty. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-09 05:49:15|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close ADDIS ABABA, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- The UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) on Friday urged African countries to embark on digital revolution so as to transform the continent's current status as "takers of technology." The call was made by ECA's Executive Secretary, Vera Songwe, as she called for concerted efforts toward improving the provision of digital identification (ID), digital trade and digital economy in Africa. "Africa should move from being takers of technology and move towards being creators and developers. That way we can grow, create jobs and reduce poverty," Songwe said. "All we have to ensure is that our governance and policies work well," she said, adding that a diversified education was the route to a diversified African economy. According to Songwe, "there's a lot Africa can do" to fully maximize Africa's opportunities in digital ID, digital trade and digital economy. Songwe's comments came following ECA's partnership with Chinese digital financial giant Ant Financial in August last year to promote digital financial inclusion in the African continent. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-09 05:49:14|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close TRIPOLI, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- Libyan security on Friday arrested a senior terrorist leader of the pro-Qaeda Shura Council of Mujahideen of Darna in the city of Misurata, some 250 km east of the capital Tripoli. "A special security force of Misurata arrested Abdulgader Abdussalam Azzuz, a Libyan citizen and a leader of the terrorist Shura Council of Mujahideen of Darna," a source in the Interior Ministry told Xinhua. "The arrest operation was carried out after information was received about Azzuz's presence in a farm in the outskirts of Misurata," the source said. "Azzuz has been identified and arrested as he is wanted by the Attorney General for direct involvement in dozens of terrorist operations," the source added. Libyan security has been monitoring 53-year-old Azzuz amid conflicting reports about his fate since 2018. Azzuz, the Mufti of the Shura Council, was imprisoned for 14 years during the former regime rule before he was released in 2008. The eastern-based army announced taking over the entire city of Darna in June 2018 and defeating the Shura Council, after besieging the city for four years. However, the army still engages in clashes with remnants of the militants in central Darna. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-09 05:39:12|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close OTTAWA, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- A Canadian man who gunned down six people in a mosque in Quebec City in 2017 was sentenced to life in prison with no parole for 40 years, CTV reported on Friday. Alexandre Bissonnette, 29, pleaded guilty in March last year to six counts of first-degree murder and six of attempted murder. He walked into the mosque at the Islamic Cultural Centre during evening prayers on Jan. 29, 2017 and opened fire. Quebec Superior Court Justice Francois Huot delivered the ruling Friday in a packed Quebec courtroom. He called the shooting attack premeditated, gratuitous and insidious. The judge told Bissonnette, wearing a blue blazer and white shirt, to leave the prisoners' box and stand in front of him as he read the ruling. The judge said the day of the murders "will forever be written in blood in the history of this city, this province, this country." Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-09 05:34:11|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras (1st R) addresses Greek lawmakers on the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia's (FYROM) NATO accession protocol, in Athens, Greece, on Feb. 8, 2019. Greek parliament approved on Friday the protocol on the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia's (FYROM) accession to North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) under its new name "Republic of North Macedonia." (Xinhua/Marios Lolos) ATHENS, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- Greek parliament approved on Friday the protocol on the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia's (FYROM) accession to North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) under its new name "Republic of North Macedonia." A total of 153 lawmakers voted in favor and 140 against, with one abstention during the roll-call vote broadcast live on the parliament's television "Vouli" (Parliament). Of the 300 members of the assembly, 294 deputies participated in the voting procedure. The ratification by the Greek MPs of the protocol signed by permanent representatives of NATO member states earlier this week at the alliance's headquarters in Brussels, opens the way for Greece's northern neighbour to start using its new name. Friday's vote was one of the final key steps after the approval by the two parliaments this January of the historic agreement between Athens and Skopje to resolve a 28-year dispute over the use of the name Macedonia. "Once again I would like to welcome from this floor North Macedonia, a friendly country for Greece who should be an ally and not against our efforts to boost security, stability and cooperation in the wider region," Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said addressing the plenary shortly before the vote. Tsipras said the approval of the protocol by Greek MPs closes the circle of Greece's obligations under the agreement and the ball is now in Skopje's court. The neighboring state must now formally request all countries to start using the name "Republic of North Macedonia" from now on, he noted. Since 1991, when FYROM declared independence from Yugoslavia choosing the name Macedonia, Athens has been protesting, fearing that the new state implied claims on Greek territory, as a province in northern Greece has the same name. The historic Prespes agreement signed last summer aimed to put an end to the longstanding row and pave the way for the small Balkan country's accession to NATO and the European Union. Delivering a speech before the vote on Friday, main opposition New Democracy party leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis reiterated the position of critics of the deal that it is harmful for Greece's national interests. "We remain committed to our declared position. Today we vote against the accession protocol, because it seals a national defeat at Prespes," he said. His party supported the idea of FYROM joining NATO and EU, but under a different name, he added. Opponents of the historic agreement in Greece believe that the danger of irredentism is not over, as the agreement recognizes Macedonian language and identity for the citizens of the neighboring state, as Mitsotakis noted. Seven out of ten Greeks oppose the deal, according to all recent opinion surveys. As FYROM's accession to NATO is regarded as a done deal, the conservative leader repeated a warning he had made a few days ago at the assembly. Should he be elected prime minister in the general elections to be held in Greece later this year, he will exercise the right of veto during the neighboring country's accession process to the EU. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-09 04:28:56|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close OTTAWA, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- Canadian serial killer Bruce McArthur was sentenced in a trial on Friday to life in prison for murdering eight men from Toronto's gay community, and will not be eligible for parole for 25 years, according to CTV. McArthur, 67, who pleaded guilty to eight first-degree murders between 2010 and 2017, was arrested in January 2018 by Toronto police. At a two-day sentencing hearing, Ontario Superior Court Justice John McMahon noted the gruesome nature of McArthur's crimes but he cited McArthur's guilty plea and his age as reasons for his sentencing decision. McArthur, a 67-year-old landscaper, pleaded guilty last week for killing eight men in Toronto between 2010 and 2017. Most of the killed, as well as McArthur himself, had deep ties to Toronto's LGBTQ community. Most victims were immigrants and some lived parts of their life in secret because of their sexual orientation. McArthur sexually assaulted and forcibly confined many of his victims before murdering them. He dismembered all his victims and buried most of their remains in large planter pots at a home in midtown Toronto where he stored his landscaping equipment. One man's remains were found in a garbage bin buried in a nearby ravine. McMahon said he had no doubt that McArthur would have continued to kill if he weren't arrested by police last year. In Canada, first-degree murder leads to automatic life sentence with no parole for 25 years. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-09 04:18:54|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close RABAT, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- The Moroccan Prime Minister Saad Eddine El Othmani discussed here on Friday with Croatian Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Marija Pejcinovic Buric to strengthen bilateral ties. During their talks, the two officials hailed the friendly relations of the two sides and the longstanding cultural ties between the two peoples, according to a statement from the prime minister's office. The two countries also reached a series of cooperation agreements in several fields, including health, tourism, training and defense. El Othmani said the visit of the representatives of Croatian business leaders among Buric's delegation will offer a precious opportunity for important investment and partnership possibilities provided by the Moroccan economy. The two sides also discussed several regional and international issues of common interest, including migration and the fight against extremism and terrorism. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-09 03:43:45|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close Palestinian protesters clash with Israeli troops on the Gaza-Israel border, east of Gaza City, on Feb. 8, 2019. At least two Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded on Friday afternoon by Israeli soldiers' gunfire during clashes with hundreds of Palestinian demonstrators in eastern Gaza Strip, close to the border with Israel, medics said. (Xinhua/Yasser Qudih) GAZA, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- At least two Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded on Friday afternoon by Israeli soldiers' gunfire during clashes with hundreds of Palestinian demonstrators in eastern Gaza Strip, close to the border with Israel, medics said. Ashraf al-Qedra, health ministry spokesman in Gaza, told reporters that Hamza Ishteiwi, 18 years old, was shot dead by Israeli soldiers' gunfire in eastern Gaza. Al-Qedra said earlier Friday that Hassan Shalabi, 14 years old, was killed by Israeli soldiers' gunfire east of the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, also close to the border with Israel. He noted that dozens were injured in eastern Gaza, including 17 shot by live Israeli soldiers' gunshots, adding that they were referred to hospitals all over Gaza while the others were treated by paramedics in the field. Hundreds of Palestinian demonstrators arrived on Friday afternoon in eastern Gaza Strip to join the 46th rallies, part of a weekly anti-Israel protests, better known as the "Great March of Return", which started late last March. The eyewitnesses said that the demonstrators waved Palestinian flags, chanted anti-Israel slogans and threw stones at the soldiers stationed at the border between eastern Gaza Strip and Israel. In return, the soldiers fired dozens of tear gas canisters at the demonstrators, who suffered suffocation after inhaling the tear gas, according to field paramedics, adding that the soldiers opened fire at demonstrators who approached the fence of the border. Since last March, the Israeli soldiers have shot and killed more than 250 Palestinians and wounded 26,000 others, most of them injured by live ammunition, according to Gaza Health Ministry's figures. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-09 03:33:43|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close Matthew Whitaker, acting U.S. attorney general, testifies before U.S. House Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C., the United States, on Feb. 8, 2019. Matthew Whitaker said Friday that he has not interfered with the ongoing Russia investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller. (Xinhua/Liu Jie) WASHINGTON, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- Matthew Whitaker, acting U.S. attorney general, said Friday that he has not interfered with the ongoing Russia investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller. "There has been no event, no decision that has required me to take any action," Whitaker told the House Judiciary Committee Friday morning. "I have not interfered in any way with the special counsel's investigation." He also confirmed he has been briefed on the wide-ranging inquiry but refused to talk in details, only insisting that he has not talked to President Donald Trump or senior White House officials about it. Whitaker is directly overseeing the Mueller-led investigation, which has focused on possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow during the 2016 U.S. presidential elections and whether the president obstructed justice, among other things. Seen as a close ally to Trump, Whitaker has been questioned over his past criticism of the Russia probe and his refusal to step aside despite advice from the Justice Department's ethics officials. Trump tabbed Whitaker to lead the agency on a temporary basis after former Attorney General Jeff Sessions was ousted immediately after the midterm elections in November. The Democrat-led House panel was holding the hearing over Whitaker's oversight of the probe, his contacts with White House related to it and the firing of Sessions. "Mr. Whitaker, like everyone else at the Department of Justice, you are entitled to your political opinions," House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler said at Friday's hearing. "But when career officials at the department recommended that you take steps to mitigate your apparent conflicts of interest, Mr. Whitaker -- when they told you that your public criticism of the special counsel was bad for the department and bad for the administration of justice, you ignored them," the New York Democrat added. Whitaker defended by saying, "We have followed the special counsel's regulations to a T." The hearing was thrown into uncertainty after Democrats threatened to subpoena Whitaker, who had previously agreed to testify. The acting attorney general warned that he wouldn't show up unless lawmakers dropped the ultimatum he described as "political theater," before reaching an agreement with Nadler Thursday to allow the hearing to occur as planned. Doug Collins, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee said Friday the hearing with Whitaker is a "dog and pony show." The Georgia Republican added the hearing was pointless because the nomination of William Barr, Trump's official pick for attorney general, is expected to be confirmed in a vote that could come as early as next week. Collins ended his remarks with a motion to adjourn the hearing. That motion was later defeated. Whitaker said late last month that Mueller's investigation is "close to being completed," although there has been no confirmation of this from the special counsel's office. Trump has repeatedly blasted inquiry and said there was "no collusion" between his campaign and Russia. Moscow has denied any meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-09 03:08:40|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close BAGHDAD, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- French Defense Minister Florence Parly arrived Friday in Iraq's capital Baghdad on a surprise and unannounced visit to discuss bilateral ties and the enhancement of Iraqi military capabilities, according to an official presidential statement. Parly was received by Iraq's President Barham Salih in Peace Palace. "Iraq wants to establish advanced and expanded relations with France in various fields. We firmly believe that the two countries can play an important and influential role in many regional and international issues," the statement quoted Salih as saying. The president emphasized the importance of France's contribution to strengthen the Iraqi military capabilities at the level of armament and training, praising France's vital role in the international coalition against terrorism and its support for Iraq in defeating the terrorist organization and liberating all its cities. He pointed out that expanding the horizons of cooperation with the EU countries is a priority in the future, as Iraq is an important link connecting several countries to Europe. For her part, the French minister renewed her country's support for the stability of Iraq and its readiness to provide support for the Iraqi security forces. The statement said the two sides discussed the latest regional and international developments. This is the second visit by a senior French official to Iraq in less than a month, which reflects the development and success of bilateral relations between the two sides. French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian visited Iraq on Jan. 14 and said his country had earmarked a one-billion-euro loan to help Iraq with reconstruction and achieving stabilization. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-09 01:58:32|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close Estonian Prime Minister Juri Ratas (R) shakes hands with his Latvian counterpart Krisjanis Karins after a joint press conference in Tallinn, capital of Estonia, on Feb. 8, 2019. Estonian Prime Minister Juri Ratas held a meeting here on Friday with his Latvian counterpart Krisjanis Karins, focusing on bilateral relations, EU-related issues, security and transatlantic cooperation. (Xinhua/Guo Chunju) TALLINN, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- Estonian Prime Minister Juri Ratas held a meeting here on Friday with his Latvian counterpart, Krisjanis Karins, focusing on bilateral relations, EU-related issues, security and transatlantic cooperation. Speaking at a joint press conference at Stenbock House, the seat of the Estonian government, Ratas said that neighboring Latvia is "a very important country for us," highlighting their common history and strong bilateral ties. "Latvia is an important investment destination and trading partner for our companies," he noted. During their meeting earlier, the two prime ministers also discussed strengthened cooperation on security and defence matters. The three Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) increased their defense spending to 2 percent of GDP in 2018, Ratas said. Speaking with one voice is crucial to ensure that the Connecting Europe Facility fully supports the further development of the Rail Baltica project, they said, welcoming Finland's decision to join the project that would link Tallinn with Warsaw in Poland. Krisjanis said that cooperation between the two countries was "fantastic." Latvian companies make significant investments in Estonia, and Latvia welcomes Estonian investment, he said, vowing to keep bilateral ties strong. On Brexit, Krisjanis said that Latvia and Estonia agree with the EU's position, adding that the Baltic states will maintain very close and strong ties with Britain no matter how Brexit plays out. Britain is "an extremely strong and important strategic partner," he said. The prime ministers also addressed the synchronization of their respective countries' power networks with those of continental Europe. This project should be completed by 2025, the Estonian prime minister said. Estonia is the first foreign country Krisjanis has visited since he took office on Jan. 23. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-09 01:38:26|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close HELSINKI, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- The center-right Finnish government under Prime Minister Juha Sipila won a vote of confidence in parliament on Friday, but senior care scare leaves a bad sore on the Finnish political scene. The vote 98-88 reflected the government majority in parliament, while 12 MPs were absent. The whole opposition had demanded a vote of non-confidence following revelations about conditions in senior care facilities. During the week, government parties said they would no longer oppose setting legally binding minimum levels of nursing staff. The government would also submit a supplementary budget later this month to increase funding for administrative control of nursing homes. With general election only two months away, the nursing debate impacted the polls on political party support. While the opposition Social Democratic Party and the conservative National Coalition party had been almost even in early January at slightly above 20 percent, the conservatives fell down to 17 percent in a poll published by the national broadcaster Yle on Thursday. Commenting on the situation, the business daily Kauppalehti noted in its editorial on Friday that the "conservatives pay now a high price for their close connection with the private health and nursing business". The party has been actively supporting the entry of commercial health companies into publicly financed health care service production. Several conservative politicians have moved in recent years to positions in the commercial health care companies. WAVES OF ELECTION THEMES The senior care debate is the third wave in the parliamentary election themes. At the turn of the year the nation was shocked by the news about sexual violence by men with asylum seeker background in Oulu and Helsinki. This was reflected in an increase in the support for the anti-immigration Finns Party in the polls in mid-January. The rising trend of the populists continued this week as they had reached 12 percent in the Yle poll. Earlier in the autumn, the elections were presumed to be dominated by climate issues. All parties, except the populist Finns Party, agreed on plans to combat the climate change even beyond the upcoming parliamentary period. Labor legislation has remained an underlying theme throughout the nearly four years of the center-right coalition. The opposition and the unions have criticized efforts by the government to ease the business scene through more flexible labor legislation. The Center Party of the incumbent prime minister Juha Sipila had declined further to 15.6 percent this week. Local observers do not believe it would be able to recover enough to contend about continuing as the largest party. The conservatives though said this week they had "just mismanaged their publicity" in the senior care and would recover. The poll-leading Social Democrats face an uncertainty factor due to the sick leave of party leader Antti Rinne, who has been hospitalized since falling ill on a vacation in Spain at the start of the year. Rinne has pledged he will return to campaigning in March. Rinne and conservative chairman Petteri Orpo are the perceived leading contenders to be the prime minister. The Social Democrats have no self-evident alternative for the situation that Rinne would not be a credible candidate as prime minister for health grounds. The Green League is the fourth in the polls, now at 14 percent, between the Center Party and the populist Finns Party. Local observers say the Greens have benefited from the climate debate and the return of Pekka Haavisto as their temporary chairman. Haavisto was the leading contender against President Sauli Niinisto in presidential elections in 2012 and 2018. His support in those elections exceeded the Green voter base. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-09 01:23:24|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close by Peerzada Arshad Hamid NEW DELHI, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- At least 23 people were killed and many others sickened Friday due to consumption of spurious liquor in two northern Indian states of Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh, officials said. The liquor was consumed by people on Thursday night in Haridwar district of Uttarakhand and adjacent Saharanpur district of Uttar Pradesh. "So far 14 people have died here because of spurious liquor and many others have been hospitalized," Nikita Khandelwal, joint magistrate Rorkee in Haridwar said. Likewise, in Saharanpur district of Uttar Pradesh nine deaths have taken place owing to the consumption of spurious alcohol. "Nine people were killed due to consumption of illicit liquor here and 15 others are undergoing treatment," A K Pandey, district magistrate Saharanpur told Xinhua over telephone. "We have directed health officials to provide all possible assistance to the people that have been admitted in hospital because of the tragedy." Officials in both the districts say the death toll is likely to go up in wake of the number of people admitted at the hospitals. According to officials, the people from two districts have purchased the liquor from a common shop. Reports said after consuming the liquor on Thursday night the people started vomiting, following which they were rushed to nearby hospitals. Officials in Uttar Pradesh say it is the second incident of its kind in the state during past two days. Earlier, eight people were killed due to illicit liquor in Kushinagar district. "Eight deaths have been reported due to the consumption of illicit liquor," Anil Kumar, District Magistrate, Kushinagar told media. "Nine people have been suspended in connection with the case and investigation is on." The death toll in two incidents in Uttar Pradesh alone has gone up to 17. The government in both the states have taken cognizance of the deaths due to spurious liquor. "A case pertaining to deaths due to consumption of illicit liquor has been reported in Roorkee. The government has suspended 13 officers and four police employees associated with excise department," a spokesman for Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat said. Meanwhile, Yogi Adityanath, the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh has announced a compensation of 2,806 U.S. dollars (INR 200,000) to the next of kin of each of those who died in the tragedy and 700 U.S. dollars (INR 50,000) for those taken ill. "The Chief Minister has asked Principal secretary Excise department to initiate a departmental inquiry to fix responsibility and ordered Director General of Police take stern action against the people involved in the sale of spurious liquor," a government spokesman said. Spurious alcohol deaths are often reported in India, where people often drink cheap country made bootleg liquor. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-09 00:33:15|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close MOGADISHU, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- The United States military said Friday it killed 15 fighters from the extremist group al-Shabaab in two airstrikes conducted in separate engagements in the past two days in southern Somalia. The U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), which oversees American troops on the African continent, said in a statement that the first airstrike occurred in the vicinity of Gandarshe, Lower Shebelle region on Wednesday in which 11 militants were killed. According to the statement, four al-Shabaab fighters were killed in the second airstrike on Thursday in the vicinity of Bariire, Lower Shebelle region. "This precision airstrike was executed after our Somali partners were engaged by al-Shabab militants as they conducted an operation to disrupt al-Shabab efforts to illegally tax and intimidate civilians in the area," said AFRICOM in the statement. "The Federal Government of Somalia is placing persistent pressure on al-Shabab and its affiliates, working to create conditions for enhanced security and stability," said Gregg Olson, AFRICOM director of operations, in the statement. AFRICOM said no civilians were injured or killed in either of the strike and committed to continue supporting Somalia and other African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) forces by ensuring the militants are flushed out from their safe havens. Washington has stepped up its military support of Somalia over the past few years. Some strikes have inflicted considerable casualties on al-Shabab in the last two months. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-09 00:28:14|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close OSLO, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- The government of Norway said Friday that it wants to secure its citizens' rights in case Britain leaves the European Union (EU) without an agreement. The Norwegian government said in a statement that it has asked the parliament for consent to enter into an agreement between the EEA /EFTA states -- Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway -- and Britain. "From the government's side, we hope that the UK will have an orderly exit from the EU. We must, however, be prepared for the UK to opt out of the EU without a withdrawal agreement," Norwegian Minister of Justice and Immigration Tor Mikkel Wara was quoted as saying. According to the minister, ensuring rights to residence permit for both Norwegian and British citizens in Norway and Britain is very important, as well as to keep them regulated by the European Economic Area (EEA) agreement. The agreement will ensure that Norwegian citizens who reside in Britain together with their family members at the time of British withdrawal from the EU can continue to live there and essentially maintain the same rights as today. The same rights should apply to the British citizens who are in Norway, the statement said. The agreement also ensures keeping earned social security rights before Britain's withdrawal according to the EEA law's provisions on social security coordination. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-09 00:23:13|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close by Murad Abdo ADEN, Yemen, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- Representatives of the Saudi-backed Yemeni government left on Friday the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah following a series of meetings held with the Houthi delegation and the head of the United Nations cease-fire monitoring team, a government official told Xinhua. The government representatives and their counterparts of the Houthi group at the joint Redeployment Coordination Committee (RCC) failed to reach a common ground for implementing Stockholm's agreement about the situation in Hodeidah province, the government source said on condition of anonymity. "The Houthi representatives created new odds and refused to engage in discussions about the mechanisms for implementing the ceasefire deal declared in Sweden," the government source said. He said that the representatives of the Saudi-backed Yemeni government left Hodeidah and headed back to Aden province without determining a specific appointment for the upcoming talks with the new retired Danish General Michael Lollesgaard, head of the UN observers in Hodeidah. The government source held the Iranian-backed Houthis the full responsibility for leading the UN-backed talks regarding the implementation of Hodeidah's agreement into failure. Meanwhile, the Houthi-affiliated Masirah television network reported that warplanes of the Saudi Arabia-led coalition hovered over Hodeidah's airspace for hours without carrying out airstrikes. Heavy artillery shelling was carried out by the pro-government forces against the airport of Hodeidah despite the ceasefire agreement, but no casualties reported, it added. Earlier in the day, Anwar Gargash, minister of state for foreign affairs of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), said in Twitter that the UN's plea for access to the Red Sea grain stores in Hodeidah illustrated that "the Houthis are the real impediment to peace in Yemen." The UAE minister said that "the Stockholm Agreement offers us a unique opportunity to end the war in Yemen. Nonetheless, the Houthis are working hard to undermine this opportunity by their obstinate disregard to their commitments. We have to save the prospects for peace." Gargash noted "it is vital that the international community support the Stockholm Agreement at this juncture. The way forward is to implement the Houthi withdrawal from the ports and Hodeidah city. The militia is dragging its feet and threatening the overall prospects for peace." On Thursday, the UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said that Yemen's warring parties have reached "a preliminary compromise" on demilitarizing the crucial Red Sea port of Hodeidah and opening humanitarian corridors for the famine-threatened country. In discussions facilitated by RCC chaired by Michael Lollesgaard, the parties worked together constructively to resolve outstanding issues related to the mutual redeployment of forces and the opening of humanitarian corridors, said the spokesman. The talks, which gathered representatives of Ansar Allah, the formal name for the rebel Houthis, and representatives of the Yemeni government, were held aboard a UN-chartered ship berthed in the Port of Hodeidah. The conflict in Yemen started in 2014 when the Houthi rebels overtook the capital Sanaa and forced the government into exile in Saudi Arabia. Since 2015, a Saudi-led coalition, backing the government, has been fighting the Houthis. The security situation was further exacerbated after the coalition launched in June 2018 an operation to retake rebel-held Hodeidah, a strategic port city that had been handling some 70 percent of Yemen's imports of food. The fighting has spawned the world's worst humanitarian crisis and brought the poorest Arab country to the brink of famine. Under the UN auspice, the warring parties reached a deal in Sweden in December 2018, which included a cease-fire in Hodeidah and the formation of the RCC to monitor the withdrawal of troops by both government and Houthis in the area. Shortly afterward, the UN Security Council (UNSC) authorized an advance team to monitor and support the implementation of the deal for 30 days. Earlier in January, the UNSC adopted a resolution to establish a UN political mission for an initial period of six months to support the Hodeidah agreement. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-09 00:13:12|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close BERLIN, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- German companies and investors offering flats for social housing purposes as part of their contractual obligations in return for loans from the German government are not required to do so for an unlimited period of time, the German Federal Court of Justice (BGH) ruled on Friday. The BGH reversed two prior verdicts of German regional courts and declared the "temporally unlimited" obligation to rent out apartments for government-sponsored housing purposes to be "invalid". This would also apply if the responsible local "municipality provided the private investor with low-cost building land for the construction of social housing", the BGH verdict reads. The lawsuit was filed by a housing company from Hanover. In 1995, the company had received a subsidized loan from the municipality of Langenhagen for building 52 apartments. In return, the company granted the municipality occupancy rights for an indefinite period of time. The plaintiff company sought to end the city's occupancy rights after 20 years in order to rent out the apartments on the market. However, the BGH judge stressed that the verdict did not include an immediate end to the social housing obligation. "In case of doubt," the housing company would have to rent out the flats at a reduced rate and exclusively to holders of residence entitlement certificates at least for the duration of the granted loan, the BGH ruled. Germany's highest court now handed back the case to the regional court in Celle, which has to determine the duration of the occupancy rights. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-09 00:13:12|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close DAR ES SALAAM, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, on Friday appealed to international donors to double their support to Tanzania in sheltering over 330,000 refugees. Speaking at the end of his four-day visit to Tanzania, Grandi said Tanzania was in dire need of greater investment in north-west regions where the refugees were hosted, including environmental protection and economic development. Citing Tanzania as "one of the most important refugee asylum countries in Africa," Grandi expressed his satisfaction with government assurances that the country would continue to be hospitable to refugees. In his meeting with President John Magufuli on Tuesday, Grandi commended Tanzania for its long tradition of welcoming refugees fleeing conflict and persecution in neighboring countries, including naturalizing 162,000 Burundian refugees from 1972. Citing Tanzania's hospitality over decades to people in need of refuge, he said that the country and the people deserved greater international recognition. Grandi pledged to mobilize more support for humanitarian efforts and also for host community development, enhanced camp security and environmental projects, such as energy sources that provide an alternative to firewood. In his meetings with government officials, Grandi said sustainable refugee return happened when refugees felt confident it was safe to go back home and receive the necessary support to do so. In the last two years, 57,865 refugees from Burundi have been assisted to voluntarily return from Tanzania. Grandi said that the UN refugee agency was prepared to work with the government to assist all those who indicated a desire to go home. "Conditions are still uncertain in both Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Burundi," said Grandi, adding that nevertheless some refugees were volunteering to go back and were supported by the UN refugee agency. "It is important that nobody is forced back, that repatriation remains a voluntary exercise," said Grandi. He called for more international support to ensure refugees who return voluntarily are able to successfully reintegrate in their countries of origin, noting the current return packages are insufficient. Seventy-four percent of Tanzania's refugees and asylum seekers are from Burundi, and the other 26 percent are from the DRC. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-09 00:03:11|Editor: mmm Video Player Close Chen Hongke (L), project manager of the China State Construction Engineering Corporation (CSCEC) company overseeing the construction of the Temburong viaduct for section CC4, briefs Chinese Ambassador to Brunei Yu Hong during her inspection at CSCEC's construction site CC4 of the Temburong Bridge in Temburong District, Brunei, on Feb. 8, 2019. The Chinese contractor of the Temburong Bridge said on Friday that they have made efforts to preserve Brunei's natural landscape during construction. (Xinhua/Melvin Jong) BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese contractor of the Temburong Bridge said on Friday that they have made efforts to preserve Brunei's natural landscape during construction. Chen Hongke, project manager of the China State Construction Engineering Corporation (CSCEC) company overseeing the construction of the Temburong viaduct for section CC4, told Xinhua that the CSCEC portion of the bridge spanned 11.8 km across Brunei's uninhabited forests and swamps. "Our construction workers had sightings of snakes, wild boars and crocodiles," Chen said. "But the CSCEC is doing everything in our power to preserve the environment." According to Chen, their workforce comprised people from eight countries. Newly-appointed Chinese Ambassador Yu Hong paid an inspection at the CSCEC's CC4 site of the Temburong Bridge on Friday. She urged CSCEC to continue upholding their high standards, expressing confidence in their abilities to ensure that Brunei's natural environment remains intact and cared for. The ambassador also lauded the efforts of the workers who braved the hot and humid weather of Brunei during the festive Chinese New Year. The 30-km bridge, which is expected to be completed in November, will connect the districts of Brunei-Muara and Temburong. The bridge aims to reduce travelling time between the two districts from two hours to just 30 minutes by bypassing Malaysia's Limbang. It will become the longest bridge in Southeast Asia followed by Malaysia's 24-km Second Penang Bridge. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-09 00:03:10|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close BERLIN, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- Against the backdrop of global uncertainties, the organizers of the 55th edition of the Munich Security Conference (MSC) slated for next week expect an unprecedented number of participants. Over 600 high-level decision-makers from around the world will attend the MSC on Feb. 15-17 to discuss current issues in international security policy, including transatlantic cooperation and the European union's self-assertion. More than 35 heads of state and government, as well as 50 foreign ministers and 30 defense ministers are expected to attend the event. In comparison, 20 heads of state and government attended the conference in 2018. German Chancellor Angela Merkel will be present again, after last attending in 2017. Wolfgang Ischinger, chairman of the MSC, told the Deutsche Welle on Friday that he had arranged a joint appearance for Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron, but the Elysee had canceled the event a week ago. According to a press release, this year the MSC anticipates the largest delegation of all time from the United States. It will be led by U.S. Vice President Mike Pence. Heads of major international organizations, including the International Monetary Fund (IMF), NATO and the EU and others will also attend the conference. Multilateralism and cooperation will also be key subjects at the conference. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 23:58:10|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close JAKARTA, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- Half of the Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed Railway (HSR) project is targeted to be built this year, an executive of HSR Indonesian contractor said on Friday. "The target progress is 55 percent (this year), (and) we will focus on the (railway) track projects," said Tumiyana, president director of Indonesia's state-run constructor firm Wijaya Karya (Wika). To meet the target, Wika workers and related partners would prioritize work on foundation construction, followed by railway track ballasts and tunnels, he added. About 85 percent of land areas designated to accommodate the HSR project have been settled and it is expected to be entirely done by March this year, according to the local government. Work to assemble huge tunnel boring machine shipped from China is underway in Jakarta's HSR main station site project. The machine that arrived here late last month is scheduled to commence operation in March. The 142.3-km Jakarta-Bandung HSR project is carried out by KCIC, a joint venture of China-Indonesia state firms. The project is scheduled to be completed in late 2020 and will be ready for public service in March 2021 after several months of testing period. With a speed of 350 km per hour, the HSR train will transport passengers between the two cities within 36 minutes. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 23:58:10|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close RIYADH, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- "Doctors and scientists are necessary for any society, but art and poetry make life worth living for," said Samaher Khalid, a 31-year-old filmmaker from Saudi Arabia's city of Jeddah. She regrets not having enough opportunities in the country to learn filmmaking professionally. "There has been so much emphasis on science and math, while people seldom think of the arts in terms of professional career," she said, calling for nurturing artistic talent to build a creative and intellectual society. Rehana Mughal, the British Council's senior program manager for culture and sport in the Gulf, told Xinhua that some people did not realize that art could be a career, but things are changing now. "More and more young people are able to visualize what a creative career might look like for them because they are exposed to more creativity than ever before. Also, a creative career can be accepted by more people in Saudi Arabia," Mughal said. It is this necessity that has brought the British Council and the Saudi Film Council together to support Saudi film sector. At the Creative Futures Forum held in Riyadh this week, experts, students and arts gathered to discuss the social and economic potential of Saudi creative industry. Ciaran Devane, chief executive of the British Council, told Xinhua that the social, cultural and economic development is essential for the future of the kingdom, and it is an exciting time now to witness the opening up in Saudi Arabia. "This is the first time I heard of such an initiative and it's heartening," Samaher said, adding that "it can offer a lifeline for people like me. I'm a self-taught filmmaker and I need training." The two organizations will be partners on in-depth research across the country, asking "what skills are needs in Saudi Arabia" in order to support the growth of the film sector. Devane expressed confidence in the vibrancy, creativity and intelligence of the Saudi youth, saying the British Council has partnered with a number of Saudi young people, including female artists, in programs such as art collections and technical collaborations. Abdul Mohsin, a Jeddah-based artist, said there has been an explosion of creative energy in Saudi Arabia over the past couple of years thanks to the government's investment in the intellectual capital. After studied fine arts in the United States and the United Kingdom, Mohsin returned to homeland in 2018 to take part in an "art revolution" in his country. "Now you can feel the surge with a lot of international artists coming to Jeddah and conducting workshops with local artists, while art galleries have mushroomed in many places," Mohsin said. "We just need more creative space where artists can freely work, interact and expand their horizons," added Mohsin. While Samaher feels the need for a physical hub where filmmakers, videographers and editors can interact and help each other, Mohsin said similar platforms would give a major boost to the art scene in the country. Devane stressed that artistic and creative social development is paralleled by the technical and infrastructure educational development, which is equally important to have a successful creative economy. "What is unique about Saudi Arabia is there are a lot of creative talent bubbling across the country," says Mughal, adding that "it's an exciting time for the kingdom." Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 23:27:58|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close ROME, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- Italy is leading a push to block a European Commissioner's proposal that would open markets to six grape varieties native to the United States, arguing that doing so could hurt Europe's image as the producer of the world's top quality wines. Italy is currently the world's biggest producer of wine in terms of volume, just ahead of France and Spain, according to data from the International Organization of Vine and Wine. But the wine landscape is changing. In recent decades, non-European viticulture areas like the west coast of the United States, as well as South America, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand have all emerged as producers of high quality wine. To help preserve Europe's role atop the list of major wine producers, European Commissioner for Agriculture Phil Hogan has proposed opening European markets to six varieties of grapes native to the United States and not grown commercially in Europe: Clinton, Herbemont, Isabelle, Jacques, Noah and Othello. The grapes are more resistant to diseases that often plague native European varieties, creating a positive environmental impact by allowing farmers to use more ecological farming methods. Additionally, because the grapes represent hardier strains they can be grown in harsher conditions than most grapes, perhaps opening new parts of Europe to wine production. But the Italian government and leading industry groups have been helping to lead the charge against Hogan's proposal. "Most European producers don't just strive to produce wine, the goal is to produce quality wine, which is incompatible with these new grape varieties," Ottavio Cagiano de Azevedo, director general of Federvini, an association of Italian wine producers, told Xinhua. The issue has been taken up on the highest levels of government. Media reported that Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte discussed opposition to the six varieties during face-to-face meetings with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris last year, for example. Additionally, Undersecretary for Italy's Ministry of Agriculture Franco Manzato told lawmakers in Brussels last month that the characteristics of the six varieties "would hinder the commercialization" of the grapes in Europe. He called for the proposals to allow them to be grown commercially in Europe to be dropped. Cagiano de Azevedo said the six varieties are rarely used for wine production even in the United States, where they are most commonly used as table grapes or for grape juice. "Every once in a while, someone on the European Commission suggests this idea," Cagiano de Azevedo said. "But we aren't interested." Domenico Bosco, head of the wine division for agriculture union Coldiretti, also said in an interview that the debate over the use of the six varieties to make wine in Europe should go no further. "These grapes don't fit into our tradition and they don't produce a high quality wine and the story should end there," Bosco said. Sandro Romano, a vinicultural consultant based in Frascati, near Rome, told Xinhua that while few winemakers would be tempted by the varieties it is best to block them from the market. "It could begin with a few producers who had bad luck with vine disease or bad weather trying them out and then it would start to effect the quality of wine," Romano said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 23:27:58|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close by Dana Halawi BEIRUT, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- Lebanese political analysts are divided on the possibility of Israel waging a war against Lebanon after the recent discovery of tunnels extending from Lebanon to northern Israel and the formation of a new government in Lebanon. Hilal Khashan, chair of the Political Studies Department at the American University of Beirut, believes Israel is unlikely to attack Hezbollah in Lebanon for the moment. "The Americans did not give Israel the green light to attack Lebanon," Khashan told Xinhua. A few days ago, the U.S. government voiced its concerns about Hezbollah's participation in the new cabinet in Lebanon. A U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to Lebanese daily newspaper Al Joumhouria, said the United States is worried about the role of Hezbollah in the new cabinet, especially the fact that the group dominates the Health Ministry which has the country's biggest budget. However, according to Khashan, Hezbollah did not appoint the health minister in order to avoid the negative repercussions of such a move from the West. Hezbollah will also try its best to maintain the conflicts with Israel within the Syrian territory, Khashan noted. "I do not think Hezbollah will attack Israel from Lebanon. This will be a major escalation that Lebanese people cannot tolerate," he said. In fact, the Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah declared recently that his group will not start a war with Israel, but will defend itself with all its power if Israel attacks Lebanon first. Nevertheless, Khashan did not completely rule out the possibility of an Israeli war against Lebanon. On Dec. 4, the Israeli army launched the Northern Shield operation to "locate and thwart" the tunnels allegedly dug by Hezbollah from Lebanon to northern Israel. Since then, the Israelis have been talking frequently about Hezbollah's threats against Israeli sovereignty and Iran's control of Lebanese policies, as Iran has been a long-time ally of Hezbollah. Israel's statements concerning Hezbollah have become so "tough" that no one can predict what the Israelis want to do, Khashan said. The Israelis are no longer trying to cover up their attacks on Hezbollah and Iranian targets in Syria, signalling no fear of escalation in the region, he added. If the Iranians publicly oppose the Israeli statements and threaten the Israelis, "things can get out of control," Khashan said, adding that Israel may be waiting for Iran to make such a move as an excuse to go for a war in Syria and Lebanon. Meanwhile, Sami Nader, director of Levant Institute for Strategic Affairs in Lebanon, believes an Israeli war against Lebanon may not be imminent or unavoidable because both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Iranians want to avoid risks. However, Nader said the likelihood of an Israeli strike against Iranian positions in Lebanon and Syria has increased. "Iran is building up its missile infrastructure in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, because the tension between Iran and Israel has increased especially after the withdrawal of the United States from the 2015 nuclear agreement," Nader said. Meanwhile, the U.S. stance on Iran has also been "tougher and stronger," he stressed. "We heard U.S. President Donald Trump say a few days ago ... that Iran is a radical country and is leading terrorism on the international scene," he said. Moreover, Nader explained that Russia would be happy if Israel attacks Iran because Russia has an interest in seeing the reduction, if not the elimination, of Iran's presence in Syria. "The Russians do not want the collapse of Iran in Syria but they want it to be weakened for them to remain the major stakeholder in Syria," the Lebanese expert noted. This is why every time Iranian bases are targeted, Russia either remains silent or issues routine and indifferent statements, he added. Samir Hassan, a senior researcher in military affairs, said if Israel's attacks on Iranian and Hezbollah targets increase to the extent that causes "real harm," a war may break out. Hassan explained that real harm means any attacks that would threaten Iran's existence. "Also, if Israel hits strategic logistic corridors of Hezbollah or any of their mobilization sites, the party will hit back," said Hassan. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 23:17:56|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close HOHHOT, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- Police in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region have detained 18 people for alleged drug making and trafficking. Police in Ulanqab City said that 12.88 kg of meth was confiscated. Police said that they detained a drug addict in February 2018, which led to the discovery of a drug gang in neighboring Hebei Province. With the help of their local peers in Hebei, they apprehended all members of the gang and destroyed a meth-making factory hidden in a neighborhood in Zhangjiakou city. The case is being further investigated. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 23:07:55|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close ULAN BATOR, Feb.8 (Xinhua) -- Mongolia said China remained its top export destination, accounting for 66 percent of its total exports last year. Mongolia's exports to China grew by 811.2 million dollars, or 13.1 percent year on year, while imports increased by 1.5 billion U.S. dollars, or 35.5 percent, according to data released by Mongolian Customs General Administration on Friday. The bilateral trade amounted to 8.4 billion U.S. dollars, increasing by 26.8 percent year on year, it said. Mongolia's major export items to China include coal, copper and molybdenum concentrates, wool and cashmere. Russia is another important trade partner, and its imports from Mongolia include animal products, in particular beef and horse meat, as well as minerals such as fluorspar, copper concentrates and gold. Mongolia traded with about 160 economies across the world in 2018. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 22:52:51|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 7 (Xinhua) -- China's UN envoy on Thursday urged Belgrade and Pristina to stay committed to promoting the normalization of bilateral relations through dialogue and consultation after the two sides halted negotiations last December. Chinese Permanent Representative to the United Nations Ma Zhaoxu made the appeal at a Security Council meeting on Kosovo, which declared independence from Serbia in 2008 without the latter's recognition. Ma said China respects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Serbia and understands its legitimate concerns regarding Kosovo. All parties should reach a solution that is acceptable to all through dialogue and negotiation, he urged. "Achieving reconciliation and common development is in the fundamental interests of all peoples," the Chinese envoy said, calling on all parties concerned to "put the well-being of their people first, protect the legitimate rights and interests of all communities, and promote the economic and social development of all ethnic groups." Dominated by ethnic Albanians, Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in 2008, an act not recognized by Belgrade. The two sides committed to a European Union-mediated dialogue with the signing of the Brussels agreement in 2013. But the negotiations stopped last December after Pristina's decisions to increase tariffs on goods imported from Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina from 10 to 100 percent. It also adopted three draft laws aimed at strengthening the role and capacity of the Kosovo Security Force. Ma said the moves were not conducive to enhancing mutual trust and dialogue, calling on the parties concerned to refrain from any rhetoric or action that may complicate or escalate the situation. Also at the meeting, Zahir Tanin, the UN secretary-general's special representative for Kosovo, said the atmosphere for resuming dialogue has been challenged. He told the Security Council of "a tendency to disrupt rather than de-escalate" the tension between Belgrade and Pristina. Tanin also underlined the importance of the council's role in dealing with the issue, saying that reducing tensions, enhancing mutual trust and removing obstacles to dialogue are "crucial" to the region's stability. China's Ma also called on the international community to play a constructive role in promoting a proper solution to the Kosovo issue. Despite the current impasse between Belgrade and Pristina, the council members agreed Thursday to hold fewer meetings over the Kosovo issue instead of meeting on the current quarterly basis. The UN's most powerful body will hold three meetings on the issue in 2019, including Thursday's session, and two annually from 2020 onward. The frequency of reporting on Kosovo has been a contentious issue in the council for some time. The United States prefers the issue be discussed less frequently, while Russia wants to maintain the quarterly cycle. Whether to discuss Kosovo on Thursday was a sticking point when the council members were working on this month's program, which failed to be adopted on Feb. 1. Equatorial Guinean Ambassador Anatolio Ndong Mba, president of the council for February, said the program will come out later this month. File Photo: U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo meets with Saudi Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel al-Jubeir upon his arrival in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia Jan. 13, 2019. (Xinhua/Reuters) WASHINGTON, Feb. 7 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday met with Saudi Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel al-Jubeir on bilateral ties and the death of Saudi journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, as the congressional deadline for the White House to submit an investigation report on his death was near. According to a statement issued by the State Department's deputy spokesperson Robert Palladino, during their meeting, Pompeo thanked the Saudi official for his nation's "continued partnership with the United States across many regional and bilateral priorities." Regarding the case of Khashoggi, the two diplomats "agreed on the importance of Saudi Arabia continuing its investigation into the murder of Jamal Khashoggi in a credible and transparent manner, and holding all of those involved accountable," the statement read. On Yemen, they reiterated their support for UN Special Envoy Martin Griffiths' efforts to advance the political process, and the need for Yemen's government and the Houthis to swiftly implement agreements reached in Sweden. Apart from the meeting, seven senators from both parties on Thursday renewed their push for the Trump administration to determine the persons responsible for the journalist's death before the deadline and punish the Saudi side for its alleged roles in the Khashoggi case and the high civilian casualties in Yemen. In a joint statement, they urged the Trump administration to submit a report to the Senate on Khashoggi's murder to determine whether Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman has been involved personally and whether the Trump administration intends to impose sanctions on anyone that is responsible. These senators, including President Donald Trump's close ally Lindsey Graham, also said that they had introduced the Saudi Arabia Accountability and Yemen Act of 2019, a "comprehensive legislation to hold Saudi Arabia accountable" for the death of Khashoggi, and the Saudi-led coalition "for its role in the devastating conflict in Yemen." The bill prohibited certain arms sales to Saudi Arabia, as well as in-flight refueling of Saudi coalition aircraft, according to the statement. The statement added that the legislation "also comes on the heels of a CNN investigation about U.S.-made military equipment sold to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates ending up in the hands of Al-Qaeda and other adversaries of the United States." "Seeing as the Trump administration has no intention of insisting on full accountability for Mr. Khashoggi's murderers, it is time for Congress to step in and impose real consequences to fundamentally reexamine our relationship with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and with the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen," said Senator Robert Menendez in the statement. "We will not accept the killings of more civilians and journalists with impunity and without consequence." Also on Thursday, a UN-led team investigating the Khashoggi case said that evidence pointed to a "brutal and premeditated" crime "planned and perpetrated" by Saudi officials. Agnes Callamard, UN special rapporteur for extrajudicial summary or arbitrary executions, accused Saudi officials of having "seriously undermined" and delayed Turkey's investigation of the crime scene. Khashoggi went missing on Oct. 2 last year after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to obtain paperwork he needed to marry his fiancee. The Saudi authorities said he died in a "brawl" in the consulate, and denied that the Saudi crown prince had ordered the killing. After releasing the results of its initial investigation, the Saudi Public Prosecution announced that 18 Saudis were arrested for their alleged connections with the killing. The U.S. Congress has urged a thorough investigation into his death, and threatened to take more actions against Saudi Arabia. However, the Trump administration has been reluctant to further punish the Saudi government. Trump has said that he would stand with the Saudi Arabian crown prince despite the death of Khashoggi, and Pompeo said that the death of Khashoggi has "heightened the Capitol Hill caterwauling and media pile-on." Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 22:47:50|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close HARARE, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- The strike by some Zimbabwean public school teachers which started Tuesday continued to Friday despite a warning from the government to cut their salaries for time away from work. A school headmaster in Glen View told Xinhua that teachers had stayed away from work Thursday and Friday in his area. The government on Thursday warned the striking teachers that it would not pay them for hours spent away from work. This follows threats by two teacher organizations that their members would intensify the strike starting Friday, citing government's failure to address their grievances over low salaries and other conditions of service. Secretary for the Public Service Commission Vincent Hungwe said in a statement that the government would apply the "no work, no pay" rule. The strike started at a low key Tuesday with a higher number of teachers reporting for duty. However, it has since escalated with another school head in Macheke, Masholand East Province, saying that at his school about 40 percent of teachers had not reported for duty. The two largest teachers' unions in the country, the Zimbabwe Teachers Association and the Progressive Teachers Union said in a joint statement Thursday that about 80 percent of their members had heeded the call to strike. The two teacher unions have gone ahead with the strike while smaller teacher unions and the rest of the civil service have decided to seek further negotiations with the government. A deputy school head in Highfield, also south-western Harare, said all teachers at the school had turned up for work, revealing the division among the teachers on the course of action to take. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 22:07:40|Editor: mym Video Player Close WINDHOEK, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- Namibia's road to economic recovery will be spearheaded by the expansion in the manufacturing and mining sector, which will lead to job creation and wage growth, Fitch Solutions Macro Research said in a report Friday. The developments will support domestic demand which bodes well for consumer-facing companies, the research firm said. "Expansion in mining activity and manufacturing will support job creation and wage growth, driving expansion in the retail sector in 2019," the firm said. The ramp up in uranium production at Husab mine following a series of delays to achieving full production will provide a key boost to overall economic activity as well as a boost from the manufacturing sector, driven by higher production of grain mill products and beverages, the firm added. According to the firm, job losses in primary and secondary sectors of mining, construction and manufacturing have had a direct adverse impact on wholesale and retail trade over recent years, as higher unemployment has weighed heavily on consumer demand. "A more favorable macro outlook will drive Namibian consumer spending in 2019. Our forecast for Namibia's private consumption growth is 1.9 percent in 2019, following an estimated contraction of 0.4 percent in 2018," Fitch added. Namibia's real Gross Domestic Product is projected to average 2.1 percent over the 2019 to 2023 forecast period, said Fitch. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 22:02:37|Editor: mym Video Player Close HARARE, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa left Harare on Friday for Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where he will join other African leaders at the 32nd Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union (AU). The Heads of State Summit will run from Feb. 10 to 11 under the theme "Refugees, returnees and internally displaced persons: towards durable solutions to forced displacement in Africa". This is Mnangagwa's second foreign visit in 2019 after he went on a four-nation tour of Eastern Europe last month to drum up investment for the country. Africa is struggling with a rising population of refugees and internally displaced persons due to endemic conflicts. Conflict-ridden Burundi, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Mali, Somalia and Sudan are some of the leading source countries for refugees and internally displaced persons. The AU has set itself an ambitious target to "silence the guns" by 2020 but analysts contend that efforts could be hampered by lack of funding and difficulties in disarming fragile communities, among other challenges. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 21:52:36|Editor: mym Video Player Close BERLIN, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- German exports rose by 3 percent to an all-time record of nearly 1.32 trillion euros (1.49 trillion U.S. dollars) in 2018, preliminary results published by the German Federal Statistical Office (destatis) on Friday show. The increase of German exports at 3 percent was "higher than we had expected," commented Klaus Wohlrabe, economic expert at the Munich-based ifo Institute. However, growth in German exports slowed down at the end of 2018. In December, Germany exported goods worth 96.1 billion euros (109.06 billion dollars), a decline of 4.5 percent compared to the same month the year before. "The rising economic uncertainty, such as trade disputes or the Brexit, is making life difficult for the export-oriented German economy," commented Ilja Nothnagel, member of the management board of the Association of German Chambers of Commerce and Industry (DIHK). Trade relations with "traditionally important foreign markets such as the USA or Great Britain are currently being put to a tough test", emphasized Nothnagel. Imports of goods to Germany grew even faster and went up by 5.7 percent to 1.09 trillion euros (1.24 trillion dollars). Germany's foreign trade balance thus fell by almost 10 percent to a surplus of 227.8 billion euros (258.52 billion dollars) in 2018. In 2017, Germany had generated a surplus of 247.9 billion euros. "Even though the figures for the previous year were exceeded, the growth rates of 2017 could not be achieved. Here you can see that the international crises and the economic slowdown are leaving their mark behind," said Holger Bingmann, president of the German wholesale, foreign trade and services association (BGA) in Berlin on Friday. The majority of exported goods went to other member states of the European Union, which imported goods and services from Germany worth 778.7 billion euros (883.71 billion dollars). Most German imports also originated from these countries with a total value of 623 billion euros (707.01 billion dollars). Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 21:52:36|Editor: zh Video Player Close ANTARCTICA, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- China's 35th Antarctic expedition team on Thursday set up a new automatic meteorological station, some 100 km away from the Zhongshan Station, a Chinese research base in Antarctica. The devices will be used to collect information on temperature, relative humidity as well as wind direction and speed in Antarctica. The newly installed station will fill up the blank research area for meteorological observation along the Panda transect and improve China's observation capability in the area, said Meng Shang, a member of the expedition team. The Panda transect refers to a research route from Prydz Bay to the Amery Ice Shelf and then to Dome Argus (Dome A). China has set up several meteorological stations at Kunlun Station and Taishan Station on the Antarctic ice sheet. It is expected to install more meteorological stations along the Panda transect to collect substantial data to improve China's weather forecasting and research on the continent. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 21:47:35|Editor: mym Video Player Close LONDON, Feb.8 (Xinhua) -- British Prime Minister Theresa May was set to visit Dublin Friday in her latest bid to rescue her Brexit deal after failing to win any major breakthrough during talks with the European Union (EU). May returned to Downing Street Thursday after being told during series of discussions that the EU would not budge on its insistence of a so-called backstop insurance policy aimed at avoiding a hard EU-British border on the island of Ireland. The EU offered more talks with the British government to help May get her Brexit deal through the House of Commons, but the prime minister is seeking legally binding words over the backstop to win a majority vote for her deal. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker ruled out changes to the deal already agreed between Brussels and May's government, but told her he would be open to adding words to a non-binding document on future relations between the two sides. Ahead of a meeting Friday evening between May and Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, Britain's Attorney General Geoffrey Cox was meeting his counterpart in Dublin, Seamus Woulfe. Varadkar, meanwhile, headed across the border for discussions on the Brexit impasse with leaders of political parties in Northern Ireland. Currently the border between the two sides are frictionless, but when Britain leaves the bloc in less than 50 days time, the 500-kilometer meandering line will become the only EU-Britain land border within the British Isles. London, Dublin and Brussels have all insisted they do not want to see a return of a hard border, fearing it could fuel a return to troubles. In other developments, the leader of Britain's main opposition Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, has written to May with a six-point plan he says could resolve the Brexit impasse. Labour's proposal to back May's deal has provoked widespread fury among Remain-backing MPs who want to see a second referendum. John McDonnell, Labour's shadow chancellor, wrote to MPs Friday insisting a new-referendum option remained one of the party's options in the event of a no-deal Brexit emerging as an outcome. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 21:07:27|Editor: zh Video Player Close BEIJING, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping and Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa on Friday exchanged congratulations on the 40th anniversary of the establishment of China-Portugal diplomatic relations. China and Portugal enjoy a long history of friendship, Xi said in his congratulatory message, adding that in the past four decades, the two countries, with the spirits of mutual respect, equality, mutual benefits and win-win, have promoted healthy and steady development of bilateral ties. In 1999, China and Portugal properly resolved the question of Macao, setting a fine example for other nations in tackling issues left over from history through friendly negotiations, he said. Since a comprehensive strategic partnership was established in 2005, China and Portugal have witnessed frequent high-level exchanges, deepening political mutual trust as well as remarkable achievements of mutual beneficial cooperation in various areas, Xi added. Citing his successful visit to Portugal in early December last year, Xi said he and President Rebelo de Sousa held deep and friendly talks during the visit, jointly outlining the new blueprint of the China-Portugal relations. Xi said he highly values the development of the two countries' ties. By taking the 40th anniversary of the establishment of China-Portugal diplomatic ties as a new starting point, he added that he is willing to work together with Rebelo de Sousa to bring the two countries' comprehensive strategic partnership to a higher level to better benefit the two countries and their people. Noting the harmonious co-existence between Portugal and China, Rebelo de Sousa said the two countries always seek common ground while putting aside differences and pursue mutual benefits and win-win results. With equal consultations, the two sides reached consensus and made the smooth handover of Macao and its government transfer realized, providing a useful reference for the international community, he said. Portugal is very proud of the long-term and peaceful relations with China, Rebelo de Sousa said, adding that he believes the two countries will make unremitting efforts with firm determination and enthusiasm to promote their long-term steady friendship to continuously move forward. On Friday, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa also exchanged congratulation messages. Portugal is an important partner of China in the European Union (EU), Li said in the message, noting that China praises Portugal's active participation in the construction of China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative. Li said China, with the opportunity of the 40th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties, is willing to jointly work with Portugal to promote the two countries' bilateral ties and practical cooperation in all fields to move forward. For his part, Costa said the Portuguese side is ready to make joint efforts with China to continuously deepen the two countries' comprehensive strategic partnership to seek more well-beings for the two peoples and make greater contributions to the development of globalization in the current era. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 21:07:26|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close A freight train leaves for Riga, Latvia, in Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Oct. 30, 2018. (Xinhua/Li Yibo) by Xinhua writers Feng Junyang, Liu Jie, Liu Kaixiong BEIJING, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- The fact that China has accomplished in the past 40 years of reform and opening up what had taken the Western industrialized countries several hundreds of years to achieve is truly a miracle in human history. But this is not the end of the story. "China's door of opening up will not be closed and will only open even wider," Chinese leadership pledged to the world. More changes brought by further opening-up measures are taking place around the country. Take a look at what Xinhua reporters have found when taking a fact-finding tour in Shanghai, Henan and Shaanxi. FTZ BREAKS NEW GROUND Lisa Liu, marketing director of Festo (China) Ltd, a German automation technology manufacturer, believes the company's best days in China are yet to come. Since it entered the Chinese market in the 1980s, Festo has secured its position as a leading provider of smart manufacturing solutions in the world's manufacturing powerhouse. "You could never imagine how eager Chinese industries are for smart production plans we provide, as they are craving industrial upgrading" Liu told Xinhua. Her confidence is underpinned by the country's new opening-up policy, which allows companies in the pilot Free Trade Zone (FTZ) to have easier access to more targeted customs services. Festo (China) Ltd, based in the Shanghai FTZ, is one of the first batches of foreign-funded companies that benefit from China's new policy, which enables Festo to operate at a lower cost with higher efficiency. Boosted by the new policy, it plans to expand its Asia-Pacific logistic center and customized production center in Shanghai. Pilot FTZs have become pioneers in promoting the country's reform and opening-up. The first FTZ was established in Shanghai in 2013 to blaze the trail, followed by 11 more across the country, from coastal provinces such as Fujian and Guangdong to inland provinces including as Shaanxi and Sichuan. Shanghai FTZ in Pudong published the country's first negative list with items which were off limits for foreign investment. The negative list has gradually been shortened as the opening-up drive expands, with items cut from 190 to 48. Forty years ago when China began to embrace reform and opening up, it created economic development zones to lure foreign investments. Compared with economic development zones, pilot FTZ aims to achieve "mutual benefit" and enable the country to participate in global economic cooperation and competition at a higher level, Luo Qinghe, a professor with the Shenzhen University, wrote in a research paper. Building pilot FTZs was a strategic move to deepen overall reform and widen opening up, and the country must further capitalize on the role of pilot zones as experimental fields of reform and opening-up, according to the Chinese government. CROSS-BORDER E-COMMERCE SHOOTING UP In addition to FTZs, cross-border e-commerce pilot zones have become a new anchor of opening up and reform, as Chinese consumers have become increasingly drawn to foreign brands via e-commerce platforms. In the Zhengzhou cross-border e-commerce pilot bonded zone, a new customs model has been in practice since May 2013 to facilitate cross-border e-commerce. Before consumers place the order, imported merchandise has been shipped to a domestic bonded center, gone through quarantine procedures and put into customs files. After consumers place the order, the cross-border e-commerce platform will inform the customs authority who will complete clearance and inspection of the merchandise and then release the goods to customers. Such bonded zones play a key role in shortening the time of receiving products for consumers, said Xu Ping, president of the Henan Bonded Group that runs the Zhengzhou cross-border e-commerce pilot bonded zone. Thanks to favorable government policies, Henan, an inland province, has become a hot spot of opening up and reform, said Sun Jinglin, deputy head of the Henan Provincial Commerce Department. Figures from the General Administration of Customs show that between January and October 2018, retail imports of cross-border e-commerce reached 67.2 billion yuan (about 9.7 billion U.S. dollars), up 53.7 percent year-on-year. Boosting cross-border e-commerce will promote foreign trade, drive consumption and create jobs, according to Chinee Premier Li Keqiang. The government must take a holistic approach and exercise prudent yet accommodative regulation to fully unleash the growth potential of cross-border e-commerce, he said. The Chinese government has unveiled a new policy loosening cross-border e-commerce trade regulation. No requirements of licensing, registration or record-filing for first-time imports shall apply to the retail imports through cross-border e-commerce platforms. Instead, these goods will receive more relaxed regulation as imports for personal use. Moreover, implementation of this policy will be extended from the 15 cities such as Hangzhou to another 22 cities such as Beijing, which have just established comprehensive cross-border e-commerce pilot zones. INTERCONTINENTAL RAIL FREIGHT BOOSTS FOREIGN TRADE China-Europe freight trains made 6,363 trips in 2018, surging 73 percent from 2017, according to the China Railway Corporation. The freight service, a crucial part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), began operation in March 2011. Over the years, trains have rumbled along the route, taking garments, auto parts, chemicals and other Chinese goods to European consumers, while bringing back European food, machinery, equipment and timber. Numbers are changing fast on the electronic screen in the monitoring and control center of the China-Europe freight train located in Xi'an International Trade and Logistics Park. The Beidou navigation system is helping track the trains in terms of temperature, humidity and the freight on board. "The China-Europe freight trains and the BRI are so important for us," said Liu Keqiang, deputy general manager of Shaanxi Automobile Group Holding Ltd. Thanks to them, the company has exported more than 150,000 vehicles over the years. In 2018, 12,757 units were exported, including 5,666 units to the Asia-Pacific region, central Asia and the Middle East. China is the biggest exporter of goods in the world, contributing 30 percent of global growth, said Stephen Perry, Chairman of Britain's 48 Group Club. "China is a great opportunity for the world, with the BRI happening and spreading into Africa and South America. We can see there is nothing else in the world that is likely to produce opportunities for growth that China is producing," he said. (Xinhua reporters Xu Haizhi, Tao Yiping, He Chenyang, Liu Huaipi, Yao Youming and You Zhixin also contributed to the story.) (Video reporters: Mu Xuyao, Wang Yukun, Liu Kaixiong, Liu Jie, Yang Jinxin, Liang Aiping, Di Chun, Zhang Mengjie, Sun Qing, Chen Jie, Pan Xu, Jin Jing, Sun Xiaoling; Video editors: Zhao Xiaoqing, Liu Ruoshi) Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 21:07:25|Editor: mym Video Player Close BEIRUT, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- The deputy speaker of the Lebanese parliament said on Friday that Lebanon may not dare to seek assistance from Iran as the Hezbollah leader has suggested. "Such step would impact Lebanon's relations with the West. We cannot forget that Lebanon's financial system is tied to the West," Elie Ferzli told Xinhua. Meanwhile, Alain Aoun, a lawmaker from the Free Patriotic Movement, agreed that seeking military help from Iran is mostly likely to impact the U.S. contributions to the Lebanese army. However, it is not necessary to politicize Iran's help in the electricity and pharmaceutical sectors, he added. Their comments came days after the Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah expressed his readiness to ask Iran to provide the Lebanese army with weapons. Iran can also solve Lebanon's electricity problem and help slash the medical bill for the Lebanese people by transforming the country's pharmaceutical industry, Nasrallah added. File photo shows elephants in the Etosha National Park, northwestern Namibia, Aug. 26, 2016. (Xinhua/Wu Changwei) WINDHOEK, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- Chinese tourists are now among those that frequently visit Namibia thanks to concerted engagements between the two countries coupled with the availability of easy access flights between Namibia and China, according to a Namibian tourism official. Speaking to Xinhua, Chief Executive Officer of the Namibian Tourism Board (NTB) Digu //Noabeb said there are now about nine Chinese tour guiding operators in Namibia, adding that this has immensely assisted in dealing with the language barrier. According to NTB, the improvement in the Asian tourist arrival is a result of efforts by Namibia to diversify their tourism market from the traditional European market to include other regions in the world. "Although I am not at liberty to talk about the hard figures off head, I can safely confirm that arrivals from Asia specifically China into Namibia has significantly improved and this is proof that our quest for market diversification is working," he said. The NTB CEO added that unlike in the past, most Chinese businessmen are now showing keen interest in the Namibian market through investing in infrastructure. "If you notice of late you will find out that there are now many more Chinese business people who now own hotels and lodges in Namibia and this is positive sign. What it simply means is that they are also impressed with the levels of business brought about by the Chinese tourists. We now have Marigold Hotel here in Windhoek and another one in Swakopmund and this is good sign of growth," //Noabeb said. Meanwhile, statistics released in the Ministry of Environment and Tourism's latest report show that Namibia received a total of 1.4 million visitors in the better part of 2018. Commenting on the improved tourist arrivals from a spectrum of visitors, Minister of Environment and Tourism Pohamba Shifeta said Namibia needs to take advantage of the increasing tourist numbers to improve the sector, which is one of the country's major foreign currency earners. "As Namibians we need to develop a positive and more appreciative approach towards our travellers and tourists by changing our attitudes and mindsets," said the minister. "We should adopt right attitudes on our roads and develop a conductive environment for the safety and security of our travellers by combating crime," said Shifeta. "Tourists who can travel safely and freely tend to be happier and enjoy their stay and this will encourage return visits as well as convince others to visit our beautiful country through word of mouth," Shifeta added. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 19:57:15|Editor: Lu Hui Video Player Close DAR ES SALAAM, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- The government of Tanzania on Friday ruled out lifting its blanket ban on exports of live wild animals. "We are working to review the Wildlife Conservation Act 2009 to be able to impose total ban on the export of wild animals," Hamis Kigwangala, Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism, told the National Assembly. "The ban which has been in place for three years will not be lifted," the minister told the House in the capital Dodoma. Constantine Kanyasu, the Deputy Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism, said the government had in 2016 imposed the ban on export of live wild animals following exporters' violation of the Wildlife Conservation Act (No. 5 of 2009). Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 19:37:12|Editor: Lu Hui Video Player Close DAMASCUS, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- A total of seven civilians were killed on Friday when a landmine exploded in central Syria, state news agency SANA reported. The landmine exploded in the town of Rasm al-Ahmar in the eastern countryside of Salamiyeh in the central province of Hama, said SANA. The landmine was left by the rebels in an agricultural area, it added. Bombs left by rebels ahead of their defeat or withdrawal exploded multiple times in some areas of Syria. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 19:22:09|Editor: Lu Hui Video Player Close PHNOM PENH, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- Malaysia has sought the release of 47 Malaysians held in Cambodia for allegedly involving in illegal online gambling operations, according to a Malaysian foreign ministry's statement. The statement dated Thursday and posted on the ministry's website on Friday confirmed the detention of 47 Malaysians in Poipet City in northwestern Cambodia's Banteay Meanchey province since Dec. 11 for allegedly running illegal online gambling operations. It added that notification of the arrests was given verbally by the police on Dec. 28. "Following the notification, officers from the Embassy of Malaysia in Phnom Penh made a consular visit to the detainees to ensure their wellbeing after receiving detailed information and approval from the local authorities," the statement said. "The visit revealed that most of the detainees were offered jobs with an attractive pay." It added that officers from the embassy had a meeting with the prison officials and the judge of this case. "The Embassy of Malaysia in Phnom Penh had brought this matter to the attention of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of Cambodia via Diplomatic Note to release the detainees," the statement said. It added that the Malaysian foreign ministry through its embassy in Phnom Penh is closely monitoring the case and prepared to render the necessary consular assistance accordingly. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 19:17:09|Editor: Lu Hui Video Player Close DAMASCUS, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- A total of seven civilians were killed on Friday when a mine exploded in central Syria, state news agency SANA reported. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 18:52:05|Editor: zh Video Player Close CANBERRA, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- A study by the Caravan Industry Association of Australia has revealed that caravan or camping trips are increasingly popular among Chinese tourists in Australia. "Chinese visitors... are increasingly seeking new and different experiences in Australia," Hugh Fitzpatrick, Industry Researcher with Caravan Industry Association of Australia, told Xinhua in an email interview on Friday. The researcher mentioned that in 2018, approximately 14,000 Chinese visitors stayed in caravan parks while in Australia. Over the past 10 years, Chinese visitors have been a key source of growth for tourism around Australia, including the caravan and camping sector. In 2017 alone 14,175 Chinese visitors spent a cumulative total of more than 124,000 nights in caravan parks. This represented a 180 percent increase in nights and a 126 percent increase in visitors from 2016. Figures from Tourism Research Australia showed a similar trend, as the number of Chinese visitors to Australia on group and package tours declined by 8.4 percent in 2017. "Chinese campers are unique because they often have never stayed in a caravan park before. 80 percent of people we interviewed had never stayed in a caravan park before," said Fitzpatrick. Unlike traditional markets of Europe and North America, the Chinese market are relatively new to caravan and camping, with the research highlighting that they are seeking flexible unique experiences that caravan and camping can offer. According to the pilot research which was based on sample from 214 Chinese visitors who had stayed the previous night in a caravan park, although access to items such as rice cookers, and increased wifi capabilities in caravan parks might seem cliche, these things go a long way in terms of helping Chinese travelers to feel comfortable and enjoy their stay. Fitzpatrick also noted that Chinese visitors need assistance in understanding elements of staying in a caravan park or hiring a motorhome because the product is relatively new to them. He told Xinhua that behind the trend was the rise of the middle class in China, who had more disposable income than ever before. "There are more Chinese who want to travel overseas and have experiences that their parents may not have had," he said. "These travelers are often looking for good value accommodation and in our research project, 73 percent agreed that staying in a caravan park was good value for money," he added. Besides, Chinese visitors are more well-travelled than before, so they have more confidence in visiting new destinations in different ways, Fitzpatrick said. "We are also finding that Chinese visitors are loving Australia's nature and wildlife experiences and staying in caravan parks and using motorhomes are an excellent way to be close to and experience Australia's nature and wildlife," he said. More measures were also being taken to attract Chinese visitors. "Destinations outside of major cities are ... having more Chinese language support through things like signs, safety instructions and product manuals," added Fitzpatrick. Tourism operators are also catering to more payment options such as Alipay and WeChat pay to make it easier for Chinese travellers to leave gateway cities and experience regional and rural Australia, said the researcher. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 18:52:05|Editor: Lu Hui Video Player Close NEW DELHI, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- At least 20 people were killed and many others taken ill Friday due to consumption of spurious liquor in two northern Indian states of Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh, officials said. The liquor was consumed by people in Haridwar district of Uttarakhand and adjacent Saharanpur district of Uttar Pradesh. "So far 14 people were killed after the consumption of illicit liquor here and many people have been hospitalized," Nikita Khandelwal, joint magistrate of Rorkee in Haridwar told Xinhua over telephone. The local government Uttarakhand has ordered suspension of 13 officers and four policemen associated with excise department. Meanwhile, in Uttar Pradesh's Saharanpur, six deaths related to consumption of illicit liquor have taken place. "Six people have died so far in the tragedy and many others are undergoing treatment," a senior official said. Reports said the victims have purchased the liquor from a common shop. The death toll is likely to increase in wake of the critical condition of people undergoing treatment in hospitals. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 18:32:03|Editor: zh Video Player Close UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 7 (Xinhua) -- China's UN envoy on Thursday urged Belgrade and Pristina to stay committed to promoting the normalization of bilateral relations through dialogue and consultations after the two sides had halted negotiations last December. Chinese Permanent Representative to the United Nations Ma Zhaoxu made the appeal at a Security Council meeting on Kosovo, which declared independence from Serbia in 2008 without the latter's recognition. Ma said China respects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Serbia and understands its legitimate concerns on the Kosovo issue, and that all parties should reach a solution which is acceptable to all through dialogue and negotiation. "Achieving reconciliation and common development is in the fundamental interests of all peoples," Ma said, calling on all parties concerned to "put the well-being of their people first, protect the legitimate rights and interests of all communities, and promote economic and social development of all ethnic groups." Dominated by ethnic Albanians, Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in February 2008, although it has not been recognized by Belgrade. The two sides committed to a European Union-mediated dialogue with the signing of the Brussels agreement in 2013. The negotiations stopped last December, after Pristina decided to increase the tariff on goods imported from Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina from 10 to 100 percent, as well as to adopt three draft laws aimed at strengthening the role and capacity of the Kosovo Security Force. Speaking of these moves, Ma said they are not conducive to enhancing mutual trust and dialogue, calling on parties concerned to refrain from any rhetoric or action that may complicate or escalate the situation. The Chinese diplomat said the international community should play a constructive role in promoting a proper solution to the Kosovo issue. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 17:56:56|Editor: mym Video Player Close KUNDUZ, Afghanistan, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- Five civilians were freed from a Taliban prison after the Afghan army waged an operation overnight in northern Kunduz province, authorities said Friday. "Special Operations Forces of Afghan National Army (ANA) waged an operation and freed five countrymen from a Taliban prison in Chahar Dara district, Kunduz province Thursday night," Hanif Rezai, spokesman of army Corps 209 Shaheen based in the region, told Xinhua. Rezai added that four militants were detained following the raid and no shoot was fired during the operation. The freed people were shifted to an army base for identification processing, he added. Late last month, 38 civilians and several Afghan soldiers were freed by the army from a Taliban detention center in southern Helmand province. The Taliban militant group has not made comments on the report yet. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 17:41:54|Editor: mym Video Player Close CANBERRA, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- Australian opposition leader Bill Shorten has insisted that bankers must serve time in prison after a landmark report uncovered systematic misconduct in the industry. Shorten, the leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP), said that Australians will believe there has been a "cover up" if culprits walk away from the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry without facing repercussions. His comments came after the National Australia Bank (NAB) announced that chairman Ken Henry and chief executive officer (CEO) Andrew Thorburn had resigned after Commissioner Kenneth Hayne singled out the duo as being incapable of overseeing the necessary cultural change. "If no one out of the banks goes to jail, if no one gets prosecuted or charged I think Australians would see there has been a cover up. We want to make sure that the parliament does its bit to restore faith in the banking sector," Shorten told reporters on Friday. Shorten attacked incumbent Prime Minister Scott Morrison for refusing to schedule extra parliamentary weeks between now and the election to enshrine Hayne's 76 recommendations in law. "The government won't even let the parliament sit for an extra two weeks before the election because they don't want to talk about the banking royal commission, it seems like they haven't got the message at all," he said. "I don't know what every bank has done but I think Australians expect there to be real accountability." Earlier on Friday Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said only "time will tell" if more executives lose their jobs as a result of the royal commission. "I'm not going to specify individuals or companies other than to make the broadest possible point which is the misconduct must stop," Frydenberg told Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) radio. "The reports that we saw through the royal commission of fees for no service, fees charged to dead people and the mis-selling of insurance, was absolutely terrible and has had a profound impact on the community." "Ultimately, and Kenneth Hayne made this point, the responsibility for this conduct falls at the feet of those senior executives and those board members in those companies." Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 17:36:53|Editor: mym Video Player Close HARARE, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- Zimbabwe's leading gold producer RioZim has once again suspended operations at its three mines following failure by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) to allow producers to maintain 55 percent of their foreign currency earnings in their nostro accounts as per promise. The Zimbabwe Stock Exchange-listed miner had initially stopped operations at the mines last October but resumed them a month later after getting a commitment from the central bank that it would get enough foreign currency to meet its operational requirements. Gold producers in Zimbabwe sell their gold only to Fidelity Printers and Refiners, a subsidiary of the RBZ. In a statement to shareholders on Friday, RioZim said it had withdrawn an earlier cautionary statement issued in October 2018 because RBZ had committed to provide it with adequate foreign currency to meet its operational requirements following its involuntary suspension of operations. As part of the commitments made to gold producers in November 2018 to support their operations, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe undertook to allow all gold producers to maintain 55 percent of their export earnings in their foreign currency nostro accounts and to increase export incentives on all minerals, the company said. However, notwithstanding these commitments, the central bank had been failing to meet them, resulting in the company experiencing significant and persistent delays in payment of its foreign currency allocation for deliveries made to Fidelity Printers and Refiners (Pvt) Ltd since December 2018. The three affected mines are Cam & Motor, Renco and Dalny. The company said gold business contributed around 90 percent of its total revenue and the latest stoppage would therefore have a material impact on its performance. It said it was in the interim engaging the RBZ, the Chamber of Mines and other authorities on how to expediently resolve the matter. Zimbabwe is reeling from foreign currency shortages and the central bank is trying to spread the available funds across various sectors of the economy, disadvantaging most of the foreign currency earners in the process. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 17:31:52|Editor: mym Video Player Close MACAO, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- China's Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) witnessed a robust flow of cross-border movements during the Spring Festival, as over 1.68 million inbound and outbound trips were recorded in the first three days of the first month in Chinese lunar calendar, up 21.6 percent year-on-year. More than 540,000 tourists came into this small but attractive tourism hub in the three days, up 26.8 percent from the same period last year. Located in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, Macao also has growing influence on Southeast Asian countries through tourism and foreign employment. The Chinese Spring Festival is changing the festive life of local people and Southeast Asian employees, as well as the traffic flow in the region. Chan Laimen, a Macao resident in her early 30s, will travel back with her family to her ancestral home for reunion in Zhangzhou, southeast China's Fujian Province. "This year I choose the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge to start my trip to Zhangzhou. I will join my cousin in Hong Kong SAR and go back by high-speed train in Shenzhen, like other Chinese will do during the Spring Festival travel rush." She said some of her friends will fly to Thailand or Japan to spend the week-long holiday, instead of going back to hometown. Chan's housekeeper Nguyen Hao, a 51-year-old Vietnamese, will also share the festive holiday. She plans to go back to Hanoi and take a week off when Chan Laimen's family is in Fujian. "I will go back to Hanoi from Macao by air in one-hour trip, it is even faster than my relatives coming from other cities of Vietnam," said Nguyen. Macao has over 60,000 migrant employees from Southeast Asian countries working in home, hotel and restaurant services at the end of 2018, according to the SAR's migrant control department. Among them, about 15,000 are from Vietnam. Most of them go back home during the Spring Festival for similar reasons. As Macao enters holiday period, some of other foreign migrant workers from the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia and Cambodia will also travel back to their hometown, bringing remarkable traffic pressure on airlines from Macao. Macao International Airport (MIA) passenger traffic volume and aircraft movements were up by 20 percent and 15 percent respectively in January 2019, compared to the same period last year. In the first three days of the first month in Chinese lunar calendar, over 80,000 inbound and outbound trips were made through the airport. During this year's Spring Festival, airlines from MIA plans to add 200 extra and charter flights to accommodate the surging demand of local residents and tourists, according to MIA's public relation department. Vicki Mou, MIA public relation official, said that the surging traffic flow into and out from Macao can be attributed to Macao's attractive tourism industry, local residents' outbound travel and the homecoming trip of foreign migrant workers, which all add up to each other during this Spring Festival. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 17:06:49|Editor: mym Video Player Close by Zhou Shengping KATHMANDU, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- On the occasion of the Chinese Lunar New Year, Nepali Finance Minister Yubaraj Khatiwada has pledged that his country will further improve investment climate for Chinese investors. The finance minister also hoped that Chinese investors will continue to show their excellence as they have shown all over the world. In an exclusive interview with Xinhua earlier in the week at his office in Singha Durbar, the minister spoke highly of the contribution made by Chinese business people, saying "they are doing well." For them to do better, the minister said key reform measures must be taken to make investment climate more predictable since there is a stable government which enjoys strong majority, with no load shedding and improved labor relations. "This government wants to make decision as fast as possible and we are revising all the laws related to investment." There is a long list of old laws to be updated and new laws to be introduced to make Nepal, one of the least developed nations in the world, a more attractive destination for foreign investment, the minister said. He said that the drafts of a number of laws had reached the cabinet for amendment such as the draft of Industrial Enterprises Act, the Foreign Investment and Technology Transfer Act and the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act. The Nepali government is also working on introducing new laws on intellectual property rights and public procurement laws to make public-private partnership (PPP) projects more feasible, he said. "We have started implementing the single window system where the investors will get all procedures such as registering the company and getting clearance from a number of government agencies..." The Nepali government is also working to simplify the procedures for foreign investors to acquire land to develop projects, he said. In the interview, Khatiwada also talked about the concerns of foreign investors over the federal governance system implemented in the country after the elections in 2017. "The investors are concerned about the role of the central, provincial and local governments to facilitate the execution of the projects. We are defining the role of all three tiers of the governments in the Industrial Enterprises Act which is being amended." On more fruitful Nepal-China economic relations, the minister stressed the need of having better connectivity between the two countries by reopening up the trade route of Tatopani-Khasa transit point and improving facility at Rasuwagadhi-Kerung border crossing, which is an international crossing point. He also reiterated the importance of the presence of Chinese banks or financial institutions here to protect investment, finance trade and facilitate tourists. "For the Chinese banks, Nepal may be a small market but their branches here could work as windows for the entire South Asia." Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 16:36:42|Editor: mym Video Player Close LUSAKA, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- An Indian firm that specializes in manufacturing electric motor three wheelers on Thursday expressed its willingness to introduce the eco-friendly vehicles to the Zambian market. Rajiv Kapoor, managing director of the Rasandik Engineering Industries, said his company has since decided with effect from this year to start taking part in Zambia's investment expos and commercial shows as part of efforts to enter the market. During his conversation with staff from the Zambia embassy in New Delhi who toured the manufacturing plant in India's northern state of Uttar Pradesh, Kapoor asked Zambia to consider the promotion of the use of eco-friendly transportation systems among its citizens, according to a release. As the cost of fuel continues to rise, the firm is focusing on the manufacturing of zero noise electric motor three wheelers, said Kapoor, adding that the three wheelers are also helpful in empowering the vulnerable groups in society who could not afford to buy a car. The wheelers, he said, are also helpful for small and medium-sized enterprises as they could be used as a cheap source to transport farm produce and other goods. Judith Kapijimpanga, Zambia's high commissioner to India, said the move is the best decision as the southern African nation provides some of the best incentives for investment. An Iranian missile is launched during Iranian naval maneuvers dubbed Velayat 90 in the Gulf of Oman, Iran, on Jan. 2, 2012. (Xinhua File photo) TEHRAN, Feb. 7 (Xinhua) -- Enemy threats cannot intimidate Iran into negotiations over its missile program, the chief of staff of the Iranian Armed Forces said Thursday. "Our message to arrogant governments, which have excessive demands (from Iran), is that we are ready to defend the nation and counter their different plots," Mohammad Bagheri was quoted as saying by the state TV. "Besides, we will not be intimidated by their threats into bargaining over our own defense and missile power as well as regional interests," he said. The Iranian armed forces have managed to domestically produce up to 80 percent of their required military equipment in ground, aerial, naval sectors as well as in missile defense areas, he said at an exhibition of defense achievements in the capital Tehran on Thursday. He also stressed that Iran is ready to share its military experience with brotherly and Muslim countries to promote their fight against terrorism. In defiance of western calls to halt its ballistic missile program, Iran has unveiled an indigenous long-range cruise missile, Hoveizeh, which has a range of 1,350 km, high precision and accuracy, and cruises at low altitudes to be used for ground targets. Also, semi-official Fars news agency reported that Iran has mounted guided warheads on its "most destructive" and long-range Khorramshahr-2 missile, which can be remotely controlled to hit the target. Khorramshahr-2 missile is able to carry warheads with the weight of nearly 2 tons and has a range of 2,000 km and is capable of carrying multiple warheads. Iran has vowed to continue to develop and test missiles in line with its deterrence policy. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 15:21:24|Editor: mym Video Player Close The Palang Pracharath Party leader Uttama Savanayana holds the registration document of Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha in Bangkok, Thailand, Feb. 8, 2019. Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha on Friday accepted the nomination by the Palang Pracharath Party as its candidate for prime minister in the upcoming general election. (Xinhua) BANGKOK, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha on Friday accepted the nomination by the Palang Pracharath Party as its candidate for prime minister in the upcoming general election. Prayut announced his decision in a letter to Thais released on Friday morning. He described Thailand as a divided and chaotic country before the Nationa Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) took power in 2014. "There had been an unprecedented and critical deadlock in the country and no way out could be foreseen at that time," he said. He then said the NCPO and his government brought peace, stability and prosperity back to the country. "Dear fellow people, our nation must progress under the constitution, which set 20-year national strategies and national reform plans as guidelines and directions for the nation for the good future of our children and grandchildren." He noted it was a hard decision because Thailand is in an important period. Prayut then confirmed he accepted the invitation and said it was for his country and people, not for prolonging his power. The Palang Pracharath Party is jointly formed by four former ministers from Prayut's cabinet. The name Palang Pracharath stands for "power of the people's state." Friday is the last day that political parties can submit names of prime minister candidates to the Election Commission, which will officially announce the name list on Feb. 15. The general election for Thais to elect members of parliament will be held on March 24, during which eligible Thai voters will elect 500 members of parliament, who will then vote a new prime minister together with 250 senators that selected by Prayut-led NCPO. Alex Edelman/Getty Images(NEW YORK) -- One week has passed since photos emerged from Virginian Governor Ralph Northam's medical school yearbook, and three more state leaders are now involved in controversy. Northam, apologized for the photo, which depicts two men, one in a Ku Klux Klan robe and another in blackface, on his yearbook page and then denied he was in it. He has not been seen in public since Saturday where he made it clear he does not plan to resign. Sources told ABC News the governor had come close to announcing he would resign, before changing his mind Saturday. Northam has remained holed up in the governors mansion next to the Capitol, consulting with a small group of advisers daily, according to sources familiar with the meetings. The governor said Saturday "as long as I feel that I can lead, I will continue to do that. If I reach a point where I am not comfortable with that, then obviously we will sit down and have that discussion." Blocks away on the other side of the Capitol, Attorney General Mark Herring scurries quickly in and out of his office when he arrives and leaves work for the day, avoiding questions from reporters. His office looks directly across the square from the governors mansion, with the capitol in between. Herring on Wednesday apologized for wearing "brown makeup" to resemble rapper Kurtis Blow at a 1980 college party. Lt. Governor Justin Fairfax, on the other hand, hasn't remained out of public view and reports to the Capitol for work every day. Reporting to work on Friday, Fairfax told ABC News well have our say, Im confident in truth, when asked about his message to Virginians. He has denied allegations he sexually assaulted a woman in 2004, calling the allegations against him a smear campaign. and has now taken on the legal team who represented now Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh when he faced accusations of sexual misconduct. "I take this situation very seriously and continue to believe Dr. Tyson should be treated with respect. But, I cannot agree to a description of events that simply is not true," Fairfax said in a statement earlier this week. The woman who accused Fairfax, Vanessa Tyson, an associate professor of politics at Scripps College in California, is now represented by the lawyers who litigated for Christine Blasey-Ford, one of Kavanaugh's accusers. And now another Virginia lawmaker is having to explain something in his past. Senate Majority Leader Thomas Norment, a Republican, was managing editor of the 1968 yearbook of the Virginia Military Institute which featured several students in blackface and comments with racial slurs. Norment addressed the matter, saying he was not in any of the photos in question and condemned the use of blackface calling it "abhorrent" saying he advocated for racial integration at VMI. A spokesperson for VMI confirmed to ABC News that Norment was the managing editor and confirmed the photos in question. "In recent years we've improved procedures and the yearbook is more professionally done and we are actively trying to take lessons from the past so that we can do better in the future," VMI's director of communications and marketing, Col. Steven D MacInnis, told ABC News. Several Virginia state senators and delegates heading into the capital Friday morning would not answer questions about the leadership chaos in their state. Specific questions about the calls for an investigation of Lt Gov. Fairfax were also met with silence, though one delegate said simply not my job as he rushed away from reporters. Multiple lawmakers have said they dont expect Northam to resign. "I don't think anyone's resigning," said Republican Delegate Terry Kilgore. Some delegates told ABC News they wanted to hear from their constituents on the growing scandal as they head home for the weekend. A group of Democrat congressional leaders from Virginia have reiterated their call for Northam to resign. The same group of lawmakers, however, did not say if Herring should resign, despite his admission that he engaged in blackface in his past. We understand that he is currently engaged in in-depth discussions with leaders and others in Virginia. The Attorney General must continue those conversations, and stand ready to answer questions from the public if he is to regain their trust, the release read. The Virginia Legislative Black Caucus has echoed these views late Thursday, saying, While we appreciate the candor of Attorney General Herrings disclosure, we await further action on his part to reassure the citizens of the Commonwealth his fitness for leadership. The group also went on to say that the sexual assault allegations against Fairfax should be investigated. So what happens next? Should all three Northam, Fairfax and Herring decide to step aside, the next in the line of succession is House of Delegates Speaker Kirk Cox, a Republican. Asked by ABC News this morning if he thinks he'll be governor, Cox said. I don't have anything to add to what I've said. Earlier this week, Cox called the revelations by all three leaders "disturbing." "The people should be confident that our work continues unimpeded and that the Commonwealths 100,000 state employees also continue to serve without disruption," Cox said in a statement. And while local and national Democrats are calling for an inquiry into the Fairfax allegations, it's highly unlikely that will be done by the Virginia legislature. One delegate rushing into the Capitol Friday summed up the political chaos Its a sad day for Virginia, he said. Copyright 2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved South Africa: President Ramaphosa to attend the 32nd AU Summit President Cyril Ramaphosa will be leading the South African delegation to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for the 32nd Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union (AU) later today. The four-day summit, which starts on Friday, will be held under the theme: The Year of Refugees, Returnees and International Displaced Persons: Towards Durable Solutions to Forced Displacement in Africa. The theme presents an opportunity to reflect on and address the root causes of forced displacement in Africa, the Presidency said on Friday. The summit is also expected to deliberate on the institutional reform and financing of the continental body; peace and security on the continent and developments related to the African Continental Free Trade Area. The Presidency said South Africa intends to submit its Instrument of Ratification of the Agreement on the African Continental Free Trade Area during the summit. Negotiations for a new cooperation agreement between the African, Caribbean and Pacific developing countries and the European Union Post-2020 will also feature on the meetings agenda. AU leaders will also elect the Chairperson of the AU for 2020 a position that will rotate to the Southern Region. There will also be the election of five members of the AU Peace and Security Council; the appointment of one member of the AU Commission on International Law; and of one member of the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child. Important meetings preceding the heads of state meetings are the 28th Forum of Heads of State Participating in the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), the meeting of African Heads of State and Government on Climate Change (CAHOSC) and the meeting of the Heads of State and Government Orientation Committee of the AU Development Agency/NEPAD. A meeting of the African Union High-Level Committee of Heads of State and Government on Libya will be convened for the Sunday. President Ramaphosa will be accompanied by a delegation of ministers. - SAnews.gov.za This story has been published on: 2019-02-08. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 15:11:23|Editor: mym Video Player Close WASHINGTON, Feb. 7 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday met with Saudi Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel al-Jubeir on bilateral ties and the death of Saudi journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, as the congressional deadline for the White House to submit an investigation report on his death was near. According to a statement issued by the State Department's deputy spokesperson Robert Palladino, during their meeting, Pompeo thanked the Saudi official for his nation's "continued partnership with the United States across many regional and bilateral priorities." Regarding the case of Khashoggi, the two diplomats "agreed on the importance of Saudi Arabia continuing its investigation into the murder of Jamal Khashoggi in a credible and transparent manner, and holding all of those involved accountable," the statement read. On Yemen, they reiterated their support for UN Special Envoy Martin Griffiths' efforts to advance the political process, and the need for Yemen's government and the Houthis to swiftly implement agreements reached in Sweden. Apart from the meeting, seven senators from both parties on Thursday renewed their push for the Trump administration to determine the persons responsible for the journalist's death before the deadline and punish the Saudi side for its alleged roles in the Khashoggi case and the high civilian casualties in Yemen. In a joint statement, they urged the Trump administration to submit a report to the Senate on Khashoggi's murder to determine whether Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman has been involved personally and whether the Trump administration intends to impose sanctions on anyone that is responsible. These senators, including President Donald Trump's close ally Lindsey Graham, also said that they had introduced the Saudi Arabia Accountability and Yemen Act of 2019, a "comprehensive legislation to hold Saudi Arabia accountable" for the death of Khashoggi, and the Saudi-led coalition "for its role in the devastating conflict in Yemen." The bill prohibited certain arms sales to Saudi Arabia, as well as in-flight refueling of Saudi coalition aircraft, according to the statement. The statement added that the legislation "also comes on the heels of a CNN investigation about U.S.-made military equipment sold to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates ending up in the hands of Al-Qaeda and other adversaries of the United States." "Seeing as the Trump administration has no intention of insisting on full accountability for Mr. Khashoggi's murderers, it is time for Congress to step in and impose real consequences to fundamentally reexamine our relationship with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and with the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen," said Senator Robert Menendez in the statement. "We will not accept the killings of more civilians and journalists with impunity and without consequence." Also on Thursday, a UN-led team investigating the Khashoggi case said that evidence pointed to a "brutal and premeditated" crime "planned and perpetrated" by Saudi officials. Agnes Callamard, UN special rapporteur for extrajudicial summary or arbitrary executions, accused Saudi officials of having "seriously undermined" and delayed Turkey's investigation of the crime scene. Khashoggi went missing on Oct. 2 last year after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to obtain paperwork he needed to marry his fiancee. The Saudi authorities said he died in a "brawl" in the consulate, and denied that the Saudi crown prince had ordered the killing. After releasing the results of its initial investigation, the Saudi Public Prosecution announced that 18 Saudis were arrested for their alleged connections with the killing. The U.S. Congress has urged a thorough investigation into his death, and threatened to take more actions against Saudi Arabia. However, the Trump administration has been reluctant to further punish the Saudi government. Trump has said that he would stand with the Saudi Arabian crown prince despite the death of Khashoggi, and Pompeo said that the death of Khashoggi has "heightened the Capitol Hill caterwauling and media pile-on." Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 15:06:23|Editor: mym Video Player Close WASHINGTON, Feb. 7 (Xinhua) -- Matthew Whitaker, acting U.S. attorney general, will testify before the House Judiciary Committee on Friday as scheduled after a showdown with congressional Democrats over the hearing. House Democrats had threatened to subpoena Whitaker over his oversight of the ongoing Russia probe led by special counsel Robert Mueller, his contacts with White House related to the probe and the firing of former Attorney General Jeff Sessions. In response, Whitaker, who previously had agreed to testify, warned that he wouldn't show up unless lawmakers dropped the ultimatum he described as "political theater." In a letter posted on Twitter late Thursday, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler told Whitaker that there will be no need for the panel to issue a subpoena if he appears "before the Committee tomorrow morning and if you are prepared to respond to questions from our Members." The New York Democrat later confirmed that Whitaker will appear on Friday morning. The Justice Department also issued a statement, saying that Whitaker "looks forward to voluntarily appearing at tomorrow's hearing." Democrats have said they want to speak to Whitaker, a close ally of President Donald Trump who has repeatedly blasted Mueller's inquiry, which the acting attorney general oversees. Asked about Whitaker's congressional appearance, Trump called Whitaker an "outstanding person" and said he would do very well should he testify. "I think he's an outstanding person. I would say, if he did testify, he'd do very well," Trump said during a White House event on Thursday. The wide-ranging Mueller probe has focused on possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow during the 2016 U.S. presidential elections and whether the president obstructed justice, among other things. The special counsel has so far indicted or gotten guilty pleas from 34 people, including six former Trump associates and over two dozen Russian nationals, as well as three Russian entities. Whitaker said late last month that the Mueller-led investigation is "close to being completed," although there has been no confirmation of this from the special counsel's office. The hearing also comes as Whitaker's time leading the Justice Department is about to end, as a Senate panel voted on party lines on Thursday to advance the nomination of William Barr, Trump's official pick for attorney general. The nomination now heads to the Senate floor, where Republicans have a 53-47 majority over Democrats and Democratic-caucusing independents. The nomination of Barr, who served as attorney general between 1991 and 1993 under President George H.W. Bush, is expected to be confirmed in a vote that could come as early as next week. The Justice Department has been led on a temporary basis by Whitaker since Sessions was ousted by Trump in November immediately after last year's midterm elections. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 15:01:22|Editor: zh Video Player Close XINING, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- China's oldest manuscript of the Koran has attracted thousands of visitors since it went on display at a scenic site in northwest China's Qinghai Province last month. The one-month exhibition of the valuable work -- which dates back to around 1,000 years ago -- started on Jan. 23 at the tourist service center of the Camel Spring scenic area in the Salar Autonomous County of Xunhua. It is part of the county's cultural and tourism events. The 867-page sacred book in 30 volumes has been stored at the Jiezi mosque in the county. It underwent restoration by domestic experts in 2007. "This time, I took my relatives with me to the exhibit. It is a treasure of our ethnic group and country," said Han Guolong, a local villager of ethnic Salar minority group. "Seeing the manuscript, I feel deeply impressed." Every day, the exhibit attracts about 6,000 visitors, who mainly come from Xining, the provincial capital of Qinghai and Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture in neighboring Gansu Province. Camel Spring is named after the white camel which, according to legend, carried the Koran copy for the ancestors of the Salar group who left their homeland in central Asia and settled in Xunhua in the 13th century. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 14:56:21|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close WASHINGTON, Feb. 7 (Xinhua) -- The United States will withdraw from a 2013 agreement with Mexico on tomato trade, the U.S. Department of Commerce said Thursday, citing complaints from farmers that Mexican tomato imports have eroded the interest of U.S. domestic producers. "On February 6, 2019, the Department of Commerce notified the Mexican signatories to the 2013 Suspension Agreement on Fresh Tomatoes from Mexico that the Department intends to withdraw from the Agreement," the department said in a statement. "With the written notification, Commerce intends to withdraw from the Agreement on May 7, 2019," it added. According to the statement, the United States began negotiating revisions to the six-year-old trade pact with Mexico in January 2018, but "significant outstanding issues remained" with regard to finding mutually acceptable compromises. The agreement suspended an anti-dumping investigation into Mexican tomato imports in exchange for the Mexican side agreeing to certain restrictions. The department said that in November 2018, the Florida Tomato Exchange, a private company based in Maitland, Florida, requested that the Commerce Department "end the deal and resume the anti-dumping investigation of fresh tomatoes from Mexico." "We have heard the concerns of the American tomato producing industry and are taking action today to ensure they are protected from unfair trading practices," the statement read, citing remarks of U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross. "Commerce finds at this stage that it is appropriate to notify the Mexican signatories of our intent to withdraw, terminate the Agreement, and resume the investigation," the statement said. Politico reported Thursday that 46 U.S. Senators and House Representatives wrote to Ross last week, urging him to take action. They complained that Mexico's share of the U.S. tomato market has risen from 32 to 54 percent since 1996, when an earlier tomato trade agreement went into force. The report said by addressing the lawmakers' concerns, the Commerce Department aims to rally Congressional support for the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, a replacement for the 1994 NAFTA deal that Mexico and Canada signed with the United States on Nov. 30, 2018 under pressure from the Trump administration. The new trade deal needs to be approved by the three nations' legislative bodies before taking effect. However, some producer groups from California -- which accounts for over 95 percent of processed tomato the country produces -- and other U.S. western states warned that if the United States resumes anti-dumping investigations into Mexican crops, Mexico may retaliate with similar moves targeting U.S. agricultural products such as apple, according to a report by CNBC. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 14:51:18|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close SEOUL, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- The announcement of schedule for the joint springtime military drill between South Korea and the United States would be delayed until after the upcoming second summit between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the United States, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said Friday. An unidentified South Korean government source was quoted by Yonhap as saying plans for the joint South Korea-U.S. military exercises in the first half of this year would be announced after the second DPRK-U.S. summit. The source, however, noted that there was no change yet in plans to conduct a theater-level command post exercise, previously called Key Resolve, from March 4. The delayed announcement may have taken into account a possible negative effect on the ongoing working-level talks between Pyongyang and Washington ahead of the planned second summit between top DPRK leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump, Yonhap reported. Kim and Trump agreed to have their second meeting in Vietnam on Feb. 27-28. The first Kim-Trump summit was held in Singapore in June last year. The combined forces of South Korea and the United States have annually staged springtime war games from March to April, including the Key Resolve command post exercise and the Foal Eagle field training drill. The DPRK has denounced the war games as a dress rehearsal for northward invasion. Seoul and Washington reportedly agreed to rename and downsize the war games given the DPRK's aversion to it. The Key Resolve was reported to be renamed "19-1 Exercise," while the summertime Ulchi Freedom Guardian (UFG) command post exercise was given a new name of "19-2 Exercise." Seoul and Washington tentatively concluded to carry out the "19-1 Exercise" for two weeks from March 4. The Foal Eagle field training drill could be downsized to battalion-level maneuvers. Depending on the outcome of the second Kim-Trump summit, the springtime war games could be delayed, Yonhap reported. In 2018, South Korea and the United States postponed the UFG command post exercise and the wintertime Vigilant Ace air exercises. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 14:41:15|Editor: zh Video Player Close BEIJING, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- A total of 8,654 public-private partnership (PPP) projects had been registered in a national data bank by the end of 2018, seeking a combined investment of 13.2 trillion yuan (about 2 trillion U.S. dollars), official data showed. Of all the projects, 4,691 entered the implementation stage, with a combined investment of 7.2 trillion yuan, according to the China Public Private Partnerships Center under the Ministry of Finance (MOF). The projects of which construction has started total 2,237, with their investments adding up to 3.2 trillion yuan. After a government move to step up regulation of PPP projects last year, the number of such projects dropped and saw slower growth, the center said in a report. "The registration of new projects has been more stable and rational, with more value attached to quality rather than quantity and speed," the report said, noting that potential fiscal risks with the projects have been effectively monitored and controlled. PPP is a collaborative investment model between government and private companies. Chinese authorities have explored funding infrastructure and public works through PPP models since late 2013, amid growing concerns over rising local government debt. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 14:36:14|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close by Peter Mertz DENVER, the United States, Feb. 7 (Xinhua) -- Reaction ranged from being hopeful to incredulous after U.S. President Donald Trump's promise to eliminate AIDS in America by 2030. Trump's bold statement in his second State of the Union address Tuesday first triggered words of hope from America's embattled front-line groups that fight the deadly disease. But after the dust had settled, pundits started forcing the president's hand. DIVERSION FROM BIG PROBLEMS "The entire statement by Trump is a diversion away from his big problems," said Washington policy analyst David B. Richardson on Thursday. "A complete distraction," Richardson told Xinhua, noting that the president's tax returns, his involvement with Russian interference in the 2016 presidential elections, and the Democratically-controlled House of Representatives, had made Trump "desperate for diversions." "Scientific breakthroughs" made the goal attainable, Trump said, whose announcement was old news for health organizations, including the United Nations, which years ago called for steps to end the HIV epidemic by 2030. Robert Redfield, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said in March 2017 that it was possible to end the AIDS in less than seven years. Trump also piggybacked on a 2010 HIV strategy outlined by then President Barack Obama that focused on lowering the infection rate and increasing access to medical care. "He's just throwing ideas into the wind so the media gobbles them up in the hope it distracts them away from his possible impeachment," said Richardson, a policy analyst on Capitol Hill in the 1980s. The first reported case of AIDS in the United States was in 1981. Since then, more than 700,000 people with AIDS have died in the United States, according to the CDC. Today, there are over 1.1 million people living with HIV and nearly 40,000 new diagnoses each year. AIDS has no cure, but daily doses of antiretroviral medications have allowed victims to live relatively long and healthy lives. However only half of all people living with HIV are virally suppressed. BUDGET BURDEN On Tuesday night, along with his consistent banter about immigration and the questionable achievements of his two years in office, Trump unleashed the surprise of his 82-minute speech. "My budget will ask Democrats and Republicans to make the needed commitment to eliminate the HIV epidemic in the United States within 10 years," the president said. "Together, we will defeat AIDS in America and beyond," he added. Insiders told Xinhua that the final words: "and beyond," were not part of Trump's written speech, but adlibbed by the president at the last minute. Health Secretary Alex M. Azar II said Trump will seek "substantial new funds for the effort," another remark that stunned both Democrats and Republicans. Projections from the White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) say the federal budget deficit will reach 1 trillion U.S. dollars in 2019, roughly 101 billion dollars more than previously projected. Trump, who campaigned on a balanced budget and reducing federal expenditures, apparently on Tuesday added another big expense to the deficit. Financial details of the new AIDS initiative are expected next month. However, Trump's 2019 financial year budget, submitted in February 2018, includes cutting 40 million dollars from CDC's HIV prevention programs, and 26 million dollars from federal housing programs for people living with AIDS, as well as cutting global HIV programs by 1 billion dollars, according to the Congressional Budget Office. On Wednesday, the non-profit AIDS United posted an open letter reacting to Trump's speech -- signed by 22 of the nation's leading anti-AIDS advocates, including groups in San Francisco, Chicago, and Texas. "We know what it will take to end the HIV epidemic in the U.S. by 2030," the letter began. "The real proof will be in the President's FY 2020 budget request next month," it ended. INCONGRUITY BETWEEN WORDS, DEEDS Although AIDS Institute's Michael Ruppal said the plan "can go down in history as one of the most significant achievements of his presidency," other experts were quick to note the incongruity between the president's words deeds. "The barriers to ending AIDS have long been a lack of investment in outreach and access," said James Hamblin, author of "If Our Bodies Could Talk." "Trump has contributed to these obstacles with racist, sexist, anti-transgender, anti-science rhetoric. Until now, his words have worked at almost every turn to fuel HIV's spread," Hamblin said. "His words are not backed by his actions," said Californian businessman and Africa expert John Ott, noting that Trump stopped U.S. assistance to the World Health Organization (WHO) in Africa, which fights to control spread of the disease across the continent. According to a report released last week by Global Health Policy, there are 25 million AIDS victims in 10 southern African countries -- the largest concentration of victims on the planet. "If Trump was actually interested in helping AIDS victims he would embrace universal health insurance to treat AIDS sufferers, a policy he actively works against," Richardson said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 14:06:07|Editor: Lu Hui Video Player Close High Representative of the European Union (EU) for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini, speaks during a press conference after a meeting of the International Contact Group on Venezuela, at the Executive Tower, in Montevideo, capital of Uruguay, on Feb. 7, 2019. Some 13 countries and the European Union (EU) gathered in Montevideo on Thursday to promote a "peaceful and democratic solution" to the Venezuelan crisis, said an EU senior diplomat. (Xinhua/Nicolas Celaya) MONTEVIDEO, Feb. 7 (Xinhua) -- Some 13 countries and the European Union (EU) gathered in Montevideo on Thursday to promote a "peaceful and democratic solution" to the Venezuelan crisis, said an EU senior diplomat. Speaking at the opening of the meeting of the International Contact Group on Venezuela, Federica Mogherini, the EU's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, underscored the importance of avoiding violence and armed conflicts. "We may have different points of view and understandings of the causes of this crisis, but we share a similar objective: to contribute to a political, peaceful and democratic solution," said Mogherini. "It is the only possible outcome if we want to avoid more suffering and a chaotic and dangerous process," the diplomat added. She made the remarks amid repeated threats from the United States, which backs the right-wing opposition in Venezuela and expressed willingness to consider a military option to oust President Nicolas Maduro and the ruling socialist party. "An international initiative is important to accompany a peaceful and democratic way out of the current crisis through free, transparent and credible presidential elections," said Mogherini. Political tensions in Venezuela between the government and opposition groups came to a head after Maduro was sworn in to a new term on Jan. 10. Alleging that the Maduro administration is illegitimate, opposition leader Juan Guaido, who was head of the National Assembly, declared himself interim president during an anti-government rally on Jan. 23. Present at the meeting were representatives from France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Britain, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico and Uruguay, as well as the EU. The gathering was originally proposed by Uruguay and Mexico on Jan. 30 to promote a negotiated solution to the political dispute and head off armed conflict in the region. No Venezuelan officials or opposition leaders participated in the meeting. According to Mogherini, the contact group should first reach "a common understanding" on "a political transition process" for the South American country, and channel humanitarian assistance to Venezuelans in need. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 13:51:05|Editor: mym Video Player Close HARARE, Feb. 7 (Xinhua) -- Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa said Thursday he is committed to a national dialogue with his political opponents to ensure the development of the country. "My doors will remain open for dialogue and updates as we pursue programs that will bring about prosperity, development and better quality of life to our people," Mnangagwa said in a speech read on his behalf at a church-organized national dialogue prayer meeting. Mnangagwa on Wednesday met with 20 presidential candidates from last year's elections to discuss a framework for post-election dialogue aimed at resolving challenges facing the nation. He said the meeting Wednesday was in fulfillment of the pledge he made upon inauguration last August to engage political opponents in order to move the country forward. He added that the dialogue provided an opportunity to discuss pertinent national issues to forge a common understanding on ways to develop the country. Opposition MDC Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa, who boycotted Wednesday's meeting at the State House, attended the church prayer meeting Thursday. United Nations resident coordinator Bishow Parajuli commended the country's political leaders for embracing dialogue as a way of addressing the pressing socio-economic challenges. Parajuli said dialogue provided prospects for peace and unity, adding that it was important to ensure that the process was free of external interference. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 13:46:03|Editor: mym Video Player Close PHNOM PENH, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- A long-awaited direct flight between Cambodia and Indonesia is expected in the second half of this year after nearly half-a-century hiatus, Cambodian Tourism Minister Thong Khon said on Friday. Khon met here on Thursday with Indonesian low-cost airline Citilink delegation led by Indonesian Ambassador to Cambodia Sudirman Haseng. Khon told Xinhua that a direct flight between the two member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is crucial to boost bilateral tourism, trade, and investment. "We welcome Citilink airline for its readiness to operate a direct flight to Cambodia," he said. "This will make our dream come true because we have waited for it for long time." According to the minister, currently, travelers between Cambodia and Indonesia need to transit through Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, or Ho Chi Minh City. "Among the 10-country ASEAN, there are only two countries - Indonesia and Brunei - that have not yet connected direct flights with Cambodia," Khon said. Cambodian Tourism Ministry Secretary of State Tith Chantha said Cambodia and Indonesia had a direct flight between Phnom Penh and Jakarta before the 1970s, but due to Cambodia's civil war at that time, the direct flight has been suspended since then. "We hope the direct flight will be launched in the second half of this year..." he said. According to Chantha, some 55,753 Indonesian tourists visited Cambodia in 2018, up 11.8 percent from a year earlier. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 13:41:01|Editor: mym Video Player Close KATHMANDU, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- Nepalese government is planning to showcase over two dozen studied projects in the upcoming Investment Summit 2019, three times increase compared to the previous one held in 2017, to attract more Foreign Directive Investment (FDI), a senior official of the government said recently. "In the previous summit, there were only eight studied projects. This time, however, we are offering more projects - small and big," Maha Prasad Adhikari, chief executive officer (CEO) of Investment Board Nepal (IBN) told Xinhua in an exclusive interview this week. According to the head of the government body, during the second summit slated for March 29-30 in the capital Kathmandu, the projects to be introduced to potential investors include cold storage projects in each of all seven provinces recommended by provincial governments, film city project, bus rapid system in Kathmandu, and Lumbini Maternity Hospital, among others. There are some hydro-power projects to see the light such as Tamor Hydro, West Seti Hydro, Uttar Ganga Hydro and Arun 4 Hydro. Foreign funds are also expected to pour into the tourism sector such as cable car and regional airport. "There is an interest to develop an international airport from a foreign government," said Adhikari. "We have also called on the Nepali private sector to come up with the projects which could attract foreign investors for possible business to business deals." During the last investment summit, foreign investors signed letter of intent (LoI) worth 13.52 billion U.S. dollars. But actual investment remained small. To provide more facilities for FDI, the Nepali government is working to revise around two dozen laws including Foreign Investment and Technology Transfer Act before the summit. Key features of these laws are going to be deliberated during the thematic sessions of the event. At the same time, the Nepali government aims to issue Expression of Interest (EoI) notices related to some hydro-power projects so that investors could participate in bid during the event. "More notices on providing license of exploration of the mines will be issued before the summit," said Adhikari. Adhikari said it is good timing to find greener pasture in Nepal since there is a stable government with reform process undergoing and investment environment on the growing hand. The CEO added that Nepal is again banking on Chinese investors for large amount in the March summit. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 12:40:51|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close BANGKOK, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- Thailand's Princess Ubolratana Mahidol, in an unexpected move, accepted on Friday the nomination as candidate for prime minister in the March 24 general election. Thai Raksa Chart (Thais protect country) Party leader Preechaphol Pongpanit submitted to the Election Commission the name of the Princess as the party's only candidate for prime minister. The polling agency is scheduled to officially announce the names of all electoral candidates, including those for the post-election prime minister, on Feb. 15. Ubolratana, 67, is the eldest child of the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej and sister of King Maha Vajiralongkorn. She will run under the tickets of Thai Raksa Chart Party in competition with incumbent Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, who also accepted the nomination as candidate for prime minister under the banners of Palang Pracharath (power of people's state) Party, as well as former prime minister and Democrat Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva, among others. According to the Palace rules, Ubolratana has become a commoner since she was divested of royal titles following her marriage to an American in 1972. She returned to Thailand in 2001 from the United States after her divorce, and has since regularly taken part in charity, social welfare and health promoting events as well as anti-drug campaigns for youths. Thai Raksa Chart Party leader Preechaphol declined to comment whether Ubolratana will go on a campaign trail alongside Thai Raksa Chart electoral candidates nationwide. Thai Raksa Chart Party is largely viewed as an affiliate of the once-ruling Pheu (for) Thai Party. Many of Thai Raksa Chart Party members and electoral candidates had belonged to Pheu Thai Party over the past several years. Both parties are known to remain loyal to former prime ministers Thaksin Shinawatra and Yingluck Shinawatra, who have been residing in self-exile overseas. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 12:25:49|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close SEOUL, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- South Korean Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon said Friday that the planned second summit between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the United States was anticipated to make a concrete, substantial progress for denuclearization and peace on the Korean Peninsula. Cho made the remark at a function in Seoul, saying a concrete, substantial progress was anticipated to be made in the second summit between top DPRK leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump as the leaders reached a comprehensive, principled agreement on the peninsula's denuclearization and peace during their first meeting. Kim and Trump were scheduled to meet in Vietnam on Feb. 27-28. The leaders held their first summit in Singapore in June last year. The unification minister said South Korea will make utmost efforts for the success of the DPRK-U.S. summit and the establishment of permanent peace on the peninsula by closely communicating and cooperating with the DPRK and the United States. Meanwhile, Baik Tae-hyun, spokesman of the unification ministry, told a press briefing that South Korea anticipated a more concrete, substantial progress to be made in the second Kim-Trump summit. The spokesman noted that relations between the two Koreas and between the DPRK and the United States formed a virtuous cycle along with denuclearization negotiations. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 12:20:49|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close SYDNEY, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- A rainbow coloured pedestrian crossing has brightened a Sydney city square after being installed on Friday, but authorities are worried about safety, six years after a similar crossing was removed due to safety concerns. Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore said the new rainbow crossing is a sign of the city's proud reputation for diversity. "We believe this may also be the first rainbow crossing in the world that has been painted in a curving rainbow shape," Moore said. I know residents and visitors will love this colourful symbol of the city's long standing support for our LGBTIQ community." The previous incarnation was created to mark the 35th anniversary of the Sydneys Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras and lasted just two months before it was removed. "The behaviour we have seen recorded by CCTV cameras, including people sitting and laying on the crossing, has set off alarm bells at the high risk of injuries and fatalities," roads minister Duncan Gay said at the time. The new rainbow crossing prioritises pedestrians over road traffic with green lights activated for vehicles only when required, triggered by a sensor. An independent review will be conducted in six months to determine whether the crossing will stay or go. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 12:20:49|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 7 (Xinhua) -- A UN envoy said Thursday that the atmosphere for resuming the dialogue on Kosovo has been exacerbated over the past few months. Zahir Tanin, the UN secretary-general's special representative for Kosovo, told the Security Council of "a tendency to disrupt rather than de-escalate" the tension between Serbia and Kosovo. "Recent developments in the relations between Pristina and Belgrade have complicated efforts to create an atmosphere conducive to dialogue and good-faith compromise," he said. Tanin also stressed the need for continued support by all council members for a renewed engagement between the two sides, saying that reducing tensions, enhancing mutual trust and removing obstacles to the dialogue are "crucial" to the region's stability. He said the UN mission in Kosovo that he leads is mobilizing resources to promote trust-building at all levels of the Kosovo society, and will continue coordination with partners on the ground. Dominated by ethnic Albanians, Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in 2008, which has not been recognized by Belgrade. The two sides committed to a European Union-mediated dialogue with the signing of the Brussels agreement in 2013. The negotiations stopped last December, after Pristina's decisions to increase the tariff on goods imported from Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina from 10 to 100 percent, as well as to adopt three draft laws aimed at strengthening the role and capacity of the Kosovo Security Force. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 12:00:45|Editor: mym Video Player Close Photo shows the United Nations Security Council holding a meeting on the situation in Kosovo, at the UN headquarters in New York, Feb. 7, 2019. The United Nations Security Council agreed Thursday to hold fewer meetings over the Kosovo issue instead of meeting on the current quarterly basis. (Xinhua/Li Muzi) UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 7 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations Security Council agreed Thursday to hold fewer meetings over the Kosovo issue instead of meeting on the current quarterly basis. The council will hold three meetings, including Thursday's session, on Kosovo in 2019, and two annually from 2020 onward. Whether to discuss Kosovo on Thursday was a sticking point when the council members were working on this month's program, which failed to be adopted on Feb. 1. Equatorial Guinean Ambassador Anatolio Ndong Mba, president of the council for February, said the program will come out later this month. The frequency of reporting on Kosovo has been a contentious issue in the council for some time. The United States prefers the issue be discussed less frequently, while Russia wants to maintain the quarterly cycle. The decision came amid stalled talks between Belgrade and Pristina. Zahir Tanin, the UN secretary-general's special representative for Kosovo, said Thursday that the atmosphere for resuming the dialogue has been exacerbated. He told the Security Council of "a tendency to disrupt rather than de-escalate" the tension between Belgrade and Pristina. Tanin also underlined the importance of the council's role in dealing with the issue, saying that reducing tensions, enhancing mutual trust and removing obstacles to the dialogue are "crucial" to the region's stability. Dominated by ethnic Albanians, Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in 2008, which has not been recognized by Belgrade. The two sides committed to a European Union-mediated dialogue with the signing of the Brussels agreement in 2013. The negotiations stopped last December, after Pristina's decisions to increase the tariff on goods imported from Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina from 10 to 100 percent, as well as to adopt three draft laws aimed at strengthening the role and capacity of the Kosovo Security Force. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 11:55:45|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close SUVA, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- Banks in Fiji are striving to provide Electronic funds transfer at point of sale (EFTPOS) machines to small shops in the rural and urban areas of the island nation as they continue to move towards a cashless society. Fiji Association of Banks member Saud Minam said Friday the challenge they faced was small shops which did not provide them with the required documents to open an EFTPOS account. Minam said they were working towards flooding the market in Fiji with EFTPOS machines to businesses in the second tier and all the way to small shops. He said the aim is for people to walk or drive to places without having cash in their hands and be able to buy the smallest amount of goods without carrying any cash. Fijian Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama, who is president of COP 23 (23rd session of the Conference of the Parties), said earlier he was determined to reduce carbon emissions in Fiji by using less paper. Since 2017, all payments made by the Fijian government departments have been done electronically without issuing cheques. Head of the Australia and New Zealand Bank in Fiji Saud Minam said recently that the Fijian people were adapting well to the use of electronic platforms, and businesses were also conforming to limiting the use of paper. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 11:50:42|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close CANBERRA, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- A group of 10 people who spent several days stranded in the Australian Outback have been rescued. Three people were on their way to hunt wild cattle from Bulman in remote Arnhem Land, on Monday when their vehicle became bogged. The trio worked day and night to free the car but gave up when they were exhausted, surviving the night off bush tucker and water from a nearby stream. "Luckily for me I knew I was in good hands. Like I said, my family that live in Bulman, especially the men, have a lot of knowledge about the land that's been passed down," one of them told News Corp Australia on Friday. Worried about the missing group, seven family members departed Bulman in two cars on Tuesday to search for them, arriving at the scene of the bogged car at approximately midday with water and canned food. However, the situation was exacerbated when the car towing the bogged vehicle to safety burnt out the clutch and the third car also became bogged, leaving all 10 people stranded. By Wednesday, running short of food and water, the group decided to split up with two of them staying with the cars and the rest of the group walking back to Bulman for help. The walking group were spotted by Northern Territory aerial police, who began searching earlier in the day. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 11:50:41|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close WASHINGTON, Feb. 7 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will travel to Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, Belgium and Iceland to discuss bilateral ties and international issues, U.S. State Department said here on Thursday. According to a press statement issued by Robert Palladino, deputy spokesperson of the State Department, Pompeo will travel to Budapest, Bratislava, Warsaw, Brussels and Reykjavik on Feb. 11-15. On Feb. 12, Pompeo will meet with his Polish counterpart in Warsaw, where the United States will co-host with Poland the "Ministerial to Promote a Future of Peace and Security in the Middle East," according to the statement. The State Department said on Jan. 11 that the ministerial meeting on the Middle East issue would be held to address a range of critical issues including terrorism and extremism, missile development and proliferation, maritime trade and security, and threats posed by proxy groups across the region. The meeting would "focus on Middle East stability and peace and freedom and security here in this region, and that includes an important element of making sure that Iran is not a destabilizing influence," Pompeo said in an interview earlier. In his second State of the Union (SOTU) address made on Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump also blasted Iran by accusing Tehran as "the world's leading state sponsor of terror" and "a radical regime." In response, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted hours later that "Iranians... are commemorating 40 yrs of progress despite US pressure, just as @realDonaldTrump again makes accusations against us @ #SOTU2019." "U.S. hostility has led it to support dictators, butchers & extremists, who've only brought ruin to our region," he added. In January, Pompeo conducted an eight-day trip to Middle East amid rising uncertainty and complexity in the region following the White House's decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 11:20:34|Editor: zh Video Player Close MACAO, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- A parade was held in China's Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) on Thursday night to celebrate the Chinese Lunar New Year, featuring float parade, dances, fireworks show and float exhibition. The event was organized by Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO). A total of 18 floats were shown during the parade, decorated with lights and flowers, symbolizing traditional Chinese dishes with auspicious wishes. The parade was one of Macao SAR's signature festive events, which gains wider popularity each year, Director of the MGTO Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes told reporters. It started from the Macao Tower and ended at the Macao Science Center, with a total of 800 performers from the mainland, the Macao SAR, the Hong Kong SAR, as well as those from Indonesia, Japan, Slovakia and other countries and regions. A second parade is to be held on Sunday night, the organizers said. This item is available in full to subscribers. Attention subscribers We have recently launched a new and improved website. To continue reading, you will need to either log into your subscriber account, or purchase a new subscription. If you are a digital subscriber with an active subscription, then you already have an account here. Just reset your password if you've not yet logged in to your account on this new site. If you are a current print subscriber, you can set up a free website account by clicking here. Otherwise, click here to view your options for subscribing. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 11:15:33|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close WASHINGTON, Feb. 7 (Xinhua) -- The United States on Thursday continued its diplomatic maneuver around Venezuela amid mixed international opinions over the legitimacy of Venezuela's self-claimed interim president Juan Guaido, who is the South American country's opposition leader. In a statement issued by Robert Palladino, the State Department's deputy spokesperson, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will, during his upcoming trip to Brussels, meet with European Union (EU) High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, to discuss U.S.-EU cooperation on a range of key issues including support for Guaido. Several separate statements issued by Palladino showed that U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan on Thursday met with Spanish Vice Foreign Minister Fernando Venezuela at the State Department. During the meeting, Sullivan emphasized the U.S. support for Guaido in the political crisis in Venezuela. On Wednesday, Sullivan talked with Peruvian Vice Foreign Minister Hugo de Zela in Washington D.C. over a key role for Peru to play in the Lima Group in supporting the Venezuelan opposition and Guaido, as well as to address the flow of Venezuelan refugees and migrants. The Lima Group is a multilateral body established in August 2017 to focus on Venezuela's situation. As its diplomatic efforts stepped up on the Venezuelan crisis, Washington on Thursday said it is imposing a ban on the travel of the Venezuelan National Constituent Assembly's members to the United States, as part of its campaign to press Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to cede power and leave Venezuela. Earlier on the same day, Craig Faller, head of the U.S. Southern Command, told a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing that the U.S. military is ready to protect U.S. personnel and diplomatic facilities in Venezuela if necessary. The international response to the aggressive interventionism by the United States regarding Venezuela and Guaido's legitimacy has been mixed. On Thursday, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said it is still waiting for consensus among its member countries on whether to recognize Guaido's legitimacy. IMF spokesperson Gerry Rice told a press briefing that official recognition is needed before the institution's any financing program for Venezuela could be designed. "We're following the situation in Venezuela closely and as in all such cases the international community guides official recognition, and we will be guided by that," he said. "Before any other action could be taken by the IMF that step would need to be taken." "There was a question about ... possible design of a program or assistance," he added. "It would be premature to begin to talk about any specifics because again, we are following the guidance of the international community and that would need to be established." U.S. President Donald Trump on Jan. 23 announced the U.S. recognition of Guaido's claim as Venezuela's interim president, which came 10 days after Maduro was inaugurated as president. Maduro was re-elected in 2018. His first term of presidency began in April 2013. In response to Washington's support for Guaido, Maduro announced he was severing "diplomatic and political" ties with the United States, ordering all the U.S. diplomatic and consular personnel to leave Venezuela in 72 hours. For years, the United States has imposed diplomatic pressure and economic sanctions against Venezuela. Right before Maduro's inauguration in January, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on seven Venezuelan individuals and 23 entities, accusing them of involvement in a corruption scheme. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 11:05:31|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 7 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations Security Council agreed Thursday to hold fewer meetings over the Kosovo issue instead of meeting on the current quarterly basis. The council will hold three meetings, including Thursday's session, on Kosovo in 2019, and two annually from 2020 onward. Whether to discuss Kosovo on Thursday was a sticking point when the council members were working on this month's program, which failed to be adopted on Feb. 1. Equatorial Guinean Ambassador Anatolio Ndong Mba, president of the council for February, said the program will come out later this month. The frequency of reporting on Kosovo has been a contentious issue in the council for some time. The United States prefers the issue be discussed less frequently, while Russia wants to maintain the quarterly cycle. The decision came amid stalled talks between Belgrade and Pristina. Zahir Tanin, the UN secretary-general's special representative for Kosovo, said Thursday that the atmosphere for resuming the dialogue has been exacerbated. He told the Security Council of "a tendency to disrupt rather than de-escalate" the tension between Belgrade and Pristina. Dominated by ethnic Albanians, Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in 2008, which has not been recognized by Belgrade. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 11:00:31|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close BRASILIA, Feb. 7 (Xinhua) -- Brazil's Senate on Thursday received a petition to create a parliamentary commission to investigate the collapse of an iron-ore waste dam that has left at least 150 people dead and more than 180 missing. The petition was backed by 42 signatures, 15 more than the minimum needed, and was put forward by two senators from the Social Democratic Party (PSD). According to PSD Senator Carlos Viana, the commission isn't designed to punish those responsible, but to propose more effective laws to avoid a repeat of the tragedy. "If we had modernized the legislation at the right time, if we had allowed a more modern (oversight) agency, we would have saved the lives of those people," said Viana. The tailings (or waste) dam owned by mining giant Vale burst on Jan. 25, unleashing a sea of toxic mud on the small rural town of Brumadinho in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais. The accident marks the second such incident in three years. In November 2015, another tailings dam partly owned by Vale collapsed also in Minas Gerais, destroying an entire community and killing 19 people. It was considered Brazil's worst environmental disaster. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 10:50:29|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close DHAKA, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Bangladesh government recently signed agreement for 50 million U.S. dollars in loan to promote microenterprise development for inclusive economic growth and poverty reduction. The assistance will help improve microenterprises' access to finance through the Palli Karma Sahayak Foundation (PKSF), an apex development finance and capacity building organization; and its partner organizations. Monowar Ahmed, secretary of Economic Relations Division (ERD), and Manmohan Parkash, country director of ADB, signed the agreement on behalf of Bangladesh and ADB, respectively in Dhaka. "The greatest constraint in developing microenterprises in Bangladesh is the limited access to finance. This project will provide financing to ease this constraint," said Country Director Manmohan Parkash. "The project also introduces an innovative mobile-based microenterprise financing application on a pilot basis, and boosts forward linkages to agriculture, thus promoting rural growth and income and job opportunities." To address medium-term challenges, it said, the project will help PKSF develop a financing strategy and carry out institutional strengthening. For the longer term, the project will develop microenterprise finance operational guidelines for microfinance institutions, said the ADB statement and added it will also assist in clustering microenterprises for business expansion and upscaling with quality control, branding, packaging, and marketing. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 10:10:24|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close MAPUTO, Feb. 7 (Xinhua) -- Seven people were beheaded and three young girls kidnapped by armed men early Thursday in Mozambique's northern Cabo Delgado province, state radio station Radio Mozambique (RM) reported. The attackers entered the houses in a village in Macomia district before beheading seven people they encountered, some escapers told RM. The bodies were discovered when some villagers who had slept in the woods at night returned to their houses. In some districts, residents abandoned their homes for fear of incursions by extremists. Three girls, aged 13-15, were missing, villagers said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 09:35:20|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close WASHINGTON, Feb. 7 (Xinhua) -- U.S. House Democrats and Republicans on Thursday clashed with each other over a bid to release President Donald Trump's tax returns. "Every president should release his or her returns to the public as a matter of course," Democratic lawmaker Bill Pascrell told a Ways and Means Subcommittee on Oversight hearing. "And when we have cause for concern over conflicts or tax violations we have every reason to use the authority given to this committee," he said. "The law is on our side." Pascrell was referring to a 1924 law that allows the chairs of Congress's tax committees to look into anyone's confidential returns. Republican lawmaker Mike Kelly argued the move would set a dangerous precedent, saying "an abuse of power would open a Pandora's box that would be tough to get a lid back on." "There is no end in sight for those whose tax information may be in jeopardy," Kelly said. Several tax experts were also called upon to testify. The hearing was part of House Democrats' effort to push an ethics legislation, which would require presidents and vice presidents as well as candidates for those posts to release their tax returns in previous 10 years. That legislation, however, is likely to be dead on the arrival in the Senate as Republicans control the upper chamber. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, meanwhile, urged patience from Democrats in going after Trump's tax returns. "It's not a question of just sending a letter," Pelosi told reporters Thursday. "You have to do it in a very careful way." Trump has rejected a decades-old tradition that presidents and White House hopefuls would make their tax returns public. Democrats have claimed that Trump's business dealings present a host of potential conflicts of interest that they can't understand without his tax information. About 60 percent of voters in an ABC News/Washington Post poll last month said House Democrats should obtain and release the tax returns, while 35 percent voiced opposition. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 09:20:18|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close WELLINGTON, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Friday outlined the government's plan to build greater resilience in the economy in the face of global economic headwinds. New Zealand will be doubling down on trade and broadening trading base this year to protect its exporters and economy, Ardern said in her speech to Business New Zealand breakfast. "Expanding free trade with other countries can provide our economy with a buffer against a downturn in any of our markets," Ardern said, adding in particular "we will seek to conclude a high-quality agreement with the European Union, as well as establishing the benchmark for a high-quality model agreement with Britain." "The New Zealand economy is doing well. We are delivering stronger growth than many of our trading partners and historically low unemployment is seeing more people in work," she said, adding the government books are in solid surplus to protect the country against external shocks and New Zealand families are experiencing solid wage growth. Meanwhile, this year the government will deliver a world-leading wellbeing budget, which incorporates not just the health of finances but also natural resources, people, and communities, she said. "It will ensure that those closest to the margins are protected and that no one is left too far behind," Ardern said, adding the wellbeing budget is not only about improving New Zealanders' livelihoods, it is key to ensuring the people are protected from the international headwinds the economy may face. With global growth slowing down, New Zealand also faces persistent skills gap, which was raised by the business circle saying the gap holds back growth and is a long-term weakness in the local economy, she said. The prime minister said vocational training is a priority this year and the government will soon be releasing a far-reaching discussion document outlining reform options to ensure the sector is more responsive to business and national and regional skills shortages. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 07:47:18|Editor: mym Video Player Close A man reads a book at the Baghdad International Book Fair 2019, in Baghdad, Iraq, Feb. 7, 2019. The fair kicked off Thursday with the participation of hundreds of publishers and high attendance of readers, as it sheds more light on eradicating terror and extremism in the war-torn country. (Xinhua/Khalil Dawood) Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 08:31:07|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa (R) addresses to opposition party leaders during a post-election dialogue meeting at State House in Harare, Zimbabwe, Feb. 6, 2019. Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Wednesday urged all political parties in the country to accept his victory in last year's elections so that the nation can embark on meaningful political dialogues that can push the country forward. He also urged the nation, including all political parties, to call for the removal of Western sanctions hampering economic development. (Xinhua/Shaun Jusa) Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 07:30:01|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 7 (Xinhua) -- Google said Thursday that it will suspend its high-speed internet service in Louisville, the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, in mid-April after it has experienced challenges that have been "disruptive" to residents. The service, which is part of Google Fiber program that was aiming to offer customers broadband internet service with speeds up to 1 gigabit (Gbps) via fiber-to-premises deployment, will come to an end on April 15. Google Fiber said in a blog that its operation in Louisville was a failure after its plan to place fiber optic cable in very shallow trenches cut into sidewalks and streets proved to be disruptive to local residents. "We're not living up to the high standards we set for ourselves, or the standards we've demonstrated in other Fiber cities," Google said. Google has launched the Fiber project in several U.S. cities, and the first one was Kansas City where the high-speed internet service was made available in 2012. Louisville was one of the most recent cities included in the project, when Google brought the program to the city in 2017. Google Fiber has agreed to offer two more months of free service to its existing customers in Louisville after it turns off its network in the city. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 07:40:56|Editor: zh Video Player Close Women wave hands during a parade at Lancang Lahu Autonomous County in Pu'er City, southwest China's Yunnan Province, Feb. 7, 2018. People of ethnic groups wearing their traditional festive costumes took part in a parade to celebrate the Chinese Lunar New Year in Lancang Lahu Autonomous County. (Xinhua/Yang Zongyou) Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 05:44:42|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close BEIRUT, Feb. 7 (Xinhua) -- The British ambassador to Lebanon said on Thursday that his country will provide all needed support for Lebanon to become more stable, secure and richer, the National News Agency (NNA) reported. "We will invest in Lebanon in 2019 more than in 2018 ... We will help the Lebanese in creating a better future," Chris Rampling was quoted as saying by the NNA. Rampling also emphasized the need for Lebanon to implement serious reforms to achieve all its goals. Britain will continue to support the Lebanese army and internal security forces in 2019, he added. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 05:19:37|Editor: zh Video Player Close Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (R) shakes hands with new Chinese Ambassador Deng Li in Ankara, Turkey, Feb. 7, 2019. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday voiced readiness to join efforts with China to further the alignment of Turkey's Middle Corridor project and the Chinese-proposed Belt and Road Initiative, with a view to advancing bilateral relations continuously. (Xinhua) ISTANBUL, Feb. 7 (Xinhua) -- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday voiced readiness to join efforts with China to further the alignment of Turkey's Middle Corridor project and the Chinese-proposed Belt and Road Initiative, with a view to advancing bilateral relations continuously. As he received the credentials presented by new Chinese Ambassador Deng Li in Ankara, Erdogan said Turkey attaches high importance to its relationship with China, and is ready to further harmonize each other's development projects so as to expand bilateral ties steadily by means of tapping the potentials for cooperation in such fields as politics, economy and culture, and promoting trade, investment, tourism and major projects between the two countries. Erdogan also asked Deng to convey his best regards to his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping. For his part, Deng extended Xi's good wishes to Erdogan, pledging all efforts to implement the important consensus reached by the two heads of state that is charting the course of bilateral cooperation, actively support pragmatic cooperation in all fields, and promote the alignment of the development projects of the two countries. Deng arrived in Turkey for his new office on Jan. 26. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 05:14:34|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close WASHINGTON, Feb. 7 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on Thursday announced to sanction a Turkish national for six alleged violations of U.S. sanctions against Iran. In an announcement, OFAC sanctioned Evren Kayakiran, a Turkey-based individual, accusing him of directing a foreign subsidiary of a U.S. company to violate U.S. sanctions against Iran and then attempting to conceal those violations. "Treasury is sanctioning Kayakiran not just for his willful violation of U.S. sanctions on Iran, but also for directing staff to commit and cover up these illegal acts," said Sigal Mandelker, the Treasury's under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence. The statement read that the designation of Kayakiran was pursuant to Executive Order 13608, which targets efforts by foreign persons to engage in activities intended to evade U.S. economic and financial sanctions with respect to Iran and Syria. As a result of the sanction, all transactions or dealings directly or indirectly involving Kayakiran in or intended for the United States would be prohibited. U.S. financial institutions must reject payments involving Kayakiran. Washington has reimposed comprehensive sanctions against Tehran since U.S. withdrawal from the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal last May, seeking to curtail "Iran's malign influence across the region." On Jan. 24, the Treasury announced to impose sanctions against two Syria-based, Iran-backed militias and two aviation entities linked to Iranian airline Mahan Air. In an international conference held in Tehran last December, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani criticized the U.S. moves to exert sanctions on Iran as the "economic terrorism." "We are here to voice that if the United States thinks that it can divide us, then it is making a grave mistake," Rouhani stressed. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 04:34:22|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close WASHINGTON, Feb. 7 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday lashed out at House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, who has announced the panel will look into the president's dealings with Russia. Schiff "is going to be looking at every aspect of my life, both financial and personal, even though there is no reason to be doing so," Trump tweeted Thursday morning. "Never happened before! Unlimited Presidential Harassment." The president accused Democrats and the congressional panels they are leading of "going nuts," complaining that "there would be no time left to run government." Schiff said Wednesday his committee's investigation would include a continued probe into Russia's alleged role during the 2016 U.S. presidential election and contacts between Moscow and the Trump campaign. The investigation, added the California Democrat, would also examine "whether any foreign actor has sought to compromise or holds leverage financial or otherwise, over Donald Trump, his family, his business, or his associates." That would move forward with the Russia probe led by special counsel Robert Mueller, whose investigation is known to have focused on the Trump team's Russian contacts and whether the president obstructed justice. Mueller's team has so far indicted or gotten guilty pleas from 34 people, including six former Trump associates and over two dozen Russian nationals, as well as three Russian entities. Trump has repeatedly dismissed any collusion between his campaign and Moscow, while slamming the Mueller probe as a "hoax" or "witch hunt." Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker said last month that Mueller's inquiry is "close to being completed," although there has been no confirmation of this from the special counsel's office. The House Intelligence Committee met for the first time in the new Congress Wednesday and voted to send more than 50 transcripts from the panel's investigation interviews to Mueller. Among the transcripts are interviews with Trump's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr.; his son-in-law, Jared Kushner; his longtime spokeswoman, Hope Hicks. There are dozens of other transcripts of interviews with former Obama administration officials and Trump associates. The committee already sent one transcript to the special counsel after his office requested an interview with Roger Stone, a longtime Trump associate. Federal prosecutors accused Stone on charges of obstruction, witness tampering and making false statements to Congress in a seven-count indictment last month. Republicans lost control of the House after eight years in power during the 2018 midterm elections, while holding onto their majority in the Senate. Newly-empowered Democrats have promised to bring more checks and balances against the White House. In his State of the Union address Tuesday night, Trump urged an end to "ridiculous partisan investigations" - an apparent swipe at the Mueller probe and upcoming congressional inquiries. The president said on Wednesday Schiff "has no basis" for launching an investigation into him and blasted the Democratic lawmaker as "a political hack who's trying to build a name for himself." "I can understand why the idea of meaningful oversight terrifies the President," Schiff responded on Twitter. "We're going to do our job and won't be distracted or intimated by threats or attacks." Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 04:19:18|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close NICOSIA, Feb. 7 (Xinhua) -- Cyprus has failed to apply Council of Europe recommendations to prevent corruption in the judiciary, an official of the Council's anticorruption body said on Thursday. "GRECO's recommendations are not optional, so we look forward to their implementation by the Cyprus authorities," Gianluca Esposito, executive secretary of Group of States against Corruption (GRECO), told the Cypriot parliamentary ethics committee. GRECO, the anti-corruption monitoring body of the Council of Europe, sent a delegation under Esposito to Cyprus to examine the state of affairs in the administration of justice. The visit was arranged a month ago but it coincided with an uproar caused by allegations by the island's Attorney General about improper relations of judges. He claimed that the president of the Supreme Court and three judges who separately issued controversial decisions on two cases concerning criminal offences by Bank of Cyprus officials prior and during the 2013 economic crisis, had improper relations with the bank and the law office representing the lender. "We are aware of and will be taking into consideration all latest developments," Esposito said. He told lawmakers that Cyprus adopted only two of 16 recommendations to combat state corruption in general, but none of the recommendations relating to the judiciary. These concern the restructuring of the highest level of justice, transparent rules for the appointment and promotion of judges, introduction of a code of conduct for judges, rules to prevent conflict of interest, and training and education of judges. Justice Minister Ionas Nicolaou, who met the delegation after the parliamentary committee session, has said that his ministry has prepared legislation for reform the administration of justice at a cost of 120 million euros (about 136.22 million U.S. dollars). He did state specifically that these were intended to apply GRECO recommendations. The beleaguered president of the Supreme Court also announced last week a new code of conduct for judges, presumably to stave off GRECO criticism. Without entering into details, Esposito said his delegation will look "into the recently issued code of conduct and the ongoing judicial reform." He said GRECO will release its next report on Cyprus by the end of 2019. "Recommendations must be adopted within a specified time limit," Esposito said, hinting at possible sanctions if Cyprus failed to comply in time. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 04:04:16|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close ADDIS ABABA, Feb. 7 (Xinhua) -- Chairperson of the African Union (AU) Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, on Thursday urged AU member countries to intensify efforts for the realization of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement. Faki made the call during the 34th ordinary session of the executive council, which is underway from Feb. 7 to 8 at the headquarters of the pan-African bloc in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa, being held within the framework of the 32nd ordinary session of the assembly of the AU. "The progress of the Africa AfCFTA is very encouraging, at the current pace of ratification we can anticipate entering the agreement into force within the coming weeks," The AU chairperson told African foreign ministers. "I hope the 6 countries that are yet to sign this instrument will do it as soon as possible, and those that have already signed will very quickly carry out the process of ratification," Faki said. The AfCFTA, which is considered as Africa's flagship initiative towards strengthening the continent's currently low economic integration, is gaining momentum under the leadership of the AU Commission and the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA). Ratifying the agreement last week, Ethiopia has joined the rapidly increasing number of African countries that have reiterated their commitment to the continental free trade pact. A total of 49 of the AU's 55 member states have so far signed the AfCFTA agreement, while 13 countries have ratified the agreement, according to figures from the AU. While a minimum of 22 ratifications are required for the AfCFTA to come into force, some 12 other AU member countries are also in advanced stages of obtaining parliamentary approval for ratification, according to the AU. "The attainment of the objectives of the free trade area presupposes also that we progress quickly towards the single African Air Transport Market, as well as the protocol on the Free Movement Persons and the African Passport," Faki said. During the two-day meeting, the Executive Council is expected to consider key recommendations on the condition of African refugees, returnees and internationally displaced persons (IDPs), ahead of the session of the AU assembly of heads of state and government, as African leaders are set to gather at the AU headquarters from Feb. 10 to 11. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 03:59:16|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close Romanian Interior Minister Carmen Dan (R) welcomes European Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship Dimitris Avramopoulos at the EU informal meeting of Justice and Home Affairs Ministers in Bucharest, Romania, Feb. 7, 2019. The two-day informal meeting kicked off in Bucharest on Thursday. (Xinhua/Cristian Cristel) BUCHAREST, Feb. 7 (Xinhua) -- The European Union (EU) member states needed to conclude a comprehensive agreement on asylum system, so as to be better prepared for future challenges, EU Commissioner for Migration and Home Affairs Dimitris Avramopoulos said Thursday. "We have to find temporary solutions regarding the migrants' debarkation, but, at the same time, we need to reach a comprehensive and structured agreement regarding our common asylum system," he said. Avramopoulos was in Bucharest for a two-day informal meeting of Justice and Home Affairs Ministers of the EU, organized by the Romanian Presidency at the EU Council. "We have to do more in the future, because we don't know what the future holds for us. Europe should be better prepared for future challenges," said the EU official, adding that "we need solid political will from all member states." "I am counting very much on the Romanian Presidency to reach an agreement," he said. Meanwhile, the Commissioner pleaded for the strengthening of the Schengen Area, saying that "Schengen is the greatest achievement of all times and it is our duty to maintain, strengthen and improve the free movement space." Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 01:58:48|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close RIGA, Feb. 7 (Xinhua) -- Although this year and next the Latvian economy is set to grow faster than the economies of its Baltic neighbors, the growth rate will decelerate, the European Commission said in its latest economic forecast Thursday, advising the country to curb spending. Fueled primarily by rapid investment growth and persistently strong private consumption, the Latvian economy is likely to grow by 3.1 percent in 2019, according to the Commission's "Winter 2019 Economic Forecast". Although the Commission expects Latvia's economic growth rate to remain high, it is projected to slow down to 2.6 percent in 2020. Valdis Dombrovskis, the European Commission's vice president for the euro and social dialogue, who met with Latvian Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins in Riga on Thursday, said that the 3.1 percent growth rate projected for this year could still be considered decent performance. "Despite problems across the European Union, Latvia continues to show strong economic growth. But it is necessary to bear in mind that the Latvian economy is closely linked with the economies of other European countries. So, Latvia should take these risk factors into consideration," the commissioner said. Dombrovskis noted that the European Commission had already approved Latvia's technical budget for 2019, drafted by the country's previous government, and that the new government therefore should refrain from increasing spending and widening the budget deficit this year. The government plans to adopt the 2019 budget on March 8 after a protracted government formation process following last year's general election also delayed work on the budget. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 01:38:37|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close LONDON, Feb. 7 (Xinhua) -- The City of London sees opportunities for further cooperation between the UK and China in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a top British policymaker told Xinhua in a recent interview. "Five years on from its initial announcement, China's Belt and Road Initiative remains an incredible vision, and a clear area for greater collaboration between the UK and China," Catherine McGuinness, chair of the Policy and Resources Committee of the City of London Corporation, said via email. She recalled the first Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation held in Beijing in 2017. That event "truly gained the world's attention," and since then several UK companies have paid BRI-focused visits to China to learn first-hand about the opportunities for further cooperation. Late last year, the City of London Corporation's Green Finance Initiative, in partnership with China's Green Finance Committee, published a set of BRI green finance guidelines. "The BRI is an ambitious plan, which London, and more broadly the UK financial and professional services sector, can support by being a key hub for international infrastructure investment," said McGuinness. She said that with its unrivaled talent pool in financial and professional services, the City of London could also play a role in areas such as green finance, consultancy, rule of law and foreign exchange. "Partnerships between UK and Chinese companies will be key in supporting infrastructure development across the region, particularly in terms of projects and initiatives in third countries, where UK and Chinese strengths are complementary," said McGuinness. The City of London Corporation engages and works closely with the government, policymakers, regulators and businesses. Its work includes exploring opportunities for UK businesses around the world. McGuinness described the BRI as "the project of the century," which London could support by being a key hub for the financing and professional services required. "The UK is a leading international financial centre, and a country with hundreds of years of experience in infrastructure financing and countless success stories to share," she said. "As a result, we have so much to offer the BRI, and I look forward to working with partners in China, and across the world, to ensure we play a role in this 'project of the century'." McGuinness told Xinhua that the City of London Corporation encourages UK companies to discuss BRI-related issues at home and abroad. The corporation also discusses BRI-related opportunities and mutually beneficial potential cooperation ventures with the Chinese government and with industry leaders. She said she looked forward to this year's forum in Beijing and to hearing more about the UK companies' involvement and successes in the BRI. "I am confident our position as a centre for financial excellence will continue" after Britain leaves the European Union in March, she said. "But this will only be possible by continuing to work closely with international partners like China in the field of financial and professional services." Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 01:08:23|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close KIEV, Feb. 7 (Xinhua) -- The Ukrainian parliament on Thursday adopted a bill to ban Russian observers from monitoring Ukraine's upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections. The legislation was supported by 232 votes in favor, surpassing the minimum of 226 required, the parliament said in a statement on its website. According to the explanatory note, the law was adopted to prevent "Russia's intervention in Ukraine's elections" and prevent "information attacks" aimed at distorting facts about the electoral process in Ukraine. Last month, Ukraine's Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin said he had sent a letter to the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) asking to reject applications from Russia's monitoring mission for Ukraine's elections. Commenting on the move, the Russian Foreign Ministry accused the Ukrainian authorities of making "anti democratic, anti people decisions". On Dec. 31 last year, Ukraine's Central Election Commission has officially kicked off the campaign for presidential election and on the same day, it decided to close its polling stations in Russia. Klimkin later explained that it could be "dangerous" for Ukrainians to vote in the country's presidential election in Russia. The presidential election in Ukraine is scheduled to be held on March 31, while parliamentary elections have been set for Oct. 27. Relations between Kiev and Moscow have been deteriorating since early 2014 over Crimea and armed conflicts in eastern Ukraine. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 01:03:22|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close Manfred Weber, Chairman of the European People's Party (EPP) Group in the European Parliament, addresses the EEP meeting in Athens, Greece, on Feb. 7, 2019. The creation of new job positions across the European Union to support growth is a top priority for the European People's Party (EPP), Weber said on Thursday in Athens. (Xinhua/Marios Lolos) ATHENS, Feb. 7 (Xinhua) -- The creation of new job positions across the European Union to support growth is a top priority for the European People's Party (EPP), Chairman of EPP Group in the European Parliament Manfred Weber said on Thursday in Athens. EPP members convened in the Greek capital for a two-day meeting to discuss in particular youth unemployment and ways to create more opportunities for work ahead of the upcoming European Parliament elections this May. Weber, who is also a candidate for the presidency of the European Commission, outlined a five-year plan which foresees the creation of 5 million new jobs throughout the bloc. Under EPP's proposal, the EU should focus on innovation, ambitious trade agreements, investments in infrastructure and a strong social economy in the market, among others to support job creation, development and prosperity for all. "I dream about a Europe where we have a situation where nobody is forced anymore to leave his home or his nation only due to economic reasons. That was the past, but should not be the future," Weber said in statements to reporters after the meeting's opening session. Greece was chosen for one of the final conferences of the group before the May elections, he explained, because the country was tested hard in recent years due to the debt crisis. "Because we have on one hand an important year for Greece and we have on the other hand an important year for the Europe. And we want to show unity; we want to show that EPP has a clear plan," he said. Greece exited last summer the painful bailout programs which kept her afloat and in the euro zone since 2010 and is holding general elections by autumn this year. Weber expressed his certainty that Greece's main opposition New Democracy (ND) party will win the elections taking over from a "populist" Left-led government and a new chapter will open for the country, as well as for the entire bloc. "Athens is for us the place to talk about jobs, about growth and jobs. We need to open a new chapter of future orientation... It is crucial for Greece, but not only for Greece. It is crucial for European Union as a whole," he stressed. On his part, ND leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis expressed EPP members' conviction that Weber will be the next President of the European Commission, underlining that Europe today needs his bridge-building skills. EPP's economic agenda for the European Parliament elections matches the positions of New Democracy for the full recovery of Greek economy, he said. His party's priority is the creation of new quality jobs, Mitsotakis explained. "The new jobs our country needs will be created at the private sector through private investments. They will be created if we reduce taxation, if we improve the environment for doing business, if we encourage Greeks, big companies as well as small and medium sized companies to invest in their land," he told a joint press conference with Weber. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 00:53:20|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close British Prime Minister Theresa May (L) meets with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in Brussels, Belgium, Feb. 7, 2019. (Xinhua/Zheng Huansong) BRUSSELS, Feb. 7 (Xinhua) -- Talks with British Prime Minister Theresa May were constructive and robust, but the European Union (EU) will not reopen negotiations on the Brexit deal, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said Thursday in a joint statement. May arrived in Brussels earlier Thursday to meet Juncker, European Council President Donald Tusk and President of the European Parliament Antonio Tajani for further talks on Brexit concessions despite the EU's repeated refusal to renegotiate. NO RETROGRESSION ON BREXIT DEAL TALKS In the statement read out by European Commission chief spokesperson Margaritis Schinas, Juncker underlined that the Withdrawal Agreement represents a carefully balanced compromise between the EU and Britain, in which both sides have made significant concessions to arrive at a deal. "President Juncker however expressed his openness to add wording to the Political Declaration agreed by the EU27 and the UK in order to be more ambitious in terms of content and speed when it comes to the future relationship between the European Union and the UK," said the statement. He also drew attention to the fact that any solution would have to be agreed by the European Parliament and the EU27, said the statement. For May's part, the prime minister described the context in the British Parliament, and the motivation behind last week's vote in the House of Commons seeking a legally binding change to the terms of the backstop, said the statement. "She raised various options for dealing with these concerns in the context of the Withdrawal Agreement in line with her commitments to the Parliament," said the statement. Despite the challenges, the two leaders agreed that their teams should hold talks as to whether a way through can be found that would gain the broadest possible support in the British Parliament and respect the guidelines agreed by the European Council. The prime minister and the president will meet again before the end of February to take stock of these discussions, read the statement. "THERE WILL BE A BACKSTOP" After meeting with May in Brussels, European Parliament Brexit Coordinator Guy Verhofstadt said at a press conference that they would be keeping the backstop agreement. "May assured us that there will be a backstop, there is no question to remove the backstop because it is necessary to securing the Good Friday agreement," Verhofstadt was quoted by the Euronews as saying. Speaking alongside Verhofstadt, European Parliament President Tajani reiterated that the parliament only supported the withdrawal agreement negotiated by the EU's Brexit chief negotiator Michel Barnier. "This is the only solution that protects peace in Ireland and the integrity of the internal market," said Tajani, adding that they are committed to revising Ireland's situation if May's red lines changed. Both warned that a no-deal Brexit would be "catastrophic" for both sides, with Verhofstadt calling "irresponsible" the British MPs who support a no deal, reported Euronews. TALKS TO CONTINUE May also held talks with Tusk, one day after the latter told reporters that he had "been wondering what the special place in hell looks like for those who promoted Brexit without even a sketch of a plan how to carry it out safely." According to the Guardian, May told Tusk the language that he used Wednesday "was not helpful and caused widespread dismay in the United Kingdom." "The point I made to him was that we should both be working to ensure that we can deliver a closer relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union in the future, and that's what he should be focusing on," quoted the Guardian on its website. With just 50 days left to Brexit, pressures are mounting on both sides of the English Channel. Shortly after his meeting with May, Tusk tweeted his disappointment. "Still no breakthrough in sight. Talks will continue." Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-08 00:18:12|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close BAGHDAD, Feb. 7 (Xinhua) - - Iraq's paramilitary Hashd Shaabi shelled the Islamic State (IS) hideouts in eastern Syria on Thursday, according to a statement by Hashd Shaabi. Acting on accurate intelligence reports, the Hashd Shaabi units in Iraq's western province of Anbar fired 50 missiles, destroying several IS hideouts in Syria's al-Baghouz area, the statement said. The militants were planning to infiltrate Iraqi borders, it added. Iraqi securtiy forces have been carrying out operations against IS militants in Syria by destroying their hideouts to secure the borders and prevent infiltrations. Late in 2017, Iraq declared full liberation from the IS after the security forces and Hashd Shaabi units, backed by an international coalition, re-captured all areas seized by the extremist group. However, the IS has since frequently attacked Iraqi military posts along the border from inside Syrian territories. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-07 23:48:03|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close BERLIN, Feb. 7 (Xinhua) -- In one of the biggest cases of fraud in post-war German history, charges were brought against the founder of the container company P&R, the Munich public prosecutor's office 1 announced on Thursday. The 75-year-old defendant Heinz Roth is formally accused in 414 cases of commercial fraud as well as 12 cases of tax evasion with a total damage of almost 18 million euros (20.4 million U.S. dollars). "The indictment against the accused, who is in custody, concerns only a fraction of the total investment of around 54,000 investors," according to the public prosecutor's office. P&R had collected a total of 3.5 billion euros. P&R is accused of having set up a pyramid scheme that promised returns from leasing sold containers to freight companies and offered investors to repurchase the containers after five years. This business worked for years because P&R used the incoming money of new customers to pay the returns of existing investors. In the process, the container company is believed to have sold over a million non-existent containers to investors. According to investigations, around 1.6 million containers were sold, of which only 617,000 existed. The fraud case of P&R could surpass the Flowtex scandal during the 1990s when Flowtex managing director Manfred Schmider and his accomplices managed to sell more than 3,000 non-existent special drills for underground construction work. The biggest economic scandal in Germany to date had caused damages of more than 2 billion euros. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-07 01:07:45|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close TEHRAN, Feb. 6 (Xinhua) -- Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Wednesday called for a Middle East free of nuclear weapons, Press TV reported. "Our slogan is a Middle East free of nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction, and we have been standing firm on this position for 40 years," Rouhani was quoted as saying. The Iranian president also urged the exit of foreign forces from the region, saying their intervention must end. Rouhani made the remarks at a meeting with foreign guests and ambassadors in the capital Tehran on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Iranian Islamic Revolution. Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-07 00:52:42|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close VILNIUS, Feb. 6 (Xinhua) -- The Lithuanian president rejected on Wednesday the candidacy of Irma Gudziunaite for the environment minister's position, prompting the prime minister lashing out. "Gudziunaite is an energetic and promising young politician but she lacks the necessary expertise," President Dalia Grybauskaite was quoted as saying in a statement released by her office. "Professionalism, expertise in the area, administrative capacity, transparency and avoidance of conflict of interest are the main president's demands for all the ministers," the statement read. Gudziunaite, currently deputy minister of justice, was nominated by prime minister Saulius Skvernelis. Shortly after the president's decision, Skvernelis reacted on Facebook claiming "it will be impossible to agree on the candidacy with the president". "Not one or two possible candidates for the environment minster were discussed with the president. Unfortunately, an agreement was not reached on either of them. Gudziunaite's candidacy was harmonised with the head of sate in advance, that is why she was nominated," Skvernelis said. In his words, the president mentioned after the conversation with the candidate that a decision would be favorable, therefore the rejection "was a surprise". The prime minister added that the minister of energy will continue as the acting minister of environment for a few more months. Skvernelis unexpectedly reshuffled his cabinet back in December 2018. After ministers of education and culture were replaced, Skvernelis was publicly criticized for his all-male government as 13 out of 14 ministries are headed by men while the position of the environment minister remains vacant. In May, Lithuania will hold presidential election, which will replace country's incumbent president after her two terms at the office. TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - Thursday is National Black HIV and AIDS Awareness Day. The Leon County Health Department is working to make sure everyone in the community goes out to get tested. The idea is to increase HIV and aids awareness, promote testing, and get rid of the negative stigmas and ideas that people have about getting tested and the disease itself. Of the 1,400 HIV cases in Leon County, 76% identify as black or African American. Now, the health department is partnering up with the group "Tallahassee Links, Incorporated" to invite people to come out and learn more, but in a fun and educational environment. "It's already scary, going in for an HIV test, but bringing it to the community and saying hey, listen, we're going to bring this to you in a fun and entertaining way. We want you to know the seriousness of it. We also want you to get tested and know your status," said Kiara Dale the Minority AIDS Coordinator. The Health Department is hosting a couple of events this weekend. Friday, is the free "Hands Up Dance Showcase" at 6:30 at Lee Hall on FAMU's campus. Then Saturday, there's a 'lunch and learn' with an HIV-positive advocate. The free event begins at 10 a.m. at the Delta Kappa Omega Providence Community Center. Every event is offering a free and confidential HIV test. You can also stop by the health department on West Orange Avenue to get a free test. (WTXL) - Just two weeks before 21-year-old Zephan Xaver is suspected of walking into a Sebring bank and senseless murdering all five people inside , he resigned from his position as a Corrections officer at Avon Park Correctional facility. It was a position, the Indiana native held for just 3 months with no issues, according to the department. Short stints seemed to be his pattern. In March 2016, Xaver enlisted in the armys basic training program, a U.S. Army spokesperson confirmed to us. But three months later, he separated from the army and never returned to training. The Army hasnt explained why. It was a brief event in his life Xaver never mentioned on applications he submitted to the Florida Department of Corrections (FDC) and, we discovered, it was a part of his life the department never knew about because it never requested his military background. Xaver indicated he never served in the military. Since he never officially served, there was no service to verify," Patrick Manderfield, an FDC spokesperson told us in an email. Leo Martinez is a retired FBI special agent who spent years conducting background checks on new agents and people under investigation by the FBI. He said the department should have known those details and could have requested them from U.S. Military. It would give them a fuller, more complete picture of who this applicant is and what is their background, he said. The Corrections Departments failure to dig deeper, he said, left it vulnerable to missing red flags. There could have been something very negative that he did that led him to the non-completion and you need to know that, Martinez explained. Xaver is accused of randomly targeting a Sebring bank last month, taking all five people inside hostage before fatally shooting each one of them. Four of the victims were bank employees, one was a customer and all were women. According to the corrections department "there was no disqualifying information" about Xaver that would have "excluded him from becoming a correctional officer." Florida corrections officers undergo a series of background checks including a drug screening, a physical, and national criminal history review. But, Martinez said criminal histories only reveal so much. The person had to have been literally arrested so if a disciplinary matter, an ethical, morality whatever you want to call it if it didnt reach the level of a crime then it may be very, very negative and bad information, but never rose to the level of being arrested then its not going to be in the NCIC system, he said. The NCIC is an acronym for the National Crime Information Center, an electronic clearinghouse of crime data. Records also show while the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE), the states top law enforcement agency, recommends all corrections officer candidates undergo a polygraph, psych exam and neighborhood check, the state prison system never did that for Xaver. Its unclear if they ever do for other applicants. FDCs spokesperson maintains it did nothing wrong. The department performed every required background check as required by Florida statues, its spokesman said. While the Department of Corrections continues to struggle with an officer shortage and high turnover rates, its spokesperson told us that has no impact on its hiring practices and they have no plans to beef up it background check policies for officers. Scripps TV Station Group 2019 The E.W. Scripps Co TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (The News Service of Florida) - Several state lawmakers are calling on Congress to take action against Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro. A non-binding memorial filed in the Florida legislature calls on Congress to urge the Maduro government to allow humanitarian aid into the country. The measure also asks for stronger sanctions against Venezuela as long as Maduro remains in power, as well as to hold the regime accountable for any human rights violations. Democratic State Senator Victor Torres is sponsoring the proposal. "It's a hardship on the children, on the elderly and on all the civilians in Venezuela. We cannot overlook this. We need to do something. I am asking the Congress and the US Senate to take action," said Senator Torres. The legislation has already passed one legislative committee in the Florida House, and has yet to be heard in the Senate. If passed by the full legislature, the memorial would act as a formal petition by the state to the federal government to take action on the issue. LIBERTY COUNTY, Fla. (WTXL) - A pair of cousins have been arrested after investigators say they stole more than $100,000 from a local trucking company over a period of three years. FDLE agents say they have arrested Glenn Terrell Holland, 48, of Hosford and Gregory Newsome, 59, of Altha each for grand theft and engaging in a venture to defraud a local trucking company. FDLE agents, in partnership with the Liberty County Sheriffs Office, discovered that Holland, a manager at the trucking company, was his cousin Newsomes direct supervisor from February 2015 to August 2018. While employed there, Newsome also worked as a correctional officer at Florida State Hospital in Chattahoochee. Apart from receiving a paycheck, agents say there was little indication that Newsome actually did any work for the trucking company. The investigation found that Newsomes timesheets at both jobs reflected that he was working day shift, approximately 60 hours per week for the trucking company while maintaining a full-time, day-shift work schedule at the hospital. His combined timesheets revealed that there were about 317 days that he worked at both locations in 12 hour shifts, two times a day. Agents say the timesheets also indicate that he worked 24 hours or more per day for around 163 days, which is impossible. In addition, the investigation found that the cousins were passing money between their bank accounts, indicating that Holland was receiving money from his cousin during their joint venture to defraud the trucking company. Holland and Newsome were arrested Thursday by FDLE and members of the Liberty County Sheriffs Office, with the assistance of the Leon County Sheriffs Office, and booked into the Liberty County Jail. BLOUNTSTOWN, Fla. (WTXL) - A Blountstown police officer has been arrested after being accused of engaging in sexual activity with a 16-year-old child. Blountstown Police Officer Christian Rashad Smith, 30, has been charged for unlawful sexual activity with certain minors and contributing to the delinquency of a child. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement says they started their investigation after receiving a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. They say that Smith was having inappropriate conversations with a 16-year-old female on social media. Their investigation revealed Smith had sexual conversations with the child on different social media platforms and also engaged in sexual activity with the child. Chief Mark Mallory of the Blountstown Police Department made the following statement regarding Smith's arrest: The allegations against Sgt. Smith do not reflect the character and standards that we have for the employees of the Blountstown Police Dept. and not only violate the publics trust, but the trust that I place in the officers of this agency. I am committed to transparency and to policing our own personnel. Upon notification of the allegations made against Sgt. Smith, this agency began working with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement on this matter. Once enough information was gathered to determine that there was potential merit to the allegations, Sgt. Smith was immediately placed on administrative leave until the completion of the investigation. Smith was arrested Thursday night and booked into the Calhoun County Jail. Following his arrest, Smith was placed on administrative leave pending investigation. MARIETTA, Ga. (AP) - A judge has denied bail for a Georgia Tech student accused of threatening to bomb a middle school and shoot any survivors. News outlets reported that 18-year-old Andrew Sean Brady, of Austell, appeared in court Wednesday and was ordered to continue to be held without bond. Authorities say Brady emailed the threats to Floyd Middle School workers last month and was arrested days later on charges including terroristic threats. The Cobb County School District released a statement saying local and state law enforcement were investigating the threat. Bradys connection to the school is unclear. Authorities say no explosives were found in a search of his home and car. Georgia Tech spokesman Lance Wallace confirmed in an email Thursday that Brady is a student. Its unclear if Brady has a lawyer. Central London commercial offices attracted 16.2bn ($21bn) of investment in 2018, more than Manhattan, Paris and Hong Kong Greater China remains the largest investor in London real estate 40bn ($51.8bn) of global capital actively looking to invest According to Knight Frank's, London retained its title as the world's top destination for investment in commercial real estate in 2018.London remains by far the biggest global destination for investment in real estate, despite ongoing uncertainty around Brexit, with 16.2bn ($21bn) invested in the UK capital's commercial offices in 2018. This compares to 14.3bn ($18.5bn) invested in Manhattan, 12.1bn ($15.6bn) in Paris and 8.4bn ($10.8bn) in Hong Kong. While total investment volumes for Central London were down slightly on 2017 (16.8bn, or $21.7bn) the average deal size rose to an all-time high of 81.5m ($105m) in 2018.Greater China remains the largest source of investment in Central London real estate, despite new capital restrictions imposed this year, accounting for 3.48bn ($4.5bn) in 2018 and 21% of all investment in Central London offices last year. Although Greater China remains London's biggest source of capital, the total volume of investment from the region was down 51% on 2017, when Central London saw a record 7.12bn ($9.2bn) invested into commercial offices from Chinese investors.2018 saw South Korea significantly increase its investment in Central London, with 2.56bn ($3.3bn) invested in the capital, an eight-fold increase on the 300m ($388m) invested in 2017. Capital from the Far East as a whole accounted for 47% (7.67bn, $9.9bn) of all investment in Central London offices in 2018.Nick Braybrook, Head of Central London Capital Markets, Knight Frank reports, "Although 2019 presents ongoing challenges, international investors remain undeterred. Our Global Capital Tracker identifies 40 billion ($51.8bn) still targeting London this year, with some seeing the political turbulence and currency weakness as an opportunity, combined with the strong occupational market fundamentals."Whilst demand from Greater China has reduced, they were still very active in 2018. The reduction is also partly countered by increases in demand from Singapore and Japan, and interestingly the tracker shows an increase in domestic demand this year. Domestic demand is often the first to react to improvements in occupier market trends."William Beardmore-Gray, Head of Central London, Knight Frank also commented, "London is the most attractive city in the world for long-term investment. It has proved its ability to adapt to meet the demands of the modern global economy, and this is evident in London's office market. Big banks like Deutsche, tech giants like Apple and Facebook and life sciences groups like GSK are the heartbeat of our capital. The growth in co-working space is a positive sign of London's dynamism and the vitality of the creative economy. London's resilience and reputation as a safe haven for investment, despite Brexit, is remarkable."We see further positive transformation in the pipeline, as London is set to become a centre of scientific R&D and will draw capital from new investors unknown to the market before. London's potential continues to grow, with new sub-markets emerging in Nine Elms, Stratford and White City."Leaving the European Union will be difficult, but as long as London has fantastic infrastructure and places, great institutions and security, excellence in education and an abundance of talent, property occupiers and investors will continue to flock here from across the globe."According to Knight Frank's Global Capital Tracker there is 40 billion ($51.8 bn) of capital looking to invest in commercial real estate, with Greater China the biggest potential investor in London, with 10bn ($12.9bn), or 25% of the total, looking to invest in 2019. Traditional Chinese lion dancers and a character dressed as a pig pose in front of the London Eye which is lit up in red and gold to celebrate Chinese New Year, the Year of the Pig, in London, Britain, on Feb. 4 2019. (Xinhua/Stephen Chung) With red lantern raised, Chinese couplets pasted and lion-dance performed, Chinese Lunar New Year is being celebrated across the continent. The Chinese New Year, or Spring Festival, falls on Tuesday this year. "Many celebrations of Chinese New Year in our French regions illustrate the extent and popularity of Chinese culture in our country," said Valerie Pecresse, president of the Ile-de-France region. "Happy Year of Pig" In a greeting letter, Pecresse, for her part, expressed "... to the Chinese people, overseas Chinese and in particular to the Chinese community in France (her) best wishes for happiness, health and prosperity." Ile-de-France "is proud to welcome the largest Chinese community in Europe, a hard-working and creative one," she noted. Meanwhile,French President Emmanuel Macron extended his best wishes "to all those who celebrate the Lunar New Year in our country and in the world." "Best wishes for this year under the sign of the Pig," Macron wrote on Twitter Tuesday. Speaking to Xinhua, former French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, said: "I wish all our Chinese friends a very happy New Year's Day. Happy New Year! Happy New Year of Pig !" "The pig is a friendly animal ... that shows consistency... This animal is a good symbol of the energy that must be used today to develop our countries and find the prosperity that I wish to you," he added. Enjoying Celebrations with Chinese Characteristics In Dublin's National Concert Hall Tuesday, a Chinese New Year concert, jointly organized by RTE National Symphony Orchestra and Beijing Performance & Arts Group, feasted the ears of the local audience with a number of masterpieces created by famous Chinese and foreign composers. The Chinese pieces performed at the concert were mainly works from Ye Xiaogang, a well-known composer in China and the chairman of Chinese Musicians Association. For 800-strong audience including Irish President Michael D. Higgins, musicians played Ye's Sichuan Image, a symphony consisting of 30 short etherealized music clips vividly portray the beautiful scenery in China's southwest Sichuan province, and Starry Sky, Ye's piano concerto created for the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, among others. This is the first time that Higgins had attended a China-related function publicly since his re-election as the Irish president in late October last year. Chinese New Year "Good Opportunity" In the eyes of Javier Fernandez Andrino, director of international marketing at the emblematic Corte Ingles department store, Spanish companies see the Chinese New Year as an opportunity to increase sales to Chinese tourists. "The New Year is important for stores all over Europe, not just in Spain, because Chinese tourists have become excellent clients and it is an honor to celebrate the New Year with our visitors," said Andrino. The Corte Ingles' flagship store in the central Paseo de la Castellana in Madrid, welcomes around 150,000 Chinese tourists every year and employs several Chinese speakers to help them make their purchases. "The more attention we can give, then the more comfortable they feel. It helps them feel welcome and that means they spend more time with us. So that benefits us all," Andrino told Xinhua. The importance of China to the Corte Ingles was made clear in 2018 when the company signed an agreement with Chinese company Alibaba to develop close collaboration in different areas, such as retail and distribution, cloud computing services and digital innovation and payment using mobile phones. "The Chinese are our most important international clients..." said Andrino. (Source: Xinhua) Protests called off at Wits SRC calls off protests after reaching agreement with University management. The Students Representative Council (SRC) called off protests after they reached an agreement with management last night. This was following negotiations around the eligibility of a category of students to access the Wits Hardship Fund, the criteria which are described below. The University is still assessing the damage to property on the West Campus in particular and is reviewing security arrangements and other crisis management operations. The Legal Office is also following up on all transgressions reported this week. Where sufficient evidence is available, we will hold those who committed offences to account. Please lay complaints and send any evidence, including video clips to the Head of Campus Protection Services so that it can be processed. We sincerely thank you for demonstrating resilience during this difficult week. Thank you SENIOR EXECUTIVE TEAM 8 FEBRUARY 2019 (10:00) ABOUT THE WITS HARDSHIP FUND The Wits Hardship Fund has been established by Wits University and has been allocated R13 million to help students who are in urgent need of registration assistance. To date, the Wits Hardship Fund Evaluation Committee (which includes SRC representatives) has: - assisted 567 students in total in the last two weeks, - awarded funding to 220 students for urgent accommodation, and - assisted 347 returning students to register. Category 1: Students who owe less than R10 000, sign an Acknowledgement of Debt, and can register (no need to apply to the Wits Hardship Fund). Category 2: Students who owe more than R10 000, must apply to the Wits Hardship Fund for assistance. If they met the criteria, assistance will be provided, provided that the total debt owing is less than R100,000. These students will sign an Acknowledgement of Debt, and can register. This only applies to students who have applied to the Wits Hardship Fund and who have been successful in their application. In addition, students who have met the re-admission requirements, who have a family income of less than R600,000 and who owe the Univeristy less than R100,000, can apply to the Wits Hardship Fund. Students must apply for assistance by 19:00 tonight, Friday, 8 February 2019. We have put the necessary internal processes in place to ensure the speedy processing of applications and communication around the outcomes. Please send applications to Sheryl.Letsapa@wits.ac.za Category 3: Students who require urgent accommodation assistance must send applications to Thembelihle.Dlamini@wits.ac.za. These students must then present themselves for an assessment interview to the WCCO, at the Sanctuary. The University secured additional beds to assist students facing difficulty with securing accommodation. We are doing all that we can to assist those in dire need, but beds remain limited. Werder Bremen have announced that they will wear a special kit for their Bundesliga game this coming weekend to celebrate their 120th anniversary. Umbro will ply Bremen with a one-off spliced shirt for the match against Augsburg on Sunday, which is vaguely reminiscent of the jumbled shirt that Inter Milan are planning to wear in the derby against AC Milan in March. While its not actually comprised of tatters of retro strips, the Bremen shirt is distinctly green and vivid in what Umbro claim is a deliberate homage to the loudest fans in the league The shirt is available online but only in a limited batch of just 1899, in reference to the year in which the club was founded. It aint cheap either, with each one costing 118.99 a pop. Tempted as Pies may be, well pass. After all, were probably going to need to eat this month. Murray Businessman Responds to Fraud Indictment By West Kentucky Star Staff ##################### Jones released a statement Thursday afternoon saying his companies provided services and equipment to the schools as contractually outlined, and, "the claims in the indictment are categorically false." Jones said he believes the indictment is a result of a well-publicized business dispute with a former business partner, David Griffin. Jones says he looks forward to defending the charges against his character and work.Charles A. "Chuck" Jones, the part owner of two now-dissolved technology companies, Technology Associates, Inc. and Integrated Computer Solutions, Inc., and Mark J. Whitaker of Murray, Kentucky, were indicted on federal criminal charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and wire fraud. U.S. Attorney D. Michael Dunavant announced the indictment today.According to the indictment, under the Federal Communications Commissions E-rate Program, the government provides funding to qualified schools to purchase internet access and other telecommunications services and equipment for their students. The E-rate Program pays up to 90% of the cost of these technology services and equipment. Two of the Programs core eligibility requirements are that applicant schools conduct a fair and open competitive bidding process and that each applicant school pay some percentage of the cost of the internet access and other telecommunications services and equipment. The E-rate Program pays the balance of that cost, which ranges from 20% to as high as 90%. As described in the indictment, the reason the schools are required to pay a portion of the costs are: a) to ensure that schools have a financial incentive to negotiate for the most favorable prices so that E-rate Program funds are not wasted; and b) to ensure that schools purchase only those items and services they truly need.The indictment further charges that Jones and Whitaker conspired with an individual identified as A.J., to whomJones gave money and other things of value in return for A.J.s assistance. The co-conspirators used A.J. and A.J.s position with schools in Crockett County, Tennessee and Missouri to violate Program rules. Additionally, the co-conspirators submitted and caused to be submitted fabricated documents and made false statements and representations to the E-rate Program administrator, which included assertions that Jones companies had invoiced schools for the proper co-payment amounts. These actions were taken to circumvent E-rate Program rules and review and to obtain payments from the E-rate Program administrator to Jones companies. Jones companies received approximately $8.5 million from the E-rate Program and Jones used funds from the companies bank accounts for his own benefit.U.S. Attorney D. Michael Dunavant said, "Protection of federal grant programs that provide needed services and equipment to our schools in West Tennessee is a top priority of this office. When dishonest offenders conspire to defraud these programs for their own selfish gain and unjust enrichment, they not only steal tax dollars, but also hurt local schools in the process. We will continue to work with our federal partners to root out and expose such fraud against the government, to hold offenders accountable, and to recover ill-gotten gains."FCC Inspector General David Hunt stated: "Todays charges allege that Mr. Jones and Mr. Whitaker knowingly and willfully violated the bedrock requirements of the FCCs E-rate Program while hiding these violations from the Programs administrator, all with the goal of enriching Mr. Jones with E-rate funds, thus depriving students of the benefits of this program up-to-date telecommunications services. I thank U.S. Attorney Dunavant for prosecuting this case. We will continue to work with our law enforcement partners to pursue those who seek to illegally take money from the FCCs programs."This case was investigated by the FCC Office of Inspector General and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.Assistant United States Attorneys Tony Arvin and Murre Foster are prosecuting this case on the governments behalf.The charges contained in the indictment are merely accusations, and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. Bevin Balances Faith, Anti-abortion in Speech By The Associated Press FRANKFORT - Kentucky's Republican governor has called for unity and urged people to rely on the sacred scriptures of their faith in his annual State of the Commonwealth address. Gov. Matt Bevin struck a somber tone Thursday as he showed photos of two high school students who were killed in a mass shooting, a 10-year-old boy who killed himself because of bullying and police officers who died in the line of duty. He urged everyone to rely on their faith, saying people may not agree with each other on politics or religion but that people "can sure extend our love to one another." Bevin's speech comes as he is running for re-election. He urged lawmakers to make changes to the state's pension system and continue to pass laws restricting access to abortion. Two Dead, Man Charged with Murders at Murray Home By West Kentucky Star Staff MURRAY - Authorities charged a Murray man with murder after two people were found dead Thursday night at a home on Catalina Drive.The Murray Police Department said officers were called to the home shortly before 10 p.m. after someone reported finding a dead body in the garage. Officers said they found a dead female, who they say lived next door.Officers went to the home next door and found a second dead female inside. They also found 51-year-old Shannon Scott in the bathroom. Officers took Scott into custody without incident.Scott is charged with two counts of murder and one count each of first-degree burglary, tampering with physical evidence and animal cruelty.Police said their investigation is ongoing.The two victims, whose names have not yet been released, were taken to the Medical Examiners Office in Louisville for autopsies. News PPP in favour of voting rights for Pakistani expats In my view, overseas Pakistanis should not only get the voting rights but should be allowed to be members of Parliament and Senate as well. No one can understand the problems of expats better than the overseas Pakistanis themselves. Their contribution towards uplifting the countrys economy is immense. Their services should be recognised, Hans said. Sullivan's Mayfield Center Grand Opening Today By West Kentucky Star Staff MAYFIELD - Sullivan University will formally open the Mayfield Learning Center with a ribbon-cutting and community open house today. The ribbon cutting will be held at 12:30 p.m. followed by a community open house until approximately 2:30 p.m. Sullivan administrators, faculty and staff will be on hand to greet visitors, who will be treated to light hors doeuvres and refreshments. The Sullivan University Mayfield Learning Center is located at 1102 Paris Rd., Unit 15A in Mayfield. We are very excited and honored to be part of this wonderful community, said Sullivan Universitys Vice President-Community Partnerships David Keene.The outstanding people and leaders of Mayfield and Graves County have been so welcoming and accommodating. Now, its our turn to welcome the community to our new home a place we hope to be for a very long time. Based in Louisville, Sullivan University is one of Kentuckys leading providers of education programs and work skills training. In Mayfield, Sullivan will not only provide education opportunities, but also professional skills training and programs for workers and employers. The Mayfield Learning Center will offer courses in a traditional classroom setting, but most classes will be taught online. The Learning Center will offer computer and internet for students who may not have the access or resources for online learning. Sullivan University has always had the practice of meeting the students where they are, Keene said. By opening the Sullivan University Mayfield Learning Center, students in Graves County as well as surrounding counties will have the opportunity to take some classes in a face-to-face setting, utilize the center for computer or internet access, or just to have a quiet place to do their work, but closer to home. I-24 West Closed at Tennessee River Bridge Tonight By West Kentucky Star Staff CALVERT CITY - A contractor for the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet plans to close the westbound lanes of I-24 tonight at the Tennessee River Bridge.The overnight closure will start at 10 pm Friday and continue until 7 am Saturday, and will allow concrete to be poured where new joints are being installed on the bridge. This closure is near the 30 mile marker on I-24.Westbound traffic will be detoured onto KY 453 at Grand Rivers, traveling south to use US Highway 62 west and rejoin I-24 traffic at exit 27 in Calvert City.As a reminder, both eastbound and westbound traffic are still restricted to one lane in this area.Eastbound traffic should not be affected.This is the second of four overnight closures as the contractor works to complete repairs on the bridge. Accomplice in 2014 Trigg Murders Denied Parole By West Kentucky Star Staff LA GRANGE - The woman who helped Ryan Champion kill his parents and sister in their Trigg County home in 2014 has been denied early parole.According to WKDZ, Ann Plotkin has served four years of a 22-year sentence, but went before the parole board asking for early release for medical reasons.Commonwealth's Attorney Carrie Ovey-Wiggins says Plotkin made the request because she has been diagnosed with a terminal illness.On Thursday morning, Ovey-Wiggins said, "My office just received a call from one of the victims letting us know the good news that parole had been denied. Obviously, this was the wish of the Commonwealth that she not be granted parole, and we are thankful that the parole board did not decide to release her early due to any medical issues that she may have."Plotkin plead guilty to three counts of complicity to murder related to the shooting deaths of 62-year-old Joe Champion, 60-year-old Joy Champion and 31-year-old Emily Champion on October 26, 2014. She helped Ryan Champion plan the murders and communicated between him and hired killer 22-year-old Vito Riservato, who was also shot to death at the scene.After initially telling police that he was present when his family was attacked and survived because he was able to "turn the tables" on Riservato, investigation led to Ryan Champion's arrest five days later. Eventually he plead guilty to murder and kidnapping, and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.On the Net: Surveillance photo of the van police say the suspects were in at the time of the theft PHOTO:Paducah Police Department, courtesy The Paducah Police Department is seeking the publics help in identifying two young men suspected of stealing money from other peoples bank accounts. PHOTO:Paducah Police Department, courtesy The Paducah Police Department is seeking the publics help in identifying two young men suspected of stealing money from other peoples bank accounts. PHOTO:Paducah Police Department, courtesy The Paducah Police Department is seeking the publics help in identifying two young men suspected of stealing money from other peoples bank accounts. PHOTO:Paducah Police Department, courtesy Police Seek Suspects in Bank Account Thefts By West Kentucky Star Staff PADUCAH - Police are seeking the publics help identifying two men suspected of using a fake ATM card to steal money.The Paducah Police Department says the unknown men have used a fake ATM card to obtain cash at a bank ATM in Paducah, removing thousands of dollars from customers accounts in Texas.Anyone who recognizes the men captured in surveillance photos is asked to call the Paducah Police Department at 270-444-8550. Investigations Lead to Multiple Drug Arrests By West Kentucky Star Staff PADUCAH - Eight people face drug charges after three separate investigations this week.At 11:00 pm Monday, McCracken County Sheriff's Deputies pulled over a vehicle for speeding on Pool Road. They arrested the driver, 27-year-old William Waldkoetter and his passenger, 26-Year-old Andrew Hall, both of Paducah, after a probable cause search of the vehicle yielded over one-half pound of marijuana, marijuana wax, drug paraphernalia and money believed to be proceeds of illegal drug sales. On Tuesday, detectives performed a search at Hall's home on Reidland Road, where more evidence of drug trafficking and counterfeit money were reportedly seized.Detectives learned Wednesday that 30-year-old Joshua Carruthers of Paducah would be delivering methamphetamine to the parking lot of a business on North 8th Street. When they spotted him on the property about 1 pm, he was arrested on meth and marijuana trafficking and drug possession charges. Thirty-five-year-old Courtney Evans of Paducah was also arrested on a trafficking charge after she tried to flee the scene on foot. A Paducah Police officer and K-9 were also at the scene, and the dog alerted to possible drugs in Evans' vehicle. A search reportedly led to discovery of more methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia, with a total of 240 grams of meth seized. The street value of the meth is about $24,000.Another investigation began at 11 pm Tuesday with a deputy responding to an abandoned BMW on Old Hinkleville Road. It had reportedly been stolen from the Louisville area, and investigation led deputies to believe 32-year-old Stephen Lowe of Paducah had been driving the car earlier that evening. An arrest warrant was obtained for Lowe on a charge of receiving stolen property over $10,000, and they went to his home on Wayne Way Drive. Deputies say Lowe was seen inside the home and appeared to be concealing contraband, so a search warrant was obtained and executed, with help from Paducah Police. Deputies and detectives say they seized 1.4 pounds of synthetic marijuana, 1.1 pounds of marijuana, THC cartridges, cocaine, an AR15 rifle, a defaced handgun and $6,733 in cash, believed to be the proceeds of drug sales. Detectives say Lowe was out of jail on bond from other charges when this arrest took place.A woman in Lowe's home, 29-year-old Robin Dinkins of Paducah, was arrested on complicity and possession charges. Two others, Shakayla Wright of Paducah and 33-year-old Kalin Lowe of Cairo were cited on multiple charges.Waldkoetter was charged with trafficking in marijuana between eight ounces and five pounds, possession of drug paraphernalia and traffic offenses.Hall was charged with trafficking marijuana between eight ounces and five pounds.Carruthers was charged with trafficking methamphetamine and marijuana (less than eight ounces), possession of a controlled substance (ecstasy) and possession of drug paraphernalia.Evans was arrested for trafficking meth and possession of drug paraphernalia.Stephen Lowe was arrested on the warrant for receiving stolen property, and was also charged with firearm-enhanced trafficking in a synthetic drug, firearm-enhanced trafficking in marijuana between eight ounces and five pounds (2nd offense), possession of cocaine and drug paraphernalia, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.Dinkins was arrested for complicity to trafficking in synthetic drugs and marijuana, complicity possession of cocaine, and possession of drug paraphernalia.Kalin Lowe and Wright were both cited for possession of marijuana, possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of a defaced firearm. Inmate Vocational Training Discussed in Paducah By Mike Cooper, West Kentucky Star Staff PADUCAH - A discussion was held Thursday afternoon for beginning a vocational education program for inmates at the McCracken County Regional Jail.Those attending were Mary Anne Medlock with West Kentucky Workforce, McCracken County Jailer David Knight, Arnie Puckett, Tyler Davis, and Stephen Carter with the McCracken County Regional Jail, Paducah Mayor Pro Tem Richard Abraham, Alan Paul and Brandon Wilbur with the Paducah Area Technology Center, John Pendergrass with Kentucky Career Center in Paducah, Mike Gentry volunteer with the Keeton Correctional Facility, and by telephone conference, Tom Pyron and Will Greer with Four Rivers Career Academy in Hickman, and Eric Hamilton with the Fulton County Detention Center, also in Hickman.McCracken County Jailer David Knight spoke with West Kentucky Star about this program. "What I've seen in corrections has not been working, and I think we need to provide them with some kind of opportunity and some skills to be productive citizens when they get out." Knight said he hopes this program will help break the cycle of incarceration, that is seen so much in corrections today.The Justice to Journeyman program was discussed, and the Fulton County participants explained the success they have had with inmates at the Fulton County Detention Center, with the help of the Four Rivers Career Academy.It was pointed out that inmates at the Fulton County Detention Center have the opportunity to become certified in welding, as well as to participate in a carpentry program.Several inmates have earned their certification, and one inmate has even been offered a job upon being released.The program relies on partnerships with businesses, training centers, and instructors. The McCracken County program would most likely use the resources of the Paducah Area Technology Center.Brandon Wilbur, welding instructor at the Paducah Area Technology Center, told West Kentucky Star, "I think a program like this could give them a vision, it could give them a goal, it could give them the mindset that I've got the skills and the knowledge to get a decent job."Mary Anne Medlock, with West Kentucky Workforce, also commented that several other counties are very interested in starting such programs.Jailer Knight said he hopes to see progress toward getting the McCracken County program started within two months. City Releases Community Engagement Survey Results By West Kentucky Star Staff PADUCAH - The City of Paducah has released more results from their National Citizen Survey, with the latest release focusing on community engagement.Questions associated with Community Engagement included opportunities to volunteer and participate in community matters, the openness and acceptance of the community, how often someone attended a public meeting or social event, and customer service.According to City Manager Jim Arndt, one of the survey questions asked citizens to rate their confidence in city government. Paducahs numbers increased 11 points over the 2016 survey.Another question that showed a significant increase asked citizens to rate their opportunities to participate in community matters. This question had a ten point increase with the positive results increasing from 53 percent in the 2016 survey to 63 percent in the most recent survey.The question asking citizens to rate the overall customer service by Paducahs employees has remained steady, with 69 percent of respondents giving a favorable rating.The community engagement process currently underway for the Parks Master Plan is a perfect example of how the City is asking for public input as important decisions will be made to guide the future. In the Citizen Survey, I also was thrilled to see that more citizens are attending and/or watching local public meetings. The phrase knowledge is power is true. said Public Information Officer Pam Spencer.One of the newly adopted organizational values for the City of Paducah is Customer Experience. The value states that we believe in providing excellent service delivery for both our internal and external customers through a welcoming and respectful environment. We want to see the customer service results increase; therefore, we are focusing on this value by providing customer service feedback cards at City Hall and the Parks and Police Departments in addition to a link to the short survey online. We want to know what we are doing well and what we can do to improve. Arndt said. He added that the city is looking at various ways to improve the overall customer experience.The National Citizen Survey, which asks questions about a communitys livability, was mailed to 1500 randomly-selected households within the Paducah city limits. Each question on the survey is connected to one of eight facets: Safety, Mobility, Natural Environment, Built Environment, Economy, Recreation & Wellness, Education & Enrichment, and Community Engagement. For more information including Paducahs survey instrument and reports, visit the link below.On the Net: If you have an event you'd like to list on the site, submit it now! Submit About 140 kilometers off the coast of Montauk and 100 meters below the oceans sunlit surface, the seafloor becomes a steep cliff overlooking an expanse of near total darkness. This is the Twilight Zone. The real one. The Twilight Zone or mesopelagic describes the midsection of the entire ocean, going down about 1,000 meters before transitioning into the deep ocean below. Until recently, little was known about it besides the fact that it plays host to the diel vertical migration, a daily smorgasbord when hundreds of species of fish, tiny crustaceans, and other organisms move toward the surface to feed. But scientists are increasingly interested in another important job done by the Twilight Zone: staving off a climate change-related apocalypse. The site of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institutions Ocean Twilight Zone project off the coast of Montauk, NY. (Clarisa Diaz, WNYC/Gothamist. Source information from WHOI.) As carbon emissions continue to fill the Earths atmosphere, a sizable amount also passes into the oceans, ultimately descending to its deepest region, where it can stay for thousands of years before resurfacing. This process is known as natures carbon pump, and the Twilight Zone, as the oceans midlayer, powers much of this life-as-we-know-it-saving process. Carbon stored safely at the bottom of the ocean cant contribute directly to heating up our atmosphere. If you turned off the oceans biological carbon pump, you would double the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in terms of what humans have already added, said Ken Buesseler, a senior scientist studying the oceans carbon cycle at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) in Massachusetts. The creatures that flock to the Twilight Zone during the diel vertical migration dont just eat each other, they eat phytoplankton and small particles of organic material floating down from the surface that contain carbon. In fact, their voracious appetites help reduce the amount of carbon passing through to the deep ocean by about 90 percent. It's a very efficient removal, Buesseler said. The organisms in the Twilight Zone eat this carbon on a daily basis, coming up at night to feed and hiding in the depths at night, eating and shifting the carbon through the oceans layers. When organisms in the Twilight Zone die they decompose and join the rest of the carbon matter sinking down. WHOI has deployed sophisticated technologies to monitor the oceans carbon pump. (Clarisa Diaz, WNYC/Gothamist. Source information from WHOI.) But there is a limit to how much carbon these organisms can consume. According to Buesseler, humans release at least eight to nine gigatons of carbon each year. The scientists are concerned that the ocean, as massive as it is, cant handle an unlimited amount of the stuff. At some point, higher levels of carbon in the ocean as well as threats from commercial fishing to the sea creatures who eat this carbon may damage or break the pump, causing who knows how much damage to the planet. These potential threats have fueled a new sense of urgency within the scientific community to learn more about how the Twilight Zone works, and how much carbon it can handle. We've kind of ignored the Twilight Zone as a major player, and I think that's changing, Buesseler said. To better understand the workings of the mesopelagic, Buesseler and his colleagues at WHOI recently launched The Ocean Twilight Zone project, starting with field work off the coast of Long Island. We've known about the Twilight Zone for over 100 years, but [an understanding of] its impact on the carbon cycle and climate is more recent. We're finally building up the technology to address some of these questions, Buesseler said. Previous research efforts focused on removing specimens from the Twilight Zone for examination, but the WHOI team and their partners are developing innovative new technologies, including remote sensors and deep sea robots, that allow them to monitor the activity there as it happens, providing a richer picture of the ecosystem. For example, the Mesobot can follow and observe the behavior of fish and other organisms in their natural habitat. And remote sensors, known as Minions, can take thousands of photos of the Twilight Zone at varying depths. Scientists hope to match the environmental observations from this technology to carbon samples taken at different locations in the Twilight Zone, in order to better understand how and where the organisms eat the carbon. We can not only see these organisms in their natural habitat, but we can also follow them and see what they do throughout a 24-hour period, said Joel Llopiz, a WHOI biologist and fish ecologist working on the project. Llopiz and others have observed the tendencies of fish in the Twilight Zone to feed at night and hide from predators before daybreak. We think that potentially half of the organisms in the Twilight Zone make this migration every single day, and that is really what is fueling this carbon flow from the surface to the deeper waters, Llopiz said. These arent the minions youre familiar with. These remote sensing technologies are used in the WHOI Ocean Twilight Zone project. (Clarisa Diaz, WNYC/Gothamist. Source information from WHOI.) Learning more about the Twilight Zone requires constantly improving the data-collection technology. One of the main goals of the Twilight Zone project is to advance the technology so that it's cheaper, and increases our capability of putting multiple sensors out there for weeks to months to possibly years, Llopiz said. At the moment the Twilight Zone is mostly beyond the reach of commercial fishing, but that could change as the industry expands. Fish and other small creatures, like those found in the Twilight Zone, could be used as food for farmed fish. Scientists are concerned that any decrease in the number of these carbon-eating animals in the Twilight Zone might lead to serious consequences for the planet. Usually we're playing catch up, we have impact first and then we realize that we've messed up and that we wish we knew something about that ecosystem before we messed up. Here's a chance to get out ahead of that before we make a mistake, Llopiz said. For now, the WHOI team is analyzing the data theyve collected so far and improving their instruments before returning to the research site off the coast of Long Island later this year. In the meantime, try not to think about what would happen if all that carbon escaped into the atmosphere and instead check out some of the incredible creatures the WHOI team found during their first expedition. For more on the Twilight Zone, listen to reporter Clarisa Diaz's segment on WNYC: Clarisa Diaz is a designer and reporter for WNYC / Gothamist. She was a 2018 Ocean Science Journalism Fellow at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. You can follow her on Twitter @Clarii_D. Thank you for Reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading. The second meeting of National Contact Points (NCPs) for Capacity Building in the WCO Europe Region was held from 28 to 30 January 2019 at the WCO Europe Regional Office for Capacity Building (ROCB), in Baku, Azerbaijan. The meeting was organised through the generous support of the China Customs Cooperation Fund. Delegates from 21 WCO Europe Region Member Administrations, representatives of the WCO Secretariat and ROCB participated in the meeting. The meeting was officially opened by the Deputy Chairman of the State Customs Committee of Azerbaijan, Mr. Igbal Babayev. In his welcome remarks, Mr. Babayev stressed the importance of capacity building in customs and highlighted the reforms that are being implemented by the State Customs Committee of Azerbaijan. The Deputy Director of Capacity Building Directorate Mrs. Brenda Mundia gave opening remarks where she stressed the importance of such regional meetings. She highlighted that the aim of the meeting was to deepen and update the participants' knowledge on the WCO Capacity Building programmes and initiatives, enhance awareness on the role of NCPs in the Capacity Building domain and to further enhance the network of the NCPs in the region and cooperation between Members, the ROCB and the WCO. During the meeting, the ROCB reported on its activities, challenges and proposals to strengthen its role. The WCO led discussions on capacity building programmes and delivery including updates since the previous meeting. Some NCPs shared their national experiences on capacity building and training activities. The meeting discussed the question of how to enhance the role of ROCB Europe. The participants underlined the need for closer and enhanced cooperation especially on regional capacity building initiatives. Regional priorities and correctly assessing the results and impacts of activities were among the matters that were considered. It was also highlighted that the ROCB Europe would play an important role in coordinating these initiatives in collaboration with the WCO Secretariat. There was also consensus on establishing mechanisms for better communication among the NCPs. The meeting further agreed to define Terms of References that would specify the role of contact points and to present to the Conference of the Directors General for endorsement. Update below: The well-documented origin story of New York City pizza goes something like this: in the late 19th century, Gennaro Lombardi immigrated to the United States from Italy, and in 1905, the young, scrappy Lombardi established the first licensed pizzeria in New York City. Despite challenges from a New Jersey pizzeria, the Lombardi's lore is generally accepted as the definitive story. At least that's what we thought. Earlier this week, the U.S. Pizza Museum at the Roosevelt Collection published an intriguing missive suggesting not only that it's likely that someone else established Lombardi's before 1905, but also that there's a sort of lost generation of pizza makers that came before then. In fact, Lombardi's, originally located at 53 Spring Street (or 53 1/2, depending on the source) may not have even been the first pizzeria in the U.S. The new information comes from research that Peter Regas has been conducting for a decade, and that will be a part of his forthcoming pizza history book. Regas, a Chicago-based statistician and independent researcher, has always been a self-described "archive rat." "Im just drawn to the search and the discovery process of going through the archives," he tells Gothamist. Regas's work on alternate slice history stemmed from a newspaper article about Chicago pizza, which he noticed while waiting for a sandwich at the deli one day in early 2009. "The way Chicago pizza history in general gets told...is the Pizzeria Uno story," he says. "They have more of a corporate history, even how that started was divorced from the local Italian-American community that existed there before the turn of the century." By contrast, New York's pizza history is inextricable from the Italian-American community that forged it. Regas thought that he'd be remiss to not look into New York pie-slingers of yesteryear, even though his initial curiosity focused on Chicago. The Newberry Library, where he'd been doing much of his research, happened to have New York City directories from the era. "So I looked for Gennaro Lombardi, the biggest name in the history of pizza in the U.S." in the 1903 to 1908 directories, he says. That turned up nothing. Neither did a search in a 1910 business directory, where Lombardi would likely have been listed if he'd have been the proprietor of the Spring Street pizzeria that year. So Regas looked up bakers one by one, hoping he'd find Lombardi's name next to the pizzeria's address. Eventually he did find the address, just not under Lombardi's name. Instead, it was listed under Francesco DErrico. "And that changed the whole direction of my project, because I never knew that name," he says. "And I thought I knew the story well." That's not to say Lombardi's part of the story isn't legitit just means that more people may have been involved in NYC pizza-making earlier on than expected. "In this little slice of time Fracesco DErrico was there at 53 Spring Street as a baker," he says, adding that "it appears Gennaro Lombardi had the business before Francesco as well as the period after." A newspaper advertisement for Antica Pizzeria Napoletana at 53 Spring Street, with one Giovanni Santillo as the proprietor, as seen in the March 25, 1905 issue of Il Telegrafo. [Peter Regas scan/New York Public Library] From there, Regas began learning more about other forefathers of pizza-making, including someone who's now become a focus of his research: Filippo Milone. "Its likely that he established at least six pizzerias in Manhattan and Brooklyn," Regas says, including John's on Bleecker Street and the now-shuttered Pop's. Through culling together advertisements and other records, Regas's research suggests that what we know about pizza may be different, and more convoluted, than we originally thought. Update: "It seems likely that [Milone] was operating in pizzerias in Naples before coming to America," he says, noting that he's one of several men of an older generation who had a similar background and took up pizza-making when they immigrated. "Its not so much the heroic story of a young man who thought it was a good idea to start a pizzeria because they had them in Italy. They had experience in Naples and came with knowledge and experience and a little bit of confidence that this product would be successful." Scott Wiener, the pizza historian, author of Viva la Pizza! The Art of the Pizza Box and owner of Scott's Pizza Tours in New York, says that serendipitously, he'd been conducting his own research about the origins of pizza-making. The goal, he says, was to both bolster the information on his tours and for a presentation at the NYC Department of Records and Information Services that happened last night. "I started to find there wasnt confirmation of the information that was out there, and since there wasnt confirmation, I started following the trail of the buildings. And when the ovens were put in, and who was living there at the time, and who was working there at the time," Wiener tells Gothamist. "And I started to figure out there was more beyond this one guy Gennaro Lombardi." Poring over the likes of census data, draft cards, and business directories, Wiener says he found that Gennaro Lombardi didn't own the pizzeria until 1908. "So what we know is that Gennaro Lombardi is a huge, important figure in the history of pizza, but hes not the first owner," he says. "And the story about him getting the first mercantile license is now totally blown out of the water." He adds that they've since taken out information on the tour about Lombardi's supposedly being the first licensed pizzeria, since he has yet to find said confirmation about said license. Wiener, who has known Regas for several years, says they shared their respective findings with each other earlier this weeklending further credibility to the idea that previous pizzamakers existed in New York City before Gennaro Lombardi. "Its like I got 60% through the book and somebody told me the ending," Wiener laughs. "Every little discovery was like a little adrenaline rush." Wiener and Regas's respective research spurs questions about who is remembered in history, and the factors that result in stories being lost to time. D'Errico had ten children, and Milone died in an unmarked grave, and neither of their stories are visible within the context of pizza history. "What about all the people who were there even before that time and didnt survive, went back to Italy, died, or didnt have a business that survived for longer than a couple of years, how about them?" Regas asks. "I believe Filippo Milone was the first pizza man at 53 Spring Street," Regas says, but that he doesn't believe that "53 Spring Street was the first pizzeria in America." As for what he believes is the oldest pizzeria in the U.S., Regas says stay tuned. But while the origins of NYC pizza are up for debate, its enduring deliciousness is not. And its memes are forever. Correction: An earlier version of this article stated that Milone operated pizzerias in Naples. It was updated on February 12th to reflect that Milone operated in pizzerias in Naples Normal, IL (61790) Today Cloudy and damp with rain this morning...then becoming partly cloudy. High around 80F. Winds S at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 80%.. Tonight A few passing clouds. Low around 65F. Winds S at 15 to 25 mph. The hearing for the Jan. 24 seizure of horses from Cassy Newell-Reed and Harry Reeds property and horse rescue New Beginnings began at 9:30 a.m. Thursday morning. On behalf of the School Board and the school division, I would like to thank Mr. Anderson for his service to District 2 residents, our students and staff and our community, Richardson said. All of us on the board wish him well on his future endeavors. The futile honking is turned up to 11 near the Manhattan entrances to the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels this morning, as both were closed at the same time due to separate incidents: a vehicle fire shut down the Holland Tunnel while a bus broke down in the Lincoln Tunnel. Traffic to New York via the George Washington Bridge is clogged up for a variety of reasons, including an accident on the Cross-Bronx Expressway and an accident on the upper level. Delays of over an hour at all crossings were reported between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. Car fire at the outbound #HollandTunnel. North tube is completely shut right now. @wcbs880traffic Jim Feldman (@jimfeldman) February 8, 2019 COMMUTER SCORECARD: GWB: 1+ hour delays after accident under the apartments in NYC Holland Tunnel: 1+ hour delays due to car fire Lincoln Tunnel: 30+ minute delays due to a broken down car #nbc4ny TGIF??? Steven Bognar (@Bogs4NY) February 8, 2019 No easy way coming into #NYC from NJ this morning. Well over an hour IB #GWB; #NJTurnpike & #I80 are especially slow. 45min+ IB #LincolnTunnel. And at least 45min+ IB #HollandTunnel; a lane blocked for FD activity responding to car fire in OB Holland Tunnel, which is closed. pic.twitter.com/leFIRgBOs0 WCBS 880 Traffic & Weather together on the 8s (@wcbs880traffic) February 8, 2019 Who ever is tweeting on behalf of Lincoln Tunnel, THIS.....is for you: pic.twitter.com/GhDQf157on Chris Michael (@true2theyanks) February 8, 2019 ive been late every single day of this week due to traffic related to lincoln tunnel cannot handle J. (@ruomee) February 8, 2019 Been stuck on this bus for at least 30 minutes trying to get to the Lincoln Tunnel. Happy Friday Dexter Morgan (@SerenadeU) February 8, 2019 I cant make this up.....Freddie took a later bus than I did and hes already at Port Authority.....yet Im still in the Lincoln Tunnel. Going on 2 hours of being on this bus!!! Carissa Abraham (@radiocarissa) February 8, 2019 Standstill traffic at the Lincoln Tunnel. Commuting to work this week has been real fun. Matthew Feldman (@matt_feldman13) February 8, 2019 Lincoln tunnel on Wednesday: I am become death, destroyer of worlds... GWB today: hold my beer bitch Me: I really need to start checking the traffic alerts before I leave for work. Remi_Se (@j4remi) February 8, 2019 Hello, there are severe delays on the GWB, Holland Tunnel and PABT causing return buses to be delayed. -TB NJ TRANSIT (@NJTRANSIT) February 8, 2019 The traffic to New Jersey at the tunnels looks more like a Friday afternoon rush hour, particularly on Varick Street, which usually turns into a parking lot at midday as weekend commuters join the regular traffic clawing their way out of town. Afternoon rush like delays outbound Holland. Stalled bus cleared outbound Lincoln per @TomKaminskiWCBS @wcbs880traffic Paul Murnane (@paulmurn) February 8, 2019 This brings us to our longstanding question: WHY ARE U HONKING? rarrarorro/iStock(WASHINGTON) -- The 17-member committee charged with hashing out a border security deal in order to avert the next government shutdown in just eight days is inching closer to a deal, senators have told ABC News. One Democratic senator, Jon Tester of Montana, told reporters on Thursday that negotiators on the bicameral, bipartisan committee could reach a deal as soon as Friday, if not by the weekend. [Its] entirely possible we could have a deal in a timely manner, which could be tomorrow but certainly by the weekend, Tester said. House and Senate negotiators are hoping to hammer out a deal before Monday, which would leave them with just enough time next week to vote on the measure in both chambers before the government is due to shutdown at midnight on February 15. The Senates top Republican appropriator Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama met with President Trump at the White House on Thursday and called the president reasonable in his temperament. I dont know that hed sign whatever we came up with, but I had a very positive conversation with the president and the vice president earlier today, Shelby said. I believe, he was very reasonable with us, Shelby added. Trump indicated to Shelby that he is looking to keeping the government open and that he wanted to find a legislative solution to building his prized border wall. Well see what happens, but I certainly hear theyre working on something, and both sides are moving along, Trump told reporters at the White House following his meeting with Shelby. We need border security. We have to have it. Its not an option, Trump said. Shelby, for his part, admitted its not an easy task. Its going to take a lot of money, and a lot of years, a lot of building and a lot of technology, and a lot of manpower, Shelby said. But I think its important, he added. Negotiators are discussing a deal that would fund the government for the current fiscal year, Shelby told reporters. But it's unclear how much funding, if any, would go to the border wall. His comments come after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters earlier in the day that he is not interested in another short-term spending deal like the one they just passed late last month. Another top negotiator on the committee GOP Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri told reporters Thursday that members in the committee, including Democrats, arent entirely opposed to building barriers. A lot of this is extending walls that other presidents have built, and improving walls other presidents have built, Blunt said. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also expressed optimism if only President Trump would lay low -- that the government wont shut down again one week from tomorrow, expressing confidence that appropriators will strike a deal on border security to protect our borders as we protect our values. I have confidence in the appropriators not because I know what they are doing, but because I have confidence in the appropriations process, Pelosi said earlier Thursday, emphasizing she would support a fair conclusion. I ask the administration to be as non-interventionist as I am on that. Just let them do their work and hopefully well get some good news in a short period of time and certainly in time for the deadline of February 15, she added. Asked just how close negotiators are, Shelby told us: Pretty close, but were not closed. Copyright 2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. At a December EDA meeting, vice chairman Rick Overy said the release of the funds necessary for the formation of the group was placed on hold until the Main Street presentation, which will give all three boards a better sense of the logistics of how the business association would operate. But he also declined to say if he still agreed with sharply critical comments about the Mueller investigation that he made as a television commentator before arriving at the Justice Department in the fall of 2017 as chief of staff to then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions. And he passed up a chance to break from the president's characterization of the Mueller investigation as a "witch hunt," saying simply, "I think it would be inappropriate for me to comment on an ongoing investigation." UW Entrepreneurship Leader to Speak to Riverton, Lander Rotary Clubs An entrepreneurship leader from the University of Wyomings College of Engineering and Applied Science will be in Fremont County Feb. 12-13 to speak to local service clubs. Peter Scott, a professor of practice who is part of UWs new Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (IIE), is scheduled to speak at the Riverton Rotary Clubs regular weekly meeting Tuesday, Feb. 12, at noon in the Fremont Room at Central Wyoming College, 2660 Peck Ave. College of Engineering and Applied Science Dean Michael Pishko is scheduled to accompany Scott. Scott then will speak at the Lander Rotary Clubs regular weekly meeting Wednesday, Feb. 13, at noon at the Oxbow Restaurant, 170 E. Main St. Scott is one of several people hired as part of UWs effort to boost entrepreneurship education in conjunction with the launch of the IIE. The IIE calls on innovators from throughout the state as it works to instill entrepreneurial thinking to empower the leaders of tomorrow. Adding needed programs and curriculum that draw together all UW colleges, business services and entrepreneurship competitions, the IIE serves as the universitys front door for the states entrepreneurs. Register for a FREE account to keep reading! Register now for a FREE account to keep reading. No cost and no credit card required! Access up to 5 articles per month when you register, or get unlimited access to all of our content online starting at $1.99 now! Already registered? Click the log in link below Sheikh Hasina remembers founder Bangabandhu on 72nd anniversary of Awami League 23 Jun 2021 | 2:17 PM Dhaka, Jun 23 (UNI) Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Thursday paid homage to Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on the 72nd founding anniversary of the Awami League. see more.. Belarus reports first case of COVID-19 Delta variant: Ministry of Health 23 Jun 2021 | 1:04 PM Minsk, Jun 23 (UNI) The Belarusian capital of Minsk has detected its first case of the Delta variant of COVID-19, the press service of the Ministry of Health said on Wednesday. see more.. Bahrain sends invitations to Qatar for talks to normalize relations: Foreign Minister 23 Jun 2021 | 11:40 AM Doha, Jun 23 (UNI) Bahrain wishes to settle relations with neighboring Qatar and has sent several invitations for Qatari Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani to visit Manama to resolve the remaining controversial issues, Bahrain Foreign Minister Abdullatif bin Rashid Alzayani said. see more.. Nepal SC directs Oli to relieve ministers 22 Jun 2021 | 7:58 PM Kathmandu, Jun 22(UNI) Nepal's Supreme Court on Tuesday issued an interim order asking Prime Minister Oli to relieve those 20 ministers of their duties who had been appointed after the dissolution of House of Representatives. see more.. In a move that could jeopardize the integrity of any future "HQ3" contest, Amazon is threatening to take its jobs and go home. According to a report in the Washington Post, which is owned by billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, unnamed sources in the company say it may not be "worth it" to take up to $3 billion in grants and tax incentives from New York City and State to create 25,000 to 40,000 jobs in Long Island City, Queens. "The question is whether its worth it if the politicians in New York dont want the project, especially with how people in Virginia and Nashville have been so welcoming, one source says. Another added, I think now is the time for Amazon to make a decision because it has to start hiring. At some point, the project starts to fall behind. What could scare a trillion-dollar company enough to talk to reporters for a newspaper owned by its CEO? From the Post: In the past two weeks, the state Senate nominated an outspoken Amazon critic to a board where he could potentially veto the deal. City Council members for the second time aggressively challenged company executives at a hearing where activists booed and unfurled anti-Amazon banners. That State Senator, Michael Gianaris, still has to have his appointment to the Public Authorities Control Board approved by Governor Andrew Cuomo, Amazon's biggest and most powerful supporter. And as noisy as those City Council hearings were, the council has no actual authority over the plan. If the story was meant to scare opponents of the deal and their colleagues in the State Senate to fall in line, Governor Cuomo was happy to deliver the message during a speech on Long Island Friday afternoon. "It is a very small nucleus, and it is a very small group of politicians who are pandering to the local politics. The State Senate has adopted that position, and that's what could stop Amazon," Cuomo said. "And if they do, I would not want to be a Democratic Senator, coming back to my district to explain why Amazon left because I pandered to their politics. It would be a tremendous loss," Cuomo continued. "It is the largest economic development transaction in the history of the state of New York. And I understand politics very well, but I've never seen a more absurd situation where political pandering and obvious pandering so defeats a bonafide economic development project." The Wall Street Journal's Jimmy Vielkind got Gianaris's response: "Very curious he had a slide ready to be presented 10 minutes after the news broke that Amazon was reconsidering. A cynic might believe this is all orchestrated. "The governor's always about pointing fingers at anyone but himself," he added. "He made a secret deal with Amazon. He made a bad deal with Amazon. He has to live with the consequences of that." (Earlier this week Gianaris told Gothamist that he would perhaps consider a completely new deal with Amazon: "If they want to throw that deal in the garbage and have a new conversation, thats a different issue.") In a statement, Eric Phillips, a spokesperson for Mayor Bill de Blasio, said, "The Mayor fully expects Amazon to deliver on its promise to New Yorkers." The Memorandum of Understanding between Amazon, the state, and the city says that the parties have until March 11th to conduct due diligence, and that the Empire State Development Corporation, the state agency shepherding the project through, would approve it in November. The Washington Post story said that Amazon has not yet signed any leases in Long Island City. Can everyday people come together and effectively organize against creeping overreach of one of the worlds biggest corporations? Yes, they can.https://t.co/DqQoL7VH7O Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) February 8, 2019 Asked to comment on the Washington Post story, Amazon said the company is "focused on engaging with our new neighborssmall business owners, educators, and community leaders." "Whether its building a pipeline of local jobs through workforce training or funding computer science classes for thousands of New York City students, we are working hard to demonstrate what kind of neighbor we will be." On Saturday, ten community organizations opposed to the Amazon deal will hold a "coordinated day of outreach" along Roosevelt Avenue in Queens, featuring "interactive family-friendly activities, small business outreach, flyering, performances, canvassing, and more," according to a press release. The events will begin at Flushing Main Street at 9:30 a.m., move to Queensbridge Park at 10 a.m., Diversity Plaza at 12 p.m., and wind up at Corona Plaza at 2 p.m. Participating organizations include Queens Neighborhoods United, Desis Rising Up & Moving, and the New York City Democratic Socialists. Oregon, WI (53575) Today Cloudy skies this morning will become partly cloudy this afternoon. Slight chance of a rain shower. High 78F. Winds SSW at 10 to 20 mph.. Tonight Partly cloudy skies this evening will become overcast overnight. Low 67F. Winds S at 10 to 20 mph. President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov met with members of the Mejlis (Parliament) of Turkmenistan. The meeting identified priority areas of legislative work for 2019. Addressing the parliamentarians, the head of state outlined the priority tasks for the parliament, including improvement of existing and adoption of new laws aimed at enhancing the efficiency of the national economy in market conditions, supporting entrepreneurial initiatives, encouraging investment activities, privatization and turning state-owned organizations into joint-stock companies. In his speech, the President of Turkmenistan touched upon the issues relating to development and improvement of legislation in the field of efficient use of public resources, maintaining fiscal and monetary policies in accordance with universal norms of international law. According to the head of state, Turkmenistan needs a strong legal framework for development of digital economy, agriculture, transport, education, science, ecology, social protection of the population and other spheres of life of state and society. In conclusion, President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov emphasized that the work on harmonization of the national legislation with modern requirements should be based on the genuine principles of justice, equality and humanism that provide the foundations of Turkmenistans domestic and foreign policies. TURKMENISTAN.RU, 2021 Is Flexible Regulation Better for the Canadian Securities Markets? Over the last few decades, we have witnessed changes in the way securities markets are regulated. New technologies and innovations have enabled various stakeholders and actors to contribute to this new governance. In this paper, I will explain the differences between the new flexible regulatory approach and the more traditional approach, with a focus on the benefits of the former and how it has been implemented in the Canadian securities markets. In order for flexible regulation to work, regulators and the regulated need to collaborate and come together to solve problems as opposed to only using a top-down model. The focus must be on outcomes in addition to process. Principles must guide registrants on how to exercise their best judgment to achieve outcomes that safeguard the integrity of the capital markets. Flexible regulation allows registrants to adapt to changing circumstances, solve problems as they arise and measure effectiveness. Flexible Regulation Approach v Traditional Cristie Ford states that we now live in a more complex, interconnected and globalized world; we must tailor our responses to these times, and not to earlier ones.[1] Private sector innovation coupled with the right regulatory tools that engage the private market, reflect what some scholars have referred to as a complementarity approach, which neither delegates regulatory authority nor relies wholly on top-down approaches or belt-and-suspenders style duplication. Regulators and the private market work in tandem, each expending their resources according to their relative strengths.[2] Traditional approaches to regulation tend to focus on past examples of misconduct, while failing to anticipate future problems. In the aftermath of the Great Depression, most western countries were concerned with building a strong, positive state presence in response to the devastation caused to the economy.[3] Then President Franklin Delano Roosevelt established the New Deal. This was widely understood as one of the most significant events in American politics in the 20th century. As Bruce Ackerman has described: . . . [a] half-century ago, our legal system was reeling under one of the greatest shocks in its history. Although America had experienced many depressions before, it had never confided political power to a leadership so evidently willing to respond by questioning the legitimacy of laissez faire itself.[4] President Clinton stated that the New Deal helped to restore our Nation to prosperity and defined the relationship between our people and their Government for half a century .That approach worked in its time. But we today, we face a very different time and very different conditions .the era of big government is over.[5] 1 2 3 4 next For more information on related topics, visit the following channels: On a chilly day in 2010 I stood on the steps of City Hall to hold a press conference. Equipped with a proclamation from the Manhattan Borough President and an enlarged clipping from the NY Times, I was there to announce the First Annual Alligator in the Sewer Day, a pseudo-holiday I have been celebrating every year since. Exactly 75 years earlier, on February 9th 1935, New York Citys greatest urban legend was born, and the NYT story, which ran the following day, proved that legend was true. "Alligator Found in Uptown Sewer," read the headline. The piece recounted how some East Harlem teens were shoveling snow down a storm sewer when one of them noticed movement below. He peered into the darkness and was stunned by what he saw. Honest, its an alligator! he proclaimed to his buddies. The story did not end well, at least for the animal. The boys lassoed the creature with a clothesline, hauled it up to the street, and when it snapped its jaws, they killed it with their shovels. The carcass weighed 125 pounds and measured seven to eight feet long. A remarkable account, to be surebut was it really true? Having studied historical hoaxes, I knew that old newspapers were filled with fanciful tales. Reporters could be bamboozeled, and publishers were not above fabricating stories to goose circulation numbers. For example, in 1874 The New York World horrified readers with a made-up story of a man-eating plant in Madagascar. And in 1835 The New York Sun published faked dispatches from the famed astronomer Sir John Herschel, claiming he had spotted winged moonmen, six-foot tall bipedal beavers, and other curious sights on the moon's surface. As much as I trusted the Times, a story as preposterous as this one, without any byline, picture, or follow-up articles, gave off a slight whiff of "fake news." So I decided to revisit the incident to see if I could find more evidence to proveor disprove the 1935 encounter. And sure enough, I did find more evidence, some of it solid and some of it circumstantial. Taken together, I think it makes a convincing case that the East Harlem gator was real. Argument #1:There were corroborating newspaper articles. Headlines from (L-R): The Herald-Tribune, the Brooklyn Eagle, and the Herald-Tribune The NY Times account, I discovered, was not the only metro area newspaper to write about the alligator. At least two other independent papers mentioned it. One, the New York Herald-Tribune, published a story very similar to the one in the Times. That in itself does not prove corroboration. Papers shared stories through wire services like the Associated Pressthats how the Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe, The Baltimore Sun, and The Toronto Star got the storyso there still might have been only one dishonest or unreliable writer at the source. But the Herald-Tribune story differed from the Times story on a few notable details, like the exact spelling of the boys names and how they acquired their lasso. Its obvious that the pieces were written by different authors, and that eliminates the possibility that a reporter was pulling a fast one on his editor, or that a paper was pulling a fast one on its readers. The second corroborating newspaper was the the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. About a week and a half after the alligator story ran in the Manhattan papers, The Eagle published an article about how some incinerator workers on Barren Island, where the animals carcass had been taken, had kept some patches of the alligators hide as mementos. (What a tantalizing possibility: somewhere in a Brooklyn attic there might still exist a physical remnant of New Yorks original fabled sewer gator!) Argument #2 Alligators were everywhere! Gator in the East River! (The Herald-Tribune) As bizarre at it sounds, metro area alligator sightings were not all that rare in the 1930s. In 1932 two alligators, one measuring three feet, were found near the Bronx River in Westchester. And in 1937 a nearly five-foot, 100-pound gator was lassoed off Pier 9 in the East River by a barge captain. According to the account in the Herald-Tribune, "Captain Fisk offered his alligator to the police, but they declined the gift. 'Well,' said Captain Fisk philosophically, 'I cant throw it back here where the boys go swimming. I guess I got myself a pet.'" An astonishing picture of the captain and his beast was printed next to the story. Just six days later a two-foot alligator was found crawling on a subway platform in Brooklyn. It was captured by police. Argument #3 Baby alligators were cheap and easy to come by An ad that ran in Popular Mechanics So how did all these tropical critters get to our northern latitudes? The Times article speculates that the East Harlem gator escaped from a passing boat. But more likely, in my opinion, it was a discarded pet. At the time of the sewer sighting the back pages of boys' magazines were filled with ads for mail-order magic tricks, practical jokes, and, yes, baby alligators! They cost about $1.50 postpaid. From an ad in Popular Mechanics: "Do you want a Baby Alligator? You bet you do. What boy wouldn't?" (This image shows women packaging up gators for mailing.) It wasand islegal to send small, live alligators through the mail. This is not as insane as it seems. Scientists, farmers, zookeepers, and pet shop owners need a low-cost and reliable method to transport small, harmless, living animals. The system was not without its mishaps. Newspapers around the country abound with stories of postal clerks contending with escaped baby alligators in their storerooms. Then there were vacationers from the big city who would motor to parts south where they would buy cute baby gators as pets or gifts from locals and alligator farms. But alligators don't stay cute forever, and unlike goldfish, their growth is not limited by the size of their container. How to deal with what was essentially a growing pet dinosaur? According to a 1937 article in The Eagle, the solution for Catherine Fitzgerald of Ridgewood, Queens, whose onetime-baby alligator named Oscar was outgrowing her bathtub, was to call the ASPCA. The solution for others, I suspect, was to dump it in the river. Or leave it in the subway. Or slip it down the sewer. Mr. Miscione has been the Manhattan Borough Historian since 2006. Israeli troops shot dead two Palestinian teenagers including a 14-year-old boy during Gaza border protests on Friday, Palestinian health officials said. Israel\s military said it had opened fire in response to explosives and rocks hurled at the border fence. Palestinians have been staging weekly protests since last March at the border of Gaza, an enclave controlled by the Islamist militant group Hamas. The enclave\s health ministry says more than 220 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli troops at the protests. One Israeli soldier has died. Gaza health officials said one of the youths shot dead on Friday was 18 and the other 14. Israel says it has no choice but to use deadly force at the protests to defend the frontier from militants trying to destroy the barrier and infiltrate. An Israeli military spokesman said troops had faced off on Friday with more than 6,000 Palestinians, some of whom threw rocks and "a number of explosive devices, which exploded on the Gaza side of the fence". The spokesman said soldiers used riot dispersal equipment and opened fired "in accordance with standard operating procedures." Gaza is home to 2 million Palestinians, nearly all of them the stateless descendents of people who fled or were driven out of Israel on its founding in 1948. Israel and Egypt imposed a security blockade on the enclave after Hamas seized control of it in 2007, which the World Bank says has reduced the local economy to a state of collapse. Israel has fought three wars against Hamas in the past decade. Palestinians say the weekly protests are led by civil society groups demanding an easing of the blockade and recognitition of their right to return to homes in Israel. Israel says militants use the demonstrations to threaten the border and provoke violence. SOURCE: AFP PIGGS PEAK Some pupils have come up with a way of ensuring that they get good grades in school, through bribing teachers with money they obtained from selling dagga. This was a startling revelation made by the police when addressing pupils of Mhlatane High School. This was during the schools Motivation Week session. The police claimed that certain pupils had admitted to offering teachers money they had saved from selling the illegal herb so that they could help them obtain better grades. Officer Nimrod Motsa, who was addressing pupils, however, did not state which schools the involved pupils were from. Mhlatane High School hosted a Motivation Week since the beginning of this week and invited speakers from all walks of life, including pupils from Vulamasango School, which is under His Majestys Correctional Services. Motsa said pupils, who cultivated dagga to generate money, admitted to bribing teachers for the purpose of making sure that they did not fail. He condemned this act and told teachers that it was wrong because they were compromising the standard of their esteemed profession. If you decide to take the money, dont make them pass, said Motsa. Offered He admitted that in some cases, even police officers were offered bribes but this did not mean the person should not be arrested. Motsa said these confessions normally arose when they were interrogating scholars believed to be dealing in dagga. This publication also gathered that in some of the schools, pupils even offered loans to teachers. In an attempt to establish the reasons behind this act, this publication randomly spoke to pupils from various schools to ascertain the veracity of the allegations. Some of the pupils who were interviewed said it was wrong to do so because it undermined the work done by pupils from poor families who genuinely worked hard for their grades. MATSAPHA Well-known Matsapha business mogul Tommy Kirks name has been dragged into the impasse of Matsapha Town Council. This took place yesterday during the second day of the municipalitys commission of inquiry, which was sanctioned by the Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Prince Simelane. Submissions made by some councillors were that the businessman allegedly had an interest in the council and used them (councillors) to pursue it. The councillors accused the businessman of allegedly plotting to get rid of the incumbent Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Lucky Sukati, among other members of the council management. All submissions made during the inquiry remain allegations as their veracity is yet to be tested. Councillor Musa Ndzimandze was asked what he thought led to the suspension of councillors by the Minister of Housing and Urban Development. In his response, Ndzimandze claimed that there was a ratepayer who had interest in Matsapha and was allegedly using council to advance his own agenda. Appreciation However, the commission asked the councillor to be clear on who he was talking about, for record and appreciation of information purposes. They told the councillor that there was nothing to hide now since the commission was set up to find a solution to the affairs of council. It was then that the councillor alleged that the events which led council to where it was, started during their induction course which was held at the Convention Centre in Ezulwini. He alleged that through Councillor Sandlane Zwane, he learnt that Kirk had issues and interests in council. In Councillor Zwanes statement, it appeared that Kirk had issues with former CEO Gciniwe Fakudze and even the incumbent CEO, Sukati, Councillor Ndzimandze alleged. He alleged that this was because Zwane allegedly made statements suggesting that Kirk wanted to deal with Fakudze but she left council. With this information, I can conclude that the root cause of the impasse in council is what Zwane said during our induction course at the Convention Centre, Ndzimandze submitted. On the same note, Deputy Mayor Siphesihle Sibandze asked if the commission could allow him to furnish it with audios of conversations between a ratepayer who had interests in Matsapha and some councillors. However, the commission said he could highlight what was in the audio and they would make arrangements on how he could submit it later on. Audios Firstly, Sibandze alleged that in almost all the audios, the name of the former CEO, Gciniwe Fakudze, is featured. He then asked to summarise one audio, which he claimed was 18 minutes and was about a conversation between businessman Kirk and Councillor Bongani Mkhatshwa. He claimed that the conversation between the duo was allegedly made on September 10, 2018. The businessman asked Mkhatshwa when the incumbent CEO was going, he alleged. In that regard, the commission asked Sibandze what, according to his understanding, the going meant in the statement. They argued that it could mean going from work or passing away. It has to do with going from work because in the same recording, the businessman said he was asking this because the former CEO and the former town treasurer had left, the deputy mayor alleged. He also claimed that the businessman was also heard asking the councillor about other councillors like himself (Sibandze, whom they call Goje), Bongani Mamba, who was referred to as Judas and Mfanufikile Dlamini, who was called Sutha. Furthermore, the deputy mayor alleged that the businessman was heard advising the councillor not to rush to push the matter. He (businessman) said they should wait for the then ministers to be out of office and then they could carry it out, the deputy mayor alleged. According to his understanding, the deputy mayor said he believed the conversation between the two was over something which existed since September, during which council was engulfed with issues which gave birth to the current situation. Again, the deputy mayor emphasised that it was imperative for the commissioners to accept the recording because if they could listen to it, they would have a clear picture of what was really taking place in the council. What came to my mind after listening to the audios was that; Live ngeke lakhe nakunje, submitted the deputy mayor. Ratepayers Additionally, Councillor Bongani Mamba alleged that there were certain ratepayers who were running the Municipal Council of Mbabane and Matsapha Town Council behind the scenes. Kunema ratepayers elibala (there are of a different skin colour), who meddle in council issues to pursue their own agenda, he alleged. Furthermore, he alleged that they sponsored them. He alleged that he was making such claims because Councillor Sandlane Zwane once allegedly said, even if he could be taken to court, he had a Gupta who was willing to pay about E200 000 as legal costs. This publication has it in authority that the businessman (Kirk) is expected to appear before the same commission of inquiry, as he had submitted a plea asking to be also be called for an oral submission. On the same note, Matsapha Mayor Sandlane, is among those who are to deliver their evidence before the commission. MANZINI Police have arrested the alleged mastermind behind the E3 million Eagles Nest robbery that happened over the festive season. Tibusiso Sifiso Gamedze (29) of Lavumisa had skipped to South Africa immediately after the robbery. He later returned and was arrested by the police. He made a confession at the Manzini Magistrates Court where he claimed that he was lured by his co-accused to a meeting place while he was in hiding in South Africa, not knowing that he would get arrested on the day. Tibusiso had escaped to New Castle, South Africa. He admitted to have worked together with his friend, Sandile Fakudze (33) of Ntondozi and another suspect, who is still wanted by the police. The confession, which took hours, was held before Acting Principal Magistrate Phathaphatha Mdluli after the charge sheet was amended. robbery Tibusiso, who was wanted by the police, skipped the country after allegedly committing the robbery offence. He is alleged to have only took about E20 000 to South Africa, leaving his elder brother, Musa Wellington Gamedze (47) of Lavumisa, with some of the money. During the confession, Tibusiso revealed that he had just returned to the kingdom after serving jail time in South Africa. He admitted he was convicted of a dagga offence and spent years languishing in a South African jail. MANZINI His Majesty King Mswati III is expected to deliver the Speech from the Throne to give legislators and the nation the direction to take in the course of their five-year term. This will be the first Royal speech made from a formal setting addressing the first session of the 11th Parliament. Trade Union Congress of Swaziland (TOCOSWA) Secretary General Mduduzi Gina said he would be pleased to hear about strategies in place to turn around the countrys economic fortunes. He said he was confident the King would address priority areas which included education, health and the sustainability of social grants. We need to hear about strategies to review job creation and empowering genuine entrepreneurship. We will not forget how in the past we rejoiced over the introduction of certain investors who later turned out to be thugs. We would be happy if the Speech from the Throne would also address the Foreign Direct Investment. Gina said the little efforts by Cabinet to curtail spending, such as not affording new ministers posh cars and banning unnecessary travelling was praiseworthy, provided it would be sustained. Grateful President of the Federation of the Disabled in Swaziland (FODSWA) Sipho Dlamini said: We are grateful to His Majesty for signing into law the Disability Act, which, if implemented will go a long way in addressing the plight of people with disabilities. It would be in our best interest to have the King issue an instruction that the law be implemented soonest. All our needs are stipulated in the Disability Act. MBABANE The local national steering committee has only two months to prepare for the evaluation to host the Secretariat of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). The national steering committee, to be led by the Chief Executive Officer of Business Eswatini, Nathi Dlamini, was introduced to the public by the Minister of Commerce, Industry and Trade, Manqoba Khumalo yesterday. The committee assigned to win the opportunity that would see the countrys infrastructure coming to good use, is led by Dlamini with seven members. The members are Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Commerce, Trade and Industry Siboniso Nkambule, Deputy Attorney General Zandile Dlamini, CEO of the Federation of Eswatini Business Community Dudu Nhlengetfwa and CEO of Eswatini Tourism Authority Linda Nxumalo. Also Head of Human Resources at MTN Eswatini Mncedzi Ngomane, Under Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Jennifer Neves, and Director for International Trade in the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Trade Sizwe Ntshangase is the secretary. If the team succeeds in their mission, local entrepreneurs and the tourism sector shall benefit due to the constant meetings that shall be held in the country by different countries. Infrastructure The minister said: Their task is to help us use the infrastructure we have like the King Mswati III International Airport, road network, hotels and the convention centre. To achieve this milestone, the steering committee shall be supported by the national technical committee comprising of officers from 13 ministries. In the quest to bring opportunities to local entrepreneurs, the team shall draft a strategy campaign document for hosting the AfCFTA Secretariat and present it to Cabinet before the last week of this month. This, the committee shall do through using the criteria for hosting the AU Organs document that was adopted by the African Union in Libya, 2005. Another duty entails submitting an economic justification paper on the benefits that will accrue to Eswatini for hosting the AfCFTA Secretariat by the third week of this month. Prepare a work plan and a budget, which will include an indicative external travel budget request in selected strategic members of the AU to advance Eswatinis bid to host in the third week of February, 2019. Produce Further, the committee has to produce a promotional video on the countrys bid and clear strategy on how to market it. Another task of the committee was said to be to propose a national plan on how to sensitise the public on strategic economic importance for Eswatini to host the AfCFTA Secretariat. The team further has to submit a draft programme before the end of March, 2019 for the evaluation team deployed by the bureau and chairperson of the AU, which shall visit the country by the end of April. As the team prepares to assist the country compete with Egypt and Ghana, it shall have to report to Minister Khumalo on a weekly basis. Freshman Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced her Green New Deala cornerstone of her campaignon Thursday, together with Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey. Crucially, it comes in the form of a non-binding resolution, so even if the House does pass it, the legislation will mostly serve as a roadmap of where lawmakers would like to go with respect to climate change, and what issues they plan to prioritize. The agenda outlined in the resolution is dramatic and sweeping in equal measure. The Green New Deal would set ambitious goals for cutting carbon emissions nationwide, across all industries, while also implementing carbon-neutral infrastructure and mass transit, and creating jobs in the process. It calls for a complete switch to renewable energy by 2030. It's not something the United States could implement overnight, even if it were to become law, because it basically involves the wholesale reconfiguration of the economy and our infrastructure. "Even the solutions that we have considered big and bold are nowhere near the scale of the actual problem that climate change presents to us," Ocasio-Cortez told NPR, which originally published the resolution. "It could be part of a larger solution, but no one has actually scoped out what that larger solution would entail. And so that's really what we're trying to accomplish with the Green New Deal." Indeed, a string of alarming climate reports have suggested that, without a radical transformation of the global carbon economy, we will achieve a catastrophic 3.6 degrees of atmospheric warming within about 20 yearsmuch earlier than previously estimated. As a result, experts expect the mass displacement of populations currently living in island and coastal locations; unrelenting, extreme weather (floods, fires, droughts, the whole bit); famine; disease; and by the end of the century, roughly $500 billion in economic damage to the U.S. economy per year. Low-income people would be hit hardest, both because these populations tend to chart higher rates of health problems and have more direct exposure to natural disasters wrought by climate change. As such, Ocasio-Cortez and Markey's resolution marries social justice issues with environmental policy, demanding the inclusion of the "vulnerable communities" that stand to be worst affected in the drafting process. The current language also commits to the total transition away from nuclear energy and fossil fuels, and toward "clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources." To that end, the deal proposes a pivot to electric cars and the building of a high-speed rail to replace airplane travel, the aviation industry ranking among the nation's most aggressive carbon emissions sources. It also proposes upgrading every single building in the U.S. "to achieve maximal energy efficiency," and commits to working with and supporting farmers to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and agricultural pollution to the lowest possible levels. At the same time, the Deal would also guarantee every American not only a job with "a family-sustaining wage, adequate family and medical leave, paid vacations and retirement security," but also, health care. A city composed of islands and a lot of coastal building, New York will feel the effects of climate change acutely. Visual learners might particularly appreciate this very scary video depicting the projected result of a failure to head off 3.6-degree warming: Streets submerged in five-to-nine meters of river water by the end of the century. As WNYC has previously reported, continued warming will mean severe weather could cost us about twice as much as it already does by 2050, with ever-more frequent heat waves potentially claiming as many as 1,500 lives each summer. Hotter temps mean heavier reliance on air conditioning, which in turn means more blackouts. But perhaps the biggest question a city already characterized by a vast income gap and housing scarcity should ask itself is what happens when so much real estatespace currently occupied by businesses and by peoplewinds up under water? So that we may more easily wrap our brains around the scale of this impending catastrophe, and understand who will be worst affected, Eddie Bautistaexecutive director of the New York City Environmental Justice Alliancerecalled Superstorm Sandy. Flooding damaged 402 NYCHA buildings with 35,000 units, leaving 80,000 residents without heat or hot water, because broad swaths of the city's public housing stock sit within surge zones. Further, roughly 65 percent of renters who applied for FEMA assistance in Sandy's aftermath made less than $30,000 per year. In the inevitable event of a comparable storm surge situation, there's no reason to expect the outcome would be different going forward. It's worth remembering, too, that over half of NYCHA tenants live in the city's most heat-vulnerable neighborhoods, many of them in apartments without air conditioning. "Whether it's storm surge, whether it's heat exposure, you can draw a straight line between particular climate impacts and how low-income people, people of color, low-income populations, are disproportionately vulnerable," Bautista told Gothamist. True, Mayor Bill de Blasio has committed to the Paris Climate Agreement, even though (and perhaps because) the current president won't, and that is a step in the right direction. But we also know that the accord doesn't go far enough toward heading off a severe and urgent manmade disaster, and there is scientific consensus that we need to take aggressive action to change course immediately. Today's Green New Deal is, again, a lofty wishlist, and even so, NPR deems it unlikely to pass. Although the Deal has won support from Congressional big names like Senator and 2020 candidate Kamala Harris, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's support seems tepid at best. Many Republicans will, predictably, be automatic passes, but even those who do believe in science have evinced skepticism. "Someone's going to have to prove to me how that can be accomplished because it looks to me like for the foreseeable future we're gonna be using a substantial amount of fossil fuels," Republican Representative and co-chair of the Climate Solutions Caucus Francis Rooney told NPR, before the Deal's release on Thursday. Still, even an untenable Green New Deal serves purpose as a catalyzer of coming presidential campaigns, and as NPR points out, support could serve as a litmus test for Democratic and progressive voters. Actually, belief in climate change now crosses party lines, so perhaps it's not outrageous to expect some Republican challengers might consider paying attention, too. As Ocasio-Cortez put it to NPR, that's where you come in: "The public needs to call their member of Congress and say, 'This is something that I care about,'" she said, adding: "Where I do have trust is in my colleagues' capacity to change and evolve and be adaptable and listen to their constituents." File: Students from SSU Media High interview the supervisor of the King Frazier Cafeteria on the campus of Savannah State University. THE SHORTHORN Is seeking work study student assistants for our reception desk for summer and fall.Prompt, cheerful, students with professional attitudes are encouraged to apply to answer office phones and greet guests from behind a plexiglass COVID barrier.Preference is given to students available to work some mornings. This in-office job offers flexible hours and plenty of time to study.Apply through Handshake for job #4723423 or call 817-272-3188 for more information. By Keli Vitaioli vitaioli@grinnell.edu As the College opened for the spring semester, so did the doors to the newly designed, still-in-progress Humanities and Social Studies Complex (HSSC). On Jan. 22, while students and faculty attended class in the building for the first time, construction workers carried on installing whiteboards, painting classrooms, hanging lights and more to keep up with the fast pace of the massive construction project. The new addition, which broke ground in Dec. 2016, has opened on schedule and is transitioning to the renovation stage of the project while the building is in use. In the renovation phase, the work being completed is largely aesthetic, involving interior demolitions and comparatively limited crew sizes. This makes sharing the space amongst members of the College and workers much more manageable. According to Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the College Michael Latham in an email to The S&B, work on the new addition should be finished by spring break as the atrium is completed and new furniture arrives. Before classes began, all the offices were completed and most of the classroom spaces. Construction on the HSSC as well as the new admissions building and renovation of Younker Hall for ADA compliance has been contracted to McGough Construction, based in Saint Cloud, Minnesota. McGough has subcontracted a number of construction companies to tackle these three major projects, peaking at 300 contractors working simultaneously on the HSSC last summer. Director of Facilities Management Rick Whitney notes completion of a project this size has required numerous individuals working together to keep on schedule as they complete their own disparate duties. It was really quite impressive to see unfold how many people, including designers, consultants, contractors, construction professionals, as well as college faculty and staff work as a team to bring the HSSC from concept to reality, wrote Whitney in an email to The S&B. ITS and Facilities Management worked very hard during the months leading up to the opening and especially during the winter break to relocate faculty into the new building, install technology in classrooms, and coordinate work with our construction firm, wrote Latham. They deserve a great deal of credit for helping us meet that deadline. One of the subcontractors hired by McGough, Wilkie Sanderson, is currently working on carpentry related renovation projects and have been on site through McGough since June of 2018. The workers from Wilkie Sanderson are unionized under the United Brotherhood of Carpenters union (UBC). The workers are contracted to 40-hour, or five eight-hour work days per week. The HSSC project has required a lot of work outside the typical week, however, with workers coming in both Saturday and Sunday as well as working ten-hour days. For all work beyond the 40-hour work-week, workers are paid time and a half, with double time on Sundays, as part of their union-negotiated contract. David Holt, a field supervisor with Wilkie Sanderson, noted that as of late, the workers have been back to their typical 40-hour work week, but for the past two months, seven-day work weeks and ten-hour days have been typical. Regarding working in the HSSC as students are there, Kevin Lynch, a construction worker under Holt and also employed through Wilkie Sanderson, noted that working in occupied spaces is not a norm he is used to, but does seem to be more common as time goes on. As the major work in the space is done, it is safe for students to use while the work continues and they finish making the HSSC look pretty, according to Lynch. It used to be that building inspectors wouldnt give occupation until everything was absolutely done, now when we get down to just the beauty stuff theyre willing to pass off the occupation after all the safety stuff is completed, said Holt. One of the beautification projects that Holt and Lynch are currently working on is the installation of fins around the second and third floor hanging walkways. 3,000 of these fins we installed, Holt said. Theyre all designed to trap sound so the atrium here isnt as echoey and loud. The College praises the work that has gone into making the building energy-efficient and sustainable. It has been modeled to use less than half of the energy required by code. Students, administrators and faculty have been impressed by the new space and the opportunities it allows for student learning. Latham is excited for the interdisciplinary nature of the space, bringing together members of the College across the humanities in ways unheard of at other schools. This should help to foster more collaboration across fields, facilitate team teaching, and promote collaborative research among students and faculty, Latham wrote. This may very well be the first truly integrated Humanities and Social Studies center, and were thrilled to see where the intellectual exchanges will lead For some students, the updates in technology are impressive additions to the new space. Tanvi Jindal 20, who attends sociology and economics courses in the HSSC, finds the equipped classroom brings new ease to group work. I really like that some classrooms have their own personal computers so if youre working on a project you dont have to share computers, like I have to in [economics], Jindal said. Others, like Yuya Kawakami 20, who attends global development studies in the HSSC, are impressed by both the physical beauty of the space and the accessible nature of it. I like the aesthetics of the building. I like how they preserved the outer of the ARH and kind of built around it thats pretty cool, Kawakami said. [It is] more spacious for sure, and I think its more accessible in many ways. Theres an elevator, theres chalk walls all around the room, so its easier for the professor to teach from more places. By Kelly Page pagekell@grinnell.edu The Union of Grinnell Student Dining Workers (UGSDW) published a report on Jan. 21 alleging a possible pattern of racial discrimination directed towards student employees at the Spencer Grill. The report shows that, since 2017, more international students and students of color have faced disciplinary actions and been fired from the Grill than their white coworkers. Grill employees operate under a system of cuts similar to a three strikes system. Every time employees break a rule, they receive a cut from Grill supervisors. After three cuts, they are fired. According to the UGSDWs report, the median domestic white student worker receives 0.6 cuts a semester, while the median student worker of color/international student worker receives 0.9 cuts a semester. Once a student gets three cuts, the Assistant Director who oversees the Spencer Grill, Lisa Thornton, contacts them to tell them that they have been fired from the Grill. However, the UGSDW website describes a racial disparity in this procedure. Their report states For student workers who do receive a third cut, student workers of color/international student workers are more likely to be fired than their domestic white peers by 24 percentage points. Since January 2017, over 25 [percent] of African American student workers and nearly 20 [percent] of international student employees lost their jobs, compared with just 5 [percent] of domestic white employees. This means that white students who receive three cuts are more likely to keep their job than their international or domestic student of color coworkers. What it comes down to is extra leniency given to white students, said Cory McCartan 19, union advisor and the author of the report. In November 2018, McCartan decided to investigate the data collected by Dining Services about cuts and firing from the Grill. The union asked for this data after hearing from many Grill employees that they were concerned about discrimination. Since Dining Services does not hold on to records of cuts and terminations indefinitely, data from before 2017 is not available. The College issued a Special Campus Memo contesting the results of the data, arguing The College has already undertaken its own analysis of the data relied on in the report and has found the limited data insufficient to draw meaningful conclusions. The College has not made their own analysis public, but plans to hire a third-party investigator to look more closely at the possibility of discrimination. Leslie Gregg-Jolly, interim chief diversity officer of the College, said I think its a really serious allegation and we need to treat it with utmost attention and thats why I think its critical that we get this external evaluator. We cannot make any conclusions or decide what we want to do until we have an independent investigation. Although the College is sponsoring this investigation, McCartan was left with the impression that [The College is] really trying to do the minimum necessary to sort of patch this up and move on, after he and Sam Xu 20 met with Mary Greiner, assistant vice president of human resources at the College, and the Colleges lawyer, Frank Harty. When McCartan requested a meeting with College administrators, he said he expected Greiner to include more people in the meeting. He reports having carbon copied Gregg-Jolly on preliminary emails about the meeting. McCartan said, it was sort of notable who wasnt in the room, such as the chief diversity officer, anyone from Dining Services or anything, so schedules are hard to coordinate, but if they say they take this seriously they should really have more room to talk about it. Since the UGSDW report came out, McCartan says a handful of students have decided to initiate grievance processes which could help them get their jobs at the Grill back on the grounds that they were discriminated against. McCartan said that he was told at the meeting that [The College was] going to try to get those grievances thrown out on technical grounds, those being that too much time has passed since the students were fired. However, in an interview with The S&B, Gregg-Jolly said, I have no knowledge about what you just described [about throwing out the grievances] The statement that you made does not resonate with the practices in my office and said that she was not aware of the meeting. While the investigation is ongoing, McCartan wants the College to make sure that no discrimination happens in the meantime. Gregg-Jolly said out that students could come to her to start a grievance process or seek resources while waiting for results from the investigation. Im happy to meet with anyone about what that means, how they might go about the process, she said. We also have an ombudsperson who is a confidential resource, so anyone can go to the ombudsperson. We do have a non-retaliation policy at the College as well, even with that some people dont feel comfortable coming forward necessarily, so we have an intercultural affairs department where people can talk to people like [Associate Dean of Students & Director of Intercultural Affairs]Maure Smith-Benanti also. And part of the grievance process is that people can just come talk to me or Maure, someone they feel comfortable with, and learn about the possibilities. McCartan also wants the Grill to start keeping more-detailed records of cuts and firings, but the lawyers allegedly told him that the College did not have to, and therefore would not keep better records. But Gregg-Jolly said, I dont know anything about that. Despite a lack of coordinated responses to the allegations from the administration, the results of the third-party analysis will be made public sometime in the future. By Kelly Page pagekell@grinnell.edu Next week, Grinnell students can explore new uses of virtual reality, learn about ethical data visualization and see various guest speakers talk on the future of data. These activities can all be found on the posters hanging around campus advertising I Love Data Week at the College. The week is the Colleges answer to various data-appreciation weeks, which are held annually at colleges around the country. Katie Walden, a digital liberal arts specialist for the College, played a big part in organizing the week. We wanted to dispel that myth that only certain people work with data because no matter where you are on the spectrum of being a data person, not being a data person, being interested in issues of advocacy, equity and social justice, there is room for everyone in these conversations and I hope that students are able to attend, she said. The effort to involve students who may not see how their academic or personal lives overlap with data grew out of observations made by the people behind Data Analysis and Social Inquiry Lab and data services in the library. Many students in the humanities often do not reach out to them for help with data resources. They hope that humanities majors and undeclared first- and second-years learn that, although they are not studying math or social sciences, they can be empowered through an understanding of data science. We are all connected to data structures and I think for a lot of students, and I put myself in this boat, I have a humanities background, I am not trained as a data scientist, but yet to live in the 21st century world, in order to participate fully, you need to know whats going on with data and not be scared of it, Walden said. I Love Data Week happened to overlap with Sex Week at the College, as well as The Wilson Centers hackathon, HackGC, so, as Walden explained, We just took all the weeks of hack and sex and data and put them together. That is why the posters for the week include STI testing and a Pub Quiz themed around reproductive justice and public health data. Other notable events occurring during the week include Student Experience as Data, where students can learn about the results of the student-athlete social norms survey (11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. February 12, Noyce 2021), and a Humanities Center Guest Speaker named Karen Tabb Dina who studies ways to assess depressive symptoms in health care settings to improve health outcomes for women (7:30 p.m. February 13, JRC 101). Students can also participate in two Data Challenges in which they can learn more practical skills for data visualization (7:30 to 9 p.m. in the Forums Digital Liberal Arts Laboratory on February 11 and 14). Another particularly interesting aspect of the week is the involvement of the Grinnell College Immersive Experiences Lab, which is hosting a virtual reality (VR) workshop. Most students are probably unaware of the Immersive Experiences Lab, which focuses on finding ways to use virtual reality in the liberal arts and may point towards an exciting new horizon in education. Digital Liberal Arts Specialist David Neville, who started the lab, believes that VR is the future of the liberal arts and that one day students may carry VR headsets around with them to classes. It would do so much to augment a liberal arts education. For instance, if there was an app to investigate the Roman Colosseum and you go over to the fieldhouse where you dont have any walls to walk into and you have your headset on that doesnt have any cables, essentially you could walk through the Colosseum and get a sense of the scale of it and what went on in there, he said. Students who attend the VR workshop on Feb. 15 from 4-5:30 p.m. in the Forums Digital Liberal Arts Laboratory will be able to explore ancient Mayan architecture using a VR experience created by Heather Richards-Rissetto, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Nebraska. Neville said, Its data about something that you can experience and look at and interact with and visualize and have a sense of presence in, and not necessarily some data thats just on an Excel spreadsheet. VANCOUVER, B.C., Feb. 08, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Vancouvers Shelley Brown, FCPA, FCA, CM was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Chartered Professional Accountants of British Columbia (CPABC). The award recognizes Browns sustained distinction in her career, community service, and work within the CPA profession. Shelley Brown, FCPA, FCA, CM was appointed to the Order of Canadas in 2018 for her contributions as a business leader and volunteer in the country. She was also the first woman in Canada to become an office managing partner with Deloitte. She was a partner in public practice for 30 years, most recently at Deloittes Vancouver office, until her retirement in 2018. Previously office managing partner in Deloittes Saskatoon office, she began her career with Clarkson Gordon (now EY) in Calgary, and became the offices first female partner. As an advocate for gender parity, Brown supports female talent through mentorship. Her efforts have been recognized with an Influential Women in Business Award from Business in Vancouver and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association of Women in Finance. The Womens Executive Network has named her four times as one of Canadas Top 100 Most Powerful Women, earning her a position in the Hall of Fame. A leader in the accounting profession, Brown was named a member of the Accounting Standards Oversight Council in 2018. She was the inaugural co-chair of CPA Canada after leading her national legacy bodys Unification Committee from 2012 to 2014. She served her legacy body for over thirty years and contributed to the formation of its school of business in Western Canada. Her community contributions are equally impressive. She chairs the University of Saskatchewans board of governors and the Jim Pattison Childrens Hospital Foundation which oversees funding initiatives for construction of a childrens hospital in Saskatchewan. Brown is also a board member with Covenant House Vancouver, where she helps oversee the construction of two new youth shelters in downtown Vancouver. A strong, inclusive leader, Brown serves as a corporate director, helping executive teams achieve growth, increase stakeholder value, and embrace innovation. Her governance expertise has brought value to association, not-for-profit, and corporate boards for over 30 years. Brown obtained her designation in 1982 in Alberta and has been elected to fellowship in Ontario, BC, Alberta, and Saskatchewan. Quote from Lori Mathison, FCPA, FCGA, LLB, president and CEO of CPABC We are honoured to recognize Shelley with the Lifetime Achievement Award. She is an inspiring leader who has worked hard to promote gender parity. Her contributions are invaluable and we are extremely proud of Shelleys achievements. To read the profiles of all the award winners, visit bccpa.ca/members/recognition-program . NOTE TO JOURNALISTS: Publication quality photos of the recipients are available. About CPA British Columbia The Chartered Professional Accountants of British Columbia (CPABC) is the training, governing, and regulatory body for more than 36,000 CPA members and 6,000 CPA students and candidates. CPABC carries out its primary mission to protect the public by enforcing the highest professional and ethical standards and contributing to the advancement of public policy. CPAs are recognized internationally for bringing superior financial expertise, strategic thinking, business insight, and leadership to organizations. By Candace Mettle mettleca@grinnell.edu Faulconer Gallery is currently showing two major traveling exhibits, Dread and Delight: Fairy Tales in an Anxious World, a contemporary interpretation of fairy tales from around the globe, and Reckoning with The Incident: John Wilsons Studies for a Lynching Mural. The John Wilson exhibition is the first in the U.S. to show all of Wilsons preparatory work for The Incident. Though the two concurrent exhibits are separate shows, both works deal with questions of agency, overcoming adversity and challenging who truly has power. This is one of the few times that weve installed our shows [with] little barrier in between them it was after we really started working with [Dread and Delight] when we started to realize they are quite related, said Lesley Wright, director of the gallery. Dread and Delight was organized by the Weatherspoon Art Museum at University of North Carolina at Greensboro and curated by Emily Stamey 01. The exhibit brings works in various media to Grinnell which focus on the intersection of race and gender in the western-European interpretations of fairy tales. According to Wright, The fact that [Stamey] picked artists who are of color, who are genderfluid, means this isnt a traditional way of looking at fairy tales, which allows us to really broaden the conversation. Wright considers Ghadada Amers piece Les Flaneuses to be one of the most representative of Dread and Delight. Amer uses painting and embroidery on a white canvas to show a medley of recognizable feminine figures. The audience can spot Snow White in the right-hand corner of the canvas, with glamour models behind her head. On one hand you have Snow White, the first Disney princess, a very little girl interpretation of what it means to be feminine and desirable, and then you have images from Playboy and Hustler, a totally different notion of being women, and see how these collide, said Wright. The Wilson exhibit, organized by Yale University, provides an intimate look at the development of Wilsons seminal mural that depicts what immediately happens after a lynching. The audience can interpret the anxieties Wilson, an African-American man, may have felt regarding his identity in the United States. Tilly Woodward, curator of academic and community outreach, said that the exhibits both discuss generational trauma and identity. If the story is always about black people being portrayed through trauma, its not enough if the princess is always white and blonde, thats not enough, Woodward said. I think [Dread and Delight] switches things up that in a way carries over some of the things Wilson is trying to question and grapple with. Wright emphasized how John Wilson focused heavily on the mother embracing her child seen in the piece, despite the fact that he was a father. Maybe he thought that would be the most resonating image for his audience, she said. Grinnell College already owned 14 out of the exhibits 23 pieces thanks to Kay Wilson, the Colleges curator of the collection, and welcomed the artist himself to campus in 2004. After Wright and Woodward received concerned feedback regarding the exhibitions violent subject matter and discussed the concerns with their Yale colleagues, Yale decided it was best if Grinnell College was the first stop for the exhibition. I had to take a step back and say, we have another audience here that were not even thinking about, and thats people who know this story really well, Wright said. Wright and Woodward reached out to Intercultural Affairs, faculty of color and Concerned Black Students to include underrepresented voices in programming surrounding the show. Woodward organized a digital storytelling workshop in November to contextualize the exhibit so as not to perpetuate violence against those who are all too familiar with systemic violence. The digital stories are featured as part of the exhibit. The planning for the exhibit stands out to Woodward as requiring more care and collaboration among people outside of the gallery than previous shows. She hopes to implement this planning experience into future shows. Theres always thoughtfulness that goes into planning, Woodward reflected. But I think this is a really special one. Residents interested in learning more about flood risks in their communities are invited to attend a flood map information open house. Representatives from the Federal Emergency Management Agency will host a flood map information open house for Wayne County on Feb. 27. The open house provides county residents with an opportunity to review a recently completed preliminary Flood Insurance Study and its accompanying preliminary Flood Insurance Rate Maps. The FIS and the FIRMs provide base flood (also known as the one percent annual chance event) information, designate areas that are subject to significant flood hazards within the county, and offer information that public officials may use when permitting development in the floodplain. The open house will be staffed with representatives from various local, state, and federal agencies who will provide the most current information about flood risk, flood insurance, floodplain development regulations, and the process for floodplain mapping within Wayne County. The newly prepared preliminary floodplain maps will be on display. Once the maps become effective, they will be used as the basis for flood insurance as well as local flood protection regulations adopted under the National Flood Insurance Program. FEMA also intends that they be used to assist planning processes and outreach efforts for better resiliency in response to flood and storm events. The Wayne County FEMA public open house meeting takes place from 5 to 7 p.m. Feb. 27 at Wayne County Community College, Frank Hayden Room, 1001 W. Fort Street, Detroit. Property owners, Realtors, lenders, and insurance agents are urged to attend and take advantage of this opportunity to learn more about flood risk and hazard mitigation within their community. Digital files of the Preliminary FIRMs and FIS report can be downloaded at www.fema.gov/preliminaryfloodhazarddata. NORTH VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Feb. 08, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- North Vancouvers Lenard Boggio, FCPA, FCA was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Chartered Professional Accountants of British Columbia (CPABC). The award recognizes Boggios sustained distinction in his career, community service, and work within the CPA profession. Lenard Boggio, FCPA, FCA is a sought-after advisor and director of a number of public and private companies. He is currently an independent director and Audit Committee chair of BC Hydro, where he exercises a governance role over some of the organizations most complex and important projects, including Site C and the recent purchase of the Waneta Dam. He also serves as an independent director and advisor to several public mining companies and has been a commissioner of the Financial Institutions Commission, the provincial regulatory agency that safeguards the stability and reputation of BCs financial sector. Boggio was a partner at PwCs Vancouver office from 1988 until retiring in 2012. Under his leadership, the firms mining group saw its annual revenues double, as did the number of partners working in the practice. Respected as a clear and strategic thinker who inspired trust in his colleagues, he freely shared his expertise and mentored many of the mining practices younger partners. A respected educator, Boggio taught the audit component of the Institute of Corporate Directors program and has lectured at SFU and the Law Society of BC. He is also an active volunteer, and has advocated for children with dyslexia and other learning disabilities through his service with the Kenneth Gordon Maplewood School and related Foundation. For more than 30 years, Boggio volunteered with his profession and rendered diverse and dedicated service. During the unification of Canadas accounting profession, he was a leader at both the provincial and national levels. As chair of his national legacy body during unification, he was widely recognized by his peers for his energy, commitment, and vision. He also served as president of his provincial legacy body, engaging with fellow members to promote understanding and approval of unification. Boggio obtained his designation in 1985 in B.C. and was elected to fellowship in 2007. Quote from Lori Mathison, FCPA, FCGA, LLB, president and CEO of CPABC We are honoured to recognize Len with the Lifetime Achievement Award. Throughout his career, Len has dedicated his time towards the betterment of the accounting profession and his community. His contributions are invaluable and we are extremely proud of Lens achievements. To read the profiles of all the award winners, visit bccpa.ca/members/recognition-program . NOTE TO JOURNALISTS: Publication quality photos of the recipients are available. About CPA British Columbia The Chartered Professional Accountants of British Columbia (CPABC) is the training, governing, and regulatory body for more than 36,000 CPA members and 6,000 CPA students and candidates. CPABC carries out its primary mission to protect the public by enforcing the highest professional and ethical standards and contributing to the advancement of public policy. CPAs are recognized internationally for bringing superior financial expertise, strategic thinking, business insight, and leadership to organizations. Elizabethtown, KY (42701) Today A good deal of sunshine. High 78F. Winds ESE at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 58F. Winds light and variable. With the development of new technologies in the area of AI, many companies are jumping into the field with both eyes wide open. It is very possible that artificial intelligent androids will work alongside their human companions in the future. They will not only work in the same office or building but also independently in their own home. Artificial intelligence has opened up many doors in the past and looks to continue that pace in the future. There are several reasons as to why companies such as Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Cisco, IBM and others are all jumping into the pool Started in Peckham, Doc Cotton is a sustainable brand with a difference. Founder James Pickard talks us through the secrets behind the brand, from their ethos of fighting fast fashion to what makes Doc Cotton unique. Image courtesy of Doc Cotton Rejecting fast fashion View this post on Instagram A post shared by DOC COTTON (@doc__cotton) on Dec 29, 2018 at 10:25am PST James was inspired to start the brand after finding he was tired of the same old fast fashion that fills the British high-street. The mission behind our brand is simple: fed up with mass-produced fast-fashion, we are on a mission to personalise the nations wardrobe, creating affordable, customised and sustainable clothing. Sustainability is a really important aspect of Doc Cotton, with all their clothing being made in the UK. The brands' mission is to take a stand against the fast fashion industry and support local artists and manufacturers. So what does James think about fast-fashion retailers? He says: You have a famous person wearing an outfit and a fast fashion retailer will have it in the shops a day later; its not right and hurts the environment, the people and customers in the long run. Of course, sustainability has become big over the last year and its finally being talked about, what with the news and industry issues - but its still not enough for fast fashion retailers to take on sustainability purely for business. They really need to address the consequences of their actions. A unique selling point Doc Cotton stands out from other brands because its unique selling point allows its customers to design their own prints and customise their items. The best thing about this? All of the products are sustainable. James says: The idea of empowering the nation to design their own garments through sustainability was the driving force for Doc Cotton. We wanted to be able to buy the clothes we wanted to wear and offer that opportunity for the wider public. (Left) Shirt dress, 72 (Right) Trousers, 80 // Images courtesy of Doc Cotton After researching, talking to friends, family, and industry insiders, looking at existing companies and websites as well as small boutiques, one vision was in mind: to make bespoke sustainable printed garments a growing trend and the norm. Personal style is really important to James, so this is something he wanted to get across through Doc Cotton allowing their customers to create their own items. He continues: As we wanted the option of wearing what we choose, the idea of choosing your own print and designing your own if you cant find one that suits you is something we feel is important. Everyone wants to wear what they like and their personal style is reflected with Doc Cottons options! From the moment this idea was born to the opening of our first shop in Peckham, our mission statement remains the same: to empower you, our customer, to create your own wardrobe. We want you to create personalised clothes that you choose to wear rather than trawling through numerous retailers, only to settle on second best. We want you to let us be your own brand as opposed to being constrained by someone elses. Individuality. Independence. Innovation. This is what we strive for. View this post on Instagram A post shared by DOC COTTON (@doc__cotton) on Aug 29, 2018 at 5:03am PDT Words of wisdom So what advice does James have for students who are hoping to get their big break in the fashion industry? Start small! Internships, networking events, social media, there are so many ways of getting in the industry. Our team all started with focusing their education in fashion or in the creative arts and started with internships and worked their way up! Perseverance, commitment, and hard work is definitely the way in, its a fast-paced industry and theres plenty of space to be a changemaker!" Lead image courtesy of Doc Cotton Salida, CO (81201) Today Partly cloudy skies this morning will become overcast during the afternoon. High 87F. Winds W at 10 to 20 mph.. Tonight Cloudy early with some clearing expected late. Low 59F. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph. TORONTO, Feb. 08, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Integrated Asset Management Corp. (the Corporation) (TSX: IAM) announced today the results of voting at its annual meeting of shareholders held on February 7, 2019 (the Meeting). Each of the nominees listed in the management information circular dated January 2, 2019 was elected as a director of the Corporation at the Meeting. According to proxies received by management in advance of the Meeting, the voting results were: Nominee # of Votes For % of Votes For # of Votes Withheld % of Votes Withheld Victor Koloshuk 16,285,055 99.975% 168,717 1.025% David H. Atkins 16,232,451 98.655% 221,321 1.345% Robert L. Brooks 16,446,451 99.956% 7,321 0.044% John A. Crocker 16,446,451 99.956% 7,321 0.044% Bruce D. Day 16,232,451 98.655% 221,321 1.345% Veronika Hirsch 16,232,451 98.655% 221,321 1.345% David G. Mather 16,446,451 99.956% 7,321 0.044% John F.K. Robertson 16,447,451 99.956% 7,321 0.044% Details of the voting results on all matters considered at the Meeting are available in the Corporations report of voting results, which is available under the Corporations profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Integrated Asset Management Corp. is one of Canadas leading alternative asset management companies with approximately $3.1 billion in assets and committed capital under management in real estate and private debt as of February 8, 2019. For further information, please contact Tom Felkai, CFO 416 933 8263 tfelkai@iamgroup.ca Welcome back pirates! As you make your return to campus The East Carolinian has created a forum that centers around topics within the community where readers can express their experiences and concerns. With the new guidelines set in place by East Carolina University do you feel as these precautions will keep you safe? Survey Unlimited website access 24/7 Unlimited e-Edition access 24/7 The best local, regional and national news in sports, politics, business and more! With a Digital Only subscription, you'll receive unlimited access to our website and e-edition. Our digital products are available 24/7 and are accessible anywhere, anytime. Atlanta, Feb. 08, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Gray Television, Inc. (Gray, we, or our) (NYSE: GTN) announced today that it has reached an agreement with United Communications (United) to acquire Uniteds television stations for a total purchase price of $45 million. This acquisition will add more top performing television stations and two new markets to Grays growing portfolio: WWNY-TV (CBS) and WNYF-CD (FOX) in Watertown, New York (DMA 178) and KEYC-TV (CBS/FOX) in Mankato, Minnesota (DMA 199). We are honored to be selected by United as the new owners of legacy stations WWNY and KEYC, said Kevin Latek, Grays Chief Legal and Development Officer. We look forward to working with their dedicated employees to further enhance these stations record of service and success. Exiting the broadcast industry and communities we have come to love is very difficult, explained Uniteds President, Lucy Brown. Uniteds Board came to this decision with a heavy heart, but one that looks to the future with great optimism. We determined that though our TV stations enjoy tremendous success, the time has come when ownership by a larger group offers greater prospects to compete in this new media environment. With Gray we found a broadcast company with shared values and commitments to localism. We are confident that Gray will provide the resources and leadership to allow our employees and stations to best serve their local communities going forward. WWNY and KEYC each consistently achieves #1 ratings in all major dayparts in its respective local market, and each station has very deep roots in its local community. These stations represent Grays first television stations located in New York State and Minnesota. The stations, however, complement Grays existing exposure to and coverage of these states from legacy Gray stations located in other markets that spill into other areas of Upstate New York and Minnesota. This transaction advances Grays strategy of enhancing shareholder value through select acquisitions of highly rated stations that share the culture and values of our existing television stations. We anticipate that the transaction will be immediately free cash flow accretive, and we will fund the acquisition with cash on hand. We anticipate closing the transaction following receipt of regulatory and other approvals in the second quarter of 2019. About Gray: Gray owns and/or operates television stations and leading digital properties in 91 television markets, including the first or second highest rated television station in 85 markets. Our television stations broadcast almost 400 separate programming streams, including nearly 150 affiliates of the CBS/NBC/ABC/FOX networks. We also own video program production, marketing, and digital businesses including Raycom Sports, Tupelo-Raycom, and RTM Studios, the producer of PowerNation programs and content. For further information, please visit www.gray.tv. # # # if the people of Biafra want Republic of Biafra, it will be a reality during my administration. ----Donald Trump Donald Trump I wi... English Latvian Riga, Latvia, 2019-02-08 21:58 CET (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Under the reorganisation of the companies of the group of ABLV Bank, AS in liquidation, New Hanza Capital, AS has become the owner of 100% of shares of NHC 5, SIA company. Thus New Hanza Capital, AS real estate portfolio now includes two new objects in Riga an office building at 23 Elizabetes Street (total space 4324.9 m2) and office premises at 21A-102 Elizabetes Street (total space 688.1 m2). For the execution of the transaction there were the funds of the company and a loan used. The amount of the deal shall be listed in the liquidation report of ABLV Bank, AS in liquidation for January 2019 (in Cash from recovered investments) that shall be published in the official newspaper Latvijas Vestnesis after 10 February 2019. New Hanza Capital, AS is a company founded in 2006 that has been investing its funds in commercial properties. The objectives of its operation includes investing own and third party funds in commercial real estate objects to achieve sustainable increase in income from renting the premises, long-term capital growth and enlarging of the value of properties. The companys real estate portfolio includes office buildings at VEF neighbourhood, airBaltic central office at Riga International Airport, logistics centres in Riga and Kekava Region and other objects. The total leasable area of the premises exceeds 75 thousand square metres. Thai King lambasts 'highly inappropriate' move to make princess PM Bangkok, Feb 8 (AFP) Feb 08, 2019 Thailand's powerful King Maha Vajiralongkorn late Friday described an unprecedented move to make his older sister Princess Ubolratana prime minister as "highly inappropriate" and against "royal traditions". Ubolratana, 67, the older sister of Vajiralongkorn, was announced hours earlier as a candidate in the upcoming elections for the Thai Raksa Chart party, which is steered by the divisive Shinawatra political clan. Her shock entrance into frontline Thai politics was a first by a member of the powerful royal family and promised to reshape the political landscape of the country. But a late-night statement from the palace left no doubt over the King's displeasure at the move. "The king and royal family exist in a status above politics," said the statement, published in the Royal Gazette and given blanket television coverage. The statement did not criticise Ubolratana, instead praising her public work. But it appeared aimed at those behind her sudden stride into politics. "To bring a senior royal family member into the political system in any way is against royal traditions and the nation's culture... which is very inappropriate." While the monarchy, which is vastly wealthy and protected from criticism by a harsh royal defamation law, has been seen as above the political fray, royals have intervened in moments of political crisis. In a day of high drama, junta chief Prayut Chan-O-Cha also declared his candidacy for premier, running for the pro-military Phalang Pracharat party, moments after the princess's announcement. Election authorities have a week to review which candidates put up by each party are allowed to run for premier after the March 24 poll. - Political drama - Ubolratana's candidacy had electrified the build-up to the election, which has long seemed poised to return the ruling junta and its proxies to power. Her involvement gave a royal sheen to the political machine of Thaksin Shinawatra, the self-exiled billionaire whose parties have won every election since 2001. The princess, who gave up her royal titles to marry a foreigner, took to Instagram earlier Friday to say she was allowed to run under the constitution as a "commoner" had "allowed Thai Raksa Chart Party to use" her name. The party falls under the tutelage of Thaksin, who stands at the heart of Thailand's bitter political schism -- loathed by the army and Bangkok elite, yet adored by the rural poor for health, welfare and education schemes. The announcement appeared set to thrust him back onto the centre stage of Thailand's political drama. He was toppled in a 2006 coup, while his sister Yingluck was booted from power in a 2014 military takeover and forced into exile to avoid a jail term. The King's intervention has cast Thaksin's future role in politics into doubt. - Colourful royal - Ubolratana, a colourful, public-facing royal in contrast to her more restrained brother King Maha Vajiralongkorn, relinquished her royal titles after marrying the American Peter Jensen in 1972. But the couple divorced and she moved back to Thailand where she is still considered part of the royal family. In Thailand, she experienced tragedy, losing her autistic son Poom to the 2004 Asian tsunami. Known to the public for lead roles in Thai films, onstage singing performances, a vibrant fashion sense and a sizeable Instagram following, Ubolratana is the first-born child of the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej. The stride into politics by a royal left Thais scrambling to work out what it may mean for the nation's tattered democracy. "This is quite unprecedented and nobody is prepared for this," Professor Anusorn Unno of Thammasat University told AFP. "I don't think it's the victory for the people, I think this is part of the adaptation of the ruling elite in terms of changing the landscape of politics." Since ascending the throne in 2016, King Maha Vajiralongkorn has reorganised palace affairs. The vastly wealthy Crown Property Bureau is now under his personal stewardship, he has appointed several new privy counsellors and established a highly trained personal guard. Crucially he has appointed a new army chief from a different faction of the military to the ruling junta. His coronation will be held in May. burs-apj/qan OTTAWA, Feb. 08, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Cornerstone Capital Resources Inc. (Cornerstone or the Company) (TSXV:CGP) (Frankfurt:GWN) (Berlin:GWN) (OTC:CTNXF) notes the press release of SolGold plc (SolGold) issued on February 8, 2019 announcing for the second time their intention to commence an offer to acquire all of the issued and outstanding common shares of Cornerstone. As previously announced by Cornerstone, shareholders of the Company that collectively own over 50% of the Companys outstanding shares have notified Cornerstone that they will not support the terms announced by SolGold. As a result, if SolGold proceeds to make a formal offer on these terms, the Company believes that SolGolds offer would be incapable of being successfully completed. The Board of Directors of Cornerstone has assessed the SolGold proposal with its financial advisor and continues to believe that the proposal significantly undervalues Cornerstone. Cornerstone owns 15% of Exploraciones Novomining S.A., the Ecuadorean company owned by SolGold and Cornerstone which holds 100% of the Cascabel concession. In addition, Cornerstone owns approximately 9.2% of the outstanding shares of SolGold. In effect, Cornerstone has a combined direct and indirect 23% interest in the Cascabel concession. SolGolds proposal would result in Cornerstone shareholders owning approximately 18% of SolGold, effectively a 22% reduction in their interest in Cascabel, which is why the offer was so swiftly opposed by so many Cornerstone shareholders. Cornerstone is disappointed by SolGolds latest press release. It contains numerous inaccurate and misleading statements and baseless innuendo. For example, SolGold states that their significant premium of 20% is equal to the highest price Cornerstone has enjoyed in 2 years. This is false. On July 17, 2017 Cornerstone traded as high as C$0.55 per share whereas the implied value of SolGolds proposal is C$0.35. Cornerstone remains open to constructively discussing with SolGold and other potential bidders any value enhancing transaction that would garner the support of Cornerstones shareholders. In the event SolGold does make a formal offer, Cornerstone will promptly prepare and issue a directors circular that will clearly and accurately address any such offer. Cornerstone shareholders are advised to take no action at this time and wait for further updates from the Company. Commenting on todays release, Cornerstone President & Chief Executive Officer, Brooke Macdonald, said: Cornerstone, as the operator of the Cascabel project up until the major discovery was made with drill hole #5, is disappointed that SolGold has not put out the PEA that initially was supposed to be released in January 2019, that would highlight the significance of the discovery made by the Cornerstone team and assist Cornerstone shareholders in properly assessing the value of the Cascabel concession. About the Cascabel Joint Venture with SolGold: Exploraciones Novomining S.A. (ENSA), an Ecuadorean company owned by SolGold Plc and Cornerstone, holds 100% of the Cascabel concession. Subject to the satisfaction of certain conditions, including SolGolds fully funding the project through to feasibility, SolGold Plc will own 85% of the equity of ENSA and Cornerstone will own the remaining 15% of ENSA. SolGold is funding 100% of the exploration at Cascabel and is the operator of the project. SolGold is entitled to receive 90% of Cornerstones distribution of earnings or dividends from ENSA to which Cornerstone would otherwise be entitled until such time as the amounts so received equal the aggregate amount of expenditures incurred by SolGold that would have otherwise been payable by Cornerstone, plus interest thereon from the dates such expenditures were incurred at a rate per annum equal to LIBOR plus 2 per. About Cornerstone: Cornerstone Capital Resources Inc. is a mineral exploration company with a diversified portfolio of projects in Ecuador and Chile, including in the Cascabel gold-enriched copper porphyry joint venture in north west Ecuador. Further information is available on Cornerstones website: www.cornerstoneresources.com and on Twitter. For investor, corporate or media inquiries, please contact: Investor Relations: Mario Drolet (Montreal); Email: Mario@mi3.ca; Tel. (514) 346-3813 Corporate Matters: David Loveys, CFO; Email: loveys@cornerstoneresources.ca; Tel. (343) 689-0714 Due to anti-spam laws, many shareholders and others who were previously signed up to receive email updates and who are no longer receiving them may need to re-subscribe at http://www.cornerstoneresources.com/s/InformationRequest.asp Cautionary Notice: This news release may contain Forward-Looking Statements that involve risks and uncertainties, such as statements of Cornerstones plans, objectives, strategies, intentions and expectations. The words potential, anticipate, forecast, believe, estimate, expect, may, project, plan, and similar expressions are intended to be among the statements that identify Forward-Looking Statements. Although Cornerstone believes that its expectations reflected in these Forward-Looking Statements are reasonable, such statements may involve unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors disclosed in our regulatory filings, viewed on the SEDAR website at www.sedar.com . For us, uncertainties arise from the behaviour of financial and metals markets, predicting natural geological phenomena and from numerous other matters of national, regional, and global scale, including those of an environmental, climatic, natural, political, economic, business, competitive, or regulatory nature. These uncertainties may cause our actual future results to be materially different than those expressed in our Forward-Looking Statements. Although Cornerstone believes the facts and information contained in this news release to be as correct and current as possible, Cornerstone does not warrant or make any representation as to the accuracy, validity or completeness of any facts or information contained herein and these statements should not be relied upon as representing its views after the date of this news release. While Cornerstone anticipates that subsequent events may cause its views to change, it expressly disclaims any obligation to update the Forward-Looking Statements contained herein except where outcomes have varied materially from the original statements. Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. LOS ANGELES, Feb. 08, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Glancy Prongay & Murray LLP (GPM) announces an investigation on behalf of Mueller Water Products, Inc. (Mueller Water Products or the Company) (NYSE: MWA ) investors concerning the Company and its officers possible violations of federal securities laws. If you are a shareholder who suffered a loss, click here to participate. On April 27, 2017, Mueller Water Products issued a press release entitled Mueller Water Products Reports 2017 Second Quarter Results. Therein, the Company disclosed that certain of Mueller Technologies products had been failing prematurely, resulting in a $9.8 million warranty charge. On this news, the Companys share price fell $1.43 per share, more than 11%, to close at $11.25 per share on April 28, 2017, on unusually heavy trading volume. Follow us for updates on Twitter: twitter.com/GPM_LLP . If you purchased Mueller Water Products securities, have information or would like to learn more about these claims, or have any questions concerning this announcement or your rights or interests with respect to these matters, please contact Lesley Portnoy, Esquire, of GPM, 1925 Century Park East, Suite 2100, Los Angeles, California 90067 at 310-201-9150, Toll-Free at 888-773-9224, by email to shareholders@glancylaw.com , or visit our website at www.glancylaw.com . If you inquire by email please include your mailing address, telephone number and number of shares purchased. This press release may be considered Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions under the applicable law and ethical rules. Contacts Glancy Prongay & Murray LLP, Los Angeles/New York Lesley Portnoy, 310-201-9150 or 888-773-9224 shareholders@glancylaw.com www.glancylaw.com franckreporter/iStock(WASHINGTON) -- Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker on Friday defended his handling of special counsel Robert Muellers investigation during a highly anticipated grilling by House Democrats, testifying that he had not shared information about the investigation with President Donald Trump. I have not talked to the president of the United States about the special counsel's investigation I have not talked about the special counsel's investigation with senior White House officials, Whitaker said under combative questioning by House Judiciary Chairman Rep. Jerry Nadler, a New York Democrat. In stark contrast, Whitaker later refused to answer a question from Democratic Rep. Val Butler Demings of Florida about whether he and Trump had discussed the federal criminal case against Michael Cohen, his longtime former personal attorney and fixer. He said he was not going to talk about private conversations with the president. Not long after the hearing got underway -- Whitaker defended his decision to not recuse himself from overseeing Mueller's probe. "I have not interfered in any way with the special counsel's investigation," Whitaker testified. Whitakers appearance before the committee capped a lengthy standoff with Nadler over the chairman's threat to subpoena the acting attorney general and whether Whitaker might assert that his conversations with the president were covered by executive privilege. Senior ethics officials in the Justice Department had suggested to Whitaker in December that he should recuse from oversight of the probe in light of previous public statements he made while a private citizen, including an assertion that Muellers probe had gone too far. Why did you ignore the career officials went to extraordinary lengths to tell you that your continued involvement in the special counsel's work would undermine the credibility of the Department of Justice? Nadler asked in his opening statement. In spite of his previous criticism of the special counsels investigation, Whitaker declined, when asked, to say whether he would characterize it as a witch hunt how President Trump frequently refers to it. "Congressman, it would be inappropriate for me to discuss an ongoing investigation," Whitaker told Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn. Asked the same question while testifying before Congress, FBI director Christopher Wray, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, and attorney general nominee William Barr all said they did not believe the special counsel is engaged in a witch hunt. Whitaker also fielded questions about the arrest of Roger Stone, the longtime adviser to Trump, who was indicted by special counsel Mueller last month. Congressional Republicans have questioned how heavily-armed armed federal agents took Stone into custody in a pre-dawn raid and have requested FBI director Chris Wray explain the tactics agents used. Just know the FBI makes an arrest in the manner most likely to ensure the safety of its agents and of the person being arrested, Whitaker said, before offering to elaborate on the circumstances considered in Stones arrest during a closed session. Before Whitaker began his testimony, Nadler and the committee's ranking member, Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., swapped barbs over the nature of the hearing. In his opening remarks, Nadler condemned Whitaker for refusing to recuse oversight of special counsel Robert Muellers investigation. In an impassioned rebuttal, Collins accused Nadler of attempting character assassination and called the hearing a charade. Collins then moved to adjourn the hearing before it even began, calling for a roll count vote. Only hours earlier, it was unclear whether the hearing would even take place, with Whitaker vowing to bail on the session unless Democrats promised not to subpoena him on the same day he would be sitting before Congress for the first time as head of the Justice Department. Nadler eventually acquiesced, writing Whitaker late Thursday night that he "agreed there is no need to issue a subpoena." In prepared remarks released prior to his hearing, Whitaker wrote that he would not disclose details of his conversations with the president. "I want to assure you that I will seek to answer the Committees questions today, as best as I can, Whitaker said in the remarks. But I also must make clear that I will continue the longstanding Executive Branch policy and practice of not disclosing information that may be subject to executive privilege, such as the contents of deliberations or conversations with the President." Friday's hearing may not be Whitaker's only congressional hurdle. Just hours before Whitaker's testimony, Democrats on another House panel said they had obtained new information that suggests Whitaker failed to pay back money to be distributed to customers of World Patent Marketing, the company he was associated with that had been accused of scamming customers. Whitaker served on the advisory board of the company charged by the Federal Trade Commission with perpetrating a scam that has bilked thousands of consumers out of millions of dollars. Copyright 2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved * Username This is the name that will be displayed next to your photo for comments, blog posts, and more. Choose wisely! Videos Sorry, there are no recent results for popular videos. Thank you for Reading! Please log in, or sign up for a new account and Purchase a Subscription to continue reading. Letter to the Editor The efforts been renewed to bond for a new school. . Let me state the problem Everybody, including me, wants a new school, nobody wants to ... What's Included With a Digital Only subscription, you'll receive unlimited access to our website and e-edition. Our digital products are available 24/7 and are accessible anywhere, anytime. If you have any questions or need further assistance, please call our customer service team at 712-243-2624 or email circ@ant-news.com. CALGARY, Alberta, Feb. 08, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Steel Reef Infrastructure Corp. (Steel Reef) is pleased to announce that it has raised an aggregate of $90.5 million from Canadian and international investors, including investment funds managed by PFM Capital Inc. (PFM) and InstarAGF Asset Management (InstarAGF) alongside its institutional co-investors. A total of 36,203,111 common shares of Steel Reef were issued at a price of $2.50 per share. The proceeds will be used to support Steel Reefs continuing growth. All amounts are in Canadian dollars. Steel Reef is focused on operating performance and growth through customer relationships and strategic acquisitions, said Scott Southward, President and CEO. We are excited to partner with our investors to position Steel Reef to further expand its infrastructure service offering in key geographies. Formed in 2012, Steel Reef owns and operates high quality processing and transportation facilities that provide value-added services for the production and processing of oil, natural gas and natural gas liquids. These facilities are located in low cost, high quality formations within the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin. Since inception, Steel Reef has deployed approximately $390 million into a cohesive portfolio of assets, most recently including the acquisitions of the Steelman, Coleville and Glen Ewen gas plants and associated gathering systems in Saskatchewan in 2018. The Company intends to continue expanding its associated gas processing infrastructure throughout the Williston Basin in Canada and the United States and is pursuing opportunities to vertically integrate from its existing asset base to broaden its offering of services to customers. About Steel Reef Infrastructure Corp. Steel Reef is a midstream company focused on strategically partnering with oil and gas exploration, development and production companies to develop a portfolio of midstream assets, through acquisition or construction, with a view to generating a regular dividend for its investors. For more information, please visit www.steelreef.ca. About InstarAGF Asset Management InstarAGF, which makes direct investments and co-investments with like-minded investors and strategic partners, is an independent alternative asset management firm focused on North American middle-market opportunities in the infrastructure sector and other alternative real asset categories. InstarAGFs growing footprint spans North America with a portfolio that includes aviation infrastructure, district energy, renewable energy, midstream energy services, and specialty ports and logistics businesses that deliver essential services and value to communities, partners and investors. For more information please, visit www.instaragf.com. About PFM Capital Inc. PFM Capital is Saskatchewans largest private equity investment firm and has raised more than $860 million in capital across 8 retail or institutional and private wealth funds. Based in Regina, funds managed by PFM Capital target investments in private mid-market Western Canadian based companies that offer the potential for substantial capital appreciation or income generation, concentrated in the energy, value-added agriculture, manufacturing and industrial sectors. PFM Capital is employee-owned and has been managing private equity funds for over 20 years. For more information, please visit www.pfm.ca. CONTACT INFORMATION Scott Southward President and Chief Executive Officer (587) 391-1320 www.steelreef.ca Caroline Banks Vice President Finance and Chief Financial Officer (587) 391-1319 Forward-Looking Information Certain statements contained in this release are forward-looking in nature, including with respect to the payment of dividends in the future. Any statements that express or involve discussions with respect to predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions or future events or are not statements of historical fact and should be viewed as forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of Steel Reef to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. There can be no assurance that such forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate as actual results and future events could vary or differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should no place undue reliance on forward-looking statements contained in this release. The forward-looking statements contained herein are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. Forward-looking statements are made based on managements beliefs, estimates and opinions on the date the statements are made and Steel Reef undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements and if these beliefs, estimates and opinions or other circumstances should change, except as required by applicable law. If you have ever tried patenting a concept or an idea, you will know it is not easy. WINE OF THE WEEK Terras de Cigaron If you are bored with those characterless Rueda whites and need something to get your tongue into, this is the wine. Spain's best white grape, Godello, from a little-known region in Galicia, made by the Martin Codax bodega. Unsurprisingly the rather limited production gets snapped up quickly, although major retailers still have some. Interesting label depicting a mask worn in a local feria. Around 8.65 Last week I was reminded that the barman who invented Irish coffee never made a farthing as a result. It just so happened that when a transatlantic flight that had taken off from Shannon (then the furthest western launch point for USA-bound air traffic) was forced to return on account of storms, the resourceful barman thought that putting a good slug of whiskey in the coffee would relax the nervous passengers. He was right, and a drink that would become internationally renowned was born. Nothing in it for him though.... So who invented gambas al pil pil or beef stroganoff, and who came up with the idea of what are known as Mercados Gastronomicos? It translates badly because these are not markets, neither are they 'gastronomic'. They are open spaces where several different restaurant operations try to appeal to a wide public. They are really restaurant malls, offering a wide choice of food. Just unlucky perhaps The odd thing is that some are successful while others aren't. The San Miguel Market in Madrid is a classic, and the Boqueria in Barcelona has been nominated by CNN as the world's best. So why don't they work in Malaga? The million-euro Ambrosia investment in Nueva Andalucia had a promising start but did not last the year, and Malaga's La Merced, funded by local investors, had no better luck. Marbella's town-centre gastro market, small and attractive, is 'closed for improvements'. Is it the character of the province's inhabitants that has anything to do with it, or have we just been unlucky? I know many locals who feel they are not in control when they have to order the first course from one stall, the second from another, etc, and the wine from a central wine shop. Nor does the system encourage building up any sort of relationship with a waiter. It has to be admitted that most of the successful gastro markets depend largely on tourism for their existence, but this should not be a negative factor on the Coast. So if they are successful in Cordoba or Seville, why not in Malaga? Once again, the stubbornness of the Catalan independence movement is on full display. This week, two of the region's separatist groups - the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) and the Catalan European Democratic Party (PDeCAT) - announced that they will veto Pedro Sanchez's 2019 budget unless he makes some concessionary moves in favour of the pro-independence cause. Uncoincidentally, their latest ultimatum comes ahead of two key dates: February 12th, which is the last day on which their objections to the budget can be retracted; and February 13th, when the trials of prominent pro-independence Catalan politicians begin. It's long been obvious that the Catalan independence movement doesn't care how its chaotically-pursued dream impacts on the rest of Spain. That indifference is on display again, manifested in the ERC and PDeCAT's intention to derail Sanchez's already-delayed spending plan: because the minority Socialist administration depends on those parties' votes to pass legislation, a joint veto would leave the country without a budget that should have been passed months ago. Ironically, Catalan separatists may also deprive themselves of a spending plan that addresses a long-held grievance of theirs - namely, that Catalonia contributes more money to Madrid's coffers than it gets back in public investment. In a move that his Conservative predecessor Mariano Rajoy would never have made, Sanchez proposes to increase Catalonia's share of total regional spending to 16.8% in 2019, up from 13.1% last year. In throwing their latest tantrum, then, secessionists risk losing something for which they've been campaigning for years. But the separatists are after more than just extra cash. The ERC - whose leader, Oriol Junqueras, is one of the politicians to go on trial next week - has requested that Sanchez makes "gestures" regarding either the jailed secessionists, or the possibility of a Madrid-sanctioned referendum on self-determination. If neither are forthcoming, say both the ERC and PDeCAT, then Spain can forget about its 2019 budget. Sanchez received the same threat last November from Catalan president Quim Torra. It didn't work: the government, Torra was informed, "does not accept ultimatums". In negotiations with secessionists, Sanchez has always been clear about his immovable "red line": that no course of action in violation of the Spanish Constitution will be tolerated by Madrid. Despite this, though, his government has made steps towards reconciliation with Catalan separatists, and has even sought less severe legal action against those who are about to go on trial: the Solicitor General's office, which is controlled by the Ministry of Justice, upholds only the charge of sedition, rather rebellion. Facing pressure from within his own party, as well as the main parties on the Spanish right - all of which are opposed to Catalan secession - Sanchez cannot realistically go further than this. It looks as if the 2019 budget will end up as collateral damage, the casualty of a remarkably stubborn Catalan independence movement. Torremolinos has undergone an extensive transformation over the last 12 months and the new-look boulevard and central plaza are now complete and will be officially inaugurated on Thursday 14 February. The town hall has pulled out all the stops to secure Torremolinos as a leading tourist destination, while also recognising the significant role that the British community has played in the history of the town. Mayor of Torremolinos, Jose Ortiz, who claims a "true revolution awaits", told SUR in English about his vision for the town and the part the British community will play in its future. Are you from Torremolinos? I was born in Madrid but my roots are in Torremolinos. My mothers family is from here and my grandfathers house, which I visited as a child, was situated near the Pimentel tower. In your opinion, why is Torremolinos different to other coastal towns? Torremolinos was the pioneer of tourism in the 1960s. Then, with the boom of the Costa del Sol, Torremolinos was the first municipality to initiate the expansion of international tourism. It became a city of art and modernity, which facilitated the international projection. If there was a modern town, it was Torremolinos. It was an island of freedom. And thanks to all of those values, we have succeeded in having a relevance that makes us a top tourist destination in Andalucia. So you believe that Torremolinos can become a leading tourist destination? We are already a leading tourist destination. We ended 2018 with more than five million overnight stays. These are the best figures for a decade, surpassing one million tourists. Torremolinos has an attractive heritage that sets it apart from other resorts. We have already achieved the first blue flag and the Q of quality for our beaches, although we can offer much more than just sun and the beach. Torremolinos has changed very much since you became mayor; what is your vision for the future of the town? We will continue with the renovation of Torremolinos. In four years, we have been able to appreciate how the cultural revitalisation of the town has changed the image and the ambience of the town centre. We wanted to recover certain areas for pedestrians, such as the Plaza Costa del Sol, a square that combines modernity with elements of heritage and history. It is the beginning of the revolution for our town. Above all, we will work for the quality of life of the residents in order to make our town a pleasant place to live and visit. There is a large expatriate population living in Torremolinos, especially the British: are they important for the future of the town? Yes, of course. The British community is the largest and they make up 12 per cent of the residents of European origin. Obviously the situation with Brexit is worrying, but we want to assure them that we are here to provide help and information. We hope there is a sensible solution and we will do our best to ensure that they can continue living in Torremolinos without any problems. How good is your English? I have a limited standard of English, although this is a pending issue that I would like to improve. Does the town hall encourage foreign residents to integrate into society? Yes. We have campaigned so that all foreign residents can register to vote in local elections. We want to involve them more, not only in the cultural events like the Foreign Residents Day, but so they can also help to decide the future of Torremolinos by having their own voice. Why have you decided to present the British community with the Torremolinos Medal of Honour? We proposed it because the British have been visiting our town for the last 50 years. They represent 20 per cent of European tourism and we have enjoyed a long association with those who have chosen Torremolinos as their home. This is a strong commitment to our town and they have helped with our economy, not only through tourism, but also because many British people have opened businesses in the town. There are many British residents who fear their statutory rights will change if the UK leaves the EU. Can you offer some words of reassurance to those residents? We are in direct contact with the government and with other municipalities who, like us, have many British residents . We are confident that an agreement will be reached that will allow them to continue living in the town without change, and we hope that the British will continue to choose our town as their preferred holiday destination. Hundreds of people packed into a Brexit seminar organised by Manilva town hall on Wednesday afternoon. Britain's ambassador to Spain, Simon Manley, was there to discuss issues affecting Britons, including pensions, driving licences, residency and health care. Some 350 Britons crammed into the meeting room in Sabinillas to hear a number of experts talk about Brexit before questions were taken from the crowd. There were some lively questions from the floor, as some attendees expressed frustration that there weren't, as yet, clearer indications as to what the exact procedures for UK residents will be after Brexit. As for how British citizens should best prepare for Brexit, Simon Manley stressed that the most important thing to do before Friday, 29 March, was to get a green resident-registration card. Simon Manley said: "Having that green piece of paper that you get from the police, if you haven't got it yet, or you know someone who lives here who hasn't got it yet, please apply now. There is nothing more important that you can do to prepare for our departure from the European Union than getting that green piece of paper and ensuring that you have proof of your legal residency here in Spain. Because that, deal or no deal, is the access point for the rights and services that you should enjoy. "It's worrying what's happening, but we are working with the Spanish government, as well as our own government, to ensure that we can try and give as much clarity as we can and as much certainty as you can have moving forward. "Because I think we all know our determination as a government is that all of you who have chosen to come and live here in Spain and other parts of the European Union can continue to live in the EU, just as those three million Europeans who have chosen to live in the UK can continue to live, work and study in the UK if that's what they chose to do." One contentious issue that cropped up was how Britons living abroad for more than 15 years could not vote in the referendum to leave the EU in June 2016. Manley explained that the bill to allow UK citizens living abroad to retain their right to vote indefinitely would have its final reading in parliament on 15 March. Some people in the crowd also touched on issues with Gibraltar and how there might be problems travelling across the frontier post Brexit. Gibraltar was a concern Simon Manley added: "As you might imagine, we are in daily contact with the Gibraltar government about these issues and I think the British, Gibraltar and Spanish governments know the importance of border fluidity." He explained it was important not just for Britons, but for the 9,000 Spaniards who cross the border every day to work, and the Gibraltarians who spend their money in the Campo de Gibraltar. He added: "It is in our shared interests that that border remains a fluid border and we can work together to promote the security and the prosperity of the entire zone around Gibraltar. It's something that we are in daily discussion with the Gibraltar government and the Spanish government about. And yes, we have our differences, those are clear, but we all have a desire and interest to share security and prosperity in the whole area." Also speaking at the meeting were; the mayor of Manilva, Mario Jimenez; the mayor of Casares, Pepe Carrasco; Carlos Jordan from San Roque council; Dean Tyler Shelton from Manilva town council; Derek Langley from the British Chamber of Commerce in Spain; Alex Radford from My Lawyer Spain; Myra Azzopardi of Citizens Advice Spain; Joni Burnett of the Colegio de Administradores de Fincas de Malaga; Alvaro Valera Martinez from Caixa Bank; and Charmaine Arbouin, British Consul for Andalucia and the Canary Islands. After everyone had finished speaking, questions were taken from the crowd. Receiving a cheer from the public was Raymon Moonilall, 55, who has a business in Gibraltar. He said: "First of all I'd like to thank the representatives from the local town halls as they seem to care more about us than the English government at the moment." Second referendum? "Effectively most of us were thrown under the big red bus with the lie by the government and by the fraud referendum. I disagree totally with you; there should be a second referendum because it was fraud. It was based on lies. "I would like Mr Manley to take back a message to the British government which is that many people here paid their taxes and social insurance in the UK for forty odd years, like my parents, and were denied that vote. And if there is a second referendum [...] I would ask you to take the message back that we want a right to have a say." In nearly every conversation he brings up the promise he made to his daughter Sarah when she was in hospital, suffering the serious consequences of sepsis which affected her without warning and resulted in her losing her hands and feet. "I will do absolutely everything possible to make sure your life will be as the same as it was before," he told her. Ismael Almagro, Sarah's father, has stressed that this promise was not just about obtaining the money necessary to buy the best prostheses available anywhere. "It also means doing everything possible to make sure cases like this do not happen again, and for people to know about the dangers of sepsis," he said. Sarah's family is working hard to honour that commitment. They have contacted the health authorities with the aim of making them "realise the true extent of this illness and take measures to reduce it". This, they say, includes vaccinating against it. The latest letter, after one a few days ago to the regional government's Health Department, has just been sent to the managing director of the Andalusian Health Service, Francisca Anton, in which Ismael Almagro described his daughter's case and the consequences she has suffered from serogroup Y meningococcal septicaemia last July. "I had no idea this illness was so prevalent in today's society, maybe because the health authorities haven't provided any information about it. We thought it was dormant, but here it is, going strong among us, like tuberculosis," said Ismael. He said the number of sepsis cases in Spain has been increasing, especially on the Costa del Sol. He also wonders whether the health authorities have kept that information quiet and failed to apply enough preventive measures. For that reason, he is demanding a series of data from the Andalusian Health Service including the number of cases of meningitis, broken down by serogroup, in Malaga province during the period between 2015 and 2018; the number of deaths from these cases; the cases of meningococcal septicaemia from all serogroups; and the number of cases of tuberculosis. All in Malaga province, during the same period of time. "I'm basing my request on general and social interest, not for personal information, in order to be sure that preventive measures have been correctly applied for public use. I believe information about all cases registered in every single hospital and health centre in the province should be collected, together with reports issued during the period 2015 to 2018 by the relevant departments of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine in those centres," he said. "For anyone affected, a great many things change" In the letter, Ismael, who is making this the first step in his campaign, says to Francisca Anton: "I'm sure that for you, one case more or one case less probably doesn't change the statistics very much, but I can assure you that for anyone affected, a great many things change. "I am convinced that if this illness personally affected somebody with the power to make decisions, they would take firm action in response. And this, Senora Anton, is going to be my commitment: to ensure that the health authorities take firm action to make sure cases like that of my daughter Sarah do not happen again. And if they do, that the same health authorities resolve the problem properly by making sure anyone affected can live a totally normal life afterwards." The so-called 'Operacion Marverick II', orchestrated by the organised crime unit of the Guardia Civil (UCO), has led to the arrest of 14 people - 13 of whom are in prison - part of the Banda della Marranella offshoot of the Camorra mafia group operating in the Costa del Sol. The group, which specialised in kidnappings and stealing drugs from other traffickers, seized large quantities of hashish on the Costa del Sol, before sending them on to Italy to be resold. A key part of the investigation was the detection of a mobile home in France which had set off from Malaga heading for Italy with 325 kilogrammes of hashish on board. Investigations found that the group would regularly contract a man and a woman (usually a prostitute) to drive the vehicle, loaded with between 400 and 500 kilos on each trip, posing as a couple of holidaymakers. The drugs were normally acquired with the cooperation of British, Moroccan and Romanian nationals operating on the Costa del Sol and in the Campo de Gibraltar who helped to steal and intercept drugs from other trafficking groups. However, the group is also believed to be responsible for two kidnappings in Manilva - one which resulted in a shootout. As part of the operation, the Guardia Civil also located an underground cache on a property in La Linea, where between 10 and 12 tonnes of hashish were hidden. Juan Carlos Aparacio Nieto, 56, was officially made new chief of National Police for Velez-Malaga during an official event at the town's Centro del Exilio on Tuesday. Maria Gamez, the central government representative in Malaga, attended the ceremony, where she announced that the new police station, located in the Cuesta del Visillo area of Torre del Mar would "open in a few weeks". Nieto also highlighted the work of National Police officers to reduce crime in rural areas. Hollywood actor, Antonio Banderas, has kept his promise with his home city to open a theatre in Malaga. This week Banderas announced that his new venture, Teatro de Soho CaixaBank, in the capital of the Costa del Sol, will raise its curtain for the first time this autumn with a three-month production of Broadway-hit A Chorus Line. The Teatro de Soho, which will be in the renovated Teatro Alameda, is the major investment in the performing arts that Banderas had said he would give Malaga, where he was born and lives much of the time. As well as codirecting the A Chorus Line production, Banderas will take one of the starring roles. Speaking to SUR on Wednesday, the actor said that the show "is a good choice as it is about the setting up of a theatre". The words will be in Spanish and the songs in English. After Malaga it will travel to Madrid and Barcelona and then to America. "The idea is to take it to Florida, Texas and California, where it has never been performed in [Spanish] even though the biggest concentration of Spanish speakers in America is in those states," said the actor. The original plan was to stage an epic production of Zorba the Greek but it would have committed Banderas to a year in Malaga, London and Broadway, which his diary didn't permit. Banderas was keen to stress that he is not looking for personal financial gain. "I am paying for the renovation work in the theatre and when I'm working there it will be for free, or if the law says so, I'll earn minimum wage," he explained. Banderas has created a theatre foundation for the project and has put up 225,000 euros a year to pay for the rent of the building. "This is my commitment to Malaga. I am very ambitious about this project but not in a financial way." The main sponsor for the theatre building, which will have a main auditorium and a smaller stage, is CaixaBank, and additional sponsors are being sought. VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Feb. 08, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Vancouvers Peter Norwood, FCPA, FCA, FCMA was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Chartered Professional Accountants of British Columbia (CPABC). The award recognizes Norwoods sustained distinction in his career, community service, and work within the CPA profession. Peter Norwood, FCPA, FCA, FCMA is an innovative, engaged educator who has led the way in working with post-secondary institutions to establish accounting programs and partnerships. He spearheaded the creation of Langara Colleges Bachelor of Business Administration program and was the first chair of the Langara School of Management. He also played a key role in the formation of UBCs Diploma in Accounting program. Today, Norwood continues to educate the newest generation of accounting professionals as an instructor with Langaras School of Management and with UBCs Sauder School of Business. Norwood has brought exceptional dedication to the development of the professions education and qualification programs. During the unification of Canadas accounting profession, he played a leading role in creating the CPA education and certification programs. As the inaugural chair of CPA Canadas board of evaluators, he was involved in the development, marking, and results for the first three Common Final Exams delivering an assessment model that demonstrates the skills of Canadian CPAs. Recently, Norwood was appointed by CPA Canada as chair of the board of examiners overseeing the Professional Education Program modules. His contributions to the profession also include serving with his CA legacy bodys council from 2005 to 2011, including as president, and as a board member with its school of business from 2005 to 2013, including serving as chair. Norwood received a CPA Canada Volunteer Award for his outstanding contributions in the area of education, and the Ritchie McCloy Award for Volunteerism from his provincial legacy body. He is also a recipient of Langara Colleges Leadership Excellence Award. Norwood joined Deloitte Haskins & Sells in 1978, later becoming assistant director of finance with Molson Brewery, then director of education services with a legacy accounting body (CMABC). He obtained his designations in 1980 (CA) and 1992 (CMA) and was elected to fellowship in 2009. Quote from Lori Mathison, FCPA, FCGA, LLB, president and CEO of CPABC We are honoured to recognize Peter with the Lifetime Achievement Award. His dedication to advancing accounting education within both the profession and post-secondary institutions is truly remarkable. Peters contributions are invaluable and we are extremely proud of his achievements. To read the profiles of all the award winners, visit bccpa.ca/members/recognition-program . NOTE TO JOURNALISTS: Publication quality photos of the recipients are available. About CPA British Columbia The Chartered Professional Accountants of British Columbia (CPABC) is the training, governing, and regulatory body for more than 36,000 CPA members and 6,000 CPA students and candidates. CPABC carries out its primary mission to protect the public by enforcing the highest professional and ethical standards and contributing to the advancement of public policy. CPAs are recognized internationally for bringing superior financial expertise, strategic thinking, business insight, and leadership to organizations. For more information or to arrange an interview, contact: Vivian Tse, Public Affairs Manager 604.488.2647 Changes to the SunCommercial's back end processing means the e-edition is getting a facelift. The biggest change is the e-edition, by default, is now presented in Text view. And this old culture war is starting again Officials in six states, including populous ones such as Virginia and Florida, are considering bills permitting the study of the Bible in classrooms. Proponents of these bills insist that the Bible would be treated as a historical and literary source, not as a means of religious guidance. Last week, President Trump tweeted his support for these laws, writing, Numerous states introducing Bible Literacy classes. Starting to make a turn back? Great! As a historian who has studied how American Protestants have engaged with the culture at large, I worry these bills threaten to reignite one of the oldest church-state controversies in U.S. politics. While Trump and his evangelical base support the bills, critics oppose them for fear their real intent is to teach Christianity in public schools. This is an old debate. Bible reading in schools was among the first social issues to split American Protestants into competing liberal and conservative camps. Educating moral citizens In the early 19th century, as many states created public school systems, childrens moral development was viewed as a crucial component of education. Advocates for public schools came from some of the established Protestant denominations such as Congregationalism and growing liberal traditions like Unitarianism. Since these public school proponents had diverse religious beliefs, they agreed public schools should not teach particular doctrines. But they advocated Bible study to cultivate morals based in what they thought were generally held Christian principles. Opposition to Bible reading came from Roman Catholics, a growing segment of the population due to immigration. Many schools used the Protestant King James version of the Bible, which differed from the translation familiar to Catholics. Moreover, Bible reading apart from the study of Church teaching, was by nature a distinctly Protestant practice. Yet even Protestant agreement on Bible reading in public schools did not survive for long. Split among Protestants A major catalyst for division was the decision of Cincinnati School Board in 1869 to end Scripture reading in classrooms. Having long objected to Bible study in the citys schools, Catholics had established their own system of parochial schools. By 1869, over 12,000 children, free from Protestant religious influence, were taught in these parochial schools. By changing the policy, Cincinnati officials hoped the large Catholic population would return to public schools. The boards decision sparked outrage among conservative Protestants. As scholar Steven K. Green has detailed in his study of church-state debates, many churchgoers organized opposition to the policy. They believed it threatened the moral and intellectual development of youth. Not all Protestants agreed, however. Reflecting a larger split within Protestantism, which I have chronicled, liberal Protestants throughout the nation endorsed the Cincinnati policy. The secretary of Connecticuts Board of Education, Birdsey Northrop, supported this change. A graduate of Yale Divinity School and a clergyman, Northrop came to denounce narrowness and bigotry, under the guise of devotion to Bible reading. In his view, Bible study in schools only fostered religious division. Major Protestant periodicals echoed these views. The widely read periodical Christian Union ran and reprinted many articles which supported ending religious instruction in public schools. The view took hold among liberal Protestants that religious study should be voluntary and Bible reading should not a compulsory part of public education. For these liberal Protestants, there was value in public schools. They were willing to tolerate an end to religious instruction in the hope that education would not become a sectarian endeavor. This liberal Protestant support helped ensure that the Cincinnati school boards policy remained in effect over conservatives objections. The liberal-conservative split In the aftermath of what became known as the Cincinnati Bible War, liberal Protestants grew ever more wary of Bible study in public schools. Still, the Bible continued to be read in some U.S. schools until the Supreme Court stepped in. In 1963, the court declared the practice unconstitutional. The response to this decision, and to another case on school prayer, highlighted how Bible reading in schools had divided Protestants. In 1964, a constitutional amendment was introduced to restore Bible study. Liberal Protestant groups like the National Council of Churches helped lead opposition to the amendment. As the historian Neil J. Young has shown, conservative Protestants disagreed on amending the Constitution. Nevertheless, prominent conservative voices urged the return of Bible reading to the public schools. New legislation, old division Already, these Biblical literacy laws have been enacted in more than a half-dozen states since 2000. The campaign to pass them elsewhere shows little sign of stopping, especially as it appears to be an organized effort of Christian conservatives. Given that this issue was among the first to divide religious liberals and conservatives, it is unsurprising that it is gaining steam at this moment of heightened cultural tension. This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts, under a Creative Commons license. David Mislin is an historian of the nineteenth- and twentieth-century United States, with a focus on American intellectual and religious history, who teaches at Temple University. He is the author of "Saving Faith: Making Religious Pluralism an American Value at the Dawn of the Secular Age." On education, DeSantis budget surprises in a good way. Though he rarely has appeared at traditional public schools and has praised charter schools, DeSantis is proposing $21.7 billion for K-12 schools, a nearly $700 million increase over the current year. That comes out to about $7,653 per student, a $224 increase. Last year, Broward and Palm Beach counties essentially got no money for anything but school security. He wants to spend another $423 million to recruit and retain top teachers and principals, a move that would replace the existing Best and Brightest Program. And $10 million boost to mental health funding for schools. Before the shooting, I wrote lesson plans a month in advance. Paid my bills on time. Read books one after another and prepped food like a pro. Now, I plan my lessons the morning of school. I put my bills on auto-pay because I kept forgetting to pay them. Now, I cant get through a Young Adult novel without multiple breaks, and cobbling quick dinners together at the last minute is the rule rather than the exception. These things may sound simple. But they were the foundation of my life. I was a planner, a prepper, and I was on top of my business. Florida leaders on both side of the aisle have strongly rejected offshore drilling, because we all recognize the risk it poses to our beaches and economy.Floridas environment and our economy go hand in hand. Without a clean and healthy environment, Florida wouldnt be a desirable place to live, work, retire and vacation. If our beaches are important enough to protect from drilling, why arent our Everglades? It would be hilariously funny, except that its true. And its another example of the misguided legacy of former Gov. Rick Scott, who decided to scrap two state aircraft because he was so rich he had his own. But in so doing, Scott left other state officials and his successor to fend for themselves in reaching their 21 million constituents. Fried, 41, knows she doesnt look like your traditional agriculture commissioner. She grew up in South Florida, the most urban part of the state, and lived in Fort Lauderdale before moving to Tallahassee for her new job. Shes the first female elected agriculture commissioner in Florida and the first Jewish woman elected statewide in Florida. Haas also said a grand jury in Highlands County, Florida, this week had indicted Xaver on five counts of first-degree murder. Xaver will be arraigned later this month. There have been compromises made. Both sides have given in on certain things. Both sides have not fully received all they want but weve reached a compromise that is in your daughters best interests. Today has been a good day. Not just for the parties but for your daughter. Los Angeles, Feb. 08, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- APLA Health is excited to announce that Dr. Michael Gottlieb will join our medical team on February 11, 2019 at our new APLA Health Olympic Health Center. While a young researcher at UCLA in 1981, Dr. Gottlieb was the first to identify and describe AIDS as a new syndrome, a finding which directly led to the discovery of HIV in 1983. Dr. Gottlieb is an allergist and immunologist and has been a leader in AIDS treatment and care throughout the epidemic. He was physician to actor Rock Hudson and in 1985 helped Dame Elizabeth Taylor found the American Foundation for AIDS Research (AmFAR). He has served on the Boards of Directors of AIDS Project Los Angeles and the Pasadena AIDS Services Center as well as on numerous scientific advisory committees including to the State of California, the National Institutes of Health and the US Centers for Disease Control. Since 1987, he has operated Gottlieb Medical Group, a private medical practice. Over the last year Ive noticed that my patients have been having a hard time affording rising insurance premiums, high deductibles and substantial co-pays for visits and lab tests. I decided to join APLA Health to address those concerns as many of my patients will now be able to see me at a much lower out of pocket cost, Dr. Gottlieb said. This move also gives me the opportunity to continue to practice good medicine in a different model of care, which is something I find exciting. We have come a long way with HIV but many challenges remain, especially for those who have lived with the virus for decades. At APLA Health I will have the opportunity to study ways to continue to improve the quality of life for this population. Dr. Gottlieb has a true passion for serving the HIV community and APLA Health is a perfect home for him. He has years of experience and knowledge and will be an invaluable asset for patients and a resource for our staff, said Craig E. Thompson, CEO of APLA Health. Ive had the privilege of knowing Michael for many years and we all look forward to working with him to provide medical care for those in need and help to end the HIV epidemic in our lifetime. APLA Health Olympic Health Center provides Los Angeles County residents access to quality primary medical care; HIV specialty care and support services, as well as HIV and STD screening and prevention services including PrEP counseling and management. Dr. Gottlieb will join the medical team at APLA Health Olympic including site medical director Jay Gladstein, MD, Wayne Ho, MD, Ann Easley, NP / PA, Peter Anderson, NP and Kevin Rachut, NP. Our services are available to everyone regardless of insurance status, HIV-status, gender identity, sexuality, or income level. Our health center is located in the Olympia Medical Plaza at 5901 W. Olympic Blvd., Suite 310, Los Angeles, CA. The state-of-the-art facility has nine exams rooms, a medical provider hub for better care coordination, and an advanced laboratory and on-site dispensary to better serve our patients. About APLA Health: APLA Healths mission is to achieve healthcare equity and promote well-being for the LGBT and other underserved communities and people living with and affected by HIV. We are a nonprofit, federally qualified health center serving more than 15,000 people annually. We provide 20 different services from 16 locations throughout Los Angeles County, including: medical, dental, and mental healthcare; PrEP counseling and management; health education and HIV prevention; and STD screening and treatment. For people living with HIV, we offer housing support; benefits counseling; home healthcare; and the Vance North Necessities of Life Program food pantries; among several other critically needed services. Additionally, we are leaders in advocating for policy and legislation that positively impacts the LGBT and HIV communities, provide capacity-building assistance to health departments across the country, and conduct community-based research on issues affecting the communities we serve For more information, please visit us at aplahealth.org. Over the last year, the Senate has taken many steps to improve the culture of our workplace, including updating both our rules and personnel policies and adding additional training in preventing workplace harassment, active bystander intervention, avoiding retaliation, and diversity and inclusion, said Senate President Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton,in a statement. These important steps were taken to ensure employees and visitors are able to conduct business and fully participate in the legislative process in an environment that is safe and free from any type of harassment. It lays out the case for the money, noting how Stephens, through no fault of his own, and based solely on the wrongful conduct of an agent of the Palm Beach County Sheriffs Office, suffered permanent and catastrophic injuries that will force him to use a wheelchair for the remainder of his life. The Spady Cultural Heritage Museum and Arts Garage will be having two events to allow the public to watch some of the Highwaymen artists create and talk about their art. Pieces from the series, capture Florida as art history before it disappears, will be on display from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Feb. 23 and 24 at the Spady Museum and Arts Garage, both in Delray Beach. The effects of the shortage are trickling down to the public: Palm Beach County had to close its spay-neuter clinic for the month of December and is now only open on select days each month. In Broward, the Humane Society had to shutter its spay-neuter clinic six times last year and cancel days when it offers low-cost vaccines. All the temples I built led to this one, Best said Thursday as helpers buzzed around the busy work site. The community will come and put what they believe in it. Some of the messages they leave may be harsh. But if they leave it in the temple, it will be left on the wall and be less in their heart. To employers, I would say dont put limits, and youre investing in what someone can do, and you need to look at what people can do as opposed to what they might not be able to do, Moss said. A disability generally is not all-encompassing, it is just part of who someone is, not everything they are. Everyone is unique, everyone has strengths and weaknesses and everyone has talent. Disney cautions that there is a long way to go in continued research before any patients might benefit. The team has had successful tests in cultured cells, but now must do tests in mice, a process that will take several years, he said. Professor John Gittus of Alcester. ONE of the countrys top nuclear physicists, who was born and raised in Alcester and educated at Alcester Grammar School, has died, aged 88, after a short illness. Professor John Gittus was diagnosed with a brain tumour last November and died peacefully at home in Alcester with his wife Ann by his side. The couple moved back to Alcester in 2000. Professor Gittus enjoyed a brilliant career in nuclear physics which saw him play a vital role in the formation, expansion and latterly consultation of nuclear and energy matters worldwide. Born in Alcester in 1930, the son of Henry and Amy Gittus, he married his wife Ann in 1953 and the couple had three children; Michael Gittus (current Stratford District Councillor and Alcester Town Councillor), Sara Gittus and Mary Gittus. Cllr Gittus said his father never forgot his old contacts in Alcester, was very much a family man and ten years ago on a trip to the States got on a Harley Davidson motorbike for the first time in 25 years and spent the best part of a week riding the bike as hed always had a passion for old motor cars and bikes. Professor John Gittus education saw him achieve a BSc London 1st Maths 1952; DSc Phys London 1976. DTech Metall Stockholm 1975. CEng, FIMechE, FIS, FIM. FREng. He invented Nimonic 115 (holds the patent for), the first reliable metal alloy used even now in jet engines for turbine blades. He held a series of senior posts in the UKAEA, where he headed the late Lord Marshalls Task Force at Harwell and produced the UKs first nuclear-reactor Probabilistic Risk Assessment, for Sizewell B. He became director of the research and development programme that underpinned the design details of Sizewell B. He was appointed by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority to report on the failure and consequences of The Chernobyl accident. His report to government was published in 1987. He was the director responsible for the restructuring of the UKAEA before he left to become the first Director General of the British Nuclear Industry Forum, where he gave further advice on the restructuring of the UK nuclear industry. On the death of Lord Marshall of Goring, Professor Gittus was appointed to succeed him at Cox Insurance Holdings Plc, advising on the insurance of the worlds nuclear power stations and other nuclear installations. He and his business partner ran Lloyds of London Insurance Syndicate 1176, the biggest commercial insurer of nuclear power stations and other facilities in the world. Amongst his many published papers are two communicated to the Royal Society by P.A.M. Dirac and describing Professor Gittus solution of a problem with the structure of matter which Dirac said he himself had been unable to solve. Professor Gittus was a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (Britains top 1,000 engineers) and had Doctor of Science degrees from the Universities of London and Stockholm for his published papers describing his research work. He has held over 30 patents and published over 100 single-author papers in learned Journals describing his personal research. John Gittus was elected Regents Professor at the University of California in Los Angeles in 1990. He was Visiting Professor at the University of Plymouth, England. He was a Director of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (later AEA Technology) was a Consultant to Governments and private industry on nuclear and energy matters world-wide. His Clients included, BNFL Plc, The UK Governments Department of Trade and Industry, Serco Plc, NTI, Japan, The Sumitomo Corporation, Japan, Amersham Plc the worlds leading radio pharmaceutical company, Chaucer Insurance Holdings Plc. Professor Gittus was a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (Britains top 1,000 engineers) and had Doctor of Science degrees from the Universities of London and Stockholm for his published papers describing his research work. He has held over 30 patents and published over 100 single-author papers in learned Journals describing his personal research. His publications include, Uranium, 1962; Creep, Viscoelasticity and Creepfracture in Solids, 1979; Irradiation Effects in Crystalline Solids, 1979; (with W. Crosbie) Medical Response to Effects of Ionizing Radiation, 1989; (with P A M Dirac) Diracs Large Numbers Hypothesis. He was also a member of the Royal Society of Medicine. Recalling fond memories of his father, Cllr Mike Gittus said: I remember growing up as a child and there were magazines and theorems all over the house. He loved to set himself new and difficult tasks in order to savour them and solve them before he went to sleep. The funeral service for Professor John Gittus was held at St Nicholas Church, Alcester on 6th February. HISTORY will be recreated with a walk from Barford to Wellesbourne on Sunday to mark the 100th anniversary of the death of legendary local hero Joseph Arch who championed the rights of farm workers and the formation of their union. Born in Barford, Joseph Arch was one of the first commoners to become an MP. His ground-breaking speech in 1872 under the Chestnut tree outside the Stags Head in Wellesbourne proved a pivotal moment in social and political history, helping to improve the rights of agricultural labourers which until then were non-existent and described by the Countess of Warwick at the time as appalling. To mark the anniversary of his death, members of Wellesbourne Allotment Association (WAA) will be joining the Barford Heritage Group for a commemorative wreath laying in Barford and then go with other walkers on the Joseph Arch Way, passing the cottage where he lived and walking to the Stags Head at Wellesbourne where they will be met by the Hereburgh Morris Dancers and a modern day Joseph Arch. Wellesbourne Allotment Association is inviting local people to join them on a free walk and festivities on Sunday 10th February to commemorate 100 years since the death of Joseph Arch. Details 9.15 am At Joseph Archs grave in St Peters Churchyard, Church Street, Barford. (CV35 8ES) - Wreath laying and words spoken by Rev Neville Beamer. At 9.30 am walk along High Street to pay respects at Joseph Archs cottage. At 9.45 am tea or coffee in the old Scout Hut, Wasperton Lane. 10.15 am walkers start towards to Chestnut Square, Wellesbourne via the River Walk estimate, five miles. 1pm to 3pm, The Wellesbourne Allotment Association event will be held outside the Stags Head in Chestnut Square, Wellesbourne includes Morris Dancing. A couple times each week well post a Quick Smoke: not quite a full review, just our brief verdict on a single cigar of buy, hold, or sell. In May 2018, General Cigar announced a partnership between A.J. Fernandez, the Diesel cigar brand, and Rabbit Hole Bourbon. Those entities teamed up to create Whiskey Row, a new cigar line featuring bourbon barrel-aged binder leaves from a proprietary process developed by Fernandez. This concept was brought to life in 2016 when Rabbit Hole Bourbon barrels arrived at Tabalacera A.J. Fernandez in Esteli, Nicaragua, reads a press release. A.J. placed the Mexican San Andres binder in the bourbon barrels in a special configuration. The tobacco was left to rest inside the barrels, and the amount of air inside was controlled at regular intervals to ensure the bourbon flavors were imparted evenly. In addition to this binder, Diesel Whiskey Row includes an Ecuadorian Habano wrapper aged for five years and Nicaraguan filler tobaccos aged for five to eight years. The Robusto (5.5 x 52) retails for $7.49. It isnt bourbon-y, per se, but instead features hearty, heavy leather notes with white pepper, black coffee, and dry earth. In my book, I cant enthusiastically recommend this; frankly, unless youre a huge fan of leather notes, its just OK. Verdict = Hold. Patrick A photo credit: Stogie Guys English Dutch An investment in the Offered Shares involves substantial risks and uncertainties. Prospective investors should read the entire Prospectus that has been prepared by the Company, and, in particular, should see the section "Risk Factors" of the Prospectus for a discussion of certain factors that should be considered in connection with an investment in the Offered Shares. The risk factors described in the Prospectus include the risks that Sequana Medical has incurred operating losses, negative operating cash flows and an accumulated deficit since inception and may not be able to achieve or subsequently maintain profitability, that Sequana Medical's future financial performance will depend on the commercial acceptance of the alfapump (Sequana Medical's only commercial-stage product to date), the alfapump DSR and/or any future products in target markets, that Sequana Medical will likely require additional funds in the future in order to meet its capital and expenditure needs and further financing may not be available when required or could significantly limit Sequana Medical's access to additional capital, and that, not taking into account any proceeds of the Offering, Sequana Medical does not have sufficient working capital to meet its working capital needs for a period of at least 12 months from the date of the Prospectus. All of these factors should be considered before investing in the Offered Shares. Prospective investors must be able to bear the economic risk of an investment in the Offered Shares and should be able to sustain a partial or total loss of their investment. Press Release Sequana Medical raises 27.5 million in successful Initial Public Offering Ghent, BELGIUM 8 February 2019 Sequana Medical NV - ("Sequana Medical", the "Company"), a commercial stage medical device company focused on the development of innovative treatment solutions for the management of liver disease, heart failure, malignant ascites and other fluid imbalance disorders, today announces the results of its initial public offering of new shares, with the admission of all of its shares to trading on the regulated market of Euronext Brussels under the symbol "SEQUA", launched on 31 January 2019 (the "Offering"). The final offer price for the Offering has been set at 8.50, giving the Company an initial market capitalisation of 107.2 million. Gross proceeds for the Company from the Offering amounted to 27.5 million. The orderbook has been built with strong local support from high-quality long-term institutional and retail investors, as well as a mix of long-term, specialist and generalist investors across Europe. Ian Crosbie, Chief Executive Officer of Sequana Medical commented: "Today marks a significant milestone for Sequana Medical as we have successfully completed this fundraising process, attracting investment from both high-quality institutional investors and retail investors in Belgium. Given the challenging climate in the global equity markets, we see this successful fundraising as a clear vote of confidence from our existing shareholders and new investors. The funds raised will enable us to further invest in our commercial and clinical development with the goal to make the alfapump and alfapump DSR available to a broader patient group and address important unmet medical needs, which in turn will create value for our shareholders. We would like to thank all of our existing and new investors for their continued support and look forward to the next phase in our corporate development." Results of the Offering The final offer price for the Offering is set at 8.50 (the "Offer Price"). The Offering ended on 7 February 2019 at 4:00 pm (CET). The total number of shares issued in the Offering amounts to 3,235,294 new shares of the Company (the "New Shares", and each existing share or New Share representing the Company's share capital a "Share"). The gross proceeds for the Company amount to 27.5 million. The implied market capitalisation of Sequana Medical is approximately 107.2 million. An over-allotment option to subscribe for 25,577 additional new Shares at the Offer Price, has been granted to KBC Securities NV/SA, as stabilisation manager (the "Stabilisation Manager"), acting on behalf of KBC Securities NV/SA, Kempen & Co N.V. and Mirabaud Securities Limited, to cover over-allotments or short positions, if any, in connection with the Offering (the "Over-allotment Option", and (i) the New Shares, and (ii) the additional new Shares issued pursuant to the Over-allotment Option collectively being referred to as the "Offered Shares"). The Over-allotment Option will be exercisable for a period of 30 calendar days following the Listing Date (as defined below). The Company will announce if and when the Over-allotment Option is exercised. 327,092 Shares, representing approximately 10% of the Offered Shares in the Offering, have been placed with retail investors in Belgium. To retail investors, 100% of the shares for which they have subscribed will be allocated. Trading of Sequana Medical's Shares on the regulated market of Euronext Brussels under the symbol "SEQUA" is expected to commence, on an "if-and-when-issued-and/or-delivered" basis, on or about 11 February 2019 (the "Listing Date"). The closing date is expected to be 12 February 2019 (the "Closing Date"). The Offer Price must be paid by investors by authorising their financial institutions to debit their bank accounts with such amount for value on the Closing Date. The existing investors that committed to subscribe for an aggregate amount of 20.5 million in the Offering at the Offer Price, subject to the closing of the Offering (the "Subscription Commitments") were allocated an aggregate of 2,413,909 New Shares in the Offering on the basis of their Subscription Commitments. KBC Securities NV/SA and Kempen & Co N.V. acted as Joint Global Coordinators and Joint Bookrunners in the Offering with Mirabaud Securities Limited as Lead Manager. The Company has agreed to a stand-still of 360 days, subject to customary exceptions and conditions. For more information, please contact: Sequana Medical Lies Vanneste Director IR Tel: +32 (0) 498 05 35 79 Email: IR@sequanamedical.com Consilium Strategic Communications Alexandra Harrison, Marieke Vermeersch, Sukaina Virji Tel: +44 (0) 203 709 5000 Email: sequanamedical@consilium-comms.com About Sequana Medical Sequana Medical is a commercial stage medical device company focused on the development of innovative treatment solutions for the management of liver disease, heart failure, malignant ascites and other fluid imbalance disorders. Sequana Medical's alfapump is a fully implantable, programmable, wirelessly-charged, battery-powered system that is CE-marked for the management of i) refractory ascites (chronic fluid build-up in the abdomen) due to liver cirrhosis and ii) malignant ascites (with a life expectancy of six months or less). The number of patients with liver refractory ascites is forecast to increase dramatically due to the growing prevalence of NASH (Non-alcoholic Steatohepatitis). Over 650 alfapump systems have been implanted and since April 2018, the alfapump has been included in the EASL (European Association for the Study of the Liver) clinical practice guidelines for decompensated cirrhosis. In January 2019, the FDA has granted Breakthrough Device designation for the alfapump for the treatment of liver recurrent or refractory ascites. The alfapump MOSAIC North American IDE feasibility study in patients with liver refractory or recurrent ascites has been completed and results were presented at the AASLD (American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases) annual meetings in October 2017 and November 2018. The alfapump has not yet received regulatory approval in the U.S. The alfapump is one of the first safe and effective, long-term alternatives to large-volume paracentesis which is a lengthy, invasive and painful procedure, only providing short-term symptomatic relief, requiring hospital visits and placing a significant burden on the healthcare system and patient quality of life. By automatically and continuously moving ascites to the bladder, where the body eliminates it naturally through urination, the alfapump prevents fluid build-up and its possible complications, improving patient quality of life and nutrition, and potentially reducing hospital visits and healthcare costs. The alfapump DirectLink technology allows clinicians to receive pump performance information and more effectively manage patients treated by the alfapump. Sequana Medical is developing the alfapump DSR, built upon the proven alfapump platform, to deliver a convenient and fully implanted system for Direct Sodium Removal ("DSR") therapy, a novel and proprietary approach for the management of volume overload in heart failure. Data from animal studies presented at EuroPCR 2018 and HFSA 2018 indicate that DSR therapy is effective and safe. A first in human study for DSR therapy is ongoing. Treatment of volume overload in diuretic-resistant heart failure patients is a major clinical challenge. There are an estimated one million hospitalisations due to heart failure in the U.S. each year, of which 90% are due to symptoms of volume overload. The estimated cost of heart failure-related hospitalisations in the U.S. is $13 billion a year. Sequana Medical is headquartered in Ghent, Belgium and investors include NeoMed Management, LSP (Life Science Partners), VI Partners, BioMedPartners, Capricorn Venture Partners, Entrepreneur's Fund, Salus Partners, Newton Biocapital, PMV and SFPI-FPIM. For further information, please visit www.sequanamedical.com . Important Regulatory Disclaimer Any statement in this press release about safety and efficacy of the alfapump does not apply to the U.S. and Canada because the device is currently undergoing clinical investigation in these territories. Important Information This announcement does not constitute, or form part of, an offer or invitation to sell or issue, or any solicitation of an offer to purchase or subscribe for Shares of Sequana Medical NV (the "Company"). Any purchase of, subscription for or application for, Shares in the Company to be issued in connection with the intended offering should only be made on the basis of information contained in the prospectus in connection with the intended offering and any supplements thereto, as the case may be (the "Prospectus"). This announcement is not a prospectus. The information contained in this announcement is for informational purposes only and does not purport to be full or complete. Investors should not subscribe for any securities referred to in this document except on the basis of information contained in the Prospectus. The Prospectus contains detailed information about the Company and its business, management, risks associated with investing in the Company, as well as financial statements and other financial data. This announcement cannot be used as basis for any investment agreement or decision. This announcement is not for distribution, directly or indirectly, in or into the U.S. or to any U.S. person within the meaning of the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act"). It does not constitute or form a part of any offer or solicitation to purchase or subscribe for securities in the U.S. The securities mentioned herein have not been, and will not be, registered under the U.S. Securities Act and may not be offered or sold in the U.S., except pursuant to an exemption from, or in a transaction not subject to, the registration requirements of the U.S. Securities Act. The Company has not registered, and does not intend to register, any portion of the intended offering of the Offered Shares in the U.S., and does not intend to conduct a public offering of securities in the U.S. This announcement is only addressed to and directed at persons in member states of the European Economic Area ("EEA") other than Belgium who are "qualified investors" within the meaning of Article 2(1)(e) of the Prospectus Directive (Directive 2003/71/EC and amendments thereto, including Directive 2010/73/EU, to the extent implemented in the relevant Member State of the EEA, and together with any implementing measure in each relevant Member State of the EEA, the "Prospectus Directive"). In addition, in the United Kingdom, this announcement is only addressed to and directed at (i) persons having professional experience in matters relating to investments falling within the definition of "investment professionals" in Article 19(5) of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Financial Promotion) Order 2005, as amended (the "Order"), (ii) high net worth entities, etc. falling within Article 49(2)(a) to (d) of the Order, and (iii) any other person to whom it may otherwise lawfully be communicated (all such persons together being referred to as "relevant persons"). The intended offering, as the case may be, will only be available to, and any invitation, offer or agreement to subscribe for, purchase, or otherwise acquire securities will be engaged in only with relevant persons. Any person who is not a relevant person should not act or rely on this announcement or any of its contents. This announcement and the information contained herein does not constitute an offer to sell nor a solicitation to buy securities of the Company and it does not constitute a prospectus or a similar communication within the meaning of article 752, 652a and/or 1156 of the Swiss Code of Obligations or a listing prospectus within the meaning of the listing rules of the SIX Swiss Exchange. This announcement and the information contained herein are not for publication, distribution or release in, or into, the U.S., Australia, Canada, Japan, South Africa or any other jurisdiction where to do so would be prohibited by applicable law. The date of completion of listing on the regulated market of Euronext Brussels may be influenced by things such as market conditions. There is no guarantee that such listing will occur and investors should not base their financial decisions on the Company's intentions in relation to such listing at this stage. Acquiring investments to which this announcement relates may expose an investor to a significant risk of losing the entire amount invested. Persons considering such investments should consult an authorised person specialising in advising on such investments. This announcement does not constitute a recommendation concerning the intended offering. The value of the Shares can decrease as well as increase. Potential investors should consult a professional advisor as to the suitability of the intended offering for the person concerned. No action has been taken by the Company that would permit an offer of Company's Shares or the possession or distribution of these materials or any other offering or publicity material relating to such Shares in any jurisdiction outside of Belgium where action for that purpose is required. The release, publication or distribution of these materials in certain jurisdictions may be restricted by law and therefore persons in such jurisdictions into which they are released, published or distributed, should inform themselves about, and observe, such restrictions. The issue, the subscription for or purchase of Shares of the Company can be subject to special legal or statutory restrictions in certain jurisdictions. The Company is not liable if the aforementioned restrictions are not complied with by any person. The contents of this announcement include statements that are, or may be deemed to be, "forward-looking statements". In some cases, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology, including the words "believes", "estimates," "anticipates", "expects", "intends", "may", "will", "plans", "continue", "ongoing", "potential", "predict", "project", "target", "seek" or "should" or, in each case, their negative or other variations or comparable terminology or by discussions of strategies, plans, objectives, targets, goals, future events or intentions. Forward-looking statements include statements regarding the Company's intentions, beliefs or current expectations concerning, among other things, its results of operations, prospects, growth, strategies and dividend policy and the industry in which the Company operates. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. New risks can emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for the Company to predict all such risks, nor can the Company assess the impact of all such risks on its business or the extent to which any risks, or combination of risks and other factors, may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance. Given these risks and uncertainties, the reader should not rely on forward-looking statements as a prediction of actual results. Without prejudice to the Company's obligations under applicable law in relation to disclosure and ongoing information, the Company does not intend, and does not assume any obligation, to update forward-looking statements. KBC Securities NV/SA, Kempen & Co N.V. and Mirabaud Securities Limited (the "Underwriters") are acting for the Company and no one else in relation to the intended offering, and will not be responsible to anyone other than the Company for providing the protections offered to their respective clients nor for providing advice in relation to the intended offering. The Company assumes responsibility for the information contained in this announcement with the exception of the information to distributors set out below. The Underwriters assume responsibility for the section of this announcement entitled "information to distributors". Subject to the foregoing, none of the Underwriters or any of their respective affiliates or any of their respective directors, officers, employees, advisers or agents accepts any responsibility or liability whatsoever for or makes any representation or warranty, express or implied, as to the truth, accuracy or completeness of the information in this announcement (or whether any information has been omitted from the announcement) or any other information relating to the Company, whether written, oral or in a visual or electronic form, and howsoever transmitted or made available or for any loss howsoever arising from any use of this announcement or its contents or otherwise arising in connection therewith. Each of the Underwriters and each of their respective affiliates accordingly disclaim, to the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, all and any liability whether arising in tort, contract or otherwise which they might otherwise be found to have in respect of this announcement or any such statement or information. No representation or warranty express or implied, is made by any of the Underwriters or any of their respective affiliates as to the accuracy, completeness, verification or sufficiency of the information set out in this announcement, and nothing in this announcement will be relied upon as a promise or representation in this respect, whether or not to the past or future. In connection with the Offering, KBC Securities NV/SA will act as Stabilisation Manager on behalf of itself and the Underwriters, and may engage in transactions that stabilise, maintain or otherwise affect the price of the Shares or any options, warrants or rights with respect to, or other interest in, the Shares or other securities of the Issuer for up to 30 calendar days from the Listing Date (the "Stabilisation Period"). These activities may support the market price of the Shares at a level higher than that which might otherwise prevail. Stabilisation will not be executed above the Offer Price. Such transactions may be effected on the regulated market of Euronext Brussels, in the over-the-counter markets or otherwise. The Stabilisation Manager and its agents are not required to engage in any of these activities and, as such, there is no assurance that these activities will be undertaken; if undertaken, the Stabilisation Manager or its agents may discontinue any of these activities at any time and they must terminate at the end of the 30 calendar day period mentioned above. Within one week of the end of the Stabilisation Period, the following information will be made public in accordance with article 5, 2 of the Belgian Royal Decree of 17 May 2007 on primary markets practices: (i) whether or not stabilisation was undertaken; (ii) the date on which stabilisation started; (iii) the date on which stabilisation last occurred; (iv) the price range within which stabilisation was carried out, for each of the dates on which stabilisation transactions were carried out; (v) the trading venue(s) on which the stabilisation transactions were carried out (where applicable) and (vi) the final size of the Offering, including the result of the stabilisation and the exercise of the Over-allotment Option and the Increase Option, as the case may be. Information to distributors The Underwriters have informed the Company that, solely for the purposes of the product governance requirements contained within: (a) EU Directive 2014/65/EU on markets in financial instruments, as amended ("MiFID II"); (b) Articles 9 and 10 of Commission Delegated Directive (EU) 2017/593 supplementing MiFID II; and (c) local implementing measures (together, the "MiFID II Product Governance Requirements"), and, to the extent permitted by law, disclaiming towards distributors all and any liability, whether arising in tort, contract or otherwise, which any "manufacturer" (for the purposes of the MiFID II Product Governance Requirements) may otherwise have with respect thereto, the Shares have been subject to a product approval process, which has determined that such Shares are: (i) compatible with an end target market of retail investors and investors who meet the criteria of professional clients and eligible counterparties, each as defined in MiFID II (taking into account the notes below); and (ii) eligible for distribution through all distribution channels as are permitted by MiFID II (the "Target Market Assessment"). Notwithstanding the Target Market Assessment, distributors should note that: the price of the Shares may decline and investors could lose all or part of their investment; the Shares offer no guaranteed income and no capital protection; and an investment in the Shares is compatible only with investors who do not need a guaranteed income or capital protection, who (either alone or in conjunction with an appropriate financial or other adviser) are capable of evaluating the merits and risks of such an investment and who have sufficient resources to be able to bear any losses that may result therefrom. The Target Market Assessment is without prejudice to the requirements of any contractual, legal or regulatory selling restrictions in relation to the Offering. For the avoidance of doubt, the Target Market Assessment does not constitute: (a) an assessment of suitability or appropriateness for the purposes of MiFID II; or (b) a recommendation to any investor or group of investors to invest in, or purchase, or take any other action whatsoever with respect to the Shares. Each distributor is responsible for undertaking its own target market assessment in respect of the Shares and determining appropriate distribution channels. Shares is the leading weekly publication for retail investors. It is packed with investment ideas, news and educational material to help build and run portfolios and get more from your money. Shares puts on free Investor Events throughout the year across the country. They provide an opportunity for investors to learn more about companies on the stock market and hear from a range of investment experts including fund managers and Shares journalists. Eric Friedman of St. Louis REALTORS; Erich Morris, who grew up in the home; Michael Burns, president of Northside Community Housing Inc.; Alderman Sam Moore; Morris' sister Mary Easterwood; and U.S. Rep. Wm. Lacy Clay participated in the rededication of the historical monument plaque for the Shelley House at 4600 Labadie St. on January 18. Photo by Steven Engelhardt biz.Shelley House.plaque.jpg Karen Green, a member of the Normandy High School Class of 1977, said she came up with the idea to give back to her alma mater as a service project for her co-workers and students at the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management at Washington University. Denver, Colorado, Feb. 08, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Aspen Digital Life, a provider of an automated technology platform to streamline digital life & digital legacy management, today announced the launch of Aspen Digital Life Manager. This tool is an easy-to-use, online account and digital legacy management solution that finds, organizes and helps users to manage their online livesor those of a loved one lostin a matter of minutes. Introductory pricing is $19 allowing a consumer to scan up to three computers. Available for the PC and Mac to trace and manage online activity, Aspen Digital Life Manager features a FREE initial scan with a summary of the number of digital footprints found. Depending on the depth of information found, consumers can choose to purchase the full product from within the application. We are delighted to launch Aspen Digital Life Manager, a tool for anyone interested in finding, understanding and managing their digital life in minutes, said Tim Colleran, Aspen Digital Lifes Founder and CEO. Most of us conduct significant personal business online but dont actively manage our digital lives. As a result, many of us have nearly 100 accounts that are infrequently or never used. Each one represents a risk of data breach or identity theft. There were over 1200 publicly reported data breaches and more than 466 million records exposed to hackers in 2018. With Aspen Digital Life Manager, people can scan their computer and gain insights into current and historical online activities. In 15 minutes, you can download the tool, install it and have a report that identifies and categorizes up to 90% of critical online services. Usually we can tell a consumer how many times the site has been visited, if it has been logged into and the date of the last visit, said Colleran. The end result is a categorized report to manage a persons digital life and legacy. Aspen Digital Life Manager takes the time, energy and pain out of managing digital lives. A manual approach to discovering and prioritizing online accounts can take 10-20 hours and will be much less thorough. Finding and managing your own digital life is time consuming and frustrating, said Colleran. Now imagine having to do it manually for a lost loved one, during a most difficult time. Tom Maxwell, CEO of Maxwell Healthcare Associates said: At a time in life that's already hard enough, any tool that can make end-of-life a little easier for patients and their families, is a solution that's necessary. Aspen Digital Life is helping families sort through their loved ones' online footprint before it's too late. It's a thoughtful and proactive step to estate planning." Aspen Digital Life Manager offers a quick, safe, and private way to help people be prepared for future events or get through lifes more difficult events. Initial customer uses include the following: Alzheimers and Dementia care Hospice or palliative care Estate and financial planning I have worked with hospices frequently during my 25 years in post-acute care technology, but I never understood what families go through until my wife passed away, said Tim Rowan, Home Care Technology Report Editor. If we had had this tool then, it would have saved my children and me hours of pouring through credit card statements and emails. Our Donate to Download support of non-profits The Aspen Digital Life team have all be touched by terminal illness, Alzheimers disease, dementia and other life changing events. The result is our Donate to Download program. Simply make a donation to one of our favored nonprofits for a free, three-month version of the product. You can learn more at Aspendigitallife.com/ADL-cares/. _______________________ About Aspen Digital Life: Aspen Digital Life provides the first-ever automated digital legacy management platform for individuals, families, financial planners, estate planners and other partners to find, catalog and manage a persons digital footprints in life and through death. Owned and operated by Janika Systems, Inc., the company is headquartered in Denver, Colorado. For more information, please visit www.aspendigitallife.com Download Aspen Digital Life Manager today. _______________________ About Innosphere: Innosphere accelerates the success of high-impact science and technology-based startup and scaleup companies. Innospheres incubation program focus on ensuring companies are investor-ready, connecting entrepreneurs with experienced advisors, making introductions to corporate partners, exit planning, and accelerating top line revenue growth. Innosphere supports entrepreneurs in many industries, including but not limited to: bioscience; medical device; cleantech; energy; advanced materials; hardware; IoT; and enterprise software. Innosphere has been supporting startups for 20 years, has locations in Fort Collins, Boulder, Denver, and Castle Rock. www.innosphere.org/ Attachments CONNEAUT [emdash] Pete Taylor, 80, passed away 6/22/2021. In keeping with Pete's request, private family services were observed. In his memory, let us all raise his favorite drink, a Manhattan to the "Mayor of Mill Street." www.thompsonsmithnesbitt.com During the three-day annual conference attended by over 200 farm park owners and operators, delegates visited Edinburgh Zoo and East Links Family Park in Dunbar. Delegates heard from a range of speakers and met with industry suppliers in the trade exhibition. The NFAN annual awards, the Farm Attraction Oscars, were held at a glittering dinner hosted by Scottish Radio and TV presenter Arlene Stuart. The Winner of the Large Farm Attraction of the Year (over 75,000 visitors pa) sponsored by Marsh & Co and AXA XL Insurance was Puxton Park, Somerset. The winner of the small Farm Attraction of the Year (under 75,000 visitors pa) sponsored by David Taylor Design went to Pink Pig Farm in North Lincolnshire. Other winners on the night were White Post Farm, Nottinghamshire which won both the Best Digital Presence sponsored by Vennersys and the Innovation award sponsored by Marsh & Co. Rand Farm Park in Lincolnshire won Best in Education sponsored by Jumping Pillows, and Odds Farm Park in Buckinghamshire won the best Food & Beverage award sponsored by Booker Wholesale. Colin King from 4-Kingdoms Adventure Farm won the Day Maker customer service award sponsored by PlayScheme. The best trade supplier award went to Timberplay for the second year running. Richard Powell, NFAN chairman said, Over 20 million visits a year are made to UK farm attractions and the annual awards celebrate the best farm parks in the UK. Id like to congratulate all the winners and highly commended finalists. NFAN AWARDS 2019 Full list of sponsors and recipients: Jim Keetch Farm Attraction of the Year Award (Over 75,000 visitors) Sponsored by Marsh & Co and AXA XL Insurance Winner Puxton Park, Somerset Highly Commended Fishers Adventure Farm Park, West Sussex Finalists - Finkley Down Farm, Hampshire; Williams Den, East Yorkshire; Rand Farm Park, Lincolnshire Jim Keetch Farm Attraction of the Year Award (Under 75,000 visitors) Sponsored by David Taylor Designs Winner Pink Pig Farm, Isle of Wight Highly Commended Wynford Farm, Aberdeenshire Finalists - Cantref Adventure Farm, Brecon Innovation Award Sponsored by Marsh & Co Insurance Winner White Post Farm, Nottinghamshire Highly Commended Odds Farm Park, Buckinghamshire Finalists - Longdown Activity Farm, Southampton; Marsh Farm, Essex Best Trade Supplier Sponsored by NFAN Winner Timberplay, South Yorkshire Highly Commended Teddy Mountain, Devon Finalists - Agility Marketing, Hertfordshire; Outdoor Play People, Cornwall The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Michael Gove, is pleased to announce that Tony Juniper has been selected as the Governments preferred candidate to take up the post of Chair of Natural England, the Governments advisor for the natural environment in England. Tony Juniper has been selected following a rigorous process which was conducted in accordance with the Ministerial Governance Code on Public Appointments. The Secretary of State has invited the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee to hold a pre-appointment hearing and to report on Tonys suitability for the post. Pre-appointment scrutiny is an important part of the appointment process for some of the most significant public appointments made by Ministers. It is designed to provide an added level of scrutiny to verify that the recruitment meets the principles set out in the Governance Code on Public Appointments. Pre-appointment hearings are held in public and allow a Select Committee to take evidence from a Ministers preferred candidate before they are appointed. The Select Committee will publish a report setting out their views on the candidates suitability for the post. Ministers consider the Committees views before deciding whether to proceed with the appointment. All appointments are made on merit and political activity plays no part in the selection process. However, in accordance with the original Nolan recommendations, there is a requirement for appointees political activity (if any declared) to be made public. Tony has not declared any significant political activity in the past five years. English07/02/2019 SEARCH FOR TRIPLE MURDERER RAISED TO A HIGHER LEVEL MOSTAR, February 7 /SRNA/ - The Herzegovina-Neretva Canton police today raised the search for Edin Gacic, suspected of a murder in Konjic, to a higher level. There are a sufficient number of police officers in the field and they also got special equipment, the spokesman for the Herzegovina-Neretva Canton Ministry of Internal Affairs, Ljudevit Maric, has told SRNA. We are using sophisticated equipment which we got from other agencies. Our special unit is in Konjic. We are cautious as he is a dangerous and armed man. The search is made more difficult because of a great number of abandoned houses in that area, Maric has said. The Herzegovina-Neretva Canton Ministry of Internal Affairs urged the public to inform the nearest police station if they have any information about the fugitive. We would like to stress that he is a dangerous man, a multiple killer, armed and dangerous. Edin Gacic is 180 cm tall. He is skinny, and when he was last time seen, he wore a dark blue jacket, light-colored trousers, a brown knitted cap, and glasses, say police. Its the 4th day of intensive search for multiple killer Edin Gacic who is suspected of murdering Saud Sultanic on Monday. Gacic was a member of the notorious El Mujaheed division, and prior to murdering Suad Sultanic, he murdered another two persons. A few months after the war, Gacic killed his comrade from the El Mujaheed division Ismet Gunic. He was sentenced to eight years in prison, and after he served more than two thirds of a sentence, he was entitled to be released from the Zenica Correctional Facility for some weekends. After he was released for a weekend on August 25, 2002, Gacic went to his mothers apartment in Zenica and killed her in cold blood by firing two bullets into her. In February 2003, the Canton Court sentenced him to 20 years in prison for both the murder of his comrade and of his mother. In mid 2017, he was released from prison, after which he allegedly bought a house in the village of Brdjani near Konjic, since he participated in the war in the area of Konjic while he was a minor. /end/sg Company announcement 2/2019 Today European Energy A/S, signed an agreement for the sale of a wind farm in Denmark with a total capacity of 18MW to a German investment management firm. The wind farm is located in the municipality of Ringkbing-Skjern, Denmark. The wind farm was commissioned in early 2018 and consists of a total of 6 Vestas V136-3.6 MW turbines. The buyer has acquired 5 turbines, while the remaining turbine will remain in the ownership of European Energy A/S. The sale is conditioned upon the fulfillment of some conditions precedent. The sale will (subject to closing of the transaction) contribute positively to European Energy A/S' financial position. Contact information: European Energy A/S Jens-Peter Zink, chairman of the board jpz@europeanenergy.dk ph. + 45 2047 8220 This announcement has been made in accordance with the market abuse regulation (regulation (EU) no. 596/2014 on market abuse). by Victor Ivan Sri Lanka is in a state of backwardness and confusion in terms of its knowledge on things as well as the way it thinks. This backwardness and confusion can be seen rooted even in accepted policies of far-reaching consequences so much so that it has become a common characteristic and a general trend in almost all sectors. It can also be considered a topic that has not received due attention or been subjected to debate despite it being a significant factor which has adversely affected the progress of the country in many respects. This article intends to explore the way these two factors have resulted in the low progress and downfall of two important sectors, namely education and agriculture. However, I wish the reader to treat this article only as a general review intended to draw the attention of the authorities concerned and the general public to these two areas rather than provide a comprehensive review of the subject. Progress made in mathematics Over a considerable period of time, the rate of students failing in mathematics at the GCE O/L examination remained as high as 65%. Surprisingly, the progress shown in the results of this subject now stands at a very high and exceptional level. Presently, the situation is reversed with the rate of failures coming down to 35% and that of the passes received going up to 65%. This sudden progress is not an outcome of a gradual progress in the competency of the subject knowledge; nor is it due to an improvement in the teaching techniques either. It is only an outcome of lowering the level of pass marks to as low as 29. This cannot be considered a sound policy that leads to the benefit of students in the long run except for their backwardness and downfall. The strange thing is that the lowering of the level of pass marks has not generated any opposition or shock among educationists and parents. Instead, it has received the approbation of everyone, so much so that this can be presumed to be the way Sri Lanka rectifies its mistakes. Over a very long period, the GCE O/L examination was commenced on a Monday. The former Commissioner General of Examinations changed this date to a Tuesday, creating a new tradition. A Member of Parliament had the reason clarified with the Commissioner General of Examinations for changing the date from Monday to Tuesday, which he reported to the Parliament at the same time, creating a pleasant impression on the raison detre of the Commissioner General of his decision. According to his explanation, the Commissioner General of Examinations had changed the date from Monday to Tuesday on astrological reasons considering the adverse impact of Rahu kaalaya that prevails at the time of the commencement of the examination on Mondays. Rahu is considered an inauspicious planet and the time under its influence should be avoided in doing any auspicious work. So, he has changed the date in good faith to rescue students sitting for the examination from adverse impact of Rahu. If this learned Commissioner of Examinations, by some chance, had happened to be the head of the Civil Aviation Authority, the Colombo airport would have been made the only astrological airport in the world that operates air travel taking into account the time of Rahu and the direction in which Mara stands. This illustrates the degree of freedom enjoyed by people who hold important positions in the administration of the country in managing the institutions under their jurisdiction according to baseless and idiosyncratic beliefs held by them. There is a practice in schools today in directing students who sit for public examinations to take a vow invoking the blessings of supernatural forces for successful performance in examinations. The teachers themselves take the lead in taking students in groups to the churches, temples and kovils of their choice for this purpose. It can be described as a ritual followed by schools with official approval of the authorities. In some areas, pens that are supposedly magically charmed and blessed with supernatural powers are distributed among students sitting for public examinations. Such programs are often conducted with the approval and connivance of the school authorities. The extent of degeneration of the education system in Sri Lanka can be discerned from these mythical and superstitious practices associated with examinations. The object of school education ought to be to disseminate useful worldly knowledge, conducive to building a successful life in this world, rather than sacrificing the present life for a better life in an otherworld. But, the school system in Sri Lanka can be said to have become an institution that promotes credence in paranormal issues and superstitious beliefs among students. The most important point here is that this gullible system which promotes beliefs in primitive superstitions among students has not become a matter of concern and objection of media, the academics or the learned parents. It appears that rote learning, memorisation based on repetition, has become the main focus of disseminating knowledge to the students in Sri Lanka. The entire school system is based on this system. In the long past, when there were no written languages, the knowledge of one generation was transmitted to the next by memorising the information. This method was known as oral tradition. The system adopted in Sri Lankan schools today in disseminating knowledge to students is more or less similar to the oral tradition adopted in the past. Accordingly, in Sri Lanka, the students have got accustomed to memorising the knowledge transmitted by their teachers instead of exploring knowledge through critical review and analysis on their own and by themselves. This is a wicked system that kills the creative abilities of the students, but it does not seem to have caused any objection or anxiety in the people. The school system The school system can be cited as the best example to illustrate the confusion in the way Sri Lanka thinks. It has become a complex issue when it remains a matter that could be solved easily. In all developed countries where a sound system of education exists, all schools are classified as primary, secondary and tertiary schools. The new entrants to the school education system should select a school from among two or three schools situated closer to their homes. The quality of almost all schools is more or less the same. There is hardly any competition to enter into a primary school. But the situation in Sri Lanka is totally different. In most cases, the mother and the father are compelled to be concerned with the problem of finding a school for the child from the moment she is conceived. In order to find a good school for the child, they have to build false evidence, in most cases incurring a very high cost, to obtain an address closer to the school. Yet, it is only a very few who would be successful in achieving the objective even after paying a substantial bribe. I need not reiterate that this is an extremely uncivilised practice. The informal system of classification of schools in Sri Lanka, while limiting the chances available for poor people to come up in life through education, has attached a class division to the school system; besides that it has rendered the student enrolment process to a school, an extremely a corrupt system. This complex problem can be easily solved by abolishing the unjust classification of the present system of schools as high and low by introducing a simple system that recognises all schools as equal in status. It would not be difficult to introduce a primary school system from Grade 1-5, secondary school system from Grade 6-11 and higher school system from Grade 12-13. A study made by me in 2010 revealed that if all schools are classified into three broad categories as primary, secondary and higher schools, the category of primary schools will have 7,000 schools or 72% of the total number of schools with each school having 233 students and 9.65 teachers on average. The number of secondary schools from Grade 6-11 will be 2,000 or 23% of the total number of schools. The average student population per school will be 945 and the number of teachers 68.64 per school. The number of higher schools will stand at 662 or 7% of the total number of schools. The average student population per school will be 662 and the number of teachers 32.01 per school. Such a reform in the school system will certainly lead to remove the present discriminative classification of schools as high and low and make all schools equal, to a great extent, in terms of the standard of the quality of education and social acceptance. The persistent struggle made to enter a child into a selected few schools and the corruption associated with it can be eliminated. Such a system will make the management, administration and supervision of schools easy. It will not only facilitate the formalisation of the distribution of resources but also make it easy to optimise the distribution of academic staff as well. It will make it easy for the principals to manage the school and the teachers to manage the classroom. As all students in primary classes are educated in a school closer to their homes it enables the students to reach the school even without being accompanied by their parents. It will also help the parents to reduce the cost of transportation incurred in educating their children. The time spent in travelling by bus or other mode of transportation will be reduced. The traffic congestion on roads can be reduced. The present trend of well to do people migrating to cities for the education of their children, selling their properties in rural areas, can be discouraged. The National Education Commission of Sri Lanka too has recommended such reforms for the school system. But the political authority or the old boys and girls associations of schools do not wish to see such a change. It is not difficult to understand the reason for their resistance to change in the present system. Agriculture and wild animals Several examples can be cited from the field of agriculture also to illustrate the confusion inherent in the way the Sri Lanka thinks, but I would like to comment only on the policy in regard to the material issues associated with the damages caused to agricultural sector by insects and wild animals. The Sena caterpillar has become the main topic of discussion in agriculture today. This caterpillar has already done serious damage to the corn cultivation of Sri Lanka. Obviously, it can be a threat to paddy and vegetable cultivation as well. The issue of the Sena caterpillar is a big problem to be solved immediately. But we must not forget that the Sena caterpillar is not the only creature that causes damage to agriculture. The Government has officially reported that the damaged caused by wild animals to agriculture in Sri Lanka remains as high as 40%. Monkeys, small brown monkeys or rilavun, wild boars, peacocks, porcupines and elephants are among the major animals who have become a serious threat to our agriculture. A country needs wild animals. There should be a consistent policy to protect them. But, the Government has a responsibility to control the high growth of certain species of animals that pose a threat to the agricultural product of the country. Many countries have adopted a policy of authorising people to hunt animals which have a high rate of growth or the Government assumes the responsibility of destroying the surplus growth by itself. The kangaroo is the national symbol of Australia. Yet, at present, there is a policy in use in Australia in which kangaroos are shot to control the excess growth of the species and the meat sold public consumption with any excess being used as animal food. Whether we eat it or not, meat has a big economic value. Countries which do not exploit this resource can be considered as ignorant countries. India is a Hindu country. The Hindus do not consume beef. But India does not allow the beef that it does not consume to go waste. India is ranked the largest beef exporter in the world. In 2014, India exported 2,089,000 metric tons of beef. The income earned in beef export was $ 4,781.18 million. The damage caused by wild animals to agriculture in Sri Lanka has increased due to lack of a consistent Government policy for controlling the dense growth of animal population. The Government is prepared to kill the people who rebel against the Government. But, the Government is hesitant to kill the wild animals that cause great damage to agriculture and have a high density of growth. Also, the Government is not prepared to allow the people to hunt them. The policy of the Government in regard to this issue I must say is not only ignorant but also ludicrous. Killing of wild boar is not prohibited by law. But possession, selling and transportation of wild boar meat had been prohibited. In response to a consistent clamour made by the Punarudaya movement, the Government declared a policy authorising the possession, selling and transportation of wild boar meat. Consequent to this new policy, the price of wild boar meat fell down to Rs. 300 per kilo while the sale of it became an open thing. However, as the relevant gazette notification was not published amidst the crisis that arose in the face of the recent change of the Government, the relevant wildlife officials made it an opportunity to adopt a rigid policy against the hunters and the traders of wild boar. This illustrates the true nature of the way the bureaucracy of Sri Lanka operates. How is it possible that the possession, selling and transportation of the meat is illegal if the killing of wild boar is not prohibited? Does it imply that the hunter should consume part of it and the remainder of the killed animal is buried without selling its meat? We must not forget that Sri Lanka has a high level of malnutrition. Professor K. Samarasinha of University of Peradeniya, in an interview with a newspaper, had indicated that protein malnutrition in Sri Lanka is as high as 30%. In fact, meat consumption in Sri Lanka remains at a very low level. Animal protein is an essential requirement for the development of the brain of small children. Perhaps Sri Lanka may be the only Buddhist country where consumption of meat is considered a sin. While per capita meat consumption per annum in Sri Lanka is 6.3 kilograms, it remains at 16.6 kg in Cambodia, 25.8 in Thailand, 28.3 in Myanmar, 45.9 in Japan and 49.9 in Vietnam, all of which are Buddhist countries. The low intelligence level apparent in Sri Lanka by international standards may have some connection with the low rate of consumption of meat and the practice of abstaining from consumption of meat. Sri Lanka, if it chooses, can make use of the surplus of animals to overcome the protein deficiency in the food intake and malnutrition of the people. Permission should be granted to hunt animals that damage agriculture except elephants and lift the ban on possession, transportation and selling of their meat. The meat that we do not consume in Sri Lanka can be sold to other countries which have demand for them. In doing so, Sri Lanka, which has become economically bankrupt, can make the surplus supply of wild animals a lucrative source of income generation whilst at the same time solving the problem of high density growth of certain animal species. Archive Debate Angela Merkel Quits Facebook -- And Raises Concerns Angela Merkel's decision to take her Facebook account, with its 2.5 million followers, offline has baffled some members of the German government and raised questions about whether her decision will obscure an important part of the historical record. Fort Lauderdale, FLA., Feb. 08, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Nova Southeastern University (NSU) is one of the hosts for an upcoming conference about digital technology in universities across the country. Going Deeply Digital: Promises and Challenges of the Digital Curriculum in Higher Education, features four national keynote speakers and more than 70 concurrent sessions all being held the evening of Friday, Feb. 15 and during the day on Saturday, February 16 at NSUs Fort Lauderdale campus in the Terry Building, 3200 S. University Drive. The Deeply Digital phenomenon is a very critical merging of many fields in technology, instruction, and learning at higher education institutions, said NSUs Provost Ralph Rogers, Ph.D., who is coordinating the event with several national organizations including the Association of Chief Academic Officers (ACAO) and Adobe. The deeply digital curriculum concept is driving changes in how students learn and faculty teach. Students are demanding learning experiences that are part of the digital world they live and will work in, and colleges need to learn how to teach in that digital world. One of the conference speakers is NSU alumna Karen Vignare, Ph.D., M.B.A. She is a strategic innovator leveraging emerging technologies to improve access, success and flexibility within higher education. As Executive Director for the Personalized Learning Consortium at the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, Vignare manages a network of universities committed to student success through personalization. She also oversees the adaptive courseware grant providing leadership and support to eight pioneering universities which are scaling adaptive courseware in introductory level courses. Vignare previously served as a Vice Provost at University of Maryland University College, the largest online public, open-access institution where she led innovations in adaptive learning, student success and analytics. She has published extensively on online learning, analytics, and open educational resources. She has a Ph.D. from NSUs College of Engineering and Computing and an M.B.A. from the University of Rochester, William Simon Business School. Other prominent speakers include: Kenneth (Casey) Green, Ph.D. is Founding Director of Campus Computing Project, the largest continuing study of the role of eLearning and information technology in American colleges and universities. The project is widely cited by campus officials and corporate executives as a definitive source for date, information, and insight about IT planning and policy issues affecting higher education. Green is author or editor of some 20 books and published research reports and more than 100 articles and commentaries that have appeared in academic journals and professional publications. He also serves the moderator and co-producer of Toa Degree, the postsecondary success podcast of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Additionally, he directs the Digital Fellows Program for the Association of Chief Academic Officers. Greens Digital Tweed blog is published by Inside Higher Ed. Laura Niesen de Abruna, Ph.D., M.S., M.A. is the PI on the 2017-2018 Provosts, Pedagogy, and Digital Learning grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She is past president and current board member of the Association of Chief Academic Officers (ACAO) and current board member of the Council of Independent Colleges (CIC) CAO Task Force. She is also Provost, Vice President for Academic Affairs, and Professor of English at York College of Pennsylvania. Her major interests are in global initiatives, digital learning, service learning, institutional assessment, and the development of general education curricula. She is particularly interested in the role of innovative high impact practices in increasing the quality of undergraduate learning. Todd Taylor, Ph.D., is the Eliason Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, where he also directs the first-year writing program. Since the early 1990s, his research and teaching have examined how literacy is evolving in response to rapidly changing digital, information, and networked technologies. He has recently authored Adobe Creative Cloud across the Curriculum: A Guide for Students and Teachers and Becoming a College Writer: A Multimedia Text (Bedford/St. Martin's), and co-edited Literacy Theory in the Age of the Internet (Columbia UP). All his academic degrees are in the field of English Literature. He earned his Bachelors degree at Emory University and his Masters and Ph.D. at the University of South Florida. For additional information visit the conference website HERE. Be sure to sign up for NSUs RSS feed so you dont miss any of our news releases, guest editorials and other announcements. Please sign up HERE. ### About Nova Southeastern University (NSU): Located in beautiful Fort Lauderdale, Florida, NSU is ranked among U.S. News & World Reports Top 200 National Research Universities and is a dynamic, private research university providing high-quality educational and research programs at the undergraduate, graduate, and first-professional degree levels. Established in 1964, NSU now includes 16 colleges, the 215,000-square-foot Center for Collaborative Research, a private JK-12 grade school, the Mailman Segal Center for Human Development with specialists in Autism, the world-class NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale, and the Alvin Sherman Library, Research and Information Technology Center, which is Floridas largest public library. NSU has campuses in Fort Lauderdale, Fort Myers, Jacksonville, Miami, Miramar, Orlando, Palm Beach, and Tampa, Florida, as well as San Juan, Puerto Rico, while maintaining a presence online globally. Classified as a research university with high research activity by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, NSU is one of only 50 universities nationwide to also be awarded Carnegies Community Engagement Classification, and is also the largest private institution in the United States that meets the U.S. Department of Educations criteria as a Hispanic-serving Institution. For more information, please visit www.nova.edu. Attachment Greece backs Macedonia's NATO bid, completing name deal Athens, Feb 8 (AFP) Feb 08, 2019 Greek lawmakers on Friday approved Macedonia's NATO accession bid, putting the final touches on a historic deal to end a 27-year name row between the two countries. A majority of 153 lawmakers supported the legislation, while 140 voted against. "Today's vote closes the most important round of obligations involving Greece," Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras told parliament ahead of the vote. "I'd like to welcome North Macedonia, a country friendly to Greece, a country that must be an ally in efforts to establish security, stability and peace in the region. "History will judge us. I feel we have carried out our patriotic duty," Tsipras said. The ratification was part of a deal signed in June to change Macedonia's name to the Republic of North Macedonia, and lift Greek objections to its EU and NATO membership bids. Tsipras on Friday said the deal had "upgraded" Greece's international standing. Skopje must adopt the new name "in the public discourse, in addition to all street signs and official documents," he added. Since 1991, Athens has objected to its neighbour being called Macedonia because Greece has a northern province of the same name. In ancient times it was the cradle of Alexander the Great's empire, a source of intense pride for Greeks. On Wednesday, Skopje signed NATO accession papers in Brussels that will lead to Macedonia becoming the alliance's 30th member once the bid has been ratified by all members. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has said Macedonia may now take part in NATO ministerial meetings as an invitee, starting with a gathering of defence ministers in Brussels next week. For Skopje to achieve full membership, NATO'S 29 current members must ratify the accession protocol. When Montenegro joined in 2017 that process took about a year. NATO and the EU believe Macedonia's membership will enhance stability in the Balkans, while the alliance's expansion into the region has been opposed by Russia. China denies "ridiculuous" spying allegations by Lithuania Vilnius, Feb 8 (AFP) Feb 08, 2019 China on Friday denied what it termed "ridiculous" allegations of spying levelled by Lithuania as the Baltic eurozone state joined other western nations in expressing concerns about Chinese telecoms giant Huawei. The company has raised suspicions in the west for its close ties to the Chinese government and generated fears the company may be a tool of China's international espionage capabilities. "It is absurd and ridiculous for the Lithuanian intelligence and security services to rely on conjecture and imagination to make unfounded distortions," the Chinese embassy said in a statement. It said it was "shocked and surprised" by the "totally unacceptable" statements made by Lithuanian intelligence, insisting that "China does not pose any security threat to Lithuania". Earlier this week, two Lithuanian intelligence agencies condemned China for an "increasingly aggressive" spy campaign which it said included "attempts to recruit Lithuanian citizens". Darius Jauniskis, head of Lithuania's State Security Department, said his agency was analysing the potential "threat" posed by Huawei, whose technology is being used to build the EU and NATO state's new 5G telecommunications infrastructure. US officials recently toured EU capitals urging European governments to scrap Huawei technology from their telecom infrastructure plans. The US considers the matter urgent as EU countries prepare to roll out 5G networks that will deliver near-instantaneous connectivity, vast data capacity and new technologies to Europeans. Several other countries, under pressure from the United States, have banned Huawei's 5G equipment. China has limited economic presence in Lithuania, a staunch US ally of 2.8 million people, but talks are underway regarding investments in the Baltic seaport of Klaipeda, according to local officials. Occupied and annexed by Moscow during World War II, Lithuania broke free from the crumbling Soviet Union in 1991 and joined both the European Union and NATO in 2004. Libya strongman's forces say struck Chad rebels Benghazi, Libya, Feb 8 (AFP) Feb 08, 2019 Forces loyal to strongman Khalifa Haftar said Friday that they had carried out air strikes against Chadian fighters in southern Libya. Haftar's self-styled Libyan National Army said in a statement it had hit "three groups of Chadians and their allies". The "violent and painful" strikes targeted groups near Marzouk in southern Libya, the LNA added, without giving further details. The LNA on Sunday announced it had carried out an air strike against "Chadian opposition" groups in the same area. It was not immediately possible to verify if the Chadian groups the LNA targeted have any links to Chadian fighters France said it hit with air strikes in recent days. The LNA in mid-January announced the start of an offensive intended to "purge the south of terrorists and criminal groups", including rebels from Chad. But the operation carries the risk of stoking tensions in a marginalised region that has seen bloody ethnic fighting between Tubu, Tuareg and Arab ethnic groups since the fall of Moamer Kadhafi's regime in 2011. Libya remains profoundly divided, principally between an internationally backed Government of National Accord that is based in Tripoli and a rival administration in eastern Libya supported by Haftar's LNA. Security and stability has also been undermined by myriad militia and jihadists. US envoy back from North Korea after talks on Trump-Kim summit Seoul, Feb 8 (AFP) Feb 08, 2019 The special US envoy for North Korea returned to Seoul on Friday after talks with North Korean officials in Pyongyang to set up the agenda for the second summit between President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un. Stephen Biegun's three-day trip was expected to have explored a wide range of denuclearisation issues in preparation for the much-anticipated summit in Vietnam on February 27 and 28. Biegun landed at Osan US Air Base Friday evening, foreign ministry spokesman Noh Kyu-duk told AFP. It is not yet known whether Biegun met with Kim, with North Korean media silent on his visit. He is expected to share details of his Pyongyang meetings with his South Korean counterpart Lee Do-hoon and Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha on Saturday. Attention will be on whether the US team have offered to lift some economic sanctions in return for Pyongyang taking concrete steps towards denuclearisation. Discussions on declaring an end to the 1950-53 Korean War could also have been on the table, with Biegun last week saying Trump was "ready to end this war". The three-year conflict ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty, leaving the two Koreas still technically at war, with the US keeping 28,500 troops in the South. The US envoy was also likely to have discussed protocol and security matters for the upcoming Trump-Kim summit with his North Korean counterpart Kim Hyok Chol. Ahead of his trip, the State Department said Biegun's meetings with Kim Hyok Chol would "advance further progress on the commitments the president and Chairman Kim made in Singapore: complete denuclearisation, transforming US-DPRK relations and building a lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula". At their landmark summit in Singapore last year, the mercurial US and North Korean leaders produced a vaguely-worded document in which Kim pledged to work towards "the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula." But progress has since stalled with the two sides disagreeing over what that means. Experts say tangible progress on Pyongyang's nuclear weapons will be needed for the second summit if it is to avoid being dismissed as "reality TV". Burkina Faso overhauls army command in face of jihadist attacks Ouagadougou, Feb 8 (AFP) Feb 08, 2019 Burkina Faso is overhauling its army command in the face of a wave of jihadist violence, according to presidential decrees seen by AFP on Friday. Eight decrees signed by President Roch Marc Christian Kabore include measures to name a new army chief of staff and new heads of the military's three regional commands. Jihadists have killed hundreds of civilians and inflicted crippling economic damage on Burkina Faso and neighbouring states in the Sahel desert region. In the latest incident, five security personnel were killed Tuesday in what the army called a "terrorist" attack in the north. The west African country had already named a new combined forces chief of staff and new defence and security ministers last month. Red Cross warns of 'growing' risk of nuclear weapons, urges ban Geneva, Feb 8 (AFP) Feb 08, 2019 The Red Cross called Friday for a total ban on nuclear weapons, warning of the growing risk that such arms could again be used with devastating effect. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) launched a global campaign to raise awareness about the rising nuclear threat facing the world. In a joint statement, they said some nuclear-armed states were straying from their "long-standing nuclear disarmament obligations" and were "upgrading their arsenals, developing new kinds of nuclear weapons and making them easier to use." The notonukes.org campaign comes after the United States and Russia ripped up a key arms control treaty, with US President Donald Trump announcing last week that Washington was beginning a process to withdraw from the Cold War-era agreement in six months. Russian President Vladimir Putin quickly followed suit, saying Moscow was leaving the treaty and would begin work on new types of weapons not permitted under the 1987 deal. "Seventy-four years after nuclear weapons obliterated the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the risk that nuclear weapons will again be used is growing," the Red Cross organisations warned. The notonukes.org campaign was launched with a video (https://youtu.be/K6eG4PZHH8k) depicting two friends on a beach discussing whether they would want to live of die if a nuclear bomb were to explode. One said he would want to live, because life is full of so many beautiful things, like spending time with his family, feeling the sun on his face and falling in love. The other said he would prefer to die, because after the bomb, none of those things would be possible. The video ends with a call to action: "Let's decide the future of nuclear weapons before they decide ours". The Red Cross said the campaign aimed to shine a light on the "catastrophic humanitarian consequences of a nuclear war". It also aims to encourage people to lobby their governments to sign and ratify the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which has so far been signed by 70 nations and ratified by 21. "Any risk of nuclear weapons use is unacceptable," ICRC President Peter Maurer said in the statement, stressing that the TPNW "represents a beacon of hope and an essential measure to reduce the risk of a nuclear catastrophe." "At this moment of growing international tension, I call on everyone to act with urgency and determination to bring the era of nuclear weapons to an end," he said. ABBOTSFORD, British Columbia, Feb. 08, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Abbotsfords Gordon Holloway, FCPA, FCA was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Chartered Professional Accountants of British Columbia (CPABC). The award recognizes Holloways sustained distinction in his career, community service, and work within the CPA profession. Gordon Holloway, FCPA, FCA is known for sharing his skills with civic causes. His volunteerism is woven into the fabric of Abbotsford, having served for years as president of the Abbotsford Community Foundation and the Abbotsford Land Trust Society. Holloway was also a founding director of the Abbotsford Executives Association, vice-chair of the citys Economic Development Commission, and president of the Abbotsford Chamber of Commerce. For his civic contributions, Holloway was named Volunteer of the Year by the City of Abbotsford and Community Business Leader of the Year by the Chamber of Commerce. He was also honored by Rotary International with a Paul Harris Fellowship. An active volunteer with the accounting profession as well, Holloway has dedicated his time contributing to areas as varied as public relations, government affairs, and course development. Recognized for his leadership and vision throughout the national unification of the accounting profession, Holloway served as co-chair of the CPABC Transitional Steering Committee and championed unification as president of his provincial legacy body. Achievements under his leadership included the signing of a merger agreement between the legacy accounting bodies and the approval of a directional plan for unification of the accounting profession in B.C. Highly respected for his skills as an advisor and his integrity as a leader, Holloway is currently a tribunal member of the British Columbia Securities Commission, which administers the Securities Act that regulates capital markets in BC. He recently completed two terms as an independent commissioner with the agency. Holloway served as an assurance and managing partner in KPMGs Fraser Valley offices for 23 years until his retirement in 2013. His professional accomplishments include guiding the firm through several practice mergers and mentoring young professionals throughout his career. Prior to his time with KPMG, Holloway worked with Clarkson Gordon (now EY) and McKnight Johnson Chartered Accountants in Abbotsford. He obtained his designation in 1974 in B.C. and was elected to fellowship in 1992. Quote from Lori Mathison, FCPA, FCGA, LLB, president and CEO of CPABC We are honoured to recognize Gordon with the Lifetime Achievement Award. His contributions to the Abbotsford community and to the CPA profession are an inspiration to other business professionals to give back. His contributions are invaluable and we are extremely proud of Gordons achievements. To read the profiles of all the award winners, visit bccpa.ca/members/recognition-program . NOTE TO JOURNALISTS: Publication quality photos of the recipients are available. About CPA British Columbia The Chartered Professional Accountants of British Columbia (CPABC) is the training, governing, and regulatory body for more than 36,000 CPA members and 6,000 CPA students and candidates. CPABC carries out its primary mission to protect the public by enforcing the highest professional and ethical standards and contributing to the advancement of public policy. CPAs are recognized internationally for bringing superior financial expertise, strategic thinking, business insight, and leadership to organizations. Australian court rejects coal mine on climate grounds Sydney, Feb 8 (AFP) Feb 08, 2019 An Australian court on Friday delivered a landmark ruling by rejecting plans to build a coal mine on the grounds it would worsen climate change. Chief Justice Brian Preston said a planned open cut coal mine in a scenic part of New South Wales state would be in "the wrong place at the wrong time." The ruling by the New South Wales Land and Environment Court was notable for citing not only local impacts of building the Gloucester Resources mine, but also secondary "climate change impacts" of the eventual use of the coal. "It matters not that this aggregate of the Project's GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions may represent a small fraction of the global total of GHG emissions," the justice said. "Not every natural resource needs to be exploited." The case was unusual in referring to the 2015 Paris Agreement and United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and calling climate scientists to testify. Will Steffen, a noted climatologist, told the court that Australia's average surface temperature had increased one degree centigrade over the last century. Climate activists have described the case as a "seminal judgement" in Australian law and hope that it sets a legal precedent. Australia is one of the world's largest producers of coal and the world's largest exporter -- fuelling powerplants in Japan, China, South Korea and India. "It's a judgement of enormous significance," said David Morris, a solicitor for Environmental Defenders Office, which represented local residents against the project. "It heralds the arrival of climate litigation in Australia, the first time climate change has featured as a ground for refusal of a fossil fuel project in this country and, as far as I'm aware, anywhere," he told AFP. The Australian Conservation Foundation described the ruling -- which could yet be appealed -- as "significant." Gloucester Resources, which was not immediately available for comment, had said the project would create 170 jobs and would be in place for two decades. Images Sorry, there are no recent results for popular images. A group of Owatonna residents and professionals gathered in the Owatonna City Council Chambers on Wednesday to learn more about the most recent housing study for the city. The meeting was organized by the housing group with Owatonna Forward as a means to address the current and future housing needs to help Owatonna progress. (Annie Granlund/Peoples Press) CAMBRIDGE, Ontario, Feb. 08, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Cowan Insurance Group, a leading Canadian insurance brokerage and consulting firm, today announced the appointment of Ken Worsley to the role of Account Executive, VP Agri-Commercial, effective February 13, 2019. In this newly created role, Ken will lead the launch of Cowans national Agri-Commercial Industry Practice. With strong roots in rural communities and existing industry segments in manufacturing, construction, technology and transportation, Cowan is uniquely positioned to support the needs of Agri-Commercial Business from coast to coast, said Heather McLachlin, President of Cowan Insurance Group. Building upon our leading position providing Canadian farm employee group benefits plans, its a natural progression for Cowan to move into property and casualty insurance. Ken brings with him over twenty years of insurance experience, helping clients manage risk with a focus on the Agriculture industry. Ken was most recently a Division Vice President for Agriculture, Transportation and Risk Services for a large Canadian Insurer. As the VP Agri-Commercial, Ken will focus on building out Cowans brand in this space and developing new client relationships. We are delighted to have Ken join our team, and lead this exciting new business opportunity for Cowan, said Pamela Derksen, VP, Operations and Product Development, Commercial Insurance. Our expertise within related industries positions us well to support the farm-to-table trend and address the challenges facing the increasingly complex Agri-Commercial industry. Ken has a Graduate Diploma from Seneca College in Fire Protection Engineering. He also holds designations from the Insurance Institute (CIP) and the Global Risk Management Institute (CRM). For more information: Bruce Borgundvaag Director, Marketing, Communications & Digital Strategy Cowan Insurance Group Cambridge, ON 519-650-6363 ext. 31614 bruce.borgundvaag@cowangroup.ca About Cowan Insurance Group As a prominent Canadian-owned and operated independent insurance brokerage and consulting operation, Cowan Insurance Group provides real value in insurance and risk management solutions to businesses, organizations and individuals. With close to 500 employees operating out of 12 locations across Canada, we partner with leading national and international insurance companies to advise on and create retirement, group benefits, disability management and international benefits programs for employee groups. We also offer wealth and asset management as well as financial and succession planning services to individuals, and specialize in property, casualty and credit insurance. For additional information about Cowan Insurance Group, please visit www.cowangroup.ca . A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/d3814400-7554-43fe-96fd-324327368721 You are the owner of this article. Thank you for reading! Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription to continue reading. Homestead, FL (33030) Today Partly cloudy this morning with thunderstorms becoming likely this afternoon. High 89F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%.. Tonight Scattered showers and thunderstorms. Low around 75F. Winds NE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 50%. Washington D.C., Feb. 08, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- On the surface, Minnesota organic dairy farmer Ruth Buck and California organic almond grower Steve Koretoff might not have that much in common. Taking care of a 120-cow dairy herd in Southeastern Minnesota and managing a 500-acre almond farm, processor and packager in Central California dont have a lot of overlap, except in this case one critical component a deep and unwavering commitment to organic agriculture. That commitment was on prominent display earlier this week when Ruth and Steve joined 20 other organic producers from across the nation to take part in the Organic Trade Associations second Farmers Advisory Council fly-in. I love to talk about the importance organic farming has had on the stability of our family farm, allowing us to stay small and hopefully pass it on to the next generation, said Buck. It is important to continue to support organic research and to regulate organic farming so the USDA seal means something to the consumer. My hope is that by talking to our lawmakers, it puts a face to organic farming. I hope it is just the beginning of the conversation, and hope to extend an invitation to our farm so that our new Rep can see it in person. We want to get freshman Congressional members to commit the same or more support to agriculture and the organic industry than the members they have replaced. Engaging elected officials is crucial for the agriculture industry. Many members of Congress do not personally know any farmers or have any experience with the agricultural industry, even more so for the organic agriculture industry, said Koretoff. Capitol Hill needs to hear directly from farmers on issues such as trade, the ways organic agriculture can help mitigate climate change, and of course the Farm Bill. The 20 members of the Organic Trade Associations Farmers Advisory Council who participated in the two days of advocacy on Feb. 5 and 6 in the nations capital were a wide-ranging group representing 11 states, and organic operations ranging from a five-acre produce farm in South Carolina to a 4,000-plus acre grain farm in Montana, from a first-generation cattle-raiser to a fifth-generation dairy producer. The diverse group included growers of grains, citrus, vegetables and other specialty crops, dairy farmers, egg and livestock producers. The Farmers Advisory Council represents over 8,000 certified organic farmers nationwide. Almost 50 lawmakers and a standing-room-only organic roundtable The focus of the fly-in was to meet with new and incumbent members of Congress, to familiarize the freshmen lawmakers with organic, and to discuss the implementation of the organic provisions in the 2018 Farm Bill. The farmers met with House Agriculture Committee Ranking Member Michael Conaway, visited the offices of 48 other Senators and Representatives, and had meetings with a half dozen agricultural associations including the National Farm Bureau Federation, the National Young Farmers Coalition, and the National Farmers Union. The group also hosted a standing-room-only organic farmer roundtable for congressional staff on important organic issues. This second fly-in has been a fantastic opportunity for FAC farmers to be able to share with policymakers and staff the current issues that organic farmers face across the country, said Perry Clutts, co-chairman of the Farmers Advisory Council and organic dairy farmer from Ohio. Through our direct contact, we can help our lawmakers understand how present federal programs are working, what changes might work better at the farm level, and what new programs would best assist farmers directly." Laura Batcha, CEO and Executive Director of the Organic Trade Association, stressed the importance of meeting with freshmen lawmakers: Our new lawmakers might not have a full understanding of the important public/private partnership that has supported organic and enabled the organic sector to flourish. They need to understand the role that the U.S. Department of Agricultures National Organic Program (NOP) plays in maintaining and enforcing the strict federal standards that guide the organic sector, and in Congresss role in its oversight of NOP. Megan DeBates, Director of Legislative Affairs and Coalitions for the Organic Trade Association, said that providing NOP now with the adequate funding to carry out and implement all the 2018 Farm Bill provisions relating to organic, especially those dealing with enforcement and oversight, is critical. NOPs budget is funded by annual appropriations determined by Congress, and we need Congress to fund organic the levels authorized in the Farm Bill and make sure that appropriations legislation is passed on time, said DeBates. Also, USDA has not taken action on rulemakings for organic that have been stalled like the origin of organic livestock. We need this administration to support organic by allowing these voluntary regulations and standards to move forward. The industry depends on the regulations evolving with consumer expectations. The member organizations of the Farmers Advisory Council include California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF), Georgia Organics, Organic Egg Farmers of America, Montana Organic Association, Oregon Tilth Certified Organic, Organic Valley/CROPP Cooperative, Pennsylvania Certified Organic, Western Organic Dairy Producers Alliance and Tilth Alliance of Washington. The Organic Trade Association (OTA) is the membership-based business association for organic agriculture and products in North America. OTA is the leading voice for the organic trade in the United States, representing over 9,500 organic businesses across 50 states. Its members include growers, shippers, processors, certifiers, farmers' associations, distributors, importers, exporters, consultants, retailers and others. OTAs Board of Directors is democratically elected by its members. OTA's mission is to promote and protect ORGANIC with a unifying voice that serves and engages its diverse members from farm to marketplace. MOHAMMED AL-SHAIKH/AFP/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- Congress is again turning the pressure up on the Trump administration to provide answers about the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi as a deadline arrived Friday to detail any role played by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. President Donald Trump released a statement in November, standing by the young crown prince and saying the world may never know whether he was involved. His top advisers, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, say the U.S. investigation continues and point to the sanctions on the 17 Saudi officials who carried out or helped plot the attack on Khashoggi. But Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill, who have reviewed U.S. intelligence on the issue, say that's not enough. New intelligence has also been revealed, possibly showing how intense Prince Mohammed, sometimes known by his initials "MBS," disliked Khashoggi, a royal insider turned critic, and increasing the pressure on the Trump administration to do something. The crown prince reportedly told a top aide that he would "use a bullet" on Khashoggi if the columnist would not return to the kingdom and stop writing critical pieces about him, the New York Times reported Thursday, citing former and current intelligence officials. MBS made the comment about killing Khashoggi if he did not let up on his criticism, a source briefed on the intelligence confirmed to ABC News. While there are varying translations of what he said and debate about whether he used the term "bullet," the general point was clear, the source said. Despite that mounting evidence of Prince Mohammed's possible involvement, Pompeo told reporters there was no "direct evidence" that tied the crown prince to the murder. Members of Congress who have also reviewed U.S. intelligence say otherwise. The Saudis have consistently denied that Prince Mohammed was involved, although their story of what happened to Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, has changed repeatedly. After first saying Khashoggi departed by a back exit, the Saudis then blamed his death on an accident, before saying a rogue hit squad was deployed at the mistaken direction of the deputy intelligence chief. In October, Sens. Bob Corker and Bob Menendez, then the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, triggered an investigation into who was responsible for Khashoggi's killing using the Global Magnitsky Act, which allows the administration to impose sanctions on foreign government officials for human rights abuses or corruption. The legislation gives the White House 120 days to respond. In November, Corker and Menendez wrote a second letter, asking the White House to investigate specifically whether Prince Mohammed was involved and adding, "We expect to receive your determination within 120 days of our original request." That deadline came Friday, but the White House made not yet made a public determination on MBS's role. In fact, the State Department didn't seem to agree there is a deadline. Deputy spokesperson Robert Palladino said Thursday, "We will continue to consult with the Congress and work to hold accountable those that are responsible for Jamal Khashoggis killing ... And of course, we will comply with the law." But instead of getting into Prince Mohammed's potential role, he pointed to the already existing sanctions on Saudi officials -- an indication the administration believes they have already fulfilled the letter's request. Congress also has other ways of increasing the pressure on the administration. A bipartisan group of senators introduced the Saudi Arabia Accountability and Yemen Act Thursday -- a bill that would mandate sanctions on anyone responsible for Khashoggi's killing and prohibit the sale of certain weapons to the Saudis and the refueling of Saudi-led coalition aircraft in Yemen. The Pentagon has already halted those refueling missions, announcing in November that Saudi and Emirati air forces could fully handle the task, and while the potential for sanctions on Prince Mohammed and the ban on certain weapons sales would be an insult to the Saudis, any sanctions determination would still be the White House's call, meaning the crown prince would likely not be affected. The bill would also require a human rights report on Saudi Arabia and an accountability report for war crimes in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and the legitimate government of Yemen are fighting Iranian-supported Houthi rebels. The legislation would create sanctions on anyone supporting those Houthi rebels, as well as anyone blocking humanitarian access to the country, which has faced a crisis of starvation, disease, and civilian casualties that's put more than 12 million people on the brink of famine. "I firmly believe there will be strong bipartisan support for serious sanctions against Saudi Arabia for this barbaric act which defied all civilized norms. While Saudi Arabia is a strategic ally, the behavior of the Crown Prince -- in multiple ways -- has shown disrespect for the relationship and made him, in my view, beyond toxic," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, a top foreign policy Republican and close Trump ally who introduced the legislation along with two other Republicans and three Democrats. The Senate unanimously passed a resolution last year saying MBS was "responsible" for Khashoggi's killing. Copyright 2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. My first trip this year started with Japan. The excitement of visiting Japan never gets old. I got to experience the beautiful and rich Japanese culture, ate so much next level food (Ive yet to have a bad meal in Japan), and for the cherry on top, I got to share this experience with Jacopo. This was his second trip to Japan but his first to Tokyo (Hes only been to Kyoto). Together, we visited some cool spots in Japan with the help of our amazing host Cle de Peau Beaute. The team hosted us to learn more about their brand and the science behind their products. The knitted top and bottom set from Arje are the comfiest outfit for a traveling. My fuzzy coat was too big to fit into a suitcase so I wore it on the plane. My love affair with Cle de Peau Beaute dates back to two years ago when I was in Paris getting my makeup done by Mai (@storyofmailife). If you can remember from my Paris fashion week vlogs, we experimented with makeup and tried a ton of different and new looks. But in between all of the glamour and fun, my lack of sleep caught up with me and under-eye bags decided to come out to play. This is when Mai used the Cle de Peau Beaute Concealer on me and it was my hero saving me from looking sleep-deprived all week long. Because of the brand name, Ive always assumed Cle de Peau Beaute to be a French brand. But Cle de Peau Beaute is actually a Japanese beauty brand (the number one luxury beauty brand in Japan to be exact!). A couple of months ago, they sent me a few beauty products to try and I fell in love with their Vitality-Enhancing Eye Mask Supreme instantly. The half-sheet mask left my skin feeling super hydrated so I put it to the ultimate test, the plane. Will it really keep my eye area hydrated? The answer was yes! To fight jet-lag and rejuvenate after a 12-hour flight, I used the brands Enhancing Eye Contour Cream Supreme to relieve puffiness under my eyes. It comes with a beautiful massage tool, which is basically like a face roller but for your under-eyes. We stayed at Aman Tokyo, which is my favorite hotel to stay at in Tokyo because of the stunning views and service. Also, they have my favorite breakfast food like avocado, blueberries, and smoked salmon on top of serving a Japanese breakfast. Ive been to Tokyo multiple times but Ive never been up to the Tokyo Tower. Is it worth it? If youre not staying at a hotel with the whole Tokyo skyline view, then yes. Its 333 meters tall (1,092 ft) and has this insane view of the whole city. We ate at the restaurant inside the Tower called Musahi Sky Restaurant 634 and I would honestly skip that part and just do the tour. On our second day in Tokyo, we spent one morning with Mr. Ishimatsu, the brands lead scientist who walked us through why Cle de Peau Beaute products really stand out. Their advanced and relentless research has led to products that actually work. The key ingredient that sets Cle de Peau Beaute products apart is the Illuminating Complex, which includes an extract sourced from golden silk cocoons in Thailand. I tried their signature product, La Creme , and it did not disappoint. It is super rich and thick so they recommend it to be used before bedtime instantly relieving dryness by the morning time. I woke up to my skin feeling moisturized and firmer. Its definitely an investment, but honestly I cant say enough good things about this cream. Warning though: once you try it, you never want to go back. I dont say this lightly, but its definitely a miracle cream. January in Tokyo is chilly. Not as cold as New York but for this California girl, its super cold. So happy I layered up and packed really good coats to keep myself warm. Also, my skin tends to get dry easily but I wore their Radiant Cushion Foundation which has light coverage and kept my skin moisturized throughout the day. Later that afternoon, we visited TeamLab, a modern art exhibit with countless rooms of interactive light displays. Cle de Peau Beautes new spring campaign, A New Year, New Light inspired this visit and it was cool to see how technology and beauty intersected, much as it does for Cle de Peau Beaute. In between all the twinkling lights, I felt hopeful and excited about the new year. Day 3: Even if youve never been to Tokyo, I think we all know this iconic spot in Shibuya, aka Shibuya Crossing. Every time Im in Tokyo, I always come to Shibuya because it makes me feel like Im really in Tokyo. The lights in this intersection turn red all at the same time, in every direction. Traffic stops and pedestrians go crazy (well maybe just me because I was trying to get a shot) from all sides of the intersection. You can also observe this moment from above at the second floor of Starbucks in the Tsutaya building. Don Quijote Supermarket Since we were heading to Kyoto the next day on a bullet train, and also because it was Jacopos first time in Tokyo, I took him to Don Quijote, which basically is a discount store but this one in Shibuya is the biggest one and has everything from snacks to household items. Dani and I used to go here and stock up on Japanese false lashes, but our mission this day was snacks. We got all kinds of Japanese snacks from ginormous Pocky sticks to dried fish/shrimps/squids for our bullet train to Kyoto. Day 4: The train station was only a 5-minute drive from Aman Tokyo and because I was with responsible adults, instead of showing up right on time for our 8am train ride, we got there about 30 minutes before. That gave us plenty of time to lug up our suitcases upstairs to the tracks and find our train. If you didnt pack any snacks for the train ride, no worries. Every hour or so, theres a kind gentleman who comes by with his snack cart filled with drinks and snacks. They didnt have the weird dried squid snacks so Im happy we went and grabbed those the day before. Im wearing the Radiant Cushion Foundation and Lip Luminizer in shade Sweet Satin. When Jacopo and I got to Kyoto, the first thing we did was antique hunting. I really wanted a tea set but the ones I wanted were way too expensive. Gion is the most famous geisha area and the center of traditional arts. If you have a day to spend there, I highly recommend walking through Gion and visiting the Kinakaku-Ji temple aka The Golden Pavilion. I visited there the last time I was here with Jacopo, so we skipped it this time and instead went to eat some delicious soba. We ended up going to a soba place in Gion called Takehana. Day 5: One particularly memorable event was visiting the beauty shrine at the Shimogamo Shrine in Kyoto. In Japanese tradition, to start off the new year, women visit this shrine and draw faces on to wooden plaques (I used my new Lip Luminizer shade Sweet Satin from Cle de Peau Beaute) in order to make a beauty wish for the coming year. After receiving my fortune for the new year, I felt hopeful and was inspired to find the beauty in all the things around me in 2019. To see some of my favorite spots I visited this time in Japan, watch my latest vlog here: System error error: Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. context: ... 21: 22: 23: % foreach my $c (@categories) { 24: <%perl> 25: my $category_id = $c->get_id(); 26: my @stories = Bric::Biz::Asset::Business::Story->list ( { element_type_id=>1148, category_id=>$category_id , Order=> 'cover_date', publish_status => 't' , OrderDirection=> 'DESC' , Limit=>10 } ); 27: 28: 29: ... code stack: /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html:25 /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm:951 /var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj:17 /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html:149 Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. Trace begun at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Exceptions.pm line 129 HTML::Mason::Exceptions::rethrow_exception('Can\'t call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25.^J') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 160 HTML::Mason::Component::run_dynamic_sub('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7fbff7fbc9f0)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 951 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7fbff7f2af00)', 'main') called at /var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj line 17 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7fbff7fbc9f0)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1305 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 958 HTML::Mason::Request::call_next('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7fbff7f2af00)') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html line 149 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7fbff7fc57a8)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1303 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 436 HTML::Mason::Request::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7fbff7f2af00)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7fbff7f2af00)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7fbff75afc18)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7fbff7de5540)') called at (eval 487) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7fbff7de5540)') called at -e line 0 eval {...} at -e line 0 System error error: Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. context: ... 21: 22: 23: % foreach my $c (@categories) { 24: <%perl> 25: my $category_id = $c->get_id(); 26: my @stories = Bric::Biz::Asset::Business::Story->list ( { element_type_id=>1148, category_id=>$category_id , Order=> 'cover_date', publish_status => 't' , OrderDirection=> 'DESC' , Limit=>10 } ); 27: 28:
29: ... code stack: /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html:25 /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm:951 /var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj:17 /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html:149 Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. Trace begun at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Exceptions.pm line 129 HTML::Mason::Exceptions::rethrow_exception('Can\'t call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25.^J') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 160 HTML::Mason::Component::run_dynamic_sub('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7fbff7fef990)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 951 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7fbff7fa3500)', 'main') called at /var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj line 17 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7fbff7fef990)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1305 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 958 HTML::Mason::Request::call_next('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7fbff7fa3500)') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html line 149 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7fbff8009740)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1303 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 436 HTML::Mason::Request::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7fbff7fa3500)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7fbff7fa3500)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7fbff7a3ef30)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7fbff7fe66d8)') called at (eval 487) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7fbff7fe66d8)') called at -e line 0 eval {...} at -e line 0 System error error: Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. context: ... 21: 22: 23: % foreach my $c (@categories) { 24: <%perl> 25: my $category_id = $c->get_id(); 26: my @stories = Bric::Biz::Asset::Business::Story->list ( { element_type_id=>1148, category_id=>$category_id , Order=> 'cover_date', publish_status => 't' , OrderDirection=> 'DESC' , Limit=>10 } ); 27: 28:
29: ... code stack: /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html:25 /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm:951 /var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj:17 /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html:149 Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. Trace begun at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Exceptions.pm line 129 HTML::Mason::Exceptions::rethrow_exception('Can\'t call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25.^J') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 160 HTML::Mason::Component::run_dynamic_sub('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7fbff7ed53b8)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 951 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7fbff7e7e400)', 'main') called at /var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj line 17 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7fbff7ed53b8)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1305 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 958 HTML::Mason::Request::call_next('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7fbff7e7e400)') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html line 149 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7fbff7d93ee0)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1303 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 436 HTML::Mason::Request::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7fbff7e7e400)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7fbff7e7e400)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7fbff75ade58)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7fbff7d97c38)') called at (eval 487) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7fbff7d97c38)') called at -e line 0 eval {...} at -e line 0 Dublin, Feb. 08, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Specialty Hospitals Market to 2027 - Global Analysis and Forecasts by Type (Cardiac Hospitals, Cancer Hospitals, Rehabilitation Hospitals, ENT Hospitals, Neurological Hospitals, Orthopedic Hospitals, and Others) and Geography" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The specialty hospitals market, the market is expected to reach US$ 509.10 Bn from US$ 401.65 Bn in 2018. The market is estimated to grow with a CAGR of 2.8% from 2018-2027. The specialty hospitals market is driven by the driving factor such as increasing incidences of chronic diseases, growing public private partnership in healthcare industry and growing geriatric population. However, the market is likely face the restraining factors such as high costs of specialty hospitals, rising concerns over specialty hospitals. The specialty hospitals market as per the type. The market of cardiac hospitals has the highest market share in 2018, contributing to specialty hospitals. The market of cardiac hospitals holds 23.2% and is expected to retain its dominance during the forecast period from 2019 to 2027. The sample preparation segment is further sub-segmented into method and workflow step. The demand for the cardiac hospitals are rising due to increase in the prevalence of cardiovascular diseases. As per the World health organization, every year approximately 17.9 million people die due to cardiovascular diseases. Also, the Johns Hopkins University estimated that in America 84 million people have some or the other form of cardiovascular disease. Thus owing to factors like rising prevalence of cardiovascular diseases, favorable reimbursement policies, sophisticated healthcare infrastructure in specialty hospitals, and greater awareness among the population for cardiac specialty hospitals, the market for cardiac hospitals is expected to witness tremendous growth. The type segment of the specialty hospitals market also include hospitals such as cancer hospitals, rehabilitation hospitals, ENT hospitals, neurological hospitals, orthopedic hospitals and others. Among these the second largest market for the specialty hospitals is held by the orthopedic hospitals. The market share by the orthopedic hospitals is 21.6%. The growth of the orthopedic hospitals is propelled by the factors such as high prevalence of orthopedic conditions such as degenerative bone disease, development of innovative orthopedic devices and rising geriatric population and number of road accidents. Key Topics Covered: 1. Introduction 1.1 Scope of the Study 1.2 Research Report Guidance 2. Global Specialty Hospitals Market - Key Takeaways 3. Global Specialty Hospitals Market - Market Landscape 3.1 Overview 3.2 Market Segmentation 3.2.1 Global Specialty Hospitals Market - by Type 3.2.2 Global Specialty Hospitals Market - by Geography 3.3 Pest Analysis 3.3.1 North America - Pest Analysis 3.3.2 Europe- Pest Analysis 3.3.3 Asia Pacific- Pest Analysis 3.3.4 Middle East and Africa- Pest Analysis 3.3.5 South and Central America - Pest Analysis 3.4 List of Rehabilitation Hospitals, Clinics and Centers, by Region 4. Global Specialty Hospitals Market - Key Market Dynamics 4.1 Key Market Drivers 4.1.1 Increasing Incidences of Chronic Diseases 4.1.2 Growing Public Private Partnership In Healthcare Industry 4.1.3 Growing Geriatric Population 4.2 Key Market Restraints 4.2.1 High Costs of Specialty Hospitals 4.2.2 Rising Concerns Over Specialty Hospitals 4.3 Key Market Opportunities 4.3.1 Growing Super Specialty and Multi-Specialty Hospitals 4.4 Key Market Trends 4.4.1 Micro-Hospitals Gaining Popularity 4.5 Impact Analysis 5. Specialty Hospitals Market - Global Analysis 5.1 Global Specialty Hospitals Market Revenue Forecasts and Analysis 5.2 Global Specialty Hospitals Market, by Geography - Forecasts and Analysis 5.3 Market Positioning 5.4 Performance of Key Players 5.4.1 Encompass Health Corporation: 5.4.2 Select Medical Corporation (Kessler Institute For Rehabilitation) 5.5 Expert Opinions 6. Global Specialty Hospitals Market Analysis - by Type 6.1 Overview 6.2 Global Specialty Hospitals Market, by Type, 2018 & 2027 (%) 6.3 Cancer Hospitals Market 6.4 Cardiac Hospitals Market 6.5 Rehabilitation Hospitals Market 6.6 Ent Hospitals Market 6.7 Neurology Hospitals Market 6.8 Orthopedic Hospitals Market 6.9 Others Market 7. North America Specialty Hospitals Market Revenue and Forecasts To 2027 8. Europe Specialty Hospitals Market Revenue and Forecasts To 2027 9. Asia Pacific Specialty Hospitals Market Revenue and Forecasts To 2027 10. Middle East and Africa Specialty Hospitals Market Revenue and Forecasts To 2027 11. South and Central America Specialty Hospitals Market Revenue and Forecasts To 2027 12. Specialty Hospitals Market -Industry Landscape 12.1 Overview 12.2 Growth Strategies In the Specialty Hospitals Market, 2016-2018 12.3 Organic Developments 12.3.1 Overview 12.3.2 Organic Growth Strategies In the Specialty Hospitals Market, 2016-2018 12.3.3 Expansion 12.3.3.1 Recent Expansion by Players In the Specialty Hospitals Market 12.3.4 Inorganic Developments 12.3.5 Overview 12.3.6 Inorganic Growth Strategies In the Specialty Hospitals Market, 2016-2018 12.3.7 Agreements 12.3.7.1 the Specialty Hospitals Market, by Agreements 12.3.8 Acquisitions 12.3.8.1 Acquisitions by Players In the Specialty Hospitals Market 12.3.9 Partnership 12.3.9.1 Partnership by Players In the Specialty Hospitals Market 12.3.10 Collaborations 12.3.10.1 Collaborations by Players In the Specialty Hospitals Market 13. Specialty Hospitals Market-Key Company Profiles Encompass Health Corporation Kindred Healthcare Inc Memorial Sloan-Kettering Steward Health Care System LLC Belhoul Speciality Hospital Advanced Specialty Hospitals HCA Management Services L.P TH Medica, Community Health Systems, Inc. Universal Health Services, Inc. Select Medical Corporation (Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation) For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/vzkl7j/global_specialty?w=12 Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research. NEW YORK, Feb. 08, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via OTC PR WIRE -- On4 Communications (OTCPINK: ONCI) is pleased to announce the following corporate update from CEO Steve Berman: BUSINESS Shareholders, I am happy to report that we have reduced the OS of On4 Communications by 1.4 billion shares. For the 12 months ending Oct 15 2018, we reported an OS of 4,505,705 518. The new OS is now 3,105,705,518. In addition, we are working with the past CEO to retire the 30 million preferred shares that are on the books. I expect this will be done within the next week or so. These shares are issued in his name and cannot be retired unless certain criteria is met. The shares can never be converted to common but I want them off the books. GIFTCARDEXCHANGE.SHOP As we have discussed giftcardexchange.shop is moving very quickly. We have met with the web designers and have the beginnings of a platform. I have also met with 2 large NY department stores as well as 2 health and beauty stores about buying gift cards at a big discount to populate the site. I will also be populating the site with $3,500 worth of gift cards that I have personally that I have never used. These include gift cards to Sephora, Dicks sporting goods, Ruby Tuesday, Target, Fridays, and a host of others. I am hoping we will be up and running by the end of July. If any of you want to sell your cards that you are not using pls e-mail me at On4company@gmail.com DENTAL We have not discussed this in a while but it is still on the table. I have reached out to 3 large urgent care companies about renting space in their centers and becoming their dental provider. I was told by one urgent care provider that 25 percent of all urgent care walk ins are dental related. The only thing the doctor can do is give the patient a motrin and send them home. I still believe that this is a big opportunity and a huge profit center for the company. PHARREL PROTECTION We are currently in the first week of a 3 week test with one of the largest roofing companies in the USA and Canada. This company has over 1200 light trucks and vehicles. We have added many new features for this test including hard braking and fast turns, which only makes our distracted driving product that much better. Through Pharrel, we are in contact with large machinery companies including Cat and Deere as well as large mining companies including Rio Tinto, Bhp and Vale for our Bfound mobile product and I believe we will be testing very shortly. The heavy truck business is a huge opportunity and we are moving forward everyday. This is an untapped market and we are the first to be there. 2ND PRIVATE LABEL The 2nd private label is very close to being done. I spoke to the company yesterday and the ads are still not approved. I am hoping they will be done next week and I can announce the deal. I can tell you the details of the deal. We are dealing with one of the largest dealer groups on the east coast with over 60 dealerships. The deal is 20 units in each dealership to start at $200 net to us, or $240,000 per month. This will roll out over a month. At present we have shipped 30 dealerships with the rest to be done in the next 2 to three weeks. They dont want to release until the ads hit the market. This will be the largest deal we have done and I believe it will add major revenue to the bottom line. In addition, we are in talks with three other companies regarding private label opportunities; two in Europe and one here in the USA SIFTHOUSE On September 14, 2018 the Company announced that it had signed a letter of intent to purchase 75% of a Craft Cannabis called Sifthouse BC for a total consideration of $1million contingent upon Sifthouse BC obtaining a license to distribute Cannabis related product in Canada. The plan is to grow highly profitable specialty blends of craft Cannabis. This business is about to explode and we are in on the ground floor. It is my expectation that big tobacco and spirits companies will be in control of this business going forward and the expectations and potential profits will be amazing. As markets and countries open, we will be able to franchise our company to every city that makes cannabis legal over the next few years and I believe craft growers will be the biggest part of the cannabis boom. The companys investment to date is $100,000. As we speak we are in talks to lease 10,000 square feet of space in Vancouver by the river. This business has taken off and companies are making money hand over fist. I believe the biggest part of this business will be craft Cannabis. HEXAGON I am sorry to keep having to include this in the letter but I still get messages from people accusing me of doing a Reverse Split. "ALL CAPS DEEMED NECESSARY HERE: LET ME SAY THIS AGAIN, AGAIN, AGAIN and AGAIN: THERE WILL BE NO REVERSE SPLIT." "LET ME SAY THIS AGAIN AS WELL: THERE ARE NO PLANS TO DO ANOTHER 3A1O" So if you dont understand it, again, there are no plans on the table to do a reverse split. The company is in a great position to capitalize on new markets. Distracted driving is an epidemic in the world and is only getting bigger. Cannabis is one of the fastest growing business led by total legalization in Canada with 10 other countries to follow. We have Private label deals in place and we are creating new revenue streams. We are positioned for the future and will ride the wave. We are now branching out from our original model for the company, which was to sell in car dealerships and moving into global reach in all areas. I am very excited for our continued growth in all aspects of our company. We have a very bright future About On4 Communications On4 is a holdings company with an aggressive focus of acquiring proven and profitable businesses. Our first project is focusing on businesses operating in the $1.7 trillion U.S. healthcare industry. Our newest targeted businesses are operating in the trillion-dollar mobile App space. Our first acquisition in the mobile App space is FMS Marketing, a global creator and distributor of mobile Apps for Android and iPhones. We are also targeting businesses to acquire and joint venture within the medical marijuana and emerging MJ ancillary products space. Forward-Looking Statement This release includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. All statements regarding our expected future financial position, results of operations, cash flows, financing plans, business strategy, products and services, competitive positions, growth opportunities, plans and objectives of management for future operations, as well as statements that include words such as "anticipate," "if," "believe," "plan," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "could," "should," "will," and other similar expressions are forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements involve risks, uncertainties and contingencies, many of which are beyond our control, which may cause actual results, performance, or achievements, as described in our reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which are available for review at www.sec.gov , to differ materially from anticipated results, performance, or achievements. We are under no obligation to (and expressly disclaim any such obligation to) update or alter our forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. New Delhi: A report highlighting fraudulent and irresponsible conduct by the top executive of IL&FS has claimed they used the Employee Welfare Trust (EWT) for personal gains at the cost of the company by carrying forward amendments in trust contracts without the approval of the Board of Directors of IL&FS Ltd. The report of Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) said that EWT, set up to cater to the medical, housing and to subsidise loans taken by the employees, was used to invest in the securities of IL&FS and its group companies and "thereafter distributing these shares at very nominal price in differential manner to a third party". The sale proceeds from such transactions went to select management personnel. The report said since the inception, especially after 2006, the trustees were dominated by nine top executives, including Ravi Parthasarathy, MD and Chairman of IL&FS group, Hari Sankaran, VC and MD of Subsidiaries of IL&FS group, and Arun Kumar Saha, Joint MD and CEO of IL&FS Ltd and Director. The SFIO dossier has also taken special note of the fifth amendment carried out in the contract laid out for the trust without the approval of the IL&FS Board of Directors. According to the report, the "fifth supplemented indenture" passed in 2006 was "made to include that the trustees shall have the power to sell the trust investments" having absolute discretion and without being answerable for any loss cased by it. The mess at IL&FS came to light last year when a sudden default by few group companies enlivened threat of a complete collapse of the infrastructure conglomerate. Last year, the Central government superseded the management of the beleaguered company via an NCLT order and appointed a six-member board led by Uday Kotak, MD & CEO of Kotak Mahindra Bank, to restore its financial solvency. Key public sector lenders and undertakings such as the LIC and the SBI have a 25.34 per cent and 6.42 per cent stake, respectively, in the firm which has around Rs 91,000 crore in long-term debt. The credit crunch has led a few of the company's subsidiaries to default in servicing some inter-corporate deposits. Consequent to defaults, significant impact was felt in the capital market on account of the contagion effect of the IL&FS problem, prompting the government to replace the Board. IL&FS Ltd is a core investment company and serves as the holding company of the IL&FS Group, with most business operations domiciled in separate companies which form an ecosystem of expertise across infrastructure, finance and social and environmental services. Initially promoted by the Central Bank of India (CBI), Housing Development Finance Corporation Ltd and the Unit Trust of India, IL&FS was incorporated in 1987. Over the years, it has inducted institutional shareholders including the SBI, LIC, ORIX Corp of Japan and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA). As on March 31, 2018, the LIC and ORIX Corp were the largest shareholders in IL&FS with their stakeholding at 25.34 per cent and 23.54 per cent, respectively. Other prominent shareholders include the ADIA (12.56 per cent), HDFC (9.02 per cent), CBI (7.67 per cent) and the SBI (6.42 per cent). Yavatmal (Maharashtra): On February 8, 1995, an enthusiastic, 35-year-old engineering-cum-management graduate arrived at Paradh, a small village in the Yavatmal district, to address a group of around 2,000 farmers - an event that would bring their plight onto the world stage. Sadly, nothing has changed as around 110,000 farmers have committed suicide in the state in the past 25 years. Of this, around 18,000 suicides have occurred in the past five years. Kishore Tiwari, the technocrat, who had learnt of the farmers' plight through the local vernacular media stressed the 'right to exist' and not the "government doles' at the meeting. The tiny spark lit 25 years ago by Tiwari and his supporters turned the global attention towards farmers' suicides and also made it one of the biggest social, economic and political issue after the 1989 Mandal Commission report. "Tomorrow (February 8) I am going to the same village to meet farmers and pass the same resolution that we did 25 years ago. Nothing has really changed," said Tiwari. Ancestors of Tiwari, 60, migrated from Uttar Pradesh to Pandharkavda, Yavatmal, nearly seven decades ago. He lost his father to the plague when he was barely two years old. His grandparents sold vegetables in the local markets for a living. Stung by the huge farmers' turnout in a remote village, then Chief Minister Sharad Pawar put Tiwari behind the bars along with around 1,000 farmers. Female members of the congregation were detained and let off later. A month later, a Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party coalition led by Chief Minister Manohar Joshi took office. For the next three months it refused to release Tiwari, until the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court freed him. Over the years, Tiwari set up the Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti (VJAS), an NGO, that ventured deep into the agrarian crisis in Maharashtra, its neighbouring as well as other states across the country. To help resolve the crisis, Tiwari gradually adopted a holistic approach, which included promoting related issues like food security, health security, right to education, problem of unwed tribal mothers, rehabilitation of farmers' widows and orphans through education, jobs and entrepreneurship. "As per official records and our own data, in the past 25 years, more than 110,000 farmers, including 10,000 women farmers, have committed suicide in Maharashtra. There are 125 recorded cases of young girls ending their lives as their debt-ridden parents could not bear the cost of their education or marriage. It shook me to the core. Now I have dedicated myself to the cause of farmers' upliftment," said Tiwari. Initial studies revealed while earlier farmers' suicides were largely limited to Vidarbha (eastern part of the state), it spread to entire Maharashtra, barring the lush Western parts of the state. "Today the scenario is pretty bad. Besides Maharashtra, the issue now affects practically every state in India. The worst-hit are Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Telangana, Chhattisgarh, and surprisingly, even Punjab, which was the cradle of the Green Revolution around 1960," said Tiwari. Plight of farmers affected him so deeply that Tiwari, also a lawyer, who had worked in several companies, decided to dedicate his life to the cause despite stiff opposition from family. For political parties, Tiwari's passion became a handy tool to be exploited during elections to come to power and then "forget about it", he lamented. "In the past 25 years, only one panel, led by M. S. Swaminathan, was set up in 2004 to enquire into the agrarian crises by then Agriculture Minister Rajnath Singh in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-headed BJP government at the Centre. The panel submitted its report in 2008 to then Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar (NCP), but it was left on the self to gather dust. "It suddenly catapulted into national limelight when Narendra Modi raised the issue, promising to implement the Swaminathan report, as part of his 2014 election campaign. Naturally, sensing hope, farmers voted hugely for the BJP. Once again the matter was relegated to backstage, and now has now been revived for the 2019 elections," Tiwari rued. Tiwari has, so far, has spent nearly 16 months in jail for espousing the farmers causes. His agitations brought the farm crises to the front pages of the Indian media and into living rooms in urban centres. Today, most Indians are aware of the farmers' plight, he said. "In fact, after reading several series of articles in IANS, many people from all over the world have connected with us to help the cause. They include prominent personalities like Cyrus Guzder (Mumbai), Krishnakumar Taori (Dubai), Rohit Shelatkar (the UK) and Suresh Ediga (the USA)," Tiwari said. The revelations were shocking, which forced the global media outlets to cover it extensively. The US, German and Australian television networks have made documentaries on the subject, including "Bitter Seed" and "Dying Fields", while several Indian films and television serials were made on the topic. Though he claims that he has not been able to do as much as he wanted to ease the life of farmers, he turns to wife Smita in gratitude who stood by him through all his stints in jail and hardships to keep the family and ensure decent education for two daughter -- Abha, now an engineer with a US multinational company, and Apoorva who works in Brisbane. The high-profile campaign for farmers earned him nominations for various national-international awards/honours, but Tiwari politely declined them, saying "it belittles my cause". (Quaid Najmi can be contacted at q.najmi@ians.in) QUINCY, Mass., Feb. 08, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- BIOMODEX , a pioneering medical technology company that 3D-prints tissue-like anatomical twins from medical images, today announced the grand opening of its new US corporate headquarters in Quincy, Massachusetts. The new space, which includes corporate offices and a modern 3D-printing laboratory, will allow the Paris-based company to launch its expansion in the United States. Were thrilled to find a home in the Boston-area among some of the worlds most innovative medical technology companies, said Thomas Marchand, CEO and co-founder of BIOMODEX. Opening an operation in Massachusetts lays the groundwork for our continued growth and success by providing access to talent and ideas, and allows us to speed turn-around time for our North American customers. BIOMODEX has developed a 3D printing method that makes tissue-like anatomical twins, such as complex blood vessels, that provide critical tactile feedback to the physician. The 3D printed replicas are created directly from patient-specific medical images, including MRIs and CT Scans, enabling physicians to rehearse complex procedures and train on new instruments and devices. Our vision is to reduce risk and improve patient outcomes by providing physicians an opportunity to test-drive procedures and train on new instruments and devices. Our solution provides an industry that relies on their hands with the critical tactile feedback it needs, said Carolyn DeVasto, Vice President of Global Commercialization at BIOMODEX. Manufacturing is already underway in Massachusetts, with plans to produce thousands of anatomical twins for physicians, health systems, researchers and medical device makers across North America over the course of 2019. The company says it also expects to hire additional employees in the coming year. We are pleased to welcome BIOMODEX into the rapidly growing community of Parisian start-ups with U.S. headquarters in New England, said Arnaud Mentre, Consul General of France in Boston. The company is a proud member of La FrenchTech Boston, which now represents more than 60 French entrepreneurs in the Greater Boston area. A vibrant example of the current dynamism of the French innovation scene, BIOMODEX intends to revolutionize interventional medicine with its 3D printed anatomical models. Additional photos are available here. About BIOMODEX BIOMODEX is an innovative medical technology company based in Paris and Boston using 3D printing to create tissue-like anatomical twins from medical images, for patient-specific rehearsal and physicians advanced training. The anatomically accurate twin is designed to provide critical tactile feedback which, when paired with their simulated blood flow stations, offers a tailored end to end physician experience. Media Contact: Andrea LePain eMedia Junction 617-275-8112 A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/a531bd78-4177-4ea1-9dea-f9be1f0cc507 "How the government uses the proceeds of RBI dividend or surplus, is a decision they have to take," Das said in reply to a query asking his views on the usage of the RBI's dividend to meet the fiscal deficit breached by the government. Mumbai: Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das on Thursday said it was the government's prerogative to decide on the usage of the surplus and dividend paid by the central bank to the government. The issue of the transfer of the surplus from the central bank to the Centre had become a major bone of contention between the previous RBI Governor Urjit Patel and the Centre, which felt that the RBI was sitting on additional funds more than the actual need. On whether the government has been putting pressure on the RBI to part with the previous years' surplus apart from the interim dividend, Das rubbished it saying it was mere speculation and that the RBI is always driven by certain principles and accounting norms. "Payment of surplus or dividend from RBI is a part of the RBI Act. There's a legal provision and we are not doing anything beyond what is there in the legal provision," Das said after presiding over his first Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting that encouraged an easy monetary policy by lowering the bank's key lending rate by 25 basis points. Apart from cutting the repo rate to 6.25 per cent despite the earlier stance being "calibrated tightening", the bank also changed the stance to "neutral". The RBI's central board meeting, which now stands deferred to February 18, will take a call on the amount of interim dividend to be paid by the bank to the government. The government, in its interim budget, had revised its fiscal deficit for the current fiscal from 3.3 per cent to 3.4 per cent of the GDP due to the direct income support programme for small farmers. He charged that the Congress, in its hate for him has gone to the extent of abusing the country and its institutions like the armed forces, the Election Commission and the CBI. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday slammed the Congress for repeatedly raking up the Rafale fighter deal issue, alleging that the main Opposition party does not want the Indian Air Force and the countrys security apparatus to be strong. Replying to a debate to the Motion of Thanks to the Presidents Address in the Lok Sabha, Modialleged that the Congress was not able to digest a transparent agreement as history bears testimony that the Congress and UPA governments cant work without kickbacks in defence deals. He also mocked the Congress for saying that surgical strikes were carried out during its governments too. When we talk about surgical strike,... the Congress says that it was done during their times too. But at that time, you (Congress) had virtually disarmed the Army, the Prime Minister said. He went on to add, At that time, the Army was not in a position to carry out the surgical strike. The Army did not even have bullet proof jackets, there were no communication equipments. I am not going to mention about the weapons required... How could you even think of surgical strike? Alleging that the Congress ignored the requirements of the Army, the Air Force as well as the Navy, the Prime Minister posed to the Opposition party: Why? You dont think about nation security? He said India has such a serious security environment that there could have been dangerous consequences if any adversary had launched an attack. Why are you so insensitive towards the armed forces? Requirements of the Army, Navy and Air Force have been ignored by your government, Modi said, addressing the Congress benches. Questioning Why no next-generation fighter plane has been acquired in 30 years, he referred to the Rafale fighter deal and said, Congress does not want our IAF to be strong. I am levelling serious allegation. That is why you are opposing Rafale (acquisition)? At whose behest? For which company are you doing it? Congress President Rahul Gandhi has been constantly alleging that there was corruption in the deal to procure 36 Rafale fighter planes from French company Dassault and that Rs 30,000 crore were snatched from state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited to be given to an industrialist. I was wondering how they speak lies with such confidence. Then I realised that they have never done any defence deal without any kickbacks... There was always some chacha or some mama (uncle), the Prime Minister said about the Congress. When we are making efforts transparently to strengthen the security apparatus, they are worried and they are downcast, Modi said. Apparently referring to the AgustaWestland helicopter deal scam during the UPA government and deportation of alleged middle man Christian Michel and two others from the UAE to India recently, the Prime Minister said the Congress is worried that their raazdaar (custodian of secrets) has been caught -- not one or two but three. So, I can understand your anxiety. Talking about the Army, he said in 2009 during the UPA government, the force had sought 1.86 lakh bullet proof jackets and the demand was finally met by his government last year. If the Congress government had been formed again in 2014, Tejas (Light Combat Aircraft) would have still been on the ground, he said. SHEPHERDSTOWN The 15th Annual Stalking Awareness Month was held last month across the nation, as a call to action to recognize and respond to the serious crime of stalking, according to www.stalkingawareness.org. This call to action was not missed by the students and staff members who support the Stand Up, Dont Stand By Campaign on Shepherd Universitys campus. On Jan. 31, members of the Shepherd University and Shepherdstown community learned about the legal details related to stalking. Eastern Panhandle Empowerment Center Victim Advocate for Jefferson County Jenna Hyde held a stalking awareness information table to start off the days events in the Rams Den, before moving to the Rumsey Gallery to host an informational meeting in the early afternoon. Its a collaboration, said SU Title Nine Coordinator Annie Lewin. Weve been working together for many years. With Stand Up, Dont Stand By, we wanted to do a stalking awareness event, and Jenna contacted us, so we just coordinated efforts. Stand Up, Dont Stand By is an institutional campaign to empower the campus community members to intervene and stop things from having, such as domestic and sexual violence. We also promote cultural respect on campus, Lewin said. I feel like this is a place where people stand up and intervene, even if its not this extreme, just standing up to disrespect. With this event, were giving the school the option to ask questions about stalking, Lewin said. According to Hyde, the event started with a good response from the Shepherd University community, despite that days bitter temperatures. We always have a few students who come by to take information, Hyde said. Were here to share with them what we do and what sort of support we can offer. Stalking is a course of conduct directed at a specific person that would cause a reasonable person to feel fear, Hyde said. I know we definitely see stalking happen to anyone, no matter the age. A lot of times it is tied in with other violence, as well. According to Hyde, those who think they may be experiencing stalking should keep a detailed record of the stalking instances. If the stalking is happening online, victims should screen shot and print off the evidence, and place it, along with any other evidence, into a paper bag. This evidence may help law enforcement identify and stop the perpetrator. Your best bet is to take online attacks to law enforcement, Hyde said. A lot of times, when its the repeated behavior of online stalking, not too much work must be done. Hyde also emphasized during the event, how EPEC has a 24/7 emergency hotline available at 304-263-8292, for those who need confidential assistance in the cases of stalking, as well as domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, dating violence and human trafficking. For more information about EPEC, visit www.epecwv.org or email info@swcinc.org. SHEPHERDSTOWN When Milton Hershey founded the Milton Hershey School on Nov. 15, 1909, he had one goal to help impoverished, healthy orphan boys build a promising future for themselves. According to Milton, [t]he value of our good is not measured by what it does, but by the amount of good it does to the one concerned. And, in the almost 100 years since his schools founding, Miltons legacy has done quite a lot of good for thousands of children from around the United States. Our school is run by the generosity of Milton and Catherine Hershey, through a deed of trust set up by Mr. Hershey, so we have quite a large endowment that allows us to continue to provide a promising education to students, said Stacey Spangenburg, MHS admissions counselor, in a phone interview on Friday. According to Spangenburg, the idea to create the school originated with Catherine, and since its creation has expanded its doors to include healthy male and female students from impoverished backgrounds. Right now we have well over 2,000 students on our campus. Their vision has expanded from 100 students to 2,119, Spangenburg said, mentioning students who attend the school are well cared for. Milton Hershey provides children with room and board, tuition, medical and dental care, clothing and activities. Students who qualify and are enrolled, we take care of the majority of their needs. One such student who qualified for and is currently enrolled in the school is high school freshman Trevor Jenkins. Now in his fourth year at the school, Jenkins family first heard about the school from his principal at Shepherdstown Elementary School, who recommended Jenkins older sister attend the school. Two years later, Jenkins received the same recommendation, making fifth grade his last year as a student in Shepherdstown. I was living with my grandparents at the time, because there were incarceration problems in my family with my parents, Jenkins said, mentioning his grandparents have seen him grow since he started attending MHS. Theyre proud and theyre happy that I can do more now and can accomplish more things. We were really stressed with money, but it relieves stress on them, because they can do more than they used to do. Since Jenkins joined the program at MHS, he has grown accustomed to the rigorous academic schedule and entered the law, public safety and security career pathway within the Career and Technical Education program. His free time is kept busy with community service projects, chores and working on campus, which Jenkins is doing to save up money for college. Although his parents and grandparents may still be living in Shepherdstown, Jenkins is surrounded by the support of his school teachers, house parents, school counselor and sisters. I miss being near family. Sometimes when youre here you get homesick a little, but over time you get used to it. I have two sisters here, so theyre there for me when I need them, Jenkins said, mentioning his younger sister started attending the school a couple years ago. MHS currently has 28 students from West Virginia, 17 of which are from the Eastern Panhandle. Admission to MHS is open to those between the ages of four and 15, and is determined by a variety of factors, which can be found at www.mhskids.org/admissions/admissions-considerations/. Families who would like to learn more can attend the MHS info session and dinner on Feb. 20 at 6 p.m. at the Golden Corral in Martinsburg. Attendees can show up without RSVPing, but are encouraged to RSVP at www.mhskids.org. SHEPHERDSTOWN The Shepherdstown Fire Department hosted their annual super bowl dinner on Sunday afternoon, ahead of the big match-up between the New England Patriots and the Los Angeles Rams. The event has been held at the station since 1991, a year after the company constructed its current facility. It was the idea of Terry Penwell and Larry Fritts, said Dennis Barron, treasurer for Company 3. Its the only just dinner we do as a fundraiser, Barron said, mentioning that other events that incorporate a meal at the department, include sportsman bashes, bingos and the apple butter festival. Sundays meal, consisting of ham and chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, rolls and assorted cakes, was served by members of the department. The members planned to serve up to 300 individuals; however, Barron indicated he thought it would be more like 225 Sunday. The company hosts multiple fundraisers throughout the year to help supplement state and local funding for the volunteer department. The funds raised from Sundays dinner were placed in the general budget fund, which covers a myriad of costs the department faces monthly. Its also a community event, said Chief Ross Morgan, before adding he feels very fortunate to be in the county he is in. We take care of our community, Ross said, as the volunteers regularly provide fire and rescue service not only to the immediate Shepherdstown area but the remainder of Jefferson County. They also assist Berkeley County and Washington County, Maryland when needed. We take care of them, and they take care of us, Morgan said, referring to those who join in the fundraising events such as Sundays dinner. Many Shepherdstown residents turned out Sunday to enjoy the pre-game meal, as well as some who traveled in from around the county. All came because they support the efforts of the volunteer departments and realize the benefit gained by the community from those who serve. I always go the Super Bowl dinner, said county resident Diane Viands, who attended with her mother. I try to always support the local fire companies. I know how hard it is to fundraise. Laughingly, she added, Plus, the food is always good! The departments next special event will be a 50-game bingo with dinner on April 6, followed on April 27 by a Chicken Barbecue and Cruise In. This is the first time we will do this event, said Barron. More information on events at the fire station can be found on the SVFD website. The company opens the facility to others who host fundraising events, as well. SHEPHERDSTOWN The Shepherdstown Fire Department has made an investment to help members who want to actively serve their community while going to college at Shepherd or even working a job full-time. The companys live-in program allows individuals, male or female, who are full-time students or employed, to live in dormitory-style housing at the station at no cost. Jon Stammer, of New Jersey, has taken advantage of the program as a Shepherd student. According to Stammer, the program is a win-win for both the department and the firefighter/emergency medical technician. It offers a quick response for the community and helps people starting out, too, Stammer said. Former live-in member Troy Matlock agreed. But you have to meet certain requirements, Matlock said. You have to be a cleared firefighter or EMT within one year and be able to drive the engine or ambulance. Currently there are six individuals taking advantage of the program, including Stammer. Housing is available for up to 10 members. This program was actually one of the reasons I chose Shepherd, Stammer said. He explained that his father is a firefighter, so he grew up around the station. While Stammer will graduate in May from Shepherd with a degree in computer engineering, he plans to continue to make the fire station his home, when he lands a full-time job, continuing to be an instrumental member of Shepherdstowns company. I plan to live in the area for a few more years, at least, Stammer said. Matlock shared he took advantage of the live-in program during the summers when he attended Shepherd. I lived on campus as a student, Matlock said. But I worked and ran calls in the summer. Matlock has been a member of Shepherdstowns department for over five years and attributes the live-in program and the training and experience he received at Shepherdstown with helping him in his career as a paid firefighter in Loudoun County, Virginia. While living in, the residents enjoy a communal living and kitchen area with individual bedrooms and shared bathroom facilities. There are five bedrooms which can house two individuals each. The living spaces are separated from any public area within the station and only the residents have access. Fire Chief Ross Morgan praised the program, saying it is a wonderful addition to the department. We need a few more, Morgan said, of the live-in positions. We are always looking for new members. Stammer and Matlock both discussed the training they have received while at Shepherdstown, all of which is paid by the department. A lot of training is offered at our station. We also go to a lot of classes in Washington County, Maryland where we are a mutual aid company, Matlock said, mentioning EMT training is offered many times at the countys Emergency Services Agency headquarters. The program really helps the community, Stammer said. Especially with night response for both fire and rescue. Livestock Improvement Corp, the dairy herd genetics cooperative, more than doubled its first half net profit as an emerging "no bull trend" gains traction and more farmers turn to artificial breeding to develop A2 herds and avoid exposing their herds to Mycoplasma bovis. Net profit for the six months to Nov. 30 was $32.8 million versus $15.1 million in the prior year. Revenue lifted 5 percent to $161 million while its assets, which include its bull teams, were valued at $409 million, up from $371 million a year earlier. Total artificial breeding sales were up on the previous year as more farmers extended their farms' AB period and opted for short gestation genetics over natural mating bulls, LIC said. Across the country, 36 percent more farms adopted an all AB mating plan than the previous year the biggest spike the co-op has seen in the emerging no-bull trend, board chair Murray King said. "This is partly due to the heightened biosecurity focus from Mycoplasma bovis but with the demand weve seen for other solutions its evident farmers are looking for opportunities to maximise their profitability and productivity," he said. New Zealand is still aiming to eradicate Mycoplasma bovis after the disease was first detected in a dairy herd in South Canterbury in July 2017. In May last year, the government announced it would attempt a 'phased eradication', at an estimated cost of $886 million over 10 years. The disease, commonly found in cows globally, does not affect people or meat quality but can have serious effects on cattle, including mastitis, pneumonia, arthritis and late-term abortions. King said the first half result was achieved even with the investment of more than $800,000 on new measures to protect customers from Mycoplasma bovis, including a world-leading daily testing regime of its bulls through the peak mating period. The co-op absorbed these costs to avoid additional price increases. Sales across LICs range of products were strong in New Zealand, particularly those that enable farmers to put more emphasis on cow quality over quantity, said King. LIC's "A2 bull team," introduced to meet the growing demand of A2 milk, was also in high demand, accounting for 10 percent of total AB sales in its debut season as more farmers look to breed A2 herds. Farmers are looking to establish herds with cows that produce milk containing only A2 beta-casein protein. Some consumers are willing to pay more for the milk as they believe it prevents the digestive problems they say they experience after drinking A1 milk. NZX-listed a2 Milk has had significant success with its A2 milk products and early last year a2 Milk and Fonterra announced a strategic partnership to establish an A1 protein-free milk pool in New Zealand and a new A1 protein-free milk pool in Australia. LIC also saw strong uptake in its premium genetics product, the Forward Pack bull team, which provides access to elite new genetics earlier to increase the rate of genetic gain on-farm, it said. Looking ahead, King said underlying earnings, which is net profit excluding bull valuation, at year-end is forecast to be in the range of $18 million to $22 million. That assumes no significant climate event or milk price drop takes place between now and then nor any major impacts from Mycoplasma bovis. LIC expects underlying earnings to increase to a range of $22 million to $28 million in 2019-20. (BusinessDesk) Comments from our readers No comments yet Add your comment: Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. 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Related News: 23rd June 2021 Morning Report 22nd June 2021 Morning Report 21st June 2021 Morning Report Infratil Limited (NZX: IFT) TPW Announces Conditional Sale of Its Retail Business Trustpower Limited (NZX: TPW) Announces Conditional Sale of Its Retail Business Mercury NZ Limited (NZX: MCY) Agrees to Acquire Trustpower's Retail Business Precinct Properties New Zealand Limited (NZX: PCT) $250m Equity Raise to Fund Wellington Acquisitions 17th June 2021 Morning Report 16th June 2021 Morning Report Investore Property Limited (NZX: IPL) Divestment of Dunedin Property [Content Note: Extortion; harassment; invasion of privacy.]Late yesterday, Amazon andmagnate Jeff Bezos published a piece on Medium detailing an extortion attempt by AMI, the owner of thewhich is helmed by David Pecker, a longtime friend of Donald Trump.The gist of it is this: AMI threatened to publish Bezos' private texts with the woman he was dating (while still legally married to someone else), including intimate images, if he didn't kill an investigation into AMI's journalistic malfeasance and "make the specific false public statement to the press that we 'have no knowledge or basis for suggesting that AMI's coverage was politically motivated or influenced by political forces.'"Instead of capitulating, Bezos fought back, and now he's making that fight public.The entire scenario is troubling on so many levels, especially since AMI has tried to extort other journalists in the same way, including Ronan Farrow and a number of AP reporters Primarily of concern to me is how AMI came to acquire Bezos' private text messages in the first place. (Which is something his personal investigator has been working to uncover.)Thes Will Bunch has some ideas about that, detailing them in a thread that begins with this tweet : "It came out of left field, but last night's bombshell developments seem to have exposed a tangled web involving the Saudis, MBS, their allies, Team Trump, global hacking rings, Khashoggi, the Washington Post, and Bezos that could take everything down."AMI often gets ahold of compromising materials that it has effectively used to blackmail people for decades, and its usual play to secure those materials is money and lots of it. But that seems unlikely here. It seems more likely that these private texts were intercepted by a state actor who had an interest in silencing thes investigations of AMI and its pursuit of the truth about who was behind the murder of its columnist, Jamal Khashoggi.Pecker has ties to Saudi Arabia, and, not long ago , AMI published "a slick, ad-free magazine" which was nearly 100 pages of favorable propaganda about Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, that was sold in U.S. supermarkets.Just a few months later, Pecker was given immunity by Special Counsel Bob Mueller as part of the Michael Cohen investigation. And he's apparently used that immunity to keep committing crimes on behalf of Donald Trump and his Saudi allies.Which is another troubling piece of this, at least to me. Pecker got immunity, and this is what he's doing with it. Yesterday, we also found out, care of Tom Winter at NBC News , that Paul Manafort "continued working for a political client in Ukraine into 2018, after he had already been indicted in Robert Mueller's probe," which he was able to do, of course, because he was not remanded, despite being a known national security risk.Jared Kushner is still in the White House. Manafort is still working with Putin-allied clients. Pecker is still harassing and threatening "enemies" of the president, possibly with the assistance of Saudi Arabia. I increasingly find it difficult to believe that the Mueller investigation will accomplish anything at all besides giving Republicans all the time they need to fully consolidate power.As Bezos said in his piece, if this is what they feel like they can do to someone with his wealth and influence, what are these sadistic crooks going to use their continued freedom to do to dissidents who have nothing with which to fight back but their own voices?I'm very sorry Bezos was put in this position, and I am very grateful that he was willing to make public this heinous campaign against him. I hope it will matter. English Lithuanian We hereby inform you that on the initiative and by the decision of the Board of AB Klaipedos nafta, legal entity code 110648893, registered address at Buriu str. 19, Klaipeda (hereinafter - the Company), an Extraordinary General Meeting of Shareholders of the Company was convened on 8th February 2019 at 1:00 p.m. The meeting was held in the registered office of the Company at Buriu str. 19, Klaipeda. Agenda of the meeting: Regarding the remuneration of the members of the Supervisory Board. Adopted decisions: 1. Regarding the remuneration of the members of the Supervisory Board. 1. Taking into account the amendments of legislation, related to the taxation applicable to remuneration, and in order to maintain the same net remuneration without increasing AB Klaipedos nafta labour cost on remuneration of the members of the Supervisory Board, to determine fixed monthly remuneration of 856,92 EUR excluding VAT for the independent member of the Supervisory Board, whereas to the chairman of Supervisory board, if independent Supervisory board member is elected, to determine fixed monthly remuneration of 1.140,59 EUR excluding VAT. 2. Remuneration of the independent members of the Supervisory Board, indicated in paragraph 1, shall be applicable for the Supervisory board member activity starting at 2019. Jonas Lenksas, Chief Financial Officer, tel.: +370 694 80594 Press Release February 8, 2019 Koko: pass 2019 budget to ensure funds for teachers' election pay Senate Trade and Commerce Committee Chairperson Aquilino "Koko" Pimentel III called for the passage of the 2019 national budget, thumbing down proposals to reenact last year's budget as this would negatively impact government programs, as well as the staging of the midterm national elections. Pimentel emphasized that the government's budget should not be held hostage to special interests. "Kung may agenda, huwag i-hostage ang national budget. Importante ang 2019 kaya ang panawagan ng Executive [Department], ipasa. 'Wag reenacted budget," said the senator from Mindanao. Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea had earlier stated that a reenacted budget would be "disastrous" for the economy. "I am sure Senate President Sotto would not want a reenacted budget as it will have a bad effect on our economy. He has been working hard against a reenacted budget. We are one against a reenacted budget," said the Palace official. Pimentel took the opportunity to allay fears that billions of pesos of congressional insertions had been included in the 2019 budget, saying what is crucial is that legislators are not allowed to determine the contractors of the projects, adding that he personally was not interested in infrastructure projects. "Hindi ako mahilig sa infra. Ang babantayan natin 'wag ma-determine ng mambabatas ang contractor na gagawa ng project," stressed the legislator. Pimentel added that aside from its negative effects on the economy, a reenacted budget would compromise the ability of the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) to hold the May national elections. According to Pimentel, reenacting the 2018 budget would preclude the COMELEC from compensating teachers tapped to serve in May. "Since the budget for the honoraria of teachers is not included in the 2018 budget, reenacting last year's budget would mean COMELEC would not be able to source funds for this," explained the lawyer. "The bottomline is we need the 2019 budget passed. This is a serious matter that demands immediate action. Our public school teachers deserve to be compensated for working during the elections. To let them work without pay would be heartless, unjust, and unfair." Press Release February 8, 2019 Senate minority bloc urges PH gov't to heed UN panel's decision on De Lima's case Minority senators have urged the Philippine government to heed the decision of the United Nations Human Rights Council - Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNHRC-WGAD) about the situation of their colleague, Sen. Leila M. de Lima. In Senate Resolution (SR) No. 1019, they urged the appropriate government agencies to comply with the recommendations of UNHRC-WGAD in its 13-page Opinion adopted during its 82nd session last Aug. 24 and was made public only last Nov. 30. "The Philippines as a member of the United Nations should always endeavor to 'fulfill in good faith the obligations assumed by them in according with the present Charter' as mandated by Article 2 paragraph 2 of the UN Charter," they said in SR 1019. "The Philippines as a member of the UNHRC must faithfully comply with its obligation to promote, protect and uphold the human rights of all regardless of sex, race, religion, or political beliefs, and opinions," they added. SR 1019 was signed by Senate Minority Leader Franklin M. Drilon, Senators Francis N. Pangilinan, Antonio F. Trillanes, Paolo Benigno Aquino IV and Risa Hontiveros two days before Congress takes a recess for the mid-term election. The UN working panel has recommended to the Philippine government to take needed steps to remedy De Lima's situation and conform it with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It has also asked the Philippine government to immediately release De Lima from unjust detention and accord her an enforceable right to compensation and other reparations, including her reinstatement in the positions from which she was ousted. The UN working panel also asked the government to ensure a full and independent investigation of the circumstances surrounding De Lima's arbitrary deprivation of liberty and take appropriate measures against those responsible for violating her right. The minority senators, however, noted that since it has issued its decision, the UN working panel has not received any reply to its request from the Philippine government to inform them about action taken on their recommendations. In its decision, the UNHRC-WGAD considered De Lima's pre-trial detention as "targeted and discriminatory," "is devoid of legal basis," and therefore, should be freed immediately. It has also referred her case to three UN special rapporteurs to investigate the violations committed against her after finding sufficient grounds that violate her rights as a duly-elected senator and a human rights defender. Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression David Kaye was tasked to look into the violations committed against De Lima for her "convictions and public statements regarding extrajudicial killings in the Philippines." Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences Dubravka Simonovic was tasked to look into the discrimination committed against De Lima due to her political opinion and her status as a human rights defender and as a woman. Mindful of the illegal ouster of former Supreme Court Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers Diego Garcia-Sayan was tasked to look into violations of De Lima's rights for a fair trial. Press Release February 8, 2019 Senate Ratifies 2019 National Budget Following the signing of the bicameral conference committee report on the disagreeing provisions of the proposed 2019 General Appropriations Act (GAA), the Senate ratified the said report during its session today, Friday. Legarda, Chair of the Senate Committee on Finance, led the Senate conferees in meeting their counterparts from the House of Representatives, led by Committee on Appropriations Chair Congressman Rolando Andaya Jr., for the signing of the bicam report at Camp Aguinaldo in Quezon City. "The 2019 national budget is a product of hard work and discernment. The amendments of the Senators are institutional amendments. These are agency requests that have gone through the process and have been thoroughly studied, vetted and deemed important, but funding for such were not considered in the National Expenditure Program (NEP) and the General Appropriations Bill (GAB)," said Legarda. During the Senate's session, Legarda presented the amendments considered in the bicam report. "These infrastructure projects were requested by agencies and included in their Tier 2 proposal to the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) and subject of letter requests and program of works (POW). The 2019 budget continues to support the Build, Build, Build program of the Administration," said Legarda. The institutional amendments that were considered in the bicam report include the restoration of P15 Billion for Health Facilities Enhancement Program (HFEP) and a provision of P4.797 Billion for Human Resource for Health Development. We have increased the allocation for medical assistance for indigent patients, as well as provided funds for medicines for cancer patients. Under the Department of Education (DepEd), additional P800 million was provided for the allowance of teachers to be given during World Teachers' Day. Additional budget was also given for Quality Teacher and Development Program, Computerization Program. To support the educational needs of our students, we have given additional allocation for school buildings and textbooks. Funding of P1 billion has likewise been provided to effectively implement RA 11037, an Act which Institutionalizes a National Feeding Program in Schools. Additional funding for capital outlay has been given for selected SUCs, in the amount of P2.421 billion. We have provided a budget for the needs of the University of the Philippines, the country's premier state university, as well as for the salary adjustment of teachers in state universities and colleges (SUCs) as provided for under the NBC 461. We ensured enough funding for the continuation of social services programs such as the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), cash for work, and Pangkabuhayan Program of the DOLE. There is also funding for the purchase of medicines for veterans and funding for Bahay Pag-asa Centers, to address the needs of the children in conflict with the law. For our overseas Filipino workers, augmentation in the DOJ's budget is for the creation of a special task force and victims' assistance program. Additional budget has been likewise provided under the Department of Labor and Employment budget, to be used for emergency repatriation of our OFWs, worker protection and welfare program, employment facilitation program. The Commission on Elections will also receive an allocation for overseas Filipinos absentee voting and postage fees. To support the growth of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), there is additional funding in the Department of Trade and Industry's (DTI) Shared Service Facilities (SSF) and Negosyo Centers, which intends to increase the productivity of MSMEs by giving them access to efficient technologies, skills, knowledge, and systems. To improve the delivery of social services, there is a budget allocation for the establishment of public markets nationwide, under the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG). The budget of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) has been increased to provide for the grants-in-aid for Disaster Preparedness, PhilMicrosat, Defense and Human Security, S&T Creative Industry and Tourism and Nutrigenomics. In addition, the Judiciary will receive additional funds for the following, namely, the construction of the Cagayan de Oro Complex and halls of justice under the Supreme Court; construction of Sandiganbayan II building for the Sandiganbayan; initial funding for the construction of the Court of Appeals building and additional funding for personnel services, MOOE and CO for the entire Judiciary. The Office of the Ombudsman will be given additional funds for its restructuring requirements, which will include adjustments in PS, MOOE and CO. For our correctional facilities, the amount of 1 billion has been provided under the budget of the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor). This is for the construction, repair, rehabilitation of prison facilities in Palawan, Davao, Leyte, Mandaluyong (NCR) and Zamboanga, so as to decongest the existing prison facilities. The increase in the Department of Information and Communication Technology (DICT) is for the ICT industry and countryside development, national broadband and cybersecurity and augmentation for the operating requirements of National Telecommunications Commission. We provided funds to the Philippine National Police (PNP), under the DILG, for a 911 Command Center, which shall serve as a coordinating center for our citizens that are in need of assistance. We also increased the MOOE of the PNP to increase the police's per capita allowance. Motor Vehicles and Firefighting Equipment are also provided for under the 2019 budget. Under the Department of National Defense (DND), funding has been allocated for the purchase of additional hardware to strengthen national security and the needs of our military, as well as for the creation of an infantry division for Mindanao. We also provided funding for the increase in allowance and hiring of additional troops of the Citizen Armed Force Geographical Unit (CAFGU). Meanwhile, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) budget received an additional funding for existing consular offices and embassies, for the opening of new consulates and embassies, training programs, among others. Funding for arts and culture is likewise central under the 2019 budget. We have increased the funding of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) for its various cultural activities. The National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP) has additional budget for the restoration/ conservation of historical sites and memorials on historical events and personages, including the commemoration of the 500thanniversary of Ferdinand Magellan's voyage to the Philippines. The 2019 budget has also reflected realignments within the Unprogrammed Fund to provide for the following: a) P10 billion for Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund; b) P10 Billion for the Coconut Farmers and Industry Development Fund; c) P18 billion for the Implementation of the Universal Health Care; and; d) P30 Billion for the Organic Law for the Bangsamoro Region in Muslim Mindanao. Finally, several special provisions have been introduced in the 2019 budget. These include the following: Implementation of Environmental Laws: Local Government Units shall be responsible for the implementation and enforcement of environmental laws, including, but not limited to, the Philippine Clean Air Act, Philippine Clean Water Act, Ecological Solid Waste Management Act. Ban on single-use plastics. Local Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office. The DILG shall ensure the creation of the Local Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office in all LGUs. Establishment of Multihazard Impact-based Forecasting and Early Warning Systems. Pool of Registered Guidance Counselors, which shall be provided by the Department of Education to provide and monitor a mental health policy for students. Deficiencies in the Funds for Devolved Functions to LGUs shall be automatically appropriated as part of the IRA. "These are just some of the programs that we have provided for under the 2019 budget. This year's budget continues to put in its core what is essential for sustainable development: the basic needs of our people and our nation," Legarda concluded. Press Release February 8, 2019 Living Without Pork (Part II) February 8, 2019 Privilege Speech by: Senator Panfilo M. Lacson More at: https://pinglacson.net/2019/02/08/living-without-pork-part-ii Mr. President, I rise before you on a matter of personal and collective privilege. "To See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil" Mr. President, put literally, this proverbial adage serves as an age-old directive for dealing with impropriety -- by looking the other way, refusing to hear and speak out, and feigning ignorance when something wrong is unfolding. To abide by this rule can only worsen the people's lives in ways we could hardly imagine. Mr. President, in all my years as a member of this institution, I have been at odds with an 'evil' called pork and all that it represents. Between you and me, I could have easily turned a blind eye, willfully shut my ears, and stayed silent as a grave. That would have made my life more simple, peaceful, and probably very prosperous and enjoyable. However, Mr. President, to see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil to a system as grim as the undead pork barrel, no matter how much self-aggrandizement it offers, goes against my compunction and self-respect. As the abolished "pork barrel" shows itself anew, dynamic and changeable; resounds in the halls of our country's legislature; and speaks of the insatiability of corruption, how can one, in good conscience, not see, hear, and speak of it? Mr. President, with your indulgence, let me detail to you what I view as a pork-ridden, cholesterol-rich 2019 budget, particularly those lodged in the budget of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH). Mr. President, the Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) set a P480-billion budget ceiling for the DPWH, even as the agency asked the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) for consideration of the agency budget of P651 billion. The National Expenditure Program (NEP), meanwhile, proposed a P555-billion budget for the DPWH. It takes basic arithmetic to know that there is a difference of 75 billion pesos between the DBCC's budget ceiling and that of the NEP's -- such an exorbitant additional amount unrecognized by the DPWH secretary and known to him only upon the release of the NEP, and which the DBM secretary simply refers to as "adjustment." Just very recently, during last Wednesday evening's caucus to be exact, a valid source had a word in our ears that the 75 billion pesos had been earlier peddled to contractors across the country, region by region, at a 20% commission per project cost. That would be a sum of 15 billion pesos worth of taxpayers' money to the pockets of its proponents and cohorts. Records would reveal later, as we discovered during our diligent scrutiny of the proposed budget, that 11 billion pesos out of the P75 billion was actually under Automatic Appropriations, specifically the notoriously corrupt Motor Vehicle User Charge (MVUC). Albeit rather vaguely, then House Majority Leader Rolando Andaya made public under whose discretion and to which projects the 75 billion pesos was allotted. Congressman Andaya asserted that many of his colleagues in the House of Representatives formerly aligned with then Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, "including some senators" (his words, not mine), were the proponents and beneficiaries of the P75 billion "insertion or adjustment" made by the DBM even when it was still under the National Expenditure Program. Hence, when the new leadership of the House of Representatives took over last July, in defiance of the established time-honored parliamentary rules, they disregarded their budget's plenary approval on second reading, formed a small group committee, and mangled beyond recognition the DPWH-proposed budget, specifically those projects that they believed were part of the P75 billion. Simply put, the apparent pork insertions from the alleged connivance of the DBM and the old leadership of the House of Representatives were deliberately reallocated by the newly-assumed leadership as their own pork barrel. Mr. President, kanya-kanyang sipag at kayod sa paglilipat-lipat ng alokasyon sa "pork," pero iisa pa rin ang patutunguhan - sa kani-kanilang mga "baboy kural." How the 75 billion pesos transmogrified into pork of unconscionable form is mind-boggling. Hence, in the interest of our people, I reconstructed the trail to where the "pork" leads. Mr. President, with your indulgence, let me reiterate our discovery: We start off with the 51.792 billion-peso budget, which was allegedly a big chunk of the 75 Billion-peso budget inserted or amended by the House of Representatives. Of this amount, 20 billion pesos was distributed equally among the almost 300 congressmen, which translates into P60 million per congressman plus additional allocations to those close to the leadership of the House of Representatives. These are all embodied in the General Appropriations Bill (GAB) or the House version transmitted to the Senate. Let me emphasize, however, that while the present leadership of the House of Representatives distributed P60 million per congressman from that P51.792 billion, each congressman has already a minimum allocation of P100 million under the NEP. With the new House of Representatives' leadership distributing P60 million more to each congressman, the total new 'standard' reinvented pork per congressman is now a staggering 160 million pesos, thus creating a "NEW NORMAL" in the pork barrel system. With such amount of money, I do not need all of my brain's frontal lobe to get what is at stake for some designated 'talking heads' from the House of Representatives leadership to take turns in vilifying my reputation, even ascribing ill motive to my intentions. Kung ating susumahin, halos pantay-pantay ang partihan sa nakitang "pork." Hindi ba nakapagtataka na pare-pareho ang alokasyon sa bawat distrito - malaki man o maliit, mahirap man o mayaman - at walang pinagbatayan kung hindi ang diskarte ng liderato ng Kongreso sa pamamahagi ng budget? This observation, Mr. President, is not new as the Supreme Court itself observed in the PDAF case that, and I quote: "the gauge of PDAF and CDF allocation and/or division is based solely on the fact of office, without taking into account the specific interests and peculiarities of the district the legislator represents. In this regard, the allocation and/or division limits are clearly not based on genuine parameters of equality, wherein economic or geographic indicators have been taken into consideration." Allowing legislators to identify projects of their discretion is unnerving. We dare ask: Is it not tantamount to the very definition of pork barrel where appropriations of public funds are arbitrarily identified by legislators for pet projects that serve the interests of local districts they represent? Going back to this 51.792 billion-peso chunk of the now infamous P75-billion "Diokno insertion," what was left after the distribution of P60 million per congressman was P31.792 billion pesos, which were lodged in different government agencies and programs, to name a few, to the Local Government Support Fund, to the NDRRMF, DOLE, DSWD, DOH, and finally, to DPWH, which retained a mere 7 billion pesos. Mr. President, what is most appalling on this tale of horror was the allocation for farm-to-market road projects that significantly bloated from the NEP to the House Version. If we look at the cursory level, there is a net increase from the NEP allocation for farm-to-market road projects to GAB of just 1.7 billion pesos. However, as often said that the devil is in the details, our scrutiny of the farm-to-market road projects under the GAB reveals that the new leadership of the House of Representatives shuffled some budget items resulting in 6.1 billion pesos of new farm-to-market road projects. Needless to say, these excessive reallocation and insertions are mere transfer of 'farm-to-pocket roads' from some congressmen's pockets to the others. To sum it up in one phrase: from farm-to-market, to farm-to-pocket, to pocket-to-pocket. Random sampling of local districts proves us right: in the 2nd legislative district of Pampanga, there are only five FMR projects worth P35 million under the NEP, but, lo and behold, it increased to 76 FMR projects amounting to P606 million under the House version, and which is now part of the bicameral committee report that we are about to vote on to ratify. Another remarkable example is the first district of Surigao, which budget for FMR projects ballooned to P283 million under the House version from zero FMR budget under the NEP. Maitanong ko lang: Ilan po ba ang mga gulayan at palayan sa 2nd legislative district ng Pampanga, at ilan naman kaya ang pamilihang bayan sa naturang distrito para magtamasa ng katakot-takot na farm-to-market road projects? Mr. President, there is no sense of propriety in partaking in unconstitutional "pork" allocations. What is worse than this is taking more slabs of "pork" by merit of power. Humor me, the much publicized rift among the members of the House of Representatives unlikely grew from "inequitable" pork allocations perpetrated by those in the higher ranks. Mr. President, is it not logical, conscionable, and self-redeeming that we, members of the legislative branch, present a united front against the evil reincarnate that is called pork? Mr. President, we have heard disturbing revelations from the House of Representatives and in this very hall during the 2019 budget floor deliberations pertaining to the 75 billion pesos' worth of projects of some legislators and other government officials allegedly inserted into the original P480-billion submission of the DPWH without its knowledge. In light of this, we asked the DPWH to submit to us a list of projects that are part of their original submission of P480 billion. On January 15, 2019, the DPWH, with clear conscience on the "Diokno adjustment," did submit the list of projects to the Chair of the Committee on Finance and copy furnished my office. It consists of line-item infrastructure projects worth 465.510 billion pesos. Pray tell, what does the difference between P480 billion and P465 billion suggest to us? Once and for all, to eviscerate all pork allocations introduced in the 2019 DPWH budget, we proposed during the period of amendments, that the Senate adopt the DPWH original submission of 465.510 billion-peso budget, exclusive of the 11 billion peso automatic appropriations, as the agency's budget for 2019. With the amendment, we were able to create a fiscal space of P50.957 billion. In addition, as the DPWH conceded during my interpellations that they still have enough budget for Right-of-Way (ROW) Acquisitions and would not need the full amount of P28.889 Billion under the proposed 2019 Budget, hence they offered and we proposed to reduce their ROW budget by P8.889 billion. Thus, of the P60.937-billion total decrease made in the DPWH budget during the second reading of the Senate version, the 59.7 billion pesos came from the above-mentioned amendments made by this Representation. Unfortunately, Mr. President, the net change in the second reading version of the Senate for the DPWH budget is only P37.650 billion. This is because P23.286 billion worth of new projects were introduced in the DPWH budget during the second reading of the Senate version. Now here lies the problem, Mr. President. Mr. President, currently, this Chamber has only 23 senators. To a suspicious public, we could all be complicit in introducing our own pork to the budget of the DPWH. If split up in metaphoric "hating-kapatid," this will amount to more than P1 billion per senator. But since I am absolutely sure that I have not availed of any portion of the P23.2 billion, and I have knowledge that quite a number of our colleagues likewise did not partake of whatever slice there was from that P23.2-billion "pizza pie," ergo, some members of this chamber must be smarter and luckier than the others. As to the recent claim of Congressman Andaya about the P3-billion pork allocation per senator, huwag po natin siyang paniwalaan dahil sadyang napakalayo sa katotohanan ang kanyang komputasyon. In passing, insertions in the DPWH is only part and parcel of the bigger picture. In fact, a perusal of the Senate version will show us new projects whose proponents are easily identifiable, and which intentions are ludicrous. The illustrative sample shown herein which reads, "Additional Funding for Fuel Allocation and Intelligence Fund for the Province of xxxxx," (deletion mine, Mr. President) with 50-million peso appropriations lodged in the PNP/DILG budget, if released, it is surely a winning candidate for COA "red flag" for several reasons: First, accounting rules differ for Intelligence Funds and Regular Funds such as fuel allocation; Second, under the enumerated Object of Expenditures of the Philippine National Police, there is no such item that corresponds to "fuel allocation and intelligence fund"; Third, the release of intelligence fund is subject to the approval of the President, as stipulated under COA-DBM-DILG-GCG-DND Joint Circular No. 2015-01; and Finally, it raises policy questions on the use and utilization of intelligence funds. Mr. President, the very intent of my amendments was to cleanse the DPWH budget of the stains of pork. Unwittingly, my amendment created a fiscal opportunity for some. And along with that, the Senate lost its opportunity to take the moral high ground. With a heavy heart, I submit that neither House has moral ascendancy over the other. The DPWH budget has been a traditional prey to swine rushing to get more slabs of "pork" more than they can consume. But other agencies and budget items are not spared from the evils of pork. Mr. President, let me briefly discuss the equally compelling reasons of my dissent and disgust: During the interpellations on the proposed 2019 budget, we showed photos, and even official communications from universities that prove how certain legislators actively participate in the implementation of the Tulong Dunong Program. Legislators utilize this program to further their brand of patronage politics and refuse to delete the same even when it had become redundant and superfluous due to the passage of the more comprehensive and inclusive Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act. Mr. President, for two years now, we have been seeking the transfer of the allocation for the Tulong Dunong Program to the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education. For the 2018 budget, our proposal was flatly rejected. For this year, the Chairperson of the Finance Committee agreed with our proposition during the budget deliberations. However, when the second reading was up for approval, Tulong Dunong program has been retained. Mr. President, we did not seek for the reduction of the budget for education. What we are up against is the use of a program as a source of pork for legislators and to advance patronage politics. Tulong Dunong program is nothing but a pork masquerading as a scholarship program. In characterizing pork barrel, some legislators often hurl at us the definition stated in the Supreme Court's Belgica vs. Executive Secretary ruling that, and I quote: "the defining feature of all forms of Congressional Pork Barrel would be the authority of legislators to participate in the post-enactment phases of project implementation." In an attempt not only to circumvent the law but even to mislead the public, some legislators would argue the Belgica ruling states that pork barrel is unconstitutional only insofar as it confers post-enactment identification authority to members of Congress. However, I would like to over-emphasize the Belgica ruling, which defines, among others, the acts that are deemed unconstitutional, and I quote: "(d) all informal practices of similar import and effect, which the Court similarly deems to be acts of grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction; xxx" Mr. President, by subjecting a government program such as Tulong Dunong to informal practices such as implementation by legislators, we condone acts of grave abuse of discretion and puts the integrity of the program in question. Mr. President, during the budget interpellations, I raised the exponential increase in the allocation for Other Financial Assistance to Local Government Units-Local Government Support Fund, under the Allocations to Local Government Units (ALGU), from P7 billion to P16 billion. The DBM, as the one managing the fund, explained, through the Finance Committee Chairperson, that they were not consulted with the increase nor did they have a list of municipalities for whom the amount will be allocated. In the same vein, the DILG, the Department of Interior and Local Government, expressed that they have no knowledge or participation in the implementation of the fund. Mr. President, without consultation and a list of LGUs, the 7-plus-9-billion increase under the Other Financial Assistance to Local Government Units is a lump sum appropriation. For those reasons, I moved to revert the allocation for Other Financial Assistance to Local Government Units to its NEP level of 7 billion pesos, or a reduction of 9 billion pesos. However, Mr. President, to my dismay, in the second reading version of the Senate, only 8.132 billion pesos was deducted. This means that the Senate version introduced additional 917 million pesos to the original allocation of P7 billion for this fund. The Supreme Court, in Belgica ruling states, and I quote: "What beckons constitutional infirmity are appropriations which merely provide for a singular lump-sum amount to be tapped as a source of funding for multiple purposes. " May I ask therefore, Mr. President, were the DBM and the DILG consulted when the Senate introduced the additional 917 million to Other Financial Assistance to Local Government Units? Is there a list of LGUs, and the corresponding projects, that will be funded by this 917 million pesos? If there is, why is it that it was not attached to the second reading version of the Senate? Hindi ko na lang itatanong kung sino na naman ang nagkaroon ng dagdag 917 million. Mr. President, as I mentioned, the intent of reverting the allocation for Other Financial Assistance to Local Government Units to the NEP level of 7 billion pesos was that the increase was a lump sum appropriations, and that it is also to prevent the introduction of pork within the fund. Mr. President, the scrutiny of the national budget is taxing and oftentimes frustrating, but I take on the job to rid of the budget with compulsive corruption. The unconstitutional pork barrel falls under the Commission on Audit definition of unconscionable, irregular, excessive, extravagant, or unnecessary; an immoderate budget, and which no man in his right sense would make, nor a fair and honest man would accept as reasonable. Mr. President, Representative Andaya, provided members of the Bicameral Conference Committee of House members' allocations under the 2019 proposed budget. The amounts are revolting. The highest allocation amounted to 8.4 billion pesos and the lowest at 408 million pesos. The allocations for all 241 district representatives reached a staggering amount of 387.727 billion pesos. This is 13.4 percent of the P2.882 trillion new appropriations for 2019. Looking back, when the Supreme Court ruled the pork barrel unconstitutional in 2013, the country heaved a sigh of relief. However, as today's reality unfolds before us, we cannot deny that the ruling unintentionally resulted in unbridled pork consumption of legislators - from then estimated P70 million pork allocation per Congressman in 2003 to at least P408 million this year, if we go by the document shared by Cong. Andaya. Mr. President, many would discredit my assertions on pork barrel insertions in both Houses. Thus, in the spirit of transparency and to dismiss any suspicion, I am forthright in making all my budget amendments available to public scrutiny. I pose a challenge to all lawmakers from both houses of Congress to henceforth do the same - own up to all our budget amendments. Let the people know. We all claim and boldly announce to all and sundry that all of our amendments are institutional and that we do not have pork insertions. Then let us put our money where our mouth is. Mr. President, in this same hall, 16 years ago, on March 11, 2003, I delivered a scathing privilege speech unequivocally calling for the abolition of the pork barrel system that has marred our political institutions for decades. It fell on deaf ears until 2013 or 10 years later, when the controversial pork barrel scam involving Janet Lim-Napoles exploded right into our faces. Mr. President, my esteemed colleagues, I wish to reiterate a statement I made in 2003 still fitting and applicable to this day: "There is no saying here that every senator or congressman is corrupt. It is only to say that we have all become suspect. The public has every basis and right to suspect. And we seem not to mind anymore." Today, pork barrel presents itself as an evil reincarnate, taunting and tempting us, hiding in the shroud of feigned public service. Pork proves that the irresistible lure of money moves men and women of power who should be the guardians of the public treasury, to devise cunning machinations to further their own selfish interests. In response, I share my conviction that as long as I see and hear evil in all its transformations, I will be as consistent and passionate not only in speaking of it, but in fighting tooth and nail against its rebirth. Thank you, Mr. President. Press Release February 8, 2019 Drilon says no to 2019 national budget Senate Minority Leader Franklin M. Drilon on Friday voted no to the approval of the proposed 2019 General Appropriations Act, as he likened its passage, without giving Congress sufficient time to scrutinize it, to signing a blank check. "I dissent from the approval of the proposed 2019 General Appropriations Act," Drilon said. "It is unfortunate that the Senate did not have sufficient time to review the General Appropriations Bill submitted by the House of Representatives and the reconciled version of the conference committee," Drilon lamented. "To give my vote to this budget is like signing a blank check. I simply cannot do that," he said. The minority leader also denied reports that senators will get P3 billion in pork allocation, including a province in the Visayas getting more than P3 billion. He called the allegation "grossly unfair". "I deny and take exception to that allegation. I would like to make of record that the province referred to is not my province of Iloilo," he stressed. Drilon disclosed all the amendments he made in the budget, urging his colleagues to do the same "for purposes of transparency which we owe to the Filipino people." "The unsubstantiated and unfair claims regarding pork barrel allocations make each member of the Senate a suspect," he said. "In the spirit of transparency and to erase the cloud of doubt hanging over the Senate, I appeal to the members of this chamber to make a similar disclosure," he stressed. Drilon, who has been actively scrutinizing the country's spending outlay for the past 20 years, said he is not convinced that the 2019 national budget is in sync with what this government wants to accomplish, lamenting lack of congruence. "In my 20 years in the Senate, I have made it a personal advocacy to scrutinize the national budget, which is the most important piece of legislation that goes through the Congress. The national budget is the most effective tool for good governance," he said. Drilon also appealed to the Filipino people to remain vigilant in the implementation of 2019 national budget. Press Release February 8, 2019 Dispatch from Crame No. 464: SEN. LEILA M. DE LIMA ON THE HOUSE COMMITTEES' RECOMMENDATION TO FILE CHARGES AGAINST PNOY, ET. AL. 2/8/19 The House Committees on Health and Good Government recently came out with a report recommending the filing of graft charges against former President Benigno S. Aquino III, former Budget Sec. Florencio Abad, and former Health Sec. Janet Garin in the acquisition of the Dengvaxia vaccine. The recommendation is indeed questionable, as argued by Rep. Kaka Bag-ao, because the previous panel Chair found no basis for such a recommendation. It is only now under the leadership of Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo that the House panel found the former administration officials liable. Evidently, this move of the House panel is politically-motivated. It is highly ironic that this report comes out at a time when a health crisis is in the offing due to the Dengvaxia scare instigated by PAO Chief Persida Acosta and Duterte's social media minions. There is now a measles outbreak as declared by the DOH. This was totally preventable by vaccination which many did not avail of because of the panic created in her effort to pin down previous administration officials for supposed deaths caused by Dengvaxia. Acosta's grandstanding in her malicious prosecution of the Dengvaxia issue has cost the government years of progress in its vaccination programs. The Dengvaxia scare is one of the most despicable politically-driven actions ever contrived. At the cost of public health and safety, a government official was allowed by the Duterte Administration to single-handedly destroy the people's trust in the DOH's vaccination programs. All this was sacrificed in Acosta's hope of endearing herself to Duterte by delivering PNoy's and the other's heads in a silver platter. The same political motivations characterize the House panel report. Prominent lawyer and senatorial candidate Chel Diokno is correct. This smacks of political retaliation. I just hope that the DOJ and the Ombudsman before whom the cases have been filed against PNoy, et. al. would not be swayed by political pressure in resolving these cases. Press Release February 8, 2019 De Lima supports independent probe on Mindanao bombings Opposition Senator Leila M. de Lima has expressed her support to calls by some quarters for an independent probe into the recent spate of bombings in Mindanao as she questioned the administration's use of intelligence funds to avert terrorist attacks. De Lima said there are lingering questions that have remained unanswered about the bombings in a Catholic church in Jolo, Sulu as well as in a mosque in Zamboanga City, leaving scores of people dead and injuring several others. "Kaya sinusuportahan ko po ang panawagan sa isang hiwalay at malayang imbestigasyon sa nangyaring pambobomba sa Jolo at Zamboanga. Kailangang lumabas ang katotohanan. Maraming namatay at naulila at ang insidente ay nagdulot ng lubhang pangamba sa publiko," she said. Last Jan. 29, at least 20 people, including civilians and troops, died while 111 others were injured after an improvised explosive device (EID) exploded inside and outside the premises of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Cathedral in Jolo, Sulu. The following day, another two people were killed while four others were injured when a grenade exploded on a mosque in Zamboanga City. The two bomb explosions took place after the Bangsamoro people voted to ratify the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL) or Republic Act No. 11054, and a few days short of the plebiscite on the ratification of the BOL last Jan. 29. In her recent Dispatch from Crame No. 461, De Lima also expressed doubts over Duterte's ability to protect the Filipino people from terrorist attacks despite his "gangster-like" antics which he brazenly bragged about during his several public speeches. "If, indeed, it was the terrorists who did the bombings, it also proves one thing: That the gangster-like antics of Duterte cannot protect the people against terrorists and neither can he scare them away to curb their agenda," she said. "The first was Marawi, now Jolo and Zamboanga. His threats are nothing but empty words to real terrorists. To put it bluntly, he is mighty in words, but inept in action. What are our intelligence assets doing, or where are the funds to run the intelligence gathering?," she added. According to the former justice secretary, the Filipino people, especially the families of those who were killed and injured deserve to know the whole unfettered truth about this recent spate of bombings that rocked Mindanao region. "An act of violence is one too many. I urge the discerning public to also monitor the situation in Mindanao. We must always demand for the truth against the backdrop of lies and fake news by this deceptive regime. We cannot all too often be taken for a ride," she said. As early as June last year, De Lima has called on security authorities to step up efforts in preventing insurgent groups from launching a series of bomb attacks using EIDs following reports of the presence of ISIS-trained makers in the region. Sen. Bam: Set aside politics, prioritize welfare of children at risk Let's set aside politics and focus first on the welfare of children at risk. Sen. Bam Aquino issued this call amid the measles outbreak in different parts of the country. "Tama na po ang turuan at sisihan. Tama na po ang pamumulitika. Unahin po ang mga bata dahil nasa matinding panganib ang ating mga anak," said Sen. Bam. Sen. Bam made the appeal after the Department of Health (DOH) expanded the outbreak declaration to other regions such as Calabarzon, Western Visayas and Central Visayas, in addition to Metro Manila and Central Luzon. "Kailangan din po tayong matuto sa trahedyang ito na hindi dapat pinupulitika ang kalusugan ng ating mga kabataan," added Sen. Bam, who called on the government to establish an inter-agency task force that will immediately address the measles outbreak. The senator said the inter-agency task force should be led by the DOH and joined by other agencies such as the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG), Department of Education and the Philippine Information Agency (PIA). "The inter-agency task force will address the needs of the victims and conduct an aggressive and sustained health promotion drive to get parents to have their kid vaccinated," said Sen. Bam. The lawmaker also called on the public to cooperate with the government and help it stop this public menace. "May mga anak din po ako na bata pa, umaapila po ako sa mga kapwa ko magulang na pabakunahan agad ang ating mga anak," Sen. Bam said. Royal Caribbean involvement? One report said ITM Group is working with Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. on the Grand Bahama project. Robert Shamosh, head of commercial affairs for ITM Group, told Seatrade Cruise News his company has no comment at this time. Costa Maya, Puerto Plata, Roatan ITM are the developers of Puerto Costa Maya; Taino Bay, a new cruise port at Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic; and of Roatan's cruise port expansion. According to the Nassau Guardian, Freeport Harbour would be turned into a park called Harbour Village, with a lagoon, restaurants, bars and immersive experiences, while the Grand Lucayan would be transformed into Lucayan Islands, featuring a water park with multiple islands, a beach club, resort accommodations and convention center. Multi-modal transportation between the cruise port and Lucayan Islands would be developed. The Nassau Guardian said ITM Group is projecting 2m cruise passengers a year could be gained. Four cruise berths The Guardian did not mention Royal Caribbean, while the Tribune said the cruise giant was partnering with ITM and the project would include four mega cruise berths. An unnamed source told the Tribune that Hutchison Whampoa, which has management control and a 50% stake in Freeport Harbour Co., backs ITM Group's plans. English Lithuanian Siauliu Bankas AB (hereinafter referred to as the Bank), company code 112025254, domicile address Tilzes st. 149, Siauliai, Lithuania. Upon completion of the pre-trial investigation regarding the circumstances of usage of the credit issued by the Bank (see Bank's report as of 5 June 2018 ), the lawsuit was transferred to the Klaipeda Regional Court by decision of the Klaipeda Regional Prosecutor's Office. Credit of 7.5 million euros issued to company "Nidos pusynas" relating to the entrepreneur Vladimir Romanov and his close associates was granted in 2012 a while before declaring the bankruptcy of Ukio bankas and the real estate owned by the company had been pledged to secure the repayment of the credit. Currently, the credit agreement has expired, the collateral has been realized, the credit has been covered and the company "Nidos pusynas" has been liquidated. No financial claims have been expressed with regard to Siauliu Bankas in this lawsuit. The court will investigate circumstances of 7.5 million euros credit issued to company "Nidos pusynas" and its use performed by Vlamir Romanov and his associates. The actions taken by Vytautas Sinius, who chaired the Loan Committee in 2012 and other two Bank's employees (who took the positions of Head of Siauliai Branch and Director of Treasury Department in 2012) will also be investigated regarding issue of the credit in the aformentioned credit granting process. The Bank emphasizes that all requirements imposed on credit institution and credit granting procedures were complied with when granting the credit. The Bank informed the Bank of Lithuania about theinitiated legal proceeds. The Bank ensures that it meets all operational requirements. The on-going legal proceedings shall not affect the continuity of the Bank's activities and daily work. Communication specialist of Marketing and Communication Department Monika Rozyte shall provide additional information and is available on tel. (85) 2 103 369. CALGARY, Alberta, Feb. 08, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Voyageur Minerals Ltd. (TSX.V:VM) (the Company or Voyageur). At the request of IIROC the Company wishes to clarify and retract certain disclosure in the news release disseminated by the Company on February 5, 2019. Specifically: The news release makes several references to ore. The term ore is a restricted term only to be used when referencing mineral reserves. No mineral reserves have been delineated on the Companys properties or are supported by a pre-feasibility or feasibility study. The disclosure states that the Company has made a decision to proceed to production without first establishing mineral reserves. Companion Policy 43-101CP, 4.2(6) Production Decision, requires specific disclosure addressing the risks associated with proceeding to production without first establishing mineral reserves. This disclosure is not provided in the news release. The disclosure lowest cost barium contrast product available for the current market place and two properties suitable in grade for the industrial barite market place is misleading as no preliminary economic assessment, preliminary feasibility study or feasibility study has been completed to support the economic viability and technical feasibility of the project. All disclosure referencing sales of the product to both domestic and foreign markets are misleading as no preliminary economic assessment, preliminary feasibility study or feasibility study has been completed to support the economic viability and technical feasibility of the project. The disclosure develop its barite deposit at Frances Creek, BC, Canada, for near term cash flow is misleading as no preliminary economic assessment, preliminary feasibility study or feasibility study has been completed to support the economic viability and technical feasibility of the project. Bradley C Willis P. Eng. (APEGA 179825), Vice President of Exploration for Voyageur Industrial Minerals Ltd. is disclosed as an author of the technical report supporting the mineral resource estimate of the Frances Creek Barite Exploration Project. NI 43-101, 5.3(1) - Independent Technical Report, requires that all authors of a technical report supporting first time disclosure of a mineral resource to be independent of the issuer. Mr. Willis, as an officer of the Company is not independent of the Company. The Company wishes to apologize to anyone that might have been misled by the statements made in the news release of February 5, 2019. It was never the intention of the Company to mislead anyone. For further information, please contact: John Rucci, CEO Steven R. Livingston, V.P. Finance Cell (403) 383-8588 Cell (403) 471-1659 jrucci@voyageurminerals.ca steve@voyageurminerals.ca Neither the TSXV nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSXV) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release. Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements This news release contains forward-looking statements relating to the Qualifying Transaction, including statements regarding the acquisition of future assets, the discovery and commercialization of commercial quantities of industrial minerals, the successful commercialization of the Companys assets, expected operational activities, other statements that are not historical facts. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, as there can be no assurance that the plans, intentions or expectations upon which they are based will occur. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve numerous assumptions, known and unknown risks and uncertainties, both general and specific, that contribute to the possibility that the predictions, forecasts, projections and other forward-looking statements will not occur, which may cause actual performance and results in future periods to differ materially from any estimates or projections of future performance or results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These assumptions, risks and uncertainties include, among other things: the risk that the assets do not provide commercial quantities or grades of marketable minerals, that even if they do contain commercial quantities of marketable minerals that the Company will not be able to economically produce such discoveries, the existence of commercial grades of commercial minerals, timing of obtaining required approvals, state of the economy in general and capital markets in particular, investor interest in the business and future prospects of the Company. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date of this news release. Except as required by law, the Company disclaims any intention and assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities law. Additionally, the Company undertakes no obligation to comment on the expectations of, or statements made, by third parties in respect of the matters discussed above. TORONTO, Feb. 08, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited (TSX: FFH and FFH.U) is pleased to announce that Peter Clarke has been appointed Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Fairfax. Peter has been with Fairfax for over 20 years, most recently as Vice President and Chief Risk Officer, and before that as Chief Actuary. Prem Watsa, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Fairfax, commented, Peter has done an outstanding job for Fairfax in all his numerous roles over the past two decades. As COO, he will report to Paul Rivett, our President, and will work closely with Andy Barnard, who oversees Fairfaxs insurance and reinsurance operations as President of Fairfax Insurance Group. Fairfax is a holding company which, through its subsidiaries, is engaged in property and casualty insurance and reinsurance and investment management. For further information contact: John Varnell, Vice President, Corporate Development, at (416) 367-4941 Miami Beach, FL -- (SBWIRE) -- 02/08/2019 -- Current or future Murano Grande residents looking for a new place to eat can now enjoy a meal at the new, recently opened Lincoln Eatery. Located close to Lincoln Road near the renovated Miami Beach Convention Center, the food hall offers a broad selection of foods for different taste buds. Begin the Lincoln eatery experience with the pastrami sandwiches found at Marble & Rye or visit Necessary Purveyor to try the pimento cheese sandwich which is made using sustainable ingredients. The turkey avocado is another great choice. A South Florida food hall would not be complete if Hispanic food wasn't an option. Fans of empanadas will find a large selection of them over at Patagonia Flavors including mushroom, chicken, cheese, and other varieties. Foodies that like the taste of raw fish can have sushi at TYO. The spicy tuna served on top of a rice cake topped with pieces of ginger is one of the highlights. Lincoln Eatery's address is 723 North Lincoln Lane. About Blackstone International Realty Blackstone International Realty provides buyers, sellers, and renters with the finest luxury properties throughout South Florida including Miami Beach real estate. Each agent is thoroughly trained to provide clients with exceptional service, professionalism, and competency in transactions. Besides its brokerage services the company also provides in-house title and closing services. For more information on the company or Murano Grande South Beach call 305-588-2451. New York, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 02/08/2019 -- This report researches the worldwide Polymethacrylimide Foam market size (value, capacity, production and consumption) in key regions like North America, Europe, Asia Pacific (China, Japan) and other regions. This study categorizes the global Polymethacrylimide Foam breakdown data by manufacturers, region, type and application, also analyzes the market status, market share, growth rate, future trends, market drivers, opportunities and challenges, risks and entry barriers, sales channels, distributors and Porter's Five Forces Analysis. Order a copy of Sample Report @ https://www.qyresearchreports.com/sample/sample.php?rep_id=1920908&type=S Polymethacrylimide (PMI) foam composite has many excellent properties. Currently, PMI is heat-resistant foam, with the highest strength and stiffness. It is suitable as a high-performance sandwich structure core material. It can replace the honeycomb structure. It is widely used in aerospace, aviation, military, marine, automotive and high-speed trains, etc. Polymethacrylimide (PMI) foam by the german rohm (degussa's predecessor) in 1962 developed, industrial production began in 1971, in 1972 it was used in aviation fields. Today, PMI foam has a very wide range of applications, other institutions at home and abroad in recent years, also started the high performance foams further research and development. At present, the market is dominated by Evonik, the industrial production of polymethacrylimide (PMI) foam in China is still at the starting stage. Until now, only two companies can manufacture polymethacrylimide (PMI) foam, Hunan Zihard Material Technology and Cashem Advanced Materials Hi-tech. With the high speed development of aerospace, transportation, ship and wind energy in China, the demand of PMI foams is increasing. A number of companies and institutes focus on the study of PMI foams. Such as Haobo Technology started their production base construction in 2014 and Changzhou Tiansheng New Materials have started the middle trial. Global Polymethacrylimide Foam market size will increase to xx Million US$ by 2025, from xx Million US$ in 2017, at a CAGR of xx% during the forecast period. In this study, 2017 has been considered as the base year and 2018 to 2025 as the forecast period to estimate the market size for Polymethacrylimide Foam. This report focuses on the top manufacturers' Polymethacrylimide Foam capacity, production, value, price and market share of Polymethacrylimide Foam in global market. The following manufacturers are covered in this report: Evonik Industries AG Hunan Zihard Material Technology Cashem Advanced Materials Hi-tech Polymethacrylimide Foam Breakdown Data by Application Aerospace & Defense Wind Energy Transportation Others Polymethacrylimide Foam Production Breakdown Data by Region United States Europe China Japan Other Regions View TOC (table of content), Figures and Tables of the Report: https://www.qyresearchreports.com/report/global-polymethacrylimide-foam-market-insights-forecast-to-2025.htm The study objectives are: To analyze and research the global Polymethacrylimide Foam capacity, production, value, consumption, status and forecast; To focus on the key Polymethacrylimide Foam manufacturers and study the capacity, production, value, market share and development plans in next few years. To focuses on the global key manufacturers, to define, describe and analyze the market competition landscape, SWOT analysis. To define, describe and forecast the market by type, application and region. To analyze the global and key regions market potential and advantage, opportunity and challenge, restraints and risks. To identify significant trends and factors driving or inhibiting the market growth. To analyze the opportunities in the market for stakeholders by identifying the high growth segments. To strategically analyze each submarket with respect to individual growth trend and their contribution to the market. To analyze competitive developments such as expansions, agreements, new product launches, and acquisitions in the market. To strategically profile the key players and comprehensively analyze their growth strategies. In this study, the years considered to estimate the market size of Polymethacrylimide Foam : History Year: 2013-2017 Base Year: 2017 Estimated Year: 2018 Forecast Year 2018 to 2025 For the data information by region, company, type and application, 2017 is considered as the base year. Whenever data information was unavailable for the base year, the prior year has been considered. Key Stakeholders Polymethacrylimide Foam Manufacturers Polymethacrylimide Foam Distributors/Traders/Wholesalers Polymethacrylimide Foam Subcomponent Manufacturers Industry Association Downstream Vendors About QYResearchReports.com QYResearchReports.com delivers the latest strategic market intelligence to build a successful business footprint in China. Our syndicated and customized research reports provide companies with vital background information of the market and in-depth analysis on the Chinese trade and investment framework, which directly affects their business operations. Reports from QYResearchReports.com feature valuable recommendations on how to navigate in the extremely unpredictable yet highly attractive Chinese market. Contact Us: Brooklyn, NY 11230 United States Toll Free: 866-997-4948 (USA-CANADA) Tel: +1-518-621-2074 Follow Us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/qyresearchreports-com Email: sales@qyresearchreports.com TORONTO, Feb. 08, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Royal Standard Minerals Inc. (OTCBB: RYSMF) (the Company or Royal Standard) announces that the Board of Directors (the Board) has appointed Aamer Siddiqui as the Companys Chief Financial Officer effective January 28, 2019. Mr. Siddiqui replaces Daniel Crandall. The Company thanks Mr. Crandall for his service to the Company. Mr. Siddiqui is a Manager of Financial Reporting as MSSI. He is a Chartered Professional Accountant and Chartered Accountant who began his career working in public accounting with one of Ontarios largest external audit firms. He has years of experience providing financial advisory, budgeting, Canadian tax and assurance services to a wide range of clients. He has extensive experience helping fast growing companies manage their reporting requirements as well as providing valuable insight to aid in managements strategic decisions. ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF Royal Standard Minerals Inc. Carmelo Marrelli, CEO Contact: carm@marrellisupport.ca Neither the Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Albany, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 02/08/2019 -- Smart government is an extension of e-government which applies information, communication, and operational technologies to all operational areas across multiple domains, process areas, and jurisdictions to generate sustainable public value. The smart government market is characterized by the presence of numerous well-established and highly competitive market entities/players. These players adopt various strategies like expansion, acquisition, partnership, collaboration, and technology to gain competitive advantage and defend their market share. The market is also characterized by growth in R&D activities in recent times. The global smart government market is expected to showcase impressive growth in the coming years. Request a PDF Brochure With Future Analysis@ https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=31949 There are many factors driving the global smart government market. Growth in demand for digital mediums and smart technologies is attributed to technological advancements leading to increased investments in smart government technology which is expected to be a major driver of the market. High acceptance rate of cloud computing even from countries that have regular concerns about data privacy and security is also expected to boost the market's growth. Moreover, growth in the data generated from multiple sources which can be processed for digital transformation is also expected to propel the market. However, issues about data privacy and data theft are expected to be a major restraint in the growth of the global smart government market. The market is also expected to be hindered by the threat from hackers and data breaches. The global smart government market can be segmented on the basis of solution, service, deployment, and geography. On the basis of solution, the market can be segmented into security, analytics, government resource planning system, remote monitoring, open data platform, network management and others. Amongst these solutions, remote monitoring solutions are anticipated to grow at a substantial rate during the forecast period. This is primarily due to the solution's impressive ability to track and monitor the health of the deployed assets. Other advantages provided by remote monitoring solutions such as improved capacity and utilization, safety assurance, operational visibility and analysis, proactive solutions for asset failure situations, and reduced asset downtime are also expected to drive the segment. Another reason for the growth of the segment is the declining cost of sensors which in turn is making deployment of such solutions feasible and economical. On the basis of service, the market can be divided into professional services and managed services.Professional services segment is expected to hold prominent share during the forecast period owing to the increased deployment of smart solutions that need technological consulting, and continuous support & maintenance. On the basis of deployment, the market can be segmented into cloud and on-premise.On the basis of geography, the market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa, and South America. North America is expected to hold a major share of the total market owing to prominent developments in the smart government market resulting from the technical advancements and increasing use of mobiles and tablets in that region. Browse Research Report@ https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/smart-government-market.html Europe, driven by countries like U.K., Germany, and France, is expected to follow North America in terms of market share. Across Europe, the presence of advanced infrastructure is expected to ensure higher penetration of mobile devices which ultimately helps in driving the smart government market in the region. Middle East & Africa and South America are expected to hold a smaller share of the market, mainly driven by countries such as Saudi Arabia and Brazil respectively. Albany, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 02/08/2019 -- Rett syndrome is a rare neurological disorder that affects mostly girls. The disorder affects the development of the brain. The disorder is divided into four stages: stage I: early onset; stage II: rapid destruction; stage III: plateau; and stage IV: late motor deterioration. In the first stage of Rett syndrome, the mental growth of the child stops; the child in this stage may show less eye contact. View Report- https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/rett-syndrome-treatment-market.html The stage II of the disorder starts between the ages of one and four years; in this stage, children usually lose the ability to perform skills. The third stage generally begins between the ages of 2 and 10 years. In this stage, children face problems with movement continue and behavior. Stage IV is the last stage of Rett syndrome and usually begins after the age of 10 years and can last for years or decades. Common symptoms of Rett syndrome include slowed growth, unusual eye movements, agitation and irritability, problems with hand movements, poor language skills, muscles and coordination problems, and trouble with breathing. Scientists found that children with this disorder have a mutation on the X chromosome. Health care professionals diagnosed Rett syndrome on the bases of MECP2 mutation. It is a rare condition so doctors also diagnosed other condition such as prenatal brain disorder, autism spectrum disorder, metabolic disorder, and cerebral palsy to confirm Rett syndrome. Need for lifelong care and difficulty eating leading to poor nutrition, delayed growth, sleep problems are major complications of Rett syndrome. Currently, there is no cure for the disorder, but medication and therapy can help improve the symptoms. Factors such as increasing research and development as well as health care infrastructure and rising female population globally are driving the growth of the Rett syndrome treatment market. However, high medical cost might restrain the market growth in developing countries. Request Brochure- https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=37856 The global Rett syndrome treatment market is segmented based on medical treatment and region. In terms of medical treatment, the market is categorized into physical and occupational therapy, speech language therapy, medications, and others. The others segment includes behavioral therapy and nutritional therapy. Rett syndrome cannot be cured but medications can help to reduce breathing problems and abnormal heart rhythm, control seizures, and relieve indigestion and constipation. Geographically, the global Rett syndrome treatment market is segmented into five regions: North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa. North America is the leading market for Rett syndrome treatment market globally. In terms of revenue, the U.S. holds a major share of the North America market. The market in Europe is expanding rapidly due to high prevalence of Rett syndrome in the region. The market in Asia Pacific and Latin America is projected to expand significantly in the near future. Developing economies such as China and India are anticipated to contribute to the growth of the Asia Pacific market between 2017 and 2025 due to better health care infrastructure, economic growth, increase in the number of insurance payers, growth of the private health care sector, and rise in awareness among the people. Brazil and Mexico dominate the Latin America market for Rett syndrome treatment. South Africa, Turkey, and other developing countries in Middle East & Africa contribute to the MEA market growth. Request for TOC containing Tables and Figures: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=T&rep_id=37856 Key players operating in the global Rett syndrome treatment market include Neuren Pharmaceuticals Ltd., Neurolixis, Anavex Life Sciences Corp., Edison Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Biohaven Pharmaceutical Holding Company Ltd., and Newron Pharmaceuticals S.p.A. Houston, TX -- (SBWIRE) -- 02/08/2019 -- Live streaming refers to online streaming media simultaneously recorded and broadcast in real time to the viewer. It is often simply referred to as streaming. Live stream services encompass a wide variety of topics, from social media to video games. Request Sample Copy of this Report@: https://www.researchnreports.com/request_sample.php?id=230028 The Top Key Players included in this Market: Brightcove, Haivision, IBM Cloud Video, Ooyala, VBrick, Qumu Corporation, Kaltura, Contus, Sonic Foundry, Panopto, Wowza Media Systems, Kollective Technology, Verizon Digital Media Services, DaCast, JW Player Live, Livestream (Vimeo), Muvi, StreamShark Live Event Video Streaming Services Market report consists of relevant analysis of market size related analysis of the value of one million dollars and the number of parts. Live Event streaming refers to online streaming media simultaneously recorded and broadcast in real time to the viewer. It is often simply referred to as streaming. Live stream services encompass a wide variety of topics, from social media to video games. This report studies the market status and prospects of Live Event Video Streaming Services Market major regions from the perspective of players, countries, product types, and end industries. This report analyzes the top players in the global market, and divides the live event streaming service and solution market by product type and application / end industry. This report highlights the highly profitable Live Event Video Streaming Services Market and their diversity. The report provides a detailed analysis of market segmentation, size and share; Market dynamics such as growth drivers, constraints, challenges and opportunities; Service providers, investors, stakeholders and key market participants. Get Reasonable Discount on this Premium Report @: https://www.researchnreports.com/ask_for_discount.php?id=230028 The Asia-Pacific region will expand its market share over the next several years, especially in China and the fast-growing regions of India and Southeast Asia. North America, especially the United States, will continue to play an important role that cannot be ignored. Changes in the United States can affect the development trends of Live Event Video Streaming Services Market. Major Factors about the Report: -Global Live Event Video Streaming Services Market Overview -Economic Impact on Market -Market Competition -Global Live Event Video Streaming Services Market Analysis by Application -Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream Buyers -Marketing Strategy Analysis, Distributors/Traders -Global Market Effect, Factors, Analysis -Global Market Forecast Report Highlights: - The report provides a detailed analysis on current and future market trends to identify the investment opportunities - Market forecasts till 2025, using estimated market values as the base numbers - Key market trends across the business segments, Regions and Countries - Key developments and strategies observed in the market - Market Dynamics such as Drivers, Restraints, Opportunities and other trends - In-depth company profiles of key players and upcoming prominent players - Growth prospects among the emerging nations through 2025 - Market opportunities and recommendations for new investments For More Information: https://www.researchnreports.com/enquiry_before_buying.php?id=230028 New York, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 02/07/2019 -- A new market assessment report on the Push-To-Talk market provides a comprehensive overview of the Push-To-Talk industry for the forecast period 2018 - 2026. The analytical study is proposed to provide immense clarity on the market size, share and growth rate across different regions. The profound knowledge and extensive examination of the trends from the yesteryear and future aims at offering the stakeholders, product owners, and marketing personnel a competitive edge over others operating in the Push-To-Talk market for the forecast period, 2018 - 2026. Request for free sample report @ https://www.marketexpertz.com/sample-enquiry-form/27225 The major players covered in this report are Verizon, AT&T, Sprint Corporation, Ericsson, Iridium, Kodiak, C Spire, Azetti, HipVoice, Cybertel Bridge Market split by Type, can be divided into: - 3G - 4G - Wi-Fi - Others Market split by Application, can be divided into: - Public Safety - Transport - Business and Commerce - Government - PAMR (Operator) - Other Market split by Sales Channel, can be divided into: - Direct Channel - Distribution Channel Understanding the market size The size of the Push-To-Talk market is viewed in terms of the Share of Market, Total Available Market as well as Served Available Market. Not only does the study present the combined revenue for a particular market but also the market size for a specific geographic region. Analysis of percentage or the size of the Total Available Market based on the type of product, technology, regional constraints and others form an important part of the Push-To-Talk report. Knowing the trends influencing the industry performance Stakeholders, marketing executives and business owners planning to refer a market research report can use this study to design their offerings and understand how competitors attract their potential customers and manage their supply and distribution channels. When tracking the trends researchers have made a conscious effort to analyze and interpret the consumer behaviour Besides, the research helps product owners to understand the changes in culture, target market as well as brands so they can draw the attention of the potential customers more effectively. Purchase Full report @ https://www.marketexpertz.com/checkout-form/27225 Market segment by Region/Country including: - North America (United States, Canada and Mexico) - Europe (Germany, UK, France, Italy, Russia and Spain etc.) - Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India, Australia and Southeast Asia etc.) - South America Brazil, Argentina, Colombia and Chile etc.) - Middle East & Africa (South Africa, Egypt, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia etc.) The study objectives of this report are: 1. To analyze and study the global Push-To-Talk capacity, production, value, consumption, status and forecast (2018-2026); 2. Focuses on the key Push-To-Talk manufacturers, to study the capacity, production, value, market share and development plans in future. 3. Focuses on the global key manufacturers, to define, describe and analyze the market competition landscape, analysis. 4. To define, describe and forecast the market by type, application and region. 5. To analyze the global and key regions market potential and advantage, opportunity and challenge, restraints and risks. 6. To identify significant trends and factors driving or inhibiting the market growth. 7. To analyze the opportunities in the market for stakeholders by identifying the high growth segments. 8. To strategically analyze each submarket with respect to individual growth trend and their contribution to the market. 9. To analyze competitive developments such as expansions, agreements, new product launches, and acquisitions in the market. 10. To strategically profile the key players and comprehensively analyze their growth strategies. Key elements from table of content: 7 Profile of Leading Push-To-Talk Players 7.1 Verizon 7.1.1 Company Snapshot 7.1.2 Product/Business Offered 7.1.3 Business Performance (Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share) 7.1.4 Strategy and SWOT Analysis 7.2 AT&T 7.3 Sprint Corporation 7.4 Ericsson 7.5 Iridium 7.6 Kodiak 7.7 C Spire 7.8 Azetti 7.9 HipVoice 7.10 Cybertel Bridge 8 Upstream and Downstream Analysis of Push-To-Talk 8.1 Industrial Chain of Push-To-Talk 8.2 Upstream of Push-To-Talk 8.2.1 Raw Materials 8.2.2 Labor Cost 8.2.3 Manufacturing Expenses 8.2.4 Manufacturing Cost Structure 8.2.5 Manufacturing Process 8.3 Downstream of Push-To-Talk 8.3.1 Leading Distributors/Dealers of Push-To-Talk 8.3.2 Leading Consumers of Push-To-Talk Continue Ask for discount on this report for better value @ https://www.marketexpertz.com/discount-enquiry-form/27225 About MarketExpertz Planning to invest in market intelligence products or offerings on the web? Then marketexpertz has just the thing for you - reports from over 500 prominent publishers and updates on our collection daily to empower companies and individuals catch-up with the vital insights on industries operating across different geography, trends, share, size and growth rate. There's more to what we offer to our customers. With marketexpertz you have the choice to tap into the specialized services without any additional charges. Contact Us: John Watson Head of Business Development Market Expertz | Web: https://www.marketexpertz.com Direct Line: +1-800-819-3052 E-mail: sales@marketexpertz.com News: https://www.marketexpertz.com/market-news Valley Cottage, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 02/07/2019 -- Global demand for textile colourants was pegged at 5,972 thousand tonnes in 2016. It is projected to increase to 6,248 thousand tonnes in 2017. Demand for textile colourants is anticipated to remain steady on account of growing applications in apparel and automotive industries. Demand is anticipated to remain higher in developing countries, owing to low labour costs and infrastructure development. Asia Pacific accounted for nearly 53% revenue share of the global textiles market in 2014. Cotton Largest Segment by Fibre Type By fibre type, cotton remains the largest segment, followed by nylon and polyester. Demand for cotton textile colourants was pegged at 541 thousand tonnes in 2016; this is expected to reach 561.6 thousand tonnes in 2017. Among other fibre types, acrylic is projected to grow at the fastest CAGR. Request For Report Sample @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-3776 Reactive Dye Largest Segment by Dye Type By dye type, the market has been segmented into, Reactive dye Acid dye Direct dye Disperse dye Basic dye Among these, reactive dye accounts for the highest volume share of the market. Over 611 thousand tonnes of reactive dyes were consumed in 2016 this is projected to increase to over 636 thousand tonnes in 2017. Demand for acid dye, the second largest dye type, is expected to reach 586 thousand tonnes in 2017. Powdered Textile Colourants Preferred by Manufacturers On the basis of product form, the global textile colourant market has been segmented into powder, granules, paste, and liquid. Among these, demand for textile colourants in powder form is the highest, with this segment accounting for 663 thousand tonnes in demand. Apparels Largest Application Segment By application, the market has been segmented into apparels, household, technical textiles, automotive, and accessories. Demand for textile colourants in apparels is projected to surpass 1065 thousand tonnes in 2017. Request For Report Table of Content (TOC): https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/askus/rep-gb-3776 China to Lead Demand in APEJ Asia Pacific excluding Japan remains the largest market for textile colourants globally. Textile colourants consumption in APEJ was estimated at 885 thousand tonnes in 2016; it is expected to grow to 925.5 thousand tonnes in 2017. China remains the largest consumer of textile colourants in APEJ, accounting for nearly 531 thousand tonnes in 2016. This represents a market opportunity worth US$ 1.34 Bn. China textile colourants market is anticipated to grow at 5.2% in terms of value during the forecast period. Leading companies profiled by Future Market Insights in its report include Huntsman Corporation, LANXESS AG, KRONOS Worldwide, Inc., Kiri Industries Ltd., Atul Ltd., Allied Industrial Corp., Ltd., Archroma Management LLC, DyStar Group, Standard Colors, Inc., and Dye Systems, Inc. Harrisburg, NC -- (SBWIRE) -- 02/08/2019 -- Global Loyalty Management Market - Segmented by Solution (B2C, B2B and Corporate), Industry Vertical (BFSI, Travel & Hospitality and Consumer goods & Retail), User-Handling Capacity (Limited and Extended) and Region - Growth, Trends and Forecasts (2018 - 2023) The global loyalty management market was valued at USD 2160.06 million in 2017, and is expected to reach a value of USD 6823.01 million by 2023, at a CAGR of 21.13% over the forecast period (2018 - 2023). These stakeholders include Loyalty Management Market are IBM Corporation, Oracle Corporation, Comarch SA, SAP SE, Epsilon Data Management LLC, Fidelity Information Services Inc., TIBCO Software, Martiz Holdings Inc., and Kobie Marketing Inc. Implementation Of A Customer-Centric Approach Across Businesses- In a shift from product-centric strategies, businesses across major industry verticals are gradually shifting toward customer-centric approaches. It has been observed that, regardless of time, creating customer value and putting customers first beyond a simple customer focus generates the greatest and lasting business value. As loyalty management revolves around pleasing/rewarding an organization's repeat customers, developing customer-centric strategies has become necessary to keep the customer retention rate high, thus driving the demand for loyalty management programs. One of the examples of customer-centric companies is Amazon, which has 310 million active user accounts, as of 2016. They identify the customers who shop the most from their huge client base. These customers are rewarded as a part of the loyalty program in the form of gift cards and discount on several products. Avail sample report of this research with List of Figures at: https://www.marketinsightsreports.com/reports/0220247275/global-loyalty-management-market-segmented-by-solution-b2c-b2b-and-corporate-industry-vertical-bfsi-travel-hospitality-and-consumer-goods-retail-user-handling-capacity-limited-and-extended-and-region-growth-trends-and-forecasts-2018-2023/inquiry?source=releasewire&Mode=34 France To Witness Fastest Growth In The European Region- France has the lowest card penetration in Western Europe, with less than one payment card per person in circulation. However, the emergence of new channels, such as NFC payments, are expected to aid the market for loyalty management. Recently, retailers in the country have launched a pair of pilots with an NFC option, one for loyalty and the other to identify customers when customers pick up purchases after shopping online from home. Also, being the third most popular destination for cross-border online shopping and holiday destination among the European countries, topped only by the United Kingdom and Germany, merchants in this region are adopting loyalty management services to attract more tourists. According to the association, Francaise du Sans Contact Mobile, approximately one million NFC-enabled handsets have been sold, and the figure was estimated at 2.5 million handsets in 2016. Major companies in this region are offering rewards or loyalty points to customers to increase the usage of NFC payments. In 2016, France's e-Commerce market reached USD 42 billion and is projected to surpass USD 56.45 billion by 2020. The amount of digital buyers in the country is growing steadily, with over 30 million providing opportunities for the market players. BFSI Sector to Hold a Lion's Share of the Market- In a highly competitive, complex, and dynamic banking industry, slight differences in financial services and products can matter. This, together with an increasingly demanding customer base, has led to the transformation of the industry toward adopting loyalty management solutions. Reward points programs offered by credit cards are one of the most active zones in the reward and incentive space. Loyalty management has been the stronghold for the banking industry, as vendors look to attain a high customer retention rate. It has been proven that more than 35% of the consumers believe that reward points/cashback incentives, among others, are the major factors that play vital role in influencing consumer preference while choosing among the banks for credit cards. Loyalty programs can be further enhanced through digitization. Most of the customers like to earn points with family and friends, but presently, only around one-fifth of the banks provide this capability. Therefore, banks can focus on providing customers with the ability to send and receive reward points using their mobile banking apps, which may further enhance consumer interest. Notable Developments in the Market- - October 2017- Tibco acquired Alpine Data to add collaborative project management for advanced analytics. The acquisition is expected increase the company's expertise in analytics to help customers get more out of data science and machine learning investments. - October 2017- Aimia Inc. partnered with SuperValu, Ireland's leading grocery retailer, signed a multi-year contract with Musgrave, owner of SuperValu, Ireland's leading grocery retailer, to revamp its Real Rewards Program, underpinned by the Aimia Loyalty Platform. - August 2017- Comrach opened its subsidiary office in Japan, which operates in IT systems for providers of telecommunications services, loyalty solutions, and products supporting customer relationship management and outsourcing services, IT infrastructure, and data centre services. Avail complete report of this research with TOC and List of Figures at: https://www.marketinsightsreports.com/reports/0220247275/global-loyalty-management-market-segmented-by-solution-b2c-b2b-and-corporate-industry-vertical-bfsi-travel-hospitality-and-consumer-goods-retail-user-handling-capacity-limited-and-extended-and-region-growth-trends-and-forecasts-2018-2023?source=releasewire&Mode=34 Reasons to Buy : 1) Identify the drivers, restraints, and opportunities possessed by the Global Loyalty Management market, with in-depth analysis. 2) Analyzing the various perspectives of the market with the help of Porter's five forces analysis. 3) Identify the trends in demand for various types of Loyalty Management among the end-user industries, with in-depth analysis. 4) Identify regions witnessing fastest growth during the forecast period. 5) Identify the latest developments, market shares, and strategies employed by the major market players. 6) 3 months analyst support, along with the Market Estimate sheet (in excel). About MarketInsightsReports MarketInsightsReports provides syndicated market research on industry verticals including Healthcare, Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Technology and Media, Chemicals, Materials, Energy, Heavy Industry, etc. MarketInsightsReports provides global and regional market intelligence coverage, a 360-degree market view which includes statistical forecasts, competitive landscape, detailed segmentation, key trends, and strategic recommendations. Contact Us: Irfan Tamboli (Head of Sales) - Market Insights Reports Phone: + 1704 266 3234 | +91-750-707-8687 sales@marketinsightsreports.com | irfan@marketinsightsreports.com Northbrook, IL -- (SBWIRE) -- 02/08/2019 -- According to the new market research report "Load Break Switch Market by Type (Gas-Insulated, Vacuum, Air-Insulated, & Oil-Immersed), Voltage (Below 11 kV, 1133 kV, 3360 kV), Installation (Outdoor & Indoor), End-User (Utilities, Industrial, Commercial), and Region - Global Forecast to 2023", published by MarketsandMarkets, The load break switch market is expected to grow from an estimated market size of USD 2.23 Billion in 2018 to USD 3.12 Billion by 2023, at a CAGR of 6.16% from 2018 to 2023. The market is driven by factors such as refurbishment of aging electrical infrastructure and increasing investment in power distribution sector. The growing renewable-based power generation is expected to boost the demand for load break switches. The emerging markets in Asia Pacific present a great opportunity for the load break switch market due to significant government initiatives to promote renewable energy generation and refurbishment of the aging electrical infrastructure. Don't miss out on business opportunities in Load Break Switch Market. Speak to our analyst and gain crucial industry insights that will help your business grow: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/speaktoanalystNew.asp?id=222559483 Gas-insulated: The largest segment, by type, during the forecast period. The gas-insulated segment is expected to hold the majority share of the load break switch market during the forecast period. Growing energy demand, power generation capacity additions, and increasing investments in the distribution sector are the major factors driving the load break switch market in the Asia Pacific region. The Asian market players, such as LSIS and Fuji are involved in the manufacturing of load break switches. These factors have resulted in the highest market share of the gas-insulated segment in the load break switch market. Browse and in-depth TOC on "Load Break Switch Market" 84 - Tables 42 - Figures 147 - Pages View more detailed TOC @ https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/load-break-switch-market-222559483.html Based on installation, the outdoor segment accounted for the largest market size in 2017. Outdoor switches can also be deployed with outdoor distribution transformers rating up to 36 kV. These switches come with flexible installation and mounting configurations, which include pole top, mid-pole horizontal and mid-pole vertical. These factors are expected to drive the outdoor segment of the load break switch market, by installation. The load break switch market has been analysed on the basis of four regions, namely, Asia Pacific, North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), the Sub-Saharan Africa region's power sector requires an additional investment of about USD 450 billion by 2040. Hydro, natural gas, and coal are the major sources of electricity generation in the region. However, there is immense potential for renewable energy sources, with solar PV generation as a highly effective resource for the generation of electricity. Moreover, factors such as increasing power generation capacity focus on renewables, and plans to increase electrification rate are expected to drive the African load break switch market. The market in Asia Pacific is expected to dominate the global load break switch market due to increasing investments in the power distribution sector and refurbishment of aging infrastructure. The Chinese market is expected to dominate the Asia Pacific market. The load break switch market is expected to grow at a significant rate in countries such as Japan, India, Australia, and South-East Asian countries. Request for Free Sample Report @ https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/requestsampleNew.asp?id=222559483 Major manufacturers in the load break switch market include ABB (Switzerland), Siemens (Germany), Schneider (France), GE (US), and Eaton (Ireland). The manufacturers such as Socomec (France), Rockwell (US), and Ensto (Finland) either participate in the supply of raw materials/auxiliary components or directly sell load break switch through authorized distribution channels. The distributors also provide replacement and maintenance services for switch components and installation of load break switches. Browse Adjacent Markets @ Energy and Power Market Research Reports & Consulting About MarketsandMarkets MarketsandMarkets provides quantified B2B research on 30,000 high growth niche opportunities/threats which will impact 70% to 80% of worldwide companies' revenues. Currently servicing 7500 customers worldwide including 80% of global Fortune 1000 companies as clients. Almost 75,000 top officers across eight industries worldwide approach MarketsandMarkets for their painpoints around revenues decisions. Our 850 fulltime analyst and SMEs at MarketsandMarkets are tracking global high growth markets following the "Growth Engagement Model GEM". The GEM aims at proactive collaboration with the clients to identify new opportunities, identify most important customers, write "Attack, avoid and defend" strategies, identify sources of incremental revenues for both the company and its competitors. MarketsandMarkets now coming up with 1,500 MicroQuadrants (Positioning top players across leaders, emerging companies, innovators, strategic players) annually in high growth emerging segments. MarketsandMarkets is determined to benefit more than 10,000 companies this year for their revenue planning and help them take their innovations/disruptions early to the market by providing them research ahead of the curve. MarketsandMarkets's flagship competitive intelligence and market research platform, "Knowledge Store" connects over 200,000 markets and entire value chains for deeper understanding of the unmet insights along with market sizing and forecasts of niche markets. Contact: Mr. Shelly Singh MarketsandMarkets INC. 630 Dundee Road Suite 430 Northbrook, IL 60062 USA : 1-888-600-6441 Email: sales@marketsandmarkets.com Research Insight: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/ResearchInsight/load-break-switch-market.asp Visit Our Website: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com Albany, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 02/08/2019 -- While air pollution has been gaining strong recognition across the world on the back of escalating global warming concerns, noise pollution is another aspect that is now being increasingly noted, particularly in urban parts of the world. On the back of increasing number of vehicles, the cases of hearing impairment are escalating. In addition to that, a number of governments are taking efforts to spread awareness regarding noise pollution, and consequently, the market for noise monitoring is poised for a fruitful future until 2025. Strong prevalence of occupational hearing impairment, increase in government funding for noise monitoring and control, advent of innovative noise monitoring systems that ideally meet the requirements of airport organizations, rising installation of all-in-one environmental monitoring solutions, and high requirement for the measures in the sectors of mining, wind plant, and petrochemical industry are some of the other factors augmenting the demand in the global noise monitoring market. On the other hand, issues regarding interoperability of the file formats between equipment and analysis software, lenient approach of a number of local authorities in emerging economies, and cost of implementation are a few restraints obstructing the market from flourishing. Get Sample Copy Of This Report @ https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/sample/sample/7578 This report on the global noise monitoring market provides comprehensive analysis of all these factors and anticipates their eventual impact over the demand. In addition to that, the report also segments the market into smaller fractions of equipment, application, and others in order to showcase true potential of the market. The report also tries to gauge the quantity of demand that can be expected out of various regions and countries. To finish a thorough study, the report has included a dedicated chapter on the competitive landscape in the global noise monitoring market, profiling a number of leading companies and evaluating their position at the international level. Global Noise Monitoring Market: Snapshot Rising industrialization and ever-increasing number of urban pockets choc-o-bloc with vehicles has led to alarming sound pollution, along with air and water pollution. The problem is particularly acute in developing nations where aggressive thrust on developmental goals and unplanned urbanization, warranted by the pressing need to lift people out of poverty have led to considerable deterioration in overall environment. This has created health emergencies time and again. There are various monitoring products these days in the market to keep a tab on the pollution and send out adequate, timely warning. Noise monitoring devices, among them, are seeing steady uptick in demand. They are finding application in various areas. Manufacturing units is one of them, where instances of hearing impairment have been on the rise on account of the high decibel noise produced by machines that workers are required to put up with. Factory owners are increasingly making use of such noise monitoring devices to avoid such untoward incidences. Other areas where noise monitoring devices are finding use are in harbors, airports, wind plant, mining, and petrochemical industry. Request For TOC @ https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/sample/toc/7578 Taking serious cognizance of the hazards posed by stifling noise pollution, strict rules framed by authorities and governments have also provided a boost to the sales of noise monitoring devices. Noise mapping, monitoring, and control is mandated by governments. Permanent noise monitoring devices are very much in demand in the market. Both developed and developing nations are driving demand for noise monitoring devices. While developed nations in North America are seeing uptake because of strict rules and growing environmental initiatives, developing nations in Asia Pacific, namely China and India, are witnessing sales because of the rising number of vehicles, chaotic roads, and mushrooming manufacturing units. Environmental noise is a critical issue in countries which are heavily populated or have industrialized areas. Its adverse effects from different sources on the well-being are varied and range from increased stress levels to sleep disturbances, potentially leading to critical problems such as heart disorders. Therefore the government and various focus groups are taking into account diverse issues by monitoring noise levels for longer intervals in numerous ways. For instance, industrial noise monitoring involves the decision of corresponding legislative or/and action levels of specific noise levels assessment. Environmental noise is quite different as the annoyance level or nuisance can be more subjective and may evolve diverse reactions from different population. Increasing typical environmental noise pollution sources such as power stations, industrial sites, construction work, road traffic, aircraft noises and environment venues have raised the awareness of having noise monitoring systems in order to monitor and manage it within the limits. Environmental noise have different characteristics such as continuous noise, intermittent noise and broadband noise. Road traffic, extraction fans, industrial processors and compressors are the continuous noise sources. Transport, construction, animals are intermittent noise sources, and whining machinery, wind turbines and low frequency noise which causes vibration within surroundings are the broadband noise sources. Pre Book Report @ https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/checkout?rep_id=7578&licType=S Rising occupational hearing impairment in industries coupled with stringent government policies is expected to drive the noise hearing market demand. Increasing need for noise pollution reduction in urban areas and demand for noise monitoring systems at airports for optimizing capacity and profit is expected to support the industry growth over the forecast timeframe. Environmental noise is amongst the quickest growing areas of noise mapping, monitoring and control. The European Union (EU) has introduced various directives aimed at increasing information level about noise across the EU. In 1996 only, the EU Future Noise Policy green paper has estimated that 20% of EU's population (~80 million) suffered from unacceptable noise levels. The people suffered from sleep deprivation which lead to the serious health effects. About additional 170 million population are living in 'grey areas' wherein daytime, the noise levels causes serious annoyance. The global noise monitoring market can be segmented by solution into hardware, software and services. By connectivity, the industry can be classified into Wi-Fi, cellular, Ethernet and USB. By precision type, the industry can be segmented into Class 1 and Class 2 standard devices. These systems are used in various applications such as hospitals, airports, residential areas, railways, road traffic, construction sites, industries, recreational areas and other applications. The permanent noise monitoring market held the dominant share in 2016 owing to wide installation of these devices in places which require regular measurement. This measurement is backed by the stringent government regulations for real-time noise monitoring. The industrial application segment is anticipated to have the highest CAGR from 2017 to 2025. Rising adoption of noise controlling and monitoring policies by the industries worldwide is expected to drive the noise monitoring systems market growth. Increasing government pressure from government for public safety and health has enforced the industries to regulate the noises generated in workshops & plants and provide necessary noise-reducing devices to the employees which are working in high-noise zones. Europe noise monitoring market is expected to dominate the industry over the forecast timeline. Presence of major industry participants characterize the industry growth. The European government is stringent regarding noise policies adherence. The companies in this region require regular maintenance and monitoring of noise levels in order to avoid heavy penalties. The key industry competitors are Rion Co. Ltd., Svantek, Bruel & Kjaer, Cirrus Research Plc, Pulsar Instruments, Extech Instruments, Castle Group Ltd., Nti-Audio, SKF Group, B&K Precision Corporation, Kimo Instrument, SINUS Messtechnik GmbH, Cesva Instruments SLU, Casella Inc. and Testo SE & Co. KGaA. The report provides the following information: - Tailwinds and headwinds molding the market's trajectory - Market segments based on products, technology, and applications - Prospects of each segment - Overall current and possible future size of the market - Growth pace of the market - Competitive landscape and key players' strategies About MarketResearchReports.biz MarketResearchReports.biz is a seller of syndicated market studies, featuring an exhaustive collection of research reports from leading international publishers. Our repository is diverse, spanning virtually every industrial sector and even more every category and sub-category within the industry. We also provide consulting services to enable our clients have a dynamic business perspective. Contact Us State Tower 90 State Street, Suite 700 Albany, NY 12207 United States Toll Free: 866-997-4948 (USA-Canada) Tel: +1-518-621-2074 Email: sales@marketresearchreports.biz Albany, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 02/07/2019 -- Glaucoma is a disease that damages the optic nerve and its progression could result in vision loss and blindness. Treatment of glaucoma starts with topical eye drops belonging to the class of prostaglandins, beta blockers, alpha agonist, combination medication, carbonic anhydrase inhibitor, and cholinergic. Administration of these eye drops reduces the production of the fluid inside eyes, thereby decreasing intraocular pressure. Topical eye drops is an alternative for surgery or to delay surgical procedure. The global Glaucoma Therapeutics Market was valued at US$ 5,932.6 Mn in 2017 is anticipated to reach US$ 7,659.8 Mn by 2026, expanding at a CAGR of 2.9% from 2018 to 2026. Increase in prevalence and incidence of diabetic disorders, rise in geriatric population, improved health care as well as health care infrastructure, introduction of combination therapies, and surge in the number of awareness programs are likely to drive the global glaucoma therapeutics market during the forecast period. Lack of awareness about eye disorders, non-compliance with treatment, side effects of glaucoma drugs, and growth of the generic drugs market are anticipated to restrain the global market in the near future. However, emerging economies such as India, China, Brazil, Russia, Mexico, and South Africa offer immense opportunities in the glaucoma therapeutics market. This is attributed to large number of underserved patients, rise in proportion of urban population, and insurance policies. Moreover, governments of the nations mentioned above have taken initiatives to educate the people about glaucoma and its management. The global glaucoma therapeutics market has been segmented based on drug class, end-user, and region. In terms of drug class, the global market has been classified into prostaglandins, beta blockers, alpha agonist, combination medication, and carbonic anhydrase inhibitors and cholinergic. Prostaglandins analogs are the molecules that bind to the prostaglandin receptor increasing the outflow of the fluid from the eyes and reducing intraocular pressure. Beta blockers are also commonly used topical drugs, which act by reducing the production of fluid inside the eyes. Combination medications are eye drops used in patients who require more than one medication. Cholinergic agents aid in the treatment of glaucoma by contracting the ciliary muscles, tightening the trabecular meshwork, and increasing the outflow of fluid. Request to View Sample of Report - https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=16406 Carbonic anhydrase inhibitor and alpha agonist are used to increase the outflow of fluid from the eyes, thereby reducing intraocular pressure. Prostaglandins, beta blockers, and combination medication are the most widely used topical agents. The combination medication segment is projected to account for the largest share of the market during the forecast period, followed by beta blockers and prostaglandins. However, rise in prevalence of glaucoma globally has fueled the growth of the combination medication segment. The segment is expected to expand at a high CAGR during the forecast period. Rise in awareness about early detection of glaucoma and provision of affordable treatment options are expected to boost the growth of the combination medication segment during the forecast period. In terms of end-user, the hospitals segment captured major share of the global glaucoma therapeutics market in 2017. The segment is likely to sustain its leadership position during the forecast period. A large population prefers visiting hospitals first rather than specialty clinics for treatment, as the cost of therapy at hospitals is lower. Ambulatory surgical center is the less preferred option for the treatment of glaucoma. Geographically, the global glaucoma therapeutics market has been segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa. North America and Europe accounted for a combined market share of 50.2% in 2017. North America is projected to continue to dominate the market during the forecast period due to increase in the geriatric population, rise in awareness among the population about glaucoma, availability of reimbursements, and well-established health care infrastructure. The market in Asia Pacific is expected to expand at a high CAGR during the forecast period. However, the market in Latin America and Middle East & Africa is anticipated to witness sluggish growth during the forecast period. Increase in focus by federal governments on enhancing health care facilities and rise in awareness among the population are the factors contributing to the growth of the market in these regions. Request to View Brochure of Report - https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=16406 Major players operating in the global glaucoma therapeutics market are Allergan, Inc., Merck & Co., Pfizer, Inc., Novartis AG., Santen Pharmaceuticals, Valeant Pharmaceuticals, and Aerie Pharmaceuticals. Players in the generics market are Fera Pharmaceuticals, Teva Pharmaceuticals, and Aristo Pharmaceuticals, among others. The market is characterized by large number of acquisitions, which has led to market consolidation and increasing dominance of the top players. Albany, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 02/08/2019 -- Erectile dysfunction (ED) is a common sexual problem among men, wherein they are unable to maintain erection during copulation. The problem is age related and can be caused due to diabetes, kidney disease, prostate cancer, high blood pressure, physical injury to the prostate, penis, and pelvis. Emotional and psychological issues such as depression, stress, and anxiety can also cause erectile dysfunction. Additionally, intake of prescription medications such as antidepressants, opioid painkillers, chemotherapeutic agents, hormone drugs, amphetamines, and some sleeping pills can lead to this condition. Read Report Overview: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/erectile-dysfunction-treatment-market.html Rise in number of individuals experiencing erectile dysfunction is the major factor contributing to the growth of the market. According to estimates, 1 in 10 men suffer from ED globally. In the U.S. alone, more than 30 million men suffer from ED and the number is expected to rise in the next few years. Globally, men aged between 20 and 29 have around 65% chance of having ED as compared to older men aged 75 years and above, who have 77.5% probability of having ED. According to a United Nations study, the number of people aged 60 years and above was around 962 million in 2017, comprising 13% of the global population. In 2017, the number of people aged 80 years and above stood at 137 million and it is expected to triple by 2050 to reach 425 million and rise further to 909 million by 2100. The exponential rise in the geriatric population is anticipated to increase the number of patients suffering from ED which in turn is projected to drive the market. Rise in the number of individuals with diabetes is also a key factor contributing to the growth of the market. Nearly 35% to 75% men suffering from diabetes experience some degree of ED. The rapid rise in the diabetic population, which reached 422 million in 2014 (WHO estimates), is expected to increase the population of men with ED. This in turn is likely to drive demand for products used in the treatment of ED. Request Brochure of Report: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=43658 Pharmaceutical companies are increasingly focusing on new product development as part of their growth strategy. In November 2017, Qualigen launched Tadalafil Qualigen EFG, which is bioequivalent to Cialis marketed by Eli Lilly and used for the treatment of ED in men. The launch of Tadalafil Qualigen EFG along with its existing drug Sildenafil Qualigen has helped the company broaden its portfolio of erectile dysfunction products. In December 2016, Apricus Biosciences launched Vitaros, a novel on-demand topical cream, in Lebanon to be used in the treatment of ED. The product is marketed by Elis Pharmaceuticals Ltd. and is aimed at tapping the highly attractive ED market in the Middle East. The global erectile dysfunction treatment market can be segmented based on treatment type, end-user, and region. In terms of treatment type, the market can be divided into drug-based treatment, device-based treatment, and others. Based on drug type, the drug-based treatment segment can be classified into avanafil, sildenafil, tadalafil, and vardenafil. In terms of end-user, the global erectile dysfunction market can be categorized into hospitals, ambulatory surgical centers, and specialty clinics. Request For TOC : https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=T&rep_id=43658 Geographically, the global erectile dysfunction treatment market can be segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa. North America dominates the global market due to high awareness levels among men about the disorder and launch of new products by pharmaceutical companies for the treatment of ED. The market in Asia Pacific is anticipated to grow at a rapid pace during the forecast period due to rise in prevalence of ED because of increase in geriatric population in the region. Key players operating in the global erectile dysfunction treatment market are Apricus Biosciences, Inc., Bayer AG, Eli Lilly and Company, Meda Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and Pfizer, Inc. About Transparency Market Research Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a U.S.-based provider of syndicated research, customized research, and consulting services. TMR's global and regional market intelligence coverage includes industries such as pharmaceutical, chemicals and materials, technology and media, food and beverages, and consumer goods, among others. Each TMR research report provides clients with a 360-degree view of the market with statistical forecasts, competitive landscape, detailed segmentation, key trends, and strategic recommendations. About Transparency Market Research Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a U.S.-based provider of syndicated research, customized research, and consulting services. TMR's global and regional market intelligence coverage includes industries such as pharmaceutical, chemicals and materials, technology and media, food and beverages, and consumer goods, among others. Each TMR research report provides clients with a 360-degree view of the market with statistical forecasts, competitive landscape, detailed segmentation, key trends, and strategic recommendations. Contact us: Transparency Market Research 90 State Street, Suite 700, Albany NY - 12207 United States Tel: +1-518-618-1030 USA - Canada Toll Free 866-552-3453 Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.com Website: http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/ TORONTO, Feb. 08, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Fintech Select Ltd. (Fintech Select or the Company) (TSX-V: FTEC) is pleased to announce that it has signed a binding letter of intent (the LOI) with Raseed (Raseed), a Libyan company, to form a joint venture (JV) between the two companies related to financial payment services. Raseed is a service provider specialized in software solutions to banks, telecom companies and utility service providers in Libya that has a vision to help modernize the countrys financial services and telecom sectors by bringing such up to international standards. The JV will allow Fintech Select to provide Raseed with a full suite of financial payment services in the Libyan marketplace. This includes prepaid card, e-wallet services along with bill, mobile, online and international payments. The JV will focus on providing the government, banks, telecom companies, and other strategic partners and clients with a wide spectrum of payment capabilities. The parties have agreed to use their reasonable best efforts to settle a definitive agreement within thirty (30) days and may extend this period by mutual consent. We believe that there is tremendous opportunity in the Libyan market including unprecedented growth prospects for Fintech Select through its partnership with Raseed. We believe that this joint venture will open new avenues and business opportunities for both organizations through their combined technologies and efforts stated Mohammad Abuleil, President and CEO of Fintech Select. Dr. Omar Shuran, President of Raseed, added Raseed is very excited to be partnering with Fintech Select to provide innovative financial payment technology solutions to our strategic customers in Libya. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT: Mohammad Abuleil, President & CEO or Shelley Alliet @ - Investor@fintechselect.com About Fintech Select Ltd. Fintech Select is a provider of robust and disruptive Pre-Paid Card programs and mobile banking solutions. Fintech Select has enabled these core assets which operate through separate divisions to work together harmoniously to create a new and ubiquitous environment for consumers and businesses alike. Fintech select also operates an international call centre that provides fulfillment and customer service support to customers across all three platforms mentioned. Our mission is to provide customers with choice, convenience and cost-effective ways to facilitate traditional and crypto financial transactions. Follow us on: https://www.facebook.com/FintechSelect https://twitter.com/fintech_select https://www.instagram.com/fintechselect https://www.linkedin.com/company/fintechselect/ Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Albany, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 02/08/2019 -- Enteral nutrition or enteral feeding is defined as delivery of proteins, minerals, and other essential nutritional products directly into the stomach of a patient with the help of tubes. Enteral feeding is usually required in patients having difficulty to swallow food through the mouth due to certain disability or disorder, or during hospital stay, or other factors. Enteral feeding is done using different tubes, depending on the condition and type of the patient; the health care providers decide on the best route for insertion of enteral feeding tubes into the body of the patient. View Report: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/brain-stimulators-market.html Enteral feeding is usually a common practice among neonates and infants as they are unable to swallow food on their own. It is also used for pediatric as well as adult patients owing to chronic disease conditions, trauma, or other health factors. Enteral feeding tubes are available in different sizes, depending on the feed volume and the type of patient they are required for. Size of enteral feeding tubes ranges from 4FG to 24FG. Manufacturers also use different color codes for these devices, so as to make them easily identifiable and avoid their misconnection with parenteral feeding tubes. Growing adult and pediatric population suffering from chronic diseases, leading to increasing inpatient hospital and intensive care unit stays, along with rising number of pre-term births requiring neonatal intensive care, is a major factor driving the demand for enteral feeding, and thereby, enteral feeding tubes. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 1 in every 10 babies is born pre-term globally, which is an estimated 15 million pre-term babies born every year. Majority of pre-term births is recorded in emerging countries, such as China, India, Brazil, etc. This, combined with growing patient population suffering from chronic diseases and undergoing intensive care treatment, has boosted the demand for enteral feeding tubes in the global market. Also, increasing number of enteral feeding tubes market players introducing new and innovative enteral feeding tubes, such as ENFit devices, which is expected to reduce tubing misconnections and replace existing feeding tubes by 2020 in most of the countries, is expected to lead to a decrease in prices and propel the demand for enteral feeding tubes in the global market from 2018-2026. Request a Brochure of the Report @ https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=49905 The global enteral feeding tubes market can be segmented on the basis of patient type, product type, end-user, and region. Based on product type, the enteral feeding tubes market can be spilt into nasogastric feeding tubes, orogastric feeding tubes, percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy feeding tubes, jejunal tubes, and others. The nasogastric feeding tubes segment dominated the global enteral feeding tubes market in 2017. In terms of patient type, the global enteral feeding tubes market can be bifurcated into neonates, infants, pediatrics, and adults. Different tubes are used in case of different patient types, depending on the volume of feed and the condition of the patients. Based on end-user, the global enteral feeding tubes market can be divided into hospitals, ambulatory surgery centers, neonatal care centers, and others. The hospitals segment dominated the global enteral feeding tubes market in 2017, and is projected to retain its position during the forecast period. In terms of region, the global enteral feeding tubes market can be categorized into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa. North America dominated the global market in 2017 and is projected to continue the trend during the forecast period. North America constituted a large share of the global enteral feeding tubes market in 2017 due to rise in surgical procedures performed in the U.S. and higher adoption of new and advanced enteral feeding tubes in the region. The enteral feeding tubes market in Asia Pacific is projected to expand at a considerable CAGR during the forecast period. Request TOC @ https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=T&rep_id=49905 Key players operating in the global enteral feeding tubes market include Halyard Health, Inc., Boston Scientific Corporation, Fresenius Kabi Ltd, Vygon, C.R. Bard, Inc., and Smiths Medical. About Transparency Market Research Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMR's experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge. Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMR's syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement. Contact Us Transparency Market Research 90 State Street, Suite 700 Albany, NY 12207 Tel: +1-518-618-1030 USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453 Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.com Website: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com Edison, NJ -- (SBWIRE) -- 02/07/2019 -- Global Design Engineering Software Market Size, Status and Forecast 2019-2025 is latest research study released by HTF MI evaluating the market, highlighting opportunities, risk side analysis, and leveraged with strategic and tactical decision-making support. The study provides information on market trends and development, drivers, capacities, technologies, and on the changing capital structure of the Global Design Engineering Software Market. Some of the key players profiled in the study are Autodesk, MATLAB, CATIA, ZWSOFT, MechDesigner, PTC Creo, BricsCAD, Solid Edge, Rhino, SolidFace, TopSolid, Geomagic, SpaceClaim, TurboCAD, ANSYS, MSC Software, 3DS SIMULIA, COMSOL Multiphysics, Maplesoft & Siemens. This report focuses on the global Design Engineering Software status, future forecast, growth opportunity, key market and key players. The study objectives are to present the Design Engineering Software development in United States, Europe and China. Design Engineering Software Market Overview: If you are involved in the Design Engineering Software industry or intend to be, then this study will provide you comprehensive outlook. It's vital you keep your market knowledge up to date segmented by Large Enterprises & SMEs, , Cloud Based & Web Based and major players. If you have a different set of players/manufacturers according to geography or needs regional or country segmented reports we can provide customization according to your requirement. Enquire for customization in Report @ https://www.htfmarketreport.com/enquiry-before-buy/1618051-global-design-engineering-software-market Design Engineering Software Market: Demand Analysis & Opportunity Outlook 2023 Research study is to define market sizes of various segments & countries in previous years and to forecast the values to the next 5-8 years. The report is designed to comprise each qualitative and quantitative elements of the industry facts including: market share, market size (value and volume 2012-17, and forecast to 2023) with admire to each of the areas and countries concerned inside the examination. Furthermore, the report additionally caters the detailed statistics about the vital elements which includes drivers & restraining factors which will define the future growth of the market. Moreover, it will also include the opportunities available in micro markets for stakeholders to invest, detailed analysis of competitive landscape and product services of key players. The designated segments and sub-section of the market are explained below: The Study is segmented by following Product Type: , Cloud Based & Web Based Major applications/end-users industry are as follows: Large Enterprises & SMEs Some of the key Manufacturers Involved in the Market are Autodesk, MATLAB, CATIA, ZWSOFT, MechDesigner, PTC Creo, BricsCAD, Solid Edge, Rhino, SolidFace, TopSolid, Geomagic, SpaceClaim, TurboCAD, ANSYS, MSC Software, 3DS SIMULIA, COMSOL Multiphysics, Maplesoft & Siemens You can get free access to samples from the report here: https://www.htfmarketreport.com/sample-report/1618051-global-design-engineering-software-market For each region, market size and end users are analyzed as well as segment markets by types, applications and companies. If opting for the Global version of Design Engineering Software Market analysis is provided for major regions as follows: - North America (USA, Canada and Mexico) - Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy) - Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia) - South America (Brazil, Argentina, Columbia etc.) - Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa) Buy this research report @ https://www.htfmarketreport.com/buy-now?format=1&report=1618051 Key Answers Captured in Study are Which geography would have better demand for product/services? What are the strategies adopted by big players in the regional market? Which country would see the steep rise in CAGR & year-on-year (Y-O-Y) growth? What is the current & expected market size in next five years? What is the market feasibility for long term investment? What opportunity the country would offer for existing and new players in the Design Engineering Software market? What is risk involved for suppliers in the geography? What factors would drive the demand for the product/service in near future? What is the impact analysis of various factors in the Global Design Engineering Software market growth? What are the recent trends in the regional market and how successful they are? Read Detailed Index of full Research Study at @ https://www.htfmarketreport.com/reports/1618051-global-design-engineering-software-market There are 15 Chapters to display the Global Design Engineering Software market. Chapter 1, About Executive Summary to describe Definition, Specifications and Classification of Global Design Engineering Software market, Applications [Large Enterprises & SMEs], Market Segment by Regions United States, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia, India & Central & South America; Chapter 2, objective of the study. Chapter 3, to display Research methodology and techniques. Chapter 4 and 5, to show the Overall Market Analysis, segmentation analysis, characteristics; Chapter 6 and 7, to show the Market size, share and forecast; Five forces analysis (bargaining Power of buyers/suppliers), Threats to new entrants and market condition; Chapter 8 and 9, to show analysis by regional segmentation[United States, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia, India & Central & South America ], comparison, leading countries and opportunities; Regional Marketing Type Analysis, Supply Chain Analysis Chapter 10, focus on identifying the key industry influencer's, overview of decision framework accumulated through Industry experts and strategic decision makers; Chapter 11 and 12, Market Trend Analysis, Drivers, Challenges by consumer behaviour, Marketing Channels and demand & supply. Chapter 13 and 14, describe about the vendor landscape (classification and Market Positioning) Chapter 15, deals with Global Design Engineering Software Market sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data source. Thanks for reading this article; you can also get individual chapter wise section or region wise report version like North America, Europe or Asia or Oceania [Australia and New Zealand]. Edison, NJ -- (SBWIRE) -- 02/08/2019 -- A new business intelligence report released by HTF MI with title "Global Credit Payment Card Industry Market Analysis & Forecast 2018-2023" has abilities to raise as the most significant market worldwide as it has remained playing a remarkable role in establishing progressive impacts on the universal economy. The Global Credit Payment Card Market Report offers energetic visions to conclude and study market size, market hopes, and competitive surroundings. The research is derived through primary and secondary statistics sources and it comprises both qualitative and quantitative detailing. Some of the key players profiled in the study are Gemalto, Perfect Plastic, Oberthur Technologies(OT), Giesecks & Devrient, CPI Card Group, Valid, Goldpac, Morpho & MCT Cards & Tech.. Free Sample Report + All Related Graphs & Charts @ : https://www.htfmarketreport.com/sample-report/887741-global-credit-payment-card-industry-market Market Overview of Global Credit Payment Card If you are involved in the Global Credit Payment Card industry or aim to be, then this study will provide you inclusive point of view. It's vital you keep your market knowledge up to date segmented by Applications [Consumer, Application 2 & Application 3], Product Types [, It covers Regional Segment Analysis, Type, Appliction, Major Manufactures, Industry Chain Analysis, Competitive Insights and Macroeconomic Analysis., Global Credit Payment Card Market: Regional Segment Analysis, North America, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia & India] and major players. If you have a different set of players/manufacturers according to geography or needs regional or country segmented reports we can provide customization according to your requirement. This study mainly helps understand which market segments or Region or Country they should focus in coming years to channelize their efforts and investments to maximize growth and profitability. The report presents the market competitive landscape and a consistent in depth analysis of the major vendor/key players in the market. Furthermore, the years considered for the study are as follows: Historical year 2013-2017 Base year 2018 Forecast period** 2018 to 2023 [** unless otherwise stated] **Moreover, it will also include the opportunities available in micro markets for stakeholders to invest, detailed analysis of competitive landscape and product services of key players. The titled segments and sub-section of the market are illuminated below: The Study Explore the Product Types of Credit Payment Card Market: , It covers Regional Segment Analysis, Type, Appliction, Major Manufactures, Industry Chain Analysis, Competitive Insights and Macroeconomic Analysis., Global Credit Payment Card Market: Regional Segment Analysis, North America, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia & India Key Applications/end-users of Global Credit Payment CardMarket: Consumer, Application 2 & Application 3 Top Players in the Market are: Gemalto, Perfect Plastic, Oberthur Technologies(OT), Giesecks & Devrient, CPI Card Group, Valid, Goldpac, Morpho & MCT Cards & Tech. Region Included are: North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific etc Enquire for customization in Report @: https://www.htfmarketreport.com/enquiry-before-buy/887741-global-credit-payment-card-industry-market Important Features that are under offering & key highlights of the report: Detailed overview of Credit Payment Card market Changing market dynamics of the industry In-depth market segmentation by Type, Application etc Historical, current and projected market size in terms of volume and value Recent industry trends and developments Competitive landscape of Credit Payment Card market Strategies of key players and product offerings Potential and niche segments/regions exhibiting promising growth A neutral perspective towards Credit Payment Card market performance Must-have information for market players to sustain and enhance their market footprint Read Detailed Index of full Research Study at @ https://www.htfmarketreport.com/reports/887741-global-credit-payment-card-industry-market Major Highlights of TOC: Chapter One: Global Credit Payment Card Market Industry Overview 1.1 Credit Payment Card Industry 1.1.1 Overview 1.1.2 Products of Major Companies 1.2 Credit Payment Card Market Segment 1.2.1 Industry Chain 1.2.2 Consumer Distribution 1.3 Price & Cost Overview Chapter Two: Global Credit Payment Card Market Demand 2.1 Segment Overview 2.1.1 APPLICATION 1 2.1.2 APPLICATION 2 2.1.3 Other 2.2 Global Credit Payment Card Market Size by Demand 2.3 Global Credit Payment Card Market Forecast by Demand Chapter Three: Global Credit Payment Card Market by Type 3.1 By Type 3.1.1 TYPE 1 3.1.2 TYPE 2 3.2 Credit Payment Card Market Size by Type 3.3 Credit Payment Card Market Forecast by Type Chapter Four: Major Region of Credit Payment Card Market 4.1 Global Credit Payment Card Sales 4.2 Global Credit Payment Card Revenue & market share Chapter Five: Major Companies List Chapter Six: Conclusion Buy the Latest Detailed Report @ https://www.htfmarketreport.com/buy-now?format=1&report=887741 Key questions answered - Who are the Leading key players and what are their Key Business plans in the Global Credit Payment Card market? - What are the key concerns of the five forces analysis of the Global Credit Payment Card market? - What are different prospects and threats faced by the dealers in the Global Credit Payment Card market? - What are the strengths and weaknesses of the key vendors? Thanks for reading this article; you can also get individual chapter wise section or region wise report version like North America, Europe or Asia. Valley Cottage, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 02/08/2019 -- Rising use of helicopters in transportation, touring, and VIP movement has fuelled the demand for helicopters over the past few years. Helicopters can be employed in emergency situations as well, since they offer enormous manoeuvrability especially in small space and can reach to any affected area avoiding all the traffic on road as well as any natural calamity such as earthquake and flood. Moreover, these helicopters are equipped with passenger seats, better sound proofing capabilities, and air conditioning. Manufacturers are trying to make more visually appealing, carpeted interior and glossy finished commercial helicopters. The commercial helicopters can be used in the tourism industry, oil & gas transport, and VIP or corporate shuttle. In tourism industry, tour companies hire or purchase the fleet of helicopters for the transportation of the tourists offering aerial viewpoints of the tourist places. Secondly, corporate shuttle and VIP are preferred by leasing companies, VIP service or corporates. These helicopters are featured with advanced cabin comfort features. Thirdly, oil & gas support duties include pipeline patrols and light lift cargo flights. Commercial Helicopter Market: Dynamics The increasing per capita income coupled with aging fleet is expected to fuel the demand for global commercial helicopter market. Moreover, growing tourism industry is further expected to upsurge the demand for commercial helicopter market during the forecast period. However, stringent emission norms and high cost associated with helicopters can act as challenges for the growth of commercial helicopter market. Most of the countries impose tax on commercial helicopters, thereby hampering the growth to an extent. Helicopters produce sound level up to 110 decibels that is slightly less than the noise produced by a large chainsaw. The pressure on helicopter manufacturers to make more eco-friendly helicopters is likely to rise in the near future owing to the increasing number of rotorcrafts entering service. The developing countries such as Brazil, India and China are experiencing increase in demand for commercial helicopters owing to the growing tourism industry. Moreover, manufacturers expect that attractive financing schemes will encourage market sales, as consumers are getting favourable terms on purchase of new helicopters. Request Sample Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-3655 Commercial Helicopter Market: Outlook Commercial helicopters cause pollution in two ways: gas emission from engine and noise pollution through its blades. Airframe and engine manufacturers are under immense pressure from environmental activists and governments to reduce the impact of rotorcrafts. Asia Pacific and Europe are estimated to be the promising markets for the delivery of helicopters in the upcoming decade. In Europe, the Clean Sky initiative by private/public partnership involving EU is developing technologies, which can be implemented in the production of new aircrafts. Similarly, Green Rotorcraft project is also taking initiatives to reduce emissions from commercial helicopters. Moreover, FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) imposed new rules on helicopter air ambulance services. Commercial helicopters are often the transportation option available to reach remote locations and hence play an important role by supporting lifesaving missions such as medical emergencies and rescue & search operations. The commercial helicopter fleet is also used for commerce and businesses such as in filmmaking, mineral, oil & gas, tourism, and mining. Commercial Helicopter Market: Segmentation On the basis of size, the commercial helicopter market can be segmented into: Light Helicopter (< 4.5 T) Medium Helicopter ( 4.5 to 8.5 T) Heavy Helicopter (> 8.5 T) On the basis of engine type, the commercial helicopter market can be segmented into: Single Engine Multi Engine Commercial Helicopter Market: Market Participants Examples of some of the market participants in the global commercial helicopter market identified across the value chain include- Airbus Helicopter (Airbus Group) Lockheed Martin Corporation (Sikorsky) Leonardo S.p.A. Bell Helicopter Textron Inc. MD Helicopters Inc. Russian Helicopters, JSC Robinson Helicopter Company Request to View TOC @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-3655 Rockville, MD -- (SBWIRE) -- 02/08/2019 -- In order to study the various trends and patterns prevailing in the concerned market, FactMR has included a new report titled "China Standard Parts for Tool Making Market" to its wide online database including upcoming trends and growth factors through 2018-2028. This research assessment offers a clear insight about the influential factors that are expected to transform the global market in the near future. The report studies the china standard parts for tool making market worldwide, especially in North America, Europe, Southeast Asia, India and Other Regions with production, size, growth, revenue, consumption, import and export in these regions. It is imperative to note before we dive deeper into the key insights of the study what exactly a machine tool is and how are broadly they classified. A machine tool, in its simplest definition is an equipment that requires an external power source, to cut, grind or deform a metal work piece to a predefined shape. The tool in the machine tool is the primary component that comes in direct contact with the work piece to initiate the cutting or deforming process. Machine tools are generally classified into two types that includes metal cutting tools and metal forming tools. Request Here for Free Sample of Global Market Research Report Now - https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=RC&rep_id=914 Standard parts, considered in the research study is focused towards those that are used in metal forming tools or presses and not in metal cutting tools and hence it can be described as secondary components attached to the metal forming tools that aids in the precise deformation of metals. With growing demand from the end use industry for newer metal forming tools in China, the consumption of standard parts have been on a rise registering a value of US$ 455.4 Mn by the end of 2017 and expected to hit US$ 703.5 Mn by the end of 2028 with a growth CAGR of 4.1% for a period of 10 years (2018-2028) From a global perspective, China is among the largest consumers of machine tools, including both metal cutting and metal forming tools. This is due to the fact that the manufacturing industry as a whole has been thriving positively in the country post the recession of 2009. Some of the important drivers contributing the growth of standard parts for tool making in China include dual growth of automotive & auto parts industry, initiation & rise of aircraft production in the country, improvements in foreign direct investments (FDI) & foreign invested enterprises (FIE) inflows, growth in fixed asset investment and others. Some of the opportunities for the manufacturers of standard parts to tap onto in order to increase the revenue returns include development new schemes such as China Manufacturing 2025 (CM2025) Initiative to increase manufacturing activities in the country. The market of standard parts in China faces competition from both developed and emerging economies which can attributed to customers preference towards quality parts that are available outside China, as well as increasing labor costs in the country can influence shifting of parts manufacturing outside China Browse Market Report with TOC Here - https://www.factmr.com/report/914/china-standard-parts-tool-making-market Standard parts for machine tools in China is segmented on the basis of component type, application, end use industry and sales channel. Looking at the component type segmentation, it is clear that among all the components taken into consideration, the segment that takes up the majority of market share in terms of value are punches & dies. This is due to the fact that these parts are used the most in metal forming tools in addition to incurring the highest price point which can also vary based the size of the component thereby taking up nearly 41% of the total value share in 2017. The largest users of metal forming tools are the automotive industry including third party workshops that provides parts to the same, hence in the end use industry segment, automotive industry in 2017 takes up nearly 48% and is expected to increase its market share by the end of 2028 with a value CAGR growth of 4.5%. If we look into the sales channel segment, direct sales segment takes up more than half of the market share is expected to dominate throughout the forecast period registering a CAGR of 4.1%. However, the fastest growing segment among all in this category is taken up by online sales segment with an expected CAGR of 4.6% in terms of value from 2018 to 2028. Some of the key players covered in standard parts for tool making market operating in China include MISUMI Group Inc., Barnes Group Inc., Erwin Halder KG, Meusburger Georg GmbH & Co KG, Lapple AG, Hong Yue Mold Fittings Ltd., Shenzhen QH Industrial Co., Ltd., Hongkai Precision Metal Stamping Tool And Product Co., Ltd., Agathon AG, STRACK NORMA GmbH & Co. KG., Changsha Borun Mould Co., Ltd., NITROGAS, S.A.U., DADCO, Inc., Jiashan Honglida Sliding Bearing Co., Ltd. among others. Buy online this Report from Here - https://www.factmr.com/checkout/914/S About FactMR FactMR is a fast-growing market research firm that offers the most comprehensive suite of syndicated and customized market research reports. We believe transformative intelligence can educate and inspire businesses to make smarter decisions. We know the limitations of the one-size-fits-all approach; that's why we publish multi-industry global, regional, and country-specific research reports. Contact Us FactMR 11140 Rockville Pike Suite 400, Rockville, MD 20852 United States Email: sales@factmr.com Web: https://www.factmr.com/ Blog: https://factmrblog.com/ Pune, India -- (SBWIRE) -- 02/08/2019 -- www.MarketResearchNest.com adds Latest Report in 2019, the "Global Brake Pads Market Growth 2019-2024." Brake Pads are components of brake systems used in automotive and other applications. Brake pads are friction materials which bound to the surface that faces the brake rotor and take the brunt of the frictional force necessary to stop the car. In a disc brake system, the brake pedal activates a hydraulic line which squeezes the calipers against the rotors of the car's tires. Pads are positioned between the calipers and the rotors to absorb the energy and heat, and then provide enough grips to stop the car. According to this study, the global Brake Pads market is valued at 10.34 Billion USD in 2017 and is expected to reach 11.61 Billion USD by the end of 2025, growing at a CAGR of 1.42% between 2017 and 2025. As we can see from the past few years, the brake pads industry has developed rapidly for many years and the technology is mature. The key manufacturers mainly distribute in USA, Europe and Japan regions, where the automobile industry is quite developed. And the manufacturers' bases are located all over the world. Some key manufactures have their own brake pads brands, and manufactures brake pads products for the auto maker and the leading brake pad producers as OEM. The key OEM producer includes Federal Mogul, Bosch, ITT Corporation, TRW Automotive, Nisshinbo Group Company, and Akebono etc. Inquire for buying sample copy of Brake Pads Market @ https://www.marketresearchnest.com/report/enquirybuy/527631 According to this study, over the next five years the Brake Pads market will register a 1.5% CAGR in terms of revenue, the global market size will reach US$ 11300 million by 2024, from US$ 10500 million in 2019. In particular, this report presents the global market share (sales and revenue) of key companies in Brake Pads business, shared in Chapter 3. This report presents a comprehensive overview, market shares, and growth opportunities of Brake Pads market by product type, application, key manufacturers and key regions and countries. The report also presents the market competition landscape and a corresponding detailed analysis of the major vendor/manufacturers in the market. The key manufacturers covered in this report: Breakdown data in Chapter 3: - BOSCH - Federal Mogul - TRW - Nisshinbo Group Company - Akebono - MAT Holdings - Delphi Automotive - ITT Corporation - Sangsin Brake - Sumitomo - Hitachi Chemical - ATE - BREMBO - ADVICS - Acdelco - Brake Parts Inc - ICER - Fras-le - EBC Brakes - ABS Friction - Shandong Gold Phoenix - Shangdong xinyi - SAL-FER - Hunan BoYun - Double Link Segmentation by product type: breakdown data from 2014 to 2019, in Section 2.3; and forecast to 2024 in section 11.7: - Non-asbestos Organic Brake Pads - Semi Metallic Brake Pads - Low Metallic NAO Brake Pads - Ceramic Brake Pads Browse the full summary and TOC of Brake Pads Market @ https://www.marketresearchnest.com/Global-Brake-Pads-Market-Growth-2019-2024.html Segmentation by application: breakdown data from 2014 to 2019, in Section 2.4; and forecast to 2024 in section 11.8: - OEMs Market - Aftermarket This report also splits the market by region: Breakdown data in Chapter 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8: - Americas: United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil - APAC: China, Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia, India, Australia - Europe: Germany, France, UK, Italy, Russia, Spain - Middle East and Africa: Egypt, South Africa, Israel, Turkey, GCC Countries Key questions answered in this report: - What will the Brake Pads Market Size is in 2024 and what will the growth rate be? - What is the key Brake Pads Market Trends? - What is driving this Brake Pads Market? - What are the challenges to Brake Pads Market Growth? - Who are the key vendors in this Brake Pads Market Space? - What are the Brake Pads Market Opportunities and Threats faced by the key vendors? - What are the strengths and weaknesses of the Brake Pads Market Key Vendor? Request a sample copy of Brake Pads Market @ https://www.marketresearchnest.com/report/requestsample/527631 In addition, this report discusses the key drivers influencing market growth, opportunities, the challenges and the risks faced by key manufacturers and the market as a whole. It also analyzes key emerging trends and their impact on present and future development. Research objectives: - To study and analyze the global Brake Pads consumption (value and volume) by key regions/countries, product type and application, history data from 2014 to 2018, and forecast to 2024. - To understand the structure of Brake Pads market by identifying its various subsegments. - Focuses on the key global Brake Pads manufacturers, to define, describe and analyze the sales volume, value, market share, market competition landscape, SWOT analysis and development plans in next few years. - To analyze the Brake Pads with respect to individual growth trends, future prospects, and their contribution to the total market. - To share detailed information about the key factors influencing the growth of the market (growth potential, opportunities, drivers, industry-specific challenges and risks). - To project the consumption of Brake Pads submarkets, with respect to key regions (along with their respective key countries). - To analyze competitive developments such as expansions, agreements, new product launches, and acquisitions in the market. - To strategically profile the key players and comprehensively analyze their growth strategies. Browse more details @ www.MarketResearchNest.com About MarketResearchNest.com MarketResearchNest.com is the most comprehensive collection of market research products and services on the Web. We offer reports from almost all top publishers and update our collection on daily basis to provide you with instant online access to the Global and Southeast Asia's most complete and recent database of expert insights on industries, organizations, products, and trends. Contact us: - Mr. Jeet Jain, Sales Manager, sales@marketresearchnest.com ; +1-240-284-8070, +44-20-3290-4151; Connect with us: Google+ | LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook Albany, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 02/08/2019 -- Brain stimulation therapy is a procedure to treat certain mental disorders. Brain stimulation therapies involve activating or inhibiting brain activity directly with electricity. Electricity is provided directly by invasive or non-invasive brain stimulators placed on the scalp. Brain stimulators investigate the effects of electricity on basic processes such as gene expression and other aspects of molecular biology, neurochemical regulation, functional brain activity, sensorimotor function, and cognitive and affective processes. View Report: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/safety-needles-market.html The stimulation technique uses a probe to outline patterns of neural connectivity in the brain and provides the information of brain activity in the form of graphs. The functioning of brain stimulators depends on battery powered adapter for the display of output on the patient monitor. Moreover, the system incorporates visual indicators of performance in order to provide the physicians an optimal performance. However, new developments in computer technology and rapidly growing cranial stimulation technique allows the scientific community to focus on the best practice within the medical industry, which is paving the way for early diagnosis and treatment of mental diseases. The global brain stimulators market is driven by rapid development in technology, funding for digital health companies, rise in incidence of neurological disorders, increase in government support for research & development, and adverse effects of present diagnostic & drug therapies. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, deep brain stimulators were approved for treatment of movement disorders such as essential tremor, Parkinson's disease and dystonia, and recently, obsessive-compulsive disorder. Rise in prevalence of Parkinson's disease, epilepsy, dystonia, and other chronic pain is expected to drive the global brain stimulators market. However, long approval time, high cost of research & development and devices, and lack of awareness are factors expected to restrain the global brain stimulators market during the forecast period. Request a Brochure of the Report @ https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=52701 The global brain stimulators market can be segmented based on product type, end-user, application, and region. In terms of product type, the market can be classified into transcranial magnetic stimulators, electroconvulsive therapy stimulators, deep brain stimulators, and others. Based on application, the global brain stimulators market can be categorized into Parkinson's disease, essential tremor, dystonia, and others. In December 2017, Boston Scientific Corporation received the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for the sale of Vercise Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) System to treat the symptoms of Parkinson's disease (PD), a degenerative condition that affects more than one million people in the U.S. and 10 million globally. Hence, deep brain stimulators as an invasive device will be more prominently used in the near future. In terms of end-user, the market can be divided into diagnostic laboratories, clinics, hospitals, and others. Geographically, the global brain stimulators market can be segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Rest of the World. North America dominated the global market due to advanced technology used in medical devices, increase in incidence of mental illnesses among the geriatric population, significant awareness, and high per capita health care expenditure. Early-phase diagnosis, treatment of disease, and after surgery effects drive the biotechnology and medical device market which in turn is expected to propel the brain stimulators market in North America. Europe was the second largest market for brain stimulators due to favorable government policies regarding health care infrastructure, high incidence of brain diseases due to environmental conditions, and awareness programs about different types of brain disorders. The market in Asia Pacific is likely to grow at a rapid pace due to increase in the geriatric population, rise in awareness among people, and increase in per capita expenditure. Additionally, economic growth supports improvement in health care infrastructure in developing countries such as India, China, Brazil, and South Africa. Hence, these factors are expected to contribute to the growth of the brain stimulators market in Asia Pacific and Rest of the World. Request TOC @ https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=T&rep_id=52701 Major players operating in the global brain stimulators market include Medtronic plc, Boston Scientific Corporation, Abbott Laboratories, Aleva Neurotherapeutics SA, Deep Brain Innovations, LLC, and SceneRay. About Transparency Market Research Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMR's experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge. Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMR's syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement. Contact Us Transparency Market Research 90 State Street, Suite 700 Albany, NY 12207 Tel: +1-518-618-1030 USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453 Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.com Website: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com Albany, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 02/08/2019 -- Bipolar disorder, commonly known as manic depression, is a type of mental illness which is characterized by mood swings. Mood episodes are of two types: manic and depressive episodes. The changes in the mental state bring out sudden high or low moods in a person. An individual suffering from bipolar disorder can be happy, joyful, and energized at a particular moment and can also be sad, hopeless, and sluggish at the next moment. View Report- https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/bipolar-disorder-treatment-market.html This mental illness is termed as bipolar disorder due to these different moods or two poles of mood. Through many research activities, it is observed that certain genes are responsible for the development of bipolar disorder. Individuals with a family history of bipolar disorder are most likely to develop the illness. These kind of mood episodes can hamper the image of an individual at a school or at a job or even in the society. Increase in awareness about diagnosis and treatment of bipolar disorder and unmet needs in the treatment of the disorder are the major drivers for the growth of the market. Increasing acceptance of society regarding mental illness is encouraging individuals to get treated. In addition, growth in technological advancement in identifying genetic disorders and increase in treatment options for genetic disorders are major drivers of the market growth. Government initiatives such as launch of Bipolar Disorder Phenome Database, funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), provide complete information regarding signs and symptoms of the illness. This factor has further contributed to the growth of the market. However, factors such as stringent regulatory frameworks, side effects of anticonvulsants, and limited number of approved anticonvulsants hamper the growth of the market. Request Brochure- https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=20855 The global bipolar disorder market is segmented based on types of bipolar disorder, drug class, mechanism of action, and geography. Based on types of bipolar disorder, the market is classified into bipolar I disorder, which is mania or mixed episode; bipolar II disorder, which is hypomania and depression; and cyclothymia, which is hypomania and mild depression. According to drug class, the market is segmented into mood stabilizers, anticonvulsants, antipsychotics, antidepressants, and anti-anxiety drugs. In terms of mechanism of action, the market is segmented into selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors, tricyclic antidepressants, monoamine oxidase inhibitors, benzodiazepines, beta blockers, and others. Geographically, the global bipolar market is distributed over North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa. North America dominates the global bipolar disorder market due to increased awareness and larger availability of treatment options. In the region, the U.S. has a significant market share in terms of revenue, followed by Canada. Europe is the second leading region, contributing to the growth of the market in terms of revenue, with the U.K. and Germany having major share of the market. Asia Pacific is a highly potential market with emerging countries such as India and China. The market in the region is expected to expand at a high CAGR during the forecast period. Increase in awareness about the disease in countries such as India is likely to boost the growth of the market. Latin America and Middle East & Africa are expected to contribute highly to the growth of the market due to improving economy and rising awareness about the mental illness. Request for TOC containing Tables and Figures: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=T&rep_id=20855 Key players operating in the global bipolar disorder market include Abbott Laboratories, Bristol-Myers Squibb, AstraZeneca plc, Eli Lilly and Company, GlaxoSmithKline plc, Merck & Co., Inc., Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer Inc., Cephalon Inc., Gedeon Richter plc, H. Lundbeck A/S, Otsuka America Pharmaceutical Inc., Repligen Corporation, and Validus Pharmaceuticals LLC. New Jersey, NJ -- (SBWIRE) -- 02/08/2019 -- AMA recently introduced Global B2B Publishing Market study with in-depth overview, describing about the Product / Industry Scope and elaborates market outlook and status to 2024. The market Study is segmented by key regions which is accelerating the marketization. At present, the market is developing its presence and some of the key players from the complete study are Adobe Inc.(United States) , Rakuten Aquafadas (France) , YUDU Ltd. (United Kingdom) , MPS Ltd. (India) , Quark Software Inc. (United States) , MARCOA Media, LLC (United States) , Apple Inc. (United States) , Amazon.com, Inc. (United States) and Google LLC. (United States) are some of the key players profiled in the study. Additionally, the Vendors which are also part of the research are Aptara Inc. (United States) , PageSuite Limited (United Kingdom) and Xerox Corporation (United States) etc. According to AMA research team, the Global B2B Publishing market will experience significant growth during the forecast period due to potential opportunities lying in the market such as . Some of the important driving forces are "Rising Demand For Business Information Among The World and Reduced Spending And Fast-Moving Structural Changes". Request Sample of @: http://www.advancemarketanalytics.com/sample-report/28826-global-b2b-publishing-market This report studies the B2B Publishing market size, industry status and forecast, competition landscape and growth opportunity. This research report categorizes the B2B Publishing market by companies, region, type and end-use industry. Browse 100+ market data Tables and Figures spread through Pages and in-depth TOC on " B2B Publishing Market by Type ( ), by End-Users/Application (Large enterprise, SMEs), Organization Size, Industry, and Region - Forecast to 2024". Early buyers will receive 10% customization on comprehensive study. In order to get a deeper view of Market Size, competitive landscape is provided i.e. Revenue (Million USD) by Players (2013-2018), Revenue Market Share (%) by Players (2013-2018) and further a qualitative analysis is made towards market concentration rate, product/service differences, new entrants and the technological trends in future. Enquire for customization in Report @ http://www.advancemarketanalytics.com/enquiry-before-buy/28826-global-b2b-publishing-market Competitive Analysis: The key players are highly focusing innovation in production technologies to improve efficiency and shelf life. The best long-term growth opportunities for this sector can be captured by ensuring ongoing process improvements and financial flexibility to invest in the optimal strategies. Company profile section of players such as Adobe Inc.(United States) , Rakuten Aquafadas (France) , YUDU Ltd. (United Kingdom) , MPS Ltd. (India) , Quark Software Inc. (United States) , MARCOA Media, LLC (United States) , Apple Inc. (United States) , Amazon.com, Inc. (United States) and Google LLC. (United States) are some of the key players profiled in the study. Additionally, the Vendors which are also part of the research are Aptara Inc. (United States) , PageSuite Limited (United Kingdom) and Xerox Corporation (United States) includes its basic information like legal name, website, headquarters, its market position, historical background and top 5 closest competitors by Market capitalization / revenue along with contact information. Each player/ manufacturer revenue figures, growth rate and gross profit margin is provided in easy to understand tabular format for past 5 years and a separate section on recent development like mergers, acquisition or any new product/service launch etc. Market Drivers - Rising Demand For Business Information Among The World - Reduced Spending And Fast-Moving Structural Changes Restraints - Data security concerns Opportunities Growing Utilization Of Social Media Key Target Audience - B2B Publishers - B2B Publishing Distributors/Traders/Wholesalers - B2B Publishing Subcomponent Manufacturers - Industry Association - Downstream Vendors Market Segments: The B2B Publishing Market has been divided into type, application, and region. On The Basis Of Type:. On The Basis Of Application: Large enterprise, SMEs On The Basis Of Region, this report is segmented into following key geographies, with production, consumption, revenue (million USD), and market share, growth rate of B2B Publishing in these regions, from 2013 to 2024 (forecast), covering - North America (U.S. & Canada) {Market Revenue (USD Billion), Growth Analysis (%) and Opportunity Analysis} - Latin America (Brazil, Mexico & Rest of Latin America) {Market Revenue (USD Billion), Growth Share (%) and Opportunity Analysis} - Europe (The U.K., Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Poland, Sweden & RoE) {Market Revenue (USD Billion), Growth Share (%) and Opportunity Analysis} - Asia-Pacific (China, India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Rest of Asia) {Market Revenue (USD Billion), Growth Share (%) and Opportunity Analysis} - Middle East & Africa (GCC, South Africa, North Africa, RoMEA) {Market Revenue (USD Billion), Growth Share (%) and Opportunity Analysis} - Rest of World {Market Revenue (USD Billion), Growth Analysis (%) and Opportunity Analysis} Buy Single User License of @ http://www.advancemarketanalytics.com/buy-now?format=1&report=28826 Have a look at some extracts from Table of Content Introduction about B2B Publishing B2B Publishing Market Size (Sales) Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 2017 B2B Publishing Market by Application/End Users B2B Publishing Sales (Volume) and Market Share Comparison by Applications (2013-2024) table defined for each application/end-users like [Large enterprise, SMEs] B2B Publishing Sales and Growth Rate (2013-2024) B2B Publishing Competition by Players/Suppliers, Region, Type and Application B2B Publishing (Volume, Value and Sales Price) table defined for each geographic region defined. B2B Publishing Players/Suppliers Profiles and Sales Data Additionally Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors list is being provided for each listed manufacturers Market Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2013-2018) table for each product type B2B Publishing Manufacturing Cost Analysis B2B Publishing Key Raw Materials Analysis B2B Publishing Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream Buyers, Industrial Chain Analysis Market Forecast (2018-2024) ........and more in complete table of Contents Browse for Full Report at: http://www.advancemarketanalytics.com/reports/28826-global-b2b-publishing-market Thanks for reading this article; you can also get individual chapter wise section or region wise report version like North America, Europe or Asia. About Author: Advance Market Analytics is Global leaders of Market Research Industry provides the quantified B2B research to Fortune 500 companies on high growth emerging opportunities which will impact more than 80% of worldwide companies' revenues. Our Analyst is tracking high growth study with detailed statistical and in-depth analysis of market trends & dynamics that provide a complete overview of the industry. We follow an extensive research methodology coupled with critical insights related industry factors and market forces to generate the best value for our clients. We Provides reliable primary and secondary data sources, our analysts and consultants derive informative and usable data suited for our clients business needs. The research study enable clients to meet varied market objectives a from global footprint expansion to supply chain optimization and from competitor profiling to M&As. Northbrook, IL -- (SBWIRE) -- 02/08/2019 -- The report "Auto Dimming Mirror Market by Fuel Type (BEV, ICE, Hybrid), Application (IRVM and ORVM), Functionality (Connected and Non-Connected), Vehicle Type (PC and LCV), and Region (Asia Pacific, Europe, North America, and RoW) - Global Forecast to 2025", The auto dimming mirror market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 3.20% during the forecast period, to reach a market size of USD 2.11 Billion by 2025. The market is primarily driven by the increasing awareness about vehicle and passenger safety and trend of integrating additional features with a rear-view mirror. Browse 70 Market Data Tables and 46 Figures spread through 135 Pages and in-depth TOC on "Auto Dimming Mirror Market" Download PDF Brochure @ https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/auto-dimming-mirror-market-216986602.html Early buyers will receive 10% customization on reports. Interior mirror is projected to be the largest segment of the auto dimming mirror market The interior mirror segment is projected to dominate the auto dimming mirror market, in terms of value, during the forecast period. The use of interior dimming mirrors is imperative in all types of vehicles. Passenger cars and LCVs commonly have one interior dimming mirror comprising features such as blind spot detection and park assist camera. The market for connected dimming mirror is estimated to witness the highest growth Connected auto dimming mirrors stand for dimming mirrors integrated with various other features to provide safety and convenience to drivers while driving. Some of the features which come integrated with dimming mirrors are temperature display, Bluetooth and hands-free connectivity, and navigation. Due to the increasing adoption of connected dimming mirrors, the market for auto dimming mirrors is expected to grow at the highest rate during the forecast period. Asia Pacific expected to be the largest market for auto dimming mirror market Asia-Pacific is estimated to dominate the auto dimming mirror market during the forecast period. The region represents countries such as China, Japan, South Korea, and India with the world's highest vehicle production. The demand for the automotive mirror is directly linked to the vehicle production in this region. According to the Organisation Internationale des Constructeurs d'Automobiles (OICA) publication, these countries together contributed approximately 48% to the global vehicle production in 2016. The increasing purchasing power of people is also one of the key factors for the growth in the Asia Pacific region. The auto dimming mirror market is dominated by a few global players and comprises several regional players. Some of the key manufacturers operating in the market are Magna (Canada), Samvardhana Motherson Reflectec (Germany), Ficosa (Spain), Gentex (US), and Murakami (Japan). Get detail Insight @ https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/auto-dimming-mirror-market-216986602.html About MarketsandMarkets MarketsandMarkets provides quantified B2B research on 30,000 high growth niche opportunities/threats which will impact 70% to 80% of worldwide companies' revenues. Currently servicing 7500 customers worldwide including 80% of global Fortune 1000 companies as clients. Almost 75,000 top officers across eight industries worldwide approach MarketsandMarkets for their painpoints around revenues decisions. Our 850 fulltime analyst and SMEs at MarketsandMarkets are tracking global high growth markets following the "Growth Engagement Model GEM". The GEM aims at proactive collaboration with the clients to identify new opportunities, identify most important customers, write "Attack, avoid and defend" strategies, identify sources of incremental revenues for both the company and its competitors. MarketsandMarkets now coming up with 1,500 MicroQuadrants (Positioning top players across leaders, emerging companies, innovators, strategic players) annually in high growth emerging segments. MarketsandMarkets is determined to benefit more than 10,000 companies this year for their revenue planning and help them take their innovations/disruptions early to the market by providing them research ahead of the curve. MarketsandMarkets's flagship competitive intelligence and market research platform, "Knowledgestore" connects over 200,000 markets and entire value chains for deeper understanding of the unmet insights along with market sizing and forecasts of niche markets. Contact: Mr. Shelly Singh MarketsandMarkets INC. 630 Dundee Road Suite 430 Northbrook, IL 60062 USA : 1-888-600-6441 sales@marketsandmarkets.com PHOENIX, Feb. 08, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- CopperPoint Insurance Companies today announced that A.M. Best has affirmed A- (Excellent) ratings for CopperPoint Insurance Group and its wholly owned subsidiary, Pacific Compensation Insurance Company. The outlook of these ratings is stable for both financial strength and credit rating. A.M. Best is the most widely recognized provider of insurance industry ratings and financial data. "We are pleased that A.M. Best has affirmed CopperPoints A- (Excellent) rating. We see this as a positive reflection of our operating model and strong financial condition," said CopperPoint President and CEO Marc Schmittlein. "We added Pacific Compensation Insurance Company to the CopperPoint Family of Insurance Companies a year ago and continue to grow our state and business footprint. All of this is possible due to our strong rating and financial health, which gives our distribution partners and clients the confidence to choose CopperPoint as their commercial insurance carrier. In its report, A.M. Best indicated that the outlook reflects CopperPoint Insurance Group's level of risk-adjusted capitalization, which is at the strongest level as measured by Best's Capital Adequacy Model, long-term operating profitability driven by net investment income, and improved reserving patterns. About CopperPoint Insurance Companies Founded in 1925, CopperPoint Insurance Companies ( www.copperpoint.com ) is a leading provider of workers compensation and commercial insurance solutions. With an expanded line of insurance products and a growing six state footprint in the southwestern US, CopperPoint embodies stability and sustainability for policyholders in AZ, CA, CO, NM, NV, and UT. It has $4 billion in assets, a policyholder surplus of nearly $1.5 billion and no debt. CopperPoint Mutual Insurance Holding Company is the corporate parent of Arizona based CopperPoint Insurance Companies, California based Pacific Compensation Insurance Company, and other CopperPoint insurance entities. All companies are rated A- (Excellent) by A.M. Best. ABC News(NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y.) -- Tears, embraces and prayers filled a candlelight vigil Thursday for a 24-year-old woman whose body was found in a suitcase along a Greenwich, Connecticut, road. Valerie Reyes, 24, of New Rochelle, New York, was found Tuesday with her hands and feet bound, authorities said. The cause of death has not been confirmed, Greenwich Police Capt. Robert Berry said Wednesday. However, homicide detectives are investigating the case. No arrests have been made. "My daughter did not deserve whatever you did to her," Reyes' mother, Norma Sanchez, said at Thursday's vigil in New Rochelle, reported The Rockland/Westchester Journal News. "My daughter was pure. My daughter was a good soul," Sanchez said. She added, to whoever did this to her daughter: "You will get caught." Reyes was last seen on Jan. 29 and was later reported missing to the New Rochelle Police, Berry said. Sanchez told ABC New York station WABC-TV on Thursday that Reyes, who occasionally suffered from anxiety and depression, had been fearing for her life. "She didn't mention no one specific, she just mentioned, 'I'm really really scared. I'm paranoid, Mommy, I'm getting anxiety attacks,'" Sanchez told WABC. Reyes recently had a boyfriend and Sanchez said they broke up days before she went missing. Sanchez asked her daughter if someone threatened her, and asked about her ex, but Reyes said no, Sanchez told WABC. In a statement Wednesday, Barry did not mention any persons of interest. He did say, however, that Greenwich investigators "have received a multitude of tips." The detectives are "are asking the public for any information they may possess concerning Valerie and/or her disappearance." Angelica Reyes said she believed Valerie Reyes, her cousin, was in New York City. "So we thought she was looking for help," said Angelica Reyes, according to WABC-TV. Greenwich sits along the New York-Connecticut state border. New Rochelle is about 12 miles south of Greenwich. Anyone with information is asked to call the Greenwich Police tip line at (203) 622-3333. Copyright 2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. New York, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 02/08/2019 -- The Study On key vendors in Global ATV Tires Market includes are Bridgestone, Michelin, Goodyear, Continental, Pirelli, Hankook, Sumitomo, Yokohama, Maxxis, Zhongce, GITI Tire, Toyo Tire, Cooper Tire, Kumho Tire, Apollo Tires Ltd, Triangle Group, Nexen Tire. Download FREE Sample Brochure of ATV Tires Market@ https://www.marketgrowthinsight.com/sample/10525 This report provides in depth study of "ATV Tires Market" using SWOT analysis i.e. Strength, Weakness, Opportunities and Threat to the organization. The ATV Tires Market report also provides an in-depth survey of key players in the market which is based on the various objectives of an organization such as profiling, the product outline, the quantity of production, required raw material, and the financial health of the organization. The report will answer various queries about the ongoing improvement and competition scope in the market. The basic but major aspects demonstrated in this report are: Market Overview, definitions, classifications, industry chain overview and manufacturers. A quick look at the industry trends and opportunities The researchers find out why sales of ATV Tires are projected to surge in the coming years. The study covers the trends that will strongly favor the industry during the forecast period, 2019 to 2025. Besides this, the study uncovers important facts associated with lucrative growth and opportunities that lie ahead for the ATV Tires industry. Major classifications are as follows: 8 Inches 12 Inches 16 Inches Other Major applications are as follows: ATV Game Family Leisure Other Region wise performance of the ATV Tires industry This report studies the global ATV Tires market status and forecast, categorizes the global ATV Tires market size (value & volume) by key players, type, application, and region. This report focuses on the top players in North America, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia India and Other regions (Middle East & Africa, Central & South America). Direct Order ATV Tires Market Research Report@ https://www.marketgrowthinsight.com/checkout/10525 The Study Goals of this Report: To impart and investigate the worldwide limit, esteem, utilization, and status (2013 to 2018). Focus on the key makers to improve designs in future. To define and study the market by type, application, and locale. Spotlights on the worldwide market SWOT investigation. To examine the global districts advertise position, challenges, openings, restrictions and dangers. To determine wide patterns and factors driving or restraining the market development. To break down each sub market respecting unique development progress. To evaluate aggressive improvements like new item dispatches, acquisitions, and understandings. Key Point of Table of Contents: 7 Global ATV Tires Manufacturers Profiles/Analysis 7.1 Bridgestone 7.1.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors 7.1.2 ATV Tires Product Category, Application and Specification 7.1.2.1 Product A 7.1.2.2 Product B 7.1.3 Bridgestone ATV Tires Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2013-2018) 7.1.4 Main Business/Business Overview 7.2 Michelin 7.2.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors 7.2.2 ATV Tires Product Category, Application and Specification 7.2.2.1 Product A 7.2.2.2 Product B 7.2.3 Michelin ATV Tires Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2013-2018) 7.2.4 Main Business/Business Overview 7.3 Goodyear 7.3.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors 7.3.2 ATV Tires Product Category, Application and Specification 7.3.2.1 Product A 7.3.2.2 Product B 7.3.3 Goodyear ATV Tires Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2013-2018) 7.3.4 Main Business/Business Overview 7.4 Continental 7.4.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors Continue View Full Report Details and Table of Contents- https://www.marketgrowthinsight.com/10525/atv-tires-market This ATV Tires market report holds answers to some important questions like: 1.What will the local and international competition for vendors operating in the ATV Tires Market look like during the forecast period, 2019 to 2025? 2.What impact will innovative technology and product substitutes have on the use of a service and product? 3.What are the trade barriers in the ATV Tires Market? 4.What are the important catalysts that will shape the preference of the customers during the forecast period, 2019 to 2025? 5.What will be the expected ROI (return on investment)? How much profit will the ATV Tires Market players make? 6.Which distribution trends and developments will continue to dominate the ATV Tires Market in the coming years? You may also be interested in these related reports: ATV (All-terrain Vehicle) Lighting System Market Insights - Global Trends, Opportunities, Analysis and Forecast by 2025@ https://www.marketgrowthinsight.com/22375/atv-all-terrain-vehicle-lighting-system-market About Market Growth Insight- Market Growth Insight is a one stop solution for market research reports in various business categories. We are serving 100+ clients with 10000+ diverse industry reports and our reports are developed to simplify strategic decision making, on the basis of comprehensive and in-depth significant information, established through wide ranging analysis and latest industry trends. Contact Us- 502, Sai Radhe, Kennedy Road, Behind Hotel Sheraton Grand, Near Pune Station, Pune 411001 sales@marketgrowthinsight.com + 91 8956 049 020 Follow Us- LinkedIn | Twitter | Google+ | Facebook VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Feb. 07, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Sanatana Resources Inc. ("Sanatana" or the "Company": TSX-V: STA) is pleased announce that the Company is proceeding with a non-brokered private placement of up to 30,000,000 units (the "Units") at $0.05 per Unit for gross proceeds of up to $1,500,000 (the "Offering"). Each Unit will consist of one common share of the Company and one whole warrant (a "Warrant"). Each Warrant will entitle the holder to purchase one additional common share of the Company (a "Warrant Share") at a price of $0.10 per Warrant Share for a period of 36 months from the closing of the Offering. In connection with the Offering, the Company may pay finder's fees to certain arm's length parties in accordance with the rules of the TSX Venture Exchange (TSX-V) in consideration for their efforts in introducing subscribers to the Company. Closing is subject to prescribed conditions, including, without limitations, approval of the TSX-V. The securities to be issued under the Offering will be offered by way of private placement in the provinces of British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario and such other provinces or territories of Canada as may be determined by the Company, in each case, pursuant to applicable exemptions from the prospectus requirements under applicable securities laws. Securities issued under the Offering will be subject to a four-month hold period which will expire four months and one day from the date of closing of the Offering. The Company expects to use net proceeds from the Offering for exploration and development activities on the Companys exploration projects and for working capital purposes. About the Company Sanatana Resources Inc. is a mineral exploration and development company with an experienced management team and board of directors. Sanatana is based in Vancouver and is listed on the TSX Venture Exchange (TSX-V: STA). Sanatana's present focus is the 282km2 Tirua project in the Solomon Islands, South West Pacific. SANATANA RESOURCES INC. (signed) "Peter Miles" Peter Miles President and Chief Executive Officer Cautionary Statement Regarding "Forward-Looking" Information Some of the statements contained in this news release are forward-looking statements and information within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-looking statements and information can be identified by the use of words such as "plans", "expects", "intends", "is expected", "potential", "suggests" or variations of such words or phrases, or statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "should", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. Forward-looking statements and information are not historical facts and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties beyond Sanatana's control. Actual results and developments are likely to differ, and may differ materially, from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements contained in this news release. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The Company undertakes no obligation to update publicly or otherwise revise any forward-looking statements, except as may be required by law. Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulations Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading. Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. A nonprofit that provides free food to those in need is in need itself, for volunteers with large vehicles. The Community Food Connection, which operates out of a double-wide trailer behind Trinity Church San Diego, at 14047 Twin Peaks Road, has been serving the communities of Poway, Rancho Bernardo, Rancho Penasquitos, Scripps Ranch, Escondido and beyond since 2007. Four to five tons of free food is given out to families each week, said Ray Usell of the Community Food Connection. About 200 people receive food donations each week. During the holidays, this number surged to 300 or more, he said. While more people are seeking out the organizations services, and more businesses are willing to donate food, expansion is being held back by a lack of volunteers able to drive and pick up the donations, Usell said. The organization is in need of volunteer drivers who have large vehicles and can lift 30 to 50 pounds to pick up donations from local stores and deliver them to the organizations headquarters. Volunteers should be willing to commit to regular weekly volunteering in the morning and/or early afternoon. Volunteer drivers currently make a total of 34 pickups a week, seven days a week, from local stores including Smart & Final in Poway; Sprouts in 4S Ranch, Rancho Bernardo and Carmel Mountain Ranch; Target in 4S Ranch; Trader Joes in Carmel Mountain Ranch and Mira Mesa; Vons in Black Mountain and Poway; and Walmart in Poway. The organization offers two types of food assistance. The Emergency Food Assistance Program is a federal program which provides emergency food supplies to low-income households through food banks and is available once a month to those who qualify. The pantry has no requirements and is open to the public three times a week. Food is distributed from 3 to 6 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Those wishing to partake in the program will wait outside the trailer, fill out a form and receive their box of food, which will be packed and carried out to their vehicle by the programs volunteers. There are about 12 drivers and 30 regular distribution volunteers. About 20 special needs volunteers help monthly with the big truck delivery from the government for the EFAP distribution. The organization runs on volunteer work, many of whom spend many hours organizing and handing out food each week. Several said they started volunteering because they were looking for something to do and stayed because they found working with the organization a good way to help people. Its wonderful. I wish theyd had this when I was a single mom years ago, said volunteer Robbin Gullickson, who has worked with the organization for about one and a half years. We feed a lot of people. For Bob Holland, volunteering gives him a chance to help people. He was previously a driver and now works inside the trailer. It gives you a good feeling to see people take food out and know they need it, he said. We give out everything we have. By 6 oclock (on distribution days), this place will be clean. Holland says on distribution days, he begins volunteering at 9:30 a.m. and does not leave until distribution stops at 6 p.m. Pantry boxes contain whatever has been donated, usually fresh produce, bread, tortillas and other staples. Its a great deal, said volunteer Jackie Herrera. People can get really great stuff. To find out more about the Community Food Connection or how you can volunteer, call 858-751-4613 or contact tcfconnection@gmail.com. Email: news@pomeradonews.com San Diego State University Africana Studies professor Ajani Brown has seen it all before, so he has some advice for his young students who are seeing blackface dominating headlines. Dont get angry, he said. Get educated. Brown had discussed blackface with the students in his Black Images in Film class before the national conversation thats been ignited by the recent acknowledgements by Virginias governor and attorney general that they had worn blackface as students in the 1980s. San Diego State University Professor Ajani Brown. (Courtesy photo) Advertisement He discussed it on his students first day of class when Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam and Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring werent household names. Now the politicians are trying to hold onto their jobs amid growing criticism and calls to step down as the specter of racism has reared its head again in Virginia. Subsequently, the Republican Majority leader in Virginias Senate, Thomas K. Norment, was also found to have edited a college yearbook which included photo with blackface, plunging the state into further political turmoil. Brown wasnt surprised by these revelations. It did not surprise me because weve seen this before, he said. Now hes using the situation as an opportunity to talk about blackface and racism again. His areas of expertise include visual communication as well as African and African American contributions to science fiction, comic book art, pop culture and its origins and influences so hes well versed in African American imagery in society. Just understand where it came from, he said in an interview with The Conversation podcast. Have the courage to have a conversation. Understand that theres a time and place to have the discussion but do your research. Please read books, read about American history. This is part of American history. Thanks to Brown, were having that conversation. Please join our podcast and listen in. In our discussion with Brown, we talked about the history of blackface, the impact these photos can have on a community and the state of black art and imagery in 2019 when this years Oscar contenders include Green Book, If Beale Street Could Talk, Black Klansman and Black Panther. Advertisement Unfortunately all of American history is not fun and enjoyable, some of it is dark and ugly, he said. But its our history so once you understand our history youll be able to move forward with how you react in the future to something like this. Subscribe to The Conversation podcast The Conversation with Abby & Luis is a podcast that slows down the news cycle to make sense of issues and stories that matter to listeners in San Diego and beyond. We talk to news makers, experts and others to offer interesting, in-depth conversations that will keep you up to date and informed. Check out some of our most recent episodes below, or subscribe on Apple or Stitcher. Advertisement Email: abby.hamblin@sduniontribune.com Twitter: @abbyhamblin Make city leaders live with their decision Re San Diego proposal to wipe out parking requirements takes key step forward (Feb. 7): Before easing requirements on providing parking with new housing we should be requiring our mayor, the planning commission members and probably our city council also to rent a place near a trolley station or bus stop for at least a year. A year with no car to shop for groceries, access medical care, visit friends and relatives, take a vacation etc., and, oh yeah go to work. Buses dont go everywhere and trolleys are restricted to tracks. No doubt bicycles and dockless scooters will fill any transport void and provide them a happy productive life. Postpone any voting until the end of that year. Advertisement Brian Shaw Pacific Beach I suggest anyone voting for or supporting the elimination of required parking spaces for new development be required to give up their car for one month then tell me if they still think its a great idea. Britt Jones Normal Heights Communities cant afford to lose parking Re San Diego proposal to wipe out parking requirements takes key step forward (Feb. 7): I have lived in North Park sine 1981. I love living here and watching many of the positive changes. Sadly I have seen cute Craftsman houses knocked down and replaced with condos. In most cases home buyers are charged for an extra parking place. Most opt for one place, knowing they need two. Advertisement The proposal to remove parking requirements is the worst thing for our community. Currently our streets are packed with people that do not have off-street parking. Some people park two or three blocks from their homes because there is nothing close to their house. At times my driveway is blocked because a bumper is blocking it. We are already in trouble and I can only envision what a nightmare we would have if the laws are changed. I invite the council to walk around our community and see the problem for themselves. Maria Garcia North Park Advertisement This proposal may be advantageous and practical for the younger set who can jump on a scooter or bike or just hoof it to the transit center six blocks away, but not for seniors who need their mobility close to hand for trips to the store, doctor appointments, etc. When we seniors no longer drive but want to stay in our homes, and parking is needed for caregivers, housekeepers, Meals on Wheels and visitors providing companionship. I urge City Council to consider the needs of the ever-growing senior population in this proposal. Dave Beekman Advertisement Spring Valley Letters and commentary policy The U-T welcomes and encourages community dialogue on important public matters. Please visit this page for more details on our letters and commentaries policy. You can email letters@sduniontribune.com or leave a comment below. Follow @UTLetters on Twitter and UTOpinion on Facebook. This years world economic forum at Davos, Switzerland, addressed an issue sociologists and economists have been wrestling with for more than a decade: the growing income inequality across the Western world and particularly in the United States. Fueled by innovations in technology and automation, a new class of entrepreneurs and expanding globalization, where and how people work has been revolutionized. Millions of Americans lacking digital skills are being left behind in the economy while the share of wealth among the professional and ownership classes has grown exponentially. A recent story in the Washington Post pointed out that some of the business leaders in Davos compared our times with Americas Gilded Age in the late 19th century when tycoons such as Carnegie, Rockefeller and Mellon amassed huge fortunes while most in the working class toiled under harsh conditions. It went on to quote the chief investment officer for Guggenheim Partners as stating that in America, the aristocrats are out of touch. They dont understand the issues around the common man. The heart of the issue is a workforce skills deficit; the 40-year-old laid off assembly-line worker who is not being re-skilled for in demand jobs for coders, plumbers or electricians; the high school graduate working in fast food who is not ready to move into well-paid jobs such as computer-aided design and manufacturing, upholstery, medical technician or hotel management. These are all careers, well-paid, that do not require a college degree. What they do require is skills, many of them digital, all of which require some form of schooling, reskilling or upskilling for competitive, high-demand jobs for which the same business leaders at Davos said they cannot find qualified employees. More people with college degrees is not the solution to this incredible income and opportunity gap among adults in America today. There is a huge demand for people with 21st-century skills, in particular digital competencies, whether they be high school, community college or university graduates. And yet our higher education policies and funding strategies are locked into 20th century assumptions about the relationship between educational attainment and equity, in particular, the assumption that college degrees are the primary path out of poverty and into the middle class. Advertisement In the digital age, thinking and doing are much more closely linked. Engineers can design driverless cars but advanced manufacturing know-how is needed to build them; salespeople and technically sophisticated automotive repair people are needed to keep them running; and new jobs are created for the construction of charging stations and the installation of advanced charging equipment. Advanced, environmentally sensitive heating and cooling systems, the medical devices and services which support an aging population all call upon specialized skills commanding higher wages for which college degrees are not necessarily the most efficient path to employment. The demand for well-paid skilled trades people, advanced manufacturing workers and allied health technicians, as well as coders, programmers and IT support specialists, has never been greater in America than it is today. The supply has never been smaller. Approximately 40 percent of unfilled jobs require specialized skills rather than college degrees. One has only to look at the ads in our own daily newspaper recruiting talent for local plumbing companies with offers to train recruits for jobs earning as much as $100,000 a year as evidence of a skill shortage. Unless we invest significantly in skilling, upskilling and reskilling American citizens for the modern workplace, we will fail to address the full dimensions of the growing income inequality in America today. We will also continue to perpetuate the growing cultural and political divides which in large part have been fueled by the economic insecurities and limited opportunities among a growing percentage of Americas middle class. More of us need to recognize that in the 21st century we need scientific and technical know-how not only to remain economically competitive, but to preserve an increasingly fragile democracy. In a recent TEDx talk, I argued that our country doesnt only need preparation for STEM careers science, technology, engineering and math. We also need vigorous pipelines for technical careers which means heart! We must recommit to hands on, engaged, applied, relevant training and sooner rather than later. It is time for Sacramento and our local school districts as well as employers to co-invest in rebuilding a skilled workforce simultaneous with assuring more college grads. Walshok is an author, educator and researcher, and dean of University of California San Diego Extension. Newly inaugurated Gov. Gavin Newsom has promised to usher in a new progressive, principled California that will set the stage for a new American Dream for a new generation. In not so veiled terms in his inaugural address, Gov. Newsom promised to be a check on a Trump administration that has come across as contrary to many of the values that the state of California has espoused in recent years. Newsom promised to fight for the homeless, advocate for immigrants and create some of the most pro-family reforms in the entire country. Perhaps no reform in our current age, however, would be more consequential and powerful for a new American Dream than a fight for democracy itself. This fight for democracy must begin with the foundation of the republic itself: an education system that prioritizes cultivating an engaged, informed and motivated citizenry. In recent years, America has systematically deprioritized civics education. Whereas, in prior generations, students enjoyed as many as four semesters of civics education before graduation, todays students are lucky if they receive one. When students do take civics, it is often seen as one of the most boring, traditional classes: students learn the three branches of government and how a bill becomes a law and then take a test. Moreover, students rarely experience a pedagogy that speaks to and builds upon their wide diversity of lived experiences. Civics, and thus democracy, has become incredibly irrelevant for young people who face real challenges, like increasing inequality, a housing crisis, and the effects of climate change. This disconnect is worsened by a burgeoning civics education gap: students from more affluent schools and communities are significantly more likely to learn about government in an engaging, experimental way; twice as likely to study the legislative process; and 150 percent more likely to conduct in-class debates. This gap only heightens a democracy in which those with money are more likely to have influence on the process. Advertisement In recent years, especially in the wake of the 2016 election, the ramifications of deprioritizing educating for democracy are increasingly apparent. We are witnessing a citizenry that is both increasingly polarized and turning off from politics entirely. But in the wake of an unprecedented threat to our democracy, civics has begun to see a renaissance. School districts across the country are prioritizing student voices and educating for democracy. And states, like Illinois and Massachusetts, have passed robust bills, mandating experiential civics education, creating new assessments and allocating funds for the discipline. California has begun to follow suit, and in some ways, pioneer the movement forward. Under the honorary leadership of California Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, a comprehensive Power of Democracy Steering Committee has called for more robust civics education throughout the state. The committee issued a set of thoughtful recommendations which helped to catalyze county-based civic learning partnerships and informed revisions to the social studies and history frameworks. Despite this start, however, the vision has not enjoyed deep implementation nor substantial funding. The task force has provided recommendations, but there is more to do to get this work into classrooms. Gov. Newsom can ensure that California not only talks about effective civics learning but leads the entire country in pushing for the foundations of a strong democracy. California could pass robust legislation that would ensure that every young person in this country receives an effective civics education by following Massachusetts lead and requiring schools to provide every student with a project-based civics education. Students should have access to an inclusive, culturally relevant civics curriculum that recognizes the differing lived experiences of youth as an asset not an obstacle to constructing environments that both model and teach democratic culture. To provide resources for such a requirement, the California budget could provide substantial funding to districts and educators alike for training and professional development in effective civic learning. To prioritize closing the civic education gap, this funding should have an explicit equity focus, with a prioritization in under-resourced areas and districts. Scaling effective civics education is challenging: It is a subject that has been marginalized for decades, a subject that has become seen as irrelevant and boring, and a subject that requires significant local context. But a thriving democracy requires educating the next generation of young people for citizenship. Gov. Newsom wants to do bold, big, things. Prioritizing an education system that makes civics the most exciting, relevant, and accessible class in school is bold. It also is necessary towards creating a thriving democracy. California can demonstrate the way to a new democracy with a new civics. Advertisement Brewer is Bay Area executive director of Generation Citizen. Warren is co-founder and CEO of a Generation Citizen, a national civics education nonprofit. Website: www.generationcitizen.org. Last week, the U.S. government started to force asylum seekers processed through San Diegos port of entry back into Mexico as their cases proceed in U.S. courts. This Remain in Mexico policy builds on the governments existing practice of capping how many it will even process at almost all ports along the border, pushing everyone else back south. Officials claim that they lack resources to process asylum seekers, but the data undermine this claim. In December, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen testified before Congress that ports all along the border including in San Diego had reached their capacity and simply couldnt handle any more asylum seekers. For this reason, she claimed, officers simply had to limit how many people they would process. But new research from the Cato Institute based on the governments own data shows that those same ports had admitted twice as many undocumented immigrants in October 2016 as in December 2018. The Obama administration steadily increased processing at ports, allowing the flow of undocumented immigrants to triple from 2012 to October 2016. Under Nielsen, DHS halved the flow. Nielsens claims about hitting capacity simply do not match the numbers. Undocumented arrivals at the border both at ports and between ports fell 9 percent from October 2016 to December 2018. If fewer migrants came overall, DHS cant justify not processing more at legal points of entry. Yet DHS still halved the share of migrants it processed at ports, cutting it from 32 to 16 percent. Advertisement DHSs policy of turning away migrants has clearly resulted in more illegal immigration. The DHS Office of Inspector General concluded as much in September 2018. It wrote that it saw evidence that limiting the volume of asylum-seekers entering at ports of entry leads some aliens who would otherwise seek legal entry into the United States to cross the border illegally. DHS has offered a laundry list of excuses for turning away people at ports of entry. None of them hold up. In September, the DHS Office of Inspector General found no supposed extreme overcrowding, as DHS claimed. In October, CBP officers told Amnesty International that ports hadnt reached capacity more than a couple of times per year. DHS points to the record number of families and children who may have more resource-intensive needs as a main issue, but the number of families and children processed at ports is also down 43 percent from October 2016 to December 2018. DHS claims that the holdup might be a lack of detention capacity down the line at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which takes custody of the asylees after processing. But from 2016 to 2018, the detention bed space increased dramatically from 34,000 to almost 45,000. In 2019, it is already up to about 48,000. The excuses just dont add up. So whats going on? The answer is that the government does not want these asylum seekers processed anywhere. President Trump has flatly said, I dont want them in our country. He tweeted repeatedly about stopping Central American asylum seekers in April 2018, and almost continuously, the share processed at ports has declined. Nielsen wants them all forced back into Mexico, which is exactly why she has rolled out her new Remain in Mexico plan last week. The plan will send people who finally do get processed at the San Diego port of entry after weeks or months back to Mexico for months or years more of waiting homeless just out of sight of the United States. The goal is, as Trump has said, When people come into our country illegally, we must immediately escort them back out. These policies violate the law which requires the government to process asylum seekers at ports of entry and not to remove them. They also encourage unlawful entry, which is why Border Patrol opposes the Remain in Mexico policy. Finally, turning away asylum seekers is dangerous. Cartels already killed two Hondurans waiting in Tijuana, and we know that forcing two children to make crossings in remote areas contributed to their deaths in Border Patrol custody last year. Before Congress even considers funding a border wall, it should demand answers for why the government will not process asylum seekers at ports. If funding truly is the issue, use the border wall money for that. By letting people get processed legally, it would do more to deter illegal immigration than a wall anyway. Advertisement Bier is an immigration policy analyst at the Cato Institute. The House Judiciary Committee chairman said late Thursday that a standoff with the acting attorney general had ended in an agreement for Matthew Whitaker to testify publicly Friday, setting up a potentially dramatic confrontation over President Trump and the special counsel investigation into the 2016 campaign. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) announced on Twitter on Thursday evening that Whitaker will appear tomorrow morning at 9:30 am, capping a dramatic daylong standoff over whether Whitaker would scrap his appearance entirely over the Democrats threat to subpoena him. Whitaker had said earlier Thursday that he would not appear before the committee as scheduled unless committee Democrats gave him assurances he wont be subpoenaed. Earlier Thursday evening, Nadler sent a letter to Whitaker that provided no such promise, saying only that there will be no need for a subpoena if Whitaker answers lawmakers questions. To the extent that you believe you are unable to fully respond to any specific question, we are prepared to handle your concerns on a case-by-case basis, both during and after tomorrows hearing, Nadler wrote. Advertisement READ MORE: Restless and ambitious, Matthew Whitaker repeatedly shifted course to advance his career. Now he heads the Justice Department The two sides continued discussions throughout the evening, and eventually, according to Justice Department officials, Nadler agreed that no subpoena would be issued on Thursday or Friday. Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said in a statement that Nadler has made the commitment that we requested, and agreed that, if Mr. Whitaker voluntarily appears at tomorrows hearing, the Committee will not issue a subpoena on or before February 8. In light of that commitment, Acting attorney general Whitaker looks forward to voluntarily appearing at tomorrows hearing and discussing the great work of the Department of Justice. Tensions ran high earlier in the day as the administration and congressional Democrats accused each other of acting in bad faith. The fact Chairman Nadler would try to force the public disclosure of private conversations that he knows are protected by law proves he only wants to play politics, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said. The chairman should focus on helping the American people, rather than wasting time playing pointless political games. Whitakers demand for Democrats to set aside their subpoena threat came shortly after the House Judiciary Committee voted along party lines to give its chairman the authority to subpoena Whitakers testimony, should he not appear or answer lawmakers questions. The confrontation highlights efforts by Democrats to assert their newfound control of the House of Representatives as a check on the Trump administrations power, and the administrations determination to attack congressional investigations decried by the president. However the Whitaker matter plays out, it may set the tone for months or years more of wrangling between the White House and congressional Democrats. Democrats have vowed to press Whitaker about his conversations with Trump, and Whitakers decision not to recuse himself from special counsel Robert S. Mueller IIIs investigation of Russian election interference, although career Justice Department officials recommended he do so. Advertisement Whitaker had said in a statement that the committee has deviated from historic practice and protocol and taken the unnecessary and premature step of authorizing a subpoena to me, the acting attorney general, even though I had agreed to voluntarily appear. He called the move a breach of his agreement with the panel. Whitakers position was relayed in a letter sent Thursday to the committee. Respectfully, this proposed approach reflects a striking departure from the constitutionally based understanding between our co-equal branches of government, wrote Stephen Boyd, head of the Justice Departments Office of Legislative Affairs. Whitaker, the letter said, is willing to discuss with lawmakers his decision not to recuse himself from the Mueller investigation. We do not believe, however, that the committee may legitimately expect the acting attorney general to discuss his communications with the president, Boyd wrote. Advertisement Democrats on the committee showed no inclination to accommodate Whitakers demands, and some urged Nadler to respond with an immediate subpoena. Get him under subpoena, bring him to our hearing, and ask him questions and demand answers and then take him to court if he does not answer those questions, said Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.). What hes trying to do is play out the clock and then maybe he thinks hes off the hook of having to appear, Johnson continued. But I think hell be badly mistaken about that. Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.) said he had heard Whitaker was nervous about his testimony. Thats not a reason not to show, Deutch said. Advertisement If he simply does what hes committed to do, committed to publicly, which is to appear and answer questions, there wont be a subpoena, he said. The panel vote on the subpoena along partisan lines underscores the new political tensions around Muellers work now that Democrats control the House. Democrats worry that Whitaker, whose public comments before taking over the Justice Department suggested he was sympathetic to Trump and critical of the Mueller inquiry, may seek to evade questions he is asked during the hearing. They pointed to a pattern of administration witnesses, such as former Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions, who refused to answer certain queries by suggesting that the president might want to invoke executive privilege over certain parts of his testimony, to justify the concern. The committee can and should expect a direct answer to any question, said Nadler, who opted to send Whitaker his questions in advance and require that he tell the panel about any plans to invoke executive privilege at least 48 hours before the hearing. Advertisement Republicans objected to the move, arguing that Whitaker had not given the panel a legitimate reason to be concerned and that approving a preemptive subpoena would set a bad precedent for the panel. This subpoena is nothing short of political theater, said Rep. Douglas Collins of Georgia, the panels ranking Republican. Im concerned about the chilling effect on other witnesses who would be willing to testify voluntarily, and when they see this happen, theyll just hold out. Republicans had attempted to get the committee to expand the subpoena-in-reserve to give Nadler the authority to subpoena Deputy Atty. Gen. Rod Rosenstein, whom GOP members of the panel have long wanted to question about reports he suggested recording the president and invoking constitutional procedures to remove Trump from office. If the panel had questions about oversight of Muellers inquiry, Republicans also argued, it would be better to question Rosenstein, who had been monitoring it for far longer than Whitaker. Advertisement We want to add Mr. Rosenstein to get at the heart of the matter of the questions, said Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), who presented the amendment to add Rosensteins name to the subpoena authorization. He could probably answer those questions more thoroughly than anybody else. The committee voted against the proposal, also along party lines. Whitakers hearing probably will be one of his final appearances as acting attorney general. The Senate Judiciary Committee voted along party lines Thursday to advance the nomination of William Barr to serve as attorney general, and the full Senate is expected to vote on confirmation next week. Although several Democrats have opposed Barrs nomination out of concern that he might limit Muellers investigation or keep the special counsels final report out of the hands of the public, he is expected to be confirmed, as he needs to secure only a simple majority of the GOP-led Senate for his nomination to be approved. With Sen. Elizabeth Warren once again confronting controversy over her tenuous claims to Native American heritage, activists in early-voting states and national allies are nervously eyeing whether she can succeed in getting past an issue that has shadowed her campaign. Many Democrats continue to defend the Massachusetts senator, believing the questions have been overblown or used against Warren unfairly. Yet with so many candidates in the Democratic field, some say she will have to show soon that she can shake it off, given voters intense focus on finding a candidate who can defeat President Trump. She needs to get everything out and hope thats the end of it, said Judy Reardon, a New Hampshire environmental activist, who is a former Democratic state legislator and top staffer to Sen. Jeanne Shaheen and is generally complimentary of Warren. The latest round of trouble comes at an important point for Warren, as she prepares for the official launch of her campaign with a swing through early primary states starting this weekend. Advertisement Since she announced on Dec. 31 that she was setting up an exploratory committee, Warren has settled into the top tier of Democratic hopefuls, and her aides designed the coming events to give her campaign a boost. Instead, shes once more fending off questions on a topic she hoped to have put behind her. Last month, Warrens allies were pleased after her initial swing through Iowa, when she became the first major Democrat to open a presidential exploratory committee. Her speeches were filled beyond capacity with receptive activists, and the ancestry issue came up only once, when a voter asked whether she unwittingly played intro Trumps hand by taking a DNA test that showed only trace Native American ancestry. The issue did not come up in interviews with activists who came to evaluate her prospects. Warren believed she had settled as many questions as she could, having cooperated last fall with an extensive Boston Globe review that showed the claims had not factored into her hiring in a series of jobs as a law professor. But any sense of relief was premature. Last week, after continued criticism from prominent Native Americans, Warren issued an apology for not being more sensitive to the distinction between family lore and tribal membership. Then, on Wednesday, as Warren prepared for her official campaign launch, the Washington Post published a 1986 Texas legal bar registration card in which she listed her race as American Indian. A disclaimer on the card says the information on it would be used for statistical purposes only and would not be publicly disclosed, supporting Warrens insistence that she did not use the claim for professional advancement. Nonetheless, it was the first document to surface in which Warren had made the claim in her own handwriting, which renewed the sense that the issue could linger, with old documents emerging at unexpected times. Warren, in an uncomfortable scrum with reporters in the hallway of the Senate on Thursday, would not say directly whether more such documents might exist. All I know is during this time period, this is consistent with what I did because it was based on my understanding from my familys stories, she told reporters. But family stories are not the same as tribal citizenship, and this is why I have apologized. The issue, at minimum, has distracted attention from the topics Warren wanted to talk about. On Thursday, for example, the Trump administration began watering down rules to protect the poorest consumers from high-interest payday lenders, a core issue for Warren for decades during her career as a bankruptcy professor and activist. Advertisement If youre in a campaign that is dealing with a problem, you want to move as quickly as you can away from it. Sometimes you are not in control of moving away from it, said John Anzalone, a Democratic pollster who worked with the presidential campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and in other Democratic campaigns back to the 1980s. Barney Frank, a former Massachusetts Democratic congressman who has long encouraged Warrens presidential aspirations, said he believes she is handling the issue the best she can, but noted the large number of choices available for Democratic primary voters. The problem is there are a lot of very good candidates who are very close on the issues, so small differences get focused on, he said. Several party activists in early states who are most worried about the issue did not want to speak on the record about a fellow Democrat. But they all agreed the partys voters are determined, even more than usual, to find a candidate who can win in the general election. Activists, while not ruling Warren out, are eager to see whether she can move past this, they said. Advertisement A poll of voters in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina conducted for Firehouse Strategies found that voters in those early voting states prefer a candidate who could beat Trump to one who best represents their values. A national poll by Monmouth University found that 56% of registered Democrats prefer a stronger candidate against Donald Trump, even if they disagree with the candidate on most issues. Only 33% said they would accept a weaker candidate who more closely matched their views. The one takeaway when I talk to people, its, I just want the person who can beat Donald Trump, said Sylvia Larsen, a former state Senate leader in New Hampshire who has hosted Warren at a house party and is planning to host other candidates, including, the coming weeks, New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. Its better that she turn around and face the demon rather than run from it, Larsen said of Warren. The people that I hear the most flak from are people that would never support her anyway. Some activists said they believe Warren is simply the first candidate to face a tough issue and that its more important to see how she handles it. Advertisement Elizabeth Warren made a mistake. If she can demonstrate in the near future how shes learned from that, that her thinking has evolved, then I dont think it will be a problem, said Terie Norelli, a former New Hampshire House speaker who is hosting Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown on Friday but is uncommitted. If she cant, it will continue to dog her. Still, even as Democrats continue to evaluate Warren, they are frustrated that Trump can attack potential rivals he uses the slur Pocahontas against Warren despite what they see as his own much bigger character and policy flaws. Many blame the media for what they see as disproportionate treatment. This is 2016 emails coverage all over again, tweeted Brian Fallon, the press secretary for Hillary Clintons 2016 campaign. Advertisement The issue also intersects with long-standing concerns that female candidates are too quickly labeled as unlikeable or unelectable in a general election. Adam Kerkvliet, chairman of the Lyon County Iowa Democrats, said that being from the Midwest, someone saying they have Native American ancestry, thats not uncommon. Opponents might use the Native American thing as cover for their sexism, but I think thats really what drives her electability issues, he added. Times staff writer Janet Hook contributed to this report. Advertisement Follow the latest news of the Trump administration on Essential Washington Chelsea Clinton joined San Diego County health officials and vulnerable teens on Thursday in Balboa Park for a panel discussion about how to better help children in the countys child welfare and juvenile justice systems. The panel focused on the progress of a collaboration between the Clinton Foundations Health Matters Initiative, the county and the San Diego Foundation to study factors that lead to poor health outcomes and a higher rate of children of color in the justice system and foster care. We finally really do know what works, Clinton said during the panel. We really do know kind of what works, from how best to support young people, whether theyre in child welfare services, theyre in foster care, theyre going to be adopted or theyre on probation in the juvenile system. The question the group wants to answer, she said, is how best to coordinate resources to ensure there is community and individual support, mentoring and other types of assistance children need to ensure that they have every opportunity to have a safe, happy, healthy life. Advertisement Since the largely grant-funded collaboration between the Clinton Foundation, the county and other organizations was established in 2017, it has engaged hundreds of people and organizations in workshops and conversations to determine how to prioritize effects and leverage available resources, according to information provided by the group. It also created a youth-trauma informed code of conduct that organizations can adopt to improve performance. A speaker at Thursdays event, Jonathan Curiel, an 18-year-old former gang member who has been in juvenile custody and is now on probation, said the code of conduct is already being used in the county and it has made a world of difference to him. He said of his probation officer: Me and her have a little partnership . She sits down with me and actually helps me out and honestly I take that as a big role because Ive never had that. Ive been on probation since I was 12 and Ive just had people telling me, Dont do this, dont do that, you gotta do it this way. That individualized assistance, that feeling of being seen as a person worthy of real attention, has helped him fill his time with helpful programs and instead of gangs, Curiel said. San Diego County Supervisor Nathan Fletcher, who also spoke at Thursdays event, said the collaboration is important because the work paves the way for policymakers like himself to make targeted changes that are needed to help government systems work better. The foundation, in my opinion, of the American Dream is the equality of opportunity, he said. There is no equality of outcome, but there is supposed to be an equality of opportunity. The panel comes two months after the release of a county-created working group report laying out weaknesses in the countys child welfare system and recommendations for improvements. Former County Supervisor Ron Roberts and Supervisor Greg Cox suggested creating the working group after a report published July 22 in the San Diego Union-Tribune. The article focused on a lawsuit by two former foster children who alleged the county failed for years to protect them from abuse by a former foster parent despite dozens of reports of suspected child abuse from people including a teacher, a lawyer and a psychologist. Advertisement In August, the county agreed to pay $3 million to settle the lawsuit and a related civil case by one of the former foster children, who accused county lawyers of snooping through his confidential juvenile records while actively defending the county in civil court. The county working group report released in December found numerous weaknesses in the foster care system and recommended solutions to address them. The countys Health and Human Services agency is expected to respond to the recommendations as soon as next month. morgan.cook@sduniontribune.com Three San Diego researchers and technologists have been elected to the National Academy of Engineering, an elite honor society whose members include Google co-founder Sergey Brin, futurist-inventor Ray Kurzweil, and Qualcomm co-founder Irwin Jacobs. The NAE is part of the National Academy of Sciences, which was created during the Lincoln administration to advise Congress and the president. The three new local members include Kimberly Prather, an atmospheric chemist at UC San Diegos Scripps Institution of Oceanography; Mary Baker, chairman and president of ATA Engineering, Inc.; and Jefferson C. Lievense, senior adviser to the chief executive officer of Genomatica, which develops and licenses chemicals. Prather is widely known for her studies of how breaking waves affect the formation and behavior of clouds, which is essential to understanding climate change. She is among UC San Diegos most highly funded scientists. Advertisement Baker was elected for her work in computer simulations, especially as they apply to the development of satellites and rockets. ATA Engineering also contributed to the development of the space shuttle. Lievense was honored for decades of work that advanced industrial biotechnology, especially in the area of fermentation. ICYMI UC San Diego to open bridge Friday that spans I-5, linking main campus and health sciences complex John Mendelsohn, shaper of UC San Diegos renowned cancer center, dies at 82 A bomb squad at the UC San Diego campus on Friday found that a hand grenade in a utility tunnel was a harmless foam toy, officials said. It appeared to have been dropped accidentally, not planted as a threat, San Diego Fire-Rescue spokeswoman Monica Munoz said. Workers doing some routine cleaning were sweeping underneath utility pipes in the tunnel when they swept the device out from under the pipes, UC San Diego spokeswoman Jade Griffin said. They notified campus police about 9:30 a.m. and officers requested the Metro Arson Strike Team bomb squad about 30 minutes later. Advertisement Scholars Lane off Scolars Drive South was closed off while the bomb team investigated beneath the road, between Muir College and the main gymnasium, Griffin said. No evacuations were ordered. Griffen said campus police Chief David Rose described the device as made of a Nerf-type foam. It is not considered illegal to have on campus, they said. A Nerf toy website shows grenades shaped like a tall cylinder with a squeeze-handle and a pin to pull before tossing it at opponents, likely for mock war games. The grenades can shoot out foam projectiles advertised as harmless to the body. Authorities cleared out of the area by around 11:30 a.m., Griffin said. Advertisement pauline.repard@sduniontribune.com Twitter: @pdrepard A man carrying a motorcycle helmet robbed a credit union teller at a busy Rancho Bernardo shopping center Thursday afternoon, police said. It happened around 3:50 p.m. at the San Diego County Credit Union branch at the Rancho Bernardo Town Center on Bernardo Plaza Drive, San Diego police Officer Robert Heims said. The suspect walked up to the teller, demanded money and left out the front doors with an undisclosed amount of cash, Heims said. Police described the bandit as a 5-foot 10-inch, 200-pound white man with a mustache. He was carrying a motorcycle helmet in his hands and wearing a black and white bandanna around his head. He also wore a black hoodie, gray pants and black shoes. Advertisement It was unclear if he was riding a motorcycle before or after the heist, and witnesses did not see in which direction he left the credit union. Anyone with information about the robbery can contact San Diego Police Departments robbery unit at (619) 531-2299 or Crime Stoppers at (888) 580-8477. Twitter: @Alex_Riggins (619) 293-1710 alex.riggins@sduniontribune.com A motorcycle rider died in a collision with a sedan at Broadway and F Street in Chula Vista early Friday, police said. The name of the rider was not immediately available. He was heading north on Broadway shortly before 6 a.m. As he entered the intersection at F Street, a southbound sedan turned left in front of him, Chula Vista police Lt. Henry Martin told OnScene TV. The two collided and the rider was thrown off his motorcycle. Officers began first aid on him, but he died before he could be taken to a hospital, Martin said. Advertisement The sedan driver, believed to be in his early 20s, was not injured, police said. The intersection was blocked during the crash investigation. pauline.repard@sduniontribune.com Twitter: @pdrepard Firefighters in El Cajon responded to a blaze Thursday evening at a metal business just south of Gillespie Field involving a FedEx trailer and magnesium an element that cant be extinguished with water, authorities said. The fire was reported about 3:40 p.m. at Precision Metal Products on West Bradley Avenue between North Marshall and North Johnson avenues, Heartland Fire & Rescue Department Capt. Sonny Saghera said. El Cajon police shut down West Bradley Avenue in both directions for about five hours until 8:30 p.m., when the roadway was reopened. The incident has been concluded and the roadway is now open. El Cajon Police (@elcajonpolice) February 8, 2019 Advertisement It wasnt immediately clear how the fire started, but employees at the business told firefighters they had magnesium on the trailer that somehow ignited and started burning, Heartland Division Chief Brian Manns told OnScene TV. Unlike a lot of the fires we encounter, water will actually make the magnesium burn hotter rather than extinguishing it, Manns said. A hazardous materials team from the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department was at the scene helping fire crews come up with a plan for dealing with the blaze. Precision Metal Products has extinguishing agents on site because they deal with combustible metals, Manns said. Hopefully, what they have is going to be adequate, and if not there (are) some other techniques well be able to use, and well work with the (hazardous materials team) to be guided by them, Manns said. The FedEx trailer was in the parking lot of the metal business, and no buildings were threatened, Saghera said. Emergency crews were at the scene for about five hours, according to a tweet from El Cajon police. Advertisement Twitter: @Alex_Riggins (619) 293-1710 alex.riggins@sduniontribune.com Advertisement UPDATES: 9 p.m.: This article was updated with additional details. 5:45 p.m.: This article was updated with additional details. This article was originally published at 5 p.m. The bruises on his face soon may heal, but the broken heart of Victor Vasquez the Birdman of East Village may take a while longer. Sydney, the day before he died, I told him, Youre the reason I wake up in the morning, Vasquez said this week of his 31-year-old medium sulphur-crested cockatoo from Papua New Guinea, one of his three feathered companions. He was just an amazing soul. The bird was killed during an attack on Vasquez, which he said occurred Wednesday in front of the San Diego Central Library. Vasquez said he was punched, kicked and knocked to the ground by two unknown assailants. Advertisement While Vasquez was being beaten, two of his birds got loose from their cages. One of them, Sydney, flew into the path of a passing trolley and was killed. Vasquez, 54, had become known as the Birdman of East Village for his daily walks around downtown and Balboa Park with a tower of three birdcages strapped to his back. He and his three-tiered backpacks and squawking birds had become a fun and quirky sight in the year and a half hes lived downtown, and he was featured in a San Diego Reader article last March. On Wednesday morning, he said, he slipped on his birdcage backpack and headed out of his small apartment on Market Street to the library to return a rented DVD. He dropped off the DVD in a slot without entering the library, and said a security guard told him to move along. Vasquez said he was leaving when a young man sitting on a nearby wall said something like, Yeah, get out of here with your dirty clothes. Words were exchanged, but Vasquez said he walked away. When he saw the young man heading toward him, he called 911. The San Diego Police Department reported receiving the call at 9:47 a.m. Vasquez said the man struck him, knocked him down and was joined by a female companion who also hit and kicked him. He said both assailants appeared young, around 18 years old. The cages popped open. Ginger, a Goffins cockatoo from Australia, flew into a nearby tree. Between blows, Vasquez said he could see Sydney flying toward the trolley. Advertisement He remembers a woman saying Sydney had been run over. Vasquez managed to get to his feet and walk to the tracks. He scooped up Sydneys mangled body. I cant get the image out of my mind, he said through tears. Vasquez said police arrived but he felt they did not believe his story until they saw security camera footage. (The Union-Tribune was unable to confirm Friday whether police had obtained or reviewed any surveillance video, and the newspaper was not able to locate the video independently.) Advertisement He said he hopes witnesses will come forward to help identify the assailants. He was able to retrieve Ginger and also still has Coocooberry, a red-lored green Amazon parrot about 20 years old. Theyre my life, he said about his birds, which have helped him deal with some tough times. Vasquez was homeless off and on for about 10 years and said he is HIV positive and has PTSD from injuries sustained in an encounter with police during a demonstration in San Francisco in 1989. Advertisement Sydney was his favorite of the three birds, and even through his grief, Vasquez is able to smile at the birds memory. He gave me so much, he said. Thats what I have to hold on to. He was so intelligent. He loved to be held and praised. Sydney was my best friend. The case has been assigned to a San Diego police detective and is under investigation, but no other information about any possible suspects was available Friday. Anyone with information about the incident can call Crime Stoppers at (619) 235-8477 and refer to case number 19004063. Advertisement Homeless Playlist On Now San Diego hepatitis outbreak continues to grow: 481 cases On Now Homeless entrenched in booming tent city along Santa Ana River On Now San Diego mayor agreed to homeless hub, then delayed, advocates say On Now Homeless outreach in San Diego On Now Video: Street Art: Portraits of San Diego's Homeless #8 On Now In poverty himself, 'Water Man Dave,' is the fearless saint of San Diego's homeless 5:41 On Now Video: Homeless living in cars find safe havens 2:21 On Now Street Art: Portraits of San Diego's Homeless #7 On Now Pitching a tent plan for San Diego's homeless On Now Homeless efforts get $80M boost for various services Advertisement gary.warth@sduniontribune.com Twitter: @GaryWarthUT 760-529-4939 Advertisement UPDATES: 6:00 p.m: This article was updated with additional information. The article was published orginally at 1:55 p.m. Moodys Investors Service, one of the nations big three credit rating agencies, is praising San Diegos pension system for adopting new policies to accelerate paying off its $2.76 billion pension debt. While Moodys didnt elevate the pension systems rating of Aa2, the third highest the service gives, Moodys said the new policies are credit positive and reduce the chances San Diego will face long-term budgeting problems. The pension systems board voted unanimously last month to set a minimum annual pension payment of about $350 million until the debt shrinks to zero, a significant departure from previous plans to let the annual payment drop to $250 million in 2029. The more aggressive approach seeks to reduce the debt to zero by 2037, 11 years earlier than projected under the previous plan. Advertisement The board also voted unanimously to limit how much the pension system can soften the impact of increases in the debt caused by changes in long-term projections, such as how well the stock market will perform in coming years or how long retirees will live. The city has previously been allowed to spread the impact of higher employee longevity rates or lower investment returns over 30 years, but the board voted last month to shrink that to 20 years in all future instances. The change brings the city in line with best practices throughout the state for delaying such impacts, which is called smoothing. Most pension systems in California use 20 years, and only four systems use 30 years. The new contribution rules are credit positive for the city, because more rapid repayment of unfunded pension liabilities will reduce the chances that San Diegos long-term costs unexpectedly challenge future budgets, Moodys said in a recent report. The report, written last month by senior analyst Thomas Aaron, said San Diegos pension system was already in solid shape even before the new policies. He noted that San Diego pays down its pension debt each year according to long-term projections by a professional actuary, and that the pension system in 2017 reduced the estimated rate of return on its investments to one of the lowest levels in the nation. They exceed a threshold we call our tread water indicator, he said. When the city projects lower stock market returns, it increases the pension debt because that debt projection is based partly on how much the pension systems investments are expected to increase in value in the long term. Advertisement Aaron said the more conservative estimates of investment returns will allow the pension system to more rapidly build its assets and allow pension administrators to reduce the expected volatility risk of its portfolio. The new policies are part of a comprehensive effort to avoid repeating the pension underfunding schemes from the early 2000s that earned San Diego the nickname Enron by the Sea. Aaron, however, noted the citys pension system faces some risk stemming from the state Supreme Court ruling last year that San Diego skipped a key legal step in taking pension reform to the voters in 2012. Proposition B, which was approved by more than 65 percent of city voters, replaced guaranteed pensions with 401(k)-style retirement plans for all newly hired city employees except police officers. Advertisement The court ruled in August that city officials failed to negotiate with labor unions before pursuing the measure, making it invalid. A state appeals court is expected to prescribe a remedy for the situation this year. The citys costs and/or the magnitude of new pension liabilities associated with the adverse judicial decision are currently uncertain, Aaron said. If defined benefit accruals are retroactively granted to employees impacted by the 2012 reforms, it is currently unknown whether the pension system would change any of the rules surrounding its setting of contribution rates. The citys projected pension debt has increased from $1.2 billion to nearly $2.8 billion since 2007. Because of that increase and other factors, the citys annual pension payment is projected to range from $337 million to $355 million over the next 10 years, about $100 million more than usual. Advertisement The first spike was the stock market crash of 2008 and 2009, which accounts for $754 million of the increase in pension debt formally called unfunded actuarial liability. The second spike was a new demographic study in 2016 showing that city employees with pensions are projected to live longer than expected, which accounts for $568 million. The third spike was two recent decisions to lower the citys investment return projections based on long-term concerns about stock market performance, which accounts for $549 million. The city lowered the expected investment return rate from 7 percent to 6.75 percent, and then to 6.5 percent, the lowest in the entire state. Advertisement While such increases in debt could be characterized as bad news, officials have said its a positive thing to have a more accurate and realistic projection of what long-term financial challenges the city faces. david.garrick@sduniontribune.com (619) 269-8906 Twitter:@UTDavidGarrick Two more women have accused former Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, a Nobel peace laureate, of sexual misconduct after a criminal complaint alleging sexual assault against a woman was filed against him this week. Eleonora Antillon, a well-known Costa Rican journalist and TV presenter, told the Associated Press on Wednesday that Arias assaulted her in the mid-1980s when she was working on his fledgling presidential bid. In a separate interview, Emma Daly, communications director for Human Rights Watch, said Arias groped her in a hotel lobby in Nicaragua in 1990 when she was working as a young journalist based in Costa Rica. The New York Times also reported that a fourth woman, a 53-year-old book editor, alleged that Arias unexpectedly put his hand on her leg during a meeting in 2012. Advertisement While the #MeToo movement swept up a number of powerful men in recent years in the United States, its spillover effect has been more muted in Latin America, where critics say macho attitudes die hard. In Brazil, starting in December, more than 250 women accused a prominent spiritual healer of acts including unwanted fondling and rape, leading to his arrest and a raft of charges. In Argentina, accusations ranging from sexual assault to sexual harassment have been leveled against the likes of a well-known actor, a senator and a legislative chief of staff. But none have had a profile like Arias, who was twice elected president of Costa Rica and in 1987 was honored with the Nobel Peace Prize for his work bringing an end to Central Americas protracted and bloody civil wars. The criminal complaint filed Monday in Costa Rica charged that Arias fondled a womans breasts, kissed her and penetrated her with his fingers in December 2014 at his home in the capital, San Jose. The woman, a nuclear disarmament activist whose name was not released, had gone there for a meeting related to her cause. In a brief statement Tuesday, Arias denied the allegation. He said he never violated the will of any woman and fought for gender equality during his career. He said he would not have further public comment because of the pending legal case. As more allegations emerged Wednesday, his lawyer, Erick Ramos, echoed that, telling AP that out of respect for the process that is in course, we are not going to make any kind of declaration. Antillon told AP that in the 1980s, when she was 25 and working for a local TV station, she learned that Arias was interested in having her work for him as he made a preliminary run toward the 1986 presidential election. She said she expressed a lack of interest in politics, but Arias insisted and didnt blink when she asked for a salary three times the going rate to try to discourage him. Advertisement He laughed and said others were working for free, that later they were guaranteed a political job, Antillon said. I said I wasnt interested, that if he wanted me he would pay me. And he laughed and looked at me and said that he would pay it. After an agreement was struck, she said, Arias summoned her to a restaurant in San Jose where he met her in a private room. Almost immediately he put his hand on her thigh and tried to kiss her neck, she said. Antillon said she pushed him away and asked what he thought he was doing. Its just to gain trust, he told me, laughing, she said. Antillon said she left, rejecting his offer to escort her. Advertisement Four days later she was with Arias and another advisor, but he sent the advisor away, she said. He stood up, he was at his desk, he came over staring hard at me, and he grabbed my hand and put it on his penis, over his pants, Antillon said. I said to him, What are you doing? and he said, What do you think were doing? Look how hard I am. Antillon said she recoiled, knocking over a chair, and Arias grabbed her shoulders, pushed her into an open closet and again placed her hand on his genitals. She pulled it away. Someone made a noise at the door, he composed himself and she left. Only this week was she emboldened to come forward amid news of the complaint, she said. Advertisement Speaking to AP in New York, Daly said she had been in Costa Rica for a couple of years when her encounter with Arias happened in February or April 1990 in neighboring Nicaragua. At the time she was in her mid-20s, working for an English-language weekly in Costa Rica and stringing for Reuters. The lobby of the Intercontinental Hotel was packed with journalists and diplomats when she saw Arias, with whom she had established a cordial relationship in her role as a political reporter, Daly said. They had first met years earlier through her parents, who were diplomats, she said. She called out to him and asked a question. And instead of answering my question, he stopped and looked at me and leaned forward, and he put his hand on my chest and sort of pulled it down between my breasts and then said, Youre not wearing a bra or words to that effect, Daly told AP. I was so shocked, all I could think of to say was, Yes I am wearing a bra, which is a ridiculous reaction but thats what I did in the moment, and he walked on, she continued. A woman next to me, another reporter, said to me: I saw what happened. Ill support you if you want to do something. And I said, No, thats fine, forget about it. Advertisement Daly said part of what was upsetting was that it came in a professional setting, surrounded by politicians and journalists. Youre completely ignored from a professional side, but someone touches you and youre made to feel as if youre nothing, they can do whatever they want, she said. Daly said she told her then-boyfriend as well as several other people about the incident. She doesnt remember seeing Arias again. He left office not long after, and she left the region. She said she began thinking about the incident more amid the rise of #MeToo, making an oblique reference to Even a president and Nobel laureate in a comment on a friends Facebook post in October 2017. She said she thought about naming Arias at the time but decided not to. Advertisement She said she felt she was in a privileged place she wasnt going to lose her job, her family support so it was important to speak out. The National Enquirers alleged attempts to blackmail Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos with intimate photos could get the tabloids parent company and top editors in deep legal trouble and reopen them to prosecution for paying hush money to a Playboy model who claimed to have had an affair with Donald Trump. Federal prosecutors are looking at whether the Enquirers feud with Bezos violated a cooperation and non-prosecution agreement that recently spared the tabloid from charges in the hush-money case, two people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press on Friday. The clash between the worlds richest man and Americas most aggressive supermarket tabloid spilled into public view late Thursday when Bezos accused it of threatening to print photos of Bezos and the woman with whom he was having an extramarital affair. He said the Enquirer demanded that he stop investigating how the publication recently obtained private messages he and his girlfriend had exchanged. Advertisement Enquirer owner American Media Inc. said Friday that its board of directors ordered a prompt and thorough investigation and will take whatever appropriate action is necessary. Earlier in the day, the company said it acted lawfully while reporting the story and engaged in good-faith negotiations with Bezos. In recent months, the Trump-friendly tabloid acknowledged secretly assisting Trumps White House campaign by paying $150,000 to Playboy model Karen McDougal for the rights to her story about an alleged affair with Trump. The company then suppressed the story until after the 2016 election. Trumps longtime personal attorney and fixer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty last year to charges that included helping to broker that transaction. Federal prosecutors considered the payment an illegal corporate contribution. In September, though, AMI reached an agreement with federal authorities that spared it from prosecution for campaign-finance violations. It promised in the agreement not to break any laws. The deal also required the continuing cooperation of top AMI executives, including CEO David Pecker and Enquirer editor Dylan Howard. Now, federal prosecutors in New York are looking at whether AMI violated those terms, the people familiar with the matter said. They were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke to AP on condition of anonymity. A violation of the agreement could lead to criminal charges over the McDougal payments. And the resulting court proceedings could lay bare details of the gossip sheets cozy relationship with the president. The Enquirer and top executives could also be subject to state and federal extortion and coercion charges and prosecution under New York Citys revenge porn law, passed last year, which bans even the threat of sharing intimate photographs, legal experts said. Advertisement The U.S. attorneys office in Manhattan declined to comment. Carrie Goldberg, a Brooklyn lawyer representing revenge-porn and sex-crime victims, said Bezos account laid out a clear case of criminal coercion. Bezos allegations, detailed in a blog post, also highlight a tabloid practice known as catch-and-kill, in which the gossip sheets use the threat of damaging stories as leverage or to curry favor with a celebrity, Goldberg said. Ive written a post about developments with the National Enquirer and its parent company, AMI. You can find it here: https://t.co/G1ykJAPPwy Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) February 7, 2019 Advertisement The blog post included emails from an AMI attorney saying the tabloid wouldnt post the intimate photos if the Bezos camp publicly stated that it has no evidence to suggest the Enquirers coverage of Bezos was politically motivated. The Enquirer has weaponized journalism and made it into this bartering, brokering thing where its like, If I can blackmail you with the threat - Ill expose this unless youve got something better, Goldberg said. It is a federal crime to threaten to injure someones reputation in exchange for money or a thing of value, though federal courts havent made it clear whether a public statement, like the one demanded by AMI, could be considered something of value. Bezos said the Enquirer did not demand money. Former New York federal prosecutor Jennifer Rodgers said prosecutors are probably weighing the pros and cons of keeping the cooperation agreement in place. Advertisement The agreement secures Peckers testimony in any future cases stemming from the hush-money payments, and winning a criminal case over the Bezos matter would be far from clear-cut, Rodgers said. The company could say it was relying on the advice of its counsel or even cite First Amendment protections, she said. The Bezos camp has suggested the Enquirers coverage of his affair was driven by dirty politics. Trump himself has criticized Bezos on Twitter over his ownership of The Washington Post and of Amazon. Bezos extramarital affair became public when the Enquirer published a Jan. 9 story about his relationship with Lauren Sanchez, a former TV anchor who is also married. Bezos then hired private investigators to find out how the tabloid got texts and photos the two exchanged. Bezos personal investigators, led by his security consultant Gavin de Becker, have been focusing on Sanchezs brother, according to a person familiar with the matter. Advertisement De Becker and his team suspect Michael Sanchez, a talent manager who touts his support of Trump and is an acquaintance of Trump allies Roger Stone and Carter Page, may have provided the information to the Enquirer, the person said. The person wasnt authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. Sanchez, who is also his sisters manager, did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment. In a tweet, he said de Becker spreads fake, unhinged conservative conspiracy theories. The intimate photos at issue include a below the belt selfie of Bezos and several revealing photos of Sanchez, according to emails Bezos released of his exchanges with AMI. Of course I dont want personal photos published, but I also wont participate in their well-known practice of blackmail, political favors, political attacks, and corruption, Bezos said in explaining his decision to go public. I prefer to stand up, roll this log over, and see what crawls out. Advertisement Balsamo and Miller reported from Washington. Jim Mustian in New York, Brian Melley in Los Angeles and Rachel Lerman in San Francisco contributed to this report Albert Finney, one of the most respected and versatile actors of his generation and the star of films as diverse as Tom Jones and Skyfall, has died. He was 82. From his early days as a strikingly handsome and magnetic screen presence to his closing acts as a brilliant character actor, Finney was a British treasure known for charismatic work on both stage and screen. Finneys family said Friday that he passed away peacefully after a short illness with those closest to him by his side. He died Thursday from a chest infection at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London, a cancer treatment center. Finney burst to international fame in 1963 in the title role of Tom Jones, playing a lusty, humorous rogue who captivated audiences with his charming, devil-may-care antics. Advertisement He excelled in many other roles, including Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, a 1960 drama that was part of the angry young man film trend. Finney was a rare star who managed to avoid the Hollywood limelight despite more than five decades of worldwide fame. He was known for skipping awards ceremonies, even when he was nominated for an Oscar. "Tom Jones" to "Annie" to "Erin Brockovich" - today we honor the legacy of brilliant actor and five-time Oscar nominee Albert Finney. pic.twitter.com/FlpAcgXaol The Academy (@TheAcademy) February 8, 2019 RIP Albert Finney. One of the greatest actors Britain has ever produced. His dazzlingly brilliant portrayal of Churchill in The Gathering Storm was the best of all those who have played Sir Winston. Finney was a wondrously talented giant of stage & screen. pic.twitter.com/2lLbFt8lxq Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) February 8, 2019 Tom Jones gained him the first of five Academy Award nominations. Other nominations followed for Murder on the Orient Express, 'The Dresser, 'Under the Volcano and Erin Brockovich. Each time he fell short. In later years he brought authority to big-budget and high-grossing action movies, including the James Bond thriller Skyfall and two of the Jason Bourne films. He also won hearts as Daddy Warbucks in Annie. He played an array of roles, including Winston Churchill, Pope John Paul II, a southern American lawyer and an Irish gangster. There was no Albert Finney"-type character that he returned to again and again. In one of his final roles, as the gruff Scotsman Kincade in Skyfall, he shared significant screen time with Daniel Craig as Bond and Judi Dench as M, turning the films final scenes into a master class of character acting. Advertisement The world has lost a giant, Craig said on learning of his former costars death. The world has lost a giant Daniel Craig Although Finney rarely discussed his personal life, he told the Manchester Evening News in 2012 that he had been treated for kidney cancer for five years, undergoing surgery and chemotherapy. He also explained why he had not attended the Academy Awards in Los Angeles even when he was nominated for the film worlds top prize. Advertisement It seems silly to go over there and beg for an award, he told the paper. The son of a bookmaker, Finney was born May 9, 1936, and grew up in northern England on the outskirts of Manchester. He took to the stage at an early age, doing a number of school plays and despite his lack of connections and his working-class roots earning a place at Londons prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. He credited the headmaster of his local school, Eric Simms, for recommending that he attend the renowned drama school. Hes the reason I am an actor, Finney said in 2012. Advertisement Finney made his first professional turn at 19 and appeared in several TV movies, including She Stoops to Conquer in 1956 and The Claverdon Road Job the following year. Soon some critics were hailing him as the next Laurence Olivier, a commanding presence who would light up the British stage. Britains preeminent theater critic, Kenneth Tynan, called the Finney a smoldering young Spencer Tracy and warned established star Richard Burton about his prowess. In London, Finney excelled both in Shakespeares plays and in more contemporary offerings. Still, the young man seemed determined not to pursue conventional Hollywood stardom. After an extensive screen test, he turned down the chance to play the title role in director David Leans epic Lawrence of Arabia, clearing the way for fellow Royal Academy graduate Peter OToole to take what became a career-defining role. But stardom came to Finney anyway in Tom Jones, in which he won over audiences worldwide with his good-natured, funny and sensual portrayal of an 18th century English rogue. Advertisement That was the role that introduced Finney to American audiences, and few would forget the lusty, blue-eyed leading man who helped the film win a best picture Oscar. Finney also earned his first lead actor nomination for his performance, and the smash hit turned him into a Hollywood leading man. Director Tony Richardson said his goal for Tom Jones was simply to produce an enjoyable romp. No social significance for once, he said. No contemporary problems to lay bare. Just a lot of colorful, sexy fun. Finney had the good fortune to receive a healthy percentage of the profits from the surprise hit, giving him financial security while he was still in his 20s. Advertisement This is a man from very humble origins who became rich when he was very young, said Quentin Falk, author of an unauthorized biography of Finney. It brought him a lot of side benefits. Hes a man who likes to live as well as to act. He enjoys his fine wine and cigars. Hes his own man, I find that rather admirable. The actor maintained a healthy skepticism about the British establishment and even turned down a knighthood when it was offered, declining to become Sir Albert. Finney once said he did not believe in such honors. Maybe people in America think being a sir is a big deal, he said. But I think we should all be misters together. I think the sir thing slightly perpetuates one of our diseases in England, which is snobbery. And it also helps keep us quaint, which Im not a great fan of. Albert Finney in Tim Burtons 2003 fantasy Big Fish. (Columbia Pictures) Advertisement Instead of cashing in by taking lucrative film roles after Tom Jones, Finney took a long sabbatical, traveling slowly through the United States, Mexico and the Pacific islands, then returned to the London stage to act in Shakespeare productions and other plays. He won wide acclaim and many awards before returning to film in 1967 to costar with Audrey Hepburn in Two for the Road. This was to be a familiar pattern, with Finney alternating between film work and stage productions in London and New York. Finney tackled Charles Dickens in Scrooge in 1970, then played Agatha Christies super-sleuth Hercule Poirot in Murder on the Orient Express earning his second lead actor Oscar nomination and even played a werewolf hunter in the cult film Wolfen in 1981. He earned more Oscar nominations for his roles in the searing marital drama Shoot the Moon in 1982, costarring with Diane Keaton, and The Dresser in 1983. He was nominated again in 1984 for his role as a self-destructive alcoholic in director John Hustons Under the Volcano. Advertisement Even during this extraordinary run of great roles, and his critically acclaimed television portrayal of the pope, Finneys life was not chronicled in People or other magazines, although the British media were fascinated with his marriage to the sultry French film star Anouk Aimee. He played in a series of smaller, independent films for a number of years before returning to prominence in 2000 as a Southern U.S. lawyer in the film Erin Brockovich, which starred Julia Roberts. The film helped introduce Finney to a new generation of moviegoers, and the chemistry between the aging lawyer and his young, aggressive assistant earned him yet another Oscar nomination, this time for supporting actor. His work also helped propel Roberts to her first lead actress Oscar. Still, Finney declined to attend the Academy Awards ceremony possibly damaging his chances at future wins by snubbing Hollywoods elite. He went on to star in director Tim Burtons Big Fish and portrayed Britains wartime leader Winston Churchill in The Gathering Storm. Advertisement Finney also tried his hand at directing and producing and played a vital role in sustaining British theater. The Old Vic theater in London said his performances in plays by Shakespeare, Chekhov and other iconic playwrights throughout the 60s, 70s and 80s stand apart as some of the greatest in our 200-year history. Finney is survived by his third wife, Pene Delmage, son Simon and two grandchildren. Katz writes for the Associated Press. Advertisement City crews in downtown San Diego recently began posting three-hour notices to remove items from sidewalk in some areas, a sudden change from the three-day notices that had been posted over the past few months. But dont expect the new shortened cleanup window to last. The length of the notice period depends on whether city-operated centers used by homeless people to store their belongings are at capacity, a rule that stems from a 2011 court settlement. The city agreed in the settlement not to seize unattended items in public places for at least 72 hours because homeless people had no other place to keep their things. After a 500-bin storage center opened in Sherman Heights last year, the city was allowed to shorten the time frame for the notices to three hours as an incentive for people to store their items there. Advertisement When the center reached capacity in October, the city reverted back to the three-day notices. With a long waiting list to use that center and another city-owned one operated on 16th Street by the nonprofit Think Dignity, it did not seem likely that the three-day notices would return anytime soon. But a few factors did align, dropping the capacity at the Sherman Heights center and allowing the city to reinstate the three-hour notices, said Keely Halsey, chief of homeless strategies and housing liaison in the Mayors Office. Some people left the center and some bins were cleared out because clients had not checked in for more than 90 days, she said. It dropped low enough that there were at least a few days to revert back to three hours, which is a very valuable tool to the community, she said. We receive a lot of requests from the community for abatement of property that appears to be abandoned. Use of the center has dipped to just below capacity in the past, but Halsey said the city waited until it dipped from 500 into the 470s which happened Jan. 23 before reinstating the three-hour limit. Notices starting appearing on some streets on Jan. 28. Homeless advocate Michael McConnell posted photos of the notices on Twitter after spotting them Tuesday near the former central library on E Street and on 17th Street near the J and K street intersections. He wrote in the tweet that people were moving out from under the cover provided by the downtown library and into the rain. The three-day notice requirement was created from a settlement to a lawsuit filed by attorney Scott Dreher on behalf of several homeless people whose property had been seized and thrown away. Greg Block, senior press secretary for San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, said the three-hour notices will return sometime in the future, as the city is looking for locations to open more storage centers. Advertisement When we had to go back to 72-hour (notices), theres a noticeable difference out there in the accumulations of things on the street, he said about the citys desire to return to the shorter window. Its important from a health and safety standpoint to go back, which is why were looking to expand citywide. Halsey said city staff is working daily to fill the bins and bring the center back to capacity, but was not sure when that would happen. Advertisement Homeless Playlist On Now San Diego hepatitis outbreak continues to grow: 481 cases On Now Homeless entrenched in booming tent city along Santa Ana River On Now San Diego mayor agreed to homeless hub, then delayed, advocates say On Now Homeless outreach in San Diego On Now Video: Street Art: Portraits of San Diego's Homeless #8 On Now In poverty himself, 'Water Man Dave,' is the fearless saint of San Diego's homeless 5:41 On Now Video: Homeless living in cars find safe havens 2:21 On Now Street Art: Portraits of San Diego's Homeless #7 On Now Pitching a tent plan for San Diego's homeless On Now Homeless efforts get $80M boost for various services gary.warth@sduniontribune.com Advertisement Twitter: @GaryWarthUT 760-529-4939 Pressure is mounting throughout California to clean up air pollution from industry and vehicle tailpipes that has for decades burdened low-income communities, such as Barrio Logan and National City. To that end, Assemblyman Todd Gloria announced a new bill on Friday aimed at beefing up oversight of such efforts in the San Diego region. Specifically Assembly Bill 423 would overhaul the governing board of the San Diego County Air Pollution Control District, the top air-quality agency in the region. To date, the board has been governed solely by the county Board of Supervisors, but its clear that this district can and should do more to clean up the air and protect public health in every community, in every part of our region, Gloria said at a news conference in downtown San Diego to announce the legislation. The bill would increase the number of people on the air districts board from the five current supervisors to 11 representatives. The new board would include elected officials from the 18 cities in the county on a rotating basis based on population, as well as subject matter experts and members of the public. The county Board of Supervisors would continue to have two seats. Advertisement Supervisor Dianne Jacob, who chairs the air district board, issued a statement in response: The County is currently reviewing the proposed legislation to determine whether or not there are any fiscal impacts to county government. Nathan Fletcher, the only other supervisor to comment on the legislation, said he backed the proposal. I have long advocated for this type of approach to diversifying the composition and strengthening the impact of our regional air quality efforts, he said in a statement. Our goal is simple ensuring we have clean air for our families. This legislation supports that effort, and I look forward to working with Assemblymember Gloria to make it a reality. The bill would bring the air districts governing structure more in line with the other large regional air-pollution agencies throughout California, such as the South Coast Air Quality Management District, San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. The San Diego air district has operated for more than two decades under an exemption to state law that requires the largest such agencies to include both county and city officials on their governing boards. San Diego has a serious air pollution problem. We need new leadership. We need a proactive air pollution board whose goal is to improve public health and ensure that everyone can breathe clean air, Diane Takvorian, executive director of the Environmental Health Coalition, said at the media event. There is an astonishing lack of information available to the public, she added. Every resident should be able to know about every facility that has an air-pollution permit. They should know what pollution is emitted into their neighborhood and what the health risks are. Also in attendance were leadership from Climate Action Campaign and Service Employees International Union, SEIU, local 221, which represents workers at the air district. Advertisement The days of being divided by false choices of job versus environment are over in California, said David Garcias, president of the local union. Glorias announcement follows a statewide campaign, funded by the California Air Resources Board, to empower local air districts to crack down on toxic emissions in targeted low-income communities near ports and warehouses. The San Diego air district has been holding stakeholder meetings in Barrio Logan as part of what looks like historic efforts to address long-standing pollution concerns. Millions in state funding has started to flow into the San Diego region as part of the air boards Community Air Protection Program. The program was mandated by the state legislature in 2017 under Assembly Bill 617 and is largely funded by the states cap-and-trade program. Advertisement While the state air board has traditionally regulated emissions from mobile sources such as port and construction equipment, regional air district have also started to take up this mantle in a number of different ways. Environmental Advocates working in low-income neighborhoods in San Diego would like to see the air district ramp up efforts to regulate everything from diesel-powered freight trucks to cranes and forklifts at the Port of San Diego. Advertisement Twitter: @jemersmith Phone: (619) 293-2234 Email: joshua.smith@sduniontribune.com A 19-year-old man was charged Thursday with driving while impaired and causing a crash that killed three members of an Oceanside family and injured three others, including a teen girl, earlier this week. Mason Robert Fish pleaded not guilty in Vista Superior Court to seven charges, including three felony counts of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated. He also faces misdemeanor counts that include driving on a suspended license and possession of cocaine. Fish faces up to 13 years in custody if convicted of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and injuring or killing multiple victims, Deputy District Attorney David Uyar said. This family has been devastated by these acts, Uyar told reporters, later adding that the family is in pain and hurting. Advertisement Superior Court Judge James Simmons, Jr. raised Fishs bail from $602,000 to $800,000. Simmons ordered the defendant not to drive if he posts bail and is released from custody. Authorities said Fish ran a red light at Oceanside Boulevard as he headed south on South Coast Highway in a 2007 Toyota Tacoma about 12:50 p.m. Tuesday. The pickup broadsided the drivers side of a Mazda sedan carrying six family members as the sedan drove through the intersection, headed east on Oceanside Boulevard. A 13-year-old girl and her 40-year-old mother were thrown from the Mazda. The mother was taken to a hospital, where she died. Two women the girls grandmother and an aunt died inside the car. The teens father and grandfather were injured. All three were flown to area hospitals. After the hearing, Fishs attorney told reporters that his client was not driving while intoxicated, and said the crash happened after Fish learned that his grandmother had passed away. The two had been close, attorney Mark Fredrick said. Fredrick said Fish was headed to the beach to hang out and think about it, with plans to attend class afterward. He said Fish is a community college student he did not say which school and also works at a fast-food restaurant. Advertisement The idea that he was under the influence is not true, Fredrick said. Fish is charged with driving while under the influence of a controlled substance. Authorities have not specified what the substance may be, and toxicology reports have not yet come back. According to Uyar, Fish had 1.6 grams of cocaine in his wallet. The prosecutor also said Fishs drivers license had been suspended or revoked before the crash, and that Department of Motor Vehicles records indicate he has been deemed a negligent operator for his involvement in three previous collisions in a short period of time. Advertisement The defense attorney said his client may not have known at the time of the crash that his license was suspended. The crash killed 40-year-old Petra Arango, Rufina Rodriguez, 74, and Eloina Arango, 56. A GoFundMe page set up by a friend and co-worker of Petra Arango to raise money for the family states that Arango worked at a Vista senior care facility and was a true team player and beloved by her colleagues for over five years. So many lives are devastated, wrote Lorena Eckart, who set up the GoFundMe fundraiser on Wednesday. Advertisement Eckart wrote that Petra Arango and her husband have two amazing children the daughter who was injured, as well as a son. Rodriguez, 74, and Eloina Arango, 56, were in the backseat when they died. Rodriguez lived in Fallbrook, Eloina Arango lived in Mexico, authorities said. A second GoFundMe page has been set up to assist Remy Arango, who is the son of Rodriguez (and brother of the two Arango sisters who died). That money is slated to go toward medical and funeral expenses for the family. Public records indicate that Petra Arango and her husband lived less than a mile from the crash site. By Thursday, a makeshift memorial including stuffed animals, candles and balloons had expanded at a pole near the crash site. Advertisement teri.figueroa@sduniontribune.com (760) 529-4945 Twitter: @TeriFigueroaUT A parolee who fled a traffic stop last year on Shelter Island and led officers on a pursuit in which his car slammed into a Harbor Police patrol vehicle was sentenced Thursday to five years in state prison. Andrew Dwight Sigsbee who admitted that he used his car as a dangerous weapon pleaded guilty last month to assault with a deadly weapon on a peace officer. San Diego Harbor Police personnel tried to pull over Sigsbee after spotting him driving erratically just after 5:30 a.m. on Oct. 2, near Americas Cup Harbor, according to the port law enforcement agency. Sigsbee, 32, refused to yield, fleeing to the east past Lindbergh Field and south toward the San Diego Convention Center. Advertisement The chase, during which Sigsbees car collided with a patrol vehicle, ended on East Harbor Drive near Cesar E. Chavez Parkway in Barrio Logan after the driver ran over spike strips in the roadway laid out by San Diego police. Sigsbee initially ignored officers commands to surrender, resulting in a brief standoff. After officers shot pepper-spray projectiles into his sedan, he exited the car and surrendered. The Harbor police officer involved in the collision with the suspects car was taken to a hospital for treatment of minor injuries. Sigsbee pleaded guilty last month on the day his preliminary hearing was supposed to go forward. Gov. Gavin Newsoms appearance in San Diego last week kicked up quite a bit of commentary. Sure, his discussion of funding of shelters for migrants seeking asylum rightly drew the lions share of the attention. But it was the appearance, literally, of the always-dapper governor that triggered an amusing online conversation about what he was wearing. Or more to the point, not wearing. Why doesnt Gavin Newsom wear a tie? journalist Kelly Davis asked on Twitter. The better question... why does anyone wear a tie? replied Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez. Advertisement Exactly. Ties ----, added Gil Cabrera, a member of the San Diego Convention Center board of directors. We were talking about that too, chimed in Voice of San Diego Editor-in-Chief Scott Lewis, responding to Davis. It stood out because the suit he wore yesterday was so crisp shiny. It looked like hed just left a wedding and pulled off the tie. Its not the first time San Diegos politerati has been captivated by this male accoutrement. But more on that later. Descriptions of Newsoms tie-less attire didnt make it into news stories about his visit, and there appeared to be no disgruntled counter-comments about why his clothing was worthy of discussion on social media the kind of debate that sometimes erupts when what female politicians wear is described. The New York Times received some blowback after noting on Twitter that Nancy Pelosi was wearing a hot pink dress when she regained the House speakers gavel at the beginning of January. Find me the story where you mentioned what Paul Ryan was wearing when he became Speaker, demanded Paul Begala, a CNN contributor and strategist for President Bill Clinton. Others insisted it was appropriate, even essential reporting. The women of the new Congress clearly picked their swearing-in wardrobes with care, and to ignore their clothes or write that off as frivolity is to miss an important message about how they intend to govern: as themselves, rather than as hackneyed, subdued stereotypes of what lawmakers are supposed to be like, wrote fashion mavens Jessica Morgan and Heather Cocks in The Washington Post. Advertisement . . .Pelosi knew exactly what she was doing, taking back her power while looking both fierce and feminine. Then there was the ruckus caused by a Washington Post fashion writers take on Hillary Clinton showing a wee bit of cleavage during a Senate floor speech in 2007. Hard to believe, but even that controversy pales in comparison to the reaction when President Barack Obama had the temerity to wear a tan suit at a news conference in 2014. The Internet blew a gasket. Rants ranged from claims that it was merely unpresidential to a cataclysmic sign of the nations pending downfall. Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., said the suit was a metaphor for his lack of seriousness, though, in fairness, his main criticism was that Obama didnt immediately address a growing crisis in Syria. Advertisement Good thing theres nothing so controversial these days. As the fashion writers pointed out, public figures take care in what theyre wearing, sometimes to send a specific message. The beige cardigan sweater President Jimmy Carter wore during his televised fireside chat about the energy crisis in February 1977 combined casual coziness with an implied suggestion: turn down the thermostat. Dozens of women in Congress sent an unmistakable message at Tuesdays State of the Union address by wearing white in homage to early suffragettes who fought to give women the right to vote. Sometimes, its the little things that get noticed, like President Donald Trumps use of tape to keep his famous red tie together. He was ridiculed by many, but also praised for a practical, if low-rent, sartorial trick that also helped him identify with regular folks. Its the kind of thing a lot of us would do. Advertisement Still, wardrobe coverage in politics tends to focus more on women and in some cases seems downright sexist. But there is a partial, more benign possibility: Women usually wear more interesting and better looking clothes. Aside from the occasional light-weight summer suit, male politicians all essentially wear the same thing and its boring: dark suits and white shirts, with the tie being the real variable in the entire ensemble. Which brings us back to San Diego and a fashion point of interest to civic-minded people. Omar Passons, who ran for county supervisor last year, probably unwittingly triggered a long, informative and highly entertaining conversation on Twitter in January with a simple plea. I feel like Im too old not to get the dimple and length right every time. For any of you daily tie wearers, please post any tips, asked Passons, who now is head of Integrative Services Division in the San Diego Countys Health & Human Services Agency. Go with skinny ties, no dimple necessary. I struggle with length tho, so youre not alone, responded Andrew Bowen of KPBS. Advertisement Only skinny people say this, observed county Supervisor Nathan Fletcher, who it should be noted wore a tie during the Newsom visit. (His wife Lorena Gonzalez had something to say about this subject. See above.) What the hell is a tie dimple? asked Dave Rolland, aide to state Senate President Pro Tempore Toni Atkins. Its not fair, really. Julian and I had to go to Catholic school, so there was hell to pay if we didnt get it right. Scared straight, said Mark Cafferty, president and CEO of the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation. Funny, I learned how to get the perfect tie dimple from the original @QueerEye series. Basically the opposite of scared straight, countered Assemblyman Todd Gloria. Advertisement Well played, said Passons. I say you up your pocket square game in lieu of tie, implored Julian Parra, a San Diego bank executive. Oy, dont get me started on the difficulties inherent in my pocket square game, Passons moaned. Ok if you must wear a tie, then make a dimple with the bottom piece of cloth, advised Fletcher. Hold it tight while you wrap around with a double Windsor knot. The visible part of the tie will follow the contours of the fabric below it and you will look great! Advertisement Im a pastor in a very informal church, added Dale Huntington. We almost never wear ties. I have to watch YouTube before every wedding and funeral. Clearly, proper tie etiquette is an underappreciated public dilemma in San Diego. It took nearly a year and a half, but officials voted Friday to declare Los Angeles a city of sanctuary, long after other left-leaning cities took a similar stand against the Trump administrations policies toward immigrants who lack legal status. The Los Angeles City Council voted 12 to 0 to approve a symbolic resolution that elected officials first proposed in September 2017. At the time, Councilman Gil Cedillo and Council President Herb Wesson called the proposal a response to President Trumps plan to unwind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which protects immigrants brought to the United States illegally as children. But their resolution sat in committee for months. Critics questioned whether they would turn their press conference rhetoric into an actual label for an immigrant-rich city. Advertisement Immigrant-rights advocates said Fridays vote came too late to have much impact. They missed the opportunity to do this when it really mattered back when the immigrant community of Los Angeles needed to know where its city stood, said Hector Villagra, executive director of the ACLU of Southern California. The resolution doesnt provide any new legal protections for immigrants, but instead reaffirms existing policies, including Special Order 40, which bars Los Angeles police officers from initiating contact with someone solely to determine whether they are in the country legally. The resolution declares Los Angeles to be a City of Sanctuary, protecting the human rights of all our residents. Meanwhile, mayors in Boston, Chicago and elsewhere had already reaffirmed their cities as sanctuaries, and the California Legislature passed a controversial state law that aims to protect immigrants. Officials in Los Angeles gave different explanations for the delay. Wesson spokesman Ed Johnson said this week in an email that there was no particular reason the resolution didnt come up earlier for a vote. However, Cedillo said last fall that city lawyers wanted to ensure that the city wouldnt risk losing federal funding by adopting the sanctuary label. The Trump administration has repeatedly tried to withhold money from municipalities that it views as a so-called sanctuary city. On Friday, Cedillos office said the city wanted to vote on the declaration when an accompanying ordinance focused on human rights was closer to being passed. Advertisement That ordinance, which has passed in committee but hasnt been taken up by the City Council, would strengthen city laws related to discrimination, including over an individuals citizenship status. Urging his colleagues to adopt the city of sanctuary label, Cedillo on Friday cited Trumps presidential bid, saying that seldom in the history of this nation has a presidential campaign been launched with such hate, such vitriol, such racism. We declare, for all those who have been under attack in this Trump era, that this city, this day, in this time, will be a city of sanctuary, Cedillo said. He added that people in Los Angeles would not be judged by the color of their skin, not by who they choose to love, not by when they got here. Mayor Eric Garcetti has long declined to use the term sanctuary city because he says it has no fixed meaning, a position that angers some groups. Advertisement After the council members introduction of their resolution in 2017, The Times asked Garcetti spokesman Alex Comisar whether the mayor would support using the city of sanctuary phrase. The mayor is not focused on labels, he is focused on making sure that L.A. is always a city that protects the rights and dignity of immigrants, Comisar said. Garcetti, who recently decided not to run for president in 2020, endorsed the councils action Friday because it supports L.A.s longstanding practice and policy of building trust between LAPD and immigrant communities in order to keep all Angelenos safe, said his spokeswoman, Andrea Garcia. The mayor also helped create the L.A. Justice Fund, which uses city and county money and private donations to help those facing deportation proceedings. Advertisement There is no clear definition of a sanctuary city, but in general, cities that adopt the designation seek to offer political support or practical protections to people who are in the country illegally. The term dates to the 1980s, when Berkeley and a few other municipalities declared themselves such cities to accept migrants from Central America. At the time, U.S. immigration policies allowed some Central Americans, but not others, to enter the country. A divided L.A. City Council in 1985 adopted a resolution declaring Los Angeles a city of sanctuary for immigrants fleeing political persecution and violence, particularly refugees from El Salvador and Guatemala. After one councilman threatened a ballot measure to overturn the resolution, the council watered it down and dropped the word sanctuary. Some states have recently banned sanctuary cities within their borders. Iowa passed a law that withholds funds from municipalities that dont follow federal immigration laws. Advertisement Texas requires that local officials cooperate with immigration authorities, and authorized police officers to ask an arrestees immigration status at the officers discretion. Tennessee, which had no sanctuary cities when the state Legislature banned them, requires all local governments to comply with federal immigration laws and cooperate with authorities. Senate Bill 54 Californias 2017 so-called sanctuary state law pitted a left-leaning state government against some conservative cities and counties, which bristled at how the law restricts cooperation between local police and federal immigration authorities. The Trump administration sued California last year, seeking to nullify SB 54 and two other laws aimed at protecting immigrants in the U.S. illegally. Orange and San Diego counties signed on in support. In July, a federal judge refused to intervene, allowing the sanctuary laws to stand. Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies, said that while declaring Los Angeles a sanctuary city may amount to virtue signaling for city officials, the designation affects taxpayers and threatens the safety of neighboring communities that oppose sanctuary policies. Advertisement I wouldnt say its completely symbolic, said Vaughan, whose group supports decreased immigration. Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, was surprised Los Angeles officials took this long to take the symbolic, but politically advantageous step, of declaring the city a formal sanctuary for immigrants who are in the country illegally. I just assumed it already was one, he said. Next theyre going to declare the Earth is round. dakota.smith@latimes.com | Twitter: @dakotacdsmith Advertisement matthew.ormseth@latimes.com | Twitter: @matthewormseth Federal authorities seized more than 1.7 tons of methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin hidden in two containers that were being shipped to Australia from the Los Angeles-Long Beach seaport, officials announced Thursday. Six people, two Americans and four Australians, with ties to a transnational crime syndicate based in the U.S. were arrested by Australian Federal Police in connection with the shipment, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said. The drugs were concealed in dozens of metal boxes that were declared as single loudspeakers, CBP said. But the containers actually held 3,810 pounds of methamphetamine, nearly 56 pounds of cocaine and about a dozen pounds of heroin. Authorities discovered the drugs on Jan. 11, touting the seizure as having dealt a significant blow to the criminal group behind the shipment. Advertisement Along with our law enforcement partners here and around the world, we continue in a day-to-day battle against the blight of methamphetamine that continues to devastate our communities, Joseph Macias, special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in Los Angeles, said in a statement. Through a collaborative effort pooling our information, resources and expertise we are keeping this dangerous contraband from reaching our streets and potentially saving lives. U.S. and Australian Authorities Intercept 1.7 Tons of Meth Bound to Australia from LA/Long Beach Seaport. The narcotics artfully concealed within a shipment of loud speakers were intercepted by CBP officers - See News Release: https://t.co/1jPA34UlcF pic.twitter.com/koqS03iA0c CBP Los Angeles (@CBPLosAngeles) February 8, 2019 alene.tchekmedyian@latimes.com Twitter: @AleneTchek A 10-year-old boy was shot in the head as he sat in the back seat of a car in Phelan on Thursday night, authorities said. The boy was in the back of a BMW that was traveling north on the 15 Freeway south of Hesperia when someone in another car shot at the BMW about 9 p.m., the California Highway Patrol said. One round went through the cars small rear window, striking the boy in the head. CHP said the boy remains hospitalized Friday and his injury is serious. Authorities said there is no immediate information on the shooter or a motive in the attack. Advertisement Anyone with information about the shooting can call CHP at (909) 383-4247. alejandra.reyesvelarde@latimes.com Twitter: @r_valejandra Little Italy, San Diegos hottest culinary neighborhood, is about to get a little cooler. Bobboi Natural Gelato, La Jollas popular Italian artisan gelato shop, is doubling down on the trendy dining destination by opening two shops within blocks of each other, including a newly revealed spot in the Little Italy Food Hall. In addition to a corner store on the ground level of the new mixed-use development project AV8 at 2155 Kettner Blvd., it was announced today that Bobboi will replace Single Fin Kitchen in the six-month-old food hall in the Piazza della Familglia, on West Date Street between India and Columbia streets. Both Bobboi locations are expected to open in March. We cant overstate how excited we are to have Bobboi here, said Mike DiNorscia, CEO of Grain & Grit Collective, a hospitality group that created and operates the $2.3 million food hall project. Advertisement DiNorscia said that while he was sorry the Japanese-inspired, seafood-centric Single Fin Kitchen didnt succeed in the space, customer feedback strongly indicated an appetite for a sweet option among the halls six vendors. In opening it, we knew there would be some unknowns in the process, and we also knew that the most important thing was to listen to our customers. Dessert was something we were missing, so it was just a natural fit, he said. Similarly, early vendor departures also took place not long after Liberty Public Market San Diegos biggest food hall opened in late 2015 and continue through today. DiNorscia said the Little Italy Food Hall, which includes Sam the Cooking Guys Not Not Tacos, Ambrogio15 pizza and Wicked Maine Lobster, will continue to evolve. Single Fin Kitchen had fantastic products they really did a fantastic job, but certain products bring (customer) frequency and gelato is one of those things, DiNorscia said. Its never good to lose a tenant, but unfortunately, in the environment were in, not everybody succeeds. For Bobboi, regularly hailed as one of San Diego Countys best artisan gelato makers, being in Little Italy was a goal. Serving up a double scoop of the store was a bit of a fluke. The vibrancy there really attracted us. Little Italy represents a concentration of quality ... of food, and we definitely wanted to be a part of it for a long time, said Bobboi owner Andrea Racca. We had been looking for a place for a long time, and we finally made it and then, as always happens, a second place opened up. In a way, it was an offer we couldnt refuse, he said with a laugh. The Little Italy Food Hall is located in the 11,000-square-foot public plaza called Piazza della Famiglia in the heart of one of San Diegos most vibrant neighborhoods, Little Italy. (John Gastaldo photo) Advertisement The two stores wont be identical. The stand-alone Kettner Boulevard location will have a more urban feel and approach, Racca said, with more flavors 18 versus 12 at the food hall and more innovative taste combinations. For example, he said, executive gelato chef and Raccas wife Monica Maccioni is developing a miso maple and orange gelato for a pop-up collaboration with The Crack Shack across the street. A signature menu item at The Crack Shack are the biscuits with miso butter. Racca said to expect other collaborations in the future. Were connecting with the community around us, as we did in La Jolla. At the food hall, the stall the first one customers encounter when they walk in will feature more classic Italian flavors, like pistachio and nocciola (hazelnut). Advertisement Were representing Italy there, said Racca, who is a native of Sardinia. The plaza represents such an Italian thing. Even with the slew of Italian restaurants in the surrounding area, adding more Italian flavor to the food hall was also something DiNorscias customer surveys showed was important. Weve heard that some people want more Italian. We were looking to add variety, he said. I cant say this isnt the last Italian restaurant well put in there. DiNorscia said there are no current plans to replace any of the remaining food hall tenants but that when a spot at the hall opens up, his company will be looking at restaurants and food producers that already have a following that theyll bring with them to Little Italy. Advertisement One of the things weve looked at in the future, he said, is are they going to add to the pie? Are they going to bring in a new customer? And I think Bobboi will do it. He also said he isnt concerned about putting a new gelateria across India Street from Salt & Straw, the Portland-based ice cream shop with a cult following and lines to match. I expect Bobboi will have very similar lines, DiNorscia said. Like Salt & Straw, Bobbois gelato is created in small batches, made almost exclusively from organic, local and farm-fresh ingredients. But gelato is significantly lower in butterfat than ice cream and is churned with less air, so its denser and richer. Advertisement Racca said he respects the quality of Salt & Straws ice cream but cant even fathom that there could be such a thing as too much ice cream competition in Little Italy. Thats like saying theres too much coffee, Racca said. Theres never enough. In Italy, there is gelato on every corner. Bobboi, owned by Andrea Racca, specializes in ingredient-driven, small-batch gelato. (Courtesy photo) Advertisement michele.parente@sduniontribune.com Twitter: @sdeditgirl A pair of Coronado mansions linked to a Mexican union boss accused of embezzling millions of dollars from public school teachers hit the market in January. The homes asking price: $4.5 million for 1 Green Turtle Road and $3.9 million for 23 Green Turtle Road, according to online listings. Both homes are owned by a Mexican company called Comercializadora TTS de Mexico, S.A. de C.V. Mexican authorities said records showed the owner of the company was the deceased mother of Elba Esther Gordillo, the controversial leader of Mexicos National Education Workers Union. Mexican authorities arrested Gordillo in 2013 and charged her with embezzling nearly $200 million from the union. Gordillo spent five years in prison. She consistently said the charges were politically motivated because of her opposition to major education reforms designed to implement teacher evaluations and crack down on corruption, including a system in which teaching positions could be sold or inherited. Advertisement Gordillo, who is known in Mexico simply as La Maestra, or the teacher, became a national symbol for public corruption. Those embezzling charges were dismissed by Mexicos federal court in August 2018. The attorney generals office said they respect the courts decision but do not agree with it, according to reports. The company linked to Gordillo bought 23 Green Turtle Road for $1.15 million in 1991 and 1 Green Turtle Road for $4 million in 2010. Both properties were paid for with cash, records show. The listing for 23 Green Turtle Rd. describes a one-of-a-kind gorgeous, waterfront estate, in the Coronado Cays. The house has eight bedrooms, nine-and-a-half bathrooms, an infinity pool and a 30-foot boat slip. The home features elegant marble entryways, a designer gourmet kitchen, a home office/library, your own private dock, and hardwood floors throughout. The property at 1 Green Turtle Road is a half-built house. The Realtor describes it as a rare opportunity to build your dream home in the prestigious Coronado Cays. The buildings footing is already finished and architectural plans include seven bedrooms and eight bathrooms with vaulted ceilings, an elevator, lap pool, spa, and staff quarters. The propertys 8,500 square foot lot also features two boat slips, according to the listing. Contact Gustavo Solis via Email or Twitter Fourth-graders from Conway Elementary School in Escondido got to frost their cake and eat it, too, on a field trip this week to learn about culinary arts at Orange Glen High School. Eighty-five exuberant children arrived, ready for hands-on lessons in preparing tasty treats. Orange Glen culinary students led the groups in preparing Rice Krispie treats, frosting cupcakes, and making healthy smoothies and seed snacks. The elementary school students visited the high school campus as part of a year-long project on how the arts bring communities together. Its part of the schools expeditionary model, which ties curriculum and classwork to a specific theme each year. The students have studied music, poetry and photography, and are learning about how the art of food preparation contributes to culture as well. Somebody from Conway reached out to our school asking if there was an interest in a field trip, said culinary teacher Laura Gardiner. We said, lets do it. So were really excited about our kids cooking with them. Advertisement Culinary arts is a signature program at Orange Glen High School, where students learn commercial food preparation in an industrial kitchen. They start with the introductory class, culinary arts and food science, and then can choose from three specialized courses: baking and pastry, international cuisine, or advanced culinary arts and restaurant management, said culinary teacher Kristi Sovacool. About 300 students are enrolled in those various classes, and while many will walk away with basic life skills in cooking and nutrition, others will find a career path. Last year, students not only learned to cook, but also invented recipes for Uber Eats, including a white chocolate raspberry cheesecake cookie, and the Tres Amigos burrito, featuring shrimp, chicken, pork and fresh guacamole. Our goal is two-fold, Sovacool said. One is to gain basic culinary techniques and skills, but also to gain experience so that if they want to work in the culinary industry after high school, theyre prepared. Orange Glen High School students in the Culinary Arts program work with fourth-graders (white aprons) from Conway Elementary School to make a sunflower/pumpkin seed and spice mix on Tuesday in Escondido, California. Conway students visited three separate kitchen classrooms. (Eduardo Contreras / San Diego Union-Tribune) As the fourth-graders filed into the multipurpose room, their high school guides waited to escort them to three different cooking stations. Each culinary arts student would work with a group of five elementary kids, said Carter Brown, 17. Were just giving them the experience of what its like to frost a cupcake, he said. And maybe theyll think, hey, this is the most fun Ive ever had, and want to come to Orange Glen. The Conway students gasped with excitement as Sovacool described each of the treats they would make. But first, she passed out kid-sized aprons so they could dress the part. You cannot cook in the kitchen without looking like a chef, she said. Advertisement In Gardiners class, students melted marshmallows and butter, mixed in Rice Krispies, and then patted them into a pan. While the goodies cooled, Gardiner gave them another task; costing out the recipe. With a worksheet listing the price and amount of ingredients, they calculated the cost of a Rice Krispie bar, concluding that each treat would cost an economical 17 cents about half the price of the store-bought version. Meanwhile, in the industrial kitchen, pastry students showed the fourth-graders how to swirl buttercream frosting onto cupcakes with pastry bags. Then the junior bakers topped their creations with a rainbow of colored sprinkles. Wait, we all eat it at the same time, said Alitza Flores, 10, before she and her friends took their first bite. I think I want to be a baker now. How did it taste? Sovacool asked the fourth-graders. Advertisement Amazing, Flores answered. It always tastes better when you make it yourself, Sovacool said. deborah.brennan@sduniontribune.com Twitter@deborahsbrennan Corky Smith, a former mayor and elder statesman of San Marcos, died Saturday, Jan. 26, at age 88. Smith served on the San Marcos City Council for more than a quarter-century, first as a council member for 14 years, starting in 1980, and then for three mayoral terms, until 2006. During that time, he was instrumental in transforming the city from a rural community to a prosperous center of business and education. He was very dedicated to the city of San Marcos and really turned it from a dirt road down Mission Road to a vibrant, destination city, said his son, Dan Smith. San Marcos leaders who followed him credited Smith with lobbying to bring a California State University to the city, establishing the current civic center, and maintaining solid city finances. Advertisement Corky definitely left his mark on San Marcos, said Mayor Rebecca Jones. We have the gym thats named after him. One of the reasons that San Marcos is in such great financial shape... and people want to live here, is because many (earlier) councils contributed so much, and he was part of that. Although former Mayor Jim Desmond ultimately unseated Smith in the 2006 election, he said he was grateful for Smiths role before him. Corky was a great man, and a real strong civil servant, and served the citizens of San Marcos very well, said Desmond, now a San Diego County supervisor. He served on the city council for many years, and during his term or tenure, he was a leader who brought about Cal State San Marcos, and many of our new neighborhoods that weve come to enjoy and have since matured, Desmond said. He set a good tone for the city of San Marcos, so Im grateful for the shape that he left the city in when I became mayor, and leaving me a strong foundation to work from. Former City Manager Rick Gittings, who served under Smith for nearly all of his term in office, described him as a low-key civic leader who was dedicated to the citys youngest and oldest residents. He was very down-to-Earth, and very interested in supporting San Marcos youth and San Marcos seniors, because he thought everyone else could figure it out for themselves, Gittings said. Smith was instrumental in negotiations to build Cal State San Marcos, as well as construction of the civic center, he said. The city had had a couple of false starts trying to work with some partners, and Corky said lets just make it work and pay for itself through lease revenue, Gittings said. Advertisement When the council made the choice to site the civic center at its current location at San Marcos Boulevard and Mission Road, it moved the citys previous recreation center, the Williams Square dancing barn, to its current site at Walnut Grove Park. Smith pressed for the relocation for both historic and sentimental reasons, Gittings said. He and his wife had their first date at the Williams Square dancing barn, Gittings said. He was not about to let the city tear it down. Smith was born in Shamrock, Texas, on April 15, 1930, the son of a sharecropper and the youngest of 11 children, his son Dan said. Christened Finies Henry Smith, he got the name Corky from a character in a comic strip, Gasoline Alley, his son said. Smith hated his given name, so the nickname stuck and he went by F.H. Corky Smith thereafter. He served in the Navy, and then as a civil service plumber, before running for City Council, Dan Smith said. During his time in office, he cut a well-known figure in his signature car, his son said. Advertisement He had a red, 1969 Ford Ranchero, which was all he ever drove, and everybody recognized that Ranchero, Dan Smith said. Once out of office, he devoted himself quietly to his church, Gloria Dei Lutheran Church in Escondido, and his hobby of pigeon breeding and flying. His wife, Ethel, died in 2016, and he is survived by his son and three stepchildren. Beyond the major developments and civic institutions Smith helped establish, his most important legacy was one of service, his former colleagues and son said. He was what you call the public servant, Dan Smith said. He wasnt a ruler type, he was a servant. Advertisement deborah.brennan@sduniontribune.com Twitter@deborahsbrennan A San Diego Superior Court judge has tentatively denied Lemon Groves request to be removed from a lawsuit filed by a prospective marijuana dispensary owner against the city and one of its City Council members. Judge Richard S. Whitney ruled Thursday that City Councilman David Arambula was acting in his role as an elected official the night a fight broke out between him and businessman Christopher Williams in 2017 at Arambulas home. As a result of injuries suffered during the incident, Williams filed a lawsuit against the city and Arambula, seeking unspecified damages. Also at Arambulas home the night of the fight were Lemon Grove Mayor Racquel Vasquez; Taisha Brown, a member of the executive board of the San Diego County Democratic Party; and a neighbor of Arambulas. Advertisement The city had asked the judge to keep it out of the lawsuit. Lemon Grove says the fight, which happened around midnight, took place several hours after Williams showed up at Arambulas home. It asserts that Arambula was acting as a private citizen at a social gathering at that time. The judges ruling cited a declaration by Brown that Arambula knew there was going to be a meeting about Williams cannabis dispensary. Brown said the meeting originally was supposed to be held at a pizzeria, but was later moved to Arambulas house. Brown said Arambula showed Williams a briefing booklet that he had received for the upcoming City Council meeting at which the dispensary was going to be considered. A hearing is scheduled for Friday morning at which the judge will hear arguments from the city as to why he should sustain, amend or reverse his ruling. Williams had been trying to open a medical marijuana dispensary in the city since the end of 2016, when voters passed a proposition making the businesses legal in Lemon Grove. In an October 2018 videotaped deposition, Arambula says he knew that Williams was interested in discussing a city-related business matter when he agreed to meet with Williams. But he said he did not know that Williams wanted to talk about the businessmans pending application to open a medical marijuana dispensary. Arambula said that when the matter came up, he immediately halted the conversation, warned Williams it was inappropriate to discuss the matter and walked outside. Several hours later, the evening ended with a fight between Williams and Arambula that left Williams with a gash over his eye and bite marks on his arm, injuries Arambula acknowledges in court documents he inflicted after Williams allegedly attacked him first. Advertisement karen.pearlman@sduniontribune.com Encinitas has been told by state officials it needs to amend or invalidate an anti-growth ordinance passed by voters in 2013, or continue to violate California laws. On Tuesday, the city received a letter asking it to take necessary action to eliminate or change Proposition A, a law approved by 52 percent of voters that requires a public vote every time a developer proposes changing zoning or increasing density. It also set a citywide building height limit of 30 feet, about two stories, and low by even coastal community standards. In its letter, the state Department of Housing and Community Development, or HCD, said the 2013 law called right to vote has continued to disqualify the citys proposals to comply with requirements. Advertisement The move by the department comes as the state continues to push for more housing, and increase its legal options. Huntington Beach was sued by California in January for not complying with state law to allow enough homebuilding to accommodate its growing population. Mayor Catherine Blakespear said she fears the state could take a similar action against Encinitas. However, she said the city is doing everything it can to comply, including going back-and-forth with state officials to make sure it gets its housing plan done by April. I think what (the state) is saying is the city needs to rip off the Band-Aid of Prop A, she said. That language is very clear. Our back is against the wall. For now, Encinitas officials have directed attorneys to begin discussions with the state housing agency about Prop A. The 2013 law conflicts with state housing laws that require the rezoning of property to accommodate housing at all income levels. Because Prop A requires a vote every time there is a change to zoning, it also delays attempts at more housing. A small apartment project for an empty retail lot could cause an expensive election, leaving many developers weary of even trying. Also, Encinitas 30 foot height requirement set in Prop A doesnt jibe either. The state has suggested the city increase height to a minimum of 35 feet for a flat roof and 39 feet for a pitched roof. Encinitas was incorporated in 1986 and has long been the black sheep of housing advocates. It was formed by a group of residents concerned its status as an unincorporated community in San Diego County did not give it enough control over land-use decisions. The city has shown a preference for avoiding density ever since. As of 2016, it had the lowest percentage of multifamily housing (condos, apartments, townhouses) of any community in San Diego County. Encinitas has 19 percent multifamily, in contrast to nearby Solana Beach with 41 percent, said the San Diego Association of Governments. Advertisement Encinitas also has remained a very affluent community. It has one of the lowest percentages of low or very low income residents of any area in the county at 28 percent. Del Mar has the least at 18 percent. Encinitas remains the only city in the county without a state-certified housing plan called a Housing Element that identifies where builders could put more housing in the future and plan for growth. One of the groups recently suing the city was San Diego Tenants United, a City Heights-based organization that advocates for affordable housing and tenants rights. Its lawsuit, with the local Building Industry Association, is over the citys lack of a housing plan. Tenants United organizer Rafael Bautista said he was pleased the state was taking action. Advertisement Its an almost exclusively white community. Its an exclusively wealthy community, he said. Not even the white working class can afford to live there. The median price of a resale single-family home in Encinitas was $1.4 million in December, an increase of 36 percent in a year, said real estate tracker CoreLogic. The countywide median for a resale single-family home in December was $595,000. According to the U.S. Census, 89 percent of the citys population is white the highest for any city in San Diego County. Coronado is very close with 88 percent. San Diego city has a 76 percent white population, estimates say. Efforts by Encinitas to increase density requirements through the ballot box have been unsuccessful. Measure U in 2018 and Measure T in 2016 both were voted down. Advertisement The ball is squarely in Encinitas court, said Borre Winckel, CEO of the Building Industry Association. Business Advertisement phillip.molnar@sduniontribune.com (619) 293-1891 Twitter: @phillipmolnar ALSO San Diegos new single-family homes are pricey, modern and in short supply Tijuana condo craze continues in to 2018 Advertisement Last years housing market broke records In an unexpected twist of events, developer OliverMcMillan has walked away from a $361-million plan to build hundreds of hotel rooms and an urban village on prime, waterfront real estate opposite San Diegos airport. Wednesday, the developer formally exited a contract with the Port of San Diego, which owns and manages the East Harbor Island site. The surprise change in plans brings to a halt a years-long process to redevelop the Harbor Drive parcel that was once the home base for rental car companies Hertz, Avis and National Rent-a-Car (the businesses have since moved to the airports Rental Car Center garage on Pacific Highway). A portion of the site had also served as the former staging lot for airport taxicabs, and the area in question still includes the districts Harbor Police Department headquarters. In September of 2016, OliverMcMillan was picked by the ports board of directors to redevelop a significant portion of the man-made peninsula with hotels, retail, office and canals. The following year OliverMcMillan and the port entered into an exclusive negotiating agreement, or ENA. The agreement was still in place and the working relationship in good shape as of Jan. 31, when port staff met with the developer, said Wendy Siao, the ports real estate program manager. Advertisement But in a brief, Feb. 6 letter addressed to port chief Randa Coniglio, OliverMcMillan co-founder Morgan Dene Oliver said that the firm, now owned by Brookfield Residential, was too busy with other projects to follow through with the mixed-use development. As we discussed Brookfield Residential/OliverMcMillan has decided to withdraw from the ENA for Harbor Island. The passage of time has lead (sic) us to the place where our workload is too great with other projects to continue with an ENA. We want to wish you and your staff and the Port Commission the best of luck proceeding with Harbor Island. Zachary Adams, a vice president at Brookfield who was managing the project, did not return a voicemail seeking comment on Thursday. Caught off guard by the letter, port staffers couldnt say with certainty what would happen next with the site, which consists of 35 acres of land and 13 acres of water. The parcels future will, however, be discussed at the ports next board meeting on Feb. 12, said Tony Gordon, the agencys director of real estate. I dont think anyone expected this, he said. There are no hard feelings. These things happen. OliverMcMillan had been on track to submit a detailed plan and project description by April. The firms most recent project was priced at $361 million. It called for a 325-room boutique hotel, a 180-room select service hotel and a 130-room affordable lodging boatel. The developer also expected to include roughly 62,500 square feet of retail, around 60,000 square feet of office, as many as 1,550 parking spaces and a new, consolidated headquarters for the Harbor Police. Public spaces, walkways, pocket parks and a network of canals were also being considered. Now the washed-over project could have a ripple effect on a neighboring hotel development proposed by Sunroad Enterprises. Advertisement At the same 2016 board meeting where OliverMcMillan was picked to redevelop its share of East Harbor Island, port directors selected Sunroad to redo an adjacent 7-acre site know as the Elbow Parcel. The boards decision to split the baby, as port commissioners have called it, was made in spite of staffers recommendation that the 55-acre property be developed exclusively by OliverMcMillan. Sunroad, which had also been in contention for the entire site, has since moved forward with the Elbow Parcel, proposing either the development of a 500-room, dual-phased hotel project; or a 325-room, single-phased hotel project. The uncertain project, which too appeared on the brink on collapse, will be considered once again at the Feb. 12 board meeting. Port staff will then ask for an amendment to its contract with Sunroad, which would require a hotel development with 450 to 500 rooms built in one phase. The Sunroad recommendation is still on the agenda, despite the collapse of OliverMcMillans development, Gordon said. Sunroad executive Uri Feldman did not respond to a request for comment. Well see how that goes, Gordon said. Going forward, most likely staff will come up with a couple of redevelopment options (for OliverMcMillans portion of the peninsula). Our goal is still to redevelop East Harbor Island. Advertisement Business jennifer.vangrove@sduniontribune.com (619) 293-1840 Twitter: @jbruin Samoa has become the most preferred destination for couple Sophie Bennett and Trent Dawson, who are already looking forward to their next visit. We are here for the good weather but mainly to surf, Sophie tells Dear Tourist. Trent really loves to surf and theres really good breaks out there when we go out on the water. Trent says Samoa is a bit small but he loves it. When the couple arrived from New Zealand, they stayed at Sheraton Samoa Aggie Greys Resort at Mulifanua. They hired a car to explore the island and later moved to the Apia Township where they are staying at Taumeasina Island Resort. I love both resorts of course, theyre beautiful. The Sheraton on the beach has a more traditional style but here at Taumeasina, its more modern, Sophie said. She added that of their exploration of the beaches, waterfalls, To Sua Trench was one of her favourites. Everywhere I looked was beautiful and the beaches were really nice. The couple is no strangers to the Pacific. They have been to Fiji, Vanuatu and Rarotonga. There is nothing to complain about because it has just been really good being here. Samoa is one of our favorite places other than Rarotonga, Sophie said. They are expected to leave Sunday morning and are intent on making the most of their stay. The weather was not a problem as Sophie waded through Taumeasinas beach waters. Even though it was raining, it is still absolutely beautiful. I went swimming while it was raining and thought, oh well I might as well make the most of it, she said. She even said that she had told Trent to extend so they could stay a bit longer but work and priorities beckon for their return. However they do look forward to visiting again. We have already started talking about visiting again because this is one of our favorite places. The Ambassador of the Republic of France to Samoa, Sylvaine Carta-Le Vert, presented her credentials to the Head of State, His Highness Tuimalealiifano Vaaletoa Sualauvi II yesterday. The presentation was held at the Head of States official residence at Vailele where the new diplomat extended the well wishes from her nations President, Emmanuel Macron. The Head of State welcomed her to Samoa. We have established diplomatic relations for over 40 years and we share a common interest in the areas of Climate Change, His Highness Tuimalealiifano said. The promotion of peace and security, respect for the rule of law, and sustainable development through collaboration as members of the United Nations and also the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States through which Samoa conducts most of its engagement with the European Union. His Highness Tuimalealiifano highlighted the importance of global efforts to address climate change. It is a national and a regional priority for the Pacific because we are encountering a pressing threat to our livelihood and for some of our Pacific neighbors the likelihood of a vanishing identity. We continue to count on the support of your government, the European Union and international community for a unified global commitment. He also acknowledged the French Governments support in areas of sustainable development within the region through humanitarian assistance and maritime surveillance. The collaboration of our countries concerning the Tui Samoa and Manatua Cables are vitally important to increase our connectivity to the world, enhance our education systems and our technical capability to deal with issues of cybersecurity. In response, Mrs. Carta-Le Vert, said Samoa and France share a strong cultural affinity, a common history, and shared values, deep and sincere friendship with converging interests and goals. The first obvious issue is our common fight against climate change. It is the most pressing challenge of our generation, especially for Pacific Island countries, she said. France will continue its tireless efforts to tackle the issue, and do its utmost for the effective implementation of the Paris agreement, and fulfill the commitments made within the context of the One Planet Summit - and will also increase its efforts towards adaptation and biodiversity in the Pacific region. BACKGROUND Carta-Le Vert started working for the Ministere des Affaires etrangeres in 1980. During her career, she has been Second secretary to the Permanent Mission of France to the United Nations in Geneva, First secretary in Beirut, First secretary to the Permanent Representation of France to NATO in Brussels, Auditor to the Royal College of Defense studies and Second Counsellor at the French Embassy in London, Consul General in Zurich. Mrs. Carta-Le Vert served in several departments in the Ministere des Affaires etrangeres. Mrs Carta-Le Vert spent two years working for the ministry of Defense with the Naval Chief of staff (2007-2009). She also was inspector of the Ministere des Affaires etrangeres from 2009 to 2011. Prior to her arrival in Wellington, Mrs Carta-Le Vert was Consul General of France in London. Born in 1955, Mrs. Carta-Le Vert graduated from the Institute of Political Science and has a bachelor degree in History from the University of Aix-en-Provence. She is married with two adult children. She will be residing at the Embassy of France in Wellington, New Zealand. The man, who threw a pigs head and dog food, at Prime Minister Tuilaepa Dr. Sailele Malielegaoi in Queensland Australia last year, does not regret his actions. Speaking to the Weekend Observer at Mulinuu yesterday, Talalelei Pauga, of Laulii and Manono, denied that he attacked the Prime Minister. He said his actions were instead a form of protest because he wanted Prime Minister Tuilaepa to start listening to what people are saying. I wanted my voice to be heard loud and clear and I wanted his attention so he can wake up and hear the people who are voiceless, he said. Asked why the choice of a pigs head and dog food, Mr. Pauga said his decision was symbolic. My approach was on the political level and the reason why I used the pigs head was because he called the people of my country stinking pigs, he said. He also called our people dogs and all that. If you dont have respect for my people why should I have respect for him? He is an arrogant man, and I have never heard a leader speak to his own people that way. He does not take advice from anyone and has no respect for the country. Mr. Pauga is in the country for a family matter. Asked if he would like to meet with Prime Minister Tuilaepa, he said yes. I would love to sit down and have a one-on-one with him. I dont know where to find him, thats the problem. Told that Prime Minister Tuilaepas office is at the Government building, he said: If he gives me the opportunity, I would love to sit down with him and sort things out. I respect him as a father but I will not respect him as a leader because of how he treats the people. Asked why he covered his face during his protest, he said he didnt. I didnt cover my face, I was the one with the glasses and the hat and I showed my face and I did not hide myself. I have no fear, and I will die for my people. Asked if he regrets what he did, he said: No, I am proud of what I did. I want him to hear out the voiceless, I dont want him to rule my country and my people as a dictator. Told that Prime Minister cannot be a dictator because he was an elected leader in a democratic country, Mr. Pauga would not budge. I understand he is the leader of this country and as a leader he should not treat and talk to the people (the way he does) that is my problem with him. Mr. Pauga also claimed that all the charges against him, in relation to the incident in Queensland, have been dropped. In November 2018, Prime Minister and other senior Government officials were attending the launch of Samoa Airways Faleolo to Brisbane flights, marking the airlines first birthday, when the incident occurred. Mr. Pauga said he tried to apply for a permit for his protest. I tried to do it the lawful way by applying for the permit but due to the short notice and that protests are not allowed at night, thats why my permit was denied. It was not possible to get a comment from Prime Minister Tuilaepa yesterday. The Chairman of the Samoa Farmers Association (SFA), Afamasaga Toleafoa, has warned that the commercialisation of coconut leaf baskets could put an already strained coconut supply at risk. With the single-use plastic ban firmly in effect, some market vendors and conservationists are looking to Samoas traditional woven baskets to fill the gap. This is well and good for occasional use, Afamasaga said, but anything on a commercial scale risks the coconut trees ability to fruit. If you overcut it to get the leaves you are going to reduce the harvest, absolutely. Thats a fact of life, he said. I suspect the younger, shorter trees that are more easily reached will be the ones that will carry the brunt. Afamasaga said if the way forward for shopping bags is through woven baskets, then Samoa will have to and establish coconut plantations specifically for the harvesting of leaves. Assistant Chief Executive officer for the Crops Division of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, Moafanua Tolo Iosefa said the sector hopes to plant another two million coconut trees in the next ten years, but it is slow going so far. Today, an extremely high international and local demand for coconut, combined with an aging, less productive population of trees and a rhinoceros beetle problem means supply cannot keep up. Already the supply of drinking coconuts, coconuts used for food, for cream, for export, we are falling behind in terms of supplies of raw nuts, Afamasaga said. We are way behind on a proper national replanting program for coconuts. As a result, the coconut supply itself is suffering. Several factors are leading to coconuts getting smaller, but costing more, including the rush to get them off the trees, Afamasaga said. Its ridiculous, its quite annoying. The quality just keeps going down, they are picking them greener, and greener and greener, its not good. You can look at the supplies in the market, you can look at the growth of the drinking coconut as a commercial product, a consumer product, its increased tremendously, he said. Discussions between the Ministry of Agriculture and the farming private sector on how to fix the problem are ongoing. Starting several more private sector run plant nurseries for coconut seedlings is one way to increase supply. Moafanua said he hopes that eight new nurseries (four in Upolu and four in Savaii) will be built and distributing seedlings by the end of the month. The private sectors capacity to manage issues is also improving. Afamasaga said he is finding more and more donors and aid partnerships are turning to the private sector rather than governments, which is empowering. Farmer organisations are relatively new in Samoa but I think as their capacity improves and grows, and they get more support, which is now beginning to happen with people like IFAD (International Fund for Agriculture Development) coming in. I think you will find, rather than working with the ministry, they prefer to work directly with farmers and their organisations, and that is where the support will come from. Some training and awareness for farmers on the risks of overcutting their coconut plantations leaves would go a long way to defend the supply from diminishing, Afamasaga said. Its a bit of a kneejerk reaction to say lets go back to the baskets, when we talk about the harm that comes from plastics. Its easy to say lets go back, but I think we need to be thinking very seriously, and look at the whole picture and not just the fact that its natural. Its not sustainable. The Minister of Revenue, Prisons and Rehabilitation Services, Tialavea Tionisio Hunt, is a man with a vision firmly set on the future. Halfway through the current Parliamentary sitting, the 2021 General election is not far from his mind. During an interview with the Weekend Observer, he confirmed that he would always be loyal to the Human Rights Protection Party (H.R.P.P.). But the future, he admits, depends on the work that is being done now. When it comes to the performance of the Ministry of Revenue, Tialavea is contented. The revenue has been increasing. We recorded $7 million surplus in the first six months of the last financial year. Last year we collected about $506 million, and thats a record to get over half a billion, Tialavea said. Last (financial) year we didnt get our target of $521 million because the previous year was $480 million and they increased $35 million for us to reach, which is impossible and that was the highest target ever, than we failed, we only collected $14 million. This financial year 2018/19 we have to collect $524 million, thats the target from the Treasurer. So far, for the last seven months, its $13 million surplus. Hopefully the next five months we can collect and meet the target and get a surplus because if we are short, then the budget for next financial year, we will have to look for something for the long term to fulfill the 2018/19 budget. Tialavea commended the work carried out by his team and their contribution to the success of the Ministry. My C.E.O. was appointed the same time as me, the deputy and all the workers up to the tea lady they all contribute, so I am just sitting here and they are doing the work. All the work is because of them, he said. I appreciate what my Ministry is doing, even the taxing of faifeaus (church Ministers). Its not an easy task for us, and with my staff, over 50 percent are E.F.K.S. members. I really feel sorry for them, but its not us, its not our law, its Parliaments law. We have to do what the law says, otherwise well just have to go out the door and go home, if we fail. If you see me standing bold on the church, its because of the law, and if we dont do what the law says, then me, the C.E.O. and everybody should resign and go home, and let somebody else come and do the work. Customs is the highest revenue earner, it collects about $300 million a year and increasing. Revenue for the last financial year $190 million and theyre increasing too, Tialavea said. Looking back, Tialavea said he has enjoyed his journey as a politician. I joined H.R.P.P. when it started and I became an H.R.P.P. member ever since. I have a bad attitude of not changing things. If I am committed to something, then I stay with it, he said. If you do something that you think is right and after three months you see its not right, you have to have the courage to change it again, otherwise you have to resign, leave the portfolio and go home. And if I ever think that a time that I cant instruct the C.E.O. because I am afraid of her, I have to go out the door, but thats my attitude and foundation. Tialavea said if he returns as a Member of Parliament then its good because Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi selects the Ministers. But as Minister, there are a lot of other people who can do the same job as me, he said. Therapeutic courts in Samoa established in partnership with New Zealand have been successful across the country. This is the opinion of Justice Mata Keli Tuatagaloa, Samoas first female judge, who visited the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trades (MFAT) Wellington office last week as a Prime Ministers Fellow. The programme involves an influential person being invited to New Zealand to develop relationships and identify future opportunities for collaboration. In 2016, New Zealand Judge Ema Aitken worked with local judiciary and members of the church in Samoa to establish a new court in the hope it would reduce the number of alcohol and drug related crimes. Justice Tuatagaloa was appointed the head of the Samoa Alcohol and Drugs Court (ADC) at Judge Aitkens request in 2016. Reflecting on the courts impact in Samoa, she commented on its expansion across the country in a short amount of time. It was a new idea when Judge Aitken came to set up the court, it was a new mindset for the judges, as we were taught that the law was very black and white and wed never heard of a therapeutic approach before, Justice Tuatagaloa said. When we first started it was a pilot programme with a few villages and then after the first year we opened up to the whole of Samoa including Savaii, where offenders attending the programmes live with family in Upolu rather than being kept in prison. Since March 2018 the ADC now also sits in the District Courts. Justice Tuatagaloa will present a full report at the end of February which coincides with the Courts three-year anniversary. MFAT has recently funded a New Zealand clinical psychologist to spend a year evaluating and reviewing the Family Court, Youth Court, and Alcohol and Drugs Court, at Justice Tuatagaloas request. The clinical psychologist comes highly recommended by my judicial colleagues here and I thought it was important for the review especially coming up three years since the opening of the Alcohol and Drugs Court, Justice Tuatagaloa said. During her visit to Wellington Justice Tuatagaloa met with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, where they discussed the close New ZealandSamoa relationship, opportunities for further collaboration in the judicial sector, and reminisced on their times attending Waikato University. She was the first female judge appointed to the Samoa District Court in 2011. My first question to the Chief Justice when being approached to be a judge was, if youre appointing me because Im a woman, I wont accept it, but if youre appointing me on my merit, then I will gladly accept it. She recalled feeling a sense of immense responsibility upon being approached for the role. I like to think that I have done a good job because they have considered other women to come on the bench. Justice Tuatagaloa also met with Minister Carmel Sepuloni, Minister Aupito William Sio, Judge Andrew Becroft, incoming Chief Justice Helen Winkelmann, and Luamanuvao Dame Winnie Laban. Changing habits, mindsets and attitudes is not easy. Its always the case, whether the change is good or bad. Folks it doesnt matter if the change is taking place in Samoa, United States of America, Europe or anywhere in the world, getting people used to change is always the challenge and it takes time, a lot of time. And so in Samoa this week, our nation is just coming to terms with the nationwide ban on single-use plastic bags introduced and implemented by the Government in an effort to protect our environment. To be sure, its not an easy thing to do, after years and years where weve become so used to these plastic bags. Indeed, old habits are hard to break especially when they become second nature. We dont think about them anymore, we just do it because its become part of everyday life. Were a bit like that with plastic bags. Everywhere we stop to buy something, we are given plastic bags upon plastic bags. At every corner of Samoa. On a daily basis, its probably safe to say that each person goes through an average of 10 plastic bags a day, some people go through more. So imagine then having a blanket ban where you suddenly turn up and find there is none. But thats not all. Then you realise the inconvenience of not having anything to carry your shopping to the car or being told to buy a more environmentally friendly bag as part of the change, and it becomes quite a shock, isnt it? Some people find it amusing, some become frustrated while others just become downright rude. Which is precisely what our people have had to come to grips with this week. Sadly, from what weve been told, many of the rude types have taken chosen to take their frustrations out on the shopkeepers, especially the ones at some of the biggest supermarkets in the country. A story published earlier this week highlighted the plight of the men and women who have suddenly found themselves as the target of abuse and violent threats. Ever since the ban started, people have been coming in with such indescribable attitudes, one cashier told the Samoa Observer. Telling us this and that, and then even to the point where they actually swore at our face, while we are trying to explain why we are not using plastic bags anymore. Another shopkeeper said: I believe some people are aware of the fact that plastic bags have been banned. But they refuse to understand they just want to let us know that they are strong enough to say whatever they want to say and it is very disrespectful. In some cases, the shopkeepers have tried to be helpful. Another shopkeeper hit the nail on the head when she reminded that the ban is the Governments idea, not theirs. We are only doing our jobs, she said. The abuse makes us feel so discouraged to do our job because we are trying our best and it is not our fault that they cant use plastic bags anymore. We give some people boxes for their shopping if they refuse to pay for the reusable bag but they still complain about it so we have no other ways to address such baby issue. She added that a lot of customers are reacting like babies when the solution is clear bring your own shopping bags. We couldnt agree more. If anything, we feel for the poor shopkeepers. They are probably among the lowest paid workers in the country and for them to cop the abuse when its not their fault is unnecessary. If anything, its bullying at its worse. People with such attitudes towards these men and women should be ashamed. The Government has made the right decision to start implementing this ban on plastics. The move is absolutely critical in terms of efforts to preserve our environment and to fight against climate change. Everyone is affected. The solution is quite simple to avoid all this unnecessary troubles. Either we take a box, reusable bag to the store, or we buy a reusable bag and get used to turning up with one every time we need to buy something. Or else just grab your shopping and take it with you. This ban is here to stay and whether we like it or not, we need to change our mindsets and attitudes to avoid the disappointment. And dont forget, threatening and abusing shopkeepers, especially swearing at them is a criminal offense. Dont do it. Have a wonderful weekend Samoa, God bless! Malele Paulo, the man better known as King Faipopo, was arrested and charged by the Police yesterday evening. This was confirmed by his lawyer, Unasa Iuni Sapolu. She said the charge is in connection to allegations made by Mr. Paulo online, which allegedly defamed Prime Minister Tuilaepa Dr. Sailele Malielegaoi. King Faipopo is charged with defamation, Unasa told the Weekend Observer during an interview at the Police station. It was not possible to get an official comment from the Police last night. As of press time, Unasa was waiting with her client for the Registrar to see whether Mr. Paulo would be released. According to a family member, Mr. Paulo who is based in Australia arrived on Thursday to attend his mothers funeral, which is being held at Aleipata. He was arrested around 3pm at the S.N.P.F. Plaza yesterday. He went to get a sim card and thats when he was arrested by the Police. And the mothers remains are to be transported to Aleipata, but there is a delay as her son was brought in for Police questioning. In August last year, Prime Minister Tuilaepa filed a criminal complaint with Police to initiate the process of charging Mr. Paulo. According to the press release issued by the Press Secretariat at the time, the Prime Minister wanted Mr. Paulo brought to Samoa to be charged under the Criminal Libel Act. The Prime Minister's complaint centers on recent accusations posted by Paulo on YouTube and later posted on the Social Media via Facebook accusing Tuilaepa of murder and smuggling firearms, the press release said. The statement quoted Tuilaepa saying: "I am not prohibiting anyone from exercising their freedom of speech or freedom of expression but I take issue when the rights of the innocent, like myself are violated through lies and deceit. "This kind of lying and attacking members of the community through social media is what the law was designed to prevent. Mr. Paulo, while under the custody of police, had live recording videos from the Police around 6:14pm. When you are in Samoa, do what the Samoans do. For Laura Jarvis and Theo Harbers, they have been learning as much as they can about Samoa during their time here. The young couple from Christchurch New Zealand was in Samoa for Mr. Harbers sisters wedding. But they have made the most of the trip, enjoying time with friends and families and learning Samoan things. Like weaving. Weve learnt how to make the hats out of leaves and it was awesome. They have also done what tourists do in Samoa checking out all the sites and enjoying the beautiful surrounding. Top of the list have been the pristine beaches, ranging from Lalomanu. They have checked out the breathtaking To Sua Trench as well as the local markets. The couple and their families are also planning to visit the big island of Savaii today. Speaking to Dear Tourist, Mr. Harbers said his sister married a Samoan so he was looking forward to expanding his knowledge of Samoa and what else he could learn while here. Would they come back? They both said yes. Besides, they now have family connections here. Samoa and New Zealands friendship is alive and well. Thats according to Acting Prime Minister, Fiame Naomi Mataafa, speaking to a Waitangi Day gathering on Wednesday evening. The New Zealand High Commission hosted a modest and warm affair in honour of Waitangi Day, and were joined by Head of State, His Highness Tuimalealiifano Vaaletoa Sualauvi II and the Masiofo, Her Highness Faamausili Leinafo Tuimalealiifano and several diplomatic representatives. In her address, Fiame said Waitangi Day in Samoa serves as a reminder of the unique relationship between the two countries, as enshrined in the Treaty of Friendship between our two countries. These partnerships were developed in the spirit of hope and the promise for a better future, to realise our development aspirations and to utilise better opportunities for the future of all our children, she said. The 1962 Friendship Treaty was also acknowledged by Acting New Zealand High Commissioner Nick Hurley, even comparing it to the Treaty of Waitangi. One Samoan academic has even compared New Zealands relations with Samoa under the Treaty of Friendship as similar to New Zealands relations with Maori under the Treaty of Waitangi, he said. That may be taking the comparison a bit too far. But the reality today is that outside the special relationship New Zealand has with the Realm Countries, our relationship with Samoa is the closest of any of our Pacific ties. Mr. Hurley said that more than 140,000 Samoans living in, and contributing to New Zealand explain how close the two nations are and their history together. Some of those shared moments have been painful, as we know, he said. But like the relationship between the Crown and Maori, it takes wisdom and courage to build partnerships and find a path through difficult issues. The closeness of our relationship enables us to deal in that way with differences that occur from time to time. He said that closeness has contributed to the international successes for both Samoa and New Zealand, in sports, arts and business. The number of iconic Samoans on the international stage is too numerous to list. My point is that these success-stories are as much Samoan as they are New Zealand. They are real, shared achievements. Fiame also chose to highlight the issue of climate change, and welcomed New Zealands pledge to increase climate financing support. I wish to underscore the need to strengthen our partnerships to find solutions to its impacts, not only at the national and regional level but also at the world stage, she said. Last September, the NZ Government announced it would commit NZ$300 million over the next four years in climate-related development assistance, most of which for the Pacific. The focus of this financial support is on creating new areas of growth and opportunity for Pacific communities. We want to support our Pacific neighbours to make the transition to a low carbon economy without hurting their existing economic base, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said. A team from Americas Applied Scholastic International is in Samoa to develop its study technology program, in a bid to broaden the mindset of teachers with their responsibility. The key is to empower teachers through the learning of new expertise through the use of things from the environment for Year 1 to Year 4 level students in order to have a better understanding of lessons in classrooms. Aele Primary School is just one of the many schools they have been monitoring. School principal, Fuimaono Fuatino Tauaanae, said she is happy to receive international experience and support for her teachers and for the sake of her students. Its every teachers wish for her students to have a better education and as a teacher and as a leader to this school, I am very excited and proud to welcome these beautiful people to my school and to share their knowledge of teaching with us, she said. Aele Primary School is one of six schools they have inspected and monitored trainings at. The others are Vaimea Primary School, Vaitele Primary School, Faleula Primary School and Savaii-based Faga Primary School and Safotulafai Primary School. School Inspector for Faleata District, Vaiaso Finau, said she is proud to have seen improvements from both the teachers and the students of Aele Primary School. One of the nicest and most important methods inside this program is the key word clearance, for the teachers to develop their wordings in any lessons, and what they mean so the students will understand that there is no limit to their educational lives, she said. Attempts to speak to the program facilitators werent successful, though Mrs. Finau stressed on one of the program facilitators comments during training. Views from the facilitator is that there are many barriers stopping the children from coming to school, and achieve their goals and its because there are no physical tools to draw their interests, she said. Due to the targeted students being freshmen, Mrs. Finau explained that these students are more likely to like physical learning than that of just using words. The Ministry of Revenue is looking to reduce the excise tax for spirits with 40 per cent and below percentage of alcohol, but maintain the current tax for those above 40 percent. So says the Minister of Revenue Tialavea Tionisio Hunt, who says that local alcohol manufacturers are copping the impact of having a tax of $38.60 for every liter of spirit. Now we are facing the problem of hotels complaining to us that their guests are complaining they cant provide them with other spirits because of the law not allowing more than 40 percent spirits, because to mix those cocktails are above 40 percent, so they are complaining to the liquor board, says Tialavea, who is also chairman of the Liquor Board. So we are looking to increase the excise tax for spirits with 40 and above percentage of alcohol and reduce the excise tax for 40 percent below. This is because we need to take care of our tourism industry because otherwise if they cant get what they ordered here in Samoa, they will go somewhere else. Its a hard decision, but we have to face the realities of tourists coming in. He explained the move to reduce tax is also because they had assumed increasing it would reduce the number of alcohol-related incidents, but this was not the case as incidents continue to increase. This is why, Tialavea said, a provision of the Alcohol Control Bill 2019 is to have police test for drugs on intoxicated people. The Speaker of Parliament, Tole'afoa Leaupepe Fa'afisi, has issued a warrant of writ for a by-election for the vacant Faasaleleaga Nu.2 seat. This was due to the passing of Member of Parliament, Pau Sefo Pau last month. The by-election has been schedule for March 22, 2019, according to the Electoral Commissioner, Faimalo Matthew Lemisio. Explaining the process for the by-election which was initiated on Tuesday by the Speaker, he said the nomination period will commence February 25, 2019 and close March 1, 2019. Faimalo said in accordance with Section 151 of the Electoral Act 2019, upon the issuance of the warrant, his office issued a public notice yesterday to notify the Constituency of Faasaleleaga 2 of the date when their electoral rolls have to be temporarily closed for the upcoming by-election. This by election will be administered under the new Electoral Act 2019, which was passed by Parliament recently and assented to by the Head of State on the 31 January, 2019. The new requirements implemented will include the qualifications of voters. Mainly residency and matai from the constituency and the matai connection requirement no longer exists. So only those residing in villages of the constituency and matai from that constituency will be the new registered voters to be entered on the rolls or those transferring on the roll of Faasaleleaga Nu. 2, he added. Furthermore, all the registered voters will be required to vote with Faimalo warning that failing to do so will result in an instant fine of $100. All voters are required to cast their vote at the constituency, meaning there will be no more special booths outside of Faasaleleaga Nu.2. Except for those qualified under pre-polling. Those qualified under pre-polling are those over 65 years old, people living with disabilities, and those travelling overseas on the day of elections. But they must apply to the OEC (Office of the Electoral Commissioner) before they are considered to cast their vote during the pre-polling period, which is four days before the actual polling day, he said. The Commissioner further explained their office will be conducting all the processes of the by-election in Savaii. Starting from closure of rolls, to nomination, the by-election itself, the preliminary count and the final count, he added. Matai (chiefly) titles bestowed outside Samoa without the presence and blessings of the Village Council are lies. The description was offered by Prime Minister Tuilaepa Dr. Sailele Malielegaoi in Auckland where he attended Waitangi Day celebration with a delegation from Samoa. During an interview with Radio Samoa, the Prime Minister was told about grievances from some members of the Samoan community in New Zealand who believe they should be able to carry out a saofai (title bestowal ceremony) there. But Tuilaepa said matai titles bestowed without a usu from the Village Council are not legitimate. The usu involves the presence of the Village Council during a bestowal ceremony where they offer their blessings through a chosen orator, followed by an ava ceremony. In return, the new titleholders and their families offer gifts of money and food. You cannot bestow titles unless the village is involved through a usu. So the titles that are bestowed here (in New Zealand) are all lies, he said. They have to go to Samoa for the village to carry out a usu. That is Samoan tradtion and culture. So anybody who comes and does that here, they are deceiving people. Tuilaepa, who holds several matai titles, said he doesnt need to explain the protocol of Samoan culture to other Samoans. All the matai understand this basic principle, he said. Told that some people in New Zealand have done a usu as a village, Tuilaepa said: This is not a village here. The village is in Samoa. Keep in mind we have our malae (meeting grounds). We have our malae and our maota where titles belong. He then used the title Lolofie as an example. Anything to do with this title must be held inside the Maota i Sinoi and thats where it is blessed. That is true Samoan culture. The Prime Minister said this new habit of titles being bestowed outside Samoa including New Zealand is a new trend. Whats happened here (in NZ) is the result of something done by a crook from over there (Samoa) who came here and did that, Tuilaepa said. No they have to take it to Samoa for a title to be blessed and officially recognised. If the village does not carry out a usu, its not official and it cannot be registered with the Land and Titles Court. The Government is proposing a law to enable 18-year-olds to sell alcohol as a form of employment. Minister of Revenue, Tialavea Tionisio Hunt, revealed this in a recent interview with the Samoa Observer and added that the revenue generated will become a source of income for their families. Under the new Alcohol Control Bill 2019 which was tabled at the recent Parliament session 18-year-olds are allowed to sell alcohol, provided they are supervised by someone who is 21 years and older. But they (18-year-olds) are not allowed to drink. There is no guarantee that these 18-year-olds will not drink, its the owner of the bar because if they find out they are drinking, and we will charge the owner for allowing them to drink while working, he said. When he was asked if it was a good idea allowing 18-year-olds to be exposed to and selling liquor given the increasing number of incidents relating to the abuse of alcohol the Minister said it is a source of income for the teenager and their families. Most of our kids are out school at the age of 18 years so where are they going to go? So we allow them as long as theres someone supervising them, like the owner of the bar who has to be there or someone has to be inside the bar who is 21 years old or above. So it is a job opportunity for them, otherwise we will have so many kids who dont go to school, dropouts having no jobs to turn to, he added. One of the provisions of the new law, which Tialavea expects to be passed by June, also gives Police the green light to test for drugs on those who are intoxicated. The combination of Vailima, Taula, and spirit drinking them altogether contributes to the violent acts. If you are taking drugs, you will never tell the police it was the drugs, you will only say it is the vodka, Vailima, Taula, but its not that. Something is behind this new increasing crime rate. In his capacity as the Liquor Board chairman, Tialavea is also warning club and bar operators to obey the conditions of the law or face a penalty of $10,000 under the new law, and the possibility of losing their license. If theres a suspicion that the person is under 21 years old, check the IDs, its on the 2011 Liquor Act. Its on the liquor license conditions. If you got proof of people entering clubs who are under 21 years old, give it to us, he said. The police are inspecting these clubs, some of my inspectors too but they hardly go out. Depending on the business owner, they have to take care of every person coming in. If there are complaints coming in to the committee then we will have to deal with them. Same goes to the small shops, only sell alcohol to people who are 21 and above. If you go around the island, people are selling liquor and tobacco to people under 18 years old. Tialavea is also warning people drinking on roadsides and in public places, including transports to refrain from doing so as they could be charged. Alcohol sales currently generate approximately $2 million in Government revenue on an annual basis, according to the Minister. Today marks 18 days since prison escapees Pati Chong Nee and Aniseko Vaelei dashed for freedom from the Tafaigata Prison. And they continue to leave a trail of destruction in their path as they play a cat-and-mouse game with the Ministry of Police a Moamoa shop missing hundreds of tala worth of goods, and an expatriate lecturer at the University of South Pacific (USP) Staff Compound and his family being robbed of their personal effects. CCTV footage of the two prisoners who have both been convicted on charges of burglary, robbery and armed with a dangerous weapon showed the duo armed with machetes, when they broke into Noahs Store in Moamoa in the early hours of Monday morning. The Police Commissioner, Fuiavailiili Egon Keil, told reporters on Wednesday that the Police are doing the best they can to find them. We are being very proactive in looking for these two escapees, as you saw on our Samoa Police Service website that these two are still outstanding. Our aim is to get these two in our custody as soon as possible; we are working in close collaboration with the Prisons as well through the prison guards, he said to reporters. Even Tialavea Tionisio Hunt, the Minister of Prisons and Correctional Services, revealed in a separate interview with the Samoa Observer that lax security at the Tafaigata Prison and the failure by the guards to comply with official policy led to the prison break by the two convicted criminals. There are laws but the guards did not follow that on that day, which made them run away, Tialavea said in the interview. Prison guards think everything is okay, and think nothing will happen, that prisoners go to church every Sunday and they return. Prisoners from day one until the day they complete their time, the only thing on their mind is to escape. So we need to be proactive about it and that is what is lacking. The public will appreciate the honesty from the Minister of Prisons and Correctional Services, and his revelations of the error in judgment by the guards that led to the prisoners escape. Not forgetting the assurance from the Police Commissioner, on his men and women doing their best to locate the two escapees. But what more can residents in Moamoa, Aleisa, Tapatapao, Siusega and Vaitele do to secure their homes and properties when the convicts are simply picking out their targets at will and casually walking into properties under the cover of darkness? And how much more trust and confidence can the public have in the ability of the Ministry of Prisons & Correctional Services and the Ministry of Police to do their job with diligence and efficiency when the two convicts are serial escapees and have a history of wantonly getting out of jail? Coincidentally, close to six years ago, there was anxiety within the community with bank robber Nazario Chong Nee and fraudster Punaotala Sakai on the run from the authorities after they also escaped from jail. But then Commissioner of Police, Lilomaiava Fou Taialo, reportedly decided that sustained media attention working in partnership with local media organisations will embarrass the families of the criminals and compel them to work with the community and the Police to get the criminals to turn themselves in July 2013. Lilomaiava believed the strategy worked back then when Nazario Chong Nee and Punaotala Sakai reportedly called the Police together and surrendered. Fast forward to 2019, Lilomaiavas successor Fuiavailiili has opted to stick to the Samoa Police Service Facebook page to spontaneously reach out to the community, overlooking the fact that social media has its shortcomings when trying to effect Community Policing in a nation where tradition and culture are still very much alive. That is Community Policing where the Police focuses on building ties and working closely with the community to tackle crime should be thriving in a country like Samoa. While increasing internet connectivity and cheap mobile phone accessibility is enabling a lot of Samoans to go online and thereby use social media, the revolving of Samoan society around Faa Samoa whereby family is considered significant, and respect of elders and service to family is paramount makes frequent one-on-one interaction between agents of Government and the people (represented by the media) absolutely important. While the current Police Commissioner gives a lot of prominence to social media (through their Facebook page), one-on-one interaction with the media through weekly press briefings would be more culturally appropriate in Samoa. It is perhaps time for Fuiavailiili to take a leaf out of his predecessors book. It has been 18 days close to three weeks since Pati Chong Nee and Aniseko Vaelei escaped from the Tafaigata Prison. The law abiding citizens of Samoa deserve better from Government agencies, that are charged with the responsibility to keep them safe on a daily basis. If law enforcement policies such as the Police Communication Strategy currently in place at the Samoa Police Service are failing to get the desired outcomes, then replace them and create new ones that will work for the betterment of the community. In saying that, we look forward to the first weekly press conference of the Police Commissioner to update Samoans on the progress of his officers efforts to round up Pati Chong Nee and Aniseko Vaelei so that citizens know and acknowledge that the machinery of Government continues to work for the betterment of the people and the community that they live in. Together we can achieve more. Have a wonderful Friday Samoa and God bless. Robert Vadra, brother-in-law of Congress President Rahul Gandhi, was grilled for over nine hours by the Enforcement Directorate as he appeared for the second round of questioning on Thursday, and also confronted him with his mails exchanged with a relative of absconding arms dealer Sanjay Bhandari, sources said. Vadra has been asked to appear before the ED on Saturday at 11 a.m. On Thursday Vadra was asked about the mails he exchanged with Sumit Chadha in reference to a London property, the ED sources said. Vadra was also asked how he knew Bhandari and Chadha and what business transactions they had. According to sources, Vadra was confronted with the emails he exchanged with Chadha for the payment of the renovation of a London property. The ED officials also asked Vadra about his account details. The case relates to the ownership of 1.9 million pounds of undisclosed assets abroad, allegedly belonging to Vadra. A money laundering case was registered against Vadra's close aide Manoj Arora after his role surfaced during a probe by the Income Tax Department into another case under the new Black Money Act and tax laws against Bhandari. The London property was allegedly bought by Bhandari and sold in 2010 for the same amount despite incurring additional expenses on its renovation. Vadra arrived at ED's Jamnagar House office in central Delhi at 11.20 a.m. Unlike the first day, the businessman was not accompanied by his wife Priyanka Gandhi, who had dropped him off at the office on Wednesday. He stepped out for lunch around 1.30 p.m. and returned to join the probe at 2.20 p.m. The questioning went on till 9.30 p.m. Priyanka Gandhi arrived at the ED office at around 9.20 p.m. and left with him at 9.30 p.m. The financial probe agency source said that the ED also asked Vadra about his transactions and business dealings. On Wednesday, Vadra was questioned by the ED for six hours -- for the first time that he faced any of the investigating agencies. On December 7, 2018, as part of the investigation, the ED conducted searches at a number of premises in Delhi-NCR and Bengaluru. The ED told a city court earlier that the London property was part of the kickbacks received in a petroleum deal. The money was transferred by Santech International, FZC, a UAE-based company controlled by Bhandari. Arora, who is an employee of Vadra's Skylight Hospitality LLP, is a key suspect in the case as he is aware of the overseas investments and purchases made by his employer. The questioning came in the wake of an order by a Delhi court on February 2 directing Vadra to appear before the ED for questioning while hearing the anticipatory bail plea filed by him. Vadra was on February 2 granted interim bail for a fortnight. The Central Bureau of Investigation on Thursday summoned Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar to appear before it on February 9 in connection with its probe into Sharada chit fund case, officials said. A senior CBI official requesting anonymity told IANS that Kumar has been asked to depose before it on February 9 in Shillong. The move comes a day after the CBI chief Rishi Kumar Shukla posted 10 of its officials temporarily in Kolkata. In an order issued on February 6, the CBI attached 10 officials, including one Superintendent of Police (SP), three Assistant SPs, two Deputy SPs and three inspectors from different zones to Kolkata's Economic Offence Wing of the agency from February 8 to 20. The agency directed all the 10 officials to report to the Joint Director of the Central Bureau of Investigation in Kolkata. It also said the orders were taken after the approval from the CBI Director. A team of CBI was allegedly roughed up and detained for a few hours when it went to question Kumar at his residence in Kolkata on Sunday in connection with its probe into the Saradha and Rose Valley chit fund cases. Following the face-off between the CBI and Kolkata Police, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee went on a hunger strike for over 45 hours starting Sunday. The Supreme Court, while hearing the matter on Tuesday, directed the Kolkata Police Commissioner to join the CBI probe on February 19 at a neutral place, in Meghalaya's capital Shillong. Yemen and UNFPA partnership relations discussed [08/February/2019] SANAA, Feb. 8 (Saba) - Prime Minister Dr. Abdul Aziz bin Habtoor received on Thursday in the capital Sanaa a delegation from the U. N. Population Fund (UNFPA), currently visiting Yemen under the chairmanship of Deputy Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Dereje Wordofa. During the meeting, they discussed partnership relations related to the population problems, which have been amplified by the effects of the US-backed saudi-led aggression coalition's war, their total siege imposed on Yemen and economic war, particularly in the rural areas, the effects of this human tragedy, efforts exerted by the humanitarian system in this regard, as well as their possible contribution to support development activities. The population indicators were discussed in light of the latest population census, and the importance of confirming the required readiness of the Central Statistical Organization to carry out the census process at the national level in the event of the end of the aggression and siege. The dealt with the matter related to the creation of the necessary elements for the census implementation, which is of great importance in knowing the great changes witnessed by the demographic reality in the country during the past years in general and the period of aggression and siege in particular. At the beginning of the meeting, the Prime Minister welcomed the international official. He said that while Yemen is living in a tragic situation, the UAE occupation state is trying to hiding its moral corruption and its grave violations against the Yemeni people through the so-called Forum of Tolerance," pointing out in this regard to the clear paradox of the UAE , which transformed the country to a prison for the Yemenis due to the all-out embargo imposed on them by the occupation states. In turn, the UNFAP official stressed the commitment of the Fund to continue its humanitarian and population activities to contribute to alleviating the suffering of the Yemeni people and its great tragedies, particularly in the countryside. He pointed out that the Fund seeks to double the amount allocated to Yemen in this ordeal, pointing out that the Fund will respond to the needs of the population as well as support any future census. AA Saba Espanola, NM (87532) Today A mix of clouds and sun early followed by cloudy skies this afternoon. A stray afternoon thunderstorm is possible. High 94F. Winds NNW at 10 to 15 mph.. Tonight A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible early. Cloudy skies early, then partly cloudy after midnight. Low near 65F. Winds NNW at 10 to 20 mph. New Albany, OH -- (ReleaseWire) -- 02/08/2019 --Marking a considerable milestone, the co-founders of The LENN Foundation, Alycia Turley and Lindsey Kovach, announce their first large donation for the non-profit they founded in October of 2017. Part of a select group of charitable organizations set to benefit from the benevolence of Collective Genius (CG), the foundation received $36k on behalf of children with cerebral palsy. Held in early December, The LENN Foundation co-founders received the donation after two Collective Genius members went to bat for them behind the scenes at the 2018 Mastermind Seminar in San Diego, California. Turley said, "Unbeknownst to us, an application for the Mastermind Seminar donation was submitted and a video production took place to seal the deal. Though they have an intense screening process, it got everyone's attention and we became one of three non-profits selected to participate. To say Collective Genius has changed the lives of families on your waitlist is a huge understatement. They're one of our esteemed Philanthropic Leaders and we could not be more grateful for their generosity." Before the $36k donation, The LENN Foundation had raised $6k total for families of children affected by genetic disorders and cerebral palsy. Now, mother Celia Cervantes and her two-year-old twin boys Oliver and Theodor Malatesta will receive three-weeks of intensive therapy at the NAPA Center in Boston, Massachusetts come March. All thanks to Collective Genius, they will fly from Elgin, Illinois and stay at Waltham Landing, a luxury apartment complex equipped with all the amenities needed to care for the boys' needs. The therapy Oliver and Theodor will receive is crucial for cerebral palsy treatment. It helps to improve their overall quality of life by relieving physical pain and provides training to help them walk. "We'd like to personally thank the founder and CEO of Collective Genius, Jason Medley, the co-founders of Columbus TurnKey Houses Group, Dave Payerchin and RJ Pepino, and every single member of CG that made this life-changing gift possible for Theodor and Oliver. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts," adds Kovach. To become a Philanthropic Leader visit http://www.thelennfoundation.org. About The LENN Foundation The LENN Foundation is a 501c3 non-profit organization that helps families who have children with cerebral palsy and genetic disorders pay for their unmet medical needs not covered by insurance. About Collective Genius Founded by CEO, Jason Medley, The Collective Genius is a group for the nation's elite real estate investors that fosters the core value of placing giving before receiving and family first. Their mission is to help members grow and protect their real estate businesses by providing an environment that fosters community, connection, collaboration, and contribution. LENN Foundation Location Information: 102 W. Main St. #523 New Albany, Ohio 43054 Contact: Lindsey Kovach Co-Director/Founder, The LENN Foundation lindsey@thelennfoundation.org (614) 378-7734 Websites: http://www.thelennfoundation.org http://invite.thecollectivegenius.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/thecollectivegenius https://www.napacenter.org https://www.walthamlanding.com Social Media: https://www.facebook.com/thelennfoundation https://www.instagram.com/thelennfoundation https://www.instagram.com/lennsjourney YouTube Video: https://youtu.be/vKHBk6injrM Greenville, NC (27833) Today Sun and clouds mixed. High 79F. Winds NE at 10 to 15 mph.. Tonight Clear skies. Low near 55F. Winds NE at 5 to 10 mph. Starkville, MS (39762) Today Some clouds this morning will give way to generally sunny skies for the afternoon. High near 85F. Winds light and variable.. Tonight Mostly clear. Low 64F. Winds light and variable. If you are not redirected automatically, please follow this link Welcome Guest! You Are Here: Certainly, one race or sex is not superior to another. To ignore systemic oppression and its impact on the past and present policies, however, is to put ones head into the sand. I was struck by the fact that even recently, most white Americans were unaware of the Tulsa Race Massacre of June 1, 1921 when mobs of white residents attacked black residents and destroyed homes and businesses in the Greenwood district in Tulsa. Thirty-five plus square blocks of the neighborhood at the time the wealthiest black community in the United States, known as Black Wall Street was decimated, with up to 300 people dead. Ten thousand black people were left homeless and property damage of black businesses and homes was an estimated at $1.5 million in 1921 dollars. It is precisely the omission of this kind of event in local, state, and national histories that establishes the need to examine systemic problems. Arlene Violet on critical race theory. She is a Republican who served as RI Attorney General Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 8 February 2019 The pioneering recordings of two centuries of music by Black composers, originally issued on vinyl in 1970s This is very much a labour of love, a 10 CD set on Sony Classical which re-issues recordings which originally came out on vinyl on Columbia Records in the 1970s documenting two centuries of music by Black composers. Originally made thanks to a collaboration between the Afro-America Music Opportunities Association and Columbia Records, the recordings cast their net quite widely with music by Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1745-1799), Jose Mauricio Nunes Garcia (1767-1830), Jose White Lafitte (1836-1918), Samuel Coleridge Taylor (1875-1912), William Grant Still (1895-1978), Fela Sowande (1905-1987), Ulysses Kay (1917-1995), Roque Cordero (1917-2008), George Walker (1922-2018), Hale Smith (1925-2009), Thomas Jefferson Anderson (born 1928), David Baker (1931-2016), Olly Wilson (1937-2018), Talib Rasul Hakim (1940-1998), and Adolphus Hailstork (born 1941), performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, all conducted by Paul Freeman, Juilliard String Quartet, Morgan State College Choir, Miriam Fried, Jaime Laredo, Sanford Allen, Aaron Reid violins, Faye Robinson soprano, Doralene Davis soprano, Betty Allen mezzo-soprano, William Brown tenor, Matti Tuloisela bass baritone, Janos Starker cello, Alain Planes, Richard Bunger, Natalie Hinderas piano and Denis Wick trombone. Black Composers Series 1974-1978 - Sony Classical, 10CDs, available from Amazon Elsewhere on this blog : In the hell of a small town: Janacek's Kat'a Kabanova at the Royal Opera ( ) - opera review Janacek's at the Royal Opera opera review Through an Eastern filter: Nathan Davis' striking dance-opera Hagoromo ( ) - CD review Nathan Davis' striking dance-opera - CD review A very modern spectacle: Ponchielli's La Gioconda at La Monnaie in Brussels ( ) - opera review Ponchielli's at La Monnaie in Brussels - opera review Engaging first thoughts: A reconstruction of Mozart and De Ponte's initial ideas for Cosi fan tutte ( ) - CD review A reconstruction of Mozart and De Ponte's initial ideas for - CD review Strong, muscular yet tender and very direct: Haydn's The Seven Last Words of Christ alongside Colm Toibin's The Testament of Mary () - concert review Haydn's alongside Colm Toibin's concert review Semele and beyond: Harry Bickett talks about the English Concert's latest Handel opera tour - my interview Harry Bickett talks about the English Concert's latest Handel opera tour - my interview Of arms and a woman: Blondel late medieval wind music inspired by Christine de Pisan ( ) - CD review Blondel late medieval wind music inspired by Christine de Pisan CD review 1769: a year in music from Ian Page & The Mozartists () - Concert review from Ian Page & The Mozartists () - Concert review Requiem Masses for murdered royalty: HerveNiquet & Le Concert Spirituel in Requiems for King Louis XVI & Queen Marie Antoinette by Cherubini & by Plantade () - concert review HerveNiquet & Le Concert Spirituel in Requiems for King Louis XVI & Queen Marie Antoinette by Cherubini & by Plantade () - concert review In transcription: Berlioz arranged Liszt and Richard Strauss arranged Willner at Conway Hall () - concert review Berlioz arranged Liszt and Richard Strauss arranged Willner at Conway Hall () concert review A powerful journey : Sir Colin Davis complete live Berlioz recordings on LSO Live - CD review : Sir Colin Davis complete live Berlioz recordings on LSO Live - CD review Home As can be seen from the above list, the recordings did not stint on the performers and the discs include some significant ensembles and names from the period; there is little to complain about in the standard of recording. Whilst, if the collection was made today we might make a different selection of composers, it has to be admitted that the organisers have cast their nets quite widely with composers from the UK, France, Cuba, Panama, Nigeria as well as the USA. Perhaps the most significant omission is that of Black women composers, not even Florence Price. Wikipedia currently lists 29 composers in its African-American female composers category , but I suspect that this knowledge is rather recent. When I interviewed Shirley Thompson [see my interview ] she was candid about the lack of representation on the classical music courses as a woman of colour, something which is now only gradually changing.So, these discs are very much a snapshot. Sony's presentation reflects this, each CD is a copy of the original disc and comes in a sleeve which reproduces the original vinyl disc sleeve (so you need good eyesight or glasses to read the original sleeve notes). This means that each disc comes in at around 40 plus minutes, but preserves the original presentation. The discs are not recorded chronologically, so there is something delightfully serendipitous about the listening experience.And the embarassing this is, despite these recordings being in the public domain for over 40 years, many of the composers were names that were new to me.The conductor for all the orchestral works, and the artistic director of the series was Paul Freeman (1936-2015), who trained at the Eastman School of Music and spent two years at the Hochshule fur Musik in Berlin on a Fulbright Scholarship. He founded the Chicago Sinfonietta and was music director of the Czech National Symphony Orchestra in Prague.The discs start with Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint Georges, an 18th century Frenchman born of a slave mother who became one of the most famous musicians in France. Here we have a selection of his music, Mozartian in cast but in rather solid, very non-HIP performances, neverthless the disc makes you want to explore more.Volume two pairs music by William Grant Still with that of Samuel Coleridge Taylor. Here we hear Grant Still'swhich combines Afro-American melodies and jazz inspired moments (Grant Still played the oboe in the show) into a symphonic work which made history when it became the first time an American orchestra played a symphonic work by a Black man. Coleridge Taylor, a student of Charles Villers Stanford, is becoming known for far more than, but it is good to have him on the discs and here we have theand of course 'Onaway! Awake, Beloved' from. And we have to remember, this was an American record set and the piece sets a poem by a famous American writer.With volume three we go into rarer territory, Ulysses Simpson Kay and George Theophius Walker. Kay was born in Arizona, came from a jazz family and was mentored by William Grant Still and he had a Fulbright Scholarship to Rome. We hear, from 1966 written in memory of United Nations Secretary General, Dag Hammarskjold, a striking work, very 20th century with moderinst hints. Whilst Walker'sis an interesting combination of instrument and orchestra, with some striking writing and jazz hints. Walker studied with Nadia Boulanger and is the only Black composer to have won a Pullitzer Prize.Roque Cordero is the only composer on volume four. Born in Panama he was a composer and conductor, though his career was based mainly in South America. Hiswas written for Sanford Allen, the first black member of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, it is a work which combines expressionism and neo-classicism and rather reminded me of Hindemith's later style. It is played here by the dedicatee. Also on the disc is a set of smaller pieces, here popular styles creep in and the music is also more intense.With volume five we jump back to the late 18th and early 19th century with Jose Mauricio Nunes Garcia, who was born of bi-racial parents in Brazil (where the Portuguese used enslaved Africans). Remarkably he was able to enter the church and wrote a considerable amount of music. Hisis a large scale choral work with soloists, a work definitely worth exploring though the performance here is rather overblown and solid, lacking the feel for period performance which we might expect nowadays, so the recording itself is something of a period piece.The Cuban composer Jose White was the the son of a French businessman and an Afro-Cuban mother, and he was able to train at the Paris Conservatoire. He developed into a notable violinist and hisof 1864 was premiered in 1867 with the composer as soloist. It is a large-scale work, the orchestral introduction is substantial in its own right, and much of the Romantic writing rather reminded me of Bruch. The disc also includes theby David Baker, a jazz-trombonist who learned the cello after a facial accident. The work plunges straight in and is notable for the way it mixes advanced harmonies with blues and jazz.With volume seven we return to William Grant Still, his balletfrom 1931. The music, for chorus and orchestra, was the result of Grant Still's first exposure to music from the African continent, though Grant Still's attempts to incorporate this into his style led to a great deal of frustration, the result here is very colourful and lively. Next comes a suite of music by Fela Sowande, who is very much the father of Nigerian art music [see my interview with pianist Rebeca Omordia ], these combine mid-century classical string writing with African rhythms and melodies. Finally, another string piece,by George Walker.Volume eight starts with the very contemporary sounding and highly dramaticby Olly Woodrow Wilson for piano, electric piano, amplified strings and orchestra. Wilson studied at the University of Iowa and wrote commissions for the New York Philharmonic and Chicago Symphony and many others. As of the time of writing, Thomas Jefferson Anderson, Jr. was still composing and hiswas written in 1965 for West Virginia State College. It is a colourful, very 20th century-sounding work. Finally on this disc, by Talib Rasul Hakim, written in 1970 by a composer from North Carolina who changed his name when he converted to Sufism.Volume nine returns to George Walker for his large scale, alongside Adolphus Hailstork's short, but strikingand Hale Smith's. Hale Smith was born in Cleveland and attended the Curtis Institute of Music, becoming a music editor for music publishers and arranging spirituals for Kathleen Battle and Jessye Norman.The final disc is also something of a period piece, a programme of spirituals in orchestral arrangements by Hale Smith, Donald Erb, William Brown, Frederick Tillis, and Morton Gould. Cape Coral City Council, which got an earful this week from residents concerned about land use changes, will on Monday consider a related rezoning plan. The city will hold its first public hearing on an ordinance to rezone approximately 9,819 acres to be consistent with the changes in the Future Land Use Map (FLUM), the Comprehensive Plan, and the upcoming Land Development Code. No vote will be taken until the second public hearing. The ordinance is another element of a vast, city-wide change in land-use and zoning to, in the words of City Manager John Szerlag, help the city become fast, fair and predictable when it comes to new development. This is the companion case to what we had last week. Were proposing to delete a couple districts and you need to have one on a property or replace it, said Wyatt Daltry, planning team coordinator for the city. Were trying to maintain the status quo. When people see 9,000 acres, they think its a lot. But the impact will be less than you would expect. The rezoning project and the code update has been years in the making, with numerous outreach opportunities for residents to submit their input. According to the presentation to be made to council at its 4:30 p.m. meeting on City Hall, the city will eliminate several zoning designations, with another eight districts to be removed, as well as two unmapped districts. One of the proposals is to drop the RD (Residential Development) that used to allow for single and multi-family. We had to choose between turning it into single-family or multi-family. Most of those corridors we changed to single-family, Daltry said. The two new zoning districts (for multi-family light and medium density) will play a part. More than 8,900 acres to rezoned are the result of changes caused by deletion of old zoning districts or by the zoning of annexed properties to a city zoning designation. About two-thirds of the rezone area represents like-for-like changes (Non-residential to residential), while another 14 percent presently lacks city zoning. Mondays hearing on changes to the FLUM brought a standing-room only crowd of residents from the Four Corners area (Beach Parkway and Agualinda Boulevard) to protest the potential of more than 500 multi-family homes to be built on those undeveloped parcels. Last weeks meeting was enlightening. We saw what council was leaning toward in relation to multi-family, Daltry said. These changes were making are consistent with what we see in the market and with the new code, the land use being proposed, theyre all moving together. A hearing examiner on Jan. 8 recommended approval of the rezoning. The second public hearing and probable vote is set for March 18. In other business, the city council will also fill a vacancy to the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee, and Councilmember Jessica Cosden will discuss the possibility of the city hiring a council office assistant. Thank you for reading the Philadelphia Tribune. You have exhausted your free article views for this month. Please press the "subscribe" button below and see our introductory price of $0.25 per week for 13 weeks. Otherwise, we look forward to seeing you next month. Perry County Sheriff's Office deputies were involved in a high-speed chase Friday, June 18, shortly after 4 p.m. A vehicle, which was at times reportedly traveling more than 90 mph at times, was heading north on Highway 51. The vehicle reportedly traveled into Illinois and the Randolph County Sheriff's Office was assisting with the pursuit. More information on this incident will be provided as it becomes available. Samini does another launch for his Untamed album tonight in Seattle, USA. Set for 6:00pm tonight, Thursday, February 7, 2019. Samini wiAlso in line with the Untamed Album Launch is the Kijiji Night, an Afro-inspired music festival powered by One Vibe Africa, who are Akos organizers of Madaraka Festival in Seattle. Samini played the Madaraka Festival in 2017 with Ghanaian Grammy Nominee, Rocky Dawuni. The link launch and Kijiji Festival are in line with the Black History Month celebrations in USA. The Seattle Arts Museum also known as SAM collects over 25,000 audiences. Samini is a MOBO Winning Musician from Ghana. He was listed on Billboard on January 1, 2019 with the Untamed Album at N.o 8 in the Top 10 Reggae Albums Category. He was also the first African/Ghanaian Musician to win Album Of The Year on Europes biggest Reggae Network, Reggaeville.com this January with the Untamed Album. The album is tipped by many music critics and media goons to win several laurels this year and beyond with Grammys and BETs as no exception. The album is a strictly Reggae catalogue with 22 songs put together by at last 7 Producers from Ghana, Jamaica and USA.ll be doing an official launch of the album at the Seattle Arts Museum, one of the historic venues hat hosts a good number of high profile audience. The launch will also outdoor for the first time, hard copies of the award-winning album on CDs. Other album promotional items like souvenirs will also be available for purchase. The USA launch is a brainchild by Saminis Management, Africa 1 Media. Samini launched UNTAMED, his 7th studio album in December at a press briefing and climaxed it with a concert laced with his annual Saminifest (a music festival designed by him that stages annually in December). The Seattle Art Museum is an art museum located in Seattle, Washington. It maintains three major facilities: its main museum in downtown Seattle; the Seattle Asian Art Museum in Volunteer Park on Capitol Hill, and the open Olympic Sculpture Park on the central Seattle waterfront, which opened on January 20, 2007. SAM traces its origins to the Seattle Fine Arts Society (organized 1905) and the Washington Arts Association (organized 1906), which merged in 1917, keeping the Fine Arts Society name. In 1931 the group renamed itself as the Art Institute of Seattle. The Art Institute housed its collection in Henry House, the former home, on Capitol Hill, of the collector and founder of the Henry Art Gallery, Horace C. Henry (18441928. Source: Peacefmonline.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video General Secretary of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), John Boadu says the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) is peerless in the "unleashing of violence". According to him, the leadership of the NDC can task their party loyalists to go on a killing spree without any show of emotion. He was commenting on the Ayawaso West Wuogon by-election violence and the subsequent demonstration by the NDC on Wednesday, January 7, 2019. An Inter-Party Coalition for National Sovereignty comprising the NDC, CPP and other opposition parties hit the streets of the Capital city to protest against the government and also petitioned the appropriate officials and institutions to investigate the by-election violence. They are also calling on the Ghana Police Service to bring the perpetrators to book. But speaking to host Kwami Sefa Kayi on Peace FM's "Kokrokoo", John Boadu charged the NDC not to portray themselves as angels. To him, if there is any party with the worst streak of violence in Ghana's political history, that enviable honour will easily be handed to the NDC. He alluded to some violent incidents in the past where operatives under the erstwhile NDC government, physically assaulted and maimed NPP faithfuls. Unleashing of violence, who can stand them? Theyre in a race alone. No one has a contest with them...They sit here (in the studio) beautifully. But when we get to the field, theyre not the same people at all. They can set their activists to fatally injure you without batting an eyelid," he alleged. John Boadu however proposed ways to resolve violent clashes during elections saying "we can stop it when we strengthen our security agencies to be impartial, to be bold. Its not easy. They (NDC) are still organizing hawks. They (NDC) are still organizing snakes and eagles, and it doesnt look like they have stopped. And for that matter, we too wont cease mobilizing people and send them into the field only to be beaten and injured. We will also not allow that. The State which is the arbiter must be strengthened. Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video In a final campaign push to lead the Opposition National Democratic Congress into 2020 polls, aspiring flagbearer candidate, Goosie Tanoh is set to begin another campaign tour to Accra. Goosie Tanoh who celebrated his 63rd birthday Thursday February 7 and is being tipped to win the February 23rd primaries will storm the capital city with a new wave of campaign with his Organising for Ghana team. Goosie Tanoh has already met and interacted with voters in all regions across the country with delegates assuring him of massive votes. The second-leg of Accra campaign will afford the Goosie2020 campaign an opportunity to share with delegates their message of hope and a brighter future built around Grassroot & Community Empowerment, Support for Women, Youth and Farmers, Job Creation, Transparency, Accountability and Social Justice. Comrade Goosie Tanohs position on the ballot for the 23rd February poll is number 6. Below is the full itinerary for the tour: ITINERARY FOR #TEAMGOOSIE CAMPAIGN TOUR IN ACRRA DAY 1 Friday- February 8th 2019 meeting with Krowor delegates. Meeting with ledzokuku delegates Meeting with Korley-Klottey delegates Meeting with La-Dadekotopon delegates Meeting with Odododiodio delegates DAY 2 Saturday -February 9th 2019 Meeting with Ablekuma Central delegates Meeting with Ablekuma North delegates Meeting with Ablekuma West delegates Meeting with Ablekuma South delegates Meeting with Bortiano-Ngleshie Amanfro delegates Meeting with Weija-Gbawe delegates DAY 3 Sunday -February 10th 2019 Meeting with Okaikwei Central delegates Meeting with Okaikwei North delegates Meeting with Okaikwei South delegates Meeting with Trobu delegates Meeting with Amasaman delegates Meeting with Anyaa-Sowotuom delegates Meeting with Obom-Domeabra delegates DAY 4 Monday- February 11th 2019 Meeting with Dome-Kwabenya delegates Meeting with Ayawaso West-Wuogon delegates Meeting with Madina delegates Meeting with Adenta delegates Meeting with Ayawaso East delegates Meeting with Ayawaso Central delegates Meeting with Ayawaso North delegates Source: Coffie Emmanue Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Civil society organisations in good governance promotion in Africa have urged leaders across the continent to prioritise efforts which would increase the participation of women in governance, saying they will provide the difference critical for Africas transformation. Deliberating on how to resolve the under-representation of women in politics at a meeting to precede the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the participants said women had the makeup of the new breed of politicians the continent needed. Women leaders, they observed, had the requisite zeal and the commitment towards addressing specific issues affecting them; children, the less privileged and, indeed, that of the entire society. The discussion was on the topic: Womens participation in African Politics - Challenges and opportunities. The European Union-funded meeting on the theme: Mobilising Civil Society Support for Implementation of the African Governance Architecture (PANAF). Shaping the mindset The Director of Political Affairs, African Union Commission, Dr Khabele Matlosa, in her contribution to the subject, said there was the urgent need to shape the mindset of African politicians who were the primary actors of governance on gender equity and empowerment. He stated: This is a big challenge that all governments are seeking solutions to. This problem cuts across the whole of Africa - from Algeria to Zimbabwe - and we need to change the mindset from self-interested to transformative and visionary leadership. The root causes of the problems, he noted, were dictatorship and lack of internal democratic practices in political parties. Conventionally, a politician can rise to become a Parliamentarian candidate or become a Cabinet Member by rising through the ranks of the party, so that is where this seed is planted, he noted. If there is weak internal democracy, how would they ensure the effective practice of democracy when they come into power? To address help these challenges, Dr Matlosa stated the Political Affairs Department of the AU had initiated some moves to strengthen the practice of democracy by political parties. Participation at the local level For her part, the Advocacy and Campaigns Manager at ActionAid Ghana, Madam Margaret Brew-Ward, who moderated the discussions, said womens participation in governance, especially in Ghana, should begin from the local level elections to build their confidence to thrive. Madam Brew-Ward urged women to look beyond challenges, including intimidation, culture barriers, and also make themselves readily available to contribute to nation building. The African Charter for Democracy, Elections and Governances (ACDEG) provisions required women to be empowered to enable them to play effective roles in governance. The provisions were motivated by the Constitutive Act of the African Union (AU), which set out international standards for good governance and democracy. They include issues of ensuring human and peoples rights, consolidating democratic institutions and culture, as well as ensuring good governance, the rule of law, free and fair elections, and condemning the unconstitutional changes of government. The CSO collaborators in the PANAF project are the Media Foundation for West Africa, East and Southern African Development Community, East African Civil Society Organisations Forum, West Africa Civil Society Forum, Mass Public Opinion Institute and the ActionAid of Ghana, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Mozambique, Zambia, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Tanzania. Source: Daily Graphic Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Former President John Dramani Mahama on Thursday granted audience to the new US Ambassador to Ghana, Stephanie S. Sullivan, who called on him to formally introduce herself on assumption of office. The two discussed matters of mutual interest to Ghana and the US and recounted their encounter many years ago when Ambassador Sullivan was a Political Officer in the US Embassy, here in Accra. The discussions among others touched on the recent violence and deployment of state-sponsored vigilante groups during the Ayawaso West Wuogon by-election. The US Ambassador recalled Ghanas credential as a model of peace and security, and appealed to President Mahama to continue to support efforts towards sustaining peace across the country. President Mahama raised the need to ban, totally, the formation and deployment of political para military groups and vigilante groups like the ones deployed by the governing party last Thursday. He also assured the US government through the ambassador of his commitment to peace and security. Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The Konkomba Students Union (KONSU) of the Mamprugu area in the Northern Region has asked the traditional leaders, stakeholders and the youth to remain calm as the president and his able ministers work on selecting a suitable place as the capital for the North East Region. According to them three communities namely; Nalerigu, Gambaga and Walewale have expressed keen interest for the North East Regional capital. In a statement, they said any of these three communities has gotten what it takes to be made regional capital of the North East Region. Read full statement below; The executives of Konkomba Students Union (KONSU) on behalf of the entire membership of the union wish to thank the Government for accepting the request for the creation of the North East Region and for creating an enabling environment for the regional creation processes to come this far. We specifically thank the minister for Local Government and Rural Development, Hon. Hajia Alima Mahama, Minister for Regional Reorganization and development, Daniel Kweku Botwe for the good job done. The efforts of all the stakeholders in the entire process are highly appreciated. We are encouraging all the traditional leaders, other stakeholders and the youth to remain calm while the president and his able ministers work on selecting a suitable community as the capital for the North East Region. Three communities namely; Nalerigu, Gambaga and Walewale have expressed keen interest for the North East Regional capital. Any of these three communities has gotten what it takes to be made regional capital of the North East Region. But notwithstanding the fact, when any of them is named as the regional capital, all the people should accept the outcome for the shake of peace and development. We are one people under one kingdom even though we are made up of different tribes such as; Konkombas, Mamprusi, Bimobas and Chakosis serving as the major tribes, we are still one people with personal responsibilities to promoting peace which will give room for massive development in the region. We also want to take this opportunity to remind the president, His Excellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo and his able ministers and the electoral commission about the petition submitted to the presidency through the Northern regional minister and other concern offices in December 2018 from Gbintiri Chief Palace seeking for Gbintiri to be carved out of the East Mamprusi Municipal Assembly as a constituency head/District capital in other to promote the policy of decentralization and equal development in the country. Due to the stupendous nature of the East Mamprusi Municipality, Gbintiri and its surrounding communities are deprived of myriad developmental projects including lack of potable drinking water, lack of health facilities, poor road network and many others. It is sad to note that Gbintiri market is the largest in the municipality which generates the highest revenue to the municipal Assembly yet there is no potable drinking water for the people in the community. Highly inadequate educational facilities, poor road network and absent of health facilities is the major challenge in the area. We believe that carving Gbintiri out of the East Mamprusi Municipality as a district/constituency is a better way of bringing development to the doorstep of Gbintiri and its surrounding communities. Long live KONSU, long live North East Region and long live mother Ghana. Mr. Jonathan N. Issah Guru President (KONSU) (0244779474) Mr. Samari J. Jacob Deputy Secretary (0542589414) Mr. Jeln Prince Bilaala P.R.O (0246163487) Source: Josephine Acheampomaa/Peacefmonline/[email protected] Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The General Secretary of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr Johnson Asiedu Nketia, says the party would commemorate the shooting incident that occurred during the Ayawaso West Wuogon by-election. According to him, commemorating the event will serve as a reminder to future generations that there was once a time in Ghanas history during which a government in power supervised brutalities of innocent Ghanaian voters during a by-election. Mr Asiedu Nketia was addressing demonstrators who took part in the Inter-party Coalition for National Sovereigntys aagbe w demonstration in Accra on Thursday, February 7, 2019. He was speaking to the demonstrators in front of the Jubilee House after the group presented a petition to the President through Mr Rockson Bukari, a Minister of State at the Office of the President. The demonstration was staged to demand justice for the victims of the shooting incident that occurred during the Ayawaso West Wuogon Constituency by-election in Accra on Thursday, January 31, 2019. Mr Asiedu Nketia commended the demonstrators for coming in their numbers. He said all that the party and for that matter, the Inter-party Coalition for National Sovereignty wants have been detailed in their petition to all those who matter, so far as the security of the country is concerned, including President Akufo-Addo. According to him, the demonstration has sent a strong signal to the police that the NDC cannot be intimidated by anybody. Mr Asiedu Nketia said the police had earlier served them (the demonstrators) notice that they (police) would not allow them to use the routes they (demonstrators) had designated for the demonstration, but realizing their numbers, the police allowed them. He said the party is giving a one-week ultimatum to the President as well as all those they petitioned to react to the issues they raised in their petition; failing which, he said the leadership of the party and that of the Interparty Coalition for National Sovereignty will continue to do what will bring solutions to their demands. Mr Asiedu Nketia also encouraged NDCs Members of Parliament (MPs) to continue to fight for the party and the interest of Ghanaians in parliament. He said if they (NDC MPs) are summoned before the Privileges Committee of Parliament, all NDC MPs should submit themselves, stressing that nobody can do anything to any of the MPs. Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video A Male Ghanaian based in China at a city called Shamming in the Fujin province, by name Jones Kuhlor who is in his fifties was found dead in his Apartment at the Verge of decaying. Speaking to the President of the United Ghana Association, Amedorme Selorm, he said for a while now he has not set eyes on the deceased. But a bad smell coming out of his apartment caught his attention to call the police. The police broke into the apartment. That was how they found out he died in the room at the verge of decaying. The situation triggered the Police to do a background check about the people in the fujin Province. And this led to the Police getting about thirty -five plus Ghanaian immigrants living in China illegally; and are now in Police custody. Mr Selorm Amedorme said those arrested for being in the country illegally can spend so many years in Prison if they do not raise money for their deportation. He is appealing to Government to do something about the situation and help the family of the deceased to bring his remains home for burial. Source: Peacefmonline.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video I thank the co-Chairs of the National Prayer Breakfast, Senators Christopher Coons and James Lankford, and the entire membership of the Host Committee, for the honour of this invitation, and for the opportunity to deliver these remarks at the International Luncheon of the National Prayer Breakfast, now a globally-acclaimed event in its 67th year. It is good to see two Senators who, despite being on opposite sides of the political divide, and in spite of the news we hear coming out from the Capitol, have resolved to put aside their political differences and work to help ensure that God continues to rule not only in the affairs of the United States of America, but also in the affairs of other nations of the world. The Ghanaian people are truly appreciative and deeply humbled by your choice of their principal servant to address this important annual gathering, which groups together distinguished guests and invitees from all over the world. I recognise the significance of the moment, as being the first Ghanaian leader to speak here, and I thank you, once again, for this invitation. I do not speak for myself alone in giving thanks to Almighty God for the men and women of this nation, who were so prominent in the 20th century defeat of totalitarian ideas, such as Nazism, fascism, and communism, ideas that posed direct threats to freedom. As we applaud America for the sacrifices of her heroic defence of freedom in the 20th century, we also recall, in this Year of Return, which commemorates the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first West African slave in the Commonwealth of Virginia, her tragic role in some of the most destructive episodes of human history the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and slavery in the Americas. We intend to use the symbolism of this Year of Return to bring together Africans, persons of African descent, and all well-wishers and lovers of freedom to strengthen the commitment to ensuring that they never reoccur. We should, in our prayers on this occasion, make a special intercession for Gods blessings on the souls of the hapless victims, and for His forgiveness for the perpetrators of these heinous crimes. Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, I was born into a family of deep Presbyterian convictions. My maternal ancestry includes my great grandparents, who were pioneer evangelists of the Presbyterian faith in Ghanas Akyem areas, from where I come. My paternal ancestry encompasses iconic 19th century Presbyterian priests, whose evangelical ministries remain enduring legacies and inspirations for succeeding generations of Presbyterian priests. My own parents, as you can imagine, were staunch Presbyterians. I was baptised a Presbyterian, and became an Anglican, much to the vehement protests of my parents, as a result of the secondary school I attended in England. Daily Matins and Evensong, and the additional Sunday Eucharist, were constant features of my four-year stay at school in Lancing. Undoubtedly, it helped build up my faith in God, and reinforced my belief in His word that without Me you can do nothing. As a Christian, my own lifes journey has been a testimony of Gods love, and a vindication of the words of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in the Gospel according to St. Matthew, chapter 19 verse 26, which says with man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible. Some of you may know that I sought the highest office of the land on three occasions, being successful on the third. Between 2008 to 2016, if any of you had had the opportunity to visit Ghana, you would have certainly heard catchy phrases like Akufo-Addo cannot be President, God does not want Akufo-Addo to be President, Akufo-Addo is short, and does not have the stature to be President. Perhaps, if you lost your first election by some forty thousand votes in a poll of some ten million voters, as I did in 2008, and lost your second election after a controversial decision by the Supreme Court four years later, as I did, you would be tempted to believe that these comments had some merit. However, my faith in God would not let me give up. At my third attempt, I committed the election campaign to God, and indicated to the Ghanaian people that The Battle is the Lords. By Gods grace, I won a famous victory against an incumbent President in the 2016 election by a gap of some one million votes, the largest margin of victory for two decades. It is this belief in Gods power to transform difficult situations into beacons of hope that has animated my vision for moving Ghana to a situation beyond aid, and putting the country onto the road of sustained progress and prosperity. Our march to a brighter future is underpinned by our firm attachment to a governance system that respects human rights and individual liberties, the rule of law, and the principles of democratic accountability. In spite of our current circumstances, I believe our lot is not to be a poor nation. God has blessed our Ghana. We have some of the most dramatic, natural scenes on the planet. We have, almost, every mineral that mankind lusts after, and which is required to run a modern economy. We have an abundance of arable land, and a young, enterprising, hardworking population. The Book of Proverbs, in chapter 10 verse 22, tells us that the blessing of the LORD makes rich, and He adds no sorrow with it. The negative characterisations of Ghana, and, indeed, most of the countries in Africa, depicted largely by stories of disease, famine, hunger and poverty, can, therefore, not be our portion. Gods blessings on our land means that we can, we should, and we must shed this cloak of poverty, and chart for ourselves a path that will lift up the masses of our people into prosperity, and enhance the quality of their lives. Since my Government took office, some two years ago, we have, with Gods support, restored discipline in the management of the economy, and have become one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. We are guaranteeing entry to education to all school-going children up to a minimum of Senior High School, and have strengthened access to healthcare for all. We are becoming increasingly self-sufficient in the production of food, and, as opposed to the difficulties of recent years, we are now exporting food to our neighbouring countries in West Africa. Ghana, today, has become the largest recipient of foreign direct investment in West Africa, with some of the worlds largest automobile manufacturing companies deciding to establish assembly and manufacturing plants in Ghana. I am hopeful that, in the coming years, and to paraphrase the words of Hanani the Seer, in 2nd Chronicles chapter 16, God will continue to show Himself strong on behalf of a country whose heart is fully devoted to Him. Before I conclude, let me express appreciation to the Churches for their role in the development of our country. In Ghana, and with 71% of the population being Christians, the Churches have rendered to the Ghanaian people invaluable assistance principally in education, health and agriculture. Since independence, God has blessed our nation by sparing us the horrors of civil war that have afflicted virtually all of our neighbours. It is in recognition of these blessings, and in order to redeem a personal pledge that I made to Him prior to the 2016 election, that I have decided to build an interdenominational National Cathedral of Ghana to His glory and honour. It will serve as a fulcrum for propagating the Christian faith and unifying the Christian community. All of us, who have taken Jesus Christ as our Lord and personal Saviour, have, also, a great deal of work to do to win the contemporary battle against the spread of religious extremism, religious intolerance and persecution, bigotry and terrorism. We have the onerous responsibility of disseminating the Word, winning over as many as possible into Gods salvation, and bequeathing a safer, more secure and more prosperous world to generations yet unborn. In the words of the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, for many Americas greatest President, and I quote, My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right. I want to be on Gods side, I want Ghana to be on Gods side, and we will be an example to the black peoples of the world of what a free, dedicated, innovative people, who believe and trust in God, can do to build a nation the equal of any, anywhere on the face of the planet. May God continue to bless us all. I thank you for your attention. Source: Peacefmonline.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video THE VEHICLE Asset Dealers Association of Ghana (VADAG) has threatened to embark on a demonstration if government fails to withdraw the Luxury Vehicle Levy (LVL) imposed on vehicle owners and importers. According to the Luxury Vehicle Act, 2018 (Act 969), vehicle with engine capacity ranging from 2.9L to 3.0L were charged GH1,000; capacities ranging from 3.5L to 4.0L were also charged GH1,500, while vehicles with engine capacity of 4.5L and above were levied GH2000. However, the levy was not applicable to other categories of motor vehicles such as tractors, ambulances, commercial vehicles that have the capacity to transport more than 10 persons, as well as commercial vehicles for the transport of goods. The levy is payable by owners of motor vehicles on the date of the first registration and subsequently upon renewal of the annual roadworthy certificate of the motor vehicle. The levy is also payable on existing motor vehicles registered prior to the introduction of the Act. At a press briefing in Accra, the General Secretary of VADAG, Nana Yaw Owusu Duodu, appealed to President Akufo-Addo to come to the aid of Ghanaians, by generating more revenue from high duties charged on imported luxurious vehicles. He said: Twenty-five per cent of the 150,000 vehicles imported into the country annually are luxurious vehicles. The average duty payable on these vehicles is between GH80,000 and GH 500,000 and more. Mr. Duodu expressed his frustration saying that the policy introduced by the Minister of Finance has been detrimental to the car-selling industry nationwide. Chairman of VADAG Eric Boateng said the implementation of this levy has deterred many Ghanaians from buying these vehicles and has also forced owners of such vehicles to abandon them. The Executive Secretary of the Chamber of Petroleum Consumer (CoPEC) Ghana, Duncan Amoah, mentioned that the government makes up to 49 per cent from taxes imposed on fuel and petrol which currently sells at GH4.94 per litre; hence government made it GH22.23 per gallon. Source: Daily Guide Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Security experts and their stakeholders have ended a two-day national security stakeholders dialogue at Peduase, near Accra, to, among others, deliberate on political vigilantism, armed robbery, kidnapping and terrorism. The meeting discussed how to develop a road map to combat emerging security threats in the country. Heads of the various security agencies updated the participants on measures being implemented to confront the security threats. The participants also considered ways in which the security agencies could collaborate with their international counterparts by sharing intelligence and adopting proactive measures to ward off internal security threats. The experts included the heads of the various security agencies, officials of the ministries of National Security, Defence, the Interior, the Attorney-Generals Department, representatives of civil society organisations and academia. Security threats Briefing the media on the meeting, the Minister of Information, Mr Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, said the dialogue, held under the auspices of the Ministry of National Security, formed part of a series of national security dialogues facilitated by the government to deal with emerging security threats. Political vigilantism, terrorism and associated threats all formed part of the major discussion on the table. If we watch what is happening in Burkina Faso and our neighbouring countries, we cannot be resting on our laurels. What the security chiefs and the political brass have been doing is update the stakeholders on the kind of work that is going on and also take feedback, ideas and some guidance to develop a road map to try and put an end to political vigilantism in the country, he said. Solutions Mr Oppong Nkrumah disclosed that due to the porous nature of the countrys borders, criminals had been slipping in and out to collaborate with their Ghanaian actors to commit various crimes and said that was an issue that needed to be dealt with. He said the dialogue also provided a platform for the experts to focus attention on finding solutions to the misconduct of some security officials and interferences in security matters by the political class. It is around a table like this that you can get the various stakeholders to be honest and upfront without any victimisation and for some professional work to be done, he stated. He said President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo was very committed to finding lasting solutions to some of these ills that had plagued the country for decades. He said the engagement formed part of finding lasting solutions to the security challenges. Ayawaso West Wuogon by-election The minister, in an answer to a question on why the government chose to set up a commission of enquiry into the violent attack that took place during the Ayawaso West Wuogon by-election, instead of using the normal investigative process to bring to book the perpetrators, said the first potential criminal investigation is not lost because of the Presidential Commission of Enquiry. Indeed, if you look at the terms of reference of the commission, they include getting the facts and a body of evidence and identifying persons responsible for the violence and proffering sanctions. There is also room made to deal with matters that are associated with the specific matter and the bigger subject of electoral violence during by-elections, he explained. Mr Oppong Nkrumah said it was not the first time that a commission of that nature had been set up. It has happened and we need to confront this violence as a country, he stressed, and gave an assurance that the President was committed to tackling such violence if it happened. Source: Daily Graphic Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The Second Lady of Ghana, Hajia Mrs. Samira Bawumia is set to address the 2019 edition of the Warwick Africa Summit (WAS), at the University Of Warwick in the United Kingdom. The summit, an annual student-led and student-driven conference, is a two-day event aimed at bringing Africa into focus and stimulating conversations about its future. It also celebrates the continents economic growth and prospects. This years summit is themed, We face forward-Daima Mbele", an adaptation of the famous pan-African quote, forward ever, backwards never, by Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. Mrs. Bawumia will be participating as Keynote Speaker of this years conference, while bringing into focus, her work with and commitment to her not-for-profit organisation, the Samira Empowerment and Humanitarian Projects (SEHP). Through SEHP, Mrs. Bawumia has initiated numerous critical and timely interventions in the areas of health, education and women empowerment, with special emphasis on women. Notable amongst them is the Safe Delivery Project, an initiative that seeks to reduce maternal and neonatal mortality in deprived communities. Previous editions of the WAS have seen the participation of Amina J. Muhammed, Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations; Yemi Osinbajo, Vice President of Nigeria; Aliko Dangote, Africas Richest Man and CEO of Dangote; Isabel Dos Santos, Africas Richest Woman; and Olusegun Obasanjo, Former President of Nigeria, among others. The summit is scheduled for the 9th and 10th of February, 2019, in Warwick, United Kingdom. Source: Josephine Acheampomaa/Peacefmonline/[email protected] Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Ghana has marked the World Cancer Day with a call to all stakeholders to unite their efforts to fight the growing cases of the disease in the country. The First Lady, Mrs. Rebecca Akufo-Addo, said it was incumbent on stakeholders to come together to deal with the disturbing trend. More should be done to create the needed public awareness to aid everbody to report early to the hospital any symptoms of the disease. According to the Ghana Medical Association (GMA), the country records approximately 3,000 new cases of cervical cancer each year with a corresponding mortality rate of about two thousand. The cancer registry centres, nationwide, have also been recording high cases of the disease - breast, liver and prostate cancers, as well as leukemia in children.Mrs. Akufo-Addo, speaking on the theme I Am, and I Will, she applauded the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC), the largest global organization campaigning against cancer, for teaming up with health authorities to promote preventable measures. Cancer in whatever form, she noted, was deadly, and expressed deep worry about the increasing rate at which Ghanaians were getting the disease, especially the productive workforce. Most of the patients who die as a result of the disease are between the ages of 30 and 55. This is not acceptable, and we need as a nation to work assiduously in finding a remedy to the situation. Princess Dina Mired of Jordan, the President of the UICC, said cancer treatment was costly, and for that reason, it was imperative that the people sought early treatment when diagnosed with the disease. She gave that assurance that Kumasi, given its strong commitment to fighting the disease, was going to be supported by the UICC.Cancer prevention and treatment is about team work. We, therefore, need all hands on board to make a head way. Mr. Kwaku Agyemang-Manu, Minister of Health, spoke of the governments resolve to equip health facilities with the requisite resources to deal effectively with the cancers.Mr. Osei Assibey-Antwi, the Metropolitan Chief Executive (MCE), who was instrumental in securing the Kumasi City Cancer Project, said the Metropolitan Assembly had been partnering health authorities to create awareness about the disease. Source: GNA Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The Ghana Police Service has arrested six persons suspected to have played roles in the murder of the journalist Ahmed Hussein Suale. The undercover journalist was shot dead at Madina in Accra on January 16, this year. The suspects have been interrogated, their statements taken and released on police enquiry bail. The Director General in charge of Public Affairs of the Police Service, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Mr David Eklu, who made this known in Kumasi yesterday, however, declined to mention the names of the suspects. In addition to the six, he said, the police had also given statement forms to Mr Kennedy Agyapong, Mr Kwasi Nyantakyi and Anas Aremeyaw Anas, all suspects in the case, to be filled and returned to the police. Artists impression Mr Eklu, who was in the Ashanti Region to brief the media on the Police Administrations communication strategy, said the police were looking for a cartographer to give them an artists impression of the perpetrators as had been given to them by eyewitnesses. In addition, the police are still processing the information picked from the eyewitnesses, he said, and assured the public that the service would leave no stone unturned in its bid to arrest the perpetrators. He appealed to the media to take their personal security seriously and always be conscious of their surroundings and not to take anything for granted. Communication policy Touching on the new Communication Policy of the Ghana Police Service which was designed with the assistance of the European Union, he said the leadership of the Police Administration had been trained on how to deal with the media and accord them the necessary assistance and respect. The media, he observed, were very important in democratic policing, as they served as the link between the public and the service and also helped the service by providing information to fight crimes. He said henceforth the police would no longer allow the media to take pictures of suspects arrested in swoops and accident victims, especially the dead. Police-media relations Mr Eklu said the police would soon introduce a course in police-media relations to be taught at police training schools to prepare the officers on how to deal with the media. That way, he said, the personnel would be in a position to handle the media appropriately and reduce the tension between the two bodies that needed to coexist to further the welfare of society. Source: GNA Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video PHOTOS: Iran unveils underground ballistic missile plant for first time 02/08/19 Report by Press TV; photos by Morteza Ahmadi Al Hashem, Mehr News Agency Iran has unveiled an underground plant manufacturing precision ballistic missiles for the Aerospace Division of its Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC). "Unveiling this missile production city deep underground is an answer to the idle talk made by the Westerners, who assume they can restrict us and dissuade us from [pursuing] our long-term goals by means of threats and sanctions," Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari, the IRGC's chief commander, said during the unveiling ceremony on Thursday. The ceremony, which was joined by the commander of the IRGC's Aerospace Division, Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, also featured the inauguration of a smart surface-to-surface missile dubbed Dezful. Generals Amir Ali Hajizadeh (L) and Mohammad Ali Jafari "Today, the mass production of advanced precision and smart missiles became a reality within the IRGC's aerospace force," Jafari hailed. Iran's defense program not open to negotiation Elsewhere in his remarks, Jafari said that Iran's defense might was in line with the country's deterrence doctrine and was by no means open to negotiations. "Iran's defensive capability is deterrent [in nature] and in line with preserving its national security, and it cannot be subjected to any transaction or negotiation," the commander asserted. He said the country declares possession of full defensive might on the eve of the 40th anniversary of the victory of its Islamic Revolution. Jafari also especially addressed European countries' demands from the country to start negotiations over its missile program before the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX) comes into force. INSTEX is a non-dollar payment mechanism, which European countries have announced to safeguard trade with Iran in the face of the United States' sanctions targeting the Islamic Republic. "Today, the Europeans are talking of imposing restrictions and sanctions on our defensive capability, while egregiously, their offensive capability is being used to attack the oppressed and innocent people throughout the world," he said. "But, we proudly enhance our defensive capability and are not afraid of anything," the commander stated. National security a red line Hajizadeh, meanwhile, described national security as the Iranian Armed Forces' red line, saying the Dezful missile was the latest outcome of the Aerospace Division's research activities. Describing the projectile's features, he compared the success achieved through its production to that of the Zolfaqar ballistic missile, whose mass production the country began in September 2016. However, Dezful's range reaches 1,000 kilometers, 300 kilometers above Zolfaqar, and its destructive capability is twice the latter's "given the special materials used in its warhead," the commander said. Hajizadeh also addressed European countries' recent comments about Iran's missile might. Those comments included France's calling on Iran last month to "immediately cease all ballistic missile-related activities designed to carry nuclear weapons, including tests using ballistic missile technology." Iranian authorities have invariably asserted that the country's missile program has not been established for non-conventional purposes and is only meant as part of the country's deterrence capability. The commander reminded that European countries had provided various forms of arms support to the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein during his 1980-1988 invasion of Iran. "They should be answerable for their support for Saddam and crimes against the Iranian nation," he said, adding, "We do not trust the Europeans, and it is better for them not to sacrifice themselves for [US President Donald] Trump." He was apparently referring to European countries' echoing Washington's stance concerning the Islamic Republic and their trying to similarly exercise pressure on Tehran. Thank you for reading! Please purchase a subscription to read our premium content. If you have a subscription, please log in or sign up for an account on our website to continue. When we talk about the future of club music, what we're really talking about is Sinjin Hawke and Zora Jones. Individually accomplished in their own rights, Hawke with his cerebral approach to trap that has garnered him production credits for the likes of Kanye West and Ian Isiah as well as Jones who's R&B-tinged footwork launched her as an underground phenom leading her to collaborate with rising club legends like Murlo, DJ Taye, and Jlin. But it was after they got together that they found they elevated each other's game to a whole new level, and thus Fractal Fantasy was born. Founded in 2014, it would be a disservice to explain Fractal Fantasy as merely a forward-thinking record label. Sure, Fractal Fantasy's catalog sounds like it was plucked out of a chrome-plated nightclub in the year 3019 but listening is only half of the experience. Each release on the label appears alongside its own unique visualizer, coded to fluctuate and pulse in step with each track as you mouse over glitchy, often surreal, CGI landscapes. It is this effortless merging of audio and visual components into one enhanced release that has quickly established Fractal Fantasy as a creative force to be reckoned with and put Hawke and Jones on the cutting edge of club music today. And while Fractal Fantasy originally started as a digital endeavor, Hawke and Jones have recently brought their URL aesthetics into the IRL with a constantly evolving live show. From 3D mapping their likenesses onto virtual avatars that bubble and morph on screen as the pair tag-teams a DJ set to a recently added visual theremin that turns their dance moves into sound, Hawke and Jones' real success is that they make all of this innovative next-gen technology look so goddamn cool. Make no mistakes about it, Sinjin Hawke and Zora Jones are instantly the coolest people in any room that they walk into. We caught up with Hawke and Jones ahead of their live AV set at Life and Death x Sonar in NYC, to chat about the past, present, and future of Fractal Fantasy: Photo courtesy of Sinjin Hawke and Zora Jones One thing I've really come to love about Fractal Fantasy is the attention you pay to each release's visuals and on top of that they're interactive too. I'm curious as to where that originates from? Zora Jones: Awe thanks - yeah the interactive visuals actually developed out of necessity... Fractal Fantasy started as a video series based on an animation Sinjin's father did in the '80s. We wanted to host the videos on a website rather than just throw them on YouTube, so Sinjin had to learn how to code and through that, we started doing interactive visuals. Sinjin Hawke: I had always been a huge fan of the WebGL demo scene and with a bit of luck I met a programmer named Ezra Miller at one of our shows. He ended up helping us a lot with the website and taught me the basics of web development. We launched our first interactive experiment with him in 2015 called Unction and after that I was completely hooked. Building real-time visuals is extremely addictive, it's almost like playing with a synthesizer -- if you move a slider the visual changes right away... You don't have to wait for it to render. Z: It also adds a new dimension to the expression, I love knowing that people who visit our site don't just stare at the screen but are able to interact with the artwork, so in a sense they graduate from being an observer to becoming part of the creation. Photo courtesy of Sinjin Hawke and Zora Jones How do you approach pairing visuals with certain releases? S: We usually start with a general concept... For example, our artist Xzavier Stone has a really striking face, so we wanted it to be the focus of his album visual. We also wanted to incorporate the theme of "THIRST" into it, so we built an ultra-realistic representation of Xzavier's face and added liquid deformations to his skin. Z: After the framework was built, we spent a lot of time fine-tuning the aesthetics. It's a meticulous process we do on every Fractal project which is why it often takes us a long time to release them. How has that translated over into the live show? S: We actually use the same programming language and visual techniques for the live show that we use on our website. The live show has been in the works for a while. We initially programmed the software in a completely different language and it wasn't until 2016 that we realized we could do it with JavaScript -- that's when things started to click. Photo by Jun Yokohama I know you've been working on a visual theremin which sounds really cool! Z: Yes, developing the visual theremin was fun. We wanted a live instrument that was simple and intuitive to play yet capable of being virtuosic. It needed to fit into a small suitcase but also be able to entertain a large audience, so it kind of worked out perfectly. How have you seen your live show evolve over the years? Z: 2018 was actually the first time we toured the AV Live in its full form.. We came up with the visual concept about five years ago. The idea was to have superhuman metallic versions of ourselves towering over the crowd. In 2017 we toured a beta version of the visual paired with a DJ set, which led to the idea of creating an instrument that reacted to our body movements. S: The AV Live has become really fun to perform; we both play the visual Theremin throughout the set. Zora dances like a 10-armed goddess and sings like an autotune alien. The overall framework allows us to dive really deep into the ambient bits but also ramp it up to levels of complete sensory overload. Photo courtesy of Sinjin Hawke and Zora Jones What would the set of your dreams look like? Z: We actually really want to build an immersive space for performances, like a 360 club utopia with AR/VR possibilities. S: We've already put a lot of thought into it and rendered out a few prototypes that we'll be previewing in our next Fractal Fantasy frame. I know Sinjin just produced some of Ian Isiah's recent record, are you currently working on any other projects? S: We're actually about to go to LA for a month to produce a big batch of instrumentals. We basically want to morph the modern template of rap production through our own lens - full out Scott Storch mode. Photo courtesy of Sinjin Hawke and Zora Jones Do you two approach producing for other artists any differently than say a Visceral Minds track? Z: With Visceral Minds we can go as experimental as we want, but with pop/R&B/rap artists, it's good to keep things in their comfort zone during the recording process in order to get a good vocal take. You can always refine the production and build something wild around their vocals afterwards. On a similar note, the Vicious Circles EP just came out not too long ago and I was curious as to what that creative process was like? You two seem to be so in sync with one another, did you find that the EP came together pretty effortlessly? Did you discover new things about each other that you didn't know before? Z: To me making music with someone is a really intimate experience that creates a special bond between people. Sometimes when you exit the studio after a session, it almost feels like you know the other person's deepest secrets without having to exchange a word. S: We work together almost 100% of the time and for Vicious Circles, we actually tried to disrupt this familiarity and break from convention as much as possible. What does the future hold in store for Fractal Fantasy? S: We've recently started working with Unsound Productions and will be building some projects with them that I'm really excited about. Z: We're also working on some augmented reality stuff, a secret project with a new team member and more dates with the AV Live. Visceral Minds 3 is also on the way ;). Listen to Sinjin Hawke and Zora Jones' exclusive mix for PAPER below and be sure to catch their live AV show at Life and Death x Sonar at Brooklyn's Avant Gardner this Friday, February 8th alongside acts DJ Koze, Nosaj Thing, DJ Harvey, Daedalus, and more. Tracklist v1984 - ??? Sinjin Hawke - Dawn Of Infinity Sinjin Hawke - Decline Divoli S'vere - Free (Sinjin Hawke Remix) DJ Mellow ft. Magugu - Run Dem (Famous Eno Remix) Ikonika - Girdle La Zowi ft. Flynt Hustle - Putas Rudeboyz - Major Turn Up Cuppcake - Blackjack (Zora Jones Edit) Sinjin Hawke - Don't Lose Yourself To This (MikeQ Remix) Killa P, Irah, Sinjin Hawke & Drippin - Skyfall M1 Kingz - Hip Hop Kit Murlo, Zora Jones, Sinjin Hawke - Molten Sinjin Hawke - In Loving Memory (Gutta Remix) Drippin - ?? Zora Jones - ?? (Instrumental) Anz - Mission Playboi Carti - R.I.P Fredo (Xzavier Stone Edit) Sinjin Hawke - Knife Rythm Wiley x Ski Mask The Slump God - Elevator (FF Edit) YNB Almighty Jay - 2 Tone Drip (Zora Jones & Sinjin Hawke Bootleg) Dj Rashad - Back That Ass Up Boogieman - Feelin Inside (Boomclap Edit) Sinjin Hawke & Dj Earl - ?? Thast x MM - Rep Your Country (Edit) Divoli S'vere - Puss Assembly (Schoolboi Cute Edit) Ian Isiah ft. Hoodcelebrityy - Killup Scott Storch - Jamaican Thing Xzavier Stone - OUD NYOP - Litefeet Jungle Xzavier Stone - Nep Tune Sinjin Hawke & Zora Jones - And You Were One Photo courtesy of Sinjin Hawke and Zora Jones Pyer Moss designer Kerby Jean-Raymond is currently being hailed as the most important young designer in American fashion. Raymond had a banner year in 2018. He presented a deservedly lauded collection in September at the Weeksville Heritage Center in Brooklyn, the site of one of America's first free Black communities. He dressed Tracee Ellis Ross when she hosted the American Music Awards, and ravished Issa Rae in sapphire sequins when she hosted the CFDAs. He took home $400,000 and priceless prestige as the winner of the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund Award. He famously met Anna Wintour in a t-shirt that read "If you are just learning about Pyer Moss we forgive you." So what is Raymond, arguably the buzziest designer in New York, doing for New York Fashion Week? As he confirmed to New York Times fashion critic Vanessa Friedman, that would be nothing. There will be no Pyer Moss show this season. "I have something to say, but I am not quite ready to say it," said Raymond. He added that he wants to end the erasure of minorities in fashion, and that he thinks he knows how to do it "the purpose of design is to solve problems, and I think I have figured out how to use this tool to solve this problem." There is a plan for September. Steven Kolb, the chief executive of the CFDA, said that not showing was "clearly a risk." "He [Raymond] doesn't see the need to be chained to a traditional idea of a designer business. Whether he's right, I don't know." Raymond, who told Friedman that he sees his line as an "art project" and wants to eventually be named the creative director of a large brand, seems to know what he's doing. "No one needs so much stuff," he said. "They need emotion." Photo courtesy of BFA When it comes to old pals, Olivier Rousteing and Cara Delevingne, nothing is really off limits. With a long friendship and a growing rapport as collaborators, the two have been making waves through their work for Balmain lately, mostly with the brand's sizzling new campaign and now, they're sharing even more imagery with exclusive activations for different cities. Related | Nude Cara Delevingne Channels Janet Jackson For Balmain Inspired by the iconic 1993 cover of Rolling Stone featuring Janet Jackson with breasts cupped by disembodied hands, Balmain's campaign embraces freedom in the same vein. Paired with the release of a brand new logo and visual identity for the French fashion house, the campaign and its philosophy signal a fresh start for Balmain. In the campaign, a topless Rousteing is positioned lovingly behind Delevingne, hands similarly placed, for a beautiful portrait to signify the power of diversity and a timeless commitment to authenticity. "I wanted it to be about inclusion and the beauty and contrast of our skin tones together," Rousteing tells PAPER. "This is also about friendship and the relationship that we have over the years." As for the campaign's lack of clothes, Rousteing says this was purposeful: "The absence of clothing is so intentional in the campaign. It's all about the elements and the freedom of authenticity." When it comes to stripping it back, Rousteing looks no further than the very elements of nature. Rolling out new campaign videos in a four-part series to coincide with every fashion week in the world's capitals, Balmain is kicking off New York with one of the most ethereal elements: wind. "The element of wind in New York has to do with the freedom in the air and the desire to express this feeling," Rousteing says. In the gorgeous new clip, Delevingne smolders against the gusts of air and billowing fabric that animate and embrace the brand's new logo mounted in the sky. Signaling the creativity and playfulness of this fresh spirit, the campaign video is the first of a few different ways Rousteing is steering Balmain into the future. "When I went to do couture, people were asking me why I was doing it now and asking why go back to something much older but I think that in order to understand the future, you have to understand the past," Rousteing says. Northern Pulp Treatment Facility Project Registered with Nova Scotia's Environment Department The proposed project sees a new effluent treatment facility (ETF) constructed on Northern Pulp property which includes a water pipe to deliver treated effluent to Caribou Harbour. Feb. 8, 2019 - Northern Pulp Nova Scotia Corporation's (NPNS) effluent treatment facility project is now registered with Nova Scotia's Environment Department. This is a significant milestone for this project that is vital to the continued operation of NorthernPulp, anchor to Nova Scotia's forest industry, states Brian Baarda, Chief Executive Officer with Paper Excellence Canada. An extensive amount of time, expertise and commitment has gone into the development of this modern world-class facility. The proposed project sees a new effluent treatment facility (ETF) constructed on Northern Pulp property which includes a water pipe to deliver treated effluent to Caribou Harbour. Ultimately, the effluent discharge will be into the Northumberland Strait, as has been the case since 1967. We all have the same goal which is to see Boat Harbour returned to its natural state, explains Bruce Chapman, General Manager with Northern Pulp Nova Scotia Corporation. We simply need a bit more time to carry out due diligence in each phase from environmental assessment, to construction and commissioning of this new facility. The project document is publicly available via: novascotia.ca/nse/ea/Replacement_Effluent_Treatment_Facility_Project/ . About Northern Pulp Located in Pictou County, Nova Scotia, Northern Pulp manufactures 280,000 tonnes of Kraft pulp annually, primarily for export and employs about 300 people. Northern Pulp is owned by Paper Excellence Canada. To learn more, visit: northernpulp.ca Paper Excellence Canada Paper Excellence Canada has grown through logical acquisitions from a single mill base to a multinational group producing 2.5 million tonnes of paper and pulp. To learn more, please visit: www.paperexcellence.com SOURCE: Paper Excellence Canada Do you appreciate the work we do as the only independent media outlet dedicated to serving OU students, faculty, staff and alumni on campus and around the world for more than 100 years? Then consider helping fund our endeavors. Around the world, communities are grappling with what journalism is worth and how to fund the civic good that robust news organizations can generate. We believe The OU Daily and Crimson Quarterly magazine provide real value to this community both now by covering OU, and tomorrow by helping launch the careers of media professionals. If youre able, please SUPPORT US TODAY FOR AS LITTLE AS $1. You can make a one-time donation or a recurring pledge. The Ladies Home, pictured above from East Third Street, will close its doors by the end of February. Officials cited ongoing financial trouble as the cause Organized Retail Crime (ORC) is a term that retailers are very familiar with, but consumers may not be. It refers to coordinated attempts by professional thieves to steal merchandise and resell it on the black market. There are hundreds of ORC rings throughout Florida, and the people involved in these groups are knowledgeable about what items promise the highest return. They also familiarize themselves with the financial threshold that elevates these crimes from a misdemeanor to a felony. This year the Florida legislature will consider increasing the felony threshold by as much as 400 percent (Editorial: Treating petty thefts as felonies costs Florida money, brands for life, Feb. 8). Before the Fair Districts amendments were passed and while gerrymandering was still legal districts were drawn to ensure the continued dominance of incumbent politicians and their parties. Since the Fair Districts amendments were implemented, the numbers have slowly come closer to reflecting the more balanced electorate of our state. But Republicans still hold majorities in both houses of the Legislature and in Floridas congressional delegation, and our representation still does not reflect the 50-50 nature of our state. Buried near the end of Naseem Millers frightening article (Investigation: VA wait times posed health risk, Feb. 7) on military veterans enduring dangerous wait times for needed healthcare lies the heart of the matter. Not only at the Orlando VA Medical Center, but in VA facilities across the country, the anesthesia-provider workforce is not being fully or properly utilized. The VAs own analysis has shown the problem to be less a matter of a provider shortage and more a matter of allowing Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists (CRNAs) to practice to the full extent of their education, training, licensure and certification. Doing so would ensure veterans access to anesthesia care, shorten wait times for essential healthcare services such as colonoscopies, and prevent veterans from having to travel long distances for needed care. It would also enable the VA to stretch its anesthesia provider resources by requiring anesthesiologists to provide their own hands-on patient care rather than merely being available in case theyre needed. As a retired military veteran who also happens to be a CRNA, I urge the VA to grant full practice authority to CRNAs so veterans no longer have to wait for the safe, timely healthcare theyve earned through service to our country. The next exit is Lee Road, which is almost five miles away. By the time you make a U-turn and get back to Princeton, you will have lost at least 15 minutes of your life that you can never get back or bill the DOT for. Once more, think about how basic that is. He said he was going to replace political appointees who werent doing their jobs with ones who might and that maybe we should try to avoid having toxic green slop in our waterways. But it remains to be seen if the controversial bill will again be hard to swallow for some in the Florida Senate who either ideologically opposed the bill or were not in favor of sanctions. Gruters said it is his intention to keep the sanctions in the bill. But today this has been painful, she said. Because I believe that you have worked to make our criminal justice system, to make a mockery out of it. And its painful for me for you to do that, and anybody, up to and including the president of the United States. Who here would want to be judged for a lifetime of work, who here would want to be judged by one horrific incident or one bad day in your life? he said. Dont you want to be judged as people and Americans by the totality of what youve done, by a lifes work? Mayor Catherine Pugh said Thursday that she was just learning about the vice president's visit, but said she's hopeful that Pence also will meet with businesses at the port and talk with them about their needs. The Pulse nightclub shooting was a dark day for the city and for our whole country, and next week marks the one-year anniversary of the mass shooting in Parkland, said Bloomberg, speaking during what was billed as a personal appearance to congratulate Orlando as one of 25 cities that last year won a Bloomberg Philanthropies $2.5 million Climate Challenge grant. Jim is the real deal, an animal-loving, die-hard vegan that only wants the best for the animals in his care, wrote a Deland woman who gave $20. May God continue to bless you, Jim, and you will now be bigger and better than ever. He said the closing of some clinics in Louisiana, as opposed to Texas, would not dramatically increase driving distances, and that it was easier for doctors in Louisiana to obtainadmitting privileges. The "vast majority" of the six doctors who performed abortions in Louisiana "largely sat on their hands" instead of working hard to procure the credential, Smith wrote. He was a longtime supporter of universal health care, a cause he adopted from his late father, whom he replaced in Congress in 1955. He also was known as a dogged pursuer of government waste and fraud, and even helped take down two top presidential aides while leading the investigative arm of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee, which he chaired for 14 years. They heard the gunshots and the three of them ran to the location and physically fought the suspect in order to get the gun from him and take him into custody, Boatwright said. It was just by chance, thankfully, that these supervisors were there. If they werent, there would have been no good guy with the tools available to stop the threat. Shooting broke out when one man stuck a gun through a cars window crack into the face of a man inside, according to the affidavit, which went on to say the man in the car grabbed the gun and then others started shooting. Witnesses said the suspects were chasing and shooting at a person through the complex, according to police. The suspects then fled in an unknown direction and are at-large, Bernal said in an email. The state of Florida is trying to deny a clearly innocent man the compensation that he is statutorily entitled to for spending 14 years in jail for a crime he didnt commit, said Josh Dubin, one of Aguirre-Jarquins lawyers. Their reasons for trying to do this are almost as absurd as their decision to re-prosecute him in the first place. Staff members in 2015 discovered the female client was pregnant. Police say in the affidavit that the woman has the mental capacity of a small child. The baby was born a few months later and adopted by the woman's family. By the end of open enrollment last year, Oscar had enrolled about 33,000 individuals in the individual ACA market, accounting for 13 percent share of the individual ACA enrollments in the Orlando area and about half of what it had projected, according to the documents. Woodland Park Police(DENVER) -- A nurse from Twin Falls, Idaho, is expected to plead guilty to at least one charge in connection to the case of missing Colorado mother and flight instructor Kelsey Berreth, ABC News has learned. Krystal Lee, 32, is scheduled to appear in a Colorado courtroom Friday to enter a plea deal with prosecutors, according to two of Lee's relatives who spoke anonymously because the deal hasn't been publicly announced. Family members said Lee has been cooperating with investigators, who have been looking into allegations she may have disposed of evidence. Lee had been employed as a nurse at St. Luke's Magic Valley Medical Center in Twin Falls, Idaho. But on Monday, hospital spokeswoman Michelle Bartlome told ABC News that "an individual by that name no longer works at the hospital." In January, hospital officials said Lee was on a leave of absence. Lee is facing one count of tampering with physical evidence, according to the district attorney's office. The charge is a class 6 felony punishable by up to 18 months in prison. Attempts to reach Lee's attorney have been unsuccessful. A spokeswoman for District Attorney Dan May would not confirm or comment on any potential plea, but she did confirm that Lee has a court date set for Friday, Feb. 8, in Teller County, Colorado. "This case is under seal," said Lee Richards, a spokeswoman for Colorado's 4th Judicial District Attorney's office. Patrick Frazee was arrested in December and charged with Berreth's murder and three counts of solicitation to commit murder. He has not entered a plea. Berreth was last seen Thanksgiving Day, shopping with the couple's 1-year-old daughter, Kaylee, at a Woodland Park, Colorado, supermarket. Three days after Berreth vanished, investigators said her cell phone signal was detected in Idaho. While Lee's exact relationship to Frazee and her alleged role in the case aren't known, multiple law enforcement sources have told ABC News she's suspected driving Berreth's phone to Idaho in an attempt to dispose of it. According to two family members, Lee said she only helped Frazee because he threatened her life. Police said they believe Berreth was killed in her townhome, and that Frazee was the last person to see her. Berreth's body has not been found, which could complicate how a jury views the case, according to former Adams County, Colorado, prosecutor Bob Grant. "Without a body or cause of death, the prosecutor has to prove the death without any question," Grant said. Last month, a judge granted temporary custody of Kaylee to Berreth's parents, Cheryl and Darrell Berreth. The couple also has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Frazee. Frazee is due back in court Feb. 19. Copyright 2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved . . . . . 32 37, - . ... What's Included With a Digital Only subscription, you'll receive unlimited access to our website and e-edition. Our digital products are available 24/7 and are accessible anywhere, anytime. If you have any questions or need further assistance, please call our customer service team at 716-372-3121 or email nfinnerty@oleantimesherald.com. While reforming 50-a, we must also address legitimate officer safety concerns. Officers have seen protests at their homes and death threats to themselves and their families even before the facts of an incident were fully known. Direct threats against officers increased from 151 in 2017 to 154 in 2018, in addition to general threats against the police averaging 150 per year during the same period. Belle Harbor: Voicer Frank Testa and all those claiming that marijuana is a gateway to harder drug use are using flawed reverse logic. Yes, many (if not most) people with opioid and other hard-drug addictions tried marijuana first, but that is not the point. The relevant statistic would be how many have used, or continue to use, weed and have never had issues with harder drugs. I am 71 years old and have used weed since I was 16. I have had a long, very successful career in carpentry, (though retired, I still work part time ), raised a family of three fine kids, and have led a healthy and productive life. I have many acquaintances my age, and decades younger, who can say the same, and none, not one, has had any issues with hard drugs. Saying marijuana use leads inevitably to hard drug use is like saying umbrellas cause rain. Mr. Testa, which am I: a lunatic or a liar? Bobby Nelsen What they did do is investigate a failed sting program run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. And the website the government built to sell Affordable Care Act health insurance policies. And the IRSs alleged harassment of conservative groups. And a federal loan to a solar-panel company. And the terrorist attack on a U.S. government compound in Benghazi, which took four American lives. New York could very soon go down in history as the obscene exception the place so economically dunderheaded, so blinded by the-good-is-the-enemy-of-the-perfect progressivism, that it won a national competition for a new home for Amazon, with a $3 billion aid package hardly different from those the city and state offer other firms, then threw it in the trash because the company failed to live up to its ever-shifting standards. The Saudi government has also backed up bin Salmans claim, pointing to rogue government operators as the responsible parties, 11 of whom have so far been indicted. The crown prince, next in line to the throne, acts as the de facto ruler of the kingdom and has become a close ally of White House adviser Jared Kushner. Hitler was born in an upper-floor apartment and resided there until the age of 3. Though he showed no interest in the property in the latter stage of life, it became a Nazi symbol during the leaders rule, and a magnet for neo-Nazis long after his death. McArthur has been in prison since January 2018 when investigators discovered dismembered remains in planters at home he used as storage for his business. He also staged photos of some of his victims after they died, posing corpses in fur coats and putting cigars in their mouths. McArthur would access some of the photos long after the killings. Appearing before the House Judiciary Committee, the acting AG repeatedly clashed with Dems who wanted him to tell them what assurances he may have given President Trump before he was handpicked to replace Jeff Sessions and what role he has played while overseeing Muellers inquiry. Whitaker responded by saying he wouldn't appear unless the committee dropped its subpoena threat, which he derided as an act of "political theater." He went on to criticize the committee, deriding the Dems for prematurely and unnecessarily authorizing a subpoena for him even though he agreed to appear. While people can make changes to their birth certificates by going to court, Levine said that costs money and can be embarrassing for victims who would prefer to not go public with their stories. He also noted that under a new law passed last year, people can already make one change to their birth certificate without court intervention: their gender marker. For the next six months you're going to wonder how the hell you got here. Then one day you'll come on to the House floor, look around, and wonder how in the hell all the other fools got here." The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the Daily News on Friday that the U.S. Attorneys office in Manhattan is looking at whether threatening emails sent to Bezos by Peckers top deputies could be criminal and thereby violate the non-prosecution deal that Pecker and the Enquirers parent company, American Media Inc., entered into in the Michael Cohen case. It is unfortunate that the Governor is trying to divide the Democratic Party at this crucial and historic time, Murphy said. The Senate Democratic Majority Conference and our partners in the Assembly finally returned New York as the progressive beacon to the rest of the country. I think there's a possibility that this is gamesmanship and they're trying to call a bluff but we're not bluffing, Van Bramer said. If in fact it is an attempt to call a bluff, its yet another strategic blunder in a series of blunders that the governor, the mayor and Amazon have committed since they announced the deal in November. There was never a binding contract. I never talked to the with a third party outside of the organization about it. It was one of I mean we could have had 40 or 50 deals like that, that were floating around, that somebody was looking at, she said. The states Joint Commission on Public Ethics and the Legislative Ethics Commission announced that it reached a settlement with the disgraced ex-lawmaker, effectively ending a probe into allegations he made unwanted verbal and physical sexual advances toward a female staffer and offered her cash or a job to keep quiet about it. Robert Arnold Koester, 52, who goes by the professional names Bert Kay, Rhake Winter and Qitooly, is suspected of being a serial sexual predator who took nude photos of models and sexually assaulted many of them, including some younger than 18, the FBI said in a statement. In another email allegedly between AMIs deputy general counsel and an attorney for de Becker, Bezos PI, the publishing company proposed a public, mutually-agreed upon acknowledgment from the Bezos Parties, released through a mutually-agreeable news outlet, affirming that they have no knowledge or basis for suggesting that AMIs coverage was politically motivated or influenced by political forces, and an agreement that they will cease referring to such a possibility. The weathered religious symbol caused a stir when it showed up on a Florida beachfront, covered in barnacles, near a tourist resort. Greg Gay, who was visiting from Michigan and admitted he doesnt go to church regularly, told ABC News that friends of his joked it might be a sign that the giant cross found its way to where he was vacationing. We want to keep the pressure on, Lincoln OBarry of Dolphin Project said. Were going to do this until people realize Arizonians dont want dolphins in their state. Because as long as they put dolphins in the desert, theyre going to keep having problems. Ms. Inabinett saw Kellyanne Conway, a public figure, in a public place, and exercised her First Amendment right to express her personal opinions. She did not assault Ms. Conway. The facts at trial will show this to be true, and show Ms. Conways account to be false, McDaniel said in a statement to the Daily News. Doc was one of the more gregarious guys I know, said Beck. He was the ultimate entrepreneur. He left us to start his own business. He loved new businesses, and because of Doc, many businesses are flourishing because he would take them under his wings. As we hear the stories and circumstances for those here, I hope we do not forget the pain and anguish and sense of loss felt by those all over the country who have been the victims of violence at the hands of illegal aliens, Gaetz said. The proposed legislation, he added, "would not have stopped the many of the circumstances I raised. But a wall, a barrier on the southern border may have. Under the companys new policy, employees who are willing to give up at five vacation days (the company offers at least 28 days off per annum, but does not clarify if personal/sick days are available as well), will receive five times their day rate to use toward student loan payments, by the companys estimates. The company estimates that 30% of its workforce will take the company up on its offer. In a four-month period ending in January 2005, prosecutors asserted Elorez leased a farm in Medellin, Colombia, where he raised dogs and then surgically implanted the bags of liquid heroin into nine pups. He then plotted to import the animals but American officials searching the farm on Jan. 1, 2005, discovered 17 bags of liquid heroin, including 10 that were extricated from the puppies. The worst part of it is I thought I was going to come out with $50,000 to $100,000 in my pocket. She had one safe that she took money out, and she only had $10,000, he says in the clip. And this money, I dont know if it was burnt or something, its old f---ing money. Terrible quality, I dont even know if I can put any of it in the f---ing bank." Woodland Park Police said Berreth's cell phone pinged on Nov. 25 in Gooding, Idaho, which is about 35 miles away from Twin City Falls where Lee worked as a nurse. The same day, Berreths phone sent a text message to her boss at Doss Aviation and another to Frazee. "We've been in Brevard for 62 years serving people with disabilities. We are absolutely devastated," CEO David Cooke said, according to Florida Today. "This is devastating for the client, for the family. It's devastating for the staff who work so hard everyday, working for our clients with significant disabilities." If not, the one that would be stabbed would be me, he told his girlfriend, according to a transcript of the call. Im telling you that sometimes I feel like taking my own damn life. "The defendant beat and dragged the victim, Jennifer Irigoyen, down the stairs and then brutally stabbed her in the neck, abdomen and torso, Assistant DA Bryan Kotowski said. The defendant knew that the victim was 14 weeks pregnant at the time. The day of the investigation, the defendant not only fled Queens County, but fled the state. He only turned himself in when his family informed him the police were looking for him. The only thing she ever asked me [about him] is if I could help find the people that were selling him drugs because she didnt want him doing them, Djones said.She just threw it out there to whoever was in the vestibule, Please dont sell my son drugs. The tiny terrors three girls between 12 and 15-years-old and an 11-year-old boy stormed up to the 22-year-old victim as she waited on the 9th St. R train platform about 9:30 p.m. on Jan. 30, cops said. He said she was abusive, but Im not sure in what way, said ORourke, who met Chin on a couple of occasions. Eng never opened up to her about the relationship with his mom, and his father died of cancer in 2008. He was just somebody that made sure I was going in the right path. Made sure I was doing good in school, the brother said outside his home in Crown Heights. While Thursdays hearing was to discuss several bills that require the NYPD, among other things, to disclose more information about misconduct cases, it quickly turned into a lengthy discussion of 50-a, and then moved on to Officer Daniel Pantaleo, the Staten Island cop who has been accused of using a banned chokehold in the 2014 death of Eric Garner. Tejadas attorney declined comment. The brute had been charged with attempted murder on Oct. 1 of last year. Hed been put in touch with the hit man by an inmate facing grand larceny charges and hoping for a lighter sentence. He faces a maximum of 30 years on charges including murder-for-hire. Five were hauled into Manhattan Supreme Court on Friday where they pleaded not guilty after a probe by the Manhattan District Attorney and NYPD. Others were in custody already for unrelated and related crimes. Two have not yet been arrested. Had I had the arrest reports, I think that would have swayed the jury and certainly created reasonable doubt, he said. It is a very, very significant violation of the Brady rules. You have to turn over exculpatory evidence. It could have been a prosecutor recognizing he had a weak case Thats certainly as much a possibility as it being inadvertent. I think every man would love that power and ability somewhere at some point in their lives every man, she said. Its just an ego thingsome men have bigger egos than others I think every man would love to be in a position of power and say Do this and not that. Kathmandu, February 8 The government is working on country-specific profiles of 163 states its has diplomatic relations with. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is preparing the dossier to assess Nepals current ties with different countries and to determine what each relation should focus on in the future. We do not expect the same thing from all the countries. What is our state of relations with different countries? We want to know, Minister for Foreign Affairs Pradeep Gyawali told members of Parliaments Public Hearing Committee during a meeting on Thursday. There are some countries with whom our ties would focus on trade, others on labour and investment, added the Minister. We also need to find out how developed countries are willing to contribute to Nepals development. Gyawali said that Nepali ambassadors will have to set their priorities based on the recommendations made in their country-specific profile. The ambassadors will have to carry the profiles with them when they are sent to their station, added Gyawali. The minister also told the MPs that the governments focus is on economic diplomacy to help the country graduate from the LDC group by 2022. Peggy Wallace Kennedy has found a voice for what is right The UN World Food Programme will soon finalize a new aid program worth about US$160 million for North Korea, Radio Free Asia reported Thursday. The program aims to deliver nutrition supplements to 2.8 million North Koreans until the end of 2021. Discussion on the new aid program will be held during a meeting of the agency's board of directors that starts on Feb. 25, WFP spokesman David Orr told RFA. Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has endorsed Prof. Kingsley Moghalu, presidential candidate of the Young Progressive Party (YPP), for... Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has endorsed Prof. Kingsley Moghalu, presidential candidate of the Young Progressive Party (YPP), for President. Soyinka and his civil society group, Citizens Forum, made the announcement in a statement personally signed by him a on Friday. According to Soyinka, the decision to endorse Moghalu was reached after months of rigorous analyses of the profiles and manifestoes of the various candidates vying for the nations top job. THE FULL STATEMENT: The nation has been brought to her knees. Internally, the blaring media testimony needs no augmentation. Beyond her borders, Nigeria is the tale of citizens designated pariahs of the global community for whom special dossiers are opened, and units of security agencies are specifically assigned. Online transactions are programmed to reject basic usage once the word Nigeria is inserted in the Data profile. There are few nation left, within or outside the continental borders where no matter the codeword a Nigerian room has not been designated. Her humanity litters the sand trails of the Sahara, it lines the Mediterranean sea-bed with the bones of a desperate generation, seeking green pastures. Lines from my poems have been appropriated and embossed as epitaphs on the tombstones of Nigerians washed up the isle of Catania and accorded dignified burials by total strangers, certainly paid more respect than Nigerians themselves consider due to their own humanity. Other would-be migrants have been slaughtered by religious fundamentalists on the shores of Tripoli, while waiting for their precarious crossing on suicidal boats. Yet others end up as commodities in the slave markets of Libya and Mauritania, hundreds recently rescued and airlifted credit where credit is due! repatriated by government. It was not always thus. Numerous Nigerians believe that it need not remain so. There is always a choice to be made outside any presumptuous orders in reality associations guaranteed to perpetuate social disorders and the politics of inequality. This is not the thinking of any one individual but of a large section of this populace. If it were not, there would not have been a record number of nearly a hundred political groups aspiring to take over the reins of governance. We do not need any instruction however to estimate that several of the aspiring groups are mere plants, raised to sow confusion. It redounds to the credit of a few individuals, including some of the candidates themselves, who embarked on efforts to winnow down their own ranks, then seek a consensus candidate as standard bearer for the battle against the two political behemoths. They did not succeed, but that is no cause for despair. They still deserve the gratitude of Nigerians for their uniquely principled efforts. The CITIZEN FORUM last heard of during the time of the dictator, Sani Abacha was pulled out of retirement to join in their effort to arrive at peer consensus. The Forum worked peripherally with them. It made no attempt I stress this no attempt whatsoever to impose its own preferences, but utilized material from the deliberations of at least four such selection groups. It remained on the fringe, except on invitation. Our mission today is simply to present the result of that effort by Citizen Forum which, I am especially gratified to reveal, coincides with my own personal preference. The CF conclusion is obviously not binding on other groups or individuals involved in the exercise. May I take this opportunity to advise the public that neither Citizen Forum nor myself, belongs to any Third Force or other Consensus seeking councils by any other name. Please ignore any such attributions. Over the past few months, we studied the careers, experiences and track records of most of the presidential aspirants, and most intensely those actually short-listed by the opposition parties themselves. Like millions of Nigerians, we watched the debates. I physically interacted with some of the acknowledged top contenders, in some cases several times. We participated in HANDSHAKE ACROSS NIGERIA, where some candidates presented their briefs. Among others, I delivered a keynote address. We watched television interviews. We have exchanged notes with highly respected international Civil Servants. The drive towards Consensus among these dedicated groups sometimes took the form of test questionnaires to the aspirants, including items such as: Who among the contestants would you choose, if you did not emerge as the ultimate preference? There was nothing complicated about assessment parameters: mental preparedness, analytical aptitude, response to the nations security challenges, economic grounding, grasp of socio-political actualities, including a remedial concern with the Nigerian image in foreign perception etc. etc. not forgetting a convincing commitment to governance and resource decentralization commonly referred to as Restructuring. The Forum rejected retrograde propositions of a political merry-go-round, which urge the electorate to choose this or that candidate in order to ensure our turn at the next power incumbency. Overall, the exercise was exacting but also therapeutic. It proved yet again that there is over-abundant leadership quality locked up in the nation, and that it is a collective shortcoming that the political space has not been sufficiently opened up to let soar such potential. Well, to cite the Chinese proverb: a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. Let me reiterate: there is over-abundant, but stifled leadership material, and there can be no excuse, now that that potential of high quality is being manifested, for constricting the political space in a population that is nudging two hundred million. And that statement is of course specially addressed to those who took part in this exercise, those who deliberately opted out of it, some of whom were assessed anyway. Such potential compelled us to exercise utmost rigour in what proved to be a most daunting exercise. The final determination however is the flag-bearer of the Young Progressive Party KINGSLEY MOGHALU. I shall conclude with a somewhat interesting aside. I met Moghalu again on Monday morning, February 4th, and informed him of the Forums decision. During our discussion, I happened to ask him what is the meaning of Moghalu. I was curious, because it had taken quite some time along the way for me to know to which ethnic group the name belonged. He replied, it means Evil Spirit, Leave me Be! Then I asked him for his other names and he spelt them out: Actually my full names are Kingsley Chieedu Ayodele Moghalu. Eyebrows raised, I asked, How come, Ayodele? A piquant revelation resulted: Oh, that came from Mrs. Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti. She was friends with my father. Mrs. Kuti was my godmother, and she gave me the name Ayodele. I was learning this for the first time. Moghalus CV is however in the public domain his publications, record, and vision. The above is just a side-note that contains its own mild, thought provoking instruction, for those who care to examine the distractions of ethnic equivocations, and the rigid mind-sets and stereotypes imposed on products of circumstance. That immediate task being now completed, Civic Forum will now join forces with those who pray, Evil Spirit, leave us be! at least those who subscribe to the belief that political elections are not a Do-or-Die Affair! President Muhammadu Buhari says the implementation of the Federal Governments Made in Nigeria for Exports (MINE) will generate 30 bil... President Muhammadu Buhari says the implementation of the Federal Governments Made in Nigeria for Exports (MINE) will generate 30 billion dollars and create 1.5million jobs by 2025. MINE is a presidential special priority intervention programme implemented by the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, but under Buharis direct supervision. The president stated this at the signing of agreement between Nigeria Special Economic Zones (SEZ) Investment Company and Strategic Investment Partners at the State House, Abuja on Friday. According to him, MINE is using Special Economic Zones to achieve the objectives of boosting the share of manufacturing in Gross Domestic Product to 20 per cent. Under my direct supervision, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment is implementing Project MINE (Made in Nigeria for Exports) as a Presidential special priority intervention using Special Economic Zones to achieve the objectives of; boosting manufacturings share of GDP to 20%, generating $30bn in annual export earnings; and creating 1.5 million new jobs all by 2025. In order to achieve these ambitious objectives, we are implementing a comprehensive plan including but not limited to the following: We have set up the Nigeria SEZ Investment Company Limited as a vehicle for participating in Public Private Partnerships involving Federal and State governments and local and foreign private investors. This company will develop new Special Economic Zones all over the country, offering advanced infrastructure and facilities at competitive costs, he said. The president revealed that the projects in the pilot phase included Enyimba Economic City, Funtua Cotton Cluster and Lekki Model Industrial Park. He announced that experienced SEZ developers and operators were needed to partner with the government to upgrade its Free Trade Zones in Calabar and Kano, and to offer first-class standards of infrastructure and facilities. He said: Whilst we await the completion of the process of bringing in these investors, the Federal Executive Council has approved the award of contracts in excess of N19.45 billion for the needed investment in Calabar and Kano Free Trade Zones and work is currently ongoing. This is the highest amount of capital investment ever in the history of these zones. The President said the federal government had allocated funds to upgrade the capabilities of management and the systems in the Nigeria Export Processing Zones Authority, to strengthen it as a regulator of the SEZ. He added that government was also allocating substantial resources to the provision of outside the fence infrastructure to ensure that SEZ are connected to global, regional and domestic markets. We are reviewing our incentive framework to ensure competitiveness relative to the other countries with whom we are in the race to attract export oriented global manufacturing investment. We will extend the early successes we have achieved in Ease of Doing Business to the areas critical to globally competitive export-oriented manufacturing operations, he said. The president thanked the investment partners including the Africa Export and Import Bank (AFREXIM); Africa Finance Corporation (AFC); Bank of Industry (BOI); Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) and the African Development Bank (AFDB) for their support for the initiative. Earlier in his remarks, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Mr Okechukwu Enelamah, explained that the agreement would actualise the nations industrialisation agenda and provision of infrastructural facilities. He thanked the president for approving resources to attract world class advisers for the implementation of the initiative. The Seoul Metropolitan Government has amassed a W40 billion fund to promote exchanges with North Korea (US$1=W1,126). The fund was created in 2004. Data obtained by Korean Patriots Party lawmaker Cho Won-jin showed that the city government has allocated W25 billion to the fund this year, the biggest in 14 years, raising the total amount to W39.2 billion. This year, the city wants to spend W15 billion, among other things to help Pyongyang upgrade its water supply and sewage system with W1 billion, establish a smart city platform in the North Korean capital for another W1 billion, spend W3.2 billion on cultural exchanges, and invest in solar infrastructure in Pyongyang. Stuart Symington, US ambassador to Nigeria, has warned public officials not to obey illegal directives issued in the name of President... Stuart Symington, US ambassador to Nigeria, has warned public officials not to obey illegal directives issued in the name of President Muhammadu Buhari. Speaking with journalists on Thursday in Makurdi, Benue state capital, after a meeting with Samuel Ortom, the state governor, the ambassador said any politician whose utterances incite people to violence would be held to account for the crime. He urged political leaders to ensure free and fair election as the polls draw closer. Although the ambassador did not mention Buharis name, all indications point to the president who has on different occasions reiterated his commitment to free and fair elections. If anybody asks you to do something that is not right and says the boss wants you to do it, or the person at the top wants you to do it, dont believe him; because the person at the top is honestly saying they want to win a fair election. There is a reason not to believe them, the ambassador said. Weeks after Nollywood actress Funke Akindele and her husband welcomed a set of twins, the prophet who claimed that the actress is only... Weeks after Nollywood actress Funke Akindele and her husband welcomed a set of twins, the prophet who claimed that the actress is only destined to be rich and childless, has broken his silence. In an interview in 2018, Prophet Faleyimu Olagoroye had claimed that one of the conditions for Akindele to become a mom was to marry a gateman. However, in a new interview with Yoruba Movie Gist, Olagoroye revealed that the actress had her babies through In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) and not through biblical methods. His words: When she delivered twins, I read peoples comments on social media that I am a prophet of doom. Remember I said she should pray very hard if she must have a child because she chooses wealth above children when she was coming to this world. One of the things I said was that she should go for a deliverance and she should ask God with her mouth what she want, not to go to pastors or prophets for prayers. If I pray for her to have a baby, no miracle will happen, the only thing she can do is to pray with her mouth or she get married to someone who is not up to her standard. Then, when she is pregnant, her wealth will be reducing. After she delivered, it was revealed to me that she got the baby through IVF. If she had followed any of the 3 solutions I gave her, she would have been pregnant naturally. People should read Genesis 25 vs 21-26, Genesis 3 vs 9-24, Genesis 17 -21, and 1Samuel 25-28, you will see people who are looking for the fruits of the womb from God and see how God answered them naturally, not through scientific method. . It is only the people who cant conceive naturally that Doctors will advise to go for IVF. Meanwhile, IVF is 50/50, not everyone that does it ends up with babies. It is a scientific method which is not in the Bible. . The Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) on Friday condemned the Buhari government for protecting Lai Mohammed, the Minister... The Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) on Friday condemned the Buhari government for protecting Lai Mohammed, the Minister of Information. Imo Ugochinyere, CUPP spokesperson, in a statement, expressed concern over the alleged pressure being mounted by the presidency on the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission, ICPC, to discontinue the investigation of a N2.5billion Digital Switch Over (DSO) fraud rocking the National Broadcasting Commission because Mohammed, whose ministry supervises the commission was allegedly linked to the fraud. It is surprising that President Muhammadu Buhari will keep boasting of fighting corruption when in the real sense of it, his government is corruption personified, it said. The Federal Government is currently prosecuting the Director-General of NBC, Kawu Modibbo, on the matter while Lai Mohammed is left alone despite that he was linked to the fraud. He is still busy speaking for the government that claim to be fighting corruption while Kawu is being made the scapegoat. What we have seen so far is that Alhaji Mohammed has continued to be making inflammatory comments in order to continue to appease the Presidency for shielding him from prosecution. He has also been in the forefront of very dubious efforts to compromise security agencies in Kwara State in his desperate bid to deliver the state for his paymasters by all means just to continue to be in their good books and avoid prosecution. Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has assured Nigerians that Leah Sharibu, the schoolgirl abducted by Islamist sect, Boko Haram will be relea... Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has assured Nigerians that Leah Sharibu, the schoolgirl abducted by Islamist sect, Boko Haram will be released sooner than later. Prof Osinbajo who was speaking during an interview with Bond FM 92.9 in Lagos, said the government was working frantically to secure her release as well as that of others. Osinbajo who is seeking re-election in office alongside President Muhammadu Buhari on the platform of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) stressed that, there was never a time the government was not actively working on her release. There was never a time that the government stopped working on the release of Leah Sharibu and the other girls that were abducted by the sect. VP Osinbajo said the government is optimistic of her return. There are people who act as middle men who know how to reach out to them. The govt will get Leah Sharibu and the others back from Boko Haram, he added. The Vice President who spoke in Yoruba language addressed other questions that were asked by the presenters and listeners; including that of Islamization of Nigeria, TraderMoni and corruption. Prof Osinbajo reiterated that President Buhari does not have any intentions to Islamize Nigeria, detailing how he refused to join the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). He rejected the offer to join OIC as a military head of state without a national assembly to stop him. It was General Ibrahim Babangida who later joined the organization where Nigeria is still a member, he said. He also noted that it was during former President Olusegun Obasanjo that Nigeria had 12 states that became Sharia states. Just imagine that it was during this government that 12 States began to practice Sharia law, they would have said he was planning to Islamize Nigeria. Let me tell you something, no one can Islamize Nigeria and certainly President Buhari is the kind of man to do such a thing, he said. Reacting to claims and speculations that TraderMoni is vote buying, Prof Osinbajo said, The first person to say TraderMoni is vote buying is Senate President Bukola Saraki but if we want to be sincere, we must understand it is the Senate and House of Representatives that agreed to TraderMoni and passed it in the budget. There is no sincerity in that allegation, Osinbajo said before explaining the process by which petty traders are registered for TraderMoni. When you go to markets, you will see enumerators who will take personal data, take pictures and visit the stall of the petty trader before their applications are processed. The money is for petty traders and the money is sent to their phones, it is not disbursed in cash, he said. Osinbajo then explained that the Federal Government decided to embark on TraderMoni because petty traders account for the chunk of traders in Nigeria. With two weeks to the 2015 election, the former government withdrew $292m from the Central Bank of Nigeria and it was shared amongst themselves. Today, $292m is N80bn, while on the money disbursed for TraderMoni is just N20bn, if we had all this money, we would reach more petty traders, he said. He explained claims that he personally handed N10,000 to market women were totally false. The programme is handled by the Bank of Industry. They are the ones in charge of disbursement as well. Following the apprehension that has greeted the scheduled visit of President Muhammadu Buhari for the All Progressives Congress (APC) ... Following the apprehension that has greeted the scheduled visit of President Muhammadu Buhari for the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential rally on Saturday, the Lagos State Government on Friday allayed fears of residents assuring that there would be no road closures as earlier announced. Briefing journalists at the Bagauda Kaltho Press Centre in Alausa, the States Commissioner for Transportation, Mr Ladi Lawanson said the earlier statement announcing diversion and road closure had been reviewed, adding that residents were free to go about their businesses. Lawanson, who is also a member of the transport sub-committee for the Presidential visit and the APC rally, said Lagosians should jettison an earlier announcement by the committee to the effect that there would be road closures. He said: Lagosians have been very apprehensive that there will be traffic gridlock and we got a lot of feedbacks that we intend to grind Lagos to a halt. People are apprehensive; they think we are going to shut down Lagos; they think movement would be restricted and they are bracing themselves for what they anticipate would be the hardship that would be visited on them by the presidents visit and our own activities. The purpose of this press conference is to clarify that and to state emphatically that there will be from zero to minimal adverse effect of the Presidents visit tomorrow. I repeat, there will be between zero to the barest minimum amount of disruptions to the normal movement that Lagosians undertake on a Saturday like tomorrow. So, there will not be any road closures in Lagos tomorrow and Lagosians are free to go about their normal businesses tomorrow, Saturday, Lawanson said. He said adequate arrangement had been firmed up to ensure free flow of traffic, but that residents should expect tight security around the routes which the President is expected to pass through in the course of his visit and the venue of the rally. We would just like to communicate that because we are expecting a high caliber personality no less a person than the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the normal security precautions that attend a visit of this nature should be expected. The President would visit Lagos tomorrow with the full retinue of security aides that protect him and his entourage but there will not be any road closures and there will be zero to minimal disruptions of normal activities, the Commissioner said. Lawanson, who addressed the briefing alongside the General Manager of Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA), Mr Wale Musa and the Lagos State Sector Commander of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Mr Hyginus Omeje, said there would be huge presence of officials of the police, LASTMA, FRSC and other agencies to ensure free flow of traffic around the Surulere axis. Around the venue of the rally which is the Teslim Balogun Stadium in Surulere and the adjourning streets are traffic management agencies such as LASTMA, FRSC, Police and other agencies that would support them tomorrow. They will handle the traffic management around the venue tomorrow and so people can expect to see a huge presence of our traffic management officers fully on ground to ensure that there is free flow of traffic. We consider it important to clarify this so that we can communicate to Lagosians and give them the assurance that Lagos and especially Surulere would not be on lockdown, the Commissioner said. The pass rate for the 2018 November/December Senior School Certificate Examination (SSSCE) for external candidates raised to 62.48 per c... The pass rate for the 2018 November/December Senior School Certificate Examination (SSSCE) for external candidates raised to 62.48 per cent, the National Examinations Council (NECO) announced on Friday. This is the number of candidates that passed at least five subjects including English Language and Mathematics. Acting Registrar of the council, Mr Abubakar Gana in a statement said this represents a 5.69 percent improvement on 2017s performance which stood at 56.79 percent. A total of 59,963 candidates registered for the examination and were examined in 28 subjects. A total of 37,069 candidates representing 62.48 per cent who sat for the exams got five credits and above while 47,031 candidates, representing 79.27 per cent got five credits and above, the council boss explains. Unlike the June/July exams also conducted by the council for school-based candidates, the November exams do not lay emphasis on the amount of pass in mathematics and English language as many of them register to make up for various subjects they didnt pass earlier. The NECO boss, however, reveals an increase in the number of candidates apprehended for exams malpractices which shot up from 4,425 in 2017 to 12, 084 in 2018. He described the trend as a reflection of the desperation by candidates seeking to cut corners and the determination of the council to apprehend culprits in line with its zero tolerance for examination malpractice. Candidates cheated more in Mathematics, English language, Biology and Economics, he explained. The Police Command in Enugu State says it has begun an investigation into the killing of a man, who allegedly hacked his mother to death... The Police Command in Enugu State says it has begun an investigation into the killing of a man, who allegedly hacked his mother to death. The man was said to have been killed by an irate mob in Isiagu Ibagwa community in Igboeze South Local Government Area of the state. The states Police Public Relations Officer, SP Ebere Amaraizu, who made this known in a statement in Enugu on Friday, said that the incident occurred at about 1:30pm on Monday. Amaraizu said, Tragedy had allegedly struck at Isiagu Ibagwa community when a son identified as Ifesinachi Ukwueze allegedly murdered his mother identified as Beatrice Ukwueze with a cutlass over a yet to be established issue. It was further gathered that the action of Ifesinachi Ukwueze allegedly angered irate mob who descended heavily on him and left him lifeless before the arrival of security operatives, he said. The police spokesman added that the dead bodies of the son and mother had been deposited in a nearby mortuary while police operatives have commenced a full-scale investigation into the incident. The governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in Lagos State, Mr Jimi Agbaje, has described his All Progressive candidate opp... The governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in Lagos State, Mr Jimi Agbaje, has described his All Progressive candidate opponent Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu, as a puppet incapable of making his own decisions.Agbaje spoke while responding to a statement credited to the APC candidate this week that sought to paint the PDP candidate as lacking clear ideas on how to manage the state.Sanwo-Olu had at a rally on the Lagos Island on Tuesday mocked Agbaje, dismissing him as lacking requisite ideas needed for the development of the state and urged the people to reject him at the polls.In a statement by the Media Office of Jimi Agbaje Campaign Organisation, the PDP candidate dismissed Sanwo-Olu as a proxy candidate, a puppet, fronting for well-entrenched interests that have held back the development of the state for the past 20 years.The PDP candidate said, This is a man without any specialty, tossed from one ministry to another before ending up in the housing corporation, where his tenure in that agency has added nothing towards improving the states world-acclaimed housing deficit.Agbaje urged Lagosians to reject Sanwo-Olu and the APC at the elections, adding that the political party was a leopard that could not change its tendency to inflict misery and suffering on the masses.The APC candidate had also reportedly told his audience that the state had in the last 20 years recorded giant strides, capable of being reversed should Agbaje be elected governor.However, Agbaje faulted Sanwo-Olus assertions, urging Lagosians to rather reject a man who is not a standalone candidate, but a proxy who is only being propped up by some godfathers whose prime interest and motives are to further plunder the resources of the state. Mahmood Yakubu, chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has vowed not to share his role as returning officer... Mahmood Yakubu, chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has vowed not to share his role as returning officer of the presidential elections with anyone. Yakubu said this on Thursday during an interactive meeting with Catholic Bishops in Abuja. He was speaking in reaction to comments still trailing the appointment of Amina Zakari who is reportedly related to President Muhammadu Buhari as the head of the committee on collation centre. Zakaris appointment was misconstrued in some quarters to mean she would be involved in the collation process. Yakubu, however, said he remains the only returning officer who would announce results for the presidential election. The chairman of INEC is the chief returning officer for the presidential election and I am not going to share that responsibility with anyone, he said. He also urged Nigerians to always draw the attention of the commission to any infraction in the national voter register for rectification Yakubu said: We have been doing so consistently. After the last one, we received only a few comments from the states, I think 48,000 out of 84 million registered voters. Part of the difficulty is that we are very careful if someone says that one person is dead, because of the experience the commission had in 2015. We received a letter from one particular political party that a candidate was dead and they submitted a death certificate obtained from a government hospital. They also went to court, swore to an affidavit and his family also attested to the fact that the candidate was dead. They filed all these documents at the commission. A week later, the supposedly dead candidate turned up and said he was alive. You can now travel for free from Iju, Lagos to Abeokuta for free for about a month, using the newly-completed trains by the federal gove... You can now travel for free from Iju, Lagos to Abeokuta for free for about a month, using the newly-completed trains by the federal government. This was disclosed by Fidet Okhiria, managing director of the Nigerian Railway Corporation, who spoke with Tolu Ogunlesi, special assistant to the president on digital communications, during the test drive of the #LagosIbadanRail Project. He sakd free test-rides or non-commercial operations will begin next week, between Iju and Abeokuta. Rotimi Amaechi, the minister of transportation, who was also on the test run of the rail lines today, from Iju to Abeokuta said this was part of the deliveries of the Buhari administration to Nigerians. The minister also seized the opportunity to call on Nigerians to vote for President Muhammadu Buhari on February 16, 2019. The rail project was commissioned by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo in 2017, and executed by South African Railways and CCECC. The rail line is expected to continue to Akure and then Kano state. Tour operator Hyundai Asan said Thursday that it is celebrating its 20th anniversary in North Korea's Mt. Kumgang resort on Friday. The company is sending 22 executives and staff to the scenic mountain resort by bus for the two-day event. Hyundai Asan, which pioneered package tours to Mt. Kumgang, also sent staff there last November to mark their 20th anniversary. Hyundai Group chairwoman Hyun Jeong-eun will not take part in the event this time, and it is unclear if any North Korean officials have been invited. Ligue 1 and 2 games will hold a minutes applause before kick-off in memory of former Nantes player Emiliano Sala. The body of th... Ligue 1 and 2 games will hold a minutes applause before kick-off in memory of former Nantes player Emiliano Sala. The body of the former Nantes striker has been retrieved from the wreckage of a crashed plane in the English Channel, the French League said on Friday. Argentine Sala, 28, had been flying from Nantes in western France to Wales on Jan. 21 to make his debut for Premier League team Cardiff City when the single-engine Piper Malibu aircraft disappeared over the sea. The wreckage was found on Sunday following a privately-funded underwater search and a body recovered on Wednesday and taken to southern England. Marilyn Amobi, managing director of the Nigeria Bulk Electricity trading Plc (NBET), fraudulently paid at least N2 billion to two powe... Marilyn Amobi, managing director of the Nigeria Bulk Electricity trading Plc (NBET), fraudulently paid at least N2 billion to two power generating companies, documents obtained by Leaks NG have shown. The documents also revealed that Amobi, who was made the substantive MD of NBET in July 2016, was also involved in a series of corruption allegations such as subversion of board approvals and infraction of procurement laws. FRAUDULENT PAYMENTS TO GENCOs A few weeks after she was confirmed managing director of NBET, the organisation that manages the electricity pool in the countrys electricity supply industry, Amobi started overpaying two power generating companies Omotosho Electric Genco and Olorunsogo Electric Company in flagrant violation of the details of a power purchase agreement (PPA) the companies signed with the government in February and August 2016, respectively. The PPA is an agreement between NBET and power generating plants for the sale and purchase of energy generated by the plants. Embedded within the PPA are the gas supply agreement (GSA) that covers the supply of natural gas to the generating plant and the gas transportation agreement (GTA), which is an agreement between gas transporters and power generating plants. Omotosho Electric Genco According to the PPA, to qualify for full payment, generating plants must provide evidence that they have active GSA and GTA or else the power purchase agreement would be deemed inactive and would only receive payment for the power they supplied. Seller (Omotosho Genco) hereby agrees that any claim for Available Capacity payment under the PPA are conditional on the Seller providing evidence acceptable to the Buyer (NBET) confirming that it has a legally binding and enforceable Gas Supply and Aggregation Agreement and Gas Transportation Agreement, in accordance with clause 3.2.2 and 4.2.1 of the PPA, the agreement obtained by Leaks NG stated. However, despite the fact that Omotosho did not provide evidence of gas supply aggregation and transportation, the company continued to tender request for full payment of 20 months. According to the document in possession of Leaks NG, the over-invoicing was detected in October 2017 following an NBET internal audit. On September 22, 2016, NBET had written to Omotosho requesting that it fulfill the condition for the PPA. The generating company was first given a 30-day grace to provide the necessary document. The window to provide the document was later extended to 90 days yet it never provided the document. For instance, in June 2017, Omotosho supplied energy to the tune of 33.16 megawatts but invoiced up to 161.74 megawatts. This implies that Omotosho laid claim to an excess of 128.58 megawatts as excess capacity for the cycle. For this capacity, Omotosho requested for payment of N1,023,532,574 instead of N209,824,177, leaving an excess of N813,708,397 for the capacity in June 2016. Similarly, Olorunsogo Power Plc, whose PPA took effect from August 2014 in the said month, tendered 11.9 megawatts for energy while 197.83 as capacity. Since the PPA was not active, the capacity ought to be equal to the energy to make the firm qualify for payment as stated in the agreement. Olorunsogo Electric Company Olorunsogo issued an invoice of N1, 251, 881, 528 for capacity for June 2016 as against N75, 363, 267 calculated by its actual energy. The difference is an over-invoicing of N1, 176, 518, 261. For both firms, the over-invoicing amounts to N1, 990, 226, 658 as excess in just one month, June 2016. Leaks NG could not lay hold to all invoices issued by the companies but the two obtained showed that NBET made partial payments to the companies. In one of the invoices, Amobi paid Omotosho N339, 813, 418 in October 2016 -the fund was part payment for July 2016 energy and capacity. On the same date: October 11, 2016, NBET paid Olorunsogo N372, 498, 731 also as part payment for July. These payments were clearly in breach of the PPA and the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) order of transitional stage electricity market (TEM). Order IV of The TEM states that: Gencos without effective PPAs shall be paid for their delivered energy and delivered capacity by NBET (Delivered capacity for the purposes of this order means the capacity equivalent of the energy delivered at Gencos busbar. These illegal payments wouldnt have been possible without Amobis insistence. While the internal audit of NBET refused to process the payment, Amobi signed the July payment on October 13, 2017, assuming the role of internal audit in violation of financial regulation. This is a breach of Section 1705 of the financial regulations which states that the Head of Internal Audit Unit in all ministries/extra-ministerial offices and other arms of government shall ensure that 100 per cent pre-payment audit of all checked and passed vouchers is carried out and the vouchers forwarded under security schedule direct to the appropriate Central Pay Office for payment. Checked and passed vouchers received in the internal audit Unit must be promptly dealt with and, under no circumstances shall a voucher be held in that unit for more than forty-eight (48) hours. ILLEGAL PAYMENT TO LAW FIRMS Sometimes in 2014, NBET wrote the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) to request the agency sign off on power procurement and retroactive no objection in procurement. The request simply means that NBET requests to be excluded from being subjected to BPP act in its power purchase agreement. The request was declined by BPP. In a response dated April 29, 2014, BPP stated that NBET, like other agencies, must follow due procurement process in power procurement. BPP noted in its reply, That if section 5 (a) of PPA was intended to exclude some sectors like the Power Sector, it would have been stated clearly. Consequently, giving NBET a one-off approval for NBETs power procurement process would not only amount to a contravention of the Act, but it would also open a floodgate of similar requests thereby engendering confusion in the system. It is pertinent for NBET to note that electricity (being goods) can only be procured within one of the procedures stated in part 42.4 of standard bidding documents. The bureau therefore strongly advises that NBET should consult the Public Procurement Regulations, manuals for complex projects and standard bidding documents for procurement of goods, as this would assist NBET in complying with extant procurement rules and regulations. However, the management of NBET, then under the leadership of Rumundaka Wonodi, its inaugural managing director, was unsatisfied with the position of BPP. The agency sought legal advice on the way forward. On June 1 2015, NBET advertised a notice for an expression of interest to engage lawyers in such cases, more specifically on BPPs response. According to the advert, the successful law firm is expected to discharge such duties as, General, corporate, commercial and administrative law, with a view to advising NBET on general commercial and contract matters, providing legal opinions as necessary, and advising on various civil law. According to a report by NBETs evaluation committee, three firms: Azinge and Azinge, Chukwuka Ugwu and Associate and John Erameh submitted their bids. The process was however truncated upon advice by the internal audit department of NBET. Surprisingly, in April 2017, two years after, the internal audit received a request from Amobi for payment of N30 million to two firms. Amobi wanted Azinge and Azinge to be paid a contract sum of N14 million and Aelex N16 million respectively. The process that led to this request was one replete with infractions and breach of public procurement law. It is worthy of note that the procurement process was stopped in 2015 and if there would be a need for the services of law firms in 2017, the engagement is supposed to take a entire new process according to procurement laws. are available to meet the obligations and subject to the threshold in the regulations made by the Bureau, has obtained a Certificate of No Objection to Contract Award from the Bureau. The BPP act in Section 16(1)(b) states the process of procurement; based only on procurement plan supported by prior budgetary appropriations and no procurement proceedings shall be formalised until the procuring entity has ensured that fundsare available to meet the obligations and subject to the threshold in the regulations made by the Bureau, has obtained a Certificate of No Objection to Contract Award from the Bureau. There was no new advertisement or procurement process but Amobi presented the two firms for payment. Surprisingly, one of the firms laying claim to payment, Aelex, was not part of the 2015 process, as the firm was not captured in the evaluation report. ILLEGAL PAYMENT TO CONSULTANT In 2016, NEXANT, a software and energy firm, engaged a former staff of Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN), Uzoma Achinaya, to provide advisory and analytics work for NBET. John Gustafson, CEO Nexant According to the arrangement, Achinaya would work for NBET for a period, present a report to NEXANT and claim his payment from NEXANT. This indeed happened but instead of NEXANT to pay the consultant, NBETs leadership decided to pay him despite not being party of the engagement agreement. On January 23 2017, Achinaya wrote Amobi requesting NBET to pay him the sum of N7 million advance payment for the work he had done so far. I refer to the advisory and analytics work that l have done for NBET on the sustainable solutions to the Liquidity Challenges in the Nigerian Electricity industry. I appreciate the steps NBET management is taking to resolve the issues with NEXANT regarding my contract which has resulted in the delayed payment of my fees for the services rendered. However, I have some very urgent family commitments, including school fees for my children, which need immediate funding. It will be appreciated if I can be granted a payment advance in the sum of Seven Million Naira (N7, 000, 000.00}, in lieu of the money I am owed for the work already done, to enable me meet some of these commitments. The amount should be recovered from my payment when the issues with NEXANT are finally resolved. The irregularities in the request were flagged by the internal audit, which declined payment to Achinaya. The audit department argued that it declined the payment because the Amobis N7.5 million request was above her N2.5 approval threshold and that the process of contracting was not subjected to any procurement process. Internal audit also argued that the consultant does not have a tax identification number (TIN) as stipulated by procurement law, inside sources told Leaks NG. To bypass the procurement part, Amobi allegedly directed the Parastatal Tenders Board of NBET to seek consideration and approval for the requested fund. The board submitted its report in March claiming that due process was followed in the award of the consultancy contract. The memorandum for consideration and approval indicated that the bid was opened on March 1, 2017, with a deadline of March 6. At the end of the process, two individuals were said to have emerged out of five expressions of interest received; Joe Agah with 59.7 total weighted scores and Uzoma Achinaya with 95.1. The contract was later awarded to Achinaya at the sum of N25, 850, 000. Even at that, the board did a shabby job in the cover-up. The consultant started work in 2016, requested for payment in January 2017 for his ongoing work but the NBET management instituted a post-dated procurement process to make the payment possible. TRANSFER OF STAFF WITHOUT BOARDS APPROVAL In 2017, Amobi made a request to the accountant-general for officials from his office to be transferred to NBET to head the internal audit and finance departments. Inside sources alleged that she made this request because she felt the officials who headed the department at NBET were standing in her way. Marilyn Amobi The request was granted in June 2017. The AGF posted Hauwa Bello from the National Centre for Women Development (NCWD) to head the internal audit. He also posted Sambo Abdullahi to the Learning and Development, a newly created department at NBET. Waziri Bintube of the finance department was reposted to Risk and Guarantee, another department created by Amobi allegedly to victimise the two top officials. The request was granted in June 2017. The AGF posted Hauwa Bello from the National Centre for Women Development (NCWD) to head the internal audit. He also posted Sambo Abdullahi to the Learning and Development, a newly created department at NBET. Waziri Bintube of the finance department was reposted to Risk and Guarantee, another department created by Amobi allegedly to victimise the two top officials. A month earlier, Amobi had facilitated the transfer of two people, Ajulo Adesola from the National Agency for Science and Engineering (NASENI) and Acho Onyechege from the ministry of Niger Delta Affairs to NBET as treasury officers. Though the new postings were communicated in a letter by AGF on 30 May 2018, they flouted the requirement of NBET charter which places the responsibility of recommending postings within the agency on the human resources committee of NBET. Section 2.4 (b) of the charter state that the Human Resource Committee shall review and make recommendations to the Board for approval of the Companys organisational structure and any proposed amendments. Although the accountant-general reserves the authority to approve such reviews, the office does not have the power to make postings. AMOBI EVASIVE, ABUSIVE When contacted to respond to the series of allegations against her, Amobi, rained abuses Leaks NG reporter. Without first listening to the reporterss questions, in in a statement, replete with swear words, the MD she said she would not comment to any of the allegations because the issues are in court. If they are things about NBET that are currently in court, there is really no needsome of them are in court. Im sure some people brought this to you, she said. Youve written a story about us before of us sending some people to America which of course didnt happen. These are issues that are with EFCC, ICPC and even in the court. Security operatives attached to President Muhammadu Buhari prevented some aggrieved youth from attacking Buba Marwa, former militar... Security operatives attached to President Muhammadu Buhari prevented some aggrieved youth from attacking Buba Marwa, former military administrator of Lagos state, at the presidential rally of the All progressives Congress (APC) in Adamawa state on Thursday. Trouble started after Marwa, who addressed the rally in Hausa, was accused of saying some uncomplimentary things about Mohammed Bindow, governor of the state. Marwa and the governor belong to different factions of the APC in the state. The ex-military administrator is of the Mahmood Halilu faction which lost the battle to secure the governorship ticket to Bindows group. Despite the backing of Aisha Buhari, wife of the president, Haliliu who is Buharis in-law failed to secure the governorship ticket. Buhari had pacified the angry youth and directed security operatives to whisk Marwa from Ribadu Square, Yola, venue of the exercise. Marwa is an ally of the president. On Monday, he led former military generals to Aso Rock to endorse Buhari for another four years. He currently heads the presidential advisory committee on the elimination of drug abuse in the country. Marwa had said if Buhari had failed in his duties, they would not have endorsed him. As an officer and a gentleman, his word is his bond. After winning the elections, he brought out simple three-points programme security, economy and fighting corruption. He led the fight and is leading the fight by personal example. That is the height of leadership. Do as as I do not as I say. He has demonstrated that, he had said. Asked if the endorsement was out of fear, Marwa said: Absolutely not. At the rally, Buhari pledged to complete the abandoned federal government projects in Adamawa, especially those started under the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF), if re-elected. The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has given the assurance that come Feb.16, President Muhammadu Buharis c... The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has given the assurance that come Feb.16, President Muhammadu Buharis commitment to the well being and welfare of Nigerians will earn him re-election. The Minister stated this on Friday in Lagos at a rally organised by the ex-workers and pensioners of the defunct Nigeria Airways. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports the group organised the rally to show appreciation to the President for the payment of their pension arrears and other benefits after 14 years of waiting. The over 5,000 Nigeria airway workers, who said they had been abandoned, humiliated and frustrated by previous administration, undertook a solidarity procession in Ikeja to drum support for Buhari. Addressing the gathering, the minister said that Buhari put an end to the 14-year wait and suffering of the 5,996 former staffers of the defunct national career. It is noteworthy that since the liquidation of Nigeria Airways, successive Administrations have failed to settle the ex-staffers, leading to untold suffering and loss of human dignity by the affected people. It is not just the former staffers of Nigeria Airways who have benefitted from the people-oriented policy of this Administration. Former Biafran Policemen, former workers of the Delta Steel Company, Aladja, and former NITEL workers have also seen their years of suffering and neglect come to an end. For the more than 800 deceased ex staffers of Nigeria Airways, their next of kin will also receive the entitlements due to them, he said. The minister further listed some of the Social Investment Programme of the Administration that would guarantee re-election of the President. He said the Conditional Cash Transfer had benefitted 300,000 families while 9.3 million children were being fed daily under the home grown school feeding programme. The minister said the N-Power had employed 5000 graduates and the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme/Tradermoni had covered 1.2 million people. Mohammed congratulated the ex-workers that were still alive and thank God for keeping them to reap the rewards of their labour. He also thanked them for the event which he said was a show of appreciation to the President for what he had done. The Minister of State for Aviation, Hon. Hadi Sirika corroborated Mohammed that the President would never stand for injustice to the people. Sirika, who was represented by the Managing Director of the Nigeria Airspace Management Agency, Capt. Fola Akinkuoyu assured the ex-workers of the payment of their balance. The leader of the ex-workers, Mr Olanrewaju Animasahu, said they organised the solidarity rally to show appreciation to the President and mobilise support for his Next Level Agenda. He said for 14 years, they had been on the struggle, some of them had died while many of them were humiliated and disgraced over what was their right. Animasahun said contrary to what some people might insinuate, they were not mobilised to stage the rally, but the members made voluntary donations to sponsor the event. President Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic... President Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) yesterday visited each others state of origin in continuation of their campaign ahead of the February 16 presidential election. Buhari hails from Daura in Katsina State while Atiku is from Jada, Adamawa State. Addressing a mammoth crowd of supporters during the APC presidential rally at the Ribadu Square in Yola, Adamawa State, Buhari pledged to complete projects he had initiated in the state as head of the defunct Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF). He also restated his resolve to ensure prosecution of looters of public funds, saying his government would trace and recover stolen funds. The projects we started in PTF together with an indigene of this state, Engineer Ahmad Salihijo have not yet been completed. We are executing various projects in this state and God grace we will continue to do more if re-elected, he said. Buhari, whose wife Aisha Buhari is also from Yola, Adamawa State, added that The people of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe know what we have achieved in the fight against Boko Haram insurgents. The government provided agricultural inputs and in the last three farming seasons we enjoyed the bumper harvest. The APC National chairman, Adams Oshiomhole urged Adamawa voters to engage the PDP presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, to mention the projects he brought to the state. Oshiomhole said between 1999 and 2007, Atiku executed private projects for himself. He owned the American University of Nigeria, the AUN Club, Faro Water, Rico Gado Animal Feeds and ABTI Printing Press Ltd, among others. He urged voters to ask the former vice president about projects he attracted to Adamawa, saying the 45,000 people Atiku claimed to have employed in Adamawa should vote for him. The state PDP chairman, Barrister Tahir Shehu, however replied Oshiomole saying as vice president, Atiku had made Adamawa State so proud because of the development he attracted. There was a drama when former military governor of Lagos State, Buba Marwa who spoke on behalf of wife of the President, Aisha Buhari, chanted Nigeria sai Buhari! and did not chant the usual Adamawa Sai Bindow in recognition of the Governor Jibrilla Bindow who is the APC governorship candidate in the state. The Ribadu Square was filled to capacity giving the security tough time with thousands of supporters struggling to catch a glimpse of the president. When some of the dignitaries on the platform advised Marwa to reconose the governor, he collected the microphone again and said the Wife of the President wanted the people to vote for Bindow because voting for him was the same as voting for her younger brother, Modi, some supporters of the governor challenged Marwa angrily, saying they are not the same. Mahmud Halilu, known as Modi, lost out in the governorship primary and is believed to be behind the legal move to disqualify Bindow from participating in the elections over alleged WAEC certificate forgery. Earlier, Buhari visited the palace of the Chairman, Adamawa State Council of Emirs and Chiefs, the Lamido of Adamawa, Alhaji Muhammadu Barkindo Aliyu Mustafa. The Lamido, while welcoming the president, said, The giant strides and inroads you recorded in various fields of our endeavours such as economy, security, and fight against corruption, which still remain the cornerstone of your agenda, would not have been made possible if not for your resilient focus, passion, and love for the country. Mr President, there is no doubt that much has been achieved during your present tenure but certainly you need more time to actualize your dream for a better Nigeria. This, therefore, calls for all and sundry to rally round you and allow you to get to the next level to enable you consolidate the various laudable programs of your party. In Katsina State, the presidential candidate of the PDP Atiku Abubakar said electing him into office by Katsina people will be like fulfilling the dreams and aspiration of late Shehu Musa Yaradua. Speaking at a rally attended by a huge crowd of supporters at the Karakanda Stadium, Atiku said Im from Katsina, late Shehu Yaradua brought me into politics, late Shehu in 1993 made me a candidate that was never to be, his dreams are being fulfilled today, he said Atiku said electorates should be careful and wary of the APC administration for its failure in fulfilling its earlier promises. He promised address insecurity challenges, provides jobs for youth and women as well as tackle unemployment, adding that this election is for the youth, we are handing to you, ensure you remain and get the results. Dont be cheated. Its your election. While warning security agencies to keep off election matters as their job is only to protect and ensure peaceful polls, Atiku warned them against partisanship. In his remarks, the National Chairman of the party, Uche Secondus said APC government is confused, worried and adopting all measures to rig this election. He said Atiku is a symbol of unity. We will reject any result that will be rigged by APC. It is time for all to join the train of Atiku. The mammoth crowd before us today is a celebration of victory of next president and we believe with these numbers and crowd there is no doubt that this is Katsina and they are voting for Atiku he said. Earlier, the leader of the party in the state and former Governor Ibrahim Shema urged all Nigerians irrespective of whatever party to note that this election is about a person who can deliver and that person is Atiku. Atiku is a man of his words and loves the people, a man who loves all and the nation at heart. We believe these attributes are with all of the partys candidates, Shema said. Atiku, upon arrival in the state, proceeded to Daura, the home town of President Muhammadu Buhari to pay homage to the Emir Umar Faruk and meet with his supporters. Atiku was also at the palace of Emir of Katsina Abdulmumini Kabir Usman. He equally visited the mother of Shehu and Umaru Musa Yaradua, Hajiya Dada, at the Yaradua quarters. Some PDP stalwarts spoken to said Atiku is just coming home to meet his family because his close and well established ties with Katsina is not new. Former deputy governor of Katsina State, Garba Faskari, ex commissioner local government, Hamisu Makana, while appreciating the turnout, said this is a clear signal that the people are tired of the ruling APC and want a return of the PDP which has instituted a solid foundation of achievement in the state. On his part the Senior Special assistant Abdu Labaran said his coming to Katsina is a non-issue and a herculean task on him to get support. A group, under the auspices of Joint Action Committee of Northern Youth Associations, JACON, have condemned in strong terms the recent... A group, under the auspices of Joint Action Committee of Northern Youth Associations, JACON, have condemned in strong terms the recent threat to international community, election observers by Governor Nasir El-Rufai. JACON group said the governor to throw the state and country into another round of bloodletting. The Kaduna State Governor had on Tuesday warned that those who intervene in the forthcoming general elections will go back in body bags. Reacting, the association called on Nigerians to remain steadfast and not be perturbed by the comment made by El Rufai. Murtala Abubakar, convener of JACON, in a statement said, The recent outburst and threat to the international community, especially election observers by Kaduna State Governor, Nasiru Ahmad el-Rufai is not surprising. What is surprising is extending it outside the shore of Kaduna and Nigeria, targeting the international community who are interested in fair, transparent, credible and peaceful elections in Nigeria. In the face of this, we call on all to remain steadfast, not to bow to intimidation, not to play into the hands of people like el-Rufai whose plan is to throw the state and the nation into another round of bloodletting. We shall triumph over those who dont want to see us in peace. This is not new. But as northern youths, we have resolved not to be drawn into any act that will lead to lost of lives and property in Kaduna State, the region or the nation as a whole. For the record, Governor el-Rufai is no stranger to such inflammatory statement meant to stock ember of discord and results in violence. But we have seen through his veiled calls to violence. El-Rufai is known to have called the opposition in Kaduna termites and ants and should be crushed. He has asked those who asked questions on his style of scothearth leadership to climb Kufena Hill and jump to their death. The most recent and bizarre was his allusion to a religious icon; the celebrated and revered Catholic leader, The Pope. That statement was meant to infuriate the Catholics and Christians to cause religious conflict. But we thank the Christian community for their restrain and the show of maturity by not playing into the hands of the governor. The associations noted with dismay that just this week, three young boys were mowed down in cold blood at Unguwan Muazu within Kaduna metropolis right under the watch of Governor el-Rufai in his campaign train. Despite the security agents in the Governors motorcade, no one has been arrested nor did he visit to condole with the families of the murdered boys. It took serious intervention of peace loving people to ensure the killings of the young boys did not lead to another circle of bloodletting in Kaduna, the associations explained. They said, Nigeria like the governor said in this last infamous interview on a national television has been involved in other countries to ensure they have peaceful and credible elections. What is wrong to ensure Nigeria does same with other countries as observers. El-Rufais statement that those that are calling for anyone to intervene in Nigeria, we are waiting for the person to come and intervene. They would go back in body bags because nobody would come to Nigeria and tell us how to run our country is unfortunate, condemnable, a call to violence and veiled threat to all peace loving people. They called on the security agencies to ensure the protection of lives and property before, during and after the forthcoming elections. First Lady Aisha Buhari has called on the people of Adamawa State to vote for incumbent governor Mohammed Jibrila Bindow and other APC c... First Lady Aisha Buhari has called on the people of Adamawa State to vote for incumbent governor Mohammed Jibrila Bindow and other APC candidates in the 2019 general elections. Aishas brother, Dr. Halilu Modibbo, had contested for the partys governorship in the 2018 primaries, and Bindows emergence as the party candidates had angered the First Lady, making her call out the party leadership. However, at the Adamawa rally on Thursday, Aisha noted that politics should be played with maturity and tolerance for the future of our dear state. She also pleaded with the electorate to vote for her husband as he seeks reelection via the forthcoming presidential election scheduled for Saturday, 16 February, 2019. The First Lady who is the chairperson of APC Women and Youth Presidential Campaign Team, made the plea at a campaign rally in Yola. Hajiya Buhari, represented by a former Military Administrator of Lagos State, Brig. Gen. Mohammed Buba Marwa (retd); and chairman of the Central Working Committee (APC Women and Youth Presidential Campaign Team), urged the people to vote the APC at all levels in the coming elections for their benefits. A copy of her speech read on her behalf by Marwa was obtained by journalists in Abuja on Friday. Put aside your differences and grievances to support the party and our governorship candidate, Mohammed Jibrila Bindow, as well as other APC contestants to clinch the state, she pleaded. The All Progressive Congress (APC) in Akwa Ibom State has called for the redeployment of the state Resident Electoral Commissioner, REC,... The All Progressive Congress (APC) in Akwa Ibom State has called for the redeployment of the state Resident Electoral Commissioner, REC, Mike Igini over alleged partisanship in the election. In the statement that was signed by Ini Okopido and Augustine Ekanem, the chairman and secretary of the party in the state respectively dated February 4, 2019, it expressed lack of confidence in the REC in the upcoming election. The APC claimed that the REC was working with the state governor Udom Emmanuel to manipulate the election in favour of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state. In addition, Mr Igini has colluded with the PDP in the state to ensure that all the ad hoc officials and staff so far recruited for the elections are PDP members or supporters, the party claimed. Reacting to claims by political parties in a TV programme on Thursday, Mr Igini assured that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was committed to delivering a free, fair and credible election. He advised all political parties to be actively involved in election collation by setting up their Situation Rooms. Lord Walter Rothschild, founder of the Museum at Tring, was the first to describe the species after naturalist Albert Stuart Meek provided him with a specimen he collected on a trip to Papua New Guinea in 1906. Queen Alexandra's birdwing, Ornithoptera alexandrae, is the world's largest known butterfly species, with an adult female wingspan reaching up to 28 centimetres across the hind wings. The display is part of the celebrations of Lord Rothschild's 151st birthday and can be found in the Rothschild Room until December 2019. Listen to Museum butterfly curator Dr Blanca Huertas talk about this birdwing butterfly and other special specimens on BBC Radio 4's Natural Histories. France is recalling its ambassador to Italy over so-called "outrageous" attacks on the French government by Italy's leaders, further weakening a European Union struggling with Brexit and other divisions. France's Foreign Ministry said its ambassador to Rome is being brought back for "consultations," after what it said were "repeated and baseless attacks and outrageous statements" by the Italian government, which it suggested were aimed at winning votes in May's European parliament elections. Italy's Deputy Prime Minister Luigi di Maio met Wednesday with French yellow vest protesters -- and after mounting tensions between Rome and Paris over issues ranging from immigration to the Libyan crisis. France's European affairs minister, Nathalie Loiseau, later tried to dial down tensions. In remarks carried on French radio, she called for restarting political dialogue. While Paris and Rome do not share the same political choices, she said, both governments must focus on domestic issues their citizens care about. Italian leaders have directed sharp criticism against French President Emmanuel Macron and his government in recent months. Di Maio has accused France of continuing to colonize Africa and of fueling the migrant crisis. Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini described Macron as a terrible president and said he hoped French voters would turn against him. France and Italy also are competing for influence in trying to solve the Libyan crisis. Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call(WASHINGTON) -- White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said in an interview that aired Friday on CNN that a woman assaulted her while she was at a Maryland restaurant celebrating her middle school-aged daughter's birthday. The incident happened last October at an Uncle Julio's Mexican restaurant in Bethesda, Maryland. The woman, identified by police as 63-year-old Mary Elizabeth Inabinett, is scheduled to appear in court in late March, according to a police report obtained by ABC News. She was charged with assault in the second degree and disorderly conduct in late November. Conway described being grabbed by the shoulders and shaken. She said she turned around, expecting to see a friend but instead said she found the woman "screaming and making aggressive hand gestures toward her" that Conway said she thought were related to her political views, the police report said. At one point, Inabinett allegedly shouted "shame on you," according to the report. "Conway stated that the shaking lasted a few seconds but the suspect continued to yell and gesture at her for approximately 8-10 minutes before she was escorted from the restaurant," according to the police report. In a statement, Inabinett's lawyer, William Alden McDaniel Jr., denied his client assaulted Conway. "Ms. Inabinett saw Kellyanne Conway, a public figure, in a public place, and exercised her First Amendment right to express her personal opinions. She did not assault Ms. Conway. The facts at trial will show this to be true, and show Ms. Conways account to be false," McDaniel said in the statement. In the account from Conway on CNN Friday, she portrayed the Inabinett as "out of control." "Her whole face was terror and anger, Conway said. My daughter was right there, and she ought to pay for that, Conway said. She ought to pay for that because she has no right to touch anybody. Conway said she waited months to tell the story because she didnt want it to become a thing but hoped it can now become a teachable moment. She told the president, she said, and he reacted with concern for her and her daughter. Copyright 2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved Have an opinion on a recent story or event around the University of Cincinnati? Let us know what you think! If you're interested in submitting a Letter to the Editor, click the button below to email Anne Simendinger, editor-in-chief. For news tips or story ideas, contact one of our editors. Email the editor Get a briefing of all the latest stories from The News Record, delivered right to your inbox every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday. Tokyo Metropolitan Police have arrested two men who are accused of snatching a womanas purse last year. They later used cash found inside to cover a taxi fare, reports TV Asahi (Feb. 8). In November, Kenshiro Shirakawa and Akihiro Okada, both 27, worked together to allegedly snatch the purse a containing about 30,000 yen in cash a from the woman, then 33, as she returned home on a road in Chiyoda Ward. The woman attempted to hold on to her purse, causing her to suffer light injuries to her head, according to police. The suspects, who are childhood friends, were out drinking prior to the incident. aWhat do you think about snatching a purse?a Shirakawa reportedly asked Okada. After Okada agreed, Shirakawa advised, aYou had better buy gloves first.a The pair then used the money to take a taxi to Yokohama, police said. Upon Okadaas arrest in January, he admitted to the allegations. Shirakawa, who was arrested this week, also admits to the charges, police said. A cold snap hit Tokyo and its surrounding areas Saturday, causing cancellations of more than 100 domestic flights to and from the capital. The Meteorological Agency said up to 5 cm of snow was expected to fall in central Tokyo by 6 a.m. Sunday due to a cold air mass above a wide swath of the countryas east. Japan Airlines Co. and All Nippon Airways Co. canceled more than 100 flights Saturday into and out of Haneda and Narita airports servicing the capital. At Narita airport in Chiba Prefecture, the operator closed one runway to clear it of snow. Snowfall of up to 2 cm was observed in parts of Chiba. The temperature in central Tokyo registered half a degree Celsius below zero at 7 a.m. and snow fell for a few hours. But the snow turned into cold rain by early afternoon. Some major universities in Tokyo held entrance examinations on Saturday, but no major delays were reported. Universities had braced for train disruptions and other trouble with public transportation. Cold weather also continued to hit Hokkaido on Saturday, with the mercury dropping below minus 20 in many locations, including Rikubetsu, where the temperature was recorded at minus 31.8, according to the agency. A UN committee has urged the Japanese government to legally ban corporal punishment of children at home. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child assesses countries' human rights situations based on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The committee held a news conference in Geneva, Switzerland, on Thursday, releasing the results of its review of conditions in Japan. The committee said Japanese law does not completely prohibit corporal punishment of children at home. It added corporal punishment must be clearly and completely banned, however light a form it takes. A reporter sought committee opinions about a case in Japan involving a 10-year-old girl who died recently as a result of alleged abuse by her father. One of the committee members said the girl must have asked many adults for help but no one tried to protect her. The expert added the tragedy must never be repeated. More than 50 countries, mainly in Northern Europe and Africa, have laws that ban corporal punishment. A growing number of other nations are moving to introduce such legislation, including France. Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe says he's determined to settle the country's territorial issue with Russia and conclude a peace treaty. Abe was speaking in Tokyo at an annual national rally to demand the return of four Russian-held islands. Japan claims them. The event was held on Thursday, Northern Territories Day. A Japan-Russia treaty signed on February 7th, 1855, recognized the islands as belonging to Japan. Japan's government maintains that the islands are an inherent part of the country's territory. It says they were illegally occupied after World War Two. Abe said at the rally that although it's not easy to settle problems left unresolved more than 73 years after the end of the war, the issue must be resolved. He said he will strongly push for joint efforts with Russia so Japanese and Russian people can deepen mutual trust and find a solution acceptable to both. Abe said he'll continue negotiations on the basic principle of settling the territorial issue and concluding a peace treaty through such efforts. In the past, Abe used the expression "resolving the issue of the attribution of the four northern islands and concluding a peace treaty." But this year, he omitted the word "attribution." A statement of appeal adopted at the rally also did not contain the words "illegally occupied," which were included in past statements. The changes were apparently made in hopes of advancing bilateral negotiations amid recent moves in Russia against handing over the islands. ADDIS ABABA, Feb. 7 (Xinhua) -- China and African Union (AU) member countries have reiterated their joint commitment to strengthening cooperation in peace and security through the successful implementation of the China-Africa Peace and Security Initiative. African Ministers of Foreign Affairs held a high-level dialogue here late on Wednesday with Chen Xiaodong, Assistant Foreign Minister of China, and other Chinese officials late Wednesday on the implementation of the commitments made by African and Chinese leaders during the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) last September. The African foreign minister have gathered in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa as part of the 34th Ordinary Session of the Executive Council, which is underway from Feb. 7 to 8 at the headquarters of the AU. Chen, who is also the Chair of the Chinese Follow-up Committee of the FOCAC Summit, noted during the high-level gathering that Chinese and African leaders, during the "successful" FOCAC Beijing Summit last September, have agreed to jointly build a closer China-Africa community with a shared future. Chinese President Xi Jinping, at the Beijing FOCAC Summit, had announced a host of new measures to strengthen China-Africa peace and security cooperation, and reached important consensus with African leaders on launching the peace and security initiative, Chen said. Noting 2019 as the first year of implementation regarding the major outcomes of the Beijing Summit, Chen said that the visit of China's State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi to several African countries and the AU headquarters last month had brought "important common understanding with African leaders on furthering China-Africa cooperation in the field of peace and security." "China hopes that the dialogue will create synergy in thinking and action between the two sides, put forward suggestions on how to implement the peace and security initiative, and build momentum for China-Africa peace and security cooperation," Chen said. The assistant foreign minister also stressed that "although the situation is improving, risks and challenges facing Africa's peace and security cannot be overlooked." "Over the years, China has fulfilled its responsibilities as a permanent member of the UN Security Council. Guided by the principles enunciated by President Xi Jinping for China-Africa relations, namely, sincerity, real results, amity and good faith and pursuing the greater good and shared interests, China has played a positive role in Africa's peace and security affairs," he said. Chen also stressed China's four major principles in its cooperation with African countries in the peace and security sector through "playing a fair, impartial and constructive role, helping Africa build up its own peacekeeping capacity, addressing the root causes as well as the symptoms, and pursuing cooperation for win-win results." "China's efforts to safeguard peace and stability in Africa remain unchanged," the assistant foreign minister affirmed, adding "China's actions to participate in the peace and security affairs in Africa remain unchanged." China and Africa enjoy ever greater common language, common aspirations and common interests as new opportunities and challenges emerge under new circumstances, Chen said. "There are new opportunities for us to step up cooperation on peace and security," he stressed. He also reiterated China's readiness "to work with Africa to explore new dimensions for dialogue on peace and security policy and establish a China-Africa peace and security forum." The high-level dialogue, co-hosted by the FOCAC Summit co-chairs China and Senegal in partnership with the AU Commission, was attended by foreign ministers and representatives from 23 African countries, including members of the AU Peace and Security Council and the five countries in the Sahel region. AU Commissioner for Political Affairs Minata Samate-Cessouma, who commended China's support to Africa's causes on the international stage, mainly at the UN Security Council, also affirmed Africa's common position concerning collaboration with China in the peace and security arena. "China has been actively supporting the work of the AU," Samate-Cessouma said. "Over the years, China has been actively supporting the AU's mediation role in various conflicts in Africa, including the conflict in Sudan and South Sudan as well as the parties within South Sudan," she said. "There are many important roles and examples made by China," Samate-Cessouma said, adding that "China has helped all sides to get back to the negotiating table." Senegal's Secretary-General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Mame Baba Cisse also said that "China has been contributing to the peace building and security in Africa." Baba Cisse further stressed that China "has become a natural partner for Africa" in maintaining peace and stability in the African continent as well as overall development sectors. Africa and China "have been engaged in win-win cooperation, and our partnership is based on sincerity, affinity, good-faith, and good results," he said. The two sides, who spoke positively of the outcomes of the dialogue, have also agreed that the high-level dialogue was an innovative step in strengthening peace and security cooperation between China and Africa. The high-level dialogue among other things aimed at deepening communication and discussion on Africa's peace and security situation, strengthening policy alignment in the sector, as well as building synergy between peace and security actions of China and Africa, and eventually realizes the commitments made by African and Chinese leaders. Renault said yesterday it would inform investigators that its former chief Carlos Ghosn, who is being held in Japan on allegations of financial misconduct, personally benefited from a corporate sponsorship deal. The latest allegations concern Ghosns lavish marriage at the Chateau de Versailles outside Paris in October 2016. According to a report in the Figaro newspaper, the operators of the palace waived the usual 50,000-euro ($57,000) fee for the reception at the 17th-century Grand Trianon complex as part of a sponsorship deal between Versailles and Renault. The firms internal audits identified that a contribution of 50,000 euros, under a sponsorship agreement signed with the Chateau de Versailles, was allocated to Mr. Ghosns personal benefit, Renault said in its statement. Ghosn threw an extravagant Marie Antoinette-themed wedding party at Versailles to celebrate his second marriage which featured actors in 18th-century clothing. Ghosns arrest in November in Japan and subsequent indictment on three charges has led to renewed scrutiny of his lifestyle and allegations from his Japanese partners that he was greedy. It has also exposed rifts between Nissan and French carmaker Renault which, together with Mitsubishi Motors, make up the worlds top-selling auto manufacturing group. The Japanese firms jettisoned Ghosn almost immediately but Renault waited much longer and the tycoon eventually resigned as chairman and CEO. In an interview with AFP last week, Ghosn said Nissans probe into his alleged misconduct was a trap, plot and a story of betrayal. Bahrain for All, All for Bahrain (BHR4All) team was honoured yesterday for its social responsibility activities during a three-day Cisco India & SAARC Partner Confluence 2019 (CIPC 2019) held at Sofitel Hotel, Zallaq. The conference which was held under the central theme Leading Together witnessed Cisco India and SAARCs leadership team network with some of its top partners to strengthen ties of their valued partnerships and pave the way for a brighter future. BHR4All team, which has the vision to promote the successes of the country and its people, showcased the abilities of some of the differently abled youths from Bahrain during the event. A poem My body is handicapped, but my soul is free written by Mansour Mirza Mahfouz, Arabic teacher at the Saudi Bahraini Institute for the blind was recited by 13-year-old Abdul Rahman. Following which, a team of boys from the Hidd Rehabilitation Centre for Special needs performed Ardha. BHR4All motivational speaker Ali Mohammed Moussa gave an inspiring speech about the differently abled community, who spoke on behalf of his friends. In a surprise move, Cisco announced two customised wheelchairs and an Apple Mac Desktop computer for Ali and his friend Fadhel. We are deeply honoured to have been invited by CISCO India and to be offered such an influential platform to showcase the abilities of Bahrains differently abled youth. The surprise with wheelchairs and a computer has left us speechless. These are very much appreciated and will be life changing for Ali and Fadhel, Nivedita Dhadphale, founder of BHR4All told Tribune. BHR4All, Nivedita said, is an opportunity to mobilise social groups in Bahrain to engage with one another, to showcase the culture and highlight strength of unity in diversity with a focus on inclusivity. BHR4All now works with over 40 communities in Bahrain which include social groups, NGOs, special centres, societies, womens groups and senior citizens. The three-day event witnessed the participation from some of Ciscos most senior leaders such as Nirav Sheth, Vice President Global Partner Organization, Sameer Garde, President for the India & SAARC theatre and B. Raghavendran, Managing Director, Partner Organization Cisco India and SAARC along with other senior executives. Foreign Affairs Minister yesterday pledged Bahrains full support to the Global Alliance Against Daesh calling for concerted efforts and intensified work among global nations to root out terrorism. Bahrain, Shaikh Khalid bin Ahmed bin Mohammed Al Khalifa said, is keen to play its full role as a founding member of the alliance towards categorical elimination of terrorist organisations. However, to uproot Daesh existence in Iraq and Syria and to reinstate stability, security and development in the liberated areas, the minister said, requires concerted efforts and intensified work. The minister was speaking during a Ministerial Meeting of the Global Coalition Against Daesh in Washington held in the presence of US President Donald J. Trump and senior officials from more than 70 countries around the world. The Global Coalition against ISIS was formed in September 2014 and has 79 members. Shaikh Khalid citing the significant successes and substantial progress the alliance has made across the world told the US President Donald and Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo that enhanced efforts are needed to dry up the financing sources of Daesh and other terrorist groups. In this regard, the minister stressed the need to eliminate all forms of terrorism in the region by countering the Iranian interference in the internal affairs of the countries and ending its support for terrorism, extremism and sectarianism, emphasising the need for reaching a just and comprehensive solution to the Palestinian cause. Saudi Arabia was represented at the meeting by a delegation led by Foreign Affairs Adel alJubeir. Speaking at the meeting, Al Jubeir said: My countrys government will continue its fight against terrorism and its sponsoring countries, and pledges to support all international and regional efforts to eliminate terrorist organizations and the activities of destabilizing states in the region. According to the coalition, it has taken back more than 99pc of the territory once held by ISIS, but the threat that ISIS poses to the region and the globe remains. President Donald Trump in his speech promised to stay focused on permanently destroying the Islamic State group but asked concerned allies to contribute more. He said he expects the Islamic State group to lose all remaining territory in Syria in a week as he pledged to stay focused on fighting the extremists. It should be formally announced sometime next week that we will have 100 per cent of the caliphate, he said. Trump said that the United States would remain very, very tough and encouraged efforts, including financial support, from other countries. Remnants -- thats all they have, remnants -- but remnants can be very dangerous, he said. Rest assured, well do what it takes to defeat every ounce and every last person within the ISIS madness and defend our people from radical Islamic terrorism, he said. Tactical change Opening the conference, Pompeo described Trumps troop pullout from Syria as a tactical change with extremists increasingly scattered around the world. It is not a change in the mission, Pompeo said, adding our fight will not necessarily always be military-led. We are entering an era of decentralized jihad so we must be nimble in our approach as well, he said. Hoping to avoid the worst outcomes, Pompeo asked US partners to step up intelligence-sharing and to make up a $350 million shortfall in a fund intended to bring stability to Iraq. Now is the time for all of us, not just America, to put our money where our mouth is, Pompeo said. Eyes on Turkey German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas voiced approval that Trump made clear that his troop withdrawal from Syria as well as from Afghanistan doesnt mean that the United States will no longer take on its leading role in the fight against ISIS. Now it is important that in the upcoming weeks that we talk about how this will be organized and who will take on which tasks, Maas told reporters. One key item under discussion is whether to set up a buffer zone along the Syrian border with Turkey. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, who were at the forefront of the battle that crushed the Islamic State, have warned that they may no longer be able to guard prisons housing jihadists from France, Britain and other foreign countries after the US withdrawal if Turkey attacks. The Daily News-Miner encourages residents to make themselves heard through the Opinion pages. 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Writers are limited to one letter every two weeks (14 days.) All letters must contain no more than 350 words and include a full name (no abbreviation), daytime and evening phone numbers and physical address. (If no phone, then provide a mailing address or email address.) The Daily News-Miner reserves the right to edit or reject letters without consulting the writer. We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on! Go to form Pockets of melted snow and rain form small pools of water in the the area of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge's coastal plain that the Bush administration wants open to oil exploration, Tuesday, June 19, 2001. U.S. Interior Secretary Gale Norton toured the coastal plain Tuesday, to view first hand area during her visit to ANWR. Fairbanks, AK (99707) Today Mainly sunny. High 84F. Winds ESE at 10 to 15 mph.. Tonight Partly cloudy during the evening followed by cloudy skies overnight. Low 58F. Winds SE at 10 to 15 mph. (Newser) After a relatively quiet day on the Virginia scandal front, two potentially big developments emerged Friday afternoon: The governor: Gov. Ralph Northam told his Cabinet that he will not resign over the controversy involving a blackface photo in his medical school yearbook, reports the AP. Northam has made no official announcement, and his decision to remain in office would fly in the face of calls from prominent members of his own party for him to step down. The AP story quotes an anonymous official in his administration. Gov. Ralph Northam told his Cabinet that he will not resign over the controversy involving a blackface photo in his medical school yearbook, reports the AP. Northam has made no official announcement, and his decision to remain in office would fly in the face of calls from prominent members of his own party for him to step down. The AP story quotes an anonymous official in his administration. Lieutenant governor: The Washington Post reports that a second woman has come forward to accuse Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax of sexual assault. Meredith Watson said Fairfax raped her in 2000 when they were students at Duke. Watson wants Fairfax to resign. "She has no interest in becoming a media personality or reliving the trauma that has greatly affected her life," says Watson's attorney. "Similarly, she is not seeking any financial damages. (Details on the first set of allegations against him are here. Fairfax denies them.) If both Northam and Fairfax were to resign, the next in line to become governor is Attorney General Mark Herring, but he has a blackface scandal of his own . (Read more Virginia stories.) (Newser) Fifteen years after 21-year-old Maura Murray disappeared following a car crash in rural New Hampshire, her father believes newly gathered information will lead to her remains, per the AP. The University of Massachusetts-Amherst nursing student left campus Feb. 9, 2004, and drove into New Hampshire without telling friends or family why. She had withdrawn about $300 from her bank account and made up a story about a family emergency to her teachers, reports CBS Boston. Murray crashed her car on a bend on Route 112, and a school bus driver stopped and later told police she was standing outside her vehicle. story continues below "She said she was shaken up," recalls bus driver Butch Atwood, per WMUR. "I couldn't see any blood on her face. I said, 'OK. I'm going to go call the police.'" When police arrived, they found Murray's locked car, but no sign of her. Now, her father, Fred Murray, says cadaver dogs and a radar scan have identified something underneath a basement floor near where his daughter was last seen. An associate attorney general said authorities are aware of the private search and considering next steps. He said the area was searched by law enforcement previously, including with dogs, and nothing of significance was discovered. I want to bring my daughter home and give her a proper burial, says Fred Murray. (Read more missing person stories.) (Newser) Jeff Bezos was made an offer he couldn't refuse and refused it, very publicly, on Thursday, by way of a Medium blog post that outlined National Enquirer parent company American Media Inc.'s (AMI) alleged attempt to blackmail him with sexual photos. AMI responded Friday morning with a statement picked up by CNN, saying it "believes fervently that it acted lawfully in the reporting of the story of Mr. Bezos. Further, at the time of the recent allegations made by Mr. Bezos, it was in good faith negotiations to resolve all matters with him. Nonetheless, in light of the nature of the allegations published by Mr. Bezos, the Board has convened and determined that it should promptly and thoroughly investigate the claims." CNN notes AMI CEO David Pecker is one of four board members. More: That statement syncs with one lawyer's take on how AMI might defend itself against allegations of extortion. LA-based attorney Robert Schwartz told Bloomberg the company could claim the emails were simply communications between lawyers who are seeking to resolve a dispute. "The Enquirer has a lot of lawyers and wouldn't do this kind of thing without first talking it through with them." story continues below And if that doesn't work? The National Enquirer could face some very real legal trouble because of its plea deal with federal prosecutors. The company, Pecker, and another exec got immunity in September in exchange for cooperating with the Michael Cohen investigation (background on that here). AMI agreed to not "commit any crimes subsequent to the date of the signing of this agreement" for a three-year period, reports Bloomberg. Violating thatand extortion would be a violationmeans it could be prosecuted for the charges it had been facing, among them perjury and obstruction. If AMI might be the loser in all this, then Medium is the winner, writes Casey Newton at the Verge. "Every office in Silicon Valley came to a screeching halt around 3PM PT on Thursday, when Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos published a blog post that we will be talking about for years to come. ... This was the best day on Medium of all time." But Newton has another takeaway, this one about nude photos, which "almost everyone has" at this point. Newton notes that sex columnist Dan Savage has suggested we'll eventually get to a tipping point where so many nudes have leaked that people don't tremble in fear at the idea. "Bezos' post feels like an important move in that regard ... his move helped to normalize the act of taking them and sharing them. Five years ago, if your nudes got leaked, the blame was generally on you; going forward, the blame is going to be on the jerks that stole them." In his post, Bezos wrote that Gavin de Becker has been given an unlimited budget to investigate how AMI got his photos, adding that de Becker's "expertise in this arena is excellent." So what is that expertise? The Washington Post opens the door on "an unremarkable warehouse outside Los Angeles," where hundreds of thousands of threatening letters have been filed by a firm led by de Becker, "arguably the worlds foremost expert on threatening messages. De Becker has charted a unique course by simultaneously offering celebrities quiet protection from the scariest elements of their fame, while also becoming ... [a] go-to source for predicting assassinations and other bloody attacks." The profile is fascinating. The Week looks at another figure in the AMI-Bezos feud, and it's a man who has connections to both sides. AMI's deputy general counsel is Jon Fine, and per the emails republished by Bezos, his emails included the terms of what AMI wanted from Bezos in exchange for keeping the photos under wraps. Fine has been with AMI since November; from 2006 to 2015, he worked for ... Bezos at Amazon. This is about much more than nude selfies, writes Josh Marshall at TPM. "The hyper-aggressive nature of AMIs actions here tells me theres something much bigger in play here." His piece outlines the ties between Bezos, the Washington Post, Saudi Arabia, Jamal Khashoggi, and President Trump. To wit, the Week notes that Washington Post reporter Manual Roig-Franzia was on MSNBC last night, and recounted a conversation he had with de Becker, in which de Becker said he didn't think Bezos' photos were obtained by hacking. De Becker "thinks it's possible that a government entity might have gotten hold of his text messages," said Roig-Franzia. Headline of the day: The New York Post and HuffPost went with identical ones: Bezos Exposes Pecker. Speaking of word choice, one of Bezos' is getting quite the once-over. He wrote that "even though The Post is a complexifier for me, I do not at all regret my investment." Twitter immediately pounced on "complexifier," wondering if it is even a word. Is it? Mashable writes that it exists in French but not English, though the word did begin showing up very infrequently in English language books in 1953. Slate speaks to that latter point, writing, "Complexifier, in fact, appears most at home in the canon of self-help business gobbledygook." (Read more Jeff Bezos stories.) (Newser) CNN has been working on a series about powerful DC women, and White House counsel Kellyanne Conway was the latest to sit before the mic. In the interview with Dana Bash that aired Friday, Conway made an unexpected claim: that back in October, she'd been assaulted at a Mexican restaurant in Maryland by an "aggressive" woman who apparently didn't like that Conway works for the Trump administration. Conway tells CNN that on the day in question, she was with her teen daughter and her daughter's friends at Uncle Julio's in Bethesda when a woman came up to her "screaming her head off," then gripped Conway's arms and shook her, "to the point where I thought maybe somebody was hugging me." Conway, who describes the suspect as "unhinged," with a face filled with "terror and anger," adds that the woman also grabbed her hands, per the Washington Post. story continues below Conway, who called 911, told police the shaking was short-lived, though the woman screamed at her for a good 10 minutes before leaving. "The suspect was yelling 'shame on you' and other comments believed to be about Conway's political views," a police corporal wrote in the charging document for 63-year-old Mary Elizabeth Inabinett, who was later charged in November with second-degree assault and disorderly conduct. Inabinett's attorney tells CNN his client "saw Kellyanne Conway, a public figure, in a public place, and exercised her First Amendment right to express her personal opinions. She did not assault Ms. Conway." Conway's take: "What's necessary is for people to understandin front of everybody but especially in front of 13- and 14-year-old girlsthat you need to control your temper ... You need to get over the damn 2016 election." Inabinett's trial is set for March. (Read more Kellyanne Conway stories.) (Newser) "I just hope we can all come together and be the quaint little fishing village we used to be," so says the mayor of Madeira Beach, Fla., in the wake of an odd political scandal that has become national news. City Commissioner Nancy Oakley tendered her resignation Tuesday, the day before the city commission censured her for publicly licking a former city manager's face, reports the Tampa Bay Times. The Florida Commission on Ethics determined that Oakley had violated the state's ethics rules after investigating a complaint filed by former City Manager Shane Crawford. The incident dates to a meeting held during a November 2012 fishing tournament in the town of 4,500; Oakley had admitted to drinking during the tournament. The details are a bit convoluted, but Oakley took issue with the presence of Crawford's executive assistant, Cheryl McGrady. story continues below McGrady had been tasked with taking the meeting's minutes. Oakley suspected she and Crawford were having an affair (they deny this; the two later married) and, using obscenities, demanded McGrady be removed from the meeting. Another city employee stepped in to take the minutes, the meeting occurred, and then Oakley approached Crawford and licked him from his Adam's apple up the side of his face. She then groped him and attempted to punch McGrady, who told her she was being inappropriate. Crawford filed the complaint in 2017 when Oakley decided to run for reelection. Oakley maintains the incident never occurred but says she resigned to "still the controversy." WFTS notes the sponsor of the 2012 fishing tourney alleged that his face had been licked by Oakley at other tournaments, and that she had done the same to volunteers. (Read more Florida stories.) (Newser) A long-term care facility in Arizona where an incapacitated woman was raped and later gave birth announced Thursday that it would shut down operations. Officials with Hacienda HealthCare said its board of directors determined that it's not sustainable to keep operating its intermediate care facility in Phoenix. It serves infants, children, and young adults with intellectual or developmental disabilities who require a high level of medical care, the AP reports. Hacienda officials said they were working with state agencies to develop a plan to move 37 patients to other centers. Its skilled nursing facility will stay open. State regulators called the decision "disturbing news" and not in the best interest of patients. story continues below "State agencies are exhausting all efforts to bring this to a conclusion that is beneficial to the patients, some of whom have been at this facility nearly their entire lives," the Arizona Department of Economic Security said in a statement. The state had ordered Hacienda to hire a third-party management team to oversee daily operations after an incapacitated woman who lived at the facility since age 3 gave birth on Dec. 29. But Hacienda and the outside party could not come to a long-term agreement. Authorities have charged Nathan Sutherland, a former licensed nurse, with sexually assaulting the 29-year-old victim. They determined his DNA matched a sample taken from the newborn boy. (A caregiver at a Florida facility is accused of impregnating a disabled patient.) (Newser) A Thai political party on Friday named a princess as its nominee to be the next prime minister, upending a tradition of the palace eschewing politics and upsetting all predictions about what might happen in next month's elections. The selection of Princess Ubolratana Mahidol by the Thai Raksa Chart Party marks a shock realignment of Thai politics by tying the king's eldest sister to the political machine of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, which hard-core royalists have long dismissed as opposed in spirit to the monarchy, per the AP. It pits her against the preferred candidate of the military, which is considered one of Thailand's most royalist institutions: Current Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, who led the 2014 coup that ousted Thailand's last elected government, on Friday accepted his selection as candidate to lead the next government by the Palang Pracharat Party. story continues below Because Thailand is a constitutional monarchy, the king and his immediate circle aren't supposed to involve themselves directly in politics. Ubolratana, 67, falls into a gray area, as she's called and treated as a princess, but her highest royal titles were taken away when she married American Peter Jensen more than 40 years ago, settled in the US, and had three children; only after a divorce did she move back to Thailand in 2001. Prayuth had been seen as the front-runner for the March 24 polls, but Ubolratana's de facto alliance with the forces of the exiled Thaksinwhose comeback the military has made every effort to blockputs Prayuth's supporters in an awkward position. Because she'll be seen as a representative of the monarchy, the nation's most revered institution, it will be difficult to block her political rise. "This is a game changer," says a University of Michigan political scientist. (Read more Thailand stories.) (Newser) Federal investigators looking to solve crimes can find a DNA match for a relative as close as a third cousin (connected by a great-great grandparent) to more than half of Americans by accessing genealogy databases. Yaniv Erlich, chief science officer at DNA testing company MyHeritage, came to that conclusion after analyzing more than 1.28 million DNA profiles, reports BuzzFeed. The FBI actually has access to 2.2 million profiles: 1.2 million from open-source site GEDmatch, and more than 1 million from Family Tree DNA, one of the largest private genetic testing firms. That connection was only revealed by BuzzFeed this week, though the company began allowing FBI access months ago. President Bennett Greenspan defended the decision, but apologized to customers "for not having handled our communication with you as we should have." story continues below "It comes into deep conflict with what consumer expectations are," John Verdi of the Future of Privacy Forum tells BuzzFeed. "[Customers] don't sign up for genetic testing to become subject to wide ranging FBI criminal searches." Though Ancestry.com, 23andMe, and MyHeritage only provide information to law enforcement with a warrant or subpoena, Erlich predicts it will be just a few years before the FBI can assess DNA profiles for 5% of the US population, or about 7 million people. At that point, he says the FBI could link almost every American of European descent to a second cousin. For now, Americans with mostly Northern European ancestry are 30% more likely than those with mostly sub-Saharan ancestry to be identified through third cousin, a finding attributed to the popularity of at-home test kits among whites. Knowable digs into the privacy concerns. (The suspected Golden State Killer was found through a distant cousin.) (Newser) Hours after Jeff Bezos accused the National Enquirer's parent company of blackmail, Ronan Farrow said American Media Inc. had done the same thing to him and at least one other journalist. Farrow tweeted Thursday night that after breaking stories on the Enquirer's "catch and kill" arrangement with President Trump, the journalists "fielded similar 'stop digging or we'll ruin you' blackmail efforts from AMI." Farrow reported on the arrangement for the New Yorker last year, Mediaite reports. In his tweet, he said he didn't engage with the blackmail attempt because he doesn't "cut deals with subjects of ongoing reporting." story continues below In response to Farrow's tweet, former Associated Press editor Ted Bridis said his agency had been "warned explicitly by insiders" that AMI had hired private investigators to dig up dirt on AP journalists looking into the Enquirer's efforts to assist Trump, the Washington Post reports. "Never saw evidence of this either way, and it didn't stop our reporting," he said. AMI chief executive David Pecker is a longtime friend of Trump's. In another tweet Thursday night, Farrow said it was "worth returning" to his New Yorker story from Nov. 2017, "breaking the news that the same Enquirer editor Bezos dealt with was also behind a secret collaboration with Harvey Weinstein to dig up dirt on accusers." (In December, AMI admitted paying "hush money" to suppress a Trump story.) (Newser) Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman spoke of killing Jamal Khashoggi a year before the journalist was murdered inside the kingdom's Istanbul consulate, reports the New York Times, citing "current and former American and foreign officials with direct knowledge of intelligence reports." The sources say that in a conversation intercepted by US intelligence agencies, the crown prince said he would go after Khashoggi "with a bullet" if he didn't stop criticizing the kingdom. Intelligence analystswho are now going through years of intercepted communications from the crown prince, according to the sourcesbelieve the prince meant he wanted to kill Khashoggi, but not that he would actually shoot him. story continues below The conversation with aide Turki Aldakhil happened in Sept. 2017, the sources say, as the prince was consolidating power and days before Khashoggi writing about Saudi Arabia in the Washington Post. Asked about the conversation, Aldakhil said: "These allegations are categorically false. They appear to be a continuation of various efforts by different parties to connect His Royal Highness Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to this horrific crime. These efforts will prove futile." Voice of America reports that Agnes Callamard, the United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, said Thursday that Saudi Arabia undermined Turkey's investigation of the "brutal and premeditated killing," which she said was carried out by Saudi officials. (The CIA says the prince sent 11 messages with suspicious timing.) (Newser) A caregiver at a Florida facility for people with disabilities has been accused of impregnating a resident who gave birth in 2015, the AP reports. Authorities say 58-year-old Willie Shorter was arrested Wednesday on charges of lewd and lascivious battery on a disabled person. An arrest affidavit says Shorter helped care for adult clients at a facility in Rockledge. Staff members in 2015 discovered the female client was pregnant. Police say in the affidavit that the woman has the mental capacity of a small child. The baby was born a few months later and adopted by the woman's family. story continues below Authorities say Shorter had previously denied having sexual contact with the woman and voluntarily submitted a DNA sample last year. Investigators say Shorter's sample came back a match with the child, prompting Wednesday's arrest. It's unclear whether he has an attorney who could comment. (A horrifyingly similar case is playing out in Phoenix.) (Newser) Wear sunscreen, sure, but not just any kindespecially when you're in the Florida Keys. Key West lawmakers voted 6-1 Tuesday to ban the sale of sunscreens with oxybenzone and octinoxate, the New York Times reports. Studies have shown that the chemicals are damaging to coral reefs. "Our coral has been under attack by a number of stressors," Mayor Teri Johnston said. "We just thought if there was one thing we could do, to take one of the stressors away, it was our responsibility to do so." The ban will take effect in 2021. The environment and tourism, the mayor said, rely on a healthy reef. Sunscreens with and without oxybenzone and octinoxate, which help protect the skin from UV radiation, are sold now, per the Washington Post. But research has shown that skin care products with those chemicals can wash off in the water, eventually hurting the reefs. story continues below While Hawaii and the nation of Palau, in the Western Pacific, have enacted similar measures, there are arguments against the movement. An article in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology last summer called for more research. Some dermatologists warn that the bans could increase skin cancer rates, and sunscreen manufacturers don't agree that their products damage reefs. In the meantime, Hawaii has compiled a list of sunscreens considered safe for reefs. And the National Park Service recommends using products with titanium oxide or zinc oxide instead of oxybenzone and octinoxate. (Are we overdoing it on sunscreen?) He Went to China to Play Basketball. He Was Locked in a Room for 8 Months We have been given the go ahead to launch the next phase of our expansion drive. We intend to launch the new line by mid-year once we finalise a half a million dollar loan with our financiers. We want to purchase a safety shoe injection machine and a direct injection machine which will be the first of its kind in the country, he said. What's Included With a Digital Only subscription, you'll receive unlimited access to our website and e-edition. Our digital products are available 24/7 and are accessible anywhere, anytime. If you have any questions or need further assistance, please call our customer service team at 574-583-5121 or email cgrace@thehj.com. Champaign, IL (61820) Today Becoming partly cloudy after some morning rain. High around 80F. Winds S at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 80%.. Tonight A few passing clouds. Low 63F. Winds S at 10 to 20 mph. Support local journalism Now, more than ever, the world needs trustworthy reportingbut good journalism isnt free. Please support us by making a contribution. NLM has been asked to announce the following summer program. No Longer I Who Live, But Christ In Me St Thomass Commentary on the Epistle of St Paul to the Galatians Albert the Great Summer Program 2019 USA August 12 16, in Wausau, Wisconsin St Marys Oratory, Wausau (location of daily Mass). Jefferson Street Inn Downtown Wausau by the Inn Dells of the Eau Claire Park (about 30 mins. from Wausau) The Albert the Great Center, which has held summer programs in Norcia, Italy, for several years, is expanding its offerings by holding a summer theology program in the USA for the first time, in collaboration with The Aquinas Institute for the Study of Sacred Doctrine . The primary focus of this week-long intensive course will be St Pauls Epistle to the Galatians, supported by St Thomas Aquinas superb commentary on the same.According to St Thomas, Galatians is about the grace of Christ as it exists in his Mystical Body, which is the Church, and in particular, as it exists in the sacraments of Church, for in the letter ... superfluous sacraments are rejected against certain men who wanted to join the old sacraments to the new ones. Galatians and the commentary on it bring forward important considerations on the unchangeableness of sacred doctrine (even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a Gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be anathema), on the mystical identification of the Christian with Christ, on the setting-aside of the Old Covenant in consequence of its messianic fulfillment, and on the confrontation of Church hierarchs by their subjects -- all topics under considerable discussion in our day.In accord with the methodology of the Albert the Great Center, the daily academic schedule will include two seminars and a lecture. The seminars focus on a reading of the texts, the aim of which is to arrive at a deeper knowledge of truth through collaborative work. The lectures provide an opportunity for certain topics that arise out of the reading to be explored in greater depth. One of the highlights of the course is the formal scholastic disputation to be held on Thursday, August 15, in honor of the solemn feast of Our Lady's Assumption.Faculty members leading the course include Dr John Joy , the President of the Albert the Great Center for Scholastic Studies, and Dr Alan Fimister , Assistant Professor of Theology and Church History at St John Vianney Seminary in Denver.In addition to the academic program, there will also be ample opportunity to participate in the rich liturgical life of St Marys Oratory with the canons of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest. Daily Mass and prayers of the Divine Office will be available in the(Extraordinary Form) of the Roman Rite, as well as the sacrament of confession, for our aim is not merely to study the sacred Scriptures but to contemplate the mysteries of the faith. Taking St Thomas as our model both in study and in prayer, our studies draw their life from the sacred liturgy of the Church.The 2019 USA Session is open to all applicants 18 years and older. The application process includes the completion of an online application form and the submission of a letter of recommendation. Deadline for applications is May 1, 2019.The course will be held at St Marys Oratory, in Wausau, Wisconsin. Wausau is a city of about 40,000 people on the Wisconsin River in central Wisconsin. It is about 2 hrs by car from Green Bay; 2 hrs from Madison; 2.5 hrs from La Crosse; 3 hrs from Milwaukee; and 3 hrs from Minneapolis (MSP), a major airport with many connections.Program fees are scaled as follows:Tuition only (for commuters): $250.Tuition plus accommodations in a shared double hotel room: $500.Tuition plus accommodations in a private single hotel room: $750.We have reserved rooms at the Jefferson Street Inn in downtown Wausau. It is a 3 minute drive or an 11 minute walk from the inn to St. Mary's Oratory. If choosing to stay at the inn, please arrange it with us rather than booking directly with the hotel, so as to avoid unnecessary confusion.Payment can be made by check or credit card. $250 deposit due upon acceptance of application. Remainder (if applicable) due by June 1.Lunch will be provided each day on site for all participants. Breakfast will be available at the hotel for those staying there. For dinner, guests are welcome to make their own plans. There is a restaurant in the hotel as well as many other local eating places close by. If you have any special needs or requests, please contact us directly.Each participant will receive a beautifully bound hardcover volume of St Thomas(list price $47.95), courtesy of The Aquinas Institute for the Study of Sacred Doctrine.The Saint Albert the Great Center for Scholastic Studies is not a degree granting institution, but we can provide documentation verifying 20 hours of coursework for those who need it. The Diocese of Madison, Wisconsin, has already agreed to accept this course as credit toward catechetical certification through the Seat of Wisdom Diocesan Institute . If you are from another diocese and would be interested in a similar arrangement, please let us know.Complete the online application form and then upload a letter of recommendation. Once accepted, you will be asked for a $250 deposit to confirm your place on the course.Questions? Please contact us directly! By PTI COLOMBO: Sri Lanka's Opposition leader Mahinda Rajapaksa is will India during which he will address a forum on the future ties between the two nations, his office said on Friday. This will be Rajapaksa's first overseas tour since being appointed as the Leader of the Opposition last month. He will leave for India on Friday, his office said. Rajapaksa is scheduled to attend a forum, organised by "The Hindu daily" on February 9-10 in Bangalore. He has been invited to make the inaugural speech at this forum. His address will mainly focus on the pathway of future ties between India and Sri Lanka. The key note address of the second day of this forum will be made by Vice President Venkaiah Naidu. Mahinda Rajapaksa will also be meeting with dignitaries on the sidelines of the conference. His will be his second visit to India within 6 months. In September, he visited New Delhi and met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Rajapaksa was controversially appointed the prime minister by President Maithripala Sirisena late October, triggering an unprecedented constitutional crisis which lasted for over 50 days. The Supreme Court later restored of Ranil Wickremesinghe as prime minister. Earlier, Rajapaksa was Sri Lanka's president for 10 years. By AFP JOHANNESBURG: South African rescuers said on Friday that they had been forced to halt an operation to rescue about 20 people trapped in a disused mine, blaming disruption from workers who had not been paid. Six people died after trespassing into the Gloria coal mine near the town of Middelburg in the eastern province of Mpumalanga, police told AFP, updating the earlier death toll of five. The group went underground between Sunday and Wednesday to allegedly steal copper cables in the mine, which had been closed for several months. "We have been prevented from continuing with the recovery operations by a disgruntled group of people who have not been paid their salaries," Mike Elliot, who represents the administrators of the mine, told local media."They refuse to allow us to continue with the recovery operations and that includes repairing the power to the mine, restoring the power to the fans so that we can put fresh air underground," he added. He said some locals had attempted their own rescue operations. Police say that there was a gas explosion in the disused shaft on Monday. By PTI HOUSTON: A US court has ruled that the Indian-American foster parents of Sherin Mathews, accused in the death of their 3-year-old special needs daughter, will face separate trials, according to a media report. Sherin, who was adopted by Wesley Mathews and Sini Mathews in 2016, was found dead in a culvert near the family's home in Richardson, Texas, on October 22, 2017, two weeks after her family reported her missing. Wesley initially told the police that his daughter had gone missing from outside the house. He had made her stand outside the house at 3 am as punishment for not finishing her milk. Sherin was missing when he went back for her, Wesley had contended. He changed his story later and told investigators that Sherin died after choking on milk. He admitted to putting her body in the culvert near their home in Richardson in suburban Dallas. There will be separate trials for the parents accused in the death of Sherin, Fox4News.com reported, quoting a ruling by the Dallas County Court on February 4. ALSO READ | Sherin Mathews' foster parents give up custody fight for biological daughter Sini, who was 35 at the time of her arrest, is charged with child abonnement after allegedly leaving Sherin home alone on the night of her death. She faces a sentence that ranges from two to 20 years in prison with a fine of up to USD 10,000. Her husband, Wesley, 38, at the time of his arrest, is accused of killing the Indian girl, who was adopted from an orphanage in Bihar. Wesley charged with felony injury to a child, which carries a sentence of up to life in prison. Wesley's trial is now set for April 5 while Sini's trial has been moved up to March 15, the report said. The Dallas County Medical Examiner's Office which released Sherin' autopsy report listed the cause of death as homicide and the manner as homicidal violence. Defense attorneys for Wesley wanted both parents tried together. ALSO READ | Sherin Mathews death: Indian government suspends US adoption agency for 'negligence' in assessing parents But Sini's attorneys convinced the judge that they should be tried separately, the report said. Both Wesley and Sini are currently lodged in the Dallas County jail. Their four-year-old biological daughter is staying with relatives in Houston. Last month, the court denied Sini's plea to further slash her bail amount from USD 100,000 to USD 2,500. Initially, her bond was set at USD 250,000. Her legal team requested the USD 100,000 bond amount to be lowered to USD 2,500, the amount typically recommended for someone without a criminal record who is charged with child abandonment. Wesley' bail was also lowered from USD 1 million to USD 500,000 for the capital murder charge, from USD 250,000 to USD 100,000 for tampering with physical evidence, and from USD 1 million to USD 500,000 for injury to a child with serious bodily injury. The story of Sherin's whereabouts and her tragic death in 2017 made headlines worldwide. By PTI ISLAMABAD: Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Friday said Pakistan would provide all the evidence of "sabotage activities" by former Indian naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on February 19. Jadhav, 48, was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court on spying charges in April 2017. India moved the ICJ in May the same year against the verdict. The world court has halted Jadhav's execution on India's appeal pending the final verdict by it. Both India and Pakistan have already submitted their detailed pleas and responses in the world court and it has decided to hold hearings in the Jadhav case from February 18-21, 2019. India denies all the charges and maintains that Jadhav was kidnapped from Iran where he had business interests after retiring from the Navy and that he has no links with the government. In its written pleadings, India had accused Pakistan of violating the Vienna Convention by not giving consular access to Jadhav. In response, Pakistan through its counter-memorial told the ICJ that the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations 1963 applied only to legitimate visitors and did not cover clandestine operations. India has been maintaining that the trial of Jadhav by a military court in Pakistan was "farcical". Qureshi, who is on a visit to the UK, said that Pakistan has all the evidence against Jadhav. "Pakistan has all the evidence against Jadhav of sabotage activities inside Pakistan. Jadhav has admitted to being involved in such activities. Pakistan's legal team will present its stance in the case at The Hague on the 19th of this month, the Geo News quoted Qureshi as saying at a reception in Manchester. "Pakistan's legal team will present its stance in the case that the Indian spy has already confessed of being involved in terrorist activities carried out in Pakistan," another paper, the Express Tribune quoted him as saying. Pakistan says its security forces arrested Jadhav from Balochistan province in March 2016 after he reportedly entered the country from Iran. In its submission to the ICJ, Pakistan had stated that Jadhav is not an ordinary person as he had entered the country with the intent of spying and carrying out sabotage activities. By AFP SEOUL: The second summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has raised hopes for the longest ceasefire in history to be replaced by a peace treaty. Seoul and Pyongyang remain technically at war after the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice. Stephen Biegun, the US special envoy for North Korea, said last week that Trump was "ready to end this war", fuelling speculation that the formal end of the conflict may be near, with Trump and Kim meeting in Vietnam this month. But analysts say a full peace treaty poses many complications, and will need extensive negotiations. What is the current situation? The 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice rather than a peace treaty, leaving the two neighbours technically still in a state of conflict. The signatories to the armistice included the US-led United Nations Command, which fought alongside the South's troops, as well as China and North Korea. ALSO READ: Sign truce ending Korean war, Moon Jae-in urges US Declaring an end to the war was one of the agreements at the first summit between Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in last year, but little progress has been made, with the US and the North at loggerheads over Pyongyang's nuclear arsenal. In his New Year's speech, Kim called for "multi-party negotiations for replacing the current ceasefire... with a peace mechanism in close contact with the signatories to the armistice agreement". Who wants a peace treaty, and why? For Pyongyang, a peace treaty is vital to regime survival as it will mean "North Korea and the US are no longer enemies", said Koo Kab-woo, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul. South Korea's dovish Moon -- with a slogan of creating a peninsula "free of war" -- is also a supporter. But Washington has been wary as the treaty could bring into question the justification for its military alliance with Seoul and the 28,500 US troops stationed in South Korea. ALSO READ: US identifies two sets of Korean War remains, says James Mattis "The US fears abrupt changes to the regional order will impact its own interests, which won't be good as China flexes its muscles," Koh Yu-hwan, a professor of North Korean studies at Dongguk University. A peace treaty would be welcome news for Beijing as it seeks a "reduction of the US role" on the peninsula, Koh added. Can it happen at the Vietnam summit? The possibility is very low, given the complexity of the issue. Koo of the University of North Korean Studies says the deal would require "so many world-changing issues", from amending the constitutions of the two Koreas and re-addressing the role of the US troops. Kim Dong-yub, an analyst at the Seoul-based Institute for Far Eastern Studies, added that negotiations for such a treaty may need more than three years. The more likely scenario is for the concerned parties -- North and South Korea, the US, and China -- to declare a formal end to the war as a political statement. "This will pave the way for a peace treaty," said Go Myong-hyun, an analyst at the Seoul-based Asan Institute of Policy Studies. The South China Morning Post reported that Chinese President Xi Jinping will be in Danang -- a potential venue of the Trump-Kim summit -- for meetings with the American president. What would be the impact? Analysts offer differing outlooks but all agree on one aspect: an end to the war will undoubtedly trigger debate about the US troops in South Korea. Chinese forces that fought alongside the North Koreans in the Korean War pulled out of the peninsula in 1956, and with an official end to the conflict, Washington may struggle to justify its military presence in the South. But a peace treaty would also place increased pressure on North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons programme -- which the regime has repeatedly claimed was developed to defend against the United States. "An end-of-war declaration is verbally ending hostile relations," Koh said. "And a peace treaty will finalise it in a legally binding manner." By Express News Service HYDERABAD: Thirty hours after a 17-year-old girl was hacked with a sickle multiple times by her stalker, her condition remains critical. A team of specialist doctors at Yashoda Hospital operated upon her on Thursday, but said she was likely to develop infections as the weapon with which she was attacked was rusted. We are constantly monitoring her to make sure infections are prevented, a doctor said. C Bharath, 19, who hacked the girl 17 times for having spurned his advances, was arrested and produced before a local court, which remanded him for 14 days.Her blood pressure was not recordable when she was admitted (Wednesday morning). But it has improved a little, said Dr Srinivas while addressing a press conference on Thursday afternoon. A piece of her skull broke in the attack and is now embedded in her brain. To know the extent of injuries, MRI, CT cerebral angiography tests were performed. Dr S Naresh told reporters she has not gained consciousness and her medical condition continues to be critical. Her family has expressed concerns over the quality of life she will have even if she manages to survive the gruesome attack. She will not be able to lead a normal life, said Laxmi Narayana, the girls grandfather. Bharath concealed the sickle in his sweater and waited for at least 45 minutes for her to step out of her home to attack her. The weapon was stolen two days back, so the attack was premeditated, the police said. T Muruganandham By Express News Service CHENNAI: Vacating its stay on the direction given in March last by Delhi HC to consider allocating a common symbol, preferably the pressure cooker, the Supreme Court on Thursday directed that if the Delhi HC takes over four weeks time to dispose two leaves symbol case, the ECI should allocate pressure cooker symbol to TTV Dhinakaran within two weeks thereof. The SC said in case the notification for by-elections to the vacant Assembly constituencies and the Lok Sabha elections are notified within this period, the pressure cooker symbol should be given within a week from the date of notification of elections. If the writ petition (two leaves symbol case) is not finally disposed of by the Division Bench of the High Court within four weeks from today, the ECI shall process the application of TTV Dhinakaran in terms of the directions given by the HC vide interim order dated March 9 , 2018, and issue appropriate directions within two weeks therefrom (i.e. four weeks plus two weeks, from today),said justices A M Khanwilkar and Ajay Rastogi. In the event, before the expiry of the stated period, the EC intends to notify by-elections or Lok Sabha elections, it shall pass appropriate directions in compliance with the interim order of the Delhi HC, within a week from the date of notification of elections, before the date notified for filing of the nominations, whichever is earlier, the bench said. In Chennai, AMMK deputy general secretary TTV Dhinakaran told reporters that the SC directive was not a setback to the party as being reported in a section of the media. Symbol is of secondary importance. If people decide to vote for someone, they would vote for the person, whatever be his symbol. That has been proved in RK Nagar. Earlier, I contested with hat symbol. Later, I got pressure cooker. But the people voted only for pressure cooker. Definitely, ECI will give us pressure cooker symbol as it is the SCs order. The Delhi HCs order was passed on an application by Dhinakaran in his main petition challenging an EC order of November 23, 2017, allotting two leaves symbol to the group headed by Palaniswami and O Panneerselvam who opposed the grant of any relief in the matter. The interim plea by Dhinakaran sought the allocation of a name and symbol till the pendency of the main petition, claiming that otherwise the EC might declare it as a separate party. By Express News Service TIRUPUR/CHENNAI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to visit Tirupur on Sunday (February 10) to inaugurate a slew of government schemes, including laying the foundation for ESIC hospital in the city. He will also launch work on Pamban Railway Bridge Project and inaugurate the last leg of the Chennai Metro Rails phase-I at the capital city via video conference. CM Edappadi K Palaniswami is set to join the PM for the event at Perumanallur, said Collector K S Palanisamy. While the BJP has planned a massive public rally at Perumanallur on Sunday, Chief Minister Palaniswamis agenda for the day in Tirupur has not been finalised. Rumours are rife that a separate discussion on an the alliance between AIADMK and BJP for the Lok Sabha elections is likely to happen on the sidelines. This could not be independently verified. Two separate stages are being built at the same venue, one for the government event and the other for BJPs political campaign. Both events are slated to end at 6.30 pm. However, the days agenda has not been finalised yet. While the Collector is yet to receive a formal communication on the Chief Ministers itinerary, the Collector is likely to attend a meeting in Chennai on Friday to discuss the details. Also, the day-time Tejas Express between Chennai and Madurai will be flagged off digitally, confirmed Department of Information and Public Relations, Tirupur. BJP sources in Tirupur said that the Prime Minister was expected to launch government schemes worth Rs 40,000 crore via video conference on Sunday. Partymen too were yet to receive the final schedule for the two events.Meanwhile, trial runs on the last stretch of the Chennai Metro Rails Phase I have been in full swing since Tuesday. By Express News Service CHENNAI: Loads of welfare measures -- targeting especially farmers among other communities -- are expected in the State Budget for 2019-20, which will be presented by Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam on Friday. With Lok Sabha elections around the corner, expectations are high among various sections and sectors. The government is likely to make special announcements for farmers affected by Cyclone Gaja and agrarian families facing a drought-like situation in several parts of the State. Minister and senior AIADMK leader D Jayakumar, however, claimed that the Budget would protect the interests of every section of the society. It will reflect the pulse of the people. Ahead of the Budget session, Opposition party DMK has accused the government of pushing the State into a perilous financial condition. However, government sources say that despite a hike in the revenue expenditure, the deficit ratio has been contained at the same level as the previous year. Further, the hike in GST collections will help the government stabilise its finances. Despite the government rolling out several welfare measures, the Debt to GSDP ratio in the State is well below the stipulated norm of 25 per cent. Besides, the government is also taking measures to garner additional financial resources, the sources said. DMK to boycott session? The DMK, Congress and IUML are likely to boycott the Budget presentation by Panneerselvam. The opposition parties are likely to rake up several issues in the Budget Session -- the Kodanad robbery controversy, drought-like situation in many districts, Centres apathy in extending sufficient funds for cyclone victims and Mekedatu and Mullaiperiyar issues. Since Lok Sabha elections are to be notified within a few weeks, a detailed budget session to discuss the demands for grants for various departments is likely to be held in June after the process for polls are over. The Assemblys business advisory committee will decide the exact duration of current session. By PTI CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu was yet to receive its share of integrated GST to the tune of Rs 5,454 crore from the Centre despite being among the best performing states in implementation of the new tax regime, Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam Friday said. Presenting the budget for 2019-20 in the assembly, he said the delay in release the dues was impinging on the state's finances. He said Tamil Nadu was one of the best performing states in implementing the GST and has achieved good growth in GST revenues. "However, the state is yet to receive its due share of IGST to the tune of Rs 5,454 crore as well as the assured GST compensation of Rs 455.16 crore for 2017-18," he said. The introduction of the Goods Service and Tax has taken away the limited taxation powers of the state governments thereby curtailing their tax mobilisation capacity, Panneerselvam said. "The consistent downgrading of tax rates, lack of full operability in the filing of tax returns on GST network and the undue delay in devolving the due share of states in IGST collection and the assured GST compensation, are reducing the tax resources of the states, particularly Tamil Nadu", he said. He said the revenue deficit for 2019-20 was expected to be Rs 14,314.76 crore while the total revenue receipts have been projected to be Rs 1,97,721.17 crore. The increased pressure on revenue deficit was due to the multiple factors including debt of TANGEDCO (Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation) by the government to an extent of Rs 22,815 crore, implementation of 7th Pay Commission recommendations among others. The fiscal deficit as per the budget estimates of 2019-20 was expected to be at Rs 44,176.36 crore. On collection of state's own tax revenue, Panneerselvam said, it was projected under the revised estimate for 2018-19 at Rs 1,10,178.43 crore and expected to increase to Rs 1,24,813.06 crore in the budget estimates for 2019-20. Some of the major components of the State's Own Tax Revenue include the growth in GST as well as non-GST like sales tax from petroleum products and sale of liquor. "The receipts from the commercial taxes are estimated to be Rs 96,177.14 crore in budget estimates of 2019-20", he said. On the net borrowings during 2018-19, Panneerselvam said, Tamil Nadu adopted a conservative approach and raised only Rs 44,066.82 crore as against the permitted limit of Rs 47,350 crore to restrict the outstanding debt. For 2019-20, it was estimated that Rs 43,000 crore would be raised as against the permissible borrowing of Rs 51,800 crore, he said. "The net outstanding debt by March 31, 2020 will be Rs 3,97,495.96 crore and the debt to GSDP ratio will be 23.02 per cent well within the debt-GSDP norm of 25 per cent", he said. On the capital expenditure allocated to create infrastructure, he said, "Rs 31,251.21 crore has been provided in the budget estimate for 2019-20 as against Rs 26,191.98 crore in the revised estimates of 2018-19". K Shiva Kumar By Express News Service MYSURU: The recent case of elephant poaching by a gang in the Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary has put forest officials on high alert. The highly decomposed body of an elephant was found recently and officials said poachers might have killed the jumbo 15-20 days ago.The authorities who had set up anti-poaching camps in the forest with wireless sets and stepped up patrolling to check forest fires, have now started investigating the case. Sources said authorities in both Karnataka and Tamil Nadu have started cornering habitual and professional poachers.Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary officials have filed a police complaint so that the cops can also take up an investigation and check call details of the suspects as the carcass found in Kothanur range did not leave much evidence for them. Ruling out the involvement of small players in the crime, the officials are certain that it is done by professionals as they have used chemicals. The terrain where the crime was carried out and the was the tusks were hacked out have proved that it to be an work of an organised gang of poachers that is suspected to have come from a neighbouring state or other places. Sources said they have also sent footage of the crime spot to Kerala forest officials to help them gather information and keep a vigil on organised poachers in that state.Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary Conservator Ramesh said the poaching has disrupted the work of forest personnel on duty. He said they have stepped up combing operation and will do their best to arrest the poachers. We have sought the help of forest personnel in Tamil Nadu, he added. Meanwhile, M M Hills Forest Conservator Edukondalu said they stepped up intelligence gathering on habitual offenders in both the sanctuaries and also across the border. He said call details from mobile towers will help zero in on the poachers. Since the forest personnel are more focused on bandobust during festivals held in the forest and also to save the forest from accidental fires, the poachers would have used it as an opportunity to get into the forest to commit the crime, he said.Vinayaka, a forest official, said they are gathering information from local villages and shepherds to know whether there was any suspicious movement of outsiders or poachers in the area recently.Sources said Tamil Nadu forest officials were also alerted and have shared the video of the carcass of the elephant so that they can also give inputs to nab the culprits. By Express News Service BENGALURU: The H D Kumaraswamy-led coalition government, which will present the budget for 2019-20 on Friday, faces the threat of having to resign if the appropriation bill isnt passed before April 1. The BJP, meanwhile, has no intention of letting the process be smooth and has chalked out a detailed plan to disrupt the budget session proceedings. After forcing an adjournment with barely any business being transacted on day two of the ongoing session on Thursday, BJP intends to continue its protests when Kumaraswamy presents the budget. All three parties will be in a huddle ahead of the budget presentation to work out their strategies. The Congress has called for a legislature party meet at 9 am while JD(S) will hold talks with its MLAs at 9.30 am. BJP state president B S Yeddyurappa will also meet with his legislators at 10 am at Vidhana Soudha. Meanwhile, missing MLAs continue to keep the JD(S)-Congress combine on tenterhooks. All MLAs will come tomorrow. We are confident of our numbers, but BJP isnt. That is why they arent moving a no-confidence motion, said Congress leader Siddaramaiah. The party has issued fresh notice to rebel MLAs threatening them with disqualification if they remain absent from Fridays special legislature party meeting. Even as Congress leaders are persistent in their attempts to woo back their MLAs, rumours of JD(S) Narayana Gowda being in touch with BJP leaders in Mumbai has given the coalition more jitters. There is a real problem. A lot rides on the next two days, said a senior Congress leader, acknowledging the situation. The Karnataka assembly was in session barely for 10 minutes on Thursday with two adjournments and incessant sloganeering by BJP MLAs. Legislators of the BJP refused to even take their seats in the House and walked straight into the well of the House even before the session convened, making it clear that disruption was the only agenda for the day. Step down, Kumaraswamy slogan raised The ruckus in the assembly, to which Congress MLAs later added, forced Speaker Ramesh Kumar to adjourn the House till Friday for the budget presentation. The situation is expected to continue on Friday too. CM go back, Minority government, Down, down coalition, Down with the minority government, Step down Kumaraswamy, were some of the slogans that BJP incessantly shouted as the legislative assembly as it convened at 11.35 am on Thursday. This is a new chapter in parliamentary democracy, said Speaker Ramesh Kumar before adjourning the House for 10 minutes at 11.50 am. But by the time the house reconvened, it was past 12.20 pm. One government, two CMs, became the primary slogan of BJP after the House reconvened. Barely five minutes later, the Speaker adjourned the House with no business conducted apart from ministers submitting letters pertaining to subject matters of concern. Congress MLAs too took to shouting down BJP after the House reconvened, adding to the chaos. Visitors, including a group of schoolchildren in the gallery, were left perplexed with elected representatives shouting down each other. Why are they struggling in a water-less well? Let them move a no-confidence motion if they think this is a minority government and we will prove majority, yelled RDPD minister Krishna Byre Gowda, in response to BJP s sloganeering. Jadhav removed from post Hours before presenting the budget, the CM removed rebel Congress MLA Umesh Jadhav as Warehousing Corporation chairman and appointed Pratap Gouda Patil in his place JD(S) man sent to bring MLA Former MLA Kodihalli Manjunath Gowda hastasked with bringing back partys KR Pet MLA Narayan Gowda, who is reportedly camping in Mumbai, back to Bengaluru. By Express News Service TIRUPATI: It was a scene from a movie coming alive in Tirupati courts here on Thursday, when a woman shattered in love tried to attack a doctor and admitted to the murder of her husband. A nurse attacked a doctor in court here on Thursday when he came for divorce proceedings. After the plans failed, she ran to the washroom and consumed acid. She was later rushed to the hospital. The Tirupati West police caught the duo and registered a case under Section 326 B, IPC for murder of the nurses husband. Nurse Aruna used to work with Dr. Adarsh Reddy at Rama Devi Hospital in Tirupati and maintained an illicit relationship with him. Speaking to the media, Aruna said that she was deceived by the doctor. My husband was a drunkard.We decided to eliminate him as he became an obstacle for our frequent meetings. The doctor promised to marry me and gave me an injection which I administered to my husband and he died, she said. Aruna said that after the death of her husband, the doctor started coming home directly. Adarsh Reddy developed multiple relationships with other women following which his wife filed for divorce. Later, the doctor left the job in the temple town and joined a hospital in Bengaluru, she said. The nurse was waiting for an opportunity on Thursday when he came to appear in court for his final hearing in the divorce case. I wanted to beat him with shoes in front of his wife, Aruna said. By PTI UDHAMPUR: The general officer commanding-in-chief of the northern command, Lt Gen Ranbir Singh, said Thursday the Pakistani army has been using social media to mobilize support among the youth of Jammu and Kashmir to stir them towards militancy. He also said that terrorist infrastructure continues to remain intact in PoK and Pakistan. He said Pakistan is trying to develop narratives to alter public opinion in Kashmir to disrupt peace and stability. "It is matter of concern for us. We are seized of this concern." He said the Pakistani army has been exploiting social media platforms to influence the youth of the Valley to join militancy. "Radicalization is not only a concern in India but a global concern," Lt Gen Singh told reporters here. However, he added, the Indian Army has developed effective counter-terrorism capabilities and the fight against terrorism has now entered "an important phase". "We are using technology and artificial-based solutions to counter the message, so that youth do not fall prey to the designs of the Pakistan army," he said. "I am hopeful that in the coming year, we will be able to see peace, prosperity and development in the state," he said. Replying to a question on America's proposed pullout of troops from Afghanistan, the officer said the Indian Army and all agencies are keeping a close watch on the developments. "We are prepared for any contingency," he said, referring to possible infiltration by Afghan-based militants into Jammu and Kashmir. He said options for another "surgical strike" on terrorist bases are open. "Surgical strikes were a tactical operation to give a strategic message that Indian Army has the capability to do acts which are unpredictable. We were successful in conveying that message," he added. On the investigation into sepoy Aurangzeb's killing in south Kashmir last year, he said, "We got information that one or two jawans intentionally or unknowingly passed information about his movement." "Perhaps the terrorists picked up the news and took benefit of it," he said, adding a probe is going on. Aurangzeb was abducted by militants from Pulwama. His bullet-riddled body was found on June 14 in Srinagar on the eve of Eid-ul-Fitr. By Express News Service HYDERABAD: AIMIM chief and Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi has once again stoked a controversy, by calling Bharat Ratna the countrys highest civilian honour, as an exclusive club of upper castes and Brahmins. Owaisi made the comments while delivering the Motion of Thanks to the Presidents address in the Lok Sabha on Thursday. His comments drew immediate criticism from people on social media as many questioned them pointing out that Bharat Ratna has been awarded to people from different communities, including Zakir Hussain, Abul Kalam Azad, APJ Abdul Kalam, Bismillah Khan, Mother Teresa and JRD Tata. One Twitter user posted saying, if the same logic is used for Nobel Prize awardees in the fields of science and economics, then it can be claimed that the prize is awarded only to Jews and Christians. However, this is not the first time that Owaisi has been critical of the way Bharat Ratna is conferred. Just last week, when Owaisi was delivering a speech at a public meeting at Kalyan in Maharashtra, attacking the BJP and Congress parties, he questioned how many Dalits and Muslims have been awarded Bharat Ratna till now. He also alleged that awarding of Bharat Ratna to Dr BR Ambedkar in 1990 many years after his death, was out of political compulsion but was not a heartfelt decision. Even when former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was awarded the Bharat Ratna in 2015, Owaisi had criticised the move by the BJP-led government. Speaking to media then, he had said that transparency along with public discussion and well-defined criteria has to be evolved for awarding Bharat Ratna to individuals. Meanwhile, BJP MLC N Ramchander Rao told Express: Incidentally, there are Brahmins who have been awarded the prestigious civilian awards. The award is conferred based on the achievements of a person and not his community. Not for the first time This is not the first time that Owaisi made critical comments on how Bharat Ratna is conferred. Last week, when Owaisi was delivering a speech at a public meeting in Maharashtra, he questioned how many Dalits and Muslims have been awarded Bharat Ratna till now By PTI CHANDIGARH: Former judge Ranjit Singh, who headed a panel probing incidents of sacrilege and police firing in Punjab, has filed a criminal complaint against SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal and senior Akali leader Bikram Singh Majithia for making "false, derogatory and defamatory" statements against him. The petitioner in his complaint to the Punjab and Haryana High Court, claimed that both Badal and Majithia made "derogatory statements against him with an intention to bring him as well as Commission of Inquiry headed by him into disrepute". "Thus committing offence punishable in terms of Section 10-A of The Commissions of Inquiry Act, 1952", the petition stated. Under the section 10-A, if anybody was found to be involved in bringing the commission or its member to disrepute with defamatory statements, then this offence can be punishable with six months imprisonment or fine or both. Justice (Retd) Ranjit Singh in his petition quoted several incidents in which he found that Badal and Majithia were making "derogatory statements" against him and the commission. "It was stated that the chairman of the commission, i.e. the present complainant, was neither a 'Justice' nor a 'Singh'. By saying so, Respondent No 1 (Sukhbir) not only attacked the religious status of the present complainant but also attacked his status as a former judge of this Hon'ble Court", the petition stated. "In the same breath, Respondent No 1 went on to claim that the present complainant did not even possess a valid degree of law; and indicated that the present complainant had been long operating on the basis of a fake degree of law," said the petition. The petitioner also referred an incident in which he said that Badal and Majithia, during a public demonstration, described his inquiry report as "waste paper, deserving to be relegated to the trash bin", it said. "It may be relevant to state that, as part of the said demonstration(s), Respondents No. 1 and 2, placed a pile of paper, purporting it to be the Inquiry Report, on the ground, in the most demeaning manner," the petitioner said. Notably, the Congress government after coming to power in 2017 had set up the Justice Ranjit Singh Commission to probe sacrilege and police firing incidents, including those that took place during previous SAD-BJP regime in 2015. The commission's report was tabled in Punjab Assembly last year. By Express News Service NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday tore into the Opposition dismissing their Mahagathbandhan (grand alliance) as Mahamilawat (grand adulteration) and set the tone for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections by contrasting the report card of his government with five decades years of the Congress rule. Stating that people have the least appetite for adulteration, Modi exuded confidence that the electorate would once again vote for a strong government.Replying to the discussions on motion of thanks on President Ram Nath Kovinds address to the joint session of Parliament, a combative Modi rebutted accusations of Congress leader Mallikarjuna Kharge on a host of issues, including unemployment, Rafale, and damage to institutional autonomy. The PM also alleged that the vested interests who have been hit by the choking of foreign fund flow to some 20,000 NGOs, banishing middlemen in defence deals and plugging leakage in social welfare schemes with the seeding of Aadhaar, are fanning out anti-Modi sentiments. Making a veiled reference to fugitive economic offender Vijay Mallya, Modi said those who ran away from the country are now crying that more assets have been attached than their liabilities. Kharge in his speech hit out at the government for rampant unemployment, besides the ruling NDA compromising the autonomy and integrity of institutions in the country.Trinamool Congress MP Dinesh Trivedi lamented there has been a drastic decline in the registrations of small and marginal enterprises in the country following demonetisation. In his reply, Modi observed that some people in the Opposition were working against the interests of the country. A press conference is held in London to cast aspersions on Indian democracy, he said, while listing out incidents like imposition of Emergency, spreading rumours of a military coup, and raising doubts on EVMs to drive home the hypocrisy of Congress, which, he said, even tried to bully the judiciary by threatening impeachment against a former Chief Justice of India. Pokes Congress on ED probe against Vadra In an indirect reference to the EDs probe against Rahul Gandhis brother-in-law Robert Vadra, Modi said details of illegal properties are being unearthed. For whom? Where? When? Details are coming out, he said, also recalling the recent extradition of economic fugitives. Congress leaders are unsure what the raazdar (ones with secrets) will reveal, he added Cites GoPs record on destroying institutions A former prime minister (Rajiv Gandhi) had called the Planning Commission a bunch of jokers, Modi recalled. And Congress governments at the Centre misused Article 356 to dismiss close to 100 state governments - 50 of them by Indira Gandhi alone. Yet, they accuse his government of destroying institutions, Modi quipped By PTI KOLKATA: In a blistering attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Trinamool supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee Friday called him "Maddy babu", who has transformed from a "chaiwala (tea-seller) to Rafalewala", and said she supported the views of the Congress on the fighter jet deal. She also termed the Rafale deal "one of the biggest scam of the country". Banerjee's no-holds-barred attack on Modi came after the latter, at a rally in Jalpaiguri in West Bengal, accused her of trying to protect those involved in chit fund scams and warned neither the perpetrators nor those shielding them will be spared. Riled up over the prime minister's snide remarks over her holding a dharna against CBI action against the Kolkata police chief and allegation of prevalence of "syndicate raj" under TMC rule, Banerjee said, "The less we talk about this man (Modi) the better it is Maddy babu is the master of corruption. He is the master of arrogance and is a shame for the country." "His standard is so low that we have never expected such a man to be the prime minister. We have respect for the chair but not for this man. He is the most corrupt man in the history of India," she told reporters after conclusion of the Bengal Global Business Summit here. Over the Congress' allegations on the Rafale deal, Banerjee said, "I do not know how much money changed hands or what had happened. But certainly there must be something behind the curtains. Rafale deal is a big scam and I fully support the Congress' views on it because they have detailed papers with them," Banerjee said. Earlier in the day, Congress president Rahul Gandhi had alleged that "the prime minister has stolen Rs 30,000 crore of your money, bypassed a process, and given it to his friend Mr Anil Ambani". He demanded answers to questions raised by a media report that the PMO conducted parallel negotiations on the Rafale deal, saying it is now "crystal clear" that the "watchman" is the "thief". On Modi describing her dharna at the heart of Kolkata an unprecedented event by any chief minister "guarding the corrupts", she said the prime minister was "scared" seeing the entire country uniting to drive him out of power. "It (dharna) was a non-political forum a satyagraha. He is very scared because India is united now and that is why he is talking nonsense. He is spending sleepless nights. Our one-point agenda is 'Modi hatao desh banchao'," the TMC supremo said. "He was never a chaiwala (tea-seller) and does not know how to prepare tea. From chaiwala he has now become Rafalewala. He (Modi) is most corrupt man in the Rafale deal. He is the master of demonetisation. He lies," she quipped. Banerjee, who had organised a rally of the opposition parties at the Brigade Parade ground here on January 19, claimed that Modi was scared as 23 major parties in the country have united against him. She also made objections to the prime minister inaugurating the Jalpaiguri circuit bench of the Calcutta High Court, keeping her government as well as the court "in the dark". "The land is ours, the circuit bench is of the high court. Neither the groom nor the bride is there but the bandwala has arrived," Banerjee said, adding only one month is left for the Narendra Modi government to "expire". "Since only a month is left for the general elections, the prime minister is bluffing," she alleged. "What has he been doing all these five years. He (Modi) has completed five years in the government. Now they are doing all these to suppress our political voice. 'Maddy' babu is bluffing people have turned away from them (the BJP) and they will not be able to withstand this blow of the common people of the country," Banerjee said. The Trinamool Congress supremo also asked why so many BJP leaders, whose name surfaced in the Saradha chit fund scam, were not arrested. By IANS PATNA: A Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) leader was shot dead on Friday by unidentified assailants in Bihar's Aurangabad district, police said. The incident took place in Haspura town's Jalpura area when the victim, Mohan Yadav, was out for a morning walk. "Two motorcycle borne assailants shot Yadav on his head and stomach from close range. He died on the spot," district police official said. By Express News Service BHOPAL: All India Congress Committee (AICC) President Rahul Gandhi was a Shiv Bhakt when he embarked on road-show in Bhopal on September 17, 2018 ahead two months before the assembly elections in the then BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh. Four months later, the Congress president now visits the capital of Congress-ruled MP as Ram-Bhakt (devotee of Ram) on Friday to address a rally of farmers dubbed as Aabhar Sammelan at the sprawling Jamboree Maidan. A banner put up by state Congress leaders near the Chetak Bridge in the heart of MP capital ahead of Congress presidents visit addresses Gandhi as a Ram Bhakt, who will build a grand Ram temple in Ayodhya with consensus. Sarvasammati se Ayodhya mein bhavya Ram Mandir banvayenge, aise Ram Bhakt Rahul Gandhiji ka jheelon ki nagari Bhopal mein hardik abhinandan aur swagat hai, mentions the banner, in which Chief Minister Kamal Nath is addressed as Hanuman Bhakt and Gau Bhakt (devotee of Hanuman and cow). While the state Congress media in-charge Shobha Oza has termed the development as the heartfelt welcome of the Congress national president Rahul Gandhi by some over-enthusiastic Congress workers and leaders, the former CM Digvijaya Singh evaded questions about the banner and poster, saying Im against posters and garlands. Importantly, on September 17, 2018, when Gandhi embarked on a roadshow in Bhopal ahead of assembly polls just after returning from Kailash Mansarovar Yatra, posters and banners addressing him as Shiv Bhakt were put by Congress workers and leaders. Reacting to the development, state BJP spokesperson Rajneesh Agrawal said, Merely putting banners and posters wont erase the anti-Hindutva statements and policies of previous Congress governments and party leaders. If the Congress is so committed at building Ram Temple in Ayodhya, it should first direct its advocates-turned-leaders to stop playing delaying tactics in the apex court during the ongoing hearing of the Ayodhya case. The AICC president will address the farmers rally at the Jamboree Ground on Friday, which is also being seen as a symbolic kick-start of Lok Sabha polls campaign by the party in the Congress-ruled state. Some major pronouncements are likely to be made at the rally by CM Kamal Nath in pursuance with the promises made by the party in its Vachan Patra (assembly poll manifesto), including Rs 4,000 monthly unemployment allowance, 2% hike in DA for state government employees, doubling social security pension for elderly population from Rs 300 to Rs 600 and 100 days job guarantee scheme for urban youth. Five-time former BJP MP and former MP minister, the powerful Kurmi community leader of Bundelkhand region Ramkrishna Kusmaria Babaji, too is likely to join the Congress in presence of Gandhi at the rally. Kusmaria was expelled from BJP for six years in November 2018 for contesting as rebel candidate from Damoh and Pathariya seats, which played a definitive role in BJP defeats from both seats in recent assembly polls. By Online Desk A massive data breach has hit customers of diamond companies at the Bharat Diamond Bourse (BDB) trade centre in Mumbai. An investigative report in the Huffington Post claims all BDB transactions are available in the public domain on the internet. The data breach was discovered by the Indian cybersecurity firm Banbreach. The diamond companies, however, denied there was any breach when Banbreach tried to inform them about the data leak. The Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software Diamond ERP, designed and configured by Fauna Technologies, was blamed for the leak in the report. This is an e-commerce software developed specifically for diamond traders and merchants. The software was uploading the real-time transaction details of the users to a cloud database dump without any encryption, claimed the report. That means the database had no safety features -- not even a password. So any internet user could access who purchased what diamonds and on which date, it went on to add. Fauna Technologies which provided the software has shut down and its CEO Purav Choksi is now focusing on pranic healing and arhatic yoga. By Express News Service HYDERABAD: Hours before committing suicide, mini screen actor Naga Jhansi Suvvada spoke to her boyfriend Surya Teja over phone, police found on checking her call records Thursday. The Punjagutta Police, which had registered a case of suspicious death under Indian Penal Code Section 174, is likely to alter charges and book Surya Teja for abetment of suicide. A day after the 21-year-olds death, investigators unlocked her smartphone and retrieved data. Jhansi had not recorded any selfie video, but the team found a number of photos of her and Surya Teja on her mobile, a source in the police department said. ALSO READ: Telugu TV actress Naga Jhansi commits suicide in Hyderabad After going through her call log and chat history, we have understood that Jhansi was in a relationship with Surya Teja for a year. Her WhatsApp chat history with Surya Teja indicates disputes arose between the two three months back, investigation told Express. On Tuesday, Jhansi called Surya Teja over 20 times and he answered a few calls, following which she hanged herself at her rented flat in Nagarjunagar. Even as the postmortem report is yet to be readied, police are likely to frame charges against Surya based on Jhansis call data and PME report. He is being questioned by the police in connection with the suicide. Sajin Shrijith By Express News Service Its only fitting that the central character in 9, a child, is named Adam. The film presents a scenario where mankind is made to experience the beginning of time when electricity hadnt been invented yet. Triggered by a global cataclysmic event, earth comes under the grip of fear. One of the things I liked about 9 is that it doesnt have that Interstellar problem: it gives the audience a sense of the events magnitude by including the entire globe, even though most of the film is confined to a single location, and the activity revolving around a few characters. There is no need to fear, assures Prithvirajs astrophysicist Albert to a large audience before the event occurs. The sun will rise as usual, but the nights are going to envelop everyone in pitch-black darkness. Your emergency lamp is not going to work. Buy candles, a lot of them. Its a simple scientific henomenon, Albert informs. ALSO READ: Supriya Menon Prithviraj on turning producer with '9', motherhood and more A supermarket visit is used as an excuse to deliver exposition, something that is best avoided in films like this. In fact, exposition is delivered in the film more than once, and while they occasionally do seem unnecessary, they do a fairly decent job of making us imagine the gravity of the situation. Being a man of science, Albert will experience things that will test his faith in science as well as himself. Expect a night full of terrors. 9 is a film that cannot be confined to a single genre I counted at least three and I dont think I should reveal them so as not to give the slightest hint of the story details. Im simply going to say that, in terms of scale and concept, 9 is the closest we have come to an M Night Shyamalan film in Malayalam. But its not just Shyamalans films that 9 reminded me of, but also those of Nicholas Roeg, Roman Polanski, James Cameron, Stanley Kubrick, and even the television series LOST (hello, smoke monster). Albert apparently loves his son Adam (Master Alok), but he also appears emotionally distant most of the time, an after-effect no doubt of the demise of Adams mother during childbirth. The child is aloof, weird, and has no friends: a fact that constantly bothers Albert. Some of their heated confrontations and the fact that some characters keep referring to Adam as an evil child brought to mind films like The Omen and The Shining. ALSO READ: Directing Mohanlal has been the highlight of my career, says Prithviraj Why is this event happening? What connection does it have to Adam? What are the intentions of the mysterious stranger that suddenly enters their lives? Is there a world beyond the understanding of science? These are some of the questions that 9 tries to answer. Im not sure it answers all of them, but theres fun to be found in that. A few logical inconsistencies do show up now and then, but they make sense when placed under the light of the climactic revelations. Aided strongly by a remarkably gifted cinematographer, Abhinandan Ramanujam, director Jenuse Mohammed uses every cinematic tool at his disposal to deliver a visually dazzling, one-of-a-kind experience that hasnt been seen in Malayalam cinema before. The film is a testament to the fact that you dont need to go abroad for photogenic locales. As long as you have someone like Abhinandan on board, you wont have to worry about getting the right kind of footage. Also, a big shoutout to composer Sekhar Menon for his Hans Zimmer-style background score, without which the build-up wouldnt be half as effective a prerequisite for any thriller, especially one that juggles multiple genres. Tony Luke, who plays a member of Alberts team, once again displays his talent for sinking into any role. What Jenuse and team have accomplished with 9 is a superlative audio-visual experience, one that will give different experiences for different people. Barring a few pacing issues in the second half which could be forgiven, 9 certainly deserves a pat on the back for taking that extra mile. I particularly have a thing for films that end on an ambiguous note, because you discover something new with each subsequent watch. It pleased the mystery fan in me, and I hope more Malayalam filmmakers come forward with such compelling and creatively daring ideas in the near future. By PTI MUMBAI: Alia Bhatt said Thursday she will apologise to Kangana Ranaut on personal level if she was upset with her. The 'Raazi' actress' response comes days after Kangana lashed out at her for not responding to her gestures. In a recent interview, Kangana had spoken out about how people in the industry, including Aamir Khan and Alia Bhatt, did not support her during the release of 'Manikarnika'. Kangana said while she had turned up for the screenings of 'Dangal', 'Secret Superstar' and 'Raazi', Alia and Aamir failed to respond during the release of her film. Replying to a question, Alia said, "I hope she doesn't dislike me and I don't think she dislikes me. I don't think I have done anything intentionally to upset her. If I have, I will apologise to her on a personal level." The actor, who is currently promoting her upcoming film 'Gully Boy' with Ranveer Singh, said she has always admired Kangana. "But I have always said that I have admired her a lot as an actor and a person. She is very outspoken and it takes courage to be that way. I wasn't aware of this problem or anything, I was busy with the shooting. So yes, what can I say, I don't want to upset anybody," Alia said in an interview Thursday. Kangana on Thursday claimed that the industry had ganged up against her for her "nepotism" comment but she was not afraid. By Express News Service THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Setting a new benchmark on social media platforms, the number of followers on the official Facebook page of Kerala Tourism has now spiralled to over two million, making it number one among the portals of any such tourism departments in the country. The Facebook page, packed with fascinating information, presents to the followers some of the most engaging visual treats of Keralas landscape. Tourism Minister Kadakampally Surendran said, In this techno-savvy age where people are keenly following social media to keep themselves abreast of developments, this achievement has brought recognition for Kerala Tourism not just from other parts of India, but also from countries like the UAE, Saudi Arabia, the US, Australia and the UK. It was in August 2014 that @keralatourismofficial crossed the one million mark. The Kerala Tourism Facebook page also played a vital role in communicating to the world that Kerala was tourism-ready after the August 2018 floods through live videos across destinations. Timely and witty responses as in the case of the Aviyal episode make our Facebook page stand apart, Tourism Secretary Rani George said. Kerala Tourism Director P Bala Kiran said, Kerala Tourism page occupies the top slot in comparison with other tourism pages in the country, ahead of Gujarat Tourism and the Incredible India pages. The FB pages above Kerala like Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia are countries whereas we are a small state. While Kerala Tourism has 2.4 million plus likes, Gujarat Tourism has 1.3 million plus likes, followed by Incredible India which has 1.2 million plus likes. When compared with other international tourism pages, the page ranks fourth, slightly trailing behind Amazing Thailand page. Last year, Kerala Tourism had overtaken Jammu & Kashmir and Gujarat Tourisms Facebook pages.The Facebook page is available at https://www.facebook.com/keralatourismofficial/ By Express News Service THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The health sector in Kerala is all set to take giant leaps with the inauguration of the Institute of Advanced Virology (IAV) at Thonnakkal, Thiruvananthapuram on Saturday.The institute, coming up in Thonnakkal Bio 360 Life Science Park in 25 acres of land, is the first virology institute in India affiliated to Global Virus Network (GVN), a coalition of worlds leading virologists. At present, Kerala depends on institutes outside the state for detecting certain viruses, due to lack of advanced facilities. With the advent of this international research institute, the state can do away with such limitations. Initially, the institute will be linked to a European Centre like the one in Karolinska Institute, famous for awarding Nobel Prizes and to an Asian Centre like the one in Japan, as an affiliate, until IAV becomes a full-fledged centre. These two institutes will train and guide the faculty and physicians. Under their training, we expect the institute to grow within two years as GVN centre of excellence, said Dr M V Pillai, senior advisor, Global Virus Network. The Global Virus Network has 45 centres of excellence spanning over 29 countries. The Thonnakkal institute will be connected to all these centres and this kind of vast network of virologists will help in fast detection and prevention of virus-borne diseases such as Nipah, he said. Bio-safety level-3 facilities adhering to international standards will be implemented in the institute. Apart from facilities to detect virus and research programs, the institute will run various academic programs in the near future.The linkage to the international network provides added advantage in research-related activities too. Once you join the network, funding for research becomes easier, said Pillai. It was during the period of last government that Pillai approached the state with a proposal of setting up virology institute. Later, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan took initiative to revive the proposal two years back. Once the project is completed, the state will have about 1 lakh sq ft facility with international standards, Pillai added. The institute envisages growth in terms of research and treatment efficiency. During the first phase of opening of the institute, focus will be on setting up world-class laboratories to diagnose viral infections common in India. During second phase, epidemiological study will be conducted among Keralites, which will help determine the factors associated with specific diseases and analyse the factors that may help prevent diseases. In the third phase, the focus will be on virus-related cancer and in the fourth phase training will be given to medical doctors as clinical virologists, so that they can detect and treat diseases with more efficiency. In the fifth phase, the institute will focus on the production of vaccines. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan will inaugurate the institute at 10.30 am on Saturday. Leading virologists and co-founders of Global Virus Network will attend the function. Dr Christian Brechot, President, GVN; Dr William Hall, School of Medicine, University College, Dublin; Dr Shyamasundaran Kottilil, Director of Clinical Research at the Institute of Human Virology, USA and alumnus of Medical College Thrissur; Dr M V Pillai, clinical professor of Oncology at Thomas Jefferson University, USA and alumnus of Medical College, Thiruvananthapuram and Dr M. Sarngadharan (Member, GVN), Lipton Bionetics, Kensington, USA will attend the function. The inauguration will be followed by an International Virology Discussion Meet. Matter of fact By PTI NEW DELHI: A Delhi court on Friday sought response from Enforcement Directorate on a bail application of lawyer Gautam Khaitan who was sent to judicial custody in a fresh case of alleged possession and laundering of black money. Khaitan, who is also an accused in AgustaWestland VVIP chopper scam, was produced before Special Judge Arvind Kumar on expiry of his custodial interrogation in the money laundering case and the ED requested the court to send him to judicial custody (JC). The ED said that if left free, Khaitan may flee from justice and hamper the probe after which the court sent him to JC till February 20. After the court passed the order, Khaitan's advocate P K Dubey moved an application seeking bail for his client on the grounds that he was not required for probe any further. Dubey told the court that Khaitan was practising as a lawyer for more than 25 years and that he had deep roots in society. The court, thereafter, directed the ED's public prosecutors D P Singh and N K Matta to file a response to the bail application by February 15. Khaitan had earlier claimed before the court that ED was forcing him to falsely implicate someone influential in "any defence deal" which happened during the UPA regime. Khaitan's lawyer had said: "They asked me (Khaitan) to give any name involved in any defence deal (of UPA period). They asked to give any name, that they needed it within these two months. They are constantly forcing me to give name and I will be absolved. "When Michel (middleman recently extradited from Dubai) came, you (ED) said he had taken my name and I was required to be confronted. But nothing came out of that case. Now you have come up with this case." The agency, through advocate Samvedna Verma, had earlier told the court, "Khaitan knows all the persons related to arms deals other than AgustaWestland and other deals. There are many more information where people who handle other deals were in his contact." The ED has maintained that the present case had nothing to do with the alleged AgustaWestland scam and that the accused was operating and holding a number of foreign accounts illegally and thereby possessing black money and stashing assets. The present case under the PMLA was filed by the ED against Khaitan on the basis of a case filed by the Income Tax Department against him under Section 51 of the Black Money (Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets) and Imposition of Tax Act, 2015. The ED has said that it had the knowledge of Khaitan's unidentified assets which value more than Rs 500 crore. Khaitan was placed under arrest on January 25 by the agency under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). The Income Tax Department had earlier carried out searches against Khaitan in this new case filed under the anti-black money law. Khaitan had been arrested by the ED and the CBI a few years ago in connection with their probe in the Rs 3,600-crore AgustaWestland case. A charge sheet was also filed against him by the two agencies and he was currently out on bail. By Express News Service CHENNAI: A day after police arrested small-time filmmaker Balakrishnan for murdering his wife Sandhya, they were still searching for her missing body parts on Thursday. Balakrishnan allegedly chopped up Sandhyas body into several pieces and disposed them off at different places.On Thursday, the cops hired around 20 sanitary workers to search the Pallikaranai dumpyard, spread across 75 hectares, for any missing parts. Sandhya was murdered using a hammer, said a police official quoting Balakrishnan. Later, the accused used a machete to chop her body up into five pieces, packed them into three plastic bags and disposed the bags in garbage bins in and around Jafferkhanpet. I am innocent: accused Balakrishnan was produced in court on Thursday where he claimed he was innocent. He has been remanded to judicial custody till February 19.Police say Sandhya had tried to kill herself a few months ago following a fight with the accused. Balakrishnan rushed her to a hospital and she was saved. Later, Sandhya moved to a working womens hostel in Saidapet and from there to her parents home in December.She seems to have patched up with her husband later. After Christmas, she told her parents that she was returning to Balakrishnan as he had promised to help her find chances to act in movies, say cops. She took Rs 75,000 from her home for these expenses and left. How Sandhya died The couple had a fight on January 19 and in a fit of rage, Balakrishnan allegedly hit Sandhya in the head with a hammer. He then disposed her body in several places.The incident came to light on January 21 when a sanitary worker spotted a severed limb in the Perungudi dumpyard, from where cops tracked down the case and the culprit. No food: Tasmac cook murdered Chennai: A cook in a Tasmac outlet was found dead on Thursday and the police suspect he was murdered by a co-worker. A Valliappan (40)was working as a cook in the Tasmac on Greams Road. All workers used to stay on the first floor of the building. A 17-year-old boy, a migrant worker from Andhra Pradesh, had asked for food, but Valliappan allegedly refused to oblige. Around 2 am on Thursday, the boy strangled the man and fled the spot, said an officer. Gold, cash stolen from house Chennai: Nearly 28 sovereigns of gold jewellery and Rs 3,000 were stolen from a house at Triplicane on Wednesday. The theft came to light when the house owner Thiruvengadam, working in an IT company, returned from his relatives house on Thursday. Manju Shettar By Express News Service BENGALURU: A Bengaluru-based pilot working as a trainer in the Philippines and his trainee pilot have gone missing since Monday after their aircraft lost contact with air traffic control (ATC) during a touch-and-go exercise being carried out between Plaridel and Subic airports of the archipelagic nation. The aircraft was using a drone on Thursday afternoon, but all efforts to contact the Bengaluru-based instructor, Naveen Nagaraj, and his trainee pilot, Kuldeep Singh, have gone in vain. The aircraft was spotted in a densely-forested area between Orani and Abucay regions, near the Balanga city, in the province of Bataan, Philippines. Search and rescue parties are yet to reach the aircraft, which, as per drone pictures, is said not to have crashed, but forcefully landed. The announcement regarding the missing persons was made by the Philippines aviation regulator on Tuesday. Naveens family was informed that the drone was used to find the aircraft, and that rescue operations are ongoing. Thirty-year-old Naveen was on board the Cessna C-152 aircraft, with the tail number RPC-2724, which lost contact with the Plaridel Airport. According to local media reports, the plane took off from Plaridel Airport at 7.20 AM local time, and landed at Subic Airport at 7.51 AM, before taking off again to return to Plaridel, when it lost contact with the ATC. Captain Naveen is a resident of Nandini Layout in Bengaluru. His father Nagaraj is employed in the Public Works Department (PWD) here. Naveens parents immediately flew to Philippines on being informed by authorities there. Naveens family friend, Vipul Siddanakatte, a pilot with a private Indian airline, told TNIE, Search operations are going on, but not as expected. They did not press helicopters into the search and rescue operations soon after they located the aircraft. We are urging them to act quickly so that the rescuers can reach Naveen and his trainee as soon as possible. kept us in the dark for 24 hrs The authorities from Fliteline Aviation School Inc in Philippines did not alert their army about Naveens plane crash, though they were aware of the mishap. They reported it only 24 hours later. The aviation in that country (Philippines) has a history of mishaps, and I blame the school. They are responsible for Naveen going missing. Choppers were used only after three days, alleged Vipul Siddanakatte, a family friend of Naveen Nagaraj. Santosh Kumar Mishra, the consular for the Indian Embassy in the Philippines, reportedly spoke to Siddanakatte about search operations. Siddanakatte said they urged Mishra to request the Philippines government to carry out all possible rescue operations at the earliest. Naveens mother Meena, who is with her husband Nagaraj in the Philippines now, was not aware about her son going missing until Thursday evening. The incident occurred on February 4. Although Nagaraj was informed on February 5 and rushed to the Philippines that day, Meena followed him only the next day, but without knowing why her husband had rushed there. Naveen got married to Akshatha, an Ayurvedic doctor, two years ago. The couple lives in Plaridel, Bulacan, which is close to the Fliteline Aviation School Inc, where Naveen joined in 2007. Akshatha told me that he left the house early on February 4. She informed me that the aircraft was found around afternoon in the forest, Vipul said, adding that Naveen had come to Bengaluru last month for a short visit. Captiol RecordsLil Baby found himself in a bout of trouble with the law on Thursday in Atlanta after racking up multiple driving-related charges, Georgia State Patrol has confirmed. The rapper, born Dominique Jones, faces charges of reckless driving, eluding police, and failure to signal. According to TMZ, the "Drip Harder" lyricist was spotted by state troopers in an orange Chevrolet Corvette after he failed to signal while changing lanes. Jones was also allegedly, "speeding past cars in a reckless manner." As the trooper pursued, Jones is accused of weaving between cars at a high rate of speed before being blocked by traffic, which is when he was pulled over. He was taken into custody without incident. Footage of Jones being apprehended by police later surfaced on social media. In the video, he is seen laying face down on the ground while being handcuffed in the middle of the street next to his Corvette. The rapper has since bonded out of the Atlanta Detention Center and addressed the matter via Instagram. "F*** The Police Who Be On That Bull***," he captioned a photo of himself following the ordeal. "Shoutout To The Ones Who Get You Thru The Process ASAP." Copyright 2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. HM Chaithanya Swamy By Express News Service BENGALURU: A man claiming to be Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) employee and close to its managing director, offered jobs to aspirants, allegedly collecting Rs 1.5 lakh as advance from each aspirant, and conning them with a fake selection list and interview call letters. The fraudster also claimed to be JDS party worker and close to Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy to lay trap for gullible job aspirants. Gangadharappa HM, 48, one among 15 who got cheated by the conman, named Nayaz Pasha, lodged a complaint with Jalahalli police. Gangadharappa is a JD(S) party worker. In his complaint he stated that he knew the accused Nayaz Pasha as he use to visit JDS office for last 10 years. Nayaz had disappeared for two years, and suddenly appeared in JDS office one day. When Gangadarappa asked where he was all these days, Pasha told him he had got a job in BEL and was busy in work. Both exchanged phone numbers. In January, 2017, Pasha contacted Gangadharappa and told him that BEL was is recruiting people for different posts and inquired about his son's education and work. I told him my son had completed Diploma in Mechanics and was looking for a job. He collected my son's resume and told that shortlisted candidates names would be released by BEL. Pasha claimed he was very close to the MD and would confirm the job by paying Rs 5 lakh to the MD. Pasha asked us to pay Rs 1.5 lakh as advance after the list was released, Gangadharappa alleged. A week later, Pasha again called me and said BEL needed 76 persons as fitters, welders, electricians, machinists, electronic mechs and accountants and asked me to suggest my friends and relatives to apply for jobs and that he would get them for the same price. I contacted a few people known to me and introduced them to Pasha, he collected resume's from them, too. In March, Pasha sent a WhatsApp list containing 76 names on a BEL letterhead and all of our names were mentioned in it. Meanwhile, a woman named Sultana, claiming to be BEL MDs PA, called and asked them to pay Rs 1.5 lakh to Pasha's account and the rest to be paid after the interview. They were told the amounts would be handed over to the MD. The gullible victims believed Pasha and Sultana. A few months later, another letter was issued informing them that the interview was scheduled in November, 2018, later postponed to January 2019. Not wanting to wait any longer, some of the job aspirants went to BEL to enquire. That was when they learnt that neither Pasha nor Sultana were employees of BEL. An investigating officer said, a cheating case has been taken up. We suspect Pasha has cheated all 76 people mentioned in the list and pocketed around Rs 1 crore. We are making efforts to nab him, he said. By Express News Service NEW DELHI: Tata Motors overseas woes have finally come home to roost, and how! The home-grown automaker recorded its biggest ever quarterly loss for the December quarter at Rs 26,960 crore after dealing itself a whopping Rs 27,838 crore non-cash write-off for Jaguar Land Rover (JLR). The staggering loss comes even as its domestic business seems to have achieved a turnaround, with standalone profits nearly tripling from Rs 211.59 crore for the same period of last year to Rs 617.62 crore. Jaguar Land Rover, which Tata Motors bought in 2008, contributes over 70 per cent to Tata Motors total revenue and has been a major cash generator over the years. However, the British carmaker has fallen on very hard times since, with its global sales falling for six straight months in the second half of 2018. JLR now finds itself in a precarious position and faces a double whammy -- poor sales in China, which has been its growth engine so far, and prospects of large scale disruption in the event of a hard brexit. The converging storm seems to have forced the firm to take the surprise move to take the one-time asset impairment in an effort to reduce depreciation and amortisation costs, as noted by chief financial officer P B Balaji in a post-earnings conference call. Given the muted demand scenario and the associated impact on the financials, JLR has concluded that the carrying value of capitalised investments should be adjusted down, resulting in a non-cash 3.1 billion pound (Rs 27,838 crore) pre-tax exceptional charge and an overall pre-tax loss of 3.4 billion pound for the quarter, Tata Motors said in a statement. The company believes that this will help it scrape through to a break-even in the current financial year and help it counter the challenges facing it. This accounting adjustment is consistent with the other decisive actions that we must take as part of our Charge and Accelerate transformation programmes to create an efficient and resilient business, enabling JLR to counter the multiple economic, geopolitical, technological and regulatory headwinds. We are taking the right decisions now to prepare the company for the new technologies and strong product offensive for the future, JLRs chief executive Ralf Speth said. By PTI NEW DELHI: Finance Minister Piyush Goyal Friday said the government may provide more funds for the world's biggest health care scheme -- Ayushman Bharat -- next year. In the last four months of its launch, the scheme has already benefited over 10 lakh people, he said while speaking at the sixth Global Fund Replenishment organised by Ministry of Health here. "The government has already provided half a billion dollar funding for the programme. We expect to provide much more funds in the next year," he said. The interim Budget presented last week has raised the allocation for Ayushman Bharat scheme to Rs 6,400 crore for 2019-2020. "Unless we create a distress free health care system for 1.3 billion people in India, unless we look at health in a very holistic fashion right from preventive health care...we will not be able to take people out of distress that health care can cause particularly to lesser privileged," he said. Improvement of infrastructure of health care also opens up huge opportunities for companies around the world to participate in effort to expand the health care system, he said. The scheme aims to provide free health care to 50 crore people encompassing different dimension of family health care needs. Referring to energy access to every household, the Finance Minister said, electricity will reach to every home by April of this year, a decade ahead of sustainable development goal. By Pam Greenberg | Vol . 27, No. 7 | February 2019 Did You Know? There are several voluntary frameworks for protecting consumer data privacy, including the Information Technology Industry Council Framework to Advance Consumer Privacy, the Network Advertising Initiative and one in development from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. Data privacy and data security are two sides of the same coin. Generally, privacy is about controlling who has access to personal information, and security is about protecting that information from unauthorized access. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and state attorneys general can bring legal actions against entities that tell consumers they will safeguard their privacy and then fail to do so. Protecting consumers has long been a priority in state legislatures, and protecting individual privacy is part of that tradition. Even so, neither state legislatures nor the federal government has in place a single, comprehensive privacy law. Recent developments in Europe and California, however, have focused new attention on the privacy and security of personal information in the U.S. Privacy regulation in the U.S. is based on a sectoral approach: Current privacy laws apply to financial and health information, childrens privacy and many other areas. Also, states historically have offered more privacy protections than the federal government, particularly states with privacy clauses in their constitutions, which provide an additional overlay of protection for citizens in those states. This piecemeal approach to data privacy would likely have continued for some time in the U.S., except that in May 2018, Europes General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) took effect, extending European Union jurisdiction beyond those countries. Any global business that sells to or has European Union customers is subject to the GDPR, regardless of where that business is based. The GDPR sets forth rules about how companies treat the personal data of EU citizens, even those purchasing U.S. products or services or living in the U.S. The rules are most conspicuously evident in the notifications about the use of cookies that recently began appearing on websites. State Action Californias Consumer Privacy Act. Just as the GDPR began taking effect, privacy advocates in California had gathered enough signatures for a stringent privacy act to qualify for the November 2018 ballot. The backers of the initiative, however, agreed to keep it off the ballot after the Legislature introduced a similar proposal: the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018. It passed quickly in June, was amended in September, and will become effective Jan. 1, 2020 (with possible additional amendments in 2019). The new California law would constitute one of the broadest online privacy regulations in the U.S., affecting businesses across the country. The law, which applies to California residents: Allows consumers the right to request a business to disclose the categories and specific pieces of personal information that have been collected about them, as well as the source of that information and the purpose for collecting it. Gives consumers the right to request a business sale of their personal information without being discriminated against for opting out. Allows consumers to ask businesses to delete personal information that has been collected from them. Provides for enforcement by the state attorney general and for a private right of action in certain cases of unauthorized access, theft or disclosure of a consumers personal information. Other State Digital Privacy Laws. California was the first state to enact several digital privacy laws. The Online Privacy Protection Act (CalOPPA), for example, requires websites and other online services that collect personally identifiable information from California residents to post and comply with an online privacy policy. Although specific provisions differ, Connecticut, Delaware, Nevada and Oregon also have laws expressly requiring websites or online services that collect personal information to have or abide by online privacy policies. The Privacy Rights for California Minors in the Digital World Act, also known as the Online Eraser Law, allows Californians under 18 to request removal of their own social media or other online postings that they later regret having shared. It also prohibits websites or online services catering to children from advertising products or services that minors are legally prohibited from buying or are based on personal information collected about a minor. Delaware passed a similar law in 2015. A 2018 Vermont law requires data brokers (businesses that collect and sell or license personal information to third parties) to disclose to individuals which data is being collected and to permit them to opt out of the collection. Other states are exploring legislative action on the issue during current sessions as well. Other types of state data privacy laws include those regulating wiretapping/eavesdropping; restricting location-tracking and using data collected by automated license plate readers and event data recorders in cars; and protecting social security numbers, health information, employee and student social media passwords, and other student data. NCSL also tracks laws and legislation related to cybersecurity and data security, data breach notification, computer crime and other security-related issues. Federal Action Californias Consumer Privacy Act has prompted new calls for a comprehensive federal data privacy and security law. Some of these proposals would give the FTC greater jurisdiction over data privacy standards, and state pre-emption at some level is a possibility. Bills to be considered in Congress include the Data Care Act, the Consumer Data Protection Act, the Customer Online Notification for Stopping Edge-provider Network Transgressions (CONSENT) Act and the Information Transparency and Personal Data Control Act. Other data privacy and security bills are likely to be introduced this year as well. A visitation and memorial service will be held for Donald Hawk Sr., who passed away on Nov. 16, 2020, and his beloved wife, JoAnne C. Hawk, who passed away on Jan. 17, 2021. A bipartisan House bill would prohibit the disclosure of voter registration data for commercial purposes but would make some information available to election and political committees. House bill 5507, co-sponsored by state Rep. Josh Elliott, D-Hamden, and Rep. Terrie Wood, R-Darien, is before the Joint Committee on Government Administration and Elections. The bill aims to protect sensitive voter registration information from commercial users that may be susceptible to hackers or who would sell the data. One of the main ideas is to protect peoples birthdays, Elliott said. Political parties can have access. We dont want various commercial entities having that information. We want to find that balance to protect voters. The bill is similar to one presented by Secretary of the State Denise Merrill last year that received a favorable vote in committee but never got called in the House. Well be talking to them, said Gabe Rosenberg, spokesman for Merrills office. It does seem to be very similar to what she proposed last year. Obviously the devil is in the details. Voter registration typically requires the electors name, birth date and year, motor vehicle operators license number, social security number and signature, residential and mailing address, phone number and party affiliation. Before disclosing voter information to a candidate or committee, the bill would mandate that the electors birth date and year be redacted in addition to current protections for Social Security and license numbers. The candidate or committee must state the purpose for using the information and agree not to further disclose the information. It would also require notification to the voter that data is available for disclosure to candidates or political committees. Open government advocates oppose the legislation, arguing that voter records must remain transparent to preserve the integrity of elections. Preserving transparency is the best way to defend results against those looking to question the integrity of our election system, said Mike Savino, president of the Connecticut Council for Freedom of Information and Record-Journal local & state editor. Furthermore, data breaches across all segments of our society including commercial businesses, governmental institutions and even medical practices have comprised personal data for hundreds millions of Americans. In reality, this bill will do little to protect personal data but will hamper the publics ability to monitor elections. He pointed out that the Connecticut Posts coverage of former state Rep. Christana Ayala, D-Bridegport, using public records, resulted in an elections enforcement investigation. Ayala was ultimately arrested for voter fraud. A public hearing on House bill 5507 has not yet been scheduled. mgodin@record-journal.com 203-317-2255 Twitter: @Cconnbiz Sen. Mary Daugherty Abrams will meet with voters in coffee shops and eateries across the 13th Senate District over the next month. Abrams, D-Meriden, is hosting events on four consecutive Tuesdays from 8 to 9 a.m. from Feb. 19 through March 12. The schedule includes events at: Cheshire Coffee, 210 Old Towne Road, Cheshire, on Feb. 19 Huxleys Bookmark Cafe, 1333 East Main St., Meriden, on Feb. 26 Athenian Diner, 864 Washington St., Middletown, on March 5 Trackside Deli, 108 Main St., Middlefield on March 12 Welcome to Morningstar.co.uk! You have been redirected here from Hemscott.com as we are merging our websites to provide you with a one-stop shop for all your investment research needs.To search for a security, type the name or ticker in the search box at the top of the page and select from the dropdown results.Registered Hemscott users can log in to Morningstar using the same login details. Similarly, if you are a Hemscott Premium user, you now have a Morningstar Premium account which you can access using the same login details. Today's Headlines Would you like to receive our daily news? Sign up today! Breaking news Sign up for breaking news alerts from morning-times.com!!! Week in Sports Get a weekly local sports round-up from www.morning-times.com every Saturday morning!!! Listen to Ted Taylor Tuesdays (8 a.m. to noon) and Wednesdays (10 p.m. to 1 a.m.) on WRDV FM (89.3) or contact him at tedtaylorinc@comcast.net. LOWER GWYNEDD >> Head coach Pete Moore has won a lot of games in his 18 seasons at Hatboro-Horsham. Hatfield Chamber of Commerce is becoming part of Indian Valley Chamber of Commerce. Major League Baseball has apparently decided that there are 42 too many minor league baseball cities and, according to Commissioner Rob Manfred, after the 2020 season, that will change. There will be a new agreement between the majors and the minors signed and a lot of cities will lose their As a current print subscriber, you receive 24/7 access to our website and online e-edition at no additional charge. All you have to do is activate your access. To activate digital access, you will need your account number. You can find your account number on any recent subscription notice or bill. remaining of Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading. In summer 2020, The New York Times coordinated a nationwide project to document the lives of Americans out of work because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study involved collaborating with 11 other local newsrooms around the U.S. The Messenger-Inquirer was the only newspaper from Kentucky in the collaboration. The resulting collection of stories was published Oct. 23, 2020, in the New York Times print edition and at nytimes.com/outofwork. The following list is the Messenger-Inquirer's local unemployment coverage from that time period; read more by clicking the "New York Times Project" header. Click on "Out Of Work In America" to go to the full Egypts Ministry of Supply and Internal Trade has signed an agreement with LuLu Group International to establish four hypermarkets in the Greater Cairo area. Under the agreement, the LuLu Group International will invest $500 million in establishing four branches of Lulu Hypermarkets in New Cairo, 6 October city and Obour. The move comes in line with President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi's directives to regulate markets and provide food commodities at low prices. The head of the Internal Trade Development Authority Ibrahim Ashmawi said that Egypts political leadership pays great attention to promoting foreign investments, through its keenness to remove all obstacles to investors. Ashmawi said that the prime minister has ordered all necessary facilitation for the establishment of the four branches of Lulu Hypermarkets. The first Lulu Hypermarket branch in Egypt was opened in 2016, he said, adding that the retail chain plans to spend a further EGP 15 billion to establish new outlets across the country. The chairman of LuLu Group Yussuf Ali said the group's decision to construct four hypermarkets will contribute to securing 40,000 direct and indirect jobs. The four hypermarkets, to be built in two years, are expected to provide food at low and competitive prices, Ali added. Short link: We attempted to send a notification to your email address but we were unable to verify that you provided a valid email address. Please click here to update your email address if you wish to receive notifications. Otherwise, you may click here to disable notifications and hide this message. Although phone records showed Wyatt received four text messages while he was driving, he didnt send any messages until after the crash and a state trooper testified there was no evidence Wyatt looked at his phone while driving. The trooper also testified there was no evidence the food, drinks, radios or dogs contributed to the crash. Dougherty was one of 12 people who were convicted or pleaded guilty in connection with the Pawlowski scheme, and the seventh to be sentenced. Pawlowski has challenged his convictions in the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which on Thursday denied his request for bail while the appeal is pending. Both were taken into custody without incident, Chief Christian Meehan said in a news release issued Thursday night. At this time, Meehan said, theres no indication Donnelly or Douglas had intent to use the weapons while in the area. Allentown Police Capt. Charles Roca said the accident occurred at 3:02 p.m. in the area of Front Street and American Parkway in the city. The police departments traffic unit is investigating the incident, he added. The motion filed by Attorney Joseph Hanyon, who represents the owners of Spankys, requests the owners get an opportunity to enter the club to secure the premises, as they were not aware that it would be shuttered Tuesday. The motion also asks for more time to prepare for the hearing. Some Pennsylvania officers participating in a Skate with a Cop fundraiser at a roller rink had to take a break from the fun to deal with a drunken man who was falling over and running into other skaters. (UpperCut Images / Getty Images/Uppercut RF) Egypt's Minister of Petroleum Tarek El Molla discussed with US Charge dAffaires in Cairo Thomas H. Goldberger prospects of bilateral cooperation in the coming period, in line with Egypts plan to become a regional hub for gas and petroleum. The meeting saw discussions of the activities of US firms working in Egypt in the fields of petroleum and gas exploration, engineering designs and constructions, among other topics, the petroleum ministry said in a statement on Friday. The two sides also discussed new petroleum projects being carried out in Egypt in the fields of refining and petrochemicals, in addition to investment opportunities available for US companies to take part in such projects. Short link: Suburban Station's long, crooked corridors splay out from its cavernous art deco central concourse like the legs of a spider, and scattered along them late at night are dozens of people. About 11 p.m. on a recent night, two huddled in the doorway of a closed shop. Across from them, another person sprawled face down on the floor, the brittle contents of a self-rolled cigarette scattered beside him. One crew sat in a circle on the floor beneath the bright, harsh lights. Another slouched against a maintenance vehicle and chatted. A man nearby appeared on the verge of falling asleep on his feet. The air carried echoing laughter and smoke with a spicy tang, likely K2, a smokable material sprayed with chemicals described as synthetic marijuana, that people in the station readily admit to using. People defecate and urinate on the floors. Pawlowski is serving his sentence at a federal facility in Danbury, Conn. with a release date of November 2031. His prison term will be followed by three years of supervised release. He must also pay more than $93,000 in restitution. The Center Valley office is a major hub for the company. At 178,330 square feet, the leased facility at 3501 Corporate Parkway houses various sales, emerging businesses, finance, fulfillment and data operations groups, according to the companys annual report. As of early 2018, the company had 827 employees in Center Valley, according to information provided in the 2018 Top Workplaces survey, though Dun & Bradstreets payroll has been known to ebb and flow over the years. In terms of hiring, Koval said the company likely will hire 15 to 20 people for office, floor and sales positions. Carpet & Tile Mart also hires its own installation professionals, typically crews of two to four people. The number of installation folks will depend on market demand, but it could be at least 18 to 20 employees, he noted. In the context of its programme for the promotion of social sciences, the Mauritius LSE Society Trust Fund, has invited Professor Christine Chinkin for a lecture Tour in Mauritius in the week of 11 February 2019. Prof Chinkin, FBA is Emerita Professor of International Law and Director of the Centre on Women, Peace and Security at the LSE. She is a barrister and a member of Matrix Chambers. She was appointed Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in the 2017 Birthday Honours for services to advancing womens human rights worldwide. She has held visiting appointments in Australia, the United States, Singapore and the Peoples Republic of China. She is currently a member of the Kosovo Human Rights Advisory Panel and was Scientific Advisor to the Council of Europes Committee for the drafting of the Convention on Preventing and Combatting Violence against Women and Domestic Violence. She is well known internationally for her work in the fields of violence against women, and women peace and security, clearly all very relevant and topical issues in Mauritius. Lectures at the University of Mauritius She will intervene at the University of Mauritius on Tuesday 12 February 2019 as follows: 10:00-11:30: Lecture: Tackling violence against women in international law 13:00-14:30: Seminar: The enforcement of womens rights in Mauritius In the evening of Wednesday 13 February, she will give a talk to LSE Alumni at a dinner reception at the Mauritius Gymkhana Club in Vacoas. Partager et informez vous aussi...... 1 shares Share Tweet LinkedIn In partnership with the African Development Bank (AfDB.org), Korea is ready to step up technology transfers to Africa, officials said in Seoul . Speaking at a meeting on potential technology partnerships between Korea and Africa, representatives of Busan Metropolitan City, Busan Techno Park, and Koreas Green Technology Center said there was huge potential for cooperation and immense opportunities for job-creating bankable projects. The range of business options include agriculture, green growth, smart urban transportation management, and numerous business opportunities. President of the African Development Bank, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina says, the Future is going to be an exponentially different future, and that the Bank intends to explore the creation of a strategic partnership with Korea that could lead to the creation of a Korea-Africa research and training Drone Center, that could help pave the way for Africas 4th Industrial Revolution. According to Hyung-Ju Kim, Director, Global Strategy Division, Green Technology Center, Korean expertise can provide a practical and pragmatic solution to a wide range of Africas most pressing technology needs: The African Development Bank could play a major role here: if we bring technology to the table, the Bank can identify and facilitate bankable projects that can boost technology cooperation between Africa and Korea. With funding from the Korea-Africa Cooperation (KOAFEC) fund, the African Development Bank, in cooperation with Busan Metropolitan City, and the Busan Techno Park, has launched, a pilot project in Tunisia using drone technology to develop agriculture, including data collection and analysis, monitoring irrigated perimeters, aquifers, the effects of climate change, land degradation, biodiversity, filling and siltation of dams, and overall agricultural production. Korea and the African Development Bank intend to extend the program to other countries and regions in Tunisia and Africa, and explore the massive market potential of industrial zones in other sectors. Adesina says, We are determined to expand the use of drones in agriculture in Africa. What we do in Africa today, will determine global food security tomorrow. For the President of the African Development Bank, it is important that the technological partnership with Korea translates into capacity building on the ground, through training, so that Africa can industrialize, build or assemble drones. Busan Citys dominance as a Smart City on the cutting of artificial intelligence is thanks in part to political vision, one of the largest research and development expenditures in the world, and a team of 12,000 researchers and scientists. Speaking afterwards to the African diplomatic corps in Seoul, Adesina identified three main obstacles to private sector development access to finance, energy and stability. The Bank has invested $1 billion in AfreximBank, including $ 650 million in trade finance lines of credit and $ 350 million in trade insurance. The Bank has also invested $ 630 million in First Rand Bank and AbSA in South Africa to support expanded access to trade finance for 20 countries. This financing effort includes small and medium-sized enterprises, which represent more than 80% of businesses in Africa. In this respect, he cited the Asian example, where large companies relied on value chains dominated by SMEs including suppliers and subcontractors. The Banks strategy is to develop large companies while connecting them to SMEs for increased value creation. Without electricity it is impossible to industrialize Africa, Adesina said. The Bank has made access to electricity a top priority. Its Desert to Power initiative will develop an estimated 10,000 MW in the Sahel region, making it the largest solar project in the world. Adesina, the head of Africas leading development finance institution, says, the Banks 2018 Africa Investment Forum in South Africa, secured investment commitments worth $ 38.7 billion in less than 72 hours, which provides a strong indication of global interest in Africas emerging markets. Experts say in order for the African Development Bank to continue supporting the continents development, a general capital increase is necessary. According to Adesina, an $11 billion increase in paid-in capital for example would significantly change the lives of millions of people, including 105 million who would have access to electricity; 137 million who would benefit from access to improved agricultural technologies; 22 million who would benefit from investments in private sector projects; 151 million with access to improved transportation services; and 110 million who would be provided with access to improved water and sanitation services. The dean of the Board of Directors of the African Development Bank, Abdelmajid Mellouki, estimates that a general capital increase would enable the Bank to provide African countries with funding at significantly lower costs. Adesina is on a three-day visit to Korea which includes several official visits, and to receive the SunHaK Peace Prize awards for which he and co-laureate, Waris Dirie a well-known activist against female genital mutilation, are the 2019 nominees. This is the first time the SunHak Peace Prize has been awarded to the African continent. Adesina is expected to deliver a keynote address at the World Peace Summit of Global Leaders on February 9. Partager et informez vous aussi...... 1 shares Share Tweet LinkedIn Les membres du gouvernement ont pris note des retombees de la visite du President de la Mozambique a Maurice, des activites en hommage a Kaya entre autres. 1. Cabinet has taken note that during the visit of the President of the Republic of Mozambique in Mauritius, the following areas were identified for future cooperation namely: (a) LNG Project; (b) Development of a Regional Fishing Company; (c) Development of Regional Cabotage Services; (d) Initiatives for developing trade in goods and services; (e) Joint development of a regional tourism cluster; (f) Setting up of Industrial Park/Special Economic Zone in Mozambique; and (g) Provision of Professional Services such as Financial, Banking, Insurance,egal and Accounting by Mauritian Operators in Mozambique. The Economic Development Board has been designated as the coordinating body from the Mauritian Side to ensure the timely implementation of these projects in close collaboration with Business Mauritius and institutions both in the public and private sectors. Close collaboration with regard to the fight against drug trafficking is also envisaged. The assistance of the Mozambican authorities has also been sought for the setting up of the Intercontinental Slavery Museum. 2. Cabinet has taken note of the arrangements being made in the context of the National Day Celebrations 2019 and HE Mr Andry Rajoelina, President of the Republic of Madagascar, would be the Chief Guest. 3. Cabinet has taken note of the arrangements being made for the holding of the International Gita Mahotsav in Mauritius from 13 to 16 February 2019. 4. Cabinet has taken note of the programme of activities that would be organised to pay tribute to late Joseph Reginald Topize (Kaya), Mauritian musician and the creator of seggae . The activities would include: (a) cultural performances on 21 February 2019 by: (i) the Conservatoire National de Musique Francois Mitterand at the Esplanade of the Municipal Council of Port Louis; (ii) Les Vents dun Reve in front of Air Mauritius Building, Port Louis; and (iii) the Atelier Mozar along the main allee of the Central Market. (b) a forum/round table on the lyrics of Kaya at the Municipal Council of Port Louis; and (c) a musical performance at the Port Louis Waterfront Esplanade, with the participation of various artistic groups. 5. Cabinet has agreed to the holding of the Port Management Association of Eastern and Southern Africa (PMAESA) Annual Conference on Integration of Logistics and Maritime Connectivity in Africa and the Africa Ports Award Ceremony in Mauritius in June 2019. The objective of the Conference is to highlight the vital role of ports in shaping a development strategy in the African region, exploiting the comparative advantages and improving the competitiveness of economic actors. Some 300 delegates are expected to discuss topical issues and challenges on global transportation and logistics. The Africa Ports Award is a platform for celebrating excellence and merit of the actors in the port world. The ceremony would bring together the Chief Executives of the African ports grouped within the Pan-African Association for Port Cooperation. 6. Cabinet has taken note of the setting up of an Inter-State (Regional) Gas Committee by SADC to promote the inclusion of natural gas in the regional energy mix and provide industrial development in the region. The SADC Council has decided to develop a Regional Gas Master Plan, covering evaluation of available natural gas resources and existing markets, gas utilisation strategy, supply and demand analysis, infrastructure development plans, institutional, regulatory and fiscal frameworks. The primary objectives of the Inter-State (Regional) Gas Committee are to: (a) provide sound, comprehensive guidance and make recommendations based on best practices regarding the development of gas market and infrastructure for the region; and (b) advise on policies and strategies to be developed and implemented in pursuit of a sustainable gas market for the benefit of all Member States. 7. Cabinet has taken note that the Ministry of Health and Quality of Life would conduct a pilot study on Development and Evaluation of a Technology-Assisted Diabetes Prevention Programme in Mauritius to evaluate the impact of text messaging (SMS messaging) for the prevention of diabetes in the Mauritian population who are at high risk of developing diabetes. The study would be undertaken in collaboration with Mauritius Telecom and with the assistance of Prof A. Ramachandran, Chairman of Dr A. Ramachandrans Diabetes Hospitals and President of India Diabetes Research Foundation, Chennai, India. The objective of the study is to develop a cost effective, practical intervention to help prevent Mauritians with pre-diabetes from subsequently developing Type2 diabetes. The study would target some 400 participants. 8. Cabinet has taken note of the performance of the Export-Oriented Enterprises (EOE) Sector over the period January to November 2018 as compared to the same period in 2017. The value of exports of the EOE Sector has increased by 2.0%. Increase has been recorded in the value of exports of textiles and clothing, fish and fish preparations, jewellery, pearls, precious and semi-precious stones, medical devices, and watches and clocks. Growth has been recorded in exports to Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, the USA and South Africa. 9. Cabinet has taken note that the candidacy of the Government of Mauritius to be part of the Commonwealth Advisory Body on Sport for the 2019-2020 membership has been retained. The Commonwealth Advisory Body on Sport provides advice to the Commonwealth Secretary-General and Member governments on sport policy issues, particularly related to Sport for Development and Peace and protecting the integrity of sport. 10. Cabinet has taken note of the outcome of the recent mission of the Minister of Public Infrastructure and Land Transport to Japan. During his visit, the Minister of Public Infrastructure and Land Transport had a meeting with Mr Sato, State Minister for Foreign Affairs, with whom he discussed, among others, areas where Japanese assistance/collaboration could be beneficial to Mauritius such as climate change, ocean economy, fisheries, tourism and maritime security. He also met Mr T. Kitamura, Deputy Minister, Ministry of Land Transport and Tourism, Mr Adachi, Parliamentary Vice-Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism and Mr Ushio, Director-General, African Affairs Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Minister had meetings with relevant Japanese agencies related to promotion of Japanese investment/assistance in overseas countries, namely the Japanese Overseas Infrastructure Investment Corporation of Transport and Urban Development, the Japanese International Cooperation Agency and the Japan Africa Restructure Development Association. He also effected site visits to the Road Traffic Control Centre of Tokyo, the LRT Yurikamome, the Disaster Reduction and Human Renovation Institution at KOBE, and the construction site for Yagayama Tunnel. 11. Cabinet has taken note of the outcome of the recent mission by the Minister of Tourism to New Delhi and Mumbai. In New Delhi, the Minister attended the South Asian Travel and Trade Exhibition (SATTE), the South Asias flagship business-to-business (B2B) travel and tourism exhibition. SATTE showcases Indias tourism potential to the world by bringing the global tourism market to India. Participants from 50 countries and 28 State Tourism Boards were able to network and gain profitable insights. In the margins of the SATTE, the Mauritius Tourism Promotion Authority organised a Mauritian event in line with the theme: Worlds most romantic destination. The Minister also had a meeting with Hon. K.J. Alphons, Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Tourism and discussed, among others, the various challenges facing the tourism industry in the respective countries and shared strategies for addressing same. In Mumbai, the Minister of Tourism was the Chief Guest at the opening of the OTM Fair, which is the only travel trade show in Mumbai endorsed by the Ministry of Tourism, Government of India. The tradeshow was also a unique opportunity for the pool of Indian and international exhibitors to showcase their travel products and services. 12. Cabinet has taken note that the Minister of Health and Quality of Life would make the Dental Council (Registration of Dental Surgeons and Dental Specialists) (Amendment) Regulations under the Dental Council Act with a view to amending the application form for registration as a dental surgeon and dental specialist The application form for registration would be amended for the applicant to declare that there is no legal impediment or criminal case before any authorised body or Court and nor any pending administrative or criminal case, against him. 13. Cabinet has taken note of the constitution of the Board of the Special Education Needs Authority with Mrs Savitree Oogarah as Chairperson. 14. Cabinet has taken note that a swimming pool complex with associated amenities would be constructed at Closel, Phoenix. The project would be funded by the Emirates Airline. The Vacoas/Phoenix Swimming Pool Foundation has been setup to manage the construction and maintenance of the swimming pool complex. The Council of the Foundation would be chaired by the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Youth and Sports. 15. Cabinet has taken note of the composition of the Medical Council of Mauritius for period 2019 to 2021. 16. Cabinet has taken note of the reconstitution of the Board of the Early Childhood Care and Education Authority with Mrs Fawzia Toorawa as Chairperson. Partager et informez vous aussi...... 5 shares Share Tweet LinkedIn 20 Year of Eurozone and Gold The old continent is dying. The euro is on the brink of collapse. This is what you can often hear in the press. But is that really the case? We invite you to read our todays article about the development of the Eurozone in the last twenty years and find out what are the real prospect of the euro and what does it imply for the gold market. In December, we celebrated 40 years of market reforms in China. In January, there was another important anniversary: 20 years of the euro area. So, lets move from East Asia to Europe, analyzing the economic situation of the Eurozone and its implications for gold. After years of negotiations and preparations, the euro was launched on January 1st, 1999. Initially, the shared currency was only virtual, and the national currencies were still legal tenders used in circulation. For ordinary citizens little changed. However, the exchange rates between national currencies were locked at fixed rates against each other, while the European Central Bank took control over their monetary policy. The euro notes and coins entered the circulation three years later. The first members included Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain. Greece joined the club in 2001, thought it should not have done, as it turned out later. Since then, seven more countries Slovenia, Cyprus, Malta, Slovakia Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania entered the Eurozone. At the beginning, everything was running smoothly. But then the financial crisis hit the Eurozone heavily, revealing significant defects in its architecture (the fatal flaw is that there is a currency union with the several independent fiscal policies). It was quite perverse, as the Great Recession erupted in America. However, the US with its unified fiscal and political system overcame the crisis relatively quickly. On the contrary, the Eurozone suffered a prolonged depression, as the financial crisis morphed into the sovereign debt crisis. Only when Mario Draghi famously pledged the ECB would do whatever it takes to preserve the euro, the market turmoil calmed. The truth is that the Europes monetary union is still unfinished, as there is neither a true banking union nor a capital market union. This is because the euro was the political project from the beginning, not an economic one. It was never an optimal currency area. But the idea was that the euro would push European countries toward deeper integration, making wars impossible. As economists, we are, thus, a bit skeptical of the prospects of the common currency and the whole bloc. Indeed, as the chart below shows, the Eurozone performed worse than the US. The former economy grew 31.4 percent by Q3 2018, compared to 50.5 percent for the latter. Chart 1: Real GDP growth in the Eurozone (blue line) and in the US (red line) from Q1 1999 to Q3 2018 (as an index, where Q1 1999 = 100) However, the pace of growth was also lower than in the US before the introduction of the euro. And the common currency did not prevent the whole bloc from growing (although the performance differed among the countries). Actually, the euros performance has been demonized. Its performance has not been as poor as one could expect, given the moderate growth in the GDP and all those gloomy headlines. Just look at the chart below, which presents the EUR/USD exchange rate since the creation of the euro. Chart 2: EUR/USD exchange rate from January 1999 to December 2018 As one can see, the euros value against the US dollar was initially $1.1812. From then to the end of 2018, it dropped to $1.1456, or 3 percent. Not so bad, given that fact that it is used in several economically distinct countries. What are the implications for the gold market? Quite important, as it turns out. Please look at the chart above once again. Although the correlation is not perfect, its clear that the performance of euro, which is the second widely used reserve currency in the world, is significantly linked to the gold prices. Its true that the Eurozone faces many problems, including still weak banking system or the rise in populism. But investors should acknowledge that the euro area is more robust today than it was at the start of the Greek sovereign-debt crisis (for example, the European policy makers established the rescue fund and launched the banking union). Moreover, despite the populist revolution, almost 75 percent of the Eurozones population support the euro. Even in Italy, almost 70 percent supports the common currency. And funny enough: when the risk premium increased, Italys new government also started to express more sympathy towards the euro. All this means that the euro is out of the danger zone, at least in the short run. Actually, the slowdown of the U.S. (and Chinas) expansion could push investors towards the euro-denominated assets, especially when the ECB starts finally hiking its interest rates. If that happens and the euro strengthens against the US dollar in the second half of 2019, the price of gold may go up. Thank you. If you enjoyed the above analysis and would you like to know more about the gold ETFs and their impact on gold price, we invite you to read the April Market Overview report. If you're interested in the detailed price analysis and price projections with targets, we invite you to sign up for our Gold & Silver Trading Alerts . If you're not ready to subscribe at this time, we invite you to sign up for our gold newsletter and stay up-to-date with our latest free articles. It's free and you can unsubscribe anytime. Arkadiusz Sieron Sunshine Profits Market Overview Editor Disclaimer All essays, research and information found above represent analyses and opinions of Przemyslaw Radomski, CFA and Sunshine Profits' associates only. As such, it may prove wrong and be a subject to change without notice. Opinions and analyses were based on data available to authors of respective essays at the time of writing. Although the information provided above is based on careful research and sources that are believed to be accurate, Przemyslaw Radomski, CFA and his associates do not guarantee the accuracy or thoroughness of the data or information reported. The opinions published above are neither an offer nor a recommendation to purchase or sell any securities. Mr. Radomski is not a Registered Securities Advisor. By reading Przemyslaw Radomski's, CFA reports you fully agree that he will not be held responsible or liable for any decisions you make regarding any information provided in these reports. Investing, trading and speculation in any financial markets may involve high risk of loss. Przemyslaw Radomski, CFA, Sunshine Profits' employees and affiliates as well as members of their families may have a short or long position in any securities, including those mentioned in any of the reports or essays, and may make additional purchases and/or sales of those securities without notice. Arkadiusz Sieron Archive 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication. Egypts cabinet will set up a fund to finance the development of state-owned enterprises, it said in a statement, in a move that the IMF has been encouraging. Egypt plans to sell shares in dozens of state-owned enterprises over the next few years to help boost public finances, as part of a broader slate of economic reforms tied to a $12 billion IMF loan Cairo received in late 2016. But the privatisation programme was delayed last year due to global market volatility. The new fund will contribute to settling the public business sectors debts to the banking system, provide the necessary financing for the administrative and technical reform of these companies and contribute to the removal of financial bottlenecks, the cabinet said in a statement on Wednesday. The IMF said a day earlier that Egypts reform programme, tied to its three-year loan, is aimed at easing long-standing constraints to private sector development. It includes improving the management of state-owned enterprises. Sustained implementation of these reforms is essential to reduce opportunities for rent seeking and to support strong and inclusive medium-term growth and job creation, the IMF said in a statement. The fund will be managed by a committee headed by the public enterprises minister and include members from the State Council, finance ministry, the National Investment Bank and the chairman of any holding company that the fund develops. The state owns vast swathes of Egypts economy. The government plans to sell stakes in three banks, a cigarette maker, an oil services company and a fertiliser maker among others. It had planned to sell stakes in up to five companies from October to the end of 2018, plans which were scrapped after equities across emerging markets fell steeply last year. Another 18 were expected over the next two to three years. Finance Minister Mohamed Maait said on Tuesday that the government will resume the privatisation programme soon, without elaborating. Short link: Phillip Henry Bachman passed away on March 17, 2020. We will "fulPhil" Phil's desire of a music filled funeral and celebration of his life on July 1, 2021 at Zion Lutheran Church in Lake Crystal, MN. Visitation at 10:00 a.m., funeral at 11:00 a.m. and a celebration luncheon after at the church. New Delhi : Launching a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress chief Rahul Gandhi on Thursday described him as a "darpok" (coward) and dared him to a five minute face-to-face debate on issues such as Rafale and national security. Addressing his party's minority department convention here, Gandhi also alleged that the RSS was trying to capture the institutions of the country and asserted that his party's governments in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhatisgarh will remove the organisation's loyalists from the system. In his speech covering a range of topics, an aggressive Gandhi slammed Modi for his China policy, saying the prime minister flew to the country and held a summit without an agenda while Beijing sent its army to Doklam. Modi folded his hands before China, the Congress chief said, adding that China realised within two months that "leave alone 56 inches, he doesn't even have a four-inch chest". "I know his (Modi) character after fighting him for five years...I say to BJP leaders... make Narendra Modi stand with me on stage for five minutes and debate on national security, Rafale," Gandhi said in his speech in Hindi. "I want to say he is a darpok (coward) person. I have recognised him. He gets scared when he faces someone who says I will not back off, he backs off," the Congress chief said, walking away dramatically from the mike for visual effect, eliciting applause from Congress workers. In a speech laced with sarcasm, Gandhi did not spare Hindutva ideologue V D Savarkar, mocking him for allegedly taking instructions from the British. Gandhi urged his party's workers to face the RSS, the BJP and Modi with all their might. If Congress workers stand together, they (RSS, BJP, Modi) will run away as "they are cowards", he added. The Congress chief said fear was writ large on Modi's face and asserted that those who spread hatred will be defeated. PTI Malibu, CA (90265) Today Some clouds in the morning will give way to mainly sunny skies for the afternoon. High near 70F. Winds WSW at 10 to 20 mph.. Tonight Mainly clear early, then a few clouds later on. Low 59F. Winds WNW at 10 to 15 mph. Dave and John Braxton, owners of Braxtons Animal Works, are pictured with store manager Chad Barone outside the Wayne store. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro warned on Friday that blocking all oil shipments from his OPEC-nation would have catastrophic consequences in the wake of crippling sanctions imposed by the United States on state oil company PDVSA. In a news conference in Caracas, Maduro also said anyone who accepted illegal nominations by the opposition to PDVSA [PDVSA.UL] and its U.S. subsidiary Citgo Petroleum Corp [PDVSAC.UL]. The economic and social consequences of a total blockade to our oil shipments would be catastrophic, he said. Short link: The South Arkansas Kennel Club Dog Shows and Obedience Trials, Rally and Lure Coursing will be February 23-24 in East Camden. Motoring / Yachts Built in the Netherlands by Oceanco, the 91.5m Equanimity in Malaysia has a guide price of US$130 million, far less than its original value in 2014. Feb 08, 2019 | By Bruce Maxwell The 91.5m Equanimity is being offered for private treaty sale prior to 31 March as part of the disposal of troubled 1MDB assets. Malaysias High Court has set a price guide of US$130 million on an as is where is basis. This is the market value assessed by the court-appointed appraiser Winterbothams, which conducted a full survey of the yacht. Bearing in mind that the price on delivery from leading Netherlands builder Oceanco in 2014 was probably more like US$200 million, this represents an attractive opportunity to own a large sail-away superyacht whose interiors are outfitted in modern Asian woods, bamboo, marble and gold leaf. Burgess, a well-known international yacht brokerage firm which also has offices in Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Tokyo, was initially appointed to handle legally-required sealed bids last November and December. This first phase was needed in Admiralty Law to provide due publicity and the subsequent buyer of the yacht with an internationally-recognised clean and clear ownership title, said a Burgess spokesman. Burgess remains central agent for the second phase, which largely follows industry standard private treaty protocol, allowing potential buyers to visit the yacht, submit offers via Burgess, and for the High Court to reject, negotiate or accept such offers. Detailed information and copies of the survey are available on request. At 2,998GT, Equanimity was built to comply with the Passenger Yacht Code and can accommodate 18-22 guests in 9-11 cabins. Only two such PYC yachts are presently available for sale. One owners suite with study can convert into a second double, and there is a VVIP and three VIP cabins, one of which can convert into a fourth double cabin, plus two further double and two twin cabins, in addition to 31 crew in 17 cabins. Her interior is by Winch Design. Amenities include an impressive beach club and health centre with gym, massage room, sauna, hammam, plunge pool and beauty salon. There is also a hospital, helipad certified for an Airbus EC 135 or equivalent, two 10.5m Hodgdon tenders, and large circular swimming pool. Equanimity is powered by two MTU 20V 4000M73L engines providing a maximum speed of 18.5 knots. At a cruising speed of 15 knots, her range is 5,000nm. It is rare for auctions and sales like this to take place in the superyacht world, but it has happened previously with the smaller Lurssen 67m Apoise and 50m Delta Triton, and again when prominent Indian businessman Vijay Mallya was judged to have abandoned his 95m Indian Princess in Malta in 2017. I was coincidentally at Oceancos yard in Alblasserdam near Rotterdam in the late 1990s when Richard Hein was building Indian Princess, originally as Al Mirqab for the Qatar royal family, and again in 2014 as Equanimity was handed over. Stories had already begun to swirl about mysterious big-spending Malaysian entrepreneur Jho Low and his involvement with the sovereign wealth fund 1MDB, which would later engulf former Prime Minister Najib Razak. Back then, when the online site Superyachtfan named Jho Low as Equanimitys owner, his lawyers wrote to deny it, but the vessel would soon arrive in Asia-Pacific waters via an Arctic passage to South Korea. She has been here ever since, roaming from Hong Kong to East Australian ports, and more recently hanging out in Phuket, Sihanoukville on the Cambodian coast of the Gulf of Thailand, and Bali, before her arrest over the 1MDB affair. Last year two books were released, purporting to detail what occurred. The first was The Sarawak Report by Clare Rewcastle-Brown, a relative of former British PM Gordon Brown, and the second a racy summary called Billion Dollar Whale by Wall Street Journal writers Tom Wright and Bradley Hope. The latter says that Jho Lows involvement in borrowing, chartering and buying superyachts was by no means limited to Equanimity. Starting on his familys home island of Penang, Jho Low was apparently to be found aboard the 48m Lady Orient, which is Brian Changs Japanese-built ex-Asean Lady and a pioneer of superyachting in Southeast Asia. Then in 2009 came the charter of his first Oceanco vessel, the 81m Alfa Nero, in the Med for a series of high-level meetings over a week, followed by the 134m Fincantieri Serene and more often the 147m Lurssen Topaz, while his Goldman Sachs advisor Tim Leissner acquired the 52m Benetti Sai Ram. In between, Jho Low circled the globe in a Bombardier Global 5000, threw lavish all-night Cristal champagne parties, acquired friends like Leonardo DiCaprio, Jamie Foxx and Australian model Miranda Kerr, and helped produce Hollywood movies like The Wolf of Wall Street. At the deadline for Yacht Style 45 (in which this article first appeared), Low remained a fugitive from arrest warrants taken out in Singapore and Malaysia. Whether this colourful tale, still unfolding, will affect the Equanimity sale is hard to tell, but as it seems Low has made no further claims on the vessel within required time periods, and no other claimants have come forward, the Malaysian Attorney-General and very experienced maritime lawyers are satisfied that clean and clear title can be offered. An initial case brought by the US Department of Justice has been withdrawn, so there are now no legally valid claims left on the yacht other than that of the Malaysian Government. According to the Burgess spokesman, the Malaysian High Courts Legal Team has ample evidence available that any resale and related ownership title will be recognised by Admiralty Courts worldwide. Dealing with the yachts present condition, he also clarified that the yacht is still maintained by an experienced crew, overseen by a specialist yacht management company, and further quoted the Winterbothams survey: She has been extensively used since delivery, with very little downtime, which now shows in her overall condition. That being said, she has been well-built, has a solid platform, and as such, with a reasonably small investment, and some downtime, we would expect her condition to improve dramatically. Today Cloudy skies this morning followed by thunderstorms during the afternoon. High 91F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 60%. Tonight Clear to partly cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 74F. Winds light and variable. Tomorrow Scattered thunderstorms in the morning, then mainly cloudy during the afternoon with thunderstorms likely. High 91F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%. When it rains it pours Local councils have called on Queenslanders to show their support for communities affected by floods in north Queensland by donating money to charities helping people recover from the disaster. The Local Government Association of Queensland (LGAQ) today donated a total of $20,000 to the four organisations partnering to assist in the disaster - The Australian Red Cross Society, UnitingCare, Salvation Army and St Vincent de Paul Society Queensland. LGAQ President and Sunshine Coast Mayor, Mark Jamieson, said the full extent of the damage from the flood crisis was still emerging. But its clear that communities in north Queensland will need an enormous amount of assistance to recover. Queenslanders naturally give each other a helping hand in times like these and their generosity in the wake of these floods will go a long way to ensuring the people hit by this disaster can get their lives back on track as soon as possible. The public will have an opportunity Monday afternoon to hear from one of the leading experts on water quality in Southwest Florida. The League of Women Voters of Lee County Environmental Committee will host John Cassani, The Calusa Waterkeeper, at the Cape Coral Library from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Feb 11. as He will give a PowerPoint presentation on water quality issues of the Caloosahatchee River as well as Southwest Florida. We are asking him to enlighten us, said LWV Environmental Committee Chair, Patty Duncan. We want him to apprise the public of all this entails. Cassani, a career scientist, has been committed to community involvement with land and water conservation for decades. He is retired from Lee County Hyacinth Control District where, as a biologist, he led a range of programs including the regional grass carp breeding program. Cassani also founded the Southwest Florida Watershed Council. If you were affected by the blue green algae, or not, chances are your property values were. You need to hear what he has to say on how we all can be proactive on what we can do protect our water, said Duncan. The LWV Environmental Committee likes to get involved in things that can make a difference, no matter how big or small, said Duncan. Cassani is a speaker the group has wanted to bring in for some time now, as they believe they can assist him in spreading the word of his mission of protecting Floridas greatest resource. Recently, Cassani announced, The public needs to weigh in on the Lake Okeechobee Operating Manual. Southwest Florida residents will be the first to weigh in on the Army Corps of Engineers public scoping process for the new Lake Okeechobee System Operating Manual (LOSOM). This is the most direct and immediate way we can have a say in how water discharges to the Caloosahatchee River are managed. Though the meeting in Lee County has since passed, residents can submit their comments via email by March 31, at LakeOComments@usace.army.mil. The LWV Environmental Committee meets once a month, and Duncan said that water has always been at the top of the priority list for the group. We have a venue that can accommodate lots of people, we hope they come out and hear this important and vital information, she said. Calusa Waterkeeper is a member of the international Waterkeeper Alliance, touted as the largest and fastest-growing non-profit solely focused on clean water, with more than 300 Waterkeeper organizations and affiliates on the front-lines of the global water crisis, patrolling and protecting more than 2.5 million square miles of rivers, lakes and coastal waterways on six continents. For more information on Calusaa Waterkeeper, visit www.calusawaterkeeper.org. For more information on LWV, visit www.LWVLee.org. The Cape Coral Library is at 921 Southwest 39th Terrace. -Connect with this reporter on Twitter: @haddad_cj Su Chii-cherng, head of the Taiwan government office in Osaka, committed suicide in September after he was criticized in mainstream news reports for not having made arrangements to rescue Taiwanese tourists temporarily stranded at a typhoon-flooded Japanese airport. As it turned out, the foreign ministry in Taipei said, the 61-year-old diplomat was not allowed to send in vehicles, which meant the criticism, based on an unidentified travelers tip, was not justified. High-level Taiwanese officials are now citing the incident as they seek to strengthen penalties for the spread of what they deem false reports on natural disasters and food safety. Taiwan is one of at least seven countries across eastern Asia that have recently enacted or are considering laws to limit or gain access to information about internet reports that officials claim are false, speculative, exaggerated, or truthful yet hurtful. As does President Trump, they often lump such reports under a vague, and often misleading, heading: fake news. RELATED: How WhatsApp is battling misinformation in India, where fake news is part of our culture Advertisement For nations with one-party rule, regulations squelching false or sensitive stories emanating from social media would result in an expansion of longstanding controls over the traditional mass media. Such efforts have been on the rise over about the last two years due in part to the difficulty of identifying the authors of encrypted messages sent on social media, said Cedric Alviani, east Asia bureau director with the French-based media rights group Reporters Without Borders. In these nations, the dramatic rise of smartphones has sent social media and overall internet use spiraling. Smartphone shipments to six emerging Southeast Asian countries tracked by market research firm IDC totaled 100 million in 2017, up from 22.5 million in 2012. Government officials in Southeast Asia are focusing on social media commentary that causes reputation harm to themselves and their institutions, said James Gomez, board chair with the nonprofit human rights group Asia Centre in Bangkok. Unlike in the U.S., where Trump is attacking to do reputation damage to the fact-based traditional media, he said, in Asia, government representatives are focused on discrediting critics. In Thailand, authorities, citing fake news, have been strengthening their 12-year-old Computer Crimes Act to stop anti-government criticism, regardless of whether the statements are true. The law, initially aimed at stopping slights to the monarchy, has expanded to discourage criticism of the military government that took power in 2014, said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political science professor at Chulalongkorn University in Thailand. In Cambodia, a regulation issued in June authorized an inter-ministerial working group to control all dissemination of information that threatened security, the economy or foreign relations. A Vietnamese law that took effect Jan. 1 required foreign and domestic internet services to hand over user data so authorities could probe the spread of any report and the identity of its author. The Cyber Security Law calls for providers including Facebook and Google to supply user information and delete content at the governments request. Individual senders of what is deemed false information can already be sentenced to prison under existing law for attempting to undermine state security. Advertisement Authoritarian governments in Vietnam and China have more muscle to fight what they brand fake news because they already own or censor the major media outlets, Gomez said. Chinas 2017 Provisions for the Administration of Internet News Information Services require that online news providers reprint information from government-approved organizations without changing the content. Vietnamese officials worry that social media, which is not proactively censored as it is in China, will spread reports that damage their reputation, said Trung Nguyen, international relations dean at Ho Chi Minh City University of Social Sciences and Humanities. The Thai provision helps the military government prosecute those they say are threatening national security, Pongsudhirak said. Violators face up to 15 years in prison, he said, and the draconian law has led to rising self-censorship. Advertisement Cambodian officials believe false reports undermine the government, cause social unrest and pose a genuine threat to national security, said Carl Thayer, emeritus professor at the University of New South Wales in Australia. The government, run by the party of former Khmer Rouge commander Hun Sen since 1985, has long repressed radio and print, Thayer said, so now it wants to hobble social media used by political opponents. Some Asian governments have found that libel codes and other existing laws do not cover acts they deem actionable. The Taiwanese tipster was charged under the countrys Social Order Maintenance Act. But a judge threw out the case for lack of evidence that the defendant had caused a social disturbance. In Vietnam, officials will probably sparingly enforce their new law to avoid making citizens angry, Nguyen predicted. Malaysian officials, meanwhile, repealed legislation enacted in August after finding that a 1998 law already covered much of its content. In Singapore, a city-state with a strong ruling party known for being tough on crime, legislators are considering regulations to strengthen media controls that are already in place. Journalists can now be jailed for libel, threats to national security or ill will against religious or racial groups, Reporters Without Borders said. Advertisement Even as governments rush to strengthen their laws, some continue to spin their own false reports in media outlets they control in order to discredit critics, said Gomez of the Asia Centre in Bangkok. Critics are finding themselves on the back foot, he said, becoming victims of governmental fake news that is then amplified by the compliant traditional media, and being vilified online by government-aligned trolls and anonymous social media accounts. Jennings is a special correspondent. Take a fun and informative factory tour to see how made-in-the-USA goods, from jelly beans to kaleidoscopes, come to life. Here are five worth a visit. California The self-guided Jelly Belly factory tour in Fairfield, Calif., is a feast for the senses. (Tim Engle / Jelly Belly Candy Co.) The self-guided Jelly Belly factory tour in Fairfield, east of Napa, involves testing your knowledge of jelly beans, such as a computer game that asks you to swipe away misshapen candy. There also are 10 smelling stations that challenge you to identify Jelly Belly flavors based on scent. You can try free samples, watch informative videos and peer down at the factory through a window along the path. Tours are offered daily, but go on a weekday to see the workers and machines in action. Advertisement For a more personal experience, sign up for a guided small-group tour ($39 split among up to six people) or the Jelly Belly University tour ($59 per person), where youll get to don a lab coat and hair net, and step inside the factory. Self-guided tours are free and available from 9:15 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily. Info: Jelly Belly Visitor Center, bit.ly/jellybellytour; (800) 953-5592 Indiana Mix your own custom fragrance at the Annie Oakley Perfumery tour in Ligonier, Ind. (Grant Beachy / Annie Oakley Perfumery) You can concoct your own custom fragrance at the Annie Oakley Perfumery factory tour in Ligonier. The sensory experience includes a history of the perfumery (said to be the one of the last in the U.S.), a visit to the bench lab to learn how fragrances are created and blended, and a walk through the factory to see them being bottled with plenty of new product samples along the way. Your ticket gets you $5 off your purchase at the gift shop, so stop by on the way out for a perfume to take home. Tours cost $5 and are offered 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Info: Annie Oakley Perfumery, bit.ly/annieoakleytour; (800) 652-6643 Iowa For 20 years, Leonard Olson has been making kaleidoscopes in his 25-by-50-foot shop, which he calls The Kaleidoscope Factory, in Pocahontas, about 100 miles east of Sioux City. Stop by to learn how he crafts his wooden creations and get a quick math and science lesson about how kaleidoscopes work. Advertisement There are no formal tours; just call Olson to tell him when youd like to look around and how many people youre bringing. Tours are free and by appointment between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays. Info: The Kaleidoscope Factory, kaleidoscopefactory.com; (515) 408-1269 New York Youll smell sawdust and piano polish in the air when you tour the Steinway & Sons factory, where craftspeople turn raw wood into fully tuned fine pianos. The two-hour tour provides an up-close view of the manufacturing process from start to finish, and a chance to play a few pianos at the end. Tours cost $20 and must be booked in advance. Theyre offered at 9:30 a.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays from September through June. Advertisement If youre interested in buying a new piano, you can sign up for the small-group VIP tour ($125), where youll get to test-drive brand-new concert Steinways. Info: Steinway & Sons, bit.ly/steinwaytour; (718) 721-2600 Washington Aviation aficionados will feel right at home north of Seattle at the Boeing factory tour, which gives guests a look at 747, 767, 777 and 787 Dreamliner planes in the works before they take flight. Youll take a 90-minute walk through the assembly plant and learn facts from a Boeing guide about the company and its plane production. Keep in mind when booking a tour that most action happens Mondays through Fridays. Advertisement The tour costs $25 and is offered on the hour 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily. Info: Boeing Factory Tour, bit.ly/boeingtours; (800) 464-1476 travel@latimes.com @latimestravel Engineers started the delicate task of taking apart Genoa's Morandi motorway bridge on Friday almost six months after its partial collapse during a storm killed 43 people and injured dozens. Thousands of tonnes of steel, concrete and asphalt have already been removed from the spectacularly truncated high-rise bridge in the northern Italian port city to make it lighter before the "deconstruction" operation began. "It's an important day, the first step on a path that we hope will be as short as possible," Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte told journalists at the site. Four powerful strand-jacks positioned on the bridge by an enormous crane began unhooking and slowly lowering a 36-by-18 metre (118-by-59 foot) concrete slab weighing nearly 1,000 tonnes. The jacks are the same as those used to right the Costa Concordia cruise liner off Tuscany in 2013 after it ran aground and capsized, leaving 32 dead. The operation to slowly lower the vast slab to the ground, some 48 metres below, was to start after a diamond chain saw cut through the entire bridge in two places, possibly only on Saturday. "We are moving around 1,000 tonnes of a structure that is being demolished, with many unknowns," said technical director Vittorio Omini. Once on the ground, the giant slab will be used as a counterweight for removing other pieces before the bridge's towers are demolished with dynamite. - Homage to the victims - The operation will help the city move on from the August disaster which, beyond the human cost, also ripped out one of the city's main transport arteries. Italy's most famous living architect Renzo Piano, a Genoa native who helped design the Pompidou Centre in Paris, has provided the design for the replacement bridge that "will last for 1,000 years". While the new structure has been designed to look different from the old one, opened in 1967, it will contain a homage to the victims of the accident. It will feature 43 lamp poles in memory of those killed when part of it collapsed on August 14, sending dozens of vehicles and tonnes of concrete tumbling to the ground. The new bridge commission, headed by Genoa Mayor Marco Bucci, noted the new design "rests on pillars, respecting the feeling of psychological aversion in the city (to) other types of bridge with suspended or cable-stayed parts". It will "have elements of a boat because that is something from Genoa," Piano has said, describing a streamlined and luminous white structure. The new bridge is estimated to cost 202 million euros ($229 million), making it one of the most expensive in Europe. It is expected to be open to traffic by April 2020, junior transport minister Edoardo Rizi said on Thursday, with the demolition of the old structure due to take 190 days. - Invisible decay - The old cable-stayed bridge was made from reinforced concrete, with the steel cables linking the bridge's towers also covered in concrete. One theory investigators are looking into is that the steel within the concrete had decayed, although this would not have been visible. There have also been allegations of poor maintenance, poor design and questionable building practices. The eastern side of the bridge, where the structure gave way, still needs to be examined by experts and prosecutors. Autostrade per l'Italia (Aspi) operated the failed bridge and several of its managers could face trial over the collapse. Ahead of the anticipated court proceedings, Aspi is still negotiating compensation payments with bereaved relatives, reportedly for a total of 50 million euros. For the first time in an Italian public works contract, the construction companies face stiff penalties of up to 202,000 euros a day for any delays. Civil engineering expert Pierre Corfdir said planning the demolition of a bridge this size (over 1,180 metres) would normally take around three years. "This is one of the most complex bridge demolitions" because of the built-up environment, said Corfdir, who works at France's Cerema institute. "There's also time pressure: they have to rebuild a bridge that is of vital importance to the citys economy." Short link: Year-end crime statistics for La Canada Flintridge indicate 2018 wasnt such a bad year for residential burglaries and violent offenses but did bring an increase in the number of property crimes overall, particularly thefts. The Crescenta Valley Station logged a total of 231 larceny incidents last year, compared to 162 in 2017. Lt. Mark Slater, acting captain for the local station, attributed some of the nearly 43% increase to the addition of about 30 backlogged self-reports filed by citizens in previous years but not tabulated until 2018. Larceny includes grand and petty theft, vehicle burglaries, shoplifting and incidents of identity theft that result in loss to victims all of which are fairly common in cities like La Canada, Slater said. I think the type of community we have is a target, the lieutenant said Thursday. Its an upper scale, affluent community. People see dollar signs. Statistics on the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Departments website show the Crescenta Valley Station logged 13 violent crimes last year (rape, robbery and aggravated assaults) compared to 16 the year before. Property crimes including burglary, larceny and grand theft auto, came in at 330, a nearly 15% increase from 287 reported incidents in 2017. Despite what seemed like a rash of residential burglaries to hit La Canada last year, particularly in the month of December, there were 19 fewer home break-ins in 2018 or 86 reports compared to the 105 reported in 2017. Slater said the year-end reports give a snapshot of criminal activity in a city that can be tracked from year to year and provide deputies and station officials with insight into where further attention might be applied. It gives you a good indication of whats going on in your community, he said. With burglaries, we can look at [the numbers] and start to identify patterns and crime trends and see if we can combat these. While La Canadans made strides in protecting their neighborhoods by joining watch groups and taking advantage of city rebates for Ring video doorbells, there were still some areas for improvement. Himself a victim of identity theft in 2016, Slater advised La Canada residents to guard their personal items and information dearly. If you have an alarm, use it. If its not working, get it fixed, he said. Zip up your purse, and dont leave it in those carts or on the back of chairs. Lock your car at night and get rid of the valuables from inside and bring in your mail at night. sara.cardine@latimes.com Twitter: @SaraCardine When Isabelle Fox joined a mission sponsored by international pediatric surgery nonprofit Mending Kids to Luoyang, China, in 2011 as a nonmedical volunteer, she assumed it would be a one-off experience. If nothing else, it would be something to post on Facebook. During the mission, then-filmmaker Fox documented a team of surgeons performing operations on orphan children with colorectal conditions that prevented them from being adopted. Fox adopted her daughter, Makena, from China in 2006 and had hoped to gain insight into what the first few months of her life were like. When it was all over, Fox found herself in a Starbucks in Beijing, openly sobbing. It changed my life, Fox said. It gave my storytelling meaning. Forty missions and several professional positions with Mending Kids later, Fox stepped up last month as its executive director. Previously heading global outreach for the Glendale-based organization, which used to be based in Burbank until last April, Fox said shes stepping out of the trenches to focus on development, fundraising and making sure its existing programs are sustainable. Typically, the organization plans to return to the same area for at least five years in a row to perform surgeries and train local staff to perform more complex surgeries so that the impact isnt just temporary, she said. Its been a whirlwind transition. Since taking over from former executive director Chris Johnson, Ive been in a state of frazzle because Ive had to go from 0 to 60, Fox said. Just around the corner, on Feb. 21, is Mending Kids seventh annual gala, which Fox described as the organizations most important event because of its critical fundraising function. Originally scheduled for Nov. 17, the event was moved because some staff and donors were affected by the wildfires including Fox, who lives in Malibu. Then there are five medical missions to plan: Peru in April, Tanzania in May, Armenia in June, and to-be-determined trips to the East and West coasts of the United States. To some degree, Foxs experience has been like going on one of the missions: Part of the process is planning for the unexpected. Sometimes its difficult getting through customs to far-flung countries. Sometimes patients dont show up for appointments and dont have a cellphone so they can be reached. Sometimes patients pass away before the medical team arrives. Sometimes its quite discouraging, but at the same time were conditioned to just have to roll with it, Fox said. Thats how Im approaching this [job], preparing the best I can and adapting accordingly. lila.seidman@latimes.com Twitter: @lila_seidman City officials have chosen Silvio Lanzas to head the Glendale Fire Department as its 11th fire chief. His appointment was made official on Tuesday during a Glendale City Council meeting. Lanzas joined the department in December 2017 as a deputy and succeeds Greg Fish, who retired from the agency in September and became chief of the Carpinteria-Summerland Fire Department. Glendale City Manager Yasmin Beers praised Lanzas on Tuesday, saying the new chief has excelled during his time with the department and that he places a priority on building strong relationships within the fire department and the community. Lanzas said he was humbled and honored by the appointment and took time during the meeting to thank city officials, his family and members of the fire department for their support. Lanzas singled out his appreciation for Deputy Chief Bill Lynch, referring to him as a great partner. Without him, his humility, his desire for whats best for the organization, his ability to show me every secret, every nook and cranny of our organization today, would not be possible, Lanzas said. Lynch served as the interim fire chief during the two months following Fishs departure before switching with Lanzas, who acted in that role from December to January. Both were under consideration for the chiefs position. Mayor Zareh Sinanyan congratulated Lanzas during the meeting, saying he looks forward to working with him in the years to come while also mentioning the council was unfortunate in this selection process in that we had great candidates, two very good candidates. Prior to joining the department, Lanzas spent the majority of his professional career with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, where he was a division chief. Referring to the past year he has been in Glendale, the new chief said he and the rest of the citys employees have been fortunate to work for the city and referenced Glendales nickname. We are the Jewel City because of the over 1,500 gems who work here, Lanzas said. And I am humbled to lead 271 of them in the Glendale Fire Department. andy.nguyen@latimes.com Twitter: @Andy_Truc A week after the Glendale Unified school board voted to release Supt. Winfred Roberson Jr. from his contract without cause, the same five-member governing board voted to begin the process to find his replacement. At their first regular meeting since last Tuesdays action, board members decided to hire an outside party to conduct a job search rather than assign the task to district personnel. District staff and legal counsel Howard Friedman both favored hiring an outside firm. For a district this large, with three comprehensive high schools and that type of thing, the usual practice is to use a search firm that gives you full extension to as many potential candidates that you can, Friedman said. The boards decision to seek outside help officially began Wednesday. From now until Wednesday, the board will be mailing and emailing requests for proposals from search firms. Interested parties who do not receive district correspondence can still find information about filing a proposal request at the districts website, gusd.net. Interim Supt. Kelly King said the aggressive timeline was necessary, to attract the strongest pool of candidates so that the board has those strong candidates to choose between. On Wednesday, board president Greg Krikorian and vice president Jennifer Freemon are set to review the proposals and select no more than four candidates for further consideration. Notably, Krikorian was one of three votes in favor of dismissing Roberson during a closed-door evaluation on Jan. 29, while Freemon was one of two votes against the move. This is now the will of the board, Freemon said. I will be supporting the boards decision, and you will not hear me speaking against the decision because that is not appropriate and that is not our protocol. Those search-firm finalists will then be invited to a board meeting on Feb. 19 to make a public pitch, with the board ultimately voting for one. The eventual choice will then meet with the board during a special meeting to discuss specifications for the superintendent search. Board members have already identified seven firms all outside Los Angeles County including California companies Cosca Group of Fairfield, Dave Long & Associates of Laguna Beach, Leadership Associates of La Quinta, Educational Leadership Services of Oakdale and Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates, Ltd. of Palo Alto. Firms Ray and Associates, Inc., of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and the California School Boards Assn., represented by Omaha-based McPherson & Jacobson, L.L.C, are also under consideration. Ultimately, the board has set a June 1 deadline to find a new superintendent. As for Robersons dismissal, board members spoke out against rumors that spread after their 3-2 vote on Jan. 29. There are no details, said board member Armina Gharpetian, who voted for dismissal. First of all, this is a personnel matter, and I dont think anybody who is an employee of the district would like us to share any more details than that. Robersons termination means the district is on the hook for his salary, which Krikorian described as close to a $300,000-per-year package, until March 2020 or until Roberson finds new employment. According to the website transparentcalifornia.com, Roberson earned a base pay of $255,000, with benefits and other pay totaling $321,971 in 2017. King, a prominent member of districts team that investigated a brawl that broke out last year at Hoover High School, said she wanted to make it clear that the rumored involvement of Krikorian sons in the Hoover fight was untrue and played no factor in Robersons dismissal. I can confirm, with 100% certainty, that Mr. Krikorians son was not on campus when the situation unfolded, King said. Therefore, the implication that theres a connection between trustee Krikorians son and his decision, or the boards decision, is baseless. Kirkorian said he was disappointed about innuendos that race played a role in the dismissal of Roberson, the districts first African American superintendent, or that Roberson was let go because of his handling of a brawl at Hoover High and its aftermath. It wasnt a specific issue or incident, Krikorian said. The board of education made a very difficult decision, and we didnt take it lightly. There have been a lot of rumors that it has been based on one incident or another, and there is so much that goes into a decision like this. Krikorian added that the hiring process will not be based on race or religion. I want the best person for the job, regardless of race, religion, gender or whatever. andrew.campa@latimes.com Twitter @campadresports When Cal State Fullerton student Miriam Tellez attended Tuesdays State of the Union address, she described it as a validation of her immigrant journey. It was definitely like a fantasy, Tellez said. It was amazing being in a room where history is made. Tellez, 22, received an invitation from Rep. Gil Cisneros (D-Yorba Linda), who wanted to show support for recipients of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which granted protection from deportation to hundreds of thousands of undocumented people brought over as children. Tellez was one of these so-called Dreamers. [Tellez] is a leader in her community at Cal State Fullerton as an advocate for supporting our Dreamers and [temporary protected status] holders who are seeking higher education degrees, Cisneros said in a news release. Dreamers are students, service members, neighbors and our friends. President Trump moved to end DACA in 2017, but last month offered temporary protections for Dreamers in exchange for funding his long-promised border wall. Above all, they are real people. And it is crass and inhumane for the president to try and leverage them, their families, and the DACA program he is responsible for ending to extract a senseless border wall, Cisneros said. Dreamers are so much more than bargaining chips; they are valued community members who want nothing more than to contribute to the country they love. Trump, in January, called his proposal straightforward, fair, reasonable and common sense with lots of compromise. Tellez, who came to America from Mexico with her family when she was 8, said much of the rhetoric in Trumps State of the Union Address stereotyped immigrants. One particular line in the address that she disliked: Legal immigrants enrich our nation and strengthen our society in countless ways. Tellez called the presidents statement only partially true because it purposefully overlooked contributions to this country by undocumented immigrants. Immigrants as a whole make the nation great, Tellez said. Tellez was one of about 20 immigrants, some facing possible deportation, invited as guests to in the House chamber that night. She called meeting some of her political heroes, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York), and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi the most memorable part of the trip. I personally think of politics as a different realm one that affects me but seems so far away, Tellez said. Having that experience to meet the people who get to make policies that affect history was big for me. Cal State Fullerton senior and DACA recipient Miriam Tellez is flanked by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Gil Cisneros, who invited Tellez to attend Tuesdays State of the Union address in Washington, D.C. (Courtesy of Cal State Fullerton) Tellez believes her life is a testament to the potential of immigrants. Fueled, like so many others, by the promise of a world-class education she and her family left Mexico and settled in Pasadena. The four children were primarily raised by Tellezs mother; her father died about three years ago. Tellez will graduate this year with a degree in sociology, a change from her original major: international business. I chose it as a safety route because I knew I was undocumented, and I knew the possibility of being deported, Tellez said. I wanted to have something that would prepare me internationally. Tellez was exposed to topics like social inequality and identity while working in Fullertons resource center for Dreamers. The work resonated with Tellez, leading her to sociology. She hopes to eventually get her doctorate in the subject. It always revolved around education for my family, Tellez said. Now three of the children are in a university. Id say we are doing pretty well. Laguna Beach Art Assn. founding member Frank Cuprien paid just $1.50 to have his name inscribed on the floor of the organizations new basement gallery in 1934. Eighty-five years later, the name of the Laguna sea painter gleams under a fresh coat of floor finish after a $500,000 renovation of the lower level of the Laguna Art Museum. The museum celebrated the year-long project to refinish its lower-level galleries with a cocktail hour and ribbon cutting Thursday night. About 80 city officials, museum trustees, donors and staff members gathered in the brightly lit basement, murmuring above glasses of champagne and peering at the names etched in the gray concrete floor tiles of the Segerstrom Family Gallery. The engravings honor some of the first donors to the Laguna Beach Art Assn., which opened a gallery in 1929. The organization didnt have enough money at the time to create a lower-level gallery, so it kicked off a fundraising campaign in which people who donated $1.50 would get their names inscribed in the floor. Ever since I came to the museum seven years ago, I felt like these galleries there was something a bit dingy and uninviting about them, because they looked like they were in need of finishing, said the museums executive director, Malcolm Warner. With a half-million dollars from the citys Cultural Facilities Improvement Matching Grant Program, the museum set to work improving the basement. Under the direction of architect Anders Lasater, the lower-level gallery space increased by about 20%, Warner said. Before, visitors who descended the stairs into the Brief Gallery had to pass through a narrow doorway to enter the main Segerstrom Family Gallery. Lasater removed the concrete wall separating the two a feat that required replacing a load-bearing wall with a steel beam in the basement ceiling to support the floor above. His design also transformed a back office into a third room of the Segerstrom gallery. Each space, separated by shiny white walls, is tied together by the gray concrete tile floor. The biggest opportunities the museum had was to turn this into someplace that allowed for a good relationship with the art, a good sense of proportion and space, Lasater said. A lot of my thinking had to do with creating a sense of arrival you arrive in this floor lobby that starts to establish your experience, then you turn and find, oh, theres a whole other space behind the corner that you dont quite see but you perceive. It was a sense of unfolding and letting you discover the space as well as the art. Project architect Anders Lasater and his wife, Cynthia, stand on the newly restored floor of the lower level of the Laguna Art Museum on Thursday. (Don Leach / Staff Photographer) A major aspect of the renovation was restoring the original floor. Many tiles bear marks from years of carpet glue and other wear and tear. Workers sanded the floor, buffed it and gave it a clear finish that draws out the tiles original hue. We did talk a lot about how rough and distressed-looking the surface should still be, Warner said. All of that is part of the story. Lasater, who designed City Councilman Peter Blakes art gallery on Ocean Avenue, completed his designs for the museum project for free. Being a lover of art, being a lover of the community of Laguna Beach, wanting to actually affect change, I realized the best way to do that would be to donate my services, he said. I benefit too, because Ive had a great time doing this. The renovation is the second of three projects that the art museum, which celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2018, has planned with the citys matching grant program. In 2016, Councilman Bob Whalen led the charge for a grant program to fund facilities improvements at the Laguna Art Museum and Laguna Playhouse. The city is authorized to give each nonprofit $1 million over four years, as long as the organization matches the installments with its own fundraising. In December, the City Council unanimously approved allocating $449,125 of the matching grant program to the Laguna Playhouse for renovations to the Moulton Theatre exterior. Our objective was to inspire others to see the same value that we saw in these institutions that have been here now, in the case of the museum, for 100 years, Whalen said Thursday. Were very pleased with the improvements. The Laguna Art Museum chose as its first project overhauling its heating and cooling system and redoing the roof, which was completed in 2017 with $250,000 from city funds. The second project, the lower-level renovation, effectively cost two years worth of the city grant. With the remaining $250,000, the museum plans to update the exterior of its building at Cliff Drive and North Coast Highway, Warner said. This has been a story about how the museum has grown since its origin. It is a community effort, museum board Chairman Lou Rohl said. The lower-level galleries, which have been closed since early 2018, will open an exhibit with new art collections March 3. As guests milled about the space Thursday night, Warner reminded them of the floor tiles in the Brief Gallery. Weve just created new squares there that dont yet have names on them, he said. Long-term financial and economic sustainability, enhanced public safety, improved infrastructure and quality city services are the new three-year goals that Huntington Beach City Council members and department leaders established for the city during a planning meeting Thursday at the Central Library. Mayor Erik Peterson told the dozen residents who attended the special day-long meeting that it would help sift through needs vs. wants over the next few years while keeping in mind the citys financial constraints. The meeting gave community members a glimpse of how department leaders and elected officials collaborate behind the scenes to push for goals they believe will provide growth for Surf City. It also provided a loose road map of topics to expect at future study sessions. Huntington Beach leaders came up with 19 possible goals before narrowing the list to the top four. (Photo by Priscella Vega) Mayor Pro Tem Lyn Semeta and Councilwoman Barbara Delgleize were absent. Participants brainstormed 19 possible goals before they narrowed the list to the top four. Councilwoman Kim Carr proposed including two contentious topics within the financial sustainability category. She suggested exploring the pros and cons of short-term rentals and the revenue-generating options of cannabis, both of which are illegal in the city. Councilman Patrick Brenden lobbied for reducing homelessness in Huntington Beach as the citys fifth goal. Its a problem front and center, affects quality of life [and] police services, he told the group. I gotta believe it should be stated. Orange County cities, including Huntington Beach, are struggling to figure out how to address the homelessness issue after U.S. District Judge David Carter tasked cities in April with identifying potential shelter sites after a county proposal for temporary ones in Irvine, Laguna Niguel and Huntington Beach was scrapped amid protests from residents and city leaders. Carter is presiding in a lawsuit filed in 2017 by homeless advocates who sought to halt the removal of an encampment along the Santa Ana River trail. Peterson and Councilwoman Jill Hardy said Brendens proposal could be classified as an objective under the public safety goal. Peterson also worried that it could attract unwanted attention from Carter. I just dont want to put us out there, Peterson said. I dont want to put something out there in the legal climate. Department leaders pitched attracting and retaining high-performing staff, which is included under city services. Earlier in the day, Assistant City Manager Lori Ann Farrell described how local cities are competing for the same pool of applicants for administrative jobs. She emphasized the importance of modifying some key positions to create a succession plan in which applicants could move up the ranks. Some 280 staff members one-third of the citys workforce are eligible to retire, Farrell said. Thats in addition to the record 48 retirements in 2018 across city departments, she said. At the end of the meeting, Peterson said, Its a long day but it is productive and [we] see insight into how we all think, which is always fun. The Food Network show Restaurant: Impossible is looking for volunteers to help next week with a production at a Costa Mesa restaurant. Filomenas Italian Kitchen at 2400 Newport Blvd. is being featured on the program, in which host Robert Irvine tries to reinvigorate restaurants quickly with $10,000. The show is looking for contractors, electricians, plumbers, upholsterers and painters, as well as others who can paint, craft, remodel, clean and decorate. Volunteers, who will receive meals, must be 18 or older. Shifts are scheduled for noon to 7 p.m. or 7 p.m. to 2 a.m. Tuesday and 2:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday. To volunteer, email rivolunteer@levitylive.com by noon Sunday, with 1404 VOL request in the subject line. Provide a preferred work time, plus full name, email address, cellphone number and skill set. Filomenas grand reopening is scheduled for 7 p.m. Wednesday. Diners can attend by emailing rivolunteer@levitylive.com by noon Sunday and providing the above information and the names of the people in their party. Put 1404 reopen reservations in the subject line. The Filomena episode is scheduled to air this spring. PIMCO co-founder Bill Gross to retire Bill Gross, co-founder of Newport Beach-based Pacific Investment Management Co., or PIMCO, will retire effective March 1, according to a news release. Gross, a well-known bond and fixed-income investor, co-founded PIMCO in 1971 and left in 2014 for Janus Henderson Investors, which has an office in Newport Beach. Gross said he will concentrate on his charitable foundation during his retirement. Ive had a wonderful ride for over 40 years in my career, trying at all times to put client interests first while inventing and reinventing active bond management along the way, Gross said in a statement. So many friends and associates at my two firms to thank nothing is possible without a team working together with a common interest. Ive been fortunate to have had that. City of Hope to expand to Newport Beach City of Hope, a Duarte-based hospital and clinical research center known for cancer care, is expanding to Newport Beach with a new facility at 1601 Avocado Ave., according to a news release. The facility is expected to open by the end of this year. It will offer various medical services, including oncology and subspecialists. City of Hope also is planning to open a major center in Irvine. This undertaking is a response to the call of our patients, families and supporters to bring City of Hopes innovative discoveries and specialized therapies closer to their homes, Annette Walker, president of City of Hope Orange County, said in a statement. Orange County patients will also benefit from City of Hopes designation by the National Cancer Institute as one of just 49 comprehensive cancer centers in the country. New restaurants on tap for Costa Mesa Two new restaurants are coming to Costa Mesas South Coast Metro area. Outpost Kitchen is expected to open this summer at 3420 Bristol St. The Australian beach cafe-inspired restaurant has another location across town at 1792 Monrovia Ave. The second location will be much bigger than the original, seating about 160, the Orange County Register reported. Yellow Vase, a cafe and bakery chain that also offers floral services, announced it is opening this month at South Coast Plaza. The chains other locations are throughout the South Bay. Yellow Vase in Costa Mesa will offer table service in a 3,800-square-foot spot in the malls Saks Fifth Avenue wing. Pacific Life to donate $7 million this year The Newport Beach-based Pacific Life Foundation announced that it is giving $7 million in charitable contributions this year. The money will go toward organizations in Orange County as well as Omaha, Neb., and Lynchburg, Va., according to a news release. Pacific Life also is giving a $2-million grant to UC Irvines Paul Merage School of Business to help a youth financial literacy program. With the national abortion debate entering a new stage, a survey of U.S. obstetricians and gynecologists has found that while nearly 3 out of 4 had a patient who wanted to end a pregnancy in the past year, fewer than 1 in 4 were willing and able to perform one themselves. Among the doctors who answered questions about the procedure, 1 in 3 cited personal, religious or moral reasons for not providing abortion services. But conscientious objections to abortion were hardly the only factor influencing OB-GYNs decisions. As reported in a study published this week by the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology, 19% of the specialists who did not provide abortion care despite having patients who wanted it said that practical considerations specifically, restrictions imposed on their practice settings made it difficult or impossible for them to do so. And another 16% cited the attitudes of office staff in discouraging them from providing abortions. OB-GYNs practicing in the Northeast or West were far more likely to offer procedures or drugs to end a pregnancy than were their peers in the South or Midwest, and women doctors were more likely than men to do so. And those practicing in an urban or suburban setting were much more likely to do so than those treating patients in midsize towns, rural areas or communities with a heavy military presence. Advertisement The new survey elicited reactions that underscored the central and uncomfortable role that physicians play in the abortion debate. In deciding whether and how to meet their patients medical needs and preferences, the doctors who care for women and deliver their babies are buffeted by state and federal regulations, fear of physical threats and protests, negative judgments by colleagues or neighbors, and their own complicated convictions. We have two patients: both the unborn child and the mother, said Dr. Donna Harrison, executive director of the Assn. of Pro-Life Obstetricians & Gynecologists. As physicians, weve taken the Hippocratic oath, which commits physicians to do no harm to their patients, she said. So we dont kill our patients. Dr. Barbara Levy, vice president for health policy at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, countered that many physicians in her specialty, like many Americans, have different concepts of when an embryo or fetus becomes a viable life. That, she said, is a deeply personal decision that will influence an OB-GYNs decisions about whether and which abortion services to provide. But Levy stressed that even for those committed to offering their patients a full range of safe and legally-protected abortion services, there are barriers in place that have no medical necessity. And on a medical landscape where the lone private-practice doctor is an increasing rarity, she said, the concerns of ones colleagues, employer and institutional allies often dissuade an OB-GYN from providing abortions. The result is that many patients have limited or no access to services they want or need and are legally entitled to receive, Levy said. The new survey plumbed the attitudes of members of ACOG, a professional society with more than 58,000 members that represents roughly 90% of practicing OB-GYNs in the U.S. Researchers reached out to a sample of 1,000 doctors; 655 responded. It comes in the midst of a renewed drive by the Trump administration to rally support for measures restricting abortion procedures. With the arrival on the Supreme Court of Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who is expected to swing the high court toward a narrower view of abortion rights, momentum is building for new limits. But the survey reveals that womens health specialists have grown more willing to aid patients intent on ending an unwanted pregnancy. In 2008, the last time ACOG asked its members about abortion, 14% said they had performed one in the previous year. That 24% said they had done so this time around marks a significant uptick. Advertisement The poll also suggests that doctors attitudes may be changing as abortions shift toward earlier pregnancy and increasingly rely on pills rather than procedures that mechanically aspirate or surgically cut a fetus from the uterus. After years of steady decline, the abortion rate among U.S. women has reached a historic low, according to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. In 2014, the latest year for which reliable figures are available, 926,190 abortions were performed legally in the United States. Fully 90% were performed in the first trimester of pregnancy, the National Academies found. That mirrors a rise in so-called medical abortions, which can be performed outside of a hospital or clinic. These procedures involve two drugs mifepristone (long referred to as RU-486 and known commercially as Mifeprex) and misoprostol that are taken within 70 days a womans last menstrual period. The drugs shut off the flow of hormones necessary to sustain a pregnancy and then prompt contractions to expel the fetus. The Food and Drug Administration approved their use in 2000 with a stringent risk management program that limits their use. The pills can cost as much as $1,000 per procedure, and not all public or private insurers will cover those costs. Advertisement In 2014, 31% of abortions were medical abortions, up from 6% in 2001, according to the Guttmacher Institute, an organization that conducts research and advocates for the expansion of sexual and reproductive health rights. A recent Guttmacher report asserted that the method has transformed the practice of abortion care. Danco Laboratories, the sole manufacturer of mifepristone, has said that 3 million women in the United States have used the drug since 2000. Today, 14% of OB-GYNs offer medical abortions, the new survey found. But among OB-GYNs whose patients have asked for an abortion but who do not now offer it, 28% said they would offer the drugs if the FDA lifted its most onerous restrictions on their use. The FDA requires doctors wishing to provide medical abortions to register and agree to a wide range of conditions for dispensing mifespristone. The agency also mandates that mifespristone be stocked and provided in a physicians office rather than prescribed by a doctor, dispensed by a pharmacy, and taken by a woman at home. Advertisement At least 17 states have added strictures that go beyond those imposed by the FDA. And at least seven states have made it a criminal act for a woman to self-induce abortion by taking the pills. Harrison, who treated patients for 10 years but is not now in practice, called medical abortion a lousy way to perform an abortion. The only reason I can understand why its being pushed is that its easier for the abortion provider they dont have to be skilled, and they can dump their failures on the emergency room. But safety has not been a widespread concern beyond organizations like Harrisons that are opposed to abortion. A report issued last year by the National Academies concluded that complications such as hemorrhage, hospitalization, persistent pain, infection, or prolonged heavy bleeding, are rare occurring in no more than a fraction of a percent of patients. ACOG, the American Academy of Family Physicians and other medical societies have called the FDAs risk-management rules medically unnecessary. Advertisement The FDAs strictures on doctors offering medical abortions are being challenged in a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union. The suit says the conditions imposed by the FDA harm and burden patients, particularly those in rural and medically underserved areas. While the FDA has not yet weighed in on the ACLUs suit, the agency has given the go-ahead to a clinical trial that will test whether pregnant women can safely and effectively end a pregnancy by collecting the two-drug regimen from a pharmacy and administering those drugs without a doctors direct supervision. The trial, expected to be completed in July, will also assess pharmacists attitudes about dispensing mifespristone. Women are very interested in easier access to an abortion pill, and they dont understand why these regulations are needed, said trial leader Dr. Daniel Grossman, director of the Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health research group at UC San Francisco. Grossman is also the lead author of the new study in Obstetrics & Gynecology. The survey results suggest that the proportion of OB-GYNs offering medical abortions might increase to as high as 31% if the FDA allowed physicians to write prescriptions for mifespristone as they do for most other drugs. Advertisement At the same time, 47% of the specialists said that making the pills easier to provide would not change their minds about offering it to patients. Another 22% said they were unsure how they would proceed. We found the current restrictions [on medication abortions] were a significant barrier to expanding the availability of medical abortions, Grossman said. In his State of the Union speech this week, President Trump called for new legislation to ban procedures in which he said a baby [is] ripped from the mothers womb moments before birth. Yet, Grossman said, putting unnecessary constraints on the use of medication abortion drugs runs counter to the widely-held view that earlier abortions are preferable. Restrictions on accessing abortion care early in pregnancy are clearly pushing women to later and later abortions, he said. If policy makers were serious about trying to reduce later abortions, theyd be looking at ways to improve early care. And one way to do that would be to remove these restrictions. Advertisement melissa.healy@latimes.com @LATMelissaHealy MORE IN SCIENCE Within the last month, the state of California and the Orange County city of Huntington Beach have filed three lawsuits against each other over the states housing laws. Californias case, pushed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, contends that Huntington Beach violated state rules requiring cities to set aside sufficient land for housing development to meet growth projections. Huntington Beach is countering in two separate cases that new state laws designed to force cities to approve housing projects and increase the amount of land they need to zone for development are unconstitutional incursions on local authority. On this episode of Gimme Shelter: The California Housing Crisis Podcast, we break down the lawsuits and explain how the results could shape state governments ability to address Californias housing affordability problems. Our guests are Republican state Sen. John Moorlach, who represents part of Huntington Beach and is trying to negotiate a settlement to the litigation, and Democratic Assemblyman Miguel Santiago of Los Angeles, who authored the law that led to the state suing Huntington Beach. Advertisement Gimme Shelter, a biweekly podcast that looks at why its so expensive to live in California and what the state can do about it, features Liam Dillon, who covers housing affordability issues for the Los Angeles Times Sacramento bureau, and Matt Levin, data and housing reporter for CALmatters. You can subscribe to Gimme Shelter on iTunes, Stitcher, Soundcloud, Google Play and Overcast. Coverage of California politics liam.dillon@latimes.com @dillonliam Negotiators say Yemen's warring sides agreed to exchange bodies of some of those killed in the country's 4-year-old civil war. Representatives of Yemen's internationally recognized government and Iran-backed Houthi rebels said they agreed Friday that each side will hand over 1,000 bodies in three stages. The first stage will see the release of bodies from morgues. The war has claimed tens of thousands of lives. The agreement came after four days of talks in Jordan, as part of efforts to implement agreements reached in principle in December. The negotiators say they also made progress on an exchange of prisoners and would now consult with their leaders. A deal on a prisoner swap has stalled because each side seeks the release of more prisoners than the other claims to be holding. Short link: Sean Gallup/Getty ImagesNot only did he leave behind a legendary music catalog, the late George Michael also left behind a prolific art collection as well. Over 200 of the most iconic pieces from his private collection are going up for auction at Christies auction house in London next month. Before the London sale begins on March 14, the collection will go on tour. It will be on view in New York from February 8-11, Los Angeles from February 11-16 and Hong Kong from February 19-22. Some artwork will also be sold in an online auction running March 8-15. The viewing of works from George Michaels private collection will provide a fascinating insight into the broader tastes of a man who was a creative genius of the music industry, and admired all over the world, Jussi Pylkkanen, the Global President of Christies, says in a statement. The proceeds from the auction will go towards continuing Michaels philanthropic work. George Michael passed away on Christmas Day 2016 at the age of 53. Copyright 2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. Some 800,000 federal workers have only just been made whole for the paychecks they missed in the last government shutdown, and already the deadline looms for the next one. Congress and President Trump must agree by midnight next Friday on a measure to fund government agencies, or else the lights will go out again. A bipartisan committee of lawmakers likely will come up with a deal in the next few days, perhaps over the weekend. Whether Trump will accept it remains the big unknown. Read more about California politics here Advertisement A FENCE BY ANY OTHER NAME The emerging congressional deal would funnel more money into border security but probably also put new limits on the number of people immigration enforcement agents could keep in detention. It would not include as much money as Trump has demanded to build his proposed border wall, but would include funds to build some additional barriers along parts of the border. Democrats could call that a fence, Republicans could call it a wall. But would Trump call it acceptable? That remains unclear as the president continues to send mixed signals, much as he did in December before precipitating what became a 35-day shutdown. In recent days, Trump has backed away from threatening to declare a national emergency on the border and use it to shift money from other government programs to wall construction. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has warned him against that plan, which would face widespread opposition from lawmakers and almost certain legal challenge. White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney has said the administration has unspecified other ways to shift funds to the border. But perhaps a better indicator is a shift in Trumps language. Rather than demanding money to build a wall, hes increasingly been talking of the need to finish it. Advertisement More and more, Trump has claimed credit for fencing built by previous administrations. He did so recently when he implied that his administration had built the border fence in the San Diego area that was started under President Clinton and upgraded during the George W. Bush administration. The reality, of course, is that fences finished under Bush and President Obama already line most of the border from the Pacific through New Mexico. Even in Texas, where most of the border along the Rio Grande remains unfenced, barriers exist in cities such as El Paso. If Trump decides to claim credit for that, he could tell his followers that the promised wall is already well under way, declare victory and avoid another shutdown. Will he take that route? One good indication will be his rhetoric when he travels to El Paso for a visit to the border on Monday. Advertisement NEW TRUMP THEME: STOP SOCIALISM Trumps State of the Union speech came up short on memorable lines. As Eli Stokols and Noah Bierman reported, it veered between calls for unity and jabs at the Democrats. As Janet Hook wrote, the speech had two conflicting missions, which accounted in part for why it lacked any thematic unity: One part sought to lay out a governing agenda for the next year and, perhaps, attract some Democratic support; the other kicked off Trumps reelection bid. To take the place of Make America Great Again, the Trump 2020 campaign seems to have a new theme, as he declared in Tuesdays speech: Tonight, we resolve that America will never be a socialist country. Advertisement Calling the Democrats socialists fits two key aspects of Trumps political situation: He has become ever more dependent on his conservative base, and given his widespread unpopularity, his most likely path to reelection has to involve convincing swing voters to cast ballots against his opponent, rather than for him. Since Trump almost certainly has a low ceiling on his own vote, he would also benefit from a strong third-party candidate. Thats why so many Democrats are angry over the possibility of an independent bid by Howard Schultz, the billionaire former chief executive of Starbucks, as Mark Barabak explained. AS DEMOCRATS MOVE LEFT No question Democrats have moved left. The leading candidates economic plans, for example, which I wrote about, provide a deliberate contrast to the caution of Hillary Clintons 2016 campaign. Advertisement Sen. Kamala Harris plan would represent a big expansion of government income support for working- and middle-income families, enough to move millions out of poverty, but with a big price tag. Sen. Elizabeth Warrens proposals wouldnt cost as much, but would fundamentally restructure large parts of the U.S. economy. Sen. Cory Bookers baby bonds idea would take a huge step toward narrowing the racial gap in wealth. On Thursday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced her Green New Deal plan, which each of those senators, as well as other presidential hopefuls, have signed onto. Advertisement As Evan Halper wrote, the Green New Deal is shaping the race for the nomination again in a significant move to the left. At the same time, however, as Harris told me, if a Democrat wins, there will need to be a triage of priorities. A Democrat needs to acknowledge all the needs in the country, Harris said, and must make people feel their concerns have been listened to. But not every need can be met, she said. THE OPPOSITION AGENDA Speaker Nancy Pelosi set the tone for Democrats during the State of the Union speech, with carefully calibrated eye rolls and a polite but dismissive mien, as Jennifer Haberkorn and Sarah Wire wrote. Advertisement The next day, Democrats rolled out their agenda for the House, unveiling a series of bills they plan to vote on and beginning the first of many investigative hearings. As Haberkorn and Wire wrote, the legislative agenda largely avoids votes on topics likely to divide Democrats, like how far to go toward a single, government-provided health plan. Instead, it focuses on subjects that unite the partys factions, including election and campaign-finance reform, background checks for gun purchases and action on climate change. On the investigative front, the House Intelligence Committee announced its plan to significantly expand the scope of its inquiry into whether foreign governments have influence over Trump, looking at other countries beyond Russia. As Chris Megerian wrote, the panels chairman, Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), pledged to investigate any credible allegation that financial interests or other interests are driving decision-making of the president or anyone in the administration. Advertisement Friday morning, the administration got a taste of the hearings to come as the House Judiciary Committee grilled Acting Atty. Gen. Matthew Whitaker. WHAT DO PRIMARY VOTERS WANT? ELECTABILITY The boldly stated economic plans appeal to the partys liberal base and also give candidates an opening to talk about their underlying values and aspirations. But while more than half of Democrats now identify themselves as liberal in a recent Gallup survey, that doesnt necessarily mean that party activists simply want to vote for the most progressive candidate in the mix. Advertisement The same polls that show Democrats increasingly identifying as liberal also show them singularly focused on finding a candidate who can beat Trump, even if that person doesnt share all of their views on major issues. A survey released Monday by Monmouth University is one of the latest to provide data on that point. Just one-third of Democratic voters said they would favor a nominee who shared their views on major issues if that person would have a hard time beating Trump. That desire for electability could provide an opening for a candidate like Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown. As Hook wrote, Brown mixes a long, solid record of support for labor unions and liberal causes with a pitch that he can win back white working-class voters in the Midwest. He has avoided some progressive litmus tests criticizing calls for Medicare for All, for example. He says hell decide in a few weeks whether to get into the race. Another would-be candidate who might pursue a more moderate tack? Former Rep. Beto ORourke, the Texan whose campaign against Sen. Ted Cruz made him a darling of Democratic activists. Although ORourke appeals to millennial voters with his skateboarder image, his voting record is notably less liberal than those of Warren or Sen. Bernie Sanders, who is also likely to enter the race soon. Advertisement As Halper wrote, ORourke sought to rekindle some of his presidential mojo through an interview with Oprah Winfrey in which he pledged a quick decision about whether to enter the race. That same pragmatic desire to find a winner could prove problematic for Warren, as activists nervously eye her continued trouble with her ancestry, as Bierman wrote. Warren has tried repeatedly to shake questions over her disputed claims that her family was part Cherokee. Supporters say the attention to the issue is unfair, but even some backers concede that in a big field with lots of options, primary voters could watch Warrens struggles and decide to move on to the next choice. The problem is there are a lot of very good candidates who are very close on the issues, so small differences get focused on, said former Rep. Barney Frank. Advertisement SUPREME COURT MOVES CAUTIOUSLY By 5-4 vote, the high court on Thursday night voted to block a highly restrictive Louisiana abortion law, at least for now. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. joined the courts four liberals. As David Savage wrote, the decision reflects Roberts desire that the court not move quickly to change the status quo on abortion and other divisive issues. THE VIRGINIA DILEMMA As Hook and Halper wrote, Democrats face a meltdown in Virginia with the states top three elected officials, all Democrats, each enmeshed in scandal. Advertisement Gov. Ralph Northam and Atty. Gen. Mark Herring have both admitted wearing blackface costumes as young men while Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax is fighting an allegation of a 2004 sexual assault. A broad range of Democratic leaders has called on Northam to resign, but so far, hes staying put. Meantime, the Republican leader of the state Senate also now faces accusations involving blackface. SEE NO EVIL The administration has approved a number of requests from Republican-led states to change rules that govern Medicaid, the safety-net program for the poor and disabled. Advertisement Federal rules require that Medicaid changes be studied to make sure they dont harm patients. Increasingly, however, the administration has bent those rules to avoid asking key questions, Noam Levey reported. Advocacy groups say that such studies would show clear harms. TRUMP BACKS DOWN ON FIRE AID In an interview with The Times and other news organizations, Trump backed away from his threat to halt emergency funds for California fire victims. As Wire reported, that threat, levied in a tweet last month, had drawn criticism from both parties. TO CATCH A THIEF Advertisement If you havent already, read this great yarn by Del Wilber about how federal agents caught up with one of the countrys most successful counterfeiters. LOGISTICS That wraps up this week. Until next time, keep track of all the developments in national politics and the Trump administration at our Politics page and on Twitter @latimespolitics. Send your comments, suggestions and news tips to politics@latimes.com. Advertisement If you like this newsletter, tell your friends to sign up. A small bipartisan group of lawmakers plans to work through the weekend to craft a government spending deal in hopes of averting another partial shutdown by Friday but its far from certain President Trump would sign the deal. The group of Republicans and Democrats from the House and Senate hopes to sign off on an agreement expected to provide money for physical barriers along the border but not a wall as Trump has envisioned by Monday. That would give the full Congress time to pass the legislation by the Feb. 15 deadline. Im cautiously optimistic, but well find out over the weekend, said Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), one of the members of the committee tasked with putting together a deal. Its getting closer. Advertisement Some of the negotiators, including Cuellar, are heading to the presidential retreat at Camp David, Md., at the White Houses invitation this weekend to continue the talks. Both Republican and Democratic members of the group say theyre close to an agreement. And across Capitol Hill, lawmakers expressed deep skepticism about going through another government shutdown just weeks after the last one ended. In this situation, there is no appetite on either side of the aisle and I think in either chamber for another partial government shutdown, Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.), another committee member, said Friday morning on Fox and Friends. Lawmakers on Friday refused to release many details of the plan coming together, cautioning that negotiators are working well together and they dont want to spoil the good faith. The deal is all but certain to include physical barriers, funding for additional border security measures and new language to address people seeking asylum. The president, Republicans, want some form of physical barriers. Its just, what do we get in exchange for that? said Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Downey), another committee member. How do we protect our borders and yet do it in a way that respects our values as Americans; that we treat people humanely, particularly asylum seekers, people who are coming here? If the group can reach a deal, it would need to be approved by Congress and signed by the president. Advertisement Besides opposition from some conservatives pushing for more wall money, some liberals may not accept the final product. Some Democrats in the House have cautioned that they wont approve more funding for Customs and Border Protection and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), a progressive with perhaps the highest profile among freshmen in the House, voted against a measure to reopen the government last month because it funded ICE. Any compromise would almost certainly fund those agencies. Ocasio-Cortezs opposition to funding ICE in the earlier deal could prompt some progressives to think twice before throwing in their support. In some ways, the political battle to come may be based on semantics over the definition of wall. A Republicans wall may be seen as fencing by a Democrat. Advertisement Cuellar, whose district is along the border, is pushing for levee walls. You have dirt mounds. You put cement on one side, a low fence on top, he said, and voila youve got a barrier. People can call it border security. Some of us will call it flood control and its a win-win. Lawmakers say the White House has been involved in the committee talks and suggest they expect Trump will sign on to a deal if it is approved by Congress. But just two months ago, the Senate approved a spending bill with the understanding Trump would sign it only to be told hours later that he wouldnt. Late last month, he said negotiators were wasting their time if they werent discussing the wall. That has some lawmakers only cautiously optimistic that Trump will sign on. Advertisement At the end of the day, we want the president to be able to sign this, said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield). So we will work together to make sure that whatever we bring out there, the president will be supporting it. White House principal deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley said Friday morning that were on the verge of a government shutdown again because Democrats wont come to the table and have a conversation about securing the country. But he later said that hopefully well come to a conclusion here pretty soon. The latest threat of a government shutdown came after a record-long 35-day partial shutdown that stemmed from Trumps demand for $5.7 billion in funding for a wall along the southern border. It ended Jan. 25 when Trump said he would agree to fund the government for three weeks to give congressional appropriators time to work out a solution. Advertisement Democrats have floated the idea of $1.3 billion or $1.6 billion in border security as part of an agreement, but it would specifically exclude a wall. Trump has said that if Congress doesnt provide money for the wall, he may declare a national emergency and divert funds from other places. Times staff writer Noah Bierman contributed to this report. The latest from Washington Advertisement More stories from Jennifer Haberkorn The Supreme Court on Thursday temporarily blocked a Louisiana abortion regulation that was expected to close all but one or two of the abortion clinics in the state. The case, June Medical Services vs. Gee, has been closely watched as an early test of whether the high court would stand behind its precedents in the area of abortion or begin to make it easier for states to restrict the procedure. The decision came on 5-4 vote with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. joining with the four liberals. It was the latest sign that Roberts does not want to move too quickly in shifting the court to the right, despite the recent addition of two appointees of President Trump. The justices acted on an emergency appeal filed by abortion rights advocates who accused the conservative U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans of upholding a regulatory law in Louisiana that was nearly identical to a Texas law that the high court struck down in 2016. Advertisement The justices agreed to put the law on hold while lawyers for the Center for Reproductive Rights prepare an appeal that seeks a review of the 5th Circuits ruling. Three years ago, the Supreme Court struck down the Texas law that added new restrictions on abortion clinics and did so by a 5-3 vote with Justice Anthony M. Kennedy in the majority. The courts opinion said the Texas regulations were unconstitutional because they would not improve the quality of medical care and would sharply limit access to abortion for hundreds of thousands of women who lived outside a major urban area. The decision in the Texas case was handed down a few months after Justice Antonin Scalia died. Dissenting then were Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. Since then, they have been joined by Trumps two appointees, Justices Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh. Many have expected the new conservative majority to reconsider the past abortion decisions, including even the landmark Roe vs. Wade. The key issue in the Louisiana case is a provision that requires every physician who performs abortions to have active admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles. A federal judge had blocked the Louisiana law after finding that only two of six abortion doctors said they were able to obtain the required admitting privilege. They said hospitals did not want to extend privileges to doctors who rarely sent patients for emergency care. They also said the hospitals acted out of fear of antiabortion protesters. But last year, the 5th Circuit reversed the judges ruling by a 2-1 vote and upheld the law. Judge Jerry E. Smith, writing for the appeals court, said the situation in Louisiana was remarkably different than in Texas, and as a result, enforcing the admitting privilege rule would not have a significant effect on most women who seek an abortion. He agreed the rule would have only a minimal benefit on the quality of healthcare. It would do so, he said, by ensuring that the doctors performing abortions were rated as qualified by a hospital and its doctors. Advertisement He concluded that because one or two clinics would remain in operation, the overall effect on women seeking an abortion would not be substantial. In his analysis, Smith said the blame rested with several of the abortion doctors for not trying harder to obtain credentials from a hospital in their area. The ruling prompted unusually strong dissents from others on the 5th Circuit. Judge Patrick Higginbotham said the decision defied the high courts ruling in the Texas case. The Louisiana law was enacted to frustrate a womans right to choose, he wrote, adding it was impossible to see how a statute with no medical benefit that is likely to restrict access to abortion can be considered anything but undue. He referred to the Supreme Courts constitutional rule that states may not put an undue burden on women who choose to end a pregnancy. The dissenters said the 2-1 ruling should be reconsidered by the full 5th Circuit, but that move failed on a 9-6 vote. The majority included four new Trump appointees. Two weeks ago, lawyers for the Center for Reproductive Rights filed an emergency appeal asking the high court to again put the law on hold. The health, rights, and dignity of thousands of Louisiana women hang in the balance, along with the fate of the states three remaining clinics, they told the court in the case of June Medical Services vs. Gee. Advertisement Nancy Northup, the groups president, said the 5th Circuit had brazenly ignored recent U.S. Supreme Court precedent squarely on point. Late Thursday, she praised the high courts decision. The Supreme Court has stepped in under the wire to protect the rights of Louisiana women, Northup said. The three clinics left in Louisiana can stay open while we ask the Supreme Court to hear our case. This should be an easy case all thats needed is a straightforward application of the courts own precedent. By blocking the law on a temporary basis, the court will keep the dispute on hold for months or perhaps more than a year. The justices will decide in the spring whether to hear the case, and it takes only four votes to grant a review. That means the court would probably not rule until the first part of next year. Advertisement Kavanaugh filed a dissent, arguing the law should not be blocked based on a prediction regarding its effects. He said the evidence suggested three or four abortion doctors would obtain admitting privileges. He was joined in dissent by Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch. The latest from Washington More stories from David G. Savage To the editor: I had the great fortune to live in Germany while my spouse was working there. Although the article on the backlash to speed limits proposed for German highways emphasizes how much of the autobahn is unregulated, the driving experience is quite different. Speeds are controlled frequently, around villages, towns and cities, in hills and mountains, and for the never-ending summer construction season. This is illustrated in your photo of a highway near Munich, which shows a sign indicating a limit of 80 kilometers per hour. Drivers almost always signal lane changes and wait if a faster car would be impeded. Only on very rare occasions are slow drivers anywhere but the right lane. It is an exceptionally orderly driving experience. And yes, if the unlimited sign appeared, I was driving one of those fast cars. Advertisement Susan Elgin, Orange .. To the editor: Lets offer a huge thank-you to Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer, analyst at the Center for Automotive Research at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany, for distilling our national debate on gun control so concisely: Its like people in America saying they wont feel free without guns. Everyone knows that doesnt make any sense. Its the same thing in Germany with speed limits. Its a myth. Ginny Aitkens, Cambria, Calif. .. To the editor: This article reminds me of the first time I rented a car in Germany. After arriving at Frankfurt airport, I rented a Yugo and started my drive on the autobahn to Dusseldorf. In the fast lane I was, incredibly, able to keep up with the other cars. Advertisement A BMW, however, pulled up in back of me flashing its lights. My German wife told me that, by custom, it was frowned upon for inexpensive cars to drive in that lane. As an obstinate American, I refused to budge, and the BMW driver eventually ceased flashing his lights. Bob Lentz, Sylmar Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook President Trump, who knows a thing or two about big crowds and patriotic backdrops, gave credit where it was due last week to U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris for the rollout of her presidential campaign before a crowd of 20,000 outside Oakland City Hall. Compared to other Democrats, the president told the New York Times, she had a better crowd better crowd, better enthusiasm. Some of the others were very flat. Though the president mangled the pronunciation of Harris first name, his pronouncement suggested he was the latest politician to see what the California GOP learned a decade ago: Harris is not a campaigner to be taken lightly. Harris candidacy is certainly a long-shot for 2020. But, as Trump seemed to acknowledge last week, she is not a campaigner who can simply be ignored. Advertisement That knowledge first hit California Republicans during Harris 2010 race for attorney general. She was the young, anti-death-penalty district attorney from lefty San Francisco, running uphill against an old-school Republican, Los Angeles Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley. But it was much more than a San Francisco-L.A., Democratic-Republican battle. Nationally, 2010 was the year of the tea party when Republicans swept Democrats from control of Congress and captured several statehouses. In California, it was also the first year the attorney generals office drew widespread national attention. Part of the reason was that the Virginia-based Republican State Leadership Committee, then led by Ed Gillespie, former counselor to President George W. Bush, targeted the race. The group spent $31.7 million trying to flip control of state offices to Republican hands that year. Its one California expenditure was a $1-million television ad featuring the mother of a slain San Francisco police officer denouncing Harris for not seeking the death penalty against the officers killer. At the time, the committees spokesman told me that the group hoped a Republican attorney general in California would provide an important firewall against the Obama administration. Harris defeat would have had an added benefit of derailing a rising Democratic star: If that is a byproduct of defeating her, were perfectly happy with that, the spokesman said. Harris had her friends, too, however, most notably Barack Obama. Harris joined the Obama camp early. In 2004, while serving as San Francisco district attorney, she co-hosted a fundraiser for Obama in his Illinois run for the U.S. Senate. The following year, he packed Bimbos nightclub in San Francisco for a Harris fundraiser. In 2007, Harris trudged through the Des Moines snow campaigning on presidential candidate Obamas behalf, an act not without political risk. Hillary Clinton was then the front-runner, and California was Clinton turf. That was probably not the right political calculation at the time, said Buffy Wicks, who worked as Obamas California organizer in 2007. Advertisement It was, however, prescient. And in the end, Obama more than repaid Harris support. In October 2010, after Gillespies ad began airing, Obama turned out for a Harris fundraiser at the Atherton home of former state Controller Steve Westly. As the campaign closed, organized labor aired an ad produced by one of Obamas consultants featuring Harris with Obama, who told viewers he had endorsed her. Republicans gained six state attorney general seats on election night in 2010, and nearly won a seventh. In California, Harris was having a Dewey Defeats Truman moment. Like that infamous 1948 headline proclaiming incorrectly that Harry Truman had lost the presidency to Thomas Dewey, a headline on the San Francisco Chronicles website declared: Cooley beats Harris to win attorney general race. Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute Advertisement Two weeks later, however, when all 9.6 million votes were counted, that turned out not to be true. Harris had won by 0.7%. The Republican wave of 2010 stopped at the Sierra Nevada mountain range. A framed copy of the Cooley-defeats-Harris headline survives on her campaign consultants office wall in downtown San Francisco. That consultant? Ace Smith. Smith ran Clintons 2008 campaign in California, then joined Harris team, running her races for attorney general in 2010 and 2014, U.S. Senate in 2016, and, now, for the highest office in the land. Harris candidacy is certainly a long-shot for 2020. But, as Trump seemed to acknowledge last week, she is not a campaigner who can simply be ignored. Dan Morain is senior editor at CALmatters, a nonprofit, nonpartisan journalism venture in Sacramento. dmorain@calmatters.org. During the bitter cold snap that hit much of the United States last week, President Trump tweeted a plea to global warming: Please come back fast, we need you! The next morning, the largest electricity provider in Americas most populous state filed for bankruptcy because of global warming. If the presidents cluelessness doesnt ring alarm bells in statehouses and boardrooms around the country, the bankruptcy of Pacific Gas & Electric should. According to the company, it could no longer afford the increasing liability costs of wildfires fueled by the hotter, drier weather that climate change is bringing to California. Fifteen of the 20 largest wildfires in the states history have happened since 2000, damaging homes and businesses and claiming lives. PG&E is the largest company to go belly up because of the damage from fires. We are flying blind when it comes to the serious economic costs we face from climate change. Advertisement But PG&E is far from alone. Climate change threatens to impose heavy costs on companies around the country. The trouble is: We dont know the extent of those potential costs and neither do the companies. Theres a saying Ive always believed in: If you cant measure it, you cant manage it. If companies dont measure the financial risks they face from climate change, they cant reduce their exposure to those risks, at least not effectively. If investors dont know the potential liabilities a company is facing, they may overvalue it and lose their shirts. And by overvaluing companies that face serious climate risks, they undervalue companies and industries, such as renewable energy, that are designed to minimize warming. We are flying blind when it comes to the serious economic costs we face from climate change. This lack of transparency is a market failure thats holding back actions that would reduce emissions, mitigate risks and lead to more investment in clean energy. We can fix this. Improving climate risk disclosure is not a sexy, splashy subject. It doesnt get a lot of headlines or celebrity endorsements. But it can do a lot to speed up our progress, and its something that people across the political spectrum, and across the public and private sectors, can agree on. It should be a part of any Green New Deal, but we dont have to wait to get started. Publicly traded companies like PG&E are already required by law to disclose in annual filings a wide range of information about their financial health, including material risks they face. They must disclose such risks because if they suffer financial losses, the harm can spread far beyond the company to shareholders, pensioners, retirees and private investors. Climate change is the mother of all material risks. Take PG&E. Although they may not know it yet, many Californians are going to feel the effects of the companys bankruptcy. For instance, the states pension system, CalPERS, owns tens of millions of dollars in PG&E stock. Still worse, PG&E provides a crucial public service for which Californians might now have to pay more. Advertisement Over the last few years, I have chaired an international effort called the Task Force on Climate Related Financial Disclosures. We created a set of recommendations to help companies measure and disclose information about how climate change could affect their facilities, their supply chains, their labor force, their delivery of products and services and other essential operations. For example, companies with plants near coasts face a host of risks from rising sea levels and stronger storms. Companies that use a lot of water beverage companies, farms, even microchip makers must take into account increasing droughts. Our recommendations have been endorsed by more than 500 companies and financial institutions in 45 countries. Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute Businesses have strong incentives to be a part of the solution to climate change. Many companies (including mine) have reduced their energy bills by upgrading the efficiency of their buildings and moving to renewable energy. Actions like these are one reason the U.S. has been able to reduce its emissions more than any other large nation over the last decade, with almost no help from Congress. Advertisement The PG&E bankruptcy is a serious challenge for California, but it should lead more public companies to begin identifying and disclosing the potential liabilities they face from climate change. No company wants to become the next PG&E. And no one with a pension, 401(k), mutual fund or stock portfolio wants to lose money. Better data and more transparent markets can prevent a lot of unnecessary damage to our economic and financial health. And they can help the U.S. step up the fight against climate change, without waiting for the president to get a clue. Michael Bloomberg is the founder of Bloomberg LP, the U.N. Secretary-Generals Special Envoy for Climate Action and a former three-term mayor of New York City. Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion or Facebook If you need a rabbi, an imam or other non-Christian spiritual advisor to accompany you into the death chamber in Alabama, God help you. Because the U.S. Supreme Court wont. On Thursday night, the justices granted a request by Alabamas prisons chief, Jefferson S. Dunn, to allow the state to proceed with the execution of Domineque Hakim Marcelle Ray, for the 1995 murder of a 15-year-old girl in Selma. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals had put the execution on hold not because there was any lingering question about Rays guilt, but because Alabama wouldnt allow Ray, a Muslim, to have a cleric of his faith in the death chamber in place of the prisons Christian chaplain. The Supreme Court lifted the stay late Thursday by a 5-4 vote, and Alabama executed Ray shortly thereafter. I understand why the state wasnt inclined to do any favors for Ray, whod also been convicted of killing two teenage boys. But the constitutional principle at stake here is large and obvious. And the justices bungled it. Advertisement That treatment goes against the Establishment Clauses core principle of denominational neutrality. Justice Elena Kagan This is a worrisome sign that the courts new, more conservative majority is going to take a blinkered view of the 1st Amendments Establishment Clause, which holds that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. There have been continual fights about what the clause means for public displays of religious faith by government officials or in government buildings, but there should be no confusion over the fundamental principle that the government must not foist a particular faith on the people. There can be no picking of winners by government in the competition for souls. Which brings us back to Ray. Alabama stations a Christian chaplain in its death chamber perhaps more for the benefit of prison guards and those who administer the lethal injection than for the prisoners being executed. Nevertheless, its a clear endorsement of one faith over another. Ray asked, reasonably, that he be ushered off this mortal coil in the company of his imam. But according to an Alabama Corrections Department spokesman quoted by the news website Al.com, department protocol allows only approved correctional officials, that includes the prisons chaplain, to be inside the chamber where executions are lawfully carried out. The spokesman added that the inmates spiritual advisor may visit the inmate beforehand and witness the execution from a designated witness room that has a two-way window. Under that policy, Justice Elena Kagan wrote in a powerful dissent, a Christian prisoner may have a minister of his own faith accompany him into the execution chamber to say his last rites. But if an inmate practices a different religion whether Islam, Judaism, or any other he may not die with a minister of his own faith by his side. That treatment goes against the Establishment Clauses core principle of denominational neutrality. Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute The state argued that it has a compelling interest in preserving the security of its prisons, and it does have that. But as Kagan noted, theres no reason it couldnt give Rays imam or a rabbi, or the equivalent in any other faith the same screening and training that it gives the Christian clerics who volunteer to serve as prison chaplains. Even within Christianity, there are differences between denominations that matter to their adherents. The least that the state of Alabama can do and what it must do under the 1st Amendment is not impose its favored flavor of faith upon death row inmates as it sends them to meet their maker. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has done it again disappointed conservatives, that is. On Thursday night, Roberts joined the Supreme Courts Democratic appointees in blocking enforcement of a Louisiana abortion law. The decision to block the law may or may not signal how the court will rule in the future on whether the statute is constitutional. But Roberts demonstrated that he is wary of uprooting the courts precedents on abortion, at least at this early stage of litigation. Thats not completely a surprise. At Roberts Senate confirmation hearing in 2005, a major theme for several members of the Judiciary Committee was whether the nominee would uphold what Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania called the super-duper precedent of Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 ruling that legalized abortion nationwide. Roberts satisfied Specter, if not other senators who favored abortion rights, by saying: It is a jolt to the legal system when you overrule a precedent. Precedent plays an important role in promoting stability and evenhandedness. It is not enough and the court has emphasized this on several occasions it is not enough that you may think the prior decision was wrongly decided. Advertisement Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute That comment applies to the Louisiana law. Critics argue that its indistinguishable from a Texas statute that the Supreme Court struck down in 2016 as an undue burden on a womans right to abortion. Roberts dissented in the courts 5-3 decision in that case, Whole Womans Health vs. Hellerstedt. To be sure, at his confirmation hearing, Roberts went on to say that sometimes overruling precedent is a price that has to be paid. In the years since, he has been willing to pay that price in important cases such as the 2010 ruling in Citizens United and last years ruling in Janus vs. AFSCME, which overturned an earlier ruling that allowed unions to collect collective-bargaining fees from nonmembers. But the precedents overturned in those cases were 20 and 41 years old, respectively, and one of the traditional justifications for overruling precedents is that they have proved over time to be unworkable. Its hard to argue that the Whole Womans Health decision, which was decided less than three years ago, hasnt stood the test of time. It may be that Roberts will be willing to administer a jolt to the legal system if and when the court considers the challenge to the Louisiana law on the merits. But theres a good chance that even then he will conclude that overruling a very recent precedent is too high price to be paid. Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook The Bezos-Pecker story that won the internet Thursday raised a number of, umm, titillating questions to ponder. How did the National Enquirer get copies of the very private texts that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos exchanged with his mistress? What, if any, connection is there between the Enquirer and Saudi Arabias royal family? Was Enquirer honcho David Pecker trying to humiliate Bezos as a favor to Peckers pal in the White House, President Trump, who is warring with the Bezos-owned Washington Post? (Its a war with new skirmishes daily.) And why on Earth did top Enquirer officials including its deputy general counsel, for heavens sake put in writing what appears to be a textbook example of an extortionate demand? Heres hoping that Bezos will spend some of his massive but soon-to-be-diminished wealth on a lawsuit that will make public the answers to these inquiries. For now, all we have is speculation. Some of it is interesting and meaningful to the average American Id point to ruminations like this on how your texts can migrate from your phone to other devices automatically, making them far less private than you think: My gut: someone got physical access to her phone. Game over. Also likely: someone got access to*any* iOS device of hers: iPad in the kitchen, MacBook, etc. synced iMessages is how Gwen Stefani caught hubby cheating with nanny. Robert Stephens (@rstephens) February 8, 2019 Advertisement Interestingly, a lawyer for the Enquirers parent company, American Media Inc., said in an email to Bezos team that it undertook no electronic eavesdropping in connection with its reporting and has no knowledge of such conduct. Of course, that doesnt rule out the possibility that the Enquirer got the texts and photos from a third party who kept mum about their provenance. But heres the question thats sticking in my mind: Why was the Enquirer so determined to get Bezos and his investigator, Gavin de Becker, to walk back some pretty run-of-the-mill criticism of the Enquirer? Heres a central demand that American Media lawyer Jon Fine sent in an email to De Beckers attorney, per Bezos blog post: A public, mutually-agreed upon acknowledgment from the Bezos Parties, released through a mutually-agreeable news outlet, affirming that they have no knowledge or basis for suggesting that AMs coverage was politically motivated or influenced by political forces, and an agreement that they will cease referring to such a possibility. This is what the Enquirer was threatening Bezos over? Really? Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute A supermarket tabloid whose stock in trade is trashy celebrity gossip and conspiracy theories, the National Enquirer can hardly worry about its reputation being sullied by accusations that it doesnt practice even-handed journalism. Beyond that, it has already admitted to engaging in catch and kill that is, buying the exclusive rights to a scandalous expose, then not publishing it to stop a former Playboy model from talking about her alleged affair with Trump before the 2016 election. So, what could Bezos or De Becker possibly say about the Enquirer that would lower its reputation further? And they may not have been the only one threatened on this point journalist Ronan Farrow tweeted Thursday that he and one other, unnamed journalists fielded similar stop digging or well ruin you blackmail efforts from American Media as they were reporting on its relationship with Trump. Fine, the American Media lawyer, accused members of the Bezos team of making defamatory statements about the company by speculating that it had political motives for covering Bezos affair. But according to the Second Restatement of Torts (a common law reference manual), a communication is defamatory if it tends so to harm the reputation of another as to lower him in the estimation of the community or to deter third persons from associating or dealing with him. Advertisement Again, American Media admitted that political motivations influence its work, so how could its reputation be affected here? The United States and the world face a reckoning. We have burned so much fossil fuel over nearly two centuries and emitted so much carbon into the atmosphere that our collective actions are warming the planet. The resulting changes to world climates threaten such vast and damaging upheaval that life as we know it is endangered. Species will be destroyed in unconscionable numbers, communities will be made uninhabitable, and human conflicts and migration will increase. And the damage is already underway, measured in disappearing species, more intense natural disasters, melting glaciers and ice caps and changes to the acidity, temperature and even currents of the oceans all of it conspiring to make many of our existing ways of life untenable. The Green New Deal legislation introduced in the House by rookie Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and in the Senate by veteran Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) acknowledge the freight train barreling down on us all, and, to its credit, does what has been missing in the debate. It bellows out a bold, transformational, no-more-baby-steps approach to a catastrophe that has been ignored for too long even by the non-climate deniers in Congress, where oil and gas interests have held sway for decades and where inaction is always easier than the alternative. To that degree, we welcome the effort and endorse its sweeping calls for getting Americans out of their cars, for transforming our power sources from fossil fuels to renewables, for seeking to recalibrate the nations economy away from the things that may kill us, and for reorienting us toward more sustainable means of production, transportation and daily living. Good for Ocasio-Cortez and Markey for making a dramatic statement acknowledging honestly where we are and how far we need to go. Good for Ocasio-Cortez and Markey for making a dramatic statement acknowledging honestly where we are and how far we need to go. Advertisement On the other hand, we live in the real world, and if this potentially existential problem is going to be addressed, it is going to have to be addressed there. In that regard, this proposal expressed in twin, nonbinding resolutions suffers from overreach. It reminds us a bit of the talk about healthcare for all and a livable wage for all and free college for all. Who isnt for those things? (Well, some people). As a vision statement for the progressive left, the New Green Deal is admirable, but also largely unreachable. The difficult question is not Do you support social justice? or Do you oppose poverty? but How do you fix those in a cautious, money-dominated, politically polarized, uncertain nation like ours? More significantly, why laden a clarion call for revolutionary action on climate change which has wide popular support, according to polls with attenuated social justice measures that can be more fractious? The nonbinding nature of the Green New Deal legislation is both a weakness and a strength. On the one hand, we are too far along the path of global warming for symbolic acts. On the other, at least the proposal offers targets for binding legislation in the future that could move us closer to where we need to be. Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute The more controversial elements of the proposal, meanwhile, should either be excised or allowed to wither on the vine. For instance, the measure calls for high quality union jobs and guaranteed jobs for all. But unions are the creations of workers and ought to come into existence through workplace democracy, not government edict. And what would a guaranteed-jobs program look like? How would it get paid for? What would those jobs be? The Green New Deal also calls for ensuring a commercial environment where every businessperson is free from unfair competition and domination by domestic or international monopolies, and providing all people of the United States with high quality health care [and] affordable, safe, and adequate housing. What in the name of John Muir do those goals have to do with combating climate change? Still, Ocasio-Cortez and Markey have the political world talking. Some of the discussion, particularly from the right, is derisive and mocking, but Ocasio-Cortez and Markey invited it by stapling a progressive wish list to their much-needed call to action on climate change. We urge policymakers to focus the debate on the core crisis of climate change, while recognizing the magnitude of the transformations required to address it. Regardless of what happens to the Green New Deal proposal itself, serious work lies ahead. And given Congress general inability to act, the work falls to all of us, from personal choices in consumption to pressuring elected officials loudly, strongly, and incessantly to get their heads out of the sand and deal with this. Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion or Facebook Israeli troops shot dead two Palestinian teenagers including a 14-year-old boy during Gaza border protests on Friday, Palestinian health officials said. Israel's military claimed it had opened fire in response to explosives and rocks hurled at the border fence. Palestinians have been staging weekly protests since last March at the border of the Israeli-beseiged Gaza. Gaza's health ministry says more than 220 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli troops at the protests. One Israeli soldier has died. Gaza health officials said one of the youths shot dead on Friday was 18 and the other 14. An Israeli military spokesman said troops had faced off on Friday with more than 6,000 Palestinians, some of whom threw rocks and "a number of explosive devices, which exploded on the Gaza side of the fence". Gaza is home to 2 million Palestinians, nearly all of them the stateless descendents of people who fled or were driven out of historic Palestine on Israel's founding in 1948. Israel imposed a security blockade on the enclave after the Islamist Hamas seized control of it in 2007, which the World Bank says has reduced the local economy to a state of collapse. Israel has fought three wars against Hamas in the past decade. Palestinians say the weekly protests are led by civil society groups demanding an easing of the blockade and recognitition of their right to return to homes in historic Palestine. *This story was edited by Ahram Online. Short link: California voters have consistently backed the building of affordable housing, and they have been generous in paying for it. Since 1988, the state has passed seven housing bonds worth more than $9 billion to fund the construction of homes for seniors, the homeless, farmworkers and low-income families. Yet despite voters steady support, there remains a terrible, crisis-level shortage of affordable housing for middle- and low-income Californians and a provision in the state Constitution that makes it unnecessarily difficult to build that housing. That provision Article 34 was adopted in 1950 amid a racist, classist backlash against public housing. It requires that cities get voter approval before they build low-rent housing funded with public dollars. Giving voters the right to veto public housing was another way to let them bar low-income and minority residents from living in their communities. Advertisement Three times in the past, voters have been asked to eliminate or weaken Article 34. And each time they have failed to do so. (The last effort was in 1993.) Now, theres a new effort, championed by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti. State Sen. Ben Allen (D-Santa Monica) has introduced a bill that would put a constitutional amendment on the ballot as soon as 2020. Garcetti and others think the states housing crisis, coupled with its increasingly progressive politics, will convince voters finally to repudiate the law. Article 34 was most damaging in its initial years. By 1968, voters across the state had turned down nearly half the public housing that had been proposed, and many public housing agencies shelved projects rather than put them to a vote. A Department of Housing and Urban Development report at the time found that California had the nations largest population of poor people but ranked 22nd in the amount of housing available to them. Article 34 was cited as one reason for the lack of affordable rentals. In the years since then, however, public housing has changed. The model of government-funded, government-built housing has largely been replaced by public-private partnerships, in which developers build affordable housing with a mix of taxpayer and private dollars. California developers and cities have found ways to get around the constraints of Article 34, and some jurisdictions may be ignoring it altogether. Courts have decided that cities and counties may hold elections to authorize an overall number of public housing units to be built, rather than go to voters for each individual project. That has made it easier to get Article 34 approvals. By the early 1990s, about 80% of Article 34 votes were being approved, according to a state report from that era. Article 34 is not as much of an obstacle as it once was, but it still creates a legal risk and an unnecessary bureaucratic hurdle at a time when California desperately needs more affordable housing. Los Angeles, for example, got voter approval in 2008 to allow up to 3,500 public housing units per council district. But now, with L.A. on a campaign to build 10,000 units of homeless housing, some neighborhoods are close to the cap. Rather than go back to voters for another Article 34 authorization, Garcetti wants to wipe the law off the books altogether. Theres another reason to repeal Article 34: It was rooted in racism and fear of poor people. Advertisement Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute A real estate industry group drafted the original initiative that required voter approval for public housing. It was framed as a way for residents to preserve local control. But the campaign also warned that public housing was a form of socialism and a threat to capitalism and that it was being pushed by minority pressure groups. This was an era when racial discrimination in housing was legal and the Realtors Code of Ethics included a provision barring agents from integrating neighborhoods if doing so would be detrimental to property values. Giving voters the right to veto public housing was another way to let them bar low-income and minority residents from living in their communities although it was all cynically wrapped in the guise of grass-roots democracy. Article 34 is relic of a darker time in Californias history, to be sure, but the state still struggles with the sentiment behind it and the use of local control to block housing for the poorest, neediest residents. Its time for lawmakers and voters to strike Article 34 from the state Constitution and make it easier to build inclusive, affordable, much-needed housing for all Californians. Advertisement Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook Prosecutors allege that Paul Manafort was working on Ukrainian political matters in 2018, after his indictment in the special counsels investigation, and also revealed that a former business associate of his who was assessed by the FBI to have ties to Russian intelligence attended President Trumps inaugural, according to new court filings. The details came in a partially redacted transcript released Thursday of a sealed hearing between prosecutors and the defense team for Trumps former campaign chairman in the ongoing legal battle over whether Manafort lied and breached his deal to cooperate in Robert S. Mueller IIIs probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election. The transcript contained some new elements. At the hearing, attorneys discussed whether Manafort may have been motivated to lie in one unspecified instance to at least augment his chances for a pardon, the transcript states, suggesting prosecutors suspicion that Manafort might be trying to deceive them even now, after his guilty plea in September in Washington, in the hope of winning a reprieve from the president. Advertisement In another instance during the hearing, prosecutor Andrew Weissmann alleged Manafort may have lied to hide a scheme to funnel cash to himself while doing unpaid work for the Trump campaign. If a judge determines Manafort, 69, lied after his plea, it could affect the sentencing he would receive after his admission that he conspired to defraud the United States, violate lobbying laws and obstruct justice in connection with years of undisclosed work for a pro-Russian political party and Ukrainian politician Viktor Yanukovych. He also was convicted by a jury in August in a separate federal case in Virginia for bank and tax fraud crimes. Manafort and Konstantin Kilimnik the aide who also has been indicted in the Mueller investigation discussed a peace plan for Ukraine on more than one occasion, including during one meeting in August 2016, while Manafort served as Trumps campaign chairman, Manaforts attorneys have said. A resolution of hostilities in Ukraine that led to the lifting of sanctions against Russia is a top Kremlin foreign policy goal. The pair also met in December 2016, in January 2017 when Kilimnik was in Washington and again in February 2017, and as recently as the winter of 2018, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson summarized at the hearing, the transcript shows. Jackson has not decided if Manafort lied and has set another closed hearing for Wednesday to weigh further arguments about Manaforts truthfulness while shielding sensitive information about active investigations and uncharged individuals. Muellers office claims Manafort intentionally provided false information in debriefing sessions on several topics, such as his interactions with Kilimnik. Court documents show that prosecutors contend Manafort passed polling data related to the presidential campaign to Kilimnik during the campaign, and that the two worked on a poll in Ukraine in 2018. Is there, you know, a pattern here of minimizing and understatement and belated acknowledgment after he finds out the government already has the proof when Kilimnik and Ukraine are concerned? Jackson asked during the hearing. Advertisement In 2017, Kilimnik denied to the Washington Post having connections to Russian intelligence. He is believed to be in Moscow. The transcript added a fresh hint of intrigue to a previously known Aug. 2, 2016, meeting at the Grand Havana Room, an upscale cigar bar in Manhattan, between Manafort and Kilimnik at the height of the Trump campaign. Weissmann said at the hearing that the meeting included Rick Gates, Manaforts top deputy on the Trump campaign and in Ukraine who also has pleaded guilty in the Mueller investigation, and that Gates said the men left separately using different exits than Kilimnik. Kilimnik has said to the Post that the two discussed unpaid bills and current news at the meeting and that the sessions were private visits that were in no way related to politics or the presidential campaign in the U.S. Advertisement Manafort pleaded guilty Sept. 14, on the eve of jury selection for his trial in Washington. In the deal with prosecutors, he agreed to cooperate fully and truthfully with the government, seemingly giving investigators access to a key witness who was at key events relevant to the Russia investigation a Trump Tower meeting attended by a Russian lawyer, the Republican National Convention and a host of other behind-the-scenes discussions in the spring and summer of 2016. Instead, the deal collapsed, with prosecutors withdrawing any offer of a recommendation for leniency and accusing Manafort in late November of lying repeatedly to them. Manaforts lawyers have countered that any discrepancies were unintentional as he refreshed his memory or recalled specific details in his sessions with investigators and a grand jury. Advertisement Under his plea deal, prosecutors have only to show that their determination Manafort breached his deal was made in good faith, which Manaforts attorneys have conceded. However, a separate finding by Jackson that Manafort in fact lied and did not simply have lapses of memory as his defense claims could mean as much as 10 more years in prison for him at sentencing, now tentatively set for March 13. Legal experts say Manafort faces a possible seven- to 10-year sentence in his related Virginia federal case, which U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III postponed earlier this month to await Jacksons ruling. In previous court filings, Muellers office laid out detailed allegations that he gave contradictory statements in August in a separate Justice Department criminal investigation outside of Washington; falsely denied having ongoing contact with Trump administration officials since they took office in January 2017; and sought to take back his account, part of his guilty plea, of Kilimniks alleged role in a witness tampering effort in which both were charged. Advertisement In a final allegation, prosecutors have said Manafort lied about the terms of a $125,000 payment toward an apparent debt he incurred to a law firm he employed in 2017. Manaforts defense team has argued in court filings that a fair reading of much of the governments evidence about the alleged lies merely demonstrates a lack of consistency in Mr. Manaforts recollection of certain facts and events, many of which occurred years ago or during a high-pressure presidential campaign he left as questions about his work in Ukraine were being raised. Manafort has been jailed since June. Hsu, Helderman and Zapotosky write for the Washington Post. Rachel Weiner of the Washington Post contributed to this report. A Maryland woman faces charges she assaulted White House counselor Kellyanne Conway in front of her teenage daughter during a confrontation last year at a restaurant in a suburb of Washington, D.C. Mary Elizabeth Inabinett, 63, of Chevy Chase, was charged in November with second-degree assault and disorderly conduct and had a trial tentatively scheduled to start March 29, court records show. Conway told police she was attending a birthday party on Oct. 14 at a Mexican restaurant in Bethesda when she felt somebody grab her shoulders from behind and shake her, according to a charging document prepared by Montgomery County police. The woman who confronted Conway yelled, Shame on you and other comments believed to about Conways political views, the document says. Inabinetts attorney, William Alden McDaniel Jr., said in a statement that his client exercised her 1st Amendment right to express her personal opinions about a public figure in a public place. McDaniel said his client didnt assault Conway and would plead not guilty to the misdemeanor charges.The facts at trial will show this to be true, and show Ms. Conways account to be false, the lawyers statement says. Advertisement In a CNN interview broadcast Friday, Conway said she was standing next to her middle-school-aged daughter and some of her daughters friends when the woman began shaking her to the point where I thought maybe somebody was hugging me. She said it felt weird and a little aggressive, so she turned around to face the woman. She was just unhinged. She was out of control, she said. Her whole face was terror and anger. She was right here, and my daughter was right there. And she ought to pay for that. She ought to pay for that because she has no right to touch anybody. The restaurants manager told police that the woman who confronted Conway had to be forcibly removed from the premises. Conway told police the woman yelled and gestured at her for eight to 10 minutes before she was escorted out of the restaurant. Conway wasnt injured, according to the charging document. The woman who confronted her was gone by the time police arrived, but restaurant staff helped police identify her as a suspect, and Conways daughter provided officers with a short video clip and photograph of the encounter. Conway said she told President Trump about the incident long after it happened. She said Trump asked her, Are you OK? Is your daughter OK? Are the other girls OK? Dozens of people packed into the one-room chapel Friday to pray that the 19th century mission known as La Lomita, perched on a hill above the Rio Grande, wont be sealed off behind a border fence. Worshipers bowed their heads during the Catholic novena prayer vigil, the latest of nine Masses Father Roy Snipes has held to oppose to the fence. The mayor of the town of Mission, his wife and the city manager stood with them among the rustic pews, and several police officers watched with the overflow crowd outside. A Border Patrol agent sat in a marked SUV on a nearby levee, where the fence would be built, and watched. Never did we contemplate a wall rising nearby, the priest said. Advertisement Snipes known as the cowboy priest for his Stetson and pack of adopted stray dogs prayed in a mix of English and Spanish. Between reflection and hysteria and whatever else, Lord, we pray to be true to ourselves, Snipes, 73, told about 50 people in the chapel before blessing them with the holy water he draws from the river. The modest sandstone chapel is caught between the coming fence 18 feet high, made of steel bollards and the Rio Grande, the dividing line between the U.S. and Mexico. Landowners said they saw crews arrive to clear brush this week several miles west of La Lomita for construction of the fence. The $1.4-billion, 37-mile stretch of border barrier was funded by Congress last year. It is expected to rise atop the levee just north of the chapel, with a 150-foot enforcement zone to the south that would swallow the whitewashed outpost. Father Roy Snipes leads a prayer at La Lomita chapel Friday morning as part of a vigil to try to save the 19th century building in Mission, Texas, from being blocked off by a border fence. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) Snipes, who was ordained in the chapel in 1980, has been against the fence since October, when the Border Patrol filed a federal lawsuit to condemn land around the chapel and begin surveying. He worries about the future of the mission, where he says priests once lived in a bunkhouse with stables and a blacksmith. He worries it would block access and scare away the faithful, most of whom are Latino. Building a fence, let alone a wall, in the Rio Grande Valley is geographically tricky. The Rio Grande winds north and south, east and west, through whats essentially a delta, around homes, farms, cemeteries, churches and other landmarks. Thats why much of the new fence will be built atop a levee, in some cases miles north of the river. Advertisement In the past, when the Border Patrol built fences in the valley north of homes and businesses, it installed locked gates and shared the combinations with property owners. Some complained the gates were left closed and restricted access to public sites, like parks. Others said they had a chilling effect, scaring people away who mistakenly believed land south of the fence was in Mexico. Father Roy Snipes carries a cross after Friday Mass. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) In recent months, property owners along the planned path of the fence have been receiving letters from federal officials, but little information about construction plans. First, the letters asked for permission to survey. In some cases, they notified residents that the government was suing them in federal court to access the land. More recently, they offered to buy some plots outright for about $32,000, a lowball offer considering the stakes. During the last major federal effort to survey and build in Texas Rio Grande Valley in 2006 following the Secure Fence Act property owners who hired attorneys sold their land for millions. Advertisement This time, many owners have already consented to have their land surveyed. Some are considering whether to sell or hire lawyers to negotiate. Selling was not an option at La Lomita. The local bishop and diocese have fought the fence and the government efforts to survey. After the federal government sued to access the land, church attorneys argued that the fence would block access to the chapel, infringe on religious freedom and counteract the churchs message of inclusion. A cowboy priest battles to protect 153-year-old Texas chapel from a border fence On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Randy Crane in nearby McAllen ruled that government surveyors could access the church property on terms set by the local diocese. Crane said he has visited the chapel and that surveying wouldnt constitute a substantial burden on religious freedom. Advertisement An attorney for the federal government said the 150-foot enforcement zone might be adjusted at La Lomita, according to a diocese attorney. Snipes, who had been at court, said he took that as encouraging news. Border Patrol officials have not met with the priest or many other residents in the path of the fence to discuss their plans, despite repeated requests for public meetings. Officials have also declined to release updated maps of the project. It wasnt clear Friday when surveying would start at La Lomita, or how intrusive it would be. Carlos Diaz, a Border Patrol spokesman, declined to answer questions about the project, including whether there would be an enforcement zone at La Lomita or elsewhere, citing the pending federal lawsuit. The only disturbance will be if they rile the old ladies, Snipes predicted as he stood outside La Lomita after Mass, referring to the women who attend services regularly. I dont know if youve ever riled a viejita, but they might give the surveyors a hard time. Advertisement The priest said he was more worried about what comes after the survey for the fence, which he called obnoxious and obscene. The government could move to seize the land, as it has in other parts of the valley, claiming eminent domain. Elizabeth Garcia, center, and Anna Velasquez, right, pray during Mass at La Lomita chapel in Mission, Texas. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) The city of Mission draws its name from the chapel, a former mission for oblate priests like Snipes. Mission Mayor Armando Mando OCana, 64, a former altar boy, has belonged to the surrounding parish all of his life. The former educator and city councilman says he supports added border security, but he doesnt want to see the chapel cut off behind a fence. Its not only a physical barrier, its a symbol, he said. Advertisement OCana, who like many in the valley describes himself as a conservative Democrat, told President Trump how he feels when he met the president during his visit to McAllen last month. The mayor also asked for more information about the fence project. Trump paid attention and directed an aide to follow up, OCana said. Ten days ago, the mayor met with the new Rio Grande Border Patrol chief, who promised the fence would not restrict access to the chapel. He sounded very sincere, OCana said before leaving La Lomita to attend the Border Patrol chiefs first state of the border address at the local convention center. Others lingered after Mass. The temperature had dipped overnight into the 40s, and the sun barely rose in a gray sky spitting rain. So they built a campfire outside the church entrance and sang a hymn as the priest blessed them again with Rio Grande holy water. Next to the chapel, the city had erected a blue and white striped tent, where volunteers set out Mexican hot chocolate, Shipleys coffee, breakfast tacos, pan dulce and sugary, home-fried bunuelos. Gracie Ramos and some childhood friends pulled folding chairs together to reminisce about our Lomita. They had worried they would find it closed, locked or blocked. Advertisement We dont want it to be isolated, said Ramos, 69, a retired AT&T worker. Until the issue is resolved, Snipes told those outside the church, he plans to continue holding Friday morning Masses at La Lomita in opposition to the fence. Saddle up, he said, And come on down. molly.hennessy-fiske@latimes.com Advertisement @mollyhf The Trump administration was set to ignore a Friday deadline for giving the Senate a full accounting of the role of Saudi Arabias de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, in the brutal slaying of U.S.-based Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi four months ago. The administration, which has consistently sought to shield Saudi rulers from blame, had until midnight Friday to answer senators questions about whether Prince Mohammed ordered the killing, as U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded, and what additional sanctions should be placed on the government in Riyadh. The deadline was set by Democratic and Republican senators, who wrote the president on Oct. 10 just over a week after Khashoggis disappearance calling for an investigation and invoking the Global Magnitsky Act that imposes sanctions on egregious abusers of international human rights. Under the rules, the president had 120 days to respond. Senators said Trump was obliged by law to answer. Administration officials contended, however, that the law was not binding and that the president was within his rights to ignore the senators demands. Advertisement A bipartisan group of senators, anticipating administration inaction, reintroduced a bill Thursday from late last year that would restrict arms sales to Saudi Arabia in response to the Khashoggi killing and the disastrous Saudi-led war in Yemen. Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the legislation was aimed at preventing President Trump from sweeping Mr. Khashoggis murder under the rug. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a Republican close to the president, said sanctions were long overdue for this barbaric act. While Saudi Arabia is a strategic ally, the behavior of the crown prince in multiple ways has shown disrespect for the relationship and made him, in my view, beyond toxic, Graham said. Khashoggi, a resident of Virginia who wrote columns for the Washington Post that were often critical of the Saudi monarchy, was strangled and dismembered inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, on Oct. 2. After weeks of denials, the Saudi government finally acknowledged his death but blamed the killing on rogue Saudi agents. U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that such a brazen act would have had to be ordered by Crown Prince Mohammed. But Trump and Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo, keen to preserve a robust diplomatic and economic relationship with Riyadh that includes arm sales and mutual antagonism toward Iran, have refused to accept those findings. Combined with the Saudi role in Yemen, where it leads a coalition that has killed thousands of civilians, the Khashoggi case has generated rare bipartisan criticism of Trump for his fealty to the kingdom. The only other issue to have similarly galvanized Republicans and Democrats in opposition is Trumps friendliness with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Khashoggi case seems to be opening chapter 2 of Congress being more purposeful and determined in a bipartisan way [to challenge the administration] on foreign policy, said Thomas Melia, a former senior State Department human rights official and the Washington director of PEN America, which advocates for human rights and freedom of expression. Advertisement PEN was one of several organizations demanding government action against Saudi Arabia ahead of what they assumed would be the administrations refusal to meet Fridays deadline. Adel Jubeir, Saudi minister of state for foreign affairs, was in Washington this week for an international conference and met with Pompeo on Thursday. The two agreed on the importance of a credible and transparent investigation of the Khashoggi killing that holds all of those involved accountable, the State Department said in a statement, which echoed others of past months. The Saudis are prosecuting about 15 alleged participants in the slaying, but none are thought to be its intellectual authors. The Trump administration has yanked U.S. visas or frozen assets of about three dozen Saudi officials. On Friday, Jubeir reiterated that the crown prince did not order the killing and warned that attacking Saudi leadership was a red line that Americans should not cross. Advertisement tracy.wilkinson@latimes.com For more on international affairs, follow @TracyKWilkinson on Twitter A Maryland woman said Friday that she was sexually assaulted by Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax in a premeditated and aggressive attack in 2000, while both were undergraduate students at Duke University. She is the second woman this week to accuse him of sexual assault. Fairfax forcefully denied both allegations. Democratic Party leaders quickly called for Fairfax to resign, including the influential Virginia Legislative Black Caucus. Many who had withheld judgment after the first allegation this week said they could no longer stand by him, including most of Virginias Democratic congressional delegation and national Democrats with presidential aspirations. Meanwhile, Gov. Ralph Northam, also a Democrat, told senior staff that he would serve out the remaining three years of his term and would not step down amid his own scandal involving a racist photograph from his 1984 medical school yearbook. It was a head-spinning turn in a spiraling week of chaos in Virginia. Only a week ago, Fairfax, 39, was preparing to take over as Virginias second African American governor when it looked as though Northam, 59, would be forced out over the racial issue. Advertisement The new accusation against Fairfax came from Meredith Watson, who said Friday in a statement through her attorney that she shared her account with several classmates and friends immediately after the alleged assault occurred. Watson did not speak publicly Friday, and her lawyer did not make her available for an interview. I deny this latest unsubstantiated allegation, Fairfax responded in a statement. It is demonstrably false. I have never forced myself on anyone ever. Democrats face meltdown in Virginia as racial and sex charges confront party leaders Asked what evidence Fairfax had that would demonstrate that the charge was false, spokeswoman Lauren Burke said, In due time, all the facts will come out. Virginia Democrats made clear that their patience had run out, especially after spending the week absorbing one blow after another regarding their top leaders. Besides Northam and Fairfax, state Atty. Gen. Mark Herring admitted Wednesday that he wore blackface to imitate a rapper at a college party in 1980. The allegations against Justin Fairfax are serious and credible, former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, said Friday in a statement. It is clear to me that he can no longer effectively serve the people of Virginia as lieutenant governor. I call for his immediate resignation. McAuliffe has similarly called for Northams resignation. Democratic Reps. Gerald Connolly, Don Beyer, Elaine Luria, Abigail Spanberger and Jennifer Wexton, in a lengthy joint statement, called for Fairfax to resign. The past seven days have been some of the most painful we can remember, they began. Saying that they found Fairfaxs accusers to be credible, the delegation said it was unacceptable for Fairfax to continue in office, particularly in light of Gov. Northams situation, which we continue to believe requires his resignation. Advertisement Rep. Donald McEachin (D-Va.) issued a separate statement also calling for Fairfax to resign. National Democrats piled on, including Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) who said it is no longer appropriate for [Fairfax] to serve and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.). Republican leaders in the Virginia state Senate called for criminal investigations into both allegations. Virginias House and Senate Democrats issued a joint statement calling for Fairfaxs resignation. Earlier this week, another woman, Vanessa Tyson, accused Fairfax of sexually assaulting her in 2004 while at the Democratic National Convention in Boston. Fairfax also forcefully denied that charge, saying he was the victim of a smear and that they had a consensual encounter. Advertisement Watson, who came forward Friday, was friends with Fairfax at Duke, but they never dated or had a romantic relationship, said Watsons lawyer, Nancy Erika Smith. At this time, Ms. Watson is reluctantly coming forward out of a strong sense of civic duty and her belief that those seeking or serving in public office should be of the highest character, Smith said in the statement. She has no interest in becoming a media personality or reliving the trauma that has greatly affected her life. Similarly, she is not seeking any financial damages. Watson wants Fairfax to resign from office, Smith said. Fairfaxs statement said he would not step aside. I demand a full investigation into these unsubstantiated and false allegations, the statement said. I will clear my good name and I have nothing to hide. I have passed two full field background checks by the FBI and run for office in two highly contested elections with nothing like this being raised before. Advertisement Smith said the details of Watsons alleged attack are similar to those described by Tyson, who said that Fairfax had forced her to perform oral sex. Kaneedreck Adams, 40, who attended Duke with Watson, said that in spring 2000, Watson lived across the hall from her in an on-campus apartment complex and came to her in tears. She was upset, said Adams, a lawyer. She told me she had been raped, and she named Justin. She said she couldnt speak, but she was trying to get up and he kept pushing her down, Adams said. She said he knew that she didnt like what was happening, but he kept pushing her down. Advertisement The alleged attack happened at a fraternity house, Adams said. She said she and Watson had been friends with Fairfax, who was one year ahead of them in school. We all knew he wanted to be in politics, Adams said. He had a reputation for being very friendly. Some of my friends, we called him Sunshine. He was a nice, sweet, charming guy. Watsons attorney provided an email exchange from 2016 between Watson and Milagros Joye Brown, another friend from Duke, after Brown invited some Duke friends to a fundraising event for Fairfaxs nascent campaign for lieutenant governor. Justin raped me in college and I dont want to hear anything about him. Please, please, please remove me from any future emails about him please, Watson wrote on Oct. 26, 2016. Advertisement Watsons lawyer released a second statement after Fairfaxs denial, accusing the lieutenant governor of trying to undermine her credibility. In that statement, the lawyer revealed that Watson had accused a Duke basketball player of rape her sophomore year. The statement said she reported it to a dean at the university, who discouraged her from pursuing it. The basketball player was not named in the statement. Duke University officials said they could not immediately comment. According to Dukes alumni directory, Watson majored in psychology and after graduation held jobs in fundraising and grant work for nonprofits and schools, mostly in Maryland. Carliss Chatman, 39, of Lexington, Va., went to Duke with Fairfax and Watson and said she believed Fairfax did not assault Watson or Tyson. Advertisement Hes a fighter, said Chatman, who teaches law at Washington and Lee University. When you rise as quickly as he did and go from people having no idea who you are to being the lieutenant governor he expected [people] would come out of the woodwork. I think its unfortunate that this is the way politics works. Chatman has been checking on Fairfax throughout the week and last spoke with him Tuesday or Wednesday, she said. She has known him for 20 years and helped raise money for his campaign. She said defending Fairfax is difficult because the idea of standing up for a man accused of sexual assault is not in her nature. But even though Im a very strong feminist, she said, you can take advantage of MeToo and get back at someone you dated. I believe in believing women, but you cant believe all women because some people lie. Northam was close to resigning Feb. 1 when news of the racist yearbook photo broke. The picture shows one person in blackface and another in a Ku Klux Klan robe, and though Northam initially took responsibility for it, he held a televised news conference last Saturday in which he said he was not in the picture. Advertisement Though he admitted that he wore blackface to imitate Michael Jackson in a dance contest in 1984, Northam said he would not immediately resign and would seek to clear his name. This week, as scandals enveloped Fairfax and Herring, Northam resolved to stick out his tenure. On Friday at 4 p.m., shortly after the Fairfax news came out, Northam told his top Cabinet officials that he would serve out his term. Jurors deliberating the federal case against Joaquin El Chapo Guzman in Brooklyn came to a decision Thursday: They were done for the week. On their fourth day hashing out the 10 complex criminal counts against the notorious Mexican drug kingpin, jurors decided theyd keep to the schedule they had during the sweeping 12-week trial: done by 4:30 p.m., and no court on Fridays. U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan has gently reminded them they can stay as late as they like and encouraged them to work through the week, if they could; but about 4:15 p.m. Thursday, their minds, at least on this issue, were made up. When the judge asked if they were certain they couldnt return Friday, it was clear. Lots of nods, OK, the judge said to the bobbing heads on the panel. Advertisement Aside from wanting to leave, there was another jury request that suggested these deliberations would stretch on. Jurors wanted, and will get next week, a large portion of testimony from a key government cooperating witness, former Colombian drug lord Juan Carlos Ramirez Abadia. U.S. marshals patrol outside the federal courthouse in Brooklyn, N.Y., where the trial of Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin Guzman is taking place. (Kena Betancur / AFP/Getty Images) The jury wanted testimony related to the tons of cocaine the man known as Chupeta, or Lollipop, sold to Guzmans Sinaloa cartel, one of the worlds largest narco-trafficking empires. Over this week, jurors have appeared to be scrupulously weighing the charges which cover accusations that Guzman sold and manufactured hundreds of tons of cocaine, meth and heroin; conspired to murder a host of rivals; and helped run one of the worlds largest international drug cartels. The panel has requested the full testimonies of some the governments most essential witnesses, former cartel higher-ups who detailed the inner workings of the vast drug network. Guzman, who faces life in prison, looked in high spirits at the news of deliberations pushing ahead when he was in court briefly at the end of the day to hear the jurors requests. El Chapo jurors could face a long-term threat: PTSD Wearing a dark blue suit, light blue shirt and navy tie, Guzman offered waves and smiles to his 29-year-old wife, Emma Coronel. He gave a bear hug of sorts to one of his lawyers, and a fist bump to another. For all those hours before the jurors appeared in court, as lawyers and restless journalists waited for any word from the 12 men and women hashing out the case, there was a bit of courtroom drama. Advertisement A man claiming to be a relative of Guzmans ended up leaving the courthouse in handcuffs. After he acted belligerently with U.S. Marshals in court, they discovered he had warrants for his arrest in New York, on harassment charges. According to Guzmans lawyers, the man, who told reporters a variety of tales before he was kicked out he was from Milan, his family owned properties around the world, he was going to the Oscars was just an impostor. Plagianos is a special correspondent. Four days earlier, they raced to put out the flaming wreckage of a small plane that had pelted their quiet Orange County neighborhood. On Thursday night, they lit candles to remember the four people killed when pieces of the plane came hurtling out of the sky and set their home on fire. About 1,000 people gathered for a vigil at Glenknoll Elementary School in Yorba Linda, a few blocks from the crash site. They mourned Roy Lee Anderson and Dahlia Marlies Leber Anderson, two residents who died in their home Sunday, along with Stacie Norene Leber and Donald Paul Elliott, who were visiting the couple. Ron Elenbaas lived across the street from the Andersons for the last two decades. Roy Anderson, 85, was Elenbaas paper boy, he joked. For 20 years, Anderson picked up the paper at 5 a.m. from Elenbaas driveway, read it, repackaged it and brought it to his door. In the evenings, Elenbaas would cross the street for a drink with his friends on the porch: red wine for Ron, Chardonnay for Dahlia. Jeannie Durbin-Hambric, left, leans on Linda Grise, as they join other community members for a vigil at Glenknoll Elementary School. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) Advertisement Josh Anguiano showed up to the vigil in his postal uniform. For two years, Anguiano has delivered mail to the Andersons street. He didnt know them well he exchanged pleasantries with Roy when handing over the mail but felt he needed to be there Thursday. Theyre my customers, he said. Mark Jackson, pastor of the Bridge Church in Corona, called Elliott a very, very close friend who attended his church for 20 years. Elliots faith had been strengthened by a near-fatal accident years ago, when a truck he was fixing fell on him and crushed him, Jackson said. On Sunday morning, like most every Sunday, Jackson said, Elliott was worshiping in his church. And that afternoon, we heard he was worshiping God in heaven. Community members attend a vigil Thursday for the four people killed Sunday. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) About 1:45 p.m. Sunday, with most of the neighborhood readying for the Super Bowl, the Cessna broke apart about 10 minutes after departing Fullerton Municipal Airport. It fell to the ground in pieces a propeller bounced off a driveway, an alternator careened into a bathroom, the fuselage sheared through a tree. The pilot, Antonio Pastini, was also killed. Advertisement Neighbors believe the planes left wing, equipped with a fuel tank, plunged through the roof of the home. The house was engulfed in flames almost immediately, witnesses said. The victims family said they were reeling from the crash. Our family bond is tight and each member lost in this tragedy represents more than just one role within our family, they said in a statement. Community members at Thursdays vigil for the four people killed Sunday when pieces of a plane plunged into their Yorba Linda home. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) The home they called a beacon for so many family and friends is charred and fenced off. Its roof is split open. A blackened SUV sits in the driveway. Advertisement Investigators have said it could take as long as 18 months to determine what caused the crash. Pastini, a 75-year-old Nevada resident, is an enigma himself. Born Jordan Isaacson, he changed his name sometime in the 1970s. He told Nevada newspapers he was a former Chicago detective. Investigators recovered a Chicago police badge and other credentials at the crash site that led them to identify Pastini as a former Chicago police officer. But two days later, the Chicago police said neither an Antonio Pastini nor a Jordan Isaacson ever worked for them. A spokeswoman said the badge had been reported lost in 1978. Hieu Nguyen and Mark Kirchner first met at Westminsters 2013 Tet parade. That was the year the Vietnamese American LGBTQ community was banned from marching by new organizers who had taken over that year. Nguyen, a social worker, attended the demonstration formed to protest the exclusion. Kirchner, a photographer, had been documenting the Tet parade annually since 2010, the first year LGBTQ groups marched. Before Kirchner arrived, he attached banners onto both of his cameras: one was hand-made featuring a red felt heart with an equality sign on it, while the other had rainbow stripes. That way you can also wave the camera like a flag, says Kirchner. Advertisement Thats how we knew he was an ally, says Nguyen. Nguyen would eventually co-found the LGBTQ nonprofit Viet Rainbow of Orange County and successfully overturn the discriminatory ban one year later. And Kirchner continued to photograph their parade participants every year since. This year marks the fifth anniversary of VROC, and to commemorate the occasion, Nguyen and Peterson Pham, VROC board member and public relations chair, collaborated with Kirchner to create a photo and poetry exhibit, Progress Built on Pride, which documents eight years of queer Vietnamese American activism at the Tet parade. Kirchner, who is an adjunct photography instructor at Aliso Viejos Soka University, specializes in black-and-white photography notably, hes been working on a project about the Manzanar pilgrimage for 35 years. Progress Built on Pride is his first exhibit in full color. When VROC participates in the Tet parade, Hieu Nguyen makes an effort to also shine the spotlight on multiple generations, including parents who support their LGBTQ children. It begins with his Tet parade photos from 2010, pre-VROC, when Vietnamese American LGBTQ groups from Los Angeles and the Bay Area traveled south to march in Orange Countys Little Saigon, home of the largest population of Vietnamese outside the Southeast Asian nation. O.C. didnt have a collective LGBTQ Vietnamese American identity then, says Nguyen. So 2010 was all of these siblings from the other counties coming in and saying, We want to march in the mecca of Little Saigon. Advertisement Understanding the importance of developing a unique Orange County identity, Nguyen always takes a lot of care with the imagery that VROC projects when members march down Bolsa Avenue for the Tet parade. Hieu is almost like a performance artist, says Kirchner, of the attention paid to the costuming, marching order and specific themes for each year. Im always aware that while Im using the camera, hes creating a vision with the parade. A photo of Viet Rainbow of Orange County marchers at the Tet parade evoking iconic images of Vietnamese schoolchildren is on display at the Westminster Viet Bao office through Sunday. In 2014, when the ban was lifted, VROC marchers dressed in uniforms and walked with bicycles to evoke images of young Vietnamese schoolchildren. They also wore non la (conical hats) with rainbow straps and had rainbow baskets on their bikes. Advertisement The biggest argument [against having queer representation in the Tet parade] was that the LGBTQ community didnt exist in Vietnam, says Nguyen. Its a Western disease. So it was important to present ourselves in iconic attire, so you cant separate the [Vietnamese and queer] identities. For the Year of the Dog, they marched with dogs in rainbow attire. At this years Tet parade, which takes place Saturday, VROC plans to pay tribute to the working class, wearing brown long-sleeve shirts and pants while carrying the types of baskets that vendors use to sell items on the streets. Though the photo exhibit begins chronologically, the later photos are grouped by theme: preparations (tying rainbow ties, preparing heart balloons, making signs) and the down time (sheltering their faces from the sun with their hats, anxiously waiting for the parade to begin), juxtaposed with the joy of the marchers and the reaction from the crowd when the march begins. The way I see it is that when they march, theres full sunlight on their faces, they are no longer concealed by hats, and theyre singing traditional songs, says Kirchner. Its beautiful. Advertisement Nguyen and Pham wrote corresponding English-language poems for each photo grouping, and the exhibit opens and closes with Vietnamese proverbs. One proverb, explains Nguyen, is about squash soup, referring to how its made with different types of squash that all come from the same vine. The other is about the importance of community. When Kirchner marches with VROC, he stands out. Not only is he not Vietnamese (hes of Mexican and Scandanavian descent), but hes 6 feet, 7 inches tall, earning him the tongue-in-cheek nickname Shorty from his VROC friends. I have no direct connection to the Vietnamese or LGBT community, says Kirchner. But when you have a sense of what is the right thing to do, why stand on the sidelines? Why not go be part of something bigger than yourself? I protest and support, but when I support, I bring my camera. Advertisement Tseng writes for Times Community News. Palestinian officials have been invited to a U.S. conference on the Middle East hosted by Poland next week where White House senior adviser Jared Kushner will discuss plans for peace between the Palestinians and Israelis, a senior U.S. official said on Friday. The senior administration official told reporters the event was not a negotiation but a discussion on Middle East peace. As noted we have asked the Palestinian Authority to send representatives to this event, the official said. Kushner, who is U.S. President Donald Trumps son-in-law, will also take part, the official said, and he will discuss the administrations efforts to advance peace between Israel and the Palestinians and also take questions from the audience. We would very much welcome the Palestinian Authoritys perspectives during the discussion, but I do want to emphasize this is not a negotiation but a discussion, and we look forward to fostering a constructive conversation in Warsaw, he added. The State Department has said more than 40 countries will attended the conference in Warsaw from Feb. 12 to 14. Kushner has been working on a peace plan for more than a year. The Warsaw event will be one of the first occasions where he will discuss the plan publicly, although he is not expected to reveal any details. Short link: Karen and Barry Mason swear they never planned to sell porn for long. They were just really good at it. For 37 years, the couple now septuagenarian grandparents have run Circus of Books, a West Hollywood bookstore that sold gay and straight nudie magazines, hardcore pornographic films and sex toys, as well as international newspapers and classic literary titles. I always assumed that we would end up doing something else, Karen said. We dont know anything, really. Advertisement The Santa Monica Boulevard store gained legendary status in Southern Californias LGBTQ community as a place where people could peruse gay erotica or meet other gay people, hanging out in a place free from homophobia. Over the years, Circus of Books has survived an FBI raid, federal obscenity charges and complaints from law enforcement who said the store attracted prostitution and other criminal elements. It remained open during the AIDS crisis, when numerous employees died. But it could not survive Amazon. Strangled by the internet where pornography and dating apps abound Circus of Books will close for good Saturday. A lot of people are sorry to see it go, grateful its been there all this time, Karen said. And as were closing, people are saying, You know, this store saved my life. When the Masons started out in the early 1980s, Circus of Books and the gay bars were places where people would go to meet, to find each other, said West Hollywood Mayor John Duran, who is gay. There was no Grindr or Scruff or Tinder. If you wanted to find community, you had to go out and seek it. For many customers, the gay erotica was revolutionary, he said. Its not like any of us got this through sex ed or at home with Mom and Dad, Duran said. We had to learn. Advertisement Karen Mason looks through her Rolodex at Circus of Books, which she and husband Barry are closing after nearly four decades in West Hollywood. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) In the 1970s, Barry made a decent living selling accessories hed invented for dialysis machines until the cost of medical malpractice insurance became too much. After Karen, who had worked as a journalist, spotted a newspaper ad seeking magazine distributors for Larry Flynt the publisher of Hustler and Chic Barry started driving around to liquor stores and newsstands, taking orders. Karen did deliveries. She was pregnant at the time, so she hired unemployed musicians she preferred drummers, who always seemed the most reliable to help with heavy lifting. Advertisement One West Hollywood store, Book Circus, ordered 600 gay titles, including Blueboy and Honcho, each month and instantly sold out. Id have to fill the whole truck up just to fill those titles, Barry said. Customers were so glad when the magazines arrived, they would come out front and help me unload it. The Masons eventually learned the bookstores owner, who had fallen behind on magazine payments, was being evicted. Barry made a deal with the property manager: Hed pay half the mans $1,400 monthly rent until he was evicted if the Masons could take over the lease afterward. The couple kept the staff and changed the name to Circus of Books. Along with the pornography, they sold obscure novels from LGBTQ authors, as well as science fiction books, foreign newspapers, even Bibles. Gay-themed magazines played an important role in assuring people they werent alone at a time when homosexuality was taboo, said Joseph Hawkins, director of the ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives at USC. Advertisement For decades, gay magazines including ONE, the non-pornographic magazine for which the archive is named that were sold at newsstands in big cities were obscured behind a tarp or curtain and sold alongside bawdy straight magazines, even if the gay periodicals had no nude pictures. There was just enough space to edge in and look, and there were porn magazines for the straight men and the gay men. Everybody was in there, Hawkins said. Sometimes the men in there looking at straight erotica would see you looking at a gay-oriented magazine and get upset. You never had a sense of safety. Youd worry there was a vice officer in there who would arrest you for looking at the magazines. ... The place was selling the magazine, but you werent allowed to look at it. Karen, with husband Barry in their bastion of gay pornography, says, I always assumed that we would end up doing something else. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) Advertisement Rachel Mason said that when she was growing up, her parents were much more strict than her friends. She and her two brothers had to get straight As. They werent allowed to watch TV. They had to go to synagogue with their mother. I was this little rebel, and what I didnt know was that they were outlaws in their own way, she said. They were just so good at this balancing act that we had no clue about it. I was fighting with my mom about my hair color and they were actually dealing in hardcore videos. Rachel, 40, an artist and musician, is making a documentary about her parents shop, which will debut on the film festival circuit this spring. It wasnt until she started making the film that she realized how revered Karen and Barry were in the LGBTQ community. This store represents a time capsule of a different era when being queer was really underground, she said. It was truly a hidden culture. Advertisement Rachel and her brothers sometimes sneaked into the pornography section to giggle at the movie covers until their mom yelled at them to get out. In the 1980s, young Rachel noticed that her parents clerks kept disappearing. They were dying of AIDS. Somebody I just met would be dead the next week, then another person and another person as a kid, I didnt have any perception that that was unusual. They were extraordinary young guys who I looked up to. Advertisement If employees felt well enough to work, the Masons encouraged them to come in so they could have some normalcy. If they needed public assistance to pay for expensive medication, the couple would pay them off the books in cash so they could keep unemployment benefits. It was the only time, Karen said, she ever broke the rules. They were just so young, Karen said, sighing. It just um they shouldnt have died. The Masons by that time had bought the building, which had several apartments upstairs, and their tenants were dying, too. Many were estranged from their families. A lot of parents wouldnt come to get their things or come to their funerals, Barry said. Advertisement And sometimes, Karen said, I would get a call from a mother. Tell me about my son. Where were you, lady? I had nothing to say to parents like that. Barry Mason stands inside the over-18 section of Circus of Books. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) At its peak, Circus of Books had three locations. A short-lived Sherman Oaks store closed in the late 1990s after the city ordered it to stop selling porn because it was too close to an elementary school. The Silver Lake shop closed in 2016 amid declining sales. The West Hollywood store had its share of drama. The alleyway behind it was a well-known gay cruising spot, and residents and sheriffs deputies said the 24-hour bookstore attracted prostitutes and drug dealers. Advertisement In 1989, the city ordered the store to close daily from 2 to 6 a.m. Karen told The Times then that they were being used as a scapegoat for a problem they didnt create. The hustlers are around the building like roaches, she said at the time, and weve tried to get rid of them. In the early 1990s, an employee shipped several gay and straight pornographic VHS tapes including Licorice Twists, Latex Slaves Discipline and The Best of Bruce Seven, Vol. 1 to a customer in Pennsylvanias Lebanon County. But it was a sting. The Masons were indicted on federal charges of interstate transportation of obscene materials, and the FBI raided their warehouse, carrying guns. Advertisement They were looking for a copy of what was shipped, Barry said, a girly title, and all of them, every time theyd pull out a box theyd laugh at the titles. After years of litigation, the Masons avoided jail time by agreeing to a pretrial diversion program and a $20,000 fine. For about a year, Barry had to report to federal court once a month to show he was still working and not committing any crimes. Federal investigators, he said, later mailed back the tapes theyd taken as evidence. Vintage Playgirl magazines on a rack inside Circus of Books in West Hollywood. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) Karen, who gets a bit embarrassed when talking about the pornography, said shed never watched any of the films. It all seems kind of boring, she said with a shrug. Advertisement In her spare basement office, Karen still keeps contacts on a Rolodex. She also keeps two sketches done by her children hanging above her desk. One is a portrait of Mother Teresa. The other is a drawing of a frail man with an oxygen tube in his nose. Theyre a reminder, she said, that everything in life is finite. hailey.branson@latimes.com Twitter: @haileybranson Police arrested a 23-year-old woman after she was caught on video pushing a crucifix to the floor and destroying other items in a Northern California church, authorities said. Jackeline Chavira was booked into a Santa Cruz County jail on suspicion of vandalizing a place of worship, defacing property, burglary and disobeying a court order, the Watsonville Police Department said. Police said Chaviras rampage began at 11:40 a.m. Wednesday when she entered a Watsonville store and stole some roses. About 20 minutes later, she allegedly went into another store on the same street and broke a religious statue, then stopped at a bakery and stole a soda. Advertisement Finally, about 12:15 p.m., the woman allegedly entered St. Patricks Church on Main Street, where authorities said she caused the most damage. Surveillance footage shows her walking toward the altar, looking behind and around her as she approached the crucifix. Jackeline Chavira (Santa Cruz County Sheriffs Office) The video shows her setting down what appears to be a rose before pushing the 15-foot crucifix to the floor, causing the figure of Christ to come loose, and running off. Watsonville police said the incident caused $15,000 in damage. After smashing the crucifix, officials said, Chavira ran next door to a prayer room, where she threw another religious statue on the ground and ripped down two large pieces of art. Parishioners were in the room at the time. She then visited another store on Main Street, where she stole another religious statue and smashed it on the ground, police said. She was arrested soon after and is being held in lieu of $25,000 bail. alejandra.reyesvelarde@latimes.com Twitter: @r_valejandra Recent storms may have given Los Angeles a fresh feeling, but all that rainwater has to go somewhere. Everything you can imagine from plastic bottles and cans to blankets, pillows and mattresses has been funneled through the riverbeds of Los Angeles and Orange counties and dumped on the areas beaches. Trash from the San Gabriel River flowed to an opening near Seal Beach, creating a half-mile-long berm of detritus 20 feet wide and nearly 3 feet high. The Santa Ana River has deposited garbage at both Huntington Beach and Newport Beach. And the 51-mile-long Los Angeles River, which flows from the western end of the San Fernando Valley in the Santa Susana Mountains to the city of Long Beach, routinely dumps tons of trash on the shores of Long Beach Harbor. A break in the storms Monday allowed beach cleaners to assess the damage and start the cleanup process. By Thursday, volunteers at Seal Beach had made considerable progress, pushing the trash into large mounds, ready for bulldozers and front-end loaders to scoop it into big dump trucks and cart it off to the landfill, said Greg Fellers, 72, a board member with Save Our Beach. Advertisement Volunteers with the environmental group sweep the beaches once a month. But because of the excess debris dumped by a series of winter storms, additional cleanup work is needed, Fellers said. Refuse always piles up on beaches after storms, but in his 10 years of service, Fellers said, he has never seen it this bad. Recent storms have scattered rain and snow across California and helped fill up the states reservoirs. But the rains side effects are less appealing. It was disgusting, Fellers said of the mounds at Seal Beach. It looked like a landfill. Some of the rubbish comes from as far as the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, 39 miles from the shore, Fellers said. Much of it such as grocery carts, couches and tarps comes from the homeless population near Los Angeles and Orange counties riverbeds, he said. It typically takes a day or two to clean up the mess at area beaches. This time, though, the effort will continue into the weekend. And even then, it will be at least another week before the water nearest the shore clears from its current black, murky state, Fellers said. On a summer day, you can come down there, and its a nice ocean beach, he said. Its hard to imagine the contrast right now. If you looked at it now, youd never want to go into the water again. Advertisement Trash and debris have also sunk to the ocean floor, contributing to the poor water quality. Tony Soriano, who volunteers for the Huntington Beach and Seal Beach chapters of the Surfrider Foundation which conducts water testing at Southern Californias beaches said beachgoers should wait at least 72 hours after a downpour before going in the water. Its medical waste, automotive waste, transmission fluid, paint, turpentine, pesticides, he said of what can be found in the water. People do get sick. Soriano said that although the biggest pieces of junk often end up on Seal Beach, the garbage also gets dumped farther south at Huntington Beach and Newport Beach. Unlike the San Gabriel River deposits, which are channeled directly to Seal Beach, debris from the Santa Ana River is more dispersed. Advertisement When he visited Huntington Beach earlier this week, he saw smaller bits of trash, including Styrofoam bits, straws and cans. But the rubbish flows in and out with the current, so there could have been much more, he said. Even areas without a nearby river, such as Huntington Harbor, suffer from the rain runoff. You cant believe what kind of stuff we find there and theres no river, Soriano said. About 120 Surfrider volunteers picked up 1,200 pounds of waste at Seal Beach during a recent cleanup. But that was before the most recent rains. In 2017, there was a surge in the amount of trash the organization collected 13,500 pounds compared with 7,677 pounds the year before, according to the Surfrider Foundation website. Its perhaps no coincidence that year was the rainiest ever in the state since record-keeping began in 1895. Advertisement More rain is in the forecast, and that will probably mean more garbage at the beaches, Fellers said. Wet weather will kick back up again Friday for large swaths of the state. The Save Our Beach group wants public works officials to come up with a more long-term plan for mitigating the pollution at its inception. It would take a concerted effort, Fellers said. Every city that has a storm-drain system ought to have a catch system some way of catching at least the larger articles that are floating in the water to filter it out. alejandra.reyesvelarde@latimes.com Advertisement Twitter: @r_valejandra Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore defended his elite Metropolitan Division officers at a law enforcement conference Thursday, saying they were not engaged in racial profiling despite a Times investigation showing that they pulled over a disproportionate number of black drivers. He also said he will meet with community leaders, some of whom have called for Metro to pull out of South Los Angeles, to reassure them that officers are abiding by the Constitution and that the LAPD is committed to youth programs and other ways of preventing crime. There is a conversation that the current presentation of data we are talking about is having a terribly corrosive effect on people of color, particularly African Americans, and that concerns me as a chief, Moore said during an address to law enforcement leaders at the Los Angeles event. Moores remarks came a day after Mayor Eric Garcetti ordered the LAPD to scale back on vehicle stops and prioritize other crime-fighting methods that will help build community trust. Advertisement Speaking to reporters, Moore said Metro was already spending less time in South L.A. after violent crime leveled off there. African Americans were not the quote-unquote target. And thats my concern with the data point and how its being interpreted that we just went out looking for African Americans, Moore said. Thats not what crime suppression was involved in. The Times investigation also drew the attention of U.S. Deputy Atty. Gen. Rod Rosenstein, who attended the Los Angeles Crimefighters Leadership Conference at the Skirball Cultural Center along with Moore. In remarks to conference attendees, Rosenstein said he was disappointed to hear about the Times investigation, which he called a misleading statistical analysis and not an accurate reflection of what officers are doing. Rosenstein appeared to criticize Garcetti for his reaction to the investigation. I would caution our political leaders dont jump to conclusions based on things you read in the newspaper, based on hearsay reports, Rosenstein said. Because those officers, the Metropolitan unit in particular, I know is tasked with doing work that is critically important to accomplish crime reduction. Not just random policing, but identifying where the crime problems are and focusing their efforts on those areas. In 2015, Garcetti announced that Metro would double in size to combat an increase in violent crime. The Times investigation found that vehicle stops by Metro officers increased from a few thousand to nearly 60,000 last year. Advertisement Nearly half the drivers stopped by Metro since the expansion were black, helping to drive up the share of African Americans stopped by the LAPD overall from 21% to 28% since the Metro expansion, in a city that is 9% black. In South L.A., which is 31% black, 65% of the drivers stopped by Metro were black, the investigation found. Unlike regular patrol officers, Metro crime suppression officers, who numbered about 270 last year, often spent their shifts on vehicle stops and other proactive policing tactics intended to root out violent criminals. They typically used a minor violation such as a broken tail light as a starting point to question the driver and potentially get inside the car a type of stop known as a pretextual stop. Advertisement Other crime fighting strategies that Metro may use instead of vehicle stops include foot patrols, investigative follow-ups and pursuing violent crime suspects, an LAPD spokesman said earlier this week. The database analyzed by The Times, which is available on a city website, does not show why an officer pulled over a driver. Nor can it show whether officers were engaged in racial profiling. As required by a new state law, the department recently began collecting information about what happens to drivers after they are stopped, including whether they were searched or arrested. In addition to the reduction in vehicle stops, Garcetti has asked for an audit of Metro stops, which the LAPDs inspector general was already planning to do. Advertisement Police Commissioner Shane Murphy Goldsmith said she supports the mayors directive to immediately cut back on vehicle stops. Im proud of the mayor for taking a strong and decisive stance, she said. We are stopping too many people of color, too many black men. The right thing to do is to recalibrate. Connie Rice, a civil rights attorney who has worked closely with the LAPD on reforms in recent years, said she is also in favor of hitting the pause button. You do send in Metro to do a quick dousing. Metro is critical for fast-reaction suppression, she said. But if it stays too long with tactics that are too broad and ensnare a lot of innocent people, youve got to take a look at that. Advertisement In a written statement, the Los Angeles Police Protective League described demands from the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California and others for Metro to withdraw from South L.A. as criminal coddling. The union, which represents rank-and-file officers, stands by the work of our Metro officers and we stand by the residents of South LA who want a safe place to live, work and raise a family, the statement said. In Northern California, far from the battlefields of the Civil War, a fight over a school districts name is pitting neighbor against neighbor. San Rafael, a community of 59,000 just north of San Francisco, is as proud of its progressive politics as it is of the citys alluring views of the bay. But the citys majority-white Dixie School District has come under scrutiny as activists push to change the name, noting its link to the Confederacy and slavery. Noah Griffin, a longtime Marin County resident who is among a group advocating for the name change, says the word Dixie sends a racially charged message to area families especially minorities of sentimentality for a time when white supremacy flourished in the Old South. We somehow in our privileged bubble think we dont have to move into the 21st century. We say thats not so, he said. The Confederacy doesnt need an outpost in Marin County. Advertisement The push has met resistance, though. Some say the issue is being perpetuated by a few vocal people more interested in political correctness than in preserving local history. Members of the We Are Dixie group, who declined to give their names because they said they are facing threats and harassment for their stance on the issue, said the school districts identity has nothing to do with the pro-slavery South. It was named for Mary Dixie, a Native American woman affiliated with James Miller, the school districts founder, according to the website wearedixie.org. The group says the issue is too big and too divisive to be determined by the small school board, which is scheduled to consider more than a dozen alternative names for the district at a meeting on Feb. 12. The panel also could reject the choices and keep the current name. The school board of just five people should not allow a group of social justice thugs to steamroll over the community in an attempt to forcefully make a 150-year-old district change the name without public input, the group wrote in a statement. We feel it should be put to rest by a local democratic vote, which includes the voice of the generations of local families that have worked to build the award-winning school district. The sign for Dixie Elementary at the schools entrance in San Rafael. (Gabrielle Lurie / San Francisco Chronicle) Dixie is a nickname used to describe 11 states in the South that seceded from the U.S. to form the Confederacy following the election of President Abraham Lincoln in 1860. Southern politics at the time were dominated by states rights, with the advocacy of slavery to support the regions agricultural economy. Proponents of the school districts name change say the term Dixie is outdated and shouldnt exist especially in California. Advertisement Todd Boyd, a professor of critical studies at USC, said the fact the name reached as far as the West Coast demonstrates that the legacy and the politics of the South transcended the region. There are Confederate-era tributes scattered across California. In recent years, those symbols have been debated, with many saying they are heralds of racism, while others argue they help preserve history. In 2017, the Hollywood Forever cemetery removed a granite monument to Confederate Army veterans interred on the grounds. Around the same time, the city of San Diego removed a plaque honoring Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy, from Horton Plaza. In 2014, California adopted a law banning the display or sale of merchandise with the Confederate flag on it. Activists in 2015 pushed the Long Beach Unified School District to remove the name of Robert E. Lee, the commander of the Confederate Army, from an elementary school. It eventually was renamed for a local activist. Advertisement More recently, the Brea-Olinda Unified School District board voted to retain the name of a former superintendent who community members claimed belonged to the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s. In addition to shunning Confederate affiliations, California has in recent years examined its own troubling history. Last year, Cal State Long Beach announced plans to retire its Prospector Pete mascot amid an effort by some who said the symbol glorified the brutality inflicted on indigenous Americans during the states gold rush. Stanford University also decided in 2018 to rename three campus references to Father Junipero Serra, who founded the California mission system in the 1700s and whose legacy came under fire for the missions treatment of Native Americans. The Confederacy doesnt need an outpost in Marin County. Noah Griffin, Marin County resident Advertisement The controversy over the origin and ultimately the future of the Dixie School Districts name has sparked an intense debate in the community that at times has turned ugly. People traded racially charged barbs online and threatened neighbors with legal action over comments in community forums. The current push to change the Dixie name is the fourth time the issue has surfaced. Earlier attempts, dating back to 1997, lost momentum only to reemerge as more places across the country removed similar vestiges of history. We hear that people have been afraid to talk about this because they dont want to have the difficult conversation about race in our overwhelmingly white community, said school board member Marnie Glickman, who supports the name change. Ive seen hate speech on the rise across the country, along with more violence from right-wing extremists, and I decided its important to face difficult things even in my own neighborhood. Debates over historical landmarks and long-standing namesakes often create dissension in close-knit communities. People dig in their heels and refuse to budge when confronted with monuments or monikers that offend a particular group, either because they dont want their view of the world questioned or they dont want to be told what to do, Boyd said. Advertisement The defensiveness is really unfortunate, he said. Now, if you decide not to make a change, youre making a statement that its more important to embrace this problematic term than to accommodate people that it might offend. The issue has become so divisive, the two camps cant even agree on the origin of the districts name. James Miller donated the land where the Dixie Schoolhouse was built in the 1860s and also named it allegedly on a dare according to a document filed with the National Registry of Historic Places. Marin County in 1864 was hotly pro-Northern, and the fact that several gentlemen from the South helped construct the first schoolhouse prompted someone to dare James Miller to name the school Dixie, according to the document, which sites Millers granddaughter as the source. He did. Advertisement The one-room schoolhouse, which is now a museum, is no longer part of the district. Those who oppose the name change, however, share a different version of the story. They contend the school was named after an indigenous Miwok woman who lived near a town founded by Millers in-laws, where the man stayed for a year selling cattle in 1849. Regardless of the names origins, Boyd said, the term Dixie brings up negative images of the Old South. Whether someone has an understanding of the meaning behind the word depends on the generation of the individual, his or her age and life experiences, the professor said. And because the districts students are the youngest generation to encounter the word, Glickman is especially eager they understand its connotation. Advertisement There are basics of history that I want all of our students to know, she said. I want them to know what Dixie means in America, and I want them to know we can change and make amends and be stronger for it. hannah.fry@latimes.com Twitter: @Hannahnfry Prosecutors in New York are looking into whether the National Enquirers parent company violated a cooperation agreement with the government in its dealings with Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos, sources told The Times on Friday. The move comes a day after Bezos publicly accused the Enquirer of extortion and blackmail by threatening to publish intimate photographs of him and former Los Angeles TV news anchor Lauren Sanchez unless he stopped an investigation into how the supermarket tabloid got his private messages. Two sources familiar with the review but not authorized to discuss it publicly said federal prosecutors with the U.S. attorneys office for the Southern District of New York are examining Bezos allegations and, if true, whether they violated an agreement forbidding the papers parent company from committing a crime for three years. That agreement was struck as part of a decision not to charge American Media Inc. in connection with allegations it violated campaign finance laws related to payments aimed at suppressing negative news about Donald Trump in advance of the 2016 presidential election. Advertisement Lawyers for the Amazon founder told The Times they have not yet been contacted by authorities regarding the matter. Bezos, who also owns the Washington Post, took the extraordinary step of publishing emails between lawyers for his security consultant and the Enquirer on the website Medium on Thursday. He then tweeted a link to his post. He wrote that the Enquirer wanted him to make a false public statement that he and his security consultant, Gavin de Becker, have no knowledge or basis for suggesting that AMIs coverage was politically motivated or influenced by political forces. Bezos refused. Rather than capitulate to extortion and blackmail, Ive decided to publish exactly what they sent me, despite the personal cost and embarrassment they threaten, he wrote. He then published the emails between Martin Singer, a lawyer representing De Becker, and Enquirer Chief Content Officer Dylan Howard. I wanted to describe to you the photos obtained during our news gathering, Howard wrote, going on to say that the Enquirer had a below the belt selfie of Bezos, along with several other shots. Howard added, It would give no editor pleasure to send this email. I hope common sense can prevail and quickly. Bezos noted that the email got my attention, and then made clear any personal embarrassment AMI could cause me takes a back seat because theres a much more important matter involved here. If in my position I cant stand up to this kind of extortion, how many people can? Bezos and his wife, MacKenzie, revealed they would be divorcing after 25 years of marriage last month. The announcement came after the Enquirer contacted Bezos representatives about his relationship with Sanchez. Advertisement Shortly after the announcement, the Enquirer published text messages and electronic exchanges between Bezos and Sanchez, who now operates an aviation company. After the publication, Bezos hired De Becker to determine how the personal communications were obtained. Local law enforcement officials said Friday they had not received any crime report from Bezos. American Media Inc. said Friday it acted lawfully while reporting on the story about Bezos and Sanchez. The publisher said it would investigate whether the communications that Bezos published amounted to a threat and how the tabloid got the messages. The Enquirer has generally been seen as an ally of Trump. AMI Chairman David Pecker is a longtime supporter of the president, who has repeatedly criticized Bezos. Advertisement In December, AMI accepted responsibility under a non-prosecution agreement for its role in a $150,000 payment to silence former Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal about her alleged affair with Trump before the election. As part of the deal, the company admitted its purpose was to suppress the womans story and prevent it from influencing the election. According to the agreement with AMI, Trumps longtime lawyer, Michael Cohen, and another campaign official met with Pecker about the scheme in August 2015. RELATED: What do a porn star, a combative lawyer and a reality-TV contestant all have in common? richard.winton@latimes.com Advertisement Twitter: @lacrimes Acting Atty. Gen. Matthew Whitaker told Congress on Friday that he has not interfered with the special counsels investigation into Russias interference in the 2016 election and has not discussed the probe with President Trump or other senior White House officials. The testimony came in a contentious House Judiciary Committee hearing. Democrats repeatedly clashed with Whitaker as they pressed him for details about his appointment, his supervision of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and his relationship with Trump. Democrats are concerned that Trump appointed Whitaker as the temporary attorney general to undercut Muellers investigation. Whitaker had criticized the inquiry before he joined the Justice Department. Advertisement At no time has the White House asked for, nor have I provided, any promises or commitments concerning the special counsels investigation, or any other investigation, Whitaker testified. He later added that he had not spoken to the president about the special counsels investigation. Theres been no event, no decision that has required me to take any action, and Ive not interfered in any way with the special counsels investigation. Whitaker said at a news conference last month that he was fully briefed on the Mueller investigation and that it was nearing a conclusion. On Friday, he repeatedly declined to provide more clarity about those statements. To the frustration of Democrats, Whitaker refused to provide details of his conversations with Trump and other senior White House officials, citing the long-standing executive branch practice of not disclosing information that may be subject to executive privilege. During a combative back-and-forth, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), the committee chairman, grew so frustrated that he said he would recall Whitaker for a deposition, saying he expected him to provide clean answers or to properly assert executive privilege. Republicans said the hearing was political theater and a waste of time because Whitaker wont stay in the job much longer The Senate Judiciary Committee voted Thursday to support William Barr, Trumps pick for attorney general, and the Republican-led Senate is expected to confirm him in coming weeks. Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, the committees ranking Republican, said the hearing was nothing more than a character assassination and an attempt to get at the president. Advertisement Whitaker spoke highly of Muellers character and said the prosecutors mandate was consistent with the appointments of other special counsels. But he declined to rebut the presidents frequent characterization of the investigation as a witch hunt. It would be inappropriate for me to talk about an ongoing investigation, he told Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), who asked him whether he agreed with the presidents assessment. FBI Director Christopher A. Wray and Deputy Atty. Gen. Rod Rosenstein have publicly said Mueller is not on a witch hunt. Although Whitaker stated he hadnt discussed the Mueller probe with Trump, he declined to provide similar assurances regarding the prosecution of Michael Cohen, Trumps longtime personal lawyer. Advertisement Im not going to discuss my private conversations with the president of the United States, Whitaker said in response to a pointed question by Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.) about the Cohen case. Cohen was sentenced to three years in federal prison after pleading guilty to charges linked to his arranging of hush money payments to two women who said theyd had affairs with Trump and lying to two congressional committees about trying to arrange a Moscow hotel and condominium deal for Trump during the 2016 presidential race. The investigation of Cohen was spearheaded by federal prosecutors in New York. Whitaker took over from Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions on Nov. 7, the day after the midterm election, when Trump forced the resignation of his top law enforcement official. Trump soured on Sessions after the attorney general recused himself from the Russia investigation in early 2017, and the president frequently bashed the former senator on Twitter and in interviews. Advertisement Whitaker had served for a year as Sessions chief of staff and built a rapport with Trump. Before joining the department, Whitaker had criticized Muellers investigation in columns and in TV interviews. Democrats sharply criticized Whitaker for refusing to recuse himself from supervising Muellers inquiry despite the advice of the Justice Departments top career attorney, who was concerned his past comments created the appearance of a conflict of interest, department officials said. You decided that your private interest in overseeing this particular investigation and perhaps others from which you should have been recused was more important than the integrity of the department, Nadler said. Advertisement Whitaker said he decided not to step aside because it was a close call and he didnt want to hamstring future attorneys general. After Sessions recused himself from the federal investigation, its supervision fell to Rosenstein. Rosenstein appointed Mueller in May 2017 and he continues to oversee the day-to-day operations of the investigation. Rosenstein is expected to step down in coming months. Comedy duo Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle have barely settled into their seats at a Silver Lake coffee shop when they learn Scott Speedman the quintessential brooding heartthrob for a generation who snacked on WB networks bundle of young adult dramas in the late 90s had just left the premises. The excitement, the kind that makes you wonder if youre sitting among teenagers while swapping teen magazine tear-outs, is hard to suppress. Wait, are you serious he was just here? Konkle, 31, asks as she strains her neck to scan the area on the slight chance the former Felicity star may still be within sight. Was he looking for me? Erskine, also 31, deadpans while joining in on the rubber-necking. It becomes easy to see how the pair have effortlessly channeled their inner seventh-graders for PEN15, their charmingly weird adult comedy about middle school. The series, which premieres Friday on Hulu, is set in the year 2000 and features the two creators playing 13-year-old versions of themselves school rejects Anna Kone and Maya Ishii-Peters surrounded by actual teenage actors. Advertisement The series, whose title is a reference to a schoolyard prank, joins a smattering of projects in recent years Netflixs Big Mouth and big-screen critical darlings like Eighth Grade and Lady Bird that offer a portrait of adolescence in all its unforgettable and emotionally harrowing essence. I feel like when you talk to people, and bring up seventh grade, for some reason that is a compartmentalized part of the brain that never goes away, Erskine says. The memories that time of intense highs and lows still feel so fresh and mortifying. Review: Never mind the joke title, PEN15' may be the years best new show Maya Erskine, left, and Anna Konkle in their roles as seventh-grade versions of themselves in Hulus PEN15. (Alex Lombardi / Hulu) I feel like when you talk to people, and bring up seventh grade, for some reason that is a compartmentalized part of the brain that never goes away Maya Erskine, co-creator and star of Hulus PEN15" So, what was seventh grade like for them? Erskine grew up in Los Angeles and attended the elite Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences in Santa Monica a fact she reveals almost apologetically. She was the girl who crushed on Brad Renfro, lined her bedroom walls with Got Milk? and Absolut Vodka ads and rented artsy coming-of-age French films like Pauline at the Beach. Its funny, she says, because my friends from that time are like, You seemed like you were so happy and you were friends with everyone, Erskine says. But I was miserable. It was a time when class differences started to show, and I was not in the upper part of it. And I so desperately wanted to be that, and I desperately wanted to hold on to those friends who were veering away from me. I feel like most of my trauma comes from that time of feeling rejected by my friends. Advertisement Roughly 3,000 miles away, Konkle was navigating her teen years in a coastal town in Massachusetts. She prided herself on not being obsessive over celebrities at that age but dont be mistaken, she definitely developed a liking for Justin Timberlake. Her room had a Winnie the Pooh border and Winnie the Pooh bedding thats so not cool, she says. :: The two wouldnt know each other until their junior year at NYUs Tisch School of Arts when both attended an experimental theater workshop abroad in Amsterdam. The anxiety they felt about participating in the storytelling exercises required in the program was a special kind of bonding experience. We were bonding over our IBS issues and our anxiety, Konkle says. It was a very intensive theater program, and everyone was performing constantly and having to create work and produce. And we had diarrhea. Advertisement Anna Konkle as Anna in Hulus PEN15. (Alex Lombardi / Hulu) And we just glommed onto each other because of our similar comedic tendencies and weird interests, Erskine adds. After graduation, their goal was to live in New York and pursue theater. But things never quite took off. Erskine moved back to Los Angeles to see what acting jobs she could land; and Konkle, who had been waitressing in New York while trying to keep her stage ambitions alive, eventually joined Erskine in Los Angeles. The plan? Make a web series. It was all an experiment; we just wanted to see if we would like it, Erskine says. The series, Project Reality, was essentially a faux reality-show where they played a variety of characters. Advertisement It was incredibly difficult, Konkle says. But afterwards I was like, Ive never felt as empowered as I have when were making stuff together. Then one night, roughly five years ago, they went to a party that was attended by many of Erskines former middle school classmates. I felt all of the insecurities that I felt in seventh grade, Erskine says. I was like, at this age, how are you still reverting back to this time? I thought I got over all the trauma and self-consciousness. But the idea that you never really leave seventh grade was really an exciting thought. And it just came through a couple days of brainstorming, Konkle adds. Were just 13, surrounded by 13 year olds, in the year 2000. Advertisement But how? One idea, quickly scrapped, had them escaping a cult and having to hide in society as 13 year olds. Another concept had them as grown foster children. The idea to play it straight on came from their writer-director friend Sam Zvibleman, who is the third creator on the show. The concept would catch the attention of Party Over Here the production company founded by Andy Samberg and the rest of the Lonely Island and the trio was commissioned to make a 15-minute presentation to shop to networks. At the time we conceived it, we hadnt seen middle school represented in a way that felt authentic, and true to our experiences, except for [the 1995 film] Welcome to the Dollhouse but that was really dark Erskine says. I think the idea of having us play these teenagers, as opposed to having real kids go through the traumatic experiences that we had, made it easier to laugh about because there is distance for the viewer to put themselves in those shoes. Maya Erskine as Maya in Hulus PEN15. (Alex Lombardi / Hulu) Advertisement Erskine and Konkle wanted a realistic portrayal of those inelegant years, so, yes, there will be uncomfortable moments. It was vital to us, Erksine says, to show things that traumatized us, that are ugly, that arent necessarily pretty to look at or are uncomfortable to talk about or that are scary for us to share because, hopefully, other kids, or even adults haunted by their teenage years, can be like, Oh, good, Im not alone. Konkle says the look of her character the braces, the hair more closely resembles what she looked like in fourth grade. Erskine didnt have a bowl cut, as she does in the show, but she did have a boy haircut in the fourth and fifth grade. The slight mustache I had it then, and I still do, she says. :: Advertisement Of course, pitching PEN15 was a comedic feat in its own right. The pair squirm recalling one particularly cringe-worthy meeting. During her enthusiastic sell, Erskine placed a photo of her as an awkward teenager, standing next to her father, square in front of a cable executives face and said: Before this picture was taken, I remember masturbating. Konkle, laughing, adds: It was just so bizarre. And Im like, So, in the show, were gonna go there shes going to masturbate just like this, Erskine says. Konkle: And he was like, Can you put the picture down, please? When it ended and we got to the elevator, everyone was like, Dont do that again. Advertisement It gets them talking about the ways in which Hollywood can sometimes feel like middle school. Its constant comparing and striving to be relevant, Konkle says. PEN15 Where: Hulu When: Any time, starting Friday Advertisement Rating: TV-MA (may be unsuitable for children under the age of 17) yvonne.villarreal@latimes.com Twitter: @villarrealy Neil Portnow set a number of goals for himself and the Recording Academy when he was hired nearly 17 years ago to take over the reins, including expanding general awareness of the organization beyond the one night a year it puts on the national telecast of the Grammy Awards. He also stored away the idea of creating a smooth transition at whatever point he would eventually leave his post. The best-laid plans? That might have turned out to be the case had he not spoken what he now refers to as those two words, a reference to his post-Grammy Awards show response to a question about last years male-centric results and telecast. Advertisement Thats when he said that the time had come for women to step up to receive their due, unleashing a firestorm of criticism on social media and elsewhere, with many calling for Portnow to step down. About four months later the academy announced that he would do just that, but not until his current contract expires at the end of July almost 18 months after the step up remark. Today his choice of words, for which he issued a quick apology a year ago, still makes him grimace. There seemed to be a natural desire to conflate that with my determination about when it was time to move on, Portnow said. The fact is, theres no relationship between that whatsoever. Frankly, had there been any other objective, the board of any organization would not keep a CEO in place for a year if they had any doubts or reservations or concerns about that individuals character, service and effectiveness. Portnow is just the third paid, full-time president in the history of the organization, which had relied in its first three decades on volunteer music industry executives to steer the ship. During his tenure Portnow expanded the organizations reach, rebuilt its charitable arm MusiCares, championed key federal legislation and refined the awards process, at one point overseeing the reduction of more than 30 categories in an effort to fine-tune and revitalize the ceremony. Portnow followed C. Michael Greene, whose 14-year tenure ended with his abrupt resignation, without public explanation but amid sexual harassment allegations a moment of leadership crisis for the academy. That was a difficult transition, Portnow, 71, said during an interview last week at his Santa Monica office, which is densely decorated with guitars, gear, photos, artwork and other music-related ephemera hes amassed over the years. When that happened, one thing I said to myself and ultimately to the board, was that when the time comes for the next transition, one of my goals is that it be a smooth one, because weve never had one. Its the best way to run a business, to have that figured out and not have to be in a crisis, said the man who came to the job as a musician and indie label record executive with a reputation as a consensus-builder and peacemaker. Advertisement Plenty of attention will be placed on whom the Recording Academy chooses as a successor. Following the outcry last year from female and male musicians and other record industry representatives, the academy announced in May it would assemble a task force to explore biases conscious or unconscious working against women, people of color or the LGBTQ community receiving equal consideration in the Grammy Awards nomination and final vote process. Former First Lady Michelle Obamas ex-chief of staff Tina Tchen was brought in to oversee the task force, which quickly moved to alter the makeup of some of the key committees that help determine the nominees and award recipients. They also reached out with efforts to recruit more than 900 new members to add to the academys existing membership rolls of nearly 25,000 industry professions, students and adjunct members. About 200 accepted in time to take part in the awards that will be announced Sunday during the prime-time CBS broadcast. Last week the academy also unveiled a new initiative aimed at bringing parity to one facet of the music business still overwhelmingly dominated by males: record production and engineering. A USC Annenberg study leading into the 2018 Grammy ceremony showed that just 2% of producers and 3% of engineers and mixers are female. Advertisement Portnow hopes that recent moves to address that imbalance will be an important part of the legacy he leaves behind. Neil Portnow at The Recording Academy in Santa Monica. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) Whoever gets the awards, to me its all about balance and doing the right thing. Neil Portnow Whoever gets the awards, to me its all about balance and doing the right thing, Portnow said. There are always going to be different agendas for different groups of people and constituencies. Being a kid in the 60s, social justice is something I grew up with. Advertisement Growing up with a consciousness about that, coming from a family that was very socially responsible I know firsthand what kind of passion and dedication is required for any social change, and sometimes to get there you have to put the blinders on and just focus on what the agenda is and what needs to change, so I applaud that. In our case, what we absolutely must ensure and which everyone has worked very hard on, is that every element of the process is fair, he said. As a start toward addressing the gender imbalance in the world of producers and engineers, the academy will establish a web page dedicated to identifying female producers, engineers and mixers and is lobbying those in positions of hiring to consider qualified female candidates before making their final decisions. I just got a copy of this task force [report] on diversity and inclusion and really trying to expand the opportunities for female producers and engineers, said veteran music mogul Clive Davis. It is very admirable, very worthwhile and very special. Advertisement The step up controversy was easily the biggest hurdle Portnow has encountered during 16-plus years as president and CEO. I believe any missteps, perceived or otherwise attributed to Neil, should also be measured against his successes, his commitment and loyalty, Nashville-based record producer and then-chairman of the academys board Garth Fundis told The Times this week, nearly a decade and a half after he presided over the move to remove Greene and hire Portnow. Portnow didnt specify what his post-Recording Academy life will entail. All he said about his decision not to seek a contract renewal was that after almost 17 years, the time felt right to move on. It just worked that way, which is, on a personal level, a little bit unfortunate because after 40 years in the business without incident and without any kind of controversy, as a human being thats never comfortable, he said. Advertisement Under Portnow, the value of the academys assets has more than tripled to $170.4 million now, according to an academy spokesperson. While Greene negotiated a more lucrative contract with CBS for the broadcast rights, pushed for the creation of a Grammy Museum and led the establishment of the Latin Grammys, those are three key initiatives that Portnow has continued or expanded on his watch. When Portnow took over in November 2002, he had much to mop up. The academys board agreed to a $650,000 settlement in 2001 with a former human resources official who threatened to sue over claims that Greene sexually assaulted and harassed her. An internal investigation cleared Greene. Advertisement In 1998, New York Citys then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani banned the Grammys from being held in Manhattan after Greene allegedly threatened the life of one of Giulianis deputies over show negotiations. Portnow persuaded the city officials to let the ceremony return in 2004 for its 45th anniversary, and the show was held there again last year on the 60th. When Greene suddenly resigned in April 2002, he was kept on as a consultant during the transition that culminated in the hiring of Portnow six months later. Neil Portnow was the right choice at the right time, Fundis said. The organization was in need of a fresh approach and we felt an immediate and much-needed embrace from many in the music industry as a result of our hiring Neil. But his commitment to the Recording Academy began many years before he became its president, referring to Portnows track record of volunteer service for nearly a decade before he was hired. Portnow moved quickly to mend fences with veteran impresario Dick Clark, who had filed a $10-million lawsuit against the Recording Academy after Greene banned musicians from appearing both on the Grammy Awards and Clarks rival American Music Awards telecasts. Advertisement Portnow also delivered on the academys long-simmering wish to establish a facility touting its legacy, one that was realized with the 2008 opening of the Grammy Museum at L.A. Live, part of a relationship Portnow nurtured with developer AEG, which built Staples Center, the Microsoft Theater and the surrounding complex of retail and dining establishments that also includes the three-story/four-story Grammy Museum. Among the other accomplishments Portnow speaks about with pride is the growth of the MusiCares philanthropic wing that provides multi-pronged aid to musicians in need. And the annual Person of the Year fundraiser, which began in 1991, expanded under Portnows watch into a signature event that has generated upward of $6 million to $7 million each year during an evening that has paid tribute to musicians including Aretha Franklin, Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, Barbra Streisand, Stevie Wonder, Elton John, Tom Petty, Carole King and Bob Dylan leading into this years salute on Friday to Dolly Parton. Neil Portnow onstage during Grammy rehearsal at Staples Center in January 2014. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) In fact, Portnow included a stop Monday at the Grammy Museum to visit with Parton and stump on behalf of MusiCares at the opening of a new exhibit of Partons flamboyant fashion sense that will run through March 17. Advertisement The growth of MusiCares, which provoked controversy during Greenes time with the academy for the way it administered funds, has been one of Portnows greatest sources of pride. Popular philanthropic rating site Charity Navigator gives MusiCares its highest possible rating of four stars. Im very proud of MusiCares and where weve gone with something wonderful and a great concert [annually] and just taking it and expanding it really making it a priority, Portnow said. That might be the end goal for me: that anybody who puts their hand up for help, were able to be there for them. Portnow also has been directly involved with the creation and recent passage of the Music Modernization Act, a bill that won rare bipartisan support in the Senate and House of Representatives and was signed into law in October by President Trump. The measure addresses various outdated laws governing the way music publishing and other royalties are calculated, collected and paid to music creators, and was hailed in many quarters in the music business when it passed. Thats become one of the leading agendas for the academy, Portnow said. When we survey our members every so often, advocacy and MusiCares come back as the top areas of interest to members, and what they think is important, what resonates with them and why they want to belong. Advertisement Building the Recording Academys influence beyond Grammy night is another area Portnow has focused on. Its manifested in the additional music specials the academy helps assemble as part of its ongoing contract with CBS and in conjunction with Ken Ehrlich AEG Ventures, longtime producer of the Grammy telecast. That initiative has yielded more than two dozen music specials in recent years in addition to the Grammy broadcast, both for CBS and elsewhere, such as shows highlighting special merit and lifetime achievement award winners, as well as a string of In Performance at the White House programs during President Obamas administration that were co-organized by the Grammy Museum. It was part of my agenda to take the most recognized brand of music, which I always thought was fairly underrepresented, and have it be everything it deserved to be, Portnow said, suggesting he thought it was long past time for the Recording Academy itself to step up. Its really time for us to celebrate and recognize how important what we do is, he said, noting that he has not given a lot of thought to what hell do after July, in that its all-hands-on-deck time at academy offices through Grammy night and beyond. Weve got the best platform on the planet to do it. So lets do as much as we can. Advertisement randy.lewis@latimes.com Follow @RandyLewis2 on Twitter.com For Classic Rock coverage, join us on Facebook The morning after the Thousand Oaks shooting in early November, in which a gunman opened fire on a local bar, killing 12 people, California Lutheran University swiftly canceled all public performances of columbinus, a play that centers on the infamous Columbine High School massacre. For months, the eight student actors had undergone lengthy preparations, including watching documentaries, survivor interviews and news coverage of the 1999 tragedy. After pleading with the school administration that a performance could help their community grieve, the cast was allowed to put on an invite-only show for 160 people back in November. Amber Marroquin, a sophomore in the show, found the tearful experience therapeutic. I didnt know how the audience was gonna react, but I personally felt like they were really warm and supportive, she recalled in an interview earlier this week. Right when we walked onstage, they gave us an applause. Like, its OK, we can deal with our grief safely in here. Advertisement Three months after the cancellation, their staging of the play will be performed for the public after all, as part of the regional Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival next week, as well as two free performances on campus this Sunday. It is one of seven shows selected from more than 200 in Southern California, Arizona, Guam, Hawaii, Nevada and Utah. Judges will select a handful of productions from the eight regions to showcase at the national festival in Washington, D.C. This is the fifth time a Cal Lutheran play has been selected for the regional competition. Victoria Karr, center, and the cast of columbinus during a recent rehearsal. (Patrick T. Fallon / For The Times) As the cast gathered for a rehearsal on Monday night, director Brett Elliott told The Times about the importance of discussing gun control, especially in the wake of such a tragedy. This topic has only become more important than when we first started this process, he said. Even in the weeks since the shooting, the topic might have somewhat faded from peoples consciousness; theres an impulse to look away because its so horrific. It feels important to resist that urge, return to it and continue the conversation in some small way. The play a 2005 documentary drama written by The Humans playwright Stephen Karam and the late PJ Paparelli depicts the Columbine school shooting on April 20, 1999, as well as its aftermath. It draws from police evidence, excerpts from the two shooters journals and interviews with parents, survivors and Littleton, Colo., community leaders to illuminate the realities of Americas adolescent culture. As part of the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival, the cast is tasked with staging the show three times on Feb. 14 at the Los Angeles Theatre Center. Im not so much worried about performing this three times in one day, said Jacob White. Im more worried about the fact that we have to start at 8 a.m.! Advertisement Jacob White and the cast of columbinus during a recent rehearsal. (Patrick T. Fallon / For The Times) Additionally, the school administration has green-lit two free on-campus performances, to be presented on Sunday at 2 and 7 p.m. Faculty members from Cal Lutherans psychology and criminal justice departments will participate in discussions with the audience after each show. Its amazing that we get to keep spreading the message thats the No. 1 thing thats important for us, besides the fact that we all like to do theater as a form, said Mahyar Mirzazadeh, an actor in the show who graduated in December. This is actually a play that means a lot and its a conversation that needs to be had. Were proud to keep doing that. And if it ends up not being for everyone, thats OK, said sophomore Victoria Karr. Advertisement I get the sense that the people who thought it was too soon to put on the play before [in November] are still not going to come to these performances, she said. That is completely fine and totally fair. But Im excited that we get to share this story and hopefully help other people in this small way. ashley.lee@latimes.com Twitter: @cashleelee The U.S. military is preparing to withdraw American forces from Syria by the end of April and a significant portion of them will be out by the middle of March, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing current and former U.S. officials. A U.S. official confirmed the April target to Reuters, saying the withdrawal included a pull-out from the U.S. military base at Tanf, near the Syrian border with Iraq and Jordan. President Donald Trump announced in December he was pulling all 2,000 U.S. troops out of Syria, saying the battle against Islamic State there was almost won. The presidents sudden decision surprised many in his own administration as well as coalition allies such as Turkey and an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias that fought Islamic State with U.S. military support. Washington has been trying to reach agreement with Turkey, which considers the U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish YPG militia a terrorist organization, for the safety of the YPG fighters after it pulls out. It is also discussing setting up a safe zone along the border to address Turkish security concerns. Asked about the WSJ report, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State in Syria and Iraq referred Reuters to comments by Pentagon spokesman Commander Sean Robertson, who declined to discuss the pull-out timeline. A Turkish official said the United States had not signaled to Ankara a date when the U.S. withdrawal from Syria would be completed. An official from the Syrian Democratic Forces, the U.S.-backed alliance which is spearheaded by the YPG, told Reuters: What we know is that so far there is no withdrawal, and the situation on the ground is unchanged. There is no discussion to set any date or time ceiling (for a withdrawal). Short link: Nearly everyone has Roma, RBG and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse winning the Oscars for, respectively, foreign-language feature, documentary and animated feature. But are we underestimating their competitors? Welcome to the Gold Standard, the newsletter from the Los Angeles Times that helps guide you through the ins and outs of the awards season leading up to the Oscars. Im Glenn Whipp, The Times awards columnist and your newsletter host. Advertisement Predicting Oscar winners for doc, animation and foreign-language feature So I mentioned Roma, Spider-Man and RBG at the outset, and I think the first two are pretty much locks to win their categories. (Which raises the question: How many academy members will consider a vote for Roma here reward enough and look elsewhere when they choose best picture?) But as I wrote, I think if theres going to be an upset, it could happen in the documentary category, where National Geographics thrilling climbing documentary Free Solo is competing against RBG. From a purely filmmaking perspective, Free Solo, a look at free climber Alex Honnolds quest to scale Yosemites formidable El Capitan rock formation without ropes, has the obvious edge. Capturing Honnolds unnerving ascents with high-angle camerawork, the movie is beautiful and breathtaking, but also intimate in its examination of Honnolds motivations and relationships. But Free Solo must contend with RBG or, more accurately, RBG herself. Because while directors Betsy West and Julie Cohen have made a winning crowd-pleaser that hits all the right beats in explaining why Ruth Bader Ginsburg matters, its the hardcore fandom surrounding the justice that gives the movie its edge with voters. (A fandom, by the way, thats seen in RBG to great effect.) At Mondays Oscar luncheon, Times film writer Amy Kaufman reports that Cohen and West were asking nominees to sign a get-well card for Ginsburg, whos recovering from January cancer surgery. Im sure they had little trouble filling it with well-wishes. Amy Adams earned her sixth Oscar nomination for her turn in Vice. (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times) Amy Adams needs to record that Lynne Cheney Christmas album Advertisement Amy Adams could chase a bear out of her backyard using just a broomstick. Thats what filmmaker Adam McKay believes at least, and hes worked with Adams at the beginning of her career (Talladega Nights) and most recently in Vice, so he should know something, right? Adams has no idea what to make of this, but if she had to guess, she thinks McKay sees her as some sort of founding mother of America, a homesteading pioneer, probably because all her relatives were tough, sturdy Mormons settling in Utah and Colorado. But Adams will readily agree with McKay, saying that if a bear did indeed wander into her backyard and threaten her family, she would grab a broomstick or a curtain rod or whatever was handy and chase it off. Im someone who responds well in an emergency, Adams says, sipping a matcha tea hopped up with a shot of espresso on a secluded West Hollywood cafe patio. Post-emergency? Thats another thing. Id be great in the moment and then not sleep for a year. Advertisement These are among the things I discovered when talking with Adams for an Envelope cover interview. Other findings: Adams serenaded the Vice set nonstop between takes, staying in Lynne Cheneys voice. She had planned on recording an album before the holidays, Lynne Cheney Sings Christmas Songs, to give to McKay and may still follow through. She saw Vice for the first (and only) time with her mom, who loved it, telling Adams that Lynne was her favorite character of any shes ever portrayed. And if Adams ever needs her 8-year-old daughter to behave, all she has to do is threaten to sing show tunes. Thatll restore order fast. Alfonso Cuaron accepts the feature film award for Roma at the Directors Guild Awards. (Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images for DGA) Cuaron adds another prize Advertisement In his march to winning the Oscar for directing Roma, Alfonso Cuaron won the Directors Guild of Americas feature film honor this past weekend. Longtime friend Guillermo del Toro, who won the award last year for The Shape of Water, presented Cuaron with the prize. The pairing was a happy coincidence that filled the winner with joy. I cannot do anything in this film life without Guillermo del Toro, Cuaron said, thanking him in Spanish. The Times Ashley Lee covered the event, and you can read her report here. Advertisement Feedback? Id love to hear from you. Email me at glenn.whipp@latimes.com. Cant get enough about awards season? Follow me at @glennwhipp on Twitter. glenn.whipp@latimes.com Advertisement Twitter: @glennwhipp It may be hard to believe, but BlacKkKlansman represents Spike Lees first Oscar nomination for directing. He had previously received nominations for writing (Do the Right Thing, 1989) and documentary (4 Little Girls, 1997), and an honorary Oscar in 2015. Its also the first editing nomination for longtime collaborator Barry Alexander Brown (whose 1979 documentary, The War at Home, had been nominated). Brown has cut most of Lees features since School Daze in 1988. Times columnist Mary McNamara sat down with Lee and Brown for a Q&A following an Envelope Live screening of BlacKkKlansman last week at the Montalban in Hollywood. The filmmakers talked about their long collaboration and their latest work, which is nominated for six awards. My job is to deliver his vision. Even in the delivery of the vision, I get the freedom to do other things, said Brown. For both of us, its in the recut most of the time that you find the movie. An example, he said, was a scene in which protagonist Ron Stallworth (John David Washington) is being roughed up by police as Ku Klux Klan members arrive nearby. Lee didnt buy that the Klansmen wouldnt have noticed this and recognized Stallworth the jig then being up. The editor got the idea to have the Klansmen listening to their leader, David Duke, on the cars sound system, so they were distracted. Lee loved it so much, he started seeding it in other scenes. Advertisement Every time theyre in a car, I want them to be hearing that, Brown said Lee told him, the director nodding. Theyre being indoctrinated all the time. Constant, constant indoctrination. Like if you only watch Fox TV constant indoctrination I didnt think about that as being a motif for the film. But once Spike sees it This can be one of the threads that wasnt originally there. BlacKkKlansman director Spike Lee and editor Barry Alexander Brown dispute the idea that the best direction is done in editing, but agree some of a films best ideas can come in postproduction. For Spike Lee and his two longtime collaborators, BlacKkKlansman Oscar nods hold extra meaning FILM SCHOOL DUO The duo met while Lee was still in film school. A few months later, Brown hired him to work part-time at the film-distribution company hed started, and they became friends. Brown cut a scene for Lees debut feature, Shes Gotta Have It (1986). Later, Lee published a book about the making of that film, Spike Lees Gotta Have It: Inside Guerrilla Filmmaking (1987). Brown says he picked it up and read in it: Barrys gonna cut my next film. And I thought, I am? And thats how I found out I was supposed to cut Spikes next film, said the editor. BlacKkKlansman director Spike Lee and editor Barry Alexander Brown share the story about when they met and how they became a filmmaking duo. HUMOR Advertisement BlacKkKlansman is based on a real investigation in which two Colorado Springs police officers, one black and one white, worked together to infiltrate the Klan in the 1970s. Its harrowing, yet somehow the film may be Lees funniest. The director and co-writer said, I think its very important that people understand that Kevin Wilmott and I my co-writer were not writing jokes. This is not a funny subject matter. And the humor comes from the absurdity of the premise, of the six-word pitch: Black man infiltrates Ku Klux Klan. When asked about balancing that inherent humor with the hideousness of the real situation, Lee said, Thats why my main man is sitting to my left. His nickname is The Cut Creator. Brown said, Spike sees humor in a lot of places where a lot of other people dont. As an editor Advertisement As a great editor, interjected Lee. I try not to ruin a moment, you know? BlacKkKlansman director Spike Lee and editor Barry Alexander Brown talk about finding moments of comedy within a story that is no laughing matter. FULL COVERAGE: Get the latest on awards season from The Envelope Advertisement THE ENDING Lee said the films intended ending was to be an image of the Klan burning a cross. Instead, that scene is followed by a powerful montage of the 2017 Unite the Right rally in a Virginia town that led to the murder of a peaceful counter-protester. Before we started shooting, Charlottesville happened, he said. I knew that was the ending. But I still needed to get the blessing of Susan Bro; it was her daughter, Heather Heyer, who was murdered. And she gave me the blessing, and that was the end of the movie. He adds. Everything has to go right for a film to click, and a lot of that is timing, said Lee, as Brown agreed. Thats why I think when historians, many years from now, when they want to choose a piece of art that could describe the crazy time we live in today, one of the things theyll go back to is BlacKkKlansman. Especially with that Charlottesville coda. Advertisement For more information on future Envelope Live screenings and events, click here. In the dance world, nobody makes a case for damaged heroes as brilliantly as Matthew Bourne. In his reworkings of classic stories and scores, the British director and choreographer invariably makes the search for love reveal bedrock human imperfections sad truths about our needs and limitations that he defines through an alternately satiric and compassionate character-dance style. Twenty years after its American premiere at the Ahmanson Theatre, his Cinderella returned to that stage for a run that opened Wednesday and ends March 10. As before, the brooding and frequently sardonic ballet score by Sergei Prokofiev had been taken from fairyland and re-situated during World War II (when it was composed). For once, the mood of that score made perfect sense. Whats more, the London Blitz became a major player, nearly destroying the lives of the title character and the man she loved. See photo gallery. Advertisement Yes, as usual, you could find a supernatural protector, a lost slipper, a glittering ball and wicked stepsisters along with abusive stepbrothers and an unhinged, murderous stepmother this time around. Throughout the three-act dance-drama, Cinderellas large, supremely dysfunctional family yielded plenty of comedy and inspired reimaginings of pop dances (a Bourne specialty). But darkness reigned, and that darkness may be more potent now than it was in a safer, less turbulent era. Ballet amid the Blitz: Alan Vincent is the father, Ashley Shaw is Cinderella. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) A potent darkness in Bournes retelling of the classic fairy tale. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) Using documentary films of the Blitz and unsparing depictions of the carnage and brutality it caused, Bourne not only created a Cinderella for adults but a superb display of hallucinatory stagecraft. The revised physical production (circa 2010) with sets and costumes by Bournes longtime collaborator Lez Brotherston and the resourceful lighting design by Neil Austin accounted for many of the startling shifts in perspective. But so did Bournes tireless New Adventures company, whether seen as workaday Brits or as menacing embodiments of paranoia. Just about every role has been double-cast throughout the run, so the exact Wednesday lineup may not be on view in later performances. Each night major casting is posted in the lobby, but more detailed listings will reportedly be available on request. The closest approximation to conventional ballet technique occurs in the extended dream scene of Act 2, a ball or party at the Cafe de Paris and its aftermath. Here, for a time, everyones romantic illusions are satisfied, with Cinderella and her prince (a shell-shocked pilot in this version) seen at their most glamorous and lyrical. The pilot (Andrew Monaghan) dancing with Cinderella (Ashley Shaw). (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) Advertisement Bournes tireless company, New Adventures, dancing in costumes and sets designed by Lez Brotherston. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) Cinderella (Ashley Shaw) and her slippers. Spoiler alert: She loses one. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) On Wednesday, Andrew Monaghan danced a commanding showpiece trio with Matt Petty and Paris Fitzpatrick before moving into love duets formal and then sensual opposite Ashley Shaw. The 1999 opening night had featured Royal Ballet stars as the lovers, and if the more modest Monaghan and Shaw sometimes got lost in ensemble sequences on Wednesday, their dancing remained faultless and true in their intimate scenes. Shaw made a spectacular transformation from mousy and abused into radiant and regal, while Monaghan kept the pilots essential sweetness as convincing as his dangerous disorientation. As Cinderellas guardian angel, Liam Mower looked a mite brusque, if technically secure, in his solos. Madelaine Brennan had great fun with the lusty alcoholic excesses of the stepmother. Advertisement Twenty years ago a live orchestra accompanied Bournes Cinderella. But realities now bring us canned Prokofiev ornamented with realistic sound effects (air-raid sirens, for example), used discreetly, for the most part. Bourne includes more of the score than many of his predecessors (among them Frederick Ashton) and the result balances the documentary, romantic, narrative and comic components of his vision in an entirely original way. No toe shoes, tiaras or tights, but the quest for that lost slipper and true love has never seemed more profound. Matthew Bournes Cinderella When: 8 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sundays, through March 10 (check for exceptions) Advertisement Where: Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N. Grand Ave., Los Angeles Tickets: $30-$175 (subject to change) Info: (213) 628-2772, centertheatregroup.org Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes (with two intermissions) Advertisement The Angel (Liam Mower), a fairy godfather of sorts, with Cinderella (Ashley Shaw). (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) Support our coverage of local artists and the local arts scene by becoming a digital subscriber. See all of our latest arts news and reviews at latimes.com/arts. Whittier came to life in 1887 when a group of Quakers, operating as the Pickering Land and Water Co., bought nearly 1,300 acres to build a new community. They were not the areas first nonnative settlers. The Society of Friends established their colony around a nucleus of homes built by earlier arrivals. Those pioneers included Pio Pico, the tycoon and last Mexican governor of Alta California; he lived on the banks of the San Gabriel River for nearly 40 years starting in 1853, in a ranch house that survives today. The home that held the first meetings of newly arrived Friends was built by an early German immigrant in the late 1860s, and also still stands. (Los Angeles Times Graphics) Advertisement Although the Pickering Co. bought and subdivided the land to sell to California-bound members of their sect from the East Coast, in true Quaker fashion they opened ownership to all fair-minded people. The company named the town after the Quaker poet and abolitionist John Greenleaf Whittier, who dashed off a brief bit of verse to mark the occasion. Its title, appropriately enough: My Name I Give to Thee. It wasnt long before the industrious Quakers had started a newspaper to chronicle the goings-on of their growing little town, which by 1888 had its own stop on the Southern Pacific Railway, along with a brand-new hotel. Within another year, a postmaster had joined the mix. These civic milestones, as impressive as they were for a community that had barely marked its second birthday, belied an economy stunted by a lack of water for irrigation. Seeking to boost job growth, community leaders successfully lobbied for a state reform school to be built nearby. The Whittier State School opened its doors to troubled youth in 1891, and soon became a primary driver of the towns economy. It also became a regional landmark as the first building in Whittier to have electrical lighting. The Los Angeles Times noted that once the power was turned on in October 1891, the lights could be seen plainly from this city. Although the school remained a cornerstone of Whitters economy up until its closure in 2004, the citys employment base did diversify. Construction of a flume to carry water from the hills in 1891 finally provided a reliable irrigation source, and agriculture took off, with farmers growing citrus and walnuts. After World War II, Whittier became a freight and transportation hub, experiencing explosive growth. From 1940 to 1960, Whittier grew to more than 30,000 residents, and by 1970 that number reached 72,000. Advertisement Neighborhood highlights Head uptown: The Greenleaf Avenue corridor in Whittiers historic central business district is a trendy, walkable shopping, dining and drinking destination. Back to nature: With trailheads to three scenic hikes in the city limits, Whittier offers easy access to the great outdoors for hikers of all skill levels. Living history: Boasting 48 local historic landmarks and seven sites on the National Registry of Historic Places, Whittier has an enviable collection of historic buildings to visit. (The boyhood home of former President Richard M. Nixon hasnt made the cut.) Neighborhood challenges On the boulevard: Whittier Boulevard has struggled over the years, with businesses shuttering or going out of style, but the recent groundbreaking of a $500-million mixed-use development on the site of the reform school may give it the boost it needs. Advertisement Expert insight Century 21s Armando Arenas has 14 years of experience in Whittier, and he said the citys latest focus is revitalizing the uptown district around Greenleaf Avenue. That area has been tightly regulated in the past, but the City Council is now allowing businesses to extend their hours to conform with neighboring cities, Arenas said. After a recent vote, many bars and restaurants with liquor licenses can stay open until 2 a.m., as opposed to midnight. He added that Whittier offers a wide array of housing stock, including affordable homes built in the 40s and 50s, and multimillion-dollar Mediterraneans on the northeast side. In one pocket, theres a historic preservation overlay zone full of Victorians and Craftsmans. The old architecture has been well preserved, and lots of filming companies use those homes for shooting, he said. Advertisement Market snapshot Of all the ZIP Codes in Whittier, 90604 saw the most homes trade hands in December. There, based on 17 sales, the median price for single-family homes was $480,000, up 1.8% year over year, according to CoreLogic. Report card Ten of the 16 public schools in the Whittier boundaries scored above 800 on the 2013 Academic Performance Index. Murphy Ranch Elementary scored the highest at 936, followed by Leffingwell Elementary at 893 and Ocean View Elementary at 883. The areas two biggest high schools, La Serna High and Whittier High, scored 845 and 771, respectively. Times staff writer Jack Flemming contributed to this report. Advertisement hotproperty@latimes.com Democratic politicians are increasingly bold about supporting a Medicare-for-all or single-payer healthcare system as a means of extending coverage to the tens of millions of Americans currently lacking insurance. But two things are quickly becoming clear as presidential wannabes, including Sens. Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren, jockey to establish themselves as the Savior of American Healthcare. First, no one other than Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has committed to any details about how a Medicare-for-all or single-payer plan would work. And Sanders plan is so idealistic, its a non-starter. This means voters will largely be left to guess how each candidate would pull off what he or she is promising. Advertisement Second, Medicare-for-all advocates desperately need to work on their messaging, because theyre allowing conservative opponents to frame the discussion with sky-is-falling fear tactics and outright lies. The Democratic plan would inevitably lead to the massive rationing of healthcare, President Trump recently declared. Doctors and hospitals would be put out of business, he said. Seniors would lose access to their favorite doctors. There would be long wait lines for appointments and procedures. Previously covered care would effectively be denied. Those dire predictions and Trumps warnings this week about socialism run amok would be laughable if the stakes werent so high. Nearly 14% of Americans lack health coverage, the highest level in five years. We pay about twice as much for treatment as people in other developed countries. Healthcare spending makes up almost 18% of total U.S. economic activity, compared with an average of 9% elsewhere. When Democrats talk about Medicare for all, theyre not just trying to rally their political base. Theyre trying to address serious problems problems that affect all Americans. Where theyre falling short, at least so far, is in making that case to the nation in clear, precise terms. Prices for medical care services and administrative costs would likely be lower than the current system, Jean Abraham, a professor of healthcare administration at the University of Minnesota, told me. Advertisement She was quick to add, however, that until there is an actual piece of legislation with specific benefit design provisions and offsets to pay for the legislation, it is not even possible to model what things would look like. Would a Medicare-for-all system mean the end of private insurance, or would it work in tandem with private insurance, as is currently the case? Are we talking about expanding the existing system to anyone who wants to join, without any age restrictions? Or are we talking about a switch to a comprehensive single-payer approach like in Canada or Britain, in which the government pays for nearly all treatment? Would everyone be required to take part, or would participation be optional? Advertisement Then theres the question of cost, which has quickly proved to be the easiest thing for opponents of healthcare reform to attack. For example, the price tag for Sanders plan has been put at $32 trillion over the first 10 years. This figure is deceptive, however, because it doesnt reflect the way current healthcare spending would be incorporated into the new system. By some estimates, overall healthcare spending gradually would go down under Sanders approach. Ive been particularly struck in recent weeks by news stories correctly observing that taxes would have to go up to fund a Medicare-for-all or single-payer system. What these stories almost always omit, though, is that higher taxes would replace the nearly $11,000 that Americans currently pay in average premiums, copays and deductibles. Many economists say peoples costs would decline under a single-payer system. Advertisement One could make the point that taxes would go up, and premiums and copays would likely go down, said Katherine Baicker, dean of the University of Chicagos Harris School of Public Policy. But she noted that whether youre better off financially will depend on your tax bracket as well as your current insurance. Thats another way of saying that if youre in the middle class or at the lower end of the economic spectrum, youd likely find single-payer both more affordable and more reliable than your current insurance. If youre at the top of the economic food chain, then its entirely possible a single-payer approach would represent a step down from the gold-plated plan you now enjoy. Advertisement Ive looked at the various single-payer systems worldwide. The best system for the United States, I believe, isnt the all-inclusive British system. Its likely closer to what they have in Germany, France and Japan. Known in healthcare circles as the Bismarck model (after Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, who originated the idea in 1883), this approach relies on payroll deductions to fund nonprofit insurers and requires that they cover everyone. It also sets base requirements for what must be covered and how much can be charged for treatment. The state plays an active role in maintaining an accessible and affordable healthcare market. That said, the Bismarck model leaves plenty of room for private insurers to compete by offering more affordable coverage to younger people, or additional benefits for those willing to pay more. Advertisement I suspect this would be an easier sell for Democrats than a wholesale switch to, say, the Canadian system, which relies on the government to pay all medical bills. Use Medicare for all as the base and then allow private insurers to supplement the program. Just as important as clearly defining whats being proposed, political leaders must communicate the need for patience and maturity during any healthcare transition. If Obamacare taught us anything, its the need to expect the unexpected. (But he said I could keep my doctor!) On average, utilization per person will go up, because all the uninsured will get coverage, and will therefore demand more care, observed Vivian Ho, director of the Center for Health and Biosciences at Rice Universitys Baker Institute for Public Policy. Advertisement And if you get rid of the distinction between Medicare and Medicaid, she said, utilization goes up even more. Ho also warned that many doctors and hospitals will rebel if their reimbursement by a state-run or state-regulated insurer goes down from current levels, which it almost certainly would. Theyll insist on a supplementary medical care system where they can charge higher prices, she said. Standing up to such self-serving demands, and convincing the medical establishment that todays obscene profit margins are unconscionable, wouldnt be easy. Conservatives in particular would have to resist their usual knee-jerk response that the market can solve all our healthcare woes. If it could, we wouldnt have had 50 million uninsured prior to Obamacare. Advertisement The political right would need to commit instead to helping find common ground that works for all, in the best interest of the nation. To date, that hasnt been their default position. It feels like were reaching some sort of inflection point a national reckoning that our healthcare system doesnt function as well as desired and that changes are necessary. Happily, were not flying blind. We know from the examples of other developed countries what works and what doesnt, and we have the luxury of building on the lessons theyve learned. My suggestion: Take politicians out of the equation and create an independent body to oversee our healthcare system, much as the Federal Reserve oversees monetary policy. Advertisement Lets decide where we want to go and then rely on these independent, qualified experts to get us there, without all the histrionics and gamesmanship from those trying to score political points. Like I say, this is a process that would require levels of patience and maturity that Americans do not normally display. Agree or disagree with whats on the table thats your prerogative. But if your only answer is to reject change because its being proposed by the other side, or to leave well enough alone because the issues are too difficult to resolve, you have no business being part of the conversation. Advertisement David Lazarus column runs Tuesdays and Fridays. He also can be seen daily on KTLA-TV Channel 5 and followed on Twitter @Davidlaz. Send your tips or feedback to david.lazarus@latimes.com. Elon Musks SpaceX has a big stake in the battle over border security being waged in Congress. A launchpad on the U.S.-Mexico border, which it plans to use for rockets carrying humans around the world and eventually to Mars, could be split in two by the Trump administrations planned wall. Democratic lawmakers have taken up the cause of Space Exploration Technologies Corp. and are trying to thwart the Trump administrations efforts to build the barrier that could cut across the companys facility in Boca Chica, Texas, on the Gulf of Mexico near Brownsville. Lawmakers said they were concerned about the effect on the companys 50-acre facility after seeing a Department of Homeland Security map showing a barrier running through what they described as a launchpad. This issue with SpaceX is that the fence cuts right through their property and thats a problem, said Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Downey), who heads the Homeland Security spending committee. She said she was continuing to fight for the area to be exempted in a final deal. Advertisement Democrats and Republicans working on a border-security deal said theyre nearing an accord that likely will include funding for some type of barriers on the border with Mexico. Negotiators have yet to work out exactly where the structures would be located, what theyd look like or how much to spend on them. Theyre aiming to complete work on an agreement over the weekend so that it can be voted on by the House and Senate before government funding runs out on Feb. 15. Deal to avert second government shutdown appears close. Will Trump sign it? Rep. Filemon Vela, a Democrat whose district includes the SpaceX facility, said the company wasnt happy about the plans, though it hasnt publicly raised objections. They are way behind the scenes on this, they are lying pretty low, said Vela, citing information he was given by local officials. SpaceX doesnt want to offend DHS. SpaceX hasnt lobbied Congress on border barriers on its property and hasnt asked anyone to do so on its behalf, a company official said. James Gleeson, a SpaceX spokesman, declined to provide details on how the fence would affect the facility. The Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection recently requested SpaceX permit access to our South Texas Launch site to conduct a site survey, he said in a statement. At this time, SpaceX is evaluating the request and is in communication with DHS to further understand their plans. Advertisement Homeland Security didnt respond to a request for comment. A Customs and Border Protection spokesman said he would look into the issue. When plans for the SpaceX facility were announced in 2014, the company estimated it would create some 500 jobs in the historically impoverished Rio Grande Valley. That could be threatened by a wall or fence cutting the launchpad in two, Vela said. This is a real problem, Vela said. None of it makes any sense. Democrats have drafted an offer to Republicans that would exempt the launch facility and several other areas from the fence construction. The language was drafted by Vela in conjunction with Roybal-Allard. Advertisement SpaceX has three launchpads: two in Florida and one at at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. But Musk is working on a new, more powerful vehicle known as Starship to eventually ferry humans to Mars. SpaceX recently announced that it would test the Starship test vehicle at the site in south Texas. SpaceX and Boeing Co. have contracts with NASA to ferry American astronauts to the International Space Station. SpaceXs first big test the maiden flight of its Crew Dragon vehicle, without any astronauts on board is slated for March 2. Boca Chica beat out sites in Florida, Georgia and Puerto Rico to host SpaceXs launch site, and state and local officials provided about $20 million in financial incentives, wrote laws to close a public beach during launches and provided legal protection from noise complaints. President Trump said hed consider changes to a cap on the federal deduction for state and local taxes, one of the most divisive provisions of the 2017 Republican tax overhaul. Trump told regional newspaper reporters in response to a question Wednesday that hes open to talking about revisions to the so-called SALT cap, which limits to $10,000 the amount of state and local levies, including property taxes, that taxpayers can deduct each year on their federal returns. There are some people from New York who have been speaking to me about doing something about that, about changing things. Its been severe on them, he said. The remarks were reported earlier in the Stamford Advocate. Advertisement While Trump offered no specifics on the complaints or what he might do, even his hint held the potential for enormous interest in California, New York and other high-tax states and municipalities. The SALT cap has hit taxpayers there particularly hard, because of higher state levies, property values and real estate taxes. The cap was a key revenue raiser in the $1.5-trillion tax-code overhaul, which slashed rates for business and individuals. Lifting the cap would cost around $673 billion over a decade, according to the conservative Tax Foundation, a sum that might require raising the newly lowered 21 percent corporate rate to absorb the cost. Despite Trumps remarks, the idea appeared to be dead already on Capitol Hill. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), via a spokesman, shot down the idea of altering the SALT cap. Its ironic that the same Democrats who criticized the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act for supposedly benefiting only the wealthy are now advocating for a change to the law that would primarily benefit the wealthy, Grassley spokesman Michael Zona said in a statement. But Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. (D-N.J.) said legislation would be introduced in the House. First of all, Mr. Grassley doesnt know the facts. The average person makes $200,000 who applies for this deduction, he said, noting that that figure comprises 30% of homeowners in his state. We need to take care of this deduction. High-tax states are largely Democratic, and some officials in those states have complained that the cap was designed to punish Democratic voters. Advertisement In a tweet, Grassleys committee termed the SALT deduction a federal subsidy for states to raise taxes on their residents without political consequence. In three of the states most affected California, New Jersey and New York Republicans lost 14 U.S. House seats in the 2018 midterms, accounting for about a third of the partys overall losses. Additionally, two lawmakers key to crafting the Republican tax overhaul former Reps. Erik Paulsen of Minnesota and Peter Roskam of Illinois lost their seats after campaigns in which the unpopularity of the new law was a major issue. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) vowed Tuesday to block the nomination of Michael Desmond to become chief counsel at the Internal Revenue Service over the cap. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) said recently that the SALT cap and other tax changes had prompted a $2.3-billion shortfall in state revenue in December; he blamed the cap for causing some taxpayers to flee to states such as Florida, which has no state income tax. In Connecticut, the cap will cause residents to pay an additional $2.8 billion in taxes for the 2018 tax year, according to state figures released last July. Those states, along with Maryland, sued the Treasury Department, the IRS and the Trump administration in Manhattan federal court in July, challenging the cap as infringing upon their state authority among other claims. Advertisement In New Yorks Westchester County, the average property tax bill was $14,654, according to an April 2018 report by the New York State Assn. of Counties. Democrats in Congress, including House Ways and Means Chairman Richard E. Neal of Massachusetts, have already vowed to tackle the SALT cap. We are going to revisit the SALT deduction, I can tell you that, he told a business forum on Nov. 27. Still, its not clear that any changes would be enacted into law, given that many Republicans support the cap, as do many Democrats outside of the high-tax Northeast and California. The annual SALT cap runs through the end of 2025. States have offered workarounds, but the IRS has blocked most of them, including one involving charitable donations in exchange for credits on property tax payments. Californias Legislature passed a plan last year to expand the deductibility of donations to the Cal Grants education program, but it was vetoed by then-Gov. Jerry Brown. The IRS hasnt weighed in on a plan by Connecticut to offer owners of partnerships and other so-called pass-throughs a state credit. A bankruptcy judge has blessed a $5.2-billion plan by Sears chairman and biggest shareholder to keep the iconic business going. The approval means roughly 425 stores and 45,000 jobs will be preserved. Eddie Lamperts bid through an affiliate of his ESL hedge fund overcame opposition from a group of unsecured creditors, including mall owners and suppliers, that tried to block the sale and pushed hard for liquidation. In delivering his decision Thursday, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain for the Southern District of New York rejected the committees claims that the sale process was unfair and flawed, that it shut out any other parties who could have been interested in buying the business and that Sears had more value to its creditors if it died than if it lived. Advertisement Lawyers for Sears Holdings Corp. and ESL argued that the sale offered the best deal and also preserved jobs. Drain is expected to enter his order Friday, making it official. Even with this reprieve, Sears long-term survival remains an open question. Lampert hasnt put forth any specific reinvention plans, and the company still faces cutthroat competition from Amazon, Target and Walmart. Meanwhile, its stores look old and drab. Lampert steered Sears Holdings Corp. into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in October. The company, which also owns Kmart, had 687 stores and 68,000 employees at the time of the bankruptcy filing. At its peak in 2012, its stores numbered 4,000. Sears was hit hard during the Great Recession and outmatched in the recessions aftermath by shifting consumer trends and strong rivals. It hasnt had a profitable year since 2010 and has suffered 11 straight years of declining sales. Lamperts original plan had been rejected by a subcommittee of the Sears board. ESL sweetened the bid several times before the subcommittee gave it the OK. A group of unsecured creditors, who rank at the bottom of the list to be paid, filed objections to the sale. They alleged falsified financial projections, excessive buybacks, and a spinoff of key brands that stripped the business of key assets. The tortured story of Sears reads like a Shakespearean tragedy, the group said. Lampert and ESL managed Sears as if it were a private portfolio company that existed solely to provide the greatest returns on their investment, recklessly disregarding the damage to Sears, its employees and its creditors. Advertisement Lampert personally owns 31% of the Sears outstanding stock, and his hedge fund has an 18.5% stake, according to FactSet. He stepped down as chief executive in October after serving in that position since 2013. Under Lamperts watch, Sears has survived in part by spinning off stores and selling well-known brands such as Craftsman tools. He has also lent some of his own money. Lampert has been criticized for not investing in his stores. Even Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a potential presidential candidate, has attacked him and questioned his commitment to Sears workers. I am concerned that under your leadership, Sears may continue to struggle and employees will continue to face uncertainty and anxiety over their future employment, and ongoing risks to their benefits and economic security, Warren wrote in a letter to Lampert made available to the Associated Press by a worker advocacy group. Advertisement One of the lawyers for Lamperts hedge fund testified this week that the 56-year-old billionaire has been portrayed as a cross between Jay Gould, the late railroad tycoon, and Barney Fife, a bumbling fictional character from The Andy Griffith Show. Drain, the bankruptcy judge, acknowledged that Lampert had been subject to verbal abuse. He is a wealthy individual and a big boy, Drain said. And I guess he can take it. But he added that Lampert has an opportunity to not be a cartoon character. Tobacco giant Altria Group Inc.s efforts to gain a toehold in the burgeoning e-cigarette market are facing scrutiny, as a top U.S. regulator signaled that curbs on sales of some vaping products are imminent. The Food and Drug Administration is concerned that Altrias $12.8-billion stake in e-cigarette start-up Juul Labs Inc. contradicts commitments both companies have made to address what health officials have called an epidemic of youth vaping. FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb wrote to the companies Friday and asked to talk with them about public statements that seem inconsistent with vows they made to the agency last year to combat nicotine use by minors. Youth adoption of e-cigarettes has surged in the last year, provoking calls for action from parents, public-health advocates and lawmakers. The commissioner also said he expects to make good in the next 30 days on a pledge he made in November to issue draft rules restricting sales of most flavored e-cigarette products to vaping shops and online retailers that verify a purchasers age. Advertisement Gottlieb insisted last year that e-cigarette manufacturers take steps to keep their products from being used by children. Many vaping pods come in fruit or candy flavors. Some have packaging resembling juice boxes or whipped cream. Altria said in a letter sent to Gottlieb in October that it would temporarily pull its flavored pod-based products from stores. We believe that pod-based products significantly contribute to the rise in youth use of e-vapor products, Altria Chief Executive Howard Willard III wrote in the letter, less than two months before the company, which also sells Marlboro cigarettes, said it would buy a stake in Juul. My question is, what changed? Gottlieb said in an interview with Bloomberg. Willard said in the October letter to the FDA that the company believed flavored pods could help adult smokers transition away from traditional cigarettes and didnt think it had a problem with youth access or use of its products. Juul is a pod-based product with the flavored nicotine sold as a separate cartridge. Known for a sleek device that can be held in the palm of the hand, its popular among youth and young adults, including people who arent prior tobacco users. San Francisco-based Juul Labs is one of the most richly valued start-ups in the country, worth $38 billion after Altrias investment in December. Vaping among high school students rose 78% between 2017 and 2018, to 3 million, according to the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 4.9 million middle and high school students said theyd used any tobacco product in the last 30 days, according to preliminary results of the 2018 National Youth Tobacco Survey. If youth use goes up 40% or 50% this year were going to be having a very different discussion come this summer or fall, Gottlieb said in the interview. He has threatened to ban all sales of flavored e-cigarettes if underage use isnt controlled. Advertisement Juul said in November that it would shut down its social-media accounts and stop selling the flavored nicotine pods in stores, though retailers would be able to sell any remaining stock. Theyre still available online in flavors such as mango and cucumber. Gottlieb wants to know if the company plans to reintroduce them to the brick-and-mortar market before the FDAs sales restrictions are finalized. The letters to Altria and Juul follow a move Thursday by the commissioner to single out Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. for being the biggest violator of prohibitions on youth tobacco sales. Walgreens said it has taken steps to crack down on such sales. Gottlieb had previously eased restrictions on e-cigarettes as he expressed hope they would offer adult smokers a way to quit but he has reversed course given the rise in vaping among children and teens. I am aware of deeply concerning data showing that youth use of Juul products represents a significant proportion of the overall use of e-cigarette products by children, Gottlieb wrote to the chief executives of Altria and Juul. I have no reason to believe these youth patterns of use are abating in the near term, and they certainly do not appear to be reversing. Juul has an estimated 70% share of the $3 billion e-cigarette market, according to a Bloomberg Intelligence analysis of data from market researcher IRI. Advertisement Altria has touted the deal with Juul as further helping the company move adult smokers to products that may carry less health risk, such as a device called IQOS that Altria is seeking FDA clearance to sell. At the time of the Altria-Juul deal, executives said if concerns about youth smoking arent resolved, it could put the entire vaping business at risk, even for adults. Altria has said it wants to raise the minimum age to buy tobacco products to 21. National Enquirer owner American Media Inc. pushed back Friday against Amazon.com Inc. chief Jeff Bezos accusation that the magazine and its publisher a confidant of President Trump had tried to blackmail and extort him. American Media believes fervently that it acted lawfully, the company said in a statement. The National Enquirer published an expose on Bezos relationship with former TV anchor Lauren Sanchez, and Bezos hired investigators to find out if the story was politically motivated. Bezos owns the Washington Post, which has written critical stories of Trump, and Trump counts National Enquirer publisher David Pecker as a close ally. In a surprising move Thursday, Bezos said the National Enquirer threatened to publish more details and revealing photos if the executive didnt stop the investigation. His statement online included vivid descriptions of the images. Advertisement Rather than capitulate to extortion and blackmail, Ive decided to publish exactly what they sent me, despite the personal cost and embarrassment they threaten, Bezos who is Amazons chief executive and the worlds richest person wrote Thursday in a post on Medium. Any personal embarrassment AMI could cause me takes a back seat because theres a much more important matter involved here. If in my position I cant stand up to this kind of extortion, how many people can? Opinion: The National Enquirer is after Jeff Bezos for sullying its reputation. Seriously? Bezos also suggested that the Washington Posts coverage of the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi might have motivated the National Enquirers investigation. For reasons still to be better understood, the Saudi angle seems to hit a particularly sensitive nerve, the billionaire wrote. After Bezos published his Medium post, journalist Ronan Farrow said American Media had tried to blackmail him as well. I and at least one other prominent journalist involved in breaking stories about the National Enquirers arrangement with Trump fielded similar stop digging or well ruin you blackmail efforts from AMI, Farrow said on Twitter. (I did not engage as I dont cut deals with subjects of ongoing reporting.) American Media said in a statement Friday that it believed its actions were lawful but that it would investigate Bezos claims. American Media believes fervently that it acted lawfully in the reporting of the story of Mr. Bezos, the company said. Further, at the time of the recent allegations made by Mr. Bezos, it was in good faith negotiations to resolve all matters with him. Nonetheless, in light of the nature of the allegations published by Mr. Bezos, the Board has convened and determined that it should promptly and thoroughly investigate the claims. Upon completion of that investigation, the Board will take whatever appropriate action is necessary. It did not address Farrows claim. Advertisement On Friday, deputy White House press secretary Hogan Gidley said he was not sure whether Trump is aware of Bezos allegations. Were not going to get into a conversation about something between Jeff Bezos and a tabloid magazine, Gidley said. The National Enquirer investigated Bezos because his wealth and position made him a newsworthy subject, and its reporting isnt influenced by politics, according to copies of emails allegedly from AMI lawyer Jon Fine that Bezos included in his post Thursday. In one of those emails, Fine proposed Bezos release a mutually agreed upon statement to a news outlet saying that he had no basis for suggesting AMIs coverage was politically motivated. In exchange, the media group would refrain from publishing other texts and photos featuring Bezos, according to the email released by the Amazon CEO. This looks like textbook extortion, said Zachary Elsea, a litigator with Kinsella Weitzman Iser Kump & Aldisert in Santa Monica. The law defines extortion as, among other things, obtaining something of value through fear, and AMIs very explicit threat to publish the embarrassing pictures unless Bezos complies fits that description, according to Elsea. Advertisement Fine, a former executive at Amazon, didnt immediately respond to an email seeking comment. The White House also didnt respond to a request for comment. This is the latest clash between Bezos and the president. Trump has repeatedly vilified Amazons CEO, threatening his company with tax increases, antitrust prosecution and higher shipping fees, while attacking the Washington Post as a scam. In 2015, Bezos offered to blast Trump into space but had mostly avoided mentioning Trump publicly until Thursday. Last month, Bezos posted a statement on Twitter, signed by himself and his wife of 25 years, MacKenzie, announcing their plans to divorce. Hours later, the first Enquirer story on his relationship with Sanchez posted online. The next day, Trump wished Bezos good luck on Twitter and predicted the proceedings would be a beauty. On Thursday, Bezos noted that Pecker was cooperating with federal prosecutors who were investigating catch-and-kill payments the Enquirer made ahead of the 2016 presidential election to at least one woman who alleged she had an affair with Trump. The Enquirer secured the rights to the material, assuring the allegations wouldnt be shared with other media, then never published the story. Advertisement Bezos is Amazons largest shareholder, with a stake of about 16%. An Amazon spokesman has said the CEO and founder remains focused and engaged in all aspects of Amazon. Bezos and company representatives havent addressed whether he will accelerate his periodic sales of Amazon shares. An Amazon spokesman declined to comment on Thursday. The correspondence between Bezos and AMI included legal jousting over the newsworthiness of graphic photos Bezos sent to Sanchez. Bezos argued the images are his and sharing them would violate copyright laws. A representative for AMI responded in one of the emails: With millions of Americans having a vested interest in the success of Amazon, of which your client remains founder, chairman, CEO, and president, an exploration of Mr. Bezos judgment as reflected by his texts and photos is indeed newsworthy and in the public interest. That argument was questioned by Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter, who has followed Amazon for years. I dont care about Jeff Bezos personal life and I dont care if Trumplandia is out to make him look bad, Pachter said. None of that influences whether people want to shop on Amazon. Advertisement American Media is backed by Anthony Melchiorre and his hedge fund, Chatham Asset Management. Years before Trump ascended to the White House, Melchiorre threw a financial lifeline to Peckers company and ended up with about an 80% stake. Billionaire hedge fund manager Leon Cooperman also has put money into the publisher. He said last year that Chatham executives introduced him to the investment. The Washington Post was used in compiling this report. Battles have broken out using heavy weapons between Russian-backed militias and Iranian-backed groups in Syria amid disputes over areas of influence, with fighters on both sides being killed in battles between the Fifth Corps and Eighth Division backed by Russia and the Fourth Division supported by the pro-Iranian Syrian Republican Guard. The fighting took place in the suburbs of Hama after the Fourth Division refused to hand over areas under its control to the Fifth Corps and extended to checkpoints controlled by this group headed by Maher Al-Assad, brother of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, who is pro-Iran. Both sides brought in military reinforcements in preparation for future more extensive battles. Fourth Division militias redeployed on battle fronts in areas under the control of the Fifth Corps at the expense of Iran-backed groups located in the area between seven Russian monitoring posts. Fourth Division fighters returned to their barracks and were replaced by Fifth Corps militias (Tiger Forces) led by Suhail Al-Hassan, who is close to Russia. National Defence forces and Fourth Division fighters backed by Iran no longer have the influence they once did in the area because many are from a region targeted by the Fifth Corps for Russian-backed expansion. The fighting broke out, according to local sources, after an argument between the two groups about taking control of roads to move goods and the requisition of abandoned homes. Russia succeeded in loosening the grip of the pro-Iran forces and attempted to end the fighting before it spread without dismantling all the pro-Iran forces and expelling them from the area. Although Moscow does not want the forces to remain in the area, it needs them in case it decides to fight the opposition factions. Russia believes that the fighting among the militias will not impact the possible battles that could erupt with the remaining armed opposition in northern Syria. As tensions between Moscow and Tehran rose in northwest Syria, forces affiliated with the Syrian army, including members of the Lebanese Hizbullah militias affiliated with Iran, were forced to leave their positions in Al-Qalamoun in central Syria as part of Russian plans to undercut Irans military role in Syria. The Hizbullah forces did not withdraw to Lebanon, however, and only redeployed to southern Syria, an area closer to the border with Israel. According to Lebanese military sources, redeploying the forces to the south was ordered by Irans Revolutionary Guard led by Qassem Suleimani. At the same time, Russian forces in Deraa asked Syrian State Security to withdraw its agents from the suburbs of the city after it became apparent that it had facilitated Shiite expansion in southern Syria by recruiting local men into Iranian militias. After the clashes, Syrian opposition groups said that Russia had already begun criticising the Al-Assad regime and militia commanders, reflecting a Russian-Iranian conflict in areas under regime control and the control of shabbiha (thug) militias. Media reports quoted the spokesman of the Al-Nasr Army, one of the armed opposition groups in northern Syria, as saying that there was an ongoing Russian-Iranian battle for control of the regime. He said that Russia did not want pro-Iranian military forces on the front line with the Syrian opposition, due to its desire to prevent Irans domination of the regime army, especially after Tehran had sent thousands of foreign fighters into Syria. Russia is trying to control key elements of the regimes army, intelligence and militias and exclude the Iranians, leaving many army officers divided in their loyalties between Russia and Iran. In 2016, Russia gave Al-Hassan its second-highest medal during a military parade at the Hamim military base, and the regime quietly promoted Maher Al-Assad to major-general in early 2017 and later commander of the Fourth Division. Unlike his brother Bashar, considered to be Russias arm in Damascus, Maher is believed to be loyal to Iran, and his Fourth Division includes Iraqi militias known as the Imam Al-Hussein Brigade led by Iraqi national Asaad Al-Bahadli composed of Iraqis and Iranians. There is close coordination between the Fourth Division and Hizbullah in central Syria and areas surrounding the Beirut-Damascus highway, while most of Hizbullahs depots are along the Syrian-Lebanese border where they are positioned near or inside military and security facilities belonging to the Fourth Division or Maher Al-Assad. An indirect Russian-Iranian conflict has already been triggered, as can be seen in events such as Irans assassination of several pro-Russian figures, said military analyst Ahmed Rahal. Al-Hassan, who is considered pro-Russian, is accused of killing Essam Zahruddin, who is close to Maher Al-Assad. He is also accused of poisoning 23 soldiers of the Fourth Division, which is supported by Iran. Russia also took away its T90 tanks from the Fourth Division and gave them to the Fifth Corps after the Deraa battles, he added. Russia and Iran have cooperated in Syria since Russias military intervention started in September 2015. Russia believed that air coverage for the Iranian militias was necessary at the time, but it later announced the formation of the Fifth Corps last year and supported Al-Hassan and the Tiger militias at the expense of the Iranian militias. However, the tensions may not escalate between the two sides since each needs the other. The Iranian militias and Russian air coverage have resulted in advances on the ground, making it likely that this military alliance will remain in place for the time being. Russia is confronting Iran in Syria for two reasons, Rahal said. First, there is the Israeli-US pressure and the insistence that Iran has no place in Syria. Second, there is the fact that Russia does not now need Iran since the fighting in Syria is almost over. The Iranian-Russian rift spilled over into the public domain after statements by Heshmat Bishah, chair of the National Security and Foreign Policy committee in Irans Shura Council, last week. Bishah accused Russia of conspiring with Israel by disabling the S300 missile system in Syria during Israels air strikes against Iranian locations. There is clear coordination between Moscow and Tel Aviv whenever there are strikes inside Syria, Rahal said. If Russia had enabled the S300 missile system, Israel would not have carried out these attacks so easily. It is likely Russia will try to pressure Iran to absorb the anger of the US, Israel and the Arab countries at the situation in Syria, and it may try to curb Irans influence without open military confrontation through skirmishes or soft war. It will be difficult to predict what will happen next, especially due to expanded US sanctions against Iran and Syria, the growing economic crisis in the areas under regime control, Irans efforts to infiltrate Syrian society, growing instability in areas where pro-Iran militias are present and disputes among militias in areas under regime control. Both sides may want to hide the tensions between them, but if matters escalate it will likely be in favour of Russia more than of Iran. * A version of this article appears in print in the 7 February, 2019 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: Syrian clashes between partners Short link: For the last decade, the gathering of the global elite in Davos, Switzerland, has been a safe space for Sheryl Sandberg. This year, though, fresh off a bruising 2018, the Facebook chief operating officer arrived in the Alps on the defensive, apologizing over and over again for Facebooks privacy and ethical slip-ups. She was notably absent from the conferences main equality and gender discussions; she was fighting a cold and her voice was a rasp. Over the last few months, the Sandberg brand has taken a beating, and news about Facebooks misdeeds and her reported role in them is unrelenting. Questions about privacy, Russian election hacking and unsavory targeting of opponents dominated the end of 2018, and the new year began with new reports of questionable data collection practices that led Apple to ban some of Facebooks internal apps. Through it all, pundits dissected Sandbergs fall from grace, employees blamed her for the companys woes and a stunning stock slide, and critics called for her resignation. Corporate feminism fell out of favor, #MeToo exposed the weaknesses of leaning in and Sandbergs own fallibility cast her feminist empowerment side-project in a newly harsh light. Advertisement But there are signs that Sandbergs reputation is on the mend. Both the company and Lean In say theyre committed to Sandbergs leadership, and from Switzerland to San Francisco, women, particularly those working in technology, are coming out in support of the embattled COO. I still look up to her, said Annie Hsieh, an engineering manager at Square Root, an Austin, Texas-based tech company. Like more than a dozen women interviewed by Bloomberg, Hsieh said she doesnt think Sandberg acted to the highest moral and ethical standards, but she also knows how hard it is to make it to the top in the tech world. Shes just another human and shes not a superhero. I think some of the criticism is valid and a lot of it is unfair. Sandberg, for her part, started off the new year on an image rehabilitation tour. On Jan. 20, she made her first public appearance in the new year at the DLD conference in Munich, Germany. As we listen to people around the world, they tell us that they want an internet where people speak up but theyre not spreading hate, she said. We know we need to do better, she went on. We need to stop abuse more quickly, and we need to do more to protect more peoples data. At Facebook, Sandberg directly oversees the parts of the business that have been most embroiled in scandal, such as policy and content operations. But the company says if theres a problem, it believes in Sandbergs ability to address it. Under Sheryls leadership, we now have more than 30,000 people working on safety and security, weve cracked down on fake accounts and misinformation, and weve set a new standard for ads transparency, the company said. It helps to understand how rare Sandbergs accomplishments are. Women make up about a quarter of the computing workforce but just 11% of leadership roles, according to a study by McKinsey and Co. Advertisement So while there are plenty of examples of powerful men logging all manner of successes and failures, Sandberg has come to stand in for all women in technology. Her very existence has opened up streams of funding, said Lisa Falzone, chief executive and co-founder of Athena Security. She started her first company in 2010 before Facebook went public and before Lean In and it was hard to get venture capitalists to take her seriously. Now, she says, things have changed, and thats a credit to Sandberg. You have to have more successful women that people can point to so VCs will give more women money, Falzone said. If theyve never seen a woman be successful before, theyre not going to invest in women. Many women working in tech told Bloomberg they dislike Lean Ins message of do-it-yourself womens empowerment. Most of them denounced Sandbergs recently reported involvement in covering up Russian interference on Facebook (if true). But most also said shes been held to an unfair standard, and overall, they believe shes done more good than bad. She has done a lot for women in tech, we shouldnt forget that, said Gillian Tans, CEO of Booking.com. It takes three to four times the effort for a woman to achieve the level of success that many of us who are here have achieved. Yet it takes one misstep to fall off your pedestal. Proposals to increase taxes on the wealthy are having a moment: Polling shows Democrats and Republicans coming together in support of steep taxes on the wealth and income of the super-rich. But theres one type of tax on millionaires that Americans have consistently been skeptical of: the estate tax. Polling typically shows that a majority of Americans favor repealing this tax completely. Part of this is due to Republicans success in branding the tax a death tax that unfairly confiscates wealth from Americans at the time of a family members death. But research out of Sweden suggests that many people may simply be unaware of basic facts about inherited wealth. In the study, researchers from Linnaeus University and the Paris School of Economics administered a nationally representative survey to Swedish adults. The survey included questions about the respondents support for an estate tax, which Sweden had until 2004, when it was abolished. Some respondents received factual information about wealth inheritance in Sweden: that inherited wealth represents about half of all wealth in the population; that those with the highest incomes inherit the most; and that a majority of Swedish billionaires inherited their fortunes. Other respondents were not given this information. Advertisement The researchers found that the group receiving the factual information was significantly more likely to support the estate tax than the respondents who didnt. One implication of the study: Support for an estate tax in wealthy countries may be low simply because many people dont understand how inherited wealth works. Pollsters have observed similar dynamics at play in tax discussions in the United States. In 2017, for instance, a HuffPost/YouGov poll asked whether the estate tax should be abolished. Half of the respondents were additionally told that the tax only affects estates worth more than $5 million. Among that group, support for keeping the tax (46%) was nearly 20 percentage points higher than it was among the group not receiving factual information (27%). That survey also revealed that many Americans had incorrect notions about the estate tax. Only 37% of respondents knew that the tax affects only a few families (less than 0.1% of people who die) each year. Thirty percent believed, incorrectly, that most families were subject to the tax. Sixty-three percent incorrectly believed that poor and middle-class families were primarily affected by the tax, even though it applied only to estates worth more than $5 million at the time the survey was administered. More broadly, other research has shown that Americans have a poor understanding of how wealth is distributed in this country. A 2010 study found, for instance, that Americans believed that the bottom 60% of the country owned a little more than 20% of the nations total wealth. In reality, the bottom 60% owns about 1% of the countrys total wealth. Ninety percent of wealth in the United States is held by the richest 20% of families, with the richest 1% owning 40% of it. Amazon.com Inc. is reconsidering its plan to bring 25,000 jobs to a new campus in New York City following a wave of opposition from local politicians, according to two people familiar with the companys thinking. The company has not leased or purchased office space for the project, making it easy to withdraw its commitment. Unlike in Virginia where elected leaders quickly passed an incentive package for a separate headquarters facility final approval from New York state is not expected until 2020. Tennessee officials have also embraced Amazons plans to bring 5,000 jobs to Nashville, which this week approved $15.2 million in road, sewer and other improvements related to that project. Amazon executives have had internal discussions recently to reassess the situation in New York and explore alternatives, said the two people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly about the companys perspective. Advertisement The question is whether its worth it if the politicians in New York dont want the project, especially with how people in Virginia and Nashville have been so welcoming, said one person familiar with the companys plans. Hailed as an economic triumph when it was announced by Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio, both Democrats, the project in the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens now faces withering criticism from some politicians and advocacy groups appalled at the prospect of giving giant subsidies to the worlds most valuable company, led by its richest man. (Amazon founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos also owns the Washington Post.) In the last two weeks, the New York Senate nominated an outspoken Amazon critic to a board where he could potentially veto the deal. City Council members for the second time aggressively challenged company executives at a hearing, where activists booed and unfurled anti-Amazon banners. Key officials, including freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), whose district borders the proposed Amazon site, have rallied against the project. And opponents went door to door to warn people in Queens of looming rent hikes and displacement, much as Seattle experienced during the companys explosive growth there. No specific plans to abandon New York have been made. And it is possible that Amazon may try to use a threat to withdraw to put pressure on New York officials. But with a meeting of the states Public Authorities Control Board and a third City Council hearing expected later this month, Amazon executives may be reaching an inflection point, the people said. I think now is the time for Amazon to make a decision because it has to start hiring, said one person. At some point, the project starts to fall behind. The resistance in New York contrasts with the warm welcome Amazon has received in Virginia, where Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, signed a law Tuesday authorizing up to $750 million in state subsidies for the Arlington headquarters. Northam and Virginias other top two state officials, Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax and Atty. Gen. Mark Herring, all Democrats, have been engulfed in recent days by scandals involving years-old behavior. But the two people familiar with Amazons plans said company leadership was not concerned those controversies would hamper their project. Advertisement Its unclear what Amazon may consider as a Plan B if the New York project falls through. It could forgo the incentive package and hire employees on a smaller scale, as competitors including Google are already doing. Or Amazon could search for another jurisdiction to get some or all of the jobs originally slated for New York. We always welcome more great jobs to the commonwealth, said Stephen Moret, chief executive of the Virginia Economic Development Partnership and the states top Amazon negotiator. Amazon hired a lobbying firm and a public relations firm in New York and recently advertised for a senior community affairs manager to focus on developing a positive partnership with local stakeholders, community groups and nonprofits. Asked to comment on the possibility that the New York deal might founder, Amazon spokeswoman Jodi Seth said: Were focused on engaging with our new neighbors small-business owners, educators and community leaders. Whether its building a pipeline of local jobs through workforce training or funding computer science classes for thousands of New York City students, we are working hard to demonstrate what kind of neighbor we will be. Advertisement New York state and city officials have played down the chances that the deal might fall through. They pointed to opinion polls showing strong public support for the project and said Cuomo and De Blasio will fight hard for it. The Amazon transaction was probably the greatest economic transaction in 50 years in this state, Cuomo said in a recent radio interview. We dont get a business to come with 25,000 jobs anymore. I spend hours and days trying to get 100 jobs, 200 jobs. But the resistance is well organized and energetic, based in unions and community groups. In addition to Ocasio-Cortez, opponents include City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, Deputy Leader of the City Council James Van Bramer and state Sen. Michael Gianaris, who is deputy majority leader in the Senate. Some officials who previously supported luring Amazon to the city have changed their position, partly because they were unhappy that the deal was structured to bypass City Council approval. Amazon is eligible for up to $1.3 billion in subsidies from two city programs, in addition to the state package and other incentives. Advertisement In a significant boost for Amazon opponents, the Senate this week nominated Gianaris to the Public Authorities Control Board, where he could effectively veto the project. Cuomo has not said whether he would accept Gianariss nomination, but the Senates action signaled that the governor and Legislature would be at odds over the deal. Gianaris and other critics portray the New York struggle as a national test for populist forces confronting big companies influence, and for the contest within the Democratic Party between its grass-roots and business-friendly wings. We are dealing with an era of unprecedented corporate power in this country, Gianaris said. This Amazon deal represents a tipping point that is going to set the stage for what this country is going to be going forward. Amazon surprised the nation in November by announcing that it would split its much-publicized second headquarters between Arlington, Va., and Long Island City, N.Y., with employees at each site earning an average of more than $150,000 a year. Initially, the company said it planned a single location with all 50,000 jobs. Advertisement The divergent reactions in New York and Virginia arise from political and economic differences between the two, according to officials and analysts in both locations. New York is a pro-labor city, whereas Virginia is a right-to-work state where employees cannot be obliged to join a union as a condition of employment. Amazon has opposed attempts to unionize its workforce and says it would do the same in New York. What Amazon is looking to do is come in and change the values of our city, said Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. New York also is straining from the effects of rapid economic growth, whereas Arlington is eager to attract investment to Crystal City to offset the loss of thousands of federal government jobs there in a Pentagon reorganization that began in 2005. Advertisement The community around Long Island City is home to legions of grass-roots organizations that are already unhappy about gentrification and warn that Amazons arrival will further raise housing prices. Some also fault Amazon for selling facial-recognition technology to law enforcement agencies and partnering with companies that work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The activists have occupied an Amazon store in Manhattan, marched in Albany and demonstrated at the office of Democratic Assemblywoman Catherine T. Nolan, who supports the deal. The geography in New York has brought together a lot of threads of activism who were really ready to react to this kind of announcement and were particularly outraged, said Deborah Axt, co-executive director of Make the Road, an organization of low-income immigrants and communities of color. Northern Virginia, Axt said, does not have quite the pool of amazing champions ready to jump into the fray as were fortunate to have here in New York. Advertisement Robert McCartney, Jonathan OConnell and Patricia Sullivan write for the Washington Post. The Democratic Party lately has been striving to portray itself as a bulwark for the American worker, but it hasnt done as much to place organized labor at the forefront of its platform. That may be about to change. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has scheduled the formal announcement of her presidential candidacy Saturday in the old mill town of Lawrence, Mass. The symbolism is unmistakable. Lawrence was the site of one of the most important and successful strikes in U.S. labor history, the 1912 Bread and Roses Strike of textile workers. Warren has made sure the connection isnt overlooked. Lawrence has a history of working people coming together to make change, where the fight was hard, the battle was uphill, and where a group of women led the charge for all of us, she says in a video posted on her campaign website. The woman worker needs bread, but she needs roses too. Labor activist Rose Schneiderman, 1911 Advertisement The location also allows her to make deeper points about the plight of American workers in the U.S. and global economies. Lawrence is very representative of where the nation has gone, says Erik Loomis, an expert in labor history at the University of Rhode Island whose 2018 book, A History of America in Ten Strikes, aims to restore to American consciousness a labor movement that has been written out of the standard history textbooks. You have the story of this amazing labor victory, but then for a very long time Lawrence has been depressed, its a symbol of industrialization, its a symbol of an America left behind in the new economy, its a symbol of the immigrant past and also the immigrant present. Loomis places the Bread and Roses Strike at the dead center of his chronicle of American history. His book starts with the Mill Girls Strike of 1834 in Lowell, Mass. only 10 miles from Lawrence (mill owners in both cities exploited power from the Merrimack River to run their machines) and carries the story through to the Justice for Janitors campaign of the 1980s and 90s, stopping along the way at the eight-hour-day strikes of the Gilded Age, the Flint, Mich., sit-down strike of autoworkers in the mid-1930s, and the disastrous air-traffic controllers strike of 1981, among other way stations. Among the threads running throughout the book is the tradition of government hostility to organized labor, expressed through often violent suppression of strikes by police or soldiers. That point tends to be overlooked even in labor histories, Loomis told me. Labor historians place an enormous emphasis on ideas of solidarity and radical actions, but not enough on the basic issue that there is almost no strike in American history that succeeded when the government was actively opposed to that strike. The Bread and Roses Strike might be an exception. (The name generally is thought to have come from labor activist Rose Schneiderman, who declared in a 1911 speech, The woman worker needs bread, but she needs roses too the bread signifying better pay, the roses the schools, training and amenities that brought dignity to the working womans life.) The strike began on Jan. 12, 1912, the day a new Massachusetts law limited working womens hours to 54 a week, a reduction of two hours. Mill owners in Lawrence cut the workers pay to match the new hours. Workers walked off the job in protest, and as Loomis reports, within a day the entire city was shut down. Lawrence was the quintessential New England mill town, employing a quintessentially mill-town workforce of 40,000, mostly immigrants from Ireland and southern and eastern Europe, Loomis relates. Half the workers at the citys biggest mill, the American Woolen Co., were women younger than 18, toiling for little pay and breathing cotton dust. The average weekly wage was $9; the average weekly tenement rent, $6. The average life expectancy was less than 40. Depictions of anti-strike violence like this one in Colliers Magazine helped create sympathy for the Lawrence strikers in 1912. (Colliers) Advertisement The mill workers strike promptly attracted organizers from the Industrial Workers of the World, or Wobblies, who helped solidify the movement and hoped it could be expanded into a mass strike. Among the Wobbly luminaries who made appearances on the scene were key organizer Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and I.W.W. co-founder Big Bill Haywood himself. The government played its customary role of violence and suppression. Police deluged striker rallies with water from fire hoses in subfreezing temperatures. A militia member bayoneted one marcher to death. The police murder of another was pinned on strike leaders. Harvard students mobilized as a strikebreaking force a tradition, Loomis writes, in an era when university education was exclusively an option for the wealthy elite. Harvard allowed the students to make up their final exams later. The Wobblies managed to turn the strike into a popular cause. The strike attracted sympathetic writers and donations from nationwide. When the Wobblies arranged railroad evacuation of strikers children to communities of sympathizers willing to keep them clothed and fed for the duration, the rail boardings were covered by the press, as were the childrens arrivals in New York. When one evacuation was blocked by Lawrence police, who fomented a melee, the attack gained the attention of President William Howard Taft, who ordered an investigation. A congressional committee took testimony from workers, who described suffering horrific injuries on the factory floor and being charged even for clean drinking water. Advertisement Under the onslaught of negative publicity, the mill owners relented, awarding the workers a wage increase of up to 20% and overtime pay, Loomis writes. The strike leaders framed for murder were acquitted. But the solidarity so painstakingly promoted by the I.W.W. did not last. Wobbly membership in Lawrence collapsed within two years, in part because the economy had turned down and because the Wobblies had little grasp of long-term organizing. The strike had won the workers some material gains, Loomis writes, but it left them no union to keep up the fight. That could serve as the moral of the story of American organized labor more generally. Union membership in the private sector has declined sharply since its heyday in the 1940s and 1950s, coinciding almost exactly with the growth in the share of national income going to the top 10%. Advertisement Democratic Party support for organized labor has been strong, if not always as overt as Warren seems intent on making it. The Obama-era National Labor Relations Board took significant steps to address workplace abuses such as the improper designation of employees as contract workers or the use of labor contractors to obscure the employment relationship between companies such as fast food chains and the workers on their front lines. Obama took aim in executive orders against such abuses as forced arbitration of workplace claims. (Many of those initiatives have been rolled back by the Trump White House.) Its also true that unions have made recent gains in some white-collar sectors such as journalism, where relentless layoffs and the threat of more cost-cutting have prompted editorial staff to organize at newspapers and magazines such as the Los Angeles Times and the New Yorker and digital news sites including Huffpost, the Intercept, Vox and Salon. Warrens initiative signals that the political establishment may be regaining a sense of the value of collective bargaining that hasnt been seen in Washington in such strength since the New Deal and the enactment of the National Labor Relations Act in 1935. Thats important because workers organizing rights have come under the most concerted attack by federal courts, including the Supreme Court, in decades. The flow of wealth to the top 10% since 1960 coincides almost exactly with the decline in U.S. union membership. (Economic Policy Institute) Advertisement Loomis also points to the success of teachers strikes in Chicago, West Virginia and, most recently, Los Angeles, which retained popular support in part because their organizers linked the gains sought for teachers with the prospect of improved schoolroom conditions for pupils. The specter of unionized action by aviation workers FAA inspectors, air traffic controllers, and flight attendants also seems to have played a role in forcing President Trump to reopen the government after the recent 35-day partial shutdown. Strikes are a mixed bag, Loomis told me. Sometimes theyre a brilliant strategy, sometimes a terrible one. Sometimes theyre done for the right reason and sometimes not. But the Bread and Roses Strike in Lawrence shows how much they can accomplish at the right moment and the right place. If theyre used properly, they can be the most effective tactic labor has. By making her presidential announcement from the steps of a Lawrence mill building, Elizabeth Warren seems to be linking her campaign to the idea that the key to restoring economic stability to the average workers lives is to restore their ability to stand together. Keep up to date with Michael Hiltzik. Follow @hiltzikm on Twitter, see his Facebook page, or email michael.hiltzik@latimes.com. Advertisement Return to Michael Hiltziks blog. On the surface, things have seemed to be looking up in recent weeks for the future of Lake Mead. The Western storms of the last month have fostered the impression of a respite, at least temporarily, from the regions long drought. Earlier this month, Arizona legislators passed a sheaf of crucial measures signaling their willingness to cooperate in an interstate drought contingency plan, staving off federal intervention. Yet these are stopgaps. The giant reservoir on the Colorado River behind Hoover Dam, which provides water chiefly to residents in California and farmers there and in Arizona, is suffering from a long-term and possibly irreversible decline in capacity. Putting something this complicated together with this many states is something to be commended, assuming it gets done. Jeffrey Kightlinger, general manager, Metropolitan Water District Advertisement The ultimate danger is that the lake reaches the dead pool stage. At the end of January, the lake was at 1,086 feet of surface elevation above sea level. When it reaches 1,050 feet, the lake can no longer generate hydroelectricity. At 895 feet, it cant provide water. Lake Meads enemies are both natural and man-made. Climate change has placed the Colorado River basin in a long-term drought. Meanwhile, human demands for water from the Colorado have far outstripped what it can provide. Were in the 19th year of a drought, observes Robert Glennon, an expert on water policy at the University of Arizona, and its pretty obvious that climate change is having a devastating impact. That places a premium on interstate cooperation to address the droughts consequences chiefly how to apportion what is certain to be a diminishing supply of Colorado water. The fate of Lake Mead really was sealed in 1922, well in advance of its existence, with the drafting of a seven-state compact governing distribution of the waters of the Colorado River. (Besides California and Arizona, the states are Nevada, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico.) To secure the agreement clearing the way for Congress to advance money for the dam, then-Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover deliberately overestimated the rivers capacity so that no state would fear getting shortchanged. Construction of the dam and the filling of Lake Mead helped fuel epic population growth in the Colorado River basin, especially in California. Eventually it became clear that growth would outstrip the rivers capacity to deliver all the water that was promised. On the lower basin (California, Arizona and Nevada), were using 1.2 million more acre-feet than the river hydrology provides, says Jeffrey Kightlinger, general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, one of the largest users of Lake Mead water. Effectively, weve been able to get away with it because the upper basin hasnt developed as rapidly. But were living on borrowed time. One acre-foot equals about 326,000 gallons, enough to serve one or two average California households. The MWD, the principal source of water for Southern California residents, gets about 15% of its water from the Colorado, 30% from Northern California via the State Water Project, and the rest from local sources, including groundwater and transfers from agricultural districts. Advertisement The water level of Lake Mead has been falling in recent years. Chart shows daily levels for 2017 (red), 2018 (green) and so far this year (blue). (LakeLevels.info) The consequences of overusing the Colorado, intensified by the effects of climate change, are starkly visible in the bathtub ring of white minerals on the shores of Lake Mead, showing its decline from its highest water levels. The lake last peaked at more than 1,200 feet above sea level in 1997-2000. Its in everyones interest to play nice, Glennon told me. No one wants to bring this to the courts. The 20th century was consumed with that, and it was fraught with enormous expense, delays and bad will. For the last 20 years, the states have recognized that coordination and cooperation are much better than litigation. But coordination and cooperation are easier said than done. The supply and usage of water in the West is a vast web in which plucking on any strand sends vibrations across the region. Advertisement The claimants of Colorado River water include states, irrigation districts, tribes, farmers and urban dwellers, all of whom have conflicting interests and water rights. Overseeing them all, at least theoretically, is the federal government, which built Hoover Dam and still has ultimate jurisdiction over the reservoir through the Bureau of Reclamation. Whats at issue is an update to an interim agreement reached in 2007 that dictates supply reductions in the lower basin as the level of Lake Mead falls. Arizona faces the harshest and nearest-term cuts, in part due to agreements dating from the 1960s that allowed it to build the Central Arizona Project, a huge aqueduct for its agricultural users. California retains its water rights the longest its annual apportionment of 4.4 million acre-feet is safe unless the level of Lake Mead falls to 1,045 feet above sea level or less. At that point the state has to start giving up some of its Colorado River water. Hydrological modeling by the MWD indicates that theres a 50-50 chance of the reservoir reaching that level by 2026. If the droughts impact becomes that severe, under most scenarios California would lose a bit less than 25% of its allocation. Advertisement Since 2007, Reclamation officials say, the risk of a drop in the lake to critically low levels has increased more than fourfold. That placed a premium on reconsidering the interim guidelines to make them consistent with the greater risk. The federal government has been applying intense pressure on the basin states and their water users to reach a final drought contingency plan. Reclamation Commissioner Brenda Burman fired a shot across their bows on Feb. 1, setting a tight deadline for California and Arizona, the rivers major users, to agree on a plan. As my colleague Bettina Boxall reported, Burman said that without a deal, the Interior Department would begin to develop its own plan. That threat seemed to yield fruit a few days later, when the Arizona Legislature passed the required measures. But many loose ends still exist. For one thing, an update to the interim plan would last only until 2026. The plan basically gives us seven years to work out what our 50-year strategy should be, Kightlinger says. Advertisement The most important uncertainty involves the fate of the Salton Sea, the inland body of water that was created by a flood from a botched canal project on the Colorado at the turn of the last century. Since that time, the sea has become an important way station for migratory birds. But it has suffered from decades of neglect. The result of the drying out of the sea has been an environmental and health crisis, Jim Hanks, a board member of the Imperial Irrigation District, which borders on the sea, said at an IID board meeting on Feb. 5. He spoke of crops ruined by toxic dust, an asthma epidemic, and a worsened international environmental crisis in our backyard. The Salton Seas condition could give the IID a strong hand to play in the future of Lake Mead. While it may be too much to say that fixing the Salton Sea is the key to fixing Lake Mead, a failure to address the seas deteriorating condition could hamper efforts to reach agreement over the reservoir. The IID, which is entitled to the largest allocation of Colorado River water in California, put its foot down on Dec. 10, when its board effectively approved the interstate drought plan with three conditions. Two demanded the right for IID to review and approve the final drought plan and any federal legislation to implement it. The third demanded an irrevocable commitment by California and the federal government to fund a $400-million, 10-year preservation program for the Salton Sea. Advertisement The state has tried to do its part. A water bond approved by voters in June allocated $200 million for a restoration and mitigation program for the sea. But a second bond appropriating another $200 million was rejected at the ballot box in November. That passed the ball to the feds. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-Palm Desert) managed to place language in the federal farm bill enacted in December that would allow government funds to be spent on the Salton Sea, but didnt specifically allocate any money. Since then, Feinstein and IID officials have been trying to get Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue to commit the federal government to filling the $200-million shortfall, so far without success. In January, the IID asked Perdue for a meeting, but has received no reply, according to IID spokesman Antonio Ortega. Meanwhile, Reclamation Commissioner Burman has pushed back on IIDs conditions. I would caution folks not to add unrealistic demands to approvals of the drought plan, she said during a meeting in December. Burman didnt explicitly refer to the Salton Sea, but the implications were obvious to IID. Advertisement Clean air and clean water for Imperial Valley residents and our environment are not unrealistic demands, Hanks said on Feb. 5. The IID doesnt seem inclined at this moment to back off its demand for the Salton Sea funding. The IID considers the Salton Sea, and what happens to it, as an essential component of the drought plan, Board President Erik J. Ortega said at the Feb 5 meeting. Any intervention by the government of the sort Burman has hinted at would inject a new level of uncertainty into interstate arrangements that already are hellishly complicated. The rights of the Interior Department, Reclamations parent agency, to apportion a shortage among the states has never been tested in court, and no one is especially eager to do so. No one is sure whether the government could go beyond cutting allocations to the states and actually dictate how the cuts would be allocated within the states say between IID and the MWD. Advertisement No one likes chaos and litigation, Kightlinger says. To plan long-term water distribution for 19 million residents of six Southern California counties requires peace and calm, he says. The seven states have come close to reaching an agreement; the question is how close is enough? Weve got a huge, long-term threat on the Colorado River, Kightlinger says. This is a good step, but its only going to buy us less than a decade. We need to get this done and move on to 25- to 50-year programs. With this many parties a lot of legal rights, a lot of priorities, a lot of lawyers putting something this complicated together with this many states is something to be commended, assuming it gets done. Advertisement Keep up to date with Michael Hiltzik. Follow @hiltzikm on Twitter, see his Facebook page, or email michael.hiltzik@latimes.com. Return to Michael Hiltziks blog. Jill Abramson, the former New York Times executive editor accused of plagiarizing others work in her new book, Merchants of Truth: The Business of News and the Fight for the Facts, has admitted that she fell short in crediting sources. Abramson acknowledged the mistakes in an interview with NPRs All Things Considered host Michel Martin on Thursday. Accuracy and devotion to the truth are so important to me, Abramson said. And I take all of these allegations of inaccuracy and plagiarism very seriously. When I found the allegations have merit, I moved very quickly to correct everything. The controversy over Merchants of Truth centered around a Twitter thread posted by Michael C. Moynihan, a national correspondent for Vice News, one of the media organizations profiled by Abramson in her book. Advertisement In the thread, Moynihan highlighted several passages from Abramsons book that closely resembled text from sources including the Ryerson Review of Journalism, the New Yorker, Time Out magazine and a college students masters thesis. One passage from the book concerning ethics in journalism appeared to have been lifted from the Columbia Journalism Review. The book ends with a final wag of the finger, reminding me that my colleagues apparently dont possess the expertise to compete on the biggest news stories, Moynihan tweeted. If Abramson is the arbiter of ethics & expertise, I think were doing just fine. Abramson told NPR that she planned to fix the issues pronto. In several of these cases, the language is too close for comfort and should have been specifically cited in the footnotes correctly ... or put in quotations in the book, she said. And what is the problem here is that though I did cite these publications and tried to credit everybody perfectly, you know, I fell short. Abramsons publisher, Simon & Schuster, struck a defensive pose, saying in a statement that the book offered an extraordinary degree of transparency toward its subjects; each of the four news organizations covered in the book was given ample time and opportunity to comment on the content, and where appropriate the author made changes and corrections. If upon further examination changes or attributions are deemed necessary we stand ready to work with the author in making those revisions, the publisher said. The publishers statement didnt impress Moynihan, who tweeted, Simon and Schuster stupidly paid a million dollars for this disastrous book. If these obvious examples of plagiarism arent enough and they require more examples of egregious mistakes and secondary source...ummm...cribbing, Ill happily provide them. Advertisement Abramson told the Washington Post that she was up all night going through my book because I take these claims of plagiarism so seriously. The book is over 500 pages, she said. All of the ideas in the book are original, all the opinions are mine. The passages in question involve facts that should have been perfectly cited in my footnotes and werent. If you really want to erase or distort a story, Khaled Khalifa declares in his astonishing new novel Death Is Hard Work, you should turn it into several different stories with different endings and plenty of incidental details. Hes referring to the salutary comforts of narrative. This or so we like to reassure ourselves is one reason we turn to literature: as a balm, an expression of the bonds that bring us together, rather than the divisions that tear us apart. And yet, what happens when that literature takes place in a landscape where such attachments have been severed, where [r]ites and rituals meant nothing now? These concerns are central to Death Is Hard Work, which takes place in contemporary Syria and involves the efforts of three adult children to transport the body of their father, Abdel Latif al-Salim, from Damascus, where he has died, for burial in his home village of Anabiya, a drive that would normally take just a handful of hours. Normal, however, is a relative concept, for the novel takes place in the shadow of the Syrian Civil War, which has rendered even the most basic activities (finding enough to eat, going to work and, yes, burying the dead) into an epic struggle against an all-consuming chaos where anyone can disappear. Death is so pervasive that it wasnt even a source of distress anymore: it had become an escape much envied by the living. The situation is one Khalifa knows firsthand. Raised in Aleppo, he has lived in Damascus for the last two decades, and a focus of his work is the ease with which norms evaporate in the midst of political upheaval and civil war. His last book, No Knives in the Kitchens of This City, which won the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature in 2013, also begins with the death of a parent in that case, an Aleppo matriarch then interweaves the stories of her surviving family members to develop a kaleidoscopic portrait of that devastated city over 50 years. This new novel is not a companion volume, although inevitably it has echoes, but rather a continuation, a deepening of Khalifas engagement with the broken narrative of his country, where for many people, life has been reduced to a collection of trivial acts that would sooner or later have to come to an end. Advertisement That the same might be said of every one of us is part of the point Khalifa means to make. We are all connected by the fragile tendrils of our humanity. But the social order we like to take for granted is little more than a shared hallucination that could go wrong at any time. Syrian Author Khaled Khalifa was raised in Aleppo and has lived in Damascus for two decades. (Yamam Alshaar) Take those siblings at the center of Death Is Hard Work: Bolbol, whose deathbed promise to his father initiates the novels odyssey; his older brother Hussein, now estranged but once the favorite; and their sister Fatima. There is little that they share in common, other than the accident of birth. In ten years, Khalifa tells us, the three of them hadnt been gathered in the same place for more than an hour or two during Eid. Now, they find themselves trapped together in Husseins minibus, [t]aking up their old roles [which] made them feel less afraid. Thats a necessary bit of fiction, something to fall back on as the landscape through which they travel becomes more hostile and intractable at every turn. For one thing, there is Abdel Latif, slowly decomposing in the back. Even more, there is the war, which explodes around them in the form of snipers, air raids, tank conveys, militia waving guns from pickup trucks. Shortly after leaving Damascus, they are detained at a highway checkpoint; Theyre going to arrest the body, Hussein whispers to Bolbol. Its a moment of high absurdity, hyperbole even, except it isnt because of the old mans sympathies, which are not with the regime, there is an outstanding warrant for his arrest. What do you do when you find yourself in a situation where a corpse can be arrested, where even the fact of death is not enough to offer absolution or reprieve? This is one of the questions posed by the novel, and it applies equally to oppressed and oppressor, both of whom are caught with one another in a descending spiral, a gravitational field from which they cant escape. The agent, Khalifa observes of the arresting officer, couldnt seem to make up his mind from one sentence to the next as to whether the state regarded a person as being merely a collection of documents or rather an entity of flesh, blood, and soul. The agent, and the citizens alike. The inhabitants of the city, Khalifa insists trenchantly, ironically, regarded everyone they saw as not so much alive as pre-dead. On the one hand, thats a defense mechanism: humor so bitter it metastasizes into scorn. On the other, it reminds us of the human core of the novel, and the adaptability, even in this doom-struck landscape, of Khalifas characters. It takes the siblings three days to travel from Damascus to Anabiya, during which time their fathers body literally splits open with decay. The journey recalls Faulkners As I Lay Dying, the long last ride of Addie Bundren; like Faulkner too, Khalifa employs a shifting array of voices and reflections, moving from perspective to perspective, present to past and back again. Advertisement The effect is a persistent deepening, as stories are introduced and then revisited, details added through the play of memory. That the most vivid of these narratives the suicide of Abdel Latifs sister Layla, for instance, who set herself on fire rather than enter into an arranged marriage with a man she did not love are also the most private only underscores what the book most wants us to recognize: that the real life of people takes place undercover, in the territory of the heart. Even the fighting is framed through such a filter: Bolbol reflected that in war, little things were enough to give you hope: a considerate soldier at a checkpoint, a checkpoint without traffic, a bomb falling a hundred meters away from you on a car that had cut you off and taken your turn in line Chance has just given us a new life! If that car hadnt shown up, the bomb would have fallen on us! This, Death Is Hard Work suggests, is what sustains us, even (or especially) if the public narrative has, like that car, been blown apart. The power of the novel of all Khalifas novels is that it unfolds within a human context, which pushes against and resists the prevailing social one. What other option do we have? We behave as we must, even if that means going through the motions, we act (to borrow a phrase from the late Czech playwright and president Vaclav Havel) as if we are free. After all, Khalifa admonishes, you have to do something if you arent just going to lie down and die if you dont want to sink down to the center of the earth. A book jacket for Khaled Khalifas Death is Hard Work. (FSG) :: Advertisement Death Is Hard Work Khaled Khalifa Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 192 pp., $25 Ulin is the author of Sidewalking: Coming to Terms with Los Angeles. Learn about the history of Mexican cuisine when La Plaza Cocina opens at La Plaza Village in 2019. DTLA - These days one hears occasional warnings that the long-running bull market is coming to a close, that the national economy could shift into recession and sky-high prices will fall. That may in fact happen, but right now there are absolutely zero indicators of it occurring in the Downt In the early days of the eight-year Iraq-Iran War that started in 1980, the Iraqi public was stunned to watch an aged villager on national TV asking former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein whether he thought entering the war had been a miscalculation It was one of what had become Saddams routine public appearances after he became president, as he started touring towns and villages across Iraq and indulging in publicity stunts amidst elated people. What has made you fall into this trap? They [the Iranians] are strong-headed, the old man, who could hardly be heard, told Saddam in a video broadcast on state-owned television. Saddams old trick of cutting whenever the situation required seemed to fail him in this extraordinary moment, and state TV cut the villagers succinct remarks when the clip was replayed again that night. But the comment from the elderly Iraqi that night had already been echoing in the thoughts of many in the audience since the beginning of the conflict that had followed the revolution that had brought about an Islamic regime in Iran. The triumph of the revolution that was celebrated on 11 February 1979 was a pivotal moment in Middle East history, but no country was more impacted than Iraq. It marked a turning point when Saddams secular pan-Arab regime stood squarely against the new Islamic Republic led by Shia clergyman Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The two neighbouring countries were soon caught up in a savage war that ended eight years later leaving behind it more than one million casualties and wreaking destruction that cost hundreds of billions of dollars to repair. The war was also one of the bloodiest in the Middle East and in many ways ushered in an era of costly regional conflicts that are still raging. As Iran marks the 40th anniversary of its revolution next week and the toppling of former shah Mohamed Reza Pahlavi, one of the questions that has been raised is whether Saddam anticipated the Iranian Revolution or the ensuing war with the new Islamic government. Saddams regime was the shahs deadly enemy, and it had hosted Khomeini in exile for years, but Saddam also became the top foreign target of the revolutionaries in Tehran once they took power in 1979. Way back in 1978, I was working in the research department of the Iraqi Ministry of Information and Culture in Baghdad. I was a member of a small team assigned to watch the events unfolding in Iran and make assessments of the situation. In Saddams Iraq, no one was allowed to make policy recommendations for the leadership to make decisions. Saddam maintained an unflinching hold on Iraq, and he was notorious for scoffing at information that might challenge his often fallacious preconceptions about the world. Our group was monitoring the situation through the flood of news coming out of Iran, as well as from the secret and confidential reports coming from the Iraqi mission in Tehran and other embassies in the country. Other sources such as books and articles not usually accessible by the public were also available. Among the books that provided me with insights about Iran under the shah was Iran, Dictatorship and Development by the British Marxist scholar Fred Halliday. The book, released that year, was a valuable assessment of the socio-economic and political conditions in Iran in the years preceding the uprising. Nevertheless, it failed to predict the momentous historical event that shook Iran a few months after its publication. When I met Halliday in London in 1980, I asked him if he felt he had failed to anticipate the revolution. He answered by asking who could have made such a prediction? Writing in the US Brookings Institutes blog last month, former CIA analyst Bruce Riedel who worked on the Iran desk in the CIA in 1978 noted the widespread allegations that the [US] intelligence community had failed to anticipate the revolution. Another book that had enormous influence in shaping my analytical opinions about Khomeinis revolutionary plans for Iran was his book Hukumet-e Islami, or Islamic Government. In this book, the future supreme leader of Iran laid out his ideas for his future government that should be based on the principle of velayat-e faqih, or the governance of the jurist. The book, originally a series of lectures delivered to his followers in the holy city of Najaf during his exile in Iraq, emphasised that the division between religion and politics was anti-Islamic. Khomeini moved to Iraq from Turkey in 1965 a year after he was sent into exile by the shah for his role in leading protests against the US-backed government. Saddams decision on 5 October 1978 to expel Khomeini from Najaf triggered further signs of Iraqs concern at the turmoil in Iran. Saddam justifiably feared that a potentially fundamentalist Islamic government in Iran could provoke a direct challenge to his secular regime. Khomeini soon found refuge in France outside of Paris from where he commanded the final months of the revolution and triumphantly returned to Tehran on 1 February 1979. More than 20 years later, Farah Pahlavi, the shahs widow, told me in Cairo that in 1978 as political turmoil spilled into the streets of Tehran she had travelled to Baghdad to plead with the Iraqi leadership not to kick Khomeini out of Iraq. She said she had also travelled to Najaf to ask grand Ayatollah Abul-Qasim Khoei, then the top-ranking Shia cleric, to work to stifle Khomeinis anti-shah propaganda. But her efforts with both Saddam and Khoei fell on deaf ears. In summer 1978, the Cinema and Theatre Department of the Iraqi Culture Ministry started making a historical film given the title Al-Qadissiya. An Egyptian crew of screen-writers and producers and an enormous cast was hired for the multi-million-dollar film that was to depict the epic battle of Al-Qadissiya when the Muslim Arabs had beaten the Persians in 636 CE. In a private conversation in August 1978 with director Salah Abu Seif in Baghdad, I gathered that the film with its memorable battle scenes was meant to be a propaganda piece used for national mobilisation in Iraq. In a later encounter with Abu Seif in Cairo in 1994, he recalled that Saddam had supervised every detail in the film and had wanted re-shots of some of the scenes. When the Iraq-Iran War broke out in September 1980, Iraqi state-controlled media called it The Second Qadissiya. Later in the war, it became known to Iraqis as Saddams Qadissiya. Whether Saddam, who moved to take control of the country and became president of Iraq in summer 1979, anticipated the Iranian Revolution or predicted a war with Iran a year later, remains a mystery. The conclusion of our small team of researchers, which was conveyed to Saddam, was that the victory of the Iranian Revolution was inevitable and that this could put the two regimes on a collision course. Those who have written about the Iranian Revolution in 1979 and those who are deeply engaged in commemorating it today have frequently questioned Saddams judgement in going to the war with Iran in 1980. As one who witnessed the unfolding of the Iranian Revolution and covered the 1980-1988 conflict as a war correspondent, I thought both events were not unimaginable or unpredictable. Saddam must have predicted the Iranian Revolution and foreseen the war, but he choose to pick his opportunity and ignore the challenge. In a way, Saddam forecasted that the collapse of the shahs government, which left Iran weak and its military in disarray, would give him the best opportunity to establish himself as Iraqs dictator as well as the Arab worlds unchallenged leader. Because of his illusions and delusions, Saddam failed to grasp the old mans wisdom on Iraqi TV that day, and 30 years after the war ended, Iran today enjoys enormous influence in Iraq. Its military power and the ideology of its Islamic Revolution have also seen wide-ranging regional extensions. * A version of this article appears in print in the 7 February, 2019 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: How Saddam perceived Irans revolution Short link: Thomasena Grider (left), the first black, female Lexington police sergeant is presented her official promotion by Lexington Police Chief Lawrence Weathers. Photo provided by the Lexington Police Department. You have permission to edit this article. Edit Close Two South Koreans were arrested at Croatia's main airport as they tried to smuggle 252,000 live baby eels, an endangered species, out of the country, police said Thursday. The two men, aged 38 and 57, were arrested on Wednesday after customs officials at Zagreb airport discovered the eels in their luggage, a police statement said. The two could be charged with "destroying protected natural values". The eels have been handed over to Zagreb zoo. (AFP) Renault Samsung's Busan plant / Korea Times file By Baek Byung-yeul Jose-Vincente de Los Mozos, deputy alliance executive vice president of manufacturing and supply chain at Renault Group By Lee Seong-hyon When boarding a C-130 military cargo plane, do as Tom Cruise does. Enter from the rear paratrooper door, as seen in Mission Impossible. This time, the mission is an hour's flight away from Taipei's Songshan airbase. The destination? Taiwan's DMZ. The island of Kinmen (or Quemoy) is Taiwan's DMZ. Nobody here calls it that. But that's what I would call it. For me, there was no better way to describe it. This is the closest place in Taiwan to China. Located only 2km off China's coast, it faces the Chinese city of Xiamen. Just like the DMZ, Kinmen is a symbol of a decades-long Cold War standoff between Taiwan and China. During the two Taiwan Strait Crises, the island was hit by shells, like rain drops from the sky. Even today, one can see barricades placed on beaches, artillery hidden on hillsides. Just like the DMZ, there are restricted areas. Just like the DMZ, there are massive tunnels underground. Just like the DMZ, there are walls of loudspeakers here. Just like in the DMZ, one would feel the presence of fallen spirits amidst the sound of the wind. As our C-130 approached the island, a foreign visitor in my group who had previously been to the island gently warned the group to turn off the Wi-Fi network function in our mobile phones, and not to use the free mainland Wi-Fi signals. (Due to geographical proximity, China's Wi-Fi signals are receivable here). He explained that his phone was compromised when he linked his phone to a free Wi-Fi network signal from the mainland. Some of us followed his advice. If there were another cross-strait conflict, this place will the one that will bear the brunt of it. The name Kinmen means "golden gate" in Chinese, underscoring its strategic location. Today, mainlanders still come here in swarms, as tourists. One of their favorite photo-op spots is a cave with a long artillery cannon that was used during the past crises. The artillery shells that once whistled through the skies above Kinmen are now used to make the island's famous kitchen knives. Just like the DMZ, there are many battle stories here such as "the 823 Artillery Bombardment" or "the Tatan and Ertan battle." Just like some people in South Korea wish to transform the DMZ into a peace park, residents here want the island to become a "memorial park of the Cold War." In 2001, as the tensions thawed between Taiwan and China, passenger and trade began between Kinmen and Xiamen. In 2008, the "Three Links" (direct air, sea and postal links to the mainland) from all over Taiwan were opened up. Kinmen later cleared its beaches of landmines too. Today, over 40 daily ferries make the half-hour journey between Kinmen and Xiamen. The island's population has surged. It even opened a water pipeline which supplies fresh water from the mainland province of Fujian. Tourists from the mainland China come here not just to reminisce old battle memories. But there is something more. Kinmen's Kaoliang! It is a distilled liquor made from fermented sorghum. Kinmen's Kaoliang is perhaps more well-known than the island's war history. The Kinmen Kaoliang liquor is so famous that today it is the main engine of the island's economy. When this author's group visited the Kinmen Kaoliang factory, we were served with different Kaoliang samples. This author tasted all of them for research purposes. Sometimes more than once for research purposes only. Another one-hour flight took me back to Taipei. As I was exiting the military base of Songshan airport, I saw a "China Air" plane parked nearby. (Songshan has both a military base and a commercial airport). Even though China and Taiwan's relationship sometimes undergoes tense moments, and even though there is sometimes a war rhetoric used, I realized they have come this closer to each other. The economies, transportation, and people of Taiwan and China are significantly integrated in real life. That's something absent in the two Koreas' relationship. That's something Koreans need to emulate. For South Korea, if it wants a role model to learn how to integrate inter-Korean transportation, the economy, and people exchanges, or just simply wants to observe how the whole thing is done in a real-life situation, Taiwan's Kinmen could certainly be a good reference. It's a worthwhile place for a study tour. And when you go there, make sure you taste the Kinmen Kaoliang samples for research. Lee Seong-hyon (sunnybbsfs@gmail.com), Ph.D., is director of the Center for Chinese Studies at the Sejong Institute. Overworked medical center chief dies during holidays The sudden death earlier this week of Yoon Han-deok, chief of the National Emergency Medical Center, has left a void in the hearts of many Koreans following the Lunar New Year holidays. The cause of the death is known to be heart attack. He was 51 years old. When he was found Monday by his colleagues and his family, he was seated at his desk. It was after hours but he continued to remain in his office to be on standby for any emergency during the holidays. The National Emergency Medical Center is responsible for managing more than 500 emergency centers nationwide. The late doctor worked tirelessly to improve the quality of emergency medical treatment. President Moon Jae-in paid tribute to him on his Facebook page, lauding his devotion to his profession. "For him, saving people's lives and safety came before himself and his family even during the holidays." Han was considered a pioneer in his field, having introduced new procedures to effectively treat emergency patients over his 25 years as a doctor. He joined the National Emergency Medical Center in 2002 after graduating from Chonnam National University Medical School. The renowned surgeon Lee Guk-jong, chief of Ajou University Hospital's trauma center, remembered the late Han as a "pillar" of the emergency medicine community. His death comes only about a month after another shocking death of a doctor earlier last month when a psychiatrist was stabbed to death by a patient during a consultation. This had prompted concerns about the working conditions of doctors. According to a recently survey by the Korean Society of Emergency Medicine, more than 60 percent of emergency medical staff have experience some kind of assault on the job. In Yoon's case, the problem seems to have been overwork more than anything else. His death shows the extreme working conditions for staff at emergency medical centers. Overworked doctors who do not have enough time to take care of themselves will have a difficult time performing their job properly. A tired physician cannot possibly be able to serve patients to their fullest. Hospitals and emergency centers should ensure that their staff work reasonable hours. Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon paid his respects to the deceased Friday and offered his condolences to the bereaved family members. On his SNS, he said the government will push for a reinforcement of public medical services, particularly emergency medical systems. Han's death is a huge loss to the entire Korean medical community. The government should honor his legacy by preparing measures to raise the efficiency of emergency medical systems. 'Big-2' system better poised to beat out foreign rivals On Jan. 31, the state-run Korea Development Bank (KDB) temporarily agreed to sell its controlling stake in Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering to Hyundai Heavy Industries. Should Hyundai Heavy take over Daewoo, it will reshape Korea's shipbuilding sector from the "Big-3" to a"Big-2" system Hyundai Heavy and Samsung Heavy Industries. KDB will also sound out whether Samsung Heavy intends to bid for Daewoo. If Samsung does not, as is likely now, KDB and Hyundai will sign a formal contract on March 8. Unions at both Hyundai and Daewoo, which had been alienated from the process of the deal, are strongly opposed to the move, however. According to data from the Korea Offshore and Shipbuilding Association, Hyundai and Daewoo account for a respective 52.7 percent and 27.6 percent of orders received by local shipyards. That means some workforce redundancies will likely be inevitable if the two companies merge. At a time when global shipbuilding is mired in a slump and latecomers pose stiff challenges, however, the sector can hardly avoid overall reorganization. If the industry is to maintain its competitive edge amid a global glut of vessels, it must begin by reducing the number of shipbuilders. In the past, the domestic shipbuilding sector used to be bent on price dumping amid the cutthroat competition. This was due to their strategy of maximizing order receipts by sacrificing profitability. The plan worked when shipbuilding was a labor-intensive industry marked with low added value. However, those days have long gone. Now the sector calls for building high value-added vessels and floating structures, which requires technology-intensive capital and labor. The ongoing shipbuilding restructuring is the process to adjust to these changes in ways that heighten added value. The merger and acquisition in the domestic shipbuilding sector is unavoidable in this regard. But opinions differ over the extent to which the government can intervene in the process of such restructuring. It is also time for policymakers to give answers not just to the issue of M&As among giant shipbuilders, but the question of how to operate small- and medium-sized berths. By Trudy Rubin President Donald Trump's references to foreign policy in his State of the Union address were brief, defensive, and contradictory. His remarks on protecting American security comprised only about 16 minutes of a one-hour-and-26-minute speech. They seemed more like a test run of 2020 campaign themes than any coherent outline of his efforts to defend the country. Whether or not it was the president's intention, his foreign policy mentions reinforced the image of a president who is bent on surrendering America's decades of global leadership. And what he left out of his remarks was as telling as what he included. Here are the top takeaways from the foreign policy portion of his speech. America's two strategic adversaries got hardly a mention. Trump referred to Russia only briefly (regarding arms treaties) although he did so indirectly when he decried "ridiculous partisan investigations." As for China, he spoke of his imposition of tariffs on Beijing and work on a "new trade deal." But he never mentioned the real danger from China (and Russia) against which the White House has refused to lead: the threats of cyberattacks that will dominate the wars of the future. NATO allies were only referenced in terms of their increased military spending. No word of support for the alliance. The president touted his increased military buildup and budget, but spent much of his 16 minutes defending his planned troop withdrawals from Syria and Afghanistan. His remarks were obviously directed at keeping a promise to his base. They also were aimed at the hefty number of GOP senators in the chamber, led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who voted last week to rebuke the president on those troop withdrawals. "Great nations do not fight endless wars," the president said, citing "almost 19 years" fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. (Someone should tell him that Afghanistan is in Central Asia). He repeated his intent to withdraw 2,000 special forces from Syria. And on Afghanistan, he said "the hour has come to at least try for peace. And the other side (the Taliban) would like to do the same thing." What the president didn't say is that he never informed the top U.S. commander in the Mideast, Gen. Joseph Votel, before abruptly announcing the U.S. withdrawal on Twitter. Nor did he say that such a withdrawal will aid Iranian and Russian efforts to deepen their hold on Syria _ and put our Kurdish allies at dire risk. Or that a total withdrawal of 14,000 U.S. troops from Afghanistan is likely to lead to a Taliban takeover, and, once again, to the crushing of Afghan women. But most importantly, what Trump left out is that maintaining the small U.S. troop presence in both countries is not fighting a war. Rather, it is investing in long-term stability of those countries and preventing their fall to adversaries who can or will endanger U.S. interests. That troop presence also means standing by (Kurdish and Afghan) allies. What is the purpose of the huge military buildup of tanks and missiles, if we are unwilling to commit to those goals? The president also proudly praised his other withdrawals _ from arms treaties with Russia and Iran _ but opened the door to a new arms race. Yes, Russia has probably violated the INF treaty on intermediate-range missiles, and China isn't a party to the pact. But any threat to leave the deal should be a lever to renegotiate the deal with Moscow in a fashion that might also nudge China to join. Instead Trump wants to junk it, in apparent disdain for any nuclear accords, which reopens the door to an all-out nuclear arms race. "We have no choice," he said, but that is untrue. Ditto for junking the JCPOA nuclear deal with Iran. Trump proclaimed he did so "to ensure this corrupt dictatorship never acquires nuclear weapons." But jettisoning a deal that prevented those weapons for at least 15 years goes in the opposite direction. Trump announced a new summit with North Korea's Kim Jong-un on Feb. 27-28, but didn't mention there's been no progress on denuclearization since the last summit. Many Korea experts worry the president will make further up-front concessions to Kim _ like pledging to withdraw U.S. troops from South Korea _ without getting any reduction of North Korean nukes. The president touted his efforts for regime change in Venezuela. Yet he made this questionable U.S. intervention appear as little more than a possible new theme for the 2020 election. He segued from denouncing the Maduro regime's "socialist policies" into a rant against "new calls to adopt socialism in our country." This was a bizarre effort at trying to tar the Democratic Party with a bogeyman label that will appeal to Trump's base. This doesn't bode well for foreign policy in 2019. Trudy Rubin ( trubin@phillynews.com ) is a columnist and editorial-board member for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Her commentary was istributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. By Gwynne Dyer "The Taliban have committed, to our satisfaction, to do what is necessary that would prevent Afghanistan from ever becoming a platform for international terrorist groups or individuals," said Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan reconciliation, recently. So why didn't the United States have this discussion with the Taliban 17 years ago, in October 2001? The deal is not finalized "We have a draft of the framework that has to be fleshed out before it becomes an agreement," Khalilzad explained but the American representative has just spent six days negotiating with the Taliban in Qatar, and the signs are good. The next steps are setting dates for the final American withdrawal from Afghanistan and opening direct talks between the U.S.-backed Afghan government and the Taliban. There is still much to do, but this could work. So congratulations to Donald Trump and shame on the Washington analysts and experts who could never bring themselves to recommend just ending America's longest-ever war. Some of them are the same people who didn't realize 17 years ago that these talks should have happened then. The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001 was always about 9/11 and nothing else. The country was targeted because the Taliban, who had come to power five years before, had allowed Osama bin Laden and his band of Islamist extremists to set up a base in Afghanistan, and they were assumed to be implicated in the horrendous attacks on New York and Washington. That assumption was almost certainly wrong. The Taliban had come to power in 1996 after a 10-year war against the Soviet invaders and the seven-year civil war that followed. They had been a long time out in the hills, and they were really enjoying power. What the Taliban did in power was both ridiculous and atrocious. They drove women from public life and closed girls' schools. They made men grow beards and women wear burqas. They banned music, movies and television. They mutilated people for small offenses and executed them for slightly bigger ones (most of which were not offenses at all in other Muslim countries). And they took absolutely no interest in the rest of the world. Under the Taliban, Afghanistan really didn't have a foreign policy at all. But the leader of the regime, Mullah Omar, was a personal friend of Osama bin Laden, whom he had met in Pakistan in the 1980s. (Both men were then involved in the war against the Soviet occupation.) So when bin Laden was forced out of his refuge in Sudan by the Clinton administration in 1996, Omar let him set up camp in southern Afghanistan and told him not to carry out political activities on Afghan soil. Bin Laden abused that hospitality, and approved the 9/11 attacks from there. (The actual planning was mostly done in Germany.) Did Mullah Omar have anything to do with the attacks? Did he even know about them in advance? Try to imagine the conversation. (Omar did speak Arabic.) "Omar, habibi, it's Osama. How are the wives and children?" "Not bad, thanks. Yours?" "Listen, Omar, I'm giving you a heads-up. Next week my guys are going to attack the United States and kill a few thousand Americans, and I'm afraid they're going to blame you too. So you'll get invaded and overthrown, and your Taliban guys will have to spend another ten years in the hills being hunted by gunships. But it's in a good cause. I hope you're OK with that." "Sure, Osama. Good luck with it." I'm pretty sure that conversation never happened. Why would Osama bin Laden tell Mullah Omar about the attack in advance, and run the risk that he wasn't OK with it? Most of the Taliban would certainly have been outraged by the mortal danger bin Laden had exposed them to. Could the Taliban have been persuaded to hand bin Laden over in order not to be invaded and driven from power? Maybe you couldn't have persuaded Mullah Omar, but many of the younger leaders were really not looking forward to being bombed out of the cities and chased back into the hills. And if they don't listen right away, spread some money around. You can't buy religious fanatics, but you can sometimes rent them if you find the right words to go with the money. Why wasn't it at least tried? Probably because there was a strong need to "kick ass" in the United States. Such a horrible crime couldn't be answered with mere diplomacy and legal proceedings. What was needed was bloody vengeance and catharsis. So Afghanistan got invaded, and several hundred thousand people died in the next 17 years. And since it has always been very easy to invade Afghanistan (though almost impossible to stay there), one invasion didn't provide enough catharsis. Thirty months later George W. Bush also invaded Iraq, although there were no terrorists there (and no "weapons of mass destruction"), and hundreds of thousands more died. And now they are finally negotiating the very same deal with the Taliban that could probably have been made in 2001. It would have saved a lot of time. Gwynne Dyer (gwynne763121476@aol.com) has worked as a freelance journalist, columnist, broadcaster and lecturer on international affairs for more than 20 years. He is the author of "Growing Pains: The Future of Democracy (and Work)." South Korea on Thursday (February 7) launched an investigation into containers of rubbish which were unlawfully exported to the Philippines and recently returned. According to South Korea's Environment Ministry, 51 containers carrying 1,200 tonnes of trash were illegally exported to Cagayan de Oro port in Mindanao of the Philippines last year and returned to Pyeongtaek port on Sunday (February 3). Philippine media reported that the shipments were declared as plastic synthetic flakes when they had instead contained wood, glass and electronic waste, as well as plastic. A surge in Boko Haram attacks in the northeast of Nigeria is threatening to throw preparations for presidential elections, slated for 16 February, into disarray, Haitham Nouri reports. The terrorist groups violence is not the only challenge to President Muhammadu Buhari, who is seeking a second four-year term. Clashes between farmers and nomadic herders over dwindling arable land in Nigerias central states, tensions in the oil-rich Delta in the south, and accusations of corruption by rights groups are threatening Buharis stay at the helm. An official from neighbouring Niger said Boko Haram killed six people in the groups latest operation on the border between the two countries. The militant organisation, that pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) a few years back before splitting, has become a regional concern after its attacks crossed Nigerias borders. Boko Haram, which means Western education is religiously forbidden, executed its first operation in 2009 and has since killed a total of 27,000 people, mainly in Nigeria, Chad, Niger and Cameroon. Those four countries, in addition to West African Benin, built a joint force of thousands of soldiers to eliminate the worlds bloodiest terrorists of Boko Haram. Buhari was elected in 2015 on a promise to restore security and destroy Boko Haram during his first tenure. To this day, however, the terrorist group is a deadly threat to Nigerians, two million of whom were displaced because of Boko Haram attacks. Amnesty International (AI) reported that Boko Haram killed 60 people in the northeast Nigerian town of Rann on 28 January, a day after it was abandoned by the military. It published a report saying it analysed satellite imagery which shows hundreds of burned structures in the town. Many of the destroyed structures only date back to 2017, suggesting they were shelters for internally displaced people who came to Rann seeking protection. Rann has become home to thousands of Nigerians who have set up displacement camps there to flee from Boko Haram attacks. The Nigerian army posted on its Facebook page Monday that Amnesty International claims on Rann [were] untrue. It is most unacceptable and unfair for AI to make such outlandish and unverified claims that troops abandoned their deployment a day before Boko Haram attack on the location, thereby exposing the IDPs [internally displaced persons] to a deadly attack. This claim is not only bereft of truth, but in its usual mannerism, is another futile effort by AI to portray the Nigerian military as incapable, as well as project the Nigerian government as not protective of her people in the eyes of the global community. The attack on Rann is one of the groups bloodiest, said Reuters Sunday. It came two weeks after Boko Haram had overrun the same town, driving out Nigerian soldiers and signalling its re-emergence as a force capable of capturing army bases. The two attacks on Rann resulted in the fleeing of 40,000 Nigerians from their homes. Some 30,000 of these headed to Cameroon. Amaq news agency, affiliated to the Islamic State West Africa Province, an offshoot of IS, last week claimed responsibility for killing 30 Nigerian soldiers in Borno state in the northeast. With Boko Harams expansion of terrorist operations into Lake Chad Basin countries, millions of people are enduring the horrors of terrorism in a region that comprises some of the African continents poorest countries, such as Niger. The United Nations office in Niamey, Nigers capital, stated Saturday that more than 10 per cent of Nigers population, approximately 2.3 million people, will become in need of humanitarian assistance in 2019. The displacement of hundreds of thousands of villagers, coupled with drought that has hit a number of Sahel countries, has exacerbated the food crisis in Niger. Some 300,000 people fled to Diffa Camp, northeast of Niger and close to the border with Nigeria, to escape Boko Haram attacks. In the western region along the borders with Mali, 52,000 people have been displaced as a result of Islamist attacks. Moreover, 57,000 Malians were displaced after the 2012 Malian coup detat that divided the country until France announced it was going to intervene. The government tried to return the displaced to their homes, but some relief agencies and rights group said they were sent back against their will. Many of the newly displaced say soldiers dropped their weapons and fled when Islamic State or Boko Haram arrived. Some said the insurgents killed soldiers they discovered fleeing with civilians, Reuters reported. Come election time, it looks like Nigerians in conflict zones will not maintain the same allegiance they displayed to Buhari in 2015. Despite the presidents efforts to curb corruption and eliminate Boko Haram, Nigeria remains in a poor state of affairs. Another factor comes into play, a scenario feared by old-guard politicians like Buhari and his main rival, businessman and former vice- president Atiku Abubakar, and that is millions of youth will vote for the first time since democracy found its way to Nigeria in 1999. The young people of Nigeria are not familiar with military dictatorships that ruled the country for over half of its independent history. Because the youth are more educated and acquainted with the 21st century world, they aspire to more than the previous generations settled for, said Fadl Abdel-Razek, professor of mass communications at Kano University. Statistics show that 60 per cent of the population, or 190 million Nigerians, are below the age of 30, and more than half of them are less than 18 years of age. Whatever the elections result may be, it is going to be the last contested elections for Buhari, 76, and Abubakar, 72, and their supporters like Olusegun Obasanjo, 81, and Ibrahim Babangida, 79. And this can mean only one thing: a new generation of politicians is about to emerge in Africas most populous and oil-richest country. Nonetheless, Abdel-Razek worries that the new generation will have the old guards same interests and orientations, in which case Nigerias form of democracy will not be able to offer a quick solution that saves the country from repeated crises. The 16 February presidential elections are the sixth suffrage for Nigerians since the instatement of democracy after the sudden death of the countrys last dictator, General Sani Abacha. Nigerians voted for Obasanjo, who ruled from 1999 to 2007, and Buhari, who was also Nigerias military ruler for 20 months in 1983-84. Nigeria has 109 senators and 360 members in its House of Representatives. The legislative elections resulted in the rise of an amalgamation of military personnel, businessmen, tribal leaders and religious figures, who left little room for modern forces of change made up of professionals and the countrys middle class and working-class strata. As if the countrys host of political and economic crises and national integration problems are not enough, Nigeria has to grapple with Boko Harams deadly attacks and the displacement of millions of its people. * A version of this article appears in print in the 24 January, 2018 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: Terrorism haunts Nigerias elections Short link: U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un face each other during an extended meeting of their first summit in Singapore, June. The two are scheduled to meet for the second time in Vietnam later this month. Yonhap By Oh Young-jin By most measures being floated now, the second summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un is doomed to fail. One common feature among those measures is the need for the North to take concrete steps to achieve complete (permanent), verifiable and irreversible destruction of its nuclear program C(P)VID or FFVD, fully verifiable denuclearization, in the latest version by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. But unless Kim is stupid (obviously he isn't), he won't give up the sword that has taken him so far and will certainly help him further on his survival path. Even if he is given U.S. security guarantees and bundles of cash from South Korea, the likelihood is that he will hold on to the ultimate weapons as long as possible to squeeze all he can from the situation. So those who tell Trump what he has to accomplish at the Feb. 27-28 summit in a Vietnamese city are wasting their breath. In dealing with the North, we Korea, the U.S. and the rest of the world have accomplished a lot. This time last year, there was a real possibility of a U.S. pre-emptive strike against the North that could have turned into, however lopsided, an exchange of nuclear weapons in an area where the interests of China, Russia and Japan compete with each other. With the Kim-Trump summit in Singapore last June, the first of its kind, the tension cooled significantly and the negotiating phase has since firmly taken over. By Kim Hyun-bin The sudden death of the head of the state emergency medical center shows the poor working conditions for medical staff, especially those in emergency medicine. Yoon Han-deok In this Feb. 3, 2019, file photo, U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun arrives at Incheon International Airport in Incheon, South Korea. Biegun has returned Friday, Feb. 8, 2019, AP-Yonhap By Kim Yoo-chul The United States and North Korea should go into their second summit ready to agree to a "modest deal," political analysts in Seoul said last week. They said the chances of the two countries reaching a "small or practical" deal in Vietnam later this month were far higher than in Singapore in June, last year, as both President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un want "something substantial and visible" from their second meeting. "Negotiators should aim for small, concrete achievements that serve the main parties' long-term interests. For Washington, progress toward verifying nuclear facilities and for Pyongyang, a commitment to negotiating an end to the Korean War. In addition, for both Koreas, a reopening of now-halted joint economic projects," the International Crisis Group (ICS) said in a recent report. As the think tank noted, the contours of a credible quid pro quo are already on the table with South Korean President Moon Jae-in mediating relevant procedures for trust-building between Washington and Pyongyang. The United States has demanded that North Korea hand over a full list of its plutonium and uranium enrichment facilities and nuclear assets. Also, it wants North Korea to allow third-party inspectors to verify the destruction and disposal of nuclear facilities in return for reciprocal measures, it said. "In practical terms, North Korea wants a political declaration that the Korean War is over as well as some sanctions relief. It's highly unlikely that the two sides will announce a dramatic outcome at the upcoming summit given the continued doubts by pundits in Washington over the North's assessment of its nuclear program," said Yang Moo-jin, a North Korean expert in Seoul. Jung Tae-ho, senior secretary for job creation, speaks at a media briefing at Cheong Wa Dae in Seoul, Friday. / Yonhap By Lee Min-hyung Cheong Wa Dae expressed hopes Friday of establishing more Gwangju-type job creation models across the nation, in a move to help local companies reduce labor costs and reinvigorate regional economies. The new job creation model refers to the government's partnership drive with Hyundai Motor Group and the nation's southwestern city. Under the model, Hyundai will build a car factory in the city. Employees there will receive about half the usual wages of workers. To help resolve the gap, the central and regional governments will offer financial and welfare support packages to the employees, such as housing and healthcare. "The government is preparing for spreading the job creation model across the country," Jung Tae-ho, senior secretary for job creation, said at a media briefing Friday. "In the first half of this year, we hope to create at least more than two similar models (in other cities). The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy is also taking legal steps to support the model." The legal steps are crucial to making the model sustainable even after the President Moon Jae-in administration ends its tenure in 2022, according to Jung. "The most crucial issue discussed with Gwangju City and Hyundai was how long the project will last in a stable way," Jung said. "After establishing a legal basis on the project, we are going to unveil details in February to remove lingering concerns on the project's sustainability." Regional governments are also willing to take part in the government drive, with cities such as Gunsan, Gumi and Daegu expressing keen interest in the co-prosperity job model, according to Jung. "The Gwangju-type job creation model is a new breakthrough to revitalize the sagging regional economy," Jung said. "This will be the first time in 23 years that Hyundai Motor has built a new car plant in Korea." The government has pushed ahead with a series of policies to rev up the economy, but the Gwangju-type model is different in that it is a win-win for local companies and regional governments, Jung said. "A number of businesspeople from the nation's major conglomerates contacted me and most of them paid the most attention to the Gwangju-type job model, saying that the project can build an environment that will bring their overseas plants home." A choir performs holding the Taegeukgi, the Korean national flag, at the Korean YMCA building in Tokyo, Japan, Friday, during a ceremony marking the 100th anniversary of the Feb. 8 Independence Declaration. The declaration was issued on Feb. 8, 1919 by Korean students studying in Japan to declare their aspiration for Korea's independence from Japanese colonial rule. / Yonhap By Jung Hae-myoung By Kim Bo-eun It is unlikely that the leaders of China and South Korea will join a summit between the U.S. and North Korea, with President Donald Trump stating he would not be meeting his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping this month. Earlier, a media report said Trump and Xi could meet in Vietnam's resort city of Danang Feb. 27 and 28. Days later, the U.S. president announced his second summit with Kim would take place on the same dates, also in Vietnam. Trump then told reporters at the White House, Thursday (local time), he would not meet with President Xi this month, but possibly later. Expectations were that President Moon Jae-in could join the meeting with Xi and that both would then participate on the sidelines of Trump's summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to declare an official end to the 1950-53 Korean War. The declaration has been considered one of the reciprocal steps that Washington could offer Pyongyang for its denuclearization measures. Cheong Wa Dae had not ruled out the chance of Moon going to Vietnam given his continued efforts last year to push ahead with multilateral talks on achieving peace on the Korean Peninsula. The Seodaemun municipal government in Seoul said Friday it has been named one of 10 winners of the 2019 UNESCO Learning City Award for its exemplary progress and commitment to promoting education and lifelong learning. The UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning gives the biennial award to a municipality with a membership of the UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities in recognition of outstanding efforts to improve educational environment at the local level. The Hamburg-based institute said Seodaemun has taken advantage of its many high-rise apartments by creating small learning communities that teach 50 courses each year in residents' living rooms. The 10 winners include Egypt's Aswan, Malaysia's Petaling Jaya, China's Chengdu, Greece's Herakleion, Nigeria's Ibadan, Ukraine's Melitopol, Mexico's Santiago, Colombia's Medellin and Denmark's Sonderborg. They are scheduled to receive the awards during a ceremony at the 2019 International Conference on Learning Cities in the Colombian city of Medellin in October. (Yonhap) The alleged victim's statement at Seoul National University. Yonhap A South Korean graduate student at Seoul National University, the nation's top-ranked school, has posted on campus a multipage expose of her experience with sexual harassment, according to multiple reports. The student, who was not identified by Yonhap or local news service Money Today, said her professor made sexual advances during overseas conference trips. The woman posted her statements in English, Spanish and Korean. She recently completed her master's degree in Spanish and is currently studying abroad, according to the university. The written statement alleges the university professor, who also served as her adviser, harassed her and targeted her with "sexual violence" for four years. "I want to tell the world of the unjust things that have happened at the Spanish department of Seoul National University," the student wrote. "Over the course of four years, I became a victim of sexual harassment, various forms of sexual violence and all kinds of human rights violations." The student went on to explain she was coerced into traveling with the professor. "He pressured me to go to a conference in Spain," the woman wrote. It was there, at their hotel, he began to engage in inappropriate behavior. "[The professor] said he wanted to see the burn scars on the inside of my thighs, then raised my skirt to feel my legs," the student said in her trilingual statement. She also said he touched her hair and massaged her shoulders and arms without her permission, when she fell asleep on a bus. "He demanded I receive his permission before I date a man," she wrote. The student said the university's decision to suspend the professor for three months was a light penalty for the pain caused. More than 17 other students have experienced harassment from the same man, the woman alleged, according to reports. The women-led #MeToo movement in South Korea has led to a surge of sexual assault accusations against powerful men by women. Last week, former South Korean Gov. Hee-jung was convicted of rape and sentenced to prison. (UPI) In this Feb. 5, 2019, photo, US President Donald Trump gives his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress at the Capitol in Washington, as Vice President Mike Pence, left, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi listen. By Kim Bo-eun, Kim Yoo-chul The United States has asked North Korea to hand over a list of nuclear experts who were directly involved in the development of its intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), according to sources, Friday. They said U.S. officials engaged in working-level discussions in Pyongyang for the second summit between the U.S. and North Korea scheduled for later this month were focusing on the dismantlement of the North's ICBMs, as well as the complete closure of its Yongbyon nuclear facility. "Among Washington's demands was for Pyongyang to list its ICBM developers," one source said. Cheong Wa Dae officials declined to comment on the issue. North Korea has made some striking advances in missile and nuclear weapons development. While it's unclear whether it has had similar successes in warhead miniaturization, re-entry systems and missile guidance because of technological challenges, Washington is still suspicious over its continued efforts to fine-tune missile-related technology. Pyongyang has attempted to develop more sophisticated ICBMs, but these ultimately became "showroom models" due to an inability to work out key technological problems. However, senior intelligence officials in Washington regard ICBMs as a direct threat to the U.S mainland. Egypts President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi will travel to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on Saturday in an official visit for an African Union (AU) summit where he will assume the 2019 chairmanship of the body. In a statement on Friday, the Presidential Spokesman Bassam Rady explained that El-Sisi will take over as chairman on Sunday prior to the 32nd Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union. Rady said it is the first time an Egyptian leader has chaired the AU since it was established in 2002. He said that the chairmanship is a coronation of Egyptian efforts led by the president in the last few years to boost relations with the African states on both the bilateral and multilateral levels; and a restoration of Egypts pivotal role in the continent, since Egypt was one of the founding countries of the Organisation of African Unity, the AU's predecessor, in the 1960s. The spokesman said Sundays summit will be held under the theme of Year of Refugees, Returnees and Internally Displaced People," which he said was chosen due to Africas efforts to stem influx of returnees and refugees and a rise in human trafficking. The summit will also see discussions related to issues on sustainable development that fall under the AUs 2063 Agenda; regional integration and complementarity through developing the continents infrastructure and the continental connectivity projects; and efforts to activate Africas free zone. The summit will also discuss coordinating with international financing corporations and strategic partners of the continent to mobilise fund and support needed for Africa's development, while also pushing efforts to formulate innovative solutions to overcome the negative impact of the climate change phenomena. Health, education, innovation, and localising technology will also be discussed, Rady explained. The African leaders will also review the efforts of reviving African policy for reconstruction and development in post-conflict phases, as well as activities on combating terrorism and extremism in the continent. Talks on security and safety in the continent, including the intensive endeavours to resolve conflicts in notable hotbeds in the region, and on the implementation of the AUs Silencing the guns in Africa by 2020 decision are on the agenda, Rady added. Short link: Chang Won-sam, the top negotiator in defense cost sharing negotiations shakes hands with Timothy Betts, a deputy assistant secretary at the U.S. Department State, after holding their fourth round of talks on the renewal of a defense cost sharing contract, at the Korea National Diplomatic Academy in southern Seoul, June 26. / Yonhap By Lee Min-hyung South Korea will likely pay around 1.05 trillion won ($934 million) in defense cost sharing with the United States this year, with the months-long negotiations in their final stages. They have also agreed to renew the contract annually instead of the current five-yearly interval, sources directly involved with the matter said Friday. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs plans to make an official announcement and hold a press briefing on the sometimes fractious talks, Feb. 10. The ministry is the authority in charge of negotiations for the Special Measures Agreement (SMA) governing the cost sharing. "Seoul and Washington plan to sign a provisional contract on the compromise," one source said. The South and the U.S. have shared the cost burden for the United States Forces Korea (USFK) since 1991, and renewed the contract every two to five years. Chang Won-sam, a former ambassador to Sri Lanka, will sign the agreement with Timothy Betts, deputy assistant secretary of the U.S. Department State, in Seoul. The two men have led the delegations from each side in the talks. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and U.S. President Donald Trump during their first summit in Singapore on June 12 last year. Yonhap file By Jung Da-min The Choson Sinbo, the pro-Pyongyang media outlet headquartered in Tokyo, highlighted "completely changed" North Korea-U.S. relations, Thursday, referring to negotiations for a second summit between the two countries as a move toward the normalization of relations. "Throughout last year, the composition of DPRK-U.S. relations has shifted from confrontation to conversation and the 70 year-old history of DPRK-U.S. nuclear confrontation is finally coming to an end," the report said. It was written on the occasion of U.S. university students' visit to the pro-Pyongyang Korea University in the Japanese capital, and highlighted improving relations between the two countries on the government and non-government level The report said U.S. President Donald Trump was "all-in" on improving DPRK-U.S. relations, highlighting the vice chairman of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) Kim Yong-chol's visit to Washington, D.C., to deliver a letter from leader Kim Jong-un to Trump and the following working-level talks between the two countries in Stockholm. It further argued that North Korea and the U.S. now have no option but to have talks and negotiate, as North Korea has already secured a strategic nuclear capability. "The relationship between the two countries is already that of a nuclear state versus a nuclear state," it said. "The DPRK-U.S. relations have no other way than talks, just like Russia-U.S. relations cannot lead to nuclear confrontation despite conflicts over various issues." The report also focused on the U.S. university students' visit to Tokyo, led by Professor Derek Ford of DePauw University in Indiana. This was the first student exchange between DePauw University and Korea University through their joint "International Student Exchange Program: ISEP." The U.S. delegation was comprised of 14 students and two professors, and toured the university's campus, museum and historic sites from Japan's colonial rule of Korea, such as a forced labor site. Professor Ford also held an English lecture for students of the two universities on the subject of the history of North Koreans in Japan over the past 70 years following liberation from Japanese occupation. Professor Park Young-shin's father Park Jung-heun poses at his apple farm in North Gyeongsang Province in this undated photo. He died of complications from a stroke in 2010. He was 97. / Photo from Park Young-shin By Kang Hyun-kyung Park Young-shin, author of "Stories My Father Told Me: A Korean Father's Wisdom for His Child," said her late father's legacy lives on in every corner of her life. Although he died nearly a decade ago, Park, 62, said her fond childhood memories have inspired her to walk the talk. Her father, Park Jung-heun (1914-2010), encouraged his five children to "work hard, do the right thing, never turn a blind eye to injustice and be there for those who are in need." "Stories My Father Told Me" is a memoir of her father and revisits stories she heard from him since her childhood. The Korean book was published in 2013, three years after her father died of complications from a stroke. He was 97. Last year, the book was translated into English and the English edition was released in December. Park, also a professor in the Department of Education at Inha University, said her father was a superhero who made something out of nothing. "He was an ordinary farmer with a humble background," she said during a recent interview with The Korea Times. "He was not well educated but he was a wise man. His internal world was remarkable. To me he was like a high mountain. He led by example and fed his children and got them to receive good higher education." His hard work and strong upbringing helped three of his children become university professors. Her father was a North Korean escapee. Born in 1914 in Pyongwon County, South Pyongan Province, he fled his hometown after the outbreak of the 1950-53 Korean War. He settled down in the southeastern rustic county of Yeongcheon, North Gyeongsang Province, and made a living growing apple trees. The war had separated him from his parents, causing him to miss them all his life. As an apple farmer, he started from scratch. Park said her father was a strong man who had survived 12 life-threatening incidents, including asthma and stomach cancer in his 80s. She said her father was a storyteller, too. "When I was young, I used to listen to stories he told me on his lap," she said. "Some of them were told several times. But I was never bored. I was a mediocre girl with no particular talent for anything. I came to build self-esteem because of my inspiring father." Park Young-shin, author of "Stories My Father Told Me: A Korean Father's Wisdom for His Child" Like other people of his time, her father became part of Korea's tragic modern history. He spent his childhood and young adult years during Japan's colonial rule. He witnessed Japan's brutal crackdown on protesters during the March 1 Independence Movement in 1919. "(The protestors) were tied together by their topknot and dragged down the streets, bleeding from stab wounds," the book reads. The young boy watched the scene hiding behind a zelkova tree, shivering and barely breathing. Japan's brutal colonial rule came to an end in 1945 with the victory of the allied forces. But the joy of liberation didn't last long as the Korean War followed a few years later. Professor Park said Koreans of her parents' generation were unsung heroes. "I think Korea was able to rise from the ashes of the Korean War and achieve miraculous economic growth afterwards, thanks to the older generation who sacrificed their lives for their children and got them to have higher education," she said. "In a country like Korea that was not endowed with rich natural resources, human capital was the key driver behind the country's transformation into an economic powerhouse from a war-torn country." "Stories My Father Told Me: A Korean Father's Wisdom for His Child" published by Hollym Stay up to date on COVID-19 Get Breaking News Sign up now to get our FREE breaking news coverage delivered right to your inbox. MOUNT VERNON Municipal Court Judge John Thatcher found 36 people guilty after arraignments and hearings were held at the Mount Vernon Municipal Court Feb. 4 through 6. Feb. 4 Jeffrey Sherbahn, 52 of Mount Vernon, was found guilty of Disorderly Conduct. The Court sentenced him to pay Court costs only. Christian Robinette, 27 of Fredericktown, was found guilty of Disorderly Conduct/Persisting. The Court sentenced him to serve one day in jail, with credit for time served. Amanda Ross, 47 of Mount Vernon, was found guilty of Driving Under an FRA Suspension. The Court sentenced her to pay a $200 fine. John Capoccia, 58 of Mount Vernon, was found guilty of two counts of Violating a Temporary Protection Order. The Court sentenced him to pay a $500 fine, serve 180 days in jail, with 170 days suspended, and placed him on two years of probation. Crystal Adkins, 40 of Lexington, was found guilty of Operating a Vehicle While Under the Influence. The Court sentenced her to pay a $500 fine, serve 180 days in jail, with 174 days suspended, placed her on two years of community control: with the following condition: attend and complete a 72-hour driver intervention program, and suspended her operators license for one year. Lawrence Dailey, 74 of Mount Vernon, was found guilty of Failing to Stop After an Accident. The Court sentenced him to pay a $250 fine, serve 180 days in jail, with all time suspended, placed him on two years of probation, and suspended his operators license for 180 days. Cindy Whitaker, 41 of Mansfield, was found guilty of Disorderly Conduct. The Court sentenced her to pay a $100 fine. Ashley Davis, 28 of Mount Vernon, was found guilty Possession of Marijuana Drug Paraphernalia. The Court sentenced her to pay a $150 fine. Director of Law Rob Broeren represented the State of Ohio in the Robinette case and the City of Mount Vernon in the Sherbahn and Ross cases. Assistant Director of Law Brittany Whitney represented the State of Ohio and the City of Mount Vernon in the remaining cases. Feb. 5 Jennifer N. Kersey, 37 of Mount Vernon, was found guilty of Petty Theft and Criminal Trespass. The Court sentenced her to pay a $200 fine, serve 180 days in jail, with 180 days suspended, and placed her on two years of probation with the following conditions: attend and complete the social responsibility clinic. David V. Workman, 42 of Fredericktown, was found guilty of Possession of Marijuana. The Court sentenced him to pay a $150 fine. Brandon L. Butler, 23 of Mount Vernon, was found guilty of Obstructing Official Business. The Court sentenced him to pay Court costs, and serve two days in jail with credit for time served. Michael W. Brown, 40 of Mount Vernon, was found guilty of Illegally Harvesting a Deer and Giving False Information. The Court sentenced him to pay a $250 fine for each charge. James D. Wever, 25 of Mount Vernon, was found guilty of Possession of Marijuana. The Court sentenced him to pay a $150 fine. Terry L. Trushel, 63 of Walhonding, was found guilty of Driving Under the Influence, Failure To Control, and Driving On the Left Side of the Roadway, and Approaching a Public Safety Vehicle Displaying its Emergency Lights. The Court sentenced him to pay a $500 fine, serve 180 days in jail, with 177 days suspended, and placed him on two years of community control with the following conditions: attend and complete a three day drivers intervention program, and suspended his operators license for one year for the OVI charge and an additional $50 fine for the Public Safety Vehicle violation. Timmy L. Goines, 55 of Mount Vernon, was found guilty of Driving Under Suspension. The Court sentenced him to pay a $250 fine plus Court costs. Richard C. Jackson, 41 of Mount Vernon, was found guilty of Driving Under Suspension. The Court sentenced him to pay a $250 fine plus Court costs. Alexander R. McDonald, 36 of Carroll, was found guilty of Driving Under Suspension and Expired Registration. The Court sentenced him to pay a $200 fine for the Driving Under Suspension charge and a $15 fine for the Expired Registration charge. Cody A. Howard, 24 of Howard, was found guilty of Driving Under a 12-point Suspension. The Court sentenced him to pay a $200 fine plus Court costs, and serve three days in jail. Kaleb I. Kirkman, 29 of Mount Vernon, was found guilty of Driving Under Suspension. The Court sentenced him to pay a $250 fine plus Court costs. Austin N. Elliott, 19 of Mount Vernon, was found guilty of Failing To Use Reasonable Control. The Court sentenced him to pay a $35 fine plus Court costs. Michael A. Miller, 36 of Mount Vernon, was found guilty of two counts of Theft and Criminal Trespassing. The Court sentenced him to pay Court costs, and serve 60 days in jail. Timothy A. Llewellyn, 25 of Mount Vernon, was found guilty of two counts of Possession of Drug Abuse Instruments. The Court sentenced him to pay Court costs, serve 90 days in jail, with 83 days suspended, and placed him on two years of probation. Shaquan M. Moore, 23 of Mansfield, was found guilty of Obstructing Official Business. The Court sentenced him to serve two days in jail with credit for time served. Justin M. Haught, 33 of Mount Vernon, was found guilty of Inducing Panic. The Court sentenced him to serve 180 days in jail, with 177 days suspended, and placed him on two years of probation. Taylor D. Kesman, 25 of Mount Vernon, was found guilty of Telecommunications Harassement. She will be sentenced on March 19, 2019. Breanna K. Davis, 27 of Mount Vernon, was found guilty of Assault. She will be sentenced on March 19, 2019. Nathan R. Frasure, 26 of Centerburg, was found guilty of Operating a Vehicle Under the Influence of Alcohol or an Illegal Drug. The Court sentenced him to pay a $500 fine plus Court costs, serve 180 days in jail, with 177 days suspended, and placed him on two years of community control with the following conditions: attend and completed a three day driver intervention program, and suspended his operators license for one year. Douglas L. Rine, 59 of Mount Vernon, was found guilty of Driving Under Suspension. The Court sentenced him to pay Court costs, and serve 10 days in jail. Joshua D. Bias, 42 of Centerburg, was found guilty of Driving Under a 12-point Suspension. The Court sentenced him to pay Court costs, and serve five days in jail. Shade A. Knox, 30 of Mount Vernon, was found guilty of Driving Under Suspension and Possession of Drug Paraphernalia. The Court sentenced him to pay a $250 fine for Driving Under Suspension and a $75 fine for Possession of Drug Paraphernalia. plus Court costs. Alayna D. Hoeflich, 19 of Mount Vernon, was found guilty of Driving Under Suspension and Driving an Unsafe Vehicle. The Court sentenced her to pay a $250 fine for Driving Under Suspension, and a $25 fine Driving an Unsafe Vehicle. Angela M. Baldwin, 30 of Mount Vernon, was found guilty of Driving Under Suspension. The Court sentenced her to serve 180 days in jail, with 170 days suspended, and placed her on two years of probation with the following condition: complete 30 hours of community service. Director of Law Rob Broeren represented the State of Ohio and the City of Mount Vernon. Feb. 6 Judge Thatcher found four people guilty after court trials and pre-trial hearings were held at the Mount Vernon Municipal Court on Feb. 6. Jeannie V. Maynard, 23 of Columbus, was found guilty of Driving Under Suspension, and Expired Registration. The Court sentenced her to pay a $200 fine for the Driving Under Suspension charge and a $25 fine for Expired Plates. Tera L. Gore, 43 of Mount Vernon, was found guilty of Failure To Pay Income Taxes and Failure To File Income Tax Return. The Court sentenced her to pay a $200 fine for Failure To Pay Income Tax and a $100 fine for Failing To File Taxes, serve 30 days in jail, with 30 days suspended, and placed her on one year of probation. Justus J. Frye, 23 of Mount Vernon, was found guilty of Assured Clear Distance/Speeding. The Court sentenced him to pay a $10 fine plus Court costs. Gregory V. Stoutenburgh, Jr., 50 of Mount Vernon, was found guilty of Speeding 39/35 MPH zone. The Court sentenced him to pay a $150 fine plus Court costs. Director of Law Rob Broeren represented the City of Mount Vernon in the Gore case. Assistant Director of Law Brittany A. Whitney represented the City of Mount Vernon in the Maynard and Stoutenburgh cases and the State of Ohio in the Frye case. Thirteen buildings housing 82 families in the west Cairo district of Manshiet Nasser have been condemned after geologists confirmed they were on the pathway of potential rockslides. Evacuated families have been moved to furnished housing in Moqattams Al-Asmarat district. Every now and then a rock slides from the mountain, says Wafaa Hussein, 41, a resident of the area. This time, thank God, nobody was harmed, and the government took speedy action. They told me I will be relocated within days to Al-Asmarat. I dont mind. Many of my neighbours have already been moved and I am waiting my turn. In 2008, and again in 2015, dozens of houses were flattened by rubble and tens of citizens killed in the neighbouring area of Duweiqa. The most recent rockslides have not yet resulted in any casualties, thanks largely to the fact the government has been moving residents to new housing away from the threatened shanty areas for several years. The houses to which the 82 families from Manshiet Nasser are being moved were constructed by the Nasser Social Bank as a part of the relocation plan. Informal Settlements Development Fund (ISDF) Manager Khaled Seddik says LE14 billion has been spent in the last two years to develop slum areas. The plan is to eradicate slums by 2030, he says. Currently, there are 1,100 areas designated as slums in Egypt, and more than 300 in Greater Cairo. The citys Manshiet Nasser district is one of the least safe areas in Egypt. There is the constant threat of landslides, and it has no running water, sewage system or electricity. We should all be rehoused soon, though I dont know where, says Sheikh Said, 45, a potter who owns a small workshop in the area. It is the workshop that is his major concern about relocating. It is the only thing I own. If I stop working for just one day we wouldnt find anything to eat. ISDF helps identify and develop informal areas by providing basic facilities such as potable water, sanitation and electricity. It supervises urbanisation plans for slum areas, assessing, and where necessary, condemning, unsafe buildings, and encourages civil society organisations and the business sector to help develop informal slums. Developing Manshiet Nasser and Duweiqa involves demolishing houses and buildings deemed unsafe. Houses on the mountains edge have been demolished and the residents are being relocated. Other areas in Manshiet Nasser are being re-planned. We are building a sewage system, and electricity and potable water networks, says Seddik. According to Seddik, 130 slum areas have already been developed. Port Said will soon become the first city to be free of slum areas. By the end of 2019 80,000 housing units will be ready to take in residents, on top of the 215,000 new housing units already built. SDF defines slums as either unplanned or unsafe areas. The latter are divided into four grades on the basis of the severity and type of danger they pose to residents, including environmental and geological factors (grade one); unsuitable shelters (grade two); exposure to industrial pollution, high-voltage power cables, or no access to potable water (grade three); and areas that include houses developed on state-owned land or property belonging to the Ministry of Religious Endowments (grade four). Manshiet Nasser and Duweiqa are both classified as grade one areas. Ministry of Housing Spokesman Hani Younis says an estimated 40 per cent of Cairos population live in informal settlements or slum areas, 75 per cent of urban areas across Egypt are unplanned and one per cent are deemed unsafe. The government has put LE20 billion into developing safer neighbourhoods and spent LE100 billion on 600,000 social housing units, he says. In 2014 President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi laid the foundation stone of phase one of Al-Asmarat district in Moqattam, a development of 6,300 residential ear-marked for residents of hazardous areas such as Duweiqa and Manshiet Nasser. Phase two of the project includes building 11,300 residential units, to which the ISDF and Ministry of Housing have contributed LE195 million. For three decades the government has worked with international donors to provide informal areas with educational, health and social services. In 2015 the government allocated LE500 million to develop Manshiet Nasser, legalising the status of many residential buildings and improving their facades, said Younis. * A version of this article appears in print in the 7 February, 2019 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: Safe relocation Short link: MOUNT VERNON -- The Knox County Health Department reports confirmed cases of influenza have increased in Knox County during the past month with 10 hospitalizations since the beginning of the year. The Ohio Department of Health (ODH) reports that flu activity is widespread throughout Ohio. Health department officials say it is not too late to get a flu shot. The health department still has flu vaccine as do most local retail pharmacies and doctors offices. There are no flu vaccine shortages across Ohio at this time. To schedule a flu shot at the health department, call 740-399-8008. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that everyone six months of age and older get a flu shot as it is the best protection against seasonable flu viruses. It takes about two weeks for a flu shot to take full effect. Flu activity typically peaks between December and February, but can last until May. There have been 1,832 flu-associated hospitalizations reported in Ohio so far this flu season. The Ohio Department of Health reported the states first pediatric death due to influenza on Wednesday. Symptoms of influenza can include fever, cough, sore throat, body aches, headache, chills and fatigue. Health officials recommend that if you are sick with the flu, stay home from work or school to prevent spreading it to others. Although most people fully recover from the flu, some experience severe illness like pneumonia and respiratory failure, and the flu can sometimes be fatal. People who think that they may have the flu and are pregnant, have an underlying medical condition or who are extremely ill should contact their healthcare provider. While vaccination provides the greatest protection against the flu, other effective ways to avoid getting or spreading it include: washing hands frequently or using alcohol-based hand sanitizer; covering coughs and sneezes with tissues, or coughing or sneezing into elbows; avoiding touching eyes, nose and mouth; and staying home when sick and until fever-free for 24 hours without using fever-reducing medication. Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. We have used your information to see if you have a subscription with us, but did not find one. Please use the button below to verify an existing account or to purchase a new subscription. It has been two months since President George H.W. Bush died. Lets take a look at his record versus the current president: Bush: Military hero; Donald Trump: Bone spurs. Bush: A gentleman; Trump: Grabs women wherever he wants, tweets disrespectful words at anyone disagreeing with him, name-calls liberally. Bush: Married to Barbara for 70 years; Trump: Twice divorced, numerous affairs (porn star included). Bush: Compromise was a reasonable part of politics; Trump: I am never wrong. Bush: CIA director, worked against the USSR (Russia), our enemy; Trump: Makes policy decisions in favor of Russia at every turn, highly critical of our intelligence agencies, denies he is a Russian agent and a Nazi sympathizer. Bush: Released his tax returns; Trump: Still hiding them. Bush: Generally truthful to the American people; Trump: Lies an average of at least eight times a day. Bush: Attended church regularly; Trump: Fore. Bush: A thousand points of light; Trump: Lets build a wall between us and a friend and make them pay (so funny). Looking for illegal immigrants? Go to any of Trumps properties. Facts show that illegal immigrants and drugs enter this country through existing border checkpoints. That is where our money and effort should go. The Kenosha area could be getting a fourth Culvers location in the near future. Culvers recently submitted plans to the city for a restaurant proposed for the southwest corner of Burlington Road (Highway 142) and 120th Avenue. The city Plan Commission held public hearings on an amended land use permit, a rezoning and an initial hearing on a conditional use permit for the sites drive-thru lanes Thursday. The proposed building would sit on Burlington Road between the frontage road and Interstate 94, just east of the interstate. It will sit on two properties, which will need to be combined as a condition of the development, according to paperwork filed with the city. The business will be in the vicinity of the Amazon Fulfillment Center and Mars Cheese Castle. McCon Building Corp. President Christopher J. McGuire, who will be overseeing the development, addressed the commission at Thursdays meeting, thanking them for their efficiency and their guidance in getting the project through the citys approval process. We are hoping to build a very similar store near Tampa, and in April it will be two years since we started that project just to get to the point of getting a permit, McGuire said. So I want to thank you. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} Great news on Foxconn in Wisconsin after my conversation with Terry Gou! Trump tweeted after the Feb. 1 call, which came only days after it was reported Foxconn was wavering in its commitment to the state. The White House renewed its threat last week to impose 25 percent tariffs on Chinese technology-related goods in response to complaints Beijing steals or pressures foreign companies to hand over technology. It is due to release a list of products on June 15. The Chinese government warned Sunday it would scrap deals to narrow its trade surplus with the United States by purchasing more American soybeans and other goods if Trumps tariffs went ahead. In the video, Gou said the U.S. is significantly ahead of China in areas such as jet engines and semiconductors. If China is to catch up, allow me to speak frankly, it must be in the areas of manufacturing technology, design and manufacturing technology, he said. They are the real economy. Foxconn is trying to develop beyond its roots as a low-cost assembler of products and become an advanced manufacturer and bigger player in the global supply chain. The company says its Wisconsin factory will make liquid crystal display panels for use in computers, TVs and self-driving cars. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 1 Sad 0 Angry 1 A Pleasant Prairie woman who allegedly stabbed her boyfriend, leading police to discover a drug-dealing operation, has been charged with five felonies. Sydney Bebo, 24, has been in Kenosha County Jail on a probation hold since Jan. 13 when she brought her boyfriend Joey Del Real to a hospital with a minor stab wound. The incident prompted an investigation that led Pleasant Prairie Police to serve a search warrant on the couples home in the 8600 block of Old Green Bay Road. While police were waiting for the warrant to arrive, Del Real who had left the hospital wearing a hospital gown and socks attempted to sneak into the house and was arrested. Inside the house, police found what a prosecutor characterized as a massive amount of drugs, including 350 grams of methamphetamine with an estimated street value of about $28,000 along with nearly 35 pounds of marijuana, 20 grams of cocaine and a backpack containing $78,000 in cash. Del Real was charged Jan. 22 with a series of drug-related felonies and for being a felon in possession of firearms. Bebo provided a different address than the Old Green Bay Road home. Egypt on Friday won a bid to host the African Space Agency (AfSA), an African Union body. In an official statement, Egypts foreign ministry spokesman Ahmed Hafez said African leaders, including Egyptian President Abde-Fattah El-Sisi, are set to ratify the decision by the AUs executive committee during their meeting on 11 February at the 32nd AU summit. Hafez said the decision came as a coronation of the efforts exerted by the foreign ministry and the ministry of higher education and scientific research to promote the Egyptian bid and present Egypts technical capabilities. Egypt also presented its readiness to serve African developmental goals, helping it become a nominee for competing countries seeking to host the agency with Nigeria and Ethiopia. Established in 2016 by the AU, AfSA is an African initiative dedicated to promoting, advising and coordinating the development and utilisation of space science and technology in Africa and associated regulations for the benefit of Africa and the world, and forging intra-African and international cooperation. Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry was keen during his speech to affirm that Egypts happiness to host the agency came emerge from a complete confidence in the agencys ability to serve the whole continent through remote sensing technology and space science to push with the efforts of national and regional African development under the Africa 2063 agenda, the statement said. The 32nd African Union summit will be held on 10-11 February; during the meeting El Sisi will take over as the AUs 2019 chairman. Short link: The last person who asked me that is still missing. If you need me, I'll be underwater. It's a dry heat. You call this hot? Bring it on. Vote View Results The Arab and African Youth Platform will take place in March in Upper Egypts Aswan, as part of the recommendations of last years World Youth Forum. According to Al-Ahram daily newspaper, the platform will be held from 18 to 20 March, and will take place under the auspices of Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi. The platform will focus on a number of issues of interest to Arab and African youth, in light of Egypts chairmanship of the African Union this year. It will include sessions, workshops, and roundtables with youth leaders and decision makers in an open dialogue, focusing on the major concerns of youth in the Arab world and Africa. Aswan was announced by El-Sisi at the World Youth Forum as the capital for African youth in 2019. Short link: Ethan Miller/Getty Images via ABCDrake, Kendrick Lamar and Childish Gambino have all turned down the Recording Academy's request to perform at this year's Grammys, The New York Times has learned. Grammys executive producer Ken Ehrlich told the Times that the three artists, all of whom have multiple nominations going into this Sunday's telecast, declined to take part in the awards ceremony. According to Ehrlich, it's like due to the Recording Academy's perceived disconnect from the hip-hop community. "The fact of the matter is, we continue to have a problem in the hip-hop world," Ehrlich told the paper. "When they dont take home the big prize, the regard of the Academy, and what the Grammys represent, continues to be less meaningful to the hip-hop community, which is sad." As previously reported, Ariana Grande has also made the decision not to perform on the show, due to disagreements over her song choice. Performances aside, reps for Drizzy, Lamar and Gambino haven't confirmed whether or not they'll actually attend the show. Copyright 2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. Study shows unusual microbes hold clues to early life A new study has revealed how a group of deep-sea microbes provides clues to the evolution of life on Earth, according to a recent paper in The ISME Journal. Researchers used cutting-edge molecular methods to study these microbes, which thrive in the hot, oxygen-free fluids that flow through Earth's crust. Called Hydrothermarchaeota, this group of microbes lives in such an extreme environment that they have never been cultivated in a laboratory for study. A research team from Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, the University of Hawai'i at Manoa, and the Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute bypassed the problem of cultivation with genetic sequencing methods called genomics, a suite of novel techniques used to sequence large groups of genetic information. They found that Hydrothermarchaeota may obtain energy by processing carbon monoxide and sulfate, which is an overlooked metabolic strategy. The microbes use energy from this process to grow as a form of chemosynthesis. "The majority of life on Earth is microbial, and most microbes have never been cultivated," said Beth Orcutt, a senior research scientist at Bigelow Laboratory and one of the study's senior authors. "These findings emphasize why single cell genomics are such important tools for discovering how a huge proportion of life functions." Analyzing Hydrothermarchaeota genomes revealed that these microbes belong to the group of single-celled life known as archaea and evolved early in the history of life on Earth - as did their unusual metabolic processes. These observations suggest that the subsurface ocean crust is an important habitat for understanding how life evolved on Earth, and potentially other planets. The researchers also found genetic evidence that Hydrothermarchaeota have the ability to move on their own. Motility offers a valuable survival strategy for the extreme environment they call home, which has a limited supply of nutrients essential to life. "Studying these unique microbes can give us insights into both the history of Earth and the potential strategies of life on other planets," said Stephanie Carr, first author on the paper and a former postdoctoral researcher with Orcutt who is now an assistant professor at Hartwick College. "Their survival strategies make them incredibly versatile, and they play an important, overlooked role in the subsurface environments where they live." In 2011, Orcutt and other project scientists sailed to the flank of the Juan de Fuca Ridge, a mid-ocean ridge off the coast of Washington where two ocean plates are separating and generating new oceanic crust. They used Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution's deep-diving robot Jason to travel 2.6 km to the seafloor and collect samples of the fluid that flows through the deep crust. These crustal fluids contained microbes that had never before been studied. Working in partnership with the Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute, the researchers sorted and analyzed the microbes in the Single Cell Genomics Center at Bigelow Laboratory. This cutting-edge research facility is directed by Ramunas Stepanauskas, a senior research scientist and study author. The project team also analyzed the microbes using metagenomics, a technique that extracts genomic information directly from environmental samples. These analyses yielded insights into the genetic blueprints of Hydrothermarchaeota, their relationship to other archaea, and the strategies they have evolved to survive in the subseafloor. The researchers will build upon this discovery when they return to the Juan de Fuca Ridge in May 2019 to continue investigating the extreme microbes thriving below the seafloor. Orcutt will lead a cruise using ROV Jason with this team of researchers to further explore the subseafloor environment, leveraging funding from the National Science Foundation and NASA. "The microbes living 'buried alive' below the seafloor are really intriguing to us, since they can survive on low amounts of energy," Orcutt said. "We hope that our experiments on these weird microbes can show how they do this, so we can imagine how life might exist on other planets." ### This work was supported by the National Science Foundation, the NASA Astrobiology Institute, the Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute, and the Center for Dark Energy Biosphere Investigations (C-DEBI). Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences is an independent, nonprofit research institute on the coast of Maine. Its research ranges from the microscopic life at the bottom of marine food webs to large-scale ocean processes that affect the entire planet. Recognized as a leader in Maine's emerging innovation economy, the Laboratory's research, education, and technology transfer programs are contributing to significant economic growth. Learn more at bigelow.org, and join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. This story has been published on: 2019-02-07. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.